This was really good.

The bath kills the stank elemental.

This was a really good read. Depressing, true, but also memorable

Reimu lay down, arms outstretched, on the cold wooden floor. Cicadas hummed in the distance. The shrine offered some shade from the oppressive summer heat, but she was drenched in sweat regardless. As she laid there she cocked her head and made a level attempt to kill the sun with her glare. The sun seemed to mock her as it remained firmly rooted in the sky. The miko's rage built and built as the giant red fireball continued to defy her. How could it possibly be this hot?!

A realization hit Reimu. The sun shouldn't be strong enough to resist her powerful Hakurei stare. She's the Shrine Maiden of Paradise damnit! That subterranean sun does what she tells it to, what makes the one up here think its so special?! It must be so strong because someone else caused it to be that way. An incident! A streak of red fabric shot away from the Hakurei Shrine to solve the incident at once, leaving rustling summer leaves in its wake.

Reimu rode the arid currents around Gensokyo on the hunt for suspicious people. As she glanced around the Human Village, Reimu caught sight of a redhead floating in a basin of water. Wait, no. On closer inspection it was a literal red head. Next to it, a headless body dressed in red and black fanned itself. Sekibanki was beside herself with heat exhaustion and could not see that her presence as a decapitated torso scared the whole village out of their now empty streets. It obviously was her fault and had nothing to do with the blazing red sun overhead, and what was about to happen next had nothing to do with jealousy over someone else getting to cool off in a pool. Reimu nodded to herself at this line of logic, confident in her deductive skills, and dropped down to chase the poor overheated rokurokubi out of town with her gohei.

The sun continued to shine and Reimu seemed no closer to solving the incident. Clear dry skies made it easy to spot some of the more unusual floating fixtures of the realm. Flying near to the Shining Needle Castle, she noticed the drum Tsukumogami reclining in front of a strange machine. It was a small white box that showered the girl with such a gale that her crimson hair splayed out behind her like a fan. Reimu got a glint in her

“Lee, have you finished moving my materials inside?”

Shizuha poked her head out of a window, searching for the newest addition to her and Minoriko’s household. She soon spotted him stagger around the corner of the storehouse clutching several cloth bags.

“Almost!” he managed to grunt, panting from both the weight of the pigments she had asked him to fetch and the smothering heat of the Gensokyo summer.

Shizuha muttered something distinctly unbecoming of a goddess of even her modest stature, then ducked back in. Internally, she scolded herself. Wasn’t she supposed to be the responsible one? At least Minoriko was tending to her fields and not around to witness the gaffe.

Lee had finished putting away the bags and was laying down in the shade by the time Shizuha walked over with a pitcher of water and a few worn cups. She sat down beside him while he caught his breath and poured him a cup.

“Thank you.” He accepted the water with a grateful smile.

Shizuha found her eyes drawn to him as he drank in silence. She lingered on how his larynx punctuated the contour of his neck and followed it as it moved up and down as he swallowed the water. Out of habit, she found herself rendering her subject in terms of shapes and lines, of color and shading - means by which to more easily depict him with her brush.

Perhaps as a painter, it was natural for her to see her shaman through the lens of her art. By the same token, however, Shizuha had to wonder how she appeared to him.

The ambush was executed flawlessly. It took place at the bend on the narrow trail as it dipped downwards around a small hill. The dense, thorny, and berry-laden bushes hedged the path on the sides. At the extremely-close range, the moment it would take to turn around and run was pointless. Short of leaping upwards and flying, there was no escape.

The ambusher stared at me firmly, her eyes showing little of their usual emotion. Likewise, her dark lips were drawn taut and her breathing silent. There was tension in her haunches as she leaned forward, appearing ready to leap should she detect a false move. Countless generations of careful breeding had endowed her with confidence in the hunt and prowess. That this was quite underappreciated in the village at present was a shame.

Her ancestors had been the proud sort, no doubt, used to the hard life of tracking and cornering youkai. How many cousins had been killed in their pursuit? Survival was never guaranteed, even when the conditions were favorable. Surprise was certainly something that favored the hunter but so did wits and the ability to collaborate with others. Before my time, only a few generations ago, hunters had gathered in groups and set out to exterminate troublesome youkai together.

Of course, today she was on her own. She may have been tracking but she was not hunting. Extermination was not on her mind either. Her behavior was instinctual, something that originated in her blood but was, ultimately, a vestigial impulse. Though impressed, I did not smile, instead crouching down to level my gaze with hers.

The bitch remained impassive for a few moments more. As I stretched my hand out, however, flickers of her usual gaiety reappeared in her dark eyes and the black lips curled at their base into something that could be generously interpreted as analogous to a smile. Her pink tongue flitted out as she brought her face close to my hand, making something of an imperious showing as she wrinkled her nose to sniff me.

I brushed my fingers against her soft cheek. It was more an acknowledgement than an act of affection.

She had managed to find me yet again.

I had left home early, bef

Pretty much, yeah.

It'd turn the title into 'Reverse The Linearity of the Unmaze Cathedral'
Which would be a clue to use the pages it didn't mention yeah.

I thought it was clever, but in a way it's really obtuse insn't it?

Either way, I'm glad you had fun and you can expect something like this once again in the future maybe. It'd definitely be a fun a second try.

>>2545

Oh, is that what you were going for with the clue? Then maybe it would have been better if the clue read "Remove a D at the first word of the title and add a 'The' afterwards as well." Because with the wording as it is, I thought a "the" needed to be removed.

Must have been a typo from my part yeah.

Definitely won't make that mistake again.

Write about shimmy

excellent

Oh I totally forgot this existed, may as well make that Shimmy short now that I think of it.

Could be nice practice to get the write juice back, yeah I'll make one soon.

Screw you Keine, don't tell me what to do.

https://youtu.be/dmtK7RiIz1A

[Narrator]
Europe, Asia, Africa
Yukari “You come in her, or I’ll come for you” Yakumo, the youkai of boundaries
visited these and all other continents
the world had to offer
and yet she still met only one man worthy of Reimu

[Yukari ”If you don’t fill that womb, you’re going in the tomb” Yakumo]
You want my maiden?
You can have her!
I left everything you need together

"What the fuck anon, why are you fucking that green shrine maiden?! My Reimu is right there!"

Oh, my God.
>Taira no Kiyomori
I meant Taira no Munemori. Fuck me.

Not sure I one-hundred-percent understand all what happened, but that sure was a ghost story. Bravo.

I'd usually prefer not to shill an offsite repost, but there were a couple of sore spots in the pacing that really, really started to bother me the more I looked this thing over, and which I've since attempted to patch up. You can find said patched-up copy here, if you at all give a shit: https://ao3.org/works/33878584

Hopefully the addition also makes it a little more explicit what exactly Reisen's trying to do in this short.

MY OWN CLONE

Good short, I like it.

Excellent short. So was it a time paradox or something?

No question but just a thing I like to point out: The average voter participation increased by 100% when the option was to press a mystery button.

Curious.

Forgot to mention a few things:

Bassicaly since Alice and both Marisa live in the forest, the odds of finding their houses was not impossible.

The former would be there but the latter not.

Then you could ask her for shelter, though that'd have been pretty boring so I didn't mention it nor did I go out of my way to make it look like an option (Due to bias towards boredom).

You would have to go deeper into the forest tho.

Any questions will be truthfully answered yeah


Done, and for now nighto!

>>2392

Oh damn it did yeah, Guess mystery buttons just appeal to one's inner curiosity and stuff.

(Just only noticed your comment, had to refesh the page)

It's about time for me to update.

Expect in an hour or half.

[x] Some time later, the mansion exploded in unbridled rage.

https://youtu.be/_hdvaAdBEPw

Fwooooooooooshhhhh!

…To think I’d hear an sound so similar to the real deal after so long. How long has it been?

Bloodrust Mansion was being nostalgic again, it never knew it could feel this way but live another hundred years and weird things to happen. There was nothing to be annoyed about now at least.

To clarify there was nothing if anything around Mansion’s territory now, no more green grass for bugs to use as an hiding spot in order to enter Mansion’s garden and pilfer it’s succulent cherry juice nor was there a blue sky filled with birds that would usually defecate on and breed on Mansion’s red tiled roofs without a single concern for the defiling and disgusting acts they were committing on a Mansion’s honor. No! Nothing was ever going to disrespect Mansion again…That was made sure off.

You did great, I always knew that deep inside you were just like me
Petals of a iconic flower dropped into one of it's chambers via the window, such a vulgar way to give someone a greeting could have been only be one person: the Rubenesque (think that’s an shade of purple) color of the flower in moonlight was unforgettable and the hypnotic pattern of it falling from the sky even less. Mansion only knew one person with this kind of deadly allure.

Good house.