THE STORY SO FAR

The world has ended, but five (well, four and a half) humans get a chance to do it over, and make things right. Only problem is, for their second go around, they're not going to be 'human'...

Kicchou Reimu has reawakened memories of her past life on what has rapidly become the worst day of her current one. The once Shrine Maiden, now turtle-dragon and yakuza princess, is a close-kept secret of the Kiketsu family. However, her and her Mama Yachie were in a part of Kiketsu territory that got cut off from the main body, and now more than ever, the Kiketsu’s enemies seek to discover Yachie’s most precious secret, and exploit it for their own ends.

Yuuma Toutetsu easily saw through Yachie’s initial plan - after all, she has been feeding on the otter spirits that make up Kiketsu herself. After a rough ride across enemy territory, and managing to avoid being spotted by the Gouyoku Alliance only by a hair, Reimu has been chased into the depths of the waterways, in an attempt to stay hidden from the eagles and their taotie leader.

Reimu’s escape brought her into contact with Konpaku Youki, who seeks to slit Yuuma’s belly at Eiki’s request, and find the lost heiress of the Konpaku family. They’ve now come to the nearest reservoir, held by Haniyasushin Keiki, only for the Sculptor Goddess to claim that Reimu’s secret is no secret to her…

Previous Thread:
>>205449

Or read the story archive on Ao3:
https://archiveofourown.org/works/54366490/chapters/137704354

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[ ] She’s onto you. Run. Run.
[15] Confess to the truth.
[1] Play dumb. She’s just shooting in the psychological dark.
-[X] Do we still have Genji? Since we still have him...hug it. Plushie.
-[X] Grumble about what the point of losing the h

Reimu was in pain. It wasn’t like a broken leg, or that she had a headache, she couldn’t even truly feel it, it was nothing but pure, raw pain, and nothing else.

What she could feel, truly feel… was nothing. Not heat or chill on her skin, not a breeze through her hair… not even the feeling of her fingers touching each other. All she had was pain.

She tried to reach out, to sense something, anything. Though she couldn’t feel, or see, she sensed presences - four others, barest ideas of anything.

She called out, silently, into the void.

What’s going on? Where am I?

There was a pause, before she heard - before she saw - before she sensed a reply. First one, then several.

Who was that?

What happened to me?! Where’s Lady Yuyuko?!

I can’t see?!

Reimu spoke up again. Can you hear me? It’s ____ Reimu. She paused, before trying again. ____ Reimu. ____. I-I can’t remember. The void in her own name gnawed at her, building her urge to panic.

Reimu, do you know what’s going on? She tried shaking her head, but couldn’t feel it. Nonetheless, she could sense the faint urge of worry from the other side. That’s… bad. I can’t feel either of my bodies.

Does that mean you’re… Youmu? Another fragmented something responded. Reimu got a sense of acknowledgement from the someone who’d spoken originally. Okay, that’s something. That means at least three incident resolvers here, da ze. There was a strained edge to the playfulness, but it was playful, nonetheless. Trust Marisa to keep a brave face, even like this.

I’m _____ Kosuzu. I-I can’t feel anything…

Hieda no Akyuu here. This voice was a little bit stronger than the rest. I don’t remember what happened. One moment I was just sipping tea at the shrine

>>200245
Reposting due to bump limit.

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[ ] Stay behind to buy time
[ ] Make a straight run for the Youkai Mountain border
[ ] Run for Eirin’s field (Clamshell)
[ ] Run for the Yamanba zone (Clamshell)
[ ] Aki Farm
[ ] Call Ran
[ ] Other?

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Image created by Mibiya
If anyone wants to provide feedback or chat with me, I'm on the THP discord.

[-] Onwards!

Despite the intensity of your little magical chat with Patchouli, things ended up proceeding more or less as originally planned. After a half hour delay while Patchouli regained her composure and presumably did research, the mage came back out, and the disguise enchantment via occult balls resumed. Without Patchouli in the ritual, this time. You would admit to a little amusement at how Sakuya was watching the mage almost as much as she was watching you and Satori. The maid wasn't even trying to be subtle about it.

Thankfully, you'd spent most of the delay talking to and getting to know the little devil. (After first making sure to update Satori so the two of you were on the same page, of course.) Sakuya had provided the object - a small silver ring with a bat wing motif - and in the end were able to form a clear enough picture of her to form the enchantment. As you'd hoped, sliding it on turned whoever wore it into the spitting image of Koakuma, and even altered their voice to match.

This then resulted in a battery of tests from Patchouli to examine the item and its full functionality, killing another half hour. While you'd love to call it paranoid, you did have to admit it uncovered some useful information. In particular, the illusion matched itself as closely as possible to the shape of the wearer. While it looked like Koakuma in her librarian outfit no matter who wore it, the actual size of the image matched the height of the disguisee, not Koakuma's height. Admittedly, when compared side-by-side this made it look more like Koakuma had a sister than a twin, but it was the only way to keep the illusion in sync with the wearer's movements. Thankfully, you were only a couple inches taller than the little devil, so it should still be close enough to work.

The bigger risk was Koakuma's extras. Which was to say, her wings, her long hair, her dress, and her, ah, feminine body shape, were all things that you did not have. Which in turn meant that if anyone tried touching any of those, they'd notice the moment their hand went through the illusion and your cover would be blown immediately. Patchouli brought up that most of those

[-] Back at the Scarlet Devil Mansion

You hadn't expected this. You knew this was a stressful time for Satori, and making her dig through your worst memories can't have helped, but you thought she'd be able to handle it. She'd... she'd always been strong. Always. And now she wasn't and the only thing you could do was hold her. Hold her and make promises you couldn't keep, because you didn't control any of this. Maybe if you'd gone to Eirin first instead of talking to Tewi? Or if you hadn't knocked away Marisa's hakkero, or if you just hadn't gotten injured like an idiot in the first place! You bit your lip hard enough to draw blood, wincing. Your feelings of guilt, justified or not, weren't important right now. Not in the face of this.

Satori continued to sob, tightening her grip around your waist as she buried her head in your shoulder. You held her close, resting your head atop hers while she cried. You'd been thinking of this situation as life and death for you and Sumi, but somehow it hadn't sunk in that it was just as important for others as well. Satori's sister wasn't dead, but in some ways Koishi's predicament was the next worst thing. Or perhaps even harder to deal with. At least with her mind reading sealed, she wasn't feeling your uncertainty and anxiety.

Damn it, you wish Sumi was here. She wasn't the most sympathetic person ever, but she'd listened when you'd needed her to, and more importantly, she'd point out the way forwards. Being able to do something helped. But what could you do? What could you even say? You were still kidnapped, without leverage, without secrets, and under the metaphorical axe. Freedom seemed like a pipe dream, let alone finishing the original goal you'd made no progress towards. So in lieu of actual strength, the best you could do was pretend to be strong for her.

"Deep breaths, Satori," you murmured, brushing a lock of hair past her ear. "Come on, with me."

Your chest was tight, but you inhaled as slowly and deeply as you could before exhaling in the same manner. It took a few tries, but

Kept you all waiting huh? Jokes aside we are back now for real and to not have any site wide mess ups I have decided to do a thread reboot of sorts. Mainly for the tripcode. I was going to repost every section as their own post so that all the images would be kept but that's incredibly long soooo consider the OG artstyle images as a your gatekeeping fuel ig. Oh yeah, new art style hope you all like it. PS if your not discovering this for the first time skip to the bottom to see the continuation from where we left off)

Post 1
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Nothingness. Who would've known the best feeling was the absence of feeling the whole time. You swim in the border of everlasting peace and finite suffering. At last you are free. Free from what? NO! You shouldn't ask that you'll be banished- banned from peace. Though you've already asked haven't you, you must've because you're already being kicked out as we speak. The nothingness is becoming somethingness. That something is me. You feel it don't you? The pulses of life firing out from your brain in rapid succession- oh yes your brain the symbol of our something. I'm afraid me and you will have to cut this conversation off- YOU ARE BECOMING FINITE ONCE MORE CHILD! Try to enjoy yourself a little more than the last time. Kehehehe. I'll be watching from my spot in non-existence until you need my wisdoms. The voice muddles until it's no longer comprehensive and soon enough it's overpowered by chirping and rushing water. Your eyelids push themselves upwards as a soft yellow light from the east fills your synapses. You feel everything making contact with you from the sunlight to the patch of grass your body had collapsed into. You are in pain. Your brain begs you with sharp jolts to return to where you came but you're awake. Undeniably finite once more. Your left hand moves to the side of your face and tries to ease just a tad bit of the pain- no use. A groan escapes from you and your nostrils are burned with the smell of alcohol from your breath. You jitter, turning your torso to your left. Bottom still planted firmly to the floor you couldn't even imagine trying to stand right now. However, when you ma

Servants. Gensokyo is no stranger to the concept of a person serving under a higher authority. A lot of servants are quite happy with their lives and can't imagine a better one where they're not serving under their masters.

But some just get treated like absolute sh@#.

Okay, that's a bit of an exaggaration, but still, some servants in Gensokyo don't get the best treatment in all of Gensokyo. For example, the Scarlet Devil Mansion's gatekeeper Hong Meiling tends to be belittled by most who know her, being accused of being too lazy and useless of a gatekeeper, despite the fact that despite her supposed laziness, the only ones who have managed to get pass the chinese youkai were the Hakurei Shrine Maiden and the Black-White Magician. And while her relationship with Sakuya Izayoi isn't as toxic as most make it out to be (If anything, they're actually on pretty good terms), the head maid of the Scarlet Devil Mansion can still be pretty strict towards the gatekeeper about doing her job probably.

Another noteworthy example would be Reisen Udongein Inaba, the personal assistant of the famed lunarian doctor of Eientei, Eirin Yagokoro. The former is prone to constantly getting pranked by the mischevous Earth Rabbit, Tewi Inaba, and is sometimes punished by the lunarian doctor.

Relatively speaking, one could say that the treatment the half-human half-phantom gardener, Youmu Konpaku gets isn't as bad, but she still has to deal with the gluttonous and rather eccentric ghost princess of Hakugyokurou, Yuyuko Saigyouji, who is known to constantly tease the human-phantom hybrid.

Considering all of this, it was only natural that they would sympathize with each others plights. That's why the three agreed to get together at least one night a month to go get drinks together and vent about their problems at work. They dubbed it "Servants Night".

Nothingness. Who would've known the best feeling was the absence of feeling the whole time. You swim in the border of everlasting peace and finite suffering. At last you are free. Free from what? NO! You shouldn't ask that you'll be banished- banned from peace. Though you've already asked haven't you, you must've because you're already being kicked out as we speak. The nothingness is becoming somethingness. That something is me. You feel it don't you? The pulses of life firing out from your brain in rapid succession- oh yes your brain the symbol of our something. I'm afraid me and you will have to cut this conversation off- YOU ARE BECOMING FINITE ONCE MORE CHILD! Try to enjoy yourself a little more than the last time. Kehehehe. I'll be watching from my spot in non-existence until you need my wisdoms. The voice muddles until it's no longer comprehensive and soon enough it's overpowered by chirping and rushing water. Your eyelids push themselves upwards as a soft yellow light from the east fills your synapses. You feel everything making contact with you from the sunlight to the patch of grass your body had collapsed into. You are in pain. Your brain begs you with sharp jolts to return to where you came but you're awake. Undeniably finite once more. Your left hand moves to the side of your face and tries to ease just a tad bit of the pain- no use. A groan escapes from you and your nostrils are burned with the smell of alcohol from your breath. You jitter, turning your torso to your left. Bottom still planted firmly to the floor you couldn't even imagine trying to stand right now. However, when you make the full turn you are met by a river and laying across that river's skin is a face. Oh fuck- what happened? It's almost like the reflection is a separate entity, disappointed by you. What did you do to this poor girl? What did you do to yourself? You can't even force the muscles in your face to make her happy... she just suffers. You have todo something about her, you have to:
[-] Accept exile from nothingness and stand up.
[-] Reject somethingness; lay back down and close your eyes.
[-] Write in.

You can vote on every character's individual "choices", but you may only vote on a single character to "control.”

[[ ]] The youkai

I walk up to a brown dirt clump with a big section for a “body” and a small one for a “head”. “Wake up!”

It gets up and cranes its “head” to look at me. “What?” it says.

“Another incident,” I said.

“Awesome! Time to solve it!” The clump got up and busted its arms and legs out. “Where’s the bad guys?”

“Well, this incident is quite serious, so I—”

“Aw, it’ll be easy!” the clump said. “Remember the winter incident? The red smoke?”

“You died in both of those incidents before you even got to where the incidents were coming from…”

“So?” the clump shrugged. “I always come back after three days, and magic isn’t hard to regain even though I’m an incident resolver.” The brown blob flexes its arms in an exaggerated motion several times, bouncing its forearms around rapidly. “In fact, you should be the one on the bench for this based on your danmaku history, but who cares? The ice fairy doesn’t care.”

“She’s like an ant to a lion compared to you, but I relent. You can come.”

The dirt clod jumps up, and before you can tell it to wait for you, it rockets toward the human village like a beetle scuttling away from a prying finger. “We need to get to the village to locate the incident!” The voice trails off as the clump-turned-meteor gets farther away.

“…darn.”

{...}

“HEY!!! Zappers! Dirt clod! Brown boulder! Wait for me!”

No use. The little fairy was out traveling to “resolve” the incident. I’ll be surprised if he gets past the first peon of the incident “organization” that these events always seem to have. It would be much easier if he would actually focus on winning spell card duels, but showing off with flashy projectiles and recklessly getting hit is what his usual attempts at resolving an incident turn out to be. That, and not actually managing to find out who the mastermind of the incident even is.

I suppose it’s an extreme v

{-} Embrace the dark side... wait, no, do the exact opposite of that.

Thankfully, I do have a certain amount of practice at controlling at my emotions. Unstable emotions make for unstable magic, and safety aside, the secret sealing club's budget puts a hard limit on explosive misfires per month. Look, the point is, I was able to wrestle my irritation under my control.

I still did need a focus for unleashing the magic, and the first thing that occurred to my mind was programming class, of all things. Just like testing a program, things would fail for the most idiotic reasons, and things had to be hooked up just right to-

[Placeholder Sign - Hello World]
Huh. That, just... huh. It really was that simple. Plain blue bullets literally spelled out "Hello, world!". Punctuation included, even. Considering the bullets did absolutely nothing else, I don't think it even qualified as an attack.

Hina looked at the pattern in some confusion. "Um. Well, it worked, but is that what you were aiming for?"

My bemusement turned to embarrassment, and I dismissed the spellcard with a wave of a hand. Excellent. If I ever wanted to make myself look like a complete joke, I now had exactly the spellcard to do it with. "That was just a test to get the system working. Also, um, you were right. Thanks, I guess."

"It's no trouble. Really."

That resulted in one of those silences that was destined to turn awkward, but the Koishi doll - no wait, it was Mary now - came flying out of the house, hovering next to Hina. She offered it a headpat. "So there you are. Just where did you go, anyway?"

The doll ignored the question, opting to lean into the headpat. That was adorable enough to make a dent in my irritation. I found myself smiling as I called out, "Aren't you a little old to be playing with dolls?"

Hina paused with a small blush, but Mary flew in for the hug, and after a moment of hesitation the goddess wrapped an arm around the doll. "Aren't you the one giving her directions?"

That actually