Hakurei Shrine

It has been over a week since Reimu and the others went to the 'ruins' that turned out to be a ship owned by Okazaki Yumemi.

After Reimu defeated Yumemi in a duel, the latter let everyone go, and as compensation (demanded by Reimu) for all the troubles everyone went through, each of the girls who came to her are given something by the professor.

Reimu asked for a helper, and Yumemi obliged by giving Ruukoto to the shrine maiden trainee.

Right now, Reimu sat in front of the donation box at the shrine, sipping tea while Ruukoto swept the courtyard.

"She doesn't look or sound human..." Reimu thought as she watched Ruukoto sweeping the courtyard. "...But I forgot to ask that lady or her assistant the details before they went back to their world..."

The way Chiyuri and Yumemi returned to their world was...something Reimu, or anyone in Gensokyo for that matters, could never understand. After Reimu, Marisa, Ellen, Kana, Kotohime and Rikako got what they wanted from Yumemi and she left, they all saw the 'ruins' slowly hovering off the ground before it disappeared in a loud bang and bright flash, all right before their eyes. After such a display, the site was left completely empty, as though it has always been like that.

Marisa theorized that it could be teleportation, but Reimu wondered if the Outside World's science has found a way to develop teleportation in much the same way it existed in magic form.

Nevertheless, those two women from the other world have gone back to their home world, and they probably won't be back for quite a while, if ever.

"Well, at least we all got something useful out of the trip~" Reimu muses as she takes another sip of her tea.

A gust of wind descended upon the shrine courtyard, blowing apart the pile of leaves that Ruukoto had swept together neatly. That gust turned out to have been caused by Marisa riding on her flying broomstick. The witch still has the long blond hair covering half her face that she got by accident a week ago.

"Yo, Reimu! I've come to play!" Marisa loudly announces as she hops off her broomstick, right on top of the leave pile that she had blown apart just now. "And how ya doin', Green Hair?" The witch turns to address Ruukoto.

"Miss Kirisame, I should remind you that my name is Ruukoto." says Ruukoto in protest. "And I was doing just fine with my work until you disturbed it."

Marisa cocks her eyebrow. "Still can't get why her voice sounds so...weird..." She then takes off her hat. "Anyway... Boy, am I glad to be free again..." The witch declared.

"What did Mima put you through?" Reimu asked.

Marisa sits down next to Reimu. "Lots and lots of rigorous training. Spell casting, broomstick flying, potions brewing, drawing spell circles...the sorts." She pours herself a cup of tea, and then finishes it in one gulp. "Them all's punishment for bein' beaten by ya. For one week I've been worked to the bone..."

"Oh, I am sorry to hear that." Reimu said, resisting the urge to giggle.

Marisa scoffed at the shrine maiden trainee's reaction. "So next time we're fightin' one 'nother, I'm gonna kick your butt!"

Reimu nonchalantly sips her tea. "I'd like to see you try~" She sets the teacup down. "By the way, Marisa, where are your friends?"

Marisa lies down on the veranda as she thinks of an answer for that question. "Um...Let's say it's a disaster involving frogs and love potions, and I ain't in the mood to discuss it..."

Reimu looks away from Marisa. "I can imagine why..."

Marisa gets up. "That aside, I wonder how's everyone doin' with their prizes?" She says as she looks at a small rocket with a smiley face that is tied to the tip of her broomstick. "Lil' Mimi, huh? What a weird name..."

"Why did you ask for that strange looking thing, anyway?"

The true story is that Marisa asked Yumemi for a very powerful weapon, and so the professor gave her this thing, a 'guided missile' that she nicknamed Lil' Mimi. However, Marisa did not ask for the instructions to using the weapon that she have no idea how to use, so the witch ended up using Lil' Mimi as a decorative piece for her broomstick instead.

Reimu and Marisa then notices a familiar white cat strolling past the Torii gate, followed by his fluffy-headed owner behind.

Ellen "Fluffy-head" Aureus appears to be holding what looked like those devices from the village called dial phones in one hand, and the other hand holding the part where someone speaks into one end and gets a response from the other.

"Oh, Hannah, I'd be nice if you could come visit my shop sometimes. I might have something you need~" Ellen seems to be speaking to someone through the dial phone. "You cannae come because you have work to do? Oh, how sad..."

"She's talkin' to a friend from far away?" Marisa wonders out loud.

"Maybe much further, outside Gensokyo?" Reimu also wonders.

Ellen stopped at the middle of the courtyard, still talking to her friend through the dial phone. "Oh! Maybe I can send a gift to you~" The fluffy-headed girl says cheerfully. "Do you want a painting? Or a book? Perhaps something for your magpie?" Ellen stopped speaking abruptly for a few seconds, apparently having been interrupted by her friend. "Just the fact that I'm living happily? Oh, thank you, Hannah~" Ellen giggled. "I hope I can see you again soon~"

With that, Ellen ends the communication by putting the speaking part of the dial phone back on the main part of the device, or 'hang up the phone' as the villagers would say.

"Friend of yours?" Marisa asked Ellen out of curiosity.

Ellen bent down to pick Socrates up before she answers. "Yes. Hannah is one of the few people I never forgets about~" The fluffy-headed girl blinked. "Um...who are you again? Mary Sans?"

"It's Marisa..." Marisa corrects. "And this 'ere's Reimu." The witch added as she points at the shrine maiden trainee. "We met 'bout a week ago?"

Ellen blinked again as she pieces the puzzle together. Meanwhile, Socrates meowed, as though trying to say that Marisa was right.

"Oh! Now I remember! We also met the lady who helped me to set up my shop!" The fluffy-headed girl cheerfully announced as she recalled.

Reimu and Marisa glanced at each other. "Yes, but not quite..." The two whispered to each other in unison.

Ellen had asked Yumemi to help set up a shop, and the professor helped by using a strange device that, according to her words, "3D-prints an entire building in minutes". Nobody understood what Yumemi meant by that, aside from Yumemi herself and Chiyuri.

Ellen was about to say something, but stopped at just opening her mouth. "Oh, but why did I come here again?" She wondered to herself, then turn around and left the way she came without thinking any further about it.

Socrates can be seen glancing at Reimu and Marisa, with a reassuring meow, before he disappeared from sight alongside his fluffy-headed master.

Reimu and Marisa both blinked as they try to process what they just saw and heard.

"I guess ya'll be seein' her more often from now on." Marisa points out to Reimu.

"With her shop being built so close to the shrine..." Reimu responds. "...It will be a shock if I didn't see her for days."

Just as Reimu is about to pour another cup of tea, she notices that both the teapot and the teacups are levitating off the ground on their own.

It did not take much guessing for Reimu and Marisa to know how and why it is happening.

"Kana Anaberal, haven't you played enough pranks on me for the past week?" Reimu says with a frustrated tone.

That was responded by having Marisa's witch hat levitating off her head, and Reimu's ribbon beginning to untie itself from her purple hair.

"Hey!" Marisa angrily cries out as she grabs her hat by the brim with both hands, and pull it back onto her head.

Reimu's reaction to having her ribbon being pulled off is almost identical to her reaction from last week. "GET YOUR SPECTRAL HANDS OFF MY RIBBON!" The shrine maiden trainee reacted hysterically, rapidly jabbing her hands at the untied and levitating ribbon in an attempt to catch it.

Kana materialized on the roof of the shrine. "She still treat her ribbon very preciously." The poltergeist mused as she continuously teased Reimu by pulling the shrine maiden trainee's ribbon out of reach whenever she is about to reach it. Kana basically made Reimu chase after her own ribbon all over the Hakurei Shrine, in the process knocking Ruukoto over by accident.

After about five minutes, Kana decided that she has teased Reimu enough, and allows the shrine maiden trainee to catch her ribbon. Then the poltergeist disappears into thin air before anyone can see her.

"I swear, I am going to seal that poltergeist away if I ever catch her..." Reimu says as she ties her ribbon back onto her hair.

"It ain't gonna be easy, I tell ya." Marisa says.

Kana was the only one to meet Yumemi that did not ask for anything. In fact, when Yumemi was about to address Kana, the poltergeist was nowhere to be seen. As Reimu discovered later, Kana has taken a liking to teasing the shrine maiden trainee, and has since been freeloading at the Hakurei Shrine, much to Reimu's frustration.

Reimu grumbled about Kana's teasing under her breath. "I'm going inside..." She tells Marisa and Ruukoto, then goes inside the shrine and closes the door behind her.

Now sitting in front of the donation box by herself, Marisa looked around the shrine courtyard before turning her gaze upon Ruukoto, who still hasn't gotten up as she lies face down in a pile of leaves. "Ya okay there, Green Hair?"

Ruukoto climbs up from the ground. "I am still functioning at normal capacity. Thank you for your concern." She answers, as she gets back to sweeping the leaves.

Marisa then lies down on the veranda, just staring at the bells that hung above the donation box. "Jeez. Ain't got anything interestin' lately..."

After procrastinating for several minutes, the witch had decided on what to do to pass the time. She gets up, and prepares to take off on her broom...

...Only to find herself face-to-face with Kotohime, who's actually wearing a police uniform instead of the floral-patterned regal kimono that Marisa last saw her wearing. The self-proclaimed police constable doesn't appear to be carrying her long gun, or any weapons for that matter.

"Oh, hi. Uh...what can I do for ya, Princess?" Marisa greeted Kotohime.

Kotohime took a handcuff out of her shirt pocket. "I would prefer if you address me as 'Constable', Genevieve~" She replies with a hostile but teasing tone. "I'm on duty today, and I'm here to make an arrest."

Marisa tries not to scoff at being called 'Genevieve', as she looked around her. "So, who are ya arresting?" She says. "Reimu? Don't think she did anything wrong..."

With a quick motion, Kotohime locked one side of the handcuff on Marisa's left hand, and the other side on her own right hand. "Marisa Genevieve Kirisame, you are under arrest for crimes of thievery, assault and battery, discharging magic spells in the vicinity of the village, and of assisting wanted fugitive Mima."

Marisa dropped her jaws as she hears what Kotohime just said. "Did I do all that, and are they actually illegal?" The witch thought.

"Blame yourself for knowing so little about the law." Kotohime bluntly stated.

Marisa narrowed her eyes in protest. Then before Kotohime can realize it, the witch pulled her magic wand out with her right hand, and pointed it at the handcuff chains point blank. "Slice!" She declared.

The handcuff chains snapped in half with Marisa's spell casting. And with that, Marisa quickly hopped on her broom, and flew away at a very high speed.

"See ya later, sucker!" The witch taunted Kotohime before she disappeared from sight.

Kotohime stared at the departing Marisa in disbelief, then sighed.

"I told you that a mere handcuff isn't going to be very effective against the witch." A voice told Kotohime from behind her.

Kotohime turned around to see that it was Rikako.

"You should have asked Professor Okazaki for one of her stun guns, instead of something as trivial as that..." The magician-turned-scientist added as she points at Kotohime's police uniform. "Didn't you have more of these in the police quarter's wardrobe already?"

Kotohime retaliates with small pokes to Rikako's right shoulder. "Still much better than those first grade science textbooks she gave you." The self-proclaimed police constable reminded the magician-turned-scientist.

They both have a point regarding each other's choices back then. Kotohime had asked Yumemi for a police uniform from her world, and the professor fished through her ship's storeroom to find it, which didn't look much different than the ones Kotohime already have, aside from Yumemi's claims that it is 'bulletproof', 'fireproof', and 'a costume fetish that Chiyuri has outgrown years ago'. Rikako, on the other hand, asked for books on science, and Yumemi gave her a few such books that each says 'first grade science textbook' on their cover (though the professor did mention that these are leftovers from her own school years, and they are no longer used anywhere in the present day).

With that being said, though, it was too late to change their decisions, and both Kotohime and Rikako knew they'd have to stick with the choice they made.

"With that being said, though, I don't even have an arrest warrant for that witch, even if she did commit all those crimes mentioned." Kotohime changed the subject. "And I cannot arrest her without a warrant, which means she gets to roam free for the time being..."

Rikako tries to suppress a giggle. The normally stoic magician-turned-scientist found it actually pretty funny, and there hasn't been many things that could produce a non-stoic reaction from her.

"Hey, Rikako. Want to grab a bite?" Kotohime asked. "I know a snack house in the village that makes really delicious teacakes."

"I've got lots of free time, anyway..." Rikako answered.

With that, Kotohime and Rikako both took to the air (with the latter using a new homemade rocket backpack), and left the Hakurei Shrine, leaving Ruukoto by herself in the middle of the courtyard to sweep leaves.


And with that, we conclude the Phantasmagoria of Dimensional Dream arc.

Science and magic. Makes one wonder just how will the world be like if the two coexisted...

Of course, since Mima sat out of this story arc, unlike in PoDD, there is no reason for Yumemi to put the moon in a geosynchronous orbit above Gensokyo. So the status quo remains relatively unchanged...for the time being...

And so, we will begin the Lotus Land Story arc in the next chapter. So stay tuned for the updated version of Kazami Yuuka!

"And that, as they say, is that..."

Afterword ends here.