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.