Disclaimer: I own none of the characters mentioned or used in this story, except for the one from whose point of view this story is told. Any and all of the other characters belong to Team Shanghai Alice.

Chapter 14: Younger, Elder, and Pet

Koishi was almost exactly identical to Satori in terms of looks, and yet everything was also, in terms of color palette, completely different. A black hat topped gray-green hair. Her blouse was an orange-yellow, and her dress went from white to emerald-green going from top to bottom, with strange, swirling patterns within the green. She also possessed a third eye, this one blue, over her heart, but hers was different; The cords ran down to two blue hearts on her ankles instead of her wrists, and the eye was closed.

She skipped right over to us like the most sprite-like girl in the world, without a single care in the world, and threw her arms around Satori.

"How have you been, One-san?" she asked cheerfully.

"I've been fine, Koishi," Satori said, wrapping her arms back around her sister. I immediately noticed something wrong; Satori was smiling, but for some reason, her smile didn't seem very real, and her eyes reflected sadness. It was a face that had the word 'fragile' written on it. "Has wandering the world been doing you good?"

"Oh, lots of it!"

Then she let go slightly, and her eyes fell on me, and I could practically see the green in them brighten. "And who's this cutie over here? Is he your new boyfriend, sis?"

Both Satori and I turned bright red at the same time. And we both spat out, at the exact same time, "No way! Are you crazy?"

I raised an eyebrow at her. She looked at me like I was the one who was insane all of a sudden.

Come on, I thought, knowing Satori could hear it. Both of us are thinking the exact same thing. Don't give me that look.

I was pretty sure she let out a quiet "Tch."

Koishi just shrugged, detached herself from Satori, and threw her arms around my shoulders instead. "Oh, that's a shame. So what's your name, mister?"

"Uh… Kaito. Nice to meet you, Koishi-san." She had given up on that notion that quickly.

She giggled. "Have I seen you somewhere before?"

"Huh?" Seen me somewhere before? No way… I'd never seen Koishi around, so how could she have met me?

"We haven't? Oh well. Nice to meet you too!"

Suddenly, she started leaning in closer. I nearly didn't react in time to put my hand in front of my face so she would kiss me in the palm. I really didn't want another terrible misunderstanding, and suddenly getting kissed by someone's sister was practically a surefire way to get killed in this case.

When she realized I had stopped her, she pouted. "Oh, you're no fun!"

Then her face brightened in an instant. "But whatever!"

And she wandered off deeper into the mansion.

"Er…" I turned to face Satori. Her face was now completely sorrowful. "I'm guessing Koishi-san is always like this?"

She nodded. "You do not realize what it means to have her third eye closed like that, Kaito-san. This third eye of ours shows that we have our hearts open to the world around us. It is the reason I am able to read minds. It is our link to reality, so to speak."

I gasped. "So when you close your eye…."

"You are closing your heart to the world."

Those words burned themselves into my mentality. I almost couldn't imagine it at all. Completely shutting oneself away from everything and everyone, not having a single care in the world; it was deplorable, even. Despite the fact that Koishi seemed more or less perfectly normal, I couldn't help but feel some kind of pity in me.

"Because she has closed off her heart," Satori continued, "Not even I can read what it says. She is completely immune to my abilities."

She raised a hand to wipe away a tear that was about to come. "It's absolutely dreadful. It feels like I've been shut away from my only sister. My only company in this world aside from my pets."

That was something I could imagine, and something I did not like imagining. To be sealed off that way would probably kill me.

"But I am slightly happy about her travels." A ghost of a smile returned to her face. "The more she continues to wander, the more she will open up her heart to others. I'm hoping that one day, she will be able to have her heart open once again."

"Why did she close her eye in the first place? That basically means she sealed off her ability to read minds, right?"

"That's exactly why she closed her eye. She didn't like the way I was hated by all but animals. So she closed herself from the world in order to avoid that. Animals no longer loved her, but people no longer hated her. And because her heart is closed, she does not feel the same way we do. She became carefree, always cheerful, never worrying about anything around her. And she has been that way ever since."

"And how long ago was that?"

"So many years, I've lost count."

I shivered at that.

Satori shook her head, chuckling. "It's strange," she said. "I've never told anyone this much about my sister before, and I certainly never expected to tell it to someone like you, Kaito-san."

"I never expected to learn this much, either."

"But it really is for the best. The more you learn about this place, the better. I believe that was what Yukari told you before sending you to the Youkai Mountain."

I nodded.

Satori smiled slightly. "Enough chat. I believe it's time for you to meet my pet, Okuu."

I had to give Satori some credit; the palace was nearly as large as the Scarlet Devil Mansion, even without the spatial augments. In contrast to the Victorian style of wood and plaster, the Palace of Hell was mostly stone, with multiple decorations from older time periods: Some old Eastern weapons, a painting hanging on the occasional wall, there really was a lot. Slowly, I was able to identify several of the weapons to be from an older Japan: katana, naginata, you name it, it was probably there. So Gensokyo was some sort of Japanese location?

"It's not all like that, you know."

"What do you mean, Satori-san?" She really couldn't stop herself from reading other people's minds, could she? "Everything I've seen up to this point is Japanese, save for the Scarlet Devil Mansion."

"True, but it's not as you think."

I wasn't exactly sure how that worked, but I decided not to press the issue. I was still stumbling a little as I walked through the corridors due to my legs. The burns on my legs, while not very heavy, occasionally sent pangs of discomfort up my body.

After walking through a couple more doors, we came to a single large gate that could have accommodated an elephant. She pushed it open like it was normal-sized. "Okuu is right inside," Satori said. "You may want to be careful."

It wasn't like I really needed to be warned, but the way Satori said it concerned me. I let out a breath, and walked through.

The room was so large, that it was hard to tell that it wasn't the actual center of the mansion, even though it was all the way in the back. The walls were lined with what might have been murals. The floor was covered in old drawings that once depicted something grand, but were dull and peeling with age, making it impossible to tell what the original picture might have been.

A single girl with thigh-length black hair stood in the center. Over her back was a long, white cape, draping over a pair of black raven wings. Only one of her limbs could have been deemed "normal" by most standards. Her left arm was normal, while the other three limbs were different one way or another. Her lower right arm up to the elbow was completely replaced by what could have been an orange arm cannon. A boot-shaped block of concrete (at least, I thought it was concrete) encased her right foot, while three rings of two or three electrons circled the other foot.

Gee, talk about asymmetry.

She didn't seem to have noticed me walking in, as she was completely fixated on something on the floor. I didn't dare walk any closer. Instead, I waited until Satori had come inside and closed the door before following her.

"Okuu!"

The girl's head turned, and her hazel eyes suddenly brightened. "Mistress!" she called out.

When she turned, my jaw nearly dropped. Aside from a large green hair ribbon, a white green-trimmed blouse, and a green skirt, there was a single large red cat's eye in the center of her chest. It was a perfectly cut circle, with a black eye in the center. All I could wonder was how the hell it got stuck there. Or if it was even stuck there by an outside force in the first place.

Okuu floated over (literally floated. Her feet didn't touch the ground at all) and gave Satori a hug. "Are you okay?" She released her grip and gave a look of concern. "I heard explosions outside. You're not hurt are you?"

"I'm a little hurt, but it's nothing I can't handle."

"Oh. Okay, then."

She looked at me expectantly. "And who's he? I've never seen him before. Koishi said he was your boyfriend."

Satori gave me a look. She wasn't amused. I just shrugged.

"No," Satori said simply. "He's not. We told Koishi that as well."

"Oh, that's too bad. He doesn't look that bad."

Once again, Satori and I turned red. That was a weird compliment to receive….

"So what's your name?" she asked me.

"My name is Kaito. Pleased to meet you." In an offhand way, I managed to notice that there was a space-themed pattern on the inside of her cape. Then I realized that the entire pattern of stars and galaxies was moving independently. An infinite scrolling universe inside of a cape. That was just plain awesome.

"Pleased to meet you too!" She held out a hand. "I'm Utsuho."

I shook her hand.

"So did you need something, Satori-sama?"

"Yes. Kaito here has a favor to ask of you."

"You do?" Utsuho looked at me expectantly.

"Well, yeah," I answered uneasily. Now that I was actually here, I wasn't totally sure how I was supposed to word this. "I came down here to the Hell of Blazing Fires to ask you about the electrons encircling your foot."

"My electrons?"

"Yes. I'm here on the request of a kappa above ground. She wishes to power a machine that will be able to spread the power of electricity across Gensokyo, and she needs the power of one of your electrons to operate the machine."

Utsuho looked thoughtful for a moment. "I suppose that would be able to work. My electrons would be able to generate more than eno-"

I didn't hear the rest of the sentence. A blaring alarm drowned her out. A massive yellow symbol flashed on the back wall. It looked familiar to me for some reason….

"Argh!" Utsuho cried out. "What now?"

She floated back over to her spot in the center of the room. Satori and I followed.

The center of the room turned out to look like a pool of water. It reflected an image of an empty wasteland with flames raging around with reckless abandon.

"What's this?" I asked.

"The former Hell of Blazing Fires," Satori answered. "This is basically what Hell used to look like before certain… you could say 'regulations'… were set in place, which is why you see what you do today. This is a portal leading to that other realm, as it still occasionally acts up and causes chaos."

"Wait, so if the old Hell occasionally acts up, then who-"

"Utsuho is the one who keeps watch over it. She has the power to control nuclear fusion; perfect for keeping the fires of the old Hell under control."

"And it's time for me to do my job," Utsuho declared. She leaped into the pool, and it hardly rippled as she passed through.

Author's Notes:

Wow, this chapter barely missed going lower than 2000 by about 30-40 words. That was a close call...

Hey, what happened to the insane ditz of a hell raven we all came to know and love? Well, that Utsuho went and disappeared for a little while. Just wait; when you find out why I made her this way, it's probably going to be pretty heart-breaking (hell, I practically broke my own heart when I wrote it out. Apparently, I'm a sap for my own writing. How conceited).

Yeah, my interpretation of the inner workings of Hell is quite different from what the game shows. I mean, in the actual games, the Hell that Utsuho and crowd live in is the old Hell, while the new Hell is the one dictated by the Yama and such. Even in SWR, Utsuho's win quote against Komachi says that she's curious about what the new Hell looks like.

Basically, with my interpretation, the new Hell is the one that the SA crowd lives in, while the other Hell described by the Yama is a different one. Or at least, in a lower level or something like that.

The rage in hell comes next. Oh man, this is going to be a long wait...

Either way, hope you enjoyed the chapter~