When a person has lived a long and (not so) prosper lifetime of kicking ass and drinking tea, what a recently deceased spirit desires most is to move onto the next stage of the cycle of reincarnation. It took an ungodly amount of time wasted on paperwork -- why cannot those shinigami bureaucrats keep it simple? -- but finally, the spirit was ready to leave Higan and take on her new incarnation.

How would her new life unravel, she wondered. Will she become a rich lady living in a mansion? A carefree boy living and playing in the village? Perhaps she will take up the broom and wand and become a magician? But knowing her luck and karma, she probably won't even be a human. She sure hoped she wouldn't turn into a fox. She already had experienced a taste of that in her previous life, and it sucked big time.

"Nice try, but it won't be that easy."

But before the spirit could float down the tunnel of light that leaded to her new life, she felt a sudden gut-twisting wrenching -- despite not having a body yet. Everything went pitch black, while the spirit heard a dry voice chuckle in her ear -- if she still had an ear.

"You thought you'd take on a fresh, uncorrupted mortal form? A fresh-faced young girl, strong and vital, ready to exterminate my undead hordes and ruin my plans? Ahahahahaha!" The voice cackled. "That won't do. That won't do at all. I have a much better idea."

Uh-oh, thought the spirit, as the darkness swirled around her head -- again, if she had one. She felt the very fabric of her soul getting yanked violently against her will, which filled her with an intense, excruciating, indescribable pain that threatened to tear her essence apart.

Somehow, the spirit knew this was not the way reincarnation should go at all.

============================================================================

The excess and vainglory of youth.

Previous thread >>58010
Character blurbs: www.touhou-project.com/others/theater

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Blood pressure dropping. The patient was about to crash and crash hard. If he didn't get help right away, he would be a goner.

“Dammit man, I'm a doctor not a miracle worker,” I whispered to myself as I continued to play out the ER fantasy. Anything to keep my mind off dark thoughts as I weaved through corridors and took the stairs to the nurse's office. It was too late though, the patient had gone into cardiac arrest. Things were dire.

Eirin was sweeping her own office with an old bamboo-handled broom. “And what's the matter with you today?” she asked with tried and true cynicism. It wasn't that she wasn't glad to see me, I felt. It was just that she likely dealt with more than her fair share of hypochondriacs and malingerers. Doubly understandable since I was a likely candidate for the latter category.

“I'm really feeling sick,” I told her, “have some sympathy.”

1st Thread: >>51178
2nd Thread: >>55139

Recap:

The vampiric magical girl known as Fl_ndre, and her friend Words, are thrown into a thrashing conflict. The feud is mainly between the Mistress of the Scarlet Devil Mansion, Remilia Scarlet, and the magician, Patchouli Knowledge. Despite the efforts of Fl_ndre and Words, the conflict escalates to a dangerous level. In a rare chance to try again, the two obtain the legendary timepiece called the Luna Dial and use it to go back in time.

Unfortunately, Remilia also travel with them. In the new timeline, she continues to weave her plot of destruction. Fl_ndre and Words, in the meantime, experience a hectic day. They manage to discover the motives behind everyone involved in the dark conflict, and also meet a sweet young girl who helps Fl_ndre realize the true meaning of “family.”

In their attempts to reason with Remilia and reunite the family of the Scarlet Devil Mansion, an inter-planar demon, titled Phantasm, takes possession of Remilia. The demon seeks to consume Gensokyo and quite possibly the world beyond.

Angered by Phantasm, Fl

You open your eyes from your sleep and yawn, looking out the window of the Airplane. It's been a few hours since you got on. The plane must nearly be there now.

"Turn off your electronics, please; we are about to land," echoes through the plane. You shake your head to clear out your sleepiness, and sit up properly.

The plane shudders as it touches down, and you wait a few minutes until it's finally safe to get off. Then, standing up, you take your backpack and walk into the airport. It's bustling with people of all ages and nationalities, as one would expect from an airport.

As you walk into the airport, you reflect upon your life. You're a transfer student, 15 years old and male, transferring to a Japanese after you've been studying Japanese for quite a few years. The reason you got interested in Japanese culture, however, is fairly different: Touhou.

For some reason, the games always resonated with you, in a strange way. When you first discovered the fandom, you felt a connection to the characters for some reason, and decided to give the game a try.

You managed to beat Lunatic difficulty on first try on a single life run.

Needless to say, you were excited when you managed to get it done. But something about it just... called to you. Then, you began to look through online series and pictures. It had you hooked.

You've been a fan of Touhou since Subterranean Animism came out. Recently, though, you've been having some strange dreams that remind you of the games. The strange thing, though, is that in those dreams you were always a girl. These dreams were...

A song of youth and hope.

Previous thread >>57210
Character blurbs: www.touhou-project.com/others/theater

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I ignored the prodding for the moment. Suika was certain to try to bait me into saying or doing something stupid. If I knew her well, and I thought I did, she'd probably try to bring Alice into the mix and have a laugh while I was in a tight spot. Not giving her the satisfaction of playing along was worth the risk of getting pelted with spitballs later on. I'd hold off from any preemptive strikes for the foreseeable future as well.

“Hey, Kaguya,” I called out to her softly, trying to avoid attracting Mima's attention. Last thing I needed was another one of her acerbic remarks. The transfer student was clearly new at the whole stealth game in class as she turned around to face me. I decided not to comment on it, instead hoping to get the message out before anyone noticed. “Would you like to have lunch with me today? I kind of want to talk to you about a couple of things.”

“Sure thing,” she replied with a smile, “I'll look forward to it.”

“Ms. Hoursaisan,” Mima interrupted our little interaction. “I know it's difficult being a new student and you don't really know anyone yet, but I would recommend you avoid associating yourself with chronic malingers and petty troublemakers like the young man that sits behind you. Nothing good will come of giving him any attention.”

Part One: >>47924

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[-y-] Keep on driving. You're just being paranoid.
It was a 2/2/2 vote. I picked the two that didn't send all the bear in the city on your tail, and flipped a coin. Never mind, someone voted. I was too far along to change it, but I'm glad it settled itself.

------------

You shouldn't react so rashly to this car. Granted, you are quite certain that it is following you. However, you are on a major highway circling a large city. The chance that you might see two of the same cars behind you is larger than zero.

Instead, you decide to try to play things safely. Turning away from you introspection of the vehicle in your mirror, you start looking at the road signs to see how far it is to the next exit. "…Alright, that seems like it's the best way out of here…"

Minoriko frowns a bit as she tries to lean forward and check the car herself. "So, we're going to keep driving? I have the feeling that we can't exactly get away as it is."

“Shouldn’t you have knocked Ran?” Patchouli said, her tone unchanging as ever.

“You wouldn’t have answered either way.”

“What brings you to my tower? Our paths rarely cross without some urgent matter as the cause.”

“Next year’s applications came in. I thought you might like to see them.”

“Sorting through applications is your job is it not?”

“They’ve been sorted. Each of the others has made their selection.”

“Leave them on my desk.” Patchouli gestured toward the mountain of papers atop her desk. “I’ll sign off on them later.”

“At least look over them, won’t you? That is after all your job.” Ran’s mouth briefly curled into a smile with that remark.

Rule of Three Edition.

First Thread:
>>48653

Latest Thread:
>>52466

***

[1] – Delivery Service

“Seeing some of the Outlands might be good.” I’m not confident in my ability to hunt monsters, so this sounds best.

“Excellent!” S claps her hands together. “Will you be able to leave tomorrow?”

A thought crosses my mind.

Apparently this city is connected to some bizarre dreamworld through my boss's dreams.

What the fuck?

The more I think about it...

Flandre, with her bizarre strength and resilience. Remilia, with her ridiculous amount of speed. Kaguya blowing me around with a magical fan, Mokou managing to make a full recovery from a bullet wound to the head

this is all insane.

I do a quick check of my conscious functions

Right now, my reasoning and logic seem fine.

Continuing from >>25926
---
Sup dude.
No, that's a horrible idea and you know it. Stop trying to get us killed.
No, it's a great idea and you know it. Stop trying to cockblock us.

Ignoring him, you quickly think up something to say to Koakuma.

"What kinds of magic do you know? Anything you could teach me?"

"Other than shooting bullets at things, everything I know is rather specialized, and I don't think it's the type of magic that Patchouli would like for me to teach someone."

.>input