Marisa didn't quite absorb the news at first. I took a few moments for her to realize what Patchouli was saying to her. Unfortunately, realizing it didn't make her feel better at all. It made her feel far, far worse.

"What are you saying," she asked, even though she had heard Patchouli's words perfectly. Marisa was in disbelief. A spell that could control minds? How could such a thing even be possible? Who would create something so horrifying, so villainous, so overwhelmingly vile? And who would be malignant enough to use it? It was hard for Marisa to believe.

Patchouli sighed, her face falling as she did so. For a moment, she looked just as vulnerable as the two girls standing in front of her felt. Then, she opened her eyes again, but they weren't filled with pain or fear. She was glaring.

"I mean precisely what I said. Do you think that I would lie to you about something like this? This is not just some joke! This is real, and it's happening to us right now!" Patchouli wasn't yelling, but her voice was still just as forceful as if she had been. Marisa had never seen her in this state, not even after getting her books borrowed.

Alice spoke up before Marisa could. "Patchouli, tell us what's going on. What happened?" Marisa looked at Alice. She looked frightened. Marisa could understand why. This surely wasn't something they had ever thought they'd hear outside of a story in a book. It seemed unrealistic, even by Gensokyo's standards.

The purple witch sighed again, but this time it was weariness that shone through her face rather than exposure. "I'll try to make this as fast as I can. We're in serious danger. I would tell you to walk, but... my asthma. I need to rest for a minute..." Suddenly, Marisa wondered if Patchouli was really sighing before. Now that she thought about it, it looked almost as if she was catching her breath instead. She must have been running before Marisa and Alice found her.

"Ok," Patchouli started, her voice sounding a little steadier. "I'll tell you everything that's happened. Last night, I felt something that was off. It was an energy, some kind of power. It seemed familiar, but I wasn't entirely sure... I went into my library and started looking through my books, trying to find where this seemed familiar. At first it was nothing harmful, I could tell, but then I started noticing something else. It was progressing."

Alice interrupted quickly. "I felt it too, but... what do you mean progressing?" The fear in Alice's eyes had become even more prominent. It was as if they were independent of the rest of her body, which moved and spoke and walked seamlessly, lacking the slightest bit of worry, but... her eyes gave her up. They were wide with terror.

Patchouli quickly responded, looking a little exasperated at Alice for not getting it. "I mean that it was getting stronger. Youkai power does increase with age, but never at such an alarming rate. A youkai would have to age millennia every minute in order for this kind of growth. But that's not what's really important. I started feeling some kind of other presence within that which proceeded it, something... more concentrated, and more powerful in nature. I looked around and I found the answer after only a few hours of reading. The new aura I was studying matches the descriptions of those in the book perfectly. A mind control spell.

"I read everything that it had to say about it intensely. Apparently it's a spell that was created very, very long ago, even before..." Patchouli trailed off for a second, her eyes becoming empty for a small moment. She continued speaking again a moment later, but her tone sounded... darker somehow. "Even before Remi was born... Anyway, after much study, I was able to erect a defensive spell of the right magnitude to protect myself from it, but the spell was only powerful enough to protect me... or so I thought." Patchouli sounded somewhat annoyed when she spoke that last phrase, and her jaw was clenching slightly. Marisa was willing to guess something might have gone wrong with her shield.

"So, the spell. It's an ancient curse. It's incredibly powerful, and it's able to rob a person of free will and essentially turn them into the caster's puppet. It's similar to Alice's dolls, really, except this version seems much less ethical." Alice moved uncomfortably. She clearly didn't enjoy her magic being compared to this curse. "Basically, it allows you to control their every move. You can give them orders as simple or complicated as you wish, and you can do so indefinitely. However, the spell's use was never implemented in mainstream witchcraft, as not only was it abhorrent in nature, but it was also incredibly difficult to cast. The amount of power it took was enough to send some incredibly powerful magicians into comatose states, and that power was like sending up a flare. Everyone around them was able to feel it whenever it was experimented with, and the energy from this backlash was harmful to the youkai that felt it. It was simply way too dangerous to use."

Marisa was the one to interrupt this time. "Then how'd someone manage to pull it off now, and how come I didn't get any of this backlash stuff?" She received a purple eyed glare in response.

"I wasn't finished, Marisa. There was a sizable part of the section on theories of how to work around these flaws in the spell's workings, but it was just that. Theory. It indicated that perhaps with some kind of magical conduit, someone may be able to pull it off in a manner that was less harmful to them and those around them, but no one has found such a conduit. I think someone might have found one that validates the theory, and because of that, we're all in incredible danger, because not only did they manage to do that, but... somehow, it seems the caster was able to make the spell affect multiple targets. I don't know how they figured that out but they did, and the made the nurse's range... horrifying... They were able to encircle all of Gensokyo within it."

Marisa and Alice's jaws dropped together. "All of Gensokyo...?" Marisa's voice sounded hollow. All of Gensokyo... Marisa was in Gensokyo.

Patchouli nodded gravely. "Yes, I think it may have even reached Muenzuka. I can't tell... something about the area was weird. I couldn't sense energies coming from there very easily this morning."

"B-but what about me and Marisa? Does that mean we're going to be hit by this spell too?" Alice's fear was no longer limited to her eyes. It was in her wide open mouth, and it was in the sweat dripping down her brow. Marisa knew she couldn't look much better. She felt like she was being told she was going to die soon. But then, death may be a better fate than the one she saw before her...

Patchouli, however, was calm. "You'll be fine. According to the book's contents the spell is completely ineffective on humans. They can't be controlled by it for unknown reasons. It can only affect youkai. And this exception even extends to youkai who used to be human, like you, Alice. No matter what anyone tried, humans just wouldn't succumb to it, and youkai like Alice were just incapacitated briefly by it."

The two girls sighed, relieved. They weren't going to lose their wills. Alice smiled. "I guess this must explain my little tumble back there, huh? Must have been the spell hitting. I was seriously worried something was wrong with me..."

Patchouli didn't share their joy. In fact, it seemed like they just made her face harden more. "Don't rejoice just because you happened to turn out alright. For all I know, I'm the only youkai in Gensokyo who knew how to stop the spell, and it took a lot of effort for me to cast that, and even then I wound up messing up!"

There was a beat of silence. Marisa looked confusedly at Patchouli, not understanding. "What do you mean you messed up? Aren't you here safe and sound like us?"

Patchouli sighed again, and this time it surely wasn't because of her asthma. "I didn't mess up that way. I mean I wound up having more capability than I thought I did."

Marisa was still confused. "How is that a bad thing? Doesn't that mean you just did more good?"

"It means I could have done more than just save myself. The spell I was using is hard to cast, because I needed the maximum level of defense I could muster in order to make sure I was spared. I didn't think I'd be able to use it on anyone more than me, but... I was wrong. I wound up able to save two."

Alice nodded understandingly. "I see. You're mad you couldn't save someone else?"

Patchouli glared at the floor. "No. I accidentally wasted it on someone else..."

Marisa drew back, surprised. "What? Who else did you save?"

"I'll tell you about it later. The point is, I couldn't save anybody who would have been able to help us out much, like Remi or Flan, or even Meiling. They're all going to be puppets by now, and it's my fault I didn't help them!" Then, Marisa understood what Patchouli was really going through. She wasn't really angry. She was just upset that her friends weren't saved. Now, Patchouli was all alone.

Wait, Marisa thought. No she isn't. What happened to the maid? "Patchouli, what happened to Sakuya? Do you know?"

Patchouli nodded. "I think so. I had to flee the mansion and find somewhere secluded so I wasn't attacked by some youkai when the spell hit. I told Sakuya to run before I left too, but I'm not sure if she actually did. She could have decided to stay with Remilia... if she did she might be dead now."

Marisa gasped. "Dead? What do you mean dead?"

Patchouli looked back at her exasperatedly? "What? Haven't you noticed? Haven't you seen anyone in this forest under that spell? Don't you know what they're doing?"

Marisa looked at Alice, confused, but Alice seemed to understand what Patchouli was saying. Alice's eyes seemed dead with the realization. She looked like someone was stepping on all her dolls. "M-Marisa," she started. She looked like she was struggling to talk. "Th-the Three Fairies..."

And then Marisa understood. The Three Fairies of Light had attacked them relentlessly on sight. They seemed as if they really wanted Marisa and Alice to... die. The revelation was sickening to Marisa. She felt something in her stomach shift, and for a moment something in her mouth tasted sour.

Patchouli spoke up again, but Marisa barely heard her. She wasn't even surprised at the horrid words that Patchouli uttered. She knew that they would come out already, and she wasn't even able to listen, she thought... but still she heard the words, and still they made Marisa's eyes widen.

"I passed by the Human Village on my way here. The youkai there are leading a massacre against them."


Author's Note:

Hey, hi, hello! I'm the writer of this fanfic, and I don't intend to leave many author's notes, but I'm leaving one right now, as there is something I feel I should bring up. Basically, I wanted to address the fact that the gap between my last chapter and this one was noticeably larger than the two before it. The reason for this is very simple. I had writer's block. That and I was dreading the approach of school, so I was slacking off on my writing a bit.

Anyways, I just wanted to establish something about the timing of my chapters. There will not be any sort of set interval or deadline I set for myself on writing. Basically, I'll finish each chapter when I finish it. It could take a really long time, it might not, and since school just started yesterday, it'll probably be a bit more difficult for me to carve out time, so it might be a big on the longer side. It's not a very organized approach, but it's the one I'm taking. Anyway, I hope this clears things up if you plan on reading my fanfic! Thanks for reading all the way to chapter 4! Many more to come!