[-] 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?”

{-} 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."

The intense chirping of cicadas was what brought you back to the land of the living. You came into consciousness, but your eyes remained close, and a pounding in your head begged you to return to slumber. Try as you might though, the insistence of the cicadas urged you to stay with them. Deeming a return to dreamland hopeless, you lifted your upper body off the ground and opened your eyes.

You were sitting on a hill, covered with lush grass. You could see a lake about ten minutes ahead from you, though mist seemed to shimmer above the lake, obscuring your view of what lay across it. Mountains off in the distance surrounded you as if cradling you tightly in their embrace. This area seemed lush, peaceful, and completely foreign to you. Nothing was ringing a bell, even the grass felt different. How did you even get here? You... Actually, just remembering felt difficult right now, with so many details in your head fuzzy. You could deal with that later.

You stood up, brushing some of the grass and debris off of your pants, when you noticed a flyer about eight feet from you, caught between two rocks, the wind trying to tug it away but the rock refusing to let go. You picked up the purple paper and examined it.

>"WELCOME! ;P

>"By popular demand, here is your introduction and primer to your current tubular predicament! Where are you? You're in Gensokyo now! What is Gensokyo? A radical land of magic! Monsters are real! Youkai are real! Have gnarly fun, but be careful! If you really want to return home, seek out Hakurei! Otherwise, enjoy your mondo new future!

>"P.S. Watch out for Rumia! She's waaaay uncool for newbies! x~x"

You stared at the flyer for a few moments. You weren't sure which to find more incredulous - the outrageous claims it had made casually, or how it seemed written by someone madly out of touch with society. Like an old person, desperate to appear cool with the youth, but with no idea what the youth truly are or what they do.

As you folded up the paper to put in your pocket, a loud sound interrupted the cicadas.

Kaiju Wriggle Nightbug's Determination Calculative Journey (Beta Ver)

-----

Up above the sky, two titans clashed in hopes of defeating the opposing side. One is a golden buddha mecha that has the aura of a heroism that will save the innocents from this insect kaiju that seems like it is going to devour and destroy everything that it sees. But this is no ordinary kaiju, no. In fact, this insect kaiju seems to have a sanity beyond its pure instinct unlike the other kaijus who lose themselves to their barbaric and kaiju-ish ways.

The two clashed again with their arms locking with each other, trying to show who is the strongest by pushing with all their strength. Inside the golden buddha mecha's head, we see a humanoid rabbit controlling the mech from within. "Anti-Insect Kaiju Mech Alpha to Command. It seems like I am in a stalemate. Orders, ma'am?" Awaiting a response from the higher ups, the humanoid rabbit kept the mech's arm locked with the insect kaiju to trap it.

"Attack in the twilight, shake her awake with the thunder of laser beam." As soon as the higher up gave the green light to mobilize the directed-energy weapon. "Failure will not be accepted. Call for powers of the lunarian might." The command monologues about how great the lunarians are, not really helping the battle, but okay. "Force her to surrender. Take what is ours and restore law and order." The rabbit who is manning the anti-insect kaiju mech nodded.

The face of the buddha mecha opened like some sort of alien from alien vs predator, but in this scenario, it is vastly different, I assure you. The directed-energy weapon is powering up, ready to shoot the insect kaiju into the shadow realm, Jimbo. But before it can blow her up to kingdom come, the insect kaiju, using its common sense and logic, closed the opened face, prompting it to explode the head of the buddha and along the rabbit with it. "N-Nani!!!?!?! (Translation: W-What!!!?!?!)"

Before the explosion happened, the insect kaiju said something ominous to the rabbit... somehow. "You stole my beans for my insect friends. Now it is time for the unfunny." Which

It’s hard to pinpoint the precise moment you went from “nothing” to “something”. All you can really say for sure is that once you weren’t, but now you are.

Or… something along those lines. These are pretty complicated thoughts for what’s essentially a newborn.

But are you really? A newborn, that is. Before the nothing that was before the something, you could sometimes grasp the frayed threads of another life. That life was so vastly different from what you are now that you have trouble thinking of it as “your” life, but the sense of familiarity (and sometimes yearning) the memories give you are harder to deny. You were once human, then you were nothing, and now you’re something.

But enough of that for now. Your thoughts tend to ramble when you let them, so it’s best to cut them off her or nothing will ever get done.

Compared to your previous life, your senses are now completely different. Sight, smell, taste, and hearing are all gone entirely, actually. You felt like you should maybe be horrified by that fact, but the memories of your previous life had come in some time after you came into existence, so you had already adjusted to the state of things before realizing you had lost anything at all.

Your world begins and ends with your sense of touch. Perhaps some of the things you lump together with “touch” in your mind are something else entirely, but it just makes sense to do so. The most prominent thing you feel is the soothing coolness that encases you completely from all sides. If you were still capable of doing so, you would regularly be giving contented sighs. Even if you do nothing, the coolness leaves you feeling nourished and healthy at all times. If this was all there was to your life, well… you wouldn’t complain.

Alas, hypotheticals are hypotheticals, and this is reality. There exists something beyond your present state of stockpiling energy, and you intend to explore it with the little control you have. Several options are open to you, but your limited understanding prevents you from the risks and benefits of each choice.

Ah well, suppose you’ll just have to follow your gut on this one. You decide to: