So, here we are again.

I followed the chief maid through the mansion's hallways. Scarlet walls, crimson carpets, ruby chandeliers. The estate owner had painstakingly made sure to let every guest know that it was a vampire they were dealing with. Something to keep in mind while they traversed. I had thought it was mildly amusing when I first arrived.

Two columns of fairy maids lined up by the master room. They bowed as the chief maid led me through the center. She pushed open the door, which was another variation of red, and gestured for me to enter. Remilia sat on her throne as always, playing with her wine cup. Today she wore a black silk gown in place of her usual pink dress, with lace gloves and to dress shoes to match. Her blue hair was tied back as a curly ponytail.

"You know, I've been wondering," I said, stopping at by the steps that took to her throne. "How do you cover the expenses? You don't exactly throw last-minute parties with forgotten birthdays in mind. Most people don't get to see one like yours in a lifetime."

"You will know by the time I retire and is in search of a potential beneficiary," Remilia said, her eyes kept on her reflection in the wine glass. "Until then, I'm afraid you'll have to cradle in your curiosity."

"So, never." Though I was told to lay off the formalities long ago―and I certainly do, in terms of conversation―I stood firm, ready for an order. I never liked freeloading, and I didn't want to spend my last days here doing nothing.

Remilia chuckled, showing off her fangs. How long has it been since she last used them? "Who knows? Maybe I'll have a dangerous change of mind by then. Leave the mansion to someone capable and take some time off in the outside world. Things do get monotonous in Gensokyo, after all."

I pursed my lips, having chosen to say nothing. Remilia sighed and sat up.

"I know what you're thinking, but let's discuss that at another time. Today is an occasion for something else." She produced a golden pocket watch from her gown and flipped it open. "We have until six to finalize the preparations. I trust that you will handle it again this year?"

"Would you have preferred someone else?"

"That Haruto fellow seems reliable enough."

"He gets around." I imagined him running through the village, frantically handing invitations and swearing haphazardly at slow walkers.

"I'll save you some trouble this year, then." A snap of her fingers summoned the chief maid from the doorstep, a tall, auburn-haired fairy with navy spectacles. She approached Remilia and bowed, then handed me a slip of paper from her apron. "You'll be responsible for the ones listed here. Have your protege deliver the rest."

"I'll see it done." I gave the paper a glance. The usual list of special guests Remilia deemed worthy of a personal invite. The shrine maidens, the puppeteer, the flower youkai, the moon immortals, so to speak. "If there's nothing else, I'll be going. Some of your friends are quite elusive, and sundown approaches sooner than you think." I turned to leave.

"Hey."

I stopped, clutching the piece of paper in my hand.

"You're always so gloomy around this time of the year. Don't let it go to you. That's an order."

I gave her a half-hearted bow and exited the room.

There was still an hour left to go by the time I returned to the mansion. The guests were at where they were supposed to be for once, and that alone made my job a whole lot easier.

I stopped before the mansion's gates and found myself drawn to the clock tower. Four fifty-seven, it probably read. Remilia had replaced the hour hand with Flandre's broken spear tip and had the minute hand tossed out. It was a way to remember her, she said. A way for everyone in Gensokyo to remember.

Meiling stood on guard as always. I would have asked her if anyone showed up early were she not slacking off on the job. What a careless girl, I thought, carrying her to a nearby stool. She showed no signs of stirring, instead grumbled about how stuffed she was but had to make best use of her time at the buffet. It was a miracle Remilia hasn't fired her yet.

Huh, I thought to myself as I studied the snot bubble protruding from her nose. The way she sleeps, she's quite like him...

I grimaced as the memories attempted to spill forth. The boy has been dead for over two hundred years, but his last moments refused to deteriorate from my mind. And Dolce's. Julie. The cat. Tenzo. Heron. Flandre. I remember them well. From our chanced encounters, to savored, intimate moments, to their end. I remember them all.

Why?

The spear-hand struck five, and the clock struck five times. Its sounds echoed through my hallowed head, stirring the dead. They seemed to groan, their voices jumbled with those who had fallen. Julie's crying, the cat's pleading meows, directed at me whenever I passed it on the streets, Tenzo's final words to me before he was killed. Heron's deranged speech. Flandre's last request. They rose from their graves, their decayed hands outstretched towards me. My head began to spin as reality distorted, all the while more memories were unearthed. Memories I thought were long erased, weathered by the sands of time. My parents, my siblings, the boy I used to play with next door, my exorcist uncle, the wounded vampire, what happened on the 16th of September, 1999, the unemployed journalist, wanted posters scattering in the wind, nightmares of myself drowning in an ocean of blood red tears. Train crashes, the fire in Karachi, rumors of a Dracula, hatred. The children's cries and their whimpers at the sight of my beaten body. The desert battlefield. A blood moon. Flandre's wicked giggling as she mutilated the vampire hunter to no end. Dates no longer were relevant as my memories spiraled out of control. Each event played in random orders as if they were chronicled into albums and put on shuffle. They crawled up from the dredges of my past, one after the other.

I fell on my knees, struggling to breathe. Sweat poured down my face as I clawed dirt with my nails. Meiling snored beside me, blissfully unaware.

Why now?

"Reminiscing the past, are we?" A voice drifted its way to a miraculously vacant spot in my ear. I thought I knew this voice. A woman. She stood by my front, shouldering a parasol. How long had she been there? "Come, let's get you some fresh air." She turned around and walked into a large hole hanging in space, with bulging eyes that belonged from another world. It looked familiar. Had I seen it somewhere before? Another hole opened up below me, and for a brief moment I fell into a suffocating blackness. When I dared to open my eyes again I found myself sitting atop the clock tower. The woman floated beside me, sitting on a smaller version of the strange hole as if it was solid to touch. She had long, golden locks, and violet eyes that reminded me of the wondrous depths of uncharted space.

"Yukari Yakumo," I said. The feeling of the wind gently caressing my face calmed down the voices. At least, to a tolerable background volume. I took a deep breath. "This is our first meeting, is it?"

"No," she said, looking straight ahead. "This is actually the second time."

I rubbed my hand on the spot that was once my right eye. The silver was extracted, but I still felt the stinging embedded there.

"Do you not remember me?" She faced me. I stared into her eyes again, and before I knew it, I was back in the 11th century at my home village, standing before the Japanese monk and his ghostly pale swordsman companion. An odd pair, the two made. They were looking for an ancient artifact. I risked a search through my memories, trying to look for more details. That's right, they had someone else with them. A young, beautiful foreigner girl with snow-white skin, who spoke Chinese so perfect it was as if she had invented the language.

I remembered.

"You're...from back then." Was all I could say. I tore away from the vision of the smiling monk and looked towards the view of the gigantic lake below, unblinking. "I didn't take you for a youkai."

"I was told to hide it," Yukari replied, pleased to see I hadn't forgotten. Could I ever? "The monk was keener than I was, I'll give him that."

"You guys showed up during the bandit raid. Wanted to find Princess Kaguya's Fire-Rat Robe."

"Times were simpler back then," she smiled, her eyes looking distant.

"How long ago was that? Eight hundred...no, a thousand years?"

"Somewhere around a thousand, yes."

"Huh." I leaned back on the roof and stared at the orange skies, then sat back up. "I didn't expect to see you again."

"How brutally honest." She took out a paper fan from a smaller hole. "But truth to be told, I didn't either."

I suddenly realized why I recognized those holes. "It's you. You were the one that helped Flandre. Things are becoming clear now."

"I've helped her several times," Yukari said, fanning her lips lightly. "Which occasion might you be referring to?"

I recalled the last few words I exchanged with Flandre before stepping into the page. What was left of it, at least. "She had a book that contained one of your portals."

"Ah," she said. "That was a lovely novel. I'm glad she picked up what I was trying to convey."

"Why did you help us?" I asked. "Flandre was one thing. You knew her. But to save the hides of a rag-tag bunch of vampires desperately clinging to life? What do you gain from all this?"

She took a while before speaking. "I suppose I wanted to have her feel indebted. Even a halfwit could see how much you and your group meant to her. I wanted something to hold against Remilia, and the girl's powers may come in handy one day."

I chewed on her words. Selfish, vaguely malevolent, and schemeful. Exactly what her reputation was around Gensokyo. "A convincing story," I finally said, "and would have fooled me if you weren't so open about it."

"I don't like being secretive. It shows the fragility of a person's character."

"I could take a simple answer, you know, like 'I don't know', or 'I felt like it'. Sometimes the greatest decisions are made with the most trivial of reasons in mind."

Yukari studied me with a neutral expression. Then she stood up, frowning.

"What?"

"Oh dear."

I looked at where she was facing. A large column of smoke stretched to the skies. It came from the direction of the human village.

"Come," she said, opening up a portal. "I suppose I owe it to you. You should see it in person."

I pushed through the crowd, tossing out curses here and there. Yukari was already at the front of the scene by the time I got through. The fire was put out soon after I arrived, though the house in question was charred to a midnight black. It was honestly surprising to see it still standing.

"I told you to stop fooling around with them magic!" An old man yelled loudly by the still smoking entrance. He was talking to a girl whose back faced me. She wore a dark red kimono and had shoulder-length black hair. "Now look what you've done!"

"Not my fault you didn't turn off the stove! All of this wouldn't have happened if you just listened to what I had to say!"

The old man let out a deep sigh, ignoring the girl's retorts. "I told you over and over not to play around with witchcraft. How am I going to face your parents when I die?" He fell to his knees and started to cry. "Ichirooo! Your daughter went down the path of the devil! Dabbling with black magic! Why do I have to bear this shame and burden alone?"

"If that's how you feel, then I'll just leave!" The girl stormed past him and went into the building. It collapsed just a second after she came out, cradling a pile of belongings in her arms. Tomes, flasks, alchemical ingredients, and notes."I'll move into that old house in the forest. You wouldn't have to worry about me anymore."

The old man continued to cry, head buried in his palms. No one in the crowd moved to comfort him or stop the girl when she walked through the path they made, though they did whisper among one another.

"...Poor old Eiji-san. Right after his retirement..."

"His granddaughter is possessed, I'm telling ya."

"...wonder if she'll make it in the forest. I heard it's crawling with youkai."

I paid no heed to their words. Instead, I found myself focused on the girl. She spared me a sideways glance with her almond eyes as she went down the street. Eventually the crowd dispersed for the approaching evening, the villagers heading home and the merchants closing shop. I stood by the crumbled house, my eyes still staring at the road. The old man kept on crying.

"It...can't be," I finally brought out the words out of my mouth.

"It's her," Yukari said, almost confidently. "Or at least, it was her. Do you believe in reincarnation, Swallow?"

"I thought she was born on the outside. Why is she in Gensokyo?"

"Who knows?" She brought her fan to her lips. "My theory is that she had considered this place as her true home, thus her soul became bound here. You'll have to ask the Yama if you want details."

Yukari had more to say, but I didn't bother to listen. I didn't want to. Instead, I ran. I ran with everything I had in those aging legs of mine. The distant striking of the clock tower reminded me that the party has started, but that was all right. Remilia was in for a surprise this year. I hoped she wouldn't mind the presence of an uninvited guest.