The shed wasn't half-bad, Marisa had to say. A handful of gardening tools had lined one wall, but after moving them to the back, she was left with a space that wasn't much smaller than her workshop had been.

It left just one more thing to take care of before she visited Reimu. Ever since her clothing had changed, she'd felt something strange in her stomach, and she was starting to suspect just what it was. It was easy enough for her to sneak back into the main mansion and, among the many rooms, find one with a mirror. After making sure that nobody was likely to walk in on her, she stood in front of it and, nervously, slid out of her kimono.

It was seconds before the first rip in her skin came into view, right below her left breast. It was a small, horizontal gash, and it made the new supernatural nature of her being obvious. There was no blood flowing from the dull red hole, and it didn't hurt when she put her finger in, up to the first knuckle. Hadn't the one on her corpse been deeper? She couldn't remember.

One by one, her injuries came into view as she undressed. Another, slightly deeper, rent across the front of her stomach. A series of them pockmarking her thigh on the side that had faced the explosion. A jagged one up the length of her forearm on the same side.

And, lifting her hat, she fearfully reached around the side of her head, until her fingers brushed against the wound there. Like all the others, it was a bloodless, clean hole, divorced utterly from the biology it was based on. Looking at it in the mirror, her hat hid it pretty well, and even if not, it was only barely visible unless you were looking for it or she pulled her hair back. It was still unsettling to know that, etched into her skin, she was carrying around a record of the same injuries that had killed her.

Marisa stayed there, uneasily tracing the outlines of her wounds with her fingertip, for almost an hour. It wasn't until she'd cataloged every single one that she was able to turn away from the mirror. Feeling a bit less confident, she pulled her clothes back on and set off for the Hakurei shrine.

By the time that Marisa re-emerged into Gensokyo, it was late in the morning. From the air, she could see that the front door to the shrine was open. It wasn't much of a surprise, really. Donations always did go up a little around Bon, even though the shrine didn't do anything to mark the occasion. It was still a welcome finding, since Reimu slept late sometimes and she hadn't been looking forward to waking her up. She still flew a slow circle around it from the air, giving herself a moment to gather her thoughts, before she spiraled lazily down and landed on the front steps.

"O-oi, Reimu!" she shouted in the door, then poked her head in without waiting for an answer. Her nose was instantly hit with the welcome smell of frying fish, and she found Reimu standing in the cooking area on the other side of the main room. That was a surprise. Awake and cooking at this hour. Reimu must have been feeling motivated today. Marisa made her way through the door and pushed it shut behind her. "... Kinda a strange choice for breakfast, don't you think?"

"I got up early and went fishing while it was still cool," Reimu said, characteristically cheerful for a situation where she had actual food on hand. "I caught a few perch." She trailed off and glanced suspiciously back toward Marisa. "... you came here just because you figured out that I had food, didn't you?"

"Huh? Y-yeah, of course!" Marisa let out a forced laugh, while Reimu gave her a rather puzzled look. It took a moment to realize that Reimu's concern didn't seem to be over the anxious tone in her voice. "Something wrong?"

"What's with the weird outfit?"

"Oh! Uh." In her earlier focus on her wounds, she'd entirely forgotten about the changes to her clothes. Marisa pulled the hat off of her head and fussed over it, pulling the top out to a sharp point again and brushing off a little of the ash. "I had an accident last night. It was—" The words caught in her throat. She could just come out and say it now, but... but it felt nice, just having a normal conversation about nothing with Reimu. "I-it was nothing! Hehe. Pretty lucky, huh? It ruined my normal clothes, so I borrowed a cheap kimono from Kourin for now."

Reimu still looked a bit bewildered, but apparently she was used to this sort of thing. "Well, it's good that you didn't get hurt, I guess. I'll give you one piece of fish, okay? I need to make the rest last for a few days."

"Yeah... I guess I can handle that."

Marisa had to hand it to Reimu: On the occasions when she had enough food that she didn't need to skimp on ingredients, she was a pretty good cook. She paid attention to things like flavor and texture, whereas for Marisa, cooking had always been more about keeping her body running long enough for another night of adventures. She rarely thought about it beyond throwing a bunch of edible things together with heat and eating whatever came out.

Not that she couldn't appreciate good food when it was presented to her, and the perch was good. Really... really good.

After the jarring surreality of last night, this felt refreshingly real. If she didn't have vivid memories of the feeling of her own dead flesh in her hands, she could almost convince herself that it had been a dream. It just felt right, sitting across from Reimu while her friend chattered away about the latest annoying youkai antics she'd suffered through.

But, try as she might, she couldn't convince herself that last night hadn't happened. Ever since she'd realized that she was... kind of falling in love with her best friend, she'd felt different around her, and now, it was magnified tenfold. Her desire to be with Reimu was now a need, a drive that was now much more central to her existence than water or sleep would ever be again. She needed Reimu the way a starving man needed food.

Any doubt that she'd had over her purpose was gone. This was why she was here. She could feel it in every fiber of her being. Compared to the diluted state of her other emotions, it was an intense, jagged urge buried in her heart. She felt like she could just leap against Reimu, bash her soul to pieces against the other girl, and still die with a smile on her face.

It was a bit frightening, and yet the most natural-feeling thing in the universe.

"Are you even listening?"

"Oh. Huh?" Marisa snapped out of her reverie and realized that she'd been staring at Reimu. Pretty intensely, even. "O-oh, uh!" She forced herself to look away and brushed a hand back through her hair, laughing. "Sorry. I guess I was just outta it."

"... yeah, I noticed. You've barely even touched your fish."

"Oh! Yeah. Better not let it get cold, huh?" To prove her point, Marisa inelegantly speared a rather large bite with her chopsticks, then stuffed it in her mouth. "It's pretty good."

Reimu smiled at the compliment, but it didn't last long. Her expression slowly fell as she watched Marisa hurry to clear her plate. "... you're acting weirder than usual. Is something wrong?"

The question made Marisa freeze, and she nearly coughed up a mouthful of fish in surprise. She quickly swallowed it, then gulped down half of her tea as her mind scrambled for an answer. "W-well, there was the explosion and all..."

"Yeah, you said..." Reimu replied, not sounding convinced. Her eyes turned toward the doorway thoughtfully. "I could see the smoke from here. Was it pretty bad?"

"... well. Uh." That was a harder question to sidestep with a lie of omission, but... she was starting to realize that she couldn't exactly hide her death for long. It wasn't going to get her anywhere, and she needed to talk about it with somebody."... pretty bad, actually," she admitted. It felt like the first thing she'd said so far that wasn't a fib. "My house got blown to pieces."

"Oh. Wow." Reimu sat up a little now, blinking in surprise and lowering her cup to the table. "I don't have a lot of room right now, but I could break out an extra futon if you need somewhere to stay. … you're providing your own food, though. Today was a fluke."

"Ehe. About that..." Marisa stared at the tabletop for a second, trying to figure out how to put the words together. It was the hardest sentence she'd ever had to force past her lips. "Um. Well. Reimu, I'm dead."

Reimu gave her a blank stare across the table for a moment, then sighed and resumed eating. "Dead."

"Yeah, uh. From the explosion. I was in pretty bad shape. My corpse was, I mean."

Reimu shook her head in mild annoyance, not even bothering to put down her chopsticks. "You know," she said after a few seconds, then paused to skillfully break off a bit of fish and pop it into her mouth. "If you're trying to do a joke like that, you should put more effort into it. A white kimono isn't enough these days. Maybe paint your face white or something."

"No, I'm serious! I'm a ghost. I, uh..." Marisa weighed her options, but she could only think of one good piece of evidence on her side. Slowly, she reached up and pulled her hat off, settling it into her lap, then turned her head and brushed her hair aside to reveal the wound. "I'm pretty sure that this one killed me," she said, feeling half-disgusted at herself. She wished she could somehow hide the marks from Reimu forever. Releasing her hair, she lifted one sleeve, showing off the gouge up her arm. "This whole side got off pretty bad. Facing the explosion. Ehe."

Reimu's chewing slowed to a halt, and she studied Marisa's face for a few seconds before shakily lowering her chopsticks to lay them across the edge of her plate. "... you're telling the truth, aren't you?"

"... yeah. Trust me, I kinda wish I wasn't." Marisa stayed in place as Reimu squeamishly reached over the table toward her. Her fingers brushed over the jagged mark on her arm, then she flinched backward, with the color draining from her face. Self-consciously, Marisa slid her sleeve back down. "It was last night."

But Reimu didn't seem to be listening. "I didn't think you'd ever..." Her voice trembled, even as she tried to remain calm. It was weird. Marisa had never seen this kind of reaction out of Reimu. Even during battles, her usual response to stress was steely resolve. Reimu took a deep breath to steady herself a little, sighed it out, and said, "So you really are dead, then."

"Yeah..."

"If this is still some kind of prank, I'm going to hate you forever, you know..." Reimu tried passing the comment off as a joke, but her voice was sounding increasingly distant and dazed. She slumped forward, resting one elbow on the table and propping her forehead up with that hand. Her eyes were squeezed closed, and Marisa could tell that she was struggling not to cry. "Why are you here?" she said, with her voice barely above a whisper.

Marisa watched the girl across from her like a ticking bomb. Making Reimu cry had never been in the plan, and now, she didn't know what to do. She and Reimu had never been very open with their feelings. Reimu had been orphaned at a young age; she'd been disowned not much later. Both of them were used to depending only on themselves. Supporting each other emotionally had never really gone past listening to each other's occasional rants and being drinking buddies.

But... Marisa had wanted to get closer to her anyway, right?

Slowly, she slid around the table. Settling into place behind her friend, Marisa wrapped her arms around Reimu's waist and pulled her back, close. She could feel Reimu tense up at first, then uneasily settle into it. "Hey, look, it's okay, see? I ain't going anywhere yet."

"Y-you'd better not." Reimu barely managed to choke the sentence out before she started bawling. She didn't stop for a long, long time.

Having Reimu in her arms like this, close enough for her to feel her warmth through their clothes... it was like a dream.

And Marisa was slowly realizing that, like a dream, it couldn't last.

What else could she do? She had to confess to Reimu. Even if... even if she disappeared as soon as she did it, even if they never got another minute together. She had to. She couldn't spend the rest of eternity like this, aching for Reimu and apart from her. There was no way she could keep pretending that her fondness for her was purely platonic, not for much longer. Part of her wanted to blurt it out here and now, but... no. If there was a chance that she was going to disappear afterward, she wanted to make sure that Reimu would remember her forever.

As slowly and implacably as glaciers, plans were starting to come together in her head. Marisa had never been one for moping around when she could be taking action, and she'd be damned if she did it now. She needed to finish the fireworks, but if there was a chance that she'd disappear afterward, there were other things to take care of too. She had a lot of people to say goodbye to. A few last long afternoons spent drinking tea on the shrine's steps maybe. Things to get in order. It was a lot to take care of in a week, but she didn't need to sleep anymore. If she focused, she just might make it.

Realizing that Reimu was starting to weep more quietly now, Marisa tentatively relaxed her grip on her. "Hey, Reimu, y'know... I'm the one who's dead and all, so save some cryin' for me."

"S-shut up..." Despite herself, Reimu laughed weakly, then reached up to wipe some tears from her eyes. "Idiot."

"Heh."

Reimu went silent again, but occasionally dabbed at her eyes, calming herself down bit by bit. "You never did answer my question..." she finally said, when a few minutes had passed.

"Huh?"

"About why you're here."

"Oh. Uh. Well, I thought I should probably let you know, for one thing. About me dyin', I mean. … jeez, that sounds weird." Reluctantly, she loosened her hold on Reimu, then scooted backward to make it a bit easier to converse. "... I dunno. Just talking to you has helped me sort a lot out. Dying is pretty confusing, but I think I've got it all figured out now."

"Do you." Reimu slowly turned to face Marisa, and she looked up only hesitantly. It was like she was looking at Marisa for the first time again, or like just seeing her was uncomfortable. It... hurt. Reimu was hiding it well, but Marisa could easily see that this was a wound that was going to take a while to heal.

"Yeah. What I'm gonna do... I, uh. I know why I'm here. As a ghost, I mean. There's something I've gotta do before I can move on or whatever."

"Huh?" Reimu perked up a bit, and even with her eyes still red and swollen, Marisa could see that her mood had instantly improved. "Couldn't you just not do it, then? Ghosts can stick around for a long time, right...?"

Marisa had to consider her response. It was one thing to make the decision to pass on... but actually saying it out loud would make it official. She couldn't really take it back if she did that. Nothing to do but get it over with, she guessed. "I... don't think so, no. I mean, I could, but." She trailed off, rubbing the back of her neck and glancing out the open door as she tried to decide how to put it. Outside, the summer sun was going at full blast, even though it wasn't even midday yet. Soon enough, it would be almost too hot to move. It felt like the wrong atmosphere for talking about things like this. Long summer days were supposed to be for gossiping and naps, dammit. "The thing I've gotta do... it's really important. Like, really. I think I've got about five or six days, though. It'll be on the last day of Bon. Won't even stop the fireworks show."

"Five or six days," Reimu mumbled after her. Marisa could see the confidence leak out of her again, and for a moment, thought she might cry again. "And you're sure you have to do it?"

"Yeah..."

"What is it?"

"It's... I can't say. If I said it, I might poof right then."

Reimu did not look convinced. "Well... okay." She sighed again and settled down, and Marisa felt a pang of regret. Maybe it would have been better to just hide it until the end, trying to keep their relationship as normal as possible. "Is there anything you need...?"

"Well..." Marisa looked out the door again and thought about that. "I already kinda, uh, buried myself, but maybe something a bit nicer would be good, once I'm gone. I don't wanna risk it before then. I don't wanna be in the family plot, though, 'cuz screw my family. Stick me in that creepy graveyard by the temple, maybe." Her voice started quivering, and she paused for a moment, wetting her lips and gathering her thoughts. Making her own burial plans felt weird. "... and I wanna have a big party to say bye to everybody. I guess the last night of Bon or something. There are lots of parties then anyway."

Reimu sighed again, but there was a tired smile on her face now. "Leave it to you to think of parties right after you die..."

"Heh. Oh, um." Marisa's eyes drifted back toward Reimu, then sank down to the floor, as a blush slowly grew on her cheeks. Reimu's proximity was making it hard to think of much else. It was pushing her thoughts toward uncharacteristically... open directions. "I think tomorrow, I'm gonna start visiting people. I wanna see them all one last time at least. I guess I should think about giving away some of my junk. If you want, you could... come along? I'm not gonna have much time to hang out, but if I'm going to disappear, we ought to spend some time together, you know?"

Reimu winced at the word 'disappear,' and stared at the floor in deep thought. "I think I'd like that," she finally mumbled, after long contemplation.