Author's Notes: I actually had the idea to write this at the same time as I had to actually write Adaptation, but was unsure of whether to go for the third-person or to tell it from Marisa's perspective. I'm more or less satisfied with this, and of course this is only the first chapter; there's much more to tell here, since it's supposed to be talking of the same events as happened in Adaptation, but from a different perspective than what you'll have originally read in the other story. Please don't hesitate to let me know what you relly think about this, and especially let me know if you think I got anything wrong. I feel that maybe I shouldn't have gone into that much description of the danmaku patterns towards the end, but I suddenly got it in my head that I wanted them to be as descriptively close to what you would actually experience in the game.

Funny how I can write a full 6,000+ word chapter about something that only took a few paragraphs in the other story...

Disclaimer: Touhou Project is owned by Team Shanghai Alice, whose sole member is ZUN. I own nothing of this except the words of the story.


It had been a day like any other of recent memory. Gensokyo had been peaceful for a couple of months, with no youkai attacks more dangerous than a fairy ambush along the road. Reimu spent her days in that infant summer sweeping the Hakurei shrine and drinking tea. Marisa, on the other hand, was hard at work.

At least this is what she would tell you she was doing if you found her. She always tries to come up with new forms of magic, but how she tries is what can be confusing. She loves books and tries to get her hands on as many books about different kinds of magic as she can, but a full understanding she has not. Many times it was described that she needed some kind of fuel or catalyst for the spells and potions she wanted to try, but not knowing how to get her hands on the things described she is forced to improvise with the most abundant resource of the forest: mushrooms.

Yes, the Forest of Magic (for that is what the humans of the Human Village have named it) is full of all kinds of different mushrooms. Being a thick forest, there are many places that are isolated, making the environment perfect for their growth: cool, dark, and damp. Many of these mushrooms are poisonous, though, and as such it is never recommended that you eat a mushroom you just found, unless you know precisely what you are doing.

Fortunately Marisa doesn't pick them to eat them. Being a magical forest, the flora and fauna have absorbed much ambient magic so as to make even the lowest of plant life have some alchemical value; at the very least the magic can be siphoned or squeezed out of it in one way or another. It is for that reason that Marisa even lives in the forest: easier access to the fuel for her magicks.

But how does she do it? The precise method is unknown, but she has been heard mentioning that she boils them to some consistency. Beyond that nobody knows how she's using them. As for why it was necessary to describe all of this? Why, for her motivation, of course!

As mentioned before, Gensokyo had been peaceful for while, but on this day, that changed. All over, an infestation of youkai and fairies suddenly appeared, causing a certain Shrine Maiden to venture out, riding on the back of a flying turtle. She followed the stream of invaders to a cave on the far side of the Forest of Magic, which invariably meant a meeting with a certain meddlesome witch.

Now it should be said that Reimu and Marisa are no longer enemies, and in fact you could almost call them friends, should the definition of friend stretch to mean that occasionally Marisa goes to the shrine to get free food and tea and bug Reimu about nothing in particular. Still, Marisa is the only company that the Shrine Maiden ever seems to get, as humans rarely venture out of the village due to the wild youkai. In fact, it is exactly because she doesn't get visitors that she refuses to go to the Human Village, either.

Now Marisa had noticed that something was off, as she had to go put down a number of fairies that had torn through her part of the forest and were interrupting her studying, so when she noticed that Reimu was passing over and engaging a somewhat minor looking youkai that didn't take very long to beat she decided to find out what was up.

She was about to mount her broom and take flight when she suddenly realized she forgot something in the house. Rushing in, she found it stashed in with where she stores her futon during the day: a rather small looking octagonal block of wood with markings at each side on one surface. She took off her hat and stuffed it into a pocket that she made specifically for this object.

By now you may be curious what this object is; we'll just leave that for later, though.

Leaving the house and taking off after Reimu, she accelerated until she was just behind her, shouting, "Hey, Reimu! Wait up!"

Reimu rolled her eyes, and the turtle, named Genji, cringed. He didn't necessarily mind the witch, since at least she was willing to try to be Reimu's friend, and he so wished she would find some friends that would care about her, but her appearance usually meant trouble. Reimu guided her ride to turn around and said, "What now, Marisa? I'm kinda busy trying to figure out where these fairies are coming from."

"I'll come with you!"

Now Marisa was an incredibly cheerful person in general. It wasn't that she couldn't hold grudges against people, but you would have to have really done something to piss her off in the long term, such as severely hurt someone she cared for, or ruin one of her magical experiments that was unfinished. Now currently that meant the youkai and fairies that had suddenly appeared.

Reimu looked unimpressed with this, but wasn't about to turn down help. "Alright if you can keep up, feel free to join in." She turned Genji back in the direction she was originally going and started flying off.

Marisa willed her broom forward and caught up to her companions. "So, where are we going, anyways?"

Reimu gave her a sideways look. "Makai, according to that last youkai I just took down."

Marisa's face lit up. "Makai! I've been there before!" Not adding what she immediately thought with it, 'There's mushrooms and magic I can steal from there!'

"Oh, so you know the way?"

The whole face lit up thing went away at that. "I, uh… that is, um…"

The Shrine Maiden failed to hold back a giggle. "So we're just going to trace these fairies back to where they're coming from, and take them down while we're at it."

Marisa nodded and sped up, casting magical stars and missiles all around while Reimu threw amulets and needles at the ones that got past the witch. Marisa was at a slight disadvantage when facing numerous opponents in an open field, as her attacks seemed to concentrate more. Reimu, on the other hand, tended to attack in a wider pattern, and even had homing amulets which helped clear out enemies that weren't always in her direct line of sight.

It was still mid-morning by the time they reached the cave. It wasn't the way that Reimu got into Makai the first time she went, but then nobody knew of that particular incident, save for Mima, of course. The Hakurei Shrine had been destroyed, and Reimu took it upon herself to find who had done it. She descended first into Makai to find the culprit, but when that failed, she changed course and headed into Jigoku, which is where she met Mima for the first time. While Mima claimed to have no idea who had done the deed, Reimu still punished her for it. Actually, she punished every being that she came across for doing it, even though very likely none of them actually wronged her.

This stoked Mima's ire, and she escaped Jigoku into Gensokyo, took an aspiring young witch as an apprentice, and proceeded to destroy Reimu's shrine. She claims justice; she also claims Gensokyo is hers to rule, but nobody takes her seriously about that anymore. Having been punished once again, Mima swore not to cause trouble again, and has been true to her word. Now she's simply taken up residence in the shrine, occasionally bugging Reimu and entertaining Marisa when she visits.

Of course, knowing all of that didn't prepare either of the two traveling companions for seeing Mima and their previous nemesis Yuuka waiting for them at the gate.

"Lady Mima!" Marisa exclaimed.

Now of course it was Marisa that studied under Mima. She was only formal when speaking Mima's name to her face, mostly out of respect, though you can tell how far that respect can be thrown by the fact that she is just "Mima" when she's not around.

"Ah, my dear student; it's about time you showed up." Mima said calmly. She turned to look at Reimu. "And you brought my Shrine Maiden, how delicious."

Reimu made a face. "I'm not your Shrine Maiden. Now I know what you're probably doing here, but," she turned to face Yuuka, "what are you doing here?"

Yuuka grinned and twirled her umbrella. "Oh, you know~."

Marisa almost giggled when she saw Reimu's eye twitch a little at that.

Mima faced the other three and said, "Well, now that we're all here, who wants to do the honors of knocking on the door?"

Yuuka turned to look at the young youkai exterminators and said, "Why not let them do it? After all, they are very good at gate crashing." A look that could only be described as dangerous flashed over her face.

"Ooh, there's something I've been wanting to try!" Marisa said while urging her broom towards the gateway. She took off her hat and reached into the pocket, revealing the little wooden object. Replacing her hat, she held her hands in front of her, side with the markings pointed towards the boundary between Gensokyo and Makai and focused a portion of her energy into it. It started to glow shortly before a narrow but moderately powerful laser blasted forth.

A moment later, a hole about 5 feet in diameter was left, allowing passage into Makai.

Everyone stood in awe, though Yuuka was a little peeved at the display; it felt like one of her own moves, something she likes to call Master Spark. Mima shook her head and held out her hand, saying, "What is that device? Give it here, dear girl."

Marisa hugged it against herself. "No way, ze; Kourin gave this to me, and I ain't lettin' anyone have my Mini-Hakkero."

Both Mima and Yuuka's eyes widened at that statement. Mini-Hakkero! That was supposed to be an ancient artifact of great power, able to amplify the magic of whatever individual used it. No wonder she didn't want anybody else to have it.

Marisa stuffed it back into her hat and said, "Well? Are we going, or aren't we?"

Reimu, who had been completely unimpressed with the declaration of what that object was (mostly because she had no idea what it was) flew into the gap in the barrier and said, "Come on; it's time to teach these guys that you can't invade Gensokyo."

Marisa shrugged at the other two companions and followed after the Shrine Maiden. Yuuka started to follow as well, but Mima stopped her. "Why are you here, anyways?"

Yuuka shouldered her umbrella, winked, and said, "Oh, you know~." She then proceeded to fly through the hole.

'We'll have to watch out for her." Mima thought to herself. She summoned her staff and followed behind the rest.


Reimu had a bit of a lead on the others as they entered Makai. This actually worried Genji, because as much as he didn't like the idea of working with Mima and Yuuka, he did know that going alone into Makai was not exactly a smart thing.

"Reimu, you do realize that this is Makai, the Demon World? Was it wise to leave the others behind?"

Reimu was more or less indifferent to this, though. "It's not my fault if they can't keep up; I just want to get this over with as soon as possible and get those foreign youkai out of Gensokyo."

They continued on until they could see something that very remotely looked like a city in the distance. Before either of them could comment on it, a somewhat young sounding voice shouted out, "Stop right there!"

So they did. Flying towards them at a moderately fast speed was a girl who looked to be about ten years old. Reimu remarked to herself that she looked human enough, which was odd since this was Makai and it was taking a portion of her spiritual powers and protections just to survive the atmosphere.

The girl had two objects that looked like fairies flanking her, but they didn't appear to move like fairies. Closer inspection would have revealed that they were dolls, but Reimu had no clue of this. The girl pointed and in a belligerent tone said, "You! You're the one that broke the gate, aren't you!"

Reimu pointed to herself with a questioning expression and said, "Me? No way, you've got the wrong person." Marisa just happened to show up and stopped next to Reimu. Seeing her opening to avoid a little trouble, Reimu pointed to her right and said, "She's the one who did it; blame her."

Marisa was stunned for a moment; it wasn't that Reimu never shifted blame about something to anyone else all the time. No, this was quite typical, it's just that Marisa usually knew what she was being blamed for beforehand.

She held her hands up and said, "No way, you've got the wrong person."

This was apparently not the right thing to say, because anger and annoyance flashed across the girl's face. "Go away! You're not wanted in Makai!" She started firing danmaku patterns, both using her own magic and firing through the dolls on either side of her. The pattern was simplistic, but there was some volume to it. Still, Reimu and Marisa were professionals and knew how to avoid this without too much trouble. They dodged and grazed for a short time, firing back in an attempt to break her spell. The girl appeared to have trouble dodging properly, though, and only very barely was able to avoid being hit multiple times.

Yuuka and Mima showed up not long after this started. The fighting paused and the girl shouted, "Not more of them… What is this, an invasion? Get out of my home!"

Mima smiled and said, "My, you girls sure know how to start trouble. Please save some for me."

A laser suddenly grazed past the opposing girl. Everyone turned to look at Yuuka, who just looked amused at the situation. "I've done my part; it's up to you to finish this."

Marisa looked at the sunflower youkai and thought, 'Geez, she's kinda lazy, though. This must've interrupted one of her naps, or something…'

The girl, now fuming, said, "Stop ignoring me! Go away!" Mima chuckled inwardly at the girl's contradiction.

Another burst of danmaku from the girl, only this time the fairy-like dolls had a different objective; they formed a barrier between them to protect their companion from frontal attacks. One would think this would leave her open from the other side, but she compensated for this by using an actual bullet curtain to keep everyone on one side of the barrier. Try as they might, none of the three that were participating were able to penetrate the barrier, though they certainly dented it quite a bit.

"Ugh, this is annoying…" Reimu said. She glanced at the other two and saw them seeming to try to coordinate attacks while streaming several layers of bullets. An idea popped into her head after that and she navigated closer to the curtain that was keeping them from getting to the girl's backside. "Barriers are supposed to be my thing… Let's see how you like some Homing Amulets!" And so she tossed them in such a way that they flew first behind the curtain, and then homed in from the other side, finally breaking that particular spell.

The girl looked about ready to cry, but she continued forward into another spell pattern, but without the shield she was soon dispatched. Reimu flew past, feeling satisfied that that was another one down and out. Mima smirked to the girl and followed behind. Yuuka yawned for a moment and smiled gently at the now sobbing puppet-girl, though a gentle smile from her actually made you want to squirm because it actually looked like she was about to gut you. Her cries intensified at that, and Yuuka flew onward, satisfied.

The girl looked up at the remaining invader and saw her grin and shrug before flying off on her broom. Unable to comprehend this, the girl dried her tears as best she could and flew off in a different direction which led to a faster route back to the castle.


The four heroines (for that is what they more or less regarded themselves as) were finally together as a group as they flew over the ice fields on their way to the castle in the distance. Yuuka detected the harmful atmosphere of Makai and had to wonder at something. "Little witch? How are you surviving this miasma? This should be quite poisonous to you." She didn't ask Reimu, figuring it had something to do with her talismans and whatnot.

Marisa looked mildly confused for a moment before saying, "Oh, I've been here before." The sunflower youkai blinked in response to this and decided not to further question her on the matter.

"Hey, there you are."

The group stopped and two girls that looked to be about the same age as Reimu and Marisa (maybe 14 or 15) appeared in front of them. They were somewhat similarly dressed to one another, vaguely looking like witches, only one was in black and the other in white. The white witch appeared stoic, but not uninterested, whereas the black witch simply looked excitable. It was the black one that spoke.

"You're the ones that caused all that destruction and hurt our little sis; stop being so violent."

"…" The white witch nodded in agreement.

"But violence is so much fun~!" Yuuka replied. She turned to Marisa and said, "Little witch girl, care to try that laser of yours again?" She pointed her umbrella towards the black witch.

Marisa nodded eagerly and quickly procured the Hakkero device from her hat, pointing it forward and concentrating. Yuuka timed the girl and charged her own Master Spark accordingly, and they both released at the same time, sending the girl in black sprawling backwards.

When it was over, the girl looked a little worse for wear, but not completely out. She said, "Hey, that's not fair! I wasn't ready!"

Marisa ignored this and said, "Hey, I want a black and white witch costume; think I could take your costumes after we beat you?"

The black clad girl puffed out her cheeks. "Don't ignore meee!"

The two girls in opposition began their attacks; the one in black used a more random pattern of fire bullets which were a bit more difficult to dodge, while the one in white used more focused and homing ice bullets. The four had split into pairs to take on each of their enemies; Reimu got herself teamed up with Mima against the white witch while Marisa and Yuuka continued to attack the black witch.

As Mima is quite simply the fastest of the lot, she had an easy time dodging around the ice bullets in order to get clear shots in, while Reimu relied on her Homing Amulets to actually hit the target. On the other side of the field, while Marisa still shot out her stars and magic missiles on occasion, she's come to love her laser attack. Yuuka did not fire another Master Spark, though, but seemed to be withholding some of her danmaku in order to perform a more complicated maneuver.

A bullet was headed straight for Yuuka when suddenly she split in two, revealing two exact copies of herself down to the detail. Each Yuuka pointed her umbrella to the annoying black witch and fired separate smaller lasers, dubbed Double Spark. Marisa threw in a third one that crossed at an angle from the other two, effectively boxing the enemy in. The converged the beams and she once again found herself on the receiving end of something very unfortunate.

"…!" The white witch watched in horror as her companion was blown away; she stopped her attack for a split second, which was enough of an opening to be blasted away herself. She landed not too far from the other one, and once she was confirmed to still be breathing, the white witch passed out as well.

"That was exciting!" Yuuka exclaimed. "Let's do it again~!"


The destruction was incredible; there were huge laser gashes through half of the city, and though Marisa at least had the decency to look slightly guilty, Yuuka simply looked delighted. Reimu was about to say something when Genji came to a screeching halt; standing there in front of the four was a tall woman in a red robe with white hair.

"I see you've finally decided to show yourseves."

Mima floated forward and asked, "Who are you?"

The woman smirked. "I'm-"

"Lady Shinki! Please leave this to me; there is no reason to involve your hand in their disposal!"

Another woman, looking decidedly younger than the one she had called Shinki, appeared by her side. She was wearing a red maid's uniform with a white apron and had blond hair.

The first one, Shinki, turned to her and said "Yumeko?"

"Please return to the castle and I shall handle these four."

Shinki gazed over the four that had approached her and said, "Alright; don't forget to clean up after yourself." She turned and flew off towards the castle.

Reimu was getting slightly annoyed at all the runaround, considering the one they were after was likely the one that just escaped. "So, you think you'll be able to take on all four of us at once?" Genji cringed when she said this; it wasn't that he wasn't confident that they could take down the maid in front of them, but issuing a challenge like that was rarely a good idea.

Yumeko closed her eyes and grinned; in the next instant their vision was filled with swords that seemed to have magically appeared in the space between them and the maid. They burst into action trying to avoid as many of the sharp objects as possible while keeping their eyes on the one in front of them.

Even as the previous sword-bullets dissipated, more took their place and it was getting harder and harder to navigate; the four continued trying to fire their own counter-shots towards her, but the bullets seemed to pass right through her at times. Finally, a lucky shot from one of Marisa's Magic Missiles ended the maid's spell, giving them all a breather from dodging and grazing.

Amazingly, they noticed that the maid, too, was breathing heavily, as if she had been moving just as rapidly in trying to avoid attacks as they had been. She looked to be preparing a new spell when a very wide and multicolored blast enveloped her; when it was over, there was no one there.

Everyone turned towards Yuuka, whose umbrella had a plume of smoke coming from it. She gave them all an innocent look and said, "What?"

Reimu grit her teeth and said, "That's it, no more lasers for you." Marisa chuckled at this and Reimu turned to her, "That goes for you, too!"

Mima shook her head and silently flew towards the castle, determining that the others were being a little too childish for her right now.


The others managed to catch up just in time to hear the beginning of the conversation at the castle; Shinki had said, "So, Yumeko has been killed."

"Unfortunately, no." Yuuka called out. "She was simply blasted clear so that we could get to you faster; she'll probably wake up with a monster headache, though."

Everyone stared as Yuuka in disbelief.

Shinki cleared her throat. "A-anyways, Yumeko was the strongest of my creations, so you must be quite powerful to get by her."

"Creations?" Mima said. "What are you a god or something?"

Shinki smiled and bowed. "Ah yes, now that you mention it, I am Shinki, god of all you see here in Makai."

Mima bowed as well and said, "I am Mima, god of the human world." She swiftly dodged a red amulet that came at her from the direction of a certain Shrine Maiden.

"Shut up, you are not." Reimu said. "Hey you, call back all of those youkai invading Gensokyo."

A look of confusion crossed Shinki's face. "Gensokyo? Oh, that's a civilian travel agency's doing; I'm afraid I can't help you."

Now it was Marisa's turn to look confused. "But didn't you say you were the god of Makai? Can't you make them stop?"

Shinki frowned. "I'm afraid I'm busy right now."

Reimu fumed at this declaration. "Busy? What could you possibly be busy doing?"

"Why, killing you four of course!"

Her attack was sudden and it was all the four heroines could do to get out of the way. She started with an alternating pattern of a circle of mid-size bullets all being shot at the same time at varying velocities with small gaps in the circles, and a somewhat random pattern where many bullets were shot out all at once around her. Marisa and Mima found themselves having to try to stay in front of her to get a hit in, while Yuuka could stay a little off center and Reimu chose to navigate a little further away and rely on homing amulets. This god was tough, though, and it was through the combined effort of all four of them that they were able to break this phase of the spell.

Shinki remained unperturbed, however, and started a new pair of patterns; this time it was a combination of randomly thrown knives and needles followed by rapid fire bullets that were aimed directly at where one of her opponents were at at the time she fired. This was slightly easier to get around, though, because it was easier to stream and stay in front of her. With a more concentrated attack this time, it took less time to break than the last spell.

You could tell she was getting a little angry this time, as three pairs of white wings appeared behind her all at once, triggering a barrage of danmaku in random directions. Each wing took turns firing a an arc of mid-sized bullets targeting one of the four, while larger bullets were being fired around at random. Several times the girls only narrowly avoided getting hit because they were concentrating on one only one thing. At first they thought it was a godsend to have managed to break this one.

Only not, as the four of them were herded into a small arc of space directly in front of the irate god by a curtain of bullets to either side being fired from the wings. Alternating from either side was a length of what could have been called a laser had it not slinked and slid through the air like a worm. Even worse for them was that it picked a target and directly homed in on her, and then charging straight through once close enough. Like last time there were many close calls from lack of paying attention, usually on Marisa's part.

Shinki's anger charged up to another level as the wings turned purple, triggering another barrage just like when the wings appeared. From the tips of the central wings did appear energy vortexes, emitting danmaku that resembled spear points in wide opposing circles while Shinki shot large-type bullets that were aimed directly at one target. Fortunately there were sizable gaps between the circles of bullets that allowed more room to navigate that it would have looked at first glance. Being younger and only human, Reimu and Marisa started to hang back a little at this point to catch their breath and conserve some power while Mima and Yuuka handled this phase.

It was a good thing they did take some time to recover, because after breaking that last spell came something that was horrifyingly worse; Using similar danmaku to last time, now instead of having a somewhat spaced out arc in front like with the homing lasers part, they only had a very small and crowded space directly in front of Shinki, with no room to get out of the way. The aimed shots were back, but were being fired at different angles rather than from Shinki herself. The four threw as much power as they could at the demonic god, and even thought they had broken her spell at some point, though instead of cancelling and going to a different pattern, she just kept adding more and more to the current pattern.

Four continuous lasers began firing from the wings and would cross back and forth in the areas to either side of where the four heroines were trying to wait out the attack. Again, they tried to break it and thought they had succeeded, but the volume of aimed shots simply increased, forcing more rapid movements, which Reimu rising on Genji wasn't as readily capable of doing. They persevered, though, and managed to completely break this phase.

Shinki's wings disappeared, and she actually looked exhausted at this point. She didn't back down and instead started firing twin waves of large bullets in circles around her while blossoms of the arrow-like bullets radiated out of her in their own waves, from time to time switching form to basic small-size bullets which fired in a different direction of arc than the other type. The pattern was lazy, though, and this time they had no trouble blasting through it, causing a huge magic explosion which left Shinki looking ready to pass out.

Reimu guided Genji up to the fallen god and said, "Now, call off the youkai that are in Gensokyo."

Shinki looked up at the ones who defeated her and sighed. "All right, consider it done; now please, leave Makai and don't come back."

Now satisfied (having handed out the punishment as she usually did), Reimu turned her ride around and started back off towards the border. The others started following at once, but Marisa took note of what looked like the girl they had defeated shortly after entering Makai smoldering in the corner, looking somewhere between being about to have a fit of rage and about to start crying. The girl disappeared into the castle, so Marisa mentally shrugged and turned her broom to follow the others.


The trip back through Makai could have been called uneventful, though Yuuka and Marisa continued to marvel at the destruction they had caused along the way. The border loomed, the hole they had made was still there, evidence enough that there hadn't been enough time to actually fix it, yet. Yes, it looked like a clean enough getaway… except for that figure that could be seen in front of the hole as they approached closer.

Marisa squinted. "Hey, isn't that-" She was cut off by the girl opening her book (which was a little too large for her to genuinely use on her own) and appearing to cast a spell right away. The entire world felt like it had shifted, and the next thing they all knew, they were no longer in Makai. "-that first girl we beat here?" Marisa finished rather lamely.

Yuuka slowly spun in place, observing were they suddenly found themselves. She shouldered her umbrella and said, "My, isn't this quite the illusory world… And to think that little girl was capable of this…"

Reimu eyed Yuuka critically. "You mean to tell me that this is all just an illusion?" She tossed a few talismans about and shouted, "Reveal the Truth!" Sadly, nothing happened.

Yuuka chuckled. "Oh, everything here is quite real, it's just all make believe. I guess we'll have to find the girl in order to get out of here."

Marisa whined, "That might take forever! She could be anywhere in here!"

Mima started flying in a particular direction. "She's this way."

No one had the chance to argue, since the moment Mima started flying that way, various things started to appear and attack her. Considering the fact that their captor was a child, none of them figured her for misdirection and so followed after Mima.

There was quite a lot of opposition along the way, including a giant playing card that took a little while to actually take down. This would have been much easier had they not just tired themselves out against Shinki not long ago; still, they persevered and managed to find where the little girl was waiting for them.

"You'll never escape, now that I have this book!" She shouted in triumph, as if she'd already beaten them.

"I'll be taking that book." Marisa said, with a gleam in her eye that said she really would do it if given the chance.

"I highly doubt you could, my dear student." Marisa looked over to Mima like she'd just been insulted. "That is a grimoire, and moreover, it has already chosen her as its bearer, since it's got her name on it."

"Exactly!" The girl, apparently named Alice, held the open book with one hand and held the other out in front of her. "Now let's see how you fare!" A magic circle appeared behind her and she began firing off magical fire all around her.

The girls took to dodging immediately, but noticed a pattern very quickly, as well; at first the fire would be random in a wide arc around her, but then would switch to mid-size bullets in a circle pattern and an aimed stream of fire. Regardless, the pattern was simple to dodge, as if she wasn't putting effort into the spell, or perhaps lacked imagination. The spell was broken in only a few minutes.

The next phase began without skipping a beat, and they soon found themselves regretting underestimating her; now there was a pattern of small bullets streaming out of either side of her like flapping wings and lines of aimed fire coming straight out of her. The wing-like bullets changed direction depending on how she moved and to make matters even worse, to either side of her were what looked like waves of fires, preventing the heroines from moving too far in any one direction. This was a much more hectic spell than almost anything they'd encountered in Makai, save for Shinki's next to last phase. It was sheer luck that a stray shot from Yuuka managed to break past and hit the girl, canceling her attack.

The aura of the battlefield changed from red hot to cold, and they soon found out why: the girl had switched from flame attacks to ice and snow attacks. It started with aimed ice bullets and a barrage of what looked like snowflakes, followed by circles of ice. It reminded them of something like the first phase, for the fact that it looked much too simplistic compared to that last pattern they had to contend with; with so much room to maneuver, they had little trouble taking this one down.

Sticking with ice bullets, the next pattern had her shooting out of eleven directions around her, and after passing a certain point the ice seemed to "bounce" at a particular angle. But like any static pattern, this was easy to read, and they soon found a repeating method which allowed them to completely avoid any danger whatsoever.

The girls seemed to be getting really mad; she switched gears and changed to shooting out lasers and needles at the four. Slow moving needles and aimed laser assaulted them first, followed by rapid-fire needles in an arc in their general direction. This Alice girl apparently got careless as she got madder, since the patterns were starting to get easier as time went on. To that point, she continued with the lasers in the next phase by simply firing an alternating arc from left to right and back again, leaving plenty of room to maneuver. Yuuka was itching to show her what a real laser looked like, but didn't feel like being punished by the Shrine Maiden again. A few needles had been thrown into the pattern, but they were too slow moving to constitute a threat.

The feel of the battle changed again, as did her shot type. Waves of mid-sized bullets radiated out, and those sickening looking lasers were back. The second part of the pattern had her just shooting out several of those things all at once, and it took a little fancy flying to get them to fly past without harming them. They were only glad to break past this spell, no longer needing to look at those weird homing lasers.

Something new was about, though, as now she started firing those same bullets from before from a remote location; you would think the shots were random, but in fact it was like four arms that were sprouting out of the center and going in opposing circles around the thing. If one were to look closely you could see the gaps that would allow you to graze right on by.

Alice was starting to look exhausted from exerting so much magic. The next pattern involved arrowhead bullets in a circular pattern similar to Shinki's last spell. They were rapid-fire, more so than most of her other spells had been, but you could tell this was a last effort, since nothing else came at them but these bullets. With such easily identifiable corridors to traverse, the four had few issues avoiding these shots and finally managed to put the girl down.

With that last spell broken, the magic holding the dimension that Alice had created faded away, leaving them once more at the border between Makai and Gensokyo. The girl was barely holding the book by its spine and was wiping away at her eyes with the other. Reimu, Mima, and Yuuka just looked down at her with little pity before flying through the hole; Marisa, on the other hand, chose to grin and say, "That was a nice try, ze. You'll have to do better than that to stop us, though!" She then flew through the hole, leaving Alice alone.


Shinki paced around her office in the castle; most of it was still intact, despite everything that had happened. Yumeko walked in and bowed.

"Well, what have you found?" Shinki asked, some anxiety betrayed in her voice.

"She's not to be found in the castle, nor the outskirts of Makai according to Yuki and Mai. One of the last of the staff to escape the castle noted her slipping off into the tunnel that leads to the barrier." Yumeko bit her lip. "It was right after the end of your battle, and she was seen carrying… the book."

Shinki gasped. "No, she couldn't have… That book is almost too much for me to handle, there's no way she could use it without it changing her." She hugged herself and shivered. "Poor Alice; I never wanted anything like that to happen to her."

Yumeko was at a loss for what to do. Her eyes widened as she remembered something. "Oh, Lady Shinki! One more thing: it appears that someone witnessed something happening at the gate after that, as well. The four were apparently swallowed up by some kind of magic that they hadn't seen before, then a short time later saw them all reappear with a fifth person there. The four left Makai, and after awhile the fifth left as well; you don't suppose…?"

Shinki lifted her gaze to her maid and whispered, "Let us hope…"