It's been a wild year. On the plus side, been able to get a lot of writing done because of it. Slowly closing to the end, word by word, paragraph by paragraph, chapter by chapter. I think... I think this chapter will bring the word count to a over a million.

I'm sitting here, unable to comprehend it. I just... it's a pivotal moment, isn't it?

Lot of pivotal moments going on the past year. And still more to come. This crazy year isn't over yet.

Again, stay safe, all of you.

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 Reader (and partial writer) for this episode:

Smooglii

She was getting frustrated. Just like her master once told her, this realm was similar yet unlike Lady Yukari's space. The instructions were in a mathematical equation, obviously written in a way Ran could have understood it. Chen wasn't as smart as Ran, but had to figure out the equations. She'd been in the realm for an hour, getting behind schedule. She could have waited for the two servants of this realm's master to come find her, but time was of the essence, though seeing as to how long it was taking, it might have been quicker to get caught by them. Ran couldn't do this, as she was knocked out earlier and was still recovering.

Chen went through the subsequent doors, finding no traps or resistance to her incursion into the "Land of the Back Door", as Lady Yukari said Lady Okina named the realm. Chen knew of the various powers that Lady Okina possessed, and that she was a god.

Green door with a diamond pattern on the upper half... red door with a circle pattern split down the middle... Each door led deeper into the mist, Chen following the directions given to her, hastily written by Lady Yukari when Ran wouldn't be able to make this trip. Chen's head was hurting from the "directions" of "16th door to the right" when she wasn't even sure she went through the correct doors in the first place. One direction had "tenth door to the left" but there were only nine, meaning she had messed up somewhere and had to backtrack in this maze of doors. That mistake alone cost her thirty minutes.

Upon opening a purple door, she found herself in what looked to be a throne area, and a lone person sat at said throne. She looked exactly how Lady Okina was described to be by Lady Yukari. Chen was feeling anxious, but also relieved that she made it. She was getting tired of walking around in circles, and the frustration was hard to keep down.

The god sitting at the throne had already noticed the nekomata, watching her approach with curious eyes. Chen stopped at a distance that was far enough so she at least wouldn't seem hostile. Chen just wanted this over with, and she had to get back quickly.

"Okina Matara? I'm Chen, a servant of Yukari."

Okina smugly smirked. "Figures one of Yukari's servants would be bold enough to trespass into my realm and come directly to me. How is she, by the way?"

"She's busy. She sent me to ask you a favor. It has to do with what's going on today."

Okina leaned on her armrest, shifting her body. "Ah, I see. The all important 'save the world' plan of hers. I take it you have something? She said she'd send someone to me with an item, but she never said what I would do with it, or what it was."

Chen brought out the bag, the clear plastic showing the single content. She went up to Okina, handing her the bag, and a sealed envelope. "I... I uh, don't know what she needs, but this letter says it."

Okina eyed the item in the bag, before opening the envelope and reading the contents. Her smirk turned into a frown of slight discomfort. "...Ah. So she knows. Well, she did say she saw into the future, so she knows what I'm to do anyway." Okina held up the bag to her eyes. "Very well. The life force attached to it can last longer. Still, it's such a risky plan." Okina chuckled. "I did tell her it's quite the mad plan. And I must be as mad to go along with it."

Okina placed her right hand on it, and the item within the bag glowed. "It is done. Even if the original person is destroyed, this shall remain." She handed it back to Chen, who bowed, gave thanks and turned to leave. "Oh, by the way..." Okina spoke up as Chen was halfway to the door out. "Did you happen to see my two servants on your way here?"

Chen shook her head. "No, I met nobody on my way in here." Well, they couldn't catch her. Chen was quick, after all.

Okina frowned again. "Ah. Well, I'll have to punish those two later for letting someone get by them. I'm not angry at you, little nekomata, just my servants for their incompetence." She gave Chen a little wave. "Give Yukari my regards. And since this has to do with saving the world, I'll know for sure if this works out sooner or later, won't I?"

[The Meltdown of Haruhi Suzumiya]

[Episode 11]

["The Insanity of Clownpiece"]

"I've never seen life force overflow like this.

Either in Hell, or on the Moon.

Why does only Earth get to be covered in life?

Why do the Lunarians hate life so much?

Why wasn't I born here instead of Hell?"

-Clownpiece, from the manga Visionary Fairies in Shrine by ZUN.

"...Master?"

Clownpiece clung faintly to the door of the darkened club room, peering towards the shadow in front of the window at the back. What little light was left came in from the stars beyond it and the waning crescent moon, filtered through the snowfall that flurried about, turning the dim light into a miasma of ever-shifting light and shadows. Hecatia's body had been restored, but now she was like a statue, not reacting in the slightest to Clownpiece's call. She waited, hoping that her master would say anything back, but nothing broke the silence.

"Master, I'm..."

Hecatia made a noise, of her taking a deep breath, and the sigh that followed was one of annoyance. Of sadness.

Of disappointment.

"Master, I'll get them! I'll deal with them! Just give me some power to do it! Fix me, or send me back to Hell so I can fix myself! I can beat them!" Clownpiece felt her chest welling up with panic, realizing the situation she was in. She saw Master have this same reaction with Eiki over the Yama's behavior earlier. "Let me fix this! I can-"

Clownpiece felt a hand on her arm, it was the girl in the glasses. Nagato simply shook her head.

"There is no further need for your participation. Hecatia has decided on what to do."

Jinwu's words came roaring back, of Clownpiece being out. "But-"

"Leave. Your assistance is no longer required." With that, the girl in the glasses returned to her chair in the shadows. "Your part in this is over."

Through this, Hecatia still hadn't moved, still made no noise. Clownpiece stood there, her heart feeling like it could explode, unsure of what to do, of what was to happen. The silence was overwhelming, deafening even, making her beating heart thunder in her ears. The fairy couldn't take it as she left the room in a daze, of fear, anger, hatred. She didn't even realize she made it to the staircase, staring down at it.

"You're out, Piece."

Clownpiece shook her head violently, still unable to get rid of that annoying voice echoing in her memory. It was drilling into her brain, of her failures, of Kyon defeating her. It was her who Yukari used to destroy their time traveling devices. It was her who had cultivated that world to the point where the people were able to fight back to this extent. The soldiers were wiped out. Junko and Jinwu dead. Eiki gone - she had been the one who voiced concern about that world.

All on her.

"It's your fault."

Clownpiece's teeth began to hurt, as she was clenching and grinding them so hard; the missing tooth a reminder of what she'd lost to get there. She had worked so hard for perfection, of achieving the perfect world. For them to actually put up a fight and not allow themselves to be taken was infuriating. All her effort was for nothing - in fact, she would be punished for her effort at the end of this.

"You get nothing."

An intense pain shot through her face, as the pressure of her teeth cracked one down the middle. She let out a choking gasp of fury and pain, unable and unwilling to accept defeat.

"You'll get nothing and like it."

How dare they.

Clownpiece spent the next minute spitting out the broken pieces of her tooth, the pure hatred coursing through her body.

How dare they all get in my way. Each and every one of them.

Clownpiece didn't notice it from the reflection of the window in the staircase, but her eyes glowed an intense green again.

How dare they keep me from what's mine.

How dare they keep all realities from reaching absolute perfection.

Everything that master had shown Clownpiece had led her to one conclusion. That there was ultimately only one goal for each reality in order for them to reach perfection.

But for master to keep her from attaining that power for herself, after Clownpiece put in the work to make this world the way she wanted it...

The green eyes glowed intensely, lighting up the stairwell in a harsh green light.

None of them deserve that power! There's only one person who deserves it!

Yukari stared down at the chess set she had brought with her, having placed it on a waist-high boulder. She had the various pieces set up like she did back in the library, the only difference being that she had five white pieces and the entire black side were all on the board. She had already put back the missing black pawn, a little pleased with herself that she didn't lose anybody. In fact, she had put the black pawn in the same space as another black pawn, making two in one.

A shadow crossed the board, and Yukari knew who owned it - despite the neatness of her board's side, she still felt the constant stare of mistrustful eyes, and none more so than Eirin's. Eirin watched the board from above, focusing on the two pawns sharing a square, and after a long moment, Yukari murmured the answer to her unspoken question: "It's a child's rule. Professional chess sets sometimes come with extra queens for when you upgrade pawns, but for cheaper children's chess sets which don't include extra pieces, they suggest two other ways to indicate a queen piece if one isn't available. One is putting a rook upside down, and the other is having two pawns in the same square. Two become one, and therefore the most powerful piece on the board."

Eirin nodded. "Ah, so linking Kyon with Nagato was part of your plan then."

"A lot of things have been part of my plan. This is the first time it's gone right... I think."

"First-" Eirin crossed her arms, a thoughtful, but knowing look on her face forming. "So you figured out what your future self was doing then."

Yukari looked up at Yagokoro with genuine surprise, the doctor having a slight smug smile on her face.

"I noticed it. You kept leaving the library, but then you'd come back, seemingly with correct information. You were swapping out with your future self here and there. I almost didn't think of that." Eirin was closely watching Yukari's face for confirmation.

Are you actually respecting me, O wise and ancient sage of the moon? Yukari slowly grinned, which made Eirin roll her eyes.

"So, am I speaking with the you of the present now?" she said, brushing the moment aside. "And earlier, during the fight with the clay soldiers, that was you from the future, right?"

"That's exactly right." Yukari bent forward, staring at the white chess pieces. "That being said, none of me has arrived at the answer to this game - or if the future me has, she isn't telling. We aren't out of danger just yet. Just because they defeated the alternate Junko and Utsuho doesn't mean we've won."

"Time traveling, correct?"

Yukari nodded. "Until going into the future is stable, there is a chance Hecatia can pull this off, even though she's hurt. But that's just it. I still don't know everything yet. One of the major ones being that I can't figure out what Hecatia could do from this point on to threaten the future." Yukari motioned towards Asahina. "Until I get to the all clear from Miss Asahina there, there are still futures that won't happen from this point."

"Futures where Hecatia wins."

This is a situation I wouldn't want to wish on anyone. "There's little room for error here. Our enemy is much more familiar with us than we are with her, and if there's a single possible avenue for her to win, she'll take it. Ask every question that can be asked, I must ask. Why do they have no immortals on their side? How effectively can they navigate between universes? Is our enemy truly desperate, or is she feigning her current weakness? I have to cut off every possible chance that she might defeat us or escape."

"A tall order." Eirin frowned in a woeful manner. "And maybe too much to ask, I think. Even if you could know every factor at play, Suzumiya's presence complicates things a thousandfold."

Yukari returned the frown, but was interrupted before she could reply by Chen tugging on her sleeve. Yukari knelt down and Chen handed up a small clear plastic bag.

"She says it'll work," Chen said. The moment Yukari's fingers pinched the corner of the bag, Chen let go and scurried away, throwing a wary look at Eirin as she passed. Yukari didn't pay her much mind; though Ran's ability to program her own servants was lacking by comparison, she had trusted Chen enough to carry the hair, and that was significant enough for Yukari to overlook her rough edges. More importantly, things were still progressing apace to her plans. The single strand of hair in this bag was a risk, but one well worth the reward. She smiled, tucked the bag away into a little gap, and returned her attention to Eirin.

"And that is?" said Eirin, raising an eyebrow.

"A factor which Hecatia thought to be hidden from me." Yukari grinned. "There is no limit to what one can know with good investigation, Eirin. If I must account for every atom in the universe to pull this off, then that's what I'll do."

"By yourself, I take it?"

"Do you have another suggestion?" Yukari eyed Eirin with suspicion, sensing that she had something she wanted to say. Eirin pointed down at the chessboard, then drew a straight line with her finger from Yukari to the opposite end.

"You are stuck," she said. "You think that Hecatia has a trump card in play, but do not know what it could be. You make educated guesses at the truth, but you can never know it all, and there have been many times today when a single failure on your part would have doomed this universe. Sorry, but I'm not willing to accept that kind of oversight. If you are so ready to account for everything, you must surely have accounted for how all this would affect us. You make clever plans," she gestured at the chessboard again, "but you think too highly of yourself because of it. Your enemies will not always underestimate you, Yukari Yakumo. In their eyes, you playing the guarded mastermind makes us predictable, and makes you nothing less than our side's single point of failure."

Yukari's eyes twinkled and narrowed as she caught Eirin's message: That Yukari should not have been doing this all by herself. So, you haven't completely thrown in the towel. Well, not that I ever expected you to be humbled.

"Are you offering to step in?" she said, still smiling.

"You're used to dealing with problems in your own home, where everything can be known. I'm offering you my perspective as someone who fights against enemies she knows nothing about."

Yes... I suppose you would.

Eirin didn't know it herself, but Yukari had seen the future where Eirin would save Gensokyo and the Lunar Capital both from invasion. Despite never knowing of their universe's Hecatia, she would one day - assuming that day would still come - create the right plan to defeat her and her allies. In the past, Yukari's first invasion of the Lunar Capital had been undone by Eirin's command of the battle, and her second invasion had only succeeded by a single step; though Yukari had gotten the better of her in the end, Eirin was able to adapt to her tricks and almost managed to counter her without even being present.

Of course, if I relied on you, I'd be admitting that Gensokyo can't take care of itself... Yukari closed her eyes and tried to dismiss the thought. Petty differences like that couldn't stand in the way of the universe's survival. Really, there was no more reason to guard herself and her plans against Eirin - only her pride.

Yukari stepped back and lingered on one side of the chessboard. With the same enigmatic smile as usual, she gestured to the other side, still on black end of the board, and said, "Then let's have your perspective. Shall we?"

Eirin stepped up to the board, now the second of two players on the black side. She remained silent for a time, and Yukari noticed that her eyes never left the black pieces - as expected of the Lunar Capital, she never even considered the white ones in her planning. A top-down strategist who thought only of herself; that was Yukari's impression, but she held her tongue as she waited for Eirin's verdict on the situation. Minutes passed, and although she didn't say anything, Eirin's face began to change. Bit by bit, a smile crept up the side of her face, until at last, she spoke.

"It's not worth considering the enemy as trapped or free to move. Whether she's desperate or confident, or even if she has reserve forces we never anticipated, the question is not how we can defeat them, but how anyone at this stage could defeat us. A total victory is our only option, after all."

"I can't say I see the wisdom in ignoring our opponent," said Yukari.

"Of course you can't," said Eirin with a smirk. "You're still young."

With one hand, Eirin began to rearrange the pieces on the board. One by one, she moved the forward black pieces up into a formation that took no account of the positions of the enemy. After this, she rearranged the backline black pieces into a V shape.

And she says I'll make us predictable. Isn't something like this just going to make our weaknesses obvious...? Yukari scanned the board again, trying to determine the advantage of Eirin's way of thinking. She seemed to think that she could plan for everything by hardly planning at all. Was this straightforward, simple-minded charge really worthy of the Brain of the Moon?

Even against me, she was more adaptive. When I was her opponent...

...Wait a minute.

Yukari opened the blossom-patterned fan she was holding and hid her lower face behind it, her eyes now riveted to the board. This tactic was familiar after all, and Yukari began to understand.

She isn't failing to account for our enemy's strengths. The enemy she's fighting is an imaginary one that possesses every advantage.

The last strange move came when Eirin pointed to the reserves - ordered in a line from the front, a rook, a knight, a queen, and a second rook. "These are who you're sending in next?" she asked. Yukari nodded, and Eirin pulled the foremost rook out of the queue, placing it at the rear of the board instead. In its place she moved up the queen, and in place of the queen, she moved up the knight. Then she grabbed the toppled white bishop that had once represented Jinwu and put it in the third spot. Yukari looked up at Eirin, puzzled.

"Tenshi first?" she asked. "Even without the sword?"

Eirin remained confident in her decision, tapping the top of the queen piece and saying, "Tenshi is strong. When one can't know their opponent, the best option is to wield overwhelming force. We should be putting our best foot forward, not holding it back for the end."

And so your plan is simple brute force. "If you want our best foot, I'd say that's Kasen. I'm sure you've already realized, but she has just as much power and a lot more wit."

"A celestial is greater than a mere hermit, and it shall ever be that way regardless of your apparent favoritism," Eirin countered. She tapped the black rook in the middle of the back line, emphasizing its position. "Kasen's other aspect is useful only at close range. She's much better back here with us, and I'm sure you can figure out why we need someone powerful on this side."

I knew it.

Even without understanding Hecatia, somehow... I think Eirin's figured out what she'll do. Yukari put a hand on her temple, staring at the board. In light of all that, the last piece in the lineup - the white bishop - made sense as well.

"This plan is so simple I ought to laugh," Yukari muttered, shaking her head in disbelief.

Eirin smirked back at her. "Some of us do not revel in the chaos of endless variables and multi-layered plots. Heavenly beauty is found in simplicity."

It still didn't seem right. It felt like Eirin was planning for casualties, and that was something Yukari could not allow. Still, there may have been something to this plan. Yukari studied the board, attempting to grasp at the possible outcomes.

I've already made a play at giving Hecatia what she wanted. There's no way she'll fall for it a second time.

...Will she?

Pride is a deadly sin for a reason...

Apprehensive at the prospect of trusting Eirin's judgment, Yukari nonetheless watched as she directed the black pieces on approach towards the remaining white rook.

The snow hadn't let up - in fact it increased, falling on the ruins of the city around us in a blanket of white. It clung to the sides of the ruined structures and piles of rubble, making them seem like soft hills instead of the aftermath of a horrific cataclysm. It almost looked peaceful beneath the stars and the clouds. Like sweeping it all under the rug had made everything better.

I was still pushing to heal up the group, but no one was hurt that badly and they all gave the same response as Koizumi: "Don't worry about it until we can heal more people at once." Meanwhile, Koizumi had transformed into a mummy thanks to Reisen's first aid kit, which as far as solutions go was completely laughable. There were so many bandages wrapped around his whole body so as to cover his left side that it was a wonder he could even still move.

I'd had burns, but never to the extent of what Koizumi was suffering through. I mean, I knew the logical thing would be to heal up right before the final boss just in case there were other obstacles. If I did save it, I'd be left with two for the final battle itself. If there were any more battles, and according to Youmu there would be, and we had someone who needed healing, we'd have less for the final battle. Reisen had done her best to dress his wounds with what was in the kit, and she'd given him some weird pink pills out of a packet, but all in all, he still looked half-dead and in no shape to fight.

"Really, it doesn't hurt," he said. I didn't buy it - he was sweating like a fire hose, and looked like he might pass out from shock at any moment. The fact that he wasn't passing out was either a miracle itself or the effects of whatever miracle drugs Reisen had given him out of that kit.

"You're a bad liar," I told him. I fingered the vial I had in my pocket, still debating over whether or not I should put him out of his misery. I didn't even know if I'd get the chance to heal him later with everyone else, and what if those burns held him back?

"Trust me, I'm fine for a little while longer. We have to make the most of our remaining resources."

Even if you say that, I'm the one who gets sick just looking at you. I didn't get to see if Reisen had cleaned him off somehow, but there were bits of dust and snow and no doubt all sorts of infectious bacteria clinging to his raw flesh before the bandages went on him. If I lost my chance to heal him, he'd be looking at much bigger problems than pain. In the end though, I didn't get to do anything for him, as we couldn't delay our advance anymore and had to get moving. We took flight above the city, giving me an even better look at our surroundings. With so much white below us, you'd never know what had happened here.

I couldn't really take it all in, though. Even my pestering Koizumi was just a distraction from what was really going on in my head. Now that we were in flight and with nothing but the darkened snow to look at, I could only keep thinking about everything we'd learned just moments before.

Youmu was indeed taken aback by the state of the world and our bodies, especially Koizumi, but she recovered quick enough. She had a job to do. "If my memory is correct, and I'll tell you right now it's not complete, we have five more to deal with."

I know Hecatia's going to be bad for round two, but it's the ones we don't know that'll be scarier. Who knows what kind of terrible abilities Hecatia's tinkering has given them.

"You somewhat melded with that other Youmu, right?" asked Sanae. "Can you sense anything? Like, right now? If you share her mind you should be able to-"

"I... I'm not getting anything. We did get separated across universes, so..."

Yeah. Hard to imagine we'd get a real-time feed of the other one like that. Though I guess it's convenient that they can't use that to spy on us, either. That said, the other Youmu would have had access to some of Youmu's memories. We just had to hope they weren't bad ones for us.

Reisen was busy tending to Koizumi's wounds, still unable or unwilling to look at Koishi. I questioned my actions, of trying to make the soldier feel something. She was trying to deal with doing what she did by not feeling anything, and I barged in and forced it.

I silently stared at Koishi, who was still staring where Jinwu had died. "So, Mayumi is still alive, you think?"

"She'll be able to repair herself. Not fully. Clownpiece should still be active."

"Okay, so, minus that other you, we have to deal with Mayumi, Clownpiece, and ultimately Hecatia." Reisen looked up, finished with applying burn ointment to Koizumi, before starting to wrap his damaged skin in bandages. "Who are the other two? Anybody we know?"

Youmu slightly grimaced in self depreciation, looking like that vulnerable girl I've seen at the end of the Spring Snow adventure, and like when she came to my room to talk to me about her feelings for Yuyuko. "Like I said, the memories aren't complete. I'm sorry I can't be more useful."

Ever since you took her memories, you look absolutely depressed. I suppose anyone would be if they got memories of being used as someone's personal stress ball.

"S'okay, Youmu." Marisa patted her on the back. "Just anything will help, ze."

"All data is helpful, Miss Konpaku." Asakura smiled like she used to do back in high school as the class representative. "Even the slightest detail could give us the answer."

The samurai gardener took in a deep breath. "They're both girls. Petite-ish. Small frame, small, uhm, chests..." Youmu blushed a bit. "The only distinguishing features I can think of from both are one had glasses, and the other had small horns on the top-"

"Small gray horns." Youmu stopped talking, and silently nodded her head to my response. No... that... that can't... I paused, throwing Koizumi a look. The esper instantly understood what popped into my head. I retreated to my fellow Brigade member. "That sounds just like-"

"I know." Koizumi tentatively looked to the girls, especially Reimu, who was interested in my response. "It's the only one you know of."

"Body type, horns. There's only one person that comes to mind."

"It's the one who took you, isn't it? The cheater."

Reimu, your intuition couldn't come at a worse time. "Sounds like her." I was really hesitant on giving that information up, because Seija hadn't even made herself known to Reimu in our present state there. If something happened, if she got too much information, it would have put the revolution in jeopardy. If it didn't go the way it did, I'd be dead. Maybe with other plans, Yukari could pull something else off, but I was in a timeline where I was affected by what happened. I was alive because of my Seija.

...My Seija. Here I am assuming it's an Alternate, but... Even though she said she wanted me to fight them, who knows if she was telling the truth?

[Nagato:] "From what we know, only powerful individuals count themselves among the Alternates. If there is a Seija Kijin among them, then it stands to reason she must be one from another universe."

...That makes sense, but...

No, whether this Seija was from our universe or another one, and whether she was strong or weak, it didn't really matter in this case. Seija had a way of being where she wanted to be, making herself useful in spite of her weakness. She was power-hungry and extreme enough to do something as crazy as try to revolutionize the multiverse, too. With all those high-minded ideals Hecatia kept going on about earlier, she was actually a perfect fit for them.

...Well, I can't see how that would stack up with how we defeated her... I guess she must be an Alternate. I don't know whether I'm relieved by that.

Reimu folded her arms and glared. I wasn't going to get away with giving her the bare minimum. Taking a moment to put it all together concisely, I said, "She's... not strong, at least not the one I know, but don't underestimate her. She fights dirty. I can't even begin to guess what her tactics will be other than that."

That's the worst thing about her, really. She's so unpredictable that I still don't know how to call her. After giving it another moment of thought, the best I could come up with was: "...She might be out of her element in an endurance contest. If you can survive her tricks, she might run out of them eventually."

Reimu grunted in annoyance, obviously not keen on the idea of a protracted battle with the shape we were in. Koizumi, on the other hand, was deep in thought, and when he raised his head, it was to lock eyes with Asakura, who'd come up to us beaming her class rep smile.

"She's not our biggest problem though, is she?" asked Koizumi.

"What do you mean?" I looked between them, still stuck on thinking about Seija.

"You know," said Asakura, bending forward to leer at me in what she might have thought was a friendly manner, "The other one? Petite, wearing glasses...?"

Oh, the other one...

Wait-

That's... impossible, right?

Nagato's voice in my head was notably silent.

[Asakura:] "Isn't it strange? The radicals get punished for trying to push against the status quo, but the one who keeps changing things up the most is you, isn't it?"

No, I mean, nothing's impossible, but...

[Asakura:] "Even in other universes, you're still trying to use her power and causing chaos, aren't you? Isn't that so strange?"

There was way too much humor in Asakura's voice, and of course she was staring right at me while saying it. Meanwhile, I just wished that Nagato would say something back.

...Isn't it possible?

"Man, of all the people we gotta fight..." Marisa put on a smile that said she really didn't feel like smiling. "Why's it gotta be her, ze?"

"I mean, we did see a clay Koizumi, which means they have had people from the SOS Brigade on their side." Reimu had her arms crossed, thinking this over. Her eyes drifted to meet mine. "Look, I already said my piece on this. This could get bad, and you need to be prepared for it."

What if I can't? You're asking me to be prepared to face one of my closest friends, one whom I put so much trust into. That it was possible for her to turn her back...

...It was possible, after all. The one I knew actually did turn her back on the Brigade.

That's why I hated it, because it was possible. It was the most possible thing that day.

Reisen had finished up tending to Koizumi, placing her first aid kit in order. Now that that was done with, we were just about ready to leave.

[Asakura:] "Quite telling, isn't it?"

You shut the hell up.

[Asakura:] "Lashing out at me won't help. I'm not the one who's trying to kill you, am I?"

I don't know what I hated more. The idea of an alternate Nagato as an enemy, or Asakura's words.

"It would make the most sense for it to be this way." Koizumi's smile had disappeared, and he'd become somber. "In order to bring our worlds together, they ought to have at least one person from our universe. Even if we assume that others were viable, Miss Nagato is clearly the best option for recruitment. In another universe, even her attachment to the Data Overmind might not be a problem..."

Damn it all damn it all damn it all. It kept making more and more sense and I kept hating it. I hated that it was feasible.

I was inwardly begging Nagato to respond, but she didn't. Not even while I delayed our moving out to ask Koizumi one more time if he didn't want my healing.

I better be worrying for nothing. I can't deal with this right now. Of course, I couldn't even imagine what our Nagato was feeling, what she had to be going through over hearing that.

"Did you know?"

Everyone turned to Nagato, who was still over Haruhi. Far from her usual impassivity, she was glaring daggers at Yukari. Her body was tense, fists clenched.

Yukari returned that stare with a smile. "Know what-"

"Is there another me helping Hecatia?"

Everyone's attention was on Nagato, most of them wide-eyed. They were getting constant updates from the data entity, but then she stopped, went silent for a bit, before saying what she was saying.

Yukari let out a long sigh, still smiling, though it faltered a bit. "I didn't even realize the truth until today, when I recalled a conversation I had with Yasumi years ago. My mind kept drifting back to it, wondering why she said the things she said, the way she said them. Yasumi loves playing with words, so I had Ran write out all the ways to spell what she said. She translated it into different languages, and she found it. In English, well, maybe you are clever enough to decipher the truth without me telling you."

"'Needless to say, it's very rude to attempt to stalk someone you just met.

And that's saying it lightly.

Good morning.

Ah, let me guess... you are Yukari Yakumo, right?

There isn't a need to call me that.

Oh, it wouldn't be far from the truth.

Demon, what do I owe the honor of a you placed out of time?

Indeed.

Despite your cautions, I can tell that there is another you in Gensokyo at this very instant, and I can tell you are older than her.

Time travel is quite interesting, isn't it?

Ha, yes.

I think those people have been troublesome lately.

So, how far down the line are we talking?'"

Nagato's eyes widened, upon realization. From the confused responses of those around them, most of the group gathered there didn't understand what Yukari's words in English actually meant.

Yukari simply gave a small smile, and went back to brooding over her chess set. "Yasumi likes those kinds of things. There is the anagram of her name, after all. But she hid this so well in my conversation with her that it took me years to even realize her message. She knew. She knew all along."

"Who could have known," smirked Eirin, "that keeping so much close to your chest could come back to bite you?"

"Should I tell you all about my casual conversations?" Yukari quipped without humor. "I'm not proud that I didn't notice until today. I knew that Yasumi doesn't act straightforwardly. I knew that even if she did, we might have been watched. But let's not pretend that you would have noticed either. Even I couldn't have figured it out without Ran's help." Yukari exhaled sharply, furrowed her brow and collected herself, then said after another moment, "If you want my apology, Miss Nagato, you have it, but I don't think this changes anything. Our goals are the same either way. And as to what you said..." She turned her eyes on Eirin. "Yes. I see what you mean about me being this plan's point of failure. None of us are perfect, after all."

Eirin's eyes narrowed, but she kept her humored expression. "Then what will you do about it?"

Oh, you've been waiting for this, haven't you?

Yukari shrugged in defeat. "We may not even have time for me to tell you all the details of this... but I'll catch you up." Regaining her poise, she matched Eirin's smile and stood face-to-face with her, dropping her voice to a whisper. "I hope you're as quick on the take as you've been boasting - I won't repeat anything for your benefit."

North High was within reach. To see it still standing in pristine condition among the ruins of my city was jarring, yet fitting. North High was the site of so much happening, so much weirdness. So many changes of the world came from this very campus. It saw the near destruction of the world, the near death of its own god, was the site where I crossed from that alternate reality of being with Nagato and back into my own, and so much more. It got destroyed and damaged in certain closed spaces, but it still stood.

Nagato still wasn't talking, making me wonder if the connection was severed or something, yet Asakura kept reassuring me that she was still connected to Nagato across reality.

Nagato?

Nothing. The further she remained silent, the more my heart hurt.

Nagato, if this is true, I-

I couldn't finish my thought because at that very moment, my guts churned inside me as Marisa and I rolled over like we were yanked on hard, and before I knew it we were flying inverted. The movement was so sudden and violent that my thoughts escaped me, but the same time, I knew in an instant what had just happened to us.

"It's her!" I called out before I even knew what I was saying. "Find her quick!"

"The hell-?!" Marisa jerked the broom around, looking in every direction and trying to keep calm. To her credit, we didn't sway that much and she seemed to adjust to being upside down pretty quick, but that one moment after the flip had drained all the color from both our faces and we were desperately searching around us to try and catch sight of our attacker. Marisa flew up towards the ground, and at some point, I managed to realize where she was bringing us in to land: Kouyouen, the all-girls school at the bottom of the hill. Damn it... we're so close to North High.

As we neared, the flip effect wore off, forcing us back upright as quickly as we were turned over. It was another heart-in-my-throat moment, but still there was no sign of her. I hopped off the broom as we neared the ground, crunching the cool snow under my feet while my chest tightened up in anticipation. Shanghai, Hourai, and Marisa all crowded around me and I kept the Sword of Hisou at the ready.

It really is her.

I knew who it was before my eyes focused on her, the girl in the white dress and skirt, with the red and black arrow patterns. The red and white highlights in her hair. The two small gray horns protruding from her head.

This... I guess it had to happen. With how everything has been happening today, this had to be inevitable.

Seija Kijin.

Yet, not the one I knew. This one, her eyes... it was like she'd seen more. Was older. Her body and face looked like the same person who just bailed me out of the afterlife, yet the look in her eyes was more wary, more ready to pounce. The Seija I knew was brash and confident. This one felt like a coiled spring that might snap at any second. A few moments later, I noticed her scars - she had many faint scars around her body, and her clothes were such a ratty mess that she must have just been in a fight. She leaned back against broken doorway of the all-girls school at the top of the front steps, repeatedly clenching and unclenching her fist as she watched us with those wide, emotionless eyes. She wasn't smiling, smirking, or angry. Her expression was... if I had to describe it, it was grim.

I'll admit, there was more than just the fear of facing an Alternate this time. I don't know whether it felt better, worse, or just weirder, but because of it, I hardly noticed the others arriving to stand by my side.

"So that's her, eh?" Marisa murmured to me. It was kind of impossible at this point to hide it.

"...Yeah. Definitely an Alternate, though."

"What is she?" whispered Sanae, looking as spooked as I was by Seija's dire expression.

"Amanojaku. Like I said, she fights dirty. She's a liar, too."

"So that was it." The alternate Seija finally spoke, her expression unchanging. Her body stretched out for just a moment before returning to form, and a long, ragged sigh escaped. "Figured it had to be something like that."

[SPELL CARD: WAVE SIGN "LUNA WAVE"]

Reisen rushed up next to us and tossed a grenade, to which Seija responded by flipping it off - and as soon as she did so, it reversed trajectory back into the rest of us. We all scattered, some moving up and some seeking cover, but Reimu went forward almost at the same time as Reisen threw the grenade, casting her own spell alongside it.

[SPELL CARD: SPIRIT SIGN "FANTASY SEAL ~ CONCENTRATE"]

A flurry of colored lights expanded from Reimu, but by the time they rose up high enough that I could see the doorway, Seija had vanished. The lights swooped around the school, impacting different parts of it and blasting away sections of the wall in a zig-zag line, but not a single one of them revealed her, and by the time the air had been cleared of both Reimu's and Reisen's danmaku, Seija had reappeared against the doorway, scratching her back irritably.

"Aaaaah, God dammit, we spent so much time watching Yukari and her allies that we didn't think to look at her enemies." Her voice came out in a hoarse whine, and while the rest of us were gearing up for a counterattack, she did nothing but glare in our direction. Her hands shook and she wrapped them around her sides, jerking her whole body from side to side like she was trying to calm herself down. After a moment's pause, she tilted her head and said, "Eh. Kinda brilliant, though. No better victory than one your enemies give you."

What the hell is your plan? I didn't for one second think that she was actually just here to talk with us, but she still wasn't attacking, and it seemed to unnerve the rest of the group. Is she a distraction? Is there someone else coming up behind us right now?

[Asakura:] "Not that I can see. There is something interfering with my data jurisdiction again though, so stay on your toes, all right?"

Just what we needed. And I guess now we know what that "something" must be. I chanced a look behind me, and all around - I don't know if I'd hoped to catch sight of Nagato or not, but there was nothing there. Not even a footprint in the clear white snow. I met Sanae's eyes as she did the same, and we shared a look of apprehension before turning back on Seija.

Seija's expression hardened a bit and she clenched her teeth, a bit of anger seeping through that mask of blankness. "I got so used to you guys being under control that I... that I forgot how this feels. How much I hate her for her plans. Big Brother Yukari and anarchy-loving Reimu, and wouldn't you know it, they get along just fine..." Seija pushed herself off the door frame and stalked down the steps of the building, still flexing her fist and watching our movements. She stopped when she reached the schoolyard at the bottom, looking distinctly like she didn't have much else to say and was just waiting for us to try and talk back.

[SPELL CARD: LOVE SIGN "MASTER SPARK"]

Well, that's how Marisa talked to people.

With her being so close to us, I thought she'd get it, but no, Seija flipped herself into the air faster than the laser could come out, and it totally missed her. Marisa couldn't even correct her aim quick enough to catch her, and after the Spark ended, Seija landed back on the ground, a teensy bit more annoyed than before.

"You know, I understand that you're pissed off and ready for a fight, but holy hell your aim sucks. How did you even beat Jinwu and Junko with such piss poor accuracy?!" Seija spat to the side, then raised a finger and pointed at the rest of us. "You guys didn't even follow up. Is that what you call teamwork? You scared of me? I ain't that strong, ya know." She brought one hand to her chin and scratched it, chuckling a bit at her joke.

"Damn Yukari. How much I hate everything about her. How she controls everything, always acting so aloof. Bet it wouldn't matter to her if you all died here, as long as she got what she wanted in the end." Seija cracked a crooked smile, one that reminded me of the Seija that I knew. "To be honest... I kinda... I kinda missed this feeling."

"Should we be scared?" Sanae whispered at me. Apparently, my experience with her counted for a lot here, if what I said about her was enough to stop everyone from charging in. Well, more than they'd already charged at least.

If I know Seija...

"...I'm not sure," I said. "Talking to her is a bad idea, though. There's no telling if she means anything she says." Actually, Seija looked like she was the one who was afraid. It was slight, but her hands still shook every time she moved, and her face always reset to that same dead glare.

"Yukari isn't the one aiming to turn our world into this one," said Koizumi, completely ignoring my warning. He'd stopped holding onto... was he holding onto someone earlier? No, right. Koishi. Koishi is still here... Somewhere.

"Oh, yeah?" Seija brought her hand back down and couched it on her hip. Like a cornered jackal, she stalked to one side and flitted her eyes between each of us as she went. "How long until you ain't useful to her? How long until your goals don't align and she throws you away?"

"If it saves our universe, I'll be happy for it." Koizumi gave her a smirk. "And if we happen to survive anyway, then I suppose it'll be our business what we do about it."

"Aaaah. How noble. I wanna puke," said Seija in flat voice.

At the rate this was going, we'd be getting into another fight with another Alternate, but I still couldn't figure out why or how she planned to fight us. Even if this Seija was stronger, we proved we could stand up to a god that had the power of the sun. Though of course, the first three attacks missed her. Why are you facing us alone? Unless you have some grand plan, it's going to be suicide on your part. You can't be here just to dodge all our attacks. I mean, Aya's supposed to be super speedy, but Reimu can still defeat her.

I tried thinking back to her old tactics. Usually, she'd use the environment to fight, like she just did while dodging the Fantasy Seal. Come to think of it, she did kind of force us to land here...

[Asakura:] "I'm imaging the ruins next to us, but I can't find any hidden devices or anything like that."

...This feels so wrong. I glanced at Koizumi, who gave me a look that said he felt it too. Seija had no advantage in this battle that we knew about, but the most consistent thing about Seija was that she always managed to turn a disadvantage into an advantage. There had to be something here that she was planning to make use of. Everything about Seija's body language suggested that she didn't want to fight, but that had to be a lie. This had to be a trap of some kind. The way she kept trying to goad us into attacking might as well have been proof that she was counting on us making the first move. But maybe it was a bluff, and she really was stalling. Either way, we had to do something soon.

We have to attack. Even if she's expecting it, our only valid move is to destroy her now.

We have to attack!

"We..."

[Nagato:] "Why do you sound like you're convincing yourself again?"

Nagato?!

[Nagato:] "She's a different person from the one you know. You must be aware of that."

What does that have to do with...

[Nagato:] "An alternate universe is an alternate potentiality. A world in which circumstances were different, and different choices were made as a result. Anyone may have become anything, under the right circumstances. Even... no, especially me."

So, the alternate you...

[Nagato:] "She exists. Yukari confirmed it."

For a moment, my heart felt heavy, making it difficult to breathe. I wanted to avoid that situation. I wanted to never consider it again. ...Nagato...

[Nagato:] "Even if you don't want to, you'll have to deal with her. My own actions were extreme. I would have faced judgement if it wasn't for your mercy. This other one... this other one was even more extreme."

[Asakura:] "So was the Seija Kijin in front of us... so don't feel too bad about how you wanted to kill her just now. She's done much worse than the one you're projecting on her."

I can do without the devil on my shoulder whispering into my ear.

[Asakura:] "Does that make Nagato the angel?"

More so than than you ever can be.

[Asakura:] "How rude. Your friends would be dead without me, you know?"

[Nagato:] "Not to mention how I forced my will on the universe for my own feelings."

And now they were teaming up. Well, even if it was Nagato judging herself, I wasn't going to let anyone say what they wanted about her.

That's different. You owned up to that, and you did it even before you made that decision. You gave me a choice, a way out of that world. This world here is the result of no choice.

[Nagato:] "Would the rest of the universe be happy with that? That one person got to make that choice, even if it was you instead of me? All I did was hand you the responsibility."

Nagato, you...

"Hey. What's with the silent treatment?" Seija's voice cut into the soundless conversation, bringing me back into the moment with the sinking realization that I'd tuned out in a dangerous situation. She was the only one looking at me, though - in fact, no one else seemed to notice my lapse just now. The group was facing her, ready to pounce. Reisen's finger hovered over the trigger of her rifle, Sanae and Reimu both had amulets in their hands, and Marisa's boots were grinding into the snow, getting ready to lift off with me. Seija wasn't paying any attention to them, just staring at me like someone who saw something mildly amusing on TV.

This... this really is weird.

As I was having my own internal struggles, of the proverbial angel and devil both whispering in my ear, Seija kept standing before us. Even in the moments when she could have done something - before we'd seen her, or when I spaced out just now - she didn't.

The Seija I know uses sneak attacks. She took us by surprise, but didn't try to take us down. She even flipped us back up when we reached the ground.

The Seija I know is more aggressive with her words. She's jabbing at us and it sounds like she wants us to hit her, but her body language and her actions say the opposite.

...The Seija I know almost always does the opposite of what she should.

"Seija," I said. Seija raised one eyebrow at me, then rolled her neck and shivered in a strange way, like she was getting excited.

"Oo-oo-ooh, that's a weird feeling. Every time we met, I always knew you." She grinned again in that familiar way, which looked like it made everyone else a little more nervous. "This's the first time you've known me. You've got me all wired now. Every day's a riot with this universe."

...Yeah. If you know me so well, you probably knew I'd figure you out.

"I doubt you're working for Hecatia for fun," I said. "You are working for her, right?"

Seija's grin grew wider and more predatory, and just a little bit more like the one I knew. "What's that supposed to mean?"

I hardly know myself, but...

I stepped a bit forward, feeling like I shouldn't hide behind everyone else. Maybe it was just my pseudo-invincibility giving me confidence, but if she wanted to kill me, I felt like she'd have already tried. Jinwu and Junko didn't know about the elixir at first, so there was no way she'd know, I figured.

"It kinda feels like you don't want to fight us. But if you just wanted to run away and hide, you'd have done that instead bringing us to you. If you'd let us pass, we'd be at the school right now."

It doesn't make sense. You do everything for a reason, and if that reason isn't to fight us, then what's left?

There's only one thing I can think of. Besides talking, it's the thing you're best at.

...

Not like I'll know if you're telling the truth, but...

"You want to betray Hecatia, don't you?"

Silence. Seija's head tilted upwards slowly, her grin getting wider. I could feel everyone else's confusion over this exchange; it probably looked insane from the outside, come to think of it.

"Ohhh? That's quite an imagination you've got. If I get rid of you guys, then I'm sitting pretty in her good books. You ain't so tough. Why would I want to give that up?"

I took a deep breath. "Because if I know anything about you, you don't fight for yourself."

"You don't know me. There're lots of me out there in the multiverse, ya know. Most of me ain't fighting for anything. Most of me just want to cause trouble 'cause it gives me kicks. That's how I am, you know."

"Then why does it sound like you don't like those other versions of you?" I spread my arms, realizing that, yeah, I was actually on to something here. "Why'd you say all that stuff about Yukari controlling people earlier? Why did you join Hecatia in the first place when she's the kind of powerful person you'd hate?"

Seija squeezed her eyes shut, then rubbed the back of her neck ruefully, still grinning to herself. "...You're really optimistic about someone you just called a liar, huh? Maybe I'm just real good at setting the stage... And it ain't like I can love myself anyway."

"Call it my intuition, then."

[Asakura:] "Or wishful thinking?"

Yeah. Maybe it's that, too.

After watching how Koishi reacted to that Alternate Utsuho's life being snuffed out, I'd had enough. I'd had enough of killing. I knew it had to keep happening, I knew I couldn't spare Hecatia or Clownpiece, but...

[Nagato:] "Don't lose your nerve again now."

...I know. I'm not going to let my guard down around her of all people. I'm just... Even though she's not the same person, I still think I know why she's talking to us. Like she said, there's no better victory than one your enemies give you.

Seija straightened up, still with her hand on the back of her neck. She stretched her back, arcing backwards and laughing inwardly without making a sound, and when she slouched back over, she said, "Man, I really missed out by not paying attention to you all this time. Maybe I shoulda joined your little high school club in my universe..." She flashed me a look, and it made me a little sick to imagine that happening. "Yeah, I saw it in your eyes when we first met. You got a lotta mixed feelings about me, don'tcha? You know me, but you don't. You hate me, but you don't. Ah, I know the word you'd use for that..." Her eyes got a little sharper, and she waggled her finger in my direction. "You're a little tsundere, ain'tcha?"

...Maybe what I really hate is the fact that you just said that. I thought I heard a choking noise from Sanae's direction, but didn't feel like looking.

"Haruhi's the one who'd say that, not me." I tried my best to keep a blank expression, but I don't think it worked, because Seija started chuckling to herself and flexing her hand some more at the sight of me.

"I-I don't get what's happening here..." Youmu spoke up, mustering a bit of steel in her voice. "...but if you're betraying Hecatia, that means you're joining us... right?"

Seija threw both arms behind her head and leaned back casually as if this didn't matter. "Ah. Guess that'd be how that goes, yeah."

Youmu nodded. "Okay... Um..." she looked around at the rest of us, clearly lost, until finally Reisen decided to ask the obvious question.

"Why?"

Seija threw out her arms in a theatrical shrug and said, "Do I have to explain? I don't wanna." She looked around at the rest of us, but no one said anything, and eventually she was forced to relent. She dropped her arms, rolled her eyes, stuck out her tongue, spat and moaned, and finally finished by saying, "Ah, you know how it is. Keiki - you don't know her, she's dead - she came to my universe saying all kinds of nice things. Things like we'd be building a better world for everyone... 'Course, it wasn't me she was trying to recruit, but life don't always turn out the way you plan it." Seija started pacing in the antsy way she always did while making a speech, moving her hands up and down while flexing her fingers some more. "Lot of things didn't turn out. Keiki and Hecatia, those two... they were clean back then, y'know. Clean as an authoritarian despot and a goddess of Hell can be, anyhow. Didn't have a universe-level body count yet. Boy, when that first mistake happened..." She covered her mouth and let out a horrified giggle. "That's the kinda day you don't forget. The kinda day that changes everything forever."

I can only imagine. If I ended up doing something like collapsing a universe by accident...

[Nagato:] "It's not a mistake everyone could live with."

"Well, that's when Hecatia started going loopy." Seija continued her story, bouncing on her heels as she vented it all out. She must have been holding it in for a long time. "It was gradual, at first. She said we needed to make up for our mistake at all costs... so we ruined another universe, and then some people got the idea that we should take them down. Stop the madness before it kept going. We started thinking that maybe this dream was impossible, and we had to take responsibility for the damage we'd done. Obviously, that didn't work out."

"It sounds like you were part of that rebellion," Koizumi pointed out.

"Yeah, well... I didn't like having so much blood on my hands, y'know?" she shrugged and quirked her eyes, showing her pointed teeth again. "I never told her that the revolt was my idea to begin with, of course... and when we started getting crushed by their combined power, well, the only way out was to throw someone under the bus. So..." she scratched her cheek, and I thought I saw her hands shake. "Well, I... stomped out Shinmyoumaru and told Hecatia I'd dealt with their leader. Told her I was a double agent the whole time. What do you know, she let me live."

There was a pause after that revelation. I started to feel angry again, just a little bit. I knew she had to have done terrible things, but...

But the Seija I know didn't kill people. She might've gambled on the notion with me, but she never actually did it. This one...

"That Shinmyoumaru... was from your universe, right?" I asked. "She was the one Keiki was really trying to recruit."

Seija simpered without remorse. "Yep. She came to us because in our world, we won our revolution. We built a new society, a better society. And what do you know, Keiki was a fan of people who build things. We fit right in. That's how they recruited all their members, you know - all the winners. The ones who took down Reimu in their worlds."

What kind of society built by you could be... I swallowed the thought, trying not to get overwhelmed by it. I glanced at Reimu, whose face was impassive, almost bored. Either she didn't believe anything Seija was spinning at us, or she didn't care. Koizumi and Asakura were similarly unimpressed by her casual admission of treachery, but everyone else looked disgusted. Reisen's finger twitched against the side of her rifle. They were probably all feeling the same thing I was.

This one killed to save her own neck. Killed someone who trusted her and was close to her. In my world, Shinmyoumaru told me that she thought of Seija as a friend.

...And still she went and did that.

"Keiki..." Youmu spoke up again. "She's the one who made the clay soldiers, right?"

Seija's face scrunched up when Youmu mentioned the soldiers. "Yeah," she said darkly. "I never saw something so ugly as those things. Hecatia wanted to execute everyone who'd sympathized with the rebels, saying they'd jeopardized our chance at redemption. Keiki convinced her to keep them on - but rebuilt into those. She went on about how they'd be more perfect beings, without any trace of selfish desires for rebellion. In other words, it was a form that she could use to keep them in line. Keiki, man, I hated her guts. The worst part was how much she believed in her own stupid speeches."

I saw Youmu's head tilt downward in my peripheral vision. Seija scratched at her belly, looking off to the side in some kind of reminiscence. She trailed off, and it was a few more seconds before she seemed to remember what she was talking about.

"Hecatia... well, she stopped trusting anyone. Over time, she had Keiki convert others, even those who'd fought against the rebels. First one, then a couple more... Anyone she could blame for betrayal or failure, she'd eventually have 'em converted into a soldier. That's when I knew I had to be perfect. I had to go along with 'em, or I'd be next." Seija's face became slightly manic, and she grinned at us. "So what if I had to sacrifice a few more universes, right? Hecatia always told us when all's said and done, we can undo it. Like nothing bad ever happened."

"You're a coward," spat Reisen.

Seija held up one stiff hand beside her head and said, "Guilty."

"So, the soldiers we fought earlier really were Alternates," mused Koizumi. "You say they were those who won against Reimu - Does that include me?"

Seija snickered at Koizumi. "'Course not. You had your own victory - wanted Haruhi for yourself, to hell with everyone else. Ruined your whole universe in the process, but hey, you got the girl!"

That jealousy he admitted to having. Another version of him acted on it. And now that branch is clay crumbling in the underground.

Koizumi kept smiling, and without missing a beat said, "...And yet only I was recruited? Not Suzumiya herself?"

Seija shrugged. "Hecatia's paranoid. Doesn't like having someone stronger than her around. She tried it once, but it sucked for all of us. I don't have to tell you our whole history, do I? We've kinda been at this for a while."

"I think we've pretty much pieced it together," I said. I didn't know if I believed it - Seija's whole M.O. was telling people what they wanted to hear - but it seemed consistent with what we already knew from Youmu. In the end, the point was that Seija was only working with them because she was in over her head and trying to survive.

"Mind you, Hecatia ain't stupid. She knows who I am. She knows I'm gonna betray her someday." Seija grinned wryly. "And I know she's gonna betray me. We're both useful to each other though, so we're keeping each other alive for now. We've got a great big game of chicken going here, but it's about time I chickened out and joined the winning side."

"Coward," Reisen repeated.

At least she thinks we have good odds to win. That's... kind of refreshing, in a way. I remembered what Junko said just before she died, how we'd all realize our victory was impossible when we faced Hecatia. I wanted to think she was just blowing smoke, but it spooked me more than I cared to admit. I brought my hand up to my face and tried to relax, thinking about whether to call this turn of events a good one or not.

We gained a new ally... but it's Seija.

We got past an Alternate without fighting... but it's Seija.

We have a potential secret weapon against Hecatia now, but... Seija.

Can I believe this? I seriously don't know. It makes sense - for her, being made to follow orders by someone so powerful for so long must've been like death. But even if she's telling the truth, it's not like that means she won't betray us - maybe she'll try to make a play for Haruhi's power somehow. I could see that happening for sure.

"Give us a second," I said. Seija shrugged again, and I turned to everyone else and beckoned them to huddle in. They all crowded around, Reimu and Reisen a bit more reluctantly than the others, and we tried to settle on what to do.

Reimu was the first to speak. "So, that's her."

"...Yeah."

"You had the most experience with, well, our her. What do you think about this one?"

"Hate to say it, but I kind of believe her. Everything that the Seija I knew did, she always did for a goal. Everything. Even if she lied, her actions didn't. With her actions, she believes in what she does, even if it doesn't make sense to others." I had thought for a while that she didn't believe in her own mantras, but I didn't even consider why she was so angry with me when I defeated her. It wasn't that I was weak and going up against her - it was that my past self betrayed her right after she saved the life of my future self. She was angry at that. That was why she called me "ungrateful."

For years, I was totally wrong about my Seija. I really did think that she was upset with me because I was using her own mantra against her. No, it was because she concocted a huge plan that ended up saving my life and I ruined her plan mere minutes afterwards. She saved future me only for past me to betray her.

I was wrong about her, and I finally understood why she looked so betrayed when I put her down.

"So we can trust her?" asked Sanae.

I instantly shook my head. "No. Oh goodness no. I just think that because Hecatia is the bigger threat and more powerful, she's telling us the truth in that she wants to stop it."

"I'm beginning to understand the kind of person she is then." Reisen shot a glance at the amanojaku. "Though I suppose you don't want us to find out more about her. She'll be an enemy of Gensokyo in the future, after all, right?"

I didn't answer that, which was my answer. They were smart enough to understand that.

"Seriously, this future stuff is so infuriating!" Marisa grumbled, running her fingers through her hair, clenching her teeth in frustration. "Now I understand why Asahina had to be mentally conditioned, ze."

"She cheats and she uses words, because that's all she can do. That's all I'll say about her. But just watch yourself." I eyed everyone in the huddle, and they appeared to accept my warning. "If none of you are comfortable with this, let me know, and we can leave her."

"Someone with intimate knowledge of our enemy would be ideal, yet at the same time, it could be a ploy of temptation." Asakura tilted her head to the side, tapping her blade in her hand. "She could be telling the truth. She could be a really good liar. Or she could be telling the truth while being a really good liar."

She's the latter. "Even when she was lying to me, she had enough truth in what she was saying. This..." I again looked to Seija, who just sat there. "I'm very hesitant to agree to what she's saying, yet I know there is truth to her words. How much of it is true is the question."

Youmu looked up from huddle - Seija had been making faces at her, sticking out her tongue and waving. When she finally had her attention, she said, "Hey, half-baked. You said you saw into Quarter's thoughts?"

Youmu gave a slight nod. Everyone, who had been very tense in the presence of an Alternate, had become more relaxed. It's like we all understood that this amanojaku wasn't going to attack us. Don't get me wrong - the way she was looking at people would piss them off, but that's just how the Seija I knew was.

"Ah, yes. I believe the term that's been used is 'melding.' When I was in close proximity to her, we started to share the same thoughts."

Seija stood up straight with a grimace. "Ehhh... Damn it. Knew this would happen. Melding was a part of Haruhi's world. Crossing the worlds got the rules to start working for each of them."

"How's this world crossing thing even work?"

Seija scowled at me. "What do I look like, an expert on that? Hecatia's a god of the crossroads, and took Yukari's power for herself from her world. She knows how to do it. Not me. You gotta ask Hecatia herself." The amanojaku, seemingly done with arguing for the moment, looked out to the city, towards where we had battled. "Crying out loud, I let this go on far too long, but I had to wait. Couldn't do this myself. Honestly? I think I was waiting for you guys. I thought I could do something, but, she let the power go to her head, and she's definitely become too dangerous. She's off the deep end, you know?" Seija lowered her head, something resembling shame crossing her face. "I had to do things for her... create worlds like this... Otherwise I'd get wiped."

"Look, we're not gonna trust you one hundred percent-"

"If you did completely trust me, you'd be even bigger idiots than I took you for," snarked Seija. "That or you're absolutely desperate. Me being part of Hecatia's crew shouldn't be lost on you."

[Nagato:] "That sounds like a trustworthy response."

I had to agree with Nagato. "I think we are a little desperate, and from what you've been saying, so are you. After all, you brought us to meet you. We could have killed you on the spot, especially after such a harsh battle against Junko and Jinwu."

Seija grinned a little. "Guess that's true. But I had to take my chances just like you're gonna with me - I just can't defeat her on my own. I can't stop this by myself, you know? She's so close to realizing everything. And if she gets that power," Seija's fists clenched in anger. "If she gets that power she'll become unstoppable. She'll never let it go and she'll have all realities under her boot."

I shot glances at our group. This was a surprise for everyone, that one of Hecatia's people was willing to join us. While I did believe Seija myself in her reasoning, because I had spent about a day listening to such reasoning from another her, I knew I couldn't bring myself to totally trust the amanojaku.

"Kyon, you know her better than we do." Reimu said from behind me - I could tell just from her tone that she also wanted me to make the cautious decision. "Whatever you decide on this, I'll follow, okay?" I heard a round of quiet approvals for that plan from the group as well regarding that.

Looks like I really am going on one final adventure with Seija. Just not to the moon, but to my school.

I looked her square in the eye. She was still tense, understanding that we outnumbered and possibly were more powerful than she could hope to be to stand up to us in a fight, if we didn't just attack her one at a time. And of course I had my ability. I think the group was trusting that more than anything else. After all, if Seija tried something, I'd be able to tell them on a reset and we'd wipe her out, no matter how much she dodged. Amanojaku are supposed to be weak creatures after all.

"You just want to stop her, right?"

"I need to stop it." Seija grumbled. "This bullcrap's gone on far too long."

I slowly nodded. "Well, I'd extend my hand in a handshake, but-"

"I'd just spit in it." She was dead serious in saying that.

That being said, it looked like we had come to an agreement. I was going to have to... I started to curse my luck. Not only did I have Asakura as an ally, but Seija too. The two girls that I hated the most in my life.

[Nagato:] "At least one of these Alternates are willing to talk and listen."

"Well, that being said," Asakura spoke as she began to float up in the air. "Shall we get going? We've wasted enough time chatting with this creature-"

"I wouldn't recommend that." Seija picked up a rock, and tossed it into the air towards North High.

Almost immediately, a rune formed in the air, disintegrating the rock.

Seija just stared at it, again seemingly disgusted with this power. "When Junko and Jinwu left, they set up runes in the air, in case any of you idiots got any bright ideas to hightail it to North High. Naw, we're gonna have to walk. Those runes surround the area like a closed space. Should be safe to fly on campus, but around it, if you fly in the air, you're fried. Safe on the ground though."

"I didn't detect those at all," said Asakura, tilting her body to one side as if observing an idle curiosity rather than a deathtrap that she'd failed to notice. "This data jurisdiction is very unreliable. How unfortunate."

...And that's why you flipped us to meet you down here instead of at North High.

No, if you wanted to kill us, you wouldn't have had to do anything. Just let the runes take us, fry us up, and you wouldn't have to had lift a finger. That sounds more like you, to let something else work in your favor. Granted, I'd be able to figure out how to get past them after a while, but still - she went out of her way to prevent us from tripping a death trap.

Mind you, I still wasn't going to trust her. In no way was I going to one hundred percent trust her, even if she was from another reality. Yet there I was. I found myself working again with the amanojaku Seija Kijin.

"She's... joining us."

Everyone was surprised to hear Nagato speak those words, moreso when she explained the circumstances. Yukari had considered it in the realm of possibility - she knew what kind of person Seija was, but the extent of it still impressed her. Eirin didn't seem to care one way or another; she picked up the white rook, flipped it upside down, and placed it on the black side.

"She could be a plant," said Yukari. "It would not be above Hecatia to send an infiltrator, even one as obvious as her. If it were me, I'd send two, and make one of them much harder to detect."

Eirin snorted. "If you think you have only one ally who might turn on you, I'm afraid I have some bad news: You're not a popular girl."

"I let you touch my chessboard because I want your perspective on strategy, not my personality."

"My perspective is that your personality is detrimental to strategy. If I hadn't told Tenshi she's next in line, she'd have mutinied."

...She might have, at that. Yukari cast an irritable eye at Tenshi, whose preparatory stretches were interrupted by Nagato's declaration and who was now complaining to anyone who'd listen that Seija's defection meant she had to wait even more for her grand arrival.

"And you're a pillar of kindness to your people, I take it?" Yukari remarked.

"Kindness is irrelevant. What I have is charisma." Eirin flipped her hair and smiled sweetly at Yukari, who choked in disgust as a response.

"...Right. Well, if your charismatic self can give our people their marching orders now... I assume you've accounted for the fact that the front way in will probably be heavily fortified?"

Eirin waved a dismissive hand and folded her arms, still all too apparently unconcerned with the fate of their allies in the other universe. "Other ways in will be even more secure. Forcing it is the only reasonable option. You have good people there, you know - Reimu knows how to remain on top of a situation, and Koizumi has a tactical mind. I don't think you realize how much he might even give you a run for your money. I won't presume to tell them how they should go about it."

You have a fascinating idea of what it means to direct people, Eirin... Yukari hugged herself and waited quietly, only getting more anxious at the turn this was taking. Still, she had to agree that the best people for the job were there; after all, she'd picked them herself.

It seemed that most of the village had joined the prayer. The eyes of the dragon statue had actually shone in a brilliant yet dangerous looking light, as bright as the sun, and had quelled after some time. They still shone, but not as intense as earlier.

Kosuzu had been scared, as had most of the other villagers, because during that time, the Earth shook. Various geysers could be seen popping up in Gensokyo, off in the distance. It felt as if the incident was shaking the Earth to its core. Kosuzu prayed and prayed, according to the slip of paper that Akyuu had produced, asking those gathered to pray along with her. Kosuzu still couldn't remember the exact prayer clearly, as it was an intense time. Something about allowing the incident resolvers to drive back the invader. To help them strike at her weakness, to keep her and her power incapacitated. That was at the apex of the brightness, before it began to fade, as had the shaking.

The villagers were still out there praying, as Akyuu wasn't finished, saying that there was another prayer for them to say. As long as the eyes remained red, the village, no, the world was in danger. That's what Kosuzu felt, as had a lot of the villagers around her as well.

Reimu, Marisa, and whoever else is with you two, please keep fighting. I know a lot of people look down on you incident resolvers, but without any of you, we may have already been overrun long ago. Scarlet Mist, Endless Night, and especially Spring Snow. Kosuzu knew of some families that froze to death due to that. She had lost a friend to that cold, and could have lost more. Her own family was in danger, but thankfully the spring returned before it got close to getting that bad. She remembered huddling with her family, so cold that she hurt and was unable to even sleep, then the snow stopped. The snow stopped, and warmth was returning to the land. She looked outside, seeing the Herald of Spring herself Lilly White flying through the village. And the pain of the cold was gone.

Kosuzu's mom had broken down crying in relief, and Kosuzu felt like doing the same back then, but couldn't help but watch the fairy, becoming entranced due to the fact that what she had considered a mere child's story character actually being real. It kind of inspired her budding love for stories, which in turn sparked her deep love of books.

It was such a harsh time, but so much stemmed from it, grew from it, all thanks to the efforts of those who put their lives on the line. Reimu, Marisa, you can't give up now. We're all depending on you. You and your allies. Please come back safe - I want to get to know you two. Your actions have given me so much.

Nobody said much on our way up the hill. Nobody trusted Seija, and Seija got a little testy when we made her walk in front just in case she was wrong about there not being any ground-based traps. It was probably for the best; they weren't due to know her for a few more years down the line, so this arrangement of ours could have been problematic. Then again, the same could have been said of Kasen. Even some of the other Alternates might have ended up being part of their lives in the future, though from what I gathered, Seija was the only one who used to live in Gensokyo.

Many of us were on edge at the fact that we'd been directed to go in through the front. It made some sense; the runes prevented almost all other movement, but I'd have thought that someone like Yukari would have made a sneakier plan than this. It wasn't just our plan that felt weird, either: Even though the world had been destroyed, the hill itself was familiar enough that it had a nostalgic air to it. I was on my way to school again, on the same awful route as always. I was a lot fitter than I was in high school though, so despite the fatigue from our earlier battles, it was easier to walk up the incline than it used to be. Maybe the sense of purpose helped that, too. The fact that my companions were mostly people I'd fought and bled beside instead of Taniguchi didn't hurt, either.

Not that I didn't miss him. This twisted scene was just normal enough that it made me long for normalcy again. Maybe I could've let it motivate me somehow, but instead it was just depressing.

Koizumi was the only one who didn't stay quiet. He kept asking Seija questions about the Alternates - their organizational structure, their plans, and whether they had any other secret weapons or members that might take us by surprise. Seija's answers were short, and the only useful information she had amounted to confirming what we already suspected: We'd given the Alternates a black eye and the ones in the school were still licking their wounds, though Hecatia at least had managed to recover. If Hecatia had any moves left to make, she hadn't trusted Seija enough to let her in on them. At least she managed to corroborate that the only Alternate we hadn't met was indeed an alternate Nagato.

"Do you know anything specific about her?" Koizumi asked. "We've precious little information, and the implications of what we know are different depending on interpretation."

What we know? All we know is that she wears glasses.

[Nagato:] "That in itself is telling. Assuming this version of me is similar to begin with, her branch point could have been at two periods in time: Either she is from before I erased Ryoko Asakura, or she is from the world of common sense that I created for myself."

Right... and the you from that world had no powers. You were a normal girl in a normal world.

[Nagato:] "The branch point dictates whether this Alternate is a humanoid interface or a human. Naturally, the former is much more dangerous."

...Then she'd have to be an interface, right? If Hecatia only picked winners, then I can't imagine she'd be a weaker version. I watched Seija, who was taking a while to answer. She scratched her chin, rocking her head in thought, and finally gave up and shrugged.

"Couldn't tell ya," she said. "She's like a silent partner. Hardly says a word, let alone about herself. Never seen her do anything either. Don't know if she can fight, 'cause she sure hasn't up until now."

"Miss Asakura?" Koizumi smiled at Asakura, who smiled right back the same way.

"I can't detect her presence," she said. "There is something interfering with my attempts at securing data jurisdiction closer to the school, but the data patterns are too chaotic. You might say that if it's her, she's nothing like herself."

...In the worst-case scenario, this could be a Nagato with Haruhi's powers. I realized the possibility a little bit late - obviously Nagato had only created that world of common sense by hijacking Haruhi. Wouldn't that explain the chaotic data stuff?

[Nagato:] "Perhaps. However, a me with total control of Haruhi Suzumiya's abilities would have already won."

...I guess you're right about that. Plus, Seija did say that Hecatia didn't want anyone stronger than her...

[Asakura:] "Well, nothing to worry about. I've been preparing alternative resolution factors since the problem was detected. Give me enough time, and I'll be able to control or destroy even Hecatia herself."

If you can pull that off, then... yeah. By all means. Asakura being smuggled into this universe as a card turned out to be a big advantage for us. Without her, the earlier battle would've been a lot uglier, and it seemed like she might pull us out of the fire again soon.

...Yeah, this was the right choice. Having Nagato with Haruhi while Asakura was on the front lines was the better play. At least Nagato could comfort Haruhi - Asakura could act friendly enough, but her presence would just have confused Haruhi even more. And ultimately, Asakura had no qualms about making the tough decisions. Maybe we needed a little bit of cold hard logic and ruthlessness.

As I thought this, Seija stopped in her tracks. Koizumi stopped just behind her, and the rest of us went on guard, watching the sky and waiting. Shanghai hovered in front of me, shield at the ready, and I saw Seija rub the top of her head ruefully.

"Welp. Here's our first idiot who doesn't know when to give up." She clenched and unclenched her hand, then raised it towards the closed and snow-covered front gate that had just come into view around the bend of the hill. Leaning a bit to one side, I caught sight of who she was waving at.

Mayumi. She stood at one end of the gate where she could see down the road, sword in her left hand, her eyes as dead as Seija's. Pieces of her body were still chipped away from before and she was still missing her right arm, but she was now standing on a complete pair of legs. The skirt and pants of her uniform looked different, mismatched with the rest of her somehow. Seija noticed as well; she walked forward up the hill until she was in speaking distance, then called out, "So that's what all the screaming was about. Are we supposed to call her Eighth now? Or didja finally do her a favor and put her out of her misery?"

...Eh?

"Those legs are..." Youmu's voice cracked and she trailed off, staring at Mayumi.

...Oh, hell no.

The skirt and pants were mismatched because they were from the regular soldier's uniform. The gold of Mayumi's armor had been tarnished and cut away in places, but there was none on the skirt. On Mayumi's right leg, poking out from the end of the pants at about knee height was a depression in the shape of a hand molded into her flesh.

That very same soldier who Youmu had spared and allowed to drag Mayumi back to safety for her own sake...

That's how you repaid her for saving your life?

I bit my lip and stared at Mayumi's face, which showed neither remorse nor pity. She glowered at Seija, neither one of them making a move.

"I always knew this day would come, Seija. You are weak to your own sentiments. You've shamed the trust that my master placed in you."

Seija rolled her neck and flexed her hand. "Ah, yeah, I'm a stinker," she groaned. "Wonder which one of us's worse? Maybe Quarter'd know."

Thinking back on what Kasen said in that cavern about power and corruption, it was easy to see her point. Every one of the Alternates I'd met had been an idealist at first, and over so much time trying to build their perfect universe, they'd been reduced to this. Bickering, murdering brutes who'd stab each other in the back in a race to perform their next atrocity. Seija's little story, assuming it was true, had shown me that even outside of the universes they'd created and erased from existence, it seemed like everyone who got sucked into this horrible scheme had become a monster.

Maybe I was lucky that Hecatia seemed to consider me too weak to recruit into her ranks. I didn't have to imagine myself becoming like these people, abandoning my humanity and acting like a youkai. For a while I even had the ability to pretend I was immune to that, but I'd been forced to change as well. I had to make peace with the idea of killing. I had to kill Junko with my own hands. I had to constantly second-guess my own allies, whether it was Seija or Yukari or even Reimu. What would I have done if I'd found myself somehow in this Seija's position? I don't know if there was a way out that didn't involve killing her friend, but would I really have been strong enough to give up my own life alongside hers, rather than gambling on a way out where only one of us dies? Better yet, is it making excuses to say that they only became that way because of circumstances, or was it the case that they were really that way all along? If I became like that in some alternate universe, was it because I changed, or because there was always a part of me even I didn't know about?

"You never can seem to accept the consequences of your actions," Mayumi growled. "Lady Hecatia had ordered you remade in clay, yet my master was killed right before it could happen. What convenient timing for you."

Seija paused, covering her mouth with her hand. She stared at Mayumi for a good while, then mumbled quietly, "Well... I'm just lucky, I guess."

"Even I can be glad for your nature now." Mayumi glanced over the rest of us with steely eyes, clearly ready in case any of us tried to attack. "You're most dangerous to us as an ally, it seems. If you live through the next few minutes, it will be no time at all before you've destroyed them all for us."

"Gee, you think so highly of me. I can't believe you think I might live through a fight." Seija drew her hand from her mouth, revealing her shark-like grin, then twisted her body away from Mayumi and looked back at her over her shoulder. "But y'know, you should really take a look at your own flaws someday. You're so straightforward, it hurts. You always think everything's gonna be decided with a fight." She turned her head back to us, then raised her eyes up somewhere to our right without moving her head.

"Well," Seija muttered, "I didn't put that weakness in you. You grew into that your own self."

Mayumi, looked at the rest of us again, and her eyes widened - I didn't have time to realize what she saw before she moved, and just as she did so, the crack of a gunshot ripped through the air and her right eye exploded in a burst of clay fragments. Youmu was on it in an instant, drawing her blade while dashing forward and attacking all in one motion, which Mayumi still managed to parry while backing up and positioning herself behind Youmu - the shot had come from the crumpled roof of a ruined building behind us and to our right, and I noticed that Reisen wasn't standing with us.

When did...

Did Seija notice she'd snuck off?

She would have. Unlike Mayumi, Seija's first instinct was always some type of ambush.

And unlike Seija, Youmu was already used to fighting alongside Reisen. She dodged to one side as quick as lightning, and a shot followed up one moment later where she'd just been. Part of the top of Mayumi's head broke off this time, but the next two shots she managed to dodge entirely, still refusing to cede ground or get into cover. As soon as she got into the momentum of dueling with Youmu, Reisen could no longer land a good shot. Meanwhile since it wasn't safe to fly, the rest of us spread across the road, trying to get an angle on Mayumi and pelt her with danmaku. I kept the Sword of Hisou at the ready, but with everyone else shooting, it felt like I'd do more good hanging back than getting in the way, focus mode or no.

It was coming at her from all angles. Mayumi was at a clear disadvantage here - she was wide open in front of a gate, and it would have been safer for her to retreat just inside and fight us as we tried to get through. However, the gate remained shut fast, and she did everything she could to remain between it and Youmu. She dodged, parried, and kicked with a desperate speed, never managing to push an offensive and barely managing to keep up her own defense.

"That girl's more stubborn than any of 'em," Seija murmured as she walked past me on her way to the rear of the group, clearly not intending to do any fighting herself. "That gate's her last stand. She won't give it up 'til she's dead on the ground." She looked back over her shoulder at the battle and said, "Always did hate that stupid sense of honor. It almost made me respect her before she went and turned into a hypocrite."

If I squinted, her fighting out in front of the gate might have resembled something like honor. She was a one-woman wall in front of our whole group, spending more time defending against the attacks coming at her from all sides than she did attacking.

"She's not even using any spell cards," I observed. Not that there was much time; every fraction of a second was filled with the whirling of blades.

"She's got nothing," replied Seija. "Nothing good, anyway. Her strength was her army, and her army's all gone. Now that there's no one left to use, this is all she has."

A real last stand. She can't possibly think she can beat us, can she? Is she just trying to buy time?

[Nagato:] "In her mind, it's likely she has no choice."

No choice?

I watched Mayumi's face as she fought against Youmu. There wasn't much I could do for now other than watch and get ready to reset if someone on our side went down, so I had the luxury of standing back here and being useless like Seija. In the brief moments when she slowed down enough for me to see, I realized that her earlier determination was gone. Her features were soft, like she was in a trance. Maybe it was my imagination, but it looked to me like the face of someone resigned to what they knew was coming.

[Nagato:] "Her whole existence has been spent as someone's servant. Her master's legacy is her life, and failing to protect it is the same as death. It's possible that in her mind, she is already dead."

A loud crack sounded from the fight - in the moment when Youmu tried to thrust the Roukanken, Mayumi mounted and balanced on the back of it with one foot, using the other to deliver a kick to Youmu's head. Youmu and the sword both hit the ground, and I felt a shot of panic as I readied the Sword of Hisou to either jump into the fight or hurt myself, but Mayumi lunged backward instead of forward. Everyone ceased firing, waiting to correct for her next move.

She didn't make one. She remained standing in front of the gate, looking down at Youmu with a hollow expression as she took up her sword again and leapt to her feet.

"You're passionate," she said dully, "like all who fight for love. In a drawn-out battle, you eventually over-extend."

"Like you know me... at least I have something left to fight for." Youmu breathed out, re-asserting her grip on the Roukanken. She looked shaken by the way that Mayumi managed to hold her off, but she wasn't finished by a long shot. With her left hand, she reached down to the Hakurouken at her hip and drew it out of its sheath.

"Two weapons will make you even more reckless," said Mayumi.

"Shut up."

Even now, she's trying to pick at us. She's still not attacking, just doing everything she can to throw us off-balance and slow us down.

...Oh, yeah. Chiyuri said something about that. I guess this might be my last chance.

"Mayumi," I called forward, leaving behind Shanghai and Hourai and coming up beside Youmu so I could try and lend her some real support this time. "You changed us, right? Gave us weaknesses. Not that I really get how."

Mayumi didn't say anything, just looked back and forth between Youmu and I with her one eye. Her right eye was just a hole, and through it I could see the hollow inside of her head. Just like the other soldiers, she was nothing but a shell.

"Well... Chiyuri wanted me to ask you why she can use her powers in the outside world."

I don't see how the answer might help us now, but...

Mayumi's eye got stuck on me. She didn't say anything, but frowned instead in the way that someone does when they have no idea what you're talking about. Looking back, I saw Seija alone raising an eyebrow in confusion.

...Or maybe there's just no answer.

Yeah, I mean, how could there be? Espers are bound by Haruhi's common sense; the kind that says that people can't fly around and fight giant monsters in the real world. If I understood this right, there were three kinds of changes made to our universe: The kinds that happened naturally for no discernible reason because of our worlds being mashed together, the kinds that Mayumi made to give us weaknesses she could exploit, and the kinds that Clownpiece made to try and mess with reality and make Hecatia somehow compatible with Haruhi and Sasaki. If Mayumi was the one who made the basic template for weakening us, then Clownpiece's changes were made on top of that, and the random stuff would have occurred somewhere in the middle of all of that.

What did that mean? It meant Mayumi's boasting about how she laid out our lives was pretty much meaningless. Clownpiece's changes were the chaos in her script, and from what we'd learned, those changes happened to make us unusually strong. Maybe they even made Chiyuri strong enough to break free from Haruhi's rules. Maybe they made Yukari and Seija able to outsmart them and bring me back to life. As we saw earlier, Youmu was strong enough to defeat Mayumi - it was only because of Quarter that she lived to come back for round four.

"I get it now. You don't have nearly as much control over us as you want us to think." I kept the Sword of Hisou's hilt in my hand at the ready, still unextended as I tried one more time to provoke a response from her. "You might've set things up so we'd be a certain way at the start of this whole thing. Maybe there are parts of us that are all your doing." I glanced down at Youmu, who grimaced slightly as I said that.

...But you wouldn't give up just because of that. You'd turn that into a strength, not a weakness.

"But you couldn't do anything to control us after that. Even without Clownpiece, we'd still have been able to make our own choices in the end, and you couldn't predict what kind of people we might've become."

Especially me. You've never fought me before today, have you? No one could've thought I'd end up holding this sword. Yasumi was the one who arranged that.

Beside me was a Youmu who'd grown. Even if she'd still die to protect Yuyuko or even me, she had something to live for, and she'd gained things she never would've otherwise. She trained with Tenshi in celestial techniques. She had those peaches and Nagato's nanomachines in her. She'd grown to trust not just me, but also Reisen behind us - that was how the two of them could fight Mayumi at the same time earlier. No doubt Reisen was still standing by, waiting for a shot that Mayumi wouldn't be able to avoid. She'd changed a fair bit just today, too.

The biggest difference from Mayumi's plan was me, though. Not just the new things I had, but the things I'd learned: Against someone like this, who depended on predictions and knowing their enemy, the best way to fight them was to cheat. She knew I was faster than I should be, but maybe she didn't realize that the camera strapped to my body was what was giving me that speed. Anything - any little thing she didn't know could potentially be used to trip her up, and I had a few ideas about how to take advantage of that.

"We're not an open book for you," I said, circling around her away from Youmu. The more Mayumi had to twist her body to deal with us, the better. The others wouldn't be able to shoot into this battle - just Reisen. It would have to be the three of us against her on this hill. Better that everyone else conserved their energy, anyway.

"You are," Mayumi said in a tired voice. "We all are. Nothing more than someone else's game, someone else's dream... You still don't know the truth."

The hell I don't.

Time slowed down as Youmu and I rushed forward at the same moment. Youmu reached her first, guarding with the Hakurouken while slashing horizontally with the Roukanken. Mayumi leapt into the air, spinning her body around the side of the Roukanken and aiming her left boot at Youmu's head. The boot connected instead with the blade of the Hakurouken and was penetrated, but Mayumi didn't react to it. She twisted her body again around a bullet that crossed over Youmu's head and in front of me from Reisen's direction, and finally struck out with her sword at the same time towards my face, forcing me to duck under it.

She's found her loyalty again... or maybe she's just deluding herself. Whichever one was the case, her movements were much quicker and more precise than they'd been at the end of the last battle. To an outside observer, those opening moves all happened in the blink of an eye, but she was still able to defend herself against all three of us at once. For my next move, I activated the Sword of Hisou and thrust it up at her. She tilted her foot, driving the Hakurouken deeper into it but leveraging her body over Youmu's and out of my blade's path, parrying another strike from the Roukanken with her own sword at the same time. For a brief moment, she was pretty much standing on top of Youmu, but then she fell backwards, swinging her sword past her own head and flipping upside down while still tethered to Youmu and changing the center of gravity. Youmu had to jump in order to avoid the strike at her legs, but as soon as she did so, Mayumi put her other boot against her left hand, pinching it together with the boot that was stuck on the Hakurouken and somersaulting Youmu right over top of her and slamming her into the ground with her feet. Youmu made a choking sound as the wind was knocked out of her; the whole thing looked more like a wrestling move than a swordfighting technique, and it took us both off guard.

Neither Mayumi nor Reisen hesitated to follow up. Youmu's left hand refused to relinquish the Hakurouken, so Mayumi put her sword hand on the ground and pushed against the ground, launching herself to her feet on top of Youmu just as a bullet impacted the ground where she'd been. I seized the opportunity afforded by her arm and feet both being occupied to cross the distance. I swung the Sword of Hisou, but instead of meeting me with her own, Mayumi leapt to the side and sliced through a small flurry of flying red and white amulets that followed her. A little ways ahead, I saw Reimu sneer at her missed shot.

...I guess they're not all staying put after all. Nice try, though.

Three more bullets from Reisen followed, but Mayumi contorted herself around me in a circle and away from them, once again putting herself between the gate and me. Behind me, Youmu sprang to her feet and moved forward, but before she could get up next to me, I made my next play. I pulled the camera off my neck, trying to act like it was getting in the way. To be fair, it was; fighting with a camera flopping around on my chest wasn't the most pleasant experience. I brought it behind my body with my left hand, looping the strap around my belt to secure it. Then, with my hand still hidden, I made a signal. I wasn't exactly practiced in sleight of hand, but this should have been simple enough... in theory.

I watched Mayumi's eye. She was back in her old position, watching Youmu and me. She looked down at what my hand was doing, but never beyond it, which told me she didn't notice Shanghai sneaking up behind us. I felt her tiny hands undoing the camera from where it was secured, and I felt her get pushed into my back as Youmu grabbed it instead. Then with my left hand, I reached into my satchel and pulled out a vial, readying it in throwing position. I wasn't about to use up one of my last resources, but it would do as a feint.

She has hardly any experience fighting me, but she still knows what the Sword of Hisou does, so I can't trick her into taking a hit from it. Still, that first attack was necessary - like Seija said, she's too straightforward. She'll expect that we're just going to keep throwing ourselves at her, and she's going to plan around a fight. Now that she's seen us both in action, she thinks she knows what our limits are.

Just like when Seija snuck up on Keine. A little misdirection gives a big advantage.

If I pulled this off perfectly and it still didn't take her out, no amount of resetting was going to help me. Mayumi's defense was rock-solid, and the only other alternative would be to grind her down over a long period. If it came to that, we'd be in a worse position later on.

"You know what I'm thinking, right?" I whispered as Youmu took a place next to me.

"Maybe," she said. "Are you going to be okay, though?"

I nodded. "Reisen should know what to do, too."

We haven't come all this way together for nothing.

This time, Youmu circled wide around Mayumi to my right, while I crept up straight on. I could feel my movements being slower already, but I couldn't let on that I'd limited myself, so I made sure not to act like I was in any rush. Shanghai clung to my belt, keeping herself hidden from view. She'd left her shield behind, hidden by the bend of the cliff.

This is going to decide it.

Mayumi watched Youmu more than me, but her eye would occasionally dart to the vial in my hand. When we got close enough, time slowed down again and Youmu dashed at the same speed she had gone before. I raised my vial in a throwing motion, aiming behind Mayumi. Mayumi side-stepped Youmu's first vertical strike with the Hakurouken, then leapt up on top of the horizontal Roukanken slash. At the same time, she threw her sword on the ground and brought up her own hand, much faster than mine, whipping an object straight towards my hand. It took a second for me to get a good look at it; a fragment from her own face. In fact, it was half of her right eye she threw. She was aiming to blow up the vial before I could throw it, or at least get me to dodge and buy her another second or two.

Unfortunately for her, I wasn't planning on halting my backswing. I kept my hand moving, twisting my body with it and turning to the side, revealing Shanghai on my back. A red light erupted from her, a weak laser that Mayumi still nonetheless had to bend backwards to avoid - and in the same moment she did that, Youmu accelerated to her new top speed, pulling the Roukanken away from under her feet and slashing it right back diagonally across her chestplate, which parted open when it met the blade's edge. Two bullets followed up, finding their way inside the chestplate and knocking Mayumi out of the air.

Come on! This is it!

As soon as Shanghai's laser had missed, I broke into a run at Mayumi. Mayumi was reaching down as she fell for the sword she'd discarded, but Youmu was faster, knocking it away with one foot and dodging the retaliatory kick that Mayumi aimed at her. All of Mayumi's defenses had been tied up, and in the brief moment she was vulnerable, I swung the Sword of Hisou up from my left, where her head was at as she fell, to my right. She managed to move her head, but I caught her in the collar, and the flaming blade had the effect of water as it struck her flesh and absorbed the scarlet mist that sprang out of it, turning her clay body soggy in an instant and carving up into her chest. Her whole useless right shoulder was severed from her body and the dampness spread inside of her, infecting the rest of her body and giving it the consistency of mud.

[SPELL CARD: LIFE-CUTTING SWORD "SLASH OF NETHER MEDITATION"]

Mayumi was completely stunned. Reisen peppered her with more bullets from afar, blasting away more pieces of her torso and keeping her in that state as Youmu sheathed the Hakurouken and held the Roukanken aloft, lighting it ablaze with green flame that doubled its length. Summoning one last burst of energy, Mayumi stood straight up and tried to lunge to her left away from the slash, but Youmu still brought it down on top of her, this time going through the right side of Mayumi's collar - a clean stroke diagonally through her body that would have cut her in half, but the far end of the blade connected with the gate behind her and bounced off before she was halfway through. Youmu reeled back and I moved up to finish her off, but by the time I stood over Mayumi, she had collapsed and wasn't moving. Her sword had been dropped behind her. Her right shoulder was only barely still connected to her body, which was now riddled with slashes and bullet holes and looked like it might melt or crumble all on its own.

Her head was turned to the left, towards the gate, and her eye was still open, but it wasn't looking at anything. It didn't move. A slight fluttering in her eyelid was the only sign that she was still alive. I pointed the Sword of Hisou down at her, ready to strike if she so much as moved.

Well, actually I was just trying to work up my nerve. It'd been on my mind, and it sucked to think about, but I pretty much had to kill her anyway. I mean, I couldn't take her prisoner. I couldn't leave her here. Of all people, she'd never give up information that Seija didn't have access to. Anything I did would be a risk.

Now's not the time to show mercy.

Despite thinking that, my hands shook. I'd already stabbed Junko to death, but that was in the heat of the moment. This was different. This was... someone who'd pretty much surrendered.

...Not like I've never killed a prisoner before.

"Kyon." Youmu moved in, gripping the Roukanken cautiously. "You don't have to. Let me..."

"It doesn't matter who does it. It just has to be done."

I wasn't angry. At least, I didn't think so. I just felt like I needed to take responsibility for this so I could get over it. It was safe to hesitate now, with everyone surrounding a half-dead enemy - what if I hesitated later, and it cost us everything right before the goal?

Decisive action without letting your emotions get the better of you. Right, Nagato?

[Nagato:] "That would be optimal. But if you ask me whether you're emotional now..."

I know. That's why I have to get used to it.

I shook my head and caught my breath. "Sorry, Youmu. Let me do this."

"No, let me." Reisen's voice came from right behind us - she was on the hill now, way too close to have just walked here from the top of that building in the distance. She strode towards us with purpose, staring at Mayumi on the ground.

"How'd you-"

"Asakura helped. She couldn't manipulate the battle, but she pinpointed the airborne runes in the area so I could snipe and fly between them." Reisen wedged her foot underneath Mayumi's body and flipped her over so that she was lying face-up. Mayumi's head flopped to one side, her eye twitching and actively avoiding looking at us. Reisen slung her rifle and drew her pistol instead, pointing it down at Mayumi's face. "I want to talk to her before she dies, and I want to be the one to do it." Reisen shot me a look with her red eyes, and I once again felt an instinctive need to look away as I saw into them. "Got it?"

I didn't see the point in arguing any longer. I withdrew the Sword of Hisou and stepped back to give her room.

"You're the one," said Reisen, moving up further to look at Mayumi's face. "You're the one who changed us. You're the one who messed with our lives just so you could manipulate our weaknesses later. Do you even understand what that did?"

Mayumi didn't respond. She stared down the hill at nothing in particular. Reisen lowered her gun and put a bullet in her sternum, causing her body to arch. Still though, Mayumi's expression didn't change.

"Answer me!" Reisen screeched. "What hell was it all for?! Power?! You wanted to rule over other people?! You wanted to gloat about how you turned our lives inside out while you killed us?!"

"I-I-I weakened..." Mayumi's voice came out in a shudder, and her head and face hardly moved. She never met Reisen's eyes. "...the Lunar Capital. Took away their advanced technology. Made the Moon landing a real invasion. So they'd never be able to threaten us in our universes..."

"That's what you did to my home. Not to me."

Mayumi's eye looked blearily up at Reisen. "...What did I do to you, then?"

"Don't act like you don't know." Reisen's hand shook. "I know what I did back then. I fought. I did what I should. And then you gave me these memories. You made me think I didn't." She steadied herself and put her finger on the trigger again, raising her voice even further. "You made me question my whole existence! It's all your fault!"

Mayumi didn't move. She stayed silent, studying Reisen's face. Reisen didn't say anything, either - she fired into Mayumi's body again, but it didn't provoke a reaction this time.

"Ah, don't shoot me for saying this, but..." Seija spoke up from behind Reisen, who whipped her gun around to point at her. Seija put her hands and her eyebrows up with a deadpan expression. "...I said don't shoot me. You're making this awkward."

"Why the hell should I believe anything you say?"

Seija shrugged. "I ain't lied to you yet..."

Reisen glanced at me, then turned the gun back on Mayumi instead. Seija took that as a cue to lower her hands and start clenching her right again.

"So, like I was saying... We didn't give anybody fake memories. And if I remember my own universes right... You kinda did run away-"

Reisen whipped up her gun and shot at the pavement under Seija, making her jump and start hovering upside down in the air a little ways off the ground. It was a crazy-fast reflex actually, looking more like she snapped into that position than actually moved. Her eyes were now wide and jittering, and her hands started to shake. At the risk of sounding insensitive, she looked more like a cornered rabbit than Reisen did. After a few moments though, she calmed down and landed right side up again.

"You don't take suggestions very well, do you?" she sniffed.

Everyone's getting strung higher and higher. At this rate, our teamwork might suffer... I cast another look around us and past the gate, making sure no one else was sneaking up on us. If someone wanted to take us by surprise, now would have been a great time.

"I think she's probably telling the truth," spoke Koizumi, whose smile looked more sympathetic than placating now. "Mayumi's main job was to weaken us, and then defeat us if we ever got far enough that the universe's handler couldn't deal with us. Putting your case aside, the Alternates would have gained nothing from giving us shadow memories of previous universes."

That's true. If Chiyuri and I hadn't had that dream about Utsuho, we might not have ever made it here. And I mean, I know I've been assuming the shadow memories weren't on purpose. If the Alternates could send us visions like that, they'd have been a little more clever about it, right?

...Which means...

"You ran away," wheezed Mayumi, "in every universe... except this one."

The look Reisen gave her was almost as dead as her own. She didn't threaten Mayumi this time, just waited for her to continue. She eventually did, still half-dead and devoid of feeling.

"The humans landed on the Moon... the foolish moon rabbits believed it was an invasion... and you ran away. That's how your story always went. Only I made the invasion real... and in this universe, you happened to have a spine." She drew in a rocky breath that just escaped through all the holes in her body, and mustered a weak chortle. "If any one person did that, it's Clownpiece. Without her, you'd never have had that sense of duty." Her eye lidded, and she glared up at Reisen with a small spark of defiance. "I never had to weaken you specifically. The original you was always weak."

...Aw, hell.

Reisen didn't respond. Her eyes became unfocused, and she didn't move. Eventually, Youmu walked up with a look of concern on her face, but Reisen just turned around and walked away from Mayumi.

"...You do it," she told Youmu.

"Reisen..."

"I don't care anymore. I just want this to be over."

Her tone of voice didn't sound like she didn't care. It sounded to me like she was trying to choke down her feelings and stay calm. Youmu stood over Mayumi, looking just as unsure of herself.

"...It should be you, Quarter." Mayumi closed her eye. "You always destroyed everything beautiful in the world."

"Shut up." Youmu raised the Roukanken, hesitation on her face. "I know your feelings. You wrote them all over my memories... but I'm not Quarter, and she wasn't the one who killed your master."

"You would have. It's all the same story."

I just didn't get it. It was like she really believed that our different selves were all the same. From her perspective, there was nothing at all separating this Youmu from that one.

No one felt like trying to get anything more out of her. We just waited for the strike, but before it came, someone else butted in from my left.

"Didn't they beat you 'cause it's not?"

My blood turned to ice and I must've reacted like Seija; the gate was right next to me, and the manic squealing voice from the other side of it was way too close. I found myself facing Clownpiece, whose grinning face peeked between the bars of the school gate while the rest of her body was hidden behind the wall. Without ever touching the gate, she stood up on tiptoe to see over the snow on top of it, silently laughing at Mayumi on the ground before looking at all the rest of us. Her wingless, beaten-up body was hardly imposing, but not knowing how long she'd been there had me nervous. Reisen brought up her pistol, but didn't fire - it was obvious the gate was booby-trapped.

"Hey, hey. I made you guys really strong, didn't I? Doesn't that mean I beat Mayumi and Junko and Jinwu, who're super, super-duper strong? Doesn't that make me kind of amazing? Hey, don't you think?" Clownpiece bounced up and down, cackling with her mouth wide open and her few remaining teeth bared. Even compared to before, there was something disturbing about her attitude right now that made me reel backward in revulsion. It was like a little kid who'd just gotten a huge Christmas present and couldn't contain her joy.

"I mean, I didn't die when I fought you, but they did! Weren't they just too weak compared to me? Right?"

The others moved up and spread out behind us, and I didn't know whether we should stand ground, retreat, or try breaking through the gate. Youmu froze with her sword above her head. It was hard to read whether Clownpiece was getting ready to fight us or just jeering from safety. She didn't seem to care about us at all right now; she just kept jabbering excitedly at Mayumi.

"And, and, it's not like I was never in control, you know? I've been amazing all this time. 'Cause you know, you know, everyone looked up to Lady Keiki, right? Even though she wasn't half as incredible as Lady Hecatia and Lady Hecatia's the one who picked her in the first place and they're all a bunch of-" Clownpiece inhaled sharply, bending her whole body backward and going stiff as a board with a euphoric expression. Her eyes were bloodshot and tinged with green, and her battered appearance made her look... well, nuts. Like someone who'd been stretched beyond their breaking point.

Either she's trying to creep us out, or something is seriously wrong with her now. What the hell is all this?

Looking back at Seija, she was just as disturbed as me. Her eyes had gone dead again and she'd started shaking, which told me that she didn't know what to expect from her either. Mayumi, though - her head had turned in Clownpiece's direction and her eye was just as wide. In her though, rather than simple skittishness, her eye looked to me like it was full of fear.

What is she...?

"-But I mean it's okay if I tell you about it now 'cause you're going to die, right?" Clownpiece thrust her face forward, nearly touching the top of the gate with her nose and making her eyes go as wide as they could. Her mouth was hidden by the top bar of the gate, but from here, her expression looked deadly serious. "You can't die. Not until you see how much better than you I was, okay?"

There was a pause. Mayumi didn't say anything back, and Clownpiece sucked in a deep breath, once again looking like a kid about to tell a big secret. She brought her left fist up to her mouth and bent it back, pointing at Youmu with her right.

"I made her craaaaaaazy!" She shook with glee and let out a suppressed squeal from between her teeth. Me, though, I didn't get it.

Youmu did. She and Mayumi both had the same look in their eyes now of utter disbelief. Koizumi and Seija looked like they'd caught on too, pressing their mouths shut and, in Seija's case, wincing in evident pain.

As in... another Youmu? She made another Youmu crazy?

"And then, and then, when Lady Hecatia erased her, you challenged your own one to a duel! I couldn't believe it! You kept moping how you failed, and seeing her made you sick, and oh no Clownpiece tell me you'll help me avenge my master!" She threw back her head and laughed to the heavens, opening her mouth and spreading her arms and hands above her as well. "It was so pathetic! You just kept punishing her for what I made the other one do! And she accepted it! You two were practically in love over how much you hated yourselves! I made you both lunatics, and I didn't even have to use my torch on you! Aren't I just incredible?!"

...I... I can't believe it.

I can't believe you were even more despicable than I thought.

How many people has she done this to...?

In its own way, it was kind of pathetic. Just pathetic enough to get me angry - I didn't explode or lose control, and I still knew that touching the gate or the walls would be a bad idea, but I stepped up next to it despite myself to glare down at her, feeling something boil up that didn't feel like rage. It was similar, but felt so much more powerful than that. Clownpiece fell backwards, rolling on the snow with uncontrollable laughter. Youmu's expression hadn't changed, except for a few tears around the corners of her eyes. Mayumi was different - still blank-faced and wide-eyed, but with a range of other emotions channeling through her stare. She still didn't speak, just watched as Clownpiece carried out her little uproar on the ground. I could only keep looking between the two of them, wanting desperately to get past the gate but not having any idea how to do it.

Tell me you can open this, Asakura.

[Asakura:] "A few more minutes, okay?"

I heard metal scraping along the ground, and looked back again - Mayumi was not only on her feet, but picking up her sword. Youmu had the Roukanken sheathed but still in hand, ready to strike out if Mayumi turned that sword on us, but Mayumi wasn't looking at anyone but Clownpiece. She dragged her shredded body forward, still deteriorating bit by bit, towards the gate. Her soggy boddy had dried, but bits of clay were now flaking off the edges of her wounds when she walked, and the parts of her that were still connected to one another were so tenuously joined that it seemed like the force of motion itself might break her in half. I backed up just in case, letting her reach the gate. On the other side, Clownpiece was still delirious with mirth.

At a wave of Mayumi's hand, her armor flashed gold for a moment, and red runes appeared along the rear side of the wall and gate, stretching into the sky before disassembling their formation and opening to each side like a set of curtains. We were in - or so it seemed, but although Clownpiece sat up and covered her mouth with her hands, it was clear to see her anticipation was building, and she was still grinning to her gills.

[Asakura:] "The anomalous data reading is still-"

"Wait-"

Reimu and I both called out at once, but Mayumi didn't wait. She slashed across the gate with her sword to open it, and the moment she did, it burst into flames. Red, white and blue fire launched up from the walls and gate, forming a new barrier all their own and blasting Mayumi, causing her to stumble backwards with her upper body teetering dangerously like it was about to snap. The flames spread to her, enveloping her and firing all the clay in her body to turn it brittle. She didn't scream, but it looked like agony nonetheless.

Why didn't we notice-

I pulled Chiyuri's pistol from my belt and shot my hand as quick as I could remember it. I was thrust back in time - but not far enough. The gate had already been cut when I came out the other end, and the explosion happened all over again. The only thing I could do differently was call towards Sanae, "Blow it out! Quick!"

Sanae drew a pentagram in the air and summoned a wind to quell the flames before Mayumi could break apart under the strain of it. It may have been madness to try and save her, but I think at this point we all understood who our real enemy was. Mayumi wanted to kill her as much as we did - the details could wait until later.

"Of course I wouldn't let you in here, stuuupid! What, you thought I was as dumb as you?!" Clownpiece pulled her eyelid down and stuck out her tongue at Mayumi through the wall of fire, safe and sound and having the time of her life. Mayumi put both hands on her sword, quivering with silent, impotent rage. She lowered her head and stopped moving.

"What? You can't do anything? Of course you can't. That's 'cause I'm better, right? Hey, can you say that?" rocked back and forth on the ground with her legs crossed, but when Mayumi didn't answer, her smile vanished and she stood up, raising her hand in the air. The little torch she always carried popped up from somewhere behind her and she swiped it through the flames in front, gathering them up around the torch's head. Still staring at Mayumi, she said, "I know you're saying it on the inside."

The fire wall swelled and became brighter, and the light inside of it seemed to twist, and I thought I saw shapes inside of them, like blurry images that would become clearer if I just...

"Don't look into the fire, everyone," Asakura called out in a sweet voice, disregarding her own advice and staring straight ahead.

Right, her torch-

I forced myself to look away, as did everyone else. We still saw the light growing brighter from beyond the wall, though - it coalesced and shot out as a spray of smokeless fireballs, all of them roughly aimed at Mayumi. Even in her ruined state and not looking at the barrage, Mayumi sidestepped one, and then another, but another one impacted next to her and exploded, knocking her off her feet and breaking off more pieces from her body as she hit the ground. The remaining fireballs swarmed around her, coming from all sides-

-and vanished. The flames didn't dwindle, they just disappeared altogether. Youmu held up the tengu camera, pointed at Mayumi and with her head turned to the side so that she wasn't looking at the flames straight on. Disbelief wrote itself on Mayumi's face, and Reisen... I didn't know how to read Reisen. She had no expression at all.

The one who couldn't believe it the most, though, was Clownpiece.

"Huuuuuuh?! You know, you know, she's not on your side, you know?" Clownpiece's disgusted voice came through the fire. "You all should just kill her for what she did you to you already. That's why you did that, right? You want to kill her yourself? You want to be as amazing as I am and kill someone strong?"

"Maybe later," said Youmu, drawing the Hakurouken from its sheath. She turned it around in her left hand, squeezing the blade, and when a little bit of blood started to trickle down her wrist, she turned her eyes back on Clownpiece and stared straight through the flames.

That... works, I guess. So, if we can just get through those flames...

[Nagato:] "I can prevent their influence from reaching you by sapping your life force as long as Asakura parallel processes to correct the transmission delay."

Sapping my what?

[Nagato:] "Clownpiece's ability is different from Reisen's, which controls waves. The flame of her torch stimulates life force and causes it to grow out of control, which naturally reduces neural oscillation wavelength and induces insanity. By tapping into your metaphysical being and purging excess life force above a certain threshold, you become immune to the effect."

That sounds really scary, but please do it.

[Asakura:] "Please wait. I've matched the anomalous data to the road underneath us. There's another trap."

Underneath us? But then this whole time, she could've...

[Asakura:] "It's probably going to activate when you cross the perimeter. Well, I'm just guessing."

She must've planned on us throwing ourselves against Mayumi for a while so she could finish us all off when we thought it was over. I looked at the others - Youmu and Koizumi were locking eyes, and I realized they must've been planning on using his aura as a shield to get through the fire. Reisen and Sanae seemed to be making the very same plan as well, and Reimu and Marisa had something going on, though I couldn't guess what and none of them spoke a word. Sanae simply readied one of her miracle spell cards and everyone but Seija, Asakura, and me started moving forward, with only Reisen and Youmu able to look where they were going.

"Ohhh? That's okay. I'm okay with all of you burning together." Clownpiece sneered from behind the gate, but the corners of her mouth turned upward again once she saw everyone moving forward. "I deserve it anyway, right? I'll be the one to kill you all."

We need to stop everyone. At least until Asakura can disable the trap-

[Asakura:] "Oops. It's activating right now."

It wasn't perimeter-based?!

In fact, I could see it- tiny flames warming up and licking through the cracks in the pavement. My mind went into lurch, and I desperately grappled for what to say to warn them.

Tell them something's coming and to run - no, there's no time.

Reset - I'll reset anyway if we get hit!

Anyway, just say something!

"Up!" I blurted! "Mayumi, we need to fly!"

[SPELL CARD: HELLFIRE "UPWARD CREEPING HELL"]

I remembered it in the very last seconds. I didn't expect Mayumi to listen, but she seemed to realize what was happening immediately and raised a hand above her, revealing and scattering the red runes over our heads. Everyone noticed the ground turning red, white, and blue just in time to lift off, and Asakura grabbed my hand and dragged me behind her into the sky before tossing me upwards, where Marisa swooped in and caught me just before a blast of fire shot up underneath, almost swallowing us up anyway.

"C'mon, ze!" Marisa grunted as she tried to lift me on to the broom properly. "That was a real close warning you just gave us!"

Did we all make it? I counted heads. Reimu, Youmu, Sanae, Koishi - Oh, she's here too, - Reisen, Youmu, Koizumi, Seija, Asakura... Everyone had made it away from the flames. Seija and Reimu had reacted the fastest, naturally, while Sanae and Koizumi just barely managed to avoid getting burned.

[Asakura:] "It's not over. There are more activations all around us."

More fire shot up right next to me, and more on all sides, and I realized that the trap had actually extended out into the city. Worse, the fire was rising higher and curving in towards us, threatening to engulf is in a roaring sea of flame.

What is this? How'd she get this much set up?!

"We're going to get burned," I said to Marisa. "We need to get Sanae to-" I met Marisa's eyes and saw they were wide and unfocused. Beyond her, Sanae was clutching her head and screaming. Even Koizumi was now ripping off his own bandages, snarling at them in a blind rage, and my stomach churned at the sight of it and the realization that the fire hadn't been trying to hit us at all - it was trying to surround us.

Marisa pointed her mini-Hakkero at me and screamed like a wraith. I might've eaten the hit just to try another reset, but the shock of it made me lean back and into a free-fall below. I watched as Sanae started throwing out amulets all over the place, some of which caught Marisa and sent her reeling. Koizumi turned his aura into a blade and attacked Asakura, who was trying to dive after me. Absolute chaos had erupted above me, and I'd lost my ability to do anything but fall.

"Kyon!"

A red and white blur shot in from the left - Reimu was flying at me with her eyes shut, though not quite dead-on. She was holding out her hand, calling for me. I called back, reaching out in her direction despite the fact that I knew she wouldn't be strong enough to lift me. When our hands grasped each other, she started flying around me in a circle, turning me over and pulling me along as we both continued downward, now getting much more disoriented.

"Reimu, what are we-"

Reimu swung her gohei upwards, cutting into the space in front of us and opening a very thin gap not unlike Yukari's, only with a black void on the inside rather than a sea of creepy eyes. With my momentum, I was thrown straight through and pulled her along with me, which ended up with us both staring up at the sky outside of the tower of flame. Almost immediately, our upward momentum ceased and we began falling, but now we were close enough to the ground that I was able to land on my feet without taking damage. Reimu hovered down after me, still with her eyes shut. I could see the sweat on her brow and feel it in her hand; she was trying not to show it, but this whole battle had taken a huge toll on her, and the little bit of rest and the drugs we got to keep us in fighting shape could only take her so far.

There wasn't any time to waste on that, though. As soon as I'd confirmed we were both safe on the ground, I searched for our target; sure enough, she was standing on the inside of the school gate with her back to us, staring up at a massive tower of red, white and blue flames beyond it. The school buildings were right nearby - we'd managed to come out behind her.

"Where are we?" whispered Reimu, who still didn't open her eyes. "Did I get us inside the school?"

"Yeah... She's right in front of us," I replied.

Reimu stood up straight, steeling herself and producing some more homing amulets. Even blind, she was prepared to fight. Clownpiece still hadn't noticed us, and was still ranting at the inferno as she fed the flames of her torch into it. The fire had left the ground and was shrinking in size around our group, about to engulf them. The trap had been sprung, and Clownpiece's torch was now the only thing fueling the flames.

"Don't you think I'm just as strong as Jinwu?! Huh?!" her childish voice rang out above the roar of combustion. "Even I can make a little fire like this!"

I slowed down time, trying to gauge the situation. She hasn't noticed us yet. I could get her from behind with a cheap shot...

...But...

[Asakura:] "You've got six seconds before it closes on us."

I'd given away the tengu camera to Youmu. Even with my training and the peaches, we were too far away for me to close the distance in that time without running the risk of alerting her, and Reimu wasn't a fast flier. Judging by what Reimu had just said, she couldn't aim another gap precisely enough for it to make up the difference, either. We couldn't secure a certain kill here, and I wasn't going to roll the dice on another reset. I had to go with my gut.

"Throw them," I said. Reimu obliged, tossing the amulets straight ahead. They sailed down the empty grounds and arced silently towards Clownpiece, who never saw them coming. She cried out and toppled over with the amulets stuck to her back, and all the flames above her died out at once. I didn't just stay and watch, though. I started running as soon as Reimu had thrown them, hoping to capitalize on Clownpiece's momentary incapacitation. She was still on the ground when I reached her, and I swung the Sword of Hisou in a downward arc, but the blade met the dirt as she rolled away. She got to her feet and pressed her back to the gate, a look of crazed fear in her eyes.

I've got you now.

I stepped in before she could think of a counter, swinging the blade up and to the left from the lower right. I figured I'd better start low because she was wingless and likely to try ducking, but she leapt straight up on to me, getting some surprising height over the sword, and vaulted over me to my right, dodging underneath a second volley of amulets from Reimu and high-tailing it on foot deeper into the school area. I ran after her, meeting Reimu partway. She had her eyes open now and drew three needles from her sleeve. It was a straight shot into Clownpiece's bloody backside with the amulets still plastered on her and probably attempting to seal her. Before she could throw them though, I heard feet on the dirt behind me and my body... fell away.

I collapsed onto the ground and saw my legs in front me, still standing for a moment before they too crumpled. The Roukanken flashed, and Reimu was bisected in the very same moment. The red in her uniform bleached white in that moment, even as it was stained red with both of our blood.

Youmu-

The world around me warped, and time reset. I was still running after Clownpiece, about to reach Reimu. I couldn't look behind me, and I knew it'd be pointless to try and parry Youmu, so I called out to Reimu.

"Behind us! Youmu!"

Reimu whipped around and instead of needles, she drew a spell card, pulling me close with her other hand at the same time.

[SPELL CARD: BOUNDARY "DUPLEX PARTITION BARRIER"]

Two glowing lines were cut in the dirt on either side of us, but nothing else seemed to happen. Above us, I saw Youmu racing in from past the gate. Her left hand was empty and bleeding which meant she'd dropped the Hakurouken somewhere, and behind her, everyone was still fighting. Marisa, Koizumi, and Sanae were all under Clownpiece's influence, trying to press the attack against Asakura, Reisen, and each other. Seija, Mayumi, and Koishi were nowhere to be seen. Clouds of danmaku were on Youmu's heels, which meant there was about to be a storm of it on our position after she got here.

[Asakura:] "Sorry, she got away from me. Fast, isn't she?"

When Youmu reached us, she wound up for a swing, but vanished before she could make it, appearing on the other side of Reimu's barrier and slashing at the empty air. She skidded, stopped, and turned around, dashing right back towards us to try again.

"Go when I release it," muttered Reimu.

Youmu passed through the duplex barrier a second time, ending up between Reimu and the gate. The barrier vanished, and Reimu whipped her needles at Youmu, followed by a barrier of light that she projected between her hands and swung upwards. Youmu sliced through the needles and then at Reimu, but Reimu's barrier caught the hilt of the Roukanken, just barely stopping it before it sliced her in two, then constantly began reforming around the blade to trap it. With a great heave, she redirected the blade towards Youmu's neck and managed to slice through the strap of the camera that had been slung around it. It dropped to the ground, where Reimu stomped her shoe in front of it and kicked it in my direction with her heel.

"You've already beaten her once!" Reimu barked back at me as she wrestled Youmu for control of the sword, clearly outmatched in physical strength. "You can't help us here, just go!"

I knew better than to argue. Reimu had to have some way of dealing with Youmu up close, and I couldn't stick around to gawk. Clownpiece hadn't fled for the main building like I thought she would; it looked like she might've been heading to the fields. Wherever she was going, I knew this place better than anyone, so I had to find her. I grabbed up the camera and ran like the wind through the oncoming hail of stray danmaku, chasing down Clownpiece's footprints in the snow until she came into view descending the stairs towards the track field.

Asakura, make sure you tell me if I have to reset!

[Asakura:] "Oh, I already know everyone's moves. I think I can keep them from killing each other."

I don't want anyone to get hurt at all if we can help it. We're worn down enough as it is.

[Asakura:] "That's much harder, but since it's Christmas."

What about the Hakurouken? It can cure them, right? Can you find it?

[Asakura:] "I lost track of it. But don't worry; the two of us are working on calibrating everyone else's nanomachines so we can freeze them long enough for Reisen to maintain eye contact and extend their brain waves. We'll have everyone sane again in no time."

Glad to hear it. Don't make Marisa too sane, though - I liked her how she was.

I looped the broken strap of the camera around my belt again to secure it to my body, then leapt down the stairs and ran onto the snowy field. Clownpiece slowed down as she got far out into the middle, then looked behind her as she stumbled, eyes wide in terror. There hadn't even been any more traps on the way here, and her expression told me that she hadn't planned for me getting out of that spell at all. She turned around, walking backwards at first, then stopped and thrust out her torch. The flame on the end of it grew brighter, but didn't seem to have any other effect.

"Go crazy! Go crazy!" she shrieked in my direction, waving the torch forward repeatedly. I didn't really feel like doing that, so I kept running forward instead. This was a wide-open field and she was stronger at range than I was, so I had to get in close before she realized that too. As I came forward, two tiny people flew in from one side - Shanghai and Hourai had finally found me, and the two of them formed up to add to my abilities. With Shanghai, who'd retrieved her shield, I'd be much less at risk, and Hourai would be able to flank her. Conveniently enough, the torchlight didn't seem to work on them either.

You can't use your main ability on me. You can't beat me up close, you can't fly, and you're too scared to even run. If you did, I'm still faster. You can't escape me now.

I finally have you, Clownpiece!

Seeing that her efforts were in vain, Clownpiece took another shaky step back and squeezed her eyes shut. For two seconds, she scrunched up her face, looking about to cry, but then opened them and turned them to her right, tilting her torch in towards her head. With terror on her face, she forced her eyes to remain open as the colored flames reached out towards them and they glowed bright green.

Is she...?

Clownpiece bent backward, raising the torch above her head. She continued to stare into the flame, cringing with her whole body but never looking away.

Is she making herself insane? What the hell would that do?!

Was this like trying to dull the pain by losing her mind right before the execution? Was she that afraid? Or was it just the only thing left to try?

[Nagato:] "Stop her."

I tried, of course. Shanghai and Hourai fired lasers ahead, but she ducked around them easily. I almost threw the sword again, but tried instead to just reach her before she could do... whatever it was she was trying to do.

[Nagato:] "Fairies are pure life force. The effects of her torchlight on herself can't be predicted."

...Aw, hell. If her torch makes life force grow out of control, then...

The light was steadily growing brighter as time went on. The light that stimulated life force fed into Clownpiece, who grew stronger under its influence and therefore increased the strength of her ability. It was a self-feeding loop.

Just as I got in range, she finally brought the torch away from her face. Her fear was gone, replaced by a completely unreadable expression that seemed to stretch every part of her face outward. She swung the torch, and the flames extended and formed a blade just like the Sword of Hisou's, only slightly longer, and I was forced to parry and step back in response. The strength behind the strike was way more than before, making me stumble a little bit from the shock of it. When I did, she brought up her other hand, which held the second torch from before, and lit up a second blade from that one.

You've gotta be kidding me!

"LOOK WHAT YOU MADE ME DO!" Clownpiece screamed in the hardly-intelligible voice that children use when they're pouring every fiber of their being into being as loud as possible. "I FEEL LIKE BURNING!"

Not sure if that was a declaration of sensation or intent, I went on the defensive, stepping back even more as flames erupted around her body and the Reimu's amulets were thrown off her back and turned to ash. It swirled around her, lashing out seemingly at random in a circle around her. Clownpiece charged at me, swinging her left sword horizontally in front of her. I parried and dodged backwards again, and she followed up with the second blade, swinging it in from my left. I got ready to block that one as well, but it suddenly dipped and sliced through the earth underneath us, dragging a cloud of dirt, dust, and snow up with it as it emerged that sprayed up in front of my face and obscured my vision.

"STOP FIGHTING AND DIE!" I heard her screech to my right, way faster than I thought she could move. I raised the sword to block and fall back again, trying to at least figure out how strong she was before I tried anything. She didn't stop coming after I did, thrashing blindly with both swords and screaming, "DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! ALL OF YOU DIE!"

Shanghai and Hourai fell back and put some distance from us. I just kept backing up and trying not to miss any of the swings that were coming at me. Even slowing down time didn't seem to help that much. When the dolls were in position, they combined their energy to fire a laser into Clownpiece's back... that she didn't even acknowledge. The light from the fire coming off of her distorted the laser, refracting it around us without ever touching her.

Oh, come on!

"IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT! ALL YOUR FAULT! ALL YOUR FAULT!"

Somehow, Clownpiece had completely turned the tables on me. Just when I thought I had her cornered, she'd thrown the deadliest temper tantrum in the world and forced me into a position of uselessness. If I could just get away from her for a moment...

Nagato, can you do that time stop thing?!

[Nagato:] "I'm overtaxed. Preparing acceleration factors would require cessation of life force purging. You'd go insane instantly."

"IT SHOULD BE ME AND IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT!"

Well, I need something! I can't do a thing to her like this! I tried running even further backwards, but she was on me just as quick. My speed and strength advantages had both vanished, and doing this over and over was using up all of my energy.

[Asakura:] "I can give you some help. I can't guarantee you'll like it, though."

What? What does that mean?

I didn't get an answer. Clownpiece kept hacking away at me and I kept guarding, paranoid that at any second I'd be hit and forced into a reset. Seeing that the laser had no effect, Hourai grabbed Shanghai by the collar and charged, aiming her lance at the back of Clownpiece's neck. Clownpiece was paying no attention whatsoever to her surroundings and was struck dead-on - but the dolls caught fire in such close proximity, and when Clownpiece felt the steel tip dig into her flesh, she screamed and whirled around with both blades, hacking blindly towards them.

No!

Seizing on the momentary chance, I stepped forward and swung at Clownpiece at the same time as she attacked the dolls. Hourai held Shanghai and her shield up in front of her, but the two of them were bowled away by the force of the swing alone, burning and smoking. My swing completed before Clownpiece could turn around, and I sliced through her, down from the base of the neck where Hourai had nailed her. Her body split open almost in half vertically down her torso, and flames rushed out, swirling around her in a tornado and forcing me to back up once again. I looked past her at where Shanghai and Hourai were trying to beat out the flames consuming their bodies, and almost rushed to help them, but before I could...

[SPELL CARD: HELL SIGN "BURSTING GRUDGE"]

White orbs flooded out in a stream both in front of me and on Clownpiece's other side, momentarily blocking the way. I backed up, watching Clownpiece for what else might come out of her, Sword of Hisou at the ready. When the orbs had gotten a few meters out, they slowed down, and I felt the air around me get hot. I hit the ground running by instinct, just in time for all of the orbs to start firing blue lasers that almost scorched my backside. Clownpiece kept throwing the orbs out in pairs around her, and each one would fire at me for a few seconds before disappearing, and there were so many orbs that I couldn't tell where any of them were coming from. I could avoid the ones coming from the sides just by running, but if any of them shot at me in the same direction I was moving, I'd be shot before I knew it.

...Which was something I learned after getting hit, by the way.

[SPELL CARD: HELL SIGN "BURSTING GRUDGE"]

Okay, so I had to survive this spell now. Dodging the lasers was difficult, I couldn't get near Clownpiece herself because of all the fire, and if possible I wanted to save Shanghai and Hourai. At least it seemed safe to reset here.

[Nagato:] "I wouldn't call it safe. I don't like what it does to your body."

It does something to my body? I mean yeah, Seija talked about side effects...

[Asakura:] "It's going to be hard on you later, you know?"

[Nagato:] "Don't worry for now. Just try to reset as little as you can."

Well, that didn't give me any confidence. All right, what the hell can I do then?

The best way to avoid this spell would be to get to the outside of the circle of orbs. I started running away from Clownpiece, checking behind me to make sure there wasn't a laser coming in from straight behind me. They all criss-crossed right on my heels even with the speed boost, giving me a shot of panic each time I felt a new blast of heat.

Sorry Shanghai, Hourai! There was no way I could get to them right now. If they couldn't put out the flames on themselves... well, I didn't know what I'd do. I didn't want to lose anyone, and that included them.

[Nagato:] "Don't mistake them for living creatures. They possess no intelligence or life force and are more like semi-autonomous drones. That's why they are unaffected by Clownpiece's ability."

Well, yeah, but they're cute!

As I exited the circle, I ran clockwise in time with the orbs so that they couldn't get behind me. I was taking the long way around to the dolls, but eventually, I caught a glimpse of them. The fire had gone out on both of them, but Shanghai was almost burnt up and having trouble rising off the ground. Hourai meanwhile stood over her, clenched her fist and mimed sorrow over her injured companion before rising up and shaking said fist at Clownpiece. Her eyebrows were knitted in a tight frown and she looked every bit the pint-sized picture of tragic vengeance.

...If that's semi-autonomous, then Alice must be some kind of disturbed genius.

At the same time, I realized that someone was kneeling over them, patting her hands at the still-burning embers on Hourai's skirt, apparently unconcerned with the fact that she was inside the range of an active spell card.

Koishi? When did she get here?

She was speaking to Hourai. I was too far away to hear what she was saying, but Hourai nodded her head, picked up her lance in one hand, and Shanghai's shield in the other. She looked like she could hardly lift them both by herself, but she stood fast and began flying for the center of the spell. Koishi trailed after her, drawing and casting a spell card as she tilted her body inward and twirled like a sideways ballerina.

[SPELL CARD: HEART SIGN "SELFLESS LOVE"]

Pink heart-shaped danmaku built up and swirled in an incredible storm around Clownpiece, mixing into the flames and pelting at the fairy inside. Clownpiece's spell ended quickly as they barraged her from all sides, and even the flames began to dissipate. Clownpiece herself stumbled out of the swarm as it ended; the wound I'd inflicted on her had been fused shut with a swirling red, white, and blue plasma of some kind that blended into her shirt, and the look in her eyes was... not sane, but calmer, or maybe just more focused. She stared at me, eyes quivering for just a moment before glancing aside at the incoming Hourai and raising her left torch to block.

Another storm of hearts, this time cyan-colored, built up around Hourai and Koishi, and Hourai launched into Clownpiece like a missile, smashing right through the torch and scattering danmaku everywhere as Clownpiece's body was impaled on the lance. The air was absurdly thick with hearts; I couldn't see a single thing that was going on in there.

Is this the help you were talking about, Asakura?

[Asakura:] "No, that's still on its way. Very lucky though, don't you think?"

It was. That spell card looked incredibly powerful, and it wasn't even over. Just as I was thinking that though, Hourai was ejected from the flurry sans her lance and shield and newly aflame. Koishi covered her mouth in horror and flew after her, abandoning the spell card altogether, and when the danmaku cleared away, Clownpiece was still standing in the middle of it with a great big hole in her chest being filled in with that plasma.

What does it take?!

"See how you can't beat me?!" Clownpiece called out at me. "See how much better I am than you?! Are you calling me a failure, too?!"

The torch that was in her left hand was now in pieces at her feet, along with the lance and shield. The other torch no longer projected a sword, but she gripped it with both hands anyway, her knuckles white and bloody red. She walked towards me, a burning hunger in her eyes and a lot more collected than a minute ago.

"I ruined you! I ruined your stupid friends. It was all me! You should all be happy that I'm going to kill you!"

Well, for a certain definition of "collected."

"You really base your self-worth on how much you've made other people suffer?" I said, getting the Sword of Hisou ready. Now that the flames were gone from around her, it seemed like getting up close to her would be the best option.

It was kind of pathetic how she was talking and how hard she was pushing herself. This wasn't an effortless march; she was stumbling and tripping over her own feet trying to get to me, and she must've been in a lot of pain right now. I'd never met our universe's Clownpiece so I couldn't compare them, but putting her next to the other fairies I knew; Cirno, Sunny, Luna, Star, Daiyousei... Was this mindset of hers because she'd lived with the Alternates, or something even earlier? She was a Hell fairy. She lived in that horrible place, probably amongst oni and vengeful spirits and who knows what else. Seija had said that the Yama only controlled a small part of Hell, and the way she talked about the oni, it gave the impression of a world where the strong did whatever they wanted to whoever they wanted. In a world like that, fairies would be at the bottom rung, even worse than in Gensokyo. They'd probably end up coveting power, recognition, and validation above all else.

"Stop it," she growled. "Stop looking at me like that! I'll kill you for trying to pity me!"

"Pity? Why would I ever pity you?" I tightened my grip on the Sword of Hisou, waiting as she made her way towards me. "You keep gloating about how you set everything up. How you messed with our pasts. Killed Marisa's mother, Fujiwara, Keiki, and who knows who else."

What else didn't you tell us? There's no way you haven't been messing with us this whole time!

"What about me?! Did you set what I did up, too?! I bet you made me kill that interface, just like you made Youmu kill your own ally!" I threw the only thing I could think of at her, something that had been at the back of my mind since she'd started bragging. All that self-doubt I had over my mistake, all the nightmares and horrible feelings, if that was all her doing...

"You're weak," she said, still forcing herself forward, faster and faster until she broke into a sprint. "You're so weak, so stupid, stupid, and weak, I hate you! I wish I'd done half as much to you as I did to your stupid friend!"

She reached me once more, swung her torch, and launched a shower of fireballs in my direction. I swung the Sword of Hisou horizontally, blasting them all apart in a burst of water vapor before thrusting it forward to where I knew Clownpiece would probably emerge. The Sword of Hisou met another flame blade projected from her torch and I shoved forward, pressing down into her so that she couldn't disengage. Some of her strength, a tiny bit at least, had left her.

"You did it, didn't you?!" I screamed into her face.

"I wish I had!" she screamed back.

You liar.

You liar!

I wouldn't have done something like that if it wasn't because of you!

Clownpiece hocked a glob of blood from deep inside her throat onto my face. I didn't flinch or budge. I kicked at her stomach, which was easy because of how much shorter she was than me, and she bent forward and threw herself to one side in an effort to evade me. I swung down at her on the ground, which she managed to block, but now she was lying down and I was standing up.

[Asakura:] "I can't help but notice you aren't telling him off this time."

[Nagato:] "No need. He's still in control."

I wanted to go all-in before she could get back up, but I could tell that Clownpiece wasn't completely on the ropes yet. She stuck her blade out and thrusted after the block, still holding the Sword of Hisou away from her at the same time. With my enhanced focus, I saw it coming, and stepped beside the blade which brought me close enough that I could kick her in the head. Clownpiece cried out in pain, her flame blade lost its shape, and the torch's head dimmed.

There was an opening. All I had to do was hit her with the sword. I knew I couldn't hesitate to finish her off.

...But I did. There was a moment, however brief, where I doubted myself and what I was doing. I saw this coming; I tried to prepare for it, to put some steel in my gut and become someone who could do what needed to be done. I'd managed to kill Junko with my own hands - Clownpiece should have been no different. Easier, even. I was so mad at her right now I could hardly think. Some part of me must really have pitied her, though. Some part of me must have thought I could just knock her out and... I don't know, take her back later? Rehabilitate her somehow? I wasn't really thinking at all. Instead of taking the swing, I kicked her head again. It wasn't exactly gentle; maybe if I stomped her out, she'd actually go under. If I took away her torch and her spell cards, she wouldn't be that dangerous.

Those are more like justifications, though. Maybe it would've worked, maybe it wouldn't have. Maybe I wouldn't even have gotten to finish her off if I'd tried, because when my boot connected a second time with her skull, golden chains shot out from the hole in the center of her chest and wrapped themselves around my leg, with more shooting up for my neck at the same time.

-Again?!

Well, I'd been wary of this since Junko did the same thing. I swiped the Sword of Hisou down at the ones still in motion; they coiled around the blade, which failed to cut them, then down the hilt and up my right arm. I pulled Fujiwara's gun with my left hand, aiming it down at the source of the chains, but I was too slow in doing it, and another chain seized my left hand and turned it up so the gun pointed at the sky. Clownpiece beneath me was stupefied. I must have knocked some of the daylights out of her because she looked practically asleep, her head wavering back and forth and eyes fluttering senselessly, a mix of blood and spit dribbling from her mouth. I felt us rising together, supported by the mass of living chains that was pouring from her body, and Clownpiece was pushed into an upright position level with my head. Her head flopped forward, another tooth fell out, and with it another tiny stream of blood.

What... the hell... is this...?!

This was way more than Junko or the others had brought out, and Clownpiece didn't even look fully conscious anymore. She couldn't have been using this power herself.

[Asakura:] "Drop the gun, please."

Won't she get it?

I questioned the direction, but pulled my fingers as far apart as they'd go. The pistol slipped away from my hand, disappearing somewhere down and behind me. The two of us were still rising into the air, Clownpiece slowly nodding her head, and just when I thought she'd pass out for good...

"Be strong, Piece."

I heard... and saw... something. Hecatia's arm came in from my right and crossed my vision to lay on Clownpiece's right shoulder. She had her back to me and was unnaturally shrouded in darkness, or even faded like she wasn't all there. The whole world seemed to shift out of phase just then, halfway between here and somewhere else. If I strained, I could see a wall and a window behind Hecatia, but we were still in the wide-open track field in the snow.

"Master..." Clownpiece mumbled, wavering back towards consciousness. She tried to raise her head, straining her eyes to see Hecatia's face.

"You've suffered. I've made you suffer. Even though I told you to leave, you continued to try and prove yourself. I can only blame myself for what's happened to you now." Hecatia's voice seemed to come from nowhere, even though she herself was in front of me. I didn't move or say anything. I couldn't even think of something to say in this situation.

"You're still blessing me...?" Clownpiece said, almost in awe. "I'm... still...?"

A chain launched straight up from Clownpiece's chest, towards the crescent moon above. It attached itself to the bottom, and the moon seemed to grow closer, larger, and fuller as it descended from the sky. It was not as big, nor as far away as the real moon, though it was still a massive globe that came down behind Clownpiece, shining an otherworldly light all its own that washed over the both of us. For a brief moment, my thoughts faded away into that light, but I was brought back along with Nagato's voice.

[Nagato:] "That moon's light is attempting to shorten your brain waves directly. Do you feel okay?"

There was a moment, but... I think I'm still sane.

"The moon is the mother of youkai. The mother of insanity. Use my moon, Piece, and kill them all. I believe in you."

Clownpiece reached out towards the image of Hecatia, but it vanished before her fingers could touch it, and the world around us returned to normal, save for the giant moon on the ground behind her. She was so stunned that she might even have forgotten I was there. Slowly, she turned her head towards me, a second later actually registering my face. Her expression contorted in a demented grimace, she raised her torch at me. Clearly, I was first.

Asakura, are you doing something?! I threw a glance towards the distant battle in the sky, and managed to catch sight of one of Marisa's spell cards going off, with stars radiating out in a carefully crafted pattern as more bodies dodged between them. Asakura's white spike shots were firing off around her as well, warding her away from the other shapes. She still wasn't anywhere near me. Somehow I actually remembered that Koishi was still here, but she wasn't helping either; I found her crouching a ways off with the dolls and shielding her eyes from the moonlight.

If someone's coming to help, the last second is right now!

[Asakura:] "She's a little slow right now, but she should be there... Maybe it was too much."

Who?!

"I'm gonna burn you..." Clownpiece's voice creeped in on my right as she brought in her face to sneer and spit more blood at me. She gripped the torch with both hands, shaking it back and forth like she was taking practice swings and said, "Should I put this down your throat? Or cut open your stomach and stick it in there?"

I didn't know what was going on, but it sounded like my rescue was running late. Clownpiece still didn't know about my elixir, so she wasn't going to hold on to me like Junko. Somehow, I had to try and delay my execution.

"You couldn't beat me by yourself after all, huh?" I forced my cockiest grin, trying to get under her skin without setting her to violence. If she fixated so much on the fact I'd beaten her, then maybe I could play to her pride and get her to release me.

Clownpiece's face screwed up even more, and she said, "Look who's talking. You and your fairies and your Reimu and your dolls and your fairies and your... your..." she stumbled a bit, evidently trying to remember Koishi, but gave up on it and continued, "Master's power is my power! Even with all your help, you still lost to us! We're an incredible team!"

...Well, she's got me there. Uh... Just... Say something!

"Team?" I said. "If Hecatia really thought you were a team, she'd be out here herself."

Clownpiece's bottom lip quivered even as she grit her remaining teeth. I think I actually got to her with that - and now that I thought of it, didn't I have a point? If Hecatia had recovered enough that she could hand out big blessings like this again, where was she? It'd have been the smartest thing for her, Clownpiece, and maybe the other Nagato to have attacked together while we were dealing with Mayumi. Even if the Alternates' teamwork was bad, Clownpiece was loyal enough to Hecatia that she could've used her. No, actually, it was the opposite. It was plain as day what Hecatia was doing here.

I kept talking before Clownpiece could respond, trying to get some momentum on her. "She's just using you to try and buy herself more time. While you're out here suffering, she's getting stronger. Haven't you realized yet that everyone is expendable to her? How many people of your own has she killed, and those clay soldiers - something about them being more perfect beings? And how she can undo everything when you win? She told me all about how others just fail her when she relies on them." I shook my limbs to rattle the chains. I could see Clownpiece actually listening, actually thinking about my words. Whether or not it had any effect, it was certainly buying me time. "I remember what she said to Junko before. Even though Junko wanted to torment Chang'e forever, Hecatia said that when they were done, she'd settle her grudge and give them both peace. Don't you get what that means? She was going to change who Junko was, or even replace her with another version of herself! Hecatia's going to make a perfect world, all right - and perfect people to fill it! She'll do the same thing to you!"

Clownpiece raised her eyes and looked into mine. She ground her teeth together so hard that her gums broke open and started bleeding again. "I am perfect," she whined. "I've never failed her!"

"You really think someone who talks about stuff like ending everyone's suffering is going to think you're perfect? She's going to replace you. She can pick any Clownpiece she wants; why the hell would she care to keep you as you are?"

"You're wrong." Clownpiece raised the torch, her hands trembling so hard that each shake of it sent off embers that I kept fearing would float at me and hurt me enough to reset. "You're wrong! You're wrong! You're wrong!" She screamed, repeatedly raising the torch and lowering it, like she couldn't decide whether to brand me with it or keep talking to me. A green light mixed with the torch and glinted off the chains, coming from her eyes. She raised the torch again and let out a hideous wail, and at the height of it, a bullet struck her in the chest.

An explosion of gold chain links followed, and I felt my bindings go slack and my body begin to drop. I slowed down time - thankfully the Sword of Hisou was still in my hand - and twisted my body, grabbing at the chains around me and hoping that any of them were still attached to something. I found one that went tight when I yanked on it, so I held on to that one for dear life; Clownpiece was dragged behind me as my velocity diminished somewhat, and I landed on the ground amidst the dangling chains like it was nothing.

Where...? I couldn't see around me for all the chains, so I started running through them. Clownpiece must've been too stunned to try grabbing me again, and several of the chains fell away after I heard another gunshot ahead of me and to my right. I emerged from the chain thicket and saw Seija standing in the middle of the track, holding Fujiwara's revolver sideways and pointing it up at Clownpiece. She was staring directly into the light of both the moon and Clownpiece's torch, but her eyes looked even deader than before, and her posture was slack like she was falling asleep rather than going berserk.

Seija?! What the hell?

[Asakura:] "She wasn't much help in the fight, so I gave her a different job. Be nice to her, okay?"

Yeah, right. I bet this was your idea of a joke. I didn't want to look a gift horse in the mouth though, so I ran over and took up position beside her. Clownpiece was clutching her face and screaming as chains fell out of her and disintegrated on the ground. It wasn't just the bullets, though; Youmu and Sanae had both shown up and were now pelting Clownpiece with danmaku from just outside the reach of her chains. Youmu looked almost desperate to get in and hit her, dodging in and out of range as the chains lashed out at her - the two of them must have still been berserk, and Seija must have lured them here to attack Clownpiece. Seija's face looked... bored. Or tired. I couldn't tell which.

"That was a slow rescue," I jabbed at her.

Seija's head tilted slightly in acknowledgment, and she said, "Eh. Had a staring contest with the rabbit... Her fault, probably."

Reisen did that?

[Nagato:] "Increasing the length of brain waves protects against insanity, but induces apathy and lethargy instead. She isn't immune, but can handle looking at the light for a little while."

So it's a stopgap solution to save me. I guess that's the only way she could've gotten close.

"That's all I have to do, right? This gun hurts my wrist." She waggled the revolver at me vaguely, I guess trying to get me to take it, but her finger was still on the trigger and I grabbed the thing out of her hand before she could shoot me by accident.

"It probably hurt because you were shooting it sideways," I said.

"Yeah. That's how you look cool with a gun, stupid." Seija scratched her head and looked away from the light, squinting and blinking away the brightness. Meanwhile, Clownpiece was starting to regain her senses, gathering up the remaining chains and lashing them out like tentacles. There were... I couldn't count them, but definitely more than ten. I aimed the revolver back up at her and emptied the chamber; three out of the four shots missed, but one of them shattered a few more of the chains. It seemed like she couldn't replace them, so any little bit helped. Before I could go to reload it though, Clownpiece cast another spell.

[SPELL CARD: HELL SIGN "ECLIPSE OF HELL"]

The moon behind her lifted into the air and swung itself around Clownpiece in a circle. Youmu tried unsuccessfully to cut the moon in half, and was forced along with Sanae to back up. It was quickly followed by a whirlwind of red and white fire that blasted out from Clownpiece's torch in all directions, creating a rotating spiral that radiated out from her as she swung the torch in a circle. Stars fell down from the sky at the same time, quickly filling up the whole field with danmaku, and I had barely time to think about how I'd dodge through it all.

"Ah, I don't wanna dodge this," Seija said just before I slowed down time, squinting her eyes in annoyance. "Do it for me."

Are- are you serious?

The first line of flame started roaring towards us, about to roll over Seija, and she didn't move. She just stood still as it came in for her. Was she actually going to let it hit her?

[Asakura:] "Wow. Reisen really went overboard on her, didn't she?"

You've gotta be kidding me...

I lunged at her, seized her by the waist in both hands, and lifted her off the ground. She was light and I was still running on peaches, so she wasn't that much of a burden, but pretty much my only comfortable choice for carting her around was to princess-carry her while I ran away from the flames to the right, trying to focus on where the danmaku would be coming from next. As I passed Clownpiece to the right of her, the moon came in around her counter-clockwise and actually blocked out the flames, giving me a short space of freedom. I halted and turned around, following the moon as it passed to the left until it swung back around Clownpiece, exposing me to the fire once more, which made me run back to the right in the short space between the waves.

That was pretty much what I had to keep doing: Run right through the fire, then left in the shadow of the moon, avoiding the falling stars the whole way. Youmu kept trying to get in close and slash Clownpiece, while Sanae was calling rain down on the fire, trying to extinguish it to little success. Seija, upon taking in the situation, started to moan, "Huh? This is lame. I don't want to be carried."

Make up your mind!

"Then do something useful!" I said, still trying to keep my eyes on all the danmaku that was coming at us. "Take the gun and load it!"

Seija lazily picked up the gun I'd pressed into her while carrying her and started searching me up and down for the bullets. I knew she was only like this as a defense against Clownpiece, but I couldn't help but wonder if she was doing this partly to mess with me. Running back and forth with her was expending a lot of energy, and I needed some way to either break through this spell or enable the others to do so before they got the idea to attack us instead of Clownpiece. She did indeed manage to eventually load the gun, but afterward, we had another problem: Who would fire it, and at what?

I'd missed most of my shots earlier because of the distance, the light, and the fact that Clownpiece was moving. Seija's aim had been better earlier, but it could've been luck, and Clownpiece was more or less stationary at the time with no spell card interfering. The way I saw it, the best target was the single chain connecting Clownpiece to the moon; shooting that would probably weaken or break the effect of Hecatia's blessing, and maybe even end the spell card. The problem was hitting a target that small at that distance with six shots while dodging danmaku.

"You need to fly up and shoot the chain on the moon," I said.

"Seriously? You do it," she complained, trying to hand the revolver over.

You're definitely doing this to mess with me, aren't you?

"Then stare at the moon until you feel like helping!" I refused to take it - not that I could with both hands supporting her - and kept focused on running through the spell. She huffed and groaned, but did as she was told; I wasn't sure how much moonlight she could take before that apathy wore off, but surely there'd be a sweet spot where she was neither useless nor insane. At least a berserk Seija probably wouldn't have been that dangerous.

"Y'know, I never did think it was possible to make Piece of all people question Hecatia," Seija said after a moment. She turned her head back to me for just a second, then kept watching the moon and the torch. "The other me teach you how to pry people apart like that?"

Did she?

It never really hit me that that was what I was doing. I was just trying to make Clownpiece talk, but yeah, it ended up going that way. Pitting people who'd up to that point been inseparable against each other; I'd seen and been the victim of enough of that thanks to Seija. Not just her blackmail, but the fact that she made me question Reimu and made her look like the bad guy. Even now, I wasn't sure if I could say it was all a lie, and that was the scary part. When I thought about it, Reimu's advice long ago about how I could fight youkai was spot-on; she and Seija had both put me in the habit of finding peoples' flaws. Kind of like Mayumi, in a way.

"...Yeah. I kind of wish she didn't, though."

Seija chuckled weakly. A few seconds later, she averted her eyes from the moon, then pushed against me and stood on her own two feet. "Then you'd better be able to follow through," she said, running along with me back to the right. "And you'd better not regret what you did for a second."

"I won't."

Not this time.

Seija flew up towards the moon as it passed in front of us, then slipped in behind the flames that were pounding its far side. I heard a single gunshot and the flames all disappeared at once. The moon crashed down into the track and shattered into golden dust, and in almost the same instant, Youmu wove through the remaining chains that were lashing at her and met Clownpiece's flame blade with the Roukanken. The flame blade, the torch, and part of Clownpiece's hand were all slashed through in an instant, creating a burst of light and fire that sent Clownpiece flying away to my right, and Youmu... towards me.

Oh, hell! I actually had to dive out of the way as her body came hurtling past. Seija fell to the ground as well; Sanae had hit her with a shot of her own and was now setting her sights on Youmu and me from afar. Youmu stood up, searching for her target, and found me instead. She pivoted her whole body to face me, put up her sword, and charged, forcing me off-balance as I blocked her initial attack. As I reeled, I saw her readying up for another strike.

[REINCARNATION SWORD "SLASH OF THE CIRCLE'S CENTER"]

I couldn't avoid this. I shut my eyes and braced for it, thinking I'd just have to reset and avoid it, but instead of getting hit, I heard the ringing of struck metal. When I opened my eyes, I saw Mayumi in front of me, parrying slash after slash after slash while Youmu swung her sword up and around in a wide circle, but each blow knocked her a little more off-balance until finally Youmu slashed through the center and straight through Mayumi. Mayumi's torso was obliterated and her shoulders fell down into her hips, her whole body crumbling into inert clay.

What-

Mayumi-

If I wanted to block, I couldn't, because I realized that I, too, had been killed by that same slash, and my upper and lower halves separated for a second time before the reset.

[REINCARNATION SWORD "SLASH OF THE CIRCLE'S CENTER"]

...And to my horror, I was brought back here again. Right to the start of Youmu's spell, where I had no time to prepare for her.

Nagato, the light is gone - can you stop time?!

[Nagato:] "I can. Executing now."

The world turned gray and my body turned heavy. I fell to the ground from the force of the swing that had knocked me, but I pushed myself to rise and rush past Mayumi, swinging the Sword of Hisou to deflect the Roukanken. There was pretty much nothing else I could do but this before it wore off, and when it did, my body fell down into the dirt, heavy and useless.

More sounds of scraping metal. I crawled backwards, trying to look at what was happening and get out of the way, and by the time I laid eyes on them again, the Roukanken was once again embedded in Mayumi's body. This time, Mayumi was resisting it; her sword was pushing against the Roukanken, with Hecatia's blessing the only thing that was preventing it from being cut straight through. Her body, however, was beginning to flake and turn dead. Mayumi didn't have any more strength in her. With her sword held at an awkward angle to block with only one hand, the Roukanken was slowly but surely slicing her apart.

My mind raced, trying to think of something else I could do. My body's exhaustion had caught up with me, and I could hardly move. I've got flashbangs in my satchel... those would just hurt all three of us. I can't use the camera or anything.

"Mayumi, why-" I said aloud.

"Shut up!" she grunted, still trying to fight the sword. She glared into Youmu's crazed eyes, fury on her own. "Don't you dare talk to me! This is my fight!"

You...

Even though you know what happened now, why...?

I couldn't understand. She seemed dead-set on fighting Youmu, even though she could have just as easily gone for Clownpiece instead. They'd both been knocked down by that burst of light.

"Stop watching me, you coward!" she barked back at me. "Destroy that wretched fairy! Isn't that what you came here for?!"

...It's the opposite.

She's not trying to defeat Youmu. She came here to save me from her.

Still in shock, I dug through my satchel for another heavenly peach. I bit into it as I rose, staggering, to my feet, forcing myself to look away from Mayumi and towards where Clownpiece had fallen. She was still on the ground, but she'd flown pretty far. My body started rebuilding itself from the inside again, but I withstood the pain. I had to get to her now, no matter what. There was no time to think about what was happening behind me.

Sorry... Mayumi.

I made a dash for Clownpiece as soon as my body would allow it, hoping to get there before she got back up or I was blocked. Sanae, however, had made it closer by now. She threw a line of amulets to cut me off - I erased them with the tengu camera, but a gust of wind came in as I did so that blew me right over. Sanae landed in front of me as I got back to my feet, a hungry grin on her face.

I put my hand out in front of me and said, "Sanae, I'm your friend. We're not supposed to fight right now!"

"Fighting is what friends do, isn't it?" Sanae replied happily. "That's how it works in Gensokyo!"

I saw movement out of the corner of my eye; Mayumi was in pieces on the ground, and Youmu was sprinting in our direction. I was about to be sandwiched between them, and every second was another one that Clownpiece could recover.

Sorry, Sanae. I won't hit you with the sword, but I might not pull my punches either!

I ran at her, getting ready to feint a swing and push through, but Sanae was pulled back abruptly, entangled in a mass of vines I hadn't noticed flying at her from behind. Koishi was at the other end, with the vines coming out of her sleeves, and when she reeled Sanae all the way in, Koishi smiled a tiny smile at me and threw Sanae back, still attached to the vines, then whipped her forward like casting a fishing rod at Youmu. Youmu aimed a strike at Sanae, but Koishi pulled her back and released her, and what followed was an explosion of danmaku as Sanae tried to defend herself. I stopped for a moment, once again dumbstruck at Koishi's abilities, but she skipped forward, seized my upper arms, and pulled me into a big hug in one motion.

What the hell-?!

Her feet left the ground and she spun around me, then pushed me in Clownpiece's direction, twirling and skipping towards Sanae and Youmu without a word. She pulled out a spell card and raised it high, joining the battle.

...I really don't get her.

[SPELL CARD: INSTINCT "FREUDIAN"]

A pink aura formed around her and a swirl of heart-shaped danmaku poured out of it in all directions. The range was short, but enough to block them and add some pressure to their battle. I turned my back on it, resuming my charge towards Clownpiece, who was once again being coaxed into a stand by the golden chains coming out of her. I skidded to a halt before I could get in range of them, facing off against her one more time.

No more tricks, Clownpiece. I'm not going to fail this time.

Clownpiece had the dead look in her eyes again, and here eyelids were twitching like crazy. She was gibbering incoherently, not acknowledging me. Either the light from the moon or the flash from the torch's explosion must've delivered the final blow to her sanity, I thought.

"Left me behind... but no, she still... why would I... did this for so long..." A few recognizable words came out as she rolled her head up and down, searching with her eyes for... well, eventually she found me, and her face reacted by screwing up in anguish, with tears squeezing from her eyes and mixing with the blood and spit all over her face. "You..." she croaked. "I hate you... I hate you... All of you... Everyone just die... Everyone just..."

I didn't bother trying to reason with her this time. There was no way she could even hear my voice, locked in her own world as she was. I readied the Sword of Hisou and waited for a chance to get past the chains.

If Seija hadn't gone down with the gun... Well, whatever. I can make do.

"I... I just remembered..." Clownpiece started grinning with all three of her teeth, drooling more blood on the ground. A few of the chains turned inward and plunged themselves into the murky plasma in her chest, and she seized up for a moment as they writhed inside her body. Then the chains pulled themselves out, dragging a beat-up baseball bat out of her body with them. The very same one that Nagato had enchanted years ago, and Clownpiece had threatened to kill me with just today. Clownpiece grabbed the handle of the bat with her left hand, then her right, and held it in front of her with hate all over her face, "I said... I was gonna beat you to death."

She's completely gone now, huh.

There was nothing in her eyes now but contempt. For me, for my friends, and even for her own allies. Everything else had been purged from her mind by that light, along with her own single-minded envy and greed. She embodied pure hatred, but this time it wasn't because she was purified. This was her choice.

I felt a prodding in my ankle and almost jumped from fear that someone had snuck up on me, but when I looked down, I saw Shanghai and Hourai standing at my feet. The two of them were... The state they were in was incredible. Their bodies were blackened, their clothing mostly burnt away. Hourai was missing her right arm and left leg, and Shanghai was missing her right leg, but the two of them were standing up, each on one foot, supporting each other with what remained of their arms. Shanghai's ribbon was tied at one end around her waist, trailing behind her, and the other end of it was tied around the trigger guard of Fujiwara's revolver. Hourai looked up at me with a deep frown.

How did you guys bring it so fast...? It was pretty far to Seija from here. They must have gone for it while the battle was still going, and even then they had to have flown part of the way. Shanghai was beginning to slide down Hourai's body towards the ground; the magic that was holding them together was failing. Hourai kept staring into me, willing me to act, and I did. I severed the ribbon with the Sword of Hisou, transferred it to my left hand, and picked up the revolver with the right, withdrawing the sword's blade and aiming the gun at Clownpiece with both hands. This time, she was right in front of me - as soon as I'd centered her wound in my sight, I fired three times - two of the bullets went in and Clownpiece stumbled back as the chains flailed for a moment before all shattering at once. Clownpiece screamed in pain, and from the realization that her boon had been used up. She gripped the bat with both hands and shook it wildly, straining her knuckles from how hard she was squeezing it.

"Hecatia won't help you now," I said. "She's not coming to save you again."

"Die... Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die!" Clownpiece wailed, rushing at me with the bat. I put away the gun and activated the sword, completely ready for her.

No more torch. No more chains or moon. No wings, no allies; she has nothing left.

I'm not going to let pity stop me now.

I blocked the bat easily with the sword, and when I felt her pushing into the block instead of disengaging-

Nagato, again! Do it now!

-The world went gray again, and Clownpiece stopped moving. There was no more blessing to protect her from this now. I raised the sword, moved to the right of the bat, and brought it straight down through her head and her body. The Sword of Hisou released a heavenly light all throughout her body, the world returned to color, and Clownpiece fell away dead at my feet.

...I finally got you.

I breathed out, staring at the bloody mess. I wasn't exactly admiring the sight of her, but it didn't feel real that I could do that to someone. That she'd been alive until just a few seconds ago, and now because of me, she wasn't. Neither was Junko, nor Jinwu, nor the alternate Utsuho I'd allowed to be executed.

Neither was Mayumi.

If I hadn't hesitated before... maybe Mayumi would have lived. Right, Nagato?

[Nagato:] "That's possible. Yes."

There'd be a whole new set of possibilities. We'd all have been in a better position to control the people who'd gone insane.

[Nagato:] "There was no guarantee she wouldn't still have been our enemy. It would still have been in her interest to see Hecatia win."

If that were how she felt, she wouldn't have saved me.

I wasn't trying to feel sorry for myself just then. Seija had told me not to regret my actions, and while I couldn't promise that, I could at least try not to let myself be consumed with guilt. Hindsight notwithstanding, there was no single answer for what I should or shouldn't have done. Hesitating to kill Seija and Mayumi had turned out to be a good thing, but hesitating to kill Clownpiece turned out bad. Whether it was people I'd let die like Mayumi and Utsuho, or people I'd killed like Junko, Clownpiece, and that Sky Canopy Domain interface, my only choice was to try and learn something constructive from it all. I had to be able to live with what I'd done, and to do that, I had to acknowledge it first. At least, I thought so.

This didn't just happen to me... not completely, anyway. This was my choice, too.

Looking up from Clownpiece, I realized that the battle was over. Koishi had captured both Youmu and Sanae, squeezing them both together in a cage of vines, with the Roukanken safely on the ground out of Youmu's reach. Youmu's phantom half was still free and firing off danmaku at Koishi, but Koishi was dancing through it like it was a game. The spell cards from back near the gate had stopped, and soon enough, Marisa was speeding towards the field with the rest of the group trailing behind.

...We actually won. Against both of them. It hit me that there were only two Alternates remaining, and our only loss so far had been Mayumi. We were tired, sick of fighting, and emotionally drained, but we were almost completely victorious over them now. If Hecatia knew what was good for her, she'd surrender at this point... Not that I really expected things to go that way.

Reisen, Koizumi, and Asakura veered off towards Koishi's prisoners, while Marisa and Reimu came to me. Marisa reached me first, goggling at the slashed-up body at my feet, and came around to squeeze my shoulder with her left hand. She stayed quiet for a second, at a loss for words, then said, "Ya actually went and did it. Not that I doubted ya, though."

"...Yeah." I put my hand on hers in acknowledgment, then said, "Not by myself, though. I underestimated her, and other people kept having to save me."

"That's what workin' in a team is all about, right? Catchin' each other when we screw up." She grinned at me, a little uncertain, and pointed at herself. "I shoulda reacted like Reimu did and shut my eyes. Woulda been more help if I had."

I bet everyone who wound up insane feels the same way. Like their mistakes caused a mess. I looked over at Youmu, who was writhing in Koishi's cage. Asakura held out one hand and Youmu's body went limp, allowing Reisen to lift her head and stare into her eyes. A faint red glow shone from them, and the next moment, Youmu was set free. She stepped out of the vine cage, which contracted to hold just Sanae, and just as I expected, the first thing she did was turn her back on the rest of us and start walking towards the pile of broken clay a little ways behind the cage.

Reimu hardly looked at me when she arrived. She crouched and inspected the body, slapping some amulets on it for good measure. When it didn't react, she collected them again and stood up straight, apparently satisfied. She looked me in the eyes, gave a shallow nod, and said, "Good job. How are you feeling?"

"Tired, but not hurt," I said. Only because being hurt isn't an option, though.

"Good. We might have to break for a few minutes, but be ready in case someone else comes out of that building." With those parting words, Reimu took flight and went to rejoin the rest of the group.

At least one of us isn't beating herself up.

Now that I had time to think about it, Reimu was supposed to be our leader, but she hardly ever commanded us. She just kept tabs on how we were doing and tried to make the most of all our abilities, bailing us out when she needed to. She held off Jinwu for the rest of us, saved us from Clownpiece's trap, and even tried to help us against Mayumi. She had as much personal stake in this as anyone else, but unlike the rest of us, she never seemed to waver from what she had to do. It was comforting, in a way.

"See?" Marisa shrugged at Reimu's sudden departure. "She's too quick today. Can't even catch my breath, ze."

The two of us started after Reimu, but I broke off to check on Shanghai and Hourai. The two of them were laying defeated on the ground, leaning into one another. It was hard to tell if they were still alive... if one could have called them as such in the first place. They'd made a pretty convincing show of it at the end, dragging themselves as far as they did just to hand me that gun. Then again, you could say that a machine is more likely to do something like that than a person is, right?

Ah, whatever. Living or not, I owe Alice for letting me borrow them. I don't want to return them broken.

I knelt and tried to see if they'd respond to anything. I tapped their foreheads; Shanghai stirred a bit, and Hourai soon after. They were still able to move, but not much.

[Asakura:] "I can reconstruct them, but it will take about seven minutes."

That's fine. We can't move on until we've recovered a little bit anyway.

"Uh... You heard that too, right?" said Marisa behind me.

"Heard what?" I looked up, straining my ears for whatever she might've heard. Is another one coming already? I scanned the field, but couldn't see anyone. In the sky? The trees? The windows?

Marisa scratched her head and said, "Asakura's voice? No? Was that just me?"

Wait, she can - I stood up and faced her. "You can hear her now, too? They got the nanomachines working?"

[Asakura:] "We had to calibrate the nanomachines before we could paralyze the ones who were insane. It's just them right now, but we should be able to synchronize everyone before the end of the break."

"Ah... Uh huh. Gotcha. So we're all possessed now." Marisa grimaced, but shrugged her shoulders and said, "Well, if ya can fix Alice's dolls, that's good. She'd probably murder Kyon when he got back otherwise, ze."

Asakura came over to where we were and began working her magic on the dolls, and I discovered that she was absolutely covered in wounds. She had slashes around her body that must have been from the Roukanken, danmaku scarring over every inch of her, and her clothes were soaked in her own blood, but she had the same plastic smile on her face so we figured she must have been okay and continued on to rejoin the others. Sanae had worked herself almost into a hysteria when I got there, grabbing my shoulders and telling me over and over how sorry she was that she got in my way. I tried to tell her it was okay, but she kept going on about the same thing that Reimu had said; that if only she'd managed to shut her eyes in time, she could have made things turn out differently. Koizumi kept whatever regrets he had to himself and so did Reisen, but I could tell by the look in her eyes - we all understood each other now. I at least knew a little bit how she felt.

Of course, for one of us, that wound was still raw. I excused myself as soon as Sanae had calmed down and went to join Youmu - no one else came, because no one else but Sanae had been there to see it happen, and Sanae didn't know what to say to her. Truth be told, neither did I, but I felt I had to at least make sure she was all right. I walked up carefully behind where she was standing in silence over Mayumi's remains, trying to gauge her mood. The wound on her left hand had closed up and the Roukanken was back in its sheath, but the Hakurouken's sheath was still empty.

"You okay?" I said. I couldn't think of anything more creative.

Youmu nodded numbly. "We were going to kill her anyway," she said. "Things just got more complicated at the end."

That's true. And like Nagato said, there was no guarantee she would've stayed on our side.

I wanted to think she would have. I mean, why else would she have saved me? That's assuming I was right about what she was doing, anyway. Maybe the truth was just that Youmu was the closer target, or that saving me would help her kill them both at once. Heck, I didn't even know whether she was sane at the time. Sanae and Clownpiece could both talk while they were berserk.

"I kind of wish I knew why she did that," I said.

"...She told me..." Youmu lowered her head and mumbled, "'Do your vengeance on me, Quarter. I would fall by the same blade that took her life.'"

...Man.

What do I even say about that?

She was proud. Even when facing death, she never let go of that pride, nor her loyalty to her master. She went as far as anyone could go for her sake. I was certain then; Mayumi really was trying to save us. She'd give her own life to make up for what she did, but she'd never once apologize for it. Everything she ever did, she did with absolute confidence.

Youmu shook her head, then turned her back on Mayumi, saying, "It's too complicated. I'd rather not think about it now." She walked back to join everyone else and I followed, thinking that maybe she had the right idea. The first thing I noticed was that Seija had appeared looking more disheveled than ever, and was in the middle of telling Sanae to screw off while the latter attempted to apologize for shooting her out of the sky. We all migrated to the edge of the field where we weren't exposed and most of us sat down, myself included; I figured I'd wait till we were ready to move before eating another one of those peaches. Reimu reluctantly took a seat with Reisen, the two of them keeping their eyes on the school windows rather than engaging in any conversation. The only one of us still in the mood to talk at all was Koizumi, who continued to mine Seija's brain for any more information about Hecatia that we could use. In no time at all, Asakura returned to us along with a good-as-new Shanghai and Hourai; their bodies, equipment, and frilly dresses were back in the same pristine condition as before we'd descended into the geyser hole. The two of them floated in next to me, and Shanghai gave me a tiny hug around the waist. I exchanged stiff nods with Hourai, as had apparently become our means of communication.

Thanks for bringing them back, Asakura. Any chance you could do it with Koizumi?

[Asakura:] "Only if you're fine with waiting another hour."

Truth be told, I wanted to. I knew we couldn't give Hecatia any more time, though. She was clearly trying to stall us, and as long as we were still more or less in fighting shape, we had to press on. Instead of recovering with the rest of us, Asakura and Youmu ventured out to search the hill for the Hakurouken, promising to let us know if they saw any sign of ambush.

I noticed that Koishi had settled in next to me, and was patting and playing with Shanghai and Hourai without much of an expression on her face. She didn't look happy, exactly; more like she'd somehow become attached to the dolls and was trying to draw some comfort from them. She couldn't have forgotten what had happened to the alternate Utsuho after all. She didn't try to talk to anyone else, and I didn't know what to say to her either, so I just watched her as she babbled to herself about how nice their dresses were and how she wanted a doll for a pet. For some reason Hourai seemed to warm up to her more than she did to me, which made me a little jealous.

It was weird, being here. I was resting when I knew every second counted. I was relying on and even thanking Asakura of all people. Hell, she'd sent Seija over to save me, which meant I owed her too. Reimu, Asakura, Seija, Koishi, Shanghai, Hourai, and Mayumi - all of them had rescued me at one point or another in that fight. Sure, maybe I couldn't die, but what would have happened if I was stuck in a loop with Youmu killing me and no way out? If resetting changed me somehow, I'd probably have died over and over until the elixir either wore off or killed me itself. I'd never been so powerful in my life, yet I was still basically at the mercy of those around me. If nothing else, it was humbling.

I think I preferred when my role was to support everyone else. Hanging back and healing is more "me." So I thought as I idly handled the hilt of the Sword of Hisou, imagining what could've possessed Yasumi to essentially take it away from someone who could've used it better and give it to me instead. But then again, what did I really know about "me"? The reality was that I'd killed two Alternates with this sword. If my self-image didn't match that reality, then it was probably my own perceptions that were wrong.

Either way... it still hurt. I avoided looking at Mayumi as much as I could, trying to keep my sights ahead. I had to be better for their sake. It would all be for nothing if I kept making these kinds of mistakes.

Nagato. We're about to fight you, so... Please tell me how to win.

[Nagato:] "I've made preparations already. A repair program will be sent with your next reinforcements."

Right, we killed two of them, so we should be getting two more people. But wait, a repair program?

There was only one thing I remembered Nagato calling a "repair program." That thing she'd given me on Tanabata when I traveled back in time from the modified universe. On that day, she had turned her glasses into a syringe, and then into a slightly easier-to-stomach needle gun, and told me to shoot her altered self. We're just going with that again?

[Nagato:] "Deviations in her structure should be manageable. Asakura can interface with the program and subjugate her defenses."

As long as Hecatia hasn't made some kind of countermeasure... When is it coming?

[Nagato:] "Soon. Tenshi requires more preparation to penetrate the boundary, so it is taking some time. Sakuya will be coming with her."

More... preparation? Why would she be harder to send through?

[Asakura:] "Basically, she's a lot stronger than you, so she uses more bandwidth?"

Fair enough. I guess sending a celestial into a world like this might be some kind of blasphemy in and of itself.

It was hard to imagine Tenshi as the kind of perfect being that was supposed to inhabit the heavens, but I couldn't argue that she was strong. Sakuya was pretty strong too, for a human. It made sense that Hecatia's power would be focused on trying to keep out our most powerful people.

So... Everything's almost ready. In a few minutes we'll be heading inside the school proper.

Hecatia was steadily losing ground. It wouldn't be long now until one way or another, this all came to an end. I reminded myself that it wasn't going to get any easier, and I couldn't think of this as a chance to relax. If Junko wasn't just bluffing, Hecatia must have had at least one extra trick left. This was the time to give it everything I had, with nothing held back.

We were on the campus.

Two enemies left.

"Nagato."

Hecatia finally spoke, after what seemed to be a long time. Clownpiece and Mayumi were both dead, they could feel it, and the group were at North High. The bespectacled girl stepped out of the shadows again.

"Yes?"

Hecatia still looked out the window at the falling snow.

"Would you be so kind as to kill each and every one of them? Clownpiece was loyal but always so inefficient. Just end them and be done with it."

Nagato stared at Hecatia, knowing she was no where near being at a hundred percent. She didn't say a word, didn't respond, other than leave the room, going down to meet them outside.

Hecatia, alone in the room, sighed to herself. "You stupid, selfish boy. What comes next is on you. You killed my best friend, so..."

She returned to silence, going over her plan again, where she would get Haruhi and Sasaki's power, and it would be their own fault. She noticed their tactics of bringing in more people, of making their world nearer to hers with each portal.

Keep establishing the connection. Make it bigger. There was no need for her to expend her energy to go to their world when they were wasting theirs coming to hers.

I can't lose. That power will finally be in the capable hands of someone who will actually do something with it. Who can actually make a change. Who can help humanity and the universe escape the cycle.

The cycle of loss, of grief, of destruction. No. It would all end. Heaven would be the physical world. Heaven would be what all living beings would enjoy for eternity. No need for war. No need for fear. No need for sadness of losing those close to you. Everything eventually dies. Everything eventually decays. But not in her planned multiverse.

I'm not the villain here. You all are, by preventing the perfect world.

You are the villains for not stepping aside.

Read and review. Lady Yukari demands it.