Some polite, but insistent, presence in Reimu's head nibbled at the edge of her consciousness. With a groan, she rolled over and pulled the covers tighter. The bed was impossibly soft, and all she wanted to do was sink into it and sleep for a few more hours.

It was too late. As soon as she noticed the presence, it latched onto her. There was a moment of tension, and then a cool, electric feeling of clarity spread through her head. It faded, and she was left simply knowing entire branches of mathematics. Before she could adjust to this bizarre experience, something else was already tugging at her attention.

The new additions to her mind lined up, and one by one, they made themselves known.

They were silent, but they were there, fresh and still-tender bits of her consciousness. Taking stock, she found that she already knew their purposes. One would give her a sense of her location, as long as she could see the stars. One would translate between languages. One would allow her to package up her memories, like Ran had. They stretched on, dozens of them, and after spending twelve minutes and forty-eight seconds (somehow, she just knew) surveying them, she turned her attention away and sat up.

As soon as she opened her eyes, other changes became apparent. First and foremost, she could sense the boundaries around herself, in a way that both came intuitively and didn't quite make sense. Looking toward the doorway, she knew right where the boundary between the bedroom and the hallway outside was. It was as obvious as the fact that the sheets were violet. The boundary between the house and the outside was an invisible layer over the window. Beyond it, she could see the boundaries between the Yakumo family homestead and the outside world, the boundary between the ground and the sky...

It was like having an extra sense. The experience was overwhelming at first, but after a few minutes of experimentation, she found that she could filter it out or focus on specific boundaries when she wanted. She also got the sense that she could manipulate them, as easily as she might open the window, but... that seemed like a really bad idea. Maybe later, with Yukari around.

Once the initial surprise faded and her emotions settled down a little, she could feel the subtler changes. The main one: Yukari. She was there in Reimu's mind, like an undercurrent beneath her consciousness. Focusing on it slightly, she tapped herself into Yukari's emotions without even intending to. The briefest taste of satisfied happiness diffused through her mind, while still carrying the undeniable sense of Yukari.

It instantly bolstered her mood, even while she wondered about the implications. The thought of sharing every emotion with Yukari, for the rest of her life, made her feel... vulnerable. Especially after Yukari's uncharacteristically earnest confession—what had that even been about?—last night. If she did that again, would Yukari know her emotions the whole time?

Before she'd made up her mind about the bond, she felt Yukari's presence through it, like the mental equivalent of a hand on her shoulder. Her voice soon followed. "Ah, good, you're awake. Ran and I are in her workshop. Would you like to join us?"

It took a moment to sense how to send a message back. With a simple,"Okay," she slid out of bed and shuffled out of the room.

Now, Reimu found that she knew every room of the place, and was able to pick the path toward the workshop without a moment's consideration. It was obviously something that Yukari had put there, and she knew that she should be uneasy at the foreign knowledge. It didn't feel foreign, though. It felt as natural as it would if she'd lived here for years, herself. She was comfortable enough that she'd already made a brief detour to the kitchen, grabbed an apple for breakfast, and taken a bite before it occurred to her that she should probably ask permission before taking food. Oh well. When it came to food, Yukari almost definitely owed her.

Stepping into Ran's workshop, Reimu had the strange experience of seeing a room that was both familiar and completely new to her. It was cozier than Yukari's bedroom, with an overladen table of sewing supplies, a dress form, a few crayon drawings on the wall, a stool, a wooden toolbox, and a shelf holding dozens of bolts of cloth and other sewing supplies. The desk alone held a dogeared copy of the I Ching, a dish of worn coins, several figurines that looked like they'd been made in the human village, an inkstone and brush, a pile of astrology references, a framed black-and-white photograph of a forest that Reimu didn't recognize, and a typewriter. Next to it stood an overladen shelf full of books that, judging by their covers, could only have come from the outside world. The place barely felt big enough for two people, let alone three. Ran and Yukari were on the far side of the room, and Ran was running cloth through a whirring machine that Reimu didn't immediately recognize. At this point, not recognizing some of the weird stuff in this place was almost reassuring.

Ran seemed too wrapped up in her work to even notice Reimu. Yukari, though, smiled back to her over a shoulder. "How do you feel?"

"... strange," Reimu said, and carefully picked her way across the room. "My head feels like it's going to pop. Do I really need all of that stuff?"

"You'll get used to it in time. … and I see that you've already helped yourself to breakfast."

"O-oh, um." Reimu had almost forgotten about the apple in her hand. Once she'd recovered from her initial surprise, she took an oversized bite, then held it up. "It's payment for that one you stole from me last fall!"

"Reimu," Yukari said. "You live here now. Eat all the apples that you'd like."

The misstep would normally leave Reimu embarrassed, but now, she could feel Yukari's amusement through the link. It blunted the edge, leaving her to come down from it gently. It was a strangely intimate feeling, like a whispered secret. Even physically close to one another like this, the sense that Yukari was right there was... companionable. She didn't have to tap into it if she didn't want to, but in some sense, she'd never be alone again if she didn't want to be.

That would take some getting used to.

Apparently her self-reflection was obvious, since Yukari broke her out of it by saying, "It's okay to ease into things. The skill set that I gave you is a bit more specialized than the one Ran got, so you'll need longer to adjust than she did. We'll have plenty of time to go over the details later. In the meantime... have you thought about your new surname?"

"No, I haven't..." Another thing that had slipped from Reimu's mind with everything else that was going on. "I guess I should probably do that."

"There's no rush. You're not constrained to a human lifespan anymore. Take a few decades, if you'd like. It's not mandatory, but it's traditional for a shikigami to take their master's surname, once both parties are comfortable. Chen will be joining the Yakumo family soon, herself." Smirking, she added, "'Reimu Yakumo' has a bit of a ring to it, don't you think?"

Yukari was obviously trying to get a rise out of her, and Reimu held off on the urge to tap into Yukari's emotions to ease her own embarrassment. Instead, she hid her blush by taking another large bite of the apple. If she was living here, she was going to have to get used to dealing with this kind of thing. Reimu Yakumo... "I'll keep it in mind."

"Just a suggestion~."

"Oh, Reimu," Ran said, without looking up. It was a welcome interruption. "Are there any clothes you'd like? I have a few dresses in mind, but we didn't know if you'd want anything else..."

Only now did Reimu actually look at what Ran was making. It was a dress, similar to Ran's own: White, with a cerulean panel down the center, which Ran was already sewing decorative flourishes onto. I guess that's going to be mine... She'd realized that she couldn't just keep cycling through the handful of outfits that she'd brought for the rest of her life, but she hadn't considered what she was going to be wearing instead. She supposed that the dress that Ran was making now would be her all-purpose outfit from now on. That was comfortably familiar, at least. Between her lack of funds and her laziness, she'd worn the shrine maiden outfit for everything from combat to parties. "... maybe something to keep my hair out of my face."

"A hat?"

"Some bows would be nice, if you can." She probably shouldn't do red and white anymore, but it didn't mean she had to totally abandon her personal style.

With a thoughtful nod, Ran's focus returned to her work. For a minute, the only noise in the room was the hum of the sewing machine as Ran guided the cloth through a series of careful maneuvers, as fast and precise as anything that Reimu had ever seen Alice accomplish. "This should be done soon," Yukari said, glancing over to her. "Would you like to go finish settling in? I can run you through the paces of your new abilities afterward."

Not that Reimu had much to unpack. Her clothes left the armoire cavernously empty. With Yukari's permission, she was able to commandeer a small bookshelf from one of the less-used studies, but her small collection of books looked ridiculous on it. She compensated by grabbing two dozen more from the study, since she found that they now made sense. Flipping through a philosophical treatise on destiny, she noticed a spot where the author had miscalculated an astronomical projection. Uncomfortably, she shoved it back on the shelf. Understanding things like that was going to take some getting used to.

The few personal items Reimu had—her comb, mementos from friends and former enemies, and gadgets from Kourindou—got divided between the still-empty shelves and the top of the vanity. In the end, the room was left feeling slightly less sterile and empty, but it still didn't feel like it was hers. Not in the way that the shrine's living area had. Maybe she'd have to go into the human village and buy some decorations later, assuming she could get her hands on some spending money.

Just as she had finished settling in, Ran had delivered her first completed outfit, and now, it was spread out on the bed in front of her. The dress hadn't changed much since she'd seen it, just a few finishing touches. Along with it, Ran had made a fat ribbon for her to tie her hair up with; remarkably close to the ones she'd worn as a shrine maiden, apart from the blue cloth she'd used.

Pulling the dress on, Reimu was surprised at how well it fit. It covered more of her body than the shrine maiden outfit had, from her shoulders all the way down to her ankles, but the cloth was somehow both light and warm, and it left her movements unrestrained. After putting the bow into her hair—and sighing with relief at finally getting it to stop tickling her shoulders—she walked over to the vanity to inspect herself.

It was surprising how much difference a change of clothes could make. Compared to the vibrant red of the shrine maiden outfit, the blue and white looked more... relaxed. The softer colors left her brighter eyes to draw attention, in a way that she found intimidating. The bow in her hair offset the effect a little, but even that was a bit different, a less stiff cloth that drooped down under its own weight, commanding less attention. Combined with the longer, slightly more traditional dress, she felt like she looked five years older just by putting it on. It might get her a bit more respect the next time she went into the village, at least.

Reimu turned side to side in front of the mirror a few times, getting a better look at herself and trying to figure out how to stand with the decorum that the outfit seemed to demand. After a minute of this, she gave up on the effort. She'd never worried about that kind of thing when she was the shrine maiden, and she didn't need to start now. After sizing herself up one last time, she turned and headed out to find Yukari.

Yukari was on top of Reimu the second that she stepped outside of the house, peering over her outfit and making the occasional adjustment. "Hmm, that look suits you better than I'd thought it would. I knew that I made the right choice in letting Ran pick the colors."

"It's not bad," Reimu agreed, and ducked away from a fussing hand in her hair.

"A shame about the lack of tails. If you had those, you could be the prettiest shikigami in Gensokyo."

The word 'pretty,' coming from Yukari's lips, would usually leave Reimu fuming in annoyance. Today she tried to shrug it off, and eased herself into the link with Yukari again. Yukari's emotions came drifting out like before, a subtler, more affectionate mix. So she's not always joking when she says that stuff... "I-I wouldn't know about something like that," she said, and hurriedly changed the subject. "Are you going to tell me what we're doing out here?"

"Straight to the point again, hmm? Once you've lived for a few more decades, you might learn to enjoy taking detours now and then." Yukari stepped back, though, and gave Reimu some breathing space. "Hmm. To start off with, have you experimented with manipulating boundaries?"

"Not really..."

"Well, let's give it a try," Yukari said. She turned to walk a few meters away from the house. She pulled her hat from her head and sat it on the grass, then took a step away. "Let's call this lesson one: Can you grab my hat?"

"How am I supposed to do that?"

"I suppose you'll just have to figure that out, won't you?"

Reimu squinted at the thing, trying to figure out just what Yukari was playing at. She allowed her sense of boundaries to fade back in, once more partitioning the world into smaller sections, separated by infinitely thin lines. She didn't see how it was supposed to help with the situation. There were no boundaries running from her to the hat, though... unless.

She raised one hand, and tried to get a more tactile feel for the boundaries around her. If she focused, she could feel millions of them, billions. Like a tiny grid through the air that kept all the world's contents separate from each other. Pushing even further, she could feel boundaries that were grander and more subtle. The point where now became then, the line in her heart between love and hate, the border of fantasy and reality... and then she found it. Twisting the line between here and there, Reimu convinced the universe that two parts of itself were one and the same.

The distortion began as a pinprick in the fabric of space-time, but with focus and concentration, she coaxed it wider. It spread, and soon ripped itself open, like a wound in the universe's side. From the formless darkness within, unblinking eyes stared out. In the air over Yukari's hat, another one split open.

"Very good," Yukari's voice came in Reimu's head, and she could feel her guiding presence helping to stabilize the gap. "It's a brute force approach, but I can show you something more elegant later."

Cringing, Reimu plunged her hand into the gap. It poked out through the second gap, over the lawn. She could feel the sunshine on it, then the soft cloth of Yukari's hat under her fingers. She snatched it up, and breathed a sigh of relief as the hole in the air healed in front of her. For a moment, her imagination had been filled with images of the gap snapping closed too early, shearing her hand off in midair or something. "... does it always take that much concentration?"

"It gets easier with practice," Yukari said, and started back toward Reimu. "You picked it up very quickly for a beginner, so I don't think it will be a problem for you." She took her hat and settled it back on her head. "But that was only the warmup. Now then, shikigami, let's see if I can't find you an actual challenge."