All In

To live is to open yourself to suffering. Hold fast.

Koishi opened her eyes to clear blue skies and the sound of waves crashing upon a beach. Seagulls circled above, cawing and crying… and the sounds of leaves rustling in a gentle breeze filled her ears. Underneath her was sunbathed sand, warm and dry. She ran her fingers through it and lifted it up, feeling each individual grain as it drained back down into the bank.

Suddenly, a familiar face entered the top of her vision.

"Wake up, sleepy head," she said. A pair of cold palms cupped Koishi's cheeks. It was surprising at first, but felt nice. It provided a nice contrast to basking in the sun's gentle warmth.

"Wah…" Koishi mumbled. She reached her own hands up to mirror the gesture. Like some sort of familiar pet, the girl who looked down upon Koishi leaned into her touch and closed her eyes. She let out a contented hum. "Do I… know you?"

The girl let out a giggle. "I'm Mr. Hat, silly. You've forgotten already?"

"I… guess I have, a little. Sorry. My brain feels a little weird today," Koishi muttered, letting her hands fall back to the sand. Koishi sat up with a heave, and looked out to the horizon. Blue skies and blue ocean as far as the eye can see… and further yet. Mr. Hat inched forward on her knees and gently took Koishi's hair into her hands to brush and braid. "Where are we?"

"We're in a liminal space — between the real and unreal. The causal and paracausal. A private little oasis, just for you," Mr. Hat chirped as she deftly braided Koishi's hair. She tied cute little ribbons as she went, drawing a line of red bows down the length of her hair. "You can think of it as a truly private place, beyond observation — beyond even the concept of observation itself."

"Then… why are you here?"

"Koishi! I'm hurt — it's because I am you, silly. We've been over this before, haven't we?"

"Um… I'm not sure I really get it. Back then, or now. How could you be me? I'm me."

"Well… how should I put this?" Mr. Hat started. As she thought, she hummed a gentle tune — something that Koishi might've thought she heard at some point… but her mind was too hazy to put it together. "It's like… a dream, but more real. A sort of… phantasmagoria that projects itself onto what we consider objective reality. A concrete conception of ideology, made manifest in a physical space. Everything in this world is something like that — even me. Just because it physically isn't you doesn't mean it's not you. Does that make sense?"

"Now you're just making stuff up…" Koishi groaned. "Stop it. Big words make my head hurt."

"Aw…" Mr. Hat wrapped her arms around Koishi, pressing herself up so close that Koishi could feel her heartbeat. Or at least, Koishi imagined it would've been close enough to feel a heartbeat — if there was one. "I didn't mean to confuse you. I just mean to say that whatever you imagine, it can become real here."

"Really?"

"Really. Just think about it hard enough, and it will appear before your eyes."

"Hm…" Koishi mused. She closed her eyes hard and focused. Suddenly, a fishing rod phased into existence in front of Koishi. She took it into her hands and stared at it in stunned silence. She brought it close to her face and inspected it up and down. She gave it an experimental lick before concluding it was very much real. "Oh!"

Mr. Hat let out a hearty laugh. "A sucker for the classics, aren't you? Try something else. Something more complicated. Your powers can go so much further than just willing fishing rods into existence."

"Complicated? Hm…" Koishi rubbed her temples as she concentrated harder than she ever concentrated before.

When she opened her eyes, a small anime DVD box set was in her hands. On the cover, a boy in some kind of skin-tight suit posing in front of a purple and green mecha.

"This is the most complicated thing you could imagine?" Mr. Hat leaned over Koishi's shoulder to get a better look.

"Well, the plot is super confusing… I think that guy falls in love with his mom, or something… No — a clone of his mom, I think. But his mom was actually the robot the whole time. I don't know…" Koishi tossed the box set to the side and rubbed her forehead. "Ugh… and just thinking about the ending makes my head hurt."

"Well, it doesn't have to be like that!" Mr. Hat rested her head against Koishi's. "Nothing has to be confusing, or painful, or bad ever again. Just think about it, and even something like this could change into whatever you want."

"What, like… rewriting the story?"

"Of course! Rewrite it into anything you want," Mr. Hat whispered into Koishi's ear. "If you don't like the ending, then change the ending. If you don't like the characters, then change the characters. If you don't like the story, don't like the themes, don't like the way it looks, then change it. Change it and butcher it until it becomes what you want. That's what it means to be a God. You are a grand artificer, here with your divine artifice — and the nature of all fiction is deception."

Koishi looked out to the horizon. A gentle breeze blew some stray strands of hair into Koishi's eyes. Mr. Hat brushed them aside and pushed them behind Koishi's ear.

"... I miss Gensokyo," Koishi mumbled. "If I wanted to… could I bring Gensokyo back? Could I rewrite how this all ended?"

"You catch on quickly, don't you? That's what I love about you." Mr. Hat smiled. "Of course. You could bring Gensokyo back and more. So much more. All you need to do… is will it."


Zhongmou crushed a food packet in her hand before pushing it forward. In a zero-g environment, the empty packet twirled and floated until it reached the door of her cockpit, which hung open.

In front of her was a moon rabbit engineer peering into the cockpit. She caught the food packet without much fuss. "You should be good to go for launch soon. We're on our final weapon and system checks."

"Got it," Zhongmou said, nodding her head. In the brief moment of respite, Zhongmou let her mind and vision wander. Behind the moon rabbit in front of her, who was currently absorbed in her checklist, was the name of the ship that was arranged to deliver weaponry and supplies — the CSC Beyond the Sun. It was a massive supply barge of a ship, almost completely devoid of weaponry and designed for heavy transport. Supposedly, and this was just hearsay, it was a private mining vessel developed in secret by a private corporation, but was seized by the Coalition under mysterious circumstances. Now it was here, an absolute relic, one bad hit away from turning into a museum vessel.

Without much warning, the moon rabbit pushed herself into the already cramped cockpit to fiddle with some knobs and dials. She plugged something into a port. "'Scuse me."

"Well, it seems like you already let yourself in," Zhongmou muttered under her breath.

"Combat AI online," a voice chirped over the internal sound system of the cockpit. "Pilot detected. Collecting biometrics."

"Combat AI?" Zhongmou echoed.

"Nothing too fancy. It's just there to assist targeting and provide some rudimentary combat action if you're knocked out of commission," The moon rabbit fiddles with a console, her fingers deftly flying across the screen to get everything set up as quickly as possible. "... It also pumps you full of drugs. Combat stimulants. All safe, of course. Relatively speaking, I mean. Not any more or less harmful than what moon rabbits usually get up to."

"You don't need to explain yourself. I understand that it's an insurance policy."

"Nothing so draconian. We're just giving you every advantage we can spare," the moon rabbit said as she inputted the last of the commands. "Head Engineer Usa to command. I just finished my last check. We're good to go for launch."

Usa pushed herself back out of the cockpit, holding onto a handlebar at the mouth of the cramped cell to right herself. She gave one last look back at Zhongmou. "Good luck out there, Lieutenant." And with that, she closed the cockpit door.

As she did so, the inside of the cockpit suddenly lit up — every surface of the interior that was not used to store pilot controls flashed bright red before resolving into a 360 degree view of the exterior of the combat frame, fed by external cameras built into the armor itself.

"This is Central Command. Lieutenant Lee, status?"

"Armed and ready," Zhongmou said, fiddling with the controls to her machine. She looked down to see that in the refitting process, extra hands were installed on the combat frame — likely to increase the amount of firepower that it is able to output. The mech brought all three pairs into view of the cameras and gave each hand a flex. "New armaments have been installed properly, and I'm reading green across the board. I'm standing by for assignment."

"Excellent. The CSC Argo has just launched. Do you have visual contact?"

Zhongmou squinted her eyes and traced a vapor trail from the Earth to a distant flickering light. "Affirmative."

"Make your entrance. Weapons satellites will begin fire in… thirty minutes, when the Argo arrives at the gravitational dead zone. The Argo will cover the earthbound satellites. Your assignment is to defend satellites situated on the opposite face of the Love-type Space Kaiju. Move into position now — we will provide you with updates as the operation progresses."

"Understood." The massive thrusters on the back of the Anti-Love Combat Frame, jutting out from the complex piece of machinery mounted on its back like two rockets, spooled up and caused the entire machine to shake and rumble with power. "Lieutenant Lee, deploying."

The thrusters fired, sending the Anti-Love Combat Frame hurtling toward Koishi… and its final objective. To any observers on the deck of the CSC Beyond the Sun, the disappearing silhouette of the machine would seem as a shooting star, blazing a blue trail across the inky nothing of the void.


"Ever been in space before?" Kyokai asked.

"Sure. I've been to the moon plenty of times before, haven't I?" Yukari responded, casting a strange glance over at the visage of Kyokai.

"Well, I didn't mean the moon. I meant space," Kyokai said with a harumph. She crossed her arms. Unlike everybody else in the crew compartment of the Argo, Kyokai wore no gear — no suit, no helmet, no EVA equipment, nothing. Though, that was not surprising, as she was also standing perfectly still on a vehicle that moved thousands of kilometers per hour, that shook and stuttered every moment the way up, and that was perpendicular to the gravitational pull of the Earth. Still, it was an absurd thing to see. "You know, the void and stuff. It's cold out there, you know? Not to mention how much of a bitch it'll be moving around in a place without any gravity."

Yukari rolled her eyes. "Try not to waste time with inane questions."

"Hey, this is important stuff, you know? You have to keep an eye on your oxygen and everything… What am I supposed to do if you pass out, huh?"

"Yukari!" A voice came over her helmet communicator. Eirin, no doubt. At once, Kyokai disappeared from vision with a disappointed sigh.

"What is it?"

"We're approaching the drop location. You and Mima — be ready to go on my mark."

"You get that?" Yukari asked, catching Mima's eyes.

Mima flashed an easy smile. "Oh Merry, what would you do without me? 'Course I did. She said—"

"I was making sure your comms worked, smartass." Yukari unbuckled herself from her seat and pushed herself off to the airlock, which was located toward the back of the ship. Mima did the same, keeping close behind Yukari.

"Eh? What did I do wrong?" By the time Mima floated along to the airlock, Yukari was already there, hand poised to hit the open mechanism. "Can't a girl trade some friendly banter with her best pal?"

"Clear comms. Knock it off, you two," Eirin snapped over the radio frequency. "Be ready to go on mark. Five…"

The two both settled down as the atmosphere grew noticeably more heavy. Mima took out her staff, and with just as much ease, three pairs of wings — colored as the void was — sprouted from her back and folded in place. Ready and waiting.

Yukari herself steeled her nerves, taking a shuddering breath in and out. Kyokai materialized in front of her. "Having second thoughts? Last chance to chicken out."

Those words were not mocking — Yukari had a feeling that Kyokai wanted her to bow out at the last second… to reconsider what Yukari had already decided to do when she failed one year prior. She shook her head. "Not this time."

"I see…" Kyokai mumbled. She smiled. "I'll stick with you, then."

"Three… Two… One… Mark!"

Yukari pulled a switch, and with a metal hiss followed by a blissful silence, the two lept from the Argo into the tetherless space of the void. Out here, the only thing that Yukari could hear was her steady breath, her gentle heartbeat, and the hissing of EVA units stabilizing herself. It was disorienting, but Mima seemed to be right at home.

She flew forward, her wings manipulating an air current that wasn't there to propel herself forward and stop her in place, just a meter or two away from Yukari. The communication device inside Yukari's helmet crackled with activity once more.

"Hey! If you need something, just holler, alright?" Mima said, twirling around to face Yukari. "... Don't go doing anything stupid or unecessary, alright?"

"Since when was I the one who needed warning?"

A light chuckle came over comms as Mima turned back around and flew into the distance, each of her wing beats in perfect sync with one another. "... Guess so. Good luck."

"This is Centcom to all active units in the AO. Please be advised — we're commencing Phase One of the operation," a different, unfamiliar voice said over the radio frequency that Yukari was tuned into. Suddenly, in the distance, vast swaths of areas surrounding Koishi lit up in brilliant arrays of color — the blue beams of light that cut bright paths through the darkness, the orange glare of missiles carrying megatons of explosives within their warheads, and the dotted lines of red and orange tracing paths through the empty space between weapon stations and God. It was an incredible amount of firepower put downrange — the culmination of everything that humanity could bring to bear. And it woke Koishi up.

While her eye was still before, as if in a deep trance, now she was back, the central eye darting every which way in a pointless attempt to track every projectile, every shell, every wayward beam of light. The convulsing and the twitching mass of tentacles that made up her body started to grow more vigorous and panicked as she was overwhelmed by the sheer amount of things coming at her. She let out a scream — heard echoing through the void through some inexplicable mechanism — and with a swipe of a blue tentacle, swatted multiple missiles from the void, causing them to detonate early in brilliant flashes that matched the intensity of the Sun — no, far outstripped it by multiple times. This was the terrible potential of humanity — with power enough to match a God, however brief the moment was.

Her arms, as they were caught in the blast of these warheads, burnt away until nothing was left, sending gushes of pitch black blood pouring forth from the stumps. Preoccupied with the closest threat and ill-suited to understand the machines of man, Koishi desperately swatted away at what she could, completely ignoring the satellites from which the payloads came. And with each successful interception, dozens more would impact the core of her body, illuminating her surface with massive balls of plasma that ate through flesh with terrible efficiency. Again, Koishi let out a pained screech as her flesh was dug into — tentacles ripped from place and avulsed, countless smaller eyes evaporated and crushed in the barrage of hellfire.

For a moment, watching Koishi helplessly flail her arms around as if she were a cornered animal, Yukari might've been able to deceive herself — even for a passing moment — that this is all it would take. That Koishi might die right here, right now, at the hands of humans.

"Target held in place."

"Keep an eye on your weapon heat levels."

"Alright… hold steady, now."

"Hell, is this all?"

"Centcom, we've got good hits from all stations."

"Centcom copies. We're moving on to Phase Two of the operation. All Earthbound Divine Spear weapons — you're clear to fire."

"Harpoon Station copies. Rods away."

Before Yukari could cast a glance behind her, countless tungsten rods — colored pure white and tied to thick cords made of some experimental Lunarian alloy — flew past her at high speed. Dazed and confused, Koishi could hardly make any meaningful response to the attack as those rods hurtled toward her. They all impacted one after the other, sinking deep into the tentacle flesh and anchoring themselves deep within to secure a proper hold.

Suddenly, the wires were pulled taut as the massive thrusters attached to each station were set to fire at their maximum output toward the Earth. From where Yukari was, it was not perceptible how much Koishi was moving, but she was moving. Inch by inch, foot by foot, the stations that pulled with all their combined might pulled Koishi ever closer to Earth… and to Yukari. As for Koishi… she was too preoccupied with the weapons that assailed her to care about the veritable pin pricks that were the Divine Spear weapons.

"All stations are reporting secure lines."

"Centcom copies. All Earthbound station crews — abandon your craft and prepare for emergency reentry." Behind Yukari, countless little pods, holding dozens of Coalition technicians and marines, shot out from their stations before crashing down to Earth in little fireballs. No doubt they would have people on the ground waiting to retrieve them. "Alright! Op is proceeding smoothly. All assets, we're moving to Phase Three."

That meant her. Yukari took a deep breath in and held both hands out in the direction of Koishi.

Kyokai materialized in front of Yukari once more. "I'm not going to lie. This is going to suck."

"Just do it already."

"Hah… Fine, then."

The sound of distant thunder. The beating of a drum. Hissing, screaming noises that came from within — as a pressurized bomb leaking air. Yukari's vision blurred and her breathing quickened. A thin seam in reality drew itself up and down from Yukari's perspective — first about her height, then double. And then double that, and double that, until it was about the length of a skyscraper. Then, progress slowed and halted. Yukari pushed herself to fit in a couple of more magnitudes… and then she snapped.

All at once, Yukari hurled in her suit, a revolting combination of bright red blood and bile.

"No! I'm sorry. Maribel, I just… I'm withdrawing for now." Kyokai rushed to Yukari's side. "I knew it. Even for you, that's too much."

"... Why?"

"Maribel…"

"Why… did you stop?" Yukari muttered, hacking up more blood. She felt cold — unnaturally so. Even protected in this suit, she felt colder than she ever had in her life. But even so, her head burned with an intense fever that fogged the mind and made it hard to speak without slurring words.

"You're killing yourself, that's why!" Kyokai seized Yukari by the shoulders. "Maribel, you have to take your time. This isn't a joke, or some stupid act of penance. If you go like that, you'll be dead before it even reaches halfway, you hear me!?"

Yukari was about to make whatever response her fever-addled mind could muster, but before she could, something cut through the background chatter of her communication set.

"Uh… Centcom, this is Pike Station, we're detecting abnormal readings out by our position, over."

"Centcom confirms. We're running the readings by nearby unmanned satellites, please standby."

"We're also having issues with the rail mechanism. Probably nothing, but we're waiting on a maintenance team to report back. We're predicting that it'll be about… twenty minutes until we're operational again."

"Pike Station, unmanned satellites are corroborating your system readings. We're working on—"

"What in Chang'e's name—!? Centcom, we're under attack! We've been boarded by the enemy! Shit… we've taken casualties!"

"Pike Station repeat? You've been boarded?"

"Affirm! I— Oh… no fuckin' way. We're receiving reports of moon rabbits. We're being boarded by Lunarian forces! Blue on blue, you assholes! Damn it! All hands—!" The transmission cut out to static.

"Centcom to all manned assets in the area. Please be advised — we're receiving reports of hostile boarding action. Open fire on any craft not registered on our IFF. Any stations near Pike, please report on their condition."

"Spear Station, we have eyes on. Centcom, we're seeing massive hull damage on Pike. Their rail system is trashed. Advise?"

"Hold position and stay alert. We're working on it."

Suddenly, a point in space, about a dozen miles long and more or less half as wide shimmered and distorted as light bent around it. In a flash of blue, something materialized in that space — a massive cloud, occupied by countless golden statues. It drifted forward with purpose, slamming into and wrecking any unmanned satellites that found themselves in its way.

"This is Captain Tian of the LDFN Mahavairocana," a voice declared over comms. "Upon the authority vested in me by Lady Yorihime herself, I demand you cease all hostile action directed toward the Lunar Capital. We will give you one minute. If you surrender in that time frame, your men will be spared and taken into our custody, where they will enjoy every right afforded to Prisoners of War. If you do not throw down your arms by then, the full might of the Lunar Defense Force Navy will be brought to bear against your forces. Will you comply?"

For a minute, there was complete dead air. The Mahavairocana, which everyone had thought reduced to rubble in the incident one year ago, was fully operational now, and a very real threat. They spoke of Yorihime, who had died eight years prior, and of the Lunar Capital, which had been reduced to a pool of black blood, along with the rest of the moon — as if they were still there. For a minute, there was nothing but complete confusion as Coalition command struggled to come up with a response. They would not get the opportunity.

"Very well. If you will not withdraw, then prepare for fleet combat. This will be our last transmission."

"Priority alert. Flagship Mahavairocana has been identified as… hostile. All units within effective engagement range are to destroy the enemy flagship."

Fire from the weapons satellites closest to the Mahavairocana stopped… and then started to begin firing upon the immense flagship. However, unlike the progress they made with Koishi, fighting another man made weapon of destruction yielded less than optimal results. The beams of light, which had cut through God-flesh easily enough, reflected off of the plating of the flagship — scoring the ship with lines of blackened surfaces, but sending the brunt of the attack deflecting away in wide arcs.

The missiles which had carved large swathes of destruction in Koishi's surface were intercepted by point defense fire from the flagship — slugs and rounds were thrown haphazardly down range, impacting the missiles and detonating nuclear warheads mid-transport. Sometimes, the blast would be immense enough to catch allied satellites in range, vaporizing them instantly. As for the ones who made it through the Mahavairocana's absolute screen of fire, damage seemed minor at best, completely negligible at worst, with the armor of the ship withstanding the incredible amount of heat and blast force generated. And of course, any kinetic weapon those weapon platforms were able to raise against their enemy bounced harmlessly to the wayside, whether it was point defense fire or larger slugs propelled by massive rail guns mounted on their hard points.

From the deck of the Mahavairocana, golden statues stirred and became active — old Vijoka, suddenly active after a period of inactivity they had not existed for. They launched, bringing with them weapons that were able to cull Coalition forces with the same ease a scythe would have to cutting grain. One of those combat Vijoka spooled up some kind of beam weapon in its hand… and fired it in a wide arc, causing scores of satellites to ignite and explode in brilliant fashion.

In a single moment, the entire operation had turned on its head. With some of her attention now freed, Koishi collected herself and looked to the satellites that assaulted her. With a mighty swing of one of her tentacles, she smashed several of the weapons platforms into scrap. Now, they were running out of time. And this was reflected in the background chatter of Yukari's Coalition allies, which grew more panicked by the moment.

Yukari let out a groan. Her fever had gone down, but the amount of issues that were cropping up out of nowhere was giving her an intense migraine. "No… We're out of time, already. We don't… have any other options. We have to keep going. I can take it."