The consequences of misguided good are never the individual’s alone.

Such words rang inside my mind like tolling bells I've heard before but cannot pinpoint the origin of. I stare into the woman clad in blue and white as if she’d grown a second head, my grip on the bag of supplies narrowing into a stranglehold, tails growing fuzzy and taut. Heartbeat—nothing there; Yukari pierced with her cursed blade—booms in my ears, and I can’t hold the glare much longer and meet the paved dirt. A lump in my throat blocks air from reaching the lungs, and it’s like… Everything has come to a silent stagnation; how could things not stagnate when before me settles the greatest wall I’ve ever seen? Nothing quite like it existed the day Mr. Anon sat with me and taught me knitting, and he spoke of his great sad; when Ms. Reimu confessed to her desire for suicide. It wasn’t there when Ms. Ayaya taught me lies, or when Okina-san came about and pressured Ms. Reimu into an awful deal.

Words tried to form in my mind; nothing came.

With the sun on my back, eyes stared straight into the sobbing shadow of a woman who is not me. Whispers echo inside of her many evils—l-love isn’t meant to be shared that way… A cruel way, against someone’s desires. I do not understand, yet I feel terribly sick—, and she robs me of argument.

Why? How…?

I got a hole in my chest; my shadow replaced—but what had changed that my mind blanked in the face of such truth? No one feels alone; someone is always prone to receive either the good or the bad that comes. Why wouldn’t that extend to actions?

Every person Yukari harms, every pain she bears, it’s my fault.

I should’ve painlessly killed her… and accepted my death? I-I do not want to die!

The shadow has halted her sobs, and it stands as if watching me. I gaze into the dimness, and it gazes back with clearer whispers. Skin shivers, and with such shivers that bring untamed tears to my eyes, I return my face to the ghost, whose own is of infinite pity. “… I-I do not want these answers,” I hush. “Misguided? I only wanted to do good; I never…” These whispered answers block the path of doing good unburdened. It’s overwhelmingly easy to be a good person when you don’t know things.

Now I know the extent of the torment, the things she’s done.

I feel wrath towards Yukari—she’s killed. She’s killed me—, and to the same level, I feel pity for a woman digging a cold grave with her bare hands. If I had never known the former, lending a helping hand to her ancient sad would’ve been easy. It’s not anymore, and the ghost’s words have, ultimately, changed something inside. Good or bad, what’d changed I cannot pinpoint…

I want Mr. Anon to hold me, Ms. Reimu to sing to me.

I don’t want to listen to Yukari whisper about how she’ll destroy everything.

“… Poor child,” she shakes her hand, reaching to me and kneeling, much like Ms. Reimu. I expected her to comfort me; there was no comfort as she scooped the groceries out of my hands. “You have no say in that matter. The answers you’re getting, whatever the Gap is showing you—which is beyond me—are yours to bear now. It’s the legacy you’ve plundered from Yukari, and my worst mistake. I’ll do my best to aid you with what comes next… But the world you knew no longer exists. You live between life and death, and you’ll soon understand it’s a… loathsome form of existence,” my teeth clench, the whispers in the back of my mind painting vivid images. I do my best to silence them.

All that evil happened inside the HSE? Behind my back and hidden underneath veiled smiles and words of kindness. The terror is so great, a blistering pain goes unnoticed.

A question echoes like a gong: “W-Will I… become like Yukari?”

Many wounds, impossible to understand for the people around. So much power coupled with an infinite existence, unbidden loss in the horizon—the pain grows. What’s happening…?—my heart doesn’t beat because Yukari has killed it.

“Will you now…?” She whispers back, resigned, her sad eyes on my shadow.

She killed me when I was merely trying to do good.

I was doing good for a bad person.

No amount of sad excuses can justify what she’s done.

My family, shattered…

Yamame’s words echo within. “… I refuse it.” The ghost opens her mouth to speak, but I’m quicker: a scream leaves me and I fall to the dirt, juddering. Acrid smoke sizzles from five spots on my cheek.

My soul quivers as a physical body, only now feeling so detached, changes.

The Gap stirs; Yukari’s shadow looks absolutely vivid.

“I-I…” Strength leaves me, but I glare at her from the ground, tears streaking thick from my eyes. “… Her legacy will not be mine! I’ll not become like Yukari, ever! Even if the truth is clear and painful, I can still… I can still do my best! If it’s for them, I will—I must!” Mind grows heavy, a call beyond the fog. “… I d-don’t want any of this, but I won’t hide behind my sad. I’d never leave family—friends—to fend for themselves…!”

Her eyes stand wide, shaken.

Darkness consumes.