3 AM. The Witching Hour.

A time during which the boundary between normalcy and the profane is at its weakest, when safety’s veil over mankind thins to gossamer and allows fear to seep through. Winds start to carry whispers, and the creaks of one’s home bring with them thoughts of unseen presences. At that hour, all that lurk in the darkness are at their most terrifying.

That’s the belief, anyway - one reinforced by generations of sleepless nights. And in Gensokyo, belief is a force of nature in and of itself. Surely then, at this very moment, you must be at your peak. Surely.

Despite your effort to steel your revolve, your breath shivers past your lips. The pressure in your chest is no less oppressive than it was moments ago. If anything, it only mounts further. But you have to be strong, now more than ever. Frightening as it may be to take the first step, you have to do this. For her.

Forcing yourself forward, your foot steps past the torii gate of the Hakurei Shrine. You’re trespassing on sacred ground now. The pressure in your chest doubles, a palpable weight that threatens to buckle your knees. But the night makes you strong. The next step is easier to take, and the step after that even more so.

It gets so much easier to keep pushing onward, in fact, that by the time you’ve made it halfway down the leaf laden walkway, you’re starting to feel rather light and jumpy instead of leadfooted. The fear of getting caught skulking around is a great motivator to hurry up, as it turns out. And so, you skedaddle around the building in your desperate search for her.

Due to the special link you two share, you find yourself naturally drawn toward a grove of cherry trees a short distance from the back of the shrine. You bypass the main shrine grounds entirely, feet guided by an invisible connection. There, half-buried in a layer of pink petals from spring’s end, your gaze settles on a large stone - a paper talisman stuck to its surface. A seal. The seal that contains your master.

The sight is almost enough to bring you to your knees. Couldn’t the Hakurei have thought of a better prison than a rock?

Acting on impulse, you reach for the slip of paper, prepared to tear it off. This goes rather poorly. The moment your hand makes contact, a blinding flash overwhelms both the night and your vision. Your eyes are in pain, enough so that you almost don’t notice the other horrible pain you’re experiencing in your hand from the shocking sensation that accompanied the light.

Yelping as you stagger a few steps back, you start to rapidly blink and shake your hand off, desperate to erase the splotches dancing across your vision. Childish, perhaps, but it’s all you can think of to alleviate the spiritual burn caused by the seal’s defensive zap.

Once you’ve banished the sight impairing spots from your vision, you instinctively look down at your hand. Skin sizzling, fingers twitching. Biting back a hiss, you lament how foolishly brazen it was to simply grab at the seal without any preparation whatsoever. No wonder other youkai don’t mess with the Hakurei.

Speaking of the Hakurei, it suddenly occurs to you that the seal going off caused quite a light show, and you’re alarmingly close to the main building of the shrine, well within earshot. Should you make yourself scarce? But what about your master? Leaving wasn’t part of the plan. The plan was to.. well, finding your master was just about the long and short of it, actually. Perhaps this whole witching hour operation could have been workshopped a little longer.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

Your stomach drops.

Whirling around in a clumsy, lurching motion, you instinctively cradle your burnt hand close to your chest to hide the evidence of your misdeed - as if you’d been caught red-handed in the cookie jar. Your eyes dart toward the voice’s source, widening as you find yourself pinned beneath the steady gaze of the shrine’s maiden herself. Even sloppily garbed in wrinkled, slept-in shrine attire, she instills a paralyzing terror in you. From the flat look you’re being given, it's painfully obvious she’s not very happy about waking up in the dead of night.

“Beat it.” Her irritated voice cuts through any sense of strength the witching hour once gave you. “I don’t have patience for a random youkai poking around the shrine at night.”

…Random youkai? Did she just call you a random youkai?

Is the night making you difficult to make out? Doesn’t she recognize you? Surely she must. She couldn’t have forgotten you already - it’s only been a week since your last encounter with her. A week since the day she sealed your master into the very stone you stand in front of.

How could the Hakurei Shrine Maiden not recognize the familiar of the great Lady Mima?

[ ] Time to leg it. Coming here was a stupid idea from the beginning and facing the Hakurei’s wrath is a doubly stupid idea. There’s no telling what she’ll do to you if you upset her further.
[ ] 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.