"Nifritz?", Reimu asked, "What is that?"
Yukari had a rather sour look on her face, "Another realm, not unlike the netherworld, albeit much more hellish. It's not directly connected to the world that this child is from or even Gensokyo."
"Right, and I am the child of said hellscape's ruler. ", Velante added, "You have a history with him".
"I suppose I do. I'm not happy to see the child of two of my greatest enemies here in Gensokyo.", Yukari narrowed her eyes .
"Hey, I didn't ask to be here."
"So", Reimu began, "How did you get here?"
He knit his eyebrows, deep in thought, "I-I'm not really sure. I remember a few thing here and there and then nothing. It's like I lost consciousness."
Yukari spoke up, her voice more icy than Reimu or Marisa ever remembered hearing it, "Then let's start with what you do know. Tell us everything you remember."
Velante raised an eyebrow at that and shook his head, "I'd prefer not to say until you tell me what you intend to do with that information."
"I intend to find out how you entered this world. It's no easy task to do so. The last person who tried that needed energy stockpiled on this side of the barrier just so she could force herself through. And even then she couldn't stay for very long. Yet here you are, didn't force your way in and staying anchored on this side."
With a nod he answered, "I was sleeping in a dumpster in an ally in Sangju and…"
He cut off when he noticed the confused looks of several people in the room.
"Sangju?", Marisa asked confused.
"It's in Korea". Marisa turned to look at Patchouli, who had answered."Korea?"
"Patchouli waved her hand offhandedly, "Not important. Please continue Velante-san."
"Just Velante is fine. So I was asleep and I woke suddenly. Had a real bad feeling about something."
"About what?", Yukari asked.
"I felt like I was being watched. Turns out I was right and a big group of these Alliance idiots start advancing down the alley."
"This is the third time, you mentioned this … alliance. Who or what exactly are they?", Reimu asked.
"Do you really not know? Well I guess that makes sense. Yukari probably didn't think she would ever have to deal with them again and decided to forget about them. Wish I could forget about them. Seriously, they haven't gone after me with this intensity since the Moriya shrine, it's gods, and the last living Kochiya disappeared."
"Wait, Moriya shrine? As in Suwako Moriya?", Remilia spoke up, surprised.
"Y-yes. How did you know that?"
"Moriya shrine has been moved to Gensokyo along with its gods and its shrine maiden.", Yukari stated, a lot less coldly.
Velante seemed surprised by this answer as his eyes widened, "Really? Then the Kochiya, can you call her here?"
Yukari nodded but Reimu pointed something out, "There's only so much space in this shrine. We all won't fit in here."
Yukari nodded again before opening another gap and walking through it. Velante turned toward Patchouli and Remilia and said, "I've heard of you two. You're kinda high up on the Alliance's list of potential threats. The Scarlet Devil and the Seven Days Magician."
Remilia smirked, "I'm honored", she said sarcastically. Patchouli laughed lightly.
Yukari walked back into the shrine and said, "Kanako says we can talk in front of Moriya Shrine." And so they all filter through the gap. Patchouli conjured an parasol and handed it to Remilia, who thanked her for it.
On the other end waits Kanako and Sanae, the latter of which gasps upon seeing Velante, "V-Velante Aku!"
Kanako squinted at him and nodded somberly. Reimu looked from Velante to Sanae in confusion. Sanae, noticing Reimu's actions, told her, "I don't actually know him. I just recognize him from his wanted picture."
"Wanted picture? Just who is he?"
But she never got her answer since she notices Suwako walking towards them. She greeted the god but Suwako didn't seem to notice her and was marching very pointedly towards Velante. She stopped right in front of him and looked up at him. He surprised everyone by bowing to her.
"Lady Suwako".
She smiled at him, "Velante. How are you?"
He raised his head and spoke, "I'd like to say I'm well but I'm being told that a spell was cast on me to make me end my own existence. So I'd say I'm rather shaken up at the moment."
Suwako nodded, satisfied with that answer. "I'm thrilled to see you again, but your presence here unsettles me."
"You know Suwako?", Yukari looked surprised.
Velante didn't answer, so Suwako did it for him, "Let us say I helped him out during a time of great peril".
"Like what?"
"Like don't fucking worry about it. It's none of your business", said a very annoyed Velante.
Suwako gave him a long and hard look, almost like she was staring into his soul. She lightly told him, "Language".
Velante backed up rather suddenly and if Reimu didn't know any better she would say that it looked to her that Velante was afraid of angering the god. However the look of fear quickly disappeared and he bowed his head, "Of course Lady Suwako."
Sanae looked on at the scene in confusion, "This seems wrong. You, the infamous rouge son of the house of Aku, bow to a god? Last I heard you were fighting gods, and apparently nearly brought about one's demise."
" Rogue son? Is that what they're calling me? That's rich."
Marisa spoke up, what Sanae just said rousing her interest, "It's demise? He nearly killed a god." She turned to him, "You nearly killed a god?"
Velante didn't look at her. But Marisa would never forget that face for as long as she lived. A look of excruciating pain. Suwako, probably sensing his distress said very loudly, "That's enough".
"But-"
"That's. Enough."
"It's fine, Lady Suwako." She looked at him in surprise. But nodded respecting his wishes.
Marisa turned her attention back to the boy. He looked much more composed now. The look of pain no longer evident on his face. He sighed.
"No. I didn't nearly kill a god. Nowhere even close to the god being in any danger."
"So-"
"Look I'll discuss this with you at a later time. But for now it looks like we have more pressing concerns."
Reimu couldn't agree more, "Yes like this Alliance you keep mentioning. I'd like to hear more about it, especially since you mentioned them destroying the Hakurei Shrine."
Velante turned to Yukari and asked, "Is it alright for me to speak of this? I don't want to scare your denizens for no reason."
"For them to understand they're gonna have to know. So you may speak."
"Right," Velante breathed in deeply seemingly deep in thought. His eyes closed and his eyebrows scrunched up. Then his eyes shot open and he spoke.
"The Alliance… I guess I'll start at the beginning. The Japanese Spirit Clan Alliance is a government secret force started hundreds of years ago by the order of the Fujiwara Clan. Rumor has it that it was started by Fujiwara no Kamatari himself. It's a close knit organization with its core lying in the nine clans that founded it. Only six of these clans are still in the Alliance."
"What happened to the other three?", Reimu inquired.
Velante smiled softly, "A variety of things. The most prominent of these clans was, and still is the Tokugawa clan. They left not long after the organization's founding because the two sons of the clan wanted to pursue something else. The eldest son became shogun and his family line the shogunate. As for the younger brother well his line didn't do anything worth mentioning till about 400 years ago. Somewhere down the line they had acquired the name Sawada and founded the most powerful organization the world has never heard of. Any way back to the clans. Another of these clans died out in the male line and became assimilated into another clan as a result. And the final clan betrayed the Alliance to protect innocents. This clan is infamous. This was the Hakurei clan."
Eyes widened all over. Reimu could scarcely believe what she was hearing. Her family had been apart of some powerful organization? It seemed impossible.
"Are there any questions?"
No one made a sound so Velante continued, "Currently the Alliance is run by the matriarch of the Aku Family, Aia Aku. My mother. And their purpose is to keep the spiritual world and the world of humans in equilibrium. At least it's supposed to. But the alliance fell to large scale corruption about 600 years ago. They deemed that yokai were too dangerous to coexist with humanity, and planed to eradicate as many as they could. However the Hakurei matriarch was very outspoken about how she and her clan opposed the genocide. But the Aku's weren't backing down. So the two families were locked in a stalemate for decades. Then 500 years ago, the Alliance was given the greenlight to go ahead with an operation that would destroy most of the yokai in Japan. And it was here that the Hakurei defacted."
"The matriarch sought out some yokai leaders and told them of the evil that would take the lives of so many. The yokai heeded her words and reached out to very powerful yokai, who devised a plan. Then with the Hakurei's help the yokai took a mountain and land surrounding for miles in all directions and temporally displaced it. And this new pseudo-world became known as Gensokyo and the powerful yokai that created it are known as the Great Yokai Sages."
"Not long after the creation of Gensokyo, the Alliance was straight up attacked by invaders from another realm. A realm of constant war and bloodshed. The were attacked by Shutarath Soktesh, my father, and the Nifritz Army. While they managed to fight of the invaders, they lost much. And then nearly 500 years later I was born and that brings us to today."
"I am wanted for merely existing. So I was on the run and was in Sangju. So back to what I was saying earlier, I was cornered in an alley with a whole bunch of these alliance idiots. They managed to overpower me and knocked me unconscious. And that's all I remember", Velante concluded.
Yukari thought about that for a while, noticing that some important information was missing. And it was going to take even more to figure how he had circumvented the Hakurei Barrier.
"How do you think you got here?"
"I have an idea. There were quite a bit of people there so it's possible that they used the Move Point spell."
"Move Point?", Marisa asked.
"Yeah, it's a pretty simple ritual used for teleporting Object A to Plane B. But what confuses me is the fact that I'm here. Even using that spell it should be impossible. After all that spell doesn't work in imaginary space." He glanced around at the confused looks. "Really? This barrier protects you and you don't know what it does?"
He looked pleadingly at Reimu, who shrugged, muttering something about how it was never that important. She seemed to be extremely interested in a nearby tree. Velante, in complete shock, was shaking his head.
"Your barrier works using an extremely simple concept. It turns the space within it to imaginary space. Basically space that cannot exist. So walking onto it is impossible, since it technically doesn't exist. And teleporting there is nearly as impossible, since you can't teleport somewhere that isn't there."
"Which begs the question, how'd you get here?", Yukari looked up and gasped. "You don't think…?"
"I don't see any other way. The idiot in charge of the spell must have bumbled the coordinates to where he was supposed to send me. Thus sending to me a place that can't possibly exist."
Patchouli shook her head, "If a space doesn't exist then the move point spell can't send you there. You even said that yourself."
"Typically, yes, that would be the case. However for the briefest of instances that space became a space that did exist."
Once again confused looks took over the faces of all present. No one had the foggiest of what the boy was speaking of. Marisa thought back to all that had happened to lead up to this point. Something Yukari had said was… off. "Ran told me that a rather large object fell through a rather large hole in the barrier."
"The hole…", She muttered to herself. Yukari smiled at her, which to be honest, creeped Marisa out.
"That's right Marisa. The hole in the barrier made the space directly underneath it exist for an instant.", Yukari explained. Reimu on the other hand was not smiling. She looked angry, and worried. She marched straight up to Yukari, "Why is a hole like that in the barrier to begin with. What have you done?"
Yukari feigned surprise and hid her face behind her fan, "Reimu! I'm disappointed that you of all people would think that I would do something like that."
Reimu was angrily retorting, "But-", when someone cut her off.
"Silence Hakurei. Your blame is misplaced".
Reimu wheeled around to face Velante, who had spoken, "And how would you know that?"
"Simple really. Miss Yakumo was one of the yokai your ancestor sought out to protect all of yokai kind. Her ties to the Hakurei clan and the protection of this place goes back centuries. Why would she put Gensokyo in danger from a threat that nearly destroyed everything last time she faced them?"
Reimu gave that some thought. It didn't seem likely, but this is Yukari after all. Velante's words really put this into perspective for her and she couldn't see any reason for Yukari to act in such a malicious manner. But unwilling to simply accept that she was wrong, she asked, "Then how do you think the hole got there?"
"Good question. Miss Yakumo, didn't you mention something about someone forcing their way through the barrier?" Yukari nodded in response, "Ah yes. The Usami girl."
This caused Velante's eyebrow to raise. Usami, where had he heard that name before? Then an image of a stupid cape and haughty attitude popped into his mind and he asked, "Usami? As in Sumireko Usami?"
"That's her. Do you know her?"
"A little. Her parents work in the Alliance. They're a family of espers. Once the little twerp recognized me in Tokyo and tried to bring me in by herself. That went well for her. Any way how did she get here?"
"She stockpiled energy on this side and used it to force open a breach…", Yukari never got to finish what she was saying as a chilling realization was dawning on her. A conclusion that Velante saw immediately.
"How could I have been so blind."
Remilia was giving Yukari a strange look, as she tried to figure out what was causing the older yokai so much distress. "Yukari, are you alright? What's wrong?"
Yukari looked at the vampire, her face giving Remilia chills. She knew that whatever was about to leave the gap yokai's mouth, no one was going to like it.
"What's wrong?", she repeated, sounding hollow, "We are all in danger is what's wrong."
"What do you mean? What danger is there?", Remilia pressed her for details, but none were coming.
"Allow me", Velante gently said both to Remilia and Yukari, the latter of whom, nodded.
"So when you want to get through a barrier, tearing your way through is the most effective course of action. However in the case of your barrier. It's ill advised. Because such an act causes the energy holding the barrier together to break down."
The eyes of everyone present went as wide as dinner plates. None more struck than Reimu who said, "Then that means…"
"Yes, Miss Hakurei. It means your barrier is deteriorating and Gensokyo will soon rejoin the world outside of it. Which is what is worrying Miss Yakumo so much. Because this means that your land will be besieged by war."
Author's Note: Hello again! I apologize for the long wait for the chapter to come out. I spent a month in a mental hospital and when I got out I had a stupid idea for an anime extended universe, which is what I have been devoting a lot of my free time to building. This story is the first installment in this project. And if you look really hard you can find a reference to another series that will tell you what is coming up next in the foreseeable future. I would also like to talk about my timetable. My intention is for there to be a new chapter for you to read every week, with new chapters being posted on Sunday. Thank you for reading and be sure to leave a review. So I know where not to fuck it up. Until next time!