Grimoire of Distant Memories
~ Touhou Project ~
written by OmegaTexnos
Chapter 1 : Prelude to A Strange Awakening
Time flows by so slowly during these past days, not enough inspiration, not much stuff to get me excited. I've become so bored with my daily lives lately that I often annoy various kinds of people on the way by barging in without permission, often stealing their belongings out of boredom.
I kinda regret my actions because most of them wouldn't take my jokes...wait, is it really a joke? I must be committing some really serious crimes there.
Morning – Hakurei Shrine
"Yawn..." I woke up early again today. Getting up from the futon, I stretched my hands out. Oriental shrines that resides deep within the mountains sure has some nice cool air.
BURP!
"Auuuu...I haven't eaten anything since last night...my stomach hurts..." last night I was kicked out from Scarlet Devil Mansion while inquiring to have dinner with them.
"How dare you came back again after you've stolen milady's used underwear!" believe me, Remi's panties are one of the last things I want to stole. Argh, the look on Sakuya's face last night sure is damn scary. I don't think I've stolen her pa-never mind. I'll get knifed if I said that.
"Guuuuh...I'm going to die if I don't eat soon." even if the weather is pleasant here, we don't have any money to buy food. Nobody comes to this faraway desolated shrine just to donate eh? I sighed as I stood up from my futon.
I looked around for Reimu, she might have some food to share today, I don't mind eating roasted kedamas either.
"Reimu...where are ya?" I kept looking in the living room, the dining room...even at some of the unused rooms...still no signs of her.
"Kyaaah!" oh...it's just Suika, she's lying down on the futon drenched with her dribbling saliva. Ahaha, she's just like some clumsy kid.
"Mou—man-tai-nyaaaa-nyaaaaannn..." she mumbles so comfortably with a muffled voice in her sleep, must be nice living such a peaceful life huh
Now that you mention it, Suika's sleeping face does look cute. Hmm...she smells good even though most of it were contaminated with alcohol. As I moved even closer to fix her futon up...
"Marisa, if you stole my sake bottle, I'm going to kill you." at the second thought, she's not cute at all.
I quietly stepped outside and began looking for Reimu again.
That reminds me, I haven't looked outside yet
I went back to the bedroom where I slept in earlier, opening up the sliding door to reveal the bright morning sunlight. Ah, there she was...dressed in her usual shrine maiden outfit while I'm still on my pajamas...and fuzzy bed hairs hahaha...
"Good mornin', Reimu! How are ya doin' ze?"
No response, is she contemplating about the beautiful nature scenery...I looked up to the skies, partly covering it with my hand because the sun today are really bright. Hey Reimu, you're going to go blind if you stare at the sun directly like that! Huh...Reimu?
"Hey...are you really conscious at all...uguuuhh!" another shock at the morning, she really looks half-dead! There are black lines in the corner of her eyes, and her cheeks seem a bit too slim...did she also lost some weight...don't tell me?
"Auuuu...Marisa...go cook me some breakfast...myuuu..." it's your turn to cook today! And even if I were to cook we don't have any ingredients to cook a decent meal at all.
"Really...you are a hopeless one, when was the last time you've eaten? If this were the case I would just take you with me every morning and afternoon to Alice's place." I went there almost every day since Rinnosuke goes out traveling 3 days ago, we at the shrine made a living by selling weird goods we've found during our everyday hunts to him.
I don't realize my trading business were so important until today...ah no more money to buy snack, teas, and even those sushi packs that I like! Well, I won't complain either since Alice's cooking were so delicious...even though she's a bit clumsy.
Burned her hands thrice yesterday because she held up the pan in the wrong place, forgot to wore gloves while baking a fruit pie. Even though the eating has to be postponed I'd still got the chance to lick her burn wounds. Hot and sweet...
Oh Alice, I love you so much...please let me be a freeloader for a longer time!
"No, I don't wanna trouble her though...huff...she seems really busy." yeah, unlike you. Wait...since I've been pulling pranks almost everyday...that leaves me in the same category as miko-miko Reimu...hmm...
"Besides..." Reimu continues mumbling on "..I felt there's a stupid fairy who will bring us good fortune today, based on today's fortune-telling issue. Here, take a look." she hands me a page from the Bunbunmaru newspaper.
To the back of the page it says
'If someone hit you with eggs 9 times, your day would be totally screwed'
"W-w-w—wait, so you just bought t-t-t-this newspaper today?"
"No, Aya just gave me the newspaper this morning. Today's issue is a free edition." thank goodness, I thought you're going to give your remaining savings to that Crow Tengu.
"Hey come on Reimu...let's hurry up to Alice's place. I already sent a shikigami to her, saying that we're damn hungry and we need a healthy breakfast to keep us alive. Don't worry, she's a very nice person...she won't mind one extra mouth to feed!"
"Stupid fairy...stupid fairy..." Reimu begins clapping her hands in an off-beat rhythm, talking in a hoarse yet faint-sounding voice. Hmm...did I just heard someone singing from afar?
'Uncle Tom had a teddy bear
He hugs it all alone, day and night
Until teddy-fur gets squished and crushed
Realizing Ms. Teddy ain't cute anymore
Tommy-geezer flushed her in the toilet'
"What the heck is with this song?" that absurd song sounds like some echo from a faraway place. As the time passes the voice becomes louder and I could hear the nonsensical lyrics clearly, then I noticed a blue thing flying in the skies...is that the stupid fairy?
'E'ym wanna be the very best
And for-ever be the strongest
Collecting yukkuri from all over Gensokyo
Training them, evolving them
Together we shall be the strongest, yay!
Yu-kku-ri-yu-kku-ri'
A blue fairy flies in the sky, now stuck circling around the shrine's gate, like she's being enchanted to it. Well isn't that Cirno, your familiar neighbor who often bugs the residents here. She's now floating around, descends slowly onto the ground elegantly, gentle breezes of wind starts flowing towards us...for a moment I'm enchanted by her graceful look of the landing that overshadows her small posture. The view of the autumn petals that swirling around with it makes the scene even more majestic...
"Ah, me forgot how to fly!"
*insert SFX of something heavy falling over here'
ouch...I fell backwards because of this charisma-break moment.
Cirno goes walking around the shrine garden aimlessly, unaware of her surroundings. She kept moving in a roundabout manner, until she finally settles down in one place. Crouching her body down...
"Mmmhhhh...ngggghhhhh...ahhnnn...ooohhh...aaa..." I kept getting weird ideas each time I heard her high-pitched moans. After a while I've heard a sound of explosion from the spot she's on. A blazing trail of smoke follows by a launch of an Undefined Fantastic Annoyance. To tell you the truth I don't know what kind of object it is, but it makes really annoying hissing sounds. It moves too fast for my eyes to notice.
!
"Kyaaaaaaaaahhh! Da ze." I screamed at top of my voice as the object explodes while it reached the skies. Damn it Cirno, what kind of disgusting stuff have you eaten last night?
"Uguuuu..." Reimu being so calm like usual even after witnessing this shocking incident was even more impressive...no it's more like...my common sense starts breaking down.
Wait...do I have common sense in the first place? Uuu...
Let's just pretend that I do have some rationality.
Oh my, Cirno's going to launch another one again. This time I focused my eyes on the spot where the object is launched...that's weird, is her behinds really capable of launching such a powerful attack?
'Eye'm the strongest!'
...
Me and Reimu's eyes gets affixed at that one spot where the unidentified object were launched. As I heard the blue fairy moaning again, there's some shining object with a silver object...
It's an egg.
"Hey Reimu, hold it right there!" I tried to stop her but she's too fast, already flew to the skies intercepting the launching egg. She'll be fine...she'll be fine...
The egg and Reimu eventually intersects at one point, ignorant to the danger that lies beyond. She just opened her mouth wide...
"No way, you're going to eat her raw?"
And there she goes again, can't blame her outrageous behavior...the ravenous sense of hunger probably augmented her physical abilities and put her own conscience into demise. It's not like she has any rational thinking to begin with.
Upsy-daisy! Reimu just swallowed a whole egg...raw, more spectacularly...doing it while flying and just intercepted an extremely high speed egg that's soaring up in the skies...right at the trajectory! It's also an egg that explodes while it reaches a certain point or time interval.
Reimu descends slowly into the grounds, walking limply as she did before...but somehow regained all of these lost energies in a whim.
"Hey...Reimu...are you okay? Is it really alright...eating that kind of egg? You know..."
"I'm...al...right..." she speaks in a rather faint voice. Also, there's a trail of smoke coming from her mouth...damn, I've told you to stop before!
Huh, where's Cirno? She's nowhere to be seen. The next moment I've heard some explosion sounds coming from other side of the mountain...thank goodness she didn't screw up our day here.
"Hothothothot!" our careless shrine maiden starts running around haphazardly, spewing some fire breath towards the ground...what? The fire gets spewed in a certain pattern, revealing a picture of a (9) ball.
OH SHI-
Xxx
"Gulp...gulp...gulp..." Reimu drank a lot of water already, the burden's all on me because I had to draw another water from the well, which is located a bit far from the main building.
"Told ya not to do something reckless! Well then, I'll be off to Alice's. This time I'll also fetch some lunch and dinner for you. Don't go around mugging some random youkai, okay?"
"Ok, take care Marisa. I think this egg should make me full until lunch. Now...where's that stupid fairy again, the egg is delicious...Imma catch her and make her my pet...fufufu..."
Don't be saying your thoughts out loud like that! Furthermore, I'm still here. You don't even notice my presence, do you?
Oh well, if it's Cirno...then she should be okay. Hahaha, I hope Yukari doesn't get jealous by this. Okay...time to go!
"Now then Reimu, I'm off!" I readied my broom, taking another flight to the Forest of Magic..that reminds me I haven't eaten breakfast yet, better go get some grub.
"Take care, don't forget to bring the food at lunch and dinner time 'kay?" Reimu waves around from below with an innocent smile, just like a kid.
"Okay..okay, I'll come back for sure!" I replied with my usual grin.
Now then, let's start this bright and peaceful day.
Late Morning - Forest of Magic
Flying through the scenic view without being bugged by those annoying fairies, I took my by breathing fresh mountain air along the way. Until I finally came across the humid air of the Forest of Magic, the kind of air filled with magical energy to the brim. An excellent place to train your magic, I mostly stayed here to study and train while I'm not doing any business. Even though I've done my training consistently, I'm still not nearly as powerful as a shrine maiden that just lazes around doing nothing though.
"Phew...at least I'm finally here...Alice?" she's not here in the terrace, that's pretty unusual. I walked into the dining room to see my favorite steak already fresh and warm, mmm...it really do taste like chicken!
After getting some grub and filling my throat down with water, I felt a revitalizing surge of energy. There's some note left on the table side
'Marisa, I'll be going off to the village...buying some grocery stuff. After that I'll be heading directly to Hakurei Shrine, I've heard she hasn't been having healthy meals lately. You really are a mean friend not to tell me this earlier! So as the punishment I'm going to leave you here...I'll be nursing Reimu this whole day!
P.S: Feel free to study and read anything you want here...but don't barge into my room okay? It's not like I hate you for it, but there's some delicate stuff over there...some of them are really dangerous and I HEREBY FORBADE YOU FROM TOUCHING THEM, NO MATTER HOW CURIOUS YOU ARE
best regards,
Alice'
Our miko-miko Reimu sure is very popular, just when I realized she's been feeling so weak...everyone else also realized it. Even though I'm the closest one to her...she probably had a lot of stalkers, but she'll be okay since she's very strong.
She said I could read anything I wanted...yay! But no touching dangerous objects in her room, right? Don't worry, I won't touch anything that looks dangerous...but everything else is fine, okay?
"Thank you for being so considerate today, Alice...I'm coming in...GYAAAAHHH!" by reflex, I jumped back in surprise
A large harpoon gets fired when I opened up the door, it flew past me as I jumped back, it pierced through the walls, breaking it down and gets stuck in a gargantuan-sized tree after it drilled for about several centimeters deep.
Alice...are you trying to kill me?
If not for my reflex I got from training martial arts with Reimu long time ago, I'll be totally screwed for sure.
Hmm...this room looks suspicious. I tried testing it by throwing the tennis ball I stole from a random house.
Holy shit...the ball gets melted away from a laser beam!
Alice, actually...the most dangerous one is you
f that's the case I'll try the same strategy I used on some espionage game I played last week!
"Smoke Sign...damn, I forgot the name..." I tried looking again at the back of the card...
"Smoke Generator!" as I chanted the spell name, bundle of smokes start forming from the end of my broomstick. I held it up high towards the room, revealing a rather complex pattern of lasers...Alice made a big mistake by not installing the ones that moves by itself! Wait, that's pretty expensive though...
Inside all of those laser patterns, there's a book that emits a beautiful golden light. This must be some very valuable Grimoire of something...wait, calculating the patterns...if we take it from this side then we'll get the object without triggering the laser at all.
Let's call it, a thief's instinct?
"Ta-da! Hand Extender O'Matic!" the best tool you can have for stealing some stuff! Leaving no fingerprints, this object could reach faraway places with you standing in a safe position. Order now at Kourindou! Eh, why am I advertising here?
15 minutes later
"Phew, it's harder than I thought..." I wiped the sweat from my forehead as I finally grabbed my hands on this golden grimoire
Master Thief achievement unlocked!
Party hard? Maybe next time after I finished examining this book, I lifted my hands high and formed a victory pose..
CLICK!
A camera sound? Oh...what the heck, I've been busted...DAMN YOU CROW TENGU! I'm hearing Aya's sinister laugh from some place I couldn't see. Though it's sounds kind of like...a perverted one? Ah, must be my imagination.
Oh well, there's this broken wall leaving a huge hole open...it would take quite some time to fix it, and if it's really fixed before she came back...it'll still leave some mark that anyone would notice.
Ah who cares anyway, at least I've finally gotten my hands on this Grimoire. I placed that Grimoire using the Extender O'Matic at the table.
"Ouch!" I quickly pulled my hand back as I tried touching it directly. It burns...so I tried using the extender again, as it shaped like an extendable human arm. Tried turning the cover of the book with it...and it finally opens!
Huh? I've only seen a blank page...so I tried touching it again with the extender, being overly cautious. Hah, nothing happened...
This time I tried touching it directly again, the paper that's bundled inside this harmful Grimoire cover. I felt some rush of electrical shock through my body...some surge of luminous spark starts rising through the arm I used to touch it...into my head.
I've seen some imagery of this place being enveloped underwater, filled with the colors of blue. As I let go of the page my sense returned to normal again, still I felt a bit dizzy because of what happened earlier.
You'll never know what lies beyond unless you try right? This time I flipped the grimoire around, revealing blank pages all around as I keep turning...until I stopped at a random page. That's strange, why did it contains so many blank pages?
I touched the pages with both of my hands, the burn felt so painful this time...gah, must bear it...must bear it...if you can't endure pain, you'll never experience true happiness. Yeah, that's the spirit...I must keep going no matter how far my body will break, what if I couldn't use magic again? No worries, since I believed in myself and the power of my friends that supported me. This resolve shall not falter...
Oh, why am I getting so overly dramatic here? Ah, I just realize that I've already traversed into another world. That grimoire in front of my sight had vanished. The transition must be really quick or I'm a bit too focused on concentrating my magical energies so I lost my attentiveness towards my surroundings.
A surreal world I am in, the air here smells so different...it contains high-concentration of magical energy in it. I felt a glimpse of this world get reformed within each second. Until I realized that I'm beginning to took form into this world, from a faint imagery similar to those of a ghost...until my hand becomes solid and apparent a short while later.
"Eeeeeek!" what's that disgusting thing in front of me? It has a shape of a human face, but it's so chubby like a large ball, with no bodies or legs at all...it kept bouncing in a carefree manner.
"Taking it easy!" it bounced towards me and spoke these words
So this one could also speak eh? Hold on a second, if I recall correctly, this stuff is called 'Yukkuri' some kind of magical pet that resembles humans..very helpful on finding valuable items due to its extraordinary detection ability.
Since it seems quite helpful, I might take it with me as I explore this unknown world. It does resemble me with that blonde hair and the mage hat though.
Let's go, Yukkuri Marisa!
End of Chapter 1