[x] Have Kazami stand near the tree for Eternity to paint. I’m sure Eternity would love something to hang in her winter cave.

Eternity pretends to check her paints, making herself small from the conversation at hand. I doubt I can gain anything with Kazami’s prickliness, and Eternity’s mood being brought down won’t help anyone. So, to kill two birds with one stone…

“… Miss Kazami, go stand by that tree,” I order the malcontent Youkai.

“For what purpose, exactly?” she outright tells me of her suspicions. “Your idea for a creative piece of art is to not be at my canvas?”

“Yes, because she will be,” I point at Eternity next to me.

Eternity hangs her feet from a stool, and interprets my words as, “You want me to paint Yuuka?”

“Surely you’re just wishing to find more of Eternity’s little quirks,” Kazami claims, her smile being anything but friendly. “Your intents may as well be worn on your sleeve, human.” Her mention of Eternity’s ‘quirks’ may raise an eyebrow, but I already had my bets that she knew something.

I grin a bit at how shallow I can really be, assenting, “Yes, I suppose that is one reason. But the other reason is that Eternity could paint her dear friend for a keepsake. You think that sounds just as untoward?”

Kazami sniffs at my moxie, “Indeed it does. And your attitude is quite demanding of my patience. Were you not with the fox it may well have broken. However…” she trails off, staring at Eternity.

The fairy fidgets with a brush, stealing a glance at Kazami a few times before realizing she’s been had. An uncertain sound spills from her lips as she pieces together the words, “I think I would like that, Yuuka… if it’s fine with you, anyway.”

The elder Youkai sighs a resigned, “Fine. I see that my opinion falls on deaf ears. Fox, clean up these supplies. It would be a shame to go to waste.” She motions to the set of earthenware paint jars she laid out for herself.

“And you believe yourself allowed to command me for what reason, necessarily?” Ran snips at the woman, not budging an inch from her position.

Kazami’s malicious grin grows with the retort, “I didn’t realize I needed to be your master to ask for your assistance. If that’s the case, I’m sure that old hag would love to know how much you follow this human’s words. You, clean this up.” She points at me now.

Ran doesn’t take lightly to the taunt, her eyes narrowing to slits as she spits back, “If you must be so vapid as to order mundane chores on others mayhaps that is a question on your own ego rather than a need for assistance.”

“Hah!” Kazami cackles, retrieving her pink parasol from the easel. “I see your domestication hasn’t changed your sharp tongue. Now if only your new master could have the power to back it up.”

She steps around her station, strolling down the flowery hill and swinging the parasol over her shoulder as she walks. The garish pink stands out amongst the field of yellow, subtly boasting the pride of its owner now and prior. I guess she’s still taking the painting into account, even if she acted reluctant. Eternity checks her paints, ensuring none have dried up in the last minute since her previous inspection.

Kazami stops by the tree, its green leaves hanging like a curtain in front of her, and with a pirouette, calls back, “You may start any time! And I don’t see you cleaning, fair researcher!”

“You were serious?” I call back in spite. I can see the smile she flashes me from here, the answer being a resounding ‘yes.’

While I’m looking at where to start with the earthenware, Eternity abandons her set to take in the view. Slowly, her brush is raised to the canvas. There is no color on the end, and there is no threat of motion against the white plane, just a pause in thought. She taps a finger to the instrument a few times as a pensive frown begins to fester.

I abandon my task and kneel next to her. “Is something wrong?”

She brings the brush close to her cheek, awkwardly scratching her skin as she whispers away from Ran, “Could we, uhm, find Wriggle, too?”

I lean over to my partner and whisper the same question in turn. She peeks at the fairy, deliberating on following the girl’s whims, and ultimately decides it’s a harmless enough gesture. A shikigami slides from her sleeve, darting into the distance until it’s out of sight.

“This will be a few moments, please be patient as Wriggle Nightbug is requested to arrive here,” she notes, looking vacantly in the direction the doll fled.

“What are you all doing?” Kazami shouts a couple dozen yards away.

“Getting Wriggle,” I yell back to her.

“Why are you-?!” she stops herself, already knowing the answer. “Just clean up!” She folds her umbrella and sits contrapposto, waiting by the tree. She wasn’t joking about the paint, then.

I get back to my task, letting the breeze take the front of the conversation. The only sound to break up the low hum is the scratching of ceramic against ceramic as I sort the lids in my hands.

“I’m glad she’s okay with waiting. Or this silly thing at all, I guess,” Eternity mumbles to herself.

“For that matter, when’d you meet Miss Kazami? I know I kinda asked before, but it really does stand out. Ran and I might be the only stranger pair in Gensokyo,” I joke, coming to terms with paint marks under the lids signaling an organizational pattern I messed up. Ran hums a little chide at my folly, receiving an equally polite finger from me.

Eternity giggles at my plight, answering, “It’s been so long, I don’t remember. I think I was wandering around like normal when I came into the Garden of the Sun. Yuuka… I don’t think she was angry. I started my hole the same day. The sunflower fairies thought I was weird to make my own home when the open sky was just as good. Yuuka was... surprised. I was new, and living next to her, but she never asked me to leave.”

“Never?” I repeat, unsure if she’s being hyperbolic.

She looks at me, my question somehow unexpected, and drags her eyes back to Kazami. “No, never. I don’t know why.”

The conversation dies there. I’m lacking some critical information to follow up, but damned if I can tell what it is. What gets me just as much is how present Eternity is and yet still out of the loop.

Wriggle eventually breaks the minutiae, just in time to sate Kazami’s thinning patience. The first thing from her mouth is ask what Eternity’s doing. It takes her a moment to realize that Kazami is even present, if not physically distant. After a quick rundown, and some punk remarks following yesterday, she agrees to join in the activity. Kazami narrows her eyes at the bug as she sidles up next to her, but does nothing more than bicker.

Eternity smiles with a little more confidence with her two friends in the same frame, and begins to choose the first color to brush with. Now that she’s underway, I get back to my Sisyphean struggle of sorting identical looking black liquids.

“Are you truly confused by those?” Ran wonders in a low voice.

“Yes I’m confused, they were sorted before I started touching them and now they all over,” I groan.

“Do you require assistance?”

“No. You know what–“ I fume as I stick a finger into one of the pots, the digit coated in grass green paint. I compare it to the lids I have on hand and conclude, “This one to here. Whatever god damn works.”

“That does not seem entirely sanitary,” Ran comments.

I grunt at the opinion, “How horrible, the Youkai might get sick.”

“It’s theoretically possible.”

“Isn’t she powerful enough that severing her head won’t do much to her day?” I posit.

“With a powerful enough weapon even a god can be killed, Tanner,” she states.

“Bit dark to just bring up.”

She prods for the last laugh, “Which of us is discussing severed heads?”

“Yakumo, how is she doing?” Kazami garners our attention in the distance.

“What?” Ran asks in return. You know it’s bad when that’s the only word she can use to question something.

“The painting, how’s the painting?”

Ran glances down at the canvas, now with the major swathes that make up the background. “Fine?”

“Describe it,” Kazami insists.

She takes a deep breath, more fed up than I think I’ve ever seen her. This probably isn’t the first time these two have interacted, much less in this dynamic. She begins robotically listing off painting techniques and their utilization, information that should normally be useless to her and not stored in any database. I wouldn’t say she remembers it naturally, though, with how the art terminology sours her face.

As much as I want to laugh I also need to keep my head down. My fingers colored every shade of the rainbow and I’m still not through all the jars. How many colors does one painter need? I glance around at what else might need attending, my eyes trailing just over the opposite side of the hill−

I freeze. Leveling my eyes, without so much as blinking, I stand to my feet to see a door at the bottom of the knoll. This time it’s a glossy sheet of metal, with a window taking up nearly half the surface, and a pushbar handle. It’s… a door like I’d see on my old school. It, or whoever’s behind it, is beckoning me. This one isn’t some random door I don’t recognize, nor is it trying to blend in with anything, it’s a beacon. One that says it knows me and refuses to be ignored.

I want to glance back to Ran and Eternity, see if they’ve discovered my source of silence, but should I lose sight of the door for less than a blink it might be gone again. Whether that be because it avoids the gaze of others or because it’s warning me of notifying others is uncertain. I don’t think I’m comfortable with either.

Just as it was yesterday, though, the only way I have to combat it is to be proactive and see who’s lying in wait. I walk down the hill, wondering when Ran will notice I’m distancing myself. I try to feel for something, anything, out of the ordinary with the door itself. What I do to sense Ran is definitely not what this thing runs off of, though, and so it remains a black box. I stand just within reach of the portal and clearly see that view of outer space from inside. I hazard to touch the handle.

Not push it in, not yet. Just touch.

Solid. Cold. Real. I wonder if it’d be better if it wasn’t real. No matter.

The bigger problem is that Ran hasn’t noticed it yet. Can she not see it? No, she would notice my absence instead. Is she somehow blinded? Shit, what do I do about that? I shouldn’t encounter something without her backing me up. Which means I need to turn away. What happens then?

I swallow my nerves and try to be quick, darting my face to the side ready to call out. In the same breath my voice cracks to life, and my eyes are no longer on the door, the frame follows the edge of my periphery. The motion is so quick that I feel the bar crash into my ribs before I realize. The portal opens, and what was once stable ground is now the empty void. The kaleidoscope of colors that assault my eyes are made all the more disorienting by my free tumbling.

[Please wait warmly as teacher falls through space…]

I must say I’m quite shocked, nay, humbled that you all said you read the whole thing when I asked for feedback. Of course, I will take into account your critiques on information tracking and character arcs going forward, even if they might not necessarily come to fruition for this story. For character–… however you’d define anti-rigidity, I do feel like that is a consequence of my method for dialogue, but I digress.

I wish I could say that I’m proud of my work’s inclusion of Keine, but that’s only recent in terms of a quality that I would personally find acceptable. She was very one note early on, and while it was a fun foil to Tanner’s open antics, it was obvious that there would be no development on that end until the story properly picked up around Seija. So for that I will have to live with Keine’s romance being underbaked. Potentially for the rest of the story.

[… Continued]

I can’t say I know what falling through space would be like, nor would I claim to have a perfect imagination of what it actually would be. There are about three things I can say for certain, though. One, the fact that I’ve stopped tumbling after a few minutes, or however many, should be impossible. Space isn’t supposed to have friction, and even possible diminishing forces such as gravitational waves or random spurts of radiation couldn’t explain how this’s happened.

Two, it’s colorful in this void. Space isn’t supposed to be colorful, it’s supposed to be empty. This suffocatingly red fog is more than a little strange, due to that.

Third, and probably the most obvious, I don’t think any country has tossed a countless number of doors out into space. They’re all in the same orientation, and that they’re sideways leads me to believe I’m actually the one off kilter. The sheer density of them is surprising as well, with so many I think I could draw a line in any direction and hit at least three.

So, if it’s clear that this isn’t space, then where am I? Someone brought me here, but they haven’t taken the time to come out, so I guess I’m not much of a guest. Or maybe I am and they’re setting up tea. Maybe I should’ve invited Ran after all if I’m going to just float around bored.

Man, Ran is going to fucking kill me when I’m back. I should’ve thought of a way to signal her before diving in headfirst. She even stayed tight lipped about who this is, so something’s going on. Who could be so important that she treads lightly? Some political figurehead, I imagine, but someone like the top tengu doesn’t have anything to do with doors. I doubt I’ve piqued the interest of anyone from hell, despite my pointed absence from the river of the dead. Are there any door related Youkai? Maybe a door related god? A god would make sense as a political figure, but I can’t think of any related to doors– seriously, why doors of all things?

They’re not even greeting me. If only I could swim to a door maybe I could just leave.

… Then again, who knows where they go. It might spit me out on some random corner of the world, like Antarctica. Or hell, it could also go to actual space. That would be fun, aside from the part where I instantly die.

“Hello?!” I call out to the empty, door filled realm. I was kind of expecting someone to receive me after being kidnapped, but now I feel like an after thought.

“Master will be with you in a moment,” a feminine voice suddenly acknowledges behind me. I whip my head over to see who came upon me, but I get at most a swath of pinkish purple in my eyes before tumbling again. This new person’s hand stops me, revealing a girl sideways of me, or rather, upright of everything, with tucked up brown hair. Her garish dress and drooped blat hat suggest a more jovial or jesting personality than her pitying eyes offer. “Seeing someone not able to fly really is the strangest thing.”

“I’m always free to meet on solid ground, you know,” I bicker in return, crossing my arms and tumbling forward in the effort.

She rights me again, reckoning, “Sure that may be, but my master cannot be met so easily.” She glances around the void of doors. “I wonder where she is. She did want to see you.”

Seems I’m already pretty well known to this person. Actually, haven’t I seen the girl in front of me, before? “Who’s this master of yours? I feel like I’ve seen you with her before.”

“Oh? Yes, you were at the arrival of that ancient god,” the servant deflects. “I was with my master and Mai at the time. Hi, I’m Satono Nishida,” she properly greets, shooting a hand in salutation. Her hat bounces on itself in the motion.

The thing looks more like a shoe than a hat. Definitely familiar. “Mai, was she the girl wearing the same hat and dress as yours but green?”

Her eyes shed that sense of pity, lighting up as she chirps, “Oh, oh? Do you know my other half? She’s been so busy headhunting for our replacements that I haven’t seen her recently. Did you talk to her? How is she?”

Well that changed her tune. I’m not sure how to tell her that I only saw the other girl a few months before the shrine fiasco, or that Kasen and Ran dragged her away after the whole debacle with Meira. Probably best to just shrug it off than set any expectations.

“Mai is doing perfectly fine, Satono,” a voice bellows through the space around us. A woman’s voice, confident and telling of a high authority behind it. “Return to your duties, I will see to our guest now.”

“Yes, Master!” Satono affirms with a salute before diving into the nearest door.

“Now, face to face, dear Yakumo thrall,” the voice addresses me.

Part of the empty space before me cracks apart, splitting open like a double door, but one made of nothing. Within lies a black void, devoid of anything save my captor. A woman, clad in a sagely orange tabard and with an antiquated hat to cover her blazing blonde hair, rests upon a throne. Fires of four seasonal colors sprout from the back corners of the throne, one of which shining upon a small object floating next to the woman. A miniature drum, was it?

The chair carries her from the void, the imaginary double doors shutting behind her. That orange cloth and green skirt, back at the shrine when Nyx appeared…

She smiles, something about its will or mirth misplaces the shape as condescending, maybe regarding me as no more than a curious child. “My, are you attempting to study me? How flattering. If you are such a well studied man, why not tell me who I am?” she challenges my gaze.

“Can’t say I’ve ever been asked that before.” I’m trying to parse out the meaning of this little exercise. A test of my knowledge? Simply a whim of hers? Either way, I guess it couldn’t hurt. “Your servant told me you were at the shrine a couple weeks back. What was it? You were standing by Yukari?”

“Are you asking? I’ll not explain who I am. That is like a word being used to define itself.”

I spread my arms in a shrug, tumbling back. “It’s a yes or no question, could you just let me have those?”

“Temper,” she mocks, floating the little drum near enough for me to grab and stabilize with. “If your memory must require help, then yes, I arrived with Yukari, as it happens.”

“Alright, so you were the woman in a wheelchair.”

“Yes,” she answers, though I didn’t mean to ask. “Is that all you know?”

“One of your servants caused some trouble a few months back. I think Ran mentioned you at the time, but there was a lot going on,” I append. “Is there a point to this?”

She offers a finger to answer, “I believe there is. My dear friend Yukari has been feeding you, coddling you, yet she has informed you of so little up to now.”

I find her choice of words more than a little strange. “’Your dear friend?’ First time I think I’ve heard anyone refer to Yukari as a friend. You know, being an impulsive liar and all,” I grouch about my respected boss.

“Her lies are a point of endearment, you know. The more she lies to you the more she trusts and respects you.”

I can’t stifle an amused hack, wondering, “You really think that? You should hear yourself right now.”

Her brow dips as she berates, “My, but you are so challenging. I’m shocked she hasn’t forced a shikigami upon you, yet.” Her smile turns vicious at the statement, though I can’t say I fully understand the meaning behind it.

“I already have Ran, though?” I assume what she’s referring to.

She motions the drum back to her, carrying me along with it. Once I’m within range, she arrests my chin, inspecting my face for invisible injuries. “No, you are not taken by Yukari’s spell. Not in that way,” she concludes, releasing me from her grip.

I rub at my jaw, the bones sore from her iron clasp, and ask, “You mean actually putting the same thing in me that Ran has? That pseudo computer program? Can she do that to a human?”

The woman wags a finger to tut, “Humans and Youkai are only different in power, not in the structure of their minds. You and your partner are different by magnitudes of power but not as much in your mental realms. A thousand of you wouldn’t be able to scratch that fox… ignoring your curse, anyway, but you may think in similar ways.”

While it doesn’t shock me to hear Ran and I, or rather, Youkai and humans in general are closer than the status quo likes to suggest, I’m more focused on her throwaway remark. “You know about my curse? Whatever Yukari’s done to me?”

Her smile slinks to the side, arrogance meeting prescience as she muses, “Another challenge? Might I go over my titles so you understand the extents of my wisdom? Or are you–..? Why, you are good at distracting. I haven’t properly introduced myself.”

She turns flat hands inward to present herself, announcing in that booming, captivating voice, “I am a god of the back door. A god of Earth. A god of noh. A god of hindrances. A god of the unwanted. A sage of Gensokyo. And for you, a god of primordial life energy. I am The Ultimate, Absolute Secret God, Okina Matara.” Her eyes seem to glow at the listing of ostentatious titles, the kind that any god could exist off of individually.

My introduction is not as gaudy, nor impressive, “Tanner Regis. Human village researcher. So, uhm… about the curse?”

She shakes her head, disappointed in my lack of awe, but also in my lack of knowing, “No one told you? Still? How very silly.”

“What? What is there to tell me?”

She points at me, and declares, “You cannot hurt living beings. It is your contract for immortality. … Goodness, she really does hoard her knowledge from you.”

“A contract..?” I repeat, feeling like that only partly makes sense. I also have trouble understanding the other implications, “How can it be a spell that Ran doesn’t know, the–?”

“Ugh, I’ve had enough incessant small talk,” she bemoans my question. “Are foreigners always so quick to dribble on? I’ll not discuss your nature with you, that is far from why I brought you before me.”

The sudden shift in attitude is enough to catch me off guard, silencing my questions. The only thing I can think to ask is, “So, why am I here?”

She leans towards me, an intensity crossing her eyes as she mandates, “You are studying Eternity Larva. You will cease your studies of her as anything more than a fairy.”

“You lost me,” I utter. “So she really isn’t fairy?”

“No. I hope you were suspecting as much. Your conversations with her led me to believe so.”

“Well, I did notice she was a little odd. A bit too smart. A bit too skillful. But… what actually is she?” I try to draw some information from Okina.

“Dangerous. To everyone,” she simply replies, thumbing the armrest of her throne. “I might tell you that she is, her species, a god, and you might think this a petty squabbles between gods, but that isn’t the whole story. She is, by her very nature, dangerous.”

“To everyone?” I remind her. “Who ‘everyone?’”

Her smile falters, burrowing into a contemplative grimace. “Everyone you might care for in your life now.”

Different from the scope of Yukari’s question. Not that it makes it any less troubling. “And this danger, you aren’t going to tell me any more than its existence?” I beggar the temper of a god.

She folds her hands over her lap, appearing once more in total control of the conversation. “Ask whatever you may wish to know. A secret god does not mean a lying god. I am not like my friend in that way,” she mocks.

I almost want to ask why she was worried enough to bring me here, but just as soon understand how tone deaf the question is. I instead start simple, within her little boundaries, “How is Eternity dangerous, then?”

She motions to a door, floating it towards us. It opens with an extra wave, revealing the bright vista of The Garden of the Sun.

“Here,” she says, “maybe it would be better to demonstrate.”

With another motion of her hand, the view rotates. She scans the vista for our person of interest, spotting Kazami under the lone tree. Our perspective is distant, seeing the woman from behind. Wriggle hides under her arm, still, with no hints of my absence holding their attention. They pose in the same place I last saw them, still as statues.

“What is this?” I interrupt her show of power. “Shouldn’t Kazami notice your watch or something?”

“Does Kazami notice the eye of Yukari? Does your fox recognize the gaze of either?” Okina deters my impatient questions.

She raises her hand, our view ascending above the field. Out in the further distance, Eternity remains at her canvas, diligently working away at the painting of Kazami and Wriggle. I cannot see her face from here, only her wings spread in their colorful splendor. Ran is absent, unsurprisingly. She must be stressing a way to find me.

Okina steals me from the calm sight, “A mundane activity, isn’t it? Your suggestions have them doing such droll things. What ever should I do about this?”

“Nothing?” I try. “They’re enjoying themselves, there’s no reason to mess around with the calm moment.”

“That wouldn’t be a demonstration. Certainly not one that shows the latent destruction lying in wait by that god masquerading as a fairy,” she proposes.

“And what would you define as a real demonstration, exactly?” I probably shouldn’t ask, but… no, I really shouldn’t have asked.

She taps a finger to the armrest of her chair, the other hand cupping her chin. “I would say I needn’t be so overt,” she coos. “A little nudge will suffice.”

She brings the door even closer to her, tapping the image of Eternity. The impact causes ripples in the projection we spy from, but any outward effect remains to be seen. Eternity continues to paint, her wings lightly fluttering in cadence with the strikes of her brush against canvas. They emit sparkles under their beats, her scales dusting the earth below her feet. In where they land, a collage of beautiful flora, the kind not seen in the garden, sprout from nothing.

I’m about to ask what this is supposed to demonstrate in terms of a warning, but something happens, the world feels as though it sinks in to Eternity. The flowers’ blooms gaze her, the breeze dances with her scales in playful spirals, and the sun seeks to capture the perfect angle to light her.

“What-? What is happening?” I utter, confused whether what I see is an illusion or some strange reality I haven’t considered.

“It is a visage of her nature. That tethering, vile force that brings the world around her to worship,” Okina spits.

I play with the word on my tongue, “Worship. That… yeah, that would be the word for it. But, why is this happening? How is this dangerous?”

Okina smirks once more, as if I asked something banal. “Two questions with the same answer. If you were asked what the absence of purpose could do to a god, what do you imagine the answer to be?”

“What? Purpose?” I bumble with the word, unable to stay in Okina’s tempo. “Do gods require purpose? Do they not just exist like any individual?”

She shakes her head, like a mother would to a naughty child. “Dear researcher, teacher, that is the first question that should be on your test. You understand Youkai but have not internalized Youkai and gods being of the same cloth?”

“No, it’s that Youkai exist on fear, while gods exist on faith, but both are affirmations of existence, right?” I retaliate to the best of my knowledge.

“Correct, but there is an… impetus, if I may borrow your vocabulary,” she lectures. “There must be a given reason for any god or Youkai to garner that faith or fear. My titles, Yasaka’s nature as a god of war and conquest, even the nagashi-bina’s collection of misfortune. Eternity Larva, on the other hand–“

She looks back into the image, of the bright world wholly cherishing the butterfly goddess more than anything.

“She is humanity’s conceit, crystallized into a single individual.” Okina does not tout this as an opinion. She does not say it out of jealousy. This is her formal conclusion on what sort of god Eternity is.

“That’s a lofty title,” I curb her hyperbole, “but what sort of god does that actually make her?”

She stares into me, attempting to pierce through my very soul, as she states, “The god of faith.”

My brows crease, the reaction of such an absurdity taking hold before even coming to any logical conclusions of why it is itself an absurdity. “Faith? The accumulation of people’s belief in that god? How can a god hold power over the thing that makes them exist? Shouldn’t that be–?”

“Impossible,” Okina finishes my sentence. “A paradox. A redundancy. It is many things. Above all, it is dangerous. She is an atomic bomb to Gensokyo’s foundations.”

I find it difficult to deny her claim. How could Eternity have come to exist? Does all faith in Gensokyo, maybe even the world, go to her to some extent? There’s questions I’m not sure I’m ready– maybe not even equipped– to tackle. But in just as many ways as this is alerting, there are things that make me suspect Okina’s concern.

I need a way to destabilize her. There must be an ulterior motive to this beyond distrusting another god. “Why did Yukari not get rid of her if she’s that dangerous?” I decide is the best method of approach.

Okina chuckles at the question, “In my friend’s eyes this is another part of her lauded ‘Gensokyo accepts all’ motto. She’d sooner let this realm become a powder keg, filled enough to blow through the walls of reality, than to act against her philosophy.” She stares into the image of this polarizing god, and continues, “What of you, human? What do you believe?”

My beliefs? Not the easiest question when assaulted with all the information she just bombarded me with. No, there is one question, above all the rest. “Who is Gensokyo for?”

“Hm?” she hums, looking back to me curiously. “Who? Who indeed..? A question from Yukari herself, I’ve no doubt. She likely hasn’t told you her answer, either. She’s refused to humor me with mine.”

I’ll not mention my dumb luck having Rumia guess the ‘correct’ answer, but it’s interesting she never told one of her peers. “What was your answer?” I wonder.

A forlorn look comes over her as she recalls, “Gensokyo is for the gods and Youkai that would be forgotten.” She closes our view into the outside world with a wave, adding, “That some are more fit for a stable world than others is a remorseful fact, but a fact regardless. It is thus a necessity.”

“Nyx?”

“And others. Existential problems with no answers. Our world has never been so rational,” she irks, speaking through multiple lifetimes of fatigue. She looks at me again, but it feels as though she’s genuinely considering me for the first time this conversation. “What of you? Are you another to the pyre that lights our home? Or are you one to help against the flames from consuming it all?”

I swallow, unsure if I understand the full extent of her question. She wants to know something like my allegiance, but I don’t know the intents of the powers that be, nor which side the analogy applies to. The only way I can make sense of this is if she considers herself as much a ruler as she is a god, with the brightly colored clothes, shapely hat– hell, she’s sitting on a throne. Telling a leader to their face that you’re against them isn’t the brightest move.

She grins knowingly. “Abstaining, are you? I suppose as one of the Yakumo’s kin you would be cautious in your words.”

“I’ll have you know I don’t really like Yukari all that much,” I argue over a hollow voice.

She motions another door over to us, combating, “But you think so much like her. I truly think I’m looking into her spitting image, something akin to a sibling.”

The new door also opens to The Garden of the Sun, this time where I was taken from. The miniature drum slowly drags me along as Okina’s words follow me out, “And remember my warning. Of course, if I’ve read you correctly, I’ll be seeing you this time tomorrow. You and that mischievous god will die when the time comes.”

“You’ll what–?” I whip my head back to the goddess, but am slung out the door and reacquainted with gravity, crashing on my pack. I scramble to look where I came from, but the door is already no more than air.

The soft grass and dirt under my knees is a reassuring feeling after floating in that nothingness, but it’s little more than a diversion from more pressing matters. I get to my feet, finding my limbs, my clothes, and my pack all how they should be. Not something to take for granted.

“Tanner,” Ran’s voice comes from the shikigami on my back, “you are back in The Garden of the Sun, but where were you taken? It was outside of any observable space.”

I speak to the device, and tell her straight, “I met Okina Matara. Thanks for the warning, by the way.”

“Do not take such sarcasm. Matara-jin has a complicated relation with Lady Yukari and I do well to not strain it. That she would take you is a possibility I was hoping would pass and you would not be required to know,” she reprimands.

“Well, she seemed pretty convinced I’m Yukari’s servant, and that led to me being kidnapped, so I think you might need to reevaluate what you are or aren’t gonna tell me. One servant to another,” I bicker at the fox.

Ran grumps at my criticism, “Noted. We will discuss this more when I return to the garden.”

“Where’d you go, exactly?” I ask, realizing that she’s been absent since the moment I disappeared.

“I attempted to make a more direct form of contact with Lady Yukari for aid. As is perhaps the closest comparison, it is equivalent to performing a telephone call. It requires the other end of the communication to answer. Since Lady Yukari is not in hiding, nor does she believe to have me fooled as hibernating, I was able to make contact. Her advice, however…” she pauses from her winded explanation, more akin to complaints than an explanation.

“She told you to bring her a bucket of steam, didn’t she?”

“Save the aphorisms.”

“Right, sorry. Not making fun of you.”

“Of what did Matara-jin wish to speak with you?” she continues in topics.

“Well…” I scratch at my neck, trying to structure the whole thing together in summary. By the time I’m done explaining, I’ve settled onto the side of the hill, attempting to let the problems work themselves out in my mind.

“There is no way to stop you from investigating Eternity Larva’s divine aspects, is there?” Ran asks, well aware of the answer.

I chuckle at how well she knows me, “No, I guess there isn’t. If there’s one thing I want right now, it’s to tug back on the chain I’m being pulled around by. I’ve got two sages jumping down my throat, probably watching me as I speak, and they have a bit of a disagreement. It’d be a shame if either of them were wrong about their whole worldview.”

“Do you wish for one of them to kill you?”

“Not really. They just piss me off and I want them to understand why.” I stand up, seeing Ran approach in the distant air, and begin to think of my next steps. Where to drag Eternity more than anything.

Where do I go? What do I do?

[x] Time to hit up those archives. Akyuu probably knows what god Eternity was historically and that might be a lead to untangle her present existence.

[x] I should check in with someone more spiritually minded, if not more moderate, and find Kasen Ibaraki. She could have some insight on the more metaphysical nature that Eternity occupies.

[x] I should check somewhere else. There’s definitely places and people that have a plethora of information. (Write-in)

I also hope I’ve given Okina the proper gravitas for her character. Besides Kanako, I often imagine her as one of the most overtly or ‘in your face’ powerful characters in the series, if just because most people on or above her level are so casual or secretive (I’m looking at you, Yukari).

[x] I should check in with someone more spiritually minded, if not more moderate, and find Kasen Ibaraki. She could have some insight on the more metaphysical nature that Eternity occupies.

Eternity seems to be near finishing her painting as I crest the hill once more. Only the edges of it are visible around her head, the colors what I’d expect of a scenic view, though perhaps brighter than reality. Her hand is, well, I can’t tell if it’s moving or not. Maybe doing detail work.

Ran lands behind me in short order, keeping whatever panic she had to herself. Having to ask Yukari herself for help must’ve been a blow to her ego, considering the radio silence they keep. We still have quite a bit to discuss, not to mention ground rules to widen… again, but that’ll have to be later.

I lean in and tap Eternity on the shoulder. “How’s it coming along?”

Her brush remains still on one of the excessive number of flowers making up the ground. And some of the sky, actually. “I think I’m done. I…” she trails off, staring at her work like she wasn’t the one that made it.

I glance at my partner, the fox giving me a knowing look in return. It’s only been, what, half an hour since she started? Damn fast work. I right myself and wave to Kazami and Wriggle, telling them to come on over. The elder Youkai folds her umbrella, giving the younger a bit more than a love tap across the head with it. Safe to assume Wriggle annoyed her sister figure. Doubtless a difficult task.

Kazami takes her time wandering over, giving no one a word of greeting before assessing Eternity’s work. She doesn’t even complain over the jars of paint I’ve left out, much less my general absence. It’s only fitting for how capturing the painting itself is.

Now if only it weren’t an ill omen. Confusingly bright out of context, damning with. Like the lone hanging tree, Kazami and Wriggle face away from view. A sort of light comes from them, as if they themselves were the source. The flowers clogging all empty space feel like a hallucination of what’s really there, their blooms facing away from the viewer enforces the opinion. Despite being a colorful, sunny day, the additions and transformations lead me to consider it something else. I’m just not sure what, exactly.

“Woah,” Wriggle utters upon seeing the image, falling a step back to take the whole thing in. She seems as shocked as Eternity by the depiction.

Kazami’s study is more level, her piercing eyes discerning every detail in attempt to weed into her little friend’s mind. “This is an artistic style? You put a shocking amount of focus into facing everything in sight away from you. I’m almost surprised you didn’t eclipse the sunlight itself so that it wouldn’t look at you,” she says without a hint of humor. That is her legitimate critique of what she’s seeing.

“I just painted what I saw. I don’t know why it’s like this,” Eternity defends herself, downtrodden at her lack of self awareness. It only makes the piece more worrying if her way of seeing the world is literal. What could cause such a discordant sense of reality?

“Mayhaps you’ll find what possessed you by sitting on the thought,” Kazami consoles the girl. “I will take this artwork home to dry. Remember that it will take a long time before it’s ready to varnish.” She lays a hand behind Eternity’s antennae, letting it rest for a moment. She looks stiff to the idea only after completing it, remaining still as stone until Eternity relinquishes the act of praise.

“Thanks, Yuuka, but…” she trails, staring at her handiwork once more without so much as a grin, “I don’t think I like it.”

Kazami remains silent, a bit of Eternity’s melancholia drifting onto her.

“But it’s so pretty,” Wriggle comments, gazing into the individual stems so painstakingly supporting every bloom that doesn’t face us.

“Sorry, Wriggle,” Eternity apologizes more to herself than Wriggle, “it doesn’t feel right.”

Wriggle frets over the butterfly, more diminutive than she already was, clumsily comforting, “I-I’ll take it, then! I’ll be sure to look at it tons!”

“Pfft,” an alien sound escapes Kazami as she settles the back of a canvas over the finished one. “And just where do you plan to hang it, Wri? Your favorite choice of tree?”

With another motion, she takes a spool of string from the ground and ties the canvases together, leaving touches of wet paint to her fingers. She tears the end with a fingernail, dropping the spool to her side and shooting us a perplexed gaze. “What?” she brandishes an unamused remark at our stares.

“’Wri?’” I repeat, narrowing my eyes in disbelief.

Kazami pauses at the realization, hovering a hand over her mouth as if covering it could retract what passed out of it. Her hand drops as she tries to recover her air of threat, “Yes, that is indeed what I called her. Is this so offensive to you?”

I shrug at the accusation, a smile sneaking its way to my lips. “I just think it’s unexpected. Yuuka Kazami having a soft spot for kids and all.”

A moment of pause, silent enough that I can almost hear her face slacken. She retrieves her parasol from its perch on the easel and swings it up towards me with the fluidity of the field’s breeze. The tip aims for my shoulder, the metal piece sharp enough for a weapon.

Gasps resound from one or two of the others as they catch up.

I retreat but a step before it’s upon me. Catching me. Gouging me. Ran’s hand slipped between the majority of the metal and what ended up under my collar bone, grappling the parasol from pushing further in. I use the moment of stillness to yank myself away, the hole in my skin staining my shirt. I’ve had far worse pain than this, but that doesn’t stop a grunt from announcing my displeasure. The area is already hot and wet. Holding it does little against my shoulder feeling like it’s on fire. And all that from a little poke, meanwhile Ran has the rest of the blade jutting out the back of her hand.

“Soft, you say?” Kazami picks from my words, blood red eyes flaring up at the sound. “Nothing bemuses quite like a human thinking it their place to look down on those above them.”

“Y-Yuuka!” Eternity cries at the woman, tugging at the side of her dress.

Wriggle joins in on the opposing side, attempting to Wrench Kazami’s arm away. “Stop, you idiot! He was complimenting you!”

“Enough! Both of you!” the Youkai commands of her companions. She grimaces at Ran, twisting the parasol with ease over the fox. “You. Why are you not attacking? That human is your charge and I have injured him. Is that not enough?”

A paper doll looses from Ran’s sleeve, attaching to the underside of Kazami’s wrist. It stuns the woman’s grip, allowing Ran to disarm and disengage in a blink, dragging me along a few extra paces. She ejects the piece of metal from her hand, letting the area exsanguinate over the grass.

“My charge would choose any possible paths to diplomacy. I would not destructively interfere with that goal,” she holds. Several paper dolls wrap the open wound, the threat of blood seeping out still present.

Kazami shakes her wrist back into use, peeling off Ran’s paper taser with an eye of intrigue. Eternity and Wriggle abandon their wailing as their elder calms down. “How trite. Aren’t you powerful enough to do more?” she taunts, crumpling the paper doll and flicking it at Ran.

Ran remains silent, having said her piece and refusing to expend a word more on the matter. She bends over for the deformed paper doll, idly unfolding its wrinkled form before returning it to her sleeve. Kazami scoffs at the headstrong fox, turning to retrieve the painting.

“I can’t talk with you. I can’t get any exercise. I can’t put a dullard back in his place. You are as frustrating as your master,” she complains before approaching once more with the painting under her arm. She holds out her hand, but when Ran doesn’t budge addresses us, “… No, I won’t stab you or him again. For now.”

Ran hefts the implement into Kazami’s paint stained hand, adding a bit of blood to the mixture. Kazami, shockingly, walks past us and starts down the hill. She’s in no way satisfied with this outcome, but she kept to her word. Ran sees to my stab wound, sealing the gash like she did her own.

“That jerk. Always doing things at her own pace,” Wriggle grumbles.

Ran tilts her head towards the girl and, to my surprise, chides, “Become as powerful as she is and you will come to understand, little queen bug.”

“Hmph,” Wriggle grunts, turning away from the group. “I’m gonna go find somebody fun to play with,” she bemoans, floating idly off.

Eternity either ignores the slight wholesale or is too distracted to notice as she bounds to Ran and I, fussing, “Are you okay?! Yuuka is so unreliable! Laughing one moment and hurting you the next like we weren’t having a good time! How could she?!”

Ran rounds on the girl, hiding her behind a golden hedge, “As I told Miss Nightbug–“

“I don’t care,” Eternity scorns the opinion. “Being strong doesn’t mean you have the excuse to be meaner. If anything shouldn’t you be nicer because you can be?”

Ran’s scowl at being so easily deflected is something else. I decide to persuade the fae, “Hey, Eternity, you don’t need to worry, we’ve had worse than this. If anything, I’m impressed she didn’t stab me yesterday.”

“No!” she exclaims, throwing her hands down in a fit. “Yuuka’s not bad! She’s not scary!”

“I believe you,” I placidly agree, if only to not further agitate her.

“She’s nice! She cares for others! You all just don’t see it!” she continues.

“I said I believe you.”

“No you don’t!” she shouts with glassy eyes. She stalls at the outburst, turning to rub her eyes from any sign of weakness.

I pass Ran and crouch by the girl, telling her, “I know Miss Kazami isn’t that bad. She just wants to protect her home and that means looking big and mean. It happens all the time.”

“But she’s actually nice. I don’t want her to be mean,” Eternity hacks through a teary voice.

“I know,” I mumble, putting my hand atop her head– through the pain, that is.

For as mad as I am at Kazami I also can’t help but feel disappointed in her when seeing the expectations Eternity has. Her reputation must be one of the few things keeping people like myself away from the garden, but what’s the point in keeping it up so earnestly? An attempt of self isolation? Selective isolation? Something akin to a fear of anyone that could hurt her garden?

I’m sure she’d stab me again at the mere mention of the word fear. Ugh, what am I doing? It isn’t my job to play psychiatrist, especially for someone as imposing and proud as her.

I nudge Eternity’s shoulder, getting a reddened eye to glance over her shoulder, “Say, I was thinking of visiting someone today. I think you’d like them. Do you want to come along for a trip? Asuming you didn’t have anything planned.”

She grabs the bottom of her dress and hums, “Mm.”

I get to full height, Ran sneaking behind me to whisper, “Who were you visiting, exactly? This was not previously discussed.”

I hook my good arm over Ran’s neck, answering, “I need to talk to Kasen about what Okina told me. There’s a lot I think a hermit of her skills might know, maybe give me ammunition against the sages’ dispute.”

She unshackles me from her collar, blustering, “You have no idea what you are incurring.”

“Of course I do. I want trouble. The more the better to fuck with them,” I sneer with my cheeriest grin.

The mist in this part of the mountain truly chills to the bone. I still remember this path to Kasen’s home being brisk some months back, but now it’s outright frigid. If only I didn’t have to feel the passage of time in terms of frigid moisture. Eternity doesn’t seem to fare any better even in my coat. She was shivering on the way to this misty maze, and dragon knows she wouldn’t’ve last long without something to cover her when we waded through it.

“Directly ahead. She is presently home,” Ran informs us, stopping just outside the obscuring mist.

I wade through the last few feet of dreary gray to be greeted by the brilliant colors of a pristine two story house. Its antique architecture is no less impressive the second time, with round windows, wooden struts, and tiled roofs. The only other place to look remotely similar is Eientei, but I won’t pretend to understand the implications of that.

I pass a glance behind to Eternity, the girl’s eyes lighting up as much as the place we’ve now found ourselves. For that matter, the fog seems like it magically disappeared after we entered. What was a ten minute trudge is now only a few paces from where we started, visible under clear early winter skies.

I ignore the absurdity in space, and take a step towards the building, only to be gripped at the shoulder by my partner.

“Shit!” I exclaim, slapping Ran’s hand from me. “Watch where you’re grabbing! I don’t heal as fast as you!”

She holds her hand aloft, waiting out my complaint before assuring, “It was necessary to stop you from walking forward.” She brings a finger down to the corner of the building, adding, “It would not be wise to walk straight into that one.”

I follow her direction to spot the head of a large cat, its watchful eyes cut from dark orange fur. It hides its body behind the building, slipping away to another part of the yard now that it’s been found.

“Does she always leave that thing off its leash?” I wonder, a little oddified that Kasen would retain something so openly hostile.

Ran walks after it, ignoring the front door in its entirety. I keep close to her rear, not wanting to find myself in the open for any other creature of Kasen’s menagerie, while Eternity floats behind me with my coat folded over her arms, enjoying the warmth of this little microcosm.

Rounding the corner we find the tiger sitting next to one Kasen Ibaraki. She appears to be in the middle of feeding animals, letting one of them eat from her outstretched hand. A few others laze around her, circling a thick stump she’s seated on. Aside from the tiger I also spot a couple of bald eagles, a small blue-maned creature, and a Chinese dragon. I feel like there’s a pretty big discrepancy in these animals, but then again Kasen herself isn’t the most typical person.

“Miss Ibaraki,” Ran hails the woman, approaching the crowd of animals without reserve.

“Ran!” the hermit greets, nudging away a forest bear she had been feeding. “To what do I owe the pleasure? And, is that Tanner hiding behind you?”

I swing my head over a couple of Ran’s tails, getting a better view of the pink haired woman before announcing myself. “Hey Kasen, been a while.”

“Tanner seeks your aid,” Ran simply states, stepping aside to leave me in the open.

“My, and you two have become fast friends if even the strict, formality loving Ran calls you by first name,” Kasen teases, a pure smile coming to her lips as she pets the little blue creature in her lap. “Does that have anything to do with your newly acquired title of ‘Youkai seducer?’”

“Excuse me?” I utter in disbelief. “Where’d you get that impression from?” I glance over to Ran’s lame eye, holding back an impressive roll. “Back me up, damnit!”

“Well, aside from the origin of your problem, it isn’t an entirely off base derogatory for your relationship with Miss Kamishirasawa,” Ran determines, most unhelpfully.

“Two woman at once?!” Kasen squeaks in shock. “Are we sure you aren’t an oni?”

I narrow my eyes at the pink haired leper, retorting, “I don’t want to be called that by the oni hermit of all people. Where’s this bull coming from?”

She smirks, resting the blue animal atop the dragon’s head and standing from her stump. She struts over to a small table festooned with glass and earthenware jars, small brown bits resting inside each. Reaching behind the display, she plucks a piece of paper from hiding. A newspaper. It’s no feat to deduce what issue it is.

There is at least one strange thing about this, to which I point out, “You get the paper here? How do deliveries work?”

She laughs at the question, “Don’t worry, I don’t really want the paper. Shameimaru writes the pettiest things. She is far more skilled at finding places she isn’t wanted.”

“Shameimaru’s slander aside, have you been informed of any other pieces of Tanner’s recent work?” Ran questions, acting like such a pointed remark won’t draw suspicion.

Kasen tosses the rag aside and puts a finger to her cheekbone, giving Ran a thoughtful stare as she replies, “No… should I know such things? Now I’m concerned. You aren’t in trouble, are you, young man?”

“No, but I could use a little help,” I note, tossing a finger down to Kasen’s side, where a miniature god tries to pilfer a jar from the table.

Kasen plants a finger to the threatened jar, forcing Eternity to retreat in fear and doing little to assuage the fae as she says, “I believe I know this little fairy, but would you care to properly introduce me?”

I step over to Eternity, planting a hand to her head before she gets the chance to scamper off, and proclaim, “This is Eternity Larva. A ‘fairy’ from the Garden of the Sun. And a good friend of Yuuka Kazami’s.”

Kasen blinks at the mention of the greater Youkai, almost gasping, “Yuuka Kazami? I never would have guessed she of all people would be friends with a fairy. She pegged me as too proud to let that happen.”

“I’m right here!” Eternity puffs up at the slight. “Yuuka isn’t too proud! She’s strong, and thinks it’s fine to be friends with anyone because of it!”

“Yes, yes,” Kasen placates the child much like I did, “she must have a boundless love for fae and their antics.” She grabs the jar Eternity was attempting to open, and follows, “Would you like to give some of my friends these treats? They’re quite cuddly, you know.”

Eternity looks from Kasen to the animals, a bit of reservation present at the sight of the tiger and dragon. Kasen pops the jar’s lid, grabbing Eternity’s palm, and pours a few animal treats into her hand. They’re no larger than the tip of a finger.

“See my friend, Mukou? He’s the smallest of the group, known as a raijuu. Could you give him his treats, please? And, you didn’t hear this from me, but his fur is fluffier than a rabbit’s,” she goads the fairy away from us, tossing her to everything but wolves.

With Eternity busy Kasen grabs our attention, “Tanner, good to see you, despite… everything before.” She curls her bandaged arm up, revealing a cuff at the base chaining that toy block tetrahedron once attached to Ibuki. “Now, why are you here? I’m afraid I’m still lost.”

“We needed someone with a bit of knowledge to help understand Eternity’s… existence,” I scratch a bit of scruff as I try to conjure the right words. “You seem like someone with a wide net for spiritual information, so I was hoping you could indulge me.”

Kasen leans to one leg, giving a bit of thought to Eternity as the girl reaches above the dragons head to the raijuu. “You mean to say she is extraordinary in some way for a fairy?”

I walk up to her and whisper, “Try a god.”

“A god?” she repeats in a low voice. “Her? She does have the presence, but… well, no, besides that I won’t involve myself, Tanner.”

“What? Just like that?” I reel back.

“I have my reasons,” Kasen holds, crossing her arms in obstinacy. “Now, I will not force you to leave, but I will not entertain this topic, either.”

Ran clears her throat, informing the woman, “It may be apt to mention, Regis knows most of your secrets and has personally met Lady Yukari and Matara-jin. Is there any purpose to leaving out one crucial detail, Lady Ibaraki?”

I toss a glance at Ran. “Lady?” I repeat her sudden shift in formalism.

Looking back I find Kasen staring at me, as if she’s seen a ghost. “You’ve met Yukari and Okina?” she gasps. “That… huh. I didn’t think you were under their clutches. I wish I could say that didn’t change anything, but no doubt Ran will attempt to corner me more than she already has.”

“Are you going to tell me or am I just gonna have to assume what you’re dancing around?” I bleat, a bit peeved to be left out of the loop at this stage. Her referring to Yukari and Okina casually, the immediate distress at the mention of Eternity’s divinity, there’s only really one conclusion that makes sense of that.

“No, I’ll tell you,” she combats my aggression with a level tone. Her lips curl the very next moment in hesitation, but she ultimately decides to inform me, “I am part of the group known as the sages, though in reality that only means that I was one of the hands to support the creation of Gensokyo as it is now.”

While I should be surprised by the revelation, I can’t help but feel like nothing surprises me at this point. Like I’ve been desensitized to all this nonsense. “What does that have to do with why you won’t help?” I skip to the point.

Kasen gives me another look, just shy of a very vocal guffaw as she wonders, “You must have been through quite a lot to not even bat an eye at my most closely guarded secret.”

It only takes me a moment to think on the reason why, answering, “I’d like to not be part of a power struggle. Is that really so much to ask?”

“With those two? Unfortunately it is,” she sympathizes my plight. “Now again, how does this little god fit into this?”

Kasen asks this, but when glancing over to Eternity she gives a double take, shocked to find the girl huddled between the animals as if they were protecting her.

“And what sort of god is she?” Kasen adds.

“A god of faith, Okina told me. She wouldn’t budge on much else other than reiterating how dangerous that makes Eternity. This was before she kicked me out of her realm with the promise of killing the two of us tomorrow,” I report with only the most minor omissions.

“Kill you?!” Kasen can’t contain her shock, the whites of her eyes growing by the second. “She knows she isn’t allowed to do that, you’re effectively a villager and Eternity appeared without third party involvement.”

“And how do you know that?” I try to trap Kasen into properly explaining herself.

She huffs at my deliberate word jousting, “If Eternity is the same god I am thinking of, Okina oft noted a personal hand in slaughtering her during ancient times. With her alive and well, that would mean she’s reincarnated.”

“Gods can reincarnate?”

“All souls are part of the cycle, Tanner. It’s why the Yama can come to the land of the living and equally judge Youkai, gods, and humans,” she outright proselytizes. “What that means for the pup, I’m unsure.”

I come back around to the crux of the problem, “But do you think she’s dangerous?”

Kasen raises a brow, looking over at Eternity in a long drawn thought. She eventually concludes, “No. I do not sense the sort of threat Okina depicted of a god of faith in this girl. At worst, my animals enjoy her company too readily, but nothing present and threatening to Gensokyo.”

“Those are some choice words. That a policy?” I challenge her for more information.

She rounds on me this time, “We are discussing Okina committing murder, Tanner. If it would maybe keep you from asking self-serving questions, I’ll lecture you on them until your ears fall off.”

“Well now you’re threatening me with a good time,” I chuckle.

“I’m threatening you with understanding my dilemma, human. You clearly don’t know what war of attrition you’ve stepped into,” Kasen says with a straight face. She’s a bit more on edge than the start of the conversation. “Ran, please separate Eternity from my animals. I don’t want them to soften at the sight of fairies because one gave them treats. They should be wiser.”

“As it were,” Ran abides with negligible pause.

The sight gives me a weird feeling, an uncanny sense of something being out of place. “She’s not usually so gung-ho.” I ponder.

“She’s not usually making proper friends. Yukari would leave the task to someone so much like her, I suppose,” Kasen grunts, pulling out a chair from the far side of the table, holding it for me.

I can tell it’s not an option, and while seating ask, “You mean like Ran or like Yukari?”

“Both,” the hermit affirms in monotone. “Now, you need a lesson on history that isn’t recorded, nor what your, ah, ‘relationship’ is allowed to give.”

“You mean Keine was told to keep her mouth shut about the sages?”

Kasen harrumphs at the jab, “Rude, but yes. Even I agree that it’s for the best. The sages are… oh, where to start?”

She has some trouble formatting a proper story for everything she knows, but not due a lack of things to say. In fact, there’s probably too much to know about them. Yukari and Okina have a long standing rivalry, both as sages that see to Youkai and gods, respectively, and as governors that stand polar opposite in their ideals. Yukari takes a laissez-faire approach whenever possible, outside of extreme circumstances, whereas Okina prefers to attack trouble before it springs. As it stands, ‘present and threatening to Gensokyo’ under different definitions.

“And what’s your role?” I question my sagely friend. I also do my best to ignore previous blunders I’ve had with one of the three most important people to Gensokyo.

Kasen, still being in lecture mode, answers on a dime, “Guiding humans and hermits from becoming antagonistic, as far as Yukari demanded. I don’t see myself in the role, though, and never agreed to any duties. That said, I feel like Okina will go too far if I don’t intervene… Agh, I’m tossing back and forth on what to do. Tanner, if you were in my position, what would you decide?”

I lift my eyes at the woman. “You’re deferring to me? After telling me how much of a fool I am for the last half hour?”

“I can at least trust you to make a choice. How I decide to feel about that choice is yet to be seen,” she nags. Still the same Kasen I remember, sage or not.

[x] If it’s that important, I’d fight Okina over the whole thing.

[x] I’d pitch in my perspective, but I don’t think I’d go tooth and nail over it.

[x] Have you considered something else entirely? (Write-in)

Anyway, this was the section I had meant to get to last week, but there was a couple of character details I wanted to get in my back pocket plus it gave me an excuse for making the painting a slightly better through line. I can’t say I enjoy being more verbose than I probably should be but I’d prefer making things more cohesive rather than more succinct.

[x] Have you considered something else entirely? (Write-in)
-[x] A light provocation. Not enough to be a serious fight, but enough to gauge her spirits and get some information from her, particularly why she thinks this girl's a nuclear bomb.

I consider the hermit’s question, wanting to give my thoughts on more than a gut reaction. Obviously, I’d want her to fight for Eternity’s continued existence, since I think that’s right. When she asks me what I’d do in her position, though, with peers that I know and trust, if only to a bare minimum… I can’t so readily say I’d go against them.

I answer her, maybe against my better judgment, “I’d prod Okina for an actual explanation. If she has a legitimate reason for doing this, I’d think it should be enough to convince me she’s right.”

Kasen freezes up for a moment, tilting her head to accentuate a curious look. She doesn’t say anything, simply observes. Like I’m some new foreign entity.

“What?”

“No, it’s…” she stammers. She then raises a hand in contempt of inarticulacy. “I wasn’t expecting you to be so understanding. I was ready to dismiss whatever you suggested, but instead you said something sensible. Though, maybe it’s not terribly sensible to recommend something not in your favor.”

I puff at the antagonism, “Gee, thanks. I’m glad that you think I’m an idiot in any situation that isn’t actively shooting myself in the foot.”

Her eyes widen and she raises her hands to defend, “No, no, that’s not what I meant. I’m surprised you’re more neutral than Okina must think.”

“That’s because I’m not. I’m just telling you what I’d do in your position, like you asked. I still want you to side with me, but it’s not like I can tell you what to do,” I knock her poor interpretation of me.

“Is that so?” she trails off. She’s definitely trying to gauge something by the interaction, much like when Okina was challenging me, but her method is much more blunt and to the point. “You are so much like Yukari it’s uncanny.”

Basically what Okina said. It didn’t strike me when she was throwing me out the door and threatening my life, but now, hearing it again, it really sets something off in me. Not explosive. More like a pressure, building up until its vessel fails. That vessel is… Patience? Discomfort? Disgust? I can’t quite place it, but somewhere in that ballpark.

Ran walks next to me, clutching Eternity under her arm to fend off a careening tiger. “He does have the same infatuation with dramatics,” she agrees with Kasen’s assessment. “That isn’t to discuss his insistence on solving problems that do not impact him in any first or second order collateral.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m nosy, I get it,” I grouch. “I hope you both know that I don’t really like Yukari. In fact I kinda hate her, and she probably knows it.”

Kasen rubs her chin with a smile. “That’s the most common opinion there is. Now I’m worried how much you must loathe yourself.”

“Enough!” I bicker. “I’m not even entertaining the thought. Are you going to do what you can to help or not, Kasen?”

“Oh? Help with what?” Eternity ponders from Ran’s arm, dangling like a stuffed animal whose wings take up most of the fox’s reach.

“A problem that you don’t need to worry about for now,” I deter the child from any undue stress.

Kasen eyes the girl, only the vaguest hints of pity discernible before turning back to me, replying, “Yes, I will do what I am able. Do not expect any miracles, however.”

A sigh of relief slips out of me. Getting anyone at all to support us is a boon, but having someone so closely tied to Okina is what I’d consider a windfall. “Great, let’s get a move on, then. We’ve got a sage to go submit our complaints to.”

“Not right now, Tanner,” Kasen stops me. “If Okina said that she’d act tomorrow, then there’s no way even I can find her before then. She’s nothing else if not true to her word.”

“Okina?” Eternity repeats in no more than a whisper, her oft held smile faltering.

I draw a bit of vim to argue Kasen’s point, “You’re kidding, right? We’re just supposed to wait overnight? She can do anything she wants in the time between, whether it be to me or Eternity.”

“As I said, she’s true to her word,” Kasen tries to reaffirm, her eyebrows raised at her tested patience. “If it can ease you, I’ll keep the little fairy here with me, and we’ll return to… I’m assuming The Garden of the Sun?” she questions the little fae.

The girl nods with an affirmative hum, to which Kasen finishes, “We’ll return to the garden first thing in the morning. I believe there’s a good lone tree to make our meeting point.”

“Okay, but why go back to the garden at all?” I wonder.

Kasen posits with a knowing finger, “She won’t have an excuse to treat me like an unrelated party. And she’d like to find any excuse she can, be sure.”

“I get the impression you don’t appreciate your peers.”

“She’s gone on record to say she wishes to have never met the other sages seven times to Lady Yukari alone,” Ran addends.

“And they’ll hear it as many times as necessary to leave me out of their rivalry,” Kasen groans a plea that starts to resound in my soul.

“Expecting to be under duress again so soon?” Ran jokes at my oblique.

I spit at the fox while lunging to one leg, “Don’t act like you weren’t a part of what happened.”

“My, but I recall fending off the hakutaku to within my capacity.”

“Which was like fifteen minutes. I’d almost say you meant for her to catch me,” I cut back, shooting her a narrowed look.

“You may choose your own interpretation, Tanner,” she replies. I can tell she’s holding back a smile drenched in schadenfreude.

“Why’d the teacher want to catch you, old guy?” the gnat of a bug Youkai innocently asks from her seat in the crook of the tree.

“For no reason that you should know, Wriggle,” I holler back at the girl. What poor timing for her to have wandered back here, and so typical that she’d forget why.

I reread Shameimaru’s news article with her, but her memory troubles are far worse than I imagined. I’m not sure how to get her out of here before things get complicated. I’m just as unsure if I need to. Maybe having more people around will dissuade Okina from acting.

I see one of the points of Ran’s hat twitch as she looks up to the air, “They are arriving now. Be prepared for any scenario.”

I stand to full height, following her eyes to see Kasen and Eternity floating down to us. They look no different from how we left them yesterday. I mean, of course they wouldn’t, Kasen herself assured me Okina wouldn’t try anything. I just can’t bring myself to believe something so fortunate.

Eternity floats down to Wriggle, giving the bug girl a hearty greeting and talking about her sleepover with the mountain hermit.

The hermit in question lands next to me, getting straight to business with, “See anything yet, Ran? Tanner?”

Ran is quick on the uptake, responding, “No movements since we arrived nineteen minutes, twenty seven seconds ago. There are a small collections of fairies due northwest fifty point five meters and a total of one hundred thirty three small animals in the nearby locale, but no magical energies of extra-dimensional origin.”

“And you were looking for life energy, right?”

Ran squints at the woman. “The question alone is a disservice.”

“Of course it is,” Kasen mirthfully affirms. “You and Yukari are the only ones I’d think could protect someone from Okina.”

“Yeah, speaking of protection,” I interrupt their reporting, “how are we gonna drag her out here? She’ll have the upper hand in her realm of doors, won’t she?”

Kasen puts her hands together to inform me, “Well, about that. While we don’t have a way to convince her out here, there is one tried and true way to get her attention. Same for Yukari.”

My brow furrows at her lack of specifics, and I hesitantly ask, “What would that be?”

She smiles a giddy, gay grin as she turns away from me, cupping her hands to mouth and shouting to the entirety of the garden, “OKINA! Show yourself this instant or I will have Yukari send me directly to you!”

No sooner does she finish her sentence that she turns back my way, rushing the arms length we’re apart to tackle me. The speed of an oni cannot be understated as the impact completely winds me. Where I expect ground, however, is the weightless tumbling of the realm of doors, the infinite void of space where sky was before I knew it. Kasen holds onto me, and unravels her bandaged arm to whip across the emptiness, finding Eternity similarly stunned by the loss of gravity. This all occurs in no more than two, maybe three seconds.

Kasen stops our sauntering through the ether, and wrenches the bandages back to us with Eternity in tow. At some point I forgot there wasn’t a real arm under the wrappings, and that the wrappings themselves were the limb. Damn if it isn’t one of the weirder things I’ve seen.

She reforms her hand to grip Eternity at the collar, giving the girl only a moment to look at her surroundings in shock before shaking her to attention. “Eternity, hold onto Tanner and don’t stray far from me,” she commands, levering the fairy behind my shoulders.

Eternity grips under my armpits without complaint, but as soon as Kasen releases us asks, “Where are we, Miss Kasen? This place is scary, and who is Okina?”

“She is an old friend of mine, and she wants to chat with us,” Kasen tries to placate the girl, slowly drifting along a trail of doors. “She might look scary, but she’s really heartfelt about her beliefs. It’s probably to a fault, honestly.”

I can practically hear Eternity’s brain churning at the words, resonating to the point of swallowing her nerves and following obediently. Assuming they talked last night, Kasen must know what buttons to press to get Eternity going. But that’s not what worries me. I’m more concerned with why she’s using such a tactic. Is she being impatient? Or is she trying to lure Eternity into Okina? I can’t tell, and at this point I’m no more than a spectator in my own struggle, so patience is all I have left.

We don’t float far from our starting point, only around a dozen or so doors before halting. Kasen cranes her neck to a familiar figure that hangs above us. The figure does not announce herself, simply observing her domain, us included.

In this realm devoid of direction, she stations her throne on a row of doors separate ours. From there she waits, anticipating our first move. Kasen slowly approaches, sparking the throne’s flames into a frenzy of color reaching out to several doors around the god. The eyes Okina meets her peer with do not suggest an ounce of welcome.

“Okina, we need to talk,” Kasen opens the floor to her compatriot’s dropped veneer.

“Kasen,” the god booms, trying to sound even more impressive than when I met her. “I was not expecting you.”

Kasen crosses her arms and starts to lecture the being, “My conversation with Tanner, directly stating that I will help him oppose you, wasn’t enough to stop you from this charade?”

“My, but that could be any Okina. I thought you were discussing some horrific Noh performance that was so offensive the performer should be brought low,” the god holds a merry smirk at the ridiculous hypothesis.

“And yet I’m here.”

“And yet you’re here,” the god agrees, not so merrily.

Ignoring Okina’s pauses for effect, Kasen continues her interrogation, “Why are you overstepping your boundaries? You know as well as I that killing a god is not within our duties.”

“She wants to kill a god?” I hear Eternity mutter under her breath, her arms lightly quavering at the idea. I put a hand to her fingers as they poke from my side, though it does not abate her fear.

“Ah, and so you speak of duty when it’s convenient to criticize your fellows,” Okina readily jabs. “Truly, your preaching is as insightful as ever, friend.”

“Answer the question before this turns ugly,” Kasen growls lower than I thought her register could achieve.

Okina gawks at the threat, “And whatever happened to your stance of nonviolence? That stance even suggested by Yukari’s beloved human servant?”

“Waning by the second as you don’t explain yourself,” Kasen bites. “Don’t act surprised. You and Yukari are the two people I despise the most, and this chronic desire to avoid discussing problems is just one of many reasons why.”

“A chronic desire, you say?” Okina takes umbrage with the taunt. “You truly want me to discuss the problem, Kasen? So be it.”

She rises from her throne, the flames at each corner trailing to her front, framing the god in a nearly angelic shape. The flames scorch the doors they were touching, leaving smoldering black stains on everything nearby her.

“The problem is that god’s continued existence!” she bursts, the fires combusting in unison. “We are but a short time away from a natural event in which that wretch will burgeon to power once more, and when that happens we will be forced to kill her! Instead of letting it get to that point, for which civil strife may ravage Gensokyo, I will see done that which I’ve accomplished before, ending the deity here and now!”

“Calm yourself!” Kasen yells back, steeling herself for a larger struggle than she wished.

“What?” Eternity breathlessly gasps. “But I never… she never…”

“Never what?” I ask as Kasen tries to deescalate the situation. “Do you remember her, Eternity?”

“Of course I do,” the fairy states, troubled by her own words, “she’s the one that didn’t kill me.”

[Please wait warmly as hermit berates a god…]

>>45732
Voting normally ends on Saturdays the latest for active back and forths. When I see it’s a landslide I’ll usually start planning as early as Thursdays, though. I do this to make my time writing be over the weekend and a bit into the week.

>>45733
I will definitely consider my character dynamics a lot more from the outset when I go to (the eventual) new stories. I firmly stand by my characters for where they are now and how I feel they’ve developed, but there’s many pitfalls I’ve fell into.

>>45722
I would say I need a chapter of Kasen holding a mortal grudge against Sumireko, but that would mean I’d need to write the average teenage Japanese schoolgirl.

[… Continued]

Eternity gasps before I can follow up with the hundreds of questions that now rattle my brain. I focus on Okina and Kasen, searching for what might be coming. The flames around Okina converge in front of the woman, coalescing to a point of light as blinding as the sun over the garden. Kasen yells at the woman to stop her attack, but another flash precedes a wave of energy directed at Eternity and I, clipping the edge of a door unfortunate enough to be in its path. The thing splinters in half like a twig.

Eternity drags the both of us to the side, but with our combined weight she isn’t able to gain much speed over Okina’s correction in trajectory. Right when the beam would crash into us, Kasen intercepts, a barrier of rainbow magic reflecting the raw energy off into the void where it disintegrates several doors before fading out of sight.

The fires recede to Okina’s grimace, with an anger so intense I almost miss the disappointment it yields to Kasen. The look screams of how much she wishes the oni disappeared this instant. I can feel the beats of Eternity’s wings pick up as she spectates the duel.

I, despite narrowly avoiding something that could shred through my body, now have my attention on the little fairy carrying me. “What the hell do you mean, ‘she didn’t kill you?’” I question, craning my neck as far as it will take me to face the girl behind my shoulders.

“Wha-?” she recoils, shocked that I’d be focusing on her in the moment. “I–… It was so long ago. Like, a long, long time ago. I used to be bigger, then. But what about that woman? I thought she was a human.”

“Well clearly not if she’s trying to kill us now! Come on, why did she try to kill you back then?” I fish for the answer to why we’re in this predicament. Whether it’ll be some magic bullet is anyone’s guess, but I can at least hope.

Eternity jerks me over to the side as a cascade of fiery orbs darts past us. Kasen once again intervenes, halting the stream with a few liberal whips of her bandaging. She maintains a rhythm of swatting them away until Okina realizes she isn’t getting through.

With a wave of her hand, Okina dissipates the assault and bursts, “Stand aside, Kasen!”

“Not unless you plan to properly explain yourself!” Kasen roars back, the wraps pointing at her opponent.

“How dare you not trust your fellow!” Okina shouts, slamming a fist against the magical frame in front of her. “We are comrades for Gensokyo!”

Kasen fires off a blast of rainbow energy, forcing Okina to shut up and deflect the projectile. “Do not act as if you ever earned my trust! You and Yukari are both self serving maniacs with the intent of disguising your actions behind the excuse of Gensokyo’s wellbeing!” Kasen scathes her cohort.

Okina harrumphs at the accusation, “Then I suppose we’re at an impasse.”

“I suppose we are,” Kasen agrees with a wild dip in her brow.

“Perhaps we should settle this the way our current Gensokyo would!” Okina announces, drawing a card from her sleeve with a flourish.

Kasen snaps into her martial arts pose, all too happy to accept the challenge with a hardy, “Try me!”

They burst into spirals of bright projectiles, abandoning any sense of finesse or fair play as they try to overpower the other by volume. All it really seems to achieve is making a messy field of rainbow orbs and daggers that force Eternity to retreat with me in tow, slipping behind a door for safety. She must not have internalized that the doors are no better at protecting us than a sheet of paper. Not that there’s much we can actually do to protect ourselves. Kasen is basically our only line of defense right now, seeing as we’ve been separated from Ran.

But that’s all circumstantial for right now. What’s actually important right now is my question, “What you said a moment ago, Eternity, about a long time ago. Do you actually remember that time? Were you really a god?”

“H-how’d you know about that?!” the girl stutters in response.

“Okina told me. I would’ve figured it out at some point, anyway, but that’s not important. What is important is what happened in the past, Eternity. Why does Okina want to put you down all of sudden?” I press the matter, not really needing to divulge any other specifics.

“She didn’t tell you?”

I grab the door and split off from her grip, giving her a cross eye. “Don’t act coy. If she told me I could’ve spun the story in a way that Kasen would’ve guaranteed been on our side. As it is we’re in the middle of a gamble with Okina holding the favorable hand.”

“You’re starting to sound like a bad guy,” Eternity notes with a peak in her brow.

I scoff at the thought, “I’ve been getting that more and more lately. Talk and we might still get Kasen’s help before Okina finds her own way to spin the tale.”

“But I–…” she stalls out with a look far more troubled than her generally mild mannered nature suggested to hide. She’s outright horrified to speak up, her lip quavering as the shapes of words form but no sound emerging.

She flies off beyond our cover, leaving me attached to the door alone. “Eternity, wait!” I call for her to refrain from getting between the two sages, but she’s already a short distance from where I can grab her.

She sucks in a deep breath to shout from her tiny frame, “Miss Goddess! Please stop! I remember everything!”

The sound of fingers snapping reverberates through space, the colorful daggers popping out of existence. I can start to make out the shapes of the women fighting as the rainbow orbs slowly fade out, as well. They stare at Eternity, one in confusion the other in shock. The void starts to feel a lot more quiet, down to only the distant crackle of Okina’s flames.

Despite the bulge in her eyes, the whites visible from here, Okina calmly asks the girl, “Do you remember your name? The name those people chose for you?”

Eternity shrinks at the question, answering in no more than a whisper, “T-… Tokoyo.”

Okina places a hand to her forehead, looking even more despondent than she already was. “How..?”

Kasen sees the opportunity to take the reigns and announces, “If you still refuse to tell me the reason behind your actions, I will ask the fairy, and I doubt she will have quite as many excuses for you.”

“I liked you better when you were depressed over Shuten Doji’s rejection,” Okina seethes at the oni.

“Last chance,” Kasen refuses to bite at the insult.

Okina narrows her eyes, puffing indignantly now that she’s been backed into a corner, “I was hoping to keep this to myself. That fairy is the reincarnation of Tokoyo-no-kami. You likely haven’t heard of her because I slaughtered her and the village her worship originated from during the Asuka era.”

“But I never died,” Eternity contradicts.

Okina sneers at the undermining testament, “A disgusting oversight of mine. I had not realized how much power you truly held to survive the beheading of both your body and your worship. A mistake I do not plan to replicate.”

“We are not done, yet,” Kasen interjects, patience running thin with both gods. “You cannot leave out your rationale behind tearing down an entire village just before the reform era.”

“A rich inquiry from an oni! Should I say I was searching for drink and the god happened to be on my path?” Okina mocks the sage.

Kasen refuses to even merit the jab with words, staring daggers through the god until the woman relents, “Oh, fie! You are simply no fun! Have you looked across Gensokyo as of late, friend? Do you not see what I see?”

“Pretend I do not see. What would you describe to me, then?” Kasen allows her peer at least some opening.

Okina raises her arms to proselytize like a hawker, “The native Shintoism of Japan challenged by the foreign ideals of Buddhism and Taoism! What occurs when those yearning for tradition turn to nontraditional practices? What becomes of a worship that puts faith in only it’s own faith?”

We all remain silent as she lets the question settle in the void. It’s hard to say if it’s rhetorical or not, but I wouldn’t dare try to insert myself so late into the conversation.

“Tokoyo-no-kami!” she proclaims, pointing to Eternity. “A god that exists purely for the hope of those that wish upon belief. A god that exists as belief itself. She is the danger of making those that follow no doctrine, no core fundamentals to their practice. Such a being should not exist, for she begs of anarchy not only of political affairs but affairs of the spirit as well!”

Kasen looks back at Eternity. A pensive curiosity besmirches her lips as she sifts through Okina’s high and mighty recitation. She turns back to the secret god, interrogating, “And so you destroyed those people because they made Eternity? Is that what you will have me believe?”

“It is only the truth, Kasen,” Okina directly addresses the oni. “What would become of gods if they knew that faith alone, without any bearings or blessings, could sustain them indefinitely? We have here a god that I believed dead, after all.”

Shit. So that’s her angle of attack. Suddenly the threat is far less about Eternity herself and more about what she represents. I gotta jump in, but how am I supposed to–?

“Now hold on!” I throw myself in before coming to any legitimate arguments. “How is that supposed to mean you need to get rid of Eternity? Very few people know she’s a god, much less one that could change what it means to earn faith!”

“I find myself truly surrounded by hypocrites,” Okina bemoans, floating past Eternity and over to me. The flames of her magical wooden frame lick the door on sitting on, emanating a heat I only hope won’t contact me. She gestures to Eternity, and asks me, “Was it truly so difficult to determine this fairy was a god? How long would it have taken if I didn’t outright tell you? Another day or two?”

I remain silent, not wanting to help her case as much as possible. Eternity sits debased of any possibility of helping herself. A plight I’m not unfamiliar with.

“And all it took was wanting to know about the girl. Do you think such a meagerly hidden secret will remain that way when the religions truly begin removing their competition. There will be left that base desire for humanity to believe in something, as self fulfilling as it may be, just as it was in the past.”

“Okina,” Kasen takes the woman’s attention, her brow hardened to a fold over the bridge of her nose. “Do you believe in what you claim? Do you think Gensokyo will have a religious struggle as tense as the period you were human?”

“My, now when was that?” Okina deflects, dotting her chin to feign thought. After a brief silence she replies, “Not even I can predict the changes in the atmosphere, but I can tell you it will change.”

Kasen accepts the vague answer and looks down to the fairy, asking, “Are you a danger to those around you?”

Given how she shies away, Eternity seems to have been expecting the question. Tossing it around in her head does little good, either, as she appears predisposed with her eyes clamping shut in denial. How many centuries has she spent with this secret? Did she hope it would go away, her brush with death absolving her of any connection she had to her past? From everything I’ve heard, she herself never did anything. She was just an unfortunate bystander in the wrong place and time.

This unfair reality doesn’t escape her, as the three of us have nothing to say to the little god when she collapses into tears, wings closing in around her body. I’m sure her answer is obvious, as much as I disagree.

Kasen floats over to Okina, and as she passes reluctantly wishes her, “Do what you think is right.”

Okina is hardly phased by the wish, having made up her mind long before the conversation started, and floats closer to Eternity as Kasen stops next to me.

I whisper to the sage, respectfully, “Kasen, what the fuck are you doing?”

“Agreeing with someone I don’t often agree with,” she groans back. “I take no joy in this, you know.”

I rise at the idea, “No joy? Kasen, you’re condemning that girl to die. Look at her. Does she really look like she could hurt a fly?” I nod over to Eternity huddled in on herself, anguishing over her very existence.

Kasen softens for just a breath at the sight, but shakes back into a stony resolve to argue, “She’s not the problem. I’m worried the fly she doesn’t hurt will protect her to its last breath.”

“And Eternity?” I insist.

Kasen holds her tongue for the final verdict, but Okina picks up on the conversation, pausing to turn and address her cohort, “Do you see how little this human respects the necessary evils we commit? Yukari is truly weakhearted if she retains such a petty fool.”

“It’s called having a conscience,” I growl. “Maybe you should try growing one.”

“Maybe when the day comes that Gensokyo is truly at peace, and nothing should come and loom over its horizon. I suspect such a fantasy too much even for our little world,” Okina waxes poetic as if it were some poignant thought before turning back to her target. “You’d be better off not a part of it if you should believe that lie.”

“Leave Tanner out of this, Okina,” Kasen stands to my defense, getting between us.

In that moment, I feel Ran’s shikigami slip up my back, and follow it as it floats away behind a nearby door. Kasen and Okina are too occupied to notice my gaze, nor the hand that shoves aside the door to reveal my partner, sitting within one of Yukari’s gaps from The Garden of the Sun. She beckons me over, likely hoping to salvage me from the situation before Okina should remember her threat.

I move as little as possible to point to Eternity.

She raises her arms in frustration that I’d suggest helping someone else before myself in this moment.

I scrunch my eyebrows a little more to try and really convince her that I’m asking out of a sense of moral rightness.

She’s not persuaded by the appeal.

Guess I’ll have to do something myself. I feel the flash rocks sitting in my pocket, hoping that they haven’t gone off in all the movement, and note Okina’s movement as she readies that deadly laser she used earlier.

[x] Dive for Eternity. Dangerous, but it means both of us will get out when Ran goes to retrieve me.

[x] Explicitly order Ran to grab Eternity. I have a much lower chance of getting out myself, but there’s no immediate harm I should expect.

[x] Another plan of action. (Write-in)