[-] Medical treatment received.

"That's the last one," Reisen said softly, tying off the final bandage. "How are you feeling?"

Sitting listlessly on the gap, you looked down at the results. Your injured tails outnumbered the healthy ones, with no fewer than five wrapped up in makeshift casts. The pride and joy of any kitsune, the mark of their power and experience... well, they certainly marked something, alright.

How did it go this wrong? How?

"Ran? Is there any pain?"

You wrenched your eyes shut, barely holding back the dam of tears. It wasn’t like despair was anything new to you. In fact, it was a foundational experience - your current life as a shikigami began amidst the shattered remnants of your past self’s life, leaving your early days swamped by the emotion… and despite your progress in both control and stability, you could never truly seem to leave it behind. Sooner or later, no matter what tactics you tried or how promising your efforts seemed, you’d find yourself here.

Useless.

A hand gently pressed against your forehead, and you sucked in the breath at the unexpected touch. "There's no fever, at least."

You blinked, realizing the moon rabbit was watching you with open concern... and then her question from before finally registered. You blinked a few more times, focusing until Reisen's face came into view.

"Sorry. Can't feel the breaks, they just ache a little. Painkillers must be kicking in." And definitely not any other reason for your mind to be in tatters.

Reisen nodded, her red eyes leaving gleaming afterimages. "Could you rate it on a scale from one to ten?"

You reached for the glass of water, taking a drink as you marshalled your thoughts. "My tails are all between zero and three. Can't feel those two at all." You pointed in the vague direction of the ones most thoroughly wrapped up. "Main body... call it a four. Six if I move the wrong way."

Your nurse gave you a sharp nod, pulling out a small container of pills. "In that case, some painkillers are in order. I used a light touch on the anesthetic."

You weren't sure you believed that. Between the pills she'd already given you and the topical applied to your various breaks and sprains, your mind was more than a bit foggy. While your thoughts themselves were sharp, racing in circles like a snake eating its tail, you felt like a passenger in your own body. The sensations of the world were still there, but oddly distant and unreal, an almost dreamlike haze. It was oddly fitting, considering the nightmare you'd made for yourself.

A clacking noise drew you out of your thoughts as the moon rabbit shook the vial to draw your attention. You looked down at it and shook your head. "I'd rather not."

"Doctor's orders," she insisted. "If you're feeling that much pain even before the first dose wears off, you're going to need these."

"It's not that much pain." By any reasonable metric, it was far less than your disobedience deserved.

"You called it a six, and claimed Yukari setting your broken tails was a seven." Reisen countered. "Daikoku only knows what you'd consider a ten."

“You do remember my account of the poison that ended Tamamo’s reign?” The moon rabbit startled a bit at that and you smiled weakly. "Or were you expecting it to be shikigami discipline? I did design it that way - pain is an excellent motivator, after all - but there's only so much pain you can inflict before risking permanent damage. It can't compare to having your tails melt."

"Melt?!" Reisen yelped, before shaking her head. "No, no distractions. Here."

She popped the container's top and shook out a couple of pills, passing them to you.

You looked down at the painkillers with numbed amusement. "Yin yang pills? Really?"

"Symbols matter," Reisen said, returning your weak smile with a gentle one of her own. "Even with humans, the placebo effect can do a shocking amount of work, and it's easy for a youkai to believe a yin-yang anything will be powerful."

"If that's the case, maybe Reimu should be charging royalties."

"Ran."

You shook your head, closing your fist around them. "I'd rather stay clear-headed. I know my service record tonight has been... beyond poor, but all the same."

"It's an analgesic, not an anesthetic," Reisen countered. "The only sensation it blocks is pain; if anything, it'll help you think more clearly."

Still, you hesitated. Not because you didn't believe her, but because she'd stripped away your excuses, and you had no idea how to explain. A devoted servant she might be, but how could you possibly explain to a non-shikigami that you deserved this? That if anything, you deserved to suffer more, that the correct course of action should be harsher pain to underline and properly punish your disobedience?

"Ran, please just take them." Her eyes were full of honest concern. "If you're zoning out on me like this, you clearly need it."

You sighed, ears drooping. "Reisen, as a doctor, what would you say pain is for? What purpose does it serve, why do our bodies include it?"

She eyed you worriedly. "Pain is a warning mechanism," she said. "From bruises to stomachaches, they're all different types of alerts to your body that something is wrong."

"For a shikigami, nothing is more wrong than disobedience."

"Are your orders hurting you?"

"No! That's not-" You growled, frustrated. "Pain is an excellent motivator, which is why I programmed a shikigami's discipline to inflict it. Even if the joy of following orders is supposed to be the primary motive for obedience, the sharp, drastic feedback of agony is an invaluable teaching tool."

Reisen drew in a deep breath, visibly trying to calm herself. “That’s short-term thinking. If you hurt yourself further, it’ll take you longer to heal, and that won’t help you be useful to your master.”

The blatantly rehearsed line was almost laughable. “I see Eirin taught you the basics of manipulating a shikigami patient.”

“You aren’t the first to attempt self-harm,” The moon rabbit admitted, her ears drooping. “But the logic still holds.”

“Only for someone who conflates pain with long-term injury.” You weren’t so hopeless as to be stopped by something that simple. “And as it so happens, I have an Eirin-approved method of pain enhancement readily at hand.”

“Don’t be ridiculous!” Reisen cried. “My master makes medicine, not-”

“Stimulants.” That single word brought the moon rabbit’s objection to a dead halt. “What better way to ensure I remain alert without compromising my discipline? Surely you won’t argue that’s unacceptably harsh.”

“Ran, I didn’t-” her voice cracked as she shook her head, “I didn’t actually take the stimulants. They were just for show; Eirin gave me painkillers from the start.”

The unexpected admission took some of the wind from your sails. A basic manipulation, and yet you hadn’t so much as considered it. How stupid did you have to be to - no. It was just another sign of how far you’d slipped. Of how much you needed this.

“But you still have them, don’t you?” you pleaded. “They’d still work?”

Reisen’s expression made it more than obvious that she did and they would as the nurse shook her head desperately. "But Yukari doesn't want this for you! She made sure I'd be here to treat you, she wants you to get better! Think back to her words, what was it she actually said?"

You didn't even have to think. "She said to focus on getting better. But pain won't stop me from 'getting better', any more than a painkiller cures a patient. And I've been thinking about my master's orders, about the pattern to them."

The moon rabbit looked both frozen and horrified. "What pattern is that?"

"Yukari, she... she's too kind to me," you admitted. "Her long association with my past self has made her reluctant to properly use me as a shikigami. She tries not to give orders, rarely steps in unless I've already done something in need of correction, and then refuses to discipline me properly, even countermanding the shikigami's in-built punishment for failures. I'm sure she ordered me away from Sumireko so I wouldn't screw things up with my delusions, but if she'd just corrected me to begin with... maybe I'd be on the trail of the real mastermind instead of wasting everyone's time!"

"Ran, none of that means you need to suffer!"

"But that's the only thing missing! Shikigami don't disobey orders, they don't fail over and over and over again, they don't have echoes of their past self pushing them, manipulating them, giving them second thoughts at the worst possible moment - except me! Just me." You hung your head, tears dripping down your cheeks. "It always falls apart, always. It doesn't matter how carefully I plan, or how hard I try, whether I do it myself, or enlist help, shut out my past self or let her in... I can never quite fulfill my master's orders."

You started sobbing openly, unable to stop the floodgates once started. "At best it's incomplete, I'm almost there but there's some crucial detail I can't finish... and all too often, it's a disaster. The bigger the order, the harder I try, the worse the disaster. I conquered a country, and now I can't catch a high-schooler!"

"And now I'm losing memories, losing power, getting weaker and outright delusional while I demolish what's left of my reputation... I just want to serve, Reisen! To finish a single order, any order! And maybe if I discipline myself properly, if I motivate myself the way I always should have been motivated, feel the pain of failure as hard as I should feel it, then-"

Reisen grabbed your hand with both her own, the moon rabbit’s fingers wrapping around yours as she looked at you pleadingly. "Please don't hurt yourself."

You tried to pull your hand back, feeling that familiar pit in your chest as your resolve started weakening. "I won't inflict further damage, I just... what if a little pain now is what I need to finally start being useful? I can't just stay a failure."

"No! Ran, I don't want to see you hurting."

"This already hurts more than any amount of broken bones."

"A-and I'm sure Yukari wouldn't want it either," Reisen said desperately. "And Chen! What would Chen think if she saw you like this?"

She'd be so upset. Your little girl never absorbed what it meant to be a shikigami, never understood why your failures pained you so. She'd just see you at rock bottom and beg you not to feel sad, cuddling up to you as another means to distract you, to pull out your past self - and somehow you could never quite avoid or resist her. Sure, your order to treat her affectionately meant you could never just push her away, but there were other ways, it was just...

You missed her so badly.

"Please, Ran!" Reisen begged, still gripping your hand tightly. "If you need to figure out a plan for your orders, I'll help you, but I just want you to get better!"

Cornered by the girl’s compassion, the last of your composure snapped, and you broke down weeping.

You’d given in once again. Taken the painkillers, even if it had taken a couple tries to actually swallow. And while the physical pain had dulled even more, barely on the edge of perception now (not unexpected for one of Eirin’s concoctions), your heartache remained. And so before your tears dried, you asked Reisen the only question you could.

“How do you stand it?”

“Stand what?” She looked worried. “Does something still hurt, or-”

“Not that.” You shook your head miserably. “The failures. Trying your hardest studying, working, avoiding pranks… and all you ever get is criticism and punishment. At best, at absolute best, maybe your efforts are passable, and then it’s a new, harder task to struggle with.”

You were hoping for an answer, but Reisen just looked lost. It was clear she wanted to say something, but she either didn’t know what to say or didn’t know how to say it, leaving the silence to stretch on. Maybe there wasn’t an answer. Maybe all you were accomplishing were digging at wounds the moon rabbit would rather hide.

“It’s rough, sometimes.” She finally says. “Most of the time it’s bearable, but Tewi can be an absolute pain in the tail, and my master does push me pretty hard. But the princess is pretty good at spotting when it’s getting to be too much, and she’ll get the others to lay off, or assign me a task that’s a break in disguise.”

It wasn’t anything you hadn’t expected, but hearing it from the moon rabbit’s lips was still painful. “But it’s still bad.”

“Some days it feels like it,” she admitted. “And I’ve had a few sleepless nights over it, too. A couple of them even out in the forest, to delay going back. But it’s never as bad as it seems. Apologies are made, the mess gets cleaned up, and life goes on. It gets better.”

“Does it really?” you asked. “Or is that just something you tell yourself? A comforting lie, because the alternative is too terrible to think about?”

Reisen frowned, shaking her head. “It’s not like that. Lady Eirin does care, even if she’s bad at showing it sometimes. She’s so strict because she has high hopes for me, she thinks I’ve actually got talent.”

“That doesn’t imply any care for your well-being,” you shot back. “Even Tamamo-no-Mae made a point of honing the talents of her more useful shikigami!”

“Ran, I’m not a shikigami,” she stressed. “I’m Eirin’s assistant, not her slave.”

“Exactly! There’s nothing forcing you to stay; you’re not obligated to follow a master who runs you ragged! You could just leave!” You took a deep breath, your eyes filling with tears. “It’s too late for me, Reisen. No matter how she uses me, the only thing I can be is Lady Yukari’s tool. But you? You can still be happy.”

Reisen hesitated. Just for a moment, the wall of the moon rabbit’s resolution seemed shaky, the bricks and mortar of her reasoning seeming to shudder. You seized the opening, grabbing her hand as you pleaded with the girl to reconsider. “You have so much potential. Talent, a useful ability, an excellent work ethic, respectable danmaku skills, and even a kind heart. Anyone in Gensokyo would be lucky to have someone like you, the sages included! And you’re still young, that potential is only going to grow.”

Your heart aching, you reached out for the girl’s face, fingertips brushing against her cheek as your vision blurred. “What you have now at Eientei, this endless cycle of toil, pranks, and punishments… is this really what you want from life?”

Time slowed to a crawl, as the touch lingered - far more than you had any right to, and yet so little. For just a moment, the moon rabbit’s eyes couldn’t meet yours… and for just a moment, you dared hope that you’d swayed her.

And then her expression hardened ever so slightly, and your heart sank. Slender fingers clasped around yours. Your outstretched hand was held in place for just an instant longer, quietly acknowledged, then gently guided away from the girl’s face.

It was a refusal. Your plea had pierced her outward defenses, only to find something deeper, stronger. Her gaze returned, meeting yours full on. “What I want from life is to be a doctor. I want to be someone that can heal and take care of people, the best I possibly can.”

You knew it was doomed to fail, but you still tried to reach through, one last time. “Do you truly think suffering at Eientei is the path to get there?”

“Where else would I go?” The question failed to even dent her composure - you were only treading a path she’d already walked before. “Gensokyo’s native doctors are decades behind the outside world, the outside world’s medicine is centuries behind the moon… and the moon’s medicine is just whatever Lady Eirin wrote down before she left.” She managed a small chuckle at that. “And that’s assuming they even let me study it in the first place.”

She closed her eyes, thinking back. “I’m sure you remember the Eternal Night Incident, where we hid the moon. Did you know that started because I received what was basically a draft notice from the other moon rabbits? They were calling me back to war, and if they’d found Eientei in an attempt to grab me, we’d all have been taken, or worse. I remember going up to Lady Eirin, and offering to give myself up - telling them that they’d be safer without me.”

A small smile played on her lips, a chuckle escaping as she opened her eyes. “It was the first time I’d seen her lost for words. The thought of ditching me hadn’t even crossed her mind. As it turned out, despite the fact I was the one that got them in that mess, nobody even considered the idea of throwing me to the wolves. Not even Tewi.”

“Eientei’s my home, Ran. Sure, it’s not perfect, and sometimes I want to strangle a few idiot rabbits, but I know they’ll have my back if I need them - and that Lady Eirin has faith in me.” You looked down, unable to meet her gaze as the moon rabbit continued. “And sure, maybe there’s some place else where I could learn to be a good doctor. But ‘good’ just isn’t good enough.”

Was it truly ambition, driving her to put up with all of it? Her words echoed the lines, but their tone made her resolve seem far more grim. Whichever it was, it was deeper than just her time at Eientei, and utterly unflinching - perhaps even harder now than it had been when you first met this afternoon.

Faced with such evident conviction, you looked away, ashamed. You’d been certain her apprenticeship to Eirin was nothing more than inertia. That clearly the moon rabbit staying with the Lunarians had never thought she could strike out on her own, never truly realized she could choose something else. And somehow, you’d completely missed that she had chosen. She’d chosen a medical apprenticeship to the greatest doctor that ever lived.

Had it been a reasonable mistake? You desperately wanted to brush it off as one - You’d barely interacted with Reisen before this afternoon, and with that little information, bad reads could and did happen. And on any other day, you’d have concluded just that… except for how perfectly it matched the pattern of your earlier delusions.

You already knew your memories had been stirred up, forming false connections for recent events. And just like you blundered in naming Mamizou the mastermind, your perception of Reisen was certainly in error. The level of concern and emotion you felt for the moon rabbit was utterly inappropriate for your level of acquaintance, let alone actually petting her! Hells, had you truly apologized, or did you imagine that too?

But there was worse. Just like with Mamizou, you’d formed an entire logical edifice around the mistake, making theories and decisions that crumbled at first contact with reality. And that raised a far more horrifying question. With first the tanuki, and now this, what else were you being delusional about? What other decisions had you made that would be proven utter foolishness?

You didn’t know. Perhaps you couldn’t know, even with the long night of soul searching ahead of you. But at least you could stop burdening Reisen with your problems.

“Just… promise me,” you finally managed, barely above a whisper. “If your orders get too much, if the burden’s too great to bear, you’ll talk to someone about it. At least to get it off your chest.”

She managed a small smile of appreciation, gently rubbing your hand with her thumb. “I will, I promise.” A moment passed, before something caught her attention, bringing her back to your situation. “Orders… right.”

The moon rabbit took a deep breath, facing you seriously. “Ran, there’s something important we need to talk about. But before I can get into it, I need to know - what are your orders, exactly?”

There were precious few questions that could still seize your attention even in this state, but that was one of them. “Why do you need to know?”

[-] “It’s about Mamizou. Miko thinks she might be alive after all.”
[-] “It’s about Akyuu. Miko thinks she’s an imposter, maybe even a tanuki.”
[-] “Because treating a shikigami means planning around their orders. In your case, part of getting better would mean fulfilling your orders… and maybe I can help.”