False Advents (Chapter 3: Eientei):
"... Reisen. Medicinal paste from drawer seventeen and synthetic powder from drawer fifty one, stat.
"Shelf C and Shelf H, yes?"
"Yes. Also painkillers while you're at it."
"Got it master."
Reol awoke to the sound of excessive commotion and a shrill droning noise in his ear which he instantly recognized as tinnitus.
He opened his eyes and blinked a few times, then scanned the surrounding area. He found himself lying on a hospital bed in a relatively large infirmary. Most of the interior was built out of wood, including his hospital bed. Other than the one he was occupying, there were two other beds to his right and one to his left. Each bed had a night table with an oil lamp and a pitcher of water placed onto it. Opposite the beds was a counter with a multitude of medical and science equipment strewn about it, ranging from stethoscopes, to bandages, to microscopes, a centrifuge, scappels, stitching needles, coils of what seems to be catgut, and even a a bonesaw.
The last tool in particular gave Reol a rather uneasy feeling.
He began to rack his brain for any information that may be useful to him, and to his surprise, his brain cooperated.
Bits and pieces of information began to resurface on the clean slate he calls a memory bank. Although it wasn't much, he managed to recall some unknown memory of this place being called "Eientei" and that a medical expert resides here.
The infirmary's doors slid open and a grey haired woman wearing a red and blue dress and an identically colored nurse's cap stepped into the room with a roll of bandages in hand. She walked over to Reol and began to switch out the bandages on his arm, which had healed surprisingly well, all except for that huge bite mark from when Rumia tried to gouge a chuck out of him.
It wasn't until she had begun switching out his leg's bandage that she realized the young man was conscious.
"Ah, you're awake." She said. "I'm just going to switch out your bandages, okay?"
He nodded and watched as the lady began to unwrap his bloodstained bandages. Like his arm, or most of it at the very least, Reol's legs were completely healed. There wasn't even a single burn scar from Rumia's bullets.
"Wow. you heal astoundingly quickly, Mr…."
"Reol is fine."
"Okay, Reol. I'm Yagokoro, Eirin. Pharmacist of the Eientei." She continued as she pulled a stool next to his bed. "I want you to answer me truthfully."
He sighed. "Ask away."
Eirin straightened her posture and interlaced her hands, "First question: Did you read the guidebooks?"
Reol stared at her with a puzzled expression. He was given a guidebook?
"I was never given one to begin with."
She narrowed her eyes. "Tell me the truth."
"I spoke nothing but the truth."
She took a deep breath and rubbed her temples. "Okay. Next question: Do you know who Yukari Yakumo is? Or perhaps where Gensokyo is?"
He shook his head. Gensokyo was likely the location of this place. The name Yukari did ring a bell, but the onset of tinnitus was giving him a hard time recalling much of anything.
"Oh boy…" She muttered. "Third question: How did you get here."
"I… honestly don't know." Reol answered. "I woke up in the middle of a forest without any of my memories."
"Great… an amnesic. Either way, next question: What are you?"
Reol contemplated this question deeply before answering, "I don't know."
She crossed her arms and exhaled. "So you're telling me you woke up in the middle of the Bamboo Forest of the Lost knowing nothing but your name?"
"I only remembered my name just recently."
For the first time in a very long while, Eirin felt like she might bust a vein. She took another deep breath in and continued the questionnaire.
"Tell me how you fended off Rumia."
"Am I well enough to move?"
"You should be able to without issue."
"Please take me outside." He requested.
He climbed out of bed and noticed that he was wearing a white hospital gown.
"I'm sorry about your clothes." Eirin apologized." They were destroyed in your encounter with Rumia."
"Don't be" Reol said. "I'm grateful that you resuscitated me."
For the first time in an equally long while, Eirin felt somewhat pleased. Unlike the ungrateful Gappies that she saved over the years, this one had a sense of morality. Whoever or whatever he may be, she had already begun to notice that he was evidently different from the children Yukari sends in.
They stepped out of the infirmary and into an impossibly long hallway.
"This way." She gestured for him to follow and began to walk down the hallway.
They spent about five minutes walking straight down the hall before an exit in the form of a front porch finally came into sight. Bickering on the porch were two ladies, one of which had dark brown eyes, a traditional Japanese princess's hairstyle, and a beautiful traditional outfit consisting of a flower and bamboo motif-ed burgundy skirt and a pink shirt with half a dozen bows laced down the front, while the other rocked a rather tomboyish outfit consisting of a discolored shirt, loose-fitting, talisman covered, dark red trousers, and a suspender to hold up said trousers as well as ember colored eyes and long, white hair that fell to ankle length.
Reol didn't recognize the former, but he had vague memories of the latter.
The two individuals continued to argue back and forth until Eirin and Reol stepped into view, which directed both of their attention to the latter individual. The first to speak was the princess-like lady.
"Oh, Eirin. Who's the child behind you? Perhaps a child from the Human Village?"
She shook her head. "He's the one who fended off the youkai, and likely the one who caused that."
Eirin pointed towards a section of the mansion's fencing, which has been completely blown the fencing was about two hundred meters worth of charred soil and incinerated bamboo stalks.
"I'm terribly sorry about that." Reol turned towards Eirin and bowed lightly, "I promise you I'll fix the fence."
"Don't worry about that." Eirin gestured towards the two. "Now, why don't you introduce yourselves?"
The black haired lady went first. "I am Houraisan, Kaguya. Former Lunarian Princess and perfect immortal."
Then the white haired lady introduced herself next. "Fujiwara no Mokou. Former human and now perfect immortal."
For reasons he could not understand, the two of them began to glare daggers at each other.
After a moment of silence, Reol then introduced himself, "Nea, Reol. Questionably human."
The two of them stared at him for a good minute or so and burst out laughing.
"My apologies." Kaguya attempted to stifle her laughter. "I didn't know you were such an interesting individual."
"To think that you'd doubt your own humanity..." Mokou wheezed for air. "That's definitely a first!"
Reol rubbed his forehead and glanced at Eirin, who gave him a nod. He stepped out into the front yard and flexed his right hand. He glanced towards the horizon and noticed that the sun has just barely risen over the horizon line. If any time's the time to do it. It would have to be now.
He pointed his right palm towards the sky and began to focus. Consciously directing a steady stream of energy from his solar plexus into the center of his palm. He visualized the energy compressing itself to the point where plasma began to form, and converging into a single point no larger than a centimeter within the center of his palm, then released the mass.
The result, to put in simplistic terms, would have been catastrophic.
Reol could feel his right arm beginning to crack and give way to the backlash, as a massive beam of lightning-infused photons screeched and flashed across the dawn sky for a solid twenty seconds, spanning nearly thirty meters in diameter and with no end in sight; easily several times that of what he had fired earlier today. Mokou and Kaguya, who has long ceased their bickering, were now staring at the incarnate of pure firepower, all of which originated from a single innocent, unsuspecting child who was just barely over the height of a hundred and forty centimeters.
In an instant, he had temporarily transformed Eientei's front porch into Gensokyo's very first, and likely only, particle accelerator beacon.
Eirin watched in a mix of surprise and astonishment as Reol struggled to keep himself upright. She could see bits and pieces of his skin flaking off of him as a result of the backlash from firing such an attack. His body had also begun to show signs of Lichtenberg scar formation. She couldn't quite understand why she simply stood there and watched. As much as she wanted to pull him out, she knew that doing so would only cause further damage.
After the twenty seconds had passed and the attack had ceased, Reol's right arm went limp. For the next few seconds, he simply stood there unmoving. The majority of his body was a mess of burns and Lichtenberg scars.
"Reol!" Eirin called out towards him. "Are you alright?!"
Eirin knew that that was a stupid question. Of course he wasn't alright. His entire body was likely an utter mess.
About fifteen seconds later, Reol answered with a monotone "Might have overdid it." and immediately collapsed on the spot.
"Master! What happened?"
Eirin glanced towards Eientei's entrance and spotted Reisen standing there, out of breath, with an armful of medical supplies.
"I heard a huge explosion, followed by some extremely loud and scary screeching, and…"
She looked towards Eienti's front lawn, which wasn't much of a lawn as it is just patches of charred soil now. Lying face up in the middle of the patch was the same kid who she had tended to earlier, now in an exponentially worse condition.
"Reisen?" Eirin inhaled. "Forget the painkiller, medicinal paste, and synthetic powder. Fetch me my emergency first aid kit. STAT!"
"Understood!" Reisen said with an armful of medicine, making a mad dash down the seemingly infinite hallway and towards the medical supply room.
After Reisen ran off into the corridor, Eirin turned towards Mokou, "Mokou, get Reol back into the infirmary."
"Roger." She picked up Reol and flew down the corridor at a moderately high speed. "Talk about deja vu…"
"Anything I can do?" Kaguya asked.
"Deal with the paparazzi."
"The what?"
She swiftly elevated herself from the ground as Eirin pointed northwestward. Through the twilight, she could just barely make out the silhouettes of about a dozen or so individuals. Most notably the Hakurei Shrine Maiden, her magician friend, and her friend, along with a few other individuals whom she had fought before, all of which were armed with their iconic weapons and charged at her with breakneck speed.
Kaguya simply smiled and prepared for a battle. Her five impossible requests can be seen revolving around her. She reached for one of her impossible requests, the jeweled branch of Hourai, and pointed it towards the rowdy oncomers.
"The Eientei is currently off-limits for the time being!" She announced as she raised the branch, "As compensation, why don't we play a little game of barrage fire combat with yours truly?"
Author's Note: Truth be told, it felt like I wrote the chapter in the middle of a fever dream. This is where I began to notice a significant drop in quality that I'm not quite happy with myself. One of the issues lies in canonicity. For starters, I've only been in the Touhou community for about 2-3 months and as such, I'm trusting for most of my info regarding the character's canon personalities to touhouwiki. So far, it's working, and has helped me out quite a lot, but other than the general description of their personalities, there's really nothing else set in stone, leaving me to roughly estimate how a character's suppose to act towards others. For now, the best I can do is simply pray that I'm at least 80% accurate in terms of canonicity, and as for the fanon counterpart, I'll worry about that when the time comes.