Louise looked around, panic slowly building.
Everything had stopped. The smug expressions of her classmates frozen in monochrome, Mr. Colbert looking on kindly. There was no sound except her breathing, no movement but her.
Had her summoning really gone that bad? Granted, there was no explosion, but it was like time itself had broken. Was she really that much of a screw up?
But before she could break down in panic, an unknown voice sounded out in the silence. "Good afternoon, Miss Vallière."
"Who's there!?" Louise said, whirling around, both relieved to hear somebody else's voice, and frightened, as she didn't recognise it.
Then a thin horizontal black line appeared in the air, before splitting into a gaping maw of swirling black and purple, filled to the brim with unblinking red eyes, and tied at either end with cute red ribbons.
Then a pair of hands appeared at the bottom lip, before a strange woman pulled herself up. She floated out of the strange void, before sitting daintily atop it. She wore a large white dress, with an odd purple tabard decorated with unfamiliar designs. She wore a light pink mob cap tied with a long red ribbon over long immaculate blond hair, that reached well below her waist.
The woman pulled a fan out from behind her, and gently started fanning herself. "Well, since you so rudely asked, my name is Yukari Yakumo. Wonderful day, wouldn't you say?" She was smiling mischievously.
Louise managed to pull herself out of her shocked stupor. "Wonderful day- WONDERFUL DAY?!" Louise said hysterically. "How is this day anything close to wonderful?!"
"Well, we are here, the sun is shining, and we have our health." Yukari said.
"All the colours are gone!" Louise screamed, tears forming in her eyes, "And nothing is moving! "This has got to be the biggest screw-up of my life!" she wailed.
"There there, don't cry, you didn't screw up." Yukari said. "You actually did well."
"I-huh?" Louise said, caught off guard by the praise.
"Your summoning actually went off perfectly, if it wasn't for someone interfering, you would have gotten the familiar you so dearly wished for." Yukari said.
"Someone… interfered? but who-" Louise stopped as realisation dawned.
"Why, myself of course." Yukari said, smiling mischievously, before reaching down into the void underneath her.
Louise stared for a moment, before she raised her wand. "How dare you! Why I should-"
But her wand was plucked from her hand, as Yukari's arm reached out of another strange gap that appeared to one side, before withdrawing.
"Ah-ah-ah." Yukari said chidingly, straightening up, and shaking Louise's wand in her free hand, like one would shake their finger at a disobedient child. "Let's keep this civil, shall we?"
Louise stared dumbfounded at where her wand had been, before looking back at Yukari. "Wh-why are you doing this?" She was trying to remain strong, but it was hard to hide the quiver in her voice. Whoever this woman was, she seemed insanely powerful, considering she had stopped the entire world.
"Relax, little Louise, I mean you no ill will." Yukari said.
"Then why?" Louise said, slightly emboldened, but still guarded. "And what are you, I've never seen magic like this!" She gestured to the frozen world.
"Well to answer your first question." Yukari said. "You see, little Louise, I come from a land far, far away. As far away as the furthest star, yet at the same time, as close as a turn of the head."
"Wha-" Louise began.
"I'm not finished." Yukari said. "As I was saying, I am somewhat of an overseer of my world, a guardian in some ways. Regardless, its people are under my care, whether they know it or not. And therein lies the problem. When some young girl from another world tries to take one of my people away, to be forced into a life of subservience... Well, I can't have that now can I? I would be failing in my duty, do you not think?"
"People?" Louise said, confused "Why would my Familiar be a person?"
"How should I know?" Yukari said, shrugging innocently. "But a person is what your summons reached for." Yukari said, "And this is precisely why I intervened."
"But, but…" Louise, trying to think of a counter argument, before settling on denial. "No, no, you're lying. No way you could interrupt something like the Familiar summoning ritual."
"I've interrupted the flow of time, why would some dinky little ritual be a challenge?" Yukari said, raising an eyebrow.
"But… But… How?" Louise asked again.
"Back to this again?" Yukari said. "Very well. As I said, I am Yukari Yakumo, The Border of the Phantasm. And my power lies in the spaces between spaces. I manipulate boundaries."
"Boundaries, what do you mean? I've never heard of that." Louise said.
Yukari titered. "Of course you haven't, my power sits well outside the points on your little pentagram, as well as in between them."
Louise's hackles raised, "But thats-"
"Heresy yes, burn the unbeliever and all that." Yukari said dismissively. "You and I are the only people here and conscious, and I have your weapon, I wouldn't raise a fuss if I was you. You'll only waste your breath."
Louise silently brisled.
"But shall we get back to the topic at hand?" Yukari said. "Mainly the one about your familiar."
Louise jerked in realisation. "Right, give me my Familiar! I need it or otherwise-"
Yukari held her hand up again. "Do not worry Little Louise. I understand your plight, I may have my duties to my own people, but I am not so heartless to leave you to be a victim of your own flawed class system."
Louise bristled again, but as the woman in front of her seemed to have the key to her future, she kept her pride in check.
"So I have a little proposition for you, little Louise." Yukari said. "I will not let you take a denizen of my land against their will, but if one were to come with you of their own free will, then I will have no objection whatsoever."
"What do you mean?" Louise said. "How will that happen?"
"Simple!" Yukari said. "You come back with me to my land and find one."
"What!?"
"I'm offering you an opportunity no other mage of your world has gotten, to go and find the perfect partner for yourself, and take as much time as you need in doing so." Yukari said, clapping her hands enthusiastically.
"What do you mean?" Louise said, still confused, and affronted. "If I can't summon it through the ritual, then I will have failed anyway. I can't just run off and find one!"
"Why not?" Yukari said, smiling smugly. "None of these people are going anywhere, and they will continue not to as long as I bid them not."
Louise remembered her frozen classmates. "Wait you mean-"
"I have strengthened the boundary between now and then, preventing the passage of time." Yukari said. "From now to the minute I release them, they are trapped in the moment. Meaning you have... ah-ha… all the time in the world to find your familiar, and to their eyes, it will simply be the familiar you summoned. They will be none the wiser."
"But what about ageing?" Louise pressed on. "I can't just run off for however long I like. If I do, won't I be older than when I left?"
Yukari clapped again. "I thought you were a clever one, well caught. But do not worry, I have synchronised you to Halkeginian time, as long as time does not advance here, you will not age."
"That sounds way too convenient." Louise said, suspicious.
"It is, isn't it?" Yukari said, giggling.
"How can I trust you?" Louise said.
"How you do is no business of mine." Yukari titered. "But if you don't want my very generous offer, I can always just leave. Then time will continue, there will be a puff of smoke, and it will be just you, your classmates, and no Familiar."
"Urk." Louise grimmanced in realisation.
"So what will it be, Louise?" Yukari said, fanning herself. "Come with me, or stay?"
"...I just have to come with you?" Louise said.
"That's all, come with me, and find your familiar and convince them to be your partner, no strings attached, take as long as you like." Yukari said, "you have my word, as much as its worth."
Louise sighed in defeat, "What do I do?"
Yukari settled on the ground, and the gap opened up to the size of a large doorway. "Why, step this way of course." Gesturing to the opening. "Down the rabbit hole and straight to wonderland."
Louise stepped forward tentatively, until she was right in front of the eye filled abyss.
'Is this really such a good idea?' Louise thought, 'is this woman really telling the truth, or…'
"Oh, come on, hurry up." came a surprisingly familiar voice behind her.
Louise turned around to see the face she sees in the mirror everyday. "Trust me, it will work out, just keep an open mind… oh and do try not to do anything stupid."
"Wha-?" Louise baulked.
But was interrupted by Yukari putting a hand on her shoulder, and slipping Louise's wand back into her pocket. "Shhh~ spoilers." Yukari said smugly, stepping back, before her double pushed her into the abyss. The last thing Louise sees as the gap closes is Yukari and the other Louise waving her goodbye, with smiles on their faces.
After what felt like a solid minute of tumbling through the swirls of eyes and colours, She was caught in the arms of Yukari.
Louise didn't give Yukari a chance to talk. "What was that?"
"That was you of course." Yukari said, putting Louise down and giving her some space. "Although it would be more accurate to say that will be you, in the then."
"But, but... what?" Louise, confusion on her face.
"A lot can happen in a moment after all." Yukari said. "But back to the business at hand." She clapped her hands once for emphasis "Now before I send you on your merry way, I have to lay down a few ground rules."
"Wha-Hey, you said there were no strings attached!" Louise said hotly, anger overriding confusion.
"Did I?" Yukari said, looking genuinely surprised, but recovered quickly. "Well regardless, these are more guidelines than anything, hardly anything to get worked up about, shall I continue?"
Louise crossed her arms irritably. "...Proceed."
"Well, as you know, you are looking for a Familiar." Yukari began. "But there are certain groups of individuals that I have disavowed from being taken. The first group is those that are important to the balance of the land, Mainly Reimu Hakurei, Marisa Kirisame, and myself." She gestured to herself, "There are some others, but you will probably know them when you meet them."
Louise nodded slowly, looking confused again.
"Next on the list, is that you should not poach someone else's familiars, shikigami or servants, at least without express permission from both the individual, and the master. This list includes my own servant, Ran, and her servant Chen."
A woman and a girl appeared briefly, but disappeared before Louise could get a good look at either.
"Third, no one from the human village, or humans in general for that matter."
Louise sighed, well that probably rendered the other two rules redundant, not that she minded, taking a person seemed weird to her in the first place...
"And last on the list… No dumb animals." Yukari said.
"Wha- But you said no humans!" Louise said, confused and annoyed.
"Tut tut, There you go jumping to conclusions." Yukari said. "You will be surprised how many people in my land are not human, Louise… Myself included."
Louise blanched. "You mean-"
"Oh and here is your stop." Yukari said, clapping her hands, and cutting off Louise.
Louise managed to look behind herself, and see another opening. It seemed to show a stone pavement in the middle of a grassy field from uncomfortably high up.
"Have a nice trip~" Yukari said. Causing Louise to turn back frantically.
"Nowaitdon'tyoudare-" was all Louise managed to say before Yukari pushed her out the gap.
Louise screamed as gravity reasserted itself as she fell backwards to her doom.
But before she broke her back on the stone path, a pair of strong arms caught her in mid air with a resounding 'Oof!"
"Dammit Yukari, stop dropping random people on me!" came the voice of her saviour.
Louise looked up to the face of the person holding her. She was a strikingly attractive girl with brown-black hair, with sidelocks in odd red tubes, a giant red ribbon in her hair. A frown was on her face as she stared into the now empty sky, before looking down at Louise, with a look of what might be concern.
"You okay kid?"
Louise could only nod mutely, still winded from the fall.
The woman sighed, putting her down, feet first. Louise stumbled a bit, but with the brunette's help, she managed to stay upright.
"Sorry, that damn gap hag occasionally pulls stunts like this. Name's Reimu Hakurei. Who are you?"
While catching her breath, Louise examined her saviour, recognising the name from that Yukari womens briefing, one of the ones 'important to the balance of the land'. She certainly stood out, she had never seen such odd attire, a long red skirt that went below the knees, with a matching sleeveless shirt, with a ruffled white collar with red trimmings and a yellow ascot. Her 'sleeves' were detached and tied halfway up her upper arm. They were white, incredibly large, with red trimmings. Combine this with the aforementioned head decorations, waist length hair, and her respectable stature, meant she should have no trouble holding people's attention.
"My name is Louise Françoise Le Blanc de La Vallière." Louise managed after catching her breath.
"Weird name." Reimu commented, making Louise Bristle somewhat. "By the sound of it you're an outsider, aren't you?"
"I suppose so." Louise huffed irritably. "You see-"
"Thought as much." Reimu said. "Don't worry, give me a few minutes and I can probably send you home, wait here." Reimu turned and walked to the strange looking wooden building.
"No, wait, you can't!" Louise said, on the verge of panic, "I can't leave yet!"
Reimu stopped, and turned back to face her, eyebrow raised. "And why not?"
Louise looked Reimu up and down, before sighing. "Well, you see…"
And thus Louise explains how she came to be here.
And where Louise's adventures in Gensokyo begin.
Chapter Notes:
And to address the concerns people have about overextending, and trying to keep too many stories in the air, don't worry. You see, exercising plot bunnies is how I deal with writer's block, by clearing up the head space by committing ideas to paper helps me make make room to actually come up with more chapters, it also helps keeps me writing in general, because If I am having trouble writing for one story, having another story to work on means I'm less likely to stall.
Now that the standard disclaimer is out of the way, fourth on the list with eight declared preferences, Zero's Familiar Quest.
Funny thing, that was originally just a working title, but until I think of something better that's just what this story is going to be called, I guess.
Have I mentioned how much I love writing Yukari?
But yeah, my relationship with Familiar of Zero is a very strange one. On a whim I started reading some crossovers in other fandoms I happened to read in, (I think the first was either TouhouFanatics Border of the Void, or an unfinished story featuring a gender swapped Yuuka Kazumi which seems to have disappeared from the website, as I cannot for the life of me find it), and for the most part, I liked them, so I read more, even outside touhou, just FOZ stories were fun to read both due to the setting, premise and the central cast of characters, And Liked Louise as a protagonist. So then I tried watching the anime… and I hated it… Because Saito is possibly the most infuriatingly stupid Harem protagonist I had ever read, and I read a lot of dumb Isekai. I mean, I was prepared for some generic bland everyman protagonist, but he's not bland, he's just straight up a moron, to a self destructive degree. He constantly antagonises Louise, seemingly by accident, has no pattern recognistion, completely lacks backbone, mentions Louises size and breast size in conversations that had nothing to do with it, which would be sexual harrasment, even if he didn't already know she had a complex. He's so annoying that I can't even get mad at Louise for physically abusing him, 90% percent of the time, he is straight up asking for it. I could barely get through two episodes, before giving up, and just sticking to fan works. Maybe he gets better later, but it was honestly just too annoying to continue. I know the story beats anyway from reading nine billion fanworks.
On with the story.
