Youmu leaned back a bit, narrowly dodging the reaping scythe that came her way. She was engage in a fight with S-rank valkyrie, Rita Rossweisse, and things weren't exactly the most favorable right now.

First, Rita also used a melee weapon, so the rush the gardener had been using for the other wasn't working very well. Her weapon also made more of a base range. Additionally, she was a maid. But what was even more frustrating to deal with was the fact that she couldn't deal lethal injuries. For some reason, she was on the "don't kill" list made by Yukari.

However, Youmu was not the best person to call upon if they wanted their enemy in one piece. All she knew was how to cut. Sure, she could block all of Rita's attacks, but she couldn't make an offensive.

"Come on, you're never going to win if you don't go on the offensive." Rita was taunting her, and if it was any of the hotheads, they probably would have been provoked. But Youmu was one of the most uptight people in the world, so she remained calm.

However, due to the pressure Rita exerted, Youmu couldn't stop all the forces from making it past her. If she turned her back, the maid was more than guaranteed to take advantage of that.

Youmu once again parried the scythe away, avoiding the sharp blade that could pierce through mech armor like it was butter, but in the process let a few more mechs get through.

Youmu decided to settle for cutting both her legs off. If she rushed her over to Eirin fast enough, she should be able to survive the blood loss. "Human Sign-"

"Stop!" Kallen cried out from higher on the steps, standing on top of destroyed mechs and unconscious valkyries. "We don't need to be fighting anymore."

"Ah, Miss Kallen Kaslana. Archbishop Otto has spoke highly of you. It is an honour to finally meet you." Rita said with a bow. Youmu didn't attack her during this time, likely due to her warrior honor. "He has sent me here to retrieve you."

"Was sending an entire army necessary?" Kallen asked, full well knowing that the answer was yes. "I'll come along, but Sakura's coming with me." She gestured towards the pink-haired miko behind her.

She thought the maid might reject having her tag along, but she agreed. "Very well, I see no problem with that arrangement."

"Wait." Yuyuko floated down the steps, not needing to step on them since she was fully ethereal. "Me and Youmu are coming along. After all, we can't just leave out guests hanging."

"Yuyuko-sama, are you-"

"Sure. I see no problems with it. Now come, I will lead you to the archbishop." The maid paved the way for the four, seeming to not care that one of them had killed a fair share of her allies.

…

Yukari calmly sipped her tea as she watch Otto walk into the room, his gun point right at her head. "It's very rude to be late, especially when I went through the trouble to telling you my location."

"I haven't lived this long by being reckless."

"Yes. How long? Was it around 547 years, 3 months, and 13 days, 4 hours, 24 minutes, and 8 seconds?" Yukari asked while chuckling. "I suppose it is a long time by human standards."

"Human standards." Otto repeated. "Are you suggesting you're not human?"

"Human. Yes, human. Why don't you answer this?" Yukari raised her finger up like a teacher, but sat down on one of her gaps. "What does it mean to be human?"

"What are you on about?"

"It's just a simple question." Yukari said. "Surely the supposed smartest person would know the answer."

"Simple." Otto said confidently. "To be human is to be human. To live our life as a human should, to struggle as a human should, and to thrive as a human should."

"I would say that's an interesting answer, if it weren't for the fact that I've heard it before." Yukari said. "I believe both Kevin Kaslana and MR MEI said something similar."

Otto was instantly on guard, more so than earlier. To him, no one should've known what happened before the 14th Herescher of the Old World destroyed the world. He should've been the only one that knew the existence of those two, besides maybe Fu Hua, but she was experiencing memory loss.

"What are you here for? I'm sure you didn't come here to talk."

"What are you talking about? That's exactly what I came here for. Now sit down. It might take a while. And don't think you're going to be able to kill me with that knockoff of yours."

Otto decided to sit down, though he made sure to send out orders to have at least half a hundred highly destructive weapons pointed at the woman.

"Now, where to start?" Yukari said to herself. "Right, when the world ended. Surely you should know of the incident. After all, it did more or less kill everyone. Oh, and don't worry, you can dispose of the people listening to this. I won't stop you."

"Why are you bringing that up?"

"Yes, well, there's just a few questions that really need an answer." Yukari pulled out her fan, using it to cover her mouth. "Tell me, after the 14th Herscher reset the world, how many humans were left?"

"Why should I disclose that?"

"Well, if you don't, this conversation will never progress, and you'll lose out on some important facts that could help you later on."

Otto, upon hearing that about new information, was hooked. He could play along at least. It seemed that he wouldn't be revealing anything the other person didn't know. "There were three. Fu Hua, Nuwa, and Fuxi."

"Now, what were the gender of all these people?"

"They were all female, of course."

"Now, tell me. How do three females repopulate the human race?"

"What are you talking about? They didn't…" Otto then realized what she was asking. While Fu Hua and the others' survival could be explained, how were there other humans? Since the Herescher killed off all life, it meant that there was the possibility that humans could never exist in the new world by the theory of evolution. That was something that DR MEI probably didn't account for. But there were humans, but from some unknown source. The 1st God Key gave him knowledge, but it was lacking in this area. However, he still didn't have an answer.

"Well, how about another question?" Yukari decided to move on when it seemed that Otto knew what she was asking, but couldn't answer. "You came here desperate to utilize the abilities of magic. But surely it should have been part of humanity's history, so why did the 1st God Key not tell you of it?"

Otto was stumped. Sure, humanity had a history of suspicions of magic, but no true demonstration. That's why he thought it was all hogwash. The closest thing to magic was the honkai. But here, there was clearly magic, completely unrelated to the honkai. How did humanity miss over such a thing?

"Well, one last question. Why do you think you never found this place, despite having control over the spot of land Gensokyo occupies?"

Otto let his thoughts run, trying to figure out how these seemingly unrelated things connected to each other. Yukari was leading a trail of breadcrumbs, and he need to trace it.

To his surprise, Theresa walked into the bridge, though her expression looked worse for wear, though her stature seemed better than ever. "You got a lot of explaining to do."

"My dear granddaughter. What have you done to yourself?"

"Not much. Just made a deal with the deal." Theresa said. "Similar to what you did, but I'm paying the price, not someone else."

"Oh, and I thought our dear Satori warned you against such dealings." Yukari said with a fake hurt tone. "Such things tend to fill you with regret in the long run."

"Hmph! As if-" However, the loli principal remembered what Yukari said before she went through the gap. "Wait! You knew this would happen!"

"Oh, what on earth could you mean?" Yukari was playing the innocent card, probably just for the laughs.

"You knew that Remilia was alive, and that she would offer to turn me into a vampire! That's why you said I wouldn't be getting treatment in the normal sense!"

"Wait, how can the vampire be alive? She got her head cut off." Otto said.

"You speak as if I would die from a simple decapitation." Remilia stated as she walked into the room rather gracefully. "Or a hole to the chest."

Theresa pointed her cross at Yukari. "How did you know what would happen?"

Yukari could only laugh. "Did you really think it was mere coincidence that you met Remilia the way you did?" Theresa was clearly confused by her statement. "Well, let's trace the steps, shall we? Ceclica, Himeko, and Bronya went to stay at Eirin's due to their medical conditions. Kallen and Sakura went to stay with Yuyuko since that's the safest place, or at least one of. That left you to be the only person that could stay with Mei, who the Herescher of the Void was targeting. Thanks to that, you get sucked into imaginary space with her. Remilia barged in here unprepared and get her head chopped off. Normally she'd regenerate immediately, but she waited until she was transported to the medical room. The Herescher dealt quite heavy injuries to you, but Reimu came in and brought you out of imaginary space. However, don't you think it was weird that you popped out on a Schicksal battleship instead of the mansion? One that so conveniently is the one with Remilia in the medical bay, where you needed to go in order to treat your injuries, going as far as to meet your grandfather, who only made your injuries worse? That needs at least 4 coincidences, which is a bit much."

"You're … saying … that is … was all … planned?

"Not necessarily." Remilia said. "I just manipulated fate so that it would put you in a situation where you can't turn down my offer."

"Fate? What the hell are you talking about!? How can you manipulate something like fate? That's incomprehensible!" Theresa shouted back.

Hearing Theresa's final comments, Otto put the puzzle together. "Wait, if there's incomprensible things here, then it makes sense that there'd be something that protected it from influence from the world outside, why magic can exist here. That's why it was never found. The Herescher didn't see it was part of the world, so it wasn't destroyed along with the rest of the world. Since there were humans living here, then the humans that currently populate the globe are all from the people here. The people here who survive 50000 years ago moved out and populated the world."

"Mostly correct." Yukari gave him a light clap. "It's not that the Herescher didn't see it as part of the world. It's just that the shrine maiden was strong enough to repel the damage that hit the rest of the world."

"Wait, for you to know it without the 1st God Key, that must of meant-"

"Yes, it was quite a pretty site, watching the land split apart and burst into pieces." Yukari said. "So yes, I am more than 50,000 years old."

"You still say you're 17 though." Remilia commented.

"Do you need me to throw you over to the Hell Raven?"

"All I did was state a fact." The vampire argued. "Though you should take something into account. Gensokyo has yet to change during that time. We are a land that sticks to the status quo. Everyone here who fights the honkai also fought them 50000 years ago."

"Wait." Theresa stopped the conversation to ask the question on from what she could figure out from listening in on their conversation. "If you were alive all that time ago, couldn't you have stop this Herescher from destroying the world?"

"I suppose I could have." Yukari said casually.

"Why didn't you!?"

"Well, I suppose it's because, I thought it was interesting to see humanity get destroyed."

Silence flooded the room as Yukari gave her reason. Otto took it in rather well, but Theresa was a whole other story. "Can you repeat that?"

"I was simply curious how it would be like if humanity was wiped out."

"So you just watched the world get destroyed for entertainment!?"

"Yes." Yukari answered in a light manner. "Is there something wrong with that?"

Theresa didn't even know where to start with how wrong that was. "Are you seriously asking me that? How could you do something so-"

"Inhumane?" Yukari finished for her. "My, my, you have no idea how badly I want to laugh right now. You would think after meeting Remilia and others, you wouldn't assume that I was human, nor that I actually cared about what happened with humanity."

"You-"

"And that what's what makes me more of a monster than your grandfather." Yukari said, chuckling towards Otto. "At least everything he does is supposedly for humanity's sake, or at least tries. It's just that humanity suffers when he fails. The survival of humanity for me, is more or less a … minor concern."

Theresa couldn't come up with much of retort as the bridge window shattered as Reimu and Sakuya both gracefully landed besides the group having a conversation. "Oi, Yukari, a little help here?"

"Reimu, shouldn't such a foe be easy for you to deal with?"

"Yeah, if I wanted to bomb Gensokyo to oblivion." Reimu shot back against the gap youkai. "I don't have the money to pay for property damage."

"Hey, Reimu-san." Theresa got the attention of the shrine maiden. "Did you know about what Yukari-"

"Oh, you mean her letting the outside world get wrecked?" Reimu asked. "Yeah, I knew about it, but only after the fact. Information doesn't tend to travel well across a conceptual barrier." She then turned towards the purple-eyed youkai. "You mind explaining why we're in this mess? We're the ones dealing with it."

"Yes, that is something I should also explain. Though first things first, Ran." The nine-tailed fox popped out from one of Yukari's gaps. "Kindly entertain that nuisance. I'd prefer to explain uninterrupted."

"Yes, Yukari-sama." Ran leaped out towards the Herescher of the Void, probably to punch her in the face.

"You plan on starting anytime soon?" Remilia asked.

"Now, now, what's the rush?" Yukari said. "We still have a few more people to wait for."

…

Reisen shoved the muzzle of her rifle against the metal head of the mech, blowing it off while dodging another swing from Durandal. She fired a few shots at her, but they were all blocked easily by her lance. She wanted to bring something like the anti-tank gun out, but that would cause too much property damage. Eirin hated her facility getting wrecked.

Not that it was faring well right now.

"A human with rabbit ears. What sort of experiments are they running in this place?" Durandal asked, seeing that Reisen was clearly intelligent enough for conversation.

"Excuse me!" Reisen shot back, offended. "I was born with these ears. As for the experiments, well, I'd rather not disclose them. They aren't exactly for the faint of heart." She definitely couldn't reveal how embarrassing some of them were for her since she was the prime test subject.

"Well then, if that is the case, how can they be stopped?" The S-rank valkyrie clearly misunderstood her and thought the experiments were so horrific the rabbit girl couldn't reveal them.

"Well … you sort of blew off the head of the person who usually ran them." Reisen admitted. Though she mentally thought to herself how that wasn't going to change anything.

"I see. Then where is-"

"I'm here." Celicia walked out from one of the patient rooms, holding a rapier in hand. Even if the weapon looked normal, it definitely wasn't, since few things in Gensokyo were. "I assume you're looking for me."

"Yes. It is an honour to meet you, Celicia Schariac." Durandal said. "Though I must ask you to come back with me."

"Yes, that's what I was planning on doing." The legendary woman said. "I have some things to talk about with Otto after all. But you should watch out behind you."

"What?" Durandal didn't have time to turn around as an arrow found its way to her shoulder. She found Eirin, who she was sure she had killed earlier, standing there with a bow in hand. "How are you alive?"

"I'm afraid few people of this land die from simply getting their head removed." Eirin said. "I happen to not be included in such. Also, you might want to stop resisting. The arrow I just shot at you is coating in a muscle relaxer, a very potent one. Even someone like you would find yourself unable to move."

On cue, Durandal found it rather hard to move properly. Thankfully, the honkai energy in her body and her natural strength worked against it, but she was at best half strength, and she was still losing some.

"Still, I don't pride myself in senseless killing. If you would be so kind as to guide us to your leader, that would be appreciated. The princess is quite interested in meeting him."

Seeing that her options weren't exactly plentiful, the valkyrie went along, given the fact that she would still be accomplishing her task if she did so. She did not have the confidence to beat the supposed legendary woman in her current state.

"Master, where's Mokou?"

"That girl said she needed to see someone, and left the moment her head regenerated."

…

Fu Hua did have a hard time believing things right now. If she wasn't questioning why they were attacking Gensokyo, she sure as hell was asking why a Herescher's subordinate just showed up on their front door.

A silent agreement was made, or at least as silent as a girl with massive raven wings stomping around cout get, to stop fighting and deal with the honkai dragon together. She had somehow managed to convince the raven girl to refrain from using explosive attacks to avoid collateral. All it resulted in was a brawl where the two tested who could hit harder. It was actually hard to tell at this point.

"Fu Hua." The martial artist turned around to Mokou gliding down to her position. She had no clue what she was doing here, or how she was even here.

"How are you still alive? Durandal said she killed you."

"I'm a lot harder to kill than you think." Mokou said. "Still, it's been a while."

"A while?" The white-haired woman spoke as if they were friends. She turned over to see if Okuu could manage a while without her. "Apologies, but I don't think we've met."

However, the response she got was a sigh. "So the rumor that you were suffering from memory loss was true, huh? Maybe you should get the doctor to look at you."

"Excuse me, but I don't really follow."

"Whatever. I'm not good with explaining things." Mokou denied her the explanation. "Besides, I'm getting the idea that what's happening in there," she pointed towards the flagship, "is a lot more important that the nonsense that went down 50,000 years ago. Hey, hell raven! Can you handle the dragon for a while!?"

"Yup! Got it under control!" The hell raven screamed back before giving her opponent the taste of her right arm cannon.

"Alright. Let's get there. You definitely want to be there." Mokou said before flying off in the direction of the flagship. While she was tempted to stay where she was, the white-haired woman was likely a threat, and it seemed that the hell raven was no longer her problem, so she followed after her.

…

Everyone nervously sat in the wrecked bridge of the Schicksal flagship. Outside, the nine-tailed kitsune was fighting the Herescher, using her ridiculous calculation abilities, illusion, and physical ability to keep her in check. Just in case Reimu was cast a barrier to prevent any stray attacks from hitting anyone.

Slowly, other people trickled into the bridge. Rita brought back the group from the Netherworld, exciting Otto though it seemed a fox-eared girl was not very happy. The Eintei group arrived soon after, along with Bronya and Himeko who were staying with them but was out of the fight. Fu Hua and Mokou arrived before them. For some reason, Alice and Marisa burst into the room, for no reason than why not. Mei woke up and joined the meeting.

"Are you going to begin?" Otto asked impatiently. Even if he was one of the world's most self-controlled man, he still couldn't deny his curiosity.

"Now, now. What's the rush? It's not like you're getting older." Yukari said. "Besides, we're still waiting for someone."

On cue, the doors to the bridge burst open. Everyone was prepared to fight, only to find a number of charred honkai beasts at their doorstep instead. "Hello, hope I didn't miss out on anything."

"Siegfried?" Celica was rather shocked. While he did look older than she remember, it was definitely her husband that was standing there. It had been more than a decade.

"Ceclica? But you…"

"Shut it you pervert." Theresa cut him off. "Though nice of you to join us. Now close your mouth so this woman can actually start explaining why she started this mess."

"But-"

"Do you need me to do the Judah Ballbuster?"

"Nope." The Kaslana immediately shut up after that.

"You wanna start now?" Reimu asked. "It's rare for you to explain anything to anyone."

"Well, I'm afraid most of my audience is human, so they would be unable to comprehend it on their own." Yukari said. While her words may have sounded like a insult, her tone suggested that she was dead serious when she said that. "Though I suppose I should start since everyone necessary is here. Though I prefer you guys don't point guns at each other. Dying during story time would just be a sad way to go."

"Just get on with it." Reimu said.

"Right." Yukari closed her fan with a snap, pulling out a whiteboard and began writing on it. "First question. Why is Schicksal here?" Everyone groan when they realized how this was going to go.

"Really Yukari?" Reimu asked.

"Yes. You really need to know how to take detours. Life is so boring without them."

"Wasn't it because Otto wanted to take over to research the ability of magic and use them against the honkai?" Theresa asked. However, to most people's surprise, the gap youkai shook her head.

"Is it not because subject GAP wanted to examine some of our weapons, and got tracked instead?" Bronya asked. Another head shake.

"Maybe it's because Kallen-san was here?" Mei suggested, though it was shot down.

Luckily, one person that wasn't Gensokyan figured it out. "It's because she lured us here. She intend to have me come here from the very beginning."

"Ding! Ding! Ding! You're correct." Yukari mocked clapped. "Though I'm surprised you only figured it out now. I suppose someone who manipulates so much struggles to notice when they've been manipulated."

"But what does that have to do with anything?"

"Well, you see, last time humanity was destroyed," Yukari got a few weird looks from the people who still weren't aware of what happened 50,000 years ago, but she didn't care. "It was boring. There was nothing to do since all the humans were dead. Even sharing a bed with Reimu got old after long enough."

"Yukari-"

"So this time around I wanted to stop humanity from going to extinct this time around. Watching the world live on was something I could use to entertain myself. I would've died from boredom if I had to watch humanity slowly rebuild itself again. So, I decided to even the odds. I was going to try and introduce magic to humanity in the outside world."

"But, I couldn't just give it to you for free." Yukari continued. "After all, humans are unpredictable. So I decided to test them. I tested them to see how human they were after fighting for their lives for centuries."

"Test?"

"Yes." Yukari was almost chuckling. "Humans are a interesting phenmonen. Sometimes they use justified violence to achieve their needs, or even kindness. But even more than that, they would perform actions that went against logic, things that would not be a reasonable answer to the situation. Such as doing kindness for nothing I return. So I decided to test the least humane human in the current world."

"Which is this guy." The white-haired Kaslana, Schraic, and Apocalypse warriors all pointed towards the archbishop. Otto didn't even denied it.

"Yes. The most cold, calculating human around. Willing to commit cold-hearted murder for the sake of mankind. Everything based on moral-less decision for maximum benefit to humanity." Yukari described the man to a tee. "It was quite inhuman. I started to lose my faith in humanity."

"You speak as if you had any to begin with." Reimu said.

"So, dangling out the lure of a power beyond human comprehension yet unrelated to honkai, Otto would definitely grab the bait." Yukari continued, though giving Reimu a wink. "From there, he would have two options. One was subjugate the area, though one can see how that went, or he could come in peace and try and work out an agreement. Of course, he likely never considered that possibility because treating those people like human beings would greatly slow down any sort of research to be done, so the best choice for humanity was subjugation. Since he had two choices, we would also have two responses. If he attacked, we would've responded with our own, taking down you guys enough to the point where you no longer wanted to fight. However, if you had chosen peace-

I would've willing embarked a good deal of magic upon your people for free."

Everyone fell silent at her declaration. They all understood what she said, though a good number had difficulty letting it sink in. Yuyuko let out her own chuckle, understanding that her friend was the type of person to come up with something like this.

Had they decided to come in peace, they would've got what they wanted without a fight, or even any cost. Trying to do things peacefully would definitely be the more morally correct route to take, though was more risky in terms of succeeding. After all, they had little to no knowledge of how Gensokyo worked. People feared what they did not understand. But if they had decided to put that aside and show non-violence towards something foreign, they would've ended with a much better result. But since Otto Apocalypse decided to take what seemed to be the best way for humanity to obtain the knowledge without obstacle, they were denied that chance.

"You're lying." Otto stated calmly. There was no way this woman would offer such a thing so willing for such a stupid reason.

"She's not." Practically every Gensokyan said.

"It sounds just like her to do this sort of nonsense." Marisa commented.

"Oh? And where's your proof?" Otto countered.

"We don't need proof." Alice said. "We don't judge based on physical concepts here. And Yukari is very well capable of commit crime without even Gods knowing the better. I'm surprised she hasn't done anything right now."

"Oh, and what makes you think I haven't done anything." Yukari said, chuckling quite maliciously. "I still haven't quite forgiven you for releasing that in Gensokyo."

"Yukari. What did you-"

Another set of alarms blared this time, the same as when the Herescher of the Void came into Gensokyo.

"Sir archbishop! We have detected another Herescher being born!"

"What!? Where!?" Otto didn't have time to worry about the fact that there were two Herescher on the Earth right now, which was not how the honkai worked.

"... In New Zealand."