9. Gensokyo's Bastion of Humanity

I jerked awake.

"That was one twisted-as-fuck dream…" I mumbled as I crawled out of the sleeping bag. Quietly rolling up the mat, I glanced around and discovered I was alone in the shrine.

"Er, Hello? Reimu?" I got to my feet. My head began to throb from the sudden movement, and I sat back down to wait for the pain to subside. Nobody answered me. I eventually noticed a note taped to the wall next to the entrance. I got back up, taking care to do so carefully, and walked over to the note.

Sorry, Luke, but Marisa woke up and went berserk back at the Scarlet Devil Mansion. It's up to Sanae and me to calm her down, so we can't take you to the clinic.

Don't worry, though. I made a call, and Yukari's shikigami has made some time to escort you to the human village. Good luck dealing with Eirin.

-R

Wow, Reimu has surprisingly good English handwriting. So… Ran's guiding me, eh? Doesn't sound too bad. She's a fairly level-headed youkai, if a bit doting on Chen.

A knock at the door interrupted my thinking. "That must be her now." I stepped over and slid open the door…

…Damn, her tails are a LOT less poofy than I thought they would be. They didn't flare out and overshadow her figure, instead being arranged in a linear fashion and hanging low to the ground.

"Are you Ran Yakumo?" I asked. Of course, I knew who she was, but it couldn't hurt to be polite.

"Yes…" She answered in a quiet voice. "And you must be Luke. A pleasure to meet you."

"Same here. So, you're the one bringing me to the Human Village?" Ran nodded silently. "Okay. Let us be off, then."

"Very well." The two of us walked out onto the plaza in front of the Hakurei Shrine. Abruptly, the kitsune turned and held out a hand. As I got a closer look at Ran, I noticed she was a few inches shorter than me. "Try to stay close. This might be a bumpy trip."

I hesitantly raised my own hand. "I'm not a 2-year old, you know. I'm perfectly fine with walking by myself."

"Who said we were walking?"

Before I knew what was going on, Ran's outstretched hand jerked out and gripped my forearm, drawing me close. Her other hand wrapped itself under my arms and tightened, pinning me to her chest. My stomach plummeted as Ran leaped off the ground and took flight, carrying me in her arms.

"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING!?" I screamed above the wind blasting in my face. Everything around me became a blur as Ran accelerated.

"What does it look like?" Ran glanced down at me. "Flying's the fastest way to reach the village. You can't fly, so I decided to carry you with me."

"Well, why couldn't you just carry me on your back?"

"And let you cop a feel of my breasts? No thanks," Ran chuckled. "Now, calm down. I won't let you fall, I promise."

I had more complaints, but decided that voicing my discomfort would be counterproductive… besides, she might drop me anyway if I make any sort of remark about how her boobs were pressing into my back uncomfortably, what with how tightly she was holding me.

Still, Ran had made a point. It only took us about three minutes of flying to reach the border of the Human Village. We came to a stop in the air before she gently lowered me to the ground.

"See? That wasn't so bad, now was it?" Ran asked as she released me.

I gave a defeated sigh, shaking my head. "I guess not. Doesn't mean I like it though."

"It's only natural. Perhaps you'll get used to it eventually if you ever learn to fly yourself." Ran stepped around me, her tails brushing lightly against my left arm. "Now, Keine Kamishirasawa will be coming shortly to ask what I'm doing, flying so close to the village. Do your best to get on her good side—she can prove herself a newcomer's closest ally in the long run."

Not five seconds after Ran finished that sentence did a young woman approach us. She was instantly recognizable by her bento-hat and blue-streaked silver hair.

"Yakumo." Keine addressed Ran with an indifferent glare. "What's your business at the village? At the very least, could you have just walked here? The villagers nearly panicked when they say a tailed beast flying towards them." She glanced at me. "And this must be the man of the hour himself. Do you know how much trouble Yukari put me through because of you?"

"I plead self-defense. Yukari was invading my home, so I was protecting my family; in response, she gapped me." Ran looked to me with an apologetic glance. "Please, don't look down on me. You can save your sympathy for another time."

"Mm." Keine folded her arms. "In any case, I missed one of my classes because I stayed up all night cleaning up Yukari's mess. It's not easy to force a transformation, you know."

"You can do that? Wait, no, nevermind. Miss Keine, I've come to the Village to request medical help at the clinic." I tapped the side of my head. "Head trauma."

Keine nodded. "I see. Well, it's a good thing I'm not angry enough to headbutt you." She spared a side glance at Ran. "Now, Miss Ran, if you would be so kind as to distance yourself from the village, lest you attract some… less than civil youkai." With a short bow, Ran wordlessly turned and walked away as Keine turned back to me. "If you follow me, I will take you the rest of the way."

…

I had to say, for a community practically trapped at a pre-Industrial technological tier, the humans in Gensokyo had it pretty good. Men and women alike strolled through the streets, going about their everyday business. Street-side vendors, open-door stores and nightclubs (at least, whatever passed for them in Gensokyo, I think) stood as testament to the village's stable economy. The buildings that composed the bulk of the village were rather odd in appearance, looking a blend of typical Feudal Japanese huts and modern-day architecture. Keine pointed out her school as we passed it, explaining that if I ever needed her help, that should be the first place I should look.

"In addition…" Keine pointed out another, rather run-down building down the road. "That building there is Suzunaan. It's the closest thing the human village has to a bookstore, and also runs a limited printing business (overshadowed by the Tengu's, of course); it's where the scholar Heida no Akyuu prints her Gensokyo Chronicle. If you ever need help with any sort of scripture and I'm not available, the human that lives there has the ability to decipher any text she lays her hands on. In that case, ask for Kosuzu Motoori. Got it?"

I nodded. "Got it."

"Good." After a few more minutes of navigating through the streets, Keine came to a stop. "We're here."

I looked up. Rather bizarrely, a sign of a bunny with a carrot charm (obviously Tewi) hung right above our heads. I wouldn't exactly consider it effective marketing to make a poster girl out of one of the biggest trolls in all of Gensokyo (bar Yukari), but as they say, "you can't be held back by common sense in Gensokyo." Besides, this makes it easier for gappies to locate the clinic.

"I'm not sure how long you're going to be in there for treatment, so I'll just be on my way," Keine remarked. "Remember, if you need me, check the school."

I gave her a wave as she walked away. Now alone, I quietly walked through the curtain that served as the little clinic's door…

…And emerged in a far larger, modern-styled waiting room. Motherfucker, I think I just walked into a Dyson Bubble. "A bit of warning would have been appreciated, God damn it…" I cursed Keine under my breath.

I looked up and noticed a girl behind a counter at the far side of the room. Her long, pink-purple hair hung down her back and over the shoulders of a worn business suit. Her face was partly obscured by a pair of large, droopy rabbit ears.

"First time at the clinic?" She asked, looking at me. Her eyes seemed rather unfocused, as if she was bored. I figured I might as well liven up her day.

"Yes, my name is Luke Thesda, and I'm here to see Eirin."

"You're… Oh!" Reisen Undongein Inaba's ears perked up instantly. "I didn't know there was another outsider in Gensokyo! How long have you been here?"

"Only about a day or two." I walked up to the counter. As I got closer, I noticed that her eyes were a sharp silver. "What's up with your eyes? Aren't they supposed to be red?"

Reisen brought a hand to her face. "What, these? Contact lens. Master made them just for me. Now, people won't go insane when they look me in the eyes. So, you want to see her?"

"Er, yea. I had some major head trauma yesterday. Yukari fixed it, but I suffered a borderline seizure a few hours ago, so I'm not sure it healed properly."

"Hmm. Shouldn't be too hard; we get people with head injuries all the time. Now…" Reisen's eyes shifted, looking past me towards the door. "If you don't mind stepping out of the way for the next customer while waiting for Master, I'd appreciate it."

I glanced back to see who was behind me. Strangely, there was nobody there. I had a feeling I was about to be pranked. I turned back around…

Yep, it's as I thought—Reisen had been replaced with an entirely different woman. She was fairly tall, over six feet, making her several inches taller than me, and braided silver hair that hung down at least ¾ of that length. That wasn't the only thing about her that was big, though—large, shapely breasts and a curvaceous frame, just barely concealed by that blue-red gown of hers, made her a hell of a sight. Damn… if I were a girl, I'd be acting like Parsee around this woman.

"You know that swapping disguises behind a person's back stopped being funny years ago, right?" I asked the not-stranger flatly. "Damn nice disguise, though, I have to admit."

"Thanks. Trust me, when you live the sort of life I have to, you learn to take your humor where you can find it," the woman replied in kind. She held out a hand. "Eirin Yagokoro. A pleasure."

I tentatively shook it. "Luke Thesda, displaced everyman." I glanced around once more. "This is certainly a feat of engineering, this place."

"Oh, you mean the whole 'bigger on the inside' thing?" Eirin waved her hand. "Child's play for a Lunarian scientist."

"Scientist? I thought you were a doctor—"

"I am," Eirin said rather loudly, cutting me off. "Now, if you'll follow me I'll take you to the examination room." She rounded the counter and walked to a door off to the side, gesturing for me to follow. I stepped through the door behind her, emerging into a medical examination room that, for all intents and purposes, looked completely normal.

"If you would, please down to your undergarments. Running preliminary physicals on newcomers is a routine of mine."

"Are you sure? That may be a lot of stuff about my body that may put you off, the least of which is body odor. The closest thing I've had to a bath in the past two days was when Yukari dumped a bucket of ice water on my head."

"I didn't become a successful practitioner of medicine by shooing away the ugly one. Besides, odor shouldn't be a problem: you went through a decontamination field as you walked through the doorway. It's how I keep all but the most elaborate equipment sterile, with minimum effort on my part." She broke into a wicked grin. "I make my subordinate do the rest."

"Jesus… Well, I'm sure that's tame in comparison to your history of running experiments on her. I mean, how can you do that to a girl who would answer your every beck and call!?"

"What?" Eirin was confused. "You must be mistaken. I don't actually run the tests on Reisen herself. I just use samples of her body tissue."

"Oh." I blinked. "I guess that makes sense. Figures that fanon would blow things out of proportion."

"Yes, they would," Eirin agreed. "Now, off with the clothes, and lie down on the berth."

I did as she was told, and she began the physical. Strangely enough, it went pretty much just like a normal physical from back home, aside from my doctor being a moon-woman. As she checked my body, she asked me about my medical history, which I answered to the best of my memory.

Eventually she got the information she wanted, and instructed me to get dressed again as she went over it. A few seconds later, she looked up at me, a blank expression on her face.

"What?" I asked. "What's wrong?"

"Well… to put it bluntly… You're fucked." I was somewhat surprised when she said that last part in flat English. Wow. She kinda sounds like Kasumi Goto when she speaks English…

I mentally slapped myself. Pay attention! What she says could mean the difference between life and a gruesome death! With that, I returned to focus. "Fucked how? Also, if you could speak English this entire time, why didn't you?"

"I know all the world's major languages. My choice to stick to Japanese is simply a matter both of preference and of convenience. It would be fairly hard to run a business in Gensokyo if you spoke German, wouldn't you agree?" I shrugged. "Thought so. Now, getting to the point, you're fucked in just about every way short of literally. Allergies to avian and feline species, low heat tolerance, low metabolism, asthmatic, poor fitness, a high-functioning Autistic (I swear, I never would have thought you'd have an Autism disorder if you hadn't told me)… any one of those individually can screw you over in Gensokyo, and you've got them all. Long story short, you'd have to be treated for a lot more than just a severe concussion in order to survive here. Luckily for you, I can fix all that."

I shook my head. "Well, I don't want to be fixed.'

"Come again?"

"As it is, Yukari's isolating me from most of Gensokyo, only letting me travel with the shrine maidens or her shikigami, and as long as I keep out of trouble she'll take me back home in a month. The way I see it, offering to cure all my ills is a waste of resources for you."

"Are you sure? I could improve your quality of life drastically, and at no personal cost to you! Who wouldn't agree to that?"

"Look, I respect your goodwill, miss Yagokoro, but what I do with my body is nobody else's business, and now just isn't a good time for me to be shooting myself up with all sorts of inexplicable drugs. If I ever have a change of heart, I'll come back to you—until then, I just want your word that you won't betray the trust I'm putting in you."

Eirin looked disappointed, but nodded. "If you insist. Come with me and we'll do some MRI scans. If the problem zone is closer to the surface, it'll be easier to identify and repair." She got up and walked out. I followed her to a chamber with a large machine, where I was instructed to lay down on the mat below the machine.

"Your head is going to be bombarded with radiation, so to protect you from a potential episode, I'll be putting you to sleep. Just long enough for a thorough scan to identify the problem, of course. A few minutes at most, I assure you."

"Alright, if you say so." Eirin handed me a pill, which I took. I was out like a lamp almost as soon as my head hit the mat.

XXXXX

Eirin watched the boy drift off into unconsciousness. She had to say, this boy had guts. Nobody had ever questioned her treatment of her subordinate in quite that way before, even if she treated Reisen well in real life.

She'd been lying to him, of course.

With a snap of Eirin's fingers, the chamber transformed around her—or rather, the illusion was dispelled. What once looked like an MRI chamber was now revealed to be a surgical ward. She moved quickly, strapping the boy into leather restraints and administering an IV drip.

Fanon always claimed that she tortured her underlings, which was also a lie. Of course she didn't run tests on Reisen; her pet moon rabbit was too valuable to compromise with brutal experiments for the sake of Science.

No, she ran her tests on Yukari's little playthings instead. Why? Why not? They were plentiful, varied, and (usually) willing to undergo her experiments for an edge against the wild beasts of Gensokyo. Sure, if it turned out badly Yukari would go off on her, but she'd live; she was immortal, after all. Eirin slapped the boy's cheek a couple of times to make sure he was asleep. Satisfied, she pulled out a syringe filled with a fluid the same color as her hair.

She had synthesized this serum from her own DNA in a fit of curiosity. If her calculations were correct, it would alter the boy's body down to the genetic level, replacing his defective alleles with her own, perfect alleles. When he woke up, he would be stronger, disease-free, and mentally sound—it should even extend his lifespan by another 50-60 years—she'd have a successful experimental cure-all, and an outsider who would owe his life to her.

If it failed, and worse came to worst… well, she'd get to that when the time came.

She'd just have to wait and see. For Science.