As light and happy a writer I am, I need to write dark things sometimes to avoid hurting the characters in my light and fluffy fanfics and turning the story into something it isn't. I first noticed I should write a dark fanfic again when I had Murasa injured in the Myouren Temple fanfic, and I'm glad I stopped myself then and there, sat down, and asked myself what kind of dark fanfic I could write. Mahou Shoujo Sayaka Magica wouldn't do because that's not really a dark fanfic yet (getting there, though) so a new fanfic it had to be, and I really haven't paid enough attention to Nitori as a character.

Scientists are excellent fodder to let me get away with almost anything, and I intend to have quite a bit of fun with her here as the title may imply.

A wonderful summer night in Gensokyo. It was starlit nights like these that made having a tengu friend great and beneficial; Nitori was easily able to enter the tengu city as long as she had Momiji with her, and that meant the best place for looking at the stars. No research, no experimentation, and no scientific thought at all; if Nitori wanted to research the stars, she could have easily done that with a telescope at her house. No, tonight was a night for kicking back and looking at the countless lights that dotted the night sky like so many fireworks. "It's really quite the sight, Momiji," Nitori said contently. "But at the same time, it's kind of a shame."

"How are the stars a shame," Momiji asked curiously. Nitori listened when Momiji talked about the daily and boring life of being a tengu patrol, so it was only fair that Momiji listen when Nitori had something scientific to say. Besides, even if she didn't understand what Nitori said as a whole most of the time, it was relaxing to just listen to her go on. The kappa laying back next to her could go on for hours at a time about science; she'd actually gone from dawn till dusk nonstop one time last year. "No aliens up there for your telescope to find or something?"

"Well, there's that. But the real disappointment is that stars would make such a powerful energy source, but they're so far away." Pointing to a particularly large-looking star, Nitori said "Even if we moved at the speed of light, it would take us at least a year to reach that one star. They're way too far to be power sources; most of the power would be used up in getting and collecting the energy in a star, so it's impractical, and therefore I can't accept it as a scientist."

"Then why not accept it as a dreamer?"

"Hm?"

Pointing to a large number of stars near each other, Momiji said "You're a scientist without question, that much is for sure. But if you want to try it bad enough; if you really want to see if the stars are practical as a power source of not, then the only thing stopping you is yourself, Nitori. You've gotta remember your dream, and yours is to use stars as a power source. So what if the other kappa think you're crazy to say it would work? Everybody in this city, hell, the whole mountain thinks Aya's nuts because she's so enthusiastic about her newspaper. But she doesn't care, and she just keeps on publishing it."

"…"

"When Aya comes around with the newest Bunbunmaru, does she ever look upset or regretful in the least? No. Because publishing that newspaper is her dream. Yours is to use stars as a power source, and with all the science you've got backing you up, it's just a matter of building some kind of spaceship and shooting yourself up there to get the energy, right?"

"It isn't that simple. The time it would take to reach even the nearest star and return is far longer than the lifespan of any youkai, and magical means of transportation wouldn't work since there's no oxygen in space, and I need to breathe somehow. And besides, that isn't my dream." Nitori's eyes drifted away from the stars, down toward a particularly elderly tengu heading down the street. "My dream is to create artificial life. And not just a clone, either; fully original and independent life that can eat, sleep, breathe, and do everything else any living being can." That was her dream. If she could create artificial life, it would solve so many problems in the world. Wars wouldn't cost thousands and thousands of irreplaceable lives; the factions in question could just create soldiers from scratch. If somebody were doomed to live alone, all they need do is create a person who would accept them as they were, and they'd have somebody there for them for the rest of their lives. That was the kind of stuff Nitori always wanted to fix, so when the very idea struck her, she knew it was her dream. "I think that if I could create artificial life, I'd be able to-"

"If you could? Nuh-uh, no if you could talk. It's when you do create artificial life."

"You really think I could do it?"

"I don't doubt you for a second, Nitori." Momiji's eyes were still fixated on the stars, so that was why she was the first one to see a bright light falling down to Gensokyo. "Hey, check it out! Looks like you're about to find out if stars are really good energy sources or not." Momiji's finger moved to point straight at the rapidly descending white-hot ball of light.

"What?" Impossible…there wasn't any gravity in space, so stars remained stationary at their point of creation. If Momiji was really right, though. If it was really a star, and she could see if it was a viable energy source…it might not have been her lifelong dream, but it was good enough! That was why Nitori leapt up to her feet and started sprinting toward where she guessed it would land, based on trajectory and everything else. Her mind was practically a supercomputer in its own way, so it wasn't very likely that she was wrong about where it would end up.

Ten to fifteen minutes later; unknown location within the Forest of Magic…

"Hold it," Nitori said, stopping Momiji in her path with her arm. "I'll go from here personally. Just in case there's some kind of danger, you know?" The two were right near a clearing. That had to be where the crash was.

"But I'm a tengu guard! If anybody should be checking for danger, it's me!"

"But you don't have your weapon~" Nitori fished into one of the many small pockets of her light blue dress, and pulled out a tiny little thing. Whatever it was, there was a red light flashing on one point of it. "A good scientist is a prepared scientist. This little ball releases a powerful explosion, so if I say run, we'd better both run like the wind itself, got it?" Not waiting for Momiji's answer, Nitori continued further, into the clearing, only to find that…the clearing was empty. "Wait…what?" That couldn't have been right. Unless…

Unless Nitori's telescope wasn't as good as she gave it credit for; unless something living was here. Something alien…

Nitori barely had time to turn around when she saw it. All she could see was a tiny flash, but next thing she knew, something forced its way into her mouth and started rocketing through her throat, and before long she couldn't tell where it was any longer. Should she be scared or should she swell up with pride? Or was it all just made up to begin with? Hallucinations created by anticipation, anxiety, and the long-lasting desire to actually discover life on other planets. …yes. That had to be it. She was just making it up was all. "Nothing's here," Nitori called to her tengu friend. "I'm heading home for the night; I'm kinda tired from all this searching."

"Sure thing," Momiji said, stepping into the clearing. "Night, Nitori." She let the kappa take off first. The place certainly seemed tranquil enough…

The following afternoon; Momiji's guard post…

"Momiji!" Nitori sprinted straight up to the white wolf tengu with a massive board in her arm. Her hair was a bit messier than usual and she didn't look like she got any sleep last night, but from the excited look on her face, something great had happened after she got home. "Momiji, you won't believe this! This has to be the happiest moment of my life!"

"Come on, what is it," Momiji asked, getting excited just from hearing how hyped up Nitori was about all this. "Did you finally make artificial life?"

"No, not quite yet…but I'm set on the right road to get it done someday!" Nitori showed off the contents of the board; a number of massive equations with at least a hundred variables, exponents, and some things that Momiji didn't even know existed in math. "I have it! Look, this is the formula; the one I've been trying to figure out for my entire life! It's only a start, but I just sat down at home last night and decided to take you up on your advice, and just a few minutes ago I figured it out!"

"That's great! You look kind of tired, though…"

"Didn't sleep, doesn't matter! Do you have any idea what this means? Artificial life, Momiji! Artificial. Freaking. Life!" Excited. That was a huge understatement to how Nitori was feeling right now. If one were to combine pure ecstasy and 100% excitement, put them in a blender, and turn the results up to eleven, that would be a little more accurate. "By Suwako, what am I doing here just standing around and talking about it? I've gotta go home! I need to figure out the rest of the formulae I need to get this done! I can see it now; Nitori Kawashiro," she continued as she sped off, speaking at a hundred words a minute. "Gensokyo's prime scientist; inventor of artificial life and solver of all the world's problems! Oh, I can't wait to finish this. Let me see, if I don't take any breaks, I bet I could finish figuring this out in about…"

"…" Something about that excited monologue wasn't quite right. Momiji was really happy that Nitori was on the road to making her lifelong dream a reality, but something she said didn't go quite right. What on earth was it? One thing, so unexplainably tiny that only her closest friends would even think there was anything wrong. What the hell was it? The question was driving Momiji mad, so she sat down and had a mental look at everything Nitori said.

"No, not quite yet…but I'm set on the right road to get it done someday!"

No. Later than that.

"I've gotta go home! I need to figure out the rest of the formulae I need to get this done!"

Now it was too late in her ecstatic chatter. Best to look at the whole thing…

"Didn't sleep, doesn't matter! Do you have any idea what this means? Artificial life, Momiji! Artificial. Freaking. Life! By Suwako, what am I doing here just standing around and talking about it? I've gotta go home! I need to figure out the rest of the formulae I need to get this done! I can see it now; Nitori Kawashiro, Gensokyo's prime scientist; inventor of artificial life and solver of all the world's problems! Oh, I can't wait to finish this. Let me see, if I don't take any breaks, I bet I could finish figuring this out in about…"

Narrow it down; shave off the ends and the answer would probably show itself.

"Artificial. Freaking. Life! By Suwako, what am I doing here just standing around and talking about it? I've gotta go home!"

"In there," Momiji said quietly to herself. In that little strand of Nitori's chatter, something was wrong. But Momiji could take forever to figure this out; word puzzles weren't exactly her strong suit, and her train of thought started changing when she tried to figure them out. She'd need some kind of miracle to figure this out…and already her mind was drifting off to other subjects! Miracles reminded her of the shrine maiden living up higher on the mountain. Sanae Kochiya, descendant of…wait…there it was! Nitori had said "By Suwako" when she came up to Nitori; something she never said. For her, it was always Kanako that was the goddess worth putting faith in. Now that Momiji was thinking back, there wasn't a single instance where Nitori said "By Suwako" in place of "By Kanako" for as long as Momiji could remember, and she'd known Nitori for most of that. So if Nitori, who not only didn't worship Suwako, but feared her, exclaimed those two undetectable words…

Nitori Kawashiro's house…

"Let's see here," Nitori said with a mind racing at a mile per second. "If those two are equal, but…wait…no, they aren't equal at all!" Not in the least, as far as Nitori could tell now that she was reviewing this formula of hers. Most people would probably just settle if those two values were one or two numbers off from each other, but not Nitori; she knew what the slightest miscalculation could do, especially in something this delicate. "N-No," she yelled furiously. "I have to figure it out!" Quickly regaining her composure, the kappa continued "I'll just…start it over again. Yes. I'm sure that if I try this enough times, the answer will come up eventually." Best to keep her original work, however wrong it may have been. That way she had reference to see where she went wrong, so that she could improve on that error. It was her only whiteboard, though, so Nitori grabbed the nearest paper and pencil, sat down, and started calculating…

You know, somehow Suwako gets tied into a lot of my fanfics in one way or another. As for Nitori freaking out and starting over at the end there, it sounds like something I'd do if I realized I had a formula wrong :|

I go nuts on my spelling errors; I once cancelled a fanfic because I'd spelt Shanghai wrong for the entire first chapter (spelt it Sanghai) so isn't that saying enough? This fanfic also serves as something that stars Momiji, which I've wanted for a very long time.