She was running out of shots, and she was running out of time.

The enemy and she stood at a distance in the inner sanctum which had been wrecked by their battles. It had earlier been built seemingly in vein of a cathedral, with its tall hallowed space broken up by rows of elaborately sculpted pillars splitting the ground into a central nave and aisles. A beautiful wood desk would have been in the very back on the altar space, with the work station as one's own pulpit. Massive stain glass windows would have illuminated the room, designs that paid no appraisal to any deity.

Very little of that design conceit was left though. The desk had been the first to go in the opening rounds of the battle, the windows were easy to break in the maelstrom of blows, and the pillars, providing easy cover, or an easy weapon, had been systematically blown away over the course of the battle.

Another one just went as she rolled away from the foot that drove itself through the marble, collapsing the whole thing. Pieces of white stone crumbled across the ground as she slid to a halt on her knees. Her body ached; she was exhausted with the constant battle that had brought her up to now. She could feel the air burn through her throat and into her aching lungs from the effort of keeping herself going. She braced herself on her toes and one hand, to keep her profile low and ready to explode into motion. Meanwhile, her right hand remained wrapped around to the small of her back, thumbing the leather thong tied to her waist where her last orb remained. She could have called back the others, but in these quarters, there simply was no time.

He looked down imperiously upon her, ice blue eyes seeing her as a mere annoyance to inevitably destroy. He retracted his foot and turned towards her.

"I understand now. What I feel is called disappointment. If you had taken our offer, I would not have to kill you. A part of me, even now, remains curious about your reasoning. 'Standing by Gensokyo', was it? But you are better than an illusion. Superior to the illusion. My master covets what the perfection of your body represents. I, myself, see your soul, in a flawless radiance."

"There's nothing you could say that would make me change my mind. I'm going to save my friend from you people, no matter what it takes!" The woman coldly responded.

"Your friend is making the sacrifices necessary to destroy Gensokyo. You will not have her back, but she could have you back. Don't let the selfishness of your duties to this realm blind your options."

He held out his open hand, offering peace.

"My master will always make the same offer. Accompany your friend with us. Leave that pocket of existence to its end."

"I'm not going to let you use her like this!" She shouted at him in continued defiance. She sprung off the ground, air exploding noisily around her as she flung herself at her mortal enemy.

"So be it. In the end, you refuse to let yourself being anything more than a Hakurei miko-"

He drew back his fist almost lazily even while the woman flew at him, the hand behind her back flinging out, with her fingers wrapped around a smooth orb, decorated with a red and white Taijitu. At the same time, the man's sharp jab collided with the woman's wide, sailing swing. There was a crack of thunder and a bolt of something that could have been construed as lightning as the forces met.

The area ten feet around them exploded, a ball of compressed air flinging dust and loose debris, and the half remaining pillars and construction flying, rattling and coming loose. The walls of the cathedral collapsed, one side of the room coming unsheathed and falling down to the depths below.

As the chaos simmered down, leaving a hollow whine of passing wind through the area. After a minute, the woman's black booted foot kicked some of the stones away, freeing her from the piles she had been trapped underneath. She choked and gasped for air as she pushed herself off the ground and staggered to her feet.

She found herself staring at the opening in the wall, and down into the caverns and depths that surrounded her. There was nothing to mask the sounds of the screeching and wrenching machinery down below.

She felt a chill run down her spine as she felt a presence behind her.

Even with all the strength she put into that last blow…

She swirled around just as the rubble exploded away, with him suddenly staring her down, face to face.

That same instant she felt something cold and frozen lance through her chest, and spearing through where her heart beat.

The shock was so violent, she could feel the organ shuddering for an instant. The woman herself, gave a feeble choke before she started to fall on her knees. Her vision swam as the coldness overcame her. But he wasn't satisfied until his white gloved hand swung out and snatched about her neck in a vice grip. With little effort, he pulled upward, until he was holding her in the air, her legs dangling lifelessly, while she held onto his wrist with her hands, trying to free herself, or at the least, keep breathing while his fingers crushed her windpipe closed.

"I've already mentioned my displeasure at how it will end like this. So may we bid our farewells here. Eat despair, savor failure, and listen to the machines that will end Gensokyo."

All her strength was leaving. She almost felt guilty about fighting "too hard" just prior, with what was left of her sapped at this critical moment.

But she couldn't give up now. She had to do something. She had to keep fighting. Everyone was relying on her, and she couldn't… she couldn't…

She couldn't breath…

It's going dark…

With that, she realized how hard it was to even keep her eyes open, as a light headed fuzziness consumed all her thoughts, and slowly, the pain and the exhaustion subsided, as her eyes closed…

Person With Many Aliases Presents:

Precurse at Frozen Dam

An Ancient Eastern Tale.

"Touhou Project" property of Team Shanghai Alice.

Original Characters and Concepts property of Author "Person With Many Aliases".

Excluding unofficial fan designs.

1: The Godless Shrine

In a world that existed half out of place, there sat an isolated shrine, nestled comfortably between the feet of two mountains.

When one says the shrine is "isolated", it did not only mean it was far from human contact, though it certainly was. The approach to the shrine from the nearest (and only) human civilization in this other worldly realm was still close to an hour just walking. But the shrine was not isolated merely from men, but also from whatever deities it would have housed.

It was a worn, weathered collection of timber, without a god to host. Its only company was the wall of the magic barrier that sat behind the shrine, part of the great and near invisible wall that encircled the land called Gensokyo. But as it was the "Hakurei shrine", it regardless had at least one occupant to care for the empty temple. The one Hakurei miko.

With no deity to venerate, the main hall in the center of the shrine was a largely empty space. It suited the woman fine, who sat stock still in the room, legs drawn up underneath her in seiza. Her black hair spilled without restraint down her back, save for the errant strands that seemed to slide down her face, here and there, and a curling, rebellious wisp that poked out from the top of her head. Her eyes were shut, and her breaths were inaudible and even, her mind most likely drifted off into that strange place minds go in meditation.

Her garb wouldn't have been considered orthodox for a shrine worker, though the color was at least, technically correct. A red, overall like fabric was tied over her front, giving a upper layer to a black leotard she wore underneath. Tied to her arms were voluminous lengths of white sleeves patterned like a miko's. Her legs were covered with a red hakama, tied to the waist by a bow of the same color.

It was clothing not up to standard, but it sufficed in drawing a compromise between her two lines of business. Form and Function, Freedom of movement and Formality of-

"Hakurei? Hakurei! It's me!" A voice echoed from outside and into the hall.

The girl's voice woke up the woman from the depths of meditation she had placed herself in. With a rumble of confusion from her throat, the miko's eyes weakly fluttered open, letting gold eyes see the hall again.

"Hakurei! Are you awake in there?"

She stood up, swiveling her bare shoulders to get some life into them, and twisting her neck from side to side in a decidedly unlady like faction. There was a loud noise of clicking bones.

A few striding steps, and the woman opened up the sliding screen doors to see the outside porch of the shrine.

It was winter.

The snowfall was coming down rapidly, with the mountains, nay, the Hakurei miko's entire world as far as she could see, covered with a white sheet and a gray sky. Standing in front of her, before the wood steps of the shrine was a teenage girl in a drab kimono, but wrapped over with a burly white nylon coat, an article that had found its way in from the world beyond the Barrier. She wore a black scarf around her neck, which helped her from disappearing from the Hakurei's sight and into the snow. Her long blonde hair was tied back into a long braid that swung about on her back, with bangs that framed green eyes.

"Good afternoon, Kirisame. If I am correct and it is afternoon…" Hakurei politely greeted, before staring up into the gray clouds, which gave no sign of where the sun was this winter day.

"It is. After all, I brought lunch again!" The younger of the two raised a bag, presumably with boxed food.

"Kirisame, you shouldn't have." The miko intoned, almost neutrally, but there was a hint of embarrassed gratitude, "You keep going out of your way to visit me…"

"Of course I would! After all, who else would bring you actual edible food?"

And what Kirisame was true on more than one account. One, the Hakurei miko couldn't cook. She could boil rice and ingredients until they were edible, for sure, but in her friend's opinion that couldn't be counted as "cooking". "Cooking" required meats, spices, exotic multi-stage preparations, and deserts with tea, or coffee more rarely, on the really spectacular parties.

The other was that the young girl seemed to be the only person brave enough to want to visit the Hakurei for anything more than business. (There was one other who didn't mind the miko's presence, but he was too stoic to do anything more than sit in his shop. He wasn't too popular, either.)

"Besides, we're friends!"

"Are we?"

"Well, of course! At least I'll be your friend, if you're not going to be my friend. Do I have to keep reminding you to call me by my name?" The girl cheerfully lectured.

The miko shrugged, "Very well, Malice. But if we're supposedly friends, why are you standing under the snow? You're free to enter."

"Heh, you know. It's procedure for a lowly peon to ask permission to enter the sacred domain of an awesome god!"

"It's the Hakurei shrine, Malice. It's just a building."

"Then I humbly ask you, then for protection, lest I be struck down by lightning."

The miko finally gave in and laughed, "Alright, just come in out of the cold, before you freeze to death. I'll make sure the ancestors don't get you killed."

Malice smiled and walked up the steps and followed Hakurei into her home, and the snow outside would continue to fall.

"Malice, are you sure you can take this long a time out of your schedule to meet me?"

"It's no problem, really."

"But what about your shop at the Fortress?"

"It's not my shop, Hakurei. Besides, my dad can take care of it without me."

"…Malice, does your father even know you've gone?"

The younger of the two frowned, trying to think of an explanation, while drinking the cup of tea Hakurei had set out for them.

"I… uh… he wouldn't have let me go if I told him!"

The miko had to sigh, then.

"Malice, I understand that the Fortress can be stifling for someone your age… but you shouldn't shut out your father like that. He worries about you."

"Hmph. It's only because he wants me to go and take over his precious business." Malice grumbled into her cup of tea.

"You know how important the Kirisame shop is, Malice. You'll have an important duty to the Fortress one day. Everybody needs to know they can depend on each other… especially now that it's winter."

"You're the last person I want to hear that speech from."

Hakurei thought about that for a second, before apologizing, "I'm sorry. It's probably what you're father says to you all the time."

The teenager gave another long suffering sigh, "Besides, you're the one who lives all the way out here by yourself. You don't need to depend on anybody."

"It's not that simple, Malice. If this shrine didn't sit behind the walls of the Fortress, I'm sure this place would be swarming with Youkai by now. I've been protected by the people as much as anyone else."

For a moment, the miko gave a bare smile to herself, and it was wane and humorless.

"Besides, it is an honor to be the Hakurei Miko, but it was never a choice…"

"O-Oh, did I offend you? I mean, I'm sorry, I never thought about it like that-"

The miko blinked herself back to reality, before she waved away Malice's horrified apologies, "Don't worry. It's not something that bothers me anymore."

She changed the topic, "Malice, I understand it's difficult to live in the Fortress with all these expectations, but please try to be more understanding of why it has to be like this."

"Hmmngh, fine…"

Hakurei continued, "But it is the duty of a shrine maiden, and a friend, to provide a sanctuary for those who are troubled by their day to day lives. You'll always be welcome here, when things are too hectic down at the Fortress."

"You mean it?"

Before the miko could have answered though, duty called. Through the doors of the sitting room, Hakurei and Malice could hear the hollow jangling of bells. Hakurei knew it was the sound of the Suzu bells outside. Malice knew who would be the one ringing it to bring attention.

"Um… Hakurei…? My dad…"

"Don't worry, if he's ringing the bells, and not kicking down the doors, that means he's here for me, not you."

"Malice." Was all Kirisame Togusa said when the two women emerged from the innards of the Shrine. Even then, the tone of his voice gave the disappointed weight of a thousand word diatribe, just begging to open up on his daughter. The two certainly didn't take after each other, with his brown mop haired, brown eyed head sitting atop a more traditional heavy winter cloak that hid his body from the weather.

"Kirisame, good afternoon." The miko greeted, "I'm sorry that Malice didn't tell you she had wanted to visit me today, she's always worried about my being lonely."

Togusa snorted, before looking at his daughter beside the miko, "You're lucky she's your friend. We'll talk more later, Malice. Go back to the Fortress."

"You can't just make me leave all of a sudden, dad!" Malice whined. It stopped when Hakurei put a hand on her shoulder.

"You should listen to your father. He and I will be talking about things that would be boring to you if you stayed. Well, his friend and him, really."

The miko looked on at the second man who had been following Togusa. A thin, young, weedy looking man, which otherwise didn't have much to appeal to her memory. She didn't see very many other people, as it was. But he had an expression to him that struck her. He seemed off in another world, trapped in his thoughts. He wasn't paying attention. He was haunted.

"Are you sure I should go?" Malice seemed unapologetically steadfast.

"Please, Malice. This is business, now."

"Tch. Alright, then. See you later, Hakurei, Dad." The young blonde sighed, as she took off, past her father and down the first set of stairs down the shrine.

Togusa looked back, following the image of his disappearing daughter, before he turned back to the miko.

"I don't know how you get her to listen to you…"

The miko shrugged with her shoulders, with a helpless expression of her own, "She just finds it easy to attach herself to me. But let's not talk outside in the snow, Kirisame. You have troubles. Let me listen."

Hakurei cooked another pot of tea, as two men and one woman kneeled in the sitting room. The atmosphere was considerably thicker. Something ominous had settled over the company.

"Hakurei miko, this is Kangou Hiro. He's a farmer at the Fortress. He's the one with a problem, and came to me to appeal for your help on his behalf." Togusa motioned the otherwise silent and nervous man. His eyes darted about a little, never quite allowing himself to look straight at the miko.

She was not offended. Togusa did the same the first time they met, and still did it right now, though he was covering it with his waving towards Hiro. No person at the village had the nerve to look directly at the miko, her and her powerful golden eyes. It was a trait that no one else in the village had, or nay, any ordinary human had.

The miko poured the tea out, carefully and precisely. Togusa nudged Hiro.

"Come on. You have to tell her what happened, if you're not going to tell me."

Hiro sat, consumed by the silence, before it slowly came eking out.

"I… I was married… last year… but she died…"

"I'm sorry." The miko said quietly.

"It's fine…Kyoko had a weak body… she was still happy… Kyoko was buried outside the Fortress walls… but…"

Hiro was practically mumbling to himself, lost. The miko urged him to continue.

"But?"

"I was checking the fields… I saw her…"

"You saw your wife alive?"

It was then that Hiro broke down, hands pressed into his face, memories bringing back loud sobbing.

"She's not! I saw her buried! Oh god, she wasn't alive at all… Kyoko's body… just shambling, covered in dirt, her skin… her body is just being walked around… a corpse… something's just walking my wife around…"

Togusa made his voice known, as Hiro couldn't continue anymore, "Hiro saw it first, and we had people check. Several other recent graves have been unearthed, as if the bodies crawled out on their own."

"A Youkai is at the bottom of this." The miko concluded for him.

"It's a little ghastly, but I don't know what else in Gensokyo would be interested in human bodies."

Hiro choked again, hearing those words. Kyoko being little more than a "human body". Hakurei reached across, her hand firmly squeezing Hiro's shoulder, reassuring him.

"I will find out what creature is responsible, Kangou. I won't let it take the people we love so lightly."

"The… bodies are moving northwards away from the Fortress, deeper into the valley. We didn't want to go very far from the Fortress, though." Togusa added.

"That's enough for me to go on. I'll handle it from here. This is my duty."

She stood up, already in her field, eyes narrowing, locking onto a target in her mind, for which her fist was tightening for.

She was the miko of the Hakurei Shrine, and it was her duty, her part of a tradition that predated her for generations, to uphold the position of humans in an unspoken law that ran through fiber of the land that existed half out of place.

Youkai eat Humans, and Humans hunt Youkai.

Out in the snowy fields, it trotted on four pawed feet. It had a supple wolf shape, covered in coarse wolf fur. Padding through the drifts, it stopped atop a hill.

Down below, its canine eyes could see the homesteads of the humans. The rows of small cottages and cabins, which terminated with the large wooden wall, the moat that had sharp bamboo pikes driven into the dirt, and the frozen river that the humans would keep trying to break up, keep the cold water moving, and turn it into a defensible position.

The wolf stared at the civilization down below, before taking a few experiment sniffs.

Then its jaw broke. There was an audible snap as the upper and lower head of the animal hinged open almost perpendicular to the body. From the open throat , a mass of writhing snakes poured out, splaying out into the cold wind. Each head flicking out into the cold with their tongues, each tasting the air for scents.

After a minute, the lizards withdrew, backwards, back into the cavity of the thing aping the ways of a wolf. It rose up onto its hind feet.

There, it stood in the snow, sneering, and watching with a pair of mismatched eyes, one red, the other yellow, both with pupils like a cat's.

"Fooound you~."

Hieda's Momentos:

Sendai Hakurei no Miko:

"The Previous Generation's Hakurei Shrine Maiden"

"Reimu's predecessor. No one remembers her name now, but the older residents of Gensokyo remember her as being very talented in her role as the Hakurei miko.

Since she lived in a time before the spellcard rules were invented, her methods of dealing with troublesome youkai were rather more brutal: powerful physical blows backed by fast movement and divine power, breaking bones and crushing organs."

Kirisame:

A household name of the human populace for many years. Owners of a supply and second hand goods store that is passed down from one generation to the next. It was a vital lifeline in the Human Fortress, both as a place to collect and inventory supplies, and as a symbol of human civilization, something that can be rare in Gensokyo, in both Youkai and Human alike. The current shop owner is Kirisame Togusa. His daughter is Kirisame Malice. (They call it the "Rebellious phase", don't they?)

A Youkai That Raises The Dead:

There are many ways to manipulate a physical corpse. Technically speaking, all you need to do is "move" the body around. This could be done by puppetry, for one. One can also create Ghouls, Thralls, Zombies, Revenants, Jiang Shi, etc. This Impartation of Will, however, is in the domain of advanced magic. I worry what kind of Youkai would have such knowledge.

Unidentified Creature:

Some villagers the other day mentioned about an odd dog like creature, that did not behave exactly like a dog, or a wolf. Could it be a Nue…?

Author's Notes:

The Hakurei Miko is an original design built for the MUGEN fighting game engine. The details of her origins otherwise, besides a few online videos, and this description of her on an image gallery, remains scant.

For the sake of this story, the description of "Previous Generation" and "predecessor", should not be measured literally. More like, a "given value of previous and predecessor". Perhaps the next chapter or two will provide some indication of the timeline.