Once again, it's been a while hasn't it? Or maybe it just feels long like always? Regardless, my brother is going to the eye doctor tomorrow and I volunteered to go with him and mom. I'm hoping that my glasses are ready and waiting for me, since they look a bit like Rinnosuke's own glasses. Yes, this is indeed intentional as I want to get a Rinnosuke costume in the near future, but I should probably make sure I don't get any taller first. It'd suck if I bought one and had a last-second growth spurt that forced me to buy another! Anyway, two more characters come into the picture here but they don't do too much other than…I won't say.

Meiling quickly turned to the oni when she shot awake, and handed her the gourd that rolled onto the floor. "Here, what's the matter?"

Suika grabbed the gourd tightly, and said "I thought I lost it."

"Sounds like you had a bad dream. Drink a little, and if you wanna talk about it I'll listen."

"Thanks." Suika downed a mouthful of the sake, and then it hit her why her mind was making her dream that dream. Was it because Meiling confessed that she loved her, and thus Suika realized that she loved Meiling back? Well, she wasn't drunk yet and it sounded logical, so that had to be it. "I was in Former Hell, it was some years ago." Suika continued her story between mouthfuls of sake to get herself drunk again. "It was the day when I had the idea to go above ground, only in the dream…I never went. I stayed underground and I drank and I drank and I drank, and I also had fun around town and had no girlfriend or anything like that."

"Sounds about the same as always."

"No, then the scary part came. I was in a bar, so drunk I couldn't even hear straight just taking round after round of entire bottles of sake. Sure, my gourd is endless but even I stop at some point. I just kept drinking and drinking, and I asked the bartender where Yuugi was. He said she was on a date, and that her and her girlfriend looked really happy together. Then he asked how I was gonna pay for my sake. I had no money, so I had to give him the gourd. Then I woke -hic- up." Suika held her gourd tightly, saying "I was scared at the end."

"It sounds scary. You need to relax a little, okay? What do you think it means?"

"That I need to love people more than sake, maybe? And I choose…you."

"Me?"

"Yes."

Meiling's face turned red for the umpteenth time since her adventure started, as she stammered "Uh, w-well yeah I suppose it could be…m-me."

"You said you loved me."

"I did, didn't I? Once I said it I realized it too. Since you chose to love me, I guess it's easy for me to now say, I love you Suika."

"And I love you too Meiling." Suika held the gourd up high, and said "To…us." Suika nearly drowned herself in sake, and once it was all into her system, smiled at Meiling. "Mmm, that's -hic- good sake. Want some?"

"Sure."

The newly formed body of Orci Persona wasn't an exceptionally powerful one as far as bodies went, but it was certainly strong enough in the powers of the dark being itself to cause plenty of terror. All the eyes of the monstrous mask saw was buildings burst aflame and the resident human fleeing from this…this indescribably powerful youkai, if even that. It's large eyes kept changing direction, whipping out tentacles to capture any human it could see before they escaped. However, its eyes stopped eventually when it saw a person who didn't run…two of them. They had some features in common, namely their long white hair and red eyes. They stood roughly the same height, and they seemed like very different friends. One wore a blue hat and a dress to match, and she didn't look all that special to Orci Persona. She wouldn't be a worthy host in the least. This second girl, though…she would do. She wore a white long-sleeved shirt and a pair of red baggy pants with suspenders. Down these pants were numerous paper charms, and she looked like she may have belonged to some kind of nobility. Most of all, there was fire surrounding her, not made by Orci Persona's powers but her own.

"Is this the one," the pants-wearing girl asked with a cigarette between her fingers. "This is what's terrorizing the village, Keine?"

"That's him, Mokou. You know I'd do it myself, but it's not night yet and even then there won't be a full moon." Keine stepped back; she knew it would be a good idea if Mokou really got into the fight to get some distance between herself and the phoenix of a girl that was her friend.

Mokou dropped her cigarette and stomped it out, and said coldly to Orci Persona "What'd the humans ever do to you, tough guy? You think you can just do what you want? Not while I'm around, big guy! Come on, lemme see what you've got!"

Orci Persona's interest faded quickly. If she had to talk tough, she mustn't have been that strong at all. The being turned around, and realized its mistake of ignoring her when a massive fireball impacted its back, effectively setting each and every tentacle that composed its body on fire. Now it was interested. Orci Persona turned back around, and untied the countless tentacles that made up its false body. Now it was a floating mask with countless tentacles hanging behind it, and each and every tentacle reached out with the intention of constricting Mokou to death. Orci Persona wanted to kill her slowly like it had been wanting to do to just about anything lately with no success. This wouldn't last long at all, especially with this fire.

Mokou shot forth another fireball, so hot that the tentacles evaporated on impact. She wanted to end this quickly and just kill the creature with one shot. When the impact with the mask was made, it made a fairly large explosion that even almost reached Mokou herself. "Now that that's over with…" Mokou turned around to Keine, and said "Job well done." Just as she said that, more tentacles reached out behind her faster than she would've seen them coming. In an instant, all of her limbs were tied up, but Mokou wasn't concerned in the least. She let her enemy believe that they had her down for a moment, then burst herself into flame, again evaporating the tentacles that weren't that much of a threat at all to her. "You don't learn do you? You can't win!"

Orci Persona blinked. Sure, this was a little impressive, but there was no power greater than that of Orci Persona! By its own power, the sky above began to fill with dark clouds. If it were able to speak without a host, it would talk about how everything had a weakness in nature, and Orci Persona was always able to take advantage of that weakness. From overhead, a massive downpour began, extinguishing the fires that previously covered most of the human village. Orci Persona wouldn't be affected in the least, but his enemy most certainly would. This also stopped her friend from being able to transform since the moon was required; the clouds would certainly block out the moon when night came around. If this village wouldn't be destroyed by an inferno, then Orci Persona would destroy it by flood.

Mokou at first looked a little concerned by the sheer amount of rain, already entirely drenched in just a few seconds time, but she quickly shook that off. "Two can play at that game." Mokou put both hands in front of her; she'd need to focus a lot harder now that it was raining this hard. But as hard as she tried, she couldn't get a large fire going; it would get extinguished before she could get it large enough to make any impact at all. "Come on!" She would have to set herself on fire again and hoped that it would work. Mokou focused as hard as she could, and even for a second pretended like this evil mask in front of her was Kaguya, and in that second her entire body burst into searing flames. "That's more like it!" Mokou ran up to the mask; if she couldn't fire at it from afar then she'd have to get up close and personal with this fight. However, by the time she reached Orci Persona the fires that coated her body were gone again. That didn't change the fact that one very solid punch to the mask's eye had it stumbling back in the air, evidently hurt by the attack. Damn, this rain's really starting to piss me off! She could still keep fighting this thing forever, though, so at least she had that going for herself.

Zabi saw the fires at the human village from as far away as the Scarlet Devil Mansion. Trouble was brewing, she could tell. She wasn't outside, though; she would have frozen if she was. Instead, she was inside looking out one of the few windows to keep an eye out for intruders. Why did they pick me as a gatekeeper? How come they couldn't choose a warm-blooded creature…like a human? I guess I can't complain though, it IS a nice job. Even so, this was something that she had to report to Lady Remilia immediately! Hopefully, somebody at the mansion would be able to deal with it, though Zabi had a gut feeling of who that someone would be. The snake youkai was more than certain that the task of investigating and dealing with this would be handed to Meiling. She was the one who killed Judas, and she was the one who was supposed to fight Orci Mundis alone.

Meiling also saw the fires, and also saw them go out. "Something's up over there."

"Oh ya? Then -hic- why not go?" That was the point of an adventure, right? To get right into the heat of the action and see all that could be seen? To be able to go back with countless amazing tales that were all mostly true and only a tiny portion legend. That was what brought Suika to go on an adventure at least. "We'll both go."

"Wouldn't have it any other way, Suika." Meiling went out the door of the room, and was thankful that she used to work here. If she hadn't, she would have surely gotten lost while navigating the countless hallways that sat within the Scarlet Devil Mansion and would have trouble finding her way out. Every time she was about to turn, she looked behind herself to make sure Suika wasn't falling too far behind, as she didn't want to have a lost oni, a drunk lost oni, wandering this place alone. It was sort of Meiling's obligation as she saw it.

Mokou laid face-up on the soaked ground with the rain still pounding down on her. "I'm…I'm not finished yet! I can…still…fight!" Mokou tried getting back up to her feet, only to fall back down, this time with her face in the ground. She wouldn't let this thing get away! As the phoenix-possessed girl rolled over to her back, she said "Keine, any ideas what the hell that thing is? I can't even reach into my pocket for a cigarette now."

"I wish I knew," Keine said, lifting Mokou's head off the ground. "But right now, I'm worried about you. Even if you're immortal, you can't just fight against the odds like that."

"But the village! I let them down! Look around, Keine, it's nothing but smoldering ruins. Even the school."

"I know. It's going to be a very sad day for anybody living here, and it'll be some time before this place is as good as new. But in the meantime, you're fatally wounded. It really upsets me that you just let yourself die like that, without even trying to resist. It seems like a sign of depression to me."

"If I wasn't before, I'm depressed now if that makes you feel better about me letting myself die. I'm depressed because I couldn't even kill that thing, it took advantage of my biggest weakness and then started sucking out all my energy. Keine?"

"Yes?"

"I can't feel my legs. If I become a cripple, please kill me." Mokou would rather die and get back up than be forced into a wheelchair! It'd make things much more complicated for her trying to even do simple things, and wheelchairs made it somewhat difficult to fly. But her mind moved off that topic when she heard two pairs of feet land heavily in the village. When she turned to look at who it was, she saw two girls. One was short and flat-chested, and wore a white blouse that had the sleeves torn off. The girl also had long orange hair and had horns. Yes, this was that oni that was mentioned in the news from time to time. The other had long red hair, and was much taller and chestier than her companion. This was somebody Mokou hadn't met yet. "What're you two doing here?"

"We saw the fires," Meiling said. "Just what the hell happened here?"

"The village was attacked."

"I gathered that, but who attacked it?"

"Not who, but what."

"Dammit, just tell me who or what did it already!"

"As shameful as it is, especially since I couldn't kill it, it was a mask. A blue one, with these big yellow eyes."

"I see." Impossible! I killed Orci Persona already, oh wait that was Judas who killed him. Still, that wasn't even a day ago! Unless…it wasn't him. That's why he was wearing the mask; the mask IS Orci Persona! Damn, this could prove difficult. How was she supposed to kill an evil sentient mask? She'd need to consult an expert on the dark arts for this. As much as she hated to say it, she'd need Judas's help to get rid of Orci Persona.

In the end, everything goes back to the necromancer. If Judas never arrived, Flandre would be a-okay and Meiling would have never gone on her adventure. However, this also means that she would have never found Venus and Orci Mundis would have eaten Gensokyo. Not only that, but she'd never find love in the form of a…whatever word it is that Azure uses to describe Suika, tsu-something. What does that word mean anyway? The Orci Persona arc, if I'm guessing right, is roughly 1/3-halfway done at this point. That means that Poisonous Chinese Tea may be coming to an end! T_T this news saddens me, but I will write a sequel for certain. I already know what'd happen.

In Poisonous Chinese Tea, somebody from the human world got gapped into Gensokyo. In the sequel (speculated name: Teahouse in China) TWO people will get gapped from Gensokyo to the human world! Just imagine what kind of trouble Suika could cause in our world…I'll have fun writing that sequel!