Title: Existence
Author: L145
Fandom: Touhou
Game: pre-Imperishable Night
Characters: Keine Kamishirasawa, Fujiwara no Mokou, Kaguya Houraisan
Pairing: Keine x Mokou (kinda. I guess. It's really up to interpretation. But since everyone but Rinnosuke's a girl in Gensokyo, who really cares?)
Genre: Angst
Summary: There is a small flower soaked with blood... the meaning of life for one unfortunate soul.
Rating: PG (violence and swearing)

Disclaimer: Touhou is owned by an alcoholic genious named ZUN.

Author's Note: My first Touhou fic, and an angsty one as well. For those of you who don't know Touhou, this fic is completely opposite of the tone of the games. A Touhou game goes like this: Reimu finds something wrong with Gensokyo, so she decides to go fix it. On the way, she meets random youkai who try to stop her. Her attitude is, "Okay, let's fight, but afterwards when I'm done fixing the world, why don't you come have tea at my shrine?" In fact, during the endings, whoever the final boss is in the game is always sitting with her friends with Reimu and her friends drinking tea and joking around. It's quite hilarious.

In other words, totally not angsty at all. But Mokou is a character that screams angst to me, and Keine is just so cool that I had to do something with the both of them.

Oh, and Keine totally doesn't die in the end - Mokou definitely wouldn't allow that to happen. I just felt like the ending worked better if I left it ambiguous.

—

There's a clearing in the bamboo thickets, in the Bamboo Forest of Lost, where the moon can be seen clearly and the stars can be read. In that clearing, in a small place where the moonlight shines, a small solitary flower blooms. Each year, it braves any weather to grow continuously, not allowing its courageous life to wither and falter. It is a symbol of hope, of perserverence, of life. It is as such quite ironic that this flower grows in this exact place in this exact clearing in the bamboo thickets.

Because in this exact clearing in the bamboo thickets, where this lonely red flower booms, Fujiwara no Mokou spends her never-ending time.

I visit this place often, traveling from the human village. It is a long trek, about an hour or more through dizzying paths that most people get lost in, but I never fail to reach this clearing. During the full moon, I prefer to spend all of my time here, manipulating the history of the humans in Gensokyo from this peaceful place. And, this night, my habits are no different - I am here again.

"Are you here again?" she asks me now, echoing my own thoughts as I step through the last few tall shoots to the clearing. She's sitting on the cold, hard ground this evening, not looking at me, but rather, the flower that blooms eternally before us.

I reach down to smooth my blue skirt from the wrinkles caused by my hiking it up to get around some bamboo stalks, then I brush a few small leaves out of my silver-blue hair and straighten my ornamental hat. Then, I respond, "I've only come for a short while. I have to look over some work I had my students do this morning in class."

Mokou accepts my answer with silence. Truly, I doubt she's listened to my answer at all, anyway. I step forward a few paces before stopping again. Looking towards the faint crescent moon's direction, I ask, "Has she been here?"

"Kaguya must be busy tonight," Mokou states shortly.

I nod even though she can't see me. It's tiresome work, trying to make conversation with her, as she is so cold and jaded. But inside of that tragic shell of a cursed immortal being, I know there is a pain-filled spirit and I long for it to be able to escape, to break free of the bonds Kaguya and the Hourai Elixir have placed selfishly upon her.

After a few moments, Mokou adds, "She hasn't stopped by for a few nights. I wonder where she is."

"Why do you care?" I ask without thinking.

This question, although it is automatically in my thoughts when we speak about Kaguya, has never actually been spoken aloud between us. It grabs Mokou's attention immediately. She looks up towards me in a mix of surprise and confusion. There seems to almost be pain in her gaze, and I immediately regret my inquiry. I am an honest, questioning, and scholarly woman, but my time spent with Mokou has made me more blunt than perhaps is polite.

"Kaguya..." Mokou begins slowly. "Kaguya and I always fight, that's true... you would say it's pointless, right?"

I don't answer, nor does she wait for me to. She instead shakes her head and continues. "But this fighting is what gives my life meaning - it's my reason for existence. For someone like myself who will live forever, this eternal battle is something I need, something I can count on to always happen and break the monotony that is sitting here and staring at this flower."

She stops, waiting for me to ask a question, possibly, 'Why is this flower so important?' But I don't ask. She sighs and closes her eyes. "Keine, I'll tell you a story for those damn history books you love so much:

"It was over a thousand years ago, when I chose this clearing to rest in. I chose it because there was a beautiful and pure white flower in the middle, where there was only rock and gravel around. Its persistence was admirable, and always made me remember my purpose in life - to avenge the humiliation of my father, by destroying Kaguya, the cause. It's the reason why I drank the Hourai Elixir and fled the village I was from to go after her. I sought her out, I fought her to the death, and I lost many many times.

"Even though I cannot die because of the Elixir that causes immortality, I still bleed, feel pain, and pass out. After a number of years passed, I noticed the petals of this flower here weren't a pure white anymore. One time, when Kaguya had wounded me quite brutally, I laid here in this clearing, waiting for death to come to me so I could resurrect again like I always did. My vision was blurry, but I could see through my double-vision blood rushing from deep gashes on my legs, blood running in little crimson rivers towards the stem of the flower here and I realized... this curse that has ruined me has also corrupted this innocent piece of something that once was beautiful."

When a flower is placed in coloured water, over time, the petals take on that colour in a very light shade. But for this, the soil this flower is placed in must be completely saturated with -

"Damn it, Keine, don't look at me like that!"

I blink a few times and ask, "Like what?"

Mokou turns around so her back is facing me. Her head is bent down, her gaze never leaving the tainted flower. "You know so damn much, don't you? I'm not one of your students, you don't need to correct me on anything."

"I'm not -"

It's not her words which cut me off, which halt my thoughts, but her actions. In one swift movement, she reaches down and pulls violently at the flower. The stem breaks right above the ground, leaving the roots deeply buring within the cold earth. She stares at it for a moment before turning back toward me. Reaching out her hand, she holds the remains of the flower out towards me, offering it to me as if it would make me understand her pain in some way.

I bow my head in sorrow. She throws the flower off into the distance.

I want to understand, really. I want to reach out to her, to pull her close and to tell her than I understand, to whisper reassuring words into her silver hair, but I fear that if I get to close... she's run from me. And as I stand still, my head bent in sadness, my hands clench into fists and my teeth grind against each other and I can feel the tears brimming in my eyes.

Mokou, this is no way to live!

I don't care if she does run from me. I turn my head back up, narrow my eyes, and quickly and confidently stride towards her. Her surprise and her reflexes cause her to take a few steps back away from me, but I ignore it, compensating by lessening the distance between us until I can wrap my arms protectively around her shoulders and pull her close to me. I'm shorter than her, so this is a strech, and she struggles a bit, so it's hard to mainting a grip, but I hold her tightly in this embrace until I feel that shell she's built up begin to crack and she tentatively lifts her arms to hug me back.

My eyes close as her arms cross my back and I pull her tighter to me, feeling the warmth of her body against mine. This heat proves that she is alive, a person who, though immortal, deserves the same sympathy and compassion as everyone else. My head begins to spin as I search for a way to make her realize this, but I know time has taught her just the opposite.

After a few moments, her body stiffens again and I reluctantly loosen my grip and take a step back. A cool gust of wind blows past us, chilling me, but as I look over at Mokou, I notice a faint blush on her cheeks as she refuses to meet my gaze and I instantly forget the cold. A smile warms my face and I wonder if maybe I have helped her in some way overcome this anger that resides within her.

But there's not much time for me to contemplate this idea as much as I would like, because a signature yell of "Mokou!" from the night sky grabs both of our attention.

I can tell without looking thati's Kaguya - her arrogant battle cry as she awaits her rival is an obvious sign. As I watch Mokou's face grow hard and solemn again, I decide to take another action that's I've not done before. Mokou walks forward, towards the spot on the sky where Kaguya blocks the moonlight from shining where the dead red flower once bloomed - the flower soaked with the blood of each of Mokou's thousands of deaths. My arm shoots from my side to halt Mokou's advance.

It's not the full moon and I am not at my strongest right now, but I throw the logic that I love and have taught countless students out of my mind and step forward instead. Bending my knees slightly for leverage, I spring my body up to the sky to battle Kaguya in Mokou's place.

"Keine! What the hell are you doing?" Mokou screams, her voice a few pitches higher than what I'm used to hearing from her. Could she possibly be worried about me? But that's right - unlike her, I can die, and at my current level of power, I have a 0 chance of winning this battle.

But I watch Kaguya prepare to declare her first spell card and I pull out one of my own to follow - my most powerful card in this form, 'Future "Gods' Realm"'. If nothing else, I will teach Mokou something different than what I prepare in my lessons. I won't teach her about the history of Gensokyo, about the land called Japan where we originated, nor about the countless wars between the humans and the youkai. No, in comparison, all of those topics I love to lecture about mean nothing.

Today, Mokou, I will teach you a person's true reason for existence.