2 Chapter 2

Laura waited patiently in her chair for the first five minutes, before getting up and grabbing a glass of water to drink. Pulling out her tablet, the young engineering student brought up some of the plans and designs she had sketched up already, going through them to see about ways to improve on them still.

Occupied like this the next few minutes seemed to fly by for Laura until a knock on the door caught her attention. Looking up from her work, she saw a young japanese men step in, maybe a year or two older than herself. After closing the door behind himself, he gave a short bow towards the waiting exchange student, his long black goatee and short black hair the only identifying features Laura managed to see with him looking straight down. As he stood up straight again, revealing a slender face with a thin nose and green eyes. He immediately spoke up slowly in Japanese, careful to ensure the foreigner could understand him.

"I am sorry for being late, I got preoccupied helping one of the professors." Walking closer his eyes wandered from Laura to the glass of water standing next to her chair. "I am Okada Daiki, and I will be this semester's tutor for the exchange students, so if you have any questions during your stay, feel free to ask me."

"Thanks I will" Laura replied, her japanese a bit slow, but otherwise fluent. "Oh, I am Laura, Laura Rosenthal."

"A pleasure meeting you. I see you already grabbed something to drink, so let's wait for the other exchange student to arrive before we get deeper into the introductions and what else is planned for today," Daiki replied before grabbing himself a glass of water as well and sitting down on one of the empty chairs.

Laura just gave a short nod before returning to her designs, sketching out some new ideas she had gotten watching the little tanuki on her way to campus, mostly for some characters and costume designs. Although more than once she had to redo the eyes after simply drawing them as one solid color without pupil or iris. Focused on her tablet like this, the German cared little for the time that passed, where as Daiki was checking his watch every few minutes while waiting for the second exchange student that would stay at the overall rather small Yamatanuki university this semester.

All in all it took nearly half an hour until the door was opened by a tall, broad shoulder young man walking into the room, the blue and orange of his jacket contrasting strongly with his dark brown skin. Adjusting his round glasses, he read the note he held before speaking up. "Why are there so few people here, isn't this supposed to be a meet and greet for all exchange students?"

Laura looked up to the newcomer from her tablet, her expression full of annoyance, bordering on outright anger over how late this guy was without even apologizing for it, but before she could voice this grievance, Daiki spoke up and rose out of his seat.

"Hello, I am Okada Daiki, and yes you are indeed in the right place, we seldom have more than three or four exchange students here. So having only two foreign students staying for a semester is not that uncommon." Stopping his greeting for a moment, he waved a hand towards Laura before continuing. "This is Rosenthal Laura, your fellow exchange student."

With the moment of anger passed, the German student stood up, took a deep breath and stepped forward to give the newcomer a firm handshake as she asked, "So who are you?"

"Ah yes, should have introduced myself first. I'm Gabe Chumpson, nice to meet you."

Sitting back down and motioning to the two free chairs, Daiki waited for the other two to sit down before he continues.

"Now that both of you are here, Let's do some more in depth introductions before I tell you a bit more about Yamatanuki University." He then took a deep breath before continuing.

"I am Okada Daiki and will be here for any questions or issues you might run into during your stay here. This will be my last semester studying Software engineering. In my freetime I like to play videogames and reading."

Laura gave a short nod in reply, while Gabe sat there, having pulled out an english japanese dictionary and was flipping through it rapidly, seemingly not having understood everything said fully. Waiting for the other exchange student to finish consulting his dictionary, Laura cleared her throat to catch his attention as she began her own introduction, speaking at a slower pace then normal to give Gabe a better chance of understanding her.

"Hey, I'm Laura. Normally I study Aerospace Engineering in Munich, but decided to study in another country for a Semester a while ago. As I had already taken two Semesters of Japanese out of personal interest, Yamatanuki was suggested by my Professors. My hobbies include reading, hiking, HEMA and LARP."

Seeing the confused looks of the guys in the room as she took a sip of water, Laura continued with an explanation of the abbreviations. "That is Historical European Martial Arts, mostly sword fighting in my case, and Live Action Roleplaying." With still some confusion left in Gabe's face, she continued her explanation. "Imagine people going camping and playing out a fantasy story."

"That sounds awesome" Gabe commented in English as Laura finished her explanation. Picking up his dictionary again, he began to slowly speak in japanese to finish up the introductions. "As I said earlier, my name is Gabe, I study engineering as well, although my bigger focus in college is Football. I would not have even considered staying abroad for a whole semester, but my mother insisted I spend sometime in the land grandma came from. I like to read comic books and watch TV or movies in my freetime."

"Well, we do not have a Football team here, but you might be interested in Kendo Laura, we have our first practice of the semester on friday. Which does bring me to the next part, first I would like to remind you both that participation in one of the university's sports teams is mandatory for all students. That's because Mr Fuguia, the owner of Yamatanuki in case you weren't aware, believes that in order to succeed in life young people must both study to fill their minds and train their bodies."

Before he continued, Daiki drank the last of the water in his glass and let out a short sigh. "He also demands that every student be told the story of why he founded this University, which is open mostly to the family of his companies employees.

So as you probably don't know, Mr Fuguia is quite fond of hiking and camping in the mountains for a night or two. While these days such trips are rare and restricted to his summer vacation, 40 years ago, when he himself was just finishing university in Tokyo.He took one such tripp during the fall of his last year of university, trying to relax a little before he would need to devote more time to his studies.

As he didn't want to be away to long, he took the train to this very valley to spend as little time traveling as possible. Taking one of his folders of notes with him, he studied on the train ride out here, before locking everything he would not need in the mountains in a locker at the train station, so he would not lose any of it. Thus carrying only his tent, sleeping bag and food for the evening he set out to find a nice camping spot on the side of a mountain.

Now for this next part, you guys need to remember that back in those days mobile phones were not something simple student could afford, and smartphones weren't even an idea yet. So when the first snow of the year fell that night, with a blizzard forming in the morning, Mr Fuguia had no way of simply calling for help.His cheap flashlight barely let him see a few meters ahead of himself in the snowstorm, so signaling for help with that wasn't an option either.

Wandering through the mountain's, hoping that simply going downhill would take him back, he began to see a separate set of human tracks in the snow. Hoping that this other person knew what they were doing, or if not that to lend them what little help his experience was good for, he followed the footprints through the storm. It felt like forever but when he finally caught up, he found a young woman, her skin as pale as the snow and only wearing a simple white and blue yukata. Slowly approaching her, he asked the Yuki Onna"

At this point a snort of laughter from Laura interrupted the story, the possibly talking tanuki from earlier already forgotten. "Are you trying to screw with us there? He was following a mythical creature like that? You sure he wasn't hallucinating due to hypothermia?"

"Well that is what most people believe actually happened yes." Daiki agreed with the German student. "But this version of the story is the one he asks to be told."

"Any way, as he approached the woman, her white hair adorned by light blue crystals of ice, she looked him over, and asked him why he was in the mountains after she had tried to warn the people of the valley the last evening. After he explained his situation, she offered to help him return back to the valley, in exchange for a simple favor. He would help the village at the foot of her mountain to prosper as she was sad to see many of the children here moving to the big cities when becoming adults. Happy that she had not demanded something like his first born son, but instead something he could easily achieve with a little time once he finished his studies and started working at his grandfather's company Mr Fuguia readily agreed.

With a sharp whistle from the pale woman, a Tanuki poked its head out of the snow and with a bark caught the lost man's attention, before leading him back to the village.Halfway there he ran into mountain rescue personal, who had been called for by one of the train companies employees who had noticed the locker Mr Fuguia had paid to use till midday on sunday had not been emptied by sunday afternoon.

Because of this, when his grandfather granted him the loan he used to found this University, it was named after the animal that lead him to safety."

"Well it is an Interesting story at the least" Gabe said as Daiki stood up, grabbing a rice ball as he refilled his glass of water.

"I mean most of it probably really happened like this." Laura commented as she stood up to grab some food herself. "After all from time to time I hear similar stories of people not checking the weather forecast and overestimating their abilities that then need to be searched and brought back to town by the Bergwacht." Seeing the other two unfamiliar with that name, she quickly explained. "It's an organization in Germany mainly focused on helping people caught in emergencies in the mountains."

"Most of the verifiable events are true." Daiki said as he wiped his mouth with a paper napkin, having quickly finished his food. "Mr. Fuguia was found wandering through these mountains during a surprisingly strong snowstorm four decades ago, suffering hypothermia and slight starvation."

"But with all that out of the way now, let's take a bit to enjoy the food the cafeteria staff made for us, before I go show you two to the dormitories."

After having her first bite of the surprisingly good food, at least compared to the cafeteria back at her University, Laura could only nod in agreement. Gabe was a bit more sceptical, being unfamiliar with the food on display, but after getting over himself and trying an Onigiri himself, he too digged in.