They had given her a test. Her first mission as an honorary soldier of the order. She'd heard about the matter offhandedly from her seniors, that a band of the most respected tribesmen around have come seeking assistance. She could barely believe the words falling from her fellow grunt's mouth even though others – others who are much more reliable – have given testaments of its faithfulness.

She listened as she heard of men standing before her senior, bearing war-hardened faces, unnervingly softened by their urgency and worry. She could imagine it before her, the man in the lead, clearly the one with the best speech skills, begins to talk in a grave voice, barely keeping himself collected. "We apologize for the intrusion, your radiance, but it is an urgent matter…" And that's when her leader, with her ever so virtuous posture and forgiving nature, comforts their strained nerves. "You have no need for titles or apologies. What is it that you wish?" One of them elbows to the front of the crowd, he must be the one who pursues assistance. "Please, it's – it's my daughter! You must save her!"

And that's how Sharin was standing at the busted door of an abandoned basement with at least five other Crescent soldiers patrolling the grounds. The site was in the middle of a destroyed town, left for ghosts to dwell in. She could tell that this place has been populated by a heavy amount of people before though, it was natural for them to think they would be safe in such a sacred place of worship. Now, it was nothing but ruins, an empty courtyard with half a wall and parts of a dome suspended dangerously to it. "What a mess." Muttered the soldier to herself, eyeing the way her fellow escorts seemed to think they were on a sightseeing trip. True, they barely got any opportunities to leave their headquarters, but this was no excuse to fool about. She called over to one of the lower-ranked troopers – a highly superstitious, religious greenhorn who was eyeing the scarce remains of pillars surrounding them with quite the panicked expression. Sure enough, she jumped at being called after too. "Come on Noor, we don't have the entire day!"

"Can't you shut up? You'll disturb the spirits."

Sharin just snickered, wryly and cruelly. "The only spirit we'll see here will be yours if you don't move it." She gestured to the door. "Help me pick this up."

"Seriously, Sharin. Stay quiet." The newbie was younger than her by at least 3 years, but she was good at her work. 12 successful missions without a single error, 8 evacuations from toxin-attacked cities and one superstorm nullification. A record worthy of being framed and put up on a wall. They got along better than most of the others, Sharin had to admit. Even if she thought Noor was a little… well, stupid, she still had some respect for the greenhorn, and she actually agreed on how necessary were some morally dubious operations unlike those punks. They carried the heavy, half-rotten wood over to the side and dropped it with a heavy bang. "You aren't helping here, y'know." A heavy stench rose from inside the underground chamber, one of decay and mold and – if one focused enough, death. "God, it reeks in there." Noor took a couple of steps back, not as tolerant as her smell-immune friend. She looked as if she'd throw up any second, but both knew she had nothing in her stomach. They both wanted to skip the operation already, it's been years since that hole was opened, and both knew what this sort of isolation for that period of time would do to someone.

"that kid's probably dead already, don't you think?"

The two looked at the gaping hole with varying expressions, ranging from disgusted to cautious. Both didn't want to venture deeper, for either personal or ethical reasons.

"Still, we have to find the corpse. Least we can do for her father."

Sharin put both hands together, a fake, dreamy sigh escaping her. "Oh dear, so kind and caring, I think I'm going to vomit."

Noor let out a small chuckle, knowing she's going to regret signing up for this soon. "Cut it out, dummy."

The Dream World.

It was even more beautiful than what they claimed in the books. Never-ending horizons, swirling wisps of reveries curling in an unseen wind, and the birds. The birds soaring elegantly in the void without a care in the world. A reflective, almost unseen ocean composed from endless wishes of the living splashed at their feet as Reimu and Seija flew, occasionally destroying the mischievous dreams of fairies and spirits with an annoyed snap of fingers. It still awed the shrine maiden even after visiting it before, the previously untouched dimension was nothing like the earthly chaos of Gensokyo, a sharp reminder to negate the thought life outside the protective barrier was not as spectacular. No, this was a universe of pure color, of suspense, of nothing yet everything at once… so much memories – has it really been that long? "Snap out of it Hakurei! We might be in the Dream World but we're not here to sleep, you lazy shrine maiden!" In seconds, a seal slapped into the amanojaku's forehead, effectively silencing her. Reimu was starting to grow weary of the pseudo-oni's whining and grumbling when things were going the way they should be. "It must be some weird contrarian kink of hers." Muttered the brunette to herself as Seija palmed her face cautiously, removing the scrap of highly dangerous paper and throat-growling as the effects began to slowly wear off.

"Well, that plan went south." Reimu popped a ghost's dream into spectacular dust, watching as the amanojaku pinched her own cheeks, trying to get some words to come out. "You know, I might consider making the next one permanent, mutism suits you."

"MMMMPH!"

"Geez, don't you ever take a break?" The shrine maiden rolled her eyes and sighed. "You've been yelling all the way up here, consider this your day off." Narrowing her eyes at the dreamscape Reimu furrowed her brow in thought. They've invaded the dream world and made a mess by bulldozing through the dreams, and Doremy Sweet should've been here by now to smugly – attempt to – kick them out, but so far there hasn't been even a glimpse of the Baku. Maybe she's taking the day off? Her train of thought was interrupted, however, when something collided softly with the brunette's head, a pale blue danmaku arrow; Reimu yelped and immediately opened her mouth to yell some insult at the amanojaku only to see the horrified, frantic distress painted all over her face, and the eyes widened in deep shock and fear. It didn't take the brains of the moon to understand Seija had seen some unspeakable horror so disturbing, her instant reaction was to fight back – or more accurately run.

"Ah.. Ah-hah…" She muttered weakly, eyes still locked on the dangerous unseen horror as she started to take a few quivering steps back. Reimu was puzzled for a second, not exactly following, before a sharp brief shriek escaped Seija and the shrine maiden's senses went into full alert. She looked about, left and right, nothing was there except for the generic murky depths of the Dream World. "What's wrong?" She inquired, only to have the simple response of the amanojaku lifting a shaky finger to point directly at the horizon behind Reimu before buzzing off, flying as fast she could carry herself to escape whatever spooked her this badly. A bit unnerved herself by all of this, Reimu finally mustered the courage to turn around and face the unknown which appeared to be...

A sea of… cherry blossoms?

The coursing waves of soft pink petals engulfed all what there is to be seen on the far horizon, slowly but surely. They seemed to move on their own accord like a rumbling flock of finches, rolling around in the center to conceal a figure within. This was barely something to cause so much fright, and Reimu would've laughed at how much of a coward Seija was at the sight of some fragile flowers – and be angry at herself for being even a little scared. As the cherry vortex neared her however, they started to morph into sharp, glistening eyes, homing in with flawless trajectories at the brunette and shocking her motionless. She dodged the best she could, but they were scalding to the touch and cut like razors; the shrine maiden could barely escape them without getting some cuts and burns along the way. As she came closer to the center more flowers mutated into eyes and rolled down on her path, arching to meet her from the back as well. Their aim was near perfect, creating spherical paths around in the air as they rolled around, readying for another strike. Shooting some of her own bullets, Reimu came to the realization she could only beat this cruel spell-card with brute strength – Marisa style.

So she used one of her own spell-cards, her old reliable.

"Fantasy Seal!"

The colorful orbs erupted from behind Reimu and circled around the unknown figure, dismissing the flower-eyes in the process and colliding with the spell caster who appeared to be surprised by them, once, twice, and the spell-card went down. Suddenly, all of the remaining flowers and eyes morphed into little pink blobs of squelchy texture simply floating about where they stopped, some dripping into smaller pink blobs inside the gravity-less air. From within the ocean of murkiness emerged the defeated form of Doremy Sweet, rubbing her side where Reimu's magical orbs had hit. "Oof, take it easy will you?" Her hat curled about in the empty ocean of sludge, like it had a mind of its own as she picked up her book and shook it vigorously, trying to get the pages to dry. Reimu had no time to stare though, she had a scolding to give. Still angry over how easily she was duped and by whom, she broke into a yelling fit. "Are you insane!? You broke the damn rules! Spell-cards aren't supposed to cause injuries – I can get you exterminated for that!" Doremy listened, and listened as Reimu rambled more and more about the rules and Yukari and how Doremy had done the big ol' bad, but she got bored and pretty annoyed herself, which was clear by her snide "But you're not even injured, stupid."

"Huh? Don't take me as a fool, look at those–" the shrine maiden tried to gesture to where her cuts and bruises where, only to be met by clear, unbroken skin. She blinked, checked her arms and clothing again. Spotless. No rips, no burns, it was as if all the wounds she had suffered were only in her head. "…what? But how?"

"New spell-card. Still in testing so you had a great honor of experiencing its effects firsthand." Doremy picked herself back up, still wincing a bit from her side and checked her book for any corruptions. "It works based on subconscious fears of the opponent, so I don't have to waste time crafting bullets out of dreams I could serve for a more noble calling." Of course, by 'noble calling', she meant her never-to-be satisfied hunger. Rising up to be on the same level as Reimu she looked off to the horizon, in the direction of the Lunar Capital. "I'm relying more on it scaring intruders senseless like it did with that weird amanojaku – but you proved to be resilient so go on, hurry along or you might not catch up."

Reimu frowned, puzzled. Why was that stupid Baku acting so haughty? She was lucky to not get her smug smirk bashed in. still, her words did bring back their mission to the forefront of the brunette's mind, and she elbowed past Sweet – making sure the dream-eater knew how pissed she was and out into the direct Lunar path, scanning the sky left and right for Seija in the process. She just hoped her """companion""" didn't run herself into space and die there, if youkai could die in space. Could they? The answer was going to come soon enough as the atmosphere around her began to dissolve into nothingness, and the distant purple lights of the Capital loomed ahead. There she was, taking a wild shot in the dark with a broken rifle and hoping to hit the mark.

But this was Gensokyo, and in Gensokyo common sense gets screwed over - This was proven by the torrent of danmaku that lit up her destination, previously occluded by the barrier that concealed the Capital from the naked eye. Familiar orbs snaked about the buildings and over the rooftops, grazing the ceilings and brick walls as they chased a figure in a white dress. Reimu stopped in midair, watching as Seija maneuvered about hopelessly, and was about to move towards her when a half-broken orb buzzed slowly next to her, trying to join in the flock again. It must've hit a wall by accident, probably the result of bad perception by its user, but everyone had smacked one orb into a wall once, it was simply physics. Reimu held it with both palms and brought it closer, watching as it weakly writhed in her hands. "Come on now, calm down. Where's your owner?"

The orb tumbled about in the direction of a large, pale structure not far from where Reimu was. There. The shrine maiden flew in the direction of the building, which appeared to be a Lunarian shrine of sorts. It appeared barren on the outside, save for the sole figure kneeling inside. Reimu walked up the marble steps, and pulled the sliding door to the side with one swift move. "Hey, you inside!" The figure remained motionless, trying desperately to ignore the shrine maiden. But she didn't know of that, because shrine maidens don't come with the default ability to read minds. "…"

Reimu cupped her hands around her mouth and yelled at the top of her voice, unknowingly causing all the orbs around the Capital to freeze in midair. "I SAID HEY! YOU DEAF OR SOMETHING?" The figure twitched once, then turned around to face Reimu. "…that's not it." Kishin Sagume eyed her with the deepest distaste you'd see on a Lunarian, or a divine spirit, or a goddess- well, you got the point. Somewhere, deep inside the Capital's trenches, Seija was blasting the orbs into nothingness, achieving sweet revenge as she made her way to where the brunette was. "Oh it's you. What are you doing here? And why are your orbs chasing Seija everywhere?"

"Who?"

"Kijin Seija. White dress, black hair with streaks, big ego and attitude. Flipflops…" As Reimu counted on her fingers, she realized how easily her companion stood out amongst a crowd. There weren't many… there were no amanojaku in Gensokyo save for Seija, which must be really lonely. But to her, it would be too crowded? All this contrary thinking made her head ache. However, she had no opportunity to say more, because Sagume cut her off with a short, snappy "never met, don't know. Leave." After a few moments of uncomfortable silence, Reimu sighed. "Well aren't you straightforward." The shrine maiden shook her head, hands on her hips. Lunarians were such an infuriating bunch. irritating, wearisome, unpleasant, and this one was no exception. All she wanted to do was just find that darned Ame-no-Sagume person-

Wait a minute.

Reimu turned back to the doors, and back to Sagume, and her eyes widened as a ray of sudden mental illumination came upon her. It couldn't have been true. She was looking for someone she was unwillingly familiar with this entire time? Has Seija led her on a pointless hunt? She knew Kishin for more than a couple of years now and was still stopping an incident of her doing to this day- she was a lazy, sniveling, good-for-nothing, Lunarian hypocrite! All she ever contributed to Gensokyo were some balls that caused more harm than good with that entire Urban Legend deal. There was no way, no utter way she was THE Sagume, It was impossible. right? …Right? In the midst of that suspenseful moment, Seija came bursting through the doors with a stupid grin on her face and magic dust clinging to her, earning stares from everyone present.

"Aye Reimu, what did I… miss?"

A/N: "From one of the thicc fanfictions, an old probably-abandoned story slowly emerged..."

But that's probably the most you'd see out of me in a while ;; I have no excuse.