Thread 49513413

Thread #36 of the HSE
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This thread is for the spinoff of the spinoff of a fan work.
>“Hana Hakurei is the daughter of Reimu Hakurei and her husband, Anon. As the future protector of Gensokyo, Hana was never going to have a normal life, but it was worse than it should have been.”
—
Useful links:
OG work: https://archiveofourown.org/works/43718466/chapters/109935363
Hana's story: https://archiveofourown.org/works/52050766/chapters/131634781
1st chapter of the HSE: https://archiveofourown.org/works/51816529
HSE collection: https://archiveofourown.org/collections/The_Hakurei_Shrine_Experience
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Winter Solstice Ending!
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previous thread: >>49100719

[Chapter Count]
(1795 entries)(+72 chapters last thread)

[for phoneanons that can't access the dead threads, here's the last thread. Link to all others in the 'all entries']:
https://warosu.org/jp/thread/49100719 | 35.5th thread

[pastebin for the finale -- for writers, full of spoilers]
https://pastebin.com/zqS1Krp7

RESUME!
>Ibaradouji awakens with the destruction of the HSE and Koutei's death at Hana's hands. With complete control of the body and recovered power lost to time due to the influence of Ibaradouji's cult created by Yukari, she leaves Hana and Anon behind and goes on a rampage to feed herself, wreaking genocide upon Makai down to the last one present in Gensokyo, Alice. After Anon and Hana's reunion, Douji returns and has a quick fight with Remilia, revealing the nature of her power to be the manipulation of everything she knows, the opposite of Yuugi's power. Meanwhile, Hana talks to Suika and Sanae, who tend to Okina, who's suffering the consequences of Aya's prank, and decides to take her mother's burden and fight Yukari and Douji. Anon opposes that fiercely but is unable to stop Hana when one of Yukari's Gaps appears in the vicinity, the result of Yukari and Douji squabbling after the former stops Remilia and Douji's fight. Father and daughter are now stranded in the underground and caught between a bloody battle. Hana doesn't falter and does her best to protect Anon against the cult of Douji and the collateral damage, but she's quickly approaching her limits and the Hakurei God, using Dolly's body, communicates to Anon that he can do something to prevent Hana from dying. Heavy-hearted, Anon sacrifices Dolly to kickstart a ritual of healing, which heals Hana's wounds and restores her stamina. Now, in tip-top shape, Hana deals quickly with the oni and joins Douji and Yukari in battle, proving herself necessary to bring down Yukari with her ability to strike from the past. Outmatched, Yukari does her best to survive the two-fronted assault, though not without tricks: the boat she used to flood the sword lake was a sunken nuclear carrier from an undisclosed outside world war that happened between 2020 and 2043, and it houses 26 megatons of bomb(s). The sword is outside the confines of the lake.
>While that happens, Yuuka, Mima and Sakuya fought Seiga, with the results of the battle yet to be seen. Sakuya has survived and joined Remilia, both escaping Douji and Yukari when news of Flandre's survival came to them.
>Reimu is with Chen and Okina, the latter of whom is recuperating after the HSE's explosion and the former of whom is said to have nearly died in the magical toxic cloud. Reimu has only about 20 minutes of fuel remaining before her boost ends. The jaku duo is descending Youkai mountain with Byakuren, Yuugi and Satori, and Suika and Sanae are supposedly separated from them but heading to the same location. Underneath the tree, Patchouli and Meiling start the ritual of Sekai's soul, one of the biggest hurdles solved by Sekai being half Yukari and seeing into the future. Toutetsu appears to fuck that up.
>Kasen and Sekai huddle inside the former's soul, her body taken by Douji and seemingly beneath the sword in the lake. Sekai says she's taking shelter there while the SDM crew revive her.

Don't forget the obligatory!

It was like floating through liquid glass. My hair fluttered up, yet an invisible hand pulled me ever downwards, eyes focused on the thin veil of a surface as it shimmered. Everything before this moment felt like a blur colored gold, red, and white; now, only the cold of the water and silence shared with every other shape that drowned with me. A massive vessel could’ve been mistaken for a whale, piercing the water like a knife and carving a way down to an unseen bottom, and pieces of a satellite followed true together with many a rock and other sediment. Water flooded my lungs, made it impossible to breathe, though I wasn’t keen on breathing or focusing on anything but the pale light and—joining the wobbly tentacles that made my hair—my hands…

… My charred hands, mummified in a ghoulish cast of bubbling porcelain and marked by long, charcoal-like peelings. A single gold thread remains.

Still hot, still impossibly hot.

Are my spiders safe? Is Chen okay? Hana will be okay; she fights so well—she fights like her mother.

Water ballooned my windpipe, bloated the back of my eyes, and Alice’s kind arms wrapped around me pulled me further and further down to the dark. “… Nothing else remains of you.” I said without words. “She was the last of your dolls, and now she’s…”

She nods absentmindedly.

A small shadow paints the light, and if I could, I’d frown. “She lives forever,” her voice was as beautiful as the kiss we shared; the touch of her hand upon the boiling layer of porcelain was the coldest sensation I’ve ever felt. The name Death feels the most appropriate. “And she does it for you, Anon. The last doll I’ve ever made…” The shadow grows, gets closer, and Alice’s hands had moved to press against the small of my back.

“… Am I that worthy? Worthy all of this?” Ice formed on the walls of my arteries, heartbeat a dying laugh. It did not stop burning. “I don’t think I am—I don’t… want to be.” Her death replays before my eyes like a broken record, ten and twenty times, and a hypoxia-stricken brain tries its best to focus. Brutality without an A or a Z, for the sake of it, and dismissed just as quickly, brought by unmatched power. Unfair, senseless and… “I am…”

“Afraid?” Her voice brushes my ear. It’s angelic.

“… Next will be my Hana, then Chen, then… someone else. They’re all caught up in this hell because of me,” memories flood as does the water: a tiny baby, cradled in my arms. She would revive my marriage. Years later, on the edge of a bed, knitting together, scratching her ears occasionally.

The shadow is immense; it fills my vision, and it's daughter-shaped.

“… Yes, Anon Hakurei.” Shivers circulated every nerve of this sinking body; a bated breath wholly metaphorical, for those gentle hands of an expert craftswoman had pushed me upwards and lungs worked again, water spouting from my mouth as hands reached with fervor for my throat, clenching it to stop the invasion of cold sludge, darkness surrounding me like a plague, reflexes working overtime to keep me alive for just a second longer. What had happened?! Why had I just— “Yes, you are.” Her words echo final, and Alice Margatroid—or whatever had spoken those words to me—disappeared in the darkness.

I tried looking for her, though one arm had wrapped itself around me, and before I could even blink the underwater world had stretched like bubblegum, the soft sways of red and white ribbons contrasting an unfurled world of every tone of blue that exists. The next second I had these trembling, burnt hands of mine pressed against the rock and there was a ringing in my ears—

—puking. Uncontrollably getting rid of the rancid water from my body, gasping for fresh air, no matter how sulfuric it tasted on my tongue. “FATHER!” Not as forcefully as underwater, her hand reached and patted me on the back, hearing slowly returning as the excess water drained from within my eardrums, and… And rumbles I know too well filled them, spine straightening and water-damaged eyes looking out for the source: a thunderstorm had brewed above the lake and not by the hand of magic or lights, only two of Gensokyo’s most brutal fighters meeting above a floating blade of brimstone, Gaps sprouting to no avail as Ibaradouji ripped through them with five jagged nails or thunderbolts with the same girth as the tree logs I used to haul over on those few, peaceful weeks away from the shrine. Below, the water responded in kind, waves rising and breaking depending on which side employed more force. Inside the shrine, I saw a controlled war of gods…

… Now, I see two beasts vying for victory.

Where gods stand proud and untouchable, beasts have limits.

The small glimpses I got of Yukari Yakumo amidst showers of bloodshot eyes crawling on unstable Gaps, decommissioned trains and cars and metal signs flying at such speeds they’d bite into the earth with the same zeal of a gravekeeper showed a woman at her very worst, soaked in her blood and struggling with the pressure of a battle of gods.

A silence of a kind impossible to tell had risen between me and Hana as we watched Yukari get tossed around in brutal fashion, her blood shimmering in the dim light of the Underground and through the barrier of ofudas Hana erected to shelter us from debris and rushing water. My breathing was shallow, and my ribcage ached; the scorching cold eruption of molten porcelain cast over my arms was numb in the ways Reimu had explained during those awful winters as ‘very not good,’ and… And a thousand other things…

Nothing took priority over the relief that washed over me now.

She’s going to die, that Yukari Yakumo.

Pale, trembling arm reaches within the folds of the jinbe, the thing now akin to the tenderness of a rock. The sliver of night taken form has resisted every form of tribulation, pristine as a shooting star. “… Did you know A-Aya has my children, Hana?” I talk, throat grinding through soreness and a sheen of blood that’d crystallized there. “F-Four children. Marisa is having three and…” And Yukari one. I don’t say that. Sword-like nails cut Gaps; the Yakumo hunted like a wounded fox by a bloodhound. “How are we going to balance all… that? I barely managed one; now there are so many that need us…”

Hana moistens her lips. “I knew about Aya and sensei.” If she wants to say more, I couldn’t tell. I used to do so easily. Now her tone and posture are all but unreadable.

“Of course…” The number of trains and signs had dwindled. No matter what Yukari tried, nothing seemed to work against the oni, and a look at Hana’s Gohei—inscriptions in a familiar blue cover all of its length—and the blood that’s soaked into it tells me the base of Yukari’s doom. Even the strongest of Youkai is still a Youkai. “… Hana, I—”

Her eyes are on mine, and my words choke. A baby I cradled in my arms once, with eyes bright and gentle and wide… Hana’s eyes are sunken and devoid of naïveté, tough as hardtack. She holds fast to her Gohei with comfort, and the way she carries herself is the same as Reimu’s, always prepared to run into danger, and… And she’s dressed in Hakurei colors, not a trace of the gentle Moriyan colors she’d taken after, only an ocean of red with a single droplet of dark-green. If she had jet-black hair, I doubt I’d be able to tell them apart.

My little baby girl, gone…

… Not forged in the sins that Yukari showered upon our family, no matter how much the Yakumo had tried.

Hana survived it all, and she’s got her Mother’s eyes.

“I am proud of you, Hana.”

A moment of stillness, the flicker of a light in the red.

My heart skips a heartbeat as Hana moves instantly to strengthen the barrier defending us, the world trembling as a tsunami wave shaves centimeters off the shaky lake, tons of gallons of water scraping the barrier like chisels. Something else, however, rung dread and anticipation, the heart making up for that skipped beat tenfold. That wave felt different…

Beyond the rush of the water past and behind us, silence took over. No big bursts of power or wailing walls of rusted steel and the eerie hiss of Danmaku, only the drizzle of a fading battle.

Like that murky water, my mind was a haze of ideas, of possibilities. Did Yukari kill Douji? Have they come to a stalemate, or has Yukari used the Gap and fled? Would Hana have to interfere… and…

… Oh.

From far away, Yukari had looked imposing and strong, fighting the oni toe-to-toe. Yukari Yakumo is a devil, and three years inside that gilded cage had built her to be a monster beyond my wildest thoughts, strong and unstoppable in her cruelty. Yukari had washed on the shore of the lake, her eyes tear-stricken and bulging as she looked up at me and Hana, her face twisted in both deep and shallow wounds that turned purple and swelled. Her body trembles from despair—I know that despair; I have felt it on every piece of my skin and my nails scraping the floorboards—, and her hand holds her belly like a lifeline, arms soaked in runny blood, juddering as she tries to lift herself from the stone. Her favorite purple dress is torn and clinging to her feebly. She’s barefoot. Not a hint of the feared Gap Sage remains. “… A-Anon…” Whatever cadence I remember of her is forever tainted by how limp she sounds.

A beheaded queen.

“What a deplorable sight,” Hana snaps together with the voice, brandishing her Gohei in front of me and standing as if a drawn bowstring. Douji pays her no heed, stopping beside Yukari and lifting her foot—! A piercing scream shakes my whole body as I watch a red ballet flat force her back to the gravel, her always pristine blonde hair cascading into the mud. “You two and Kasen should feel ashamed of yourselves—you let this sad, small thing here ruin your lives, and it won’t even be you finishing her,” the oni shakes her head, horns tall, eyes glazing over me before locking with Hana’s. “You did cripple her well, Bride, so I’ll keep my word: we’ll share!” The sounds of her bones cracking are small; her blood pools, her trembling never subsides…

Douji disappears and materializes next to that cursed sword.

Yukari lifts her head. Her eyes burn with determination.

Her hand never left her belly.

“… I…” That same broken tone is there. I doubt it’ll ever leave. Hana tenses and watches like a hawk for any movement, any sign of a Gap. Old blood drips from her Gohei. “… I-I’ll kill them, A-Anon… Every single o-one… I-I need you to be s-safe,” a broken tooth slips out from between her lips and falls into the mud. She’s crying hard; the light in her eyes is pure fire. “C-Come to me… You’ll be safe; it’ll be me, you… S-Sekai.” The backdrop is of Douji approaching without a care in the world, taking her sweet time.

Prolonging someone’s suffering as much as she could.

“You won’t lay a finger on him again,” the sheer hatred those words carry snatches my eyes in Hana’s direction, fright echoing within me. Her expressions were few and small, yet exceptionally rooted in violence. “You’ll die. You’ll die today.” Hana does not cry; she doesn’t flex her voice with remorse or doubt.

I look back at Yukari.

The devil’s eyes are full of light and tears; her hand leans towards me, slack and frail. A thin breeze could knock her down. She pleads softly as the oni wielding a dark blade closes in, slit-pink eyes studying the hamon laid upon crimson metal and swimming skulls…

For a single moment, I am brought to the day we met our time-traveling daughter—Yukari’s hand towards me trembles and trembles; that one over her belly is steady—, and I see once more the weak woman who’d welcome my hatred with open arms, fragile and pathetic and accepting that because she knew she’d get nothing else from me.

That day, I extended my hand out to her anyway.

“… Not y-you too… I have no one else…” Weak, low, almost inaudible.

Alone.

Douji stops by Yukari, a thing cast onto the mud, the red blade slung over her shoulder. “You better have a solid plan on what to do next, Bride… For now,” a flourish, and the sword hangs above Yukari. “Savor the moment.”

Yukari’s eyes widened, a silent plea.

Dead hands press against the small of my back.

Tears roll down my cheeks.

I turn my eyes away.

Then, a horrific cry boomed, like a volcanic eruption, and the world fell silent. My eyes, however, were called back like the crack of a whip, as were Hana’s and… Yukari’s. Together, we three watched in utter horror as the sword fell to the mud as if mere rusted iron and Ibarakidouji screamed her lungs out, five jagged nails sinking deep into her face as she staggered without rhyme or reason. Her hand covered only one eye, the only one visible shining pink, the pupil not slit anymore. Underlying the screaming and the feverish second of shock, only one word echoed: “K-Kasen-nee…?”

What followed was a red, sharp slice, Hana springing into action a moment too late.

Kasen’s only remaining arm flew and spun through the air, blood splattering against my face and clothes. A monstrous roar thundered throughout the Underground, bluish light melting the bottom of the pond in rapid succession.

I did not see a Gap popping beneath me.

Soulmetal clang against sacred wood, and through eyes shadowed in the dark red of a torn scalp, Yukari stared back at Hana with a flavor of hatred that pinned me where I was… As did it to Hana, the Gohei flung upwards with a violent motion—

—the knocking of doors; the loud scream of Douji.

As the sword fell toward Hana, it collided with another Gohei.

Without hesitation, Hana joined her Mother as a slew of Backdoors opened all over Yukari—

—only to disappear as if ashes, the red blade meeting Hana’s Gohei before Reimu’s, the sacred wood floated through the metal—

Yukari caught Reimu’s Gohei with an empty hand.

If Reimu had not let go of it, she’d be headless now, one arm wrapped around our Hana, and before I even understood what was happening, her teeth had caught the back of my jinbe and hopped away. Within the second, a hundred meters rested between us, Reimu releasing me. “NO! K-KASEN-NEE! WE NEED TO HELP HER!” The oni had slipped off the pond's edge and crept towards the blazing bottom. W-What is happening? What is that light? It’s strong enough to illuminate the whole of the lake’s surface like a sun…

“Be glad we are here, you fool,” this voice… I have never heard it. The sound of backdoors was much more understandable, and I watched as a small child walked out of one, Yuugi following. The big oni waved gently at me, though her good humor vanished the second she set eyes on Yukari. “A moment too late, and everyone but you and that disgrace over there would’ve gone up in flames—”

“—MISTER ANON!!” Her arms around me are immediate and strong. I reciprocate. I always would. Others flocked around us, but my focus was on the bundle of joy in my arms.

Kasen descends into the void.

Reimu and Hana stand side by side.

I hold Chen in my arms.

On the other side, Yukari watched, one hand on her belly, the other gripping a twisted sword. The fire in her eyes was all but gone.

>>49514066
>>49514062
>>49514058
let's kickstart the thread~!
for Takaneanon: didn't outright specify it, but Okina in the Reimu chapter was pinpointing everyone's position so she could get everyone in together at the same time. Next chapters should be Reimu, and I'll talk about that, so that's it. The idea here is: Satori read a weakened Yukari's mind, so she knows Yukari plans to literally blow up the whole of Youkai Mountain and take down Douji and Hana together, but the timing begged immediate action, and I picture the duo reversing the nuclear explosion, though that means the same burst of energy that every transforming atom releases rebounds into more energy—supposedly—, meaning if they ever stop constantly reversing that shitload of energy, the bomb goes out and everyone not named Yukari, Anon, Kasen, Reimu and Yuugi dies. I thought that it'd be best if the duo got to talk with Yukari at her lowest with their usual safety nets stripped down; it doesn't get more genuine than that. No pressure~
I ask that you mind the in-universe time, though: Reimu is about 18 minutes away from submitting her name to the scoreboard. She'll hover back to assess Anon and wonder how the fuck Yukari bypassed her floating, but not for long
whatever you need or wanna discuss, tag me. Good writing~!

Solstice update #19
I'll remove it next update takanon, I'm not leaving that there for the whole month.
11-18: https://files.catbox.moe/t8axuf.mp4

>>49514072
Gotcha!
So, just so it's clear, I'm up next then and It's gonna be the duo reversing 36 megaton nukes exploding while Yukari wails on them and Reimu is recuperating for a last-ditch attack? Presumably Yuugi will also be supporting?
>>49516746
>#Pride
I'm going to get you.

>>49516754
26 megatons, not as bad! I had Anon focusing on Chen as to give you free autonomy over the remaining cast, so if you want only Yuugi is okay, Okina only has a backdoor on Satori so it'd be expected she, in her weakened state, can only find those that have it; if not, you can have Sanae and Suika enter too, I have plans for them later but nothing I can't tweak around. Yuugi as presented would most likely go recover Kasen. That's the essence of it. Good luck~!

>Ao3 archive got to 100 kudos
Nice.

>>49516754
So no goro chapters for pride month? Sadge at least Kazakhstan got its share.

>>49514058
>>49514062
>>49514066
You can't solve this with a thousand years of sealing, just saying...

>>49532445
we'll know the validity of the method in a thousand years~!

章をお願いします？

>>49539445
today. Nightreign consumed my life this past week, then when I thought myself liberated, Lies of P dlc drops out of nowhere...

>>49516754
I'm baking. gotta get back in the swing of things.

>>49544926
Yukari should swing that sword at herself, it'd be a very Yukari action.

>>49544967
that's just rude!
>>49544926
and I'm waiting for it, take it easy and good writing~

Searing pain cut through the whole of my back and I arched it as a soundless scream left my mouth. No support could act as a crutch to muster strength against the tears rushing down my cheeks, and a familiar weight that had stood there for a thousand years had vanished. Despair mixed with the pain of a Backdoor attempting its best to split to no result, and one word materialized amidst this inferno of unseen flames: “Anon…!” I called him the same way one would call a guiding light, and once he'd served as protector of both me and our four children, a hand of golden light in a dream so tender it felt wrong after the wind underneath the wings of life turned into acrid smoke that withered and killed everything, now he could not come.

It did not mean I was alone, for two strong hands reached me anyway, a pair too strong and not an ounce gentle, and though pain rippled through me unforgiving, I eyed her, and Momiji had pressed teeth and this massive bandage wrapped around the top of her head, bloody and messy despite my smudged vision. It could have made me laugh if not for how my toes would curl and my shattered spine fought charred ends, as if continuing to arch forward would stop the intense burning of the sensitive bone. “Hey, hey, calm down, Aya!” She sniffles. “The phantom pain seems bad…” One of her troglodyte hands leaves my shoulder, talking to someone else beyond my sight and concern, before that hand returns holding a… Oh… “I-It was quite hard getting them out. Youkai Mountain is crumbling under these big earthquakes—” Stressing her words, everything around us shakes and low, tuned-out groans grow to screams and yelps the whole five seconds of terrible movement, my stomach churning at how the modern-looking ceiling lights—I know these lights. Beneath them, Kanako essentially tried to scam me—moved and danced.

Momiji not once faltered in her hold of the incubator.

Soon the tremors stop, and her red eyes are as determined as the naked tree to survive autumn. “—But I would never fail one of ours… Four of ours, anyway.” She titters, and I take a moment to notice how that gnawing pain had faded away, back resting on the bed and ignoring the uncomfortable casts wrapped around what remains of my wings.

“Momiji…” The 'thank you' is there, somewhere, though it finds no leave at the moment. To think I have lost my pride as a Karasu Tengu, my tidal wings, maybe to never be the fastest again… It hurts. Not physical hurt, which battered me out of sleep—what is happening to Okina…?—, but a hurt that was there from the moment I had Yukari bearing down onto me and robbing me of my life's work, soiling it with her propaganda.

Another loss for Aya Shameimaru.

“Things could be worse, surely. We could have earthquakes and explosions.” She pounds her words with a sternness that makes me wince, eyes turning to— “You are completely worthless in this state, in the eyes of Lord Tenma, and you have committed many crimes against our home.” She shakes her head, and the shame grows like a maddening beast. “You're a disgrace to your race, Aya.” —she hands me the incubator, and I can't help feeling offended when she makes sure that I hold my children firmly. “Make sure they are not also ashamed of you.” Ha! As if Takezo, Waku, Midori or Tomoe would ever feel ashamed of their awesome mother.

A crucial fighter in the battle of all battles, and who had to sacrifice her wings for the love of her life!

She's the fastest Tengu reporter of all, owner of the Bunbunmaru, and gave it her all during these terrible, terrible past few months, and even when things were at their bleakest, she never gave up, no matter how many defeats she'd stack up…

“I'm getting mixed signals, Momiji…” I stare at the incubator, how the light shimmers off the hard shell nestled on smooth hags and comforters. My lower lip trembles, and, despite the passing gaze of many other people who come and go around me—busy white and green mikos and humans and Tengu. A lot of hurt, and many more dead—, these tears that flee me are not from pain. Rather, they're from unbridled joy. The few minutes within that Fake Shrine against Yukari were a nightmare, and before them came actions impossibly stupid in execution.

No more wings to be the best; a fleeting chance at love—a creeping thought overlays my mind and pumps my blood with cold like nothing else: is Anon even alive…?—; a tainted newspaper, something that'd started before Yukari, even. “… B-But mama still has you, right?” I whisper to these pristine white eggs.

They give no answer, though it's unneeded. Like that gentle ward he'd cast upon restless dreams, I hope my kids feel the same safety I felt that day.

Well, at least the last installment of the Bunbunmaru will be its most legendary~!

Momiji's expression is unknown to me, and not even the loud clang of metal and a body upon the ground, followed then by the very familiar sound of a Gap mercilessly tearing the world apart, could take my eyes off my children.

>>49549865
just a short and sweet (I hope) chapter today, to balance out the hell of previous ones. Got caught in that "one more run" cycle on Nightreign and I don't think I'll ever recover... Oh well, at least the game is fun
this chapter is also a little further in the timeline!
more soon~!

>>49521907
20k hits too. Next entry should be more chapters packed together!

>>49549865
This is what winning the Anonbowl looks like, let's go birdie!

>>49544926
Hag chapters onegai? I miss her...

>>49568374
tmw I swear. I had a good idea, but then realized it was awful halfway through.

>>49569439
Be mindful with her, she's kind and misunderstood...

>>49569439
Okay, I'm a liar, I got too into another job and it's not done.
Pray for tomorrow.

>>49574801
take it easy man, the next chapters are a pivotal piece of the solstice and require temperance when writing, no rush is needed. I'll restart posting now that I'm getting out of my 2 weeks addiction, so you'll have the time. Good luck, brother~

Reinforcements.

A single word that was either the greatest of succors or the most grim of omens. To Anon, Hana, and Reimu it was a welcome sight, to the battered Yukari, it caused her stomach to churn and the grip on the blade to tighten. Yuugi had fought her almost to a standstill not long ago, even with an Oni-Slayer in her grasp it would not be an easy brawl, that was until she saw the rest of the party, and the perspectives of both sides flipped.

Hana immediately flicked her Gohei in the direction of those last to leave the backdoor, ready to strike. "Down you fool!" Satori shouted with a piercing gaze. So high had Hana's reactions and focused been raised that Satori, hearing her lethal thoughts, was just barely able to utter a warning.

The shrine maiden didn't strike, but she also didn't lower her weapon from the Amanojaku and her Partner, even though both carried a small babe in their arms.

"Not a bad look you have in your eye girly. Have you learned some honesty?" Seija asked her.

"Your with HER aren't you? Is that why you came here?" Hana replied, ignoring the question.

But before the Jaku could answer, Yuugi flew off and Hana turned, thinking she had made for Yukari, but was surprised to see her descending, down into the blackness, down to grab Kasen she realized. Hana turned back and saw the two were now gone and slowly floating towards Yukari. She made to point her Gohei at them again, only to have a small hand pull upon her arm.

"Relax! Take a moment now, you'll need to converse your strength." Satori says, gritting her teeth slightly. "A cornered animal is the most dangerous."

"They...did they have children?" Anon asked, finding himself even more terribly confused at the evolving situation.

Above the lake the two floated towards Yukari, they had never seen her so ignoble as they did then, with the Sage caked in blood, her clothing torn, and shoes missing. Yet, it also was a relief to Seija and Goro both. The had known her inner turmoil and how much her posturing had hid and now there was no longer a dissonance between her anguish and appearance.

"Excellent." Yukari breathed. "You've dealt with those other pests and now return to me hmm? Fortunate, for me and for you. Had the both of you come a minute or so later I'd have behead you two of you for incompetence. Now that you're here though, you can prove your loyalty: the Shrine Maiden has minutes, her daughter is exhausted but troublesome, distract her and I'll-" she stopped, her eyes narrowed and grew wide as she looked at the babes they held.

"What is this?" She asked, eyes shot pointedly at Goro.

"They're our children. Oiwa and Tsukuyomi." Seija answered, pointing to the raven-haired, sapphire-eyed child in her arms and the blood-orange eyed blonde child in Goro's. "They were born of the HSE. They're your Godchildren."

Yukari's eyes went wide and a thousand scenarios ran through her head. A lie, an illusion, time travel, parents leaving their twins at the HSE's doorstep as if it were a church, but even through her fatigue and insanity, she happened upon the truth: the construction of the HSE was flawed, their energies had spilled into it and coalesced into children.

Goro smiled at her, seeing the realization in her face, and tried to approach her, almost reaching out with his child to her, but Yuakri flinched, pulling herself back.

"This is...a test." Yukari uttered. "Yes, of course, a trial. To think that someone in this land would give me an ounce of consideration when I have known nothing but betrayal. Just like the old epics, one last temptation before the reward is-"

"We made a promise!" Seija yelled, holding her Oiwa close to her breast. "We swore not to leave you alone. You gave us these two, whether you meant to or not, so I'm going to make sure that you at least see that much, before you try to throw everything away."

"You think I'm tossing everything aside? You stupid Jaku, I am taking all that I'm owed! My Anon! My child!!" She said, a hand on her belly. "And all of Gensokyo, mine, as it always should have been! For all that I've suffered and endured! You believe I'll waver because some nobody Youkai and her peasant Human partner show me two...two..." She strained, face contorting as she saw innocent sapphire and blood-orange eyes stare back at her.

"Homunculi?" Seija asked, as she brushed Oiwas short black hair. "A Youkai who beds a human shouldn't say such a thing, not after all that you went through to have yours."

At this Yukari felt something within her snap. "I won't be lead astray, not after coming this far!" She screamed mustering her magic once more.

Breaking it down into smaller parts for sanities sake and to get back into the groove.

Spiders crawl up my throat and I feel each pneumatic leg, limbs growing numb and squinting eyes peering past the mist of colors that surround me, a pumping heart clenching as lungs beg for air. Something sickening etched itself to my stomach and made me want to throw up, feeling on my skin like the intense sting of a thousand bees, but I knew the moment I opened my mouth, I’d only be drinking more of this terrible vapor. Twin tails had arched and the cast Yamame-san gently fashioned on my head felt as if melting, and both my hands pressed against my mouth, making sure it stayed closed, tears streaking down my cheeks as I tried to find again Mr. Anon’s scent or any shape of a living person or safe place, the murk making it nigh impossible; no matter how high I tried to ascend or how fast I flew away, the fog seemed to expand ocean-wide, time a mere suggestion.

Everything hurts.

There was no escape, and in this mist that’d appeared with that colossal explosion—it happened many minutes ago, yet I can still hear rumbling thunder—, I slowly suffocate, skin aflame.

I don’t want to die, not yet. Not when I haven’t written all those books I’ve promised to share with Mr. Anon in the afterlife; not when I haven’t helped Ms. Reimu with that sad stuff that ails her heart… Not when I can still offer Yukari my best.

Hidden away in my qipao, a talisman boasting a side of death and one of mercy.

Her words linger, those she’d said inside the shrine.

Had she never felt loved, despite everything Ran and I did? Were we not enough, or did we not try hard enough…?

We could have been content with what we had, right? We had each other…

Body limps down to the ashen ground and through groans, I turn myself to face a cloudy sky, my breath dry, stomach aching, and fingers trembling. I still haven’t shown her my best, everything I can bring forth, the wonders of a life without sad. Everything I promised Yamame-san I’d show… A ‘best’ I know Yukari herself would never find within herself to show me—Ran, Mr. Anon—, and even so I seek it. Things will end the way I know they will—my nose tickles with the smell of burnt flesh and charred bones—, and tears and blood shall be abundant.

It’s impossible to imagine a different outcome for this war.

Beyond this warring Gensokyo are stars I and Mr. Anon have watched, eating and talking about spiders; somewhere in this rubble and poisonous smog that kills me softly are the memories we made together, those I’ll cherish beyond a forever. It was a terrible, sad thing, all that's happened to us, and it has caused so much harm and pain…

“… P-Please…” I beg to the stars, the world blurring around me.

I’ll do my best, anyway.

Doors open.

What else can I do, Mr. Anon?

I blink, and the stars are clear as day. Golden and red and blue, and shining. A moment of stillness precedes my lungs filling with clear air, and a coughing fit befalls me instantly, my hands wrapping around my belly as my body detoxes from all the icky mist, a sort of supernatural cleansing washing over me—not dispelling the pounding headache—, and replacing it with relief that grew and grew the more my hands touched my body: I’m a-alive! I didn’t die! “It’s good, isn’t it?” Her voice is familiar, and I have no time to writhe in icy fear when such pungent delight crosses through my whole. “To breathe again after drowning for so long.”

Eyes go up, and, laid on the ground a few paces ahead of the third sage, is Ms. Reimu. Battered and missing one arm, with a bloodied face, Ms. Reimu. Her chest rises and falls.

She’s alive, Ms. Reimu.

… So much Yamame-san had taught me; so much I thought I knew about death. I had thought myself prepared to face it when it inevitably came to be in this terrible war.

Ms. Reimu is alive.

I run up to her and my fingers caress her body, struggling to place her head on my lap, thighs scratched yet ignored as I peer into her face, its pallor and its mortal beauty, folded fire wings snuggled on her back as if afraid to open like a flower, cascading below like the tears of a volcano. I hold her to me with everything I know I’ll eventually lose, and that dark hole Yamame-san told me about is overwhelming against my chest, her missing arm and the remaining stump a wound all by itself. What had she gone through? What nightmares she’s faced alone!

She's so very hurt…

Even though she’s alive, the loss I hadn’t even fathomed crashed suddenly against me, its inevitability—Mr. Anon, where are you? I need to hug you, too, to see the dispelled sad from your eyes. I need you to see me at my best—a knife that stings dope casts and the many wounds below.

This hurt; this relief…

Around us, a dilapidated world I ignore, clinging to a feeling the giants whose shoulders I stand on have warned me of—of the consequences of feeling too much. “Careful there, otherwise you’ll end up suffocating the poor Hakurei miko!” The sage's voice calls me, a smile anyway on her face. “Wouldn’t be the worst way to go, I guess.”

It was the comparison of a firm heartbeat and the wheeze of parting dying lips. She’d lost that same evil that sprung from within Yukari, the creepiness of her presence and stare back then at Mayohiga gone and replaced with this… uncanny warmth—one besieged by sagging, dark eye bags and an emptiness I’d seen in Ms. Reimu when she’d talked about her suicide and Mokou-nee. The pull of heavy chains—fake or not, I had no way of knowing.

I pull Ms. Reimu closer to me, tails puffy and broken nails ready for slicing, a silly yet macabre feeling echoing: against the power of a Sage, what use am I?

Such thoughts would not stop me, and I hiss at her. “Away!”

The woman giggles, gesturing at me with a hand as her other clicked fingers, like she was trying to remember something. “Hey, hey, I mean no harm to you. We’re not on opposite sides of this war… and what a weird reaction of a faithful, albeit I know it’s warranted,” she sounds guilty, eyes rising to look at something behind me—! My eyes followed instinctively, mind about to reprehend itself if not for the sight of a monumental, reptilian-like skull with a single horn protruding from its shattered top. Behind it, rows of bony columns. W-What…? “I should thank you. Without the faith you put in the stars, I doubt I’d have awakened as soon as I have from my short coma.” H-Huh? “This body tasted selfless faith once more and has gotten addicted to it, it seems, and the lack of it left me vulnerable… But to receive faith from a Youkai of misfortune and bad omens? Heh~” she coughs at the end, and rage courses within.

“I have two tails! Two—I am not only a bakeneko; I’m a nekomata, and I can be plenty good.”

“… I see that.” her eyes are on Ms. Reimu before she throws her head back to rest it on the stone, a weary sigh escaping the Sage of Backdoors. “Would you be good enough to forgive me, too?” The sudden question throws me off, the weight of Yamame’s cast on my head tilting it somewhat to the left. Despite the angle, the conflict in her expression is visible. “I… wasn’t the best person last time we met. Demanded a lot from Reimu; I didn’t consider your well-being and was an awful person to interact with, and…” She pauses, as if considering something. The wind howls, and beyond invisible barriers, the smog of death lingers. “… I’ve caused everything around us. All this, my fault. I could’ve prevented it all, but did nothing. I could’ve spared Reimu from whatever the hell she’s doing, m-many of the deaths, too. I c-could’ve done my job as goddess and protector of this land and… been better. I was not, and I—”

“—I forgive you.”

She stops dead in her tracks, almost shifting her face to look at me but catching herself mid-movement. The glimpse I got of her eyes told me enough. “I didn’t even finish—”

“It doesn’t matter to me, Ms. Okina,” I say, that which kept me going amidst a sea of toxic fog and deep wounds caused by these hands of mine taking forefront. “Bad people with bad intentions and deeds exist, and the consequences of their existence are sad,” I hold dear to Ms. Reimu, and in my mind is Mr. Anon’s pain as he’d talk about a long past. Alongside them echo the words of a suicide, and I’m sitting on that porch with Yukari at the start of all this. A dark night, that one was. I refused her ways. “I don’t know… why you did the things you did or acted like you did, but I’ve seen the power of forgiveness before. If it could do for you a fraction of the wonderful things it did for Ms. Reimu, then I forgive you.” Despite these words, an acute bitterness takes hold. Why couldn’t Yukari do the same? If her Sister Sage can do it—if a person as bad as Ms. Reimu can return to the fair person she was before things turned sad—, then what’s stopping Yukari…?

No person is equal, no burden is the same, yet…

… Can forgiveness be decreed the same?

Tucked within my sleeve, the red-and-blue talisman burns softly.

The thoughts escape me as a small huff echoes amidst the destruction, Ms. Okina cleaning her eyes before bringing forth her head to look at me and Ms. Reimu. “How the hell Yukari turned out like this with you around is a great mystery… Thanks, kitten.” Hey! That’s rude, calling me that! It’d be like calling Mr. Anon a cucumber, and I make sure she knows. Her laughter thickens at my pouting, if modestly, and if I had the heart to release Ms. Reimu for even a moment, I’d kick her shins. Her finger clicking rises a tone, and the atmosphere changes slightly. “… Such kind words help more than you think; I truly appreciate them.” I have no time to placate her, for the woman resumes swiftly. “Ah, no matter, I’ll get us away from this hell when Reimu wakes up, and I’ve gathered enough power to kick Yukari—” Ms. Reimu groans, her eyelids trembling a little. “—Speak of the devil, and lo and behold.” The sage shrugs. It goes unnoticed.

I watch Ms. Reimu like a falcon, and soon her lids open to expose misty red jewels. She's a-alive…

The hole shuts, yet it never fully closes.

>>49584266
>>49584270
if the cat gives out therapy, who gives out therapy to the cat? Questions and more questions...
next on the line are Patchy and Toutetsu!
more soon!
>>49584122
first thing I'm reading tomorrow~! Maybe after the news, just to make sure I can fit my schedule around the approaching nuclear holocaust
>spoiler
take it easy!

>>49584122
morning actually means in the dead of night after a grueling work day, but I digress. Good start, putting the foot down on the gas; am patiently waiting developments!
>[...]her descending, down into the blackness, down to grab Kasen she realized.
just a small nitpick: she's diving towards a nuke-turned-drift king and not dying because of her unknown manipulation, the whole lake is lit up. Have a good writing~!

Bump.

Thread seems a bit barren at the moment, let's lighten things up a little.
What's some missed potential in the narrative you feel could've been incorporated in a different way?

>>49593850
>Thread seems a bit barren at the moment
Mofos are hiding the good stuff from us, I want Yukari...

>>49593850
Aya, mostly. Her og storyline didn't go anywhere, and it ended on a cliffhanger. At least there was closure with her anonbowl victory.

>>49593850
besides Okina I talked about last thread, the Myourens. Was too shy to bring them forth in the past after their troubled first months, and really just tapped into them for a little in the Okina final chapters; remember Anons talking about how in another world Reimu got help from the more empathetic members that noticed her little changes, and though I didn't entertain the idea then, I do find myself absentmindedly writing AU snippets that center around that -- amidst other stuff of course, they're mostly warm-ups for actual chapters.

>>49593850
I'm trying to come back to it, its very hard atm but I'm working on it. I need to get this fixed before the next solstice!

>>49598049
Whatever you do, just be nice to her.

>>49597727
It really is amazing how much damage one thread shitter can do to one project, at least they're gone now.

>>49593850
Myourens, and Shou and Mamizou in particular. The only reason they don't have more of a focus is due to the sabotage of a tertiary that doesn't even like touhou.

She’s Genghis Khan in everything but appearance. Curved horns adorned her head and a dangerous gleam her eyes, a sick smile just below. Blood and mud caked every visible centimeter of her body, and her nails clamped around two gruesome pieces with murderous intent. No armies backed her, but as Yuuma trampled Lady Patchouli’s side of the miracle, the realization she needed none was crystal-clear—I recall how she came to the mansion to play with Lady Flan. The contrast of then and now drowns my blood in ice: she’s paces away from Lady Patchouli; if she tries anything…

… I won’t be able to help, four hands—two spectral, burning with a battery made of dead memories, though it’s of the same design as the batteries of Baghdad. Spiritually-charged, as taught to the elders of the temple I grew up at eons ago—sunk into thick roots spanning as fields in all directions, inverted to veil the skies in Sekai’s blue. Lady Patchouli made it more than certain: should I release this tree when the ritual is underway, our Sekai is… No. Don’t think such thoughts, Meiling. Not even when Genghis Khan stands before you and her.

Every muscle fiber screams, the balance of Ki lies in disarray.

Sekai—La… Patchy—is counting on you.

“Welcome to the fucking reckoning, ladies,” Toutetsu Yuuma spells, Lady Patchouli taking a step back. Without the book, she has no more right to Sekai’s tier of magic. “Aren’t you two gonna be the part? Tell me what I’ve asked of you? I’m not patient with those that have allied with that Yakumo woman.” The smile was a betrayal: only crassness lurked in her vertical pupils. She stepped forward, and Lady Patchouli stiffened the slightest—

—Knowledge sparked immediately inside her slit eyes.

“We are not of her ilk, never were, Toutetsu Yuuma.” She draws the dignity with which she regarded herself under the stars of our daughter’s birth, yet it does not come. The corners of her eyes are bluish—anemia—, her voice shakes, and a spasm is ever-present. “Yukari Yakumo was a mistake, committed under fear and—” Blood and mud and iron hit against paved dirt, destroying dozens of thousands of words and symbols in an instant. The reaction is crude. “DON’T!” Her body had lunged forward two centimeters, and against her best efforts came a coughing fit. My heart boiled, muscles brought to their limit screaming. Not from effort. Fury.

Hundreds of hours of tireless work for our girl’s life, erased just like that…

“Lady Patchouli! You monster, how—” I tried, but within the second, Patchouli had turned, grasping the center of her bosom with one hand and throwing the other in my direction. Smoldering coals made her eyes, but not those of a war machine; rather, the coals of an oven baking the bread attached to its ceiling, infuriated and blazing, yet not destructive. It eased the burden of rage.

“—No…! No. I…” Blood parted her lips and poured in fine strands. Lady Patchouli remained. “There’s no need for a battle. We know what we are, and we are not savages!” Her eyes sang a strange tune, and one that my bleeding heart lashed out against: the ritual has started, compromising us to keep it going. It fails if we stop, and we cannot stop Toutetsu Yuuma like this…

For their sake, and against the wishes of this rocking heart, I maintained an unwavering focus on preventing the tree from sliding. Lady Patchouli has come through once and again in situations that seemed final—my almost death, the play-fight, the two rituals…

S-She got this.

“You heard her, Gatekeeper? Civilized folk: I got the cards; you, the info. Dead people rarely talk—and you don’t want these cards to burn.” She places the end of the bigger jagged metal against the ground. “The dead kid, the ritual, the tree. Now.” The demand is a gong, and it shakes the earth. This time, Lady Patchouli is steady, her weak body protecting our slumbering Sekai. Relief rears its head despite the budding nerves and whispering fear: if she explains everything with that elegance she and Lady Remilia share, Yuuma’s surely backing down. She’ll know we mean no harm to Gensokyo and just want to have our child safe and sound, the ritual will proceed unmolested, and then I’ll never have to hear those words of suicide again in my dreams—

“… I cannot tell you any of that.” Eyes snap and lock to the back of her head instantly, wide and confused; a moment of hesitation lends the tree a few inches. My muscles roar. Yuuma frowns. W-What is she…? “The whole of that information is known to me, and I beg you to understand we are not a threat to Gensokyo. This won’t benefit the Gap Sage, nor will it weaken your forces.” She stammers but stays set like the cord of a bow. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t fucking matter. What is she doing?! Why is she keeping information from an Underworld gangster marinated in blood?

“Wait, wait, wait,” Yuuma waves at her to not proceed, expression unreadable. Meanwhile, the ritual hums in stillness, fragile as glass.

One wrong movement, a breeze too strong…

“I take you’re not retarded,” her tone lands in the middle of dumbfounded and amused. A smile-made trap that triggers every hair on my body. Danger. Patchouli must’ve seen it too. “You don’t look so—you look smarter than the idiots I ate before this tree packed with enough Old Magic to cause a second mass extinction pinned half of Gensokyo on top of me.” Her point wasn’t lost.

“The life of this child may or may not hang on the measurement of my secrecy.” Lady Patchouli does not back down, yet confidence forged in a dream degrades, as does my physical instrument. What is she doing?! We cannot afford to keep the secret of Sekai’s existence; it’s beyond the point of that mattering in the slightest… isn’t it? We kept it a secret from Remi to avoid manipulation of fate overlap and from the rest of Gensokyo to protect the girl from Yukari. Whatever reasons Patchouli must think we have to keep the secret, it’s moot against having a failed ritual and a dead daughter in our hands. My throat clenches, words begging to be freed, hands numb and a pounding headache settling; even with four arms and the pure strength I had poured into this secret sigil, the tree gained purchase, a shrill scraping resounding throughout the cavernous underbelly of a destroyed HSE.

“And that bimbo's life and yours depend on the truth leaving your mouth!” The bloodied iron meets baked ground, destroying hundreds of characters in a second. Lady Patchouli quivers, yet does not move to stop the Underworld goat. T-The ritual we worked so much for, our daughter’s future…

It leaves me before I can stop myself: “P-Patchy, please…” Wood cleaves rock.

“… I know what I’m doing, Meiling.” Her eyes aren’t on me when she shifts again; they’re on sleeping Sekai. Cuddled on the cold ground, lifeless and dirty. An ant crawls across her cheek, unbothered by the world collapsing right above. “She has her whole family to protect her.”

The way she spoke those words, the sheer confidence behind them.

A pound of the heart, then another.

Blood poured from the sides of her mouth as she stared down a fuming Yuuma. Her scleras had grown blue and her skin a pallor lighter than marble, and the ends of her fingers quivered maddeningly. Patchouli Knowledge is at the most weak I’ve ever seen her… Yet, with her back to our defenseless daughter and rigid eyes fixed on a cruel woman bathed in blood, I don’t think I’ve seen a more powerful figure.

Before such grandeur, how could I ever falter?

Heart tightened despite the dread throbbing from the base to the top of my spine, muffling it; arms recuperated their hold and though the headache remained, it was with great effort that the belief in her steadfast back—gentle eyes, home—overtook central standing.

I don’t know what she has in mind, or if she even has a plan…

… But I believe in Patchouli Knowledge.

Yuuma had opened her mouth, rage obvious and patience much more in each glimmer of scarlet. Lady Patchouli was faster, stepping forth as the soulglass, aflame in blue and phantasmagorical radiance, marked bounds. “I won’t answer your questions, for they impose unacceptable risk on the livelihood of this child,” Patchouli reiterates, a groan midway through leaving Yuuma’s mouth. “There are those I can answer! Should they satisfy you is beyond me, but hear me out, for the sake of a child not yet lost…” A groan that swiftly dies, a breath that is held not by mortal or immortal: the world, and it endures only one additional second. She’s doing it…? “Her name is Hata no Sekai! Anything else matters not to me—her origins, this ritual or this tree—, and she’s… S-She’s my daughter! Mine and Meiling’s! Not of conception; our daughter. As long as we are not interrupted, she lives. Her dream is to visit China, and I have every intention of trampling whoever stands on the path of that dream. There’s no need for things to come to that, and I know you care—I wouldn’t be alive if you didn’t—so, for the sake of that dream, I urge you to leave us!”

Hanging by a thread, yet with a booming voice to muffle the rumble of a cataclysm. Had the heart of Patchouli reached her or not, I couldn't know…

The mafia boss rose and slung the deformed end of blunt metal over her shoulder as the other, wider one hung low like an axe ready for the slaughter.

A bated breath, an answer to come.

… Yet, rather than answering first, Yuuma turned with a scoff—

“—Her words are mine,” hope cuts through despair like a meteor does the sky. Alongside Conquest incarnate rides awe: she'd stepped from a blood spring cascading down charred rock and debris, a power she hasn’t—couldn’t—make use of for decades now… Red streaking the sides of her mouth, contrasting with porcelain skin, hints at what’s transpired, and the gaze she pierces the goat with is as unnerving as her large black wings. A gaze that mellowed as it briefly lingered on Sekai. She knows. “Leave, while fate yet permits you.” The ultimatum is laid by Remilia Scarlet to the tune of rivers of blood.

>>49607836
>>49607834
next batch will be the last of Patchy and Meiling for a little while, so it'll be a longer batch. Next on the line: jobbers~!
more soon!
also, for those interested, an update on the Hanamod and how the character feels in a run (not a full run, though):
https://files.catbox.moe/n7pj1s.webm
pure changelog:
>new item, still WIP
>reworked Hana's Ascot so it gives a flat 0.05 DMG per kill, a counter that is lost upon getting hit. Getting hit with a +0 damage bonus kills Hana (gets pulled out of non-Euclidean space -> gets killed lmao). At certain bonus thresholds, changes the game; losing the damage bonus doesn't remove the changes
>(mostly) working item pools
>updated sprites for the Hakurei spheres
>bug fixes

>>49516746
Solstice update #20

Update tomorrow probably.
Lord I am looking forward to having only one project again.

>>49613514
Will you do more chapters after your next upload, or it'll be it for the time being?

>>49584122
"The lake." Seija uttered to Goro as she handed him their other child and man nodded, floating backwards.

Yukari didn't waste a second to jeer about them splitting their attention, she acted, lunging toward Seija and thrusting her sword forward through a gap, one that would cause the blade to be split into a thousand tiny, lethal needles that would impale Seija on all sides. Each and every wafer thin shard missed, extending away from the Jaku, rather then toward her.

"Decisive of you." Seija uttered as Yukari withdrew her blade and prepared another stroke, before Seija's heel hit the flat of the weapon, deflecting it and giving her an opening for a punch, that was just as quickly grabbed by Yukari, and used to toss the girl away before she could follow up with another kick.

"No tossing me into a gap? Or are you afraid I'll turn them on you?" Seija remarked as she cracked her neck.

Yukari, once again, said nothing as she raised her blade with both hand and focused all her attention on her opponent. The Sage was by no means helpless, at this very moment she could conceive of over fifteen ways to dispatch Seija and move on to her other enemies. However, there remained two problems: the first was that she had expended far too much of her focus and energy fighting up until this point, powerful and lethal as she might be holding the blade, if she used more resources then necessary to kill Seija now, she'd be checked by the other fighters. The second problem was that the Jaku was uncharacteristically calm.

With a sudden burst, Seija was upon Yukari once again and the Sage swung, but her swing turned the wrong way, leaving another opening for Seija to stab her hand at, which found it's way into a gap, and then that gap turned the wrong way, resulting in a punch narrowly grazing Yukari's chin. Yukari quickly rallied, swinging up her own leg in an arc to catch the Jaku's side, only for Seija to quickly roll, grabbing the leg, and tossing Yukari, upon which she attempted to rush the Sage, but was repelled when Yukari managed to swing her sword upwards at the Jaku.

"You... Kasen trained you for this didn't she?" Yukari asked.

"What nonsense are you spouting? I barely spoke with the pervy hermit." Seija shook her head.

There was a resemblance the Yakumo could see, a line between the way Kasen the Hermit fought and the maneuvers Seija was managing now: Focus, fluidity, and despite her contradictory ability, it all seemed completely natural.

But those were just punches and kicks, Yukari decided. Quickly mustering herself, she raised the sword and brought it down, tearing opening the air surrounding her and sending it forward like a dense rain of bullets.

"Child's play!" Seija shouted as she clapped her hands and the first half of the rain doubled back on itself, causing a thousand micro explosions that popped in the air like distant gunfire. It was of no matter for Yukari, as she knew such a large reversal couldn't be done successively, and she swung her sword again, creating another rain of micro bullets and at the same time dashing through a gap to skewer the Jaku as she clapped her hands again, but just as she exited the gap, she found herself stabbing air, her hair hanging upside down, the second barrage sputtering out in the distance.

Instinctively she swung around with her sword and almost caught Seija in a sneak attack before the Jaku narrowly flung herself back.

"Do you think I'm stupid?" Seija waved a sole finger in the air, tutting. "I'm not going to insult you by assuming you'd try the same attack twice."

"What's changed about you?" Yukari demanded. "Your fighting was sloppier then this, less disciplined no-"

"Focus?" Seija asked, her grin turning into a frown. "Before now, I never really had a goal, just some silly ideal of revolution, but I'd just turn and turn, and end up right back where I started like a dog chasing it's own tail. I gave up on that."

"Nonsense, you're an Amanojaku. You hate what other's love and love what others hate, you can't shed that fate." Yukari said decisively.

"Well, I did, and you know what? It was holding me back. Kids, two of em', both are going to be such an awful handful you know? But that's just what I wanted all along, an interesting Gensokyo, And now..." Seija began, spreading out both arms "...I feel like I can finally think straight, like I can do anything, even make you realize how much of a fool you're being."

The Sage did not reply, but merely readied her sword yet again. She didn't need to win this fight, didn't need to risk anything more. All she needed to do was delay, wait until the nuclear payload of the attack submarine she teleported from the outside world went super critical and wiped away Youkai mountain and her opposition with it.

"If you're stalling for time I have bad news for you. My family, that stupidly tolerant man of mine and the children you gave us, they're about to do your teaching proud." Seija said with a toothy grin.

>>49618312
Precisely 4999 characters pasted from my editor. It's a red letter day.
>>49617965
>Will you do more chapters after your next upload, or it'll be it for the time being?
I'll finish out the fight, probably before the weekend. It's just the HSE and another project I've had forever is wrapping up and I'll finally be able to focus on this third thing I want to be zeroed in on.

>>49618312
Look at her, grandma playing with her gen gamma and gen alpha children! So healthy. Crazy to think Hana is also gen alpha... maybe she should call Anon the rizzler someday. That'd for sure cement her status as a fallen hero and start the darkest timeline.
[/spoiler]hey man, can you write it so whatever you do next you end with a pivot to Yukari, preferably immediately following what the duo has in store for her, and save her reaction for me? Sorry if it's a tall ask, but I can make most use of the culmination of her arc and the ending of Set 3/start of Set 4 if I have those circumstances~!

>>49618312 #
Look at her, grandma playing with her gen gamma and gen alpha children! So healthy. Crazy to think Hana is also gen alpha... maybe she should call Anon the rizzler someday. That'd for sure cement her status as a fallen hero and start the darkest timeline.
hey man, can you write it so whatever you do next you end with a pivot to Yukari, preferably immediately following what the duo has in store for her, and save her reaction for me? Sorry if it's a tall ask, but I can make most use of the culmination of her arc and the ending of Set 3/start of Set 4 if I have those circumstances~! Always check the spoiler tag btw...

>>49618582
>spoiler
Ah crap, did I miss something? My plan is Goro resolves the megaton bomb while Seija's keeps Yukari distracted, but it's taxing for the both of them since they've also been through a lot today and eventually they're at Yukari's mercy at which point I was going to baton pass to you. This is all operating on 'fight time' btw, so the way I see it less then a minute has passed.

>>49618320
It's bittersweet to see the HSE so close to finishing with its second to last write wrapping their things up.
At least you had the common decency to stick around, clean up the messes you made, and help Rananon.
Unlike something other people who rudely made a mess and never cleaned it up.

>>49618862
>My plan is Goro resolves the megaton bomb while Seija's keeps Yukari distracted, but it's taxing for the both of them since they've also been through a lot today and eventually they're at Yukari's mercy at which point I was going to baton pass to you
Rather than stopping the bomb, and since the duo are separated in their efforts, Goro could put his teachings to par and lift a barrier that holds it. Should achieve similar results, and open space for an interaction I have in mind with other characters. All else is fine, thanks for the planning~!
>This is all operating on 'fight time' btw, so the way I see it less then a minute has passed.
30 seconds since your first Yukari chapter seems ideal with the little talk and fight time, and if you could write the rest of things so it takes at maximum another 30 seconds it'd be great. Reimu is on a clock and I cannot explain in-universe why she'd spend longer than 1/18 of her remaining time not trying to split Yukari's head open.
I'll be writing a plug chapter tomorrow to cover the time between your first two chapters, to give context on why everyone hasn't jumped Yukari yet, good writing for you man! We're getting there!

>>49601876
I love gappy, I dropped out when she was going through her mama bear phases before her baby was born and bragging to all her chrone friends she could muster. How much has been done since the birthday party and village fustercluck?

>>49623080
>Spoiler
So by 'lift a barrier that holds it' you mean he creates a barrier that contains the exploding bomb?

>>49623526
it was a generalization on my part, I don't know the duo's extension of power, and barrier magic is one of Yukari's specializations. Any way you can have the bomb be stable, like reversing the ignition so hard it returns to base values or something else would work. If nothing gives, it's okay to go with your initial idea, I can think of other ways to start what I want, the big ass nuke is just very convenient for it.

>>49623460
More of less this:

Chapter doko?

>>49635507
It's only been 6 days since Rananon's last story post and 4 days since the newest soon-to-be-former-writer.
You are only allowed to start complaining when the timer hits 7 days.

>>49638025
>It's only been 6 days since Rananon's last story post
fuckkkk I'm stumped on how to write Reimu's and Anon's first (both awaken) meeting, I'm being reduced to the focking bone.

>>49638768
Then Reimu not know how to handle it and be very awkward.
Then she ends up defaulting to what she knows best, finding the nearest evildoer and hitting it in the face with her Gohei.
Reimu never was one for sentimental reunions and anything else is firmly epilogue territory.

The memories crystallized in the family albums didn’t do it justice. Maybe I had simply traded the sake's potency for losing myself in those old photos. I wonder what Aya thought of me that day of the party, bustling with desperation and begging me to come and help. I’d almost chosen to keep drowning in memories… I chose Hana that day, and now I see her and her father in the same frame, how he clings so desperately to Chen with a sulk of relief etched down his forehead, whispering fatherly comfort. His arms are mangled, burned and mummified; everything ‘him’ looks messy, hurt and scattered, and… A-And…

… Every page of the album had him and Hana further away, forcing smiles, his eyes empty—things that went ignored—, the finest details of what once was untarnished lost in the haze of two decades of heavy drinking.

I couldn’t remember, find a picture of the last time he’d genuinely smiled.

He does it now, the sight branding iron to the walls of my skull. Never forget this smile, Reimu Hakurei. You may never see the man you love smile like this again.

When his eyes pinned mine, the smile flickered away, congesting the world with silence and stillness, my body threatening a reaction to the protagonist of my many dreams. A thousand words rush to the tip of my tongue, cheekbones aching to let it all out and cure this body of sudden petrification, fire rushing from below my skin to reflect on his beautiful pupils, my wings grand like two volcanoes in eruption.

What are your thoughts, Anon? Do you feel fear in what you see, d-do you see—

“Reimu…?” He whispers, eyes scurrying to my stump.

His gaze is of worry.

—me?

Heart rages, blood set on fire responds to the single word, dying chakras vibrating as they turn to ash in what cannot be undone. I had forgotten the true sound of his voice.

An exchange that didn’t last long.

It is too much.

Like a statue being pushed, I turn away from him and his unreadable expression—a yearning to drink of his features, to beg for forgiveness as I’d done at that party. To have him with me once more, for so many nights were miserable and lonely, and nothing could replace his hand holding mine—to Hana, dazedly watching as the Sage of Backdoors caught her shoulder and stopped her from rushing into the lake that’d devoured the sun. “Oi, easy there, child!” She yells, and my Hana lashes out with a swing of the Gohei so powerful, every hair on my body stands upright, teeth clenching shut. The woman dodges, barely.

“I need to save Kasen-nee! Do something, you! Y-You backdoors could—”

“—Yuugi already went after Kasen. She’ll save her,” it’s the satori who interrupts, her eyes lingering on me briefly. Did she…? The Sage of Backdoors labors for air, pressing down one hand on the spot Hana had almost struck. “You have more dangerous things to dive headfirst into, girl.” Clashing not far away reverberates, blurs weaving across the gleaming whiteness of the lake. Few and far in-between were glimpses of a cruel red blade; the chill of meeting it with the Gohei rooted in my heart.

Hana is not easily dissuaded, throwing her eyes towards the lake and back to the satori, grasping the handle of her Gohei that way she would always do when apprehensive—

Her eyes are on mine, wide and frantic. She seeks guidance from her mom.

I shake my head, my heart tearing apart as I awkwardly stand, hundreds of paper-like mikos ready for battle—Hana follows them with her eyes—; Anon’s eyes burn a hole in my back and propagate a needy thirst: how much have I forgotten of him, the man I love? Knowing most memories are beyond salvaging, our love dead, gnaws at the courage to call his name. “She…” My legs shiver; I want to puke. He’s right there, holding a child I love like a second daughter; I’ve figured out things with Hana to a level I never imagined possible, so why not…? “Yukari stopped my Float. I’ll need you in this fight, Hana.” The sounds of clashing are loud, those two holding out better than last time; it’s as much of a futile fight, though, Yukari deliberate in the little I can see of her. She’s waiting, planning…?

Hana sucks her lips at the words but nods gingerly, the three of us forming a trifecta. A backdoor opens ahead and my Gohei falls out, my only hand catching it. “Don’t lose it again, miko.” She’d found it from toxic clouds first, now from the surface of the nuclear lake. I nod at her in thanks.

“It’s work of that sword, Reimu-san.” The satori says from a little ways behind. “She’s… stolen Kasen’s old power. It's not the same without siphoning her full soul, but be careful anyway. Okina…” Determined, she takes a step towards the sage.

“I know, no need to explain it to me.” A backdoor opens below the pink satori, a yelp echoing as she vanishes. “Get your sister out of this hell and leave the fight for the big girls.” A low, pained hiss leaves the Sage of Backdoors, fingers rusty cranks. “… We got a few seconds before Yukari stops fucking around and kills those two. Anyone got a plan?”

>>49644971
finally managed the plug chapter~
next only after Takaneanon's, so that's it for now.
more soon!
>>49638777 (checked)
sometimes a more simple approach is best. Thanks, bro

>>49644976
Just doing my part.

>>49644976
Thanks.
>next only after Takaneanon's, so that's it for now.
Should be tomorrow for real this time. I'm finally about to wrap something else up and I know exactly how to write this next chapter.

>>49612750
I wonder where Genji is, wasn't he doing something last we saw him?

>>49607842
Hana feels quite strong? Well, I haven't played the mod, so.
>>49644971
Hopefully Anon won't fall for it again.

>>49652099
if I recall correctly, last time we saw him, he was at Mima's Shrine, so either he got buried during the landslide Patchy caused earlier in Act 2, or he relocated with flight. If I had to decide it, I'd say he's just chilling in mud around Mima's Shrine
>>49652977
she is pretty powerful, though the run I used exacerbated that a lot by getting brimsnap + a lot of status effects, which in her pool have lower weight (appear less often). Most Hana runs go like this: https://files.catbox.moe/i7e9ln.webm
skill issue on my part, but highlights the balance she has, which I enjoy most. Not as aggressive as Keeper, who often divebombs into enemies for coins; not as passive as Lost, who can retreat to a crevice/rock so he doesn't get tagged. Get tagged as Hana, and you have to scramble for a kill to survive, both to actually not die and to rebuild her DMG bonus, so the fighting doesn't drag out and mistakes snowball. Feels pretty nice.

>>49618312
At Seija's behest, Goro drifted backwards, away from the woman who'd betrayed his trust once before. And he did so without hesitation.

A wise trader doesn't deal with those who've broken their promises, but only the greatest know how to forgive after recompense. Although the threat of nuclear annihilation did stir some urgency.

'Outside world weapons' Goro thought to himself. There wasn't a worse commodity to trade in, the things were viciously pragmatic and lacked any sense of ceremony, designed for a world were all formality had been forsaken, so it was appropriate that Yukari would think to use one now.

Carefully, Goro pulled a cloth from his robe and wrapped his twins in it, carefully bundling them, stroking their heads to assuage their cries as they floated from his hold. It pained him, being totally unable to shush them and tell them that'd just be a moment, but his voice was forever lost, his touch would have to be enough to comfort them now.

Turning his attention, the Broker gazed down at the soft blue glow of the nuclear sub, it's payload about to go super critical and he felt like a base jumper gazing off into a cliff. Goro brought his fingers together, first at their tips and the slowly cupping his palms together until they formed a pocket of air between his hands.

'Not yet' he thought to himself, gazing at the glow, and his heartbeat slowed. 'Not yet', he repeated in his head as his pupils narrowed. 'Not yet', he said as the event horizon was almost past. Finally, a small dot flew out from the abyss and conditions were perfect.

'NOW'. Goro's hands collapsed together, crushing the pocket of magic that he'd put there and causing it to erupt outwards, thundering towards the lake. It was a grudge with two properties: rending itself, creating two grudges in it's place, and reversing the perverse mechanism of exponential destruction that now poured forth from the ship. The spell looked like a hundred snakes, ever-multiplying, exploding outwards from Goro downwards in an expanding cone.

If Yukari wasn't locked in combat with Seija she would've been impressed. Goro did not have the immeasurably quick-wit of Ran, but he'd learned how to calculate things that couldn't be counted in a lifetime. He didn't have the arcane knowledge of Yukari, but under her tutelage he learned how not to ignore the small details of spell craft. He lacked the intrinsic ability and instincts of Seija, but from the Jaku he had learned to see the polarity of all things and even manipulate some of it. In all these domains, Goro was an amateur, But as a broker, he was in his element.

Mirroring. A principle of good conversation where you adopt aspects of your partner's mannerisms to endear yourself to them. Goro had practiced it all his life, and had gone far deeper then just simply making people more affable. To know someone's desires, to see that with your own eyes, it was to know them and what they saw in the world, things you could see too. But were limits to this.

The Hydra of light crashed into the water, biting and twisting at the colliding microscopic particles, sending them back on to themselves, containing the massive amount of energy and putting it back to the moment before release. But it was not enough, one exponential reaction cannot outpace another that has already started, and the Hydra was being overwhelmed, torn apart by the angry Nuclear Fire that would not be denied.

Goro had simply bought some time.

---

"Did you get into a fight?" The Tired Man ask the Boy, who was bruised, bandaged, and waiting on the steps.

"I don't want to talk about it." He said, feigning ambivalence.

The Tired Man sighed. "Of course you don't. All any man wants to do is talk about the time they laid someone else out, not the time they woke up sore on their ass, ah, don't tell Hijiri I said ass."

The Boy chuckled, despite himself. "Can I say ass then too?"

"Maybe, I won't say anything if you don't." The Tired Man smiled as he took a seat beside his boy.

"I fought Ichirin." The Boy admitted.

The Tired Man whistled. "Now why'd you go and do a stupid thing like that?" He asked in a tone that was anything but demeaning.

"Everyone else fights, but she told me I couldn't and I didn't think that was fair, so I challenged her." The Boy admitted.

"Well you ought to be grateful for that. Can't be getting into fights with Ladies, let alone Youkai." The Tired Man told him.

"But you told me a man is supposed to be strong? Was that a lie?" The Boy asked, before getting a firm palm on his head that rubbed his noggin back-n-forth.

"One of these days I'll find the 'orator' that taught you to talk people into corners like that. Yeah, I did say a man's supposed to be strong, but it ain't just about putting up fists." He breathed in, taking a second to think. "See these callouses? You know how I got em'?" He asked, pointing to his hand.

"Mountain climbing?" The Boy guessed.

>>49656233
"Yeah, mountain climbing, but you know where? The one place where blonde flowers grow. Same color as your Mother's hair once was, same color your hair is." He chuckled.

The Boy blinked. "What's that got to do with being strong?"

The Tired Man clicked his tongue. "You see, for every strength a man boasts about at the bar, he's got ninety-nine others which speak more softly, but are twice as evident. Remember that the next time you hear a Youkai or crazed Magician go on about their Danmaku, they're all compensating for something. 'Quiet Strength' don't forget that okay?"

"I'll try." Said the Boy with resignation, not really understanding.

"Now, with that out of the way, come on, I gotta teach you how to throw a proper punch." The Tired Man laughed, lifting the Boy by his armpits.

---

The memory flashed before Goro's eyes in a moment and in the same second he looked at his twins who floated together in the air, snuggled up to each other. 'Quiet Strength' he thought as he watched his spell collapsing below him.

With both hands, he reached out to nothing in particular and grabbed hold of something that he couldn't see, but he knew was there. Then, with all his might he pulled on it. The thing didn't budge, like a rope tied to a boulder, nothing gave way, so Goro gnashed his teeth and began to try again, feeling muscles tearing in his arms and immaterial parts of his being screaming in protest at the great thing he was attempting.

It was no use, It wouldn't give. He was just one human, that he'd come this far was a miracle, Goro could not become a Sage, he couldn't even save his children, let alone live up to his wife's expectations.

One more time, he looked to his two small kids. They looked soft, innocent, his own. Parental protective feelings gushed forth from within him and collided with the crushing shame of being unable to protect them. No. He'd give his life before that, he'd suffer Hell and damnation for even a sliver of chance now.

But even if he wanted to sell his soul to a devil, he had no more voice to bargain with, no utterance would ever leave his lips again.

'Quiet Strength'.

One last time, he grabbed hold of the immaterial thing and pulled. Pulled, and in his head he chanted and thought so hard it may have well been a scream 'Whatever's listening, give me the strength! Nothing else matters now!' and for a moment, in his anguish as he continued pulling, Goro heard and felt nothing.

Then the roar echoed in his head.

Hands, hands that weren't there grasped onto his and heaved. Dissonant and chaotic at first, yet a rhythm slowly began to form as pulling synchronized. Together, as if pulling a rope from the sea, all the forces that acted on the immaterial finally managed to tug it, and the Hydra, the great spell turned and began to eat the tail of the Nuclear Fire.

Goro's teeth were clenched and every part of his being screamed once more. Now there was innumerable forces pulling upon his spell, but he still had to be the one to direct it and if he should slip and the Hydra loose itself, it'd be annihilation. He did not falter though, white-knuckled, straining, he fought against it, the chaos, the destruction, the oncoming sterility that would occur if he failed, all of it for the two peaceful faces of his children.

And mercifully, the Hydra completed it's turn and gorged itself on the Nuclear Fire from behind, and behind it, the Nuclear fire ate at the Hydra. A pleasant rumbling sounded throughout the underground from the stabilized reaction that took place around the ruined sub, and the twins, once distraught, now blinked softly as they heard the sound.

The Father let go off the immaterial rope that had turned the Hydra, but didn't dare let his arms fall, for he feared that if he did, he'd not be able to bring them back up again. Then he floated towards his children and swaddled them both close to his chest, having moved Heaven and Earth to keep them safe.

The peace did not last for long.

"Move!" Seija shouted as she pushed Goro to the side and a blade slashed down where he once was.

Quickly Goro redoubled his senses, eager to ready himself after letting down his guard. He could see Seija at his side, heaving and huffing, the day hadn't been kind to her and fighting even a weakened Yukari on her own had put her on a back foot. The Broker tried to think of a spell, a trick, anything now that could help in the situation, before Seija placed her hand over his and leaned against his shoulder.

"Save it." She whispered. "You don't have anything left either right? Just, one last time before it's over, let's just, be together."

Goro wanted to rally her, wanted to keep fighting, wanted his children to live at the very least. But when he looked up and saw Yukari, he knew the effort would now be wasted.

>>49656238
Gently shifting Oiwa to Seija's grasp, Goro then put his free hand over Seija's shoulder and turned his back toward Yukari. One last attempt to shield his family from what the mad woman would do next and failing that, one last moment of happiness with his loved ones.

And there's my bit. Quick Explanation: The forces that helped Goro pull the Hydra are up for interpretation, but you can read it as the lingering grudges from the underground responding to his nonverbal plea, sort of as a part of 'Quiet Strength' in trying something even though you believe it's impossible, and asking for help even you think nobody will answer. Sort of as opposed to Yukari, who tried to bear everything herself, thinking she could protect everything on her own.
Ranon, as requested, Yukari's reaction is up to you. The state of the nuclear reaction is, at this point, stable, but feel free to do whatever you'd like to it at this point!

>>49656056
Well i'm glad he at least has some ventilation, nobody would want him to be dead.

>>49656238
>>49656233
That's not how you make an ouroboros, Goro-san, the nuclear hellfire is not mystically sustainable for that in Gensokyo...
>>49656251
>spoiler
thanks for the chapters man, should be starting Set 4 today or this Friday~

>>49652977
>Hopefully Anon won't fall for it again.
Lol, lmao even...

>>49665788
Don't worry Reimu is dying anyways so Anon can be free to dick down the fox into multitude of pregnancies.

>>49665917
>Anon can be free to dick down the fox into multitude of pregnancies.
as the Founding Fathers intended~

Something had changed, something I do not understand. It happened the second these fingers wrapped around the hilt of a blade of crimson and rippled through my veins to that unforgettable chord of pure perfection—hand on my belly clenches. What is your plan, Sekai, my lovely time traveler?—words of guidance. Catching Reimu’s Gohei and trampling over the strongest human power ever conceived came as effortlessly as breathing. Yet… this sword bore no such purpose, at first that is.

Eyes flicker over its frame as I walk towards the huddled, miserable things, watching the red of the blade flow like a waterfall, liquefied souls occupying the place of droplets of water. They moved from the tip down to the habaki, disappearing to mercurial tones, just like they’d appeared as when I and Kasen had planted its seed.

All it’d take to enslave Kasen was to slash her…

… I lay commands in the silence of my mind, ushering Kasen to leave the lake and turn against those who bite the hand that feeds. The sword denies them.

Humoring Seija had wielded no fruits, no answers to what’s happening. Had that morbid rite done to the blade changed it in any way…? No. I cleansed the lake from any sort of impurity, enthralled a dragon to keep it safe—not a single Gap fired after that day. Douji’s revival changed it? Ibaradouji and Kasen are the same; to split them is to entertain delusion.

Nothing could’ve changed its purpose of enslaving souls.

Then why does it rather… echo them?

I stand behind the huddled things, lowering the blade to rest upon the man’s shoulder. Seija stares burning coals at me, trying to shield those parasites of hers. They tremble like leaves in heavy wind. “Do you have regrets? Of standing against me—throwing pebbles at my plans?” I am void of emotion, a heart shattered and atrophied. Gaps sprouted over my body as I spoke, the sword eating away the scourge of Hakurei on Youkai flesh and giving me free rein over myself: purple dress mends by itself, wounds disappear and leave behind only fair skin, not an ounce of dirt swamps my hair. It was as if I had not experienced a second of tribulations… But I have, and no Gap can heal a broken heart. Time shall do; the circumstances shall do. When there’s nothing but I, him and our daughter, what else would he love?

“… They’re your g-grandchildren…” The woman tries through teeth clenched shut, a sprout of sheer anger there amid desperation, hoping to introduce gravitas to her words.

I cannot introduce revulsion to my voice, though it’d not be misplaced.

“They’re nothing.” I shift the sword. Like a knife on butter, it runs down flesh, cutting it methodically; an incision, even. The man does not scream. “I have nothing. Had nothing I could call real—mine.” A moment of pause, something I cannot explain, washes over me; it aches, pulls. It dies in the confines of a broken heart. “Goro, Seija, you were never a part of me. All I have ever had that is true is pain.” With a weak thud, the cut arm falls to the gravel and to the mud, disappearing in a droning red mist. The sword feeds off the man’s power… and my brow creases. He’s no thrall, yet the sword now echoes what he is.

So it isn’t unique to Kasen.

Their tears are falling, and I can hear the pleas embedded in their throats; they matter not. “That’ll change soon. You have no place in my world.” A strike, aimed to kill the four.

From the past, a hiss of death, the sword adjusting places to meet the Gohei that explodes from sheer nothingness. Kasen’s power blossoms and prevents the sacred wood from smothering the death-fermented metal. Arches of flame come next, another Gohei that is caught immediately upon its descent, feet thrown back. Gaps open to bloodcurdling screams yet Hakurei flames target them like automated turrets, a similar effect to Flan’s destruction but with whispers of godhood. My hand holding the blade falters, though microscopic Gaps right the shattered bones and ligaments within the second…

Two blows from Mother and Daughter, enough to send me reeling. Eyes meet the lot of them as, behind, a Backdoor seized the huddled things, their eyes on mine before they’re consumed by darkness.

It aches, briefly.

My Sister Sage completes their little trio, throwing her hand back towards the tearful shikigami and my husband—the man who broke my heart. A heart that swells with undying love and… rage.

How could you have turned your face away from your pregnant wife…? I-I was almost…

Wrath buds like a solar storm.

The blue lake shimmers as a denied nuclear explosion pulsates, waiting in the belly of an impressive beast. Manipulation of Boundaries could easily have detonated the bomb, despite the huddled things’ best efforts…

… But this anger, this all-consuming anger.

Am I not good enough, Anon? Your Sekai is not good enough…?

Our family…

You hug the shikigami close, shielding her, a backdoor about to consume you.

Why won’t you love our f-family like that, Anon?

WHY WON’T YOU LOVE US?!

The rage erupts.

I loved those eyes, once. They had this violent quality to them that seemed so calm with the rose-tinted glasses of young-adult love. Hana got that red tinge from her, a pride of a lineage composed of red and white. Then she changed—revealed her true self, perhaps. I don’t think I’ll ever know for sure—, and murdered our love, relegating those blazing red eyes to spell only pain and misery. In the many who donned her clothes inside that Fake Shrine, always attempting but never breaking what she’s damaged, I saw satire of her eyes.

None ever matched hers.

One arm is gone, the stump charred, torn red-and-white papers hanging on it. Bone is visible, clumped and drowned in the ruined flesh. Her clothes lay damaged, yet they resist, somehow a better craftsmanship than what she used to wear, and those weird wings, limp last I’d seen, stand proud and are open wide, guarding—like an Angel’s. What’s the origin of those things? Hana’s never shown affinity to fire of any kind…

Her eyes are bright, pleading, and wide. A deer in the headlights.

“Reimu…” I called her, not believing the sight, three years of parodies melting away to reveal once more the real thing, matron of my every scar and the one who started it all.

She stiffens up, then she turns away from me as if guided by puppet’s strings. Chen whimpers at the sight, lowly calling her name too, but it had gone unnoticed by the Hakurei maiden. She’s talking to the others, saying important things… I don’t hear a single thing. A pair of ice-cold hands, pale yet brimming with expertise in doll arts, reposes against the small of my back, pushing me away from a drowning state; a sliver of midnight settles against my heart, the pristine feather a lasting promise.

Yet, those eyes…

Love can destroy like nothing else.

“… She’s ignored us,” Chen mumbles, small body trembling and ears down—her arms have casts like mine, and dried blood is prominent. S-She was caught in this war despite Ran’s efforts…?—, looking at Reimu’s fiery back. “There’s no time right now. Y-Yukari needs…” She looks at the frantic blur of movement beyond the shimmering lights of the lake. I cannot make head or tails of what’s happening there. “… I’m afraid, Mr. Anon—” Drawn into her wide, hazelnut eyes were tears and a gaze suited for funerals.

Arms responded first, engulfing her in a stronger hug, these mummified hands massaging the surface-level wounds etched on her head. Yukari stood bloodied and pleading just ahead; Alice’s body got stripped of her gentle flesh in less than a second, and… my Hana stood like a killing machine amidst the bodies of those onis who’d wronged her, soaked in blood. Not an ounce of mercy or regret swam in the red eyes she’d inherited.

… What is this war not going to destroy?

“—But I will do my best, anyway,” she completes and slowly breaks the hug apart, leaving my arms like a dove lifting flight. It did not compute, my eyes wild and perplexed. W-What’s she doing, my Chen…? “I h-have a plan!” Her voice had grown suddenly, making me jump. She’s standing before Hana, her frown creased; Okina, dark circles sieging her golden eyes… And Reimu, whose stare jumped between Chen and me.

“W-What… No, you don’t, missy! You and Anon are leaving this place—” Reimu says, taking a step ahead and kneeling by the bakeneko, her only hand clasping her shoulder.

“We can stop Y-Yukari without killing her!” Chen stomps her feet and stops Reimu in her tracks, the gruesome rhythms of war beyond the veil of white-blue lights guarding like secrets the source of many sounds. Cruel sounds of blood and red iron. All eyes, however, focus on the small cat. She’s trembling like nothing I’ve ever seen, her arms spread and a conviction that follows her next words. “I know it’d be best if you’d kill her, I know!” Her heart pours, as do tears. I feel powerless to what’s happening before me. Another one of mine, drawn into the absurdities of this great war…? “B-But there’s something we can do!”

“… C-Chen…” Reimu whispers with so much of something I thought long gone. It sends shivers down my spine.

“I won’t deny you may have something that’d actually stop her,” Okina had shifted her eyes to the war happening beyond the overwhelming light of the lake, her body rigid. She sees something I do not. “But it’s way beyond the point of pardon—” Chen tries to open her mouth, but the Secret Sage speaks first. “—She's the reason a dragon is dead.” Hana tenses. “She’s still alive when the Dragon God graces us with communion, and he’d vaporize Gensokyo on the spot. With Yukari dead, at least we’ll have a chance of survival…”

“There’s no other way, Chen,” Reimu coos, reaching towards her as if to caress her reddened cheek, her voice reminiscent of how she’d talk to our baby still in the crib. “We’re so sorry.”

Hana had turned away, yet she can’t hide her anxiousness from her father: her shoulders are poised, her legs shaking, not from fear. She's a loaded rifle.

A wave of chills coursed down my spine.

“Best thing you and Anon can do is leave.” Okina says, pointing a hand towards us, readying her Backdoors.

“… But… w-with what I have…” The bakeneko’s whole body trembles, a mere glimpse of what’s going on inside, and I can’t help but feel grateful she’s in Reimu’s hold—the wings of an angel, turned guarding—, yet she straightens herself and, stumbling quite a bit, she reaches into the long, white sleeve of her qipao. “W-We could save—” A Backdoor is already opening beneath her as she speaks, perception too slow to do anything about it, both hers and mine.

Hana’s perception is not.

A blur of red and white removes Chen from Reimu’s hold as if it’d pierced time, and every pair of eyes rushes to a biting remark only as cold as the sight: “SHE’S DYING TODAY!” With both hands gripping Chen's arms like burning chains, she roars with torrential rage, her face looming over Chen’s. “Even if you pulled off a miracle that could stop her, I’d kill her anyway!” Chen cries and whimpers in pain, her eyes oozing dread.

“Hana!” Reimu intervenes with a severity that should’ve left Hana paralyzed. The girl does not back down, flashing her red eyes towards her mother with righteous wrath. “Put her down now; she’s done nothing wrong!”

“I’m not buying this drivel! Never again!” She hisses through pressed teeth, tossing the bakeneko, choking in pure terror, onto Reimu’s arm, pointing a finger at them as the older miko kneeled to measure the damage. Chen gazed at Hana as if facing Death itself, kicking her legs to create as much distance between her and the younger miko. My legs felt like jelly. I cannot move. “Yukari’s not worthy of any mercy, any show of kindness! You dare say nonsense like that because she’s never put you through the same torment I have experienced! You have no idea of what she’s done to my body, to my mind!” The Gohei appears in her hand, a seething wrath sensitive on her very skin. “You don't! You never will! Who do you think you are that you assume you have a stake in how her future will play out, you coddled brat?!”

Each word made the bakeneko rattle as if physical. My legs refused movement; my heart bleeds. I know Hana’s suffering; I was a part of it. My daughter… “—I-I’m sorry, I just wanted to help… f-family…” Chen stammers, clinging to Reimu for protection.

“You don’t get to decide any of that! You’re weak and pathetic!” She points the Gohei towards the bakeneko. Reimu doesn’t lift hers, but her only hand creaks. “Y-Yukari has thrived in… every single moment of weakness I’ve shown; every modicum of affection I’ve shown. I thought I could save her too, get to know her and… do something—anything.” for a moment, the Gohei threatens to lower, yet its blue hues and runes grow stronger, alight like a thousand bonfires of azure. “I have given Yukari courtesy enough. We’ll kill her.”

Reimu lowers her face, eyes closing painfully.

She… knows it.

She knows what our daughter—our little baby—has endured.

Chen was pale as fog and trembled like a leaf against prevailing winds, looking at Hana with a spirit of bewilderment, and the ache to hug her in my arms and ward off that terrifying sight echoed loudly. A glimmer of poise shone in her eyes, however, of challenge. Whatever its meaning, it died upon hollered words: “Look alive!” Okina called, throwing her head towards the white shine of war, and Hana and Reimu reacted similarly. It took not a second for Hana to fold into herself and disappear, Okina following.

Gently, Reimu left Chen in my hold, her wings unfurled around us as her every movement bore haste.

Yet, when our eyes met, it was like a lifetime.

“… Protect her.” I commanded. Our little girl, once so innocent and gentle, twisted by this war—by her pain—, my arms encompassing all of Chen as if to save my life.

Reimu paused, nodded once, and then disappeared.

Love destroys like nothing else.

Somehow, it had not destroyed her entirely. A better person—a person I have loved—exists within there.

A skeleton stripped of her flesh.

I hold Chen as if this is our last time together. “I-I’m so sorry for Hana…”

Clashes happen in the background, deafening and vicious.

“… No one deserves to go through that pain,” she whispers, clutching me through her tears of fear. “Mine will never be as great as Hana-chan’s; I'll never know. B-But I never want my pain to consume me like t-that, Mr. Anon—” Beneath us, the ground feels as if it is a cloud in the way it parts. Her voice tightens with resignation; a battle everlasting. “—I know how things will end; it'll be full of sad… B-But I want to help her! At least try! I want us all to be happy, have a… future…”

Behind her, a cruel shadow.

“I want to do my best—”

A childish dream of genuine kindness. Love…

Something stops our fall, like a hook, and it rips Chen away from my arms, and they feel empty, begging for something to cradle. We share a long look in frozen time, the realization of what’s happening not dawning as the world quells.

… And love destroys.

Through Chen’s middle emerges a massive red blade, her small body lurching forward in a silent scream, skewered like a fish. The crimson iron bathes in blood as it drips down, her twin tails weakly swaying as she labors to string a coherent sentence amid confusion and searing pain, yet all that leaves her mouth are ribbons of blood, small hands gathering around the blade that’d blossomed from her heart to try pushing it away. Nothing implied sense; the world had shattered; the cloud cut apart as I fell onto hard gravel.

I stare from below; Yukari had stabbed Chen.

Wha…

… W-Why?

Not a second had passed since Reimu and Hana had left. How did they miss her…

Why aim for Chen? Why not kill me…?

W-Why is this happening—? “YOU!” Yukari’s voice is guttural and that single word drips with bitter venom, mad purple eyes burning into me. “You should love ME and your DAUGHTER! We, not imitations! We’re your f-family; we’re the only ones that matter!” She delivers with jealousy and desperation. Begging.

Nothing of what she says truly registers.

Chen is crying in pain, calling low and frail, “M-Mr. Anon…?”

I hadn’t moved, as always. “No… n-no, no, no… Please stop, Yukari, PLEASE—”

A scream of blind heartache echoes, one that tears me apart. “CHEN!” Reimu’s, and the atmosphere vibrated with a murderous blaze that matched Ibaradouji’s—

—Veils of purple lightning surrounded us, broad and crackling against the ground and the water like a waterfall of electricity. “This thing has no feelings! It cannot love you back like I do!” Yukari stepped forward, the bakeneko strung from the brutal red blade like a doll, trying to propel herself off the metal. Her eyes were wide and echoing horror. “When are you going to understand?! Everything I did was because I l-loved you. W-We’re going to have a family together, with our Sekai!” Yukari pleads, paying no attention to Chen slowly d-dying. The curtain of thunderbolts streams as if beckoned by a god, the rumbling silencing all the screams I know are behind it.

Reimu cannot float, not with the anguish I know she is bearing right now.

Were you ever truly gone, Reimu?

I ignore Yukari and her meaningless words, trying to reach for Chen, my tears streaking also ignored—

—A hand grabs my neck and pushes me to the ground. “You sick man-thing…! You were going to watch me and y-your daughter get murdered! You’re heartless! My love and the love of your unborn daughter are worthless to you!” Yukari’s crying and heartbreak go absolutely ignored, my trembling, charred fingers trying to reach Chen’s dangling, pallid hand.

“Chen…” I utter her name as if precious.

… My digits barely manage to brush her pulse, pulling slightly from below the white sleeve a weird piece of paper.

Her bloodied hand clutches it.

“B-But it’s okay! Everything’s going to be okay, Anon! I’ll kill all of them, reconstruct Gensokyo from the ground up, and it’ll be just us three! Y-Yukari, Anon, and Sekai! You’ll love your daughter, you’ll love me—you’ll have no one else to love but your true family!” Her nails sink into my neck, dicing the flesh open and drawing fine strands of blood. It doesn’t matter. Yukari doesn't matter to me. “And then…” Gently, a piece of paper brushes against her face. “… I will finally be happy.”

The world suddenly explodes in blue, Yukari thrown away from us. The curtain of purple thunderbolts immediately died out, the thud of flesh meeting ground shifting my eyes to gaze at Chen, left hand holding the talisman with the sigil of a goat burning blue.

I care not.

“C-CHEN!” Reimu and I screamed together. I crawl through the mud and gravel, unbothered by the surging pain in charred limbs and new cuts, and the Hakurei miko snaps right to her side. Together, we fetch Chen from the ground.

The wound bleeds freely and abundantly; her complexion is the pallor of light itself, and the warmth of her flesh fades away fast. The vertical hole in her chest is the embodiment of the abyss.

She’s dying.

“… My Gap?” A voice pierces the veil as embers of blue flutter. “Where is it…? Where’s my…” A pause. The voice is Yukari’s a few paces away. Hana and Okina have approached, boasting expressions and actions I do not see, for as Yukari and Reimu do, I stare at the large pool of dark blood that trickles from the bakeneko.

Bloodshot eyes stare back.

>>49670964
>>49670962
>>49670961
>>49670956
and with these chapters, we're officially out of Set 3 and into Set 4! Two years waiting to bring this outta the marble~
for Takaneanon: remember what I said about severance? Yeah...
I left vague what arm she tested the sword on, so you'd have autonomy to choose either: Yukari takes the right arm with that sick bracelet and Goro, supposedly, loses those powers, or Yukari takes the left, and I guess Goro pays for his love to Yukari is a blood sacrifice. I'd personally pick the right arm; Goro's a strong man, and if he's still one after those “gifts” are gone, then it was never the bracelet that made him one. Could also be seen as Yukari freeing his soul as one last twisted act of kindness. That's just how I see it; it's not up to me to decide.
Also, my take would be Okina sent him to the Myouren guys. Would make a funny scene after everything in the building of the HSE. Up to you~
more soon~!

>>49670969
Got to hand it to Yukari, she really is context-dependent! I imagine there's a lot of emotions going through her head, but I like how it's subtly implied she's jealous.
Also, lore:
The Bracelet's akin to a glitch as a 'sterile grudge' which doesn't grow or shrink, which is strange, because a curse should either get stronger or weaker over time. The creator intended for this to be a way to assail seemingly-invulnerable Youkai, which it can do, but principally what he actually created was a 'universal reference' through which you can see a consistent world. The problem is that the real world isn't actually consistent, both magic and science have unexplainable phenomenon beyond anyone's comprehension and subordinating that wonder completely to rationality makes the world look accused.
'Absolute Deal' operates on a very similar principle, making trade into a rationale and consistent practice with no room for breaches of contract and also no need for trust or tact, so Goro was already primed to understand the Bracelet's mechanisms. The reason it's been stuck on Goro's wrist is that he's been made aware of the 'consistent world' and is cursed and damned with that knowledge. In that sense, Yukari already 'saved' him by telling him not to think of things so strictly and inadvertently giving him completely irrational children.
So I'd say take the right arm and make the implication explicit. Sending them to the Myouren's makes sense as well, but I'd just like to make sure they're there to witness Yukari dying/getting sealed in the end, they made a promise to do so Afterall.

>>49670964
Ran will explode larger than that nuke. Bye bye, Chen...

>>49673826
Chen is literally bleeding gaps, no shot she dies. Yukari however is beyond screwed, she's dying the mother of all painful deaths!

>>49675817
The writers already agreed to not kill off Yukari, sorry to tell you.

>>49671582
>third spoiler
I'll move her around Set 4 a lot -- it'll mostly be a chase down with two Hakurei mikos frothing at the mouth and a desperate effort to end the war --, so we can have things work out, and they're there at the end of the world.
good writing to you~!

Solstice update #21

>>49683072
Flowchart update when?

>>49683104
Before the anniversary. It's a good deadline to get over the dread of opening my video editor.

Today I will remind them.

>>49688491
A lot changed in the course of the pastebin, it is really just a big Umamusume for the winter solstice.
And I really need to update it and stop slacking...

>>49688491
the pastebin is wrong, here's a snippet of one day after the solstice
https://files.catbox.moe/c7p8ew.png
a joke, for obvious fucking reasons~

>>49692118
Yeah we all know Reimu would rape Kasen instead.

>>49692118
I don't trust you.

>>49695643
i can promise it'd take at least 72 hours~

It is as I wanted it to be. A sunset.

My body wafts through the nuclear wasteland, and I watch bubbles filled with oxygen and radiation pulse towards the surface. I am pulled by the immense gravity of repeated chains and links of energy swallowed whole by a beast I have seen only the shadow of—an abyssal serpent of sheer grudges, born alongside every ounce of karma generated from this war—, and whose jaws have gobbled the blue core of the explosion to keep it stable. A sunset of overwhelming light, soon to claim my life as I have desired. To end the pain and to quell the miserable existence slandered by failure after failure, the original sin of the species I was born into.

The sunset I coveted, sitting atop Koutei’s head. Ashes of dreams…

… I am not alone, however, in my descent towards that raging, nuclear sun. A four-leaf clover floats just ahead through the water doused in the radiation they’d talked so extensively about in the set-up of that weird contraption—cold fusion, had they called it?—, snippets of information that shield this body of mine from dissolving into coalesced matter, and somehow survives destruction. The leaves are a bright blue, almost impossible to tell apart from the thrumming light, and its movements alongside mine are hypnotic.

I know it; recognize what it is beyond the plant-like form.

The scars sprawled across my face ache, left there by a terrible struggle against the influence of Douji, now lost and nowhere to be found within. Yukari cleansed me of it all and left behind hollowness. Shouldn’t I feel happy? Though lacking right and left arms, I am free of the parasite of my birthright—jagged horns sprout anyway, my teeth are sharp, and the way everything appears focused tells me my pupils have narrowed into slits—, and I…

I cry tears that disappear in the radioactive water, eyes following the clover.

Release the hold of the power, disappear in the nuclear sun.

It’d be so easy to spell the end of this life.

—she stands across the field of many flowers, each one a distinct shade of bright or deep blue, and she talks words I understand. Words forgotten with the way my soul snapped back to reality and replaced Douji’s. When had it happened? How? What propelled me from the confines of my psyche to take control over my worst half…?—

Gensokyo is dying above. Koutei is dead, an entire hidden society eviscerated under the sheer cadence of Manipulation of Understanding. Reimu shrivels and marches towards her end, and her daughter, their souls intertwined, shall meet the same ending. I’ve failed every single soul of this land and deserve nothing but the hellfire of the sun to which I drift so slowly… Yet, this clover and the whispers beyond its petals lure me.

What was I told by that unborn child?

What wrought unto me the desire to breathe again in this land I’ve failed…?

A shadow lingers past the clover, and it makes its way towards me. Hulking and horned, hair sprawled around her and… My eyes widen, my heart blisters with the dreaded sight, a loathsome spear lodging itself through me: her skin peels with every inch she takes down the radioactive water, blood curls and ribbons rising as she makes her way towards me. She’d lifted wards, yet they amounted to a crude defense against the biting radiation. Even so, Yuugi’s eyes were dead-set on me, carrying the same overpowered confidence and hope she’d looked at me with the day Yukari toyed with her for one nightmarish minute.

She manipulates unexplained phenomena, so why…?

The question means nothing to me as this shameful body springs into action, exploding towards her and grabbing the bigger Oni by the hem of her yukata with my teeth, eyes wide and animalistic with just how severe the damages appear.

My fault. I caused this.

Without hesitation, I bring us all the way up and explode through the surface of the lake, our bodies rolling across the shore, the lack of arms doing nothing to stop me as I kneel and manipulate my understanding of wounds to heal her. I-It’s not perfect. I don’t understand one thing about radiation burns and injuries— “Ha… I never once imagined spending so much time with Okuu would fuck me up like this.” Blood and peeling skin, shield wards flashing and eroding like a ridge under the scrutiny of a pluvial deluge, her wounds closed yet burning so thoroughly, the tanned skin had vanished. She rose to her feet anyway, tall as any summit. “What are you doing down there, Kasen? Kneeling… Get up at once.” Her voice snapped my spine to a dull halt, my eyes searching her figure for any sign of unraveling, her clothes clinging to her solely by mandate of heaven. “We won’t end the Hag by kneeling.”

I follow Yuugi's eyes and shiver as everything blurs, and I drink of Yukari’s wide purples ablaze with madness. Through the corner of my eye, I caught the object of her focus: that same blue four-leaf clover, floating as if it’d never left water.

Her words, though whispered, were of wrath: “… Give it back… Sekai.”

>>49702492
one chapter to get out of my set break~! Much more geared to set up, but the next chapters (Reimu) should pick up the pace. Obviously, timeline-ambiguous for now. Next chapters will start from the end of Set 3.
more soon!

>>49702492
Kasen always gets the cooest edits what's with the favoritism?

>>49708245
I'd hardly call that the coolest edit.

>>49708245
there's no such thing as favoritism in the HSE~!
>>49708494
it's so over boyz, might as well go full blind at this point.

Our kits flock to us,
Their first spring, smiles are plenty,
It's a gentle dream.

—

The talisman is one I took a second to recognize. Aya used a similar talisman to destroy my cage of silver in scarlet red flames, and those same flames had devoured the walls of the Fake Shrine. Chen’s dissipates in a deep blue, her little—pale, dying—hand holding it like a lifeline; her pupils had disappeared beneath shut, trembling eyelids; heaving of the chest furthered the downpour of darkened blood, bloodshot eyes sprawling in increasing number, tearing down her small frame as they emerged at random, the Gap not working as it should and bringing with its wide stares more wounds. One peeled the skin under her right eye, and it bled profusely. The world felt stagnant as I soaked in every single detail of a slow, painful death.

Tears mixed with the blood, and I glared at Reimu, her teeth grinding and flesh quaking like a pulled bowstring, tears thick and falling as that legendary fury I’ve seen in my every nightmare took hold and erased the woman underneath it. In that split second, whatever redemption Reimu sought had vanished, and murder poised—

It was the first time I found sanctuary in her rage.

—“YUKARI!” Her scream was guttural and strangled, a thing of pity and fear, yet one that I welcomed wholly as her arm rescinded and clenched the Gohei tight to the sound of breaking wood, splinters digging deep into her palm.

My own tears did not surprise me. The Hakurei miko let go of Chen and I held the bakeneko in my arms, alone, her frame throbbing with frailty. Her twin tails had frozen up, her limp body withered away and got smaller and smaller, and my stomach churned violently at the hole and the Gaps gushing from it.

Hugging her to me, I prayed that the rage Reimu washed herself with, massive wings flaring like ruffled edges of a glacier about to be snapped, would bring about the end.

That after she’s decreed her rage, this war ends.

“… Kill her… please…” I beg my ex-wife.

Yukari’s purple eyes flooded mine.

She receives spite.

May her heart be shattered to pieces.

Her purple eyes well with tears.

Reimu is gone in a sizzling of the air that fills my lungs and threatens to explode them, and in my peripheral vision Hana lunged too, her eyes until then glued to the dying cat, unreadable to her Father a second time since her birth—the first, she’d killed and moved on as if merely dusting her clothes—; Okina moved too, a hiss of pain the only thing I detected before the Underground was alight with purple, bristling lightning that boomed so strongly and close my maimed eardrums felt like about to burst. Backdoors sprung up, but they were all… closed? The thick purple electricity bounced off them harmlessly and hit the wet gravel, cooking it into glass.

I had moved my back to the war, as if shielding Chen from it. It’d mean nothing. “H-Hold on, you two!” The Sage of Backdoors yelled at us, my eyes growing huge with the blanket of vertical lightning that’d formed above and around the Nuclear Lake. The eerie silence meant that if the Sage of Backdoors were a moment too late, the pulsar would’ve killed me.

… Yukari doesn’t care. Not anymore.

Her love is dead.

For a brief second, I permit myself to be glad; then, the faint heartbeat of a dying body pressed against mine brings me back to reality, and I rush towards the Sage of Backdoors, ignoring the wounds across my body and the burning of my broken arms. “YOU NEED TO TAKE US AWAY! C-CHEN CAN BE SAVED!” I shouted at the woman holding off something so beyond my comprehension it lost all sense, all possibility. It’s just raw power. A simple man would never understand godhood.

A simple man doesn’t belong in Gensokyo.

“… Y-Yukari did something to my power—when she used the red blade on my backdoors, they’ve… closed,” she grunts, eyes on the backdoors that protect us from the surge of electricity. Though not one sound echoes, in the distance shadows dance over the purple and white coalesced energy, and in my veins—my skin—I feel Reimu’s wrath.

But that doesn’t matter. It just doesn’t matter.

The sound of opening Gaps continues, a haunting lullaby.

“… S-She’s going to die…” I mumble, hopelessness gnawing, as it does. Gaps spread over my reddened jinbe, and Chen whimpers, pale like a ghost. I watch it all like a hawk, yet my heart urges my eyes to look away—anywhere but the source of many memories—laughter, spiders, crochet—, to not commit her death to memory. It’d destroy me, I know.

Another consequence of this war.

Of Gensokyo.

All the Sage of Backdoors gives me is a sad look.

The purple light paints her tiny frame, the Gaps gaze as if confused, and though these knees of mine have buckled, I hold Chen.

I would always hold her.

Even in the end.

Another voice joins the lullaby of emerging, bloodshot Gaps.

Chen’s eyes flutter open, debilitated. Words choke my throat. “Ran-sama…?” She gurgles, barely a whisper.

And a most gentle hand falls on my shoulder.

>>49716143
decided the Anon chapter would come first, for better timeline control. Trust me, bro
more soon~!

>>49716143
YES

>>49716143
Lets us call it T.H.O.T.
>Total
>Hag
>Obliteration
>Timeline
The best timeline.

>>49716148
Now all of the rest of the old (over the age of 25) women can be killed so Anon can build a harem with his daughter and all the rabbits Eientei can provide.

>>49723684
ror, rumao even~

I have just discovered this masterpiece, and it's soon to be finished.
Will we ever get something similar?
Tatakae my friends.

>>49728196
3000 is young...

>>49732785
Younger than Reimu

>>49728196
That's not canon, there's barely any information on Tewi and the wiki is full of headcanons.

I stand before them, and it takes a lot of this body of mine to not show true feelings. Patchy must’ve noticed—as she often does—and though unapologetic, she has the decency to swivel her eyes away from me; this frustration would’ve boiled otherwise. “… You have contacted a creature beyond my comprehension, be that in shape and spirit, and whose powers casually have overwritten mine and Sakuya’s in the forest so we would not interfere; you have performed a ritual concerning such a creature that culminated in a dead child you want to keep hidden from Yukari Yakumo,” I pause, gaze lurking to the sleeping child. So very plain; so very hard to… gauge. “You have done all that under my nose, inside my manor—and you can not even tell me an ounce of what’s happening.” I finish, exasperation seeping into my expression, for in what world would it not? What is this circus?!

The bedroom is silent for a beat. Sakuya’s clothes ruffle slightly—even the perfect and elegant maid cannot stand wholly apathetic after that—and Patchy’s lethargic gaze returns to me. Meiling blushed, staring at Patchy and trusting, or maybe hoping, she’d take the lead. I cross my arms to hide a most annoying tremble; my nose crinkles, yet in my mind I can’t scrub the notion all of this is my fault: I failed them. They didn’t seek my help because I have unreliably tied our state, our might, to the leash that is the Yakumo.

Foolish, Remilia. Foolish…

“… Precisely, Remi,” Patchy says, hushed as if deliberately stopping herself from waking up the dead yet breathing child. “The secrecy must be kept for this child’s sake. I urge you to remember it won’t last forever; soon, you will know. Trust us, please.” She pleads, confident despite the pallor and dark circles under her eyes. Had she not slept properly? Or had the mysterious entity…?

Why bother asking if I know I won’t have answers?

A hand falls on my shoulder, and the implication I see in Sakuya’s cold eyes is one that sends shivers down my spine. Fear, a small and subdued thing, resounded from Patchy; Meiling remained poised, despite her silence. We all know what she is offering without the need of words. Interrogating or investigating the two of them for answers is a possibility, but bolting to the Human Village right now and feeding off every human in sight is also a possibility. Both promised only pain and hurt in the future, and I stopped a tired sigh from leaving me.

They’re my friends, not my subjects.

Friends trust each other.

Seeing her proposition wouldn’t be considered, Sakuya backed off with evergreen elegance. I uncrossed my arms, my eyes jumping between the trio ahead of me. “… I’ll be waiting, then.” I said, turning to leave the bedroom, the feelings fighting inside me like mad dogs. No reliable friend entangles another to a megalomaniacal woman; no friend gives in to fear and sells you.

“—Lady Remilia!”

My steps come to a halt, eyes fluttering to the gatekeeper now on her feet. Under my gaze she flushes, and her fingers fidget with one another; always a creature of passion and action first, thoughts come later. Patchy stares daggers at her, though the librarian doesn’t intervene.

The silence hangs for a moment before, finding her words, she speaks: “T-Thank you for your understanding! We… w-we have had harsh times since this whole thing began, and it’s not always that we can be straight with you, no matter how much we want to,” the reddish hue disappears slowly, hair and skin no longer matching. “… To be met with your acceptance, barren of judgment, is more than I could ever long for. T-This little girl will have a better life because of you—you are the best of friends!” She finishes with a bow, long crimson hair arcing forward and nearly snapping the air, as if a whip.

Inside, mad dogs are met with another fighter. One warm and caring.

They fight and fight.

There’s no victor, for the frustration is agonizing; the hurt deep and the fluttering of Meiling’s words—of Patchy’s gaze, whose softness is rare and treasurable—is rather precious.

It’s not always that she calls me a friend. How long has it been…?

I wish I could see my reflection in their pupils; I must look awfully cute with the smile that spreads across my face. Alas, a vampire. “Lift your head, Meiling. There’s no realistic fate where the residents of this mansion are mistreated by their mistress—don’t expect a light time, however, when the truth is laid bare,” I turn back to the doors, Sakuya following. “In due time, I'll extract from you two every juicy detail about the child whose facial features match yours.” I tease. It’s dubious the theory I craft in my mind of the child’s origins has ground. A virgin conceived Jesus Christ himself, and though I’m not expecting the second coming to happen anywhere near a pureblooded vampire—that human God wouldn’t be so cheeky—, I can’t help but muse.

I open the door, leaving with mad dogs fighting, yet slightly soothed.

Maybe their truths would be kind to my heart.

The door closes behind me, and the sight is enough to churn a blood-full stomach.

Flandre lies there on her bed, surrounded by stuffed toys and otherwise, pale as ever, with twinkling wings resting as if a collection of jewels. Her face lies bloodied, her Yakumo outfit torn here and there, caked in mud. Sakuya is behind me, attempting to no avail to conceal how she huffs in overwrought mind and body, trembling from bloodletting and… fear. A fear we share, for it was bestowed upon us by a veritable demon.

Her knives clink to the ground as she sinks to her knees, wheezing reverberating loudly throughout the room; “I-In the stopped world…” She speaks. I listen only halfheartedly, approaching my sleeping little sister. I had started everything with my failures, letting fear control me—look at the consequences, at this Pietà. “… S-She’d moved. I saw her following us with her eyes.” The words are gongs.

The demon said she’d discover, but ‘twas mere toying.

Had Yukari not appeared…

I stand by Flandre, burning my gaze at the creamy uniform bearing symbols—trigrams, Meiling had told me—of the woman who brought Hell to Earth. The woman who untimely saved mine and my sister’s life. It bore no merit as it was part of the cycle she fostered… Yet, as my fingers trail across her face and feel warmth, the escaping oxygen, the truth is impossible to deny. And in its existence I found rage. Budding rage.

A failure for your friends, whose dependability you lost; to yourself and to your sister, relying on a much worse devil to save your skin; to the perfect and elegant maid, a fifth of her flowing life-force thrumming through your veins, nurturing lost strength.

Hand cups Flandre’s face, her eyes fluttering open ever so slowly, groggy and…

… A-And…

Purple.

These are not my sister’s eyes.

They are Yukari’s.

What is… happening here?

My hold of Flandre’s face turned murderous, eyes flung wide, staring straight into the violet pupils. Where’s the scarlet red? Is this an illusion—a trap? I desperately search her expression for any other change the Yakumo woman might’ve imposed; these red eyes of mine sickened at the sight of the deep violet and purple swimming in my sister’s face. A parasite sprung out of nowhere and has taken over, feeding and replacing, destroying anything in its way for no other sake than its indulgence. Yukari Yakumo! That monster!

The rage blossomed impossibly, and in an unrelenting fit borne from the blood feeding my every vein and artery, I ripped the uniform off Flandre’s body as if I could rid her of the scourge. Those purple eyes bulge in confusion—those aren’t my sister’s! Away! “R-Remi, what…?” She tries to cover herself, yet I scour her body for any other maim, any other sign of the Yakumo’s parasite taking over my sister’s body. I can only find dried blood, no source of the putrid ocean of hundreds of purples that’d gouged and replaced my sister’s eyes.

It must be something, somewhere. The Yakumo woman wouldn’t settle for so little.

My heart rattles, my mind clenches. It’s my fault.

“Mistress, please, calm down!” Sakuya’s hand on my shoulder stops me, her voice bubbling with concern, pulling me away from my frightened little sister.

“NO! She has corrupted Flandre!” I point at purple eyes, blood simmering. Flan’s eyes go wide as she watches the expansion of my folded wings, the upper bone towering above the tip of my hat and its lowest grating against the ground. “I cannot have that; I MUST not leave that unanswered, Sakuya!” The wrath grew each time I met those cursed purples, a knot overwhelming my stomach at a conclusion that dawned like Uncle Vlad’s last forest of people, thirty thousand long: Flan shall never know the difference, what was taken away from her. Vampires cannot see their reflections.

Failure after failure.

When shall it come to a close?

“R-Remi, what’s happening? Where's Kari? Everyone el—?” Before Flandre could even get a glimpse of what I felt building in my eyes, I craned a hand towards her naked visage, and every blood cell in her vampiric body rattled before, like a stringless doll, she slumped into Sakuya’s arms, who’d popped by her side. Then, and only then, I let the simmering tears rivulet down my face. Sharing them with Patchy as her mind and body unraveled was a privilege, yet to let my sister, now tainted solely by the despicable Yakumo woman, see me cry?

I cannot have that. Not until after this war comes to a close, and…

“Mistress,” Sakuya coos to my side. Flandre rests on her bed, dressed in her pajamas, her mind unconscious due to Archblood magic. What a haunting feeling, to have use of this power so soon after it is returned.

“Do not worry, Sakuya. There will be time for tears.” I weep for my innocent sister and for everything I have caused in my mistakes. Tears I clean off. They can’t shape fate. “… Protect Flandre. I’ll be back soon.” Sakuya nods steadily, ever loyal.

I have friends of mine to help, to save.

And a nasty parasite to squash.

Transversal through bloodspring is a familiar, if rusty, set of maneuvers. Atrophied knowledge, nurtured by a single liter of blood, compelled this body back to its prime—if briefly. Digestion is happening; soon enough, the body will deteriorate back into the state of perpetual hunger I’ve learned to withstand, to live in.

I pose unstable Spear the Gungnir against the ground. “… Leave, while Fate yet permits you,” the words come bluntly from me, rage reserved for the parasite that’s preyed on Gensokyo for far too long; my mercy is still available, and my heart has ballooned after one speck of light pierced this dark, its name Hata no Sekai, child of Patchouli Knowledge and Hong Meiling.

A monumental weight lifted from my chest, and I could breathe again. The child is not the fruit of a heinous ritual or meddling Gods beyond planet Earth… to the extent of my knowledge, she’s just regular, if cherished, offspring.

Logistics shall be of concern later.

“… Holy fucking shit,” Toutetsu cackles, glinting eyes on me, her posture shifting to non-threatening. “That ilk of magic, at this day and age…? You must be, what, 10 thousand years old or something~?” There was genuine curiosity in her voice.

“I am around five hundred years old. Only, Fate bows down to me.” A strand of Old Magic lost upon the yawning age of religion and the birth of belief; a magic chaotic and primal. The feeling that echoes from above is of unbelievable expansion. It makes the handling of this power feel small. Patchouli had revealed the connection of child and tree. Perhaps the child herself is the cosmic entity…? I lower Spear the Gungnir; Toutetsu Yuuma’s answer is obvious to me.

“Let’s make something clear, ladies: I got no qualms dying here,” she says, hovering above the ground. “If I still believed whatever you’re doing here harmful to the people I love? You wouldn’t get out of here whole.” Her eyes wander to Hata no Sekai, the wide grin and the sharp eyes softening just a little before she sighs. “… I better see that kiddo there happy and alive when all this shit’s said and done. Otherwise, I’ll be eating you three.” The threat lingers even after the goat blasts away, disappearing in the swimming blue hues. Her words didn’t strike me as particularly serious, so I let them wash off me with a long sigh…

… Meiling and Patchy are alive. They did not die.

I bask in the soothing thoughts before lifting a few centimeters in flight, the wings—not atrophied; giant and alive—beating slightly. I glided towards the magician, the adrenaline having drained from her blood and releasing her from a prison of tension; the woman falls to her knees and heaves onto a ritual much different from anything I’ve ever seen.

Meiling stared at me, her chest and eyes swollen with bright hope.

Patchy seemed, even gasping for air and with drifting eyes, smug. “… I was right.”

“Had you a doubt I’d come to you in your time of need—even with my Manipulation of Fate in play?” I land by her, helping the woman back to her footing.

“No—I just needed to provide time; things would fall in place…” Her eyes go to the child, and I cannot overstate the amount of whiplash I’ve just received: Patchouli Knowledge, smiling ever fondly. “… It is the usual song and dance with those that see into the future.” She reached a quivering hand towards the child, and I helped her get close. She left my hold and fell by the sleeping child the moment we were close enough, fingers trailing her cheek. “I… I see you’ve restored that side of your power—please, Remi…” Her voice is weak, her body broken. Her eyes, burning, determined. “Puppeteer me. Do not let my flesh and blood cause my child’s death.”

Breath hitches in my throat, wide eyes arch to meet Meiling’s. All I get back is the same fierce zeal. “Patchy…” I sense their mutual trust.

I am not failing them again.

“… You’ll feel the strain all the same, Patchy.” Words and actions don’t match, for a bloodspring opens above, cascading blood of the ancients onto the ritual below. Undulating red strings follow, and they latch to the magician’s body, lifting her as if an odd doll. The sight stirs queasiness through me.

With the eyes she bears, nothing that I could’ve said would’ve mattered.

Then, the world froze: “… We spent a year inside the HSE as phantoms, Remi,” her voice conveys invisible hurt. “Sekai had brought us there to help her. She’s the daughter of Anon and of Yukari—not of flesh, but of coagulated pain and suffering. She was manufactured in a cage. She’s powerful, but not free. We’re delivering her freedom, Remi.” As she speaks, the lines shape movements, guided by Fate itself to where they should be. The glass burning blue reshapes to Patchy’s ministrations, and the blood I’d poured seeps into it. Soon enough, it’s turned scarlet red. Patchy seems barely capable of speaking, yet her eyes are on the child, full of love. “… We’re her mothers; we’d do anything for her.”

And the sigil pulses to the sound of a beating heart.

>>49734346
>>49734344
>>49734338
word of the day? Blood...
next, Reimu chapters!
more soon~

>She has corrupted Flandre
>Protect Flandre
Now that's some freakish words!

>>49735196
It's Okina's fault for being retarded anyway. If she had a single braincell not dedicated to pedophilia maybe she would have second guessed handing the greatest weapon in gensokyo over to Y*kari.

Solstice update #22

>>49732826
hana will bully her rabbit mother forever for the lingerie present, as is the fate of every hag~

>>49743695
She's a beautiful young maiden not a day over 12

The last time I’d felt like this, Aya was guiding me to that cursed birthday party. It’s a licking flame that scours the body and rips off the flesh from the muscle and from the bone, and what remains is nothing but a blood-red seething rage. My hand bleeds and white knots threaten to pop, a battalion of faceless, paper-like mikos following me into the cataclysm of pink—Satori’s words echo, the lightning a mirror of Douji’s—, yet nothing constrains me as I charge towards Yukari like an arrow, black hair swaying as the mikos protect me with charms and small, wordless prayers. Against the destructive might of Koutei, nothing of this would’ve protected me, but Yukari is just a woman whose greatest strength has been stripped down, her eyes wide as I cross the threshold of her thunderbolts, teeth clenched and moving the Onikirimaru to meet sacred wood—

—An attack from the past swerves her attention away from me, Hana popping from absolutely nowhere with just as much bloodlust as what I know spews in waves from me. Danmaku pours from Hakurei Spheres, Yukari having to dodge everything now that her Gap is nowhere to be found. A karmic loss, which blisters through my veins as both acute frustration and celebration.

I’m on her not a second after Hana, Gohei slamming against the blade. Many more come, a hundred attacks filled with youthful vigor and a personal vendetta, the Yakumo woman trembling with transferring force. The Gap would’ve cushioned it all, made it easier. Blemished golden hair bounces as the ancient Youkai moves against the force of two striking Goheis, somehow keeping herself alive and mostly unharmed despite the traveling force—has it to do with Douji’s power…?—, blankets of purple thunderbolts tumbling to deafening pulses that light up the Underground, Danmaku licking off her skin as it grazes, blessed needles dodged by centimeters.

Yukari is an old Youkai. This is not the first time she’s dueled on the ropes—of the little Suzu taught me of history, the Sengoku period was much worse—, and her powers go beyond the Gap.

I’ll make sure it’s the last. Anon asked it.

… But the way things are going now is not ideal. She’s doing far too well; her vitality recovered, and the blessings planted by Hana, aimed to cripple Youkai, killed by Douji’s power. Something gotta give soon, otherwise… Thunderbolts echo through the hollowed tree of purple lightning, and I and Hana dodge away from the onslaught of electricity. “Hana!” I yell, unable to see her amidst the chaotic kaleidoscope.

“I’m here!” She hushes, popping to my side from thin air, sharp eyes where Yukari was. Around us, hundreds of Hakurei miko ready for battle. “… We gotta aim for the sword, she’s using Kasen-nee’s power somehow—she understands our combat patterns, maybe…?” For whatever reason, Hana smirked at the words about aiming for the sword. It was a smile of nostalgia. It faded as her eyes sharpened and sweat was wiped from her brow. “You cannot Float.” Straightforward words.

I picture Chen, suffering and pale as marble; Anon with eyes of misery—eyes I inflicted once—, and this heart screams at the haunting sound of tolling bells. My hand around the Gohei bleeds. “I cannot,” purple lightning roars as if a living thing, nerves blistering on the surface. A full second has passed; where is Yukari…? “We have to change how we attack, then?” The nature of Kasen’s new—old?—power eludes me, so I leave it to Hana to figure things out.

Hana grimaced. “… Youkai are weak to mental attacks.” She whispers, then widens her eyes. “Mother, I think I have a plan—”

A purple blur appears from a mass of thunderbolts snapping behind her, red flashes.

I move without hesitation, exploding past Hana and battering the Gohei against the crimson blade—

—No sound of iron; the blur dissipated as if a cloud.

Hana had moved out of the way, her Gohei with streaks of blue ready for defense, dodging straight into the real red blade piercing through the liquified electricity. She’d manipulated these thunderbolts to resemble her; the understanding echoed…

Then, a facet of this power sprang against my will, twenty paper-like mikos soaring forward and engulfing themselves in flames, sacrificing themselves as their Gohei piled into the lashing red blade, which cut them like the flaming origami they were, Yukari’s eyes widening at being stopped by nothing yet recovering as the powerful Youkai she is. By then, Hana had already twisted and aimed a slam against her head, meeting only crimson steel. My body hissed. An exchange half a second long.

These mikos seem to answer as much to Hana as they answer to me.

Using that, no wonder she killed a dragon…

Hana was thrown back, body recovering and ready to pounce onto Yukari once more—

“—Before I kill you today, mikos,” any pretense of friendship she had in the past vanished; only hatred seeped into her voice and intonation. “I was intending on giving a gift… The reveal of delightful secrets. Hana-chan’s secrets~”

… Secrets?

The world had come to a standstill as I peered into Chen’s trembling pupils, the hope that brews there, before following that hand I know so well. Hope washes over me. A prowling nightmare bore light again, and no matter how many Gaps marred Chen’s visage and maimed her, when the three of us are together—days under the pretend sky of every simulated season inside the Fake Shrine, drinking tea and enjoying the sparse moments of… peace—, every wrong of this world dies out and things just make sense.

I turn to look at her from below, precious fading life in my arms. A purple thunderstorm fills the background; Okina stares with an expression I neither care for nor bother with.

There’s only us.

It is why the heartbreak is so acute.

Her hand had left my shoulder, gaining a creaking quality that seemed to sicken her whole body, even underneath the tattered and damaged Yakumo clothes. Every inch of exposed skin was gaining these lines, ancient and coarse, as if her fair skin was made of paper—it seemingly was; they slowly peeled off and dissipated into the wind, revealing more and more paper below—, golden hair brittle and imposing nine tails, the fur so dense I once mused about knitting scarves from it, down and dragging across the gravel. She breathes laboriously, eyes on me, one of them unraveling like a blooming flower and losing scraps of paper to the air. “… What’s happening to Chen, Anon?” Despite what was happening to her, those eyes lay on the bakeneko.

The question left me before I could do anything: “R-Ran…?” I ask, dazed.

—

They run all summer,
He follows them; he's all smiles,
Distance swells; I stay.

—

Ran looks past me, focusing on Chen—I can’t tell; her eyes are unmaking. Tears prickle the corners of mine before I even get an answer—, and they narrow as they lay on the dissipating blue flames. Her brow furrowed, and she got on her knees, a trail of disappearing paper where her feet once were. What is happening…? Why…? “She used a talisman like this one on Yukari, didn’t she?” She asks low, showing me a red-and-blue talisman. The same Aya struck against my cage to destroy it. I nod, a trembling mess, eyes on her features, completely dumbfounded by how casual she seemed.

I had seen it before, when she came to the Fake Shrine with her back bleeding, whip marks all over.

She returns the nod. Her neck thins like a cut tree; her hair and nine tails are melting away; and her hands that I'd often take in mine threaten to disappear whole as, after placing the talisman by her side, she scoops Chen into her arms. I watched it all, impotent and overwhelmed. Our dying, most precious life held firmly by her crumbling figure. “… Yukari crafted this body of mine using her Gap, Anon,” she starts, nuzzling a few strands of hair from Chen’s face. Her eyes had closed again, dark circles surrounding them. “This body is not mine—it feels so… You loved it like so,” she smiles, despite it all. “But it is not mine.”

Pieces fell into place one by one, and a terrible picture formed. “… Y-Yukari lost her Gap.” I whisper, remembering her words.

Ran nods, looking at the talisman on the ground. “Without her as a source of power, this body is cannibalizing itself—it feeds from every Gap Yukari planted, consumes them… Soon enough, I’ll—”

“NO!” I yell, grabbing her shoulders. Tears thicken, heart thrums. The purple lightning is a constant reminder of who had launched this nightmare. “W-We can do something, right? If C-Chen took away her Gap, and you have another talisman… t-then you just take it for yourself! Then everything will be okay!” I reach to cup her cheeks with my charred, destroyed hands, and the way she leans into my touch stirs my heart.

She looks at me lovingly before reaching for one of my hands and gently taking it to the pouring hole in Chen’s chest, towards the collection of Gaps there. W-What is she—

On a dark night, loud sobbing echoes and overpowers the rain. I watch from a distance as she digs the ground with bare hands, a corpse by her side. It wears pink and soft blue, bloodied beyond understanding. I remember that pink-haired woman.

She was so very kind to me…

—I blink, and I’m looking into Ran’s eyes again. The one unraveling eye had fully disappeared, and she closed it. “… The Gaps are flocking to this wound without Chen’s command. A memory ingrained so deeply in them is what keeps her between the… border of life and death.” She continues as she releases my hand, not by will: it had disappeared. “If these Gaps are disrupted, she’ll die immediately…”

It is too sudden, too impossible to wrap my mind around.

I don’t know what to do.

Gensokyo is not meant for simple men.

I stare at my burns, the twin casts of porcelain. One gold thread remains. “I-If you just take the Gap…” This string of words disgusts me.

Ran hums. “… Yes, if I just…” then, she looks into my eyes. Her tears are many.

Within her one eye, insurmountable love.

Dolly had that same gaze.

“… I’ll save her instead, Anon.”

>>49748211
>>49748207
>"[...]the boundary between life and death disappears, and you are in a state neither alive nor dead. Just as if you were in the living world and the Netherworld at the same time, a Necrofantasia."
>wait, say that again...
took a year and something to get here, but man…
more soon~!

>>49748207
>“—Before I kill you today, mikos,” any pretense of friendship she had in the past vanished; only hatred seeped into her voice and intonation. “I was intending on giving a gift… The reveal of delightful secrets. Hana-chan’s secrets~”
>… Secrets?
Hana is going to have a panic attacjk. Again.

>>49752681
I'd be panicking too if Y***ri was about to tell my mum I screwed my dad. It's not 'ana without a freakout every step of the way.

>>49753105
And Reimu is also probably going to lose her shit too because of how big Yukri's corruptive influence is.
Hopefully, she'll do that calmly and without misunderstanding.

>>49755185
Hopefully she kills Yukari, Gensokyo isn't worth saving anymore and neither is Yukari.

>>49758041
Won't be happening. Themes of the story are forgiveness, redemption, bystander syndrome and it's consequences, helping out each other, Anon being a turbo stud. Did I forget something?
She'll be sealed maximum.

>>49759037
The consequences of Yukari's actions are death.

>>49759037
You're dreaming if you think Yukari can be forgiven or redeemed at this point. Even if she did some big valient sacrifice to keep Gensokyo from splitting in two, I'd see it as her refusing to take responsibility for her actions.

>>49759205
>>49759218
Didn't Rananon said Yukari will be alive?

>You're dreaming if you think Yukari can be forgiven or redeemed at this point
You misunderstand my friend. Yukari deserve multiple kick in the vagina.

>>49759235
A ryona ending would be based but I don't think Rananon is going to have Yukari beaten and raped.

>>49759421
...I WOULD like to see her beaten raw...

>>49760500
Well Yukari doesn't have to die in order to have a fate worse than death so there's always hope for that.

Hagcoin down in the mariana trenches...

Poor Yuyuko tho

>>49764016
Yuyuko doesn't exist in the story

>>49764016
She tried her best, Yukari is a fucking retard for refusing comfy yuri-baiting baby-raising at hakugyokuro with yuyuko.

>>49764289
I wouldn't call it her best.

>>49764289
She tried something, was it her best?
No.
Does it count?
No.
Did it help?
No.
Is Yuyuko a fraud?
Yes.

>>49765928
Didn't even gave her pussy and tits to Anon for fuck sake, only being vague as shit.

It was as guttural as it was furious.

“NO!”

Hana not only screamed; she roared. The hairs on my remaining arm lifted and eyes whipped towards her; time seemed stripped of meaning, a pounding heartache surging at the same time sacred wood met cursed metal, a boom reverberating. The spot Hana stood on until a split second ago was marred in jagged cracks, as if glass. Magic shifted: she’d vanished and reappeared in the same beat. Hakurei mikos by the dozen spurred towards Hana, Vishuddha—the fifth chakra—soaring from scorching embers to a frenzied flame. My throat clenched, eyes bulged with the sudden overexertion; paper-like mikos joined Hana in the avalanche of crushing blows she exchanged with Yukari’s cursed sword. “Hana…!” I tried calling her, but a cancer had developed in the windpipe, a magic much similar to mine yet youthful beyond belief. The purple lightning cracked, and the metal moved—

—Yukari’s eyes weren’t on Hana’s.

They were on me.

“YOU WON’T TAKE THAT AWAY FROM ME!” Hana howled as the faceless mikos closed in, each of them invisible to the naked eye. Hana communed with—to my understanding—the Hakurei God and Marisa had managed somehow, always a trick or two up her sleeves… Yukari moved the cursed blade and sliced through two Hakurei mikos. It had intent. “YOU ALREADY DESTROYED MY LIFE! Y-YOU WON’T SAY A WORD!” Unbelievable hatred and rage had overtaken Hana, to where Yukari’s movements as she led her away from me, thrashing at the Gohei leaping from the future and past, remained undetected.

The mikos backed Hana, uncaring of their demise—one dies, and the burning flame in my heart dies a little more—, and I… watched, for a moment. Hana sauntered through the snuffed fires of our lineage, pressing with righteous wrath against the strongest Youkai Gensokyo has ever seen. Her ponytail bore movements of Kagura; her resilient physique answered in kind the challenges of a Lunatic battle, eyes ablaze red, like mine…

Her nose crinkled just like Anon’s often would.

Below the surface, this body of mine is kept together by string and prayers; the powers the Hakurei god had given drain, and I am feeling a familiar cold.

Soon enough, Vishuddha shall be ashes. Death will claim me once more.

—Chen’s dying face; Anon’s pleading wish, one I never thought a man like him would do. My only daughter, fighting like a true shrine maiden, molded by authentic war—

My heart aches, everything hurts and terror is etched on my soul.

… Secrets…

Gensokyo would survive under Hana’s gaze. She’d be better than I ever was.

My daughter is strong.

I feel soothed.

One long second of just watching.

The next, Reimu Hakurei floated and the faceless mikos, sources of my strength, dissipated. “HANA, CALM DOWN!” I yell, floating above the pain of a melting throat and meeting Yukari’s sword. Hana’s cloud of rage dried up, even if only a smidgen. “YOUR PLAN—PUT IT IN M-MOTION!” It’s the last of my words as Yukari’s onslaught came over me immediately, the cursed sword impossible to be floated over as it lashed downward at my Gohei. The Sage’s foul smile faltered, yet never left; my other arm was sorely missed as I weaved away from the sword, face scrunched and meeting the Yakumo woman’s glare head-on. “Stay away from my Hana…” I growled.

“As you wish,” was the answer of someone who thinks themselves predator.

This prey gritted its teeth and fought on.

Hana hesitated, a tugging of her magic—she’s calling her mother—blanketing my nerves: fear. She got a gentle, wordless answer, which travelled across what she’d cultivated between us upon Koutei’s slaughter. It was seemingly enough. “I’ll need you to stop Floating, Mother!” A hefty demand, one that I meet.

Without my Float, the pain came barreling around once more, and Yukari’s cursed sword ruthlessly cut the Gohei down, her eyes jumping to Hana before landing on me again. “I understand everything, fools! Whatever you think you can do will be negated, twisted and thrown back onto your pitiful faces—you die today!” She snarled, the force of my slams negated and my patterns of attack read and countered, my body driven into the defensive, a hiss escaping me with the crumbling chakra. Death is knocking. Reimu Hakurei is busy. “Do you see the point of your fight, Reimu? For what are you throwing your petty life away?!” Faceless mikos fly towards Hana on the girl’s commands, though Yukari’s words unleash upon our connection a wave of dread and despair.

“STOP—” Hana starts.

Whatever secrets there are, they corrode her like acid.

“—FOR MY DAUGHTER—!” I scream back into the woman’s face, burning Hana’s dread if only momentarily. Gohei attempts to challenge the red sword, yet Yukari is not intimidated, her movements aiming to kill missing by inches. A lifetime of dodging like a lunatic spared me her sword; the purple thunderstorm Floated over. “… I stand up for my daughter…”

Yukari’s cruel smugness sickens me. “The same daughter who's grown fond of raping her father like a dog?”

The world came to a screeching halt.

Every ounce of rage quelled in ice, and what lay before and around me had lost meaning. Yukari’s words repeated as the wind whispered past that window I’d look toward, crouched in a corner of the decaying shrine, moldy and dusty and a gathering of pests. At that time, I was just another pest, lingering in a hungry daze and simmering in paralyzing bitterness. It was a silent hell I ignored since I escaped it with Ran’s help… I’m sitting there again.

Hell. Again.

Yukari’s expression is demonic, like Douji's. It gnaws on the flesh, draws the blood—her eyes tell me she knows exactly what I am feeling, and she enjoys it.

… Hana is better than I. She’ll always be better than I.

She’s faced many trials and challenges—she bore bravery in escaping my claws; she fought Keine’s Festival and the monsters that’d sprung up that day… She’s facing this war with utmost cruelty and drive. Thoughts swirl back to how she treated Chen, the rage bubbling in her eyes.

She’s deeply hurt, and she fights anyway.

Hana is fighting for her father and for her Gensokyo.

H-Hana is the best thing I did with my life.

My daughter had a rough life; she rose above it again and again.

S-She’s… pure.

“NOOOOOOOOOO—” A strangled cry came, yet what I felt first was a crushing wave of shame spreading inside my guts like a rot. It brought me back to reality as steel whizzed and miko instincts screamed, Gohei swatting the cursed metal inches away from my face. Loose threads of dark hair drifted as Yukari flattened the blade and sunk a knee into my chest, no Float meaning the pain boomed through me as I arched outwards, flaming wings coiling and blood blossoming through clenched teeth. Once more unable to Float, the paper-like mikos moved by my command, most of them with Hana, meaning the defense I’d put against Yukari’s power was feeble, the pain biting through the Gohei and mincing the bone and meat of my only wrist, this cold gurgle leaving my throat as I scurried away from Yukari.

Only a second, maybe two.

The surrounding thunderstorm broke and coalesced as if sucked by a typhoon, yet Yukari paid no attention to it; predatory eyes lay all over me as she closed the distance within the instant. “Absolutely fantastic, isn’t it, Reimu?! She’s your daughter indeed! A rapist and a beast that’d defile even her father to seek a crumb of pleasure,” she rasps, my leg kicking midair aiming for her face, yet she caught the foot and pulled me towards the already throttling blade. A paper-like miko bombed against Yukari with her Gohei, the sword deflecting it as one more generation burst into flames, consumed to pay back the energy used for what moved her. In bygone eras, the Hakurei Shrine was sizable and powerful, with dozens of trained mikos for each fresh generation.

The strongest periods—Sengoku, Heian, Kamakura—saw the strongest mikos.

I’m but a shadow of them.

Hana is better. Hana is… pure…

The pounding shame and regret echoing inside aren’t mine. They’re true, and they are real—they are Hana’s.

Hundreds of mikos had burst into flames to, somehow, destroy the purple thunderstorm, Hana’s power eluding me; what did not was the searing pain that’d crossed me, tears threatening to spill and muscles clenching for but a second. It paid off, as from absolute nowhere she appeared, tall and powerful behind Yukari as the Yakumo woman sailed towards me, that accursed blade a centimeter away from slicing me, the sacrifices of many miko abundant yet ignored. Hana brandished her Gohei and Yukari, expecting to meet the sacred wood, had wide eyes as a condensed storm met the blade and overwhelmed Douji’s Manipulation of Understanding—was that what it’s called?—, striking the Sage and sending her careening to the blue lake below as a mighty thunder dispelled in one fell swoop.

Ah, I see it now: hundreds of dying mikos had held that thunder together, and they vanish in ethereal dust around Hana, her clothes swaying gently, her lungs working laboriously.

We stand before each other, and silence reigns.

Not a moment passes, and she’s crying, quivering like a leaf. She clutches her Gohei, dressed in her torn ascot—the one I made her, I see it now—and the hairpin her father gave her. Shame buzzes inside, a beating heart of its own. “M-Mother, I… s-she did things t-to… I never meant to; I always h-hated, and—”

“—Your father…” she stops, and the sobbing swells as one of her hands reaches to her face, trying to hide it. I can feel how she wants to turn away and dart towards Yukari, the bloodlust overwhelming me for a moment. A bloodlust I do share; it is not one ounce comparable to the love I have for my daughter. “… He asked me to protect you.”

Hana freezes, then looks at me with her big, red eyes.

A warrior perches on the surface.

She’s still a child, asking for her mother.

“M-Mother, I—”

She doesn’t finish. Rather, she catches my limp body.

Death is here.

The last thing I see is an emerging smudge of horned pink.

>>49767722
>>49767718
interesting timing with the recent convos:Yuyuko is set to appear soon. Twice, but one is way more ahead~
A calm and reasonable person, our Hana...
more soon~!
Hana mod update, for those interested
https://files.catbox.moe/i0xi4e.webm
changelog:

>added better item descriptions for finished items
>Hana now has her own tear sprite
>Hana now has walking+pick item up sprites, though because it's Isaac she's always facing the front when picking up a something
>fixed the remaining bugs with the pools
>added a sprite -- WIP -- for floor transition and boss fight

>>49767734
Shame, Naked Hana was my favorite character from the Metal Gear franchise.

>>49767718
>>49767722
Good thing Reimu was comprehensive. That could have turned ugly.

>The last thing I see is an emerging smudge of horned pink
Now it's time for things to turn ugly!

God Eiki is goi,d to throw such a bitchfit.

>>49768538
>Good thing Reimu was comprehensive.
She compared it to being a poorfag dying in the dark and had to gaslight herself into believing 'ana is pure, and then she passed out. She's having a mental breakdown the second she's it again.

>>49770487
She was VERY comprehensive.

It's still continuing? Incredible. Might even surpass that one epic about Satsuki Rin or whatever it was at some point.

>>49770875
Imperfect Metamorphosis? It was pretty cool.

>>49770875
>>49771136
It already surpassed IM. IM has 1.27 million words on the AO3 upload and HSE has 1.29 million words on the AO3 upload which isn't even fully up to date.
note: word quantity does not equal quality

>>49771203
If HSE does end up being finished, it mean it will probably be better thn IM. Probably.

>>49768532
待たせたなぁ〜

>>49771496
Naked Hana. A woman denied her father's cock

>>49771408
Especially in it's current state sans some unmentionable elements. Yes.
Unfortunately they still have had some effect on the story but there's nothing that can be done about that now.

>>49772065
Meaning?

>>49772153
It's better but it could have been even better if the writefags weren't so tolerant of low-effort contributors who's don't care about the project.

>>49772280
Could have been worse but I see what you mean.

>>49773100
It's legitimately hard to think of how it could have been worse. At least the write fagse eventually took a collective stand against that person.

>>49774964
That person?

>>49775254
Yes the person most responsible for the she's problems

>>49776070
>for the she's problems

>>49776170
>The

>>49776070
>Hse is an anagram for She
I fucking knew it, the person pulling the strings...

>>49776374
Would.

I wish there were more stories like that. In the world. On internet. On chans.
It's just so great.

>>49780165
It could have been better without the sabatogue.

>>49780211
Stop being unfun.

>>49780219
It's not unfun, people need to have their guards up to protect against that type of troll.

>>49780275
Good point.

Heart pounded lighter, the gentle name echoing in my mind—

Sekai… It rolled off the tongue easily, the name losing itself in a world illuminated in Cherenkov radiation. The far walls of the Underground trembled as the accumulated maim wore them down, the sulks Koutei left during his enslavement disappearing in the general tear. A multitude of sounds died down to a whisper, and I watched Yukari close the distance within the second, her eyes simmering with hatred and her arms marred with these long, briar-like scars, damage commonly left by strikes of lightning.

—A mind that unraveled in the most calming of ways, the cradling shadows brushing against my formless legs. The blue sapling stands between me and the squatter who’d taken residence within my mind ‘until her mothers revived her.’ I sighed, feeling the weariness that'd clung to me since the day I stepped into that cursed building wash away, if only for a moment. “… Thank you.” I show my gratitude with a short bow. Humans love the act of bowing, respect. To be on equal footing with another is a sentiment that’d often star in the poems of that person.

It’s been so long since I last saw her. I wonder if she’s doing well…

“… She is. Seiga…” She didn’t seem to enjoy saying that name. “Lost her in a squabble with someone else—before this war.” I pause, looking at the person past the sapling. Her figure lies past shadows, and above, the ceiling made of a lake’s surface flutters, as if pulled. Fighting is happening over there. “You may find her when you’re out there again.”

“I won’t be out there again,” the words come out; no strength draws to hide behind secrecy.

“Why?” The childish voice asks, worried.

“… Douji won the battle. She’s unstoppable while powered by faith, and… After the first Onikirimaru, she’s learned. She won’t commit the same mistake again.” Flashes of a massive dead body fill my mind, iridescent scales bright and beautiful, reflecting the chaotic magical fires of the HSE as it blew up. Resignation is everything that remains, bound to the ethos of my consciousness and forced to experience—get nurtured by—Douji’s atrocities.

A moment of silence pounds. The surface of the lake stirs, and traces of gold branches are visible beyond its blur. “Mother Kasen,” the girl calls me, the word before my name thrumming many shivers throughout my body. For the first time since I got to this… place… I let my eyebrows furrow and my eyes narrow, attempting to see past the lingering shadows, the soft light emanating from the sapling doing little to expose the child. I try getting up, yet the body is now unresponsive. This doesn't feel like captivity. “Douji does not exist. If she did, you wouldn’t be here—what guides you outside is something you’ve let fester for far too long…”

Ruffling sounds beyond the shadows, and a silhouette appears.

Power hides therein. She’s half my size, draped in simple rags and a weird bonnet, and gentleness paints her every move as she approaches and takes a seat to my side. We look up together as the golden roots seem to get stronger and stronger, the sapling pulsating—a beating heart. “… Who are you, really?” I whisper.

She looks at me, and those eyes are infinite. “… I am an echo of a thousand or more people, as you are an echo of the monstrous being you were in the past,” she looks away, towards auric roots, then turns back to me. She beams, and her features are much like mine. “… I know we are both much more than echoes, however. I am your daughter, Mother Kasen—I’m Sekai.”

More happened. Much more.

Onikirimaru closed in.

I rushed forward in the blink of an eye, the gravel turning into crystal beneath my heel as the other lifted and, mercilessly, stomped on the cursed blade, sinking it into the ground. The Sage’s eyes broadened in the deaf silence that befell the counter, our eyes centimeters apart.

She expected to see a slave to her will. A broken woman.

Douji expected to see a puny human she’d eat with little concern.

“… Sekai?” Yukari whispered, purple eyes on the pulsating four-leaved clover.

There is more to that conversation. Much more.

It fanned the flames of rebellion.

I need to be there. To remember what had taken place.

Until then… rebelling

“She’s not yours,” I growl between gritted teeth, sheer fire raging in slit pupils. Oni pupils, brimming with cruelty. Horns are massive and jagged, sharper than any sword. Sturdy muscles stand ready, both arms missing.

A slave rebels against its master.

Fate, Yukari.

… Ibarakidouji shall not pursue a sunset.

Unbridled rage rises in purple eyes. “I’M EVERYTHING SHE’LL EVER HAVE!” Violently she pulls the sword from the ground; echoed Manipulation of Explainable a flickering shadow compared to the real thing, yet dangerous anyway as the blade moves, fuelled by jealousy and sin. Feet surge and kick the sword away; Yukari doesn’t relent, sharp blade deflected by my horns, shock-pink Danmaku surging in a tsunami nurtured by the souls of hundreds of Makaians.

Yukari meets that power head-on, her own Danmaku flourishing to the singing tune of Sakura petals and blood droplets. The very foundation of her power shifted into a pained cry, a remembrance etched in the flesh that clings to her bone. The water shimmering in radiation shifts with every exchange of blade and foot and horns, the ground below cracks under the power of two Sages, and the atmosphere buzzes with the booming drums of breaking chains. It mattered not to a bloodied fist that sailed through the air heading towards Yukari’s face, the blade meeting it flat before it had to move again to meet my double dragon kick, Yuugi’s visage a true demon—bathed in blood and scars yet smiling wide, golden hair flowing maddeningly as she threw her all over Yukari. “FIGHT ALONGSIDE ME, KASEN!”

She hollers, and this body responds.

Fire scours every bone, every inch of flesh and blood.

A goal moves me.

Yukari hisses. Manipulation of Explained Phenomena yields her almost complete nullification of physical injuries, her understanding of their reach and intricacies leagues above mine; the inertia dissipated into thin air, and the ground and energy of our surroundings went ignored. In the hands of someone as intelligent as Yukari and who also possesses the Gap, such power spells doom… Yet, her Gap was absent, never once popping up as Yuugi advanced and trashed, my blows following in a recreation of what our enemies so many hundreds of years ago would experience. Pink lightning followed my waves of Danmaku and crowned every swipe and every thrust of my feet towards her, and purple lightning just as powerful would meet them halfway there, Yuugi bathing in the sparks which swept her body, cackling as if mad. Watching as she dashed through it all, glimmerings of vengeance curdling behind her eyes, many would think so. “I’VE WAITED A MILLION BATTLES FOR THE SINGULAR DAY I’D FIGHT ALONGSIDE MY SISTER AGAIN!” She weighs in.

“I am here!” I yell, Yukari suppressed towards the lake.

Blood pumps, we charge together. The sword is kicked away as Yukari descends it upon us, biting for an opening, and Yuugi’s fists could crack a mountain open with ease. The blade devours the potency behind them; the blood from her many wounds flies like rain, and reddened flesh, sick with radiation, gashes open with visible effort. She doesn’t show it, yet the effects are there—pain, tiredness… She fights tall and valiantly, meeting Yukari in the melee and dodging, the purple eyes wide and bloodshot, locked with Sekai’s clover floating above my shoulder.

That lack of awareness ends with a haymaker sinking into her face, Yuugi’s rhythm never diminishing, no matter how mortally wounded her body was. Damage was minimal, yet it hadn’t been the point of it, my body rematerializing above Yukari and two feet together sinking into her abdomen, the half a second enough for the woman to try defending it, mitigating slightly the damage dealt by the surprise attack. We perforated the lake like missiles; the radiation shrugged off. Strong and ancient Youkai she is, Yukari recuperated and was once again on the offense, pink lightning and purple lightning meeting in a flow-like manner that vaporized the surrounding water into simmering bubbles. The unexplainable beast keeping that bomb controlled roared at us, its impossible shriek quaking the whole lake.

At every twist and turn, I aimed for the sword.

The moment Yukari loses hold of it and thus access to the echo of my manipulation, she’ll die of radiation poisoning, or at least get severely injured. She just needs to lose her grip—had the power… changed? It was supposed to enslave…

Douji was the first to swing it, to touch it. The moment it was born, it was connected to me and to the dead girl nestled in my mind.

Stroke by stroke, a picture was painted.

Yukari must’ve noticed my intentions, Bloody Sakura Danmaku rolling all around us towards me, Manipulation of Explained Phenomena having it brush off harmlessly. Body rematerialized by her—

—She was nowhere to be seen.

Eyes widened within the second, shifting below. She closed towards the nuclear bomb without hesitation; the massive and shapeless snake, a thing of embodied hatred and rancor, coiled, hissing at Yukari. Above the surface, Youkai Mountain. Hana, Reimu, and Anon. I sprang in sheer desperation, my body rematerializing with understanding of placement, something Yukari seemingly couldn’t replicate perfectly, and jagged horns aimed to impale the woman through her belly—

The creature lunged at her, its maw open.

—Yukari turned towards me, grabbing me by the horn and launching me at the serpent as it lunged. It recoiled as I skidded on its tongue; lasers upon lasers of Danmaku bloomed, singing the water. Its role in all this—in keeping the bomb from going off—escapes me, yet it’s clear if this serpent-looking creature dies or ends up dispelled, a nuclear explosion shall occur.

The Gap Sage turned tail immediately, torpedoing to the surface.

Cursing under my breath, I wasted an entire second to defend this snake-like creature, my legs spreading and anchoring feet to the tongue of rancor flesh, a crashing wave of shock-pink Danmaku bursting forward to meet Yukari’s Bloody Sakura Danmaku. The serpent kept its mouth wide open, throat pungent with the source of the brutal radiation. It knew, however, friend from foe, almost backing me for a better view of the incoming tidal wave.

Had it a grudge against Yukari and her artifacts…?

It didn’t matter. Not here, not at the end of the world. The moment these eyes understood the barrage was cleared, and the creature seemed safe enough, I rematerialized above the lake at maximum capacity of Manipulation of Explainable phenomena, a blistering explosion of displaced air shaking the water below as pink irises darted around. Yukari had used those two seconds to their fullest, the cursed sword blurring into red flashes, which brought Yuugi to her absolute limit in just a matter of instants, her wounds plentiful and teeth tightly compressed, the Gap Sage unrelenting in her aggression. I didn’t think for a moment, lunging head-on towards them, horns aiming for the sword in her hands—

—Yet, the time loss had been cruel. Just half a second from the moment my eyes locked on them, the screeching blade penetrated Yuugi’s throat. Yukari dodged out of the way of my horns immediately and pulled the sword with her, and a spray of crimson blood followed true. Teeth clenched, eyes went wide, and a lump balled in my throat, red droplets drenching my scarred face.

A word attempted to leave me, a whispered name…

… One powerful hand flew towards the red blade as it drew away, catching it in a death grip.

Yuugi smirks cruelly.

The blonde oni pulled with sheer strength and seized Yukari with her guard low and, for just one tantalizing moment, the sword had left her grip. I acted, heart pounding a thousand times and guided by rage instead of logic—should’ve aimed for the sword; the thought she was vulnerable, however, fanned flames nurtured by the memories of a lifetime of abuse towards me, Anon, and Hana. “HA!” A guttural cry echoed, and a foot shot high, albeit erratically, meeting Yukari’s chin square on. Loud compression of bone and then tearing of muscle reverberated before her fingers shakily wrapped around the grip again—just a little more time to wind up the kick, and her head would’ve exploded…—and the grinding of bone got cut short, the force blocked from reaching the brain. She vanished in a blur of purple electricity, tumbling and coughing a few dozen meters away, yet just as dangerous as ever.

We have to gather our bearings.

“Y-You…!” Yukari gurgled through a half-broken jaw, vengeance red as blood. My worried gaze wanders to Yuugi, glowering at the stream of blood running down her neck, another wound of many.

She was still standing and smiling. “That little weapon changed, didn’t it, Kasen?” She says, tone throaty and wet. Yukari's gaze narrows—she’s lost her advantage—and a nod is everything that’s needed. “That means the power behind the toy is unexplainable…” Cracking of knuckles reverberates loudly.

It is nothing compared to the hum of a Gohei as, to my side, the world splits. Through it steps not a frightened child or the apprentice shrine maiden full of wrath I met last year…

A ready miko.

On her very back, she carries her unconscious mother, her eyes iron. “… I apologize for my delay, Kasen-nee. I wanted to make sure Father was safe…” She says with the tone of a person battling to keep it together, eyes reddened. She had cried.

“Hana-chan…” I cannot amass the correct words. Not now; this heart of mine is a mess.

“The more, the merrier, Hakurei girl~!” Yuugi proclaims, her smile a vicious thing. “When we’re done with this stubborn piece of shit, get ready! I'll get you the drunkest you've ever been.”

“… Bring whomever you want to face me. Nothing changes the outcome—it has been foreseen,” she clutches at her belly with one hand, the other at the cursed grip with the closest thing possible to a prayer for someone like Yukari, and those purple eyes linger on the four-leaf clover above my shoulder. Oni blood sings with the lure of an enemy assailed by fear. “Slave, beasts… I shan’t let your filthy claws take away what I love. Not again.” Danmaku is the color of blooming Sakuras and unwashed blood.

I recollect when we met above these waters, and she told me about Renko.

Grueling fuel for this crusade, her story is.

It doesn’t matter.

The tides are turning; her hands had faltered, even if briefly. That single moment confirmed Yukari somehow has lost her Gap entirely and, upon losing connection to Onikirimaru, will lose the perks of its echoes. Douji had never thought a man capable of besting her; Yukari never once considered her slave would exsanguinate her.

Until Yukari is dead and Gensokyo is free, the sun won’t disappear on the horizon.

Not when words are yet to be remembered.

War resumes.

>>49780402
>>49780399
>>49780397
we're now at halfway through Set 4! At exactly 2 months away from the 2nd year birthday~ amazing how fast time flies
Hana mod update: a special something this time. Hana fighting on her home turf!
https://files.catbox.moe/o2p0ny.mp4
defeating Hush with base Hana under 5 minutes will be a challenge, by the way. It was a pretty fun challenge~
changelog:
>added functionality to Hana's active item -- pauses time, gives 5 seconds of invincibility and spawns 8 oculus rift tears (I'll do new animations so they're Gaps) that deal a lot of damage. Will probably be changing it a little more down the line

Solstice update #23

>>49782750
Yuuka, Mima, Sakurya, and Seiga are really getting the Hakari versus Uraume, aren't they?
I swear when we get back to them its gonna be the same shit with the four all hald-dressed and giving each other bedroom eyes right before Seiga kills herself in order to die with her beloved Yukari.

>>49776394
You probably shouldn't....
>>49780165
A lot of projects that start like ours are either disbanded or outright abandoned in their infancy before any potential can be realised. We had to survive lots of rocky shit to get this far and I'm glad we did.

Yukari is being gangraped hard.

>>49782781
>writing time, I gotta get the Seiga fight done for the latter half of set 4
>... man, I really want to write some Reimu
>writing time, I gotta get the Seiga fight done for the latter half of set 4
>... man, I really want to write some Anon
>writing time, I gotta get the Seiga fight done for the latter half of set 4
>... man, I really want to write some Hana
>writing time, I gotta get the Seiga fight done for the latter half of set 4
>... man, I really want to write some Chen (doing it right now lmao)
>writing time, I gotta get the Seiga fight done for the latter half of set 4
>... man, I really want to write some Kasen
I'm *this* close to buying a shock collar to really get my weak self together—writing the main plot is just so damn fun, tho...

>>49784857
No fair fights in a war, if you can gangrape your enemy you do it. She deserves it anyway.

The path ahead is dark, and the path behind—already walked—is darker. My feet drag me forward, chest numb and empty. My hand would caress it often and find nothing but a gaping hole there. I remember little of what came after it… after Yukari pierced me with her twisted blade. Whispers accompany me through the dark path, subdued and perverted, yet distinctively feminine. Concentrating on them yields the silhouette of a voice, and it’s Yukari’s.

She whispers at other people, and they’re cruel whispers. Threats and death; blackmail and torture; thorough abuse of the body—Mr. Anon…? I don’t understand. Love is not meant to be shared that way—, forceful and purely evil.

Yukari whispers continuously and doesn’t stop.

A thousand years of that come and go.

… Evil, sad.

Some, however, are tender, and their hum is like falling Sakura petals.

The dark path unravels to the sound of heavy rain, and my feet sink into mud. Tired eyes gaze towards an oppressed Sakura tree, its blooming flowers smothered in the freezing rain, and widen at the sight of Yukari kneeling by the roots, a corpse of a beloved woman and friend by her side. Whispers had swiftly ceased, replaced by many pained wails that echo and echo and seem to penetrate every component of every cell of everything that surrounds me. An overwhelming sad etched to body, mind, and soul. Tears of mine mix with the rain.

Past the tree, shadows feast on a pale girl’s body, their features grotesque.

Yukari digs and digs; her nails break and her fingers bleed. Her eyes never left the scene of a brunette being dined upon by Youkai, even when those same shadows were smears of blood, The Gap pulsating with wide, bloodshot eyes, forever witnesses of a massacre.

The Gap cannot change the past, the only impossible boundary. The only desirable boundary.

She’s dug a deeper hole from that very day, a thousand years ago—how do I know this…?—, and a perforated heart bleeds to the tune of Yamame’s words about the hole.

You can escape it, but it never closes.

Yukari never escaped hers.

Feet worked beside myself, and the path led me away from those memories—burdens—, no matter how much I ached to hug her. She had killed my heart, but no one should live in perpetual sad…

“… That’s a beautiful thought, child,” eyes blink at the sudden voice that wafts from beyond the darkness, then they broaden. The dark path's gone and before me is my shadow, the sun scorching against my back…

I don’t look like that. I don’t have such long hair; I am not that tall. The shadow that my body casts is another woman’s shadow.

Ruffling happens to my side, and I turn to look at a blue and white kimono with a calming purple obi—the color of Yukari’s eyes, so vibrant—, hair and warm eyes the color of cherry blossoms. Such trees, blooming at their peak and letting pink petals fly with the breeze, besieged the once dark path, now a paved dirt road that stretched on forever. The sky was pure blue…

This woman—I know her. We visited her; she’s visited the HSE; and I saw her in the mud with her throat slit open. “… You,” I whisper, throat rough as if not opened in a millennium.

She giggles, ever so softly. “Yes, me,” she then hands me one of the two loaded bags she had in her arms. They’re filled with… groceries. Fruits, bread, meats, and condiments. “Would you be a kind child and help this Blue Fairy~?” Though she asks, she’d already forced one of them onto my arms. I grumble, then nod, and we’re walking down the path together. Chirping accompanies us for the first moments of silence, her eyes focused ahead…

“… Am I dead?” I confront her, tails low.

“You are,” she nods with no hesitation, and the next second seems to endure for infinity. I have died in Yukari’s hands. My promise with Mr. Anon shattered. I won’t return to Yamame-san… The silence sinks together with my heart, yet it lasts just that: a second. “But you’re not fully dead, are you?” She eyes my shadow, and those pink irises bleed with a sad so great yet so silent it could only be attributed to the dead. “… You have taken something from Yukari…” I stare back at the shadow, fixing my hold of the bag of groceries.

“Y-Yes, I used Toutetsu-san’s power to… consume the Gap,” the thoughts of that moment are blurred: pain had overwhelmed all my senses. Mind, however, rushed for a kinder answer. “I could’ve killed her with Flan’s power, but…” I trail off, eyes prickling with tears. I didn’t want her to die—blood on my hands. Subdued was a preferable outcome. That didn’t make her any less dangerous with that evil blade, her heart harboring infinite pain. “… I don’t think what I did improved things. They won’t be merciful of her, nor will Yukari be merciful of them.” Hana’s rage; Ms. Reimu’s wide eyes, watching as I died in Mr. Anon’s arms—their reunion, and I ruined everything— “I-I only tried to do good… I didn’t want my family to be destroyed.”

Eyes lock on her, my tears flow.

Yukari killed me.

“… Why must I suffer for doing a good thing?”

It was a good thing, was it not? The good thing to do.

To try saving family, to not kill…

“… Why indeed?” She mumbles, looking up towards the clear blue sky, as if reminiscing about the past. The breeze blows and my shadow—Yukari’s, not mine. A burden—flickers, and soon her pink eyes are on mine again; a shuffling of her grocery bag rang out before her hand would reach my face, caressing the tears away with a ghostly touch. “Have you wondered why I'm here, child?” Her hand then cups my cheek. “I am Yukari’s only friend, and in any other circumstance I’d be by her side, fighting this afterlife away if necessary; I have more than enough power to justify myself in a war—yet, in her moment of greatest need… I am just not there?” The question comes with the withdrawal of the hand, and she’s resumed pace, a traditional building slowly silhouetting the fog in the distance. A tall tree, too.

“… I don’t know,” I try to jostle my mind for an answer to no avail. Heart hurts too much, body trembles. I want Mr. Anon to hold me, Ran to hug me, Ms. Reimu to sing to me a-and…

I am dead. Yukari killed me.

The pink-haired woman nods, as if already expecting that. “I have a very particular power in the Manipulation of Death—life and death are my domain… and, like Yukari and now you, I live on the border between them,” eyes soften, the sound of dirt squashed underneath soles offers little solitude. “It wasn’t always like that. Now, I need to command it, and a few selected are beyond my capabilities… A thousand years ago, it had no boundaries. Death, life. Given and taken at will,” something stirs inside at those words, memories of darkness and heavy rain and cold mud and a colder corpse. “A greatly coveted power and far too much for one girl—thus, I… killed myself… Yukari found my body.” She spoke low and wistfully; only a hint of a feeling beyond me was captured.

At that feeling, my shadow sobbed.

That stir jumps and spreads, and I nearly lose hold of the grocery bag. Loud screams within are soon recognized when their source, the invisible wound in my chest, clenches: the Gap is lamenting. “… When I did what I did, it was for a noble purpose. It spared Japan—the world—from whatever roots that power could cultivate. It was the good thing to do.” She’s looking at me; words cannot form. “It mattered not to my only friend. She didn’t get relief from my suicide; she didn’t stop feeling threatened or worrying that people would come after me. All she got was a cold body strewn against floorboards and a broken heart… I don’t understand what she felt or what she saw beyond the obvious, yet what I’ve seen since the inception of this nightmare has shown me I irreparably broke that woman,” unlike those I shed, her tears are ancient and silent. A waterfall, deep in a forgotten temple. How many more people have seen what I’m seeing at this very moment? “… I killed my friend’s heart and invoked a spiral of despair that’s loomed over her ever since, and now… W-Will cause her death.” She cleans her tears with a trained movement. “It was my most selfish act in life.”

My shadow weeps, and I stare dumbfounded at the woman’s face, my face pallid. The clockwork behind that painful memory, laid bare. I would’ve puked if I could.

Had I not consumed the Gap and rather killed Yukari in Flan’s flames, I would’ve died for sure. Gensokyo would be free, yet all those promises, the people I love…

… I didn’t want to lose them.

I didn’t wanna die.

Was it a selfish decision and not an act of kindness? How many more will Yukari kill and destroy, and how much more will Hana and Ms. Reimu make her suffer before ending her life? Every bad and sad thing that stems from Yukari surviving is my fault.

It was… the good thing to do, was it not…?

To cling to my life.

“I do not have the heart to wound Yukari more than I already have. I won't fight against her,” the woman resumes, and I desperately seek refuge from my inner turmoil in her voice. “I am not blind enough to stand by her side and condone the things she’s done… I meant to lure her into my arms and away from her sins, yet that wound I carved barred my voice from reaching her,” the building shrouded in fog comes into view, a massive cherry blossom crowning it—unlike the others, it’s dead. “It was the correct choice, my suicide. It saved the world from my power… But every choice causes ripples, child, and mine crushed the person I held dearest to my heart.”

Cold spreads, and my heart pounds in my ears.

“You did a good thing, and despite everything, I’m thankful you spared her and her baby a cruel death… but good for the sake of good bears a vile fruit.” The shadow hangs, dark memories simmering. Love was never meant to be shared that way. “I should’ve fled with Yukari when we had the chance. I'm so sorry my stupidity led us here,” pain saturates her voice. “… You’ll have to endure the burden of your choice forever, like I, for the consequences of misguided good are never the individual’s alone.”

>>49793277
>>49793272
don't let the cat near The Gap, bad stuff ensues...
more soon~!

Dammit Yuyuko can you stop being a contraria vague bitch?!!

>>49797369
She's being very straightforward. She's not going to help the good guys because she doesn't want to hurt Y***ri any further but won't help her either because she's seen what Y***ri did to Anon, and she takes the blame for the shitshow that became her waifu's life post her suicide.
Cat therapy will instantly have her swooping in just as they're about to merc Y***ri for good, strike a deal for her life in exchange of stopping Reimu's death and that bitch Y***ri will get out scot free...

>>49798343
That smart for once bitch.

>>49798343
Hopefully she dies too

Solstice update #24

>>49802967
>that chen
oof

>>49798715
That's not how ghosts work...

>>49806358
That's not how Youkais work either and yet.

“… Save her?” I parrot in a daze, an underlying ‘how’ etched to my face and words. Ran saw it—of course; Ran… she knows things. She’s smart. Smart enough to deal with this situation—, and the way her lips turned up slightly, shifting linings of rotting paper, swelled the hurt and anticipation to levels that dulled, if briefly, the saturating pain of my destroyed arms. It was only a single moment, a single gesture…

Yet, since those beautiful blue eyes died, and she was compressed into a ball of flesh as if a thing, one second to bathe in love has grown more precious than diamonds. The tears flowing down her face might as well have been. “… Our little Chen, Anon. How could I ever do anything but try to save her?” She asks me in this slurring tone of voice, cradling the bakeneko to her disintegrating chest. “I-I cannot disrupt the Gap; however, I can integrate every instance of the Gap to her blood, to her cells—she’s a resident of the Animal Realm; she could handle the Gap in any other milder way than outright consuming it. I just need to rewrite the code with the new library.” Explanations come through one ear and leave through the other. Nothing makes sense; dread surges inside my chest, anchoring me down. “… 34 trillion Gaps. One for every cell in Chen’s body. I must rewrite her whole and allocate the Gaps so they fit perfectly… Then, the Gap and Chen would harmonize.” She would’ve picked up on my confusion; of course she would have.

The words blare in my ears.

This is it.

A massive number, without a metric of comparison to a simple man…

… Ran is different. Watching her do math was like watching a river flow—it’s just nature.

What matters is a realization that comes upon linking the dots, the dread billowing out of control. “Y-You said your body is cannibalizing itself!” I hush, the world outside us forgotten as my shattered limbs reach for her—

—Only for her only hand to spring forth and ever so elegantly hold my cheek. “… I know.” Suddenly, everything calms. It’s not soothing nor natural. It’s drowning, and Alice’s hands aren’t there to save me. “Yukari created this body—chose me—precisely because that’s a task of such a nature only those with my set of skills could ever see it through. Humans of the Outside would call it bulk processing,” she chuckles with that laugh that'd light up those days locked in a gilded cage… “She created me to make her life easier, relegating the smallest details and calculations of the Hakurei Barrier to me so they wouldn’t be of bother. In her eyes, I’m a worthless, broken tool,” her slender fingers caress my face, and though I try my best to fight the drowsiness, it is overpowering. My face hits her other thigh, eyes looking into Chen’s closed ones as a waft of rotting paper lifts. Her voice reaches me anyway. “Which is why it makes me glad that I can use this power of mine one last time to correct a great mistake… That I can love you, dissimilar to the unfeeling thing she sees me as; that I… m-mourn a family I longed to build with you.”

Bloodied whipping marks; love over a rock and under the stars.

A sober conversation by the treetop.

Sitting on the porch and drinking tepid tea.

Together.

Eyelids are heavy, and the body shuts down. “R-Ran…” I plead. A dark feather sears against my chest, small hands press on my back, and the single hair hanging from the burnt cast of porcelain echoes with a sacrifice much like this. Won’t this war ever stop asking for more and more? When will it be enough?

Her hand left my head and moved towards Chen’s.

It felt final.

I am robbed of the chance of witnessing it. Amidst the frustration and tears, I can’t help but feel a roaring rage at Ran as my conscience pulls away, at Aya for not being here, at Alice for allowing herself to be murdered in front of my eyes; at every woman who came through those gates and used me.

At Reimu, for twisting what love should be.

… At myself, for being unable to change anything about my circumstances…

The rage settles deep within; it roots. Flames of hatred fan.

Love destroys like nothing else.

—
Skulk is far from me,
The leaves redden, the air chills,
I stay anyway.
—

Anon rests asleep, my remaining eye melting off the socket in a cloud of paper. I sigh, the world blind to me, grateful the last thing I’ve seen in life is the man I adore and my shikigami. Compared to living a millennium in regret, this is preferable. “… Protect them, please.” I spell, mind whirling with ideas, mostly dead-ends.

I could find that duo and have them reverse Chen so she’s aligned with the Gaps—where are they now? Are they even alive? I have so little time; my body is dying—, Toutetsu is a master of using Old Magic—the Gap linking us, long cannibalized; she’s been missing since the start of the war—a buzz of thoughts that melt away at an evergreen one:

Death calls.

“… I’ll die before any harm befalls them,” Okina answers. It’s everything I could ever hope for.

I hold Chen’s face and begin.

Pain is unleashed.

>>49808660
just one today! Rather than start from the deep end, I can start this one from the very roots. Outcome should change if a better approach is employed, and, gladly, Hana exists~!
Hana chapters next, by the way
more soon!

Being Anon is sex and suffering.
Goddamit Ran is dead.

>>49808771
He probably won't ever have sex again, so it's just the motherfuckin suffering ;(

>>49808842
I refuse to believe it. Especially the sex part.

...I saw that emoji...

>>49808660
Goddamn, what's been fucking happening in this shitshow
I can't believe it's still happening

>>49808842
>>49808869
He cannot escape sex, he's too deep in the rabbit hole.

>>49808771
things will get better eventually just trust me~

>>49816291
Okay I believe you.

>>49816291
>eternal punishment
Where is the Innocent Sin?

>>49817898
in the PlayStation 1, of course, a very not retro gaming console...

>>49820860
This is so beautiful.

No more goro and seija chapters? They're still in gensokyo to my knowledge.

We don’t waste time, not when ambrosia flows, and I can taste it on my very tongue. Mother’s weight burdens my back, yet it’s nothing to the pumping adrenaline powering muscle and vitality as we rush forth in our own manner of transverse. That hulking oni with a perforated throat exploded with speeds that felt on the skin like Koutei’s blade swings, a spring of shivers running down my spine as my lungs overworked to keep up with the pressure—before, I would've passed out. I move—, Kasen-nee, her face torn and eyes burning, dematerialized quicker than I could enter the non-Euclidean plane and was already on top of Yukari, her legs making up for the lack of arms with grace and a kindred vengeance, our Danmaku bombarding in high amounts contrary to Yuugi, dunking onto Yukari with fists alone—I froze before Ibaradouji after killing a dragon… Kasen-nee exudes the same pressure, and I walk free—, and I…

… I backed them with enthusiasm. Not an ounce behind, not an ounce of fear drowning me or excuses to remain behind a wall of bodies, crying, screaming and flailing like a foolish child.

Teeth clenched, blood boiled.

Gravel beneath; an ocean of radiation by there.

Half a kilometer of hollow earth above us.

The heart weeps with the memory of my mother’s wide scarlet eyes, the sickening secret now of her knowledge. She’ll never forgive me—the woman she’s become… That woman who fought without backing down a second against a foe like Yukari, the same woman whose eyes dulled in death. Again and again.

For her daughter, she had screamed.

I want to be like that woman.

Yukari hissed and flared onwards with the same hostility as the three of us combined, the red blade flashing and aiming for Yuugi’s throat mid-charge, intending on lopping the head off. The oni cackled, throwing her bulky arm at the sword with wild abandon, the blade lodging there with a sharp, meaty sound. It did not go all the way through, Yukari’s bloodied face scrunching; lightning resounded, a dropkick from a body rematerializing centimeters above them, aiming at Yukari’s hands wrapped around the blade. The Gap Sage squirmed furiously, but the hulking demon wouldn’t let her go so easily, the other hand clutching around Yukari’s hair and pulling as if trying to rip a tree trunk off the earth; a groan of struggle left her as the blood pooled thick from the gash on her throat. The kick missed, yet Kasen-nee continued; the spot she’d landed turned to glass. Her horn shot up to pierce through the Yakumo woman’s hands, the Sage dematerializing in a cloud of lightning, buying herself time. The Gohei met her like a serpent from a second already gone, the sacred wood and shide biting the back of her neck, sending her tumbling, her sword turning to face my Gohei blessed by Father’s spell… Only to meet Mother’s second Gohei first, wrapped tight in my left hand, which deflected the cursed blade away as my own on the right surged to hit her full on the belly, planting the scourge of the Hakurei blessings, a poison to Youkai of every walk of life. “GIVE HER NO QUARTER!” I roared, already on top of Yukari as she stumbled with widened eyes, and, mimicking Kasen-nee’s maneuvers, I went for the sword, Mother’s faceless mikos besieging the Yakumo with their own Gohei—

—A lightning storm bubbled from the very ground, the air crackling as the purple electricity aimed to vaporize my body. The non-Euclidean world shielded me, time and space manipulated. Kasen-nee and Yuugi barely paid attention to the lightning, a jumble of kicks and punches and the hulking oni using her body as a flesh shield with the greatest of smiles. How she can enjoy so much being maimed and flayed like a piece of pork is beyond me…

The results spoke for themselves.

Yukari had not a moment to breathe; her eyes bulged, her chest couldn’t rise nor fall, and the skin swiftly flushed with the absence of oxygen. Her blood soaked down a broken jaw, her purple eyes wild as they jumped from one to another, never allowed a respite of any kind.

My heart swells with vengeance.

Just a little more…

I clench both Gohei, the surprise advantage gone and, without a moment more to waste, I push through the non-Euclidean world and land on top of Yukari just as she dodges having her sword stuck to Yuugi’s body, the cursed blade deflecting my twin onslaught, Danmaku of three sources and a myriad of colors—hers had become a bloodied pink, as if blooming Sakura petals bathed in blood—flying maddeningly as Kasen-nee joined me in the flurry, her pink electricity blinding and coursing through the blade as if seeking the smallest of gaps to shock Yukari’s hands and so deny her hold of the accursed blade. My body came in and out of non-Euclidean space; Kasen-nee for not a moment interrupted her efforts, a reborn manifestation of power, and Yuugi, reveling in the blood, fought like a true oni.

It was no surprise the cursed blade had hooked between two Gohei and, for the briefest of moments, left Yukari’s loose grasp.

It was no surprise either that no same attack would work on the Gap Sage.

The moment the sword had left her hold, Kasen-nee advanced with a maniacal desire, her leg winding up and shooting towards the face with a clear intent of tunneling through it—

—Only to be met by Yukari pulling away from the blade and wrapping both her arms around the incoming leg. “DIE!” She howled through broken teeth, rotating her hips with the power accumulated by Kasen-nee and slamming her on top of me like a sledgehammer. The sheer absurdity of the moment had deprived me of reaction, twin Gohei having moved to protect me from the freight train in oni-form, body lingering with the pain of Ibarakidouji’s tackles, accursed blade free to swirl in the air as if a falling branch. The impact still sent us reeling, my body struggling to keep Mother in place. “KASEN-NEE!” I scream just as the air changes and Miko instincts scream, dozens of paper-like Hakurei mikos moving and defending us from the onslaught of Bloody Sakura Danmaku.

Through it, the red blade sprouted, directed not at me or Kasen-nee—wide-eyed and shocked, she was bleeding as the Hakurei blessings, intended for Yukari, singed her flesh. The fundamental weakness of every Youkai, even oni. A headless corpse and a coalesced storm flash through my mind, Hieda’s face a gruesome sight—but aimed a-at…

… Hissing through clenched teeth, I let Kasen-nee slump to the gravel, twin Gohei meeting the red blade a centimeter before they slashed mother. “Stay away…” I knock her away, but Yukari is relentless, her eyes wide and bloodshot, her massive swings straying us from Kasen-nee, whom Yuugi tended to; a detail that drained from my mind as it focused solely on the overwhelming presence bearing down on me. I met it with fire and a thousand Goheis. “… FROM MY FAMILY!” The roar of a wounded animal echoed to the mauling of generational Goheis, two of mine and the rest of the faceless mikos under Mother’s power. Yukari met each with deliberate precision, dissecting in no time the rather lackluster movements of a style formed by two weapons, non-Euclidean time and space keeping me from a swift death…

Even then, as the agonizing seconds passed, she only grew more at ease, deflecting attacks from the past with the cunning only an ancient Youkai, executor of the Great Hakurei Barrier, could muster. “Family? What family? You don't have a family, you petulant thing!” She sneers, the blade feinting and puncturing through my defenses; non-Euclidean time gave me just enough space to avoid it. Yukari didn’t back down; Goheis crossed, and my knees bent as the overhead slam snapped from above. “You have a heartless father and a disgraced mother! You have nothing to call yours but a tainted bloodline! Lie down and die,” the bite of each word came with many powerful slams, trained at breaking posture yet feeling much like a tantrum, her golden hair swaying feverishly with the cruel attacks as the blood and sweat mixed to cascade down the worn-out purple dress. It was a sight much like the one on the shore a few minutes ago; however, meekness and despair had morphed into this crazed bloodlust.

Jealousy painted a picture of deep hatred.

I was there, at some point—watching Mother and Father cradle the bakeneko in my dreams…

… This thing would’ve been me had I not received guidance.

Yuuka, Aunn, Father…

Mother…

I am thankful.

The sword breaks my defense, both Gohei hitting the gravel with deep thuds, the sword flattening to chop mine and Mother’s heads together. The greatest weakness of Youkai—frenzied flames, threatening to reduce Gensokyo to ashes… a tactic she'd used against Kasen-nee; yet, in her jealousy and outrage, seeking Mother’s power…

… Had she ever expected it to be used against her again?

As Yukari is now, she's vulnerable to mental attacks.

The Goheis sprang out of the gravel not to attack, but to send a thick cloud of sand and debris towards Yukari’s face, blinding her with the most banal yet malicious distraction ever. Mr. Hieda would cackle if he were here.

Mikos splattered their Goheis against the incoming blade, dying in bursts of fire, yet buying me just enough time to pierce the non-Euclidean veil, dodging the cursed blade, which bit air—almost not enough. If that blade had wounded mother, what would that mean for us? For the war…? Your mother needs you, Hana Hakurei—; the next thousand milliseconds comprised a flurry of twin Gohei attacks, all meant to have Yukari drop the fucking sword already.

Shouldering the pain, Kasen-nee rejoined, her foot cleaving at Yukari's head—the sword deflected; Yukari faltered, the blade bounced and left a shallow wound on her face—then Yuugi joined too, boisterous and unstoppable. The onslaught grew overwhelming, and Yukari desperate.

A breach was to form…!

Everything around Yukari exploded in writhing purple electricity.

Thunderbolts struck against the roof of the Underground like battering rams.

Youkai Mountain ominously yawned.

>>49827390
>>49827387
soon enough, we'll see Gensokyo again. Watch out for falling rocks~! Running out of excuses, I really need to get the 3rd group going... It's just so fun writing the main plot...
more soon!

>>49825066
Their wirter, Takanaeanon, finished writing. We might get a prologue from him on them, like how other ex-writers might make their own prologues, but as of now he isn't writing anything and so far the ending is kind of nix-ing a lot of former prologue ideas.

Yukari has problems I think. Other than losing her head.

>>49828354
Nah she's fine, she's just having a woman moment

>>49828382
That's a lot of woman moments.

>>49828741
In a woman competition, no one can out-woman Yukari. She's just that good.

not cool...

>>49836263
When you think about it, it's actually the Touhou Woman Experience.

>>49838987
Moral of the story is: only trust cool women who wouldn't rape you.

>>49842681
Is it really rape if they pay for it?
...And still decide to go for it anyways even knowing it's something bad?
...And then decide to kill the kids anyways?
Does it mean Kaguya and Eirin are good?

>>49842681
They pay Yukari, Anon doesn't get a cent. Labour laws failed Gensokyo...
Eirin is an evil hag, but Kaguya is cute and lazy and innocent so she's not evil.

The consequences of misguided good are never the individual’s alone.

Such words rang inside my mind like tolling bells I've heard before but cannot pinpoint the origin of. I stare into the woman clad in blue and white as if she’d grown a second head, my grip on the bag of supplies narrowing into a stranglehold, tails growing fuzzy and taut. Heartbeat—nothing there; Yukari pierced with her cursed blade—booms in my ears, and I can’t hold the glare much longer and meet the paved dirt. A lump in my throat blocks air from reaching the lungs, and it’s like… Everything has come to a silent stagnation; how could things not stagnate when before me settles the greatest wall I’ve ever seen? Nothing quite like it existed the day Mr. Anon sat with me and taught me knitting, and he spoke of his great sad; when Ms. Reimu confessed to her desire for suicide. It wasn’t there when Ms. Ayaya taught me lies, or when Okina-san came about and pressured Ms. Reimu into an awful deal.

Words tried to form in my mind; nothing came.

With the sun on my back, eyes stared straight into the sobbing shadow of a woman who is not me. Whispers echo inside of her many evils—l-love isn’t meant to be shared that way… A cruel way, against someone’s desires. I do not understand, yet I feel terribly sick—, and she robs me of argument.

Why? How…?

I got a hole in my chest; my shadow replaced—but what had changed that my mind blanked in the face of such truth? No one feels alone; someone is always prone to receive either the good or the bad that comes. Why wouldn’t that extend to actions?

Every person Yukari harms, every pain she bears, it’s my fault.

I should’ve painlessly killed her… and accepted my death? I-I do not want to die!

The shadow has halted her sobs, and it stands as if watching me. I gaze into the dimness, and it gazes back with clearer whispers. Skin shivers, and with such shivers that bring untamed tears to my eyes, I return my face to the ghost, whose own is of infinite pity. “… I-I do not want these answers,” I hush. “Misguided? I only wanted to do good; I never…” These whispered answers block the path of doing good unburdened. It’s overwhelmingly easy to be a good person when you don’t know things.

Now I know the extent of the torment, the things she’s done.

I feel wrath towards Yukari—she’s killed. She’s killed me—, and to the same level, I feel pity for a woman digging a cold grave with her bare hands. If I had never known the former, lending a helping hand to her ancient sad would’ve been easy. It’s not anymore, and the ghost’s words have, ultimately, changed something inside. Good or bad, what’d changed I cannot pinpoint…

I want Mr. Anon to hold me, Ms. Reimu to sing to me.

I don’t want to listen to Yukari whisper about how she’ll destroy everything.

“… Poor child,” she shakes her hand, reaching to me and kneeling, much like Ms. Reimu. I expected her to comfort me; there was no comfort as she scooped the groceries out of my hands. “You have no say in that matter. The answers you’re getting, whatever the Gap is showing you—which is beyond me—are yours to bear now. It’s the legacy you’ve plundered from Yukari, and my worst mistake. I’ll do my best to aid you with what comes next… But the world you knew no longer exists. You live between life and death, and you’ll soon understand it’s a… loathsome form of existence,” my teeth clench, the whispers in the back of my mind painting vivid images. I do my best to silence them.

All that evil happened inside the HSE? Behind my back and hidden underneath veiled smiles and words of kindness. The terror is so great, a blistering pain goes unnoticed.

A question echoes like a gong: “W-Will I… become like Yukari?”

Many wounds, impossible to understand for the people around. So much power coupled with an infinite existence, unbidden loss in the horizon—the pain grows. What’s happening…?—my heart doesn’t beat because Yukari has killed it.

“Will you now…?” She whispers back, resigned, her sad eyes on my shadow.

She killed me when I was merely trying to do good.

I was doing good for a bad person.

No amount of sad excuses can justify what she’s done.

My family, shattered…

Yamame’s words echo within. “… I refuse it.” The ghost opens her mouth to speak, but I’m quicker: a scream leaves me and I fall to the dirt, juddering. Acrid smoke sizzles from five spots on my cheek.

My soul quivers as a physical body, only now feeling so detached, changes.

The Gap stirs; Yukari’s shadow looks absolutely vivid.

“I-I…” Strength leaves me, but I glare at her from the ground, tears streaking thick from my eyes. “… Her legacy will not be mine! I’ll not become like Yukari, ever! Even if the truth is clear and painful, I can still… I can still do my best! If it’s for them, I will—I must!” Mind grows heavy, a call beyond the fog. “… I d-don’t want any of this, but I won’t hide behind my sad. I’d never leave family—friends—to fend for themselves…!”

Her eyes stand wide, shaken.

Darkness consumes.

It was death in both crushing pain and echoing void.

Cold spread through the veins of rotting paper like a tidal wave, leaving in its wake mere speckles of dust that flew with the heavy winds of the world beyond the darkness that had befallen mine. Back arches, tails stiffen, each of the nine welcoming a slow and painful obliteration. Everything ‘me’ slipped away with a single purpose: to power up the brain. Processes queued, my only hand on Chen’s cheek streamed so much data it boiled on my very fingertips, burning fingerprints onto her cheek, the bitter smell aching my dying heart. I’d first request every individual cell’s raw information—no matter their type or strand—, then rewrite it to accommodate the loose Gap before reallocating it back to its corresponding spot. As I did, cells inevitably replicated or died, and the brain had to consider that too.

A painstakingly repetitive and insurmountable procedure, with a margin of error so thin that, should the Gap end up disturbed or repudiating the bakeneko’s body for even a moment or, Heaven forbid, the wound on her chest, my last efforts would amount to two deaths.

I cannot have that. Not me, not Ran Yakumo, an organic supercomputer…

… Smitten by a simple man.

The body’s pleas went ignored, the whole mind centered on the millions of processes happening simultaneously to save Chen, yet I couldn’t stop my heart from plundering a tiny speckle of allocated RAM to grieve what will never be. We pursued love in whispers, under many pretenses and hushed touches, always fearing Yukari’s shadow. We stood on the engawa, sipping tea and watching the kids—not small and wide-eyed kits; not my dream. Chen and Flandre—play, all smiles despite the circumstances. We loved, and he tended to my needs; conversed on the treetop, setting boundaries. He wanted to heal, and I’d help.

Maybe one day he’d have healed enough to reciprocate love.

If he would not, it'd be fine. My dream was him.

It seems I've only caused hurt in the end, even though I sought only love—it was brief, Anon; I felt it anyway. Anyone from the Animal Realm would’ve felt it… I’ve built a dangerous monster with my actions. Poor man, again a victim of something beyond yourself.

But you would’ve done the same for our Chan, wouldn’t you?

So, if you will…

… Forgive me for destroying you, just like everyone else. I love you; I love our Chen.

Yukari might think I’d never have loved, but I did.

The body shuts down, fingers clasped to Chen’s cheek trembling like dried leaves, sickly pale. Gaps had cannibalized themselves, yet the effort of trillions of minute processes turned trickling into a veritable deluge. But it was working. The Gaps resonated within her tiny body like a hummed song and eased themselves in place the longer the transmutation went—hundreds of years of understanding and exploring the Gap were few blessings that prevented it from melting or blooming out of proportion with the data.

It is rather amusing that Toutetsu was right, after all. I may have never missed the bloodshed and chaotic nature of the Animal Realm, yet my ties to it and subsequently to Chen aided immensely in the success of what I’m doing…

Maybe I’ll be reborn there, given my circumstances?

I cannot muse out loud, for the lower part of my face is gone. Within my mind, amidst the blistering flow of data and code crafted to perfection, I did it anyway.

Blossoming with terrible gusto and pain, I laughed.

What a hopeful thought~! Seems you have rubbed off on me, Anon; you and Reimu alike. I would die again to see Yukari’s face the day she assembled me; her shock watching her calm robot, whom she’d seen fit to whip like an animal and terrorize with threats of undoing 50 years of work in destroying Chen—a torture chamber, of all things—, becoming a rebel, giggling creature of exaggerated love, spending precious computing power in images of eleven gold-haired kits prowling a tranquil and expansive clearing, all with our eyes; Chen and Reimu would be there, Toutetsu would have that big and silly smile, and… A-And… Aya would be there too with her own children. Anon would love them all, I like to imagine, and things would be good.

Despite the many horrors, it seems we always had a knack for looking at the bright side of things.

You did that to me, Anon.

Even if I drown in the Styx, the Gap deeply roots into Chen as if just another limb, pulsating through her veins near overwhelming power; even if dreams are crushed in the mud and what awaits is oblivion—

… The one and only man…

—Even if Chen now has to shoulder the whole expansion of the Gap alone, and this body disintegrates in a flare of all-consuming pain, leaving behind but a snowfall of rotting paper and blood… You made me want to, through a miracle, respawn in that cursed Animal Realm.

It is a comfy dream that coddles me as death arrives, and this last thought—you—is most soothing.

—

Winter's bleak, lonely,
The gentle dream has finished,
My love persists. Yours.

>>49847470
>>49847469
finally managed to finish this set of haiku~I enjoyed the journey, and though every set of seasons comes and goes, it's a quenching feeling to know there's always another one after the awry blanket of winter. Chen's tarot of Death is to fully attain its maturity soon~
next chapters we have Hana!
more soon!

Yukariiiiiiiiii!

>>49848225
Maybe sealing isn't the best of ideas.

>>49851313
She's should get the Ex Rumia treatment! Uooooh!

>>49848225
>>49851313
>>49852733
It's Chen's fault she died.

So who adopts Chen once this is all over? Anon's probably not really in the right place to take care of her.

>>49854301
It might actually be the thing he need.

>>49854301
Toutetsu is the obvious choice.
>They already know each other and Chen likes Toutetsu.
>Toutetsu knows about the Gap, she could teach Chen.
>Chen would be a good influence in her life since they share a loss.

>>49854301
CPS…

>>49856513
Death mean Change! :D
I'm not coping!

>>49856601
there's also stagnancy in the valley of Death, the opposite of change, and after a thousand years of Yukari's trauma stagnating the Gap, Chen unrighted Death and proclaimed she'd not inherit the stagnancy of existing between life and death. Maturation will culminate with whether she'd see that through or not~
I wish I had the time to code a Balatro mod; oh well...

>>49858616
As she walk through the valley of the shadow of death :(

No matter how many times I look around me, it’s challenging to remember this is not Keine-sensei’s festival. There are no people burning or having their eyes melt out of the sockets, nor does a golden haze of death prowl forth. Around the Moriya shrine, in and out, people of all Gensokyo flock in either trembling or dazed states, be they the survivors of the festival itself or Kappa and Tengu that couldn’t return in time from that 'nuclear' blast or just wide-eyed Youkai that thought themselves powerful enough to take part in the Clash of Sages, seeking glory… I look towards that towering azure tree in the distance as I try to recover my breath, watching a fog of kaleidoscopic colors blanketing almost the whole basin of Gensokyo like a mist, surrounding its roots, and I feel my arms grow numb.

A dead dragon's roars sizzle in my eardrums, hurting. Protruding from the fog, that dragon’s skeleton was spottable.

Sanae-sama prepared us to partake in that war, for we'd thought ourselves fit for anything after the sulfur of Keine-sensei’s revolution. All we had to do was wait for Suwako-sama’s signal, and we’d leave post and lend our efforts.

The signal never came. Despite myself, I am glad it never came.

A once blue sky was now a deep, pulsating red, like a healthy artery, and something about the monolithic tree seemed almost… breathing—alive. Whatever it was happening beyond the many protections Kanako-sama—she walks around the wounded and frail, her winds soothing and stitching where needed. No Inaba or human doctors, only prayers and small blessings—, and Suwako-sama—her small hands pressed against the ground, her brow pouring sweat and her eyes wide. The ground and dirt and sediment thrummed with a life of their own, and the shakes harassing Youkai Mountain did not topple the foundations of the Moriya Shrine—had in place, it was something a simple human shrine maiden could not see through. That doesn’t mean inactivity, with legs taking me from patient to patient, assessing wounds and doing everything to keep the situation from worsening. “Sayori-chan, where’s Sanae-sama? My h-hands hurts…” One of the youngest mikos, barely eleven years old, whines, almost tumbling from where she’s squatting, eyes sunk yet broad and trembling hands fashioned into a prayer. A woman lies before her, likely one from the Myouren whose faithful had been brought here, their warriors all having fought the terrible battle in the HSE.

I fix my glasses; throat locks. Sanae-sama isn’t answering our prayers, and neither Kanako-sama nor Suwako-sama has leeway to go out looking for her with that scary mist.

… H-Hopefully, Hana-chan is taking care of her.

Hana-chan is strong.

The strongest of all young mikos.

While she and Sanae-sama battle, we have to keep things working out in the shrine, people happy and alive so their prayers can keep on flowing. Words prepare in the pit of my mouth—reassurance, strength. Words Hana-chan or Sanae-sama would say…

“WATCH OUT!” A firm exclamation reverberates through the shrine, brimming with despair. It’s Suwako-sama’s.

Cataclysmic.

A rumble louder than any I’d heard during Keine-sensei’s festival, counting the gruesome moments I had the sun in my hands, roared through Gensokyo, eyes wide craning towards its origins. Terror cruised through my body in waves, pupils constricting as a most incomprehensible sight unfurled before me: Youkai Mountain had cracked open like an egg. One gigantic debris cloud yawned towards the red sky, pillars of purple electricity guiding it and loudly crackling like a solar storm, those horrible things Sanae-sama taught us about.

The thunderbolts had shot from the Underground and reached beyond the branches of the blue tree, which swallowed them up in a surge of boiling blood. My ears bled from the grinding sounds; massive clumps of earth, brimstone and every manner of rock dissolving under the heat of the electricity exploded in a cone in all directions—

—Many showering towards us.

Though the skies had clouded further, impending death was more than perceivable. Uncontrollable and massive, and without Sanae-sama’s magic, like during Keine-sensei’s festival, what could a simple miko do…?

… I can’t…

S-Sanae-sama, Hana-chan…?

Storms lifted from one moment to the next, and tons of magmatic debris barreling towards the shrine halted midair. “Hijiri!” Kanako-sama hollers. Her mighty winds lift around the shrine, smothering people’s wails of fear that hadn’t reached my ears and shielding us from Vesuvius. Some large boulders and clumps of soil, many trees still rooted to them, too heavy and destructive to be stopped by winds, made haste for the shrine—

“Kai!” Floating isles that vaporized as the recovering Buddhist nun met them above. S-So much power… She winced in pain, her voice hissed. “Suwako, what’s happening?!” She looked at the frog goddess on the patio with hands on the ground.

The worst news echoed from her, eyes broad: “The mountain—it’s swallowing itself!”

Kasen-nee—Ibaradouji—had peppered the HSE with a storm of pink lightning; Mother and I killed a dragon from inside after it razed the general area of the Human Village and nearly leveled Gensokyo entirely with a laser beam; a tree the size of a mountain blossomed from nothingness and pierced the skies in a fiery explosion. The lake right there has a parasite unknown to me in both inner workings and capacities, yet what I’ve seen shows if anything bad happens to the Outside World vessel, damages shall be severe.

From the moment this great war started, there was no shortage of earth-shattering events, and persevering through every one brought us closer to killing Yukari off…

Even then, all that pales with the sight of Youkai Mountain, always present, caving in on itself.

A wound upon Gensokyo of impossible size.

Nothing short of a suicide attack…

Above, the ceiling crumbled like wet parchment under a running faucet, stalactites of impressive size toppling from the darkness towards us alongside every other thing Yukari had summoned—big remnants of that metal thing coated in glass and hundreds of steel wagons—, the tunnel she’d perforated through tens of millions of tons of sheer mountain flooding with landslides, a deluge of debris coming our way with the fast expansion of the charred hole.

The entire Underground shook, and my heart screamed finality.

… Rage phase.

Just a little more, Hana.

My hold of the twin Gohei was steel; the non-Euclidean world shifted before me, accepting my presence as it spread; Hoshiguma Yuugi and Kasen-nee sprinted towards Yukari, crackling with the electricity that’d over-saturated the surrounding air, and I tugged towards them, bloodlust booming in my ears and Hakurei blessings singing loud—

“H-Hana…” The world chokes, rainfall of a dead world just above. I turn slightly, looking inside Mother’s barely open eyes. Light fights dark, a losing battle she fights anyway. “… Y-Your father…”

The bloodlust dies.

Every single cell of my body cools.

After Mother had collapsed into my arms and Kasen-nee began fighting Yukari, I took a moment to check on Father. He'd lain asleep on Ran Yakumo’s lap, the shikigami doing some very elaborate Gap magic with the dying cat on her other thigh, focused and stiller than Aunn when she'd take her statue aspect. Okina protected them, and though somewhat faltering—what had happened to her, that black goo she was vomiting…?—, lacking her Backdoors, she had determined eyes, shielding Father and the rogue Yakumo with shut doors.

We hadn’t exchanged further words, mind rushing—mother knows, she knows—and body tingling to keep on the pressure, to sate the renewed hatred towards the Gap Sage.

In the daze of battle, everything else had lost meaning.

Yukari had never stopped using strategy; she wasn’t wholly vulnerable.

The dead world approaches, yawning like the maw of a beast surrounding small prey. Eyes jump to Yukari and the two oni fighting above the shimmering lake—those many rocks, if all that plunges into the lake and disturbs the Outside World vessel…

… Death.

Okina was not at her best. It’s too much to defend against, a whole sect of a mountain.

Kasen-nee’s explosive—desperate—fighting style didn’t have all the flair it had until moments ago, two doses of the Hakurei scourge flowing through her oni veins turning her sluggish; Yuugi was bleeding so profusely. The longer the war went, the weaker she got. Yukari Yakumo had these blazing eyes of purple aggression—hatred—pumping thicker than blood, her swings of the red blade inching closer and closer, the tables turned.

The broken world approached.

“Please, Hana… N-Not him…” Mother begged, her mangled body trembling.

Non-Euclidean space and time freeze the world around me.

Within a second and a half, Youkai Mountain will come crashing down onto us.

Yukari had also received a dose of the Hakurei scourge; her body was weakened. A few more strikes of the Gohei and she MUST go down. If I hunt her now while Kasen-nee and Yuugi are still able-bodied, then… T-Then… Mother’s small words rang in my mind, my heart had swollen in my chest and nape drenched in sweat—Father had looked so frail with his new wounds, sleeping without a modicum of peace. He's suffered so much a-already!

A proper miko would have tackled Yukari.

The lake beneath them houses a weapon that could level Gensokyo, just like Koutei almost had.

Tears welled. I wanted to scream bloody murder.

How does that monster of a woman always manage it?! How?!

Against my thrashing heart, I split the non-Euclidean space and dart towards Father and Okina. Feet soon skid on the gravel, sending it flying, before I plunge both Gohei into the ground and clasp my hands together. Okina had broad eyes; her closed doors legion. She's sweating profusely.

I didn’t even notice the absence of the fox; Chen and Father settled on a bed of rotted paper.

Before the world crashed down, I turned to look at the war.

The cursed blade pierced a heart.

>>49860413
>>49860411
>attention-grabbing image
important notice!
I'll vanish on the 17th to play FW, but the main thing is the anniversary in a month and a half. With the Battle of the Solstice nearing its end, I'm thinking of taking a week or two, depending on how much we progress, off posting before the anniversary to write one massive final batch and post it all on the 29th—likely the ending of the war, but not the epilogue and the time-skip epilogue
still thinking about that and other ideas…
next chapter will have Kasen!
more soon~

>>49860413
>How does that monster of a woman always manage it?! How?!
She can't keep getting away with this!

>this last line

Solstice update #25

>>49854301
One very obvious missed option here.

>>49862829
they do say the real war is fought over parchment, and God willing, the battle for these adoption papers shall be legendary…
>>49860648
collateral is the gift that keeps on giving~!

>>49864048
>collateral is the gift that keeps on giving~!
I thought that was Anon, his big heart, and his dick and.

>>49865740
I messed up, meant it as "[Anon, the] collateral [damage,] is the gift that keeps on giving", since Yukari doesn't care anymore -- or so she tells herself -- if he lives or dies. Love is a crazy thing…

Never let Sekai near the lunarians. Turns out they're AI techbros.

>>49876294
it's my headcanon now that Nareko was the only one standing in the way of the Lunarians reaching Gensokyo -- when other writers were toying with that idea --, vaporizing everyone prior to the events of the Solstice, and kidnapping Sekai, and she fucking held the line. She riddled them so hard, she gave the girl a chance of life…

>>49876294
Lunarians are even worse than we thought.

>>49877148
>Sekai, meaning the world
>against the lunarians, meaning the moon

>>49877425
Marisa

#0@28“By the way, do you know the Dosojin who was placed on the altar?”

Chimi　

#0@29“Huh?　 Dosojin at the altar...?
Ah, I'm sure that's the one I made and left behind, so I miss it.”

Marisa　

#0@30“Oh, it was awake to her ego.
It seemed lonely.”

Chimi　

#0@31“Awakened to ego?　 Oh yeah”

#0@32“Sorry, please play with her once in a while.

#0@33　　　　Unlike us who like to be isolated
　　　　I feel sorry for isolating the newborn God.”

Marisa　

#0@34“Yes, yes.
Her quiz is unreasonable.”
>A god born by mistake and is very lonely in her place of birth.
Sekai and Nareko would be great friends...

>>49877425
>Sekai, meaning the world
>against the lunarians, meaning the moon
… c-cinema, ZUN-sama…
man, the game has consumed my life, it's so fucking hard, Jesus Christ
>>49879034
>Sekai and Nareko would be great friends...
casual stockings/thigh highs are the sign of a risqué woman. Her parents would feel compelled to axe that friendship!

>>49882906
New chapters when?

“… Give her back,” the beast snarls. It takes effort to listen to her. Above, the world is collapsing in a blur of weathered rock and trees and bushes and stranded animals whose bodies are crushed in apocalyptic rain; below, the nuclear lake shifts and stirs, bubbling from dispersed temperature left by Yukari’s thunderstorm, gigantic eyes shaped from rancor watching from the depths, a weapon of mass destruction from the Outside World in its stomach, and… A-And… and through my heart a cursed blade. A lapse of momentum had led me here, Hakurei blessings gnawing at my flesh and coagulating blood, akin to a serpent’s bite.

Legs had faltered, and black spots had littered my vision. All Yukari needed.

She twists the blade, simmering eyes looking past mine and to the floating four-leaf clover above my shoulder. “… G-Give my Sekai back.” She presses as a hulking mass coated in blood, penciled to the likeness of a human’s painting regarding nightmares, barrels towards her in explosive rage.

Sekai…

I blink, lungs bulging with nonexistent oxygen. “Echoes…?” I parrot, looking into those infinite eyes, seeking something I know I’ll never find and if I did, then I wouldn’t comprehend. Centuries lived on this Earth, yet those words—‘I'm your daughter, Mother Kasen’—shook me like none else. The blue sapling flutters, and the hands claw at our legs more desperately, as if attempting to take us away from this mind garden and what happens beyond the lake's surface, which trembles and rings, breached. Impending doom soon…

Sekai nods, fidgeting with her hands, anxious. “Hundreds, maybe even thousands of people—every one of them has left an impression in my soul,” she smiles. “Father Anon gave me his kindness, Mother Yukari…” A smile that falters. “… she gave me resilience. No one without a spring of such would’ve survived a millennium of her torment.” Infinite eyes come back to me; her features are mine. “You’ve gifted me a deep trauma, Mother Kasen.”

My spine straightens, a lump bulges in my throat. “T-Trauma…?”

She raises a hand toward me, as if to placate. “Good, bad—it doesn’t matter to me. I can hate, and I can love; I can be a monster and I can be so impossibly gentle. None of that is mine; everything was gifted… And everything will be cherished.” I scowl, but though I stand lucid, words don’t come to the forefront. She echoes me, hence ‘mother’. Taking my silence as a cue, she continues, her smile a soft thing. “The trauma you’ve gifted me helped me cope with this power of mine. No other who’s visited the place True Mother built had such a troubled struggle with their sense of self… A million echoes; it’s easy to forget, beneath all of them, I exist.” She looks at the little sapling.

Silence is reborn, albeit briefly. Inside my chest, the heart swells with a most dreadful heat—rage. “Our circumstances are different, child.” I stammer, containing that rage the best I can. Lower lip trembles, eyes narrow—despite this bodiless state, I feel every change. “Douji is… someone else; that’s why when she got sealed away, only I remained. We are not the same.” A thrumming guilt comes with those words, followed by bloodied memories.

Koutei, thousands of Makaians, that Dollmaker—Hana…

… Before them, mountainous remains of those I'd devoured.

I shake my head to dispel them, formless body shivering, both at the yearning of suicide and… Something—someone. “You can lie to me, Mother Kasen, but don’t lie to yourself—not anymore.” She coos, like a whisper of the wind. It drags my eyes back to hers, infinity marred in sadness. “It’s impossible to run from your sins forever…” My breath hitches, and my lips dry. Koutei's dead, Makai—they screamed, they pleaded. They were evil spirits, and they cried for mercy—is nothing but razed land. Ibaraki-Douji has killed like no other oni ever before her. I want to claw at my throat; breathing feels insurmountable.

“… I-I never wanted to be this kind of animal—why should the things natural to a beast be considered sins?!” The words leave me in a slurry. Hands grasping at my legs pull with greater strength. They go ignored. Sekai looks at me with such terrible sadness.

Her sadness—I hate it. I hate the way she looks at me and that she calls me her mother.

Reimu had looked so very innocent when she was 10.

“They're not my sins! They're hers! When she got sealed, I finally got to live—m-my life started then, not… In those days,” Reimu was grumpy and aloof but kind and tender. Approachable. Lectures or long sermons did not intimidate her.

Those days felt like a responsibility to uphold.

Why am I thinking of Reimu…?

“… We are not the same. Never will be—but I can stop Douji…” It always comes back to that animal, to suicide. It’s the only proper way to finish this nightmare.

A setting sun gives way to soft night.

I miss Reimu Hakurei.

“… Eventually, Mother Kasen,” Sekai resumes, saddened. “Your sins catch up.”

Every instinct of mine screams danger.

My mind reels.

The beast draws near.

She’s there the next moment in explosive fashion, this formless body of mine moving and fetching Sekai from where she sat. Feet grind against tender hands whose semblance fades in a flowered waft of blue luminescence, and all that remains from the fading garden is Sekai’s sapling. The surface of the lake above thrums like a drum, chanting to the glory of the oni effortlessly lifting herself from the sulk she'd left on the ground, holding a cursed red blade in her only hand. Her slit eyes are of pure hatred. “… You…” She snarls, horns tall and body broad, exuding violence in a most primal way. Some unknown instinct made me clutch tighter to Sekai, the child tucked securely in the crook of my unseen arm. “Again and again! You!” Growling turns into full screaming, the blue petals caressing her skin ignited by creeping pink thunder. “You have stolen my life once when I got sealed and then twice with that human trash of a shrine maiden. I’m sick of your pitiful existence parasitizing off me! This body is mine, this existence is mine—not yours!” She brandishes the cursed blade, fuming.

Though the body had reacted, the mind took a moment to catch up.

Douji…

“Mother Kasen!” Sekai yells, squirming in my hold. Again, the body reacts first, jumping away from the jagged slash of the red blade. It bites air, yet its pursuit isn't dissuaded, Douji maddeningly hopping and rushing, her swings that of an animal. The grace I fought Konn with that night after the meeting at the Scarlet Devil Mansion—the same Ibaraki-Douji would use when toying with her victims—wasn’t present, only a visceral and loaded manner of slashing and striking and thrusting with the cursed blade. An animal fighting with its claws, nothing more.

No, much more. This animal is a part of me—

The sword bites towards Sekai, body turning to defend and jump away. Douji had read it all, attacking where I had dodged towards. Blood spurts as this formless body of mine is cut, spraying red all over Douji's visage of hatred. The glee of bloodlust had fled her eyes, and in its place was a cold demand for my death.

—Therefore, knows my every move.

I create distance with a burst of lightning, chains of white light spurring towards her to bind her down, yet the sword chews them in record time, those gleaming slit eyes never once straying away from me. “F-Fight back, Mother Kasen!” Sekai wails, eyes wide on the sapling. It’s unharmed… The despair in her eyes tells me a dark tale, one Douji must have understood too, her eyes narrowing dangerously: what happens if that sapling is damaged? “In this state, I’m too weak to provide help, but…” She squirms out of my hold and climbs my back, then lassos my neck with her arms after fixing her weird hat in place. “… I’m with you!” Douji doesn’t wait, already on the move with blade ready to gnaw and gash—

—Only to jump back when, from the surface of the lake, descends a massive serpentine beast, heart clenching in pain with the lack of iridescent green scales and long whiskers. The serpent bites the spot Douji was, chunking it before coiling around the blue sapling and roaring towards the oni.

Once more, the now kaleidoscopic lake surface thrums, and a golden branch wafts down. Sekai catches it and, straightaway, twin Hakurei Spheres sprout around her.

I blink, utterly perplexed.

Sieged by twin Hakurei Spheres, she reminds me of little Reimu…

… Little Reimu, fighting to survive against what she’d thought a friend of hers.

Heart pounds—longing, aching.

“Father Anon, Father Goro… I’m sorry I’m borrowing these and for the toll it must take on your minds, but you’ll forgive your little girl, won’t you~?” She speaks, pointing the 'Gohei' at a cautious Douji—after the first Onikirimaru, she'd never repeat that mistake—her voice laden with intoxicating hopes and dreams and a childish grin that blossoms further the ache. Overwhelming guilt threatens to take my heart, yet the memory of those brave scarlet eyes fending off Ibaraki-Douji shall never die. “This life is yours, Mother Kasen! All yours! So fight for it, as I’ll fight for mine!” Without a hitch, the Hakurei Spheres spew a deluge of Danmaku towards the cautious oni; the beast of rancor slithers and pounces at the wary oni, Sekai’s stars and half-moons excitedly homing after Douji, the same way Reimu’s would.

Heart beats like crazy, the guilt pulsating like an earthquake.

Sekai fights.

Death calls, sins plentiful.

So much death, so much failure towards that family of wide, red eyes…

The mere thought of bearing that burden—that responsibility—makes my legs go wobbly.

Douji barrels through Sekai’s Danmaku, cutting the stars and moons down with the sword and dodging the serpent’s lunges, those burning slit eyes focused on me.

Sekai fights for her life anyway.

Reimu fought Douji for her life with brave eyes.

Deafening mistakes weigh my shoulders down. Rape, inaction…

In this very second, however, it's all but noise, and I bolt towards Douji to fight for my life.

>>49887582
still haven't got my normal clear…
>>49887582
>>49887576
only way to befriend giant (enemy) snakes is to fight alongside their summoner's kid before they're even brought to reality by said summoner. Blessed be future sight and alternative methods of therapy!
more soon~!

What the heck happened!

>>49887987
Have you never seen an intervention before? They're all like this.

>>49889372
What the heck

>>49887582
There are two wolves inside of you....

“KASEN-NE—” My scream is cut short by the collapsing world, teeth clattering together with the silent command to hundreds of paper-like Mikos, who raced to their deaths in the landslides, their ethereal bodies exploding in a rain of Hakurei-red flames that vaporized great amounts of rocks and uprooted trees and so much other bullshit I couldn’t pinpoint. Memories of my birthday party returned: those flames had destroyed solid gold.

Mother groaned in pain, her slightly narrowed eyes on Father and that bakeneko. They then shut close, waning in and out of consciousness. Guilt squirmed to the surface—crushed, however, by the deafening impact of thousands of tons of debris, reverberating up and down throughout my body with a most overwhelming feeling of dread.

It did not quell the terror of having watched the pink oni get skewered by that red blade, the tears welling on the sides of my eyes thickening. How does Yukari repeatedly manage to one-up us? She's fought like a lunatic, gotten hurt, and nearly died several times! We’ve done so much to put her down, but like a cockroach, she keeps on avoiding the broom… Eyes move around at the sound of snapping wood, Okina’s closed doors popping constantly and layering themselves as if spilling water, yet the broken world crushes, gnawing like a wolf’s maw, its proportions barely scratched no matter how many paper-like mikos—

—Wait…

W-Why are there so few of them? They were legion until seconds ago.

Dwindling numbers don’t stop them, and they keep on rushing and exploding against the shattered world. W-Wait, I don’t know what’ll happen to Mother if she runs out of— “We need to move, girl!” Okina yells at me, her eyes bulging and skin erupting with fine strands of blood. Closer and more vulnerable, her magic is easier to be read, and I sate this fleeting curiosity with a reading of her faith…

“… Y-Your faith’s tainted.” I speak, a cold running up my spine. A constellation subjected to the spew of a sewer, nauseating and foul and vile. It was like crossing the HSE’s mock Torii gate.

It felt wrong.

Okina hisses. “It doesn’t matter, we gotta save them…” She stands, her legs wobbly and eyes clamping for a moment; she fights it, the sound of splintered wood growing as a dead Gaia yawned towards us, and she fetches Chen from the pile of rotted paper. “Y-Your Father, put him on my back!” The Underground shook, subjected to death from the Heavens. I followed her command, helping Father onto her back. Nausea washes over me at the sight of his broken arms, tears from before returning full-force and feeding the desperation of a fled kill.

I'd had the victory within my reach. I just had to rush Yukari, and we’d have destroyed her.

She escaped anyway and w-with that terrible sword, and… It’s my fault Kasen-nee died.

“C-C’mon, girl, stop crying, we—”

“SHE KILLED KASEN-NEE!” I screech, the tears not stopping, a momentary loss of control letting the non-Euclidean space twist around me, a crumbling world kaleidoscopic as its extremities were pulled inside out. Heart lashed against itself, tethering to regain control over this power. Had I not overcome that childish foolishness of mine? Have I not grown up and become a better me than that idiot at Kasen-nee’s Senkai, who had seen fit to invade alone the HSE, only to be caught by Yukari and subjected to a disgrace? If so, t-then why does my body shudder in terror; my throat clenches and my brain jitter inside the skull?

Why do these tears flow so hard, so impossible to be stopped?

… Father’s arms lie ruined beyond repair. He’s battered and hurt all over. I should never have allowed him to follow me here. I had caused that bakeneko’s almost death when I threw a tantrum in front of everyone.

I murdered Koutei.

It’s my failure that Yukari is still out there with that cursed sword.

I try breathing to halt the war between heart and mind, but it’s useless. Before I realized, I had crouched, hands holding the top of my head and body curled in—like a terrified child, a… Terrified child…

A terrified child that day 11 years ago on the engawa, watching Mother whip out her Gohei.

A terrified child in that farm seeing wide, just as terrified eyes.

In the alley with a broken nose; watching Yukari defile my Father; surrounded by a thick atmosphere of death in what should’ve been a joyous birthday party. The world aflame, prowling yellow curses melting people’s eyes off the sockets… M-Mother knows everything.

I have grown stronger, better—a better person!

The nightmare Remilia Scarlet taught me how to face was met with Gohei.

A woman, not a girl…

And yet, the world crumbles, and the tears flow.

“W-Why can’t this war just e-end?” I whisper to no one a terribly childish desire—an echo from the heart.

—One Mother hears. The tears freeze with a calloused hand that caresses the top of my head. Her hand feels very tender. “It will… H-Hana…” She whispers. Power floods my soul, begging for freedom. “… I’ll make sure of it.”

I set it free.

The whole of my body locks in place; warmth spreads, not like a hug but a bath of flames.

It is pure hell.

Mother’s sixth chakra unravels in its fullness in a burst of incorporeal Hakurei Seals. They flood like a waterfall turned upside down, and paper-like Mikos recoil back, aiding in the control of 'Divine Spirit: Fantasy Seal', hundreds of thousands of red-and-white talismans latching to the falling debris and broken world before eating them out of existence.

I felt the kickback, however, in every cell of my body like a fire bath, knees buckling even further. This… consuming response wasn’t there when I had taken Mother’s chakra and killed Koutei! Coursing through, a scream ricocheting off a mountain’s rims and thrumming the sedimentary rock attached to the failing walls. Sweat pours and Mother’s body slips off my back, the tender touch missing from my scalp, a most hollow feeling—

—That, however, sends my eyes darting around, and the answer to what had changed squashed my concentration towards the sensitive magic: paper-like mikos. They were plentiful when I'd put down Koutei, but now with so few of them…

Dwindling numbers went from an observation to a violent concern, and the power's boot rackets me, sending me crashing to the gravel alongside Mother. The mikos didn’t stop the shepherding of seals, yet they began periodically exploding the moment my face hit sharp rocks—they’re compensating, draining quicker and hungrier.

If they keep going without stopping…

… Rocks and debris keep falling, a collapsing world sent down unto us by Yukari.

“W-Wait… stop…” I whisper amidst thick tears, losing control of my body to the boiling inferno that was taking hold of Mother’s power and molding it.

Okina had approached us in a hush, trying to scoop Mother and me from the ground, a task impossible with her weakened frame already carrying that bakeneko and Father. She screams something at me, but it falls on deaf ears. The draining of my strength continues, the paper-like mikos die in bunches, and Gensokyo keeps on writhing open… It’s a nightmare, one Remilia taught me, and I thought myself ready for. For most of it, I tried my best. Fought mercilessly, struck true and dragged myself through it.

Perhaps, I should never have stopped.

The moment I stopped and lingered in my thoughts, things crumbled.

Shame echoes: Mother had entrusted me her power—lifeblood—and I squandered everything.

Have I never stopped being a failure…?

I blink, lungs overworking to hold a suddenly useless body alive, and though the world has deafened, and my face hurts from hitting the gravel and my limbs are numb, and… A meaningless bunch of thoughts surfaced but were silenced when I met Mother’s eyes. She’s also strewn on the gravel, that pitch-black hair I felt jealous I never inherited scattered all over. Her stump grinds against the sharp rock, which had cut the talismans holding it together. A person is missing between us. “… I have failed Father…” I mutter in a quelled world.

Okina had given up getting us from the ground and amassed her closed doors. Alongside the paper-like mikos—barely a hundred left—she staged her last stand. Fading and weak protections, but better than an outright death. “I have too…” She says, her wings a crippled sight.

She sounds genuine.

I’m on the ground, unable to get up. The world is tumbling down around us.

Realization washes over me and paints my mind black.

We’re going to die. Father too.

“I-I wish… I had not… Mother.” The ground quakes beneath me, yet I focus on how her trembling arm, recovering from a simulated death—her chakra turned ash—, stretches towards me. The mangled stump bleeds profusely. “W-Why couldn’t I do anything right for Father?”

“I raised you wrong. I’m sorry, Hana.”

Tears flood, clouding my vision. I never miss her scarlet eyes.

“Why did I fail so much?”

Her hand clumps the back of my uniform, and she pushes herself forward. Body broken, spirit crushed—she moves towards me no matter what.

“It was my fault; I didn’t prepare you… I-I’m sorry, Hana…”

I look into the eyes of the woman who made my childhood a living hell; who established every bad habit I then nurtured through a fattening victim complex. Mother stares back, fighting against the choking pull of unconsciousness that comes with another destroyed chakra core, and she drags herself to me, slumping her wrecked body over mine and supporting her weight on a single forearm, wings unfurling to shield me…

Because that’s what she’s doing, it's the obvious verdict. It doesn’t matter if it is for nothing or amounts to a postponed death.

Mother shields me with her body.

The sound of snapping wood grows to a crescendo; mikos explode—

“… I-I don’t wanna die, m-mom…” I stammer, nestling my face to her stained bosom.

“I’m so sorry, Hana.”

—The paralyzing sound of a Gap tears reality. It didn’t compute—it couldn’t—for by the next second the world Yukari razed came rushing down.

A feeling of… sticky web.

It pulls us.

>>49897098
>>49897094
back to God's cutest girl failure, and we've also left the Underground! Next chapters we have Okina
more soon~!

>>49897105
OUR girlfailure.

>>49899711
hands off, buddy

>>49900171
Wait, this isn't buddhist!

>>49900574
Jesus loves /ourgirl/ despite everything she's done, Buddha would never love Hana and would send her kami straight to the Flaming Cock hell.

>>49900171
Cute!

>>49771203
>>49771408
I actually like IM but its really not a Touhou story...
that being said I think IM's going to catch back up with being the longest Touhou fanfic considering the author's mentioned they plan to have the story follow the seasons and end on the first day of Spring again and currently the bulk of IM (the first 70-ish chapters) was Spring... so let's say that's 1 million words just for Spring, you guys need to keep HSE going until 4 million words... granted you're probably going to hit 4 million words before they even continue the fucking story. You know Sentakubune posted he's 50% done with the KKHTA finale a few days ago? KKHTA is going to fucking finish before IM even gets to the next chapter because the author wants to write shipfics now instead of finishing up his sidestories

I do want to ask though as someone who read the original Shrine Daughter of Paradise story and checked out when it became weird torture porn with actual porn. Is it *honestly* really worth it to go back and re-read?

>>49910143
>you guys need to keep HSE going until 4 million words
we'll clock at 1.4 million or less, that's not happening
>KKHTA is going to fucking finish before IM even gets to the next chapter because the author wants to write shipfics now instead of finishing up his sidestories
shipfics ease the soul like nothing else…
>Is it *honestly* really worth it to go back and re-read?
if you're only talking SDP, yeah, love that, and I re-read on occasion. If you're talking SDP + HSE, then I'm biased since I love the fuck out of the project, but yeah. What Hanaanon wrote was pretty fun and gave Hana a compelling character throughout the project; Patchyanon was a beast with his books, and so on. It's very messy due to how everything started and do expect quirks and flaws if you dive in, but I say give it a chance and read until the Birthday Party -- the end of Act 1 --, and if you don't like what you've read or that it is not worth it to continue, then do part ways with the project
have fun if you give it a chance~! It's not all doom and gloom -- or rape and torture, for that case

>>49910143
More like IM update never ever.

I never read Shrine Daughter of Paradise.
I never found it. Only HSE and it's "prequel".

>KKHTA
What a fever dream that was.

I wish I could blame it all on the Hakurei girl. An easy resolution, a way to feel good in the face of imminent death, and every screeching limb of mine begged the mind to do so, tainted blessings stirring to give birth to the antithesis of a backdoor—closed; a disguised floorboard—which stacked upon themselves like stars layered on the night sky, blanketing thousands of miles of straight lines that appear as if a full canvas. Working alongside my closed doors, even phasing through them, Hakurei red flames spewed towards Yukari’s most refined act of madness, blowing up hundreds of thousands of tons of debris as if nothing, their origins but thin air… the way the Hakurei girl was looking around with this palpable desperation shows the source is beyond my sight.

That tortured man and the bakeneko, the latter source of the tenuous faith I’m applying to protect us, lay on the gravel a few steps away from mother and daughter.

Standing alone against the crumbling world, it’d indeed be easy to pin the fault of our inevitable demise onto the girl who’d chosen this specific moment to have a meltdown and lose her composure…

… But, for the briefest of moments, the air is salty and the waves crash upon a makeshift boat, and I taste cheap beer on my tongue and I close my eyes to not look into innocent eyes. Hallucinations, I understand. My blood rivulets and that immaterial thing within is colored to the shade of tar, poisoning what makes gods—gods.

Winter is to arrive soon.

I could just lie down alongside these people and welcome it. Had I not done that for so long? I could’ve prevented this whole mess, yet I had no guiding star for the longest of times—a goddess like me, lost in a terrible night… All it took was a simple human. I wonder how he is doing.

He survived worse; he told me the history of men who survived worse odds.

If those humans could battle a thousand invaders and save their faith, why not this goddess to save her faithful?

Tainted faith yawns, and to the surface bubbles even more closed doors; the parasite left by Yukari’s cursed sword that’d mingled with the pool of tar squirms and rots muscle and my veins of power, the Backdoor withering away and every other strand of magic following true. They unfold anyway, malformed and stacked so tightly onto one another it would take a Gap to pry them loose; my knees buckle and the blood pools out of open wounds, a war against the incoming winter fought alone. For a single more second, I keep on fighting, and then another and another.

Then another second, gravel digging into my flesh.

Then one more, backdoors exploding and crumbling and arching outwards following the dwindling fervor of Hana’s Hakurei flames and the continuous gorging of Youkai Mountain, the surface or its sides likely unrecognizable. Such a sad thing; I recall the view being prettier than the Himalayas… Satono and Mai must’ve liked it—Gensokyo looks simply gorgeous from the Myouren temple. The Tengu would be mad about everything that’s happening, their sacred mountain defiled, same for the oni to a lesser extent. I wonder if they’ll try to wage war. I… wonder…

Ah, everything hurts so very much. My head spins, my knees are torn. That pulse of light within dimmers, devoured by a beast of tar and many eyes.

No, keep on wondering, Okina Matara; don’t focus on the pain, on the strain. Keep your mind away from it all.

Just another second, and then another. Winter is coming, but I can delay it.

These people rely on you.

Delay the inevitable until the boulders stop falling, and the world ceases its efforts to crush us—

A small voice…

—Or a miracle happens.

“Her legacy… I-I do not accept it,” a small voice booms, and, suddenly, my eyes are on her and not on sheer destruction, and the mind is void of pain and suffering, if only briefly. The sight is abhorrent yet deeply chilling: the girl lifts herself from the ground like a stringless puppet, the hole through her chest closing amidst a small pouring of black sludge adorned in peering red eyes. The red flames besiege her, and in all directions, long shadows are cast. Shadows of a mad woman, umbral hair swaying as if the cut threads of said puppet.

Yukari…?

I can’t see her face; she’s looking at the sleeping man on the ground, nothing else seems to exist. The wound in her chest had fully healed, leaving behind only rugged skin—imperfect control over the Gap…

“I—It's not mine; that love… I refuse to carry it—I love… differently,” she trudges onward, flames almost seeming to dodge her faltering gait. Her tails are limp, and her ears stand down. “M-My family… I don’t want things to end like this; I don't want her legacy—” the stretched hand goes to the cheek where five sulks lie, and the world drowns a strangled sob.

That hand then reaches forward.

A Gap opens past Anon. “—I just want to be h-happy.”

Freedom.

Just as my body moves to collect the bakeneko—unconscious—, spider webs shoot from within the Gap.

They pull us into the dark.

It’s not gentle. My body rolls out of the Gap and I feel it way more than I should; wounds already plentiful now overflow. The rolling eventually settles, and under my trembling fingers I feel smooth terrain and plants; the crumbling of a world and its apathetic hunger happens loud… but, rather, in the distance.

I could cry.

Satono, Mai… I…

Sticky webbing clings to my robes—so very thin, yet powerful enough to pull my body weight in a most desperate maneuver—, and I follow its roots with blurry eyes to this blonde woman with long spider-like limbs. She cradles the unconscious bakeneko in her arms; her gaze worried as she barks to the people that surround her, so many sharing her characteristics: young and teens alike. The world around them pulsates a deep red, but the air is delightfully fresh, a breeze swaying my hair.

Many more people surround us, and they all watch, scared.

… So embarrassing, a goddess in the mud…

I glimpse at the Hakurei daughter and her parents through the corner of my eyes, but such eyes are forcefully moved when two firm hands catch my arms. “You! Where have you been?! What’s happening in the Underground? Is G-Goro safe?” Byakuren Hijiri isn’t cordial nor attentive, and her hold makes me hiss. That seems to nail a pinch of sense into her mind: her hands ease their hold before her eyes shoot towards where the Hakurei girl and her family are, and she speaks something to this… blur of purple and red that rushes past us like her life depends on it. Ah, it seems Hana’s gained the concern of Kanako Yasaka. Poor girl.

“A-Are they all safe?” I ask, but the boiling tar eating away at the core of my faith does not relent. Suika had ameliorated my condition, but she could only remove the spring. The damage, however… I blink away the knot in my heart and watch Hijiri’s eyes, her arms supporting me and taking me away from the crowd of huddled and scared people. Moriya mikos arranged in blue and white hurried past us with these shell-shocked eyes. I pay them no mind.

The heart yearns for the answer: had winter come…?

With a furrowed brow and a deep worry that she swallows for the moment, Byakuren expresses, “They're all fine; steady your heart.” Those knowing yellow eyes studied my legs and hands before she resumed. “Hana and Reimu are awake—they’re… with A-Anon…” A click of the tongue. It must sting, considering the life she carries. She recomposes herself quickly, guiding us towards the entrance of the shrine. “That Youkai seemed fine enough; Kurodani-san doesn’t seem to want to let go of her… I sense a bad omen about whatever she’s became—her samsara is stuck shut, much like Yukari’s.” She eyes me with a silent yet awful question, fists clutching a tad firmer. Youkai Mountain slowly tore itself apart, the ground below quaking violently; dread embraced human and Youkai.

“Don’t harm the girl; she’s suffered enough as is.”

“… She’s a user of the Gap, Okina.”

Hatred. Unbecoming of someone like her, yet with pungent roots. What Yukari has done to her and those around Hijiri—that worry lingers in her gaze like a massive shadow—would warrant punishment even from the most zealous of shepherds. I stare into those hateful eyes with all the might I can muster, and the words come out, not a plea, rather a command. “… That girl is not to be harmed. Kindness won’t be rewarded in gallows.” Much has happened to the bakeneko that I don’t understand, though theories loiter. What I understand is that pure forgiveness she so casually bestowed upon me, someone who doesn’t deserve it.

A goddess rewards her faithful.

Hijiri scowls but doesn’t push it, features softening despite the simmering anger. She opens her mouth to ask, and it’s hard not to giggle. “Goro and his family are fine. I dumped them with the others of the Myouren…” I glance towards the distance and frown at the sight of a pulsating pale blue tree silhouetting a world of pure red. Suwako kneels on the patio facing the growing gorge, focused beyond understanding. Kaleidoscopic mist blankets most of the forests, stretching wide—Yukari lost her Gap, how is that tree still there? Is it not part of Yukari’s plans? Then what the hell is that thing…? “Have you had any signs of Suika and Sanae-chan?” The words leave me as she brings me towards the kneeling Goddess of Earth.

“Nothing of them yet,” Suwako answered, sweat pouring down her features, eyes opened wide with the pupils dilated into rectangles. “That mist cloaks them. Its composition is absolutely chaotic—even in its destructions, Yukari’s constructs are masterpieces.”

“We need info, Okina. Is Yukari alive? Her state? What about Kasen and—”

Words shatter, and so does glass. Youkai Mountain, once more molested, writhes as something dies and ethereal glass rains from above. The sound of whatever died echoed louder than earthquakes. Following true, a missile crossed the red skies towards the tree and the soft diamond dust's strand of magic was soon recognized: Shikaisen.

A broken Senkai.

officially outta the Underground! Next, Yuuka vs. Seiga
more soon~!

Ran...
Hijiri kind of suck doesn't she?

>>49912116
Yukari with a katana is spooky. I know a doujin played with the idea, but still.

>>49912163
>Hijiri kind of suck doesn't she?
I'd be cautious/pissed too if Yukari jr strolled by after Yukari senior donut'd me and threatened to kill my chud son who I love. At least she's showing restraint instead of sperging out from the get go.

>>49915314
Hijiri is either aggressive or passive aggressive.

>>49912163
it's a gift from God imo, some Prometheus type of shit. Hot and dangerous women like Yukari wielding cool weaponry is an archetype comparable in potency only to hags and lacy lingerie -- latter won't kill your cat tho…
very spooky indeed~

>>49916759
You ever think there could be a blade in her umbrella?

Solstice update #26

>>49917208
Nah, the handle flips open into the barrel of a flintlock rifle. Yukari's final gambit will be holding Hana at gunpoint with a gap-gun.

>>49919446
>ran
lmao

>>49919729
>"parry this"

>>49921201
>>49919729
… seems I gotta revise my stuff. There's been leaks…

>>49921291
I'm sorry. Everyone played Sekiro.

>>49921555
fugg

>>49923853
I'm so sorry, we all learned to no hit flawless everyone in Sekiro.

>>49920237
Should've used Copilot ngl.

>>49379736
—
Seiga smiles. Her arms sprang open to expose the whole of her naked body, blue hair swaying while illuminated by the shine of a budding yin-yang, the tiara—the frozen body of a centipede—holding back the fringe from cloaking those wide and glee-fueled eyes. “Make me!” She answers Mima, the Kirin flowing like a river as it bashed against the sigil and devoured it, its Hakurei robes, prowled by the parasites that had made a home off the corpse Seiga tailored to mimic Hana, rocked upon contact, and the nasties were thrown overboard, crawling the ground towards us three like a mindless flood. A sickening display of power. “Or perish trying!” She took off towards us, much like those parasites had.

I met her halfway there, the sunflower hanging to my hair, its stem stabilizing the wound through my neck, shining bright with a light not much different from sunlight—his smile, though unlike sunlight, it doesn’t provide as much—, my brow drenched.

Without my umbrella to channel magic, amassing power will take a while, so I’ll have to rely on Danmaku and a direct approach to combat.

Gladly, I’m not alone.

The Kirin—it’s not Hana. It looks like her, but it’s not—stretches bizarrely, its centipede-like connection to Seiga’s hair twisting and waving to accommodate its method of movement, its horns aimed to kill and puncture to the tune of a two-fold deluge of Danmaku, mine rushing towards Seiga, a page from Junko’s book taken and its composition solely meant to kill; the wicked hermit’s had morphed into caricatures of centipedes and maggots and every manner of disgusting bottom-feeder, no longer a show, but a lightless flood of parasites, Chinese Hanzii written throughout her body glowing like a blasphemous bible, a beacon of carrion. Yin-yang burnt into mud and shaded forest, wards made of moonlight dispelling the Danmaku or redirecting it towards the living things whose capacities were unknown for now; a range of sharpened knives stopped the Kirin before it could reach me, its putrid body contorting and firing back every knife it could after bathing them in golden bubbles, Sakuya dodging her repurposed knives as if in a dance, which she partook in with elegance.

With the path wide open, I dodged the Lunatic Danmaku, a breeze compared to what I’ve experienced in the past, and ignored the Kirin, its attention turned to Sakuya, and tackled Seiga. Her body swerved out of the way of the nails aimed at digging into her smug face, a fluidity like that of a river, which remained as she dodged every attack I launched at her, flailing roots emerging from the earth and the trees gaining life of their own to crush her—all thwarted—, the sunflower blossoming in a myriad of gold hues as it fed from my memories with Anon. “Can’t seem to land a single hit, Yuuka Kazami? Fighting against Mother Nature itself! The Feng Shui courses the balanced alchemy of my body, guiding me out of harm’s way—you’re no longer her avatar!” She reiterates with the trademark gloat of anyone sycophantic enough to ally themselves to the Yakumo. Sakuya is forced into the defensive, meaning the Kirin had leveraged its focus back to me, hundreds of feet working in tandem as it threw itself around me and its host, imitating a snake’s coil, a veritable downpour of Danmaku and lasers hindering a quick getaway. I tried cutting through a breach in the lunatic patterns; Seiga pursued after me, hairpin aimed at the stem that connected the sunflower to my hair.

Knives flew, and the Kirin screeched like a banshee, Hana’s mouth—no, not Hana—opening wide as if a loose bag and cloaking all the knives in golden bubbles, their pattern tracking towards Sakuya…

… Who was already on the move when the knives flew, the maid’s impeccable movement capable of dwarfing the distance in a second and passing us, the blades screeching towards me and Seiga. The hermit’s eyes narrowed, and she cut the air in front of her with the hairpin, time enough for me to somersault away and land by Mima, the Lunar Staff loaded with an overwhelming amount of magic that almost matched my sunflower—

—She hissed, and all that magic was usurped into thin air, the Bagua of 16 trigrams gyrating slowly beneath her ‘kneeling body’. “Ah, you disgrace of an apprentice,” she stammers, an earthquake thrumming the land and beyond. “… The first attack failed,” Mima muttered, recomposing herself and watching attentively as Sakuya dodged the Kirin’s lasers, Seiga’s Danmaku and the infestation crawling on the ground, mindlessly swarming her legs and intending on crawling up. Through it all, the maid was focused and quiet.

“The power she’s cultivated is like Reimu’s float, but much more volatile…” A droplet of sweat cascades down. “If the Feng Shui she’s commented upon can be uprooted, then we might manage something.”

“… I see—in that case,” My eyes narrow as she pulls a simple-looking knife from somewhere in her dress, her green jewels fixed on Seiga's rank braid. “We cut the evil at its roots.”

Parasites nestle in deep holes, crevices, and whatnot. It is just natural that a perfect maid such as myself is more than comfortable with their extermination. Knives dance as they do, these crippled powers of mine a hurdle to be surmounted, but no hurdle holds the metal that slices through brainless infestation, blood and foul, yellowish hemolymph spraying from tsunami-like waves of cockroaches. Centipedes slither up my legs, slashed over and chitin brought to a boil, eyes never unfocusing from the weird monstrosity tumbling towards me, shoulders rolled back and what would resemble arms now but two droning, sharpened bones, the flesh peeled and rotted. It lunges, and the bone-blades sulk the ground, trained reflexes and perfect control over motion allowing me three and then four and then twelve blades, all aimed at the creature clad in Hakurei red. Bubbles surrounded them, and my knives became more projectiles to be dodged.

Hm…

“Still trying that, Sakuya-chan~?” The blue-haired woman has turned her attention to me, my eyes shifting to my… colleagues—fickle: they've shown alliance to the right side of history, and nothing unites like a common enemy. But there’s an after to this war. If they oppose the mistress in that after, better have them at knife’s range—, and they whisper among themselves, the green one with the pointy hat holding an odd-looking knife in her hands.

Odd, yes. Common, despite its appearance, preposterous.

Millions of knives have been sharpened before these eyes of mine. I recognize ‘special’ when I see it.

Special means planning.

It falls to me then to hold the line. “Don’t get cocky, woman. Twice the pride, double the fall.” A smirk rushes to me, hopefully gathering her scorn and so attention, many knives snapping and flying with precision at stray parasites of chaotic mind and body. Seiga isn't taken aback; her smile widens playfully, and she glances to the side—at my colleagues.

“I gotta a bone to pick with Mima over there. She humiliated me in rather cruel fashion.” The two in the distance share a glance with me, and I nod slightly. Seiga is between us, the threatening beast lingering with hollowed eyes, ready. “And Yuuka hurt my feelings… But you really haven’t done me harm—besides buzzing a little in my ears. Say,” she touches her lower lip, her other hand fixing the tiara on her hair with a hum. “I’ve noticed you are without your powers, and though Remilia betrayed Yukari, I’m assured she wouldn’t punish you if you switched sides and fought for us. You don’t have to die tonight, y’know~?”

The offer is met with a knife stopping shy of drilling her skull—which the words just now have exposed as being dull and thick—; the blade veiled in golden sap. “Black companies like the HSE aren’t as desirable as an honored death. Do consider rebranding.”

“Hm, I tried~!” she shrugs, grinning with this sick relish the well-maintained paintings of the Scarlet Devil Mansion try so much to emulate. Something free and unburdened, evil and despicable to the core. I burn the image to my brain: the mistress would enjoy a painting bearing such a smile.

By the next moment, the image was gone, the knife was flying at me, and both my colleagues were once more on the move. Seiga’s beast roars a most primal sound, such mockery of Hakurei alight with beams of Danmaku, which shoot in every direction, setting what remains of Yuuka’s forest on fire; Mima’s Yin-Yang sigils bloom erratically and in greater abundance, besieging Yukari’s goon and raising light-colored Danmaku and magic, overwhelming the field with twice the pellets Seiga and Yuuka were creating as the latter avoided the Kirin, my knives mustering almost instinctively towards the ugly thing to maintain its attention—essentially a mirror of our first advancement towards the hermit.

However, a gleam of metal flashes with the distance Yuuka closed, and Seiga met a simple-looking knife with her hairpin. Mima’s knife…? Doesn’t matter, the Kirin is barreling towards me, parasites keep their mindless assault on my legs and arms, seeking one moment of idleness to take hold—

—A beam of sheer magic hit the beast, its bone swords and feet throughout Seiga’s blue hair elongating and contracting as its sickening hide deflected the laser from the exposed magician, her ghostly frame swarmed by the parasites oozing from the Kirin as she laboriously dodged Seiga’s Danmaku. “Sakuya, go with Yuuka!” She commands, dozens more Yin-Yangs blossoming, and though a pettiness yearned to remind her of my true master, I gulped it and hopped onto the Kirin’s hideous body, knives thrown all over it as I ran its length towards the hermit and Avatar of Mother Nature trading jabs, the former unscathed.

Golden knives homed, dodges perfect over chitin, a maneuver Seiga was more than aware of as she avoided being sandwiched between me and Yuuka—

“Catch!” Yuuka chimed.

A simple knife flew towards me, not covered in gold.

Perfect catch, then a perfect throw.

Blood gushed.

It is a perpetual night. The measures and nuances are lost to me—an affordable commodity, considering the one I follow—, and all Keine has elaborated upon is that such a night veils the future of the Human Village and its residents, new and old. The crown jewel of the pitch-black sky, devoid of constellations, is a pale blue moon, centered in the inky canvas like a hanging prop. She’s said this moon cannot bestow the benefits of the real deal; it's just a memory and a longing, both visible in what the moonlight exposed on her face.

The teacher bows down to Futo, who leaves the repurposed office of Hieda, and I share a gaze with the lesser shikaisen before allowing myself a nod. That doesn’t seem to soothe her, but the words she’s supposed to take to the other Taoists, which would then spread them to the tense and worried people of the Human Village clinging to the walls of the Estate, are to provide solace.

A rotating wheel of desires swam from the front, echoing from people and weak Youkai surrounded by the cozy fires and feasting on what their homes had at their disposal. Children play, unaware of what happens past the veil of Keine’s power; adults whisper in frightened and traumatized memories; and the aged ruminate—all wait for answers we cannot deliver.

‘The war shall end soon’ isn't a suitable answer.

It’s all we have.

Keine seemed burdened by that, lowering her face and holding it in her hands, moonlight filtering from the open doors leading to the backside a constant reminder of what awaits us: a leering white eye adorns the night. Silence hangs, and I listen carefully to her breathing, to the sway of her long tail and the ruffle of her silvery-blue hair, occasionally hanging from her great horns… And the clink of two sheathed blades left by her side, her hand gripping the Japanese regalia and bringing the blade of Kusanagi to her lap. “Do you…” She starts but doesn't—cannot?—finish it.

A head of turquoise flashes in my mind; my old teacher’s desires but a ghost.

I cast one sad look at the milkshake perched on the kotatsu. Not a good moment; gotta wait. “Yes, I do.” My body slumps to the padded floor, arms slotted below my head, eyes locked towards nothing at the ceiling. “Nothing I can do about that. She's made her choice.” The teacher nods slowly, dragging a rag across the ancient blade absentmindedly. “Stop worrying, Kamishirasawa; they’re gonna be fine.”

Suzu and Mystia and those close to them were easy to bring to this veiled fate, but Mokou exists beyond the reach of her powers and therefore couldn’t be brought too, so she took shelter in the Bamboo Forest of the Lost.

Still…

“You trusted Mokou with them for a reason. I don’t know what the reason is, but it’s yours. Don’t doubt yourself after you’ve made your mind—we’re government now, no longer revolution. Doubt kills the fastest.”

She sighs but soon nods and, to my surprise, explains. “… If Hana and her friends fail, we'll be next, and I’m assured Yukari would come after me first… Mokou would have more than enough time to run away and hide with our kids in such a case.” I let silence wash us, my eyes lingering at the giant moon on the horizon. So you see me as your confidant already, Kamishirasawa Keine.

Good.

… Good…

Then, I giggle. The teacher looks at me with a raised eyebrow. “Using yourself as bait—such a selfless act. I’m sure Fujiwara no Mokou of all people would turn tail and flee the moment something bad comes for her girl.” I look at her face and, finally, grab my milkshake and drain it. Oh, brain freeze~ “But with babies in the equation… Guess some emotional manipulation is always necessary for the likes of us to get our way.”

I watch her shoulders sag at my words, the woman lifting the blade to look at its shine. Her reflection looked most saddened. “She would forgive me—she would have to.”

“Maybe,” I voice, throwing myself up and stretching my arms, milkshake returned to the kotatsu. “Maybe she wouldn’t. With someone of her emotional range, you really never know what to expect. Would you lend forgiveness in her place?” The question is insidious, a gauge. Whatever it is for escapes my mind, but I know myself: no desire goes unanswered, either a disappointment or otherwise; it doesn’t matter. Conclusions are universal.

She puts the blade down, concentrating on something. Perhaps she resumed eating the thoughts of those living in the past and fighting Yukari, or just thinking hard about the question. Her desires reveal nothing, and the lines of her porcelain-like face, marred by bags under red eyes and stress marks, reveal less. “… I had motives to harbor resentment towards Mokou once. A mistake and lies brought her to believe I’d tricked her. Our friendship died violently…” She sighs, one hand caressing an eye. A painful memory seems to linger in her mind—squashed by a soft smile. “… We’ll marry after this storm is over with. That’s my answer, Miko.”

I nod, watching intently her crimson eyes.

A suitable answer.

>>49935984
>>49935975
>>49935969
finally rounded back to them! Some inspiration from The Flood and Sekiro to write what's essentially the proud embodiment of all evil produced by Yukari's creation. And a little extra chapter on the people not participating in the Solstice. Would've reserved them for post-solstice, but I'm dying to write Keine again thought it'd be a good contrast going from Suzuanon's chapters involving a talk between Miko and Keine... and a dude asked about it in the archive
next, we'll have Kasen
more soon~!

>>49935969
>>49935975
That's a lot of senseless violence!
rip

>>49936159
No such thing as senseless violence when it's delivered to those who deserve it.

>>49938315
Love & Peace!

>>49935984
A lot of sexual tension between these two...

>>49943462
stop posting on the internet, Chen, Anon needs you!!!
>>49943470

Golden locks sway in a sea of blurredness, and I thank a faceless God it was all a bad dream. Her words hadn't held truth. That smile, evergreen in its sweetness, isn’t just memory: it exists and breathes and is within touch. A pouring yearn and ache brought my hand to the fair skin, waiting to see those long tails sway and bob behind her short blonde hair… The movement gathered her attention and my hand, wounded and burnt, stalled.

… Ran’s eyes aren’t of that color. They’re gold.

These are brown.

The yearning and the ache morph into something ugly and hateful, and that hand closes instinctively, eyes focusing immediately upon the realization.

I don’t know this woman, so I sink my fist into his face.

A yelp of pain resounds, and she rolls back with a shrill scream. T-that doesn’t matter: she had forsaken hold of my body, which slumped to the ground, the sharp pain ignored as I labored to my feet, head shooting around, a-and—

—S-So many people.

Sieging, staring at me with their wide, confused eyes. Women and men—it's been three years since I've seen another regular man—, human and Youkai. They are around; they’re huddled together, and they are speaking things and looking at me with massive eyes. They’re looking at me. All of them are looking at me.

Do not look at me.

So many people, so many of them.

A buzzing in my ears muffles everything and though the sky has reddened, and the ground quakes, and in the distance there’s this massive tree whose height and girth I cannot fathom, and… A-And… they are all looking at me. Do not look at me.

Do not approach me.

Let me breathe for once. Don’t approach, don’t look at me—with those eyes of lust, dressed in Reimu's clothes—, don’t approach—I know what any and every one of you will do to me—, I… cannot breathe. There are attempts, yet none comes through; the shake of my bones is not because of the ground or the suffocating pressure, it comes from within, and it’s violent; these charred and broken arms can barely wrap around my head. Tears threaten to come; that dark sliver of midnight pressed against my chest brings no peacefulness, nor does the golden strand hanging loosely to the molten porcelain cast. My spine hurts as it arches inwards; my chest has compressed, and the lack of oxygen is like drowning in that pond surrounded by the crumbling proofs of Yukari’s madness.

Yukari…

Her voice of heartbreak, her crazed eyes of a lustful lie and torture, and the earnest love in the way she'd hold ‘Sekai’. All of Yukari rushes back to my mind, blood pumping into my legs, and suddenly, I’m running through the crowd of people, their eyes on me and howls of confusion and other things following true as I dart and split the people like a sea, tripping on stretched legs of those who’d taken sanctuary on the ground or were being treated—a pinch of guilt, consumed by budding flames of hatred and fear and a heart, finally, shattered.

Where are you, Ran? That’s not how you told me things would go!

A hand reaches out to catch me, vision funneled into a narrow point beyond walls of darkness. It receded as if scorched.

Why have you let Yukari take away so much from me?

Tree branches snag, and sharp pebbles slice into my bare feet and draw blood. Roaring flames creep up those vines and a raging warmth spreads around me.

Why haven’t you fought her harder?

Everything is shaking, the sky is red, and there’s nothing left of my heart.

… Why did you die?

I tripped once and for all. It hurts, everything. I’ve tumbled down a small hill and hit solid rock. The warmth is overbearing, it’s overreaching, and it’s all around—in—me. The sky is deep red, pulsating with a life of its own and the earth is shaking and…

There are no eyes around me.

I'm alone.

Arms hover before my eyes, layering against a crimson sky with crimson flames. Everything is burning. There’s nothing left of this heart; it has been maimed for far too long. Hope lived there.

This nightmare finally achieved its ending.

That means nothing when, after one, another blossoms.

I should have known. In my despair, I’d clung to hope of change—a better tomorrow, a more gentle tomorrow—, but I should’ve known better. Gensokyo is no place for a simple man.

It’s a living nightmare, one after the other.

One ends, another starts.

A little light and a little love in-between, but it all goes down in flames—flames that spread and rage high, that singe the ground underneath me. Hands shield my face from this world—, it happened once and happened again, and it has happened a third time now.

It'll inevitably happen again. As long as this place exists…

… Maybe it is better to let it burn until there is nothing left, and then I’ll leave with Hana and Chen—with others that love and would never hurt—, and we will never look back.

Let this nightmare burn, chase something else—

A hand removes mine from my eyes, the golden thread bobs, and I open my eyes.

—And never look back.

Reimu holds my hands most tenderly.

She chants.

>>49950761
feeling sick but want to post for the first day of the month -- almost at the anniversary~--, so pushing the editing of Kasen chapters for tomorrow. Gladly, this chapter works on its own and I can separate it from its batch~!
Anon punches Kurodani, is sentenced to the death penalty…
tomorrow, Kasen!

>>49950761
>>49950766
Ran's death really broke him.
Rest well!
>spoiler
whot

>>49950919
>Rest well!
A youkai's soul kinda just vanishes after they die so she's not really resting...
Unless Ran's in the spirit world then she becomes a tenko.

>>49950919
it's a joke from a year and a few months ago when I was writing Keine's festival. One anon threatened to steal my Yamame fumo and, less importantly, kill me if I hurt the spooder or her children. Anon falcon punched one and will live to tell the story, what a guy~

>>49957520
Anon deserve happiness!

>>49959599
Anon deserves to be thrown inside the hse for another decades for even considering getting back with Reimu.

>>49959599
this one sparks joy
>>49961388
this one does not spark joy

The predecessor of bloodshed is a child’s hearty laugh, and its existence stirs something inside. Something I see reflecting in Douji’s hateful eyes as we meet dead-center on the fading garden of turquoise and scrawny shadow hands, the cursed blade slashing into a raised wrist. Invisible flesh isn’t pierced, yet the blade stops all of its momentum, feet biting the formless ground and a great pressure exerted in my mind. Douji knows this body and mind better than I do—she was born into them; I took over after Watanabe no Tsuna delivered freedom—, her melee oppressive and ruthless, Danmaku homing into her in massive quantities ignored with lightning-fast slices of the cursed sword, no openings that I could slide a fist through or compel Hermit arts into being.

Yet Sekai laughed.

… Why?

Such a question blossomed into a parasite unrevealed, for the reflection I saw in Douji’s eyes was of nothingness. Body invisible, identity stripped away and a mere ghost. She sees me; those pink slits follow with too much precision my dodges and weaves to get off the range and bite of that cruel sword—but I’m just not there.

In Douji’s eyes, I am nothing.

Sekai’s makeshift Gohei explodes in a downward motion and, as if guided, that behemoth of ominous fengshui descends upon Douji with wild movements. The oni dodged and cut the snake’s flesh to a lackluster result; the thing coiled back as it stitched itself together—protecting the sapling. “You’re so speedy, Mother Kasen…” The girl mutters with a dreamy tone, Danmaku rolling off in waves of moons and stars without a breath of end. “That won’t win us anything! Fight fire with fire!” Eyes narrow at those words, a sinking feeling drowning this formless form my body had taken. Douji is never off my vision, every sense blistering on my skin.

Only one attack is needed to bring this battle to an end.

“Wrong side of history, girl,” the oni berates, calculating eyes sweeping the garden. She’s planning something, and my heart lashes against my mind that cannot fathom it. “That lesser version of myself couldn’t fight to save anything—throw a few punches, dish out a pompous sermon, what does it even matter? Has your milquetoast approach to your every problem done you any favors? What do you have to call yours, Kasen? Do you have an empire; do you have kin?! I ate and supplied myself with the flesh of that dragon, was that the endgame you envisioned when you enshrined it into your pathetic life? No, of course not, but it’s what you’ve gotten! What you’ve reduced the name of Ibarakidouji into—a sex-crazed and easily swayed fool! What have you built with the life you’ve stolen from me that you do not regret?!” She points the blade's tip at me, and her tone festers with rage… Rage that makes my heart clench, the memories of those deeds and inaction that fed the destruction of the Hakurei family reigniting old guilt, which blurs my view for but a moment.

One thousand years—what have I to show but failure…?

A moment Douji exploits, the mindscape shaking at her every motion. My body reacted a second too late, and she’d already sunk the blade into the rancor beast’s flesh and, effortlessly, deadlifted its body off the garden, spun around and threw it at me and Sekai, hundreds of kilograms of cursed flesh saturating the atmosphere with decay. Insurmountable fear echoed and Manipulation of Explainable Phenomena acted on its own—Sekai had called me her Mother—bringing me to the small sapling, fists loaded and Hermit arts ready to meet Ibarakidouji—

—she’d ignored the sapling and aimed at me, a sudden burst of pink electricity blinding me, Explained Phenomena rendered useless faced with the surprise attack—

Red blade, however, bit a golden stick.

“She's got me!” Sekai shouts, holding tight to the stick with both hands over my head, her body leaned over for greater purchase. But it was her tone that deafened the world.

Why is it so gleeful? Why is she enjoying this—why can I hear her smile?

I don’t know the answer to those, nor to why Sekai reminds me so much of Reimu when she was little and had bright eyes and would happily lay responsibilities on my shoulders. An emboldening, almost addicting, trust… and one I’ve failed.

I haven’t failed Sekai yet.

The body moves fueled by an ancient, raging fire, and the clenched fist shatters the sound barrier as it slams against Douji’s chin, the exchange of sword biting into sacred wood not lasting half a second. Vomited blood sprays and coats my face; Douji’s body flung away, yet she immediately regains her tenacity, demonic pink slits on me and the sword ready. Ahead, the blue sapling bobbed, unbothered by the pressure.

Smoke sizzled from my closed hand as her blood gushed.

… And in Douji’s eyes, I saw slivers of my reflection. Where the blood had bathed, flesh and features got revealed, like condensation cleaned off a mirror's surface.

Dread stirred without a proper understanding of what’s happening.

Sekai giggled, her eyes hidden from me.

Douji's blood reveals identity.

Is that a trick of my mindscape, or has Sekai’s invasion done something to me? The thoughts come alongside a renewed influx of violence, the boiling blood on my now visible skin stimulating a muscle long forgotten. Fists meet Douji’s blade over the turquoise sapling; no tricks to dwell in with the rancor beast defeated—one blow, and it disappeared…?—only brawl, red iron blurring across my vision, aiming both at Sekai and the little tree as if seeking fumbles, yet all it met was a brutal pushback, blade punched and deflected away, Hermit arts all but eroding to the roar of new shackles that'd appeared with the blood rain.

She knows this body; she’s cruelty incarnate. But her rage is red as blood.

Blade whizzes past above, and this body of mine had lowered itself to the maximum, hands on the ground and legs lifting and hooking around her neck. Gravity and forceful deliverance crushed Douji against the formless ground and away from the sapling, even the still surface of the lake above trembling with the impact. Shackles dance; the cursed blade already on the move after Douji fled the leg lock, her blood revealing more and more of them as it was spilt by the iron whips and timed blows of a newfound strength—she’s lost control of Manipulation of Explained Phenomena solely because she couldn’t even fathom getting backlash from me. It’s enraging—, her eyes glowing in the fading light. Blood boomed in my ears now visible, adrenaline coursed high and teeth had clenched together, that aforementioned muscle an engine of sheer viciousness and rage.

I failed Reimu, Hana, Anon. Gensokyo.

I have not failed Sekai.

Not yet.

The back of the hand slaps the red blade away as it thrusts with enough power to cleave a hill, and the other hand catches Douji’s face and brings it to a flying knee; hot blood bathes; a counterattack comes and misses Sekai by inches, Douji’s left my grasp—

—She doesn’t retreat to gather herself, a beast that growls and tries to match the damage it has sustained. Hand balls and sunders her side, blood a river. The blade wavers in her hold. In her eyes, I see most of myself: shackles and tall horns, eyes much like hers…

… An oni, through and through.

Invisible and without identity before, in her blood that form is regained.

Sekai’s words rush back just as Douji keeps foolishly tackling me, her wits gone—separated from her by Onikirimaru… me—, and the shapeless dread eases itself into a dark reality, one that goes against everything I hold dear.

Have I failed in becoming someone else?

Is this who I'll always be?

It cannot be this way! I’ve always had that under my control; she’s not me! She’s a curse better sealed away and never looked into the eyes. A cruel mistake got me born an oni; humanity’s embodied desires for monsters in the dark inspired Douji…

Hana lies underneath me, then her Father. Reimu is a monster I never tried to help.

Sin after sin.

Why couldn’t I tear Douji out of reality?

A monster she is and will always be, and if she comes back to me—she’s never left, only was hidden away—, then that’ll mean all those sins are mine to bear responsibility over. Such responsibility I met with cowardice and ran from, an inherent fear of her rooted in my every breath. Hermit duties helped; Reimu’s wide eyes and harsh facade but kind interior helped…

Douji returning means I’ll lose all of that.

But have I not already?

Ibaraki Kasen lost everything; she let fear of those sins control her life.

Sins Sekai has reminded me cannot be outrun forever.

The oni fights maddeningly, and she’s grown monstrous, the blade gone and her body morphing alongside the shadows into a mindless beast, which is met by the dimming Danmaku of the unborn child and my fists. I couldn’t question the change or why it was happening, for her blood was the warmest and revved the engine there from birth like nothing else. I flung her massive body around and mangled her; bones cracked and limbs pulled in gory fountains, only for them to regenerate and her millennium-old fury to keep on erupting.

An uncontrolled monster, ignored.

I’ve caused this.

The monster is pushed into the formless ground, two feet sunk in its jugular, great limbs flailing yet pinned true. I tackled its chin, a loud crack echoing in my mindscape, then, with frenetic thoughts, straddled the space between its eyes and began punching.

Punching and punching, eyes wide as the blood went from flow to tsunami, cranium sunk and every manner of brain matter slurred into an indiscernible spray. My existence as a whole was bathed in Douji as I kept wildly pummeling.

Alongside every punch, two words echoed: “I’m sorry.”

At some point, Sekai left my back, watching from a few paces away.

Soon, I had finished and just sat there on… nothing, my breathing ragged.

It was as if Douji had never been there.

I turned to Sekai, my tears flowing freely and pelting my shackles. “… I-I don’t want to be this kind of animal anymore.”

Those words had entrapped themselves in my throat, yet when my eyes laid on hers and saw that deep sadness, they came out with a roll of the tongue. Sekai bore eyes that told what musings about ‘echoes’ couldn’t, and she made her way down the destroyed garden, no more shadowy hands sprouting from the immaterial ground, only the bobbing sapling unperturbed by the world around it, and she settled to my side. I wish she wouldn’t touch me, so drenched in blood… But that blood was gone with the blink of an eye. Kasen Ibaraki remained—or maybe it was all that there ever was to begin with.

A most terrifying answer for one long millennium.

Now, an echo after a year-long enslavement in the hands of that monster.

Above, the surface of the lake shook, and the darkness crept inwards, overwhelming us in a most gentle and comfortable blanket, beckoning rather than forcing. Her infinite irises looked again towards the sapling, and I narrowed mine upon noting it was slowly fading away. “… It seems my mothers have succeeded in my rebirth. I’m glad—we’ll see the same sun, Mother Kasen.” she sighs, crouched and supporting her chin on her hands, elbows sunk in her thighs.

The thought should be one of freedom, yet the fear booms inside.

My head is adorned with big horns, the shackles are heavy, and my eyes are reflected as slit pupils on those infinite ones. Douji was an echo of something slain long ago, kept alive by a fear I could never escape and left uncontrolled. The truth tried to bury itself in my heart… Sekai’s eyes were like Reimu’s, wide and bright and—here. She’s here.

An echo of thousands, yet so very her. Not someone else, not a strand or a phantasm.

She’s listening to me.

Words come out in a barrage. “… They’ll see me for what I truly am. I’ve already lost them, b-but what I am—what I’ve done; what I’ve let happen—won’t be forgiven…” Against flooding memories, these tears are a given. “I-I never wanted these sins…”

A setting sun would’ve solved that.

“I know,” she spells softly, searching the shadowy ground and paying no mind to the fading sapling. The smile she wears upon finding a small clover balloons my heart. “… But our actions are our measure. Great people have allowed me to be born, and you’re a part of that crowd, Mother Kasen—I am thankful for that… Even to those whose hearts are void of good, like True Mother,” without a name attached to it, only the image of Yukari manifested. “She won’t change, no matter what happens. I love her no less because of that.” She twists the four-leaf clover between her fingers, that sad look lingering.

I look at both my hands, an odd sight after so long with those bandages. Both hands have elongated, jagged nails—the swords of a malevolent race. My heart shakes and my mouth dries at a rising fear.

Then, the four-leaf clover is gingerly placed on my palm, and Sekai closes it softly. The swords don’t harm the ethereal plant. “… You are here, Mother Kasen. For them, and for me. Atonement is not something I understand, but it’s something I trust you could find if you were to seek it,” she caresses my hand, locks of warm hazelnut falling to cover some of her face, which shone a baby blue. She's vanishing. “When you find what you believe will render you forgiveness for your every sin, then I ask you to come and tell me all about it. Tell me of everything that you love a lot and that you’ve found out loves you, despite your sins. I want to hear it all!” Infinite power in her eyes, and she cries like a child would, something akin to bitter pride swelling in every visible inch of her face.

It clicks, sadly: she’ll never see Yukari—her 'True Mother'—like this.

Yukari will never atone for her sins…

… Will I?

Do I even have the right to seek forgiveness?

I don’t know, and it frightens me to not know. A millennium of Douji running rampant, a shadow brewing in the back of my mind forever hidden away, my sheer malignity sealed in a piece of meat. Something that never existed.

That person—that animal—is me; her sins are… mine.

But the animal has been tamed, and it has returned home.

The answer is somewhere after this great war, and I thirst to find it, and… To tell Sekai about it. To tell Reimu about it over good tea. A yearning echoes alongside maybe the first genuine smile of mine in decades, and shoulders feel lighter, heart beats full. Sins remain to be carried, and the fear surely will never leave my guts—fear of a prowling demon; of myself—, but if my child believes I can find atonement for them, then why ignore her?

I want to earn that.

A conquered animal is nothing one should fear.

“These sins and this fear aren’t my measure. If I ever get that forgiveness, I’ll make sure it's mine—and you’ll be the first to know, child.” I smile tenderly as she giggles, which echoes as she disappears.

It’s a sight more beautiful than any sunset.

“I’ll wait warmly~!” She says.

She is gone then, and darkness consumes my shattered mindscape.

I cradle the clover to my heart.

>>49965209
>>49965207
>>49965204
Okina found it within herself, whereas Kasen will find it somewhere else. Yukari never found it anywhere, despite looking at its eyes. The moral of the story? Don't kill your cat~
still feeling sick…
next Kasen batch will be the last before the BIG BOY BATCH on the anniversary, and the next batch is Jobbers vs. Seiga
more soon~!

>>49961388
Reimu just need to be destroyed by Anon's big, fat, girthy, veiny Love!

>>49965204
>>49965207
>>49965209
So does Kasen!

51 archived chapters, bringing the total to 190 solstice chapters. Good job everyone.

>>49965352
>spoiler
gone, reduced to atoms…

>>49970248
And yet, he still give it!

>>49970248
What is his expression trying to convey..?

>>49973520
protest against seggs~! Pls support him

>>49975211
He's lying, he just want romantic seggs

>>49975586
Ran is fucking dead so he is not getting that ever again.

>>49976130
He got Marisa and many others!

>>49976296
>Marisa
A jobber once a jobber forever, I don't trust her to sustain a romantic relationship
>Aya
The queen of fumbling would 100% fumble the easiest win of her life I feel it in my bones.
>Yuuka
Ultimate sadistic creature lives, he better stay away.
>Kanako
The best choice actually since she never hurt Anon and offered 'Ana haven in her time of need. She was the best choice back then and still is the best choice now.

>>49976557
It's not about power, it's about love and peace!
I'm not coping

The funniest ending would be Anon just stays alone forever. all that fighting against Yukari and none of them gets a crumb of cock by the end....

>>49976950
That wouldn't be funny actually.

winner takes it all~