I left my computer in the car for a couple hours, and came back to this chapter. I'm still getting hornets out of the components. The Touhou Project series of games belongs to ZUN and Team Shanghai Alice.

-?, Forest of Magic.-

The moonlight shone through the window. An old, but preciously taken care of doll lies on the ground. A blonde girl looked up from her desk, having been awake for a long while. A talisman, lighting up with an ominous purple, comes from the window. The tired girl pulls on a thin piece of string wrapped around her finger, and the doll moves shakily. It picks the talisman up with both its hands...

-?, Near the Hakurei Barrier.-

A worn and destitute shrine covers the ground. Stone tiles beautifully decorate the grounds. A red and white shrine maiden sleeps on the wooden floor of the shrine, a sake dish next to her along with an empty bottle. Youkai and fairies play around, free of the grumpy miko's fury. A piece of paper slips into the donation box, awakening the girl in red. She opens the donation box, only to find a black piece of paper stuck inside. She goes back to sleep. A purple light flashes from within the box.

-?, Forest of Magic-

An ordinary witch sleeps peacefully, her room quite messy; books, potions, and all kinds of items cover the floor and desks. Her broom next to the bed, and a certain small furnace on her bedside table. The soft light of the night revealed a page of the grimoire on her desk.

'Drunken Sign "Divine Sake Elixir"

User: Unknown Oni

Notes: Observed once at Underground Bridge as a bomb, tastes wonderfully. Probably fun.

Alcoholic Level: ✰✰✰✰✰

I saw this when I went over to Former Hell. An Oni had used a Sake Spark against the bridgekeeper.

Using other elements to form a Master Spark seems like a good idea at first, but not much can really beat the Mini-Hakkero's energy laser, other than an even more concentrated death laser.

The idea of using liquids to shoot out a high-density laser seems appealing, though.'

An ominous black talisman marked the page.

-Eientei, Bamboo Forest of the Lost.-

The restless rabbits run around, doing chores. Reisen observed them all, while having to entertain Kaguya. Tewi laughs at her. She decides to overload Tewi's brain. She wasn't doing anything anyways. She looks at her worn army-issued rifle shimmering under the light of the full moon, a reminder of her time in the lunar military. A painful one, at that. But, it was still part of her.

She looks at the talisman on the floor, and throws it towards the rifle. It was better off gone, in her opinion...

-The Moriya Shrine, Youkai Mountain.-

The unconscious gods, drunk, roll around on their futons. Sanae sighs, and tries enjoy her moment to relax. She opens the door and stares towards the night sky, happily. Sometimes, she wishes she could have lived a normal life in the Outside World. She doesn't regret coming to Gensokyo with her ancestor, though. She breathed in the night air, cool and clean, coming from the window. The shadows of the countless onbashira inserted in the shrine grounds covered every single inch of ground. But, in spite, one of them had tilted, leaving a gap of light to pass through. Lines of purple suddenly shined through the single, tilted onbashira.

-Tengu Village, Youkai Mountain-

Aya kept on writing her news article, hoping it would attract new readers. Her plume's ink flowed freely through the paper, leaving not a single stain outside of the kanji. Suddenly, it stopped. She dipped the plume into the ink. With only a candle, and the charming light of the moon coming from the open roof, the room was well-lit. She got up, and stretched. A breeze blew through the windows. 'It feels nice', she thinks. She picked up her camera, and looked through the pictures. A new option appeared on the digital display.

UNLEASH -€%~ #=¬'-?

-YES-

NO

She checked her camera. A second curse seal revealed itself.

"Well, this is recipe for a scoop! Let's see what comes out!" she picked 'YES'.

Shizumu took out his cellphone, which... had a curse seal on.

A sudden blast of smoke filled the room.

"*COUGH, COUGH*, haah... DAMMIT, SHUTEN! I can't trust you with this kind of stuff!"

They opened the doors, and let the smoke out.

Shizumu, having thrown his phone instinctively towards a floor cushion next to the table, picked it up. It vibrated rapidly, messages flooding in, somehow.

'hey you fuck'

'yes you'

'you're a loser with no faith'

'haha get screwed www'

He looked towards the phone, and tried to shut it off. It didn't.

'please dont do that it hurts'

He pressed the button again.

'stop please im begging you'

He stopped.

'YOU FOOL'

He pressed it again.

'sry wont do it again this time for real T_T'

"Hey, Hoshiguma-san, follow me."

He went home, and took out his hand-crank charger out of the rubbish piles he had on the floor. He connected his phone to it, and started cranking, until it reached a good enough battery percentage.

'thx bud'

Shizumu wrote a message.

'np'

'holy shit you can talk'

'fuckin thought i was iliterate or something?'

'no but i didnt think youd be such a cunt'

He pressed the turn off button again.

'stop that'

'草'

'asshole'

'best part of my personality imo'

'im going to shove a pipe up your mums ass'

'oh wait no shes dead i forgot wwwwwww'

'gl trying to get me to charge you again then'

'im gonna grow a body one day and kik your ass wait and see'

'ill wait you wont even fucking last a second wwwww'

Hoshiguma straight-manned the situation.

"What the hell are you doing?"

"Bonding."

'yeah' the cellphone tsukumogami wrote.

"..." Hoshiguma gave up.

"I have to check up on Aya. Her camera already had a seal, and I'm not ready for what's going to happen next."

Shuten took off. He dashed through the bridge, and ran upwards to Tengu Village, and from there, the Bunbunmaru newspaper office. He forced the door open and went upstairs, to Aya's studio. He gently opened the door...

An unconscious Aya lay on the floor, fear energy running through her entire body, while a young girl in a paperboy outfit stood next to her, crying. He assumed the unknown girl was the camera he'd unsealed, and put a blessing talisman on Aya's forehead. A sudden burst of dark with eyes came out, forming a humanoid shape, culminating into a small, black-haired child with an unsettling smile and a black yukata, with flowers of a colour undescribable to man, god or youkai. Another, overloaded, talisman was thrown towards the girl, but a hole formed on the girl's body where it should have landed. She disappeared in the dark of night.

According to the eagle's report, it had seen a suspicious person run into Tengu Village. It said it was probably the one who generated that disturbance, as an aura of fear energy surrounded them.

Kasen headed there immediately, riding in on her eagle. It dropped her off at the Bunbunmaru newspaper office. 'Whatever must that crow-woman be doing?'

"I found you, evildoer! Respond for your crimes!" She put a hand over the boy's shoulder, making him face her.

Shuten stopped for a second to watch her daughter's visage. Pink hair, huge, red eyes, fair skin, all the love in the world, and... a missing arm. She didn't have her horns, but a glimpse of her face was more than enough to recognize her. He let his eyes melt under the tears. How she didn't look a year past her twenties was a mystery to him.

"Ibaraki-chan?" he asked.

"Who... are you? How-" It hit her like a truck. A truck full of her past and memories, in the shape of her father, who was currently jumping towards her. She let him hug her.

"Daddy's here, Kasen. Even if I might not look my age, I managed to come back from the grave." She saw the scar on his neck. "Your old man has so many things to tell you about... I've been buried in the ground for a thousand years, Kasen. I was lonely for a century, wandering through Kyoto's streets, and managing my own shrine. I became a god, Kasen. I have even more stories to tell you. When I came here, I didn't think I'd find Hoshikuma, and much less... you. I wonder if the others are here too, you know?" Shizumu sobbed uncontrolably, not unfitting for his appearance.

"Sorry, dad, but I have something to do." she punched him in the gut, knocking him out. He didn't resent her for it. He knew what he had done earlier, and was ready to take full responsability. The only thing that pained him was that her daughter had to witness his incompetence.

Aya woke up, hours after. She'd seen countless things while unconscious which she could only rely on her birdbrain to forget. The forbidden knowledge that being had crammed into her head was unimaginably terrible.

'I shouldn't have said yes, I shouldn't have said yes, I shouldn't have said yes, I shouldn't have said yes...'

"Waahh..."

The camera Tsukumogami let her head rest on her lap.