Imperfect Metamorphosis

by TakerFoxx

It's the first day of spring, and Cirno and her friends are once again up to no good! But after stealing a strange box from Marisa's house, they soon find themselves over their heads as they discover some things are meant to remain locked up.

72. A Lazy Summer

A Lazy Summer

Summer had come to Gensokyo, and it was almost scary how quickly things had returned to normal.

Certainly it had been a turbulent start to the year, with some new event happening practically every other week. Eientei, destroyed! Princes Kaguya, eaten or something or another! Yukari Yakumo, crippled! Marisa Kirisame, dead! Remilia Scarlet, banished! Satori Komejii, kidnapped! A trio of deadly monsters, some new and others familiar, on the loose! Sariel gravely injured! Dozens of Underworlders, dead or hurt! And most headline-worthy, Yuuka Kazami dead and the Garden of the Sun, burned to the ground!

And that isn't even touching the several dozen or so secondary dramas to take place along the way, each one capable of stirring up weeks of gossip in of themselves in more stable times. Things had been happening, power balances had been shifting, and tongues had been wagging in every tavern and on every street corner.

And it had finished.

The execution of Yuuka Kazami had seemed to be the true climax to the strange events plaguing Gensokyo, and while there were certainly a number of unresolved loose threads, any news on those had fallen silent. And in time, even the Tengu stopped talking about them, with everyone returning to their lives and accepting what changes were permanent as the new status quo. Sure, things had gotten very strange for a couple of months, but it hadn't been the first time nor would it be the last, so now was the time to just move on.

All except for Reimu Hakurei. Normally after an Incident had been resolved, her life would settle back to normal, maybe with a new face or two now on her mailing list. But it seemed that ever since that spring, her life had only gotten busier. She had people that she was visiting every week instead of every now and again, keeping in touch and working to better herself.

Which is why she found herself sucking in air as she desperately tried not to get sliced in half by a sword-wielding assailant that was far more skilled than she ever would be.

The thin blade shot straight for Reimu's face, its point threatening to slice right into her eye. Unprepared for such a blatant frontal assault, she only just managed to jerk her head out of the way.

Unfortunately, the attack had just been a feint, and her sloppy dodge ended up leaving her torso exposed. The blade was withdrawn in the blink of an eye and stabbed right at her heart.

Reimu froze. Then she slowly looked down at the slender blade that bent against her chest, its corked point pressing against the white fencer's outfit she wore.

There was a sigh, and her opponent withdrew her foil. "Poor form," Sakuya Izayoi said as she stepped back. "You were focused on the blade and not on your opponent. I told you: the position of my sword is no indicator of where it will go. My body language is what you need to be paying attention to."

Growling, Reimu pulled off the meshed mask protecting her face. "But your body language doesn't tell me squat! It's like you're carved from a damned block of ice! Nothing moves until I got a pointy thing cutting me in half!"

"I was deliberately signaling my every move with my wrist," Sakuya calmly told her. "Even the slightest twitch should tell you everything you need to know about my next attack." She lifted her blade and reassumed the dueler's stance. "Now, again."

Reimu's eye twitched, but she pulled her mask back on and got into position. Her blade crossed Sakuya's in an X. The two women held the stance for nary a second, and then, with little in the way of warning, Sakuya struck.

Her first attack slid down the length of Reimu's blade before sweeping around to jab at the shrine maiden's hip. Reimu barely managed to jerk out of the way and parry, but Sakuya merely used the momentum of Reimu's sword to curve hers around and go for Reimu's shoulder, which again was only avoided by a hair's breadth.

"Watch your footing!" Sakuya shouted as she struck again and again, keeping Reimu on the defensive. "Flow with the attacks, not against them!"

"It's! Not! That! Easy! To-Ah!" The cork of Sakuya's foil now pressed against Reimu's stomach.

Reimu glared down through the meshwork at what surely would have been a disemboweling strike had they not been using dueling foils. Her shoulders slumped. "You're enjoying this," she said.

"I'm sure I don't know what you mean."

"Don't lie. This is revenge for those spellcard duels."

Sakuya withdrew her blade. "There is no dishonor in losing against a skilled opponent in a format in which you are unaccustomed. Or, in your case, a divinely gifted one."

Reimu tilted her head. She had the distinct feeling that she had just been subtly insulted, but since Sakuya was wearing the same kind of silly mask that she was, the maid's expression was impossible to judge. Not that she would be able to read anything from her anyway.

In fact, come to think of it, the fact that Sakuya was wearing any kind of protection at all was probably a dig as well. It wasn't like she needed it.

Then she heard a familiar tittering laugh, coming from the Scarlet Devil Mansion's back porch. Reimu turned to see Remilia sitting there in the shade, watching the two. She was wearing her pajamas, so she had probably just woken up.

"Well done, Reimu!" Remilia said, clapping her dainty hands together. "Your improvement is noticeable!"

Reimu took her mask off so she could glare at the little vampire properly. "You're making fun of me."

"On the contrary, you managed to last nearly five seconds that time," Remilia replied. "That's a near thousand percent improvement from when you first started."

"That's because she's taking it easy on me!"

"Of course she is," Remilia said with one of her smug smiles. "If she wasn't, you wouldn't see any improvement at all. You'd just lose each duel in a millisecond, over and over for the entire session."

"Tough talk coming from an overgrown mosquito," Reimu retorted. She pulled her mask back on and pointed her foil at Remilia. "C'mon. You said you know how to do this, right? Let's go, Fangs."

Remilia laughed again. "Thank you, but no. It is still afternoon, and I don't care to be reduced to a pile of ashes should my mask slip."

"We could do it inside."

"And risk having any of my priceless possessions damaged because of your clumsy footwork? I'll pass." Then she yawned. "Anyway, I need to go back to bed anyway. I just got up for a midday snack. Cheerio, ladies. Let me know if you need anything."

Reimu and Sakuya watched as Remilia reentered the mansion. It wasn't until the door had clicked shut and Remilia was out of her considerable earshot that Reimu remarked, "Well, at least she's doing better. I mean, no offense, but I thought that she'd be inconsolable for the rest of the year."

There was a lengthy pause, and then Sakuya said, "Is that what you see?"

Reimu frowned. "What do you mean?"

Sakuya bowed her head. "Reimu, I…didn't really want to bring this up, but despite how she's acting, the mistress is hanging on by a thread."

"Oh." Reimu swallowed. "Is it really that bad?"

There was another long pause, and then Sakuya said, "I've foiled two suicide attempts in the last three weeks."

Reimu nearly tripped. Considering that she had been standing perfectly still, that was saying something. "Wait, really? I mean, I knew she had to be devastated, but-"

"Vampires experience emotions at a far more elevated level than the mortals they are created from," Sakuya explained. "Even the sane ones. It's where their reputation for dramatics comes from. If you'll recall, after losing Flandre the first time she isolated herself in the bell tower for weeks, nearly starving herself in the process."

"And now she's lost her best friend," Reimu said. "And Flandre pretty much rejected her."

Sakuya nodded. "I've had to place a charm on her to keep me informed of her emotional and mental state. If her despair ever reaches a point in which she is tempted to do herself harm, I will know. It is the only reason I knew to stop her the second time."

"Good gods," Reimu whispered. "I mean, she was in a bad way when she left the shrine, but I didn't know it was that bad."

"When judging a vampire's emotional state in the face of tragedy, it's best to start from the worst case scenario, and then work your way up."

"Shit," Reimu muttered. She wasn't exactly the most empathetic person, but she still felt downright wretched for not picking up on that.

Sakuya said nothing for a bit. Then she reached up and took her mask off.

The renegade Lunarian's face was as beautiful and cold as ever, a perfect sculpture carved from a block of ice. But now that Reimu was looking, was really looking, she could see the strain creeping in, the minute cracks forming around the mouth, the deep weariness in her glacier eyes.

"Your visits help," Sakuya said after a time. "Even if she doesn't say much, they help, knowing that you'll keep coming."

"Is that why you're always pissed whenever I'm late?"

"That, and my detest for tardiness on general principles." Sakuya took in a deep breath, and it fluttered a bit. "Reimu, I know you have your own wounds from what happened, but I would…greatly appreciate it if you would visit more often. We don't even have to practice every time. Just please…come by. Help her."

And you. Sakuya hadn't said the plea out loud, but Reimu still picked up on it. "I'll…of course," she said. "Hell, seems all I'm doing these days is visit people."

At this, Sakuya tilted her head. "Because it helps distract you." It wasn't a question.

Instead of answering the maid's observation, Reimu took a step back and held up her blade. "Come on. Again."

After a moment Sakuya slipped her mask back on, assumed the stance, and crossed Reimu's blade with her own.

…

After her fencing lesson had concluded, Reimu would have stayed longer, maybe even wait until Remilia was up and about. Unfortunately, she had another appointment, one with an even sterner teacher.

The house she was visiting was quite pleasant, a two-story affair with clean white-washed walls and a circular tower on one end. Arranged around it was a lively garden of carefully tended and brightly colored flowers and exceptionally large mushrooms. The flowers all had a faint sheen about their petals, as did parts of the mushrooms, such as the red ones with the glowing white spots and the black ones with the glowing blue undersides. Reimu, who knew a thing or two about wild mushrooms from her friends, gave them all a wide berth.

Overall, the house was very nice to look at, though its location might raise a few eyebrows, considering that it was well within the Forest of Magic, and one only had to walk a few paces outside of its white picket-fence to find themselves surrounded by the gnarled trees and shadowed paths. Anyone capable of maintaining such a homestead in a place like that was to be respected, and possibly feared.

Fortunately, Reimu was expected.

Taking a deep breath, Reimu raised her hand to knock.

"That won't be necessary."

Reimu winced, not just because the sudden voice behind her had startled her, but that she had been startled at all. Wow, it was a good thing that youkai activity was down at the moment, if she was now that easy to sneak up on. She turned to face the now undisputed top magician of the Forest of Magic.

Alice looked well. Better, actually, than she had been before this canker sore of a year had started. She was wearing her usual outfit of blue, white, and pink, with one notable recent addition, specifically the wide-brimmed, pointy hat on her head.

It was, of course, Marisa's old hat, the one Reimu had brought her, though it now looked very different, in that it was now sky-blue instead of black, with a pink ribbon tied into a large bow along the cone's base instead of a white one.

At first, Reimu had felt uneasy with the changes Alice had made to the hat, as it seemed like she had erased Marisa's presence from it. But as Genji explained to her, "Marisa was a gal who like takin' what other folks came up with and makin' it her own. She would be proud of her squeeze doin' the same. Better than lettin' it jus' sit around in a closet somewheres, anyway."

To that, Reimu had to concede the point.

Alice had a covered basket in her hand, and peeking out beneath the red-and-white checkered cloth she saw several mushrooms, which explained why Alice had been out of the house in the first place. And, as was now permanently the case, she was accompanied by her daughter Shanghai, who was hovering over her right shoulder.

"Alice," Reimu said. "Well, hi. Were you waiting for me?"

Alice smirked. "No. I anticipated that you would be late, and decided to make use of the intervening time to go out and gather some additional regents."

"Which means you're just getting back yourself," Reimu said. "So…you're actually more late than I am!"

"No, I am not," Alice said. She walked past Reimu to unlock the door.

As she did so, her tiny doll companion zipped up to Reimu. "Good afternoon, Miss Hakurei!" Shanghai said with a polite bow. "How are you today?"

Though she had gotten used to the idea of Alice having become a mother via magically animated and ensouled doll, Reimu still couldn't get over just how much Shanghai sounded like Marisa. Granted, her voice was much younger and smaller than Marisa's, and was nowhere near as bombastic, and she didn't have the rough, masculine edge that Marisa had, and she was considerably more polite, but the similarities were there.

"I am well, thank you, Shanghai," Reimu said, returning the bow. "You were helping your mother, I presume?"

"Oh, yes!" Shanghai said, her small face lighting up with excitement. "We found a patch of especially rare muttersuckle, which is valued for its uses as a pain reliever, sleep inducer, antidepressant, and a hallucinogen!"

"Ah…" Reimu shot Alice a sidelong glance. "Well, that sounds…handy."

Alice sighed. "Oh, for goodness's sake. Wipe the look off your face! They're for Eirin Yagokoro! She pays well for regents that don't grow locally for her. I have to pay the bills somehow!"

"If you say so," Reimu said dubiously as she followed the blonde magician inside.

Alice's house had always struck Reimu as being more like a workshop than a home, one that had been, in its own way, just as packed as Marisa's house had been, albeit much more tidy and ordered. There had been endless shelves, cubbies, and cabinets of doll parts, doll clothing, marionette string, and the materials needed to make all of the above. There had also been her many tomes of magic, magician's instruments, alchemical ingredients, racks of potions, stacks of charm paper, a summoning circle, an entire glass cabinet full of various crystals, and the various workspaces she needed for the many different magical disciplines that a proper magician would need. Of course everything had been meticulously stored, categorized, and kept neat and clean, but there had been little room for anything else, with very little in the way of personal effects.

Most of that was still there, but little by little bits of life were intruding into the world of order. Wildflowers now stood in vases by windows and on tables, ones that had clearly been picked on a whim by Shanghai rather than carefully considered for their aesthetic consistency by Alice. A collection of colorful river stones were lines up on one windowsill. The number of storybooks that sat alongside the tomes of magic was growing. And there was now a small oaked chest in the corner, one that was filled with toys rather than practicalities.

"You are coming from your fencing lesson at the Scarlet Devil Mansion, correct?" Alice said as she hung her hat on a wall hook, one shaped like a flamingo head. "How is Remilia?"

Motherhood really had softened her, Reimu noticed. Once upon a time Alice wouldn't have given two shits how some snobby vampire friend of Reimu's was doing. "Uh, not good," Reimu said. "I mean, she seems fine, but Sakuya said that she's…er…"

"Emotionally compromised?"

"Well, I guess?" Reimu shrugged. "More like suicidal."

Shanghai, who had been bearing Alice's basket of mushrooms into the alchemy room (which, given that the basket was nearly three times her size, made for a fairly humorous sight), paused at that. "I read about that!" she said. "That is when mortals suffer from self-destructive impulses, correct?"

Reimu frowned. Despite having known her for several weeks, she still wasn't sure whether to treat Shanghai as an unusually precocious child or an especially innocent-minded adult. "Uh, that's right."

"But your friend Remilia Scarlet is a vampire, correct? And vampires are an immortal species? How then is she suffering from a mortal malady?"

"Er…" Reimu shot Alice a pleading look, hoping that she would take over the increasingly un-child-friendly conversation.

"Vampires are, strictly speaking, not full immortals," Alice chimed in. "They are created from mortals, and thus retain many mortal sensibilities and ways of thinking. Furthermore, they are immune to only age and disease, and despite being resistant to a wide variety of wounds that many mortals would consider fatal, they have plenty of weaknesses of their own, the most commonly known being the destruction of their heart, decapitation, and direct exposure to sunlight. A vampire seeking to end her own life would have little trouble finding a way."

It was just so damned weird listening to Alice and Shanghai talk to one another sometimes. It sort of reminded Reimu of an older dictionary instructing a younger one, calmly and articulately explaining how the world works with no regard if the subject matter was inappropriate for someone so young.

"Oh," Shanghai said, a thoughtful look on her face. She brightened. "Oh! That makes sense then!" Satisfied with her mother's answer, she was about to be on her way, but then seemed to remember something. "Oh, that is right. I am sorry for your friend's distress, Miss Hakurei, and hope that she is able to recover from her emotional trauma and the resultant self-destructive impulses."

It was a weird way to express sympathy, but hey, the Margatroids were a weird family, and Reimu appreciated the thought.

When the little doll had left the room, Alice said, "That is distressing to hear, though not unexpected. You know, considering."

Reimu put her hands on her hips and sighed. "Yeah. Sakuya's keeping a close eye on her, which is about as good as putting her in a box, but it's still scary."

"It helps to have someone there to support you," Alice agreed. "I have to admit, ever since we lost Marisa, it sometimes feels as if Shanghai is the only thing keeping me from slipping into despair myself."

If there was one major advantage to spending more time with Alice, it was that she was even more blunt that Reimu was. It was refreshing to have someone with whom she could just say exactly what you were thinking and feeling. Sure, she had Genji, but even he didn't cut to the chase as quickly as Alice did.

"Are you holding up okay?" Reimu said.

"Thank you for asking. Some days are harder than others, but I am improving." As if to demonstrate, Alice actually smiled, something that she had been doing more and more often as of late. Reimu could probably count on one hand the numbers of times that she had seen Alice Margatroid actually smile in a manner that wasn't smug or self-righteous before Marisa's murder. "Having Shanghai around helps, as does our lessons."

"Wait, really?" Reimu said in suspicion. "You're not just saying that to make me feel better?"

Alice headed for the other room, and Reimu followed. "As it turns out, instructing another in skills in which you are already proficient has proven to be unexpectedly fruitful. Helping you along with the fundamentals of magic has made me return to and reexamine my own technique, and sharpened my grasp of the basics. Had I known that taking on an apprentice would have improved my own skills, I would have done it a long time ago."

"Glad I could help," Reimu groused. "Wish I was seeing the same kind of progress."

Alice sat cross-legged on the floor. "Give it time. You are coming into this much later in life than most magicians do.

Reimu sat down across from her. "Did you just call me old?"

Alice smiled again. "Most magicians, youkai or otherwise, begin their lessons during early childhood, when the mind is still malleable. It is much more difficult to begin while already an adult, and in your case you also have to resist the temptation to fall back on your natural abilities. You not only have to learn techniques that your mind is not naturally inclined toward, you also have to unlearn most of its natural instincts."

"Yeah, wish I knew it was going to be like this earlier," Reimu muttered. Oh well. At least Gensokyo had been unusually peaceful ever since Yuuka Kazami had gotten snuffed. Having to deal with a whole new incident when she was trying to upend her entire moda operandi would probably end in disaster.

"Let us begin," Alice said.

Reimu swallowed. The start of her magical lessons was easily her least favorite, because Alice insisted on starting things with an extended mediation session in order to mentally prepare. One would think that, as a shrine maiden, Reimu would be a natural at mediation, but her job had always been less about finding inner peace and more about enforcing societal peace. Unfortunately, society actually was being peaceful for once, but her inner balance was anything but.

Together they closed their eyes and slowed their breathing. Reimu starting to count her breaths, trying to achieve a state of calm while dreading what was going to come next.

In times past, her fears and worries had been…simple. Ever-present, but simple. She had worried about things like where her next meal was going to come from, about whether or not the shrine was insulated enough for winter, about getting some incident or another resolved in time for her to get to bed at a decent hour.

Now she had an abundance of resources and support, and the land itself had calmed itself, so her fears had become more complicated, and much more abundant.

Reimu felt herself sinking deeper into herself, and without the external stimuli to distract her, they leapt for the forefront.

She saw Remilia's face, fangs bared in a broken smile. The smile then dissolved, and she weeping and screaming, just like she had done when she had found out about Patchouli. She shimmered again, and she was the emaciated corpse that Reimu had to bully into taking care of herself after losing Flandre.

I've foiled two suicide attempts in the last three weeks, Sakuya's voice whispered.

Remilia's face faded away, and Reimu was looking at Rin Satsuki, first as the small child she had seen in pictures, which then melted into the horrific amalgamation of familiar faces she had met at the shrine and later on the fields at the base of the Youkai Mountain.

Appearances can be deceiving, child, her memory of Mima told her. Her adaptation reaches beyond the physical, and the regeneration she stole from the Hourai immortals protects her as well. But trust me, I cannot recall the last time I have seen such a damaged creature. She has been wounded deeply, where it hurts the most.

A moment later Rin was gone, and she was faced with the visage of Yukari Yakumo, a face she had sworn to never see again, a face that was often so sure of herself, whether it be wearing her usual lazy smugness or that grim, almost murderous determination whenever things got really bad, now just looked sad and regretful as the echoes of Reimu's last angry words to her filled the space around them.

You stay away from me and my shrine. Understand?

As you wish, Hakurei Shrine Maiden.

A spiteful command. A severed friendship. And Yukari faded away like the rest.

Reimu's fingers were starting to tremble. She inhaled once again and steadied herself.

Now a new face was appearing to her, this one framed by a long emerald mane and bearing glimmering sapphire eyes. Mima smiled at her out of the dark. Mima, her friendly nemesis. Mima, who had been closer to her than most friends. Mima, who had been one of the few constants in her life.

Mima the liar. Mima the monster. Mima the villain.

Farewell, Reimu Hakurei. We shall not meet again, not in this life or any other.

Then, almost as a direct answer, Ran Yakumo whispered into Reimu's ear.

Mima lied.

And then she was gone as well, the hair shortening and brightening to straw-yellow, the pointed hat vanishing, and the eyes darkening from sparkling blue to burning red.

It was the face of little Rumia, the obnoxious, darkness-wielding friend of Cirno's, whom Reimu had with dealt a few dozen times over the years, whom she had never thought of as being anything more than a mischievous troublemaker, one that was, like the rest of her friends, annoying, but ultimately harmless.

In her mind's eye, she saw Rumia's childlike face twist and contort, the lines sharpening, sharp teeth protruding, the glow of her scarlet eyes becoming downright murderous. And then there was the sound of dark wings beating the air.

We never did figure out where she came from, Yukari's voice said. It seemed like she had climbed out of Hell itself. Maybe she had. But whatever her origins, she was bound and determined to burn Gensokyo to the ground.

The Shadow Youkai's face twisted up, became a different face, this one with high and haughty cheeks and moss-green hair, though the burning red eyes remained the same.

The countenance of the now-dead Yuuka Kazami leered at Reimu, much as she had done after murdering Marisa. Though now she bore none of the damage that Reimu or Marisa had inflicted on her. She was perfectly healthy and perfectly murderous.

Such a tragedy to see someone so young and quick and full of promise cut down before their first grey hair, especially one that's close to you. I know how much this must hurt.

This time, the face did not melt into the next, but instead was puffed away as the final visitor appeared. The hideous visage of Marisa's corpse shoved herself right through Yuuka, one golden eye glassy and unblinking, the other a ruined mess, tiny tendrils wriggling their way out of her skin, her head lolling on her broken neck as she jerkily came closer and closer.

Reimu.

And then Reimu couldn't take it anymore. She collapsed forward with a gasp, tears streaming down her face, shoulders heaving.

Every time it was the same. Every time she would try to meditate, to clear her mind and clean her soul, but no matter how many times she tried to just let everything wash off of her, the moment she finally let her guard down, let the swirling fears and hurts that she was keeping at bay slip past her defenses, they rose up and overwhelmed her.

As she sat and cried, she felt someone slip a piece of soft cloth into her hands. Nodding her thanks, she wiped her eyes and blew her nose.

"You're doing better," Alice said as Reimu cleaned herself up. "They had to work for it that time."

Reimu sighed. Truth be told, the reason Reimu kept going to her "magic" lessons had less to do with expanding her arsenal, and more to do with Alice now feeling like the only person she could let herself feel vulnerable around. The first time Alice had suggested meditating, Reimu had broken down immediately, and would have fled Alice's house in tear to never return had the doll-master not been so quick to comfort her and tell her that maybe, just maybe, trying to soldier on while carrying so much pain and fear wasn't going to be healthy in the long-term, and having a way to confront and deal with it would be in her best interests.

Despite hating herself for feeling like that, Reimu could see the logic in that argument. So she had stayed, and she had come back. Because damn it, Marisa had never let anything beat her, not even her personal weaknesses, so Reimu was not going to do the same. It was just her now. Marisa was gone, Yukari was…out of the picture, Remilia was even more than a wreck, Sanae had her own duties to worry about, so Reimu was once again on her own, like the eras of shrine maidens before her. She had to beat this. She had to be strong, no matter how weak the cure made her feel.

"Thanks," Reimu muttered. "Just wish it wasn't so rough."

"The cure is often harder than the hurt," Alice said. "But it does become easier over time, and you are left feeling better for it."

"Okay, but when? I mean, how long did it take you before you could even think about it without feeling like your heart was getting torn out all over again?"

At this, Alice blinked, sniffed, and glanced away, though not before Reimu noticed the shimmering wetness forming around her eyes.

"When it does, I'll let you know," Alice said softly.

…

After the meditation came the lesson itself, which was much less emotionally harrowing but in many ways ten times more frustrating. Alice was keeping it light, focusing on minor spells that even the most mediocre magician could do in their sleep.

Reimu, who was exceptional at many things but quite a terrible magician, couldn't even do those. Just attempting to channel enough magic to burn the end of a stick without employing her shrine maiden abilities just about gave her an aneurysm.

"Don't worry, it'll come with time," Alice assured her, like she did every time. Reimu appreciated her patience, though she was starting to suspect that Alice was insisting on keeping their lessons together going as a way to ensure that Reimu continued meditating. "For her own good," no doubt.

Regardless, when she left the Margatroid house around two, she was quite mentally worn out and still a little emotionally raw, to say nothing of still feeling her bruises from her session with Sakuya. So all in all, she was pretty beat.

And unfortunately, despite having been put through the ringer by an unforgiving Lunarian taskmaster and letting both her heart and brain get beaten and bruises by a notoriously anti-social magician, Reimu still had her normal job to do.

Joy.

With a low groan, Reimu took to the sky.

At least it was an unusually quiet summer. Usually this was when many youkai started to get rowdy, but the turbulent spring had seemed to discourage most of them from drawing too much attention to themselves. And when Reimu did come across something she needed to put a stop to, the perpetrators usually just backed down without much resistance. Reimu didn't know if it was uncharacteristic pity on their part or fear that she would snap and send them somewhere from which there was no returning, but she wasn't going to question it.

Unfortunately, as she left the borders of the Forest of Magic and started for the fields that surrounded the Human lands, Reimu was reminded that not everyone would be enjoying the peace and quiet.

She felt the oncoming assailant before she heard her, a sort of change in the wind that made the hairs on her arm prickle. For a brief second she was completely on her guard, ready to defend herself from attack.

Then she recognized exactly whose energies she was sensing.

And her mood soured.

Aw shit, not her.

Reimu came to a stop in midair. Then she waited.

It started off as a shrill, but very faraway cry, a high, sustained note that rapidly came closer and closer and closer.

"eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee…"

Reimu held her purification rod loosely in her right hand, her thumb rubbing its shaft.

"eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE…"

Almost there, almost there…

"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE-"

Now!

Before the person-shaped missile could slam into her, Reimu darted to the left and swung her purification rod around, right into the other's face.

There was a sharp crack, and her force of the impact send tremors through her hand and all the way down her arm.

It hurt, but watching the obnoxious youkai woman be knocked senseless and tumble limply to the earth made it more than worth it.

Reimu watched her fall until she hit the ground. Then, with a slight smirk, the shrine maiden flew down to her.

"Well, well, well, if it isn't Aya Shameimaru," Reimu said as she touched down. "Still suicidally chasing stories I see."

The Tengu reported was still dazed from both the hit and the fall, but she had at least recovered enough of her wits to sit up. From the look of things, Reimu had managed to smash her nose right in, if the impressive purple swelling and trickle of blood out of one nostril was any indication.

Aya was listlessly swaying back and forth, but when she heard Reimu's voice her eyes suddenly snapped into focus. She shook her head and turned her full attention toward the shrine maiden. "Reimu Hakurei! Well, I never! Now tell me: was breaking my nose and knocking me right out of the sky really necessary?"

"I dunno, was trying to tackle me at neckbreaking speed while screaming like a possessed rabbit?"

Aya let herself fall flat onto her back, drew her legs up, and kipped up to her feet. Reimu noted with a mixture of amusement and annoyance that her notepad and pen were already back in her hands. "Nonsense, I was going to swoop right around you at the last second! Instead you decided to outright break my nose! And this at a time when people are already wondering about your ties to fugitive youkai, disgraced vampires, as well as your estrangement with Yukari Yakumo! And now you're assaulting perfectly innocent and devilishly beautiful reporters! Now, I wonder what the reading public might think about that?"

Reimu was wholly unimpressed. "Aya. Nobody cares.

"Are you so sure of that?" Aya's grin grew bigger, almost as if there still wasn't a stream of ruby blood dripping over her lip. "I think public opinion is a very, very fragile thing, and yours has always hung on a knife's edge. I think a little article about the notoriously anti-social hermit now attacking poor, sweet Aya Shameimaru might cause a few tongues to start wagging, and a few brows to start furrowing."

"Uh-huh," Reimu drawled. "Or any Humans that actually read your dirtrag will find it funny, any youkai will wonder why me driving off a dumbass deserves its own write-up since I do it practically every day, and any Tengu will probably just assume you had it coming. Hell, maybe a few will send a few coins my way. So, you know, go ahead, I'm still not talking to you." She turned to leave. "See yah," she said, waving at Aya over her shoulder.

Before Reimu could take off, she suddenly had a pair of arms wrapped around her knees. "No, please!" Aya begged. "Everything's been so boring since Yuuka Kazami died! Yukari Yakumo still hasn't been seen, there's been nothing from Makai, Eientei keeps shooting at me the second I show up, the Underground is waaaaaaaaaaay too quiet-"

"Leggo of my legs," Reimu said as she tried to shake the pleading Tengu off.

"There's hasn't been a hair or fang from Flandre Scarlet," Aya went on. "No sign of Rin Satsuki, zilch on the Shadow Youkai! Yuuka's Shinigami is just plain gone, and we've heard nothing from Madam Mima! The bad guys aren't bad guying, the good guys aren't talking, and you're still visiting both Remilia Scarlet and Alice Margatroid! And Eirin Yagokoro's rabbit is still staying at your shrine! You have to know something! Please, just give me a few comments; you don't even have to say anything. Just blink once for yes, twice for no-"

"Get off!" Reimu smacked Aya's wrist with her purification rod and finally managed to loose the Tengu's grip enough to wriggle her off her legs, which was followed by a very satisfying kick to the face.

As Aya rubbed the sore spot between her eyes, Reimu put some much-needed distance between them. "I don't know anything!" she shouted. "And I like it that way! I'm visiting Remilia because she's my friend! So's Alice! And in case you haven't heard, they've both been through a lot lately, so I'm checking up on them, end of story!"

"But Alice Margatroid has recently become a mother!" Aya piped up. "Surely there has to be something you can tell me about that! Is she adapting well to the stress of motherhood? How is the child? Is there a father in the picture? Is he Human or youkai? Is there any contact with her mother? Please, you have to tell me something!"

At this, a savage grin cut across Reimu's features. "Well, Aya, I don't know. Her house is right over there. Why don't you just go knock on her door and ask her yourself."

Aya shivered. "I tried that already. She blew my head up."

That did not come as any kind of surprise. "Well, there you go. Mind your own business."

"The news is my business. And I think you know more than you're letting on."

Now Reimu was really starting to get annoyed. "Well, I don't! There is no news! I'm visiting Alice because she's a friend! I'm visiting Remilia because she's a friend! And in case you've been ignoring your own front pages, we've all lost people that were close to us! I'm not telling you shit about Alice's daughter or Remilia's current state, I'm not talking to Yukari Yakumo because she's an asshole, I don't know shit about what's going on in…in Eientei, Makai, the Underground, or any of those places! I don't know where Rin Satsuki is, I don't know where Flandre Scarlet is, I don't know where any of them are! So piss off and leave us all alone!"

Aya's eyes glittered. "Now, when you refer to having lost loved ones, you are referring to the magicians Marisa Kirisame and Patchouli Knowledge, correct? Tell me, are the rumors of an illicit love triangle between them and Alice Margatroid true? Is it possible that Marisa Kirisame might have been the father of-"

A hail of bullets ripped through the nosy Tengu's body, shredding it to bits.

After nearly a minutes, the floating mists of Aya's essence began to dissipate, as did the red haze that shrouded Reimu's vision. Though she was still panting, she was able to finally lower her pointing hand.

She ought to leave, she realized. It wouldn't be long before Aya began to piece herself back together, and when she did, her temporary extermination would not stop her from prying further. If anything it would only encourage her.

As Reimu turned to fly off, she realized that even after everything, she had still ranted enough details at Aya for the obnoxious youkai reporter to be able to put together a full front-page story.

Damn.

…

Even with the distraction Aya had delivered to her, Reimu still had the rest of her patrol to get to, and as such it was, as always, getting dark when she finally returned to Hakurei Shrine. And as always, she was tired, sore, and very, very hungry.

Fortunately, unlike times past, there were remedies waiting for her.

Credit had to be given to Yukari, albeit begrudgingly: she had kept her promises. The big, obtrusive barrier she had thrown over the entirety of the shrine grounds was thankfully gone, and all of the foliage, from the grass to the cherry grove to the wild trees to even the weeds were all back where they belonged, returning the ancestral Hakurei family home back to its often overgrown glory. Despite all of the bad news she had been hit with at the time, Reimu had felt a huge swell of relief when she had finally woken up to find the sky clear and green grass instead of brown dirt surrounding her shrine.

Reimu dropped to the ground just under the Shinto arch that stretched over the top of the stairs that led up the hill and looked down at the stone path toward the shrine with a feeling of satisfaction.

While the shrine grounds had been returned to their original state, the shrine itself was in the best shape it had ever been. The hugely large sum of money Remilia had gifted her with had done wonders, allowing Reimu to finally afford numerous repairs and renovations she had always had in the back of her mind but never had the resources for. The ailing walls had all been properly patched up or even outright replaced, there was a whole new roof, a new floor, and the altar that held her Ying-Yang orb whenever she wasn't using it had never looked more divine.

What was more, she now had a proper house! Granted, it was a small one, but it was still miles better than the tiny shack-like addon to the shrine that had served as her living quarters. And a proper house meant proper walls that wouldn't let the cold in, a proper roof that wasn't always leaking, a proper floor that wouldn't mold so easily, and actual, honest-to-the-gods very real ingredient with which to make proper meals.

And speaking of which…

Reimu sighed with happiness as she approached the house. The light was on in the kitchen, and she could smell dinner wafting through the air, and it smelled good.

As she headed toward the house, she saw Genji relaxing on the shrine's front porch, his lengthy and inexplicable beard pouring down the steps. "Evenin', kiddo," he said as she neared. "Everythin' all right?"

"As much as can be expected," Reimu said. "Country hasn't gone up in flames, so there's that."

"Eh, it has before and it will again. Give it time; we're about due."

"Charming," Reimu said wryly. "Anything important happen while I was out?"

"Well, nothin' combusted just yet, so hey, all's quiet on the homefront. A couple o' them GPF folk showed up though."

Reimu stiffened.

"Ain't nothin' important though," Genji assured her. "They was jus' lettin' us know that those three nitwit fairies who lived in that ol' cherry tree are gonna be set loose soon. So, we have that to look forward to."

"Oh," Reimu said, the tension leaving her shoulders. "You know, I almost forgot about them."

"So did I. It was nice."

"Are they moving back in?"

"Fuck if I know. Probably though."

"Huh," Reimu said as she thoughtfully rubbed her chin. "I wonder if they've heard from Cirno at all."

Genji cracked open one rheumy yellow eye and directed its gaze toward her in a most patronizing manner. "How, from inside their cell?"

"Okay, so it was a dumb thought," Reimu admitted.

"No shit. Hell, if they had been talkin' to yer charity cases, the fuck they'd be letting 'em out for?"

"Unless Yukari wants to set them loose and use them as bait," Reimu said jokingly.

Genji snorted. Then his scaly brow furrowed. "Hell, I know you was jokin', but that's honestly the kinda thing she'd do."

"Oh. Well, thanks for that thought."

"Yer idea, not mine." Then he shrugged, lifting his entire shell to do so. "Aw, whatever will be will be. Yer little bunnywife's got yer supper ready, so go fill yer belly and snuggle under the stars or whatever the hell Humans and rabbits do together."

"She's not my bunnywife," Reimu said automatically.

"Sure, she ain't."

"You're just mad I got someone to cook for me and you don't."

"I eat raw fish and cabbage, the fuck I care?"

Reimu was already heading toward her house (and gods, it felt so good to say that! Her house!). "Don't lie, I know she's been setting aside a bowl for you every day."

"Rumors and lies!" Genji chuckled. "Night, kid."

"Mmmm. Night, Genji."

The delicious smells only grew stronger, until Reimu had to make a mental effort not to literally float along on the scent. She slid the door open and stepped inside. "I'm home!" she called.

"Welcome back!" Reisen called from the kitchen.

The Lunarian rabbit could have, of course, gone right back home like Remilia and Sakuya had done once Yuuka Kazami had been confirmed fully and permanently dead, but rather than return to Eientei, she had asked Reimu if she could stay, at least until Rin Satsuki was found.

Under normal circumstances, Reimu would have swept her out with the broom. After all, she had barely enough food to feed herself, her shrine was small and broken down even for one person, whilst Reisen had a whole mansion to return to. Taking her in had been an act of charity, one that had expired the moment the danger was gone and Eirin Yagokoro not so…aggressively belligerent.

These, however, were not normal circumstances. For once, Reimu had plenty of resources and more room than she had in her life, and even with what passed for indulgent spending, she was still far more frugal than practically anyone else in Gensokyo, so the money was going to last her a very, very long time. But even beyond that, Reimu had just gotten used to having Reisen around. Her infrequent trips to Eientei from before had given her the impression that Reisen was a constant screwup, someone who couldn't do anything right and couldn't be trusted with even the simplest of tasks, or at least Eirin Yagokoro's attitude toward her had suggested as much.

Well, maybe her duties back at Eientei had been a misuse of her talents, or maybe Eirin Yagokoro was just that picky of a boss. Either way, Reisen had proven herself a very able housekeeper, one who was as adept with a broom as she was with a rake. And she was a pretty good cook on top of it! Better than Reimu was at any rate, and now that she had more ingredients to work with, she was only getting better. And with her handling the shrine's upkeep, Reimu was actually able to get to bed at a reasonable hour.

But even beyond all that, Reimu had just gotten used to having her around. It was nice having another girl about, at least one that didn't have a positive track record of killing her ancestors. And Reisen did seem to be enjoying not working for someone as high maintenance as Eirin Yagokoro, to say nothing of no longer being used as a sentient lab rat. So all things considered it was a win-win.

From the smell of things, Reisen was making one of Reimu's new favorites, a traditional Lunarian delicacy that was basically an open meat bun stuffed with vegetables smothered with a combination of savory, sweet, and spicy sauces, served with a pile of potatoes that had been sliced into strips and fried in a specific way that made them crunchy on the outside but soft in the middle.

According to Reisen, the meal was called "Hamburger with French Fries," which seemed a little odd, as Reimu was reasonably certain that the meat was ground beef instead of ham, and while the frying part was self-evident, she had no idea was French was supposed to mean. Was it how they were sliced? Did it have to do with the oil they were fried in?

She had tried asking Reisen, who had just looked confused at the question, and said that she had never really thought about it before.

Well, whatever, it was delicious, so who cared what it was called. The two knelt down across from each other at the table, bowed their heads to give thanks, and dug in.

"So," Reisen said after Reimu had swallowed enough mouthfuls to be at least conversational. "How was the patrol?"

Reimu shrugged. "Oh, give and take. Stopped this fairy gang from harassing a group of merchants, and then paid it back by stopping a bunch of Human kids from trying to burn this badger family alive."

"Ah. Uh, badger…youkai?"

"Nope, just regular old badgers. Little twerps had them holed up in a stump and were stuffing it full of dried leaves when I got there. Chased them off before they could light a match, the freaking sociopaths."

Reisen blanched. "That's awful! Did you at least tell their parents?"

"Do I look like the police to you?" Reimu wound noodles around her chopsticks to get as big a mouthful as possible. "Nah, they wouldn't listen to me anyway. Bet you anything they've sobbing some story about how the big, mean bully shrine maiden smacked them around for no good reason." She snickered. "Yeah, I'll be getting an earful the next time I'm around there."

"Oh." Reisen's brow furrowed. Even after staying at Hakurei Shrine for a number of weeks, she was still coming to terms with Reimu's…complicated relationship with the rest of her species. "Well, so long as you're fine with it, I guess. What about your lessons?"

"Eh," Reimu shrugged. "Still not getting anywhere with the magic. Alice says it's normal and things'll start happening eventually. I hope she's right, because this is getting kind of embarrassing." She smiled. "Her kid's still adorable, though."

"Shanghai? She is, isn't she?" Then Reisen frowned. "Even if…I still don't understand how she came to be. At all."

"Eh, Gensokyo youkai. Always predictably weird. Anyway, sure has done Alice a whole lot of good. I mean, she's actually smiles sometimes now. Which is weird."

Reisen nodded. "I saw her from time to time, when she'd visit Eirin's clinic. She always struck me as someone who was…aggressively lonely."

Reimu had to laugh at that. "Yeah, that's the perfect way to put it. Now Sakuya on the other hand is still a relentless tyrant who I am certain is still teaching me just so she has an excuse to beat me up." She rubbed her arm, which was still sore. How Sakuya had managed that with such a skinny blade, she had no idea. "Yeah, I'm gonna have bruises tomorrow."

"Oh, ah, that sounds…rough?"

"Rough is right. Swear to the gods, this is revenge. She's taking advantage of this to get back at me for all those-"

And then Reimu felt a shiver.

It was like fingertips being lightly drawn down her back and over the hairs on her arms, a subtle change in the air. A being of immense power had just arrived at the shrine, and quite suddenly at that.

Reisen noticed the look on her face. "What is it?"

In response, Reimu just held up a finger, signaling for silence. The power she was sensing felt very familiar, very…

Oh.

Her.

Well.

Breathing out a sigh, Reimu let herself relax a bit. Well, they weren't in danger, but she was still a bit peeved at the interruption.

Then Genji called out, "Hey, girls! The fox is here!"

"Oh," Reisen said with a sigh of her own. "At dinner though?"

"You would not believe how completely screwed up their sense of time is in that house," Reimu grumbled. "I've seen them have breakfast at four in the afternoon."

Moments later there was a polite knock. Sighing again, Reimu got up to answer.

As expected, Ran Yakumo stood on the front porch, hands resting in the opposite sleeves of her great white robe, all nine tails arrayed behind her like a peacock's feathers.

"Reimu," Ran said, her tone pleasant, but more professional than friendly. "I apologize for the late hour. I hope I'm not interrupting anything."

"Dinner," Reimu said. "Long day. So yeah."

Ran nodded. "I see. Shall I come back later?"

"That depends. This gonna take long?"

"No. I'm just here to touch base, as usual."

"Fine, let's get this over with then," Reimu said. "Well, as usual, there has been absolutely nothing new. No sign or rumor of Rin Satsuki, nor Flandre Scarlet, nor the Shadow Youkai, nor Mima. Yuuka Kazami is still dead as far I know, and if any new disaster's gotten started since, I haven't heard of it. You?"

Ran spread her hands. "Very much the same, I'm afraid. Yukari has decided to focus most of her attention on finding Mima, as she is likely to be the most actively malicious threat, but wherever she's hiding, it's in none of her customary haunts."

"If she's behind it at all," Reimu said. "I mean, no one's actually seen her. All that crap with the Scarlet Devil Mansion and the Palace of Spirits could have been someone else."

"Perhaps, but as that line of thinking gets us nowhere, we're moving forward on the assumption that Mima is to blame."

"Great. What about the kids?"

Behind her, Reimu could hear Reisen creeping up to hear better. Why she would need to with those ears of her, Reimu couldn't guess.

"It is still presumed that Rin Satsuki and Flandre Scarlet are in each other's company," Ran said. "But there whereabouts, and those of what companions they might still have, are still unknown."

Folding her arms over her chest, Reimu leaned back against the doorframe. "Which is weird, isn't it? I mean, Flandre's a lot of things, but stable and quiet aren't any of them. You'd think she wouldn't gone ballistic by now."

Ran shrugged. "It is possible that she might have perished in the sunlight, or that Rin Satsuki has judged her to be too much of a liability to be let loose and absorbed her."

Maybe, though Reimu dearly hoped that it was the second one. If after all that Flandre had ended up just wandering into a sunbeam and ending up as a pile of smoking ashes, then Remilia would definitely try to kill herself.

Seeing the look on Reimu's face, Ran was quick to add, "But of course the latter is the more likely. After all, Sakuya Izayoi did say they had befriended one another."

"Birds of a feather," Reimu muttered. "Well, things seem to be the same as always: zero progress made at all." She started to slide the door shut. "So if there's nothing else…"

"There is," Ran said after a moment of hesitation. "A question, actually.."

Reimu paused with the door halfway closed. "What?"

Ran fidgeted uncomfortably, a very odd look for her. "Reimu," she said. "How…are you?"

Reimu's face screwed itself up in bewilderment. "Er…say what?"

"How are you? Are you well?"

What in the world? Reimu's mind raced, trying to make sense of the question. It wasn't that she and Ran disliked one another or anything, but that was sort of question you dropped at the beginning of your greeting, not awkwardly made at the end. And why did it make the kitsune so ill at ease? Was she asking on someone else's…

Oh.

Right.

Her.

Sighing, Reimu pushed the door back all the way. "Yukari told you to ask that, didn't she?"

Spreading her hands, Ran shrugged helplessly. The meaning was clear. I don't make the rules, she was saying.

"Right," Reimu muttered. "Well, I am just fine. Thank you for asking. Now, is there anything else?"

Reimu's tone made it clear that there damned well better not be, and fortunately Ran shook her head. "No, that is all. Good night, Reimu."

"Sure," Reimu sliding, sliding the door back into place. "Night."

As she turned away, she felt her skin shiver as it did whenever one of Yukari's gaps opened nearby. Then it stopped, letting her know that there was one less youkai on the estate.

"Are you all right?" Reisen asked as Reimu returned to the table.

"Fine," Reimu said as she took an angry bite of one of her fries. "Just. Peachy."

…

"Well?" said the voice of Ran Yakumo's master from the darkness of the den as the kitsune returned to the house. "What did she say?"

The den was almost completely shrouded in darkness, the only light being that of the small, crackling fire in the fireplace, which did odd things to the shadows on the floor. Ran's master was, as always, seated in the high-backed chair that faced the fire, its back to the door.

Ran repressed the sigh she felt forming and said, "As with us, the Hakurei Shrine has nothing new to report. There has been no sign of Rin Satsuki, Mima, Flandre Scarlet, the Shadow Youkai, or any of their associates or allies."

Her ears twitched. She heard the sound of contented purring coming from the chair. Chen was there in cat form, in her master's lap, as she often was on warm nights.

"Ah," her master said. Her slender hand appeared, reaching over the chair's armrest to wrap its graceful fingers around the stem of the glass that sat on the tiny table nearby and bring it close. "As expected. But then, if any of them had made a move, I suppose we would have heard about it already."

"This is true," Ran said.

The hand returned the now-empty glass to the table. "And what of the shrine maiden herself? How is she?"

"Fine," Ran said.

"Oh? Fine? Is that all?"

"That was her answer when I asked her," Ran said. "She is just fine, thank you for asking. Verbatim."

"And her tone?"

"Frosty."

"Hmph."

As she had not been dismissed, Ran dutifully stood in place as she waited for her master to speak further.

At last she did. "And how did she seem to you? Was she in good health?"

"She seemed healthy, yes," Ran said.

"And her disposition?"

"Ill-tempered, though that is probably just because I was there. At any rate, she seems to be doing well in that new house of hers."

"And her new maidservant."

"The Lunarian rabbit strikes me as being more of a roommate."

"Oh, does she? Does she own any percentage of the Hakurei Shrine estate?"

"No," Ran admitted.

"Does she pay any sort of rent for her food and board?"

"Not to my knowledge, no."

"Ah. And then how exactly does she justify her continued presence in the care of Reimu Hakurei, who is not known for being especially charitable, now that she is free to return to Eientei?"

Ran sighed. "Well, she cooks and keeps the place clean."

"There you are. Maidservant. She isn't even the first. Nodoka Hakurei had Silence Slenderscythe to look after things."

Ran, who remembered both those names, frowned. "Silence was a friend, not a maidservant."

"A friend who practically lived at the shrine, kept it clean, and made all of Nodoka's meals. I teased her about that, inquiring as to things like wedding dates and honeymoons, but honestly, for such antisocial loners, the Hakureis always had a bad habit of collecting a menagerie of outcasts and vagabonds. Can't blame them any of them for putting all the extra bodies to work." Then Ran's master sighed. "Well, at least she's not isolating herself. Some of them do, you know. Once they've lost someone close."

Ran nodded. "Yes, she is coping with Marisa's death quite admirably."

Silence.

Ran realized too late that her master was not speaking of Marisa, and she mentally kicked herself for not keeping a tighter hold on her tongue. Her master was always a bit unreasonable for a time after becoming estranged with whoever the current shrine maiden was.

"Yes, and good for her," her master said at last. "You're dismissed."

Ran bowed and departed. This was only temporary, she told herself. In time her master would get over it, and she would have the old Yukari back.

Back in the den, Yukari Yakumo sat by herself in front of the fire, Chen napping on her lap, still blissfully unaware of the heavy topic that had been discussed over her. Yukari idly stroked her fur as she thought.

Reimu, it seemed, still resented her. Well, that was fine. One could hardly blame her. The Hakureis were a prickly bunch, always had been and always will be. If Reimu wanted to continue to blame her for Marisa's death, then that was more than fair. And if she wanted to suddenly be Miss Sociable and start visiting all her other friends, both old and new, while keeping some in her house while turning a cold shoulder to her family's oldest and most loyal friend, one who continued to look after them despite being rejected by them time after time after time, then that was her prerogative. It was perfectly understandable. Yukari honestly deserve it, and shouldn't be at all bitter about taking all the blame for-

Chen, now awake, suddenly nyaaed in protest and wriggled off of Yukari's lap and trotted out of the den.

Yukari let her. Well, it seemed that in her foul mood she had forgotten to be gentle with her petting. Well, that was also fine. Chen was still a child; she couldn't be expected to understand how Yukari felt. Or care.

Gensokyo's eldest sighed as she refilled her wineglass. She hated this part. It happened every time, like clockwork. First came the problem, then came the hard solution, then came the falling out with the Hakureis, then came the rejection, then came depressive slump, then came the weeks of stewing in bitterness. One would think that, after all those years, Yukari would have at least gotten used to it, have come to terms with it all. But it just goes to show that having to be the one to shoulder the heaviest of burdens meant being shunned and hated for it. Over and over again.

She reached into the neckline of her robe and withdrew the slender silver chain that hung down her breast. Attached to the end was a large, multifaceted crystal about the size of a golf ball. Within was trapped a sickly green light shot through with red, one that, upon close inspection, swam and swirled like a hazy mist. Though the crystal was impenetrable, the malice of the evil contained within was almost palpable.

At the very least, she had this small comfort. That damned Yuuka Kazami had been definitively dealt with, and though the price had been high, Gensokyo had one fewer monster.

Unfortunately, there were still three on the loose, any one of the capable of becoming a threat to rival even Yuuka herself. And they were in cahoots with one another. Best friends, if Sakuya Izayoi and Utsuho Reiuji were to be believed. One could only imagine the death and destruction they would wreak together should they be allowed to reach Yuuka's level.

Fortunately, that was still just potential. As they now stood, Yukari would have little trouble shutting all three of them down in a direct confrontation.

But to do that, she had to find them first, and in that she had been as unsuccessful as Reimu.

She squeezed her hand around the crystal, feeling the diseased warmth of Yuuka's soul radiating out from her prison as she contemplated the three little monsters still on the loose.

Where are you hiding, little girls?

…

Though some parts of Gensokyo had been altered permanently by those first few disastrous months, others had barely changed at all. Certainly the Youkai Market had settled back into its normal routine. In fact, save for that brief but significant afternoon in which Yuuka Kazami had shown up in person, assaulted members of the GPF, and kicked up an unfortunate amount of fuss, it had barely changed at all. And now that said fuss was over and done with, one could hardly tell anything had happened. Shopkeepers continued to peddle their wares of questionable origins, the nonhumans of Gensokyo continued to buy or (attempt to) steal them, and on the whole life just went on.

Which was exactly what a couple of those loose threads were counting on.

For Sicily, it was just another day. She been a fixture at the market for as long as anyone could remember, selling berries and melons of unusual size. Where she got them and how they got so big, nobody knew or cared. They just knew that her stall was a must during the warmer months.

And the months were certainly warm. The summer was going to be a fine one, and everyone was looking forward to weeks of clear skies and uninterrupted sunlight. Sure, some supposedly important people had gone through a spectacularly bad time, but that really wasn't their problem, now was it? Besides, incidents happened all the time, and if this particular one had been bigger than most, it was over and done with, and now things could get back to normal. So what if a large swatch of Gensokyo was now a barren wasteland? Nobody had ever gone there anyway. So what if there were a few loose threads unaccounted for? There always was, and qualified people were already looking into it. Probably. Anyway, who cared?

However, just because those loose threads were out of sight and thus out of mind, that didn't mean they were gone. They were simply biding their time, avoiding attention while plotting their next move.

But Sicily couldn't care less. There was money to make, and summer was the best time to make it.

A prospective customer came up to her, specifically a girl with pointed ears, a sharp chin, and reddish-pink hair. "Ooooh, these are big!" she said, running a hand over a particularly fat honeydew. "Where'd you get them?"

Sicily beamed. "Trade secret! So, you interested? Won't find anyone with sweeter melons or juicier grapes!

"I bet! How much for a pair? You got any deals going on?"

"Well, not for two on their own," Sicily said as she turned to pick up a cluster of fist-sized grapes. "But if you want to take one of these, then…"

Her voice trailed off. The pink-haired girl was gone.

As was the honeydew.

Sicily froze. "Wait…huh?"

"Um…exsqueezing me. Ovah heres!"

A Kappa with dark hair cut straight right under her ears and a large pair of glasses was waving her hand, trying to get her attention.

"Heyderein!" the Kappa said, her accent as squeaky and her…unusual grammatical patterns as incomprehensible as expected. "Nowsers, hows muchies forder wattimellows?"

"Just a sec!" Sicily said as she looked around. "Uh, did you by any chance see someone with pointy ears and…"

The Kappa had vanished. As had one of her watermelons.

"Hello!" said someone who looked a lot like a vampire, with batlike wings and sharp teeth, but couldn't be as it was in the middle of the day. She was accompanied by someone who looked like what one would get if an Angel and a demon became too friendly with one another, with batlike wings like her companion, though hers were of pure white, and her hair and eyes pale blue. "Got any grapes?"

"Yes!" Sicily said. "I do! But right now I'm a little busy, and-"

"What about bananas?" said a redhead with a high-collar cape and a heavy scarf wrapped tightly around her neck and lower face, muffling her voice.

"No! We have no bananas! And-"

The vampire and Angel-wannabes were gone. So were several of the requested grapes.

"Hey! What's the-"

The scarf girl was also gone.

And now was a good third of Sicily's stock.

She stood alone and befuddled for a good long time, trying to piece together what exactly had just happened.

A moment later a light went off in her head.

"Wait, did I just get robbed?"

A male tarantula youkai with a black hat and striped shirt approached her booth. "Hey there, Toots!" he said. "Got any-"

Sicily heaved a cantaloupe into his face.

…

Grinning, giggling, and feeling entirely too pleased with themselves, the thieves fled the Youkai Market and deep into the Wilds. This had been their most daring heist yet, and to have it go off without a hitch was cause for celebration.

"We win, we win, we win!" Mystia Lorelei sang as she flew above the group, her head full of the many, many recipes she could now try out. "We got away and nobody blew up!"

"Of course we did!" Doremy Sweet called from just below her. "How could we not when we got the Chief with us?"

"The Chief," who at the moment was a massive, invisible flying creature of indeterminable shape with a large depression on her back for the purpose of carrying all the bags of their ill-gotten goods, blushed a bit at the praise. "Oh, come on, guys!" Rin Satsuki called. "I'm just the getaway girl! You did all the hard work."

"Oh, like you couldn't have pulled this all by yourself," Yuki responded. She turned a celebratory somersault in midair. "Face it, Chief: you just brought us along to get us out of the cave."

"Did not."

"Did too."

"Did not."

"Did not."

"Did too…hey!"

Rin's fellow marauders cracked up. After a mock-sulky moment Rin did too.

"The Chief" was what Doremy had taken to calling Rin ever since she had saved them from Yuuka's clutches, and it had caught on with the rest of the group. Rin didn't mind. She didn't think of herself as any sort of chief or leader, but it was nice to be looked up to.

They flew over fields and meadows, passing by villages, farms, and hamlets, until they finally came in sight of the small copse of pine trees, about half-a-kilometer from the Bamboo Forest.

Within the copse was a small hill with a flat, rocky side. The gang set down in front of it, with Rin squeezing her body in-between the trees to land on top of the hill. Humming, Yuki went up to a large rock set again the hillside and knocked on it.

There was a pause, and then a tinny voice called from inside. "Password?"

"Cheesecake!"

"Oh, thank the spirits." The rock swung open, revealing the cave mouth. Standing within was Wriggle Nightbug. Given that the pool of gang members that could actually be trusted with standing guard for any length of time was depressingly low, Wriggle often found herself with the job of watching the entrance. Not that she minded, as it gave her something to do whenever Rin was gone.

However, today she looked even more sullen than usual. "What took you so long?" she demanded. "Where's Rin?"

Yuki screwed her face up in confusion. "Uh, what?" She looked up to Rin, who was still having the bags of food unloaded from her.

"I'm here," Rin said. The last bag was taken off, so she heaved herself over the side of the hill, her body losing shape and contracting in on itself, so that when she landed on her feet she had resumed her original form. "What's wrong?"

"Finally," Wriggle muttered. "Well, get yourself in here quick. We've got a situation."

Rin grimaced. Situations were never good. Situations drew attention, and the less anyone knew about their presence, the better. "What is it? Did anyone find us?"

"Not yet, but they will if this keeps up." Wriggle thrust a thumb back over her shoulder, toward the cave's interior. From deep within, Rin heard the sound of an agonized shriek, followed by rocks being smashed. "Flandre got woken up early, and she's pissed."

…

Muttering curses to herself, Rin rushed deep into the network of caves that now acted as their sanctuary. Flandre's lair was at the very bottom, far below the earth's surface.

Given how…unpredictable the little vampire was, the rest of the group gave her area a wide berth, especially whenever Rin wasn't around. That is, everybody except for one specific individual, who was quickly proving to become more and more of a liability. Rin didn't need to ask who was responsible for Flandre's agitation. This was not the first time said individual had deliberately set Flandre off, and it probably wouldn't be the last. Oh, Rin knew that she should have brought her along, but she couldn't trust her to not blow their cover and turn everyone in to their pursuers on a whim.

Flandre's lair was a huge cavern carved out of solid granite. It had been the size of a house when she had first moved in, but now it was the size of Eientei. Every time she was set off it got a little larger.

Sure enough, when Rin made it to the cavern the first thing she was saw Flandre herself darting this way and that, hurling herself at the walls as she screamed. Each impact left craters, and one wall looked like it had caved in already.

Again.

The scream had come from the other vampire in their group. Kurumi nearly ran right into Rin as she fled wailing from Flandre's rampage and nearly clawed Rin's eyes out in panic.

"It's me, it's me!" Rin said, grabbing Kurumi by the wrists and holding her steady.

"Rin?" Kurumi said, her glowing red eyes wide with terror. "Rin, Flandre's gone…she's gone…"

"I know, I know, I see!" Rin hastily shoved Kurumi behind her before Flandre caught wind of their conversation. "Get to the main cavern and stay there. I'll calm her down."

Nodding, Kurumi quickly rushed up to the upper caverns as if the entire host of Hell were in pursuit. That, or an angry village of torch-bearers.

Once she was out of the way, Rin took a deep breath. She still didn't need to breathe of course, but given what she had to do, she really felt the need to take a deep breath regardless.

Then she cloaked herself from the senses and threw herself at Flandre.

She probably didn't even need to bother shrouding herself. Flandre was so overcome by rage that she was effectively blinded. Regardless, Rin slammed into her as she was hurtling toward the ceiling and immediately wrapped her limbs around Flandre's, binding them together.

Flandre's shriek of rage doubled in volume. She twisted around, fangs gnashing and spittle flying. Rin just held on and concentrated on seizing control of Flandre's hands. If she couldn't close her fingers, than she couldn't crush any anything's Eye, including Rin's. Especially Rin's. It had been years, and she still remembered all too well what that felt like.

Success! She managed to entwine each of Flandre's fingers and hold them apart. That done, several tendrils shot from Rin's back to seize the wall and yank the two of them against the stone. Several more tendrils went out in all directions, anchoring them in place.

Subduing Flandre had been tough in the Garden of the Sun, but now it was downright dangerous. With all the stone around them every second ran the risk of bring the cave down on their heads. And since Yuuka's influence was no longer there to pacify the vampire's ability to annihilate whatever she saw, Rin had to be especially careful not to give her the opportunity.

Fortunately, she was nothing but durable, and now that she had Flandre restrained, she just sat in place, holding her friend and letting the madness and rage run their course.

Flandre continued to thrash and howl, her fingers clenching in an effort to crush everything in her line of sight. But just as expected, her struggles gradually grew less and less frenzied, and her shrieks calmed, until she was left exhausted and panting, hanging limply in Rin's embrace.

"Rin?" she said at last.

Rin moved her head around to get a good look at Flandre's eyes. They were now a dull maroon. Good.

"Hey, Flandre," Rin said with forced cheer. "How you doing?"

Flandre wearily shook her head. "Did…did I freak out again?"

"Um…" Rin glanced around the cavern. Yikes, that was a lot of damage. "Looks like it."

"Oh." Flandre slumped. "Oh no."

"It's okay, you can't help it." Rin gingerly lowered her to the floor.

"But I should!" Rin's tendrils unraveled from Flandre's hands, and she rubbed her wrists and flexed her fingers. "I don't get it. You let out the grown-up part of me. Why does this still happen?"

Rin sighed and sat down next to her. "Damage doesn't just go away, Flan. You don't get better all at once. It takes time, you know?"

"You're fine though. You had bad stuff happen to you too, but you're fine!"

Ouch. Grimacing, Rin said, "I'm…really not. I just think that, you know, with my body being the way it is, it keeps the worst of it locked away."

Flandre rubbed her forehead. It looked like she had a headache coming on. "That's not fair."

Rin wasn't sure what she meant by that. Was it unfair that Rin was shielded from her own damage and Flandre wasn't, or that Rin's body was so weird to begin with? Deciding not to press the issue, Rin just said, "Just give it time. You're already way better than you used to be. Sooner or later you'll be-"

"Can you eat me again?"

"Eh?"

"You know!" Flandre smacked herself in the skull. "Swallow me, absorb me, go inside my head again! Maybe fix more damage like you did last time!"

Oh. Oh boy. "Flan. Look. That time was because I couldn't think of anything else to do. And I just got extremely lucky. If I go poking around there again, I might end up making things worse."

"But you might make things better!"

"Let's try other things before going that far," Rin was quick to say. "Do you remember what happened before you got angry? Did something wake you up?"

As it turned out, something had, and when Flandre told her what it was, Rin was not at all surprised.

But she was very angry.

…

Finding the culprit when she didn't want to be found was often a lesson in futility. The little creep had an infuriating talent for only showing up when she could cause the most chaos, and vanishing immediately afterward.

Fortunately, Rin had more than a few talents herself, and she was a fast learner. Her quarry's nature might be unconventional to the extreme, but once you got a handle on how her mind worked, she wasn't difficult to deal with. You just needed to know how.

So once Flandre had been coaxed down and the damage assessed (fortunately, nothing foundation-threatening), Rin gave everyone their instructions, turned invisible, and settled down to wait.

She didn't have to wait long.

As the Sun began to set, someone approached the hill, someone that was trying very hard not to be seen. As Rin watched from her perch on the hilltop, that someone slunk from shadow to shadow, making her way toward the front entrance.

The person she was watching was trying very hard not to be seen. She probably hoping to quietly slip back in without anyone noticing and laugh at the destruction she had caused. After all, she had done it before.

Not this time. Rin was a lot of things, but a slow learner was not one of them.

As her quarry edge along the side of the hill toward the entrance, Rin silently dropped down behind her and dropped her shroud.

Her quarry froze. Maybe she had felt a change in the wind. Maybe Rin had made a sound that only someone with especially sharp senses could detect. Hell, maybe she had some kind of innate sense of incoming trouble. Regardless, when Rin decided to fill the space behind her, she knew.

Good.

"Hey, Seija," Rin murmured.

Seija whirled around, already wearing that insufferably smug smirk of hers. "Heeeeeey, Rinny-Baby!" she said, shooting Rin a pair of finger guns. "How's it going, Big Sexy? I was-"

"Great! Just great!" Rin cut in before Seija could gain any momentum. "So, where'd you been? Getting some air? Man, I hear yah! I've spent so much time cooped up in tiny places that staying inside for more than a few minutes just makes me so antsy, you know?"

"Well, I-"

"Come to think of it, so have you!" Rin grinned wide. "I got stuck in a box, you got stuff into a flower. So that's another thing we have in common."

Seija's smirk was starting to wobble. "Oh, no doubt! And hey, did'ja see-"

"Oh, before I forget, thank you so much for what you did for Flandre."

"Eh?"

Rin shrugged, her grin growing ever wider. "Well, you know how restless she gets, so it's always good for her to blow off some steam. And I was planning on expanding that cavern anyway, but now I don't have to. Besides, Flandre was having bad dreams, so she really appreciates you waking her like you did!"

Now Seija's high forehead was starting to perspire, especially around the little nubs of her horns, a sure sign that she had been knocked off her game. "But-"

"In fact, that's the perfect job for you! Keep an eye on Flandre when she's sleeping, and be sure to wake her up every now and then. Get her real riled up so she can get some exercise!" Before Seija could respond in any way, Rin slapped her hard on the back, sending her staggering. "Great work, buddy. Keep it up!"

Then she vanished, leaving Seija alone.

Her work done and her face now unseen, Rin let her body lose shape so she could slip inside without bumping the door. Despite her enthusiastic tone, big smile, and words of praise, she was fuming!

That Seija. That godsdamned Seija! Of all the things Rin was proud of, having made a clean sweep of all of Yuuka's captives and getting away clean neared the top of the list, but though she didn't regret saving Seija with the others, she was really starting to wish that the Amanojaku would just go away.

Sakuya Izayoi had told Rin that Seija's species were natural troublemakers, that they acted contrary to just about anything by nature. Which meant that in their community of traumatized youkai, fairies, demons, and vampires, Seija's was singlehandedly responsible for the overwhelming majority of their problems.

So far, Rin had caught her sneaking venomous spiders into other girls' rooms (thankfully, Wriggle had been on hand to clear them out), trying to shave the demon squad's hair in their sleep (they had dealt with that one themselves), trying to replace Flandre and Kurumi's blood supply with red paint (and after all the trouble Rin had gone through just to get them!), and trying to pour bottles of her own urine into the water supply! Who did that?!

Sometimes she just felt like slapping Seija silly, but the Amanojaku would just take that as a sign of a job well done and keep acting out. Threats never worked, getting told off did nothing but encourage her. The only thing that worked was enthusiastic reverse-psychology, and Seija was still finding ways around that.

Sighing, Rin returned to the main room.

When they had first arrived, there had only been a couple of caverns: the one that they had emerged into and the one up front, where they had found the remains of that unlucky couple. Now, thanks to some expansive excavating on the part of Rin and Flandre, the tunnels and connected caverns now went further and dove deeper than even the ones that Cirno and her gang had called home. It had been a little more complicated than expected, especially since Rin couldn't just disintegrate stone with a touch anymore and Flandre's…methods had been prone to causing cave-ins. But in time they had managed to carve out something spacy, relatively stable, and, dare she say it, downright homey.

They already had the various odds and ends that they had looted from Yuuka's mansion, and several raids to the nearby patches of civilization had added to it. Now they had actual furniture to sit at and sit upon; large throw rugs to cover the dirt; pots, pans, and utensils to cook with; cabinets to store things in; and virtually everyone had her own room, save for those who preferred to share. One night, a couple weeks in, Rin, Doremy, Nien, and Mystia had spent a couple hours putting up a network of lanterns to keep the place well-lit, and little by little the various members of the group brought in odds and ends to liven the place up and give it a little personality.

Rin liked it a lot. She liked having a place that was undeniably hers. She liked not being on the run. She liked having people around that knew her secrets but still liked and respected her. She liked having a real home.

Even if it could be a real headache sometimes.

The main room in many ways resembled a tavern, not so much due to having a bar and an excess amount of alcohol (though it did have plenty of that), but moreso that it was a place for everyone to gather in small groups and do…whatever. At one round table that Rin had nicked from an actual tavern, Cirno and Daiyousei were playing cards with the demons Sara and Elis and the Kappa Nien. In the weeks since the breakout, Nien had managed to acquire a new pair of glasses for herself, and though no one could prove it, everyone was very suspicious that she had upgraded them in a way that would give her an unfair advantage at such games. At any rate, she was winning.

Across from them, Doremy and Sekibanki were seated together on one of the couches. Sekibanki's head had been removed from her shoulders and was now resting in Doremy's lap, her eyes closed in pleasure as the Baku gently massaged her forehead and temples. Though she had been a little wary of her at first, Rin had really come to appreciate having Doremy around. Since she fed upon bad dreams and negative emotions, she enjoyed playing therapist to her many fellow fugitives, and could definitely get kind of touchy-feely, which could be a problem with someone who didn't like being touched, but those who enjoyed contact liked having her around.

And seated over in a corner by herself was Wriggle.

Nodding at everyone else, Rin went over to sit down next to the firefly. "Well?" Wriggle said.

Rin sighed. She wriggled her fingers and raised a sound dampening field around them. All things considered it was better if nobody was listening in. "It was Seija. Again."

Since their little community of abused fugitives had formed, Rin had taken time to learn what everyone's strengths were and how to use them to the group's benefit. Cirno was a charismatic figurehead and cheerleader, but could not be trusted to make any sort of decision. Doremy was the den mother and peacemaker, Nien the engineer and innovator, Mystia the cook, and so on.

As for Wriggle, she was kind of a sourpuss, but she also had the most rational mind of the group, and had a good view of the big picture, so she was often the person Rin went to whenever a big decision needed to be made. At the very least she could always be counted on to give her opinion straight.

Wriggle leaned back and exhaled. "Well, surprise, surprise. Hey, quick question: why exactly do we keep her around?"

An excellent question. A truly excellent question, one that Rin was asking herself more and more. Unfortunately, she always came back to the same answer. "Because as much as she likes being a problem-causing little shit, she is still one of us."

"Then someone better tell her that," Wriggle said. "Before she wrecks our home or gives us all away. Because you know she will."

Rin stared down at her feet. "Well, what am I supposed to do? I've tried using double-talk to get her to not do things, but she always finds a way around. And I can't just cut her loose; she'd sell us out in a heartbeat!"

"Someone who wouldn't hesitate to sell us out was never one of us in the first place," Wriggle said in a flat tone.

Rin winced. "Look, I agree that she's an ass. But Yuuka still-"

"I know. Gods Rin, you think I don't understand what it's like to be Yuuka's…" Wriggle's voice caught. She swallowed and skipped the word she was going to use. "But come on. Everyone else here's at least trying to look after each other. Even Flandre's doing her best! But has Seija done anything, anything at all that you haven't had to manipulate her into doing, to show that she cares about any of us?"

Rin had no answer to that.

The two sat in silence, listening to everyone else around them. Over at the card table, Sara had unexpectedly gotten some kind of winning hand and was enthusiastically celebrating while Nien stared at her own cards in disbelief, openly mourning the demise of some master plan. Sekibanki's head, who had apparently fallen asleep in Doremy's lap, was startled awake by the commotion, causing her body to nearly fall right off of the couch, which in turn caused Cirno to almost fall of her stool in hysterics.

Then Wriggle said in a low voice, "There is one solution."

"I'm not killing her," Rin said without hesitation. While it was true that she no longer possessed the power of Death itself (and thank the gods for that), she still had a bottomless well of Phoenix Fire at her disposal, which would be more than up to the task of permanently destroying a simple youkai.

"I didn't say that. But you could eat her, or whatever you call it."

Rin winced.

"Think about it. She won't be a danger anymore, and she'll still be safe in…wherever you send people like her. And when everyone's over, you can just let her go and never see her again. There's literally no downside."

"No," Rin whispered.

"No?" Wriggle cocked her head to one side. "All right then. Why not?"

"Because…" Oh, come on. Now was not the time for her tongue to freeze up! "Because I don't like doing that, and I really don't like doing it to people who are part of my gang! I don't like Seija, I really wanna punch her sometimes, but that doesn't mean I want to do something like that to her!"

"She's a danger," Wriggle said.

"So am I! So is Flandre!"

"That's different. Look, maybe I haven't known you very long, but I got a good sense of what you're about, and I know that you'll never do anything on purpose to hurt us. Same with Flandre. She has bad moments, and yes those are a problem, but she'd also never hurt us on purpose. Seija would. Seija has. Seija will again."

Rin said nothing.

"And hey, maybe while she's in there, you can give her the same treatment you gave Flandre! Find a way to make her not so much of an asshole."

"What, just change who she is?" Rin said in disgust. "What happened with Flandre was way different! She's not supposed to be broken, and I just found an important part of her that was locked up and let it out. Seija's supposed to be the way she is. If I start messing around in her head, I'll probably just break something."

"You mean like with Rumia?"

Rin winced. Well, Wriggle really wasn't pulling her punches today.

"Yeah," she said. "Like Rumia."

Wriggle sighed. Then she stood up.

"Well, whatever you do, do it fast," she said. "Because next time you might not be able to stop things before someone gets hurt."

Rin watched her leave as a rotten feeling grew in her gut. She hated to admit it, but the firefly was talking a lot of sense. Seija was a problem. Her species literally were inclined into sowing chaos and discord, so just having her around was a liability, as she had proven time and time again.

But damn it, it wasn't like it was her fault! Wild youkai were all weird in one way or another, and Seija didn't ask to be an Amanojaku! Besides, even if she didn't act like it, she really was one of them! Rin had promised to look after and protect all of Yuuka's victims, and it wasn't like there was some kind of No Assholes Clause.

You didn't protect Elly. She's just as much a victim as they are, and you didn't protect her.

Rin shivered. Well, that was different! Elly was a different kind of victim, the kind that worshipped her abuser! And that made her-

-a danger?

Sighing, Rin got up and left the common room without alerting any of the others. As she headed into the network of tunnels that made up their home, she was struck with an odd moment of empathy for her one-time mentor and principle cause for everything that had gone wrong in her life, Eirin Yagokoro. If this was the kind of headache that came with being in charge, then there was little wonder she had turned out to be such a terrible person.

…

Between the large (and now larger) cavern that made up Flandre's lair and the now brightly lit and furnished caves that they had originally emerged in at the surface, several smaller caverns had been dug out of the earth and stone, all connected by a series of tunnels. Those caverns served a number of different purposes, from storerooms for the food and other supplies that Rin was always having to procure for them (and man, those never stayed full!) to one into which Rin had rerouted a small underground stream to make a decent-sized pool used for bathing (Nien was especially insistent upon that, while the demons had balked at the very idea, the sulfur-smelling weirdoes), to a kind of library for those who liked that sort of thing (which wasn't even a third of them).

But most of them were the private rooms for the various members of their community. Most preferred to have their own rooms, while a few others shared. As for Rin, though she was pretty much the one in charge, her lack of a need for sleep and her constantly needing to run around to keep things under control really hadn't given her much need to carve one out for herself. Still, there was one cavern in particular that she was finding herself spending more time in than the others.

The small cave was pitch-black when she got to it, though that was just due to the lantern not being lit and the entrance being covered by a piece of cloth rather than anything magical going on, so Rin's sharp eyes could see just fine. There honestly wasn't much inside, mostly just few odds and ends belonging to its owner that had first been brought to Yuuka's mansion, and from there to their new home. There was a small collection of animal bones (at least Rin hoped they were all animal bones), some kind of carved wooden creature with a long nose and big ears, a box of clothes, a moldy old picture book, some kind of religious text with most of the pages torn out, and a bundle of blankets wedged in the far corner.

As Rin entered, the bundle stirred, and a sleepy voice murmured, "Er…Rin?"

"Hey there," Rin said, putting as much cheer into her voice as she could muster. "You been sleeping all day again?"

A pair of scarlet eyes blinked in the dark. "Ugh, feels like it. What time is it?"

"A little past six. How you feeling?"

"Fan-friggin'-tastic," the voice muttered. "As always."

Rin picked up a nearly lantern and lit it with her fingertip. Light filled the small, stone room, illuminating her roommate, for a lack of a better term.

For someone who had been asleep for almost twenty hours, Rumia looked anything but rested. Her hair was a tangled mess, she was sitting slumped over, and seemed to be having trouble keeping her eyes open.

"What happened?" she said around a cavernous yawn. "Heard some…yelling or some shit earlier?"

"Seija," Rin said simply. "She set Flandre off again."

A beat passed, and then Rumia yawned again. "Well. That sounds bad."

"It was, but I got it handled."

"Hmmm. Sure you did. Hey, why exactly do we keep that little twerp around again?"

Rin sighed. "You know, I am starting to wonder. Hey, you didn't have any nightmares again, did you?"

"Mmmm." Rumia gave a noncommittal half-shrug. "Maybe at first. Got through them."

"Right." Well, fine. No point in beating around the bush. "Hey, Rumia? Crazy thought, but have you considered that you, you know, been sleeping just a little too much lately?"

That got her a familiar derisive snort. "Well, either I sleep too much and I'm drowsy, or I sleep too little and I'm grouchy. Your choice."

Rin winced. She sat down next to Rumia and hugged her legs to her chest. "Okay, um. Look. I've been thinking…"

"There's a nice change of pace," Rumia muttered.

Rin gave her a light smack upside her head. "Look, you didn't have this problem before, right?"

"Nah."

"Right. So I've been thinking: you remember when Hina Kagiyama sucked the Shadow Youkai out of us? Or to be more specific, you?"

"Kinda hard to forget the single most painful experience in my life," Rumia said wryly.

"Yeah, um, well. Anyway, I've been thinking: what if…well, you know, what if when that happened, it, uh…"

"Broke something?" Rumia yawned once again. "Like, screwed me up in the head?"

Rin shrugged. "I mean, you gotta admit, it's a possibility."

"Sure is. It sure…"

Rin waited for Rumia to finish her sentence. When that didn't immediately happen, she glanced at the youkai girl sitting at her side.

Rumia's chin was slumped into her chest. Soft snores were seeping out through her nose.

"Hey!" Rin jostled her shoulder. "You've slept enough! Wake up!"

Rumia's head snapped up and her eyes snapped open. "Huh?"

"Stay awake! You were about to drop off again."

"Well, whaddya expect?" Rumia said as she grumpily rubbed her eyes. "Anyway, like I was saying, it could also have something to do with, you know, having my body dissolved, my mind stuck in yours for months, and then it all…it all…" The rest of her sentence was swallowed up in yet another yawn.

Rin made a face. "But I did the same to Flandre, and she doesn't have that same problem. I-I mean, she's actually better now then she used to be!"

"Yeah, but-"

"And what about all those people I ate the first time around? You know, back at Eientei, waaaaaaaaaaaay back in the day? They didn't have weird sleeping problems after I let them go!"

Rumia snorted. "Is that so. And you know that…how? You got stuck in a box like right afterward! Maybe they all were super messed up, and you just weren't around to see it."

"Well…"

"And you had them all for, what, a day? Less than that? I was in your head for a few months! You ever keep anyone for that long?"

"Well, there's Kaguya Houraisan and Fujiwara no Mokou," Rin said weakly. "Technically, I've had them for longer than you."

"Oh yeah? Hey, you wanna let them out and try to have them take a nap? You know, just to check."

"No."

"Well, there you go."

Rin had nothing to say to that.

After a little bit, Rumia sighed and stood up. She paced back and forth through the small space, occasionally smacking herself in the head to try to beat some wakefulness into her.

"I…could go get you some coffee," Rin offered. "If you want?"

Rumia shook her head. "No, that just makes me sleepier for some reason."

"Oh. Um, well, if you think it's my fault then…maybe I could…"

Rin trailed off.

Rumia noticed. "You could what?" she growled.

"Nothing," Rin said hastily.

"You were gonna suggest eating me again, weren't you?"

Rin couldn't meet her eyes. She shrugged.

"Go rooting around in my head, see if there is something you can fix, like you did with Flandre."

"Forget it," Rin said. "It was a dumb idea."

Rumia scowled. "Do you really want to do that?"

"No, of course not!" Rin lied.

"Well, good! I don't wanna get dissolved again! It hurts!"

"Good. So I won't."

"Well, good to hear!"

Rin swallowed. "Sorry."

Rumia shot her a nasty look. She opened her mouth to say something, probably something biting, but then ended up only sighing and resuming her pacing.

Another heavy silence fell, in which Rin just sat with her head bowed while Rumia continued to pace, occasionally violently shaking her head and smacking herself.

Then Rin said, "Well, um…maybe you should try, you know, getting…out more?"

Rumia frowned. "Huh?"

"You know! You stay in here all day, all cooped up in the dark. Maybe you should try going outside every now and then? Get some exercise? Fresh air? Change of scenery?"

"Rin…" Rumia sighed.

"Look, just hear me out: tonight I'm taking the Night Squad out for a fly, so…since you're kind of a night person, why don't you come with? Could be good for you."

"Night Squad," Rumia repeated.

"Yeah! You know, anyone who's nocturnal. We got Wriggle, We got Mystia, we got Kurumi-"

"And Flandre."

Rin cringed, but nodded. "But I promise she won't do anything bad! I'll be hovering over her like a hawk the whole time, and the second things start to go weird, I'll shut her down like I always do."

"Sure, except it takes like two seconds for her to close her fist."

"And it takes me one second to wrap her up! Seriously, I've been taking her out flying for weeks now, and nothing's happened."

"So far…"

"Come on, Rumia. Just think about it, okay?"

There was a pause, followed by a resigned sigh.

"Fine," Rumia said. "I'll think about it."

"That's all I ask," Rin said as she left the room.

…

Night had fallen on Gensokyo, and Rin was almost ready to leave.

It was a little past eleven, and most of the day-dwellers had gone to bed while those who preferred starlight to sunlight were up and about. And as Rin's group had a fair mix of both, it was the time of the night-walkers.

Affectionately dubbed the "Night Squad," it consisted of the nocturnal members of Rin's group, specifically Mystia Lorelei, Wriggle Nightbug, Doremy Sweet, Kurumi, Kogasa Tatara.

And Flandre.

It had taken some time for the others to get used to the idea of going out in the company of the notoriously unstable vampire. Even now, after weeks of their nightly flights, there was a healthy distance between Flandre and the others. Rin made sure to stick close to her so she wouldn't feel isolated, and fortunately if Flandre did notice the wide berth she was being given, she didn't remark on it. Her eyes were bright red, indicating that the Child aspect was currently in charge, as was further evidenced by how she was excitedly rising up and down on the balls of her feet, staring up at the Moon.

"Are you sure she's coming?" Doremy asked.

"Sure I am!" Rin said with a confidence that she didn't feel. "Just give her a few more minutes."

Kurumi glanced nervously out into the night. "I haven't even seen her go out of her room for almost a week," she said.

"She'll come," Rin said with confidence that she didn't really feel.

Doremy bit her lower lip. "You know, I'm getting really worried about her. Usually people I put to sleep don't get…like that. It's just like a switch. I flick it on, and they sleep. Then they wake up."

"I don't think it's you," Wriggle said. "I think the switch was already all gummed up."

Rin winced.

"From what though?" Kogasa said from her spot next to Wriggle, which was where she could usually be found. "I mean, I know she's been through some stuff, but-"

Thankfully, before the conversation could get anymore uncomfortable, they heard the sound of the front entrance opening.

A moment later Rumia herself appeared.

"Hey!" Rin said as relief swept through her. "You showed up."

Rumia, it should be noted, still looked kind of out of it, but not as bad as she had been earlier. "Yeah, I did," she said.

"Well, you look…better?"

"A little," Rumia said with a yawn.

"See! Maybe you did just need some fresh air."

"Maybe."

"Well, good to see you up and about," Wriggle said, patting Rumia on the back. "We missed you."

Rumia smiled. It was a very tired smile, but a smile nevertheless.

"All right, we're all here!" Rin said. She looked up at the sky, a beautiful backdrop of black velvet sprinkled with glittering diamonds, with the Moon shining full and bright like a chandelier. "It's a lovely night, girls. So let's fly!"

…

God, it feels weird to be writing for these characters again. Like pulling out your scene gear from school, looking it over dubiously, trying it on, finding out that it still fits, and realizing that, yeah, you still look good in it.

I think. Maybe that metaphor got away from me.

Anyway! So here's a reminder of the plan: every Sunday from here on out until I run out of premade material, I will be updating…something. This story, Resonance Days, Resonance Days' spin-off Walpurgis Nights, and one other. It will mostly cycle, but I'll be shifting things around on a whim depending on the circumstances. Not going to be killing myself to make a deadline, is what I'm saying.

Except for on the 19th, which will also see an update for everything, because that's my birthday, and I update everything on my birthday. But other than that, one update every week.

So, as for that fourth story…

So, y'all remember Rhapsody of Subconscious Desire, that Kaguya and Mokou with Ex-Rumia spin-off about their adventures through dreamland? Remember how it heavily drove home the point that Mokou and Rumia have some kind of past together?

Remember the most recent chapter about Keine and some new dude named Kohta?

Well, I'm gonna be expanding on that. This is something I've had planned for a very long time, and I'm glad to finally get to debut it. Imperfect Metamorphosis is getting its own official chaptered prequel, called Swiftly Descending Darkness. I've got roughly about two thirds of it done and have already released it to a small group, and now I'm releasing it here as well.

Also, on a side-note, while both Imperfect Metamorphosis and Resonance Days will remain exclusive to here for the time being, Walpurgis Nights and Swiftly Descending Darkness will also be cross-posted to Archive of Our Own. I figured it was about time for me to post some kind of material over there, so this is it.

So…yeah! This is up now, and the first chapters of SDD and WN will be going up sometimes in the PM hours, PST.

Until next time, everyone!