Author's Notes: This was written in very little time today, though had I not stayed home from work I likely wouldn't have gotten it done. Anyways, it's a bit shorter than the last two, but it's also a pretty important chapter in the grand scheme of things. I don't like the way it just ends, but I couldn't continue it without it either going into something entirely new or having it feel redundant. Let me know what you think!

Disclaimer: Touhou Project is owned by Team Shanghai Alice, whose sole member is ZUN. I only own the words, story, and concept.

It was the evening before the Summer Solstice when the scarlet mist rolled in over Gensokyo. It hung like clouds, blotting out the sky and filtering the light of the moon to a deep red. I had spent most of the day practicing my control over Shanghai throughout the house; I found I had no problems keeping my magical connection up even from clear across the house, though this was with only one doll.

In the last two weeks since the spell card system was introduced, I didn't have a single waking moment where I couldn't hear the voice of Reimu Hakurei giving a message to all of the youkai in Gensokyo… What did it mean that I heard it? Was I a youkai without knowing it? I wanted to find some method to confirm or deny these suspicions, but I had no idea what I could do about that.

I had been upstairs in my room looking up at the mist when I heard the knock on my door. I was slightly startled by the interruption of my thoughts, but manipulated Shanghai to answer the door for me anyways. In the next instant, the voice of Marisa could be heard saying, "Er, uh… wait; Shanghai?"

I giggled to myself at her confusion, then called out, "Is that you, Marisa? Please come in; don't mind Shangehai, I'm still getting used to controlling a larger doll from across the house."

I walked out of my bedroom and down the stairs; Marisa was standing just inside the door. She grinned up at me and said, "Hi ze!"

I rolled my eyes, unable to comprehend where that verbal tic came from. "Welcome; to what do I owe the pleasure?"

Marisa pointed out the nearest window. "Have you seen this weird red mist yet? It's all over the place. Me and Reimu are gonna investigate; you wanna come along?"

I will admit that the idea of resolving an incident was an appealing one, but considering the fact that Reimu was the one who sent that message, I didn't want to chance her realizing that I had heard it. I thought about it as quickly as I could and said, "I would, but the mist fascinates me; I want to try experimenting on it and see what it really is and if it can be used for anything." I attempted one of Marisa's grins, though I'm entirely certain I failed. "Thank you for the offer, though; maybe next time?"

Marisa just shrugged at that. "Maybe; I gotta catch up to Reimu, so I'll see you later. Once this is good and solved, I'll tell you all about it, and you can tell me all about your experiment!" She turn around and left as quickly as she came, leaving me to wonder what prompted this.

I went back to my contemplating for a few minutes, only to once again grow concerned over that message. I had few enough books to do research with, and had no idea where I could find some that would help me…

No, that wasn't right; I knew precisely where I could find books that could help me, and fortunately, she wasn't going to be home that night! I walked out of the house with Shanghai following close behind and started making my way towards Marisa's house; a few fairies were out that evening, but I had little difficulty taking care of them.

Soon we arrived to her front door; I turned the handle and was surprised to find it wasn't locked. I guess when you live in the middle of the woods like this you have less need to lock your house up for fear of thieves. Once inside, I started rummaging through the piles of books, setting aside the most interesting titles; Marisa owned many books on basic magic as well as animation magic. One particular title caught my interest as I was reaching the last pile: it was called Youkai Origin Theory. This was it; it had to be exactly what I was looking for. I handed a couple of books to Shanghai and picked the rest up before leaving to return home.

Once back with my bounty I immediately set to work on that book; it was a fascinating read, and strangely enough, I found that most of what it said could have been used to describe me. It wasn't a complete match, though; according to what I had read, youkai had no actual need to eat, drink, sleep, or do basically anything that normal humans required. I at the very least found myself getting hungry at least once a week, and thirsty more often than that, plus I still required regular amounts of sleep.

I continued reading and found that there were two ways to become a youkai; a person can be born youkai, in which case they need to learn a magic called Sachuu to complete the process, or a person can be human originally and learn a magic called Shashoku to transform into a youkai. Doing more reading I found that I had somehow managed to go halfway through the process and needed to complete it; there was no way I was going to be able to live properly only partly transformed… but how could I complete the process?

It occurred to me that the very object that likely started my journey down the road to becoming youkai was likely my best bet for completing it. For the first time since coming to Gensokyo I unlocked my grimoire; it almost seemed to open to the proper page on its own without my manipulation. There was the place to start!

I had begun working the magic immediately, but soon came to realize that it was going to be a long and drawn out process; I didn't have the magical capacity to make it work immediately, and all of my projections said that it could take anywhere from weeks to years to complete. This was unacceptable; the book had started this two months ago, and it was going to finish it tonight if I had anything to say about it.

My thought turned to the strange mist still hanging in the sky; I said I was going to experiment on it, so now was as good as any time to look into it. I went outside and flew up to the layer containing the mist and gathered some into a jar that I had brought with me; I could feel something in it as I did that, but couldn't identify what it was that I had felt.

I tried various things on the mist, though it didn't react to most of my ideas; the one that was most important, though, did seem to do something. I found the mist could act as a magical catalyst, providing energy to spellwork in a quite efficient manner. Unfortunately, if I actually wanted to use it, I was going to have to gather much more of it.

An idea popped into my head for a massive magical funnel that could pull the mist towards me so that I could use it; it seemed impractical at first, but I was determined to get this done on this night, and I needed as much as I could get ahold of. At first it was slow going, but eventually more started to follow after what I had managed to take; it seems that this mist tends to gather towards itself. I started on the incantations as soon as the first of the mist was gathering, and slowly built it up. It took a good two hours to complete, but I had managed it; I was a full youkai magician.

The effects of this change were staggering; all of my senses were sharper than they were previously, and I could feel that my magical abilities had heightened extraordinarily. The magic ended with me feeling incredibly drained, which made sense since I had used up most of my abilities to make it work; I trudged up the stairs to my bedroom and collapsed on the bed, surrendering myself to sleep.

The next morning I awoke to find that the mist was completely gone; Marisa and Reimu must have found whoever had created it and put a stop to it. I went about my usual routine; becoming a youkai hadn't changed the fact that I still liked to do the same things in the same order each day. I awaited Marisa's return to hear what had happened, though for a full week she failed to come back; I was a little worried, but decided to give her a few more days.

Three days later I couldn't stand it anymore; I walked over to her house only to find her sitting around reading. I knocked on the door, which elicited a loud, "Come in!" from Marisa. I opened the door and when she saw me she said, "Morning Alice! What brings you here?"

I looked at her with as much incredulity as I could muster. "You said you'd tell me all about your adventure from the night of the mist; I came to make sure you were alright."

Marisa blushed, probably because I said I was concerned about her. "Aw, you didn't have to do that, ze; I've, uh, just been distracted is all!" She cleared a few books off of the other chair and said, "Come in, have a seat; I'll tell you all about it!"

I hesitated for a moment; something was off about her house… it seemed more cramped than I remembered from the last time I was there. After that moment passed I walked over to the seat she had cleared and sat. I said, "Well, let's hear all about it; how much fun did you have last night?"

She grinned at me and said, "Lots! After meeting up with Reimu I beat up a fairy over Misty Lake, took on the gate guard of the Scarlet Devil Mansion, then we split up and I found this huge library!" She paused and was looking off in the distance with a twinkle in her eye; she returned to normal a moment later and continued, "There I beat up the assistant followed by the librarian herself; she didn't seem too healthy, so it was something of an easy win for me.

"Reimu had gone up the stairs and apparently beat up the head maid followed by the mistress of the mansion, Remilia Scarlet; she's a vampire. By the time I made it to her, Reimu had already administered the punishment; the mist was gone and we were done. I, uh… returned to the mansion three days ago, but wound up in the middle of a firefight between the librarian and Remilia's little sister, Flandre; she apparently has the power of destruction, which is why they leave her locked in a room in the far corner of the library. She had heard the commotion from before and had, uh… let herself out about the same time as I arrived again.

"First I ran into Patchy, the librarian; she was apparently feeling a whole lot better that day and she brought out all of her most potent spall cards against me. Too bad for her they didn't work. Anyways, after that I wound up running into Flandre; she wanted to play a little, so we shot at each other for about an hour, then I finished her off and we had a decent little conversation. They lock her away because of her powers, but truth be told, she has full control over them; they're just afraid is all. I promised her that I'd find a way to convince them one day that she's perfectly sane and doesn't need to stay locked up."

I smiled at that statement; Marisa had such a lofty outlook on everything, she could never seem to see the bad side of anything, no matter how annoying that kind of optimism could be. I started looking around again and suddenly realized what my issue with her house was: there were far more books here than had been previous. I said, "Marisa… where did all of these extra books come from?"

She turned away from me and mumbled for a second before speaking up and saying, "They're from the SDM library; I picked them up when I went back and wound up fighting Flandre."

I stared at her, unable to comprehend how this was possible. Marisa was nothing more than a common thief? "You mean to tell me that you stole all of these books?"

She shook her head, "I'm only borrowing, ze. Patchouli's a youkai magician, so she'll outlive me several times over; I'm only borrowing them, she can have them back when I die."

I sat there with my mouth agape; somehow the idea of Marisa dying made my heart skip a beat, though I had no clue why at the time. I said, "Still, though; what gives you the right to 'borrow' from her library?"

She took a moment to apparently think her answer out before saying, "I don't see why you're complaining; didn't you steal that grimoire out of your own castle's library?"

I blinked at that; she had a little bit of a point, but I wasn't ready to concede just yet. "That's beside the point; I was living there at the time and as the daughter of Shinki it was my right to take it."

She didn't hesitate at all with an answer for me. "Weren't you specifically told not to touch it?"

Damn; she had me there. I said, "Okay; yes, I admit, I took the book without actually having a right to it. But it was only one book; how many did you take, Marisa?"

She smirked; "Don't forget those books on puppetry and magic that you took from my house while I was gone resolving the incident."

I wasn't sure if youkai were supposed to be able to sweat, but I started to in that moment. I said, "I, uh… don't need them anymore; you can have them back."

She waved me off and said, "That's okay, you can keep those; I wasn't actually going to use them, anyways. They were interesting to read, but since I'm not the expert on making and controlling dolls, you can have them."

That was irritating; my own slipup was basically enabling her in her thieving ways. I vowed in that moment that her verbal tic wasn't the only thing I was going to remove.