In one corner of the lawn, the low-hanging branches of two trees meshed together. Here, twice a week, Yukari held her council of crows. In front of her, the branches were bowed down heavily under the weight of a dozen of them. The birds would stand calmly for a while, until one would caw and break the silence. After a brief conversation, Yukari would either reward it or move on.

It wasn't the first one that she'd held since Reimu had moved in, but it still struck Reimu as pretty weird.

"What do they even tell you?" she asked mentally, from her spot watching the ritual on the front step.

"Current events, mostly," Yukari replied. "Crows are curious creatures. They're often the first ones to notice a change in Gensokyo. Occasionally, they can run errands, too." One of the crows in front of Yukari tilted its head, peering at her face. After some time, it erupted in a sudden 'caw!'

Yukari looked at the crow critically. "And what does it look like?"

Another caw. Yukari pressed on. "But how large is it?"

Now the bird seemed less certain. It shuffled a few centimeters along the branch. When it remained silent, Yukari pointed at her house. "Is it smaller than that?" she asked.

The crow followed her finger with its eyes and looked blankly at the building. Another caw. "Hmm. I see. Thank you." Yukari dipped two fingertips into a small gap. When she drew them back out, there was a small chunk of banana between them. She tossed it over with a flick of her wrist. The crow snatched it up, while the others puffed their wings and let out a cacophony of protest.

"What did it say?" Reimu asked, once they'd quieted down.

"The Moriyas have started building something behind their shrine. It's probably just a storage building, from the sound of it... but it might be worth a visit just in case."

"Huh."

"Now, anybody else?" Yukari said, already dipping her fingers back into the gap. The crows continued tilting their heads around, avoiding her gaze in what seemed to Reimu to be a guilty manner. A slow news day, maybe. "Hmm, well then..."

Yukari was interrupted by another crow descending from the sky. Flapping its wings wildly to maintain control, it managed an awkward, one-legged landing on a branch. A small envelope was clenched in its other talon. It dipped its head down to transfer the envelope to its mouth, then offered it over.

"Ah, thank you," Yukari said. After taking the envelope, she flicked the crow a piece of banana, and the others cawed in protest again.

"... mail?"

"I do allow youkai to hire them to carry letters. It's a useful way to communicate, as long as you don't mind a few carrion stains." Yukari ripped the envelope open and unfolded the letter within, then skimmed over the contents. "Ahh, well, this is interesting."

"What is it?"

"One moment." Turning back to the crows, Yukari withdrew the remainder of the banana from a gap. "Thank you for your assistance, as always. That will be all for today." She dropped the banana to the ground, and the birds dove on it in one motion. After wiping her hands clean with a handkerchief, she took a seat next to Reimu and held the letter up.

In tidy, clipped characters, it said:
Lady Yakumo,
 I'm sad to say that we in the village have had a difficult time enjoying this fine weather. With no shrine maiden, the humans have been very tense these past two weeks. I hope that this letter finds you in better spirits than they are.

 I apologize for the short notice, but I have discovered that the expected candidate has proven her ability to inherit the Hakurei blessings. Her inauguration will take place on the morning of April 2.

Please give my regards to Lady Ran, as well.
— Umeki

Reimu stared at the letter, rereading it a few times for full effect. April 2 was tomorrow.

"Who's Umeki?" she said. It was the only thing in there that she was comfortable bringing up.

"A zashiki warashi." Yukari handed the letter over. "They help keep an eye on events in the village. Not that the villagers need to know that, of course."

Reimu nodded numbly, but she was barely listening. Cold surprise burnt its way across her mind. The next shrine maiden. Her successor. Logically, she'd known that this moment would come. Now that it was here, she felt unprepared. "How does it work...?"

"The formal selection of a new shrine maiden, you mean? I might hope that you remember, you did go through it yourself."

Reimu grunted. She couldn't, really. She had only been thirteen when she was chosen. For a few weeks, she'd been surrounded by frantic adults, asking her barely-comprehensible questions and ferrying her from one place to the other. The one thing that had stuck with her for years afterward was how worried everybody had been. The actual details seemed to have slipped from her mind. And then... what? There was her life before, a barely-remembered existence of playing in the streets of the village and getting into fights with the other children, and there was her life after, as the fully-fledged shrine maiden protecting Gensokyo. The entire transitional period was a blur, even in retrospect.

All she could remember, the only concrete thing, was: the first time that she flew had been exhilarating.

"Everything at this point is perfunctory, really," Yukari said. "Showing that she can use the shrine's blessings is the last hurdle, and she's already cleared it. All that's left now is to show her off in a ceremony and make sure that everybody knows it's official."

"Huh..." It didn't feel real.

"I don't plan to attend the ceremony, myself. New shrine maidens can be... unreasonable, until they've had a few years to adjust to the realities of the job. But if you'd like to go, you—"

"I'm going," Reimu said, without a moment's hesitation. It felt like a responsibility or something. She might not have been the shrine maiden anymore, but she still felt a duty to make sure that the switch went smoothly.

If she could ease the transition for her replacement, even just a little, it would be worth it.

From the air, the Hakurei shrine grounds were a blotch of vivid pink on the landscape, practically illuminated by the surrounding cherry trees. The sight didn't bolster Reimu's mood as much as it should have. This would be the first year since the Spring Snow Incident that the shrine didn't host flower-viewing parties for days on end. This should have been a time for relaxing with her friends. Instead, it was her first time visiting her home as an outsider.

In front of the shrine, a temporary stage had been set up by the front door. The crowd gathered around it was already quite large, but even from above, she could tell that she didn't know many people in it. The attendees were mostly villagers, with only a smattering of the flashier outfits that usually marked youkai and outsiders. Spotting the familiar point of Marisa's hat, she angled toward it and dropped closer. Marisa and Alice were on the edge of the crowd, with Marisa seated on her hovering broom to make up for her lack of height. Reimu had barely landed before she realized that Marisa was staring at her. "Hi. ... is something wrong?"

"Your clothes," Marisa said, stifling laughter. A snort finally forced itself past her guard, and as she broke down snickering, she just barely managed to add, "You look like a grumpy little Ran!"

"It's a normal shikigami uniform..."

"Hello, Reimu," Alice said with a sigh. "For the record, I think they look nice."

"Thanks." As a few nearby spectators turned to see what all the ruckus was—Marisa was nearly doubled over on her broomstick with laughter—Reimu looked out over the audience. The front doors of the shrine were closed, and with nothing to focus the crowd's attention, the spectators seemed torn between somber waiting and excited conversation. Like they couldn't decide if this was a celebration or a funeral. "Has it started yet?"

"They just took her inside. Something about presenting her to the kami," Alice said, and turned a curious eye toward Reimu. "I hear that you're a youkai now."

"Apparently. I don't really feel like one."

"It's subtler than you expect going in, isn't it?"

"Maybe a little." With all the changes to her life over the past couple of weeks, Reimu couldn't exactly call anything that she'd gone through lately 'subtle.'

"Oh, uh, that reminds me," Marisa said, once she finally managed to stop laughing. "You, um. You've got a bit of a reputation in the village these days."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you know. Changing shrine maidens is a big deal. It's kinda the only thing anybody's talkin' about. But word's kinda got out that you're still alive, so now people know something weird is going on."

"... okay..." Reimu had no idea where this was going, but she could tell that it was nowhere good.

"I mean, people always said some pretty sketchy stuff about you, with the 'youkai shrine' thing and all, but it's getting pretty bad now. Apparently the big rumor right now is that you've been a youkai all along. Or you're a youkai that ate the real shrine maiden a few years back and took her place? Something like that. ... but yeah. If you'd taken another week or two to make up your mind, I think somebody would've showed up at the shrine with torches and pitchforks."

"Oh." Reimu looked out over the crowd. There were a few people looking her way. Coincidence, or was half the crowd worried that she was going to start eating people at any second? "W-well! I can't do anything about things like that anyway."

"Yeah. I just thought it was kinda funny. Like, thinkin' that you were a tanuki or somethi—"

A murmur ran through the crowd, and Marisa trailed off. Every eye was now turning toward the shrine, where the front door was opening. From the relative darkness within, two lines of men walked out. They were all dressed in somber black yukata, with their heads bowed. Reimu recognized about half of them as elders from the village. They were usually her contacts for paid youkai extermination jobs. ... which might make things awkward, if rumors had gotten around that she was a youkai now, but she'd deal with that when it came up.

The men climbed the stage, and spread out into two lines along the back of it. When the very last of them was in position, the new shrine maiden stepped out the door.

She was... 'young' was the first word that came to Reimu's mind, but she was probably years older than Reimu had been when she started. Fifteen or sixteen, maybe. She was tall for her age, and her black hair stretched halfway down her back, with her bangs cut in a straight line just above her eyes. Combined with the composure with which she carried herself, it gave her a certain regal air. Even the dangling sleeves of the outfit seemed to sway elegantly in time with her other motions.

It was strange seeing somebody else in the shrine maiden outfit, and even stranger to see the yin-yang orbs orbiting around her and the purification rod resting in her hands. Not only had Reimu moved on from her old life, but somebody else had stepped into it. The next time an incident came up, this girl would be the first one flying out to resolve it. The next time that Aya thought that the Hakurei miko's activities would make good news for a slow day, or Kasen wanted to make sure that the shrine's spiritual affairs were in order, or something creepy was happening around the village, they'd go to this girl.

Upon reaching the center of the stage, the new miko paused. Lowering her head, she raised the gohei in both hands in front of herself and began a slow, solemn kagura dance. It was one that Reimu had performed a few times, herself. She still knew it well enough to subconsciously follow along with the motions. It made her feel melancholy, in a way that seeing the shrine again hadn't.

For the first time since her decision, Reimu mourned for her lost humanity.

After the ceremonies, the villagers had lingered for some time, turning the occasion into a social gathering. Reimu kept her eye on the new shrine maiden, but didn't want to approach her just yet. It seemed... clumsy, to have the sort of conversation that they needed to have surrounded by dozens of onlookers. So, Reimu lingered near the edge of the crowd, chatting with Marisa, Alice, and the few youkai who hadn't left as soon as it became obvious that the gathering wasn't going to turn into a drinking party.

Within an hour or so, the crowd was quickly thinning out. When she spotted the girl stepping away to go inside, Reimu decided to seize the only chance that she might get. Slipping through the crowd, she headed toward the front door of the shrine as stealthily as she could.

Shiko Hakurei. It was the one thing she'd gotten out of the string of speeches and congratulations that had followed the ritual: The new shrine maiden's name was Shiko.

Her own name had been conspicuously absent from the speeches, she'd noticed.

Reimu had pushed the door to the shrine open before she'd remembered that she should probably knock. Reflexes from years of living here. She rolled with it, though, sliding her shoes off before heading further inside. The shrine was still mostly in the condition that she'd left it. The furniture was in the same locations, and the items that she hadn't taken with her still sat on the shelves. The fact that the new girl—Shiko, she kept having to remind herself, and burnt the name into her perfect memory—hadn't had time to settle in was obvious. There were still a few bags and boxes near the door, probably her belongings. The only new additions were a futon and pillow that weren't Reimu's, and a few books on the shelves. It was subtle, but the shrine had already started its transformation into somebody else's home.

The only sounds were coming from the kitchen, so Reimu headed toward it. Inside, Shiko was bent over, struggling with the pump to fill a cup with water.

"The seal's been cracked for a while," Reimu said, assuming an apologetic tone without meaning to. "You have to kind of push the handle back, or it can't get suction."

The girl stiffened up, then shot Reimu a look of mixed annoyance and confusion over her shoulder. "... thank you," she said grudgingly, and turned back to the pump. After a few slower cycles of it, water began gurgling out into her glass. "You're the former shrine maiden, aren't you?"

"Yeah, I am. Sorry, I didn't mean to intrude or anything." But this is supposed to be my house. "I thought that I should probably introduce myself and offer to help you with your training."

"Oh. Thank you." Shiko lifted her now-filled glass and turned away from the pump. She studied Reimu over the rim as she took a sip. "It's Reimu, right?"

"Oh! Yes, Reimu Ha—" Reimu stopped mid-word, as she remembered that she'd lost all right to the Hakurei name. "Reimu."

"I'm Shiko Ma—er, Shiko Hakurei."

The exchange of unfamiliar names left an awkward silence afterward, and Reimu struggled to fill it. "So, um, how long have you been training?"

"Since I was twelve. I've been on a few youkai exterminations with the hunters from the village, and the Hieda family has been letting me study the full Gensokyo Chronicle."

"Huh..." It was a lot more training than Reimu had ever gotten. The village's youkai hunters weren't good for much except taking out the occasional stray beast youkai, but it was better than nothing. "You knew, then."

"That I was going to be the next shrine maiden?"

"Yeah."

"There was one other girl who volunteered when I did, but she washed out," Shiko said, and took a sip of her water. "After that, I was the only candidate."

Reimu nodded along... then paused. "You volunteered for it?"

Shiko raised an eyebrow. "Didn't you?"

Reimu could only remember being tested. Say this prayer. Place this seal on this box. Perform this ritual. Even in retrospect, most of it didn't make much sense. Had she gotten a choice? She couldn't remember. "I... don't think so."

Shiko held her gaze for a moment, then turned and walked toward the living room. "When I was little," she said, hesitantly, "this new girl arrived in town. We started playing together every day. I was happy at first. Most parents tell their kids to stay away from the orphanage, you know? But after a while, Miss Endou realized that she didn't know where the girl lived. She asked around, and nobody did. It turned out that she was a tanuki. They had her exterminated."

"Huh. Do you know what she was doing there?"

"You tell me. You're the one who exterminated her."

"... oh."

"I was angry at first. She was my friend, and she hadn't hurt anybody that I ever saw. But... we didn't know what she was up to. She could have been planning to eat somebody... after a while, I realized that you'd done the right thing. You might have saved my life, for all I know." Shiko took a sip of her water and ran a fingertip across the rim of the glass. "I was already one of the oldest kids in the orphanage by then. I tried to be kind of a big sister to the younger girls. Most of them had lost their parents to youkai in the first place. I thought, if she had eaten one of them, after everything they'd already been through... So. When they started looking for candidates, I volunteered."

"Well, um. I'm glad to have helped." Apparently. She couldn't even remember the details of the incident. Remembering her talk about Chen with Yukari, she tried not to think about it too hard. She decided to change the subject. "… so, is Miss Endou still so stingy with rice?"

Shiko blinked in surprise at the question, then laughed softly. "Of course."

Reimu nodded in sympathy. Even now, she could still hear the woman's voice scolding her anytime she got seconds at dinner. "Anyway, if there's anything I can do to help you settle in..."

"Hmm." Shiko considered that as she drained her glass, then sat it on the table. "While we're at it, do you mind if I ask you some questions too?"

"Oh. Sure, if you want."

"... why couldn't you be the shrine maiden anymore?"

That hadn't been the question that Reimu was expecting, and it wasn't one that she looked forward to answering. Part of her wanted to gloss over it entirely. Say that she'd been injured and couldn't fight anymore, or something.

"I... got injured," she said, and wished she could have left it there. "A friend of mine was able to save me, but there were some complications."

"What do you mean?"

Reimu couldn't bring herself to answer.

"Nobody was able to tell me what happened," Shiko continued. "Not even the elders seem to know."

"She... made me her shikigami. To save my life."

"A shikigami?"

"Yeah..."

Now, Shiko seemed almost afraid to take her eyes off of Reimu. Several seconds passed in expectant silence. "So, are you a human," she said softly, "or are you a youkai?"

Reimu's mind seized up on that question. There was really only one answer to that, and she wasn't sure if she could bring herself to say it. "It's complicated, but I'm... technically a youkai."

Shiko nodded. Every muscle in the girl's body looked taut now. For a moment, Reimu thought she was going to throw a punch. "If you were a villager," she said, in the strained voice of somebody struggling to remain calm, "I'd have to exterminate you."

"Yes." Reimu couldn't argue that.

"I can't take youkai-hunting advice from a youkai."

"I guess you can't, can you?" Under other circumstances, Reimu would have laughed at the sheer ridiculousness of the situation. Here she was, being threatened by the Hakurei shrine maiden. She was almost certain that she'd been on the other side of this conversation with Yukari, years earlier.

Shiko subtly gestured with one hand, and the yin-yang orbs rolled across the floor, then levitated up to hover beneath her palm. From years of experience, Reimu knew that all it would take was a single gesture of her hand and they would fly out, with enough force to shatter human bones. "I think you should leave."

"I..." Reimu hesitated, as the two stared at each other across the room. It felt like there had to be something she could say, something to set this right. Nothing was coming to mind, though. Instead, the only words she found were, "... I'm sorry."

If Shiko heard the apology, she gave no indication of it. Reimu wasn't about to linger any longer and find out of the girl had the resolve to attack her. Stepping backward, she made her way out of the shrine. She didn't dare to take her eyes off the new shrine maiden until she was out the door.