Reimu's Accessory
by Cyberchao X

Disclaimer: It's a completely fanon meme based upon a doujin. Somehow, I doubt there's much trickle-down liability.

The floodwaters came quickly, knocking Reimu into the river and over the waterfall. She tried to fly away, but was too wet. Suddenly, she stopped falling. Water continued to pour on her head, but as she lamented "I'b belding…", she managed to move enough to get out of the direct stream of the water. The mist was annoying, but she felt as though she wouldn't melt. But what had she done to move? She didn't feel any ground below her…she was likely going to die anyway.

No, that wasn't true. For some reason, there was a cave behind the waterfall, a bit lower down. She just had to find a way to safely drop down. She wiggled back and forth, like a newborn koyukkuri on its stalk, until…RIP. Down she fell, bouncing into the cave. "Where am I? Reimu wants to take it easy!"

"Take it easy! Nitori will help…bwah!"

"What? What is it?"

"Nitori can't take it easy with weird yukkuri!"

"'Weird yukkuri!' Reimu is not weird yukkuri!"

"Weird yukkuri!" Nitori insisted.

Reimu went outside and saw her reflection in the water. She exclaimed, "Weird yukkuri!" before realizing that it was her. Trembling, she looked up. The water had eroded the cliff face enough that plants were able to take root, and there was a branch growing out of the side. When Reimu fell, her ribbon caught on the branch, and that was what kept her from falling. However, it was still stuck up there. "Reimu's ribbon! Nitori, Reimu found her ribbon!" She dragged the Nitori out there. "Reimu is Reimu! But…Reimu can't reach."

"…Reimu?"

"Yes! Reimu is Reimu!"

"…Reimu shouldn't be in Nitori's easy place. Mister Waterfall is too dangerous for not-Nitoris."

"Yu? Isn't there another way in?"

"No. Only through Mister Waterfall."

Reimu started crying. "Now Reimu will never see her family again!"

Nitori was still uncomfortable around the ribbonless Reimu, but she tried to comfort her nonetheless, if only to stop the crying. It didn't stop until Reimu fell asleep. While Reimu slept, Nitori left the cave to gather food. She gathered extra, because even though she didn't really like her "guest", she still thought it would be rude to let her starve.

"Ooh…Mister Sweet-Sweets!" Reimu said happily, seeing what she believed to be taiyaki. She started to munch-munch and spit it out. "Bleh! This isn't Sweet-sweets! This is too salty!"

"Weird Reimu is being very rude! Nitori went to the trouble of catching extra Mister Fishy for weird Reimu! Eat it easy!" The ribbonless Reimu managed to eat it. Later that day, Nitori went back out, and Reimu decided to try to fly up to the branch and get her ribbon. It was tiring work, but she managed, because now she was relatively dry, and she had eaten the fish to regain her strength. She managed to free it from the branch, and flew back down to the cave. She was just finishing adjusting it when Nitori returned.

"…Oh? Reimu is Reimu! But…Reimu's ribbon is torn."

"That's what Reimu said!"

"Yu…Nitori is sorry…Nitori was rude to Reimu."

"It's okay…Reimu thought Reimu looked kinda weird, too. But even without Miss Ribbon, Reimu was still Reimu."

"But how will Reimu get out of Nitori's easy place? Nitori will take care of Reimu for now, but Reimu can't stay here forever!"

"Take it easy…Reimu doesn't want to be a burden to Nitori." "Also, Nitori's food is weird," she thought, but in a rare show of intelligence for a yukkuri, Reimu had the tact not to actually say this. Or maybe it was self-preservation—because she was stuck in a cave behind mister waterfall, Reimu was entirely reliant on Nitori for her continued survival.

The days passed, and Nitori brought back enough food for both of them, and even occasionally found berries for Reimu, and she tried to come up with a way for Reimu to safely get past the waterfall. Being a bodiless yukkuri, however, she was unable to easily manipulate the tools that the real Nitori was so adept with. She did, however, have enough know-how that she was able to repair Reimu's ribbon, which she thought would be good for if Reimu ever found her way back to the rest of the world, even though Nitori didn't mind Reimu with a ripped ribbon. Yeah, she looked a bit disheveled, but she was still Reimu.

One day, Nitori went out and didn't return. Night fell, and Reimu was hungry and sad. "Nitori? Where's Nitori…Nitori, where are you?"

The next day, Reimu flew up to the branch that her ribbon had gotten caught on when she had first been washed down the river. It did not have any fruit, but it did have leaves. Reimu ate a few leaves and brought some more back down to the cave. For the next few weeks, Reimu ate only sparingly, subsisting on nothing but leaves. As a result, she was growing weak, and when she found that she could barely make the flight to the branch, and so she decided that she would have to gather all of the leaves this time, because she might not be able to get any more after this. She ate a few, and she gathered as many as she could, even venturing as close to the end of the branch as she could take, and then she fell…and landed on something sharp. "IB HURDSH!" she cried, mouth full of leaves.

Another voice also cried out, though it was more in surprise than pain. A few other voices cried out, "MWOMMY!" And then there was one voice that was familiar to Reimu.

"…Reimu? Oh, I'm so sorry! Reimu!"

The sharp thing beneath Reimu got up. "Nitori? You lied to me! You said this would be our easy place and ours alone!"

Reimu had swallowed many of the leaves when she fell, and she spit out the rest. "Yuuu…it hurts…"

"Nitori is so sorry, Reimu! Nitori forgot all about you… Babies get behind daddy." Nitori helped push Reimu off of the thing she had fallen on. Still in pain, Reimu looked up at it. It was a shelled Marisa. Nitori turned to the Marisa. "Nitori forgot…this one is also living in Nitori's easy place. She fell from Mister Waterfall and can't get out."

"So Nitori doesn't love this one like she loves Marisa?"

"Marisa is Nitori's mate," Nitori insisted.

"Yay! Mwommy'sh ogay!"

"Mwommy and daddy aw habby! Mawisha wiww be habby, doo!"

"Dage id eajy!" said the Konitori, and the others all replied in kind. Reimu then added, "It still hurts…" and passed out.

"…Ij Aundie Weimwu ogay?"

"She'll be fine," Nitori replied hesitantly, hoping that this was true. Nitori had thought of Reimu as an inconvenience at first, but now she thought of her as a friend.

"Shouwdj we wig-wig and mage id bedda?" one of the Komarisas asked.

"Yeah, that's a good idea," their mother replied.

"Wig-Wig and mage id bedda!" the three koyukkuris exclaimed together, licking the hole in Reimu's "feet". Reimu hadn't lost much bean paste, so it shouldn't have been too much of a problem…but of course, there was bean paste coming out of the hole, and bean paste is very delicious to yukkuris, especially those that are filled with it in their own right. "Habbinesh!" one of the Komarisas said as she got a taste, licking the wound with increased fervor.

"Ah…take it easy, baby! You're not eating right now."

"Dage id eajy!" she replied, and immediately forgot that she had been trying to eat Reimu's filling. She resumed licking the wound, and the dough started to fuse together again.

Reimu awoke shortly after nightfall to find some berries waiting for her. "Yu! Sweet-sweets! …But how?"

"Babies wanted to save some for 'Auntie Reimu'," Nitori said. "They were afraid you would be hurt, because you fell on their mommy's hard shell."

"Their mommy…?" Reimu suddenly remembered the shelled Marisa she had seen earlier, and looked into the cave to see two smaller shelled Marisas and a little Nitori sleeping next to her. "So Nitori is daddy now?"

"Yes, Nitori is daddy now. Nitori found happiness with Marisa, and we made babies…and then once they were big enough to swim, Nitori brought them to her easy place. Nitori is happy that babies learned to swim so quickly…because Reimu looked like she wouldn't make it much longer. Is Reimu still hurt?"

"...Reimu is only a little hurt." She was able to move, but it was somewhat painful to do so. She decided to lay down as soon as she'd gotten into the cave.

"Good…Reimu is Nitori's friend. Nitori wouldn't be able to take it easy if Reimu got hurt because of Nitori."

"It…it wasn't Nitori's fault! Reimu just…slipped, and Marisa was just there at the wrong time."

"Nitori forgot about Reimu. Nitori abandoned Reimu, when Reimu was depending on Nitori for food."

"Reimu is still here. And Nitori is here, with a mate and babies. So everything's easy now."

"Easy…"

A pause. "'Auntie Reimu?'"

"I didn't tell them to call you that!" She heard a stirring, and instantly quieted down, worried that she'd woken her babies. "They just heard me call you 'Reimu' and decided that you were Auntie Reimu."

"…Reimu is happy. Reimu will be a good auntie."

The next morning, the koyukkuris were overjoyed when they saw that "Aundie Weimwu" was feeling better. "Gome bway wiv ush, Aundie Weimwu!"

"Ah…maybe tomorrow, okay, babies? Auntie Reimu's feet still hurt a bit."

The three koyukkuris went up to her and Rub Rubbed affectionately. Reimu initially flinched at the prospect of the two little shelled Marisas rubbing up against her, but they made sure not to present their back ends towards Reimu.

"Come here, babies! Mommy will sing a song for you!"

"Dage id eajy!" they all exclaimed happily.

Reimu smiled. "Take it easy."

A few days later, Reimu mused, "If Reimu had a shell like Marisa's, Reimu would be able to get through Mister Waterfall."

Marisa instantly got defensive. Although her children seemed to like Reimu, she still mistrusted the other yukkuri that had been living in her Nitori's home before she had. "This is Marisa's mister shell! Reimu has her miss ribbon!"

"What? No, Reimu didn't say she wanted Marisa's shell! Reimu wants a shell of her own, so Reimu can go through Mister Waterfall and stop being such a burden for Nitori-chan and her family!"

Marisa didn't even pick up on the way Reimu had referred to Nitori. "Oh. Marisa is sorry… But Marisa doesn't think that would help. Marisa's sisters could use their hats to float on top of Mister Lake, but only Marisa can swim."

"Yu? Marisa's sisters don't have shells?" Marisa shook her head. "But…little Marisas have shells just like their mommy…"

"Marisa is different from big sisters and little sisters. Sisters got hurt when Mister Rain came. Marisa didn't get hurt by Mister Rain."

"Mister Rain…" Reimu racked her little bean paste brain.

"Mishda wain?" one of the koyukkuris asked, as the rainy season had already passed by the time they were born and they had never seen rain.

"It was Mister Rain that brought Reimu here, too! Mister Rain just kept coming and coming, and it made Mister River really big, and then Mister River carried Reimu away and Reimu tried to fly away with her Mister Flap-Flap, but Mister Flap-Flap wouldn't work because of the water, and then Reimu fell down and got her Miss Ribbon caught on Mister Branch, and then Miss Ribbon went 'RIIIIIIIP' and Reimu fell down again, and Nitori called Reimu a weird yukkuri because Miss Ribbon was gone, but then Reimu went and got Miss Ribbon and now Nitori is Reimu's friend! …But this is not Reimu's easy place. There's still too much water for Reimu." It was amazing that Reimu had even managed to remember that much, and had she remembered more, she would have no doubt remembered the way normal Marisas could repel water to some degree with their hats, but were not waterproof themselves, as her father and some of her sisters were also Marisas. That was essentially a lifetime ago, though. Now, Reimu was a shut-in, unable to go out and enjoy the world and take it easy because her new home was behind a dangerous mister waterfall. She could only venture a few steps outside of the cave, and fly nearly straight up to mister branch…

But there it was. There was enough room for her to fly, at least a little. Was the space between the waterfall and the cliff face large enough for her to get out from behind the waterfall, after all, and she'd just been a silly little paste-brain all this time? "Reimu…might be okay after all." She started to flap.

"Aundie Weimwu?" the Konitori asked. "Whewe awe you goin?"

"Auntie Reimu needs to see if she can return to the outside world. Sorry, little one." She felt sad that she had to leave the little ones, but she knew that she was just a burden. Nitori had enough work to feed her entire family; an extra guest wasn't what she needed. She set off alongside the cliff face, getting clear of the waterfall and looking around. She looked for another tree growing on the riverbank to land in, since the cave was not at the bottom of mister waterfall and it was too far to fly all the way to the top.

There were no trees.

There was no riverbank.

Marisa's words rang in her head. "Marisa's sisters could use their hats to float on top of Mister Lake."

Mister Lake.

Mister Lake.

There was nothing below Reimu but more water as far as the eye could see. Her only hope was to keep trying to fly higher, to get back up to the top of the cliff.

…No. That wasn't right, Reimu suddenly thought. The cave was not at the bottom of the cliff, yet Nitori managed to go back and forth between the cave and the lake even though she was without a body. She couldn't possibly climb…which meant there must have been some sort of path that led further down. Reimu turned around and tried to fly back towards the cave, but it was too late. She started to lose altitude before she was ready. I'm falling…

She stopped. Sooner than she expected. I'm okay…but…where's mister ground!

A familiar sound. Fabric tearing. Exhausted, Reimu couldn't fight it. She fell, again with her ribbon caught in the branch. This time, she wouldn't even be able to cushion her fall.

Marisa did it for her. Thinking quickly, she gathered all of the leaves that Reimu had carried down from the branch the last time she'd been up there. Since Nitori had returned, Reimu hadn't needed to use them as food, so they were just sitting in the cave, although the babies had made a wreath out of some of them at one point. Marisa set the wreath in the center of the pile, and she had it lined up almost perfectly; Reimu landed on the wreath and tumbled into the center. "Reimu? Can you still take it easy?"

Reimu could barely speak due to the effort she'd given. "Yes…Reimu can still…take it easy…" She fell asleep.

"What happened?" Nitori asked when she returned home that day.

"Reimu tried to fly away, but she couldn't make it."

"And where is Reimu's miss ribbon?"

"Up there." Marisa tilted her head back, and Nitori followed her gaze to see the ribbon caught in the branch again.

"Ribbon or not, Reimu really is a weird yukkuri," Nitori said, amazed that her friend had managed to get into the same predicament again.

"Aundie Weimwu ij nod a weiwd jugguwi!" cried one of the Komarisas.

"Take it easy, babies; Daddy didn't mean that in a bad way!"

"Whewe ij Aundie Weimwu?" the Konitori asked. "Who ij vish?"

"Auntie Reimu's right here," Marisa said. Apparently the discussion the two yukkuri had had earlier that day had changed Marisa's opinion of Reimu. "She's not feeling well, though, so you should probably let her rest easy."

"Vadch nod Aundie Weimwu!" the other Komarisa cried.

"Aundie Weimwu haj a bweddy mish wibbon!" the first one said.

"Miss Ribbon is right up there, see?" She pushed on the top of her children's shells, forcing their gaze skyward.

"Mish Wibbon ij fwyin!" the second Komarisa said.

"…what was that?"

The first time Reimu had gotten her ribbon caught in the branch, it was waterlogged and therefore heavier than usual, and she had also slid along the branch before dropping down, which draped the ribbon all over the branch. This time, however, she landed halfway up the length of the branch and stayed there, and only managed to get caught at all because of a fork in the branches. Her ribbon had been sitting on top of it, rather than being all tangled up in it, and on the clear summer evening, a breeze had managed to whisk it away.

"That's…not good."

"Id ijn'd?"

"No. Yukkuri without an accessory can't take it easy. Reimu still has her Mister Flap-Flap, but without Miss Ribbon…"

"Bud…awen'd jugguwi who gan'd dage id eajy bad?" the Konitori asked. "Aundie Weimwu ijn'd a bad jugguwi, ij she?"

"No, she isn't…" both Nitori and Marisa agreed. "I know what we'll do," the former said, rolling Reimu off of the leaf bed and into the cave. "I'll go out and try to get Auntie Reimu's miss ribbon back, and in case I can't find it, you work on making her a new one from those leaves."

"Id won'd be aj bweddy aj ve wed wibbon…" the older of the two Komarisas lamented.

"It will still be pretty enough for Reimu to take it easy. Mommy will help you," Marisa said, picking up leaves and trying to make them look like Reimu's ribbon.

The next morning, Reimu awoke to find everyone else sleeping. "Reimu is still alive…Oh! Miss ribbon got caught in the branch again!" She went outside and looked up, only to find that it was not there. "But…where is Miss Ribbon?" She looked at her reflection, and saw no ribbon in her hair, though she thought she could faintly make out some sort of shape. She wasn't able to discern what it was, though, and she was sad. "Reimu cannot take it easy without her ribbon…" She started to cry. "Reimu shouldn't have come back."

"Yuu…Reimu…?" Nitori was still somewhat sleepy.

"No," Reimu said, "I'm nobody."

"You weird yukkuri…" Nitori was fully awake now and grinned, using the former insult as a term of endearment. "Even without your ribbon, Reimu is still Reimu…right? And Reimu has a ribbon. Marisa and babies made it for if Nitori couldn't find Reimu's ribbon."

"Where? Reimu can't see it!"

"Right here," Nitori said, indicating the faintly visible thing in Reimu's reflection, "it's made out of the leaves Reimu gathered."

"It's…not the same…" Reimu said. "…But it is a gift from Nitori's family, so Reimu will treasure it."

"Thank you. Nitori wasn't sure if Reimu would like it."

"…How does Nitori get in and out of her easy place? Mister Lake is a long way down."

"Eh? Nitori just jumps into Mister Waterfall and goes 'sploosh'! And then to get back up Nitori goes Stretch-Stretch and climbs up like…like…" Nitori wasn't really sure how to describe what she did, and ended up tumbling over and over. Reimu wasn't sure what to make of it. Nitori stopped just shy of disturbing the rest of her family.

"Uh…but then how did Marisa get here? She can't Stretch-Stretch like that, can she?"

"N-no…" Nitori wasn't actually sure how Marisa had gotten up there, and thinking about it made it seem like it should have been impossible. That heavy shell should have prevented her from being able to get up the steep slope, shouldn't it? Nitori had carried the babies up the slope in her mouth, and it was kind of rough doing all of those stretchy acrobatics with two shelled Komarisas in her mouth but then again it was always a bit unnerving anyway because she had to move quickly in order to keep from sliding back down and moving quickly was not something that yukkuris liked to do; it was not conducive to taking it easy. "Why are you asking, anyway?"

"Reimu tried to fly away, but Mister Lake was everywhere. Reimu needs to find a way to get to Mister Grass."

"Reimu…" Nitori wasn't sure what to do about the yukkuri. Suddenly she got a thought. "Reimu got past Mister Waterfall?"

"Yes…but…"

"Nitori will help Reimu easy." Nitori went back into the cave and pulled out one of the pieces of driftwood with which she had attempted to build a protective vessel for Reimu. It wasn't terribly large, because Nitori couldn't get large objects up the slope, but it was large enough to comfortably carry a yukkuri. "If Reimu can get down, Nitori can carry Reimu across the water on this."

"…Nitori should take it easy."

"Take it easy?" Nitori replied, confused. Reimu nuzzled up against her.

"Reimu was happy while staying in Nitori's easy place. But this is not Reimu's easy place, right?"

"…Right."

"Reimu will wait until Mister Sun is higher up." While it probably was a better idea to go at noontime anyway, they both knew that Reimu was staying because she didn't want to leave without saying goodbye to the koyukkuris.

"You'we weavin again? Don'choo wuv ush, Aundie Weimu?"

"Of course Reimu loves cute babies. But Reimu cannot take it easy in the water like Marisa and Nitori can. So please…don't cry easy." Everyone was tearing up. Nitori pushed the driftwood into the water and jumped in, and Reimu took off. At first, she was scared, but she turned away from the cliff face once she got out from behind the waterfall and saw Nitori waiting for her with the driftwood. She floated down and landed on top of it, and they set off. "Reimu is sailing!" She drifted across the lake, Nitori pushing her all the way. It was a somewhat bumpy ride because Nitori's only method of steering was to hit the piece of wood repeatedly, and a couple of times Reimu almost fell off, but things went well until shortly after the halfway point of their journey, when suddenly the makeshift raft got a huge jolt, far more than Nitori could provide, and then just as suddenly, it was just floating, as easy as a yukkuri, with no guidance at all. "Nitori? Nitori, where did you go? You didn't leave Reimu again, did you, Nitori? Not now…not here…" She saw a large shadow in the water, and though Reimu didn't know what it was, she knew that it wasn't a good thing. "NITORI?" Two pairs of hair beads floated to the surface. "NITORIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!"

Reimu carefully scooped them out of the water with her hair flaps. They were light. Reimu slipped them onto the flaps, right over the hair tubes. Then she started flying in what she believed to be the direction of the shore. It was a long journey, and she thought she might not make it, but remembering Nitori gave Reimu extra strength, and on sheer willpower, she managed to make it just far enough. She landed in shallow water and quickly scrambled onto the beach. Amazingly, there was her red ribbon, still looking fairly wearable. "Miss Ribbon…" She removed the makeshift ribbon from her hair and looked at it for the first time. "It's beautiful…" Using the lake as her mirror, she tied both ribbons into her hair, neither forming the large bow that she would normally wear, but instead pulling her hair into two pigtails. Just like Nitori wore. She set off, in search of a new home, a new easy place, and new friends. Eventually she found a community, with other Reimus and with non-shelled Marisas, and with Patchoulis and Suwakos and even a non-rapist Alice, and she tried to move in.

They called her a weird yukkuri, because she didn't look like most Reimus, and she started to cry, but the other yukkuris were confused, because Reimu was smiling through her tears. "Yes…Reimu is a weird yukkuri!"

"This one is a country bumpkin who can't take it easy," proclaimed the Alice.

"No. Reimu is Reimu, and Reimu is taking it easy." One of the Marisas told her to drop dead easy, but Reimu just laughed it off, and the others just stared, thinking that Reimu was crazy, but then a Youmu came by and shouted out "Dick!" and it broke the tension, and the other yukkuri decided to accept Reimu, even though they refused to believe that she was really Reimu, because she kind of looked like Reimu, with a big red ribbon and hair flaps, but also kind of looked like Nitori, with pigtails and hair beads.

So the weird Reimu found a home, and eventually ended up mating with a Marisa, and the first year they had babies, Reimu had two Koreimus and a Komarisa, but the next year when the first three became big sisters, there were four: one Reimu, two regular Marisas…and one shelled Marisa. Reimu was in tears as the little one cried, "Dage id eajy!"

Reimu's mate asked her, "Is…is Reimu unhappy with Marisa for making a weird baby?"

"No…this child is a beautiful baby. Take it easy, little ones." She only wished that she could teach her little one to swim, so that she might someday be able to visit Reimu's old friends in the cave behind the waterfall.

"Take it easy, little sisters!" added one of the yearling Koreimus.

The babies responded with another "Dage id eajy!" and with so many yukkuri, it just went back and forth like this until the newborns fell asleep.

A few weeks later, Marisa and her yearlings were gathering food near the beach when Marisa happened to notice four yukkuri exiting the water. She rushed down to them, expecting them to be badly hurt, but to her surprise, they were fine. She then noticed that three of them looked a lot like her strange new baby, and that the fourth somewhat resembled her Reimu, but it was definitely not a Reimu. "Take it easy…who are you? You seem so familiar…"

"Take it easy, just like Mommy and little sis!" added the younger Marisa.

"Little sis…she must be like me," the largest shelled Marisa thought. Looking at the other two children, though, she thought, "Reimu? But Reimu and Nitori are gone…"

"Babies bring Mommy and sisters here easy!" Marisa commanded, and the three of them left while their father stayed on the beach with the aquatic quartet.

"Yu…?" asked the Nitori. "Is something uneasy?"

"No…Marisa's mate just gets a bit weird sometimes, and Marisa thinks weird yukkuri might know why."

In unison, three cries of "Marisa is not a weird yukkuri! Marisa is Marisa!" and one of "Nitori is not a weird yukkuri! Nitori is Nitori!"

"Weird Marisas can go in Mister Lake and not melt. That's weird. Maybe Marisa's baby can go in Mister Lake too? Marisa doesn't want to find out, though. Marisa doesn't want baby to melt. Nitori can go in Mister Lake, too. That's weird, that Nitori and Marisas don't melt in Mister Lake." She thought for a bit. "Nitori is very cute, though. Nitori's hair is kind of like Marisa's Reimu's hair was. Marisa's babies only have one ribbon, but Marisa's Reimu has two, and Marisa's Reimu has beads on her Mister Flap-Flap just like in Nitori's hair." Nitori shrank back at the compliment, but also knew enough to suspect that this Marisa's mate was her oba-san, even though it made no sense.

After Nitori had failed to come back after Reimu left, Marisa and her children subsisted on the remaining leaves for a little while before leaving the cave behind the waterfall. After that, they lived at the bottom of the lake, mainly eating seaweed at first because Marisa lacked Nitori's agility and was unable to catch small fish. Once the young Nitori was older, though, she took care of the fishing, just as her father had. When big fish approached, she would get as low to the bottom of the lake as possible, facing up in case she needed to spit cucumber juice at them (a last resort that Nitoris rarely used because it meant expending their own filling, truly unpleasant and therefore only to be done if death would be imminent), and her mother and sisters would form a circle around her and duck into their shells, which of course meant that Nitori never had to use her cucumber juice. Nitori's father had also never used her cucumber juice defense, not that she even saw the fish approaching on that fateful day, when she had been too caught up in helping her friend get to shore and lamenting that she wouldn't get to see her friend that often, and her family—her babies, who adored "Auntie Reimu" almost as much as they adored their own parents—would get to see her even less often.

"Children? Where is Marisa?" Reimu asked when her older children entered their easy place without their father.

"Daddy's waiting at the beach. We met some odd new yukkuri! Daddy said Mommy should come and bring little sisters. And…Daddy didn't say this, but Reimu thinks Mommy should wear both of her miss ribbons." Because she didn't want to confuse her children, Reimu had stopped wearing her hair in pigtails and went back to a normal Reimu hairstyle when she first got pregnant, but she would switch between the two ribbons on a daily basis, and she still wore the beads on her hair flaps. Her children had asked why Mommy had two miss ribbons, and she explained that she lost hers at one point and some friends had made her a new one, and then later she found her old one so she has two now, and then another time they asked why Mommy's Mister Flap-Flap had "pretty balls" on it when theirs didn't, and she said that the "pretty balls" used to belong to a very close friend and that this friend was gone now, and Mommy wore them so that she would never forget her friend. Once her children were old enough to understand, she had occasionally put her hair up in pigtails again (at Marisa's request), though she mostly stuck to the conventional style and went back to it altogether when she got pregnant again, so the Koreimus knew what her twin-tailed style looked like and began to gather her hair together to put it up "the way Daddy likes it." Yes, Reimu was a bit strange, but Marisa found her quirks to be kind of endearing.

The babies cried when they saw her without her ribbon and then with the alternate hairstyle. "Whewe'j mwommy?"

"Shh. Take it easy, little ones…Mommy's right here."

"Mommy is very special," the elder Komarisa said, "she has two Miss Ribbons instead of one. She's wearing both of them right now, so she looks a little different, but no matter what, Mommy is still Mommy, ze."

The little Koreimu and the shelled Komarisa continued to cry, but the two regular Komarisas stopped. "Weawwy, big shish? Mwommy ij shdiww mwommy?" one asked. Her older sister nodded. "Habbinesh!" She and her sister rubbed against their mother, and their other two sisters followed suit.

"Okay, little ones," Reimu said, satisfied that her children had done her hair up nicely. "Let's go easy."

"Wed'sh go eajy!" repeated the little ones.

As might have been expected, the shelled Marisa started to fall behind the others. "Stop easy," Reimu told her children. She picked up the shelled Marisa and placed her on top of her head.

"Weimwu doo?" the little Koreimu asked.

"Mawisha wansh do wide on mwommy'sh head, doo!" said one of the Komarisas.

"Yeah, why ij widdwe shish ve onwy one who gech do wide on mwommy'sh head?" asked the other.

"Take it easy," Reimu replied, and scooped up the other three as well.

"Whee! Dage id eajy!"

"We'we dagin id eajy on mwommy'sh head!"

Reimu continued to follow her older children to the beach. Next to her mate were three shelled Marisas and a Nitori. "Yu? Little ones…? Not so little anymore, but…"

"Aunt Reimu!" the three smaller yukkuri cried out as one, hopping towards the big Reimu.

"'Aund Weimwu'? You'we an aundie, Mwommy?" asked one of the Marisas.

"Vey awe famiwy!" insisted her younger sister, "Vey god shewwj jushd wige me!"

"It's true, then! You had a baby just like me!" the shelled mother Marisa said. Then she got a better look at Reimu's hair and started laughing. "Oh, you weird yukkuri…" Reimu's children replied, "Mwommy ij nod a weiwd jugguwi! Mwommy ij Mwommy!" but Marisa continued, "you know, most of the time, that would make you an outcast. Taking a dead yukkuri's accessory," she indicated Nitori's beads. "But that's not even a Reimu accessory so maybe it's not a problem." She got somber all of a sudden, realizing that she'd just referred to her mate as "dead".

"Reimu just…didn't want to forget, that's all. Nitori…and all of you, too…were such a big help to Reimu, and she…" Reimu trailed off.

"What happened?"

"Reimu…doesn't know. There was a big jolt, and Reimu got uneasy, and then there was nothing at all and Reimu got really uneasy, and there was a big scary Mister Shadow in the water and Nitori-chan's hair beads were floating, so Reimu decided to wear them. Then Reimu managed to fly all the way to the beach, and Reimu's red Miss Ribbon was there so Reimu decided to tie her hair up like Nitori's was."

"And the green Miss Ribbon?" one of the younger shelled Marisas asked.

"Marisa doesn't remember? Babies and mommy made a new Miss Ribbon for Auntie Reimu when her old one flew away." With the usual yukkuri memory, the children had forgotten that they had made a ribbon for her.

"Can…can Marisa and children go see Reimu's easy place?" the shelled mother Marisa asked.

"Of course. Marisa and Nitori kept Reimu in their easy place when Reimu had nowhere to go, so Marisas and Nitoris can always take it easy with Reimu."

"And when baby gets bigger, you'll let us teach her how to swim?"

Reimu nodded, forgetting that her babies were still sitting on top of her head. They struggled to hang on and ended up tumbling onto the sand. Little shelled Komarisa got stuck shell-end in the sand, so the other young shelled Marisas helped get her upright. And there was plenty of room for more yukkuris in the community, so the four aquatic yukkuris joined in and found a new easy place of their own, right near Reimu's, and at the risk of sounding clichéd, they all lived happily ever after.

CCX: The title at the top was originally, as usual, "Yukkuri Story", with a note following the disclaimer that it probably should be Yukkuri Stories now, and the title of this story, "Reimu's Accessory", coming immediately after this note, but this "short story" started to grow longer and longer, going through a phase where I thought the title "Reimu's Accessory" was a misnomer (she did, after all, get her ribbon back on page 2) before it eventually became an appropriate name again, and while it took some turns for the dramatic that were not originally planned (most notably Nitori's death and everything that came after it), it also had an overall optimistic nature that was so far out of line with the rest of "Yukkuri Story" that I felt it needed to be separate—a separate rating, different genres, the whole shebang. And I did, and maybe now the Yukkuris will leave my head long enough for me to get some more progress on The Adventures of Team 9 Catering—even with this one being posted separately, "Yukkuri Story" has a higher word count than The Adventures of Team 9 Catering at the moment. Ja ne!