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.