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>>51343157

RESUME!
>It's been eight years since Yukari died. It's winter time. Hana is twenty five and has a date so she dolls up. The date goes poorly because the dude has profound retardation and Hana has profound anger issues. Hana leaves the Geidontei fuming and has a seething fit in the sky before she's contacted by Keine. Hana is gaslit into doing some stress-healing teacher-assistant grunt work, where she's humbled by being dumber than a seventh grader. She vents about her date, flipflops between blaming herself and blaming her date and panics over being 25 and having no adult friends or relationship prospects. Keine suggests therapy. Hana denies therapy because therapy -> therapist -> the rapist -> Yukari, and demands she's given her actual daily gacha mission. Keine relents and Hana leaves after getting her mission. Keine has a small chat with Toyotosatomimi no Miko, who chastises Keine for being too soft on Hana, which Keine denies and leaves to talk to Anon. Hana returns to the shrine where her apprentices were trying to kill Aunn for no reason, and after sending them out, she leaves for the underground along with Aki, who plays a bootleg version of Subterranean Animism, whereas Hana just teleports to the stage 5 boss in the underground wastes. Hana runs a training session for Aki, who cheats to beat the stage 5 boss that resembles Ran and is powered by the missing talisman Ran created to deal with Yukari. Hana suspects the whole thing, and after she has a heartfelt conversation with Aki and some teacher-student quality time, she's confronted by Zanmu, who's undercover and acts as the extra stage boss. Hana sends Aki out and aggros on Zanmu who just wanted to have a conversation. After Hana bugs her for a while, Zanmu guides their duel out of the oni city and traps Hana and herself in a void construct. Zanmu tells Hana that she knew Reimu before she died and wanted to know Hana better so she could ask for Hana's help. Zanmu says Anon might be in danger. Hana agrees to listen to what Zanmu has to say;

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[Chapter count]
18 (+18 last thread)
[For phoneanons, here's the last thread.]:
https://warosu.org/jp/thread/51295271#p51295271
[Autosage time: 11/02-11/09]

ah wonderful

>>51342530
Do you think that if we make Patchouli talk to Hana again she might he able to bully her into being less autistic? She doesn't really seem to be following any of Patchouli's finale advice here.

>>51343157
She was on the right track until that Anon talk. After that it was all downhill. She psyopped herself into idolizing Reimu's end and developed the most insidious tier of pathological altruism under the guise of being a seething bitch. The bullying to prevent a childless bitter 30s is astronomical.

>>51343175
It certainly is some form of contingency plan to prevent an evil Reimu 2 from happening.

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The woman had a blank stare. A muscle jumped in my jaw. “What?”

“Nothing of concern,” she waved her hand, crossing one leg over the other. With the adrenaline fading away, I couldn’t help but loathe the paisagism of this… void bubble. There’s nothing to look at besides the hooded oni. Nothing at all. “Just a bit surprised all it took to get you roped into this was mentioning your Fath—”

I crossed the distance between us in half a blink and stood before her, centimeters off. Her unseen gaze climbed to meet mine. “Don’t get it twisted. Said before, saying it again. We ain’t buddy-buddy—I'm listening to what you’ve got to say, and if I decide it’s bullshit, this Gohei is going up your rectum.” I meant my every word, and her answer was raising both hands in faux surrender. Yeah, yeah, ‘not here for a fight’ or whatever she’d said.

The worldlines folded, recreating the distance of about three meters between us. I crossed my arms, waiting.

“Nobunaga was right to contract you, Ukifune,” She huffed—did I miss something…?—, but seemingly got the memo, for she headed straight to the point. “For starters, my associates and I have reasonable motive to believe the Moon in the sky is not our real Moon.”

I blinked, then scowled.

“… The fuck?”

She gestured before I could continue. “Save it for when you have all the info, Hakurei.” I held my tongue, even if I really didn’t want to. How? Why? In what possible reality does that even relate to Father— “It is suspicion and reasonable doubt, not confirmation. Had I confirmation of this to begin with, this… peaceful approach to plans wouldn’t have been my first choice,” I scowled. What’s that supposed to mean? “All we know is that this new Moon—despite looking like the real Moon, despite feeling like the real Moon—is simply not the real Moon.”

“So?” I interjected, and I sensed an unseen brow raise. “If it looks the same, feels the same, what’s the big deal? And how does that loop back into Father being in danger…?” I bristled, then pointed the Gohei at her. It felt asinine to threaten her now, but the anger in my chest left little room for more. “You better not be trying to dupe me, cunt.”

Another gesture, this of appeasement. “You’re free to take your own conclusions. Just listen to me until the end so you can make an informed choice—maybe informed mistake,” her voice hardened. It seems even this hooded bitch has her limits. Good. “Being truthful to you, I have zero idea of the actual effect on the world or people at large… but the problem is that it’s spurred on unsavory decisions by your leaders, to whom the Moon is important.”

Only one person footed the bill: “Keine-sensei? That’s it…? Your problem is with her and the possibility she’s fucking with the Moon, someway, somehow?”

“On the contrary: this new Moon is 'fucking' with her, if my information is to be believed,” I perked up, puzzled, though my skin crawled at the last words. She isn’t sure of the information she’s spreading around. How’s that supposed to make me feel better? I bury the question. “Much of her power is derived from the Moon, and since it’s been replaced, she’s only gotten weaker. That doesn’t mean Keine's been idl—”

“—Father comes up when?” I cut it.

“Now,” she said, and I straightened. “She’s planning something to regain her powers, or do something to the Moon, and we have reason to believe she’s using your Father for that.”

I blinked at the oni, then narrowed my eyes. “… You were at the marriage, were you not?” I asked, and she remained quiet. “You were. You know too much not to. You wouldn’t be so suspicious of her if you didn’t know history at large was altered,” I smirked, my mind racing through the guests I’d seen while performing and fighting that night. I’d paid attention to Father and Sekai most of the time, so no one in particular bounced to mind. “Might as well show me the cute face beneath the hood. There were only a handful of oni there that night. Or wanna me to discover for myself?” I tilted my head, my smile turning into a frown.

“For our protection, it’d be better if you didn’t know,” she added, her tone too calm. “Your memories of this conversation will remain untraceable, but a name and a face might trigger more memories you didn’t know you had, and those will be added to the library of history. Your relationship with the woman is already prickly, so you having bad thoughts regarding her won’t come across as intimidating or revealing. But should Keine have a reason to believe I approached you, it wouldn’t take long for my information to be unearthed—”

“So you have your hands tied. Didn’t think this through, hm?” I mocked. It felt good to have power over this pretentious, conspiratorial bitch. “Show me your face,” I demanded. She won't do it, the bitch.

She steadied herself with a long sigh. “… You really are a piece of work when you want to be, Hakurei,” a smirk came through. “Just like your mother.” Another sigh, a pause of consideration.

The oni pulled her hood down.

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I know it is a bad idea to ask her to reveal herself.

It achieved very little, and if her warning held value, then seeing her face and learning her name would only make it harder for me to shield Father from whatever the fuck’s been brewing—my skin crawled with unease; liquid cold pooled in my lower belly. Something bad. It could only mean something bad—, but the mere thought of… allowing this woman to play me around, to dictate how things go and I have no say, overpowered any sensible anxiety and careful play.

It wasn’t the smartest move, but it was the only way to keep me playing nice.

… I glared, looking at her face against the dark background. “Did two bees bury themselves in your head? Your horns look so weird,” I said, and those piercing red eyes blinked, befuddled, before a smirk pulled at her lips and she laughed, flowing deep black hair mussing with the tittering. Twin loose red ribbons, wrapped around her horns, framed her face. “Besides that, you don’t have much going for you, huh? You’re kinda… plain.” A lie.

“That’s not a bad thing. I was a monk in my previous life—at least, like this, I have hair,” she hummed, then added as her smile settled into something neutral. “Zanmu Nippaku. I oversee the Hells and deal with problems as they come.” She said, and my mind flashed to the wedding. I saw this woman drinking with Suika. “Well? Satisfied? Or do you have any more threats for me?”

“… Disturbed,” I said, and she sneered at the irony. “I didn’t expect you to actually follow through.”

“It wasn’t what I had in mind—” I narrowed my eyes. She’d said before she’d tell me who she was after I’d listened to all she had to say. Was that a lie? “—I know what you might be thinking, Hakurei… and I had no intention of showing you everything in this encounter,” she stressed those last words. Smart. “I wanted it to be in your next encounter, preferably after the Winter Solstice festival. I’d have had good sake to share then. Alas, before, I didn’t have a grasp of your personality. Watching from afar and hearsay don’t correspond with having a good conversation. That is much more enlightening.”

“Are you not afraid Keine could see you in the thread of history?” I asked.

“Very much so. It could bring a lot of preparation crashing down…” Zanmu didn't seem rattled. “… But I think I can manage something better now that you’re not looking over your shoulder, wondering who that big bad oni might’ve been.”

“What do you mean by that?” I focused my mind. What could she probably gain from me knowing her identity…?

“It means you could convince your Father to cooperate with us far more easily—after all, you’ll be coming onto him not as a neutral party, but as one aligned with me,” I glowered hard. I didn’t like the tune she was singing. She shifted in her void chair. “Had you known nothing of me, your Father would’ve had difficulty believing you and being swayed to snitch on Keine—in the case our belief she’s harming him has grounds. He’d assume you’re being manipulated with ill intent. This is not what’s happening here, Hakurei. You work better as an ally than a pawn, I know now,” she says as if she did know me.

All she knows of me was gathered from one passive-aggressive, near-hostile chat.

I clicked my tongue. This fucking tick. Hate it.

“So let me get this straight, oni,” get it together, Hana. Don’t get bogged down in her words. Their sound, their inflection—they’re never the same as their purpose. You learned so with Yukari. “You, the overseer or whatever of Hell, and a bunch of others have been spying on sensei, and you believe the Moon is fake, sensei is panicking, and doing some esoteric thing to father… why? Why any of this hoopla? You’re an oni. Your kind don’t do it like this. You could probably have fled me before,” admitting that is like drinking poison and then pissing it out. “And Keine is only strong whenever it’s night. You find her during the day, and you yourself could kill her.” Images pass through my mind of Mochi and Aki crying, glassy-eyed, trembling. I was about to add colorful words to my babbling, but she cut in—

“—It’d be oni-like to take over like that. You are correct. Disregarding what would follow, it’d be the easiest way to go about this,” she firmed up then and said with zero hesitation: “But it’s not the way I will do what I want to do. Victory is never achieved through ‘any means’. There is victory my way, and there is defeat. No in between.”

“And what victory do you want?” I put it out there, heart palpitating hard at her words.

They didn’t feel hollow like the nothings Yukari used to whisper in my ear…

Zanmu Nippaku said, “I want to get to the bottom of this mess with as little bloodshed as possible. Then, I want to make sure Gensokyo is in adequate hands, and that the damage already caused does not seep deeper into the Hells.” She paused, then added. It felt intimate. “… I want to make up for staying out of surface problems eight years ago, when I could’ve done much more.”

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… Those words didn’t sound like Yukari at all.

They felt dangerous in a way Yukari’s words never did. There’s an essence in their midst that makes my skin itch, my Gohei arm tense up, and this bloodthirstiness curl in my mind. Wrongness. All over it—through it, beneath it, inside it, around it—wrongness. A primal feeling of sorts that settles like a blanket yet suffocates; cool water that drowns. Wrongness, yes… even then, I couldn’t spot one lie, not one.

Not one hint of dishonesty in this woman sitting in a void-made chair.

I almost wanted to. It'd be simpler.

Am I not seeing it? Is it right under my nose? Should’ve killed her right at the beginning. I can make her bleed. I can also lop her head off and purify her oni malevolence. She’s so… distracted right now, maintaining this void bubble.

It wouldn’t be too hard, and if it were, I’d welcome the challenge to clear my agitated mind.

But… what if she’s right?

What if there’s some supernatural fuckery with the Moon in play, Father is in the line of fire, and Keine is doing something—she might be soft and kind and sweet, but she’s not without claws. I saw them sink into Hieda and bring the naturalborn oni down—, and… and what does this mean for Kuramochi and Aki? For the girls in the Hakurei shrine? For Sekai and Chen? For Gensokyo? For… myself?

I don’t know anything that’s going on; nothing ever seemed out of place… how would I even know if anything’s wrong with Father? I visit him once in a blue moon. The answer is that I wouldn’t know if something was genuinely wrong with him.

A surge of panic and anxiety washes over my body, up and down. My vision tunnels.

Can I do something? Yes.

I can listen to her. I don’t want to. Her words feel oily on my skin.

Do I have another option…? Yes, I do.

I can kill her. Storm up to Father’s house, see it through with Keine. Would she—they—lie to me? If they knew I knew, they’d push me back. Keine can rewrite my memories, can’t she? I don’t know. Has she ever done that? I don’t know. Is Father suffering in her hands…?

For what goddamn reason?

I don’t know.

I don’t know…

I don’t know—

“—Hakurei,” Zanmu’s voice brings me out of my panic—yes, panic. Was I panicking? I think I was. I didn’t scream or shudder or tear up. I’m not a child anymore. “If it’s hard to believe everything I’ve said, I’ll give you another guarantee,” she says. My eyes narrow—suddenly, a wave of terror comes to my mind, the same terror I was experiencing a moment ago, but that’d so readily disappeared. It disappears again. I blink at her, without words. “The illusory part of nothingness allows me to meddle with people’s minds—make them forget things or become numb to others, to say a few—, just like what you experienced. It’s a tactic I used a lot in times past, oftentimes with zero regard. I have relinquished frequent use of it since I’ve become aware of the scale at which something so similar is being used across everything inside the Great Hakurei Barrier. It’s not how I make allies in this new age. I hope that eases your heart.”

I scowled, trembling slightly. “Why didn’t you tell me that first?”

“I did tell you I wasn’t versed in my physical powers—you didn’t seem interested in an explanation,” she corked up an eyebrow, and I could only bristle. This fool knows those aren’t the same thing. There was a small smile there as she shrugged at my death glare. “Now you can recontextualize our conversation: not once did I use it on you. You’d have felt it had I used it,” her smile shows teeth now. “… You are sharp, Hakurei, I must say. You instantly noticed I’d tampered with your mind.”

The worst about this is that I know why she chose to do that right now. It had a visceral impact, answering a question I didn’t realize I had right at the crux of this whole mess.

Such a stupid way of saying 'trust me'.

I hate this feeling. I need to remediate it and get a hold of myself again.

“… So the plan is for me to go to Father and gather information from him, since your stupid ass doesn't operate on the surface and needs a minion to do it for you,” I said harshly, sneering at her look of mild befuddlement. “That’s what this is, isn’t it? Don’t pretend there’s more to this.”

“I suppose that’s your way of saying you’d like to go through this with me, Hakurei?”

A Gohei is immediately pointed at her. “Hold it—we’re gonna make things very, very clear before we continue.” Gohei moved down, but not the threat. She shook her head in impatience, a gesture that ticked me off, yet I didn't outright show my frustration. I’m being needlessly antagonistic—am I, actually? I don’t know. But it feels right to bare my teeth. “Can you name your associates?”

“Can’t,” no hesitation. “One thing is putting myself in the line of fire; another is dragging others down with me. This entire operation might come crashing down because of a slim gamble, I understand, but I’ll still minimize the damage to the others as much as I can. You’ll be introduced to them in time.”

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“When will that time come? I don’t want empty promises,” I rapid-fired it; she answered in kind.

“After the Winter Solstice. Our first true movement will happen then.”

“How so?”

“We’ll retrieve something to ruffle the surface government and sow chaos among it. We’re looking for full-blown panic and overstretching on its part—if something incriminatory were to happen, it’d happen at that stage.”

“How many are you expected to die—” It was a trick question.

“—None,” and she did not fall for it, her voice stone-like. “It’ll be a blitz operation during the Winter Solstice celebrations, two days from now, when the people will be at their most distracted. It shouldn’t last beyond three minutes at maximum,” she said. The hairs on my neck stood up. So little time to prepare, to carry on that talk to Father. “When the day comes, and you’re summoned regarding a Senkai, you will know the operation was true.”

“You mean the palace’s Senkai…?” I whispered, cold washing over me. That would mean Mochi.

If she’s putting Mochi in danger, then I will kill her now.

“Not the palace’s,” I waited for more, but nothing else came. She had an unreadable face as she followed up with: “My turn to ask a question. Does the sentence—“Keine wouldn’t read anyone’s deep thoughts unprompted. It’s not in her nature”—ring true? It’s not a bait or appeal. Answer whatever way you like.”

I scowled, but there was only one truth to that question: “It is true.”

Zanmu nodded, thoughtful, and that was that.

In the silence, I took to processing what I got from this conversation: no one will be put in danger, and all I’d have to do was talk to Father—after a weeks-long stretch of quiet. Typical—about Keine and ask whether she’s done anything bad to him. Oh, and the Moon. Somewhere in that equation there's talk of a fake Moon.

My head throbbed.

The day started awful, then it worsened, then it got good, then it plummeted to unrecoverable depths…

Nonetheless, this is the world I inherited from Mom. A world I’ve sought to protect ever since her death.

This woman in front of me is promising to help Father and deal with an unseen wound, if it's even real, before it starts bleeding—and right now I have the strength to stop that bleeding. I did not possess this strength when Yukari bled Gensokyo dry, but now I do.

All I need is to keep my head cool and follow my intuition.

Do not fuck this up, Hana Hakurei.

Unsure but not unsteady, I parted my lips to give Zanmu Nippaku my confirmation—

—A dreadful feeling stopped me in my tracks. Yukari’s shade flared in my mind’s eye, a sense of pure, incoming death that had my teeth on edge and the Gohei gripped in white knuckles.

The Gap. But Yukari is dead.

That means…

“She’s relentless,” Zanmu grimaced and got up from her chair. “I’ve held her back for thirty seconds, but won’t manage another thirty. How she’s making nothingness cannibalize itself is beyond me, and not a concern for now—I need to leave and have it so believable.”

It was mesmerizing: fissures of unseen nothing cracked nothingness itself. Like an illusion of a frame inside a frame, a tesseract of so many sides, torn from its every vertex. It was impossible to find the right words amidst this sudden drop in temperature to define exactly what I was seeing. Zanmu’s voice drew me in. I squinted. “Believable…?”

Her nod carried a grim resolution as she pulled her hood back up, hiding her face in nothingness. “Talk with your Father and save what you get until after the festivities. We’ll communicate if all goes well. We’re staking this on the assumption he wouldn’t snitch on his daughter. Do not think of this conversation more than need be. You’re bereft of suspicion, though it can change any time. I don’t believe it’ll change, with your assessment of Keine, but keep guard.”

“And what if you’re wrong? Keine ain’t doing shit to Father?” I smile, cruel, as the nothingness around us fractures deeper. “I might not be on your side the way you wanna me to be.”

“If that’s the case, we’ll talk it out over good sake,” she shrugged. “I do believe I can swindle you to my cause without hanging that particular carrot before you. I am a charismatic oni~!”

It’s not hard to understand the true meaning of those words.

She’ll try to kill me.

I smile wider, heart swooning…

It’s a shameful feeling. I don’t want Father to be hurt. Never would. He doesn’t deserve any hurt or pain after what he’s dealt with. But the source of those feelings is not entirely innocent.

… I want a reason to kill Zanmu Nippaku with my very own hands.

“Now!” She claps. There’s a crease of effort in her brow. “To make it believable—”

—Before I can react, she’s upon me. Malevolence pulses like a heartbeat, a void marble shattered between her fingers. The Gohei attacks without a beat of hesitation and… she doesn’t dodge. Not properly, like I’ve seen her do before.

The dome around us shrinks.

Her blood ribbons as the Gohei cleaves one arm off.

All under Chen’s purple-eyed gaze.

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>>51344684

and with this Hana's prologue ends! Next we start Chen's!
more soon~!
>>51343157
at that time in her life Hana was incredibly vulnerable and Patchy could've set her straight had they spent time together. I don't doubt Hana would've even idolized Patchy's demeanor - since the contrast of warmth and cold was similar to Reimu's - and gotten closer to Sekai sooner. But she wasn't Patchy's responsibility, charge, or anything remotely similar. Patchy had no duty towards her either. A good conversation helped for a time, but without guidance in the most volatile months of her life - not a choice of her own, considering the fucked up state Gensokyo was in after the war -, Hana defaulted to something easier on her mind and more Reimu-aligned, that being protecting people, self-sacrifice, violence to cope with problems, and a stubborn streak toward doing anything to treat herself. Closing the wound with her father, even with what's essentially a loose bandage, crystallized many of the bad habits she had too
she's not lost per se, but she's slavering to find a way out

>>51343417
As long as Chen is pregnant with my children it'll be kino.

This thread is gonna auto-sage sooner fuuuuck

>>51346301
That's why we make more threads.

>>51346301
Is it about the php thing yesterday?

>>51346301
Just don't wait as long to make the next thread
It's like 5+ days on average to go from page 1 to page 10 at this point and if that's how we're working this part will take another few years

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The corpse of a girl hung from the ceiling by a frayed rope. Hazelnut hair, unblinking eyes, two black tails limp and a sickly pallor to her skin, cold and gray. The door creaks open, and Yamame Kurodani gazes upon my dead body. Body curled by the shallow creek next to an altar to a dead kitsune, the stones painted red. I clutched a butchered belly. A bloody kitchen knife lay beside. Terror etched on a face Mr. Anon would soon find. A large fall and a broken body. Tossing myself into a lake and refusing to swim up, vision fogging dark, lungs bloating and bleaching before bursting like balloons. Eating an entire bouquet of aconitum and seizing in a slow, excruciating death—

—There.

Eyes open to the infinitude of darkness and peering bloodshot eyes. Cheeks burn, five sulks. Hand climbs, and the space before me bends. A long distance traveled with a simple and familiar thought. A pure-white breach in the black gravity of the Realm Between Boundaries, fine as a strand of hair lost to the wind, appears before me. Foremost, it is isolated with a gesture, the Gaps coalescing before they spread, like slipping a needle through a knot to unravel it. Inside its cistern, fixes are applied. The breach expands, contracts but does not disperse—in a sense, a puzzle to be solved—and after a lot of math application, the breach is debugged out of existence.

A sigh echoes in the dark. I attempt to rest my hand, but it shakes, fingertips curled. The five faded trenches on my cheek burn, and this body screams in the silence of the Realm Between Boundaries.

“… You promised her you wouldn’t overdo it,” I told myself, violet eyes scrutinizing the Realm Between Boundaries. Other breaches need my attention, scattered but threatening, each a puzzle. They proliferate like fleas this stretch of the year.

But I'd made a promise.

The Gap tears open, and I walk into my house. A small atelier Yamame-san built for me as I grew older, with 10-inch-thick walls and work of finesse wherever you’d land your eyes. I understood at my first glance, years ago, that this was a place made with love. On its surfaces—tables, tops, and the floorboards—rest half-finished knitting projects, some a few weeks old, and civil engineering study materials. Books Yamame-san studied when she was my age, their pages etched with a rainbow of bookmarks.

Despite the neglect, not the thinnest sheet of dust can be spotted. No dust bunnies, no smell of old—rather, hints of strawberry. A cared-for home, not a forgotten space, housing a forgotten thing.

That old mix of guilt and joy, both fake, a memory mirrored from the past, comes to me as I head to the bathroom and wash my face. The round mirror reflects droopy, bloodshot sclerae, a slouch to the shoulders, and… golden-brown eyes. Good. Good.

In the dimly lit kitchen, thanks to the light posts outside, a plate and bowls wrapped in kitchen paper awaited on the kotatsu. The miso was warm, the rice steamed, and a fresh batch of coffee sloshed in the moka pot. She had been here not long ago. As always.

The wall clock marked 5:07 am.

I sat down and ate. A spoon for the miso, chopsticks for the rice, eggs, and filleted raw fish. It brimmed with the tastes of home.

… The guest grinds those tastes into ash.

Ignoring her used to be a conscious thought, but ever since I took on the mantle of Sage of Gaps, it's only gotten more natural. Not effortless—natural. Like ignoring the nose in front of one's eyes.

This Shadow is something I have learned to live with. And it was by choice.

She doesn’t talk much these days; her presence does all the work. The change came before I’d realized something had changed. It was a struggle living with her and every use of the Gap; then it was routine—a habit. Her torments are guaranteed every time I spelunk her thousand years of barrier experience for a clue, a hint on how to solve a problem in the Great Hakurei Barrier or another, but outside it doesn’t show. It’s preferable that way. It’s what I deserve.

The meal is fulfilling, a kind gesture that I don't often repay, yet take all the same. Not taking it would make Yamame-san sad.

Dishes are left in the sink, my hands too seized by shakes and fingertips too curdled from hours upon hours of bending boundaries to bother with that now. I crawl onto the futon, face on the pillow and fingers grasping the soft planes under me, washed, dried, and changed recently, and sleep arrives like the pull of gravity before I dwindle in my first bed thought.

It is not a dreamless sleep. It never is.

However little it lasts.

Body jolts awake at the ringing of the tumbled alarm clock by the futon. 6:30 am, it says. Eyes settle down, lead-heavy despite the ‘rest’, fresh with the Shadow’s favored choice of torment. My cowardice, my way out. Centuries of spite won’t relent in mere eight years, but akin to much of what Yukari Yakumo accomplished in her life, it’ll amount to nothing.

I have a goal in this life that Ran gave me. It is not yet fulfilled.

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>>51349150

Getting up feels like lugging my guts and limbs, blood and hair, out of the dirt—scattered where there should’ve been a whole. There’s a wistful thought of indulging in a pout and a complaint, but it's rung hollow ever since I lost my heart—; So I get up, bathe, and change into a fresh pinafore dress and apron, much like Yamame-san, and full-body leotard. Deep in my wardrobe, tucked away like a skeleton, is a box with my Yakumo robes. I’ve parted with a lot but can’t part with those. I’ve told myself it’s to keep Ran’s memory alive, yet the Shadow ever longs for that flowing white garb and regal tabard. Was it her yearning, or was it mine?

Ringing at the front door kills my thoughts. “In a moment,” I yelled from the bedroom, preparing my face. I’ve mastered what it is like to smile; I've done it a lot in the past. How to appear curious, sad—neutral. Normal.

The seconds of preparation turn out pointless as I open the door and am met with Toutetsu Yuuma. Her horizontal pupils pierce through me in but a moment. I forgot she’d come by today.

“Tsk, stop that shit. You look like Reimu,” she groans before she nods for me to follow. Her hair is fluffy as ever, and she carries her large spork around.

The door needs no locking, only closing, and I walk beside her. “I don’t think I’ll ever take that as insulting.” I cannot smile with my heart, but my memories always do when remembering Ms. Reimu. “Do you mean it as one, Tetsu-san?”

“… Of course I don’t,” she scratches her white curls. “I just think of her when you’re making that face.” Whatever she tries to articulate further must sound bad in her mind, for she clicks her tongue and shakes her head. “Never mind, forget it. Ya wanted to see me—here I am.” She sizes me up and down, her eyes crinkling and a smile cutting through her sour mood as we meet eye to eye. Only her horns make her taller than me. “Fuck, can’t you stop growing?! I remember when you were pint-sized~!” Her cackle attracts easy attention as we walk down the Spiderweb—the name this community has warranted. Where once there was only one entrance, now there are many. They flower, one and all, into bustling commerce and packed housing districts—buildings built similarly to those above ground or the more traditional cave wall burrows. A minority favored traditional architecture, even though the cave humidity didn't play nice with wood and bamboo. More work for the Kurodani and the spawning civil construction groups. Healthy competition, Yamame-san had called it.

Yamame-san built my atelier like hers: a cozy burrow into the cave wall.

Every path, road, and street leads downward, like a pebble placed at the center of a spiderweb, though many tunnels branch off and lead toward the Underground.

What had started as the Kurodani family rebuilding became the house of many who’d lost something—or everything—during the Winter Solstice eight years ago.

“Yes… Those were some sad days. Bad days. But never only that.” Speaking those words, the dark urge to reminisce is great. To bathe in the love of the past is something younger me would’ve done in a heartbeat—a heartbeat. I don’t have one anymore. “Thank you for coming. How are the other barriers holding out?”

“Feh, how do ya think, brat? It’s a mess everywhere. I’d kill thrice more for one normal winter,” she scoffed and, sensing one of her rants, braced myself for its usual colorfulness. “Gensokyo’s going to the shitter anyway. Was in for a time before that whole shitshow. Should’ve been flushed all those years ago. Buried everything and started anew somewhere else.”

“I’m glad it wasn’t,” I said, face unchanged despite the ghostly guilt inside me.

“Only you. Suicidal bastard…” another’s face must’ve flashed in those pained pupils.

I shook my head. “You know I’m not, Tetsu-san. I do the things that I do not for a lack of love for my life, but because it’s me—and only me—who should do it.”

“… I could do it if ya let me,” she grumbled.

“You could, I’ve no doubt. But the Glitched Winters are my problem. I inherited them. They’re my legacy to right.” Toutetsu clicked her tongue and turned her gaze to the other side. That talk had reached its usual end, but not its tyrannical shadow: Glitched Winters. That’s the norm ever since Yukari died: The Glitched Winter starts on the 22nd of December and lasts two months before fizzling out, with the last month of winter going by at leisure.

Tetsu-san and I, and sometimes Kasen-nee when she isn’t busy with the Realm of Backdoors, go into crunch so it’s never as bad as the first one. It’s still bad. Every time. Problems are never the same, so neither of us can plan out countermeasures. Their nature, their patterns… it’s like some metamorphic malware that can only be delayed and its impact cushioned, but never properly severed.

Some say it’s the ghost of the last Gap Sage haunting this world to make sure she’s never forgotten, but that she can be appeased by offering many sweets to the maidens of the Hakurei Shrine

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>>51348489 >>51349150

The truth is that, despite having Yukari’s thirteen hundred years of experience with the Gap inside my head, she had spent little time fixing the Great Hakurei Barrier herself. She knows its inner workings, its geometric facets top to bottom, its range and strengths and limitations and… everything related to its existence, Yukari Yakumo understood. But Ran-sama was the one who spent 160 years fixing its quirks, ironing out its minor, constant flaws. Her genius mind made it nigh second nature to find errors, then find their root, and correct everything in one fell swoop. Few things were as marvelous as watching Ran-sama do math.

Still, I’m left with a problem Yukari never met because Ran-sama never allowed it to become one. And neither are here.

Only I am.

… Ran-sama should’ve saved herself. It shouldn’t have been me.

Agony. Only word I know that describes fixing the first Glitched Winter.

Eyes soften, and I glance at the goat woman. She blushes. “Why are ya looking at me like that? You’re too young for me…”

“I’m grateful for you. I’d like you to hear it once more." My words are genuine, no matter if the soil from which they sprout is barren. “… I didn’t think I’d survive mending that first Glitched Winter.” The problems seemed unending—another rupture, another breach in space… triggered by something in that bomb. Nuclear Winter, I remember the nameless souls by Muenzuka whispering. It was a concept that seeped into the barrier during the Solstice and replicated nonstop without Yukari or Ran to purify it out. My only clue on how to solve this problem. “Yet I did—because you were with me. And you’ve been every year. I can’t repay that debt, but one day I want to try.”

“Tsk, are ya out for me today, brat?! Think I won’t wallop your cute head with this spork? Stop embarrassing me…” She groaned, pointy ears reddening and face scrunching. Expectedly, her expression became tender in no time. “… Don’t be. Thankful, that is. It was the least I could do after being a useless cunt—be grateful to that spider mama of yours. She went to the fucking Blood Pools to beg me to save you. Gang territory and bullshit everywhere, and she comes back to the surface with my ass in tow. That’s one you oughta be grateful to, not me.”

Lips purse at the spike of malformed guilt. A reflection of a clinging past.

Never for a moment did Yamame Kurodani stop caring for me. Not eight years ago, not this morning. “She and Aya-san put themselves in so much risk. Kasen-san would’ve—”

“Kasen’s a slob. Don’t trust her for shit when you’ve got us,” as fast as it could arrive, Toutetsu’s tenderness could go away. Her eyes met mine like a thunderclap across the night sky. “Me, Aya, Yamame, and Anon. That’s your A-team. We’re with you before you’re with yourself.” She grinned, and though I plucked a smile from the drawer of smiles in my mind, this one I meant not.

A parasite doesn’t change. It follows its nature. I saw Yukari's under that sakura tree, nails broken, bloodied dress. Digging. She couldn’t love, nor could she be loved.

Those who offered love were dragged into the hole with her.

“… It’s good to have friends,” I said.

It won’t happen again.

—

At the center of the Spiderweb rose a reflection of the surface’s Memory Garden. People went there to weep, reminisce, and be in connection with the dead from the Festival of Flowers; here they did the same but for the Solstice. No land had suffered quite as much as the Underground did, so they planted a large tree—there’s a story of a large, golden tree that’d sprouted briefly in the Underground before it was crushed during the cave-ins. Mr. Anon told me he’d invoked that tree, never how—, a large, male Ginkgo tree, kept in full bloom all year, the Gap holding it in stasis. People gathered at the benches by its base, leaving trinkets and remembrances on its bark and at offering tables that surrounded it. String lights hung above, connecting to structures that surrounded the Ginkgo tree like a halo.

Sake and food were sold at those buildings in excessive quantities, as mourning intertwined with carousing in most cultures of the Underground. The Kurodani had had more human influence than most, so it’s no surprise they don’t partake in such, but the oni, spirit animals, and Youkai too dangerous to be accepted in Akyuu above find themselves here to mourn, to drink, eat, and partake.

I always wonder what I’d have felt about this.

Maybe I’d have enjoyed this yellow-tinted atmosphere, warm and solemn; maybe I’d have felt uncomfortable, watching a pair of kitsune children giggle as they hung from the branches of the tree, hearing the hawk of a new way of producing sake or even the cackling laughter in the background. There’s only the familiar void to welcome the memories I make here.

“Snap off, brat. What’s on your mind?” Tetsu groused as we strode toward the tree, passing by packs of candles, photographs of the dead, and offerings. She always seemed to know when I went deep in my head.

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“I was just thinking about something,” we stopped by two familiar, aged portraits, set side by side. Ms. Reimu and Ran-sama stared back at us, their expressions as forever austere as the tree whose leaves we gently swept from their picture frames—Ms. Reimu’s was stern, a photo from Hana-san’s photo book; Ran-sama’s tender as she held a hand-knitted cushion. I remember this from one of the Mayohiga meetings. “… Nothing I want to talk about.”

She grumbled, mad, but didn’t press on. We relit the candles by the portraits, and she looked away when my eyes flickered purple, and I drew from the Gap a new scarf I’d knit in-between working hours. I wrapped it around the frames—the last scarf had been stolen, I think.

“Could’ve taken with you from home,” her tone was contained.

It’d have hurt had I a beating heart. “… I’m sorry,” I apologized anyway.

The Shadow loomed over my shoulder. I could feel its hateful gaze at the portraits. It wanted me to hate these women. This power—how it has developed—is my greatest shame.

It deserves to be looked at with disgust to the very end.

Until its purpose is met.

Toutetsu looked my way, unsure, then mulled over something only hers, and finally uttered in a small voice: “… I know. Don’t apologize, brat.”

We left soon after. She went to fix small barriers and protections around Gensokyo, and I delved deep into the Realm between Boundaries to scour it for its breaches, errors, and something—anything—that could hint at how to end the Glitched Winters.

—

It happened as I debugged a chain of breaches in the peering void of the Realm of Backdoors. One hard to contain. It squirmed like a worm through the vastness of the Great Barrier, prospecting tunnels lengthy and complex. In its wake, it left false tunnels and decoys that I’d spend many seconds torturing myself over the sophistication of, only to arrive nowhere. Yukari never corrected her habit of being needlessly recursive, so that specter of her memories often delivered less than what it required of me. Experience led me down the correct path, past its traps, to arrive at the now-dying breach, its complexities void amidst the Gap-box vertices.

One of an army. An army inexhaustible.

But my last for now, as a signal beyond the Great Hakurei Barrier—akin to a caress without any source—, found me. I should be feeling dread that she’s calling me, but I can't. Only one woman has the means to call me with that frequency.

Whatever’s happening, it is important.

I sweep with my hand, dispersing the chain of debugging Gaps. A lone Gap remains to take me to the center of the Spiderweb and the golden permanence of the Ginkgo Funeral tree. As I stepped through, under the golden, dreamy light, I saw her: Yamame-san looked at me, steadfast. She held a paper shikigami—a cat with two tails—and was kneeling on the hard rock pavement, soothing a crying child. By Yamame-san’s foot was a grocery bag with its contents spilled. People surrounded them, and a trail of destruction—tumbled food carts, lantern lights, and cut power lines—trailed the child. The girl's wings beat frantically in time with her sobs.

Aki Kamishirasawa, the Hakurei miko uniform and long wings a dead giveaway.

“… What’s the problem here?” I asked, impassive despite the hurt in my cheek. I couldn't partake in their distress, their adrenaline.

If that tone ever grated on Yamame-san, she never showed it. “Chen, it—”

“—It’s Hana-neesan!” The girl yelped, removing herself from Yamame-san’s hold with great force. “I-It’s Hana-neesan! There’s a strong, bad oni with her! N-Neesan got all intense and sent me out t-to get help, but I got lost in the tunnels a-and ended up here, and—! C-Chen-neesan, you hafta help Hana-neesan!” Small hands bunched in my apron, eyes wide and glassy punching through me.

Hana and oni is never a good combination. The murmur around was impossible to ignore as those words were thrown out there—oni, new and old in their years, truly prayed for Hana’s downfall—, and it got to the messed-up sparrow, whose brow furrowed dangerously.

Before she could say anything that could rile up violence, I intervened: “… I’ll go.”

It is my duty.

Aki’s eyes shone with a sun never present in the underground, but a firm hand reached for me. “Chen!” Yamame-san stopped me, the paper shikigami crumpled a little between her fingers. Anxiety—paranoia? Maybe she hasn’t had her coffee yet— “Aki-chan said it was a… bad oni, right? Strong…” There, the source. Memories of the Festival of Flowers. Yamame-san had been there when the bombs fell and that noxious, cursed yellow cloud swept through the village, killing many without reason. “Hana-chan is strong. She can keep it busy while you amass strong people—”

“Mum!” Aki chirped. “G-Get Mum! Mother might be busy, but Mum might not be—”

Getting Fujiwara no Mokou would do well. Yuuka-san, Tetsu-san, the people of the Moriya Shrine who’d fought an oni, one capable of giving Hana trouble, before. Even Kasen-san, if I can find her.

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Nothing any of those people have is as strong as the Gap.

It is my duty, bearing this terrifying power, to go aid Hana if something is awry.

I shook my head. “Yamame-san, can you keep Aki-chan safe and get Mokou-san? I’ll go ahead and make sure Hana-san is safe,” I said, giving the tsuchigumo an empty stare. Her eyes widened, her skin paled, and I saw movement at her backside—she reined her spider legs in before they sprouted out. Age wasn’t kind to her—, then outrage flowered throughout her face.

… Yet, she found no words. She had them in her mind, many probably, all either soothing or scolding. A warm woman, a stern woman—a woman beloved and whose counsel helped me get up many times before.

I wouldn’t be walking now without this woman.

She’d relented half her hold of Aki, her hand reaching to my shoulder. Her eyebrows creased into a statuesque, worn-out trepidation. A worry I’d sculpted into her kind heart over eight years of living without mine. “… Come back to me.” She said—demanded.

There’s more Yamame Kurodani wants to say, do—chastise me, be kind and tender, call me a stupid child and hug me—, it's written all over her face.

She swallows it all down. Another time, another day. When I don’t have this ashen expression on my face.

I smile without meaning it. “Have I ever failed you~?”

“… One day, you will,” it’s a familiar voice. I don’t even flinch when it whispers those sad words next to my ear. The Shadow goes ignored as I watch Yamame-san untangle Aki with a dexterous hand, and the two leave to go find the black-haired immortal.

The Gap opens. I’m in the Underground.

It is not hard to locate Hana. The Great Hakurei Barrier was created by Yukari, knitting the Hakurei shrine to its gestalt as the kernel—a stopper to a voracious, pressurized chamber of liquid Gaps—, and it holds it together to this day.

Tracking Hakurei blessings is as natural as breathing.

What I found at the end of the line would’ve surprised me had I had the capacity to: a bubble of pure, unblemished void floating above the Wastes. Malevolence surrounded it like an oil spill.

Whatever oni created this is beyond powerful.

Hana is in there.

The pain in my cheek is my oldest companion. It flares as Gaps tear reality around me and pierce forward, millennia of experience pouring through an infinitude of bloodshot eyes layered upon darkness. They sought breaches in the nothingness but found nothing.

… There are no valleys in the nothingness—no two things to form a boundary. A thing, and nothing. Eyes narrow. It feels absurdly mathematical what’s before me.

Ran-sama would’ve cracked with ease. And with finesse.

My scars throbbed with wailing pain. Fine strands of blood ran down my face, pooling at my chin. Yukari bore no finesse. She was blunt as a hammer, and in her world, all were nails.

This is just another nail, so I brute-force it.

Millions of Gaps popped like an infection through the vertices of nothingness, a tide with no idea of what to look for or what to do as it assaulted the fortress. It harvested information—most worthless without a proper filter—and fed it to the amalgamation of shadows where my heart was once housed. It caused more pain and more discomfort, but it doesn’t matter.

I have this authority—power—to deliver unto Gensokyo what Yukari took away.

No matter the cost.

A pattern becomes clear the more I prod the vast nothingness, and every new iteration of Gaps that leap forward is more capable of this one particular job. They snake through unseen, non-Euclidean ‘boundaries’ between matter and, like a black hole that’d reached the end of its life, the void bubble cracks and readily collapses under its own weight.

I watch Hana cleave through the oni whose face I can’t see, the hooded oni’s severed arm flying through the air. I feel her gaze under the hood—she gasps, holding her maimed, bleeding stump—, and I meet her unseen eyes with stone-cold regard.

Gaps soar forth, aiming to restrain the woman—

—From a moment to the next, there is nothing where she was. Not a trace, physical or magical. With the Gaps I’d trained on her nothingness, finding her was possible, but by then she’d already have teleported again and again.

Had she even teleported, or had she done something else…?

I mull over the thought as Hana catches the useless arm and slaps a talisman onto it. The talisman multiplies like a scab, consuming the arm and eating away at its malevolence until they lose their form and fall off, red-and-white confetti. The arm is gone.

Hana is breathing hard, composing herself. We watch the spent talismans flutter away into the ever-shifting Wastes.

“Are you well?” I ask her, letting go of the Gaps.

The miko met my eyes. She looked shaken, but didn’t avoid them. My shoulders sag with some relief. “I’m fine,” she mumbled. Hana’s fine never felt truly 'fine'. “… Fucking naturalborn oni. Outta nowhere! Was just eating with my student and this— this bitch comes and—!” She became the pallor of marble.

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Before she could have a Hana moment, I answered her unasked question: “Aki-chan is well. She came across Yamame-san around the Spiderweb, who called me. I came as fast as I could.”

Hana’s anger deflated, her palm running across her face as her entire body seemed to slacken. Not completely, however. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Hana be at rest—always an arrow notched on the bow. Not pulled, but ready to be at any given time. “Thanks, Chen… really,” she drawled.

Despite her exhaustion, we still had a monster loose to deal with. “Did you see who that was?” I asked, hovering next to the Head Miko. “You said 'naturalborn oni', like Mr. Hieda? That woman didn’t feel like Hieda.”

Still shaken, Hana looked at me, searched her mind—at least I think she’s searching her mind—, then she answered, “Nah. That hood—something about it didn’t let me see underneath it… but yeah. Another fucker like Hieda. But she had her mind to her. Could talk and be all smug about fucking up my dinner," her voice was unsteady, and she’d turned her eyes away. Whispers from deep within tried to twist that genuine sight of weariness into something wrong and disgusting, yet fitting for a soul like Yukari's, who trusted no one. I ignored the Shadow's attempts. “Did you…?” I shook my head, and she clicked her tongue in duress.

“Were you hurt? I could—”

“You did enough,” she bristled. “I’m not hurt either. Just… that was some fucked up shit, Chen. I don’t wanna talk about that," a pause. She gnashed her teeth, limbs taut, then she talked about that. "Fuck me, Aki paid for that meal. She probably was feeling all smug, stupid scion that she is. One of the happiest days of her childhood, maybe. And some woman with nothing else better to do comes around and ruins it for everyone,” she pinched the bridge of her nose, and silence reigned for a moment before Hana added. “… Hey, Chen.” Her voice was subdued compared to her small outburst.

“What?”

“Do you… wanna go out tonight? I dunno. Get something to drink, or eat. Just do something together?” Her eyes met mine. They were tired. "I know you have it just as hard, but… I'd like a friend right now," for Hana Hakurei to admit that, more than just this encounter must've happened. Did that date she said she had didn't go well?

But she was correct. I’m at the busiest I can be during the year, dealing with the precursor problems of the Glitched Winter, and now there's also a naturalborn oni running rampant out there, though anyone would bunker down for a while after losing an arm. There’s a lot that needs to be done, and only I, with this wretched power, can see it through, lest Gensokyo be plunged into a terrible winter…

… Her face is so fatigued, and her voice is needy. She'd kill ten puppies—no, nine—before admitting any of that. She's creasing her brows. She's probably regretting asking.

For a beat, another woman's face, so similar to hers with the same mannerisms and just as tired, flickers through my mind.

I cannot entertain another answer besides, “Of course.” Before that, I should go see Yamame-san.

She sighed, relieved. “… Do you think Sekai would want to come too?”

“We can ask. It is her birthday in two days, so she might be busy.”

Who am I trying to fool? As if Sekai would say no to Hana.

“I guess. Gotta some shit to see to first. See whether Aki shat her panties, if Aunn survived the attempt on her life… Can you go ask Sekai then? Please?” She already knows the answer. She stretches, much of the tension of fighting someone as powerful as Hieda already having left her shoulders. She recovered fast from that brush with something terrible… she is Hana Hakurei, after all. “Same place, same time?” Hana smiles—a modest thing—as she says that.

“Of course.” It is my turn to nod, plucking a soft smile from the drawer.

"It's settled then. See ya there!" Reality warps around her, almost as if the world was eating her with an unseen maw, and she's gone.

I touched just below my eyes. Hana wasn't uncomfortable, so they're still mine. Yet my hands trembled when I looked upon them, the fingertips curled up and feeling rigid to the touch. Dizziness threatened to settle, and pain was the single resident of my chest cavity.

… I’d promised Yamame-san I wouldn’t overdo it.

I wiped the dry blood from my face and hands, turned away from the Wastes, and made my way to the nearest tunnel that'd take me to the Spiderweb.

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and so we begin Chen's prologue. Won't be as long as Hana's
more soon~!

>>51348476
I messed the tail layer fuuuuuuuuuuuuu

>>51346301
in the year of our lord 1984 +42…

>>51348475
>>51348476
Reminds me of how Chen is about to die in that new touhou argslop thingy where Sakuya gets high as fuck and Remi kills herself.

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>>51349150
I know right?

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>>51356619

The first p2 flowchart coming through. Hoo boy.

>>51356407
I don't think this needs a flowchart. It was created to manage canon and catch people up on other writes, but now there's not a billion writers writing and there aren't any saboteurs trying the ruin the HSE either.

>>51356619
yeah but it was funny

>>51356636
It was. Although it would be better if the damage hadn't been done in the first place, the tumors haven't fully excised from the Ao3 upload and without the thread context of the drama and exile of that faggot Okina's actions in Chapter 31 are a bit confusing when it's clearly the authors being a bit meta and showing their distaste for the subject matter.

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I left the Spiderweb by the time evening drew close. Bronze hues washed the masonry and woodwork, the dying light mingling with the everblue of the Stump. The cold drained the warmth from the atmosphere, and the wind cut against my skin like small knives.

All sensation but no… feeling.

It’s something I’ve realized months in after the Solstice: feeling and sensation go hand in hand. Much of the feelings I have towards Mr. Anon come from the sensations I felt when I knitted beside him; when he put on those dented and malformed gloves—my first article of knitted clothes—and he smiled and said they were great. Same for Ms. Reimu, Ran-sama. It’s something so obvious in hindsight, but I’d never realized just how much it played out in the things I did and how I did them. It was much easier to challenge Ms. Reimu’s suicidal tendencies when I could feel the hope that my words would make her better.

But now I can’t feel, only sense.

It wears people down.

Spotting the one I was looking for, I flew down toward the police station. A commotion was happening there if the wailing and screeching were clues to go by.

The police station was one of many buildings erected directly onto the Stump—not into it, as carving or willingly harming the Stump was a stigmatized crime. Only a few buildings had been carved into the Stump itself—; A flag flew high on a pole beside the empty entrance, the force spread thin with the Solstice right around the corner. No pedestrian movement at this time of day.

The commotion was happening near the patio overlooking the city below, about eighty flights of stairs off the thoroughfares.

“You abandoned Hana-neesan with a powerful monster! You’re a coward!” Kuramochi Kamishirasawa shrieked, red-faced and furious. His arms wrapped around Hana’s midsection as if she were a fleeting ghost. “If I’d been there, I’d have protected her with all my might! Coward! Coward!”

“WAAAAH! I DID NOT! S-Stop being mean to me!” His sibling wailed, her voice stuffy, thick tears flowing down and her hiccuping poisoning the air as she hid her face in Mokou’s flat chest, the immortal holding her as the children bickered.

“You did!” All his might translated into stomping the ground, wings ruffling. Deep dissatisfaction spread all over his face. “You should’ve stayed and fought—aiee, n-no!” A slap met the nape of his neck, and the sparrow recoiled as Hana glared hard at him. “I-I’m not wrong! Who flees from a fight just because it’s too hard? She should’ve stayed and fought—”

“Get a grip, brat!” Hana kept on showering him with her tough love.

Hana did have her hands full…

… I left the four of them to their devices, eyes moving to the person I’d been looking for. At the very edge of the patio overlooking the city was Yamame-san. She sat on a bench, groceries resting beside her as she busied herself with watching the unfolding circus. She wore a longing smile despite the caustic—if infantile—exchange unfolding fifty meters off. Her gaze met mine and she only warmed. “There you are, Chen. Hana-san told me you helped her with her problem… in more colorful language, that is,” she tittered, smiling with both lips and eyes.

“It wasn’t too problematic,” I told her as I landed and stepped close to her, those soothing eyes straying to my hands, which she promptly gathered in her larger yet dainty ones. Her smile faltered at the curdled, rigid fingers and flaked blood under the nails. She massaged them. “It was manageable… The oni was wicked, but not demented,” I explained, voice dull.

“You don’t need to explain yourself to me, Chen. I trust your judgement.” Her caramel eyes didn’t leave my hands as she said those words.

“But it eases you, no?” I know it does. Asking that achieves nothing.

She joined my hands, cupping them in a warm cocoon. Golden sunlight, fading in the distance, bathed us. “… It does, yeah,” she chuckled low, the golden light highlighting graying hair and sunken eyes. Worn out, tired—exhausted. “You’re the last of my children who’s still small and adorable. All others are adults with lives now. Babies, marriages. Problems they solve themselves without need of their mother,” and yet the depths of her eyes gleamed. “I’d love to see you get there too.”

“You won’t,” the Shadow whispers in my ear.

Behind the tsuchigumo’s eyes, there live dreams and hopes galore; there are many unsaid things she stores in her heart. She had some of her memory wiped eight years ago to prevent her from falling into Yukari’s trap—the only result of loving Yukari Yakumo is death and disappointment—; she’s been repelled again and again by this ashen facade of mine, by my duty… And yet, she looks at me the same. “It can wait,” I give my empty answer to her most earnest wish. “There are things bigger than me at play. It’s my duty to attend to them.”

She doesn’t flinch. She hasn’t for a long while. “You’re the Sage of Gaps,” she reminds herself, then releases my hands. The air feels cold without hers. “… Of course, sweetling.”

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She says that as her fingers play with her wedding band, old and a bit tarnished. It's never truly left her ring finger since it was put on.

In the background, the shouting match escalated, with Aki yelling that she had no brother and Hana screeching at Kuramochi to be kinder. Yamame-san looks at the back-and-forth with yearning eyes, the extremities of her mouth pulled into a smile of sorrow.

“I…” I feel the urge to speak, even if it’s dulled and empty. No heart needed to hate a loved one's silence, nor to want to right it. All done without feeling—a distant memory. Ms. Kogasa had had eyes like that once. “Hana-san was way too shaken. That oni was intelligent, unlike Hieda,” Yamame perked up. “Hana-san wanted company. She wanted Sekai and me there for her—” Yamame-san doubled over about ten degrees and chuckled against her palm. The crow's feet around her eyes crinkled.

“—Her A-team?” She teased, and if I could, I’d have blushed. “You accepted it.”

“I did… It’s unfortunate timing, but she seemed like she needed that. That’s not normal of her.” I look over my shoulder at where Hana hoists Mochi over her head. It seems Aki had tired of being on the receiving end, and the sparrow siblings had resorted to sorting their grievances in the most primal of ways: by squaring it up. I file away a slight burst of irritation—not real; a pure memory—, not bothered as I once used to be by this… changed internal voice. It feels natural, as if it’s always been this way, but I know for a fact my thoughts weren’t like this. Recursive, needlessly so, and apotheotic in their faux intricacy.

My voice’s joined hers before I’d realized it had.

There’s no telling it apart anymore…

… Which makes these sprouting suspicions all the more annoying.

“Don’t lie to yourself,” she whispers. Her presence is physical: hands on my shoulders, face near mine. “You’re not blind. I was blind to Ran. I should’ve seen it coming…” Her voice embodies a rage that’s outlived her grave. “Threatening her with your well-being wasn’t enough. I should’ve flayed her like an animal and left her in the sun. She was faulty,” she whispers, and inside me, torments echo, this time not of me. Bile rises in my throat, the world slowing down, however, as she gives me no time to simmer in the images of violation of Ran-sama’s body: “When we got there, Hana was unharmed. How long had it been since she sent that sparrow halfbreed off? Our baleful Hana, our reckless Hana, our little psychopath of a Hakurei—and she’s pristine as porcelain after minutes alone with a strong oni?”

“What are you saying…? Hana is strong. She killed you,” I rebuked in my mind, watching Hana as she set Aki down and yelled something at Mochi, which got her a kick from Mokou, who thought Hana’d crossed a line.

“But she’s reckless. She throws herself into danger with little regard—she’s a sadistic childkiller, deranged murderer, after all… and yet not a Danmaku scratch, not a wound to cradle,” Yukari’s voice lowers into almost a purr, the edge of the knife just below that velvet. “Was she fucking the naturalborn oni? Maybe discussing boys~?” A titter. “… No. They were engrossed in one another. Maybe not the erotic, but a conversation of some sort is the most conceivable scenario.”

I frown, dullness to her sharpness—no less effective an implement. “Hana-san. Talking with an oni who’s not Suika-san or Kasen-san…? Oni hate her with a drive. They have no reason nor, supposedly, the death wish to approach her with whatever you’re conjuring up.”

“Bigotry in the game of power is stupid, Interloper. Anyone can be a pawn. Anyone can be tossed in the trash bin after their expiration date. How do you think kamikaze culture came to be~?” she drawls then. “Had I lived to do so to you and Ran…”

“You don’t know Hana-san as much as you think you do,” I toss in my mind.

She tosses back: “And you do?” She doesn’t approach in any explainable way, but she feels closer. “You have my memories—you’ve seen her unraveling as I screwed her brains out. There, just below the surface. You know how she tastes, how she moans, grips, gropes—we know her better than she knows herself, that wreck of a girl.” The hairs along my arms stand on end. There is a sum of Yukari’s memories that I don’t touch, under any circumstances. I’d sifted through them, most of them, to segregate them away. Never again. “… Something’s happened in that void bubble with that oni. She’s lied to you. She might know that oni. That oni might even be my replacement. My, my~I'd missed that face of panic she had when we found her.” Hana glanced our way and smiled before waving. The Shadow sounded elated. “It brings back fun memories.”

I waved back at Hana, whose attention was taken by the siblings.

“She thinks she’s changed. But I know better. Hana’s the same person she was eight years ago.” In that note the echo left. Why is it so insistent about this…?

… What would it gain?

It doesn’t matter.

Yukari’s wrong about Hana-san.

As she always is.

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>>51361807

bridge segment, so smaller than the previous batches. Next we have Sekai and after Sekai, we'll have finished the prologue~!
more soon!

So when is the HSE getting it's rewrite, I know the current Ao3 version is 'curated' but it's still heavily flawed and contains references to certain material that's been agreed upon by the various writers to be verboten and not part of the HSE.
You can't say good riddance to bad garbage when there's still trash in Your living room.

>>51359659
Yuari's ghost is a degenerate and should double die kill herself.

>>51361807
A rewrite that cuts down plot points that went nowhere and rewrites key things with hindsight would be a dream, but everything before the solstice amounts to a million words on its own. That'd be a herculean task.

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>>51364637

>>51363096
True, only the Blue and Green list characters are really necessary. The Yellow, Grey, and especially the Red and untagged characters went nowhere and are more a symptom of the HSE Dark Age when the project first began. And in the end all of them were just killed off for shock value that detracted from the project. Koishi, despite how garbage she is, is lucky that she wasn't as viciously hated as the other characters who were killed off due to thread politics. Of course that wouldn't have happened if people hadn't been overly permissible in the first place and been willing to bully certain bad actors out in the first place.
The only character among them which would still be included is Okina but she'd need an extensive rewrite of every single one of her scenes

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>>51364606 >>51364625

the HSE archive... and the Black Friday special...

>>51364500
Dear God...

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>>51365684

>>51364500
He can't keep getting away with it.

>>51363120
>>51363096
I think it would be "herculean" in the sense that you're trying to streamline and retain the soul of what was effectively longform extremely amateur jazz improv. I was going to write more about this, but the tl;dr is that the HSE was hot trash and that's a good thing, because if you're gonna publish anonymous work you should do something narratively risky and potentially stupid.
But seriously, do not tempt me because every once in awhile my mind will wander and I'll think about how easy It would've been for the Seija/Goro plotline to be 10x better if I hadn't resolved the core betrayal instantly and instead have the two forced into a pact with Yukari so Seija could drive 'part two' of their story. I have other things to do!!!

>>51364625
>>51364637
I'd still like to see an HSE-less version of the Seija and Goro story. Despite the fact that it was better than some of the drek, it would have worked better as it's own story.