Gensokyo is a place that you and I can never tell if it exists of not. The only information we have on it is in tales of the places heroes, villians, and key players. But here's a story I bet you haven't heard. The story of how expectations get completely wrecked. A tale of such courageous young people, the likes of which the world, including Gensokyo, the Outside World, and the netherworld., had never seen. The story of the Swordsman of the Dark, the Ordinary Black Magician of Gensokyo. Our tale begins as thus…
Hakurei Shrine. A landmark to the denizens of Gensokyo, a marker of the furthest eastern edge of their land, as it's located right on the Great Hakurei Barrier. And this shrine is home to a Gensokyan legend. Reimu Hakurei, the miko of the shrine. But we don't care about her. We care about who came to visit her. Marisa Kirisame, an ordinary magician.
"Reiiiiimuuuuu", she was whining.
Reimu simply shook her head, "No, Marisa. Don't ask again. You will not be using the shrine for your weird experiments "
"But Reimu-".
"No!", Reimu stomped on the ground, making her stance on the matter clear as day. Marisa crossed her arms, pouting.
"Stupid Reimu, not letting me use her stupid shrine-".
"You know I can hear you, right?", Reimu asked. Reimju sighed deeply, this was gonna be a long day. But she took everything in stride thinking, it might not be as bad as she was envisioning.
"Can you?", Marisa looked up, rather surprised. Reimu responded by raising her eyebrow. Marisa smiled nervously… then raised her head rather quickly.
"Do you hear that?".
Reimu stopped and listened for a bit, not hearing anything, and was about to say no when a sound graced her ears. Some sort of weird whooshing sound. She looked up, then around, trying to locate the sound.
"Yeah I hear it, but where is it coming from?", Reimu pondered aloud.
Marisa pointed into the Forest of Magic, "Think it's coming from in there- ze?". Reimu looked below the tree line and saw… something. She pointed it out to Marisa, "What is that?".
Marisa shook her head, to her it looked like the space in front of a tree was being distorted. Deciding to take a closer look she hopped on her broom and sped over to the disturbance, Reimu hot on her heels. The two girls gaped at it, only for a humanoid figure to fall out of the disturbance before it disappeared.
Marisa peered at the figure before her, it was laying flat on its back, eyes closed, seemingly unconscious, dressed in all black. The only exposed skin was on its hands and face, and as for its face, it looked surprisingly…
"He's human…", Reimu gasped. She opened her mouth to say more but, was suddenly cut off as the unidentified human's eyes shot open.
Marisa looked into his eyes and was taken aback by what she saw. He didn't appear to have irises in his eyes, just a jet black circle that was his pupil sitting on the white of his sclera. It was unsettling to say the least, but also intriguing. She would have even asked him about it, but there were more pressing concerns at the moment. Like whether or not this person was Ok.
He pushed himself into a sitting position and looked around at his surrounding before wincing and grabbing his head in… Pain? Marisa stepped forward.
"Hey are you-", Marisa began but never quite finished since the human male had now reached towards his back and grasped the hilt of a short Japanese sword that Marisa hadn't even noticed was strapped there. He drew the weapon and Marisa took a step back as he raised the blade.. She was about to reassure him that she wasn't going to hurt him until she noticed who the blade's intended target was. HIM!
"Hey!", she surged forward, grabbing his arms before he could impale himself, pushing against him. Crap, he's strong.
"Reimu, help me!".
"Coming", Reimu called to her, racing to her friend to help stop an attempted suicide. Reimu cast ofuda around the feet of the offending human. Tendrils of magic extended from the talismans on the ground and up his body, binding his arms in place.
Marisa looked carefully at him as she slowly backed up, removing the sword from his grasp. Then she heard Reimu's surprised exclamation of, "Impossible!".
Marisa noticed it. He was pushing against the magic so much that his arms were starting to tremble from the force.
"He'll break his arms if this continues", Reimu informed her. Marisa sighed. "We need to knock him out". Reimu nodded, the asked, "How?". "Like this!", Marisa raised his sword and cracked the blunt end over his head. He slumped to the ground, no longer conscious.
Reimu gave Marisa a strange look, "You could have seriously hurt him". Marisa looked back at Reimu and smiled sheepishly. "He's much stronger than he looks. I'm sure he's fine". Reimu sighed. "Well, what do we do with him?".
"I don't know. Strap him down somewhere secure?".
Reimu thought about and nodded. "Yeah, that seems like a good idea". Together the two girls began to hoist him up so they could carry him back to the shrine.
They had just set off back to the shrine when a voice said, "Ah, Reimu, there you are." They turned around to see Yukari Yakumo. Marisa's eyes narrowed, "What do you want?"
Yukari gazed at Marisa for awhile, like she was sizing her up, then she answered, "Ran told me that a rather large object fell through a rather large hole in the barrier. I came to check up on it." She looked at the person suspended between the two. "Why are you kidnapping someone?"
Reimu rolled her eyes, "We aren't kidnapping anyone. He tried to kill himself so we knocked him out and we're going to strap him somewhere secure."
Yukari looked at him some more before she said, "Ok." She opened a gap in front of them and beckoned with her hand, "Come, your shrine is through there."
Reimu raised an eyebrow, "Why are you helping us?".
"Because he's the reason that I'm here. Look at his clothes. He's clearly not from around here. He's from the outside world."
And with that she walked through the gap, prompting Marisa and Reimu to go through it as well.
On the other end they saw that Yukari had been proactive and had gotten a table with leather bindings attached to it in various places. "Strap him in", she said simply.
After the girls had completed their task, Yukari began to examine and paused almost as soon as she began. She muttered something under her breath before she opened another gap and stuck her head through it.
"Patchouli, can I ask you to help with something?"
"What is it.", The girls heard Patchouli's voice.
"A man fell through the barrier in the most peculiar manner. We have him tied down now and there is some sort of obstruction on his psyche. It appears to be some sort of spell so, I figured you would be the right person to call."
There was silence for a moment before Yukari was heard again, "Oh you want to come as well Remilia? Well I don't see why not." Then she pulled herself out of her gap as two people walked through. Patchouli Knowledge, followed closely by Remilia Scarlet. Remilia smirked upon entering the shrine, "Hello again, Reimu". Reimu nodded in response as everyone turned their attention to the figure tied to the table in front of them.
Patchouli walked up to him and placed her hands on his head and concentrated for a long while, closing her eyes. Everyone watched with bated breath. Patchouli opened her eyes and stepped back, nodding, "There is a spell on him. It's purpose is to drive him crazy. Apparently the more self-loathing an individual is, the more averse the effect are."
Marisa was the first to break the long, awkward silence that had overtaken the room.
"Can you remove the spell?." Patchouli nodded before placing her hands back on his forehead and muttering under her breath. After a few seconds she was finished, "It's gone, but, he won't wake up for several hours, being a human."
Reimu nodded, while Remilia exclaimed, " Shame, I wanted to see who this person was."
Patchouli frowned before she continued, "Also his body is covered head to toe in a matrix of sealing spells. I've never seen any sealing done on a human be this extensive. I can't even imagine what whoever put those seals on him was trying to seal." Then her attention was brought back to the man on the table, who had began coughing. Then without warning, his eyes opened. Everyone present gawked at him, especially Patchouli, who was surprised to see anyone up so soon after the mental ordeal he had been through.
Marisa noticed his eyes were still the same. Completely black with no iris contrasted only by the white of his sclera. Guess it wasn't caused by the spell, she thought.
Patchouli also saw this and gasped, "You have aniridia."
The man didn't seem to register what she said. It looked like he was still waking up. Two entire minutes passed and no one said anything. Then suddenly the man looked around, finally taking in his surroundings. His eyes settled on the group of people standing off to the side of him.
Marisa decided to take initiative and asked, "Hello, can you understand me?"
The man's eyes slightly narrowed at her voice, but he answered her, "Yes, I can. Mind telling me who you are, where exactly I am, and why I'm tied down?"
Reimu spoke up saying, "Your in my shrine."
He sighed upon hearing that, "After all those years of running, looks like you Alliance bastards finally caught me. Guess your going to kill me now?"
Reimu was a bit shocked by this, "No I'm not going to kill you. And what alliance are you talking about?" She would have asked more but Yukari had decided to speak. "You're in the Hakurei shrine."
At that, he began laughing.
"That's impossible. Everyone knows the Hakurei shrine was destroyed generations ago by the Alliance after the matriarch of the Hakurei clan commited the sin of aiding and abetting yokai".
Yukari merely laughed at this.
"Your in Gensokyo, young one."
His eyes widened in understanding, "So then that girl in red and white is the current matriarch?"
Yukari shook her head, "Yes and no. She's the only one left". He nodded at this and asked, "So why am I tied up again?"
Marisa answered him, "When you first arrived in Gensokyo, you tried to kill yourself, so we tied you up as a precaution."
"Can you untie me?"
"You promise not to attack us or yourself?"
He nodded, "I do, indeed". So Marisa and Reimu set about unstrapping him. "Sorry about that. By the way my name is Reimu Hakurei".
"I'm Marisa Kirisame. Nice to meet you!"
Yukari introduced herself, "I'm Yukari Yakumo, But you probably know me as-."
"The 'Legendary Gap Hag'.", he finished
Yukari looked at him, "What did you call me?"
Remilia decided to stop Yukari from frightening this person, "I'm Remilia Scarlet and this is Patchouli Knowledge".
Marisa took a step closer to him and said, If you don't mind us asking, who are you?"
He looked down at the floor for a moment but he still said his name, "I am Velante Aku."
Yukari snarled, "Your an Aku?"
"An exiled and denounced Aku"
"Denounced for what."
"For the circumstances of my birth."
"Elaborate."
He breathed in and exhaled slowly before he spoke, "I am an abomination. I am the child of the current head of the current head of the Aku family and Shutarath Soktesh, the current lord of Nifritz."