8[fold Right Paths/-Times-Brewed Sake] (1/3)
Anonymous 2025/06/09 (Mon) 19:54
No. 41430
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116; on the stick that the monk had drawn, that number was written.
First to her thoughts was that that suggested an awful lot of possible fortunes. A staggering number that ought to cover, why, almost any future that a woman could have. Though a second's more consideration brought a second thought, which was that the Hakurei Shrine's timeworn tactic was for all possible futures to lead to repeat purchases.
She brushed a lock of sunset-coloured hair (and there were truly few other adjectives for her unsuitably long and un-monk-like tresses, which bore the coolth of sky and burning sun at once) out of her eyes, and read her future on a slip of paper.
Well. Yes, she certainly was in for “astonishing longevity,” that much was long decided. Though finding religious institutions loathsome seemed unlikely to be in her cards, unless she happened to find herself trapped in that thrice-damned-and-twice-again owl's hellish halls.
Unusually for the Hakurei Shrine, the sacred tree was already flowering white with wishes willed to the wardship of the god therein--perhaps some hundred already had tied their fates to the tree. The hundred-and-first tied hers to a higher branch, heretofore left bare.
Then, Byakuren Hijiri found a place in the shade to stand and wait for the northeasterly fog to roll in.
She arrived with the breeze, coming down the stone-paved way fiddling with a little clay komainu. She was picking at a seal on the bottom which concealed her fortune, and thus distracted, she nearly walked straight into Byakuren.
She looked up. It required some craning of the neck. Mighty king of all oni, but it showed nowhere save her long crown: she could fit quite snugly beneath Byakuren's chest, if she had a mind to, and while perhaps some of that was the monk's height…
Well, Suika Ibuki was not as tall as the trees that lined the steps, to say the least.
“It pains me to see you living like this.” Byakuren's expression was mournful and her hands were clasped.
“You just really in love with starting conversations by try'n'a piss people off?” Suika
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8[fold Right Paths/-Times-Brewed Sake] (2/3)
Anonymous 2025/06/09 (Mon) 19:59
No. 41431
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Suika hated how easily she backslid into the life of a monk. She walked paths of memory as if it was still a thousand years ago, and she was still…
She woke up even before the tiger at her own hour! She found herself liking the food again. Meditation came easily. Even tending the trees and dry gardens wasn’t so hard to do rightly after all. And she was quite proud of the quality of her copied sutras!
One evening she found herself at the edge of the dry garden, staring a thousand years into the past. The sun was setting purple then as it was now. The scent of pine, too. Even in that long gone by spring, no cherry blossom had flowered in the white lotus’ land; such ever-changing things served only to distract good monks, who were to live in a world eternal as dharma, without time or seasons. Sakura were better left to shrine maidens and shintou priests. She remembered sitting and listening to the head monk's lectures, much the same now as they had been then. Though the congregation had been larger then, easier to disappear in.
It hadn't been all that long after she narrowly escaped the fate of her father, beheaded while passed out drunk. She had been raised by monks; returning to those ways had been a comfort. She had been just another believer in the threadbare life - carefully unrecognisable even to other survivors of Ooe drifting by to see what the truth of the rumoured youkai temple was. For that matter, nobody who saw her now ought to be able to recognise her from those days. But sometimes Byakuren looked at her or said something in just such a way…
Well, anyway, the sun had set the same on that temple as it had on Ooe. The moon was cresting the mountains now, and she wondered where the time had gone.
… or when Byakuren had sat down beside her. Her eyes were closed. She was smiling, and her hand was closed over Suika's.
Oh, hell, she had nearly… actually, entirely forgotten!
Well. Maybe a few more minutes like this before leaving for Geidontei, na?
… Byakuren remembered nothing of the night past that point (save that she had had a dream, and that in that dream she had been a nun in a monastery on Ooe, a
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8[fold Right Paths/-Times-Brewed Sake] (3/3)
Anonymous 2025/06/09 (Mon) 20:02
No. 41432
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A pile of white robes, a straw hat, and a walking stick thumped to the floor in front of Suika. Bleary eyes blinked blindly in the candlelight.
Nue's snoring was awfully loud.
“Whuh…”
“We’re going on a pilgrimage,” Byakuren smiled, saintly sweet and already dressed in her pilgrim clothes. She set the candleholder down to tug down those nightclothes.
“... Fuckin-”
“Watch your language in the temple, dear.”
“-where to? It's Gensokyo. This is practically the only Buddhist anything in the whole place… where, by the way, in case you hadn't noticed, there’s nowhere further than a daytrip away.”
“We’ll be traveling to the depths of Old Hell, to meditate and consider karmaphala. I've already asked Shou to handle the temple while I'm gone. And…” she leaned in close, “I thought you might enjoy a night or two at a hot spring inn… was I wrong?”
Suika reached out and lifted Byakuren's chin.
“I think it might be a damn good thing the both of us.”
hey took the long way around, just for the sake of it. After all, it was not only the destination that defined a pilgrimage, but the effort made in walking it, the sacrifice- it was a votive of blood and sweat and sometimes tears. They trudged across Youkai Mountain (the tengu gave them a wide berth, but many of the mountain hags had been demonslayers themselves in younger days). A hidden tunnel, deep in a mountain glen, wound down and down and down toward the Underground, so long and winding that they camped for the night somewhere down there. They crossed the pontoon bridge, careful to keep their staves raised (traditionally to avoid disturbing the souls of monks still walking their pilgrimages past death, their ghosts hiding from the daylight beneath the bridge… but here, for the sake of the bridge-princess), and passed through the raucous streets of the former capital, surrounded by oni who could not seem to decide if they wanted to fall to their knees before Shuten-Douji or start throwing rotten food at her. They asked the mesne lady at the manor house for passage to the old hells,
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