"Marisa?"

She had come in looking grim, completely unlike her usual cheerful self. Normally, she would've bothered me with some stupid jokes, or tried to take some of the food I still had (which wasn't a lot) calling it a 'necessity for guests'. However, none of that happened. Instead, Marisa just looked at me funny. I wasn't sure what that look meant, but her empty eyes made me realize that something was seriously wrong.

I slid the doors closed behind her and told her she could sit down, but she didn't even bother. She just stood there, looking at me. I crossed my arms and gave her a stern look.

"Why are you looking at me?" I asked.

"...Hey, what do you think of me?" She asked a question instead of answering me. Well, she never was any good at listening.

"What do you mean? You're an important friend of mine, even if you're a pain sometimes." I answered honestly. I didn't know whether she caught an odd look from me or something, so I decided it was best not to hold back.

"No, that's not it… Do you love me?" Marisa asked.

I looked at her blankly for a moment, then a scowl came across my face.

"I was seriously worried about you and you make a joke like that? Honestly-"

"It's not a joke!" Marisa exclaimed, grabbing my shoulders suddenly.

I tensed up and looked at her eyes again, tears forming on the edges of them, and blinked.

...Seriously!? I thought, no doubt making a idiotic face that matched the bewilderment I felt.

Marisa was honestly asking me whether or not I loved her. I'm not sure where this could've possibly came from, but-

"...No, I'm not interested in girls."

I decided to clear things up as soon as possible, as whatever misunderstanding she was under was clearly upsetting her. At least, that's what I thought, but Marisa's face scrunched up in pain even more as I said those words.

"Th-that being said, I don't think I'll be seeing anyone in that way anytime soon. I mean, all the men I've met so far never really saw me in that way…" I spoke those words, in hopes that I would say something that would solve whatever issue Marisa was currently having, but her expression darkened even further.

"...", Marisa's hands trembled before they balled up into fists, her eyes on the verge of tears.

"Wait… Do… you love me?" I asked, carefully and doubtfully. Marisa didn't respond or move, standing as motionless as a statue save the small shaking in her limbs I caught with my eyes. Whatever set her off, it was clearly something big.

"Marisa?" I called her name, worried sick now. I had never seen Marisa in such a sorry state before, not even on the day that Mima went missing.

...To think of her at a time like this without contempt, it really went to show just how worried I was.

But, as suddenly as her outburst began, she leapt at me, pushing me to the ground and, startled, I was unable to react fast enough to the sudden pressure on my arms. Her hands gripped me with an iron grip, and her knee went up, between my legs. I, of course, didn't find it pleasurable at all, but that didn't change the fact that I was being assaulted.

"Hey, get off me!" My voice cracked, half anger, half surprise. I never expected her to do anything like this, especially to a friend. She didn't get off me, however, and just hovered her face close to mine. Just before I was about to say anything else to bring her back to reason, I heard her say something in a tiny voice.

"...Alice hates me… but you're my friend, right? ...You'll support me…. right? ...You'll comfort me, right? That's what friends are-"

I mustered up every ounce of my strength, fueled by unholy rage from the emotion of anger that swelled in my body, and threw Marisa off of me. As she was getting up from all fours, I whacked her as hard as I could with a fist. I saw red, not from the blood that came, but from the anger. I couldn't believe it at all, that Marisa would be so selfish as to try and lay her hands on me because her love life wasn't working out, much less against my own will.

Her eyes, doll-like, shifted up to look at me, her body leaning on it's side on the floor and a red trickle streaming down her now misshapen lips from my punch. I looked down at her broken expression, but I was the one crying.

"Get out of my sight." I choked the words out. Marisa, seemingly like she was possessed, stumbled out of the living room, and i fell to my knees.

My mind was a jumbled mess, considering how quickly everything happened. I would later piece together everything, but at this point I was confused, hurt, angry, unforgiving, lonely… Marisa just put her hands on me. My friend… maybe my only true friend, betrayed me because she wanted to feel better. She could have just talked to me about her problems, that would've been fine, but she decided to treat me as nothing more than something to use the moment she tried to rape me.

My eyes stung as it became blurry and my fist throbbed as the pain of how hard I hit her registered in my brain with the pain of how she hurt me. But, even so, I expected her to come back and apologize, you know?

….If she did, I wouldn't forgive her…. at least, I thought I wouldn't… But as the days passed, why did I get angrier and angrier until I surpassed my limit?

Why did I feel like I was starting to become a vengeful spirit myself, rather than those I tried to purify? The truth was, because she was my friend to begin with, I expected her to apologize. That's right… even after that, I still considered her a friend.

...Now? Not so much. Especially not after I found out she was continuing to fool around with other women simply to make herself feel better, with no intention of making anything special out of it. I expected more out of her, since I've been with her all of these years, you know?

So what do I think of her now? I hate her. I hate her more than anyone else in Gensokyo. I don't care if it's wrong for a shrine maiden to hate someone as much as I do right now, but I don't think I can ever forgive her, because she was my friend.

But I do want to thank her, because now that this has happened, I realized that opening my heart to people will only hurt me in the end. Now I can focus on my duties without having to worry about other people.

...But, I do wish it didn't feel so lonely.

Reimu's glazed eyes looked up at me, half expectant, half confused. I had pulled away from her and she slumped to the floor before turning around to face me. I had forgotten all about what I had learned inside Reimu's mind a few months back, how she was mistreated and hurt from Marisa's actions, so I was in a daze.

This… is starting to become too much. I thought, despite the fact that it already was too much. Everything that happened right now was a combination of many different things, but I still held myself responsible for what was happening now. I didn't know whether this was arrogant of me to think as such, but I still felt like it was up to me to fix everything.

Reimu was now only looking up at me with worry, her mind filled with the notion that I had gotten bored of her. I smiled bitterly, realizing what she wanted the most right now was for me to be forceful. Even if I had forced her to become that way, that didn't change it was what she wanted at the moment. I had no intention of doing anything with Reimu, however, and instead wanted to focus on a way to fix her.

Of course, the entire reason I visited her was to see how much damage I had done in the missing two months of my memory. So the next question I needed to ask myself was whether Reimu was where it ended, or if I had done something to another. A name popped up inside my head, another person who I considered a friend like Flandre, and I frowned.

Mystia. I did something awful to Flandre, so it wouldn't have been entirely impossible for me to have done something to her as well. I knew what I needed to do next, but the neglected Reimu was still in front of me. There really was no other option but to leave and ignore her, as I had already found out what I had done to her.

"Wait, where are you going!?" Reimu's voice was hoarse and angry, but, despite her acting to keep the already obvious ploy of 'rape', her mind was filled with sorrowful disappointment. I gritted my teeth and flew away as quickly as possible, ignoring her complaints which turned into begging the further I got.

Surprisingly, as I got to the human village, I found that nothing was wrong. Not only that, but I also managed to find Mystia rather quickly, although she had circles under her eyes. She was in front of the building where she took me to rest the first time I met her, and she only showed surprise when she saw me coming towards her. It wasn't the face of someone who I had 'altered'.

"Hm? Koishi, hello!" She said in a surprised voice. "I haven't seen you in a while. How are things?"

"Things are great, actually." I lied. "I was just heading back home when I saw you here. Don't tell me you found someone else who fainted in the middle of nowhere?" I asked jokingly.

Mystia's mouth became a sarcastic smile and she shook her head. "No… Cirno's just been acting strange as of late."

Cirno? Why bring up her name here and now? "Hm? Cirno?"

"Oh, I guess you two haven't met. Well… she's living in this house right now. One day, out of nowhere, she asked me if she could borrow it because her home had been destroyed by fairies."

Something was nagging in the back of my head, like what Mystia had just said was familiar. Going off of that familiar feeling, I asked a question on that impulse. "Didn't that happen at the flower viewing event… or whatever it was?"

Mystia nodded. "Yeah, it did, but… Wait, I thought you've never met Cirno before? How did you know about that?"

"I haven't. I heard that story from someone." I lied yet again. I still had no idea where this information was coming from.

"Oh, I see… come to think of it, it's around that time again, isn't it?" Mystia pondered the strange coincidence before continuing. "Anyways, she was very insistent on living here, despite being a fairy. I wonder what could have made her want to stay here?"

It was no secret that fairies lived in nature and human settlements were the last place you would look to find one. This odd behavior that happened among the missing two months made me wonder whether or not I had anything to do with it.

"Can I go inside and visit her? Since I'm here, you may as well introduce me." I asked, hastily coming up with an excuse.

Mystia gave a questioning look, but it seemed like she wasn't going to doubt me. "Sure, I don't see why not."

Of course, I had the question of why Mystia was there to begin with, but I decided not to pry right now, as Mystia turned around and opened the door so that we may enter. The interior hadn't changed, as we were greeted with a long hallway that led all the way to the living area/kitchen.

"Pardon the intrusion! Cirno, I'd like to introduce you to someone." Mystia spoke without hesitation. Unlike me, she had no ulterior motives, so it made me uncomfortable when she spoke so forthright, like I was sheepishly trying to hide the fact that I wanted another cookie from a doting parent.

Quickly, I saw a head poke itself out from around the corner. It was Cirno, her light-blue hair messy and her eyes containing a certain curiosity one would expect from a child (even if she was older than one by many years). I waved and Cirno's curious eyes turned into a serious gaze as she walked around the corner in the dress I saw her wearing during our first encounter. As she approached, I got the feeling that she knew me.

"This is Koishi. I helped her out a few months ago and she decided to stop by when she saw me." As Mystia introduced me, I made a small nod with my head, but Cirno's studying expression didn't change.

"...Hey Mystia, do you know what that eye is?" Cirno's first words were unexpected as she pointed to my closed third-eye and Mystia wore a scowl.

"That's rather rude." Mystia stated.

Cirno looked at Mystia with a sigh then turned back to me. "Hello. I'm Cirno, the ice fairy. Would you introduce yourself as well?"

I blinked while Mystia's frown became larger.

"Now listen-"

"Koishi, the earth Youkai." Only I seemed to understand what Cirno's introduction meant. It was sloppy, but it seemed like she was asking me for something other than my name. It might have been fortunate that Mystia mistook it for rudeness rather than Cirno trying to be subtle, because she clearly knew something that she didn't want Mystia to know.

Luckily, it also appeared that Mystia mistook my introduction as ignoring Cirno's supposed rudeness, rather than questioning the introduction itself.

Cirno nodded her head, seemingly much more thoughtful than the first time I met her. "Mm. Okay, nice to meet you Koishi, the earth Youkai!" She beamed with that energy I saw her with months earlier, almost making me question whether the seriousness in her expression was simply an illusion. "Come on in, I've got cake!" Her childish manner as she ran back around the corner simply furthered that notion.

Mystia sighed and rubbed her temples while her wings seemed to twitch at her sides. I smiled. "You should get some rest, it seems like you've been up for quite a while."

Mystia looked at me with brief surprise, then frowned, conflicted. "But-"

"It's alright. Nothing bad can possibly happen between us anyways." I said convincingly.

Mystia seemed ready to argue, but she loudly yawned with bad timing and her cheeks became tinged with embarrassment. "W-well, I guess you're right. Sorry to leave you with her."

"No, no. I'm the one that wanted to meet her. I'll see you later, okay?"

Mystia nodded and walked out the door, apparently too tired to waste energy on saying goodbye. It made me even more curious as to why she was here, but I knew I wouldn't get any answers at the moment. With that, I walked around the corner-

*Th-th-thump!*

"...Wha…" I stood in place as icicles had swished past my body and hit the wall next to me, my eyes slowly turning to look at Cirno, dropping any facade of her happy-go-lucky manner with threatening eyes.

"Are you a friend or an enemy?" The words were straightforward and simple, something anyone could come up with, but her eyes shone with focus, as though she were thinking just as much as anyone with a heavy burden would.

"...Friend, I think." I spoke the words unsure. Cirno's gaze once again looked at the third-eye, then back at me. She finally loosened up her posture and sat down, sighing.

"Okay I'll believe you."

Her trust was so sudden that I wondered why she had thrown the icicles to begin with. With confusion, I sat down at the other end of the table Cirno was next to, not taking my eyes off of her in case she threw even more icicles. She seemed to be troubled by something the entire time.

With a grand motion as soon as I sat down, she pointed at my third-eye. "You! ...You can't do any of those mind-control… um… sh-na-gins if your eye is closed, right?"

"Shenanigans." I corrected her.

"Just answer the question!" Cirno tried her best to be as threatening as possible, glaring at me, but I knew that even if she threw more icicles, they probably wouldn't do much. Her best shot at killing me would have been the first time she threw them, when I wasn't expecting it. Even so, I decided to answer.

"No, I can only read minds, I can't control them right now." I stated.

"...Ok." Cirno eased up yet again, but looked at me with doubtful eyes as well as some blankness, as if she were unsure how to proceed herself.

It was obvious she had some idea of what was going on, otherwise she wouldn't have been acting like this. With her arms crossed, it seemed like she was going to say something again.

"You didn't do anything to my friends?"

"...No, as far as I know."

"Oh. ...Ok."

Once again, silence, some uncomfortable shifting around in our respective seats, and Cirno spoke up again.

"Um… But you did something to Marisa, right?"

As much as I wanted to ask Cirno how much she knew, I decided to simply answer her questions for now. "I don't remember it myself, but it appears that I did."

"You don't remember?" Cirno frowned, seemingly confused despite having some idea of current events.

"I've forgotten what I've done for the past two months." I explained.

Cirno closed her eyes and took a deep breath. It seemed like she was having a hard time concentrating on this conversation for so long. When she reopened them, she had a look of disappointment.

"I… I'm not that smart, so I won't ask why. There's too much I don't understand." Cirno seemed to shrink as she spoke the words, her tiny hands balling up into fists that bunched up the hem of her dress. "But… I do know that Marisa isn't herself at all. I also know that you had something to do with it but…" Cirno went quiet, unsure of herself yet again. Her mind itself was surprisingly quiet, with only a few thoughts here and there, but it seemed like she was overwhelmed by those thoughts.

"I… I don't want to admit it, but I can't do anything to help. Everytime I try helping when I don't understand, I always get yelled at for being a nu-... a pain." Cirno stopped when she realized she didn't know how to say the word. All of her words seemed like a random confession that had nothing to do with me, but I remained patient because I doubted it was all for nothing. All the while, Cirno became more and more uncomfortable.

"You are… weird. I actually feel scared seeing you. Look, my hands are trembling and I'm even… trying my best to pay attention. I… I ended up destroying my own home, wanting to get away from you." Cirno's words continued coming out of her mouth, as jumbled as her thoughts, but I was starting to see where she was going with this.

"You asked for the house here because you were scared of me?" The house was farther away from Marisa's place than the forest, so it made some sense, but she could have simply asked Mystia for the house rather than destroy her own home, I felt.

Almost as if she were reading my mind, Cirno spoke in regards to that. "I realized I could've simply moved away without destroying my home, or asked Mystia, but I didn't want to tell them the reason why… and… and… uu…" Cirno's eyes started the form tears, and I looked at her with blinking eyes.

Was it possible that she was merely acting this way not because she learned anything about what was going on, but rather, that she simply sensed enough to be afraid of me? I will admit that I was more than disappointed if that was the case, but since I was there, I decided it would've been better to see things through.

"Yeah… I guess I may have been scary for a while-"

"No!" Cirno exclaimed, making me jump slightly. "You have that feeling… something that tell me to run away as far as I can, even now and I'm trying to be myself but just sitting here is taking everything I have!" Cirno's eyes were now leaking tears and her body was shaking. "This has never happened before, even when I fought Marisa, Yu-chan, Reimu and all those who I can't remember the name of! I know I'm stupid; I know that I'm supposed to be weak, yet I also know that I'm the strongest and-!"

Cirno was having a meltdown. There was no other way to put it as her sobs started making what she was saying even more incoherent. She was proving to be the hardest to understand out of all the people I've met up to this point, even though she was speaking as honestly and heartfelt as possible. I felt pain in my heart at the realization that she must have had many issues with communicating even before this, because as she started weeping, her mind thought, Not again… she won't understand either…

She was aware. Much more aware of things then anybody ever gave her credit for, it seemed, but because she wasn't as articulate or able to act as rationally as everybody else, she was suffering for it. I still didn't know what the main point she was trying to make was, or why she acted the way she did; I knew the easy answer was that she was simply afraid of me, but that didn't explain why she acted like nothing was wrong when Mystia was here. It didn't explain why she took the time to open her heart up to me like this.

"...I don't think you're stupid. I just think that you're more emotional than everyone else." I spoke this as calmly as possible, even though it may have been taken as an insult, because it felt wrong not to speak honestly when she was doing so.

Cirno, through her tears, looked up at me and sniffled, her cheeks red and her arms wrapped around her, like she was shielding her embarrassment. I wanted to hug her, but with how she described her feelings towards me, I didn't know if it would help if I was the one who hugged her. She seemed to be a little better when she heard me though, so I guess she didn't take any insult from it.

"...Did you understand me?" Cirno asked, sniffling a bit.

"You're afraid of me for some reason and you know that I can change a person's personality… or is that wrong?" I asked.

"...Per- what?"

"I can change how a person acts."

"Oh… Yeah, that's what I was getting at." Cirno looked down at the floor.

"But why explain that to me? You have no reason to."

Cirno went silent for a moment and looked at me with big eyes, studying my face as best as she could through her blurry eyes. "Because you're friends with Mystia so… maybe you aren't bad? I just couldn't keep it all to myself."

In other words, this conversation wouldn't get me any closer to learning what I had done during those missing two months. Cirno was merely holding back all of these feelings and decided to let it all out when Mystia came in with me as a friend. I wanted to get out of there as soon as possible now that I knew, but I felt like I couldn't have simply left her alone.

"So then, why did you threaten me with icicles when I came here?" I asked, deciding I might as well fill in the holes in her motives.

"Because if you did anything to my friends… I just wanted to show you that I wouldn't be afraid to hurt you." Cirno answered.

She truly was an incomprehensible person who didn't think things through, but there was no doubt that she actually cared for others.

"I don't remember the last two months, as I've said, but I think if Mystia is fine, then I probably haven't done anything to the rest of your friends."

Cirno wiped whatever was leftover from her fit off of her face using her forearm and nodded. "Ya, ok. I'll believe you. ...But if you tell anyone about this, I'll beat you up."

It was an empty threat as far as I was concerned, but then I remembered that Cirno supposedly beat Marisa at one point. "Hey Cirno, is it true that you beat Marisa before?" I asked, looking into her mind to see the truth of the matter.

Cirno's face showed her surprise, then she shook her head. "...No, I just made that up."

Her mind, however, showed that she did, in fact, beat Marisa. She was lying. "I can tell when someone is lying, Cirno. I know that you have beaten Marisa before." Even after calling her out, Cirno remained quiet. "I know that you've been insisting on the fact that you've beaten her before, so why lie now?"

Cirno looked as if she were unsure whether or not she should have answered that question, then I told her that I could change her personality to tell me; an empty and tasteless threat, but my curiosity pushed me to say it before I could stop.

Cirno swallowed hard and shook her head with trembling arms. It appeared as though that's what made her scared of me; the ability to change a person against their will. "I… Even though it's the truth, how can I insist on it after she - -chan? ...I'm not the strongest, I'm just the weakest."

The world shifted where I sat. What was it she just said? That feeling of wrongness, of something I was unaware of that would bring some more light to what happened during my two month missing memory… Cirno just said something, quickly, casually, as though everyone already knew, but I didn't catch it.

Could it be that this conversation did have something that would help me learn what had happened during my missing two months?

"...I'm sorry, she did what to… who?" I asked, trying to stop the screaming in the back of my head to stop being so curious.

Cirno answered and this time, I didn't miss it, or mishear it.

"...Marisa killed my best friend, Dai-chan."