And the plot congeals.
Yukari wasn?t actually in her estate, but instead at the Hakurei Shrine, standing in the common room by the kotatsu. The resident shrine maiden, Reimu Hakurei, was seated at the kotatsu itself, watching Yukari as she conversed on her cellphone. The Sage Youkai opened a small boundary tunnel and reached in, drawing out a small silver token.
Yukari glanced down at Reimu, and nodded once. The shrine maiden picked herself up from the small heated table and patted herself down, running through a ritual of preparation that she?d done countless times before. Needles, talisman, charms, and the Hakurei Artifact bracers.
She waved her hand through the air, and a floating orb colored to look like a yin-yang orb wavered into existence. She banished it immediately, grabbed her gohei, and nodded at Yukari.
?So, where are you two headed right now?? Yukari asked.
There was a moment of silence while Yukari waited for the reply; Reimu could faintly hear a girls voice from the cellphone Yukari was holding to her ear.
A look of grim determination set into Yukari?s face, and she locked eyes with Reimu.
Time to move.
?About two or so hours out from the Human Village, and we?re headed there in a straight line from Mayohiga.?
Koishi looked up at me. ?You told her where we are? Esi,
she knows where we are. You just admitted to her ??
I felt the air pressure hiccup at me as something unnatural happened. I couldn?t place it immediately, but after a split seconds? hesitation I realized I was sensing two more minds.
That hesitation cost me.
A girl in a red and white outfit stepped out from behind Koishi, and waved her arms in an intricate pattern before closing her hands into fists and drawing herself up onto one leg.
?Seal of the Shinto ? Binding Life,? she declared.
I felt as though something had grabbed me by the shoulders and yanked me backwards. I slammed into the ground, hard, and blacked out from the impact.
My sight returned to me a moment later; the black-haired girl was standing over me.
?Hmph. Guess you really aren?t a youkai, after all. That wouldn?t?ve worked on you otherwise.?
I grunt in pain. ?Yeah? Speaking of, if that?s the case, then why are you letting Koishi behind you? That sounds like a bad tactical ??
?Yukari has Koishi. Youkai for the Youkai, human for the human. What?s this I hear about you planning to attack the village? Shouldn?t you know better ? humans are
not supposed to fight humans. This is why the spellcard system is there in the first place.?
I sit up. It feels as though I?m moving through molasses ? a lot of resistance to my movements.
?Huh. Been a while since I had to use a bind on a human, guess I?m getting out of practice. You shouldn?t be able to move, at all. Count yourself lucky.?
?I?m so lucky I got attacked with no provocation at all. Woo-hoo!? Even if I didn?t have a weapon at hand, I was always armed with my
sharp wit. The most fearsome weapon.
I wrestle my body upright again, climbing to my feet. The red-and-white girl ? Reimu ? circles me, watching as I rise up.
?This is the psyker? Don?t know why I was expecting a Third Eye like the satori, hell; you told me she was a human.?
That?s right ? Koishi, and now Yukari
I crank my head around. It?s getting just slightly easier to move again.
Koishi is locked in place, holding her strange pose that she took that night the tengu captured us. She?s not moving; I try to probe her mind and get nothing.
Just a void. ?What the hell?! What did you do to Koishi??
Yukari steps around into sight. She?s not wearing her poofy dress anymore; instead, it?s more of a Chinese-style Gi with tight leggings. She looks much taller like this, too, unless that?s just a trick of hers.
?Temporal lock. Didn?t want to send her anywhere, didn?t want her interrupting us.?
My cellphone is suddenly in her hands. What the hell?
Reimu comes back around in front of me. ?So, she came from the outside, right??
Yukari waves her hand through the air, and my cellphone takes itself apart. The battery disappears into one of her gaps, and she produces another one. The phone builds itself around the new battery, and Yukari begins to fiddle with my phone.
?Such a selection you?ve got here, Esifex.?
?My name is Sara, dammit. You know this. The rest of Gensokyo doesn?t; let them call me Esifex.
You know what my name is. Stop calling me that, please.?
I test myself, and pull my leg forward through the seal as best I can; still thick resistance, but it?s getting easier to move by the minute.
Unfortunately, Reimu notices.
?Seal of the Shinto.? The air thickens around me again, and I?m locked in place properly this time.
?What the hell. What?s going on, Yukari??
Instead of answering, Yukari stops clicking at my phone and studies it for a second.
?
Higan Riverside Sunrise? That sounds catchy.?
I sigh. ?Yukari, dammit, what the hell is going on??
She turns her head to stare at me. She looks stern, an odd dichotomy from the song playing from my phone.
?You?re misbehaving, Sara. You?re a loose cannon, and you?re not doing what I told you to do. If you ??
?I have my own free will! What?s wrong with thinking for myself?! I don?t need you to plan my day-to-day life.?
?To the contrary, Sara, yes, you do. If it weren?t for me, you?d be dead. The time you?ve been living has been borrowed time ?
my time. The least you should be doing is
listening to my recommendations, if not following them to the letter. Bide your time, be patient, and most importantly, behave, and you would?ve been sent back to your world in due time.?
?You said I?d be better off staying indefinitely. Why are you suddenly trying to change your mind??
Reimu strode away from me towards Koishi, inspecting the frozen satori, leaving us to our conversation.
?I?m not changing my mind. If you?ll recall, I said ?at this time? when I said you should remain here. You?re nowhere near ready to return to your corner of the Earth as you are; you?re too impulsive, too cynical, and too impulsive.?
Reimu looked over her shoulder at Yukari, as though she wanted to ask why Yukari had said ?impulsive? twice. Neither Reimu nor I took the bait, though, and after a moment, Yukari moved on.
?You think too highly of yourself. You lack modesty and humility with your newfound talent. On top of that, you?re being vindictive. The guards out of the village were being out of line, yes, but that?s a part of being human.?
?So is being vindictive. I?m not allowed to be human anymore??
?Beats the alternative?? Reimu muttered. She turns around and faces me again, planting her fists on her hips.
?Look, Esifex, if there?s a problem in the village, let the village handle it. Come to me. Tell Yukari. Send a message to Keine.
Follow the established routes. Don?t try to take things into your own hands, dammit. That upsets the balance. There are people here specifically for handling this sort of thing.?
?Well then, pardon me. I was unaware of this fact. Also, my name is Sara.?
?Your name is Esifex now. Unless you?d rather we gave you another name? but you aren?t Sara. You can?t take Sara?s reputation, her name, her identity. It?d be dangerous, for you and her, and for reasons I don?t exactly know, myself.?
?I would?ve assumed Yukari would?ve told you, of all people.?
?Yukari tells people what she wants to, and nothing more. You learn to cope with it after a while.?
Reimu was getting disinterested now; I was stuck in her seal, and Yukari was lecturing me. Her mind was starting to wander. Yukari was sitting on the sidelines as the two of us conversed. Now was my chance.
?Berserker?s Rage!? I flex my arms and close my hands into fists, aided by the spellcard in my efforts to tear myself from the seal. Suddenly, freedom of movement was returned to me as I stepped forward.
?Wha- what the?!? Reimu whirls to face me properly, and twists her forearms, flicking them out. I can catch the slightest glimpse of a pair of metallic-looking bracers on each wrist beneath her detached sleeves; a set of needles slide out into her waiting hands, and a pair of floating yin-yang orbs began to orbit around her. I?m not getting near her, now ? nevermind that I never planned to.
?Intervene!?
For those of us who are unaware of how Warriors work, they have a series of ?rush? style moves. The first is Charge, used to initiate combat; the second is Intercept, to close the distance between someone fleeing from you in combat; and finally, Intervene, which puts you between an ally and their enemy.
Somehow ignoring the effects of inertia by running at speeds well over 45 M/PH, I deposit myself between Reimu and Koishi. Judging by the way Reimu is standing, I just narrowly avoided being perforated by her needles. Four graze points for me.
She whirls to face me, orbs following suit.
I get the faintest premonition that the orbs were about to put themselves right where I was standing, so I duck to the left.
Sure enough, one of the orbs goes wailing past me, right into Koishi. The other succeeds in clipping me, sending me spinning to the ground.
Thankfully, this puts me out of the way for Koishi?s revival. The danmaku that she?d been preparing to channel when she was frozen leapt forth and scattered themselves through the air.
Reimu dropped herself over backwards, keeping herself upright on all fours, albeit upside-down. Koishi?s wave passed harmlessly overhead, and she continued the backflip and came up to her feet once again.
I whipped my head around, looking for Yukari. Thankfully, she was right where we?d left her.
?Now, isn?t that adorable; she?s finally fighting with spellcards.? Somehow, Yukari is sitting in midair, as though she?s perched on an invisible barstool.
I produce my wilderness knife while climbing back to my feet and brandish it clumsily. The orb had hit my arm, and I was starting to get sore already from it.
Reimu spins around another one of Koishi?s shots, and I feel something at my feet.
A neat little row of needles are sticking out of the ground right in front of my leading foot.
?You stay where you are. I?m dealing with you later.?
I flip the knife around into a reverse-handed grip and relax my arms.
Not if I have anything to? think about it.Reimu looks up from her combat stance and glances around before realization sets in.
?Try as you?d like, you won?t distract me from this.?
Is that so?Suddenly, Yukari stands upright. ?No you don?t. You?re going to regret that, Esifex.?
My name is Sara! Sara, goddamn you! SARA!
Reimu shakes her head and glares sharply at Koishi, forcing herself to focus through my mental noise. ?A name will do you no good if you?re dead, you know.?
Did Yukari say something to me? No matter. Regardless of what I try against her, I won?t be able to win. Just ignore her and try to focus on Reimu. She?s only human, after all ? there?s a shadow of a chance I might be able to help Koishi, and together, we can win this one.
I focus every whit of my telepathy on Reimu. A stream of consciousness begins to flow through my mind; first and foremost are her memories of a past duel with Koishi. The shrine maiden was drawing on past experiences ? a sound tactic. I?m pretty sure Koishi?s doing the same, but I?m not splitting my attention. I want every bit of cognitive thought in Reimu?s mind to echo through mine.
Almost in unison, Reimu and Koishi launch into the air with such speed that clods of dirt are tossed around in their wake. They?re taking their duel to the skies, where they?re more maneuverable. I begin to see traces of pathways through the air ? potential routes for Reimu to take while in flight.
The effect flying was having on Reimu?s mind was interesting; it?s like she was doing it by habit ? controlling her position in the air with as much effort and thought as I put into breathing. Despite her ease, though, her mind was ablaze with energy from flying, and channeling her spiritual powers.
Speaking of those spiritual powers, those ever-present yin-yang orbs hurt like a bitch. My arm is still sore, so I deposit the wilderness knife back into its sheath.
I figure I?ve been linked up enough with Reimu to have a good amount of synchronization. It?s just about time to ?
Reimu whips her head around and glares at me. In a heartbeat, she throws herself around Koishi?s bullet-spam and slams into the ground in front of me.
?What in the True Hell do you think you?re doing??
With her sudden proximity, I?m regretting holstering the knife ? I could?ve lunged at her and put her on the defensive.
Instead, I have nothing going for me, and no way to defend myself short of scrabbling for the knife again. Through my link with her, I get a split seconds? warning of her upcoming attack.
Back in the mundane world, I changed oil as a job and was, by career choice, a massage therapist. Neither job require hair-trigger reflexes or immense strength. Neither one puts you in danger, makes you accustomed to high-adrenaline, high-speed situations.
As such, the only way I knew what had happened to me was through the echo of Reimu?s sight I was tapping into.
She had lashed out and grabbed a handful of my hair, then yanked my head down into her up-raised knee. On the recoil, she snapped her other leg up and kicked me in the chin, sending me spinning over onto my back.
She was back in the air before I?d even hit the ground, and Koishi had barely even started to move in pursuit of her.
The pain radiating through my head nearly made me break contact with Reimu. Instead, I forced myself to ignore it as best I could and focused hard on Reimu.
Heads up, bitch. You?re about to get one hell of a migraine.
Vacuum Hole ? Instant!Once again, Reimu had left the skies and was right next to my supine form.
?You don?t learn, do you?
Stay out of this!?
She grabs the collar of my tunic, balling up all the fabric from the three layers of clothing I had on and hoisted me into the air. I roll my head forward and try to force my eyes back into function to focus on her, but just manage to get some kind of blurry double-image.
?What?ll it take for you to figure it out??
Focus, Sara. Focus! Now or never!
?There is a system here. Way things are done. And you keep trying to muck it up!?
Now, dammit! Ignore the pain!
I turn my telepathy loose on her. A direct link into her mind, broadcasting as loud as I can, with every bit of her own cognitive thought echoing through the link. If my theory were correct, this should have the same effect on her as reading my own mind would have on me, according to Koishi.
Reimu?s head snaps back as all the muscles in her shoulders tense up at once.
I cheer to myself.
It?s working!Seems I?m all out of ?stupid? now and have moved right on to ?terrible luck?.
Behind Reimu, I see Yukari walk into my field of vision. Despite the calamity of the immediate area, she seems to be very relaxed, though I can?t tell if she has that ?chess-master blank? look or the ?kill-you-dead don?t-fuck-with-me? look on her face. My eyes still aren?t working right, and all my telepathy is devoted to pouring Reimu?s mind into her mind.
Suddenly, Reimu brings her head back upright to stare at me normally, instead of cringing from innervated muscles.
In my shock, I cut off all sources of telepathy. Reimu?s eyes are glowing white, and she is clearly snarling at me.
?You. Don?t. Learn!?
Despite her being roughly the same size as me, she heaves her arm back and
flings me through the air. I try to recall her method for flying, but a very painful kick to the mid-section banishes all thought from my mind and air from my lungs. I tumble across the earth, travelers cloak twisting around me.
Just as I feel like my inertia is about to bleed off, I feel myself fall into the ground. No ? wait?
Fuck. Yukari opened a gap under me! I flail clumsily, trying to find some ground to grab onto, to keep myself from rolling in all the way and potentially ending up in space or something.
I dig my fingers into the dirt for a split second, then I feel some other fingers dig into my ribs, my shoulders, my legs, and tug me into the gap.
Terrible luck. I?m deposited right in front of Yukari, on my own two feet ? until my legs give out.
Reimu landed next to me, and somehow Koishi was slammed into the ground on the other side of her.
?Miscreants. Troublemakers. You?re wasting my time!?
I roll onto my side, clutching my stomach. That flying kick
hurt, a lot.
Yukari kneels down in front of me. ?You just couldn?t behave. You couldn?t find a shred of modesty, to use some humility as a shield, and instead you had to be brash and headstrong. What else are we to do with you??
Finally my eyes agree to work in tandem again, and I squint through cringing eyelids up at Yukari. There?s something slightly different about her, besides her newfound height.
Wait? why does she have a Third Eye? It?s closed. What the hell.
?I?m sorry you got mixed up in this, Koishi. Even the best-laid plans can go awry sometimes.
Especially when you factor in the human element.? It looks like Koishi didn?t get the stuffing beat out of her while Reimu dragged her down here ? just that she was dragged down and dropped onto the ground against her will.
?What are you going to do?? she asked Yukari.
The Sage Youkai straightens up, Third Eye wires noiselessly slipping into place around her. ?She?s so eager to return to her world, to blaze her own path. That?s too dangerous. Not the way she is. She would need to be changed before she?s sent back.?
There?s a moment of silence, during which I take the opportunity to use my telepathy to remote-view the scene.
Koishi is sitting, now, and Reimu is behind her with her arms crossed, glaring down at us. Yukari is standing over me, and I look like I went a few rounds with a meat-grinder. That?s going to leave a mark.
?Changed? Wait ? what are you planning to do, Yukari?
What are you going to do?!?
?It?s unfortunate, it really is. Changing her would essentially nullify why she?d need to go back to her world. We have no need for her here in Gensokyo. She is now, essentially, fully dead.?
What? No, wait? hang on? what does that mean?
Icy fear grips my stomach, and I force myself to look up to Yukari with my own eyes. She?s already waiting to meet my gaze.
?Why me?? I mutter at her.
?Because you had potential. You could?ve been the bridge between minds ? the common voice. But you?re too wild ? I see that, now.?
?If you?re going to change me, at least make it so I actually know German. I?ve always wanted to learn it.?
Being bruised and bloodied in the face makes it easier to disguise a ?forced-smile?. Especially when you can?t do anything with your face, period.
Regardless, Yukari sees through it. ?I can tell you know what this means. You, Sara Fransisca Xiao, will cease to exist, and a new personality will develop. You don?t need to try to save face, to act brave. It?s perfectly alright to be afraid of this.?
Koishi opens her mouth to say something, but holds her tongue. I decide to speak her mind for her.
?So, who gave you the right to decide peoples? fates like this??
Reimu scoffs. ?She did. Deal with it.?
Yukari shakes her head at the statement. ?Regardless, Sara? don?t be frightened. Aspects of you will survive. You will, in essence, be the same, just without your memories. Obviously, I can?t return you to your home. You can?t stay here, either. But, fear not; I?m not sending you to purgatory. There are countless other worlds out there that can support life ? that are, in fact, quite hospitable and inhabited by all types of people.?
Reimu blinks at Yukari. ?Thought you didn?t want this one to find out about that.? She?s pointing at Koishi, who was more focused on Yukari?s words than Reimu?s.
?That?ll be taken care of, as well. As for you, Sara??
I turn my attention back to Yukari. She almost looks sad.
?You'll enjoy the Kaleidoscope. Goodbye.? Her Third Eye twitches, and I see it barely open.
The violet iris of Yukari?s Third Eye focuses on Sara?s form with an intensity that Yukari?s body language fails to convey.
Sara?s eyes roll up into her head and she falls limp on the ground with a sigh. Reimu closes her eyes and shakes her head.
Yukari turns from Sara, and her Third Eye droops halfway shut again. Koishi spots it slowly rolling in the socket, and heaves a sigh of her own.
?I assume you?ll be erasing my memories of this, then, won?t you??
Yukari simply nods.
?Then, you know, it?ll be your duty to mourn her. You saved her, brought her here, and finally, killed her. No one else will mourn her ? no one else knew her. It?ll be up to you.?
Yukari?s sad expression softens slightly, and she turns her true eyes to Koishi.
??If I feel like it.? The Third Eye turns to stare into Koishi?s, and the satori lets out a single sigh and slumps over forward.
Reimu looks down at the two fallen psychics. ?And what about me??
Yukari turns to face the human village in the distance. ?What about you? This is just another incident. Come, you can return to your shrine.? She gestures lazily, and a tunnel boundary slipped open next to Reimu.
?Good night, Yukari. You
will mourn her, right??
?Good night, Reimu.?
The shrine maiden shakes her head, then steps through the tunnel.
??if I feel like it.?
This concludes the primary story-arc. An epilogue is slowly rolling around in my head; if it collects enough momentum, we'll see if it doesn't end up here.