(16) Suika Ibuki ～ Happy as Long as She Drinks Sake

The hell’s an oni?
Our heroine does not know
She’s too drunk to learn

“Ah, the lake’s beautiful today, isn’t it Sakuya?”

“It is beautiful as usual, mistress.

The head maid and mistress sipped their black tea in unison, watching the calm waters of the Misty Lake.

Licorice was watching these two immortals from the side, admiring the lake herself. It was quite a beautiful lake admittedly, but no environmental beauty would be worth sitting around a couple hours to admire or so our heroine thought. She herself had gotten bored after half an hour of lake gazing. These two immortals, who had likely watched this lake decades before Licorice’s parents were even conceived, didn’t seem to be bothered with the prospect of wasting their endless time on Earth.

It was an odd feeling, really. Here she was, in front of two people from ages past, casually drinking tea with them. Licorice could honestly understand why the villagers were so freaked out about Sakuya; one was forced to face their mortality when confronting an immortal, and facing such a thing wasn’t a pleasant feeling.

Our heroine would one day die, her body would become prime fertilizer, her bones would crumble into dust, yet Sakuya and Remilia would sit here drinking tea as casually. Would they even remember her? Licorice’s lifespan probably amounted to nothing more than a little, zero-dimensional point in the endless one-dimensional ray that constituted their life. Thinking of it further, everyone’s lives amounted to nothing when faced with the endless universe that they inhabited…

“Licorice, are you fine?” Remilia gently, or as gentle as a superhumanly strong vampire could be, shook our heroine. She woke up from her trance. “Your tea is getting cold.”

“Thank you for your concern, mistress. I’m fine.” Licorice set all that aside for now to drink the tea that had gotten lukewarm by now. She didn’t want to speak about this topic; what would immortals understand of mortal concerns?

“Nah, ya’ don’t look finesh.” Licorice quickly turned around, one hand in her apron, to meet the sudden voice coming from behind her. “How ‘bout a drink to calm yershelf?” Her guest was a strange girl, though she was pretty normal by Gensokyo standards, with two long horns protruding from her long ginger hair. Her face was red as a tomato, and her whole body was swinging around as if there was an earthquake localized just beneath her legs. Her sense of fashion was equally odd, her quite ordinary whiteish blouse and purple skirt combo being turned less normal by three chains attached to her, which had three various geometric shapes attached to them.

Licorice wasn’t sure what to make of her appearance. “So… are you supposed to be a goat youkai? Or a unicorn with two horns?”

“No! I’m Suika Ibuki, an oni. Oni!” She raised her hands and her fingers curled as if they were the claws of a vicious monster. Licorice responded with a blank stare. This only served to infuriate Suika.

“Oni! Ya know, the shtrongest youkai in all o’ Gensokyo!” This didn’t get a reaction from our heroine either. “What kinda human are ya?!”

For Licorice, who didn’t even know what the hell an “oni” was, being scared of youkai wasn’t exactly a thing that she had been able to learn naturally like the rest of the humans in Gensokyo. There was a little girl in front of her, not unlike the mistress she had now been long acquainted with, and that was all her flawed mortal brain was able to process. “An ordinary one, presumably. I can’t even fly, and my danmaku consists of shoes and slippers.”

“Oh?” Suika seemed a whole lot calmer, though she was still wobbling around without pause and her speech was slurred as all hell. “I can appreshiate that, yer a couragoush one aren’t ya? Shomeone sho weak facing an oni without pissing their pants, that’sh a first!” Which, to be precise and clear, it was impossible for Licorice to piss her pants for she was currently wearing a dress.

“Uhm… Thanks?” Our heroine decided to take this as a compliment.

“So, what are you here for?” Remilia had been staying quiet, watching Suika’s astonishment with great amusement. “We only have tea here, nothing an errant oni like you would like.” The mistress was still a bit salty from that time when Suika had beaten her and her maid.

“What kinda party are ya’ havin’ without anything to drink?!” Suika opened a gourd that had been swinging around her waist. She went around, pouring drinks into everyone’s empty teacups. The oni herself needed no cup, the gourd itself was satisfactory. “Drink up!”

“I kind of have work to do later today…” Sakuya was hesitant. She was less so when the mistress began drinking while motioning the head maid to raise the cup.

Licorice was just about to raise her own cup when Suika interrupted her. “Hey, ya’ wanna compete with an oni in a drinkin’ game? Whoever passesh out firsht loses.” Humansh don’t get to compete with oni much anymore, ya’ know.”

“Oh?” Licorice took a good look at the girl in front of her. Her body was little, clearly not one suitable for containing high amounts of alcohol, and she was already drunk. This would be an easy victory for our heroine. “Of course. Don’t cry when I beat you.” She had a smug smile on her face when she raised her cup for cheers. “Nazdrave!”

“That’sh the spirit! Kanpai!”

“Hmph. It’s improper for a maid to drink during working hours, but… Cheers!”

“Don’t worry. I intend on beating this errant oni, for she’s nothing compared to us vampires. Noroc!”

They all cheered and emptied their cups. Suika immediately gave everyone a free refill. This went on for a few more minutes, then those minutes turned into half an hour. Her gourd seemed to be bottomless.

“Snore… doamnă… are… you, my mamă?” Sakuya was clinging tightly to the mistress, while she was sleeptalking about events from long ago.

“Zzz… Turci blestemați… O să te înfig în țeapă...” Remilia had gotten drunk too. Not from the alcohol, the lack of blood in her system meant that alcohol couldn’t actually circulate within her body. She had just gotten “drunk” from the environment of drinking.

The only ones left standing were Suika and, much to the oni’s surprise, Licorice. “Znaesh li, razkazval li sŭm ti za onzi pŭt... Kogato, znaesh li, napravikh neshto...” She extended her cup to Suika. “Mov ippaj kure kuvdatsaj!” Her already thick accent had only gotten thicker, and her Japanese was impossible to understand by now.

The oni didn’t need to understand however, as she poured more into Licorice’s cup. “How the hell are ya’ shtandin’?!”

Licorice laughed like a carefree idiot while she downed the cup in one go. “Sujka-tsan va… eee… ningjen no kotov va- so! Ningjen no kotov va namerŭijna!” She swung her cup around while trying to reply in Japanese. “Umoren sŭm. Leka nosht.” Our heroine finally gave in. She fell onto the grass headfirst, joining the others in snoozing…

…

…

My head hurts like hell. Licorice couldn’t remember what she had done last day, but her hungover state gave her a pretty good idea as to what might have happened. She found herself back in her room in the Scarlet Devil Mansion.

Rising up from her bed, her head feeling like a woodpecker had perched onto it, our heroine saw something unusual on her desk. A jug, with a catfish-like creature trapped in it. There was a note attached to this unusual gift.

This guy’s the sake bug. Give him water, and he’ll quickly turn it into sake. You deserve to have him after last night’s performance. Let us drink again sometime!
– Suika Ibuki (the oni from last night if you don’t remember)

Licorice had many questions. Like the fact that a creature turning water into sake violated the laws of physics, or the fact that the bug subsisting only on water broke the laws of biology. There was also one last question:

What the hell is an oni, and why is a watermelon (suika) writing letters to me?

She truly didn’t remember the entirety of yesterday.