Disclaimer: Due to creative freedom, I've decided to include more than the usual amount of real-life references in this story. If you are offended by references to some of the subject matter, I suggest you do not continue reading when you chance upon the subject matter and proceed to the bottom of the chapter.

"Class will begin in three minutes."
"Gotcha, Miss Keine."

It was three or four weeks since I entered this realm of existence known as Gensokyo, but the more I learn about this world the more confused I am. I don't really know what I'm here for, anymore. I've had enough of dealing with being unable to speak the language entirely without that me-in-my-head's assistance, so I asked Keine if it would be all right to, in exchange for three more days of physical education services, get a crash course on the language.

At the very least, I could start from the most basic level and work my way up in future. I've done it before in the field of prize-money fights, and I will do it again elsewhere.

"Way to go, nya!"
…Are you sure this is the kind of thing we should be celebrating really?

***

The first thing given to me in class is a list of oddly-shaped characters, which she also scribbles down in chalk. It's pretty extensive too, since the piece of paper given to me was actually double-sided, something of a rarity for this place as I've come to notice.

"This is the kana system of writing. There are two systems of writing: the hiragana, mostly used for sound particles and sounding of actual words, and katakana, used for objects and nouns without a hiragana equivalent. For example, your name would be written as a rough, phonetically similar but not entirely identical replication of your name in katakana, but my name can be written in kanji and hiragana."

"Katana, foreign. Hirana, local."

"Katakana, hiragana. Try not to get this wrong – one's a sword and the other's a writing system."

"O-okay," I stammered, somewhat surprised by her insistence.

"Your next step is to write these particles twenty times over and over. I guess you'll need at least a fountain pen for this," she remarked, handing me a pen.

This pen, upon my closer examination, nearly made me cringe. Yea, sure, I needed a fountain pen, but I had to say, giving me an Alfred Dunhill while being that nonchalant and casual made me cringe worse than cabbage in a hot market.
They really don't understand the value of branding… or to be exact, they had no way of knowing. It was moments of realization like this that made my heart yearn for the outside world.

"What's the matter? Lack of ink?"
"Ah no it's fine Miss Keine… I'm just thinking what a fine pen this one is," I replied as casually as I could possibly be. Which, thinking back, I think my face was contorted into a weird shape because I tried too hard.
"Oh, it should be. It's lasted for ten years without breaking. It's really sturdy."

Looking at the pen itself, I wouldn't have known.

***

"If it isn't Keine's friend again—"
"Sir, just call me Pasonia if you'd like. I'm here to ask if you've got any books in English."
"Eng… English?"
"The devil's language," I reminded him.
"Oh, uhh, the same book that Keine uses for class? I also have a few grimoires in that language, but even the Devil returned this book saying it made no sense to her."
"How about newspapers and the likes? Surely you'll have a few copies of those?"
"Well, I just got this from the maid of the devil's household earlier today…"

This refers to none other than the International Herald Tribune. I didn't know Akihabara and downtown areas like those sell English-language newspapers, too, though it could just be a problem of being ignorant. After all, I daresay I've stayed longer in this land than the "outside" Japan.

"Can I take a look at it?"
"Uh, sure. I swear, though, I saw a picture of you in that."

Likely this could really be an article of "Searching for the Missing Pasonia S. Keros". I really meant it as a joke the last time I spoke of it, but for it to become reality is no longer a surprise to me.

'Missing Fugitive in Japan' was, to my utter surprise, the title that greeted me. I swore, had it not been for the titling of this article I would have just returned it back to Mr. Kirisame.

'Pasonia Seltia Keros, known champion in the Freestyle Fighter's Circuit, is currently wanted by Interpol as part of a money laundering operation in Japan. According to sources, on the day of the arrest order, a call came from the twenty-one-year-old fighter from the Mount Fuji region; transcripts indicated he intended to return to his hometown in Los Angeles, but Japanese immigration authorities have declined to verify. According to sources, Keros is now wanted in connection with money laundering across his many fights all over the world, including London, Berlin, Bucharest and Tel Aviv, with another as-yet-unnamed accomplice. There were reports of witnesses who spotted him along Tokyo's Wangan Expressway and a nearby JSDF military base, but these were also refuted by the authorities…'

"What… the… hell… is this bullshit?!"

"Why, what's the matter son? You don't look very well after reading the news."

"You bet I'll look good after being accused of a serious crime," I retorted. "This is ridiculous. I've never heard of any money laundering at all. My coach does bet on me via other people, but that being a case of money laundering is plain ridiculous."

"I thought betting on yourself is illegal? At least, before the Hakurei Border came up we've all called it a petty crime for you to bet on yourself in any contest."
"Yea, but it was just my coach, not even me. I don't even know half of what this newspaper's talking about now! What money laundering?"

"I don't know how you wash money, but, well, you could try going back to the other side and clear your name, if you feel that bothered…"

"The kid's not going anywhere," went a familiar voice from behind me. Expecting to be butted by a horn, I stepped a few steps back, only to throttle myself yet again into something hard.

"It's me all right," smirked the oni. "I read the news while returning from that side with Sakuya. An idiot can tell you're just taking the fall for this."
"But now that I'm stuck here, nobody will believe I've been here. I need to know why I got accused of this in the first place."
"You won't be going back. Not in the near future. This is for your own good."
"But why, Suika? I'm going to be branded a criminal forever if I hide now!"
"This may sound unfair to you… but, you can't have the best of both worlds."

It was then that I decided that enough was enough (on hindsight, I could also say I lost my marbles).

"Suika, I appreciate all that you've helped me for. I just want to go back there."

She could hear the tone in my voice – I'm surprised she actually could, given her sometimes callous disposition – but all she said was, "nope. Not until you've seen the ghost princess."

"Then bring me to her, settle whatever needed settling, and let me get on with my life," I shouted at the oni, something in me finally giving way to the frustration I've held since entering this place.

"Hey, I stood stuck here for three weeks, not knowing half the time what you guys are talking about, then got accused of being a criminal where I came from, I'm trying to clear my name here and you guys are getting in the way because of some stupid prophecy or legacy or whatnot. I don't appreciate it one bit. You stupid little oni made it sound fuckin' simple because you aren't the one who needed to go through this shit, but I am here and I've tolerated long enough. Now that I want to go back, and you say I cannot? I just need some time to like, talk to the police, explain that it's all a mistake, that I've got records clean enough and prove to them that I'm no criminal. Whatever it is, I'm the one bearing the sad name of a criminal, and I'm bothered. I don't got no family here but the voice in my head. Can you all just royally fuck off and let me get on with my life—"

"1912, the assassination of Duke Franz Ferdinand; an incident viewed as the direct trigger of a major war, but was in fact an accidental act by Alice, who accidentally cast a mind-control spell on the entire group of the group Black Hand instead of her own dolls, changing them from moderates to extremists without knowing what her spell actually did. 1945, the suicide of Hitler from Deutschland; in actual fact nothing more than Yukari accidentally opening up a portal hole right in his stomach because she couldn't find a safer entrance point into Berlin to look for beer. Of course, nobody knew this but burned his corpse anyway; those loyal to him giving their version of events as though their words were true and the Allied forces more than willing to accept."

What made everything so freakin' ironic, was that the oni was reading all that aloud to me like dictation in an English class. At that point of time I didn't know whether to laugh or to cry, because apparently I'm being given a history lesson in the middle of my trying to convince her that I need to go back to the 'outside' real world.

"1963, the assassination of this important guy called Kennedy, the alleged murderer Oswald was verified by Shikieiki sometime later, as being a case of 'wrong guy, wrong time'. But what you hear in history texts of the outside world is totally otherwise. Yours is not dramatic enough to warrant a return back there. Not for now, at the very least."

"Easy for you to say, Suika, when you're not the one involved in any of those news," I retorted. "Get out of my way now!"

The oni simply smirked. "Give it your best shot."

At this point of time I've nearly lost all my reasoning. The only intact bit of my reasoning was reserved for the fighting, and this time I felt in control of my flight-run as I raised a stance near the oni within a second. However, when the punch came through I was hitting thin air and I nearly lost my balance after throwing the punch with what I reckoned was enough force to take a bull down. My reasoning immediately raced through the causes of a miss, and came up with a short but quick answer I already knew; Suika has the ability to turn into any material she desires, and the most effective to evade a punch was by turning into air.

"Nya, behind you!"

Before I could react, though, I was helplessly flung by a fast, powerful earth-based impact from behind me that knocked my breath out completely, sending me careening through the shop's back doors and into the open ground behind leaving a trail of broken splinters and damaged furniture.

I could tell, even when the strike was this powerful, that it was actually half-hearted; that sort of knock, if it had been a serious, for-the-kill move, would've already mangled me. And, of course, what Suika did only reinforced the fact that she could deal with me… here in this realm. But she couldn't, and wouldn't do jack shit for me outside of it.

"Pasonia, you got the message now I hope," she remarked as she tried to give me a hand.

"Yea, sure I did," I answered coldly, while (ironically) the heat over my mind made me slap her hand away. "You didn't ever regard me as a being worthy of respect to begin with! To you, I'm a mere playtoy to your strength! Disparity in strength – duly acknowledged!" I hissed at her at the end of the line, baring as much teeth as I could.

"You are thick-headed, aren't you?"

I pondered upon those angry words for a while, but quickly found an angrier answer.
"At least back there I have friends. Got any idea what's it like stuck without friends to fall back on?"

The oni paused. "That's not true. Since when do I not regard you as a friend?"

I paused at length this time. I wouldn't have survived here if not for her. But right now I'm just so pissed. I don't know what to do anymore in this world, and as is now I'm just eking out a pathetic existence worse than when I was a street urchin. It's Suika's fault I got pulled into this world, but it was also to her credit that I survived it, despite having caused many "firsts" for her… and for myself, too.

I don't know whether I should appreciate being locked in a world I barely know, or who to shift any blame to. I haven't felt this lost since I, well, lost my greatest teach to the shootout.

"Why aren't you talking anymore?"

That provoked a sharp spark of fire in my heart, despite me knowing in the subconscious that it's just Suika being impatient.
"Could you just shut the hell up for a moment? You aren't the one in a tight spot; I am!"

"Young man, perhaps you should consider apologizing. That was no way to treat a lady," remarked Mr. Kirisame, a man who likewise couldn't understand my problems.
"Yea, but ask the horned woman if she ever considered herself one," I retorted. "I'm done talkin' here! I'm taking these papers back to my inn, sir."
"Well, yea, sure…" On hindsight, I had a hunch he only allowed me to take those papers for fear of being hit, not because he was that generous.

I glared at Suika, then in a moment of uncontrolled folly, swung and splashed a nearby cup of water/tea (from a nearby stall, whose keeper was too stunned to stop me) at full strength into Suika's face, then flung the glass cup close enough to hear it smash to a million pieces, then walked in the direction of the inn with a thunderstorm brewing inside my head.

"Nobody… here… understands my predicament!" I blasted out at the top of my larynx a good distance away from the store, knowing the onlookers would just stop and stare at me with bewildered expressions. "None of you effin' wankers know! You all are older than me by a century but you're just older, not one bit wiser!"

It was then that I felt something poke against my back. When I turned around, it was Miss Kirisame… I guess no one can miss a girl with a witch hat that large.

"I could hear you from the other end of the forest, ze. Tell me more."

"I'm not in the mood to, Miss Kirisame. If you'd excuse me, I have other things to attend to."

"Oh, really?"

***

I lied, and this girl saw through it so quickly I had to wonder if she lied often enough to see through others' lies that easily. Still, at a bustling night at the market where nobody else but Miss Kirisame knew me and the only place to drink was a watering hole (of sorts), that's the only place I could have gone in to.

"So what's the big deal, big man? I haven't seen you for ages at red-white's, ze. Something gone wrong somewhere?"

"Ever felt like a totally lonely figure?" I blurted absent-mindedly.

Marisa pondered for a moment. "Most of the time I am."

I shook my head. "No. I mean to say, if you ever felt so lonely and not knowing anything around you? Like, you don't know where you are, what your purpose in a place is for, that sort of thing."

"Now that you've mentioned it, the only time I felt like that was when I went underground looking for this cat that spewed fire, ze. Couldn't rely on any help that time – humans don't live underground – so I know the feeling kind of stinks… why?"

"Miss Kirisame, for me… it's been that way since my Day One here. I've never felt this lonely and this lost before. I know next to nothing about this world, with only someone's words about being a last male heir or something hanging around me. It's been weeks and I'm still not getting an answer, and no one wants to bring me to anywhere where I can resolve this effin' conundrum, and yet, when I want to go home, I am not allowed to. I have a crisis back home I need to resolve, and I need to resolve it fast!"

"Can we take this a little easy, ze? We're not near the end of the road, mate," cooed Marisa. "You're still alive, and that is what matters. Most of us are glad we're even alive these days after the last youkai incident."

"What, you're gonna tell me that your last incident involves some kind of Peter Pan flying ship shtick with girls inside like sailors and old ghosts?"

"Precisely!" The surprised reaction from Marisa made me do a double-take, nearly falling backwards on a nearby pair of drinking dudes.
"How'd you know, mate? I don't remember red-white being that close to even talk to you in the devil's language about this incident!"

I don't know what got her that excited, but I'd assume that I struck some sort of queer lottery unwittingly. "I was actually making a wild guess about that, so cool it."

"You know, Nya, it actually did happen."
You serious? I wasn't even paying attention to what I just said.

"Well, that's a real coincidence, then? Sure you don't know anything about Byakuren's ship?"

"Who the heck is this Byakuran, to begin with? Is he or she some thousand-year-old man or woman who got a curse from something or somebody, for some really stupid reason, and is back here for some strange reason, and then just got a sound beating by someone and built a Buddhist temple somewhere?"

"Nya…"
What?
"I think I know what the matter with you is. So stop talkin', coz you're scarin' the witch there."

Initially skeptical of what the other me was saying, I snapped my attention back to the table, and found the witch dropping her cup of wine rather absent-mindedly.

"Oh, shucks, what the hell," she groped. "You basically completed my narrative before I could say a word, ze."

"H-hey, I really don't know a thing, yo. I don't even know how this Byakuran or Byakuren person came about. I was just, err, guessing; yes, totally guessing it! Everything's one big, huge, effin' coincidence!" By this time I was somewhat flustered, trying to convince Miss Kirisame that I wasn't some clairvoyant person.
"You sure about that, ze?"
"Of course I am! Jeez, that cup is rollin' over to me and your dress is soaked. Let's go somewhere a little more open and then we can get your dress dried or something."

I was about to reach into my pocket and leave some cash on the table, but the middle-aged, smiling mustached boss just smiled and waved me away, even though I gestured my insistence on leaving some cash. Eventually it was Marisa who grabbed my wrist and dragged me from the watering hole after a few words (in Japanese) with said mustached man.

"She said, 'it's fine, I'm dragging this idiot away'."
Oh, awesome, thanks for making me feel a lot more comfortable about it.

"I think you – or a part of you – knew what I just said, so, yes, I'm dragging you away… ze," mouthed Marisa.
"Whatever for, Miss Kirisame?"
"Well, we can't have you spoiling your own visit to Eientei, ze. If you left the oni in such a hurry, I think she'd completely neglected to tell you that we're going to the Netherworld as soon as we visited Eientei. Since going back outside is what you want, if we decide we don't need you after all you're only gonna spend at most one or two more weeks, ze."

"You sure about that?" I was wary of this promise, not being too sure whether it's all part of an elaborate scam.

"…nope, I'm not. I'm just giving you something to expect because that's what all outside humans are fond of. You ain't no exception even though you're Youmu's relative, ze!"

A.N.: Please drop a review, positive or negative, once you're done reading. I noticed a spike in readership but no reviews, so if you would be so kind, tell me what you think of my story. Thanks!