The doorframe slid as Reimu opened it and entered, followed by Nowa carrying the ramen pot, six bowls and chopsticks. Once inside, he looked around at the room. It had a simple, traditional Japanese shrine design. 'Well, ain't too shabby. At least it's decent. I guess?'
"Nice room with suspicious spiritual signature. Ten outa ten." Reimu ignored him, and gestured to the low table in the center of the room. "Here should be enough."
He immediately placed down the pot and the bowls stacked in each other.
She placed the teapot beside the ramen, then she noticed there were six bowls, she asked. "Why did you bring so many bowls..?"
And at the same time, Nowa had sat across the table, legs crossed as the table was low with no chairs, only what looked like a pillow seat.
'Ayy yayikes, shet to Crap, here is it again. Why do I still do this? It's been a decade, Nowa, decade. Stop, they hate us, you know that..' he took his share with the ramen. "Old habits, Sorry."
'he.. apologies? That's the first time ever since he's a nuisance in my sight.' she thought. "Right.." She cleared her throat. "Now for the question—"
"Are you just going to hover there like a ghost?" Nowa then pat across the table. "Take a seat and eat. It's better that way, than standing there like a fashion model." he dryly chuckled.
Reimu frowned, then let out a sigh of resignation. "Fine.." she sat across from him as she took a bowl and a chopstick, then helped herself with Ramen. Nowa placed the hard-boiled egg on his bowl with the ramen then he started eating.
"mmm. It's good. Thanks for the 'hospitality'." he made air quotes finger under the table where her eyes couldn't reach. "Could be better though with some bread and potatoes."
Reimu placed her bowl filled with ramen with a hard boiled egg on it, then looked at Nowa. "What's with Bread and Potatoes? You've asked that earlier."
He just scratches the back of his head as he steady his posture upright. "Well, they're my favorite." He said his tone was calmer. His head trailed off, closing his eyes for a moment. "If there were the two in the menu, your interrogation would be way easier as I would've given you a lot of information." he muttered.
Reimu caught that. "You.." She inhaled then exhaled. "You could've at least told me about it." She then ate her share.
The simple meal was delicious, and certainly better than nothing. Outside, the air shifted. An individual shot towards the shrine, landing with a solid thud in the courtyard. She paused, a sudden, inexplicable chill skittering down her spine. Shaking it off with a slight shrug, she slid the door open with more force than usual and marched inside.
"Yo! Reimu, You've gotta—" the girl with a witch hat paused looking at Nowa And Reimu who sighed and met her gaze. "What is it, Marisa?"
Marisa scanned what's going on. 'Reimu is with a guy? And they're eating together?!' her lips reached both of her ears as she grinned. "Reimu, I didn't know you were dating someone! My badd!"
Reimu choked on her ramen, she snapped. "WHAT?!" a loud thud as she slammed the table that rattled the bowls. "NO YOU IDIOT!" she yelled her head had a lot of more visible throbbing veins than Nowa ever gave her.
Nowa held his mouth shut but a "Pffttt—!" sound escaped it nonetheless. Reimu heard the silent laugh and her gaze shifted at him. "WHAT ARE YOU LAUGHING AT?!"
Nowa's silent laughter died slowly as he waved his hand dismissively in the air. "Nothing really, That was good miss uh." He lowered his hand then looked at Marisa. "Who are you again? I forgor, my mind was buried by that just now."
Marisa placed both of her hands on both of her hips and proudly said. "I'm Marisa Kirisame! The Ordinary Magician!" she declared, striking a brief proud pose. Then, in the same breath, she swiveled her head between the two of them, her grin turning into a knowing smirk. "So, Reimu, you gonna introduce your mysterious meal-ticket, or do I have to guess? And more importantly," she added, snatching a spare bowl and helping herself to the ramen. "Is there enough room for your boyfriend? Spill the beans! Both literally and figuratively!"
'The fuck?' Nowa arched an eyebrow as his eye glanced at her.
Reimu who was still fuming. "He's not my boyfriend or anything! Read the room you idiot!"
Marisa sat, she still had that grin. "Alright, Alright. Anyway Mister." Marisa looked at Nowa now, who in return met her gaze. "Who are you? And you smell like..." she sniffed towards him, finding it odd. "huh? You don't smell anything. That's weird." Reimu regained her composure, and Nowa tilted his head slightly.
"I don't smell anything..? I'm flattered, Thank you.. I guess? " An awkward pause. "I'm Nowa Beckitzer, thirty-five yrs old." Another pause but longer. "I know I look too young for a thirty- five year old geezer."
Marisa stifled a laugh. "What?! You looked like you're in your twenties, man!"
Reimu thought. 'He's thirty-five? And he looked twenty. That's usually doesn't sound good.'
Nowa shook his head. "I dunno Mushroom kid, space is weird and other planets too."
Marisa shot back, pointing a dramatic finger at him. "Hey! Who you callin' 'Mushroom Kid'?! I'm a full-grown, top-tier magician, thank you very much! ...Even if I do hang out in the forest a lot," she added under her breath. But the indignation lasted only a second before her brain caught up with the rest of his sentence. Her accusatory finger slowly lowered, replaced by a wide, intrigued grin.
"Wait... 'Space is weird'? Other planets?" She leaned forward, her eyes gleaming. "Now you gotta explain. Are you tellin' me you're not from around here? Like, at all? What's your deal, Old-timer?"
Reimu sighed. "I've been questioning him and he kept avoiding me." She muttered.
Marisa glanced at Reimu. "Well, maybe because your techniques were not effective as always." She smirked.
Reimu shot her a glare then an eye roll. "Whatever." She paused and looked at Nowa now. "Nowa Beckitzer." Reimu began voice commanding.
However nowa was whispering to Marisa. "That's gotta be bad right?" Marisa whispered back. "Yeah, usually bad." She paused, "Wait, why are we whispering?!" She giggled, Nowa gave her a look and shrugged then he dryly chuckled.
Reimu frowned, clearly irritated. "Look. You promised to answer my questions when there's food. Now talk."
Nowa lazily raised both his hands gesturing surrender. "Okay, okay, you got me." He lowered his hand back to the ramen bowl. "So? what's the question?"
"Heyy! Can I ask too? He got stories! That space and planets early? I'm interested." Reimu nodded at Marisa. "Your questions will be later. But for now." She paused. "What are you really? You didn't answer my questions before, you dismissed them."
Nowa tapping his chin. "Hmm."
Reimu added. "And don't even think about lying."
'This girl.. Fucking hell, she is so pushy, its not like im going to flip this house upside down.' Nowa placed his hand on the table. "Fine, fine. I'm a multiversal traveler. And about that earlier I said the translation language voice magic, it came from my first adventure across worlds along with my.. friends." His voice lowered at the end, The two of them noticed the weight behind it.
"Friends?" Reimu repeats but Marisa was already leaning towards Nowa, interrupting Reimu. "Wait, wait, wait! multiversal traveler? As in you hop or fly to other worlds? And translation magic? Is it a spell? A charm? How does that work? You gotta tell me!" Marisa asked with gleaming curiosity, Nowa slowly met Marisa's curiosity.
A flash of memory: him and Yukari fighting, him tearing through boundary reality to create his passage, the method he'd used countless times across his lifetime. Then, his friends and him standing before a house-sized, living mushroom folk, its massive hand hovering over them in gratitude. And finally, the last scene: age twenty-five, standing before the wreckage of a spacecraft, the one his tech friend had built for them. His eyes, pure cold hatred, glanced back at his found family behind him, their faces etched with worry.
'...How do I explain that I rip apart reality to create myself a passage towards the next destination world? Ahh right, I'm gunna use.. Chris's Space aircraft. And the mushroom god of.. Our first victory.. Yes, that should be it. That way it's half lie and truth.' He briefly held one hand gesturing stop at Reimu, she narrowed her eyes at what Nowa did and he spoke to Marisa.
"Well, we used this huge spacecraft to navigate between worlds," Nowa said with a casual shrug. "As for the translation thing? That was a blessing from a mushroom god we saved from a swarm of insectoids. It kinda... baked itself into our biology, I guess? Dunno how it works, but I can understand any spoken language now. I used to be a Tagalog or English speaker. Now I adapt to any spoken language automatically thanks to it. But I still can't read the written language though."
Marisa is practically vibrating from curiosity. "A spacecraft?! Like a giant metal goliath that sails the stars?! Whoa! And a Mushroom God? What was it like? Did it give you any other cool shrooms? Can I see the ship?!"
Reimu cut through Marisa's excitement. "A spacecraft," she stated, her voice was flat and unconvincing. "Then where is it?"
Nowa finally looked at them and both answered, edging himself with confidence. "It's destroyed." A pause, then he held both of his hands to stop at both of them. "Now, hold your horses. It's not a lie. I legitimately cannot travel and I was stuck in the desert." He lowered his hands.
'It's not, I purposely walked in the desert thinking about whether I should end my life there where no one will recover my body.' he thought, then added. "That's how I met Yukari and plucked me and shoved me here like I was a freaking toy, for shit and giggles."
Reimu deadpan. "Language."
Nowa glanced at Reimu. "Yeah, yeah. I know I just have to be expressive, you know? I've been doing good alone.. And here I am."
Reimu, however, brushed past the red flag. Her voice was low and absolute. "You're lying. If it was truly destroyed, Yukari wouldn't have just picked you up and dropped you on my doorstep like a stray cat. She'd have no use for you."
Marisa's eyes darted between them, her grin had vanished completely, her magician's curiosity replaced by a sober, unfamiliar dread. A quiet moment settled over the room, thick and heavy. Nowa was backed into a corner. 'This old-timer is acquainted with the old hag? And Reimu thinks he's lying?'
Nowa was silent. He smiled slightly at the acknowledgement that he is cornered. "She does in fact have a need for me and why I was here. And the spacecraft was destroyed. Really I.. Broke it.. I..." he paused and lowered his gaze briefly. "I fled.." he muttered, Reimu eyes sharpened with suspicion.
"You, fled from what?" Marisa asked.
Nowa reluctantly met their gaze. "I've fled for what I've done. I left them to safety, I couldn't let them be in danger anymore. Not after what happened to Lancer and Bion..." he paused, the tone slightly low. "Don't ask, it's better for you two to not know of it. But I'll summarize it" he added.
'What am I doing? I'm supposed to find the completion in a three day deadline. Not show vulnerability. Fucking hell. How am I supposed to say I slaughtered and erased all the self-proclaimed "gods of balance" who judged entire worlds worthy of extinction and innocents for a plaything from history? this is where... Lancer and Bion... died.. My only family.' His face slightly darkened.
"Ten years ago, I stole Chris's Space aircraft, deliberately so that they're stuck in a safe place." His thoughts however were confessing different versions of the same word. 'it's a lie, i destroyed Chris spacecraft to leave them in a safe place where they won't follow me as I began my slaughter spree. I can't face them again. I've become a monster to my only found family.' he continued his speech. "And during that time I was on a crusade, my mission is to save other planets from these self-proclaimed 'gods of balance' who play wrongfully towards the innocent. I drove them away. Alone. Now after seven years of that crusade success... fully ended. I don't know what to do anymore." Nowa's voice, already low, faded into a hollow whisper. "I... I can't face them again."
The silence that followed was heavier than any he had brought with him. It was no longer just his; it filled the room, pressing down on the three of them. Reimu's sharp suspicion and Marisa's piercing empathy both faltered, momentarily drowned in the sheer, desolate weight of the confession he hadn't even spoken aloud. He didn't look at them. His gaze was turned inward, staring at the ghost of his own reflection in the cooling broth of his ramen. The dismissive smirk was gone, the dry chuckle of a memory. All that was left was the man beneath the legend, sitting at a low table in a forgotten shrine, finally admitting the truth to himself.
'I continued my crusade... for my atonement... After all the suffering, all the cries, all the things I cared for.. Dies... I... I just want to end myself.'
Outside, the wind rustled through the sacred trees of the shrine, a sound as lonely as he felt. For Nowa Beckitzer, the interrogation was over. The sentence had been passed. And in the crushing quiet, he found no appeal.
CHARACTER IMAGE:
Marisa Kirisame - https://pin.it/1NkiyJA8R