Undying Gensokyo

by WillieG.R

A selfish experiment works only too well and Aya and Satori find themselves surrounded by those that cannot die. Can they solve this incident on their own before losing their minds? HIGH LEVELS OF GORE.

4. Undying Village Pt1

Day, who the hell cares anymore, on the road to the Human Village.

Mental notes by me, Aya Shameimaru, age... I don't know what's going on with me. After finding Kogasa at the Forest of Magic everything went even deeper into the depths of hell. I mean look at me. I don't want to be cheerful anymore; I don't care if we find any more survivors. All I want is to get to the Scarlet Devil Mansion, find that damned cauldron and spill that shit so my life; our lives can go back to normal. We were forced into going to the Bamboo Forest of the Lost, fought one really insane rabbit ghoul-zombie thing named Tewi; she was always annoying while alive to begin with; a giant Reisen with a mind of mush, then I had to watch Yamame, who turned into a monster before our very eyes long before we went into Eientei, sacrifice herself to save Kogasa, and us, I guess. Oh, I read that piece of paper Satori found at the laboratory. I always knew that Lunarian bitch was already insane, but I never thought she'd go as far as to mutate her own underlings. Satori keeps saying we can't be sure of that, but right now I fail to see it in any other light.

You know, now that I really think about it I wonder. Tewi said some things that got me thinking, and I have to wonder if what we are doing is the right thing? Should we just give up and let ourselves get turned into zombies too? The rabbit sounded happy, but maybe it was her insanity. Argh! I just don't know anymore! And there goes Satori. She's walking beside me and she's giving me that "are you alright?" look. Now I'm feeling guilty of thinking such things! No, she can't read my thoughts. Somehow I learned to block my own mind while thinking, though it's not perfect. She might have caught a glimpse there. Whatever, it's not like it'll change anything anymore. Oh, did I mention it's already dark? Yeah, it's freaking night already. At the moment we've only faced a few zombie fairies, but it's night. FREAKING NIGHT! We need to find shelter, but something tells me; something deep within my heart screams at me that we will find no shelter at the village. I've already argued this point with Satori and Kogasa, and bad blood started boiling between the Hell Princess and myself; and the umbrella girl, so sweet she's making me sick, didn't really add anything to the conversation. Just like our last argument, she just wanted us to patch things up, to be partners again. Because she and Yamame were such good partners, and that Satori and I should be too. Seriously, where did that girl come from? Where does she think we are? It's do or die and she's crying over a little scratch between girls like that. Deep breaths Aya, deep breaths. We're almost at the village, and who knows what kind of damned freaks we'll find. There's going to be no Yamame to save our asses again, and honestly, I think that's for the best. Watching her do that... felt so wrong. I cried. I cried like some sort of emotional human! Ugh, I can't wait to write all this down. Actually I'll do just that. Right here in my notepad. These might be the last words I'll ever write in here, so I might as well add a few more things in case one of these zombies grows a brain and learns to read, or maybe that bitch Marisa will find it and read it. Feel sorry for me you piece of shit! This is all your fault!

The enraged tengu breathes through her mouth, venting rage through her teeth as she snatches her own notepad out the back of her stained shirt and starts writing her thoughts furiously.

Satori and Kogasa both keep to Aya's side and glance at her as she scribbles down each letter, but unlike the karakasa, the satori maiden is aware of the tengu's fall into despair.

"Maybe it's because she got scratched? No..." thinks the mind-reader as she looks to the road again.

"No, she's just mentally exhausted. If things keep going as they are, I might have to fight with her. I honestly hope that's not the case. I'm a little angry at her, true, but I don't want to fight her. Not now. Come on Miss Shameimaru. Hold on! There has to be something you can hold on to!"

Having read the last five sentences thought by her tengu partner unsettles the satori youkai, and for good reasons.

Even if she's just writing down a few words, that face she's making reminds her of Marisa's own expression after looking into the mirror.

It seems even Kogasa can tell something is very wrong, but none speak of it and continue on their way to the Human Village, hoping they might find a quicker way to the vampire's mansion from there.

---

The moon has started to creep its way over the mountains from behind the sparking clouds that remain in the sky, evident because of the silvery light trying to shine through the clouds.

These clouds have slowly covered the entirety of Gensokyo, and now are working their way to make sure not even the slightest bit of sky can be seen over the mountains.

"Those clouds," says Kogasa to break the maddening silence in the group, and when the girls look to her she continues "Yamame and I tried getting close and spreading them apart, but they attacked us."

The tengu girl raises an eyebrow and stares in disbelief, and then the turquoise girl continues "they shot these lightning bolts at us, and shortly after that, Reimu... Um, the point is, that's what I wanted to tell this to you guys before. I think those clouds are actually smart."

"Sentient clouds?" asks the mind-reader with a doubtful tone, but after looking into the girl's mind she can see her and the blonde spider being shot down by the clouds' bolts.

She looks to Aya with an acknowledging glance and nods once, then the tengu angrily says "oh great. Now the clouds are after us too. Not that it matters, seeing as we can't get close to the shits."

Before she continues, the satori worriedly says "Miss Aya, please calm down. I know it seems hard, but-"

"Seems? SEEMS? It's exceedingly hard, Satori! It is an insane nightmare! Everyone in Gensokyo is after our asses to eat them, not love, spank, kick, danmaku, or magically spark them!" shouts the tengu before her partner can say more.

The mind-reader glares at the reporter, and by the looks of things it is only a matter of a mere spark and these two girls will start aiming bullets at each others' throats.

The turquoise haired karakasa hurriedly looks around for a distraction; a zombie fairy, a horde of monsters, maybe even Reimu, and after failing to find anything she whimpers a desperate sigh.

A light weight takes her left shoulder so she raises her head and looks upon the pained smile in the satori's face, the instantly smiles back, causing genuine smiles to brighten their spirits.

"Don't despair Miss Kogasa. We'll get through this. We just need to find a place to rest and-"

While the satori comforts the karakasa, Aya groans inward, smashes her hand on her own face, and as she rolls it down, pretending to claw herself, she thinks "this is hopeless and they still want to look at the brighter picture..."

However, after thinking that, she turns her head just slightly to look at the purple-haired girl and while sighing she says to herself "but maybe I should be like that as well."

"What's that?" exclaims the karakasa ghost after pointing toward a fire in the distance that is set close to the entrance to the village.

The tengu's face is taken by a smile as she gasps with elation and exclaims "FIRE! Someone's alive down there! Come on, let's check it out!"

Even the satori maiden's smile widens when the thought of someone being alive crosses her mind as well, and after all three girls look at each other they silently agree and speed their walking to reach that fire as fast as they can without having to needlessly run. They want to save that, in case it is needed for later.

Their speed-walk towards the fire is uneventful, but the closer they keep getting, the worst they feel about the whole thing.

"M-maybe we should turn back," whispers Aya, but a voice catches their attention; a voice coming from the center of the dancing light.

"Shh, listen. There's someone there," whispers Satori, who gestures the girls to follow her as silently as possible.

They come across a rather large clearing, prepared to look like a piece of the Bamboo Forest, with several dried bamboo shoots stuck on the ground, making a wall against the Human Village, while the rest is surrounded by the natural trees and several bushes that usually grow in the area.

Inside the parameter are several jagged white and black rocks, all stained with blood and bits of rotting skin.

On the rocks themselves either sit unmoving rotting bodies of zombie humans or fairies, or lie human skulls oozing with some black substance from their eyes, noses, and those with large cracks reveal something fleshy still inside of them, rotting away with the slow flow of time.

The ground just before the fire has been carpeted with coal, so whomever prepared this is definitely not thinking about safety.

At the very center of this oddly prepared campsite is the fire itself, burning proudly, showing the beauty and power of the flames as they dance on top of the crackling pieces of wood and coal lumps, and Mokou Fujiwara, seems to be tending the flames with great care.

As she curls up next to the fire and looks into the flames, as though in a trance, her light-violet hair sways with the bit of wind blowing this night, dancing along with the orangey flames.

From the looks of things she appears to be just fine. No visible mutations, her eyes look normal with actual red iris, as they always have been, her clothes look clean, and aside from being in a trance she seems perfectly fine.

Before the tengu reporter or karakasa ghost have the chance to even think of approaching the already immortal girl, their friendly satori grabs both their shoulders and pulls them back, then whispers "wait. I'm not picking any thoughts from her, and there's something wrong about all of this."

"What are you talking about?" asks the tengu, to which the satori points and whispers "look at her eyes."

Empty. Devoid of any light, life, or thoughts.

For all they know that girl may have died in that position just now, but soon learn how wrong they are when the immortal lifts her right hand from underneath her left forearm tucked around her stomach.

It's bony and only has a thin layer of dried brown flesh covering it, bits of the dried skin fall into the fire when she moves her fingers, making a disturbing crack with the knuckles, then she straightens up a bit.

Her abdomen has been destroyed, probably bitten off by something large, her guts seem to be there, but are drenched in so much blood they seem to be missing, and of course her shirt on front has been completely destroyed.

The girls also notice fountain of fresh blood suddenly flying out of the girl's right knee and thigh when she moves, and notice her feet are just a bony and skinless mess hidden inside red shoes and drenched with freshly flowing blood that might come from her knees.

She places her skeletal hand inside the fire and smiles, chuckles in a disturbing manner, and as dark blood oozes out of her mouth she mutter incoherently under her breath.

Her eyes expand and both iris contract as her smile becomes more maniacal, then she pulls her hand back from the fire and gurgles "it's not fighting back. He's finally dancing along. I'm not alone, not alone, not alone, not alone~!"

The fire sizzles as the blood from her mouth splatters inside the flames while she shouts "it's not the time, you fool! She's going to get angry! Heheh, but it's alright. Mokou still loves you... you foolish BASTARD," and it is by this time that the party decides they have seen enough.

The girls don't need to speak to know they must move quietly, and so they make their way back to the road to the village after glancing at each other.

As they move away they can see Mokou point at the decapitated body of a female zombie human and shout "that bitch Kaguya! Keine, ram her with your horns," then pick one of the human skulls from the ground near her and toss it over the decaying body.

The girls are almost clear, and already are reaching a point where the insane girl can no longer see them, and that's when something cracks and the light-violet-haired girl screams as though she's just been skewered with a javelin through the heart.

"GAAAAAAHHH! KEINE! KEINE IS DEAD," screams the crazed girl, shooting fireballs to the sky in a rage.

"Run," whispers Aya, then a massive wall of fire rises from the ground and stops the girls' advance, and even before they can wonder what that sudden gust was, Mokou appears in front of them, bleeding through her mouth, eyes and ears.

"You killed Keine! They killed Keine. Keine, we must avenge you! I can't see them! I can't see them but I know they are there! YOU ARE THERE!" shouts the insane immortal while pointing to the sky.

A cold chill takes the girls when they feel the cold hands of death reaching out to them, but it's the tengu reporter that puts on a brave face, pulls her digital camera out of her pocket, and furiously commands "we flash her until she's down! Like HELL I'm letting this psycho bitch take my life!"

---

Mokou prepares a couple of flames on each hand, Aya raises her camera, Satori readies her third eye, and Kogasa positions her umbrella.

The three girls flash the flaming girl in front of them and make her scream to the sky, but stop when instead of the usual roar, rage scream or curses, they hear sobs and screams of mercy.

"What the heck? Girls, is she-" but before the satori can finish her question her eyes adjust to the darkness again and exclaims "she IS crying!"

The girls watch as Mokou lies in a fetal position on the ground, sobbing and shivering like a frightened child.

Pity takes the karakasa and satori youkai, but not the tengu.

"Don't fall for that," says Aya with a stern face and frighteningly cold tone of voice.

"She's going to jump at us and try to gut us, maim us, or who knows that else! Let's kill her now that we have the chance."

"Miss Aya-san!" exclaims the surprised karakasa, who watches with dread as the tengu lifts her camera and takes aim.

Satori also watches with dread, but she knows that her partner says is true, and taking pity on this pathetic sight might cost them dearly.

"Mommy? Where are you? Mama! I want my mama," cries that once-proud wielder of the phoenix flames.

"Wait, Aya hold on," calls Satori, but the tengu is not listening.

Kogasa joins the mind-reader and tries calling for the reporter's attention, but she's locked inside her own resolve and mercilessly takes the picture.

A powerful thud accompanies a massive dust cloud that blocks the powerful flash, and looking toward the cloud the tengu furiously exclaims "I knew it! Dammit, now we're in for it!"

"Quickly, over here," calls the karakasa, and the tengu quickly complies and regroups with the girls behind the eggplant-colored umbrella and a single thin bush.

From behind the cloud of dust comes a rather annoying laugh and an odd attempt for an elegant voice that says "o-ho-ho-ho! Mokotan my dear, what have you been doing sweetie? You've been mingling with the commoners again! Bad Mokotan!"

Even Satori's skin gets filled with goose bumps after hearing such a horrible symphony of words, then, regardless of feeling disgusted, the tengu reporter furiously asks "who the hell is there now? Are you alive lady?"

The dust cloud dissipates and reveals how Mokou hugs the knees of Kaguya Houraisan.

Unlike her eternal adversary, the moon princess' entire skin is brown, shriveled and dried, her hair looks greyish and seems to be falling one strand at a time, her clothes are tattered and broken almost everywhere and stained with blotches of blood, her eyes, though still possessing the natural red iris, look empty and bulgy, surrounded by black skin that's sucked into the eye socket, and her nose seems to have fallen off, revealing a bloodied skeletal pair of holes on her face.

She has smeared her face with a mess of green on her left cheek, yellow on the right side of her face, light-blue around her right eye, and seems she found a red lip-stick and drew a mess of lines all over her face and ears.

Her kimono is a mess of blood stains on pink fabric and holes that show her decaying skin underneath, showing even bits of her ribcage through two holes on her skin, and her burgundy skirt is broken at the back, showing her bloodstained underwear that is impossible to discern what color it was before.

She carries the head of a small brunette zombie girl, possibly a fairy, and has a set of guts tied together around her right shoulder that look like a makeshift purse.

The black-haired tengu is appalled by the sight and growls as she lifts up to attack, but the satori youkai grabs her by her left sleeve, pulls her back down, and whispers "shh, shh, wait. She hasn't noticed us."

Understandably worried, Kogasa whimpers "u-um, sh-should we move?"

The purple-haired girl lets out a whimpering sigh and says "I don't know," while shaking her head, then adds "l-let's stay here and hope they leave!"

Aya isn't buying into that and Satori knows this, but can only watch as her partner snarls and fights with her desire to just kill the monsters in front on her own, or the confusion of whether or not to follow her frightened partners' plan and just wait.

Meanwhile, Mokou hugs Kaguya's knees and repeats "mama loves me-mama loves me!"

The zombie moon princess chuckles sickeningly before saying "well dear Moko-Mokou, you have been a good girl. Sensei will give you another bed night for that."

The zombie girls stare at each other, then Mokou jumps and rips the princess' left arm along with its sleeve, letting the makeshift purse drop on the ground and spill a disgusting-smelling yellow fluid, then peels the sleeve off and starts gnawing on that arm as though eating a chicken drumstick.

The zombie Lunarian laughs sickeningly irritating again, then says "my oh my, Mokou liked the gift I sent her. Now it's time to ask the food for the jewel."

A new arm grows from the Lunarian's bleeding shoulder and she winces, drops the severed head, holds the new arm by the shoulder, then starts screaming "not again! The pain is back! Eirin, get the rabbit legs! EIRIN!"

The arm looks normal but a second after its re-grown the veins swell up and quickly burst, spraying blood all over Kaguya's shirt, face and on Mokou's hair, but the fire-wielder's attention is on the arm she's nibbling on and doesn't even seem to notice Kaguya's screaming.

The zombie princess drops on her knees and starts laughing, even though she cries bloodied tears that smudges the messy makeup on her face, then everything stops when that arm becomes a brown pruned limb with fresh blood oozing around it.

Aya shivers as her fear takes over her face, yet she snarls as though furious while thinking "what the hell is going on? She's going to attack us, isn't she? Wait, Aya, don't move! They haven't seen you, and if you move you'll get Satori and Kogasa in danger! NO! Flash them! Flash them both now that you have the chance! Screw those two chickens! FIGHT!"

She looks to her two partners and can see tears of fear flowing down their cheeks, and now notices the satori is tugging the sleeve of her shirt, whimpering pathetically as she begs the tengu to stay put with a terrified look from her eyes.

The reporter gulps, turns her sight away from the girls, then risks to peek through the umbrella's side once more.

There is Mokou, kneeling on the ground like a dog and eating that decaying severed arm like a savage, and to her immediate left is Kaguya and her blood-stained self on all fours, panting hard as the pain from her arm subsides.

She stops panting, her lips stretch to make the most disturbing and vile smile possible, making her disgusting makeup contort along with her pruned facial features, and she glances vilely over to Mokou.

That new zombie hand lifts to the air and immediately pierces through the fire-wielder's back so fast that Aya thinks she blinked for a moment, but her rapid-beating heart tells her she didn't, that what she saw was real, and knows it's going to be a lot of trouble for them.

Mokou continues eating away at the arm and acts as though nothing has happened to her, so Kaguya purrs, pulls her hand back out, and slides an abnormally large bloodstained claw she has just revealed and slides it down the lilac-haired girls back.

She cuts the back of the shirt and makes a straight bloody line on Mokou's back, then hisses after opening her mouth, revealing a nasty set of jagged teeth and large and pointy fangs, then takes a bite off her eternal rival's back.

The fire wielding immortal's skin looks unchanged, but even so, having a part of your flesh bitten off should hurt, and yet she remains nibbling on that severed arm, acting as though nothing is happening to her at all.

The tengu quickly hides behind the umbrella when she thinks the Lunarian saw her and thinks "she ate her! Satori, she's eating Mokou!"

The satori youkai is frightened after having seen what Aya saw, then nods and whispers "w-we need to get out of here. W-we have to move, but how!?"

The tengu punches the ground with her right fist and whispers "we flash them like I said from the start! You two... Ugh! If we had just attacked when I told you so we would have-"

"Please no more," whimpers Kogasa, then sternly says "stop attacking us Miss Aya. We are your friends!"

The tengu growls inward, then sighs to fake calmness and stiffly says "I'm not attacking you, I'm just stating a- Gah! Whatever, let's flash them now! ATTACK!"

After the tengu's command the karakasa flashes as brightly as she can, the satori jumps out of hiding and aims her flash at Kaguya, and the tengu rolls to the right and flashes toward Mokou in hopes of flashing both girls directly at once.

"What the-"

The mind-reader's surprise expression comes with gasps and gulps from her partners as they stare in confusion.

There is a bloody mess on the ground where the two zombie girls were, but no girls.

They are suddenly greeted by the sound of the bleeding fire-wielder as she flies toward the village and screams "Keine is here! She is not dead! You have Keine and will bring her coffee and tea! MAMA KEINE SENSEI I LOVE!"

The girls stare dumbstruck at the fleeing zombie girl until Satori asks "hey, girls? Where is the other one?"

A blast of pure energy sends the tengu flying toward the karakasa ghost and forcefully smash heads, then stand up to gaze upon the horrifying sight of Kaguya Houraisan overflowing with energy as she hovers eight feet above them, smiling vilely and hissing as both fresh and coagulated blood spills out of her open mouth through her jagged teeth.

---

Aya jumps to the right and leaves Kogasa to take on a tackle from Kaguya, then swiftly turns and flashes the zombie girl three times, forcing her to roar in pain and retreat.

"Ow-how-ow! Aya-san, that was mean," cries the karakasa spread on the ground.

Satori rushes to inspect the karakasa ghost for any wounds, sighs with relief when she finds none, then glares at the tengu and angrily barks "don't use her as bait!"

Genuinely frightened, the tengu reporter shakingly nods and says "s-sorry, I thought she'd-" but she can't finish her sentence as Kaguya takes the trio's attention with a gurgled wail.

She raises her hands, concentrates her energy around them, and in an instant she fills the sky with hundreds of multi-colored bullets.

The tengu turns her fright into rage and takes her fan, swings it with her left hand, and generates several strong but small tornadoes and her own bullet waves to counter Kaguya's.

"Jump on my shoulders and FLASH the bitch," shouts the tengu at her partners after her own bullets and tornadoes clear a path through zombie Kaguya's own bullet shower.

Both girls look a little uneasy, firstly because Satori isn't really that athletic, and secondly because Kogasa is just plain frightened of getting too close the zombie princess.

Aya snarls, uses every ounce of strength in her and jumps at her partners, then shouts "BOOST!"

Quickly picking up on the reporter's thoughts, Satori gestures Kogasa to cup her hands together below her knees, to which the karakasa mimics the satori, and just in time.

The tengu lands on her friends' hands and both girls use their youkai strength in unison to send that grounded bird flying high.

The zombie Lunarian smiles and says "chicken dinner! Better than rabbit," and aims her hand at the tengu.

The black-haired reporter sees an attack coming, and the charm the zombie Reimu put on her is starting to pull her back down, but she's too close to quit.

She flashes the zombie, and while Kaguya roars and covers her face the tengu takes her fan, swings it toward the ground and pushes herself upward, and as she flies over the zombie princess she swings her leg and flip-kicks the back of the monster's head.

What happens next shocks all three girls and momentarily paralyzes their thoughts.

The second the tengu's geta sandal makes contact with the zombie's skull, the princess' head bursts and spreads a vile smelling and looking, sickly rotting fleshy substance that clings on to the reporter's leg.

The kick sends zombie Kaguya face-down to the ground, but the tengu screams out in pain while she holds on to her leg when the rotting, fleshy substance sizzles as it eats her leg away.

Aya falls on her back, screaming in agonizing pain as her leg disappears, and now that disgusting substance is making its way up her thigh.

Satori is the first to reach the tengu and immediately flashes the substance, turning it into a vile-smelling mist that could only compare to the smell of a hundred rotting youkai bodies.

She bends to kneel next to the reporter, but said tengu shouts "FLASH HER! J-JUST FLASH-AAAAARGH!"

Both karakasa and satori youkai look at each other, then at the tengu, then at the Lunarian princess who is already pushing herself up, spilling rotten blood balls from her open head.

"Let's do it!" exclaims the satori, to which Kogasa nods and shouts "full power!"

They run to the zombie but keep a safe distance away, aim their flashing weapons straight at her face, then both use far more power than needed to flash Kaguya in unison.

The zombie Lunarian shrieks for a second before her body thuds after hitting the ground, and just as the girls are going to congratulate each other, they hear various other roars and shrieks, followed by many more thuds in the distance.

"Um, I think we overdid it," sheepishly says the karakasa while trying to smile naturally.

"I believe it's best this way," calmly replies the satori maiden, then both girls turn their head when the tengu girl groans.

They rush to Aya's side and Satori immediately rummages through her backpack for bandages, while Kogasa kneels beside the girl, places a gentle hand on her sweating forehead, and softly says "it's alright, we're here. The zombie is gone."

The tengu shivers, her face turns pale, she chokes and stutters when she tries to speak, then the satori sadly says "i-it entered her bloodstream. *Gulp* The pain is driving her mad. Sh-she's asking us to..."

The images of Yamame begging to be killed burn freshly in the satori's mind.

She repeats the scene over and over, and with her cracked voice she says "she's asking us to kill her."

The tengu chokes, her eyes become bloodshot, the wound on her leg keeps bleeding, then she finally manages to croak "do it! Please!"

The karakasa's face turns sternly stiff, her eyes fill with fury, something in her heart burns.

She grabs the black-haired girl by the neck and squeezes hard while angrily saying "you won't die! Not today! I won't let you!"

The satori has finished applying the bandages and creating a tourniquet to stop the bleeding, then shakingly says "h-hold on Aya! Hold on! I-it's going to take some time, but you'll grow a new leg, you'll see."

She looks at Kogasa and notices what the girl is doing to the tengu and exclaims "no! Don't do that! Th-there's no need to kill her! The pain is sub-"

"I'm just putting her to sleep for a bit! I'm sorry, but knocking her out is not my style," replies the karakasa, then slowly retreats her hand from the reporter's neck, allowing the girl to settle down and close her eyes, to fall to sleep.

Aya starts snoring softly, whimpers when her leg bleeds out the last bits of the fleshy substance that was eating her from within, then Satori flashes those bits with a look of deep hatred in her eyes.

As the pieces sizzle she looks at Kogasa and softly grumbles "I don't know why she's so resistant to that zombie poison."

The karakasa grabs the purple-haired girl and wraps her arms around the girls' ribs, then whimpers "just be grateful. She won't turn into those things, and after her leg grows back we can just continue, and everything will be fine."

The satori youkai returns the hug on impulse, then shortly after she feels very relaxed.

Her consciousness starts fading, but she can still feel as the karakasa's embrace weakens and with great effort manages to think "what. is going. on? Th-that. that smell is-"

Both girls fall to the ground adjacent to each other, and just as the satori youkai is about to lose all senses, she can hear rustling of grass and dirt to her left, and manages to see a shadow looming over the zombie princess' body.

---

It's still night when Satori opens her eyes and springs off the ground with a gasp and flashing her surroundings.

Calming down, she looks around and whispers to herself "wait, what? Nothing."

To her surprise there aren't any zombies, monsters or abominations surrounding them, and to her great relief both Kogasa and Aya moan as they start to wake up.

She also notice a sheet of blue paper lying between herself and the tengu's feet, and as she picks the sheet from the ground she gasps at the realization.

The tengu's leg has grown back, and the sandal they all thought was lost is placed on the re-grown foot with a small black stain on the sole on front, though the long black sock is now gone.

"Mmm, what happened?" asks the karakasa, holding the side of her head and shaking it around to rid herself of her grogginess.

"Uh, man, what happened to me? H-hey," wonders the tengu after waking up, then quickly realizes she's no longer in pain, then moves her feet around to test them, and smiles as she exclaims "my leg! My leg is back! I don't hurt! It doesn't hurt!"

She looks excitedly at the karakasa as she sits on her knees, at the satori who keeps reading that blue piece of paper, then sits on her own knees and angrily says "well, glad to see you care."

That's when she notices the spot where zombie Kaguya should be, but she's not.

The bloodstain is there, the pieces of sizzled smelly flesh are there, but the Lunarian is not, and to this the reporter jumps on her feet, points toward the stained spot and exclaims "WHERE THE HELL IS SHE?"

Kogasa jumps on her feet and readies her umbrella, glaring around their surrounding area for any signs of movement, then Aya presses her back against the karakasa, glancing furiously around and raising her camera.

"That won't be necessary," calmly says Satori while showing them the letter from her hand.

"But that doesn't mean we should just stay here. Come on."

She signals the two girls to follow her through the bit of road left to reach the village's gate, and somehow relaxing, the tengu and karakasa look at each other before lowering their weapons and walking toward the mind-reader.

"So, er, what's that? Did someone finish that zombie bitch for us?" asks the tengu when reaching the satori.

Said girl just stares at her partner as though having seen her for the first time in a long time, then hands the letter over.

Shameimaru takes the letter and walking down the road she reads out loud "The tengu will be just fine. I have secured the zombie. Do not linger here. A friend."

"A friend?" asks the tengu with a doubtful tone.

She shows the note to the karakasa, asking "do you have any idea-?" but quickly notices the stern look on the girl's face and asks "um, hey, are you alright?"

The youkai's face turns bitter, she looks away from the tengu, sniffles, then coldly says "I'm sorry. That was supposed to be me, not you Miss Aya."

The satori and tengu stop to look at the karakasa, who lowers her umbrella over her face to hide her shame and says "you asked me for help, but I was too scared to do anything, then you almost lost your leg and got hurt and... I'm so sorry!"

"It's ok, I'm-"

"NO! It's NOT ok!" shouts Kogasa, cutting Aya off, then continues "it's just like with Yamame! As long as I was safe by her side I could help, but when she really needed me I froze!"

"It's alright," softly says Satori. "She never blamed you for anything. She even came to your rescue one last time, before-"

"NOT ANYMORE!" interrupts the karakasa. "I won't freeze again, for your sake and Yamame's memory! I will be strong from now on!"

Then she thrusts her umbrella forward between her two partners and flashes toward the village's gate.

The girls turn around and express their confusion, but the question inside their minds is answered immediately.

Five poodle-sized brown spiders with sharp mouths on their abdomens, sharp-looking ivory legs, and eight red eyes drop on their backs as their small web is revealed to the girls' eyes.

"Hmph! Not gonna fall for that again," declares the karakasa ghost while staring sternly at the web wall.

"So, how are we going to get in there now?" asks the tengu, and right before their eyes the answer comes.

The webs slowly disintegrate as the spiders' bodies melt into the ground, turning to sickening brown puddles of ooze, save for the body of one blackish spider.

The karakasa bravely steps forward, pushing the girls behind herself as she aims her umbrella's eye at the creature, then flashes it mercilessly.

The small creature contorts its legs and clacks its teeth, spitting out green blood from its mouth, and after the sixth flash is stretches its legs and bends it abdomen upward.

As it becomes a black ooze puddle, the sharp mouth on the abdomen opens up and the creature screeches so loud the floor around the trio vibrates.

Covering her ears the satori maiden shouts "this is bad! It's alerting everyone of our presence!"

Shouting to be heard over the incessant screech, the tengu demands "dammit, someone stop it!"

"Kogasa, don't touch it," shouts the reporter just before the karakasa stomps the spider with her foot and successfully stopping her from doing so.

The creature finally melts and its screech becomes a mute gurgle, then they all sigh.

From within and around the outskirts of the village moans, groans and roars alert the girls of their failure in stealth.

The atmosphere grows quiet once more, then Aya whispers "d-did you guys h-hear all that, or w-was it just me?"

Her two frightened partners both shake their heads and nod, and before anyone can say the next word, from deep within the village a girl screams "BIIIIIIIIIITCH~!"

"What was THAT?" exclaims the unsettled karakasa, to which the mind-reader shakingly replies "I don't know."

The tengu reporter, on the other hand, knows that voice and starts hyperventilating, her eyes turn blank, her already pale skin turns paler, and after a big gulp she grabs her friends by the arms and pulls them toward the nearest house after crossing the gate.

Both Kogasa and Satori demand an explanation that never comes while Aya kicks the door open and inspects the inside of the one-room house for any zombies.

She closes the door again, presses her back against it, then breathes fast through her mouth as she turns her horrified eyes to both her partners.

"Miss Aya, what is going on? Why are you so frightened?" worriedly asks the karakasa.

The tengu breathes erratically through her mouth as her body shakes violently enough to knock her on her butt, and while looking up at her two partners she says "i-it's her. I-I-I-It's HER!"

---

The satori maiden can't help but read the unsettled crow tengu's mind, then gasps.

"What? What is it?" furiously demands the karakasa ghost.

Satori places her hand on the girl's mouth while Aya desperately shushes her.

"What the hell is going on? I have the right to know," angrily thinks Kogasa.

The mind-reader nods once, slowly removes her hand from the girl's mouth, and then softly says "Aya's rival. Hatate. That's the voice we heard. And it seems our friend here was not ready to face this."

"Sh-she died because of me! I did that to her! She-she would be alive if I hadn't-"

A sudden embrace from both her partners quickly calms the black-haired girl's nerves, and she instinctively wraps one arm around each girl in thanks.

"SHAMEIMARUUUUU! BIIIIIIIITCH!" screams the zombie tengu, her voice coming from very close by.

Aya grips her two partners tight when her nerves take the best of her again, and although the girls choke and cough demands to be released, the reporter tengu is far too unsettled to even notice she's crushing the girls.

Her shivering becomes violent when she hears thumps on the ground getting closer to their location, and now the shivering and trembling becomes so violent the karakasa and satori slide off the tengu's grip and the door behind the girl rattles strongly.

"Move!" demands the recovered satori maiden, then she and the turquoise girl grab the crow girl by each arm and pull her away from the door when they hear the thumps getting closer to the house.

"Shameimaruuu," hisses zombie Hatate when she's right next to the door, then the terrified girls all gulp when they hear that zombie girl sniffing around.

"Sh-she can smell us?" whimpers Kogasa, but her answer doesn't come.

Satori chokes on her own throat when the sliding door to the house slowly opens, then she spots a small window to their right, covered by an open folding wall and pulls herself and the girls toward it.

They pull the folding wall away from the window to cover them while they escape, then Kogasa is the first one to squeeze through to safety while the thumping footsteps of the zombie tengu enter the house.

She gets stuck momentarily when her breast get caught in the window's tight frame, but she manages to push herself through, then slithers her hips to prevent getting caught a second time.

Second to be squeezed through the window is Aya, and she first gets stuck when her breasts get caught on the window's frame as well, yet she pushes herself through with the adrenaline rush and whimpers when her ample pearls are painfully squeezed through the frame, losing the lower button from her shirt.

Now her hips get caught and the thumping footsteps start heading in the girls' direction.

The tengu girl squeezes through with all her might and Satori promptly follows, getting stuck on her hips, but the adrenaline pushes her to squeeze through, losing a bit of fabric from the back of her skirt after doing so.

Both tengu and karakasa hold their chests as the pain on their breasts throb mercilessly, and then the tengu grunts "jeez, men don't know how lucky they are to not have these things on them!"

"Yeah. Seriously, this is going to hurt all night," grunts the karakasa while looking at the mind-reader.

The purple-haired girl mimics her partners by holding her chest the same way, then gulps and says "um, yeah. Lucky. W-we better move!"

Both karakasa and tengu grin mischievously at each other, then turn those grins toward the satori maiden, who asks "wh-what? Why are you looking at me like that?"

They know she can read their thoughts and how they both mentally mock her for having small breasts in comparison, this becoming more evident when a large vein pulsates on the satori's forehead while she growls.

A loud thump is followed by a vicious crack and several clattering noises from within the house, then "BIIIIIIIIITCH!" the raging voice of zombie Hatate snaps the girls from their short mocking time, and remembering her cold fright and forgetting the throbbing pain on her chest, the tengu grabs the two girls by the arms and runs further into the village.

"SHAMEIMARUUUU," screams the zombie tengu, and now the girls all moan with fright when the house they were just in turns to dust, and now the thumping footsteps of Hatate move rapidly toward them.

"Into the next one," commands the tengu reporter when they see the next building, a much larger two-story house in front of them, to witch her partners agree and speed up their efforts.

A pinkish-purple blur drops in front of them and lifts a curtain of smoke, stopping the girl's progress completely, and when Kogasa turns around she is the first to notice they are all surrounded by countless human zombies.

They all stand in place and just stare at the girls, some missing their eyes, some missing their clothes and large patches of skin, yet they all seem to be oozing a black substance from within their bodies, be it through a wound, or an orifice.

One of the female zombies moans and spits a chunk of that black ooze, then several others follow her example and do the same.

"SHAMEIMARUUUUU!"

Aya, Satori and Kogasa turn away from the horrific sight of the human zombies to look upon the horror of zombie Hatate Himekaidou.

The left side of her head has a whole patch of hair missing from a rotting patch from where there once was an open wound, her right eye dangles next to her lips while her left seems to be dried inside its socket, both missing the iris and giving the zombie a more disturbing appearance.

The eye sockets themselves seem to glow dimly red, giving the already horrendous zombie a terrifying air about her, and her bluish-black rotting skin isn't helping the matter.

Where her left breast and black bra should be is now a large opening that shows half of what is left of the black bra, and part of her still-beating yet rotten heart can be seen though a hole on her broken ribs, and what usually was a pleasurable sight is now a hideous reminder of a mistake made.

Several parts of her head and torso are riddled with bite marks, her shirt is stained with old dried blood on the front and sides, and her limbs, though undamaged, look cold and blue where there is still rotting skin covering her dried muscles.

She lifts her right hand and points at Aya, and then roars "BIIIITCH!"

The living tengu and her friends now find themselves trapped and outnumbered in yet another battle for their lives, with one dangerous-looking zombie tengu leading the attack.

---

Zombie Hatate raises her hand and grows a nasty set of yellowish-black claws, then hisses straight at her former tengu comrade.

"Hatate, I'm sorry! It was an accident!" cries Aya in an attempt to settle her own heart, but this fails, the evidence of such coming from a stream of tears that quickly roll down her cheeks.

Meanwhile Kogasa and Satori have taken the task of downing some of the human zombies that decided to get too close, and though they are slow, they are a little more resistant than the zombie fairies.

The karakasa turns her head toward her tengu partner and gasps "Miss Aya-san!"

Aya Shameimaru stands frozen with her camera on hand, but unable to flash the one she killed.

And how can she; knowing that if she hadn't delivered that last kick this girl in front of her might have survived along with her.

"But if I hadn't done that then maybe we both might be dead," thinks the short-haired tengu in an attempt to feel better; to move her body and defend herself, yet she remains as she was.

The zombie tengu lifts her right hand and swings it rapidly at the frozen girl, then the purple umbrella blocks the attack and Kogasa bravely opens it then quickly flashes Hatate.

It takes five flashes to make the zombie tengu flinch and give the karakasa the chance to take the black-haired girl and pull her away.

Once away, the turquoise girl strikes the reporter's face and shouts "what the hell is the matter with you?"

Recovering from her shock and absence of mind, the tengu girl looks at the karakasa, who angrily shouts "first you act like a lunatic who's just about to give up on everything, then you act all insane and brave-like, and now that you recover from all that you freeze like this?"

Aya holds her temples in an attempt to hold her unsettled eyes in place, but she can't, and noticing this, the karakasa ghost grabs her friend by her arms and shakes her violently.

Once the tengu's eyes meet with the dual-colored eyes of her friend, the karakasa sighs and says "Aya-san, I know this is hard, I've been there, but we are here with you! Lets combine our strength and fight! That's how I did it Miss Aya-san!"

The turquoise girl bravely turns around, holding her umbrella with her right hand, then flashes the approaching zombie tengu five more times to make her flinch, then pulls the black-haired girl along with herself farther away and looks into her friend's eyes.

"I was scared, no I AM scared! I wish this would all just stop, but after seeing what happened to you, all because I was that scared... I promise to be stronger for us Miss Aya, but I need yours and Miss Satori-san's strength!"

The black-haired reporter's eyes regain their usual shine when Kogasa's words reach her.

Again the karakasa ghost has to turn around and fire off several flashes, this time to assist the overwhelmed satori maiden and to fend off another attack attempt by zombie Hatate.

Shameimaru watches has her friends fight, the world around her moves in slow motion as she absorbs the facts of her surroundings and her karakasa partner's words, yet she remains where she is.

"Something's wrong! There shouldn't be this many humans," exclaims the satori maiden.

"Yeah, I noticed," calls back the karakasa as she kills three more human zombies, then shouts "and that girl keeps going after Aya-san! We have to protect her!"

Several human zombies now surround the two fighting girls, who soon realize they have been fighting the same ones all this time.

Those zombies surprise the girls when they reveal their small but sharp claws to them and swing faster than they walk.

"Whoa!" exclaims Satori after jumping away from a swing.

"No giving up, no-oh no! AYA-SAN!" desperately calls the karakasa youkai when she realizes the tengu is still standing in the same spot while looking at zombie Hatate.

Both the satori and karakasa look at each other with brave faces, nod, then blast the zombies away with several fast and unforgiving bullets, then a girl screams.

"AYA~!" desperately call the girls with fright in their voices.

They rush toward their tengu friend but stop and gasp with surprise.

The tengu reporter is jumping over the zombie tengu and flashing her with the camera at high speeds while shouting "you think. you can. take me. you insufferable bitch?"

She stops jumping and flashes zombie Hatate straight on the face and causes her to scream and writhe around while holding her eye sockets.

"I was better than you while you were alive, so now that you're dead, I'm twice as much and all that you shut-in," declares the tengu while pointing at her old rival.

She turns her head to look at her friends with a confident smile, then bows her head and softly says "I'm sorry. I lost my mind for a moment."

The girls return the smile, then take an attack stance, their smiles turn vile, then Aya, who's smile is the vilest of the three, declares "do or die! Take them all out any way you can!"

The remaining human zombies are already close to the girls, and Hatate is already on her tengu rival as well.

The tengu girl takes her fan and swings it to generate several small tornadoes and traps all zombies in them, then flashes them all without mercy, making them moan as though in pain.

She jumps away from the tornadoes when the zombies start spitting that black ooze, then shouts "don't let that black shit touch you!"

Kogasa and Satori are doing well with combined bullets and flashes, but the human zombies keep getting up and getting closer, so the satori maiden lifts a spell card from her pocket and shouts "stay close to me!"

The karakasa presses her back against her purple-haired partner as the mind-reader loudly declares "Memory Sign, Brain Fingerprint!"

Using Kogasa's and her own recent traumas, the immediate area around the girls turns pitch black and the satori maiden fires several bright orbs around her and the karakasa.

Before the turquoise-haired girl can ask, the seemingly harmless orbs explode violently, flashing and burning the entire area where she and her two partners are.

Everything is quiet afterward, the two girls look around each other to admire what that spell just did, then gasp at the sight of the many decaying corpses lying on the ground.

Most of the fallen zombies now have new wounds on their decaying flesh, some even missing large chunks of flesh from their torso, but knowing they will wake up in a matter of days settles the girls' worries.

Then they lay their eyes upon Aya and Hatate, and though weakened, the zombie tengu is still standing.

She raises her clawed hands and bends her body backward to look at the sparking clouds in the sky and screams "SHAMEIMARUUUU, BIIIIIIITCH!" revealing her small but sharp and stained jagged teeth on her swollen rotting gums.

She swings both claws downward, the black-haired girl jumps back, the zombie girl follows and tries thrusting her hand through the living tengu's chest, but the live one moves quickly and flashes the zombie again.

Zombie Hatate shrieks and screams while scratching her face and stumbling backward, and Aya takes the chance and follows after her, flashing her on the face and inside that hole on her chest.

Hatate roars and screams and tries to swing her claws straight forward but fails, and now all three girls face the stubborn zombie tengu, raise their flashing weapons, and right before flashing the weakened zombie the live tengu says "be a good girl and stay dead while I solve this incident."

They triple-flash the zombie, it stumbles backward but manages to straighten up, they flash her again and she falls on her knees, they flash her one last time and she finally falls on her face, whispering "Shameimaruuuuu," as her smelly breath leaves her rotting body.

---

After catching their breaths and admiring their work, the karakasa and satori look to the tengu.

"Move," commands the black haired girl, and all three head straight to the west exit and one step closer to their main goal.

Only three minutes after they leave, several wiggling fingers spring out of Hatate's back, breaking several holes on her shirt, then three of them grow into large tentacles that swing about furiously.

Meanwhile, the three girls run as though there was something already after them, yet their rear is clear.

All three are desperate to fix all of this mess and get back to their lives, and so they run, as fast as they can, to reach that desired goal, the Scarlet Devil Mansion, and solve the incident.

"HOLY SHIT," screams the tengu as she and her partners skid to a stop.

"Thi-this... this is not fair! We're so close," cries the satori with longing eyes aimed forward.

"Tch! Of all the rotten luck," growls the karakasa as she bravely raises her purple umbrella and aims its large eye forward.

An entire nest of black spiders with abdomen mouths block the twenty-five or so feet between the girls and the village's western exit.

"Grr! It didn't look that big before," grumbles the tengu as she raises her camera.

"We turn back," demands the karaksa "we turn back now and find another way," then she flashes the spiders.

The three girls run away fast after each flash once more, killing two of the countless black spiders before them, which screech loudly as their bodies become a slimy black puddle on the ground.

"What the- But they weren't here before," exclaims the mind-reader when she and her allies come to the realization that more human zombies have appeared from behind them.

Amongst the already known zombies are a second type of human-like creatures, these having shriveled red skin, black eyes or empty sockets, their back are curved, their hands are skeletal, yet retain that red skin clinging to the bones, and on their hands and legs sport a set of nasty-looking black claws.

These roar when they sense the girls and move so fast they disappear from sight.

Aya flashes in front while Kogasa keeps on the spiders, and understandably irritated the mind-reader asks "Shameimaru what are you doing? The spiders are behind!"

The tengu shows the purple-haired girl the camera's monitor to show her she just flashed two of those red zombies, then she gasps.

The tengu fires another shot to the right of the satori and shouts "we need to get to higher ground!"

Satori points to the large double-floored white house nearest to a pack of regular zombies and shouts "there! We can get on the roofs from there!"

The spiders start screeching one by one as the karakasa kills one-after-another, then she turns forward and cries "there's too many! I can't hold them!"

"Tengu run," declares the black-haired girl, then she grabs her partners by their waists, summons gust of winds on her legs, then runs almost as fast as a white wolf tengu.

"SHOOT RIGHT!" commands the tengu, and the turquoise-haired girl flashes a red zombie just as she was ready to claw them all at once.

"SATORI!" shouts the tengu, and the mind-reader flashes to the left, knocking out two large zombie fairies and another black spider.

The house is just a few feet away, those red zombies have them surrounded, the slow human zombies are starting to gather in front of the door, and behind them are a pack of five of those spiders and several giant moth-like creatures that snarl and secret a visibly hot acidic fluid form their mouths.

The tengu stops in front of the house's porch, the girls press their backs against each other, and without turning away from their many pursuers they all feel when each nods once and flash their surroundings afterward.

The bugs fall on their back, the red zombies roar and back away after one of them dies, and the zombies gathering around the door either stumble backward or fall on their stomachs.

"GO!" shouts the tengu girl, then she and her two partners run to the open western-style door and bang it to a close after entering it.

Satori turns her flashlight on and spots two zombie fairies on a cabinet in the living room, but before she can alert the girls the karakasa youkai is already flashing the life out of those monsters.

"Shit," exclaims the tengu while pushing a heavy drawer in front of the door, then sighs after her job is done and says "we can't place a ward here. We have to move!"

The satori girl nods and softly says "I agree. Let's go to the second floor."

"Um, girls..." The karakasa ghost points to the obliterated mess that should be the wooden stairs to the second and says "we're going to have to boost ourselves up."

The girls' eyes seem to have adjusted well to the darkness because they can see the tengu girl grinning as she slowly makes her way to the destroyed steps.

Kogasa doesn't wait and forces Aya's foot on to her cupped hands, then uses her youkai strength to send the tengu over the eight-foot wall to the next floor.

"Kogasa, what are you-?"

"You two first! Then you can lift me up," exclaims the karakasa before the tengu can finish her question, then urges Satori to move.

The purple-haired girl nods and rushes to the brave karakasa, then is immediately boosted up to the next floor and lifted safely to her feet by the tengu.

Now it's the turquoise girl's turn and she lifts her hands up to be pulled up.

"KYAAH~!"

The girl screams when her right leg is caught, and when the satori youkai points her flashlight they see the upper half of a human zombie with his rotting guts and organs spilling from the lower part of its body, bleeding profusely as they hang about.

The girls above call for the karakasa, then the girl kicks the head of the zombie clean off its former shoulders and the body immediately falls.

Unsettled, the girl raises her hands again and cries for assistance, and both Aya and Satori reach for her and pull the girl up as fast as their strength allows them.

The purple-haired girl quickly points her flashlight toward Kogasa's leg, then sighs with great relief when she sees not cuts or any damage.

"Phew! You lucky girl, you're ok," sighs the tengu, while the sweet karakasa breathes deeply through her mouth while punching the floor, thanking everything she can think of for her current good fortune.

The satori maiden stands and coldly says "we're not out of this yet! Come on, I saw a window close to the next house's roof."

The tengu helps the karakasa to her feet and all three girls quickly move to the center room.

They open the door and look inside, and within find one of those monsters with a horrible little fetus on the head, screeching after seeing them.

The satori girl shrieks and immediately shuts the door just as the monster launches to them, and slams hard on the white wooden door.

"Next room!" exclaims the tengu, then all three nod and run straight to the farthest room and away from the incessant and furious clawing and snarling from the horrible trapped creature.

The karakasa opens the next door and flashes the master bedroom relentlessly, but the room is thankfully empty.

A crash from the first floor alerts the girls of the break-in of the zombies, and can hear several thumping footsteps going straight to their direction.

"This is it," says Satori while pointing at the left-side window, showing the girls how the roof on that side is relatively close to the next house.

Aya takes her fan and swings it with force, breaking the window and jumping on the roof, then shouts "it's clear! Come on!"

"Wait, what's this?" slowly asks the satori after she notices something lying on the bed.

The turquoise-haired karakasa runs to the window and calls "come on! Hurry," while the purple-haired satori picks up a rolled blue paper sheet that was lying on the bed.

She nods to her friend and rushes to the window, jumps out, then all three girls run to the next roof.

From within the house they can hear the trapped monster has escaped and is now roaring while looking for them, mixing with the many roars and moans from the monsters searching for them on the lower floor.

The jump to the next roof is a bit tricky, but Aya and Kogasa manage to jump across easily.

Satori takes a deep breath, clenches the rolled piece of paper while placing her hand on her chest, and then she runs.

A massive yellow ball of energy flies from one of the buildings further east, grazes the satori maiden's head as she makes her jump, and after the karakasa and tengu grab their friend the ball of energy enters the window and the house from where they just escape explodes with such force it becomes a pile of rubble and burning lumber in a matter of a single minute.

The two standing girls and the sitting satori maiden stare dumbstruck at the massive bonfire that used to be a beautiful two-story house, and watch as the monsters that were inside burn to dust from the intense heat.

---

In their shock, the girls unwisely wait to see if another ball of energy comes flying around so as to try and head toward that location it comes from in the hopes of finding yet another survivor, or an overpowered zombie monster.

"With our luck, we'll probably find the zombie" thinks the tengu reporter while looking over the satori maiden's shoulder.

The flame from the burning house in front is perfect for the girls to read the note the mind-reader had found on the bed, and read the following.

Too bad. I tried to keep Udonge's mind from turning to pudding, but I failed.

Instead, she mutated right before my very eyes and threatened my life several times.

I couldn't keep that hulking idiot lose, so I decided to contain her as best I could and flee.

Tewi has been infected too, and from what I can tell her mind is resisting, but the strain of having her body mutate at such a rapid pace, and while still breathing, is very taxing for the mind.

She was already a challenge when normal, and I would much rather not face her in her fully mutated state. That could prove dangerous.

Now, concerning the princess. It seems she got infected too, but she is already immortal, which concerns and fascinates me greatly.

Just like I said with Tewi, having the body mutate at a rapid pace while alive and conscious is very taxing for the mind.

True that her body regenerates immediately after it starts decomposing, but the pain it caused her sent her mind to hell several times until it broke.

She took her makeup and started drawing on her face, she started taking bites out of the necks of the rabbits, even those already infected and mutated, and then she took off, saying she was going shopping.

I couldn't risk being seen so I had to let her go as I kept watch from the shadows, and I am sure I won't be able to stop her on my own either way. She is my princess, and I dare not use force to subdue her.

Oh, by the spirits, I think I understand!

I will have to look into this matter, but the air here in the Human Village is different, and I found-

Because of that I think I need that stone and feather to-

It's a long shot, but I have no choice here as I'm already feeling different.

Somehow, I think I've been infected, though I haven't been scratched or bitten.

"Well, that's kinda discouraging," nervously says the karakasa girl after done reading, then chuckles to try and hide the fact that she's quite disturbed by this note.

The tengu stares at it with curiosity, even after the satori girl rolls it and places it in her backpack, and still staring she says "so that alien doctor was alive and left those disturbing notes out there. It's a bit strange, don't you think?"

Satori glances at her tengu partner, then casually says "you are the one who is strange."

Before the black haired girl can react, Kogasa taps both girls on the head with the tip of her umbrella once and says "come on, let's move it. You want to find out where that blast came from, and we all want to get out of here before we get surrounded by who-knows-what again."

The girls walk over to the other side of the roof and one-after-the-other jump to the ground and walk speedily toward what they believe is the source of the yellow energy ball.

As they walk to the eastern side of the village Aya asks "hey, Satori? What did you mean by me being strange?"

Even the karakasa glances over to the mind-reader with curiosity, then notices the girl's black pants through the hole on the back of her pink skirt and chuckles mischievously.

Picking up on the youkai umbrella's thoughts, the satori maiden places her hands behind herself to attempt and cover that hole, though it's futile.

"Well, it's just that," the satori hesitates to continue, but forces herself to do so "well your mind was so unhinged earlier this evening I thought you were going to try and kill us both, but after the fight with that zombie Lunarian you've calmed down a bit."

The tengu reporter glances upward and scratches her chin while thinking "hmm, now that you mention it, after I woke up I felt very refreshed."

"Not just then," continues the satori maiden, "when that tengu zombie screamed like that you went all paranoid and scared, and I thought we had lost you there, yet you recovered yourself again, and after Kogasa talked to you, well you completely turned around."

Both tengu and karakasa blush a bit out of embarrassment, then the black-haired reporter softly says "um, I-I guess I just needed some encouragement. I mean, that girl died because of me and-and I thought I'd end up doing the same to you guys. So I just-"

"That's enough," barks the turquoise girl. "She's been through enough, so please stop bringing those old bad thoughts back. The important thing is that we are all ok."

And then they stop walking.

Aya and Satori look at each other and smile, then turn those smiles to Kogasa, who chuckles bashfully, then walks closer to her partners.

The three look toward the open gates of the Hieda Mansion, and from there they can see a burnt hole on the roof of the main building, and notice the burned borders on said hole are still sizzling.

"Yup, there was someone here alright," casually comments the tengu girl.

"Alright then, let's head inside and check this place fast," says the satori maiden before she suddenly shivers and adds "and the faster, the better. I'm getting a very bad feeling here."

---

The girls take some time to look around themselves and take notice of the condition of the mansion.

It's an abandoned, gloomy and derelict architecture that is possibly infested with more zombies.

Aya glances upward, feeling a cold chill coming from the larger building, the very one they should explore, and says "hold it. That one in front, I bet my right wing its full of those... things."

"You do realize the blast came from in there, right?" asks Satori while pointing a gun-shaped hand forward.

The tengu nods sternly, then relaxes her face into a happy smile and says "yeah, yeah, still, let's start with that small building over there," while pointing two gun-shaped hands to the right and finishes "that's where Akyuu used to work."

Kogasa rests her umbrella on her shoulder while stretching the right side of her lips into a half-smile and says "so, the easy part first, huh? Let's go then. Besides, whoever shot that thing at us is probably gone from here anyway."

The tengu wraps her arm around the karakasa's shoulders and forces a laugh, then says "I really like the way you think, you deceivingly cute little lady."

The two girls laugh for a bit and realize the satori maiden is giggling besides them.

She is unable to contain her smile as she looks toward the smaller building slightly hidden besides the larger architecture, then says "fine, fine, let's go to the smaller one."

They start their walk feeling quite at-ease, and after getting wrapped by the tengu's free hand the satori says "you know, it feels good to relax like this, even if things are this bleak."

The karakasa chuckles as her response, and the tengu sighs and says "I wish it could stay like this all the time," then lowers her tone "but something tells me it's just not possible."

Black roaches the size of human hands crawl out from underneath the mansion's floor, clicking and clacking their disgusting little legs as they move, then Aya points at them and furiously shouts "AND THE MOMENT IS RUINED!"

The girls' faces turn blue with disgust, all three squeeze together as their bodies shiver violently and their mouths stretch as they prepare to scream, then tears of fright start flowing through their eyes, and Kogasa screams "RUUUUN!"

All three girls run faster than ever, their faces turn almost black with the mixture of fright and fatigue while tears stain their cheeks, and all because they have king-sized cockroaches chasing after them and clicking as though attempting to speak.

The girls don't really care for what these mutated creatures want to say. All they want to do is run and hide somewhere the roaches cannot get near them, and before they know it they are all inside Akyuu's study, shutting the door and pushing it against the disgusting little monsters so they can't enter.

The tengu and karakasa quickly realize everything has become quiet once again, and look at each other for acknowledgement on this turn of event.

Once they relax again they look at the satori maiden, who whimpers while pushing hard against the door as though doing so for dear life.

The black-haired girl softly says "Satori, it's ok," and places her hands on the girl's shoulders.

She screams and flails her arms around while screaming for help at the same time as Aya screams "it's me! It's us! They're gone, it's ok!"

The satori slowly calms down, stops flailing her arms around, lowers her voice and allows herself to breathe through her mouth, then the karakasa sighs, bends her knees and arcs her back so she's looking at the floor, then sounding tired she says "man, and we were actually having such a good time too."

"You won't find many of those- in the state this world is," says a raspy voice from the farthest corner of the room.

The three girls twitch at the sound of the unfamiliar voice and swiftly turn around with their flashing weapons on hand.

There is nothing there, save for the many scrolls, papers and books that the chronicler has written, and the small desk she used to sit behind.

They can all feel something odd with their heads and are forced to close their eyes for three seconds, and when they open them again they gasp at the sight.

Akyuu of Hieda, the child of mare, stands in front of her desk, emanating a soothing, yet eerie light, and a calming mist meant to relax those that are to be her prey for easier catching.

Her ghostly eyes emanate a sense of a horrifying peace, her yellow, green and red outfit looks clean, save for a large bloodstain on the right shoulder, her hair has turned grey and seems to have been cut short with a rock on the left side, her skin has dried and pruned up, making it hard to see her bones through it, and even though she has the girls at her mercy, she just stands there with her hands stuffed in her sleeves and stares.

She looks at Kogasa and says "welcome dear friends," then looks at Aya and continues "we were expecting you to arrive sooner," then she looks at Satori and says "but they couldn't wait. It's too late. I am about to turn into one of them."

The tengu opens her mouth to try and say some words, but none come, and now she's starting to feel sleepy and just about to collapse.

Noticing this, the young-looking chronicler closes her eyes and somehow manages to suppress her own mist, then says "yes, that's right. I was bitten by one of my servants three days after those clouds spread that spell over the village. Don't worry, even through the maddening pain of death I managed to keep my mind. Heh, what a gift it is to remember everything, is it not?"

The satori, feeling a little stronger, takes a step forward and asks "are you the one that fired that spell?"

The zombie chronicler spreads her arms apart to show the girls she no longer has hands, then says "for a spell of that caliber to work, fingers are needed, which you can clearly see I lack."

She picks herself up again and hides the stumps for hands inside her sleeves again and continues "the order has been issued. We are to attack and kill you if we see you. Aya, Satori, you will have to be the ones to clear this confusing mess. Kogasa, please guard them as well as you can, for as long as you can."

The dumbstruck karakasa can only nod, but the tengu snaps herself out of the shock and shouts "what the hell? What are you talking about girl? Who is ordering who here? S-start making sense!"

The zombie girl sighs, then says "in your journey you might find more like me. You need to take them out from a distance or you'll be haunted by your own dreams while they devour your flesh."

Before the girls can shout some more, zombie Akyuu raises her hands again, the mist around her turns violent, her ghostly eyes turn red, and just like that it all turns back to looking eerily peaceful.

The frightened girls stammer, then the zombie girl hurriedly says "I have to kill you now, but if you flash me as I am you'll be safe! DON'T HESITATE! Miss Aya, Miss Satori, the spell doesn't affect you at all. Please don't fail!"

"WAIT," shouts the tengu, but the zombie girls moves back as though hovering on the ground and says "these are the final words of Akyuu Hieda before her untimely death, unless these two can resolve the incident."

She raises her hands again, her eyes and mist turn violent once more, then the three girls raise their flashing weapons and flash the girl several times before her body floats as she falls to the floor and gently settles between a shelf and the desk.

A scroll falls out of the girl's sleeve and rolls to the tengu's feet.

She picks it up and promptly opens it up, then her and her partners' eyes water when they read the words "THANK YOU" written in what looks like blood.

The mind-reader gulps and asks "wh-where to? W-what should we do?"

The black-haired reporter sighs, drops the scroll on the floor in front of her feet, then says "well, at least we know there is someone going against us out there, but who and why, is something I would love to know."

The girls look at the karkasa and notice the lost look in her eyes, then the tengu says "and what was all that about? She spoke as if Kogasa was just some shield! That was horrible."

The turquoise girl shakes her head and calmly says "it's alright," then looks at the staring girls and says "let's just get out of here."

---

"Alright, we run back to the west exit and break our way through," exclaims the satori, then turns to the door and says "we go to that mansion and spill that cauldron Miss Aya and Miss Kogasa!"

The two girls remain still, staring at Satori after noticing a glimmer of hope in her eyes, and said girl turns around with a brave and resolute look on her face and says "she made it sound like this could all be reverted if we succeed! That means we can save Okuu, Orin, and even Miss Reimu and Yamame! Maybe even Miss Hatate."

Hearing those names brings hope to the girls and their eyes fill with hope as well.

The satori maiden smiles and opens the door, then bravely flashes the few large roaches still currying about, turns around and signals the girls to follow "COME ON!"

Confidence take over the girls and all three are now flashing the life out of those roaches as they make their way back toward the mansion's exit.

They break through the hoard of giant roaches, even though disgusted when some of those jump on their hands or faces, and finally reach the exit.

"Ew, ew, ew, ew! I don't want to do that again!" complains the karakasa while shaking her hands and holding her lunch inside herself.

The tengu gulps her heart and stomach back into their original spots and says "alright, we did it. Next is the western-"

The main mansion behind them explodes and its front collapses into the flames that formed on the base of the structure.

The startled girls tremble as they turn around, and soon after they do all three take brave faces and ready themselves to attack.

"Get out of my fucking house!" screams zombie Mokou as she gets up on her feet and standing between the flames, and revealing her eyes have now lost the red iris.

"And there she is," calmly says the tengu girl as she raises her camera "the immortal who's become immortal once more."

The zombie girl covers her white eyes with her shriveled hands and cries "MAMA~! She said I was pretty~!"

A second figure drops from the sky and lands right next to Mokou, and in a nasally tone of voice, Keine Kamishirasawa shouts "no finish assignment!? PUNISH!"

The once stunningly beautiful history teacher is now a horrifying monster with slimy decaying yellow skin.

What should be her breasts look like shriveled sacks that cling to the fabric of her clothes, only a few long strands of silver hair remain on her head, her eyes look like two ivory crystal balls, and though the lower part of her dress is completely gone, nothing desirable can be seen there.

Instead there is a large hole on what should be the stomach that lets all see the internal organs as they rot away, yet continue to function.

"Ooh boy, this is not good," comments the karakasa, to which the tengu replies "hit them hard and fast, and don't give them the chance to-"

The brave reporter's words cut short when her greatest fear, now shared with Satori through thoughts, becomes a reality in front of her very eyes.

The clouds above split apart as though knowing what they are doing and let the bright light of the full moon to shrine through straight on to zombie Keine.

The second that light touches the zombie a pair of blood-stained horns grow on her head, her eyes turn scarlet, a skeletal tail with a sharp tip springs out of her lower spine, and to the girls' horror, a pair of sharp greenish-white spikes grow out of the zombie's under-forearms, then she roars.

"HOLY SHIT!" exclaim the tengu and karakasa at the same time as the satori exclaims "this is NOT good!"

Mokou happily calls "mama~ You grew up," to which the zombie hakutaku snarls "eat vitamin bird!"

The girls blink once, and when they open their eyes they look to the sky toward Mokou, who carries Aya away toward the farms.

"AYA-SAN!" calls the karakasa while trying futilely to reach for the tengu, but she soon remembers she still has an enemy in front of her, and the mind-reader is still with her and might need help.

"I know," says Satori while keeping her eyes on Keine and saying "we have to take care of this one first before we can chase after her!"

The karakasa nods and bravely faces the zombie.

Keine takes one step forward and now stands between the two girls, strikes the satori with the back of her hand, then the karakasa ghost flips backward to avoid the swift tail and flashes the zombie hakutaku twice before having to move again and avoid getting impaled by that large forearm spike.

Several pink hearts strike the side of zombie Keine's head, making her roar and turn her attention to the satori.

She flashes the hakutaku with her third eye, yet the zombie doesn't even flinch and charges the satori with her head-horns lowered toward the girl's stomach.

The mind-reader runs around in a circle in hopes of somehow escaping those vicious-looking horns, but soon realizes she's no match for the zombie, and those horns are a mere inch away from touching her back.

Kogasa sticks her umbrella between the charging zombie's legs, then lifts it up with all her might and forces Keine to fly off the ground for a bit and fall on her head, sticking her horns on the ground and breaking her neck after she falls with that built up momentum from running around.

Satori stops and quickly regroups with the karakasa and asks "is she dead?", but she already knew the answer.

Keine roars as she accommodates her body, pulls her horns free from the dirt, and after straightening back up she grabs her limping head with both hands and raises it.

When she lowers it, a disturbing pop, followed by a horrible crack, unsettles the karakasa and satori, then the zombie woman grins, showing her yellowish teeth to the girls and says "hurt teacher, demerit headbutts get!"

The youkai girls find themselves dodging those arm-spikes and sharp tail before they even realize what happened, and yet find themselves capable of dodging those swift attacks and shooting continuous flashes with ease.

Finally, a flash on the scarlet eyes from the karakasa's umbrella makes the zombie hakutaku shriek and stumble backward while covering her face.

"The eyes are the weak points," observes the satori maiden, then she taps the karakasa on the shoulder and says "I'll distract her and you flash her in the eyes again."

Kogasa nods and takes a fighting stance with her umbrella held by both hands, then Satori flashes the zombie and shouts "hey, stupid teacher! Bet you can't catch ME!"

Zombie Keine rubs her eyes one last time, then screeches at the girls, aims her horns at the taunting satori, then swiftly turns and charges toward the karakasa.

"WHOA!" exclaims the turquoise girl when she finds herself being the unexpected distraction.

She turns around to run away only too late and doesn't have the chance to avoid those horns, so she hops high enough and lands sitting on the zombie's neck, grabs her horns while skillfully holding her umbrella between her arms, then guides the zombie woman around.

To her great luck the zombie isn't smart enough to swing that tail while she's riding her, so the karakasa can easily take matters into her hands.

"Hold on, I'm coming!" calls the satori maiden while chasing after the charging zombie and her passenger.

"Ready a big one! Head for that tree," calls back the karakasa ghost as she steers the zombie woman by her horns.

The satori maiden runs toward a large tree near the center of the village and flashes a few human and fairy zombies out of her way, and though the fairies fall fast, she has to waste some time with the zombie humans before they fall.

Kogasa steers zombie Keine toward a group of zombie fairies and a two-headed boar and cheers when the horns skewers those monsters, then turns the woman's head to the tree and jumps off.

The hakutaku woman rams her horns and sticks them on the three trunk, and again manages to break her own neck in the process.

Keine immediately gets up and tries to pull herself free, and even though she doesn't seem to feel pain, she shrieks every time she stretches her neck in the attempt to free herself and the other monsters and immediately stops and tries cutting the tree with her forearm spikes.

Satori smiles while breathing hard through her mouth after reaching the tree, bends her knees close to the zombies, then says "smile~" and flashes them all several times, killing the lesser monsters after the fifth flash.

However, the zombie hakutaku is still alive and snarls while trying to cut herself free from that tree, though seems to have weakened considerably.

The karakasa walks to the satori, kneels beside her friend, then the girls smile at each other, aim their flashing weapons at those scarlet eyes, then flash without showing the least bit of mercy.

---

Meanwhile, as the girls battle it out with zombie Keine, Aya struggles against Mokou and her surprisingly sharpened blood-dripping teeth so as not to get another bite on the shoulder.

Even while flying the zombie winds her neck back and lunges it forward to try and take a bite off the tengu, whether on the neck or shoulders.

The short-haired tengu uses her free hands and all her strength to push the zombie's head and save herself from a painful bite, while at the same time attempts to take out her camera.

Again her attempt is thwarted when Mokou lunges her teeth toward the tengu's neck again.

The girl shrieks when she feels the cold lips of the zombie touching her skin, and out of desperation she punches the already-immortal on the cheek and forces herself free.

The landing is a shameful display for someone like Aya, a crow tengu, who first falls on her back, skids and bounces off the ground only to skid on her face and bounce once more, then rolls like a ball until she crashes on the broadside of a white barn.

She groans after her face almost sinks to the ground and her bottom ends up being the best peep-show ever, showing the world a pair of pink panties with flower prints.

Still, seeing as there is nobody that would be interested in that, save to literally eat the flesh of the girl, the tengu finds no reason to compose herself too quickly, that is, until Mokou shouts "it's my life! MY LIFE you BITCH!"

She quickly gets on her feet and takes her digital camera out of her pocket, then spots the zombie flying in circles above her like some vulture.

Zombie Mokou drops from the sky and falls hard on her knees right in front of the tengu, then looks up with a pained look and cries "p-please end this! I-I'm going mad. Miss Tengu please kill me!"

Aya hesitates for a second when she realizes this girl has somehow recovered her senses, but she's not about to wait to see if it's real or not, and she's just been requested a rather strong wish.

She takes several photos of the immortal, who screams as the flashes burn her body, but even after ten consecutive flashes the zombie girl continues screaming in pain.

The tengu stops for a moment to allow the flash to cool down a bit; it is a camera after all; and asks "m-miss? A-are you there?"

Mokou lunges at the black haired girl and breaks a hole into the barn, and now both girls struggle as they roll toward the center of the large building.

Aya flashes the zombie several more times until she finally yelps and jumps back to rub her eyes and face, then the tengu takes the chance to get closer and flash the zombie girl directly on the face.

She jumps back to avoid a claw swipe from Mokou but continues flashing the immortal, thinking "I have to take care of her now before she loses her mind again! She could torch the place if I don't hurry!"

The tengu's fears become real when Mokou cries "MOMMY~! THE BIRDIE IS HURTING MEEE!", then ignites her left hand and sends a powerful fireball straight at the reporter's face.

The tengu has to jump away to avoid the fireball, but it blasts the back of the barn and sets some hay and dried vegetables in boxes on fire.

"Shit," she barks as she gets back on her feet and takes her fan on her left hand.

She swings it and declares "Whirl Sign, Maple Leaf Fan - EXTEND," and a large tornado materializes in front of her with one swing and moves toward the flame.

Mokou stands up, sobbing and mumbling incoherently while slumping, apparently dripping blood from her head, then lifts her bloodstained face and screams.

Aya yelps with fright, but instinctively flashes the light-lilac-haired zombie five more times, then everything stops, even the tornado she created stops on its own after all the flames subside.

The zombie girl trembles as she lifts her head to meet the tengu's face, then whispers "th-thank y-...ou."

A hand thrusts itself through Mokou's falling body, then Hatate reveals herself after tossing the zombie's carcass out a window, then snarls.

Her dangling eye seems to have broken off, her skin looks like it's full of rashes, a thorn has grown on her right elbow, and the girl's eye sockets seem to glow with a faint scarlet light.

She hisses as she breathes and stares at her former rival, bends her back into an attack position, then softly roars "Shameimaruuu," then arcs her body upward and screams out loud "BIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIITCH!"

---

Aya panics, her mind flashes back to that very moment she kicked the girl in front of her to her death.

She freezes and is unable to move to avoid getting slapped by the back of Hatate's hands.

She can't hear herself yelp in pain while flying backward, she can't feel when her body hits the ground, she doesn't even notice the whole minute it takes for Hatate to get close again.

The zombie tengu roars "SHAMEIMARUUUU," and raises her right hand to throw a well-aimed strike to the black-haired girl's very heart.

The black-haired reporter doesn't see this coming and instead sees that scene repeating itself in front of her eyes.

She hears herself calling for Hatate, wishing it was all a stupid nightmare and that she would wake up.

She hears herself begging the spirits to never meet with the reanimated and mutated body of her former rival and tengu comrade, yet fails to see the reality of that very same girl throwing a fast straight clawed hand at her chest.

"AYA~!"

Kogasa's voice echoes inside the tengu's mind, and thinking she's dead she looks around and hopes to see angels and gold-paved roads, but instead sees a blurry turquoise frame.

The karakasa strikes Hatate's hand away from her intended target with her umbrella and flashes her face, making her shriek and snarl, then quickly flips away from a furious claw swipe form the zombie.

"SHAMEIMARUUU BIIIIIII-!"

The karakasa youkai strikes the zombie tengu's face with her umbrella, then thrusts it between her eyes, opens it and flashes again, then kicks the zombie away.

After knocking Hatate back, the karakasa rushes to her tengu friend's side, kneels beside her and asks "Aya-san! Miss Aya-san, are you alright? Did she hurt you?"

To the tengu, Kogasa's voice sounds echoed in the distance, and yet she manages to shake her head in response.

The karakasa turns her eyes away and lifts her umbrella to defend herself from another claw swipe, then raises her hand and summons a rain of light-blue bullets that fall unevenly on the zombie.

She takes advantage of the distraction and flashes Hatate five more times, then smiles and says "I don't know how come you're already up, but this time I'll make sure to STAY down!"

She jumps back to avoid more claw swipes and flashes the zombie tengu, and now Aya starts feeling the warmth return to her body and manages to sit up to look for her camera.

Her vision slowly recovers as she moves closer to the silver digital camera, but then hears a sound she never hoped to hear.

There is a slash noise followed by Kogasa's grunt and her moan, and then she turns her frozen eyes to the left.

Zombie Hatate has struck the karakasa's stomach with her claws and is pulling on her flesh to take a bite out of her right upper arm.

The karakasa screams as her flesh is ripped off her arm with such brutality, and once again the world slows down for Aya Shameimaru.

What actually took only two seconds, for the tengu it took an eternity for Kogasa's body to finally hit the ground.

Her breathing breaks as she inhales and exhales through her mouth, watching with those shocked red eyes at her fallen partner; her friend.

Hatate wasn't done, and has stuck a vicious hand through the fallen youkai's abdomen and snarls at her victim.

"KOGASA! NOOOO~!"

Right now, Aya hates the sound of her own voice, yet she can't help but call for the karakasa repeatedly.

She doesn't know where it comes from or how she got it, but she feels a surge of pure rage that empowers her whole body and allows her to move as she should.

Aya Shameimaru picks the camera off the ground and flashes the zombie tengu's eyes, then grabs her fan again and swings it viciously fast and hard, shooting her worst bullets at the monster that so savagely ruined a friend.

As she kicks, shoots and flashes Hatate, the black-haired girl thinks "I didn't really spend that much time with her, so why do I feel like this? I want to kill this fucking bitch, make her suffer for what she did! Kogasa!"

She sucker-punches the zombie tengu on the face before she can scream the only two words she repeats, then flashes her face several more times before sending a human-sized tornado at her.

"That girl, she was supposed to live, to come with me and Satori to the end! I even promised Yamame I'd keep her safe! Hatate, you bitch, what have you DONE? Why this? Why Kogasa? Why not ME? I'M IMMUNE! Akyuu said so!"

While the tengu continues to beat down on the zombie, the satori maiden finally catches up and enters through the hole on the wall.

She spots her tengu friend and rushes to assist, but then she notices the karakasa on the ground, coughing out blood and rooting for Aya through pained moans.

"Kogasa! Oh no, I'm coming," calls Satori while rushing to the turquoise girl's aid.

Meanwhile Aya has Hatate weakened and just about ready to fall, yet continues her relentless attacks, flashing the zombie occasionally.

"This is all my fault! I froze again, like a fucking human child! WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH ME? Because of me Kogasa... This is not fair, this is not FAIR!"

"THIS IS NOT FAAAAAAIIIR!" shouts the tengu, venting the last bit of rage left in her system and shooting Hatate with one final flash that sends her falling on her back.

She snarls as she stares at the fallen body of the one that took her friend's life, and after she is sure that tengu won't move again, she turns around and rushes to the karakasa.

---

Her heart pounds hard when she turns around and is greeted by the pained smile of the karakasa ghost.

"I'm sorry," sobs the tengu, and then somehow finds herself kneeling beside Kogasa and holding her up.

Satori trembles and tries to stop Aya, nervously whimpering "w-wait, she's weak," and trying to take the turquoise girl off the tengu's hands.

The wounded girl coughs some blood and smiles at the black-haired tengu, then softly says "Miss Aya-san, you're ok. F-for a moment there I thought I had... failed you."

"No, no, don't say that. J-just stand still and those wounds will be gone, and you, and me, and Satori can solve this incident!"

The tengu speaks fast and softly while comforting the karakasa with motherly brushes to her hair, and even saying these words she cannot stop the tear from rolling down her right cheek and dropping on the girl's open stomach wound.

She looks at the girl's wound and winces, then notices what look like yellow veins surrounding the bloodied opening on the stomach and the arm.

Kogasa complains and her face distorts when sharp pain throbs through her entire body, yet she suppresses this and smiles once more.

She lifts her left hand and places it on Aya's face, then softly says "please be strong Miss Aya-san. I'll become one of them soon and try to eat you, or something. Heheh. You-you'll have to take me out too."

Satori's hand join's the tengu's, and now the karakasa grabs that hand, squeezes it gently and softly says "if you keep hesitating and-and freezing like that you are both going to end up dead. P-please Miss Aya, Miss Satori, b-be strong? S-save our home, please?"

Tears now escape both girls as they try to be strong as requested, but this girl became special to both, and rather quickly, because in the little time they were together she encouraged them to stay together, to fight for each other like good partners.

She even brightened their bitter lives with kind words of encouragement, and if it was just for a moment, it felt good.

But what hurts Aya the most is the mixture of sadness and shame she feels, that this girl had to come and rescue her when she froze like a scared human, and that this girl had to be the one to take that hit intended for HER.

Kogasa's face twists and distorts again when the pain in her body takes her again and doesn't let go.

She tries not to sob but cannot help it, and with fresh tears rolling down her cheeks she looks at her friends, locks her pained face on the tengu, then cries "thi-this is starting to hurt. M-miss Aya, please kill me."

Shock take the tengu's watery eyes after hearing such request, and immediately replies "no! Please don't ask such a thing! You will-"

The karakasa grips the tengu's face and forces her to look right into her eyes so that she can see the determination in them, then croaks "I am not some human. Sh-show me some respect. I am a youkai! But even so, this pain is unbearable!"

Her eyes turn soft once more, but this is short-lived.

The sharp pain now feels like bolts of electricity are running through the karakasa's human-like body, despair takes her eyes, and using all her strength she shouts "KILL ME! IT HURTS MISS AYA! KILL ME, PLEAAAAAASE!"

The tengus arms move on their own when in an instant she twists them, that is followed by a loud crack, and the tengu lets the karakasa's limp body fall to the ground.

Satori covers her mouth when she sobs at the sight and turns away to hide her shock from her tengu partner, to try and avoid paining her more.

The girls stare at the body and hear as the girl on the ground whispers "thank you," as the last of her breath leaves her body.

Unstoppable streams of tears rush down the tengu's cheeks, unable to move her hands from their last position while that horrible crack repeats itself over and over in her mind.

She keeps her emptied eyes forward after finally allowing her arms to drop, then sobs as she whispers "don't... Don't thank me *sniff* you selfish bastards."

Her body trembles violently as she gazes over the karakasa's body once more, and a loud sob escapes her.

The satori maiden now kneels by her tengu partner's side, quickly wraps her arm around the girl's shoulders, and Aya starts wailing on Satori's shoulder.

Both girls remain on their knees and cry out so many frustrations it feels like they will never stop.

The satori maiden manages to cry a few words of comfort, but even she succumbs when the tengu's loud cries get to her.

And so the girls remain the rest of the night crying while kneeling beside their fallen friend until they both finally fall asleep.

They don't care if the karakasa's body is already mutating, or that there is a dead zombie next to them.

Right now all they feel is a weakening grief that refuses to let them move, and so they sleep, yet keep somewhat awake as their minds torture them with several unwanted scenes, including the fall of the brave karakasa youkai, and to Aya, this vivid nightmare, that body falling right before her eyes, will haunt her for a long time to come.

---

To be continued...

Characters, spell cards and scenarios belong so ZUN -Team Shanghai Alice-

July 31 2011

Written by

Willie G.R.

---

A/N:

Wh-what? D-don't look at me like that. It happened for a reason. *Sniffle* Don't look at me!

This chapter was very hard to write for me, and not just because I was writing it at the same time as Icicle Sukima's chapter, but because I lost my motivation during the writing process (for no apparent reason) and because of many events in this chapter, including that last one... yeah, that one right there. I got stuck on Kaguya specifically because I wanted her to be far more disturbing than what she turned out to be, however in doing so her defeat would have been quite disappointing, so I toned her down a lot. I am glad with what I did.

No, I am not glad at that last paragraph, even if that was needed for story development! Seriously, I'm a sensitive person, and writing stuff as painful as that is very hard for me. Ah well, until next time.