Ending

A small, nearly forgotten cemetery at the edge of the garden surrounding Hakugyokurou shrine. A fresh grave, wilting and fresh flowers around.

And a simple chiseled gravestone, with two simple words on it: "Konpaku Youmu".

Youmu herself was standing in front of the grave, slack-jawed and wide-eyed. She was so shocked that she even forgot to lean on her crutch for a moment.

Yuyuko was behind her, fidgeting and smiling nervously. And she definitely had all the reasons for being nervous, as Youmu looked like she was either about to faint or burst, like an overripe tomato. Probably the latter.

"What," Youmu finally said, her eye twitching slightly. She very slowly turned to face her mistress.

"Hey, I-I-I can explain!" Yuyuko panickly stammered, waving her arms around. "It's all a misunderstanding! You see, I told one of the visitors of the shrine that you didn't make it all right from the moon mission, and the "all right" part of it was kinda lost on the way! And so, they made this gravest—"

"You dug a grave!" Youmu shouted, and immediately regretted it, as sharp pain shot up her wounded side. She winced, but resisted the urge to clutch her heavily stitched wound, instead repositioning herself carefully.

"You dug a grave," she slowly said again. "You placed a gravestone on it. You brought flowers here every day, and burned mourning candles. Lady Saigyouji, excuse my harsh language, but what the fuck?"

Crickets chirped. A flock of birds took off from a nearby tree. A gust of wind blew through the cemetery, picking up fallen leaves and debris. Yuyuko's smile faded, replaced with an expression of embarrassment and hurt.

"I had my reasons, okay?" She said, her voice sounding quite hurt too. "There were a lot of flowers, and all of them had to go somewhere, and definitely not in your room, it would've become a greenhouse. And besides—"

"It would be so funny," Youmu finished for her. "To make a naïve and inexperienced girl, after a hellish month of recovery she has gone through afraid, planting a lingering doubt that she didn't make it after all."

Yuyuko was at loss for words, and Youmu pressed on.

"So tell me, Lady Saigyouji, when did I die? After that bullet hit me, or earlier, in the mansion? Or last spring? How many times have you copied me already, with your powers of rebirth? And if I dig into this grave how many skeletal remains of myself will I find inside? Three? Four?"

With her good arm, she started to slowly unsheathe her katana. Yuyuko's eyes widened and she backed away, waving her arms erratically. "Hey, Youmu, it was really just a joke, no need to do anything we might regret later, let's go inside, please?"

"No," Youmu said coldly, taking her blade in a combat position and turning back to face the gravestone. "I think this grave is a symbol, a monument of how you fail at humor. So allow me to demonstrate, in a very clear and symbolic way, what I think of you and all your jokes."

Leaning heavily on the crutch, she took a step forward and slashed. A flash of metal silently and instantly passed through the stone, leaving behind a diagonal line of light.

Grim and determined, Youmu sheathed her blade. The line faded, and half of the gravestone slid down with a thud, releasing a cloud of dust. There was a long awkward pause and then…

"Congratulations!" Yuyuko exclaimed, clapping her hands. Confused, Youmu turned to her.

"Don't you get it? I just desecrated—"

"Nonsense!" Yuyuko happily announced, floating closer. "All that matters, that you have finally made your recovery! Let's throw a party!"

"I still have a long way to go, you know," Youmu bitterly said.

"Oh, put that frown upside down," Yuyuko cooed, reaching out and lightly pinching Youmu's cheek. "And besides, since I'm a lazy princess unfit for work, you'll have to organize everything, from invitations and decorations to food! Plenty of time to recover while you do all that maddening, grueling menial work!"

She spun in place, and skipped towards to shrine entrance, singing happily a verse that consisted mainly of "Yoooumu is heeeealthy again!" and "Weee're having a paaaaarty!"

Youmu sighed, and followed her slowly, in an awkward, limping gait. Every step shot spikes of pain up her side, but she tried her best to ignore it. It would not go away anytime soon anyway, so no need to focus on it more than it is absolutely required.

Her ghost half hanged nearby, orbiting around her as usual. Youmu noticed that it somehow was calmer lately, hanging closer to her and not shivering when she touched it. Maybe something good has happened? Youmu couldn't remember.

Speaking of memory, Yuyuko wasn't kidding when she said it about nightmares back then. Time and time again, Youmu found herself running down endless school corridors, tentacled sparrow horrors behind her, only to wake up and find herself in another nightmare, involving spiral bunnies, pies made from bugs and soulless, ancient gods boiling forever in the fires of immortality.

And as for the memories of the real events, everything more or less faded into haze, mostly due to the constant pain and weird medicine she was taking. She was visited a few times by Eirin, who looked extremely unhappy while treating her, arguing with Yuyuko for long periods of time in the other room afterwards, the pieces of conversation that Youmu could make out mostly consisting of threats and demands to reveal the location of someone named Kaguya.

Slowly, Youmu made her way through the garden. In her month-long absence, the grass has grown tall and dandelions thrived, increasing their numbers exponentially. A mere thought of finding every last one of these little parasites and uprooting them, one by one, made Youmu's teeth ache. And now, with the new duties of organizing a grandiose party Yuyuko has just thrown on her, the future looked bleaker than ever.

Maybe, Youmu thought glumly, it would be better for her to let go and just die.

She finally reached the shrine. Oddly enough, the sliding doors of the main entrance were closed. Puzzled, she limped up the porch and slid the door open.

"SURPRISE!"

Bright magical lights. Over-the-top party decorations, complete with a gigantic "Happy Recovery, Youmu" cloth banner. A table, covered in sweets, the cake in the middle. Yuyuko shouting at the top of her ghostly lungs. Fresh corpses of four guests, sitting at the table…

Wait, that didn't sound quite right.

Eirin and Tewi, Marisa and Reimu, all of them festively dressed and covered in blood, each and every one of them having a giant hole in the chest.

Their still beating hearts decorated the largest cake.

Okay, this is obviously an illusion, Youmu thought calmly, despite all the very realistic looking gore in front of her. Just another of Yuyuko's unfunny pranks. She's going to distract her now, and everything will be normal not a moment too soon.

"What are you waiting for? It's your party, so come on in!" Yuyuko offered with a smile, spreading her arms wide.

Any second now. Yep, any moment, it all vanishes. Right now. Riiiight now. Now.

No?

Youmu closed the door and shook her head. Okay, this was just ridiculous. Eirin probably wouldn't even notice such a wound. Not to mention that if the Reimu was dead, the boundary would probably be collapsing right about…

A giant tear opened up in the sky, uncountable objects and water pouring in. Youmu could see a tiny silhouette of Yukari near the tear, trying in vain to control it, too little, too late. The tear spread further, plowing through earth, bringing a final apocalyptic end to all Gensokyo.

Smaller reality cracks tore through the garden around and the shrine shook, tilting slightly.

Youmu snickered, then burst into laughter, despite how it hurt to do so. Now, this was scale, she thought. Yuyuko should get some appreciation at least for the pure effort she put into it.

After all, it still was just an elaborate image, maybe with some puppets thrown in for a more realistic look. She would step inside, and she would have a nice quiet party, with Yuyuko and maybe some of the real guests that had an ability and time to visit the Netherworld. Yukari, Ran and Chen, the Prismriver sisters, maybe even Sakuya would attend.

And if not? Then she would have her final feast, surrounded by the corpses of her bitter enemies, the world crumbling around her. Sure beats growing old and dying a withered, helpless and pathetic crone.

Youmu straightened up, smiled, and opened the door.

The End

(Q)

A/N:The story is over. This is a completely optional section, like credits in the game. Nobody likes credits, right?

Anyway, some explanations first.

This is the end, and there will be no extra stage. Not because I consider Kaguya/Mokou conflict to be boring or the ghost team scenario for the extra stage to be boring (it's comedy gold actually, find the script at Touhou wiki if you want). Not because I wouldn't be able to overcome the difficulties I would inevitably face when trying to adapt the extra stage.

There will be no extra stage because I didn't beat it. I did complete Imperishable Night on easy (EEEH? EASY MODE? HOW LAME! ONLY KIDS PLAY IN EASY MODE! KYA HA HA HA HA HA HA!) on a single continue with 7 lives. And I'm proud of it, 'cause I've seen the good ending. But Extra? I'll let the lunatics post videos of it on Youtube. This is not for me.

So yeah, with all the stages, I knew what I was writing about, having experienced it firsthand. Extra stage just feels hollow to me, so no extra stage for you. Isn't it sad, Mokou?

Now, acknowledgements and thanks to everything that made this story possible:

Wikipedia, for providing me with vital information on dandelions and bamboo.

Touhou wiki, for providing me with easily accessible information on spell cards.

TVTropes, for providing me with guidelines to how to flesh out the characters and defile canon. Also, for ruining and enhancing my life.

All the reviewers. They didn't help me with the story, but they did provide emotional support. So thanks.

Now, things I want to say on every chapter:

1: Nothing to talk about really, just an average introductory chapter. Bleh. Also, dandelions are the metaphor symbolizing the impossible task of finding all the unnecessary commas, grammar mistakes and rouge angles of satin I have to hunt down and destroy. I like dandelions IRL.

2: I intended it to be a satire of bad songfics. Plus, it's kind of a shout out to Remember 11, an awesome game by KID.

3: Sorry, Keine fans. Yes, I know she is a kind and smart youkai, who genuinely cares about the human village and her students. Actually, I am not sorry. I am never sorry.

4: Well, kind of predictable, really. I would not allow for Marisa to be eaten, because seriously, even I have some standards. Cannibalism is bad, kids. Don't do it.

5: An obvious and extended homage to "I have no mouth and I must scream" by Harlan Ellison. Read it, it's seriously awesome (you can find it following the links from Wikipedia).

6: The grand finale! Actually, I find it to be rather weak, I totally ripped a lot of things from my earlier "Mai-Hime" story that nobody read, and recycled it. Also, I wanted to make it at least a quarter as awesome as the final fight of TTGL, and failed. Pathetic.

Ending: I wanted to show Youmu slashing her gravestone using ASCII graphics, but the site engine wouldn't let me :( So, plain text it is. Maybe it's really for the best.

Okay, time to wrap it all up. End of credits. Main menu. Quit.

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Still here? Well, since you've read it this far, here is a little heart-warming omake for you. Enjoy!

Omake

The moon was full again. It was a quite normal silvery moon, hanging far, far away in the clear night sky. There was absolutely nothing unnatural about it.

But if you squinted enough, you could still make out an outline of a larger, nearly translucent moon much closer, but blink once, and it disappears. Just a vestige of the times long gone, nothing interesting about it.

The forest was quiet, save for an occasional hooting of an owl. Moonlight sipped through the leaves, and fireflies danced, gathering on the fallen branches to rest.

One of these branches was strangely and irregularly curved, ending with a tiny ball on one end and a clean, flawless cut on another. Its surface was unusual too, instead of covered in bark it looked almost chitinous.

A beam of moonlight slowly moved towards the strange branch, following the creaks and movements of the tree above. It reached the strange object, and its surface cracked.

Yellow, viscous liquid oozed out, spreading out a sweet scent of apples. Fireflies and other small insects were drawn to the scent, closing in and landing on it, only to find that the liquid trapped them in and consumed them nearly instantly.

The small blob flexed, pushing out the hollow carapaces of insects it devoured. Then, it moved, crawling like an amoeba, its moves random and lacking direction.

It crawled, gathering more insects, worms and snails, growing ever so slightly in size. It moved through the undergrowth, an oozing lump of devouring goo.

It found a mouse hole, and stopped in front of it, undulating slightly. It elongated and crawled in.

There was a short and spluttering squeak from the inside, and then for a while nothing happened. Then, the strange blob emerged, not as an amoeba, but as a vertebrae creature with six legs, or rather walking appendages made from various bones. It now had eyes, small and twitching, and two antennae made from mouse whiskers.

It moved fast, jumping and dashing, shuffling through the forest, looking for its next prey. It found it soon enough, a lone young fawn, sleeping and vulnerable.

The blob skittered closer, and the animal woke up, instantly jumping up and preparing to escape. The blob was faster, taking off in the air and landing on the fawn's head. Terrified, it tried to shake the strange creature away, but the blob held fast, crawling in through nostrils and eyes.

The animal released a scream, took a few uneven steps and collapsed, twitching. Something moved beneath the skin, grinding and churning organs and bones, refitting them for its own purposes.

Finally, all that was left on the ground was a shapeless sack of skin. Something bulged from within, clawing at the skin from the inside.

The flesh sack ruptured, and a humanoid creature crawled out. It was covered in blood and bile, but its shape, the small antennas on its head and the cloak shaped like a bug carapace left absolutely no doubt of its identity.

Arching her back to the moon, Wriggle Nightbug released a piercing, echoing shriek.

True End