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RESUME!
>Hana kills Yukari after she and Yuyuko tricked her, with the latter manipulating Yukari so she'd ultimately die and the former beheading her. Sekai's cut tree is eaten by a Backdoor Okina managed to open after connecting with onikirimaru, which cost her her life. In the aftermath of Yukari's death, Yuyuko cried a little before gathering the corpse and leaving with Youmu and Reimu spent her final moments with Hana, saying how proud she is of her and that she believes Hana got what's needed to protect Gensokyo. Hana tries to keep her alive by taking the burden of her powers, but the prospect of dying the many deaths Reimu experienced spooks her and Reimu stops her. Reimu's life ebbs away a second too late, as Anon and Chen come by in the next. Hana breaks and cries herself into unconsciousness after having a tender moment with her father, where she accepts a world without her mother. Chen is briefly paralyzed;
>Anon, who's with Kanako and holding passed-out Hana and Aunns, is confronted by Keine, who came around with Miko to check on Gensokyo and turned the no-man's land into a floral garden to ease minds. She and Anon convince Kanako to leave with Hana and Aunns and, alone, they talk about the upcoming baby problems Gensokyo has in its future. Keine reveals to Anon that he's fathered around 1.5k, many of whom lost their lives in the Tribunal and Solstice, and that so many Hakurei children could cause terrible warfare in the future. She proposes Gensokyo-wide brainwashing of the weak with her new powers so the people believe Anon is the sole survivor from a slew of men Yukari had enslaved. She also seeks his agreement to scramble the history of most babies' genetic code so the gene pool isn't ruined forever by incest. Anon accepts, with the exception that Aya and Marisa's children remain his. At the end of the conversation, Keine's guard slips up and Anon breaksthrough the mindfuckery she put him under and asks her why she's hoarding so much power in that maneuver. Unprepared, Keine can only give a half-assed answer about protecting Gensokyo against invisible foes that Anon doesn't believe, but he still gives in to her after reviewing his choices. Anon is then transported to the Moriya Shrine, leaving Keine alone with Miko, who was until then invisible to Anon. She calls her a hypocrite for choosing the path of greatest strife while saying she wants to protect Gensokyo, but Keine doesn't budge;
>Kasen goes to retrieve the Onikirimaru and finds it pierced into Koutei's sword with a skeletal hand clutching to it. Suika, who carried Okina to the dragon's place of rest, conducts a quick ritual to honor their souls, which Kasen partakes in. As she leaves, Kasen offers to help with Underground matters, though that only pisses off Suika, who condones it as too late, though she doesn't deny it. Suika leaves, and when Kasen takes the sword, it is revealed Okina remains in it. She cannot interact with the world and only exists because the sword, made initially of souls and broken by Yukari, needed a powerful soul to reforge itself, so it used Okina's to channel Koutei's draconic powers, ending with a miniature seven branched sword. They talk a little, discovering the sword had lost its echoing properties but has access to the Backdoor in its entirety. That raises the problem that, without Ran and Yukari, no one remains to maintain the Hakurei Barrier, and Kasen's grasp of the gap is too little to sustain its immensity. She's forced into enlisting either Chen or Sekai into the role of Gap Sage;
>Chen is taken away from the spot of Reimu's death by Yamame, her mind reeling from what she saw. It leads her to think of how Yukari's shadow finds solace in her misery and that earlier, when she connected with Anon's heart, it bore the same reason Yukari had to imprison him, that being using him to feel something that isn't emptiness. Chen fears if she keeps that up, the shadow will grow far too powerful, and decides to not live with Anon. Yamame offers her to live with the Kurodani. Chen is swiftly adopted;
>Remilia transported everyone safely from under the tree to the patio of the SDM, before they were squashed by the stump of the tree. Patchouli and Meiling join Sekai on the shore of the Misty Lake, where they have an adorable family moment and Sekai draws an aurora borealis across the skies;
/// Time-skip, 2 months ///
>A winter unlike any other assaults Gensokyo, and Chen decides to visit three graves. She walks a changing Human Village, that has been renamed to Akyuu's Village with an expression she describes as "gray, dull, and static." She spots a traditional wedding dress and Yukari's shadow actually manifests to yearn about marriage, haunting the bakeneko. Chen ignores her, citing she's not real, and goes to pick up three bouquets at Medicine's shop. The first goes to Reimu, where she talks with Hana about how Anon has been avoiding the shrine and didn't attend Reimu's funeral. Hana controls her rage well.

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>After visiting Reimu and leaving her a bouquet of red and white roses, Chen leaves for a part of Gensokyo the winter hadn't assaulted, that being Yuuka's sunflower fields and the general area. It's also where Anon lives. She hugs Anon as they meet, who had offerings prepared, and they grimace about how the winter seems to be breaking through Yuuka's magic and that the spiders that made a home in the general area, brought here from the HSE, would need to be moved. They leave to visit Ran's grave. On the way, Chen talks about Hana and the grievance she must feel. Disappointed Chen brought up that topic, Anon says he won't come to the shrine any time soon. Ran's grave is peppered with idols and images of fox gods and spirits. They honor her memory, though Anon is saddened by Chen's approach to grieving. Chen laments that she is now burdened with gradually being replaced by Yukari's shadow and talks about how many of the bad things that occurred wouldn't have occurred if Ran had just taken the gap from her instead of giving her life. Anon rages and tries to stop that line of thinking, but Chen scares him off with the Gap and leaves the area. She left Ran a bouquet of chrysanthemums, white and yellow;
>Horrified at herself for using such a low tactic against Anon, Chen finds herself in a corner of Gensokyo completely overwhelmed by the winter. She approaches the third and last grave, Yukari's, which Chen had raised next to their home by the Great Hakurei Barrier. The house is overrun with snow and damaged beyond repair. Chen is confronted by the manifested shadow, who suggests Chen should kill herself by eating her last bouquet, aconitum, a deep purple flower whose poison slowly kills the heart. Chen recalls a conversation she had with Sekai the day she did Yukari's funeral and how, without her gap, Yukari had no one to trust in the end but herself. They could try curing their respective troubles with the gap, but that'd risk overreliance. After remembering that, Chen muses on how risking that could put Ran's sacrifice at risk. She wards off the shadow. Kasen comes then, and they talk about how they're feeling. Chen, overwhelmed, spills the beans about her true feelings, and Kasen bonds with her on their shared struggle against inner demons. Kasen then offers to teach Chen how to cope and asks her to maintain the Barrier since it's becoming impossible for her to hold it together, with the "glitched winter" being proof of that. Chen accepts immediately, much to Kasen's surprise, citing how Kasen wants to keep tabs on the development of the shadow and to be able to kill Chen if the shadow takes over. In reality, Chen guessed Kasen is asking that of her instead of Sekai because she fears the strain would be too great on the newborn goddess, and she's more comfortable with Chen breaking. Chen leaves the area, and Kasen talks briefly with Okina, who longs to be freed from the weapon, and she resents she holds the same power Yukari and Douji once had over her;
>Back at the village and exhausted, Chen wonders about the concept of home and how she's lost all but the home Yamame became to her, despite the little return she gave back. She walks back home and finds Yamame waiting for her on the doorstep, who sees Chen's exhausted self and seizes the opportunity, allowing her to listen to her heart, something she deduced calmed Chen after she did it to Anon. It works, and Yamame takes her around the village so Chen has the time to build up courage and talk about what ails her. Inside, Chen telling Yamame anything would have her pursuing a cure for her hollow heart, something she's rationalized would feed the shadow and cause it to grow stronger and unpredictable, and she doesn't want to lose the little left she has to her name. After Yamame opens up about her experience in the Tribunal, Chen breaks and tells her everything, leading to the exact outcome she was expecting. Spooked, Chen uses the Gap to manipulate Yamame's memories. Chen cries inconsolably and, unaware of the bakeneko's new burden, Yamame hugs her;
>The renovations at the SDM are well under way, but Patchouli isn't feeling so good. The extensive length of Sekai's ritual permanently drained Patchouli's magic reserves and crippled Meiling, though to a lesser extent. Before the two-month mark, Patchy had the library revamped, managed to teach Sekai a few things about living and watched as she became friends with the Kurodani children, the family squatting in Remilia's basement before they settled in the village. She had encounters with some choice characters. With Hana, she approached Patchouli, seeking to be elucidated on her father's suffering, but she got that and more on why she shouldn't pursue being like Reimu, something that seemed clear to the magician. Hana gave inconclusive answers and, months later, kept to the shrine to maintain her mother's legacy. Hana then went on to have a battle with Remilia, who was craving more since the end of the Solstice;

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>Patchouli then met with Marisa, who vented her frustrations about the end of the war and the damages it caused. She says she's feeling better, considering her immediate state after Reimu's death, and that she and Hana have mended their bond. Marisa's much more concerned with the death of Alice and the massacre of Makai at Douji's hand and that, if she doesn't do something, they won't ever be remembered. Allegedly, she later approached Keine, who allowed the carving of a memorial mural on the side of Yggdrasil's stump. By then, Marisa had already resumed her pregnancy. Next was Koakuma, who seemed stirred that she was knocked out by Sanae right at the start of the Solstice and couldn't do much afterward. Patchouli soothes her and forces the succubus to go rest her wounds instead of overworking in the new library. Patchouli then goes to meet with Meiling but finds Anon along the way, and they talk briefly about himself and Hana. He wants to help Hana and be there for her, but Hana doesn't seem keen on waiting or slowing down for her father. She's overworking herself and doesn't stop. His refusal to honor Reimu's memory has driven a permanent wedge in their relationship. Patchouli can't do anything about that, and Anon leaves to find her. Outside, Patchouli finds Sekai with Meiling, and they have a cute family moment. Sekai does not want to approach Anon because of what she represents and her feeling of guilt at not being capable of keeping Renko, her sister, alive, but the duo comforts her and then convinces her to go meet with her father so they can bond. It works flawlessly. Patchouli rests by Meiling, and they talk about their personal maladies. Ultimately, they decide to take that trip to China to heal. Remilia accepts that trip with grace and, a few days later, they're dishing out farewells. Sekai won't be coming since her powers are blossoming slowly, and she needs to consolidate before she fucks around, but she says she'll pop up occasionally, and Remi seems proud of Patchouli and Meiling. Lastly, Patchouli meets with Kasen, who's leading them to the mountains of China through a backdoor. She notices Kasen seems like a husk of her former self and offers some words about how Kasen should help Hana and thus help herself. If the words got her somewhere, it's impossible to tell, as Kasen had to throw herself into work to stop the Great Hakurei Barrier from crumbling in on itself. After reaching China safely, Patchouli and Meiling kiss late at night.

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[Chapter Count]
(1961 entries)(+67 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']:
>>/jp/thread/50274389 | 38th thread

>>50505039
>>50505042
>>50505050
This tale was never meant to have a happy end. Yet part of me misses the days of mindless sexual flinging, sillier stakes & the random insertion of IHOP into Gensokyo.
I may need to double check but I don't think there's a single character who came out the other end not miserable in some form

>>50506056
It's better this way, that era is called the dark age of the HSE for a reason.

>>50506056
>Hana has matured and moved past the worst Reimu and Yukari did to her
>Anon is free to live and heal
>Reimu died the best death possible
>Chen she's a goner...
>Kasen isn't suicidal anymore
>Remilia got a cute niece
>Sekai has her father in gap distance
>Patchy & Meiling are doing fine in China
>Yuuka has her man
>Aya got her children safe 'n sound
>Keine and her cronies are doing fine
As much misery as there is now, there's also glimmers of hope everywhere. That's what keeps people going.

>>50506056
kek, just remembered the Obi-Wan fiasco. Still baffles me we stepped in the same rake twice in a row.

>>50506516
On the other hand:
>Hana is attempting to speedrun killing herself by working herself to death
>Anon's mental scars are so bad that he might've demolished his relationship with Hana
>Reimu's death might've meant nothing if aforementioned Hana speedrun is successful
>Chen lol, lmao
>Kasen's not exactly suicidal but is basically only functional as far as fixing the barrier goes, would probably kill herself if someone she thought was capable of bearing the strain could take over (I.E not Chen or Sekai at the moment)
>Remilia actually I've got nothing for this one, she made out like a bandit
>Sekai couldn't save Yukari's baby and has to live with that failure
>Patchouli and Meiling are both alive, but may or may not be permanently damaged by the solstice
>Yuuka won, bigly
>Aya lost her wings
>Keine is becoming a nazi
>Kurodani family's tunnels were all destroyed
it's not all winning around here