Reimu froze in the doorway. She wasn't sure who she'd been expecting to find out here, but it certainly wasn't Yukari Yakumo. She wasn't even sure if Yukari's presence made her feel more or less anxious about her situation. In theory, waking up in a youkai's captivity should have been a bad sign for the Hakurei shrine maiden.
"Good morning," she said, barely even paying attention to her words. She stepped more fully out of the room and shut the door behind her, but lingered near it. "What happened? Where are we?" Why are my eyes purple? could wait.
"Do you remember getting injured?" Yukari said, not looking up from her paper.
"Well..." Reimu's eyes trailed down toward where the scar was hidden beneath her robe. "Some. My memories are kind of fuzzy."
"Mmh, that's only to be expected. You've been through a lot." Yukari folded the paper closed, and creased it into a tidy rectangle on the table in front of her. "Why don't you have a seat? There's a lot to talk about. I'll have Ran bring us some tea."
"... right." It took actual mental effort for Reimu to convince herself to step away from the door and further into the strange room. The mix of styles was even more obvious out here. The floor was tatami, but the walls were all sturdy-looking wood with a rich, red-brown lacquer. The furnishings were... eclectic. The chabudai that Yukari was kneeling at was familiar enough, but everything else was slightly unusual. Overhead was hanging what she dimly recognized as an electric light. The too-white illumination coming from it gave everything a subtly artificial appearance. A clock, much smaller and quieter than anything she'd seen apart from Sakuya's pocket watch, hung on the wall, quietly ticking out the seconds. She'd only read them a few times in her life, but she was pretty sure that it said that it was 8:34. Strange, bright-colored toys were scattered on the floor, and also on the couch that was sitting in the corner.
The outside walls had several windows—more glass than Reimu had ever seen in one place in Gensokyo. It briefly reinforced her conviction that she was in the outside world, until she caught the view through one of them. Out the window was Youkai Mountain, as seen from... she wasn't sure, actually. It was framed in the exact center, almost like a painting, and viewed from the air. There definitely wasn't another peak in Gensokyo high enough for the view, but there it was, with clouds slowly drifting around its summit to prove its reality.
As if that weren't confusing enough, the next window over showed the familiar view from the Hakurei shrine, looking west over Gensokyo. Youkai Mountain was visible here, too, in the distance. There was no possible way that both windows could be accurate, and she knew damn well that this wasn't the shrine. Yet another window showed a more alien terrain, a sprawling arrangement of unfamiliar buildings and gray roads that she had to assume was an outside world city. Which meant—
"Reimu? It isn't nice to keep somebody waiting, you know."
Yukari's voice pulled Reimu out of her daze, and she kept moving until she was on the other side of the table. Up close, it occurred to her that Yukari was dressed casually, in the more plain dress that she wore for day-to-day affairs. She didn't even have her cap on. That was a good sign, Reimu supposed. She didn't seem to be expecting trouble.
Although Yukari's eyes were, she noted uneasily, violet.
She didn't want to think about that right now. "You still haven't told me where we are," she said, as she took a seat.
"Isn't it obvious?" Yukari gestured at the surroundings. "This is my house. We're inside the Hakurei barrier. Adjacent to both Gensokyo and the outside world, but not part of either. You've been sleeping in my guest room for several days."
"Oh." Reimu's eyes strayed back to the window that was displaying the unfamiliar city. It made her anxious. She'd always been aware of the outside world, but she'd never seen it before, apart from a few photographs that Sanae had shown her once. Seeing it so directly, like she could walk ten meters and find herself standing in it, was... unsettling. Like the slightest mistake might send her plummeting into the completely foreign land. Even seeing Makai outside would be more reassuring. "What happened to me...?"
"Why don't you begin by telling me what you remember?"
Reimu frowned down at the tabletop and tried to dredge any more detail from her memory. It was still vague and cloudy. "I remember that we were looking for the youkai that's been attacking people." A new detail surfaced, and she winced. "Something... jumped at me." The memory of spearing pain through her stomach was the last clear one that she had, really. Everything after that was fleeting sensations in a confusing jumble. "I think my stomach got ripped open? I have a scar..."
"That's reasonably close. Yes, you were injured. It was a kamaitachi, incidentally. Sanae exterminated it afterward. You don't remember what happened next?"
"Not really..." Reimu wracked her brain again, but nothing else was returning to her.
"That's unfortunate." Before Yukari could continue any further, Ran walked into the room, silently bearing a tray with a teapot and two cups. She knelt down on the side of the table beneath the pair and poured them each a cup. As soon as the smell hit Reimu's nose, her stomach grumbled in hunger. How long has it been since I ate? Yukari inclined her head gratefully to Ran as she took her cup, then turned back to Reimu. "You were bleeding to death. You were almost certainly going to die before we could get you to Eientei. So, I offered to make you my shikigami to save your life, and you accepted."
Shikigami. Reimu wasn't entirely sure what it meant, but it sounded important. She had heard the word a few times. That's what Ran is, right? She glanced over to the kitsune. Ran was sipping her tea, seeming oblivious to the conversation that was taking place in front of her, but she very briefly looked up. Her golden eyes met Reimu's for just an instant. When she looked away, Reimu saw flecks of violet in them, catching the light.
The bottom fell out of her stomach. Whatever the relationship between Yukari and Ran was, it didn't seem like something she could just walk away from. Turning back toward Yukari, she found Yukari's eyes locked with her own. Watching her. Studying her reaction, maybe. Somehow, it seemed to anchor her and prevent her from just collapsing to the floor in frustration. "W-what does that mean?"
"The ritual... linked us together. There's a piece of my soul in you, and part of yours in mine." Yukari smiled wryly. "We are forever connected."
"What does that have to do with saving me?!"
Yukari held her gaze for another second, and briefly, Reimu thought she might be planning to shout back. Without a word, though, Yukari rose up to standing. Her hands trailed down her body to the lower hem of her dress. Under her fingertips, the cloth parted seamlessly, revealing the flesh beneath. She gripped the two sides of the split and tugged them apart.
Reimu looked away, but a sight from the corner of her eyes dragged her gaze back—there, on Yukari's now-bared stomach, was a scar. A thin white one, stretching from one side to the other and crooking upward as it went, with jagged little lines branching off of it.
It was Reimu's scar. The same one on her stomach. Once she'd stared at it in disbelief for a few seconds, Yukari smoothed her dress back together.
"We're connected," she repeated, as she sat back down. "I share a part of any wounds that you take, and you share mine. I might say that you're getting the better part of the bargain, since a youkai like me wouldn't die from anything so simple as a cut to the stomach. Thanks in part to that, you seem to have come through okay. It was still uncertain for a while, though. I've only been recovered enough to walk around for a day, myself."
Already, Reimu found her thoughts stumbling and overwhelmed, and she got the feeling that she had barely scratched the surface of her new situation. Compared to the strange cloned scars, the eyes barely seemed noteworthy. "... why did you do that?"
"Why? Well, isn't saving you enough of a reason?" Yukari stated it as if she were pointing out a mere fact, but suddenly seemed melancholy. Reimu wasn't quite sure how to interpret that. It was rare to see any emotions but condescending amusement from her. "This isn't something I would do lightly. Your impending death forced my hand. "
"Huh..." With that, Reimu found that she had no idea where to take the conversation from here. The tea in front of her had stopped steaming. She took the opportunity to have a few sips of it, giving her an excuse to delay her response. Like the few other things she'd ever eaten that Ran had prepared, it was wonderful, a delicate and complex blend of flavors that seemed to warm her to the bone. It took some of the frantic edge off her thoughts, and by the time she spoke up again, she felt like she just might survive this. "I still don't remember any of this..."
"It isn't surprising. Human minds are notoriously frail when it comes to trauma."
"I guess."
"I'm sorry. I know that this is a big change. Under normal circumstances, I wouldn't make the offer in such... coerced conditions. The binding of a shikigami should be done with full awareness and consent from both parties."
Reimu nodded glumly, and took another sip of tea while she thought. "What happens now?"
"That's up to you. Take your time to decide what you want to do. You're my shikigami in fact, but not in spirit. I've only done the very basic rituals, enough to save your life. If you'd like, you can leave here and live out your life however you want. If you choose to continue... we'll complete the process, install your software, and you can start working for me."
The strange word, 'software,' resonated in Reimu's mind. She'd heard Yukari refer to it a few times in reference to Ran, but it was otherwise foreign. Not that it was her only problem with this situation. "I'm not going to work for a youkai. Nobody would trust me as the shrine maiden for a second if I did that."
"Well. There's a complication." Yukari hesitated, and Reimu realized that she couldn't possibly like what came next. She looked guilty. "Reimu, I'm afraid you're no longer suitable to be the shrine maiden."
"... what do you mean?"
"As I said before, the ritual joined our souls together. Spiritually, you are no longer fully human."
"So what am I?" She didn't want to hear the answer. The list of possibilities was short, and none of them were good. Already, she could feel her world collapsing beneath her.
"A youkai," Yukari said softly.
The word alone made Reimu clench her teeth. "Y-you made me a youkai?!"
"Reimu, please calm d—"
"Calm down?!" Driven by pure emotion, Reimu rose to standing, leaning over the table. "You made me a youkai!"
"It was to save your life."
"Then you should have just let me die!" Reimu's voice cracked toward the end of the sentence, and she immediately regretted it. She knew she didn't mean it, but... saying it was cathartic. In the aftermath of the outburst, the silence seemed absolute. She could hear every tick of the clock on the wall. She didn't know what to say. She couldn't handle this—she needed to be emaway/em, to have some time to think. There wasn't a door in sight, though, and even if she could get out, she wasn't sure if she could actually get home from here.
Mumbling a quick apology under her breath, Reimu turned and ran back toward the room she'd woken up in. She almost managed to slam the door behind her before she started crying.
