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RESUME of the HSE!
Act 1
>Yukari locked up Anon in a rape dungeon, and people began gathering to help him out. Alliances were born, a lot of sex was had, and there was a period of cold war where Yukari and Kasen made a suicide pact over an evil ass rape sword lake, which they promised they'd fight over when it was ready, and that until then there wouldn't be open aggression. The cold war ended with Hana's birthday party, when Yukari tried to lay claim to Hana but was pushed back by Reimu, who had been set on a path of redemption by Chen and her friends. Yukari got the news that she was pregnant the day after, and it cascaded into Sekai being born into the narrative;
Act 2
>While everyone was bristling with the coming winter solstice showdown, Keine went into a side quest that got her two children, revolutionary dreams, yuri, and a confrontation for the village where she died. Hana was there and did her best, being healed from her racism, mostly, in the chaos. Keine unlocked her Jesus powers and banished Akyuu's schizoid father to hell after he made one too many Elden Ring references. Hana came out of Yukari's control after an episode with Kasen. Meanwhile, in the twilight version of the HSE, the souls of Meiling and Patchouli had been trapped by Sekai, who used them to stop herself from being born in Yukari's image, wishing to be born like a real girl. They got attached to Sekai and after a play-war they created Sekai's mind and were sent back to their bodies. Patchouli focused on creating Sekai's body next, and she managed it in a ritual that fucked up the mansion. The last piece was Sekai's soul, and it'd be crafted during the winter solstice;
Act 3
>The war began, and it lasted one hour. Reimu lost her arm, invoked her Jesus powers, Hana fully forgave Reimu, and grew as a warrior after facing off against Remilia. Inside the HSE, Ran betrayed Yukari, and a team fought off Yukari and successfully got Anon out of the evil rape dungeon, exploding it in the process. Reimu and Hana fought and killed Koutei, which sent Kasen spiraling and awakened Douji, who committed genocide before she and Yukari went to the underground to fight over the evil ass rape sword. Douji won, but Kasen retook control, and Yukari used the opportunity to take the sword. Drunk on power and jealous about the love Anon showed others, she stabbed Chen, but the bakeneko managed to steal away Yukari's gap powers with a seal. Without the gap, Ran was to die, but instead of taking the gap from Chen and saving herself, she saved Chen at the cost of her own life. Anon seethed at that and developed a demon in his arms, which Reimu and Hana sealed together, and the Hakurei family had its first respite together in years. It lasted little. Without the gap, Yukari was ultimately subdued, and after Yuyuko intruded, begging for Yukari's life, she had one last hurrah where she tried to use the rape ass sword's power stealing properties to kill Yuyuko, get her powers, and kill everyone else. It failed, and Hana killed Yukari. Reimu died shortly after since the Hakurei God had omitted from her that, once activated, her blessings would not stop until she died. Kasen recovered the rape ass evil sword, which was now twice as evil because it withheld Okina's spirit after she sacrificed herself to stop a big tree from crushing Gensokyo flat. Patchouli and Meiling used the chaos to birth Sekai in full, though the ritual was messed up by Sekai's tree being cut down early. Keine talked to Anon afterwards, and they allied. Anon supported her cause, and Keine later fixed the rapebaby situation and fixed post-war Gensokyo. Chen lost her emotions because Ran did not properly fix the evil ass rape Yukari shadow that the gap came with, and that began to mindbreak Chen. Chen was adopted by Yamame;
Epilogue
>Chen paid her respects at Reimu's grave and was shown to be on good terms with Hana. Next, she paid her respects at Ran's grave with Anon, whom she distanced herself from, fearing the Shadow's actions towards him. Next, she paid her respects at Yukari's grave, where Kasen came and asked her to become the Gap Sage since she wasn't cutting it. Chen accepted despite knowing it'd make her life worse. During a confrontation with Yamame, she let it slip, and after being spooked by Yamame's drive to help her, thinking that what happened to Yukari would happen to her, she erased Yamame's memories and compartmentalized her trauma;
>Hana took over the shrine and began working under Keine as a retainer. When she got the invite to Keine's marriage, she was tasked with taking one invite to her father, whom she'd grown estranged from after he didn't forgive Reimu as she did. Hana didn't cope well. There, she had an episode, and the next day they saw their differences and traumas through but didn't make up for them, deeming themselves incompatible. They chose rather to go their separate ways and let time heal their wounds, but vowed to meet again at Reimu's gravestone someday;

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>Patchouli felt weakened after the grueling ritual to create Sekai and decided to retire for a vacation with Meiling, with whom she began a relationship there. Before that, she made a point of helping some people who were in need of guidance, including Hana, Marisa, Anon, Yamame, Sekai, and Kasen, to various degrees of success. Sekai in particular wasn't coping well with the deaths of Yukari and Renko, Yukari's true daughter, and for the first time Patchouli took on a deeply emotional role toward her daughter instead of letting Meiling handle it;
>Sekai had a fun day during the celebration of Keine's marriage and the end of the harsh winter that had harassed Gensokyo, growing a sisterly bond with Hana, who was being antisocial but warmed up to Sekai. Later, she joined her father, and they had cute moments watching the marriage. Sekai dreamt of the day the war ended and revealed the truth of Yukari's earlier failed pregnancies. Sekai had used Remilia's powers over fate to guarantee her existence up to the point of her suicide during the war of the Solstice, which allowed for her rebirth through Patchouli's ritual. She killed her own unborn siblings with gaps sent to the past in a closed time loop that timed everything out (Patchouli's first ritual, Anon's confrontation with Yukari after the news of her successful impregnation) so as to lead to her birth, creating most of Yukari's misery in the process. Yukari's soul died in her arms then, and Sekai savored freedom before, at the height of her power, stealing the moon from the sky, as she deemed the Lunarians would eventually come for her, a paranoia inherited from Yukari's echo. Stealing the moon from Earth's sky meant that Earth disappeared from the Moon's sky, leaving the Lunarians stranded in space, but Earth's moon remained;

This shit doesn’t need a part 2

>>51295436
It does. I want to see Anon and Hana reconciliation and sex but never ever....

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stay dead

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When I wake up, it is to four gentle hands and a boisterous ‘Awoo!'

“Hana-chan, wake up, wake up~!” The first Aunn coos. “It’s your important day! C’mon, c’mon! Get up, Hana-chan!” The second Aunn follows, her hands shaking me until my eyes open and then close as the morning glare bounces off the snow outside and hits me square in the face.

Ugh… The clock shows 8:30 am.

But Aunn is right. Today’s an important day.

Out of bed and then outside, yawning, cup of coffee in hand—Sanae-san’s new blend, hmm? 80% reduced sugar, however. She was appalled when I said I liked it without the sugar crash—, I walk up to the pond. “Mornin’, Hana-neechan!” Mari Kirisame waves at me as she tends to Mom’s gravestone, a broom to sweep and a rag to make it shine. She’s using hot water this time around instead of cold water like a stupid person.

Remember to give her less porch sweep duty.

I tap Mom’s gravestone, greet Mari, and head behind the separations around the pond. The water’s already hot and cozy. On one of the tall rocks sits a large portion of rice crackers and a comfy bathrobe.

So cozy is the bath; the temperature’s just right for this start of winter. Those girls have learned how to treat their Head Miko well. Wish I could stay here all morning~

But today’s an important day.

A serious day.

Food’s eaten, bath’s taken, and bathrobe’s put on. I walk back inside, passing by the girls on offering duty. “Hana-sama,” bows the first, white wolf ears pressing against her scalp. “Hana-neesan…” follows the second, a plain human like me. I greet them and check their prepared offerings to the Hakurei god.

They fucked up the sake. I know we have tastier sake in the pantry.

I scold them and send them to fetch the tastier sake.

—a girl tripped; her offerings scattered across the ground. Mother stormed in, full of rage, and lashed out. The girl couldn’t move; couldn't muster an inch. Her eyes welled with thick tears. She would have gotten beaten that day were it not for her father—

The girls leave, grumbling, but down the hall, they’re laughing and talking about the Winter Solstice festival.

I blink the memory away and head for my bedroom.

Need to prepare for today—body and mind.

Inside, I stand before my dressing table, staring at a—quite frankly—off-putting Hana Hakurei in the mirror. With a groan, I wrestle the tangle of my hair into a towel and get to making that off-putting into adorable.

It begins with the facial cleanser, the thing foaming and prickling until I wash it off in the basin beside the dressing table. A cotton pad applies the toner, slightly cool, followed by moisturizing gel and lip balm, sugarcane flavored—sincerely, fuck you, Marisa-sensei—, lips pursed as I wash my face again and pat it with a towel. Primer spread, foundation to even the skin tone out—I’m not nearly as pale as Mom was. She could shimmer under sunlight—concealer to eliminate the shadow under my eyes—provided by rowdy Youkai in need of murdering late at night—then face powder and blush because they make me less ‘intimidating’, and to finalize the face: eyeliner and mascara to make red eyes pop and some light lip gloss to hide the narrow frown under some shine.

Comb and hairbrush to deal with the wasp’s nest after I removed the towel.

Yup, that’s one cute girl you’re seeing, Hana Hakurei. Not the murderer or the exterminator. Just a cute girl.

I stared at her as I brushed my teeth.

Up done, now down. Bathrobe fell to the ground, kicked off to the futon, and I sat down on the stool. First came the deodorant, a new brand Sanae-san got me—no aluminum? There are metals in deodorant?—, then I brought my bottle of myrtle body lotion and massaged it onto my body from toes to shoulders, spotless, followed by extra care shown to the protruding scars and sunken flesh valleys, purplened and yellowed or simply bruised either by claw, teeth, or Danmaku burns. They numbered many and had no discernible pattern, as expected of a warrior’s body. Not a girl’s…

The winter outfit I prepared hides them well.

I weighed painting my nails but decided against it—time’s gonna be tight if I paint them—, so I opted for working out the kinks in the cuticles with some oil and skin balm.

Panties, bra, nylon pantyhose. Long-sleeved, short black winter dress; white cardigan; belt; and tasteful Mary Janes. No hair cuffs, ascot, Hakurei bow, or the detached sleeves…

… Nowhere to carry the Gohei.

Then again, I won’t be bringing that thing over.

It’s an important day, nearly afternoon, as the clock strikes 10:45 am.

My last date of the year is at 12:30 am.

It’ll be different, this one.

I straighten up after putting on the shoes and scour myself in the standing mirror. So cute, so adorable—big eyes, flushed face, nice hair, pretty hands and nails, nice clothes, not tattered or hand-me-downs. Such a pretty girl—and yet those hands, so steady during the kill, tremble a bit. Is it the cold? Winter’s right around the corner; snow’s already layering, abundant…

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Purse is plucked from the dressing table and slung over my shoulder—ID, breath mints, Sekai’s favorite bubblegum, wrappers, wrappers, wrappers, wallet, twenty thousand yen, my pocket mirror, and mission notebook. All here—and leave the bedroom.

This is it. Don’t fuck this one up, Hana.

Prove you can do this.

A quick prayer is offered to Mom’s mitamaya, the scent of the heavenly peony perched by the photo of Mom, wide-eyed as if she couldn’t believe that a nine-pound bundle of ‘me’ could cry so much, calming these frazzled nerves. That, and the muffled laughter down the hall.

One sharp look sends the three young miko in training scurrying, laughing, and parroting at each other:

“Hana-sensei—so pretty~!”

“She had a mean look on her face! Eek!”

“There are prettier girls in Gensokyo, like me—h-huh?! No! Don’t tell Aunn-nee! This is betrayal—”

I huffed. The Hakurei Shrine, filled with laughter. It’s still hard to believe some days.

Not dwelling on those nostalgic thoughts, I left for the porch, grumbling before pulling my cardigan tighter. *Brr…* These clothes don’t have Kanako's blessings of warmth.

“Hana-sensei, you put on your shoes outside the genkan. Where are your manners…?” Aki Kamishirasawa sighed and slumped against her broom, weary. She’s on today’s sweeping duty. “But you look so pretty, so I may forgive you—!” She flinches as, inside the shrine, Aunn snarls as she pursues one of the apprentices for ‘ultimate disrespect.' “… S-So loud… but, um… have a~sugoku~great day, Hana-sensei!”

I love-tap her nape for speaking like a cushy scion, then headpat the soft pink hair to make up for the lack of 'love' and more 'tap'. Her wings flutter up and down, and before she can act embarrassed about her tells, I move to the cobblestone path, weathered but maintained, wet snow cleaned off the main trail.

Naked trees surround the central Torii gate, the wood still pulsating with Mom’s aged barrier magic—preserved by a queue of newer Torii that snake all the way down the hill. The newer Torii thrum with my barriers, my protective wardings, and my violent sealing output. Perhaps the few good things I got from Yukari.

Mom’s sealing prowess remains unmatched by both goddesses and me, so a hundred thirty-eight gates to support Mom’s one.

A lengthy lane of beating hearts, I heard it called once.

It’ll change someday.

When I get to that peak, without falling…

… Without needing you to coddle me, Father.

Today’s not that day.

I place a hand on my thumping heart and draw in a breath to steady it, lips pursed.

The path downhill is paved with cobblestone and besieged by iron lampposts, turned off during the day, the stone damp with morning frost. One end led to the city, the other deep into the forest and toward the Misty Lake and Sekai’s home, connecting most ‘important places’, as had been Keine-sensei’s intent.

Father’s house and Yuuka’s Sunflower Fields connect to the Bamboo Forest of the Lost and have a path around the forest that connects to the city and a junction that leads to the Hakurei Shrine. Diverging from the path to the Misty Lake, one can get to Mima-san’s shrine and Marisa-sensei’s home. From there, one can get to the Mountain Chasm, the new home of the Kappa after the Solstice buried their last hole. From the Mountain Chasm to the ropeway to the Moriya Shrine, then to Youkai Mountain, and…

My heart hasn’t stopped thudding. The distraction isn't working.

… Ah…

Ahead, seeds planted years ago formed something that can’t be called a village anymore. It can’t be called a metropolis either, so they’ve taken to calling it a city. The name’s still Akyuu, but they’ve tacked “city” to it. The houses and businesses aren’t built with bamboo and wood anymore; they use stone and bricks from the Kappa quarries, with masonry work that’s only gotten more popular with the years. There are slopes now. Slopes and small steps between alleyways and roads, entryways and plazas that, seen from above, come across as such a maze. So many voices, sounds, a treasure trove of scents. A new thing's on sale every day, and fashion comes and goes fast. New faces pass by so often: humans, Youkai, and those born in the middle. There was a time the distinction was so clear.

Under the shadow of the Stump, those days are long gone. The shadow is subtle yet persistent. It shines softly, almost dimly. Unintrusive. The blue hue has grown into a constant of life. But it’s always there. You cannot live in Gensokyo and not have its light cast upon you.

Children half the age I was when it came to be have never known a horizon without its towering silhouette.

“Ah, Hana-chan! Good afternoon!”

Free dango. I’ll save it for one of the girls.

“If it’s not Hakurei-chan—your girls did a great job. The shop feels so light without all that bad energy!”

A 25% coupon for meat bowls. Think I’ll bring Sekai here next weekend.

“Ah, it’s you, Hana-chan! And looking so pretty too! Mamizou-sama told us you have a date, right? Heh… Lucky guy~”

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Chen’s birthday was last October, though I think I’ll buy her another batch of Genmou…

By noon I sit alone on a stone bench, watching the Memorial Garden in its lazy waft, the blue chrysanthemums growing evergreen—blue—amidst the spectral tombstones. The garden sees less movement these days, the novelty of it having worn off…

… Still, when I close my eyes, I can picture a rolling cloud of yellow death, melting people in its wake, hollowed eyes and a localized storm. My first true brush with death. So close, a wakizashi kissing my cheek, the world burning around my body. It trembles; I tremble, and I don’t wanna die, so I reach for that idol, and Suwako-sama and Kanako-sama are there to save me.

I don’t shiver or frown as I used to back then, but I can’t help grasping for a Gohei that isn’t there.

Gensokyo—or at least the city—doesn’t require me to be carrying it at all times.

At 12:30, I hear the bell of a bicycle as it rounds the circumference of the Memorial Garden. My heart pounds, my hands sweat. I’m gorgeous, am I not? All scars hidden, smile. Yeah, the smile feels nice. Hold the purse in front of you like what Sanae-san told you—

—Ah, he’s here!

“Hana-chan! Hello, hello, hello!” A draft blows past as the bicycle comes to a stop in front of me, vanishing the moment I meet his eyes. He’s smiling at me. He seems pleased by something. Say it. “Sorry if I was late! T-Trouble at work… did I make you wait too long?”

“Hello!” I say. “No, you didn’t." You did, you stupid fuck. I rein in my breathing and smile the widest I can go without it turning creepy. This is it, Hana Hakurei. Don’t mess this shit up.

Is he not gonna tell me I’m gorgeous?

“It’s good to see you again, Yu-kun~!”

—

We traded a few more pleasantries, and I hopped on the back of the bike. So slow, so cumbersome. Flying beats this drag every day of the week, counting leap years. But I can feel his heart pounding where my hands press against his back as the masonry blurs past us, the bell of his bike ringing when carts bearing goods pass by, many and many of them. Streets and roads wind and whisper yet blare as we near the focal point of the Winter Solstice festivities. A lot happens in that festival. Celebrations, celebrations. A month of celebrations. Just last week we held the Festival of Flowers in honor of those who died during the battle against Hieda and to celebrate the end of the village’s stagnation. One after the other, celebrations of mass and work.

Who thought having the Festival of Flowers and the Winter Solstice so close together was a good idea…?

“You doin’ well back there, Hana-chan?”

“Um? I’m fine. Don’t mind me! Just got a lot on my mind.” The wind blows and muffles my voice, but he seems to have picked up on what I said.

“Ah? Ah! The solstice stuff? I was told you were a big shot in the war. The big one a few years ago. Gensokyo is so great and cushy; it’s hard to believe there was ever a war before.” He says, perplexed somewhat. What’s with outsiders and their shame towards war? Gensokyo was always a bloody place. “Doesn’t that mean you fought in it as a kid?”

“I was 17. I was an adult already.”

“... But 17 is teenager.”

I frowned. What? Is he stupid? “What are you talking about?” Something defensive curled in my chest. Hana Hakurei stopped being a child long before she killed her sibling and her Mom. “I became an adult at 16.”

“S-Sorry! I didn’t mean to upset you… Guess it’s different in Gensokyo? That’s one hell of a seijin-shiki.”

“The world outside Gensokyo is soft,” I pouted. To think Yukari could pluck something as terrifying as a ‘nuclear submarine’ from Outside, a weapon I fought on the very surface of, and yet the people Chen and Keine get from that world tend to be so… wimpy? Father wasn’t like that. Then again, he’d already lived two decades in Gensokyo by the time I had the head to understand him. "What do kids outside do all day?”

In Gensokyo, it was studying, training, working, working, and training. That was my childhood.

“Have you ever heard of the PlayStation, Hana-chan?”

“The what?”

He laughed. It’d been a trick question.

Maybe I could say my red face is due to allergies.

—

He hadn’t reserved a table, so we waited in a line for five minutes or so. The Geidontei had changed over the last decade, not a hole in the wall anymore. Big after the reconstruction of the village, its changes, though with the same style—only more… would opulent be the word? Not really. I wouldn’t use such a word for the shrine, even though it went through the same.

Ugh, the expansion brings bad memories.

“Something wrong, Hana-chan?”

Yes.

“No,” I shake my head as we head to table 12. The pub’s decorated for the Winter Solstice; their alcohol selection is broader and fully on display, along with recreations of what’s on the menu. I turn my eyes away from the alcohol. Not ceremonial. “You work in foodstuffs, don’t you?” I remember the conversation whilst we were waiting in line. I’d blanked out most of it.

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“Yes! I’m learning a lot from Mystia-sensei!” He perked up as we sat down and grabbed the menu. “Not as interesting as your work, but it’s plenty rewarding.”

“My work is a bore," I held my face from scrunching up. “I take care of the shrine, leash a gaggle of children, and on occasion I kill something. Mostly I ‘just keep the peace’. Not much killing needing done these days.” I downplayed that last part, eyes setting on the fried chicken special.

“Isn’t that… a good thing?”

“What?”

“Less killing? That must be good for the soul… I think.”

“Not really, no. Probably, actually? Not for revenue. Not in this line of work,” I should’ve stopped there, yet something nagged me to continue: “I mean, wouldn’t it be good if all hunger ended? Yeah, it would—but how’d you make money? No hunger, no need for cooked foods. If nothing needs killing or purifying, then I’m not needed as a miko, and unlike working with food, I can’t just pivot to another job on the spot to stay afloat. I need things to kill to keep a roof over my head.” I grumbled, eyes still on the chicken. I didn’t feel like looking at him.

He’s looking at me like *that*. I just know it. I know *that* look.

Hate that fucking look with a passion.

I bite my lower lip and chuckle, ‘sweet’. “S-Sorry, that was a bit intense—?”

“Oh, no, no, it wasn’t—”

“—it was. This topic gets me like that—”

“You don’t have to worry, Hana-chan, I don’t—”

“I do! It’s not… y’know, it’s not a good thing to lash out like that, Yu…kun,” I deflate, really staring at that chicken. “Not right either. It dampens the mood, doesn’t it?” Finally, I grow the nerve to look into his eyes. He dodges my stare and scratches his nape. This fucking coward… I put down the menu before I'd scrunch it and join my hands, biting on the tip of my thumb. “Look, just forget I said that. It’s a sensitive matter. We don’t need this date souring up just because I fumbled once.”

He sobers up and meets my eyes with a sheepish look, then a nod. His body language has locked in an awkward, cautious angle. I feel my brow twitch. “Okay… I’m so—”

“Drop it. Not your fault,” I mumbled. “I’m gonna get the nanban.”

No wonder he didn’t call you cute or gorgeous.

Why didn’t he? It’s obvious.

He decides on his order too, and when Miyoi-san comes around to get them, she gives me an aggravated look of “things aren’t going too well, huh?” It grates on me, but I don’t show it. There’s a genuine attempt at conversation as we wait for our food. An attempt. There’s just… always something about him when he talks. Something that looks out of place, or that gets my attention before his voice does, and it either pisses me off or grabs my attention more than whatever he’s saying—why are all his shirt buttons buttoned? It’s cold, but not that cold; why are his sideburns disproportionate? Must he touch his wrist so often? One of his eyes is droopy—, something he seems to be noticing. He’s not stupid. Of course he’d notice you’re being a terrible partner—

“Are you okay, Hana-chan?”

“Hm?”

“You’re distracted,” he says. “I know that thing just now, uh… k-kind of ruined the flow, b-but…” A hint of disapproval, or maybe offense or even discomfort, crosses his face. “I’m t-trying here—”

“Told you to drop that.” My eyes narrowed.

“I did, I’m tryin—”

“Are you? Trying. Are you?” I cross my arms, staring at him. He shrinks. My lower jaw grinds against the upper jaw. “Doesn’t look like you’re trying…”

“I am,” he reiterates, low. We’re in public after all. “But you’re not cooperating.”

“You didn’t even comment on my clothes when you picked me up! How are you trying?” I throw it back.

“W-What?”

“Are you stupid?” I snap forward, voice just low enough not to make a scene. “I prepped myself all morning, got some of my best clothes and, and—and a lot of other shit! Perfume, oils. I look like a p-prize! And not one compliment! Not one ‘Hana-chan, you’re so pretty in that dress’, or one word about me! It’s ludicrous. Didn’t you think I wanted to hear some nice words? Is this your first date—”

“Y-Yeah! Kinda is…?”

“H-Huh?” It was my turn to draw back, eyes wide.

He looked truly ashamed now. “I… I’ve had a hard time with women… outside Gensokyo. Things are very different—I-I thought overly complimenting you’d be—” He blundered over his words before finding them again. “Corny, I think…? I was trying to be polite?”

“Stop asking questions! That’s so annoying," I pinched the bridge of my nose.

“… Speaking it aloud now, it does sound stupid,” he mumbled, but I tuned it out in irritation.

What a fucking mess. It didn’t seem so at the start. He was nice, teasing. Personalities seemed to have matched well—so why? Why did it derail so fast and…?

Okunoda Miyoi announced herself with our orders, cutting my caustic thoughts, and by then it was irrecoverable. We ate quietly, focused on the food. I wanted to apologize; I truly did. But every time I even thought of opening my mouth, something just plainly infuriating in his visage would pop up.

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It was the small things, those that shouldn't matter. Things I shouldn’t be focusing on—focus on him—, and new things that were outside his control. A cold pooled in my belly. I’m being harsh; I’m not being nice. He’s from the Outside World. Things there are done differently.

Yet I can’t stop feeling so pissed off at every minor thing.

… This always happens. Always, without fail.

We don’t linger after the eating is done, and when Miyoi-san comes to take the china, I sling my purse over my shoulder and psych myself up for the remainder of this doomed date— “Yes, we’d like to split the bill,” he says.

I stop. What?

“No? We wouldn’t,” I interject. “You foot the bill.”

“Huh?” He looks at me and frowns. “What do you mean?”

The Zashiki-warashi looks between us with that stupid fucking hat of hers, face scrunched like she wants to be anywhere else but here. She’ll probably call the police if we make a scene, so I'd better just end this soon.

“It’s common courtesy for the man to pay for the food,” I follow. “Isn’t that the case outside—?”

Why am I hammering this point? I have the money.

I can pay.

I don’t mind paying for myself—

“No…?” He says, exasperated. “You ate your fill, so you pay for it.”

—But it’s just so unbelievable that he’d even consider splitting the bill after that shitshow, so… diminishing. A boring date, and he wants me to pay for it? After he put so little work into it? Even if it was his first date, still. “You said this is your first date, right? The guy always pays for the girl. It’s how things go. All my other dates paid for me; why would you—”

That wasn’t the right thing to say, because for the first time today he'd gotten really angry. “—Holy, no… Just no. That's not how— How did I— why— did you know you're an ass? Did you? ‘Cause now I know. I was being polite, but I just can’t do it. You’re paying for yourself; I don’t care anymore. I’m out of here. Have a good day,” he gnashed his teeth and got up, face scrunched with frustration, before he muttered to himself, “… Should’ve listened to the others.”

Those words—their connotation, their implication. My reputation.

My blood boiled. Screw this.

I stood up, red-faced, and reached into my purse. “Know what? Fuck you, you sissy! You don’t get to say that to me when you’re not worth the effort I put into this date. You’re a limp-wristed coward who doesn’t know shit about how to treat a woman,” I bite, pull out my wallet, and slam down a handful of bills. Fuming, I stomp my way out of the Geidontei, ignoring the eyes following me and the booming silence in my wake, and throw the door open.

The sliding door explodes off its socket.

Ugh…

Bristling, I turn back inside, reach into my wallet again, and leave all my remaining money on the counter. It might not cover the repairs… They can send the bill to the shrine if they have the balls. Don't care.

Only then do I flee the scene and fly away.

—

High in the sky, the chill is substantial. Not as terrible as when it gets to that point after the Winter Solstice, but just bad enough that I clatter my teeth and wish Kanako-sama had blessed these clothes too. I need something to distract me from this shitshow, this warmth in my eyes. It’s always like this—not always; I’m exaggerating, am I not? I don’t care—always! A date starts, it’s going swell, then something happens, and before I realize it, I’ve fucked up everything and am running away, holding back tears like a little baby.

It takes some fumbling with my purse as the wind bats against it, but I pull out my mission journal, opening the leather-bound, thick booklet about halfway through, skipping some pages until I get to this week’s TODO. Ugh… I’d have to get my Gohei at the shrine if I wanted anything dangerous—the missions that help me in this state—, though I nearly throw up my lunch at the thought of being seen like this by the girls. They’ve seen me pissed and frustrated, but never have I allowed them to see me distraught.

Should’ve foreseen this would happen, should’ve brought it with me.

… It’d have felt like defeat, and I hate the taste of that on my tongue—

—My hand shoots out and crushes the flying paper before it can leap and latch onto my face. Distressed, pissed, frustrated, near tears. None of which translates to unaware.

The thing wriggles, soon losing the faint rancor that brought it to me.

“What the hell do you want…?” I grunt, dreading not what’s written on this Rancorssage, but who sent it.

I really don’t wanna talk to Keine Kamishirasawa right now.

[Hello, Hana-chan. I know you don’t wanna talk to me right now…]

Fuck you.

[… No need to be rude. I have a mission to discuss with you — with love, your sensei, Keine Kamishirasawa]

Fuck you. Just fuck you for once.

I rip the paper to shreds, a modicum of satisfaction swelling as it burns in my blessings, before the shit cocktail is forced back down my throat by no one else but myself…

I shouldn’t be like this. I really shouldn’t.

It’s so unbecoming, so…

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The right word escapes me as I sigh, arms sprawled and eyes on the empty sky above me, the cloud layer below. Another winter is starting—that time of the season will follow suit—and another year is coming to a close.

“I’m 25 years old,” I whisper to myself for no reason. “What am I doing…?”

Gravity affects my body, and I start falling, piercing the cloud layer and watching the palace atop the Stump come closer. It doesn't take long until I meet the Senkai’s Barrier, and the familiar sensation of being submerged reverberates through my body like a deep sigh.

I blinked.

Before me stood the Temple Museum's entrance at the foot of the Stump.

Lazy shortcut.

The large front doors were open—no need to see that stupid mural rendition of myself—, people coming and going with their Winter Solstice preparations. I strolled inside, ignoring them and making a beeline for the elevators, the paper-thin barrier separating hundreds of versions of this same room making it seem as if there were no people around the two lone elevators.

I clicked my tongue. So much security recently… they know it’s me, and still.

Whatever.

I stepped into the ever-moving wooden elevator and was soon phased through solid wood like a phantasm, and with another blink elapsed, I was before Keine’s Palace atop the Stump. It’d grown substantially with the years. Imposing. A golden cock or whatever sat at its very summit, and artificial forests and rivers and mountains now littered the Stump's surface and surrounded the palace, which had looked so boring with just the Senkai.

Personnel walked around me and gave me off-looks—I always have to put some effort into ignoring their whispers—guards nodded at me like I was their friend—I’m not—and as I got to the bridge before the proper entry gates, I was met with a child. Eight years old, soft pink hair, cerulean eyes, wings. Round glasses. A real katana in his hands and a mean look in his eyes, chest puffed like an animal that’d died and had gas built up inside its rotting organs. Adorable. “Hana-neesan, good afternoon!” And yet his eyes gleamed as he waved, the tip of the katana pressed to the red bridge. When he saw what he was doing, he corrected it, sliding the weapon back inside its sheath with clear difficulty. “… Don’t m-mention I chipped the bridge… again.”

“I dunno, brat. Whaddaya have to offer?” I asked the sparrow, frustration buried.

He thought, head tilted—cute—before saying, “I’ll slide a frog into Haha-ue's kimono tonight.”

I squatted, looked into his eyes, then smiled. Mochi knows me well~ “What’s this? You're a bargainer now?” I ruffled his hair, and his struggle only made me do it harder. Heh. After making sure some of the handmaids saw it so he’d be positively embarrassed later, I pulled back, pouting just a tad. “Deal. Where’s Keine, anyway?”

He grumbled, hands working his hair back into form, but chose to fixate on his big responsibility. “This way, Hana-neesan! Follow me!” He exclaimed, turned, and marched away. I followed, watching his fluffy, pointy ears twitch with something close to elation.

I kicked his behind. Lightly. “Get a grip, brat, you’re waaay too young for ego.”

“Aiee! D-Don’t do t-that!” He shrieked, looking around to make sure no one had seen that—I’d made sure beforehand. One thing is frazzling his hair; another is shaming and degrading him.

We took the outer path around the main pavilion and into the back gardens, large rivers crossing the evergreen—well, everblue—vegetation around us. Bugaloos and arched bridges, tables here and there, people coming and going.

Not as dapper as the palace's inner sanctum, but much more… posh… than the Hakurei Shrine, though not nearly as overrun as Yuuka’s sunflower fields.

Oh?

Mochi’s eyes locked on a fluttering butterfly, his stance steadied, and with a fluid draw-slash, he cut it into two. He beamed at me, eyes wide, smile even wider. Show-off. “Huh… cool,” I relented, fished 500 yen from my purse, and tossed it at him—now that's all my money gone. His eyes shone like a firework-lit sky—

—but that hadn’t been as much praise as the small clapping coming from up ahead. “Beautiful cut, Mochi-kun~," Keine cooed from her chair, red eyes crinkled with joy. Pale as a ghost, wearing a simple white kimono, her horns adorned with many omamori. She sat at a round garden table whose surface brimmed with files, loose papers, and organized pens.

“Ahem!” He coughed into his tiny fist before gesturing at me, chest puffed, voice 'booming'. “Hana-neesan is delivered, Haha-ue!”

Keine-sensei beamed, eyes wide, smile even wider.

They’re so alike… Tsc.

“Much appreciated, Mochi-kun~! You’re free to go back to playing,” Sensei said.

“I wasn't playing, Haha-ue! I was training my swordsmanship," he stressed and, without being told to, stormed off to probably play with his toys.

I turned to Keine and scowled at her pure white kimono. “Why are you dressed in white? You died again?” I sat in the right seat out of the two empty ones.

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“If something died today, Hana-chan, I’d assume it’s your relationship prospects,” she teased, and I scowled harder, her dainty hand hiding her lower face as she tittered. “Apologies, my apologies. You’re so grumpy whenever a date of yours goes amiss—I just can’t pass on the opportunity of teasing my favorite Head Miko!” She also passed a chunky pile of files to me, which I scrutinized, warranting me the answer: “Now, as you see, I require a young helping hand. The winter break is right around the corner, and the result of these tests should decide who goes into 14 days of freedom and whom I keep for myself,” she gestured at the piles with an infuriating smile. “Would you kindly help me grade them, Hana-chan?” She asked.

I deadpanned. She blinked, holding her smile, and tilted her head, the many omamori swaying with the movement. I glared at those talismans. Who tacked those there, anyway?

“It was part of a recreational project,” Sensei’s voice was fond. “I tasked them—this year’s seventh grade—with making their own omamori and hanging them around the classroom. The devil’s in the details, though, Hana-chan, and one figured out anywhere in the room meant me too~!” She giggled, then hummed. “Like little sheep, it needs only one doing something for everyone else to follow behind. That’s how I became this year’s Christmas tree.”

Ah. That’s cute.

“… Wait, wait, stop that,” I hissed, flustered, and picked up a test. “You made me forget why you’re asking me to do this—didn’t you get me here to give me a dangerous mission?” I grumbled, and my eyes wandered the paper despite myself, my curiosity piqued. [Q: Your class has 19 students, not counting you. You’re tasked with organizing those 19 friends into groups that could, in a reasonable amount of time, start making a product of your choice. Describe your strategy for producing and distributing the product you chose — 3.0 pts.] “What the fuck?” I scowled at her. "Why are you asking this of a seventh grader? It’s way too hard.”

“Indeed,” she nodded. “That’s the purpose of the question. A challenge.”

“Huh? I don’t remember ever having to answer something like this—”

“Because 13-year-old you, Hana Hakurei-chan, forgot the test was double-sided and only did the front half,” she said, puffing her cheeks and giving me an angry look. “You almost didn’t pass that year. Almost.”

My cheeks burned red. That sort of long-term memory would be scary if it wasn’t infuriating. “Ugh… I d-don’t follow,” I put the paper down. “Just seems like you’re setting kids up for failure.”

“You’re underestimating our seventh graders,” she tittered, and I backed down. Am I…? “That question doesn’t require a perfect answer with perfect parameters and a well-thought-out business model. That's not the point.” I hate when she gets that scholarly tone. “It’s asking for completion of a goal, some way, somehow. It doesn’t matter if it violates workplace rules and regulations, as long as the plan is believable in LaLaLand. Sapere aude. Thinking begins with violating established schools of thought.”

What the hell is she on about? I rolled my eyes, then locked them on the paper.

[A: I would have all the boys jump in the lake with baskets to get fish, and all the girls would sell the fish because people buy more when the person selling is pretty.]

I reread the answer once more, tuning out the grammar mistakes and the ugly cursive, and grabbed the pen Sensei had thrown at me. Groaning, I drew an ‘O’ inside the answer. Full marks for that little entrepreneur. My eyes roamed the other questions, and before I could ask, a cheat sheet had been slipped towards me. It contained the answers to the objective questions.

Doubt sensei would need a cheat sheet herself; that means it was made for me…

… I clicked my tongue but didn’t dwell on that, rather focusing on the tests. It immediately came to me that I’d been, indeed, underestimating this year’s seventh grade—or maybe just seventh graders in general—, eyes skimming through the hard questions and having to often check the cheat sheet. There were the stinkers whose only full mark was writing their name correctly—if so—, but every disquisitive question felt different, tried, and smart in a retarded sort of way. Doubt 13-year-old me would’ve ever been able to come up with half these solutions.

In what felt like a blink, time had passed. Handmaidens brought tea and snacks at intervals, though I didn’t pay attention over the crinkle of mugs and munching, drowned out by the rustle of paper as Keine-sensei passed me a file or I passed her one. The large piles of loose paper tapered as they became bound files, seventh-grade tests morphing into eighth-grade and ninth-grade, and when it came to high school stuff, my mind would… blank. Some things I understood in parsing; others I outright didn’t understand shit. It was frustrating but… also enlightening.

A lot of potential in this generation of Gensokyo children.

It makes me happier than I thought it would.

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I massaged my eyes, looking up from a stupid calculus question and, in doing so, caught a glimpse of the other side of the table. Sensei stared at me. She had a dumb smile on her face, her cheek resting on her right hand. I blushed. “… What?”

“You’d make a great teacher, Hana-chan.”

“I *am* a teacher—sorta,” I said, though I couldn’t muster anger. I felt calm and placid. Eyes narrowed at her. “Did you do something to me…?”

“Yes,” she said, and cut me off: “I gave you something you could focus on. Did it work?”

I grumbled, peering at the cheat sheet before grading the answer a half point. I scribbled down a note: [Wrong answer, but the execution was correct]. “I’m getting paid for this, am I not?” I deflected.

She tittered, “Of course you are not. This isn’t your mission, after all.”

“Huuuh…? Wait, what? So you just made me waste my afternoon for nothing?” The next question was disquisitive, so I focused. It was a full mark. Venom loaded my voice: “I’m a busy woman. You know this better than anyone, Keine. The Winter Festival is right around the corner. I’ve got to focus and be in tip-top shape to deal with any Youkai trying to mess things up. None of the girls are ready to battle against the tier of monster that might invade. Gotta be me. It’s never you, right? Or someone else under you? It’s got to be me, because if it’s not me, then who’s gonna—”

My heart thumped fast, but I could make out the answer on the paper and graded it 'wrong'.

“… It went really bad, didn't it?” She said in a tone I hate.

I gnashed my teeth, blinking away my anger before it solidified, and graded another three 'wrongs'. 76/100. Passing grade.

Could’ve done better.

“It was awful,” I sighed, shaking my head. “He tried, but I messed everything up.”

“Hmm, I guess you did,” she sipped her tea, hanging omamori swaying in the gentle breeze. “Knowing you, you must’ve said some bad things to Yu-kun. Poor boy. He’s a dork, yes, but he’s got aspirations the Outside World couldn’t meet. Did he tell you it was his—”

“—First date? After I fucked everything up, yeah…” I frowned, putting away the test and fetching another from the small pile. “Next month I'll get another date. I know what I did wrong, sort of. Need to dial down my expectations, maybe—I dunno, compliment him first? Or just ask if it’s his first date—”

“Hana-chan.”

“Hm…?”

“It’s happened before. Multiple times.”

I know. I get it.

“You don’t get it,” I hissed at her, low, grading the test with half a mind. “I-I’m trying my best over here, but it’s hard when the world's out to get you.”

“The world isn’t out to get you.” She paused, then met my eyes. I wanted to dodge but controlled myself. I’m not a child to flinch at a harsh gaze. And then she said it: “You are 25. You’re halfway through the best years of your life… Your only confidants are your employer and pseudo-family. Your only friends are children and teenagers.”

… Ouch.

I opened my mouth to say something, but closed it. Couldn’t meet her eyes after that.

“What’s your point?” I mustered the question, palms sweating, heart clenching.

“My point is that you have a problem somewhere in you. It’s not a problem of the world. And it’s stunting your adult life,” her eyes carried a sadness that made my skin itch. “… I’d like you to seek help before it robs you of something you cannot get back. Eirin could—”

“—Eirin could choke on a bamboo for all that I care,” I cut in and got up, the chair clattering behind me. “I’m not going to that fucking place; I’m not seeing someone who wants to ‘fix’ me, and it’s all just a lie at the end of the day—” A flash of memory. Purple eyes, golden hair. A monster. Sensei shrank, and that spurred me on. “Tried before in that place, and all I got from it was an even worse mentality that nearly ruined everything for me. I’m not telling shit to anyone that you and Chen get me. I don’t need it; don’t care for it… and you shouldn’t either. Did you get someone ‘professional’ to aid you when Mokou punched you in the face—?”

Sensei’s red eyes hardened. “You’ve no need to add that to this, Hana-chan—”

“—Oh, I think I do, actually,” I sneered. As if I cared. “Far as I know, you just forgave her. Things just fixed themselves over. That’s what I’m gonna do: I’ll find a way to fix things myself. I’ve had worse periods in my life, when my biggest problem wasn’t being a compulsive ass to my potential boyfriend. Don’t need you on my case when your love life started with a fucking black eye!” I breathed in and out, looking at her sitting there. We held each other’s gaze. My fists clenched, my lungs steadied.

But I didn’t look away.

Try me.

A few moments later, Keine closed her eyes and sighed something tired. Stop it. When she opened them again, she said: “…In the Underground. Mokou’s police force detected a wave of newborn malevolence deep in the Wastes there. Expect sealing. Danger level 3-4,” she stated in a clinical tone, and I felt a grim satisfaction in my chest. “Take someone with you.”

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I scoffed. She knows that I’ve got only one battle-ready miko in training.

Fishing the mission booklet from my bag, I wrote the mission params. I had to tune out her unreadable gaze, the silence stretching between us. It always made my skin crawl when she went quiet. It felt like I was missing something… “I’m off,” I said, stored the book, turned, and channeled the divinity in my veins, desiring nothing but to leave this place at once.

Space funneled into a million fractals as Unchained Movement folded the world, and it took but a step for me to go from the Stump to the foot of the Senbon Torii, the one hundred thirty-nine Torii gates like the maw of a serpent up the hill—I shivered, the winding throat of a dragon coming to mind. No need for fear. You killed that dragon.

You’re strong, Hana Hakurei.

No tears in my eyes, my pulse steady. I clicked my tongue, pushed the guilt down, and made my way to the shrine.

—

Watching Hana bend space never lost its charm. It was as if a memory you had, an observable stimulus, thinned into nothingness right before your eyes, and you lost the ability to tell whether it’d ever been there…

I sighed and left my seat to fix the chair that'd fallen during her outrage, chastising myself for even bringing her to that boiling point.

“She got you well back there~” Toyosatomimi no Miko spoke, mirthful as she tilted her chair back and forth. She drained a milkshake blend from a straw, hummed in satisfaction, and resumed, “Things would be easier if you didn't pamper that girl, though.”

I return to my chair, eyes lingering where Hana-chan had been, before shifting to the third seat's occupant. “There's no pampering involved,” I shake my head with fond memories of her childhood. “She's still my student, even if she's not cute and tiny and wide-eyed innocent anymore. There are things I can do for her now that I couldn’t before. I have a duty towards Hana-chan.”

“You’re just inviting problems for us,” she stops balancing the chair and stares at me, milkshake put aside as she gestures broadly to the empty chair. “The way she is now is perfect: she has a work-geared mind, she favors no bullshit, and she has no distractions in her life that could, with reasonable consideration, lead her astray—like Reimu was when she married,” she punctuated each assessment with such a prophetic manner that made me shiver, and her eyes only hardened. “She’s a soldier, an asset—our best one—foremost. You don’t need me to tell you that.”

Hands joined. I looked down at them. Her words make sense from the lens through which she’s seeing them. Anyone responsible for people’s well-being would see her reason.

Eight years…

… Shouldn’t I have learned it already?

Eyes peek up at the moon half hidden in the blue of late afternoon, lips pursing.

This loathsome 'Moon'.

“I’ll go see Anon-kun,” I voice, a command through the writings of the past appearing in the future—the now—as papers stacked and filed neatly inside a thick binder, which I placed under my arm. Miko followed me with her stare but said nothing else, her mind unreadable since the day I evolved my powers. “Go check with Mokou about the Winter Festival, if you may.”

“Caaan do~” She sways her chair until she loses balance and plummets to the grass, disappearing in a blink of golden light before collision.

I sigh, shoulders droop, but school myself before such weakness can be spotted by a wandering handmaiden or palace guard. There’ll be time, soon there will be, for calm and for sloth—if momentary—, but that time isn’t right now. Chin high, omamori rocking in the breeze, I move out towards the palace exit, greeting and smiling at those I pass by. Preparations are going well; a sense of celebration runs through the people’s veins. It should be upheld and honored.

In my path down the garden, I end up spotting my son. He notices me too, smiles, and speedwalks toward me, one hand on the scabbard of his katana with pride and a large smile on his face.

It’s enough to banish bad, bad thoughts before they form.

“What's this good humor? Have you impressed Konpaku-chan, Mochi-kun?” I asked, kneeling to pull the sparrow into a warm embrace. Even though he blushes and struggles against it, all it achieves is making me giggle.

“No—I think?” He says. “But I’ve just paid a debt in full!”

Hm…?

—A-Ah?! Eeeek!

Something slimy and panicky is creeping down my back!

“T-There’s something in my yukata!” I shriek, leaving the hug and letting my binder fall to the ground, arms reaching back in a moment of despair. “W-What is happening—?” The answer is my son rushing away, giggling aloud as his mother fights against some unseen thing. “M-Mochi-kun, come back here this instant! What did you do?!”

He’s already far away…

… I stop fidgeting, huff with a shake of my head, and stretch my hand. The frog is teleported to my palm, where it sits, snug, as I take it to the river nearby and leave it at its bank.

“Children~” I hum, pick up my binder, and resume my path.

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hello~! It's been a while. Happy birthday, HSE!
Part 2! We start slow to reintroduce the world, drip feeding a lot of stuff, then things pick up with the next chapters. Part 2 won't be as lengthy as Part 1, so chapters will be more compact. First Hana, then Chen, then Sekai, then the prologue will be over, and we'll be in the thick of it
more soon~

>>51295274
>>51295276
Very bittersweet.
I'm surprised you want to do more with this though, Rananon. Not like I mind, you're always great at writing.

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Part 2's archive
https://archiveofourown.org/works/93451306/chapters/249413401

>>51295271
Who are those two on the left and why is Chen wearing Yamame's clothes

>>51299654
you'd have to read the bajillion word fic to get it

>>51299654
Left one is Hana, Reimu's daughter with Anon.
Middle one is Sekai, Yukari's daughter with Anon.
Chen is wearing Yamame's clothes because she got adopted by Yams after Yukari and Ran went on a trip to Romania or something.

>>51300368
THATS how Hana looks?! God damn

>>51301163
No wonder everyone wants to rape her.

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Sweeping the porch and overseeing the donation box is Megumi. The half-wolf Tengu stiffened when she saw me. “Hana-sama,” she greeted with a bow, her voice subdued. She’s the smallest of my mikos, smaller than I was at eight. Her thick, round glasses don’t help in the slightest. A wolf Tengu with poor eyesight… it still baffles me often. There’s but the faintest hint of magic flowing through her veins, which is why she got the job. She doesn’t battle—cannot—, but she knows how to cook well. And she’s cute. And fluffy.

I approached and asked, “Where’s Aki, Megumi?”

“Aki-chan? S-She’s in the kitchen with the others—” she hesitates. “—ummm… Hana-sama… h-how did your date…” and promptly cuts herself off at a pointed look from me. Smart, smart girl.

I patted her head with a huff. “If you keep speaking like a dork, people will keep treating you like a dork.”

“Hana-sama, please don't say mean things…” She groaned but took it, fluffy ears pressing down on her skull. Only when I withdrew my hand did she feel something on top of her head. A small box of dango. Her eyes, red, filled with surprise. I winked and made a gesture of silence—shhh—with my finger. She nodded vigorously and hid the dango away in her fluffy tail.

I felt a little proud.

“It's not mean if it is the truth… maybe… eh. That was my sagely advice to you, Megumi. Listen to your elders and stuff,” I commented, but flinched at how hypocritical it sounded to myself. For just a moment. The next, I steadied. Not trying to ‘fix’ someone who can, given enough time, fix themselves. “I better get going. Gotta change out these clothes. Have a mission tonight,” she waved, fluffy tail swinging, and I walked past her into the kitchen.

One Aunn sprawled on the renovated kitchen floor, surrounded by seven despairing miko in training, greeted me. The Komainu had crumbs around her mouth and a sick veneer to her. Her body shook with the yips.

There’s a plate with many snowflake cookies—the Solstice Cookies—nearby, along with overturned baking ingredients.

Seven pairs of eyes meet me. I cross my arms and scowl hard.

No need to utter any words. The betrayal is fast: “It was Mari! She got this stupid idea of putting her mother’s mushrooms in the cookies!” Other voices joined in.

"Devadatta!" Mari Kirisame shrieked, sparking a seven-way shouting match.

… Cute.

“Stop, all of you,” I cut them off just as Mari neared tears, an appeal soon to blurt out of her trembling mouth. “I don’t care who did it—it happened under all of you,” I loomed over the young girls, though I knew before I gave it that their punishment would be way too limp-wristed compared to what I had in mind. Those big, teary eyes did that to me. “Make sure Aunn is not dying,” She isn’t. She’s a statue. She can even eat chocolate. Is she messing with them…? Probably. “Take her to Marisa-sensei or Melancholy-san in the city,” I said. They nodded and kept their eyes on me, as if expecting something. I felt a blood vessel just about pop. “WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?! Go!” I shouted, and they scrambled to get Aunn off the floorboards and tumbled over one another out of the shrine. “Not you.”

Aki, wide-eyed and terrified, looked between her fleeing friends and me. “H-Hana-neesan?! But you—”

“I know what I said. You’re coming with me. We’ve got a mission.”

She lit up like a Christmas tree.

The others groaned with jealousy but didn’t stop in their tracks. They had a dog sister to save.

“… I hope Aunn-nee doesn’t die. She ate a lot of chocolate,” Aki muttered, her wings trembling and pulling close as we moved out of the kitchen and into the bedrooms.

“She’s fucking with you, brat. Don’t worry about her,” it wasn't uncommon for Aunn to play pranks on the young miko in training. It makes me somewhat envious. When I was a child, Aunn showed protectiveness to a fault. Knowing that had been her response to Mother’s treatment of Father and me clashes with the light mischievousness she shows the girls… I met Mom’s surprised face in the mitamaya’s photo, and in them I let go of this small, jagged shard of envy. No reason to dwell on that stretch of the past. “Hm?” I met Aki’s curious gaze.

“You seemed conflicted, Hana-neesan.”

For a birdbrain, she can be perceptive on occasion.

“Nothing to worry about.”

“Mother says that whenever someone tells you something is no cause for worry, it always is something to worry about,” she offers a set of words that neither adds nor changes anything about this situation. She is her mother’s daughter, after all.

“Consider this an edge case, then,” I said, giving her a look. She opens her mouth to speak further, but the look stops her, and she pouts. “The mission takes place in the Wastes, deep Underground, so bring an extra Spell card with you. You'll need it.”

She groaned, “Hana-neesan, you won’t leave me—”

“I will,” I said, sliding my bedroom door and getting inside, a smug smile on my face.

“—But, neesan—!”

The protest falls on empty ears, and the door is closed shut.

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My smile didn't falter as empty silence met me. Rather, this familiar glow lingers. It always lingers whenever I command the girls around, whenever they look up to me in search of answers—of guidance—, and it always blossoms whenever they smile or act cute. I touch my chest. It's so warm. I take off the date fit and slip into my winter uniform, the blessed cloth a second skin and one I wear with much more enthusiasm…

—25 years old. Only friends are children and teenagers—

I click my tongue at the mind parasite dressed up as help, burying it before it can dampen my mood even more.

Don’t need that sort of judgement in my life. That… complete lack of faith. I’m 25, yes, but I’m still young. There are things I can do, and I’m always—always—trying them. Don’t need a shady person fucking with my head, planting ideas, twisting the world Mom gave me in her final moments. Don’t need another Yukari.

Should another Yukari try sinking her parasitic tendrils into my life, I’ll behead her too.

When one is deep in thought, time passes fast. The proof lies in the mirror: Gohei in hand, a few Spell cards tucked in my detached sleeves. Combat ready.

Now that’s a Hana Hakurei I know.

Outside the bedroom, I was met with Aki Kamishirasawa wearing her winter outfit, fidgeting with her Kagura-suzu, the rows of golden bells chiming at the slightest movement—a gift from Kosuzu; it was the first of its kind I've blessed—, her wings going up and down as she muttered short prayers to herself. When she found my eyes, her mouth opened to appeal, but I shook my head. “Hana-neesaaaaan…” She whimpered instead, to even less effect.

“You’re a big, strong eight-year-old. You’re more than capable, Aki.”

“B-But why do I gotta do that if you can just—”

I clicked my tongue, arms crossed. “—I can’t do everything for you. You became a miko because you wanted to feel strong like your brother, no?” She whimpered again, and it played with my heartstrings. It always does. I approached and patted her head hard. Unlike Mochi, she didn’t fidget much. “The only way you ever learn something is through challenge. Who are you? Are you not a Hakurei miko? Act as one,” I told her the words, or at least a version of them, Remilia Scarlet told me during the battle of the Solstice.

In but a minute, that vampire had reshaped me for war.

Aki isn’t fighting a war, so I can’t expect the same from her. I can, at least, always issue the challenges.

“… I-I’ll probably fail—aie!” A lovetap silenced her.

“That’s the point of you being an apprentice, birdbrain. Are you stupid? You fail, you get up, and you try again. Rinse and repeat. Until nothing can knock you down again,” with that, I walked past her, with the unfolded worldlines welcoming me in their midst. “See you in the Wastes,” and so I stepped through the lengthy distance between the Hakurei Shrine and the Underground. Aki would’ve had to make the normal voyage and, with a good degree of certainty, she’d meet weirdos along the way who'd want a Danmaku duel with one of the Hakurei mikos and the daughter of the local warlord.

That sort of thing happens in stages. I should have some time to investigate around here.

—

The Wastes were a fucking mess of a place. A lot of the Underground had become precarious to navigate, given the fact that Youkai Mountain may someday just sink under its weight, crushing everything under it and finishing what Yukari had started. The Wastes were those actually fucked-up parts, lying just beyond Lake Yuugi, home to that dragon Keine had barred me from exorcising, where the limits of Suwako-sama’s intervention came to an end. Recurring landslides and tremors, ground that couldn’t decide whether it was solid or dust, water deterioration and spouts everywhere, clouds of dust just peeling off the ceiling…

It isn’t my favorite place to be. And it was steeped in malevolence.

Not newborn, like Keine-sensei had said. Almost like saying 'fresh water'. Water existed from the beginning of time: it was drunk, pissed, and recycled ever since there were people to drink—according to Sekai, paraphrasing Patchouli Knowledge—same with this malevolence. It was new only in the sense that it's been recycled from one source again and again. The hairs along my arms stood up. Gohei had been ready from the second I felt the malevolence, gaze fastened, unflinching, at the dark alcove from which the malevolence bled.

Something about this situation felt… wrong.

“Haaah… hah… H-Hana-neeesan,” the strained voice takes my mind off the alcove, and I beam, proud, as Aki flies towards me. “I-I’m here…” She’s weary and frazzled at the edges, but that doesn’t mean she's out for the count.

“I told you you’d do fine—I didn’t, but I meant it in my heart,” I teased her. She flopped onto the porous rock, pink hair and wings sprawling. Her eyes hazed as she drew in labored breath after labored breath. I knelt beside her and asked, “How many weirdos did you face off with, brat? Any of the weirdos fought dirty?”

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“… Four, I guess?” She squinted in thought. “There was a Kurodani girl out on errands. We fought, then I helped her with the groceries; then a blonde, ugly lady challenged me to a duel over something in my face—she shrieked about envying my ‘A10s’; I didn’t get it—; then someone doing a ‘cosplay’ of a dead blonde lady they read about in an adult book came next,” she had amassed the strength to get up, breathing steadying. “The last person I don’t remember.”

“You don’t remember?” She shook her head. “But how do you remember fighting them?”

She blushed, the tips of her fluffy ears turning pink, “I-I remember he was a cute boy… but only that he was cute, not how he was cute. I think he shot me first and I shot back—so we fought.”

I sighed, shaking my head. “Doesn’t matter,” I headpatted her. “You did well ~ for such an easy trip, that is,” I couldn’t resist teasing her, and she pouted, glaring daggers—or maybe safety scissors—at me.

“I’ll tell Mother all you’ve done to me today, Hana-neesan.”

Laughter would’ve bubbled from my throat had Keine’s words not been so fresh in my mind. I roll my eyes instead and turn to the gaping wound upon the ashen soil. “Why don’t you tell her you can now battle some weak opponents during incident investigation? You’re not strong enough for people to take you seriously, but one day.”

She stutters, then swells with pride. “I think Mother would like that~”

I nod, and we go in. The path is as straightforward as it can get, which means bends are common, small applications of power to clear the path are necessary, and I need to always be on guard for falling debris and minor earthquakes. Our butterfly bows lit up as makeshift lanterns, the light a soft red, which frightened the darkness and revealed walls coated in dark slag the deeper we dove, tiny starry domains etched on the hard obsidian and basalt—I think those are the right rocks—, each brilliant star brimming with stocked malevolence, much older than the recycled one gushing into the surface.

Aki gasped at one point, her hand reaching out to run along the shadow crystals, which had proved themselves more solid than the rest of the passage. “I think these are diamonds…”

“Don’t touch them,” she flinched, her hand stilled, then she pulled it back. “… You can get a better look after I purify this place.”

The sparrow beamed, eyes wide, smile even wider. “Alright, neesan~!”

I’d have to cleanse this whole area after dealing with whatever problem’s brewed out of proportion here—and before a landslide or falling rock upsets the landscape, burying this bomb so it blows up somewhere in the future.

Can’t leave this incident for some miko that may not yet be strong enough to deal with it.

I look over my shoulder. Aki's enthralled by the star-covered walls.

I fight off a smile.

… Gonna be such a pain purifying this maze of spite…

The cramped, dusty passageways opened up: first into an antechamber, then into a sunken crystal cavern. Numerous shadow crystals creased the walls from small, dotted sulks to large, protruding trapezohedrons, their fractal facets reflecting our faces with impossible detail. Though below their mirror shine swirled malevolence. Specks of darkness floated about the ground, gathering towards a mound just ahead.

It churned, and it pulsed, the mound of pure resentment. Twisted resentment, I could discern. A red-and-blue… seal… of some kind wafted half-buried in the summit of that malformed hill. “Hana-neesan,” Aki whimpered, holding her Kagura-suzu with both hands.

“What do you think?” I asked, low and focused, eyes never off the mound.

“I-It’s bad…”

I glared at her. “Minus one point—try again.”

She blistered but said nothing, cerulean irises scanning the pulsating thing. It was undisturbed, but not the ground: small, inconsequential quakes rippled on occasion, and the diamond-laden walls ground a terrible sound. Thick walls absorbed the malevolence, the earth eating it away and leaving crusts behind. Tainted water flew from unseen crevices, and spiderwebbing damage lined everywhere the diamonds did not. “It doesn’t feel like any Youkai I’ve seen before… or greater spirit… I-I’m sorry, Hana-neesan—”

“—don’t apologize, stupid. I wasn’t expecting an actual answer, only that you gave one," I crouched, an ofuda between my fingers. “A nyobo, maybe. Can feel winter in its essence, though it doesn't embody it. It's more powerful than any nyobo I've seen—but it's still a spirit of broken love, so not terribly strong overall,” I moistened my lips. Most of its strength came from whom it mirrored, though only a fraction of a ghost of a memory. “… You can take this one by yourself.”

Her head whipped towards me. “What?!” She shrieked.

“I’ll be there for you: you focus on dodging whatever comes your way, and should I think you’re about to get hit, I’ll take you out of harm’s way,” I lovetapped the nape of her neck. “I’m your training wheels. You won’t have them when you’re out there doing missions by yourself.”

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“Ugh… b-but I don't wanna feel pain, neesan,” she whined once more, eyes jumping from me to the shifting mound, uncertain. "C-Can't I train some more?"

“You think I’d let you get seriously hurt, brat?” I pouted.

“N-No! I don’t think that! You dodge even better than Marisa-san,” I stopped myself from preening under such a compliment. Marisa-sama is fifty years old now, and though she’s still a killer dodger, age has taken its toll—I’ve yet to challenge her this week.

She doesn’t get slack because she’s old.

"Then get your act together and go fight that thing, Aki Kamishirasawa."

“… I…” Aki stammered but took a deep breath to steady herself, wings rattling before calming down. “I-I think I can do it… if you keep me safe…”

“You’ve never been in safer hands, my adorable apprentice,” I told her, eyes on the mound. “Besides, you’ll grow to love this one day.” The ofuda is thrown. It meets its mark.

The thing explodes in all directions.

The world folds. I grab Aki like a sack of potatoes and reposition us in about two hundred milliseconds of a second that never existed. The explosion doesn’t catch us, but the walls and ceiling protest. “Eek—!”

“Keep guard! Chin up, focus on yourself, not the bullets!” I yelled at the girl. “It’s all about precision!”

“H-Hai, neesan!” She gripped her wand with all the determination of an eight-year-old and dived in.

The nyobo took a familiar form as it left its stasis-like form. A woman's body—expected—made of malevolence. Tall and made taller by the fox ears crowning its head, twin curved horns nestled between them. The red-and-white talisman hung from its chest. Nine tails. It was but an echo of dead love, feeble despite the malevolence it steeped the air in. Didn’t have a proper mind of its own to focus the power of its vicious spirit, nor proper technique. A corrupted thing—even by Youkai standards…

… I’m glad it wasn’t Chen who discovered this thing down here.

I schooled myself as the maybe-nyono, in its rage, spewed unpatterned Danmaku. Not easy, but Marisa-sensei at 10, or Mom at 10, or I at 17 would've breezed through it.

Well, we aren't fighting it now.

Aki’s wings beat and pulled taut as she dodged across the large cave, sometimes spreading them wide with a hiss—'Eek!'—whenever she overcommitted or hesitated too much. “Attack! Dodging but not attacking is stupid!” I called, dodging the pellets and lasers rushing towards me without looking. My attention was all hers. Pressure was on.

“I-I know!” She shrieked back, Kagura-suzu singing after she squeezed through a volley. Glowing lines similar to those from a music sheet hovered behind her, following her flight like another layer of wings. Musical notes glided haphazardly from both right and left towards the center of the sheet and shot out in phantasm bursts that cleaved through the corrupted nyobo whenever Aki swung her wand in a beat meant for her fluffy ears only. Danmaku that shoots in bursts is rare to come by, ineffective as it is. But it still has its charms to watch her chuck phantasm music notes around—

—Oh, she’s gonna get hit. Birdbrain dodged broadly, right into a pellet.

The world folds. She’s moved to a safe spot. I hit her on the head. “Be more careful!”

She whimpered but ran right back into the fray. For as much as she complains about everything and can be an annoying, whiny brat, she has a competitive streak I’ve seen only in myself.

Hm…

The duel marched on, and some more saves were necessary, a number that tapered off as she got in the zone and stopped being jumpy at everything. C’mon, c’mon…

Danmaku pellets rose to dramatic proportions in a beat, saturating the unsteady cavern with malevolent light, an infinitude of rainbows reflected in the shadow trapezohedrons. I felt corded muscles stiffen but didn’t intervene. This is nothing to someone who could dodge through Koutei’s draconic barrages, but it is Aki’s first-ever dangerous rage phase.

She’ll have to use a Spell card—

“—H-Hana-neesan, I-I can’t dodge it all!”

“Use your Spell card!”

“I’ve used them all before we got here!” She screeched.

“You used all your Spell cards?!” I facepalmed, dragging my hand down with a groan. “Pull back as far as possible and slow down; shift into focus dodging—you can do this!” The hand not holding the Gohei closed and pumped by itself. Aki had dropped far back from the malevolent nyobo, her wings kept tight, nearly wrapped around herself, her movements slowed down to more precise motions, the lines behind her vanishing and going from bursts of phantasm notes to small, high-pitched sound waves that boomed at every chime of the bells.

C’mon, show me I’m doing something right…

The damage she could deal in focus mode was mediocre, the sound waves barely scratching the malevolent construct. That war of attrition didn’t go well with Aki’s lack of experience, too: pellets brushed closer, unsteady flight. The cave walls groaned, and plumes of dust fell in short intervals.

Sweat beaded on my forehead.

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It’s the role of a teacher to intervene whenever the going gets too rough and the apprentice isn't ready… but also to provide challenges to their pupils. Coddling is what led me to become the stupid girl I was before Remilia Scarlet whipped me into useful shape.

Show me I’m not a failure in that regard too, Aki.

… Please.

An intake of my breath—I gasped.

The malevolent construct jerked, its body dissociating, and it began losing chunks to the ether. Aki seized the opportunity and left focus mode, my fist pumping unconsciously and heart thundering in my chest, music notes peppering the malevolence. That's my girl!

Kill that ugly thing—!

—Eyes widened, and the worldlines flared. She’d overcommitted in her excitement and got hit. Before the next second could pass, I moved onto the past one and took her out of the path, the damage not as substantial as it’d have been had she taken it in the following second. A scratch on the arm, not a hole. Feet skidded on the ground; ofuda slapped to the wound before Aki could understand she was in pain. Behind us, the construct exploded into a black mass, unable to retain any spiritual or physical form under the assault of Hakurei purification.

“I-I did it!” She hissed in pain, wings curling around herself as she balled up, holding her pained arm.

The cavern layer didn’t share in her high, and I gnashed my teeth. I wish Aki could do the purification, but no time to waste.

Unchain split the world, and I surged with hundreds of ofuda thrown in that non-Euclidean second. The ofuda latched onto the mass of malevolence, covering it in layers—I blinked away the memory of Father’s arms—, and when time resumed, the malevolence singed out of existence in a silent scream, the nyobo losing its echoed form of broken love.

“N-Neesan—”

“Leave it for later!” I hastened, lifting off the cavern ground that, in its last groans, collapsed onto itself. The non-Euclidean space had the walls of diamonds turn into an ocean, which I zipped through in my third Long Step of the day.

My body was unhappy with that.

We popped out of the folded worldlines a long way from Lake Yuugi, at the entrance of New Old City. The cave-in was but a faint noise in the distance.

I let go of her and sat down on a jutting stone to gather my breath, eyes on her. She clutched her wound, her wings twitching, and she breathed twice as heavily as I did, with befuddlement written all over her face.

Her eyes lifted to meet mine.

Aki beamed, eyes wide, smile even wider.

I clicked my tongue, corners of my mouth twitching upwards.

“I-I did it, neesan! I killed that monster—it was so hard! I’ve never done something that hard!” Her smile curved down into a pout. “But I got hit, and you had to save me…”

I didn’t like that face. “Don’t be all dramatic. Remember what I said? Training wheels.”

“Y-Yeah, but—”

“No buts. You messed up but saw the purification through; improve and show me better next time, understand?” She kept on pouting. “Aki. I’m being serious…” I held my words, a moment of consideration passing me as I watched her on the ground, cradling an ugly scrape, the ofuda keeping it from bleeding and infecting.

She looked so… dejected…

… Ugh.

Dammit.

“When I… was your age, I couldn’t do half of what you can,” she perked up. “Couldn’t fly well, couldn’t hit stuff with Danmaku. It was sad. I was scrawnier, whinier, and insufferable. And you know why?”

“W-Why?”

“Because I always did things with my mother,” she froze, then scooted closer, wings at attention. I never talk of Mom to the girls, but I've known they have their questions. “She didn’t… trust me with important missions. And I didn’t show any mettle back then,” a particular mission to a farm comes to mind, but I ignored it. Not useful now. “I had to learn how to fight quite late in my life, and by then… there were enemies I couldn’t overcome.”

“You mean… Yukari?” She whispered, bringing her knees to her chest. I gave her a pointed look, and she explained, "Mother taught me about her—things she doesn’t teach others.”

Brow creased. Why would Keine do that…? No matter. “Yeah, Yukari. If I’d had the strength I had when I killed her from the very beginning, she wouldn’t have gotten so far,” Aki whimpered, looking down. “But I hadn’t had the chance to grow strong in my childhood, so I was pathetic when it mattered most,” I huffed. “You have that privilege. Somewhere in the future, there might be a danger I’ll be too old to fight—or maybe I won’t be around anymore—and it’ll be up to you to face it. I want you as strong as possible if that time ever comes, Aki,” I got up, the ache of overusing Long Step, traveling entire kilometers in one go, fading to the background. “So, right now, you fuck up and miss again and again and learn from every mistake you commit. You grow strong in the process,” I stroke my hand along her head, humming at the fluffiness of her salmon hair. “While you still got your neesan to catch you~”

That’s how Marisa-sensei felt? Heh~

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She looked up at me and rubbed her eyes—which made her wince in pain. Stupid—, and nodded with a big, shining smile. That smile earned her a meal before we left the Underground.

We found a food cart after walking New Old City for some time, and I met every stinking gaze cast at me by disgruntled oni with an unflinching gawk. Daring them to do more than idle sulking, as I always do. They gave nothing, as they always do. Old resentments remain and will remain for a long, long while. Aki sensed the atmosphere, but when she asked me, I dismissed the whole thing.

Don’t want to sour her achievement with a grudge as old as she is.

The Izakaya was nice. I recall scattered, rare occasions when Mother had a larger payday and, coincidentally, she was in a good mood. We'd go somewhere that served food, and I'd eat well.

“I’ll take the grilled lamprey, a bunch of them for Hana-neesan and me, and, oh, ginkgo tea if you have it~!” She chirped as she sat down, wings beating up and down. A sign of love, comfort, delight, calm. “Please and thank you!”

Her joy would be infectious if I wasn't so tired.

“Shot of habushu,” I said, sitting down beside the sparrow.

The other two stools were empty.

“Ewwww…” Aki voiced, disgusted, but I ignored her. I had reacted the same when Sanae-san made me taste it. Aki’ll come around someday.

The owner, a wiry oni girl with smaller-than-normal horns—a mixed? Possibly—, seemed uncomfortable with my presence, but if she had an actual problem with me, she never said so as she cooked the lamprey. I reached into my wallet to prepare the payment…

… A-Ah…

I forgot to get any money before leaving.

Fuck me.

“Hey, girl,” I called the proprietor. “Do you accept credit?”

“C-Credit…? We don’t do that here, ma’am…” She mumbled, uncertain and looking over her shoulder as she grilled the fish. Aki was staring at me. Shit. This is so embarrassing; I can feel my ears heating up—

“Ahem,” Aki cut in and, proudly, showed me a 5000 yen bill she’d gotten from somewhere. “We can use my allowance.”

No longer flustered, I was mortified. No! Nah! The oni girl was trying not to chuckle.

I cannot have my eight-year-old apprentice pay for me!

—

My eight-year-old apprentice paid for the food: grilled lampreys on herbs, tea for her, and a shot of snake wine for myself.

I still felt washed and embarrassed, but after promising I’d repay her later today—and less porch-sweeping duty in exchange for not telling a soul about this—the subject was dropped. She took it upon herself to tell me all the fun things she and the other apprentices did while I was out, and at that, I realized I had forgotten my shitty date. I hadn't even thought of it once during the purification mission.

Somehow, this is also a much better date—of sorts. The irony made me groan.

… I really gotta apologize to Yu-kun for being a terrible date…

Another day. Gonna finish this food and then laze around the rest of the day.

Maybe I’ll see how Chen is doing—

—Movement in the periphery. A woman, about my size, wearing a dark cloak. Oni, from the twin horns creating protrusions on top of the black hood.

She sat beside Aki and was putting her order in with the proprietor.

Throat parched. I went to take a sip of my sake.

And then it hit me.

A feeling.

A familiar feeling.

Body reacted before mind did: I grasped Aki and flew far—far—away from that woman.

“H-Huh?!” Aki choked, confused and squirming. I didn’t notice.

The woman had caught my shot of sake before it fell.

I couldn’t see her face. There was an opening in the hood, but I just couldn’t.

There was nothing there.

And yet, I could feel she was smiling as she took my shot to her lips and chugged it all in one go. “Good taste,” she hummed and put down the empty glass. The oni proprietor had gone down too—passed out, not dead, I could feel.

“… Aki, get out of here,” I hissed at the younger miko, letting go of her in favor of drawing my Gohei. “Fetch your mother.”

“N-Neesan, w-what’s happening?” She sobbed. “Who’s tha—”

“Are you deaf? Go!” I reiterated, posture tense with growing violence.

She whimpered, looking between me and the oni who’d gotten up from her seat, cowering but, ultimately, spreading her wings and flying away. I kept my eyes on the oni, challenging her to try laying a finger on Aki.

She didn’t budge, only held my gaze with unseen eyes. “I wouldn’t have minded if she stayed,” the oni said, shrugging. “What if someone targets her—”

“Shut the fuck up. They won't—they cannot,” I hissed, Gohei cleaving the air. “… You want me, don't you?”

Her aura, unleashed for but a moment—a viper rearing its head from the reeds—had shown me all I needed to see and told me all I needed to know. I’m intimately acquainted with that aura, something only naturalborn oni, humans who turn into oni, could possess.

Memories of my first true brush with death resurface.

I bury them.

There’s a monster in need of murdering in front of me.

“Just wanna talk,” she said. “Do you, Hakurei?”

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part 2 of Hana's epilogue! Next gonna be the penultimate~!
more soon!
>>51295842
>I'm surprised you want to do more with this
it was always sort of my plan to have a part 2, then end the HSE. Just gotta make it happen now
>>51299654
>why is Chen wearing Yamame's clothes
because it looks cute

>… I really gotta apologize to Yu-kun for being a terrible date…
Leaving the elephant unaddressed, lowkey that wasn't even Hana's fault. That guy really was an asshole

>>51303796
Hana ties a lot of her worth with providing strength, she connects well with children who need that but not with people her age who ask things she can't provide and she gets defensive, blows a fuse, and pushes everyone away. The seventeen years of traumatic helplessness to top 20 in the verse pipeline do be like that.

Another good reminder to actually read this now that I've gotten slightly out of my depressive slump, ugh can't believe I missed out on modern /jp/ history while it was going on

>>51310441
For your peace of mind, don't ask questions /here/. A lot of them is answered with "they died."

Alright, seeing as how HSE became a collaborative writing work from abusive 'mu, would anyone be interested in the idea of[ spoiler]expanding tentacle palace, specifically the idea of a 2hu being corrupted, like Reisen and Sanae? Since Reisen and Sanae seem more slutty in the tentacle palace playthrough[/spoiler]
Hopefully someone is interested and picks it up, since the guy first wanting to write a story about Yukari seducing Anon all the way back in september 2023 was too lazy to do it.

>>51311007
don't even know what that is
it wouldn't work anyway, the HSE didn't become a collaborative project because someone asked, it was an offshoot of the original Hana fic and someone posted the initial idea of the HSE during the writer's holiday, and the anons in the thread pulled and expanded on the idea until it formed the first entries of the HSE. It had to happen organically, and I don't think there's even the audience left on /jp/ for it nowadays.

>>51311099
>I don't think there's even the audience left
So everyone on /jp/ just lost the appetite to make smut fics in just 3 years? Is it not worth trying myself where you're sure no one's going to pick it up?

What even happened to the writer that was in thailand with femboys anyway?

>>51311114
>What even happened to the writer that was in thailand with femboys anyway?
Evil tornado :(

>>51311114
It's not that there's no audience for smut, more so there's less of an audience for big projects or collaborative writing since the 2 week rule was implemented.

>>51311216
It's kind of funny how we've lost two people to tornado. One in Thailand and the other in america,
Maybe Sharknado is real and it hates /jp/

Bump

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The HSE is technically banned in mainland China, so kudos to this gentleman for crossing the great firewall. I'll remember him whenever his head is chopped.

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My answer is a swift death delivered unto her.

The worldlines fold, and despite the strain gnawing at the back of my mind, I reach into a second already past, swinging the Gohei in a cleaving motion, bound for her neck. Lobbing her head might not be enough; it hadn't been enough for Hieda, both naturalborn oni—fetid, glowing yellow eyes flashed in my mind. My palms felt sweaty, and I blinked the image away—, but no matter. I'll purify her corpse and forget this shit ever happened after reporting it.

I’ll not be subject to another Yukari…

…

…?

Nothing happened.

The woman raises an eyebrow—I don’t see that. I see nothing of her face. How do I know her minute expression?—before realization flickers through her hidden eyes. “Have you, perhaps, attempted to kill me with your non-Euclidean powers, Hakurei?” She asked. My blood ran cold, my grip on the Gohei tightening. That served as an answer to perceptive eyes. “It seems you did. A shame… but I won’t hold such a transgression against you. I came to you fully expecting a tough crowd… still, it’s rather disappointing you’ve inherited some of Reimu’s worst qualities—”

“How did you survive that?” I gnashed, impatient. Tense. Only two people had ever meddled with the attributes of my Unchain. “I beheaded you in the past.”

“You shouldn’t demand answers from the person you just attempted to kill, Hakurei,” she cut in. “It's a good trait to be careful, yes, but impoliteness? Even oni regard outsiders with their strongest sake—”

“Cease the drivel. Just answer me, oni.” I seethed. “You came here for revenge, right? Did I kill someone you knew? Did Mother? Get it out of your chest before I carve it open.”

Why is she not attacking? What’s the angle here…?

I’ve been targeted before, when wounds were still fresh and nerves fried. Never showed an ounce of mercy. Is this what's happening? A bounty on my head? Vengeance? There is nothing to read on her face. Her babbling grates on my synapses like sandpaper and supplies my body with the ugly fury of the kill. This familiar feeling. Don’t feel it much these days.

The oni sighs and pinches her nose with two fingers, then shakes her head. “… You really are Reimu’s daughter. The world’s a pond, and all you have is a harpoon—no, wait, I think it was a hammer and nails. Sayings change with the centuries," she laughed to herself like a stupid person. What the hell is she on about? I braced the Gohei, jaw grinding. Her powers are impossible to tell yet.

They feel close to the Gap in a cryptic way, but don’t resemble it at all. The Gap tears and expands the boundaries between all things, but when the Gohei hit her in the past, it was as if it hit nothing whatsoever. Hieda manipulated the concept of bloodline itself, though his mind was fractured and his body decaying, and he couldn’t make full use of the terrifying powers he got.

This oni is healthy. She’s strong, and she’s laughing. She has her mind to herself.

She might be the strongest enemy I’ve faced this generation.

My heart pounds with the thrill of it.

“Oh? That expression… are you sure there’s no oni blood in your family~?” The woman barged in with the tease, and I hissed before biting back whatever silly expression I was making. “Anyway. This atmosphere is making my blood sing for a battle—though I did tell them I’d at least talk to you before carrying it through, so…” She lifted her right palm facing up, but before she could do whatever she was about to do, I concluded my thought: the flavor of power she has didn’t matter as long as I killed her fast enough.

Worldlines thinned, and I was on top of her. No sense attacking in the past, so I’ll decapitate her now.

She dodged with startling reflexes, cloak fluttering and a smile beneath that sheer nothingness. A small rivulet of blood ran where the Gohei had grazed her.

She can be killed.

This quiet corner of New Old City booms with sudden battle as my Danmaku explodes outward with killing patterns, strikes of the Gohei following behind. Oni throughout the city would panic at the blankets of pellets flying through the sky and streets—mostly the younger ones—or reach out for the nearest sake, their eyes gleaming with a look I caught only glimpses of—those old bastards pray hard for the day I die in one of my duels… no. Every duel I had in this city before can’t compare with what I’m locked in with right now.

The woman had answered my challenge in kind. Two veiled skulls floated around her and spewed a deluge of golden needles of sorts, their movement blurry and confusing my senses. It was as if dodging a thought or something you only thought you’d seen but turned out to be nothing at all. The patterns had me working bones that hadn’t worked ever since Yukari bit the dust: barrel rolls and rapid-fire applications of non-Euclidean movement that, washed by her void-like Danmaku, made the worldlines appear as if… normal. Unchanging. No fractals, oceanized ground that I could dive through or light I could walk on—

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—There she is.

I rushed her down, Gohei swinging and needles flying in the same movement. She dodged the blessed wood once and again, hands hidden inside her swaying cloak, the hood never dropping.

That first hit had come out of a surprise attack. She was adapting, but its memory remained.

She bleeds, so she dies.

“I hadn’t had the chance to say this before, Hakurei, but you’re an impressive human. Killing Yukari Yakumo? I must admit: I’d have failed had I endeavored such suicidal measures.”

“It needed to be done, so it was done—same for you, abomination. I’ve killed a naturalborn before,” I spat, sinking into the worldlines to dodge a volley of void-like needles. She moved out of the way with simplicity, no action wasted. Blood trailed. “You’ll be my second.”

“Bwahahaha!” She cackled for whatever fucking reason as I pursued her through the stalactite ceiling of the Underground, phasing through them with the stretched worldlines. “I’m not a naturalborn oni, girl! I was human once, yes, but I achieved this through consumption. If my information is correct, the human you killed became oni through repressed feelings and a bunch of loose screws, no? I’m not like that—obviously, I turned out much better~” She shrugged, dodging dozens of strikes passed through the veil of non-Euclidean movement. A muscle jumped taut in my jaw.

The use of overwhelming force isn’t working against her. I’ll need something else to put her down.

“What do you even know of my mother?” I snapped back.

I need time. If I can’t kill her alone, then I’ll just have to keep her busy here.

“Reimu? She was an acquaintance back when Gensokyo was through its last rough patch before things smoothed down—for two decades, heh. Almost a friend, your mother,” she said, swerving in and out of my attack range. “Had all the good qualities of someone who could keep the peace. Brutal, straightforward, capable, and unflappable—that was until she spiraled and turned out to be a failure. A lot of them do. The Kali Yuga has been upon us for a long time.”

My brows knit. “The what?”

“You’re not spiritually versed, are you? Weird for a miko… but you’re not a normal miko,” the way she spoke it sent chills crawling up my back. “I’ve watched you. I know what you represent to this… new… Gensokyo,” past the aloof and direct facade under that nothingness, a tinge of discomfort fueled her voice as she dodged my relentless assault. It made me elated. “You’re a sower of discord and a torment peddler. Ruthless, merciless. I’ve never seen a miko harvest so much pleasure from the act of killing, and I’m from the Age of Bloodspill.”

I grinned. “What? Scared, pervert?”

“Disturbed.” She stopped, and a change in the air made me stop too, eyes flitting around. We'd flown all the way into the Wastes, away from any civilization. I pursed my lips and held her unseen gaze. “I can excuse the ignorance. You were conscripted early into bloodshed, if my math aligns. I doubt losing family helped it. Yet, you're still kindhear—”

Grin left, and only a scowl remained. “What do you even know about me, huh? You don’t know shit about me, fatso-born,” I pointed my Gohei at her, feeling at my wits' end with this bullshit routine. “You mentioned ‘them’ earlier. Was this all just a ruse to attract me here? Where are your little friends? They waitin’ around to ambush me? Gonna kill them too—”

“—You talk too much.”

“Noted, kettle,” I sneered at her.

She sighed. “You’re still under the assumption that I want to fight you, Hakurei. I know I'm an oni. That means I do take pleasure in battling and such, but base instincts are not the dominant force in my mind—why does it seem that they are in yours?” I boiled red. She cut in before I could clap back. “I came here personally because you’re Reimu’s daughter and I had to gauge whether the good qualities had been passed down. There are other motives, but that’s chief among them.” I narrowed my eyes, Gohei poised for the next attack. Where are the reinforcements? Is Aki unharmed? Keine told me nothing could—

My train of thought halts.

If this oni is unaffected by attacks done in the past, does it interact with or even negate sensei’s manipulation of history…? A cold pools in my belly and, for the moment, I settle down. “Did something happen to Aki—the sparrow miko I had with me?” I ask, searching her form.

Her unseen eyes blink under the hood. “… You are an enigma through and through,” she chuckles, exasperated. “The girl is well. Speaking of it now, I wish she’d stayed. We could’ve done without the time waste.”

I know a liar. I was raised by one, twisted by another. Lived with one in the mirror.

My heart cools as it tells me: this is not a liar.

… So what is she?

“Better seize this opportunity.” She raises her palm again, and this time there’s no preamble. A… something warps out from her like an explosion’s shockwave. The worldlines rendered into a million fractals as I dodged the surprise attack, adrenaline flowering through my body.

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Stupid! Shouldn’t have trusted an oni, shouldn’t have—

—There is no damage. At least, not physical.

Eyes widen, body locks up in place. “W-What did you do…?” I whispered, and, after not feeling it for a decade, I was reintroduced to what fear felt like.

“I gave us privacy,” the oni said.

The world beyond this small pocket of space had vanished. Only dark remained. Undistilled, unbreakable, unendurable, and uncrossable. It lacked a horizon, yet it did not consume the trapped light between me and the hooded oni. We existed suspended in this void, nothing else. I wobbled, struggling to remain straight with little notion of up and down.

Eyes dashed from one side to the other, looking for anything in the normal world and the non-Euclidean world.

No matter where I looked, it was an empty world.

“… A-Answer me…” The words came out breathy, choked.

She crossed her arms, and smugness emanated from her. “What? Scared—”

“Shut! This is not funny!” I hissed, branding the Gohei. “What a low fucking trap, even for an oni—”

“Easy. It’s not a trap, Hakurei. Holding this thing up leaves me wide open. It’s just a convenient way of keeping what I want to talk about a secret,” I fumed. What about this is so important?! We could’ve gone somewhere remote, and no one would’ve heard.

Why this whole song and dance?

She adds before I can give her a piece of my mind: “A secret from the past and the future.”

A… secret from the past and the future?

My heart clenches at those words. Only a few I know work with that currency. Keine, Remilia… Sekai… Fury lashes inside my chest. "Elaborate," I demanded.

"Not until after you hear me," she said, poised.

I clicked my tongue. The not-knowing made me anxious.

She marched on. “You’d asked before what my power was. As a show of confidence, I’ll tell you what I'm doing right now: this void is a bubble of nothingness. It keeps whatever happens inside it, inside it, without any connection to the outside world and the treading of fate,” she huffs as I scowl. “It’s not as great as it sounds. It’s a physical application of my powers, something I’m, shamefully, not well versed in—I much prefer the illusory strain of nothingness,” she sits back—on nothing. She sits on nothing—with a creak of her back. “When we're done, I’ll compress it and store it away. Everything that happens within it remains within it—so long as I allow it,” she rummages in her pockets before tossing me a black marble.

Holding the marble seemed as if I had a hole in my hand.

It vanished. The hair on my neck stood on end from a sudden feeling of malevolence. A mere speck that’d be carried by the wind and wither away somewhere…

My mind jolted, and my brow creased. “… Did you plant the malevolence I cleansed today?”

She raised both hands in surrender, and fury welled in my heart. “We needed to time everything right without putting people at risk. A sudden spike of malevolence in the Wastes, budding below the earth. No immediate danger, but it had to be dealt with. So you were sent—who but Hana Hakurei would’ve been sent?” She tilted her head. “It was a waste of that talisman, but employing it for gain would be an insult to Yuuma’s power… and her grieving heart,” there was a wistfulness there that I couldn’t pinpoint the source of.

“All so you could talk to me…?” I pulled it back on topic.

“All so I could talk to you,” she nodded along.

“Why? Couldn’t have just shown up at the shrine like a normal person?”

She shook her head. “Surface dealings are off-limits for me.” I waited for any explanation, but it didn’t come. “You bear much more power than your capacity to annihilate, Hakurei. I don’t want that power—or any facet of it—pointed at my people, whom you already have a sour history with, or at me,” I blinked, befuddled. She smirked. “What? I like honesty in a conversation. Just a hassle we’ve got no sake. A good talk is done over good sake,” she snorted. What’s so funny about that? “Maybe some other day.”

“Curb it, oni. You’re not out of the woods yet.” The reminder didn’t seem to affect her much.

I clicked my tongue, eyes sweeping the darkness once more. The fear had retreated to the uglier depths of my core, and the Gohei wasn’t poised to attack anymore. Something’s happening here—something that I don’t understand but that makes my stomach lurch with confusion and an aggravated anxiety.

Is this oni woman another Yukari? This time with a softer demeanor and a drinking habit?

Am I committing a mistake by stopping and listening to her…?

My grip firms. She'd said it herself: upholding this barrier has her vulnerable.

I should kill her.

Shouldn’t leave it to chance.

“I’ve got no motive to talk to you,” I said, neutral, but inside I lashed out at myself. Why am I saying this instead of just pouncing for the kill—am I asking for a motive?! Don’t be a fool, Hana Hakurei, don’t be—

“It concerns your father, who might be in danger," She calmly stated.

…

…

“Speak, oni,” I grimaced, arms crossed and ears open.

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next batch is the end of Hana's prologue~!
more soon!

I wonder who that is...

I want Hana to arrive in the outside world so she can get groped on a train and learn to take outsider dick.

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>>51315415
>Dark hood
>Cloaked
>Demonic nature
>Manipulates the protagonist
I have a theory.

I want to be reborn as Hana's child so I can have an emotionally incestuous relationship with her. Girl or boy it doesn't matter, I want Hana to see me as a replacement for her father/husband/mother, and for her to be emotionally dependent on me and follow me when I go to the village, preventing me from having friends or family other than her.

>>51315979
>>51320023
This truly is the kali yuga Zanmu talked about.

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>>51320023
she's cursed to indirectly and directly kill her family, soooo... at least you could die a traumatic death if you died young enough

>>51323530
That make it even better, I'd be alive long enough for the emotional incest to happen, then she's sexually abuse me, and I'd die right after.
Hana would never get over it, it's perfect.

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Remind me again how Kasen turned Douji? Was the arm involved or did she just get corrupted with pleasure from training (read:raping) Anon too much? I remember it was a gradual thing and recall enjoying those bits.

>>51323942
Yukari enslaved Kasen by exploiting Douji's lust.
Yukari enslaved Koutei to the sword and Kasen had her first relapse.
Hana killed Koutei and Kasen lost it.

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we should be hitting the 2 week autosage soon; couldn't finish the Hana end prologue and Chen start, so will be posting them together at the start of the next thread. About 12 or so chapters…

>>51327839
>we should be hitting the 2 week autosage soon
remember to thank janitors! Truly this was the change jaypee needed

>>51330497
終わりだ...

>>51310454
Even the three Fairies of Light? They're my favorite characters and they pretty much always make the shrine a fun-er place,

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>>51337909
>fairies

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Baking...

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New thread gents and gents
>>51342523
>>51342523
>>51342523