Aya fled

She ran, she flew. She ran when too tired to fly, flew when too tired to run. When her whole body devolved into one big ache, she half-walked, half-stumbled. The crystalline forest had spread into a vast red field, shrouded in mist. The noxious miasma would instantly kill a human being. Aya proceeded, ignorant of this fact.

Where was she going? Not even she knew.

Away. Yes, away. Out of Makai, out of the insanity the witch had plunged her into. Back to her double life.

If only she could find the way out.

Exhausted, Aya stopped, resting her hands on her knees. She dragged ragged breaths from her lungs.

Nothing around but mist, everywhere she looked.

Aya sighed and looked down. She was almost tempted to start digging.

It came swift and soundless. A hand clapped over her mouth, an arm hooked around her stomach.

"Don't move, idiot," a voice hissed. "Don't move, don't breathe, don't do anything. Don't even blink. Blink and you're dead. Just...listen."

Aya listened.

"I'm going to let you go now. You'll have to promise not to run for your thrice-damned life. Sound good? Nod your head if you understand."

Aya nodded, nodded, nodded vigorously.

"Good. I'm letting go."

The arm and hand retracted. Aya sucked in a bellyful of good unclean Makai air. She spun around.

"Marisa?"

The witch glared through the miasma. "You really are an idiot, you know that?"

"How did you catch—" Aya's breath caught. "Er, how did you get away?" She glanced around nervously. Ashamed, she scratched her head. "I didn't mean to leave you hanging like that. I thought you had everything under control."

"Of course," Marisa said sweetly, teeth clenched. "Under control." She spat on the ground. "You're lucky you're right.

"The idiots in charge here sent even bigger idiots after us. They're probably still bickering."

Marisa frowned at the miasma surrounding them. "If not for this mist, you'd have been caught ages ago." She raised her fist. "Let's make this go away." She swung her arm downward and dismissed the mist. On the horizon, the palace of glass glowed with ethereal brilliance.

"Pandaemonium," Marisa muttered, uttering the name like a curse. "Let's go. Now that they know we're here, we mustn't keep them waiting."

She settled into a brisk stride, not waiting for Aya to follow her. The mist rolled back in Marisa's wake—Aya scrambled to stay where she could see.

The witch's mood hadn't improved, that Aya could see clearly. If anything, she'd gotten worse as she neared the focus of her hate. She moved in a straight line, blind to all else. Revenge was a scary thing.

"Are you really going to go through with it?" Aya said. "Avenge the shrine maiden?"

The witch grunted. "I've gone this far. What choice do I have?"

"Well, we could do what I was doing before, which was leg it in the complete opposite dire—"

"Rhetorical question, Aya. Shut up."

"Sorry."

Marisa looked up. "Here we are. Shinki's place."

The palace of glass was even more impressive up close, where Aya could see the patterns etched into the gates, the smoky haze of miasma refracted through the curtain walls as clear as crystal. The bored guard leaning back against the—

Oh gods, not again.

Marisa's response to this unfortunate development was absurdly cheerful. She waved and shouted, "Hey, Yumeko! Been a while, hasn't it?"

The guard looked up. With her slitted yellow eyes and wavy yellow hair, Yumeko resembled yet another copy of Marisa. The red dress and white apron were different, as was her most unwelcoming smile.

"Oh gods, not again," she muttered, folding her arms. "What do you want this time?"

"Knock-knock," Marisa replied cheerily, "is your mistress home?"

"Couldn't say. Where's yours?"

"Aren't you clever. Alice isn't here, if that's what you're asking."

"Rhetorical question, witch." She narrowed her eyes even more, an impressive accomplishment. "You planning on leaving, or will I have to throw you off the battlements again?"

"Again?" Marisa repeated, laughing. "I just got here! Don't you want to catch up on the good old days?"

"There weren't any good old days—just days."

"C'mon. Where's your sense of nostalgia?"

"On vacation with my sense of wonder and sense of humor. Anything else you want to know?"

Marisa's grin curdled. "Can't you give us even a little—"

"No. Skedaddle."

The witch wouldn't quit, but simply stood there, staring.

After the better part of a minute, Yumeko broke out into a sigh. "All right, I'll bite. What do you want?"

Brightening considerably, Marisa replied, "Thought I told you already. We're here to see your mistress, on private business."

Yumeko could arch an eyebrow like an expert. "We?"

Hesitantly, Aya waved.

"I picked up a straggler on the way her," Marisa said casually, with a toss of her bangs. "Poor thing. Clung to me like a burr. Now there's no getting rid of her."

"Indeed," Yumeko said, eyes dull. "You were always such a master at picking up strange girls. Quite the romantic."

Marisa laughed. She patted Aya's head. "Actually, I learned it all from her," she said, not untruthfully.

Aya flushed crimson. What might have been envy flitted over Yumeko's face, but the bland blank mask soon resumed.

After remarkably little deliberation, the guard said, "Can't let you through. Not sorry, either."

"Oh." Marisa sighed. She tapped her chin thoughtfully, then broke out in a sly leer. "Any chance I could...convince you otherwise?"

The guard stiffened. "Nope."

"Bribe?"

"No."

"Coin toss?"

"No."

"Share your bunk?"

"NO."

"Punch in the face?"

"N...what—"

Marisa barreled at Yumeko before the guard could react. But she did anyway—Yumeko caught the witch's flying fist by the wrist before the blow collided with her nose.

Marisa grinned. She spread her fingers.

A Master Spark exploded in Yumeko's face.

The guard staggered back, screaming, swearing. She'd somehow shut her eyes in time, leaving two welts swelling around the sockets—she looked like a bruised raccoon. Blood trickled from her nostrils.

"Aha!" Marisa teased, "The covert pervert shows herself at last!" Aya resisted a snigger.

Yumeko wasn't laughing. She trembled with shame and rage. "You've made a terrible mistake," she said, and repeated, "terrible." Her hands vanished—they plunged into a rift in time and space, and drew out...

Marisa's smile died. She shouted, "Dodge!"

Aya and Marisa scattered—flying blades whistled past them.

"Nice knives!" Marisa laughed, jeering. "Poky in every sense of the word!"

Aya gulped. Not knives. SWORDS.

Lip curled in a snarl, Yumeko pulled twin swords quite literally out of thin air. Slim and straight and sharp, as long as her arm, the swords sang when Yumeko clanged them together. "Come, witch," she said dully. "Let's get this over with."

Smirking, Marisa doffed her hat—out dropped her broomstick. "Not today!" she called. As she straddled the shaft and took flight, the witch called to Aya, "Don't get left behind, crow! Miss Poky means business!"

Yumeko leveled her swords and charged.

Fretting, frittering away her spare seconds, Aya scrambled to unfurl her wings. She beat the black bulks furiously, ascending awkwardly. Yumeko slashed at Aya's swinging feet, but Aya left the guard on the ground, brows creased, swords crossed.

From a certain height Aya could peer over into the crystal castle's courtyard. A stupidly obvious thought struck her. "Hey, why don't we just FLY over the gate?" she said, and did so. As a result, she smacked into an invisible wall, not unlike a bird crashing into a window. She recovered, dazed and dizzy. The air rippled where she'd hit—crystal lattice glittered into existence. "That's cheating," Aya moaned, rubbing her head. She flew higher, but no matter how high she flew, the crystal wall would rise and materialize. "A cheap cheat," she muttered, and chanced to glanced down in time.

Three swords shot straight up at her.

Aya jerked back, gasping—the swords sliced the air a hand-span from her face. But they missed. Aya sighed with relief, congratulating herself on such a narrow escape.

The same swords nearly skewered her on the way down.

Deciding by her conduct that Aya wasn't much of a threat, Yumeko switched her focus to Marisa. The witch was performing corkscrews, scrawling obscene messages in the clouds.

Yumeko seethed. With a thought and a wave, she tore wounds in reality; out shot swords falling at terminal velocity in whatever direction she wanted. An awesome power. Yet, for Marisa, strangely familiar.

Far enough away, Marisa could dodge the flying swords with ease. They flew in straight lines—easy enough to predict. Just like...

"You remind me of someone," Marisa remarked, barely loud enough for Yumeko to overhear. "A maid. Powers like yours—lots of sharp objects flying every which way. Personality's close—moody, brooding, worryingly devoted to her mistress. Can't think of her name though. Starts with an S, I think. Sara...Shana...Shanghai...Shangri-La?"

A near-miss cut her off, but fortunately didn't cut off anything important. The witch held on tight to her hat, ready for anything.

Dodging the swords became a game. Marisa watched where the portals appeared, then piloted her broomstick accordingly. The swords came—left right, before, behind, below, above. She pitched and yawed, swooped and dove. Up, up, down, down, right, left, right, left... It was fun.

"Kinda fun, isn't it?" Marisa called to Aya, who struggled to swerve around even the slowest swords.

"Once you get past the life-endangering aspect, YES, it's a rollicking good time!" Aya retorted, reddening. Then, in another act of life-altering looking around, she happened to glance up. Her jaw dropped. "Uh...Marisa...?"

The witch swirled by, swords zipping by all around her. She hadn't heard Aya. She didn't notice anything was amiss until she fell under shadow. Then she too looked up. "Wha? ...Oh."

Plummeting from a pitch-black sky, thick as a flash flood, were swords. Thousands of swords. A cloud of falling blades, stretching from the palace wall to the red fields.

A wall of death.

Falling toward them.

"Fly!" Marisa cried, suddenly frantic. She jerked her broomstick to point virtually vertical, straight down.

Aya tucked back her wings, streamlining her body. She dove down, down, down toward the ground...

Where Yumeko waited, with crossed blades and a sickly smile.

Marisa backed up her broom—it bucked and buckled. "It's a trap!" the witch shouted, stopping Aya in time.

Marisa deliberated for a split second. Then, muttering miserably, she charged straight up. Toward the downpour of swords.

"What are you DOING?!" Aya cried, but her words were lost to the wind. Though befuddled, she flapped after the witch.

"Stay close!" Marisa called. She braced herself, scowling up at the oncoming storm. The blades crashed like thunder, flashed like lightning. Closer...closer...

"Now! To me!"

As the storm of swords lashed toward her, Marisa punched through the wall with a blast of Master Spark. Clear sky flashed in the gap.

With safety in sight, Marisa cackled gleefully. But where was—

"Aya?"

The tengu lagged, her weary wings beating furiously to keep up with the witch's broom. Not enough.

Marisa's pulse thumped in her ears.

Above, the clear sky shone invitingly; below, Aya struggled.

Marisa cursed herself. She swooped down after Aya—sword-tips nipped at the witch's heels.

Relief flooded Aya's face when she saw Marisa returning for her. She'd even reached the skirts of the safe zone...when a falling sword pierced her wing. Aya gasped—she crimped, cramped, crumpled.

Ultimately, she plummeted.

Falling...falling...

Her vision faded to black.

Falling to her death, she thought, This is how it ends. Her arms and legs splayed uselessly. She prepared for the inevitable...

"Gotcha!"

The witch snatched Aya by the hand, hauling her onto her broom. Aya hung and clung there, blinking away the shock.

"Don't get too comfortable," Marisa snapped to her startled passenger. "Fun's just getting started!" The witch indicated her chest. "Grab hold!"

Aya's eyes bulged, but she did as she was told. At least one of them would die happy.

Thousands of swords rattled above their heads, sounding rather like an enraged swarm of steel bees.

"Here it comes!" Marisa cried. Aya cringed.

The storm hit.

Swords drove down like heavy rain, with Marisa weaving between the streams. The rumors were true: she really could dodge rain. Aya screamed incessantly. A close save shaved brushes from the broom's whisk; another struck and stuck in Marisa's hat, sending it tumbling into space.

Hair waving wildly, Marisa wound through the cascading blades. She ducked, slunk, swung around the shimmering sheets of steel.

Aya squawked—one sword thrust through the broom, an inch from her crotch. The old wood split and splintered, but the broom held together by sheer force of will. With similar tenacity, Aya clung to Marisa, very nearly choking the life out of her.

By now the broom began a gradual, irreversible descent.

"We're hit!" Aya cried.

"No shit!" Marisa replied.

Slowly, terribly, the broom grew slack and sluggish. It sloped downward on a gentle incline, with Marisa guiding its painfully slow fall. Rather than worry about the sudden stop at the bottom, Marisa shot more swords out of the air before they riddled the doomed broom's occupants.

The storm of swords thinned, then dissipated.

About six feet off the ground, the broom crawled to a halt.

Blades littered the red field. Some stuck upright, others spread in haphazard heaps around the ground.

Yumeko waited amid the fallen armory, chin in her hand, swords stuck in the ground.

"She's strong," Marisa murmured. Now Aya felt she had reason to panic: a witch had complimented an opponent.

The guard regarded them with disdain. "What, not dead yet?" she droned. A blip of admiration flickered on her features. "And to think I used my super-secret forbidden ultimate attack, too." She sighed with theatrically belabored patience. "All right, fun's over. Give me some highly quotable last words before I send you to the mysterious beyond."

"I had nothing to do with it, any of it!" Aya declared, having planned her last words years in advance; meanwhile Marisa opted for the marginally more memorable, "Look out behind you."

Against all odds, Yumeko turned around—flying blades clanged into her twin swords, which she'd swung to block. She scanned the battlefield for her unseen opponent. "Where are you? Show yourself!" she said, as if that would work.

It did. A shadowy figure emerged from the mist. Pocketwatch clutched in one hand, fistful of knives in the other. A tattered black dress flapping in unseen winds. Face drawn, not smiling.

"Sakuya!" Marisa exclaimed, snapping her fingers. "That was the name! Sakuya! How could I forget someone so obvious?"

Yumeko tensed. She opened more rifts. Swords shot out—Aya cried out.

The shadowy figure blurred. An instant later, the swords clattered to join the others on the ground.

"So it IS you," Yumeko murmured. "Everyone's favorite time-stopping, knife-throwing ninja maid. My copycat."

Sakuya spoke slowly, clearly. "I'm here to deliver a warning: give up. The resistance is already here in Makai. I'm their scout, the first of many others. Surrender or die."

Marisa nudged Aya in the ribs. "See? Told you we'd win!" Aya said nothing, but rubbed her ribs where she'd been poked. She climbed off the broom and landed awkwardly on a shifting pile of swords, wincing from her wounded wing.

"Give up?" Yumeko chuckled bleakly. She stared at her swords, full of longing. "If only my mistress knew those words."

"I understand the sentiment," Sakuya said, "But I won't bend. The offer stands as is."

The guard sighed. "Real sorry to hear that. Don't think I'll be able to bend either."

"Is that so. How sad. I was beginning to like you." Sakuya cocked her knives, then cocked her head. "Give my love to Her Majesty Mima...in hell."

Yumeko laughed. "No, no, no. You've got it all wrong." She swept her gaze over Sakuya, Marisa, Aya. Even when totally surrounded, Yumeko shone with reluctant confidence. "You'll never beat me. You can't. Why, you fall for the stupidest tricks.

"For example, while we've been talking away, you've all dropped your guard."

Sakuya steeled herself, but too late.

A sword flew out of nowhere and plunged into Marisa's heart. The witch was flung from her broom—laughter died in her eyes. The other portal yawned; Marisa vanished into the void, swallowed in shadow.

Then all was silent.

An icicle of dread pierced Aya. She swayed, dazed, frozen in horror. Eyes wide, Sakuya moved her lips in a wordless prayer.

"And let that be a lesson," said Yumeko, defiling the silence. "As with women, a mere thousand could not stop her...but all it took was one."

Aya's eyes burned. Her vision blurred. What...what was...

"You KILLED HER!" Aya cried, raising her fists, hobbling after Yumeko. "You killed her! You killed her! I'm gonna kill y—"

The guard glared.

Aya froze.

A dozen swords hurtled toward her head.

And then, the whole world froze. The swords stopped a few feet from her face. Amazed, Aya put out her finger to touch the tip of a blade.

"You don't want to do that."

A voice—low, grim, haunted.

Sakuya had a hand on Aya's shoulder, binding her to this timeless world. From the maid's other hand, the pocketwatch dangled, jangled.

Sakuya pulled Aya close, out of the way of the blades. "Listen," she said, desperation thick on her breath. "There's not much time—of all people, I should know. You must get to Shinki. Speak to her. Tell her how much the world outside has suffered, how much we've suffered. Tell her what's happened to Gensokyo. Plead with her to extend a helping hand."

"But I—"

"No time!"

Sakuya's eyes brimmed with unspeakable heartache. "Please." She looked to the witch's broom, splintered by swords, shivered into slivers. "Don't let her death have been in vain."

She drifted away.

The world unfroze. Aya fell where Sakuya had pushed her, and she heard Yumeko's halfhearted taunts, the squeal of steel on steel.

"Don't you people ever learn?" Yumeko was saying, outside Aya's line of sight. "Doesn't matter how hard you try, the result's the same—you'll fail, as you always have. What's the definition of insanity, again?"

"I will not lose," Sakuya said. "I cannot. As I held her hand and watched my Lady die, I promised I would never lose again!"

"How sweet," Yumeko sneered. "I have thousands of swords at my command. You have kitchen knives. How do you expect to win? Pluck, or dumb luck?"

"Neither," Sakuya said. "Look around. You've given me all the blades I need!"

They clashed together...

Not watching the battle, Aya bolted. She saw nothing but the wall of crystal, the sheer see-through barrier. She ran away. It was all she was good for.

She ran away...into the wall.

The crystal rippled—

like swimming in thick viscous liquid—

and the palace of glass accepted her.

She passed through.