Reimu was a youkai. She couldn't be the shrine maiden anymore. She had to choose between finding a new life for herself or being Yukari's servant.

It was all too much. She cried on the bed for what felt like hours. When she could no longer cry, she curled up and stared at the wall, with her thoughts going in circles. Part of her still hated Yukari for doing this. She should have been grateful, she guessed. She didn't want to die. But to survive like this...

There weren't many strict rules in Gensokyo. Youkai didn't kill human villagers. Anybody who won a spell card duel had to spare the loser's life. Permanently damaging the Hakurei Barrier was forbidden. Breaking any of those guidelines, regardless of reason, were punishable by death.

And: Human villagers did not knowingly allow themselves to become youkai. Doing so was a grave breach of the order that held Gensokyo together. She'd exterminated several humans who had tried it, herself. It had never even occurred to her that she might end up in their position some day. She doubted that she counted as a villager, but... per the spirit of the rule, she was probably duty-bound to exterminate herself.

She didn't give the thought of doing so any serious consideration. Even so, it was still a mark of just how deeply she'd betrayed her duties as the shrine maiden. The proper thing would have been to allow herself to die in the forest. If the villagers found out, they'd be disgusted. Outraged, even. They'd probably be within their rights to try exterminating her. She wasn't sure if she could even blame them if they did.

With a sigh, Reimu rolled forward to sit on the foot of the bed. The vanity was on the wall perpendicular to the one that the bed was against, so it was at a bit of an angle, but she just managed to catch her own reflection in it. Her eyes were red and puffy from crying, but the violet of her irises was still vivid and hard to miss. How had Yukari put it? There was a piece of her inside Reimu now. Reimu didn't feel any different, but then, she wasn't sure what something like that would even feel like. It seemed like there should be something, though. She should be able to feel the little sliver of Yukari, stuck in her heart like a splinter.

But there was nothing. Her eyes felt the same as they always did. Only a slight ache in her stomach attested that the past few days hadn't just been a dream. Still staring at herself in the mirror, she slipped a hand into her robe and ran a finger across the scar. She wasn't sure if it had gotten smaller in the hour or two she'd been awake, or if it was just her imagination. If it was healing that quickly, it was just one more reminder that Reimu Hakurei could no longer call herself a human.

After what felt like hours of brooding in bed, Reimu closed her eyes and tried to take a nap. It soon became apparent that it wasn't happening, though. She just wasn't tired, and she couldn't stop thinking about her situation. After laying there for some time, she accepted that it just wasn't going to happen and resigned herself to staring at the ceiling.

Outside the room, the rest of the world continued running, not seeming to care that Reimu Hakurei was having no part of it. She heard Chen shouting excitedly about something for several minutes before Ran managed to hush her. Birds still chirped outside the window, and the occasional foreign sound of the outside world city below drifted up. It made her seclusion feel petty and pointless, but she wasn't about to head back out there just yet. She wasn't even sure what she was waiting for. It wasn't like she could stay locked in here forever. She'd already proven that she didn't like any of the options, and it wasn't like the near-empty room contained anything that might change her opinion. The sensible thing to do would be to either leave, or go outside and talk to Yukari. Briefly, she mused about climbing out the window over the bed. She could run away to the outside world. It couldn't be that much stranger than whatever Yukari was proposing.

The sun outside crept through the sky, and still, Reimu refused to budge. The sounds of cooking came from the main room. Some time later, there was a knock on the door. Reimu looked at it flatly, expecting somebody to plead with her to come out and eat. The only followup was the sound of footsteps heading away. Once she was sure that they were gone, she slid out of bed and sneaked over to the door. She listened for a moment, then cracked it open.

Outside, a tray was sitting on the floor, with a plate of food and a still-steaming cup of tea. She was tempted to close the door and reject it, but... the mere smell of the food sent another ache of hunger through her stomach. She still didn't know how long she'd been out for, but judging by Yukari's comment earlier, it had been at least a couple of days. Too long to go without eating, that was for sure.

Reimu tugged the tray into the room and shut the door, then carried the food to her bed. Donburi, made with some kind of fish she didn't immediately recognize, a bowl of soup, and a dish of tsukemono on the side. It wasn't anything she couldn't cook herself, but it was a lot more than the one-course meals that she usually made for dining alone. The first bite of the fish, savory yet sweet, made her realize just how hungry she was. Within minutes, she'd eaten half of the bowl and slurped down most of the soup. The food was gone before the tea was even cool enough for her to drink.

Having something in her stomach helped Reimu focus again. She still had no idea what she wanted to do, but she felt less despondent, at least. Once she finished the tea, she sat the cup back on the tray, then carried all of the dishes back to the door. Cracking it open, she peeked out...

Nobody was in sight. She waited, but no sounds came from the rest of the house. Had they left?

After sitting the tray on the floor, Reimu weighed her options. Maybe this was her chance to sneak out. Not... that she needed to. Judging by Yukari's words earlier, she was free to go as she pleased. That still didn't mean that she wanted the awkward conversation it would entail. Let her leave silently now, then come back and talk in a few days, when she had some idea of what she wanted to do.

It wasn't much of a plan, but it was something. After a few seconds of hesitation, she committed to it. Stepping over the tray, she hurried into the main room, then down one hall. The windows each continued to show different views—some other outside world city, a forest she didn't recognize, a few views of the Bamboo Forest of the Lost, a hillside somewhere on the west side of Gensokyo. It stretched for quite a ways, but there was a door to the outside barely a few meters from the room she'd exited into. She wasted no time in pushing it open.

Reimu had already stepped outside before she noticed the scenery. In front of her was Gensokyo. All of Gensokyo, as seen from the air. It was a mostly familiar view, since it was pretty close to the view from the shrine. So she was close to home, then. That was good.

As she took a step forward, though, the scenery moved with her. She immediately froze. When she turned her eyes forward again, the world continued spinning. It was like this house, and the patch of land it was on, were a small disc, and everything else was only rotating around it. Turning her head made her viewpoint of Gensokyo rotate, letting her view it from different angles. By the time she'd turned ninety degrees to the right, she was seeing Gensokyo as viewed from west end, facing toward the shrine. Disoriented but enraptured, she walked around the edge of the house to follow it further.

With slightly more rotation, the scenery blurred, and she was soon looking out over the outside world. With fewer trees and hills, it was a more expansive vista, full of hundreds of unfamiliar things. In the near distance, a skeletal metal tower stretched up toward the sky, and below that, the city she'd seen out her window. She moved more carefully now. As she turned, it seemed to be her view of the outside world that was rotating, rather than the world itself. A slight change in angle shifted the city completely out of sight, until she was looking out at forested hills. They would almost look at home in Gensokyo, if it weren't for the winding road running along the side of one. She turned further, and—

And found herself nearly face-to-face with Ran. The encounter jerked her out of her thoughts, and she froze, half-expecting Ran to attack. Ran seemed much more interested in the clothes line in front of herself. "It takes some getting used to, doesn't it?" she said, as she pulled a towel from the line. "It made me dizzy for a few weeks, until I adjusted to it."

"Er." So much for escaping unnoticed. "Yeah, it's weird," Reimu agreed. "How can we be inside the barrier?"

Ran looked to Reimu thoughtfully. "Well," she said, "If you treat the Hakurei barrier as a two-dimensional manifold, and define alpha to be the collection of homeomorphisms that constitute—"

Seeing the look of terror on Reimu's face, Ran trailed off with a soft laugh. After dropping the towel into the basket by her side, she stepped around the clothes line and traced a circle in the air with one finger. "How about this? Think of the barrier as a wall around Gensokyo. One side faces inward, toward Gensokyo. The other side faces outward, toward the rest of the world. We are inside of the wall. If you head in the right direction, you can come out at any point on the perimeter of Gensokyo, inside or outside."

"Huh." It almost made sense, if Reimu didn't think about it too hard. She'd already gotten used to doing mental gymnastics to understand the barrier. This just added a new layer of them.

"Are you leaving?"

Reimu opened her mouth to answer... and found that she didn't have one. The feeling of urgency had faded while she looked out at the strange view. "... I don't know," she admitted, and turned back toward the view over the outside world. So she really could just flee to there if she wanted. … not that it was anything but a passing fantasy. "Are you going to stop me?"

"I wasn't planning to. You're free to come and go."

Reimu almost wished that Ran had tried to drag her back into the house against her will. At least then she'd feel justified in resenting Yukari for this. On the road below, a vehicle caught the light, like a glimmering spark tracing out the contours of the hill. She followed it with her eyes, and it helped steady her nerves. "... you're a shikigami, right? What's it like?"

"Hmm? Well." Ran looked up. Under her hat, one ear cocked to the side in what seemed to Reimu like a thoughtful manner. "Yukari and I both have different roles, but that doesn't mean that she orders me around. We cooperate. In our own ways, we're each helping the other." She smiled. "Yukari is very dear to me. Like she told you, our souls are intertwined. Her joy is mine, and mine is hers."

"... huh." It wasn't quite the explanation that Reimu had been expecting, but it only muddled her thoughts further. She'd never relied on anybody, not since she'd moved into the shrine and started taking care of herself. She cooked her own meals, she cleaned her own living area, she did her own shopping. Having her fate tied up with somebody else's like that was daunting, really.

"Hmm. If you're willing, there's something that I'd like to show you. I think it will help you make a decision."

"What is it?"

"Now that you're a shikigami, I could transfer a memory to you. It will be just like you were there, yourself."

"Oh. Um." Reimu shifted her weight uncomfortably. The idea was a strange one. She didn't relish the thought of having somebody else's memories in her head. But, if it would help make some sense of this... "Sure, whatever. Go ahead."

With a nod, Ran closed her eyes, and seemed to fall into deep concentration. Reimu watched her for some sign of change. How would she even know if it worked? It wasn't like she was consciously aware of every memory in her head at all times.

… but then, she knew, it was there. It was a sudden foreign presence in her mind, as hard to miss as a splinter in her finger, a tangible object that she could manipulate. She turned it over in her head, and found that she somehow knew what it was. The memory felt like Ran, and she knew that with the slightest mental nudge, she could view it, erase it from her mind, even pass it to Yukari if she wanted. It all came as naturally as moving her fingers when she wanted to grab something.

"Are you able to look at it? It should hopefully make sense. As a shikigami, remembering things is one of our duties."

Reimu resented Ran referring to her as a shikigami so easily, like she'd already agreed to this. But she nodded, and with a mental gesture, opened the memory. It unfolded into her mind, integrating seamlessly with her own memories, and—

She's standing in the Bamboo Forest at night. It's vivid, more real than if she were remembering something that she'd lived herself. She can feel the cool breeze on the skin, feel the strangely familiar sensation of nine tails anxiously twitching behind herself. Even Ran's emotions and thoughts run beneath her own, a whole alien experience of its own. ... bring the doctor here, her survival odds will be 14%. If we take her to Eientei before treatment... A blur of arithmetic and mental micro-divinations, too quick for Reimu to follow, whiz past. 9%. "It's dangerous to move her," Ran says. Her sight flicks to the side, where Marisa and Alice are standing, both staring at something on the ground with their faces pale from shock. Alice has a steadying hand on Marisa's shoulder, as if holding her back. "Marisa, you're the fastest. Please go to Eientei and fetch the doctor."

"H-huh...?" Marisa looks over, and there are tears in her eyes. She sounds faraway and dazed at first, but the order gives her something to focus on. "D-doc, right!" She takes a step backward, then hesitates. "Don't let her die! You hear me?!"

Ran nods quickly, then glances down. Finally, she sees what Marisa was looking at. In front of her is Yukari, bent over Reimu and trying to coax her back to awareness. "Her odds of surviving medical treatment are no higher than 14%," Ran says softly.

Yukari nods, without taking her eyes off Reimu's face. She's crying, Ran notices. It sends a pang of sorrow through her, too. "Reimu. Reimu, answer me. Reimu, I can help you, but I need you to respond. Reimu! Reimu, do you understand?! You are going to die."

On the ground, Reimu is a mess. Her stomach is ripped open, entrails glistening in the moonlight. Blood is staining the forest floor around her, and still, more is flowing out. Her skin is pale enough that it seems to shine in the low light. Her breaths come in frantically fast, wheezing gasps.

Ran takes a step closer. Shuddering and whimpering, Reimu jolts on the ground, and her eyes fly open. She looks around wildly, but the look of awareness soon fades. Her expression is more like a confused animal than a person. "Reimu! Reimu, do you hear me?! You are going to die. Please, listen. Please. I can save you. Do you agree to be my shikigami?" When Reimu doesn't respond, Yukari repeats herself. "Reimu, do you understand me? You're been hurt. You're dying."

The spark of awareness fades from Reimu's eyes, and her breathing slows down. Yukari leans forward and slides one arm behind the girl's neck. She's left nearly face to face with her, almost shouting. "Reimu! You are going to die. Please, agree to be my shikigami."

And then, a miracle happens. Reimu's eyes focus, and she mouths, "Yes." She holds Yukari's gaze for just a moment before her eyes glaze over and drift shut again. With a tremble, she goes still.

Yukari lets out a moan of relief, but there is no time to revel in it. Ran has put together estimates for Reimu's remaining lifespan. It's best expressed in minutes. "Ran. The ritual. Please hurry."

"Y-yes, right," Ran stammers, as she steps closer and kneels down next to Reimu. This close, she can smell her blood, a temptingly appealing scent for a fox. Her mind hums through more calculations, determining the most suitable materials for her purposes. Then, without hesitation, she scoops up a blob of the soil near Reimu's body on her fingertip. It's wet with blood, still warm. Pressing her fingertip to Reimu's forehead, she starts drawing characters in the brown-red muck, Sanskrit and long-outdated Chinese. Reimu's skin feels cold and clammy, and her breathing is so shallow that it's barely noticeable. Ran hurries, drawing as quickly as she can without making mistakes, while Yukari does the same, marking her body with blood and soil. As soon as the markings are complete, Yukari bows her head, urgently muttering to herself.

To Ran's mind, the foreign words all translate into sorcerous components. She can see the forces that they're bringing into play, how each one ties into the next. The spell takes shape, and some chattering part in the back of Ran's head simulates it. Despite its power, it's a rather simple sorcery, little more than a metaphysical machine to mesh two souls together into parallel microcosms. She recognizes that Yukari is weaving the effect on the fly, adapting it from a much larger ritual.

Yukari speaks the final word. There's no thundering release of energy, nothing to indicate the end of the ritual apart from Ran's metaphysical perception of the forming bond. Reimu's body spasms on the ground, and her breathing grows steadier. Yukari lets out a shuddering gasp and brings a hand to shield her own stomach. Deep, arterial blood gushes out, staining her clothes.

"Are you …?!"

"I'll be fine," Yukari says. Her voice sounds reedy. She takes a wheezing breath, and something gurgles in her throat. "Please re-run the calculations."

"Right, o—

The memory came to an abrupt end, and Reimu's mind snapped back to reality. The daytime air felt warm on her skin compared to the night from the memory. Her pulse was hammering in her head from a secondhand adrenaline rush. Being jerked back into her body so quickly was a bit disorienting, and she noticed Ran keeping an eye on her as she recovered. "W-why did you show me that?" It wasn't until she opened her mouth that she realized that the sight of her own viscera had left her nauseous.

"Hmm, I'm not sure. It seemed important," Ran said. Turning away, she looked out over the city below again. "I'm not good at manipulating people, like Yukari is. I can only present the facts and let them speak for themselves. … I've never seen her so upset, though." Her tails twitched behind her, in what seemed like a thoughtful manner to Reimu. "And please don't take this the wrong way, but... they've been training your replacement for years. She could have just as easily let you die."

"Oh, well, thanks."

"I'm sorry," Ran said, with an apologetic smile. "That probably came across the wrong way. What I mean is... Yukari had nothing to gain by saving you. Taking a shikigami is a serious matter. For her to do it so recklessly, you must be very important to her."

"I see..." Important to her... The words kept echoing in her head. Reimu was used to examining everything that Yukari did, looking for whatever hidden goal she was actually aiming for. It was hard to imagine any here, though. Ran was right: The Yukari in that memory hadn't been plotting anything. She'd been barely rational, on the verge of sobbing. Maybe all of this feels as sudden for her as it does for me. It was a strange thought. Yukari had always felt confident and in-control, even during incidents.

Every little thing that she learned about her situation just made it harder to make a decision. "... where is she right now?"

"She's getting some sleep. She should be awake soon. Is there anything you need in the meantime?"

Reimu didn't give the offer much consideration before shaking her head. "I don't think so, thanks." Glancing back toward the half of the yard that faced inward toward Gensokyo, she said, "If I leave this place, how do I get back?"

"Just approach the barrier. It should recognize you now and let you pass through."

Just how much control do you two have over the barrier...? She left the question unspoken. That could wait for another time. "Okay. Thanks. I... think I'm going to take a walk and get some fresh air."