The name "Reimu Hakurei" was the first thing that came to the mind of Kirisame Marisa. In fact, nothing else was there at first. She took no note of the pain racing through her back, the stiffness of her arms to the point of almost being unable to move them. Not even the darkness that was currently making up her world. It was a dreadful feeling- one of absolute terror unlike which she had never felt before. Like waking up in a cold sweat from a dream in which one saw something they love perish. Marisa, however, couldn't recall dreaming any such thing, no more than she could sit up and declare that she had awakened.
Pain hit her like a freight train, and the initial sound which escape her lips was inevitably a pained groan. Her eyelids slid open, and only scalding, blurry white filled them for what was likely seconds, but felt like an eternity. Above her, a darkened cloudy sky swirled and churned. A storm looked well underway... But it hadn't quite burst down upon her yet. Off to the edge of her vision, a roof could be seen with familiar Shinto dressings hanging down. Though her thoughts were a scrambled mess of pain and confusion, it sunk in easy enough that this was Hakurei Shrine. The witch girl's mind began to race, becoming more focused and lucid now at the sight of the familiar setting.
"All right..." she whispered in a strained, bemused voice within her brain. Somehow, even her internal voice sounded beaten up, "I... Have no idea what's going on, but it looks like I'm at Reimu's... I just need to get my bearings straight and figure out what the hell is happening." Marisa hardly felt like she was in the shape to stand, so she quite openly welcomed a nice, peaceful sitdown. The fog in her mind was slowly clearing bit by bit, and she welcomed the opportunity to try and gather what she could be doing here, and how she could possibly be feeling so hurt.
"I think that a hangover is out of the question." she mused; she was no stranger to staying up too late drinking, including with Reimu...But this felt more like she had been beaten silly with a sake gourd rather than trying to work the last few drops out of one. And then, there was always the alternative explanation of danmaku... She and Reimu had often practiced out front of Hakurei Shrine. Could she have taken a bit too much of a beating? Or, more likely than that judging from the pain, fallen off her broom somehow in the midst of the fight? That seemed to be a slightly more reasonable explanation to the situation that correlated with the current state her body was in... But why, then could she remember absolutely no danmaku duel?
"None of this makes any sense, dammit." The witch finally exhaled. Then, there was no helping it; the only thing she could really do was try and find Reimu. Maybe the shrine maiden could tell her what was going on? No, not maybe, surely; it wasn't like she could have somehow missed the injured girl laying spread-out on the stairs of her shrine.
Marisa gritted her teeth together; she knew she was going to regret this, but she had to get up. If not to find Reimu and figure out how in Gensokyo she had somehow managed to end up laid up like this, then to get out of what appeared to be an oncoming storm. She moved her arms upwards and attempted to lean forward.. And all at once, her body screamed in protest, with her quickly following verbally, quickly slipping back down, flat on her back.
The witch knew she was hurt, but until she attempted that, she had absolutely no idea how bad. Her head, having felt formerly clear, was now swimming in an ocean of dizzy blurriness... Had something been agitated during that motion? She clenched her fingers together into a fist out of frustration at all of this... And found that they felt slippery, which sent an ice-cold chill down her spine even in her dazed state. Was it blood? Was that blood on her hands? Is that why she felt dazed at the moment, because she was currently bleeding out on the steps of Hakurei Shrine? How did she get here? What did this to her? How could Reimu just leave her out here in this state? For that matter, where was Reimu? Was she safe?
So many questions... But Marisa was feeling far too tired to answer them. Her fingernails clawed softly at the wood below her as she weakly writhed. Despite this rude and confusing awakening, she was already feeling sleepy again. And, furthermore, she was fully aware that if she currently had an open, bleeding wound, this might not be a sleep she would wake up from. Was this really the end? Marisa had so many more books to "borrow" and treasures to snatch. She wanted to hold on, but, she was far too exhausted to care at this point. No words were leaving her mouth, not even sounds of pain although she could feel her throat and tongue moving to try and construct them.
"I'm gonna die, I guess." she surrendered. She never thought she would go this way, though. Silently? She always figured that she'd either burn out in a blaze of glory, or at the very least cowardly fleeing from it to the very end in hopes of accumulating as much treasure as she possibly could before it happened. Who would have known she'd just wake up and it would...just happen?
"Marisa!" a voice called to her. It was from off to the side a distance. Initially, she thought it was some sort of hallucination, but it sounded twice more.. And it seemed so real, coming from somewhere she couldn't see, even if she had the strength to turn her head.. Her eyes were closing. Slowly, but surely. It wouldn't be long now... Trampling footsteps... The sound of horrified gasps. It took a brief moment for Marisa to work out who was coming towards her, but by that point, she was already passing out.
"Alice?" she asked herself inside of her hazy mind as oblivion encroached her and swallowed it up. There was nothing anymore.
If you made it to the end of this chapter, thank you for glancing, as well as sticking to it through my rather sub-par writing. I'm actually turning this story into a text adventure game, but I figured it might be fun to use at least one path as a story for my long-unused account, minus the bad ends. Chapters will likely be generally pretty short, but not as short as this one most likely.
I should have about two or three more chapters ready soon. Please leave comments on how to improve my writing and characterization, I love getting feedback about how to better myself because I am not confident at all of my skills.