I have to admit... This story is taking many turns I don't know where they'll lead. It's the same for a lot of my material. One day I'll have an idea for a chapter, and the other I'll re-do it to change it for another. I wonder what you people think... But the start of next chapter is pretty predictable, I think. And my characters... Are they distinct? I'm simply unable to tell.

The Touhou Project is owned by ZUN and Team Shanghai Alice. Thank you for your patience.

The tall, eye-glassed twenty-something gentlewoman stood at a whopping 1.90m, a far cry from the short child that Seija imagined was the only one living in the abandoned house. She climbed out of the trapdoor and dusted herself.

Her auburn locks reached hip-length, a white flower comb sticking out from her straight hair. She wore a tailcoat three-piece suit coupled with a fine necktie sewn with a fleur-de-lis pattern. White cloth gloves highlighted the smooth movement of her hands as she bowed down.

"I must not have introduced myself previously, and I apologize for that; I am Kimori Haito: graduate of Hisakata University, former psychiatrist and resident of this here humble home. I am pleased to make your acquaintance." The lady spoke in a soft, refined tone fitting of her appearance, though her westerner looks didn't match her name nor her fluency in Japanese well. "That's a lotta trees, if I heard your surname right. So what's with this house? And who's that brat I met yesterday then?" Many questions, many forests, and more than enough time to answer them.

"As to your first statement: it's written in katakana, smartass; now well," Haito cleared her throat to revert the rough turn her manners had taken. "This is a, to say, comfortable, humble countryside home, and the variety and number of fungi nearby help me in the gathering of ingredients for certain kinds of medicine, mainly antibiotics." She sat down next to Seija.

Seija verbally smacked her on the head. "Your front door has a hole the size of a person."

"Oh, that's just for aesthetic purposes." Haito responded.

"Sure, buddy." Seija sipped away at the glass of water she'd served herself with- 'ugh, bitter.' "So, again: who's the blue-haired girl?"

"Could you pass me the bottle you got that from?"

"Sure, but who's the girl?" Seija kept ramming against the question. She placed the water bottle on the table.

Haito groaned, "This is my imported Russian vodka bottle. I've been saving it for years..."

Seija squinted. "But who is she? I don't care what this crappy water is, I want names." Said like a bad cop in a mediocre police drama.

"That's thirty thousand yen down the drain..." Haito looked down and covered her face with her hands, but was stopped by Seija who stared her dead in the eye. "*tsk* I'm not going to tell you, if you haven't caught the hint yet. How about you tell me all about yourself, huh? Some situation you must be in to come take shelter in this hazardous forest."

"Seija. That's it." She finished introductions with a despising glare. It seemed to flick a switch in Haito's head as she adjusted her glasses.

"Now, Seija-san, please make yourself comfortable." Haito pointed towards a velvet armchair. Seija slouched down on it with a pleased face. It was impossibly soft.

"So, speak; when did your troubles begin?" Haito pulled out a clipboard and a fountain pen.

"It all started in the summer of '86, when..." Her eyes flew wide open. "I'm not here for therapy, dammit!" She brought her fist down on the wooden table after fixing her posture. Haito glanced curiously at Seija. "You were crying last night. I don't see any reason to deny you of some emotional care. Oh, before I forget; one moment if you will, please."

She opened the trapdoor and entered the basement. Seija dropped down with her, when a bag of dust was thrown gently into her hands. "Swallow that or you shall suffer a most painful death during your stay here. Oh, did I ask you if you were planning to crash indefinitely? Or are you only gallivanting by?"

Seija weighed her options.

- Food and water (Most likely.)

- Shelter (Check!)

- Security (Maybe.)

- Sukuna (...)

"I'll be crashin' here, thanks." Better than sleeping on a tree. "By the way, I'm not tellin' you about my circumstances either, cool?" Haito muttered something about rocks tumbling down a cliff, and shook her head. "The hell're you sayin'?"

Haito got Seija up from the basement once they were done and once again set up the therapy session. "Please tell me about any troubles you may desire to disclose to me. I am quite glad to once again be on my line of work. Now, tell me what you must about yourself." A jar of hard strawberry candy was left on the table by Haito. Despite Seija's clear refusal of her services, Haito left no room for any further disagreement and forced her to take a seat.

"Let's see, umm..." Scrambling through her own mind was like dragging her feet in mud. She wasn't sure what to make of the ridiculous situation. The hard candy had a certain allure to it, though, and wasn't something she really tried before or had the opportunity to. It could be said that it was foreign to her, in some way.

"You can take as long as you want. There are sadly no customers other than you here, so..." Haito tapped the pen on the paper, staining it with ink slightly.

"Shut up, let me tell you." She leaned forwards. "Okay, so first, I'm Kijin Seija, and I'm an Amanojaku..."

It was a hard conversation to pull off. Seija misdirected every sentence she said to avoid having to speak about her current situation. Haito didn't mind, as there were people were quite iffy at times when it came to talking about their personal history or any major negative events in their life.

The situation cleared up little by little as Haito asked about recent issues. Seija tried to hold her tongue on the stuff that may have gotten her in trouble, but the doctor pressed relentlessly, not unlike she herself had done a few minutes earlier.

The only thing barring Haito from entry into Seija's private details was a neverending string of lies and half-truths that Seija made up which, to note, was incredibly thin. The former kept poking and punching holes through the fragile web, getting some truths out in the open, while the latter regretted the fact she didn't carry the cheat items with her. Seija was on the border of snapping as Haito shot down lie after another. It wasn't until Seija had a freudian slip and confirmed Haito's suspicions that they truly made progress.

"Checkmate, Seija-sama... You're good at lying. I have to say. No tells, no hesitation... Admirable. You're at the same level as a draftman making promises to hot-blooded youths." She laughed to herself for a moment. "But you've not met many good people, it seems. You needed a good friend. You had a good friend. But it seems you didn't like when she tried correcting you. Shinmyoumaru, was she? She was probably the best chance you had for redeemal. To be honest, your current wishes, intentions, situation, plan, whatever; they are, for lack of a better word: hopeless. You know, a girl like you would have done well in the army: youthful, determined, stubborn... But of course, war's never good. It never was, is or will be. But that's beside the point: you need to give up this cause of yours." Her statement was blunt. Haito's annoyance seeped through her voice. Seija had just thrown out of the window a kind voice of reason for a worthless goal that, even though she herself would have supported in her youth, she agreed nobody should follow.

"Don't misunderstand. I've been in your situation. Just to quote myself: 'Look at those pen-pushing bureaucratic arseholes shove people around like they're worthless. Look at the lion ordering cubs around, making them do his bidding. Look at the powerful, treating the weak like they're expendable and dirt cheap!'" Haito cringed at herself for a moment and set her gaze dead on to her patient's eyes. "But this mentality: I don't even know where to begin breaking it down, when everything that it is composed of is inexistant ropes. You are essentially chasing the sun. You've lost a war, miss. You won't get back up without someone else's help, and you've already rejected it. I need to tell you this. I've never heard of such an ignorant person in neither fiction nor reality. And you need to understand that you've already lost."

Seija zipped her mouth shut, with rage burning in her blood. Haito let Seija's hand wrap around her neck. "Do it. This is something from someone who has been in a similar situation. That ideology is nothing but a- no- your mistake-" She slammed Haito's head on the table with brutal strength she didn't know she had. Scarlet pumped out of her in droves. The body fell limp on the floor with a thump. Seija turned around and ran, not to look back.