Gensokyo, The Human Village's History School
In the end, they had to listen to him die.
Rumia the darkness youkai's cherry-red eyes had watched her classmate Naota rush out of the classroom door. He'd told them he was going to fetch miss Keine.
As soon as the door shut, he was audibly pinned against the hallway wall. Rumia's human classmates huddled behind her inside the closet, all of them trying to keep each other quiet.
The monster in the hallway had demanded to know where the other morsels were, and Naota had lied. Lied, and told the predator that they were hiding in another classroom.
The monster applied pressure. Hurt him, badly. To the end, Naota had held to the lie. His voice was cut off by a thump, the sound of tearing, of a weight sliding down the wall.
Blood began to seep under the door.
One of the youngest in the class - Naota's sister, Yua - began to howl, and as the other children gave into despair and joined in, the monster began to laugh.
Rumia blinked away the irritating tears. She tried not to think about the games she'd played with Naota. The inchling and the oni. Tag. Racing. That seemed to make her cry more.
The classroom door burst open with a demonic hiss. The children wailed in terror. The creature began to snicker as he made a game of it, wandering about the room, making low, dangerous noises to torment the children.
As Rumia heard the pitiable chorus that her frightened friends sang at the monster's behest, she felt another emotion grip her chest, a weighty slow-burn that left her body tense.
Its shifting head peeked in the doorway of the shaded closet, the growing growl in its throat faltering when it saw Rumia.
Standing between him and the little ones.
"Not hoarding them, are you? Plenty to go around-" The monster hesitated when it saw that Rumia's red pupils had turned dark and dilated. The shadows around her were solidifying.
They were moving.
"Hey now, we're on the same side, youkai." The monster warned as it raised a hand to ward off the gathering darkness.
"Is that so?" Rumia ground the words out between her teeth.
The impenetrable darkness raged forward.
Somewhere On The Boundary of Gensokyo
Ran Yakumo felt apprehension sit in her belly as she walked through the mists she'd woven in preparation for whoever came calling. She knew both presences that came the other way by their scent - one had the pleasant smell of cooked chicken mixed with ash, whilst the other smelt of soap and water, the cleanliness undercut by the underlying coppery scent that reeked of blood and unsavoury, unsanitized history.
She came to a halt, her arms encased within the folds of her robes as she listened for their footsteps. She forced herself to call out, "Keine Kamishirasawa."
The footsteps slowed as the mists dispersed, as though broken apart and devoured by some unseen force. The two intruders were both women, both silver-haired. One of them wore red pants covered in square paper charms and a blouse. She slouched, hands buried in her pockets.
The other, Ran was well acquainted with.
Keine Kamashirasawa stood there in the dark-blue dress that she always wore at the school she headmastered over.
Everything else about her was different. Her silver hair was unkempt, her tower hat missing. Her red-ribboned shoes were muddy. The kind smile that she'd give student, parent and colleague were gone. She walked slowly, her fists balled at her side.
"You promised me that the raids were over. No, the random, raids, were over." Keine's voice quivered.
Ran lowered her head, knowing what was coming. "I was under the impression that was the case, and I assure you the recent atrocity did not carry mistress Yakumo's sanction. She is handling the matter internally, but would like me to pass on her sincere apologies for not being able to receive you-"
The fog should have dampened it, but the slap resounded like a thunderclap, almost pushing Ran off-balance.
Ran ignored the pain that woke up her face, forcing herself to stand upright and finish delivering the message.
"As... well as the upset this raid may have caused you." She managed.
"'Upset'," Keine snarled the word up at the taller, broader Ran. "That's the word you'd use?"
"Personally? No, I did not compose the message." Ran said steadily, her expression solemn.
"I'm not asking about your mistress, I'm asking you what you'd call it. What you'd call, what you'd call raiders getting into the schoolyard." Keine hissed as she got into Ran's face.
"A tragedy." Ran said quietly. She'd read the report that her own servants had gathered.
"Naota. Hideki. Chizu." Keine repeated the list of the dead. Ran's eyebrows rose at the last name. Keine's own shot up when she recognised Ran's expression, baring her teeth at the shikigami.
"There it is! If it's a human child, what a shame, but as soon as its your Chen's friend, that's when you take notice!" Keine snarled, her friend in the red and white joining her.
Ran floundered for a moment. "Miss Keine, I'm-"
"You don't get to call me that anymore!" Keine shouted, shoving Ran back.
"I'm sorry, truly! This was never the plan, to have this-" Ran protested, almost tripping over herself.
"Hey now, that's enough." The girl in red and white said.
"It's not..." Even as Keine said the words, the fight seemed to leave her as her colleague rested a hand on her back.
Keine sank to her knees and began to scream. Ran could only watch, stricken, as Keine screamed in frustration and pain and rage, screaming until there were only tears remaining.
Wearily, Ran led the pair of them back to their household in the mists - not to see Yukari, for she truly was occupied elsewhere.
Someone had to tell Chen what had happened.
Ran and Keine both stood in the doorway of the house, watching as Chen happily worked on her story with a calligraphy pen and Yukari's paints. Even from this angle, Ran could see the two small humanesque shapes Chen had painted.
"Chen & Chizu," Ran murmured to herself. Keine's exhausted gaze reached her, prompting her, "She's been working on it for a while. Wanted to surprise Chizu."
Keine slowly leant back, her shoulders against the wall. "Gods..." Her voice was miserable.
"I'll tell her." The woman in the red, charm-covered pants said quietly.
"No, no, it should be me, it should-" Keine whispered, but she was waved down.
"Stow it. I'm doing it. Let her associate me with... this whole thing. May I, miss Ran, was it?" The woman asked.
"Ah, who are you again?" Ran asked, knowing exactly who she was. Even in this grief-stricken moment, she couldn't help but test those around her.
"No-one important." Mokou stated, offering Ran an awkward smile before she went on inside.
For a second, Chen grew alert, until she caught sight of both Ran and Keine. That got her tail swaying happily again, her mouth opening to welcome her master home.
But Mokou was already getting her attention with a word. She kept talking.
Chen's forward-facing ears began to flatten, her expression growing numb as Mokou told her what had happened.
Ran's eyes didn't leave Chen as Keine spoke.
"I'm sorry I hit you, miss Ran. But I can't... keep holding mixed classes under these conditions. The parents of the human children, they are angry, and-"
"I-I understand." Ran managed, her eyes welling up as she watched Chen - with uncharacteristic care - return the calligraphy pen to its ink well before she ran out of the room.
"Smoke?" Mokou offered, a cigarette perched between her lips, her finger jostling a pack.
Ran had never smoked before, but took one. It had been a trying week. "When and where?" She asked quietly.
"Who knows, Kourindou." Mokou shrugged, referencing the shop that peddled goods from the Outside World. Ran didn't bother to ask to see the box, clamping the papery stick between her lips as Mokou lifted a finger to the end.
The point of contact went red with heat, and soon Ran was puffing along with the immortal.
She puffed a little too hard, encouraging a subdued snicker from Mokou and repeated calls to 'breathe'.
Soon enough, Ran calmed, walking together with Mokou to the edge of the boundary that contained the Yakumo household; a house of rushmats and paper walls surrounded by a covered, wooden walkway and a perimeter wall of white stone and wooden slats. Outside, the mists swirled.
"Keine is fortunate to have a friend like you." Ran murmured.
"Yeah. Likewise, she's my buddy." Mokou said.
"Without you, she would have had to devour the mist I had conjured in order to find me." Ran said quietly. "Such spells take time..."
"Which means she doesn't want the extermination mob to find you just yet." Mokou spoke plainly. Ran found her informal speech and manners a welcome break from the ceremony and ritual that Yukari expected of her.
"There's a mob, now?" Ran asked wearily.
"Nah. Not yet, but it's ugly." Mokou managed, feeling a shiver travel up her spine at the memories. "Some kids almost stoved-in a tanuki boy's head. Retaliation."
Ran realised she was holding her breath. She forced a coughing exhale. "You stopped them?"
"Yeah.
I would've been too late, but an ice fairy from the school slowed them down." Mokou murmured.
Ran smiled, knowing who that would be. "Any other clashes?"
"Nothing physical, just a lot of anti-youkai sentiment floating around. People are putting down their tools and enrolling - I dunno, studying? - with banishers. Militia's seeing more recruits, too.
Keine'll side with them, if the village gets breached for real." Mokou stated.
"I know." Ran said wearily.
"But she is for it, y'know," Mokou shot her a smile from her handsome face, "The peace."
"And you?" Ran asked, knowing the answer, more interested in the manner Mokou would give it. In retort, smoke spilled like dragon's breath from Mokou's nostrils.
"Man, I've seen enough wars." Mokou sighed.
"I understand." Ran replied.
"I've let Chen know the situation about the school," Keine said suddenly from behind them, "And spared you that enviable task."
Ran turned, the cigarette still hanging from her mouth. She removed it, bowing her head as a sense of decorum reasserted itself. "Thank you, miss Keine. I appreciate your visit, and please do know that my mistress understands the gravity of the situation."
In an abandoned and overgrown Buddhist temple deep within youkai territory, gravity took a demon's severed hand to the hard wooden floor. As it bounced, pumping dark blood onto the planks, the lurching kappa it belonged to screamed in outrage.
"My hand! My hand..."
All the attention on Yukari Yakumo turned to her accomplice, the both of them standing side by side in the little sunlight that the ruined thatch roof allowed. He was an old samurai clad in the attire of his caste, his haori bearing the green, white and black stripes of the Konpaku clan. His hair was a silvery white, his aged features as sharp as the companion sword he'd drawn and used in one smooth motion.
"He took my hand! The human-"
"Half-human," Youki Konpaku said matter-of-factly, his cloudy ghost-half swimming around him to emphasize the point, "Now, do not touch milady again."
The kappa's long snout lifted, its teeth like razors, its other hand slicing in at the samurai's face. "You shit-eating-"
Youki was already past the kappa's claws, his wakizashi gifting the kappa's flank a deep, red kiss between the third and fourth rib before it was plucked free in a cascade of scales.
As the kappa, gasping, collapsed, Youki's sword work had its intended effect. Their confusion cut, the surrounding youkai were disabused of the notion that Yukari Yakumo - gap youkai and the first sage of Gensokyo - was 'fair game'.
"I was rather hoping to avoid bloodshed." Yukari scolded gently.
"Milady." Youki's eyebrows arched apologetically, and Yukari had to hide her smile as he showed emphatic deference to her whilst ignoring the youkai that surrounded them. A master of sword arts and of courtly affairs, clearly.
Youki made a relaxed, almost lazy show of sheathing the wakizashi known to his family as the Hakurouken. As he did so, a handful of youkai shuffled into the light.
The youkai compliant to Yukari's edicts wore the shapes of the humans they lived alongside.
Here in this abandoned temple, the dissenters loomed, nearly every one a nightmare made flesh. Here, a renegade oni with fiery-red skin that bulged with muscle. There, a kitsune with demented, hook-shaped eyes grinned at them. Youki could see ostracised tengu, kappas turned savage, specimens of malicious spirits to be found in Gensokyo's records, now here in this house of demons. She could hear weapon hilts press against scabbards, see the hatred on their faces, the silence growing heavier, tenser.
Yukari closed her gloved hands as she made ready to pass her would-be attackers over a final boundary that all living things feared.
Youki exhaled as he prepared to fight at Yukari's back and kill until he was killed in turn.
"There's no need for such theatrics here, Yukari. We're all monsters here." Came a voice from the great bronze statue that overlooked them all. At the sound of his voice, the tension slackened. The crowd of youkai relaxed, though the intense glares did not abate. Yukari ignored them as she moved towards the shaft of light that illuminated the statue.
He was seated before the belly of the Buddha in a faded chair. He was a young man - or at least something in the shape of one - who wore a white and purple kimono. He was handsome, his dark hair woven into a top knot. His neck was strangely elongated, a long, ragged rope-burn ran around the circumference just beneath his chin. The visible flesh of his chest, hands and legs had been boiled in life, the flesh a glossy, raw pink that reflected the dirty, thatch-crossed sunlight from the caved-in roof.
"It's comforting to see that you've at least partially mastered masking your form, Hiromasa," Yukari noted, her golden eyes looking him up and down, "though it appears your followers have a long way to go."
"Shapeshifting is a luxury for my vanity. We as a force deem it unsuitable for warfare, isn't that right?" Hiromasa asked the crowd at large, who rumbled their assent, "Yes, we still have our pride."
Yukari felt a chill run down her back at the response. "We are at war no longer, Hiromasa. Which makes your raiding habit controversial, to say the least."
Hiromasa's brown eyes lifted to the roof. "You should be thanking me, Yukari, consider the terror that sowed! Am I not providing for your economy of fear?"
"I need fear, not hate." Yukari retorted.
Hiromasa's voice ground down into a growl. "I need flesh, Yukari. I weary of your half-measures, your rations and your diets. I wish to rampage! Surely you can understand?" He appealed to her.
"Of course I do. It is as innate to us as it is to the humans, but the times have changed. We cannot live as feral beasts." Yukari said.
"We cannot live as this either! This is mere survival, subsistence. How can this volume of youkai thrive on superstition alone, or on the paltry sum that you've acquired for us?"
"For you?" Yukari asked, her eyes narrowing. "I feed you because it is my will, not because it is my duty."
She saw Hiromasa's smile widen. "You fed us because we are many, and you are few. You need manpower because you are afraid. What're you afraid of?" He asked with a predatory leer.
A handful of youkai averted their eyes from Yukari sweeping gaze, whilst others bowed their heads deferentially to her.
That was good. Youki's spell had allowed tongues to wag freely, but even now there were half-hearted specimens lurking within the crowd that were here for reasons other than war-mongering. Some even wore glamours or had turned their shapes partially or wholly to humankind.
Yukari buried her relief behind the defensive impulse that the latest attack had brought on. Hiromasa could read her. He could read the contents of anyone's 'heart'. That was his power. That's why Yukari had valued him at first.
But she had overlooked that he was a human turned youkai, argueably more malevolent and twisted than a demon that had known no other way. That power of his was infected by the psychopathic crossroads killer from Kyoto he had once been, laden with resentment and anger towards his own killers. He was hateful, manipulative and charismatic in his own way.
"We are straying from the subject matter. Your comrades were seen attacking the Human Village after I had promised the humans a peace. That will not happen again."
"You fear another botched lunar invasion, do you?" Hiromasa snorted, his eyes widening as he stared intently at Yukari.
Yukari could already imagine him staring into her heart. She focused on the barb he'd flung, his reference to her ill-fated attack on the Moon fanning the fire in her belly. "For the land to grow, there must be peace, Hiromasa. Neither man nor youkai can thrive if Gensokyo does not develop."
"Ach, just let us eat, and I'll happily uphold this peace you speak of - a peace between youkai, say?!" Hiromasa shouted.
"The Human Village cannot sustain another massacre! I forbid it!" Yukari fired back.
"Who said anything about 'sustaining'?!" Hiromasa asked, his cheeks reddening even as he said the words.
He saw Yukari's superior smile, only then realising what she'd done. His eyes glared accusingly at Youki, the caster of the spell that had outed Hiromasa.
He decided to retort anyway. "We are tired of half-dead outsiders and these lean years that never end! We should use what little energy we have and subdue the morsels! Together, you and I, Yukari! Let us feast on their hearts and suck out their eyes, as youkai must! With ourselves nourished, the Outside World awaits! Nothing could stand before our demon army! Why, not even the Hakurei-"
"I forbid it!" Yukari repeated forcefully, "This world is a retreat, not some staging point for an invasion. My shikigami and I have made the preparations to ensure that Gensokyo will be fit for everyone's need, their need. If you give in to your greed - and your bull-headed traditionalism - I will be forced to regard you as my enemy. Is that clear?"
Hiromasa mumbled something as he leant forward.
"Speak up!" Yukari commanded.
"I thought you already did, Yukari Yakumo!" Hiromasa stated loudly.
"Explain yourself." Yukari murmured, seeing Hiromasa look to Youki, realising too late what angle he was going to hit her from.
"Why else would you flourish your pet's confusion-cutting sword so openly? Why do you object to us taking up arms against the Hakurei?! Is the gap-youkai, alleged master of Gensokyo just a pet to those fleshy, tender humans?!" Hiromasa accused in rapid-fire fashion.
Yukari was suddenly aware now that she stood in a shadowy crowd filled with potential enemies. She had expected some willfulness, but they bordered on mutinous now. She took another moment to look about herself, seeing naked hostility on far too many faces. Did Hiromasa's influence run so deep?
By the door, she saw a flash of green hair within the mob of horns, feathers and scales.
She knew who that was. She was an oppurtunity fast approaching.
"Perhaps it is time for you to explain yourself, O' distant caretaker!" Hiromasa declared, "Where were you when the humans attacked the Mountain? What did the humans promise you, to use your powers against us?!"
The grumbling around Yukari rose. The youkai gathered closer.
"So go on! Tell us just why you talk with the Hakurei maiden frequently. Why do you care for her? Why protect her?
I wonder, are you even capable of protecting yourself?
Or has your power waned so?"
"Power? My ears are burning!" The stranger's voice was clear yet gentle, teasing yet poisonous, polite yet vicious - and instantly recognisable. Youki's hand snapped back to the handle of his sword as he turned to front the new threat. Hiromasa's smile disappeared whilst Yukari's surfaced. The stranger approached behind her, the tide of youkai parting to allow her passage.
The newcomer wore a plaid jacket and skirt over her white blouse, her eyes a blood red and her hair a pastel green, the pink parasol at her side tapping the floor of the temple as she walked.
She ruled over the Garden of the Sun. She was known to her inferiors as the Flowermaster of Four Seasons. She was the Sleeping Terror - Yuuka Kazami - and she was seizing the floor.
"Speaking of powers... Hiromasa, you wouldn't deny that you've used your ability to ease negotiations, anticipate the wants and needs of mistress Yukari - or your soldiers, in the past?" Yuuka asked, the point of her pink parasol and her red shoes click-clacking on the wooden floor.
No-one dared to obstruct her.
Hiromasa shifted uneasily in his chair, laughing politely.
Yuuka's smile faltered as she came to a halt by Yukari's side, her eyes on the seated youkai. "I am somehow funny to you?" Yuuka asked, sounding stung.
Hiromasa's face fell. "Gods, no, mistress Kazami, I can't deny the charge!"
"Thank goodness," Yuuka breathed a mock sigh of relief, "There was me thinking Lady Yukari and I the only ones to do that."
Her sadistic smile returned as a hushed wave of panic shocked through the youkai crowd, the most paranoid of Hiromasa's horde hurriedly searching the floor for seedlings, the musty temple air for pollen, their ears straining for the telltale groan of wood parting beneath root and vine.
"Aha. Another joke?" Hiromasa chanced.
"Kind of.
So you've ideas on pigging out on the Human Village before charging into the Outside World, have you? Any idea where you'll go, specifically? How you'll get there? What challenges you'll face? What humans you'll encounter?" Yuuka asked.
Hiromasa was silent.
Yuuka looked on at him, expectant, before her voice soured, her lip curling and her brow furrowing. "Yukari tilled the land and I brightened it with my floristry. Is this place so hideous that you'd race blindly into the Outside World to get away?"
Hiromasa shook his head, knowing and angry with the fact that he was being toyed with.
Right after the sting, Yuuka's easy smile returned. "Oh, good, I was a little scared! So you're not ungrateful.
Merely entirely lacking in forethought," And Yuuka's smile faded away, before she continued on, "Miss Yakumo at least has a plan. It is a wretched fate, I agree with you; a pitiable existence beyond human memory.
But that is precisely why we are alive. We are hidden away because humanity has surpassed us. If you go out there now and remind them of our existence, they will burn you out before seeking out your roots.
I'd kill you before you lead them to my garden."
Hiromasa grimaced. Yukari's golden eyes regarded Yuuka with suspicion.
"Oh," Yuuka chirped, "I heard about the Human Village; Mistress Yukari, how many died in this altercation between the humans and Hiromasa's mob?" Yuuka asked.
"Three humans. Children." Yukari said quietly, perplexed.
"Has the Hakurei settled the debt?" Yuuka asked.
"No." Yukari said steadily.
"...Huh." Yuuka looked Yukari's way, her red eyes alight before turning to Hiromasa. "Then three of yours die.
That seems reasonable to me." Yuuka said placidly as the torture began.
Screams went up. The crowd opened, making room for three youkai as they were suddenly struck with convulsions. Their comrades fell over themselves to get away, as though fearful of being contaminated by whatever afflicted them.
"Release them!" Hiromasa shouted.
"Don't wanna." Yuuka replied.
Hiromasa produced his black-scabbarded sword from behind the chair, but the tip of Yuuka's parasol whacked his hand against it, checking the draw.
Yuuka's parasol. The perpetually blooming flower of Gensokyo that had drunk deeply of youkai blood during the wasteland years.
"Read my heart, Hiromasa.
Find out how badly I want that to happen." Yuuka whispered, every word heard by its intended recipient even as the three she'd chosen loudly and painfully died.
A promising oni lieutenant had been driven to its knees, its lungs now a host to a blooming flowerbed packed with Yuuka's murderous toxins, its breathing painfully thin. A tsukumogami - a war drum, now sporting legs, its cover occupied with a host of eyes - silently screamed as the seeds rapidly grew into branches that punched through its shell, punctured its eyes and pushed themselves through the batter head before constricting, the instrument-turned-youkai now little more than a ruptured, branch-crushed canvas.
The amikiri - serpent bodied, with its arms terminating in crab claws - was the last to die, a pincer raised as if to appeal his fate to Hiromasa.
Hiromasa could only watch - that, and stare hatefully into the loveless eyes of Yuuka Kazami.
"Pleassse, pleassse, Hiromasssa, no, no no no no- n-agh, aughhhhhh-" Its voice disappeared as the flowers clawed up and filled its airway. It tried to vomit up the obstruction, but the stems were rooted in him, his throat spasming without relief. The amikiri's lower beak was gradually ripped from its head as the sunflowers forcefully expanded outwards before working upwards, the yellow heads tickled the roof of its mouth. The tickling gave way to pressure, its poison gland exploding from the crush before the fleshy roof of its mouth gave way.
With Yuuka's cruel poison flooding its brain directly, the amikiri collapsed, its body twitching as the flowers within it began to feed.
"This is a very nice sword!" Yuuka cooed absent-mindedly, the tip of her parasol tracing the pink floral pattern that chased up the sheath of Hiromasa's sword, its owner quietly fuming. Yuuka looked up to throw Hiromasa another cold smile. "If you die, can I have it?"
Hiromasa didn't answer immediately. Instead, he leant in close and forced Yuuka to rise, the wicker chair creaking beneath him as he smiled up at Yuuka. "If you kill me, you will have to kill us all, you realise? On every mountain, in every grove, in every lake, I have allies who would die to avenge me. Whilst you and Yakumo have been moping in your hovels, I've sought to make friends in every place imaginable. If you kill me, I'll be satisfied knowing that my death will be a call for genocide, and you'll have no choice but to answer."
Yuuka smiled down at him. "If it comes to that... I won't kill you. Not quickly. Not at all."
Still smiling, she backed, glancing at Yukari and her borrowed samurai, the latter still ready to draw his sword.
"Yukari! I've been meaning to invite you for tea. Please, walk with me."
Yuuka wasn't asking.
Yukari smiled, graciously taking the out provided and turned to leave, the youkai once more parting to let them both through.
Hiromasa watched them go before his eyes settled on the vigilant half-ghost samurai, who only now began to relax his grip on his blade.
"What?" Hiromasa spat, spreading his arms as though to offer Youki a target, "You're nothing but a tool in that bitch's hand, Konpaku."
"Better a tool than a mad dog, Hiromasa." Youki Konpaku replied calmly as both man and ghost smoothly turned and followed the two girls out.
"You owe me, you realise?"
Yukari made a face as she followed Yuuka under the covered walkway, knowing Youki would not be far behind. "The thought had crossed my mind, miss Kazami." Yukari replied.
"Good!" Yuuka turned around and gave her a winning smile as she rounded the corner of the temple. As Yukari followed her past it, an expanse of browning grass and dying sunflowers yawned ahead of her, punctuated by scorched and naked trees. Hiromasa's army had made an attempt of burning the overgrowth away, leaving the land scarred.
"Are you sure you did not intervene on their behalf?" Yukari asked, gesturing to the trees.
"You've been out of the sun for far too long, Yukari." Yuuka said nonchalantly as she meandered towards one of the wilting sunflowers.
Yukari was silent, stopping a short distance from Yuuka. Yuuka glanced over her shoulder and offered her a sad smile. "Flowers are competitive by nature,"
There was a flash of pain in Yuuka's expression as her fingertips ripped the dry stem of the sunflower, "And without the gardener's intervention, there will be a distinction between winners who drink in the sun's rays and the losers that wither beneath them."
Yukari tilted her head slightly. "Ahh, but didn't you tell me some species can bloom together, like the dayflower?" She asked.
"Very good, you remembered," Yuuka's voice lightened, "I did say that - after you subdued me."
Yukari said nothing.
"I thought it would satisfy me to watch you go," Yuuka added as she turned fully to face Yukari, the severed sunflower head held reverently between both hands, "To watch my rival finally be cut away from my garden-"
"Our garden." Yukari interrupted, her golden eyes half-lidded.
"The garden, say," Yuuka amended with a smile, "I thought it would provide me with relief, or perhaps joy."
"And how do you feel about my withering popularity?" Yukari asked.
Yuuka offered Yukari the sunflower head. Yukari took it in her gloved hands, looking down at the bed of black seeds surrounded by the yellow petals crisped with age.
"I remember the good times. I'd recommend you do the same.
I wish you the best of luck in your future endeavours." Yuuka said quietly.
Yukari narrowed her eyes, and for the benefit of Hiromasa's spies, wordlessly left.
On the threshold of her home, Yukari turned to regard the samurai she had borrowed.
"Youki, I've a question."
Youki Konpaku's sharp eyes met hers. "Ask it, miss Yukari."
"Do you feel we are doing the right thing?" Yukari asked, her eyes bright as she watched him.
Youki lifted his bearded chin as his half-phantom rested on his shoulder, saying nothing for a while. "Death is necessary enough without going asking for it. Your ambition will save the lives of humans, youkai, and them that care for them.
I count myself fortunate that my lady Yuyuko is allied to that ambition."
Yukari nodded respectfully as she set her hands on the paper doors. "I appreciate your candour, and you have my thanks for accompanying me to Hiromasa's den. I will speak with lady Yuyuko alone for a while, if you would wait in the living room? I'll inform Ran you've arrived."
Youki nodded and gave his thanks as Yukari quietly slid the door open. She'd seen the flash of delight on the old samurai's face and chose not to comment on it as she entered the gentle glow of the hallway. She knew that when neither she nor Yuyu were present, he treated Ran like a darling niece - and how could he not? He'd known her before she'd grown her last tails.
"I'm home!" Yukari declared as she walked on into the house upon the boundary, passing the living room as she made for the room overlooking the garden. As she approached, she heard her best friend's voice drift around the corner.
"Yukaaaaaari!"
"Yuyu!" Yukari called back, raising a hand in greeting as she rounded the bend.
"Yukari!" Yuyuko Saigyouji shouted again with a grin, throwing up her hands in delight as she sat by the glowing hearth's ashy pit that occupied the center of the room. Her frosted-pink hair and her baby-blue kimono - along with her affectionate and tender-hearted smile - were always a welcome sight.
Sitting opposite her was Ran, her figure shadowed by the fan-leaf that was cast by her nine tails. Her arms left the folds of her sleeves as she made to rise and receive her mistress.
"Mistress Yukari." She'd say, standing and bowing to Yukari.
Yukari saw the tired resignation in Ran's eyes. The gap-youkai watched her shikigami approach her to make her report.
"Who hit you?" Yukari asked, her gloved hand gently taking Ran's chin and turning it so she could survey the damage beneath the healed over skin.
Ran allowed herself to be moved. "Miss Kamishirasawa. She was distraught, after Hiromasa's raid."
Yukari shrugged. "Well, at least we can see that she's passionate about the situation.
What did she have to say?"
Ran's mouth became a thin line, speaking quietly. "Chen's not to attend the history school for a time, along with the other youkai children. anti-youkai sentiment within the village has increased to a level deemed dangerous for our kind."
Yukari simply nodded, though she could tell by the uncomfortable expression on Ran's face that her own displeasure was palpable.
"A pity. Did you get miss Yuyuko up to speed?"
Ran nodded slightly. "As you ordered, she knows as much about the situation as I do." Her slanted eyes regarded Yukari curiously.
Yukari smiled back. "Any further understanding would be superfluous to you, Ran. Youki is in the living room, and I'd very much like it that you keep him company."
Ran's ears - and the two-pointed hat they sat under - perked up. "As you wish, mistress Yukari." She murmured, bowing to both Yukari and Yuyuko before taking her leave.
"Are you sure you don't want Ran in here? She's your shikigami." Yuyuko asked, nonplussed.
Yukari brought Yuuka's gift - the severed head of a sunflower - out of her pocket and up so that Yuyuko could see it.
"Yuuka gave me this." Yukari explained.
"My, trouble in paradise?" Yuyuko asked, taking the proffered flower head as Yukari explained what had happened. Yuyuko's gaze seemed to drift, though Yukari knew she listened intently, however spacey she appeared.
"And you're certain Hiromasa was watching you?"
Yukari nodded. "She's going to bide her time and see who's winning, sow her seeds for them."
"I think she wants you to win," Yuyuko said dreamily as she turned the flower over, "Sunflowers are the flower of loyalty and long life, are they not? And she left you the seed bed!"
Yukari smiled. "That had crossed my mind, despite her suggestions that my project was doomed to failure."
Yuyuko shrugged. "It's in her nature to criticise and make you uneasy. Back then, it was just the two of you. She still sees you as a rival."
Yukari waved off that train of thought. "But what of the project? Do you believe it unattainable?" She asked.
Yuyuko blinked, leaning back as she contemplated her answer. "You told me it would have to be balanced. If there are too many youkai, they might get away from you and spoil things. If there are too many humans, they may stage a rebellion of sorts."
"Exactly." Yukari murmured, quietly grateful for Yuyuko's company. "If humans fear us too much, they will grow angry, and that passion will lead to violence. If they fear us too little, we will not be able to sustain ourselves on their superstitious dread, awe, faith, whatever form it comes in, it will not be enough."
Yuyuko nodded sagely. "For every Yuuka snapping over territory, we shall need a Chen making nice.
Did I say something wrong, Yukari?" She asked, her voice laden with concern.
Yukari smiled stiffly. "Nothing, some business with Chen - I appreciate you offering yourself up as a sounding board, Yuyuko.
As far as Yuuka Kazami is concerned, we'll be lucky if she simply stays dormant. We have the kappa and the tengu to assess, and hope that other sectors - like the underground - remain asleep."
"This Hiromasa, why haven't you dealt with him yourself?" Yuyuko asked.
Yukari let her shoulders sink a little. "If I'd noticed what he was capable of earlier, I would've. If I had been awake and not so self-absorbed, I might have noticed...
But he has support now. A great many youkai side with him."
Yuyuko's eyes lifted to gaze into the embers of the fireplace. "Ahhh... you could destroy them too..." Yuyuko said dejectedly, catching on.
"Yes, and then I'd have to go after the believers, the friends, the partners and spawn of the youkai..." Yukari finished with a sigh.
"And we'd be all alone again." Yuyuko murmured, nodding to herself.
"The Youkai Expansion Project will fail, and Gensokyo will become a land of dead myths." Yukari confirmed.
"I could kill him." Yuyuko ventured.
Yukari looked across at her friend, surprised by the haste with which she suggested it. "Whilst I've been recovering, he's been collecting information on myself and all of my known allies, Yuyu.
If anyone suspected it was you, your samurai, my shikigami... there'd be an outcry. The same youkai that he'd grind into grist would throw themselves upon our swords.
Besides, I wouldn't ask you to do that. Not for me."
For a moment, Yuyuko looked as though she might insist, her warm gaze for a second a cold and empty thing.
The moment passed as she bowed her head and pouted. "Do they not recognise that he is using them? Or that waging war on humanity at large would doom you all to discovery and extermination?"
Yukari shook her head. "They're taken in by his promises that are entirely based on unknowns. He has a liar's charm and can read the hearts of all, it's all too easy for him."
Yuyuko tilted her head as she contemplated diplomacy. "He was a human once, transformed, somehow... though if he's here in this guise, he did not retain his humanity, did he?"
Yukari's gloved hand came up in a dismissive gesture. "If you're thinking I'm to appeal to his human sense of morality, it won't work, as you said. He was a violent killer in life, slaying those he could and ingratiating himself to those he couldn't. Hung, and then boiled alive for his crimes born of impulse. Now, I'd say he has a grudge against his once-kind."
"You cannot even bide for time?" Yuyuko asked.
Yukari shook her head once more. "Youki... I had him use the Hakurouken to clarify the situation to the youkai. I know Hiromasa no longer wishes to remain in Gensokyo, and now he may know I know. Say what you'd like about Yuuka, but her appearance stopped him from trying to kill me there and then."
Yuyuko blinked. "Yuuka Kazami stopped the fighting?"
Yukari breathed out. "In her own bloody way, yes."
Yuyuko leant back, her eyes going to the ceiling as she tried to think of an answer. "Oh!," She declared loudly enough to make Yukari edge back in surprise, "What about the Hakurei maiden? This is her purpose, is it not? She was able to subdue Yuuka without much trouble, so if a youkai attacks the Human Village and-"
"No. He thinks me attached to her." Yukari cut her off.
Yuyuko looked on at Yukari with a sympathetic smile. Much as she'd like to push, she relented, instead sitting quietly with her friend. They did not speak for a time, the crackle of the fire and the muffled laughter of Youki and Ran in the other room becoming the only sounds that reached them. "You cannot reason with him, and you cannot move against him openly, discreetly or through allies."
Yukari nodded, her eyes half-lidded. "It appears not. I have to find an answer. Otherwise, there will be a slaughter. Whether its humankind or youkai that win the conflict, the disturbed balance will leave you, me and miss Kazami lording over a land of bones and death. We will lose."
Yuyuko's expression was placid as she seemed to contemplate Yukari's words. "That won't happen. I believe you'll find a way. And if it does... 'winners have many friends. Losers have good friends'.
I'll be with you, no matter what." Yuyuko said, her words turning blithe as she recited an old maxim.
Yukari blinked, bewildered by the sentiment.
She started to laugh.
"Laugh at my feelings, will you?" Yuyuko pretended to pout, chuckling herself as Yukari started up.
Yukari wiped her eye with a gloved finger, still giggling. "I'm sorry, it's just... you know this is more serious than losing a game, or, winning a battle, right?"
"Right." Yuyuko nodded sagely.
They heard a knock at the door. "Hold." Yukari commanded, fighting through the laughter as she looked to Yuyuko. "Not a word about this to anyone else, alright?" She said seriously.
Yuyuko put a finger to her own lips in understanding before Yukari called Ran into the room.
Ran slid the door to one side. "Mistress Yukari, do you and your guest need anything?"
"No, Ran- hold." Yukari's golden eyes flicked to Yuyuko's puzzled expression before returning to Ran. "Do you feel like showing Yuyu your work?"
Ran perked up at the mention. "Absolutely. If you'd both follow me, please."
The two mistresses arose, following Ran through a sliding door out onto the verandah. Youki, upon being fetched, stood at a respectful distance as Yukari and Yuyuko caught sight of the round, sloped rocks that surrounded a modest body of water. A pair of koi fish swam and danced within, their white and orange-patched scales dully glinting through the mists.
"A koi pond! A rather small one, at that. Has Chen been at the fish?" Yuyuko said.
Ran managed a fragile smile. "Ah, no, she- ahem. My spell only requires two of them."
"Oooo." Yuyuko cooed, watching patiently as Ran lifted a hand from her folds, her fingers suddenly going rigid. At the sudden tension, the koi ceased their aimless dancing, swimming slowly in a tight circle. The waters obediently followed the current the two koi generated, going around and around before the circuit narrowed into the shape a pair of eyelids.
They slid open. The thing that lurked in the void awoke from its slumber and stared back at the girls that had dared to rouse him.
"Show me the vampire." Ran commanded.
The entity recognised Ran's permissions as an administrator and obeyed, its pupil constricting until it disappeared, the watery surface revealing the mansion.
"An illusion?" Yuyuko chanced.
"No, mistress Yuyuko, this vision is afforded to us by one of my shikigami, secreted into the room of miss Patchouli." Ran explained.
"Oh, don't get her started." Yukari sighed airily.
"Miss Patchouli? Is she the vampire?" Yuyuko asked, interested.
"Oh, no! Miss Patchouli is her magician, schooled in the magic of the west and showing great interest towards eastern magic!" Ran explained.
"Oh.
Oh my." Yuyuko glanced Yukari's way, who laughed as Ran went on.
"We've exchanged a series of letters, and she's been telling me about a variety of herbs, spices and plantlife found in the Outside World given over to magic. Of course, I knew a fair few of them myself, but their applications in witchcraft surprise me - and the poppets are similar to the straw effigies used for ox-hour curses, but they have a protective versatility as well! The similarities and the differences between our cultures of magic and our disciplines are interesting indeed!"
"That sounds wonderful, I'm glad you've made a new friend." Yuyuko said, her voice tinged with sadness.
Ran was caught off-guard by the tone, her mouth opening to ask before Yukari spoke up, "Ran, would you get us some blankets? One for us, one for you and Youki." Yukari asked.
"Right away, mistress Yukari." Ran nodded.
"And that bottle I brought! And some cups." Yuyuko called out, eliciting a giggle from Yukari. "I hope I'm not being too bold."
"Hardly, Yuyu. I feel all four of us could do with a drink. What say you, Youki?" Yukari asked, throwing a glance to the bemused samurai.
"You honour me with your invitation," Youki bowed his head, "Mistress Yuyuko, am I permitted?"
Yuyuko waved him close as Yukari went on, "I'd be glad to hear your evaluations on this girl, this Remilia Scarlet."
Soon enough, the gap-youkai, the ghost princess, the half-ghost samurai and the fox shikigami had cups ready and were sitting at ease on the blankets, halting as Yuyuko asked, "What shall we toast to?"
"To losers." Yukari said, a bubbly chuckle running through her voice.
"May they never give up!" Yuyuko declared, raising her cup without missing a beat.
Youki and Ran, mystified, simply echoed the gesture before they quietly watched the events unfold in London around the vampire princess and the servant girl.