Arknights, Suika's Messenger Journey

Just as Xigua sank back into self-pity, Hoshiguma reached out and picked her up.

"Kid, what have you been brooding over by yourself since the beginning?

If there's anything you need me to do, just say it. Since we're both Oni, I'll do my best to help if I can.

And where do you live? Do you remember your parents' names?

I need to report all that so I can send you home."

Having held back for most of the day, Hoshiguma finally stepped in and shook Xigua out of her self-contained world, hoping to get this troublesome child home as quickly as possible.

"My home... I don't have a home... I don't have a father or mother either..." Xigua wanted to go home too, but she knew perfectly well that she could never return. She did not know where Hoshiguma had found her, but Hoshiguma definitely had no way to cross worlds and send her back exactly as she had come.

Hearing the little girl's words, Hoshiguma's head began to ache.

"Then what's your name? You at least remember your own name, right?!"

Xigua thought about it. Since she had already come to this fantasy world inside a game and had become one of its inhabitants, there was no point in using her old name.

With that thought, she stared into Hoshiguma's eyes and said,

"My name is Suika, Ibuki Suika!"

There were two reasons she had chosen that name. First, her current appearance was that of the Mount Oe Ghost King from Touhou, the one who liked tying a bow to her large horn.

Second, she wanted to test Hoshiguma and see whether, as another "Oni" with such a fateful connection in their names, she had any relevant memories.

Yet after Suika finished speaking, Hoshiguma's gaze did not ripple as she had expected. Instead, Hoshiguma rose irritably and rubbed her hair.

"Kid... stay at home and behave yourself. Don't run around. I'm going to the police station to ask those guys about your situation..."

Unable to get any more information from Ibuki Suika, who claimed to have no parents, Hoshiguma decided to approach matters from another angle and ask the traffickers where they had stolen the girl from.

Just as Hoshiguma was about to leave, Suika finally asked, "Will you be back at noon...?"

"At noon..." Hoshiguma frowned. As a single police officer, aside from sleeping at night, she practically never stayed home. But with a child in the house now, the child had to eat.

"Here are three hundred Lungmen Dollars. If you're hungry, go out and eat at the Dong Family Fish Ball Shop next door.

I'll put the house key under the second shoe on the second shelf of the shoe cabinet outside the door. Remember to come back after eating. Don't run around, or I'll haul you off to the Guard Department and throw you in jail."

Worried that the child would wander off and having no experience raising children, Hoshiguma deliberately tried to scare her.

Suika nodded. After watching Hoshiguma leave, she threw herself onto the table and grabbed the three hundred dollars.

The moment Hoshiguma had taken out the money, Suika had vaguely seen a transparent Offering Box appear before her eyes.

A voice from deep within her soul told her that throwing money into the Offering Box would bring her enormous benefits.

With the money in hand, she waited a while longer. Only after confirming that Hoshiguma had left did she look again at the Offering Box hovering before her.

As she hesitated between tossing all the money in at once or putting it in a hundred at a time, three iron chains floated up behind her.

From the three differently shaped objects at the ends of those chains, she seemed to see...

First!

Top-Up!

Special!

Offer!

Four huge words.

Rather than rushing to decide, she examined the Offering Box and discovered that it was actually the belt Hoshiguma had mentioned—the one around Suika's waist that she could not remove.

The Offering Box had three slots, corresponding to the directions of the three chains.

And the first top-up required only the minimum amount of one hundred Lungmen Dollars.

Naturally, she had no idea what she would receive.

But that was fine. As a gamer who had dabbled in every kind of game, she was no stranger to first top-up bonuses.

After all, what mobile game these days did not have one?

What she needed to worry about was that she only had three hundred dollars. If she threw it all in, she would have to go hungry until Hoshiguma returned.

But who could refuse a first top-up bonus...? She certainly could not.

So, gritting her teeth, Suika divided the three hundred Lungmen Dollars into three portions and stuffed them into the three slots.

Once her hands were empty, Suika felt hollow inside.

The saying "spend like a demon, then become a saint like a Buddha once it's over" was perfectly embodied in her.

Just as she was about to transcend worldly concerns in spirit, the three chains began to shake violently.

Three beams of light shot out from their ends. Two struck Suika herself, while the remaining one landed on the table in front of her.

When the light faded, a gourd had appeared on the table.

As for the two beams that hit her, they gave Suika an understanding of two abilities.

One taught her how to control the Density and Sparsity of her body.

The other taught her Ibuki Suika's signature skill—Four Heavenly Kings Secret Art: Three-Step Ruin.

Suika was not surprised to receive these two abilities.

After all, she now looked like Ibuki Suika. It was only natural that the strange Offering Box's first top-up reward would grant Ibuki Suika's techniques.

The first was one of Ibuki Suika's abilities, or perhaps talents.

She could freely manipulate her own density, enlarging or shrinking herself. At the extreme, she could even turn herself into mist.

Unfortunately, she could only use this powerful ability on herself. Otherwise, if she could manipulate the density of other objects or living beings, she would undoubtedly be among Touhou Project's strongest fighters.

Even so, Ibuki Suika was still one of the strongest among the Oni.

Then there was the technique called Three-Step Ruin.

This was also a skill only Ibuki Suika could use, because it had to be paired with her talent.

Whenever she took a step while using Three-Step Ruin, her body swelled by another ring and her strength doubled. When she threw her punch on the third step, her power reached its limit.

It could be called the strike with the greatest breakthrough and destructive power.

However, in exchange for that mighty blow, Ibuki Suika's gradually expanding body also became easier for enemies to hit.

Overall, trading a bigger opening for a more powerful one-hit kill was not a bad deal.

After absorbing the knowledge in her mind, Suika turned her gaze to the gourd before her.

The moment she saw it, she felt as though she were looking at family.

She picked up the gourd and opened its mouth. A rich fragrance of alcohol drifted out from within.

Instinctively, Suika lifted the gourd and gulped down a mouthful. Then, hugging it with a hazy drunken look in her eyes, she sat on the stool, rubbed against it, and giggled foolishly.

This gourd was the Ibuki Gourd, which Ibuki Suika was never without in the original setting.

The Ibuki Gourd contained an endless supply of alcohol for Ibuki Suika to drink whenever she wished.

However, this Oni liquor was quite strong. An ordinary person would be knocked drunk by a single small sip.

Only because Suika's current Oni body was strong enough did she end up merely a little tipsy.

A few minutes later, Suika stood and walked toward the front door. The moment she pressed herself against it, her entire body turned into a cloud of mist and slipped through the crack beneath the door.

Once outside, she floated into an empty alley before condensing back into her original form.

She then hung the Ibuki Gourd at her waist, adjusted the bow on her horn that had gone crooked from turning into mist, and hummed a tune as she walked out.

Emerging onto the street, Suika looked around at her surroundings.

Hoshiguma lived beside the slums, in what was essentially an urban-rural fringe district.

Walking toward the center led to the increasingly lively main city area, while heading toward the outskirts led to the mixed and chaotic slums.

Suika chose neither direction. Instead, she planned to wander around nearby.

Having spent decades in a safe modern society, she had no desire whatsoever to fight other people.

Having read the game's setting, she knew very well that even in prosperous Lungmen, plenty of vermin lurked in the shadows.

Though she felt somewhat uneasy inside, Suika was still very curious about Lungmen.

Walking along the road, she vaguely felt as though she had stepped into Guangdong at the turn of the millennium.

When she left, she had glanced at the calendar in Hoshiguma's home. The date on it was the year 1093.

She did not know the exact date, though. The dust on the calendar made it clear that Hoshiguma rarely flipped through it, and there were no markings on it either.

But once outside, Suika touched her shoulders and could tell with certainty that it was not summer.

Even though the sun hung high in the sky, the wind against her face still felt cold.

Looking at her dress, which exposed large portions of her arms and calves, then at the passersby around her in long clothes and trousers, Suika suddenly felt rather out of place.

Noticing that people had begun looking at her because of her inappropriate clothes, Suika moved to the roadside and hid in the shadows.

Because she was small and deliberately avoided crowds, those who had noticed her earlier merely suspected they had imagined it when the lightly dressed child vanished in the blink of an eye.

But when she passed a snack stall, someone still stopped her.

"What kind of family neglects their child like this... Oh, you poor little girl, are you freezing...?"

A kindly old woman grabbed Suika's hand. Seeing what she was wearing, she frowned and muttered a few curses under her breath before taking out a thick cotton coat from behind the snack cart.

"Come on, Grandma will put this on you first. Don't catch cold." The old woman draped the cotton coat over Suika, then held her hand and said,

"Look how cold your hands are...

Come sit by the stove and warm up."

As she spoke, she shifted aside to make room for Suika to squeeze in.

At first, Suika instinctively thought the woman before her had some ulterior motive. But after sitting there for a while, she realized that the granny simply thought Suika was dressed too thinly and wanted to help.

After all, they were sitting right beside a busy roadside curb, with countless people passing by. Many who saw Suika even asked Granny Wang where she had found such a lovely daughter.

Whenever someone asked, Granny Wang would angrily say she did not know what kind of family could be so irresponsible as to let a little girl run around alone in such cold weather wearing only a dress. She worried the child would fall ill from the cold, which was why she had brought her to the stove, and she asked others to help find out whose child she was.

"By the way, Granny Wang, have you asked the girl herself?" one passerby asked after hearing her explanation.

Hearing that, Granny Wang slapped her forehead with an "Ah!"

"I forgot! Little girl, what's your name? Where do you live? If it's not far, I can take you home."

As she spoke, Granny Wang placed a bowl of freshly cooked plain rice porridge in front of Suika. Then she took out a box of white sugar and a basin of something that looked like pickled long beans from beneath the stall.

"Plain porridge doesn't have much flavor. I've got white sugar and pickles here, and both taste good with porridge. Which one do you want?"

Granny Wang kept talking, and Suika failed several times to get a word in. She could only watch as the steaming bowl of porridge was placed before her.

"Uh, white sugar, please!"

"White sugar is good. Kids all like sweet things... But too much sugar gives you cavities, so just a little!" Granny Wang said as she spooned a scoop of white sugar onto the porridge.

Suika accepted the bowl and took a small sip. Plain porridge had little flavor beyond a faint aroma of rice.

With the sugar added, it gained a hint of sweetness that made it less bland.

"My name is Ibuki Suika. I'm staying at Sister Hoshiguma's home for now.

She went to work, so I came out for a walk."

"Hoshiguma? The tall girl who works at the Guard Department? I've seen how dependable she usually is, so how can she be so bad at taking care of children?

Ibuki Suika... that's an Eastern Country name, isn't it? Great Yan people don't use names like that. You hear lots of strange names like that in Eastern Country movies, though."

After hearing Suika's introduction, Granny Wang began muttering to herself again.

After sitting for a while, Suika stood up.

"Granny Wang, can I go play?"

Granny Wang nodded and lovingly reached out to tighten the big bow atop Suika's head.

"Go on. Don't take this coat off, or you'll catch a cold and have to take medicine. Let me tell you, medicine is really bitter..."

Suika shook the oversized coat, which looked rather comical on her, but she did not take it off.