Disclaimer: This is a Higurashi fanfiction. It contains spoilers for all of higurashi. Having already seen the original anime and Kai is highly recommended since this will spoil those. The extended lore will be reference and utilized but prior knowledge is not assumed.
1957
Deep within the forests of Ireland, there stood a mysterious circular building. No child of man knew how it got there, few even knew it existed, and yet there it stood.
The building was a home, constructed by the great Gaia herself, the goddess of nature, to protect the Spirit tree from which she came from and continued to draw power from. There she tended to the great tree while also experimenting with her divine powers.
She wasn't human and her appearance reflected this. Her face was normal enough, but her head had deer antlers and her feet were replaced with hooves.
One day, a baby was left by the door to Gaia's home. When she noticed the child she looked around for the parents, but they had already left.
"Hmmm… now why would someone abandon this child here?"
Taking a closer look Gaia noticed several things wrong. The first was that the baby wasn't crying. Gaia wasn't an expert on child psychology, but she knew that anyone this young would cry if abandoned like this. The second was that their eyes were faded, indicating blindness. Plenty of parents would give up on a disfigured child. The third and final noteworthy trait wasn't something any human would notice. Using her divine senses, Gaia could tell that the baby lacked an astral form.
They were soulless.
"Well" Gaia smirked to herself "And here I thought Tamura's masterpiece had reached every vessel".
Tamura, the Goddess of humanity. A far older and stronger God than herself. Strong enough to maintain the souls of the billions of humans that were alive with plenty of energy to spare for it's inevitable future growth. Gaia didn't have her level of total power output, not even close, but she also didn't have a population to maintain.
She let a significant portion of her power flow through the child, far more than what goes through individual humans. As she did so, the baby started to twitch. They still didn't cry, rather they giggled happily in Gaia's arms.
"There you are, child. All fixed up."
The child was smiling at Gaia, and Gaia beamed a smile back.
"You, my creation. A Dryad of Gaia. You are to be my Vassal."
Gaia had a duty to protect her home. She couldn't risk leaving the forest. But her new child? They could go as far as they liked. They could be free.
"As the one who can speak for me to the outside world, I will name you Oracle. I am certain you will live up to the name little one"
Thus, Oracle was born.
I was born.
~~~~~~
1983
Years passed and it was the start of June. I was driving quickly through the streets of Okinomiya on my custom built electric motorcycle. The quiet motor was a requirement so I could still utilize echolocation in order to navigate while riding despite my blindness.
After a while, I arrived at my destination, a house in Hinamizawa village. It was one of the smaller houses on the edge of the village, primarily just a place to stop when I didn't need to be in the village proper. The only reason I decided against staying in a hotel was because driving safely was extremely difficult for me. Navigating via echolocation is difficult even in the best of times.
Parking my bike along the side of the house, I began to unpack my things. Taking everything I had felt I might need on this trip when I came here. Some guns and explosives for combat, some cash, audio surveillance equipment and some other miscellaneous items. The most important items brought however were the very small quantity of magical items.
After briefly tidying up the home and ensuring everything was where it needed to be for my stay, I pulled out one of my enchanted items. It was a small slip of paper, completely blank.
I grabbed a small metal needle that I had pre-prepared on my person, and poked myself in the arm drawing blood. Using my own blood, I signed my name on the slip of paper and held it out in front of me as I got into a meditation pose on the floor. Gaia told me that names were written into the souls of mortals, and that as a God she was able to ensure the name in my soul was the same as the name I referred to myself by: Oracle. That was why it held power in rituals. I wasn't sure how humans would handle this, since they don't know their astral names.
For several seconds nothing happened, until suddenly the top of the slip was consumed by a cold fire. Any onlooker would see that the flame was an impossible shade of green. As the flame traveled down the page, I felt my senses get sharper. Like I had been dreaming before and only now was I awake.
Then, the fire reached the bottom and the feeling left me. The paper was completely gone, not even ashes left behind. Satisfied that my ritual was now complete, I stood up to properly start my mission.
See, being the vassal of a living God had its perks. The Gods have two traits that make them Gods. The first is the ability to create souls from scratch. Anyone could duplicate a soul, parents do that all the time in the form of children, but it takes a God to create a species first souls. The second is that the Gods are able to travel between timelines by going back in time and creating a new timeline as a result. As Gaia's vassal, I am able to perform this "rewind" ability as well.
The main downside to this was that it could be hard to control. On death, and only on death, a rewind would be triggered. This was easy enough to control, however the real problem would be that it would send me as far back as possible, in this case that would be a few years after my birth. This was untenable when needed to create small specific changes to a particular point in time.
To resolve this, Gaia created and taught me the beacon ritual that I just executed a moment ago. Performing the ritual effectively created a save point like in a video game. Now instead of going back to when I first became conscious, I could go back to when a beacon was created instead.
My mission was simple: save the people of Hinamizawa from certain death.
Thanks to the power of time travel, it meant that I could foresee natural disasters before they even happened. As such I've been looping through time in order to prevent large scale loss of life where I could. One such event will happen here in Hinamizawa, a gas leak from the swamp will cause all of its inhabitants to be poisoned soon after the Watanagashi festival. A celebration made in worship of the local god figure Oyashiro.
The day before this happened, a girl named Rena Ryuugu took her school hostage, shouting about the disaster she thought would happen the same day.
Rena ended up executing the hostages, and her predicted disaster came to pass.
Getting an evacuation set up would first require gathering an understanding of how the village operates, thus an investigation period was required. To get started, I went over and placed a call on the landline.
"Yes hello- Yes the house is good, I'm moving in just fi- yes yes, look I think I'll need that tour after all. Are you free for that?- You are? Perfect, I'll see you in a bit Makino."
~~~~~~
Getting dressed to prepare for his arrival, I put on my jacket and my visor. The jacket was a large simple black coat, thinner than it looked due to the summer weather, it had large interior pockets to hide weapons and other contraband. The viser covered my non-functional eyes, it was solid made of a pitch black metal with silver plating on the front making a tree pattern.
After less than an hour, Makino arrived at my doorstep, ready for the promised tour of the village.
"Hello there." I say to the old man as I open the door. "We can start the tour immediately if that's alright with you."
Makino nodded at me and laughed. "Hahahahaha, glad to see a young lady like you be so eager. Let's get started, I'll show you around."
I nodded back at him. "Then let's go."
We started by having Makino take me to each house individually and explain who lives there. I made sure to make a mental note when he pointed out the Ryuugu household. Since there was a strong chance I'd need to investigate her regarding her previous future actions.
~~~~~~
"...and this is the last house in this part of the village. The Maebara family lives here. They were the last ones to move into the village permanently actually"
"Good to know. So where are we heading next then?"
Leading me by the hand he took me a moderate distance from the houses he was showing me earlier. As we got closer to his destination, I could smell the meat and other foodstuffs.
"This is the local market." Makino confirmed for me. "You can buy your groceries here. I'm sure the shopkeepers will help you identify the products."
Walking through the market, I heard someone softly running towards us!
"Makinooooo!!!" Said a childish voice.
The two of us turned to face the newcomer.
"Rika!" Makino greeted her happily "How are you doing today?"
"Who's this?" Rika said ignoring his question.
Approaching her, I crouched down until I was level with her voice. "Hello there. I'm someone that your friend is taking on a tour. I've temporarily moved in. I was hoping to participate in the Watanagashi festival."
"Oooohhhh. My name is Rika! What's your name?"
I reach out my hand "I'm Oracle. It's nice to meet you."
"Nice to meet you too!" She cheerfully states as she takes my hand and shakes it. "So… how do you see with that band thing covering your eyes?"
I gave her a serious look as I answered. "I don't. I can't see at all"
I'd already met Makino as a part of my preparation for this. So he knew about my blindness and my strange choice of outfit. However the rest of the village did not, so it only makes sense for her to be confused. I take off the visor for a moment so she can see my faded eyes before putting it back on.
"Well Rika" I say as I begin to stand up. "I'll see you around."
We all go our separate ways as I continue my tour.
~~~~~~
Rika looked back at the newcomer as they left. She'd never seen the lady before, and to her that meant something. Rika had been looping the past few years on repeat for many years now. It wasn't always the same people that came to watch the festival, but there were a lot of repeats. Seeing a new face at this point was extremely rare. Especially someone so obviously peculiar.
"Hanyuu. What do you think about her?" Rika said in a much deeper voice than what she was using before.
Her companion throughout her years of repetition was now hovering next to her. A ghostly divine being, she looked like a young human but with goat horns. She was also the true identity behind the being known as Oyashiro. Hanyuu was a being that only Rika could see and her power let them both rewind whenever Rika was killed.
"I-I don't know. I've never seen her before either! She must not have a very strong desire to be here if she comes here so rarely. It's unlikely she will be here in the future."
Rika nodded in agreement. "I shouldn't expect much from her then. A weak willed cripple isn't going to be able to help me."
They continued the shopping trip they were on. Rika did a good job at hiding her disappointment in the newcomer.
