The Dark Side of the Moon

They had to hold her back to keep her from rushing forward. That didn't mean she didn't see.

Her brother's head sat on the table, surrounded by the blood-stained folds of the package that it had arrived in. Father was standing over it, staring down at the remains of his eldest son. Though he said nothing, though he did not move, wordless rage was boiling all over his face.

"Umakai?" the girl cried as the servants tried to restrain her. "Umakai! No, let go of me! Umakai!"

Father's eyes flashed in her direction. At first it seemed that he was about to rebuke her for her emotional outburst, but as he watched his daughter reach for her brother, the anger on his face broke into poorly concealed grief. His eyes fell and he said, "Get her out of here."

The servants started to move her from the room. Even though she was still a small slip of a girl, she continued to struggle against them as she cried out for her brother. The air around her hands grew warmer as smoke started to rise from her fingertips.

And then someone said her name. The servants' hands suddenly disappeared, soon followed by the heat she had gathered. A soft hand slipped into hers. She looked up to see the face of her remaining brother looking down at her.

"Come on, little sister," he said. It was clear that he was struggling to keep his voice calm for her benefit.

Her brother led her from the room and out of the house. There, they sat on the porch together and stared at the garden. The day was deceptively peaceful, with the small brook babbling as it wound its way around the rocks and the sparrows chirping as they flitted among the sunlit branches.

This was wrong, the girl decided. The House of Fujiwara had lost its heir. Her brother had been murdered. The garden should somehow reflect this. It should know of the wrong done to the family that had tended and cared for it.

"Little sister, your hands are smoking again," her brother said.

She looked down saw that he was right. Not only that, she was gripping the side of the porch with her shaking fingers. If she didn't reestablish control, she could risk sending the whole place up in flames.

She quickly released the porch and held her hands in the air before her while she struggled to bring her power under control. When she could, she said, "How…"

"Pirates," her brother said. "Hired by the Sonozika family." He did not meet her eyes. Perhaps he was ashamed that she would see his tears.

"They did that to him?" she whispered.

"Yes."

"Why?"

"To send a message to Father. They mean to go to war."

"But…but…" She stared through tear-filled eyes at her hands. When it had been discovered what she could do, the whole family had been ecstatic. A daughter who could create and control fire itself? The possibilities were endless! They would hold the monopoly on metalwork and construction, and that was just scratching the surface. She remembered Father boasting about how no one would dare assault the Family and how proud she had been to know that she was the cause of his happiness.

But now, she wanted nothing more than to go find the Sonozika family and use her gift to wipe it off the face of the Earth. After that, the pirates that they had hired. Sure, they had only done it for gold, but it had been their blade that had separated her brother's head from his body. His blood was on their hands. As such, their lives were forfeit.

Her vision blurred as her hands started shaking. Smoke rose up from her palms and the air filled with the smell of sulfur.

Then her brother yelled her named and grabbed her wrist, halting the inferno in its tracks. Surprised, she stared at him with wet and questioning eyes.

"That is not the way," he said firmly.

"But…"

"The Sonozikas have been preparing for this for a long time. Do you think that they do not know what you can do? They've been hiring magicians, ones that can also command the elements. Word has it that they've even courted the services of Madam Mima herself. To go against them would be to throw your life away. Do you think that Umakai would have wanted that? Has this family not lost enough members already?"

"I…" She struggled to think of a response. She wanted to protest, to declare that it didn't matter what preparations the Sonozikas had. They could not be allowed to get away with what they had done. They deserved to be incinerated, to be broken and scattered, to have their home turned to ash and their land set aflame. But she couldn't. Because her brother was right. She couldn't win that fight, especially if the witch Madam Mima were opposing her. She would die in the attempt, and her family would have lost its greatest weapon. And then her father and brother would be the only ones left.

A wave of helplessness rose up within her and broke the dam holding back her grief. She fell against her brother's chest as she wept. Fortunately, like Father, he did not reprimand her for her loss of control. He just put an arm around her shoulder and let her cry.

"Don't worry, we'll find a way," he said. "We'll…" He swallowed and continued. "We'll find a way to avenge him. We won't let them win. You'll see."

She nodded. If there was one thing she knew for certain, it was that. Even if she could not go and deliver their vengeance to the Sonozikas, the Fujiwara family was going to be revenged. And when that happened, magicians or no magicians, they had better pray that there was someone on hand to…

…hold her back to keep her from rushing forward.

"No!" Kaguya yelled as Mokou and Rumia gripped her arms. "We can't be back here!"

"Why the hell not?" Mokou growled. This was getting annoying. "You came from this place! You telling me you never…Ah, damn."

Kaguya had slipped her sleeves, leaving Mokou and Rumia holding an empty robe. The Lunar Princess dodged her way through the maze of Zerg body parts, bounded up the stern and started spinning the helm in a blurring circle.

"Turn us around!" she cried. "Take us back! The Zerg were better than this! Where's the water, we need to find the-"

She didn't get much further than that, as Mokou had leapt up after her and slammed a fist right into Kaguya's face. Kaguya's eyes bulged and she was lifted right off her feet. She flew back and smacked her head against the stern. That stupid hat of hers tumbled to her feet.

Mokou grinned as Kaguya slid lifelessly to the deck. While the terms of their truce had been quite specific considering methods of murder, it was a bit on the vague side when it dealt with punching each other out. She loved loopholes.

"Well, that's one way of calming her down," Rumia remarked as she walked up to the pair. "What the hell was that all about? I thought she grew up here."

Mokou picked up Kaguya's green silk hat. "Yeah, as the youngest of a royal family with a hierarchy based upon gender and order of birth. She was pretty much just a piece of furniture, with absolutely no worth to her family save to be married off for some political agenda or another. So she and Eirin Yagokoro went and turned her into the first true immortal as a way to elevate her status to the top of the heap. That backfired spectacularly, and she got kicked out. Then she moved to Earth and discovered that she liked it a whole lot better than this place. I guess having people actually pay attention to her for once endeared her to it. She and Yagokoro even went and screwed up with the rotation of the Earth once just to keep from going back."

Rumia tilted her head to one side. "You've given this a whole lot of thought."

"Hey, try being someone's mortal enemy for hundreds of years. You pick up on a few things."

"Huh. So, what kind of trouble can we expect here?"

Mokou shrugged. "You've got me. Never been here before." She tossed the hat overboard and felt a strange measure of pleasure and irritation when it sank into the dust, just as if it had landed in water. "We'll probably be meeting her family sooner or later. Or maybe those psycho Watatsuki sisters that made trouble a little while ago."

"I'm really not following any of this."

"Too bad, I don't feel like explaining. I'll leave that to her."

Mokou walked over to Kaguya, who was starting to stir. "Hey, come on Moonbitch," she said. She started poking Kaguya's cheeks. "Wakey, wakey, Rumia needs some exposition."

Kaguya's dazed eyes focused. With a hiss, she lunged for Mokou's head, likely intending to give it a sharp twist. Mokou, who had been expecting just that, simply rolled out of the way.

"Ah, ah, ah, no killing, remember?" Mokou said. "Now, get up."

Kaguya groaned as she pushed herself to a sitting position. Then she looked up.

It was kind of funny, watching all the hope drain from her like that. One moment she was grimacing with the dazedness that usually follows unconsciousness, and the next it melted away into crushing despair. Mokou made a note of that. Kaguya's lunarphobia was something she could exploit in the future.

"We're still here," Kaguya said as she stared at the glimmering orb of the Earth.

"Yep," Mokou said. "Home sweet home. At least for you."

Kaguya gave her a look of utter disgust. "Anything but," she said as she braced her hands against the stern and pushed herself up. "We need to get out of here. Now."

"Why?" Rumia asked. "I mean, this place is weird and all, but what makes it any more dangerous than any place else we're likely to find on this horror show?"

Kaguya already looked upset. But as Rumia spoke, those feeling ignited into anger. She stomped over to where the lockpick was standing and shoved her face into Rumia's. "You ignorant fool. Don't you get it? I hate this place. I'll do anything to stay away from here. There are a lot of bad memories about this chunk of rock. So, where do you think the majority of my nightmares for the last several centuries have taken place?"

"All right, I get it," Rumia said as she pushed Kaguya's face away. "So if you're such an expert on how screwed up this place is, how about you give the rest of us a little bit of a head's-up on what we can expect?"

Her question went unanswered. There was a sudden sound of something crunching as the ship gave a violent lurch, knocking both Kaguya and Mokou off their feet sending them tumbling onto the deck. Rumia stumbled and clutched at the helm for support. The Kobayashi Maru tilted to one side as a nerve-harrying scraping sound filled their ears.

"What's going on?" Mokou shouted as she threw her arms around the mast. "Are we under attack?"

Kaguya didn't answer. She was too busy grasping for something to hang onto as she tumbled and rolled down the sloping deck.

The ship continued to tip over. The mast had ceased to be vertical and was now flirting with a diagonal state. Soon that relationship would run its course and it would move on to horizontal. Mokou grunted as she hauled herself around the mast. She then sprung off the side. Her family's ceremonial blade flashed as she yanked it out and stabbed it into the gore-stained deck. Mokou kept a firm grip on the handle as she braced her legs against the deck, which was now looking an awful like a wall. She shoved off, flipping herself up and over the sword. The Kobayashi Maru was fortunately not a large ship, but Mokou still had to stretch her legs to their fullest length in order to wrap around the railing.

Now, hauling one's self up and over a railing with nothing more than the strength of your midsection while holding on to said railing with your legs and yanking a sword out of a wooden beam was a task that even a skilled gymnast would find daunting, especially when the railing so happened to be moving forward at the time. Fortunately, Mokou had lived a long and varied life. And as such she was soon crouching on the side of the ship with her blade in hand, having exerted herself no more than any number of times she had to move quickly in order to avoid one of Kaguya's attacks.

What she saw next suggested that perhaps she was going to have to exert herself just a little more.

A pillar of wrinkled stone was thrusting itself out of the ground. It was the same fine grey color as the dust they had been plowing through, and thick enough that five people touching fingertips would have been required to wrap their arms around its body. And, as if to serve no other reason than to remind Mokou that the world that she was in made no sense whatsoever, white lilies dotted its body, blissfully unaware that they had no business growing there.

Mokou gaped as she watched it shoot higher and higher. The thing was almost thirty feet tall and showed no signs of slowing down.

"Gods, it looks like a giant, maggot-covered turd," said a nearby voice.

Mokou turned to see Rumia crouching next to her, her gold-hilted blade in hand. "Yeah, it kind of does," Mokou said. "And how did you get up here so fast?"

"Same way I did," Kaguya snapped as she jogged up to the pair. "She freaking flew!"

"Seriously Mokou, this is like the second time you forgot that you don't have to climb anywhere," Rumia said. "I mean, okay, that was an impressive display just now, but completely unnecessary."

Mokou was struck with the familiar urge to set them both alight. Partially because they were both so thoroughly irritating, but mostly because they were right. True, her powers had been malfunctioning ever since they had found themselves here, and it would be wise not to put too much faith in them. But still, she hadn't even attempted flight at all. Checking to see if it were still possible would have taken as much time as thought, and while her efforts had not been exactly strenuous, a single misstep could have easily escalated into a fatal error. And as she had been operating under the presumption that she was subject to gravity's whim, there had been every likelihood that she would have found herself tumbling to the sea of dust and petals.

That was one of the many, many things she hated about this place. Until now, her life had been one of comfortable routine. Certainly her living conditions were less than stellar, and she had to suffer through regular bouts of excruciating pain at Kaguya's hands, but that had been going on so long that it had ceased to impress. And at least then there had been a feeling of sureness about how things worked. If she wanted to fly, her feet left the ground. If she wanted to summon flame into existence, there would be a ball of heat and light hovering over her palm. And sooner or later, either she or Kaguya would seek the other out and they would fight until someone ended up dead. And then that someone would resurrect and the cycle would begin anew. There was no question if things might change. There was no uncertainty regarding her ability to fly or whether or not she was going to return fully from death. It simply happened.

But now that certainty was being called into question. She no longer could trust her own abilities, which to date had been just as much a part of her as her hair and hands. Uncertainty led to self-doubt, which in turn threatened to erode the foundation of everything that made her the person she was. And why in the world was she sitting on the side of a tipping ship having an internal moral debate when there was a giant monster covered in flowers coming out of the ground not ten feet away?

The thing had stopped rising. It was now at least forty feet tall. It reared back so that the elongated point of its tip was directed toward them. The tip separated into six flaps, which opened like the peels of a banana, revealing the thing's gullet.

It roared at them.

Mokou's nose wrinkled as the thing's rank breath washed over them. Then, more out of curiosity than anything, she pointed a finger at the worm and gave a mental command. A beam of flame, no thicker than a chopstick but hot enough to cut through steel, lanced out from her fingertip and slammed into the worm's side.

It didn't even notice.

Well, there went that idea. "Run!" she yelled as she turned around and leapt from the side of the ship. "Fly! Whatever!"

To her relief, her body remained in the air as it was supposed to. She kept her arms pinned to her sides and her face straight forward as she shot forward, putting as much distance between her and the ship as possible.

"Wait!" she heard Rumia call.

Mokou looked over her shoulder and saw the self-proclaimed lockpick following close behind. She was waving frantically at Mokou, gesturing for her to stop. With a grimace of annoyance Mokou adjusted her flight path to take her straight up, putting a comfortable distance between her and the Moon before coming to a stop.

"What?" she shouted as Rumia caught up.

Rumia shoved her feet in front of her as she slowed, almost as if she were skidding across solid ground. "We forgot Kaguya!" she yelled.

Mokou gaped at her. "What? She was right behind…" She blinked and looked back toward the Kobayashi Maru.

The giant worm thing was still focused on the overturned ship. It was rearing its blind head back, no doubt intending to smash right through the Kobayashi Maru's hull. Mokou squinted her eyes and focused on the ship itself. Though her eyesight was exceptional, she could only just make out a tiny figure sitting directly beneath the worm's head.

Mokou slapped a palm against her forehead in disbelief. "Oh, are you kidding me?" she said. "She's still there?"

"We need to go back for her!" Rumia shouted. She grabbed Mokou by the wrist. "We can't get out of here without-Owwww!" She immediately released Mokou's arm and starting blowing on her fingertips, all of which were now slightly singed.

"Don't touch me," Mokou growled. She redirected her focus on the miniscule figure of the person she hated the most, who was still cowering in the worm's shadow. Her eyes narrowed, and her grip on her sword tightened.

...

Out of all of our people's forays into the world of genetic manipulation, the velmick is perhaps our greatest success. At the same time, it is our most disastrous failure.

Somewhere in the furthest recesses of her mind, Kaguya was back in school, listening to Eirin recite her lesson for the day. Out of the many childhood memories that had been lost to the trek of time, this was one that had always managed to remain with her. It made a certain amount of sense, as it was devoted to the creation of one of the Moon's greatest monsters, something Kaguya had always found relevant to her interests.

created to be the perfect defense against invaders. Undetectable despite their incredible size. Tough enough to survive the vacuum of space. Impervious to most weapons. Fast enough to catch a spacecraft flying overhead. Strong enough to rend its hull apart and devour everything inside.

Of course, her fascination with such creatures was not the only reason why this moment stuck out in her mind. Everyone was afraid of the velmick, especially children. It was common for parents to appeal to the worms as a means of instilling obedience. "Do as I say, or the velmick will come for you." Or perhaps, "Go to bed, or I'll tell the velmick." And Kaguya was no exception. Many of her earliest nightmares had involved the monsters.

succeeded beyond everyone's expectations. The creatures were as powerful as they were vicious, swift as they were relentless. And thanks to some, ahem, "special" engineering, they were equipped with senses beyond what nature was capable of gifting, allowing them to sense prey through the very fabric of space itself…

And therein had laid the problem. Though the Lunarian scientists were successful in creating the perfect monster, they had failed to come up with a way to control them. Originally the velmick were to be directed remotely by signals beamed into their nervous systems, but the same super-thick hide that had been designed as a protection against the vacuum of space also prevented any transmissions from entering. Any sort of device injected into the creatures would quickly become crushed in the folds of stony flesh. Their own physiology made sedating them impossible. And thanks to how they had been designed, the creatures were entirely incapable of being trained.

destroying them was, of course, out of the question. A considerable amount of money and resources had gone into their creation, and no one wanted that to go to waste. Instead, they were contained, sealed off in a special facility until a solution could be found…

That had been the idea, at least. Keep the worms locked away until the best and brightest could figure out a way to make them follow commands. Unfortunately, the velmick had been intended for wide open areas. As such, they did not take kindly to being held in a small space.

Long story short, they had escaped. People died, and the worms had made it to the open plains of the Moon. And from there, they started to breed.

All of this had taken place a long time ago. Now, all Lunarian settlements were heavily protected by forcefields, specially reinforced walls, and a considerable amount of space/time warping. The velmick roamed the wide wastes and continued to be a clear and present danger to anyone foolish enough to wander into their territory. There weren't very many of them. They did not reproduce easily. But they did not die easily either. And all you needed was one to ruin your whole day.

Eirin's lesson had been very thorough. It had to be. The velmick were incredibly dangerous. No one had known that better than her. After all, she had been their principle designer. And she had wanted Kaguya to learn from her mistake, to learn that sometimes misdirected successes could wreak more destruction than outright failures. That had been the intention at least. But really, all it had done was give a young Kaguya Houraisan nightmares. Lots and lots of nightmares, all of them involving her fleeing for her life while being pursued by a relentless predator burrowing its way beneath the surface. She could never see it, but she always knew it was there, following her every step of the way, ready to seize her in its jaws and pull her down into the earth…

Of course, after her rise to immortality and subsequent exile, she had found new things to haunt her dreams. Dramatic fears replaced the primal, and giant carnivorous worms had been replaced by the taunting and bloated faces of her those who had tried to hold her down. She had expected to see those faces again upon their arrival. That had been what she had feared. To relive the pain and humiliation all over again.

But that was not the case. Her oldest nightmare had returned, resurrected from whatever deep recesses of her subconscious had been serving as its crypt. And it was not happy that it had been forgotten.

The flowers were new though. She couldn't account for those.

Kaguya stared as the velmick hovered over her. Though it had no eyes, it gave off the impression that it was staring at her. Though she knew that she should be fleeing, her body ignored all commands to move. She was paralyzed by fear, incapable of doing anything as the point of its massive head opened and spread wide. It reared upward, preparing to strike.

And then a red-and-white blur slammed into her side with enough force to carry her out of the way as the velmick slammed its head right where she had been kneeling. There was a horribly familiar feeling of something in her lower back coming apart, and suddenly her legs ceased to work. The impact had snapped her spine.

Despite this, she cried out more in surprise than pain. The destruction of her backbone was nothing new. What was worthy of comment was that Mokou was now carrying her up and away, out of harm's reach.

Slung over Mokou's shoulder, Kaguya could only stare numbly as the velmick hammered her ship with its pointed head. The hull was splintered in two and the mast smashed to pieces. But that alone was not enough to appease the monster's spite, as it then wrapped its body around the ship's wreckage.

It drew its coils in tight, and the Kobayashi Maru was crushed to kindling.

...

Saving Kaguya's life was a new experience for Mokou. And had she not been occupied with putting enough distance between them and the giant worm thing as possible, she might have found it deeply troubling. However, there was in fact a giant worm thing lusting for their blood. So any possible moral crises would have to wait.

At the moment, her attention was focused on the sphere of the Earth. Mokou had come to agree with Kaguya's position that the Moon was not a place they wanted to be. And as such, so long as the dream would allow them to fly through space without suffering any ill effects, she was going to fly them straight back to their home planet. With any luck, Kaguya would burn up upon entry to the atmosphere.

Rumia was hovering above them, waiting. She held up her hands and shouted for them to stop. Mokou ignored her. Escape now, worry about picking up the pieces of their quest later.

She zeroed in on the Earth, increased her speed and…

A moment later Mokou blinking spots out of her vision and wishing her head didn't feel like it was full of liquid. Her neck was doing that funny little twitching thing that always happened whenever it healed after a break. Warm blood was splattered all over her face, presumably related to the fact that her nose was now quite flat.

"Wha…what" she managed to mutter.

"That's what I was trying to tell you, you idiot!" Rumia shouted at her. "It's a fake! You smashed right into it!"

Her neck was now sufficiently healed enough to turn. To her chagrin, Rumia was holding both her and Kaguya aloft by their shirts.

"Let go!" Mokou shouted as she twisted out of Rumia's grip and immediately put a comfortable distance between them. She growled and twisted her still-healing neck back and forth, popping the vertebrae into their proper position.

"Fine," Rumia said as she hefted Kaguya up into both hands. "You can just fall to your very messy death next time."

Mokou didn't even bother dignifying that with a response. However, her eyes narrowed when she saw that Rumia was wearing her family blade in addition to her own. "What the hell happened?" she asked. "And why do you have my sword?" She touched her crushed nose, feeling it slowly expand back to its usual size.

Rumia pointed up. "You ran face-first into that and dropped your sword. I save both it and you, so say 'Thank you'. Also, most of India is now flooded with your blood."

Confused, Mokou stared up at the Earth. A large blood splatter now covered a good chunk of one of peninsulas.

A numb feeling swept through her that had nothing to do with her recently broken neck. Mokou flew up to the Earth, cautiously this time. When it looked close enough to touch, she reached out with one hand and touched it.

Her fingers pressed against painted metal.

"No," she said. She immediately darted several feet above the false planet and shoved her hand against what appeared to be the emptiness of space. But the void turned out to be more metal covered with black paint and studded with tiny glowing crystals.

"No," Mokou said again. She desperately patted illusion with both hands, searching for a way out. "No, no, no! You are not going to trap me in here! Not with that thing, and not with them!" She swooped back to the representation of Earth and pounded her fist against it.

"Open up, you hear me!" she shouted. "Come out and face me in person! Or are you too scared, you-"

"Mokou, look out!"

Mokou turned and saw, to her utter dismay, that the giant worm thing was now lunging for her, its mouth wide open. The fact that she was nearly eighty feet in the air did not seem to discourage it.

She did not have enough time to move out of the way. She didn't even have enough time for some sort of sardonic observation. She only had time to acknowledge her impending demise before the thing engulfed her and swallowed her whole.

...

Kaguya was not at her best.

This had nothing to do with the fact that she had just been paralyzed from the waist down. That was a temporary inconvenience and would soon be forgotten as soon as her spine finished knitting itself back together. No, her ragged state of mind was due to a quick succession of emotional shocks, each of them different but more-or-less equally poignant.

First, there had been the sudden transition from sailing upon the open seas to plowing through the surface of the absolute last place she wanted to be. As soon as it had dawned upon her where they were, literally hundreds of memories of terrifying dreams revolving around the Moon had come rushing back, and the knowledge that she might very well be experiencing each and every one of them had shaken her far more than she had thought possible.

And then, if only to confirm her fears, there had been the sudden reappearance of one of her childhood nightmares. Running from those monsters in her dreams had been bad enough. To have one actually stare down at her was nothing short of terrifying. That had been enough to numb her mind and paralyze her with fear.

The indignation of having to watch said nightmare destroy the Kobayashi Maru while she was whisked to safety by Mokou of all people had partially jolted her brain back into action, but it had not restored her to a rational state of mind. Quite the opposite, in fact. She had liked that boat. Sure, it wasn't exactly a luxury yacht (or even real, for that matter), but it had been hers. She had delivered the blow that had delivered it from the hands of its previous master. And then she had watched it get crushed to scrap wood while she had been helpless to defend it. And it was only because of Mokou's quick actions that she had not suffered the same fate. That upset her. She had failed in her duty as captain and as party leader.

And then insult had been added to injury when that same worm had swallowed up her arch-nemesis. Normally Kaguya would be ecstatic. Mokou's immortality meant that she had a long and excruciating trip ahead of her, being digested and regenerating only to be digested all over again, until the worm finally shat her out. Extreme suffering coupled with equally extreme humiliation. That would be enough to put her score so high that Mokou would have to successfully kill her every night for a full century before she even had a hope of catching up. But today, the thought gave her no joy. Mokou had been in the act of trying to save her when the velmick had caught her. And it was not by Kaguya's will that she had been devoured in the first place. In short, the velmick had killed one of her party members and stolen her kill at the same time. Killing Mokou was her exclusive privilege. And no overgrown child's fear dragged out from the recesses of her unconscious mind was going to disrespect that.

The worm needed to die. It needed to die a lot.

Kaguya tried to wiggle her toes and found that she could. Then twisted her body out of Rumia's grasp. Rumia's attention had been focused on the worm and as such was taken by surprise.

"What are you doing?" she hissed. "You better not be planning anything stupid."

In truth, Kaguya was not. She really wasn't planning much of anything. By this point, she was operating on pure killer instinct, honed over centuries of use.

When the velmick gobbled Mokou up, it had kept going and thus smashed right through the painted depiction of Earth. Its head was still in the resulting hole, forming a long heaving column of mottled grey flesh and white flowers that stretched all the way from the dusty surface of the Moon to the illusionary planet. Looking at it now, Kaguya wondered why she had been so scared of it. After all, it was just a big worm. Sure it was big and dangerous, but so had been many other things she had been forced to deal with over the years.

"Ha…" she murmured as blue energy collected around her palms.

She held her hands together, letting the power grow, forming a crackling sphere.

"…do…"

Then, once it was large enough, she hurled it toward the velmick with all her might.

"KEN!"

It hit, but there was no reaction. The velmick didn't seem to even notice.

This only served to anger Kaguya further. Of course a velmick's hide would be too thick to let something like that hurt it, but given how many rules of reality this dream had ignored thus far, this was the one it decided to obey?

"Hadoken!" she cried, launching another ball of blue energy. "Hadoken! Hadoken! Come on, do something alrea-glurk!"

Rumia had grabbed her neck in a sleeper hold and was now forcefully pulling her away. Acting on instinct, Kaguya jabbed an elbow into the lockpick's midsection, or at least tried to anyway. Rumia had evidently been expecting this and rewarded her efforts by twisting out of the way and throwing Kaguya a good ten feet through the air.

"Are you nuts?" Rumia shouted. "Stop trying to get its attention!"

Kaguya considered turning her assault on Rumia. If nothing else it would make her feel better. "I'm not trying to get its attention, I'm trying to kill it!"

"Like that? You're an idiot! It's a velmick! You of all people should know better!"

"I don't care. That thing doesn't scare me. I need to…"

The velmick finally noticed that its prey was not to be found on the other side of Earth and yanked its head out of the hole. It swung around toward Kaguya and Rumia and bellowed.

Oh right. That was why Kaguya was scared of it.

Kaguya and Rumia threw themselves in opposite direction as the velmick lunged at them. It focused on Rumia and followed, snapping at her feet. Rumia was quick enough to keep out of reach, but the worm was relentless.

"Hey!" Rumia said as she dodged snap after snap. "Kaguya! A! Little! Help! Here!"

Kaguya looked at her and sighed. She held her arms above her head. Yellow energy surged up toward her hands and she shot it out in the form of a whistling comet. It exploded into sparks against the velmick's body. Several flowers were blasted away but there was no other effect.

"Right, already established that this wouldn't work," Kaguya said. "What would Prince Paul do? Okay, stupid question. Different kind of worm, so that means-"

Then her eyes fell upon the jagged hole that had been smashed out of the Earth.

"Rumia!" Kaguya shouted. She pointed. "Go for the hole!"

"Go for the what?" Rumia shouted back.

Kaguya was already making her way toward the exit. "The hole! Go for the hole!"

"What?" Rumia had managed to get behind the velmick's jaws and was now clinging to its body for dear life as the worm thrashed and bucked. "The bowl of what?"

"The hole, you idiot!" Kaguya screamed. She was now at the Earth herself. "There's a hole in the world!"

Rumia glanced at her. Her eyes widened when she saw what Kaguya was indicating. She released her hold on the worm and shot towards the hole, the velmick in hot pursuit.

Not interested in waiting, Kaguya shot through the Earth and came out the other side. She had no idea where it would take her, but anywhere had to be better than here.

...

At that moment, Mokou was just starting to slide down the velmick's gullet. Though its interior was not as hard as its outside, the muscles of its throat were still incredibly strong. She tried to shove her feet into its sides, but it was a futile effort. The muscles contracted, and her body was crushed.

...

To her dismay, the first thing Kaguya noticed as soon as she came out the other side was that the new sky above her was still an inky void filled with unblinking stars and the full sphere of the Earth. She had been nurturing a frantic hope that going through the hole would let her escape from the Moon, perhaps even take her to some sort of dream-representation of Gensokyo. That she could handle. Even if things went freaky again, at least she would be somewhere she was comfortable with. But apparently that was not to be.

The second thing she noticed was that she could no longer fly.

Kaguya screamed in surprise as her upward path suddenly curved against her will and the white (white?) ground rushed up to meet her. Then everything was a confusing mess of tumbling, rolling and softness (softness? What?) on a downhill slant before she finally came to a stop.

Kaguya shook the dazedness away and sat up. She was near the foot of a gently sloping hill. At first she thought that she was surrounded by snow. Certainly all visible ground was covered with half-a-foot of white matter. But upon further inspection she saw that it was not snow, but flower petals. An endless sea of fallen flower petals, all of the purest white.

Kaguya felt a chill go through her. She picked up a handful of petals and rubbed them between her fingers. Lilies. Considering the flowers that had covered the velmick, that probably wasn't a good sign.

Then, partially acting on mad impulse, she thrust her arm deep through the petals until she found the solid ground underneath. When she brought her hand back up it was covered with moon dust. This she found discouraging for more reasons than one. Not only was she still stuck on the Moon, the lack of sweet water underneath meant that there would be no rescues courtesy of messianic lions or gallant warrior mice.

Then she turned her attention to the top of the hill. There, taunting her with its improbability, was a white water tower. The tank was perfectly spherical, almost moonlike itself. Her point of entry, a ragged hole blasted out of one side, was clearly visible.

Kaguya's face twisted up in confusion. A water tower? The lily petals she could accept, but why a water tower? Then she shrugged and stood up. Whatever. She had other problems to worry about than out-of-place liquid containment receptacles. Such as her sudden loss of flight. And (something that still pained her) her sudden loss of boat. And then there was the fact that there was an oversized velmick on the loose, Mokou's sudden unavailability, the worrying fact that Rumia had yet to show, and…

Kaguya's hand leapt to her head. It was bare. Her muscles tensed in accompaniment with a persistent twitch of her right eye. Her hat was gone. Her new green pirate hat. And not only that, her swords had also gone down with the ship. And she had slipped her robe earlier. All she had left were her shirt and shorts. Now that was a serious downgrading of her inventory. She had practically been booted all the way down to level one. And there was still an economy-sized boss to deal with.

A sound tugged at her ear. Small at first, but it swiftly grew in intensity. Kaguya frowned. It sounded familiar. She thought she should be able to place it, but…

And then she realized that it was the sound of someone screaming. Not in pain or fear, but the sort of scream someone releases when they are doing something both exhilarating and very, very dangerous.

"…aaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAHHHH!"

Rumia burst through the hole, flying as fast as she possibly could. Kaguya tensed, ready to run to her aid as soon as her own abilities shorted out and gravity took over.

It never happened. Rumia continued to fly on.

Kaguya made several incoherent sounds of protests before finally settling with, "That's…not fair."

A second later the velmick thrust its way through the hole. It lunged for Rumia, missed, and came crashing down to slide down the petal-covered slope, roaring all the way. Right towards Kaguya.

Shit.

Kaguya bunched up her muscles and leapt out of the way. She managed to get most of the way before it hit her with what felt like the force of an asteroid and sent her spinning.

Gasping, Kaguya tried to push herself to her feet but found it impossible. She looked down and found out why. Her right leg ended in a bloody stumpy halfway down the calf. The foot had been sheared right off.

Well, that was problematic.

"Rumia!" she called as she half-crawled, half-stumbled her way from the still-sliding velmick. "Get me out of here!"

A moment later two strong hands came up under her arms and lifted her off the ground. Kaguya stared as the sea of lilies quickly receded beneath her. Drops of blood dripped down from her severed foot to stain the petals crimson.

"Th-thanks," she panted.

"Don't mention it," Rumia growled. "You wanna explain why I had to?"

Kaguya gulped. "I c-can't fly," she said. "Lost it."

There was a pause, and then Rumia said, "That sucks."

"Yeah," Kaguya said. "The same thing happened to Mokou a couple times earlier. I'm just wondering why you still can."

"Oh, that's easy," Rumia said dismissively. "This is you guys' dream, not mine. I'm a trespasser here. It has no hold over me."

They came to a stop about a hundred feet above the ground. It was enough to confirm that, yes, it was indeed the Moon below them. It was just covered in lily petals for some inexplicable reason. Below, that damned worm was still coming out of the water tower. How long was that thing anyway?

"So, uh, you going to be okay?" Rumia asked. "Not being able to fly is one thing, but if you can't walk either…"

Kaguya reached down and pulled her injured leg up so she could get a look at it. It was rather awkward, given that she was being held up by her armpits a hundred feet in the air (sky? Space? Whatever), but she managed to bend it around enough to inspect the injury.

To her relief, the bleeding had stopped, and the flesh and bone were already growing back.

"Regeneration still works," she said, letting her foot fall. "There's that at least."

"For all the good it will do us," Rumia muttered. "I'm not interested in carrying your heavy ass everywhere, and we still need to deal with…"

Her voice trailed off. A second later she hissed, "Shit, I should have-"

She abruptly shut up.

"What?" Kaguya said. "You should have what?"

"Oh, never mind," Rumia growled.

"Nuh-uh," Kaguya said. She twisted her head around the best she could so as to look Rumia in the eye. "Nice try. Never trust a rogue when they say 'Never mind'. What is it that you should have-"

Rumia's hands disappeared and Kaguya was again falling. She had just enough time to gasp before Rumia swooped down to catch her again.

"Take the hint, Princess," Rumia hissed. "Drop it or I drop you."

Kaguya took it, but she still smiled in satisfaction. She had been right. There was something Rumia was hiding from her. And a bit of it had just slipped. Unfortunately, this was neither the time nor the place to pursue it further. In every conceivable way.

"Duly noted," Kaguya said dryly. "And since neither of us plan on having you carry me everywhere, might I suggest that we get the hell out of here? I suggest we try for Earth again, and hope this one isn't flat and made of paint."

"Can't," Rumia said. She hefted Kaguya up to give herself a better grip. "Mokou's still in that thing. We need to get her out."

"Must we?" Kaguya muttered, but she knew that Rumia was right. Kaguya herself was only one-half of the key. If they wanted to make it out of this unholy fusion of their subconscious minds and do unto Satsuki as she had done unto them, then they would need Mokou. And to get Mokou back, they had to figure out how to kill a giant worm monster from Kaguya's childhood memories that was all but indestructible.

Even though most of what they were experiencing came from Kaguya's mind, she was quite certain that Mokou's subconscious was the one conspiring against them. There was no other explanation for this degree of sadism.

"Okay," she said to Rumia. "Let's get this over with."

...

At that moment, Mokou's broken body was still sliding down the velmick's gullet. It managed to regenerate enough to partially restore her to consciousness, but it was only long enough for her to register overwhelming pain and a surprising amount of humidity. And then she was gone again.

...

"What's he doing?" Rumia asked. "Why isn't he diving?"

Kaguya frowned. "I don't know. I was wondering the same thing."

The two of them were crouching on a steep cliff that overlooked the field of lily petals. Kaguya was fairly certain the outcropping was not part of the actual Moon's geography, but she didn't object. She had stopped expecting authenticity a long time ago.

Below, their friend the velmick was merrily slithering his way through the white petals, seemingly uncaring of where he was going. Now that he had completely surfaced, Kaguya was able to appreciate just how large he was. Certainly he had been much thicker around than any velmick that existed in reality, but by her estimate he also had a good three times the average length.

Kaguya mumbled something under her breath.

"Say what?" Rumia said.

"I said I liked it better when we were in Mokou's nightmare. They worshipped me there and set her on fire. And they gave me a boat." She scowled. "I want my boat back."

"Focus, Kaguya. Kill this thing first. Then we can worry about finding some other means of transportation."

Kaguya plopped down and dangled her legs over the side of the cliff. "Got any bright ideas, then? Because I grew up being told how damned near unkillable those things are," she said as she swung them back and forth.

"Tell me about it," Rumia said. "Impervious to all elements, danmaku, all but the most powerful energy weapons. You could hit that thing with a meteor and you might succeed in pissing it off. No wonder you fear it. Full acknowledge of your people's skills, you sure know how to create an effective monster.

Kaguya's legs paused in mid-swing. "Okay," she said as they slowly came to rest. "And how…"

"Eh, it isn't like they're some big secret," Rumia said as she sat down next to her. Kaguya noticed then that she was still carrying the sword Mokou had taken from her brother. Now that was just unfair. It seemed that everyone was holding onto their powers and equipment except for her. "Anyone with any decent knowledge about the Lunarians knows about all those lovely beasties you've slapped together."

"Sure. Except wild Youkai aren't exactly known for looking up exotic fauna from foreign lands."

Rumia snickered at that. "True that. But it just so happens that a few weeks ago I took this job from some bibliophile of a Human who wanted my help liberating a bunch of rare books on foreign beasts from this vault in the Tengu Village. It paid okay, but my gods that guy wouldn't shut up about his precious monsters! Even when we were supposed to be sneaking into the place, he kept going on and on about this sort of three-headed bird or bipedal fish. But I remember him talking about the vermick. Guy was like in awe of the things. Seriously, if one had suddenly popped up and bit his head off, he'd consider it a fair exchange just to see one up close."

"Oh, really now?" Kaguya said as she watched their limbless adversary weave its way beneath them. She wondered where exactly Mokou's remains could be found in its digestion.

"Yes, really. Why, don't believe me?"

"Not a word. But you're pretty good at bullshitting once you've had time to think of a story."

Rumia smiled at her. It was not a nice smile. "Oh, don't be like that," she said as she picked her nails with the point of her sword. "Whatever you may think of me and my trustworthiness, I really do want to get the hell out of this freak show, and I need you two to do it. So trust my sense of self-preservation, even if you don't trust my word."

"Fair enough. But tell me something, Rumia. You say that you need us. That our essence or whatever is like the key you need to open the door out of this place. Okay, I can buy that. But, uh, why exactly do we need you?"

Rumia stopped cleaning the undersides of her fingernails. She looked at Kaguya out of the corner of her eye. "Hmmm, interesting question. It's true, this isn't my world, so I can't exactly contribute much to the actual opening of your subconscious. But we're not there yet, are we? So…"

She stuck her sword through her belt and shoved herself off the edge of the cliff. Rather than fall, she walked on empty air to stand before Kaguya. "If you think you can get there without my help, be my freaking guest," Rumia said as she folded her arms. "But from where I'm standing" she tilted her head toward the wandering velmick below her "you've got problems enough to waste time fighting me."

Kaguya glowered, but she nodded, conceding the point. "All right, you win. Just know that I'm keeping an eye on you."

"Yeah, you already said that. I haven't forgotten. Just as I haven't forgotten that we still have to dig your girlfriend out of that three-mile long piece of crap down there. So what say we postpone this dance until the current song ends?"

"All right, agreed," Kaguya said. She brought her legs up and stood. "So, what do you suggest we do about the worm?" she asked as she brushed off her backside.

"Good question. You're the one who's actually dreamed of these things. Anything we can use from your nighttime terrors?"

Kaguya snorted. "Yeah, right. I was just a kid. They all just had me running as fast I can while they followed me underground. Then they would come up beneath me and the next thing I'd know, I was in my room on a sweaty bed. Not a whole lot of…"

She fell silent. An idea had just popped in her head. It wasn't much of one, but it was there.

Rumia tilted her head to one side. "Excuse me? Hello?" she said as she waved a hand in front of Kaguya's face. "Not a whole lot of what?"

"Stop that," Kaguya said as she slapped Rumia's hand away. "And I think I've got an idea."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. I think we're approaching this monster the wrong way."

Rumia sighed. "Kaguya, I don't know if you've been paying attention, but we really haven't been approaching that ugly bastard much at all. Mostly he's been approaching us."

"And I think that's part of the problem." Kaguya crouched down on one knee and peered down at the velmick. "We're thinking of him as this big old nightmare monster."

"That would be because he is one," Rumia said. She floated over to Kaguya's side. "You made him that way, remember?"

A slow smile spread over Kaguya's features, the kind she usually wore right before Mokou wandered into one of her traps. "Yeah, but who says we need to treat him like one? He's not real. He's just some random nonsense that my head spewed out. Why should he be calling the shots here?"

...

The contractions of the worm's throat had reduced Mokou into little more than a squishy paste, and she was still hadn't reached it stomach. The velmick was in possession of a very long throat.

...

The way Kaguya was now seeing things, this was a world that depended heavily on perception and expectations. And not just in the way of weird "I wasn't expecting that" randomness. Rather, as a world forged from her dreams, it was thus a world based around how she subconsciously viewed things. Take those sailors, for example. Though they had been from Mokou's mind, Kaguya had dispatched the captain with the expectation that killing him would destroy his crew. There had been no thought of experimentation, no "Let's see if this works". It had simply presented itself to her as logical, and as such she gave little thought to whether it would work or not. As such, it had.

The worm was another example. Indeed, the entirety of the Moon could be said to follow that law. She had expected the Moon to be a horrible place, and it delivered by immediately supplying a velmick. She had expected the velmick to be next to invincible, and thus far she had not been disappointed. That was how most nightmares worked, actually. Those horrible dreams of having let down everyone you know and care about, and feeling the crushing weight of their contempt? Those are spawned from a fear of failure, coupled with the expectation that everyone would be heavily disappointed when (not if, when) you fell. This remained truer the more primal you went. Children suffering under the hand of an abusive parent will often dream them as being much larger, much scarier, much more powerful than they actually are, rather than seeing their tormentors as the weak, pathetic things they actually are. Because that is how they perceive them. Likewise, monsters, especially the real ones, are magnified into forces of nature. Relentless, indestructible, inescapable. Their friend the flower-covered velmick and his immense size being a case in point.

Of course, there were exceptions. Kaguya was willing to bet that Mokou had not expected bounce off the Earth. And she had certainly not expected to lose her power of flight. Still, perhaps they had both expected the dream to interrupt their escape attempts somehow, and thus the dream had obliged.

The trick was to stop thinking of the nightmares as nightmares, to stop seeing the monsters as undefeatable. She had to stop seeing the velmick as what it was supposed to be, and confront it as it actually was.

Now, Kaguya had never been much of a lucid dreamer. Her dreams tended to be quick replays of her many, many battles with Mokou, or uncomfortable representations of her poor feelings toward her place of birth (though recently she had started having a very enjoyable recurring dream starring herself, a certain bookwormish but still feisty student of witchcraft and wizardry and a talking hot tub, but that was entirely beside the point). Eirin had many drugs that assisted in the area of dream control, but she had never tried them for herself. Still, she was a quick study. And since Rin Satsuki had so graciously left her with her full consciousness intact, it was time to start putting what she had read into practical use.

And so, with no weapons aside from her natural magic (already proven ineffective), no allies save for a self-proclaimed lockbreaker-for-hire of extremely dubious trustworthiness, deprived of her ability to fly and with an indestructible engine of death to kill, Kaguya took a deep breath and stepped off the cliff.

As expected, gravity still worked just fine. However, as she fell, she thrust her right hand and right foot into the rock wall.

Her was peeled off in an instant. But rather than ignoring the pain, Kaguya confronted it. She closed her eyes, focused on the feeling of her flesh being sheared off, and thought, this isn't real. There is no cliff, there is no stone, there is no pain. This is a dream. My body does not physically exist. I only feel pain because I expect it.

When she opened her eyes again, her foot and hand were digging through the cliff side and slowing her descent. Furthermore, they were completely unharmed.

A slow grin spread over her features. "Cool..." she whispered.

Even though she was still too high to fall freely and expect to land in one piece, Kaguya shoved off the cliff side let physics take their course. The petal-covered ground rushed up to meet her. She rolled onto her shoulder, somersaulting forward and hopping to her feet. Again, she was unhurt.

Kaguya felt downright giddy. Finally the inconsistent nature of this world's laws of reality were working in her favor. Pity it had taken her so long to figure them out. But hey, better late than never. Now, where was that…

The ground beneath her feet started to rumble. Kaguya turned to see the velmick charging toward her. A reflexive twinge of fear fluttered within her, but she quashed it. Giving in to panic was the absolute worse thing she could do now. Instead, she held her ground as the velmick leapt into the air and came down toward her, mouth spread open wide as it roared in triumph.

Burning crimson power flashed around her fist. She thrust it forward, releasing a fiery lance. It plunged right into the velmick's exposed throat, the only place not covered by its impenetrable hide.

Even though the worm's incredible speed, weight and velocity would had made changing direction in mid-air impossible, the laws of physics had only a tenuous hold in this world. The velmick lurched back in surprise as the energy ripped into its soft throat. It twisted around and came to a thunderous landing to Kaguya's left.

The Lunarian Princess was already moving, taking long-legged strides as she ran as best she could through the petals. "Rumia, it worked!" she called. "Grab me!"

Rumia, who had been waiting for her confirmation, swooped down to snatch Kaguya up and carry her above the battlefield. "It worked!" Kaguya gibed as they gained altitude. "Did you see that? It worked!"

"Congratulations," Rumia said dryly. "So can we kill that thing already?"

Kaguya grinned and nodded over her shoulder. She had it all figured out. Depriving the velmick of its status as a nightmare wasn't enough. They still had to remake it in their minds, to perceive as something they stood a chance of beating.

And as far as Kaguya was concerned, it was a large monster that had literally come out of nowhere. It was also a high-level adversary that was much more powerful than anything they had encountered thus far and would take all of their skill to defeat. Kaguya had labels to describe things such as that. Two of them, in fact. The first was Random Encounter. The second was Boss Fight. And it was just Kaguya's good fortune that she had considerable experience dealing with both.

One of the rules of boss fights is that there is always a weak spot. The velmick's was its mouth. Or more specifically, its throat. They just had to get it to open up so they could hurl something painful down its esophagus. After this they would run away to a safe position, get its attention again, and do it again. Wash, rinse, repeat as many times as it took. Against an actual velmick this strategy would be stupid and suicidal. Against this faux-velmick taken from the mind of a girl who had much more experience in how fictional monsters behaved than actual ones, it stood a good chance of succeeding.

Now granted, there were a few things working against them. Kaguya wasn't sure if her recent loss of flight was going to last the entire battle or not, but if that was the case, than it pretty much was a handicap run against a high-level boss. And the velmick was still all kinds of dangerous. But even low-powered as she was, Kaguya still had infinite lives and a regenerating health bar. And now that she had figured out how to "hack the game", she was going to exploit her newfound control for all it was worth. She just hoped that it wasn't worthless.

...

Mokou's body had reached the end of one journey, only to begin another. What remained of it slipped from the throat into the worm's stomach. Or rather, the first in a long line of stomachs.

...

After about five minutes of battling the velmick, Kaguya came to the conclusion that her newfound control over the dream environment was pretty damned worthless.

It was her own fault. She had forced herself to look at the fight as a handicapped run against a high-level boss. And while those were somewhat less impossible than facing off against an unstoppable monster dredged up from her deepest and oldest nightmares, she had forgotten one very important constant: handicapped runs against high-level bosses always ended in very messy failure during the first attempt.

And so she found herself half-running, half-stumbling through the calf-high carpet of petals, waving her hands and screaming as loud as she could, "The THROAT! Hit it in the THROAT, you IDIOT!"

Rumia, on whom the velmick had centered its attention, was once again barely staying one step ahead of its lunges and snaps. "I'm trying," she called as she launched several sharp red bullets. "This is harder than it-SHIT!-than it looks!"

Was it her imagination, or were the petals getting deeper? "I did it!" Kaguya called as her hopping jog became more of a wade.

"Good for freaking you!" Rumia screamed. "Do it again!"

Kaguya rolled her eyes and obliged, sending three pink spheres of liquid fire that streamed sparkling tails behind them. They splashed against the velmick's body but had no effect other than covering the point of impact with glitter.

"Don't you have anything besides danmaku?" Kaguya shouted.

"I came from a freaking skeleton key, not a-SHIT!"

The velmick came within inches of snatching her foot right off. She managed to twist out of the way, but at that exact moment the worm swung what passed for its head right at her. It slammed into her waist and sent her spinning wildly. She screamed the whole way, and though she wasn't sure, Kaguya was sure that the words "Oh, fuck this!" appeared somewhere in her incoherent shriek.

At that moment, something pricked Kaguya's left foot. Given her almost superhuman tolerance for pain, she might not have even noticed, if it weren't for the feeling of deathly cold that spread around the puncture a moment later.

Kaguya gasped and stumbled. She fell onto her back and tried to lift up her foot to see. Maneuvering through the petals was awkward, but she managed to twist it around enough to see a strange black mark on her heel, about the size of a large coin. Bitter cold tingled all along its circumference while its interior had lost all feeling. It was not unlike a severe case of frostbite, but something told her that this was much more ominous.

A chill swept through her. Where in the world had that come from?

An inhuman scream drew her attention away from her foot. The velmick had reared nearly thirty feet into the air and was swaying back and forth. Something had happened to it. Instead of the usual predatory bellows, its cries were softening into moans of agony.

"What's going on? Is that normal?"

Kaguya sat up to see Rumia stumbling toward her. "What?" she asked.

Rumia pointed. "The worm, dimwit! Why's it doing that?"

Kaguya blinked at her. "You didn't do that?"

"No! I was too busy spinning like a damned shuriken to do anything! I thought you did it!"

"I…"

Then she fell silent. The velmick was doing something. It's groaning had softened to a sort of throaty rumble, and its head was squirming in a constant back-and-forth motion. A suture opened all around its body a few meters below the base of its mouth and a sickly pale green slime oozed out. And then it did something truly bizarre.

As of late, Kaguya had taken to purchasing Outside World toys and games in large quantities. Sometimes she had a specific item requested, other times she went for what amounted to goodie bags and hoped she would get lucky. In one such bag she had found a clever little device. It was a crayon, a children's coloring utensil. However, instead of being composed of a body and a point in one single color, this one was made of several points, each one a different color. These points were hollowed out and opened at the bottom, allowing them to be stacked up, forming a body and allowing the user to color with the topmost head. And should she ever desire to use a different color, all she had to do was pop the desired color out and transfer it to the top. Though Kaguya had long outgrown coloring pictures as a form of entertainment, she had still found the little thing amusing, and had admired its ingenuity.

And now, as she watched the velmick react to whatever had hurt it, she found herself suddenly reminded of that crayon. The velmick was literally pushing its head right off. And underneath was a second head, exactly like the first only covered with the pale green slime.

"Okay, I honestly can say I didn't see that coming," Rumia said as they both stared. "Can they do that?"

Kaguya swallowed. "This one can."

"But…why? Why is it even doing that?"

"I, uh, guess something ruined the old head. Are you sure it wasn't you?"

Rumia shot her a disgusted look and rolled her eyes. "Oh, don't give me that crap. Ten to one, it's Mokou giving it indigestion."

An interesting theory, Kaguya had to admit. If Mokou had indeed returned to life within the velmick's bowels, she would be capable of wreaking an unholy measure of punishment. But she did not have enough time to give the idea further consideration, as at that moment the velmick finished thrusting off its original head and let it fall. It landed in an eruption of lily petals and smashed right through the ground. Though Kaguya was far enough to avoid being crushed, it was still close enough for her to feel the shockwaves.

And it was then that Kaguya learned why the velmick had remained above ground. The floor beneath them was hollow.

The discarded head disappeared through the hole it had created. Lily petals followed it, pouring into the pit in a gentle cascade of white. While certainly interesting, it wasn't of immediate concern. Kaguya returned her attention to the velmick. Perhaps its new head's exoskeleton had yet to harden. If so, she could probably do some damage while it was still soft.

She started to call power to her hands, but then something shoved against her legs, nearly bowling her over. Kaguya staggered and tried to regain her footing. Her numb heel did her no favors in that regard, but she managed to remain upright long enough to see what the problem was.

What she saw made her moan. The hole had become a cause of immediate concern. The flower petals had not stopped pouring in. Quite the contrary, the cascade had only increase, and it was taking the rest of the sea of petals with it. The entire thing was now flowing toward the hole. And it was picking up speed and strength.

"The hell is this?" she shouted. "We're not on a slant!"

"Since when has anything in this world ever made sense?" Rumia shouted back. She wrapped her arms around Kaguya's waist and lifted them both above the current.

Kaguya watched the petals flow beneath her dangling feet. "You know, this all feels kind of symbolic."

"Is that so," Rumia grunted as she lifted her higher.

"Yeah. I'm not really read up on my dream interpretation, but aren't lilies supposed to represent-"

A long shadow fell on them both. The girls looked up to see the velmick rearing up over them.

Kaguya opened her mouth to say something. Perhaps it was going to be a curse. Perhaps it was going to be an observation on the velmick's own symbolism. Perhaps it was going to be some sort of smartass remark concerning their momentary lapse of awareness. But she never got past the parting of her lips, because that was when the velmick struck.

Rumia dropped Kaguya, sending her tumbling back into the white current. Kaguya gasped and surfaced just in time to see the worm slam into Rumia, driving her into the soft sea and driving her right through the crust beneath.

The space beneath was apparently bottomless, and the velmick was very, very long. Even after the head had gone through, the body continued to slide into its new hole. Kaguya tried to find some sort of support, some sort of handhold or base to guard her against the flow of flowers. If she could make her way over to the velmick's body, she could latch on and ride it on its journey beneath the faux-Moon's surface. From there, she could make her way toward its head and find some way to retrieve her companions. It was a long shot, but the alternative was spending eternity in Rin Satsuki's bizarre prison. As much as it galled her, she needed Mokou and Rumia. She wasn't getting out of here without them.

And then the current of petals surged up in strength. Kaguya was shoved onto her back. She tried swimming, but that worked as well as one might expect. She tried digging her fingers into the dust beneath, but it was now too deep for her to get a grip. She even tried to fly, out of the desperate hope that her abilities had been returned to her. But that way was still denied to her.

Kaguya bared her teeth. No. She refused to allow herself to be helpless. This wasn't going to beat her. She had just faced down a velmick, a monster snatched from her deepest and oldest nightmares. She had taken on the Zerg. She had faced her own death on a near constant basis. She had stared down the ruling body of the Lunarian, looked her father the Emperor in the eyes, and had openly defied them all. No way was she going to be defeated by a bunch of flowers. No way was she going to let them beat her. She was not going to let them win.

The forced pushing against her doubled in strength. It was almost indistinguishable from the undertow of the sea now. And it swept Kaguya along, down the cascade and into the void beyond.

...

Mokou briefly came back to life while passing through one of the velmick's many stomachs. She noted that she was swimming through acid, which irritated her. After a rather unfortunate incident about seventy or so years ago that ended up killing both she and Kaguya multiple times in succession, they had agreed that the use of acid was unsportsmanlike and there would be banned from their ritualistic cycle of mutual murder and rebirth. But of course, Kaguya was going back on her word. The next time she got her hands on the Moonbitch, she was going to make her die very, very slowly. In stages.

And she recollected enough of recent events to think, Oh, wait. That worm. I guess I'm still in his-

The velmick's digestive system contracted, squeezing her body into the next stomach and sending her mind spiraling into oblivion.

...

Is this what dying feels like?

Wait, what?

falling…falling through darkness.

Who said that? Kaguya looked around but could see no source for the voice. It was certainly correct, as she was still tumbling through emptiness, surrounded by a circular wall of cascading lily petals, but that didn't account for the voice's presence in the first place.

Eyes opened or closed, it's all the same.

"Hello?" Kaguya called. It sounded like a child. And it was coming from all around.

I guess I should be happy. I like darkness. Darkness is my element, my comfort. But it's never felt so cold, so empty.

Kaguya twisted her body around but still saw no one. "Well, sucks to be you!" she shouted. "Why don't you just go find a dark corner and stop talking?"

This must be what dying feels like.

"No, no it's not! There's usually a lot more red involved!"

Endlessly falling through darkness. I may like darkness, but I don't want to be stuck in it by myself. I don't want to be alone forever!

"Then go get make friends with some bats and leave me alone!"

Falling through…wait. Something's not right. There's something out there. There's something…no, someone nearby.

"Yes, there is!" Kaguya shouted. "It's me! Kaguya Houraisan! Hi, nice to meet you. Now, how about you stop playing with the loudspeakers and get me out of here before I pancake all over the floor?"

I am not alone.

"No, no you're not. Hello, can you hear me?" Kaguya waved frantically. "Are you on the other side of this flowerfall? Or are you just some annoying recording played to mess with…"

At that moment she happened to glance down. Her eyes widened when she saw the huge white mound rushing up to meet her.

"…oh, this is going to suck-"

She hit, but not with the bone-crushing impact that she had been expecting. In fact, she was barely hurt at all. Kaguya shook her head and sat up to see the reason why. She was sitting in what amounted to a soft crater of white petals. The rain of lilies still came down all around her, piling the walls high.

Kaguya looked up. If she squinted, she could barely make out the night sky.

"So much for being bottomless," she muttered as she staggered to her feet. Finding her footing among the petals was difficult, but she managed to stumble her way up the crater's walls, through the cascade and slide down the side of the hill that was forming. Her feet met the cold, smooth stone of the floor and she stood.

On the plus side, there was no sign of the velmick. But then, there was not much else either. Kaguya stood in a wide open space. There was no light source, so if there was something lurking in the shadows, she was unable to see it. However, the falling petals and the mound they were forming remained perfectly visible, a downpour of purest white that stood out sharply against the blackness all around.

"Hello?" she called out again. "Little scared falling girl? You there?"

No answer, but then, Kaguya wasn't expecting one. And come to think of it, drawing attention to herself probably wasn't the best idea. She looked down at her hands and saw that she could still see her body as well, almost as if she were giving off her own light. This gave her no comfort at all, as it would only make it easier for a predator to pick her off.

There's always a monster in the shadows, she heard Rumia's voice say in her mind. In dreams this is taken literally. The thought made her shiver.

She cast a glance to the softly falling petals behind her. Perhaps she would be better off staying in place. If there was any place that operated on metaphor, it was here. Perhaps the white hill represented a sort of sanctuary in the darkness, a safe place to hide while she plotted her next step. The falling lily petals would hide her from view, and the pile was plenty high enough to burrow in for added concealment. It was admittedly a rather childish means of protection, but given where she was…

Then her heart leapt into her throat when she remembered exactly what had created the hole that had led her here in the first place. The velmick's discarded head was likely buried somewhere in that pile. Suddenly it didn't seem so safe after all. In real life, the smell of it would draw predators. Here, it was just as likely to come back to life and attack her on her own.

She turned back to the blackness. Okay, so she would have to take her chances. Fortunately, she was more than capable of handling herself. And she was not without resources. Though she had lost her allies, weapons and flight, all of her other abilities still worked. She could still fight. And fortunately, they had other uses as well.

Kaguya held out her right hand and focused her will on her hand. Tiny yellow sparks rose up from her palm like fireflies. They drew in close, collecting together and increasing in density. Kaguya continued to generate the sparks until they had formed a brightly shining sphere of light. Once she had judged that it was complete, she threw it in the air. It stopped about five feet above her head and hovered. There. Now at least she wouldn't be exploring blind.

Moving slowly at first, Kaguya walked away from the white hill. When nothing jumped out of the darkness to attack her, she increased her pace, eventually reaching a swift jog. All the while, her makeshift light kept pace with her every step of the way.

However, there seemed to be nothing to find. The fall of petals quickly receded into the distance, until it appeared to be nothing more than a faraway white line. But still, nothing appeared out of the darkness to confront her. The sphere's illumination reflected off the smooth stone floor, so she knew she wasn't walking on a void, but she might as well be.

As she ran, Kaguya happened to glance to her right. She started to turn her attention back to her path but quickly did a double-take. Even through the light of the sphere, she could have sworn she saw a fleeting flash of red.

Kaguya slowed to a stop and squinted. Had she imagined it? It was certainly possible. For one, she couldn't see anything now, but that didn't not prove that it had never been there. She dimmed the light overhead, but that failed to reproduce that brief glimpse of crimson.

Kaguya shifted her weight from one leg to the other. Her right foot lifted to scratch the back of her left calf. She waited. Nothing happened.

Well, one direction was as good as another. Kaguya took a deep breath and headed toward where she thought she had seen the red light. She was reasonably sure what it was, at least. Though she couldn't be positive, it did look like the flash of a youkai's eyes.

That in itself would be adequate reason to keep her distance. But as Rumia had red eyes and she had also been driven into this space, there was a good chance that it was her. And seeing how the youkai girl was her only ally that (as far as she knew) hadn't been swallowed by a worm, it was in her best interests to seek her out. If nothing else, Kaguya felt more comfortable having Rumia someplace where she could keep an eye on her rather than let her skulk around in the darkness.

Then again, Rumia had been driven down here courtesy of the velmick. Kaguya hesitated, slowing again to a stop. If Rumia was around, there was a good chance that monstrous thing was as well. But on the other hand, it wasn't exactly known for its subtlety. If the velmick was still around, she would have known by now.

There! Another brief flash of a ruby pinpoint, moving swiftly through the darkness. It was there only for a moment, less than a second, but it had definitely been there.

"Rumia?" Kaguya called in a loud whisper. "That you?"

In keeping with recent tradition, there was no answer. Kaguya moved closer, but with caution. She was aware that she was playing the part of the dumb girl who always wanders alone through the darkness asking if anyone was there only to have the killer divide her torso into three pieces, but what choice did she have? "Rumia?" she hissed. "Or slasher-killer guy? Giant worm? Ghost from my past? Come on, let's stop screwing around and cut right to-"

The light from the sphere fell upon something large. She came short and gasped.

It was the velmick's head, the one that had been discarded. It was lying right in front of her, unmoving and lifeless. But how was that possible? By rights it should have been in that pile of petals. There was no way it could have bounced, rolled or otherwise traveled so far from where it had smashed through the crust of the Moon. Even with dream logic in the play, this was a stretch.

Kaguya carefully approached the disgusting thing. It did not react to her approach. The Lunarian Princess drew in close and inspected it. There was something wrong, beyond the fact that it was a dead velmick head. Even in death, the thing's hide should have retained its stone-like exterior. But now, its flesh was black and shriveled. In fact, the whole thing looked like it had shrunk. She reached out and poked one of the mandibles with one finger. Its carapace cracked under her touch.

Now that was interesting.

She walked around the thing, inspecting it from all sides. The whole thing looked desiccated. But what could have done this? Rumia? Possible, but unlikely. If she had been capable of something like this, why hadn't she done it before, when the velmick had first attacked them? Or on the Zerg, for that matter. Mokou, perhaps? That was a more likely explanation.

Kaguya turned away from the lump of dead worm flesh as she puzzled over this new enigma. Then her heart leapt. There was a second velmick head about seven feet away, in the same shape as the first.

Her heart beating loudly, Kaguya glanced from one head to the next. As far as she could tell, they were the same. Her eyes flicked up, toward her little ball of light. At her command, it gained another ten feet and the light it cast increased by a fivefold.

It was as she expected. Shriveled velmick heads lay all around. There had to be at least seven of them in all.

Kaguya had no idea how to react to this bizarre mausoleum she had found herself in. On the one hand, she was surrounded by dead velmick heads. That was all kinds of creepy, and given her surroundings, it was just a twitching mandible away from becoming a nightmare. On the other hand, she was surrounded by dead velmick heads. There was something encouraging about the sight, despite the horror it gave her. It meant the thing could be killed after all, even if it had to be done in stages. Though she shuddered to think of what kind of power it would take to do something like-

"Are you insane? Turn the light off, you twit!"

Kaguya turned. Rumia was there, limping into view from behind one of the heads. Kaguya wasn't sure if she was surprised to see the lockbreaker-for-hire or not. Her presence here wasn't unlikely, but the fact that she was still in one piece was. By rights, she should have been torn in half, if not swallowed entirely.

Then again, from the look of things she hadn't exactly fared well. Her right leg was covered with blood, and it had been twisted at an odd angle. She held onto her thigh with one hand and dragged it behind her as she made her way toward Kaguya. However, despite the incredible pain she must have been in, she looked more angry than anything. She held her sword in one hand and Mokou's sword in the other. The light from Kaguya's sphere reflected on the gold and gems in the hilt and the silvery metal of the blade, making Mokou's weapon seem dull by comparison.

"Put the damned light out already!" she snarled as she staggered toward Kaguya. She thrust both blades back into her makeshift belt. "You wanna let every nightmare around know where we are?"

Kaguya shrugged. "Good to see you too, Rumia." She held up her hand. Her tiny sun was sucked into her palm and the world fell to shadows once again. Rumia's eyes were still visible though, glowering at her from the dark.

"You're glowing," Rumia seethed. "Still not good. Stop it."

"Can't," Kaguya responded. "I don't even know how it happened."

"Are you serious?"

Kaguya felt a flash of irritation. "No, Rumia," she said. "I lit my body up like a freaking glowstick and deliberately put myself in danger of attracting the attention of any nasty creepy crawly around, just to annoy you."

"Fine, fine," Rumia said in exasperation. "At least get behind one of these things, out of sight."

Kaguya complied, crouching down next to one of the velmick heads. "And just so we're clear," she said. "You do know that the velmick are blind, yeah? We could light this whole place up like it was Christmas and it wouldn't make a difference.

Rumia growled in pain as she carefully maneuvered herself down so that she was sitting next to the Lunarian Princess. "Sure," she grunted as she stretched out her mangled leg in front of her. "That's assuming that the carnivorous phallic symbol is the only nasty around. I'd rather we don't take chances. And keep your voice down."

"You seem to be doing okay for yourself," Kaguya whispered. She tapped the velmick head behind her with her knuckles, crunching its hide in the process. "How in the hell did you pull this off?"

Rumia snorted in disgust. "I wish I was capable of something like this. Naw, after it drove me through the ground, it managed to grab my leg in those pincer jaws of its and almost damned near tore it right off. But then it let me go and started coughing. At first I figured it just didn't like the taste of me, which is both a relief and kind of insulting at the same time, but then its head shriveled up and fell right off, just like the first one did. Then the next head did the same, and the one after that. By then my leg meant I was going down one way or another, so I followed the head down and took cover until they stopped falling. The velmick disappeared soon after that."

"Wait, it disappeared?" Kaguya asked. "Really? How could something that big just disappear?"

Rumia didn't answer. The crimson lights of her eyes simply glanced at her and rolled around as she looked away.

"Okay, so it was a dumb question," Kaguya admitted. "So you have no idea what's been killing the velmick's heads?"

"Personally I figure it's Mokou," Rumia said. "We have no idea what happened to her after she got swallowed. She's probably resurrected by now and causing all kinds of internal injuries."

"Maybe," Kaguya said. Her eyes narrowed. "Or maybe there's something you're not telling me."

"Oh, good gods," Rumia muttered. "Again with the…You know what? You're right. You're absolutely right. Maybe there is something I'm not telling you. Maybe I've been lying through my teeth this whole time, and it was actually me that got you stuck here. I'm really an evil subconciomancer in disguise. And now I'm traveling around with you guys while spinning some bullshit story about that Satsuki kid of yours, just for kicks. Except no, that would be stupid. Give it a rest, your Highness. Either prove that I'm planning to betray you or shut up. Because otherwise we won't get anything done with you questioning me at every step of the way."

"Don't call me that," Kaguya muttered, but she had to admit Rumia again had a point. Whatever her misgivings might be, this was not the time to act on them. "So what now?"

Rumia's eyes turned to look at her again. "I thought you had appointed yourself team leader," she said, her voice laced with amusement. "Why are you asking me, oh captain my captain?"

"I lost my hat and my boat," Kaguya muttered. The memory of it put her in a dark mood. "And my handicapped boss run idea went down like a shriveled velmick head. It's your turn to think of the next idea."

Her unseen companion let out a low, hissing laugh which, given the darkness, was rather unsettling. "All right then. First order of business is we find that bloody worm and pull our surly firestarter of a companion out of it. Her being gone may make things a lot less stressful, but we still need her if we're ever going to get out of here."

"Point. Annoying, but still, point. All right then, let's get…" The rest of the sentence trailed to a stop. Something had just occurred to her. She let out a groan and slumped back again the velmick's carapace.

"What's up?" Rumia asked.

Kaguya rolled her eyes and sighed. "I just realized that I'm about to hunt down a freaking velmick to save Fujiwara no Mokou."

"And that's somehow more insane than anything else that's happened so far?"

"Kind of, yeah," Kaguya responded. "I can take the whole journey through the dream world thing. That's just an occupational hazard for living in Gensokyo. But this? This is beyond ridiculous. If someone had told me that I would be doing something like this a week ago, I would have kicked their ass for wasting my time with crazy talk."

That actually got a laugh from Rumia, a much less creepy one this time. "Get used to it, Kaguya," she said. "And if it makes you feel better, just think of it as protecting your rights as Mokou's official executioner. Now help me up."

"Say please."

There was a pause, and then Rumia said, "Really? Really Kaguya, really?"

A nasty smile spread across Kaguya's face. "Just because I hate it when people call me 'Your Highness' all sarcastic like doesn't mean I'm still not royalty. I'm willing to follow your lead for now, but don't think I'm going to let you forget who's the random youkai girl and who's the official leader of one of Gensokyo's biggest territories. So yes. Say please."

The red lights of Rumia's stared at her in disbelief. They then turned away from her and slowly went out as Rumia's eyelids squeezed together. "Oh, out of all the stupidest, self-important, egotistical things to…" She took in a deep, pain-filled breath and slowly let it out. "All right, your royal insufferableness. Would you kindly assist your wounded companion to her feet, as she is incapable of rising under her own power?" The shadows shifted as Rumia held out her hand. "Please?"

"Oh, get over yourself," Kaguya said as she grabbed Rumia's hand and stood, pulling Rumia to her feet. "Believe it or no, I am kind of important. Play nice, and you'll find that you've made yourself a powerful friend."

"What, getting my leg a torn up on your orders wasn't enough?" Rumia said with a derisive snort.

"Yeah, and what about that, anyway?" Kaguya asked. The light from her personal illumination didn't reach far enough to let her see Rumia in full detail, but even with just the silhouette she could tell that Rumia wasn't going to go anywhere very quickly. "Can you even travel?"

"Don't worry about me," Rumia growled. "I may not be a super healing freak like you guys, but I'm still a high-level youkai. I'll be better in no time."

Kaguya pointed her fingers at where she judged Rumia's forehead to be. "Maybe I should just blast you right now," she said. "Let you do that whole youkai resurrection thing and save us time."

"No!" Rumia shouted. She jerked back. Unfortunately the sudden action caused her bad leg to twist under her and she fell to her butt with a gasp of pain. But the fall didn't prevent her from shoving herself back with her hands and good leg. "Keep your godsdamned hands away from me!"

"Okay, okay!" Kaguya said, holding her palms up. "Chill out, all right? I was just trying to help."

"I don't need that kind of help, thanks," Rumia grunted. There was a crinkling sound as she grasped the nearby velmick head and used it to lever herself back up. "Oh, gods that hurts," she complained as she managed to get her good leg up. "And what are you thinking? I'm a trespasser, remember? This dream has it in for me. Do you really want to trust it with my life essence?"

"All right, I get it," Kaguya said. "Sorry."

"Just keep the bad ideas to yourself and we'll get along better. Now, hold still." Rumia hobbled over to Kaguya and grabbed her by the shoulder.

Kaguya started to pull back. "What are you-"

"Get over it, your worshipfulness. It was your idea that got me in this condition. So you're just going to have to put up with being my crutch while I act as your eyes." The eyes in question turned away from her and focused on the way ahead of them. "All righty then, that way. And watch out for worm heads."

...

When Mokou again regained consciousness, she had left the series of stomachs and was now entering the worm's intestines. Given that, by this point, most food matter would have already been broken down fully, there was little to interrupt her regeneration. Just a lot of squeezing. As such, when she awoke to find her mangled body being forced through a space that was tight, slimy and absolutely disgusting, she was quite put out.

Very, very put out.

...

"So, what do you think?" Kaguya asked. She placed a hand against the flat, smooth surface of the wall in front of them.

"I'm thinking that a ladder or a staircase would sound really great right now," Rumia said. She limped her way down the wall's length, her fingers feeling for some kind of break. "Or a door. A door would be nice. I can deal with a door."

Kaguya and Rumia's journey through the dark had been uneventful. Despite the indignity of having to support Rumia's shuffling body, she counted herself lucky that she had to suffer little more than that. And at least Rumia had been correct about her own recuperative abilities. As they had walked, her leg had healed itself and she was able to support more and more of her weight.

However, they had still found nothing. No surprises, either positive or negative, had presented themselves. Kaguya had even lost her patience on two occasions and brought back her miniature sun just to check to see if Rumia was simply hiding the truth about the emptiness of their surroundings. As it turned out, she was not, and the second offense got her whacked upside the head. She had returned the favor by kicking Rumia's leg out from under her and storming off by herself. It had been a full ten minutes before her common sense got the better of her and she had reluctantly returned. Their trip had become even more awkward after that.

But then they had come across the wall and all thoughts of personal grievances went out of their minds. Rumia even agreed to let Kaguya light up her portable sun so as to get a good look at the thing. It was huge, stretching into infinity in all directions. And if from the look of things, it was either seamless or made from some incredibly large stones.

However, Kaguya was less impressed with its size and more concerned of what they were supposed to do now. If the wall encompassed the entire space, then it didn't matter how big the room was, it was still a cage. And getting stuck together with no one but each other for company (MIA velmick notwithstanding) was not something either of them wanted. Of course, they could always just wait for Rumia's leg to heal, make their way back to one of the openings in the roof and have her fly them out, but that was a solution that was better left until they had exhausted all other options. And they still had to find Mokou.

"Still, credit where credit's due," Rumia said as she continued her inspection.

"Eh?"

Rumia tapped her knuckles against the wall's smooth surface. "I know it's not real, but this is some fantastic craftsmanship. Completely flawless. I haven't seen its like in Gensokyo. Is this from your mind, by any chance? Something from the Lunarian capital, perhaps?"

Kaguya frowned. "No, they're not much for plain walls there."

"Pity. People so often forget the beauty in silent simplicity. You know, it's always the more complicated locks that are the easiest to break, while some of the…Hang on." Rumia bent over and moved in so close that her nose was practically shoved up against the object of her admiration. "Hello, I do believe I've found something."

Kaguya's ears perked up. "You did?" she said as she walked over. "What?"

"A seam," Rumia said, pointing at the almost invisible line. "You can barely see it, but it's there. It's a pretty fine one too. And…" her finger slowly moved up, following the line's path. But instead of continuing up out of sight, it angled sharply to the left at a point about eight feet from the ground. From there, it continued for another five feet before turning again back towards the floor, forming a right-angled arch. "My dear royalty, I do believe we've found ourselves a door."

"A door?" Kaguya said with a frown. "What makes you so sure?"

Rumia gave the rectangle a soft push. It swung inward, revealing a rough stone tunnel. "Oh, it's just this hunch I have."

"Smartass," Kaguya said, though with a hint of admiration. "You think that's where the velmick went?"

Rumia shot her one of her increasingly familiar looks of disdain. "Right. Because giant worms are so known for their politeness that they always close the door behind them. Especially when through a tunnel too small for them."

Kaguya resisted the urge to kick her leg again. "They're not known for growing flowers all over their bodies, having replaceable heads and disappearing without a trace either," she snapped. "Nothing makes sense here, remember?"

"A fair point," Rumia conceded. "We'd better proceed with caution anyway. Even if tall, round and hungry isn't in here, there still-"

"Waitaminute," Kaguya interrupted. She crouched down and picked up something off the tunnel floor. "What is this doing here?"

It was a book. A small paperback with a worn cover and frayed ears. Kaguya's eyes widened when she recognized it. She turned it over in her hands, revealing the title.

"Voyage of the Dawn Treader?" Rumia said as she looked over Kaguya's shoulder. "What?"

"It's one of mine," Kaguya said. She ran her hand over the familiar cover, feeling mystified by its sudden presence. "From back home. But what could it be doing here?"

"What is anything doing here? Open it. Maybe it can tell us something useful."

Kaguya did, but while the cover was familiar, the story inside was not.

"It's rubbish," she said, tossing it aside in disgust. "Most of those characters don't even appear in that book, and I'm pretty sure Aslan never had sex with the White Queen."

Something else caught her eye, a little further in. She ran over and picked it up a painted cardboard box.

"Warhammer 40K?" Kaguya said in wonderment. She gave the box a small shake, rattling the miniatures inside. "Why is all my stuff in here?"

She dropped the box and moved in deeper. Strewn all throughout the tunnel were more and more of her belongings. A book here. A game there. Her Slytherin scarf (which she snatched up immediately and wrapped around her neck). An action figure, a poster, a LEGO set, several manga volumes, DVDS, a Gameboy Advance. The further she went in, the more of her Outside World toys she found. Soon she was finding trinkets that she in fact did not possess, and more than likely did not actually exist (When Cicadas Cry Monopoly? If only she could bring that with her) but did not look out of place mixed in with all of stuff she was finding.

Despite the severity of the situation, Kaguya felt herself growing excited. Sure, none of this stuff actually existed, and would do her little good, but fantasy or not, it was still a treasure trove. And while the books and manga were pretty unintelligible, she still was seeing some pretty sweet toys.

A strange urge started to come over her. She wanted to drop the quest right here and now, get on her knees and start playing with the toys. To have that Anti-Form Sora square off against Phoenix Wright. And then they'll resolve their differences and team up against Arthas, who had been infecting the kingdom of Hyrule with his plague. And then they'll find out that Darth Revan was behind everything the whole time and strike off to find his headquarters in the heart of the Tomb of Horrors, only to find that he had hired Hulk Hogan and the Ringwraiths to stop them and-

"Kaguya," Rumia said. "Hey. You okay?"

"…huh?"

Rumia snapped her fingers in front of Kaguya's face, breaking her from her reverie. "Hey! Wake up! You're starting to drool."

Kaguya scowled and quickly turned away. "No, I wasn't," she said, though she still quickly wiped her chin.

Rumia laughed. "So, all this junk is your stuff, huh?" She reached down and picked up a miniature Samus Aran. "Aren't you a little old to be playing with these?"

"Hey," Kaguya growled as she snatched the tiny bounty hunter out of Rumia's hands. "Watch it. And I'm literally in the top ten percent of the eldest beings in Gensokyo. I decide what's age appropriate for me, not you. Got it?"

Smirking, Rumia held up her hands and took a shuffling step back. "Okay, okay. Whatever you say." She eyed the paraphernalia lying all around. "Just don't tell me that you still sleep with stuffed animals."

"No, I don't," Kaguya snapped. She omitted the part that the only reason she didn't was because she didn't want to risk any cotton filled sleeping companions getting caught in the crossfire should Mokou attempt a midnight assassination. "But you are going to drop this conversation, or so help me, I am going to introduce you to a day of Mokou's daily life. Am I understood?"

Rumia nodded to indicate that she was, though the smirk didn't leave her face. Kaguya considered pressing the issue, though it didn't seem like it was worth it. But she did find herself looking forward to her eventual escape from Satsuki's mind-trap, if for no other reason than she wouldn't have to put up with Rumia's undue arrogance.

Then something caught her eye. She knelt down and picked it up.

"Huh," she said as she turned it in her fingers. It was her crayon, the one made up of multiple caps of different colors. She smiled.

"What's that?" Rumia asked as she leaned in closer.

"Oh, nothing," Kaguya said. "Just a coloring utensil. But I was thinking about it earlier, so it's kind of…"

The topmost cap popped off and fell to her feet.

"…uh, okay. Pretty sure it's not supposed to do that on its own."

The next seven caps immediately followed suit, popping off right after another. Kaguya and Rumia watched as they landed on the rough stone floor. An icy chill swept through Kaguya's spine. The caps were now changing, going from their original colors to pitch black.

The crayon twitched in her grasp. It started shaking, vibrating hard. Kaguya dropped it. It bounced once and lay still. Then it squirmed and twisted. The colors of its body ran together, forming a dull grey. Tiny white flowers sprouted all over it. It grew rapidly, shooting from about six inches in length to three feet in less than a second. And it only increased from there.

"Shit," Kaguya hissed. Blue energy surged down her arms as she lifted them over her head, ready to strike the thing down while it was still manageable.

"Wait!" Rumia said. She grabbed Kaguya by the wrist, cancelling the attack. "Mokou's still in that thing!"

"What? In that? How would she even fit? It's like the size of…"

The velmick's body now filled half the tunnel. Its mandibles spread as wide as they could and it bellowed at them.

"…never mind, run!" Kaguya screamed.

The two of them fled down the tunnel as quickly as they could, stepping over an ever-growing collection of games, books, toys and similar merchandise. Behind them, the velmick pursued, roaring as it slithered after them, its size all the while.

"I hate that thing!" Rumia gasped as she stumbled her way through the tunnel. Though her leg had healed enough to allow her to run, it still pained her. "I hate it!"

"I know!" Kaguya snapped. "Shut up and-"

Her bare heel fell upon the upraised cleaver of a die-cast Rena Ryuugu and was pierced by the tiny blade. Though the pain was far from noticeable, the shift in balance still made her stumble. It wasn't much. She was back on her feet and accelerating in less than a second. But it was enough.

The velmick lunged forward and seized Kaguya's lower body. She cried out as its mandibles closed around her waist, crushing her pelvis.

"Rumia!" she screamed. "Help!"

The lockbreaker looked over her shoulder and her face paled. She ran back and grabbed Kaguya's outstretched hands and pulled. The velmick, sensing the challenge, squirmed and pulled back.

Kaguya learned something in that moment. Rumia was a lot stronger than she appeared. Strong enough so that Kaguya's hands were not torn right out of her grasp. As such, she found herself in the center of a tug-of-war between a mysterious and likely untrustworthy youkai and a giant worm. As the proverbial rope in their contest of strength, Kaguya found herself drowning in enough agony to overwhelm her superhuman pain tolerance. She screamed as her joints popped and stretched and her vision was drenched in crimson…

And suddenly, she was free. Kaguya flew forward, out of the velmick's grasp and into Rumia's. "All right, let's go!" Rumia shouted as she threw Kaguya over her shoulder and ran. Kaguya didn't answer. She couldn't answer. She could only stare as the velmick tried to thrust its body to swallow both of them. But its body was now too big. It had to crush the tunnel walls outward to gain any ground.

Then her eyes moved away from the velmick and focused on her own body. She was now much lighter than she had been, owing to the fact that everything below her navel was gone.

...

Fire generally needed three things in order to ignite. Heat, oxygen and fuel. Deep within the velmick's bowels, only heat was to be found, and given the humidity it was going to be no help at all.

That wasn't a problem, though. Mokou's abilities weren't dependent on chemical reactions. They were dependent on her desire to burn things. And at that moment, she wanted to burn the whole bloody worm until it was indistinguishable from the dust it swam through.

...

The velmick was almost upon them. Its size prevented it from moving smoothly, but when it did move, it covered a lot of ground. Rumia kept running on, putting as much distance between the two of them and the worm as possible.

"You doing okay?" she managed to gasp to her crippled passenger. "You even alive?"

Kaguya was, but she was in no shape to respond. She just stared as the velmick tore up the stone passage in its mad drive to consume them. Her legs were taking their time in returning. Maybe she would get lucky and the blood loss would kill her before the velmick swallowed the rest of her. Then she could ride out the journey of digestion in the peace of death, and not awaken until she had been shat back out. Disgusting, but waking up in worm dung was far preferable to some of the alternatives.

Then Kaguya's eyes widened as they registered something strange enough to break through the pain-induced haze that had enveloped her mind. "Hey!" she croaked. She tugged on Rumia's back. "Look!"

"Are you insane?" Rumia shouted at her. "There's no time for that!" But she did spare a glance over her shoulder. The sight was enough to make her stop and turn around and stare.

The velmick had stopped pursuing them. From the look of things, it was in great pain. Though its size prevented much in the way of movement, its head was still lolling back and forth. It was moaning, filling the cramped space with the sound of its agony.

Then its throat opened and it let out a loud belch. Kaguya's nose wrinkled as she was assailed with the stench of rotting fish mixed with fertilizer. The velmick belched again. This time, smoke curled accompanied the smell.

And then the giant worm burst into flames. Fire exploded out of its throat as crimson cracks burst out all over its hide. Rumia skittered back, driven away by the heat. The velmick's moans turned into a screaming wail as it burned.

Smoke filled the tunnel, stinging Kaguya's eyes and making her already labored breathing even more difficult. Even so, she felt more irritation than anything. Great, she thought. She is never going to let me forget this.

Almost as if her internal lamentations had summoned it up, a humanoid figure appeared within the inferno. Hands in her pockets, Mokou strode out of the flames, untouched by their heat and heedless of the choking smoke that surrounded them. She looked at the legless Kaguya slung over the Rumia's shoulder and smirked.

"Hey there," she said. "You guys miss me?"

Kaguya found herself in the strange state of wanting to kill Mokou, but for reasons completely unrelated to their rivalry. She just wanted to blast that infuriating smile off of her face.

"Mokou," Rumia greeted calmly. "Impeccable timing. And my full compliments on your entrance." She yanked out her borrowed blade and held it out, hilt-first. "Here, I believe this belongs to you."

Mokou's eyebrows rose. She took the sword and nodded her thanks.

"Well then," she said as she put it away. "You guys wanna tell me what the hell happened to you?"

...

As excruciating as Mokou's trip through the velmick's digestion track had been, it was almost worth for being given the opportunity to burn her way back out and find an injured Rumia lugging around half of Kaguya, both of them mere moments away from being devoured themselves if it weren't for Mokou's intervention. Almost.

Unfortunately, a smoke-filled tunnel shared with the burning worm in question was not the place to bring each other up to speed, so after collapsing the tunnel between them and the velmick, they continued on in silence until the air had cleared enough for them to talk.

Of course, it was Rumia who had done most of the talking. Kaguya was in no state to explain anything, and Mokou's contribution hadn't been much more than "I got digested for awhile. It hurt like hell. But then it stopped and I starting setting things on fire".

"So just so we're clear," Mokou said as they walked. "You two were planning on saving me, right?"

"Of course," Rumia said. "Personal feelings aside, you're still necessary for our escape. There was just the problem of how. That thing was kind of hard to hurt from the outside."

"No kidding," Mokou said as she studied her delimbed rival. "That worm must have been some kind of surgeon to make such a clean cut."

Rumia coughed. "Actually, that was me."

Until that moment, Kaguya's head had been listing back and forth. But at Rumia's words, it slowly rose and turned to stare at her. "Y-you c-c-cut me in h-half? You?" Kaguya choked out.

Rumia shrugged her free shoulder. "Hey, you were about three seconds away from having your arms torn off at the roots. I had to free you somehow." She pulled out her silver sword and held it up. The blade was crusted with drying blood. "At least my way you would have less healing to do."

"Smart thinking," Mokou approved. She leaned to one side, staring into Kaguya's open torso. "Though how come she hasn't started regenerating yet?"

"I, uh, really have no idea," Rumia admitted. "Her healing factor was working fine earlier. Maybe it has to do with that whole me being a trespasser thing?"

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"This isn't my real body, remember?" Rumia said. "It's something that my dream world put together, just like the bodies you two are wearing were put together by this place. So maybe the, I don't know, frequency is different or something. Like, getting injured by something from another dream world screws things up."

"Clash of conflicting energies?" Mokou tapped her lower lip as she thought about that. "Yeah, I can see it. Does this mean we're going to have to lug her ass around for the rest of the trip?"

"If so, you're taking your turn in about five minutes."

"Done."

"No!" Kaguya croaked out. She wrapped her arms around Rumia's torso and clung as tight as she could. "D-d-don't l-let h-her tou-touch me!"

"Aw, what's the matter, Kaguya?" Mokou taunted. "We all have to pull our fair share. And if that means carrying you in your time of need, I will gladly shoulder that burden."

"K-keep away fr-from me!"

"Knock it off, you too," Rumia said wearily. "I said carry her, not kill her."

"Who ever said anything about killing?" Mokou grinned.

"I swear, if I'm stuck here with you two for another hour, I'm going to go three shades of homicidal myself," Rumia muttered. She kicked aside a board game, popping the box open and spilling the contents. "Forget the bloated bugs and the freaky terrain, you guys are more nightmare than I can handle."

"Thanks," Mokou said. "But don't think compliments will make me like you any better."

Rumia just rolled her eyes and quickened her step. But then she stopped, her brow creasing in a frown.

"Hey, check it out," she said, gesturing with her bloody sword. "I think we've reached the end."

They had indeed. The tunnel opened up into a cave the size of medium-sized room. Here Kaguya's toys and trinkets were the thickest, covering the entirety of the ground and then some. Furniture had been added to the mix: a richly appointed double-bed with purple covers, a set of drawers carved from expensive wood, several bookcases crammed with even more Outside World novels and a cabinet decorated with tiny figurines and showcasing a television and several gaming machines. An electric lamp in the form of a mechanical man sat on the dresser, illuminating the room. The stone walls were covered with posters, tapestries and exotic weaponry, and a fan spun overhead.

"What a clusterfuck," Rumia observed. "Do you think someone lives here?"

Mokou scowled. "Yeah, someone does," she said. She pushed her way past Rumia and entered the room, carefully picking her way through the mess on the floor. "Kaguya."

"Wh-what?" Kaguya said. She was still positioned so that her body was facing the tunnel. "T-turn me ar-round!"

Rumia slipped her from her shoulder and held her up by the armpits. Kaguya squeaked in surprise when she got a good look at where they were.

"It's m-my room!" she said. "B-but why? How?"

"Why not?" Rumia said. "Makes about as much sense as anything else. At least it means I can stop hauling your near-corpse around." She picked her way over to the bed and tossed Kaguya on the covers. The Lunarian princess scrambled around so that she was leaning against the pillows and facing her two companions, her eyes dark with contempt and distrust.

Rumia rolled her eyes. "Well, okay. So we found the midget's little hidey-hole. Now what?"

It was a valid question. Save for the toy-lined tunnel that they had just emerged from, the room was without entrance or exit. No doors, no windows, no skylights and no holes. And seeing how the tunnel had been blocked off by both rocks and whole lot of charred worm meat, leaving by that path was going to be problematic.

Mokou wasn't especially worried though. If worst came to worst, they could always just blow their way out. Blasting away solid rock back home took a great deal of effort, but she was willing to bet that it would be a lot easier here. She wouldn't be surprised if the stones turned out to have the same consistency as the paper walls of Eientei.

"N-now?" Kaguya stuttered. "Now you…you f-find a way to f-f-fix me!"

"Love to," Rumia said. "I'm open to suggestions."

Kaguya's hands curled into claws. "Fi-figure…s-s-someth-thing out! Y-you did th-this to me, you fi-find a wa…wa-wa…" Then her eyes, bloodshot with pain, suddenly lit up.

"Th-that's it!" she breathed. "Mokou!"

"Yo?"

"Kill me!"

Mokou's eyebrows shot straight up. "What?"

"Really?" Rumia said. "Suicide? Come on, it's not that bad, is it?"

"F-f-fools!" Kaguya spat. She planted her palms against the pillows and shoved herself up so that she was leaning against the wall. "Not sui…suicide. Fix it!"

"What?" Mokou repeated. "How the hell is me killing you going to fix anything. I mean, don't get me wrong, I think it's a fine idea and I'm all for it. I'm just not understanding the logic here."

Rumia's face suddenly brightened with understanding. "No, wait. Wait, wait, wait. She's right!"

"Uh, huh?" Mokou turned toward her. "You mind explaining this very alluring but still bizarre line of thought?"

"Look, even when you two have lost your flight powers or anything else, your regeneration still worked fine, right?" Rumia said. "This is the only time it's ever failed."

"Yeah. So?"

"So we figure it's because I was the one to dismember her, what with me not coming from these parts."

"Yeah, we established this already. What's your point?" Then Mokou's eyes widened as understanding struck her. "Hold on a second! So you're saying that if I were to kill her, someone who was formed by this world and is supposed to be here, it'll cancel out whatever you did to screw her up?"

"Yes!" Kaguya said as her body slumped in relief. "That's it!"

Mokou mused over this new idea. There was no denying that the plan itself was right up her alley. She had been killed twice since they had come here, while Kaguya was still running on the same life she had come in with, despite having her spine shattered at one point and being cut in half at another. Their truce meant that she couldn't balance the scales herself, but if it was Kaguya herself instructing her to do the deed, then there was no problem.

But then, they were basing all of this on an untested theory. If Rumia was wrong, and Kaguya had simply lost her regeneration due to the general weirdness that had plagued them since coming here, than they risked eliminating Kaguya all together. And to be honest, Mokou wasn't entirely sure if she was comfortable with that. Setting aside the whole problem of still needing Kaguya's help to escape from this place, she had focused such a large part of her life to her rivalry with Kaguya that the idea that it might end here, through a botched attempt to relieve the Moonbitch's pain instead of some sort of final, climatic confrontation that would finally gift her with a sense of closure, was all kinds of repulsive.

Kaguya must have sensed her reluctance, because she then said, "L-look, just do it already! W-worst c-case scen…scenario, I j-just stay dead until…until…" she took a deep breath and practically screamed out, "until Eirin finally catches the little bastard daughter of a whore and forces her to vomit us up!"

"Technically, that's not the worst that could happen," Rumia pointed out. "There's still the chance that killing this representation will somehow damage your soul, thus upsetting your immortality and-"

"Shut up," Kaguya snapped. To Mokou, she said, "In the name of all the gods, don't leave me like this. Do it, already!"

"Okay," Mokou said. "It's your funeral."

She walked over to the bed held up her hands. The flames would have to be much hotter than she normally employed. Her usual practice of using just enough heat to burn but not enough to kill until she got bored would do her no good here. Total immolation was the answer. White-hot flames.

"Make sure you've got the fires hot enough," Rumia said. "You've got to disintegrate her completely. And try to make it fast too."

"Thanks, I think I've figured that part out," Mokou muttered. She concentrated, digging deep into her well of power and focusing it around her hands.

"Wait!" Kaguya yelped, breaking Mokou's concentration. "P-pick me up first!"

"Huh?"

Kaguya reached out with her arms. "D-don't torch the b-bed too! Use it to c-collect the ashes!"

"Okay, this is officially one of the strangest conversation I have ever had with you," Mokou said. "But whatever you say." She reached down and picked up Kaguya by the armpits and held her up a good distance above the bed.

"Well, here goes nothing," Mokou said. And then, without meaning to, she did something that she had never done before. Something that she had never dreamed that she would do.

She apologized to Kaguya.

"Sorry about this," she said before she could stop the words from spilling out of her mouth.

Then she set Kaguya ablaze.

For the briefest of moments, Mokou was afraid that her powers would fail her again. That Kaguya would take no damage at all, that she would be cursed with the same indestructibility that had plagued them both when they had first fought in the world of pillars. Or worse, that she would burn, but go no further. That the fires would continue to hurt her, but not kill her, not reduce her to ash as Mokou intended. It was a strange feeling, to actually care if Kaguya felt pain or not. Mokou did her best to ignore it and focused on covering the woman in her hands with as much heat as possible.

Kaguya's body erupted in white flames. Mokou was surprised by how quickly she burned. The fire raged for maybe five seconds before losing their source of fuel. And then there was nothing but fine, grey ash slipping through her fingers to dirty the bedcovers.

Mokou stared at her smeared hands. Despite her success, she felt no relief. Instead, the strange feeling was only growing stronger. She rubbed the ash between her fingers.

My gods, I just murdered her, she found herself thinking. But why should that bother her? She murdered Kaguya all the time, and in this instance she not only had permission, but clear instruction. So why was she now so uncomfortable?

There was the rasping sound of someone clearing their throat. "Well, okay," Rumia said. "That's done. Now what?"

Mokou shook herself out of her trance. "Now?" she said with a shrug. She wiped her hands on the blanket and walked away to slump against the far wall. "Now we wait and see what happens. Just pray we don't get interrupted in the meantime."

"I don't pray. And interrupted by what?"

"How should I know? There's that worm thing, for starters." Mokou's already frowning face darkened even further. "It would be just our luck if it fixed itself up and came after us again."

"Oh, I don't think so," Rumia said. She pulled down one of the tapestries and used it to wipe Kaguya's blood from her blade. "Something tells me we won't have to worry about him anymore. Just a feeling I have."

...

Strictly speaking, the velmick was not an actual creature. None of the beings save for Rin Satsuki's three prisoners were. From the inhabitants of the dead town of Kamakura to the constantly respawning crew of the Kobayashi Maru to the creatures Kaguya called the Zerg to the velmick itself. None of them actually existed, but were rather images taken from the memories and minds of Kaguya Houraisan and Fujiwara no Mokou. Oh, they behaved as if they were alive, and they were dangerous enough, insofar as the dream world's captives were concerned. But they possessed no true sentience, or even animalistic instinct. The people talked, but there was no thought governing the words. The monsters roared, but there was no feeling of rage behind their cries. And though they all screamed when hurt, none of them felt any actual pain. They were simply reacting as programmed by the minds that had created them. A pocket calculator had more self-awareness.

And even if the velmick were real, there still would not be much in the way of reasoning going on. They had been created as a weapon, and despite their tremendous size and power they did were not gifted with actual intelligence. In lieu of brains their impulses were generated and directed by a highly sensitive nervous system that wove throughout the entire beast, save for the exterior of their exoskeletons. Amazing speed and reflexes, but that was about it. Had they been dealing with a normal velmick, it would have stopped pursuing them the moment they passed beyond the boundary of its senses. For all intents and purposes, they would no longer exist as far as it would be concerned.

However, this velmick was much different than the Lunarian-created monsters that had inspired it. It was not at all concerned with the instincts that governed its real-world brethren. It had been created for two specific purposes. The first was to scare the everloving hell out of Kaguya Houraisan. And now that, after over a thousand years of disuse, it was once again free to fulfill its directive.

But in the process it had been given a second task: to drive off or destroy the dark intruder. The dream had sensed its presence the moment it had fallen from the heavens, and had been trying to remove it ever since. The first two attempts had failed miserably. Granted, the sailors had been a spur-of-the-moment solution, so their defeat came as no surprise. But the second try, taking a race of incredibly deadly predators from Kaguya's imagination and hurling them en masse at the dark intruder had also ended in failure. The dark intruder had worked directly against the dream in that instance, exerting its power and overwhelming that of the dream to destroy the beasts.

The velmick was attempt number three. It was the mightiest guardian to yet be unleashed, and the most resistant to the wiles of the dark intruder. And massive internal damage or no, it was not going to stop pursuing its directives.

And so, soon after it had been turned into a hollowed out husk and buried in a cave-in, the dream worked to heal its champion. Scorched meat and immolated organs were restored, as good as new. The velmick withdrew from the tunnel, pulling its body back into the great room that held up the sea of lily petals. It then drew back, ready to thrust its body back into the cavern in pursuit of its prey.

But then it paused.

Save for two holes in the roof several meters away, the room was devoid of light. And the velmick itself was blind. Still, when the shadows began to move, it knew. Or rather, the dream that controlled it knew. It had not created them. They had no business being there.

And yet, there they were, slinking out of the tunnel and across the floor. Even lightless room, they somehow stood apart from the darkness. Stronger, darker, more powerful. And driven by a will blacker than any nightmare the dream could conjure up. And as they approached, the velmick, a beast strong beyond reckoning, feared even by the godlike beings that had created it, shied back.

Yes, you feel me, don't you? the shadows seemed to whisper. With the firebird no longer in your belly, I no longer need to fear harming her. And my irritating companions can't see you now. So there really is no reason to hold back anymore, is there?

There were no words spoken, but the intent was communicated nevertheless. And the dream felt it.

You know, you are quite an impressive beast, the dark intruder purred as they wrapped around the cowering worm. In other circumstances, I might be tempted to keep you as a pet. But unfortunately, you got in my way and made yourself to be extremely annoying. A poor move, all around.

Again, there was no sound. No audible words. But still, the dark intruder laughed. And the dream heard.

You made a powerful enemy today, worm. And I tire of your existence. So let me teach you who the real dominant predator is around here.

The shadows struck. They plunged into the velmick's body, passing right through its supposedly impenetrable carapace as if it were nothing more than a normal worm's squishy flesh. The velmick bellowed as its body shriveled and turned black, but not for long.

When it hit the floor less than a moment later, it was no longer a relentless engine of power and destruction. Instead, it more resembled nothing more than a mile-long lump of charcoal.

The shadows retreated, returning to their master.

The dream considered this new development. It was not exactly sentient itself, but that did not mean it was without an agenda of its own. It wanted to keep Kaguya Houraisan and Fujiwara no Mokou in. And it wanted the dark intruder gone. And in pursuit of those goals, it was capable of acknowledging threats and adapting accordingly. Despite the diminutive form it had taken, the dark intruder was stronger than the dream. Mere strength would not work.

With this taken into account, the dream set to work preparing the next guardian. If it couldn't match the dark intruder in power, than it would just have to get creative.

...

Mokou pushed away as much of the junk as she could and did her best to make herself comfortable. Rumia sat at the opposite end of the room, looking through Kaguya's toys with a look of absolute bafflement. Between them, Kaguya's ashes still lay unmoving on the bed. Mokou sighed and stretched out her legs.

"So, how long is this going to take?" Rumia asked.

Mokou shrugged. "Awhile. Full disintegration takes a long time to come back from. First her soul has to figure out that her body doesn't exist anymore. That usually takes a few minutes at least. Than it has to reconnect with the ash and start pushing it back together. Once there's a large enough clump, the ash will start shifting back into flesh. It'll be mostly just a lump at first, but then the skeleton will start to reform, pushing some shape into the thing, and then-"

"Okay, okay, I get it," Rumia said. "Sheesh, that's pretty twisted. And surprisingly detailed, by the way. Exactly how many times have you done this to her?"

"A lot," Mokou said with another shrug. She shifted her weight, bringing one knee up and rest her arm across it. "Far more times than I could count, even if I were bothered to try."

"I didn't just mean kill her, I meant burn her completely to ash," Rumia said.

"So did I."

Even with the light of Kaguya's lamp, there were enough shadows that Rumia's crimson youkai eyes shone brightly. At Mokou's answer, the glint of cunning appeared in them. "Huh. Interesting. Now, just out of curiosity, have you ever considered torching her like you did just now, and scattering the ashes so that she couldn't come back."

Mokou considered telling her to shut up and mind her own business. Instead, she said, "Yeah, a couple times."

"And?"

A third shrug. "It gave me a week without her. But she came back. Her whole body resurrected from a single speck of ash. We can't stay dead. I'm pretty sure that elixir of Eirin Yagokoro's could bring us back from oblivion, if we ever found a way to get there."

"Fascinating," Rumia murmured. Her voice had lowered an octave. Her rough youkai accent softened. "So if I'm not being too bold, what would you say is the absolute worst thing you either of you have done to each other? I mean besides the obvious answer of mutual existence."

Mokou didn't immediately respond. She remained sitting, her fingers tapping a rhythm against her knee. Her dull maroon eyes studied Rumia's face as the wheels in her head turned.

"Why," she said at last "do you want to know?"

Rumia shrugged and smiled. "Oh, let's just say there's a couple people back home that have done me a wrong or two, and I really want to get back at them."

"This Rin Satsuki?" Mokou said. She still wasn't sure of what to make of what Kaguya and Rumia had told her of their mysterious jailer. She only knew that she was completely unsurprised that Eirin Yagokoro had so easily turned a young weakling into a monstrosity that openly defied the laws of reality. That was, after all, what she did.

"Naw, not her. Just some other youkai, like me. I just figured that so long as I'm stuck here with you two, I might as well get some advice on revenge. You know, from the experts."

"What did they do to you?" Mokou asked. She didn't trust anything Rumia said, but there was something about this conversation that had a ring of truth.

"They ruined the best job I ever had," Rumia responded. She sighed in regret. "It was almost too good to be true, but it was. I could have bought my own apartment in Center Tree with the payoff. And they went and ruined the whole thing. Set me up to get ambushed and caused me to get trapped in one of those damned youkai sealing spells. It was six decades before someone finally let me out."

"That's not so long."

Rumia snorted. "Yeah, to you it wouldn't be. But let me tell you, when you're stuck in one of those hellish youkai traps, still aware but with your body frozen in a vapor state, completely divorced from your senses, sixty years feels like a very long time."

Mokou thought about that and found herself agreeing.

"So what did you have in mind?" she asked.

"That's the problem," Rumia said, her voice souring. "I don't know. I keep coming back to 'kill them', but that just doesn't seem like enough. I've considered hiring some Human mercs to put them in a seal, but that also doesn't seem like enough. I want to know what the absolute worst thing you can do to a person. Something that would tip the scales so far in my favor that they would have to spend the next three hundred years working their asses off, just to catch up."

Mokou scratched her cheek. That was a lot of hate. She could sympathize. "Uh, yeah. You're asking the wrong girl, here," she said. "Just about everything I've done to Kaguya has involved killing her. If you want to know the best way to subject them to days of utter agony until death itself feels like a relief, I might be able to help you. But it sounds like you're looking for…" Mokou's voice trailed off. The answer to Rumia's question had just risen unbidden in her mind, riding a memory long scabbed over.

"Yeah, I know," Rumia sighed. She tossed the action figure she had been fiddling with aside. "Forget it. It was a stupid question anyway."

"No, no it isn't," Mokou muttered. She stared down at the pile of silly toys that lay all around her, but didn't see any of them. Images were swimming in front of her eyes, and long dead voices were screaming in her ears.

You stupid, stupid girl! You think I wanted this?

"Say what now?" Rumia said. "What do you mean?"

Mokou shook herself. She pushed the memory away, shoved it back into the deep hole that it had emerged from. Then she looked up to stare Rumia in the eye. "If you want to go hurt someone, to really destroy them, here's how you do it. Find out what they love. What they worship. Figure out what they value above everything else, what they would literally forfeit their soul to keep."

"And kill that instead, and make them watch?" Rumia said. "Sounds a little clichéd, but I can see that doing the trick."

"No," Mokou said as she shook her head. A small smile twitched her lips, one that was completely without laughter. "You don't kill it. You don't kill anything."

"What?"

Mokou leaned forward. There was a new edge to her voice, one not too dissimilar to madness. She noticed, but didn't care. "No, that's hurt them, but they can always get over that and find something else to love. What you do is take that thing, the thing that the person you hate loves the most, and you change it. Corrupt it. Pervert it. Make sure it's still technically the same thing, but with everything about it that they had held dear gone. Broken beyond repair. They'll live the rest of their lives obsessing over what you did, wondering how they could have prevented it, trying to figure out how to save the object of their desire, but despairing in the knowledge that it's impossible."

Silence fell upon the room. The spinning fan was the only thing that moved.

And then Rumia said, "Interesting. And, ah, correct me if I'm wrong, but that doesn't sound like something you did to Kaguya."

Without breaking eye contact, Mokou shook her head. "No. It's not."

"Something she did to you, then?"

"No. Something I did to someone else. A long time ago."

"Huh." Mokou could almost hear Rumia's mind racing, filling in the blanks of what Mokou had told her. "You must have really hated the bastard, then."

"No," Mokou said for the third time. She continued to stare at the youkai girl. "I didn't."

"Is that so." A small, crafty smile appeared on Rumia's lips. "Okay then, I won't pry. Thanks for the tip, though. I'll definitely be giving that some thought." Then her gaze shifted from Mokou to the bed and her face brightened. "Ah, check it out! Our royal friend is finally starting to stir."

She was right. On the bed, the ash was now gathering together, clumping together like the dust of some magnetic metal. As Mokou had claimed, once they had formed into a shapeless lump, the ash smoothed themselves out and became a blob of pale flesh. The blob began to ripple and stretch, as if there were a tiny person inside trying to tear their way out. But instead of ripping it merely continued to stretch and take form, pushing out nubs that would shape themselves into limbs.

"Well, guess our theory was right after all," Rumia said as she watched in fascination. "Kind of disgusting though. Still, that's one less thing to worry about."

Mokou didn't respond. She just watched Kaguya's rebirth in silence. And once again, she had no idea how she was supposed to feel about it. One would argue that she should feel relieved that she had not accidentally put an end to the Moonbitch. Another would say that she should be disappointed for not accomplishing just that. And given the memories that Rumia's questioning had dredged up, it was hard not to agree with the latter position.

Kaguya took her sweet time coming back, but return to life she did. And after over forty minutes of reshaping herself, she finally opened her eyes.

"Oh," she said as she sat up on her knees and slapped her newly formed legs. "Oh, hey! Hey, it worked!" She grinned in relief while patting her face and touching her hair as if to check to see if it was there. "Awesome! Never thought I'd say this, but thanks Mokou!"

Mokou still said nothing. She just continued to stare, but for reasons different than her moody brooding. Rumia did the same, her mouth hanging open in disbelief.

Kaguya noticed. "Oh, what's with you two?" she said. "You didn't think it would work. Well, sorry to disappoint you."

Mokou just shook her head and allowed herself to smile for real. It was as if fate had sensed her black mood and had sent her a little something to cheer her up. And by the gods, it was working.

"Kaguya," Rumia grinned. She covered her mouth and started snickering. "Welcome back. Looking…smooth."

"Smooth?" Kaguya frowned. "Okay, there's some sort of joke I'm not getting here. What happened while I was out?"

Mokou lifted a fist to her mouth and loudly cleared her throat. "Nothing, nothing. We're just glad to have you back." Then she had to choke back laughter of her own.

Kaguya's eyes flitted from face to the other. Her face was now downright bewildered. "What?" she said. "What? Did I come back with two heads or something?" She hopped off the bed and put one hand on her hip. "Because I don't mind telling you, I'm getting a little sick-"

She stopped in mid-sentence. The look of confusion froze. She slowly reached down with the other arm to touch the opposite hip. Her eyes widened as realization dawned, and her expression grew into one of horror.

"So, uh, Kaguya," Mokou said. "Feel a draft?"

That did it. Both she and Rumia burst into hysterics.

Given their mutual hobby of cyclistic murder, the clothing that Kaguya and Mokou wore were heavily reinforced with regeneration spells, designed to ensure that their garments returned with their bodies. It was quite similar to those employed by wild youkai and fairies, only much stronger, given that their average lifespan between deaths could at times be measure in hours, and there was no telling where there body might end up upon resurrection. The effectiveness of such spells had been put to the test countless times, and it had been a long time since they had encountered a method of demise that they could not compensate for.

However, for whatever reason, they chose today to fail. At least half of them did. The white cotton tee shirt that she had been wearing since they had arrived returned with no problems. But her shorts were still missing in action. Perhaps it was due to the fact that they had been snipped off with her lower half and had burned with the rest of the velmick. Perhaps it was due to the hypothesized disruption caused by Rumia's sword. Perhaps it was just the dream itself pulling a silly prank. But for whatever reason, Kaguya's ever-decreasing wardrobe now just consisted of her shirt, leaving her naked from the waist down.

To her credit, Kaguya didn't turn bright red, didn't scream, didn't squeal or throw things at them. She didn't even panic and try to cover herself up. She simply slumped her shoulders and groan out loud. "Oh, this can't be happening," she said as her companions continued to laugh. "This…this is just…Okay. Guys. Look. Haha, very funny, I get it. But I'm having a really lousy time here. So could you two just please stop laughing and look the other way before I rip you heads off with my bare hands?"

Mokou exchanged an amused look with Rumia. "What do you think, youkai?" she said. "Should we give her a break? I mean, it's not like we haven't been doing all the work."

"DO IT!" Kaguya screeched. "NOW!"

"We might as well," Rumia said, still snickering. "At this rate she'll spontaneously combust with anger, and we'll have to wait for her to resurrect all over again."

"All, right, all right," Mokou said, though she still took her own sweet time in rising to her feet. Rumia followed suit, and they went over to stand in the tunnel entrance, their back to the room. Inside, Kaguya could be heard ranting as she pulled the room apart, searching for something to cover herself.

"I can't believe this, I just can't believe this. It wasn't enough that they take me straight from the open seas to the freaking Moon, it wasn't enough they had to send a velmick after me and smash my boat and lose my hat, it wasn't enough that I had to go back and fight the velmick to save Mokou of all people-"

"Yeah, and fantastic job you did there, by the way," Mokou called over her shoulder. "I don't know what I would have done without you."

A book flew through the air to smack the back of her head. "I said shut up," Kaguya growled. "I mean, what does this place have against me?"

"Hey," Rumia said. "Look on the bright side. At least we found a weird copy of your room right before. I mean, if there's any place where you could find something to wear…"

"You'd think that, wouldn't you?" Kaguya shot back. Mokou could hear her tearing through the set of drawers. "But so far I am not seeing anything I can…Oh. Hello."

"Hello what?" Mokou slouched against the tunnel wall and pushed around a plastic sword with her foot. She glanced back into the room.

Kaguya was squatting in from of the chest of drawers. The bottommost drawer was wide open and she was staring at its contents with a look of near religious awe. She noticed Mokou looking at her and threw another book at her. "Hey! A little privacy, please?"

Mokou deflected the paper missile and turned away. "Nothing I haven't seen before, Moonbitch."

"Yeah, but we weren't on the same side then. It doesn't count!"

"You two have the weirdest relationship," Rumia said. "No joke."

No one rushed to contradict her. Cloth ruffled as Kaguya dressed herself. In a rare demonstration of courtesy, Mokou and Rumia waited for her to finish.

When she was certain that Kaguya was taking longer than she should, Mokou called, "Hey, what's the hold up back there? I thought you were just putting on a pair of pants or a skirt. Don't tell me you've trying to fit into a full ballroom gown or something."

"Nope," Kaguya said. Mokou could practically hear the grin in her voice. "Even better. Hang on, I'm almost…got it. Okay, you guys can come back in now."

"Finally," Rumia said as she and Mokou turned around. And then they stared.

The good news was that Kaguya had found a full outfit. However, Mokou had no idea what to make of it. A white button-down shirt was now over Kaguya's tee shirt, with a grey v-neck sweater pulled on over that. She had found a knee-length dark green skirt to cover her bum, and had pulled on a pair shiny black shoes with calf-high socks of the same color. A green-and-silver striped tie was secured tightly around her throat, and an open black robe completed the look. It reminded Kaguya of those outfits worn by the girls in some of Kaguya's magazines, only this one covered a great deal more skin.

Kaguya folded her arms and favored them with a defiant look. "Yeah, I know what you're thinking. Guess what? I don't care."

Rumia opened her mouth to say something, but seemed unable to fully articulate her thoughts. "What…what is…I don't even…" She shook her head and turned to Mokou. "Mokou. Please explain to me why she's dressed as an orphan?"

"Orphan?" Now it was Kaguya's turn to look bewildered. "What? This is an official Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry uniform! Slytherin House, to be specific. Go team snake."

"Oh gods, here we go. Don't ask her," Mokou said before Rumia could so much as open her mouth. "She wants you to ask her. She's mentally begging you to ask her. Trust me, the answer will just be long, stupid and won't matter in the slightest."

Kaguya actually looked offended, which was a rarity. Most of the time she just looked annoyed or homicidal. "You know, contrary to popular belief, I don't actually go around looking for excuses to talk about my hobbies with people I hate," she muttered.

"Okay. Whatever. You found some clothes, and now look ridiculous," Rumia said. She walked back into the room and sat back down on the floor. "Great. So now that we're all together again and the worm's out of the way, what now?"

Kaguya looked like she still wanted to argue, but Mokou cut her off. The question was a good one, after all. "Now?" she said as she returned to her own corner. "Now we take a break."

"A break?" Kaguya scowled. "Really? Is this really the time?"

Mokou grunted as she eased herself back down. "Can you think of a better time? Come on, Houraisan. Both of us just went through some very heavy resurrections. Even Rumia got herself wrecked, a little bit. Dream body or no dream body, I'm spent. And I know you are too."

Kaguya's glare deepened, but then she considered Mokou's words and her face softened. "Maybe you're right," she admitted as she sat back on the bed. "Maybe a break is a good idea."

"Okay," Rumia said. "But after we're done refreshing our juices, what then?"

Mokou waved a wrist in her direction. "We'll figure that out later. It's not like we know anything about what's coming. We don't have enough information to make any sort of plans."

"But-"

"Shut up," Mokou and Kaguya said, at the exact same time.

Rumia scowled, but complied. She slumped back and stretched her legs onto a pile of Kaguya's toys. On the bed, Kaguya laid back on the pillows, folded her hands behind her head and closed her eyes.

Mokou followed suit, relaxing her body the best she could. She had no idea how long it had been since she had literally fallen into this world, but it had to a couple days, at least. Not at all a significant amount of time by anyone's reckoning, least of all hers, but the severity of the situation made it feel longer. And the fact that sleep had thus far proven impossible did nothing to help.

She had tried, a couple of times on Kaguya's dumb boat, but nothing had happened. She supposed this was to be expected, given the inherent redundancy of sleeping in a dream world, but she was now tired enough to give it another try. So she closed her eyes and tried to clear her mind.

About ten minutes later she opened them again. Kaguya had curled up and was facing her, but her eyes were open. Rumia was staring at the ceiling, watching the blades of the fan spin around and around.

Mokou grunted. Okay, so sleep wasn't going to happen after all. Just as well. That might lead to a dream within the dream, and that was just a little too much metaphysical weirdness for her to handle at the moment.

She drew her father's sword and laid it across her knees. Though she barely, if ever, gave the actual article a second look these days, she felt a strange attachment to this facsimile dredged up from centuries-old memories. She turned it back and forth, watching her reflection stretch and warp in the battle-worn blade. Perhaps its presence was her subconscious' way of chiding her for letting the blade fall into such poor condition. Perhaps it was time to see about getting it repaired.

The thought made her mouth squeeze into a thin line. Then again, what reason did she have? The Fujiwara family was gone. She was its only surviving member, and she was so divorced from humanity that she was certain that she didn't count anymore. That had been her family's opinion, certainly. If she took it upon herself to repair their only surviving treasure, it would probably disgrace all of her ancestor's at once. Maybe it was best to leave it broken. At least then it matched everything else about her.

Mokou stared into the blade as she thought. Within, she could see the wall behind her, with all of Kaguya's posters and tapestries. In that regard at least, the dream had been accurate. Kaguya's real room back home was likewise covered with advertisements for fictional characters and monsters from the Outside World. Mokou found this frankly baffling. Who would care about such people, besides Kaguya herself? Who was she trying to show off her infatuation for? Did she think that by plastering their likenesses all over her walls, that others might become interested and-

Wait. Mokou stopped tilting the blade back and forth. One of the posters caught her eyes. She leaned forward to get a better look. In the metal, she could see the reflection of a man's face, glaring down at her. A very familiar face.

It was as if her blood froze to ice in her veins. Mokou's hands trembled. She slowly set the sword aside and turned around.

The posters and tapestries had all changed. Gone were Kaguya's imaginary friends. In their place were the images of people, people who were not imaginary at all. They stared out at the room's occupants from their worlds of paper and cloth, their eyes dark with accusation.

Mokou's breath caught in her throat. "Kaguya!" she choked as she scrambled up. "Rumia!"

Her companions jolted out of their daydreams. "What?" Kaguya said as she sat up. "What's wrong?"

In response, Mokou just pointed a shaking finger. Kaguya's already pale face took on another shade of pallid.

"Eh?" Rumia said as she stood up. She looked around. "Hey, what gives? Who are these guys?"

Mokou stared at one group of people in particular. There were four of them, three men and one woman. The woman's face was horribly bloated with cancerous growths, while blood poured from the throat of the youngest of the men. However, her attention was focused on the oldest of the men, who stood the closest. His dark eyes burrowed into her, eyes that were shaped just like her own.

"Our families," she said.

"And then some," Kaguya said. Her attention was focused on several people glaring out from the other wall, all of them wearing fine clothes, with hair in both midnight black or shining silver. "The whole godsdamned Lunarian court, to be specific.

"Your families?" Rumia looked around. She gulped. "Oh boy. Shit just got personal."

"It's been personal since Kamakura," Mokou said. She snatched up her sword from the ground. "Grab whatever you need. We're leaving."

"Yeah," Kaguya said. She slowly moved off the bed, her eyes never leaving the wall. "No arguments."

Moments later they were out of the room and hurrying through the hallway. Both Kaguya and Mokou provided a light source of their own, and the three of them picked their way over the mess on the floor the best they could.

After awhile, Rumia said, "Um, I'm not claiming to have kept track of the distance or anything, but shouldn't we have reached the cave-in by now?"

Another few minutes passed, and Kaguya said, "Wait, is it just me, is the floor now sloping upwards?"

It was. Mokou, who was in the lead, glanced back to her two companions. "We're being herded. Head's up, this is going to get-"

Both her ball of flame and Kaguya's miniature sun winked out, leaving Rumia's eyes as the only source of light.

"-dark?" Mokou tried to summon up another fireball but found that she could not. "Hey, what?"

"Not again," she heard Kaguya lament. "This dream isn't just sadistic, it's bloody bipolar!"

The burning lights of Rumia's eyes turned towards them. "All right, all right," her voice said. "Calm down. I can see in the dark, so-"

"You do? Great." Mokou reached out and grabbed Rumia by the shoulders. She twisted her around and shoved her in front of them. "Congratulations, you've just been promoted to guide."

She heard Rumia stumble and hiss. "You mean meatshield, right?"

"Call it what you want," Mokou retorted. "You can see, so you go first." After a brief pause she added, "Kaguya, you take the middle."

"What?" Kaguya said, her voice rising in protest. "Why me?"

"Because I'm better at fighting unarmed than you," Mokou said. "If something sneaks up behind us, I'll have the best chance of beating it."

"Bull! You just want to make sure you take the rear!"

"Why are you so upset?" Rumia asked. "Isn't the middle the safest position to take?"

Kaguya didn't say anything. Mokou didn't either. After a moment, Rumia let out a disgusted snarl and said, "Oh. Again with the…You know, after this is over, I am sending both of you the biggest bill ever, just for putting up with your paranoid asses."

"Go ahead," Mokou said. "It's not like I'll pay." She felt around until she found the shoulder of Kaguya's stupid schoolgirl uniform. She shoved the princess between her and Rumia. "Okay, just to prevent any sudden disappearances, you keep one hand on her shoulder, and I'll keep one hand on yours until we find light."

"If that hand of yours so much as starts smoking, I am going to break your nose," Kaguya muttered.

"You know the great thing about having lost your powers? You don't have to worry about that happening." Mokou grinned, her teeth hidden by the darkness. "I might be tempted to twist your head around, though."

"Knock it off, both of you," Rumia snapped. Her eyes turned out of sight. "Okay, let's go."

They moved forward in a silent formation. The path of the tunnel continued to slope upward, but not becoming steep enough to become a problem. Toys, books and plastic gizmos crunched and crinkled under Mokou's bare feet, occasionally puncturing them, but she bore it in silence.

After a few minutes, Rumia said, "Kaguya's junk pile's gone." No one responded, but Mokou did feel a measure of relief to be stepping on cool stone.

Some more time passed. And then Rumia said in a hushed voice, "Hey, I think we're almost out of here. I can see light."

She was right. Directly in front of them but still a ways away was a tiny white pinpoint.

"What's that?" Kaguya said, her voice suspicious. "A star?"

"Down here? Probably not, but I'm not ruling anything out. It might be the exit though."

"Only one way to find out," Mokou muttered.

"Agreed," Rumia said. "Company forward."

They continued on. The light grew larger and brighter as they drew closer. When they neared enough, they saw a rough hewn hole leading to the open air.

"The exit," Rumia said, a note of satisfaction in her voice. "Excellent."

Though she too was relieved that they had left the tunnel without incident, Mokou said, "Don't relax just yet. We're not in the clear yet."

"Goes without saying. Okay, let's see what the next scene has for us."

They approached the exit and cautiously looked out. After surveying the landscape, Kaguya whimpered. "Still? We're still here?"

Mokou found herself agreeing with her rival's sentiments. She too wasn't enthralled by the sight. They had emerged onto a steep hillside that overlook a vast plain. A plain made of grey dust and craters. Stars shone overhead against a black canopy, surrounding the globe of the Earth. Again.

Kaguya let go of Rumia's shoulder. She balled her hands into fist and slammed them against the tunnel side. "Why?" she cried. "Why are we still here? I don't want to be here anymore! Enough is enough, let me go home!"

Rumia quirked an eyebrow. "I thought-"

"This isn't my home!" Kaguya snapped. "Gensokyo is my home." She shoved Rumia out of the way as she reentered the tunnel. "Screw this, I'm going back to my room! I'll just burn the posters!"

"Hold up, Moonbitch," Mokou said as she seized Kaguya by the arm. "No one's going anywhere until we figure out-"

There was a loud crack and a spray of rock chips exploded off the side of the entrance.

"Down!" Rumia snapped. She grabbed Mokou and Kaguya by the backs of their shirts and hauled them back into the tunnel and out of sight.

"What, what?" Mokou said as she tried to regain her footing. "What was that?"

"Someone just shot at us," Kaguya said in a breathless voice, her eyes wide. She started clawing through the stone chips. "A bullet. Someone's shooting bullets at us."

Mokou frowned. "Danmaku? We're freaking out because of danmaku?"

"No you idiot, not danmaku," Kaguya hissed. She held up a small warped piece of metal. "Real bullets!"

"Really?" Mokou raised her head, the top of it coming into the light.

Almost immediately the air filled with zinging shots that blew of small pieces of the walls. One of them hit Mokou right above her right eyebrow, knocking her back down.

"Uggh, guhlunk," she muttered as her vision swam and filled with dark spots. The bullet was forced out of her head and landed in her lap. The hole closed. She blinked and wiped the blood from her forehead.

"Okay, I'm convinced," she said to Kaguya.

The princess closed her eyes and sighed. "You are such an idiot!"

The shooting stopped. And then an amplified male voice called out to them. "This is your first warning! All of you, throw down your weapons and surrender yourselves."

Mokou's spine went rigid and her mouth opened wide. No, no, no. It couldn't be. This was just too cruel, even for this place.

"The hell we're giving up," Kaguya snarled. "Okay, Rumia? You can still do that living blender of death thing, right?"

Rumia pushed her hair out of her face and nodded. "No reason why not."

"Great. Okay, this is what we'll do. Me and Mokou may have lost our firepower, but we can still heal just fine. So we'll rush out and draw their fire. When they're busy with us, you rush out and-"

"No," Mokou said, her voice thick with emotion. "No. We're…we're doing as he says."

A beat, and then Kaguya started laughing. "Mokou, has your brain not healed yet or something? Why the hell would we do that?"

"No, wait. She may be onto something," Rumia said. "We need to find the center of your subconsciousnesses, right? And the further in we go, the more likely we are to find them, right?" She held out her hand toward the outside. "Well, we may have just found ourselves an armed escort."

"You're both brain damaged!" Kaguya exclaimed. "That's the Lunarian Army out there!"

"You sure?" Rumia asked.

"Who else would be shooting bullets on the Moon? And if the Army is here, then someone from the court can't be far behind! Probably that douchebag with the megaphone."

"He isn't part of the court," Mokou said.

Kaguya stared at her. "And how would you know that? Did you get a look at him or…Oh."

Mokou looked up to see the barrel of a sleek, steel rifle of some kind of black metal pointing right at them. There were several clicking sounds as more weapons were cocked and pointed right at the three travelers. Holding the weapons were rabbit youkai in blue military uniforms.

The fires in Rumia's eyes burned bright. "Okay, this is more my speed," she said in a smooth, silky voice. "Who's in the mood for rabbit meat?"

"No!" Mokou snapped. She rose to her full height and stared down at the red-eyed youkai. "We're doing what that man said! No fighting!"

"Very wise," said the man's voice, this time natural and unamplified. They turned to see him standing in the tunnel entrance, glowering down at them.

The man wore a sharp blue uniform, not dissimilar to that worn by the gun-toting rabbits. But while they were soldiers, this was clearly the wardrobe of a commander, with short cape hanging over one shoulder and a row of different colored gems adorning his breast. But no Lunarian was this. His hair was dark brown with streaks of white. His eyes were dark and severe. A wispy beard adorned his thin cheeks and jutted off his chin. He wore a sword at his side, a katana in a plain black sheath. Mokou could still see the hilt though. It was identical to that of the blade she held in her own hands.

He held up a hand, and the rabbits lifted their weapons so that the barrels were pointing up. His smoldering eyes looked at Kaguya's face, flickered briefly to Mokou's before settling on Rumia's. His already black expression darkened even further.

"As I said, you are now the prisoners of the Lunarian people," he said. "Any attempt to resist will be met with force. So throw down your weapons now, or we will be forced to return with your corpses."

Rumia rolled her eyes in disbelief. "Out of all the pretentious…Kaguya, who is this joker?"

"Beats me," Kaguya said. "Never met him in my life."

"Yes, you have," Mokou said.

Both Kaguya and Rumia turned to look at her. For her part, Mokou's shoulder lumped, and she allowed her family's sword to fall from her fingers to clatter on the ground.

"You too, Rumia," she said.

Rumia snorted. "Give me one good reason why."

"Because," the man said. "I will kill you very dead if you don't."

This pronouncement was rewarded with a mocking laugh. "Are you serious? Gods, at least the velmick didn't bother with the pretensions."

"Mokou, who is this guy?" Kaguya asked.

Mokou looked up at the man's face. Aside from the brief glance he had given her, he had not acknowledged her presence. But was that really so surprising, considering how their last meeting had gone?

"Rumia, Kaguya," she said, motioning to the man. "Meet…Well, in your case, re-meet…Fujiwara no Fuhito." It had been literally hundreds of years since she had said that name out loud. She was surprised by how difficult it was.

Kaguya still looked confused, but then realization struck. "Wait, you mean this…You mean he's your…"

Rumia's eyes snapped wide open. She glanced from Mokou to the man. A small smile appeared on her lips.

"Yeah," Mokou said. She turned to look at him for herself. Despite wearing what she presumed was the uniform of a Lunarian commander, he still looked exactly as she remembered. "My Father."

...

Before I begin, I would like to state that, just for the record, this chapter and IM's The Storm arc were plotted out separately, and as such any resemblances are coincidences that I did not even notice until beginning this chapter. I don't know what it is with me and giant flower-covered worm monsters. I mean, I haven't read Dune for years!

Anyway, you know how after a long delayed update finally goes up, I usually include a rant about how much trouble I had with the chapter? I'm about to do one right now! Though it there was a nasty case of writer's block at the beginning and I ended up deleting about fifteen pages due to dissatisfaction, this delay was more thanks to a lot of schoolwork and my computer crashing and being out of commission for a week straight. It got better once I got the ball rolling, but man there were a lot of obstacles.

So I guess this is as good a place as any to remind you guys that now that this chapter has gone up, I am unfortunately going to put all my stories on hiatus for a little bit. Sorry guys, but this is the last semester before I graduate, and I really need to not fail these classes. Which is not to say I won't be doing any work during my absence. For one thing, there's a few stories I've promised to read and review, so I'll be using this opportunity to finally get to that (note that this isn't an invitation to suggest more stories, as that will only make things take longer). Also, I'll also be giving both Imperfect Metamorphosis and Rhapsody of Subconscious Desire a long-needed overhaul, fixing up editing errors, smoothing out some of the weaker scenes and repairing whatever plotholes and continuity errors I find. I'll leave most of the accidental deviations from canon, as they fit better into the narrative, but I am seriously considering fixing that Akyuu resurrection problem. While the whole gives-birth-to-self thing is cool, that is one error that's always seriously bugged me.

So when will I start updating again? Rough estimate, probably sometime in December. I'm planning another Christmas Special, and would like to get at least one regular chapter up before then. But only time and circumstance will tell.

All right, now that that business is out of the way, it's again time for a bit of advertising. A fellow I know has recently started a flash-animation web series called Cherry Weapon, which follows a renegade cyborg assassin as she tries to escape from her creators and find a better life. Only one episode is up thus far, but it's a doozy, with a real Elfen Lied meets Prototype vibe to it. So again, if you're interested, you'll find the relevant links to the official site, Youtube channel and Facebook page on my profile. And if you like what you see, subscribe, Like, and tell Dozzer that TakerFoxx sent you!

Until next time, everyone!