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.