8. Facing the Truth

I took a deep breath and faced Reimu. "I think this is about as good as I'm gonna get—it's not easy to keep thinking straight with all the shit happening to me recently. Alright, shoot."

"Very well." Reimu looked me up and down, sizing me up. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but most outsiders with a rudimentary knowledge of Gensokyo is aware of the concept of a Gappy Stu. Is that right?"

"Yeah. They're the boring heroes who gain all sorts of unbalanced powers, never lose in a fight, and always get the girl… shame that they're the only characters who ever really get a happy ending."

"Well, just a reminder for you: this isn't just a game. Don't just think you can do whatever you like without suffering for it."

I slammed my fist into the table. "You think I don't know that?" I hissed. "I nearly got killed by that sadist bitch of a flower youkai a few hours ago. Do you know why? I made the stupid decision of toying with power beyond my understanding and blasted myself into her territory, dragging Yukari with me." I jerked a thumb at myself. "I know full well that my actions have consequences. I don't need you reminding me of that fact."

Reimu blinked. "…I can tell I've hit a raw nerve. I'm sorry if I made you upset."

The anger dissipated as quickly as it appeared. I shook my head in frustration. "No, it's not your fault. It's mine. I understand that you're only trying to keep me alive."

"I see."

"I'm sure I'm not the first person you've tried to scare out of attempting to be a hero."

Reimu hung her head solemnly. "Of course not. They all come here acting high and mighty… and then I tell them of the last outsider who met a horrible death for trying to bend our world to their whims. Naturally, they respond by saying they'll be different from the last one, but actions speak louder than words. You're the first person to respond… like that. You actually seem like you'd be different from all the rest."

"I don't care about being different; I care about going home," I countered. "It's not like I even wanted to come here. Yukari invaded my family's home, snuck up on me when I was alone. I simply attacked in self-defense, like any sane person would. I had a life, and Yukari took it all away from me simply for trying to protect it."

"My lord, you're such a pessimist."

"No, I'm a realist with a guilt complex. There's a big difference. What about my family? My friends? It wouldn't take long for them to realize I'm gone."

"You're a rather special case, Luke." Reimu looked at me, head tilted. "She may be insane by human standards, but Yukari has a pattern to her methods—she only ever targets people around the 18-25 year range, people who have broken ties with their families and live on their own, and even then they have to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis to figure out if their disappearance would make any big impact on their immediate environment. You… your being missing will doubtless raise questions all over the board. I'm betting that Yukari contracted the were-hakutaku to hide the history of your life as soon as she dumped you off on Sanae."

"I'm 19," I said simply. "Those loners actually make up only a small percentage of all adolescents."

"So they do."

We sat in silence for the next few minutes, sipping from our drinks. Finally, I remembered something that I'd been meaning to ask somebody about. "Hey, I've got a question. When Yukari, Sanae and I were trying to get into the Scarlet Devil Mansion, Yukari mentioned something about the ice fairy freezing herself. What's that all about?"

Reimu smirked. "Ah, yes. One of Marisa's crueler pranks, if I say so myself. Cirno had been annoying her incessantly for about two weeks, and one day she simply got fed up with the fairy. So, she made up some crazy scheme involving a tobacco pipe, Suika's gourd, a .22 repeater loaded with rubber bullets, the nuclear hell raven… and a copy of Playboy Magazine Issue #100."

I twitched. "Sounds kinky."

"You have no idea. Anyway, she—"

A knock at the front door interrupted Reimu's storytelling. "Come in," she called out. Damn it, just as it was getting to the good part… I silently complained.

"Oh, Reimu! Good, you're home." Sanae stumbled into the shrine. She had a bag of ice held to her forehead, and some brownish streaks could be seen running down her face from where the blood had dried.

"Oh, damn," I muttered. "Are you sure you should be running around with that concussion? It looks pretty serious."

Sanae dismissed my concern with a wave of her hand. "We mikos recover from injuries faster than other people. I'll be fine in a few hours with some rest." Sanae tried to take a seat. She wobbled viciously as she bent over to sit down, and the jerking motions made her clutch her throbbing skull.

Naturally, I didn't buy it. "Show me a time-lapse of that happening, and I'll believe y- EEUAAGH!" Suddenly my head exploded in pain. The world around me faded away as lightning surged through my body.

After what felt like an eternity, the pain subsided and my senses began to work again. "…happened to him?" Sanae was saying. Both girls were kneeling over me, looking concerned. "That was practically a seizure."

Reimu snatched the ice bag from Sanae and set it on my head… for all the good it did me. The cold simply served to sting my skin. "He was attacked by Yuuka. She blew him into a wall, came dangerously close to killing him. Actually caved in part of his skull, but Yukari supposedly fixed it. Are you okay?"

I realized that her last statement was directed at me. I simply groaned in response.

"Wait a minute. Yuuka did this?" Sanae looked down at me. Oh, crap, why did you open your mouth, Reimu? "Didn't you say she let you off easy when you fell into her garden?"

"You know how unpredictable she is. She probably chased him down after deciding she was bored. Plus, he did end up attracting Yukari to her home; Yuka just plain despises her for how she messes around so much with her power." Damn, that was fast. Reimu was quick to throw out a believable lie.

Sanae frowned for a moment, but she eventually shrugged. "I suppose you've got a point." Phew. Crisis averted, for the time being. The girls grabbed an arm each and pulled me into a sitting position. Sanae picked up the ice bag as it fell and returned it to her own skull. "But Luke, that pain can't be a good sign. You need to see a doctor."

I coughed, trying to find my voice. "Yukari said it would be a bad sign if I didn't feel anything; something about nerves or some shit. Still, I'm pretty damn sure the pain shouldn't be this bad… you're right, a doctor would be a good idea."

"There's a pharmacy back in the village," Sanae remarked, "Run by the folks from Eientei. They should have something that can help you. They're also open 24 hours a day."

"But… that Lunarian, Eirin Yako-something, is a mad scientist, isn't she?" I asked, thinking back to my opinion of the doctor when I got gapped.

"Can you think of somebody in Gensokyo other than Eirin who could fix complicated injuries?" I said nothing as Reimu glared at me. "Exactly. There's no such thing as a perfect solution to a problem, so the Lunarian's the best you've got. Besides, I'm sure that she'll keep you away from her insane experiments; given her professional attitude, she's bound to respect the (admittedly pointless otherwise) diplomatic immunity that comes with being Yukari's special guest."

I had no reasonable counter. Finally, I groaned and nodded. "So be it. But I'm warning you. If this backfires on me in any way, I'm coming back and kicking your ass!"

"Such a short temper..."

"Only on things I disagree with."

Reimu stood up and gripped the sides of the kotatsu, pulling it aside to reveal a hole in the floorboards. She reached down and pulled out a simple wooden box. "At Yukari's request, I keep a stockpile of cellphones to hand out to VIP's whenever they make themselves known after an incident. Given your somewhat unique circumstances, I don't think she will mind if I let you have one."

"A phone? Well, I have my own…" I checked my pockets and produced my cell… which was cleanly snapped in two. "Fuck. Alright, what's my selection?"

Reimu opened the box and passed it over to me. I undid the cloth wrapping at the bottom of the box to expose a collection of iPhones. I briefly pondered just where Yukari got the… oh wait, she's Yukari. Ask a stupid question…

"Each phone is programmed with a list of contacts for every other phone-user in Gensokyo," Reimu explained. "They run on magic cells—a bit like solar panels—so they never have to be recharged, but that makes them useless in the outside world. You're on your own in regards to that broken phone of yours."

I picked up one of the Apple devices and examined it. "I'm not even going to bother asking how any of this works…" I yawned. "Christ, I'm sleepy."

"Of course you are," Sanae noted. "It's past midnight." I glanced outside and, sure enough, it was pitch-black. Just how long had I been up?

I took a minute to crunch the numbers; okay, I got gapped sometime around 10 in the morning… spent a few hours at Sanae's place before Marisa showed up, close to 2 PM telling from my Xbox 360's internal clock. Then I got blown into the Garden of the Sun, where I suppose I was out for three or four hours… spent close to five hours total at the SDM before finally making my way here, and from there I lost track of time. I powered on the iPhone in my hand. It took a few seconds to load before displaying what I assumed was the Gensokyan standard time of 1:37 AM. Factoring in time zones… well, fuck. I've been up for around 21 hours straight.

"I suppose I could wait for ten hours to get fixed… no, not like that," I countered the funny look Sanae was giving me. "I'm sorry for imposing on you, Miss Hakurei, but could I stay here and rest until daybreak?"

Reimu shrugged. "I don't see why not, if it's just for the night. You did help me clean up the shrine, after all. Just let me go get the guest mat." Reimu wandered off into the back room.

"I guess… *yawn* that's that." I looked over to Sanae, whose ice bag had completely melted. "Can you keep an eye on my stuff, since it's still at your shrine?"

The green-haired girl blinked. "I'll try, but I'm probably coming to the clinic with you. My head is starting to feel fuzzy." She lazily wiped some of the condensation off the bag and used it to clean the dried blood on her face.

Reimu returned to the room with a sleeping bag, rolling it out on the floor. I muttered my thanks and crawled into the bag, making myself comfortable. The world faded away as sleep claimed me shortly afterward.

XXXXX

The realm stretched before me looked like it had come from an early 20th century cinema. Making a slow turn on my heels, I took in my surroundings; there was nothing but dead trees and fauna as far as the eye could see. Even the air itself seemed stale and grainy.

And then I noticed the drifting wisps of black smoke. Great, I'm in a Mass Effect 3 dream sequence, I realized.

I glanced off to the side and noticed something that hadn't been there before: an extremely old-looking park bench. Seeing nothing else of particular note in my environment, I decided to walk over to the bench and examined it. There were remnants of a layer of paint that had all but completely flaked away, exposing the metal frame to the elements. The seat was made of wood, and although it looked rotted and unstable, a few test presses proved otherwise. Satisfied that it was safe, I sat down on the bench. It creaked under my weight, but held.

It all seemed so real, yet I knew it was a dream. "Damn… I've never experienced a lucid dream before." I thought for a minute as I examined the dream world more closely. Not unexpectedly, Inception came to mind as I thought. I remembered how all the people in the dreams had some sort of trinket or another to remind themselves they were dreaming. If dreams emulated life, you'd never know otherwise that everything around you was real…

"I should make one of those," I decided. Although there was no surface to rebound the sound waves, I heard an echo. Stranger still, the echo didn't actually sound like me, but more feminine and in a stronger tone. I glanced around once more, searching for the source of the echo, but there was nothing to be seen.

Keeping my guard up, I patiently searched the forest ground for a piece of lumber, to carve into a totem. I was successful in my endeavor, scrounging up a chunk of fair-quality wood the length of my forearm. I got all the way back to the bench before realizing I needed something to actually shape the wood. "Great, where am I going to find a carving tool in this hell-hole?" I asked myself.

There was a slight pop of air next to me. I glanced down and noticed a knife stabbed into the wood of the bench seat… Well, I'm thankful, but if there's anything about dreams that really, really pisses me off, it's how they can be so random at ti—

The sound of crunching leaves. A girlish giggle. Scraping bark. Now I knew I wasn't alone. I yanked the knife out of the wood and pushed myself up into a defensive stance. Glancing around, I spotted one of the black shadows moving faster than the others. The shadow broke into a dead run as I moved towards it.

The figure moved fast, I'd give it that. But I was faster. It only took a few seconds for me to close the distance and tackle the figure to the ground. The cry of shock it emitted identified it as a girl; my first suspicion was Yukari, come to troll me in my sleep, but I couldn't know for sure until I saw her face.

She twisted around and tried to claw at me with her nails. I ducked under her swing and smashed my fist into her gut as hard as possible. The girl gasped as the air was forced out of her lungs. I gave her no quarter, jabbing her below her ribcage to prevent her from catching her breath. As she began to cough and choke, I rolled her onto her back and properly pinned her to the ground.

Finally, I had a chance to look at the girl. The darkness of the dream realm obscured most of her features, but one thing was for sure: it wasn't Yukari. I could tell that much from her eyes. But... there was something about her eyes that seemed so familiar...

As if they were my eyes.

I chose that particular moment to blink. In that briefest moment my eyes were closed, the girl underneath me vanished, replaced by a vaguely human-shaped log. I didn't even have a chance to be confused at the near-instantaneous switch before I felt the cold steel of what could only be a gun barrel pressed against the back of my head.

"It's time to wake up." The girl whispered bitterly in my ear, and pulled the trigger.

A loud bang, then silence.

(My AN: It's already revealed that Luke is from US. Can anyone guess which state he came from? You can do the math yourself. This will be important later on.)