Touhou belongs to Team Shanghai Alice. So do concepts, characters and everything else you have experienced while playing the game, except the dishes. Here's another man who wants to use his ideas for a story.

Kawashiro Nitori opened her eyes, and gasped.

In front of her was Lake Suwa, just as she had remembered. The light breeze that usually blew across the lake, she felt it in her face, the feeling all too familiar. Lake Suwa's waters, murky on the surface, reflected the light rays that was beating down from the noon sun, as if it was glittering with diamonds.

The trees on its bank, however, swayed not in the breeze. There were no birds flitting in the sky, neither were there sounds of insects. Nitori took note of that and closed her eyes again, seeming to concentrate with her mind. In a few moments time, insects, such as cicadas and grasshoppers, began making their usual noises in the day, eradicating the deafening silence that reigned the atmosphere, the trees swaying gently in the wind, rustling their leaves among the chorus of insect noise.

Reaching up to her head, she pulled down the visor on her green cap to block the sunlight from her eyes… and gasped again. Pulling the cap off her head, she brought it down to chest level and examined it closely; it was her favorite green cap, the one she had lost during a fatally close encounter with Usutho in Gensokyo. At the same time, she found herself wearing her usual pockets-filled dress and wellington boots. A weight on her back suddenly registered itself in her mind; it was her trademark backpack.

Only the key is missing. Closing those blue eyes that she was born with those hundred years ago, she willed for the missing item to appear, and when she reopened them, the key was there, hung across her chest. The key was a symbol of her professionalism in her trade as an engineer among the kappa that existed in Gensokyo; it wouldn't do to appear in front of anyone without it.

I'm back in Gensokyo, I did it! It's like magic… a dream of a dream coming true once again.

Her neutral-looking face breaking into a smile, she treaded carefully on the banks of the lake, removed her boots and sunk her feet into the water; the temperature was cooling even though it was a hot day in the midsummer. Naturally, her right hand snaked itself into one of her pockets near the hem of her dress and came away with a modern device from the Outer World: a thermometer. Funny that I didn't get to create this back then.

Dipping the metal bore into the lake, she saw no readings on the thermometer. Of course, there's no temperature here. Not in such a world.

Nitori cupped her hands into the lake and brought some of the lake's waters out and drank it. There was no taste of water, neither was there a feeling that she had been drinking something. Gotta add this to my to-do list. Glancing down at her watch, also a modern marvel from the Outer World, she saw that it was close to evening, yet the atmosphere in Gensokyo felt like it was in the middle of an afternoon. It's almost dinner, but there's something I still wanna do.

After replacing her boots on her feet, an electronic clipboard magically appeared in her waiting left hand; she fumbled with it and in a few seconds time, she found herself in front of an ancient Japanese Shinto shrine on the top of a hill. Instead of concrete, she saw stone steps leading up to the shrine itself. Fiddling with her electronic clipboard again, she shifted her position to the top of the shrine instantly. I hate climbing stairs.

At the entrance of the closed shrine was a donation box under the veranda, made out of bamboo. A hundred yen coin appeared in her right hand, which she gently dropped into the box between the slots and clasped her hands in silent prayer. Bowing thrice to the shrine, she stepped up to the door and slid it open.

The interiors of the shrine was, of course, empty. I have never stepped into the Hakurei Shrine back then, I wouldn't know what's inside. All I can hope is that somebody remembers exactly how it looks like. A few random shrine-related furnishings and a generic altar then appeared on their own accord and filled the shrine's interiors.

At the back of the shrine was a small pond she had seen before in Gensokyo. Unlike the actual Hakurei Shrine of the past, this one had a statue standing in the middle of the pond, portraying a figure of a Hakurei miko brandishing a gohei. There was a metal plate attached to the base of the stone base:

Hakurei Reimu
(XOXO-OXOX)

Here stands the greatest heroine of our world.
Once a miko of justice,
Always will be the miko in our hearts.

Let this be the waypoint of your return.
We are all waiting.

Nitori then realized something else was missing from the pond. She consulted the clipboard again, then looked into the pond; a turtle with grandfather beard was swimming in the pond. Hakurei Shrine's pond is not one without old Genjii. I'm sorry you didn't make it out with us, but this will have to do. Some bread crumbs appeared in her hands; she tossed them absent-mindedly at the turtle as she stared at the stone statue again.

You are the reason why I'm doing this, Reimu. Everybody misses you, human or not. Lots of us in the Yakumo mansion are really having a hard time melding in with the humans of the Outer World, I myself included among them. Yukari had a good intention for keeping us in her mansion; she knew it would be the only place we can actually belong outside of Gensokyo.

In the mansion, we could freely do what we always did in Gensokyo, barring real danmaku. Yukari's mansion was very large; I had the underground basement to myself, and live in it too. You may or may not remember me, but I was an engineer kappa on the Youkai Mountain's base, working on all the inventions you probably have never seen in your life. I've decided to pursue my dream to invent something useful, and found this.

It has been a really long time since we arrived in the Outer World. One of Yukari's friends here, claiming to be a medical professional just like that Eientei woman, diagnosed me with… some sickness. I don't know what it is even till today, but he told me it was like a time bomb that could explode at any moment. All I understood was that I wouldn't live past the eighth year, and ever since I have been working really hard for the past seven. It is my ultimate dream to create something for everybody here, and one of those dull moments four years ago, my mind wandered precariously on this; recreating Gensokyo.

With the help of another of Yukari's mysterious friends, we managed to create a forgable virtual reality out of a small central processing unit based in my workshop in her mansion underground. Everything here, including this statue I've created with a designing program, is the result of my labor to bring back Gensokyo. My intention is to recreate our home exactly as it was and give everybody access to this virtual world.

How this reality works is really marvelous; all I had to do was to bring forth my memories of our home and every single detail into a device that I have created with my bare hands, and then it gets mapped into the program, generating its presence in the virtual reality. Lake Suwa, Hakurei Shrine, Mayohiga, the Scarlet Devil Mansion, Youkai Mountain, the list goes on. I'm working on those at the moment, but I thought it would be appropriate to work on your shrine first. After all, everybody missed you.

At the moment, the program is still unstable and cannot support more than one user connected to the virtual world. A little study into medicine and chemistry allowed me to invent a light drug that, once administered into our bodies, will allow us to hallucinate along the lines of the program and, as what the humans like to term it, 'log in' into the virtual world. In the games that the humans here play, people like us are known as 'player avatars' and non-controllable characters that we can interact with are known as the 'non playable characters', or NPCs.

But this isn't a game, Reimu, it's a dream of a dream coming true. All of us aren't liking the brutal environment of the Outer World, we can only belong to Gensokyo. Maybe with a virtual world like this, all of us can save ourselves from losing sanity. After all, it is only right that vampires should exist in a mansion of her own across Misty Lake, not in a small room shared with her younger sister. Maids, fairies, other youkai and sprites, I have to work on them soon.

In this world, I have control of what I desire; there will be no hell-raising nuclear hell ravens to torment us again. I will design it so that you, the Hakurei miko, will be the strongest among us, even as an NPC. It really hurts to think of you appearing as an NPC instead of someone joining us in the dream, but I guess it can't be helped. In this world, you will defeat Reiuji Usutho in that danmaku battle and bring back to us the life we had all along.

…

Sucks, isn't it? It's only going to be a dream, a virtual reality. How would it be like if this was actual, Reimu? Who would we actually meet after that incident? How many more incidents before you would finally fall? I fear to think of that. It seems that with every incident you had successfully averted, your battles had only got much harder than the one before. Did your death underground actually brought you a silent blessing from the never-ending vicious cycle you would have wound yourself into if you had won?

Am I really cruel to design it so that you always win the battles in this world? I don't even know if you actually enjoyed any of these.

Maybe I should just give up, huh?

…

I made virtual Gensokyo not to just honor you, but for the sake of all of us who escaped Gensokyo that day, to be able to see our homeland again, I would still do it. Maybe I can simply make a stale reality where nothing changes? No more incidents? But wouldn't everybody get bored after a while?

So many things to do, so little time. I wished I had started on this on the very day we came here. It looks like I only have less than a year to go. If only I have more time to finish this project of mine-

"Oww!" Nitori woke up with a jolt as a sharp prick pierced her left arm. Staring at her from above her reclining chair in the dark room was none other than Yakumo Yukari, who had removed a needle that had been slid under the skin on her arm.

"You've been poking yourself with needles for the past few years," Yukari waved the offending metallic thin foil at the blue-haired girl, the exposed tip stained in blood. It was connected to a small transparent bag containing colorless fluid hung on a coat stand, almost like an IV tube used in hospitals. "If I hadn't known better, I would think you are doing drugs under my house."

"I'm working on my project!" Nitori protested, getting up from the chair. Looking down at her own clothes, she found herself wearing a modern westernized shirt and short skirt, instead of her favorite set of clothing in Gensokyo. "Please don't 'disconnect' me like that! At least allow me to wake up on my own."

"Can you try something else that doesn't require you to inject yourself with that?" Yukari pointed at a table loaded with vials. "Just take a good look at your arm, it's filled with piercings!"

"So what? You and I know I don't have much time remaining. I do whatever I want, it's MY body after all!"

"I still don't know what you are working on, Nitori."

Yeah, I hadn't really shown her anything before. "What did you think I was working on?"

"Something to save your own life?"

"This illness is terminally fatal, Yukari. Your friend himself said so. I'm not going to work on something I know I will never succeed on, much less the technologically-advanced humans of this world."

"And whatever you have in mind, you are sure you will succeed? All I see so far is that CPU and you poking needles into your arm almost every single hour that you aren't sleeping in the small cot at the corner!"

Nitori considered her options as she decided on what to say. "Fine, I will tell you. But promise me you wouldn't speak of this to anybody else. Not yet, at least?"

Yukari extended her hand out. "You can trust me on this. But at least come upstairs for dinner first? You've skipped breakfast and lunch today; I won't have you skipping anything else."

Nitori took the hand. "Say, isn't it Christmas tomorrow?"

"Yes, it is. I'm surprised you have been keeping track of time despite being holed up in here for years, just like little Flandre was in Gensokyo."

"Do you know how a village looks like in Christmas?"

"Why do you ask? You can actually head out for once and have a look outside."

Nitori grabbed a coat as she followed Yukari out of the dark room that was her bedroom, doubling also as her workshop. "In this case, I'm going out tonight after dinner."

Calibrating the time setting on her clipboard, the sky darkened and soon a full moon shone brightly above. Nitori fumbled further with her device and soon it was also snowing. Just like winter, minus the brutal snowstorm we occasionally face. Just this soft, smooth snowfall.

Calling on a program function, she activated a setting and Christmas decorations began springing into existence all over the Hakurei Shrine. Bulbs of lights that decorated Christmas trees, which shouldn't have existed in Gensokyo, decorated the roof of the shrine, snowmen appearing at random spots outside the shrine, even the donation box had a mistletoe hung on the front. Even Reimu's statue had a Santa's hat on the top.

Even though she felt no cold (as Nitori hadn't begun working on life-like temperature settings for a virtual world), she created a soft-knitted scarf and draped it over Reimu's neck on the statue. The scarf was red and white, complementing the colors of the usual outfit of shrine maidens, and had Yin-Yang orbs embroidered all over the fabric. Keep warm, Reimu.

Bending down, she scooped up some of the snow, molded them into a ball and flung it at a nearby snowman; it was a direct hit. Nitori half expected the snowman to react, but then realized she hadn't work on automating the NPCs yet. One day I will have you throwing a snowball back at me!

Although her body in Yukari's mansion was in a deep sleep of some kind, she felt herself feeling very tired all of a sudden. Maybe I should call it a day? I've been working on this since daybreak after all.

As she summoned up the clipboard to 'log off', her eyes swept across Reimu's statue again.

Oh, and Merry Christmas to you too, Reimu. I wished you are here to celebrate this holiday with us. The next event coming up would probably be Valentine's Day. I wonder if you had ever loved somebody in Gensokyo? Whatever, you probably never told anybody. Goodnight… I will be back here tomorrow morning.

Nitori looked back at her clipboard and began to disconnect herself from the virtual Gensokyo, but her clipboard gave her an error as she was about to regain consciousness in the Outer World:

ERROR 1632: UNABLE TO LOGOUT, DESTINATION NOT FOUND.
Please contact Kawashiro Nitori for assistance.

Frowning, she tried again, and got the same error message again. Crap! I can't leave this world! Gotta hope Yukari pulls out that needle again…

Destination not found? The program is unable to read my body's hearbeat signals?

… What's going on?

Did I die in the real world? Impossible, the doctor said I had up to eight years! It's only the seventh, and…

'Up to eight years'?

Kawashiro Nitori fell to her knees and landed sideways on the snow-covered ground near the pond, the electronic clipboard still hanging in midair, awaiting her command. The realization of her own death hit her so hard she had began taking it large breaths of air, despite the environment being virtual. I've… died? This work… is not complete. And it never will be.

I died alone in this world… and I'm stuck in here for eternity.

I'm sorry, everybody… I really wanted all of us to embrace Gensokyo again. Looks like I just didn't have enough time to make this project a success.

…

…

…

I'm… sorry.

A.N.: Take a deep breath if you had been wondering if Nitori died; she didn't. Nitori made a stupid mistake every programmer always did, which was to forget to close a command line while programming. She was working on the commands again after dinner to add the Christmas features into her project. Yukari woke her up on Christmas day before breakfast, saving her from total despair. Nitori made this mistake for another six times before she actually found out, though. Poor Nitori!

And no, this isn't going in the direction of Sword Art Online, so cease your criticisms!

Apologies if updates take a long time, I'm beginning to attempt characters I'm not exactly too familiar with. For example, Nitori only struck me as someone who is adept with technology, so she was able to do something similar to an MMORPG, Kawashiro style. I did ask some fellows on Let's Danmaku on what Nitori would be doing in a technologically-advanced world, and someone said 'inventor'. This entry here isn't exactly describing her as one, but it's somewhere along those lines.

Last but not least, I know I have been straying away from the 'Letter' theme. Even I don't know if this was intended in the first place or not, as every chapter seems to be a complete different theme from my first entry. Hell, maybe this fiction wasn't even meant to be letter-filled in the first place, huh? We shall see.