At midnight, on the twelfth of hazuki, a huge mass of luminous gas erupted from mars and sped towards earth.
I made contact with Eirin the astronomer, and we hurried to her observatory.
Across two hundred million miles of void, invisibly hurtling towards us came the first of the missiles that were to bring so much calamity to gensokyo.
As we watched, there was another jet of gas. It was another missile, starting on its way…
And that's how it was for the next 10 nights… a Flare, spurting out from mars… Bright green, and drawing a green mist behind it.
A beautiful but somehow disturbing sight. Eirin assured me we were in no danger, maybe a giant volcanic eruption was in progress. Whatever the cause, she was convinced there could be no living thing on that remote… forbidding planet.
"The chances of anything coming from mars are a million to one!" she said.
"The chances of anything coming from mars are a million to one… but still, they come…" I muttered.
Then came the night the first missile approached gensokyo.
Hundreds saw it, but thought it was an ordinary falling star. The moon rabbit said it fell with a hissing sound, said that it landed with a green flash.
But the next day there was a huge crater in the middle of the bamboo forest, and Eirin, rigid with excitement came to examine what lay there.
A cylinder, thirty yards across, glowing hot, and with faint sounds of movement coming from within.
Suddenly the top began moving… rotating… unscrewing, and Eirin feared there was a person inside trying to escape.
She rushed to the cylinder but the intense heat stopped her before she could burn herself on the still glowing metal.
"The chances of anything coming from mars are a million to one!" she said
"The chances of anything coming from mars are a million to one, but still, they come."
It seems totally incredible to me now that… everyone spent that evening as though it was just like… any other?..
From the forge came the sound of clanging metal, ringing and rumbling. Softened almost into melody by the distance…
It all seemed so safe, and tranquil…
Next morning, a crowd gathered in the bamboo forest, hypnotised by the unscrewing of the cylinder.
Two feet of shining screw projected when, suddenly.
The lid fell off.
Two luminous, disk like eyes appeared above the rim.
A huge rounded bulk larger than an oni rose up slowly, glistening like wet leather.
It's lipless mouth quivered and slavered, and snakelike tentacles writhed as the clumsy body heaved and pulsated.
A few fairies crept closer to the pit.
A tall funnel rose and an invisible ray of heat leapt from fairy to fairy, and there was a bright glare as each was instantly turned to fire.
Every tree or bamboo became a mass of flames at the touch of this… savage. Unearthly heat ray.
People clawed their way out of the forest, and I ran too!
I felt like I was being toyed with, that when I was on the very verge of safety this mysterious death would leap after me and strike me down.
At last I reached Eintei where I was staying for a while and looked around me astonished at the tranquillity of the scene.
But once inside, I wrote an account for perfect memento in strict sense and sank into a restless, haunted sleep.
I awoke to alien sounds of hammering from the pit, and ran to the crow tengu's stand to buy the newspaper.
"Oi everyone! Men from mars! MEN FROM MARS!"
The news tengu explained, one or two adventurous rabbits had crawled near to the martians in the night, never to be seen again.
Yet around me, the daily routine of life: Working, eating, sleeping. Was continuing serenely as it had for countless years…
Deep within the forest, the martians continued hammering and stiring, sleepless indefatigable, at work upon the machines they were making. Now and again, a light like the beam of one of the kappa's warship searchlights swept the forest, and the heat ray was ready to follow.
That afternoon, a company of incident resolvers came through and deployed along the edge of the pit to form a cordon.
That evening there was a violent crash, and I realised with horror that eintei was now within range of a martians heat ray.
Later that night, a falling star with a trail of green mist landed with a flash like summer lightning, this was the second cylinder.
The hammering from the pit, and the whizzing and hissing of Danmaku grew louder.
My fears rose at the sound of someone creeping into the house.
Then I saw it was a young magician, weary, her blue dress streaked with blood and two dolls hanging limply by her shoulders.
"Is there anyone here?"
"Come in," I beckoned "Here, drink this" I grabbed a cup of lukewarm tea. The response was immediate, she lit up like a torch.
"Thank you." She coughed a bit, but I pressed on.
"What's happened?"
"They wiped us out! Reimu dead, maybe marisa too!"
"The heat ray?"
"The martians!" she cried. "they were inside the hoods of… machines they'd made, massive metal things on legs, Giant machines that walked! They attacked us… they wiped us out…"
"Machines?" I asked
"Fighting machines, Picking up resolvers and BASHING them against trees!" She mimed the action with her hands. "Just hunks of metal, but they knew EXACTLY what they were doing."
"Ugh." I groaned. "There was another cylinder came last night,"
"Yes," she responded "Yes it looked bound for the human village…"
The village? Renko!
I hadn't dreamed there could be danger to Renko so many miles away.
"I must go to the village at once!"
"And me!" the magician raised a hand. "Got to report to the shrine, if there's anything left of it…"
We set out on foot, at kourindo we found it deserted.
"Is everybody dead?" the magician asked
"Not everybody, look!" I pointed up the road "Six kappa, with spellcards standing by."
"It's bows and arrows against the lightning." The magician scoffed. "They haven't seen the heat ray yet…"
We hurried along the road towards the Scarlet devil mansion.
Suddenly there was a heavy explosion: The ground heaved, windows shattered and gusts of smoke erupted into the air.
"LOOK! The magician cried. "There they are! WHAT DID I TELL YOU!?"
Quickly, one after the other, four of the fighting machines appeared. Monstrous tripods higher than the tallest building, striding over the pine trees and smashing them. Walking engines of glittering metal. Each carried a huge funnel, and I realised that I had seen this awful thing before!
A fifth machine appeared on the other side of kourindou. In an instant it raised itself to full height, flourished the funnel high in the air…
And the ghostly, terrible heat ray struck the shop.
As it struck, all five fighting machines exulted emitting deafening howls which roared like thunder!
"OOOOOOOHLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRGHHHH!"
The once fairly strong looking mostly wooden building burnt like a match and was quickly reduced to rubble, but the Martians didn't stop, the heat ray plunged down again and again until there was no sign that Rinnosuke had ever set up a shop here in the first place.
The six kappa, drew their spellcards and fired simultaneously, decapitating a fighting machine. Spellcard rules forgotten, the Martian inside the hood was slain SPLASHED to the four winds, and the body, nothing now but an intricate device of metal went whirling to destruction.
As the other monsters advanced, people ran away blindly – The magician among them- but I jumped into a stream, and hid below the surface until forced up to breath.
Now the Kappa fired again, but this time, the heat ray sent them all to oblivion.
Suddenly, the Machines turned on me.
With a white flash, the heat ray swept across the river, Scalded, half-blinded and agonized I staggered through leaping hissing water towards the shore.
I fell helplessly in full sight of the Martians expecting nothing but death!
The foot of a fighting machine came down close to my head, then lifted again as the four martians carried away the debris of their fallen comrade, and I realised that by a miracle, I had escaped.
For three days I stumbled across desolate roads, only rarely seeing another refugee, like the night sparrow, or the Immortal Mokou. (Although why she fled from these things was anybody's guess.)
Always carrying what little valuables they could on bags on their backs. All that was of value to me was in the Village.
By the time I had reached their little thatched roof house, Renko and her cousin had gone.
The summer sun is fading as the year grows old. And darker days are drawing near.
The winter winds will be much colder, Now you're not here…
I watch the birds fly south across the autumn sky,
And one by one they disappear… I wish that I was flying with them. Now you're not here.
Like the sun through the trees you came to love me,
Like a leaf on the breeze you blew away!
Through autumns golden gown we used to kick our way.
You always loved this time of year…
Those fallen leaves lie undisturbed now, cus you're not here.
Fire suddenly caught and leapt from house to house, the population panicked and ran! And I was swept along with them.
Finally I headed eastward for the Sanzu River, and my only hope of survival. Refuge with the dead… I wondered why the village hadn't been hidden but I soon found the answer, in the form of the dead body of a hakutaku barely recognizably charred black.
Like the sun through the trees you came to love me
Like a leaf on the breeze you blew away!
A gentle rain falls softly on my weary eyes…
As if to hide the lonely tears.
My life will be forever autumn. Now you're not here!
Cus you're not here.
Cuz you're not here…
As I hastened through street after street, more and more people joined the painful exodus.
Sad, weary women, their children stumbling streaked with tears. Their men bitter and angry.
The rich rubbing shoulders with beggars and outcasts.
Dogs snarled and whined and the horse's bits were covered with foam.
And here and there were wounded soldiers, as helpless as the rest of us…
We saw tripods wading across the mysty lake, shooting through groups of fairies and as if they were nothing!
Cirno's friends,
Rumia and daiyousai
One, appeared above the Mansion!
"OOOOOOOHLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRGHHHH!"
Never before in the history of gensokyo had such a mass of humans and youkai moved and suffered together, this was no disciplined march, it was a stampede! Without order and without a goal.
60,000 unarmed and unprovisioned driving headlong. It was the beginning of the rout of civilisation.
Of the massacre, of all living beings.
A vast crowd buffeted me towards the already packed kappa boat that komachi had now occupied.
I looked up enviously at those safely on board, straight into the eyes of my beloved Renko. At sight of me she began to fight her way along the packed deck to the gangplank, at that very moment, it was raised. And I caught a last glimpse of her… Despairing face, as the crowd swept me away from her.
Like the sun through the trees you came to love me
Like a leaf on the breeze you blew away!
Through autumns golden gown we used to kick our way.
You always loved this time of year…
Those fallen leaves lie undisturbed now.
Cus you're not here!
cus you're not here!
Cus you're noooot here!
"OOOOOOOHLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRGHHHH!"
My internal monologue was cut short by the cry of a fighting machine.
The steamer began to move slowly away, but on the landward horizon appeared the silhouette of a fighting machine.
Another came, and another! Striding over hills and trees! Plunging fire out into the river and blocking the exit of the steamer!
From the other bank, came the appeared the silent grey kappa ironclad Battleship, Thunderchild.
Slowly it moved towards shore, then with a deafening roar and whoosh of spray, it swung about and drove at full speed towards the waiting martians!
There were people of shapes and sizes, scattered out around the bay
And I thought I heard her calling, AS the steamer pulled away!
The invaders must have seen them, as across the coast they filed
Standing firm between them…
THERE LAY THUNDERR CHIILD!
Moving swiftly through the water, cannons blazing as she came.
Brought a mighty metal warlord,
CRASHING down in sheets of flame!
Sensing victory was nearing, thinking fortune must've smiled.
People started cheering!
"Come on thunder child! Come on thunder chiiiild!"
The martians released clouds of noxious black smoke, but the ship sped on! Cutting down the second tripod figure, it swayed momentarily before plunging down into the black waters of the sanzu.
Instantly, the final one raised its funnel, and the heat ray plunged down onto the thunderchild's upraised deck!
The bow of the ship glowed red, and the water around it steamed and boiled!
Slowly as the ship listed to port, it's rear turret suddenly snapped towards the tripod! But without hesitation, it fired two luminous green lazer shots into the ship, creating a giant green explosion throwing kappa into the bubbling hissing water below.
The martian put two more shots into the side of the ship, smaller guns popping out of barbettes and into the water as it slowly dismembered our last hope for survival…
Dashing hopes and smashing timbers,
Flashing heat rays pierced the deck, dashing hopes for our deliverance
AS we watched the sinking wreck!
With the smoke of battle clearing, over greys and waves defiled…
Slowly disappearing…
Farewell Thunder child!
When the smoke cleared, Komachi's steamer had reached the misty bank of the river. But the thunder child had vanished forever, taking with her our last hope of victory.
The leaden sky was lit by green flashes, as cylinder following cylinder and no one and nothing was left now to fight them.
Gensokyo Belonged to the martians…