Note: This story is written in the third person perspective. Each character and their knowledge will be limited to what they know (ie. Unintroduced characters will not be referred to by their names until the character has been introduced). This story is also written to cater the perspective of a person who has never played Touhou, or read any of the official materials relating to it, hence why I'm keeping the majority of Touhou's canon cast as closely canonical as possible.
False Advents (Chapter 0: Prologue):
The pendulum within the grandfather clock swung back and forth, shifting the second hand ever so slightly with each tick. The clock in question currently reads half past midnight. During this period of time, it seemed as if this world came to a standstill, as if time had simply stopped flowing. Naught could be heard but the chirps of summer crickets. During this period of time, most individuals, with a few exceptions, would be sleeping soundly. The current Hakurei Shrine Maiden happens to be such an individual.
Hakurei Reimu, or Reimu, as her friends address her by, is the current shrine maiden of the Hakurei Shrine, and famed for being Gensokyo's main incident solver. Like her numerous predecessors, Reimu runs and maintains the Hakurei Shrine, which is said to be housing a deity of sorts. Reimu herself doesn't know much about the shrine's god, other than the fact that it's currently not doing much, for both her, and her meager number of donators.
The shrine maiden in question is currently tossing about in her futon, evidently troubled by the warm atmosphere. She continued to toss and turn for the good part of another five minutes before groaning in frustration.
"So damn hot…" She opened her eyes partially and blinked a few times, then stared idly towards the ceiling above. "Passive cooling… when…?"
She continued to mutter incoherent statements involving the kappa in Genbu Ravine and a cooling system. She wanted to get up and at the very least open one of the shrine's doors, but couldn't muster the energy to do so. Instead, she simply sighed and continued to gaze at the ceiling.
The next series of events, however, broke her from her torpor.
Reimu's eyes shot open as she propelled herself towards the shrine's entrance and threw the door open. Although she couldn't see it, she could definitely feel that something was off: the presence of something, someone, that was foreign to this land… an uneasy feeling that began to claw at her instincts, making her hairs stand on end.
This feeling lasted for about thirty seconds before slowly fading away and returning the atmosphere to its normal state. Reimu glanced outside once more just to be sure and returned to her futon with the shrine's door open.
Reimu, however, was the only affected individual.
In the Forest of Magic, a pair of blonde-haired magicians suddenly woke to cold sweat, but passed it off as a mere nightmare.
West of the Forest of Magic a few kilometers away, a certain mansion's voile magician picked up on the changes and immediately reached for her scrying orb.
Somewhere northeast of the mansion, within the Bamboo Forest of the Lost, a guide notices the change and flies towards its general direction. A hundred or so meters away from the target location, a youkai catches a whiff of human flesh, and makes a mad dash towards the general direction.
And amidst all the chaos, an infinitesimal gap opened up meters above the location, hundreds of eyes gazing from the never-ending darkness within it, all of which were fixed onto a single target, and within a space isolated from the rest of the world sat a young lady, who peered ever so contently through the gap she had created.
"What an interesting specimen you are." She murmured, "Now let us see how you'll fare…"
Author's Note: After having published six chapters, and currently working on the seventh, it's become quite clear to me that this prologue might be unnecessary. I'll still leave it in, though. Might serve a future purpose for all I know.