As soon as I stepped through the gate, the air shifted. It subtle, a vague yet somewhat oppressive feeling. It felt of divinity as expected, but also of unmistakable faith.
It did not feel heavy, but it was a noticeable if not minuscule weight.
The priests lead up the mountain via the animal trails and I took the opportunity to take in my surroundings.
The grass and moss and trees of leaves green, the hard and sturdy stone and rocks of differing sizes scattered about, even the voices of lust and disorder echoing from the distance as well as the ominous red skies above my head.
All of it was 'real' but artificial. Deliberate.
Like pruned trees and bushes found on sidewalks. It might seem like a random chance placement but as an artist, the scenery speaks of a meticulous perfectionist's hand nitpicking over the details.
'Great... A god with neurosis. Just what I wanted to deal with.' I sighed internally, making sure not to show my annoyance on the surface. 'This night is going to be exhausting, I can just tell...'
Eventually, We managed to get up to the mountain plateau where the shrine is located. It is easily the largest shrine I have ever laid my eyes upon that even the humble Hakurei shrine seemed like simple shack compared to this behemoth of a mansion.
The discordant noise of numerous noise are already grating my ears despite not having to enter to yet.
I would have thought that as priest, these people would at least cleanse themselves first. Instead, they completely ignored the various smaller buildings and etiquette procedures to head directly towards the Honden, the place where I'm guessing the meeting will take place.
The priests opened the obscenely large doors and stepped to the side. Then, they bowed their heads motioned for me to enter, by my lonesome it seems.
I paused and side-eyed them for a beat before huffing in reluctant acceptance.
When I walked passed them, I casually tossed the origami frog that contained their friend in their direction. I didn't turn around when the person scrambled to pick it up, nor did I turned around when the door closed behind me with a loud snap.
The room I have found myself in was completely and utterly dark. It contained not even the barest hint of luminousity that eyes saw nothing.
Until the light of torches and braziers flared from around the room in a dramatic manner. One by one, the sounds of sudden flame echoed within the mostly empty large hall, and opposite of me sitting down on the altar, is a Kami.
Immediately, I felt an explosion of force come from his direction. He hadn't moved an centimetre from his seat but the pressure came from his direction.
The weight on my my body multiplied, the Kami either wanting to test me or make me submit.
He didn't use a shortcut like I did when I needed to intimidate someone. Instead, he simply used the unmistakable weight of his divine spark to amplify his presence before radiating it out of his body.
Not to be outdone, I first condensed spiritual energy inside my body before forcefully expelling it outwards in his direction.
My energy met his presence and a battle tenaciousness began.
The violent clash of power damaged the floor of the Honden causing more than one brazier to fall, the flaming oil spilling on the ground and causing a fire to spread.
Neither of us receded our offensive against each other.
I further condensed my energy and sent out a stronger pulse of power, managing to cave his presence and a gust of wind to appear from the pushback to smother out the rampaging flames. This move caused the Kami to raised an eyebrow in intrigue- or at least, I think that's intrigue- and he withdrew his attack, which made me decide to do the same.
"Hn. So you do have a brain in that head of yours."
"Doesn't everyone? Or are you confessing something?" He tried to brush off our earlier exchange so I brought a jab to my words, which seemed to work. Pushing on a Kami's pride is fun.
"Watch your tone, brat. I was already a god before you were ever conceived."
"Wow~ old and stupid? You sure it ain't dementia?"
"YOU-!" A rain of near-translucent liquids bore down on me. However, I not the type of person to allow such a nasty-looking thing touch me so naturally, I had met each droplet with it's own tiny Danmaku.
How's that, old man? It's called flexing. Aren't you tempted by my power?
A frown marred his green face, the same liquids dripping off his slick skin like sweat after my display. "So much..."
"Yeah. Jealous?~"
"That's impossible." Be denied as if I just broke his worldview. "How are you doing that?"
"Oh, that? Nothing. I was born this way."
"You think you can fool me? If I so wish, I can pry the secrets from your cold dead lips."
"That a challenge? You can try but I guarantee it won't be pretty."
Ugh. Seriously. How much of this back-and-forth do I have to endure. It's getting boring. Yeah, yeah, I'm glaring in our mexican standoff, are you gonna call support or something? Let's end this already...
"So it seems..." He leaned back on his seat. "Tell me, who are you and where do you come from? Because as far as I've known, you have cropped out of nowhere."
Ahh, the way he said things. He's trying to take the upper hand in the conversation.
"Don't you know it's only polite to introduce yourself first?" Kami or not, I'm not backing down that easily. After all, it's you guys that want me for my power, not the other way around.
He narrowed his eyes slightly and gritted out. "...Ishimaru."
"Heh." Now, about my made-up origin... oh, idea! "The name's Reona. And you're right, I did crop up out of nowhere. I'm new." There! Something so farfetched yet still completely plausible! Now I don't have to worry about background inconsistencies and putting my story straight if I don't have either of those in the first place!
Take that! Even if it is suspicious, my excuse for appearing out of thin air can be explained easily. Even if you investigate further back than my 'conception', you'd find nothing and you have no choice other than to accept that fact.
"Hm. Is that so?" I can practically hear the gears turning inside his mind. "Say, what do you think about becoming a god?"
"Oh?" I made a visible show of raising an eyebrow and peeking my ears. "Do tell me more."
~~~~~
"Hey. Hey, wake up."
"Hgn?" I blearily woke up from my nap as let out a long yawn while stretching my arms.
"Your stop is up next." Yanagi said as she took her eyes off her phone to face me. "Not enough sleep last night?"
"Didn't sleep a wink." I groaned vaguely.
"That is surprising." She admitted. "You're typically not the type to stay up late. If anything, you tend to sleep early to awake in the darker hours of the morning."
"Yeah well, I got caught up with my work and before I knew it, the sun was already out." Everything that I said was technically true.
After the conversation with the Kami, he decided it was a good time to celebrate and ordered a grand feast with proper accompanying entertainment. I was stuck having to sit at the table with watching some theatre play about their 'totally-not-abridged-for-kids' ideology.
It would have been a lot less waste of my time if I had the opportunity to extract just a bit more information from the other Kami but as it turned out, the others didn't even bother to attend! And the only one who did, Ishimaru, had to retreat from the festivities not even a quarter of the way through!
Goes to show how little they actually thought of me despite taking me in as one of their 'Kami'.
And I definitely couldn't gather information from the believers because I haven't gotten their trust, let alone fanaticism, to make sure they didn't tattle on me on the others.
In the end, I had to return to the dormitories half-victorious and half-defeated.
Now normally, I would've still had a few hours of sleep, just enough to for a full night's rest because I didn't need as much sleep as a human. But instead, Nedzu decided that he's really curious about how it all went down and called me into his office for a talk.
Turns out that the rat can also be burnt-out. He looked so tired and stressed that he was shedding his fur. His fur! He always took pride in that coat of his. The crazier part is that whatever is stressing him out that much? He's actually enjoying the challenge.
When I got into his office, ready to give him a piece of my mind, I was met with a fur-shackled, claw-bearing Nedzu that was cackling maniacally.
Needless to say, I was a bit scared for my safety.
He had me run him through what transpired scene for scene, word for word. He was even adamant that I try and recall as much of the movements and nuances that I can recall, like he was trying to analyse each detail that it's almost driving him insane.
But personally? I blame the heavily caffeinated tea he dumped into the humidifier.
It wasn't until a sunbeam hit his eye through the window that he snapped out of his state and apologized for keeping me for so long before allowing me to go back. But at that point, the sun was already up and I couldn't really sleep because of the caffeine in my system.
"Hm..." Yanagi rummaged through her pockets, taking out a something small and handing it to me. "Here. Sour candy. It always wakes me up for class."
"Thanks." I accepted her offer. I consider her the expect at staying up all night in our friend group so taking her advice is the wise choice. "I guessing everyone else already left?"
"That's right. Manga got off early because his stop was at the heart of Tokyo and Kuroiro got off about halfway through for his."
"I see..." I look around and see that the other passages are most entirely just civilians now. "What about you? Don't tell me you stayed behind because you were worried about me."
She gave me the blandest stare she can make. "My stop is after yours. I told you earlier, didn't I?"
"Really? Must've been half asleep. Sorry."
"It's fine."
"But still... I guess you made your choice, huh?" I chuckled. "I owe Pony a thousand yen. I honestly thought you'd pick becoming a Twilight Hero."
She paused, before seeing her gaze beyond the window. "You could say that I've had an epiphany."
"You do you, Casper." I smiled. "You do you."
Just then, the P.A. blared to life. "We have arrived at X∆§~°^ station."
"Well, this is it." I took my bags from my seat. "See ya later."
"Best wishes."