Disclaimer: Touhou Project belongs to Team Shanghai Alice. Any similarities found between this story and other media are purely coincidental. However, any original ideas (OC's, original spell cards, etc.) found in this story belong to the author.
Reminisce the past...
It was the one of the worst years of the Heian period. Eientei, the legendary House of Eternity and residence of the mythical Kaguya Houraisan, had withstood roughly two centuries of war, peace, and everything in between. There were always peculiar and supernatural occurrences happening within its vicinity, thanks to the traces of magic that hung in the air; sometimes, multicolored lights danced around Eientei, and in other times, the bright moon shone directly over the mansion.
But on this one night, nothing could prepare Eirin Yagokoro for what she would see.
She, some servants, and the mistress of the mansion sat in the back garden, anticipating the dance of lights that showed every seventh day of each lunar month.
"Eirin, when will the lights appear?" Kaguya asked.
The humanoid rabbit servants added to her question, asking, "Yes, Yagokoro-sama, when will they come?"
"Oh, they will come soon; perhaps in three minutes," Eirin replied. Even until now, she wondered if this was the right place to flee to after her past escapade of deliberately disobeying the orders of the Lunar Empire by not bringing Kaguya back to the moon. Just a few months ago, there was a civil war; the household of Eientei had risked detection when a battalion of warriors had traveled through the bamboo forest Eientei lay in. To make matters worse, they had cut down a sizeable amount of bamboo plants-
"Hey, the lights are here!"
Eirin's train of worried thought was cut when someone announced the arrival of the dancing lights, something that could take her mind off her problems. The lights were a sight to behold: balls of lights of all colors floated in the air, some merely floating, and some zipping above the garden. This is what the residents of Eientei had seen every week.
The lights floated around in a circular fashion, just like they did all the time. Both Kaguya and Eirin had made themselves comfortable in their seats as they began watching.
After one minute into the show, Eirin sat up from her reclined position. Of course, many saw and followed; she had noticed something unusual in the show.
Three balls of light, the first colored green, the second purple, and the third silver, brightened, as if calling for the attention of the spectators. The other lights gathered below the prominent three, while the latter three started circling around; the silver moved away from the other two.
Five seconds later, the green and the purple light moved towards the silver light. Then, the green light suddenly soared towards the silver one, making a U-turn around the silver light. As the green ball returned to its original position, the silver ball pursued the green ball like a predator chasing its prey.
This elicited a "Woah!" from the audience, excluding Eirin.
The purple light seemed to fly alongside the green light, both speeding away from the silver ball. The former two then stopped, letting the silver light join them as they began dancing in the air once more.
For a moment, they stopped, and then the dance began once more. The only difference now was that the green light had darted away from the dancing spectacle.
After a long minute of fanciful flying, the show had ended. To top the performance was a last hurrah: the purple light brightened up like a supernova before exploding, and sent smaller but identical lights in all directions.
The rabbits started chattering excitedly, discussing how awesome the performance had been. Eirin could hear several distinct laughs and "Wow, did you see that" phrases as the rabbits talked the remainder of the night away.
"Well, that was something, wasn't it, Eirin?" Kaguya didn't wait for a reply as she continued, "Well, I'll be going to sleep now. Will you be going to sleep, too?"
Eirin then snapped out of her deep thinking to reply, "No, not yet, Lady Kaguya."
"Okay, then. Oh yes, next time, just call me Kaguya."
As the last few rabbits left the garden, Eirin stood up and left, still pondering about one thing…
Could the show have meant something?
The youkai woke up.
Present-day Gensokyo, the land of fantasies, was a relatively peaceful land. In fact, it was too peaceful; only when someone had the guts to try and rile everyone in Gensokyo up did it become lively. The dream world connected to it, Genmukai, was no better.
So thought a certain youkai of the dream world, who was currently working with what looked like strands of glowing thread. He had white hair with a green bandana wrapped around the head, wore a long white robe fastened with black buttons and having black sleeves, and black dress shoes. His ebony black eyes were fixed on the pattern he was creating with the thread; neon shades of white, blue, red, and green were entwined in a random order. He thought that Genmukai was a perfect place to do his work; there was no one who wanted to disturb him.
Although, there were many times he was wrong about that. He sensed someone coming.
Footsteps. He could hear muffled clopping coming from behind him.
He didn't turn to face the newcomer and continued working. "What do you want, Yuuka? I'm kinda busy right now."
"Yeah, I can see that. Are you actually making nightmares this early in the day?"
Yuuka Kazami, the mendacious, flower-loving resident of the Genmukai, was bored. It was only natural; there wasn't much to do in Genmukai or the Garden of the Sun, her residence outside Genmukai, and there was no one to pick a fight with in Gensokyo. She wore a red plaid skirt along with a waistcoat of the same color, accompanied with a white shirt underneath. She had short wavy green hair and red eyes.
"What's wrong with that? Not like it actually matters to you." He still didn't turn.
"I'm your neighbor! Aren't neighbors supposed to know what the other is doing?" asked Yuuka.
"The last time I checked, you don't stay here very often. Don't neighbors live near each other, instead of moving in and out?"
"…Guess you're right," Yuuka, whose attempt at a conversation had crashed and burned, sighed in defeat.
She came closer to the busy youkai and peeked over his shoulder. "Well, you really made something there, didn't you?" referring to the almost net-like weave of energy.
"Wait, Mukei, shouldn't you be prying into your victims' minds before making a nightmare? I mean, you don't go to war without gathering information first, right?"
At this, Mukei Fujiwara, a crow youkai and giver of nightmares, shifted his gaze to Yuuka.
"Are you talking about this?" Mukei pointed to his project. "This is a special one, you see; the victim of this nightmare doesn't snag on to them quite easily, and even then, she," Mukei stopped for emphasis, "can get out of nightmares. Besides, my regular dreams can't compare with her sleeping time."
"Oh! You want to scare her out of her wits! You got some guts there," Yuuka said, referring to the most powerful youkai in Gensokyo.
"I'm not going to use it yet, though," Mukei replied.
"But, wait!" Yuuka's eyes lit up, as if she found a secret, and said with a mischievous grin, "You're not telling me everything, are you? You know better than to lie to me. You're talking to a professional liar here!"
Mukei face palmed. He just kept his mouth shut, knowing that he had just fed Yuuka an idea.
"Come on, tell me!" Yuuka put her head on Mukei's shoulders, "Tell me, tell me, tell me-"
Mukei was visibly annoyed. "Sunflower," he snapped, "if you're going to keep pestering me like this, I might as well tell you something."
"Don't call me that!" Yuuka screamed into his ear.
"I've caused several Incidents already, and no one has found out that I gave the culprits ideas. That in itself proves that I do have a lot of guts. I mean, if anyone did some extra snooping, it would eventually lead to me."
Then, he stood up. "But now, Gensokyo's gotten too boring again. No matter how many dreams I make and give to some potential instigators, they just aren't buying them anymore."
"So, I'm going to start an Incident, and make sure I have fun. Who knows, I might even give the old hag a run for her money!"
Yuuka just stared wide-eyed at the weaver, who promptly returned to finishing his project.
"Have you finally lost your mind?" she questioned.
"I might be insane, but you're crazy for thinking that," Mukei stood up and turned around "If you don't think I can handle it, then let's have a spell card duel."
"That's not a wise decision," Yuuka cracked her fists menacingly.
Tension was rising. "Oh, let's just see about that!" Mukei's right hand moved to a pocket on his robe.
Yuuka did likewise. "Okay, you're asking for it! Don't quit on me when we're already fighting!"
They both drew a card, and pointed it at each other.
Both cards glowed white, and a white spherical structure erupted from each card, forming a barrier around the area. The opponents stared intently at the glowing sphere, waiting for them to turn a full white, which would tell them that the fight had started.
"You still have ten seconds to back out, you know," Yuuka suggested. She received no reply.
Then, it flashed.
Yuuka took her parasol out of nowhere and used it to shoot giant yellow energy bullets in a funnel at her opponent. "Eat this, loser!" she cackled afterwards, adrenalin coursing through her system.
"…crap," Mukei muttered as he flew through the tiny gaps between the bullets. He returned fire, shooting dark blue bullets in a helical pattern at his opponent.
Yuuka took to the air, dodging the opponent's barrage. Wasting no time in crushing her opponent, Yuuka revealed a spell card and declared it.
"Flower Sign," Yuuka yelled, "Reflowering of Gensokyo!"
A cluster of yellow bullets appeared behind Yuuka and spread in the shape of six overlapping petals. They quickly spread out in the directions they were facing. She shot more streams of bullets to accompany the spell card.
"If you're so suicidally confident about this, you'd better beat me first!"
All of the bullets brushed Mukei as he flew his way to the source, blasting Yuuka in the face. Now Mukei felt pumped; his heart was racing, and his hands shook uncontrollably. He was actually enjoying this.
Yuuka crashed into the ground, but got back up looking unharmed.
"Oh, so you are serious about this."
She took another spell card out and aimed her parasol at Mukei. He stared in horror at what she was going to do and prepared his own spell card.
Yuuka was first. "Power Surge,"
"Nightmare Sign, Inquisitor's Needle!"
"Master Spark!"
A blue seven-foot-tall beam accompanied by a thunderous roar echoed across Genmukai as a sharp sound of clanging metal could be heard above the clamor.
Rumia was a nuisance. Besides attacking passers-by in order to feast on their flesh, the little squirt stole food from more powerful youkai. Well, it seemed that every time she did try to steal, the attempt would go horribly wrong, and she would be blasted in the face or chased off (or possibly both). It did not help that she activates her power of darkness every single time; she apparently blinded herself by doing so.
This time, she stole it from the wrong person.
She flew away when her cover was blown. The enraged would-have-been victim trailed her, shooting crackling orbs of electricity at her. She was definitely a magician, Rumia mused. As she flew over the trees of the Forest of Magic, her heart beat loudly as if it was trying to jump out her chest. She wanted to scream for dear life but kept as calm as she could.
Then, a branch snagged on to her foot.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" Now she lost it. Rumia's blood went hot as she hastily unhooked her foot and took flight again.
"Keep screaming, you little twerp! I'm enjoying every second of this!" yelled the pursuer. The pursuer unleashed a volley of energy bullets at the darkness youkai and increased her flight speed.
"Stop following me, you big meanie!" Left with very few options, Rumia resolved to try her luck against this youkai mage. She abruptly stopped her flight and dropped twenty feet to a small clearing in the forest.
"What the heck?" the woman looked around, "Where did you go?"
Mustering energy in her right hand, she clawed at the space above her, forming a black rift. This had better work, she thought. She focused the energy into the rift, which in turn glowed gray.
Ten obsidian blades shot out from the rift. As the magician looked down, the blades slashed her and left bloody gashes in their wake.
The magician yelped in pain. "Oh, now you're in for it."
This time, she launched a massive white orb at Rumia. The darkness youkai jumped away from the orb and shot her own black sphere, but it missed its mark. The magician flew down to confront her and landed twenty feet away from the youkai's position.
Rumia did not wait for the magician's next move. She fumbled for a spell card in her sleeve. She didn't care which one she took out. She needed it NOW.
"Darkness Sign, Demarca-"
The declaration was cut off when a white talisman tagged the youkai's arm. Rumia yelped in surprise and let go of her spell card.
"Limitation, Coiled Cage!"
Six white spheres materialized around the magician. They flung themselves at Rumia and encircled her. Beams of energy linked the adjacent orbs until a big circle formed around Rumia. The woman then fired a narrow volley of bullets that blanketed the insides of the circle. The youkai sighed in relief after noticing that the bullets were easy to dodge. Of course, that brief respite did not last long.
Four horizontal lasers cleaved into the circle, frying Rumia's abdomen. The bullets she was dodging earlier slammed into her body. Now the pain was unbearable. It happened so fast she couldn't even scream.
Rumia dropped to the ground.
It was over.
"Oooooh..." Rumia moaned.
The magician walked over to the youkai sprawled on the ground. "So, twerp, does it hurt?"
Well, of course it does, Rumia thought. She was too injured to even reply.
"Do you know what's next?" the woman picked Rumia up by her head and threw her high into the air. The magician drew her back-mounted scythe and focused energy to the end of the shaft; it glowed white and brimmed with power. She held it with two hands like a bat.
Rumia's heart pumped even faster from before, and sweat started to form in her hands; to say that she was scared was an understatement.
"This'll teach you not to mess around. Next stop: the Great Hakurei Border!" she swung the backside of the scythe as Rumia fell back to the ground.
"Gaaaaaaaaah!" Rumia screamed as she was sent flying across the sky. She crashed with a sickening thud just a few inches away from the Misty Lake, which was adjacent to the forest.
Chiseki Fujiwara was very, very satisfied. She walked away from the scene and headed for her recently ransacked house. It was a simple house; it was made of red-brown wood, was only one-storey high, and, unsurprisingly, was big enough for one person. Windows were on all walls except for the one where the door was in.
The only thing that was really upturned was the kitchen; Rumia only wanted to steal food. Besides that, the rest of the humble house was untouched; that was a very good thing, otherwise she would have to fix her house when she could be relaxing.
After dodging some bored fairies and bullets, she found herself sitting down on a flat outcrop at the outskirts of a massive bamboo grove. She absent-mindedly fixed her short black hair and straighted her now messy purple-white robe. Her red eyes stared at the unchanging scenery of Gensokyo; even after two hundred years of living here, she still couldn't figure out why nothing changed or why it was so darned boring all the time. Nobody really wanted anything else from this pseudo-paradise, though.
But maybe it wouldn't be so boring soon. She hadn't seen her brother anywhere for quite a while now; maybe he would bring a surprise when he decided to show up again. The last time he went missing, he was actually planning a prank-
BOOM!
"Shoo, you overgrown bird! Don't bother me now!"
"Then shut up, you spoiled brat, and let me enjoy killing you!"
Chiseki turned to the source of the explosion. An intense array of rainbow bullets streaked across the sky, along with two tiny figures shooting bullets and dodging as well. From where she was, she observed that one of the figures had long silver hair while the other had long black hair.
She could also see several leaked bullets flying at her. There were a lot of them.
"This day couldn't get any worse, could it?"
Yuuka brandished her parasol at Mukei.
Several craters riddled the plains they were fighting on, brought about by Yuuka's Master Sparks. There were also several large needles stuck on the ground, from Mukei's Inquisitor's Needles.
Now, they were locked in a melee fight, with Yuuka gaining the upper hand.
With both hands on his weapon, Mukei jabbed straight at her with his nagamaki polearm, and followed it up with a small, wide shot of bullets. He felt like he was fighting a losing battle; he panted with every move he made, and he was already swinging his polearm haphazardly.
Yuuka flew back and blocked the bullets easily with her parasol. "Oh, is that the best you got?"
The other just stated, "Reality's Fantasy, Fantasy Contrast."
"What?" Yuuka yelped.
Apparently, Mukei still had enough energy to come up with a plan. A spell card stuck on Yuuka's flower umbrella glowed with a deep purple hue before releasing a spiraling explosion of petal-shaped bullets. The sunflower youkai was struck, and this made her let go of her parasol. The bullets retracted a few seconds after they appeared, forming back into a single bullet.
Then the surroundings darkened as if there were thunderclouds above them. Mukei released a steady stream of bright bullets that snaked towards his target. The sunflower youkai flew away from the bullets, but they relentlessly pursued her. At random points in the stream, explosions of petal-shaped bullets expanded and retracted over and over.
Yuuka felt sleepy; her eyelids were getting heavy, and her eyes were beginning to strain from the wide light contrast of the bullets and her surroundings. Maybe, just for a little while, she could close her eyes for a bi-
Without warning, she was pelted with the bullets she had stopped dodging. Mukei took this chance to blast her into submission; he focus-fired on the distracted youkai.
Yuuka fell flat on her back, but was able to recover in mere seconds. Then, having regained her footing, she aimed her parasol at Mukei once more.
"Oh, come on, get real! Did you think that you already won? Nobody loses to a single spell card!" Yuuka hollered. Still holding up her parasol, a magic double stepped out from the youkai's body.
A spell card appeared on the tip of both Yuuka's parasol.
"Eat my dust! Overflow, Dual Spark!"
A beam the size of a Master Spark shot out from both parasols. Mukei barely had enough time to fly up and out of the way of each laser.
Maybe it was a bad idea to pick a fight with her, the crow thought; every time Yuuka was knocked down, she recovered quickly, as if she was just merely shoved back.
Mukei summoned two conduits in the shape of an orb. In any danmaku battle, these orbs are often used for weakening the opponent, if playing safe was what the battlers were going for. Getting hit by its bullets for a long enough time would be as painful as getting hit with a single bullet from a spell card. He aimed them at one of the Yuukas and fired.
"Is that the best you can do: puny bullets? I've seen fairies do worse!" the two Yuukas taunted. They fired another Dual Spark, which Mukei coolly dodged. While he continued firing, the Yuukas continued blasting away at him for what seemed to be an eternity.
"Hey, Yuuka! Stop using those bricks you call a spell card! I've seen fairies do more interesting things!"
Mukei threw his spear at Yuuka, the spear forming bullets around its blade, making it resemble a comet. The two Yuukas shot another laser, but the real one noticed the spear too late; it ran right through her and embedded itself in her abdomen. It seemed to be the same for the crow youkai, who was engulfed in both lasers.
When both attacks subsided, both opponents fell to the ground, with Yuuka's double vanishing in a puff of smoke. Ethereal glass shards flew out of the shattering sphere that surrounded the battlefield.
When Yuuka got back up, she took the spear out of her body, wincing in great pain. Her red plaid dress was all bloodied up, but her wound was quickly disappearing. Likewise, Mukei was already up on his feet, although he looked like a burnt piece of charcoal and was wobbling in his place, disoriented.
"You ruined my dress!" Yuuka yelled, "Anyway, good work there. I see you've stepped your game up a bit since we last fought," she dusted her clothes with her hands, trying to keep them as neat as she possibly could.
Mukei yawned. "Wh… Wha… What? Oh, thanks, I guess."
"So, you're really going to push through with that Incident. Good luck with that. Now, I have to go."
"Okay, see you when I see you," replied Mukei. He wobbled his way back to his worktable, which, somehow, was left unscathed throughout the fight.
"Hey, it's still fine!" he then promptly fell on the table.
"Done."
After a few hours of sewing and weaving, Mukei had completed a small ball of crackling purple energy, which was now sitting in the middle of a white table cloth.
"Now, I'll have to find the victim."
Mukei took the ball, opened up a portal, and left Genmukai. He now stood on an island in the middle of a large lake, the Misty Lake, and the first thing he saw was the bright afternoon sun, whose heat radiated on the surface of Gensokyo. He turned around, and saw what he came for…
…the Scarlet Devil Mansion.
He was sure his target dreamer was asleep, taking an afternoon nap.
Mukei sent the hovering ball towards the mansion. Then, he opened up another portal. Before going in, he chuckled.
As he entered the portal, his smile could not be contained.
The environment of a region in Genmukai changed according to one's dream. For Mukei, he could see the sky darkening with thunderclouds.
That was his cue. Because of his ability to manipulate dreams, he could also be in them and terrorize the sleeper. But he had to do a really good job of that, otherwise the attempt would just be a bomb.
Suddenly, four long, black, jointed legs erupted from the crow youkai's abdomen and planted themselves into the ground, and blood sprayed from his abdomen from where the legs sprouted; it greatly stained his clothes with crimson blood. His human legs hung limp as the four new legs stood straight. His irises turned from a pure black to a deep purple. Mukei's weapon, a nagamaki polearm, materialized in his hands. Black crow wings sprouted on his back. This was the appearance Mukei bore when he decided to go mess someone's dream up.
His face wore a crazed look as he searched for the sleeper.
Soon enough, he found her. In the middle of the plains of the region, the dreamer stood, looking left and right with no idea where she was.
Mukei flew at her, with the nagamaki positioned for impaling. His mouth formed a creepy grin. Blood left a trail behind him.
As he got closer, he could see the sleeper better. He caught a glimpse of brown bat-like wings, neat blue shoulder-length hair, clothes with a pale shade of red-violet, and (of course) a hat, specifically a mob cap, of the same color.
The sleeper turned around and saw Mukei.
Panic set in the girl's face. She was caught off guard by his sudden and terrifying appearance.
She ran.
Thud… thud… thud… thud…
Insane laughter could be heard for miles away.
"Remilia Scarlet, manipulator of fate!" Mukei bellowed.
The vampire girl, Remilia Scarlet, could not comprehend the situation. She faced the incoming assailant anyway, ready to fight him.
"Welcome to your perfect nightmare!"
Read and review (no flames please)! This is first Touhou fan fic, so please do give some constructive criticism. Don't expect too much from this, though.