Thread 49981067

Thread #37 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.”
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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: >>49513413

[Chapter Count]
(1846 entries)(+51 chapters last thread)

[for phoneanons who can't access the dead threads, here's the last thread. Link to all others in the 'all entries']:
https://warosu.org/jp/thread/49513413 | 36th thread

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

RESUME!
>Yukari gets the Onikirimaru after Douji messes up and gets taken over back by Kasen, and soon reinforcements come in the form of Okina, Yuugi, Reimu and the duo. The duo has a squabble with Yukari first in an attempt to get her to stop, but they fail. Meanwhile, Hana spergs out on Chen who was trying to convince everyone Yukari doesn't need to be killed, a time waste Yukari benefits from as she almost kills the duo but is stopped by Okina before she could get Anon and Chen the fuck out of the Underground. She takes the duo away. Yukari suffers a jealous streak watching Anon lovingly cuddle Chen, and she ends up "killing" Chen with the sword. Yukari being distracted gives Chen leverage and she uses the Toutetsu side of the talisman she'd stolen from Ran to devour Yukari's Gap. Without the Gap, Yukari gets jumped by Reimu and Hana and Okina stays behind, her backdoor closed by an attack of the Onikirimaru, to protect Anon and a dying Chen. During the fight Yukari reveals to Reimu the things Hana did to Anon, leading Hana to sperg again but this time Reimu tardwrangles her before she breaks down, losing a chakra core in the process. With Reimu passed out on her back and carrying two gohei, Hana joins Kasen and Yuugi in fighting Yukari, with Kasen having dominated Douji in her mental landscape after a whole episode with Sekai where Sekai enacted cat therapy and had Kasen fight her shadow and accept it, not through a hug, but by making it into a smear on the ground. They almost take down Yukari, but during her rage phase, Yukari shoots the ceiling with a powerful attack and causes a major collapse of Youkai Mountain. Hana relents from fighting Yukari and goes to protect Anon, and Kasen gets pierced through the heart. While the fighting was happening, Ran teleported to Chen's location, sensing Chen was dying and she herself was too without Yukari's gap to serve as a power source. She talks with Anon about a plan to save Chen, refusing to steal the gap and choosing to use her last remaining strength to save Chen, who, meanwhile, is on the border between life and death chatting to Yuyuko after inheriting some of Yukari's memories and Yukari's shadow. Chen refuses Yuyuko's vagueposting about becoming like Yukari before passing out. Ran stitched Chen up together but died, her body cannibalizing what remained of the gap. Anon was put to sleep before he could do anything, but he was fucking pissed and heartbroken. Hana spergs out and has a panic attack while the world is collapsing around her, and she attempts to replicate the attack that killed Koutei to protect everyone, but with Reimu's power on its last thread, she overexerts herself and is downed. Okina has to go above and beyond to keep them alive, buying just enough time for Chen to wake up and create a gap to Yamame after blurting about her family and friends. Yamame saves everyone, bringing them to the Moriya Shrine. Okina joins Suwako, who's doing her best to stop the shrine from collapsing into the gorge Yukari opened, and they watch as Kasen's senkai breaks and a missile flies out of it. Before that, Anon is the first to wake up and he has a panic attack surrounded by so many people, bringing his mind back to the hse, and he runs off while seemingly burning. He muses about Gensokyo being a nightmare and that it should be burned down. Reimu finds him and, holding his hands, starts praying;
>Remilia joins Patchouli and Meiling after dropping Flandre in the sdm and helps with the ritual after warding off Toutetsu. The ritual is a success and Sekai is alive;
>Jobbers fight Seiga and manage to land one attack using Mima's knife.

>>49981106
>Kasen fight her shadow and accept it, not through a hug, but by making it into a smear on the ground
What Persona could never do.

>>49981106
>Ran stitched Chen up together but died
The idea that Yukari could be alive while Ran and Chen are like that.
It fills me with Sadness.

>>49982361
Just you wait persona 6, it'll be green because you'll have to smoke the shadows like blunts.

“… Directional?” I parrot, inspecting the knife Mima had forced into my hands. A curious thing bearing her old magical signature, now morphed to resemble something like Kanako’s—a goddess’s.

Mima clenches the Lunar Staff, weakened, and resumes: “Fengshui is directional. Crystallized Chinese superstition I picked up from very passionate Myouren monks in my visits to their shrine,” she muses with a small smile, ignoring the rolling sweat bead that paths her ethereal semblance. “Alice was interested in implementing it in my shrine’s construction, too. Doubt she’ll have the time to see to it following the end of this war; busy she’ll be chasing a piece of man… Ah, I should stop rambling and get to the thick of it.” She’s looking at me once more, a certain resignation there. What is she planning— “You and our sour maid will hound Seiga and figure out from what direction her fengshui turns ominous, and you’ll throw off the alchemical balance of her body; that knife will tear right through her ‘divined’ flesh with ease, holding true to its purpose of killing a God. It’s not named Hakurei, but I’m not picky.”

I look towards Seiga and Sakuya, a sinking feeling in my stomach at the sight of the deformed Kirin wearing what remains of Hana’s outfit. A terrible thing, sporting twin rotten bone blades that once were arms, the skin hanging loose and crawling with a flood of parasites; its eyes hollow, the mix between antlers and horns tall and oozing boundless power. Sakuya dodged elegantly everything thrown at her, yet it was all that, dodging.

She’s hanging by a thread…

“Don’t worry about the thing; I’ll keep its attention.” Mima says.

My head whips at her, eyes wide. “You…?” Weakened by Marisa’s demand of magic, holding off something like that by herself—that’s unspelled suicide. This gaze of mine told her all of my thoughts.

“Who else? You, smitten maiden, or our best knife-handler over there?” She raises an eyebrow, and despite the shaking earth and the blackened ground, which crawls with a billion legs, and the Danmaku, which hisses relentlessly, I find myself flushed. Why do they always use the matters of the heart to bring this redness to my cheeks? Wriggle does that too, though much more brashly. Mima merely sighs. “Vengeful spirits exist on this Earth to get something done—it’s a shame I have done little vengeance since escaping that rock, and becoming a goddess with an uncouth yellow miko supporting me hasn’t done me any favors… Well, I harvest what I sow. Should’ve expected this outcome when I did mental acrobatics to not have child Reimu murdered.” She grumbles, shaking her head.

I blink, puzzled, then look at the knife. Images of a terrified girl laid on that bed wash over me—one more ailment, that nightmare, to pester her poor mind; she’d looked at me then with such evergreen awe, seeking in my eyes comfort and, to nourish a heart, help.

For Hana, I know I would give everything—everything.

… But I must be there first. “Thank you.” I whisper, hardening my mind and heart for what’s coming. The sunflower blisters with growing power, feeding from those memories. Soon, it’ll materialize in a most colorful Master Spark.

Mima nods.

———

Blood spurts. The knife cut her side, slicing through exposed flesh and fat and letting blood pour free, the Chinese Hanzii there dimming as it gushed alongside blood like spilled ink. Seiga’s eyes shot wide open, her fear rolling in waves, a tall tree bare under a thunderstorm… Her hands held the braid tight, the many centipede-like legs squirming as if in terror; she had moved it out of the way of the knife.

An attack from that direction will throw off the alchemical balance of her power.

Nuances of the fengshui escape me, truly—Meiling would likely have a much better understanding of it; she’s not here—, yet the hit is clean, and the profuse daub of blood is proof enough Mima’s proposal would stand correct.

Sakuya’s pupils had constricted like a predator’s, and a harrowing and squelched screech echoed to break the spell, which had lasted for one prolonged second. The maid was immediately on the move and so was I, hand catching the flying knife and dashing at Seiga, who herself had burst into a cloud of Danmaku, one hand holding tight to the bleeding wound while the other reached to tear the ground apart—she’s trying to flee already?! “Sakuya, aim only at the braid!” I scream and tackle through minor breaches in the Danmaku towards the Wicked Hermit, the bloodied knife meeting the hairpin and forfeiting her the chance of making off. By the corner of my eye, I saw a true torrent of Danmaku where Mima and the screeching Kirin were, the now goddess without her hat and teeth pressed together, pests crawling her ethereal body and feeding off it as her everything was poured to keep the mad beast wearing Hana’s semblance busy. A newborn goddess in all its right, keeping that corrupted beast at bay.

Perhaps I should make a donation to her shrine after this war?

“Ho, so you know…?” She muses through teeth painted red, eyes jumping around. Sakuya had nodded and pulled out a dozen knives from who knows where, eyes trained on Seiga’s wound and the braid she holds so very close… which is then set free and, almost carefree, the wicked hermit shrugged. Sieged by two of Gensokyo’s strongest and bleeding from her side like a cut pork, she smiles and shrugs. It’s impossible to wrap the head around the sheer audacity. “You’ll have to excuse me then, ladies~! It was fun playing with you!” Before a word of protest could come through, the ceiling juddered, the sign of another terrible thing happening above—Hana is in danger—, and Seiga had cut the air open to escape.

There was a trap there, and I welcomed it face-on, Danmaku sprouting in waves as her naked body preemptively moved out of the way, Sakuya’s knives rocketing towards me rather than the maid. A tree sprouted with staggering velocity, and it caught them. Mima’s knife whizzed at Seiga, who tried to catch it, only to dodge a stomp from above. I gave her no quarter. Sakuya caught the knife elegantly and sent it like a thunderbolt at the braid. The air opened with a gentle stroke of the hairpin, yet vines flayed onwards and caught the knife before it got either destroyed or hidden away, the vines working alongside Sakuya, who kept tossing her blades like a machine; Seiga’s braid kept its wild movements, the shrieking gone yet small glimpses towards the other side of this war showed Mima was doing her best to keep the beast, whose sickly existence attempted to claw back to Seiga to aid her.

All it would meet were barriers of trigrams before getting peppered by lasers and Danmaku, twisting its mindless attention back to Mima and advancing with bloodcurdling screams.

Pointy hat was gone, and the toll all that magic had taken on her began showing wear deeper than surface-level: hundreds of pests burnt yet never truly gone, the great flood encompassing all this underground forest I’d created. Somehow, their pinches and claws and teeth could feast on her godly flesh, tearing holes from which blood couldn’t be drawn—she kept her cool through it all.

We won’t have forever, and Seiga knows that.

“Shouldn’t you be helping your little friend? I almost killed her once—would you allow me to finish what I couldn’t before, perhaps~?” She toys, dodging the Danmaku while busy with the relentless rush of knives from Sakuya, who’d crossed the distance and, using the vines as purchase, jumped behind Seiga, her body upside down, eyes of unwavering focus.

She caught the Godslaying knife with ease, then threw it at the braid—

Seiga tried to move away, her teeth hissing when that attempt was squandered by my heel almost cleaving her wounded side open, vines shooting from the ground to pierce her, all deflected.

—And it missed by millimeters; the wicked hermit back slashed.

A gap shone clear; the pressure had to be enacted to be effective, my body surging forward with half a forest bleeding from the worldwound. Everything around us stilled, if only for a second; Godslaying knife was caught by a vine and hurled back at Sakuya, who had tossed every manner of blade with deadly precision as Seiga had staggered forward, both wounds open hoses, the Chinese Hanzii bleeding gold alongside red.

The sunflower in my head had blossomed to its fullness, bright and brimming with sweet, shining memories alongside the man I love and the girl I consider my daughter in everything but blood.

In this frozen second, Seiga stared at its floret.

Suddenly, the world cracked open like an egg. The underground forest around us was squashed to the ground by explosive force, while, above, the entire ceiling gave way, and it ruptured, burning blood of an explosion of impossible precedents bathing the cavern. My body was tossed around, footing lost, yet that hadn’t stopped the Master Spark, which, in tandem with whatever insane explosion just flattened the entire area, shot a kaleidoscopic laser of thickness I have never seen before, cutting through ground and air and tearing apart the fiery clouds before they could evaporate everyone here. A rock scraped a wide-eyed Sakuya in the forehead before she found sanctuary behind me, her face coated in hot blood; Mima pulled wards, overwhelmed but not destroyed in their entirety, the green-haired goddess brought to her knees… And Seiga screamed in deep pain as the Master Spark cut through her braid, pruning the Kirin from her and bathing it in light.

The uncontrollable Master Spark kept the clouds at bay for just a moment more before the power was gone and all that mass of death was heading our way. A robust and lush forest sprung to shield me and Sakuya just in time, the small gaps in thick roots letting hot air penetrate and slightly burn us, a pain ignored as my focus was on layering roots above roots, shielding us from the sudden inferno.

Through it all, I couldn’t help but ask myself how Hana and Anon were doing.

Seconds that felt like a thousand years came to pass, and soon the world ceased its shake and the atmosphere lost the crushing weight. I shared a glance with Sakuya, the blood drawing upon the maid’s face a craven frown—wondering about her mistress, I’d imagine—; the bloom in my head had died without power fueling its stem, yet the sunflower kept the wound in my neck stable. The mini-forest had disintegrated; most of it turned to ash, and what hadn’t turned to ashes was set on fire or buried under said ash. Nothing remained of the cavernous ceiling, only a gaping hole with frayed, jagged edges, the land collapsing on itself as it sought to slope and thus dissipate the imbalanced weight. There was no moonlight as this kaleidoscopic mist, heavier than air, began flooding from all sides, forming cascades of odd gas.

The ground was dark as death, and my heart clenched: so much life, wiped out…

… A thought that shifted into bitter rage when I couldn’t spot Seiga or her unsightly remains anywhere, not even ashes of a corpse.

She had fled, a moment away from death.

She’s out there, breathing and still a nasty madwoman, powerful even without that thing she’d enslaved, whose body withered on the ground, set aflame and whimpering. Somehow it hadn’t died in the explosion or Master Spark.

For all I know, she could be on her way to cause harm to Anon or Hana right now— “Calm down, you hopelessly smitten maiden,” the strained voice takes me out of my thoughts, Mima walking towards us. Her hair was a mess and her clothes even more so, with hazy eyes and labored breath. She catches the knife Sakuya tosses at her, anyway. “… Seiga’s wounded and cannot recover from wounds like those we administered. She's a fool, but not stupid. The last thing on her mind would be to stop to hurt those you love.”

I suck a lip; of course she’s right, but words don’t quell a torn heart. “What was that explosion just now…?” I ask to distract my hurried mind, watching the mist settle on the ground and rise like an overflowing river. Something about it irked me.

Sakuya opened her mouth to maybe articulate her opinion or a plan of action, sharp eyes on the crater above us, one hand rising to clean her forehead and the other digging into her pocket. Then she had paused like a statue, studying us for a spec—

—She was gone the immediate next second.

Oh…

Mima was the first to react, supporting her body weight on the staff. “Ah… What was even holding her power back?” She asks that question lingering in my mind, but the answer escapes me as does air the moment I breathe in the anomalous mist, which had rapidly risen to face level, lungs catching fire and my very magic withering under its influence. The sunflower attached to my head lost its strength and, through my neck, the root loosened.

W-What is this mist? What’s happening—

—Breathing soon normalized with lifted wards of black-and-white, Mima staring at me as if I’d grown a second head. I shook my head, as puzzled as her, and she looked away at the mist surrounding us. Insidiously, it had blanked the crater. I devoted a few seconds to making sure the sunflower keeping me alive was steady before I spoke: “Can you fly and keep these protections up…?” I placed my hand on the ground and birthed a vine outside Mima’s wards. Instantly, upon contact with the toxic mist, it squirmed and promptly died.

The way it targeted life screamed Yukari.

“… I can,” she whispers, almost tumbling from weariness yet keeping herself up with the help of her Lunar Staff, eyes focused on a shadow past the mist. It twitched but did not die, tendrils and appendages oscillating as it lifted itself from the ground, small sounds echoing with the damp, unique clicks of rotted clamps and joints. A thing of nightmares, harbored by the fog of war… And it wore Hana's corrupted facade. “Can you protect us?” I feel warm blood wetting my flannel again, my legs shaking slightly from the amount of power I used to protect Sakuya and myself, and thin scorches patch my skin with redness and blisters.

The Kirin is silently looking at us, its corrupted frame twitching maddeningly.

Hana and Anon are out there—Seiga too.

“Yes,” it’s all the answer I give.

———

An infinity of bamboo stretches forward, a lightless environment of thick canopy and whispering tall grass. Body pierces such green veil with no signal of tiredness, for the perfect alchemy of a golden core epitomized all bodily functions, a feat beyond the reaches of even hermit arts… Yet, my back and side bleed a trail of ichor and blood, my sight is a haze and flesh stiffens from something akin to blessings left by a Shrine maiden’s Gohei and talismans, a disease inflicted and almost impossible to get rid of through waiting or rituals. I pause briefly, supporting this aching body against some bamboo, gathering my bearings the best I could.

There is no shame in fleeing a lost melee.

No, not a loss—retreat.

I take away the tiara from my hair and toss it away—avatar of Mother Nature? What a load of stupidity; an attempt to wound pride and draw out Kazami's rage. I swallow down the broken ego, a bitterness unlike any other—, hand not holding my hairpin smoothing down beautiful turquoise, ire bubbling when the palm would come to the charred end, which once was a braid… Losing an enslaved creature like that is nothing; it came to me because of my golden core, it did its service where Yoshika couldn’t. There are more and equally strong ones out there, ready for the taking. I’ll find another after healing this body of mine through the only method I could muster on such short notice: Yukari.

I need to find Yukari, beg her to use her Gap and cleanse my perfect body.

She favors me—confided in me to bring death upon Remilia, the ally she correctly predicted would betray her—, she wouldn't refrain from healing me, and with a refreshed body, I'd go back and destroy those fools.

… I just need to hide and recover enough to trail the Gap Sage.

A smile comes to me despite everything, eyes lifting and looking into the darkness of the bamboo forest, body pounding with snubbed fear and warm fantasies. This is the right side of history, to stay by Yukari’s side…

Perhaps by the movements of the clouds above and the shifting canopy, a ray of moonlight lights in the distance, a faint and flickering blue—

Everything will be fine.

—A guiding light.

It hits me square like a missile, embracing my face and throwing my whole against layers of sparse bamboo, which folded with the ease of cutting paper. The forest unraveled around me and everything was hurting, physicality denied to the tune of the mind’s scream. Golden Core had lost its alchemical balance, and the Hanzii dimmed, then… scorching regret, haunting like the presence I knew approached yet had no sight of, my naked body sprawled on an empty clearing, looking towards a starless sky and the blue branches of Fusang, the tree of life. My lungs overworked, movement had been robbed of me and an invader held my every thought—my perception of reality—hostage, thrusting into my brain…

Regret of my killings, shame of my sexual promiscuity, void the bliss of torture.

W-What's happening?! What's this—

Steps; firm steps. I know those steps. I stalked her at Yukari’s request. The body quaked, trying to bring me back to my footing, yet the invader worming itself into my ethos made it impossible, and I felt tears not of water but of liquid blue fire trickle down one eye. “You can’t make this shit up,” I bare my teeth, tailing Fujiwara no Mokou with the eye not crying fire tears. She towers as she usually does, hands pursed in those ridiculous red pants of hers, eyes scarlet, white mane the tail of a phoenix, six wings of that same blue fire unfurled around her… And with a baby perched on her left shoulder, munching on a fist and staring at nothingness. “It’s almost like it was premeditated, huh?” She’s joking. I don’t know why, but she’s joking. Her gaze turned thoughtful when she lowered into a squatting position. “… Man, you must be shameless if that burst only got half of your immaterial sins.” She muses.

Immaterial sins…? The words mean nothing, and I ignore them, my mouth tearing open into a small smile as, calmly, my trembling hand sought after my hairpin. It must be close to where I am; I never once relinquished hold of it. “A pleasure seeing you, Fujiwara. That’s sweet Aki, if I’m not mistaken~?”

“Yep. The Aki you said you would eat.” She retorts with little feeling, though she’d smile when the baby fluttered its wings at the mention of its name.

I laugh to fill the air, a most strangled thing—appearances don’t matter anymore—, hot fury bubbling under this fake glee.

Where’s my hairpin…?!

… With an obtuse movement, the Hourai immortal slipped her right hand from her pocket and revealed a familiar hairpin.

Blue flame flickered on my face, yet my body had gone cold, and thoughts halted momentarily before a dosage of composure, expectantly, followed true, the probing of the flame ignored for now. No words were needed to know what was happening here, but this isn’t lost yet; I haven't survived this long without cunning bred in that court. I must strike a deal with her. “—So that’s how things go~? State your price; everyone has one. Do you want information on Yukari? I can give you details about her plans, that sword she’s birthing in the Underground, or maybe dirt on Toyosatomimi no Miko now that she seems to be a key piece in your government? I doubt she’s said even one percent of her true feelings and intentions, and believe me, Fujiwara, she conceals many! Knowledge is a weapon I’d gladly provide! Anything within my reach is an asset, even this body if you fancy it—”

Blue flames engulf the hairpin. Thoughts are noise, voice dies, and ashes go with the wind. Her baby giggles at the raging fire.

It takes a long moment for the hushed words to leave me: “W-Why would you…”

“Let me be real with you, Seiga: I don't care. I would if I were Miko or Keine, but I'm not. They're smart and know their shit; I don't. I'm a dumbass who inflicts fear, doesn't die, and kills with ease. Maybe I should learn to be better with the position they pushed onto me, I guess, but right now, with the stuff you've said to me? I’m not taking any fucking chances.” She gets up, wings wide and all but drowning the branches above with their monolithic span—Fenghuang. “Tsk… Keine stopped and listened to someone much like you, and she got shot through the heart because of it…” She collects the baby with one hand and presses its face to her chest. My breathing's labored; the worm eating my thoughts hinders my movements; Golden Core a chaotic concoction, nascent soul ripped away by Kazami. “You see these blue flames? They’re a promise to them—that I’ll never choose a path of unnecessary violence again.” She pauses, kissing the baby’s head. It had fallen asleep on her bosom. “I’m gonna kill you now, Seiga.” Her voice is a sun that rises and then sets, currents of wind that blow. It is certainty ground to its very essence.

Fear.

Fujiwara lifts her leg.

Words leave me; I know they do; all had slowed down, and the tears were not only of fire.

It cannot end like this! Mine is the right side of history, the side that’ll make Gensokyo a place free for people like us to indulge in the quest for Tao’s truth! I am chosen by Tao to harbor a Golden Core and spread what people like Miko could never understand!

Y-Yukari wouldn’t let me—

———

“Fuck, it got all over your wings…” I mumble, paying the shuddering mess of red pulp laid on the clearing no further mind than scrubbing my stained boot on the ground to get rid of cranium shards and oozing brain matter. Eyes focused on Aki’s wings, the thoroughly groomed pair—Mystia had made sure everyone who had even a chance of laying hands on the twins knew how to take care of a sparrow’s wings—smeared in a little blood that’d splashed. Ashamed that I didn’t think of that, I sit on a nearby rock and use the hem of my shirt to haphazardly clean them. All it does is redden even further the soft brown and wake up the sleeping baby. She looks away from me with the grumpiest of looks. “… Eh, you look cool in red anyway. It’s even part of your grandpa god,” I hum, setting her on my knee and rocking it; that usually calms her down. “You’re a Fujiwara, descendant of Ame-no, uh… Ugh…”

“Ame-no-Koyane-no-Mikoto,” I turn to the voice, watching Kaguya approach at a languid pace, her face scrunched up; the source gets a laugh from me. She pouts, trying to nudge Mochi away from her hair. “He’s trying to eat my hair again, Mokou…”

“That means he likes you~!”

“… I don’t like him,” the pout only fades when she approaches enough to stare down at the still body propped on the grass and bathed in moonlight. “You better clean that up. Don’t you know Youkai can be born from eating a hermit’s corpse? It’s icky.”

I shrug but sigh at her long gaze. “I’ll see what I can do… Maybe Suzu could read that stuff on her skin? I dunno, it looks important or something.” Just thinking of doing work around the village gets me all clammy. So many responsibilities to deal with. I look into Aki’s big doe eyes, the girl staring at a random spot of the forest with an unblinking gaze, not a worry in her life; then, I watch above as branches of a weird fucking tree sprawl all over the skies. Just what the fuck is happening out there…? If only it could be none of mine—and by extension Keine’s—business. “… No, that’d be bad, I think. It’d be best if only I and Keine knew I killed Seiga. If Miko knew, she’d get upset and prickly… I think.”

A headache forms, and I consider just ripping this head off so a new one, preferably without that pounding ache, grows in its place. I hate that shit like that needs to be accounted for. I’m not cut out for this type of life. “You look like you need a cigarette~” Kaguya hums.

“Fuck off.” I grumble at her. The Lunar princess titters, which makes Mochi in her arms giggle too. Hearing her brother giggle gets Aki’s attention, and soon she’s following the trend and giggling that sweet little giggle of hers. Despite everything, I smile and watch the Lunar Princess kneel by the rock and play with brother and sister, her frown now a smile.

My eyes track back to those big branches piercing the skies, waiting for Keine’s signal: that’d mean Yukari entered the veiled fate of the village. A familiar worry attempts to dampen my smile and gut the relief of one less threat to my family taken care of—doesn’t matter if Yukari’s still out there—, but I swallow it down, petting Aki’s hair and listening to their soothing laughter.

This is not the life I asked for, but it’s the life I got.

… A cozy house on a hill, far from many people with many problems, only me and my family and our friends. No power struggles; no police work or politics to engage with.

That'd be great.

Maybe one day.

Maybe…

>>49984147
>>49984138
>>49984131
>>49984128
>>49984122
let's start our -- likely -- last thread! Next batch will be Anonhana + Reimu
more soon if silksong doesn't consume me~!

>>49984122
>Fengshui is directional. Crystallized Chinese superstition
SAVAGE

So many things are happening.