Welcome back! Before we begin, as always, I just want to say the reception I've been getting for this story has absolutely floored me. Thank you all for reading, and thanks to anyone who has commented, followed or favorited this story! Unfortunately, as some of the discussion in the replies get more and more speculative into the nature of plot twists coming later in the story, I can't give away anything. But hey, won't that just make the twists more fun?

By the way, Reimu's age as it's mentioned in this story is intentional for some things to line up. Just to get ahead of that before people say I made a mistake. The only mistakes I make are intentional, measured, and to my own determent.

Anyways, with that out of the way...

Reimu let out a sigh. She had been preparing for this moment for months, now. Not constantly, of course. the Hakurei Shrine Maiden's duty was far more to Gensokyo than to the outside world, but she had been told quite a while ago that she'd have to do this. She'd had plenty of time to get mentally prepared. Plenty of tests before now; Weird, annoying scientific tests of that clashed horribly with her perception of the world as it worked within Gensokyo... but she'd also had plenty of time to get over that. She wasn't necessarily excited, this wasn't the kind of thing she really wanted to do and it felt so much more over-complicated than the way she dealt with incidents in Gensokyo itself, but hey. It was her job.

"Begin activation." She didn't really pay enough attention to tell if it was Gendo or Junko who had said it. Although it was the woman who'd first come to Gensokyo, the two leaders of TOUHOU had merged in her mind by now, just a tall, black blob of commanding, irritating authority. The kind of people who wanted the incidents outside Gensokyo solved their way, rather than being content in the fact that they were getting solved.

Reimu felt the cockpit come alive as it activated, life energy flowing through the machine. The 'technicians' on a nearby observation platform started listing off statistics, numbers, and words that Reimu didn't really plan on ever learning. "Pulses stable. Synchronization confirmed. Would you like to try and move around, Reimu?" Reimu thought that was Reisen's voice, although once again she didn't really pay attention to whichever weird, technophilic adult was talking at whatever time they were. She opened her eyes, looking over the massive white chamber around her.

It was… odd, being in control of the fake Oni… sorry, 'Oni-00'. It felt like she was the giant automaton, not just controlling it, if that made any sense. She flexed her arm, and then a leg… at least Alice would be jealous.

"Very good, Reimu. Does everything feel alright?"

"I… guess. It's hard to explain."

She managed to notice that it was Junko speaking, a gentle, motherly tone that always failed to seem legitemate. "That is unsurprising, you've been through a lot and I'm sure this is all very confusing." Why... why did Reimu specifically notice Junko's voice? And why did it sound so… infuriating? "You're doing great, my child. We'll be doing a few basic exercises, but we should be done within an hour."

That voice… that horrible voice… that EVIL voice…

Reimu felt a pit in her stomach, and then got a lurching feeling that felt like the floor was falling out from under her- and then, felt emotions that weren't her own, movements that weren't her own. It was like the Oni began to control its pilot rather than the opposite, and like that control was wrenched from her only to transmit one, singular feeling. Hate. Almost uncontrollably, Reimu felt Oni-00's form straighten, just to look at the observation deck. Just to look at Junko, standing there. Smug. Gloating.

"The pulses are flowing backwards!" "Cease contact! Shut off the pilot's connection with the Oni!" "We can't! Signal denied!" The voices rang through comms, but Reimu didn't register them. She couldn't register anything, she wasn't even herself. She was the Oni. And the Oni was nothing but uncontrollable hate. Walking forward, shaking off her restraints like they were nothing but a robe coming off, the Oni raised a fist, and punched straight into the observation deck's thick glass. Even as the Oni's energy-supplying umbilical cord crackled behind her, forcibly detached, she wound up another punch, which impacted heavily against the window. Then, another. And another. And another. Gendo, nor Junko, even flinched. Fine, he could die too.

"Sir! Ma'am! Stand back, it's dangerous!" The Oni didn't even care about who was speaking, blasting their voices through her skull. She just had to break through the glass. She just had to get her. Another fist bashed against the window, cracking the glass straight open. Junko stood there. Junko was within reach. Junko would die.

And then, in the blink of an eye, Reimu was taken away from the Oni, and felt like herself again, or at least felt the vacuum in her mind as the Oni was forcefully ejected. She was… she was flying? No, the way she usually flew was natural, the product of her abilities. This weightless feeling wasn't that at all, this was just a controlled explosion blasting her away, and then hitting the edge of the massive room with a THUNK. Inside the entry plug, the LCL she was immersed in did nothing to cushion the blow as she was flung against its wall, feeling a lot of bones break in a way they hadn't before. As the entry plug came to rest, the last thing she could hear in her dimming consciousness was the pounding of giant fists against a giant wall. She wondered if she'd die here, and almost laughed at how pathetic that'd be after all she'd been through. Was a tube really gonna kill her when the god of Makai couldn't? Was this the world outside Gensokyo?

Her thoughts were brought to an end when the sound of a gunshot, and then two more, were accompanied by pinpricks of light puncturing through the entry plug's door. A kick to the door finally made it give, and, to her surprise, the face of Reisen met her.

"Holy shit, are you okay? Uh… pilot."

Clear concern displayed on the woman's face, which was made even more clear by the popped lens in the rabbit's sunglasses. A single, red eye shook in its socket like she'd just been through a war, although Reimu only got a quick glimpse of it before Reisen seemingly realized that her eye was out and covered it with her arm. Reimu felt odd at the realization that the bunny's concern was from her.

"Y… yeah… I'm alive." She tried to get up out of the bath of LCL. She was even now half-immersed in it, the stuff refusing to let her go even as it slowly drained. When she moved an arm, though, a shot of the worst pain in her life denied it. "I don't think I can move on my own, though."

"They're bringing you a stretcher. You'll be treated soon, I promise..."

o0o

Reimu woke up with a sweat, with it taking almost a minute for her to realize that the dream before was just that. Realizing what it was a dream of, she slumped back into her futon with a sigh. At least this time she'd made it all the way to Reisen saving her, and the memory, revisited as a nightmare, didn't end as one.

Not wanting to get up again, she rolled over and looked out over the patio. Despite the endless summer heat, the sun hadn't even risen, and it was still pitch black outside. Nonetheless, she could hear the beginning of the early morning rains that had become all-too common.

Shutting her eyes, Reimu found that no, she couldn't get back to sleep, either. Wiping away her tears, Reimu got out of her bed for good. It looked like her day was starting right here. Gods forbid the shrine maiden be allowed to sleep in.

CHAPTER 4 - The Barriers inherent to man

It was one of those mornings that made you want to sleep in. Misato woke, not by the comforting sound of rain hitting her manor's wooden roof but instead by the blare of her alarm clock, and wished she could just get back to sleep. Unfortunately, as she navigated the blob of sheets and pillows she'd once again immersed herself into to shut the stupid alarm off, she had a job to do. Her morning routine, done half-awake and in a set of pyjamas that ironically made the woman look a lot more sane than her usual attire, was carried out in relative silence. Obviously, part of that was the fact that any noise would exacerbate her hangover-induced headache, so she tried her best to keep quiet herself. Her residence's location in the middle of nowhere certainly didn't hurt things, and she couldn't imagine Cirno's friends would want to play in this kind of weather. It was a quiet morning, too.

But the silence was more worrying than comforting. Shinji had been quiet the last couple days, closing in on himself and barely even coming out of his room. Today, Shinji hadn't even left his room at all, refusing to do his morning chores. Misato sighed as he knocked on the boy's door. It wasn't like she wanted to do this either.

"Shinji, how long are you gonna keep skipping school? It's already been five days! Your Oni's already repaired, you know!"

Silence. Her words died in the air between her and the door, getting blended into the omnipresent sound of the rain around her. She knocked at the door, but got no response, and so opened it fully.

The large bedroom was completely empty, its futon having been folded up and stored, leaving its hardwood floor spotless. Against its far wall, the only piece of furniture in the room, was Shinji's desk. And on that desk, was a folded letter.

Shinji had ran away.

Misato got ready for the rest of the day in silence again. She didn't even know what to do now, getting dressed in her shrine maiden uniform in what she assumed had to be shock. She went through the rest of her morning like she was sleepwalking.

And then, someone knocked on the door. It wasn't Cirno's friends, especially since it wasn't like they'd be playing in weather like this, and nobody else would really come to visit her in the middle of nowhere… could it be? She ran to the door.

"Shinji! Ah-"

It wasn't Shinji. Stood just inside Misato's overhanging veranda, in a school uniform and under an umbrella, was… uh…

"You're Shinji's classmate, right? The one who got into the entry plug."

The girl nodded with a neutral expression, seeming distracted. She looked like she'd been thinking about something, mentally been somewhere else, to the point that she didn't even acknowledge the entry plug fiasco. "I'm Sanae Kochiya, ma'am, his class rep. I'm here to deliver his assignments… um, is he okay?"

"Okay? Oh… yeah, don't worry about him. He's just taking a few days to recover after what happened. I'm sure you saw the whole thing."

Sanae nodded again, although she didn't make eye contact with Misato. "I never knew that piloting could be that painful…"

"Eheh, yeah, but Shinji's tough." Misato lied through her teeth, and hated herself for doing so. It didn't matter if he was 'tough', the scolding she'd given him after he left the Oni had been the final nail in the coffin, honestly Misato should have been thanking god and the gods for being okay, but she'd just gone and scolded him for throwing his life away like that, now that she looked back it was the most obvious call for help she'd ever seen but-

"Ma'am? Are you okay?" Misato was brought out of it by Sanae waving the papers in her face.

"Oh, yeah, sorry. Thanks, it's nice of you to drop by. I'm sure Shinji'll appreciate it a lo~t." Misato just let that spill out, more because the teasing was something comfortable. For what it was worth, Sanae at least blushed a little. "I was just passing by, it's… ah, well, bye!" She handed the papers to Misato, who finally accepted, and then spun around and returned from whence she'd came, disappearing into the rain long before she reached the road. Misato sighed, and put the papers down.

And then, it bubbled over. Misato kicked the thick wooden door in front of her. "Shinji, you idiot!"

She'd kicked it so hard that her foot hurt. "...Idiot."

o0o

Even the train Shinji was on couldn't quite blunt the roar of the rain. It was truly omnipresent.

He didn't really know why he'd gotten on the train at its Gensokyo stop. His entire morning, ever since leaving that note to Misato, had been a morning of draining resolve, a resolve that drained further and further the longer he was alone, from the long walk to even get to the main road, the longer walk to get to the train station, and now, he was here. To his surprise, he wasn't the only person to get on the train itself, maybe the people here really did travel to Tokyo-3.

Even so, the train was almost unnaturally quiet. It was quieter still when they'd reached Tokyo-3 itself, and when the train stopped at the end line, the station where you'd get off the special route and get onto Tokyo-3's main metro, nobody got on, the train just emptied. Shinji didn't move, and didn't move for the entirety that the train was stalled, preparing to turn around and go back from whence it came.

And yet, he still made the mistake of looking out of the window to the massive city. Even through the rain, its skyline was somewhat visible, the only feature that was through the weather. Shinji couldn't help staring at the looming skyscrapers. The skyscrapers he recognized. The skyscrapers he had to see, looming above them whenever he exited in the Oni to fight, to be hurt, to feel pain. The skyscrapers that, in his mind, had come to be just as associated as those memories of pain with the Oni itself. The buildings that even now seemed too close, as if they were crowding around him. He couldn't tear his eyes away, now, he was almost being drawn in. Everything seemed so loud, so close, so domineering, and Shinji-

The train lurched. It looked like it would be going back to 'Gensokyo'. Shinji was only barely brought out of his thoughts when he realized he wasn't the only person on the train car.

"Interesting. This train is usually empty." The speaker was a strangely-dressed woman, which after the last couple weeks immediately put Shinji on edge. She was wearing a wide, white ruffled dress, a white bonnet, some orange and purple-patterned sash, and wore it all while under a massive parasol that didn't look like it should have fit through the train's door. The woman sat in front of him, across the aisle, and continued speaking without looking at him. "It may surprise you, but I enjoy trains of all kinds greatly. Of everything that has happened to Gensokyo over the last decade, I can't say I'm much of a fan, however the train station coming as close as it did is something I find it hard to dislike."

Shinji blinked. He didn't know if he was meant to respond or not, but the woman continued talking anyways. "I suppose they are a bit like an aspect of my ability. They bring together such distant places and link them together, sealing the great gaps of travel by foot, or by horse. Although, when I put it like that, perhaps they're more antithetical to my abilities, tearing down the barriers of time inherent to travel."

She produced a fan, and started waving it as if the train wasn't both air-conditioned as well as surrounded by a downpour sucking the humidity out of the air just outside. It seemed like she didn't want to talk, the fan was a pretty good sign of that, so Shinji simply returned to the music playing on his SDAT. He didn't even notice as the woman's golden- or perhaps purple- eyes turned to him.

"So cruel," she said to nobody in particular, as the words would go unheard by the boy across from her. "Junko, you think yourself right to play with the pieces from my own board so. I wonder if forcing the burden of humanity's fate upon a son's shoulders was your intention, or merely a consequence of playing with pieces from two games." With that, she opened a gap, not for her, but under Shinji. The boy fell through, leaving her alone on the train, just as a tone came on and the doors of the car opened again. "If you lied to me, Junko, you'll die for it."

o0o

"It seems so cruel, making him bear humanity's fate. If nothing else, he's so young."

Reisen, as per usual, was immersed in her work, sitting in front of a laptop haphazardly wired up to several others on one of her many desks. Misato, without much to do, was leaning a bit in front of her, trying her best to meet the earth rabbit's eyes, even despite the sunglasses and monitors that stood between any chances of eye contact. Honestly, she just didn't wanna stare at the woman's rabbit ears, her only feature that actually reached above the digital wall she'd constructed in front of her.

"Not just humanity's, and we don't have a choice, Captain Katsuragi. There are very specific personality matrices and qualifications required to pilot the Oni. Honestly, you should be happy they aren't any younger." Through the conversation, Reisen hadn't stopped typing once. Misato snorted at her blatant disregard.

"I doubt they could get any younger before they wouldn't even know how. Shinji's only fourteen, and Reimu's-"

"Seventeen."

"I know that. Give me a little credit."

Reisen eyed her… well, she faced her, it was hard to tell where exactly her eyes were looking through those sunglasses, through a gap between two of the monitors. Nonetheless, she went back to working before long. Misato had managed to get a small glimpse of what that was, it was Reimu's final health checkup before she had insisted on leaving the hospital and going back to Gensokyo. The poor girl still looked rough, even when she was healing as well as she was. The two slowly returned to the uncomfortable silence that the two of them usually ended up in. Eventually, Reisen broke it.

"Any contact from the pilot?"

The question was an uncomfortable one. Misato didn't answer, although that in it of itself was obviously an answer. Reisen's ears drooped just a little as she continued her question.

"Nothing?"

"None. He may never come back."

"It's your job to make sure he does, Captain Katsuragi."

"It's not that simple, and it's not just my job. It's…"

"It's?"

Misato sighed. Guess she really was spilling her soul to Reisen after all. Better than Junko, at least. "After Shinji got out of the entry plug and we put him into that cell, I asked him about why he disobeyed my orders. Why, when he was on thirty seconds of battery power, he still charged ahead. He could've died! I told him he had to obey, and he just said 'yes', like it wasn't a big deal. I told him not to do that again, and it was just 'yes' again, it's like he didn't have a care in the world. I told him he could've died, and you know what he said?" Reisen had stopped typing. "He said 'fine with me'!"

Reisen wasn't the kind to gasp, or react much of anything when she was on the job. However, her ears had started wrinkling, an unhideable feature of her rabbit ears that only showed itself when she was stressed. Misato was almost relieved to see that the rabbit at least had a heart. "I… see."

"If piloting the Oni causes him this much pain, he shouldn't pilot it. And if he has to pilot it, the least he could do is not like it."

Reisen sighed. There was a reason Misato was the one who handled the hearts of the pilots. They were all only human, after all.

"And yet, we need pilots, as much as any war needs its soldiers." She let the second half of that sentence, 'and it's your job to make them fight', go unspoken. Reisen didn't think that she could force herself to say that to her.

o0o

The wind blew hard in the clearing Shinji now found himself in, and he could only be grateful that it wasn't raining anymore.

Where that clearing was, Shinji couldn't say. He'd been so zoned out that he hadn't even noticed anything out of the ordinary until he was already falling, and he couldn't actually figure out what he was falling through until he landed here. It was… kind of peaceful.

Eerily so. It was the sort of peaceful that felt completely divorced from human civilization, like waking up in the middle of Siberia. It felt lonely., and the lonliness quickly smothered the brief shock of being in a new location. He was still himself, so why did it even matter where he was? Aimlessly, he simply picked a direction and started walking. He needed to think, he could figure out where he was later. Or never.

o0o

Away, but closer than either party thought, the golden-haired, blue-dressed girl finally stopped laughing enough to finish her story. "And then… and then after all of that, Patchouli still just goes, 'I want my book back'."

Reimu tried to suppress a laugh, but failed as she burst into her own giggling fit along with Alice, nearly dropping her tea in the process. It was a strange friendship the two had forged, honestly. They'd sort of known each other, or at least of eachother since both were full-fledged kids, or at least since Reimu was a kid and Alice was a however-aging-worked-for-youkai. Even then, though, they'd never been that close of friends until they'd both found themselves lacking their best friend. Misery loves company, she guessed.

It'd just started as Alice checking up on her, coming out of the forest of magic when the news of the increasingly isolated Shrine Maiden had reached even Gensokyo's magicians. Admittedly, Alice had probably been lonely too, and although Reimu never knew the relationship between the two very well she got the impression that the magician was broken up over everything that happened. Reimu had made tea, that day, and so drinking tea and hanging out became their tradition. Well, drinking tea, hanging out and watching the dolls at work.

"Careful!" Alice shouted out, yanking some of the strings around her fingers in desperation, but it was no use as one of her dolls overstepped, hitting its partner in the face with the wooden plank they'd been carrying. The two dolls started arguing... Reimu never knew how sentient the dolls really were, but the argument distracted several of the dolls around them, which made them stop working, which resulted in the chunk of Reimu's patio they were trying to hoist up to fix collapsing. Alice groaned and pinched the bridge of her nose.

"Thanks for the help, as always." Reimu tried to suppress another laugh. Even if they weren't the most competent, free labour was free labour. Especially when Alice, having seen the state that the shrine was in at the time, had freely offered it.

"You're welcome, we couldn't let you live in a rotting shrine after all, but… are you sure nobody else could help? I don't think we're doing a very good job."

"You know that humans don't come up here, not like I could hire one of them to help. That leaves me with, what, the kappa? With their prices? Plus, they'd probably try and turn the shrine into some giant robot or something."

"Aren't all the kappa working with TOUHOU these days anyways? Or… wait, NERV, right?" Reimu's bow slumped at Alice's mention of her 'employer', unconsciously of course. Alice was about to start backtracking and apologizing, when the two of them were interrupted by a knock on the shrine's front- its human side- door behind them. "I'm guessing that's-?"

"Yep." Reimu got up with a sigh and answered the door. Sanae, with her homemade gohei in one hand and an out-of-place umbrella in the other, was on the human side of Reimu's physics-defying interdimensional shrine. The real shrine maiden mentally prepared herself for Sanae's inevitable hundreds of questions about magic, or whether she could join TOUHOU, or anything else she could come up with to annoy her with a stupid smile on her face…

except, Sanae didn't have a stupid smile on her face. She looked serious and dejected, somehow at the same time. "What now, Sanae?"

"I challenge you to a fight."

Reimu was still in a bit of a giggly mood, so she laughed a little. "W-what?"

"You have to be strong to pilot an Oni." She said it with conviction, like she had firsthand experience that told her so. Like it wasn't even a question, that it was just the truth. Reimu couldn't disagree, of course you had to be strong, but it was an odd sentiment from Sanae of all people, who continued flatly. "I need to know if I'm strong. I need to know for sure."

"Sanae, this isn't-"

"I, Sanae Kochiya, wind priestess descended from the until-recently forgotten gods of the world outside Gensokyo, challenge you to a spell-card duel. Shrine maiden of the Moriya shrine in Tokyo-3 versus the shrine maiden of the Hakurei shrine of Gensokyo!" And then, before Reimu could even react, Sanae blasted out a five-pointed star Danmaku. It was flashy, big, and you could probably even see it down by the road of the human world.

However, it was slow, and the gaps between the patterns were wide. Reimu, still a little slower than she liked, easily wove through them nonetheless, and then wove through a second barrage with just as much ease, closing the gap between her and Sanae. In an instant, she had her gohei raised to her challenger's neck like it was a blade.

Sanae may have been the shrine maiden of the Moriya shrine, the descendant of gods and the invoked of miracles, but Reimu Hakurei was the Hakurei shrine maiden. She might as well have walked straight through her danmaku. There was no contest.

Sighing, Sanae knew this was probably going to happen. She could wipe the floor in schoolyard fights, especially if it was against her friends like Toji, but this was a whole different- hey, schoolyard fights!

She punched Reimu in the face.

When Reimu hit back, she went flying.

o0o

That eerie feeling still hadn't gone away as Shinji walked through the forest. Honestly, it had just gotten worse as the day went on. Even when he saw nobody around him, there was this all-encompassing feeling that he was being watched, a feeling that sat in his stomach like a pit and refused to go away. He'd passed a couple of houses, strange, western-style houses, but nobody had been home for the first one, and he hadn't even worked up the courage to knock on the second's door. He was loosely just following a forest path now, once again basically dead to the world. So dead, that he didn't notice the bright lights coming from somewhere outside the forest until he had practically reached its source, coming out of the forest right in front of a wide clearing. A clearing with a small, dilapidated Shinto shrine.

Not having anything better to do, honestly not really thinking at all, Shinji found himself walking to the shrine, which he reached the edge of without issue, just as the last of the sparks from the previous Danmaku were fading away.

And then, walking out onto the porch, was a familiar face. She was holding a damp cloth to her cheek, but when she saw Shinji standing there she dropped it in shock.

"Ikari's… Ikari?"

"Hakurei?"

Reimu fumbled for the cloth, not taking her eyes off Shinji as if he was gonna disappear the second she did. She almost talked like she was scared of him, or rather, scared of how he'd gotten here. "Do you, uh… know where you are right now?" Shinji tiredly shook his head. "Well, do you remember how you got here? You can come in if you want, I can… just, come in. Come in!"

Shinji came up the patio, moving with the suspicion that looked more like it belonged to a wounded animal than a boy, but he did come in behind Reimu, pulling a bag of things behind him. Reimu got the door, still obviously confused that Shinji was… wherever this was.

Sitting in Reimu's living room were two other girls. One, who looked about Reimu's age but whom he had never met, was a girl with blonde hair under a red, frilly headband and golden eyes. She gave a friendly wave. The other, with her arms and legs tied-

"Class rep? Are we close to Tokyo-3?"

"Oh, you know her?" The golden-haired girl piped up as Reimu went to make some more tea. "This girl's constantly bugging Reimu because of all that Oni stuff. We're pretty far from Tokyo-3, actually… wow, I didn't know she was walking all that way!"

"There's… there's a train, she probably uses that."

"What's a train?"

Shinji didn't quite know how to respond to that. She turned instead to Sanae as he sat down, but the girl, possibly because of how she had been tied up or for some other reason, looked almost depressed. Shinji hadn't noticed until he sat down and settled in, but the girl was also pretty decently bruised.

"What happened to you?"

"I'm never gonna be an Oni pilot, am I?"

Shinji also didn't know how to respond to that. She probably wouldn't be one, but that was a very good thing, and Shinji couldn't tell if he was supposed to tell her that. Instead, he just stared ahead, letting the awkwardness and, more than that, the strangeness of the situation wash over him like taking a shower in vegetable oil.

After a beat, Reimu emerged with four teacups. One went to the golden-haired girl, who Reimu inadvertently introduced by placing it in front of her with a 'for Alice', the second went to Sanae, seemingly mockingly, and the third was given to Shinji, who accepted it with a soft 'thanks'. The green tea, in a matching glazed green cup, was warm and tasted pretty good. It was soothing for Shinji, in a way he was almost unused to. Reimu started drinking her own tea in a sort of peaceful silence that Shinji was more than happy to share in. Even Sanae had somehow managed to manoeuvre her tied hands around the teacup and was silently sipping at it

"So…" Shinji jumped a little as Alice spoke up. "How do you two know eachother? You three, I suppose."

"He's another Oni pilot. I think they brought him in after I got in that accident with Oni-00." Shinji tried not to show his surprise at how casually Reimu talked about both classified TOUHOU information, as well whatever caused her to get injuries bad enough to be in the state she was when he'd met her. She said it between sips of tea like it was the most normal thing in the world, and Shinji couldn't help but feel a little jealous. "No idea how he knows Sanae, though."

"We go… went to school together." Sanae spoke up, and sat up, when he didn't. "But he hasn't been showing up to school! I had to chase him down, figure out his address when Sumireko was home sick today, and then I had to walk all the way out to Misato's when I already had class-"

"You live with Misato?" Reimu cut her off by asking the question at Shinji. He was honestly surprised for a moment that she even knew who Misato was, the two worlds of Reimu and Misato seemed so at odds, until he remembered they did, in fact, work together. Misato was her boss as much as his, as little as it really made sense.

"Ah, well… I ran away."

Sanae looked shocked and a little disturbed. Alice didn't seem to really care, but Reimu actually snorted at that, before laughing so hard that she has to start coughing out her tea, with an "I'm sorry, I'm sorry." as she did.

"What? What's so funny?"

"It's just…" Reimu found her composure. "You ran away from Misato after a fight with her about the Onis and ended up here without even thinking about it?"

Shinji shyly nodded. Alice's expression perked up as Reimu looked at her with an indiscernible expression, and she started giggling too. "Oh, I get it!"

"Get what?" The two didn't answer him, and when he looked to Sanae for help, she only returned a shrug. He steadily finished his tea as the two girls finished laughing over their inside joke, which took a fair bit longer than he would've expected. It couldn't be that funny.

"Um… Hakurei?"

"Yeah, what's up, Shinji?" She said it like he was intentionally saying his name to remember it

"Where… are we?"

After a second, Reimu's expression flashed in recollection. "Oh, right. RIGHT. Shinji, do you remember how you got here?"

"I was riding a train, when a strange woman dressed in a white dress with a purple sash boarded. She was holding a massive umbrella." Immediately, Reimu's expression dropped from worry to annoyance, and she got a lot more relaxed in her seat. "She talked about how much she loved the train, as well as how they were kind of like her abilities. She raised a traditional fan to her face and stopped talking, so I stopped paying attention, but she did something… I'm not sure what, but I ended up in a forest."

"Yukari…" She said it like she was chastising a pet.

"Was that the woman's name? Do you know her?"

"That old gap-hag… Well, the barrier's still safe, then. I don't know why she brought you here, but it probably wasn't for any good reason. That old woman just likes to bring people inside the barrier sometimes, without much of a reason. I think she's just bored, or crazy."

Shinji nodded again, he was starting to feel like it was all he could do. "Here…"

Reimu sighed, seemingly not noticing when Alice placed a refilled cup of tea in front of her, nor even noticing that her friend had gotten up. "Gensokyo, the home of youkais, vampires- I think vampires-, fairies, gods and magic of all kinds. In the outside world, disbelief in them caused them to fade away, but here, it's impossible to deny their existence, isn't it?"

Shinji remembered the fairy in Misato's fridge, and the rabbit woman in Tokyo-3, and Sanae's strange 'spell card'. "Is Tokyo-3 part of Gensokyo, too?"

"No." The answer was decisive enough to blunt the conversation, to the point where it really just ended there. Between Shinji's meekness, Reimu's bluntness, Sanae's quiet contempt and Alice's attention being eventually drawn back to the dolls, the strange group of four that had come together on the damp day would eventually just return to their little tea party in silence.

Reimu wasn't mean or anything, Shinji had found it pretty obvious that she was a nice person, if a little lazy when she wasn't in TOUHOU. That was the thing, though. It was obvious that there was a certain mask she put on when she was at 'work', and that it was far from her natural disposition.

He couldn't fault her for it. It wasn't like Shinji was any more fit for the pure white city and the giant Oni piloting than the Shrine maiden was. As the day peacefully floated past, Shinji even found himself engaging with the group a little more. Eventually, the topic of Sanae came up, who Alice revealed with a chuckle had been coming to the Hakurei shrine begging to pilot the Oni for months, sometimes bringing Sumireko who had just as many questions about Gensokyo. When Sanae admitted to trying to fight Reimu today, Shinji was actually shocked that Sanae had lost… until Reimu pulled out one of her own 'spell cards', which had resulted in ten minutes straight of Shinji being unable to see.

And now, it was sunset.

"Well, it was nice to see you, Reimu. Nice to see you again, Sanae, and… Shinji, right? Nice to meet you." Alice bobbed her head in a brief bow before leaving, a trail of dolls following her like ducklings down the Shrine's path. The three waved, at which point Sanae, who had bucked up over the day, seemingly noticed the time too, and made to leave too.

"Well… thanks, Reimu. I'm sorry… for… uh… that. And Shinji!" The boy stiffened when his name was called. "Running away's no excuse for not doing homework! You're gonna be in so much trouble when you come back to class!"

When you return to class, like it was a certainty. Shinji weakly waved back at his class rep as she left through the front of the house and down the 'human side' of the hill, as the sun sank below the forest Shinji had come from.

"Your friends are nice…"

Reimu snorted. "Ah, Sanae's your friend. And Alice is just lonely, although I didn't even think it was possible for her. I mean, she lives out in the forest, and always seemed fine." Reimu said it like she was waiting for Shinji to offer an explanation, but he'd never met that girl before today, so he just shrugged, before turning his focus back to his tea cup. He'd never been great at eye contact.

Reimu got up to leave the room and had started doing something in another room as Shinji simply sat there. As he stared down at his drink, doing nothing, really, Reimu began doing something in one of the shrine's few other rooms, something that produced the inexplicable but obvious sound of doing chores at night. It's the kind of sound that was insane to explain on words but was completely obvious to anyone in a warm house, unnaturally lit up despite a night surrounding him. It was the sound of cleaning up after a party, and to Shinji it was the sound of 'it's time for visitors to leave and residents to sleep.'

"I… should probably go, too."

"I thought you were 'running away' from Misato. Where're you gonna stay?"

Shinji unsurprisingly didn't have an answer. The little party had been so distracting, he hadn't actually thought about where he'd go, what he was even doing out here. He shot up unconsciously, like he was being called upon by a teacher, but just as he did so Reimu returned with two futons, one that she lazily lobbed at Shinji, apparently too hard as he 'eep'ed as he was caught by it.

"You're sleeping on the patio, sorry. I don't have that much space."

"I- uh…" Shinji , managing to collect the futon in his arms, met Reimu's eyes. He hadn't noticed, but she looked tired. Honestly, seeing the tiredness in her eyes helped him realize the tiredness he, himself was feeling, or perhaps had been feeling this whole time. "Thanks… Hakurei."

"Anytime."

Shinji shakily stepped back outside, closing the shrine's Shoji door to the outside as best as he could with arms full of futon. The patio itself wasn't actually that poor of a place to sleep, all things considered. It was decently wide, and the endless summer heat had cooled off while remaining warm enough to be comfortable. It was, of course, still quiet out here. But, as Shinji spread his futon out and crawled in, he couldn't help but pick up the sounds of Reimu doing the same, immediately falling asleep, and loudly snoring.

o0o

Reimu, as per usual… as per whenever she didn't have a nightmare, woke up late. The sun was already high in the sky, those infernal cicadas had already started buzzing, and she could almost imagine the busybodies in the human village being well into whatever work they did, with a snort. She breathed in, enjoying a perfect late morning's air.

Hm. That didn't smell like morning. That smelled like stir-fry. And, only picking it up when she started to focus on it, the sound of cicadas was met with the faint sounds of someone doing something with her woodstove. Warily, she rose from her futon, managing to grumble her way out of bed and right into…

Shinji, who was holding her frying pan and standing over her dinky wood stove.

"Ah- Hakurei, sorry if I woke you, I was just-"

Reimu groaned and stretched, trying to push out the lingering sleep so she could actually confront the morning. "What're you making?"

"Stir-fry, although you didn't have any meat so I had to just use vegetables and mushrooms. You have a lot of rice, huh!" Shinji said it with a bit of a laugh, but misunderstood Reimu's lack of reaction as disapproval and once again started falling over himself apologizing for basically anything, from waking her up with the smell and the noise to cooking food for her without asking her permission. She just shrugged and went back to the sitting room to clean up the little party from last night… only to find that it had been cleaned.

Reimu sat back down with a yawn. She'd really half-assed the cleaning last night, so she was honestly surprised the place looked so clean… until she saw the single paper bag in the corner, labelled 'trash' with a brush in handwriting that obviously wasn't hers. She didn't really know how to react to that, just as much as she never really knew how to react to Alice's help. Maybe Shinji was just thanking her or something.

After a beat, Shinji entered and placed a plate in front of her that smelled absolutely heavenly. Reimu, who wasn't exactly used to eating more than one meal a day, or eating meals that weren't entirely rice, couldn't help herself and started digging in. When Shinji brought out tea for her, too, she felt like she was in heaven.

"Please don't tell me this is the last time you're gonna run away, I need you to cook for me again soon."

"Huh? Well…" Shinji sort of stepped back at the offer, obviously taken aback, and Reimu wondered if she was a little too blunt, but the food was so good that she didn't even care. The boy even cleaned, maybe Misato had the right idea!

And then, someone knocked on the door. The front door, for the human side. Reimu was still eating, so Shinji answered…

The door. Almost taking up the entire doorframe, between her height and massive fan of ginger-gold hair, was Junko, dressed in a black Chinese dress rather than her black labcoat and red turtleneck. Despite the different outfit, the woman gave an almost identical energy.

"It was awfully rude to run off to here, Shinji. Normal humans cannot reach here. You had our security teams running around like headless rabbits."

Reimu could see the door from where she was sitting, and could see Shinji nervously take a step back. Junko didn't take a step forward, which someone wanting to intimidate the boy would have. It was almost worse that way, though- Junko could force the boy back without even moving, and with that almost blank-eyed smile on her face. And then, she looked in, looking through the boy and making eye contact with Reimu.

"It's nice to see you getting along with someone your age, though. I suppose there's worse ways to take a vacation than spending time with your peers. Hello, Reimu. Good to see that you're eating well."

Vacation. It was so casual that Reimu honestly didn't want to think about that. As familiar as the whole situation may have felt to her, she also knew that running away from Shinji's perspective must not have been a fun time. She didn't move to say anything, though. It wasn't like she could confront Junko even if she wanted to. Something about her just froze you up. "Uh…"

"Nonetheless, it appears Misato would like to talk to her ward, so I'll be borrowing him for now. I'm sure he'll be available to play later." Then, the woman turned her attention back towards the boy. "Are you familiar with Clause 8 of TOUHOU security regulations?"

Shinji didn't answer, although his shoulders wilted. Whether he was or wasn't familiar with that truly didn't matter. Junko was here, and what she said went. Shinji just nodded wordlessly, and followed TOUHOU's commander through the front door.

o0o

After Shinji had defeated the fourth angel, his reward had been an immediate court-marshalling and being forced down into a rusty, barren cell somewhere in TOUHOU's bowels. A far cry from those giant sheets of purified metal of the surface. He had then been yelled at by Misato for being too willing to put his life on the line… as if that wasn't the only reason he was being kept around here.

He'd really come to hate this cell, as he found himself in it again. He looked up at the two massive Kanji scrawled in blood-red above him, the name of the organization 'TOUHOU'. He still found himself staring at the logo when it was joined by a flood of white-blue light, its source being the now-open door and its cause being the one inside that doorframe.

"Long time no see."

"...Yeah." What else did he even say to Misato at that point? Judging from the tone of her voice, she didn't know what to say to him, either.

"Did a day of running away to Gensokyo cheer you up?"

Yes. "No."

"The Oni's on standby. Will you pilot it, or not?"

Shinji did a really bad job of hiding his shock. "You aren't gonna scold me for running away?" And then, at Misato's lack of response, he deflated. There was an almost sick satisfaction to having his worst assumptions proven right. "Of course not. You've got no relation to me. Even if you did, that wouldn't change anything." Misato remained silent. Shinji couldn't force himself to meet her eyes, although the blaring light from the hall meant he couldn't tell what her expression was anyways. Shinji couldn't even pretend that Misato cared for him as a person anymore, though. "If I didn't pilot Oni-01, who would?"

"Reimu will do it. There are other candidates on paper, but it's most likely that Reimu would have to do it alone."

Shinji didn't speak up. In his mind, all he could see was Reimu lazing around her house, and then her being forced to pilot instead of that. Misato spoke again, snapping him out of it.

"So you won't do it?"

"I'll do it. She shouldn't have to do it alone."

"But you don't want to pilot?"

"I'm not cut out for it. But Reimu… but you, and Miss Reisen-"

"Reimu's a strong girl, she's handled worse! If you don't want to pilot, just get out of here! Forget about all of us, forget about everything, just leave like you want to so much! We don't… we don't need that kind of attitude in our pilots!" Misato slammed the door before Shinji could say a thing. A set of footsteps, not socks on tatami but heels on cold linoleum, slowly got more distant as Shinji remained in the cell, now alone. A loneliness he truly felt, for the first time in a day.

He tried to ignore the obvious, so his mind went anywhere else it could. Misato had been wearing a black dress with a red bomber jacket. The first time he'd ever seen the woman outside of her shrine maiden robes.

o0o

The only saving grace for today was that it was far easier than Shinji had expected to leave TOUHOU. As he and the TOUHOU security, or 'Section 2', agents reached the train station to leave Tokyo-3, he couldn't help himself looking down at his voided card. He could have left anytime, and if he'd done so they would've pushed him out without a second-

"Ikariiii!" The shrill voice brought him out of his thoughts at the very same second that a bag- his bag- hit him in the chest, nearly knocking him down. "Oh, sorry, that might've been too hard…"

The voice was Sanae's, as was the throw, apparently. Looking up, he was met with not just Sanae, but Toji, and even Sumireko. "Um… thanks…"

Toji stood extremely stiffly, but he struggled in that was the two girls both grabbed a shoulder and pushed him ahead. He seemed to collect himself. "Ikari, you gotta get me back. After what I did for you… I was just mad, about my buddy Kensuke and my sister."

"I can't do that! Plus, didn't Sanae-"

"You gotta! It's only right."

The crying cicadas were the only things to punctuate the awkward silence. Eventually, Sumireko sighed. "Toji won't shut up about this, just get it over with. And hey, at least it'll be someone other than Sanae hitting him."

Shinji waffled, but so did Toji. Eventually, seeing the section 2 agents checking their watches behind him, he decided he essentially had no other options, and put the bag down.

He reeled up a punch. Toji stated down his fist like a barrel, when the first collided, Toji actually snapped back, getting caught by his class rep as Sumireko sidestepped them both. Only one of them flinched in sympathy.

Realization dawned on Shinji as his classmate was still reeling "How did you three know I'd be here?"

Sanae, having helped Toji regain his footing, spoke. "A little faith. Whenever a classmate leaves, they leave through this station. At this point it's tradition… a very common tradition."

Toji nodded along. "Well, if you're leaving, we'll prolly havta leave soon, too. It's not your fault, though! We saw how messed up the Oni is. If anyone blames you for leaving, I'll… I'll… crack 'em on the head!"

Shinji finally felt the thinnest of smiles appear, but then remembered he was actively leaving. Even among the words of encouragement, he didn't know what to say. It didn't matter, though, as his clock finally ran out. The suits grabbed him with a "time to go" and began to take him into the train station itself. Knowing that this would be it, this would be the end of his time in the city, Shinji broke away from the agents at the very last second, he absolutely had to say one last thing. "It should've been me who got hit, not you! I'm a cheat… and a coward, and dishonest and weak! You can't think of me as-"

He was pushed back up, leaving his three classmates with that. His time was through, and all he could do now was wait for the train. Section 2, seeing this as a job well done, left. What could Shinji do, now, but wait for the train?

He heard it now, the private train screeching. He didn't really want to look up, to confront it, but he knew it'd be in front of him in moments. This was it, wasn't it? The train came to a stop in front of him. It was right there. Just one step and he'd be gone.

He couldn't tell you why he didn't get on, though. He just stood there, paralyzed, as the train left in front of him. He only, just barely, raised his head to even look at it as the train passed, completely empty safe for a white umbrella just barely visible through its back window. It didn't matter, of course. He'd just have to take the next one out of here, his choice was already made, and no matter what he felt, he couldn't go back. This was…

The familiar screech on cars on tarmac just barely brought him out of his thoughts. With an almost unwilling hope, he raised his head to look at its source, only to see…

Misato's eyes met Shinji's across the gap of the train station's elevation, but such a gap might as well not have existed. Misato had come to get Shinji, and Shinji hadn't left even with a blatant opportunity to do so literally passing him by.

Shinji had been tuning out the train station's announcements, but the announcement that came over its intercom was something he'd find it hard to forget.

"If you are accompanying small children, please be especially careful."

He was already getting Déjà Vu, but for the second time, he felt a smile, a full smile, tug at his lips, and felt himself say "I'm... I'm home."

Misato smiled back. The first time he'd seen Misato smile in several days, as she responded with a simple "Welcome home."