Somewhere above Gensokyo

"Marisa, aren't you supposed to stay behind and help me watch the shrine?"

Reimu exasperated when she notices Marisa flying alongside her, also following the trail of magic energy. Marisa has left Matenshi behind at the Hakurei Shrine under Ruukoto and Genji's care.

"Don'tcha have Green Hair and Old Turtle already?" Marisa responds, talking about Ruukoto and Genji.

Reimu sighs. "One's not meant for combat, the other's past his prime already." She explains to the witch. "Does Mima even know you're following me?" The shrine maiden trainee adds.

"Maybe." Marisa gives a straight answer.

Reimu sighs again. "Then does your father knows about this?"

"Nope~" Marisa gives another straight answer.

Reimu cocked her eyebrows. "You're hopeless, Marisa..."

Marisa looked like she was about to answer in a proud manner, but stopped upon noticing the trail of magic energy suddenly heading down towards the ground.

Reimu noticed the change in travel direction of the magic energy trail too. "Do you think we're getting close...?"

Marisa snaps her finger. "Let's find out." The witch then shoots off toward where the magic energy is heading. "I'll race ya there!" She said.

"Again?!" Reimu remarked before going in pursuit of Marisa.

...

Outside Fairy Forest

As the two girls reached the ground, they find the magic energy seeping into a small crack on the ground.

Reimu scanned the surrounding, and notes that its the Fairy Forest. "Here...again?" She wondered.

Marisa is more interested in the small crack that seems to be sucking in the magic energy. "Oh? What do we have 'ere?" She poked the small crack with the tip of her broomstick.

"Marisa, be careful..." Reimu warned.

The witch doesn't seem to heed the warning. "Who ya think I am? I handle magic stuff all the time!" She proudly says, as she reaches inside her hat and pulls out a flask. "I'm gonna get some of these! For research!"

"I wouldn't touch any of that if I were you." Says a voice from elsewhere.

Stopping their observation on the small crack, Reimu and Marisa looked around for the source of the voice.

The girls found that the voice belonged to a girl standing on top of a boulder. This girl has red eyes, long red hair tied with a white bow, and wears a yellow cap. Her outfit is a green blouse with yellow puffy short sleeves, and yellow shorts. She also appears to be carrying a baton.

"Humans shouldn't be touching anything magical without safety precautions." The girl added.

Reimu eyed the girl with suspicion. She looks indistinguishable from a human, yet something about her tells the shrine maiden trainee that she isn't one. "Who are you?" Reimu asks, trying to hide her suspicion with a normal speech tone.

"Oops, pardon me~" The girl reacted awkwardly, much to Reimu and Marisa's surprise. Then she jumps off the boulder with a somersault, landing in front of the two girls.

Youkai With Attitude

Orange

"My name's Orange. I just happened upon you two." She introduces herself.

"Just happened?" Marisa also became a bit suspicious, but unlike Reimu, the witch isn't hiding her suspicion. "I dunno what'cha thinking, but this definitely ain't a coincidence."

"Marisa is right." Reimu joins in, getting her gohei ready. "There is no way this is just a coincidence."

Orange took a step back. "Wh-wh-what? I really just..."

"I can tell that you are not human either." Reimu adds. "Then you must be a Youkai."

Orange took another step back. "H-hey! Listen..."

Reimu and Marisa didn't even wait for Orange to begin explaining as they both start firing danmaku at her. "Begone, Youkai!" Both girls said in unison.

With no time to think, Orange raised her baton in front of her, and spun it...

...Which deflected all the danmaku fired at her.

"Now I wasn't expectin' that..." Marisa reacts with surprise.

"Me too." Reimu agrees.

Orange then quickly makes her getaway by taking to the air.

"Hey! Come back here!" Reimu shouts at Orange before taking off to pursue her.

"Hey, Reimu! Wait for me!" Marisa quickly hops on her broomstick and follows the shrine maiden trainee.

...

Above Fairy Forest

Without thinking any further, Orange flew westwards in an attempt to get away from Reimu and Marisa.

However, the Youkai didn't get very far before the shrine maiden trainee and the witch caught up with her.

Orange fires several danmaku as warning shots at Reimu and Marisa, who dodged them before returning fire.

Realizing she has no chance of outrunning the duo, Orange decided to stop where she is, turns around, and then deflects the danmaku by spinning her baton.

Marisa stopped in mid air. "Oh, I'm gonna she's gettin' serious now..." She says.

Reimu also stopped. "Then we should get serious too." She says.

"Please listen to me!" Orange tries to tell Reimu and Marisa. "There is a misundersta-"

"Check this out!" Marisa interrupted before throwing a flask filled with some kind of potion at Orange.

Orange expected the flask to be a thrown weapon, so she braced herself, spinning her baton to attempt to deflect it...

...And finds that she doesn't have to, since the flask falls short of reaching her, and plunges toward the ground.

Marisa stared awkwardly at where the flask went to. "Okay, I need to work on my throw..."

Reimu steps in. "Leave this to me, Marisa." She tells the witch.

With that said, the shrine maiden trainee then throws several Ofuda at Orange.

Orange panicked when she saw the Ofuda. Instead of spinning her baton to shield herself, she opted to dodge them before shooting back at Reimu and Marisa.

Reimu and Marisa split up, each going the opposite direction, as they both start putting effort into fighting the Youkai.

"We're in this together, Reimu!" Marisa says.

"I know!" Reimu answers.

Reimu and Marisa starts shooting at Orange from opposite directions with a large barrage of danmaku, , hoping that will eventually overwhelm her danmaku-deflecting baton-spin.

It seems to be working. Orange is struggling to keep up with deflecting the danmaku from opposite directions, and is kept busy by them so that she is unable to shoot back at Reimu and Marisa.

"SLICE!" Marisa decides to surprise Orange by casting a spell which, as it cannot be deflected, cuts her baton in half, robbing the Youkai of her sole defense.

While Orange stares with disbelief at her cut baton, Reimu moved in, gohei at hand, as she prepares to take down the Youkai.

By the time Orange notices the shrine maiden trainee approaching her, the gohei is just a split second away from making contact with her head.

...

Fairy Forest

"Hey, wake up, little girl..."

Orange is jolted awake when cold water is poured over her face.

Or rather, Marisa cast a spell to conjure cold water directly above Orange, which is then poured over her.

Reimu then steps in front of Orange, gohei in hand, looking all tense. "Now tell me, Orange. Did you really just happened to stumble upon Marisa and I back there?"

Despite still being wet from being poured with cold water just now, Orange sweated nervously.

"Just answer her, will ya?" Marisa tells the Youkai.

Orange swallowed hard before answering, "Y-yes! That's what really happened! I-I swear!"

The next few seconds was tense, as Reimu looked like she is about to do something to Orange...

...Which, as it turns out, is just stepping back, relaxing herself in the progress. "Then I'm sorry for me and Marisa beating you up just now..."

Orange became confused with the shrine maiden trainee's response. "Huh? Didn't you..."

"It just hit us right after we knocked ya out." Marisa explains. "If ya really are goin' to attack us, then why'd ya run away when we attacked first?"

"Marisa just said it..." Reimu says.

Hearing that, Orange relaxed. "I thought I was about to get exorcised..."

Reimu took a step forward. "By the way, there is something I'm going to ask you about..."

Orange perked up when she hears that. "If you mean the mansion with a field of sunflowers growing around it..." The youkai points behind her. "It's this way."

Reimu and Marisa both looks at where Orange is pointing.

"The magic seems to be much stronger over there..." Reimu comments.

Without saying another word, Reimu takes off into the air, and heads for the direction Orange pointed at.

"Hey, Reimu, don'tcha leave me behind!" Marisa yelled out before hopping onto her broomstick. "Oh, and thanks for the direction. I was just lookin' for it~" The witch says to Orange with a wink before going after Reimu.

Now, except for a tiny fairy that just happened to pass by and decided to look at her, Orange is left all by herself in the Fairy Forest.

The Youkai slumped down on the leaf-covered ground of the forest. Noticing the fairy, she said, "她们俩简直就是垃圾。" [The two of them are garbage, (you know that?)] Of course, she isn't expecting the fairy to understand what she is saying.


And there goes Orange.

Yes, I know its an underwhelming fight. But the actual fight against her in LLS is also pretty underwhelming, considering that you can defeat her before you even notice she has gone ex-mode.

And also, Orange is Taiwanese in my headcanon. Most people thought of her to be Chinese due to her resemblance to Meiling. But for me, she's Taiwanese (then again, Taiwanese is also Chinese), just because. Hence the very last thing she said in Mandarin (which for the record, is different in Taiwan than in China like how English is different between the UK and US).

When I said in the previous chapter that Reimu and Marisa will meet a Youkai with attitude, the aforementioned insult-in-Mandarin-behind-their-back is what I meant by it, in case you're wondering: "where's the attitude in Orange?"

Next up: The Fairy Forest's residents want revenge against Reimu for what happened in the HRtP arc. And Marisa gets bitten by a vampire, but thankfully won't turn into one herself.

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

Afterword ends here.