AN: Here's the next chapter! This time, it'll be featuring Marisa and Alice.


-Chapter 2-


It smells ominous. It is said that the forest eats Humans. Humans usually maintain a safe distance from it. Its atmosphere constantly brims with an unearthly evil.

"The Forest of Magic, a place where all the evil in Gensokyo naturally gathers. Within that forest, small human figures are gathered into a small building. Human figures smaller than humans.


Alice had seen it immediately, though with no one in the vicinity outside of her dolls, she couldn't quite tell anyone else. Shanghai, Hourai, and the others were good to talk to, but they couldn't quite advise her on what to do about the situation.

Regardless, it was extremely unsettling. How could someone have managed to do that to the moon, one of the largest receptacles of magic in entire Gensokyo? Did they really think that no one would notice the difference?

Then again, it wasn't as if many people did. Alice still visited the Human Village as the Puppeteer Youkai looked and acted Human enough, and none of them seemed to be aware of anything wrong. They all happily chattered away their plans for the Moon Festival, blissfully unaware of the fact that anything seemed to be wrong.

Well, everyone was unaware except that one woman, the schoolteacher, in the blue dress with white hair and brown eyes. Alice did mentally note that maybe if she ever found that Human on a dark night, to not eat her. She wasn't a common Human, and uncommon Humans were not only interesting to speak to, they tasted funny.

Speaking of funny-tasting humans... was that the sound of Marisa exploding something in the night?

Alice snapped out of her thoughts thanks to the explosion, sighing. She held her book in her hands and looked over at her dolls which she had gathered around her. "How could the Humans possibly not be aware of this disaster?"

If Marisa was exploding things as normal, she probably wasn't aware at all of what was going on. And with the Humans unaware and blissfully ignorant, would the Shrine Maiden be ignorant of what was going on as well? There was nothing to it.

Alice would have to go herself.

"Okay then! Hourai will stay here and guard the house." Even if it would expend more power to keep the doll animated the further away she got from the house. "And Shanghai will come with me!"

What could possibly go wrong?

Dressing in her normal clothes and picking up Shanghai and her Grimoire, she stepped out of the house and took a deep breath in the night air. It was time to solve this incident and find out what had happened to the moon!

Or at least, she would... if she had any idea where to begin. Alice looked around helplessly; as much as she knew about Gensokyo, and the ancient knowledge that was lost to most of the inhabitants, solving incidents required practical experience. She was sometimes the one helping cause trouble in incidents, too, not solving them (she had to push away memories of Shinki at that point; it hurt too much). And as it was, she had no idea where to go or how to find the unknown person that was behind this.

"I don't like this. They're used to it... they should be the ones solving it! Do they really not know?!"

That meant she would have to go find someone that was capable of that very thing... and maybe go with them since she likely had a better idea of what was going on then they ever would. As far as she knew, only three girls had a good idea of how to solve incidents: the Shrine Maiden, the Black Witch, and the Scarlet Maid.

There was probably no way that she would get in to see Sakuya; even if she was on friendly terms with Patchouli, she didn't know Sakuya all too well, let alone Remilia. There was no way she was going to Reimu for help; it was likely that the Shrine Maiden would Fantasy Seal her the instant she came close to the Shrine as she never went there.

That only left Marisa.

Alice and Marisa were not on the best of terms, but they had a grudging respect for each other (besides, Marisa was more tolerable than Reimu). If she wanted to ask Marisa a favor, she would have to convince her in some way to accompany her. Luckily, bribing Marisa was easy.

If there was one thing that everyone in Gensokyo knew about Marisa, it was that she loved to read. Marisa would read any book that she could get her hands on, and was a bibliophile; many times had Patchouli complained to her about Marisa breaking into the Scarlet Devil Mansion and making off with some rare books.

As for Alice herself, she had several extremely rare grimoires, some of which were the only copies available in Gensokyo. They were so well-guarded that Marisa had never been able to make off with them, as much as the witch had tried. If she offered to let Marisa "borrow" a few of those grimoires, it should be easy to recruit her for this.


Alice could find her way to Marisa's house with her eyes closed and relying on nothing but her memory, considering the number of times she had had to go there in order to steal her own books back. As it was, there were a few explosions in the air that were definitely coming from Marisa's little cottage in the Forest of Magic.

"Marisa!" the Puppeteer yelled, knocking on the door. Another loud bang, and the door opened, revealing a rather dusty and surprised looking Marisa.

"Oy, what do you want? I don't have any of your books, I promise!" the witch protested.

"Oh, just a little favor," Alice said, calmly shifting the bag around her shoulders.

"...This late, you want a favor from me? Alice, I'm not that kind of girl, and definitely inot/i for you."

That hadn't been what she meant at all! She frowned a bit, before, grabbing the witch's arm and dragging her outside. "There! Don't you see it?!"

Marisa squinted her eyes. "The moon?"

"Yes, the moon. It's big, orange, and most definitely not small and white as it normally is," Alice said in a deadpan. "No one outside of that schoolteacher in the Human Village noticed. You didn't notice. I don't know anyone that did."

"Does this mean there's stuff to blow up?" Marisa perked up at the thought. "Awesome! Where do I go?"

"I don't know," Alice said. "It's an incident. You're experienced with it." As much as she hated to butter Marisa up, it was the only way to get her to go. The rare grimoires were her last resort in case the witch didn't agree.

Marisa tapped her chin as she listened to Alice talk. Perhaps she would go examine this at all. If Alice was nervous and was insisting on her going, it had to be something big. But it was dangerous, they had no idea where it was coming from, and how was she to know what to do? Blowing up everything in sight sounded fun, but it wasn't much that they could do.

"What's in it for me?"

"For one, I'll be there," Alice bit back her pride upon making this statement. She'd had to choose her words carefully in order to make it look like she wasn't being subservient to Marisa. She would never be subservient to Marisa, a Human, ever. But she still had to make sure that Marisa recognized she wanted her assistance.

"...That's it?"

There was nothing to it. She had to bring out her last resort. With a sigh, she reached into her bag and pulled out one of the grimoires that she had brought.

"And you can borrow these that I have in here. Free of charge. No questions asked."

She wasn't at all surprised to see Marisa's face light up like dark danmaku inverting. The witch practically became hypnotized by the books, and Marisa let out a happy grin. "You have a deal, Alice! When can we go?!"

"Not yet," Alice said, placing her bag and the grimoire she'd pulled out on one of the cleaner areas of Marisa's home. Ugh, the place was a mess... "There's no point in going out only to not find the culprit by dawn. If we don't by then... well, things would become complicated."

"So what're you suggesting, stopping dawn from coming?" Marisa raised her eyebrows.

"You're faster than I thought," Alice said, setting her personal Grimoire down and opening it to a bookmarked page. "This is what we need."

"..." Marisa tilted her head. "...You wouldn't happen to have a spell that translates English to Japanese, would you?"

Oh, right. Marisa couldn't read English. With a sigh, Alice decided to explain what was on the page, before waving her hand and allowing the text to change to Japanese. "It's a spell called 'The Imperishable Night'. It's what we need if we want to find the culprit before dawn comes."

She explained the incantation and how it worked. Marisa, at the least, was a good student and soaked up the information like a sponge. Then again, that was how she always was.

"What time is it?" Alice asked.

Marisa glanced over at a strange device with numbers on a screen that Rinnosuke, whom she affectionately called Kourin, had given her called a "digital" clock. It was normally powered by something called "electricity", but she had adapted it to be powered through magic. "10:14 PM."

"Should be plenty of time to prepare the spell before true night hits."

"Sure, let's get it done!"

"This spell... it's very powerful," Alice warned. "The more people there are, the better it will work, but we only have just the two of us." She didn't bother to explain why, but as it was, it was just her and Marisa. If either of them didn't put their all into the spell, then the spell would fail.

"Who said it was just the two of you? Forgetting about us so quickly?"

Both girls jumped as the familiar male voice went through Marisa's cottage. Upon turning around, they both spotted Rinnosuke, the half-youkai, half-human, male shopkeeper of unusual things, with something they couldn't recognize in his arms. Peeping in behind Rinnosuke were two familiar looking fairies.

"Kourin? Sunny? Star?" Marisa blinked, staring at her friend and the fairies that frequented her shop; as irritating as they were, she could tell that there was something wrong with them. And where was Luna?

"We don't have time... there's something we really have to do," Alice said. "We'll welcome the magical assistance, though." Even if it was from a half-youkai and fairies.

"Does this have to do with the moon?" Rinnosuke asked, setting something down on Marisa's bed. It was only then that they noticed that he was carrying a small person in his arms.

"We were gonna go prank some humans..." Sunny said, not looking like her usual self. "The sun was setting so we were waiting until it set so that Luna would have her full powers, but when it set and the moon appeared, she didn't get stronger! She's supposed to get stronger when the moon appears! She's a Moon Fairy!"

Alice blinked, and looked over at the figure Rinnosuke had set down with interest. A Moon Fairy, comatose, even though Fairies couldn't die?

"Luna?" Marisa stared at the fairy Rinnosuke had set down, before looking back at Rinnosuke. Star took up the story from there.

"Luna said she can't sense the moon! We tried to find you because you were strong and could find a spell or something," Star explained. "But you weren't at the door. The man here was, he said he knew where you lived, so he helped us come here... Luna collapsed on the way."

"And so I figured I'd see if Marisa could come up with anything for the two of them, and helped these three out. Luna's still out, but she seems to be growing weaker the longer there's something wrong with the moon," Rinnosuke said, settling Luna Child in a comfortable position and checking the Fairy's temperature.

"If a Moon Fairy is collapsing, then that means we have to get this done," Alice said. "Marisa and I were actually on our way to fix this incident with the moon when you all came inside."

"We want to help! We're not the Three Fairies of Light without Luna!" Sunny said, a determined expression on her face. Star nodded, a bit more seriously than Sunny.

"I'll help too. What do you need us to do?" Rinnosuke asked.

Alice paused, studying them. Rinnosuke was only half-Youkai. Sunny and Star were only fairies, even if they were Elemental ones. Sunny wasn't at full power, either, due to the sun having set. Still, it would have just been her and Marisa originally. The help of a half-Youkai, an Elemental Fairy, and a half-powered Elemental Fairy was better than nothing.

Shinki, her adopted mother, and Mima, Marisa's witch mentor, would have been a tremendous help as well... but alas, neither of the two were around anymore. Rinnosuke, Sunny, and Star would have to do. The Youkai and the Human looked at each other, and nodded in a silent agreement.

"Alright. This is the spell we need to use," Alice said, showing them the book as Marisa set the rest of the spell up. "And we'll do the rest after its cast."

"It's 10:49! Ready when you guys are!" Marisa grinned, holding up the mini-Hakkero that Rinnosuke had given her all those years ago - it couldn't hurt to use it!

Marisa Kirisame the Black Witch, Alice Margatroid the Rainbow-Colored Puppeteer, Rinnosuke Morichika the Antique Shopkeeper, Sunny Milk the Sun Fairy of Light, and Star Sapphire the Star Fairy of Light began.

The night froze.


-Chapter 2 End-


AN: Yes, Rinnosuke is one of those rare male characters that never appeared in the games but appeared in the doujins, and I believe the Three Fairies of Light were in the game where you play as Cirno, Fairy Wars. And as for Luna's situation... I figured it would make sense. The moon is normally always there, even when they can't see it. Being within sight of the moon probably powered her up, so I felt that being removed completely would weaken her drastically.