Dangers From the Dark

Satoko picked up another letter, sliced open the envelope with her brass letter-opener, and took it out. Then, after taking a moment to emotionally brace herself, she scanned its first few sentences.

Her mouth, already set in a straight line, thinned out even further. Another condemnation. She set the letter in the trash pile.

Three days had passed since that disaster at the market, and the aftereffects were still being felt. Most of the children who had been hurt (which was most of them) were still nursing their wounds. Noba was recovering, but slowly. He had to remain in bed most of the time, as moving around too quickly gave him dizzy spells. Rumia and Kohta were a mess of bruises from the beating they had taken. Keiichi and Shinji's noses had both swollen right up. And the list went on.

And that was just the physical hurts. The children were scared and they were angry. Most still carried some lingering traumas from whatever had happened to their families; even those who had been too young to remember it retained subconscious wounds, while others, like Kana, had their entire psyches altered by what they had suffered, perhaps irreparably. That much Satoko had been more than prepared to deal with. But having other Humans turn on them, the very ones that were supposed to support and protect them?

Satoko quite frankly didn't even know how to begin to deal with that.

Oh, she was trying; they all were, she and the rest of her helpers. It seemed that every interaction with the children lately was to assure and reassure them that no, they were not to blame for what had happened, that there was nothing wrong with them, that the blame was solely upon stupid people, that this would all blow over eventually and everything would be fine.

Sometimes, as she parroted that last part over and over, Satoko could almost allow herself to believe it.

Curiously, the one that seemed to be having the easiest time of comforting the children was Mokou. Satoko was still deeply displeased with how she had handled the fight, but there was something about her blunt nature and rough demeanor that the kids found encouraging. At least when she told them that she would be able to protect them if anyone came after them, she sounded like she meant it.

Unfortunately, Mokou might not be around much longer, as the more Satoko thought of it, the more she was convinced that their cook with a mysterious past might be more useful elsewhere.

Satoko took a deep breath. Then she picked up the next letter.

The messages had been arriving en masse ever since the fight, and their contents fell into two competing camps. Many were very encouraging: messages of support, of condemnation of Skinner and Sonozika's rhetoric, of expressing disbelief of the youkai-tainted rumors, of promising to provide whatever aid and supplies they needed, and how they were just so outraged that those animals would attack children that were both helpless and parentless like that.

Those messages were fortunately in the majority, and every one made Satoko feel just a little better. She made a mental note to display them someplace where the kids could see. They needed to hear those words of support even more than she did.

Unfortunately, there were more than a few of the other kind, letters that full of bile and hate. Satoko just didn't understand people who thought like that. What exactly were they so scared of that would drive them to hate helpless children so much?

Fortunately, this was one of the good ones, coming from the Southern Road Village, this one openly condemning the net of paranoid superstition that had descended upon the center of Human civilization and pledging to provide anything that the orphanage needed now that they weren't allow into the market. There was also a very bewildered inquiry as to exactly why so many people in the Human Village had become so stupid. They weren't alone, as Satoko had received many similar questions from their other supporters. It seemed that everyone either simply accepted that the children were dangerous and deserved whatever happened to them or was completely and utterly baffled by the sheer stupidity of that line of thinking.

Satoko wished that she had answers for them, but no matter how hard she tried, she just couldn't come up with an explanation. Paranoia over youkai was nothing new to Humans; in fact, it was part of a regular cycle that seemed to come around every other generation or so. But this was the first time that paranoia had grown to include children that had lost their families to youkai attacks! No matter how one spun it, it made no sense!

Then Satoko paused. A troubling thought had just occurred to her.

All of that talk about the children being somehow cursed just because most of them had lost their families to youkai attacks was utter nonsense, but what if it had originated from a place of truth?

What if someone had found out about Keine?

Keine was honestly a total sweetheart, and if she did tend to get into trouble a lot along with her friends, it only stood to show that she was also a perfectly normal kid as well. However, the fact that she was half-youkai would understandably make a lot of people nervous, especially considering what Satoko had been told about how she had been conceived. To tell the truth, Satoko herself had been reluctant to take the girl in. What if her monstrous excuse for a father's nature turned out to be hereditary? What if she grew up to be a monster? While she was in no way to blame for her father's actions, Satoko had not wanted to risk the safety and wellbeing of the other children under her care to find out.

Fortunately, that proved not to be the case, and Keine turned out to be a lovely and intelligent young girl, if at times a bit mischievous, for which Satoko blamed (and thanked) Rumia Yagami and Kohta Momoi. But her youkai parentage would still likely cause alarm if anyone knew. Aside from her two closest friends, not even the other children knew.

Keine hadn't been singled out during the fight, so it stood to reason that her secret was still uncovered, at least in part. But it was also possible that some details had leaked, that it had somehow gotten out that one of the kids was of youkai descent, even if it wasn't known exactly who it was.

Satoko glanced over to the pile of positive letters. As much as she appreciated all the words and promises of support, with how everything was going she wasn't sure how much longer she could count on it. Being banned from both of the major markets was a blow. Sure, many of the farms had pledged to keep them supplied with food, but it wasn't just food that they needed. Joshua needed supplies to keep up with the house's repairs, Shion and Haruhi needed materials for the clothing, the children still needed things like medicine, craft supplies, entertainments, and a few dozen other necessities that they could no longer purchase. Plus, while she did not doubt that the support they were getting was genuine, how long could they count on it to last? If those lies continued to spread, then even their most adamant supporters would soon feel pressure from their friends, families, and neighbors to leave the children to their own devices.

Though Satoko still didn't want to entertain Mokou's suggestion of preparing the kids for actual violence, there was value in some of her ideas. They already had a small vegetable garden. It was perhaps time to expand that into something larger that could be fallen back on when the food from the outside stopped coming in. Maybe they could get a few animals as well. As for other supplies, well, that was something of a bigger problem. Nothing insurmountable, but they could be expected to have some tough seasons ahead of them until solutions were found.

Sighing, Satoko slumped forward with a palm pressed against her forehead. Maybe she ought to move the orphanage after all. Not to the Human Village, but…somewhere else. Like to one of the more advanced youkai settlements. Like the Tengu, for example. The Tengu were certainly, well, eccentric, but they at least weren't murderous or deliberately cruel.

It scared her that she was honestly considering this.

How had this happened? Sure, she had had issues with the other Humans in the past, with complaints about resources and manpower given over to their protection, but never open hostility like this. In fact, according to the stories she had heard from her mother and grandmother, the times in which youkai paranoia was at its highest were when the Human Village was at its most helpful, as they viewed the orphans as proof of the youkai's evil natures and thus as victims to be protected. And they had never, ever once even entertained the thought that the children might be as dangerous as the youkai themselves. It was sheer lunacy!

As Satoko sat there brooding over the situation, she heard a loud thump come from the hallway outside her door.

She stiffed. Then she quieted her breathing and listened. Maybe it was just the old house settling, or maybe some animal had gotten onto the roof.

Another thump, followed by footsteps. No, someone walking the halls.

But who? It was far past the children's bedtime, and she knew what the quiet scurrying of one of them getting up to use the restroom or a drink of water sounded like. These sounded heavier and more erratic, like someone was searching for something.

Satoko rose from her chair and carefully went over to the door. She opened it just a crack and peered out.

There was someone in the hallway all right, someone walking away from her room. The way they were walking was odd, a sort of uneven stagger while they grasped this way and that with their hands, like they were drunk or stunned by a blow to the head.

An intruder? Maybe even a youkai or some other wicked spirit. There were many demons that wandered the forests, though how one of them had gotten past the wall of charms that surrounded their land she couldn't fathom. Regardless, she was now thinking that Mokou had been right, that there really was some kind of deep-seated conspiracy against them.

Then Satoko was struck by a terrible thought. Wards and charms worked great against youkai, fairies, demons, and the like, but they would do nothing against Humans. And now Humans were what they had to fear.

Then the figure stopped in the middle of the hall, and though their features were hard to make out in the dark, Satoko finally recognized enough of their silhouette to realize who it was.

Now confused rather than scared, Satoko opened the door and stepped out. "Nob?" she said.

Noba didn't respond. He just stood in place.

"Noba, what's wrong?" Satoko said as she approached the boy. "You're still hurt! You should be in bed."

"Coming," he muttered without turning toward her. "They're coming. All of them. They're coming. Leaving tonight. Black house burning in the moonlight."

Uh-oh, it sounded like he was sleepwalking. That happened from time to time, especially with the more traumatized kids. However, Noba had never been one of them.

"We all fall down," he said as he finally turned toward her. His eyes were wide open but weren't focused on anything. He just stared right past her, as if seeing something in the distance through the house walls. "Into the fire. Playing with fire, playing with…"

"Noba," Satoko said as she gently gave his shoulder a shake. "Wake up!" Noba didn't react at first, so Satoko gave his shoulder a harder shake.

This time it worked. Noba jerked in surprise, his eyes widening further. "Ah!" he said as he jerked back away from her. "Get away, get away!"

"Noba, it's okay, it's just me!" Satoko said soothingly.

The boy had crouched down into a ball, arms covering his head. "No, don't! Stop! Don't hit me anymore, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts…"

"Noba, it's me!" Satoko said. "It's just me. You're okay. You were just having a bad dream."

Noba paused. Then he cautiously looked out from between his arMiss "Miss Satoko?" he said breathlessly.

Satoko knelt down in front of him. "It's okay," she said. "You're not in danger. It was just a bad dream."

"I…" Noba slowly lowered his arms and looked around. "How? Why am I, uh…"

"You were sleepwalking," Satoko told him. "That's all that happened. You had a bad dream and started sleepwalking."

"A bad dream?" Noba swallowed. "But it…it was…the house was on fire and people were hitting us and I, uh, I…"

"Shhh, it's okay," Satoko soothed. She gently took the terrified boy and drew him into her arMiss "You're safe now. It was just a dream."

At sixteen summers and nearing his seventh, Noba was the eldest of the children in the orphanage, and as such he had a young man's aversion to showing any sort of emotional vulnerability. But tonight he didn't resist at all and held onto her tightly.

"It's okay, you're okay," Satoko said as she stroked the boy's hair. "It was just a dream. You're safe here."

"But…But they're out there, they're out there all around. They know where they are, they know where we are…"

The scary thing was, this wasn't the first time Satoko had heard terrified children speaking words to that effect after waking from a nightmare. However, this was the first time that they didn't refer to youkai.

"They can't get you," Satoko said, though in her heart she wondered how true that was. "You're safe here. We won't let them get you. I won't let them get you."

Noba's shaking was starting slow, and his breathing was evening out. "But…But…" Then he sighed. "Okay. Okay."

"Would you like something from the kitchen?" Satoko said. "Some warm wine, maybe?"

Noba shook his head. "No. No, I just…I just…feel so tired."

"All right. Come on."

Taking him by the hand, Satoko led Noba back to the boy's dorm. "But…But why did they do that?" Noba muttered as he rubbed his head. "Why did they come for us like that?"

Satoko opened the door. "It was a dream, Noba," she reminded him. "A dream."

Noba looked at her in confusion. "Then why does my head still hurt?" he said before going back in. To this, Satoko had no answer.

As she shut the door, Satoko came to a decision. She couldn't allow this to happen again. They needed to know what was happening to them.

She walked through the halls toward one door in particular. She lifted her hand, hesitated for a moment, and knocked.

Though no one answered, she heard a sudden movement from within, like someone sitting up abruptly.

She knocked again. "Mokou?" she called through the door. "It's me. Can we talk?"

At first there was silence, then she heard Mokou say, "All right, just give a moment here."

Satoko waited. From beyond the door she heard the sound of shuffling about. Then the door opened.

Mokou warily looked down at her. She was wearing her pants and shirt, but the suspenders weren't drawn up and her shirt was unbuttoned, no doubt from having been hastily thrown on.

"What's up?" Mokou said. "Something happen?"

Satoko took a deep breath. "I'm sorry to have woken you, but I have something I need to ask of you."

Mokou quirked an eyebrow. She leaned out to glance from one end of the hall to the next. Then she stood aside to invite Satoko in.

Despite only being at the Children's Home for a couple years, Mokou had quickly become very popular among the children, and was often the recipient of little gifts and tokens of admiration. And they were all on display in her room, from pressed flowers to pretty rocks to hand drawn pictures and earnestly awkward letters. There were no other decorations however, no mementos of her previous life or trinkets picked up from other places.

"Okay, so what do you need me to do?" Mokou said. "Does it involve any, uh…" She drew a slender finger across her own throat.

"No!" Satoko said hastily "Nothing like that." Then she sighed. "But I was thinking about our talk earlier, and while I still don't approve of how you reacted to that fight, you did have a point. Something is at work, something that threatens our children. And we need to know what it is."

"Ah, I get it," Mokou said with a nod. "You want me to start poking around, looking up contacts and see if they know anything."

"Exactly," Satoko said.

Mokou shrugged. "Yeah, I can do that, no problem. Only thing is, most of the people that I'd have to talk to don't exactly come from around here. Actually, a lot of them live pretty far out, and a few aren't exactly stationary. Which mean it might take some time to hunt them down."

"Some time?" Satoko said, her heartrate rising. She didn't like the thought of Mokou being gone for too long. "Even if you fly?"

"Look, flying from one end of Gensokyo to the other might only take a day or so, but this isn't a case of going from Point A to Point B. I don't even know where some of these people are right now. They tend to just go where they want without notice."

"Oh," Satoko said.

"But I will make a point of checking in between visits," Mokou added as she started buttoning up her shirt. "And hopefully I won't have to look up too many names before I get things figured out."

Satoko frowned as Mokou slipped her shirt tails into her pants and pulled up her suspenders. "Um, wait, what are you doing?"

Mokou, who had just opened a drawer in his cabinet, looked at her in surprise. "Huh?"

"Why are you getting dressed? It's the middle of the night!"

Mokou's face twisted up in confusion. "So? I don't know how long this'll take. No time to lose!" She pulled out a weatherworn leather bag and slipped it over her shoulder.

"That doesn't mean you need to leave right now! Wouldn't it make sense for you to wait until morning, when you're fully rested.

"I am," Mokou said. "Satoko, trust me, I'm fine. And the quicker I do this, the better."

Satoko was about to argue further, but then thought better of it. "Okay," she said. "Good luck. And thank you."

"Don't mention it. Oh, uh, while I'm gone, you'll have to handle the cooking. So-"

"Mokou, we used to cook for ourselves before you came, remember?" Satoko said. "We'll be fine."

Mokou thought for a moment. Then she nodded. "Yeah, okay. Good point. Still, don't drop your guard. If something seems even a little bit wrong, get everyone inside and hide, and only call for help from people you absolutely know you can trust."

Satoko swallowed. "All right. But please, hurry back as soon as you can. And don't bring anything worse with you."

The next day…

Joshua lifted his hand, hesitated for half a second, and then rapped his knuckles against Haruhi's door.

"Haruhi?" he called through the door. "It's Joshua."

There was no answer.

Swallowing, Joshua pressed on. "Um, I just wanted to check up on you to see how you were doing. You know, we haven't seen much of you for the last couple of days, and, uh, I just wanted to see if you were all right."

Still no answer.

"Well, uh, I know I said this already, but I-I know you must still be hurting over what happened. And, uh, I just wanted you to know th-that it's perfectly okay to feel like that, and that that should never have happened. But, you know, you don't have to face it alone. We're here for you."

And there still was no answer.

Joshua took a deep breath and said, "Well, uh, Haruna, Shion, and I were going to have an evening tea on the front porch, and you're more than welcome to join us. If you want to, I mean. But if you'd rather be by yourself for a while longer, then that's fine too. Just thought I'd mention it."

He stood next to the shut and locked door for a moment longer, frantically searching his brain for anything else he could say that wouldn't accidentally come off as obnoxious. When he couldn't find anything, he said, "Well, uh, even if you don't want to come out, just know that we're thinking about you, and that we care about you. And…that's all I wanted to say, I guess."

He left the door and headed toward the stairs, his mind spinning with so many swirling thoughts and emotions.

He didn't know what to do. He had been with the Children's Home for several years and had gotten quite good at comforting and consoling the kids through the various struggles and hardships that faced them, but this was completely outside his wheelhouse. Even back when he had done work with his old church back in Philadelphia, when he spoken to all sorts of lost and hurting souls, he had never encountered something like a bright young woman who had grown up without a family and just wanted to help out those who were like her suddenly have her entire society turn on and physically assault her on the basis of a powerful lie. Joshua wanted to help her; of course he did! But he didn't know if it was better to keep trying to get her to open up or to give Haruhi her space. He didn't know if either path would help or make things worse. And given his connections to the man responsible and how that man was twisting the very faith that Joshua himself still held, he didn't know if his help was even wanted.

Though he still had no idea if his God had any jurisdiction in Gensokyo at all, he still whispered a small prayer for Haruhi under his breath.

The two remaining caretakers, Haruna Ishii and Shion Takagi, were already sitting together on the front porch. Haruna, who was the eldest of the caretakers, having worked there before Satoko had even been born, was seated on the worn wooden bench that was next to the door, while Shion, a tall and handsome woman with long black hair that was starting to turn silver, was leaning up against one of the posts that supported the roof. Like Haruhi, she was also a former ward of the Children's Home, though from a couple generations earlier, having lost her family to starvation during an especially long winter. As such, she and Satoko had practically grown up together, which was part of her reason for deciding to stay.

Joshua nodded to the two of them and carefully shut the heavy door behind him. "Good evening. Sorry to keep you two waiting."

"Don't worry about it," Shion said. "Is Haruhi coming?"

"No. She's still, well…"

"You don't have to say it," Haruna said, her rough face twisting up in disgust. Some of the children referred to her as a pitbull behind her back, and while Joshua was quick to put a stop to any kind of disparaging nicknames, he had to admit that she strongly resembled one in that moment, mainly in how ready she looked to commit egregious acts of violence to protect someone she cared about. "Poor kid. Still can't believe those animals did that to her, to them."

"Has it ever been like this?" Joshua said. "I mean, I haven't been here nearly as long as either one of you, but things were already getting tense when I showed up."

"Not in the slightest," Haruna said. "Everyone, from the Human Villages to those on the outskirts, always did everything they could to take care of this. This is new."

"Well, at least we know the cause," Shion said, shooting Joshua a sidelong look.

Joshua had been expecting that. Sighing, he pulled over a nearby wicker chair and sat down as well. "Let me guess: Skinner?"

"Josh, we don't mean to suggest that you had anything to do with what's going on…" Shion said.

"But you were friends with the guy," Haruna continued. "And he's using his religion to justify everything that he's pulling, a religion you're a part of. Now, we've never made an issue of it, and you usually keep your beliefs to yourself, but…"

"It's okay, I get it," Joshua said, perhaps a bit more shortly than he had wanted. He didn't mean to get snappish, but even after all this time he often found himself struggling to rectify his faith with everything that went on in the world that had become his home. And with Skinner doing what he was doing, well, it was hard not to get defensive about it.

So he sighed and said, "Well, to answer the first question you no doubt have for me, yes: Skinner and I did used to be friends. Kind of."

Haruna frowned. "Kind of?"

"We were part of the same church, and he'd show up to the Bible Study I hosted at my place. We'd talk privately at times, but we were never really close, at least not until we became trapped in Gensokyo."

"Bible what?"

"Uh…it's like a religious gathering at someone's house to talk about…scripture. Sort of a group discussion than just listening to the pastor."

This explanation got Joshua blank stares from the other two. He sighed. No matter how many times he tried to explain it, his Gensokyian friends had never really wrapped their heads around worshipping someone they couldn't just go talk to in person. Honestly, sometimes he envied them in that.

Joshua quickly moved past that part. "Anyway, he always had…problems, things like anger issues and mood swings. I think he relied on his faith as a stabilizing force, and that gave him a very, um, black and white view of things. He, uh, never really had much use for nuance and…" Realizing that he was starting to go off on a tangent, Joshua returned to the point. "Um, anyway, he had made a pretty public scene after church one day. I can't really remember what it was about, but I think he had blown up at someone over something their daughter was doing that wasn't even that bad, and I had to step between them and get them separated." He shook his head. "He was already on pretty thin ice with the rest of the congregation, so I thought that I'd better try to talk some sense into him. I got him out of the building, offered to take him to lunch to try one last time to get through to him, but when the bus we were taking went through a tunnel…" He shrugged. "Well, it came out into Gensokyo."

"A…A bus?" Haruna said.

Joshua dismissively waved his hand. "It's, uh, a kind of public transport. A vehicle."

"Oh, those weird metal machines you told us about, like what the Kappa screw around with."

"Exactly. Anyway, to make a long story short, we did become, um, actual friends after that. I mean, we were literally the only people either of us even knew. Even the other people on the bus were strangers until then." He shrugged. "Anyway, he…never really took very well to this country. Every fairy had to be a demon in disguise…and by that I mean a different kind of demon then what lives in Makai…every spell a sign of evil influence. His mood swings just kept getting worse and worse. I kept trying to get him to calm down, to try to see things differently, but he just refused. And when I told him that I felt like the Lord was telling me to go spend the rest of my life helping out here, well, he took it…badly."

Badly was an understatement. In fact, Joshua had been convinced that Skinner was going to attack him then and there. His reaction and the things he had said to Joshua had gone a long way to making Joshua no longer think of him as a friend. And ever since they had parted ways, Skinner just seemed to get more unhinged. On occasion they would see each other, and Joshua always made an effort to be polite, but while Skinner no longer ranted and raved at him, he just got weirder with every meeting.

"Anyway, I haven't really kept in contact with him since then. And as you can see, he's…gotten really, really bad."

There was a pause, and then Shion sighed and said, "Look, Josh. You can't blame yourself for how he turned out. I mean, I was thinking it was something to do with your religion, but now you're saying he was always kind of like this, so that's on him."

"I know," Joshua said. "But I just keep thinking: maybe I should have stayed with him. Maybe if I had been there for him, he wouldn't have gone off the deep end like he did."

"You're not his minder, you know."

"Minder. Right. 'Am I my brother's keeper?'" Joshua murmured, mostly to himself. Though to be fair, it wasn't as if he had ambushed Skinner and beat him to death in a field. "Maybe I should have tried harder to get him to go with me. At least I would've been able to keep an eye on him."

Haruna wrinkled her nose. "Hell no. You're fine, but I sure as hell wouldn't want to put up with him all the time."

"Fair enough. But that still leaves the question of…"

Then the door handle turned, and Joshua stopped talking.

The heavy door creaked open, and Haruhi peeked out.

"Um, I'm sorry," she said hesitantly. "I'm not, er, interrupting anything, am I?"

"Not at all," Shion said as she stood. "Are you okay?"

"I…" Haruhi stepped outside and gently closed the door behind her. "Well, no. No, I'm not. But…" He face scrunched up, and her already wet eyes moistened further. "I don't really…want to be alone right now, so…"

Joshua got up and pulled another one of the chair around. "Well, you are of course more than welcome."

"Thanks," she said. "Thank you."

The question of Skinner remained unmentioned for the rest of the evening, though it weighed heavily on Joshua's mind. He just hoped that whoever Mokou had gone to find, they would have the answers she sought.

At that moment…

Though her life in the Children's Home meant that she had neglected many of the skills she had built up in her long life, Mokou was pleased to find that they had not deserted her through lack of use, specifically the ones related to the tracking, locating, and stalking of another person through a dark and dangerous wood.

She was in the Forest of Magic, which had never been a regular destination of hers, though she knew it well enough, if anyone could be said to "know" the Forest of Magic, following a certain someone as they made their way through the woods' twisted and often nearly invisible paths. Everything was coming back to her, and quickly: from the noting of small evidences of her quarry's passage to noticing minute changes in the air, from stealing along silent and catlike through the gnarled web of interwoven branches to taking note of any sign of other hunters in the area that might be stalking her in turn. Her ears caught every sound and immediately knew what made it, which direction it came from, and how far away it was. Her nose sifted through the stifling scent of rot and decay that permeated every square meter of the forest to filter out trace elements of Human sweat and skin particles.

All of her senses told her the same thing: that her quarry was close, and she hadn't noticed Mokou stalking her yet.

Despite the importance of her hunt, Mokou found herself grinning to herself in the dark. She had missed this, she really had. Granted, what followed after was usually violent and painful, but this part was always fun. Not fun enough to return to her old life, but it was nice to stretch those unused muscles of hers.

She slunk along, as silent as a whisper and as sure as an arrow, her weight evenly distributed as her long and nimble fingers felt for the strongest branches. Up ahead, she could hear the sound of leaves crunching beneath bare feet. Her quarry was going on foot then, probably on a hunt of her own.

And there she was. Mokou spied her crouching in the middle of a junction, where four winding paths met. It was a woman with dark hair tied into two pigtails and a squarish face. She was just below medium height, a little on the plump side, and dressed in a worn red and white outfit. In one hand she was holding a stick tied with several white ribbons, while the other was rubbing her chin in contemplation.

Also, her back was to Mokou, and she had not given any indication of knowing that she was being watching.

Her grin growing, Mokou levitated down from the tree and slowly drifted over the mess of long-dead leaves and fungi that coated the forest floor. She came closer and closer to the woman, hands held to her sides, fingers open and ready.

Then, when she got about half a meter away, the woman sighed and said, "No."

Mokou froze. Then her shoulders slumped and she let herself drop down onto her feet. "Okay, how long did you know I was there?" she demanded.

"Since you dropped out of the tree." The woman rose and turned to face her. "Would've blasted you to bit right then and there if I didn't recognize you a second later." She looked Mokou up and down. "Well, well, Fujiwara no Mokou. Haven't heard from you in a hot minute."

"Really? It's only been like seven years."

Miko Hakurei sighed. "Yeah, you would find that short. What do you want? I'm busy."

"So I see. What's up? Mima up to her old tricks?"

Miko shook her head. "No, not for almost a decade now. But something's apparently been raiding farms near the border, so I figured I'd better step in to knock some sense into them."

Miko Hakurei was the latest in the Hakurei family line, whose roots went all the way back to the founding of Gensokyo. They were the designated protectors of the country, or at least the mortal part, and lived and watched over the Hakurei Shrine, which was said to contain the only consistent gateway between Gensokyo and the Outside World. If something dark and dangerous were to rise in the Wilds to threaten humanity, then the Hakurei shrine maidens put a stop to it. If something weird was going on that was likely to endanger the country, then they figured out what was up, and then they put a stop to it. If some dastardly villain enacted some mad scheme for one reason or another, then they would have to account for the current Hakurei shrine maiden in their plans, lest she show up and put a stop to things. Miko herself had saved the country from no fewer than four cataclysmic disasters and a slew of minor incidents.

Though to be truthful, most of their time tended to be spent dealing with common youkai mischief and acting as more of pest control when fairies overstepped their bounds. Plus, it tended to be kind of a thankless jobs, with Humans never really appreciating all that they did to protect them and neglecting to give them any kind of thanks. But while Mokou had never needed a Hakurei's help, she did appreciate what they did for those who did. Plus, she liked Miko, who was one of the tougher specimens to wear the red-and-white. The two had even worked together to resolve a handful of incidents in the past.

"Well, as it so happens I'm also looking up trouble coming from an ugly old forest," Mokou said. "Specifically, the Youkai Forest."

Miko frowned. "Why? I heard you went straight, working for the Aoki Yume's Children's Home of all things." She shook her head. "I thought Yukari was fucking with me when she told me. Never would have thought that you would trade in all that murder for cooking for kids. I mean, I'm not complaining. Means fewer messes to clean up in the Bamboo Forest, but it's still unexpected."

"Yeah, I am. Needed a lifestyle change, and that one worked out. And about two days ago, nearly the whole of the farmer's market almost beat those kids to death."

There was a pause, and then Miko said in a low and dangerous tone, "What?"

Miko was usually up to date with the various goings and comings of youkai, fairies, and other supernatural creatures, but tended to be behind the times when it came to her own species. So Mokou filled her in on the brawl in the market, what had led up to it, and her suspicions about Nathaniel Skinner and his rising influence in the Human Village.

"Well now, that is some fucked up shit," Miko groused. "Attacking kids of all things, and orphans at that."

"Oh, trust me, I know," Mokou said. "I mean, my soul's plenty stained, but even at my worst I would never had even been tempted to do something like that."

"Yeah, the fact that we still have Sonozikas running things is proof of that."

"You too? Gods, Tewi Inaba was giving me shit about that same thing the other day."

"I don't doubt it. What's that have to do with me though? They like me even less than you, and sure as hell won't listen to anything I tell them. And I know about that Skinner prick of course, but I haven't really been keeping tabs on him. The Human Village is kind of outside my jurisdiction, you know?"

"You do?" Mokou frowned. "What have you heard about him?"

Miko shrugged. "Probably what you already know. He was part of a group of Outsiders that got caught a few years back. Last I heard, most of them settled down in the Human Village and he went and started the first Christian church in Gensokyo. Thought that would flame out in a couple months, but he's kept it going somehow."

That much Mokou knew already, but while she had many questions about that whole business, Skinner wasn't the reason she had hunted Miko down. After all, Miko was often kind of behind the times on Human business.

"Okay, but it's not really him I need to ask you about. See, Tewi told me that there's some weird shit going down in the Youkai Forest, and that it might be related to whatever's going on in the Human Village. You hear anything about that?"

Miko sighed. "I should've guessed."

Mokou's ears pricked up at that. "So you have heard something?"

"Of course I have! Hell, I spent most of last week rooting through that damn forest trying to root out the source!"

"Source of what? What's going on?"

"Wish I could tell you," Miko said. "I knocked some heads together but found zilch. But I heard pretty much the same thing you did, that something's stirring up the youkai there for whatever reason." She shrugged. "Well, things were weird and creepy, but they're always weird and creepy."

Damn it. "And you couldn't find any connection to the Human Village?"

"That's the first I've heard of any connection to that. Now you've given me something else to worry about."

"Sorry."

Miko rubbed her chin as she thought. "You know, come to think of it, there was something…"

"Yes?"

"Understand, this isn't anything recent, but I seem to recall some buzz from…oh, I'm going to say about fourteen or so years ago. It had to be a few years after Skinner and his friends showed up. From what I recall, they didn't really make any trouble right after they popped up in Gensokyo, or at least no more than most Outsiders that get stuck here. But anyway, as I recall, he was part of a group of idiots that went into the Youkai Forest for whatever reason, and I had to be the ones to pull them out again, or at least the ones that were still alive."

Well now, that sounded like a solid lead! "What happened?" Mokou asked. "What do you remember?"

Miko spread her hands. "Look, it was a long time ago…or at least a long time for me, and it was a fairly routine rescue, so I don't remember much other than like two of them got eaten and a third just straight up vanished. I chased off the youkai that were attacking them, let them have an earful about being stupid, and led them back."

"And Skinner?"

"He was…" Miko's brow furrowed as she struggled to recall. "I didn't actually find him. He had gotten separated from the rest of the group and wasn't with them when I found them. Everyone had already written him off as one of the casualties, but right as we were leaving the forest, he suddenly came staggering out of nowhere. Almost took his head off out of reflex."

"Kind of wish you had."

"Well, hindsight's a bitch," Miko said. "Anyway, he was…kind of out of it. Delirious. Ranting about…oh, I don't remember. Something about eyes and hands. I figured he had gotten his brain boiled by some evil spirit and just handed him off to the Human Village to deal with and forgot about the whole thing until now."

Mokou was pleased. That was more solid a lead than she had been expecting to get. "Well, that sounds like a good place to start. Thanks, Miko."

"Don't mention it. And hey, if you uncover anything that should be my business, let me know."

"You'll be the first." Mokou nodded at the shrine maiden and turned to go.

Before she left, Miko called out, "Oh, and Mokou?"

Mokou paused. Then she looked over her shoulder back at Miko.

"Look, I don't know how genuine your little change of heart is, but I do know the sort of things that tend to happen around you," Miko said. "So let me say this plain: it had better be real and stay real. For those kids' sakes."

There was no mistaking the warning in her voice and eyes. And if she had been nearly anyone else, Mokou might have been tempted to laugh in her face. In appearance, Miko seemed to be just edging into her early thirties, but the Hakureis didn't show their age like most Humans, so she was quite a bit older than that. However, while Mokou seemed to be in her late teens or early twenties, she was the other woman's elder by a significant amount, and outclassed her in power and ability by a ludicrous percentage. What, exactly, was Miko going to do about anything?

She didn't laugh though, in part because of the genuine respect she had for the other woman, and in part because Miko's concerns mirrored her own. That was the main motivation for her little fact-finding mission, after all. To keep that kind of violence from finding its way to their doorstep.

Mokou took a deep breath and said, "Miko, believe me: if that kind of shit starts happening to them, then I sure as hell won't be the cause. Or at least, it won't be me that started it." Then she thought for a moment and added, "Though, hey, you know how you said that this sort of bullshit is outside of your jurisdiction?"

"What of it?"

"If something inside the Youkai Forest is involved, then it just might be your business after all. And even if it isn't, maybe you ought to look into it before it becomes your business."

Miko thought on that. Then she nodded. "I'll keep it in mind."

"Good. Hope we don't have to hear from each other for a long time." With that, Mokou vanished back into the shadows of the Forest of Magic, leaving the aging shrine maiden to her business.

The day after that…

"We should do something about this."

Rumia, who was just about to put the small, sharp blade of the knife she was holding to the bark of a stick, paused at that. She glanced over to Kohta, who was supposed to be tying the sticks she had debarked together, but was instead spinning them between his fingers as he sat and sulked.

"I mean, it only makes sense, right?" Kohta continued. "There's so many of them, and only a few of us, and only Miss Mokou actually knows how to fight. And she can't be everywhere at once. So we should be learning how to fight!"

Rumia sighed and slid her knife down, peeling off a long strip of bark. "Yeah, brilliant plan. Except for the part that all those assholes probably know how to fight too, so what good would that do? Also, get to work. I'm not skinning these things just so you can fidget with them."

Kohta did so, carefully binding the sticks together with white thread from a spool. "It's better than sitting around doing nothing! They're come for us sooner or later, so we need to be ready!"

Keine, who was working on sheets of paper with a pair of scissors, looked stricken. "You really think that'll happen?" she said. "I mean, not just kick us out and not let us come back, but actually come here after us?"

The three of them were in the orphanage's big, yellow-painted playroom, working together on their little model circus, like they usually did when they had some downtime. Since they had been unable to purchase a genuine model elephant like they had planned, they instead were working to make one from their usual materials. Unfortunately, since elephants were weirdly shaped with their big, floppy noses and sheet-like ears, the end result wasn't shaping out as well as they would have hoped, but they were making do.

Well, at least we still have our money, Rumia thought to herself. Then she scowl. For all the good that'll do us. We can't even spend it anymore!

"Of course they will!" Kohta hissed at Keine. "Just watch! Sooner or later that asshole in the brown hat is gonna convince all those village idiots that we're secretly demons scheming to steal their kids or something stupid like that!"

"Like we'd want any of those little sneaks living with us," Rumia said.

"They probably think we'll drink their blood or something."

Rumia gagged. "Ew. Why?"

"Because they're idiots!"

As she said that, she shoved down too hard on the stick she was shaving, and the knife sliced down to slash its way into her hand.

Rumia yelped as hot pain erupted over her palm. She dropped the knife and clutched at her hand as blood welled up.

"Ah! Damn it!"

Her friends were immediately at her side. "Whoa, ouch! Are you okay?" Kohta said.

"Of course I am! It just stings, is all."

"Well, here," Keine said as she picked up a cloth and handed it to Rumia. "Press that to the cut, try to stop the bleeding."

Then the door to the playroom opened, and the three of them shut up immediately.

It was Melissa and Kana. The two of them walked in and noticed Rumia, Kohta, and Keine huddled together, treating Rumia's palm.

"Oh," Melissa said. "What, uh, ha-a-happen?"

Rumia sighed. She held up the knife. "I cut myself, okay?"

"That's odd," Kana remarked. "Was it in service for one of your plans, or perhaps to acquire blood needed for some kind of magic ritual?"

Rumia stared at her. "No, it was an accident. I was shaving a stick and the knife slipped."

Melissa stared blankly at them. Realizing that she probably hadn't caught most of the explanation, Rumia sighed and held up her half-shaved stick, the knife, and mimed what had happened.

"Oh," Melissa said. "Ouch."

"Ah, that is disappointing," Kana said.

"What, that I didn't cut myself deeper?" Rumia said grumpily.

"No. But blood rituals are said to be quite potent. If you were to conjure one for our protection, then we needn't worry about being punched by strange, angry people. Speaking of which, may I borrow your knife?"

"I….what?" Kohta sputtered. "Okay, first of all…actually, I don't know which part of that to react to first."

"Um, Kana?" Keine said. "You do know we already have a bunch of protective charms and spells set up."

"Well, yes, but everyone knows that those are fake."

"Huh?"

"Charms and spells," Kana repeated. "Paper fairies use them as nests, and they sell them to silly Humans to make others put their nests up for them!"

Rumia, Keine, and Kohta looked at each other. Then, as one, they looked toward Melissa, silently requesting an explanation.

It was up in the air how much of that exchange Melissa actually understood, but apparently she had understood enough, as she merely shrugged. "I do not know," she said. "I do not know enough about these magics to say."

"Well, it's true," Kana said.

"Right," Rumia said. "Er, okay, leaving all of that aside, let's talk about the disturbing part: why do you need my knife again?"

"For a blood ritual," Kana said promptly.

"Okay…" Rumia said after a beat. "And…what kind of blood ritual?"

"To get this to work." Kana reached into her pocket to withdraw some kind of contraption made of string, shells, and bone.

Rumia yelped when she recognized it. "Where the hell did you get that?!"

It was the charm that the creepy lady had been trying to sell them at the market, the tiny human skull still hanging in its center.

"From the market," Kana said. "You remember, you were there, weren't you?"

"No, yeah, I was, but I mean, how did you get it?"

"Oh, the merchant dropped it by accident when Miss Mokou scared her," Kana said in a conversational tone as she slipped the charm back into her pocket. "I tried to find her again to give it back, but it seems she had already left. And then Miss Mokou yelled at me to keep up, so I just kept it."

Kept it. Right. Just about every kid in the orphanage had been turned away from every single merchant's stall, and Kana had lucked her way into something that was probably worth far more than all of their collected money put together. Rumia did not buy for one minute all that talk about immortality or ensouled poltergeists, but things made from bones usually had some kind of power.

"At any rate, I figured that I might as well see if I can activate its enchantment," Kana continued. "If we are indeed attacked again, then someone might be killed, so it would be useful if we could all come back as poltergeists. Then nobody would be able to hurt us on account of us not having solid bodies anymore!"

Weird and morbid. "So you stole a charm," Kohta said. "That some weirdo that was probably just trying to kidnap us said will let you come back as a ghost, and you're going to try to make it work even though you don't know how because you think those jackoffs that jumped us might kill us."

Kana contemplated on that. Then she said, "I think that's fairly accurate. May I borrow your knife?"

"Uh, no," Rumia said flatly. If Kana was going to make herself bleed out all over the playroom, then Rumia wasn't going to be a part of it. "Melissa, are you really letting her go through with this?"

Melissa looked surprised. "Should I not? I thought…magic was true here."

"Yeah, but that doesn't mean every stupid spell made up by some random old lady is real. It was probably just a scam!"

"Oh, I don't think so," Kana said.

"Yeah, sure, whatever," Rumia groused. "Look, if you're going to cut yourself apart, could you like do it somewhere else? If you don't accidentally slit your own throat, then you'll probably burn the place down."

"All right," Kana said. "Have a nice day! I like your little city, by the way. Is that supposed to be a mass execution?"

Rumia, Kohta, and Keine all stared at her, and then at each other. Then they looked down at their makeshift circus. No matter how Rumia looked it at, she couldn't understand how Kana got "mass execution" from the arrangement.

"No," Rumia said at last. "It's not."

"Oh. Well, it kind of looks like one. Bye!"

She left the room, with an increasingly dubious and worried Melissa following. When they were gone, Rumia breathed out and said, "Okay. It's not just me, right? She is definitely getting weirder."

"Maybe we'd better tell the grown-ups," Keine said. "I mean, what if she hurts herself?"

"She already said that she's planning on cutting herself," Kohta said. "Getting hurt on purpose is kind of a given now."

"You know what I mean!"

"At this point, I wouldn't be surprised if she tied up Melissa and sacrificed her," Rumia said.

The three of them chewed on that mental image for a few moments. Then Kohta said, "Yeah, we'd better tell someone."

Rumia scowled. "What good would it do? Most grown-ups are stupid and useless."

"Oh, come on!" Keine protested. "Not all of them. Not ours."

"I…well, they're okay, I guess. But they still don't notice most things."

"Miss Mokou does. Miss Mokou notices everything!"

Rumia threw her hands into the air. "And she's gone! She's off to find out why things are so weird, and we have no idea how long that'll take! For all we know she's lost in a forest somewhere, or beaten half to death like she was when we found her in the snow!"

The two outcasts sat together atop a tall cliff, drinking together as they watched the Sun set over Gensokyo.

In appearance, they couldn't look more different, aside from both being female. Mokou still looked more-or-less like the young Human woman she had once been: tall, slender, and well-muscled, with a sharp face and long violet hair so pale that it was often mistaken for silver, and she was dressed in the cast-off clothes of some farmer that had donated them to the orphanage years ago, mainly a plain white shirt and a red pair of suspenders. She didn't even wear shoes.

In contrast, her old…friend (acquaintance? Contact? Occasional opponent? Someone she tended to run into every so often?) was very short, petite, had auburn hair tied into tails, and had two large horns curving out from either side of her head. She wore an extravagant outfit consisting of a sleeveless white blouse, a wide purple skirt, a red ribbon around her neck, black shoes with red bows, and had shackles clasped to her wrists and ankles, each one trailing a broken chain. The chains weren't intended to imply an escape from captivity, they were simply a common part of fashion for her people, the oni.

Still, there was a sort of kinship between the two of them, one that came from spending so many years wandering Gensoyko with no real home, no real family, not even the company of their own species to fall back on. They were exiles, and had been for similarly long times. Granted, the circumstances between their respective exilings had been different, but there was only so many times one could run into the same person out in the wilderness before some kind of rapport was formed.

Also, Suika Ibuki was very, very drunk, which made her great fun to be around. But what else was new?

"The Youkai Foreeeeest," Suika said, her voice rising and falling on odd syllables like it always did. She nodded solemnly, and took a long swig from the purple gourd of sake that she always carried around with her. "Oh yeah. There's always something going on in the Youkai Forest."

"I know," Mokou said, taking a sip from one of the many glass bottles she had brought with her. Most of them were green, bearing labels that declared them to be from a Tengu winery. However, one was jet-black and had no label. "That's why I found you. To ask you about-"

"Not as bad as the Forest of Magic though," Suika continued on. She swung her legs back and forth over the cliff and started swaying back in forth in time to some melody only she could hear. "Weirder stuff happens in the Forest of Magic. Super weird shit, almost always bad except when it's funny!"

"Well, I was just there, and nothing out of the ordinary level of weird was going on. I'm interested in-"

"Or the Bamboo Forest of the Lost!" Suika thrust her gourd out as if raising a toast. "Also very, very bad! I think."

At this, Mokou scowled. "Oh, come on! The Bamboo Forest isn't that bad, just really confusing if you don't know your way around."

"You sure? They say that the deathless daughter of the Phoenix wanders there, forever searching for the one who disgraced her family. If you find her, she'll ask you your name, and if you have the same name as-"

Mokou smacked the oni upside the back of her head. "Okay, knock it off! One, no she doesn't, because she's me, and I don't live there anymore! And two, that only happened once, when I was drunk and in a bad mood, and they were okay after! Mostly. Anyway, I apologized and did what I could to fix them up, so I don't see why everyone is still telling that stupid story."

"Oh." Tilting her head in confusion, Suika squinted at her through bleary eyes. "Are you?" Then she grinned. "Oh yeah, that's riiiight. Okay, the Bamboo Forest of the Lost is perfectly safe. Except for the rabbits."

Mokou's bottle was now empty, so she hurled it into the valley below and used her thumb to pop the cork on the next. "Nah, the rabbits are a pain in the ass, but they're all right, I guess. But anyway, I'm not talking about them, I'm talking about the Youkai Forest."

"Right," Suika nodded. "Right. Lots of bad juju there."

"Okay, so is there any kind of new bad juju?"

Suika shrugged. "Oh, I dunno. I mean, it could be that bloody ghost that rose up not too long ago, seeking to suck the breath of children out through their noses."

"That was a fairy prank and it happened seventy-four years ago," Mokou told her.

"Oh." Suika frowned as she attempted to concentrate. "Uh, the Army of Angry Bones?"

Mokou sighed. "Two hundred and whatever years ago. I'm talking within the last few years. Did anything happen within the last ten years or so?"

"Uh…where?"

"In the Youkai Forest," Mokou said.

"The Youkai Forest?" Suika's face scrunched up in bewilderment. "What about it?"

Mokou sighed again. That was the problem with trying get any kind of useful information out of Suika. She tended to go anywhere and everywhere and for whatever reason always seemed to hear every bit of news, rumor, gossip, and any other bit of important information. Unfortunately, as she often forgot where she was in the middle of most conversations, wringing that information back out of her was a nearly impossible task if you didn't know how to do it.

Fortunately, years ago Mokou had stumbled across a trick that worked. It was sort of cruel, but if she tried to pry the information out the old-fashioned way, she was unlikely to ever get Suika to reach the point.

So, as Suika prattled on, Mokou reached for one of the bottles she had brought. The black bottle.

"I mean, sure, lots of things happen there," Suika went on. "But if you want something weird, then haha, you're gonna have to narrow it down a whole bunch, because there is so much weird in there that-"

"Hey, Suika!" Mokou said, cutting her off. She held out the bottle to the oni. "I brought some of my special spiced wine along! Want some?"

"Oh, thanks!" Suika took the offered gift, snapped off the throat as easily as if it were a twig, and drained it in one go. "As I was saying-"

She stopped in mid-sentence, and her whole body went completely stiff. Her brown eyes suddenly went very, very wide, while her brown pupils turned red and narrowed down to a pair of tiny bright dots. A sound similar to a singing kettle sang from deep within her chest.

The contents of the bottle did actually contain wine, as Mokou had promised. But they also contained a special ingredient, one too hot even for an oni's legendary tolerance for…just about anything, actually. A few drops of Mokou's own blood. With that swimming through her, all of the other alcohol in Suika's system was burned away and her brain strangely compliant to suggestion. For a few minutes, anyway.

"Youkai Forest," Mokou pressed. "New kind of weird. Go."

Suika's head jerked once, and she started talking in a low, clipped tone with no inflection whatsoever, "While no new entities have been known to take up residence within the Youkai Forest, there have been whispers and rumors that some outsiders have been in contact with some of its more mercenary inhabitants. The identity of these outsiders are unknown, with some claiming that they are youkai from the mountains, youkai from the Underworld, youkai from the Forest of Magic, or even Humans."

Bingo. "Humans?" Mokou said. "What Humans?"

Now red veins were spreading through the whites of Suika's eyes, and actual steam was pouring out of her ears, nose and mouth, puffing up with every word. "Unknown. Their identity is nothing but pure speculation, and those who know of them are either sworn to secrecy or do not care enough to find out."

Damn. "Okay, but what youkai, though? Which ones have been talking to these strangers?"

"The…" Suddenly Suika's body started to shake violently. "Th-Th-The spi-pi-pi-pi-"

Suika fell flat onto her back, arms splayed to either side, bloodshot eyes staring unblinking up at the sky. Now her whole body was steaming.

Mokou waved a hand in front of Suika's face. No reaction. Her brain had been completely cooked.

Sighing, Mokou stood up. Well, that wasn't a lot information to go on, but it was a start. Now the thing to do would be to go into the Youkai Forest itself and see if she could find something with loose lips.

In the meantime, she ought to check back in with the orphanage like she had promised. Though she had no reason to believe that anything had happened while she had been gone, her skin was crawling. Something did feel…off, something more than what she knew already.

A few idiots spreading hate and fear probably wouldn't send a mob after a bunch of kids in only a few days, but more terrible things had happened. And if there really was something organized going on between Humans and mercenary youkai, then it could be that they would take Mokou's absence as an opportunity to do something. Either way, Mokou felt that she had been gone too long.

Leaving Suika's smoking body where it lay and her own bottles as something of an apology for Suika to find, Mokou hopped off the cliff, fell several meters, and then swooped up into the air. She wasn't worried about Suika. Within an hour or so, her oni constitution would filter out the drink, repair the damage, and she would wake up with a hell of a hangover that would be swallowed up before she knew it. In all likelihood she wouldn't even remember talking to Mokou at all.

However, those kids weren't nearly as durable as Mokou or Suika was. And if something was looking to do them harm, then she was going to be there to stop it.

"Okay, guys!" Mr. Joshua called out. "Everyone gather 'round."

For once he didn't need to tell anyone twice. This was the one lesson that everyone had been anxiously anticipating, marking down the slow progression of days until it had finally arrived. Today those old enough were finally going to learn how to fly.

All told, there were about half of them there, with Noba and Tomohiro already having learned this a couple years ago while everyone else was still too young. Rumia, Kohta, and Keine, of course, as well as Kana, Melissa, and Shinji. And unfortunately, Haruko, Eiko, and Hayate, because nothing good ever happened without some kind of downside.

"All right, now I know you all are hoping to be swooping through the clouds right away-" Mr. Joshua began.

Melissa's hand shot up and she said something in Spanish.

"Melissa, remember. Try to speak so everyone else can understand you," Mr. Joshua chided.

Melissa frowned. "You are…sure that mine can fly with others?" she said slowly.

Out of the corner of her eye, Rumia saw Eiko mockingly miming Melissa's attempts to speak Japanese. Rumia scowled and stealthily reached into her pocket and extracted a rubber band and a slip of paper.

"Of course," Mr. Joshua said. "After all, I wasn't born in Gensokyo either." Holding his hands to his side with his palms down, he lifted off the ground about a meter, hovered in place for a few seconds, and then lowered himself down again. "Every person that comes to live in Gensokyo, whether they are born here or come from the outside, are granted the same gifts and abilities."

"Except for not being ugly," Hayate whispered just loud enough for those standing right next to her to hear. Haruko and Eiko both giggled. Meanwhile, Rumia had twisted the piece of paper into a tiny tube and was working the rubber band around her fingers.

"Now, as I was saying, flying is, in itself, incredibly easy. But training your body and mind how to do it? Not quite so much. It's a lot like learning how to walk. Once you've got it down you don't even think about it, you just do it. But before then you need to learn how to keep your balance, how to make your legs strong enough to support you."

"But what if…" Melissa's face scrunched up. "Fall. What if I fall?"

"Don't worry. We'll be taking this slowly. Today we're just going to work on getting you off the ground. By the time you're touching the sky, it'll be as easy as breathing. Besides, I'll be watching the whole time." He clapped his hands. "All right, everyone! Time to practice those exercises we taught you! Groups of three now."

Everyone walked off with their respective trio. Rumia was with Kohta and Keine of course, while Haruko, Hayate, and Eiko also stuck together. Shinji's best friends already knew how to fly, so he went with Kana and Melissa, though judging by the look on his face he would have rather practiced with someone less…odd.

As they walked, Rumia spread the rubber band between her fingers, pressed the rolled-up piece of paper against it, took aim, and let it fly.

"Okay, let's go over here," she said as she stuck her hand into her pocket and turned her back to her target. A tiny yelp of surprise told her that her aim was true.

Keine frowned. "What are you smirking about?"

"Nothing! I'm just happy about flying! Why wouldn't I be happy? Aren't you happy?"

Keine glanced over to where Haruko was presumably still looking about for what had hit her. "Stop picking fights."

To this, Rumia innocently whistled.

They took a spot in the grass, sat down cross-legged in a small circle, shut their eyes, and tried to thinking airy thoughts.

Nothing happened.

"Don't be disappointed if you can't do it at first," Mr. Joshua had told them. "You have already daydreamed about flying countless times, so it can take a while for your spirit to discern the difference between that and the actual will to fly. Remember: don't tell yourself to do it, but instead will yourself up."

Well, that was easier said than done. Rumia tried imagining herself soaring through the clouds like one of the Tengu, rising up through the clouds on invisible wings. It was a nice daydream, but that was the sort of thing usually reserved for keeping herself amused during boring lessons. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't get herself to stop feeling the grass prickling at her legs.

"Up," Keine muttered under her breath. "Up. Up. Up. Up."

Rumia sighed. Okay, concentrate. She wasn't here, sitting in the itchy grass. She was standing on a big, bouncy mushroom. It was light and springy under her feet, and she could just feel it trembling, waiting to propel her into the sky.

All she had to do was jump up, and she would be rising, rising, rising, rising-

At her side, Kohta started to snore.

Rumia cranked her right eye open to glower at him. Then she reached over to swat him.

"What, what?" he said with a sudden jerk. Then he saw Rumia glaring at him.

"Sorry," he muttered as he settled back down. "It's just…it's really warm, and…" The rest of his explanation was swallowed up by a cavernous yawn.

Rumia yawned as well. Well, he wasn't wrong. It was a pretty sleepy day. Under any other circumstances she would be tempted to just stretch out and let herself drift off. But she couldn't. She was here to learn how to fly, and by the gods, she was going to do it!

Settling back down, she tried a different tactic. She was drifting in the sky, lying flat on her back on a large, fluffy cloud, the Gensokyian landscape passing by beneath her. This was where she belonged. The sky was her home, and she was safe and warm, floating along as naturally as could be. She was meant to be in the air, where everything was…all floaty and…and dreamy…and…

Before Rumia could fully drift to sleep herself, something sharp struck her cheek.

"Wah!" she cried as she slapped a hand across where she had been hit.

"What? What is it?" Kohta said in surprise.

"Something…" Rumia looked around. "I thought something hit me!"

"Is everything okay?" Mr. Joshua called over to her. From the look of things, he had been helping Melissa, Kana, and Noba's group.

Rumia blinked in confusion. She was sure that she had felt something.

"No, I'm fine!" she called back. "Just a bug, I guess."

Sighing, she tried to get herself to relax again. Just as well that had happened, as she had been moments away from napping.

All right, where was she? No, not the cloud. If she kept that up much longer then she was going to snore her way through the whole lesson. Maybe something a little more exciting, like leaping off the highest peak of the Youkai Mountain, or-

Then the something hit her in the back of her neck.

"Ow!" She again smacked the point of impact, but found nothing. However, she know had a pretty good idea who was responsible.

Rumia turned fully around to look behind her. Sure enough, not far from where they were sitting, Haruko and her two minions were in a circle of their own. And judging by the way they were glancing at her and snickering, they had figured out who had shot that paper missile at them earlier, and now mastering the fine art of aviation was of less importance to them than returning fire.

"What's wrong?" Keine whispered.

"Them," Rumia hissed back.

Keine craned her neck to see. "Oh. Uh, should we move then?"

Rumia shook her head. Doing that was akin to admitting defeat.

"Want to trade places then?"

That idea actually made Rumia hesitate. Though she didn't look it, Keine's youkai blood gave her speed and reflexes far above that of a normal human. If they tried lobbing splinters at her, Keine could probably catch them even with her back turned. The look on their faces after something like that would be so delicious.

But…no. If there was one ironclad rule that they refused to violate, it was to never, ever give up the secret of Keine's parentage. Bullying they could handle, and give back in return. Letting something like that drop risked having the entirety of the home come after Keine's mixed blood.

"No," Rumia growled. "We'll just get them back-"

Something glanced off her shoulder. This time she didn't turn in response, though her right eyelid had developed a slight twitch.

Suddenly some kind of uproar sounded from across the field. Both Shinji and Melissa had leapt to their feet and were retreating backward in surprise while Mr. Joshua laughed and clapped his hands in approval.

Kana of all people had somehow managed to pull flight off…and she hadn't even noticed! She was now hovering about half a meter off ground, her legs still crossed beneath her, hands clasped tightly at her chest, her head bowed and her eyes squeezed shut.

"Wow," Keine said. "She actually did it."

Kohta sighed. "Of course she would be the one to figure it out. Of course it would be here."

"Well, yeah, it only makes sense," Rumia said. "Her head's so filled with air that it's a miracle she's not floating everywhere already."

"Well done!" Mr. Joshua said. "You see? You all have it within you. Okay, Kana. You can come down now."

Kana didn't appear to have heard him. She was starting to drift a little to the left as she continued to rise upward. And her body was beginning to tilt.

Mr. Joshua cleared his throat. "Ah, Kana?"

Now Kana was tilted fully horizontal, and she just kept turning.

"Kana."

"Shhh!" Kana hissed, her eyes still closed. "I'm concentrating."

"Yes, well, you're also upside-down."

"Huh?" Kana finally opened her eyes.

By then she had drifted enough so that she was above Mr. Joshua's head, her inverted face staring at his scraggly beard where it fell across his barrel-shaped chest.

Kana stared stupefied at the unexpected sight for several seconds before saying, "Uh, Mr. Joshua? Why are you standing on your head?"

"Look down," Mr. Joshua suggested.

Kana did so, though from her perspective she was actually looking up. When she saw the endless expanse of the sky spread out "beneath" her, her eyes went wide.

"Oh," she said. "The world's flipped. Why's that?"

"No, Kana," Mr. Joshua said patiently. "You're flying."

"I am?" Kana looked around. She finally seemed to notice how everything around her was upturned, as well as how far the ground was by now.

"Oh! I am!" A pleased smile spread across her inverted features. "Well, isn't that nice?"

"It is indeed!" Mr. Joshua gently took her by the shoulders and moved her back around again. "Now, while you're still in the air, why don't you tell everyone what-"

Suddenly a shrill horn sounded from the house. Everyone froze in fear. They knew that sound from a hundred drills and the small handful of times it had been blown in earnest. It was a sound that screamed through each of their nightmares.

Dangerous youkai were coming.

"Everyone inside!" Miss Satoko called from the porch. "Joshua! Haruna! Bring them in!"

Rumia, Kohta, and Keine all scrambled to their feet. Lesson was over, and now it was time to flee. Nearby, Haruko and her gang were doing the same. Hostilities were suspended. Now the read danger was coming.

It was something they had practiced over and over again, something that had been embedded deep into their psyches whenever that horn sounded. Run for the house. Get underground and be quiet! Don't try to fight, don't look back to see. Just run.

And that was all very well and good, but as terrible fate would have it, one of their number was in no position to run, given that her feet were still off the ground.

As soon as the horn had sounded, Kana had been so startled that she had forgotten her training. Again. And normally, that wouldn't be much of a problem. The grown-ups were well used to her…shortcomings, and one would always be sure to grab her by the hand and hastily take her to safety. And fortunately, Mr. Joshua was certainly close enough to do that.

Unfortunately, normally she wouldn't be floating in the air.

She shot off like a bullet, instinctively moving away from the sudden sound instead of toward it. Rumia and her friends all threw themselves to the ground in order to avoid her, but only just. She whizzed past their heads and just kept going.

The other group of children weren't so quick on the uptake.

Kana slammed right into them. If they had been lucky, the impact would have just taken the four of them off their feet and sent them tumbling into a heap for Mr. Joshua and Miss Mokou to collect.

But luck was a stranger to the orphans of the Aoki Yume's Children's Home. It always had been.

Either Kana had built up a considerable amount of momentum or she was a lot heftier than she looked. Either way, only Eiko was sent sprawling to the ground. Haruko was lifted right off her feet and yanked into the air along with Kana. Seconds later the two of them slammed into Hayate, and all three shot into the air.

Rumia, Kohta, and Keine all watched in horror as the three of angled upward, soaring higher and higher toward the border fence. At some point, Kana had apparently stopped flying and was just propelled forward by momentum alone, as soon all three of them had started to tumble back to earth, their arms and legs flailing as Haruko and Hayate screamed in terror. Kana, it should be noted, had yet to make any sound at all.

When they hit the ground, they were far, far outside of the protection of the charms that had been set up along the perimeter fence.

What was more, there were dark figures starting to move across the hills.

Rumia knew that she ought to run. Even with the charms in place, it wouldn't take much to an especially determined youkai to break through. But for some reason it was like she had forgotten how to move. Her legs felt like twin lumps of lead, and all she could do was stand and gawk as four…things ambled over the crest of the far off hills. Though she couldn't make out their features, they seemed…sort of humanoid, with four limbs and a head apiece. But their arms and legs were much, much too long and much too thin. And they didn't move like humans. Instead, they were crawling along on all fours like insects…no, like spiders, their grotesque arms and legs fully extended and bent in unnatural ways, with their jagged elbows pointed up and their knees bending in the wrong direction. Their heads bobbed along on skinny necks, their long, stringy hair seeming to hang down across their faces like veils.

Icy cold fear seeped through Rumia's spine. Youkai. Wild youkai, and from the Youkai Forest from the look of it.

Humanity's views of their more magically-inclined neighbors tended to be…diverse. Those in the Human Village were often hostile toward youkai, seeing them as dangerous animals at best. Oddly enough, those who lived further out and were in actual danger of youkai attacks had a more nuanced viewpoint. Even those who lived in the Aoki Yume Children's Home, most of whom had actually lost their families to youkai attacks, knew that most youkai were people. Sure, they tended to be wilder at heart, but many of them were just mischievous and pretty harmless. Several were quite benevolent and were more than happy to get along with their Human neighbors.

But no amount of friendly interactions would change the fact that dangerous youkai did exist, the kind that preyed up man's flesh and drank their blood. The lack of other Yagamis in Gensokyo was proof of that.

And it was clear at a glance what kind of youkai these were.

And they were heading straight for Kana, Haruko, and Hayate.

"No!" Eiko screamed. She bolted for the fence, cleared it in a single leaping hurdle, and ran to protect her friends.

Rumia, Kohta, and Keine didn't hesitate for a second. Kana might be a weirdo and the other three might be insufferable assholes, but when everyone present was divided into an "Us" and a "Them," it was clear where those four landed, and what those youkai were.

"Guys, get up!" Rumia screamed so loudly that her throat almost tore. "Go! Get out of here!" Kohta shouted at the youkai. Keine didn't say anything at all. She merely ran so fast that she was almost to the stunned group by the time Rumia and Kohta reached the fence.

"No!" Rumia heard Mr. Joshua call from behind her. "Kids, don't!"

Rumia didn't listen. Their family was in danger.

The fence was fast approaching. She leapt up, fully intending to vault the whole wooden structure in one go.

Then a thick hand seized her by the back of the skirt and yanked her back.

Gasping in surprise, Rumia was sent rolling backward into the grass. She landed flat on her back, the fence now above her head. From her inverted position, she saw an upside-down Mr. Joshua leaping into the air and taking flight. "Get them inside!" he shouted to someone out of sight.

A moment later a different set of hands grabbed Rumia and pulled her up. Miss Haruna had pulled both her and Kohta off the ground and was dragging the two of them back.

Rumia snapped out of her daze. "Wait, no!" she said as she struggled against the stocky woman's grip. "I have to help Keine! Let me go!"

She might as well have been struggling against a stone for all the good it did. Miss Haruna kept silent as she hauled the two of them back.

But while Miss Haruna could keep them from rushing to their sisters' aid, she couldn't stop them from seeing what was happening.

Keine had already reached the fallen group mere seconds after Eiko did, who was trying to haul everyone away by herself, with each of her arms wrapped around Haruko and Hayate's dazed bodies while Kana's collar was clutched in one hand. Keine didn't hesitate, and grabbed onto everyone, Haruko and Kana in one hand, and Hayate and a very confused Eiko in the other, and started pulling them away all by herself. It was an impressive feat of strength, one that a girl her age and size had no business performing.

Unfortunately, she was merely half-youkai. And the spiders were the real deal.

Mr. Joshua was flying toward the other kids like panicked aerial tree stump. "Get back!" he hollered. Glowing green crisscrossing circles orbited by spinning green triangles appeared around his right hand. He hurled a ball of sputtering energy at the air above the spiders, who were getting dangerously close to the kids. It exploded like a firework and sent green sparks raining down upon up.

They flinched and hissed but didn't stop. The lead spider reared his head back like a striking snake and spat something that looked like a gooey loogie the size of a dinner plate right into Mr. Joshua's face.

Mr. Joshua was knocked back, hands clawing at the glob of spiderweb that now encased his face.

Two more spiders vomited up webs, this time ones that remained connected to their mouths via long and sticky strands. One enveloped up Kana and Eiko while the other took Haruko and Hayate.

Keine stumbled and fell. She started to rise up when the fourth spider webbed her up as well.

Rumia stopped fighting against Miss Haruna. Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no.

The three webbed-up bundles kept kicking and thrashing, but it did none of them any good. The spiders swarmed over them, hands going to work covering every last bit of the kids, cocooning them like mummies.

Though his face was still covered with the white, sticky mess, Mr. Joshua was struggling to get to his feet. He managed to get onto his knees when one of the spiders looked up and spat another glob at him. This time it hit him in the stomach and knocked him flat again.

Now that the spiders had their prey fully bound up, they were leaving, retreating back the way they came with their bundles strapped to their backs like backpacks. They took to the air, flying off together.

"Keine!" Rumia screamed.

They were getting away.

"Keine!"

They had her friend.

"Keine, no!"

They had her sisters.

"Keine, please! Please, no!"

They were getting away.

"K-K-Keine…" Rumia sobbed as big, fat tears ran down her cheeks.