With my filled plate in hand in the midst of the rather social crowd, my seat was in my sights next to the new love of my life, Alice Margatroid. Surrounding her, however, was a few of my worst enemies yet with my former trainer and temporary friend, Yuugi Hoshiguma. I had absolutely no idea, keine ahnung , what they wanted from me and what they were doing with Alice. Well, of course I considered that Reimu and Marisa are relatively friends of hers, but Yukari was going to be a serious problem for me to be around, especially after our little incident together about me shooting her in the shoulder with my rifle out of anger and refusal to go back to the outside world.
I slowly made my way to the table, looking forward only to Alice and my seat she saved for me that her Shanghai doll was hovering over. Fear-filled questions instantly filled my mind as I glanced at Yukari and Yuugi. Will Yuugi forgive me? Will Yukari as well? Would Reimu and Marisa be jerks toward me? Can Alice support me through this part of life that I've always been known to have had problems with in the past, socializing? I finally set my plate at the table and sat down as everyone present was staring at me.
Alice: "So how was your visit with Sakuya?"
Reinhardt: "Fine. I apologized for earlier conflict with her and she did as well for the time she stabbed me in the arm."
Alice: "Oh goodness."
Reinhardt: "At least it's fine now. She also says thank you for complimenting her cooking. I should try it as well."
I could simply feel the tension in the atmosphere as Yukari, Yuugi, Reimu, and Marisa looked at me with varying expressions on their faces. Yukari and Reimu seemed like they question my survival and existence here with an unfriendly glare. Marisa looks like she has no clue about my endurance level with confusion. Yuugi seems pretty impressed, unlike everyone else.
Alice: "Well we're all gathered here for a reason, right ladies? Reinhardt, there's something that everyone here at this table wants to tell you."
Reinhardt: "I'm honestly stressing over here about what everyone could possibly want from me."
Alice: "Yuugi, you can start. Then you can go back to drinking with your fellow oni and underground people."
Yuugi: "Alright, well I'll try and make this quick then. Reinhardt, although I'm usually a figure that looks down upon cowardice and weakness, I've come to realize how your own rules of engagement are how you endure through everything that comes your way, and to me that shows you that you can probably take on the all of Gensokyo if you tried. I actually respect that about you. I'm proud to call you my trainee."
Reinhardt: "Thank you so much, Yuugi. I admire your words and respect the things you stand for, as well as all of the things you've done for me, but I wouldn't go as far as to saying that I could take on Gensokyo entirely." She gave a polite nod as did I and she went off to meet with her friend, Suika, along with some other people I've met underground. Then Marisa, who was seated next to Alice, leaned in and spoke up.
Marisa: "I'll go next, ze! Reinhardt, I honestly don't know why you're hanging around my best friend, but after you came to my house and shot my Mini-Hakkero back, making it break and blow almost my whole roof off in the process, I still actually didn't favor too much but I then realized that you're really a force to be reckoned with, ze. You only shot one bullet on the spot whereas we fire several at once and still miss sometimes,ze! You actually managed to scare me a bit there, but I still don't know why you're hanging out with my friend all the time."
Reinhardt "Well for starters, Alice can have more than one friend. And also, you may not know this but Alice and I love each other." Alice blushed and bundled up into herself, leaning a bit toward me though. Everyone else at the table had wide eyes.
Marisa: "Really?! Alice, is that true?"
Alice: "Well... yes." Marisa was met with absolute speechlessness. She kinda stayed that way for a while as her words stuttered hopelessly in confusion.
Reinhardt: "Heh, well moving on then. Did you two want anything from me? Reimu, Yukari? Oh, and by the way, I'm sorry about the whole injury stuff. I just about went lunatic when I started using the weapon Nitori made with me. I really am." That last comment came to mind when I saw Yukari's wrapped up shoulder with a blood stain still remaining on it and noticed Reimu's static twitching.
Reimu: "I guess I'll speak up next. I usually find trying to solve incidents bothersome, especially when it's issued to me by somebody else, but it's usually my job to do things like this. However, this little incident seemed much less like an incident but a bit more like a run-in with a little trouble. I still didn't appreciate getting shocked half to death, but I accept your apology since it was sincere. To me, you seem more like somebody who has everything dropped on his world instead of mine, now that I look back on it, so I understand that you just need a little peace as long as you're not doing anything harmful in our secret little community. Otherwise we will find you again and take action accordingly."
Reinhardt: "I understand, Miss Hakurei. I'm not here to cause trouble. I'm actually here to get away from trouble. The troubles of the outside world. It's a frightening and tragically corrupt place that nobody would ever want to go to if you knew what I knew. Trust me on that."
Reimu: I guess I'll take your word for it. I trust that you're an honest man, Reinhardt."
Yukari: "I've actually seen the outside world for myself as well. Fairly recently too. That was when I heard about you infiltrating Gensokyo. Ran called me as soon as you ran off into the woods, so I didn't have time to make anything of my visit."
Reinhardt: "My dearest apologies, Miss Yakumo."
Yukari: "It's fine. So back on the topic of the outside world. Why do you hate it so much?"
Reinhardt: "Well I'm not sure if you've looked much into the outside world affairs in depth, but the rulers, society, and some cultures are entirely corrupt. Everything's being constricted into dictatorships disguised under so-called 'righteous governments' and being pasted over by 'good' governmental acts. As if America's idea of Social Darwinism was bad enough. I don't expect you to understand everything I'm ranting about, but you get my point, correct?"
Yukari: "Yes. Also, about everything that has happened to you here in Gensokyo, since you've proven to me that you're here for a good reason, I must make a confession." Well, here it was. I couldn't imagine what Yukari had to say to me, but it seemed that she wasn't concerned so much about her shoulder wound.
Yukari: "Well, I usually don't tell people much about the scheme of things but I figured you deserve to know after all you've gone through as an outsider. I actually set up many of the events in this entire ordeal of yours." I was instantly met with anger and tempted to grab my knife as a reflex, but I knew that would do me no good. I started to question many things about my journey, including what I have with Alice.
Yukari: "Now before you go and do something you'll instantly regret, I was going to tell you more in-depth. First off, when I sent you underground, I was hoping you would meet Yuugi, so I told her about you and made a bet with her so that she would train you to become stronger so you could get back up to the surface. As for Lady Remilia, I told her to toy around with you so if you failed, you would be eaten. If you managed to escape her grasp, you'd survive. Keep in mind that we could have killed you if we wanted to, but we noticed that you had a certain aura about you that prevented you from doing exactly the same to us, even though you could've easily done away with us if you wanted to, so I knew that there was a good soul within your mortal outsider body. That is why I tested you. Although you seem to refuse to utilize magic or any faith-based powers, you always seem to find a way to solve conflicts."
Reimu: "Yeah, like before he almost shocked me to death, I noticed that he had a youkai with him that usually eats humans like him, but she never did. Little Rumia seemed to have been tamed by Reinhardt somehow. We would like to know how you managed to do such a thing. I thought you said that you don't like using magic according to Yuugi."
Reinhardt: "Well it's actually pretty simple and it's not magic either. She mentioned something about 'The Saint who was crucified' and I knew exactly Who she was talking about. That 'Saint' is none other than my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, Son of God, The One and Only. I believe in Christianity as did she, but I could tell her more about Christ than she originally knew and I let her gnaw on my arm a bit so she would be at least a little satisfied and stay with me. It's always nice to have company rather than being alone, especially with me being an outsider."
Yukari: "Impressive."
Reimu: "Understandable."
Marisa: "Unbelievable, ze."
Alice: "I thought that story was touching the first time he told me, along with the one about naming a fairy maid."
Reimu: "You did what now?"
Reinhardt: " I think Melody can tell the story much better."
I looked around for Melody and called her over to tell Yukari, Reimu, and Marisa about the story of her name. They were pretty surprised at what she had to say as she told it with much enthusiasm. Afterwards, I got a chance to tell them stories about legendary assassins, stealth operatives and moral levels in the outside world. At the same time, I told them all about outside world advancements and technology, and to my surprise, Nitori popped up behind me and Alice to listen in on my technology stories since she's so interested in that kind of stuff.
The next thing I knew, Rumia and her little friends gathered around me to hear the many tales that I could offer to tell them. To my surprise, I had an entire audience around me, including our very own nocturnal hostess, Lady Remilia Scarlet and her little sister, Flandre. I honestly didn't expect to be such a hit at the party, but it seems like I've found a place where I'm finally accepted.
My life had an entire 180 degree turn when I came to Gensokyo. At first, my life was always in danger, now it's filled with nothing but peace from the chaos of the outside world. I took up a job as a youkai exterminator due to my excellent marksman's skills and assassin's intuition. It seems that there's still some nasty souls out there causing more than regular trouble that requires permanent resolution. It's sad for it to come down to me exterminating them, but somebody must do it.
I still live with Alice since I don't have a house of my own, but maybe eventually I'll get one... or I could just live with Alice for as long as we love each other. I visit Nitori sometimes to work on complicated projects. She says she doesn't usually work with people, but since I have knowledge of outside things, she would be more than willing to learn from me. It also seems that she found my old blue MP3 player that I completely lost a few years ago, but I let her keep it since she seems to like some of the music I had on there.
I also got paid to repossess some of Patchouli's books from Marisa's house, which went pretty well, considering my innate ability to sneak around people. And yes, I got around to stealing her big intercontinental ballistic missile before it decided to go off on all of Gensokyo. Lord forgive me for doing such a thing, but I also decided to sell it to a guy named Rinnosuke who runs a shop close to Alice's house. That's how I got most of my money to live off of with Alice. I also taught Alice how to use my laptop computer, Samantha. It took about an entire month for her to get everything straight and for her to get over me having a picture of her as my background as well, but she loves using it to play games and chat with Nitori since apparently, she has a computer as well.
Another wonderful thing that happened during my downtime is that I was offered to talk to a certain person that writes the entire history of Gensokyo. Her name is Hieda no Akyuu. Yukari introduced me and we had a little interview, along with a story telling of my entire journey from the day I entered into Gensokyo to what I do now as an accepted citizen of Gensokyo. I called the story, The Chronicles of Reinhardt.
Most of all, I thank God for helping me through all of these trials with His help. I would never know what to do if God didn't have a plan for me to survive, but with His guidance, I was able to convert many people to Christianity, humans and little youkai alike, although some of the other religious organizations didn't take too kindly to that, but I would worry about that later. We have some common meetings, mostly on Sundays and holidays, where I would read my Bible to them. I truly feel that I'm somewhere I belong, thanks to many of the Gensokyans' kindness.
