AUTHOR'S NOTE: This story is a sequel to Touhou Broken Paradise ~ Embrace of Darkness, and contains many spoilers regarding the ending of the previous story. Don't read this without having read the previous story first.
Content Warnings: This story contains examples of language, violence, and non-explicit sexual references. Possibly some character death. This will be the only warning.
Part 1: New Beginnings
Chapter 1: Alice
Alice stared up at the twisted monstrosity that was now Pandaemonium. A hideous, monumental fortress, standing at the center of the warped Dark City. The majority of the lesser denizens of Makai that continued to live in the city (many had fled, seeking out safer areas) seemed to have grown complacent with the changes that Kana had made. Either not caring, or not daring to voice their complaints. The fortress itself was the worst of all. It was just so big compared to everything else that it stuck out like a sore thumb. A tower that looked like it had been constructed by a small child. Its front walls were in ruin on the lower levels, but Alice supposed she couldn't actually blame Kana for it. That part had been Miasma's doing.
It was the second time that Alice had laid her eyes upon the place in its current state. A place that, many years ago, she had once called home, which was now almost unrecognizable. It sickened her just as much as it had the first time, but she kept her silence.
"It's simply marvelous, isn't it~?" Kana said, letting out a weary sigh. Alice winced at the sound of the poltergeist's voice. It was, after all, her fault that Makai was in such a deplorable condition. And here she was now. Marveling over the contorted ruins, like an artist proudly examining her greatest masterpiece.
Alice focused her eyes forward, and began to walk along the central street.
"Now, that is just rude." Kana stuck her tongue out at Alice behind her back, childishly mocking the woman.
"I don't think she really cares, Kana," Rumia replied, grinning that sharp-toothed smile of hers. "That one's got a stick shoved so far up her grumpy ass, I bet she probably had one of those dolls of hers lodge it up there personally."
The two laughed at Rumia's poor excuse for a joke, and Alice could feel anger boiling up underneath her normally calm exterior. Kana's foolishness came as no surprise, but there was something different about Rumia. There was no true maliciousness in her words, not really. Crude and vulgar though it was, Rumia seemed to be sincerely joking with her, rather than openly antagonizing as she had done in their previous encounters. When Rumia had been defeated only the day before, she had gone down screaming obscenities and provocations until the very end. And yet, despite all of her boasts and threats, her claims that she would die fighting, hadn't she given up in the very end?
Something had happened to Rumia, and possibly even Kana for that matter. Something unseen, that Alice knew nothing about. But in the span of less than a full day since Alice had last seen her, since that fateful confrontation at the top of Pandaemonium, what could have possibly happened?
The various entrances of Pandaemonium were still sealed off, all but the one on the top floor that led directly into the throne room (another thing to thank Miasma for), and the jagged entryway that opened onto the Dark City's main road (Kana had at least done the kindness of clearing the rubble from the front entrance). Looking into that foreboding doorway once more, Alice could remember very clearly the fateful events of the day before.
- o - o - o - o - o - o - o - o - o - o -
The small group of individuals that had been selected for the task of hunting down Rumia and Kana had emerged hastily from the temporary border that Yukari had been able to create into Makai. Reimu, Miasma, Alice, and Sakuya to specifically deal with Rumia, while Marisa, Youmu, and Sanae had been chosen to distract and subdue Kana.
The destruction of the Hakurei Shrine at the hands of Kana and her Void powers had been only narrowly avoided the night before. Rumia and Kana had been backed into a corner, overwhelmed and outnumbered, and it had been their last ditch effort to make an escape. And though Kana's efforts had been stopped before her newly created Void pocket could have expanded out of control, it had proven to be enough of a distraction for Rumia to escape Sakuya's grasp and slink off to Makai to plot her retaliation, and lick her wounds. Reimu had known that if backed into a similar situation, Kana would no doubt resort to her same tricks. A specialized infiltration force was crucial if they wanted to take the two down without major collateral damage to Makai's structural integrity. Alice had insisted upon that very strongly.
"Rumia and Kana will already know that we're here," Yukari stated the moment that she had closed the gap leading back to Gensokyo. She had taken them as close to Pandaemonium as she dared. Rumia's dark abilities would have prevented Yukari from taking them directly inside safely. "I have no doubt that the two of them were listening in on our entire plan. You'll all have to be careful from here on out."
"I take it you're not comin' with us, eh Yukari?" Marisa asked, and Yukari merely shook her head. They all knew that her powers had no effect on Rumia, a fact she would take full advantage of. Rumia's grudge against Yukari was fairly common knowledge these days.
Alice had only distantly heard Yukari's warning, and hadn't even noticed Marisa at all. She was too focused on the sight of Pandaemonium that stood before here. She fell to her knees, a soft cry of horrified anguish escaping her lips as she beheld what Kana had done, silencing Yukari, and drawing everyone's attention. "My home... what have they done to it...?"
No one among the group could offer any words of condolence upon Alice. Many among them were only now seeing Makai for the very first time, while others simply had never seen the city itself, and hadn't spared the twisted fortress more than a casual examination. Only Alice, who had once called Makai her home, could understand how utterly appalling the sight truly was.
Alice got to her feet, and a steely resolve had taken hold of her expression. "Kana's the one who did this. The one who turned my old home into some kind of... childish madhouse."
"That place is probably one enormous trap, now," Sakuya said, stepping to the head of the group. She examined the exterior of the towering fortress. Where once there had been numerous entrances (all of which had once been heavily guarded, of course), there was now only one. The long, central road that led right into the gaping front door. "Kana's a poltergeist. She has probably taken control of the entire fortress, and plans to use it as a weapon to hinder our advance. And we're going to have to climb the entire fortress, all the way to the top."
"Shinki's throne room was on the top floor. I'm sure that's where Rumia has holed herself up," Reimu stated with some certainty. "I can see where the uppermost entrance was blocked off, so that we wouldn't be able to simply fly up and break through the easy way."
"My mother's fortress is not some weapon to be used by some insane poltergeist and her psychotic friend." Alice's eyes never left that looming monument to Kana's insanity. "I'm going to make both of them pay for this. And I'm going to get my mother back."
"Just... try not to let Rumia take advantage of that, Alice," Reimu said, and placed a comforting hand on Alice's shoulder. She barely seemed to react to the sudden contact, and did not turn away to face Reimu. "We're depending on you, Alice. Me, Sakuya, Miasma... we'll need you to be there for us during the fight against Rumia."
"I know, Reimu," Alice replied, "I know." She seemed to have regained a bit of her composure, and that was good. Alice knew what was at stake, and she couldn't afford to let her emotions get the better of her. It had been so long since there was ever so much at stake, and now more than ever, she had to act with her usual calculated strategy. Rumia would not be an opponent that would play fair.
For the first time in more than ten years, Alice had brought her locked grimoire. And she had every intention of using it, if that was what it took. "I'm ready. Let's get this over with."
Yukari did not accompany the remaining seven past Pandaemonium's borders. Rumia's dark influence was thick in the atmosphere, and Yukari suspected that if she were to delve inside, she might not be able to use her powers at all. Not even to aid in distracting Kana. Their only portal back into Gensokyo had left them, and there was no way to go but forward, into the dark embrace of Rumia's stronghold.
Pandaemonium had once been the greatest structure in all of Makai, a crystalline tower of great significance. Now, the crystal that made up its structure was cracked and jagged. While the tower seemed stable, large cracks ran through its walls, and in other places, pieces had been removed entirely, turning the once beautiful building into a hideous, almost living thing.
The lowest floor of the tower consisted entirely of one room. A spacious area with a high ceiling, stretching off in every direction. A sort of gathering space, perhaps larger than it ever really needed to be, that had in the past served as a venue for various events that Shinki had once hosted. Alice could even remember that her mother had once insisted on celebrating Alice's birthday in that very room, an event to which nearly everyone in Makai had attended. The room had once been extravagantly furnished, but most of that had now been destroyed, or tossed so carelessly aside. Most of the remnants of these furnishings had been used to barricade the various staircases that were spread along the outer walls, leading to the upper floors. Only the grand stairway at the far end of the hallway had been left unprotected. Alice suspected that all of this had been done very recently indeed. Yukari had been right. Rumia knew that they were here, and had most likely known since the moment they had formulated the plan.
Right on cue, a high voice echoed through the gathering space, reverberating loudly off the crystal walls. "Welcome, welcome, heroes of Gensokyo~!" Kana's voice filled their ears, issuing forth from the very fortress itself. "We welcome you all to Pandaemonium! Our humble home, and soon, it will also be your tomb!"
There was a loud crash behind the group, and Alice turned to see a thick crystal sheet drop in front of the exit, completely sealing the seven of them inside. Miasma was the first to try and simply break her way through with nothing more than her brute force, but Alice knew that it wouldn't work. The only reason Kana had been able to tear the place about was because she had been manipulating it from the inside.
It was at that moment that Kana materialized on top of the chandelier that dangled from the center of the ceiling, probably the only thing in the room that was actually still intact. "I shall be your host for the evening," she said, gesturing at herself in a rather over-the-top manner, "as my darling Rumia has deemed that none of you are even worth her time anymore. And so, it falls to me to eliminate you.~"
"If you're going to fight, then come down here and fight!" Youmu shouted, brandishing the larger of her two katanas. "Otherwise I shall cut you where you stand, Kana!"
"Oh no!" Kana clutched her hands to her face in an expression of faux horror, which only served to anger Youmu further. "But you're all the way down there, and I'm way up here.~ Why don't you come get me? Unless you're scared of little old me, that is.~" Kana's expression shifted then from her false display of fear to one of childish taunting. And Youmu had taken the bait.
"If that's what you want, then fine!" Youmu shouted, and clutching her sword at her side, began to bolt toward Kana with incredible speed.
"Youmu, wait!" Reimu tried to call out, but Youmu was already mid-sprint, and showed no sign of stopping.
"Don't worry Reimu, I got her covered!" Marisa sped between Alice and Reimu straddled across her broom, doing her best to close the distance between herself and Youmu. Sanae was next to follow Marisa's lead, and the two were quick to begin pelting Kana with their own volleys of danmaku, while Youmu continued her assault.
"Come on, Reimu!" Miasma ran up from the back of the group, patting a hand on Reimu's shoulder as she passed. "We have to go after Rumia, remember?"
"She's right. Let those three handle Kana, the rest of us should move on," Sakuya added briefly, before following after Miasma. Alice and Reimu both exchanged a glance in silence, but the look on Reimu's face said one thing to Alice plainly: to put aside her feelings toward Kana, and what she'd done to her former home. At least for the time being. Alice nodded curtly, and the two were following close behind Sakuya and Miasma.
All the while, in the span of what had only been a few seconds, Youmu continued her charge toward Kana. The crazed poltergeist laughed with delight from her perch, and began erecting crystal pillars from the floor, immense spikes meant to impede Youmu's advance. At her high speed, she would've surely been flattened if she were to collide head on with one of the obstacles, and she forced herself to swerve out of their way. However, her reaction time slowed as she did this, her own speed beginning to work against her.
There came a moment when Kana had brought up a particularly wide portion of the floor, directly in Youmu's path, leaving the half-phantom swordsman with almost no time to respond. For the briefest instant, Alice took notice as Sakuya clasped her hand around Miasma's, just before the two vanished before her eyes. A heavy crash echoed through the room a mere moment later, and Alice's eyes were pulled back to Youmu's path, where she saw Kana's latest impediment had vanished into a cloud of crystal dust and debris. Sakuya stood by as Youmu continued her charge, a fair distance away from where she had been the previous instant, while Miasma stood crouched at the other end of the shattered barrier, having destroyed it with Sakuya's aid just in time.
Kana's mouth hung agape, shocked that her attempts had failed. With the distance between the two finally closed, Youmu jumped into the air at top speed. Alice could feel as time seemed to slow around them, and she found herself watching as Youmu left the ground, seemingly in slow motion. Everything afterward happened almost too quickly for her to see. In a moment, though it hadn't been instantaneous as it had been with Sakuya and Miasma, Youmu propelled forward, cutting down the chandelier that Kana stood upon. The poltergeist had only narrowly avoided being cut down herself, having thrown herself back at the last second, but she couldn't stop herself from falling down toward the floor along with the ruined chandelier.
As Youmu dropped to the floor, her attack complete, Marisa and Sanae both closed in on Kana, Marisa with mini-hakkero in hand, and Sanae with her gohei. Marisa charged her Master Spark, while Sanae sealed Kana's immediate routes of escape, surrounding her with a mixed combination of danmaku and sealing charms. Kana's body seemed to crackle with electricity, and she clutched her arms to her body and curled up in mid-air, taking a defensive position. "Love Sign: Master Spark!" Marisa announced, as her attack finally commenced, summoning an immense stream of energy that was aimed directly at Kana. The blast connected, passing straight on through until it collided with the far wall above the stairway. Under normal circumstances, Alice probably would have chastised Marisa for her blatant lack of restraint, but this was clearly not a situation where holding back would be an option. Her grip tightened on her grimoire even as she thought that.
Sanae's own array of danmaku closed around Kana as Marisa's attack faded, hoping to finish what Marisa's attack had started. As the smoke cleared, and the group specially tasked with targeting Rumia reached the stairway, they all could see that Kana hovered amidst the blast radius, still alive, but not unharmed. Traces of Void energy flickered in the air before vanishing, while the last remnants of Kana's electrical energy crackled around her. Youmu's sword had made a thick slash across Kana's stomach, though it had only sliced through her clothing. Despite the barrier she had tried to erect around herself, however, Kana's body and clothing both showed signs of burning from Marisa's attack.
Kana coughed, comically blowing out a puff of smoke from her mouth (Alice groaned in irritation, seeing that Kana no doubt viewed the whole thing as a joke), before she started fanning herself, as though she were hot. "Now, that's no way to treat a lady. Ganging up on me like that," Kana said, sighing heavily as she started to drift back up toward the ceiling. "But if you want to play rough with me, I'm gonna return the favor.~"
Kana's body then burst into a bright flash of her soul birds, which all flew up through the ceiling of the first floor entryway. "Congratulations on beating level one, warriors of Gensokyo.~" Kana's voice issued forth from the fortress itself, "I shall be awaiting your arrival on level two. It only gets harder from here, everyone.~"
"This is just some kind of game to them!" Sanae shouted to no one in particular, perhaps to Kana, who did not bother with a confirmation one way or another. "She just wants to toy with us, and see how high we can get before she finally picks us off."
Reimu sighed, and the seven members of their group began to gather back together at the foot of the stairs. "Alice," she asked, turning toward the woman in question, "just how many floors are there in Pandaemonium?"
Alice shook her head. "I don't know exactly, but..." She hesitated. The floors hadn't exactly been numbered, but she only knew that the majority of the middle levels of the fortress were actually usually empty. Shinki, Yumeko, and Alice herself had once lived toward the upper levels, along with Shinki's personal maid staff, and other individuals she was particularly close with. Perhaps at one time long in the past, before Alice had been born, the entire fortress had once been used. Alice could say for certain, however, that there were more floors than she dared imagine. "There are more than fifty floors for certain. Perhaps close to a hundred."
There were several audible sounds of shock and exasperation among the group, and a particularly loud groan from Marisa. "Oh, come on! There's no way we're gonna get through all that!" Marisa groaned a second time, and Alice found she had to agree.
"There's no other way. We'll never be able to break through the fortress itself. Especially not with Kana controlling it from the inside." Alice heard no others ideas from the group, nor did she expect any, though she'd sworn Miasma had muttered something under her breath. "If we can find one of the side stairways that wasn't blocked by Kana, we might be able to find a shortcut to the throne room that Kana doesn't know about. She's only lived here for a few short weeks. I spent most of my young life living in this fortress. She'll have slipped up somewhere."
"We'll have to hope you're right, Alice," Sakuya said, taking the first step toward the second floor of the immense fortress, "If we're forced to go through all of Pandaemonium, one floor at a time, there's no way any of us are going to survive."
Alice wished she could have given Sakuya some kind of assurance that she could find them a shortcut, but she was doubtful. She tried not to let it show, but she couldn't help but feel her hopes drop once they'd reached the second floor. Unlike the lower level, the second floor was a long stretch of intersecting hallways, each of which led off in perpendicular directions, all containing the doors to the many rooms that filled the floor. Most were no larger than a hotel bedroom, meaning there were well over a hundred rooms on that floor alone. Though there was a stairway to the third floor on the opposite end of the main hall, all other hallways had been blocked off by piles of crystal debris. Had Kana truly barricaded all other directions in Pandaemonium? Would they really be forced to survive her insane gauntlet, floor by floor?
"Marisa, can I talk to you for a moment?" Alice could hear Miasma say from the back of the group, but she barely noticed. The two had begun to whisper privately behind her, out of earshot from Alice or the others.
"Welcome, everyone, to level two!" Kana's voice reverberated through the hall, though this time, she did not emerge from wherever she was hiding. A loud thud echoed alongside it as the stairway behind them was closed off. "I hope all of you are ready, because there's no going back! Now, let's begin~!"
As Kana's voice cut out, the entire fortress seemed to shake in its foundation. Whatever Kana had begun to do didn't seem readily obvious at first glance, but it took only a few seconds for Alice to notice what was going on. "The walls!" Alice shouted as she tried to warn her companions, "The entire hallway is closing in on us!"
"Guess we aren't gonna have a choice, eh Miasma?" From behind Alice, Marisa spoke out loud this time, and hovered forward on top of her broom.
Miasma hopped onto the front of the broom, ducking down so that she wouldn't be impeding Marisa's vision, and she turned to face Alice as they hovered past. "Sorry about this, Alice!"
Alice barely had time to puzzle over this, before the two were already speeding off. "Better hang on tight, Miasma!" Marisa's voice echoed back as the two sped toward the end of the hallway. Alice shook off the distraction, and began to follow after the two, not concerning herself about whatever it was that the two had planned. She only had to concern herself with avoiding being crushed by Kana.
Alice and the others followed behind Marisa and Miasma, everyone either running or flying as fast as they could manage (Sakuya in the lead, regularly stopping time as she ran, so that she appeared to be teleporting forward every few seconds), as they tried to keep pace with those two at the front, consistently picking up in speed. Alice only briefly registered Marisa and Miasma both ducking down low as they approached the end of the hallway, with no sign of slowing. Even after they had reached the safe zone beyond the ever approaching walls.
The entire fortress shook as the two collided with the far wall, crashing through what Alice had once assumed to be indestructible defenses as though it was no more than a brick wall. Crystal fragments exploded outward, and the entire outer wall seemed to be collapsing. Sakuya was the first to leap through the opening, followed by Reimu and then Alice herself. Youmu, though she had reached the end of the hallway before Reimu and Alice, stayed at the foot of the stairwell, waiting for Sanae to catch up.
Outside, back in the open air of Makai, Alice watched in dread as the front wall of Pandaemonium shook and collapsed, creating a veritable avalanche of crystal boulders that tumbled to the ground below. The opening that Miasma had created was almost completely covered, and though it was still just large enough for a person to fit through, she could see that Youmu and Sanae both stood beyond it, not daring to go through and risk being caught in the avalanche of debris.
"Hey, that's not fair at all! You bunch of cheaters!" Kana then flew out from Pandaemonium's walls, just as the rumblings began to calm, and started shouting at those that had escaped. "You all still had a ton of levels to go through, I had the whole thing planned out from beginning to end!"
"There's still two of us left in here, Kana!" Sanae called from within the lower levels of the fortress, drawing Kana's attention back. "Forget the rest of them, and come back down here and fight us!"
"We'll deal with Kana ourselves!" Youmu added, though Alice couldn't see her beyond the rubble. "The rest of you go find Rumia!"
"Oh, none of you are any fun anyway. Just breaking out of our little game like that," Kana said with a sigh, as she started to drift backward toward Pandaemonium. "I don't even want to play with a group of cheaters like you."
"Let's just go, before she changes her mind," Reimu said, before flying up toward Pandaemonium's peak. Miasma and Marisa, both still on the latter's broom, followed behind, while Alice and Sakuya brought up the rear.
The heavy crystal doors had been raised in front of the throne room's entrance on the top floor, one of the only entrances that hadn't been barricaded by a cluster of debris, and instead was blocked off by Pandaemonium's built-in defenses.
Alice looked down at these doors, easily the most heavily reinforced part of the entire structure, and then back at Miasma. Upon seeing what Miasma had done to the lower levels of the fortress (Alice felt a sudden twinge of hatred toward Yuuka), she felt certain that Miasma might even be able to breach the throne room. Yet she couldn't bear to watch her mother's home be damaged before her eyes any further. Alice nodded her head, and averted her eyes away from both Pandaemonium and her companions.
"Well, Miasma," Marisa said, upon receiving the confirmation from Alice, "think you've got it in ya to break down one more wall?"
- o - o - o - o - o - o - o - o - o - o -
The reinforced doors, which had once been the throne room's last line of defense, had been broken inward by Miasma one day prior. While the doors themselves remained on their hinges, they would never perform their task again. Nor did Alice believe they had really done much good, all things considered. Rumia had snuck past them, when she had trapped Shinki, and then Miasma had burst through them when they were instead used for Rumia's own protection.
The jagged and ugly throne that Rumia had sat upon that day still stood at the back end of the room, a hideous thing of Rumia and Kana's destruction, created by lumping together various chunks of crystal, salvaged from elsewhere in the fortress. Only now did Alice actually understand its true purpose. "Your mother and her maid are hidden beneath it," Rumia had said, and Alice hadn't been surprised, though she hadn't actually thought of looking inside of it during their confrontation with Rumia yesterday.
Alice turned to face Rumia for the first time since their arrival in Makai, and she noticed how odd the darkness youkai seemed now. A sort of somber mood seemed to have overtaken her, something Alice had never seen before in any of their previous encounters. She had noticed Rumia's penchant for rapid mood swings, but never anything like this.
Kana frowned, and drifted between Rumia and Alice, nudging at the former's cheek. "Hey, you okay Rumia? You got real quiet all of a sudden," Kana said, having taken notice of the same thing that Alice had.
Rumia merely grunted, and raised her hand, as if to swat Kana away. The poltergeist drifted back from the lazily thrown hit, and crossed her arms in concern. "Just free them, and get this shit over with."
Kana said nothing, but complied with Rumia's request. Her soul birds flooded the crystal throne, and the jagged protrusion began to sink down into the floor at her command. Trapped within the base of the throne, hidden behind some kind of semi-transparent black barrier, no doubt powered by a combination of Kana's Void magic and Rumia's dark powers, were Shinki and Yumeko. With a snap of Kana's fingers, its source of power was extinguished, and the barrier fell.
The goddess's eyes locked with those of her daughter's the moment the barrier had fallen away, and a relieved smile flooded Shinki's features at the sight.
"Mother...!" Alice ran to meet Shinki, and the two embraced, happily reunited once more. After everything she'd gone through to reach that point, Shinki and all of Makai were safe. She felt as though she could almost cry. She would have, if she weren't so skilled at keeping her composure.
"Oh Alice, you've no idea how much I've missed you!" Shinki held her arms in a tight embrace around her adopted daughter. The two stood together in silence for a time. Kana even placed a hand to her cheek and smiled at the reunion, finding it about as heartwarming as a box of puppies. Even though she had been the one to trap Shinki in the first place. Given the chance, Kana might have very well thrown that box of puppies into a river anyway.
"I really hate to interrupt your reunion, Lady Shinki, Alice," Yumeko said, breaking the silence, "as good as it is to see you again, in particular. But why are they still here?" Yumeko gestured toward Rumia and Kana. The latter of the two stuck her tongue right back out at Yumeko in response, while Rumia remained as silent as before, only glaring with that bizarre expression of mixed remorse and anger.
Shinki opened her eyes and turned her gaze up to meet Rumia's, and she finally released Alice from her embrace. "Rumia..." Shinki stepped forward, and Rumia flinched. "Please, Rumia... can you at least tell me why you did... all of this...?" Shinki gestured around the throne room, which was in complete shambles after the final battle that had taken place within, broadly indicating everything Rumia had done since sealing Shinki away. Rumia remained silent, but her body began to tremble. "I know there was something between us, Rumia... but something changed inside of you. Something that wasn't there before."
Rumia clenched her fists, and her body seemed to twitch. She bit down on her lower lip, hard enough that her razor-like teeth drew blood. "Just... get out of my fucking head!" Rumia's left hand unclenched, but her fingers locked up, and she scraped them down the side of her face like a claw.
"Rumia...? Are... are you okay...?" Shinki adopted a concerned expression, and held a finger up to her lip as she watched Rumia claw at her face a second time. Kana reached out to touch Rumia's shoulder, but she flung her arm out, shoving Kana away, much to her surprise. Violent as she was, Rumia had never actually acted out toward Kana before in such a manner.
When Rumia looked up, her expression was not unlike the one Alice had seen right before she had saved Miasma from having her face burned off by Rumia. Blood ran down her cheeks from her own self-inflicted scratches, and there was blind fury in her eyes. Pure hatred emanated from her, with no clear target. Even Kana clutched a hand to her mouth in fear at the sight. Her clenched fist began to pound at the side of her head, and it almost seemed as if Rumia were trying to beat herself into unconsciousness.
Finally, without any prior indication, all of Rumia's anger fell away, as though it had never been there at all. Her arms dropped to her sides, now limp. Her eyes showed only confusion, with a slowly dawning sense of horror. It was almost like looking at a completely different person.
While Alice and Yumeko both seemed to be more confused by what had just happened, both Shinki and Kana seemed to share a similar expression of realization – Shinki's more of a sudden happiness, whereas Kana seemed to have been overtaken by a spontaneous sadness.
"S... Shinki..." Rumia stammered out, in a voice that Alice barely recognized as her own. She sounded on the verge of tears of all things. There was an undeniable innocence to her tone that was entirely unlike the Rumia that Alice had come to know. And yet, there was also something familiar to it. "I... I'm... I'm so sorry, Shinki...!"
Rumia abruptly ran forward, and clutched her arms around Shinki's waist, and began to sob uncontrollably against the demon goddess. "Oh, Rumia... my Rumia... I knew you were still in there somewhere," Shinki said, and she smiled fondly down at the crying youkai that had caused so much trouble.
"I saw... I saw everything that she did. That I did! Those things she said... what she did to some of them... those people she killed..." Rumia continued to blurt out her statements between sobs, barely intelligible with her face almost completely pressed to Shinki's chest. "It was like there were two people inside of me... and the other one took over our body. And she made me watch all of it... and I couldn't do anything to stop what she did! What she made me do!"
"Shh... it's okay now, Rumia..." Shinki gently ran a hand through Rumia's hair, comforting the woman she still seemed to love. "You're back now. That's all that matters to me."
"Lady Shinki, you can't seriously believe this!" Yumeko declared, pointing her hand accusingly at Rumia. "That woman and that poltergeist friend of hers nearly destroyed your entire world! I'm amazed she didn't simply kill us both when she had the chance!"
"Mother..." Alice took a step forward, and clenched her hands together in front of her. "You haven't seen all the things that Rumia has done since you were sealed away. She's killed countless humans from the village, and numerous others. She tried to kill me, and some of my friends." Alice wanted to hate Rumia for everything she had done, and seeing the way that Shinki now comforted her, and seeing the love in Shinki's eyes... it was something she had a very hard time accepting. And yet, thinking back on it, Alice realized what had sounded so familiar about Rumia now. It was as though the original Rumia was speaking through a now adult body, the childish Rumia that Alice had met only a few times in the past.
"Stop, both of you. Please." Shinki held a hand close to Rumia's head, as though she were trying to shield her from the disbelief shared by Alice and Yumeko. Rumia raised her head, first looking at Shinki, and then back at Alice. She felt her heart sink, meeting Rumia's gaze. This was not the same Rumia that had murdered Miko and Medicine, and who had threatened to destroy Gensokyo itself. Yet, Alice knew that the Rumia she still despised lay somewhere dormant inside of that woman, who was being held in a loving embrace by her mother. "I believe what Rumia is telling me, and that's final. I know that the Rumia I love would never have done all those things."
"Unfortunately, that's not my Rumia over there anymore," Kana said with a heavy sigh. "I know when I'm not wanted. I'll just leave you two alone."
"Just one thing, before you leave, Kana," Shinki said, drawing Kana's attention just as she had started to drift off toward the exit. "If you would kindly return control of Makai to me, I would be willing to forget that this whole thing ever happened."
"Yes, yes.~" Kana replied, though she didn't seem anywhere near as enthused as her tone suggested. She snapped her fingers, causing several of her soul birds to emerge from within Pandaemonium and return to Kana. Still others appeared from other areas outside of the fortress, mostly from the Dark City. Alice briefly felt the tower shake from somewhere on the lower levels, as some part of the foundation must have collapsed without Kana's influence to keep it intact.
Shinki smiled kindly back at Kana, but not without a sense of impatience. "The rest of it too, if you please."
"Oh, you're no fun.~ Can't even let me keep half of the city for myself, can ya?" Once again, another smaller swarm of Kana's soul birds flew through the walls at her command, rejoining the poltergeist. Shinki once again smiled thinly at Kana, but she said nothing. Somehow Alice knew that Kana hadn't completely relinquished her control of Makai, but it seemed Shinki was at least satisfied with what she'd reclaimed.
"Well, Rumia," Kana said again, and this time Alice could hear the twinge of sadness that lined her words. The now-innocent half of Rumia turned to meet the poltergeist's gaze. "You'll know where you find me, if you ever come back."
Rumia nodded, and for a split second, Alice swore she could see a glimpse of the other Rumia somewhere in her eyes. It was gone just as quickly as it had appeared, leaving Alice to wonder if she had ever seen it at all.
"Mother... what are you going to do if that other Rumia does come back?" Alice asked, hesitant to even admit out loud that she believed Rumia's claims.
"I still don't believe that Rumia is telling the truth to begin with. Even if her poltergeist is backing up her claims," Yumeko said rather stiffly, even more unwilling to accept the matter than Alice herself. "If she truly does have two versions of herself sharing the same body, how would something like that even happen?"
"I think, maybe... it must have happened when Yukari sealed my powers," Rumia suggested. She pointed a hand at where her ribbon, the seal that Yukari had used, had once been in her hair. "I mean... I don't remember anything like that. Until you removed it, Shinki... that ribbon had been in my hair for as long as I can even remember. But the other me does remember things from before that. I could feel her remembering them."
"The Rumia I knew, the one I knew when she still had her powers sealed, struck me as being rather simple-minded," Alice said, remembering back to her first encounters with the child-like darkness youkai. "Maybe Yukari put some kind of intelligence-dampening spell on that ribbon. So that Rumia wouldn't be able to remember what happened."
"Perhaps that split her mind in two." Shinki stared upwards in thought, still absent-mindedly stroking Rumia's head. "So we have the original Rumia, the violent one from before Yukari sealed her away. And now the good Rumia, the one in front of us now."
Alice had to admit, that it at least seemed possible, though perhaps unlikely. Yukari had not gone into great detail on how she had performed the sealing of Rumia's powers. If Alice truly believed that Rumia did develop some sort of multiple personality disorder, she could only say that one thing was certain.
The other Rumia would undoubtedly surface again. And they would have no way to predict her return, nor any way to stop it.
