Part 2
The wind blowing towards the mountain woods intensified the chill of winter. The girl's small body couldn't help but shiver, so she brought the bamboo broom to her chest, rubbing her hands together. The mountaintop always felt the coming of winter earlier than at the foot of the mountain. The breath that came from her mouth instantly became faint white mist.
She cast her gaze above her, where the dark sky was covered everywhere by branches. The bright red leaves had begun to fade these few days. Ripened fruit occasionally left the tips of branches, dropping down freely. Thanks to that, she wouldn't be able to sweep it clean no matter how she swept. "Hah--" With that sigh, the girl glared at the fallen maple leaves.
Not long afterwards.
"Akino! Are you still not done!?"
A roar came from a place very far away. The girl named Akino shouted "Yeah--" after she heard that, and in the next moment, the girl's hair seemed to float upwards.
The girl hastily covered her head with her hands, and in exchange the broom fell to the ground. "Ah-- Ah--" She glanced at the fallen broom on the ground, and the ill-fitting glasses on her face also slid down without missing a beat. In the end, Akino quietly wailed "Uuu--" while holding her head with both hands and with her glasses askew. She turned to look in the direction of the roar.
Other than the reddened maple leaves, several ancient huge cedar trees towered around her. An old hall could be seen across the doorpost-like cedar trees. A Buddhist monk frowning as always walked from there, wearing a black priest's robe over an antarvasa kasaya [7] . He was an overweight ajari [8] of this monastery.
"Ah, Priest Tadanori......"
"The others all finished already, you're the only one always dilly-dallying."
"A-Ah...... Sorry......"
Akino thought of fleeing while apologizing in a stammer. Though she apologized, her voice was almost inaudible unless one listened closely.
Not knowing why, the monk frowned and glared at the girl with a frightening look. The monk complained to the girl with a resigned expression, but Akino's eyes looked gingerly upward and the monk could only force himself to swallow all of his anger.
"......Anyway, hurry up and finish. We're going to prepare lunch, so go help prepare the food!"
"O-Okay......"
Akino immediately replied and picked up her broom, adjusting her glasses at the same time. After Tadanori stared at the girl again as if exhorting her, he walked back into the hall.
Tadanori was the person in charge of the vihara [9] and was a man who liked to reprimand others, but right now he had become cautious. It wasn't just him, all of the adults in this monastery were like that. It was a rare fortune when disagreements were settled without angers flaring.
Even with that said, nothing like that truly ever happened. Akino hastily swept all the leaves together into a basket. After throwing the leaves into the incinerator behind the monastery, she walked towards the storehouse to help prepare lunch. There was a monastery kitchen in this warehouse along with many rooms for monks. There were also kitchens set up in the wooden monk rooms.
Shouts sounded out the instant she entered.
"You're slow! Akino! What were you doing!?"
"S-Sorry......"
"Akino, there's not enough firewood!"
"O-Okay...... I'll go get some now......"
Akino responded while sprinting to the right, carrying back the firewood stacked under the eaves of the building. Probably because gasoline was very precious, its usage was restricted. Hence, they basically used a wood-burning stove to cook food every day.
But their fire lighting method was very unique - it was very strange indeed.
The seniors of the vihara stood in front of the stove, forming hand seals towards it and chanting incantations with their eyes half-closed. Not long afterwards, the firewood inside ignited into flame.
This was magic.
Moreover, it was classified as true first-class magic under modern Onmyou law.
"Get the plates out now, Akino!"
"Okay......"
"Hurry up a bit......!? You, this again!"
"S......Sorry......"
Angry and impatient scolding lambasted the slow idiot. Akino tearfully picked up the pieces of the shattered plate. But she was still loudly scolded by her seniors after this. Akino hastily cried out while dealing with her task. The monastery's diet ought to be vegetarian, but this wasn't strictly followed. Poverty was one thing, but eating meat without concern was another thing. What they were roasting right now was the venison they had hunted several days earlier.
Akino's stomach rumbled with hunger. The lid clattered and started to shake as if responding to her.
After finishing lunch and cleaning up a bit, Akino had a bit of free time until it was time to prepare the dinner that they called 'slop'. Akino surreptitiously watched her seniors, taking a smaller fire-starter from the warehouse and some small sweet potatoes and walking to the temple in the dilapidated half of the monastery grounds.
Akino first dug a shallow hole in the ground. After putting the sweet potatoes in, she put fallen leaves on top, then lit them and covered them with ash. After checking that the leaves had ignited, she quietly sat at the base of a cedar tree that stood nearby.
Since it hadn't rained recently, the leaves burned into ash very quickly. Akino watched the ash get blown away by the wind while quietly waiting for the sweet potatoes to finish roasting. It was because she would be scolded by Tadanori if he saw her in her hiding place secretly roasting and eating food that she had snuck away. Even if she were spotted by another senior, it would all be confiscated.
The monastery Akino lived at was called Seishuku Temple. It was a mountain monastery situated near the peak of a mountain, far away from civilization. Getting here was extremely difficult and it was like a place isolated from the outside world.
No, it wasn't 'like' that, it was intended to be secluded. Even the surroundings of the monastery actively hid their existence from the world. It was a place that had fallen behind the times. It was a different world from beyond the foot of the mountain, a true mountainous alternate world.
Akino was the youngest in this alternate world and also the weakest. She was always at the bottom of the hierarchy. Putting aside appearances for now, she was in a position where she was denied everything. Even in the lunch just earlier, none of the delicious venison had been shared with her. Even though she had low expectations, she had ended up crestfallen. So she had taken the opportunity she saw today to fill the appetite of her growing period.
The fire's heat had already vanished. The cold air seemed to seep into her body bit by bit as she sat directly on the ground. But it was fortunate that it wasn't windy. Akino wrapped her arms around her knees, curling into a small ball and quietly stared at the ash. Akino thought that if this way could make the sweet potatoes become a bit warmer and a bit more delicious, she didn't mind waiting in the cold. Her heart was also a bit happy, as well as tense, from sneaking food. Actually, roasting sweet potatoes was the only thing Akino had felt to be fun these past few days.
"......Sweet potatoes~ Sweet potatoes~ Are you done yet? Delicious~ Hot~ Piping......"
It was unclear whether her timing was correct, but whether they were done or not completely relied on Akino's own intuition.
"They're almost done", "Ah, I'll wait a bit more."
Right as Akino leisurely talked to herself.
"Hey, Akino!"
A voice suddenly barked out from behind her and Akino went speechless out of fright. She held her knees, and at the same time, her body went stiff. Simultaneously, above her head - the area at the top, where there ought to have been nothing at all - a 'disturbance' occurred, a phenomenon that was called lag. Then, the things hidden there materialized and revealed themselves.
Two long ears protruded slightly. They were two rabbit ears, covered in whitish-silver fur. It wasn't just ears. A short round tail also appeared on her bottom that sat on the ground. It was a rabbit tail, just like her ears.
The wide-eyed Akino was unable to move, and only her ears swiveled in all directions in a panic. "Haha." A dry laugh sounded out after Akino was seen like that. After hearing this, her tension suddenly vanished and she relaxed, the ears on her head collapsing as if they had run out of energy.
"Sen-jiichan [10] ......"
She looked back with an unhappy expression as an old man walked out from among the cedar trees smiling. His white hair hung in a vertical bun, and when taken together with his white beard, one knew he was an elderly man at a glance. Strangely, he wore a worn-out white coat, patched-up hakama and an eye-catching linen gown. But inexplicably, he looked unreliable at first glance, not just from his lazy appearance. A teasing smile surfaced on his wrinkle-filled face as he revealed a childish, cutesy disposition.
"Don't be so surprised, Akino. You haven't had enough practice."
"It was Sen-jiichan who scared me~ Especially since you even changed your voice......"
"What do you think I am, to be so scared of me? What are those long ears for?"
"I-I don't have them because I like them......"
"Haha, you probably got happy from seeing the sweet potatoes. Tadanori-san will notice you sooner or later if you're like that. He's been in an irritable mood recently, so you'll definitely get a serious scolding if you get caught."
Sen laughed loudly, but Akino frowned "Uu--", the ears on her head crooking into '?' characters. Actually, since Sen had noticed her, she couldn’t assert that Tadanori hadn't.
"Aren't they valuable ears? You always hide them, you should use them if they're effective."
"T-That's none of Sen-jiichan's business."
Akino pouted her cheeks, tightly hugging her knees and curling into a ball. But she couldn't conceal her ears now.
Akino was one of those who were called 'possessed'.
It seemed that they were also called 'living spirits' recently. The so-called 'living spirits' originally referred to people who had been possessed by 'oni' and who would therefore become oni. But in modern times, when it was believed that oni were a kind of spirit, it seemed that people possessed by spirits other than oni were also collectively called 'living spirits'. In that sense, living spirits weren't any rare occurrence in this Seishuku Temple, at least putting aside how normal society was for now. Though it couldn't be said that there were many either, inugami-possessed or fox spirit-possessed people often came through here [11] .
But unfortunately, Akino wasn't an ordinary living spirit.
She was the living spirit of a 'rabbit' not often seen in this world.
"No matter how much you want to hide it, it looks like they'll pop out every time you're spooked. It's like a kitsune trying to hide its tail with poor transformation ability."
"You don't need to worry about that. Though I'm still unskilled now, I'll be able to hide them well as long as I practice more."
"No matter how well you hide them, everyone's going to know about your ears soon enough."
"That doesn't matter. I want to hide them."
Akino, in a bad mood, became a bit mouthy.
Those long rabbit ears were the root of Akino's inferiority complex.
She didn't know or want to know what other people thought, but to Akino, having 'these kinds of things' bouncing up and down on her head only felt upsetting and truly useless.
There were people who called her bunny girl, and there were people who avoided and disliked her.
More importantly, Akino herself definitely didn't have the talent to become anything great - rather, since she was an idiot and because of the counterproductive attention of her rare rabbit living spirit, she had ended up being treated as an idiot and was ordered around.
Other people also treated her like an exotic animal.
To Akino, these hateful ears were the symbol of her being treated as a useless object.
"I myself think they're a pair of pretty cute ears."
"That...... isn't true."
Akino curled into a ball while deliberately denying his compliment.
But while she slowly replyed, the tips of her ears happily jumped up. Another reason Akino always disliked showing her ears was that they would fully express her hidden feelings. But the fact that Akino didn't hide her ears in front of Sen nonetheless was proof of how close Akino was with Sen.
The way Sen teased Akino's rabbit ears without reservations wasn't like the feeling of how other people talked about them with contempt and malice.
In contrast, Sen treated the useless Akino like his granddaughter. Sen was the only person Akino could relax around in the monastery.
Akino's long ears shook as she asked Sen: "Sen-jiichan, are you watering again?"
"Yeah, that's right.' Sen replied while turning to face the temple next to them.
The temple was almost completely dilapidated. Its walls and roof were covered in holes, and also, it was completely filled with weeds as high as the floor. It seemed it had been called the Tachibana Hall [12] and was still spacious as a broken-down room. Since there was no one else who used it, Sen had brought in pots with saplings planted in them and carefully raised them by himself.
Akino was also often nearby killing time. In any case, she could feel the most at ease in the place that Sen often was in.
"Is your work okay?"
"I finished a long time ago."
"Aahhh...... Unwittingly, you...... I heard that Sen-jiichan's always like that. Why can you finish it so easily?"
"I'm me, you know. I've lived several times as long as you have. Finishing that level of work quickly is natural."
Sen was a male servant in the Seishuku Temple and responsible for doing the monastery's chores, just like how Akino was in the vihara. Even though he did work that was difficult for his aged body, this kindly old man was always floaty and leisurely. Akino couldn't help but think that he was used to such things. However, to Akino, she couldn't imagine getting accustomed to these kinds of things at all.
"It feels like I could do a lot of things if I were able to finish a bit sooner......"
She tried quietly murmuring words that didn't sound realistic at all.
Akino looked twelve or thirteen, but even she didn't know her true age.
She had lived at the Seishuku Temple since as far back as she could remember, and other than going to the foot of the mountain as an envoy, she never went anywhere else. She lived this uninteresting life every day along with the changing of seasons. Even she didn't know how much she had grown during this time. She couldn't imagine that there would be any change if she tried doing a bit more.
But--
"Well...... will this place still exist when that time comes?"
Sen smiled while speaking in an uncharacteristically clear voice. The tips of Akino's ears slightly twitched in response, and she looked up at Sen above her head with an "Eh--".
"Sen-jiichan? What does that mean......"
"Hey, Akino."
"Yeah?"
"Are the sweet potatoes done?"
"Sweet potatoes? ...Ahh!?"
She had completely forgotten. She grabbed her broom in a panic, digging the sweet potatoes out of the ash. Just like she had anticipated, their outer skin had been baked black. Akino wailed while Sen laughed "haha--".
"Well, alright, I'll be going, the food will be gone soon......"
After saying this, Sen walked into the Tachibana Hall to water the saplings.
After that, Akino got rid of the outer half of the roasted sweet potatoes and only managed to eat the center portions. But she was very fortunate as the un-burnt parts were roasted very well, Akino managed to console herself.
After she destroyed and concealed the evidence of her sneaking food, she strolled around appropriately - cautiously hiding her ears - and then returned to the warehouse.
Since it had been a long time since she had the opportunity to come out and walk, the sky was black and the surroundings had been shrouded in darkness by the time Akino finally walked down the mountain.
She went through the mountain woods via terraced fields on the mountain's slope. Lights from homes of farming families were sparsely dotted through the vast depths of the gorge.
Then, the hills that surrounded this area spread out above her head just as it turned to night. The clouds in the sky were unusually eye-catching, and she could feel a heavy atmosphere. It wasn't so much from being immersed in the faint moonlight scattered from between the clouds but rather from the feeling that it gave the deep blue sky a different color. The clouds that floated from one side of the moon to another changed their shapes bit by bit as they slowly flowed.
Akino normally lived surrounded by a tall cedar forest. In that world, Akino would occasionally come to an empty, open place and be overwhelmed by the feeling of vastness upon seeing the sky. Like a rabbit that crawled out from under the ground. She originally thought of herself as extremely miniscule, even petty, an existence like a pebble or a weed.
But on the other hand, she suddenly thought of running to some corner below that sky and suddenly had an inexplicable feeling.
Even if she didn't know where to go - even if she could just go to some place she imagined, her heart couldn't stop beating and she had thoughts of single-mindedly running forward. The others in the monastery probably also held the same feelings.
Akino hadn't left the mountain.
Even Akino knew of the outside world. She had only received the most basic teachings from the adults in the monastery. Through magazines, television, internet - of course, it wasn't complete - she had understood normal societal practices about the world outside the mountain.
But that was just knowledge, and it was the knowledge about another world. Though she wanted to go sometime, it was a foreign world after all.
Akino was a foreign body herself, as she had experienced personally all this time. Though living spirits were very valuable, it was just a rabbit living spirit. How many people who had lived in such an enclosed place since as far back as they could remember were here in Japan today? Though the monastery was abnormal to the outside world, it was everything to her.
But why did she really want to run out and see the scenery across from the monastery?
Of course, her slow self definitely couldn't give an answer to such a thing no matter how she thought.
"......Ah, I'm hungry."
It would already be time to eat dinner at the monastery. Akino clutched the key, continuing towards the Front Hall.
The front Hall was the junction between Seishuku Temple and the county road, situated in the center of a patch of narrow, flat land.
Even though it was called a hall, it looked like an old warehouse from the outside. Normally there was just an automatic defensive barrier around it, but today the outside light by the entrance for imported goods was lit, revealing a small orange-colored light.
There were two figures beneath that light.
One was a familiar face, and the other was an unfamiliar face. Akino's heartbeat beat violently.
"Ah, aren't you the rabbit? You were the messenger?"
"P-Priest Kengyou!? Please don't call me that! I’ve always told you!"
"Well, even with your hips and chest, you look like a rabbit. You've probably grown since then, right? Hmm?"
"T-T-That......"
What was he saying so suddenly in front of a newcomer!? Akino blushed and stared at the suit-wearing man before her - Priest Kengyou.
Though Kengyou was an ajari of Seishuku Temple, he didn't wear priest clothes nor was his head shaven bald. He was always working outside the monastery and was good in various aspects.
This women-loving depraved monk would be evaluated very badly in several aspects as a disciple. Akino seemed to still be outside Kengyou's strike range, so she was accustomed to this banter.
"Anyway, did you hear about everything? This person is someone who hopes to enter the monastery, which we haven't had one of for many years."
Kengyou lightly stroked his chin, speaking with an arrogant tone. Before Akino readied herself to face him again, the figure waiting behind him stepped out from Kengyou's side.
It was a girl.
And she was very young. But she was older than Akino. Perhaps she was already a high school student. Her long black hair reflected her snow-white skin. She had a slender body and a beautiful figure. As someone of the same gender, Akino was also taken aback. This was an outstandingly beautiful girl in both features and figure.
But she gave off a very cold impression.
Was it the moonlight she was immersed in from above her head? She couldn't see anything resembling like or dislike in her eyes that stared at Akino. That expression too, as calm and unruffled as the surface of a lake. She gave off more of a calm, thorough impression than an indifferent one. She was more hardened and solitary than dispassionate.
She wore a short coat, shorts, and long stockings. She wore fingerless gloves and somewhat short boots on her feet. A handbag in a camouflage pattern was slung over her shoulder. Rather than being boyish, it was more like she was dressed completely for efficiency and without embellishment. So, that discrepancy was clearly evident as if it dominated the girl's characteristics.
But there were exceptions in that utilitarian outfit.
There was a pink ribbon tying the girl's long black hair.
"......Um......"
Just as Akino was about to greet her, she immediately noticed that she didn't know what to say.
She judged her to be the type that wasn't very easy to talk to and even felt scared.
But though she wasn't sure of the reasons, she felt a strange sense of wrongness. Other people might not feel anything. However, there was something palpable, gloomy, and wrong - something ominous.
Even so, she couldn't move her gaze away from her.
"......"
The girl also wordlessly looked back at Akino, who couldn't say anything and just stared intently at her. Then, the aroma of the mountain soil, vegetation, and the like mixed together and a faint scent surfaced to float through the surroundings.
It was the scent of incense she had never smelled.
Then,
"...Nice to meet you, I'm Hokuto."
The girl opened her mouth.
Flat words, but a pure voice.
"A-Ah, yes! I-I'm, um, uh, Akino, so......!?"
She suddenly became tense and tongue-tied. This was definitely a very bad impression. With the teasing words Kengyou had just said, this was the worst first impression. Maybe she was already being treated like an idiot by the girl who still didn't make any particular reactions.
Kengyou was rather unconcerned about the red-faced Akino, remarking with a disorganized attitude.
"Then, that's done, right? Akino, I'll be leaving, so I'll leave everything else to you."
"Eh? Y-You're already leaving?"
"You got here too late, I already finished everything. I have to return to the town today."
Kengyou checked his watch while speaking without politeness, but Akino was quickly overwhelmed by panic.
"But, you didn't really introduce us......"
"Just do whatever you like over the evening. Come to think of it, I'm in a bit of a hurry, so I don't have time to keep talking."
Kengyou shot a sideways glance at the girl with a cold gaze, saying that. The girl was still responseless.
Akino's stomach had already started hurting.
"Then see you later. Don't do anything troublesome."
Kengyou selfishly left those words, explained nothing further, and left. Just like that, he walked towards the car stopped on the county road. Akino seemed driven into the corner and stared at the girl before her as Kengyou left behind their backs.
Then,
"Ah, right."
Unexpectedly, Kengyou stopped and turned back.
"Akino, Hokuto, you guys will get along in the monastery, right? Since the two of you are comrades with the same nature."
"Eh? Wh-What does that mean?"
Kengyou smiled lightly at Akino who asked back. It was the smile she often saw in the monastery from her seniors and ajari. A smile that mocked a weakling, an expression that mocked someone in the last place.
"Because you're both valuable living spirits, so practice as much as possible and do your best working for the monastery."
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