It was as guttural as it was furious.

“NO!”

Hana not only screamed; she roared. The hairs on my remaining arm lifted and eyes whipped towards her; time seemed stripped of meaning, a pounding heartache surging at the same time sacred wood met cursed metal, a boom reverberating. The spot Hana stood on until a split second ago was marred in jagged cracks, as if glass. Magic shifted: she’d vanished and reappeared in the same beat. Hakurei mikos by the dozen spurred towards Hana, Vishuddha—the fifth chakra—soaring from scorching embers to a frenzied flame. My throat clenched, eyes bulged with the sudden overexertion; paper-like mikos joined Hana in the avalanche of crushing blows she exchanged with Yukari’s cursed sword. “Hana…!” I tried calling her, but a cancer had developed in the windpipe, a magic much similar to mine yet youthful beyond belief. The purple lightning cracked, and the metal moved—

—Yukari’s eyes weren’t on Hana’s.

They were on me.

“YOU WON’T TAKE THAT AWAY FROM ME!” Hana howled as the faceless mikos closed in, each of them invisible to the naked eye. Hana communed with—to my understanding—the Hakurei God and Marisa had managed somehow, always a trick or two up her sleeves… Yukari moved the cursed blade and sliced through two Hakurei mikos. It had intent. “YOU ALREADY DESTROYED MY LIFE! Y-YOU WON’T SAY A WORD!” Unbelievable hatred and rage had overtaken Hana, to where Yukari’s movements as she led her away from me, thrashing at the Gohei leaping from the future and past, remained undetected.

The mikos backed Hana, uncaring of their demise—one dies, and the burning flame in my heart dies a little more—, and I… watched, for a moment. Hana sauntered through the snuffed fires of our lineage, pressing with righteous wrath against the strongest Youkai Gensokyo has ever seen. Her ponytail bore movements of Kagura; her resilient physique answered in kind the challenges of a Lunatic battle, eyes ablaze red, like mine…

Her nose crinkled just like Anon’s often would.

Below the surface, this body of mine is kept together by string and prayers; the powers the Hakurei god had given drain, and I am feeling a familiar cold.

Soon enough, Vishuddha shall be ashes. Death will claim me once more.

—Chen’s dying face; Anon’s pleading wish, one I never thought a man like him would do. My only daughter, fighting like a true shrine maiden, molded by authentic war—

My heart aches, everything hurts and terror is etched on my soul.

… Secrets…

Gensokyo would survive under Hana’s gaze. She’d be better than I ever was.

My daughter is strong.

I feel soothed.

One long second of just watching.

The next, Reimu Hakurei floated and the faceless mikos, sources of my strength, dissipated. “HANA, CALM DOWN!” I yell, floating above the pain of a melting throat and meeting Yukari’s sword. Hana’s cloud of rage dried up, even if only a smidgen. “YOUR PLAN—PUT IT IN M-MOTION!” It’s the last of my words as Yukari’s onslaught came over me immediately, the cursed sword impossible to be floated over as it lashed downward at my Gohei. The Sage’s foul smile faltered, yet never left; my other arm was sorely missed as I weaved away from the sword, face scrunched and meeting the Yakumo woman’s glare head-on. “Stay away from my Hana…” I growled.

“As you wish,” was the answer of someone who thinks themselves predator.

This prey gritted its teeth and fought on.

Hana hesitated, a tugging of her magic—she’s calling her mother—blanketing my nerves: fear. She got a gentle, wordless answer, which travelled across what she’d cultivated between us upon Koutei’s slaughter. It was seemingly enough. “I’ll need you to stop Floating, Mother!” A hefty demand, one that I meet.

Without my Float, the pain came barreling around once more, and Yukari’s cursed sword ruthlessly cut the Gohei down, her eyes jumping to Hana before landing on me again. “I understand everything, fools! Whatever you think you can do will be negated, twisted and thrown back onto your pitiful faces—you die today!” She snarled, the force of my slams negated and my patterns of attack read and countered, my body driven into the defensive, a hiss escaping me with the crumbling chakra. Death is knocking. Reimu Hakurei is busy. “Do you see the point of your fight, Reimu? For what are you throwing your petty life away?!” Faceless mikos fly towards Hana on the girl’s commands, though Yukari’s words unleash upon our connection a wave of dread and despair.

“STOP—” Hana starts.

Whatever secrets there are, they corrode her like acid.

“—FOR MY DAUGHTER—!” I scream back into the woman’s face, burning Hana’s dread if only momentarily. Gohei attempts to challenge the red sword, yet Yukari is not intimidated, her movements aiming to kill missing by inches. A lifetime of dodging like a lunatic spared me her sword; the purple thunderstorm Floated over. “… I stand up for my daughter…”

Yukari’s cruel smugness sickens me. “The same daughter who's grown fond of raping her father like a dog?”