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[Chapter Count]
(1846 entries)(+51 chapters last thread)

[for phoneanons who can't access the dead threads, here's the last thread. Link to all others in the 'all entries']:
https://warosu.org/jp/thread/49513413 | 36th thread

[pastebin for the finale (for writers, full of spoilers)]
https://pastebin.com/zqS1Krp7

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RESUME!
>Yukari gets the Onikirimaru after Douji messes up and gets taken over back by Kasen, and soon reinforcements come in the form of Okina, Yuugi, Reimu and the duo. The duo has a squabble with Yukari first in an attempt to get her to stop, but they fail. Meanwhile, Hana spergs out on Chen who was trying to convince everyone Yukari doesn't need to be killed, a time waste Yukari benefits from as she almost kills the duo but is stopped by Okina before she could get Anon and Chen the fuck out of the Underground. She takes the duo away. Yukari suffers a jealous streak watching Anon lovingly cuddle Chen, and she ends up "killing" Chen with the sword. Yukari being distracted gives Chen leverage and she uses the Toutetsu side of the talisman she'd stolen from Ran to devour Yukari's Gap. Without the Gap, Yukari gets jumped by Reimu and Hana and Okina stays behind, her backdoor closed by an attack of the Onikirimaru, to protect Anon and a dying Chen. During the fight Yukari reveals to Reimu the things Hana did to Anon, leading Hana to sperg again but this time Reimu tardwrangles her before she breaks down, losing a chakra core in the process. With Reimu passed out on her back and carrying two gohei, Hana joins Kasen and Yuugi in fighting Yukari, with Kasen having dominated Douji in her mental landscape after a whole episode with Sekai where Sekai enacted cat therapy and had Kasen fight her shadow and accept it, not through a hug, but by making it into a smear on the ground. They almost take down Yukari, but during her rage phase, Yukari shoots the ceiling with a powerful attack and causes a major collapse of Youkai Mountain. Hana relents from fighting Yukari and goes to protect Anon, and Kasen gets pierced through the heart. While the fighting was happening, Ran teleported to Chen's location, sensing Chen was dying and she herself was too without Yukari's gap to serve as a power source. She talks with Anon about a plan to save Chen, refusing to steal the gap and choosing to use her last remaining strength to save Chen, who, meanwhile, is on the border between life and death chatting to Yuyuko after inheriting some of Yukari's memories and Yukari's shadow. Chen refuses Yuyuko's vagueposting about becoming like Yukari before passing out. Ran stitched Chen up together but died, her body cannibalizing what remained of the gap. Anon was put to sleep before he could do anything, but he was fucking pissed and heartbroken. Hana spergs out and has a panic attack while the world is collapsing around her, and she attempts to replicate the attack that killed Koutei to protect everyone, but with Reimu's power on its last thread, she overexerts herself and is downed. Okina has to go above and beyond to keep them alive, buying just enough time for Chen to wake up and create a gap to Yamame after blurting about her family and friends. Yamame saves everyone, bringing them to the Moriya Shrine. Okina joins Suwako, who's doing her best to stop the shrine from collapsing into the gorge Yukari opened, and they watch as Kasen's senkai breaks and a missile flies out of it. Before that, Anon is the first to wake up and he has a panic attack surrounded by so many people, bringing his mind back to the hse, and he runs off while seemingly burning. He muses about Gensokyo being a nightmare and that it should be burned down. Reimu finds him and, holding his hands, starts praying;
>Remilia joins Patchouli and Meiling after dropping Flandre in the sdm and helps with the ritual after warding off Toutetsu. The ritual is a success and Sekai is alive;
>Jobbers fight Seiga and manage to land one attack using Mima's knife.

>>49981106
>Kasen fight her shadow and accept it, not through a hug, but by making it into a smear on the ground
What Persona could never do.

>>49981106
>Ran stitched Chen up together but died
The idea that Yukari could be alive while Ran and Chen are like that.
It fills me with Sadness.

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>>49982361
Just you wait persona 6, it'll be green because you'll have to smoke the shadows like blunts.

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“… Directional?” I parrot, inspecting the knife Mima had forced into my hands. A curious thing bearing her old magical signature, now morphed to resemble something like Kanako’s—a goddess’s.

Mima clenches the Lunar Staff, weakened, and resumes: “Fengshui is directional. Crystallized Chinese superstition I picked up from very passionate Myouren monks in my visits to their shrine,” she muses with a small smile, ignoring the rolling sweat bead that paths her ethereal semblance. “Alice was interested in implementing it in my shrine’s construction, too. Doubt she’ll have the time to see to it following the end of this war; busy she’ll be chasing a piece of man… Ah, I should stop rambling and get to the thick of it.” She’s looking at me once more, a certain resignation there. What is she planning— “You and our sour maid will hound Seiga and figure out from what direction her fengshui turns ominous, and you’ll throw off the alchemical balance of her body; that knife will tear right through her ‘divined’ flesh with ease, holding true to its purpose of killing a God. It’s not named Hakurei, but I’m not picky.”

I look towards Seiga and Sakuya, a sinking feeling in my stomach at the sight of the deformed Kirin wearing what remains of Hana’s outfit. A terrible thing, sporting twin rotten bone blades that once were arms, the skin hanging loose and crawling with a flood of parasites; its eyes hollow, the mix between antlers and horns tall and oozing boundless power. Sakuya dodged elegantly everything thrown at her, yet it was all that, dodging.

She’s hanging by a thread…

“Don’t worry about the thing; I’ll keep its attention.” Mima says.

My head whips at her, eyes wide. “You…?” Weakened by Marisa’s demand of magic, holding off something like that by herself—that’s unspelled suicide. This gaze of mine told her all of my thoughts.

“Who else? You, smitten maiden, or our best knife-handler over there?” She raises an eyebrow, and despite the shaking earth and the blackened ground, which crawls with a billion legs, and the Danmaku, which hisses relentlessly, I find myself flushed. Why do they always use the matters of the heart to bring this redness to my cheeks? Wriggle does that too, though much more brashly. Mima merely sighs. “Vengeful spirits exist on this Earth to get something done—it’s a shame I have done little vengeance since escaping that rock, and becoming a goddess with an uncouth yellow miko supporting me hasn’t done me any favors… Well, I harvest what I sow. Should’ve expected this outcome when I did mental acrobatics to not have child Reimu murdered.” She grumbles, shaking her head.

I blink, puzzled, then look at the knife. Images of a terrified girl laid on that bed wash over me—one more ailment, that nightmare, to pester her poor mind; she’d looked at me then with such evergreen awe, seeking in my eyes comfort and, to nourish a heart, help.

For Hana, I know I would give everything—everything.

… But I must be there first. “Thank you.” I whisper, hardening my mind and heart for what’s coming. The sunflower blisters with growing power, feeding from those memories. Soon, it’ll materialize in a most colorful Master Spark.

Mima nods.

———

Blood spurts. The knife cut her side, slicing through exposed flesh and fat and letting blood pour free, the Chinese Hanzii there dimming as it gushed alongside blood like spilled ink. Seiga’s eyes shot wide open, her fear rolling in waves, a tall tree bare under a thunderstorm… Her hands held the braid tight, the many centipede-like legs squirming as if in terror; she had moved it out of the way of the knife.

An attack from that direction will throw off the alchemical balance of her power.

Nuances of the fengshui escape me, truly—Meiling would likely have a much better understanding of it; she’s not here—, yet the hit is clean, and the profuse daub of blood is proof enough Mima’s proposal would stand correct.

Sakuya’s pupils had constricted like a predator’s, and a harrowing and squelched screech echoed to break the spell, which had lasted for one prolonged second. The maid was immediately on the move and so was I, hand catching the flying knife and dashing at Seiga, who herself had burst into a cloud of Danmaku, one hand holding tight to the bleeding wound while the other reached to tear the ground apart—she’s trying to flee already?! “Sakuya, aim only at the braid!” I scream and tackle through minor breaches in the Danmaku towards the Wicked Hermit, the bloodied knife meeting the hairpin and forfeiting her the chance of making off. By the corner of my eye, I saw a true torrent of Danmaku where Mima and the screeching Kirin were, the now goddess without her hat and teeth pressed together, pests crawling her ethereal body and feeding off it as her everything was poured to keep the mad beast wearing Hana’s semblance busy. A newborn goddess in all its right, keeping that corrupted beast at bay.

Perhaps I should make a donation to her shrine after this war?

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“Ho, so you know…?” She muses through teeth painted red, eyes jumping around. Sakuya had nodded and pulled out a dozen knives from who knows where, eyes trained on Seiga’s wound and the braid she holds so very close… which is then set free and, almost carefree, the wicked hermit shrugged. Sieged by two of Gensokyo’s strongest and bleeding from her side like a cut pork, she smiles and shrugs. It’s impossible to wrap the head around the sheer audacity. “You’ll have to excuse me then, ladies~! It was fun playing with you!” Before a word of protest could come through, the ceiling juddered, the sign of another terrible thing happening above—Hana is in danger—, and Seiga had cut the air open to escape.

There was a trap there, and I welcomed it face-on, Danmaku sprouting in waves as her naked body preemptively moved out of the way, Sakuya’s knives rocketing towards me rather than the maid. A tree sprouted with staggering velocity, and it caught them. Mima’s knife whizzed at Seiga, who tried to catch it, only to dodge a stomp from above. I gave her no quarter. Sakuya caught the knife elegantly and sent it like a thunderbolt at the braid. The air opened with a gentle stroke of the hairpin, yet vines flayed onwards and caught the knife before it got either destroyed or hidden away, the vines working alongside Sakuya, who kept tossing her blades like a machine; Seiga’s braid kept its wild movements, the shrieking gone yet small glimpses towards the other side of this war showed Mima was doing her best to keep the beast, whose sickly existence attempted to claw back to Seiga to aid her.

All it would meet were barriers of trigrams before getting peppered by lasers and Danmaku, twisting its mindless attention back to Mima and advancing with bloodcurdling screams.

Pointy hat was gone, and the toll all that magic had taken on her began showing wear deeper than surface-level: hundreds of pests burnt yet never truly gone, the great flood encompassing all this underground forest I’d created. Somehow, their pinches and claws and teeth could feast on her godly flesh, tearing holes from which blood couldn’t be drawn—she kept her cool through it all.

We won’t have forever, and Seiga knows that.

“Shouldn’t you be helping your little friend? I almost killed her once—would you allow me to finish what I couldn’t before, perhaps~?” She toys, dodging the Danmaku while busy with the relentless rush of knives from Sakuya, who’d crossed the distance and, using the vines as purchase, jumped behind Seiga, her body upside down, eyes of unwavering focus.

She caught the Godslaying knife with ease, then threw it at the braid—

Seiga tried to move away, her teeth hissing when that attempt was squandered by my heel almost cleaving her wounded side open, vines shooting from the ground to pierce her, all deflected.

—And it missed by millimeters; the wicked hermit back slashed.

A gap shone clear; the pressure had to be enacted to be effective, my body surging forward with half a forest bleeding from the worldwound. Everything around us stilled, if only for a second; Godslaying knife was caught by a vine and hurled back at Sakuya, who had tossed every manner of blade with deadly precision as Seiga had staggered forward, both wounds open hoses, the Chinese Hanzii bleeding gold alongside red.

The sunflower in my head had blossomed to its fullness, bright and brimming with sweet, shining memories alongside the man I love and the girl I consider my daughter in everything but blood.

In this frozen second, Seiga stared at its floret.

Suddenly, the world cracked open like an egg. The underground forest around us was squashed to the ground by explosive force, while, above, the entire ceiling gave way, and it ruptured, burning blood of an explosion of impossible precedents bathing the cavern. My body was tossed around, footing lost, yet that hadn’t stopped the Master Spark, which, in tandem with whatever insane explosion just flattened the entire area, shot a kaleidoscopic laser of thickness I have never seen before, cutting through ground and air and tearing apart the fiery clouds before they could evaporate everyone here. A rock scraped a wide-eyed Sakuya in the forehead before she found sanctuary behind me, her face coated in hot blood; Mima pulled wards, overwhelmed but not destroyed in their entirety, the green-haired goddess brought to her knees… And Seiga screamed in deep pain as the Master Spark cut through her braid, pruning the Kirin from her and bathing it in light.

The uncontrollable Master Spark kept the clouds at bay for just a moment more before the power was gone and all that mass of death was heading our way. A robust and lush forest sprung to shield me and Sakuya just in time, the small gaps in thick roots letting hot air penetrate and slightly burn us, a pain ignored as my focus was on layering roots above roots, shielding us from the sudden inferno.

Through it all, I couldn’t help but ask myself how Hana and Anon were doing.

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Seconds that felt like a thousand years came to pass, and soon the world ceased its shake and the atmosphere lost the crushing weight. I shared a glance with Sakuya, the blood drawing upon the maid’s face a craven frown—wondering about her mistress, I’d imagine—; the bloom in my head had died without power fueling its stem, yet the sunflower kept the wound in my neck stable. The mini-forest had disintegrated; most of it turned to ash, and what hadn’t turned to ashes was set on fire or buried under said ash. Nothing remained of the cavernous ceiling, only a gaping hole with frayed, jagged edges, the land collapsing on itself as it sought to slope and thus dissipate the imbalanced weight. There was no moonlight as this kaleidoscopic mist, heavier than air, began flooding from all sides, forming cascades of odd gas.

The ground was dark as death, and my heart clenched: so much life, wiped out…

… A thought that shifted into bitter rage when I couldn’t spot Seiga or her unsightly remains anywhere, not even ashes of a corpse.

She had fled, a moment away from death.

She’s out there, breathing and still a nasty madwoman, powerful even without that thing she’d enslaved, whose body withered on the ground, set aflame and whimpering. Somehow it hadn’t died in the explosion or Master Spark.

For all I know, she could be on her way to cause harm to Anon or Hana right now— “Calm down, you hopelessly smitten maiden,” the strained voice takes me out of my thoughts, Mima walking towards us. Her hair was a mess and her clothes even more so, with hazy eyes and labored breath. She catches the knife Sakuya tosses at her, anyway. “… Seiga’s wounded and cannot recover from wounds like those we administered. She's a fool, but not stupid. The last thing on her mind would be to stop to hurt those you love.”

I suck a lip; of course she’s right, but words don’t quell a torn heart. “What was that explosion just now…?” I ask to distract my hurried mind, watching the mist settle on the ground and rise like an overflowing river. Something about it irked me.

Sakuya opened her mouth to maybe articulate her opinion or a plan of action, sharp eyes on the crater above us, one hand rising to clean her forehead and the other digging into her pocket. Then she had paused like a statue, studying us for a spec—

—She was gone the immediate next second.

Oh…

Mima was the first to react, supporting her body weight on the staff. “Ah… What was even holding her power back?” She asks that question lingering in my mind, but the answer escapes me as does air the moment I breathe in the anomalous mist, which had rapidly risen to face level, lungs catching fire and my very magic withering under its influence. The sunflower attached to my head lost its strength and, through my neck, the root loosened.

W-What is this mist? What’s happening—

—Breathing soon normalized with lifted wards of black-and-white, Mima staring at me as if I’d grown a second head. I shook my head, as puzzled as her, and she looked away at the mist surrounding us. Insidiously, it had blanked the crater. I devoted a few seconds to making sure the sunflower keeping me alive was steady before I spoke: “Can you fly and keep these protections up…?” I placed my hand on the ground and birthed a vine outside Mima’s wards. Instantly, upon contact with the toxic mist, it squirmed and promptly died.

The way it targeted life screamed Yukari.

“… I can,” she whispers, almost tumbling from weariness yet keeping herself up with the help of her Lunar Staff, eyes focused on a shadow past the mist. It twitched but did not die, tendrils and appendages oscillating as it lifted itself from the ground, small sounds echoing with the damp, unique clicks of rotted clamps and joints. A thing of nightmares, harbored by the fog of war… And it wore Hana's corrupted facade. “Can you protect us?” I feel warm blood wetting my flannel again, my legs shaking slightly from the amount of power I used to protect Sakuya and myself, and thin scorches patch my skin with redness and blisters.

The Kirin is silently looking at us, its corrupted frame twitching maddeningly.

Hana and Anon are out there—Seiga too.

“Yes,” it’s all the answer I give.

———

An infinity of bamboo stretches forward, a lightless environment of thick canopy and whispering tall grass. Body pierces such green veil with no signal of tiredness, for the perfect alchemy of a golden core epitomized all bodily functions, a feat beyond the reaches of even hermit arts… Yet, my back and side bleed a trail of ichor and blood, my sight is a haze and flesh stiffens from something akin to blessings left by a Shrine maiden’s Gohei and talismans, a disease inflicted and almost impossible to get rid of through waiting or rituals. I pause briefly, supporting this aching body against some bamboo, gathering my bearings the best I could.

There is no shame in fleeing a lost melee.

No, not a loss—retreat.

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I take away the tiara from my hair and toss it away—avatar of Mother Nature? What a load of stupidity; an attempt to wound pride and draw out Kazami's rage. I swallow down the broken ego, a bitterness unlike any other—, hand not holding my hairpin smoothing down beautiful turquoise, ire bubbling when the palm would come to the charred end, which once was a braid… Losing an enslaved creature like that is nothing; it came to me because of my golden core, it did its service where Yoshika couldn’t. There are more and equally strong ones out there, ready for the taking. I’ll find another after healing this body of mine through the only method I could muster on such short notice: Yukari.

I need to find Yukari, beg her to use her Gap and cleanse my perfect body.

She favors me—confided in me to bring death upon Remilia, the ally she correctly predicted would betray her—, she wouldn't refrain from healing me, and with a refreshed body, I'd go back and destroy those fools.

… I just need to hide and recover enough to trail the Gap Sage.

A smile comes to me despite everything, eyes lifting and looking into the darkness of the bamboo forest, body pounding with snubbed fear and warm fantasies. This is the right side of history, to stay by Yukari’s side…

Perhaps by the movements of the clouds above and the shifting canopy, a ray of moonlight lights in the distance, a faint and flickering blue—

Everything will be fine.

—A guiding light.

It hits me square like a missile, embracing my face and throwing my whole against layers of sparse bamboo, which folded with the ease of cutting paper. The forest unraveled around me and everything was hurting, physicality denied to the tune of the mind’s scream. Golden Core had lost its alchemical balance, and the Hanzii dimmed, then… scorching regret, haunting like the presence I knew approached yet had no sight of, my naked body sprawled on an empty clearing, looking towards a starless sky and the blue branches of Fusang, the tree of life. My lungs overworked, movement had been robbed of me and an invader held my every thought—my perception of reality—hostage, thrusting into my brain…

Regret of my killings, shame of my sexual promiscuity, void the bliss of torture.

W-What's happening?! What's this—

Steps; firm steps. I know those steps. I stalked her at Yukari’s request. The body quaked, trying to bring me back to my footing, yet the invader worming itself into my ethos made it impossible, and I felt tears not of water but of liquid blue fire trickle down one eye. “You can’t make this shit up,” I bare my teeth, tailing Fujiwara no Mokou with the eye not crying fire tears. She towers as she usually does, hands pursed in those ridiculous red pants of hers, eyes scarlet, white mane the tail of a phoenix, six wings of that same blue fire unfurled around her… And with a baby perched on her left shoulder, munching on a fist and staring at nothingness. “It’s almost like it was premeditated, huh?” She’s joking. I don’t know why, but she’s joking. Her gaze turned thoughtful when she lowered into a squatting position. “… Man, you must be shameless if that burst only got half of your immaterial sins.” She muses.

Immaterial sins…? The words mean nothing, and I ignore them, my mouth tearing open into a small smile as, calmly, my trembling hand sought after my hairpin. It must be close to where I am; I never once relinquished hold of it. “A pleasure seeing you, Fujiwara. That’s sweet Aki, if I’m not mistaken~?”

“Yep. The Aki you said you would eat.” She retorts with little feeling, though she’d smile when the baby fluttered its wings at the mention of its name.

I laugh to fill the air, a most strangled thing—appearances don’t matter anymore—, hot fury bubbling under this fake glee.

Where’s my hairpin…?!

… With an obtuse movement, the Hourai immortal slipped her right hand from her pocket and revealed a familiar hairpin.

Blue flame flickered on my face, yet my body had gone cold, and thoughts halted momentarily before a dosage of composure, expectantly, followed true, the probing of the flame ignored for now. No words were needed to know what was happening here, but this isn’t lost yet; I haven't survived this long without cunning bred in that court. I must strike a deal with her. “—So that’s how things go~? State your price; everyone has one. Do you want information on Yukari? I can give you details about her plans, that sword she’s birthing in the Underground, or maybe dirt on Toyosatomimi no Miko now that she seems to be a key piece in your government? I doubt she’s said even one percent of her true feelings and intentions, and believe me, Fujiwara, she conceals many! Knowledge is a weapon I’d gladly provide! Anything within my reach is an asset, even this body if you fancy it—”

Blue flames engulf the hairpin. Thoughts are noise, voice dies, and ashes go with the wind. Her baby giggles at the raging fire.

It takes a long moment for the hushed words to leave me: “W-Why would you…”

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“Let me be real with you, Seiga: I don't care. I would if I were Miko or Keine, but I'm not. They're smart and know their shit; I don't. I'm a dumbass who inflicts fear, doesn't die, and kills with ease. Maybe I should learn to be better with the position they pushed onto me, I guess, but right now, with the stuff you've said to me? I’m not taking any fucking chances.” She gets up, wings wide and all but drowning the branches above with their monolithic span—Fenghuang. “Tsk… Keine stopped and listened to someone much like you, and she got shot through the heart because of it…” She collects the baby with one hand and presses its face to her chest. My breathing's labored; the worm eating my thoughts hinders my movements; Golden Core a chaotic concoction, nascent soul ripped away by Kazami. “You see these blue flames? They’re a promise to them—that I’ll never choose a path of unnecessary violence again.” She pauses, kissing the baby’s head. It had fallen asleep on her bosom. “I’m gonna kill you now, Seiga.” Her voice is a sun that rises and then sets, currents of wind that blow. It is certainty ground to its very essence.

Fear.

Fujiwara lifts her leg.

Words leave me; I know they do; all had slowed down, and the tears were not only of fire.

It cannot end like this! Mine is the right side of history, the side that’ll make Gensokyo a place free for people like us to indulge in the quest for Tao’s truth! I am chosen by Tao to harbor a Golden Core and spread what people like Miko could never understand!

Y-Yukari wouldn’t let me—

———

“Fuck, it got all over your wings…” I mumble, paying the shuddering mess of red pulp laid on the clearing no further mind than scrubbing my stained boot on the ground to get rid of cranium shards and oozing brain matter. Eyes focused on Aki’s wings, the thoroughly groomed pair—Mystia had made sure everyone who had even a chance of laying hands on the twins knew how to take care of a sparrow’s wings—smeared in a little blood that’d splashed. Ashamed that I didn’t think of that, I sit on a nearby rock and use the hem of my shirt to haphazardly clean them. All it does is redden even further the soft brown and wake up the sleeping baby. She looks away from me with the grumpiest of looks. “… Eh, you look cool in red anyway. It’s even part of your grandpa god,” I hum, setting her on my knee and rocking it; that usually calms her down. “You’re a Fujiwara, descendant of Ame-no, uh… Ugh…”

“Ame-no-Koyane-no-Mikoto,” I turn to the voice, watching Kaguya approach at a languid pace, her face scrunched up; the source gets a laugh from me. She pouts, trying to nudge Mochi away from her hair. “He’s trying to eat my hair again, Mokou…”

“That means he likes you~!”

“… I don’t like him,” the pout only fades when she approaches enough to stare down at the still body propped on the grass and bathed in moonlight. “You better clean that up. Don’t you know Youkai can be born from eating a hermit’s corpse? It’s icky.”

I shrug but sigh at her long gaze. “I’ll see what I can do… Maybe Suzu could read that stuff on her skin? I dunno, it looks important or something.” Just thinking of doing work around the village gets me all clammy. So many responsibilities to deal with. I look into Aki’s big doe eyes, the girl staring at a random spot of the forest with an unblinking gaze, not a worry in her life; then, I watch above as branches of a weird fucking tree sprawl all over the skies. Just what the fuck is happening out there…? If only it could be none of mine—and by extension Keine’s—business. “… No, that’d be bad, I think. It’d be best if only I and Keine knew I killed Seiga. If Miko knew, she’d get upset and prickly… I think.”

A headache forms, and I consider just ripping this head off so a new one, preferably without that pounding ache, grows in its place. I hate that shit like that needs to be accounted for. I’m not cut out for this type of life. “You look like you need a cigarette~” Kaguya hums.

“Fuck off.” I grumble at her. The Lunar princess titters, which makes Mochi in her arms giggle too. Hearing her brother giggle gets Aki’s attention, and soon she’s following the trend and giggling that sweet little giggle of hers. Despite everything, I smile and watch the Lunar Princess kneel by the rock and play with brother and sister, her frown now a smile.

My eyes track back to those big branches piercing the skies, waiting for Keine’s signal: that’d mean Yukari entered the veiled fate of the village. A familiar worry attempts to dampen my smile and gut the relief of one less threat to my family taken care of—doesn’t matter if Yukari’s still out there—, but I swallow it down, petting Aki’s hair and listening to their soothing laughter.

This is not the life I asked for, but it’s the life I got.

… A cozy house on a hill, far from many people with many problems, only me and my family and our friends. No power struggles; no police work or politics to engage with.

That'd be great.

Maybe one day.

Maybe…

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>>49984147
>>49984138
>>49984131
>>49984128
>>49984122
let's start our -- likely -- last thread! Next batch will be Anonhana + Reimu
more soon if silksong doesn't consume me~!

>>49984122
>Fengshui is directional. Crystallized Chinese superstition
SAVAGE

So many things are happening.

>>49984944
They told me to bet on nothing because nothing ever happens. All my coins are gone....

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Solstice update #27
Montage of last thread updates: https://files.catbox.moe/l5s6af.mp4

>>49982394
No amount of coping would make Y***ri surviving right, there's no conceivable way to narratively justify that.

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>>49984777
check 'em
>>49984944
had to get my lazy ass off the main plot one of these days and get things going. Just so much fun writing the main cast, ah…
battling another source of procrastination now tho

>>49993019
>pic
>spoiler
Git gud!

>>49993019
What are those yellow things?

If I post the prompt, can someone else just write the special I was going to do today for me? I was going to but ran into some sudden issues that are taking up my time.

>>49995819
Anon... I don't think a 9/11 special would be the right move.

>>49996316
Neither did United Airlines

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It is a prayer; I recognize it. Its meaning or purpose escapes me; her words heard yet not listened to, like a melody far away echoing down a pipe. I listen and though this wounded heart would run away, I stay and… Watch Reimu’s features: her eyelids had fluttered close, her hair disheveled, her face caked in blood and small wounds, and her uniform's ruined. It isn’t the first time today that her appearance has caught me; it is the first time, however, that a most soothing feeling befalls my heart. Suddenly, those wrathful thoughts had dimmed into the unrecognizable—why did I think them? They didn’t feel mine—, throat clenched as if to evoke words, but words wouldn’t come when a mind rid of rush and panic focused on the rugged softness of Reimu’s hand and then trailed down, eyes widening.

My casts of porcelain are gone. Dolly’s golden thread had infused into the skin—it was bobbing until just now—, shaping a band of shining yellow around a wrist now black as coal. The scorched skin crept from the fingertips all the way up, tendril-like markings forming its ends by the biceps. Across both my arms, smoldering coals fashioned into lines, a furnace quelled just momentarily. The upper half of a tattered jinbe had been rendered to ashes; the small obi and below were lightly charred. Aya’s feather—our promise—was reduced to dust. “… R-Reimu?” I call her. She doesn’t answer, deep into the prayer, holding my hands dunked in tar with tenderness. Eyes jump around, the terror only grows, for flames surrounded us. They danced in the wind, and in their center sat me and my ex-wife. Terror thundered, and tears prickled the sides of my eyes. “W-Was it… me?”

Reimu winces just a tad, and my world is without a floor.

… How? Why?

This isn’t how things work. W-What’s happening? I’m just a regular man, I am… I-I’m not a part of the insane and supernatural of Gensokyo—I am a human.

A simple man with simple dreams, a father to a lost but found daughter—!

Inside, images echo, and it’s of nine tails and eyes of deep purple. It’s of a million acts of torture and abuse and disregard for the body, and it’s a twisted hell I cannot fathom the depths of; from them, reverberations of impossible rage and sadness.

Rage that begs; that consumes.

She smiles, and she says she’ll die. She’s gone.

Fiery infernos of rage.

“I-I’m human, Reimu…” I appeal, uncaring for my exposed torso and the scars, eyes fixated on her wound-ridden frame, tears thick and terrified of the depths of the inferno inside me. This is not me; this is not what I want to become… “Human like you, I-I’m… I’m not a monster, Reimu! This is not me! I’m not a Youkai, or demon, o-or—”

“—I know,” she says, chant quieted as she took in batches of breath, her eyes sunk from struggle—eyes that moved to me and showed iron. Not to beat or bruise, but sheer concentration. “And I won’t let you transform into anything else. You’re… Anon. Gentle, kind—a good father to our Hana. You’re the man I wish I’d never lost…” She brings our connected hands to her forehead, and the bright sulks brimming with flames are drowned in small engravings that spread, conjoin and ultimately form seals. The tar-like coloration dissolves, albeit not entirely. Her teeth chattered together, and her skin shivered, the air steadily shifting with similar multicolored letters that popped around her like excerpts taken off a book and pinned to the very air.

It clicked then, and I held my breath as the heart pounded like it had during our marriage, watching one of the women who ruined my life seal that infernal furnace, her entire being shaking from mental or physical or even spiritual strain.

I watch her suffer and for not one second back down.

But no prayer is done with only one hand.

“Father… M-Mom?!”

So, Hana offers hers. She'd come without a sound and only a dash of red and white and kneeled by her mother with a painful expression that felt truly wrong on her, features scrunched and harmed much like Reimu. My mouth moves to make a sound—an old instinct urged me to get Hana away from that monstrous woman—, yet the sound dies as the younger Hakurei settles her left hand over her Mother’s, closes her eyes, and parrots the prayer. Reimu acknowledged her with the smallest of smiles, and together those inscriptions ignited the atmosphere with life, many and long and even readable. Lore and traditions, the lives of Hakurei mikos throughout history and the Hakurei god.

Reimu’s face was of unwavering repose; Hana’s was vigorous effort.

Side-by-side, I watched the unthinkable: my daughter and her mother working in perfect synchronization, their hands gripping mine.

It is, perhaps, the most beautiful scene I’ve ever seen.

All of that concentrated to its utmost would then smother whatever furnace of hatred and desperation had rooted itself in my broken heart, layering hundreds of red-and-white talismans over fading darkness, sealing it away under the witness of one thousand and four hundred years of history.

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History is mute, for the now is composed of what once was a scene of dreams and hopes, all mine to be yearned for on the futon by a Reimu smelling of sake and then forgotten the next day. Hana catches the older Hakurei’s frame as she slumps forward, our hands untangling, and she steadies her mother with a look of genuine concern. “Mom? Can you hear me…?” Her pitch lacked the bite she'd developed recently and the subservience of a child, my eyes dismissing everything but briefly to wander downwards. The furnace had been silenced, and layers of Hakurei talismans now obscured the smoldering coals, yet the voice of rage remained, nestled deep inside and… There. A parasite, hidden but not removed nor killed.

A sinking feeling told me it is not a solution but just a patch.

… I’m not truly human anymore. What am I?

I cannot tell.

Gensokyo has changed me, gutted the simple man to its core and replaced it with thoughts of destruction and swirling flames—nine lush tails and eyes of striking purple. Torture in their respective way—and at an action or moment of nature beyond me, the furnace could overtake…

Then what? What would I do?

What would I become?

Everything I had, even that which I was born with, Gensokyo trampled and twisted.

The Hakurei talismans hid away not only the corruption but also that precious golden thread, proof of sacrifice crafted by a beautiful soul now gone; Aya’s promise was nothing but a fistful of ashes. I couldn’t catch myself in time, and before my daughter and her mother, my tears overflowed. Their eyes on me—eyes I cannot tell apart; they’re such beautiful eyes she inherited—went ignored; not even shame at my bare chest, a canvas of scars, could sprout, the mind deep in dreadful questions: how much more will be ripped away? For how long?

Gensokyo quakes beneath me, the skies are tinted red, and my heart is dead.

Love destroys like nothing else; I would know.

I do not want the love with which Hana holds my face to be destroyed. “Father? Do you feel pain? The s-seal worked—what happened even? You caught on fire out of nowhere and took off from the shrine…” She seizes, squeezing my cheek and watching the tears, her voice loaded with a panic incomprehensible to me. Reimu had gotten up to catch the two Gohei by the flickering flames.

The sight of her back is of memories just as tortuous.

I once loved this woman.

“… Ran is dead, Reimu,” the words come out tired and loathsome, and the first sound that echoes is wood clattering to soil. I look away from my Hana in shame of this rage I know the source of but cannot fight, not in these circumstances. “She died to save Chen, who now has the Gap.” I don’t understand why these words leave me, but they do, and fire soon follows. “She’d told me I’d be helped; that you and the others would save me, and… That everything would be fine.” Hana watches, speechless and eyes wide open.

I ignore her and lift myself from the ground, walking towards Reimu.

She’s shaking a little.

“But she died, and Chen almost did too.” I hope that's the case and that Chen is fine, as I hadn't seen her before storming out of the shrine. “Why does that happen to me, Reimu? It has happened multiple times. Everything I love is ruined. You ruined our marriage and my chance at being a father; Yukari is still out there…” The was shaking so much clearer from up close. Her hair, albeit disheveled, is a shade darker than Aya's. It's a beauty like no other. “You two almost ruined Hana too, but she prevailed. She’s so much better than the lot of you. How did she even come out of you?! I… hate you two so much for what you’ve done to me and those I love! I hate the person you are, and I hate myself for being so blinded by love I'd marry you. I hate that shrine. I hate that it was there I had to raise Hana, a-and I hate the fact you—you—haven’t died yet, nor has Yukari, but people like Ran and Alice have! I can't believe I have to know you for the rest of my life! Why are you still alive, Reimu? Why haven’t your damn sins destroyed you?! Any normal person would have, but you're still here…!” Words had devolved into shouts, and tears were hotter than the surrounding fires.

I stand right behind Reimu, huffing yet with teeth pressed shut, skin blistering with feelings that had never seen daylight. She’s not quivering anymore; her head hung low, her hair hiding everything from view.

The world grows silent, despite its cataclysm—

I beg the heavens Reimu doesn’t turn. I cannot bear to see her face.

—until loud sobbing broke the spell. “I-I’m sorry!” The head whips to Hana, and the sight turns that boiling rage into cold. A cold that spreads and grips and hurts like a pike to the chest. My Hana has panicked tears, her mouth gapes, and her hands stretch towards Reimu and me, trembling wildly and yet lingering, as if afraid of reaching us. “I-It’s my fault! All my fault! I’m so sorry; p-please stop! This is all my fault! I-I should’ve killed Y-Yukari; I had the chance… I’m s-sorry!”

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Everything inside me urged me to close the distance and catch her in my arms, for she’s my daughter whom I love so much—forced into this nightmare by them—and she’s crying, trembling like a leaf left on the wind, abhorring herself for her inability to bring death to one who deserved it most. Beneath the skin and veins and innards, the furnace begged however for vengeance, scorched to my soul, no matter how many sacred wraps would keep it dulled… Everything it achieved was a greater feeling of cold, of being locked in place. Hana sobbed and whispered pleas, apologies, and her Father did nothing. This is not the man I am—the man I want to be—yet it’s the man who’s manifested after two decades of suffering.

Hatred towards them, towards the self.

The furnace sang, and that simple hum of fire stays me.

There’s something not human underneath the skin—what is it? What is its name, its reach?—, and Hana knows it. She knows her father is a monster, a potentially dangerous one…

She’s been trained her whole life to take down dangerous monsters. Hana’s good at it. I’ve seen it with my eyes.

I don’t want that; I don’t want to lose my Hana.

“… Hana,” Reimu’s voice doesn’t silence the crying girl, but it resounds in the quiet. The pull to turn and see her eyes is there, and the war against it is great. “She told me the things Yukari forced her to do with you.”

A war that is snuffed out.

Without sight of her eyes, her voice sounds detached, composed. I’ve known Reimu for two decades; I know she’s neither. Hana's crying chokes upon hearing her words, yet it goes unnoticed, for the world had degenerated into this annoying buzz in my ears that wouldn’t go away. I could feel each beat of my heart, and a sort of dizzying spell came to me. Feet remained rooted. Despite everything, my words came out easily, eyes hovering to look at the scarlet skies, branches sprawled across its immensity and beyond grasp. “… Yukari forced herself onto me; onto Hana, and then Hana onto me… Do you remember that time I tried to kill myself, Reimu?” No answer. She does. “I’d have done it if I knew things would’ve come to this.”

Eyes close. A soft breeze blows by; the earthquakes lull for a moment.

I picture Chen, and then Ran. I picture Chen and Flan running around, giggling and playing with one another; many afternoons shared on that engawa under a fake sky and fake sun. I open my eyes before the memories could shift into the void that feeds the furnace and attempt my best smile at Hana. It comes out weary and doesn’t seem to help her stunned state… Somehow, however, relief washes over me.

A grueling fear, gone; a truth spoken.

“I’m sorry…” Reimu whispers. “I wish I had been there to stop it or had been strong enough that it never happened.” Another pause, and I hear a tear being wiped. It’s not enough.

It will never be enough.

Eyes shift downwards and stare at the collection of Hakurei seals. Nothing—after all that Hana and I have gone through—could be enough. Our lives have been destroyed by people much stronger than us in a time we were powerless to do anything about it.

It will never be enough.

From me, forgiveness shall never be delivered.

… But Hana hasn’t called Reimu ‘mom’ since she was but a child.

Hands ball, and air escapes my lungs; mind and heart are tired beyond understanding, yet they keep on working and working. Eyes wander again and land on the young shrine maiden, her pleas and apologies quieted by that sheer—and admittedly cute—confusion shining bright in her welled eyes. Strength comes then, not from the heart but from a duty forged into my soul, and I turn to Reimu, whose scarlet jewels—so absurdly beautiful, even with the whites reddened—lay on me, and…

Understanding shines through.

Love has faded away; only hatred remains, yet I catch her only hand on mine and guide us to Hana, the girl squeaking half words and stuttered sounds. They’re all muffled when we kneel and embrace our daughter as tight as we can.

That man alone wouldn’t have acted, not with his fears and anxieties.

We hold Hana, and she’s crying. Her arms wrap around us—I saw her kill with ruthlessness, exert her power without a care—, and her crying intensifies, her trembling body shielded from this cruel world by mine and Reimu’s. “It’s okay. It’s not your fault.” I tell her.

It’ll never be right; it’ll never be forgiven.

But a child is not to blame for their parent’s sins, and though love destroys like nothing else, my daughter’s heart wouldn’t be mended by my hatred or that tender yet sad resignation displayed in Reimu’s eyes as she lays her cheek on Hana’s hair, crumpling her bow, which she’d then right with her only hand.

To lend forgiveness to someone like her mother only tells me Hana deserves all the love I know I’ll never feel again, this heart taken by a quelled—for now—furnace.

“D-Don’t leave me, please… Don’t leave me…” Hana whimpers.

Reimu and I nod. It’s comforting, despite everything.

To promise against all odds is human.

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>>49997080
>>49997076
>>49997074
these chapters… man. Just… man. Next Anonhana + Reimu batch is the last before the big boy batch
next is suwako!
more soon~!
>>49993063
I'm not gonna sugarcoat it: shaw~!
>>49994982
they're anthers of the crape myrtle! Bug Hana is wearing a Reimu flower~
>>49995819
I'm busy with the solstice right now but give me the prompt and I may write a small something later, though not even Mokou's or Reimu's fire would melt those steel beams, I'm afraid

>>49997080
>Do you remember that time I tried to kill myself, Reimu?
Does he? I may have goldfish memory but I know the youkai-assisted suicide attempt happens after his hospital+Kasen correction+depression arc in SHoP and the Hana story starts with a pregnancy before or after Anon got beaten in the rain. Then I'm pretty sure he never tried during the Hana story because of fatherly obligations.
This could be excused by "He saw it in the Sekai tree" but nevertheless, you have committed the grave sin of a minor lore mistake for 1 sentence.

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>>49999054
I was actually thinking of that stunt with the knife where Anon tried to get Reimu to kill him, but Reimu just fucked off, though that comes after the hospital stuff indeed. Hard to say about the yonder years of the timeline since the Hana story never left Hana's POV and Anon sheltered her from most bad stuff relating to his past, so the timeline of her birth is left vague. I'm glad I didn't specify here and can return to it in the future; otherwise, I may have had to pull a Hieda to fix it—instead, I'll pull a ZUN, and what the fuck do you mean by “Sakuya's eyes were red”? They're blue. Never mention that again, gaijin
still, I must be performing ritual suicide out of principle -- reads edit a little joke

Anon's having a reasonable crash out, which both fit himself, and us! HAHA!
I'm still sad and angry at Yukari.

>>50001336
>pic
Reimu and Hana look so proud!

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>>49997089
Topic: 9/11 Special

Timeframe: Post-Solstice, September 11th, 2006

Locations: Baghdad, Iraq & Dubai

POVs: Yukari, Team O, Team K, Team Y, maybe Chen

Scenario: Gensokyo is inhospitable and Reimu is dead. Yukari swept everyone else and escaped to mid-2001 because time is convoluted and she wanted to play PS2. She then decided to fabricate shockingly-convincing evidence that a blonde woman wearing a mob cap would speak for the next true caliph after Muhammed (peace be upon him), sending waves through the Islamic faiths that delayed the 9/11 hijackings. Negotiating with the U.S., Taliban, Al Qaeda, Hussein, etc. she ushered in an era of unrivaled peace in the Mediterranean, symbolized by the construction of two skyscrapers in Iraq, completed in a staggering two months on November 9th, 2001.

Yukari has installed herself as the center of political and religious influence in the Middle East, speaker on behalf of her husband, the prophet Anon (peace be upon him). None with sin shall gaze upon the prophet, so Yukari had a mosque constructed known as the Halal/Holy Sheik Experience (whatever makes the acronym) for the most sinful followers to be redeemed in one-on-one sessions, starting with the womenfolk. To defend the HSE, Yukari has her base constructed in the form of an impenetrable heptagon with the mosque at the center in Dubai, a throne of luxury. Security is overseen by her custom Randows system and her head of security, a formatted Chen running a new, secure version of Chenux.

For 5 years, Yukari was winning. Time shenanigans and the stress of the Solstice led her to delay the growth of her mini-gappy until she’s confident her empire is secure. Unfortunately, the faith gathering in the prophet’s mosque has attracted the attention of scattered youkai, including some carrying a grudge that’s been brewing for half a decade. On September 11th, a day tragic only to those foreign to this reality, a plot five years in the making will culminate...

Outline: Begin with a completely unbiased and objective prologue from Yukari’s POV that quickly explains how she won the fight effortlessly, escaped with Anon, Chen and any cronies you see fit to give her, and creatively presented Anon’s divine nature. HSE2 could be a secret holy brothel or just a brainwashing temple, your call. Yukari’s confidence and security concerns are dealer’s choice too, 5 years of winning should make her a little lax thoughever.

Team Y, K and O are three teams of former Frens/disgruntled residents of Gensokyo planning the downfall of Gappy’s empire. Letters correspond to which Sage is in the building they’re taking down. Idea is to switch between K and O perspectives as they prepare the towers for plane crashes that will allow them to free the respective trapped Sages before Team Y starts the final assault on the Heptagon.

Possible idea for Team O is single-mother Aya, supported by Momiji. Tengu scattered around the world but Aya specifically works here to plant small devices designed by Nitori along the steel skeleton to weaken the beams. Aya stays in the tower to make sure most of the workers evacuate safely (at least the ones that deserve to live), freeing Okina during the first plane crash (making sure to let Okina know that she owes her one) and parachutes out of the tower as it falls. Hatate could be the air traffic controller allowing these planes to fly so close to the towers before gtfo'ing.

Team K tower could be Yuugi and Suika letting loose to scare everyone out before the second plane hits. Onis get together and reassure Kasen of any remaining self-blame she has, all 3 join forces to rampage through Yukari’s illusions the way only Oni can. Yukari's faithful could also mistake them as Allah's djinn coming to unleash his wrath on the misguided, fracturing her control over the Middle East.

Team Y is whoever you think fits best. Hana is an obvious choice but Sanae hasn’t had a turn to shine in the specials and would be a curveball. Could go into Sanae being nostalgic for a world she can’t recognize anymore. A real hype moment would be Alice coming from 2006 Makai, which would fit the time travel theme and give Alice a winning moment and an opportunity to involve Shanghai. Chen is resolved by freeing Okina, who opens a backdoor in Chen’s hat to restore her memories of the HSE after Yukari factory reset her.

No idea how Yukari resolves but it should be painful and humiliating. Maybe stoning.

I would've loved to write it myself but some unexpected stuff came up and I probably would've scope-creeped it to hell just like the Valentine's Special. This really should be a quick, action-packed thriller. Of course, feel free to change whatever you want. But the towers must fall, for fate will always veer to its original course.

>>50001722
Yakub would be proud of you.

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>>50001722
I… see…
Scarily creative mind that one of yours
interestingly enough, I did come up with an idea how to do this without the mentioned feature creep -- likely pack it in 2 chapters max --, involving something I've been fiending to write about, though will get to it only after next solstice batch
thanks for sharing~!

>>50005926
>Scarily creative mind that one of yours
The term is autism.

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>>50005926
Inshallah my brother

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It is perhaps because of my nature as a Yaoyorozu no Kami that a tragedy spawned two decades ago bears a small blessing. When we moved the Moriya Shrine to Gensokyo, it faced decent competition at first, but after Reimu's years of insanity gutted her shrine’s reputation, ours became the people's choice and a great hoarder of faith. Those twenty years of unimpeded cultivation now stand between the lives of hundreds and getting swallowed by the seismic eruption of Youkai Mountain below, layers crumpling into one another as the bedrock overwhelms the resilient proof of millions of years that have pass… And each drop of misbegotten faith is needed to maintain the shrine’s base stable and nice.

Especially with that stirring something resting in the innermost part of the world, felt faintly by the terrified cradle of dust speckles and the receding muddled flooring of the lake in the Underground. The very earth of Japan reacted to it in fear, as if it had felt it before.

What is it?

Still, the required faith to keep this shrine from tearing itself apart is a phyrric victory at best, if that sad sight of the Hakurei daughter sitting on that rock before she went and got caught in two messes one after the other is something to go by. It is a most hopeful feeling that filled me when her quick pace had bounced on soil, such small notes, before she lifted flight and followed her panicked father and anxious mother—the skip of a dream and of a soaring heart—, though Kanako’s pace told truths of the state of her soul. Worried yet brimming with unsaid love, she went after the Hakureis with that excited Komainu who’d awakened with the commotion tagging along, yet abruptly she’d stopped at the boundaries where my power stopped working, and the soil felt a painful pulse.

Whatever her eyes had laid upon broke her heart.

I blink and push those thoughts aside, watching next to a crippled Okina and confounded Hijiri the kaleidoscopic dust cloud—red and blue fighting an ever-fight for control, thunderbolts patterned and ordered in straight lines, a scene of apocalypse, the tree as center—in the distance, which had lifted with the impact of the missile, obscuring whatever happened in it. The tree didn’t so much as sway, its reddened branches raining down a deluge of foliage that overshadowed any Danmaku pattern I’ve ever seen. “… Is it her?” Hijiri asks, eyes shifting to the crippled goddess, who frowns, overtaken as I am by the drifting yet invisible cloud of magical pressure blowing off from the impact site.

It was thrilling to feel, even for a moment, as if I couldn’t breathe. Hieda in his demonic metamorphosis had exerted familiar pressure, but this…? Matched only by the true gods of this world. “Them, actually.” Okina answers, laboring herself back on her feet and off Hijiri’s support, a deep haste to her voice and movements. “I’ll go gather Reimu and Kanako; Kasen won’t manage Yukari in the state I saw her. Are you coming with us, Hijiri?”

The nun seemed struck for a moment, considering that light sheltered inside her belly, which had almost been snuffed by Yukari herself; soon, however, the woman nodded. Okina and I then shared a glance, and the groan of the splitting earth spoke louder than any words I could muster. I tried anyway. “Gensokyo’s soil is soon to settle, but I sense something in its bowels… Sorry, it seems I’ll be needed.” I give them a trademarked froggy smile, as Sanae had called it, pupils horizontal lines and teeth exposed. “Make sure Yukari doesn’t get back up, eh~?”

Okina stood too wounded, a black curse upon her soul, yet she rivaled my smile. A sad but sober thing. “It won’t be me to put her down, and you know that, Suwako. I’ve lost my chance to be a hero, barely standing as I am… Reimu and that wild daughter of hers are much of a different story—the both of them fight like demons; it’s a marvel to behold,” she hums, and I sigh, somewhat proud. Even the gods pay attention to little Hana, it seems. “Your shrine may face competition in the following years~!” And with that, she lifts flight alongside a thoughtful Hijiri, the duo heeding the whispers of Kanako’s winds, who’s listened to everything we spoke.

I can’t help but giggle as I get my footing. It’s impossible to think of a Gensokyo after a war of such proportions, a thought universal to anyone caught in the fires of conflict. ‘After’ always happens, no matter what, and to prepare for it is one of the many responsibilities of those who survive on faith.

The ground has stopped quaking and, precariously, stabilized; a beacon of my faith ushers forth through those closest to me, and soon enough a young shrine maiden props herself to my side. She hacks, out of breath, and struggles to fix her glasses. “S-Suwako-sama, you called?” She snaps, looking at where I look: the abyss whose mouth had carved Youkai Mountain asunder.

Something dangerous lurks at its bottom; lives are at stake. “I did,” I smile. “Would you kindly accompany me down there~?”

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At a certain depth threshold, all had silenced.

Red light had bathed us at the start of the descent into the fresh wound carved upon Gensokyo, and the sounds of the earth’s crust folding and expanding and acclimatizing itself to the differentials of pressure and space were all around us. The young miko—Sayori-chan—had these big eyes and seemed scared, the poor thing, but she followed me anyway into the gaping maw of charred and molten rock, entire layers of minerals and sediment aflame from whichever strand of magic Yukari used to strike the earth.

But soon enough, we had plummeted into sheer darkness, the air tasting of a stilled mixture of dread and death and a lot of dust. The apprentice miko’s hands gripped tight around her Gohei, which spawned the only light we had in this darkness. At this depth, the fires had gone out, the rock had cooled and stacked more promptly, and columns of waterfall—made of both powdered mineral and water from groundwater sources and possibly the Misty Lake—poured down. A spectacle for sure, yet consumed by the deep darkness. Great rumbles had dimmed into this faraway droning, eclipsed by the gurgling of a newly formed environment, and I couldn’t help but wonder what had come out of the war above. It hadn’t been two minutes, but had they defeated Yukari already? Or had that woman… No, it wouldn’t do any good to fester on these bad thoughts.

“Suwako-sama…?” The young miko calls, her voice drowned by the waterfalls, yet the faith brought her words to me. A god would always listen to their faithful. “… Hana-chan looked pretty beat before s-she ran after her dad.” The true meaning was easily gauged.

“Are you afraid they won’t win?” I ask, and she recoils. What cruelty of fate: it seems putting those thoughts in the closet isn’t gonna do it. Eyes roam the darkness as we keep flying downwards at top speed, and the mind churns for an answer to such an unfair question; these eyes squint to grasp any sight of the Underground… A delayed, roaring throb of crashing water grew as we neared. We’ll be there soon. “Hana-chan and her friends are fighting the woman who made this big hole with ease—scary, isn’t it?” I tease, and she gasps. “They’re fighting her and winning, Sayori-chan. People like Yukari will leave their marks, like the suffering she brought to Hana-chan and her father and, well, this big hole. So much of the fossil history of Gensokyo is gone…” I sigh, swallowing the bitterness. “But only winners get to shape the future. So cheer up! If Hana-chan beat you in your spar, I’m sure she can beat Yukari~!”

Sayori-chan groans and stutters, her flushed cheeks visible even in the dark. “Suwako-sama!” The protests are met with laughter. Good. Moral has to be tall against foes like Yukari, who will go as far as they want and expect no consequence.

… And far she has gone.

The Underground whole had been maimed by both war and disaster. That lake Yukari had built to plant her sword was buried under thousands of metric tons of dirt and rock, and everywhere the eye could land was torn by the still rushing waters—the soil drowns in salt… saltwater? How? No, why would she get saltwater in this place?—and falling debris, most of which had rolled off the mountain of debris and stacked anywhere gravity would let them, or was thoroughly trampled by malformed and twisted columns of trains, serpents of iron, many attached to the unsteady walls of the Underground like throwing darts. Nothing remains of the Ancient City of Hell but a muddy landscape, towering and traditional constructions of homes and whatnot leveled and devoured by the mud, a killer worse than fire or Danmaku.

I blinked, utterly speechless. A millennia-old chapter of Gensokyo’s history, just… annihilated.

Though I am a goddess, I pray Hana kills that woman.

All those thoughts immediately vanished upon contact of my feet with the tower of mud and debris and every manner of root and tree from the surface, for a chill unlike any other coursed a body made up entirely of faith. Aboveground, the ground of Japan whimpered, desperately imploring in its echoes rather than any form of spoken word for mercy. 'From what' had escaped me until now, spine straightening and eyes big. “SAYORI-CHAN!” I yell at the young miko, whose body stands at the ready like a flip of a switch, those eyes wide on me. I disregarded all else but the motion of falling onto my knees and slamming my hands into the bloated pile of rocks, sweat rolling off my forehead and teeth clattering together. “GET OUT OF HERE! GO FETCH UTSUHO REIUJI!” She had come to the shrine with the other wounded. A single moment of hesitation was murdered with a blazing gaze from me and, at top speed, Sayori exploded towards the hole in the ceiling.

The pile of rock and packed mud parted as if it were the sea, and soon I saw protective wards a few meters off the lake’s bottom and two weary souls… No wonder the soil of Japan was writhing in violent terror.

A nuke was about to go off.

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>>50014967
>>50014960
chonky paragraphs today~! Two more batches to go before the big boy batch, and next on the chopping block we have Anonhana and Reimu!
more soon!
>>50010618
don't say that next to the descendant of Tepes…

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Solstice update #28

>>50014967
Ayo what the fuck. I did NOT expect that!

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>>50018924
I can't believe she got familycucked...

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It is warmth, and it is life; it is a breath taken and it is fine. It’s both of my parents with arms wrapped around me, holding me together and whispering words into my ears… It’s everything to that sad child sat on the engawa watching the first thread of the family tapestry be unwound, and I cry to let them know that, my heart bursting full as hands pinned them to me. Am I dreaming right now? Had that rage attack of Yukari’s killed me, and I’m on my way through the Sanzu and I just don’t know it yet…? It doesn’t matter right now. What matters is the overwhelming relief of a parasite killed off and removed from me.

Every doubt cast by Yukari in that chair, every thought and every desire of defilement is gone. They’d taken hits when Kasen-nee smiled so sweetly and accepted my apologies, then drove to death’s door after the nightmare Remilia forced me to face—strong; I’ve grown strong—, and now they’ve been killed off. The weight of a mountain they carried with them to the depths of hell, that terrible visage of them clutching tenderly to the bakeneko and marching away from me now but dust. My mom and my father hug me; they love their daughter unconditionally, despite all our family has gone through.

It is a freedom I didn’t think I’d feel in this lifetime.

They do not love each other anymore, and not even in my most queer fantasy is that love reborn. Mom has accepted our hatred and the ashes of love brought by her hands, apologized with her words and her actions—I glimpsed into her bright eyes as the world ended; she only stopped using her body as a shield when Father had run away aflame—, and words spoken in that awful birthday party returned, then by the kotatsu that same night.

I breathe in hard and swallow my tears. Mom’s hand caresses my hair; Father’s hands, coated in seals, rub wide circles on my back, and words form at the roof of my mouth, which opens, two watchful pairs of kind eyes on me the moment I do so.

My Mom and Father—they love me—were listening.

Words of forgiveness to my Mom.

A plea to my Father.

All I could have ever said morphed into three words. They, however, never left my mouth for two green torpedoes had tackled our hug and thrown us into the ground, eyes wide before the fluttering mane of sea-green—I trust Father’s word, since I’ve never seen a sea—and two loud and very nosy voices boomed throughout the clearing: “UAAAAH!! I WANT HUGS TOO! IT’S BEEN SO LONG SINCE WE’VE ALL HUGGED! I-I MISSED THIS!” The Aunns whined, one perched on Father's shoulders and another with her face buried in Mom's belly, two pairs of arms bringing us closer than ever before. Latent emotions that would have shaped three precious words morphed then into breathless and incredulous laughter. Mom laughed too, using her only hand to pet Aunn’s head, while Father’s face, marred by an acute, forever pain, clutched the other Aunn and smiled the largest he could—such a petite thing—, and rubbed his forehead against hers.

“… I’ve missed you too, Aunn.” Father says softly.

“You’ve been a good girl to the people of the Moriya Shrine, Aunn?” Mom asks.

I drink of the image, heart brimming with new life yet dark with the shade of bitterness and resentment. How long have I been denied this kindness and warmth? My entire life.

It’s a moment I’d trade all I have to last a second longer, yet so many welcome this bliss daily…

That child by the engawa would internalize this rage and resentment, let it fester; blame on the world. A child can do very little to change their circumstances.

Mom has one and a half chakras left; Father is scarred for life.

This war hasn’t ended yet.

But they smile, and they pet Aunn and this moment exists. It isn't imagination or fantasy—it is the here and now, and it took a long time and immense pain to find this here and now.

No child can change their circumstances…

… I have changed mine.

A dragon and onis I’ve killed; nightmares I’ve endured. I stood before my god and promised greatness, and I did everything I could to bring this war to its end.

This moment right here, however…

“We’ve been good! We protected and helped move people!” One Aunn answers.

“I let a woman snuggle with my tail—she was so happy afterward!” The other completes.

“The mikos said our presence made the people less scared~it’s great to be useful.” She turns to me, tail wagging furiously, a notch of pain beyond that therapeutic smile: her eyes would sneakily dart to Mom’s missing arm and Father’s sealed curse often. She did her best to remain cheerful. The sky is red and though the earth doesn’t shudder as much, the wounds are there, beyond the flames slowly dying out. “You guys look so beat! You must have been fighting so much… We’ll prepare a big feast after this mess so you guys recover your strength!”

… This moment is the ultimate proof the beasts are gone.

I hug the Aunns tight to me, rubbing our cheeks together, smiling a smile of the free. Mom and Father watch fondly. “I’ll hold you guys to that~!”

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“What a beautiful sight to behold,” another voice pierces the veil, eyes rushing to a familiar head of purple hair and tall physique approaching us. She waves her hand and the cursed fires disappear, red eyes staying on Father’s arms and the Hakurei seals. Beckoned by a feeling he doesn’t display on his face, Father edges to hide his torso embroidered in scars behind the four of us—immediately noticing his discomfort, the Aunns take action and shield him with their arms open from Kanako’s eyes, who gasps. I ignore the slight disappointment that the moment has expired and turned into memory. “I-I’m sorry, Anon! I didn't mean to…” She fumbles explaining herself, flushed cheeks betraying how she turns her eyes away.

Father says nothing, only keeps his face down. Mom looks between the Aunns and him and, finally, stares at me and nods, lifting herself from the ground. Less than twenty paper-like mikos remain as shaping fire pours from her back, a pair of Hakurei red wings there. “Aunns, would you take Anon back to the Moriya Shrine? Talk his ear off about that dinner you’ll prepare—he'll appreciate it~!” She titters lowly, and Father huffs as the Aunns grow excited. Loyally surrounding Father the best they could, they got him out of the ground and headed towards the Moriya Shrine, the Komainu waving and wishing us good luck.

Father brought me to his arms once Kanako had turned her eyes away, and I melted in his embrace. “… Come back to me after it's done.” He asks, mouth to my ear and hands holding me with a scared tremble.

Even he knows the war hasn’t ended yet.

A nod encompasses all my words, and it is done to an unshakable quality. The monsters are dead; the shadows have receded. Nightmares were conquered and I am still standing. Things aren’t alright or good or perfect, but they’re problems to be conquered later… with them—eyes peer at Mom, who looks with a kind smile; the Aunns laser-focused on Kanako and even growling. Father in my arms—I know everything is possible. “We will,” I say.

Father stiffens but soon softens his hold. His words aren’t going away, and his heart won’t be healed with a simple apology—mine wasn’t; why would his?—, but his love for me is unconditional, as is the love of the woman who killed Mother and gave me back, even if just a little, what that monster had robbed.

Their love will never be rekindled; their smiles as they held me and Aunn are eternal.

“… Protect her,” it’s said to Mom, arms disengaging from me. Mom nods without hesitation, eyes the same as when I thought the world had ended.

He lingered a moment in their shared gaze before turning and, besieged by Aunns, walking towards the Moriya Shrine. A sigh of relief was the first sound that echoed, mine and Mom’s eyes shifting to the goddess of wind and rain—

—A small burst of wind blew past us, and my hand enveloped the faintly glowing Gohei carried by the gust. Mom had caught hers too. “Okina said Yukari and Kasen are alive and fighting by that tree—anyone of you know what that thing is, by the way?” She asks and receives shrugs, another sigh leaving her before those sharp eyes opened and watched Mom’s wings, musing silently before resuming: “Seems you two are still in shape to fight and even got some emotional support~?” Her smile tells me it’s supposed to be a joke, though a saddened blur contours her eyes before fading. Mom hums, propping her Gohei onto her shoulder.

She seems… tired. “Some of my friends died today; many whom I love have been hurt. Yukari’s still out there and I know if she is not dealt with today, no one will manage to or will be assed enough to stop her…” Her eyes are on me throughout, and I do not find it within myself to dodge her gaze. Righteous wrath, steadfast and undying, inhabits those eyes, much like Yuuka’s.

I'm not afraid.

This is Reimu Hakurei.

She’s my mom.

Heart thumps, hands grab the Gohei with greater force and, before I could catch myself, I stood by her side. She looks at me, and I look at her. Lies nestled between us before, which Yukari used to torment and try to get me down, to destroy me. Slowly, that tiredness in her soul subsides. It feels good.

“… I’ve been dead for 20 years, Kanako. Today I get to live again.”

A laugh comes from behind us, and we watch Kanako pace toward us. “I see… That’s one brave girl you got there, Reimu.” She glances at the skies as I try to contain my blush, shadows approaching quickly from above.

From the quelled tiredness comes a huff, and Mom looks… smug. “I know.”

Before another word could come, a makeshift broom’s end crashed against the ground at great speeds, lifting a cloud of dust. “YO, BITCHES!” Marisa-sensei’s voice was familiar; her features… not so much. A patched bloody nose, one arm in a cast, pointy hat missing. Her broom reminded me of the one I used last year while helping with the Moriyan festival, many hurried magic seals tacked to it. Her beaming smile was unmistakable. “Get a move on already-ze! Yukari ain't dead yet!”

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>>50028762
>>50028757
next batch is the last before the big boy batch on the anniversary! (technically not the last, considering I'll be posting that """special""" Ayaanon asked for soon)
Kasen chapters come next!
more soon~!

>>50028757
The man is finally getting unraped by dog and cat. It's a bit too late, but blessed nonetheless.
>captcha WG0YY
Oi vey! Topple those towers, It'll piss Yukari off it's going to be funny.

>>50028762
Happiness!

>“… I’ve been dead for 20 years, Kanako. Today I get to live again.”
I got that reference!

>>49981087
>[pastebin for the finale (for writers, full of spoilers)]
>https://pastebin.com/zqS1Krp7
There's one writer so this needs to be corrected, also was the pre-solstice flowchart ever updated again?

>>50034726
It's a reference?

>>50034741
>also was the pre-solstice flowchart ever updated again?
I'll post the last pre-solstice update on the birthday alongside something else. Please wait warmly.

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Eyes shot open and those hateful purples are once more in front of me, the red blade through my heart and blood bubbling up the narrowed passageway of my throat. The ceiling loomed towards us, and Yuugi, an avatar of wrath, was soon to connect with Yukari… everything had remained the same as before; those memories of a fight against a perverted self with a child of mythos perched on my back had elapsed through my eyes, and a baseless rebellion against many lifetimes of idleness and mistakes found itself gutted by this relentless need to seek atonement. No arms meant a different weight to gravity, and protuberant red steel marred by tormented souls sizzled the flesh and blood, Manipulation of Explainable Phenomena lingering just beyond my fingertips.

Despite destroyed, the heart pumped true, for that clover Sekai handed me swayed unbothered above my shoulder—the sound of her shrill laughter echoes inside, powering the engine of the body.

Such a mischievous laugh, Sekai has.

… It reminds me of Reimu’s.

Purple eyes widened and a thread of fear settled in there the moment I pulled my body towards the ground; the great pain and agony of the Hakurei scourge numbed for now as the horns sliced at Yukari, aimed at heart and throat. Caught by surprise yet a smart Youkai, she pulled the sword before it could get ensnared, albeit immediately having to defend against Yuugi’s pummeling, shadows cast over a quick exchange of deafening blows, yet an overwhelming surge of strength coursed me, and before she could disengage in a cloud of storms, a bloodied hand had shot through and caught her ankle—Yuugi smiled wide despite the world about to crush her—, its roots on that gilded clover. Body whole anesthetized and incinerated in the cinders of a strength not-mine, my head exploded towards Yukari.

It connected, and what remained of the Underground heard it.

A boomburst cracked rock and reverted the pull of gravity, if briefly; hundreds of tons of debris pulverized under the upward pressure of the top of my head meeting Yukari’s center, the cursed edge of the sword deflecting just enough so the horns wouldn’t pierce through the stomach. Nothing else was parsed for legs had jumped, and the crumbling world parted as if the Red Sea, Yukari’s body drilling through what she had brought upon us, the link between us never once lessening as I pushed her through it all. Layers of bedrock split open; the weakened groundwater sheets crumbled, and cold waters rushed past us, darkness not given enough time to catch the torpedo we had turned into, cleaving open a path from the bowels of Youkai Mountain all the way through without a moment’s stop, this body fueled by an unmitigable rage this woman had sowed into my life—a rage of self too, for I had welcomed misery and turned my face away from my sins—and that promise I made to a girl who’s just been born.

Yukari wasn’t one for inaction; blood cascaded from her lightly broken jaw, yet she swung the cursed blade down at me with a battering quality, teeth gnashed together and eyes sharp, Manipulation of Explainable Phenomena hollowing the damage. A battle of attrition, echoed powers not as strong in her hands but much more honed by her intelligence…

If she stops holding the blade, she’ll be vulnerable.

Do not run away; you’re no longer a slave of hers and of your lies, Kasen Ibaraki. Your child is waiting for your tales.

Her back cracked open the surface, and the mountain yawned to a view of evergreen beauty, now ignored—that familiar sulk on the ground, massive and serpentine; Koutei… you’d have loved Sekai, wouldn’t you? I'm sorry—, Hakurei scourge and gushing wound threatening to immobilize my body—

Sekai’s voice, so much like Reimu’s.

Yukari hissed, her eyes closing. Her pain had arrived first.

—Her body goes up without mine for one second, and that source of power combusts again. Skin and muscle and the nervous system are soon to implode; I cannot move to stab her… So I let the currents guide my body, gravity shifting weight and transforming my naked foot, the ballet shoe long evaporated in the fight, into a wrecking ball.

I turn upside down; my foot sinks into her side.

The Senkai shatters and Yukari is sent like a missile towards a towering tree of blue and red in the distance—a sapling in the ethos of my consciousness. What are you, Sekai?—, ethereal glass raining down from the exerted power of that single kick, a geyser of mixed soil hitting my back.

My pain, one much greater than Yukari's, is then welcomed as my body tumbled to the destroyed Senkai below, crashing into the mess of debris and crumpled wood and paper like a rag-doll.

Chest bled freely, and Youkai poison swam in my veins.

Yukari hadn’t let go of the Onikirimaru.

I remember a day much like this one, knowing I was to meet my death. Watanabe no Tsuna watched me flee away that day, clutching my severed arm…

… My eyes labor to a pile of rubble a few meters away.

Sekai’s waiting.

No running away anymore.

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Every bone under my skin and every wrap of muscle and connective tissue had quaked both in the first and the second impact, yet the certainty of a hand over my belly told me not in my lowest moment had I forgotten my dear daughter. The second impact was against a bottomless well of magic, elbows pushing me off the crate of broken wood and splinters that’d cushioned me from Douji’s attack… No, from Kasen, the slave reborn. I feel my belly before anything else—you’re safe, my Sekai; your tree, your beacon to me, is proof enough of that—, then the Onikirimaru securely in my right hand’s grasp, and only then access whatever damage broke past the barrier of Manipulation of Explainable Phenomena.

A nigh broken jaw, a charred back from all the friction against the tons of rock Kasen pushed me through and one too many broken ribs—a costly lapse of pain much regretted.

… But I can fight. I must. That interloper had taken my daughter hostage—a floating clover, prisoner of eyes of wrath and oni nature—, the nuances of that plundering beyond my comprehension and outside the realm of my care, drowned in fury. Anon had revealed himself a heartless monster and traded his family for a soulless robot, for people who don’t care about him like I do. He broke my heart and cared naught. He’s not worthy of fathering Sekai, and thus, he must die… H-He never loved me; he would gladly watch his unborn daughter be murdered…

I had nothing that was not taken by beasts, either through claw or demands of a crowd of wolves; their unfounded fear merciless poison to the kindhearted.

My daughter will not be another one.

She’ll not be part of a monster’s designs—

Dislodged entirely from the tree, I hover forward a few inches, recovering my breath as my eyes scan the deep distance for the horned hermit, the mountain folding into itself. Thunderbolts rumbled periodically around my daughter’s tree, chaotic magic unrelenting in the way it attacked Gensokyo, now but a canvas of purulent red above, kaleidoscopic mist below, a cloud of wild, shapeless magic, charged with the sole purpose of parasitizing the living and… purging the land, Sekai’s tree a spring of rebirth.

The wind blows, and my hurt body welcomed it, even if stiff for the attack I knew was to come, hair devoid of luster swaying in the gentle wind.

—She’ll be mine and mine alone.

Red blade rose, waiting for a kick the moment her presence blurred in front of me, eyes seeking that floating clover laden with the same magic exuding from her majestic tree…

Where’s the clover—?!

The fist launched the metal up, crushing my guard with ease, shackles roaring, and only experience allowed me to dodge my face away from the killing punch. Kasen’s momentum saw no slowing, and it collided against the tree, shaking it down to its foundations. Droplets of blood spewed from a cut in my cheek, and I know fear had crowded my eyes when I met those pink again, slitted and threatening, her frame bloodied from top to bottom. No vestige of clothes clutched her upper half; only blood-soaked bandages wrapped around her breasts, and newfound scars of the worst appearance littered the connection of shoulder and arm, raw, pungent flesh barely mended… The wound through her heart had disappeared; sprawled blue leaves, a clover's, by those hastily wrapped bandages.

Horns were taller and nearly curved; shackles massive. Her eyes, burning death.

“… What did you do to my Sekai, slave?”

“She’s not yours, Yukari,” Kasen says. The wind blows again. “She’ll never be yours.”

A beat of silence.

Rage explodes in a show of purple thunderbolts and the sword crashes against her frame, yet that arm had moved and protected her from the bite. Flurries of slashes and counterattacks come and go, our bodies teetering on the edge, that burst of energy that’d enabled her surrender of the ailments caused by the Hakurei Scourge now gone. She fought tooth and nail all the same, foot planted on the wood of Sekai’s tree as we danced between gnarly blows, slices, and booms of thunder, my eyes locked on hers overwhelmed in ire.

She’s my Sekai—everything I have—, she’s no one’s but mine!

Sekai is not hers to foster that disgusting determination!

Sekai is not hers to permit the futility that is standing against me, even if the world itself harbors the greatness my daughter will bring with her birth, a tree whose branches pierce Heaven!

SEKAI IS NOT HERS!

SHE’S MINE!

… She’s everything I have left…

Thoughts died down as a ray of sunlight came down from the skies and reflected first on her slitted irises. I kicked Kasen away from me and braced myself. The blade withstood the Master Spark before it could hit me, knees buckling under the exerted impossibility of the spell—h-how?! From where?—, teeth pressed together before control of Manipulation of Explainable Phenomena would be grasped, and the laser was deflected towards the skies and away from Sekai’s branches.

Two Gohei filled my view then, and I met them with my blade.

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The Hakurei daughter is first and as prideful as ever in her combat inexperience, which she supplements with raw power and vigor alone, spawning from absolutely nowhere and pummeling where I stood and hitting naught but wood. She holds one Gohei rather than two and uses it to her advantage, manipulating the time and space and trying to dominate as she’d tried before; the second Gohei enters the fray the moment that approach lent the Hakurei daughter minimal pushback—a mere half a second it’d taken—, Reimu’s onslaught an underhanded thing born from the annihilation of many in her time, wings of dancing flames following the focused Hakurei miko… Feet dragged me back, the red blade rapidly overwhelmed, pain throughout my whole body and the squeeze of the Hakurei Scourge coagulating the muscle bearing no blame: the two mikos would sync in a way they hadn’t before, swamping me with vicious flurries one after the other—attacks from the past in Hana’s case—, beads of sweat unraveling down my forehead at the mark of two seconds, many paces taken back.

A sizzling of the air caught my attention and eyes, now wide, watched the currents twist the Master Spark I’d launched to the skies back at me, the laser slithering like a snake. Reimu’s Gohei scraped my arm and Hana’s was properly dodged, a good trade-off, for the red blade had slammed the energy and thrown it away—

—It curled midair and barreled towards me again.

Teeth pressed, and a fist almost sunk into my face, Kasen’s body tossed away and feet scraping the bark of my daughter’s tree as a hopeful-eyed Hakurei daughter—looking at Kasen as if seeing someone who had risen from the dead—and Reimu swarmed me, Kasen transmogrifying herself to be back on me. Damage control was in full swing, and thunderstorms of purple exploded all around to create space; yet, the Master Spark couldn’t be stopped and hit me square-on, burning the skin for the millisecond Kasen’s power had left my grasp. The next, it had returned, my pain numbed, and once and for all the sword cut down, dissipating the beam of kaleidoscopic energy into smoke, which immediately was torn by three pits of vengeance barreling towards me.

Fury flared, and I met them halfway through, scurrying eyes exposing the weak links in their ragtag formation with ease and aiming at them—something many would think impossible. Not to me. Not now—, dodging and deflecting twin Gohei, demonic fist and kicks and explosions of pink electricity vying to take the sword from my hold. A moment of thought allowed me to spawn Danmaku bearing no pattern, Bloody Sakura Danmaku hurled with the strength of a magic core trained and perfect throughout a millennium, and glee would echo as two of the trio began dodging, Hana showing difficulty unlike her mother.

Enough space was given, and Kasen had a dimmed hope behind those slitted eyes as the world flashed a bloody pink without pause and without coordination, heart thumping and concentration—although divided into the melee and a sense for attacks aimed at my pregnant belly—on the small showings of pain and slowing of the oni which had been delivered twice as much scourge as I had.

“HANDS OFF KASEN-NEE!” The scream came with Gohei biting into the cursed blade, another following suit, though it was clear Reimu had to speed through the Danmaku to join her overzealous daughter and got tagged on her side, a perfect breach there—

—A blade of sheer, pouring red sprang from the bark, throwing mine up all of a sudden. Without hesitation and a plague ready to capitalize on any weakness, Reimu dashed and landed the Gohei true at my throat, a gargling noise leaving me before senses could resurface. As if possessed by a pack of feral hyenas, they issued attacks, yet none came through, my form melting off into electricity, and like a rat I scurried away… before rematerializing and sagging to my knees. The second Hakurei scourge planted in my soul had drained energy and rotted my Youkai flesh from inside. Pain was no justification for carelessness—not with my Sekai’s livelihood at stake—, eyes trained on them as trembling knees lifted me off the bark.

Reimu falls to her knees on the branch, clutching that wound left by my Danmaku. Hana followed, like the lost lamb she is, and Kasen stood in front of them. “M-Mom?” She cried.

Kasen only moved her eyes from me when a puddle of blood bubbled on the branch, and a little traitor climbed out. “… On your knees already, Reimu? Won't you display as much tenacity as your child~?” Remilia teased, though primal violence shone in her eyes.

“Oi, Remilia! Where’s Patchy-ze?!” That pitiful magician descended from the skies, two goddesses in tow. “This tree has the same magic as that book of hers…”

Okina stood by Kasen, and we three shared a glare.

I breathed in, then out.

This is it.

It ends right now.

Wait for your mother, my sweet Sekai.

“… So kind of you to huddle together like cockroaches,” I muse. They listen. “It makes for much simpler slaughter.”

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>>50039603
>>50039599
>>50039597
and here we are! Next batch only comes during the anniversary, nine days from today, as a special batch! I'm so excited~
it'll be comprised of:
>Yukari vs everyone
>Suwako and the nuke
>Yuuka/Mima stuff
>Chen and Anon at the Moriya Shrine
>Conclusion of the war, whatever it may be
it's going to be a big batch, and after it there'll be post-war stuff~
I'll be dishing out updates and small edits during this time, so bear with me until then~!
more soon!!!

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Second to last Solstice update., #29

>>50039603
She keeps getting gangraped she doesn't deserve this..

>>50046871
Yes she does, she's clearly losing but keeps fighting instead of retreating. There isn't enough hag apologism to make up for mistakes in war...

Reimu, on the other hand, clearly deserves another chance with Anon. Chen is a licensed cat and can attest to Reimu becoming a better person. Just hide any alcohol or sharp objects and they should be able to work things out.

>>50048001
We've been over this. If Anon, Hana, or Reimu consider getting back together they deserve to get raped all over again.

>>50048224
Reimu, Anon and Hana may have lost all of their lives to the danmaku of domestic abuse. But, Sekai has given them another credit. The ending won't be perfect, but I think its worth it for Anon to continue his marriage. Reimu has changed, there won't be a single miss this time.

>>50048477
Hana said best herself:
>Their love will never be rekindled; their smiles as they held me and Aunn are eternal.
Love between Reimu and Anon is out of the question, he's not even forgiven her, but they love Hana and they know the only way shell heal after the shit she went through is to offer that love unconditionally. Anon heals with his entourage of pets, Reimu becomes celibate as punishment and Hana fucks her dog happily ever after.

>>50035662
It wasn't a reference to LISA?

Seeing the POV of Yukari being so delulu is a nice touch.

>>50048224
>>50048542
hashtag let Anon wet his dick where he want

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4k words written and edited, that means around 5 chapters ready for the anniversary~!
>>50049614
>>50035662
yup, despite the fact Reimu's got one arm too many to make that count…
>>50049640
don't use your last remaining chakra to shitpost on the internet, Reimu. That's not very substantial

>>50049798
I mean, Hana or Anon may have a missing nipple.

>>50049798
>don't use your last remaining chakra to shitpost on the internet, Reimu. That's not very substantial
You are implying Reimu is a cuckqueen there.

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>>50049976
guess without the joke's context it does sound like that, tho with context it's like Reimu couldn't explain why Anon should fuck her and resorted to "let him fuck who he wants" but she means only herself. That was the intent, at least

>>50052851
Hana could never rape, she's a youkia-sympathizer now and doesn't have the Hakurei balls to do it. At worst she'll molest then cry afterwards.

all she'll have to molest are wing stumps anyways

>>50052851
Tbf she was always a cuck, she was just, the unfun cucked due to circumstances, what's with her being abusing and Anon being the Hyper Bicycle 9999 that everyone want to fuck.

I am pro "Let Anon decide where he want to put his horse part"!

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>>50053563
>spoiler
they grow back, just gotta wait half a millennium! Or maybe Aya would seek treatment at Eientei so they grow back faster, Eirin might even give her non-explosive pills this time~
>I am pro "Let Anon decide where he want to put his horse part"
sadly, I'm biased on this matter -- not telling who I'm biased toward -- so maybe I should just spin a wheel and call whoever it lands on Anon's decision

>>50054741
Messed up your post lol

>sadly, I'm biased on this matter -- not telling who I'm biased toward -- so maybe I should just spin a wheel and call whoever it lands on Anon's decision
Nein, nein, nein. Anon is us. So he should fuck everyone! Or something just as stupid. A part of me WANT that but I'm self centered enough to thing you would follow my brainwaves
On a more serious note, this could make people angry if the girl isn't what people wanted. Ran ,my beloved

God bless, how many characters have died at this point? The mourning process is gonna be nuts, the obituaries will be so long that they'll need their own chapter

>>50056199
>https://pastebin.com/zqS1Krp7
>Ran
>Nazrin (killed off screen by Okina)
>Konngara (lol who cares)
>Koutei
>Alice
>Shiki
>Sariel
>The entirety of Makai
Only one important person so far, so we might not see see the funerals, except for maybe Ran's. For future deaths Yukari, Kasen, and Reimu still feel like they could die.

>>50057790
You forgot Seiga "curbstomp victim" Kaku.

>>50057790
I still don't understand what the point of killing off the entirety of Makai was

>>50057836
Well nobody is going to mourn her anyway so it's not like it matters. She's not relevant enough anyways, the only reason she exist is because Mima was rather arbitrarily included in the story and she '"needed" a rival on Yukari's side.

>>50057843
Demonstrate how dangerous Douji is and the pain Koutei's death caused Kasen, or something.

Also to give Shanghai trauma. She's not dead until there's a 10,000 word explicit description of her destruction that I will counter twicefold to bullshit her back to life if anyone dares. She needs to give a heartfelt euology for her eradicated world.

>>50058405
That could have been done without genocide or killing Alice. Shiki and Ariel would have been enough.

>>50058405
I feel like it accomplished the opposite for me. It makes her destructiveness and danger level abstract. Yeah, she razes entire cities, I guess, oh well, I didn't know or see those guys anyway. It becomes impersonal and therefore uninteresting.
It'd be far more effective to have her establish her danger by what she'll do to one person rather than a whole realm of existence.

>>50058508
>It'd be far more effective to have her establish her danger by what she'll do to one person rather than a whole realm of existence.
Isn't that what happens with Alice and Remilia? Douji struts by, is unfazed by some of the baddest bitches around and just mercs someone with little effort, then goes and toys with Remilia. It established a danger only matched by Yukari.

>>50058553
Alice is a jobber, but yes the Remi thing is effective.
However, that being affected does not make the Makai genocide more effective.

>>50058553
sure, but that just makes the Makai thing even more out of place
it's like you're pointing at her and yelling that I should find her threatening

>*telepinks behind you*
>"psssh...nothin personnel...witch..."
Maybe if Alice died THEN Douji ate Makai it would've felt more dire. Dollmaker gets ganked, Douji shows her head to Shinki, Satan flies into a rage so there's an actual attempt from a single Makaian to fight her, then she fails to avenge her daughter and dies. Douji is left to destroy a Makai being swiftly and haphazardly-rallied by Sariel. Effortlessly, Douji slaughters them all and revels in the gore. Then the main cast get a shot at her.

I realize that I'm trying to give her some kind of Frieza scene, but it would've worked to hype her up. She basically Krillen'd Alice, Bardock'd Shinki and Vegeta'd Hana anyways.

This is not a broadcast from the moon. We do endorse investing in Reimu, as our non-lunar speculators expect a sudden upset to make Mikokoin soar.

>>50059681
I invested everything I had in reimucoin, if I don't see tearjerker domAnon x subReimu reconciliation sex scene after this I'm suing this thread for emotional damage.

>>50059777
>>50048224

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11 chapters ready, about 9k words written~!
>>50055168
>Messed up your post lol
happens sometimes…
>On a more serious note, this could make people angry if the girl isn't what people wanted.
it is understandable, but it's not why I write the HSE—to please others, that is. If pleasing others was my intention, I probably wouldn't have had it in me to write over 160k words of Solstice. I do want to make a worthy ending, but I know the ending I'm writing won't please everybody; that's just how things go—what matters to me is that it is the ending I want to write and would want to read. Hopefully other anons find it satisfactory
>spoiler
she's in a better place: unreleased alt chapters brimming with handholding sex and other lewd marriage activities…

>>50064092
Based not gonna lie.

>she's in a better place
She isn't if she's not at Anon's side. :(

>>50064092
That's a dangerously selfish mindset for somebody in a community project, but as everyone else gave up it is only you right.
At least unlike them you finishing through with the project and unlike some others, aren't actively harmful.

>>50064092
>spoiler
Release the files.

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>>50066350
>That's a dangerously selfish mindset for somebody in a community project
you're definitely right, that's one of my bad traits as a writer right there, and I do intend to stick with solo writing for projects like the HSE sequel, though I am grateful for the community experience I had with the other writers. Writing stuff alongside Suzuanon, Hanaanon, Ayaanon, Patchyanon and Takaneanon really made me work to keep up. Makes me all nostalgic to reminisce~
>>50072679
nope. I can't even touch the Ran stuff I wrote on the side, I'm a weak mofubrain motherfucker. If I as much as read that fluff again, I'll hunt down resurrection methods like a crackhead
>>50064583
>She isn't if she's not at Anon's side.
She sacrificed her heart so Chen wouldn't lose hers; he will always be by Ran's side when he hugs Chen. Small mercies~

>>50074192
>Keep up with Ayaanon
More like hurry up and wait lmoa pwnd

>>50076585
Anon was never seen again after this post, sources say gensokyo's Jihad took him. Sad!

>>50074192
I think that's a bit too early to be the Renaissance, but it still excludes a lot of the chaff so I'm happy with it.
>Work to keep up with Patchyanon.
Lamo.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY HSE!

>>50079689
2 years strong, 2 more years stronger

BORN TO GET RAPED
YUKARI IS A FUCK
Fuck Em All 2023
I am anon man
410,757,864,530 FERTILIZED WOMBS

>>50082366
s-sasuga...

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soon~

>>50082562
Amazing. It's easy to forget the HSE has 86,527 characters (excluding Lunarians).

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A careful procedure of many tools and much more patience, grafting doesn’t happen often in a gardener’s life, but plant sickness and soil weakness and dying come no matter what, so preventative measures must be employed. At least that’s what Yoki-sensei would always proclaim, kneeling by a bush or outgrowth and holding the stem with care… I sigh and clean whatever sweat had formed on my forehead, knees shaking slightly, yet pride is in the plant before me: the tough stem cut open and two scions—both were struck by root rot in their original patch of soil, the poor things—were introduced, then, over thirty minutes, carefully connected, stabilized, watered and, finally, wrapped in papyrus and boiled collagen to stick. “Do you think it’ll survive, Myon?”

The half-phantom sways in the air, rounding the grafted plant with glee.

“I hope it does too~”

Soft pacing, familiar and light, conveys my attention, and I turn to Yuyuko-sama to greet her. Words latch onto the top of my mouth at the expression she bears, one I have never seen such a calm woman endure. She locks eyes with me briefly before, absentmindedly, taking to the engawa rather than entering Hakugyokurou proper to store the groceries she’d insisted on buying herself in the Human Village, even with Yukari Yakumo’s weird festival in full swing.

Myon hovers to my side with kindred uncertainty and, after a pause for thought, I grab Roukanken and Hakurouken from the ground and chase after Yuyuko-sama. “Y-Yuyuko-sama? What is the matter?” She offers no answer, and though she has her back to me, I know that expression of sheer pain and contemplation hadn’t left her.

It may have worsened as she let the groceries fall to the snow-coated grass, her focus maintained on the naked Saigyou Ayakashi. Confusion turns into concern, knees dirtied and gardening gloves a nuisance, my hands barely able to wrap around the two swords before they were slung into their respective places—not for a beat had these eyes left Yuyuko-sama.

What is happening…?

“… Youmu-chan,” her voice is soft as she stops ahead of the dead tree, yet it bears a quality I cannot distinguish, only interpret: for the first time in so long, she sounds wide awake. “I… received a visitor on my way back. She told me what’s happening outside the Netherrealm—what she’s done to my friend, Yukari.” I listen, even as her voice drops. “She wasn’t the first one, you see. Yukari had come around a few weeks ago, and we talked. It wasn’t a happy talk, but I was glad I could hear her voice before she went and killed herself with her schemes… Of course, I offered our home for her and her child,” my gasp goes ignored; Yuyuko-sama’s eyes are poised on a patch of roots. “It is the natural order of things: death would come for her anyway with the enemies she’s amassed, and I thought it’d be best if our last interaction was of good… friends. Not enemies, nor allies in her delusion and wrongdoings.” She sniffles, such a small and delicate sound. Her tears fall alongside snow; the skies had closed and wept for no apparent reason. “T-That visitor showed me such cruelty, Youmu-chan… She gave me hope that not everything is lost for Yukari.”

The pieces join, and words cannot leave.

Yuyuko-sama giggles, cleaning the tears off her face. “… Her powerlessness might placate her enemies; I do not need to ally myself with the ruthless woman she’s shown that poor man. Sanctuary can be given through this sliver of hope that visitor showed me.” She turns from the Saigyou Ayakashi and looks at me, the snow accumulating on top of her hat; the spirits nestled in that gentle white seem to sing. Her eyes are wide open, glassy and full of soul. Her smile trembles. “I want to save her.”

——

Grafted to my soul, a dark shadow. She looms and seeps, poisoning the waters without method or reason. It doesn’t belong in me, but it’s there and through the dim rays of consciousness, which slowly bring back feeling to the extremities of my fingers—the memories of that shadow are used to long, slender fingers; they brought misery to everyone they’d touch—, and the taste of copper, which lingers in my fangs—disgusting. Human food, before this power awakened… I miss it—; I know with great sad it is just not going away.

Yukari hollowed my heart with her red blade, and her venom dwells within now.

“… I won’t be you,” I mutter to the waning golden lights that comprise my view, my eyelids slouching open. It moves and soft skin pads my cheek; arms of the most soft and compassionate snuggle underneath my head, holding it in place. The arms that hold me are of a mother’s without mistake. “… I-I want to be better.”

“I hear you, child—and always will,” she speaks tenderly, and my hollow heart grows bigger. Yamame-san's gentle fingers then climb and fix some of my stray hair before touching the cast made of her hardened silk and dope. Solace. “… You’ve done wonderfully, Chen. Many would be dead if you hadn’t called me. Be proud of yourself, as I am of you.”

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Such words bequeath comfort, yet the hollow heart cries out against it, no matter how much I’d like to soak in her praise and gesture of faith in its entirety. The grafted shadow pulsates furiously, and I gnash my teeth in pain, hand shooting to hold five sulks in my cheek that bore the texture of Mr. Anon’s scars, twin tails stiffening and legs harboring a thousand crawling ants just below the skin. I clutch the pain there, movement of the mouth only intensifying it tenfold. What is this p-pain…?

And why does it…

Yamame-san immediately was at work, holding my face with both her hands and scrutinizing the painful spot. “Chen? What’s the matter?” She tries, yet words cannot leave me, only tears of pain. Though the world blurs, it also comes into acute focus through the mirrors layered on my eyes—Mr. Anon said cats like I have those. I try stewing in the memory to dull the pain to no avail, and Yamame-san’s features are more distinct. She’s worried and her hair is a mess, and she has her back to a tree; voices echo all around us, and eyes scurry around to see before she steadies my face back in place. Her family surrounds us, with the youngest closer and the oldest sons and daughter on their feet or perched on trees all around. A few meters off, many people are by the patio of a big construction I remember only vaguely. A blur of teal pierced the crowd with speed, entering the building.

Of the spread Kurodani family, some are older or around Yamame-san’s age, and they're busy with problems bigger than mine, tending to injured Youkai I’d only see in the Underground or people from the village. Blurs of colors shifted in the distance, too smudged in the flowing tears and bite of pain.

“… You fled the Underground,” I muster.

Yamame-san nods, her sharp eyes on my wound softening. She yelps at one of her young, one of her long spider legs having sprung from her back to pluck the boy by the back of his overalls before he could munch on dirt. She put him in an older daughter’s arms, who had scratched her arm with a groan before catching the boy and going to feed him. I giggle before it reshapes into hissing; the pain flared up. Her tender fingers then run the length of the sulks—a massage. “Quite forced, I’d say. Everything suddenly began crumbling around us and our burrows were unmade, something like a beginner’s first spool.” A laugh is attempted, but humor cannot form. The shadow inside grows gleeful of the pain she’s caused. “We…” She pauses the massage and frowns. My hollow heart sinks. “… We lost everything. The home and the tunnels connecting all our abodes are beyond saving. We should know our luck; many lost much more than mere homes in the destruction, and the Kurodani have a safety net in the deal we struck with Keine—others don’t have any… I’m sorry you had to be in the heart of that chaos, Chen.”

The shadow blossoms in warmth. A family’s disarray is food for whoever never stopped digging. Beyond that, the truth of my heart is one of deep, crushing guilt. I look around, the overwhelming pain reduced under her touch, and notice how few belongings the Kurodani amassed in their likely hurried evacuation.

That big picture is missing.

A picture of a happy man with a big, happy family.

—Mine is forever gone. Her shadow laughs—

Tears come back and this time the pain is of a butchered heart. “I-I’m sorry… Y-Yukari is only alive because I didn’t stop her when I had the c-chance! S-She caused so much harm, all because I was selfish, and—” I stutter through a wall of loathing and seething cold. Yamame-san’s eyes widen briefly, with more slurred apologies ready to leave me.

Until a commotion made my ears twitch.

“Where’s Ran Yakumo? The other miko said she was here a few minutes ago! Where the fuck is she?” I didn’t need to look to recognize Toutetsu's voice, though when I did, I knew I wouldn’t have her appearance: she's caked head to toe in blood and mud, sprinting from one person to another looking for info on Ran-sama, desperation clear as was confusion. “You! You must’ve seen her… What do you mean you haven’t?!” She nearly kicks the poor man but catches herself. “Ran Suzuk—tsk. Ran Yakumo! Nine big fucking tails—you cannot miss it.”

Then, those horizontal eyes bursting with rage and worry lock on me, and she slices through the Kurodani like they are not there, spreading mud and blood all around. Yamame-san clutches me against her like her life depends on it, eight spider limbs jolting forward threateningly. Her family had sprung to action much the same, older protecting younger, the oldest ready to pounce to Yamame-san’s aid at the first sign of danger. “No, no! Stop! That’s Toutetsu-san! Don’t hurt each other!” I cry, wiggling myself out of her hold—s-she hugs so tightly—and trotting with weak legs to stand between the two confused women.

Toutetsu paid the spiders no mind as she let go of two crude-looking metal pieces and knelt by me, her hands on my shoulders. “You okay, kid? Where’s your mama?”

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Her voice was worried sick and her hold tight as Yamame-san’s, her eyes wide and horizontal pupils scanning my face for something—anything—to quell the despair she hid behind an abrasive facade. Thoughts such as these felt like worms that’d crawled into my brain through my ears, whispers of a voice not mine sourced from a shadow whose frame painted the ground beneath and around me black in the image of another woman, the scarlet sky defining it all in rosy undertones. Toutetsu-san hadn’t noticed it, but I know it is there.

The shadow will always be there.

I open my mouth to give her whatever answer I can, the Gap I’d inherited seeking Ran-sama’s presence the same way Ran-sama would seek mine when I was gone for too long. It’s not precise, only useful… My mouth hangs open for one and then two seconds; the world pauses like in a painting, and all sounds and presences are drowned. Everything tumbles under the veil of existence but me and Toutetsu-san’s wide eyes, her touch trembling. “… I couldn’t connect with her through this Gap, kid,” she flexes her hand open. A leftover Gap lives in there. “That fucking mist messed up all manner of magic, and I had to eat my way out! Unbelievable, isn’t it? It was so gross, ugh…” A moment of pause, she shakes her head. An attempt to clear it from the dread that’s forming—what dread? What’s happening?

Why can’t the Gap…

“… I’ve consumed Yukari’s Gap,” I whisper to her, and all movement and sound had ceased. She’s looking at me as if I’d grown a second head. “W-With your side of one of those talismans—I… I did it to survive. Yukari stabbed me with a sword.” brown eyes bore into my back, and I felt a chill unlike any other coursing up my spine, and every nerve in me told me not to turn and gaze into Yamame-san’s eyes. “T-The last memory I have of Ran-sama was… seeing her behind Mr. Anon. I then woke up here.” I finish, twirling fingers unable to prevent dread from fermenting, hollow heart aching as if taken in a stranglehold.

Color drained from Toutetsu-san’s face and with it a sense of satisfaction pulsated from the shadow of another woman, which I fought against with all I could, five sulks in my cheek burning as if alight. “If Yukari doesn’t have the Gap, that would mean her shikigami couldn’t…”

Yukari’s legacy of evil is not mine! It’ll never be…

… But where is Ran-sama?

The Gap cannot find even a trace of her presence. Dread morphs into its worst state: truth.

“Fuck…” Toutetsu-san’s hold had loosened, and she took a step back, alarm bells already ringing and turning into tolling of a most fearsome nature. A dark answer is revealed in the dimming light of the skies and the explosions long in the distance, powerful and reverberating, shaking the foundations of the world. I can feel Ms. Reimu and her daughter, Hana-chan; others are fighting with all they got, too. None of them are Ran-sama.

I-It hadn’t come to that, right…?

Sunken eyes and pressed sharp teeth point towards me with all-encompassing sad written all over, and I know the answer forged in the recesses of a hollow heart is the truth. Her hand, covered in blood and mud, comes up and delicately touches my face, followed then by a wave of magic that traces the sulks alongside her fingers. “… Ranni, you goddamn idiot. You missed a spot.”

Toutetsu-san retracted her hand and slumped to the ground after taking a few steps away, those dirty hands fastened to her face, hiding from the world her expression. The shake of her body told enough.

I stood in the silence, holding my marred face in a deafened world.

It was as if everything had come to a standstill.

Outside my control my body turned, and I looked upon Yamame-san, who had eyes glued to mine, big and glassy as she shed uncontrollable tears. Why is she crying so much? Oh, I acknowledged I had almost died—I live on the border of life and death now—, and… The words come to me. “I think Ran-sama is dead.” I told the Kurodani barely louder than a whisper. My body remained frozen, and no tears fell from my eyes.

Why?

Why am I not crying like Yamame-san?

Why am I not feeling the sad I know I should have felt right now…?

That hand of mine daubed in blood and dirt moves down, and I place it on my heart, trying to feel it. It beats the same as ever, yet, past the physical instrument… Not truly hollow as I’d imagined; leaking, however, and slowly replaced by Yukari’s poison. Her shadow lingered underneath me with booms of glee, a curled claw soon to come alive and replace that which I’d cultivated together with Mr. Anon, Ms. Reimu, Yamame-san…

… It’s not me; it’s not my legacy. Yukari is not what I want to become.

Promises, smiles. True happiness. All mine.

A bottomless pit of jealousy and sadness. This is what Yukari was and what she wants me to become. Her shadow would do everything to strip me of choice, even bleed me dry.

I don’t want that.

I d-don’t…

Tears finally flow, and Yamame-san hugs me. I cry as much as I can. I may never get another chance.

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Japan screams. It screams relentlessly and claws away from the concentrated death within the weak wards lifted by an oni sitting on the bottom of a pond fashioned out of thousands of skulls—their mineral composition whispers of the deeds that led them to be stacked like a child’s play blocks. They loathe Yukari Yakumo—, and her skin peels and her muscles bubble as they bloat, radiation soaking into her body as if it served as a coffee filter. Hair adheres to the scalp by miracle alone, and though her neck cranes to look into my eyes, the visible bone and melting marrow barely move, frozen by coagulating blood; the heart soon shall not pump.

Yuugi Hoshiguma smiled the largest she could, and with the hand not gently stroking the great wyrm, she waved at me. “Yo, Suwako-dono…” Her voice travelled the irradiated water with power the soil under her sang about. She’s lived in the Mountain her whole life; the ground loves her. “… I was kinda hoping for Suika, heh. She’d have an easier time dealing with what I’m about to ask of you.” The giggle is a dying beast in itself, its existence barely kept by… something beyond me. Something the soil where she sits shall never forget. Besides her, the great wyrm whines, its body of rancors and curses melting ethereally rather than the gruesome dying flesh of the oni. Gathering inside its bloated belly, a pulsating bright light, the mother of fusion and fission combined into something few gods could ever hope to match.

A sweat bead rivuleted down my forehead, teeth gnashed, heart pounded, and hands shook.

A nuke soon to be set off.

The thing keeping it stable is dying.

“Yeah, those eyes say everything—you’re a smart fella,” Yuugi labors through the words. “This poor lad cannot keep the thing stable anymore… Tell that blonde fool and his family their pet did its best. At times, that’s all you should expect from someone.” Wards flicker; hundreds of thousands of liters of water are held back, a crushing force greater than any hammer. Without Yuugi holding back water of unprecedented weight and half a collapsed mountain, Gensokyo would have been razed to the ground minutes ago by a nuclear rupture.

The bomb is unstable; in such a state, the oni is beyond saving. “… I’m sorry.”

She simply giggles, melting eyes running down her face like the tears I know someone as strong as she would never shed. “Don’t be. One million fights this body has experienced…” Web-like cracks litter the wards; the beast’s eyes close slowly. “I’m glad my last one was by my sister.”

If she said any other words, I sadly missed them, for the terrified ground recoiled en masse by my power, shifting as it was pounded out of every gram of air and water between earth and debris. Everything that Yukari had ripped away from Youkai Mountain converged below my palms and clumped around the nuclear bomb and Gensokyo’s silent protector, forming a cage. Priceless seconds, used down to the last one: the pounded rock and dirt and every manner of sediment morphed to whatever dense metal the outpouring of my faith would allow, and innocuous specks of dust were now layers of iridium and diamonds and tungsten, all pressed together like a far-too-big sandwich.

Half an entire mountain and what I could salvage from the Underground in time, squeezed into a glistering cage the size of this pond. The Gods of Yamato would have kneeled before me if such power had been used against them.

Eyes hung open, sweat drenched my face and back and legs, and my body quaked and grew pallid; the faith boiled my very blood.

It mattered not.

A nuclear explosion happened a mere five hundred meters below me.

As if a balloon, the cage of hundreds of tons of the world’s most dense and sturdy materials inflated to ridiculous proportions. The earth quaked and stirred in all directions, like a stampede by gods beyond this plane was taking place. Vibrations harassed my body and mind—the panic of Japan’s very crust, weeping at the once more nearness of extinction—, blood pouring from my nostrils and mouth, the effort taking a toll from this body made of faith. Two thousand years of steady faith, drained in the last ten seconds, and it kept going as more and more soil was joined and reshaped into layers of protection, which kept inflating out of control.

Unbearable heat melted the precious metals into liquid and then gas, which dissolved further into plasma. That water brought here by Yukari evaporated and exploded out of the ground, all the way to the ruined city of the oni. The waterfalls above evaporated and clouds of steam rose—even the ceiling glowed from heat.

In this newly formed inferno, my body remained, a dome of refractory ceramics and tungsten layered over and below me that was constantly being repaired, its surface melting as if rushing water. One second outside, and I’d vanish like a fly in the sun.

… Someone knocks on it like it’s a door. “You called me, froggy goddess?” Utsuho Reiuji’s voice brings with it unadulterated relief.

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Her voice is nails on a chalkboard, the drone of an annoying mosquito begging to be squashed. I cannot breathe as long as she also breathes. Everything she is demands execution—that glint in her eyes, as if she’s won; how she holds so proudly a blade that nearly killed Kasen-nee—, and in my bones I feel it can be delivered right here, right now… Mom hisses as she resumes her footing and steadies her Gohei, the sight of a slightly charred side aggravating the thoughts of victory yet unable to destroy them. “I’ll be fine, Hana,” Mom says with a nod. I hold her in place for a moment longer than necessary, just to make sure—she’s fine, she’s alive—, before shifting my eyes to Yukari Yakumo past Kasen-nee, her new arm harboring that terrifying presence I’d felt back in her home, though now it's subsided. Words untold seem to linger, the smug on Yukari's battered face an eternal thing.

Not for one second does she consider she’s going to die today.

The wind blows, the leaves of this ethereal and mysterious tree dance in the air. It's a moment that is alive, and I have to wonder if the others feel as I do: the thrum at the base of my fingernails, how true the wood of the Gohei is, the shide whispering. Blood boils, sweat builds, pupils narrow and the throat clenches to allow minimal airflow—greatest precision comes with separating body and soul—, the worldlines, both time and space, truly gathered and straightened so the woman that Yukari Yakumo is stays focused.

My mind is clearer than ever; Mom stands by my side.

Never again in the shadows. No more secrets and no more lies.

Condensed in Yukari are all the sins, all the denigration I went through. The decadence and the stripping of character, until I was reduced to a thing she could leisurely play with. When she made me watch Father on that chair; later, the abuses of my body…

The winds blow and the end approaches.

Yukari Yakumo just gotta die.

Winds stop, and the world holds its breath.

Motion is tenfold, and a comet descends from the skies, nailing Yukari’s position and lifting a great cloud of dust. A loud crack reverberated and with it the sheer sound of gravity taking hold, for the branch we stood upon had been severed from the main tree by Bykuaren Hijiri. It mattered not; the worldlines converged before unfurling to the view of a red blade coming in my direction, Gohei slapping it away from a second in the past; Yukari’s eyes shone with bored contempt at me, her attention a fluid thing, for those purple eyes had locked with the ground eclipsed by shears of blood barreling at her. The cursed blade hit, and she gained height, fleeing my Gohei and moving directly into Mom’s, only for the red blade to dance and deflect Gohei and fist and bouts of pink electricity and through that same veil came a floating beast of purple and blonde hair. Yukari dodged Byakuren's fists with ease, the branch under us entering free-fall to the tune of Bloody Sakura Danmaku resuming, their slower patterns highlighting her growing weakness: the scourge is doing its work.

Her Youkai body is falling.

Byakuren’s blows achieved nothing, and the red blade had flattened to cut the neck. Red against red blossomed in the show of lights and dust, contrasted to a scarlet sky; Remilia’s spear impenetrable by the jagged sword, but not Danmaku or Gohei, for mine and Mom’s had resurfaced and joined Remilia. Yukari’s eyes are a most ferocious thing as the three of us brutalize her with wild abandon, barely sneaking a hit in—

—Until Kasen-nee’s fist transmogrified through the air quicker than the very worldlines and hit against the sheen of the blade, sending Yukari to the bark of the tree. We four followed, Byakuren having her fist sunken to the pastures of wood—Yukari rolled out of the way—, the sword meeting a thrown Gungnir and slicing it in half, Remilia’s eyes narrowing in the worldlines before she wove across rolling waves of Danmaku and pink lightning, which Mom and Kasen-nee all but ignored, reflexes and senses beyond anyone else’s.

The saturation of noises, all travelling my body like extra veins, was a thing of dreams. I am fighting by my Mom’s side.

Such beautiful dodge-working from them wouldn’t have mattered anyway, for a Master Spark billowed from the edge, Marisa-sensei absorbing the kickback of an entire spell with one hand and a frail body. Kanako-sama led the laser, the Yakumo woman dancing across the bark, metal meeting fist and wood as she, Mom and Kasen-nee had attached their feet to the bark and remained sideways, not one second left to awe before the cursed blade hit the Master Spark in such a way it was coming towards me—

A barrage of blood spawned from nothingness, and with the added time it bought, the Master Spark quickly took a sharp turn, guided by winds, and was back to stalking Yukari.

“Hm…” Remilia mused, standing on a suspended blood pool. She smiles, satisfied. “… You would have dodged that, Hana-chan. Seems coddling isn’t needed.”

I merely huff.

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It was a fascinating sight and one I know the likes of Shameimaru would envy. Not for one second had Yukari not deflected or weaved out of the path of an attack that could end legions of regular Youkai, with Kasen teleporting and hammering away with both legs and her new arm, sprinkling in explosions of thunderclap to match Yukari’s own—failing efforts, the scourge installed in their bodies sapping away the strength of their technique—, and when those two would find themselves in a stalemate, Reimu and her daughter would jump and sync attacks to a degree unthinkable before this war, met by the apathetic violence of Yukari Yakumo—the Hakurei senior was showing signs of weariness not linked to either that wound on her side or her missing member; Kirisame had talked little about her fantastical new power aside its toll. If her timeline matches, she has up to 50 seconds before the bells toll, and she’s down to her last chakra—, followed then by an upset Hijiri, though without the kamikaze angle, and Remilia Scarlet, a new variable in the mess of our creation.

Yukari met each and every one of them in direct combat, dishing out attacks and adapting herself to the onslaught within seconds of its start. Her blade would punch and slash, yet would meet nothing, for one had the back of the other and so forth.

A blade honed to its utmost, against droplets of rain. She cuts, and it is futile, but those droplets will eventually fall to the ground and disappear, and the one with the blade will remain.

… If we don’t break her soon, Reimu will cease; Kasen will falter.

Then, we’ll have nothing.

“This isn’t working; she’s not budging soon,” Kanako puts my thoughts into words, the winds turbulent and howling around her impressive frame. Her frown points strictly at the Hakurei girl, eager at every turn to prove herself amidst combat, with vigor aplenty and twice as much determination. She’ll throw everything to the wind should harm attempt to come for the girl. “Do you have any ideas, Okina?”

Tainted faith pulses inside, the closed Backdoors deflecting much of the stray Bloody Sakura Danmaku Yukari spawns ruthlessly around the arena this massive tree has become, and a bead of sweat rolls off my forehead. Time’s running out. I know launching myself into the fray would be foolishness, crippled powers and body unable to match the brutality of the others—and meaningless too, as crude power was met by swift deflection and reflexes aided by the Manipulation of Explainable Phenomena the sword had robbed… No, we need something refined to take down a woman like Yukari.

Idea strikes.

Marisa rounds the arena from a distance, the only healthy arm clutching a cracked Mini-Hakkero, gold eyes shifting to Kanako the moment she sees a breach in the battle down there, Yukari thrown away by Kasen’s fist—parried—, Spear the Gungnir following in many iterations that’d either come from Remilia or blood pools trickling from nothingness—a concentrated gaze and a slight of annoyance meant the vampire had tried much more than raw power and Yukari met it with indifference—every blood blade carved by the cursed one with ease. She wasn’t slowing down; Manipulation of Explainable Phenomena likely meant the bombardment was filtered and sorted into patterns by Yukari’s mind.

Before Kanako could help Marisa with guiding the Master Spark so Yukari can’t run away, I motion for them to stop and the magician to come closer.

She hisses with a throaty intonation because of a broken nose. “Be quick, Reimu ain’t lasting there-ze,” the speech zest doesn’t dampen the worry that’d crested her voice, golden eyes tracking the miko’s lightning-fast movements as she met Yukari’s cursed blade with recoiled wings, the fire she’d used without impediment in the Underground now a most shy thing—a part of the chakra angle, perchance…?

It doesn’t matter, or at least not for the next 35 seconds, eyes shifting to an impenetrable Yukari, her eyes scurrying through the opposition before the red blade and Danmaku would lunge forward and cleave defenses like nothing, a much more ambush-like approach to her reckless manner of combat in the Underground. Something had changed from there to now.

A mind of unequaled intelligence, armed with a power like that.

The longer we attack, the sharper she gets…

… But one hand would never leave her belly even if an attack wasn't coming for it, and this massive tree had 'Yukari Yakumo' scribbled all over it, a violent rage contained just below her surface.

To rival great intelligence, only ego and unfettered emotions.

“Aim for her belly,” I speak, eying Kanako. “Let your winds inform them—even—especially—Yukari—to aim for her pregnant belly. Hit or not, it doesn’t matter: all that matters is we throw her off,” gaze shifts to Marisa, who now displays disgust. To turn your eyes away from a slaughter that counts for two is a convenient coping mechanism. No one with a sane mind wants to hurt children. “And Marisa… will cut this tree down.”

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No ritual quite like this have I seen, not in five hundred years of life, nor in distilled memory presented in the bloodmemory of my family, for blood doth carry a plethora of such. Instincts, another word for biological inheritance, and an heirloom evolved after being bathed in the greatness of the first Tree of Life, breathed upon this world before the whispers of religion and plundered off its fruit by descendants long gone. The bloodmemory of my family goes back a dozen thousand years, and not once had a ritual quite like this taken place.

The strands puppeteering Patchy’s body receded without need of my command, a higher power than that of an Ancient Vampire in communion with its history taking away the threads, and soon that librarian stood on her own two feet. Scraping of gargantuan roots and bark against charred ground came to a screeching halt, much to a worn-down Meiling’s confusion, whose eyes were to do the kindred action of locking upon the soulless body of a plain-looking girl and the rolling waves of power emanating from it. A silent power, not because it lacked song or word, but because the brain of the living wouldn’t be able to parse the cry of a new god—it’s what’s happening here, after all—echoed, and inscriptions of cosmologic magic laid on the ground were sucked by an invisible vortex centered on the girl. I floated forwards, watching with the same awe Patchy and Meiling displayed, the latter gingerly letting go of the roots, which did not so much as creak, and descending to stand by Patchy’s side.

An extraordinary gift I have been bestowed with. It has allowed me to bask in truth and put away the deception.

“Aquarius interpolates with the Ursa Major, and it draws power,” Patchy mumbles, watching the ritual unfurl and pointing a weakened hand towards no particular spot. “Then, Cassiopeia—she searches for knowledge—, and thus it lands on Draco, for a cunning unlike any other… Atlas held the sky, and its North fell to the Earth, drawn and reflected upon the waters of The Well of Knowledge. A great comet, seen by Three Sages on their way to bless the child of another religion entirely, watched by a Star and envied by the Moon.” No peep comes from Meiling, cheeks rosy. She did not know what Patchy was rambling about… Neither did I, but the artistry that is concealing such is one I’ve mastered. The magician sighs not from irritation but from unmatched relief, though she sulks. “I’ll have to make sure such a gifted existence doesn’t end in corruption.”

Meiling laughs a thunderous laugh, corresponded solely by the beating heart of a Tree of Life. A pond of words and symbols shape and mold themselves into thin lines that lead from the pulsating roots down to the body of a child, and they glitter with thousands of… handcrafted lights, some I recognize from watching Patchy add them to the slice of universe she’d hung over her desk. They glitter and shift in the cloud of millions of fashioned cables; some travel as if shooting stars, others explode and die out; others redshift, and others blueshift—enigmatic terminology Patchy had muttered about in her observations—, each a singular soul in a particular moment. “That’s the first thing that comes to your mind? Making sure we raise her properly~?” Meiling says in-between amusement and exasperation, watching the sheer spectacle with what I can only assume she understands as pretty lights.

Patchy pouts briefly but nods with the specter of a smile.

Naked feet crushing soil dispel such a specter, and the only other time I’ve seen Patchy's eyes bursting with such emotion was when I held her in mangled arms and let her cry. There is no sobbing this time, only the shock of a mother watching her child shakily lift herself to her footing, the same for Meiling. Still connected to the tree by a constellation of cables that converged on her back, the child had moved, its features and expression bathed in deep red, like a lamb out of the womb. Nothing of her was visible—discernible—but the silhouette.

… She lifted a foot, meaning to take a step towards her two mothers, the background a sea of shining blue and the world consumed by a loud and omnipresent beating heart…

And the newborn god face-planted on the ground.

Patchy immediately tried to rush towards her, but Meiling held her, a menacing hiss leaving the furious magician. The gatekeeper said nothing and only kept her eyes trained on the child.

Sekai stood with some effort. The blood coat hiding her hadn't splashed nor left behind even a droplet. Again she moved towards Patchy and Meiling—she tripped; Patchy gasped—, but straightaway she was back on her feet.

The next step came, and Sekai did not tumble.

Pulling Patchy by the shoulder, Meiling kneeled and, gently, opened her arms; Patchy followed—she held her breath, shaking terribly.

Sekai opened her arms too.

Every step was easier and steadier.

And, soon…

… Sekai was in her mothers' arms, and they embraced her closely. Patchy did not cry.

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Such a memory is worth its spot in the genetic triage of my lineage, and it is no surprise that even in the heat of battle, the sweet imagery of a newborn replays. Perhaps it’s what compelled me to protect Hana Hakurei, whose power of unimpeded movement would take her out of harm’s way with ease—a light heart and a purpose: protect that new, quaint family if it’s the last thing I do. I'm their mistress and their friend, and now I am the first to behold their connection, not of flesh, but of heart.

Maybe I should call myself Sekai’s grandma~?

Concentration and thoughts merge, and the latter are dissolved into the raging sparks that scatter upon the connection of the red blade and Gungnir, Yukari’s demonic glare boring into me like it’s attempting to dissect a fox. All she sees are wings of massive span unraveling, and summoned alongside the glowing, reddened cartilage are blood pools from where my truest form of Danmaku pours towards the blonde. She disengaged and deflected them with ease, a glimmer in those purple eyes recognized as she drew away so she wouldn’t be caught by the destructive Goheis of Reimu and her daughter, the two synchronized in a dance of death. Yukari joined without restraints, her hair flowing and blade clinking as daughter and mother couldn’t pierce through, nor could Yukari land a blow, talismans and sacred wood exchanged. Blowing past Danmaku, Ibaraki and Hijiri joined them, and the dance recommenced.

They must be realizing by now, either through the quick glances they would throw at a Reimu increasingly discomforted with the wound on her side or Ibaraki’s arm, barely fixed to the remaining skeleton underneath skin. Muscles and nerves spasmed wildly, blood drenching the white pallor of her muscular flesh—that arm was grafted there, not integrated.

… Besides, Fate is entirely silent of Yukari, as it was of Douji and the recovered Kasen.

Feet land me on the bark and I recover my breath, a growl of frustration following to the winds: a heartbeat echoed from the glowing wood of the Yggdrasil, meaning Sekai hadn’t finished extracting what she needed from the ritual. Meiling and Patchy both can barely lift themselves out of the sands underneath that sea of stars, the former having carried off the weight of the world and the latter refined it. Yet, Sekai is shrouded in blood, and thousands of cables linking the newborn god to her tree jerked, Patchy's inscriptions flowing like infinite rivers.

The ritual is done; the birthing process isn't.

If Yukari is not stopped—if she catches even a glimpse of Sekai—, it’s over for us.

All that family has to protect them right now is their mistress and their friend.

I won’t fail again.

Feet move to join back the fray, yet a voice carried by the winds—the goddess of the Moriya—stops me, lulling by my ear. The way all the others stop, even the Yakumo woman herself, tells me they also hear it. “Attack Yukari’s belly! Aim for her child!” Morbid words whose effects are immediate: the jovial Hana throws her face towards where the gods are beyond the fog and the refractory nature of the scarlet sky, confused; Hijiri is stone, her righteous gaze permanently aimed at Yukari, though a ripple of discomfort echoes in her fate. A religious zealot who would dare show any other reaction belongs on a stake; Reimu and Kasen show no change. Ruthless oni and ruthless oni-miko.

Yukari, however, shows significant change. “… My child,” she whispers, frowning and not even looking towards the gods. Her fury is omnidirectional. “You would sink as low as to target an infant that hasn’t even taken her first breath—all to bring me down.” A moment of pause. Hana’s incredulity had vanished as rapidly as it had come, replaced by the scent of bloodlust. Fascinating development, albeit expected from a child of the battlefields. It matters now, for Yukari’s cursed blade had its tip pointed at us, and the dots soon connected at just how truly her wrath had overtaken the vain, killing glare she harbored. “Fine! FINE! You believe my Sekai doesn’t deserve to live?! Then come at me and take my child away from me, childkille—”

—A great rumble stopped her, the iconic shriek of the Master Spark echoing, but… Aimed not at Yukari, its kaleidoscopic lights burst from down below and shook the whole of Yggdrasil, its beating heart skipping a beat, as did my undead heart.

W-What is happening?! The threads of fate cannot foresee a power so beyond, like what saturates Sekai’s tree, throat closing as if strangled by a powerful hand. The shifting winds had stilled and pulled downwards, and I flew off the edge with bulging eyes, the Yakumo woman sporting the same reaction, though hers was punctuated by a screeching: “NO!” Thunderclaps echoed then, followed by the move of powerful beings.

My eyes were on the great beam of crushing power converted into a vast, glowing chainsaw whose crude idea of an edge scorched the trunk of the tree of life, aimed to cut it down…

… And thus stop its heart.

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Void of mind, it charged, a screech akin to claws tearing apart rocks and the death of a thousand animals and roots piercing the mist displaced by the beast’s imposing frame, host to the flood of parasites and maggots pouring out from it as if a stabbed hose—they would burn upon contact with the kaleidoscopic mist, uncharacteristic whining symphonic to the Kirin’s death rattle—, paired bone swords prepped and horns alight with corrupted power. It sped towards us at a great pace, flying as we took off from the charred ground, and its hands-turned-blades soon met Mima’s wards, which it assaulted relentlessly. The added weight made flying an unsteady mistress, and the gruesome sight draped in red and white threatened to paralyze me; a brief intermission, for soon power had accumulated, and as the wards were ruptured by the rotten bone blades, a small beam of power exploded from the revitalized sunflower tacked to my hair, fed by the little sunlight filtered through the moon and mist.

Little, but enough to consume it in flames and send it away from us and back into the chasm.

Before the mist could drain into the dome of magic, the once vengeful spirit stitched it back together, a sigh of weariness escaping her. We landed on the edge of molten rock, the waterfalls of kaleidoscopic mist easing into the large crater a sight to behold; destruction, unlike anything I’ve ever seen, laid bare… Soon spoiled by the booming screams of the monster, sharp sounds of blade carving into rock echoed. “Still alive, it seems… We have to move, Kazami.” Mima whispers, her frown creased—gears visibly turned behind those sharp eyes, knife clutched close—, every faint twinkle of moonlight filtering through the dense clouds caught by the sunflower, limbs shaking and lips drying as the thing draped in Hana’s visage left the crater, hollow eyes on us and shriek echoing loud.

It gave chase once again.

An explosion of that magnitude hadn’t finished it, and neither had a full-fledged spellcard. We lifted flight, and the wards opened the moment it jumped towards us, a much more powerful laser shooting at it and hitting it square—it hadn’t even attempted to dodge—, the spellcard disappearing in the mist together with the Kirin. Not five seconds trudging through whatever this mist is, and its cursed howl reverberated loud through the nightmare, its silhouette lagging just behind. Mima’s flight felt dragged by her overexertion, her body oozing some ethereal strand of matter from the holes poked by parasites and maggots.

Sweat rolled down as the short-lived pursuit ended with the dome of magic violently shaken from slashing bone blades, the wards resisting far less than before and the added weight of the flailing Kirin bringing us to the ground—this mist feels eternal; no matter if we fly up or around, it stretches without end—, Mima rolling through the mud yet doing her utmost to keep the protective spells from waning. Melee ensued, the beast worming and carving its way inside, screeching all the way through and shuddering frantically, as if in pain. Pain was delivered when its bone blades aimed at me were caught and launched to the ground, sinking deep, and a punch landed on the side of its face, shattering a horn. The once vengeful spirit watched, screeching didn’t cease, and a kick landed on its side, sending the squirming body crashing against the wall of wards behind it.

It did not relent. I wasn’t counting on it doing so.

The marred red of its clothes danced across my vision, my body lunging before my mind could catch up and when it did, both my hands had already caught it by the arms, pulling without hesitation on one and, without resistance, ripping it from the bone and marrow before doing the same to the other, members flung away as the corrupted monster kept screaming—

—Until the sunflower brimming with power tackled its face and a blast of concentrated energy gathered from the sun eclipsed its face for many seconds. My hands held the convulsing creature to the ground, the laser making the ground glow from heat and acrid smoke uncontrollably rising, the sound of it sizzling soothing something dark in my chest. Soon, the assembled energy faded, and what remained was a still body on the ground, its head reduced to black ashes, and I just… watched it, dazed.

Hakurei uniform not maintained, body lithe despite the many signs of wounds and pores from which nasty critters would pour out like a hive of the worst Mother Nature could offer.

… Hana could be like this right now for all I know—Anon too.

Dead and alone.

And I would have done nothing to help the people I’ve learned to love.

… I don’t want that.

“Look alive, you hopeless maiden,” Mima’s breathless voice snaps me to attention, and my eyes bulge: the rotting flesh of the Kirin stitches itself back together, black ashes giving shape to a head layer by layer—bone, sinew, flesh, blood—, a scene of nightmares. “… As I had expected. Killing it is impossible… any better idea?”

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We cannot kill this. It is regenerating—fast and faster; the bones creak back and the dark ash whitens, the squelching flesh repositions and its torn limbs regrow like stems of a mushroom—and, eventually, it’ll get up and pursue us. Leaving it behind and running away would give us a head start, but the mist spans beyond the reach of the eye and silenced magic tells nothing about the state of the world outside it. A massive explosion happened not two full minutes ago and yet not a peep or a scream loads the atmosphere. It’s like we’ve been separated from the world…

I look at Mima and reiterate the obvious to myself: against this creature, we cannot have a war of attrition. Too damaged, too weak.

Another answer entirely must be given; time must be bought—

Its mouth reshapes, opening wide to let go of a terrifying scream bursting with hatred and pain.

—My punch lands, and its head explodes. Not a blink elapses, and it has resumed regeneration of its rotten carcass. Mima frowns. “A momentary, if high-maintenance, conclusion,” she pierces it with her Godslaying knife, carving a long wound. The flesh stitches back together with ease, and tentacles of cartilage elongate from bloody stumps. Calcium vibrates as it structures and sharpens. “In matters of faith, few can surpass the Chinese—they thought their emperors sovereigns of everything,” she muses, if only to fill the dead air and suppress the resurgent flesh, cleaning the edge of her plain-looking knife on the Kirin’s very Hakurei uniform. I hiss and land another punch, a trembling hand pulling the limbs off before they would grow too much.

Something inside me enjoyed the warm blood, and it fought violently; the bile settled at the basin of my stomach, threatening to rise.

It wears Hana’s visage, my poor little girl caught in this war…

Corrupted by Yukari, just as Seiga corrupted this once noble beast.

… But Hana had looked into my eyes, saw my demons—her Father suffered them—and even then, she’d accepted me. Yukari corrupted Hana, but she had not destroyed her beautiful soul yet.

The girl resisted, even if in severe pain.

Pause comes to me just as blood sprays and the sensation of flesh giving out and bones grinding under my fist sends a rush up my spine. The beast longs for more, denied for so very long—Anon might not even be alive, and neither might Hana—, but I punt it down and turn to Mima. “Purify it, then,” I whispered, her scrutinizing gaze turned to me; it softened, and words came out of me with a pounding heart. “S-Seiga corrupted it, and… did you hear how it screams? It’s in agony. You as a new God could see that through, could you not?” Hopeful at best, foolish at worst; watching the skin mend, bones grow, and the kaleidoscopic mist beyond the weakening wards of the goddess flash as they’re sapped of magic, it is the best we have.

Mima’s look tells me she understands it.

“… Purify a creature such as a Kirin, the symbol of imminent death to the powerful. Sage, emperor, God—doesn’t matter… purification is definitely achievable, even if carried out by a goddess with nothing to her name but a freelancer and a shitty blonde shrine maiden,” she grumbles, tracing the blood that had gotten onto her face with her fingers. “An endeavor that, if met by failure, would spell your death, Kazami. I don’t know what would be of me, but I'm sure these protective wards would be gone. Even if not here, that’d mean Seiga killed you—an interesting turn of fate’s wheel.” Up my spine climb chills, but these aren’t of thrill. Fear to a sadistic creature that’d never quite felt it.

I don’t want to lose Hana; I haven’t had the chance of watching her crush her demons.

The walls are closing, and with each passing second the image of the Kirin, a mangled, hideous corpse sprawled on the ground clad in red and white, becomes more dreaded. “… I could burrow into the ground and wait, Mima. I would be deep enough that the mist wouldn’t affect me or my sunflower. But that—”

“—Would mean you ran away,” she says, a keen eye despite the bags and tiny holes peppering her face. “Ran from that girl and her father. Would mean Yuuka Kazami’s reputation is all but warranted. Even Ibaraki-Douji ran away upon having her arm cut off,” she sighs and, with bloodstained fingers, grabs onto the mound of unrecognizable yet withering and mending remains, glare focusing. The wards flicker and shrink, the magic outpouring redirected, and soon the room-sized dome is as crammed as a compost box. It matters naught, eyes focused on the Kirin whose very flesh groaned in anguish as parasites stuffed there by Seiga hollowed it—Hana’s trembling hand on mine; a nightmare behind those closed eyelids. “Ah… love has insidious ways of lobotomizing women. I just hope you, Alice, and my foolish miko do not tear each other's throats over a piece of man.”

All she gets is an exasperated sigh from me, the tiny magic dome swelling with lights as trigrams of Yin-Yang spawn under the curling body of the Kirin.

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I thought I had those thoughts under control when I broke inside Yukari’s Gap, looked her in her eyes, and aimed for her belly. Demons were under control and Father’s spell spread confidence in both ability and body; the hatred towards Yukari—everything she’s done to my family, to me—steadied my hand. That moment, I was ready to wade in whomever’s blood to get to her, even a step-sibling’s… But I didn’t hit Yukari’s belly, rather above, an inch or close above the lungs.

Minimal damage dealt, something Douji didn’t care for in her ensuing assault, which ended with Yukari sprawled on the shore of gravel about to be executed by the red blade she now employs against us.

Again and again, I had the chance to end this war. Crush the Gohei against the center of her belly, around the uterus; rush her down together with Kasen-nee and Yuugi, and destroy her until naught but dust remains. Yukari Yakumo is dying today; the nightmare ends today.

A child’s life—born of rape, of disgrace, to a ruin of a mother—is the price of that end…

… Eyes shift to Mom. Her right hip is black as coal, the shredded Hakurei talismans tacked to her bloody stump of an arm useless against the bloodletting; a flame glistens there. Her paper-like mikos stood behind, faceless yet coy in their approach, for none of them had even rushed Yukari in the exchange we’ve just had. So few of them remain. Strategy glinted in Mom’s eyes as she turned them towards me, yet I saw past it. Past the fire, the excruciating pain she thinks she’s hiding so well and unfurled wings of raging fire illuminating in sheer gold and red, something else not entirely Mom’s dances like it danced the day we meditated inside her bloom of fire behind the shrine.

A child of disgrace and ruin, of rape—Mom loves me so much.

My heart clenches, my eyes blink. The moment is gone and the wind buzzes in my ears, the non-Euclidean space and time bursting open before me in billions of lights and colors and geometry, a world of no up and down where a thousand milliseconds stretch like a canvas only my hand can paint; my body swims across the folded sea and the Gohei strikes from a moment in time already gone, slamming against Yukari’s face just as glistering red sailed towards me, the cursed blade slapped away by Kasen-nee’s new—old—arm, her joined feet soon plunging into Yukari’s midsection and dragging her across the enormous tree like a sled rolling down Youkai Mountain, a rain of bark at high velocities coming our way as if Danmaku.

It didn’t matter, bloodlust screaming in my ears and body alight with conflicted guilt. Everything that makes me who I am yearns to close this horrible chapter of my life… But Hana Hakurei is loved by her family despite circumstances. “THE SWORD! GET THE SWORD!” I turn to look at the others as this body dissolves, so the debris passes unbothered, a waste of precious energy that goes unchecked with the thrill of a battle coming to its close. Yukari fights, her lapse of concentration forgotten yet not its consequences, for Mom had joined Kasen-nee just as she drifted past the limier of the tree and Yukari plopped off the bark, the oni’s only arm catching the red sword by its blade and pulling, met by resistance unmatched as purple lightning brewed—

—Overwhelmed by Hakurei flames, one and then two strikes of the Gohei propel past the flames and meet Yukari’s face. Every faceless miko joined in the damage—some extinguished, yet what had landed wouldn’t go away—; Hijiri came then, her sonorous “KAI!” travelling the chaotic storm, which grew as we rode down the great tree, fists pummeling into Yukari with so much strength the storm receded. Her body was then launched like clouds unleashing thunder unto the Earth; the storms yawned to let a blood pool of epic length develop, the hiss of Marisa-sensei’s Master Spark silenced briefly.

It returned soon, wholly canalized from that portal of blood, and it hit Yukari square in her back, my body jerking back to watch with awe the massive release of power. Some shouting happened in the background, but eyes couldn’t lose focus from the body that remained upon the expiration of the Master Spark. The fact she hadn’t been evaporated meant Kasen-nee’s power over phenomena protected her from death, an uncontrollable roar inside compelling me to approach with Gohei ready, the winds blowing ominously. Mom and the others had the same idea; the weakened Yakumo woman was all open—easy prey, her body releasing acrid smoke and her hair tarnished, dress all but torn up. Paper-like mikos and Gohei, fist and Danmaku drove toward her.

Never once did she release that sword.

Every pair of eyes was on her.

Yet, no one noticed how Yukari clutched at her belly.

In Mom’s eye I saw love for a child, a spring of rebirth Gensokyo as a whole had thought impossible.

No one believed Mom would come as far as she’s come.

Yukari Yakumo opened her eyes and showed us burning coals, a nightmare true. She hadn’t accepted death for her baby.

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Her blunder had been real. It was the answer of a mother worried about their children—what the tree had to do with that eludes me—to rage and, for the briefest of moments, lose concentration of the war around her. All of us had seen it and understood it. The weakness of all Youkai is mental attacks…

… But we’d used that trick on Yukari already.

The smoke and the charring shrouded the looming shadow of a predator, the sky behind her red as blood and the pulsating tree a mystery. Both had unfocused to the accompaniment of violent chills rippling up my spine and holding my heart in a stranglehold, teeth gnashing as words of warning emerged from deep within, yet they had no hope of leaving me. Prey became a blur of purple electricity and Kasen-nee’s fist phased through it, the blonde regenerating in a swift cloud of thunderbolts just as alarm bells resounded and with it a wave of Bloody Sakura Danmaku spawned dead center of our little group in its way to scatter. Swallowing the frustration, my mind cleansed itself of useless thoughts as the non-Euclidean worldlines opened before me—

—Body grazed a Danmaku pellet, and from it shot a blade of cursed red. No reaction could be suitable for what little time I had, only this incredulity as the terrifying edge brushed against my neck and a thought echoed: “She’s about to steal my power…”

The power of walking free, be it from the chains of space and time.

As she’s done to everything mine, she’s going to steal it and use it against me.

“HANA!” A blow from a Gohei clad in flames pushed the blade away from me before it could sink, Mom’s entire being consumed by a rage much like what Yukari had displayed, her Gohei a frantic dance Yukari met with meticulous method, like she was readying something. Byakuren Hijiri was busy dodging the insane patterns of Bloody Sakura Danmaku; Okina Matara and sensei were too far away—ah, Kanako-sama is coming towards me with eyes of worry—, and Kasen-nee teleported to Mom, her arm pulling all the way back…

… Mom suddenly came to a dead stop, Gohei a few centimeters short of sinking into Yukari’s face. Dread boomed. Mom had blank eyes, and her body quivered. Tears couldn’t form.

She’s got only one more chakra core.

Yukari’s eyes snapped open. She expected that.

Like a fang, the blade pushed through faulty defenses with ease, no resistance came from Mom, but from Kasen-nee, whose speed allowed her to catch the blade by its crimson metal and Remilia’s wrath, her Spear the Gungnir thrusting at Yukari’s head, the vampire’s expression one of unrestrained rage and indignation at how the Yakumo woman had caught the blood surge of the spearhead with her naked hand.

Hope thrummed alongside that all-consuming dread, filling my body, clenching my throat shut and halting my breathing—

“… To help me protect my Sekai from mongrels like you who seem fit to hunt down unborn, innocent children,” Yukari pronounces each word with infernal venom. “I need allies.”

—A fine line of blood trickled down the red sword’s metal. The worldlines revealed the tip had only slightly dug into Mother’s open wound.

Dread exploded and took the form of one strangled word. “MOM!”

Remilia dodged the Gohei of flames but Kasen-nee hadn’t been lucky, the force throwing her body towards the tree and prompting her to sink deep into the bark, much to the vampire’s chagrin, her Spear the Gungnir warding off 5 of the remaining 15 paper-like mikos, no rage to their blows, only a command. Hakurei red flames had vanished, like a poison spreading through a bloodstream and degenerating the flames into this disgusting purple coloration. More had happened—must’ve happened—, Kanako-sama’s voice was so close; a broom boomed just ahead, Marisa-sensei’s facade a glare I’ve never seen, but I paid little attention to them.

My eyes were on my Mom, held at the tip of the blade like a stringless doll, her wings of Hakurei red fire dying out, her eyes empty.

—those eyes had so much love and brightness, laid upon me with Father by us—

Head moved just slightly, and my eyes met Yukari’s. She stared at me from above with absolute apathy; the hand until then holding Remilia’s spear now cradled her belly. Around her neck bloomed flames of purple, and two pairs of wings of that same fire unraveled with the likeness of a moth’s. They flapped, spanned gigantically, and rained unto Earth the remaining paper-like mikos, who flew at staggering speeds past me—four tackled Kanako-sama, two intercepted Marisa-sensei, the others…

… My eyes never once left Yukari’s. The world torn apart, distilled into immutable death and war.

We shared a silent promise.

She robbed me of innocence and of my relationship with my father.

She robbed me of a chance of making a future with Father in the village.

She robbed me of adolescent love.

She robbed me of what I lost the day I watched that kind old lady from the bathhouse burn to ashes.

She robbed me of everything.

… Yukari wants to rob me of my Mom.

I refuse.

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‘Twas a surprise, of course, to have a kindred spirit that moment the blood parted, and I found myself by once Patchy’s blonde headache. Unexpected, but welcome. “Relent from attacking the tree, witch. It must survive until the Yakumo woman is no more,” I commanded, the one-armed demon sizing me up, her mouth hanging, probably with similar words if they had found stopping in mine. Kirisame hissed in bafflement, her frame nigh Flandre’s height, cute if not marred in dried-up blood—the stench of O+… yuck—and bandages. The two other goddesses watched with divided attention between us and Yukari dissolving in a condensed beam of energy, even that one whose sins against my sister must dwell in the background until the bigger threat is taken care of.

“This related to Patchy, isn’t it-ze? She told fuck all about that book of hers…” She glares between me and the pink—sedated and leashed—menace. “… Is she safe right now? Is she in problems-da-ze?” The annoying voice tic aside, her genuine concern was endearing. Commendable that Patchy saw in her more than a thief.

I hummed, looking to the Master Spark hanging by the winds that purple-haired goddess commands—she’s listening to this conversation. An ‘after’ to this war shall come; better keep such unsettling cards close to the heart—, cooking God’s most severe blonde mistake alive. “Don’t fret; the tree is important to matters of heart, not of safety or health,” eyes move to Ibaraki, ‘thrall released of their chains,’ a state of mind regardless of where in this big, wide world. A conversation happens without words, and I smile in empathetic apology at her.

She seems exhausted. Determined, but tired.

The subject, silent or otherwise, came to a halt upon the death of the Master Spark and the advent of rage. Of course, a woman like the Yakumo would relinquish death in its every incarnation. A survivor unlike any other—a threat unlike any other.

To my mansion, to my friends and my family. To that newly assembled—ragtag and bobtail, most adorable—family, whatever shape it takes.

A disease that must be squashed.

Ibaraki dwelled not a second in inactivity and had already vanished, like a bloodhound. Yukari is unprotected, exhausted, and one second of not hanging on to that cursed sword away from having every drop of her blood withdrawn from her body. I joined in the execution, as did every able-bodied member of our little Death Squad.

The end is nigh.

—

The end hits me from absolutely nowhere, invisible blood morsels saturating the atmosphere the only factor saving me from getting fatally wrecked by whatever power the Yakumo woman had pillaged from Reimu. It wielded a weapon that felt on the skin like the singe of the Gohei, concealed ghosts from this realm, yet they interacted with its components.

Spear the Gungnir twirled and deflected the hits, guided by Fate and the movement of particles of blood, unfocused eyes unable to see through this mess catching only glimpses of the others’ situations, blood pools shooting haphazardly into the chaotic cloud of Danmaku. Hana and Yukari dominated the light show—the girl had broken the laws of the world and rushed Yukari from a moment bygone and space cracked, as if an egg, just as the disgraceful woman attempted to carve Reimu open like a pig, both locked in combat. I couldn’t help but feel proud of how mighty that girl had grown, carrying her very sobbing and trembling lineage on her back—, then Yasaka, who, guided by the winds, defended herself and Okina Matara and Byakuren Hijiri flying close by; and lastly Kirisame, whose eyes followed patterns too real to be faked, meaning she’s seeing the invisible assailants.

An explosion of bark meant Ibaraki rejoined the fight, met by Yukari applying immediate pressure, her ostentatious new wings hiding from view most of the fight that ensued besides the symphony of a war orchestrated by giants.

All beyond the reaches of Fate.

Decided to focus on gathering allies before Yukari’s little stunt picks us apart one by one, Fate guided me towards the Ordinary Magic that, for someone with a broken arm and riding a put-together flying device, was doing spectacularly by herself. She locked eyes with me and tailed the unseen monsters attacking me— “From above, angle of 45°-ze!” No hesitation; Gungnir thrust, and, from nowhere, purple flames flared and then vanished. “N-NO! DON’T KILL THEM!” The ordinary magician abruptly shrieks.

The whiplash is so great, Fate isn’t considered, and an attack lands at my remade arm, rupturing the soft tissue and sowing the Hakurei scourge. Retaliation comes, but no purple flames sprout, and with no more instructions, the witch flies away at greater speeds. I growl and match her sprint. Fate had realigned—the attackers bore no fate themselves. “Why did—”

“—R-Reimu needs those! You can’t see them, but they’re, like, Hakurei mikos-daze!” Tears prickle the corners of her eyes. “Reimu’s only gotten weaker the fewer mikos there are-ze! We mustn’t kill them!”

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I should have noticed it, but the thrill of the hunt had blinded me and Yukari reclaimed the upper hand.

Frustration threatened to form into tears—she always does that! You believe you have an advantage; everything appears straightforward… and then she destroys you from the shadows. That’s Yukari Yakumo—, but such tears didn’t surface, Mom’s weight on my back a reassurance of mind and a spring of rage. Sacred Gohei met her sword in frantic combat, wordlines tearing apart space and time to a degree that brought sharp pain to the back of my mind—I’m overdoing it; this power isn’t like Mom’s Float—; Danmaku flooded the skies and yet never came close to hitting her wings and long, moth-like scarf of purple flames, whose plumes trailed her with regal grace, her bloodied expression locked in that bored apathy she’d developed after we left the Underground.

Almost… like she’s trying to mitigate her feelings.

The answer popped, and only the instincts trained and mastered in this hell allowed me to dodge the cursed blade aiming to slice my neck open. Yukari forced herself closer, the expression punctuated by a smile. “How does it taste, childkiller?” She coos, Bloody Sakura Danmaku growing in quantity, a greater hurdle to dodge; Hakurei spheres delivered in kind, and Yukari dodged, searing purple eyes never leaving me. “Hopelessness? Or is it despair?” Flames fan and golden locks trace my vision, the red blade always a gesture away from delivering execution; I fought Douji and Yukari by that lake—her patterns of combat are comprehended, tactile and branded to my flesh. I can keep up with Yukari and her cursed blade; the worldlines—the weave of the past—protect me from sheer death in her hands…

But nothing would protect me from Mom’s Float.

Her hatred is genuine; her rage and the way she cradled her belly despite the mantle of purple flames bore not a single lie. She cannot Float until her mind is empty and her feelings at equilibrium.

There’s still time.

Ears thrum in discomfort when the barrier of sound shatters and a fist meets the red blade, the purple mantle flung away, yet no damage had been dealt; it hadn’t been the point, her only hand grasping around nothing and her teeth battering together. She had attempted to hold the sword. Kasen-nee looked wrecked: a mist of blood clung to her forehead, her eyes protruded, exposed skin was marked by jagged wounds and sunken bones, and reddened patches meant, inside, blood pooled—vicious attacks from the paper-like mikos whose pursuit hadn’t ended. “Y-Yukari wants Mom’s Float!” I scream at her as she storms Yukari with increasingly desperate thunderbolts, the screech of Danmaku soon drowning my words. Five expressionless mikos follow Kasen-nee into the fray, her roaring thunderstorms—Hieda’s thunderbolts were nothing compared to the booming stakes of death falling from the skies and coating Kasen-nee’s limbs—directed solely at Yukari as were punches and kicks, Yukari herself accompanying it and… struggling to do so. The extravagant overgarment of purple flames and flaunting moth-like wings was only for show, and it hid well the trickling blood, swollen bruises and annoyance of singed skin. That breach had gained her much but cost just as much.

As was her anger, the damage was real too.

Yukari can fall.

I prepared myself to join the war, heart exploding with the yearning of running blood and the reawakened guilt—a dead child to end Gensokyo’s greatest war—, but I halted. “You’ve lost her, Yukari! Sekai knows you will never turn away from the path you’ve chosen!” Kasen-nee shouts that meaningless name, and the emotions that blossom in Yukari’s expression stab apathy, destroy the boorish undertones and in their place develop a stream of red-hot rage.

To whom does that name belong…?

The question evaporated from my mind as I watched five ethereal Gohei pummel Kasen-nee with great force, nigh shooting the oni out of the sky, something Yukari wouldn’t allow as she gave pursuit like a wild animal, her attacks much more intimate; Kasen-nee dodged the onslaught of the red blade with strangled finesse, as close as the Yakumo herself to her limit.

Mom’s mikos equalized the playing field…

… Mikos I can control.

A bead of sweat rolled down my forehead, teeth clenching. I could attempt to retake control from Yukari, and she’d be left alone to fend off Kasen-nee and the others, but if I fail… Brain floods with memories of that pathetic display back on the Underground, body paralyzed and Mom shielding me from death with her body. If I fail, not only will Kasen-nee lose support, but Mom will too, and Yukari…

The worldlines bend and reveal the others fleeing the paper-like mikos rather than killing them, hope thrumming; had Marisa-sensei warned them?

If I succeed and Yukari can’t access Mom’s Float, we win.

“… Please, Mom…” I mutter to the wind, squeezing Mom’s only hand. “Give me strength.”

Eyes close, magic readies.

Below, at the roots of the tree, the mist burns jade.

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The first thing I realized about this mist is that it is Yukari's creation. Only someone as vile and as destructive as that woman could release into the world this… shapeless, brutal torture. The second thing never came because there was only time, the relentless thoughts, and the ever-droning mist beyond Mima’s tiny cage of wards, going back and forth like the waves of the ocean.

Hours have passed since Mima began the ritual to purify the Kirin.

Uncountable hours of pulling my arm and then propelling it forward, feeling my balled fist bash its rotten head in, grinding its bones to powder and letting its blood spray onto us, her hands joined in deep prayer. She had not made a peep, nor much movement, since we started this wicked routine, the Kirin’s immortal body regenerating with the same pace as hours ago, flaying phantasm arms vying to regrow and tear us to ribbons, only to be immobilized for these few, precious seconds I’d used to recuperate my breath and longingly stare downwards: the soil had softened with the little pond of blood, that layer of hard, black crust left by the explosion turned into clammy mud. A blood puddle about six centimeters deep had formed, as it couldn’t seep into the dirt quickly or easily enough and eclipsed much of my feet and ankles, Mima’s “legs” slithering across it and letting it ripple, the patterns hypnotizing—

—A scream made me shudder and body reacted, my fist crushing the Kirin’s head and letting clumps of malformed teeth fly about. I took a breath in, eyes burning yet not interested in rubbing them, hands caked in this unspeakable gelatinous mix of fluids, and clothes robbed of color and flannel pattern. Sometimes occurs to me that this is the defiled body of one of Anon’s children whom Seiga twisted and slotted a godly spirit into, but by the next second my hand is turning its head into mush and the thought goes away… The only child of Anon’s who matters to me is Hana, and her visage keeps me from both puking and outright passing out, images of that sweet dream with Anon coming right back to me. Big belly, big smiles.

Of course, a most sadistic creature found interest in this situation.

Every punch it found satisfying; joy in the bits and pieces that scattered and floated on the pool of blood, the white of bone or the rare pink of brain matter that I wasn’t fast enough to disallow reconstruction. I don’t look at her, but she whispers anyway—those first days with Anon, before things became clear and Yukari’s plan fell apart, and the disgust rooted inside. Despair of loneliness, how long had it been since I connected with another soul…?

I wouldn’t been able to tell.

Hours, days. This mist says nothing; it only drones. Time is meaningless inside of it.

Loud cracking reverberates; another layer of warm blood is added.

—Feeding the beast—

It screeches loudly; the sound buzzes in my ears like ants working and picking the eardrums apart, caressing them with their little yet many antennae. My hair is caked in blood, stiff and oily. A punch silences it. I don’t stop feeling dirty.

—Hana’s sweet smile, the trust in her eyes holding my hand—

Trigrams spin underneath the pool of blood, illuminating it like a skeleton under the squishy human body. They weren’t spinning until moments ago. The cracking of calcium hardening, then another punch and more blood. Yuuka Kazami, alone in a beautiful garden no one would see because, past the pretty flowers, a monster with sharp teeth and an affinity for blood hides.

The sunflower attached to my head hums.

—Anon smiled at me, welcoming me with tea and words, fear there but also a kindness that made me fight the monster for as long as I could. We built life, and we did it together—

I stop my fist a centimeter short from destroying the Kirin’s head.

Flesh renews and grows; little tentacles of sinew reach up and around and muscle is rebuilt, the corporal structure there. Corrupted magic overflows, and squirming parasites drown in the stale blood. Seiga had called this the true beauty of nature: the act of accepting an ugly truth and indulging in it without either care or consequence. Reimu developed into a monster, but the likes of me were born one. Rather than blood, tears feed into the red pool. “… I don’t want that.”

Arms fall, tiredness impossible to bear.

Alone for so long, hiding a monster whose indulgence was there from birth. If Mother Nature is the embrace of death and life without sensitivity for its nuances, then perhaps I was never meant to mingle with people like Anon and Hana. I was never meant to love them.

But I did, and I don’t think I regret it…

The beast screams for blood, the demons dance and Yuuka Kazami cries. So many endless hours inside this box, feeding the beast…

I do not want to linger within this beautiful garden meant for no one’s eyes any longer.

A howl reverberates, and, for a moment, I hoped to be consumed by the eternal cycle of Mother Nature…

… The sound is majestic and devoid of decay.

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Jade flames oscillated and inches of stale blood boiled, and before me a rotten corpse crumbled into itself like a cave-in. Seiga had corrupted and destroyed it, a Frankenstein fashioned out of unspoken sins and a soul that never was, a God grafted onto it shaping it into a monster—Mother Nature, as she’d called it—, but the beast had once shrieked and shuddered in agony and lashed out, the parasites left by the despicable woman churning inside out and pouring evergreen. Its body was that of an abomination; its soul… A last squelch of dark, oleaginous matter left it before being followed by a paw of sorts sprouting from it, covered in iridescent scales much like Koutei’s yet pea-sized. The jade flames howled alongside the Kirin, birthed anew from the carcass centimeter by centimeter—

—Oh. I almost folded inwards. The breath that left me made me queasy, brought my mind to a dazzled state and I… Why am I even crying? The war is happening beyond the vile mist Yukari brought unto the world; H-Hana and Anon might need my help! For hours and hours without stop, not only had I bashed the Kirin’s face in, but the sunflower kept jostling what little sunlight filtered through both the Moon and mist, accumulated and bathed in seething rage. Yukari shall face the full extent of that battery born from the dreams that kept me sane through this ordeal and the power of the motherfucking Sun.

I turn to Mima as the trigrams, blurry past the boiling blood, disappear, but no words come to me, only this… Silent shock. At one point, her “legs” had stiffened alongside the blood pool, and her stillness was but a figment of my overwhelmed mind. She wasn’t concentrating; she was… I reached to touch her face, and it broke into two pieces, like a bank of sand unmade, and half of it collapsed into the pool of blood below, as if eroded from a statue. She’s— “Not dead—the new goddess.” A booming voice brought my eyes back to the Kirin; the jade flames subsided and its broken, decayed body was long gone. In its place, a miniature version of Koutei with deer legs, tinted blue rather of green and sporting only one long horn on top of its small head. “It took tremendous tenacity to sever me off Kaku’s nascent soul, from both of you…” Its rumbling voice was charged with heartache. “Having to kill that unfortunate body so many times must have taken a great toll on you, Yuuka Kazami. I pray you find healing in the girl Seiga tried to emulate, and in the man whose child my carelessness robbed.”

Don’t blush in front of God, I tried to tell myself. It didn’t work, and I laughed, exasperated and beyond tired, eyes on the flickering wards protecting me from the outside and Yukari’s mist. I’ll have to burrow to survive.

Hana, Anon…

“… Mima is at her shrine, I suppose?” Heart gathers, mind focuses.

It hums, long whiskers shifting in the winds. “Yes,” then it smiles. “With Genji-dono. Glad to know that old guy’s still around after so long; I ought to have a talk with him.” I blink at the words, though the creature resumes, its smile replaced by a most fierce expression. “… I’m afraid this weakened form leaves much to be desired, most of my power eaten away by Seiga Kaku in the grafting process—however, powerless I am not, and neither are you.” With a swoop, it approaches, its elongated form rounding around my head. “A monster rules the land of Gensokyo, a prosperous land and a beautiful land, stricken by the disease of greed and the tar of lust. But people have risen against that monster, some with monsters of their own and others—” it watches Mima’s body, eaten away by the pool of blood. “—innocent… The war ahead may seem hopeless, but remember what made the monster relinquish hold of you.”

A kind man's smile, the trust of that girl.

Bathed head to toe in blood, their image was the only light in my mind.

“Let me… out of this cage; out of this mist,” I beg, looking at its serpentine eyes, dragon-like head and deer-like body, tears returning like an avalanche. “Let me go there and tear Yukari apart; let me be free to hug my Hana, kiss and propose to the man, Anon, whom I love… Let me help free the place I’ll raise my children.”

Again it smiles, and its words are most simple: “By all means.”

Gensokyo is alight in jade flames. Everything around, from the ground to the very skies, licking my skin, tender flames of utmost purity. It speaks of a gentle being, a herald to everything that is right in this world. The mist shrieks as it evaporates and, within the minute, the night sky bathes a cleansed land, its air pure and breathable… But the sights were of terror: a carcass of a True Dragon and its seven-branched sword, destruction unfathomable in all directions, and the greatest tree I have ever seen in my life reigning over all.

I stood up, watching blonde hair and purple sovereignty against a starry sky and the silver full moon, past waning jade. Others had fought the fight I was denied…

… No more, I say.

Tonight, Yuuka Kazami joins the hunt.

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I blinked, and ahead stood a stubborn human with a sword much more dignified than what Yukari holds right now, yet just as dangerous. Perhaps from blood loss or the Hakurei Scourge stringing veins and arteries shut and dampening magical powers, or maybe these invisible assailants Yukari stole from Reimu; whatever it is, it stirs a familiar sense of finality within… Watanabe no Tsuna’s stand started my life of apathy and distance—a shimmering sapling; it pierces the skies, greater than mountains—Sekai’s guidance ends it.

All I must do is destroy Yukari.

Wrathful eyes of purple are on me, besieged by streaks of the same coloration, and the red blade deflects off my horns before a body struggling to even match her speed retaliates with a kick envisioned for the hand—a desperate attack of no use—, Yukari spinning with her moth-like wings close and having such a kick bounce off the waterfalls of fire. Chains sang with the howl of the changing wind, and I teleported away, with no confirmation I had fled an attack, my body not stopping moving and flying around the girth of the tree. Yukari chased like a bloodhound, her rage undying in the way she brought her flaming wings close and soared forward like a Tengu, the cursed blade springing from the inferno and slicing at my reclaimed arm.

Fast, strong, determined. She’s just as wounded as I am…

… But she cradles her belly tight.

A win and a loss, the blood flowing thick and free, and hits of mine bouncing off her wings and the cursed metal; where are Hana and the others? Have they not realized I won’t be able to—

—No one wishes Yukari’s death more than Hana. If she could, she would’ve been here in a heartbeat. The only thing that stopped her was when Youkai Mountain collapsed and threatened to crush her poor father. Thoughts halt as the red blade pushes onwards, body dodging backwards and hitting Sekai’s grown tree hard. Yukari followed, stabbing at the place I was, unfurled wings shielding the movement of the currents with me so close.

Jade flames illuminated the world, ignored, for realization came; she’s cornered me.

Teeth gnashed, teleportation at my fingertips—the attack struck from above, smashing my head and sending me grinding against and flying off the shimmering bark, a pain only Shrine Maidens could dish out burning bones and flesh alike, stunning a mind already dulled by exhausting war and trauma. “I see what Sekai has done,” Yukari’s infernal voice comes, the woman’s wings spread to fill my entire vision. I punch with my only arm, and she slaps it away with the blade. “She filled your head with lies and made you weaker—no, no, stronger! That little trickster wouldn’t have her mother put down a clown; she’d rather have me fight the fight of my life! That’s how she is, that cheeky girl…” She laughs, catching my face with one hand and placing the tip of the Onikirimaru against my heart and deliberately applying pressure. My power is failing me; everything hurts so bad. We free-fall towards shining jade; Sekai’s tree blurs; the skies above are starry and not blood-red. “… I loathe breathing the same air as you, childkiller.”

Earth rumbles, and Yukari’s eyes snap away as the blade stabs, missing the heart by an inch. My head lolls back, and I gawk at the stalk of proportions akin to Sekai’s tree springing out of the ground with rage, blossoming to the brilliance of a golden sunflower’s head the size of a city—

It thrums with power.

—My only hand caught Yukari’s wrist before she flew off, and I held her down.

She gave me a scrutinizing look and immediately vanished in a cloud of thunderstorms. I felt rather silly for that, blood pooling inside my throat and flooding the respiratory system, my everything illuminated by the golden light of the sunflower, its massive head tracking after Yukari and, soon… Soon, it was daytime in Gensokyo. A beam of pure sunlight homed on Yukari the moment she returned to her original form, her wounds and accumulated damage overwhelming the power and allowing the laserbeam to consume her.

… Ah, I’m about to crash onto the ground.

“Kasen-nee!”

It would’ve been funny had it not been sad, caught in the arms of a 17-year-old, her feet skedaddling on the ground and lifting a small cloud of dust. Saving me when I couldn’t save her.

The weight of me and Reimu proved too much for Hana, red in the face and wide-eyed, illuminated like every other thing by the massive sunflower whose laser not only tracked Yukari but also followed her, its stem growing and wrapping around the tree. A sight of awe, marred by the realization Yukari had not been caught in the death ray, a plume of purple flames swimming along it and dodging its every correction to catch her. “I-I think that’s Yuuka-san…” She whispers, placing me on the ground and fixing her labored breathing. She holds to her mother so sweetly. “… You—”

“Don’t worry,” I say, forcing myself out of the ground. “I have a… promise with a special someone. I'm not dying today, Hana~!”

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That’s… g-good. It’s good.

I look around—Yuuka’s sunflower towers, its continuous stream of energy dissipating a few dozen meters off the great tree so it wouldn’t turn the rest of Gensokyo into embers; Kasen-nee’s chest bleeds, soaking her battered body in more and more blood; Mother sobs silently on my back—and I breathe in and out, gathering my bearings. Overwhelming doesn’t describe it, escalation after escalation, a-and— “HANA-CHAN!” —arms catch me before I can even react properly and press my face against a firm bust, cascades of green billowing and joined soon by dramatic sobbing. “Uwah, I m-missed you so much, my precious little star! You’re fine, you’re fine! I-It’s been days!” Sanae-san rubs her wet cheek on the top of my head, her trembling arms warranting a reaction. I hug her back, and she mellows. “That mist was so awful, I was so scared… ugh…”

What? Her words meant little, but I offered what meager balm I could: “I-I’m here, Sanae-san.” I say, and she whimpers before, against her will, breaking the hug and taking a step back. She… looked terrible. Her skin lacked color, and her limbs seemed stripped of health and weight, her uniform far too big on her, cheeks sunk and eyes wild and broad. Yet, when she wiped her tears away and turned to Kasen-nee, whose eyes were on someone else entirely, strength boomed like Yuuka’s screeching sunflower in the background, silencing the weakness of her frame.

“I’m glad, Hana-chan,” she nods, eyes on Suika-san, the small oni studying Kasen-nee. “Focus, you two—Yukari is up there with whom I’m guessing is Yuuka; what’s the situation, Hana-chan?” Yukari’s name rolls off her tongue with boundless rage, skinny arms shivering with the strength with which she holds her Gohei. “And Kasen-san…” Silent suspicion reigns there, same as pity. Douji still had control of their shared—?—body last time Sanae-san saw her; emerald eyes focused on her gushing wound. “… Can you fight?”

I swallow spit, such a small thing yet feeling like a block of ice clogging my throat. Déjà vu is the name of the feeling; preparations to take down and rescue Mom from the belly of the beast.

Suika-san sighs after their short stare-down, walking past Kasen-nee and tapping her on the shoulder before ripping a piece of her skirt and giving it to the pink oni. “No worries, Douji’s nowhere to be seen. Only good ol’ Kasen Ibaraki.” She’s looking at me now, as is Kasen-nee, who fashions that strip of fabric into knots, which sink into both holes Onikirimaru had left.

Gensokyo’s air felt clean in my lungs after the sulfurous experience of the Underground, the hand not clutching the Gohei squeezing Mom’s briefly. Sanae-san is watching; above, the cacophony could drown anything. It does not drown my voice. “Yukari wields a blade that’s rendered her, in the worst case, immortal. If it cuts you, it echoes your power. She’s gotten Kasen-nee’s power over Explainable Phenomena, which snubs damage from Danmaku and physical attacks at full concentration, and Mom—Mother’s Float and her new power.” Sanae-san’s eyes go wide, and Suika’s grin immediately dies. I rush before they could get a word out. “She cannot use Mother’s Float yet; she’s an emotional wreck. She can only use the Mother's new powers: 15 invisible Hakurei mikos Yukari can control at will, seemingly without the downside Mother experiences.” I fight the heartache of seeing Mom’s empty eyes and her unstoppable sobbing.

So much pain…

I’ll stop soon, Mom. Your daughter will make sure of that.

Vanishing golden light above comes with the slumping of the sunflower, its massive head slouching after releasing all the power accumulated. The gigantic tree creaked with the effects of gravity upon it, a ruinous omen filling the atmosphere—Kasen-nee paled. “The mikos cannot be targeted; Mother needs them to survive, but I will not tolerate Yukari keeping them. I can wrestle control away from her if given space and time to meditate properly. I can recover Mother’s strength and leave Yukari vulnerable!”

“—And then, we will attack.” Remilia’s voice only strengthens the feeling of déjà vu, the vampire climbing from a blood pool that opens on the ground. She bears no smile this time, neither does Marisa-sensei nor Kanako-sama, who drops from the skies, the latter holding me by the shoulders and checking my face before sighing in relief and sharing a look with Sanae. Okina and Byakuren Hijiri came then. By the branches of the creaking tree, burning purple evades the attacks of the tree itself, a smudge of green soothing my heart. “Yukari’s recalled these ‘Hakurei mikos’ to aid in her quarrel with the Flower Master… If they all betray her in such circumstances, our attack would be devastating, and this time she’d end with neither sword nor backup plan.”

“If we attack without Hana-chan, Yukari would immediately figure out the plan.” Kasen-nee elaborates.

“… Then,” this voice comes from behind. “All we gotta do is protect my daughter until she fixes my fuckup.”

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Hana had squeezed my hand, and the world made sense again. The faint tolling of bells ceased for a short while—the walls are closing in—, the pit of death closed its grinning mouth, and the heavens gave me the opportunity to hear my daughter's voice as it firmly directed and straightened some of Gensokyo's strongest, forming a plan to put an end to this motherfucking war. An adult she’s become.

Hana can cry like a baby, and she has attacks of anxiety; she’s traumatized by a mass of horrors I have a part in… But when the situation calls, she’s stronger than I could've ever been.

“Mom…?” She calls as I leave her gentle back—I should feel at peace that, if the day she’s gotta carry me up the mountain and leave me to the spirits ever comes, she won’t have any problems with that—and stand on my own two feet, nearly tripping over. Her hands steadied this broken body of mine, her eyes shining like diamonds and mouth slightly agape. She knows I’m down to my last chakra core, about 4 minutes before my last death arrives… Crimson flames spew from my back; two shaky wings spread wide and flex to prepare for my last flight.

Eyes lock on purple flames and a blur of green far away in the distance.

I know what I must do, and for that…

“… I’ll need my Gohei, Hana,” I say to her sudden tenseness. Her eyes whip around, oozing uncertainty. Marisa’s eyes sear me like steaks, a bred protectiveness that made me smile; Remilia has a scrupulous gaze—one she’s trademarked—but good resides in there. Sanae and Kanako latch to Hana’s side like glue, and it gladdens me Hana won’t have to spend one more second of her life alone. Kasen stares at me, and I know it is Kasen. The Kasen that would be there for me, dishing out sermons and trying to beat the laziness outta me with big and hard words.

I look at Hana before me, and so many people are behind her.

She’s not alone anymore.

She’ll never be.

—I wanna be here for my daughter—

Sacred wood is delivered unto my hand by my daughter’s, my Gohei until then stashed away in her right sleeve, and I balled it into a fist, the shide swaying freely. Power that’s guided me every day of my life; power that grew uncontrollably, rotted away, spoiled my family, and then didn’t exist when I needed it most. “… Okina, Sanae, and Suika—protect Hana,” agreement is unanimous. They’re the most capable of fending off an attack and buying time; Yukari won’t be sealed, either. The rest didn’t need words.

Marisa bumps her healthy shoulder with mine. “Don’t forget your promise-ze,” she hisses, eyes worried and stern.

—I want to live—

“… I haven’t forgotten.” I look at Hana, heart thumping like it had when she promised her father the impossible. Eyes shift to Yukari fighting on the branches, and a prayer is whispered to the restless tolling of bells—one I probably shouldn’t latch onto, but that I do anyway.

She’s shown me impossible doesn’t fit her…

—I want to live—

Maybe. Just maybe.

—I want to live—

Knees buckled and, for the last time, I flew up, eyes of rage set on Yukari Yakumo.

—

Rage. Impossible to contain rage, bubbling to the surface and melding together with one million other sources. Anon’s eyes as he allowed the murder of his wife and unborn child; the cockroaches at arms against me; their continual survival, always a hand from the shadows to catch the blade before it does its wicked job—a flare of rage, and I shook my head to drive away the imagery of a disgusting man and woman carrying two homunculi—, their defilement of my daughter’s tree and their willingness to murder a child. Everything they did stirred inside of me a fresh, impossible-to-ignore channel of rage, and fingertips would brush the podium of victory…

Death would’ve come from this rage, one way or another; if I hadn’t had my brave Sekai inside me, my accumulated mistakes would have been my end. I close my eyes and dodge the repurposed branches, wings batting them away and reducing them to cinders, sword coming inches from cutting Yuuka Kazami’s head off—should’ve done that way back when I, Kasen and Okina were to make this land ours. Striking a deal with the monster felt much more compelling—, the bloodsoaked Avatar of Nature dodging the blade and never once tearing those wide eyes away from me, the branches labyrinthian in nature and disallowing Reimu’s invisible mikos to have easy access to our battle—she isn’t killing them… she was informed by Yasaka, I have to assume—, but it was clear the path to me had been trudged, not walked.

“Your little light show bore no results but a pathetic display, Yuuka,” I say, blade slashing and stabbing, every movement a killing blow, every attack deflected and matched by Danmaku and my daughter’s tree turning against its grandmother. Rage. “Did you come here to pledge to me your powers? All I need would be a small cut—” Kazami is slowing down, her wrath not the almighty fuel she thinks it is. “—a small cut, and the world will breathe easy, lighter one childkiller~”

Rage quells.

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Rage promptly surges as the fires of my wings crack open and through them comes a torpedo shielded by Hakurei flames, Reimu’s red eyes a fire hotter than any other. This is wrong! Whatever makes her go limp had lasted much longer in the Underground after her worthless effort; were the secrets revealed a part of this? No, it cannot be; this is—

—Gohei bites into the blade with overwhelming force and branches spiral towards me, wrapping what they could reach in bondage and trying to keep me; they’re reduced to ashes by fire and exploding thunderstorms, and the Gohei, renewed of power, lashes against me. A powerful fist cracked the sound barrier where I stood until a moment ago before two more arrived, these followed by a loud “KAI!”, butterfly of flames and pink demon chasing after me like sharks smelling blood in the water. Blood spears sprouted all around as did vines and branches stolen from my daughter’s tree, winds and maelstrom shaking the overburdened tree to its basis and lashing against me, trying to rip oxygen out of my lungs. I ran and dodged, slashing the cursed sword against the ever-present Gohei and Kasen’s punches and kicks, the loose pink thunderbolts exploding through the tree’s branches with wild abandon, my wings and scarf of purple combating their every move with my all, an onslaught of ridiculous proportion.

Everything they could spare they tossed at me, one desperate last attack…

… And it was working, blood boiling, small attacks cutting through defenses, fire on my back waning, Reimu’s Hakurei red flames eclipsing them as we mingled, and cursed metal met sacred wood, returning the bite and having pain seep through Manipulation of Explainable Phenomena.

I need to stop them, fast.

Without a care, commands are issued to the invisible mikos, and they stop caring about themselves and dash through glowing thickets and sharp branches, a few of them vanishing in bursts of purple flames along the way—sacrifices I’m more than willing to make: I’ll need their power to keep the many approaching at bay, with Remilia and Hijiri already having to go into defensive. Fodder, no matter. I cannot afford to have Reimu, Kasen and…

… Where’s the Hakurei daughter?

A moment of thought.

Realization.

Eyes flew to the ground, the Hakurei girl with her hands clasped and her Gohei stabbed into the ashen ground, the air surrounding her alight with spinning Hakurei spheres…

… An explainable tug within. She’s trying to pull the mikos away from my control.

Rage—and dread.

No other thought filled my head other than those that propelled me like a missile towards the Hakurei daughter, sword ready and rage and terror flaring high and almighty, wings folded inwards protecting me—

—A fist blew past the flames and Kasen pulled me, pushing my body against the bark of the tree. The cursed sword sliced at that arm before a punch could hit me, strangling vines sprouting from the wood and wrapping around my arm and trying to pull me in, as if to suffocate me; blood spears sprout by hundreds. Invisible mikos rushed Remilia and Kasen, most of the damage mitigated by Manipulation of Explainable Phenomena, wave after wave of Bloody Sakura Danmaku shooting in all directions with not a droplet of sense or pattern; a hand pierced through the Danmaku holding a put-together Mini Hakkero, and the point-blank Master Spark boomed forward like a hungry beast, the ordinary magician having dodged every pellet that came her way with sheer concentration.

Rage, unfathomable rage. The tug in my mind grew.

Stop this…

Cursed blade tried to slice the magician into two, and the Gohei and Hakurei red flames that got in the way could’ve started an inferno with the condensed killing intent in those eyes, Yuuka’s vines burning as we descended the bark at blurring speeds trading killing blows, dancing wings of purple and red fighting a war of themselves. Reimu’s Gohei scraped my left arm and drew blood; red blade stabbed, and her wounded side resumed its bleeding. Another entered the fray, horns, cursed metal, sacred wood, punches, and kicks melding in a three-way chorus of violence into a visage of sheer carnage as we came to the ground, this wounded and carved body exploding in a cloud of thunderstorms towards the Hakurei girl—

—Cages of multicolored stars hindered my limbs, and I had to pull them free, the green miko’s iridescent eyes and Gohei joined the hunt and specialized cages of sealing backed by lore popped up by the hundreds yet none with great enough force to stop me.

The girl is right there; one slash and her little neck is no more!

Heart tugs; mind tugs.

… S-Stop, my Sekai must be born, I…!

Gigantic fists tried to punch me into the ground, waves of dust and debris rising tall with each of them, punches by the Buddhist nun bursting sheer bedrock, a mad pursuit of some of Gensokyo’s strongest throwing all they had at me.

I close in.

Hana opens her eyes.

I stab.

She doesn’t even budge as the attack comes.

… Dazing fear.

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Hollow fear.

The cursed blade, an inch away from my neck. I would have lost my mother if my focus on the connection the Hakurei God had drawn had faltered. Sweat poured, and incredulity made Yukari’s wide and terrified eyes before me almost something out of a dream or mirage, the blow about to connect.

I refuse to lose my mom.

Star seals oozing magic from the Moriya Shrine sprouted and bound Yukari down, the lore of the Moriya Shrine all the way to the Great Suwa War rushing past before my eyes and chaining Yukari, as did the vines that’d burst from the ashen ground and malformed chains of blood, Mini-Suikas forming from nothingness holding Yukari from advancing that last inch. Everything worked together, and for one long second, the once Gap Sage was immobilized.

Six invisible Gohei and two real ones bashed against her Youkai flesh, Mom’s mikos out of Yukari's destructive control. Yukari attempted to flee, her entire form drenched in red and her bulging eyes unable to focus on anything—one hand glued to her belly—, Mini-Suikas punching her with the strength of a complete oni, tossing Yukari around like a stringless doll; Hijiri joined then, two fists sending her to the ground and making entire sheets of condensed soil pop out of the ground as if rice sprinkled on top of a drum, her hands digging the sage out and throwing her up with a roar. Marisa-sensei swooped in, smacking the Mini-Hakkero into Yukari’s face, billowing Master Spark at point-blank, a show of magnificent rainbow lights.

Yukari did not even have the strength to swing her red blade.

A tear fled me, mouth hanging agape.

It’s…

… It’s happening.

Kanako’s winds rushed Yukari up, a thousand cuts by razor-sharp blades of wind tearing the woman apart, her Youkai body and Manipulation of Explainable Phenomena barely keeping her together through the maelstrom of pain—someone had stepped to my side, watching—, Yuuka-san’s sunflower revived and left its perch on the great tree and, with the Master Spark still shooting from below, it shot from above, locking Yukari in the middle of two massive lasers.

Okina sighed, looking around. She giggled from whatever motive, and I swayed my eyes away from the blinding lights for a moment, watching as she fetched… this weird, white chair from underneath layers of soot and ash, setting it straight and just falling onto it.

She seemed at peace, despite the tainted energy of her faith.

Eyes returned to Yukari just as the lasers died down, every hair throughout my body standing upright—last time, she used this moment to turn the tables, and she would have won.

If I had faltered for a second, she would have won.

Kasen-nee tackles her, both horns shredding through her upper torso in an explosion of blood—it didn’t hit her child… Her child, my step-sibling who we’re about to kill—, her only hand then caught Yukari’s arm with the sword and, without a second of hesitation, pulled.

Both came out.

A scream unlike any other reverberated and, with the last of her strength, Yukari flew up and past the clouds. The worldlines—weakened, faltering. At my limit—revealed her face, marred by thick tears, only arm never letting go of the stranglehold it had over her belly. Six paper-like mikos didn’t care and pummeled her up and up, and at such altitude the setting sun shone again, bathing her in a saturated gold hue just as Mom broke through the clouds, an angel of death bearing tall and flowing Hakurei red wings.

Her Gohei lifted in the silence, and it came down like a judge’s gavel, crushing Yukari’s head.

Every ounce of altitude she’d gained evaporated, and within a second her body had crash-landed into the soil just ahead, lifting a grayish cloud of smoke. Mom remained in the golden clouds, her Gohei no more, for it had shattered upon impact.

Her breathing sounded at ease.

… But I couldn’t care, tears running, body trembling.

People surrounded me, Yuuka-san the first to close the gap with shaky steps and clutch me in a hug of necessity, the traumatized woman soaked head to toe in blood—what had happened to her?—, and others kept watch over the dust. Marisa-sensei flew towards Mom; other people approached, likely drawn by the battle… I remember that couple, and Hijiri had set off towards them, her face bright and tears of her own pouring out.

Kanako-sama helped Yuuka off me as the woman fell asleep, a type of sleep that creeps in and consumes without you even noticing. Kasen-nee stood by me. She carried the cursed blade.

We watched the dust…

… And it didn’t take long for it to waft and reveal what we knew would happen.

Yukari stood, her breathing ragged, her body beyond destroyed—her belly was unscathed—, and she watched us with delusional wrath within her one eye, for Mom had obliterated the right side of her head. “… I’ll do this,” I say to Kasen-nee. To the others.

To myself.

I clutch my Gohei and dash at her.

A child’s—sibling’s—life for peace.

Sakura petals sway; my Gohei freezes. “… Please, don't…”

Happy birthday HSE.

>>50074192
>Small mercies~
Rez Ran pls

>>50083287
Course, Yuyuko is a manipulative bitch.

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21 chapters, 18k words, damn. I can't even tag all chapters here because it probably will think I'm mass replying lmao~a special day warranted a special something! Happy two years, HSE~!
more in a fucking while, I gotta sleep

>>50083396
Good job, the nightmare is almost over(?)
I will not rule out anything until it's all over. Not even Konngara EX.

>>50083391
What's manipulative about that? She's just seizing an opportunity.

>>50084656
...

>>50084656
Yuyuko is mentioning only the effects of Yukari's actions (making enemies) and not a peep about the causes (the rapes, and tactical mistakes). She is taking advantage of Youmu's simple mind to make Yukari seem redeemable.
Hags gonna hags.

>>50085132
>>50087157
It's just innocent omission, not outright manipulation. You'd do the same for your retarded evil waifu.

>>50088077
Innocent huh?...
Found the Yukarifag.