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…