Wow, this story took a long time to come out. Sorry. Some hiccups in the rough draft and later pipeline has kept this waiting far too long. This Touhou story is the one that truly breaks form the continuity of the main series. I highly stress that you read the previous stories if you have yet to do so. The stories I have created (except for the last one, which was several years in the future) are in a linear timeline.
Before I forget, 'breaths in' Touhou is a game series created by Zun. The characters and setting belong to him. This is just a fan work of that series.
With that, enjoy.
Reimu sat on the shrines porch, drinking tea. Well not tea, but rather hot water. She had yet to figure out how to make tea. The sun was shining overhead, the birds were sing, and the fairies were playing with and pranking each other. It had been a calm day, a slow day. Genjii was laying right next to her.
"Something wrong, milady?" Genjii had noticed the unhappy look on her face.
The shrine maiden flopped onto her back, and dumped out her "tea" onto the ground. "It's just that, well, today is so boring. Nothing is happening today!"
"Be warry of the things you take for granted. You will be wishing for these quiet days in your older years."
"Oh yes, and a dam oni will be living with us." Reimu tried to say sarcastically, though it did sound more like a complaining tone to Genjii.
"Watch your language Reimu."
The use of her name told Reimu to take this matter seriously. "Sorry sorry, just, arge." Reimu pushed herself up with her right arm before getting up. "Come on, let's go training."
Genjii got up as well "So you are finally getting over your hatred of training?"
"No, but it beats this boredom." Reimu summoned her orbs to levitate beside her.
"Ah, the wanting of continues excitement of the youth, unable to understand the value of serenity. Of course Milady." Genjii floated up to Reimu.
As the two of them began their trek to their training grounds, a light caught their attention. Almost too fast for them to follow it, a large white orb almost hit them. Before they react, the orb exploded on the shrine, destroying the front half and pushing Reimu and Genjii away.
When the dust began to settle, Reimu grabbed her left arm, feeling the pain that the shockwave had caused it. She imminently recoiled, for griping her arm only intensified the pain.
The blast had knocked Genjii onto his shell. Quickly using his levitation to bring himself back up, he saw the destruction that had befallen the shrine. Genjii began to mumble to himself "Only she would attack the shrine so recklessly but precisely. But she should be dead. Did Yakumo fail?"
"W-what are you m-mumbling about?" The pain in her left arm made it difficult to speak, but it was starting to subside into numbness.
"Nothing milady, at least I hope it's nothing." Genjii had an unusual amount of unnerved in his voice. "Where did that shot com-"
"Genjii was interrupted when several ghosts flew up the stairs. They looked… uncanny. They had faces with tongues sticking out, strange hats on, and there entire body gave an air of unnatural. Regardless, they rushed at Genjii and Reimu.
Reimu fired amulet shaped danmaku from her orbs at the ghosts. When the amulets hit the ghosts, they exploded, leaving nothing behind. Reimu looked distressed. "Why is the amulets killing them?"
"What do you mean by that?" Genjii got in front of Reimu.
Reimu slowly got on Genjii. "I-I did not want to kill anyone, so I'm using danmaku that should not hurt anyone."
"I can't answer why it's not working, but we have to move. We need to get to where the ghosts are coming from and stop the person who destroyed the shrine."
"Okay then." Said timidly
"Sigh. There goes my day." Genjii said to himself. He flew down the path with startling speed, forcing Reimu to hold on with her right arm.
Speeding down the forest path leading to the village, Genjii noticed some ghosts coming out of a spilt in the path. He slowed down as he approached the split, but by the time he had done so, the same ghosts were almost upon him and Reimu. Genjii reacted by backing up in a quick jolt, almost throwing off the miko in the process. "Sorry milady, but I need you to take care of these, these things."
After pulling herself back forward, Reimu looked at the ghosts rushing them again. With a shaking right hand hovering over the left hand, she half-heartedly fired amulets at the ghosts. More explosions followed, causing Reimu to look down at her right hand. "Why, why do I have to kill these creatures? Why is my amulets still harming people?"
"If I can give my thoughts on the situation, I don't think that anything is wrong with your amulets. These things that we are fighting might be machines." Genjii turned down the split in the path and headed down it slowly.
"Machines, what's that."
"Basically, a nonliving, non-thinking thing that moves and dose the things it designed to do."
"How does that explain why my amulets hurt them?"
"Simply that there not living, and they are delicate, so when they take enough damage, the machines explode."
"Hu, strange. I don't quite get what you're saying, but I think you are saying my amulets have to destroy them, since there not alive." Reimu began to ponder that fact.
"Milady, I know you don't like killing creatures, but it's your job to protect humans against youkia. You need to realize that the only goal for youkia is to eat humans and to scare them, and that they need to die." Genjii speed up a tiny amount due to seeing the exit up ahead.
"I don't think it's that sim- AH BLIGHT!" After spending a bit of time in the forest, Reimu was not ready for the light. She covered her eyes in tell they adjusted. As she did so, ghosts appeared from every which way and rushed at the pair.
Genjii moved backwards and pointed himself at the first ghost at the left. "Milady, fire." With a moment's hesitation, amulets fired in front of Reimu. Genjii aimed the fire at each of the ghosts on the left, before moving forward to avoid the rushing ghosts on the right. He turned around, causing the shots to hit the rests of the ghosts, finishing them.
Reimus eyes adjusted to the sunlight enough for her to see. Genjii had already turned back around and continued on down the path, so she saw what they were heading towards. A bit farther down, the path leads to a river, with a red bridge over it. "Why are we going to that bridge?"
"The enemy that had attack the shrine and had sent the machines towards us rests just over that bridge. Case in point." Genii's eyes were looking into the sky, so Reimu followed them to see two strange, tiny black balls above the bridge. Each was surround by some sort of transparent shield.
The machines did nothing, even as the pair got closer. They just floated on the pegs of the bridge. After a certain distance, like they had passed some detector, the machines became active. The both fired circular patterns of danmaku, the left firing clockwise, the right firing counter clockwise.
It was relatively easy to dodge the danmaku, since the distance between shots was so large, each one having only one line of circling danmaku, and the fact the two where in sync. Genjii simply had to move in-between were the shots were fired at, and they could not hit him. Reimu however, still paused before firing her amulets, not entirely convinced that the things were not living. Just like with the ghosts, the things exploded on contact with an amulet.
As the pair crossed onto the bridge, nothing happened. No ghosts rushed at them or did bullets try to hit them. The sense of tension increased as they crossed the bridge, in tell they heard a splash of water. Looking around them, they saw nothing. That was in tell Reimu looked behind her, and saw that a turret had risen from the water and was shooting bullets across the bridge. The turret had the yin yang symbol on it, which caused Genjii to shiver when he saw the turret.
Before they could continue on, more turrets popped out of the water on either side of them, and shoot across bridge. Genjii dodge around the bullets, trying to find an opening. As more turrets rose out of the water though, the bullets became denser. Genjii weaved and wove skillfully, but it was starting to get to dense. A small gap had opened up, but was about to be closed by more bullets. "Hang on milady." With those words of warning, Genjii speed forward, passing through the small gap just as it was about to close.
As Genjii rushed down the bridge, he saw large, white, mouse like objects rocketing towards him. With Reimu unable to do anything but hang on, Genjii was force to just barely move out of the way. More of those objects followed, causing Genjii to dash left and right to dodge the mouse objects. Reimu was flung back and forth, holding on for dear life. After the last of the objects had past, Genjii was force to make a sudden stop.
The sudden stop caused Reimu to fly off and hit the ground. As Reimu was getting up, about to ask Genjii why he stopped so suddenly, she saw it. A massive… machine that looked like a shrine but had a cannon in the front.
Before Reimu could make sense of it, the machine fired a wave of three large danmaku at her. She flung herself away using both of her arms, feeling the pain spike in the left arm in the process. Reimu got up and fired at the machine, but her bullets did not seem to be doing anything. The machine fired a wave of four large bullets across the bridge. The miko ran left to dodge the danmaku, and nearly fell into the river.
After regaining her footing, she quickly turned around and launched one of her orbs forward. It hit the machine with a resounding 'thunk' and left a visible dent.
"No! Don't launch it forwards like that, you can't..." in the middle of Genjii warning, the orb fell to the ground and could not be called back "control it that far away. Hm. quickly, get on." As Reimu tried to get on, the machine fired another round of four danmaku large danmaku, forcing them to move away from each other or get hit.
Reimu this as an opening to get her orb back. She ran towards the machine. The machine quickly launched a wave of three at Reimu, with no time for her to react. Just as she was about to get hit, Genjii knocked her out of the way, taking the hit and falling into the river.
The shrine maiden got her bearings straight and called back her orb back to her side. She got to the front of the tank and fired away. After dodging a wave of four bullets, she got pissed at the lack of progress. She launched her orb forwards in frustration, only this time it got stuck inside the cannon.
With the machine not able to fire, energy started to build up in the tank. It built and built in tell 'KABOOM'. A massive explosion rocked the earth, destroying not just the tank, but also part of the bridge and launching her orb into the river.
Reimu could not go on, due to the bridge being separated in half. She walked back and forth, trying to figure out how to cross. Then, other side of the bridge, she saw a hoard of ghosts that were rushing towards her, more than she could count. Using her remaining orb, though there was hesitation, Reimu fired at the hoard. Her aim was in accurate though, due to her always practicing with both of the orbs. As the distance between the hoard and the ghosts shrank, Reimu started to back off, not sure what to do.
A thump broke her out of her concentration, and made her looked down to see her other orb. "You should be more careful with the Yin yang orbs, there too important to lose milady." Genjii looked at the hoard of ghosts rushing at them. "Get on, quickly!"
With both orbs, she fired her danmaku with renewed power. With the double firepower, along with the improved accuracy, the amount of ghosts dropped considerably. Even then, the hoard got close, which Genjii responded by moving between the ghosts, making them run into each other. When the amulets hit the cramped ghosts, it trigged a chain reaction of explosions. Genjii quickly flew to the other side of the bridge, just nearly avoiding the explosion that enveloped the rest of the ghosts.
The pair continued on, crossing the bridge and getting back onto solid ground. Reimu noticed the dirt road turning into a stone one, along with the grass surrounding it. A stone fortress lay in the distance, with two windows located on the side facing them. As they got closer, the pair noticed a yin yang symbol on the floor between the two windows, colored red and white like the orbs, and a young girl standing on top of it.
The young girl looked about Reimus height, and had brown eyes and hair. The hair was put into two brads in the front, and hanged lose in the back. She wore a white shirt with a bow on it, as well as both brown pants and shoes. She had a wrench in her hand as well.
"Did the culprit leave this girl here?" inquired Reimu.
Ignoring the maiden, Genjii asked the girl a question. "What is your name, young one?"
"You think I'm young? Hm. Actually I was the one that made everything here, and I don't appreciate you breaking my inventions."
"So, you are the person who destroyed the shrine? What in the world would cause a child such as yourself to commit such an unsafe act?" Genjii was worried over the state of mine of this girl.
"Yes I did, and I would tell you the reason if you did not keep on thinking I'm a defenseless child. I'm an adult, a full time engineer.
"But you're my height, and Genjii says I'm not a kid."
"That's it. I have just found the perfect test subjects for my flower tank. Now be good tests subjects and blow up." The yin yang symbol parted as a massive machine that resembled the shrine looking machine on the bridge rose up. The machine was a more pinkish red, with vines wrapped around it. The cannon was even larger, with two smaller cannons located below it. The same symbol of yin yang was on the top. The symbol on the tank also opened up, allowing the girl like woman to go inside of it.
The flower tank moved left and right as it fired two waves, a wave of five forward, and a wave of three at Reimu. Genjii quickly took advantage of the fact that the wave of three was faster, and moved in-between the waves in an s shaped pattern. He ended up right in front of the tank, which the shrine maiden started to shot at. Unlike the other machine, this one showed clear signs of being effected by the amulets.
Genjii moved back as the tank shot another two waves and repeated the two movements. The tank moving changed where the miko aimed, but it did not make it any less effective. The tank charged up another shot as Genjii once again backed up.
The tank shot two tringles of danmaku at the pair. It moved faster than the previous shot, causing it to almost hit Genjii. With a burst of speed, he moved to the side to allow the danmaku to pass, but as he was doing that, the tank fired another tringle at them with the other tringle moving in a mirror pattern to the other side.
Genjii saw that one coming and circled around it. Reimu used this as an opportunity to get back up from the burst of speed and resumed shooting amulets with her orbs. The flower tank continued to shoot more triangles rapidly, and Genjii was continually circling around the triangles. As the tank started to look warned out, two shots nearly hit Genjii. The windows now had cannons of their own, and they were shooting at the pair.
Reimu quickly shot at the cannon, causing it to blow up. The other cannon shot though was about to hit Genjii, with triangles on each side of him. Genjii quickly moved inside the triangles, and out the other side. Reimu fired her amulets at the other cannon, destroying it, before reverting her attention to the tank.
The tank stopped its firing and move towards the center, looking pretty torn up. It started to charge a massive attack. Genjii waited, ready to dodge when the attack came. The tank released a ginormous laser, aimed squally at Genjii. Genjii tried to dodge by turning his body so that the laser would pass under his left side, but he was not fast enough. The laser hit his bottom, knocking him down and fling the miko off.
The side cannons fired waves of danmaku on both sides of the laser. Reimu tried to get up, but was forced to use both arms. The pain from her left arm almost made her drop back down, but she quickly got up despite that. She jumped out of the way of the danmaku, and fired her own at the tank.
The laser ceased, as well as the danmaku it was firing. The girl rushed out the hatch as the tank begin to rumble. Danmaku fired in every which direction from the tank. Reimu started to run away, when she noticed some danmaku was going to hit an unconscious Genjii. Reimu quickly changed directions, running in front of the danmaku. She grabbed Genjii and closed her eyes.
An explosion rocked the ground, literally causing an earthquake. Reimu opened her eyes, surprised by the fact she had not been hit yet. She looked around, but did not see any danmaku or the girl that had attacked her shrine. Before she could question it, she noticed Genjii regaining consciousness.
The girl ran through the path in forest, not running from her exploding tank, she had already felt it. She was running from the shrine maiden, for hope that she could not get caught. She slowed down when she saw a samurai woman in front of her in a clearing.
"So, the young maiden has beaten you Rika? What was it about you raving that she would lose to you way before facing Mima?"
"Shut up Meira. I accidently, Huaa-hfaa, shot down the flying turtle and don't have any machines ready." Rika took deep breaths to return oxygen to her lungs.
"You really should not have use destroying the shrine to get her out. When all is said and done, you will be attacked by Reimu for destroying it."
"I will like to see you try better."
"I already have a way to get her to attack me that will not get her mad at me, unlike you, but while you are here, may I have use of your evil eyes." Meira put her hands behind her back.
"Just keep her away from me." Rika threw at Meira a remote control.
"Don't worry, I already asked her to help if things ended up like this?" A ninja appeared behind Rika and disappeared along with her as fast as she had appeared. Meira simply typed a few things in the control and put it away, before sitting down on a stone. "Now just to wait."
Special annocement
Hello their. You might be wondering what this is about. Well, I have decide to put some notes at the bottom, but in a unique fashion. You see, I am the person that writes the entire story, and not the author avatar Ultralight. It is fun being the character, but it also means that i can't communicate with you guys as me, and can't inform you guys about what is happening.
Heres my solution. The beginning notes and basically everything else will continue to be write as though i am ultralight. that will not change. These ending notes however will be written by me, out of character and universe. This is were i will tell you whats going on, and why i not doing anything. I hope you guys don't mine the change. You have been awesome so far.
Now for the reason why i'm writing this. You might have noticed that i have not updated my story in a while. This is due to the fact i have both school and work to do, and my school is giving me a bunch of work. I will try to maintain normal update schedule, but don't be surprise if the update schedule becomes infrequent. That being said, i plan for the next chapter to be up by this Sunday, so be looking out for that.