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 26: History In, Journey Out

"Honestly, you really are the strangest human I've ever met, next to Reimu-san."

"Ehehe, really? I knew I was strange, but that's kind of… a strange comparison."

"But to heal from a wound that quickly? You truly are something else."

"Well, if you say so…."

It was early morning now. I was in front of a mirror, looking back at the reflections of both myself and Eirin. Aside from the two of us, I could see a faint aura around Eirin now, which was tinted a deep shade of gray.

The moment I had told her that my wound was closed, she had refused to believe me. Then I let her check. To say she was surprised would have been an understatement. She almost started freaking out a little.

After a few moments, however, she managed to calm down.

I chose to keep the fact Yukari had helped me to myself. Partially because I didn't really want inquiries on what she was doing seeing me in the middle of the night.

Still, Yukari hadn't really done anything about scar tissue, so now, there were two large marks on my chest; the claw slash from Mystia, and the burn from Kaguya. Where the two overlapped close to the center of my rib cage, it was white instead darkened skin; a testament to the reopened wound. All in all, it looked like three dark slash marks with a large circle in the middle, and white where the two crossed.

I knew I was going to have this for the rest of my life. Not that I was going to complain though; honestly, I thought it looked kind of cool.

Now that I was actually looking at a mirror, I got a better look at myself after all these days: tall and thin in structure, with lightly tanned skinned. I wasn't muscled, but I didn't have much body fat either. And my face was completely devoid of any pimples, which I found extremely odd. When I questioned Eirin about it, she said that I did have some blemishes when I first came in, but the medicine she had administered at that time apparently took care of it.

Gee, didn't think pimples would fall under the category of "bodily damage" but whatever.

"Are you enjoying the new look?"

I turned away from the mirror to see Kaguya.

"Ah, Kaguya no kimi." I felt a little embarrassed at her comment. Damn, she could pinpoint motives and such in moments, couldn't she?

"Don't worry. You're still but a boy, so it would only be natural to feel empowered by the gaining of such a scar."

Empowered? I wasn't so sure of that. I just thought it looked cool, that's all. Though it was also a testament to the battles I'd been up to now, so I supposed that what she said made a little sense.

She stepped a little closer, getting right up into my face. A single finger drew itself affectionately on my bare chest.

"You know, I like men with scars," she said in a rather seductive tone. "And I may not be the only one."

A loud sneeze came from behind Kaguya somewhere. I knew it was probably Nitori who had done so. I wondered why she had.

"H-huh?" I asked dumbly. Kaguya was being a little bit more… intimate than I would have liked.

She laughed, and drew away. "Oh, I'm just teasing you. My goodness, Kaito, are you really that bad at dealing with the opposite gender?"

"Er… not necessarily, but you were… getting a little… close…."

Another quick burst of laughter. "You really are hopeless."

I sighed, slipping back on the top of the robe.

"Well, now that I'm done teasing you," Kaguya said cheerfully. "Would you like to hear a story?"

"Eh? What do you mean?" This was a little sudden.

"You're interested in how I came to be in Gensokyo, aren't you?"

"Huh? Oh, well, yeah. If I remember correctly, the 'Tale of the Bamboo Cutter' took place millennia ago, and yet you're still alive. How?"

She took a chair and sat, then patted the bed we were standing next to. "Please, sit, and make yourself comfortable. It's quite a long tale, actually, leading all the way up to the present, in fact.

"Um, okay." I let myself drop onto the bed, hanging over the edge.

"Oh, I just love telling stories," Kaguya said in a delighted tone. "You see, we don't get many guests here in Eientei, so I hardly come in contact with anyone. I hope you understand that this is actually rather selfish of me, asking if you'd like to hear this. But you're going to be leaving soon, so I'd like to at least share one story to entertain my guests before they leave."

Wow. She really didn't get out much, did she? Considering she was a princess, that notion held some level of sense in it anyhow, so I wasn't all that surprised.

"Ah, Nitori-san!" The princess turned to the kappa. "Would you like to hear this too? The more, the merrier."

"Huh? Oh, sure," she agreed, strolling over and seating herself next to me. Tiny drops of light blue were coming from her now, and she seemed perfectly fine after only about a day of rest, decked back out in her usual light blue clothing. "I think I heard something like this as an old folk tale from some older kappa. I'd like to hear the story straight from you!"

"Splendid!" Kaguya was obviously pleased. "Well then, I supposed I should start from the very beginning, when I was still on the Moon Capital….

"Many centuries ago, I was the princess of the Moon Capital. Yes, I was an actual royal figure of royal blood when I was on the moon. The moon was a wondrous place, filled with technology and beauty far beyond that of this earth. However, being a royal, I led a rather sheltered life. Since I was unable to go out and experience the world with the rest of the Lunarians, I grew quite bored of the life I was living. So I decided to make things a little more exciting for myself; I asked Eirin to brew me the Hourai Elixir, and I consumed it."

Nitori gasped for some reason. Whether it was out of horror or surprise, or maybe both, I couldn't tell. I just raised an eyebrow, since I had no idea what she was talking about.

"The beverage she is talking about," piped up a voice to the right. It was Eirin. "The Hourai Elixir is a legendary drink that, once imbibed, will grant the imbiber immortality."

"What?" My jaw dropped in an instant, for two reasons. The first reason was because the drink could cause immortality in the first place. The second reason was because Eirin had actually outright brewed it.

Kaguya giggled. "Judging by your amazed look, you can hardly believe that Eirin was able to make such a thing."

I nodded slowly. Nitori was nodding too; she had known what it was, but couldn't believe it either.

"Well, she did," Kaguya stated simply. "And she did so on my request, simply because I was a bored princess. I've looked like this," she stood and did a little twirl, "for more than thirteen centuries.

She sat back down. "This is the crime for which I was exiled. We Lunarians value purity, and my drinking of the Hourai Elixir was synonymous to drinking something dirty and poisonous. Normally, a punishment for such a crime is death, but because I drank the Hourai Elixir, I am unable to die. No matter how they tried to dispose of me – and they tried some of the most gruesome ways possible – I would always come back to life, perfectly healthy. It was true immortality; time had lost its hold on me, and I would exist at the age I am now for the rest of eternity, never aging, and undying.

"Since I was 'tainted' as such, as the Great Council of the Capital put it, they decided that I should reside amongst that which was also 'tainted' as punishment. So they sent me here, to ancient Japan. Yes, I started outside of Gensokyo, in an era of Japan that was not that different from here. And I lived there for many years, imposing my five Impossible Requests upon those who chose to be my suitors.

"Then came the time when my exile was over. Emissaries from the moon came to take me back to the capital. But I did not want to leave, and made that clear. The emissaries would not have it, and said that they would take me back by force if they had to."

"This is a point where I came in," Eirin interjected. "I was one of the emissaries that came to retrieve Kaguya no kimi. However, I did not believe I deserved to return to the Moon Capital, since I had been the one who brewed the Hourai Elixir for her in the first place, and yet I had escaped punishment. So I killed all the other emissaries and remained here on Earth, on a self-imposed exile."

My initial feeling had been right; this was a pretty amazing story. I almost couldn't believe what I was hearing, even though it sounded more than fantastical enough to be a part of Gensokyo's history.

"So, after that episode," Kaguya continued. "The two of us fled here to Gensokyo, where we were accepted and taken care of by Tewi. She's the true master of this house, and we are simply enjoying her hospitality. You probably won't see her during your time in Gensokyo, as she goes out to travel on occasion, and it's quite difficult to catch her."

Reisen had mentioned Tewi once before. She was the one allowing them to stay here in the first place? Geez, and I thought Eirin and Kaguya were strong.

"But anyways, since we've arrived here at Eientei, we went into hiding. I used my power to conceal the house, and keep it from being discovered."

"How?" Nitori asked. I was about to ask, but she beat me to it.

Kaguya smiled. "That's rather simple. I have the power to control eternity."

My eyes narrowed. That made little sense, if any at all.

"That which is eternal is under my control. Anything that does not change in the passage of time can be bent to my will. Because this is the House of Eternity, I can use my powers to hide it. I've been doing so for more than a millennium."

That long, huh? Gee, it must have gotten pretty lonely. I mean, with no one but Eirin, Tewi, and the other rabbits….

"I wasn't really that lonely, though."

"Eh?" Geez, again with the mind-reading. What was I, an open book?

"I had someone else to keep me company. Kaito-san?"

"Hm?"

"You were guided here by someone, correct? Did the person have long violet-white hair, and wings of fire?"

"Huh?" Though my memory wasn't the greatest (and I had been severely panicking at that time too), I did remember the fiery wings. I nodded. "Yeah, she did. Why?"

Kaguya giggled. "I thought so. That was Fujiwara no Mokou. She's an immortal just like I am."

"Huh? She is?"

"That's right. She's a human that's been alive for nearly as long as I have, as she became immortal in the same way; drinking the Hourai Elixir. Her ability to control fire is a testament to that immortality, as she had to develop her ability on her own."

"So you two have known each other for that long… are you two good friends or something?"

A peal of laughter came from behind Kaguya. It was Reisen. She had returned from taking care of some chores around Eientei. Her aura was a really bright red.

"That couldn't be further from the truth," she replied. "Mokou hates Kaguya no kimi with a passion."

"Then why would she guide Kaito-kun here to Eientei?" Nitori piped up.

"That's a little difficult to answer," Kaguya threw back. "You see, the relationship between Mokou and I is a rather strange one. While I do not hate Mokou, she hates me because her father was one of the many suitors who were humiliated for being unable to complete my Impossible Requests. For this reason, she had been feuding with me for the past millennium. But she can never get her revenge, as I will never die, and I cannot be rid of a pest, since she cannot be killed either. However, that does not really stop us from trying, and whenever we get the chance to, we'll fight, killing each other for no other reason than because we want to. We both know there's no point in doing so, and even Mokou has been simmering down as of late, believing her reason for feuding to be pointless."

Suddenly, Kaguya looked more than a little cheerful. "But… at the same time, we are also the only two immortals in all of Gensokyo, and the rest of the world. As time passes, all that we once knew will wither and die away, while we stay the same, never aging, and never dying for all of eternity. Personally, I actually like being alive, but I cannot say the same for Mokou. She seems to have grown tired of her long life span, and wishes for it to end, even though she knows it won't.

Wow. That was pretty heavy.

On a side note, I had to give both of them a little credit; I always thought that living forever would drive you insane, but that hadn't happened to either of them. Mokou didn't seem very talkative, but I couldn't call that being insane, and Kaguya was probably the most refined person in all of Gensokyo. And no doubt, being resurrected after death was no painless task. I mean, you basically just died and came back to life. I wondered how they were able to stand it for so many years.

"I suppose that's the end of that," Kaguya concluded. "Thank you both for listening. It's good to be able to tell a story like that, and we haven't had a visitor in a while."

She rose from her seat and began to leave. "I wish you both safe travels. And keep an eye out for Tewi, please. She's a bit mischievous, but if you find her, you'll be able to find your way out of the bamboo forest without fail."

And with that, she left.

Reisen sighed with exasperation. "A bit mischievous?" she cried out sarcastically. "Don't believe that; Tewi is one hell of a prankster."

She gestured with a hand. "Come on, you two. I'll lead you out of Eientei."

"Why didn't you tell them about Yukari-sama?"

"Huh? What are you talking about?"

"Yukari-sama came to visit you last night, didn't she?"

"Uh…."

Nitori and I were out of Eientei now. Reisen and Eirin had both given us hearty goodbyes, wishing us luck in finding Tewi (Eirin warned me not to get reckless again, since while she had enjoyed the challenge of fixing us up, she wouldn't be keen on having to do it again). When we were finally away from the House of Eternity, Nitori suddenly sprung that question on me. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to answer truthfully or not, but considering how she sounded like she knew the truth anyhow, I didn't bother lying.

"Yeah, she did. I didn't say anything about it because I didn't want any questions being fired at me about why she came by in the first place. But I'm curious; how did you know that in the first place? I thought you were asleep at that time."

"Well, uh…." Nitori scratched her head in embarrassment. "I was sort of feigning sleep. When a lantern light suddenly came in the room, I awoke, but when I realized it was Yukari-sama, and that you were awake, I decided to keep quiet."

"So… you were eavesdropping on us?" I threw out, deadpanned.

"Y-yes… I-I'm sorry, I-"

"No, no, it's fine," I assured her. "Don't worry about it. I'm sure you were just curious about what we were talking about. And besides, it's not like we talked about anything that wasn't intended for others to hear."

"O-oh… well, okay then."

"Alright," I let out, stretching. The two of us had been bedridden for practically four or five days now, so it felt good to be back outside. "So, we're supposed to be looking for this Tewi girl, right? I'm guessing she's going to be a bunny girl just like Reisen?"

"Why are you asking me?"

"No reason. Just voicing my thoughts out lo-gyagh!"

Poom!

"Ah! Kaito-kun, are you okay?"

"Yeah… I'm fine…."

I sat up as well as I could in the round hole I had just fallen into. Someone had set up a random pitfall trap right out here in the middle of the Bamboo Forest of the Lost. It had been a perfect trap, as perhaps not even the most skilled of trackers would have been able to detect something like this. At least, that was what I thought. When I looked around at the rubble that had fallen with me, I saw that it was more or less a flawless creation, with grass, dirt, and everything.

Then I noticed a piece of paper stuck to the side by a sharp-looking knife. I tore it off.

And realized I couldn't read it. It wasn't in English, but in Japanese. The only part that was obvious enough for me to "read" was a little drawing of a bunny girl in a dress with short black hair at the bottom right corner, holding up a victory sign with her fingers.

"Hey, Nitori-chan, do you thi-"

Thump.

A sound of something dropping onto dirt. I looked down.

A small bomb with a lit fuse was sitting there.

Crap!

"Nitori-chan, get down!"

A heavy fwump of a body hitting the floor. I swiped up the bomb and heaved it as hard as I could up and out of the hole.

Booom!

I shielded my eyes away from the mini explosion. Geez, was the person who set this up trying to kill us?

Splat!

What was that?

I looked down, and saw three large splotches of what looked like black ink on my robe. One blot was plastered onto my arm.

"Gah, what the hell is this?" I cried in exasperation, trying to scrub out the ink. "This is a freaking white robe, for god's sake!"

Naturally, it didn't do any good; the ink was soaked into the robe until the day came for its disposal. The one on my arm had dried nearly just as quickly

"Argh, just great," I uttered. Without further ado, I reached up to climb out of the hole. Thankfully, the pit wasn't very deep, so I was able to get a hand over the edge.

"Hey, Nitori-chan, you alright?"

"Y-yes, I'm fine." She was still lying on the floor, opposite of where I was exiting the hole. "What was that?"

"Beats me. But whoever set this up armed it with an ink bomb or something."

"Eh? Are you sure? I did feel something hit me, but…."

I walked over to inspect the damage.

"W-wait, don't look!" She instantly righted herself, facing her back away from me, all the while with a bright red face.

I stopped. "Huh? Why not?"

"B-because… I-I was… th-the bomb, it…."

What?

"I-it hit… somewhere… i-indecent…."

Oh.

Wait, what?

"Huh?" I blurted out. "W-wait, you mean… it hit… there?"

She nodded furiously, embarrassed.

Okay, maybe I wasn't the unlucky one here.

"O-oh…" I said simply. Crap, how were we supposed to solve this? "U-um… do you… uh, do you have a… spare change of clothes or something? In your backpack?"

"Y-yes, I think I-"

"Change into that! I'll turn away until you're done!" I promptly averted my gaze.

"U-um… okay…."

"I-if you want… you can jump into the hole for privacy too."

"Th-that'd be okay."

A little bit of scuffling, and a light thump indicated that she heeded my advice. I took a couple steps away, so as to give her some space.

Man, that was a little close. How embarrassing would it be to walk into a populated area with a massive black splotch on your butt? Good thing that crisis would be averted.

I looked back to the piece of paper. I still couldn't make heads or tails of it.

"Need a little help?"

"Gah!"

Yukari's head was coming out of a portal hole exactly next to my face.

"Geez, Yukari-sama, stop doing that! I could have fallen back into the hole, and that would have been all kinds of bad."

"Well, that certainly would have been amusing to watch."

I groaned. "Alright, cut it out, Yukari-sama. What did you come here for this time?"

"You can't read Japanese, can you?"

"Well, no, but…."

"Languages are easy for me!"

Suddenly, a hand popped out, and a single finger tapped me on the forehead. A slight jolt ran through my head.

"There you go! Buh-bye~"

"Hey, wa-"

She was already gone.

Gee, couldn't just stick around for an explanation, could she?

Oh well. I looked back to the paper once more. For a couple seconds, I stared at it.

Then the words began to move, bending, and shifting on the paper, courtesy of Yukari messing with my brain. The lines redrew themselves into English words.

Haha, got you, Reisen! -Tewi

Yup, Reisen was right; Tewi was one hell of a prankster. And this trap had been meant for her, not us. She must have put quite a bit of effort into this in order to set an ink bomb that would light and explode after the pitfall trap was triggered. Unless, of course, she was used to doing that kind of stuff; then this must have been pretty tame for her.

The sound of someone scrambling up dirt came. Nitori was climbing out. "Um… K-Kaito-kun?"

"Eh? What i-what are you wearing!"

She turned away, too uncomfortable to look me in the eye. Her hands were trying to pull down her shirt as a cover-up. "I-I… I didn't have anything else in the bag…."

"Then why didn't you tell me before changing into that?"

"I-I'm sorry," she gasped. "I just-"

"No, don't apologize, alright?" I looked away too. "You don't need to apologize…."

Apparently, she had been right about having extra clothes in her backpack. Unfortunately, that "extra clothing" did not include a spare dress. Instead, she only had what was (from what I could see, and I wasn't proud of doing so) supposed to be a classic one-piece Japanese school swimsuit, which she had put on underneath her shirt, over her underwear, and that was it. Her legs were now completely bare, and her… intimate areas were practically open to the public.

I sighed in exasperation. Geez, what kind of a development was this?

I had to find a solution to this somehow. Maybe….

"Nitori-chan, could you turn away for a quick moment?"

"Eh? W-what for?"

"Just do it, okay? I think I can help solve this problem."

She looked at me with unsure eyes, but she nodded, and obeyed.

I breathed in, breathed out, and took off my robe, laying it on the floor. Then I measured out a certain amount of fabric from the bottom, and began to tear. A quiet gasp came from Nitori, but she remained silent.

I didn't really care about the fact I was ruining a (mostly) perfectly good robe. Because a much more pressing matter – namely, the humiliation Nitori would undergo if she were to be seen like this – was at hand. Besides, it wasn't like messing up the robe would really have any dire consequences.

Once I finished tearing off that section of the robe, I put the rest back on, and handed the material to her. I did this holding out the material behind me, so as to avoid the possibility of staring at her bare legs. "Wrap this around yourself. Can't have you going around looking like you're wearing nothing but underwear.

I felt the cloth get snatched out of my hand. I kept staring ahead, feeling a light breeze play over my legs now that the bottom had been torn off. What used to reach close to my feet now just barely made it to my knees.

Then something flashed across my vision.

Huh? My eyes narrowed, curious. What had that been?

The thing came again, darting between the clusters of bamboo shoots. I could hear a bit of giggling somewhere. I managed to process a vague image of the thing in my mind, and identified it to be a person with shoulder-length black hair. I thought I saw a pair of bunny ears on its head.

Was that Tewi?

And the giggling faded away, directly ahead.

"I-I'm done, Kaito-kun."

I sighed in relief, and turned back around. The makeshift loincloth-skirt just barely made it past her knees, but that was fine. Better than before, at least.

"Okay, let's get going. We still need to find Tewi, don't we?"

She nodded.

"Alright, come on. I think I have an idea where she might be."

"How?"

"I saw something in the bamboo. Let's just go."

She nodded again, smiling. I took the lead, heading off in the direction of the mysterious laughter.

Author's Notes

Yes, this is considerably earlier than normal, but I wanted to finish this up and post it now since a few things came up.

Being a high school student really sucks sometimes, and that fact is very apparent to me at this moment. My falling grades have finally gotten to my mother, and now she's forbidding me from touching the computer for any other purposes than homework. While this doesn't seem too bad, since I should probably be able to "sneak around" on the computer and type stuff and other then, I don't want to wind up pushing my mom to the point where I'm banned from the computer, period. As a result, I'm using my time now, when my mom is away, to put this up before leaving the net.

For this reason, this story is going to be on hiatus for an unfortunate amount of weeks. I can still make good of this time, as she never said anything about me writing anything in my notebooks/off the computer, so this can be a good opportunity to order out my thoughts and pre-write the next few chapters before making my way back online. So I'll be doing that for some time, and once I come back, I'm going to make sure I make up for lost time the best I can.

But enough of that stuff; now to comment on the chapter itself. Truthfully, I simply couldn't leave out the fan notion of sticking Nitori in a school swimsuit. I had the intention of simply letting Tewi screw around with the two of them for a little bit, let them get a glimpse of her, then run off, simple as that, but then I realized this was a golden opportunity to spring that. And besides, it's Tewi. You can seriously expect some good pranks from her, and I didn't think an ink bomb would be too far off of her arsenal of tricks.

Hope you enjoyed this chapter~

And I hope I come back soon!