Oh, Nitori- you and your Last Word card. You silly Kappa, copying Solid Snake's Final Smash. And it's about time you are in a fighting game; what with you, Wriggle, Mokou, and Kaguya being cut from UNL due to constraints. Do you guys understand the implications of that? We could have played as Mokou in a fighting game for crying out loud. The only thing more awesome than that would have been Wriggle-kicking it up in said game.

And just how dark can I go, without being Asatsuki Dou?

That almost rhymes.

Thanks, stylus. I'm always personally iffy on going out on a limb and writing a backstory for one of the Touhou characters in this, even if it would fit. Reimu has had a lot of different backstories. In Asatsuki Dou's work, "Reimu Hakurei" is just a title for the current defender. She can be killed and be replaced by the youkai with another girl. Another one is that she's actually someone from the outside world who found herself in Gensokyo. Or, if you were to believe that doujin game Conceal the Conclusion, Gensokyo is her shared dream with Marisa.

My version in this makes a bit of sense. The Hakurei were already established, but you don't see her family. Marisa I understand living on her own - she ran away from home. Her dad is still living in the village, and the Kirisame's are rich, as they own several shops, yet Marisa chooses not to live with him. So why don't we see Reimu's family? Why don't we see her kill more often? She opts to seal away youkai instead of killing.

Writing up her story just kind of came together, regarding a lot of facts about her.

Also, this is the longest episode I have ever written. Get a drink, make a sandwich, and get comfy in your chair. It's long.

Girls do their best now and are preparing. Please watch warmly until it is ready.

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya is owned by Nagaru Tanigawa. Touhou Project is owned by ZUN and Team Shanghai Alice. I own neither. This is a fan fiction of those works.

Beta Readers for this Episode:

Another Duck

werewolf2005

"The Legend of Kaguya-Hime? Princess Kaguya? The Lunarian princess?"

Yukari gave a nod of approval, smiling. "Go ahead." Everyone looked at me, the sudden center of attention.

The books left around by Yukari and also my personal knowledge of Japanese folklore are paying off.

I cleared my throat, that feeling of anxiety and nausea washing over me - you know, the one you get when you are going to give a speech. I took a few deep breaths to calm myself down. I didn't really like being put on the spot there, but I had to deal with it.

I shot the demon one last glance. She motioned with her hand to go ahead.

Here I go.

"The Legend of the Bamboo Cutter. That's just about...one of the oldest Japanese tales. Ever. One of the first Sci-Fi folk tales, I think. I'm not going to go into detail over the story, so I'll give you a summary of it. According to the tale, a baby was found by a bamboo cutter from within a bamboo stalk, and he and his wife raised her as their own. He had great fortune after that; when the cutter would cut bamboo, he would get gold inside every cut. The stalks poured gold for him. He became wealthy, and the baby grew up to be a beautiful woman - supposed to be the most beautiful woman ever, or something. Princes heard of her beauty and wanted her hand in marriage, but they had impossible tasks, set by her. Five impossible tasks that, depending on the version of the story, may have claimed the life of one of the princes. Eventually even the Emperor of Japan himself wanted her hand in marriage, but she simply said no every time to each suitor."

Again, it was quite weird to be the one explaining things. I took a pause to mentally focus myself, because my voice broke a bit at the end there. Clearing my throat, I dove right back into my speech.

"Eventually the girl revealed that she was a Lunarian princess, Princess Kaguya, and that her people were coming to claim her. She was put on the Earth to...again, depending on the version, either she was punished for a crime and exiled, or she was put on Earth for her own safety because of a civil war up there, or something similar."

"You're doing quite well, Kyon. Keep going."

I nodded at Yukari, but I also started to get a feeling of dread in my stomach. An idea of where this was going began to form in my mind. This is for real, isn't it? What I'm saying actually happened, didn't it? It may not have happened one hundred percent the way it was told, though. After all, I thought that vampires could turn people with one bite, which was not the case in reality - otherwise I'd be a vampire myself.

"The Emperor still wanted her, but he heard of this, of the Lunarians coming for her, and wanted to protect her. However, the Lunarians overwhelmed the guards he set, and got her back. Kaguya was overcome with sadness, and wrote letters expressing that to everyone she knew...she did that because the Lunarians did something to her to make her forget her sadness and compassion for the people of the Earth. She also left the elixer of life for the Emperor, after drinking it herself and becoming immortal. The Emperor turned it down, because he didn't want to live forever without Kaguya by his side. He then ordered the elixer to be burned in Mount Fuji. And," I said as I rubbed the back of my neck, "and that's about it."

Since it was obvious that I was done, everyone slolwy turned to Yukari. I think everyone knew that there was more to it than just that. The demon knew something.

"Yeah..." Reimu said rather quietly. "The Bamboo Cutter Princess. My mom used to tell me that tale every now and then..." The miko pursed her lips. "Yukari...how much of that is true?"

The demon smiled at us. "I'm going to blow your mind, humans."

Princess Kaguya is...for real?

Mokou watched as the three youkai left the clearing: the two youkai that had left the group, and that shadow youkai. Mokou had come across them purely by accident, hearing them speak. She heard the whole thing.

After they were gone, Mokou came out of her hiding spot, her eyes on the remains of the little girl that was fed on.

There was enough of her to know who it was. Mokou wished that wasn't the case. She'd seen a lot of death before, but seeing this little girl's body caused her to put her hand over her mouth, mostly because of the one remaining eye that stared up at Mokou. The defender of the human village couldn't help but get squeamish.

Ah...Chitose...you poor, poor girl.

It was her. The little girl who had been the "big sister" for her generation of friends; the one that everyone looked up to because she took care of everybody.

Her bright, friendly smile, her angelic voice, the way the sun shone off her short brown hair. Mokou wouldn't be seeing that anymore. What a waste. Another life I've seen just taken away...and just ten years old. My God. Seeing children die was always hard to bear, no matter how many times she'd seen it.

She clenched her fist and her teeth, trying not to let it get to her. Mokou glared at the remains of the youkai responsible for this nightmare; feeling anger, both at it killing the little girl, and anger that Mokou couldn't exact revenge on the son of a bitch. Glancing to where the shadow youkai left to, Mokou grimaced, wondering how this should play out.

The village could just hear about this youkai killing the girl, and about how it's already dead n' all. But they'll want to know who ate her. They'll recognize the bite marks and the fangs. But they won't care that the little shadow youkai avenged the girl...they'll care that she also started eating her. Everyone'll want that youkai's head.

Mokou sighed, glancing back to the village. She wasn't affected by the history distortion, so she knew where it was. She stared in that direction, thinking of what to do.

This is delicate. Too delicate for me. Gotta ask Keine how we should play this out and how we gotta deliver the news. Last thing we need is more people going out at night hunting youkai lookin' for revenge n' all. They always lost at least one person whenever that happened, making it not worth it in the long run. Because then they'd want vengeance for that death, they would go out and lose more, wash, rinse, repeat, and end up with only more dead villagers by the end of things. Mokou let out a sigh, deciding that she'd tell Keine about this.

But before that, Mokou had the unenviable job of carrying the remains back to the village.

At least I have a date to look forward to.

Mokou wasn't heartless; she just steeled herself from feeling too much negative emotions. In order for her to stay sane in a land filled with death, despair, and fear, she had to become selectively numb, like most of the other people in Gensokyo. She knelt down at the body, trying to figure out how she should carry the girl, while trying to occupy her mind with other things, to take her out of what she was doing.

Why was I so flustered with that Koizumi? All this time, I've never felt my heart flutter like that. Sure, he's a cutie...one hell of a cutie at that, and his smile is very charming...but why do I feel this way towards him? Also, what was up with that Haruhi stuff?

Mokou pondered why she was acting like a teenager as she went about doing her task. Haven't felt like that in...ages. Not gonna lie...it kinda feels good.

Perishable Night

Episode 8

["Imppiteous / Undermined"]

=A Pure Cage in the Filthy World=

"'In this filthy world, you have stayed long enough.'

Then, all the locked doors were opened untouched-"

Touhou 8: Imperishable Night - Stage 5

Nitori heard the flapping of wings outside and knew instantly what it was: a winged tengu.

Things had been pretty hectic after hearing what was going on. Yukari had shown up some time ago, and explained it to them, saying that the moonlight was making youkai feral, and that both fairies and humans were targets. She had also asked for the SDM to grant asylum to any fairy that needed it.

What a cruel thing - killing off the poor fairies. What did the fairies do to deserve all of this? They don't hurt anybody. The four of them - the guard, the librarian, her assistant, and Nitori - had fended off the assault. The librarian had sealed off everything but the front door: which was perfect, tactically. Just bottleneck it, and all the youkai would just drop. It also gave a way for fairies to get in. Nitori had stopped counting when the number had reached triple digits.

I had no idea that there were this many fairies in Gensokyo, and they'd all be dead if we didn't take them in. Nitori knew that it could only be a fraction of the number of fairies. Could their numbers surpass the thousand mark? Nobody has ever bothered counting how many fairies we have here.

The front door shook - the flapping of wings again. Nitori saw the guard prepare herself for another assault, the librarian and her assistant were getting ready as well. I don't know if these guys ever took on a tengu before. The kappa reached into her backpack, trying to find her prototype.

Spare metal...water bottle...where are you...oh there's my oil can...my metric wrench set... Kappas were not known for being tidy. Electric wiring...dead battery - I gotta throw that away or recharge it...key to my shop...night vision goggles...wait, I have a mini chainsaw? Awesome. Now...ah! There it is!

She found her prototype, brought it out, and made sure it was fueled. She spoke as she got it ready. "Look, if it's a Tengu, it'll be a fast sucker, all right? Lemme try something." She aimed her prototype at the door. "Just let 'em in."

The guard stared at the kappa as if she was insane. "We're trying to keep everyone but fairies out of here!"

"Yeah, but if it's a Tengu, I'm kind of obligated to save it. I don't want them to have that fate of being feral, okay?" Nitori nodded at the guard. "I'm sure you wouldn't want to be in that state, right?"

The guard opened her mouth to say something, but then she closed her mouth in agreement. However, the guard didn't even get a chance to open the door as the bars on the door cracked, before they flung open, and something streaked inside. Nitori heard the librarian's assistant gasp.

The kappa already had her weapon aimed at the right spot. Nitori fired her prototype gun to where her target would be, not at it. It was a direct hit, and the target stopped in midair. The tengu was encased in a bubble. Everyone stared at it, as it bounced around inside, trying to get out. When it was obvious the bubble was going to hold, everyone relaxed. Nice! It actually works!

The librarian slowly walked up to it, taking off her cap.

"Amazing. Instant pacification."

The guard raised an eyebrow, crossing her arms as she checked the work of the kappa. "Really? A bubble gun?"

Nitori grinned at her, triumphantly waving it in the air. "Hey, it worked, didn't it? Been working on this little baby as my pet project. Gonna revolutionize pacification and warfare and all that. Instantly take someone out of the equation in a fight." And then Nitori saw who was inside the bubble, her jaw and grin dropping. "Holy...Miss Aya?!"

It was Aya Shameimaru, the tengu journalist and a personal friend of Nitori's. She was one of the more important Tengu to know. The tengu inside the bubble tried to break out, snarling and glaring deeper into the mansion. She was obviously focused on trying to get to the fairies. She wasn't the usual Aya; the Aya before Nitori was like a frenzied, mad animal.

Oh...Miss Aya...

"Aya? That newspaper girl?" asked the guard as she peered closer at the encased Tengu.

"Yeah...man. To see her like this is just...weird. Man that was a lucky shot." Nitori glanced at her prototype. "Tengu are among the fastest creatures on earth, but Miss Aya there is the fastest among them. Damn that was lucky. She would have torn up all the fairies before they could scream for help."

"She's not herself." The librarian studied the tengu. "Some perspiration... She must have been out in the moonlight for a while, but not for too long."

"All we have to do is keep her out of the moonlight, and she'll turn back to normal, right?" asked the librarian's assistant.

The librairan nodded. "Shouldn't take too long for her to regain her senses."

And it didn't. After a few minutes of Aya trying to break out of the bubble, she suddenly stopped, staring at the four, and then at her hands. Her heavy breathing had gotten more controlled. A look of sheer confusion washed over her face.

"What...? What was I doing?" Then Aya noticed what she was in. "What the?" She pounded on the bubble. "Let me out!" Aya and Nitori's eyes met. "Nitori? What's going on?! What was I doing? I've seen fairies get ripped apart out there!"

They gave the tengu a short version of what was going on, and by the end of it, Aya was smirking. The type of smirk that always made Nitori's skin crawl.

"So that's it. What Yukari was raving about to my bosses was true then. Too bad they didn't listen, the old fools." She shook her head. "And they sent me out to find out what's going on...and..." She referenced to where she was. "As you can see, I became like those other youkai. But I'm gonna be able to embarrass my bosses in my paper over this. It'll be a great story!"

Patchouli rolled her eyes, bringing her palm to her forehead. She only cares about her paper. What an idiot.

Meiling put her hands on her hips, showing clear annoyance. "Really? That all you care about? We got fairies dying out there, and you're only concerned with-"

Whatever Meiling was going to say, she didn't say it. Patchouli and the rest of the group heard metal crunching. It had to be the gate. The librarian turned, watching the gate crumple. The entryway doors were wide open and broken, so they could see into the yard.

Meiling, of course got upset. Patchouli smiled at this, as she did like to see Meiling get frustrated.

"Aw come on! That's not even-" Meiling paused, and then her voice went from frustration to horror. "By the Gods!"

Patchouli stopped watching Meiling's reaction, and looked outside. She felt her blood run cold as she saw who broke the gate.

A tall woman with green hair, scowling right at them, wearing her plaid skirt and vest.

Yuka Kazami.

There is no happy end to this. Patchouli quickly looked over the youkai of flowers, and assessed her. Heavy perspiration. She's been in the moonlight all night. And she's coming right for our fairies. Patchouli gulped. This is beyond bad. I'm not strong enough to take her on, and I don't think this group will be, either. Patchouli felt herself slowly be taken over by fear. Kazami was one of the more powerful youkai in the world. Physically, and magically, there were few that could match her. And she's under the influences of the moon. I might be able to hold her back a while with my spells. But she'll just murder each and every fairy.

Patchouli knew that drastic times called for drastic measures. She didn't hesitate. She turned her head to her servant, yelling. "Koakuma! Get Flandre!" Patchouli had to repeat it, as the little devil appeared to be in shock over seeing the youkai of flowers.

Koakuma's eyes widened. "What? Are you sure?"

"Yes! Go! Now!"

Koakuma nodded, before dashing away. Patchouli turned again, to see the slowly advancing Kazami. She was tapping the umbrella in her hand, slowly making her way to the mansion, a look of pure rage on her face. The librarian then looked at Meiling, who was readying by getting into a fighting stance.

"You think we got this, Lady Patch?" Meiling asked, obviously unsure.

"I hope we do..." A thought crossed Patchouli's mind. She nodded at the tengu, who was still in the bubble. "Miss Shameimaru! We'd like your assistance!"

"Huh? No way! No way am I going up against Kazami!"

Patchouli quickly came up with a solution.

"How about this? Firsthand accounts for your paper or whatever! Just help us until Kazami loses the effect of the moon!"

Aya perked right up, again grinning.

Meiling was re-taping her hands, and turned her head. "Lady Patch, you sure about that?"

"I'll discuss it with Remi later! We'll need all the help we can get!" The librarian nodded at the tengu. "Reporter! What do you say?"

"Ayayayaya! Just get me out of here, and I'll help you out! But remember! I get to interview everyone involved in this!"

Okay, first off, I should mention as to why Ran and Chen weren't around; Yukari was using their power to basically be able to use any of her power at all, which was minimal. They were in Yukari's realm, giving power to their master (however that works out, I don't know), just to make her slightly more powerful than a human. The demon was quite weak - Ran and Chen were able to lend enough of their power for her to just warp near the Bamboo Forest. At least, that's what I later learned.

Still, Yakumo was determined to help us solve the incident despite her lack of power, which I had to give her credit for.

She motioned to us to follow her right after I gave the story, and we continued to follow Mokou's ribbon path. During our walk, she reached within her dress, produced a folder, and passed around three pictures. They appeared to have been taken from a high place and were focused on the outside of a building, which appeared to be an old Japanese style mansion and yard. The photos themselves appeared to be high-quality, as big as a normal piece of paper, and enhanced - you could see things in great detail.

There was a figure in each of the three photos, a little girl, wearing a pink dress. She had short black hair, red eyes, a small carrot pendant around her neck and what appeared to be rabbit ears on her head. It was a little bunny girl, slightly bigger than my sister. She was cute.

"Who's that?" asked Reimu.

"That's not the medicine peddler?"

She looked up at me and shook her head. "No. Never seen this little youkai before."

"Her name is Tewi Inaba." Yukari kept smiling. "A rabbit youkai. She's been living in the bamboo forest all her life, and she's actually older than me, despite her young looks, by only a hundred years."

"That's kind of weird." Yukari's eyes stared into mine, as she raised an eyebrow. She seemed amused by my reaction. I just shrugged. "It just is. She's older than you and she's a child."

Yukari's eyes then went to Remilia, as if to say "and that's not weird?" Point taken. A 500 year old child.

Marisa picked up one of the photos, studying it. "She's powerful, right? Living longer brings more power, so that means that she's probably equal to you, ze."

"To an extent. She's the leader of the rabbits in Gensokyo, and most of them are directly descended from her. Her power...her power only deals with luck."

Youmu was looking over Marisa's shoulder. "That doesn't seem very powerful, Lady Yukari. If you don't mind me saying."

"Luck can turn the tide of a battle just as easily as skill can." Koizumi beamed. "There is an old saying - I'd rather be lucky than good."

True. Even if you're down and out, if you're lucky, you can pull it off. I just wish I was lucky. My nekomata figure didn't appear to do anything.

"I think I've seen that little rabbit before," remarked Alice. "I'm not sure."

Yukari produced three more pictures from her folder. I was the first to get them.

Wow.

This was one of the few times where I was struck like lightning over how beautiful a girl was. The figure in the picture that had joined Tewi was of a young woman, who looked to be in her mid-twenties. She was an actual bunny woman, and she was amazing. The few photos of her had her in a black tank top and sweat pants, and she was exercising (with Tewi just laying about). Red eyes, long light-purple hair, and rabbit ears. Her body was fit...and her bust was quite large. Not as big as Yuyuko or Meiling, but almost there.

Reimu snatched one of the photos from my hand. "That's her." She tapped on the photo. "That's the medicine peddler. She's been around Gensokyo as long as I can remember. Always selling prescription medication for everyone and supplying our doctors with everything."

"The bunny girl you know as the medicine peddler is actually Sergeant Reisen Udongein Inaba," remarked Yukari. "No relation to Tewi Inaba."

Sergeant? I looked closer. Over her tank top, there were dog tags.

A thought struck me. It didn't take me long to put two and two together; she was the sniper. I was shot at by a trained soldier and I lived. Maybe I was lucky.

Also, the introduction of a trained soldier into the equation put a gnawing fear into the pit of my stomach: the same feeling I had when I learned of Yuyuko's abilities before entering the afterlife.

"She's a soldier - former Lunarian Special Forces. A sniper, to be exact. A refugee from the Human/Lunarian war of 1969."

Time stopped for me. I stared up at the demon, unsure if she was messing with me. She had to be. Right? There was a war?

...Humanity was at war with an alien race? That sounds just so sci fi!

In fact, all of us paused and stared at the demon. She simply smiled at us, and motioned for us to follow her again. We did as such, my head swimming with reasons why it couldn't be true. We would have heard something. The world would know, because people always like to share secrets. There is no way this is true. No logical way. Absolutely...you know, I need to stop thinking like this. I'll only be proven wrong, won't I?

Curse my pathetic attempts to cling to the belief that the world was as normal as I thought it was. But part of me still didn't want to believe that the world leaders know of aliens, like some X-Files episode or whatever.

"Brigade, what I'm about to tell you is a gigantic secret that the governments of the world don't want anybody to know. Chances are, you won't believe me."

Screw it. I crossed my arms. "Try me." Thing is, I had a bit of reservation about it.

"In 1969, there was the Lunar Landing by the United States, which capped off the so-called space race. Reality is, the space race and the cold war was nothing but a front for the United Nations to attempt to take over the moon and the Lunar Society. The countries of the world actually united and sent their best soldiers into space - not just those astronauts. Those guys were for show, to mask the true objective of humanity."

Reimu tilted her head, biting her lower lip. "Wait...humanity landed on the moon?"

"A few decades ago, the American's did land some humans on the moon. First time that they did that on their own. Before that, the Lunarians had transporters for emissaries, diplomats, and such people." Yukari stared directly into my eyes. "There is a reason why man hasn't gone back to the moon or beyond, Kyon. The combined might of Humanity failed against the Lunarian society. The Apollo 11 landing was real, but only there to, again, mask the true objective. Apollo 11 wasn't the only shuttle to land."

My mind went blank, as Yukari laid all this before me.

"Hundreds of the world's best soldiers...sent to wage war on the Lunarian society in an attempt to take it over, and they failed."

I couldn't process this. Not only was there an alien race right in our own backyard, but humanity had dealt with them, and fought with them. And lost. And it was all kept secret, save for folktales.

"Why? Why did we go up there?"

"The Lunarians are advanced. Technology. Magic. Medicine. Both the United States and the Soviet Union craved such advances, which is why they headed the whole thing. But they lost. The Lunarians are also advanced in warfare, so the humans were essentially always routed. No human sent to fight came back. In the end, the superpowers of the world blamed each other for the loss, and then the cold war really began. The Lunarians didn't want humanity to come back, so they installed their spies into each and every government in the world. That led to the sabotage of the Apollo 13 mission, with a message to 'never try again'. And so they haven't."

My jaw had to be near the floor by then. I glanced over to Nagato and Koizumi who looked to be as shocked as I was...except for Nagato. Her reaction wasn't as strong. But she still did look a bit surprised.

Who wouldn't be. This was X-Files type stuff here. Aliens in our government?! Aliens are amongst our governments! We had lost to an alien race. The world united, and lost. That's why they don't want to admit it...

"Yes, Kyon. Aliens have infiltrated the governments of the world. Truth is stranger than fiction." The demon appeared to like telling me this. She then pointed her finger in the air, waving it. "However, I say essentially routed, because there was one victory that the humans had. They had developed some sort of prototype weapon, and had success against a squad of Lunarian soldiers. Her squad." Yukari referenced to the bunny woman. "Reisen was the only survivor, and only because she had fled the battle. She would have died if she didn't run. But she is by no means a coward - she has won multiple marksman awards during her service. Due to her desertion, she would face a severe punishment, and possibly execution soon after. She came to Gensokyo, seeking asylum, which, of course, I granted to her. She was unwanted. Of course I took her in. And then Reisen found..."

Yukari brought out more photos. Someone had joined Tewi and Reisen outside, watching the soldier exercise. A woman, who looked to be in her mid-forties with dark grey eyes, and long white hair in a braid. She had an unusual dress: on her top half, her right side was red, and her left side was blue; while the bottom half had the colors reversed. And there appeared to be embroidered constellations on said dress. There was also a blue nurses cap with a red cross on it, which also had embroidered constellations. Despite her appearing to be in her forties, she still was beautiful.

It had to be the Lunarian doctor. Yukari confirmed this. Interesting. Lunarians look Japanese.

"Doctor Eirin Yagokoro. Lunarian, and over 1,500 years old. Super-genius doctor, pharmacist, and chemist. She may be the smartest being alive. Not to mention the most important person in Lunarian history. She helped create the Lunar Society, is the reason why the Lunarians became so advanced in the field of medicine, she handled the diplomatic missions between Earth and the Moon, and she's a Master Archer. Unfortunately, she was also the downfall of the Lunarian society in a way."

I should note here that I could sense the disdain Yukari had over talking about the Lunarians. Sure, she kept her smile, but the way she spoke of them told me that she hated them.

"There is a problem with the Lunarian society. They are so advanced in medicine, that they can't die. The effect of the moon keeps the Lunarians young, and alive, thus granting them eternal youth. They can't die of old age because of the effect. However, because of the medical advances they have...they've defeated pretty much all diseases. So...they can't die by natural causes."

"Which means..." Youmu glanced up at the moon. "Which means that the only way they can die is through violent means."

Yukari nodded. Remilia grinned in response. "Sounds like my kind of society."

I wouldn't want to live in your kind of society, Remilia. You enjoy violence too much.

"The Lunarian society went so far ahead, that it had actually regressed. One can't wait for a political enemy to die of old age, or a rival to die. Being unable to die naturally, Lunarians think they are invincible. Suffice to say, revolutions and civil wars break out as often as the sun rises. Violence has become the norm in such an advanced society. They share a problem that the data entities have. They reached the pinnacle too quickly. Without a reason to adapt, or," Yukari looked to Nagato. "If you will, 'evolve', other than violence, their society has become stagnant."

A problem with quickly achieving a Utopia, I guess.

"It gets worse." She looked to me. "There is a reason why I asked you to tell the tale of the Bamboo Cutter."

"...Okay...why?"

"The elixir of life."

Immortality. Immortality is actually real. Maybe at that point I was getting jaded, because that didn't hit me as hard as it should have. I had just learned that there was a way to beat death once and for all.

And Yukari kept talking. Man she gets long winded.

"The Doctor created it. Calls it the Hourai elixir. One drink, and you become immortal. In fact, she drank it herself. That's why she hasn't aged."

"But you said-"

"I said that the effect of the moon keeps them young. If a Lunarian were to live on Earth, they wouldn't have the aura of the moon to keep them young, and the doctor has been on Earth since the seventh century. Fled to Gensokyo, right here in the Bamboo Forest."

"Why did she run?"

"Because of the Hourai elixir. Think about it." Yukari stopped, glancing at all of us. "Already, the Lunarians can't die of old age, and they defeated disease. Can you imagine not being able to die by violence as well, or at all? Overpopulation, plain and simple, especially since the moon isn't as large as the Earth. And if someone evil got a hold of it, could you imagine the outcomes? Dictators giving their most loyal soldiers immortality. An immortal army. One could conquer the both the moon and the Earth with merely a hundred loyal soldiers. The Hourai elixir does sound wonderful, but it is a nightmarish concept."

Maybe the Lunarian society isn't what it's cracked up to be. But what she said was true. Such a thing is scary. If such a thing were to fall into the wrong hands...whomever had it could take over existence.

"Why would she create such a thing?"

Yukari gave us the final three photos. Again, I was the first to get them, and...

Oh my God.

The most beautiful woman I had ever laid eyes on had joined the three in the pictures. She was in her early twenties, or very late teens, with long, silky black hair, snow-white skin, brown eyes. Her features were perfect. A perfect looking japanese woman. She had a Japanese kimono - the top half light pink, the bottom dark burgundy. While she didn't have a bust like Reisen, she was still well-off.

In the three photos, she came outside, pointed to where the camera had to be, and the last photo had the Doctor and the Soldier aim a bow and a gun respectively at the camera's position.

Then I noticed where we stopped, before a clearing in the Bamboo Forest. While we were still in the bamboo thicket, we stared out to the front of a rather large Japanese-style mansion and its small yard. I looked around and found a tree with most of its limbs blown away; I could even see a few arrows stuck in said tree.

The photos were taken there. This had to be Eintei.

Yukari pointed to the picture in my hand. "Meet Kaguya."

I was in absolute shock; even a gust of wind could have knocked me over at that point. The Bamboo-Cutter Princess was for real. Japan's oldest folktale was true. I'm standing outside of the home of the legendary princess!

I heard a low whistle. It was Koizumi, who was right next to me. With his usual smile plastered on his face, he slowly shook his head. "Like I said before, what a wonderful world we live in to have such things be true."

I'll say. If Kaguya is for real, then what else could be real? The possibilities really are endless.

"Princess Kaguya Houraisan. The Princess Kaguya. 1,400 years old. It was at her command that Yagokoro created the Hourai elixir, which the princess drank. That is why she was exiled. They couldn't have the Hourai elixir around, and they punished her. The monarchy of the Lunarians was giving way to the 'democratic' government that is in place as of now. She is the last surviving Houraisan."

"So it's safe to say that if she returned to the moon, she could try to reclaim the empty throne, right?" Koizumi's smile went wider. "I'd say that this sounds like a fairytale, but it already is."

"I don't know about the Lunarian government right now, or anything about an empty throne..." Yukari tilted her head. "It does sound interesting, however. But anyways, in 701 A.C.E. the Lunarians sent a number of agents to retrieve their princess. Yagokoro was among them, and betrayed those agents. She killed the Lunarians and the Emperor's men who were protecting Kaguya. Then the doctor and the princess made their escape, and have been hiding out in the Bamboo Forest ever since. The doctor has since sworn total loyalty to the princess."

"Why wasn't the doctor exiled for creating the Hourai elixir? Why only exile the princess?" asked Koizumi.

"They forgave Yagokoro. Whomever was in charge knew that the Doctor was too big of an asset to exile. Her brilliance overrode any problems people had with her, and the fact that she is the Lunarian figurehead doesn't hurt either. Creating that society up there has gotten the Doctor a lot of leeway with what she did." Yukari paused, looked to Eintei, and she let out a deep breath. When she turned back to us, she no longer smiled. She looked grim. "These are the people we are going up against: a mischievous rabbit youkai with all the luck in the world, a lunarian rabbit soldier who is a dead aim, a genius doctor who is a master archer, and a legendary princess. I've given you this information so you can know what we are up against, and to who is behind this."

Maybe I should have taken Nagato's offer to get me out of Gensokyo earlier. I never expected to take on an alien race, for crying out loud!

But...but if I did... I looked over to Sakuya, who looked a little woozy, still keeping the full moon frozen. Her blood still stained her maid uniform, as it did on Remilia's dress. If I had left, Sakuya would be dead by now, killed by Remilia. I looked around, another sense of dread going through my body, wondering who else might have died had I not been there. ...Who else might die if I wasn't there. I shifted, feeling the vials, again coming down with the feeling of resignation.

The reality was, I was needed by the group. If something were to happen to them and I could have healed them but didn't by not being there...I'd never forgive myself. I'd beat myself up for the rest of my life over it. I had to go through with this, if not for my sake, then for everyone else.

Again, damn my good nature.

"I thought the Sky Canopy Domain was behind this. Miss Nagato here has said so."

Yukari gave Koizumi a nod. "The Sky Canopy Domain has been talking to them."

Yukari pointed to the last picture. In the shadow of the doorway, there was a figure. It took me a second to discern who it was, but when I did, my fists clenched in automatic response. Nagato pushed past me, grabbing the photo, staring at the figure.

Kuyou Suou. She was there with the Lunarians. I saw Nagato's grip on the photo tighten, crumpling it in her hands. She started to shake.

I placed my hand on her shoulder. "Easy there, Nagato." Don't lose it.

Her body jolted a little, and her eyes met mine. She appeared to gulp, and then nodded. "I'm sorry...I just felt immense anger right now." Nagato turned to the demon. "You didn't try to warn them? You didn't warn the Lunarians of the Sky Canopy Domain?"

"I've tried. The Lunarians are quite...isolated. The Lunarians and Youkai don't really get along to begin with, especially after my so-called 'failure'. The doctor is still sore at me that I had the gall to attack her home world."

"You know I like learning and all this exposition and stuff, but why don't we just go in there, and start kicking some butt, ze?"

We all turned to Marisa, who had one of the biggest grins I'd ever seen. Remilia grinned too, bringing out Gungnir.

"Ah, Kirisame, you are a girl after my own evil heart."

Lyrica blasted the youkai away from the shrine's grounds, allowing the lone fairy in its clutches to escape into the shrine building. The lesser youkai were getting more and more bold, and for some reason, they were actually getting onto the shrine's grounds.

Lyrica and the others had noticed that the fairies were being targeted, so they allowed the fairies the sanctuary. Already there was a sizable amount inside the shrine itself, most of them injured.

This is like some damn zombie apocalypse or whatever on the fairies. What the hell is going on?

She would have pondered that more, but she heard singing. Singing? It was a nice voice, actually. A voice like that could really complement our music. Her sisters heard it as well, and they all moved to the staircase.

It was those two youkai that were with the group earlier - the bug and the night sparrow, carrying parasols. They also had another youkai (Lyrica remembered her name was "Rumia") and four fairies in tow. Three of them, Lyrica had seen around Gensokyo before - a fairy in red, a fairy in blue, and a fairy in white. Those three were always together.

But the fourth...

Lilly White. We meet again.

The bug and the night sparrow had found the spring fairy. Lyrica had worried that Lilly might have met an unfortunate fate.

Oh, and they were being chased by another pack. The bird was singing to keep them at bay.

Lyrica nodded at her sisters, who readied their instruments.

"Get them!" shouted the bird. "They're after the fairies!"

As soon as the seven of them made it past the Prismrivers, the poltergeists played.

I love this part. Rock and roll!

The loud chord that the three of them played blasted the pack away, knocking them off the staircase. They tumbled down in heaps...right at the feet of what looked like an army of youkai, just staring up the staircase. The sisters took a step back in surprise. Already the bug was shouting at the four fairies to get inside the shrine.

This may be a problem. If I were a human, I'd be really scared. Lyrica turned to the new group, Lunasa already asking them what was going on.

"They're killing all the fairies! The youkai that are exposed to the moonlight are killing all the fairies!"

That's...messed up.

"...should we be out in the moon then? And where are the others?"

The bird shook her head. "You ghosts aren't effected. Look - the rest of them went on without us! We're here to help, okay?"

Lyrica glanced back down at the advancing monsters. At the rate they had been breaking past the barriers of the shrine, Lyrica knew that this many would make it onto the grounds proper in no time. Lyrica cracked her knuckles, loosening her fingers so she could play hard. She noticed her sisters were doing the same, with Lunasa tuning up her violin.

"...yeah, that would be appreciated."

How did I get into this mess?

We didn't go in right away. We had to prepare a little. Marisa was the one who came prepared, actually. She handed out these weird little white blocks. They looked and felt like tofu, but smelled like mushrooms.

Turns out, they were mushrooms. Marisa could distill the magical parts of the mushrooms from the Forest of Magic, and make an edible magic re-charger. She said that eating a mushroom raw only gave one a little power. Eating her blocks would give one maximum magical power.

I had forgotten that I even had Cirno's spell card on me, especially since I didn't have any magic in my body to use it. I accepted, and ate one.

And I regretted it right after. I thought the Mushroom Vodka was bad, I was wrong. The texture just went both mushy and stringy on the way down, while still somehow keeping the taste in the back of the throat. It actually tasted worse than the vodka, minus the burning, so I couldn't tell you which was the bad one overall.

The rest of the group had some as well and recharged their magic. Sakuya seemed the most grateful, as it looked like she needed it to keep up her frozen night. She didn't look as strained afterwards (although I could clearly tell that she didn't like the taste either). Yukari accepted some as well, and then moved to the edge of Eintei's property, looking at the huge mansion.

Reimu had joined Yukari, both looking towards Eientei. The demon silently ate, as Reimu finished up her mushroom-tofu thing. I don't even know what to call it.

"Is this why you trained me? Is this what I went through two weeks of hell for?"

Yukari nodded. "Lunarians are no pushovers. That, and Eintei is built like a fortress, a deadly maze. It was built to repel an invasion by an army of Lunarian soldiers." The demon finished her mushroom-thing, and placed her hand on the miko's shoulder. "But I believe you and your game have the power to get this done. Danmaku can knock out just about anything." Yukari turned to us, her eyes lighting up as if she remembered something. "Right. One more thing. Use Danmaku if you see them, especially if they have static in their eyes. It'll knock them out, and remove the influence of the Sky Canopy Domain."

Static...? Of course! Letty!

"It does that?" Reimu's eyes widened, as she realized something. "Of course! The sand! The Saigyou Ayakashi and Whiterock! That's what that sand was coming out of them!"

I always wondered why I saw that stuff come out of those two! It really did feel serendipitous, didn't it? Against the seemingly unstoppable data entities, we find a way to take them on.

...but why knockout magic? Why the main means of fighting in Gensokyo? Thoughts for another time.

"For some reason, your knockout magic disrupts their powers. I know it seems serendipitous, but it works against them." Yukari brought out a spell card, twirling it in between her fingers. "Hit them with it, and they should come to their senses."

"Aw, no killing?" Remilia scoffed. "I'm disappointed."

"Don't be. You can kill that Suou girl if you want to. Any way you want to."

Reimu turned to us, crossing her arms. She had a look on her face that brought me back to a scene in my mind. Sakuya. Marisa. Reimu. And me. Outside of Hakugyokorou. I knew what she was going to do.

"Okay, everyone. This is the point of no return." Reimu slowly looked over each of us, before glancing back at Eintei. She slowly twirled the gohei in between her fingers. "When we started this, there was no way we could have known what we would be up against. I, for one, never knew that we'd actually be meeting and fighting Lunarians, let alone the Princess from that folktale." She wagged her gohei at the moon. "But this needs to be stopped. Gensokyo will self-destruct otherwise, and I can't let that happen."

Reimu went silent, her eyes going to the witch, as if silently expecting something. Marisa gave a shrug, smirking.

"You know me. I got nothing better to do tonight, ze. And I can't leave you alone on an incident."

Eyes on Alice.

"I am committed to my assisting in this incident. I thought they were attacking my home, but they weren't. However, I'm involved now. I'll see this to the end." Alice nodded at Shanghai, who did a curtsy. "We'll see this to the end."

Remilia and Sakuya. Remilia spoke for both, as Sakuya appeared that she didn't want to talk. Hang in there, Sakuya. We're almost done.

"Whoever is behind this incident will pay for attacking my servants. I gave my fairies a guarantee that nobody can touch them and get away with it. I refuse to break that guarantee." Remilia looked down to her bloody dress, shooting a look at Sakuya's bloody uniform as well. "And...well, there's no other way to put it. Whoever did this is just plain dead." Remilia gave Reimu a nod. "You have my alliance. The Scarlet Devil Mansion is here."

Yuyuko and Youmu. The two ghosts bowed.

"Youmu and I will assist. You have my powers, and Youmu's blade, at your disposal. Hakugyokurou will redeem itself from the Spring Snow incident."

And then...us. The odd ones in the group. The S.O.S. Brigade. I glanced at my associates, wondering how they felt about the situation.

Koizumi smiled his usual smile. "I will help out the best I can. I'm no stranger to saving the world after all, and we were brought here for a reason. Maybe it was to help you all out."

"Same here." Nagato still had the photo that contained Suou in her hand. "I feel the need for some sort of revenge against her, for her actions in the past, and for tonight." Nagato crumpled it up.

My turn. Everyone looked to me, putting me on the spot.

What do you think I did? Of course I accepted. Begrudgingly accepted, but still accepted. I couldn't give a grand speech of why I wanted to do this. I did feel anger over the incident and its cause, but I couldn't really put it into words at that time.

Suou, you just keep on going too far. Wanting me to join her in that closed space. Causing Nagato's sickness. Capturing Haruhi.

I can still hear her broken laugh. There was no alternative, was there? Suou had to be put down for this. And being brought back to that memory of that "second" Brigade at the cafe with Suou laughing at us humans, my thoughts went to Tachibana and Fujiwara. Tachibana had actually become a good friend of sorts with Koizumi since that event, with them dating and all. She shouldn't be also behind this...but...

A certain face popped up in my mind. A certain time traveler, looking down on me, laying down his demands, trying to bully me into assisting him in taking away Haruhi's powers, using Nagato as a bargaining chip.

It's good to be angry now and then. If that sneering bastard Fujiwara is also behind this, I'd love to knock out his teeth. That way he'll look stupid doing his evil grins. Part of me wanted him to be here as well, so I could do such a thing. Hell, I began looking forward to doing this should that be the case. I could knock him out with Danmaku, prop him up against the wall, and just let out all of my frustration with that sneering bastard. I wouldn't stop until I broke his nose and several of his teeth...and then I might get nasty with what I would do to that guy.

That sounded so appealing. Let's do this! Of course, that was assuming that he was there to begin with.

And yes, I know that sounds bad of me, to want to inflict such pain on another person like that, but...he deserves it. He tried to be a bully, after all.

Pondering all of that, I noticed that everyone was still awaiting my answer. All I could give was an "I'm in." The only one who was left was Yukari, who still held her gaze on Eintei.

"You going to be okay, Yukari? You said you're limited."

We saw Yukari's shoulders rise, as she took a deep breath from under her parasol. "I won't be as effective as I usually am. There is...however...one way I might be of help." She turned to the ghost gardener. "Youmu. May I have the Roukanken back?"

Youmu blinked, as if she reeled from that. "Back?"

Yukari nodded, extending her hand. Youmu looked to Yuyuko, as if wanting an explanation.

"Yukari gave it to your family so it could protect me. She was the youkai from your family legends." Yuyuko motioned to Yukari. "Go ahead."

Youmu's eyes showed a flash of surprise, before she brought out the katana. She walked over to Yukari and offered it to her. As she did, I got a good look at it. Even under the light of the fake moon, it was a beautiful weapon. Such craftsmanship. I've always liked katanas, and always personally wanted to hold one, to tell the truth.

Yukari took the Roukanken and its holster, bowing to Youmu, and Youmu bowed back. Yukari appeared to study the blade, sad smile forming.

"You've taken good care of her, Youmu. She appreciates it."

Youmu nodded, and went back to Yuyuko's side, moving her short katana over to her right side. Youmu was still armed, just with the shorter katana.

Yukari noticed me ogling her katana. "You like her, don't you?"

I gave her a nod. "Yeah. It's...uh...she's an amazing weapon. But you sure you don't want to sit this out?"

Why did I say that?

Yukari raised an eyebrow at me. If she was offended, she didn't show it. "Kyon...my powers are weakened. And I have a means to assist right here. After all, 'when it is obvious that the goals cannot be reached, don't adjust the goals, adjust the action steps'."

Did she just quote Confucius again?

Yukari looked over the blade with obvious fondness. She ran her left index finger up the spine of the katana. "I may be a bit rusty in my blade-wielding, but I think I remember how to hold her."

As if to prove that point, Yukari slashed...quickly slashed at the nearest group of bamboo stalks. They were cut to ribbons within a second. The demon grinned, as she caressed the blade. "Ah...old friend...it's so good to be joined with you again. My arm is complete once more."

Maybe she loves that thing a little too much.

Sheathing her katana, Yukari turned back to Eintei. "We ready?"

After a round of confirmations, we moved out from the thickets, into the open space. We used the single large tree out front as a form of cover to mask our movements, so anyone in the building would have less of a chance of spotting us, especially if they were watching from the front door. It was open a crack, and only darkness was within.

I felt righteous again, especially since I was fulfilling another childhood fantasy. I was literally going into a fortress to fight aliens and save a princess. How about that. Just another thing to be grateful for. Also, our group was like some sort of superhero assembly: people with powers gathering for a greater good, to save the world.

Although when you think about it, I guess that makes me the snarky sidekick, right? I wasn't a superhero, not in comparison with everyone else in the group.

We gathered behind the tree with Nagato peering out, silently staring at the open door. There didn't appear to be any other doors.

"Nagato?"

"Hold on. I have detected many magical seals in the building. Give me a few seconds."

While we waited a few seconds for Nagato to do her scanning or whatever, Marisa leaned over to Reimu.

"If you want, I can teach you the incantations for the Paranormal Border, ze."

Reimu turned her head to the witch, raising an eyebrow. "How did you figure it out, anyway?"

In response, Marisa glanced over at Remilia, and grinned. It took us a few seconds to realize it.

"You found it in the library, didn't you?" Remilia grabbed Marisa by the collar. "You stole more of my books, you little thief."

Marisa's grin went even wider, giving a shrug as if saying "I didn't do anything wrong!" as she removed Remilia's hand from her person. Marisa turned to Reimu, "But one thing you gotta know, ze...it takes a lot of magic to use that barrier, way more than you'd think. Just be careful not to use it too many times, or you'll run out of magic fast."

No matter how you put it, my version of the barrier was better. All it took was cherry blossoms...from a soul eating tree.

That's pretty morbid...maybe it's not so great.

Nagato turned back to us. "The whole building has magical seals applied to just about everything. The walls may look like paper, but they appear to have the properties of reinforced steel. I'm detecting a lot of traps in there, and a lot of magic and data that hinders my abilities. I don't know how much use I will be in there."

Nagato hindered. Yukari hindered. Our two most powerful people won't be of much use. Great.

"It's okay Nagato," said Koizumi. "We work together, and we'll be fine."

We heard the door slide open. Checking back, it was wide open, and we caught a glimpse of a person with long light purple hair. That had to be Reisen, the bunny woman from the photo.

I wondered what she was doing, until we heard a clink from above, as if there was something metal striking the wood of the tree.

Already, Yukari had grabbed me and Reimu by the collars, dashing away from where we were, while shouting for everybody to move. I saw Nagato quickly pick something up, and just as quickly throw it away from us, towards the bamboo thicket.

And then it exploded in mid-air. Was that a grenade?!

It was.

I no longer looked forward to doing this, even if Fujiwara was there for me to beat up. He could be tied down with a baseball bat right next to him, and a sign saying "break my bones and win ten thousand yen" by his side, and I still would have said "Nope".

Thankfully the explosion nor any of the fragments of the grenade struck any of our group. As Reimu, Yukari, and I got up from our dive, we noticed that someone had come out of the doorway.

Oh crap!

It was the soldier: Sergeant Reisen Udongein Inaba. Unlike the photo from earlier, she was what looked like some sort of uniform. Beige skirt, a female black business suit top, with a small crescent moon lapel on the left collar, a white shirt, and a red tie. It looked like a girls' private school uniform, in a way. She stood there, scowling at us, but what was horrifying was her eyes. They were filled with static, like two small tv's that weren't getting any reception. It was scary on a primal level - it made her look soulless. It reminded me of Letty, when the Yuki-Onna was choking the life out of me.

But what really scared me was the hardware she was carrying.

Besides a strap that had grenades on it (She threw that grenade at us!), she was aiming an assault rifle...thing at us. It looked weird - it was two guns attached to each other, with a strap around her body holding it near her. I would later learn it was an M16 Assault Rifle with an M26 MASS attached to it.

For those that don't know, the M16 is the American Assault Rifle - fires the 5.56x45mm NATO round at a rate of...around 500 rounds a minute, I think? Even though it's the American Assault Rifle, many countries use it. The M26 MASS, or the M26 Modular Accessory Shotgun System, is a 12 gauge shotgun attachment that fits under an assault rifle - namely the M16. It just barely started to be used the previous year - 2003. And it can fire anything a normal shotgun can fire, even nonlethal rounds. It can even be detached and used by itself, which was why the setup was two guns attached to each other.

I'm not one of those guys who is really into military weaponry, and that's beside the point - it's just what I learned. That freaking assault rifle with a shotgun attached to it was being aimed at us by a trained soldier. And why was she aiming it at me?!

Already Marisa had gotten in front of me, with a border up, and aiming her Hakkero at the soldier.

"Come on! You wanna go, let's go, ze!"

The soldier still aimed her gun at me, but noticed the barrier. At that point, Reisen, or whoever was controlling her, had to have known that the barrier protected. The soldier slowly backed away, deeper into Eintei, still keeping her gun up.

Marisa slowly followed, keeping her weapon up too. She whispered something to Reimu, and within seconds, the Paranormal Border was up for the miko as well. She got up and joined the witch in getting Reisen to back up.

Well, I feel useless. Granted, their borders didn't heal, but still...they were able to protect themselves.

The eight Gensokyian warriors slowly advanced - mostly behind Reimu and Marisa. Alice had Shanghai move up as well, with her shield out, and both Youmu and Yukari had their hands on their respective katanas. Reimu was saying something, I think demanding Reisen give up. Nagato and Koizumi helped me up, which meant that the Brigade was behind the Gensokyian girls as they got on the covered porch...following the rabbit girl through the front door...entering Eintei...

Something doesn't feel right.

Yukari looked up as they were mostly through the door. "...Move..." was her response after a brief second.

It came down. Just as I saw it fall down, I recognized the shape of the object before me - the hairs on my neck shooting straight up in response, my blood going ice cold.

You have got to be kidding me. Seriously. Another one?!

You see, another grenade was hanging on a string up there, hidden away.

A live grenade dropped to the floor, in between the brigade, and the Gensokyian girls. The eight of them dove into the mansion, while we dove away from it, outside. I must have yelled out every curse word I knew in a second, which made me sound rather unintelligible, now that I think about it.

The grenade went off...expelling smoke. What? It was a smoke grenade that looked like a regular grenade.

That wasn't fair. It looked like a real fragmentation grenade, you know, the "pineapple" design from movies and video games. Smoke grenades normally look like canisters, but this one looked like a lethal grenade. As it was smaller than a canister, the smoke cleared out quickly. In its place...

A little girl with rabbit ears, short black hair, a one piece pink dress, and wielding an oversized mallet. She had shut the door, and barred it. A light shone over the door, some sort of seal. When she turned to us, her eyes had static, and she was sweating heavily. It was Tewi Inaba. She gave us a maniacal grin as she twirled the weapon in her hands.

They separated us. They set up a trap and separated us. I should have known that a trained soldier would have used advanced tactics against us, let alone someone controlling her. Which was totally not fair.

What wasn't fair either was that there was a youkai armed with a weapon in front of me.

"I'm GoInG tO bAsH yOuR bRaInS iN!"

That same weird echo that Letty had in her voice, except it was more prominent here. Tewi really sounded demonic.

Enough musing about her voice. She could sound like Kotono Mitsuishi for all I care. Already, she was in the air, swinging the mallet at us. We again dove out of the way, and ran along the covered porch, trying to get away from her. I called out to the others.

"Well, any ideas?"

"If she's under their control, then all we have to do is hit her with Danmaku, right? Nagato?"

"Working on it!"

Nagato whipped around and raised her arms, but Tewi already caught up, swinging the mallet. Damn she's fast! It connected with Nagato's side. Nagato let out a yelp as she was knocked somewhere into the bamboo forest. She was launched quite a ways. It was almost cartoony, the way she was hit.

If that hit a human, that human would pretty much be dead. While I was worried for Nagato, (and yes, I did scream out her name when she got hit) I knew that she might...and I stress that...might survive that. She survived Asakura impalings, after all. Still, I called out to her. You can't see that and not feel something, you know? A hit like that...

It's good to think of Nagato, but you got immediate problems right now!

Tewi caught up to us again, swinging that mallet down. Koizumi quickly sidestepped, causing the mallet to go into the porch, the wood crunching loudly from the impact. It would have crushed him otherwise. That stalled Tewi for a second, as she had to get the mallet out of the ground. Chance! Backing up,I brought out a vial, shaking it, and Koizumi formed an energy ball in his hand.

"Second Raid!"

Koizumi already tossed one of his attacks at the rabbit youkai. Tewi, who had freed her weapon, dodged it, spinned around and used her momentum to get closer, right into a vial, which I tossed at the ground. Hey, it's lust like in video games, what they call "splash damage". The red explosion connected with the youkai, and we were rewarded by a blast of sand coming off of her body. That's three more. Got ten left. In response, the youkai yelped, and jumped back. Already we could see the static lessening in her eyes, her red pupils coming back from that static hell.

Hey, this actually works.

Not to be outdone, Koizumi brought up a spell card.

Yes, of course he would have been taught how to use one. He did spend the past day with Reimu, after all.

[SPELL CARD: PARADOX "SHRöDINGER'S CAT"]

Ugh. Even in his spell cards he gets philosophical. It was an interesting one, however. The best way to describe it would be some sort of containment attack. Danmaku formed around Tewi, hanging in the air. Then, a few would go for the "cat in the box", starting with a few,and increasing in number as time went on. If it missed, the shot would just join the wall on the opposite side, and try again later. It's actually quite a nasty attack. The rabbit youkai dodged to the best of its ability, but would get grazed by some of them.

I looked over at Koizumi, and spoke (as we were in no real danger of Tewi, unless she wanted to burst through a wall of danmaku, which would have been stupid) "Interesting attack."

He smiled. "Yes, but in this case, the whole 'fair and equal' thing is a bit of a hassle. She has a chance of surviving that spell card. They're all designed to be survivable."

I guess that's one negative.

"You take to this magical stuff pretty well."

"It actually doesn't take that much effort to change from my normal attacks to danmaku. Reimu and Yukari both taught me how easy it was."

Lucky bastard. I touched a Danmaku knife that stung for an hour.

[SPELL CARD: SIPRE "NAKAYA DIAGRAM"]

That was another Ukichiro-related attack. I whipped around, finding Nagato standing there, blood trickling down the corner of her mouth, her hair all messed up from being launched. She used this spell card against the rabbit.

As for the spell card itself, it consisted of lasers in a grid, like a graph. And in keeping with the snow theme that Nagato appeared to like, snow danmaku would form at her sides, and then shoot forward, curving into the middle.

Suffice to say, while Tewi had some success dodging Koizumi's singular spell card, she couldn't do much against two at once. So unfair.

Both attacks just pounded the youkai's body, knocking so much of that data sand or whatever it was out of her. She was letting out squeals, yelps, and gasps every time she was hit or grazed, until eventually she fell to the ground. She still kept getting hit, and no more sand came out.

"Whoa! Easy! I think she's done for, guys!"

Heeding my call, my two brigade associates ended their spell cards. Tewi laid there, shaking, and groaning. I glanced over at Nagato.

"I'd say 'Overkill much?', but considering she hit you pretty hard, I won't. You okay?"

Nagato slowly made her way to us, nonchalantly holding where she was hit. She kept her eyes on the rabbit as she approached.

"Nagato?"

"I'm fine."

"You need me to use a vial?"

"That won't be necessary."

I had the weird feeling of deja vu. At least she wasn't on the ground and Taniguchi wasn't about to walk in on us.

Koizumi was already at the rabbit's side, kneeling down. "Miss Inaba, is it? Are you okay?"

Tewi groaned. The little rabbit youkai attempted to prop herself up, but only fell back down. While I was cautious of her being a youkai in the first place, I decided that I should at least help her. Besides, she looked like a child; these kinds of things tug at the heartstrings. Both Kozumi and I helped the little youkai up, until she could stand, but not under her own power. Her head swayed back and forth, until she looked up into my eyes.

And of course, she was cute. A cute little rabbit girl.

"Well that sucked." Tewi then looked over to Koizumi. "Ah...I guess I gotta thank you...or something..." She blinked a few times, before quickly shaking her head, as if she finally regained all of her senses. She glanced at all three of us. "Ah man, what happened. How did you guys get me out of that?"

A brief explanation later, and she stood there, leaning against the wall, blinking.

"Knew that girl was bad news. Came out of nowhere, saying that she could help us. Doc would've kicked her out, if the girl didn't start supplying chemicals and stuff for the Doc's pharmacy. I never liked her." Tewi rubbed her elbow. "She just looks too...fake." Tewi glanced up at Nagato. "Almost like you."

Please don't insult Nagato.

We would have spoken more, but we began to hear gunfire from within Eintei. My blood went ice cold.

Oh God no. Please don't let her be shooting them up. I didn't know if they had any protection from gunfire, barring the barriers. They were supposed to protect, right? So...Reimu and Marisa might be safe, knowing how to cast it.

But if they get killed...

This was a bad situation, no doubt about it. I moved to the front door, as did Koizumi, but Tewi called out to us.

"Useless. I think they sealed up the front door. You ain't getting in through there."

Koizumi glanced at me before turning his attention to Tewi. "Do you have a way in, Miss Inaba?"

The rabbit youkai nodded, and gingerly pushed herself off of the wall. She moved off of the porch, and knelt down, pulling on some of the planks.

I noticed that she was getting hit by the moonlight. She'll be okay as long as she doesn't spend too much time in the moonlight, right? Thankfully, she didn't turn feral on us.

As she appeared to have some difficulty in doing her task, Koizumi and I helped the rabbit. We lifted it up, to find a well worn crawlspace.

"Just under here. I have numerous secret exits and such all over the place. Our best bet would be to get into Reisen's room."

"Why do you need an underground passage to her room?"

She shrugged, grinning. "Because I play pranks on her all the time and I need quick exits every now and then."

She said that without any reservation or guilt whatsoever. She motioned for us to join her, and we complied.

The vampire rocked back and forth on her bed, her blood boiling. She could sense the fights that went on above. That Meiling, Patchi, and the rest were winning.

Save me a playmate. I'm getting bored.

Flandre sighed, before looking towards one of her broken teddy bears, its stuffing all over the room. She desperately wanted to let loose. But every time I do, things go "Kyuu!" and pop, just like that wolf.

Footsteps. Outside my room. Flandre's head perked up, and she moved, out her secret exit, and ending up behind the one who was about to knock on her door. It was that little devil of Patchi's.

"Hello."

The little devil spun around, fear in her eyes. Flandre grinned at her.

"What is it?"

The little devil shook and stammered, trying to say something. "Miss Meiling and Lady Patchouli need your hel-"

As soon as Flandre heard that, she took off, a smile of pure enjoyment on her face.

It was time to let loose.

The crawlspace was just big enough for all of us to get in. Tewi went in first, with me right behind her, Nagato third, and ending with Koizumi taking the rear. I gave the youkai my flashlight, and she led us through her crawlspace. There were a lot of paths down here under Eintei, and it smelled musky, like an animal.

Considering our guide was a rabbit youkai, that was understandable.

"I'm evolving."

That was Nagato, after about a minute of crawling in silence (us being silent - the gunfire was still going on somewhere above us). As I couldn't turn my head to her without stopping, I kept crawling after Tewi. We went right, coming to a fork in the crawlspace.

"Is that a problem, Miss Nagato? This is what your kind wanted." That was Koizumi.

"No, that's not it. It worries me. Yes, this is what I wanted, yes, this is what my kind wanted, but for it to be going this route is confusing and scaring me. When I got hit by that mallet-"

"Yeah, sorry about that." remarked Tewi. She didn't sound sorry. She said it more as a formality.

Nagato continued speaking, despite that interruption. "...My body automatically reacted in a way a normal human would have reacted. I've been coughing when I was exposed to bronchial irritation down here. My bodily responses are automatic, similar to natural reflexes of a human."

We reached another fork, and went left. I noticed a bunny tail on Tewi, on the back of her dress. Thankfully, her dress wasn't riding up on her, because I would have felt weird staring up the dress of a youkai with a child's body.

Just saying. That would be very uncomfortable, even if she was over a millennia old.

Gensokyo really is weird. And that is an understatement.

Back to what was being said.

"More of my actions have been to simulate human behavior closer than I have ever thought possible for myself. I'm evolving, yet acting more human. This doesn't make sense. Evolution is not some predetermined course. Evolution is simply adaptation. If a species is put on two different continents, in two different environments, that species will become two new species, or die out, due to adaptation or failure to adapt, respectively. The data society hit an evolutionary ceiling, and could no longer adapt, because there was nothing to adapt to. Almost nothing, until they came across Haruhi Suzumiya."

Going right this time, we stalled when we heard more gunfire above us. It sounded far away.

Hold on, girls, we're coming. Reality was, what could we do against a soldier? Well, if someone is shot, I can heal them.

Ugh. I'd have to deal with looking at bullet wounds. I really wasn't looking forward to this. Please don't be shot up, girls.

Focus, idiot, Nagato is speaking. She had a point, though, about evolution. I brought my thoughts back to where I was.

"All we can do is manipulate data. Creating data from nothing, creating matter from non-existence, is what we strived for. I am achieving that, yes, but I appear to be forced into human behavioral patterns as time goes on as well. This is not normal. This should not be happening."

I paused for a second, looking back at her. "While it's safe to say that Gensokyo isn't normal either, I think I understand you. It does kind of sound too perfect, doesn't it?" Just like Danmaku being the way to beat the influences of the Sky Canopy Domain? It's all a bit too perfect.

She nodded. "I am being forced to be human, while I evolve." We continued on our way. "I'm not saying anything bad about being human. It's just that it appears to be predetermined, which is what scares me. There just might be an outside force doing this to me. Same for Itsuki Koizumi. Same for you, with this so-called 'Gensokyo effect.'"

Wouldn't that fit under intelligent design then? But...that would require...yeah. She's right. There is an outside force here.

"Any idea on who?"

"That's just it. No idea. I can't even hypothesize any theories or scenarios."

The flashlight went out for a second, as Tewi accidently hit the button. She smacked on the flashlight for a few seconds, and then I heard a click. It went back on, and we continued on our way.

My knees and elbows are just having dirt ground into them. My clothes are going to be ruined.

"It is possible that the memories that I have been given have been forced onto me. For the most part, it happened exactly like it did when I awoke as an esper." Of course, this was Koizumi. "At least, as my memory recalls it. It does seem a little too perfect, though. Gensokyo giving us abilities like that, helping us out, possibly importing us to help deal with this incident."

"Yeah...it's as if it knew ahead of time, or whoever is behind this knew." It was like Remilia said - she believed in fate, the fate that we were brought into Gensokyo for a reason. Was she right? Maybe. "We were brought ahead of time into Gensokyo to deal with this incident, this full moon."

"There has to be an outside force here."

"Yukari?" I dreaded saying that. Hearing about Yukari being the mastermind of teaching the youkai a lesson had given me a little unease with her, and she was the one who brought me to Gensokyo several months ago.

Nagato coughed, as we heard an explosion somewhere in the building, causing dust to rain down on all of us. What the hell is going on up there? Do I really want to know?

"I asked her while you were talking to Marisa Kirisame. There were no signs of increased heartbeat, facial tics, or any other signs that Yukari Yakumo was lying. For all intents and purposes, the demon is telling the truth in that she had no part in bringing us here. I had estimated that it was her, but after speaking with her, I do not believe she was the one to do it. It's another thing that scares me."

"So we have an unknown factor. This just gets better and better."

"Also, what am I adapting to? Why am I adapting? That's the question, isn't it? Auto-evolution shouldn't work this way."

She did have a point - something about all of this didn't feel right. What, you can accept everything that has happened in Gensokyo and in your life, but you can't accept Nagato getting what she needs?

It wasn't that. Yeah, I accepted that I was in a world where the impossible was possible. But something about that evolution thing bugged me. It was too convenient, too perfect. I know that sometimes the puzzle pieces fall into place at the right time for me, like Haruhi asking if we met before when we did (my past self that influenced her to go to North High), which explained why she asked that...

But I couldn't accept this auto-evolution being too perfect. Out of everything else that had happened, especially on that night alone, I couldn't accept it. It bothered me; a feeling in my gut told me that it wasn't right. Something wasn't right about that. It shouldn't work that way. I know my intuition isn't as good as Reimu's, but mine was telling me that something was off about it - that there had to be an outside force at play.

And if it's not Yukari...then who? Who would have the most to gain from this? I went through a list of the people i knew, both "normal" and abnormal, of who might be able to do this and what they would gain. I couldn't come up with anyone, which scared me. Some unknown, outside force waiting in the wings, just watching us, putting us in this situation. Putting me in this situation. But for what purpose? The one constant in my life was that there was a reason behind everything, that everything made sense down the road, or would make sense quicker, if I noticed it sooner.

What purpose was there for Nagato becoming human? For her evolution? For Koizumi getting enhanced abilities? For my abilities? Okay, if Haruhi wanted something special from me, then why not choose something special that she can benefit from then sometime down the road? Why is this healing barrier in a world separated from hers?

I had accepted that Gensokyo was Haruhi's creation. But again, something wasn't right here.

Barring my musing, Nagato paused again, before speaking. "And speaking of Marisa Kirisame..."

Well, that got my mind off of one problem, onto a much bigger problem. Nagato didn't complete that sentence, but I knew what she was implying. Damn it all. I didn't want to talk about it, but I knew that I had to, sooner or later.

"You know, Nagato brings up an interesting point. Is there something we should know about Miss Kirisame there, Kyon?"

I begrudgingly remained silent for a moment, not wanting to answer Koizumi. Ultimately, I had to at that moment; if nothing else but to keep their trust.

"We were in flight for a few battles, me and her on her broom, she saved my life, I saved hers. And...and I think we fell for each other for a while." Koizumi just went silent for a few moments, as did Nagato, as I spoke. "I didn't plan on it. She...just kissed me out of the blue. And...she's a nice girl...and..." Damn it all, now they got me thinking of her good points. "She's smart. She's pretty. And she...likes me...I never planned on any of this. And she kissed me right before I left Gensokyo. It's...difficult."

"Do you love her?"

Koizumi...I again wanted to smack him. But he did have a legitimate question...

A very legitimate question.

What was Marisa Kirisame to me? Who was she to me? She came to our rescue when we almost died, saving me first. She allowed me to hold her, hang on to her as we flew in the sky on her broom. She kept me on her broom when I was almost knocked off. She teased me. She was quick to come to my defense. She's saved my life. I saved her life. She was boisterous, fun, warm, and brash. She was a powerful magician, able to take on those vastly more powerful than her. She was smart, funny.

...and that kiss...

Damn it damn it damn it damn it damn it damn it. It wasn't healthy to think like that. Not there. My head began to swim in memories of her, of that brief week I had with her. It wasn't fair to have spent such little time with someone only to have them leave such a big impact.

And all that time of my trying to forget her. Just gone. Months trying to not let it get to me.

But the question remains. A question that I've wanted to dodge.

Who is she to me?

Who is Marisa Kirisame to me?

Do I love her?

"...I think I did."

"Did?"

"I don't know what else to say other than 'I don't know anymore.'"

After all of that, reality was, that was my legitimate answer. I didn't know. I know, it sounds stupid, especially since I thought about how great she is; since I know how great she is. But that's what my heart was telling me. "I don't know." I had spent a while dating Haruhi, so maybe my heart was with her instead.

Maybe that was it: my heart belonged to Haruhi, not to Marisa.

What a miserable situation.

We had been crawling for quite some time, already I could hear the gunshots getting less frequent, which had to be a bad sign. My brain, which wanted to find something to get over Marisa, instead went all over the place over the gunshots, trying to come up with a way in that it could be good, of the shots lessening, but there wasn't any scenario.

Yeah, from questioning existence, to questioning love, to questioning whether people you know are getting killed above you. What a train of thought there. Please don't tell me that she's killed most of them. Please.

I had to stop thinking like that; I had to be positive. Until I saw them, I had to assume that they were all still alive. Barring all of that, it was a wonder we were able to have that whole conversation. Eintei had to be big. We'd been crawling for a long while.

"Tewi, we almost there?"

She had already stopped, and started to get up. "Right...here!" Tewi shifted so she could put her shoulder on the floorboards above us. She pushed, only to be greeted by dust falling from the cracks. She did it one more time before sighing in resignation. "Damn...that danmaku made me weaker than I thought it did."

"Here. Lemme help you."

I drank a vial, tagging her, and joining her in pushing up the trap door, when-

"Wait!"

That shout of Nagato's came a little too late. We opened the trapdoor, and were greeted by an explosion. I felt the heat, and the force knocked me back, but thanks to the barrier, I didn't get my head blown off.

Do you know what a claymore mine is?

It's an anti-personnel mine that acts like a directional-shotgun explosive. It has a C4 explosive charge, and when set off, it shoots about seven hundred metal balls in a sixty degree direction at about 1,200 meters per second. Pretty nasty, isn't it? Suffice to say, it can shred a human body, and can even do some damage to vehicles, even tanks. It can be tripped by remote control, a timer, or in that case, by a good old fashioned trip wire that was hooked up to the trap door.

Do you understand that? It can damage tanks. Under no circumstances would I ever want to be in front of one, live or not. And yet I just took one to the face along with Tewi.

This wasn't fair, in a sick, twisted way. I had become somewhat accustomed to magical attacks, ghosts, demons, oni, and the like. But now guns and explosives were thrown into the mix, against me. A trained soldier was my enemy at that point. I was a high school kid for crying out loud, and someone with a gun was...well...gunning for me, for the lack of a better term. Not fair. If anyone wants to take my place, please raise your hand, so you can get shot at and have explosions in your face.

I knew it was a claymore mine because Nagato popped up and was checking my face, saying that she didn't detect the claymore until the last second. When it was obvious I suffered no damage thanks to the barrier, Nagato then moved up into the room, looking for other traps. I was thankful for that, as I didn't want to come across another explosion that night, much less my entire life.

Tewi and I both stood there in the open trapdoor, still in a state of shock, I suppose. Koizumi began squeezing in between us to get through, which got me out of that mental state. I moved up into the room too, as I did not appreciate feeling Koizumi wiggle between my legs. Then again, that goes without saying.

Aw come on! Warn me before you do something like that! Geez!

"I have to say, Kyon," Koizumi said as he propped himself up, "that you are one lucky guy to have that barrier up when you needed it the most."

Lucky. Tewi Inaba brings luck.

I turned to Tewi, and patted her on the head. "Aaaaand thank you."

Tewi still looked shocked over the whole deal. She stammered a bit as I helped her up into the room. "Y-y-yeah. Don't mention it."

As Nagato went about checking for any more traps, I dusted myself off as I studied my surroundings. It was a bedroom, all clean and tidy. One could tell a soldier lived here, as there appeared to be a discipline to the place. A foot locker at the base of the bed, with the bed made to perfection. An armoire, a desk, and a gun rack rounded out the room...and there didn't appear to be much personal effects of Reisen's, if at all. I checked the clock hanging on the wall. Jeez. It's already past three? Where did the time go? It was just after twelve when we left the Hakurei Shrine. Not fair at all. I felt tired just looking at the clock, until I remembered that I had a thermos of coffee in my satchel. Thank you Patchouli and Koakuma! I love you girls! I poured myself a cup, downing it quickly; it was lukewarm by then. Giving Koizumi a cup as well, which he thanked me for, I looked around the room.

I still needed to find something for my brain to focus on. My eyes went to the biggest thing in the room - the gun rack.

The gun rack was pretty secure - a case of what appeared to be plexiglass protecting the guns. I didn't try to see if it was locked, as I personally didn't even want to handle a gun at that point. But there were some different kinds - a shotgun, an assault rifle, a submachine gun, a number of handguns, and three different sniper rifles. Besides the submachine gun, which was the iconic Uzi made famous from movies, I couldn't tell what make or model or whatever the rest were, as I merely glanced over them. Moving to the desk, I noticed it was as tidy as the rest of the room, with papers stacked neatly in two corners. The top of one of the stacks had a delivery manifest, dating a week prior, reading things like "Fexofenadine", "Dexedrine", "Azithromycin", and "Proventil", amongst others. Sounded like prescription medications. As I moved to get up, I noticed something under one of the stacks, slightly sticking out. Curious, I checked it.

It was an old, faded color photo. My mind flagged it as unusual, as the quality was too good to be that faded, and despite its age, it appeared to be better than anything on the market, until I reminded myself that the Lunarian society was more advanced. Of course they'd have better photos. They're an advanced society, aren't they? But maybe I'm just assuming too much. Oh well.

Anyway, it was a group shot, of a bunch of bunny-people. Man, I think I really do like the Lunar society in this regard. The bunny women were all pretty. But the shot consisted of bunny men and women. Girls wearing that uniform, and the guys wearing a male variant, with slacks instead of skirts. Each of them had a crescent moon lapel pin, and also had their ears pierced, each the same color. Reisen was among them, and they were all raising their hands, fists in the air. It appeared to be in some kind of bar. The group had to be Lunarian soldiers.

I'm staring at an alien photo. Life on another planet (well actually the moon). And it wasn't much different than life on Earth. I took such a revelation pretty well. Like water off of a duck's back.

I checked the back of the photo, finding what I assumed to be Lunarian text (it didn't look like any language I'd ever seen), which it turned out to be. I'd later find out that it read "Tranquility Bar. June 1969. Hachiman Squad. Never miss, never there."

Hachiman? The shinto God of War? Funny how an alien race also had one of humanity's religions. Unless Hachiman actually did exist, and made himself known to the Lunarians.

Meh. I could accept it. Screw it. Why not? At the rate my life was going, next thing I know, the Loch Ness Monster will possibly appear the next time I go to the beach, offering a ride on its back.

That would be awesome.

As for the date, I was told what date it was in Lunarian time, but then was told what it was to Earth's time.

As I continued to look at the photo, I understood why the soldier had kept this. If the war between humanity and the Lunarians took place right after the Apollo 11 landing, in July of 1969, then this photo was taken at least a month before her squad was wiped out. This had to be Reisen's squad. I stared at her in the photo. She really was beautiful, appeared to be so happy amongst her comrades. And then to just lose all of them not too long after...

What if this happens to me? That was not a healthy way of thinking. Hopefully we can avoid that.

I put the photo down, feeling a bit uneasy. I felt like I was prying too much into someone's life that I didn't even know, which I was, actually.

"We're good." Nagato nodded, removing something from the door. It was a hidden claymore, set up on the door frame. Man, I'm glad you checked out the room. One of us would have died.

"Excellent, Miss Nagato. So can we now proceed to our-"

Koizumi was cut off, as we heard more gunshots, which had to be outside the room. It had to be Reisen, but she wasn't shooting into our room. Tewi crept to the door, opening it a creak, peeking out. After a few seconds, she turned to us, motioning for everyone to be quiet and follow her. We did as such, with me sticking close by her. Hey, if the little rabbit brought good luck, I wanted some of that.

Entering the hallway, we found it to be incredibly dark. Again, keeping with the Japanese theme, it had straw floors and paper walls. But it appeared that the hallways went all over the place. It was weird.

"Damn," cursed Tewi. "They got the illusions up. This is gonna be tough."

"Built to repel invaders. Great..." I remarked absentmindedly.

Gunshots. Not far from us.

"Lady Yuyuko!"

That's Youmu!

We turned the corner, to come to a scene. Yuyuko was on the ground, struggling to get up. Youmu and Reisen were struggling for control of the soldier's assault rifle. Reisen slowly brought the barrel of the rifle closer and closer to the gardener's head, and pulled the trigger. Youmu moved her head to keep it from having bullets go into her. The bunny girl then headbutted the gardener, causing Youmu to stagger back.

And then Reisen aimed the gun right at Youmu.

No! No no no!

She fired.

Youmu!

I saw a red mist pop out the back of Youmu, as the bullet entered her chest, and exited cleanly behind her. It was horrifying. Myon shook in response to that, even dropping to the ground for a while. Reisen would have fired more, but that one bullet was her last in her gun. Youmu staggered back even more from the impact, her short katana falling to the ground. Reisen dropped out the empty magazine, and prepared to reload to finish off the gardener.

"Youmu!" I shouted.

Reisen turned her head to me, scowling with those static eyes. Instead of reloading her rifle, she reached inside her jacket, where I saw a holster, and the glint of a handgun. My heart leapt to my throat in response.

Why are you always aiming at me?!

Thankfully, Koizumi opened up with one of his esper attacks, causing the Lunarian soldier to move out of the way. Nagato joined in as well. Reisen then ran out of the hallway, into the darkness somewhere. I didn't see where she went to. Nagato ran after the soldier...only to pop out of a doorway from the opposite side of the hallway after disappearing into the darkness. Damn. They can do that Lost Woods stuff in here too! I cry foul again!

Koizumi was helping up the downed Yuyuko, who was shot as well. Apparently, as a ghost with a physical form, she could be damaged, but her "body" slowly healed as well, so the damage wasn't permanent. She still had a few wounds. Heck, she looked like she fought a lot in the minutes that had passed since being with her - her kimono was frayed, and had all kinds of bullet holes. Her right sleeve was hanging on by threads, and her mob cap was gone.

I heard the gardener make a little noise, a grunt, so I turned to see her. Youmu...Youmu was still standing. She had gotten shot in the chest with an assault rifle, and she was still standing. As she was half-human, she wouldn't heal. Also, like Yuyuko, Youmu's clothes had bullet grazes on them, and she was missing her black hair band. Youmu's gaze was on Yuyuko, her arm slightly reaching out for her.

I couldn't get over the fact that she got shot and was still standing. Standing right up after losing two danmaku battles in a row, getting back up after being washed over with spring, managing to stand after being sandwiched and impaled by ice, and now standing after getting shot by a real gun. How tough is this girl anyways?

"Youmu, you are one tough little bastard." I heard myself say as I readied another vial. I didn't even mean to say that. I just said it.

The gardener slowly nodded, her face showing obvious pain, until I healed her. "...heal...her...Heal Lady Yuyuko..." was the first thing out of her mouth. Myon circled around me, I guess thanking me for healing her other half, before I healed Yuyuko. Youmu was right there, helping up the ghost, asking things like "are you all right?" Interesting that Youmu was more worried for a dead person being shot than her own half/alive body.

"Where's everyone else?" asked Koizumi, looking around. There was nobody else; it was just the two ghosts with us, just them who had fought with Reisen.

Youmu went right to Yuyuko's side, helping her up right away. When it was obvious the ghost mistress would be okay, the gardener answered us. "Got seperated. Yukari was right; this mansion is designed to be a maze."

I inwardly rolled my eyes. "Perfect. Looks we'll be here all night trying to figure out where to go." I said, hands on my hips, as I peered down the hallway. This was not how I wanted to spend the night.

"Actually, that's not the case. Lady Yuyuko and I were able to figure out the trick to Eintei." Youmu drew her short katana. She then moved close to me, an apologetic look on her face. "I know this is going to sound crazy, but you're going to have to let me stab you with this."

I had a mental pause as I stared at her. As sorry as she did look, she was serious. There was no joking, no hostilities.

"You're right. It does sound crazy. Why would I-?"

"Trust me."

And then she went and did it, after quickly hitting me with the back of her blade, to get rid of the barrier. I felt it go in. I heard Koizumi gasp while Nagato rushed forward, tackling Youmu to the ground...

But there was no pain. in fact, the darkness of the hallway just went away, giving way to a lit Japanese mansion's hallway. I could easily see everything. Koizumi was already at my side.

"You okay?!"

I merely nodded in response, while staring at the point where I was stabbed. There was no cut, of flesh or clothing, even though I distinctly felt it go in. It felt like that part of my body was asleep, all tingly. Nagato just stared at me, wide-eyed, while still holding down Youmu. That gave the gardener the chance to do it to Nagato as well, but from the side.

What I saw was the blade go into Nagato's rib area, but there was no blood. The human interface jumped off of Youmu, before turning to the hallway around us, her jaw slightly open.

"Unique. The illusions are gone."

The gardener slowly got up, dusting herself off.

"Youmu...what was that?" I asked.

She gave me a slight shrug, still holding her short katana. "It's the Hakurouken's special ability. It can cleave through confusion."

"It was how we were able to find our way through the maze after getting separated." Yuyuko smiled at us. "While it is maze-like, it's actually mostly illusions."

Youmu stepped up to Koizumi, readying the blade again. The esper took a few steps back, a worried smile on his face. "...Is this really necessary, Miss Konpaku?"

Youmu nodded, before plunging the blade into Koizumi's side. Seeing it up close, I clearly saw it go into his body, but when Youmu pulled out, there was no damage to clothing or flesh. He stared down the hallway, eyebrows raised, rubbing where he got "stabbed".

"I try not to be surprised by this place, yet it still finds ways to do it. As expected of a creation of Haruhi's."

Welcome to the club. I went up to Youmu, looking over her katana. Useful little blade. Cuts up enemies, does gardening, and gets rid of confusion. Slices, dices, yadda yadda yadda. While not as impressive as the longer katana, this little one was quite awesome.

"Move!" Tewi shouted, taking me down to the ground as I stood there like an idiot gawking at the abilities of a short katana. Why? Because another sniper shot went by my head. It would have gone through it, if it weren't for the little rabbit. Reisen had taken another shot at me, waiting for my border to die out. She had that Barret Sniper rifle, and still had the M16 with the MASS.

That was completely unfair. I'm not really a combatant like Youmu or Koizumi. All I could do was badly throw or heal. Also, I needed to pay more attention, because focusing on the blade and its ability had kept me from realizing that Reisen was lining up another shot. Damn my katana appreciation.

Reisen then pulled out her pistol - it looked like one of those German World War 2 pistols, I think. It was a Luger, I'd later learn. She started firing at us, causing all of us to duck into one of the open rooms.

And already my mind was screaming at me about the lethality and stupidity of the situation.

What am I doing with my life?! I'm a japanese high school student! I play video games, and hang out with my friends! Why am I getting shot at?! This shouldn't happen to someone like me!

Isn't that something? Throw me in a world with paranormal creatures, I take it in stride...generally speaking. Have someone start shooting at me with an actual gun, and I lose my mental cool.

[SPELL CARD: LETTER FROM HEAVEN "ASTEROID 10152"]

Thankfully, Nagato planned ahead. She used the spell card at the beginning of the attack, charging up the ice ball. During a break in the firing, when Reisen had to reload, Nagato tossed it down the hallway. I heard the soldier run, and a door slam. About two seconds later, I also heard the ice ball shatter. Koizumi carefully peeked around the corner.

"She's gone. Went into that room at the end of the hall, I think." He stood up, and sighed, dusting off his hands. "We can't leave her like that. We have to save her. Even though she tried to kill us, she's still a victim in all of this."

That was true...and also fitting. Like in some magical girl shows (Sailor Moon comes to mind - the anime, really - they killed the bad guys in the manga), we, the good guys, had to non-lethally take down our enemies, who were doing their best to kill us.

"And besides, you guys know how to undo this thing." remarked Tewi. It was then that Yuyuko and Youmu noticed the little rabbit youkai. There were greetings, of course, but then we had to come up with a plan on getting Reisen back to normal.

Reality is, I wanted a soldier on our side. I didn't need her shooting at me any longer than she already had been. Hitting her with Danmaku would solve that easily.

Already we were going to the room Reisen entered.

"We grazed her a few times as we chased her." Youmu looked back to us as we neared the door. "What Lady Yukari said was true. These Lunarians aren't anything to trifle with. She's vicious, but when we hit her with danmaku, she stalled - sand came off of her. Just like with the Ayakashi." Youmu paused as we got to the door, and she looked back to me a small smile forming on her face. "We've come full circle, haven't we? You and us."

"Huh?"

"She means me wanting you dead for the last incident," said Yuyuko, who had her usual cheerful smile, which looked totally out of place in my opinion, given the circumstances. She clasped her hands. "And look at us now. Allies. It's funny how these things work out, isn't it?"

Yeah. I'll laugh at it later, because when you get down to it, it really is absurd.

"How's everyone else?"

"We don't know, child. We all got separated. I think we got the worst of it, as the rest of them were alive before they got lost. The two of us have battled it out with the soldier by ourselves for the past several minutes."

Well that was good to hear, that the others were alive. Put me at ease.

Before Youmu could open the door, Nagato again removed another object - another claymore on the door frame.

"Really?" I said. "Come on! How many of those does she have?"

"Don't worry. With the illusions gone, I can 'see' better." She turned her head to the door. "The soldier is in there, aiming right at the door. She'll open fire as soon as it opens. There are no other traps in the vicinity"

"Great. So how do we do this?"

Nagato looked around, entering a room across the hallway. She came back carrying a pretty big wooden table like it weighed nothing. She said something - I think that code speak - and the table shimmered, before returning to normal.

"This is now bulletproof," Nagato said as she handed it to me and Koizumi.

Just like that? I guess so. Koizumi and I held it, long ways up, each holding onto the upper leg on our side. It took the two of us to effectively hold it. Tewi moved to another section of the floor, lifting it up - another one of her crawl spaces. She turned to us.

"I'll see if I can sneak up on her! Keep her distracted or something!" She disappeared into the crawlspace, without waiting for an answer.

Normally, I would object to being a distraction, but I shouldn't complain. I had a bulletproof shield, essentially. "So how do we do this?"

"She's pretty good at dodging spell cards from afar. Get too close, she'll overwhelm you with hand-to-hand." Youmu rubbed her forehead, where she got headbutted, as if to prove that. "I guess we get close enough to her to use a spell card, so she can't easily dodge it. That sound like a plan?" After receiving confirmation, Youmu nodded at us, hand on the door. "Ready?"

No, but we still have to do this.

Youmu was tensing, obviously ready to go. Yuyuko placed her hand on her gardener's shoulder. "Youmu, don't be impatient. I know you want to slash her for shooting the both of us, but remember - she's a victim."

Youmu let out a slow breath, and gave her mistress a nod.

We gave Youmu the go ahead, and she opened the door.

I wasn't even thinking at that point. Everything was moving so fast, that I went along with it. My mind caught up to me when the door opened, of the situation I was in. I was getting shot at again.

Reisen opened fire on us. Already I hated this plan. The table vibrated from the impacts of a full magazine of assault rifle bullets, hurting my hands. But Koizumi and I still held on to the legs, pushing into the room. Thankfully, it was bullet proof. Nagato was behind us, guiding us where to go, and the other two followed us in. As we entered the room more and more, I noticed that it was a lab of some kind, with beakers and bunsen burners, among other chemistry equipment. Thankfully, there didn't seem to be any chemical containers lying around. If there were, I'm sure Reisen there would shoot them as we got close to them. It's what I would have done in a game.

Reisen quickly reloaded, and began to fire again.

"Jamming her gun."

The next second, the gunfire stopped. Nagato, thank you!

I heard another metal "plink", reminding me of the grenade. I saw it roll right to Koizumi's feet.

Before I could even scream, Nagato calmly spoke. "Not this time."

The grenade let out a puff of smoke, not going off. Nagato, I love you! ...As a friend who saved my life! I really needed to stop throwing that word around. We kept pushing deeper into the room. From what I could tell, Reisen was situated behind a table. She switched to her shotgun, the table vibrating even more as a result.

We stopped, Koizumi keeping up the door. He shot me a look as I backed away from the table. "Kyon, what are you doing?"

Then he saw what was in my hand.

Might as well be useful! We're far enough to where Reisen won't be in my little safe zone! Also, thanks to that mushroom...whatever it was...mushroom tofu? I don't know. But thanks to it, I had magic in my body. Of course I was going to use it - I wasn't about to not use such a thing.

[SPELL CARD: ICE SIGN "ICICLE FALL ~ EASY"]

The bullets stopped, as Reisen ducked down, avoiding my icicles. I think I may have grazed her, I don't know. As soon as the spell card was done, I rejoined Koizumi in pushing the table forward.

And then really loud bangs vibrated the table as we got closer. Reisen was using the Sniper Rifle, really damaging the table with it. The table was beginning to bend and crumple at certain points, affording us less cover.

My adrenaline was at maximum, being shot at. I was scared, but I kept pushing forward. To actually do this for a living, to get shot at...I know people give thanks to soldiers for their duty, but I doubt they actually know what they go through.

If I remember correctly, Winston Churchill once said that "the most exhilarating thing in life is to be shot at with no result". If that guy was in front of me, I'd tell him where to stick it.

We heard Reisen running, to our right. We turned in the table in kind, to keep us safe. I shot a glance over, seeing Reisen do something to the gun, a sand glowing over it. She reloaded her assault rifle, and began firing it again. I ducked my head back under cover, still pushing forward.

Damn, she can undo Nagato's influences! Or was that the SCD doing that? Had to be.

"She's interfering with me. It's getting more difficult to - hold on."

We heard another plink during a break of the gunfire, Nagato killing another grenade, when...

Our table/shield disappeared into sand. Nagato didn't do that.

Oh crap! Again, I cried foul. We were out in the open. Reisen aimed at me again.

And she got hit from the side, Tewi popping up from a trap door, smacking Reisen with a burst of Danmaku. Thank you, Tewi! Sand was knocked off of Reisen, who quickly turned to Tewi, firing off shots, but the rabbit youkai had already disappeared down her rabbit hole. Reisen then returned her attention to us. She kept firing at us.

We were smart. We weren't going to stand around like idiots from an anime, waiting for the bad guy to attack. We dove behind a lab table, which Nagato, again, gave it protective properties. Already my ears rang from the gunshots. I'm going to have permanent damage to my hearingby the end of this! And then I had to cover my face, as Reisen was shooting the glass on the table, showering us in broken beakers and test tubes.

I hate this I hate this I hate this I hate this!

In the corner of my vision, I saw Youmu bring up a spell card. She timed its use with Reisen reloading.

[SPELL CARD: OBSESSOR "SLASH OF ETERNITY"]

Youmu stepped out of cover, and moved like lightning, right for Reisen. She struck Reisen, launching the soldier into the air, and began slash/juggling her target. Even more sand was knocked out, a large amount. It only took two seconds, but Youmu struck Reisen so many times in that short period.

Incidentally, I found out how Youmu was able to strike opponents with her katana in danmaku battles and not kill them. It was simple - coating the blade in danmaku made it non-lethal, even when striking with the business end of the blade. Very unusual, in my opinion, as Remilia and Sakuya both used danmaku versions of their preferred weapons. Youmu just used her regular weapons at all times.

Youmu ended the spell card by knocking Reisen to the ground. The soldier was taking a lot of abuse, and her suit was ripped to shreds, but she still was under the control of the SCD - the static was still in her eyes. Reisen jumped up to her feet, bringing out her sidearm, aiming at Youmu.

Again, before Reisen could get a shot, Tewi popped up from another trap door, smacking Reisen with more danmaku. Youmu used that time to get back to us, while Reisen again unsuccessfully tried to shoot the little rabbit youkai. Reisen then regathered her weapons and dove behind a table, avoiding a volley of attacks from Koizumi.

Man how much control is she under? It didn't take this much for Tewi! Also, barring my position of being shot, I was vastly impressed by what was going on. Like watching some sort of weird action movie.

As I pondered that, I heard Nagato say "We're trapped in here." I turned to the door. A transparent static effect covered it, I guess sealing us in. Which was the case, actually.

Great. Can't even run if I had the opportunity to. "Looks like she doesn't want any of us to get out alive," I scoffed.

Yuyuko looked at me, tilting her head. "But I'm already dead."

I just stared at the ghost mistress, who then gave me a smile. It's not the time for jokes, Yuyuko! Especially since Reisen opened fire - she was grabbing glassware, tossing it over us, and shooting it. We kept on getting covered in broken glass.

I was panicking a bit. I for one never really cared for the thought or the feel of being covered in broken glass. And that's putting it lightly. I used my satchel to cover my head, shuddering at the prospect of shards of glass in my hair, falling into my clothes, all that. During a reload, off the reflection of a glass beaker, I watched Reisen fire at us, as she moved along a row of tables, getting closer, keeping us down with the glass. Yuyuko peeked over, only to have Reisen shoot at her head. I saw the ghost's hair move as the one bullet came dangerously close. The ghost ducked back down quickly, wide eyed. Then she sighed, getting back up, bringing out a spell card during another reload time.

[SPELL CARD: DEATH SIGN "GHASTLY DREAM"]

This was a standard spread shot, of danmaku crimson butterflies. Reisen ducked under a table to avoid it, but she got grazed.

Yuyuko ended her spell card quickly, when it was obvious Reisen wouldn't get hit by it any more. The ghost ducked back down, and then her eyes went wide again.

"Yukari?"

I turned my head to the door - Yukari and Reimu were outside, pounding on the static, trying to get in. They're all right! Thank goodness! Unfortunately, they would do no good from out there, as we were stuck in that lab.

We heard another plink, as the room suddenly went dark.

"Illusions are back up," Koizumi shouted. "Youmu!"

As Youmu went about cleaving our confusion, (still felt weird to have that blade go into the body yet not go into it...does that make sense?) I wondered why Reisen hadn't thrown that grenade yet.

And then I found out, after bravely taking a peek.

Reisen had lifted up a trapdoor near her, and I heard Tewi exclaim "Oh crap!" Mostly because Reisen dropped that live grenade into the crawl space, before closing it up, kicking a desk on it to keep it from opening, and moving away.

Oh no! Tewi!

The grenade went off, the blast knocking off the desk, and popping open the door. Smoke rose from the open crawlspace. I called out Tewi's name.

"Nnnn...nnnooo...Teeeeewwwwiiiii." Reisen was struggling, shaking, as she stared down at what she did. She turned to us, raising her gun. Tears were forming her eyes. "Ssstooop meeeeee...pleeeease."

The hold on her is weakening...but Oh God! Tewi! There was no time to mourn for the little rabbit.

Nagato and Koizumi went up, spell cards in hand, but Reisen shot the cards, knocking them into the air. Again, the table we were behind disappeared into sand, leaving us open to being shot.

Not again not again!

Reisen kept aiming at us...and wasn't firing.

"Nnnn...nnn...nooo...nooooo...moooorrrrrrre..." Reisen was clenching her teeth, her face scrunched up. "...yoooooouuuuu...noooooo..."

The soldier re-gripped her weapon, and I could see her trigger hand tense. She shook, making grunts as she was struggling against killing us. She was still in there, like a puppet trying to disobey her puppeteer.

Fight it. Please fight it!

We tried to move to a different source of cover, but the rest of the tables turned to sand too. Not even fair you know? Nagato even tried to do something, anything, like jamming the gun, but to no avail.

Youmu got into a stance, taking quick, deep breaths, as she moved forward.

"Youmu?"

"I think I got it. I think I got the timing down." She glanced back at me. "Don't stay behind me for this."

"You're not going to block the shots with your katana-"

Reisen fired.

And Youmu did.

I moved to the side, because I saw those bullets get sliced, becoming two projectiles. We all moved. Youmu slowly advanced on Reisen, knocking bullets out of the air. Yuyuko beamed at the work of her servant, clasping her hands.

"Ah, my Youmu is full of surprises."

And she's still badass. Seriously. I was witnessing someone block bullets with a katana! That was something that was only supposed to happen in fiction!

Not to leave Youmu to her task, everyone else fired off at Reisen. I even joined in, with a vial toss that actually connected. Down to seven.

The soldier dropped the assault rifle, letting it hang off of her, as she staggered back. She was breathing heavily, the static in her eyes giving way to her beautiful red eyes, but there was still an amount of static left.

Youmu took up her stance again, readying her katana for another attack, as Reisen reached inside her holster.

But she didn't aim at us. Reisen's eyes went wide in surprise as her arm brought up the handgun right to her temple. Her whole body shook. She looked to us, pleading.

"...noooooonnooooo...stooooop meeeeee."

You've got to be kidding me! Really? Control her body, and when she's about to fail, you make her kill herself? That's beyond monstrous.

Reisen's hand was still shaking, trying to keep herself from pulling the trigger, tears forming in her eyes. Youmu sprinted right for the soldier, but bounced off another one of those static walls, which had cut off Reisen's side of the room from ours.

Not fair! Totally not fair! I didn't want to see this. I didn't want to helplessly stand there and watch a woman execute herself.

"...plleeeassseee...help meeeee..."

Someone do something!

Reisen pulled the trigger, just as Nagato raised her hand at the soldier.

I saw a spark happen at Reisne's head. I thought the worst, until I saw Reisen look surprised that she was still alive.

Nagato was sweating, clenching her jaw, as she was doing whatever it was she was doing. What she did was create an incredibly dense object (I never found out what she created) in between Reisen's head and the bullet, keeping the soldier from killing herself. It took a lot out of Nagato to do that, as she fell to her knees.

Creating matter had its purpose, I guess.

Again, Reisen raised the gun to her head, her finger on the trigger. Nagato raised her hand, but nothing happened. Stopping that first bullet took too much out of her. We couldn't do anything.

From across the room, behind Reisen, another trap door popped open. It was Tewi, grinning, with her dress having all sorts of holes on it, but she wasn't bleeding - she suffered no damage. She held up a spell card.

[SPELL CARD: "RABBIT BALL"]

It was a simple danmaku ball, and Tewi just hit it right for Reisen. It hit her smack in the hand, an explosion of sand the reward, along with the gun dropping from her hand. The static walls gave way, too. The impact stunned the soldier, which we took advantage of.

Koizumi and Nagato used regular danmaku attacks, while the two ghosts were a little fancier.

[SPELL CARD: LIFE ENDING SWORD "MEDITATION SLASH"]

[SPELL CARD: NETHER SIGN "PASSAGE TO THE NETHERWORLD"]

For her spell card, Youmu slashed her katana, giving off a green wave of Danmaku, which struck Reisen's body. Yuyuko's spell card was...different. The ghost mistress raised her hand, which caused danmaku souls to come up from the ground, right from under Reisen. It was as if she was raising the souls from a mass grave, and seeing such a thing disturbed me. As cheerful as she is, Yuyuko is quite a spooky person to use such an attack.

Reisen was juggled in the air by the danmaku, sand being knocked out of her. The sand ended before the spell cards did. Reisen fell to the ground when it was all over, shaking. The static door went away too, and Yukari and Reimu came in. We rushed to the rabbit soldier's side.

She laid there, her chest lightly going up and down. She was okay. We got her. We saved her. But before I could dwell on that, my attention went to the other rabbit in the room, as I took the time to pick out the glass that was stuck to my clothes.

Not fun.

"Tewi...first off, thanks."

She shrugged, a cocky smile on her face, as she made her way to us. "No problem."

"And second...how did you survive that?"

She gave me a thumbs up, grinning. "Born lucky, baby!"

I have no doubt about that.

"Is everyone okay?" asked Yukari.

Yuyuko nodded. "We're fine, but how did you get through the illusions?"

Yukari patted Reimu's shoulder. "The miko has her intuition. We've been able to get through their maze thanks to her."

Upon further examination, Yukari and Reimu both had some damage to their clothes - Yukari was bleeding from a few gunshots on her left side, but she didn't appear to let it faze her. Reimu was missing both of her sleeves.

I think I could suffer the dirt ground into my clothes, and the glass, as compared to what could have happened. The Brigade might have lucked out by being separated from the group.

"Ah...I..."

Reisen was struggling to get up. Nagato and Youmu helped up the soldier to her feet, which was amazing, really, especially since Reisen took on all of us, and it took all of us to put her down. She eventually stood before us, still holding her head. Tewi ran up to her, hugging her.

"Reisen! You're all right!"

The soldier blinked a few times, her head swaying back and forth, her eyes looking a bit glazed over for a few seconds, before she realized who was hugging her.

"Ah, Tewi! Ah...what...what have I..." Reisen tightly hugged Tewi, an immense look of guilt on her face. The soldier looked like she was ready to cry. "Tewi! I'm so sorry! I thought I killed you! Oh Gods, why'd she make me do that?!"

"Ah, Reisen...you're squeezing me."

Reisen and Tewi broke it up, and then the soldier's attention was on us. One of Reisen's bunny ears bent over, as she gave us a bow, an obvious apologetic look on her face - way more so than Tewi ever gave us, thinking about it now.

"Thank you all. I owe you all so much for getting me out of that...and I'm sorry. I don't know what else to say to to you all, but I'm sorry."

"Wasn't your fault, Miss...Reisen."

She nodded at Koizumi, before sighing and wiping the sweat off her brow.

"It was...difficult. Horrifying. Being under their influence, following their orders...just having someone else control your body. It's like a nightmare..." She then looked down, noticing what was hanging off of her body - that assault rifle. Her jaw dropped, and her eyes lit up. She gasped, a smile forming on her face. "...And then you wake up and it's Christmas! I had this?!"

Reisen looked down the sight, and then went about studying every aspect of the guns had on her person, barring the pistol. She really looked like she enjoyed the weapons, then her brow furrowed, as she appeared to ponder over the sniper rifle.

"Why would she have me use a .50 Barret Indoors? It's too unwieldly. A bullpup sniper rifle would have done just fine." She looked that the assault gun. "Same thing with this. The shotgun I understand, but this is kind of big to use in close quarters."

"Maybe because of their power?" I suggested.

She shrugged, before nodding at all of us. "So, considering that I'm fine now, I guess danmaku kills this thing, right? Makes their influence go away?"

conveniently, yeah. It really was too perfect, wasn't it?

"It looks to be that way." Yukari stepped forward, a grin on her face. "I know our races don't have much to do with each other, but we appear to have a common enemy." Yukari extended her hand to the soldier. "What do you say?"

Reisen stared at the extended hand, pursing her lips. She didn't do anything for a few seconds, until she simply nodded. There seemed to be a quiet resolve in her eyes, where she was mentally getting ready for the next task.

"All right." Reisen and Yukari shook hands. "For this night, you have my gun."

Reimu stepped in between them. "If you two are done, we need to find the source of this problem, and we need to end it now. Sakuya can't hold back the moon forever, and I don't want to see how much worse the moonlight can affect youkai out there."

Reisen slammed in a fresh magazine into her rifle, her face going serious as she got it locked and loaded. "Let's save the Princess!"

This is so cool.

Nitori grunted, as she kept moving. A flash of bright light behind her told her that she needed to find cover. The kappa ducked around the corner of a doorframe, almost getting vaporized by one of Yuka's real Master Spark. Nitori then realized that she was in the library.

They had gotten Kazami's attention. The flower youkai slowly walked into the mansion, and walked past them. It was true - the youkai were only going for the fairies. Everyone attacked Yuka for a while, trying to bring her down, before the flower youkai turned her attention to them. Man, even my bubble gun isn't so good against her! Yuka simply punched the bubble, freeing herself every time Nitori tried to stop her.

Nitori peeked around the corner, to see the guard have a choke hold on Yuka. Kazami grabbed the guard, and flung her through one of the doors. What raw power Kazami has! The youkai had kept getting hit, and made anyone pay who made the mistake of getting too close - Miss Aya was thrown through several walls when she got too close. Amazing that Kazami was able to even catch her. And of course, the Librarian was the first to go down - a single punch knocked her out. Only Nitori was left standing.

We can't beat her. We can't slow her down!

Kazami then kept walking, towards the kappa.

Okay, we got her attention, so now what?! Nitori moved, looking for a place to hide. She knew she was no match for the youkai of flowers.

And then Kazami burst through the doorframe. Not under her own power. Nitori watched in surprise and awe as there was the little Scarlet vampire tackling the youkai. Kazami was flung into a bookcase, knocking it over, and causing a domino effect for all of the cases behind her.

The little Scarlet vampire stood there, grinning at the youkai of flowers, twirling her spear. "Playtime!"

Nitori knew not to get involved. She jumped over a table, and peered from behind it. The vampire ran, and pounced at the youkai, swinging down her spear - and Kazami caught it. Blood trickled down from Yuka's hand where she caught it, but she still caught it. The youkai then brought up her umbrella, and shot another Master Spark at the vampire.

No! If Remilia hears that her sister died when we were supposed to watch the mansion, I'll be gutted like a...oh.

The light went away, and the little vampire laid there, on the ground back at the entrance. She slowly got up, her skin red, and her clothes charred black. Blood slowly oozed out of her left nostril, which the vampire wiped away. She didn't look happy anymore. The vampire looked angry.

"Okay," said the vampire in a surprisingly mature voice, one that should have belonged to an adult woman, as she glared at the youkai. "Playtime's over."

If I wasn't so scared, I'd be impressed.

-entry-

-Entities encountered:

-Tewi Inaba, Rabbit Youkai

-Sergeant Reisen Udongein "Inaba", Lunarian Rabbit

-Entities cataloged.

"Temple Incident" (unofficial name)

- Waking up one morning, residents of Gensokyo found what appeared to be a "Temple" outside of the Hakurei Shrine. A notice told of a tournament to be held, where the winner would be granted access into the structure, and have any wish they desired to be granted. Reimu Hakurei, Marisa Kirisame, Mima, and four others competed, with Reimu Hakurei winning. Upon entering the structure, Reimu Hakurei found it to be a vessel, built by a Professor Yumeme Okazaki with her assistant Chiyuri Kitashirakawa. The two fought Reimu Hakurei in an attempt to have her be their guinea pig in the name of science, but they were defeated. Upholding the "tournament's" claim of a prize, Reimu Hakurei acquired Ruukoto, a nuclear-powered housecleaning android. The two scientists left Gensokyo, and would later become part of the Esper Organization.

- Reimu Hakurei's powers were growing. At a mere twelve years old, she had taken on more powerful and smarter foes, emerging victorious.

=RESOLVED=

-File Catalogued by Emiri Kimidori

-end file-

-Personal Note: I never knew this. Two of the espers have been in Gensokyo before. I will attempt to make contact with them after finishing our business here.

-This is a request for assistance. Obvious Sky Canopy Domain influences have been detected. The introduction of a "Hourai Elixir" is troubling, and I believe that this may be the true goal of the enemy.

-N. Yuki

-end entry-

-logoff-

August 12th, 2013. Touhou 14 just got released today, and already there is fan art of the bosses going up. Not the demo bosses, but the full game bosses.

Dedicated fandom.

Forgive us our tardiness with this episode. Writers block and things going on in the beta readers' lives got in the way. Wish werewolf luck in college dorm life.

Lady Yukari demands more reviews.