Chapter 1: The Fantastic Legend of Tōno
To start the story off, we are here at the Yakumo house. Ran Yakumo had just been doing work for her master, Yukari, and has just gone into the building, panting.
"Back again? That was fast," Yukari says, as she is drinking her tea as Ran slowly starts to sit down onto a chair. She continues, "you look tired", she says as she passes some food over to Ran, "here, eat".
Ran Yakumo, exhausted, replies with "if it wasn't for you and your errands, I would still be full of life."
Yukari smiles, "well, you are my shikigami. You have no choice but to obey me now…" she says as she winks, "... do you?"
This causes Ran to wonder because of Yukari's words, as she "accidentally" forgot that she was her shikigami.
Yukari, looking at Ran, says "yes?" to which Ran says "I suppose I am" in a displeased sense.
Yukari begins to wonder herself and begins to have a plan for Ran. "Hmm, I think I might have something for you", she thinks to herself as she opens up a gap and she then begins to say something to Ran again, which is another errand. "Now then, I want you to do something else for me," says Yukari.
Ran Yukari is still exhausted at this point and was sort of displeased with Yukari comment as she thought she was giving her another errand to fulfil. "Again? What do you want me to do now?" Says Ran, "do your shopping? Do house work? Swat Cirno?"
Yukari then starts to put her hand down the gap and begins to take out a bottle of sake and then she closes the gap. While she does this, she says this to Ran, "I want you to go out and get me an animal. Just any wild animal and not a youkai."
Ran Yakumo becomes even more concerned, "You have got to be joking…," as she thinks to herself. But given that she is a Shikigami, she has to obey her Master, regardless. So she waits to listen to what Yukari has to say.
Yukari begins to pick up her green tea and bottle and sake and goes to another room. But just before she does, she begins to say something to Ran about her errand, "I am going to wash myself. See you when you get back." That is when she then leaves the room, as does Ran.
Meanwhile, somewhere outside, presumably a forest, Ran is searching for an animal to please Yukari, since Yukari said that she wanted one. Ran thinks to herself, "This is so strange. Why must I look for an animal? I am not a nogitsune anymore."
As she looks around, she finally sees an animal, as cat as it were. After spotting the cat, she thinks to herself again, "That should do. I am not waiting all day just picking and choosing." She begins to walk slowly towards the cat, teasing it a little bit just to get its attention. "Here, kitty, kitty, kitty," Ran says, as she tries to get the cat. But the cat in question starts to run off and Ran starts to pounce on it only to miss. Ran sighs, "this is so demeaning."
Just then, someone appears to Ran and says this to her, "oh, my, my. Haven't you fallen?" Ran quickly realises who it was and begins to talk back as she looks at the person, who happens to be Mamizou, in a weird way, "great… A Bunbuku appeared."
Mamizou, not amused by that remark, begins to twitch her cheek and says "I see you are still treating me in that way, dear."
Ran talks yet again to the person. "What do you want?" She says, wanting a response. "Oh, I was just strolling around the forest," Mamizou says, " Can't a lady do that every once in awhile?"
Ran begins to think "something tells me that it is more than just that" and then begins to move away.
Mamizou then begins to laugh and a bullet begins to appear into her hand. "I will leave you do your… prey," she says.
Ran, knowing what the person is doing, produces Kitsunebi on each of her tails. "I would not do that if I was you," she says, as Mamizou's bullets disappear along with Ran's Kitsunebi shortly after. "Yes, look for your prey. I will be there to take it away from you," as Mamizou thinks to herself.
Ran sighs, "where is it," she says to herself as she is looking for the cat. She eventually finds the cat. After doing so, she begins to move closer to it and then quickly tries to catch it. The cat was trying to sleep at the time, so it was easy for her to catch it unawares, despite the cat struggling to break free when Ran caught it. Ran begins to head home, "this better not be a waste of time," she says, "what does Yukari want with an animal?"
At the Yakumo house, Ran has just returned. "Back? And I see that you have something," says Yukari to a tired-looking Ran as she is drinking her sake. " I have what you wanted. Now what?" Responds Ran.
"Hmm…", Yukari replies as she is putting her sake to one side, "put it on the table." Ran is confused about what Yukari said because it was such an odd request. "O… K…," as she says whilst putting the animal on a table.
It was at this point that Yukari, whilst sipping on her sake, says something really out of place, "and now, kill it." Ran looks at Yukari in a funny sense, "you have to be joking," she says as Yukari responds in a more serious manner, "seriously, I am not."
"Alright, then," Ran says and then thinks "poor thing". She points a finger at the cat and begins to call the name of her spell card, "Fox-Tanuki Youkai Laser". A blue laser shoots out of her finger and goes right through into the cat and the cat dies.
Yukari drinks some more sake. "Good", she says, "now I want you to transfer your blood to it…" just as she gets a syringe, she continues, "... with this."
Ran is surprised at the fact that Yukari had a syringe. "Where did you get that?" She says. Yukari winks and says, in an unconvincing manner, "I just found it laying around." Ran, however, saw through Yukari's lie and responds to it with "don't lie!"
Yukari then sniggers, and because Ran is wasting her own time and with Yukari being more knowledgeable than Ran, Yukari knew that if she was not fast enough, she would lose her chance at getting her own shikigami. "You better hurry up," she says, trying to rush Ran.
Ran takes the syringe and places it into her arm after pulling her sleeve up. She then takes blood out, after which she takes the syringe out and puts it into the cat, injecting it. She then says "Why are you making me do this?" Yukari then responds with, "so you can have a shikigami of your own."
At this point, Ran becomes surprised at what Yukari said because she could not believe what she just heard. "Do you really mean it!?" She says.
"I feel like it is about time for you to have one. Your power is impressive after all. You should be able to create and control your very own. This is the method used to produce them," says Yukari, as she smiles.
At the moment, Ran begins to take the syringe out from the cat's arm. Yukari continues with, "now you just need to transfer your own energy into it. Make sure that you are using an adequate amount,"
"Erm… OK," says an obedient Ran. She then begins to place her hand on the dead cat and begins to use Shikigami's Shot "Ultimate Buddhist" on it. She continues to do that for quite a while, putting more energy into the cat. She then stops and begins to pant. "There. I think that should be enough," she says, "but nothing has happened."
"Oh, something will happen. You will know it when you see it," says Yukari.
A few moments later a tail begins to split and it continues to split until it looks like just two tails. The cat then starts to shapeshift, the body getting bigger along with the limbs. Fur starts to fall out and the paws begin to look more human-like. The tail and ears also get bigger until eventually, a small humanoid girl is formed.
Yukari, pleased that it was done, says "There you have it" Looks does not look as content and begins to wonder as she looks at Yukari, "This… This is it? But she looks small. Wasn't my power enough?"
Yukari begins to agree that the Shikigami was not how she wanted it to be. "Well, it is a little disappointing, I must admit," she says. Ran begins to shout, "A LITTLE!?"
The humanoid cat then starts to wake up, the wound that Ran inflicted healed itself.
The unnamed shikigami begins to wake up and talk, "Uhh… Uh…," she says as she is looking around, "Where am I?" She then begins to look at her own hands and begins to think that something is amiss, "Wha... what am I?," she says in disbelief.
Yukari looks at the shikigami and begins by saying "ah… I see she is awake." "Who are you?," The shikigami says. "This is Yukari and I am Ran. And you are?," responds Ran.
The shikigami then responds by saying this to her, "I… I do not have a name."
It was at this time that Ran decided to give her a name of her own, since she said that she did not have one, so she responds with " hen how about I call you something? Let me see… How about I call you "Chen"?"
Yukari opens up a gap and begins by saying, "Chen seems fine to me," hinting that she is fine with the name. " I am just going to get some clothes. Let me see, where are they?" She says as she put her hand into the gap and is trying to find some clothes. "Ah here they are," she says as she takes out some closes from the gap and then closing it, "Ta-da!"
"Chen... Chen…" She says to herself, listening to her new name, "Chen…" She then closes her eyes and begins to talk again and says "it is a nice name." Yukari then gives Chen the clothes that she took out from the portal. "Put these clothes on," she says. Chen then gets up from the table and starts to put them on after a moment.
Ran begins to notice something. "A pink dress? Oh, I get it. So that is where you got that syringe from…," as those thoughts entered her head. Chen then becomes tired, going "hmm… I am sleepy" and then falling to the floor shortly after.
"It seems like she was worn out like me. Was that much really necessary?," Ran asks Yukari. Yukari then responds by saying, "In order to have a good, healthy Shikigami you need a good amount of energy, otherwise it will just result in a failure. The technique is called "Yuketsu""
Ran is confused by this. "Yu… ketsu?," she says.
Yukari then responds with a smirk, saying "That is it!" She continues, " But listen, Ran, now that you have your own shikigami, you must protect it. Your life will never be the same again.
Several hours pass.
Ran comes into the room that Chen was in to tell her that dinner is ready, since she felt like she needed to eat, only to find that she is missing. "That little…," she says. She then goes to find Yukari and when she manages to find her, says "Yukari, my shikigami is missing!"
On a chair with her fist-made hand against her cheek and chin, Yukari then responds with "Missing? What do you mean?"
"She vanished! She is not in the room that she slept in," says Ran, answering Yukari.
Yukari takes her hand away from her face and stands up and makes a remark, "Really? That is interesting…"
Ran looks concerned at this point and says, "What? So she really was defective?" Yukari begins to talk, saying " I really…" But before she could finish her sentence, Ran runs out of the building. Yukari sighs, saying "good grief."
Meanwhile, somewhere outside, Chen is walking along a forest-like area and heading towards a lake. " What is this place?" She says as she looks around in wonder and then stops only to look at herself, "Did I die? Is this… the afterlife?" After questioning herself, she falls to the ground. "So weak…" she says as she begins to cry, "Just… just so weak…" She then looks at her own reflection in the lake and is shocked at what she sees. "Just what am I!?" She says as she then puts her hands on her face, "just what am I? I am just…," to which, she begins to cry again, "... I am just a monster! She then looks up and sees mountains ahead and then suddenly stops crying and says, "those giant hills look look nice." She then gets up and starts to walk towards them, but slowly and carries on talking, saying "So pretty. So… So…" before tripping over.
Just then a gap appears and Yukari is seen through it. She then moves her head towards the outside and puts the back of her hand against her chin and makes it looks like surrogate support to rest it on.
"Well, well. So this this is where you were. Been a naughty girl, haven't you? Leaving the house like that unnoticed." Says Yukari.
Chen, looking at Yukari, then responds with, "please, just go. I want to be alone," indicating to Yukari that she wants to be alone. Yukari tries to convince Chen and says, "You are confused, I know. But Ran is your master and she help you." Chen questions this. " I have a… master?" She says. Yukari closes her eyes and smiles, "of course," she says.
Further questioning from Chen, "then, who are you?" Wanting to find the answers to things. Yukari explains herself, " I am a youkai just like you. I am Yukari and I am your master's master," she says. This puzzles Chen, to which she says to Yukari, "Youkai? Like me?"
After saying that, all of sudden there is movement in the nearby forest.
"But… " says Chen, as she is looking at the ground, "So it is true, I am dead. This is not me… THIS is not REALLY me!"
Yukari then says more to Chen, putting more words of wisdom into her own existence and hoping that she will begin to understand, " You are still you. You are just an, let's say, improved version of your former self. Yes, it is true that you died, but look at yourself now. You can breathe, you can touch, you can probably be hungry. You are even talking to me. Do not see this as the afterlife. No… this is Gensokyo. Your home, your birthright. "
Chen closes her eyes and sways her head, "I… I don't know. You say I died, so I must be dead still. I do not think I can believe that I am still alive. This all feels like some sort of dream," she says, as a tear rolls down her face, "How can my "master" help me?" She then looks at Yukari and continues, "Tell me!"
Just then, a blue laser appears out of a forest and is aimed directly at Chen. Chen managed to sense it beforehand and quickly dodged. Yukari quickly moved out of the away and started to close the gap but before you could, the laser entered it and damaged part of the room that she was in.
Yukari, fallen down from the portal and now in the house, goes into a daze. "There you go again, reckless as usual," she says as she returns to normal and begins to get up off of the floor, "And here's me telling you to take care of her. Please do not go over the top, Ran." She looks at the part of the room that was damaged and continues, "You best not do to her what you did to this room."
Meanwhile, back in the other area.
Chen begins to look at Ran, who starts to emerge from the forest nearby, and questions her by saying "what do you want?"
Ran is seen annoyed and says "I have come to take you home" to Chen.
Chen responds, loudly, with "No!"
Ran explains that Chen does not have a choice in the matter and says, "that is not an option. You will come with me whether you like it or not." Chen continues to shout and says in response to Ran's comment, "I said NO!"
Ran begins to think to herself, "fine then, we will do this another way." A Kitsunebi begins to appear onto her hand and she says a fair warning to Chen, in the sense of a choice, "Either you come with me, or you die right here."
Chen begins to move up into the sky, trying to get away from Ran, Ran then fires her Kitsunebi at her, which she then fails to dodge and part of her body gets damaged.
Ran cringes, "It seems like you really do not see me as your Master. Without me you would not even be here," she says, "But maybe it is because you are a confused newborn. But rejection is something that I am not going to forgive!" She goes up into the sky and starts to use Shikigami's Radiance "Princess Tenko -Illusion-". Bullets appear all around Ran and scatter in a particular direction, which one set of bullets heading straight towards Chen.
Chen, in her condition, starts to move around relatively fast, dodging all of Ran's bullets. She then manages to get close enough to Ran and then lengthens her "claws" and starts to attack Ran. Ran dodges every single one of Chen's attacks and then moves around quickly, hitting Chen with her tails and sending her downwards. Chen then quickly recovers. She then begins to use Yin Yang "Douman-Seiman", which causes her to move in a pentagram-like shape and developing bullets as she travels. All of the bullets go into Ran's direction and they look like they are about to hit, but all of a sudden Ran is protected by a shield and all of the bullets just disappear.
Chen is seen panting severely. Ran begins to think to herself, starting to become rather concerned, "at this rate she really will die." Due to her own concerns, she decides that she does not want to fight anymore since she would only kill Chen. She then tries to command Chen to surrender and says, "just give up, Chen. Just… give… up."
Chen, still panting, rejects the proposal, saying "I told you… No… " in advance. From thereafter, her speech begins deteriorate and she begins to struggle to talk due to her condition, but she tries by saying "I… want to be... alone."
Ran sighs, "then I have no choice," she says, as Kitsunebi begin to appear onto her tails and she then says "and I was really looking forward to having you around as well," dreading that it had to come down to this.
Ran moves her head quickly and notices something about Chen. Chen's breathing suddenly gets deeper and she then quickly moves to Ran's location and striking one of her tails with her "claws". Ran extinguishes her Kitsunebi and her shield suddenly breaks as Ran looks at Chen in shock, moving her head slowly. Chen also sliced into one of her tails, cutting it off. This causes Ran to bleed severely.
Ran then becomes shocked at what happened. She could not believe what just happened. "Why you little…" she says, as she puts her hand onto Chen's forehead and then forcefully pushing her, sending her to the ground, "... BRRRAATTTTT!"
Chen falls to the ground and then rebounds, coughing up a little bit of blood.
Ran begins to cringe as she becomes sore all of a sudden. She thinks to herself, "what was that just now? I am not hurt, yet… I could feel pain?" She then uses her Hoshi-no-Tama to protect the part that had the tail cut off, stopping the bleeding. She also loses altitude as she moves towards Chen. Chen is then seen awake but is still on the ground. Ran continues to persuade Chen to stop, "just give up. You cannot win," she says.
Chen tries to get up off the ground, one eye half closed as the other one is just barely open. Just then, Ran fires another Shikigami's Radiance "Fox-Tanuki Youkai Laser" , this time towards Chen's shoulder, missing her lung. "I said…" Ran says, grabbing the part that she felt a sudden pain which happened near her shoulder, "... give up." Chen then goes unconscious.
Just then, Yukari appears. She sees the injured Chen and begins to say something to Ran, "my, you really did a number on her, didn't you?" To which Ran responds with, "there was no other way. I did not have a choice in the matter," trying to tell Yukari that she had to do that in order to try and stop Chen.
Yukari looks at Ran in a sort of displeased way, "There is always a choice." She continues, "you just need to have a bit of time," informing Ran that she was being far too reckless for her own good.
Ran Yakumo spoke back, saying that she was being disobedient "But you saw her," she says, "she went out on her own accord and she was not willing on being obedient."
Yukari begins to open up her fan and then puts it in front of her face. She then asks Ran a question, "and then what did she do?" Ran is troubled on what to say at this point, giving the response, "Well… Er…"
Yukari, trying to acknowledge the situation, begins to say that Ran was the one who attacked first. "She acted on self-defence alone from thereafter," she then says. "Listen, Ran, she has a mind of her own," she says, trying to get Ran to understand that Chen is not just some mindless doll. It was then that she points to chen and says "This act confirms it. But with what you did…" It was then that she saw why Ran did this to Chen since she assume that Ran only wanted to bring her home and that she wanted to bring her back in her own way.
Ran has nothing to comment at this point whereas Yukari does. "You did not kill her," she says, thinking that Ran never really intended on killing her. She then continues, saying that Ran meant no real harm by what she did, "even I know that you did not want to discard her. Let's just take her back home.
Ran agrees with the idea of going back home and says, "yes, you're right". It was then that she grabs Chen and then flings her over her shoulder. "You still have a lot to learn, Ran," Yukari thinks to herself, squinting her eyes as she does, "much more…"
They both leave the area. Meanwhile, someone else happened to be in the area. Someone just happened to be in the area and this certain person saw the entire event that took place here. The person just so happened to observe situation.
"Well, this is interesting. Very interesting," the person says, as he/she begins to stroke a cat that he/she happens to have with him/her, "What a nice spectacle to see. I would love to have that one as a pet. Would you not agree…" she continues, stroking the cat more and seemingly talking to herself, "my dear Orin?" The cat, supposedly called "Orin" due to what the person just said, begins to meow.
End of episode