10. Conflict of the Mind

(Savato93's AN: Sorry about the delay. This chapter has been done for a couple of days, but I got preoccupied with Dead Space 3. You know how players are supposed to worry about a finite ammo supply? Yeah, I've had that problem exactly once, and I made up for it with a combination of stasis spamming and curb-stomping. In fact, I actually have to worry about the fact that ammo constantly takes up half my inventory. Anyway… Disclaimer: Touhou belongs to Team Shanghai Alice/ZUN.)

(My AN: You know what I think about the last chapter? Eirin is... How do I put this... She still has shades of what most of us would call 'Arrogant Purists'. Makes sense, since she actually is a Lunarian before Kaguya's banishment and her later 'betrayal' by killing the Moon emissaries. Still... conducting human experiments and got away with no consequences... Well, let's just say this will come to bite her in the future. Especially after I decided to pick off where Savato93 left behind. You can already see the hint of what I mean right on this chapter. Also, can anyone guess which state in the US our MC here came from? Like I said in Chapter 8, this will be important later on.)

XXXXX

I found myself once more in the dead forest that represented my dream-scape. This time, however, I was not alone. Sitting on the park bench in front of me, parasol in hand, was Yukari Yakumo. "Wow, your mind is a hellhole," She remarked sarcastically.

"Well, at least I bet it's a fucking paradise in comparison to yours," I replied in kind.

"No argument there." Yukari shrugged, a smirk on her face.

"Alright, since you're here, I'd like to ask a question," I asked. Yukari nodded for me to continue. "Is this how all humans dream in Gensokyo?"

Yukari thought for a moment. "A fair question. The answer is, yes and no. Gensokyo's ambient magic induces intense lucid dreaming after exposure, but the effect lessens as people build a resistance to the magic. People born in Gensokyo leave their lucid phase within a few months of their birth—during the period when the brain hasn't yet developed enough to create memories. Outsiders, on the other hand, can retain memories of those dreams, and it's typically highly disorienting… which I'm sure you can attest to." The youkai glanced around as she said those last few words.

"So, it's a kind of transition sickness? I'm not sure whether to be relieved that this is normal, or pissed at you for not warning me in the first place." I shook my head. "What are you doing here anyway?"

"Why I'm here… well, I sorta do this with all the outsiders I gap in. It's interesting to see what form their consciousness takes for these lucid dreams."

I shook my head again in disbelief. "Why would you even bother? I'm only going to be out for a few minutes, ten at the most."

"What are you talking about? You've been asleep for two days now…"

A loud snap echoed through the dream-scape.

"…Oops. Probably should have mentioned that earlier."

The transition from quiet indifference to unbridled rage was instantaneous. "Gee, YA THINK!?" I screamed. "The fucking moon-bitch is doing God knows what to my body, and you're just sitting back and LETTING her do it! I knew you were fucked in the head, but this just goes beyond that; you are a fucking mindless bitch!"

"What did you just call me?" Yukari twitched.

I threw my hands up in the air. "Oh, I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings," I continued, sarcasm dripping from my voice, "I figured you'd be used to people calling you a bitch in front of your face. I mean, do you let this happen to every outsider who makes life complicated for you? Trying to teach us a lesson about humility? Well, how about you just stop bringing them here in the first place!? Talk about self-destructive tendencies!"

"Watch your lip, kid…" Yukari began to growl. Her grip on her parasol tightened.

"And on top of it all, you come here! I thought that I could escape all this crazy magic bullshit with my dreams, but do you know what I got for it? 'Hi, there! Sorry for the inconvenience, but Gensokyo makes you have lucid dreams, and it turns out there's a psychotic omnipotent bitch in your head!' Well, I've had enough!"

At my mental command, a double-barrel shotgun materialized in my hands. "This is MY dream, MY reality. And I will NOT tolerate your presence here any longer." I took aim at Yukari. "You have three seconds to get the fuck out of my head before I splatter your brains all over this forest floor. And when I wake up, I'm gonna kill that lying bitch Eirin, too! She'll probably resurrect right away, but that just means I get to kill her a second ti—"

In one instant, Yukari stood a ways away from me, my shotgun pointed at her—in the next, she was mere inches from my face. On reflex, I pulled the trigger, but Yukari had already slapped the barrel of the shotgun away with a single hand, resulting in a nearby tree shattering into splinters as the storm of buckshot tore into it. Her second hand slammed into my chest when I glanced towards the mulched tree. Instantly, my body froze. My muscles literally locked in place, I fell back to the ground like a statue. Somebody beyond my field of vision wrenched the shotgun from my grip and tossed it away, before rolling me over so I was gazing straight up.

Yukari stood over me, a scathing expression on her face. "It doesn't matter the who, or the when or where; reality is my bitch. Don't you ever forget that, you little roach." She pointed her parasol at me. "I spared your life once already in spite of an attitude like this. There's nothing stopping me from killing you here and now—or better yet, leaving you to be Eirin's guinea pig for the rest of your natural life… which I'm sure she will go to lengths to drag out for as long as your body can take it. In fact, if I kill you here you might just turn into a vegetable in real life and Eirin gets herself a new lab rat anyway!

"I OWN you, kid. Mind, body and soul. You'd be smart to keep that in mind, or else…"

Just then, a drifting shadow engulfed Yukari. Coughing, she sidestepped out of the cloud and waved her parasol around, breaking up the cloud. She leaned over to spit out whatever she'd caught in her mouth. "Blech. Disgusting…"

And then Yukari looked back up.

All around her, the shadows that inhabited the dead forest had gotten a lot closer, forming a tight circle around the youkai. Her annoyance turned to surprise, and then to shock, as the shadows swarmed her all at once. She opened her mouth, most likely to make known her anger at the sudden development, but all she could do was violently cough and hack as the mist surrounding her tried to force itself down her throat and destroy her lungs.

My rage dissipated, confusion taking its place. Frozen as I was, all I could do was watch as Yukari began to flail wildly about, trying to break out of the dark cloud enveloping her body. After about a minute of thrashing and coughing, a swarm of gaps leading into deep space ripped open around the cloud. There was a vicious roar as the shadows were forcibly ripped from Yukari's body by the pull of the vacuum. Having done their job, the gaps closed up and Yukari herself dropped to her knees, gasping for fresh air and rubbing her eyes.

Yukari only spared me one last teary-eyed glance of utter bewilderment as she ripped open a new gap and stumbled through it, escaping the confines of my mind. As she disappeared, my body went limp, freed from Yukari's power… but I still couldn't move.

Suddenly, a slender arm wrapped itself around my chest and pulled me up into a cradling motion. I looked up into the eyes of the girl that had attacked me in my last dream. "That witch thinks that she can control you…" A voice, light and effeminate. "But she knows nothing. She is incapable of knowing you the way I do."

I don't understand. What does she mean when she says she knows me better than Yukari ever will? WHO IS SHE? I tried to speak, will myself into motion, but my body was beyond my control. The figure cocked their head at me. "Who am I, you wish to ask? Is it not obvious? I'm you."

The girl pulled back her hood, and for the first time I could see her features clearly. The slightly-unfocused hazel eyes, the sandy brown hair, the rounded cheeks… she could pass for a long-lost twin of me. What? This… this doesn't make sense! How can this girl be me? I'M me!

A hand gently caressed my cheek, sending shivers down my spine. "We are two sides to the same coin. All of your hatred and fear, all of your love and desire… I am your most basic instincts given life." The stroking turned into jabbing. "You are our face, our voice, our logic. Everything you do, every action you take, is a result of your 'common sense' perverting my will.

"In this world, a world where fantasy and reality are one and the same, a logical mind can only survive for so long before their stubborn adherence to the 'voice of reason' condemns them. If you are to live—if WE are to live—you must be willing to cast aside reason and let your instincts guide you. Break down the boundary that separates us, so that we may become one."

Woman, I don't know what the FUCK you're babbling on about, I thought.

"In due time, child, you'll understand. All in due time. For now, though… it is time for you to return to the peaceful embrace of oblivion." Both of the girl's hands gripped my head, in a disturbingly familiar position…

"Until next we meet…" A violent twist, a cracking noise, then silence.

XXXXX

Eirin Yagokoro jumped slightly as Yukari dropped out of a gap behind her. Turning around, she immediately recognized her guest and composed herself. "Let me guess: drove you out of his head?"

"Kid had a hell of a mouth on him. Thought that he was safe from my influence in his head. I planned to prove him otherwise, but his unconscious mind tried to consume me. That kid has issues." Yukari cleared her throat. "So, how are things in the mortal realm?"

"You certainly did wonders with that head injury he sustained, but you left some serious swelling in the brain; that's what caused his near-seizure. Nothing a good old-fashioned trephination couldn't take care of, luckily, so he should be back to normal after a few days." After a pause, she added, "Found the witch's little toy in his pocket. I'm going to assume it's in his possession for a reason and leave it be."

Yukari gapped herself an empty glass and filled it from the nearby water tap. "That doesn't seem so bad. So, why the long face?"

Eirin glanced at the clipboard in her hands. "You know that wonder-drug I was making? The one that I was using my own DNA for? Well…" She pinched the bridge of her nose. "I fucked up. Forgot about the one difference between our genomes; something he has, and I don't."

Yukari was confused for a moment. "What does that have to do with… oh." Yukari sipped from her glass. "Can you fix it?"

Eirin simply stared at the youkai. "My work is nothing, if not thorough… save the occasional slip. Thanks to my sterilization methods, I don't have a DNA base to make an antidote for him, so he'll be effectively stuck that way." She gestured to a holographic screen off to her right. "Live feed's over there if you want to take a look at the process. If he was awake, the pain of the transformation would drive him mad, so I'm keeping him sedated until his DNA stabilizes completely." Yukari set aside her glass and stepped over to the projection. In her mind, she produced an image of Luke as she'd first found him—five-ten, coarse brown hair, slightly overweight, and a layer of hair on his arms and legs. Luke was strapped to a gurney, stripped down to his underwear.

Without going into detail, the change was… drastic, to say the least.

"Eirin, I'm not trying to offend, but I have to say this: you may not fuck up often, but when you do, the results are spectacular."

"Thanks." Eirin raised an eyebrow.

"So, how much longer will he be out until the transition is complete?"

"About a day, with perhaps another day or so afterwards to check for any complications. Gene therapy normally works over the course of 2-3 weeks, so a change this rapid and this drastic would be extremely unsafe and painful if it had been by somebody other than me. As it is, he will be in extraordinary discomfort upon waking up."

"Meh, I'm sure he'll suck it up. The discomfort, I mean. This…" Yukari glanced at the screen, "…well, not so much." She opened a gap. "Don't hesitate to give me a call if he flips out. I'll set him straight."

"No problem." Eirin waved farewell to the youkai as she left. "One last thing, though: what happened at the vampire's mansion? Heard it was quite a fiasco out there."

"It was nothing Sanae and Reimu couldn't take care of themselves. The Scarlet clan could really use a decent home-repair service, though."

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2 days ago

Reimu had forgotten just how powerful Marisa could be, even without her Hakkero. That much was certain, telling just from the external damage to the Scarlet Devil Mansion. All around the property, fairy maids were scrambling to repair structural damage, and the shrine maiden could hear chains of explosions still ripping through the inside of the mansion. She doubted the place would stay standing for much longer if Marisa wasn't subdued, and quickly.

Sanae drifted next to her. "Is this how she usually reacts to being beaten badly?"

"Only if the person who did it wasn't me," Reimu joked, but there was no humor in her tone. "It doesn't help that she's lost her precious thing."

"I blame karma. You keep stealing from others, you're bound to have something stolen from you."

"Well, the way Marisa sees it, nothing is ever her fault. If anything, blame her personality." Reimu shook her head. "Anyway, I'll head inside and look for Marisa, try to calm her down. You stay out here and help the fairies hold the place together. I don't want my tombstone to read 'died from a fallen roof.'"

"You got it." Sanae flew off to the inner grounds to rally and direct the fairies while Reimu drifted towards the front door with no opposition. The lack of resistance led her to suspect that the gate guard had been called inside to help the other residents.

Reimu cleared the doorway and entered the entrance hall, which was surprisingly intact; considering the persons involved, though, that wasn't saying much. There were pockmarks and craters all over the walls and floor, with the occasional scorch mark. As Reimu proceeded deeper into the mansion, heading wherever the sounds of conflict were most violent, the damage to the infrastructure became even worse—several holes had been blown clean through the walls, floors and ceilings, creating gaps to the chambers that lay beyond. Not trusting the integrity of the walkway, Reimu opted to fly through the mansion.

After a few shortcuts and backtracks around completely-collapsed halls, Reimu finally arrived at the doorway to Voile. Of course she would go straight to the library to deal the most collateral damage, she sighed. She could hear muffled shouts and the pichu~n's of unlucky fairies through the thick oak doors. Steeling herself, Reimu raised her gohei, blew the door off its hinges, and charged in.

Dear God, the place was a mess. It was as if a giant had been playing dominoes with the enormous bookcases that filled the room, and then set them on fire. Reimu was fairly certain the countless books were themselves enchanted to be impervious to damage, but the shelves were spared no such luxury (Note to self: talk to Patchy about enchanting the shelves.)

And there, high in the top of the chamber, was Marisa. Surrounding her were Patchouli, Sakuya, Remilia, Meiling (oop, wait, she just went down… figures), and a handful of fairy maids. Sakuya, having apparently run out of knives, was trying to get close and punch Marisa out the old-fashioned way. Patchouli was guiding the fairies, making a "human" shield for herself as she cast her greater spells. Finally, Remilia was… well… being Remilia, flinging her Gungnir every which way and hoping one of them would connect.

"Orreries' Sun!" Naturally, Marisa was kicking all their asses with ease. A storm of lasers and danmaku bolts tore apart the few fairies that hadn't already been taken down. The stronger girls dodged the spell for as long as they could, but eventually, Patchy's asthma screwed everybody over. Thrown off-balance for a split-second by a violent cough, and the sorceress took a laser to the face. Sakuya cried out in concern for Patchy, Remilia was distracted by Sakuya's cry, and both took a barrage of bullets center-mass.

Everybody dropped out of the sky, leaving Marisa floating alone in the air. Seeing her chance, Reimu got closer and called out. "Marisa! What the HELL are you doing!?"

Marisa's head snapped towards her friend. "Isn't it obvious? I'm trying to take back what's mine! That little rat stole my Hakkero from me, and these people are keeping him hidden away-ze!"

"Alright, first of all, you tried to steal from the outsider—and he'd only arrived less than hours before—you failed, and he simply took measures to keep it from happening again. As such, I believe you carry most of the blame for setting this mess in motion in the first place."

"I DON'T STEAL!" Marisa screeched. "We've gone over this hundreds of times, Reimu—I'll let the people have their stuff back when I die!"

Reimu facepalmed. "And I keep telling you, it doesn't work that way. But that's beside the point; you're taking this way too far. You've ruined everybody's day, and wrecked the Mansion to the point where it could fall on top of us at any moment, all because you can't stand having been beaten at your own game."

"He STOLE from me! He deserves to be punished!" Marisa cried.

"Hypocr-hurgk!" Back at ground level, Remilia was silenced by a thick grimoire to the head, courtesy of Patchouli. Not that anybody present disagreed, though; Patchy just didn't want to get another laser-headshot. Strangely, Sakuya was absent.

"Look, Marisa, not every problem in the world needs to be solved using violence. I'm sure that if you had just gone and talked to him, perhaps apologized for trying to 'borrow' from him, he would give you back the Hakkero. Again, to be fair, you kinda had it coming for attacking a fresh outsider."

"Bullshit, this is Gensokyo! The only way to make yourself known is through brute force, and if you're stupid enough to think otherwise, you might as well blow your—"

Out of the blue, a silent click echoed in the chamber. Marisa looked down and, to her shock, found herself in handcuffs. "Wha…? HEY! What the hell is this crap!?" She yanked and twisted, but the cast-iron restraints held fast.

"Thanks for distracting her for me," Sakuya said as she materialized next to Reimu. Her clothing was in tatters, and she sported a rather nasty black eye, but other than that she seemed okay.

"Are you sure that's a smart move?" Reimu asked. "If she breaks free, her retaliation against the residents of the Scarlet Devil Mansion will just be even more brutal."

"It was either that, or set Miss Flandre on her. I thought you'd prefer an enraged Marisa over a blood smear on the wall."

"…fair enough."

At this point Marisa was flying in circles, screaming in fury. "I swear to fucking god if you don't get these pieces of shit off my hands in the next two seconds I'M GONNA REPAINT THIS ENTIRE FUCKING MANSION WITH YOUR GODDAMN BLOOD!"

Sakuya's body flickered, and Marisa went limp, silently dropping into a mound of books on the ground. "Ah, pressure points, where would I be without ye?" The maid crooned.

"Nice," Reimu nodded in approval. Marisa would be hurting like hell from the fall, but no permanent harm otherwise. "What are we supposed to do with Marisa now, though? If she breaks loose again, I wouldn't put it against her to go through with that threat."

"Lock her in the basement with Flandre?" Sakuya suggested with a crooked grin. Reimu stared at her. "Kidding. I've got another pair of cuffs lying around somewhere we can use for her legs. Why we didn't use them in the first place is beyond me."

"Well, you'll definitely need them now." The pair floated down to the ground. All around them, the fairy maids were reconstituting themselves and moving towards Patchouli, who was instructing them to begin rebuilding. "So, about how long will it take to rebuild the mansion this time?"

"My guess? About a month. I'm considering just contracting the kappa and letting them do the rebuilding the next time this happens. It would be costly, but the benefits would outweigh the expenses in the long run."

Reimu's phone beeped. She pulled it out and read the message. I'm not hearing any more explosions. What did I miss?

Typical Sanae, unfettered by the chaos of the Scarlet Devil's abode. Reimu smirked as she typed the response: Nothing that couldn't be solved with some time-hax.