What is the nature of a crossover? I think we should be asking that question. I'm not talking about stuff that happens in the same universe, like "Marvel Crossovers". No, those stories happen in the same world. Talking about stuff like this. What's the cause? What's the realistic cause for such events? What happens if one side is stronger than the other? Do the rules of both worlds conflict? Do they mesh?
When you roll a clay ball, of two different colors, what happens? It depends. If you roll red and blue together for a small amount of time, you might get a new color, purple. That's the 'new' when the two different sides come into contact with the other. But there are still the red and blue parts, separate. When one side comes into contact, it changes.
Is it always for the best?
Of course, you also need the motivations of the sculptor too. Whether they'll continue meshing them, and eventually both sides lose their identity, and become one purple orb, or will stop with the three.
I guess it depends on how far one is willing to go with it.
They do need to be the same material. Attempting to mesh clay that's a little dry with one that is a little wet might balance it, but it's going to be sloppy. Or different types of clay may not work. One may be too grainy, or thick, and refuse to really mesh with the other.
I myself think the appeal of crossovers are "how will this person react to this other person". Will they be enemies? Will the be friends? Will they be lovers (let's face it, lots of people set up crossovers especially on here just for ships or lemons)? Will they put aside their own goals and work together, or will they still maintain their loyalties against these new people? Will it be possible that they betray those from their own world for this new one, or will their loyalty see them through?
But that's the crossover.
The social interaction.
If you just want to crossover people to have them fight each other, well, there are fighting games out there for you to create characters and boom. You can watch them go at it. I mean, look at Smash Bros. and the hype it generates when someone unexpected shows up. There are plenty of fans for that.
I think we like crossovers because it expands the world. Gives the characters more to experience, more to react. More social opportunities. More conflicts. New routes and ideas to be exposed to.
Growth. Growth beyond the limits of what they could experience in their world.
One can't afford to be closed minded. To do so is to ultimately self harm.
...At least, that's my opinion.
=The following chapter was written by Smooglii=
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:
Smooglii
Supperdude9
HARUHI!
HARUHI! I screamed. Over and over, I screamed into the mist, not even able to hear my own voice. I saw nothing, heard nothing, felt nothing but Haruhi being absorbed into the body of Utsuho Reiuji.
Where is she? Where is Hecatia?
I reached for my spell cards.
WHERE IS SHE?!
Nothing was there.
HARUHI! HARUHI! HARUHI!
There was nothing.
Nothing in front of me. Nothing behind me. Nothing but the ground beneath my feet. I don't know how long I kept running and calling her name as the distance between us never closed. How long it was before I fell to my knees and gave up.
I want to believe it was a long time.
Where are you?
Sight and sound escaped me. It wasn't that my vision was black; I couldn't perceive even that. All of my senses, my memories, all thoughts in my mind; everything melted away. Even the image of Hecatia-Utsuho consuming Haruhi and Sasaki gave way to an aching, overpowering sense of grief, until that too faded.
There was nothing left.
...
...
I became aware of someone's voice behind me. How long had it been there?
"Kyon?"
What.
"Look where you are, Kyon."
Look at what? There's nothing here.
"Can you hear me?"
I'm speaking to you!
"Look at me, Kyon!"
What? Aren't I...
My eyes felt awkward, like I was piloting my body from inside and they would only move when I pulled the right lever. They didn't twitch or blink like normal. I turned them on a woman who was standing behind me. A warped scythe was slung over her left shoulder, and she was holding the other end in her hand. As I recognized her, I also recognized my surroundings.
Jagged, mossy rocks jutting up around me. Pure white sand giving way to still, silent water. A shining mist that hung around the area, blocking the sky - if there was one. I couldn't even tell if it was day or night.
Komachi?
"Can you hear me?" she asked again. Her expression was unusually severe, although her eyes seemed slightly out of focus. "Do you know where you are?"
This is...
I took another look at my surroundings, cranking the gears in my neck to turn my head all the way around. I noticed someone else nearby - or maybe it was more like the impression of a person, a whitened silhouette that could only stir memories of the person it once was. Familiar white, misty wisps trailed around her, and the details of her face, her body, and her clothes all seemed to hang off of it like an old poster. Even if I had to consciously realize it, I was looking at none other than Rin Kaenbyou.
What's going on? What is this?
I couldn't read anything like an expression from her, and she didn't say anything at all. I realized that I could see more people just like her - many more ambiguous figures in the distance, although I couldn't tell how far. Comprehension crept up on me, and I resisted looking at my own body.
No, it would be more accurate to say that I couldn't bring myself to look. It took so much effort to move that it wasn't worth looking just to confirm what I already knew.
The Sanzu River?
I turned to the water instead. It had looked completely still before, but in my newfound clarity, I saw that it was moving. Slowly and silently, the river flowed like lava down a channel of crooked, pointed rocks. I couldn't see the other side through the mist.
"I gotta take you, Kyon. A lot of spirits are about to show up here." Komachi stayed where she was, watching me from the edge of the water. She was standing next to a boat that sat on the sand, half in the water.
No... no. No, this can't be happening.
I didn't want to believe it, but I was seeing it for myself; I wasn't anywhere near that fiery cavern anymore, and as I truly realized it, I felt cold all over.
This is... happening.
It already happened.
I...
I failed.
The Meltdown of Haruhi Suzumiya
Episode 9.5
["The Honesty of Seija Kijin"]
"If she somehow gathered tremendous faith, maybe she could become something like a goddess..."
"But as she is now, she looks like she's closer to a youkai."
Conversation between Kanako Yasaka and Byakuren Hijiri, Symposium of Post-mysticism - Part 5
I wanted to disappear.
How could I have let myself go so easily? To be toyed with and ended like it was nothing?
I made a promise to Yukari, to the others, and to myself that I was going to get out of dying, but when the time came, I couldn't do anything at all.
But more than that... Even worse than my own life, what happened to Haruhi and Sasaki?
What happened, Komachi?!
Komachi didn't answer. I ran forward and grabbed hold her shoulders, seeing a glimpse of my own white hands in the process. She didn't do anything but stare into my face.
Where is she?! How much time passed? They saved her, right?! That's why she's not here, right?!
Komachi responded to my cries by wrapping her right arm around my torso. Despite being non-corporeal, I felt her touch. "There you go. Come on. It'll be a short trip for you."
She lifted me into the air, flipped me around, and dunked me into the boat behind her before vaulting overhead to join me. When I managed to orient my vision enough to look at her, she was gazing at what looked like a little yellow flame in her hand. At the same time, I felt an odd sensation in what might have been my chest, like a chunk of flesh had been surgically removed and there was now a hole where my liver should be. If I could still feel pain, that probably would have hurt a lot. Not that I cared about things like pain or having chunks of my "body" removed. There was only one thing on my mind.
Where is she? Please, Komachi. Just tell me something.
She scoffed, then chucked it at the bank. The little flame soared across the rocks and disappeared into the mist.
Komachi wiped her hand on her kimono and turned to me. "Sorry 'bout that. Some spirit was piggybacking on you. Dug in there real deep. Probably looking for a free ride." Then she skillfully spun her scythe around and planted the bottom into the bank, using it to push us off into the river proper.
"I'll come back for you after," she called as the ghost who I had identified as Rin faded into the mist. Then she sighed and looked down at me as I tried to right myself like I was operating a puppet with tangled wires.
Where is Haruhi, Komachi? Where's Sasaki?
"Don't try to move too much," she spoke to me. "If you fall in the river, you'll sink."
Tell me they're still alive.
Silence.
Not just from her, but from me. I finally realized that I hadn't actually been speaking this whole time. I mean, I didn't even have a mouth. There was no muscle, no lever, no proverbial string to pull that could make me speak.
Well, that's natural. I didn't have a body, either.
If not for Komachi talking to me earlier and the thunk of our respective landings in the boat, I would have thought that I couldn't hear, either. There was no sound of waves, not even against the boat as it glided through the water. None of the other spirits on the bank had made a sound. I peered over the edge of the boat, careful not to lean too far in case I fell in. The inky blackness of the water hardly moved, giving the impression that we were sailing over a bottomless hole, but when I looked at the horizon, the surface shone white like the surrounding mist. If Gensokyo was a world where the laws of physics and common sense rarely applied, this must have been a world in which they were more like hardly-recalled pleasantries.
So, that's it? I died just like that, and I can't even talk to you about it? Why not? Yuyuko is dead, and she still looks human.
Somewhere inside of me, I felt angry, but I couldn't even work myself up over it. I couldn't get mad. I couldn't cry, or even cower in fear. Everything was covered up by that aching emptiness, and the horrible, hollow feeling of complete and utter failure.
This is worse than being alone.
As I was thinking this, Komachi held out a paper to me. A quill pen, dripping with ink, was pinched between her thumb and index finger, with the paper between her ring finger and pinky.
"Sign this," she said simply.
What is it? I looked up at Komachi and, seeing that it would be faster to just read it instead of trying to communicate with her, I took the paper and pen and read the neat cursive writing on the page.
I the undersigned do hereby in full conscience and understanding of this exchange transfer my spiritual assets (see Section C) to the Ministry of Right and Wrong, subset of the administration of Hell, Otherworlds branch...
What the hell?
I channeled my incredulity into what I hoped would be a gesture of disbelief towards the paper. Komachi shrugged and said, "Just something we do to keep Hell and the Ministry running. Everyone's got to pay fare to cross the river." She waved her hand down at the water beneath us. "You can avoid paying, but since you're already on the boat, I'd have to throw you off. Don't worry, you won't need any of what you're giving us."
Well, that's nice. Sounds like a racket to me. What exactly am I supposed to be paying here?
I wasn't exactly in the mood to be handling financial transactions, but Komachi didn't give me much choice. After attempting to penetrate the complicated legalese in which the document was written, I decided that I'd rather give away some stuff I didn't need anymore than be thrown into the river of the dead by Death herself, so I took the pen and signed the paper. When I handed it back, Komachi took a moment to inspect it before rolling it up, and tucking it away in her obi. I didn't see what she did with the pen, but it disappeared as well. Then she held out her hand and said, "Now for the payment itself."
I stared dumbly at her hand, not sure what to do. I definitely didn't bring any money with me into Gensokyo. I wished someone had told me that I'd need to pay Charon at the Styx. I mean, I guess I had advance warning that I'd die, but when had I ever prepared for anything remotely adequately?
"Look in your pockets," she said with a hint of a smirk. "I'm sure you've got enough."
I reached into where I remembered my pockets ought to be and felt what seemed like a cloth bag. I pulled it out - it was much, much bigger than should have fit in my non-existent clothes, and it felt heavier than it looked. I had to lift it with both hands as I set it down on the bottom of the boat. It was made from rough, simple cloth with a ratty string binding it shut, and it jingled when I moved it with the telltale noise of clinking coins. My curiosity piqued, I loosened the string and looked inside the bag.
Well, I didn't know what else I expected, but it was still a surprise.
There were coins, all right. Gold, silver, and bronze featureless coins with round holes in their center, like five-yen or fifty-yen coins without the engravings. A whole heap of them, more than a few handfuls, somehow fit just fine inside that two-handful sack.
"These," said Komachi, "are wishes. Each one of those coins represents someone who misses you back in the world of the living." She plucked a gold coin from the bag, then held it up to my eye level, staring at me through the hole in the middle.
"These are the good ones. Just one of these - a spouse or a best friend, usually - would get you across. Parents that outlive their kids give these, too. Well, usually."
People that miss me? You mean every one of these coins is someone who mourned my death?
I looked down at the bag. There were... so many. I don't think I could have counted them.
Do I even know this many people?
Komachi dropped the coin into the bag, then put her foot on the bag and slid it underneath her to the end of the boat. "'Course, the fee is everything you have on you either way," she said with a shrug. "The Yama judge people for their karma, but we judge people for their money. More money means a shorter trip across the river. Anybody with no one to mourn them can't cross at all. That's just how it is."
What happens to them, then?
Komachi didn't answer. She just shouldered her scythe with a pitying smile. "You'd better get used to this kind of bureaucracy in the hereafter. Death and taxes, right?"
I think I was supposed to find that funny. I didn't really feel like laughing, though.
I was strangely calm about everything that was happening right now. Maybe it was the eerie atmosphere of the Sanzu River, or maybe I was coming down from my hysterics on the bank. Maybe it was just that it took so much effort to move and think. I didn't feel calm, exactly. I felt depressed and angry and anxious to my core about what had happened, and about how much I didn't know. Did Komachi know anything about what had happened? If she did, she wasn't telling.
Will I ever know how the incident went without me? Can I look down on the world from outside, like Tenshi did? I don't think I could stand not knowing. Seija said that she did something for me, and even though I never got to see it, I think it must have led to more people surviving the incident.
Am I supposed to hope and trust that she saved them? That she saved Haruhi, too?
The thought of it was revolting. I didn't trust Seija from the moment I met her, and I sure as hell wasn't going to trust her now.
What if Haruhi is alive, but she's trapped? I don't know how this god-eating stuff works. Yukari said Utsuho's like a walking shrine, but it definitely looked like she wasn't just being channeled or whatever.
What if she's dead, but I don't see her again? Could death even hold Haruhi? If Hecatia took their powers...
It ate me up inside, and it was all I could think about as we crossed the river. I turned inward, losing myself in such ominous thoughts. I almost didn't notice that Komachi had started to sing.
"Some days feel like nothing.
The winds come and gently pass me,
and so I feel alone."
Her voice was unexpectedly soft and measured, like she had done this many times before.
"Lately, I've been wondering,
but what could it be, I'm finding,
something's probably missing inside me."
It took me a while to realize it, but the song she was singing was in English. As I may have mentioned before, English was definitely not my best subject in school, and I had never had the need to use it after I graduated. By this point, I doubt I could have written a single sentence, but somehow, although I didn't know the words, I understood the meaning of the song perfectly.
As her song continued, I started to hear other voices from the mist. Slowly, other ships came into view, helmed by what could only be other shinigami ferrymen. Wielding scythes like Komachi's and carrying precisely one spirit each in their vessels, they sang their own songs - most of them cheerful in spite of the somber tone of the area. I couldn't tell for sure, but Komachi's song seemed like the only one that sounded sad. I couldn't tell how far away the other boats were - the distance between us seemed more fluid than the water itself, sometimes feeling like I could touch them, and sometimes like they were so far that I couldn't reach them if I sailed all day.
In spite of the mixing of songs, moods, and even languages, they seemed to form a discordant harmony with one another, almost bouncing off of each other physically and lyrically. I'm not sure I had ever seen a group of people as paradoxically distinct, yet in tune with one another as the ferrymen of the Sanzu River. As I was thinking this, the tone of Komachi's song changed to something more similar to the others'.
"No matter what the others have said,
or the lies we all have read,
just turn around,
and you'll be found in time.
Don't mind the pain.
In the end, it might be somewhat strange.
You're not alone,
not on your own.
Just break away..."
The singing of the shinigami continued for several more minutes. I couldn't give you an exact time. Heck, I'm not even sure time worked the same over there as it did in the world of the living. I watched Komachi, who seemed utterly focused on the song, and the other shinigami, who in some odd twist looked like they were being more relaxed about their job than Komachi was. They almost looked like they were having fun, while she was being the most professional I had ever seen from her. I stared at the bag she was standing on and wondered.
Is one of those coins from you?
I spotted movement in the water and, craning my neck to look down, I saw a collection of odd-looking fish I had never seen before swimming beside the boat. It wasn't a school - the fish were all different kinds, and seemed joined only in that they were following us. The same went for the other boats, each of them leading their own fish packs across the water. Some of the fish had sharp, piranha-like teeth that made me want to back away from the edge, but before I could, I saw something else move in the darkness beneath them. Something long and snake-like. I wondered what kinds of creatures could possibly live in the river of the dead, but I was pretty sure I'd found the answer to the question of what would have happened if I hadn't paid Komachi the toll.
As usual, the realm of fantasy is way too scary for me. Not that I didn't just come from somewhere a hundred times more terrifying.
The song of the shinigami ended as the edge of the river appeared from the mist and the other boats faded away, still pursuing their journeys toward the other side. From what Komachi said earlier and from the way the distance had kept changing between us, I got the impression that they would all reach the far shore at different times despite having been right beside each other for a while. After landing the boat, Komachi picked up the sack of coins and tied it to the end of her scythe like a bindle. She hoisted herself out of the boat, patted down her kimono, and looked back at me with a gentle smile.
"Time to go," she said.
The place in which we had arrived was just as silent as the river, yet it felt completely different. The river mist of the Sanzu gave way to a cloudless sky enveloping a flower garden that stretched beyond the horizon. Poppies, tulips, peonies, and any other kind of non-toxic flower you could name were here, covering hills so gentle they looked like a model rather than any kind of real geography. There was no sun, moon, or stars - just a blank, gray sky that looked like neither night nor day, yet sent down a warm light that gave the place a hospital vibe. Departed spirits were scattered across the sterile fields, some wandering, some simply standing or sitting in place. None of them looked like they were doing anything at all but staring into the sky or across the fields.
I had been to the hollowed-out shell of a place that was once Hell, and I had invaded both Netherworld and Heaven. Now I found myself in some kind of bland Purgatory; a waiting room that went on forever and couldn't have been any more depressing to look at for all of its flowers and tone-neutral atmosphere. I climbed out of the boat and joined Komachi on the shore, and as I looked on at the scenery from beside her, she spoke once more in a soft voice.
"Imperceptible
It withers in the world,
This flower-like human heart."
After a pause, she started walking forward, bidding me to follow with a wave of her hand. "Welcome to Higan."
...Wow.
I'd never have expected this side of Komachi. The melodiousness of her voice, combined with the surroundings, were enough to give me at least a little bit of calm. Even though I knew I should have been afraid out of my mind, I just... wasn't. Like most of my ability to feel had been cast off along with my body.
As she led me past the rolling hills, Komachi gestured to the wandering spirits and said, "Normally you'd have to wait about three years for a trial, but Lady Eiki's pulling an extra shift for you guys. You should feel honored; she won't tell you, and she'll probably try to scare you by talking about Hell some, but she's a real big fan of how you kept risking your life in Gensokyo."
Not that I had much of a choice most of the time. I guess I'm flattered. The judge of the dead is a fan of me, huh?
I wasn't sure what to think of all of this posthumous praise I was getting, but at least my prospects looked good. Maybe I could find out what happened to the others at this trial. "You guys" could have meant Rin and I, but it could also have meant everyone.
I guess this is where she'll decide where I'll go. I wasn't particularly up on my cosmology, but as far as Buddhist myths go, I knew there were six realms of reincarnation on the table. If my karma was good enough, I could trade up to the realm of devas and live in luxury for a long time. Otherwise, I might have been reborn back in the Human Realm and lived another life as a human on earth... but if my karma was bad, I could be sent into the realms of asuras, pretas, or animals, and if it was really bad, I'd go to Hell. Speaking as someone who'd been to an old Hell, I never wanted to even see one that was still in business, and now that I finally realized that my fate was about to be decided, a slight feeling of nervousness penetrated through the veil of apathy that had been thrown over my soul.
I mean, it's a moot point if the universe gets erased, but... If it doesn't...
Up until now, I hadn't really thought nor cared about what would happen to me. I just wanted to know what had happened to the others, whether they were safe, and whether the universe itself was safe. I couldn't possibly have started worrying for myself, under the circumstances. Yet it slowly started to dawn on me now that yes, this was happening to me. Whatever was happening back there, and whatever would happen in the future, this was what was here and now.
I'm about to be judged. I'm dead. I'm really, really dead.
And now... What's going to happen to me?
It was probably obvious what I was thinking, because Komachi thumped me on the back and said, "Don't worry about a thing. There's no way a guy like you has enough bad karma to worry about." She forced a smile, and I tried to force one back. If it worked, she probably couldn't see it anyway.
Frankly, I'm still more worried about what'll happen when Haruhi's time is up. All this "needing people to mourn you" business makes me think about her. Who's going to pay for her now that I've gone ahead?
I said that, but I was sure Nagato, Koizumi, and Tsuruya would be able to take care of that. Even Taniguchi and my sister would probably be good for some bronze coins. As for Asahina, I'm not sure if a time traveler can really "miss" someone from another time period just because they died.
Don't already be dead, Haruhi. Grow old and put it off forever out of stubbornness.
Not that I wanted to be alone on this side until reincarnation, but I'd prefer it if she was able to live a long and fulfilling life after all the trouble I went through to keep her happy.
Wait, what if she meets some other guy later? What if it's Koizumi? What if they get married and I have to spend my afterlife watching them together? I changed my mind. Hurry up and die.
Passing that thought off as a silly joke and hoping that the Yama wasn't listening, I looked ahead of us to see where exactly we could be going in this giant, empty field, only to see that we had already arrived. Komachi had taken me to an entirely different hill, no doubt many kilometers away, on which sat a grand and important-looking courthouse. I'm not sure whether to say the architecture looked Chinese or Indian, but it had straight, high walls and the classic columns and steps of a traditional courthouse, although it seemed a lot bigger than normal. As soon as we had walked up the steps, Komachi turned to me.
"She's waiting for you already," she said. "I have to get back to work. I'm the only ferryman for Gensokyo, but, uh..." she inclined her head back the way we came, hesitated, and then gave me a nod. "Sorry you had to come here so soon. Good luck in there."
Then she took a single stride that brought her back to the river, and I was left by myself on the steps of the Yama's court.
Well.
I stared at the giant oak doors.
No time like the present.
I'm not going to lie, I had to psych myself up a little bit to enter through those doors. I was assured that I would get a good verdict, and thinking about it, I was kind of a martyr, but it's one thing to reason that you're going to be fine and another thing to actually stand in front of the gates of judgment, as it were. My life, missing its cue by a century, started to flash before my eyes. I started to think of every little thing I had ever done wrong. Every test on which I had ever cheated, every time I had gotten angry when I shouldn't have, building all the way up to the worst of it - the murder I had committed.
Sure, it wasn't exactly my fault, but how could I not think about it now? I wondered if all the lies and backstabbing I had done under Seija's heel would be counted, as well. How much bad karma did I really have? How much good karma did I have?
Well, I saved the world several times, or had a hand in it at least. I'd say that should put me pretty high up there. I've never done anything for charity, unless you count humoring a delusional schoolgirl with apocalyptic powers and then somehow ending up falling for her. Do I get points for my heroic death?
This is stupid. I saved the world. At least four times! Well, three if Haruhi actually remade the world that one time. Still, that's three more than most people, right? The Eternal Night Incident and that attempted takeover of Haruhi a few years ago have to count - no way would Suou have been happy with anything less. That means everyone in the world owes me several times over. I came to the Sanzu with a big bag of ghost money for a reason. If anyone's going to get off easy here, it's me.
Having successfully migrated character flaws from pessimism to hubris, I passed through the closed doors the courthouse, where I was met by the biggest, meanest-looking oni I had ever seen. He had horns the size of my hands, muscles the size of my head, and teeth the size of steak knives. He looked completely out of place amidst the regal-looking yet surprisingly plain entry hall, with long, shaggy hair going down his back and a face that looked more like a bull's than a man's. With a gesture of his finger, he invited me to follow him, and I was taken through a set of huge, ornate doors deep within the building.
The room beyond was massive and magnificent. Statues depicting what looked like kings in crowns lined the left and right walls of the room, and between them was a garden of white lotus flowers with a single cleared space in the absolute center of the room. At the front of the space was a small podium, on which sat a small, polished mirror with ten names inscribed around its outer edge. At the rear of the room were two obsidian altars topped with golden chalices and cherry tree cuttings, and between them, seated on a high golden throne behind which coiled a decorative dragon, was Gensokyo's Yama herself: A short, green-haired woman in a blue silk and gold crown, a blue uniform with golden shoulder pads, red buttons, and white sleeves ending in a black skirt. She held a golden shaku engraved with black lettering in both hands, and her stern dark blue eyes zeroed on me as I entered the room. She looked dwarfed by the splendor of the room around her, yet empowered by it at the same time. My earlier faux-confidence rapidly faded in her presence, and when I took my seat in the center of the garden at the oni's direction, she spoke my name.
This is the Yama. This is the person everyone's been talking up, who Reimu had to fight against three years ago.
I could feel the power in her voice as my name echoed across the room, and as I looked into the mirror in front of me, I saw my reflection. It was me, but it was all of me, shifting and changing between myself at different times in my life, from infancy to adulthood, and everything in between. I saw moments from my past - my struggles in Gensokyo, the times I had healed others with my power, and the times I had hurt or almost hurt others as well. I saw myself raising my fist against Haruhi. I saw myself throwing a danmaku grenade at a defenseless Sky Canopy Dominion member. I saw all of this in the time it took for the sound of my name to fade from the room, and by the end of it, I felt more than naked.
"This is the trial of your soul. Eiki Shiki, Yamaxanadu presiding. Attendant is kishin chief Suiki of the Lake of Blood."
A kishin chief. So, this guy is a boss of the oni? Is he going to take me to Hell if I get sentenced there? My eyes drifted to the oni's face. He was giving me a strange, appraising look.
"I have here a missive from the Netherworld," continued the Yama as her eyes focused on the top of a small table in front of her throne, "officially requesting your soul be placed in Hakugyokurou for an extended period up to and including indefinitely upon your death."
Yuyuko?
I almost forgot about her promise to me all those years ago. She said she would put in a request for me to stay with her after I died.
I started to feel a little happy all of a sudden. The coins, along with Komachi's words, were starting to get to me.
Thank you, Yuyuko. Now that I'm here, I realize I should have appreciated that gesture more.
"This is rare, to say the least," said Eiki. "Perhaps if your verdict is agreeable, the court will see its way to accommodating the request of Hakugyokurou in some form." She turned her dark eyes down on me, and the warmth I was feeling earlier went away. She lifted her golden shaku in one hand and pointed it in my direction. "However, this court does not practice or condone any form of favoritism. While the court recognizes the gratitude towards the defendant which is inherent in the request as relevant to your case, the request itself shall not be considered in your judgment, and there shall be no countermandment of the cycle of rebirth."
...Maybe I spoke to soon. Hang on, if I can't speak, doesn't that mean I can't testify on my own behalf?
"The mirror," spoke the Yama. The kishin chief beside me picked up the small mirror in front of me and delivered it to the Yama at the head of the room before standing at the foot of her throne and staring at me with a slight smirk. Somehow, I had a feeling he saw what I saw. I started to feel hot in the face.
Is this trial going to just be about laying my private life bare in front of other people? Not that it wasn't already, I guess. Thanks, Yukari.
The Yama took a long look into the mirror and then set it aside. Anticipation swelled in my gut as she spoke.
"The Cleansed Crystal Mirror has revealed your character," she said. "To you, and to me."
I knew it. This is just going to be a dressing-down. I'm not ready for this.
If there's one thing I was thankful for in that situation, it was the fact that my current form meant I couldn't show any nervous tics. Then again, she could probably see right through me with that mirror anyway.
"You are desirous in death," she said after mulling it over for a short while. "You have many regrets, many wishes unfulfilled. With no attempt at self-abandonment, you shall be bound to those desires, and to the world, for yet another turning of the Wheel of Life. It is the duty of this court to remind you that the nirvana of Heaven, the celestial realm awaits only those who can follow in the Buddha's teachings. If you find yourself again in the Human Realm, I hope that you will consider joining a temple."
Pretty sure I was never attaining enlightenment, but thanks. Wouldn't I have to remember my past life to take your advice anyway?
"Make no mistake," she continued. "This is of your own making, as shall be your fate in the interim before your next next life. Be your karma and conscience clean, you may yet find the Netherworld's peace. If not, then your reincarnation shall be delayed, and torment shall be your karma's fruit. Those regrets shall become the ice that freezes, the weight that crushes, the oil that scalds, and the needles that pierce your skin. All that you have done shall return to you, and all the pain you have wrought shall be revealed unto your own soul. There shall be no peace for you. Do you understand?"
Yep. That's Hell. I gave a slow, unsteady nod, a little shaken by how plainly she described the gruesome fate I might be facing. I could only imagine how I might be feeling if it weren't for the persistent emptiness of my current state. This, I realized, must be how it feels to be completely and utterly at the mercy of someone else - or the mercy of my own karma, as it were.
She said nothing and let it all sink in for a moment, still regarding me with her focused stare. "There are three incidents that stand out to me," she said eventually. "Three things that foul your karma unquestionably, and which draw your soul closer to the evil realms."
Don't freak out. Don't freak out.
"The first point on which I will have you reflect is the measure of your wrath. You think often on your attempt to strike Haruhi Suzumiya in November of 2003, and for good reason. She is your closest companion, and despite your intentions, the truth of the matter is that it was an act of violence provoked by rage." Eiki paused for effect, then said, "That's right, you're a little bit too angry."
I knew she'd bring that up. It's going to haunt me all the way until my next life, isn't it? If Hell is brought on by conscience...
I mean, it's not always on my mind. Just usually. There's enough to balance that out, right?
"But the weight of your sin comes not from this. Rather, it is your thirst for violence which drives you to commit those deeds which blacken your soul. You have wished for pain and death upon others, and you have inflicted it yourself. On September 19th of 2013, you will inflict gratuitous suffering on the amanojaku Seija Kijin in retribution for crimes against your family, and you will relish the act. Even an act of justified evil will continue to propagate evil. This court bids that you take a moment to consider the karmic consequences of your actions, as well as the effect your actions will have on others."
The Icicle Fall? You're judging me for that? You must have seen what she was going to do!
Although I made no sound, the Yama's eyebrow raised at my internal outburst. I had to remember that my soul was on trial, and she could probably see everything about me even now.
Wait, does that mean I can talk to you? You can understand what I'm saying?
"Intentions and desires are things which can lead to good and evil," she went on without answering me, cradling her shaku in both hands as she leered at me from above, "but it is your actions which describe your karma. On July 16th of 2004, you made a decision to cast an explosive device at the Sky Canopy Domain humanoid interface Kuyou Suou. You intended to kill her in order to stop further loss of life, but you ended up taking the wrong life. As a result of your actions, a prisoner who had surrendered was killed."
And there's the other one. Well, if those are the worst things I've done in my life, I can't be that bad, right?
"A serious charge," said the Yama, "but it pales to genocide."
Wait, what?
What?
Genocide?
That came out of absolutely nowhere. I was pretty sure I'd have remembered doing something like that. Seriously, is that a mistake? Are you sure you're not reading someone else's file there? I had no idea what to feel about that, and the fact that Eiki was taking her sweet time in continuing made it all the worse. After my initial panic subsided, she cleared her throat and said, "On December 21st of 2003, you made an open threat to the Data Overmind, a civilization of unknown population, in which you declared to, and I quote, 'join Haruhi in remaking the world. Into a world like the one I just spent three days in, where your Data Overmind no longer exists. That'll leave you all in despair. So much for observing. How do you like that?'"
Oh.
Oh.
I get it.
"Said remarks were made with full intention to follow through, and since then, you have not rescinded them, outwardly or otherwise. As a direct result of this, the amanojaku Seija Kijin will be able to seize an item which will grant her the power to threaten the entire world." Eiki made her point with a rap on her table, glowering at me with what I can only describe as the adorable yet terrifying disapproval that can only come from someone much shorter and more right than you.
Her frown only deepened as I thought that. I'm sorry! I can't help my thoughts!
Still, she made a good point, and I had never thought of it like that. I still don't take it back - Nagato is worth more to me than the Data Overmind and Gensokyo put together, and I wouldn't hesitate to make that threat again. That said, she was only one person.
Does that really make me a bad person? Maybe it does. Think about any historical genocide, and then pretend that whoever did it did so because they really, really cared about one person. That doesn't come even close to cutting the mustard, does it? Even though the Data Overmind is an alien species full of people who don't care about humanity at all... they're still people, right? Intelligent life forms.
Rewriting reality so that they don't exist would be... bad. Right?
There's no other way to put it. I had the power to commit an atrocity, the very same kind of atrocity for which I had condemned the Alternates, and I had fully intended to do it.
I... I think I might be a hypocrite.
I suddenly felt terrified. Not just because of what she made me realize, but because it meant that there was an honest to goodness chance that Komachi was wrong.
Does saving the world three or four times excuse a sincere threat of genocide in the eyes of the Yama?
...What about in mine?
"By the laws of the Ten Kings," she declared, her posture stiff and her eyes full of fire, "this by itself is enough to plunge you into the endless void of Avici, where you shall suffer for an antarakalpa."
You can't be serious. Because of that?! That's-
This is going to happen now? I just got out of an abandoned Hell, and now I'm going back into a real one?
This is a trick, isn't it? Komachi said you would try to scare me by talking about Hell. You're going to talk about all that good stuff I did now, right?
I mean, that'd be insane. To send someone to Hell for just that, despite all the good they'd done? Hell would be packed, and the good realms would be empty. I was no saint, but I'd at least tried to live as a decent person. There was just no way.
Not that such logical conclusions were enough to make me unafraid. I was on pins and needles waiting for Eiki to say something else, to say "Just kidding!" or talk about my extenuating circumstances. The wait was only a few seconds, but it felt like far, far longer. Eiki sucked in a breath and leaned back in her throne, her posture still straight and proper, and said, "However."
However.
The golden word. Exactly what you want to hear after someone goes off on you for your faults and threatens you with a terrible fate. That godly gift to any delinquent or playful miscreant's ears, which you hear at the end of kids' movies as the authority figure absolves the plucky hero of their sins.
I held my breath. Or tried to, since I wasn't breathing in the first place.
However...
She didn't get to finish, because at that moment, a train burst through the wall behind me and rushed past, sending chunks of wall and floor everywhere along with a gigantic cloud of dust and lotus petals as it smashed into the altar to the left of the giant throne, knocking the oni, the Yama, and the throne to the ground. Eiki made a clatter and a crash as she fell on the items atop the right altar and slipped behind it, while the kishin chief got back to his feet almost immediately.
Yukari?!
It wasn't the passenger train from before, but an orange freight train, loaded with brightly-colored shipping crates that trailed out the front of the building. It looked like it had been thrown at the Ministry from the outside. For a moment, I thought that it was a miracle I was still alive, at which point I felt entirely silly.
A figure appeared in the dust cloud amidst the scattered lotus petals, swinging a parasol from her left hand as she strode along the train. I couldn't make it out, but it had to be-
Yukari? What the hell is she doing-
The voice that spoke was not Yukari's.
"Laws of the Ten Kings? Who the hell put them in charge? What have they done for us mortals lately?"
I don't believe it.
The kishin chief roared and stomped his foot into the floor, shaking the entire building and cracking the tiles. A pressurized jet of water shot out from inside the crack under his foot, slicing straight through the edge of the train and into the figure in the dust cloud at a near-instantaneous speed, sending a spray of water blasting throughout the rest of the room that probably would have bisected me if I were still alive. A golden light shone from the figure as the water met it, and the spray was redirected, blasting back into the oni and sending him flying not only through the wall, but far into the distance at a velocity that might have rivaled Aya's flight speed.
You're really doing this? This?!
"Yo, Kyon." Seija strode to the edge of the train car she was on and sat down on the edge, waving to me with the Miracle Mallet which she held in her right hand. In her left was Yukari's parasol. She looked just as I remembered her from the night I spent in the future; without a doubt, this was the very same one. "I told you you'd want to kiss me. Pucker up, bitch."
About a million things that I wanted to scream at her bubbled up into my "throat," but perhaps for the best, I couldn't make a sound. Seija raised her eyebrow at me and said, "What, I show up after all this time and you've got nothing to say? I chased you all the way across the Sanzu River. You know no other girl's going to do that for ya."
I really, really can't describe my feelings right now.
"Oh wait," she said, tapping her head with her left index finger. "Ghosts can't talk unless they're all special, right? Here, try this." She hopped down from the train, sauntered over to where I was, and took a mighty swing with the Mallet, connecting with my jaw and sending me toppling into the floor before I'd even realized it. As I sprawled on the ground trying to decide if the pain I was feeling was real or imagined, new wires and levers made themselves evident in my mind, and I wasted no time in using them once my head stopped spinning.
"Where the hell did you get a train?!"
Maybe not the most pertinent first thing I could have said to her, but I figured that this Seija must have been from the time before she brought us back to the shrine, meaning she didn't yet know how I'd betrayed and defeated her. Somehow, I had enough presence of mind to keep a lid on what I let slip... and besides, even though she'd assaulted me, I was pretty sure she was supposed to be doing me a favor just then.
"Somewhere." Seija shrugged. "I wasn't paying attention. Don't worry; I tossed the human that was on board before I took it." She dropped to the floor at the foot of the train, put her arms behind her head, and looked back at the train with a grin. "I always wanted to try that train attack. Maybe I'll drop this on the hag next..."
Deciding that I wasn't in real pain after all, I picked myself up off the ground and asked, "Why are you here? Are you here to..."
...Dare I hope?
Really, when I thought about it, there was no reason she couldn't. After all, she managed to appear in the Yama's court while she was still alive. Who was to say that the Miracle Mallet couldn't bring the dead back to life?
In answer to my question, Seija tapped the parasol on the side of the train. A gap opened up, and out spilled... me. My cold, dead body lay staring up at me from the ground amidst the scattered lotus flowers. My mouth was hanging open, with a bit of drool leaking out. The Sword of Hisou clattered, inert, on the floor beside me. Seija tapped my body with the Mallet, making it glow.
"Hurry up and get in," she said. "Bodies start leaking from both ends before long, and I ain't taking you back if you crap yourself."
I barely registered what she said as I stared at myself. This is me? I'm getting a second chance, just like that? It can't be this easy. How'd you even get my body? It felt like I was being obliterated back there. And what will happen when I die for real? There's no way the Yama—
I ended up not having a choice in the matter, as Seija walked behind me and delivered another smash with the Mallet to my incorporeal form that sent me forward into my body. Everything went white as soon as I made contact with it, and my mind blanked. A splitting pain surged through my brain, like it was rearranging itself into a functional state while I was still conscious.
It felt like I went to sleep, but I must only have been out for a few seconds, because the only thing different about the room when I opened my eyes was that Eiki had risen into the air from her landing spot behind the throne. The dirty looks she was giving me earlier were downright cheerful compared to her face at that moment It wasn't scrunched up in rage or anything - the frown she had earlier was completely gone. Her head was tilted upward, her eyes wide and dilated, her lips pursed so tight as to be minuscule, and her features like stone. She held her rigid posture even as she floated in the air, both legs square against each other, her shaku held perfectly center in front of her chest.
This wasn't the face of vengeance. It was the face of due discipline.
"You have destroyed the Ministry of Right and Wrong," she declared across the ruined courtroom.
Oh, hell.
I struggled to stand. Despite my difficulty moving while dead, being made of meat still somehow felt heavier, and I was more keenly aware of my body's involuntary motions; every blink and breath had to be performed manually until I finally got the rhythm down. I started to choke and cough as my throat spasmed and I noticed a vile taste in my mouth, as though someone had force-fed me lime-flavored sewage. I picked up the Sword of Hisou while I recovered from the sensation, trying to orient my thoughts and get a handle on what was happening.
"Yeah?" Seija sneered up at the judge, turning her body in the other direction. "And who put you in charge of right and wrong? Last I checked, karma was supposed to be some kinda force of nature. So where's the tiny, overbearing judge fit into it?"
Eiki's eyebrow twitched. "I am a duly appointed representative of Hell's administration, tasked with judging black and white-"
"As if Hell wants your 'administration'!" Seija spat on the ground, flew into the air, turned upside down, and pointed the Miracle Mallet at Eiki with her tongue stuck out. "You Ministry types just keep pushing your way into everything, don'tcha? You think you can judge everybody but yourselves? You think I'm just going to let you throw your power around like that?!"
Didn't you just come from telling me all about how you exist to judge the strong?
"I will not debate the necessity of the Ministry with a spiritual child," said Eiki, her frown reappearing. "This is a hall of judgment." With her left hand, she held out the small mirror in which I had seen my life. The ten names inscribed along the edge of the mirror began to glow in a familiar way. "And I shall be the one to judge you."
The mirror was a spell card.
"Shinkou. Shokou. Soutei. Fukan. Enma. Henjyou. Taizan. Byoudou. Toshi. Gotoutenrin."
Uh oh.
Of course Seija had to get into a fight here. Who did I think I was dealing with? As soon as Eiki started chanting those names, I bolted for the right side of the room, aiming to take cover behind one of the Yama statues. Parkour was a lot harder for me, having just returned to life, but thankfully their banter had given me enough of a breather that I was able to push myself enough to get across all of the debris in time.
"Really?" Seija smirked at the mirror in Eiki's hand, turned right side up, and showed off the Mallet. "You want to fight me? I've got the Miracle Mallet."
"And I," said Eiki, "am the Yamaxanadu."
[SPELL CARD: JUDGMENT "CLEANSED CRYSTAL JUDGMENT -SEIJA KIJIN-"]
The image of Seija appeared in the mirror, warping and twisting as it showed her back to front, every sound and image entering my mind as if it were one of my own memories. I saw what could only have been her early life, trapped somewhere dark and hopeless. I saw her journey with Shinmyoumaru, striding across hills and through forests in search of the Miracle Mallet. I saw them together in an upside down castle, declaring their will to fight in front of Reimu, Marisa, and Sakuya. I saw her lose and run away.
I saw her lie to Shinmyoumaru about what had happened to her people. I saw her betray her friends, one by one, lying, rising, falling, seeking power and then destroying it. All of this melted together into a single form: Seija herself, wielding the Mallet and Yukari's parasol, wearing the same defiant sneer that she had practiced so much.
There are... two Miracle Mallets?
Did she just create a working second Mallet with that spell?
The real Seija looked unimpressed. The mirror Seija launched forward at her, swinging the Miracle Mallet, and Seija went with it, the two of them spiraling across the air as they flipped over and around one another, trying to hit each other with their weapons. Both fired chevron-shaped danmaku into one another, and both of them swatted each others' away, bursting them into a shower of koban coins. Meanwhile, the Yama had her golden shaku held out in front of her. The writing on it began to morph, creating new characters in place of the old ones.
"Hey, Kyon! You wanna try doing something?!" Seija cried as she started zooming in and out between the borders of my vision, chased by the fake one. They even started sending danmaku across the borders, trying to catch one another off guard. Every move Seija made, the fake Seija copied, so neither would be able to get ahead of the other unless Eiki or I intervened.
Should I help her? She's here to bring me back. Is that what I want?
I watched Eiki. She was definitely preparing something with that shaku over there. What was I to do? Piss off the judge of the dead so that I could continue to live, and risk punishment when I died again? Or do nothing and, I don't know, die again? Potentially dooming others in the process?
It wasn't that hard a decision. This had never been about me, and what would happen to me. All in all, there was only one option I could take.
If I'm not there to help them, if Seija's "help" doesn't take...
Youmu, Merlin, and Lunasa will die? I mean, they're phantoms and a half phantom already, but they for sure weren't there in the future. Neither were Mima or Yuka. And then what Seija said about Alice...
This is what she changed.
This is her "insurance."
And if those people aren't there to hold off Seija in the future, she might win. I have to do this, for their sake. That's how I'll rationalize it. After all, the world isn't black and white. Right?
This might just be the dumbest thing I've ever done.
I stood up from my hiding place. I had no idea if this would really work, but I had to do something. I met Eiki's eyes, which narrowed as she saw my face.
Sorry, but I need to live a little longer.
I rushed from my hiding place along the statues to get closer to the battle. Before I could get far, Eiki flew in front of me and brandished her shaku in one hand. The writing on it had changed, and neat, compact kanji covered both faces. I caught a glimpse of one side as she pointed it at me with the flat facing upward.
A WORLD LIKE THE ONE I JUST SPENT THREE DAYS IN, WHERE YOUR DATA OVERMIND NO LONGER EXISTS
I'LL TAKE THIS LIFE SO THAT OTHERS MAY LIVE
I HOPE YOU GET TORN APART
I'LL SAVE THEM FOR MY PRIVATE VIEWING PLEASURE
I NEED TO SEE HER LOSE
It went on like that.
"Your soul has been revealed by the Cleansed Crystal Mirror," Eiki said as her eyes stared directly into mine, "and your sins have been recorded on this Rod of Remorse. Do not think you can escape your trial."
Am I about to get beat by my own sins? Really?
I backed up. Seeing the writing on the Rod made me think that she was about to cast another spell at me, but she just stood between me and the battle of Seija versus Seija, staring with those dark, scornful eyes.
"I'm not planning to run forever," I said, "but I can't stay dead right now. I need to do this."
"Do you think that the laws of this universe bend to your needs?" Eiki asked. "All must face judgment at their appointed time. There are no exceptions."
Counterpoint: Mokou, Kaguya, Miko, Futo, Tenshi...
How many exceptions to the "laws of this universe" are there? I don't believe for a second that Haruhi will ever play along even if she dies. She'll say something so stupid that the earth itself will apologize for daring to try and remove her from it.
Eiki took a step forward, and I took one back. We kept walking like this, her with an expression of absolute determination, and me trying to keep my wits about me and not bump into anything as I moved in reverse, Sword of Hisou held out in front.
Okay, no problem. I just have to sword-fight a Yama in a court of the dead. With no peaches... or focus mode. Easy.
...
Words cannot describe how screwed I am.
Rather than try to take her on directly, I kept as much space between us as I could and fixed my view on a point above her and to one side. I hoped that Seija would get the message.
"Only the enlightened may escape revolution in the Wheel of Life." Eiki raised the Rod of Remorse above her head. "Let this punishment save your soul from Hell!"
She took a flying leap at me that was faster than I could have expected from her, and I saw stars as she smashed me over the head with the Rod. The Rod was much, much heavier than it looked, and it hit me with all the force of Seija's freight train. I didn't have time to attempt a block. Pain rushed through my entire body, and it felt as though my skull had cracked open. I felt myself falling to the ground, but strangely, I found myself still on both feet.
When I looked up, she was back in front of me, walking forward again. Her position, her stride, and my own posture were all identical to how they'd been a few seconds ago.
"Only the enlightened may escape revolution in the Wheel of Life." Eiki raised the Rod of Remorse above her head. "Let this punishment save your soul from Hell!"
What?
I tried to raise the sword this time, but she got around it and hit me again. Once again, I felt myself falling, but when the pain subsided, Eiki was preparing her attack again.
Is something...
"Only the enlightened may escape revolution in the Wheel of Life."
Happening to time?
I raised the sword as Eiki raised the Rod.
Am I stuck in a time loop or something?!
"Let this punishment save your soul from Hell!"
It's going to come from...
I tried again. This time, I managed to parry her strike, but the strike itself was so forceful that I was knocked off balance, and she followed it up with another hit.
More pain, and I was back again.
What the hell is happening now?!
I kept at it, this time blocking her first strike and moving with the momentum of it so that I didn't get bowled over, and readied for the second one. The second strike came too quickly though, and I was back again at the beginning. I had to try again.
And again.
...Okay, this is weird, but I can totally get behind this. Use it to my advantage.
I kept facing the Yama, each time getting a little further. At no point did she open herself up to an attack, but I managed to last for about twenty seconds at a time before I realized that I needed to keep my eyes where I had put them earlier. I hoped that this wasn't some kind of extra lives system and I was about to run out.
All right. Keep your eyes here, and step back, and...
"Let this punishment save your soul from Hell!" I moved the Sword of Hisou in a practiced motion, deflecting her first attack and then her second as I continued my retreat. I moved by instinct, keeping to what I had done before and trusting that I wouldn't need to use my eyes for this.
Come on, Seija.
Ten seconds.
Come on, Seija!
Fifteen seconds.
Am I going to have to do this forever?!
At nineteen seconds, Seija appeared from behind Eiki out of the corner of my vision, closely followed by her copy. She swung the Mallet-
Yes!
-and was knocked away as Eiki twisted around like lightning and scored a hit on Seija. Seija flew across the room, crashing into the train, and the fake Seija capitalized on this to rush after her and beat on her with her own Mallet. I was so in shock by how quickly it happened that I could only watch as Eiki turned around and struck me once again.
Okay.
The world came back into focus, and the pain went away.
New plan.
All things considered, I think I adapted to this bizarre situation rather well. I mean, why not have what seemed like an infinite number of chances at this fight? No way would I have survived otherwise. I figured that Seija was doing it somehow with the Mallet, but there wasn't exactly time to stop and think about it, as all of my attention had to be focused on outmaneuvering Eiki.
It took me another couple of tries to get back to where I was, but when I did, I was ready. I waited for Seija to appear, and then I swung the sword at Eiki as she was turning, attempting to knock her off balance. It didn't work however, as Eiki's body stayed the course while the Sword of Hisou sunk into it, and Seija was once again thrown into the train. When Eiki turned around, her eyes were filled with confusion, rather than the rage or pain I had expected.
"You hit me?"
I gulped. "Yeah."
She stared at me a second longer, blood pouring from the wound I had inflicted, before she brought up the Rod and smacked me with it.
Talk about clawing for every inch. If I couldn't stop her from attacking, then what could I do? It looked like Seija was toast if Eiki scored a hit on her, and there was no way to stop her. Even though she was fighting me one-handed with a short stick while holding a mirror, there was just no way I could keep up with her once she started to take me even a little bit seriously.
Let's break this down. If I managed to survive for twenty seconds while sword-fighting essentially blind, Seija would attack Eiki from behind and get hit. The hit itself probably wouldn't have done her in thanks to the Mallet's protection, but it would leave her open to the fake Seija created by the mirror, and in that situation, she would lose. Meanwhile, there was exactly one chance in which I could land a hit on Eiki, which was while she was hitting Seija. Unfortunately, I wouldn't be able to do any real damage, and I couldn't even redirect the attack.
So what could I do?
If you thought of an answer already, congratulations, because it took me another four tries before I finally had an idea.
What if I don't hit her this time?
I parried and dodged my way to the eighteen second mark, then raised the Sword of Hisou. I wasn't able to see the look on Eiki's face clearly because I was deliberately looking away, but it must have been pretty weird from her perspective. Here's an ordinary kind of guy, she knows everything about him, somehow going toe-to-toe with her in a sword-fight without even watching what he's doing. I know I was freaked out the first time I saw Nagato do something like this.
When Seija appeared, I made my attack, not aiming for Eiki's body, but the object in her left hand. A burst of light and the sound of shattering glass filled the room, and Seija was knocked into the train by Eiki's attack, but there was no follow-up - the fake Seija had vanished from sight. I quickly brought the sword up to block Eiki's counterattack, but it didn't come. I backed away as fast as possible as the Yama stared at the broken mirror in her hand.
I hope that wasn't one-of-a-kind. You can fix that, right?
I'm totally going to Hell for this, aren't I?
"For the legendary Supreme Judge of Paradise," called Seija as she extracted herself from the side of the freight car in which she had been embedded, "you fight like crap." Seija had a huge grin on her face, and she wasn't shy about laughing at the Yama.
"What have you done?" Eiki turned her back on me to confront Seija. I decided not to try a sneak attack. "This is wrong." She pointed at me, still glaring daggers at Seija. "Something is very wrong with him!"
What? I mean, I agree, but what? Was she saying that because she sensed something about me, or just because she couldn't believe I beat her?
"You people call everything 'wrong' when it ain't convenient for ya." Seija shrugged. "I just gave him some medicine is all."
Medicine? You mean this time thing is because of a drug? I once more became aware of the taste of lime sewage.
"Aw, don't give me that look, shorty. This is just what we do, y'know?" Seija's grin turned sinister as she walked towards Eiki, twirling the Miracle Mallet. She stopped in front of Eiki and stuck the Mallet in her face. "It's time somebody sent you a message: Nobody wants you anymore. Why should we let you people run an operation like this, where you can just stick people in Hell based on how you think they ought to behave? Do you powerful folk all just get off on others' suffering? Is that it?"
Eiki didn't flinch. She stared right past the Mallet into Seija's eyes and said, "Hell's administration exists to ward off sin. You of all people should know that nothing can exist without an opposite."
Seija snorted and stuck her tongue through her teeth. "Sorry," she said. "I don't know that at all!" Seija flipped the Mallet in her hand and gestured across the air with it. "What about all the folks outside who don't believe in Hell, huh? Seems to me like they're doing just fine without you!"
"Seija," I interjected. "Can you rebel against the cycle of reincarnation later? I want to get out of here!" I did not need this to get worse than it already had. I mean, I was alive again. I had to think about when I'd have to come back, after all.
Seija scoffed. "Whatever," she said, turning on her heel to face the train car next to her. "Sure, fine. We'll do what you want to do. Not like we're time travelers or anything." She opened a gap in the side of the car with the parasol and the Mallet, and gestured to me to come.
"Do you think I'm going to let you leave here?" Eiki asked.
"Can you stop us?" Seija called over her shoulder. "We're basically invincible right now."
I... I guess we are? That's kind of cool. I hesitated, not sure if I should try joining her or not, but Eiki simply stood where she was. I couldn't believe it, but Seija had rendered her speechless.
Well, no. If Seija set her mind to it, she could probably reduce anyone to impotent rage. Maybe I should introduce her to Koizumi. That might be good for a laugh.
That thought in mind, I descended the pile of rubble on which I was perched to join Seija at the gap. "Your karma will stay with you," Eiki called after me. "Your actions will have consequences for you."
"You're probably right," I said, "but I have to do this." I bowed to her as deeply as I could. "I didn't come here with this as my intention. I'm really sorry I broke your... uh... thing."
There's probably nothing else I can say here. You saw it all in the mirror, didn't you?
I'm about to do something worse, anyhow.
I ached to pick up some of those koban coins scattered on the floor to make up for how I didn't the last time, but I thought it might be a bad idea to do so in front of the Yama. I didn't need to make someone who had the power to decide where I went in my next life even more angry, thank you.
"Hey, Seija," I said when I had reached her. "Can I ask you a favor?"
Seija looked at me with crooked eyes. "I just brought you back to life."
I cleared my throat. "Yeah, but I need to talk with you. And... something else. Can we go back to the other side of the Sanzu first?"
Seija shrugged. "Whatever," she said before closing the gap and opening a new one. "Have fun cleaning up the train, shorty!" She walked in ahead of me, throwing a rude gesture behind her as she did so. I sighed and followed her through, again giving the Yama another apologetic bow and asking for forgiveness. I wasn't sure how to read the glare she gave me in return, but I guessed that it meant I shouldn't hope for the impossible.
All things considered, maybe I'll try not to die in her jurisdiction next time.
The place we ended up at was... not the same as where I had been before.
We were still at the river, with all its sharp, mossy rocks and misty veil that obscured the other side, but the mist itself was a rusty red color, and instead of sand, there were smooth, flat pebbles that covered the ground all around us. Away from the river, the mist was comparatively thin, and I could see a relatively flat landscape that stretched far into the foggy distance, dotted by wooden grave markers that jutted up in random spots all around. Towers of stacked stones were placed here and there as well, some small, and some reaching high into the sky. There was a strangely oppressive atmosphere here, and an ominous feeling I couldn't get rid of.
There was a place like this by the Sanzu? I wondered why we had come here, and what other places might lie along the river. As geography went, this was certainly unusual. At first glance, it seemed completely empty of anything that moved, but then I realized the people here were simply so small they had been hidden by the mist.
They were... children. None of them were that old, and most were toddlers, wandering about through the bloody mist, most of them with rags for clothing or none at all. On closer inspection, though their bodies appeared tangible, the ghostly wisps that formed around them proved that they were all dead. Several of them were stacking stones to make more towers, comparing the height and structure like it was some kind of game. There were absolutely no adults here, and something made me realize that I'd heard of a scene like this before.
"Where are we?" I looked to my side, where Seija was walking out to a rock outcropping that faced the plain where the children were, a strange, disturbing grin on her face.
"My favorite part of the Shigan," she said with an odd sense of relish. She turned her eyes on mine. "Ever wonder what happens to little kids when they die?"
Don't tell me this is...
I knew at least one myth about children who died very young. It wasn't a happy one. My suspicions were confirmed when Seija kept on talking without waiting for an answer.
"They ain't lived long enough to get any good karma," she said, "so they come here. And because of the grief they caused their parents by dying, their karma's so bad that they'd go to Hell if they had the money to pay the shinigami in the first place. A parent who ain't formed a proper relationship with their kid yet won't give those nice gold coins, y'know." A wicked grin spread across her face, like she was finding a sick sort of humor in the whole thing. "So they can't go anywhere. They stay here close to Hell, in the Children's Limbo, and never move on."
...I knew it.
According to legend, every single child who died young went to Hell until a bodhisattva named Jizou made a vow to protect them all. He would hide them away from the wrath of Hell, and would not become a Buddha until the day that all of Hell became empty. I never really wanted to believe in stuff like that. What was the point in something so... bleak?
As I watched the dreadful scene in front of me, I noticed one of the children was facing in our direction. It was a girl in a white and red dress, standing on top of one of the stone towers nearby and watching us. Hesitantly, I raised my hand and waved to her, but she didn't react, and I thought I could see a grim expression on her face.
"...Do they not like outsiders or something?" I said.
Seija shook her head, then pointed to a pile of stones that was scattered on the ground - it looked like it had once been another tower.
"They stack those stones 'cause they think they can climb them to get out of this world. It's right next door to Hell though, and you know what oni do for fun, right? They go over to their neighbor's house and break their things." Seija then tapped one of her horns. "She just thinks I'm one of 'em. They say that Jizou comes and hides them from the oni, but I ain't never seen him. It's always that one kid who tries to fight me off."
Why would you even come here so often in the first place? What's the point? This place was... horrible. The only reason I could think of to come here would be to take the children somewhere better, but I didn't get the feeling that it was as simple as that. I also didn't want to think that Seija of all people would try and be the savior of these kids, but...
...But, well, they were weak. Brought into the world and taken out just as quick, and forced to exist in this place between. They had no power at all to save themselves. These were exactly the kinds of people that Seija would want to save, even if she might turn right around and fight them later.
"Why are you showing me this?" I asked. We had to have come here on purpose.
Seija's whole demeanor did a 180, and she looked at me with a face of utter disgust, like she was the one who hated my guts. "Because you bowed to her," she hissed. The contempt in her voice was more than I'd ever heard her direct at me, and it caught me off guard.
The Yama? What, because she's powerful? Did that actually tick you off that much?
For whatever reason, I felt like standing my ground here. "Just because you hate power doesn't mean I do, too. Anyway, what does that have to do with coming here?"
"You can't be so much of an idiot that you can't see this is her doing." Seija pointed her left hand behind her across the Sanzu River. "They're right there across the river. They could protect these kids. But they don't. They just let the oni traipse across their territory and do whatever the hell they want." Seija hopped down off the rock and clenched her jaw, pacing across the pebbles on the bank with an irritated expression. "You actually believed all that nonsense about judging black and white? The whole idea of a Ministry of Right and Wrong is a huge, ridiculous joke."
Seija was still clearly fired up over her argument with the Yama. I'll admit, even though I knew better than to take her at her word, and even though Seija herself was just as judgmental, it was hard not to look at this and see evil being done.
"All they're interested in is their own power. 'Toe our line, or you'll get sent to Hell!' Y'know, I've seen the real Hell. They hardly control a tiny piece of it, but they love to act like they're in charge of the whole thing." She kicked a rock, sending it spinning in the direction of the child on the stone stack. The girl flinched a bit as it came near and clattered harmlessly on the ground. "Most people in your world will never come here before they die, though. They'll never see for themselves what Hell is really like. Long as you make 'em believe in something, people will do anything you tell 'em."
Sounds like what Miko said about Buddhism. I may not exactly have the broadest perspective, but I'm... Well, there's no easy way to say this, but I'm kind of with Seija on this one. The way this Hell business is starting to turn out, maybe it really is a racket.
People like Voltaire might say that Hell is a necessity. The promise of Paradise alongside the threat of Hell are what keep humans in line, like a carrot and a stick, and without those things, we'd all be wild and hedonistic. Just like Haruhi and me in our younger years; back then, she would commit all manner of acts that were contrary to human decency, and I in my self-righteousness would try to correct her by force. "Anyone who refuses to listen deserves to be socked," I'd tell myself. I'd argue that it was for her own sake, to make her a better person. If I'd actually gone through with striking her, I think my life might have turned out very differently. No matter if she forgave me for it, that guilt would still have dragged me down to Hell.
Even without my punishing her though, Haruhi eventually grew up. She was still a terror, but one not so likely to land herself in jail someday, thankfully. She didn't have to go through some kind of traumatic experience to learn how to behave like something resembling a functional adult, and I'm sure I don't need to tell you that she'd never once stopped and thought seriously about something like whether or not she was creating good karma. Pretending for a minute that Haruhi was a mere mortal like the rest of us, was it right that she might have gone to Hell or one of the other lower realms if she'd died before ever having time to grow up? Was it right for anyone, including the truly evil, to have to suffer through Hell just as a warning to the rest of us? Even if some people like Fujiwara and Remilia never got that much personal growth, I had enough faith in humanity to think that we'd still have laws and morality without the Yama to force them on us.
...Man.
I'd forgotten what it was like to be around Seija. It was so easy to believe she was giving you the whole story, revealing the ugly side of what you thought you knew. I mean, was she right? Wasn't she? I had no idea, but I can't honestly say I was doubting her as much as I maybe should have been, even with all that had happened between us. For someone who lied so much, she sure was good at speaking the truth. All in all, it was pretty inconvenient for that grudge I'd been nursing.
...But at least that explains why you were so happy when we got here. I realized, maybe a little late, why it was that Seija said she loved this place so much. It was because she saw it as proof of the hypocrisy of the Yama - in other words, a place that she could show other people to try and get them on her side. Even now, she was probably trying to recruit me into some kind of crusade against the powers that controlled Hell.
Yeah, here's the Seija I know. The Seija who'll revel in pain and suffering when it's useful for her agenda. I knew there was a reason I still hate her. Maybe I should think twice before jumping totally on board with her anti-Hell propaganda. If my choices are her and Eiki, I'd rather abstain from voting.
Either way, I wasn't planning on biting at the bait she was throwing out. I was already fighting one hopeless battle against a denizen of Hell, thank you very much. Before Seija could continue on her rant, I held up my hand and said, "Not to change the subject, but can we talk now? About my thing, I mean."
Seija's brow twitched in annoyance at my diverting the conversation, but she stopped short of complaining about it. She faced me on the riverbank, folded her arms, and said, "Fine. What do you want to talk about?"
I was a bit taken aback by her cooperativeness. Maybe she was just in a hurry to get back to her revolution, but I definitely preferred dealing with her when she'd listen to what I was saying. I hesitated a moment, then said, "For starters, what did you do to me? I kept repeating that fight back there until we won... Was that time travel?"
Seija's response was a noncommittal shrug. "I don't know. The instructions said something about telling the future."
"Instructions?"
Seija slipped a hand into her waistband and pulled out a long slip of paper. After finding the beginning, she started to read it, mumbling random words to herself.
"Lunarian probe, invasion, blah, blah, elixir... Here we go."
Lunarian what now?
Seija cleared her throat. "'The Ultramarine Orb Elixir will remove the impurity of death and allow you to see the immediate future. If you want to have any hope of pushing back the Lunarians, I advise you to drink it before you leave. Signed, Eirin Yagokoro.'" She waved her hand, making the paper flap in the air. It looked like she stopped reading at the middle of it, making me wonder what else was written there. "Basically, you can see stuff coming, I guess?"
"Hang on," I said. "Go back to that thing about Lunarians. Where and when did you take this elixir from?"
"They're gonna invade Gensokyo in, I think, seven years from now?" Seija tucked the paper away and gave another shrug. "I heard the moon people in the Bamboo Forest are going to make some kind of invincible weapon to use against them, but they'll never use it, so it'll end up collecting dust." Seija grinned. "I figured, hey, what better gift for my cooperative young protégé?"
The Lunar Capital is going to invade Gensokyo?! That's a pretty big deal there! It was one of the scenarios I wanted to avoid upon hearing that the Lunarians might get involved in all this, and it was going to happen anyway. An alien invasion. Hopefully, it would be contained to just Gensokyo and Reimu would be able to handle it. I didn't want to survive all this just to see an invasion of Earth in seven years.
"How did you find out about that?" I asked.
If you know that Eientei's going to be in business, wouldn't that tip you off that you're not going to win? Or do you think you can change the future? I guess that's what you're doing right now, anyway.
"Newspaper," said Seija. "They invade Youkai Mountain first, so the tengu will get pretty riled up about it. Gossip will be all over the wind before anybody knows what's up. I found the articles at Yukari's place back when I raided it. She had some things from the future, so why not take advantage of it?" She lifted the Mallet and made a lazy half-turn swing through the air, flinging forward spots of golden glittering light from the head. "This thing's pretty good at taking me where I need to be, too."
So, Eirin is going to help Gensokyo fight back against a Lunarian invasion in the future? Even though she helped the Lunarians defend against Remilia's invasion a few years ago? I mean, it makes sense that she wouldn't want the Lunar Capital invading the place where she was hiding from them, but it just makes her actions back then that much weirder. There's got to be more to this.
Maybe I should just give up trying to understand people. I barely understand myself; here I am, alive at the river of the dead, an adult in the Children's Limbo finding safety with my enemy from the threat of people who supposedly have a high opinion of me. Maybe backwards situations are just natural around Seija.
I shook my head to clear it and got back on track. "Anyway, it didn't feel like I was seeing the future. It felt more like experiencing the same moment over and over again until I got it right." I sat down on a nearby rock and rested my chin on my hands, trying to remember exactly what happened. "It felt like I couldn't be anything less than perfect, but at the same time, there was nothing to worry about." I wanted to liken it to a game with infinite continues, but I didn't think Seija would have understood what I meant.
"I don't know a whole lot about Lunarians," said Seija, "but I know they're obsessed with perfection. For them, getting hit even once would be the same thing as losing the whole battle. At the same time, that's what makes 'em so strong." Seija grinned and tapped the Mallet. "I'm going after 'em once I finish with my revolution. Gotta work my way up before I can take on Hell. Wanna come with?"
I couldn't stop my grimace. "I'll think about it," I said. Though I am curious enough to see the Lunar Capital itself.
"That's probably what it means by seeing the future," she continued. "You see everything you need to see in order to do it perfectly, so when you do it, it feels like you did it a bunch of times." She tapped the side of her head. "The extra tries are all in here."
Is this an educated hypothesis, or are you just making that up? It sounded logical enough, but I wasn't about to take anything Seija said for granted.
Despite how she'd just saved me, it was strange and uncomfortable to stand there and listen to her talk to me like we were friends. She seemed so... comfortable with it, even offering to take me along for another revolution like we were some kind of time traveling, rule breaking dynamic duo.
Was that what she thought? That I would thank her for what she did to me, and we would become buddies? Partners in crime? I wanted to tell her off, tell her that I still held a grudge and I wouldn't mind if she died, but that would be like showing my hand too early, wouldn't it? If she went back to the future thinking that I might find a way to stop her, she might have prevented me from ever reaching Reimu and Marisa on the hill.
All I could do was humor her.
"You're gonna need that power for what's about to happen," she said. "Even if I gave you superpowers or something with the Mallet, they'd take it away from you as soon as you went back. They're just that strong now. And before you ask, no, I can't take you back somewhere more convenient. This time travel business has way more stupid catches than it looks like." She stood up and pointed at me as her face turned serious. "That medicine is a weapon against the Lunar Capital, which means it's a weapon for fighting gods. You'd better make good use of it, got me?"
Huh. So in a way, this drug is more useful than the Mallet. I guess if it's showing me the future instead of actually turning back time, that makes... a kind of sense. They might not even be able to tell I've drank it. That raises another question though, and I'm kind of afraid to ask.
"So, why didn't you take it instead? I mean, I'm just an ordinary human. Couldn't you have taken care of this yourself?"
Seija scoffed. "Are you kidding? There's a reason they ain't going to use it in the future, you know."
I frowned. "What?"
Why did I think it would be straightforward? Is this going to kill me later or something?
Seija pulled out the paper again and straightened it out. "The whole rest of this letter is warnings and side effects. That stuff is the product of the Lunar Capital - it purifies you, and then forces you to stay pure. If I drank that, it'd kill me dead."
True. If that stuff removes impurity, then there'd be nothing left of you afterward.
"What side effects?" I stood up and walked over to try and look at the list. "I kind of want to know what I'm in for."
"No you don't." said Seija. She folded up the letter, and before I could stop her, tore it in half and tossed the pieces into the river.
What the hell, Seija?!
I chased the pieces, but it was too late. Spiting of the natural tendency of paper to float, they sank beneath the water immediately. I stood at the edge of the river for a few seconds, staring down at the surface, before I turned to Seija with an expression that I hoped would express my annoyance and frustration. She suppressed a chortle at me, clearly not repenting at all.
"You'll be fine," assured Seija, waving it off. "It'll wear off eventually. Probably."
I don't believe you. What's going to happen if something goes wrong later?! I need a doctor, not an amanojaku! Help me, Eirin! I put my hands on my face, trying not to imagine what kinds of horrible things might be in store for me in the future. At least it'd be better than being dead... probably.
"Is that all you wanted to talk about? 'Cause that's all I know about the elixir."
Please wait. I'm still mourning the list of terrible things that might happen to me.
"No," I said. Then I hesitated.
Should I ask this? I've been pretty good about not abusing time travel lately. Well, relatively. I told everyone about you already, and got some other perks as well. Hell, why not? I'm cheating anyway. I've had too many traumatic experiences to care at this point.
"I want you tell me what happens after this. Everything that happened after I died. Before you changed things and brought me back to life, that is."
"Not much to tell," said Seija. Her smile disappeared, and she gazed out at the river and stayed quiet for a moment as she recalled the past that either hadn't happened, or was happening as we spoke. "People died. Your outside world friends, the phantoms, and it takes something special to kill what ain't alive. I don't know everything about it, but they all died, and them that had bodies burned until there was nothing left."
The Brigade? They died, too?
Even... Haruhi?
Couldn't they pull her out of Utsuho's body?
"People just kept dying and dying, until Reimu finally put herself on the line." Seija started to scowl. "Didja notice how back in my time, she's sitting back without fighting herself? She always takes her sweet time doing her job. Even during the first revolution, she took months before she started looking for me. All because the tsukumogami were convenient for her."
"And then Reimu defeated her? She was able to rescue Haruhi, right? She's..." I almost choked trying to get the rest of the words out. I was surprised by how hard that hit me.
Nagato, Koizumi... They both died. Which means they might die soon unless I do something.
I had no idea. That whole time I was in the initial future, before we had the mallet, I had no idea they were dead.
If I had known, I probably would never have succeeded back then. I would have been too wrapped up in thinking about them.
It's not just Youmu, Mima, and the Prismrivers. The SOS Brigade died, too.
And Seija changed it. She gave me a chance to save them.
This girl. This despicable piece of garbage standing with her back to me, who threatened my family, coerced me into joining a campaign against my allies, and lied and cheated her way into being a threat to all of Gensokyo. Maybe even the world, like Eiki and Asahina said.
She's who I have to thank for saving them. Saving me, too. She saved everyone.
And it wasn't out of the kindness of her heart. This "saving the world" was merely Seija's insurance. If I tried to stop her by abusing time travel, it would be like killing them all over again.
Why do I have to owe her so much?
Maybe even including...
"Reimu rescued Haruhi, right?"
"Nah," said Seija. Her scowl became deeper, and she tilted her head back to look at me over her shoulder.
She didn't?
"Reimu died, too."
That statement brought my thought process to a grinding halt.
"What?"
How the hell is that possible? I saw her in the future. She's the one you raised an army to fight against! I know I came back to life, but how could that be possible for her?
I stared at Seija until she answered. Fury was written on her face, but she spoke to me in an even tone.
"Hey, Kyon. D'you know where evil comes from?"
Really? You're coming at me with that?
"I'm not in the mood for one of these conversations," I told her.
"You're the one who asked for it." Seija half-turned to face me and gestured to me with her left hand. "I brought you back to life, so let's talk. Where does evil come from?"
"I don't know. Power?" Knowing you, the answer you want is going to be something like that. "Desire? People want something, so they do something bad for it?"
"Exactly." Seija crossed her arms. "People. For whatever reason, humans will kill, steal, and screw each other over. When an animal kills someone, it's just following its nature, but when a human does it, that's evil. That's just common sense, isn't it?"
"Are you trying to say that youkai aren't evil? What does that have to do with Reimu dying?" I spread my arms at her. I was getting fed up with the way she had to make a big deal out of whatever point she was trying to make at the moment.
Seija answered me by taking a step towards me and flicking my forehead. "No. Follow me for a second, Kyon. Youkai aren't just evil - they're the embodiment of it, created by humans so that evil would have a face." Seija twirled Yukari's parasol in her left hand and started pacing again, tossing the Mallet up and down impatiently with her right. "Someone had to explain the world around them, so they made up all sorts of characters to represent nature. The stories that were easy to remember stuck around, and became myths. If someone dies in a windstorm, it's not a freak accident without meaning; it's the doing of tengu. All the magic and mystery in the world, and especially the fear and suffering, had to be the work of youkai."
Seija reached the edge of the river, but she kept walking. The Mallet glowed and she strode across the surface of the water, causing tiny ripples that flowed outward at a snail's pace before dissipating. At the same time, the river mist shimmered with the light of the Mallet, enveloping the area in a golden aura that seemed to melt the surroundings away, leaving me staring at Seija walking atop the shining black and white surface of the water, a perfect mirror image of her visible beneath her feet.
"Everything from drowned corpses to the way that some people hide their darker natures." Seija turned around, and so did her reflection, which warped and distorted in the ripples on the water's surface, becoming taller and brighter. "A sweet girl is sheltered by her family from the outside world. Everyone admires her for her beauty and kindness, and when she grows up, she gets engaged to a prince." The ripples changed, morphing the reflection into something that plunged deep into the darker depths of the river, which turned from white to black as I looked down into it, following the ripples.
Oh, it's this story. The Melon Princess.
"But before the wedding, she changes. She's rude to the servants and tells all kinds of awful lies about the prince's subjects. The prince just doesn't understand how this could be the same sweet girl as he was to marry." Seija pointed with the parasol down into the water, the very tip touching the surface and creating another ripple that oozed out and seemed to hang on her reflection's head, transforming her nubby horns into wicked, sharp ones. "He's saved by soul of the girl, who arrives in his dream in the form of a crow and tells him everything: It isn't really her. An amanojaku had whispered in her ear and tempted her to do terrible things. But because she was such a pure, sweet girl, she resisted, so the amanojaku ate her up and took her place by wearing her skin. The prince wakes up, rushes to his bride's room, tears off her skin, and kills her. Because the amanojaku is such a weak creature that it can't fight back. Because it has to resort to controlling people to gain power."
Seija took a bow as the ripples faded, and her reflection returned to normal. "Because the amanojaku is an evil creature, so it can do evil things."
"I think most people in my country have heard that story before," I said. I didn't bother saying anything else; Seija had something to say, so she would get to the point eventually. I thought I was starting to see where she was going, though I still had no idea what this had to do with Reimu's death.
"Think of the worst crime you can imagine."
I didn't have to think about it. It had been on my mind for the last hour, among a million other things. "Genocide."
"They say if you act like a youkai, you become one," said Seija. "You don't have to do anything special. Make people fear you. Give up your humanity. If you want to be powerful, well, that's a different story, but becoming a youkai is no problem at all." Seija did a pirouette on the water, sending another stream of ripples into her reflection, turning it sinister once again. This time, she held her hands together in front of her overlapping the Mallet and parasol, and gave a smile that looked bitter, yet uncharacteristically sweet. "How many people have committed genocide in your world? How does your world think of those people? Were they humans, like you? The kind of person that anyone could be, who had their own lives, loves, and dreams that had nothing to do with what they were famous for?"
The world around me began to turn. I saw the Sanzu in front of me, white on top and black on the bottom, the sweet-faced Seija perched on top. Then I was beneath it in the inky void, staring at her reflection as it twisted into something tall and terrible, half in the darkness, its smile stretched by the light in the water into something wide and inhuman. When she spoke again, her voice was that same deep, abnormal youkai growl that I had heard in the SOS Brigade clubroom.
"Or were they monsters that existed only for the evil that they wrought on the earth? Names to silence crying children, or to invoke when you think that someone you hate resembles what they stood for?"
Something primal inside of me started to pull at my brain, telling me to run and hide from the massive specter before me, even though the rational side of me knew that this was just Seija being dramatic. My breathing became quick and my pulse raced as I could have sworn that I caught a glimpse of one of those piranha-like fish in the corner of my eye. At least I wasn't drowning even though I had apparently been dipped in the Sanzu River.
"You think of youkai as ancient things that came from humanity's ignorant past, but humanity creates new youkai every day. These creatures live freely in the outside world as they are offered fear and belief in abundance. All they had to do was their worst, and humanity turned them into monsters because they couldn't accept that they were capable of the very same things."
In spite of my newfound inability to die, I was getting nervous down here in the blackness, surrounded by things that might try to eat me. Before I could say anything, she flipped me back above the river. Her smile was gone, her mouth was baring all of her shark-like teeth, and her eyes had gone youkai. She walked towards me as she continued her speech. "In Gensokyo, there's no such common sense as a human who practices evil. There are only humans and youkai, and they must remain enemies for all time."
Seija's face bloomed into a full youkai snarl as she reached me, and she brought her face close to mine.
"So why," she demanded, "was I the only one not surprised when she turned out to be one?"
Seija glared into my eyes, daring a response. I couldn't give one. My body was going through all sorts of changes in temperature, and my mind was working overtime to process what she had just told me.
What she was implying.
That's a lie.
How could it be true?
Seija is lying to me right now.
What did it even mean?
I remembered something.
The power of the Hakurei is the power of the youkai. That strange all-white form...
Seija stood up straight, put her parasol hand on her hip, and rested the Miracle Mallet on her shoulder. She kept her eyes locked on mine, her face and body trembling with suppressed rage. "It happened as soon as she was killed by that goddess. Everyone thought it was over. Most of her body was already gone." Seija tucked the parasol into her waistband, raised her left hand, and snapped her fingers. "But then she came back. Darker, yet so much more brilliant. No one knew what had happened to her, but it was obvious when they looked back on it. What else could have happened to the youkai shrine maiden? The one who spread rumors of youkai wherever she went so she could make money off of exterminating them, who gathered all her youkai friends at the shrine time and again, and who all the human village feared and avoided? Did you think no one would notice that when Yukari staked her claim on the villagers' lives, Reimu was right there next to her, and did nothing until it was too late?"
I didn't want to remember the night that Yukari ran Mokou over with the train. She was right, though; she had made a spectacle out of it all for the village's benefit, and we were right there on the scene. Even in the dark, anyone could probably have recognized Reimu's uniform.
Seija pointed the Mallet at me. She never lost eye contact, and I wanted to look away, but I stood my ground. "From the perspective of anyone who was watching that night, everyone there was to blame. Yukari, Reimu, Alice, Cirno, your outside friends... and you."
This can't be real. So what, Reimu turned into a youkai because of how people saw her? Just like that?
"There's no such thing as balance. Reimu could either have been a savior of humans who oppressed youkai or a friend of youkai who oppressed humans, and she tried to have it both ways. That's the karma of the greedy Hakurei shrine maiden."
I didn't know what to think. Just like before, Seija's words somehow rang true. Yet...
"To answer your question, Kyon, no. She didn't rescue your girlfriend. She tore that possessed bird apart with that power of hers - that terrifying power that acts according to her true desires. She destroyed them both, and the other one too, because when a monster is unchained, it doesn't discriminate. It exists to follow its nature." Seija walked past me, and as I turned to keep my eyes on her, I realized that we were on the pebbled shore again."Everyone thought the monster was something inside of her - that she was possessed, or that her own power had overtaken her somehow, but I knew better." She stopped and faced me again. Her features had returned to normal, and her face had relaxed into an expression of dull contempt.
"Reimu was a monster from the beginning."
Reimu... killed her.
She killed Haruhi while she was still absorbed. She killed Haruhi and Sasaki.
I started to shake.
She's lying. This is her game. She's trying to turn me against Reimu so that I'll join her.
That's what an amanojaku does. A monster that exists to follow its nature; that's exactly what Seija is, isn't it?
At the same time, it made too much sense. I had seen Reimu's innate power before. It worked on its own, without her even really controlling it. Not even she understood it.
I didn't want to be put back in this position. Seija talking about all the bad things Reimu has done, and I, not having seen them for myself, being stuck between the two of them.
I've already sided with Reimu. That's not going to change.
But... what really happened after I died?
"She looked normal in the future," I said. "You can't-" I realized that I shouldn't say too much about what Reimu was like, since from Seija's perspective, I wouldn't be meeting her in the future until after Seija left. "You can't be telling me she just went back to living at the shrine after that."
"And why not?" Seija asked. "They needed their precious shrine maiden, so they 'fixed' her right up. Yukari did... something. I don't know what she did, but she pulled her strings, and Reimu came back. It was that easy." She spat on the ground. "'Returning the human to life to seal the youkai.' What a lame cover-up. She'll keep using the power she was born with to bully the weak, and the strong will allow it because it serves their interests. People will die and be judged by the Yama, but Reimu will keep on living for as long as Gensokyo needs her. That's the kind of person she is."
I waited, but Seija didn't have anything more to say. We stood at the edge of the Children's Limbo, staring at one another as I digested her spiel.
Youmu. Merlin. Lunasa. Mima. Kazami. Koizumi. Nagato. Sasaki. Haruhi.
They're all fated to die, and according to Seija, it's because of Reimu.
I don't know if I believe her, but I can't find out until I get back. With any luck, I'll never find out first-hand.
I have to save them. However I can.
I have to save Reimu, too.
That's right. If I can prevent Reimu from dying, I can prevent her from becoming a youkai, or being revealed as one, or whatever's supposed to happen to her. I can prevent her from killing Haruhi and Sasaki while they're absorbed, according to Seija. Who knows how she felt in that future, living with the knowledge that she'd become a full-fledged youkai?
Even if it's true, I can't blame Reimu. I just can't. I might be crazy for thinking this, but Seija and Eiki both told me something that I... I'm afraid to think about, but I can't get out of my head.
This whole time, I'd been focused on hating and dehumanizing my enemies to try and feel superior to them, thinking that my being "normal" and their being alternate dimension gods and whatever else made me somehow different from them. Like I could never do what they did, like I could never be corrupted into the same kinds of evil. I really thought that. But somehow, I'd completely forgotten about the threat I had made to the Overmind, and once I'd realized that...
What else had I done?
Just like Eiki said, I took pleasure in showing wrath against Seija and Clownpiece and everyone else who'd wronged me. Even though I'd managed to stop myself from executing Seija, I never really did solve that part of myself. Maybe I never would. I was all too happy to do evil to another person, and even if I justified it by saying that they were evil, or it had to be done, or they had hurt me first, it was really just to satisfy my own feelings. If I was really fighting for the sake of the world, I would never have charged at Hecatia alone and gotten myself killed like an idiot.
If I went back to that place now, what would happen? I'd keep being angry. I'd keep acting like a youkai. I'd have learned nothing, and I'd die all over again. Even though this drug was protecting me now, I bet I'd still find a way to die.
I've been too angry, and it's almost cost me the universe. Even if this is personal for me... I can't let it be. I can't be doing this just for myself, and let myself get swept back up in that emotion again. What I have to do right now is stop a disaster from happening with the tools I've been given by Marisa, Alice, Tenshi, Nagato, Satori, and Seija.
Yes, I owe Seija. I can't get around that. So I'll at least make this attempt at showing some appreciation before she finds out what happens to her in the future.
"You might be right," I said. "About Reimu. I don't know. There's a lot I can't understand, and most of this spiritual stuff honestly goes over my head. But you've done a lot for me, and I know you did what you did for the right reasons."
More or less.
That didn't provoke the reaction I expected. Seija scoffed at me and said, "Wow, you're thick. I'm not doing this for you, you know. I'm using you to get at those alternate universe Hell types."
You know, there's a word for people who use lines like that.
She waved her hand. "You know half the times I traveled back to my own time, everything was dead?"
I paused. "What?"
She shrugged, pulling a long face that made it clear she was uncomfortable. "It's screwed up. I don't understand it. Sometimes Reimu doesn't destroy the bird, and the Alternates win. Time's falling apart because of them, and nothing works the way it's supposed to. It's like time isn't guaranteed anymore because of the Alternates." She pointed her thumb across the river. "That's what let me come back and change your death, but at this rate, my revolution is never going to happen. It feels like it's getting more frequent. Every time I go back to the future, I have to try again and again until I find a world that's still alive, and that scares me. I need them gone to make sure my revolution sticks, and I can't risk doing it myself. Their power goes way beyond the Mallet's."
That's interesting. Seija is capable of recognizing danger after all. Then again, I guess the reason she was so confident before was because she thought had a predetermined victory.
Still, for time to not be stable like this? Well, I had to do something about it. If not for the security of the future, then for a certain person I was fond of who lived there. This would be a chance for me to save Asahina as well. If time wasn't stable, then there was a chance her future wouldn't happen, which also meant she wouldn't be able to come back to the past, and if that were the case...
A collapse in time was obviously not in my best interests, especially considering how much I traveled through it.
So in essence, the entire S.O.S. Brigade was in jeopardy, in every way. I'm not about to let that happen. I have a second chance to save them all. I can actively save my friends, and the world. Who else gets a second chance like this? I was getting a second chance at life, and another chance to save everyone I care about. There was no way in hell I was going to waste it.
"So," she said as she cracked another grin. "I'm going to take down Reimu's regime in the present, and you're going to stay here and take down their regime in the past. The two of us get to take down the strong across the timeline! That ought to put the fear in their counterparts from this universe, too."
Thus earning you insurance, gratitude, and a pawn to use in your revolution plans. I'm actually kind of impressed, even though I know it's doomed to fail.
If I wasn't mentally worn out from all of the other bombs she dropped in this conversation, I might have been more irked at the fact that she was treating me like a game piece. For once, our goals aligned, so I was ready to just go with it as long as she didn't spring anything else on me.
"I'll do it," I said, "but don't talk about me like I'm your partner. The last thing I need is to run off with you on more adventures."
"Hmm." Seija smirked at me and put a hand on her chin. "What if I take you to the moon right now? It's not like you could refuse me."
Why did I say that? I put my hand on my hip and kept a straight face, trying to think of an excuse not to be kidnapped into yet another scheme. "Are you sure you want to risk that while time is collapsing or whatever?"
Is there really a "while" for time collapses? Hell if I know. You'd think there would be no way to tell if it gets better or worse.
Seija shrugged. "Good point."
"Anyway, coming back to life and saving everyone is a nice thought, but what can I do? Even if I can see the future or something like that, I don't know how I'm gonna stand up to the Alternates. Clownpiece was one thing, but Hecatia was just... At the end, she was just playing with me. And Junko - according to Yukari, she's invincible, and can end us at any time." I had no idea how any of us could deal with that. It was just like facing Yuyuko, except worse.
"That's why you've got that medicine, isn't it?" Seija put her hands behind her head. "Remember what I said about it purifying you?"
Uh...
...Right. It removes the impurity of death, which means...
...She can't use her ability on me?
"You're on her level now. You can stay pure enough to resist her, at least for a little while. Take her by surprise, and you might just take her down in one shot." She eyed me, expecting me to understand. It was a hard thing to wrap my head around - the idea that I could defeat one of them for real.
"You think I can fight her? Me?"
"Why not? You've got as many tries as you need, and a celestial sword that can kill just about anything. And if you save the rest of your friends, you'll be able to use their power, too." Seija paused, eyes still locked on mine. "You control them, Kyon. However you want to frame it, they've given you all they've got. That makes you the strongest in Gensokyo."
Celestial weapon. The vials. Shanghai and Hourai. The peaches. The Ultramarine Orb Elixir. I had the means, the methods, the body, and the tools. And, naturally, I had my friends by my side.
Us weaklings are only as strong as our friends.
"Don't you mean second-strongest?" I raised an eyebrow at her. After all, she was the one "controlling" me.
Seija grinned. "Now you're getting it."
Yes, it occurred to me that Seija was basically telling me to kill Junko, and probably the other Alternates, too. Something about that - no, I know exactly why that felt so strange to me.
She told me - by which I mean herself - four years ago - by which I mean five years in the future - that killing wasn't her style. She had threatened me about it, sure, and even told me that she had "already" killed my family, but that was a bluff. Because I met her in disguise, she never actually killed them, and she didn't want to. Whatever lies she might have been telling me, she wouldn't have lied about that to her own future self.
For the longest time, I hated Seija because I thought, or felt, or somehow had the notion that she really did go through with killing my family, but thinking about it, actually sitting down and thinking about it logically, yeah, she didn't, because I was there to stop her, and that was what she'd been hoping for the whole time.
Seija never killed my family. She only said she did to get a reaction out of me and to make sure I played along. Seija seemed like a person who would screw someone over at the drop of a hat, but she had so many opportunities to kill others, and never took them. Like when Keine was in trouble - or when the ones hunting her were downed. She could have killed them to avoid the headache of them hunting her down again, but she never took it. She could have killed Yukari right away in the future after she knocked her down, but she didn't.
Seija was not a killer.
On top of that, I had just gotten a lecture from the Yama about killing. Well, threatening genocide, but it's the same basic principle. Our group had already managed to destroy some of those clay soldiers, who were apparently ourselves from other universes, and they seemed completely prepared to keep doing it. What about me? My own reservations aside, was it really such a good idea to be planning to kill some more people right now?
I don't think it's really a matter of whether or not it's okay. The Alternates can't be reasoned with. If what happened back in that cave is any indication, then these people play for keeps. They can't be defeated in a spell card duel and become friends like everyone else. They operate under different rules, and a single mistake on my part will mean the deaths of so many of my friends - or even end of the world. Is it really worth risking all that in search of a non-lethal option?
It's like the same situation Seija put me in, except instead of my family, it's a bunch of people who want to end the world and have already killed a lot of people. That's why Seija is asking me to kill them. She knows as well as I do that it has to be done.
They had already killed us. They had already killed me. From their own words, to the shadow memory in my dreams, to the clay soldiers, and finally the deaths of Rin and Fujiwara - Seija may have threatened it, but the Alternates had made good on their threats and then some.
They won't stop. They'll just kill us all like in that memory.
This time, I just don't think I have the motivation to try and have it both ways again.
Before I could say anything about that, Seija sighed and spoke up. "I know you don't believe me, and I know this is a lot to take in. That's why I didn't bring all this up back in your school. You wouldn't have believed me without seeing how the situation was, and I needed you to back me up back there. Now, now that you see how bad it is, I need to you do your part here. You have all the tools you need. Win this thing and everybody lives. This is the last thing I have planned for you." Then she looked around us, scratched her chin, and said, "Anyway, we're done here. Ready to go back?"
"Everybody lives," huh? I looked into the mist, at the distant spirits waiting for their turn to cross the river. Obviously, I wasn't in the same place anymore, so if Rin was still back there, I couldn't see her.
"Wait." I raised my hand. "Just... a couple more more things. Do you know Rin? Rin Kaenbyou?"
I might as well, right? While I'm here? I'm breaking the rules again, but I'd rather do that than nothing. She didn't deserve what happened to her.
"I know the name. What about her?"
I cleared my throat. "The Yama won't like it, but can you bring her back, too? I don't want to leave her behind." I sighed, remembering something else. "Right. And... Fujiwara."
That got me a raised eyebrow. "The immortal?"
"No, the time traveler guy." I didn't exactly want him back, but I also didn't want to lose anybody. I also didn't feel like allowing the Alternates any victories that day. If I was going to change the future and make this right, then I had to go all the way. I was already in the Yama's bad books, so why not?
Seija rolled her eyes and said, "Fine, but only because it'll be funny when the Yama gets mad. I'm gonna have to recreate their bodies like I did with yours, and for some reason, this thing just doesn't like doing that." She waggled the Mallet, and I noticed something odd about it - I had never gotten a real close look at it in the future, but there was a hairline fracture in the center the Mallet's golden head. Seija noticed me staring, and frowned at me. "What?" she said. "I didn't break it. It cracked on its own after I made the wish to bring back that stupid celestial sword."
...Huh. Is the Sword of Hisou too powerful for it to handle? Or is there something else? Either way, I can only imagine what Shinmyoumaru's going to say. Seija had not only stolen her precious Mallet, she'd gone and damaged it. I know I'd have been pissed.
She started hitting the Mallet against her palm, as if testing its integrity. "It's probably Nagato's fault." Casting a suspicious glance at me, she said. "If this thing breaks before I'm done, you'd better hope I win anyway, or it's going to be your family that pays for it. You know that, right?"
Thanks, I'd totally forgotten.
"It's not going to break," I sighed. "I already lived through it. Don't accuse me of sabotaging it or whatever."
Seija pursed her lips in a skeptical manner, then smirked and said, "Yeah, I know. I don't need you to tell me I'm going to win."
Too bad; I did that a long time ago. Not that you knew it was me.
I rubbed my neck, trying to think if there was anything else I was forgetting. "As for the last thing... You can only put me back when I died, right? Or are we not time traveling at all?" If we can't, then we've wasted a lot of time here. Seija didn't seem to think there was any hurry, though...
"I can put you back when you died," said Seija. "Any earlier, and it's too big a risk. Things have gotta happen how they happened for you up till then."
Right. If I saved myself, or if something happened differently, it'd be a time paradox, I guess. Not that I really know if that'd hurt anything. Isn't her changing the future like a paradox anyway?
Whatever. If that's what I've got to work with, I need a plan before I charge back in. Seija didn't get as far as she did by fighting thoughtlessly, that's for sure.
I turned from Seija, plotting my strategy. Was there even a way to win anymore? I mean, Hecatia-Utsuho just seemed unstoppable. No matter how agile my body was, she still caught me, and that was before she merged with Haruhi and the others.
Just calm down. Think. Yukari said that I have just about everything I need to win... so what did I miss? What clue did I overlook that led me to me getting snuffed out like that...?
I went back on it all, trying to make sense of it. I remembered everything I'd learned about Hecatia, both from watching her and from what all the others had said. I remembered Yukari's usual cryptic riddles about what she thought I needed to do, and how she said I'd been through this all once before. I remembered something Mima had said, and my blood got a shot of ice as it all came together at once.
I have done this before.
My thoughts went back to when I got stabbed by Ryoko... and I came back from the future and rescued myself.
I glanced sidelong at Seija. "Can you go a little further back? Like... a minute or so. Somewhere out of sight, where I can watch myself die."
Seija frowned, thought about it, and said, "Yeah, maybe. Long as you don't act before it happens, that might be safe."
Then it really might be the same kind of situation.
I had been cursing Yukari for a moment, but I could see the logic. If anyone else had been snuffed out, I'd be probably beating myself up even more over it, and laying even more blame on Yukari. The second I get back, Hecatia will be weak enough for me to do something. So... I fished my pockets, hoping my spell cards were with me - they were, including that ominous Taboo. I didn't even realize it until then - it didn't have a Recollection tag on it. This was an actual spell card. Did Yukari slip this one in intentionally?
It was the only odd man out in this situation, so it was the one getting my attention. Hecatia had also crushed my nekomata figure, which was supposed to bring me luck and fortune, so...
...Misfortune.
I stared at the cursed lettering on the card, an understanding coming over me. I felt like I saw all the puzzle pieces and where they were supposed to go. If what had happened with Hina was any indication, my body was like a magnet for misfortune, and there was a lot of that floating around in the cursed air of Former Hell. I wasn't sure if it would be enough, especially since Hina had drained me earlier, but if it were possible to power this spell card through my old self as I was dying, instead of my purified present body, then maybe...
Fine. I know I'm getting used by Yukari here, but she set everything up. She told me I can do this. Like the Brigade, who put all their trust in me and told me what I had to do. If I hadn't gotten those clues, my sorry idiot hide wouldn't have figured out what to do with Haruhi in that closed space at school all those years ago. I got this far because of the help of others. I just needed to actually do it, and continue to trust in them.
"...Okay," I said. "I need you to do that, then... and one last thing." I held up the Sword of Hisou. "This thing can turn temperament into power, but I... can't exactly use that ability right now, and the person with the temperament I'm thinking of isn't down there. I need her weather... er, her temperament, though."
"Sounds complicated," said Seija, not really paying attention to what I was saying. Oh, come on! This is important!
"It's not complicated," I said. "It can make weather out of people, okay? I need to make weather out of Yuyuko with it. Can you do something about that?"
Seija averted her eyes, pouted her lips, and replied, "I don't know. Are we going to the moon?"
For the love of-
"Seija-"
"Asking a lot of favors from your savior, ain'tcha?" Seija waved the Mallet around in front of her, looking irritated. "Why do ya need all this crap? I ain't signed up to be your personal wish dispenser. Maybe I want something more out of this."
"This is for both of us. Don't act like you forgot that they're going to erase you too." Is it really so impossible for you to just help someone else without strings attached?
"I ain't a fan of giving away power," she said, her eyes narrowing in my direction. "People who get power in hard times ain't always keen to give it up when the battle's over."
So that's what you're worried about. Figures. It sounded ridiculous that she'd get hung up on this thing in particular, but... well, Seija always was quick to recognize corruption. Now especially, I had to realize that I was just as corruptible as anyone.
"It's just for right now. Yuyuko's snow drains magic - if Hecatia's a god of magic, then I can use this sword to create her weakness. That's all I need."
I expected Seija to keep being difficult about it, but instead of more complaints, I saw her starting to grin to herself. She walked over, clapped me on the shoulder, and said, "Heh. Now you're starting to think like me."
...Convincing you is as simple as saying the right words, isn't it? I remembered the way that Miko had managed to infiltrate Seija's ranks, and thought about how amazing it was that Seija could be just as dense as the people she tried to fool.
"Yeah, fine, whatever," she said, taking up Yukari's parasol and pacing a few steps away from me. "I don't need to bother with the sword, though. I can work something out with just the Mallet." She tapped the parasol against the pebbles, and a wide gap opened up in the ground between them. "I'll drop you all off right before you die, and give you some time to wake up." She pointed the parasol at me and gave a hard stare. "Seriously though, this is your last favor. Next time you want a miracle, you pay for it."
This was it. Back into the battle. I still couldn't believe I was getting another chance, and now the idea of squandering it again felt even heavier than before.
I took a deep breath. "Thank you, Seija," I said.
That's the last time I'll say that.
I took one last look back at the Children's Limbo, and the girl who was watching us from atop her stone stack. I had realized the implications of what I'd already done - from the way that Seija was talking about this place, it sounded like she had every intention of using the Mallet to play the part of Jizou herself. Whether it would be after she took over Gensokyo, or whenever she felt like taking on Hell, it probably wasn't going to be right now... which meant it would never happen. I was going to take her down in the future, and no one would come for the children's spirits after that.
Did I feel guilty about it? Maybe a little. If I knew Seija, she wouldn't just take them away somewhere safe; she'd probably try to recruit them as soldiers against Hell. Whether that would be worse for them than staying there was another question, but...
It sucks. It all just sucks.
Seija was the farthest thing from noble, but she never seemed to do anything just for herself. In her own way, she at least always did what she thought was right, cheating and manipulating her way towards an end she hoped would justify those means. The same as the Alternates, the same as Yukari, and the same as me. I couldn't exactly pretend to be that much better than her after what Eiki made me realize about myself. Maybe a little better, but not to the extent I'd wanted myself to be. This was probably going to be my last chance at keeping my feelings under control.
Yeah, Seija. I get what you're saying. Even if somebody like the Yama says they can sort people so cleanly into Hell and Paradise...
It'd probably be better if neither one existed.
I squared myself up to face the music. If I was getting put right back where and when I'd died, that meant Hecatia-Utsuho would be waiting on the other side, and probably Mayumi as well. Wherever Junko, Clownpiece, and any other Alternates had been hiding, there was a distinct possibility that they'd show up eventually, too.
All I could do was keep a level head, fight as hard as I could, and hope that Seija would make good on her promise to revive the other two.
Focusing my thoughts, I climbed inside the gap and waited for everything to begin again.
"Komachi."
The name echoed around the ruined courtroom, and its owner stepped inside before the sound of it had faded.
Komachi's eyes went wide and her jaw went slack when she beheld the scene. She stared dumbly at the broken walls, the ground-up tile, the knocked-over throne and statues, and the freight train cutting straight through the left side. Eiki stood on top of a pile of rubble in front of the throne, arms crossed and looking contemplative.
"I'm going to need some help cleaning this up," said Eiki. "Please send a request to the other branches. We'll have to dip into Hell's maintenance budget again... Oh, and someone needs to find out where that oni landed."
"Y-yeah," Komachi gulped. "Right away. Um, what happened here?"
Eiki didn't move or change her expression, still gazing absentmindedly across the room as she spoke. "Someone stole my spirit."
"Aw, man..." Komachi put a hand on her head. That was all she could say about it.
"He's alive now, and he'll be heading back to the old Hell." Eiki sagged a bit, as though finally resigning herself to that fact. "Don't bother going after them. There's nothing we can do right now."
Komachi wasn't sure what to think. There weren't many people who could enter the Ministry, let alone successfully attack it. Someone strong enough to do that, who can also bring people back to life? Her eyes drifted left towards the train.
"Who was it?" she asked.
"The one who took him was an amanojaku. No one of consequence in the present, but she is set to cause some mischief in the future. I saw her in the mirror when I judged him."
This is mischief?
Komachi still couldn't take her eyes off the destruction. Even the oni had learned not to antagonize the Ministry, yet someone had gone and managed all this. There were bound to be consequences for this, she thought. The marring of a Ministry court, even one of of a tiny, insignificant place like Gensokyo would be treated with the utmost seriousness by Hell's administration.
As for Eiki herself, her expression was neutral. It wasn't unexpected - Komachi had seen enough trials to know that the Yama of Paradise was not someone who could be provoked or swayed by even the most appalling act. Even now, as Eiki stood in the once-glorious ruins of her own courtroom, Komachi could sense no anger from her. There was only what happened and what must be done.
That, and a hint of regret. That was surprising; Komachi had seen Eiki fail in the past, yet this was different. Eiki was barely looking at the room around her. Something other than her failure to protect the Ministry was bothering her. Maybe because of the wasted effort?
"Are you disappointed?" asked Komachi, leaning on her scythe as she watched her boss. "You went to the trouble of short-listing him and he skipped out on you, right?"
That seemed to take Eiki off guard, and she finally looked directly at Komachi. She shrugged and said, "I was just thinking that if he dies outside my jurisdiction, I won't be the one to judge him. Hakugyokurou asked to have him placed with them, and any other judge might scoff at such a request." Eiki sucked in a breath. "He had better hope and plan he doesn't die in the outside world next time."
Is that all? No, it sounds like you want another chance to judge him. Did you make a mistake?
Ah. Wait a second. If he was taken in the middle of the trial... Komachi sighed. Of course. You spent all of your time trying to scare him into repenting, didn't you? You probably got him thinking he was going to Hell.
"Maybe you should tell him that," Komachi suggested. "I mean, if he survives."
Eiki shook her head firmly. "That would be overstepping my duty. Furthermore, it isn't necessary. All that matters is that he acts with virtue from here on out."
Which is code for "tell him for me," right? Komachi rolled her eyes and, feeling like she had been handed an unpleasant burden, gave a wide yawn.
Maybe later.
"You remember I gave you a job, yes?" Eiki's eyes narrowed at Komachi's yawn, and she put a hand on her hip. "Don't waste time. I can't fix this building by myself."
"Right, right." Straightening herself, Komachi hesitated. "Uh, they're going to want some details, though. What should I tell them?"
Eiki paused for a moment in thought, then nodded to herself. "Tell them that you will deal with it in five years."
"Come again?"
A hint of a smile crept on to Eiki's face. "I saw you in the mirror during the judgment," she said. "You'll be performing a certain role at the Hakurei Shrine, and at that time, you shall deliver a message to the perpetrator of this attack. A statement that her schemes have gone too far, and those whose hearts she has wronged shall ere long deliver her due punishment."
I don't like the sound of that. I'm just a ferryman, can't someone else do it?
"If she is so intent on upsetting what was balanced for her own selfish desires, then the wrath of her own be upon her." Eiki pointed out the door with her shaku. "There is no need for us to retaliate. That is what you must tell the other branches."
"Yeah... All right." Komachi rubbed her neck, overcome by an unpleasant feeling. As long as her own job wasn't complicated any further, she didn't mind too much what happened, but the things that were happening now set her ill at ease. Something was going on in Gensokyo, and she had sensed the impending deaths of many for some time. Now, however, that sensation was confused. She felt as if fate itself was turning over. Slowly, she turned towards the door, and pausing before taking her next step.
"Hey..." she called back, half-turning towards Eiki. "Not for nothing, but... You used to be a Jizou, didn't you?"
Eiki squared the Rod of Remorse in front of her chest and said, "I was. Many of us were once statues of bodhisattva. Why bring this up now?"
"I was just thinking... It kind of feels like Jizou himself just gathered up and hid away all the dead I was supposed to ferry."
Eiki didn't reply or react to Komachi's observation. Feeling awkward, Komachi shrugged and stepped out the door, exiting the building and Higan altogether.
"How long have you fought for your master's paradise, I wonder?"
As Youmu's body fell forward, Yukari stepped in front of her to face Mayumi, the Roukanken held out in front. Mayumi held her ground, watching her movements. Not once in any cycle had she needed to face Yukari herself, and from all that Hecatia had said of her, she knew what it must mean.
She only fights if she knows she can win. This girl is no swordsman, though - how could she expect to succeed where that half-phantom failed?
Is she truly so desperate?
Whatever the case, Mayumi could not show weakness now. She faced her new enemy, examining her posture and expression for any possible flaw to exploit.
Don't think I don't know you. Don't think I did not change you like I did the others. Your selfishness and perfectionism are your weaknesses. If I only break your sense of control, you'll fold to me just as easily...
"I wonder..." said Yukari, lifting the Roukanken slightly and tilting her head, "...if you've done it for longer than such a paradise would last."
"Do not speak lightly of my master's vision," Mayumi warned.
Don't be provoked. She'll do whatever she can to make me drop my guard.
Yet even as she thought that, Youmu's taunt still stuck in Mayumi's head. It was the first time any incarnation of Youmu had shown the slightest bit of insight. She surely hadn't known Mayumi's master, and yet...
Control yourself. I am the one who knows her will best.
A smile grew upon Yukari's face, and Mayumi hoped that she had not betrayed her thoughts by her expression. With a tone of poisoned honey, Yukari said, "Don't you know? Even the Deva Realm is temporary. The karma of those who enjoy the excesses of devas shall one day push them to other end of the Wheel of Life. Those who know Paradise shall inevitably learn Hell."
"Our perfect world shall be unending, no matter who tries to halt its birth."
"It seems that for how many times you've created this universe, you know nothing of how it truly works." Yukari's smile grew wide and wicked, showing her teeth as she spoke. "There is only one escape from suffering and despair. Arhats, Buddhas, and celestial hermits are the only ones who shall escape the Wheel of Life."
A horrible feeling washed over Mayumi then. It wasn't Yukari's words, but an ominous atmosphere that built up behind her, exploding through the cavern all at once. In her peripheral vision, she could see the light of the magma pool fading away, and an unnatural darkness creeping over everything.
"The only heart that shall be freed from torment, then, is one that has rejected both Hell and Paradise."
What... What's happening?
Mayumi could not look back. If she did, she was sure that Yukari would strike.
What is this?!
A deep blue light began to build from somewhere behind her. Yukari took one look behind Mayumi, and her expression changed. The smile she wore was no longer put on - it was the face of true happiness and relief, and it turned Mayumi's blood cold not to know. After a few short seconds, Yukari turned her eyes back on Mayumi and took one step forward.
Mayumi stepped back.
It can't be...
Between the two of them, snowflakes started to fall. The air cooled rapidly, and Mayumi felt something dark and heavy pulling at her from behind.
Lady Hecatia countered everything. There wasn't a single thing you could do.
So what... What did you do?!
Read and Review. Lady Yukari demands it.