“… Save her?” I parrot in a daze, an underlying ‘how’ etched to my face and words. Ran saw it—of course; Ran… she knows things. She’s smart. Smart enough to deal with this situation—, and the way her lips turned up slightly, shifting linings of rotting paper, swelled the hurt and anticipation to levels that dulled, if briefly, the saturating pain of my destroyed arms. It was only a single moment, a single gesture…

Yet, since those beautiful blue eyes died, and she was compressed into a ball of flesh as if a thing, one second to bathe in love has grown more precious than diamonds. The tears flowing down her face might as well have been. “… Our little Chen, Anon. How could I ever do anything but try to save her?” She asks me in this slurring tone of voice, cradling the bakeneko to her disintegrating chest. “I-I cannot disrupt the Gap; however, I can integrate every instance of the Gap to her blood, to her cells—she’s a resident of the Animal Realm; she could handle the Gap in any other milder way than outright consuming it. I just need to rewrite the code with the new library.” Explanations come through one ear and leave through the other. Nothing makes sense; dread surges inside my chest, anchoring me down. “… 34 trillion Gaps. One for every cell in Chen’s body. I must rewrite her whole and allocate the Gaps so they fit perfectly… Then, the Gap and Chen would harmonize.” She would’ve picked up on my confusion; of course she would have.

The words blare in my ears.

This is it.

A massive number, without a metric of comparison to a simple man…

… Ran is different. Watching her do math was like watching a river flow—it’s just nature.

What matters is a realization that comes upon linking the dots, the dread billowing out of control. “Y-You said your body is cannibalizing itself!” I hush, the world outside us forgotten as my shattered limbs reach for her—

—Only for her only hand to spring forth and ever so elegantly hold my cheek. “… I know.” Suddenly, everything calms. It’s not soothing nor natural. It’s drowning, and Alice’s hands aren’t there to save me. “Yukari created this body—chose me—precisely because that’s a task of such a nature only those with my set of skills could ever see it through. Humans of the Outside would call it bulk processing,” she chuckles with that laugh that'd light up those days locked in a gilded cage… “She created me to make her life easier, relegating the smallest details and calculations of the Hakurei Barrier to me so they wouldn’t be of bother. In her eyes, I’m a worthless, broken tool,” her slender fingers caress my face, and though I try my best to fight the drowsiness, it is overpowering. My face hits her other thigh, eyes looking into Chen’s closed ones as a waft of rotting paper lifts. Her voice reaches me anyway. “Which is why it makes me glad that I can use this power of mine one last time to correct a great mistake… That I can love you, dissimilar to the unfeeling thing she sees me as; that I… m-mourn a family I longed to build with you.”

Bloodied whipping marks; love over a rock and under the stars.

A sober conversation by the treetop.

Sitting on the porch and drinking tepid tea.

Together.

Eyelids are heavy, and the body shuts down. “R-Ran…” I plead. A dark feather sears against my chest, small hands press on my back, and the single hair hanging from the burnt cast of porcelain echoes with a sacrifice much like this. Won’t this war ever stop asking for more and more? When will it be enough?

Her hand left my head and moved towards Chen’s.

It felt final.

I am robbed of the chance of witnessing it. Amidst the frustration and tears, I can’t help but feel a roaring rage at Ran as my conscience pulls away, at Aya for not being here, at Alice for allowing herself to be murdered in front of my eyes; at every woman who came through those gates and used me.

At Reimu, for twisting what love should be.

… At myself, for being unable to change anything about my circumstances…

The rage settles deep within; it roots. Flames of hatred fan.

Love destroys like nothing else.

—
Skulk is far from me,
The leaves redden, the air chills,
I stay anyway.
—

Anon rests asleep, my remaining eye melting off the socket in a cloud of paper. I sigh, the world blind to me, grateful the last thing I’ve seen in life is the man I adore and my shikigami. Compared to living a millennium in regret, this is preferable. “… Protect them, please.” I spell, mind whirling with ideas, mostly dead-ends.

I could find that duo and have them reverse Chen so she’s aligned with the Gaps—where are they now? Are they even alive? I have so little time; my body is dying—, Toutetsu is a master of using Old Magic—the Gap linking us, long cannibalized; she’s been missing since the start of the war—a buzz of thoughts that melt away at an evergreen one:

Death calls.

“… I’ll die before any harm befalls them,” Okina answers. It’s everything I could ever hope for.

I hold Chen’s face and begin.

Pain is unleashed.