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.

If there was a way to save you, I would have, believe me.

That was the promise and oath I swore to more than a millennia ago, on the Lunar Capitol, and it still stands today. If somebody, just somebody, was able to drag you out from the Underground, I would work with all I had to save you.

You probably won't remember me; we met during that endless night… incident, or whatever you liked to term events as such. In case you have truly forgotten, which wouldn't have mattered anymore, I'm Yagokoro Eirin, Lunar Pharmacist of the Lunar Capitol, seeking refuge from said state in the form of Eientei, within the Bamboo of the Lost, along with my princess Houraisen Kaguya.

I have already told you my reasons for my part in that… incident, I don't think you will want to hear any of that again, but that doesn't matter. Kaguya's missing when we evacuated from Gensokyo out to Earth. I am probably the only survivor of the attack on Eientei, all alone back in the land of our original exile. I still fear of the discovery of my presence on Earth again; I had Yukari alter the boundaries of my physical state before we left.

Having one worry lifted from my mind, I set myself back on track and continued in my field of practice; medicine. Yukari convinced me, along with most of us living together with her in a large mansion she claimed to have already owned on Earth long ago, to find some form of income source to support our expenses in this world. Naturally, it dawned on us that we took Gensokyo for granted; it was truly a land of haven for us folks, where our daily lives revolved around tea, spellcard battles and utilizing magic. In this world, money did the talking.

This wouldn't be my first time on Earth; the way life goes on in this world is not alien to me, nothing has changed over the centuries. I was able to practice medicine again in some large hospital (Yukari told me that you had known the existence of Earth long ago, I'm going to assume you know what a hospital is) out of town, and within two months of our arrival on Earth, I had a handful of patients trusted to me. Most of them have recovered and were discharged from the hospital, but there remains one girl who was still lying on her bed. Mind you, while it may have only been six months since I worked here, this girl probably had been the hospital's resident for almost sixteen years.

Something about this girl struck me in such a way that even my extensive medical knowledge couldn't answer; the girl was probably in her thirties by now, but she maintained physical features of a young teenager. According to medical records, this was as impossible as Kaguya's Five Impossible Requests. Her long black hair remained the same length as she had those years ago, as claimed by the nurses and past doctors. The condition in which a patient sleeps for such extended periods of time is known as a coma, and even during such, the body would continue in its bodily functions. This girl took me by surprise when she hasn't aged at all. She was the enemy of Time, one who remained untouched by so.

I was pondering over this girl when I suddenly remembered you, Reimu. What if you were, by any small miracle, still alive down there, sleeping like this girl, awaiting rescue all alone in that hellish underworld? What would you give to retain your youthful beauty if, say, you had to wait for a decade before somebody finally rescues you? Would you still be alive by then? Would you have rather preserved your current self and move on to the afterlife?

I must be working too much.

Yagokoro Eirin
Year 1, XX Day of the YY Month

I don't usually discuss my patients' conditions with anybody other than those related to my field of work, but a newly warded young girl caught my attention so much, it warranted a discussion with you.

I wouldn't put it past the fact that she was actually in her mid twenties, but she has the features of someone younger, human-age wise. Somebody found her wandering aimlessly on the road and almost got knocked down by a vehicle while equally aimlessly crossing a stretch of road. She might have sustained minor injuries from the resulting fall, but when I tried to start a conversation with her, I got either empty replies or simply no responses at all at times.

Upon initial scans of her body, I wrote in the medical report that she was totally fine, but privately, something from the scans scared me; there were some weird growth of veins that were supposedly connected to… appendages on both ankles and somewhere near her spine. I've studied the human body for long enough already, and even the records found in the Lunarian history will tell you that this is abnormal.

Almost like mutation.

Over the next two days under my close supervision, other than showing minor resistance to the nurses trying to administer antibiotics into her arm (good thing she showed no allergy reactions to the medicine), she simply laid on her bed and stared out of the window. A neighboring patient's mother, upon learning that nobody knew who her parents or relatives were, out of kindness and pity, bought her a large kitten soft toy, to which she adorably responded and cuddled it like the child she looked like.

Nothing suspicious, isn't it? Read on, Reimu.

That very same night, when all the other patients in the children's ward were out for either rehabilitation or garden walks, she had remained in bed, still cuddling the soft toy. I took my seat beside her, expecting her to simply ignore me and continue playing with the toy, when she suddenly stared right at me in the eye. Her stare was extremely mesmerizing; all I remembered was something searching my inner soul and that I had no control over myself to break away from her intense stare.

All I heard was 'Hourai' in my mind before she broke off herself and continued with her imaginary adventure with the soft toy.

I… I don't know her! How did she know about me? I was pretty sure Yukari had hidden my Lunarian origins! She's definitely not a Lunarian, but at that time, my mind was in a whirl and I couldn't think properly. As if she read my mind, she looked at me again, but this time I felt nothing, no tingling sensation of something disturbing within my inner self.

I couldn't believe she actually spoke to me, this time all on her own accord. "It wasn't her fault," she said. "It wasn't her fault, my sis's pets weren't at fault." I asked what she had meant, but all she repeated was that same line. She didn't elaborate any further, neither did she explain who her sister, much less the pets, were.

The next morning, nurses found her asleep, and when prodded at to wake up for breakfast, she failed to move. Her heartbeat sensor was still functioning, along with every reading showing normal, so they decided that she was still sleeping. Only when I walked over to her bed did she actually stir slightly before opening her eyelids to reveal empty eyes. Again, I asked if she knew who her parents was, because we had decided, on medical grounds, that her condition after the accident on the road was stable and ready to be discharged, but she never answered the question, but thrust out her arms, the soft toy in both hands, as if wanting me to take it.

As I reached for the toy with a puzzled look, I stopped myself. Stopped because I realized the soft toy now had an additional tail, looking exactly the same as the already-present tail on the soft toy. "My pet," she murmured.

Nobody knew where she gotten the materials to make that other tail, much less to sew it in and make it look as if the toy had originally came with two tails. Even the mother who had given her the toy had confirmed the kitten only had one tail when she had bought it.

For the first time in three days, the little girl, whose name we still haven't caught, stepped out of her bed and padded over to the nearby window, where a small crow was perched roosting on the mini garden pot outside. She raised a hand, pointed at it, then turned to me. Only looked at me.

"My pet. Not her fault too."

Reimu, if you still don't get what this is about, neither do I. I still don't see what is the relation between that girl, the word 'Hourai', Chen and Shameimaru Aya. Maybe you can tell me more?

Yagokoro Eirin
Year 2, XO Day of the XO Month

Do you still remember who Remilia is? I was told she was a vampire in Gensokyo, but I'm not too sure, since I seldom leave Eientei without the princess for long. She never struck me as a vampire now, anyway. She has a younger sister living with her in the same room at the moment, though. If they both were vampires, they don't look like it now. I've read all about vampires; ratty accent, torn capes, blood-sucking fangs and a hatred for sunlight. They are none of those, what lies Yukari is spreading!

(A.N.: My original letter included boring details about Remilia, something that you can already read about in chapter 3 and 4, so I will be excluding that from this chapter.)

So, on every Christmas Eve, this younger sister of hers, known as Flandre, would write her Christmas wish to you, or so I was told, I never really bothered or cared. This time, however, I looked at her wish card on the Christmas tree in the living hall; she wished for her sister to return from work to celebrate Christmas with us. My wish was simply to erase whatever that had happened and return to Gensokyo before your unfortunate… incident underground.

The next day… it was horrible; we learnt that Remilia had been shot by her own forces, all in the line of duty. Based on medical knowledge of firearms injuries, a wound of that caliber is fatal. Flandre was not supposed to know, but apparently she either overheard us talking about it, or someone told her, or she simply knew something was wrong, whatever, but she was one uncontrollable leak of a water pipe. Her cries and bawling were extremely… haunting. Inhuman. It was at a level that I had never encountered in my life.

Yukari had begged me to go to the hospital with her, to which I agreed. We left for the hospital together with the police forces in the white car that had came along with the vans. I was seated in the back with her, thinking of every possible remedy for Remilia, while the man in the front seat, Remilia's unit commander, as he had introduced himself as, kept apologizing to Yukari, who kept a calm posture, but in my eyes, her hands were fidgeting nervously on her lap.

…

Can I not describe my experience at the hospital that day?

…

I felt that I could have done something for her, but upon arrival, all I could do was stare at her limp body. I heard nothing from all around me. Yukari looked as if she was talking to me, shaking my shoulders, wanting to see if I could do anything, but to my senses, nothing happened. I didn't' know what to do.

An emergency department nurse, probably figuring out I was a doctor, or maybe Yukari told her about me, came to me with a file in hand. I stared at it blankly, not able to make sense of something that I usually only took less than ten seconds to fully understand the report.

I don't know why I was suddenly so paralyzed at something I had been working with for so long.

It really reminded me of my first encounter with such.

All I did was apologized to no one in particular and left, leaving Yukari calling my name behind me.

And now, here I am, in some small inn far away from the Yakumo mansion, all on my own, still not knowing why I didn't even try to save the poor child. I've got this feeling that somehow Yukari knew where exactly I went after that day, but she didn't show herself or at least try to contact me in any ways. Maybe she's angry with me, or she simply wanted to give me some space?

Only today, two weeks after Christmas, did I realize why I dared not try to save Remilia…

…

…

…

My mind was, unknowingly, fixed on that forbidden solution. The same solution that I had came up with to allow myself to serve my princess for eternity. The very same solution that somebody else, because of my selfishness to allow the princess only to myself, took and became a willing victim.

The Hourai Elixir.

Yes, Reimu, that was the only solution to save Remilia, exactly what I had been thinking all along in the car journey to the hospital. But why didn't I want to do it? Simply because…

I don't want another victim to fall under the curse of the Hourai Elixir.

Can you understand the pain of a doctor, she who holds both a cure and a curse in her hands?

Yagokoro Eirin
Year 8, XOXO Day of the XOXX Month

"Miss Yagokoro?" a male voice cracked over the phone after a moment.

"Speaking," Eirin answered.

"Miss Yagokoro, it's been almost a year since you came back to work. I-"

"How did you find my address?"

"Miss Yakumo told us what happened, Miss Yagokoro. She gave us you-"

Eirin put back the phone in its cradle, crawled back onto her futon and tried to return to sleep. Looking at the wall clock, it was still seven in the morning in an apartment she had moved into, some two weeks after that day.

Being out in the Outer World all alone, she should have went hungry without money, but somehow Yukari had not cut off access to their funds, and she was somehow able to continue living on her own, even for the months that she never called back to Yukari. As if Yukari still hoped I would return.

Like the very princess she had served for a millennia, Eirin herself had degenerated into somebody not in education, employment or training (or NEET in short), drinking her nights away while taking aimless walks out on the streets and across the city in the days. She still had enough sense not to fall in with the wrong crowd, although she managed to make some decent drinking partners, one of them claiming she used to have an infinite supply of sake. Eirin hadn't believed her, but with sake drowning her brain in a hopeless wash of alcoholism, both of them shared stupid adventures of their own, cutting themselves away from the real world while together.

Nor did it occur to her that her best drinking pal looked too young to be even drinking.

They were, again, having another bout of drinking the night before, and Eirin was still recovering from her hangover when the second call on her corded phone came in. "GO AWAY!" the Lunarian screamed at the ceiling, but the ringing was insistent; she crawled out from under her bed covers and picked the phone up.

"IF YOU ARE CALLING FROM THAT HOSPITAL AGAIN, I AIN'T GOING BACK!" Eirin roared into the phone before flinging the entire device, cradle and phone, against the plaster wall; wallpaper gave way and the cradle became slightly dented, but, unknown to Eirin, was still functioning.

Nobody called again for the remainder of the morning, and the badly hung Lunarian was able to get her sleep, which didn't last too long; she found herself in street clothes an hour later, found a movie at a local cinema interesting enough to catch her attention and went in alone.

That one call came while she was back in her apartment, about to leave for the alcohol bar. "I'm not going to have a good night spoilt by the likes of you," Eirin gently warned the caller. "I'm giving you ten seconds-"

"Surely you can spare more than that, Eirin?"

Yukari? Eirin repeated that name through the speaker of her phone. "But… but how did you…?"

Lightning streaked across the night sky, illuminating the streets in a nightmarish black and white flash. From the inside of the mansion, through the closed window, it looked like she was watching a horror movie, courtesy of the rain god. At the same moment, she spied a vehicle pulling away from the curb at her mansion's gate, depositing a slightly tall and thin illuminated figure with an umbrella under the rays of a street lamp, in the middle of heavy rain.

That figure proceeded through her already-opened gates on the stone walkway, past a mini garden, before arriving at her doorstep.

Yakumo Yukari had been expecting her visitor; she left the door unlocked, as her visitor found out when she tried the door handle. A dripping wet figure appeared at her doorway, a small bag in her right hand; the umbrella was either left outside or somehow missing during her short journey from the gates to the mansion itself.

The visitor, apparently familiar with the mansion's layout, immediately reached behind the opened door and flipped a couple of switches; the living hall was bathed in the soft orange glow of chandelier lights, revealing expensive furniture and interior design of top quality and aestheticism. Lounging on a no-less expensive couch was the owner of the mansion, a small black box on a velvet-covered cushion beside her.

"Welcome home, Eirin," Yukari got up to her feet and greeted in her usual tone.

Eirin dripped rainwater across the living hall as she ignored Yukari and went to her destination: a flight of stairs leading down into the basement. At the base of the stairs, she gently opened the double doors, revealing a large workshop lit with fluorescent ceiling lights and the occasional desk lamp on various tables. A large CPU connected to an unpowered computer monitor stood at a corner in a mess of wirings and some other technological items that Eirin could only begin to guess.

The basement windows were open, some of them fitted with ventilation fans, others simply left wide open enough for creatures to intrude. Beneath each window stood gadgets of various types in equally various stages, but one bench of chemical test tubes caught the Lunarian's eye. From afar, she recognized it to be a mild form of tranquilizer, but rarely used in medical practice due to its weak potency and impurity of the chemicals used.

Eirin's eyes landed on some syringes filled with the same chemical on the bench; their metallic tips bore dried bloodstains. She must have been using these. But for what?

A soft moan made her turn around; Kawashiro Nitori, whom Eirin almost didn't recognized, laid on a small bed in another corner under covers, her eyes and face scrunched up in some sort of agony. The doctor in her automatically sprung back to life, and in ten seconds she was already at Nitori's bedside retrieving her tools of the trade from the bag she had brought along to the mansion.

"It's the final stage," Yukari's voice boomed into the silent room, only broken by the soft humming of the CPU, causing the Lunarian to look in the direction of the speaker. "It's the eighth year."

Eirin turned back to her new patient. Nitori's hair barely clung to her scalp, her visible cheekbones showing severe malnutrition. She didn't have to guess how the rest of the Gensokyo kappa would looked like without the bed covers. "You do know she's against anyone trying to help her, don't you?"

"I never found out why."

"Then why call me back? I'm done with this!"

"Then why did you come back?"

The question splashed itself on Eirin's face like a bucket of freezing water. "Nine months ago, you gave up on Remilia and disappeared from the medical field," Yukari continued, her voice still remaining unchanged. This was one of her characteristics that made it hard to tell if she's serious or joking under any circumstances. "Now, here lies another patient whose condition you are extremely familiar with."

She wants me to save Nitori?

Really?

…

…

…

Did she already know the only choices I have right now?

As if to read her mind, the ex-Youkai of the Boundaries stepped further into the room and deposited the black box she had beside her on the couch on the bed, directly under Eirin's nose. Her heartbeat increased rapidly as she recognized the black box, its intricate designs now visible under the bright lights in the workshop. "Yukari! How did you-"

"Know about this box?" Yukari hid a small laugh with her palm. "Eirin, Eirin… you never totally eradicated any traces of it. That thing still exists, and you had conveniently left it on your table in your room."

"But-"

"You never would, Eirin, nobody would ever completely destroy his or her greatest creation in history."

"But you destroyed Gensokyo-"

"Correction. I only sealed it off."

Stumped, Eirin's mind froze for a short while before dropping her head down, staring at the accursed black box. "Of course," Yukari added. "If you don't want to do that, there's something else in that box for you to use too."

I won't curse another person.

I won't.

Nobody shall have to become another Hourai Victim.

The Hourai Elixir was my mistake. It should have never been made.

I was too selfish.

And now somebody is using this to test me.

Am I still a soul-filled medicine practitioner, or a black-hearted miser?

"The choice is yours, Eirin," Yukari turned and left the workshop without even glancing back at the Lunarian.

The same Lunarian stared at her patient, who seemed to not register her presence. You know what she's going through, Eirin, nothing new to you. Eirin flipped the accursed black box open with a shaky but tight grip, revealing its contents, and gasped.

In the box were not one, but two vials of liquid. The one that she recognized to be of her own creation, it was sealed tight in a small glass vial that was more than a thousand years old. The other, however, looked pretty recent; the glass vial had small prints that told of its maker's company and address, along with the usual "fragile" logo that adorned most modern glass wares.

Yagokoro Eirin didn't have to test what the newer vial contained; her choices of medicine in the black box was blaring obvious.

I don't have to curse Nitori.

This other vial will do.

Both of them stops her suffering, but their side effects are completely different.

…

…

Why am I hesitating?

Eirin, you have done this before in the hospital, the right choice would be that newer vial. Stop the patient's suffering. That's your job.

Do it.

Take that one.

Eirin listened to her mind as she grabbed the newer vial and, with her other hand that already held a surgical syringe from her bag, filled it with the colorless liquid. Flicking the tip to get rid of any air bubbles in the syringe, she leaned forward and slightly lifted Nitori's left arm from beneath her bed covers; paper-thin skin clung tightly to her bones. Almost like an old woman. Nitori seemed not to react to somebody grabbing her arm, but continue in her invisible struggle in her bed.

However, upon noticing that this arm had many other piercings from previous injections, she went over to the other side and grabbed the other arm. Finding it to be free from piercings, Eirin took a deep breath and brought the metallic end of the syringe towards the exposed skin.

Wait.

…

I need my bag beside me. To stabilize my thoughts.

It was an excuse to prolong her decision. She knew that, but still went ahead and dragged the inevitable further. With her opened bag set nicely beside her, she took another deep breath and brought the needle down again, which at that moment, Nitori chose to strain her body in some spasm. Eirin raised the needle from the body and waited for her patient to settle down before she tried again.

Rain, choosing that very moment, began splattering into the workshop from the open windows; Eirin took the opportunity to extend her hesitation by closing all the windows in deliberate slowness. Another thought crept into her mind as she finished the task.

Maybe… maybe there's a reason why Yukari called me back home. She wants to save Nitori? Or did Nitori agree to be given a remedy?

Smiling to herself weakly, she went back down on her knees, retrieved another syringe from her bag and immediately filled it with her life's greatest creation. Repeating the flicking motion, deep breathing and the act of bringing the syringe down, she stopped right before the needle would pierce Nitori's arm.

Make up your damn mind, woman, what will it be?

To save, or to curse?

Eirin… a voice boomed in her head. Your job is to heal a body's imperfections. That has been your job, your purpose of existence, your duty to keep your princess healthy.

"SHUT UP!" Eirin shouted at no one, angrily releasing the grip on the syringe, allowing it to fall onto her cloth bag, right beside the other syringe. "KAGUYA'S GONE! I HAVE NO MORE PURPOSE IN THIS EXISTENCE!"

Heh… another voice, albeit one filled with malice, said. That's right, it's your own fault for starting this mess. You don't have to bring another victim to join you in your mistakes. Give it to her already!

You can't do that! The other, yet kinder, voice urged. You know that's not right. Others before self, remember?

Yeah, others before self. Do others a favor by not bringing them down with you.

Save the girl!

Give it to the girl!

Save!

Give it!

Eirin finally lost it and started screaming at the top of her voice, ignoring the fact she had a patient whose fate laid in her hands. Scream after agonized scream erupted from her throat, the water works in her eyes following in quick succession.

At that point, a bright flash of lightning seemed to struck a terrible bolt somewhere outside the windows, cracking loud enough to startle the screaming Lunarian. All power were cut off; only an emergency capacitor in one of the overhead lamps supplied minimal energy to its inheritor.

Throughout the entire ordeal, Nitori had not changed her facial features, but her eyes were finally open, staring at the berserk woman. Eirin, through tear-streaked eyes, her hands still cupping her ears from fright from the bolt of lightning, stared back, and lowered her hands.

"D…D…D…" Nitori's weak voice stuttered, her right arm struggling with massive amounts of effort to even raise an inch off her bed. "…do it…" the kappa began panting heavily, having expended large amounts of energy trying to say two words, her arm collapsing back to the bed.

She… she knows what I was going to do?

…

…

Nitori's face and determined spirit to even try to speak to her decided it for her. Fine.

Eirin looked down at her bag for her two syringes, but under the dim light of the emergency lamp, she couldn't make out which syringe contained which solution.

Reimu… guide my hand.

Grabbing one of them, she stabbed it into Nitori's right arm and held a thumb to the plunger.

I'm leaving this all to you, Hakurei miko.

A.N.: Took me long enough with this, and I think this should be enough for Eirin's segment. I think it had became extremely dramatic towards the end.

So far, apart from Alice's letter, all of them are my depictions of Reimu being somebody who everyone unloaded their problems on. Seems like it to me. It's always "Reimu, help me with this" or "help me with that" or "solve this incident" and so on. I'm glad I'm not Reimu.

Last note, two other characters made cameo appearances, maybe you have already picked them up?