GxG 17
Kunou, still flustered, guided us to the room where we will be staying while she tried to stay professional.
Based on the way she would glance at me, blush, look away, and then repeat as we traversed her estate, she was not doing too good of a job.
I didn't notice, but while we were all fooling around in the limo we had actually crossed into the yokai subdimension. It was still a marvel of formation work, even at my current level I could barely understand it.
While I had put enormous effort into formations over the years, it was mostly into small energy manipulation formations. I barely knew where to start with such a large scale spatial formation. It was just so different.
I could feel a smile growing, there was just so much more out there in the world.
Glancing at Kunou, I could see she had finally calmed down so I opened a conversation.
"I was joking earlier, but isn't letting us stay in your house a little... odd? I mean you must have guest houses and apartments set off to the side for visitors." Not that I was complaining, Kunou's place was gorgeous.
Hana's head has been on a swivel the entire time we have been here, soaking in the historically tasteful architecture.
"First off, so many rooms of this mansion are empty and collecting dust, so this is no issue." Kunou explained, a bit of bitterness creeping into her voice when mentioning it was empty.
The woes of a lonely princess, perhaps?
"And secondly, politically speaking right now you are nothing more than a family friend visiting me personally." She smirked as she said that, almost maliciously but weirdly not towards me.
"That makes you so joyous, why?" I asked, tilting my head as I looked at her.
"Why, if you were here in any official capacity then the clan heads and elders would have cause to meddle, of course." She said with innocence, even turning to me and making doe eyes and batting her eyelashes at the end.
"Ha! Trouble in paradise?"
"You don't know the half of it. My mother is the single thing holding our faction together, and all they think about is how to cause problems. They know not to cross any lines, but after a point it's just exhausting to deal with." She ranted, obviously this had been building up for a while.
"What kinds of things do they do?" I asked, half for her to keep ranting and let off some steam, half so I knew what to look for.
Kunou slowed down, put her finger on her cheek and turned to me in thought.
"Let's use you as an example. Let's say one of the elders found out you were staying here as a contractor of some type, instead of a personal guest. The first thing they would do is try to turn you to their side, whatever that may mean. It could mean bribes, it could mean threats."
She looked cute as she lectured, obviously weaving together what she knows about them with what she thinks would happen in the future. A good skill for a future ruler, if anything.
"If they didn't get their desired results from that, the next step would be to remove you, probably after doing some mental gymnastics to explain how you are a threat to their grand plan of marrying me off to their grandson." She sneered, obviously having dealt with similar marriage plots before.
"I don't think they would kill you, as that is a blatant slap in the face to my mother as our guest, but it's easy enough to forge some evidence that would require us to be separated for any number of reasons."
"And your mother just lets them get away with such blatant plots?" The life of a faction leader must really suck.
"Sadly, my mother is not all powerful and can't afford to isolate those clans. This means she is forced to play stupid court games with them sometimes."
"That makes a sad amount of sense."
"It's life, I suppose." She said with a small amount of melancholy.
"I'll try my best not to ruin their marriage plots while I'm here, then." I declared with a small wink.
She saw it, as she started blushing again and slapped my shoulder.
"Neh! You'll try?!" She sputtered. Talking to Kunou is a treat, I'm already glad I came to Japan.
"Anyways, here is your room." Nice deflection.
Kunou led us into a nicely but generically decorated bedroom, with lots of space for our stuff.
Space bags for the win. Reverse engineering that one bag they gave me is one of the best things I have made.
Kunou let Hana run further in the room and start looking around before she started explaining what everything was.
"Now technically this is two attached bedrooms used for keeping an attendant close, but I figured you could use the second room as Hana's while only being a door away." She explained as she walked over and opened what I thought was a closet door, revealing a slightly smaller bedroom.
"That would be amazing, thank you so much Kunou." I said with genuine gratitude. I was ready to share a room, but giving Hana her own space is so much better.
"No problem!" She beamed under the praise. I almost wanted to pet her ears, but I'm 99% sure that would be a grave insult.
While we were talking, Hana walked over to me and tugged on my shirt to get my attention.
"Hey Daddy, why are we using different words? They are harder than the ones at home." She asked.
It was such an innocent question that it didn't even register at first.
Of course the words were different. We are in Japan, so we have been... speaking... Japanese?
What the hell?
I always knew she was oddly good at understanding me, even as an infant. I thought that was some kind of inborn spirit intelligence.
Kneeling down so we were at eye level, I asked her.
"Hana, what exactly do you mean by 'harder than the ones at home'?"
"I always know what Daddy is saying, I can just feel it!" She explained.
"But?" I encouraged. Hana looked away, almost ashamed.
"But grandma and grandpa are harder to feel, and sometimes I don't know the big words they use. The feeling is too loopy-smooshy to figure out without Daddy." It almost pained her to admit that, like she had done something wrong.
Did she have some kind of limited communication empathy? She can feel what people mean?
Pulling her into a hug, I started soothing her down.
"It's ok my Little Flower, you have done nothing wrong."
"Really?"
"Really."
Kunou, watching from the side, finally cut in.
"Is she ok? Do you need anything?" She looked worried too, I guess she likes Hana a lot despite just meeting her.
"Everything is fine, I think we just discovered she has a natural language talent. We just didn't know about it until she was exposed to an entirely new language." I explained while patting Hana's back.
"Oh?" Kunou relaxed, knowing it wasn't something bad.
"Some sort of communication empathy. She can feel what people mean, and I think it supercharged her ability to learn languages by allowing her to link concepts with words easier."
"That's so cool! You didn't know that though? I thought she's your daughter?" Kunou asked.
"Well, that's another thing I wanted to learn about while I'm here. Hana obviously isn't human and I wanted to learn if there was anything I was missing in her upbringing." I explained, hoping it didn't sound too deadbeat to say out loud.
"Not human at all? Shouldn't she be half human?" She asked while waving one arm at me, leaving unsaid 'because you are human'.
"No, Hana is a flower spirit, a lotus to be exact. I grew her by accident!" I beamed at the end, Hana has truly been a blessing in my life.
Kunou just gaped at me, opening and closing her mouth a few times.
"You said you haven't seen her mother." she grinded out.
"Of course, I grew Hana all on my own!"
"So then at the airport..."
"One quarter because deflection is easier than explaining, three quarters because it's fun to screw with people." I grinned.
Kunou was nearly growling at this point, but for some reason her tails were wagging.
Nine tails makes a lot of airflow, like a giant fan.
"That's not even how spirits work! You can't just grow them." Is it bad that the wild look in her eyes is a little sexy?
"Skill issue, obviously? Hana and I are just better." Kunou looked like she was about to blow, time to think fast.
"Tactical Hana Deployment!" Was all the warning Kunou got before I tossed Hana at her.
Hana sailed across the room with a "Whaaaa?".
Kunou, being a supernatural creature, caught Hana with ease.
They both glared at me, expressions a total mirror of each other.
"This isn't over. Hurry up and unpack, we have dinner with my mother soon."
"Ok, ok, give me a second and then you can lead the way, princess."
She just growled at me.
[LINE BREAK]
Kunou led us to a smaller dining room, clearly more for personal use instead of larger banquets. Yasaka was already seated, with some servants bringing in the dishes.
"Hello Yasaka, thank you for hosting us." I said with a small bow. I really was thankful.
"It's no problem, you were good for Kunou all those years ago. That's worth more to me than some room and board." She waved me off before turning to Kunou.
"You took your sweet time coming here." There was an undercurrent of teasing in her voice that Kunou did not miss.
"We got distracted." Was all she growled out, but you could tell she wasn't actually mad.
"Uh huh. Now, who is this little cutie?" Yasaka asked, turning to look at Hana, who was by now sitting close beside me at the table.
"This is my daughter, Hana Meyer. Introduce yourself, Hana" I said as I nudged her.
She jumped when I poked her, too distracted by all the colorful plates of food being put on the table.
"Hello Miss Fox! My name is Hana! Do you eat like this every day?" She asked to Yasaka's amusement.
"Yes dear, I pay some chefs a lot of money so that I can eat like this every day."
"Whoaaaa!" was all Hana could get out, eyes sparkling just imagining what it would be like.
Yasaka just smiled at her warmly, motherly instincts no doubt firing at max cylinders. As they should, Hana is the best.
"So what made you decide to adopt a spirit? That's an odd thing to do, especially for someone as young as yourself." Yasaka turned to me and asked.
"It was less adopt, and more she really is my daughter. Compare our Ki." I said as I dropped some of my Ki suppression.
I could feel something brush against me, before moving on to Hana. Yasaka just looked stumped.
"Well I'll be damned. That's something you don't see every day. How did that happen?" She asked incredulously.
"I couldn't tell you. One day my garden wards pinged me and when I went to check them, there was a baby in my workshop." I shrugged. I've looked into what happened, but I've gotten little results and chalked it up to random chance.
"That is... something alright." She seemed to be at a loss for words. I guess spirit baby wasn't on her 'Nathan Bingo Card'.
It was around this point that the servants finished bringing in food and had all filed out, so we all began eating.
The food was delicious. I tried my best to be classy while I ate, as Yasaka and Kunou had a very noble air about them while they ate, but Hana had no such compunctions.
She was enthusiastic.
And messy.
I glanced at Yasaka, but she just smiled so I let it happen.
I was enjoying a particularly juicy cut of steak when I was startled by the sounds of utensils clattering onto a plate.
Looking up, I was surprised to see it was Yasaka who had made the racket.
She was utterly shocked, and I could tell she would be gaping if she had any less control over herself.
Kunou and I looked at her, wondering what has her so shocked. We followed her line of sight to see her staring at Hana, who was just happily eating away in her own little world.
What could be the issue? Hana was... just... eating.
I knew I forgot something.
Uh oh.
Yasaka whipped her head towards me.
"Nathan." She said near robotically.
"Yes?" I replied innocently, like there was nothing odd happening.
"What is Hana doing?" She asked. Hana perked up upon hearing her name, but went right back to eating.
"Whatever could you be talking about, my dear host?" I continued to play stupid, Kunou looking back and forth between me and her mother confusedly.
"Nathan, is your daughter a Sage?" It sounds like she's accusing me of something. Whatever it is, I'm innocent!
"Why yes, I do think that is the term for what she does."
"Nathan, what the fuck?" Said Kunou once she realized what was happening.
"Language." "Language." Said her mother and I in unison.
"Fuck!" Said Hana, somehow very clearly pronounced despite having a mouthful of food.
"Tsk, now look what you did." I tried so hard to keep bad words away from her. Jophiel isn't exactly a church goer.
"Me? You can't just- A Sage? She's four!" Kunou was mentally shorting out by the second.
"Cope and seethe." Was my instant response, shocking Kunou into a stunned silence.
"Nathan, do you know how big of a deal this is?" Yasaka asked, staring at me so hard. Her tails have been getting wilder by the second.
"Quite a large one, I would imagine?"
"Very."
"Would it help to mention that I am also a Sage?" I said while purifying a small amount of natural energy. It was much easier than when I started thanks to Sage.
"No, that just makes it worse actually." She drawled. Kunou had totally mentally checked out by this point.
Yasaka stared at me for a moment before flicking Kunou with a tail to shock her awake.
"Hey, how do you feel about marrying a Sage?" was all she asked her daughter.
"Mama?!" Kunou shouted, feeling extremely scandalized.
"What? I could smell you the moment you walked into the house, don't act like you don't want to." What does that mean?
"Mama!!!!" Kunou screeched, totally mortified.
"I think Kunou is a lovely young lady anybody would be lucky to have, but marriage seems a little fast, no?" I knew Sages were a big deal, but this seems a little excessive.
"Wait really?" Kunou perked up before realizing what she said. She promptly turned totally red and dashed out of the dining room.
We just watched her go, before Yasaka turned to me.
"I was serious you know. I have some spare wedding clothes on hand just in case, we can totally have you two personally blessed by Shinto gods by the end of the night."
"While the offer is very tempting, that is not how I imagined my future romance would go so I must decline."
"If she's not doing it for you, I'm also single." She said while tracing the edge of her yukata.
"Ma'am." What is happening?
"I had to try. I do think this is the end of dinner. Your daughter has polished off her plate." True to her words, I looked over to see Hana with an empty plate fighting to stay awake.
"That sounds about right. Thank you for a lovely meal, even if it... spiraled a bit."
"Have a good night, Nathan. Kunou hasn't been this lively in a while. Thank you."
I carried Hana out of the room with an awkward "No problem."
I'm glad I came to Japan. It's only the first day and there has already been so much fun.