And the big adventure begins! For future reference, whatever color Suika's hair is (brown according to some) I perceive it as orange, so for the sake of this story her hair is orange! Please keep that in mind during this chapter or you'll miss out on a very funny joke.

It had been more than a few hours since Meiling and Suika started what would hopefully become the greatest adventure in the history of Gensokyo, and the two were deep in a forest. Meiling was partially regretting giving Zabi her hat like that because a few loose twigs were landing on her head, but she also enjoyed not having her hat anymore because the top of her head could feel the light breeze coming through. The scene was like something straight out of a work of fiction with the vibrant colors and the sounds, and sometimes sights, of fairies giggling everywhere, possibly having some kind of party or planning a massive prank on these two strangers. Whatever they were doing, the atmosphere itself was relaxing and even a bit entertaining to Meiling. "You know, Suika, you were right."

"Oh, yeah? About -hic- what?"

"When you said I should quit my job. I haven't felt this good in a long time, and I guess I sort of owe it to you. Thanks, Suika."

"-hic- I said that?" Suika couldn't really remember with all the alcohol always rushing through her body. The event sounded vaguely familiar to her, but she was more focused on getting to the top of Youkai Mountain like Meiling said they would. The tengu probably wouldn't be too happy with two people climbing all the way up the mountain, especially since one of them was Suika. "I don't remember."

"You were drunk."
"I'm always drunk. Oni are meant to get drunk and have fun, so I'm gonna do it!" To make her point, she took down some more sake. She wasn't really paying as much attention to her surroundings as Meiling, as was obvious when a tiny fairy who couldn't fly had the misfortune of meeting the bottom of Suika's foot. Her ears were deaf to the fairy's pleas to keep walking, but simply because Meiling was moving on, Suika continued as well. Looking through all the trees and such, she finally came to notice all of the things happening around the two. "Whoa, look at all the fairies!"

Meiling laughed a bit and said "You just now noticed them?"

Suika turned a bit red at the cheeks at that, and looked up at Meiling. "Can't help -hic- it if I'm drunk." However, Suika forgot to turn her head back to face in front of her, and walked into something that knocked her over. She wasn't sure what it was, but whatever knocked her over was cold.

Meiling looked at what Suika collided with, a bit disturbed by the burnt dress that the frozen ice fairy was wearing. "I wonder," she asked herself. "Who encases themselves in ice during the winter?"

"It's winter?"

"Winter just started." Meiling looked at the ice statue. Well, she looked like she could have been badly burnt at one point, but all her wounds had healed. Her clothes, however, still had quite a few holes from being burnt; and it looked rather painful too. "Should we let her out?"

"Yes!" Suika got up to her feet, and looked the frozen fairy straight in the eyes. The fairy looked somewhat familiar, like a figure from a dream that you don't remember, but Suika was mostly able to only observe the obvious because of the influence of alcohol. "That's a lot of blue…-hic- don't you think?"

"Of all the things in the world to notice…" Meiling took a few steps back, intending to smash the ice open. Once she was ten or so steps away, she ran toward the ice with a fist reared behind her. For a second, the fairy in the ice looked really panicked, but that quickly faded as Meiling's fist shattered the ice. The fairy that was now freed looked around, seemingly confused by where she was.

"Who are you," she asked. Then something important occurred to her. "Wah! I'm late! I can't believe I left everybody waiting, I've gotta go!" Without missing a beat, the fairy began to fly off, speaking rapidly to herself. "I left everybody else hanging! If I weren't so strong they'd let me have it, especially Rumia! She can't stand waiting for anything and I don't even know how long I was frozen!"

Meiling watched the ice fairy fly off, and was a bit confused herself. "That was…odd to say the least."

"You see," Suika drunkenly stated in her best attempt to clarify things. "She's a fairy and they -hic- have powers over nature. She was obviously an ice -hic- fairy and froze herself for some reason. Why she did it is -hic- beyond me, but she was obviously going -hic- to meet somebody named Rumia and some other people. I guess they're her -hic- friends?"

"I guess so?" Meiling could comprehend everything Suika was saying, but for some reason her explanation wasn't helping much. Maybe it was because she could barely understand a single drunken word that slurred out of Suika's mouth at this point, what with the small oni having trouble even standing straight. But, for all it was worth, it made at least a bit of sense, so Meiling just went with it. Meiling looked around throughout the forest for a bit, hoping to find some kind of answer there. But when she looked back at Suika, the oni was fishing around in her blouse for something. "Breasts don't magically pop up Suika, no matter how hard you want them to."

Suika's entire face turned red at that, and she said "It's not that! I just remembered that I had to -hic- deliver a letter from Yukari to Reimu! But I can't find the letter in my blouse where I put it!" Suika began searching around her frantically, falling over on more than a few occasions, in search of the missing letter. It had to be around there somewhere! "If I can't find it, Judas will become a lich!"

At first, Meiling was also genuinely concerned about the letter. But as soon as Suika sort of explained the nature of the delivery, Meiling's entire expression changed from concern to amusement. "Suika," she laughed. "We already killed Judas, remember?"

"Whaaat?"

"It was three weeks ago, did you already forget?"

"Three weeks ago…last thing I remember doing three -hic- weeks ago would be…oh! There was a party at the Hakurei Shrine! But it wasn't very happy for a party, and you weren't there. It wasn't as fun as a normal party but there was still people and nice food, and I had lots of sake! I saw the maid there, and I saw Remi. Why weren't you there, Meiling?"

"I was somewhere else. I lost a friend and I thought it'd just be best to avoid people for a while." Even with a decent amount of time past since the night Flandre was killed, it was still a very uncomfortable subject for Meiling. She needed something to distract Suika…since the oni was very drunk at this point, even for her, it would probably be pretty easy. And then, as though Heaven itself knew she was looking for a distraction, something fell out of the sky. It was a sword that was yellow in color, and it looked somewhat unusual for a sword for no reason at all. Perfect to distract Suika with, especially since it landed close enough to Suika to make her yelp and jump back a fair bit.

Suika looked up at the sky, partially to make sure no more swords were falling from the sky, and partially to look for who dropped (or threw) the sword next to her. Once she found nobody, she did what she figured would be best. Suika gathered an immense amount of air in her lungs, and poured it all out in five words. "Don't throw swords at me!" All around her, fairies were fleeing in confusion as were any creatures that weren't either Meiling or Suika. Then she turned to the sword, certain that the mysterious sword-thrower would either be back or ran away, in which case it was all hers! "Lemme -hic- see…I think I've seen this sword before."

"Really? It looks a bit odd to me."

"I -hic- remember where I saw this sword! I -hic- fought a celestial and when I won, she gave -hic- me some land in Heaven for a while, then -hic- I moved back to the Hakurei Shrine."

"You…fought a celestial…and got land in Heaven?" The whole thing sounded like an alcoholic delusion to Meiling, when suddenly something hit her. Just earlier that day, she had gone to see the Yama about Flandre and Judas, and remembered what had happened to Flandre.

"As for Flandre, I literally just now sent her to Heaven a few seconds ago. Don't worry, she's in a better place."

"Suika," Meiling asked, now wanting to believe this story as much as she could believe anything. "How did you get to Heaven exactly? Which way is it?"

Suika pointed above her, and said "You need to go up." She meant to help, but sounded as though she had no idea exactly what Meiling meant, probably because she was too drunk to figure it out. "Like, wayyy up until you passed the clouds."

"I know that. Can you lead the way to Heaven for me then?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because I forgot how to get there. And I'm kinda -hic- lost."

Meiling wasn't sure whether she should laugh or be angry or be sad, any of which were to be directed at Suika. In the end, she wound up doing all three; laughing that Suika was lost, being angry that she forgot how to reach Heaven, and feeling sad that this meant that reaching Heaven (and thus seeing Flandre) would be much much harder. "Then how about we just do what we were doing earlier?"

"Sure…-hic- what were we doing?"

"Traveling."

"Alright, that sounds fun. Let's go!" Suika triumphantly took the lead. She had no idea where they were going, but as long as traveling was exploring and exploring was traveling, she was fine with getting lost. It would add to the fun to try and get out later, and - "Hey, look at the sunset! It's so beautiful!" Even through the trees, the two were able to see the sunset and all the colors in it. Suika ran her finger along the red parts, saying "See all the red?"

Meiling looked beneath it, and said "And orange is right beneath it."

Suika took a second to process that. Had she been sober (fat chance of that!) she would have gotten different results, but the alcohol in her brain was making her think perverted thoughts. Red on top of orange…wait a second! Just to make sure she wasn't wrong, Suika grabbed a lock of her hair and looked at it. Then she looked at Meiling's hair. Red on top of orange…so that means… Suika's cheeks turned the same color as the Chinese youkai's hair about the conclusions she came up with. Wait…hey, our eyes match our hair! Suika quickly turned to Meiling and tackled her, afterward flipping the duo over so that their hairs looked like the sunset they were looking at.

"Suika," Meiling said, partly surprised and partially shocked. "What are you doing?"

"Making a sunset!"

"Making a…?" Wait a minute…she couldn't have possibly thought I meant… Meiling's entire face turned the same shade of red as Suika's cheeks at the conclusions that the youkai came to, and Meiling could barely stammer out her next question. "Ehrm…S-Suika?"

"Ya?"

"Well, shouldn't we be…y-you know, trying to figure out what we're going to do when the night comes along?"

The oni took a second to process the question, then her face joined Meiling's in a chorus of reds. "I had no idea you felt that way."

"Wait, what!" Now more than just Meiling's face was red. Every inch of her body was blushing, as she said "N-No, I swear it isn't like that! I meant stuff like 'where will we sleep' and 'what are we going to eat' and stuff, not…that."

"Oh?" Suika laughed, long and hard. The oni rolled off her friend in hysterical laughter, having to grip her chest to keep her insides from becoming her outsides from laughing too hard. "Ha-ha-ha! I thought you meant sex! A-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!" Suika was actually crying from laughing so hard, and if she didn't know better she could've sworn she'd pissed herself just a bit because of it too. Wait, DO I know better? …Yeah, I do.

Meiling couldn't even face Suika after their misunderstanding. "Y-Yeah." As the oni made a desperate and failing attempt to at least slow her laughter down before she hurt herself, Meiling began trying to figure out what completely non-sexual plans the two could make for the night.

Any SWR fans probably know exactly what I'm up to right now. And NO, it isn't a sex scene between Meiling and Suika, Azure! Anyway, to anybody who was wondering if the two would ever get together (as Azure asked in his review for Chapter 2) use your imagination. Suika and Meiling traveling the world to see what hasn't been seen, abandoning everything else? Sounds like obvious pairing to me. To me it's kinda funny cuz they're the two physically strongest Touhou characters of all, and Meiling has (in all the fanart I've seen of her) big breasts and she's tall; Suika is short and flat! As you're reading this author's note, Chapter 12 is already in progress, though I don't know what's exactly going to happen yet; I'm sorta winging it until the deadly duo reaches Youkai Mountain. Expect a game of fetch when the two meet Momiji though~

I stoled Azure's thing XD