Chapter 9: Yumemi

At its core, science is a process of learning information, basing a theory around that information to explain why it is the way it is, and then repeating that process as necessary, oftentimes uprooting older theories. Being wrong is an essential part of science. And yet, some people who call themselves "scientists" refuse to accept new information simply because of its drastic opposition to established knowledge. It is this hypocrisy that forms the basis of Yumemi's struggle.

By all accounts, Yumemi should have been─and was─a renowned scientific genius known worldwide. She had made astounding contributions to the field of physics, even being part of the research group who finally "proved" string theory. Within the scientific community, Yumemi was an aspiration, someone who could be looked up to. And of course, this is without even mentioning her age of 18; she was astoundingly young for someone so accomplished.

All good things come to an end, however. Many countries around the world came together to create a new prototype space travel device, the Probability Space Hypervessel. This groundbreaking machine would utilize wormholes to travel great distances instead of simply using physical propulsion. Among the many scientists who volunteered to board the Hypervessel for its maiden voyage across space, Yumemi and her assistant Chiyuri were among them.

As power was supplied to the Probability Space Hypervessel and it prepared to create a wormhole, something went terribly wrong. No one is completely sure what happened, but it is believed that the ship's onboard computer system was not functioning properly. The Hypervessel vanished from Earth as it should have, but it did not end up on Mars as it should have. It seemed to most people as though the crew of the Hypervessel were dead, and thus they were mourned.

The Hypervessel, while not finding its way to Mars, did not vanish from reality. Instead, it ended up in a place seemingly on Earth that no one recognized. No one really had time to take in the new sight, however. Unfortunately, the large spacecraft had appeared just high enough in the sky to be deadly, but not high enough to give much time before impact. With the Hypervessel's computer damaged beyond repair and there simply not being enough time to manually get the landing equipment operational, the ship crashed into the Earth, killing or severely wounding almost everyone aboard the craft. With that devastating accident said and done, the only people left in a functional state were Yumemi and Chiyuri.

While severely damaged, given time, the craft could be repaired (it came with a manual), and its computer could be fixed. It was a miracle that this unknown location had a breathable atmosphere. Thus, after mourning the death of their crewmates, Yumemi and Chiyuri began to slowly work at getting the craft operational once again.

During this long and arduous process, rumors spread about the wreckage amongst the natives of this new land. None approached it out of fear, as it had fallen from the heavens without warning. However, this same occurrence also lent itself to the belief that the fallen ship was some sort of Heavenly ruins being cast out of the sky.

From the other side, Yumemi observed something most unusual: The power of magic. With no lumitechnics in play, Yumemi was forced to draw the conclusion that the people native to this land were able to defy the laws of physics as the scientific community knew them. She gathered all sorts of data surrounding this strange phenomenon, including video evidence of it happening. It was during this process that Yumemi began to develop her Unified Field Theory of Magic.

Yumemi and Chiyuri also learned of the Spell Card System through their careful observation. Now knowing that battles in Gensokyo were based not on firepower, but on beauty, the pair made a lumitechnics system in order to appear as though they had magic. It wasn't portable, as its power requirement was quite high and the only large amount of power the duo had access to was the Hypervessel itself. Even so, it would serve well as an emergency self-defense tool.

Most of the duo's time passed without incident. The Hypervessel's reparations were nearly complete when the rumor of "the fallen Heavenly palace" had become widespread enough to warrant attention from the likes of Reimu and Marisa. While the shrine maiden and witch were unsure of the rumor's validity, it was an interesting enough tale to be worth checking out. Thus, they travelled to the rumored location and found the unusual structure just as it was told by the stories.

It wasn't long before Reimu and Marisa came face-to-face with Yumemi and Chiyuri. While initially unsure of what to do, an idea struck Yumemi: If she and her assistant could beat these intruders in a Spell Card battle, then she could make these magically gifted individuals return home with her, giving even further credence to her Unified Field Theory of Magic. Thus, she challenged them and fought.

Unfortunately for Yumemi, this was her first Spell Card battle, and she was going up against much more experienced foes. While it was a long fight, Yumemi and Chiyuri ended up losing to Reimu and Marisa. Yumemi gave the victors some gifts in order to get them to leave: She gave Reimu one of the ship's androids, while she gave Marisa a missile without telling her how to use it.

With the Hypervessel finally repaired, Yumemi and Chiyuri were able to warp back to their homeland. Many were shocked to see them alive, and the press swarmed them for weeks. It was during this time that Yumemi shared her findings about magic. She expected her collected evidence to be enough to convince the scientific community of her theory's validity, but this hope was in vain.

The news surrounding Yumemi completely flipped its message from being about the miracle of her and her assistant's safe return to a mocking of Yumemi's presentation of "magic" as something that exists. Many thought the time on an unknown planet and the death of the rest of the crew had driven the two mad, whilst others believed that Yumemi was simply an idiot. Thus, what should have been cause for great celebration led to Yumemi losing nearly all of her reputation within the scientific community.

Yumemi fell into a depression following this. After all, her entire livelihood had been stripped away by her simply doing what any scientist in her situation would have done. The world had been unfair to her, as she had simply wanted to show the truth of the world. It was through the support of her assistant, Chiyuri, that she was able to keep going.

However, it seemed like not everyone found her ideas to be absurd. After the paparazzi and media coverage of Yumemi's "madness" had died down, she received a message from well-known western computer scientist named Anthony Cooper. According to his message, he had witnessed magic identical to what Yumemi had talked about. The two messaged each other about their experiences regularly. Eventually, Anthony made the decision to move to Japan, as it was during a vacation to the country when he witnessed magic.

Once Anthony arrived, he became good friends with Yumemi and Chiyuri, bonding over their shared experiences concerning the mysterious magic area. During these talks, Yumemi learned that accessing the mysterious area, which was called Gensokyo according to Anthony, was possible without the Probability Space Hypervessel, but that said methods of access were esoteric and unreliable. Apparently, it may happen to humans randomly, or to non-living objects should they be forgotten by everyone outside of Gensokyo. This made the prospect of returning there seem unachievable, so Anthony, Yumemi, and Chiyuri pushed that goal aside for the time being.

Secretly, however, Anthony was working on a project that could undeniably prove the existence of Gensokyo and magic. Being one of the best computer scientists in the world, Anthony had an idea: if forgotten, non-living objects end up in the area, then all he had to do was create an intelligent non-living object and tell no one about it. Once he died, it would be able to travel to the area and bring back evidence to back up his and Yumemi's theory.

Thus, Neolect was created. The first truly sentient and sapient artificial intelligence, and no one knew about it. Not even Yumemi or Chiyuri were told about Neolect, as that would ruin the plan of intentional forgetting. Anthony did create more true AIs afterwards, but the second one was presented as the first, and so on.

The death of Anthony Cooper came… prematurely. While he was walking to work, a truck whose driver had passed from a heart attack while driving rammed into Anthony, killing him instantly. While his death did receive major media coverage, it had the biggest effect on Yumemi and Chiyuri. Yumemi once again fell into a depression, but this time she recovered more quickly because she had a goal to devote herself to. In honor of the death of Anthony and to prove the existence of magic, Yumemi threw herself into learning as much as she could about the occult and anything esoteric. After much digging and many failed attempts, Yumemi and Chiyuri discovered something promising: An old, decrepit shrine that, according to online occultists, had an intimate connection with a mysterious, illusionary world. Thus, they packed their bags with essential supplies for both survival and research, then travelled to the shrine.

"Well, Chiyuri, this shrine is the closest thing to Gensokyo we have access to. Let's see if it can help us."

After much experimentation to see if they could travel to Gensokyo from here, Yumemi and Chiyuri felt as though something around them had shifted. The environment was… different. This only had one explanation.

"We did it boss! We're back in Gensokyo!"

"Ah, finally." Yumemi grinned. "Now, it's time to finally bring back enough evidence to prove the existence of magic!"

And thus, a scorned, obsessive scientist and her assistant made their way to Gensokyo.

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Author's Notes: Did I say I'd be updating this story around once a month? Ah crap…

Well, either way, I, and by extension this story, am not dead! I do still plan on continuing writing this story, but it's definitely harder to do than my original work that I'm writing, so it may take longer.

I guess you could call this chapter a flashback or even a filler, so I apologize if you're dying for the story to move forward. That'll definitely resume next chapter, though!

I hope you don't mind the changes I made to Yumemi's story.

Anyways, that's all for now! I hope you have to continue to have a great day!