[3] Time to leg it. Weakness is one thing, but certainly Lady Mima would never accept stupidity from her servant. We need a new plan.
[4] Stand your ground. Defy your fear and give her a reminder of who you are. Even if you have no chance of victory, Lady Mima would never accept weakness from her servant.

A tense silence settles over the grove. Every inch of your body is locked in place, petrified to stone beneath the weight of the young girl’s withering stare. Immobile as your body is though, your mind races with a thousand thoughts. None of them are useful thoughts, sadly. After the words ‘this is bad’ play through your head once, they repeat another nine-hundred ninety-nine times in rapid succession.

You should run. You really should. If even Lady Mima herself was beaten and sealed away by the Hakurei, what chance do you stand?

Yet, here you stand, feet planted firmly in place without any intention of moving them. The fact that she doesn’t recognize you… it bothers you more than it should. The words buzz in your ears like an incessant fly you can’t swat away. The two of you may have only met face-to-face once before now, but it was a very weighty encounter. Recent, too.

“Don’t tell me you’ve already forgotten,” you force out, packing as much bravado and bite as you can into it. She doesn’t even blink, entirely unimpressed. Too late to soften the hard edge in your voice now though, you’ve already committed. “What? Hit your head?”

Actually, maybe she did? Shooting her noggin a quick glance, you don’t spot any evidence of injury. The only thing that stands out is that her roots are showing. Her hair isn’t naturally purple, apparently.

Your attention snaps back as she raises her hand, and a yin-yang orb swirls into existence over her open palm. The orb slowly turns in place, casting a pale glow that illuminates her impassive face. Looks like she isn’t interested in talking.

Intimidated, you take a step back. Your heel catches against the stone containing your master, nearly tripping you. Glancing down at the prison, a thought suddenly occurs to you. Can Lady Mima see from in there?

The thought of getting exterminated as she observes helplessly from within the stone punches you in the gut. While you don’t really understand how seals work, the thought that she might be watching sparks a boldness within you. Spurred on by that pulse of bravery, you turn back to the shrine maiden and straighten yourself. You flare your wings to the night, hold your chin high, puff your chest out, and clench your fists to your sides, the spiritual burn momentarily forgotten. “I’m not just a ‘random youkai,’” you bark defiantly. “I am Lady Mima’s ever faithful servant! I was with her in your last encounter.”

At the mention of your master’s name, the young shrine maiden’s dry glare sours. Her eyes narrow, an inscrutable look on her face as she leans forward to examine you more carefully. Something seems to click behind her eyes. “...Oh, right,” she grumbles, her tired irritation dialing down a pinch. Brows furrowing, she deliberates on her words before continuing. “You’re still around?”

“Of course I am. Where would I have gone?” Although you maintain a snappy tone, you’re silently pleased to hear that the girl does recall you, even if you had to press it out of her. Now that you’ve got her talking, your mind scrambles to find a line of attack. The longer your conversation lasts, the better an assault you can scrape together. And against the Hakurei Shrine Maiden’s flawless win record, you’ll need something damn good.

“Figured you’d have been sent back to wherever she dragged you from?” The ignorant girl’s face screws up into something resembling pity. “That seal was made extra strong, so forget about freeing her. That last stunt she tried pulling was crossing a line. You’re lucky we didn’t seal you too for helping.”

Maybe you could attack from the air. You recall hearing that she has trouble flying without assistance, and you see no turtles around for her to leap onto. While the idea takes shape, she lifts the orb threateningly, fixing you with a dangerous look. “And that’s the end of it. Now leave. I’m done talking about it.”

“I-”

As soon as you attempt to stretch the conversation further, she lobs the orb straight at you. You don’t even have time to think. She moves too fast. The ancient relic cracks against your dome, abruptly forcing your consciousness from you.

Why did I even bother? Although sulking hasn’t yet stopped the throbbing in your skull, you continue to wonder variations of that same lamenting thought on loop as if it would eventually cure the pain.

It’s been about a day or so since you (badly) attempted to rescue Lady Mima, and you’ve got nothing to show for your efforts but a brutal headache and tattered pride. In retrospect, there was no winning in that situation. Either you looked like a coward or you looked weak - right in front of your master’s stone. The real failure was your impulsiveness though, how you had reached for the seal without thinking. But honestly, even if you hadn’t, what were you going to do? Not like you know how to undo seals.

Hopefully Lady Mima isn’t actually able to see through the rock. If she saw that performance, she might just disown you.

Now here you are, slumped against the base of a tree as night starts to fall over whatever forest you crawled your way into after waking up. The woodland around you is overrun with trees. It's all horribly overgrown, you tripped over more than a few gnarled roots during your trek and stopped only when your headache became unbearable. At least your hand is mostly healed by now. You give it another shake just for good measure.

Resting your head back against the firm wood and pulling your leathery wings over your body as a blanket, you let out a heavy sigh and stare up at the rapidly darkening sky. The emerging stars leave you wistful. Lady Mima often had you chart constellations. Taking notes, performing calculations based on planetary alignments. Are those days behind you now? You’d like to think they aren’t, but it’s clear that rescuing your master from her captivity won’t be a simple task.

Yet, you can’t leave her. Something in you won’t allow it. What is a witch’s familiar without a master?

You need a plan.

And that’s its own problem. Lady Mima was always the one with a plan. You followed, you obeyed. You were meant to carry out orders, not scheme or plot. However, that is exactly what is now required of you.

Where do I even start? Your lips twitch downward. Certainly you can’t break her out by overpowering the seal. If it’s strong enough to contain Lady Mima, it’s strong enough to swallow you whole. Is it even possible for a familiar to be stronger than its master? That seems wrong. You wouldn’t know. Lady Mima was the one that knew everything.

An unpleasant scent stops you from continuing your ruminations. You turn, already grimacing, and flinch. A little girl in a black blouse is standing over you - the source of the odor, you detect. Dirty socks and rotted meat. How long has she been standing there? Hopefully not long, that would be embarrassing.

The girl tilts her head, staring down at you with a curious expression. Her arms are held out at her sides as if she were trying to measure a fish, maybe? One larger than her armspan? Strange.

“...Need something?” you murmur, reaching up to rub your head again. The headache has dulled some during your bout of deep rumination, thankfully.

The girl nods immediately, red ribbon bouncing. “You smell like blood.”

“What?” Your eyebrows pinch together. Yes, you got smashed by the Hakurei and ate dirt, but she didn’t draw blood from you.

“You smell like blood,” she repeats helpfully, then points at your middle.

Frowning, you draw your wings back and glance at your waist. Indeed, there’s a dark stain pooling against your left hip, and you immediately realize why. Reaching beneath your sash, you retrieve your master’s bloody knife. She’d given it to you not long before getting sealed. Something important to her, you surmised, though you didn’t ask about its significance. Trying to wipe it clean is a fruitless gesture, you’ve found. The blade always seems to have a fresh slick of blood stuck to its surface.

Since you didn’t have anywhere to carry it cleanly at the time, you had tucked it under your sash. Now it’s ruined Marisa’s dress. Not that you especially liked this hand-me-down thing anyway. Especially not after what happened between you two…

Thinking about it, you’re glad it’s stained. Gives you a good reason to throw it away.

“Can I taste it?” The girl cocks her head again, eyes fixating on the eternally blood stained knife as she reaches out for it, making grabby hands. Then she stops, recalling her manners. “Please?”

This girl is either a youkai, or a very unsettling child wandering the forest at night. The second option seems less likely. You look at her, then back down at the knife, and consider your options.

[ ] Let her have a taste. Why not?
[ ] Hold it close. It’s one of Lady Mima’s prized possessions, the only one she left you with, even.
[ ] For a favor. You were just thinking about how you needed to start making plans, so you might as well get something in exchange for this. (Include a write-in of what you’d ask for)
[?] (Write-in)

[1] Use the knife to ritually sacrifice the girl for power. As the familiar of a witch, you’ve helped out with a great many rituals.
[2] For a favor. Let her distract the Hakurei while you sneak up and sucker-punch her/steal the rock.
[6] Hold it close. It’s one of Lady Mima’s prized possessions, the only one she left you with, even.

For a brief moment, you consider the merits of bargaining with her. You could tell her to attack the Hakurei in exchange for allowing her a lick of the knife. It wouldn’t cost you anything since the blood will reappear, and it would buy you an opening. A distracted shrine maiden is one you can blindside, or at the very least, one you can slip past in order to whisk away the stone containing your master. But neither of those outcomes would really help you in freeing Lady Mima. Stealing the prison won’t free its prisoner, not until you learn how to undo seals at least. Besides, if this girl’s breath smells as bad as the rest of her, you suspect that you’ll quickly regret having her slobber all over something you plan to carry close to your body.

Ultimately, you pull the knife away from the half-pint’s reach. Although you don’t know why it mattered to Lady Mima, she still entrusted it to you. That alone is enough to make it important to you. It’s the last thing of hers you have. Something that says she had faith in you. You’ll protect this knife with your life. No other shall touch it.

Your reply is as sharp as it is succinct, leaving zero wiggle room for argument. “No.”

“Ah?” Shorty’s jaw goes slack, then the rest of her face scrunches up in a knot of dismay. She flaps her arms about as if she could physically smack your response aside if she tried hard enough. “How come?”

“Because I said ‘no.’ Is that not enough?” You hug the knife to your chest possessively, glaring at the childish youkai. It would appear that she’s either too socially inept to realize what a boundary is, or she doesn’t care.

Her floundering intensifies, now with hopping and waddling added to the mix. The display almost reminds you of a headless chicken’s last frantic scramble. Once she finishes dancing like she has ants in her pants, she leans into a heavily exaggerated bow and dives straight into your personal space. Her head stops two inches from your bosom, nose poised directly over the knife to sniff at it greedily while her eyes tilt up at you, large and pouty. “Pleeaase?”

You recoil, lifting your foot and planting it on her stomach. Then, with a firm shove, you extend your leg and forcibly push her back to a sane distance. She whines the whole way, heels scraping against the dirt like you’re the one being unreasonable. “If you need a reason,” you say in a clipped tone, “it belonged to somebody important to me. So I don’t want people touching it.”

“Is that so?” The light drains from her eyes. It’s the sort of uncanny, expressionless look that a human would find deeply unsettling. A leer from a creature fundamentally inhuman. The gaze of a youkai.

“Yes. That is so.” Huffing out a sassy response, you figure that should have been blunt enough to settle the conversation.

It doesn’t.

The short youkai continues to stand there with her arms stiffly splayed out at her sides, staring at you as if waiting. You keep your heel firmly braced against her, just in case she attempts to violate your comfort zone again. Hopefully she’ll get the message sooner or later.

Things stay like this for a while, your eyes and hers locked onto each other in an unblinking stalemate. Honestly, how inconsiderate can a person get? You made yourself pretty clear. Why can’t she just respect your wishes? If she wants a taste of blood that bad, she could just look around for an idiotic human wandering around in the night. In fact, you should say exactly that out loud.

“You know, there are more filling meals out there than what’s on this knife,” you tell her, gesturing out toward the treeline with said knife for emphasis. She doesn’t need to know that the meager amount you hold is, in actuality, an inexhaustible supply. “Outsiders fall into Gensokyo often enough, and children are sometimes brave enough to play outside the village walls at night. How about you go hunt for one of them instead of hounding me?”

“But I don’t want to go hunting,” she says immediately, as if she’d prepared the answer. “Finding food takes time, and I’m hungry right now.”

The throbbing pain behind your eyes returns in full upon hearing that. Of course. Of course she’d actively want to make herself a nuisance to you. Irritated, you start to put your brain to work on a solution. You’re not particularly keen on having a brawl with this pounding headache of yours. Not to mention your hand is still a little sore. Maybe you should just fly away and hope she doesn’t follow.

"Vita est una longa pugna in tenebris. Una ultima media nox nos omnes exspectat. Cur resistere?"

Blinking hard, you’re taken aback as the seemingly dim girl starts spluttering in tongues. Bewildered, you react slowly, staring at her with a stupid look on your face as she grabs your ankle and-

“ACH!” The yowl erupts from the depths of your soul. The impudent gnat just bit your foot!

Acting on instinct, you yank your other leg up and begin hammering her with your heel, stamping down against the vicious piranha’s face in an attempt to dislodge her. On the fifth strike, she finally lets go, her jaw popping open as she drops to the grass. Immediately, you snatch up your injured foot in both hands with a hiss, dropping the knife into your lap for the time being.

The parasite screws up her face, spitting a small mouthful of black blood to the floor in disgust before wiping her chin clean with her sleeve. “You taste like burnt bitter ick!”

“Did you think these were for decoration?!” You flex your wings with a hateful snarl, giving them a few aggressive flaps for emphasis just to really drive the point home. “Of course I won’t taste good, you leech! I’m not human! Youkai aren’t food! Do you even have a brain?”

A small, deeply frustrated part of you momentarily considers stabbing the whelp and devising a ritual to siphon her strength into you. The thought is quickly snuffed out; you’re not nearly so malicious even while deeply annoyed. And even if you were, you don’t have the resources for a mighty and complicated incantation like that. Not yet, anyway.

The girl curls her lip at you and jumps to her feet, shoulders tensed up like she might try to lunge again. But a timely grumble from her gut drains the fight from her. Too hungry to justify attacking something that tastes gross, she sticks her tongue out at you and announces her incredibly childish opinion of you. “I don’t like you.”

Having said all that she cares to, the girl promptly engulfs herself in a bubble of pure shade. The shadowy ball is so dense that not even your dark-tuned sight can pierce it. It wobbles in place for a moment as if deciding which direction to go, then begins to drift away between the trees. You watch the sphere carefully as it wanders aimlessly into the night, finding a flicker of satisfaction in how the orb lurches a few times as the girl trips over a few of the overgrown tree roots.

Once the night is quiet again, you release the tension in your body and allow your shoulders to sag. Seems the situation has resolved itself. Not the worst conclusion, considering you're still licking your wounds from the Hakurei, and if those led to you getting beat up by some bratty runt? The thought of what Lady Mima would say makes your stomach twist.

At least you upheld your pride as Lady Mima’s servant. You successfully kept the knife from being touched. It’s a small victory, but a victory nonetheless.

Shaking your head, you turn back down to your poor foot. Your toes are covered in sharp puncture marks. You’d be forgiven for thinking it was caused by a shark. It’s a superficial injury for a youkai, something that your body will easily heal in a day or two at most, but it still hurts. The teeth marks have also shredded up your sock, and now they're stained with ichor. When you get around to finding new clothes, you should heavily consider getting some shoes.

What was I even thinking about before that little menace interrupted me? Scattered thoughts and their acquainted memories flash through your mind’s eye before landing on the answer. Oh yes. Right, right, right. Where do I start with a plan to save Lady Mima?

You press your back up against the tree and get to thinking. Since acquiring the raw power to break the seal by force is likely out of the cards, you’ll need to start with the basics. In this case, that would be an understanding of how seals work. Once you have that, you’ll be able to return to your master’s stone with much more than raw desperation. You would be able to examine the seal’s warding with an educated eye, find the seams and flaws in its defenses, and with any luck, calculate a way to exploit them. You’ll just need to find either somebody or something that can teach you about seals. That all seems doable. Probably.

As luck would have it, you have the perfect ability to get you started with the task. Your eyes focus on the constellations above. They’re a little hard to make out past the thick canopy, but their twinkles are bright tonight, allowing you to figure out everything you need to know in the comfort of your seated position.

There’s a reason Lady Mima chose you as her familiar.

You can read the meaning in things naturally chaotic. Find patterns in discord and make concrete sense of them. Sure, somebody could spend a few decades hunched over some books and come out a fortune-teller, but you were born with the knack. Divination is your specialty.

And nothing speaks more clearly than the starry night sky. It’s a guiding force for anybody who peers up at it. Always there, always wanting you to reach out. Your eyes sweep across the constellations above, scouring them with a sense greater than sight in search of a sign. Something that will tell you where to go or who to see. You’ll take anything.

The stars answer.

Your eyes fixate on a particular point overhead. There was a flicker. It would be just an innocuous pulse of light to most, barely detectable against the dazzling canvas that is the night. But you know the truth. You’re certain that was a response.

The stars shall lead to…
[ ] The edge of the Forest of Magic, a stone throw away from the Human Village.
[ ] The Garden of the Sun, smack dab in the middle of the golden sea of petals.
[ ] The base of Youkai Mountain, in a thick maze of winding trees.

[1] The base of Youkai Mountain, in a thick maze of winding trees.
[4] The Garden of the Sun, smack dab in the middle of the golden sea of petals.
[6] The edge of the Forest of Magic, a stone throw away from the Human Village.

Lady Mima’s command over magic was unrivaled, her nuanced grasp of it outclassing practitioners even up to thrice her age. More than any other arcane art, she favors incantations that rely on astral forces.

Thus, it's only natural that her familiar would be an expert on the cosmos in her own right. Your master had you commit the night sky to memory, juggle the trajectories of a dozen comets at a time, and chart the positions of planetary orbits down to the millisecond. All of these things, you performed without flaw. To you, pinpointing exactly where a lone star hangs overhead is child's play.

Focusing on the sky, you mentally pin down the star’s current position and slide the bloody knife under your stained sash. Bracing to rise, you push yourself up - then halt as soon as you place weight on your foot. Right, you'd nearly managed to forget about that already. Your headache quickly reminds you of its existence with a painful throb, giving you further pause. It would be best if you postponed your journey until you've healed these annoyances away.

So you ease back against the tree once more and stare off into the distance with a vacant gaze. As a familiar, you have no need for food or sleep; your body is entirely sustained by the magic your master first conjured you with. How her power continues to feed you with her sealed away, you're not exactly sure, but you refuse to waste time complaining about fortune.

With nothing to hunger for and nothing to dream, you let the hours drain away, your mind filling itself with heroic fantasies. The seal cracking, your master emerging from the stone, your being finally given purpose once more. In truth, these thoughts are all that keep you held together.

By the time you break yourself free from that idle spiral, it’s already midday. By your estimate, at least a day and some change has slipped by, maybe two. Damn sky always moves so fast whenever you stop paying attention to it…

Regardless, your injuries have healed and you’ve regained your presence of mind. You waste no further time, kicking off the ground and flying through the canopy into open air. Even without the exact star out to guide you now that it’s daytime, its exact location is already burned into your mind. Your eyes lock onto where it was as if the night were still there. The ensuing flight is a short one, merely leading you to the westward edge of the forest you were already slumming around in. Circling the area from above, you almost immediately spot a landmark - a shabby building with heaps of odd objects piled around its walls.

Bringing yourself in for a landing a few steps outside its front door, you cast a cursory glance over the surrounding oddities. Boxes fitted with reed-like horns and rounded glass faces, tall metal poles topped with flat shapes and bright symbols, posters showing places you don’t recognize and headed with words you can’t comfortably pronounce. You find yourself alienated, not quite able to make heads or tails of anything you’re looking at. Just about the only thing you can say about the building is that it’s called “Kourindou”, as the big painted letters over the front door spell out. Any building with a sign that broad is usually open to visitors.

Reaching for the front door and finding it unlocked, you step inside. A little bell above the frame chimes, announcing your arrival.

Shelves. Shelves everywhere. Knick-knacks, novelties, trinkets, tools, and junk galore. Every surface of the interior has something claiming it, not a single nook or cranny in sight without some bauble or curiosity tucked away within. The building is absolutely crammed full of strange, exotic things, a sizable chunk of which you have no frame of reference for.

“Welcome,” calls a dull voice at the back. Peering past the aisles, you catch sight of a rather tall man sitting behind a cluttered desk, his silver hair halfway hidden behind an open book. He barely pays you any mind, seemingly more interested in whatever passage he's reading than the fact that somebody has entered his establishment.

Looking back and forth between the countertops, tables, and shelves, each containing its own unique hoard of items, you shift in place uncomfortably. The stars heeded your request for guidance, so you know there must be something amongst these heaps that will help you understand seals. But the sheer number of objects makes the task seem overwhelming. Where would you even begin?

Perhaps the man would be a good place to start. Maybe he’s the one you’re looking for, in fact. You beeline straight for him, grateful that the floor is much clearer than the racks. At the countertop, you rap your knuckles against the wood to grab his attention. He lets out a noncommittal hum in response and keeps reading.

That simply won’t do. For Lady Mima, you need his undivided attention.

Your eyes drop, landing on a desk bell. Perfect. You start to ring it, planning on continuing until he gives you the courtesy of eye-contact.

Four dings in and he bookmarks his page with deliberate patience, sets it down, and clamps a hand over the bell to stop the racket. Finally he looks up, fixing you with a dry look. “Need help with something?”

“Seals,” you say, withdrawing your hand. “Do you know anything about how they work?”

Raising a brow, the tall man considers the question. “A little. Enough to perform basic rites, like making purification rods. There should be some texts along the back wall that detail more advanced aspects though.”

How helpful. You give a curt nod and turn on your heel, already scanning for the shelf he indicated, passing a standing mirror on the way and catching sight of yourself in it. You can’t help but do a double take.

Your hair, once shiny and smooth, is now matted and dull from days outdoors. Dirt cakes your clothes, a few seams frayed. Even your skin is paler than usual, and your eyes carry with them a manic edge. You look mangy, like a creature that crawled out of the woods - and technically, you are. Lady Mima would never tolerate her familiar looking like such a mess. But it’s not like you’ve had much choice.

After she got sealed, you’d returned to her home to figure out what to do, only for Marisa to come back that night like she owned the place. Perhaps she does, since she’d be ahead of you in your master’s inheritance, but she certainly doesn’t deserve it. With how recent the sealing was though, you couldn’t work up the nerve to confront her over what had happened. So you made yourself scarce before she had a chance to even spot you, and you’ve been living under the open sky ever since.

“Are you one of Marisa’s friends?”

The pointed question snaps you back to reality. Flinching, you twist around. The man watches you from his seated position, feigning a disinterested expression. “You’re wearing her old dress.”

“No,” you bite out before you have a chance to compose yourself. Glancing down at the purple dress you’re wearing, you give it a few aggressive swipes, as if doing so could scrub away your relation to its owner. You’d rather choke than admit she gave it to you. “I… found it dumped on the side of the road.”

The light catches his lenses, obscuring his reaction. You can’t tell if he believes you, or if he’s simply choosing not to argue. “Sounds like her. Guess I should’ve expected something like that after she asked me to tailor her something new.”

He knows her? Suddenly wary of the man, you keep him in the corner of your vision as you turn to face the nearest bookshelf. “She sounds quite belligerent.”

“Sometimes.” He maintains his line of sight to you. “She still hasn’t paid me for the new clothes yet. Or for what you’re wearing, as a matter of fact.”

Purification rods, tailor work, and loads of foreign junk. This must be a service and curiosity shop. You’d have deduced as much sooner, if only the shop’s inventory had any prices listed anywhere.

Prices… Repeating that word mentally suddenly makes you realize that you’ve got a problem. How am I going to purchase any of these texts without money?

You’ve never needed currency. Your needs were always fully provided for by Lady Mima. Your days were spent in service to her whims and studies. Up until now, you haven’t exactly had the need or time to earn any cash, nor would you even know where to start doing so.

Banishing the conundrum to the back of your mind for the time being, you crouch down at the base of a bookshelf. You can worry about it later. For now, you need to find what you're looking for. You start to pass your fingers over various covers and scroll heads, eyes dancing over title after title. “The complete works of Saigyo Hoshi.” “Tale of the Bamboo Cutter.” Is this shelf nothing but fiction?

“Do you have a name?” The man’s question suddenly makes you wish you hadn’t been so incessant with that bell a moment ago. First he barely acknowledges you, now he won’t stop giving you his attention.

“Scryer…” The word mindlessly slips past your lips as your fingers distractedly flitter across book spines and tightly packed papers. What’s this rolled up here? “Bunbunmaru Newspaper, Season 117, Natsugi Issue #2.” Why would anybody keep old trash like this?

A beat of silence passes. Then, he speaks again, this time in a slightly incredulous tone. “That’s your name?”

“I-” You blink, hand freezing in place.

What did you just say? You were so focused on the task at hand, you weren't even thinking. Replaying the exchange in your head, you realize your mistake. You’re used to being called Scryer since it’s what Lady Mima referred to you as more often than not. You like to think it was a term of endearment. However, it’s not your name, just the role you performed for her.

Shaking your head, you return your attention to the shelf and clarify your response.

[?] What is the familiar’s true name?

-=ALSO=-

Once you find a text on seals…
[ ] Offer your labor in exchange. You were made to be given tasks. Nothing the shopkeeper could ask of you will be more difficult than what you’re used to.
[ ] Snatch it and bolt! Who cares if you make an enemy? You can’t pay for it, and you don’t have the patience to put off aiding Lady Mima until you can.
[?] (Write-in)

The familiar’s name is:
[1] Ai
[5] Koboshi - “Little Star”
-[3] "Gall Darn B. 'Tain't None." As in "'Tain't None of Your Gall Darn Beeswax! ...The Third."
-[3] Rin Satsuki

Once you find a text on seals…
[1] Kill the man and take the text! You don’t have the money to pay for it and neither do you have the patience to put off saving Mima by doing labor for him.
[6] Snatch it and bolt! Who cares if you make an enemy? You can’t pay for it, and you don’t have the patience to put off aiding Lady Mima until you can.
[7] Offer your labor in exchange. You were made to be given tasks. Nothing the shopkeeper could ask of you will be more difficult than what you’re used to.

Why should you tell him that information? Frankly, it’s invasive. As a customer browsing his establishment for the first time, the shopkeeper has no right asking you for any of your personal details. Now, if you were a regular or presented yourself as a particularly chatty sort, then it would be more warranted. But you didn’t.

And what reason would he have to ask, anyway? Is he being sociable, or does he have an ulterior motive? Admittedly, it’s a little paranoid of you, but you can’t help feeling suspicious that he asked right after probing you about your relationship to Marisa. Will he mention you during their next conversation? Possible, but that assumes a lot about how close they are. Marisa never mentioned knowing any shopkeepers to you, but then again, she never spoke much about her past or life outside of Lady Mima.

Overall, you’re not keen on telling this man your name. In fact, you’ve just decided that your true name is something only Lady Mima has any right to know.

How did it go again? Gall Darn… B? Whatever. The idea of shaming him with a very witty and incredibly scathing quip dies before it has a chance to live. So instead, you simply shoot him a squinting frown. “It’s the only name you’re getting.”

He doesn’t pry any further. He gives a brief hum and reopens his tome to the page he’d bookmarked, like you were no more than a passing interruption. Good. At least some people know how to take a hint when they’re told ‘no.’

Now then, back to business. You return your attention to the shelf and hunt for anything of relevance. Books on books. Scrolls wedged in tight stacks. None of it is organized. Historic texts packed next to a children’s story, a western mystery novel propped up against an autobiography, it’s all one big unruly pile of noise.

Disorganized messes like this are exactly the sort of thing you worked hard to prevent before they got out of hand. Lady Mima wasn’t so bad to clean up after, but her apprentice had a hobby of multiplying clutter, and therefore, your workload. This shop’s disarray is starting to remind you a lot of Marisa’s room.

You spend a long time scanning the bookshelf, only to come up empty handed. Letting out an exasperated breath, you shift toward the next bookshelf. It's as messy as the last, and you can't keep your eye from twitching. However, you have no choice but to continue looking. Taking a deep breath, you begin your search anew.

Time blurs as you dedicate yourself to the repetitive search. Scan, check, dismiss. Your thoughts drain away and your body runs on routine. It’s a state of mind you find yourself in a lot when performing tasks and duties. You’ve always found it easy to lose yourself in your own head. It’s a very useful trait for a familiar to have, given that most of your days consist of performing monotonous busywork.

Hold on. What was that?

You dredge your mind back to the current moment. This is perhaps the seventh shelf you’ve stopped at. Your finger is currently pressing atop a scroll, your body having noticed its significance before your brain. It bears the mark of the Hakurei Shrine. Promising. You pull it free from where it’s wedged and yank it open. The paper is old, as is the scroll’s casing - probably a few generations at least - but the brushwork is crisp. It details the form and function of a seal much like the kind your master is being imprisoned by.

Your wings stiffen with excitement. This is a jackpot. No, this is more than a jackpot, it’s the mother lode. A scroll illustrating and walking its reader through not just any seal, but one specifically used by the Hakurei bloodline? You couldn’t have asked for better!

Then it hits you. That problem you pushed off? It’s reared its head back already. You can’t pay for this, you don’t have any money.

Naturally, your first instinct is to scram. Lady Mima always said it was foolish not to seize power placed within arms reach. She was remorseless when it came to taking what she wanted. If she cared not for the opinions of peons, neither should you. And yet, your grip on the scroll tightens, your feet immobile. Despite knowing that it’s what your master and her apprentice would do, you hesitate to steal the scroll you so desperately need.

Because unlike your master and her apprentice, you simply aren’t strong. You know many rituals, but have never cast a spell. You have fangs, but have never brandished them at another. You are a familiar, not a combatant. If Lady Mima or Marisa ever drew heat for their actions, they could fend for themselves. Can you say the same? If your run-in with the Hakurei proved anything, it’s that you can’t. So if the shopkeeper were to report that you stole this scroll, would you be able to stop a youkai exterminator from hunting you down and taking it back?

Reluctantly, you roll the scroll back into its casing, then walk past dozens of shelves before tapping at the desk bell once more. The man uncovers his face from behind the pages of his book, hand poised to swipe the bell away in case you start avidly ringing it again. Seeing that you don’t, however, he slowly retracts his hand. “Find something you want?”

“I did.” You place the scroll atop the desk.

Picking it up and giving it an appraising glance, the shopkeeper hums thoughtfully. “A sacred Hakurei scroll of youkai sealing. Interesting choice of purchase coming from a youkai.” He adjusts his glasses. “This came in not long ago. Reimu was selling off things that were collecting dust around the shrine.”

Although you don’t really care how or why the scroll ended up here, it still strikes you as particularly foolish that the Hakurei would exchange such an important text for some quick cash. You could never imagine doing the same. “I’m short on funds at the moment. I don’t suppose you’d accept any sort of alternative payment?”

He pauses mid-thought, though he doesn’t appear surprised to hear that, as if it’s a line he gets regularly. “It’s no problem, I’m always accepting trades.”

A trade? You’ve got nothing but the clothes on your back and Lady Mima’s knife, neither of which you’re willing to hand over. “Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of performing a service in exchange.”

“You’re offering to work a debt off?” The shopkeeper stares at you scrutinously for a second or two. “How am I supposed to put you to work if you won’t even tell me your name?”

Your face scrunches up as if you’d just bitten into something sour. Is he still on that? Unbelievable. “Isn’t Scryer enough? Why does it matter to you?”

“I like to know the names of things,” he replies with a nonchalant shrug. A moment longer passes before it’s clear that he has little other reason than simply being nosy.

He wants a name? Fine, he can have one. Memories flash through your mind of faces you’ve met in search of a name you can borrow. Your first thought is Elis, but borrowing a name from your extended family feels distasteful. Elly comes to mind next, but depending on how close the shopkeeper is to Marisa, he might recognize it. Then you recall a kirin you met in passing not long ago. She seemed like a rather forgettable person to you, ideal for your purposes. What was her name again?

“...Rin,” you say at last, managing to draw it out from the depths of your memory. “My name is Rin and I’m a scryer. Rin the scryer.”

In response to your very thoroughly crafted identity, the man stares at you stone-faced. “Your name is Rin?”

“Yes, that’s right. Is there something wrong with that?” A disgruntled growl rises from your throat. Why’s he so suspicious of your identity? Who does this guy think he is, the yama? Is he going to ask for your birthday, age, and star sign next? He should have zero reason for doubt. Not like he knows the name of things on sight.

Koboshi. That’s what Lady Mima had dubbed you upon your summoning, then proceeded to almost exclusively call you Scryer afterward. You existed before being contracted to her service, of course, but you held no identity back then. Now you’re “Rin,” which is a whole new name to start getting used to. All these thoughts about your name are starting to make your head spin a little. With any luck, you’ll be rescuing your master shortly and won’t have to spread it around much past this encounter.

“No, nothing wrong with it. Just so you know, I’m Rinnosuke Morichika.” He properly introduces himself, even though you don’t recall asking to know. Silently, you elect to continue thinking of him only as ‘the man’ or ‘the shopkeeper,’ since you don’t respect him enough to remember him by anything else.

“Well, I suppose I could think of something for you to do.” Looking around the shop for a moment, he rubs at his chin thoughtfully. “Are you any good at cleaning? The shop could use some tidying.”

“I’m great at cleaning.” An understatement, really. You’ve had to tidy up many elaborately designed rituals and pick up after a particularly clutter-making witch. That level of experience brings with it a black-belt in dusting and sorting.

“Alright, it’s a deal. Once you’ve sorted the place out, you can have your scroll.” The man nods, taking the scroll and stowing it away beneath his desk. Satisfied with the exchange, he picks his book up and starts reading where he left off.

Perfect. A clean this-for-that with minimal squabbling. As small an achievement as it is, you allow yourself to feel a twinge of pride. You’ve always preferred to take a backseat and let your superiors do the talking, so the fact that you’ve brokered such a beneficial deal for yourself has you feeling just a little bit more confident in your capabilities.

Turning around to face the storeroom floor, you immediately begin to enter task mode. Your mind fuzzies up, conscious thought taking a back seat as you begin passively making observations and running calculations. The sheer volume of variety in the shop’s inventory makes it plainly evident that organizing the place won’t be easy. You’ll have to map out the layout of the room, allocate each aisle to carry a broad range of items, examine each item to identify its purpose, then designate where those items should be slotted away, all while making it look nice and presentable.

You’ve already made a few laps of the shop’s grounds, mentally drawing a blueprint of the shop’s interior, how much total shelf space is available, and drafting up ideas for which aisles could be dedicated to what sort of items. A total renovation feels like it’s in order, moving where all the tables and shelves are to make the shop much easier to navigate and give the shopkeeper better visibility of his customers. Common items should go to the front, where people will quickly spot them, where rarer curiosities should be to the back, so that-

“Closing time,” the man announces, completely destroying your flow state.

Snapping to attention, you look over to see him standing from his desk. He looks around for all of one second before leveling an unimpressed cliff face at you. “It’s been hours and you haven’t done anything yet.”

Feeling your face heat up slightly, you shoot him an indignant pout. “I was getting to it. Have you seen this place? I can’t just get started without a plan. There’s a process to these kinds of things.”

“Well, that process will have to wait until tomorrow then.” Shrugging, your temporary employer walks around the desk and toward the front door. Flipping over a window sign to indicate that the store is now closed, he opens the door and gestures for you to vacate. “Time for you to go home. I open shop at eight in the morning.”

“Can’t I just work through the night?” That would be ideal. Without need for food or rest, you’re perfectly able to perform labor for days on end, a fact that Lady Mima took advantage of quite often.

However, from the blank stare you’re currently receiving, you get the distinct impression that the shopkeeper isn’t nearly as much a fan of the idea as your master was. “I’m not going to let a stranger run around my shop all night without supervision.”

Oh. Yes, that’s actually a very sensible thing for him to say. Pressing your lips into a thin line, you reluctantly begin to waddle to the front of the store and out the door. It’s currently dusk, you note, the last vestiges of daylight slowly receding beneath the horizon. The early summer air is still warm, but that will change as soon as the moon takes its place in the sky.

“Have a good night, Rin.” He waits a moment to see if you’ll respond in kind. You don’t. After a short bit, Kourindou’s door is shut behind you and locked. Looking over your shoulder, you catch sight of its owner retreating back to his desk through the door’s window.

Well then. This is inconvenient.

Pulling your wings back over your torso like a blanket, you let out a disappointed breath. It’s irritating to have had your task cut short like that, but you can’t exactly argue with his reasoning. You begin to walk away from the establishment, but soon come to a stop since you don’t really have anywhere to go. Being homeless sure isn’t fun. You liked it when you could take warm baths and had clean clothes.

Some time slips by your notice as you mull over your unfortunate circumstances, simply standing a short distance from the building as night takes its hold in the sky. Since you’ll be put to work again in the morning, you might as well keep your mind active instead of whiling the hours away like a statue.

[ ] Keep the momentum going. You’ve already memorized the store’s interior and made the beginnings of a renovation plan, so why stop just because you’re outside? The more prepared you are, the faster you can get the job done.

[ ] Perform a ritual. Having assisted Lady Mima set up many of her own, you’ve got a few cataloged in your mind.
-[ ] Identify the bloody knife. You’re certain that it’s important, so learning anything about it would be helpful.
-[ ] Amplify a star scry. It takes time to set up, but you can enhance the amount of knowledge you glean from the stars. (Pick One Scrying Option)

[ ] Scry the stars. Even though you’ll have the scroll soon, it wouldn’t hurt to turn to them for a little extra guidance. (Pick Two)
-[ ] Search for warnings. Knowing upcoming dangers ahead of time could be very helpful in avoiding them entirely.
-[ ] Search for allies. You’re short on friends at the moment and freeing Lady Mima is a big task to handle by your lonesome.
-[ ] Search for clarity. Having confirmation on what you are and aren’t doing right would ease any nagging uncertainties.

[2] Scry the stars in search of warnings & allies.
[4] Perform a ritual that identifies the bloody knife.
[5] Keep the momentum going.

It crosses your mind to gather some intel from the stars for where you may find potential allies, or receive a warning of upcoming challenges in store for you. A more appealing idea still is to set up a ritual that will divine the bloody knife’s significance. However, none of these thoughts stick.

What use is any of that knowledge when the only thing that matters is freeing Lady Mima? The moment you have that scroll in your possession is the moment your master can be freed. Avoiding obstacles, finding friends, and unraveling the knife will only slow down the whole process. The first two will be irrelevant once your goal is accomplished. And the third? You’ll be able to ask Lady Mima herself by then.

As such, your one and only priority should be to continue ironing out all the details of Kourindou’s renovation. This is an essential step to your ultimate goal, so you should put in as much effort and dedication as you would for any task your master gave you. And besides, whether the shopkeeper knows what you are or not, your work still reflects on you as a servant. You have your pride to uphold.

You pull out the bloody knife and crouch over a patch of bare soil. Using the tip, you begin to draw the interior as you memorized it - shelves, tables, choke points, sightlines. The blade gouges the dirt cleanly, and wherever it passes, a red smear is left behind. It’s a mindless task, one that you perform rather quickly. Once satisfied, you shuffle over and begin anew, this time drawing the version of the shop you actually want. Tables relocated, aisles widened, sections assigned. A layout with some logic to it.

As you finish the second diagram and give it a passing appraisal, you realize something. What about the outside? The yard is littered with all sorts of odd junk. You turn back to the storefront, lips pursed. Might as well begin organizing what you can while you’re here. Immediately, you begin to count up all the glass-faced boxes scattered around, since they’re the most abundant.

One, two, three- that one’s larger than the others. Four, five, why does that one have a handle on the front? Is it supposed to be a cupboard? A startled gasp from behind said handled box makes you freeze mid-tally. A pair of eyes glint at you in the dark. Before you know what to think, the runt that bit you leaps out from her hiding place and runs for the treeline, disappearing into the night.

It takes you a moment to process what just happened. It appears like the little dope was spying on you and assumed you had spotted her. Did she follow you here? Or was this encounter pure coincidence? Either way, she’s gone now, and you’re already committed to spending the night refining tomorrow’s operation, so you decide not to let it derail you.

Still, I’ll have to remember to keep an eye out for her. Frowning warily, you get back to counting the boxes.

Your arms ache with a dull pain from the repeated strain of lifting. Wrestling another box against your chest, you heft it up with a breathy huff and flap your wings, ascending to the top of the stack you’ve been assembling all night. When you reach the summit, you set it down as gently as you can manage, breathing a sigh of relief as it thunks firmly in place.

As you’ve discovered through trial and error, the boxes with handles are lighter, containing naught but empty space and glass dishes within. The boxes with rounded, opaque glass fronts, however, are hefty enough to make you strain. Thankfully, being a weak youkai is still above the baseline. You’re a peg above a human, physically, so turning the yard into a series of tall, organized piles was tedious, but not difficult.

“Have you been moving those around all night?” A voice calls from below.

Peering down, you see that it’s the shopkeeper, his body half-peeked out from the front door of his establishment, visibly surprised to see the progress you made. Glancing up at the sky, you’re pleased to find that it’s started to pale. Morning already. Good. Time to get back to work on the interior now.

“Not all night,” you answer, pointing toward the set of blueprints you drew in the dirt. “Only after planning the interior. Two-thirds of the night at most.” Drifting to the ground, you land at the base of the stacks you assembled. “What are these, anyway?”

“Mostly televisions and microwaves,” the owner replies, stepping out fully to give your handiwork a passing glance. You don’t know what either of those words mean. You decide you don’t care, either. They’re organized now, which is what matters.

He then turns to give the diagrams in the dirt a brief glance, and you watch his face closely for any showing of approval. However, his prior look of surprise turns to an expression of practiced disinterest, which is disappointing. He examines the layout you’ve drawn for a long moment, silently processing the extent of your plans.

“Doesn’t this seem a little involved for a quick clean?” Raising a hand to his chin, he hums for a moment. “And aren’t you tired by now?”

“Not at all.” You answer both questions at once. “I never slack when given a task, and I won’t rest until I have the scroll.”

He looks back at you with a bemused sort of scrutiny. Then, he gestures vaguely at you. “You didn’t want to go home and wash up? Or at least throw on a new set of clothes? You’re filthy.”

Heat rises up your face, ashamed to be reminded of just how horrendous a mess you look at the moment. Not wanting to admit that you’re homeless to your temporary employer though, you come up with a quick excuse. “It… didn’t seem to bother you yesterday.”

The shopkeeper stares at you blankly. He holds that face for a long stretch too, the silence lengthening until it becomes heavy. You fidget awkwardly in place, face heating up further. He’s figured it out, hasn't he?

“Alright,” he eventually says. Stepping back, he holds the door open for you to enter. “If you're so ready to start, go ahead.”

Forcing yourself to recompose, you hurriedly scurry into the storefront with as much dignity as you can gather, eager to forget the exchange ever even happened by drowning yourself in work. Taking in a deep breath as you look over the hurricane of an interior, you steel yourself and waste no further time getting to it.

At the nearest shelf, you begin pulling items down and placing them on the floor in organized clusters. You don’t know what most of them are, but recognition isn’t required for this part. You’ll cross that bridge later when you actually have to put them back. As the shelf empties, you quickly realize that the situation is worse than you had previously thought. Behind each trinket is another oddity. Beneath each oddity is another. It feels like digging your arm into a trash bin that never reaches the bottom. No matter how much you remove, there’s always more.

Still, eventually, you clear one full shelf. Its contents sit on the floor in a pattern only you can read. To anyone else it would look like chaos, but you’ve always been good with numbers and lists, so holding an inventory in your head is easy. You reach for the shelf, preparing to lift it and relocate it according to your plan, then pause. The space you intended for it to go is occupied by a table. A table covered in junk itself.

Well, no matter. That one had to be dealt with sooner or later too. You strip the table next, setting its items down in their own clusters. When it’s finally bare, you grab it- and immediately realize you have nowhere to move it without blocking something else.

In hindsight, it was silly of you not to realize this would be a problem.

You suppose that putting some of these tables and such outside until further notice would solve this inconvenience. But if you’re going to do that, you might as well do so with a larger amount of furniture, so that you can make a lot of room inside the shop all at once. So you keep going. Tables. Shelfs. Cupboards. Cabinets. You empty them and lay their contents on the floor until the store becomes a sea of categorized clutter. You get completely lost in the task, your brain practically turning off as you work on autopilot.

“Closing time,” the shopkeeper calls out, snapping you free from your flow state the same way he did yesterday. Looking over to see him standing closer than expected, you flinch. The man looks at the floor, eyes taking in the spread of merchandise now strewn all over his shop’s floor. “All you’ve done so far is make a bigger mess.”

You scrunch your face and huff, offended on principle. “With how much stuff you have and how little space there is, it’s going to take time. You have to trust the process.”

“Your process is a tripping hazard,” he drawls, unimpressed.

Annoying. But he’s not wrong, you suppose. Did anybody even come into his shop today? You were so focused, you had tuned out everything that wasn’t cleaning. Probably not, or else somebody would’ve complained to you about it.

He exhales, then continues, moving away from his earlier dry tone. “Anyway. Aren’t you hungry? I feel obligated to offer you something. You’ve been working all day long without a break.”

“Not really,” you say, scanning the shop one last time and mentally bookmarking what needs to happen next. The forced stopping is maddening. If you could work through the night, you’d halve the time it’d take to finish everything.

He watches you for a long moment, as if uncertain what to make of you. “Rin, you really should eat something. And sleep too.”

Lips twitching downward, you shoot the man an annoyed squint. How many times do you need to tell him that you aren’t hungry or tired? You’re fine. Why does it even matter to him? He’s not your mother. “Your concern is noted, but I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself.”

“By ‘taking care of yourself’ do you mean spending all night outside the store again?”

His question hits you like a slap to the face. Your jaw drops. You don’t know whether to feel insulted or embarrassed for getting called out. Thoughts tangled between the two, you try to force out an intelligent response. “I- wh-...!”

“I won’t stop you from doing that,” he informs you. “But I’m about to start cooking dinner. You’re welcome to join if you want.” The tall man nods, expression unreadable. And if that weren’t audacious enough, he adds one last thing. “There’s probably a sleeping bag somewhere too. You can use it for the night.”

Where is this coming from?!

Brain fried, you take a long time to say anything, needing to regather all the marbles his words scattered around your head. You’re suddenly unsure if you’re lucid or not. Once you have a semblance of yourself again, you take a step back from him and grimace. “What kind of person invites a youkai to dinner? Youkai eat people.”

“If I were worried about that, do you think I’d have set up shop so far out from the village?” The man shrugs, fearless.

“Yeah, well,” you mutter, turning away and gripping at the hem of your dress, beginning to fidget with the cloth between your fingers. “Trying to be nice to one will still probably get you killed. Idiot.”

Your mind churns. What’s this guy’s angle? It’s weird that he’s asking you to stay for dinner, right? You two just met. It’s definitely weird. Unless…

Does he pity you?

The thought makes your stomach drop as if you’d chugged a glass of cold water. A wash of ugly feelings spread through your chest. It’s humiliating. Utterly pathetic. Lady Mima’s faithful servant, reduced to the sort of sight that earns handouts. The blow to your pride makes you shrivel.

[ ] Accept the offer. Much as it shames you to do so, there are benefits.
-[ ] Be ambitious. Maybe you can convince him to let you clean the store through the night.
-[ ] Be curious. It’s a good opportunity to scope him out and learn how close he is to Marisa.
-[ ] (Write-in)

[ ] Reject the offer. Aside from pure principle, you have reasons to refuse.
-[ ] Be cautious. Getting close to him will raise the likelihood of an encounter with Marisa.
-[ ] Be prideful. Lady Mima didn’t raise a bum for a familiar.
-[ ] (Write-in)

Giving the checker patterned ball in your hands an experimental squeeze, you find that it has some give to it. Firm, but yielding at the same time. You purse your lips, struggling to imagine what nonsense it could be used for. So you do what you’ve done with every other baffling object you’ve unearthed.

“Morichika!” You hold the ball overhead so that Rinnosuke can get a better view of it from behind the counter.

He looks up from the same book he’s been nursing for days. No, a week. Maybe. You think it's been around that long, at least. Time has been pretty slippery around the edges for you, as always.

You’ve had plenty to occupy you, and the quality of your work speaks for itself. Kourindou is unrecognizable. Everything is packed away with deliberate order, walkways are clear and wide enough to cross without snagging a sleeve, and shelves are arranged so that even a halfwit could find what they wanted in minutes. You've carved a path through a decade of hoarding and have brought it to resemble a functioning storefront. Pretty good job, if you say so yourself.

All that’s left are a few straggling odds and ends in an arranged cluster.

“Soccer ball,” he informs you succinctly. “It’s used for a popular game on the outside. It’s similar to kemari, I think.”

As you’ve recently discovered, his knowledge of his own junk borders on encyclopedic. Always delivered in that same mild tone whether he’s naming a toy or a weapon, too. You still don’t understand how he can know so much about things that don’t exist anywhere else in Gensokyo, but it’s been convenient. His trivia has saved you hours of guessing and compromise.

You nod, and the ball goes where it belongs - over with the other outside toys. Swiftly flying over the shelves, you drop the ball in place. In seconds, you’re already back to grab the next object.

Next, you snatch up something shaped like a tiny pagoda, small enough to fit in one hand. A lamp, maybe? Except there’s a jewel-like core glowing steadily inside a glass bulb. You tilt it, trying to find an opening or a seam to turn it off or dim it, but it seems like a self-contained system. Charming, the sort of thing that would make for a perfect night light.

Sensing a magical charge to its shining light, like a sealed ember of power. Without bothering to ask, you carry it to the shelf you’ve designated for miscellaneous magical artifacts and set it neatly among the rest. Then you return to the last few items, fingers already hunting.

Snagging a book, you flip it over and immediately grimace. Bite marks dimple the leather binding. The spine and title both have been chewed into illegibility by some idiot with teeth and no sense. Gross. You open it to a random page, squinting at the print.

‘...et dixerunt: Venite, aedificemus nobismetipsis civitatem et turrem, cuius caput erit usque ad caelum,-’

Utter gibberish. You haven’t sorted anything in this language yet. Clapping the cover shut, you hold it up high. “Morichika!”

“The Book of Genesis. In Latin,” he answers instantly. “It’s a religious text.”

Perfect, you know exactly where to put it, then. Gliding across the room, you slip the damaged book into a bookshelf of other religiously significant texts. You’ve sorted a few other Hakurei scrolls here as well, but as far as you were able to tell, none of them relate to seals. Only the one you’re already working for.

Finally, the last few items lay before you. Your hand closes over a tangle of leatherwork: boots, a knife sheath, a belt, a shoulder satchel, and beneath it all, a purple-

You blink. It’s a replica of the dress you’re wearing, freshly tailored. Slowly you look up. Rinnosuke is already staring at you, like he’s been waiting for this reaction.

“Don’t bother putting those away,” he says, waving a hand as though shooing off your confusion. “They’re for you.”

“What?” You stare at him blankly.

He made you new clothes? Why would he do that? You had a deal, didn’t you? Clean the shop and you get the scroll. There was never any mention of new attire in exchange for anything. Do you owe him now? Or is this just more pity and charity?

You don’t know, but it makes your chest tense up inside to think about. This stupid, foolish shopkeeper really is too kind for his own good. You have no idea how he’s survived for any amount of time outside the Human Village.

“Try them on,” he says casually, gesturing for you to step into the back. “I made space for your wings, so it should be easy to put on and take off.”

Looking down at the dress, you flush. He actually did. You’ve never had anything made for you like this before. Not with that sort of thoughtfulness put into it. But if he expects you to repay him for this, he’s got another thing coming. You’re out of here as soon as that scroll is in your hands.

Regardless, you shuffle across the store grounds and into the back to change. Once you’re fully dressed in the new wear, you take a look at yourself in one of the many, various mirrors littered around the place. Your skin is still pale, but the clean clothes make you appear significantly more put together. You’d go as far as to say you no longer look mangy.

The fabric used for the dress itself is a little rugged, but intentionally so, to make it more durable than the original was. It’s longer too, reaching down to your shins, whereas Marisa’s original rested above your knees due to being too small on you. The boots are a nice addition to your kit, considering how much time you’re expecting to stay outdoors yet still. The knife holster is very convenient, a vast improvement over simply pinning it with a sash and staining everything you’re wearing. And the satchel, while not exactly providing a lot of carrying space, is still helpful for storing anything you don’t want to carry around by hand.

How did he get your measurements? You don’t recall him ever asking. What, did he take a tape measure to you while you were distracted with work? Actually, now that you think about it, that might be exactly what happened. You’re not exactly the most observant when in a flow state. You’re not even sure if a single person has come into the shop during your time cleaning. Presumably, but you were so distracted that you didn’t even notice for sure.

Your gaze falls down upon the original dress and sash, marred with dirt, blood, and torn seams. Part of you wants to toss it away now that you’ve got a new set, an act of spite against that ingrate of a witch. Another part of you wants to repay the man by returning the old garments to the shopkeeper. Yet, the part of you that wins out in the end is to fold them up and stuff them away in the satchel. You’re not sure why you do so, you hate that stupid dress and its original owner, but…

…Anyway.

You step back into the front room, keeping your gaze angled downward so you don’t have to meet Rinnosuke’s eyes when he looks you over.

“Like it?” he asks.

“Um.” For a moment you forget how language works. Once your thoughts catch up, you choose to downplay your response. Wouldn’t want him thinking this was enough to earn him any favors. “I don’t hate it. You could’ve asked if I wanted a different color.”

“You were busy at the time,” he replies, half-jokingly. “Everything fits, right?”

Your chest tightens again. You really don’t want to stand here bowing your head and murmuring thanks any longer than you have to. You don’t like the feeling of owing anyone anything, except of course, Lady Mima, since she gave you everything.

So instead of answering him properly, your gaze darts to the space behind his desk, settling on the object of your desires. Just seeing it makes something hungry and anxious bloom in your stomach. It’s so close. Practically within reach. “Can I just have the scroll already?”

Rinnosuke exhales through his nose. His expression stays rigid, but the sound carries a faint, fond resignation to it, like this is exactly what he expected from you. He reaches down, drags his hand along the scroll’s casing as if wiping dust that isn’t there, and holds it out casually by one end. “You’ve earned it, Rin.”

Your throat suddenly feels dry. Fingers twitching, you move faster than you ever have before and swipe the sacred text from him. Looking down at it, you can’t help but grin manically. Pins and needles run across your whole body from the excitement. A giddy laughter bubbles up from your throat.

You have the scroll at last!

Without further delay, you yank it open and behold its contents. The diagrams held within are complicated, but you’re certain that with enough time to read them over, you’ll start to understand them. Rinnosuke says something, but his voice is muffled and unclear to your ears. All you can think about is studying the scroll.

Absentmindedly plodding off toward a nearby bench, you sit yourself down and begin to read.

I may have bitten off more than I can chew. You grimace, eyes sagging as you attempt to reread the text for the seventy-fifth time. It annoys you that you’re so good with numbers that you’ve been able to subconsciously keep track of your failed attempts like that.

The scroll hasn’t been very helpful. You’ve yet to learn anything about seals that you didn’t already know, which was already not very much. It’s not a fault of the text either, it’s actually very comprehensive as far as you can tell. No, the problem is you.

This is an advanced text. Detailed in it are terms, rites, and methods of spiritual practice that you’ve never heard of before, yet the scroll expects you to have an intimate and deep understanding of. It’s like trying to teach trigonometry to somebody that’s barely learned how to multiply. You’d probably have better luck trying to figure out what that gibberish genesis book said than cracking the scroll’s secrets.

Starting from the beginning, you gloss over some of the primary information. So ofuda are talismans imbued with the essence of an enshrined god, acting as a medium through which a shrine maiden can access their shrine’s power. Easy enough, I get that much. There are tons of different types of ofuda, and the exact ones needed for this particular youkai seal are-

You stare at the examples given, intricate scrawls laid out across several different talismans, each using different materials for the ofuda and different designs for the inlaid seals without any explanation. The scroll simply assumes you know what these specific ofuda are meant to do. If you were a shrine maiden, perhaps it’d be elementary. But you have no idea what the significance is.

Sure, you can probably make the seals depicted, but when your goal is to pick out the weaknesses of its design and exploit them, it’s pretty important to know how and why it operates the way it does. From personal experience, you can perform a magical ritual without knowing why certain glyphs are required in certain places, but if you want to alter or make a ritual of your own, knowing the underlying operations is an integral part of the process.

Already you’re stuck, and you haven’t even made it past the first few lines. You attempt to continue reading anyway, your eyes falling upon an illustration of a sealing ritual. So those get arranged like that to maximize the purification process. That happens because… Reasons.

Moving on again, you examine an illustration of a shrine maiden performing a waving gesture with their purification rod. Once the purification starts, apply some more specialized ofuda and perform this specific rite to create a spiritual boundary that… I don’t get it.

Another failed attempt at trying to decipher the scroll’s secrets. In denial, you reset your gaze up to the top and begin your seventy-sixth reading, praying that you missed some obvious detail that will cause everything to make sense.

“Rin.”

You jerk hard enough to jolt the bench. Rinnosuke’s fingers nudge your hands, and you snap the scroll shut reflexively like it’s something illicit. You glare up at him with a wild look, frustration boiling hot and fast. Can’t he see you’re busy?

“What?” you snap. “What is it? What do you want?”

Rinnosuke looks down at you, then up at the window behind you. “Are you okay? You’ve been reading all night.”

Reeling your head around, you see that morning light has indeed begun to filter through the blinds. You started reading before closing time yesterday, at least. Has it really been that long? You’ve literally been reading from dusk ‘till dawn and you still don’t have the foggiest idea of how to use the stupid scroll to free your master?

Your eye twitches. “I’m fine.”

Unconvinced by your near-snarl of a tone, he returns his attention to you. He wears an openly concerned frown. “You seem upset,” he observes, incredibly.

What am I still doing here? I already got what I wanted out of this buffoon. I don’t have to tolerate his incessance anymore. Letting out an irritated grunt, you rise to your feet and roughly shove the scroll away in your satchel. “Thank you for the scroll. I’ll be on my way now.”

Without regard or acknowledgement for his concern, you turn on your heel and begin marching out the door. Rinnosuke doesn’t make any protest or motion to stop you. Good.

Outside, the summer morning air hits your face. You flare your wings out and shoot forward, putting distance between yourself and the shop as quickly as possible. You fly with no destination, only momentum, your thoughts gnawing at you. All that work, and for what? A useless scroll.

No, wait. It’s not what’s useless. You are.

If only you had been smarter and less impulsive, actually making an attempt to read the damned thing thoroughly before betting all your chips on it.

If only you had been more impulsive and dumber, choosing to bolt out of the shop the moment you found it so you’d have learned the truth of the scroll sooner.

If only you hadn’t wasted all your time working so hard for something you can’t use, putting so much effort into a task that’s resulted in jack all.

Head swirling with similarly degrading thoughts of self-loathing and frustration, you clench your fists and come to a halt in the sky over the Forest of Magic. After all that, you’re back to square one. The stars aren’t even out for you to consult for guidance. Stupid morning.

Glaring hatefully at the sky for daring to hide the stars from you- You pause. Confusion momentarily superseding your anger, you return to your senses and look around. The clouds look... wrong.

Red.

Not sunrise-red either. This is a heavy, stained crimson. An overcast smog that paints the land below in dim scarlet. Low-hanging mist spills from the underside of the clouds and drifts downward in slow sheets, pooling over the forest and curling through the air. Gensokyo lies muted and dark beneath it, the sun blotted out behind that strange shade.

This seems rather odd. Across the several years you’ve spent in this land, you’ve never heard about any sort of phenomena like this occurring. Searching for a rational explanation, your eyes track the clouds to where they are thickest, quickly noting that they seem to be pluming out from a particular point near Misty Lake.

That doesn’t look natural at all. Is somebody causing an incident?

Great, just your luck. Somebody’s blotting out the sky. After your massive failure with the scroll, you want to get started on your next step pronto. Yet, you haven’t the faintest idea where to go or what to do from here. You need to search the stars for answers. If these clouds last until nightfall, though, then how are you supposed to scry them for guidance?

Then again, perhaps this is actually an opportunity. It's a hasty assumption that this unnatural overcast will last so long, since the Hakurei will surely set about ending this post-haste. She’s always been very proactive about incident resolution, always on the scene the moment trouble is brewing.

And if the Hakurei is on the move, you can…

[ ] Head to the source of the scarlet mist. Sometimes the best way to learn is to watch, so if you can see the Hakurei in action, perhaps elements of the scroll will start to make more sense.
[ ] Head to the Hakurei Shrine. With her off resolving an incident, you can raid the place in search of anything that can help you make sense of the scroll.

[4] Head to the source of the scarlet mist. Sometimes the best way to learn is to watch, so if you can see the Hakurei in action, perhaps elements of the scroll will start to make more sense.
[5] Head to the Hakurei Shrine. With her off resolving an incident, you can raid the place in search of anything that can help you make sense of the scroll.

It’s tempting to fly off toward where the scarlet mist originates from. Assuming that what’s happening with the sky is indeed an incident, you know for a fact that the Hakurei will be going there. If you’ve learned anything from the scroll, it’s that despite her anti-youkai arts being beyond your current understanding, the geometric glyphs on her ofuda are still important to the whole process. And geometry is a language you’re fluent in. You’d probably be able to figure out something by watching her toss them at the poor sucker that’s polluting the sky.

But after some deliberation, you drag your attention away from the far end of Misty Lake and fixate on the opposite side of the horizon, where the Hakurei Shrine sits. It’s simply smarter to start there.

The Hakurei wasn’t born with the fundamentals already in her head. Which means the shrine has to have something. Primer texts, practice notes, old ofuda templates, you're not exactly picky. Bottom line, there has to be something lying around written with a beginner in mind, breaking the process down into easy to digest steps. If you can find anything like that, then the time you spent getting the Kourindou scroll won’t feel like a complete waste.

So you flap your wings and cut across the forest canopy toward the shrine, a thin glimmer of hope settling deep in your gut. This is probably a safer option than chasing the incident itself anyway. Marisa, rambunctious hooligan that she is, will almost certainly be sticking her nose into whatever’s going on. The last thing you need is an encounter with her.

As you fly, idle concerns and worries enter your head.

You know yourself. If you aren’t mindful of yourself, you'll probably fall into a narrow focus and forget to breathe until tomorrow. If the Hakurei comes back mid-heist, that’d be a big problem. Except you're certain that she won’t come back until the red smog is dealt with. All you have to do is remember to check the sky now and then. You can handle that much. Probably.

Though, what if there aren’t any beginner texts? It’s a fair worry, especially considering that she was willing to sell an advanced scroll for pocket money. But then again, you only found the lone sealing-related scroll in Kourindou. She couldn’t have sold everything about the craft. Unless the shrine had only a single text on youkai sealing to begin with, which is too absurd a thought to buy into. Even if, by some insult to logic, that were actually the case, it’s equally absurd to think the shrine holds nothing else that could help you.

Perhaps she has an artifact made to undo seals in an emergency. That’s not unreasonable, is it? That’d be a very helpful item for a shrine maiden to have lying around in case they screw up a seal.

The shrine finally comes into view, and your optimism shrinks back as a knot tightens in your chest. This won’t be your first time performing a heist on the shrine. It was one of the first major tasks Lady Mima had you do for her, not even half a year into her service. Back then you had your master's reassurance, a voice commanding you with such confidence that there wasn't a doubt in your mind as to whether it was a good plan or not.

Now it’s just you. And you’re no mastermind. What if there are factors you haven’t considered? Some fatal detail that you-

Eyes widening, you stop so sharply that your stomach lurches. The Hakurei is still there! She’s sitting on the veranda of her shrine, doing... nothing. Lazing about as if the sky isn’t the color of fresh blood. As if there isn’t an incident actively painting Gensokyo red. Is she blind? How can she just sit there? Why isn’t she doing anything about it?!

Panic snaps you into motion, and you drop out of the shrine’s line of sight in case she catches even a stray glimpse of you. Then you start flying anxious circles above the Forest of Magic, mind skidding over itself.

This is unprecedented. You were sure she’d be gone already. Every story Marisa ever spat out about previous incidents made it sound like the Hakurei was always there first. Marisa is pretty gung-ho too, she's never been slow to sprint headfirst into trouble the moment it started to brew.

So were you mistaken? Is this not an incident at all? You’ve never heard of the sky turning scarlet, but maybe this is one of Gensokyo's random phenomena that no one bothered to explain to you.

“Woah!” You squawk as an orb of pure shadow rockets out of the canopy and misses you by a hair. You blink hard and steady yourself, then cringe as understanding catches up a moment later. The brat with the language problems. She's found you again. And of course she chose now, right in the middle of your spiraling, to insert herself into your life like a parasite.

You have neither the time to waste nor the patience to spend on an encounter with her.

Remembering how she tripped over herself inside that darkness bubble before, you move on instinct. Tucking in your wings, you enter a nosedive. Then, snapping them back open at the last moment to arc your descent, you skim along the treetops. You’re not an ace flyer, but you were born with wings. You know how to move in the air in ways most residents of Gensokyo can only imitate.

At least, that’s what you thought. Even blinded within her veil of pitch black, the little runt swerves, pursuing you as if she can see your exact location. Her speed matches yours, as do her turns. Every correction you make is answered instantly. If only you’d spent more time training your wings to do more than just the basics.

Furrowing your brow, you attempt to shake her off your tail again. Stretching your wings and throwing yourself into a barrel roll, you deliberately scrape your boots through leaves before pulling up hard. It's a baited trap. If she can’t see, you figure that she must be using other senses - her hearing, most likely. Therefore, since she’d have heard that loud and clear, she’ll assume you dropped below the treeline and take chase.

Astonishingly, your plan fails immediately. She lunges straight at you as if she’s following a string tied onto you. You grit your teeth and twist aside just in time, feeling the pressure of her dash graze past. How? How is she doing this? It’s almost like she can smell you.

Oh. That’s what’s happening, isn’t it?

Your eyes flick down to the sheath at your hip. Not a drop of the crimson liquid coating Lady Mima’s knife has spilled, and yet you’re left with no other explanation. That little damn bloodhound! I didn’t think she’d be able to pick up on it through a sheath.

Realizing you’re not going to shake her, you grind to a stop in a thick pocket of red haze, fists clenching as your wings beat to hold you steady. You level an irritated glare at the rotating ball of shade. “Would you buzz off? I’m in the middle of something.”

The shadow disperses at your acknowledgement, unraveling to reveal the girl inside. Just as before, her arms are stretched outward like she’s balancing on a thin wire. Weirdo. She hovers a few feet away, grinning wide enough to show off her shark-like teeth.

“I challenge you to a spell card duel!” she announces triumphantly. Overcome with excitement, she begins stamping her feet in place as if there were a floor under her to stomp against.

You make a face and quickly comb through your mental glossary in search of what kind of contest that’s supposed to be. You come up empty-handed. “A what duel?”

“A spell card duel!” she repeats, louder, as if doing so would make everything clear. “If I win, you have to let me taste your knife! And if you win... um.” Her excitement drains mid-sentence. She tilts her head, eyes going unfocused while she tries to force her thoughts into place. “What do you want if you win?”

“No. I refuse.” You reject the challenge without a single thought more. “I already said you can’t touch my knife. Take a hint, would you?”

The brain damaged louse looks genuinely baffled, like you’ve just denied that water is wet. “That’s not how it works!” she yells, flapping her arms like she’s trying to swat your words out of the air. “The sage lady in charge said everyone has to play by the spell card rules now, so you have to accept!”

Your blood chills. “What. ‘Sage lady?’ You mean Yukari?”

The feral gnat nods vigorously, and for a second you can’t breathe right. The Administrator of Gensokyo passed a new law? Since when? How haven't I heard anything about this?

Your head feels too full. Everything is happening at once and none of it in the correct order. The useless scroll, the Hakurei lounging on her porch, and now this. It's all whiplash stacked on top of whiplash until it feels like your head is about to fall clean off your neck. You press your palms to the sides of your skull in an attempt to physically stop it from spinning.

One step at a time, Koboshi, you tell yourself. Breathe.

You lower your hands and fix the pest with a hard stare. Before anything else, you have to deal with her. If she’s telling the truth, then there could be consequences to rejecting her challenge. While it’s possible this could all be a yarn the half-pint is spinning, you can’t imagine her making up such an elaborate bluff just to get a taste of the blood on your knife. You’ll have to read up on these “spell card rules” as soon as you have the chance.

“Alright, fine. Tell me how to play, then I’ll decide what I want you to wager.” Begrudgingly accepting the bottomfeeder’s challenge, you wrap your fingers around your knife’s hilt, more for steadiness than as a threat. Running away would be smarter, but if Yukari really put a new rule in place, defying it blindly would feel like stepping out in front of a Master Spark.

“Reeaally? You don’t know?” she drawls, an impish delight curling into her voice. She tilts her head left, then right, studying you like you’re a strange bug. “It’s easy. We both say how many spell cards we’re gonna use, then we take turns using them. Whoever breaks all the other person’s spell cards first wins.”

“I don’t have any of those,” you grouse flatly. “Spell cards.”

“It comes from the same place that flying does.” She says like it’s obvious, as if you’re the slow one here. She thrusts her palm out at you and a strange glimmer sparks between her fingers. Then a clean swipe of light shoots upward like a thin geyser until it takes shape. Between her fingers is a fully formed slip of paper, stamped with an illustration of two beams of light piercing down from the moon. “See? Anyone can do it.”

The same place that flying comes from? Trepidatious, your eyes stick to the paper. Flight is a natural law here. Anyone with even a shred of potential can manage it. Technically, you don’t actually need your wings to fly, but doing so without them feels wrong. So spell cards are like that? Something you can call upon because Gensokyo allows it?

“Since it’s your first time,” your foe continues, unable to hide the eager glint from her grin, “we’ll only use one spell card each, okay?”

“And that’s it? There aren’t any other rules I should be made aware of before we start?” You frown.

Groaning, the rotten goblin spins around in place before puffing out her cheeks. “Yes! It’s so easy, even a fairy can do it. You aren't dumber than a fairy, are you?” Her given explanation is far too brisk to be a complete telling, you decide. Either she’s impatient, or she’s counting on your ignorance to make this quick and humiliating.

Mulling it over, you look down at your hand and try to will something into being. As you concentrate on the space between your hands, a white piece of paper suddenly begins to take form between your pinched fingers with the barest of efforts. You jump in place, startled by how simple it was to make. She’s right, it’s so easy that you bet even a fairy would be able to do it. The blank slip feels warm and alive in your hand, as if the card contains a sliver of your very soul, if youkai have those.

Surely you can’t use a blank spell card though, the runt’s is fancy and illustrated. You assume that if you imagine the design, it will represent what you want it to actually do. There’s only one thing you feel comfortable falling back upon if so. Hopefully, impressing upon it the desire to use the knife will be as easy as conjuring the card.

Concentrating on that sense of core connection to the paper, the paper’s face begins to glow with that same energy that it was conjured from. An image burns into the spell card’s surface, now depicting Lady Mima’s bloody knife in motion, a crimson arc cutting across the design. Though you don’t have her to guide you anymore, you’ll continue to rely on your master in the form of this spell card.

The sense of connection to the card leads you to think you could make something more elaborate if you had time to think - ideally a much more dedicated homage to Lady Mima. But your opponent is vibrating with impatience, and you doubt she’ll give you the luxury of planning. She’s already denied you the essentials of knowing all the rules.

You have a spell card. You have a rough explanation of the rules. And you have relative confidence that you can outthink the dull creature challenging you even without intimate knowledge of the game.

Now all you need is to demand a stake.

[ ] “If I win, you have to go bother with the Hakurei.” Having her distract the shrine maiden will probably kick her into gear with the incident, allowing you to raid the shrine.
[ ] “If I win, you have to help me for the rest of the day.” A set of hands assisting you could prove useful, even if she’ll doubtlessly prove to be a handful.
[ ] “If I win, you have to stop asking for my knife.” Seriously, if she’s going to make this a recurring problem, you’re gonna lose it the next time you see her.
[ ] (Write-in)

[2] “If I win, you have to help me for the rest of the day.”
[6] “If I win, you have to go bother the Hakurei.”
-[1] Once you’re done with the knife-licker, scry to see when the Hakurei will come back to the shrine - or when you might be able to return in the future.

Since the Hakurei has decided to be a lazy bum instead of doing her job, you might as well take the opportunity to give her the shove that’ll kick her into gear. Allowing the spell card pinched between your fingers to fade back into whatever aether it came from, you leer at the half-pint and speak commandingly. “If I win, you have to go bother the Hakurei. Deal?”

“Ah?” The eager grin plastered over her face collapses into a dumb, slack-jawed stare. You can’t exactly blame her. It’s an unenviable assignment. Only the nastiest youkai can even pretend to stand toe-to-toe with Gensokyo’s shrine maiden, and the runt strikes you as anything but the cream of the crop.

Her hesitation lasts half a heartbeat. Then her mouth snaps shut and the shock melts into bright, mirthful laughter. “Okay, deal!”

With neither warning nor grace, she snaps her arms in toward her chest, then flings them outward like she’s scattering festival confetti. And confetti is exactly what you get - if confetti were glowing, fast, and meant to hurt. A spray of luminous pellets streaks straight at you.

Caught off guard, you backpedal through the air to buy distance, wings beating hard enough to ruffle your own hair. Once you’ve got a better read on the splatter of light she tossed out, you dip and swerve through the gaps, letting the shining beads hiss past your shoulders.

Well. That was unexpected. Was that her spell card? Does that mean it’s your turn now?

You barely have time to draw breath before the rude gnat starts flailing and gesturing at you like an overcaffeinated conductor. More pellets bloom into existence - rows of bead-like bolts, each one colorful, bright, and humming. Then they rip forward in another burst, shot like arrows loosed from an archer’s bow. Some fly straight at you to force you into motion. Others scatter wide to restrict your mobility, filling your surroundings with threats until the sky itself feels fenced off.

To many, it would be too much. Too many lights, too many angles, too little time. But to you, it's oddly familiar. It reminds you of your work for Lady Mima in a weird way. Keeping vigilant as you tracked trajectories in the night, marking the paths of shooting stars and drifting asteroids. Granted, you never had any of the comets or meteors you charted aimed directly at you, but the arithmetic is the same. It's all just a matter of figuring out angles and speed.

Each pellet’s path clicks into place in your mind's eye. You can practically see them all ahead of time, as if you had performed a scry. The shimmering darts stitch their web and you slip through it, untouched, as if you’d practiced the motion a hundred times.

Your body briefly struggles to get into the flow of constant dodging. The physical element is by far the hardest part for you. It's hard work to constantly shift your balance and adjust your position. But once your head is in the game, the rest becomes automatic. A half-lidded, almost bored focus settles over you. Calculations hum in the back of your skull while your attention pinpoints on the nuisance of a girl at the center of your vision.

She’s got her tongue poking past her lips as she concentrates, churning out more rows of pellets and lobbing them your way with zero attempt at leading her shots. She honestly thought the first burst would’ve done it. Good thing you’re surprisingly skilled at this challenge. Not one pellet even grazes you. In fact, you dare say you'd have to actively try getting hit for her to stand a chance. Letting yourself get clipped is definitely a bad idea, though. Got to keep that ego in check.

Another volley goes wide. You don’t even dodge with any urgency; you just drift aside, lazy as a leaf in a current, and watch her miss.

“So,” you call, letting your voice drip with flat irritation, “you’re gonna tell me how to shoot back, right?”

Instead of responding properly, the deceitful gnat spreads her limbs wide and giggles like she’s about to reveal a party trick. A spell card flickers into existence between her fingers, and when she speaks, her voice carries an echoing weight.

“Moon sign: ‘Moonlight Ray’!”

The spell card shimmers as she declares its incredibly tacky name. As the glow intensifies, two head-sized orbs of dim moonlight swirl into being at the tips of her outstretched arms. At least, it looks specifically like moonlight to your expert eye. Which begs the question, how is she catching moonlight when the moon isn’t out? Even if it were, you doubt its dim shine could punch through the thick cover of red fog choking the sky.

You don’t get time to keep arguing with the laws of astronomy. Both orbs erupt, two rigid rays lancing out from each in straight lines. Your eyes go wide, surprise punching through your calm, and you snap to the side. You manage to slide between the beams by a hair’s breadth, only to then realize what she’s done. The two pillars of light bracket you, hemming you in. You're now trapped in a narrow corridor of sky. She immediately floods the lane with pellets, firing them down the channel.

Even boxed in, you’ve got enough room. You twist and slip, letting pellets graze past your sleeves and hair without touching skin. The moon beams make dodging restrictive, but that doesn't matter when the pattern is embarrassingly easy. Left, right. Left, right. It’s almost like dancing. You start to fall into a little groove, your mind wandering elsewhere.

For a youkai who has trouble seeing through her own power, forcing others into an alleyway to restrict their mobility isn't such a bad idea. Despite your situation, you have to admit that giving herself guide rails like this is actually rather clever. Probably the most intelligent idea she’s ever had. But it’s still not a problem for you. You barely even have to pay any attention to what’s going on.

This is fun. The math, the moving, the smug sense of superiority. You're actually having a pretty good time! And it’s that realization that makes you hear glass shatter in your head.

No. No, you're not having a good time. You can’t be having fun. This is a duel. Your master’s dignity is on the line. You are not going to let some gnarly leech of a youkai slobber all over your prized possession because you got careless in the middle of a light show.

Narrowing your eyes, you squeeze the amusement out of your brain until there’s nothing left but cold intent. Then you advance, pushing forward into the stream of bullets, moving up the lane toward its source. The runt’s startled squawk is rather satisfying to hear. She probably didn’t consider the possibility that you’d do anything but retreat. Once you’ve more than halved the gap between you, she breaks into a sweat. Seems she’s realized you’re not quite the easy mark she was hoping for.

A serious look flashes across her face, and she claps her hands together as hard as she can. The gesture causes the two moonlight spheres to collide, fusing into one. This, in turn, causes the beams walling you in to begin converging, snapping shut like a pair of giant shears.

It’s completely unavoidable. If you’re an idiot, that is.

With a sharp flap of your wings, you dart upward several feet and the twin beams become a singular line of wasted brilliance below you. The runt’s head jerks up to follow your ascent, jaw dropping and eyes ballooning. She looks like a goldfish, mouth working up and down in silent astonishment as she struggles to comprehend that the sky has more than two directions to move in.

“Redo! Redo!” she yelps, half-panicked. The beam sputters and dies as the spell card runs out of juice. She flaps her arms frantically, as if she were a bird struggling to stay in the air. “Let me pick a different spell card.”

Hearing those words feels good. Real good. You needed this. To finally have something go your way for once. After all your recent failures, trouncing this loser so thoroughly is pure catharsis.

Smirking victoriously from above, you reach for the hilt of Lady Mima’s knife and conjure your own spell card into that same hand. Then you dive, accelerating until the wind bites at your face, letting your attack be her answer.

“Ah!” she shrieks, throwing her hands up in front of her face like that could stop what’s coming.

You draw the knife free and slash as soon as you’re within reach, calling upon the spell card’s power to surge through your strike and end this duel cleanly.

The blade whistles through the air and the edge bites flesh. A neat line opens across her grubby mitts. She flinches, hissing in pain, yet remains airborne. Undefeated.

You blink, hard. Then your gaze snaps onto your hand. The spell card is still crumpled between your fingers and the knife’s grip. The power inside it is still sealed, stubbornly inert. It didn’t activate. Why didn’t it activate?

The slippery rat takes advantage of the half-second your confusion buys her, darting away. Smoke rises from her freshly cut palms, as if your blade burned her like an acid, and she blows on her sizzling hands with frantic little puffs. Although notable, you file it away for later. Right now, you give chase.

You surge after her, wings pounding hard as you can make them, determined not to let the tempo you built evaporate. You experimentally swing again, then once more, each time trying to force the spell card to obey. Nothing. Every single time. And with each swing, she manages to keep just out of reach, making each failed activation all the more humiliating.

“Go spell card! Activate! Slash her! Shee-ah kazing!” you shout, voice cracking into desperation as you flail the knife her way. Brows furrowing in distress, you fail both to close the distance between the two of you, and to make your spell card work. No! No no no! I had her dead to rights!

Eyes glued onto you as she retreats, the vile blight’s toothy grin slowly starts to crawl back up her face. Each useless swing and barked command feeds it, making it wider. Eventually laughter begins to bubble forth from her wretched little throat. “Looks like somebody’s stupider than a fairy!”

Your fists tremble around the knife and the worthless paper as you bare an ugly snarl at the insufferable whelp. “You never explained how to use it, you twerp!”

“Fidite nemini!” Her smile turns predatory. You don’t need to understand her ridiculous babble to know that she’s mocking you.

Frustrated and out of ideas, you swing the knife at her one last time. Truthfully, it's less of an attack than it is a physical confession of rage. She answers by eagerly lunging forward, jaws snapping at the very air your blade would have occupied. You yank the strike short mid-arc, awkward and off-balance, and the near-miss leaves you buzzing with adrenaline. She could’ve bitten your hand clean off.

Now it’s her turn to press her tempo advantage. Alarm bells scream in your head as she tucks her arms to her chest, the same tell you saw right before she scattered neon pellets like confetti. You need to move. Now.

You reverse hard, flying backward through open air to put distance between you. Half a second later, your mind is abuzz with activity as an explosion of light erupts from her hands. Dozens of haphazard calculations drown out all your other thoughts, and you wrench yourself sideways just in time. A point-blank column of colorful pellets hisses past where your face used to be.

Her grin falters slightly. She didn’t expect you to actually do it. Entering pursuit after you, she hurls volley after volley, her bullets chewing up the space you’re trying to retreat through. You can’t look away from her long enough to check your blind flight, so you keep moving in reverse, eyes locked on the runt and her hands. Good thing you’re in the open sky, there shouldn’t be anything in your way.

The universe, apparently, takes that as a challenge. You back up into an especially thick cloud of the omnipresent red mist in the sky. The world dims as the smog eats what little light remains, and your line of sight on the brat smears into murk, her shape becoming more of a suggestion than a defined silhouette. You can barely see anything anymore, let alone her attacks. Hell, you’d be surprised if you could see your own fingers at arms length.

A few bolts cut through the scarlet fog, only just bright enough for you to catch through the haze, and you snatch at their angles with frantic mental math. There’s no time to confirm. You move on instinct, and the glowing pellets graze past your skin close enough to prickle. Before you can so much as breathe, another string of shots follows. One whistles near your wing, but you manage to jerk it aside in time for the light to skim past.

Dodging these shots was trivial in the open sky. In the thick of the mist, however, it’s a full-body, full-mind scramble where you don’t get to relax for even a blink. You don’t know how to shoot back, not that it would help if you could, since you can’t even see her properly. She, however, doesn’t need her eyes to keep track of you through the red mist. She can smell the blood on Lady Mima’s knife like a shark.

“Stop it!” she objects loudly, like the loser she is. Her whining gives you enough of a heads-up on where she is to preemptively start dodging the next few shooting lights. “You’re way too good at dodging danmaku!”

Danmaku? Is that what the pellets are called? You may have evaded them until now, but you can see the writing on the wall. She’s firing nonstop, and you’re pinned in a fog bank where you can’t react until the last possible moment. Your eyes dart for the first hint of a glimmer, and each time you see one, you lurch in a half-panicked correction while energy zips past close enough to make your stomach drop. It’s only a matter of time before you miscalculate. Or flinch. Or do both at once. You simply can’t let that happen.

You need out of the mist pronto. Shooting off in a random direction might work, but it might also send you straight into an unseen wall of pellets. She can track you with ease whereas you're flying blind, after all. There’s only one direction you can take that you can be reasonably sure won’t have a waiting barrage.

Reckless and fast, you drop like a stone and plunge toward the forest. Branches rush up as you punch through the canopy in a crash of leaves and snapping twigs, the ground rapidly filling your vision. You spread your wings at the last moment to keep from eating dirt, but you still land hard. Your knees buckle into a deep crouch, and your boot heels gouge into soil, dirt spraying from the impact.

The Forest of Magic is darker than typical, you notice. Impressive, considering it’s always been a rather shaded area. The red mist above blocks what little daylight the forest floor usually gets, turning the woods into something close to night. You’re optimistic though. While you may have had more space to dodge in the open air, down here, she won’t have open lanes since the trees will break her lines of fire.

It’s probably for the best anyway. All those flashing lights could have attracted the Hakurei’s attention, since the duel was only a stone’s throw from the shrine. The last thing you need is the shrine maiden deciding to show up and beat the both of you senseless for some asinine reason.

Speaking of your opponent, you look up, tightening your grip on the knife, bracing for her descent. The scene is already set in your mind. She’ll burst through the leaves above, reckless and eager, and you’ll meet her with a prepared slash.

Any second now. Shouldn’t be much longer.

Leaves rustle and the wind whispers. The forest’s ambiance becomes more oppressive with each heartbeat.

…Where is she?

Your eyes dart, scanning branches and gaps in the canopy. She should’ve followed immediately. Why wouldn’t she? Did she abandon the duel? Does that mean you win?

A rustle in the bushes nearby banishes such thoughts instantly. You whip around and aggressively point your knife at the offending foliage. How did she get there without you noticing? It’s dark, but you’re not blind. Whatever. The moment she jumps out, you’ll be-

Another rustle, behind you. Whirling around and taking a defensive step back, you snap the knife toward the second bush. Your eyes are wide now, your breathing loud in your own ears. You don’t need a third rustle to understand what's currently happening.

She’s playing with you. Trying to get inside your head. And it’s working, because the threat is real. She hunts in these woods. She probably knows them the way you know the night sky, and can navigate them in ways that would leave you in the dust. You’ve been so wrapped up in the moment-to-moment action, it had entirely escaped you that this is the babbling youkai's home turf.

Properly spooked now, you begin backing toward a shallow den in the earth. Rot leaks from its mouth, stale and rancid, but you don’t care. If she’s stalking you, then you need to control the angles she can come from. A small cave would do exactly that. If you wedge yourself in somewhere narrow, she can’t circle around you. She wouldn’t be able to vanish behind trees and brush. She'd have to commit to a single angle to attack from.

Leaves tremble once more, this time from a branch overhead. Head on a swivel, the world seems to spin around you with every breath. Every shadow looks like her figure approaching. Every tree knot looks like an eye watching.

Taking another cautious step back toward the den, something brittle crunches beneath your boot. You glance down and pale. It's a femur, picked clean of meat and thoroughly gnawed on. In that instant, something you’d been refusing to acknowledge finally settles heavy upon your mind. You underestimated her. She acts stupid and childish with her giggling and her whining. But she’s still a youkai. A predator. And these are her hunting grounds.

“Oh, screw this!” you spit. You’ll take your chances fighting her in the mist over being hunted like an animal in the dark. You crouch, wings tensing in preparation to launch. Then she pounces.

Out of the darkness, you catch the whites of her eyes and the gleam of her teeth for a split second before she is suddenly upon you. Your body seizes, fear turning your takeoff into a clumsy spring backward. You crack your head hard against the top lip of the den’s entrance. Stars burst across your vision.

A groan of pain claws out of you. Tears sting at the corners of your eyes as you squint, trying to keep her in sight while your skull rings. You can’t think straight, and you can’t trust that she won’t intercept you if you try to reorient yourself and fly away as initially planned. So you do something stupid. You fall back and stagger into the den. Inside, you're accosted by the stink of rotting meat. Your boots kick aside more bones as you backpedal deeper, Lady Mima’s knife held out in trembling hands as your only ward.

She stops at the entrance, framed in dim red light like a theater villain. A triumphant smile spreads across her face, too wide and too sharp to look childish anymore. She licks her lips eagerly, ready to claim her victory. Meanwhile, your wings brush against the far wall, officially meaning you've run out of places to go. The front of the den is only about fifteen feet from where you're cowering.

“Moon sign: ‘Moonlight Ray’!”

The spell card flashes into being and activates almost immediately. Two balls of moonlight form at her sides. She stretches her arms as though catching them, laughing with open delight at how helpless you look. Then the shafts of light shoot forward and the twin rays herd you into the space between them. Not that you were going anywhere anyway. In the open air it’s an easy move to slip past. In here? The ceiling is too low. The walls are too close. You won't be able to fly over the beams when they converge like you did last time.

You’re screwed. Cornered like a rat. Put into checkmate because you willingly stepped into this gravesite of a cave. Losing is bad enough, but losing to an attack with such a silly name?

How did you let it get this bad? Earlier you were dominating. If your spell card had worked, you’d have already won ages ago. Instead you’ve been on the back foot so long that you haven’t even had a moment to think about why the card won’t activate, let alone fix it.

To make matters worse, she doesn’t even start shooting projectiles at you for you to dodge. Instead, she starts running down her own alleyway of light, charging straight at you like a bowling ball aimed at a lone pin, jaws spread wide, ready to bite. Despite your vision still swimming from the knock to the head, it’s clear that if you don’t do something, you will lose the duel. And if you lose the duel, Lady Mima’s knife will be defiled.

The blade trembles in your hand, and you place your trust in…

[ ] Trust your wits. You’re like a foot and a half taller than her, and you’re holding a knife. If she’s rushing at you, all you have to do is stab her - you have the reach advantage.
[ ] Trust your gut. Fight or flight demands that you chuck the knife. It seemed to hurt her a ton last time, so you should be able to bowl her over while she’s writhing from a direct hit.
[ ] Trust your…? Thus far, you’ve done nothing but make failed decisions at every possible avenue. Since you cannot trust yourself, you’ll let Lady Mima guide your hand.

[1] Trust your gut. Chuck the knife.
[4] Trust your…? Let Lady Mima guide your hand.
[5] Trust your wits. You have the reach advantage.

The blade trembles in your grip as desperation rakes its claws across your thoughts. Your instincts urge you to move, to do something, but you choke it down. If you’re going to win, you can’t flail. You have to think. A shaky calm settles over you, just enough to bring your next move into focus.

At her speed, she’ll be on you in seconds. However, you’ve already got your knife drawn. Moreover, you already have it held out in front of you, your arms are much longer than her own, and you have solid footing with no space to give. Put it all together and the answer is obvious. It’s simple physics, really. Her momentum will do all the work. At her speed, all you need to do is brace against the wall and she’ll impale herself for you.

You tilt the knife upright and let your brain do the rest, angles and timing snapping into place. You thrust with both hands white-knuckled around the grip, eyes wide and unblinking, ready to bury steel between the runt’s eyes. But that single-minded mutt is watching the blade as hard as you’re watching her. At the last possible moment she kicks off the ground and rises a few inches.

Horror flashes cold through your veins as the knife is driven straight into her mouth. Her teeth clamp down halfway along the blade with a metallic clack. She tries to kill her momentum mid-air, but she still ends up awkwardly headbutting you in the chest. Your arms buckle inward and the pommel punches into your gut. You wheeze, grip faltering for a heartbeat.

When you feel the knife starting to slip away, however, you almost immediately recover from your daze as if you’d been splashed with a bucket of ice water. Your fingers seize the handle once more, and you look down to find her feet planted firmly on the ground. She’s yanking back against your grip like a dog in a tug-of-war, trying to rip it from your hands like an animal.

She has the knife in her mouth. The world seems to spin, a wave of dizziness washing over you. Your every thought devolves into static as you mindlessly try to pull it free from her vice-like bite.

The two of you fight back and forth, your boots scraping on stone and her shoulders coiling with feral strength. Soon, the piranha’s eyes narrow in frustration. Splaying her arms out wide once more, she prepares to clap them together - ready to converge the moonbeams. If she brings her hands together, you’re caught. You can’t sidestep; there’s nowhere to go. You can’t jump over them with the ceiling so low, and you can’t drop flat with this infernal brat latched to your weapon.

Actually, that last thought stirs an idea at the back of your mind. You need to avoid the beams, and you need to end this duel. Perhaps the only way to do both is to give her what she wants.

There’s no time to calculate forces properly. You gamble on sheer desperation and your knowledge of mechanical leverage. You jump off the floor, plant your feet against the wall behind you, and lunge forward - moving with her pull instead of against it.

The youkai lets out a startled yelp as you tackle her into the floor, her own rabid motions betraying her. The impact shoves the knife deeper, forcing the steel down her throat as her back hits stone and you crash onto her. Though you don’t see it, due to your back being turned, you hear the reverb of a heavy, ringing snap. The moonbeams above you crack apart and hiss into nothing, like glass shattering into a sparkling mist. It would seem your action actually caused her spell card to break. That should mean you won, right?

Pinned beneath you, the runt stares up at you with wide, surprised eyes. You have to force yourself onto your knees to really see the stupid look on her face, and you can’t really find it in you to enjoy it the same way you had before. She makes a few strangled, choking noises, smoke sizzling past her lips due to Lady Mima’s knife pinned through the back of her throat. Then, before she can adopt another expression, she shuts her mouth and lets out a pleasant little hum.

She begins to suckle on the knife.

The smoke begins to billow out from her nostrils, but she doesn’t seem to care. She just keeps her lips closed around the hilt-deep blade as if it were a sweet.

The sight fills you with a sense of indescribable horror. Your body goes cold and numb, as if you’ve died and forgotten to keel over. With a bloodcurdling scream, you wrench the knife free of her filthy maw, throwing your full weight into the motion. Its steel tears free and you topple backward onto your hindquarters from the force it took. In your hands the knife shines slick with saliva, its surface completely free of blood. Your hands begin to tremble, as does your vision.

“Y-You...!” There aren’t any words to express how utterly destroyed you are. Lady Mima’s knife has been defiled by the pestilent vermin. You tried so hard to keep it safe. And yet you failed. Again.

This can’t be happening. This isn’t real.

The defiler sits upright with a sudden lurch, coughing out a smoke-heavy hack before smacking her lips like she’s tasting a fine wine. Black ichor leaks from the corners of her mouth, and you hear a faint fizzing sound from her mouth due to the knife’s properties.

“Wow! That has some kick!” she blurts, each word accompanied by a puff of smoke. Her eyes are glassy and unfocused, a stupid smile crawling up her face like she just emptied a bottle of sake.

The saliva coating the knife froths and boils away as the steel begins to bleed, red liquid welling along the surface as it cleanses itself with its own blood. But it doesn’t matter. It’s been sullied. No amount of washing will ever make it clean again. Regardless, you must try.

Arm slack, you reach for a scrap of cloth lying about on the cave floor. You wrap the torn sleeve around the blade and wipe it, up and down, slow and careful. The cloth is quickly stained crimson, drenched by the knife’s unnatural bleeding. You diligently rub it over as if repetition can scrub away what she did to it. Servicing your master’s knife is all you can bring yourself to think about. But even when the last of the saliva is gone and only blood slicks the steel, it still feels unclean. Your breaths come in shallow bursts and your eyes sting with wetness.

“Huh? Hey, you won. Watcha crying over?” Her oblivious, half-gurgled words cut through the somber weight that’s settled over you. She sounds so innocent. So free and pleased with herself, like she doesn’t have a care in the world. Why wouldn’t she? She came out on top.

It’s not fair. You won the duel. Why does she still get what she wanted?

She pops to her feet with a bright little ‘hup!’ and beams, smiling away as if the duel that the two of you had was nothing more than a game. “That was pretty fun, right?”

You can’t take this. You can’t even muster up the energy to be angry. You just want her to go away. “Yeah. No, you’re right. I won.” Your voice comes out drained, misery sitting heavy in your chest. “And since I won, you have to go bother the Hakurei. So go. We’re done here.”

The girl tilts her head. Her smile fades halfway through the motion, replaced by a puzzled look, like she can’t understand why you’re acting like this. Can’t she see you just want to be left alone?

“No,” she says, answering your unspoken question. “You said I had to go do that, but not when. Right now, I wanna talk.”

Oh, so now she wants to talk. What a time for her to learn pity. After she’s already taken everything and left you hollow. You can’t do this right now. You’re too exhausted. Too defeated to fight back anymore.

“Please?” The word comes out pathetic, entirely unbefitting for Lady Mima’s servant. “Just… go.”

She twists her head the other way, like an owl. Her quizzical stare disappears mid-motion, replaced by blank neutrality. A moment of silence falls between the two of you. The sizzling has ceased by now, and she slowly wipes her chin clean of ichor with her puffy white sleeve.

“Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo.” The alien words tumble past her lips in a murmurous tone, spoken as if meant only for herself to hear. A strange, steely expression slowly settles across her face. Resolve, maybe? Has she come to some sort of profound realization? Honestly, you can’t bring yourself to care what conclusion she’s reached.

“Ookaayy,” she drags out a moment later, disappointed, brushing past her archaic babble as though it had never happened. Sticking her arms straight out, palms open, she dramatically kicks her heel out and spins toward the cave’s mouth before plodding off. Evidently, she’s found the mercy in her heart to leave you be.

Once she finally vanishes into the red-stained sky, you release a deep sigh. Tossing the blood-soaked cloth onto the den floor, you let yourself flop against the nearest wall and slide to the ground. Your shoulder bumps against bone. You’ve ended up slumped beside a half-decomposed skeleton, bite marks and missing chunks strewn all over its fly swarmed flesh. Unsightly as it is though, you can’t find it in you to get up and leave the cave. All you can manage is to sit there and rot in place alongside the skeleton, staring at nothing.

What kind of a familiar lets her master’s last possession get treated like a lollipop for some mutt of a youkai? Lady Mima put the knife in your hands on the day she was sealed away. She called it important - vital, even. A part of her grand plan she never fully explained to you. You didn’t ask back then, but you didn’t need to. A familiar obeys. And you’re a good familiar. The most dedicated there is.

How could you let this happen?

You don’t know. Maybe you aren’t such a good familiar, after all.

Wincing, you quickly seek a distraction from such harmful thoughts. A stack of books is haphazardly piled up against the opposite wall, naturally catching your dead gaze since you have little else to stare at. They're in various states of condition, but most of them have cracked spines and yellowing pages. A few covers are dented with tooth marks like someone tested them for texture.

It occurs to you that the Book of Genesis you had slotted away yesterday probably belonged to the gnat, originally. Which means this is her home. This pitiful hole in the ground. This den with bones and torn clothing and gnawed books in it. And yet, even this is more of a home than you have. The brat has a place she returns to. You have nothing but a sealed master and a plan you’re still chasing.

You suppose this explains how she was upon you so quickly after you doubled back from the Hakurei Shrine. This den is pretty close to it, all things considered. There’s a lot of clothes strewn across the floor, belonging to villagers the runt hunted down and consumed. How does that shrine get any visitors at all with a youkai like this in such close proximity to the path?

Your gaze drops to the knife still hanging from your hand. It really did a number on her when you brandished it against the runt. Experimentally, you press the pad of your finger lightly to the tip. The point pierces you like a needle, and a thin curl of smoke slips from your skin as the knife boils your flesh away. You hiss and jerk back, sucking in a tight breath through your teeth.

Seems like it has anti-youkai properties. Is it the blood? You’ve come into contact with the blood from the knife before, just now even, when using the scrap of clothing to wipe it down. You didn’t smoke then. Does it only work when it’s on the blade? Perhaps the steel carries the effect? Or does it need the intent of causing harm? You turn the knife over once, twice, watching the slick red sheen gather across the surface.

Then you shake your head and give up on trying to figure it out. It doesn’t matter right now. You always have later. Lady Mima is always the most important priority. You need to save her. You need to prove that you’re a good familiar. That she wasn’t mistaken in choosing you. The despair that ruled you moments ago retreats, not because it’s gone, but because it’s been shoved into a corner and ordered to stay there. You sheath the knife and plant a hand on the stone, pushing yourself to your feet.

Stepping out of the cave, you fly upward before perching on a tall branch. Peeking above the treetops, you catch sight of bright patterns flashing in the red-stained sky. The Hakurei is engaged in a spell card duel with the runt. Perfect. Though, it strikes you as odd that you don’t see the shrine maiden on a turtle. Both Lady Mima and Marisa had told you she had trouble flying. Between that, and the fact that she was lazing about instead of actually dealing with the incident, it’s possible that your mental profile of her is outdated.

Setting that aside for now, you stealthily begin flying toward the Hakurei Shrine, skimming as close to the tree tops as possible. Hopefully the red mist above will hang thick enough to blur your silhouette from an aerial view. The shrine maiden’s attention should be on her duel, but you never know. She’s done more miraculous things than noticing a trespasser mid-fight, from what you’ve been told.

Soon the shrine comes into view, and you drift down to land before the torii gate. Your eyes trail over the grounds, searching for any traps, wards, anything suspicious. Nothing appears different to how it had on the night of your ill-fated rescue attempt. Maybe you’re being paranoid. If she chased the runt in a hurry, it makes sense she wouldn’t pause to prepare the grounds for intruders.

Then a scary possibility crawls into your head. You'd assumed she’d finish the duel, then go deal with the scarlet mist. But you’ve already been wrong about her on several key points. What if you’re wrong again? What if she wins, and then unbelievably goes right back to lazing around? Is that even allowed? You thought that the shrine maiden was obligated to stop incidents and exterminate rowdy youkai. To keep the balance of Gensokyo.

Anxiety tightens your chest. Without thinking, you glance up at the sky, hoping to scry for an answer on how long she’ll be away for, or where to find what you’re looking for. Stars are best for scrying. You know how to listen to them, how to coax meaning from their positions. But your sightline is smothered. This mist is obnoxious. Not that the stars would be out during daylight anyhow, but at least you’d be able to tell what time it is and imagine where the stars should be.

While you're most comfortable using the stars, your ability can work with other objects. Ones with inherit mysticism attached to them: Ouija boards, tarot cards, crystal balls. Things that carry superstition. The readings from such items are always muddier than the night's clean geometry, but muddier is still better than blind. You silently curse yourself. Rinnosuke had tons of such items lying around, but you were too focused on getting the useless scroll to care. It didn't cross your mind, and you've never really made a point to carry items like that on your person. Lady Mima always made use of your scrying ability at night, when it was most potent.

Still, even though you can't scry, you finally have an opportunity to find anything related to sealing. Things that will help you learn how to free Lady Mima. Hesitating now could cost you the only opening you'll get for a long while. And so, you hurriedly scamper to the center of the shrine grounds and decide to...

[ ] Play it safe. Enter the main building. It’s the most likely place for seal-related texts and items to be, and that’s what you came here for to begin with.
[ ] Take a risk. Search the entire grounds and storehouse. It’s a wider area to poke around, but she’s probably got some lying around.
[ ] Throw caution to the wind. Move Lady Mima’s rock somewhere else. When else are you going to get the chance?

-= ALSO =-

[ ] While you’re here, might as well… (Write-in.)

[1] Play it safe. Enter the main building.
[5] Take a risk. Search the entire grounds and storehouse.
[6] Throw caution to the wind. Move Lady Mima’s rock somewhere else.

[X] While you’re here, might as well be petty and rearrange all her furniture.
-[X] You should take whatever donations she has while you’re at it.
-[X] And touch all her stuff too, why not?
-[X] Then you’ll make it look like a fairy broke in by stealing a bit of her food, especially sweets and the like.
[X] Report in to Lady Mima. She might not be able to hear you, but that's no reason not to try.
[X] Make sure to check regularly on the sky. If the scarlet mist is dissipating, it's time to leave.

While you could play it safe and comb through the main building, you doubt she’d keep anything important in her living space - especially since she was willing to pawn off an ancestral scroll for pocket change. Anything within arm’s reach would likely be the first stuff she’d shove into Rinnosuke’s hands.

Texts like the sort you’re searching for have likely passed hands through several generations of shrine maidens. That being the case, the storehouse is the better wager, even if you’re certain it’ll be a pain to sift through. Besides, you know for a fact that the storehouse delivers on that front. Lady Mima’s first real assignment for you was to steal some dusty record about the Great Barrier, and where did you find it? The storehouse.

Reaching the center of the shrine grounds, you slow just long enough to take a measured look around, refamiliarizing yourself with where your target is. Your eyes sweep over the squat shack in question, then flick back toward the treeline behind it. Time seems to stop. Your gaze fixates on where you know Lady Mima’s rock is.

Something inside you tightens, a thin emotional tether pulling you that way. It’s tempting. Painfully tempting. But you can’t. Time is of the essence. You know you’ll get caught in the gravity of the moment and lose precious minutes you don’t have.

You force your attention back onto the storehouse at the edge of the grounds and hurry over, yanking the door open. You’re immediately accosted by the thick and muggy summer air even from the doorway. This building has next to zero circulation. Very unpleasant. Dark too. Stepping inside to get a better look at what you’re dealing with, you find that it is far less cluttered than Kourindou was, thankfully.

Most of the items are fairly mundane. Some spare screen doors and floorboards in case the shrine ever needs them. Calligraphy supplies accompanied by a stack of blank paper slips. A few sacks of rice piled like sandbags. Nothing that immediately catches your attention.

You begin to hover around to speed up your search, instinctively heading for where you had originally found the old record Lady Mima wanted years ago. Landing in front of a repurposed wine rack that now acts as a scroll shelf, you note that the slot where you took the record from is still empty, even after all this time. She must practically never check these out, a fact supported by how dusty this back space is.

Crouching forward, you sift through the racked scrolls, pick one at random, and whip it open. It appears to be a formal document proposing several of the foundational ideas for Gensokyo, written by Yukari in collaboration with a previous Hakurei maiden. Useless for your purposes. You snap it shut and grab another text. The next is a written request by a concerned village elder for the Hakurei maiden to take action against a prowling hakutaku. It looks quite old. You wonder why this was shelved at all. Waste of your time.

With each scroll you skim over, you slowly become more and more flustered. None of these have anything to do with the sealing. The entire shelf consists of historical notes that are of no use to you. You don't have time for this drivel. With a huff, you whirl around and scan the storeroom for any other obvious places to look. There are some chests and drawers you could search, but there's far too many of them. By the time you finished looking through them all, the day would be over. You can't spend that sort of time.

Groaning impatiently as you pace around the building, eyes scanning over shelves and occasionally opening drawers that contain inane things like incense and sparklers, you eventually lap the interior and end up at the entryway again. You glance out the doorway. Sunlight still fights to push through the crimson haze above. Good, that means you haven’t lost track of time too badly. Probably. It’s hard to tell with the sun muted like this - but either way, you didn’t completely lose the day.

Tapping your foot, you furrow your brow and think hard, eyes grazing over the storeroom once again. You could do a second lap and search the place down more thoroughly, but with how fruitless your cursory search has been, you feel like it’d be a wasted effort. If there were sealing scrolls in here, they probably wouldn’t be buried in the back. The Hakurei would glance over them semi-regularly, you’d think. She seals youkai all the time, it’s literally her job.

Maybe what you’re looking for is in the main building after all. Discontent and antsy, you decide to go for it, stepping back out onto the shrine grounds. Sliding open the screen to the main building, you take in the shrine’s main room with an impatient leer. A kotatsu squats in the middle of the room, serving as its only claim to comfort, dressers sit flush against the left and right walls, a chest rests against the far wall, and a sad little stovetop is tucked into the corner.

Your eyes naturally gravitate toward the chest on the far wall. If ever there was a place to find important job-related scrolls, or at least something nice to steal, that would be it. Throwing open the lid, you set your hands against the lip of the chest and lean forward to examine what treasures are held within. You find some ofuda stacked in neat bundles, a cluster of needles, spare shrine garbs, and a handful of odds and ends. Almost all of these are related to her job as a shrine maiden, and yet, not a single scroll about youkai sealing.

She must have had more than just the one scroll, right? Surely. Despite telling yourself that, you’re starting to get anxious with your lack of results thus far.

Anyway, you might as well help yourself to her spare garbs while you’re here. You won’t be wearing them, but if you steal these, then she’ll be left with only the set she’s wearing currently. It’ll probably be a hassle for her to get more. Into your bag they go.

Should you take more? Well, you’re right here anyway, so you might as well. You’re not keen on testing whether the ofuda will burn you on contact, and you’re not stupid enough to stick your hand into a mess of needles, but a few of the knick-knacks catch your eye. Bags of green tea, bowls and utensils, spare tassels for her purification rod, and a colorful package labeled “Pocky.”

Tilting your head, you take the last item and give it a shake. Sounds like something’s knocking around inside. If you had to guess, it’s those thin confection sticks shown on the front. You’ll venture that this is something from the outside, given how bright and out of place it is. You’ve heard that the Hakurei sometimes leads outsiders back across the Great Barrier. Perhaps one had this on them and offered it to her as thanks? Whatever the case, it’s yours now. You tuck it into your bag.

Moving on, you pull open the dresser drawers, but find nothing of importance. Some ribbons, a framed portrait of the previous Hakurei maiden, old clothes. Oh hey, a bottle of purple dye. Purple’s an expensive color, isn’t it? You swipe that up and deposit it into your bag. She probably won’t miss it since she’s not dyeing her hair anymore.

The dressers eventually leave you empty-handed. It’s frustrating. You really didn’t think what you were looking for would be hidden away. To be honest, you haven’t been the most thorough in your search, but this is a shrine all about warding against youkai. There should be anti-youkai texts everywhere. Is she hiding things under the floorboards? Is there a secret basement around or something?

Growing desperate, you throw open the doors to the side rooms. A depressingly vacant pantry, a broom closet containing a singular broom and nothing else, and a bedroom. Ah, there’s even a bedside table with a scroll on it! Your eyes lock onto it hungrily. This is it. If that isn’t your target, then you’ll have officially run out of obvious places to scour and search. Eagerly grabbing the paper, you yank it open with no fanfare, reading over the title.

“Hakurei Spell Card Rules - Final Draft”

You stare at those words for the world’s longest second. It’s not what you were looking for. Despair crawls down your spine and your wings droop.

Still, the text itself confuses you enough to hold your attention for the moment. The Hakurei Spell Card Rules? As in, written by the Hakurei? But the runt told you that Yukari- no. Actually, she never said who authored the rules, did she? Only that you had to follow them by the sage’s order. You’d simply assumed that meant Yukari had written them herself.

Well, since you’re already holding the official rules, you may as well take the opportunity to learn why your spell card didn’t go off earlier. Pulling the scroll open further to review it, you immediately find the information you’re searching for.

“Rule 1 - Spell cards are techniques specially named by the individual, and they must be declared upon use. A spell card constitutes as any utilization, or combination, of: an ability, a possession(s), an elaborate danmaku pattern, or a strong physical attack.”

Reading those words makes your brain break. “They must be declared?” you murmur, half to confirm you aren’t hallucinating the line. Is that why she was screaming that gaudy attack name? Does that mean if I’d just shouted some drivel, mine would’ve worked?

No, that’s too stupid to be real. Surely your master’s knife wasn’t defiled because you didn’t yell a catchy name before swinging. Surely it can’t be that juvenile. Promptly, you summon the spell card that failed you earlier and silently pray that what you’re about to do doesn’t work.

“Big… Blood Slash,” you say, cobbling together some random nonsense on the spot.

To your absolute horror, the spell card shimmers and activates. Unbidden, your hand jerks down - no longer acting under your command - and snatches the knife’s handle as if pulled by strings. You swing from the hip in a single, powerful motion. The blade flares bright, and a wave-like arc of blood erupts from its edge, splattering across the bedroom interior. Droplets strike with enough force to rattle and topple a few objects.

Your hand smacks hard against a wooden support beam as you finish the motion, the spell card’s power evaporating as quickly as it had come. The spell card dissolves, and with it, the blood. Everything has conveniently cleaned itself up, as though reality itself is politely pretending it didn’t happen. You stand rigid, staring forward in slack-faced astonishment.

That wasn’t supposed to work. This means the only thing separating you from victory was a tacky catchphrase. The runt may have withheld the rules on purpose, but learning you nearly lost because you didn’t imitate her childish theatrics is humiliating. You're unable to decide whether it's utterly degrading or absolutely infuriating.

Your hand drops limply to your side. Heat rises up from somewhere deep and ugly in the depths of your soul as the truth settles in. You got gimped. Gaze falling back down to the scroll in your hand, you give the stupid rules a foul sneer. You want to scream. You want to hit something. You want to march right up to the Hakurei and give her a piece of your mind. But you’d get swatted like a fly if you tried. You’re nothing to her. Just some “random youkai.”

Stupid Hakurei. Stupid shrine. Stupid lack of scrolls.

Seriously, did she bury them like treasure? This is so frustrating. You really thought you’d have found something with a cursory search. You suppose you could keep looking, harping over every little nook and cranny in the main building and storeroom alike, but it’d eat so much time. Do you have that time to give?

You mindlessly shove the stupid spell card rules into your satchel and start marching back outside. The sky is still smeared with red mist, though it looks darker now. Early evening, maybe? Hard to tell with the sun strangled behind that haze. Definitely not enough time to redouble your efforts and go for a second pass of the shrine. Heck, you may not find anything even if you had oodles of time on your hands. You’ve lost all hope.

Covering your face with your hands, you let out a deep, frustrated groan straight from the heart. So I let Lady Mima’s knife get defiled for nothing?

Know what? If you think about it, the knife was only defiled because of the Hakurei’s dumb rules. She’s the one at fault here. And with no one around to stop you, how can you resist a bit of deserved payback?

Spite firmly taking hold of your heart, you turn toward the offertory box on the porch beside you and drive your foot into its side with a heavy kick. The lid jumps ajar, and you move the large grated top aside before reaching in, only to grab at nothing. Confused, you lean forward and stare deep into the void of space where the shrine’s donations should be.

One coin, four leaves, and a stick. You count the pathetic haul, then let out a breathless snort. Maybe you were right to wonder how the shrine gets visitors with the runt posted so close by, because it’s starting to look like it genuinely doesn’t. Well, a coin is a coin. You reach in and pocket it.

Storming back into the main room of the shrine, you decide to use your sorting skills for evil, hastily rearranging the room in such a way that it has the worst feng shui imaginable. The dressers? You spin one around so its drawers face the wall, then shove the other until it leans at a precarious angle near the stove. The kotatsu? You ram it right up against the entrance. Perfect for tripping anyone trying to come in.

Honestly, your petty revenge feels like the sort of prank a fairy might get up to. You didn’t even think of it, but when she comes back from the incident, she’ll probably assume exactly that. She might even waste time swatting a few fluttering idiots out of the sky, shaking them down for confessions. This is the perfect crime.

So you begin to put a few finishing touches on your vandalization to sell that illusion. You fling open every sliding door connected to the front room and jam spare tassels into the nooks so they won’t close properly. You tear open the green tea in the chest and scatter the dried leaves across the floor, like that spring fairy who makes a performance out of it every year. Then you drag the chest to the center of the room and shove it onto its side for good measure.

Finally, you step back and take in your handiwork, and for a brief moment, satisfaction warms your chest. Then it wanes out just as fast.

All of this was only a momentary distraction. A way to cope with the most recent of your failures. Your parting, spiteful “farewell” to the shrine that denied you what you needed most. Of all the things that haven’t worked out for you these past few weeks, this stings the most. You don’t know where to go or what to do from here.

Glancing back out the front door, you note that it’s definitely mid-to-late evening by now. The sky is notably dim even through the mist. You doubt that you have any time to spare lingering. With a heavy heart, you snap the shrine’s front door shut. You feel like a failure. Again. All this effort just to mess up the shrine a little. The whole situation simply hasn’t worked out for you.

Stepping off the porch and spreading your wings in preparation to leave, you allow yourself one final glance over the shrine grounds, as if what you’re looking for may have just been laying around. Your gaze slips past the storehouse, then unconsciously fixates onto the clearing beyond. Staring for a moment, your thoughts dry up like a well in the desert. Your teeth sink into your lip. You can practically feel how close she is.

I’ll be quick, you tell yourself, retracting your wings and starting to move past the storehouse. I just need to see her again.

Before you even realize it, you’re already standing before the sealed stone that holds your master. The rock looks neglected. A skin of dirt sits on its surface, and the ground around it is littered with leaves and snapped twigs, as if the grove has been slowly reclaiming the spot one day at a time. There are no footprints, disturbed soil, or other signs that anyone’s come by in days. Longer, you’d be willing to wager. You were probably the last.

The ring of ofuda slapped around the stone, however, is still immaculate. Despite days outside, the edges of the paper are still crisp and the ink is unweathered. But of course that's the case. Things steeped in spirit don’t rot the way ordinary things do. Not even the elements can casually chew through a seal.

You restlessly shift in place, suddenly unsure what to do with yourself now that you’ve given in and come here. Drawing a total blank, you decide that showing some respect would be a good place to start. So, you lower yourself to your knees and fold your hands atop your lap before bowing your head. For a few seconds you sit in silence while a warm summer breeze rolls through the clearing and rustles the leaves surrounding the stone.

“I-I’m back, Lady Mima,” you blurt, the words tumbling out on impulse. A beat passes, and you stiffly continue. “Um. I’m only visiting for a moment, though. The Hakurei will probably be back any minute now. I just felt like I had to stop by and say something.”

You keep your eyes locked on your lap. Talking to a rock feels lonely in a way you can’t quite put into words. You don’t even know if she can hear you. With your luck, she can’t, and you’re pouring your voice into empty air. Still, this is the closest you’ve been to her in so long. Close enough to pretend, if you try hard enough, that she’s right here and simply choosing not to answer.

“I can only imagine how awful it is in there,” you murmur, throat tightening. “It must be lonely. Don’t suppose anybody has stopped by lately?”

The stone, of course, says nothing.

You swallow and speak anyway, forcing the conversation to keep moving so you don’t have to hear your own thoughts echo. “Wouldn’t think so. I can’t imagine the Hakurei comes out to chat up a rock. And Marisa...” You trail off, staring even harder into your lap than you were before. “Well. She’s already moved on from us.”

Your fingers clamp down, twisting two fistfuls of your dress until the cloth wrinkles. “She has a caretaker. Besides you, I mean. Some guy that runs a store. Apparently she’s known him for ages now.”

Sitting silent to let that sink in, you breathe in to steady yourself before continuing. "I don't know if she ever told you about him. She definitely never told me." You run your thumb over the fabric on your lap. "He's... nice," you reluctantly admit. A dry, humorless chuckle slips out of you. “Don’t tell him I said that though. Okay?”

Heat creeps into your face from the mess of feelings starting to come to surface from the hole you buried them in. “I guess she must’ve been planning this for a while? What’s she need us for if she has some tidy little life waiting to fall back into?” Your eyes drift, unbidden, toward your satchel, where you know the old dress is buried. “I... I don’t really want to think about it. I’ve been avoiding her so I wouldn’t have to.”

Silence again.

After a while, you speak again, forcing the tone lighter like you’re trying to coax a smile out of someone sick. “I want you to know I’ve been busy,” you say quickly. You fish out the scroll you took from Kourindou and lift it up for the rock to see, a faint pulse of pride fluttering through your chest. “Look! It’s a scroll about an advanced Hakurei sealing technique. I thought I could use it to break you out.”

The pride you had just built up unravels, and your hopeful expression falters. “But I can’t read it,” you confess bitterly.

“I can learn, though. That’s why I came to the shrine. I thought I could find something that would help me do that.” You hug the useless scroll to your chest like it were a lifeline, and it may very well still be. “But I couldn’t find anything like that. I guess this scroll will be all I’ll be getting.”

You stare at the rock with a fire in your eyes, undying resolve bolstering your spirit. “I’ll find somebody that will teach me how to read it properly. So don’t worry. Even if Marisa is fine with letting you rot in there, I’ll always be your faithful servant, Lady Mima. I’ll get you out. Eventually. I swear.”

There is no sign that your vow has landed anywhere but your own ears. The rock remains stoic - cold, silent, and unmoved. Inevitably, your smile is the only thing in this clearing that yields.

“...I should probably go now,” you say at last, voice rough as you glance over your shoulder. It’s even darker than the last time you checked. “I’m sorry. There was probably something here that I could have found but maybe I spread myself out a little thin. I thought the Hakurei would’ve had something like that in an obvious place. Stupid of me.”

You turn back to the stone and manage a thin, apologetic smile. “I’ve been making a lot of stupid choices without you.” As if to prove it, you don’t stand. You stay kneeling, wasting time you can’t afford. “That’s probably not what you want to hear after I just went on about saving you, but it’s true. Coming here was my big idea, and I have nothing to show for it.”

Staring at the rock for a moment more, your fake smile is slowly pulverized beneath its unyielding weight. Soon, you have nothing left to show but your bare soul.

“I really don’t know what I’m doing without you, Lady Mima,” you admit, shame burning hot in your cheeks. You reach out with both hands, craving contact - some trace of her - but stop short of the ofuda. You settle for placing your palms on the cold stone just beneath the seal. It's hard and unforgiving. Nothing like her.

“I wish you could just tell me what to do,” you whisper. “You always know what to do.”

Yet, no matter how hard you beg, the stone remains unmoved. Even in the presence of your master, you are alone.

It hurts.

You hiccup, swallowing back another wave of emotion. Even having gotten this little episode out of your system, you feel awful. Despite knowing that you should book it, your hands stay on the stone, and your legs refuse to shift. You simply can’t stand to leave her again. You can’t let her go, even when you’re the only one left holding on.

“You know,” you begin slowly, mouth dry, eyes fixed on the rock’s grain as a very stupid thought starts to creep into your mind. If you can’t find a scroll, you’ll settle for the next best thing. “I don’t know how much longer this incident will take to resolve, but I don’t like my odds. The safest move would be to accept that I got nothing out of coming here and use whatever time I have left to run.”

Even without scrying, you can see the danger of your imminent future. You’ll need every minute you can steal for what you’re about to do.

“And maybe I’m about to make another stupid choice…” You let the words settle, then you breathe in, deep. Something hard slides into your heart. A manic, determined, unwell resolve. “But I can’t leave empty-handed.”

She’s coming with you. You need her.

Stepping back, you size it up properly. About a meter tall, oblong, and sort of egg-shaped. Big enough to be a problem, small enough to tempt you into making an effort anyway. There’s no chance you can push it through the dirt for long, and you have no time left to prepare a ritual. However, you’re not about to let things like that stop you. You have a plan. A stupid plan, one fueled by love and panic, but a plan nonetheless.

You spring to your feet and take to the air, whipping around the clearing, eyes scanning the trees. You dart from branch to branch in a frantic search for straight, sturdy wood. When you spot a promising limb, you shoot upward, then dive into a dropkick. The branch snaps off as your heel impacts it, and you tumble through leaves, thudding into other limbs on the way down. It’s a painful crash, but you take it and launch again.

Another branch. Another crash. Another hurried harvest.

Soon you’ve amassed a rough collection of eight thick limbs. Most are as wide as your bicep, the biggest nearly as thick as your calf. You lay them out in a row at the base of the boulder like makeshift rollers. It’s slapdash and crude, but it's the best you can manage under the circumstances.

Landing beside Lady Mima’s prison, you clasp your hands together in a prayer and draw a long breath. Then you begin to push.

Your feet dig into the earth, carving shallow trenches. Your wings beat harder than you’ve ever forced them to beat before, stirring dirt and leaves into the air. You push until your arms tremble, until you’re sure something in you is going to tear. Slowly, the boulder begins to tip and inch forward. Progress. A ragged half-whine, half-laugh escapes you and you redouble your effort. Inch by inch the stone begins to topple. Your face burns red with strain and your muscles scream. Finally, with one last heaving shove, you force it over.

It lands with a heavy thump onto the line of branches. You don’t stop to breathe though. You need distance, and you need it now. Wasting no time, you start to push again, and the boulder clumsily rolls over the impromptu log rollers beneath it. Once it passes over two or three branches, you scramble to snatch them up and lay them in front again, feeding the stone its path like you’re laying tracks in real time.

With this method, you can move her. Where are you going? You don’t know yet. That isn’t the point. The point is away.

Push. Roll. Grab. Reset. Push. Roll. Grab. Reset.

You throw a glance up at the sky. It's getting dark fast. The red mist still stains everything, but far off across the span of Gensokyo, somewhere on the other end of Misty Lake, you spot the faint traces of a bright, twinkling lightshow of flashes and blooms. A spell card duel. A big one. Big enough that you can see it even from here. Which means the incident might be nearing its end.

Panic sharpens your focus. Your arms ache and your legs shake but you push on harder still. Your mind starts to race through places you can go to run and hide.

[ ] Kourindou. It’s just about the only place you can think of where you’re currently welcome. Too risky to go there.
[ ] The runt’s den. It probably wouldn’t be too hard to manipulate her into allowing you to stay. No, you hate her.
[ ] Makai. There’s a gateway to it somewhere a ways east of the Hakurei Shrine, though you’re unclear on the exact location. You’re extremely reluctant to return, but you’re desperate and your home realm will accept you.
[ ] Mugenkan. The Lake of Blood is a distance from here, but you know exactly where it is. Lady Mima and the manor’s mistress were on cordial terms last you checked, so maybe you can get her aid.