Saigyou didn't want to fight anyone, especially in his injured state. Even with the sword, he was still outnumbered, and a forest fire this deep in the forest would kill him, either through smoke inhalation or being burned alive. He wasn't immortal anymore, so he couldn't kill those he didn't like without consequences. Sighing to himself, he attempted to converse with the hostile ladies.

"Who are you and why did you try to vaporize me?" he said, rather calmly. He felt that if he would be civilized, so would they.

"How did you come back?" the green were-hakutaku asked tensely, completely ignoring his questions.

Saigyou realized that they knew who he was, despite his new appearance. Playing dumb would just make the situation worse. Sighing, he tried to answer the question. "Honestly, I don't know. I simply–."

"I already know what you did, Saigyou," the green girl said. "And so far, what you have done since you returned is questionable at best. Therefore, Mokou and I are going to remove you from Gensokyo before you do something horrible to it or it's people." At these words, she dashed towards Saigyou.

He summoned a wall of roots to block the were-hakutaku, who quickly fired a barrage of danmaku in an attempt to break it. Saigyou jumped out of the way as the roots were shredded by the assault. Just as he landed, however, the red girl, Mokou, attacked from above, slamming him into the ground in a fiery explosion. In agony, Saigyou summoned a root, which quickly impaled Mokou from behind, who fell dead on top of him as the root retracted back into the earth. He immediately pushed the corpse off of him and stood to face the charging horns of the green girl. As she approached Saigyou, he commanded the trees behind him to drop their cherry blossoms. As they fell, he fired them at her. Not expecting this, the were-hakutaku panicked, quickly forgeting about her target and focusing on dodging the now-deadly blossoms. Saigyou decided to take this opportunity and began to sprint for his sword, only to be stopped by a wall of fire in front of him. He turned around, not expecting Mokou to be standing there, completely unscathed by the impaling.

"You will not lay a finger on that sword, demon tree," Mokou said, completely covered in fire. "Immortal 「Fire Bird -Flying Phoenix-」!"

Saigyou barely dodged the blasts of fire that followed those words. Preoccupied with Mokou, he had no chance to dodge the barrage of lasers that came from his left. The impact sent him flying dozens of feet into the air. Mokou followed Saigyou until he stopped rising. She then rammed into him and forced him into the center of a peaceful meadow. Anything within a 20-foot radius was set ablaze around a 10-foot wide crater, which was three feet deep. Mokou jumped off of Saigyou, who struggled to his feet. He saw the green girl emerge from the forest to join the fray once more. Saigyou was bloodied and bruised, his left arm broken and limp at his side. His mouth dripped blood constantly due to at least two crushed, non-essential organs. As both girls charged for another barrage of bullets, he closed his eyes, preparing for his end. He heard two consecutive explosions, coupled with an ungodly bright light shining through his eyelids. He waited or their attacks to hit.

Nothing happened.

A few seconds after the light show ended, Saigyou opened his eyes. About five feet in front of him was a person he had seen a multitude of times in his previous life. Someone he had not even expected to see, despite the current location. Someone he didn't even think would live longer than him, given her cocky attitude when fighting others. In front of him was a green-haired girl wearing a red-and-white plaid outfit. She was screaming obscenities and laughing maniacally whilst firing pillars of light from her parasol. Her targets were his two attackers, who were now fleeing in terror from an identically-looking girl doing the same. When they disappeared over the horizon. The girl turned around and stared at Saigyou with intrigue. After about a minute, she finally talked.

"Do I... know you from somewhere? You look familiar for some reason."

He took a deep breath, he replied, "My name is Saigyou Ayakashi."

The girl narrowed her eyes. "Really? Forgive me for saying this, but I'm going to need proof."

"Your name is Yuka Kazami. You occasionally talked to me, as I was a very unique plant," Saigyou said.

The girl, now known as Yuka, scoffed. "So? I talked to a lot of plants in my life. It's easy for somebody to assume that."

To that, Saigyou simply said, "Scarlet panty raid."

"O-okay, stop! I believe you!" she yelled, panicky. "But, if you really are the Saigyou Ayakashi, how come you look like you do now?"

"It's kind of a long story, and if you hadn't noticed yet, I feel like shit." Saigyou already felt the adrenaline leaving his body, being replaced by aches, pain, and tunnel vision.

"Don't worry, you won't die. I take care of plants, so I'll take care of you." Yuka said. It was the last thing he heard before darkness took over.

When he woke up, he was on a bed in a room with flowers in it. "Why did I expect this?" he asked himself sarcastically, shaking his head. As he got up, he noticed he looked as good as new, despite the condition he was in earlier. He exited the room into a hallway to look for Yuka. As soon as the door opened, he heard her voice.

"About time you woke up," she said.

Saigyou followed the voice and turned a corner. Yuka was sitting in a kitchen, sipping tea lazily. "You don't sound too happy. What, are you actually not a morning person?" He chuckled as he sat down and poured himself some tea into an extra cup.

"No, I'm not, and I didn't say you could have my tea, Saigyou." She glared at him menacingly.

"Oh, sorry. I didn't know," he said as he poured it back in the teapot. "So how did you manage to heal me? I don't recall you being able to heal others that fast."

Yuka giggled. "First off, you were out for three days."

"Wait, what!? Three days!?" Saigyou blurted out, stunned.

"Second," Yuka continued, ignoring him, "I tested out the method I use to heal myself on you, and you healed relatively quickly."

Still slightly miffed about the previous statement, he became thoroughly cunfused. "Okay, but how? I'm not a youkai tree anymore. How did it work?"

"True, you are no longer a youkai tree. You are, however, still a tree youkai, although humanoid in shape," Yuka responded, rather proud of knowing more than Saigyou.

He sat there for a moment, thinking about what this meant. "So, if I'm a tree youkai, then I can do the same things as I could before? Including using sunlight as food?"

"Other than the weaker body, pretty much,"She replied.

Saigyou began to smile. The smile guickly gave way to chuckling. "I could have easily avoided the issue with those two girls." Suddenly, a new thought entered his head. Immediately, his expression turned serious. "Yuka, I need to be stronger. I must be prepared for a fight, should I be unable to talk my way out of one. Seeing as both of us are pllant youkai–?"

"Sure, I don't see why not." she chimed, before taking another sip of tea.

Two days later...

"Why won't you stand still!?" one Yuka yelled, firing off a Dual Spark as the other fired at Saigyou from the side. He nimbly dogded through the air, barely missing the second shot.

"'Cause your Dual Spark hurts like hell!" he replied, before sending a barrage of blossoms back at her. He had trained exceptionally well over the past two days. In the short amount of time, he had honed his abilities. Capable of firing danmaku at a high rate, he overwhelmed the two Yukas with a literal explosion of petals. They both fell to the ground, exhausted. Saigyou quickly landed to help the Yukas, who became a single one just before he arrived.

"Damn... I didn't even... hold back that time..." Yuka panted, holding herself up by her hands and knees.

He extented a hand towards her. "Do you need help getting up, or are you going to stay here and watch then flowers grow?"

Yuka pushed his hand away as she got herself up. "Shut up, I'm fine... I just need... to rest..." Catching her breath, she continued. "Your skills have gotten too good for me, Saigyou. If we keep this up, my stubbornness will be the end of me. Besides, I taught you all you need to know." she said, smiling.

"Thank you." he said. Yuka began to walk to her home, so he followed her. "Listen, I've been thinking..."

"About what?" Yuka asked.

"About what I'm going to do exactly. I can't go killing randomly again, right?"

"True."

"So I think I'll just explore and see what has changed since I died."

"I think you'll like doing that. You missed quite a bit," Yuka stated, having reached her house. "So, will you be leaving now?"

"Yes, I will. I'll see you later, alright?" Saigyou said, turning around. As he approached the exit of her territory, which was 'guarded' by a currently-sleeping woman, he heard Yuka yell, "Don't you dare tell anyone anything about the stuff I told you back then!!"

Saigyou chuckled as he went through the threshold.