Swiftly Descending Darkness

by TakerFoxx

Gensokyo is a world of monsters, and no one knows that better than Rumia Yagami, a young orphaned girl who had lost her parents to youkai attacks when she was just a baby. But as she grows older, she learns that there are other kinds of monsters, from the ones wearing human faces to the one growing inside her.

15. Buried Secrets

Buried Secrets

I know, I know, I know. Got too overwhelmed with my other projects again, plus had a bunch of RL shit go down. But hey, better late than never, right?

…

There was a house in Gensokyo, one that all knew of but few would ever see.

Its location was a secret, though it needn't be. Even if you already knew where it was, you would never be able to find it, never be able to reach it, never be able to see it unless you already dwelled there, the house's master brought you there herself, or you were on the vanishingly short list of people allowed to pay a visit unannounced.

Nestled upon a forested ledge that jutted from the side of a great mountain, it was single-story but very large, with rooms filled with treasures and wonders. Its front porch sat upon a grassy knoll near a crystal-clear lake that was fed from a waterfall, offering a fantastic view of the open sky.

As for the house's master herself, she was reclining in the hammock on the porch, snoozing in the afternoon sun.

To the naked eye, she would appear as a relatively normal Human woman, one who was unusually tall by normal standards, and certainly very beautiful, with the sort of figure that sculptors longed to carve out of marble, shimmering golden hair that spilled over her back and shoulders in light curls, and shimmering eyes that shifted from gold to violet, depending on her mood. Striking, yes, but even so, still Human.

Still, there was an air of regal power and majesty about her, and even those who did not know her often felt uneasy around her, sensing that there was far more to this woman than met the eye.

They were right.

But not so at the moment. For one, it was hard to look dignified and otherworldly while snoozing in a hammock. For another, she was wearing nothing more than a light nightgown, one that completely failed to hide the fact that she was wearing nothing beneath it. And finally, it was quite clear that she was sleeping off a night of heavy drinking, if the collection of empty bottles arranged beneath the hammock were any indication, or the trail of drool dripping down her chin.

It was a normal state to find her in. She was not one of those immortals that sought to fill eternity by being as productive as possible. To her, if wanted to drink herself into a stupor and sleep for an entire month, who was going to stop her? It was her damned country, after all! Even her few servants knew better than to try to rouse her, not that they would be successful. When she felt like sleeping, she tended to stay that way, oftentimes for months at a time.

She started to waken just a bit when a seam cut through reality right outside of her house. The seam opened into a dimension known as the "Borderlands," a space between the various planes of existence that could be traversed to reach any place of all of creation, and as the Borderlands' master, having someone other than herself employ it for such a purpose, especially to reach her house, did tug enough on her attention to make her sleep a little less restful. It did not wake her fully, though.

Nor did the visitor stepping onto her front porch and walking over to where the hammock was slung. Nor did the traveler's noise of disgust and irritation upon seeing the house's master in such a slovenly state.

"Yukari."

The master of the house's eyelid twitched a bit at the sound of her name, but she still did not wake.

"Yukari!" the visitor called again, more insistently this time.

The master of the house yawned and turned over on her side, facing away from the traveler.

Then an empty bottle sailed through the hair, bounced off the side of her head, and shattered against the porch's railing.

"Oh, for the love of…Wake up, you idiot!"

A floating sphere came up beneath the hammock, pushing the master of the house's sleeping form upward, before pushing her out completely, causing her to fall upon the collection of bottles on the porch, knocking them over. Still, she did not wake up.

"Hey!" The sphere began slamming up and down against the master of the house's head. "Wake! Up! You! Useless! Drunken! Bitch! Of! A-"

Suddenly an arm snapped up, fingers spread, and caught the sphere before it came down again, stopping dead in place. A blink, and a single violet eye opened to squint at what she had caught.

"Oh," mumbled the master of the house. She slowly and painfully sat up, the Ying-Yang Orb still in her hand, and sat slumped over as she rubbed her eyes with her free hand and yawned. "It's you." She tossed the sphere aside, and it hastily retreated back to its mistress, who was standing with her arms folded, glowering contemptuously down at the creator of the country she was charged with protecting.

"Me," Miko Hakurei said. "And let me guess: you drank until you blacked out about two or three days ago, and were planning on staying out for roughly about a month or so."

Oh, her head. Her aching head. Yukari Yakumo cracked open eye to glance at the scattered bottles before squeezing it shut again. "That does seem to be the case," she muttered as she rubbed her forehead. "Or it was."

"Well, sober up. I need to talk to you."

Yukari winced. "Okay, but keep your voice down…"

Another bottle bounced off her head. Yukari blinked, and then glared up at the fuming shrine maiden.

"I can literally separate your atoms and put you back together as a platypus," Yukari told her.

"Do it after, then. Now, sober up, already!"

"Fine, fine." Yukari closed her eyes and summoned up what meager measure of concentration she could muster.

Then she winced again in pain. Cleansing her body of alcohol and driving away hangovers in an instant was always an unpleasant experience, which is why she preferred to just sleep them off. Still, once it was over, it did leave her with a clear head.

"There," Yukari said as she stood to her feet. "Happy?"

"Far from. But it's a start. Now cover yourself up. It's bad enough I have to come here without staring at your flopping tits the whole time."

Shrugging, Yukari waved a hand, and a dark maroon silk bathrobe lifted from its hook in her bedroom. The window opened, and the robe flew out like an enchanted carpet from Middle Easter mythology. She held up her arms, and the robe settled on her, slipping her arms into the sleeves while the belt tightened around her waist.

"So, what's this all about?" Yukari said as she walked away from the hammock. Behind her, a gap opened in the floor, swallowing up all of the empty bottles. A ceramic cup floated over to her hand, and another, smaller gap opened over it, filling it with pure spring water. "Because the last time I checked, I was just too atrocious a person for the almighty Miko Hakurei to have her presence sullied by."

"And you still are," Miko said. "What you did to that family-"

Waving a dismissive hand, Yukari plopped down into one of the porch chairs. Crossing her legs, she sipped from her cup and said, "We already had this argument, and I am not interested in revisiting it. So unless there's something new you wish to bring up, some new transgression of mine for you to get all worked up about, I must ask you to get over it or go back to not speaking with me."

Miko sighed. "All right, fine. Maybe you had reason for doing what you did. But that's only because the problem had gotten so bad that there was no other solution." She crossed her arms. "So I'd like to take care of this problem before it gets that far."

Yukari made a face. "Oh, is that what this is all about? Things have gotten a little hairy, so you now want poor old Yukari to come swooping in to do your job for you?"

"If it's not too much trouble."

"Ha." Yukari shook her head. Well, at the end of it all, Miko was still a Hakurei through-and-through, and that family's hereditary audacity was certainly charming, if nothing else. "All right, so what's the nature of this terrible new incident that would bring you to my doorstep, groveling and begging for my help?"

Ignoring the jab, Miko said, "There's a new group of troublemakers."

"Oh, how scandalous," Yukari intoned. "Troublemakers in Gensokyo. Why, I never."

"They're Humans. And-"

"Humans making trouble? Oh, and they were such a well-behaved race until now! Whatever went wrong?"

"-And they're a Christian cult based in the Human Village."

Now that make Yukari's face pucker up. "Ugh. Christians. Who let them in?"

"You did," Miko said. "Because you keep leaving those damned gaps of yours open all over the place, just sucking up random people and never sending them back."

"Did I?" Yukari drained her cup and then held it out, allowing another gap to open and fill it back up again. "Well, that was careless of me. I really ought to take greater care of who I allow in."

"You mean kidnap."

Yukari shrugged.

Miko sighed. "Look, there's plenty of Christians in Gensokyo who are just fine. Besides, we've had lots of demon or youkai worshipping cults as well. I don't really care who they worship, but I do care what they do!"

"Eh, if you say so," Yukari said with a shrug. "But seeing how I and the other Sages literally made this country to get away from that Guy, letting His fanclub in seems a wee bit counter-intuitive, wouldn't you think?"

"Again. Nobody let them in, you brought them here against their will!"

"Well, gotta widen that gene pool somehow, you know?" Yukari smirked. "But then, I suppose that would be something you wouldn't know much about."

That got to her. Yukari could literally hear the aging shrine maiden's teeth grinding. "Yukari, I swear to all the gods-"

"Not much of a threat, seeing how most of them answer to me."

"-you are going to stop bringing that up. I gave my answer, and the answer is no."

"Hmmm." Yukari nonchalantly poured herself another cup of water. "Well, forgive me if I don't particularly care for letting the Barrier's line of protectors die out because the latest got a little snippy."

Miko's hand came up, knocking the cup from Yukari's hands. Both cup and water went flying to both splatter and clatter over the porch.

Yukari blinked. "Well, that was rude," she said. A wave of the hand, and the cup rose back into the air, while the spilled water came up as tiny individual drops, sparkling in the sunlight. They collected into a single large liquid orb that settled neatly back in the cup, which levitated back into Yukari's hands.

"Have it your way," Yukari said as she idly sipped. "And explain to me why you're at my house, waking me up and insulting me. Because last time I checked, dangerous cults in Gensokyo are buy one for a yen, get another twenty free. Furthermore, dealing with them falls under the jurisdiction of your duties, if I recall."

"Well, this one's new," Miko said. "They're targeting children."

Yukari shrugged. "Cults do that, I hear."

"Specifically orphans. From the Aoki Yume Children's Home."

Yukari poured herself another drink. Now that her post-hangover thirst was nearly quenched, she was considering going back to the booze. "That sounds rude of them."

Miko's glare was palpable. "They seem to think that living away from the villages has made them tainted by youkai. Cursed, even."

"Well, that sounds very ignorant of them."

"They're right."

Yukari paused, the rim of her cup to her lips. Then she lowered it and finally looked up at Miko. "Oh?"

The shrine maiden nodded. "They fell into the Black Circle."

At is, Yukari merely stared blankly. "The what now?"

"You know!" Frustrated, Miko gestured out, toward the rest of Gensokyo. "The big field of black sand in the Bone Grove?"

"The…what grove?"

"In the Youkai Forest? Bunch of petrified trees fused with bones? Bunch of black sand in the middle? Always thought it looked like trouble but nothing ever happened there until now?"

The memory finally clicked. "Oh! Oh, that ugly place. Right."

"Glad you remember!" Miko snapped. "What is it?"

Yukari shrugged and made a noncommittal sound.

"You don't know?" Miko said in disbelief.

Yukari shrugged again. "I went to sleep one winter, and when I woke up it was there, where Gedo used to be."

"Excuse me? Where what used to be?"

Yawning, Yukari gestured with her hand. "Small hamlet in the Youkai Forest. It honestly wasn't much more than a hideout for thieves, mercenaries, criminals, and the like. But from what I could tell it got hit by a meteor."

"A…meteor."

"Mmmm. Yes. Big, flaming rock, falling out of the sky. That's why all those trees are petrified, you see. And where the bones came from. I imagine the people and animals fleeing were simply melted into the surrounding forest by the blast. Or something."

Miko continued to stare. "A meteor hit Gensokyo and wiped out a whole town."

"Yes, that is what I just said."

"And you did…nothing."

Yukari sighed. "I just told you, I was asleep at the time! Besides, your ancestor and I thoroughly investigated the site and found no threat."

Miko just kept on staring, but said nothing this time.

"Well, no immediate threat, anyway," Yukari amended. "I mean, it's obviously evil, but it has no monopoly on that here in Gensokyo. Besides, Masahiro the Collector enacted his little campaign of bloodshed immediately after, so we got a little preoccupied."

"So, let me get this straight," Miko said. "A whole town gets annihilated by a flaming ball of rock from the sky, leaves a patch of pure evil in the middle of a dark forest, and you just left it there because you couldn't be assed to do something about it?"

Rolling her eyes, Yukari spread her arms. "Welcome to Gensokyo, Miko! As it turns out, when you make a pocket-dimension intended to be a sanctuary for monsters, spirits, and creatures of every kind, you're going to get a few nasties. And so long as they stay in their little lairs and don't go overboard with their schemes, they can stay."

The shrine maiden was now seething. "Out of all the lazy, idiotic excuses-"

"Besides, Masahiro was the more immediate threat, so I had to deal with that, and Shinji the Eloquent hit right after that! I didn't exactly have much time to breathe, now did I?"

"Yukari…"

Yukari sighed. "In all seriousness, Miko, Gensokyo's whole purpose is to be a haven for monsters. I should know; I am one. And as such, you're just going to have to get used to pockets of pure Evil showing up. So long as they don't threaten the country at large, it would be quite hypocritical for me to exterminate every evil entity nesting in my country, now wouldn't it?"

"Well, this one will probably end up doing just that! The cult's got Gendou Sonozika wrapped around its finger, along with most of the Human Village! I've got six children cursed by something unlike anything I've ever dealt with! And I've got a orphanage that's apparently the most single haunted location in an incredibly haunted country!"

"Oh," Yukari said. "The orphanage is haunted now? That sounds like a headache."

Miko made a sound like a tea-kettle set to boil and subsequently ignored.

Sighing, Yukari pressed a pair of fingers to her forehead. "Look, this sounds like a mess, but not the sort of mess that you need my help dealing with. Tell you what: if this little problem does wind up escalating into something that threatens the whole country, I'll step in. Until then, I suggest that you put on your big-girl skirt and do your job." Yukari refilled her cup. "Until then, perhaps you should ring up Masahiro. He started causing mischief roughly around the same time that the Black Circle popped up, so maybe-"

A pair of knotted hands slammed into the armrests of the chair on either side of Yukari, and the whole of her vision was filled with the visage of one furious shrine maiden.

"Now, you listen to me, you pompous, infuriating-"

"Tah-tah, Miko," Yukari said. She motioned with a finger, and a gap opened right behind Miko and swiftly consumed her. It closed, and Yukari was alone on the porch.

Yukari sighed and shook her head. If there was one constant in her long centuries of existence, it was finding herself arguing with a Hakurei. Sometimes she honestly wondered why she kept bothering with that family; things always turned sour.

Then she shrugged. Well, to be fair, if the Hakureis weren't so prickly, then they wouldn't be nearly so effective as Gensokyo's watchdogs. And she wouldn't find them nearly so interesting.

Still, now that Miko was probably sputtering angrily to herself somewhere else, Yukari found herself wondering if she ought to do as asked and give the cranky woman some assistance. After all, the aging shrine maiden was nothing but prideful, and would never have sought out Yukari's help if she didn't feel that it was needed.

Then Yukari blinked, and the doubt was gone. Yawning, she stood up and weaved her way across the porch to her hammock. Oh, hang it all. If Miko was going to insist on being the final Hakurei Shrine Maiden (which she wasn't going to be, no matter how loudly she protested), then she could at the very least do her damned job without bothering Yukari.

…

It was somewhat strange that, after everyone had to abandon their home after it had become a place of the dead, that the Children's Home cemetery would become such a place of peace.

But then, Kana had always been strange.

She walked among the graves, looking at each of the small, stone markers that contained the ashes of those who had come before her, of the caretakers who had grown old and died in the house, of the children who never grew old enough to leave, of all the members of Miss Satoko's family.

Despite her young age, Kana was more familiar with death than most people would find comfortable. She had watched her family die, long ago. Eiko had died, right in front of her. Granted, Kana had been unconscious at the time, but it had still happened. She had been touched by something that fed on death, that worshipped death, and a piece of it lived in her still. She could feel its cold nesting in her heart and on the surface of the palm of her right hand. She could hear it whispering the most awful things into her head.

She knew what death looked like. She knew what death felt like. And she knew that it wouldn't be long before she tasted it as well.

Might as well prepare.

She stopped in front of the stone that contained the ashes of Eiko Goto. Eiko's death was the freshest in her mind. It had happened right before death itself had touched her. Yes, it would do.

Reaching into her pocket, she extracted the charm of bones, shells, and string, the one that the hooded woman had tried to sell them back at the market, the one that had promised life after death. Kana still hadn't figured out how it worked, but a cemetery ought to be the ideal place to find out.

She lifted it up to peer at the small bones. They seemed to be from a rabbit, or perhaps a groundhog. The tiny skull that hung in the middle looked human, but it was much too small. A fairy, perhaps? No, fairies didn't leave skulls. When they died, they simply dissolved into mist. Maybe someone had found a tiny Human? Or perhaps simply shrunk the skull down after its owner's death. That certainly was possible.

Well, time to get to work. Kana still couldn't get her hands on a knife, but that was all right. She lifted her hand to her mouth and bit down on the thumb.

To her surprise, it didn't hurt at all. Then again, her right hand had been feeling sort of funny ever since she had been cursed. Some days it felt very faint, and some days she couldn't feel it at all. It still moved when she told it to, and it usually woke up after she had smacked it a few times, but there was no denying that something was wrong with it.

Just as well. It did make this part easier.

It took some gnawing, but finally she managed to break the skin, and a tiny red bead bubbled up. Good enough. Kana held up the charm and moved her hand and the drop of blood closer to the bones.

Then she paused. Was it her imagination, or was the drop of blood darker than it ought to be? Actually, it seemed to be more of a rusty-brown than ruby-red.

Oh dear, she really was running out of time. Better hurry. Kana moved her hand in to press the drop of blood to the shrunken skull.

what are you doing

Kana paused, and then turned around.

For the briefest of moments, Kana was no longer alone in the cemetery. Several ghostly children were now there with her, standing on the path and between the graves, staring at her with sunken, mournful eyes.

Then Kana blinked, and there was no one there.

Huh.

Kana turned around. Again her vision blurred, and she was certain that she saw faces in the stone sides of the grave-markers, staring out at her.

She blinked again and they were gone.

But they really weren't, were they?

"Hello," Kana said. "I am-"

And then her lungs flamed up, and she doubled over as violent coughs racked her body.

She tried to take in a breath, but her throat seemed closed, so she coughed and coughed and coughed, until finally the burning began to die down, and her throat started to open a little. Still, the coughing kept coming, until…

Something came up. She spat it out onto the ground, where it began to hiss and sizzle. It seemed to be a wad of tar, one infused with dark, oozing blood.

Oh dear, it was getting worse.

Taking in a shuddering breath, Kana straightened up and wiped her mouth. "I am sorry for that display," she said. "That was rude, wasn't it?"

The ghosts gave no answer.

Kana then glanced down at the burning wad. "Oh," she said. "I just spat into your home, didn't I?"

we do not dwell among the dead.

Kana could see no one, and truly did not hear anyone either, no real words or voices. Their voices were the sigh of the wind moving through the leaves, the rustle of the grass. And yet Kana could understand them perfectly.

"How odd," she said. "I thought that you were dead!" Then she frowned. "But I suppose if my body was burned to ash, I would have little reason to hang about, when there are so many other interesting places I could visit!"

She then looked down. The black stone grave marker she stood before was, of course, the newest, and the sides were still smooth and polished, unlike the older markers that had been worn down by the years and the elements. She could clearly see her reflection in the dark stone. And yet, if she squinted, she could just make out the vague silhouette of others, standing behind her.

what are you doing

"Oh, right!" Kana held up the bone charm for them to see. "I got this at the market! It's supposed to bind your soul to your ghost when you die. You of course know that upon death, your soul passes over the River Suzune, while your last moments become a ghost, right? Well, I feel that I would miss my friends too much, and I don't particularly care to leave so soon, so I'm trying to make it that my soul and my ghost stay one person!"

A sorrowful breeze swept through the cemetery, stirring the grass and rustling the leaves. It was cold, but the inside of Kana was colder.

you are cursed.

"Yes," Kana sighed. "It's such a bother. I feel quite cold at times, and this voice in my head keeps telling me to do the most ghastly things." She tilted her head. "That's why you wanted to get into the infirmary, wasn't it? That one night, with all that frightful banging? You knew we had brought something bad into the house, and you wanted it to go away.

No response, none that she could hear or feel. She wondered if they had gone.

And then the hair on her neck and the back of her arms stood up. An icy shiver swept down her spine, sending tingles through her back.

A pair of hands had laid themselves on her shoulders.

The pit of cold fire that now sat deep inside her heart suddenly flared up, and she found herself feeling strangely feverish. She recoiled from the touch, furious that they had dared lay hands on her. How dare they? How dare they? Did they not know what she was, what she could do?

The dark voice that spoke wicked whispers then grew loud, almost becoming a shout.

BEGONE.

The touch vanished, and the cold retreated, taking both the feverish feeling of dazedness and the anger, leaving Kana just confused.

evil is inside of you

Sighing, Kana nodded. "Yes, it is a bother, isn't it? I'm sorry that it's like that, but I don't know how to make it go away. I do hope that the shrine maiden can do something."

you are dying

Kana nodded again. "I've always been a bit weak, but ever since the spiders-"

And again the burning in her lungs ignited, and she doubled over coughing.

It was worse this time. Kana's body was wracked by convulsions as she violently coughed and hacked, each one so strong that they made her frail bones rattle.

The inflammation only got worse, and soon grew to nausea. Kana felt to her hands and knees as her guts twisted up, and soon she was throwing her breakfast up all over the ground.

It did the trick. Once Kana's stomach finished emptying itself, the sick feeling faded, and her lungs quieted. Wincing, Kana slowly straightened. She tried to take in a full breath, coughed again, but managed to get it all of the way in.

"-I fear that the spider venom was not good for me," Kana said at last, wiping her mouth with her arm. "The others were okay, but I feel that curse or no curse, I don't have much longer."

Then a thought occurred to her. She tilted her head, gazing off into the distance. "I wonder if the curse will stay with me after I've become a ghost, like you people. That would just be the worst, wouldn't it?"

the curse is tied to your soul

"Oh, right!" Kana nodded. "I figured. But the charm out to take care of that!"

charm?

"Ah, the charm!" Kana held it up, the tiny bones clacking together. "I got it at the market! It's supposed to keep me alive after death, to make it so my soul stays in my ghost! Wouldn't that just be clever? That why, I won't ever leave my friends!"

No answer, not even a breeze.

"Oh, I'm sorry," she said, lowering the charm. "That was insensitive of me, wasn't it? Well, I'm sure that there is nothing wrong with being a normal ghost. I just don't care for the idea of being lonely in the Netherworld. The only person I would know there is Eiko, and we never really got along."

The silence continued.

"Oh, you're here too, aren't you, Eiko?" Kana sighed. "Oh dear, I cannot seem to keep my foot from my mouth, can I?"

it will not work

"Pardon?" Kana tilted her head. "What won't?"

the charm you hold is fake

"It is?" Kana held it up to examine it. "But the old lady-"

it has no magic at all

Kana's stomach immediately twisted, but she fought off the feeling. "What?" she said. "No, of course it does! It allows your soul to stay inside your ghost! The mysterious woman at the market said so."

it is fake

"No, it is not," Kana insisted. To her confusion, she seemed to be having trouble speaking. Her throat was becoming curiously thick, making getting the words out difficult. "It works! I just need to find the right ritual or word or regents to activate the magic!"

A chilling gust of wind swept over the cemetery, lifting the dead leaves and causing them to flutter against Kana's feet.

you have been tricked

"But-" Kana's throat did that thing where it suddenly became too thick to speak through, and she found that she could not force the words out. "I-" Ah, now her eyes were becoming moist for whatever reason, blurring her vision! How inconvenient. Was she now ill, on top of being cursed and dying from the spider venom? That would be such a stretch of bad luck.

Still, she had to admit, the ghosts' words were quite upsetting. She had always known that she would probably die before everyone else on account of her sickly body, but she had hoped that she would be able to stick around after! She did not want to leave her friends or her home and go to be alone in the Netherworld. After all, she didn't know anyone there!

Besides, after-

Kana sniffed. Ah, her nose was running. What a bother.

-after what had-

Her eyes were now very wet. Dropping the useless amalgamation of bone and string, Kana lifted her arm to clear her vision.

-after what had happened to her-

It was very hard to breathe, but it did not seem to be the inflammation of her lungs this time, but rather the strange thickness of her throat. Even the short breaths she did manage to take in were weak, halted, and shuddering things.

-had happened to her family, when she was a small, helpless baby, clutched to her mother's breast, hiding behind a tree, listening as the everyone else was torn apart-

-had happened to Eiko, eaten alive as Kana had hung unconscious, spared from that fate by only the thinnest of margins-

-had happened to her, her small, frail body slowly dying, the venom having done its damage, and the curse doing the rest.

She did not want to die.

But it seemed that everything was working to ensure that she did.

The strength went from Kana's legs, and she slowly sank down to her knees. Her fingers grasped fabric of her skirt, wrinkling it as fat tears streamed down her face.

Ah, so this was what it was like to cry. She had always wondered.

Then the breeze picked up again, not stirring the leaves or rustling the grass, but swirling in close around her. It was warmer now, and to Kana's chilled skin it felt very nice, like the close embrace of a friend. She appreciated it.

we can help

"How?" Kana said. "If the charm is fake, then what-" She couldn't get the rest of the words out.

come with us

The wind then shot over the surface of the cemetery, heading deeper in.

"Ah, all right then," Kana said, and she started to follow, leaving the useless charm behind.

But before she did, she glanced over to the edge of the copse of trees that surrounded the cemetery, over to the gate that marked where the cemetery grounds transitioned into the rest of the field that surrounded the orphanage, Kana noted that there was someone standing there, watching her. She was pleased to see that it was her friend Melissa. Ever since Kana had been kidnapped and cursed, the two had been allowed very little interaction, which was bothersome. She understood that it was for her friend's protection, but Melissa had trouble connecting to other people, so she probably felt lonesome. True enough, Melissa looked very ill at ease, staring at Kana with fear and worry all over her face.

"Ah, hola, Melissa!" Kana greeted her. "I missed you!"

She moved to grasp her friend's hands, but Melissa immediately drew back, clutching her hands to her chest.

For a moment Kana was a little hurt, but then she remembered that she wasn't supposed to be touching the other children, lest the curse spread to them as well. Poor Melissa probably just didn't want to have the cold of death nesting in her chest or dark and evil voices whispering in her head, which was understandable.

"Ah, right," Kana said. "I forgot. Lo siento."

Melissa blinked. "It…It's…all right."

Kana was pleased that there were no hard feelings. "Thank you.

A pause passed between them, and then Melissa looked back to the graveyard. "Kana, what were you doing in there?"

"Ah! That! I was trying to make that bone charm work again." Kana sighed in disappointment. "But unfortunately, it turned out to be fake."

"Oh. Uh…is it?"

"Yes," Kana said with a sage nod. "The ghosts told me."

Kana slowly inhaled through her nose, her back stiffening. "The gh-ghosts?"

"Oh, yes! You know, the ones that Miss Satoko and Miss Mokou and Miss Miko saw in the house? Well, they were the ones to tell me that the bone charm probably didn't work, and, well, I think that they ought to know. But they also said that they know a different way to do the same thing! Would you like to come along? I'm sure it is going to be very interesting!"

"But…the p-pieces of magic paper! The charms! I thought that they could not leave the house!"

"Ah, that is a good point!" Kana turned toward the open field. "How did you get out, anyway?"

follow us, and we will show you

"They said that we should follow them," Kana said.

Melissa looked nervously around. "Kana…"

"Oh, I am sure it will be fine! And don't worry; I'll try to keep from touching you and spreading the curse!"

The wind rippled across the grass, bending it down in a very specific direction.

"Come on!" Kana said as she followed the spirits of the Aoi Yumi's Children's Home, heading deeper into the cemetery.

After a moment of fearful hesitance, Melissa moved to follow.

…

Being the Hakurei Shrine Maiden was not a pleasant job. Important, but not pleasant.

You had to deal with monsters, both literal and figurative. You had to strike down villains of all stripes. You had to delve into places where evil dwelled, and those places tended to be lacking in basic cleanliness and hygiene. You had to deal with things that wanted to eat you, things that wanted to possess you, and things that had no manners and just liked to insult you.

But most of all, Miko just had to regularly interact with just so many terrible people.

Forget Nathaniel Skinner and his bunch. Forget Gendou Sonozika. Hell, forget even Yukari Yakumo, who of course was deciding to be even more petty than usual. Just in the course of investigating the latest incident to plague mankind, she was having to delve into the darkest parts of the Youkai Forest and knock skulls together for information, and the sort of skulls that she needed to knock tended to belong to some truly appalling individuals.

Such as the skull she was currently interrogating.

She was in a circular clearing in the forest, hovering over a full meter above the ground, arms folded as she glowered at the object in the center of the clearing.

The object was a chair. A throne, to be specific, one constructed of rough stone, raw earth, moss, and bones. Seated upon the throne was a horror constructed of even more bones, taken from over a dozen different creatures and swathed with the tattered remains of a black cloak. A bear's skull sat upon the horror's shoulder, one affixed with an elk's antlers.

The appropriately named Throne of Bones was one of the more vile landmarks in the Youkai Forest. For one, it truly was a hideous piece of work. For another, it also so happened to contain the soul of a truly repulsive person, a dark sorcerer that had, long ago, attempted to sacrifice a number of kidnapped children in order to summon up an infamous demon to do his bidding.

It hadn't gone how he had pictured. For one, for all of his evil intent and magical knowledge, he had been a little scatterbrained, and the children had managed to escape on their own. For another, the demon in question had actually been a personal friend of the Hakurei Shrine Maiden at that time, and she had tipped off Miko's ancestor the moment she had felt that something was up.

Anyway, long story short, he hadn't taken the dissolution of his grand designs very well, then Miko's ancestor had shown up to shut him down, there was a fight, and now his soul was trapped within a bunch of bones stuck sitting on a molding stone chair in the middle of a dark forest, all that remained of his fortress. All in all, a fitting end to a truly terrible person.

Unfortunately, he was still technically around, and for some inexplicable reason he remained remarkably clued in on the comings and goings of the forest. Miko honestly had no idea. It wasn't like he ever actually went anyway. Still, it did mean that nearly every Hakurei Shrine Maiden was faced with the unenviable task of trying to wrangle information out of him.

"Let's…see…" spoke a deep, gravelly voice, coming from the bear's fleshless skull. "Seven…children…you…say?"

"Yes! Five of them were kidnapped by the spider clan, and two more entered the forest to save them. One was murdered by the spiders, and the other six came back cursed."

"Most…unfortunate," rasped the dead voice. "And…disappointing…that…you…were…not…there…to…save…them."

Miko let out a long, exasperated sigh.

Then she swung her hand around, slapping the bear skull across where its cheek had been. The skull spun around on the spinal column on which it was perched, its antlers whirring in the air before finally coming crookedly to a stop.

"Can it, Masahiro!" Miko snapped. "Tell me what you know!"

There was a long pause, and then the skull let out a sigh of its own. "And…what…makes…you…think…that…I…know…anything?" Masahiro the Collector responded irritably. "I…am…trapped…within…this…carcass."

"And still you hear everything that goes on in this forest," Miko responded. "So talk. What is the Black Circle?"

Silence.

"Hey! I asked you a question!" Miko waved her hand in front of the skull's empty eye sockets. "Hello? You in there?"

"The…Black…Circle?" The skull slowly swiveled around until it was fully facing her. "They…were…taken…by…the…Black…Circle?"

Miko felt a slight chill. It was clear that Masahiro knew the name.

"Yes," she said. "You know, the big, ugly pit of black sand in the middle of the Bone Grove? Supposed to be the site of a meteor strike?"

"I…do."

"And?"

The bear skull was incapable of expression. And yet, Miko felt that she detected a hint of smugness in its fleshless grin. "Your…kids…are…fucked."

Miko's eyes narrowed. "Excuse me?"

"No…one…taken…by…the…Black…Circle…survives. It…changes you. You…either…die…or…be…devoured."

"What is it?" Miko said. "Who created it? What does it do to people?"

"No…idea."

"Liar."

"I…am…not. No…one…knows…what…it…is. It…only…opens…when…it…wants…to. And…no…one…is…so…foolish…as…to…test…it."

"But someone must know!" Miko insisted. "Someone in the forest must know something about it!"

Though there was no visible change in the randomly cluttered bones seated upon the throne, there was something distinctly smug in how those empty eye-sockets stared at her, something sadistically cruel. "Tell…you…what. Go…find…out…for…yourself…and…you…can…be…the…first."

"Tempting," Miko said. "But I have a better idea."

From the pouch she wore at her side, Miko extracted a handful of charms. With a flourish she tossed them into the air. They fluttered briefly before suddenly snapping into vertical position and flattening out. They then hovered in a circle around her, forming a ring of paper rectangles inscribed with glowing red runes.

Miko pointed a finger at the throne and the inert bones seated upon it. The ring of charms began to orbit around, starting off slow but picking up speed until they became a blur, forming a ring of red and white. Then they shot off, surrounding the throne.

"Did you forget how this works?" Miko demanded. "You tried to consume Gensokyo's magic You tried to turn yourself into a god. You were defeated. You were killed. And in exchange for not being bound into your own skull and cast into Hell, you were bound to this throne instead to provide a source of information for the Hakurei family line." She twirled a finger, and the ring of charms began to lift into the air, and the bones lifted with them, levitating out of the chair and hanging limp. "Well, the latest Hakurei needs information. So cough it up."

Though the bones remained inert despite now hovering in the air, the malice radiating off of them was palpable. "Can't…give…what…I…don't…have."

"Wrong answer," Miko said. She pressed her forefinger and thumb together, and the bones suddenly began to jerk and convulse. An ethereal wail of pail sounded with no throat or mouth to create it.

Miko released her fingers. "Who created the circle?"

"I…don't…know."

Miko again squeezed her fingers together, and Masahiro again screamed.

"What does it do to those it's cursed?" Miko said.

"I…don't…know!"

"You're just making this more difficult on yourself," Miko said as Masahiro thrashed in torment.

"I…don't…know!" Masahiro said again. All of the smarmy nastiness was gone, and now he just sounded desperate, almost pleading.

Miko frowned. Masahiro was a nasty piece of work, one that didn't deserve mercy or pity. But as cruel as he could be, he didn't have a reputation for being a liar, unlike another deceased and yet still unfortunately active villain of her acquaintance. And what Miko had said was true: Masahiro was bound to the Throne of Bones as a source of information. He could stall, he could taunt, he could obfuscate, but what he couldn't do was lie.

When he said that he didn't know what the Black Circle was or who had created it, he was telling the truth.

Damn.

"Well, that's kind of pathetic," Miko said. She snapped her fingers, and the ring of orbiting charms suddenly caught fire and evaporated into embers. The bones fell to collapse back into the throne. "The great Masahiro the Collector, just a useless pile of dry bones and ignorance." She turned to leave. "We should've just let the Yamaxanadu send you to Hell for all the use you are."

She had almost reached the edge of Masashiro's clearing when she heard him say, "Wait."

Miko paused. "Yes?" she said, turning to look back over her shoulder.

The skeletal remains of Masahiro the Collector still of course had not moved. And yet, there was an unmistakable air of smugness emanating from those dead bones. "I…can…not…tell…you…what…the…Black…Circle…is," he told her. "Or…who…created…it. But…I…can…tell…you…who…might."

And there it was. No matter who they were, no matter how long they've been dead, no matter how powerless they might be, villain never could stand to have their egos bruised. "And who might that be?"

"You…know," Masahiro said. "You…brought…him…home. The…Black…Circle…claimed…him…and…then…let…him…go. He…went…inside. He…saw…its…heart. The…man…in…brown."

…

It was a very interesting experience, following the ghosts. Kana could only catch fleeting glimpses of them, so slight that had she not already known that they were there, they easily could have been mistaken for the fluttering of a leaf or grass bending before a breeze. Here and there would be something caught just out of the corner of her eyes, the briefest of glimpses of someone standing in her peripheral vision, and yet when she turned to look, there would be nobody there.

Gosh, being a ghost sounded like so much fun! When Kana died, she hoped to retain enough of her personality to take advantage of it. Being able to play with people like that but having such a dour outlook like the ghosts seemed to have would hamper the whole experience.

Still, it was clear where they wanted her to go. The wind remained at her back, cold despite it being summer, nudging her along, taking her to the older parts of the cemetery.

"Isn't this exciting?" she said over her shoulder to Melissa, who was still following, albeit at a distance. "Who knows what secrets we'll find!"

Melissa, it should be noted, looked less than enthused. "Kana, I don't think this is a good idea," she said. "What if they want our bodies? What if they…what is the word? When the dead take your body?"

"Possess?"

Melissa nodded. "Possess. What if they possess us?"

The breeze suddenly shot out from Kana in a rippling circle, stirring the grass. It honestly felt sort of like the air was sighing in annoyance.

we will not

"They say that they don't," Kana told her. "Besides, it's me they really want to follow them, and I'm already possessed! So it's fine!"

There was a pained look on Melissa's brown face. "Kana…"

"Come on!" Kana hurried ahead.

The older part of the cemetery was no less cared for, but its age was evident. It had been constructed back before the denizens of the orphanage had realized that since people would never stop dying, they needed to be economical with the land that they had and stopped burying their dead whole to switch over to cremation. As such, the grave plots were larger, and the headstones more cracked and weatherworn. Kana had always been fascinated by the area. It was, in its own way, as much a monument to the age in which those people had lived as it was to the departed themselves. She could picture them now, a group of children wearing old-fashioned clothing, gathered together to bid farewell to someone they had known, much like they all had said goodbye to Eiko a few days ago, all of them now long dead themselves.

And soon she would join them. It was a very strange thing to think about.

The winds brought her further and further in, until they reached the innermost circle, where Aoki Yume herself was laid to rest, her and her family and friends, the founders of the orphanage. Aoki's grave was at the center with a tile circle surrounding it, and the graves of those her who knew her lining the circle.

Of all the graves, that of Aoki Yume was the simplest, a weatherworn stone with four sides, the writing on it barely legible. Kana could only make out the words body, with us, and spirit. Apparently, it had something to the tune of how despite no longer being with her children in body, the orphanage's founder would forever remain with them in spirit.

Which was literally true, Kana now realized.

open it

"Pardon?" Kana said. "Open what?

"Kana…" Melissa said as she glanced around furtively.

Then frost gathered on the smooth front of Aoki Yume's headstone, filling the fading characters, making them stand out starkly against the worn stone. Kana noticed that it was particularly thick around the word "Spirit." What was more, there seemed to be a square around the word, one that was invisible without the frost highlighting the borders.

"How odd," Kana noted. She walked over Aoki's grave and knelt down in front of the headstone.

"K-Kana?" Melissa said, casting a dubious look at the grave of the orphanage's founder. "You should not be on-"

Kana reached forward and pressed her finger against the square.

It sank in.

"Ah!" Kana hastily leapt off the grave when it started to rumble. As the two young girls stared, the ground supposedly containing Aoki Yume's body shuddered, and then split open. Dirt and grass fell into the opening beneath as the grave parted in two.

Within was no coffin, no sepulcher, and no body.

Instead, there were ancient steps of stone, leading down into the dark.

"Ooooh!" Kana said, her eyes shining. "Wonderful!"

"Kana, please!" Melissa begged. "This is very scary!"

Kana frowned in puzzlement. "Why?" she said, looking to her friend. "This isn't like the Black Circle. Any secrets down there belong to our home, so they must be good!"

Rather than be comforted, Melissa emphatically shook her head. "No," she said. "No."

"But…" Then Kana sighed. She understood; Melissa was scared. Melissa had always found the stranger parts of Gensokyo frightening, and to be perfectly honest, she had good reason to.

"That is fine," Kana said. "I'll tell you all about it after!"

And with that, she hurried down into the depths of the grave, eager to see what the voices of the dead had in store for her.

…

Another aggravating part of Miko Hakurei's job is that, in the course of seeking out information, she quite often did not get the information she was specifically looking for, but instead found out something else entirely, something that put a new wrinkle into whatever Incident she was investigating that told her that her job was about to become even more complicated.

The Man in Brown. The Man in Brown was connected to the Black Circle. Well, wasn't that just swell?

Until that moment, Miko had been operating under the assumption that the problems plaguing the orphanage were only loosely connected. Nathaniel Skinner and his followers had a vendetta against the children for some reason, so he knocked down their defenses. That led to several children being kidnapped by the spiders, resulting in the death of one and causing the others to unintentionally come across one of the many pockets of evil energy nesting in the Youkai Forest and being tainted by it. Meanwhile, the destruction of all of the orphanage's charms also led to the walls between it and its spiritual shadow to come down, hence the mass-haunting issue. All of those problems led back to Skinner's actions, but it could have been any of the evil entities in that forest, and the haunting issue was most likely an unintended side-effect.

But if Skinner himself had encountered the Black Circle sometime in the past, then, well…

Actually, Miko wasn't sure what that entailed, not exactly. There were still some pieces missing. Perhaps the Black Circle's influence was what was causing Skinner's campaign against the orphanage, twisting his mind even further than it already had been. And perhaps those children fleeing into the same source of that befoulment that had put them in danger in the first place and becoming tainted by it as well was still a coincidence. It was one hell of a coincidence, but that was still a possibility.

Regardless, Miko intended to get to the bottom of it all. She had to find the missing pieces and see the full picture. And to do that, it was time that she got a look at the source of the curse itself.

The problem was that it had been some time since she had last been to the Bone Grove and the clearing of black sand within, so she had to find it on her own all over again. She soared up over the treetops, eyes scanning the expanse of green, brown, and grey, searching for a patch of black while keeping half-an-eye out for any youkai or spirit too full of themselves and willing to take a shot at her.

She didn't have to look long.

A massive blotch of black appeared in her field of vision, consuming the life of the forest canopy like an oil spill on the water's surface. Miko adjusted her trajectory and swooped in.

Soon she was flying over the gnarled corpses of tree infused with the bones of the terrified dead, all turned to stone by a great calamity. Now that she at least knew part of said calamity's nature, she couldn't help but wonder what it had been like for all those people and all those animals on that fateful day, just going about their business as usual only to look to the sky to see a ball of flame hurtling toward them to snuff them out in an instant. She wondered if any had managed to get away in time, and what they had believed had been the source of Gedo's destruction. The wrath of a demon? The spell of some maniac magician?

It was somewhat sobering that those questions had yet to be answered.

Shaking her head, Miko pressed on, heading toward the Black Circle. It was exactly as described: a large, circular clearing in the middle of the Bone Grove, containing nothing but black sand.

And standing in its center was none other than Fujiwara no Mokou.

Miko blinked. Then she frowned.

"Mokou," she said, swooping down toward the immortal.

Mokou glanced over her shoulder. "Oh, hey, Hakurei," she said with a nod. "Came to investigate the scene of the crime?"

As was the case with the Throne of Bones' clearing, Miko did not alight upon the ground, but remained hovering a healthy distance in the air. "Figured I'd poke around a few places first. Learn what I can."

"And?"

"Well, Yukari Yakumo is useless," she said. "She just wants to laze around and won't lift a finger to help."

Mokou arched an eyebrow.

"I know, I know," Miko groused. "So what else is new, right?"

"Should've brought me with you," Mokou remarked in a neutral tone. "I might've convinced her."

Miko frowned. "She literally would have taken you apart and stuck each piece into a different dimension to keep you from coming back."

"I know, but I would've made her work for it."

And the scary thing was, Mokou probably would have done just that. Granted, in an all-out fight between the two, the cagey immortal wouldn't have stood a chance against Gensokyo's literal creator, but she would have made a better showing of it than almost anybody.

"Well, anyway," Miko said, hastily changing the subject. "I also checked in with Masahiro."

"The bone guy? What'd he have to say?"

"Only that he has no idea what this ugly big blotch is, save that anyone it takes is doomed. And it's been pulling this shit for a while."

"Well, he can go fuck himself," Mokou said. "Maybe I should pay him a visit after we're done here."

Miko raised a finger. "Don't you dare. You might end up accidentally freeing him."

"And roast him immediately after. Do you know how effective Phoenix Fire is on spirits?"

"Yes, I've seen you work. Anyway, the one thing I was able to learn from them is that there used to be something of a bandits' hideaway here, one that was destroyed by a meteor."

That got Mokou's attention. "Wait, seriously? This is what came from Gedo's destruction?"

"You knew about it?" Miko said incredulously. "But you didn't know about the Black Circle?"

"I knew about Gedo, sure. Girl like me, it pays to have some dirty connections. And I remember it getting blown up by a meteor, but I never headed over to investigate. Hell, I made a point of staying well away from here pretty much afterward. I figured there'd be too many prying eyes about for me to be comfortable with." She looked down at the expanse of black sand beneath her feet. "So, that's where all this came from. Should have figured it wasn't an ordinary comet. Actually, come to think of it, if it had been, it probably would've taken out the entire forest at least, if not the whole country."

"Yeah, can't really see how one would get past the Hakurei Barrier anyway. What have you been able to find?"

"Oh, it's evil, all right," Mokou said.

Miko glanced at the surrounding grove of twisted petrified trees and the dozens of skeletons fused into them. "You don't say."

"Well, yeah, but it's something you can feel. Which I'm guessing you can."

Miko most certainly did. Evil was something of a fluid term, more often than not ascribed to creatures who might have dark origins and dangerous natures, but when it came down to it were only doing what they had to do to survive. Then there were simple mortals with malicious natures, ones who had evil minds and intentions but were otherwise undetectable by those capable of sensing such things, ones who relished in doing harm to their fellow man but were otherwise indistinguishable from anyone else on the street.

And then there was that special kind of Evil, dark creatures created from dark powers, who by nature delighted in spreading death and destruction, the sort of Evil responsible for creating some of Gensokyo's most notorious monsters, the sort of Evil that soiled souls and corrupted minds, an insidious sort of quality that all beings had some sort of sense of, but some could immediately pinpoint and identify.

Mokou was one such person, as was Miko. The whole of the Black Circle simply radiated Evil. It stank of it, a poisonous cold that rose from the sand, giving Miko the shivers.

"Whatever this shit is, it is 100% Grade A Evil of the purest kind," Mokou said, motioning to the sand. "I mean the kind that makes your buddy Mima look like nothing more than the village prankster."

Now that was a troubling comparison. "And you're just standing on it?" Miko said.

Mokou grinned. "Oh, it don't like me. I'd stay off of it if I were you, though. It'll probably gobble you right up."

"I'd make it choke," Miko huffed. Still, she refrained from landing.

Actually, now that Mokou mentioned, she did feel a strange tug, just a gentle nudging of her attention down toward the center of the Black Circle. Frowning, she closed her eyes and concentrated.

Miko.

"Huh," she said, and opened her eyes.

"Felt something?"

"Yeah. Barely noticed it, but there was definitely some kind of call."

Mokou nodded. "I figure you shrine maidens are harder to hook than your average meatbag off the streets. Like, say, a bunch of terrified kids?"

"Yeah," Miko said with a nod. "Or an unstable outsider wandering around, lost in the forest."

Here Mokou paused. She turned to Miko, one eyebrow askew.

"That was another thing Masahiro said," Miko said with a sigh. "He said we should go inquiring about 'The Man in Brown.'"

Mokou muttered a particularly foul curse. "Well, that tracks," she said. "Not that he wasn't suspect number one already."

"No doubt." Miko tilted her head. "So, what exactly-"

Mokou held up a hand. "We'll talk about him in a sec. For now, I wanna show you something. Stay back"

Miko blinked. Then she hastily floated away, putting a healthy distance between herself and the immortal.

Mokou walked to the center of the Black Circle. Planting her feet firmly to the ground, she hunched over, arms crisscrossing in front of her.

Then she began to glow, a violent aura of twisting scarlet that grew brighter and more angry with every second. Intense heat set ripples through the air around her, and her bare feet began to hiss and steam.

Mokou than raised her arms over her head, fists clenched. They burst into flames, fire covering her arms and shoulders like a burning effigy. Her eyes blazed bright crimson, shining so bright that Miko had to avert her gaze and cover her eyes.

"HA!" Mokou cried as she thrust her palms at the ground. Twin columns of raging Phoenix Fire shot from her palms right at the Black Circle, both striking the exact same spot. White smoke tinged with red billowed up all around her in response.

Mokou poured the Flames Everlasting into the heart of all of their problems for a full five seconds before snuffing out the fire. The glow faded, the smoke cleared, and soon it was just Mokou standing alone, same as before.

What was more, the sands beneath her hadn't even shifted.

"Nothing," Mokou said. "Only kind of flame with even more kick is Dragon Fire, and I really doubt it would have had more success." She knelt down and wiped her palm over the black surface. "It's not even warm."

Miko hated to admit it, but even she was a little shocked. She was well aware of how potent Mokou's fire was, to objects both from the material world and those spiritual in nature. No matter how strong whatever it was that was buried in the sand might be, it ought to have at least been affected!

"That's not all," Mokou said. "I've been here since this morning, poking around. I've tried melting those trees and smashing those bones. Nothing. I've tried messing around with the bones that form those symbols around the perimeter. They won't budge or break. I've tried burrowing into the ground outside of the circle and burning my way end. As soon as the earth turns black, I can't go any further."

"That's one hell of a defensive system," Miko noted. "Here, let me try something."

Mokou stepped back, and Miko extracted a few charms from her satchel. She held them in the air, spoke a word while sending her will into the paper. The runes immediately blazed to life. She released her hand, and the charms took flight, fluttering around until they formed a circle over the patch of black sand, hovering about three meters from the ground.

Miko extended her hand, ready to give the command for the spell to activate.

And then the charms died.

They didn't burst into flames. They didn't explode. They simply, one and all, winked out, the lights of the runes being snuffed like flames starved of oxygen. At the same exact time, the papers on which they were transcribed turned black and shriveled, evaporating into ash.

It happened so fast that it took a full second for Miko to register what had happened. One moment she was about to trigger the sensory spell, the second there was nothing but a ring of black dust dispelling on the breeze. No dramatics, no violence. One second it was there, and the next it was simply gone.

Still standing on the circle, Mokou froze in place. She glanced around at the dissipating grey cloud with wide eyes, looking like a startled fox that has suddenly found itself surrounded by wolves.

"What the fuck?" she whispered.

Miko slowly lowered her shaking arm. "Mokou," she said.

"Y-Yeah?"

"I'm suddenly having doubts about my ability to handle a curse of this magnitude."

Mokou slowly turned to face her. "Don't say that," she said. "Don't you dare say that."

"Look, I'm just being realistic. I have no idea what this thing is, but it's clearly bigger than anything that I've-"

Mokou cleared the distance between them in less than a second, zipping up from the ground to right in front of Miko's face. "Stop," she hissed through clenched teeth. "I'm not going to hear any of that bullshit. You have a job to do, and that job is to save those kids. You are going to do it. Understand?"

Earlier that day Miko had gotten right into the face of the creator of Gensokyo herself and insulted her. Mokou might be several magnitudes more powerful from her, but she did not scare easily, and normally had no trouble telling off beings that would regard her as little more than an insect.

But there was a stark difference between some uppity immortal with an attitude problem and a woman who was genuinely terrified for the lives of the children that she loved and was relying on Miko's help to save them.

"All right," Miko said in a soft voice. "I'll do everything in my power. You have my word."

Mokou slowly blinked her eyes. Then she sighed and floated back a bit.

"So," she said. "What's the deal with our 'Man in Brown'?"

"Oh, um…" Miko shook her head and tried to regather her thoughts. "Masahiro said something about him coming across this place years ago. Said that it probably took him, just like it took your kids."

"Huh." Mokou's brow knitted together. "Weren't you involved in that whole thing?"

Miko shrugged. "It's like I already told you. I found him on the edge of the forest and brought him to the village. That's about it."

"Did he say anything about this mess?"

"Mokou, this was years ago, and didn't really seem remarkable at the time. Besides, he was clearly delusional, only talking about eyes and hands. I found some dumb sap lost somewhere he had no business being, brought him back, and gave him an earful. Happens all the time."

"Well, seems like more happened than you thought."

Miko nodded. "Seems so."

"Eyes and hands?"

Miko shrugged.

"Huh." Mokou put her hands on her hips. "Well, turns out he really does have more to do with all this than either of us thought. In both ways."

"Huh?"

Mokou turned away from her. "Come on, let's head back. I have a little something I've been sitting on for a couple days, and it's time you had a look."

Before Miko could ask Mokou what the hell she was talking about, the immortal shot off over the trees, heading back toward the orphanage.

Miko quickly followed, though part of her had a feeling she would probably regret doing so. Something about the way Mokou had said that gave her the impression that whatever it was she was going to show Miko, it was something that Miko probably would rather not know about.

…

Aghast, Melissa stared down into the dark hole that her cursed friend had just descended into without a lick of hesitation.

She felt like she was going crazy. She had thought that she had been getting used to the crazy, but now it was getting worse.

First the villagers had attacked them for no good reason! Then the spiders had stolen her best friend and ate Eiko! Then the recovered children turned out to be cursed, including her best friend! Then their home turned out to be haunted! Then it turned out that their house was somehow always haunted and nobody knew about it! Then those creepy men in the brown robes were coming by and saying all sorts of scary things! And the cursed children were attacking very strange and very scary too!

And now Kana, her best friend, who had always been a little odd but still had been the kindest and most welcoming person Melissa had met, was acting even odder than usual, talking to ghosts that Melissa couldn't see and ought not even be there, acting like her cursed was no big deal, talking like she was going to die soon, and opening up secret passageways hidden in graves and walking right into them without so much as a moment of hesitation? What in the world was going on?

She ought to tell someone. She ought to

"Kana?" she called down into the dark.

No answer.

There was no time! There was no one else.

No one save for Melissa.

Kana had been taken by the dark once before, and Melissa hadn't been there to help.

Never again.

Steeling herself the best she could, Melissa hurried down the steps.

The black swallowed her up. The sun had been behind Aoki Yume's headstone, preventing the light from shining into the open grave, but even if it hadn't, it would not have penetrated far. Within seconds Melissa could no longer see anything, her vision swallowed by perfect darkness of the tomb.

And then it got cold.

Melissa wanted to flee. She wanted to turn and run as far away from the world beneath the graves as fast as she could. She should get help! She should find one of the grown-ups and tell them that Melissa was being led by the voices of the dead. Surely someone would know what to do, right? Miss Mokou, or Miss Satoko, or Mister Joshua. Heck, saving people from things like this was literally Miss Miko's job!

But Miss Miko wasn't there. She was gone, off investigating cures for the Black Circle Six. And Miss Mokou was gone as well, off seeing to some unknown business. And in the time that it would take Melissa to find any of the others, it might be too late. Kana was alone.

Melissa couldn't let that happen to her again.

"Kana?" she called into the dark. "Kana, can you hear me?"

No answer.

Please, Blessed Mary, Mother of Grace, watch over me. Please sweet Jesus, Lord of Mercy, have your hand upon Kana. Holy Spirit, watch over us both, and do not let-

And then the floor suddenly leveled out.

Melissa froze. She had reached the bottom of the steps. How deep she was, she didn't know, but she had to be beneath the bodies that had been buried.

Which meant that the dead were entombed right over her head.

Melissa slowly breathed out into the stale air. She was shivering, her body shaking from the cold and from the fear creeping into her bones.

"Kana?" she called again, her voice trembling.

Kana still didn't answer.

Though she truly did not want to, Melissa had to know what was around her. She reached out with one shaking hand and felt around. Her palm laid upon a wall of tightly packed dirt to her right. Further inspection revealed another such wall to her left. There was nothing in front of her.

A tunnel. She was standing at the mouth of a tunnel.

Oh, no.

"Kana, please," she said as she ventured forward, feet shuffling through the dirt in case the ground opened up into a hole. "Come back!"

Melissa kept moving forward, one hand touching the wall, certain that each step would send her careening into an abyss, or skeletal hands would burst out of the wall to seize her wrist.

"Kana?"

And then two burning red eyes opened in the dark ahead of her, staring right into her.

Melissa froze in terror. No, no, no, no…

And then the eyes winked out, and she heard a slightly exasperated voice going, "Oh, quit that, please! Melissa is a friend, remember?"

Melissa blinked, even if it did no good. "Kana?"

"Hello! I'm here."

Well, at least she was alive. "But your eyes! They were glowing!"

"Yes, they do that," Kana's voice said with a sigh. "It is this darned curse. The others' eyes do the same thing when they are annoyed."

"They…they do?"

"Fortunately it helps us see in the dark! I could see you quite easily!"

Melissa didn't know how to respond to that. "Um…"

"Or, rather, I could see your body heat! It really is quite interesting! It is like you were made out of fire!"

Melissa's eyes prickled with tears. She didn't want to know that. "Kana, please…"

"Not anymore, though. Once we started talking everything faded, so now it's all dark."

"But…But you were already talking! Who were you talking to?"

"Oh, that was the curse's voice," Kana said casually. "Unfortunately, seeing in the dark makes it louder. And it wanted me to…Oh."

"Oh, what?"

"I…I am sorry. You probably do not want to know that."

Melissa felt like her heart was about to leap into her throat. "It wanted. To kill. It. Wanted you. To kill me?"

Silence.

"K-Kana?"

"I'm sorry, Melissa," Kana's voice said. "I promise you, I try very, very hard not to listen to it."

Now the fearful tears were streaming down Melissa's cheeks. She shouldn't have followed. She wanted to protect Kana, but the thing that Kana was carrying wanted to kill her. She was trusting in Kana's self-control to prevent her own grisly murder at her best friend's hands.

She did care deeply for Kana, but knew better than to put her trust in the strength of Kana's mind.

A few moments went by, and then Kana's voice spoke from the darkness. "Are you scared of me?"

"Yes!" Melissa blurted out before she even had time to think. "You are talked…talking! Of…Of evil voice that love…that want you to kill me! That is very scary!"

"I am sorry, Melissa," Kana said. "If I knew what to say to reassure you, I would say it, but I do not."

Melissa buried her face in her hands and cried.

She heard the sound of feet softly padding across the floor, and though she could not see, she felt Kana coming nearer.

"I…" She heard Kana swallow. "I wish I could hug you, but that would be…unwise."

"Kana, please. Let us go back," Melissa begged. "This is very bad!"

"I cannot," Kana said simply. Her footsteps started moving away, as did her voice. "I need to find it."

"Find what? What are you looking for? What is-"

"Oh!"

"What is it?" Melissa said. She couldn't take many more surprises.

"I believe we have come to the end of the tunnel," Kana said. "There is a round room. I do not believe it goes any further."

"A room?" Melissa swallowed. "W-What is in it?"

There was the sound of soft padding as Kana felt her way around. "Well, not much. The walls are stone, though. I believe-Ah!"

"What?"

"I believe we are under the house itself!"

The house. The house that was currently haunted. The house where Eiko's specter walked, where the ghosts of hundreds of children and past caretakers dwelled.

Melissa now knew how the ghosts had gotten around the charms.

"There is something else here. In the middle. It feels like…like a box."

Now Melissa could hear Kana's hand thumping old wood.

"I…I think this is a coffin."

Melissa squeezed her eyes shut and clenched her teeth. "Kana, please leave it-"

Too late. There came the creaking of ancient hinges, and then something heavy thumped aside.

"Yes, definitely a coffin! There is a skeleton in here! Melissa, I think we found Aoki Yume's body!"

"Leave it alone!" Melissa begged. "Don't touch it, you'll-"

"This here?" Kana said. Melissa was about to scream at her for making fun, but then she realized that Kana wasn't talking to her. She was talking to one of the many voices in her head. "Are you sure it is all right? Because this feels like stealing!"

Melissa agreed. Stealing from the dead was always a bad idea, and should be avoided at all costs!

"Well, if you say so," Kana said to some response that only she could hear. "If you are sure that it will not mess things up."

And then Melissa heard the clinking of metal links.

"Ah, this must be it!"

"What is it?" Melissa said. "What did you find?"

"One of the house's secrets!" she heard Kana said in triumph. "This is-Oh."

Oh? Oh? Why did Kana say that? She sounded surprised, dismayed, even a little chagrined.

And then Melissa heard the sound of breathing, coming from the tunnel behind her.

Sharp shivers ran down her spine. There was now something standing in the tunnel behind her, something standing very close.

Trembling with fear and wishing desperately that she had never taken that first step into the grave, Melissa slowly turned to look over her shoulder.

In the dark glowed five pairs of scarlet eyes.

…

The old trapdoor in the Children's Home's storage shed creaked loudly as Mokou pulled it up.

"Down here," she said, ascending the ancient wooden steps into the dark. She opened her palm, and a ball of flame ignited, lighting the way.

Miko felt distinctly uneasy about following her immortal companion. Not because she thought that Mokou might be setting her up; Mokou might be kind of a monster, but she wasn't that kind of a monster, and reserved that sort of behavior to a select few that Miko wasn't a part of. No, she was uneasy because she knew Mokou well enough to know that her moral scruples were much, much fewer in number than most people's, and would not hesitate to do something horrible if she felt it necessary.

Or even if it wasn't necessary, but was still the easiest way to accomplish her means.

Or if she just felt like it.

Regardless, Miko had the distinct feeling that she was about to be shown something horrible.

She followed Mokou down, her Ying-Yang Orb split into two and hovering to either side, glowing with a white light of its own, just in case.

Beneath the shed was a small, underground space made of earth filled with barrels and sacks, as expected. Mokou walked between the barrels, heading to the far corner.

And as Miko followed, her sharp ears picked up the sound of whimpering. A male voice, muffled, sniffling in pain and fear.

Oh no.

Stopping in front of one barrel, Mokou pried off the lid with her free hand, reached in, and pulled out a truly hideous lump of tortured flesh. It was a spider youkai, the kind that dwelled in the Youkai Forest, but one that had been physically ravaged in a way that made even Miko's stomach turn sour. His flesh was covered with bruises, lacerations, and badly healed burns, and all of his extremities had been sliced and burned off, leaving cauterized stumps at his shoulders, thigh, and between his legs. Only his head atop his long neck remained, and that was a ruined mess. His nose was almost gone, his eyes swollen shut, and despite spiders having quite a lot of teeth, this poor creature now seemed to have very few behind his swelling and cracked lips. Most of his hair looked to have been pulled out by the roots, leaving just a handful of long, black strands, which Mokou was now holding him aloft by.

"What the fuck?" Miko whispered.

Mokou's lips spread in a grim smile. "Miko? I'd like you to meet Andy, the only surviving member of Muffet's gang. Unfortunately, I didn't find out that his sister was the leader before I had already roasted her, but he'll do."

"P-P-Pweeze," Andy wheezed, milky red tears seeping from his crushed eyes. "Kwill me. Yah p-pwomised tah kwill me!"

"Mokou," Miko whispered. "What have-"

"Miko? Be a grown-up and save the lecture." Mokou thrust her hand forward, Andy's ravaged torso dangling in her grasp. "This scum and his sisters ate a child alive, and were planning on doing the same to the rest. And I would wager that Eiko was not their first to be thrown screaming onto their table."

All of this Miko knew. She had run-ins with Muffet's gang on more than one occasion in the past, and knew that they were, to be quite frank, utterly terrible people even by the very low standards set by the denizens of the Youkai Forest. But even so…

"Mokou, this is more than just justice. This is sadism!"

"Yeah? How about that?" Mokou brought the ball of flame hovering over her other hand close to Andy's face. The blisters covering his cheeks began to bubble and weep. "Well, too bad for my immortal soul. Probably would be damned by this if I could die. Except, oh wait, I can't, and I'd be damned already a hundred times over."

"Mokou…"

"But hey, let's not let that get in the way of the subject at hand. Now, go on, Andy. Tell her what you told me."

"A 'ummen med uz do it!" Andy sobbed. "A 'ummen, shert fat guy wearzing big bwown robe, sqwecky voize!"

"Don't lie. Nobody made you do it."

"Ped uz!" Andy said. "Ped uz lotza munny tah addack yer house! Tek dah kidz, 'e seyz. Eatz dem, 'e seyz! Pay yah rell goodz!"

Despite her horror and disgust at what had been done to the spider, Miko was getting drawn into what was being revealed. "You're telling me that you were paid by a short, far man with a squeaky voice and in a brown robe to attack and murder the orphans?"

"YESH! Dat's all I knowz, I swerrz!"

"Sounds like someone we know," Mokou remarked. It was chilling how casual she sounded, as if she were merely discussing the town gossip instead of the arranged murder of a child, done by the mutilated torso currently held suspended in her hand.

Miko slowly nodded. "Seiya Kirisame. He's one of Nathaniel Skinner's henchmen."

"No shit."

Miko was already horrified by the spider's condition, but that was your standard blood and gore you had to come to expect with her job. Even Mokou's unbothered wasn't something she had never experienced before.

But someone from the Human Village arranging to have orphans murdered and eaten alive? That sickened her to her core.

Still weeping, Andy began thrashing in Mokou's grasp. "Kwil me!" he begged. "Yah prummised!"

"I sure did," Mokou said. "Roast you, let you regenerate, was that right?"

"YESH!"

Miko suddenly had a terrible premonition. "Mokou," she said, warning in her tone.

Mokou ignored her. "Hey, Andy. Who am I again?" she said.

"Huh?" The brutalized spider now sounded a little confused. "Er, da Fenix's Dau-"

His garbled voice caught off in mid-sentence as he realized what he was saying, what Mokou could do with Phoenix Fire and how little his youkai immortality meant in the face of it. Then he began thrashing again. "NO!" he cried. "NO, DUN'T-"

"Mokou, wait!" Miko signaled for her Ying-Yang Orbs to stop what was about to happen, but she might as well have been throwing dust for all the good it did.

The inside of Andy's weeping and slobbering body suddenly began to glow white, rays of light shooting from the sizzling cracks that covered every centimeter of him. He shrieked loudly, more light pouring from his voice.

And then the light was so bright that Miko could no longer look.

And then the light was gone.

"So, that's done," Mokou said as she wiped the ash from her hand. More ash fell into a small heap by her foot.

Miko looked down at the fine dust that once was a living, breathing youkai, and then up at the woman who had killed him. "You shouldn't have done that."

"Oh, yeah?" Mokou smiled a thin, humorless smile. "Why not? Because it wasn't the right thing to do?"

Miko slowly breathed out. She spent so much time around ageless, inhuman beings that wielded absurd amounts of power and who had done things both great and terrible that she no longer was impressed by any of it. In her opinion, all of them were entirely too impressed with themselves already for her to bother with adding to any of it.

But sometimes…no often, but sometimes…she was given a reminder that when you stripped away the arrogance, the general immaturity, and the overall carelessness that so many of those beings seemed to have, they were still something that she was incapable of truly understanding, something so removed from humanity, something so alien and so dangerous that every second spent in their presence was a dance on the edge of a blade.

Fujiwara no Mokou had once been Human. Fujiwara no Mokou still mostly thought and acted like a Human. Fujiwara no Mokou could easily pass for Human and had been doing just that up until now.

But Fujiwara no Mokou could also, if she felt inclined, eradicate every single Human man, woman, and child in Gensokyo, simply erase them from existence and annihilate their society. If she felt inclined.

And if she did indeed feel inclined, then there would be little Miko would be able to do to stop her.

She was going to have to be very, very careful.

"No, because it was stupid!"

Mokou tilted her head and quirked an eyebrow.

Creatures like Mokou had different codes when it came to morality. They were not beyond empathy or compassion, but they did not place the same value in a single life, or even several, that a mortal might. As such, trying to go at things from a moralistic point of view would be fruitless.

So instead, Miko was going to put her defensive right up front and try to prove that Mokou's actions were detrimental to her goals.

It was a dangerous game, but it was the only one Miko had a prayer of winning.

Miko pointed to the pile of ash. "That guy was the only bit of evidence we had that Skinner is behind your problems, and you just flash-fried him! How the hell are you going to prove what those creeps have been up to? Do you honestly expect the villagers to just take your word?"

"Convince? Proof?" Mokou's deadly smile never wavered. "Oh, Miko, no, no, no. There is no proof. There will be no convincing. We are well beyond that point."

Miko's heart was already beating fast, but now it was thundering away like a war drum. "Mokou…"

"You being here is a courtesy. I promised that I would give you a head's up when I decided to move, and now I have. And I kept him…" Mokou stamped her foot down into the ashes, scattering them. "…alive as long as I did so you would at least understand, even if I don't expect you to agree."

"Understand?" Miko swallowed painfully through her dry throat. "Understand what?"

"I am going to kill Nathaniel Skinner," Mokou said. Her voice was cold, far too cold for someone so closely associated with fire. "And Seiya Kirisame. And every other one of those bastards in a brown cloak. And I just might tie off that loose Sonozika end while I'm at it."

Oh, no, no, no.

"Mokou," Miko whispered. "Don't. This'll doom the orphanage. The villagers-"

"I need you to understand something, Miko," Mokou said in a low, dangerous tone. Her body had begun to glimmer with a faint scarlet aura. "When I killed your ancestor, I did not murder any children. I did not kill any of his servants, at least none intentionally. I killed him, his men, his wife, and his adult sons. But the children and the innocents I spared. Despite what that family had done to mine, I still showed mercy to the children, to those who merely worked there."

"What does-"

"I have never targeted children, never gone after an innocent. Now, have children died by my hand? Yes. Lots. Have I burned innocent flesh? Yes. Plenty. But never intentionally, and always to my horror. I am a monster, but even I have my limits." Mokou tilted her head, and the shapes dancing on the walls shifted their rhythm. "Skinner made the conscious choice to target children. He decided that they must be killed, came up with a plan, made the arrangements, and destroyed our defenses. To. Kill! CHILDREN!"

That last part came out as a roar, one so loud, so furious, so full of murderous rage and heart-rending grief that Miko was honestly taken back, and as it did, her aura suddenly blazed bright, illuminating the whole of the basement. And if that wasn't enough, the look on Mokou's face nearly dropped her on her ass.

For a brief moment, the perpetual mask of smug self-confidence, of sarcastic worldly-weariness and disdain cracked, and Miko saw not an ageless murderess hellbent on vengeance, but a woman in tremendous pain, a woman who had known nothing but hate and spite for so long only to be granted one last chance at humanity, only for another evil to slip in and destroy it, through the cruel extermination of an innocent life.

Mokou's maroon eyes, always so cocky and self-assured, now only showed Mokou for how truly broken she was. She was broken by anger, broken by grief, broken by hate, broken by guilt, and broken by a deep well of self-loathing. She blamed herself for what had happened to Eiko and the others; Miko could see that plain as day.

But most of all, Mokou was absolutely horrified. The woman who had seen it all and done it all, who was responsible for many of history's great tragedies and witnessed evil on a scale that even Miko couldn't possibly fathom and found it unimpressive, was horrified by this single act of cruelty.

And that truly terrified Miko, because there was nothing that Mokou could not do.

And then Mokou blinked, and the moment was gone, her aura faded down to a low shimmer, and Miko was once against staring into the eyes of the Phoenix's Daughter.

"Let me try," Miko said in a hoarse whisper. "Let me try to bring him down. Don't act now; not like this."

"You?" Mokou said scornfully. "Oh, you'll just go in and talk them down. Uh-huh, that'll work. Sure."

"Damn it, Mokou! I'm trying to keep more people from dying! If you go into there, fireballs blazing, people will die!"

"I don't care," Mokou said. "They deserve it."

"I'm not talking about them, I'm talking about the people next door! There are good people in the Human Village, people that had nothing to do with what Skinner did! Children, Mokou! Skinner killed one child! Will you murder several to take your vengeance? Is your revenge worth that much?"

Mokou glanced at the ash at her. Then she contemptuously stamped her foot onto it. "Well, how about that?" she said as she ground Andy's remains into the dirt with her heel. "I am capable of making people spontaneously combust! You know the funny thing about people immolating from the outside in? It's really easy to control, and nothing spreads!"

Damn it, Miko was already losing. Mokou had stacked the deck in her favor, prepared every argument ahead of time, all to-

To what? Why did Mokou show her this? Why hadn't she just left without a word and killed all those that she felt needed to die? Why tell Miko about this at all? She had to know that Miko would try to talk her out of it.

Unless…unless part of her was hoping that Miko would succeed.

"Look, just let me try," Miko persisted. "I'll bring Skinner tied up for you and look the other way after if that's what it'll take. Just let me try!"

"Try," Mokou repeated. "Try to do the diplomatic thing. To whom? Your distant cousin, Gendou Sonozika? You honestly think he will listen to anything you say?"

"They've already invited Satoko, haven't they? To talk? I'll go in her place, try to-"

"Besides, don't you already have something else to do?" Mokou growled. "Taking care of the curse? Because I'd really rather you focused on that, on saving six innocent children before it eats them whole or turns them into as much of a monster as Nathaniel Skinner than going off to take peace with those who hurt us."

And suddenly Miko had it, the solution she had been looking for. It wasn't a perfect solution, one that still went to places Miko didn't care for, but given the alternatives, it was…acceptable.

"Didn't we just learn that Skinner probably has something to do with the curse?" Miko pointed out. "We need all the information that we can get, and he might be able to give it to us! Kill him, and there's nothing!"

Mokou shrugged. "So I'll torture him too. No big."

"Uh-uh, no," Miko said flatly. "That'll get you nowhere. That spider was a mercenary. He'd give up his own sisters to save his hide. Skinner is something else entirely. He'll probably take getting tortured as a sign of his righteousness."

"So, what you're saying is…" Mokou spread her hands.

"Go get Skinner. Bring him here. Alive. Don't go after his followers, don't go after Sonozika, don't go after any of the villagers or anyone else. Just bring Skinner here, and I'll get the information out of him. I'll find out what I need to do to cure those kids."

Mokou smiled unpleasantly. "And then?"

Miko sighed. "We can cross that bridge when we come to it. Probably figure out a way to expose him and his followers to the rest of the village. I don't think they'll take well to finding out that their new religious leader is being controlled by an evil entity in the Youkai Forest and killing children because of it."

"Nifty. But that's not what I meant."

Of course it wasn't. "Worst comes to worst, then fine. I'll look the other way. But only for Skinner! No massacres, no assassinations. Got it?"

"Sure," Mokou said mildly. "I mean, I'm not sure how you could stop me if I went that way, but okay. Let's try it that way. For now."

And then flames swept up from the ground to curl around Mokou's body, entwining around her like a serpent before pulling her down into the earth itself. The light of her fire winked out, and Miko was left alone in the dark.

Her heart still pounding, Miko ignited the light of her Ying-Yang Orb and peered in closer. Where Mokou had been standing was now a circle of bubbling red.

The message was clear. Mokou could go anywhere she wished whenever she wished. She could even move through the ground itself. If Miko failed, then Mokou would take her revenge, and no one would be able to stop her.

Her body trembling, Miko lifted one shaking hand to her forehead. In that moment she couldn't decide which was the most dangerous, the fiery monster willing to murder a village to protect the kids, or the cold-hearted monster working to kill the kids to protect the village.

…

Nathaniel.

He stands at the bottom of a deep depression, the sides too steep to climb. Not that he would be able to even if they weren't. Heavy chains are bound to iron shackles around his wrists, around his ankles, and to a thick collar around his neck, binding him to the floor. Above is the night sky, where a full Moon sits among the stars.

Nathaniel.

As he stares up in the sky, he hears the sound of hissing, like the wind through dead grass, or ice being dropped into boiling oil. He looks to either side. At the top of the depression, a large, black mass is collecting all around him. It begins to pour in, to slide down the slopes of the depression, rushing toward him.

Sand. The sound is of black sand rushing down to bury him.

Nathaniel.

Still chained to the bottom, Nathaniel cries out, reaching to the sky with his shackled hands, begging for God to deliver him, to take notice of His servant's plight. The sand is swiftly burying him now, covering him up to his knees, and then his waist.

Nathaniel

Now the sand is up to his neck. Nathaniel again cries out to God, begging for salvation. Sure enough, he can see someone, a shadow over the Moon. Surely that had to be his God, coming to deliver him-

But no, the shadow is not of God. It is of a fearsome entity, one looking down upon him in contempt, born upon six massive wings. And despite the distance, he can see the tiny scarlet pinpoints of its eyes.

No! He cannot die like this, swallowed up by the dark as the Devil itself stares mockingly down at him! It wasn't right!

And then, just before the sand covers his face, the Moon itself becomes stained with red, becoming the Blood Moon over him.

Nathaniel! Wake up!

Nathaniel sat up abruptly, his heartbeat thundering away in his chest. Though he was no longer covered in sand, he was still panting hard. Why was it so hard to breathe?

He closed his eyes and concentrated on breathing. A dream. Nothing more than a dream. He was in his room, not back at the Black Circle. He was in his own bed, the blanket tossed aside and the sheet now wrapped tightly around his lower body and soaked with sweat, but in his bed nevertheless. He was home. He was safe.

But how could he be safe, when a piece of the Black Circle was with him at all times? How could be at peace while still being trapped in a world owned by demons?

Rasp-rasp-rasp.

Nathaniel opened his eyes. His sleep had been plagued with nightmares for years, most of them centering around the Black Circle and the surrounding forest of death.

But this one had been different. None of them had been that vivid before, nor that intense.

Still, a dream was all it had been. He was not being buried by that field of sand. He was in his home, such as it was, which was the safest place in this whole godforsaken excuse for a country.

And yet there was something strange about the room. Though it was the dead of night, and though he slept with every window shuttered shut, he could somehow see perfectly. Everything from his soaked bedclothes to the lines on the walls stood out in stark detail.

It wasn't as if there were now light in the room. It was still fully dark. And yet, he could see.

And he could hear.

Rasp-rasp-rasp.

What was that sound? It sounded like someone using a saw to cut down a tree.

Nathaniel again looked down, to where the soiled sheet was wrapped tight around his torso.

His right hand was bare.

Nathaniel had taken to wrapping it at all times, changing the bindings every morning when he rose and every night before he went to bed. He wasn't going to chance the entity that dwelt within him working its mischief while he slept.

But now the bindings were gone. Well, not gone; he could see there shredded and shriveled remains lying on the bed. It was like they had been burned away.

What was more, something as black as ink was spilling out of the sheet, over the side of the bed, and onto the floor.

I'm melting! he thought in a panic, but a moment later he realize that that wasn't the case. The black wasn't liquid, nor was it solid.

It was his shadow.

But how? There was no light source to cast it. And yet, though he was sitting in complete darkness, he could still see his shadow extending from his body over onto the floor.

Nathaniel glanced to the opposite wall. No, the window was still shut. He looked back to his shadow. It was still there.

Rasp-rasp-rasp.

Moving with trepidation, Nathaniel slowly moved to the side of the bed and peered over. His shadow not only was pouring from the bed onto the floor, but it was stretching across the room and out the door, into the hall.

The door that was supposed to be closed, but was now open.

Feeling like he was in a trance, Nathaniel untangled himself from his bedclothes and rose to his feet. Still naked, he followed his shadow, stepping out of his bedroom and into the dark house beyond.

From the doorway his shadow made a sharp turn to extend all the way down the hall into the main room.

This is still a dream, he told himself as he followed his own shadow through the house. There was certainly a dreamlike quality to how he felt. It was strange, almost as if he were partially disconnected from his body, observing himself from afar.

And yet nothing was hazy. He could see everything perfectly and feel the world around him, from the cold of the night air against his bare skin to the wooden panels beneath his feet.

He stepped into the main room. It was empty. He looked over the sparse furniture and décor, searching for any sign of what was wrong.

There was nothing. He was alone.

And yet he still felt something, some malignant presence. He was not alone in the house; of that he was certain.

And then Nathaniel looked back to his shadow. It continued to stretch across the room, leading to another open door that was supposed to be closed.

The door led to the chapel of the First Gensokyo Baptist Fellowship, where he instructed his congregation.

And inside was where the sound of sawing was coming from.

Rasp-rasp-rasp.

Despite the eerie strangeness of it all, Nathaniel now felt more at ease. The chapel was a house of God, and even in this strange country of demons, God's presence shined forth. His protection would be upon Nathaniel within the chapel's walls.

Encouraged by this, Nathaniel walked across the room and entered the chapel.

The air inside was very cold.

And the rasping was now very loud.

Nathaniel walked to the pathway between the pews and turned.

And he felt his heart stop in his chest.

Someone was standing upon the small stage, just behind the pulpit that Nathaniel himself stood behind. Someone tall, so tall that they loomed high, almost to the ceiling, someone with their head down and their hands close to their throat.

He tried to talk, tried to yell, tried to demand an explanation of the intruder, but his tongue suddenly felt thick and twisted up in his mouth, so the words wouldn't come out. In fact, he couldn't seem to do much more than stand and stare.

It was then that Nathaniel saw that the person wasn't tall at all. Rather, they were floating in the air, their feet dangling high above the ground.

Well, people of Gensokyo did use demonic power to fly. But why-

Then Nathaniel recognized the person, even with her head bowed. It was Mai, the elderly woman who cleaned his house. But why was she even there?

Then Nathaniel finally took notice of the rest of his shadow.

It loomed high against the wall behind the stage, covering the wooden crucifixion. But the shape on the wall wasn't of Nathaniel Skinner, master of the house and minister of First Gensokyo Baptist Fellowship. No, this person was far bigger than he, with arms that hung unnaturally low, ending in great, curving talons, with straight hair that spilled down around its shoulders like a cape, and who had six great wings, extending from its back in all directions. It was the same shape that had blotted the Moon in his dream.

The Devil. The Devil himself had come.

Nathaniel had always known that this day would come, that the Devil would appear in this country of demons.

And it was then that Nathaniel saw what Mai was holding to her neck.

It was a long piece of razor wire. She was rubbing it back and forth against her own throat, staining the front of her tunic with her own blood. A good chunk of her neck had already been sawed away.

There was no chance that she was still alive, and yet she kept moving, kept diligently cutting away in quick, jerky movements.

It was then that Nathaniel found his tongue. "No!" He thrust a hand toward the apparition on the stage. "Spawn of Hell, I rebuke you! In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy-"

Mai raised her head to peer directly into Nathaniel's eyes.

"Nathaniel," she said. "You are moving too slowly. Move faster. Act."

The voice was not Mai's. The voice was the one he had been hearing in the back of his mind for years, urging him to give in, to surrender his mind, body, and soul. The voice was the one he had been fighting every day ever since…

…ever since the Black Circle.

And with that Mai started sawing at her neck with redoubled speed, cutting and cutting and cutting-

Mai's head fell fully off her shoulders. It bounced once off the top of the pulpit, landing in the aisleway, and rolled down between the pews, only coming to a stop at Nathaniel's feet.

Nathaniel gaped down at Mai's dead face, at her lifeless eyes as they stared up into him.

Still, Nathaniel did not run, nor did he even scream. He felt strangle transfixed by the face looking up at him from his feet, a face he had seen every day and yet never truly took notice of. He slowly knelt down and reached out to brush his fingers against Mai's cheek.

The flesh turned black under his touch.

Suddenly the great shadow on the wall retreated and vanished. A moment later Nathaniel's sight faded, his strange ability to see in the dark snuffed out, leaving him alone in the black.

Nathaniel started shivering, though not from the cold. How had this happened? The Dark Voice had always been carefully controlled, carefully kept at bay, the hand that it had infected bound tight at all times. How was it now acting upon the physical world?

It was now stronger. It was acting, wielding its power, striking at those around him. But how? Nathaniel had always been strong, had always stayed vigilant. How was it able to-

Wait.

Something had happened. Something had to have happened.

The cursed orphanage. Yes, that had to be it. They had done something, had stirred something up. Them, or maybe that woman that protected them, the one that seemingly did not age.

They had found the Black Circle. They had woken it up.

Yes, that had to be it. It was like he had tried to warn everyone: dwell with evil at your doorstep, and it will soon fill your heart. No doubt the entity had already infected every single Devil's-Spawn in that place. And unlike himself, who had the strength of spirit and the help from God to resist its influence, they would quickly succumb to its whispers.

No wonder it was now so strong. It probably had a few dozen hosts to feed upon.

Nathaniel couldn't afford to dally any longer. He could no longer rely upon agent. He was moving too slowly. He had to quicken the cleansing. He had to act. For the sake of the pitiable souls of the Human Village, he had to act.

Kneeling down, he reached down with his uncorrupted hand to close Mai's eyes. She would be the last victim of this curse. And once the others saw what the Black Voice had done, the few hesitant that remained would be convinced.

They would burn. Like Sodom and Gomorrah, like Assyria, like Jericho, like Babylon, the children of the Devil would burn. And then finally, the Dark Voice would be silenced, and Nathaniel Skinner would no longer have to be afraid.

…

Okay, so it's evident that my current method of circulating through four different stories while working on various side-projects isn't working. So, here's the plan: once the new year rolls over, I'm going to make a concentrated effort to knock out all of my smaller projects until only my two big stories remain. And since this story is the closest to being dead, it will be getting focus first.

Still, we are approaching endgame, so that shouldn't take too long. Hopefully.

Until next time, everyone.