> "Commander, in the interest of more informed decision-making, I have asked Patchouli about the circumstances surrounding her summoning the cosmic horror."
> "Patchouli, would you mind repeating what you told me, so the Commander can weigh in? She knows better than Master Eirin or myself exactly what the Lunarians are expecting."
>"Very well," says Patchouli, as she walks over to an large chair and makes herself comfortable. Eirin walks over to a couch and has a seat, as Patchouli begins to speak.
>"I honestly do not feel I even need to justify myself to anyone save the Enma when it is my time to meet her, so please listen carefully as I do not intend to do so again. You ask, did I summon a thing from beyond the reality we know? Yes. I did so, I did it willingly. I would do it again without regret. You are wondering why I did it, no doubt, so I will elaborate. I was, to some degree, a victim of fate. There was a person, some time ago, who invoked the help of the hakutaku Keine to try to erase knowledge of his actions from the world, in order to avoid pursuit for some of his misdeeds. Reisen may recall me asking about a person named Jeff; as would your Princess."
>You do recall this; you were assigned to work on the front doors that day. She asked about a person named Jeff, you told her that you knew nothing, and that was more or less the end of it.
>"I am not sure how he convinced Keine to do this, but she did it. Unfortunately, history is a tangled thing. She did not just erase Jeff's memory, she erased Jeff himself. In theory, this would be the end of it. But, Jeff had done several interesting and foolish things. For one, he had made good friends with my Mistress, enough to interest her in him. As such, his fate became bound to hers, and that helped keep some essence of him alive despite being removed from history. As well, he too tampered with this horror; having little idea what he was involving himself in; and lost his soul to it. This horror, it seems, lies outside of history, as well as things in its grasp. Despite the events being erased, it still retained what it had taken from Jeff. As well, from actions that happened then, it had gotten influence on Rumia, and quite a lot on Suwako; both of them unaware of it."
>She gives a smirk. "Still, he got what he wanted. No one remembered him. No one but me. Why me?" She shrugs. "Fate, I suppose. We were connected in some way by Remilia's manipulations that I've never made sense of. He had a sort of quasi-existence, a mind without a body or a soul. He couldn't interact with the world anymore, and the world simply didn't know he existed. Save for me. I did remember him, though not perfectly, and was troubled by that incongruity. And eventually, I found him, hiding in some abandoned house in the Ancient City where he had been when history was changed. I worked to save him, feeling it wrong to leave him trapped in that kind of hell. In the process, I came across a weapon known as the Dream Cutlass. Unbeknownst to me, that weapon was tied to the horror that Jeff had invoked. Events led to that weapon being shattered, and myself being drawn...elsewhere. Or rather, I was still in Gensokyo, but everything was gray and frozen, and I could move about with but a thought. I think it was some place between our state of reality and the Horror's own. The only ones who could move were myself, Jeff; who had a sort of intangible 'body' composed of its his thoughts, Rumia and Suwako. The connection, between the three of them was contamination by that horror."
>She stops for a moment to compose her thoughts. "As far as I can understand, Rumia and Suwako, due to their actions in that history that no longer was, had managed to lock away that horror into themselves. It was broken up and confused, as far as I could tell such things applied to it. But at the same time, it was clearly hurting them both. I managed to extract it from them, not knowing what it was, and it reformed into its proper self. So I did the only natural thing, I fled and returned to this world via the gateway that had opened. Unfortunately, when I passed through the gateway closed, I left Jeff behind. So, I did the only natural thing to keep it from devouring him, I gathered together as much help as I could, being Yuyuko and Sanae, and summoned the thing to confront it. Or rather, I invoked it and it drew us to it. In the end, it was Sanae drawing upon her goddesses that stopped the thing. In the process, we managed to free Jeff's mind from its hold, as well as find the soul it had taken from him. Mid and soul were reunited, and he was able to rejoin the world and the cycle of life and death. He proceeded on to Higan, where the Enma has since dealt with him. I regret nothing, and would do it again."
>A heavy silence falls over the room in the wake of Patchouli's story. Patchouli herself seems to be trying to deal with the dryness in her throat in the wake of all that talk. Eirin is silent and unreadable. Yorihime is furrowing her brow.
>_
