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Chapter Text

Somewhere in the distant future, Gensokyo...

The world as we know it has come to an end. An insurmountable incident has completely destroyed the fantasy paradise. Not even the sages or the greatest incident resolvers or the denizens of Gensokyo could do anything. The outside world and moon have also fallen, many are missing or lost, and the end is near.

From an outsider's perspective the physical may be in tact, but for any organism capable of senses, especially those with capability for intelligence, it is as if you are in the midst of a volcano exploding as you're on its peak. It is said that those in accidents or trained fighters can see and feel milliseconds as if they were hours, and they lose control of their senses. Although there is no imminent physical danger, the situation for those remaining could be described as similar.

It's a rainy day in Gensokyo. However, there are no youkai or fairies out to enjoy it, or humans to grovel in. Those who remained indoors could survive the longest, and after the event horizon, direction became meaningless as well.

There were a group of western-style youkai in a mansion near a certain lake who were quite fond of staying indoors. There would lay the last bastion of hope for restoring normalicy.

The mansion was decrepet. The head maid had never returned after trying to save the incident, and the remaining fairy maids were unable to fulfill their duties properly. The head mistress ordered all left to stay indoors, not allowing them to leave the room after a certain point. This paranoia would prove to be effective. Several figures were around a large table. There was no food, however youkai don't need to eat much.

The figures, totalling around eleven sat quietly. Their clothes resembled the rest of the mansion: dirtied, worn and bleached. This did not matter as due to the incident, sight and touch were nearly extinct. Eventually, one of the figures started talking.

"Remilia, are you aware of why we have come here?" asked one of them. The voice, while being damaged and raspy, attempted to retain a cool and collected attitude.

Remilia did not immediately respond.

"I'm aware of depression from this, but we need a response. Cut the selfishness for one moment." Retorded another voice. The figure here sat in a chair seperate from the rest of the mansion.

After a long pause, Remilia caved in. "...My ability can't do anything. Neither can Patchy and Flandre. I've told and shown you multiple times. Are you here to recruit me into a final suicide cult?" The voice was quite dry.

"No, there's no need for that." A relatively healthy yet stern, deep voice retorted. "If we wanted to kill you, we would have done it already. This will be a final solution." she slammed on the desk.

Another figure, whos feet were on the table, added on in another relatively healthy voice. "There's no need for formality at this time. All of you have always pissed me off with your vagueness, just talk!" A girl next to her smirked.

"Fine. If nobody else can say anything of use, I will. There's a last stand for resolving the incident, but it needs a sacrifice. Only you are eligible. We want you to volunteer." Said yet another voice. This voice was damaged, yet still passionate.

There was silence at the table yet again. Eventually, a new voice spoke up, after a barrage of coughs.

"Get to the point. How lethal is it? There's no time left to mess around." said a deep voice. "Ahh, Miss Patchouli. You shouldn't talk now, you'll undo your meds!" The voice next to her said, still somewhat healthy.

The more healthy voice came up again. "The sacrifices made have not been in vain. We know that the masterminds behind this incident have done all this to create their own world. This is the world they have been basing in and possibly trying to terraform, but we lack much information..."

"So then why not send yourself?!" Blared a new voice. "You or Mokou. Hell, even the princess could do it without much issue. Or one of you other sages. I understand Patchy, but I could go too. The mistress is in no shape to do it..."

"Meiling..." Remilia started, but didn't finish.

"It's due to temperament." Said the sage known as Okina. "All worlds have a unique quality to them. In this world, their version of magic is temperament. If yours doesn't line up, you'll be as good as dead somewhere down the line. Remilia is the only one who fits.

Meiling made a face. Patchouli looked away. Remilia stared blankly at the table, head in hands. Then, a new voice spoke out.

"What about me?" Said a younger, lighter voice. It was Flandre, who was possibly least affected by the incident. "Since we're blood related, I should have a similar temperament to my sister, right?"

"You were very useful to me dealing with the incident with the beast leader. However, you're not yet mature or experienced enough to fight on your own. Even if your temperament lined up, you would be destroyed instantly." Okina sighed.

"No, let her go." Remilia instantly retorted. "I'll do even worse."

"She's unworthy." Yukari shot down. "For starters, we don't even know where she'll be dropped off..." Flandre made an angry face.

"There's something that's been bothering me this whole time." Remilia said as she rose from her seat. "How exactly will this help resolve the incident? Is there some magical item or whatever that's gonna solve everyone?!" She angrily added.

"This is supposedly the home and base of operations of the main mastermind. Remilia, if you can beat her, we can bring everything back to normal." Kasen tried to say enthusiastically. Once again, there was silence in the room. Remilia didn't want to say anything.

After a long pause, Flandre finally said "Open up the gate." Everyone turned to her confused. "It's obvious sis isn't gonna go, so I'll do it. Even if my ability doesn't work, I'm still a vampire.

"You're too weak!" Yukari again stated. However, this time Flandre would not take it. "You're just saying that, but you're out of options! You lot are probably too scared to go. Who cares about temperament! Three of you are immortal! Remi's just a shell of herself now, and Meiling obviously just wants to spend the rest of her days here. That's not how I want to go, so at least give me a try. It's not like I could do worse than HER!" Flandre pointed at Remilia. Remilia looked dissapointed, but nodded in agreement after a long minute.

Yet again there was silence at the table. Flandre was losing her patience. "So open this gate already! If none of you have anything to say. Don't drag this on longer for my sister than you have to."

Eirin sighed and said "There's something we have to tell you if you're this insistent. My gate is made through a specialized seal crystal in stasis. As you don't match this world, you won't be an exact fit. There's no stating for sure what exactly could happen. You could lose your memories, your ability, or something else entirely..."

This made Flandre backpedal for a moment. "Am I really sure I want to take that..?" She thought to herself. After some thought, Yukari rose up, and summoned out her shikigami. "I've decided, if you, Flandre Scarlet, can beat me in a fight, I'll allow you to go. Are there any objections?"

Around the room, everyone was looking at them. Nobody disagreed with the two. Flandre summoned her weapon, a strange spear like weapon she nicknamed Lævateinn.

The three walked towards an empty part of the kitchen, away from the others. Flandre gripped her weapon and took her feet off the ground, Yukari did the same. Flandre struck first with an attack, jolting violently towards the sage aiming her weapon at her neck, yet her shikigami Ran had blocked it right in front of her face. Ran started shooting Kunai out of her, while Flandre backed up to have space to dodge them.

Yukari teleported behind Flandre, yet Flandre had turned around and shouted out a spellcard attack. "Taboo: Forbidden Games!" Several clock like objects had summoned themselves around Flandre and were rapidly flying out of her. Yukari was unable to get away fast enough and got clipped by some of them, scratching her cheeks and shoulders. Flandre turned around to try to strike at Ran, but she was not there. Instead, she got hit from the side by a headbutt, and was launched into the wall, creating a large hole going into the next room. Flandre picked herself up and jumped out of the way quickly from a barrage of knives and fireballs that were aiming at her. Flandre embranced herself to summon her own danmaku, shooting rings of energy pellets all around herself. Yukari dodged them and responded with her own spellcard attack. "Magic Eye: Laplace's Demon!" Yukari spread her arms out wide, summoning a large array of eyes around her and Flandre. These eyes would focus in on Flandre and fire high-energy spirit balls at her. Flandre decided to cut the bullet firing and fire another spellcard, announcing "Taboo: Four of a Kind!"

Flandre split herself into four, all indestinguashable from the original, even down to clothing damage. The four quickly dispersed and split into groups of two to single out the sage and her shikigami. Two Flandres were swinging Lævateinn's at Ran, who was just barely managing to block, as Yukari started creating gaps around herself, summoning lasers and shooting more energy bullets to try to divide the two Flandre's rushing towards her. This continued for a moment, however, there is a limit to all spellcards, and a few moments later its duration had run out. Flandre had fused back to one by Yukari, and immediately compensated by releasing another attack. "Forbidden Barrage: Catadioptric!!" Several strands of ultra-high energy bullets, knives, and general debris from the mansion had exploded out of her hand and were coming towards Yukari.

"You're the same as always, Flandre! You focus on overwhelming your opponents immediately with high power, but you don't focus on technique or nuance. That's your weakness!" Yukari created a large gap in front of her, and another one behind Flandre, re-shooting her bullets back at her. Flandre got out of the way quickly, but she still grazed some on her arm, bruising it considerably. Ran immediately noticed the weakness and went to attack Flandre's neck, who had fallen briefly for a moment. Flandre barely managed to catch her hand with her own. Flandre raised her leg and kicked it into the floor, destroying the entire floor under herself and Ran. Flandre used this moment while falling to shoot some of the debris at Yukari, who had dodged it. However, Flandre used this to push herself back into Ran. She grabbed Ran from behind her and manuevered her way behind her, finding one of Okina's backdoors. "That damn sage!" she thought to herself. "Forbidden Barrage: Starbow Break!!" She stabbed her Lævateinn into Ran's Backdoor and used her spellcard energy to thrust herself at Yukari, leaving rainbow danmaku behind her. "What brutishness..!" Yukari thought to herself. She attempted to move out of the way, but was unable to.

There was a makeshift cage of lasers surrounding Yukari, and not only that, they were coming out of her own gaps. "What's this..?" Yukari attempted to create a gap beneath herself, but it was too late. The full force of ran had come crashing into her, and she crashed into the laser wall before her gaps dissipated, causing severe damage for Yukari. "You said something about how I only try to bruteforce my opponent. Did you forget my first spellcard was named Cranberry Trap?" Flandre said proudly. Yukari wiped blood off her face with her face and unsommoned the equally damaged shikigami. "There's one thing you should know about this world... there, the denizens blessed with proper temperaments are capable of fighting with and using abilities much like we can, however, it is not the same as us. They are much more experienced at it than I or any of the other sages could be. This was only a padding test, but you must constantly stay on your toes and use your head." Flandre stepped back for a moment. "Does this mean I passed the test..?" She asked confusedly. Behind her, a gap was opening, with a silently charging beam. "Indeed." Stated Yukari, "You passed." Flandre snapped behind her as she recognized what was going on. "Shit!" she yelled as she instinctively held out her hand.

Flandre's ability is to destroy absolutely anything. By changing the 'eye' of an object in her hand and squeezing it shut, she can remove it from existence, which is what she did here. "While your ability remains as usual here, there's no guarantee it'll be the same out there. Be cautious." Yukari lectured. Flandre felt somewhat annoyed she was able to have the last laugh somehow despite losing.

The two went back to the dining room. The sages looked around at each other. Eirin stood up first. "Well, I'm not sure you've passed, but I shall let you try anyways. I shall pass on the rest of what we know now." Flandre nodded, however, the realization of what she was getting herself into was starting to kick in. She had seldom left the mansion, let alone explored another dimension.

Eirin continued, "While Gensokyo almost certainly exists here, from what we have so far, we can't find it. Your task is to find where this realm's Gensokyo is and to defeat the mastermind." Eirin took out a walkie-talkie like device. "We've developed a special tool for communication, however, you should only use it in a dire emergency or when you've completed your mission, as it is quite unstable. Do you understand?" Flandre nodded again. The rest of the table sat in silence. Okina decided to break the silence, stating "Remember that time for us doesn't pass much while you're out, so you don't have to worry about any of that. Just focus on yourself." This made Flandre feel a little more relieved, but worry was still boiling up in her.

"It's too late to back out now, isn't it?" she thought to herself. "It's fine, though. I'll just use my ability if someone gets in my way." Remilia got out of her seat and went to squeeze Flandre's shoulder. The two looked at each other. "I'm sure you'll do fine." Remilia said. The members of the Scarlet Devil Mansion gave slight smiles.

"I think I'm ready to go." Flandre told the sages. She walked up to Eirin and took the device. The sages looked at each other, with Yukari saying "I shall bring the gate." She created a gap in the air and dissapeared into it. The rest of the Scarlet Devil Mansion members surrounded Flandre to encourage her, while the remaining sages started talking. "Are you sure about this?" Kasen said. "I was hoping Remilia would be able to snap back into it once she went through..."

"I'm not entirely certain myself." Okina responded, "Flandre has a habit of not taking fights seriously. In addition, I'm not sure how her ability will be retained once she passes through the gate."

Yukari returned through a new gap. "Your concerns are valid. After all, she is still relatively a child." She had the gate floating behind her. It was a rather large mechanism, about the height of a grown man in a rectangular shape, with a large metal box-like appendage to the side. "It may just be because I'm in a good mood, however, but I'm optimistic for her."

Yukari set down the device, and Okina shouted out "Patchouli, Meiling. Come on up." The two walked over to the machine, with Koakuma following behind. "You'll have to use some of your magic and qi on this to get it going. I hope you don't mind." Eirin instructed.

The three started to immediately power the machine with their magic. As it was turning on Eirin explained "This was created through a special type of stabilized seal crystal we were able to get a hold of. It contains the DNA of one of those involved in the creation of this incident, but it's just barely enough to create a miracle like this." In the machine's gate started to form a blue-purpleish swirl. The other members came up to observe.

"Flandre, you can step into the gate now." Instructed Okina. Everyone's eyes were on Flandre, who looked very mixed. Flandre slowly began to walk towards the gate. Remilia suddenly ran to hug Flandre, whispering in her ear "you can do this. Go." Flandre paused and nodded, and returned the hug. Everyone else also started to cheer her on. As she approached the gate, the ground suddenly started to shake. Everyone was confused, and started to ask what was happening. Gensokyo had not had an earthquake in quite some time, and those who would cause them would have been too affected by the incident to cause any such trouble. Suddenly, a huge rift was forming across the Scarlet Devil Mansion.

Yukari had shouted out "This isn't an earthquake! The fabric of reality is starting to break apart!" The shaking got more intense as the bounded field widened, revealing a sort of starry interior. "Flandre, get inside the gate and resolve the incident!" Yukari shouted. Flandre, however, was too stunned and scared to hear. "This is... is this the incident too? I never heard of this before." She thought to herself. She took a step back. The rift had seperated Flandre from the rest of the people there. She could only see Remilia trying to fly out of the way through the growing crack, which had started to create a tree-like structure of branches. In Flandre's mind it resembled a mandlebrot set.

The shaking and growing of the rifts got more and more intense, and as did Flandre's emotions overcome her sense of logic. She leaped to grab her sister in desperation, however, her hand had gotten encased in a newly formed branch of the rift. Yukari, seeing this, used her ability to overlap her own gap onto the space's gap, however, she did not know what this would do. It turned out to make her consume an incredible amount of energy to get Flandre's hand out of the gap. As she was struggling, Remilia, trying to fly away, saw Flandre's struggling. Yukari managed to seperate the rift's gap for an instantaneous moment as the mansion shifted backwards towards the gate. Flandre was about to fall directly into the gate as she saw Remilia's lips say one last thing.

"Do it."

Flandre fell into the gate which powered off immediately and fell backwards. The mansion's roof burst into it, destroying the floor beneath it and creating a pile of rubble on the bottom of the mansion where it was destroyed. The others scattered to get as far from the rift as possible. In their minds, they knew that Flandre was truly the last stand they had.

Chapter Text

Flandre opened her eyes. She was in a strange dimension, with blue and purple streaks lining the area otherwise totally dark around her. This was the "space in between."

Flandre was more or less in freefall. In this area, there was no oxygen, but vampires don't really need oxygen to survive anyways.

However, she was still capable of consciousness and vision. Besides the various streaks and darkness, various plants were around her. She could count them - bamboo, flowers, different types of trees, bushes, and more. What was more - there were eyes scattered all around the area too.

Flandre was in this state for about a minute. During this time, all she could think to herself was "If time doesn't pass quickly while I'm away... I shouldn't pressure myself to rush then, right? Rushing can make me sloppy. Still, what the heck is this place?"

While she thought the experience was creepy, she wasn't in any pain - nor could she even feel anything. She already started reflecting on what had happened shortly prior to entering the gate. Was she really cut out for this? She thought about what this world could be like. The sages didn't elaborate very much on the details, so she figured she'd likely have to find out where to go herself. "Maybe my sister's already manipulated fate to show me where to go." She half joked to herself. She touched her vest where she put away the device Eirin gave her.

After a bit, reality itsself seemed to crumble around her. Naturally, she became confused as everything besides herself became what seemed like sand flowing up. Eventually some grass revealed itsself beneath her. Flandre looked up around her to see the strange dimension she was just in crumble away. She was standing in a grassy field beneath the moonlight. Flandre squeezed her hand, to confirm she was indeed, in reality.

Unfortunately, there seemed to be nothing around her. The field had a couple of small rolling hills, with a calm breeze, but no obvious points of guidance for where to go. Flandre had to rely on her own intuition.

"Is this Gensokyo, or the outside world..?" Flandre looked up at the starry night sky. The few clouds made it easy to identify constellations and celestial marks. Naturally, having access to the library of magic, she had some idea of where to go. Luckily, she could identify Polaris, or what she thought was Polaris, the brightest star in the sky. She decided to follow it.

"Can I float in this world..?" she thought. And indeed she could - she lifted herself off the ground, her irregular wings beating slightly. In this way, she was able to quickly traverse the terrain.

As Flandre travelled north, she was able to think a little more. "I haven't been here long, but I feel a little healthier compared to back home. I think my vision and balance have improved..." "If this is where the masterminds are camping out, wouldn't they be able to see where I'm going?" "Didn't she say this was where they wanted to terraform? What is this world like aside from those threats?"

These questions and more rolled over her head as she flew over the land. After what seemed like forever, she saw some artificial light. She paused for a moment to observe from a distance. It seemed to be coming from a small town. "Ah, great!" sighed Flandre, relieved. "Still, I suppose this means I'm not in Gensokyo. I should hide my wings..."

Flandre closed her wings behind her back and slowly walked her way downhill. "It's dark and late at night, so nobody should be able to see my wings." she thought to herself. The town had modern lampposts with a concrete and asphalt road system. Small houses lined the insides of the blocks created by these roads. To the modern viewer, this layout may look normal, but for a reclusive soul like Flandre who hasn't been outside her mansion and lives in the considerably behind Gensokyo, these sights may be as alien as the world she's in.

Flandre had entered the town, looking around herself in wonder. While cars were parked along the roads, nobody was walking around. The houses had no lights on, and the stores and gathering places had been closed for the night. "I hope this place isn't abandoned or anything..." Flandre worried to herself. "From where the moon is, it shouldn't even be that late."

Flandre kept walking along the road. The only noises being made were those of insects in the trees and grass, and those of Flandre's footsteps. She continued walking this way until she found what looked like a central gathering area. There was a large roundabout 20 meters in radius with the inside being a clean concrete area with four fountains in the corners and benches lining it and some lamp posts along the edges. Sitting on one of those benches was a hooded figure, obscured from the light. Flandre paused for a moment to decide what to do. "There's nobody around... worst case scenario, nobody would mind if I disposed of a criminal, right?"

Flandre slowly approached the hooded figure, who remained unmoving. "Maybe it's a homeless person who's asleep..?" she thought to herself. As she got within 5 meters of the figure, it said in a raspy, masculine voice "You... you should not be here." This took Flandre by surprise slightly, but she kept walking. "Are you a resident of this town?" she questioned.

The figure did not reply. Flandre continued to approach him, wondering if maybe he was a gang member of some sort. When Flandre came within 3 meters of the figure, however, he took out a gun and shot. Flandre dodged it as it flew past her right shoulder, now fully startled. The man repeated "You... you should not be here. Take a step closer and it won't miss." His voice felt somewhat out of breath, as if it was an older person speaking.

But Flandre did not back down. "Aww, but now I'm even more interested in you." Flandre was unaware at what an actual bullet could do, but it didn't impact her as much as a vampire. "Won't you answer me? I'm just a lost traveler." Flandre readied some magical energy under her hand. The figure did not reply for a moment. Flandre grew impatient and made a gun shape with her left hand, aiming it at the figure. "I don't know all the technology you guys got here, but I'm certain this hand will do more damage than that thing can ever do."

The figure then got up slowly from the bench. He unhooded himself, revealing a man with average grey hair and a beard. He had a sort of rugged look, with fair skin and a brown hood. His shirt was a slightly lighter brown and he had black gloves, pants and shoes. "So, you also have an ability, girl. My name is Marcelo, but I need not know yours. Under this full moon night, I will take your life." His voice was now more confident and faster.

"I wonder, what can a human do to me. Back in my time, humans would run at the sight of one of us for their lives, yet now they're so cocky. It's quite bothersome." Flandre touted as she revealed her wings. "I'll play with him a little now so I can learn more about how this world's abilities work." Flandre thought to herself. Flandre fired off three shots of magic energy from her fingers. As they were about to hit Marcelo, he held up his right arm and created a circular shield, blocking the three shots. Flandre fired off five more bullets, aimed more generally around him, yet he stomped the ground and created a large metal wall protecting him. Flandre made a noticeable tsk sound and got out her Lævateinn.

Flandre charged at the wall with her Lævateinn, carelessly piercing it and causing a loud noise. However, it did not hit Marcelo, who now came around the corner and shot two bullets from his gun at Flandre. Flandre jumped up, using the stuck Lævateinn to help herself up faster, and shot a couple more bullets of her own at Marcelo. Marcelo yet again created a shield from his arm, yet this time Flandre charged down at him directly with her body. She hit the shield, where internally the size difference between the two became clear, with Flandre being only slightly taller than half of Marcelo's height, and latched onto it. She made her two wings circle around the shield and pierce Marcelo's neck. Marcelo stumbled a little backwards.

Flandre kicked back the shield and readied her hand bullets yet again, pulling out her weapon from the wall. "Hah, is that all you've got?" she remarked proudly. Marcelo retracted his shield arm and put a hand on his neck wound. "You posess an ability, yet you yourself are unaware of the complexity of others. Isn't your wing where it pierced me feeling numb..?" He took off his hand, and where a wound once was, there was now a small metal wall blocking off the bleeding.

Flandre got a little annoyed seeing this, but then turned to look at her wings. On the tip, where there would have been blood from the neck, there was a now metallic substance. However, Flandre thought little of this. "So what, you have iron blood or something? Are you trying to make a silver cross from your body?" Flandre gripped her Lævateinn tighter and charged at Marcelo again. Marcelo did not budge, but instead took out his gun and shot twice at Flandre. Flandre was too close, however, to the bullets, so she didn't have time to dodge them. She changed her Lævateinn from charging at Marcelo and started swinging it in a circle rapidly. As a vampire with superhuman strength, this was no challenge at all, and it indeed proved successful, blocking both bullets from hitting her. It was at this point that Marcelo dodged out of the way, with Flandre sliding on the ground where he was.

"How many times will you try to shoot me until you realize you can't hit me? Your worthless ability is only delaying the inevitable!" Flandre shouted. The man, as per usual, did not reply immediately. He put his hand in his hood and took out some bullets to restock his revolver-like handgun. "Self control. Discipline. Intuition. This is the only way you can truly succeed in life, regardless of your situation or wealth. My goal... it was never to hit you. You should look again where you blocked my bullets."

"Tooo bad, I won't fall for that again." Flandre shouted. She wanted to sound confident, but in her head, she was thinking. "Is he trying to put me in a trap? I should be careful about my movements now." Flandre moved her fingers a little, or tried to. She looked her eyes down for a moment, where it actually seemed like the same liquid metal that was on her wings was covering parts of her Lævateinn and fingers, gluing them together. She turned to look at her wings, where the metal liquid had spread to around half of her wings, and covering some of the crystals on it, coating them a dull grey with some lines going through it.

"Mercury Poison." Marcelo said. "This is my ability and temperament. I have trained for years as an assassin to develop this, but recently it has been awakened even further. However, you are unworthy of its true potential." He aimed the gun at Flandre yet again. "Are you ready to learn your place, you disgusting creature of the night?" He roared. Flandre glared intensely at him. "My hands and weapon can't move anymore... but maybe if I can rip up his insides with my wings before they stop moving, it should kill him fast enough before I get serious. Well, I suppose now I can't use my ability myself, but I'm sure I can think of something..." Flandre thought to herself. Marcelo shot three more of his bullets at Flandre. Instead of dodging or trying to deflect the bullets, however, she jolted straight at Marcelo, and towards the bullets, with such intense speed her foot cracked the concrete beneath it.

"Why in the world is she charging at me?" Marcelo thought to himself. He aimed again and shot five more bullets at her. Flandre, however, continued to try not to dodge at all. She kept rushing at him, even as the bullets impacted her arms and body. "She's trying to sacrifice herself and rush at me to kill me before she stops moving... I certainly wasn't expecting that." Thought Marcelo. "Still, I won't let her get away with it! She'll have to suffer her punishment for being so reckless!" As Flandre got closer, suffering through all the gunshots, Marcelo suddenly stomped the ground again, creating yet another large metal wall from the air, and let himself move out of the way before Flandre crashed into it.

However, even this amount of damage did not deter the now bleeding, injured Flandre with liquid metal spreading around her body. The moment she got away from the wall, she lunged yet again towards Marcelo. "This girl..." he thought, "Perhaps I underestimated her. I'll show her the true power of Mercury Poison." Flandre continued to rush closer to him, read to extend her wings, which were mostly covered now anyways, to attack, however, she was suddenly pulled down and fell, cancelling her attack. The liquid metal made spikes through Flandre's skin and arms, immobilizing her. Marcelo put away his old gun and took out a new one while walking towards Flandre. "It's over for you." he said as he pointed it towards Flandre. "Say your last prayers before I splatter your brains on the floor." he taunted.

Flandre, however, only laughed. "Ahahahahah. Actually, Mr. Marcelo, it's you who's finished." She continued on laughing as Marcelo made a confused look. "I've figured it out. The metal made from your ability is made of your own body fluid. You've drained a good amount of it now with all you've thrown at me, while also disallowing me to drain your blood if I caught you. However... despite the state I'm in right now, I'm feeling an overwhelming surge of victory at my fingertips!" Flandre grinned. Marcelo made an angry face and shot twice at her. "Die, you filth!" He scorned. However, suddenly all over Flandre's body and the ground around her, the metal became frozen solid. A thin sheet of ice coated the metal and Flandre's body, and the two bullets hit Flandre's head, but bounced away without doing any signifigant damage. Marcelo's face twisted into one of pure agony and he collapsed on the floor. "Do you understand now?" Said Flandre in a menacing tone. "You could never compare to me in a million years. Your robe and heavy clothes may cover your body, but your stupid face becoming bonier gave it all away." Flandre watched Marcelo groan in agony on the floor for a moment. "So..." she said, "What will happen, I wonder, if I absorb this metal into me." She retracted her ice layer and absorbed the metal around her into her body, healing her wounds and allowing her to stand up. She looked over the trembling, collapsed Marcelo trying to aim a gun at her. "By the way, I can do that by destroying the moisture in my body. If somebody like you doesn't even know simple biology like that, taking care of whoever else stands in my way should be a breeze."

Flandre snatched the gun from Marcelo's hand and aimed it at his head. However, through his agony, Marcelo managed to squeak out some words, that Flandre pretended she couldn't hear. "Huuh? What was that?" Flandre leaned down and said, pointing her ear at him. Marcelo replied "You... have no idea what's coming... for you. Killing me... will be your worst mistake." Flandre only scoffed at this. "You'll be the first raw human I've eaten in over 495 years. You should be proud of yourself for that. Flandre stood up and shot the remaining caliber of bullets into Marcelo's head, killing him instantly. She dug her fingers into his neck and sucked out what blood was left as the remaining metal around her dissipated into more blood. "Did he ever use that awakened ability thing? Or was that all talk." She said to herself.

As she was feasting on his corpse, Flandre heard a voice from above. "It's not nice to leave messes on the ground. Especially for humans to see." Flandre instantly looked up to see what it was. Above her in the moon seemed like a seperate version of her and her sister! "What?!" Flandre shouted out loud. The Remilia in the sky was dressed in a large pure black and crimson dress and cape, with large devilish wings and red horns with a large black segmented tail, as well as carrying a large spear. She had a rather uninterested but serious look on her face. The Flandre in the sky boasted a more gothic lolita style look - retaining pure black and scarlet clothing but shorter and easier to move in. She had no weapon, but had deep dark twisted horns on her head with an equally dark long tail protruding from her, which retained the arrowhead section of Flandre's Lævateinn. Her wings' crystals were more natural looking than the normal Flandre's, and she had a smug smirk on her face as she looked down at Flandre.

"Y-You..." Our Flandre said in a lot time, shocked. "I'm not going to get involved with this. Flandre, you know where to find me when you're done." Remilia said calmly as she dissapeared into mist. "You're no fun at all." The other Flandre said back. She launched herself towards the ground, kicking up dust and rocks from the ground, shaking the whole area as she left a large, cracked hole in the concrete. "Do you know why there's not one peep in the entire city?" Questioned the dark Flandre, still smugly grinning at the shaken normal Flandre. "It's because they already recognized us as their overlords, and didn't want to interfere. The human you killed was supposed to inform us of some business today. But I suppose I came a little late." She sighed. Flandre summoned and gripped her Lævateinn, and took a step back. Still, her arm was noticeably shaking. The dark Flandre took notice, and started walking towards her. "It hardly matters though, that... human, was a mere carrier bird. His information wasn't very important, nor was his philosophy or so called awakening. I've seen countless like him, before. And I'll see countless others."

Flandre grimaced and took another step backwards. "This can't be good. I've never seen somebody who exudes such an aura of power and authority. Is she this world's Flandre? Or could she be... one of the masterminds." she thought to herself. "Am I gonna have to fight her? How would fighting myself even work?"

"You may think, as a vampire, you could never reach the lows of humans, but you'd be dead wrong. Any being, mortal or immortal, can vastly overestimate themselves and their actual relevancy in the grand scheme of things." the dark Flandre said. Her voice was a slightly higher, slightly more elegant version of Flandre's. "Say, it's quite rude to not respond when somebody is talking to you. Oh, I've got it, right! You must be shocked at seeing another version of yourself, isn't that right?" The stunned Flandre gave no response. The dark Flandre continued, "Would you like to guess how many times I've met myself, doing what I do? If I had to guess, it would be about the same amount of time as the number of humans you've consumed, pre-made or self harvested. Would you also like to know what happened to them?"

"Shit, she's really gonna kill me! I need to find a way to escape." Flandre thought to herself. Flandre crossed her arms above her face, and shot danmaku at the ground, destroying some of the concrete and creating a large cloud of dust. Flandre used this opportunity to lunge away backwards, creating a dent in the ground in the same way as before, and making a sudden ninety degree angle towards an alleyway and continued running from there. The dark Flandre sighed, and flew up into the air to pursue her counterpart.

Flandre rushed out of the alley and flew at incredible speeds through the empty roads. "If that Flandre's ability is anything like mine, there's no chance I can win. Do spell card rules even exist here? I doubt I could get her off of my back with that anyhow." she thought to herself. As she was flying, relatively close to the ground, the road started to end, with it splitting between left and right. Instead of picking a side, Flandre stomped the ground and shot herself high into the air. She soared high above the large supermarkets and stores along the road, with her meeting the dark Flandre. The dark Flandre simply said "Even if you'd have turned there, I would have caught up eventually, so you have my thanks for not delaying the inevitable."

"...So, are you going to kill me then?" Questioned Flandre, trying to act cool. The dark Flandre responded with "Hmmmmmmm, not quiiite. Do you remember that time you worked with the secret god against the taotie?" Flandre was surprised, but said nothing. "I've absorbed countless versions of myself into me. They are all part of me, and I am all part of them. Still... it seems there's still some of 'me' left. Well, I suppose there may be an infinite number of me too." Flandre continued her silence but her glare at the other Flandre grew stronger. Flandre tried to lunge down behind the dark Flandre to try to escape, however, a large segmented black wall interrupted her, splitting into three, forming a large letter Ж. Flandre looked back to see the dark Flandre's tail, going into what seemed like some type of scarlet gap like Yukari's. "Woah there, I can't chase after you forever. I have places to be." said the dark Flandre confidently. The dark Flandre widened the gap under her and dropped herself into it. Flandre snapped back to look at the tail wall as it retracted itsself and the dark Flandre re-emerged from it in front of her, as she unleashed her tail from her chest to attack Flandre. Flandre blocked it with the hilt of her Lævateinn just in time, knocking her back, while the dark Flandre snapped the tail's end off of herself and dashed to reappear in front of Flandre with such speed that it looked almost instantaneous. The dark Flandre attempted to grab Flandre's Lævateinn, but she dissipated it in time and started freefalling. The dark Flandre started diving after her in pursuit.

As the two were rapidly decreasing in altitude, Flandre kicked a nearby tall building to ricochet her away from the dark Flandre, and started shooting her hand bullets from her gun at the dark Flandre. The dark Flandre, who had her tail back to normal, easily deflected them with it. She made swift teleportation-like moves towards Flandre. Flandre dove down further towards the streets as the dark Flandre attempted to shoot dark magic laser beams at her, and she too dove down further. Flandre lifted up a car from the street and flew up to throw it at the dark Flandre. The dark Flandre cut the car with her tail with ease, but as she was cutting it, Flandre shot eight of her hand bullets at the dark Flandre, and flew beneath her. The dark Flandre blocked the bullets with her hand, which took minimal damage, but noticed that Flandre wasn't there. She turned around behind her to see Flandre above her, Lævateinn in hand. Flandre swung it immediately at her throat, causing her to fly into a nearby building. "This is my only chance!" thought Flandre. "I have to use my ability..!"

Flandre held her hand out and aimed her eye at the dark Flandre, who was stuck in the wall. "I need to find her eye! Where is her eye?!" Flandre screamed. Flandre's ability to destroy anything is based upon all things having an eye, or weak point, where she moves it into her hand to crush it. However, this Flandre seemed to lack one entirely. "That's impossible! Where is it?!" She screamed again. She tried going for the next best thing, which was to try to crush the dark Flandre entirely. Flandre tried to get the dark Flandre's head spot into her grasp. Flandre's ability allows her to see segments of the body, and which parts may be more vulnerable aside from just the 'eye.' This time, she was able to actually grasp it, and started to squeeze, however, she had an unnaturally difficult time trying to squeeze her right arm - and what's more - her palm started feeling gooey. As Flandre was actively struggling, the dark Flandre simply laughed. "Ahah, I knew you'd try that. I'll let you in on a secret as to why you can't find my eye." explained the dark Flandre. "I destroyed it myself, long ago. My body has been constantly decaying ever since, which I've replenished by constantly absorbing myself. By touching me, even indirectly, you're allowing yourself to be absorbed into me! That's why you can never win!"

"What!?" screamed Flandre. She looked at her palm, part of it being somewhat melted - but not hot. Flandre's expression grew more concerned as she prepared to lunge backwards, but the dark Flandre was already one step ahead. She teleported towards Flandre and grabbed her neck with her right hand, and held her up. "Even among the other Flandres, you stand out as being particularly weak. Can such a weak and pathetic creature even be a youkai, let alone me?" the dark Flandre mocked. Flandre's face grew more angry as she tried to get herself freed, with her palms and neck also starting to melt. The dark Flandre threw her down around ten meters into the pavement, where she laid for a moment.

"Now then, I'd love to toy with you more, but I really need to hurry up now. You've stalled yourself too long." said the dark Flandre. She let herself fall onto a car nearby where the threw Flandre, who had left a large dent in the ground. Flandre did not respond to what dark Flandre said. The dark Flandre extended out her tail, whos tip was aiming itsself into Flandre's heart at a rapid pace. Flandre woke her eyes and desperately grabbed onto the tip before it pierced her, around a foot from her skin, and was struggling to hold it from attacking her, although her palms were melting even further. "The device..." Croaked Flandre to herself. "I need to call Eirin..." The dark Flandre made a digusted look at Flandre's attempt to save herself, and continued trying to get her tail to overpower Flandre. Flandre, with a lot of struggling, eventually got the tail far enough from her body to where she kicked herself off the ground, and used the tail to fling herself backwards into another car, severely denting its doors and windows. The dark Remilia then emerged beside the dark Flandre, and simply said "Hurry up. We can't stay here for much longer." The dark Flandre made an upset face and shooed her off as she lunged towards the injured Flandre. "That's enough, now it's really bye-bye for you!" the dark Flandre screamed at Flandre. She had a very frustrated face, while Flandre simply looked up at her, with a bleeding nose and roughed up, injured clothes and skin. The dark Flandre aimed to punch Flandre straight in the heart, but Flandre stopped it with her hand, shaking from the immense force and pressure from the two sides. "Too weak to be a youkai, you said..?" said Flandre, somewhat quietly. "That's wrong. Strength isn't what determines a youkai, it's connection to the supernatural and unknown. You act like a god, but we're still both the same.." Flandre's fists at this point were mere bundles of muscle and bone at this point, and her arms were bleeding out rapidly, as with her other injuries. The dark Flandre's expression grew even more upset as she lunged her second fist into Flandre. However, perhaps subconsciously or by sheer force of will, Flandre used her freed right arm to punch a hole, directly through the dark Flandre. However, this did not stop the dark Flandre's punch from also connecting, socking Flandre square in the face, sending herself and the car behind her flying backwards into a building.

The dark Flandre looked down in shock at the massive hole in her stomach and chest. The dark Remilia teleported up to her and grabbed her arm, and shouted "This is why I told you to not do direct contact! We need to conserve our power right now!" The dark Flandre retorted "Come on, this is nothing. Just let me just absorb her, she can't resist anymore!" The dark Remilia nudged her away and gave her a stern look, with the dark Flandre looking upset. The two slowly started disintegrating into mist, but then, the dark Flandre shot five of her own dark hand bullets at the wreckage, lighting it on a crimson fire. The dark Flandre made a thinking face, before getting herself off of the grip of her sister and teleporting towards the wreckage. Flandre layed pinned under the car, on fire. A pool of blood was forming around her, but she was still conscious, trying to use the device Eirin gave her. She looked up at the dark Flandre who was looking down at her, covering her bleeding wound with her hand, anbd the latter of whom said "I'll be taking back what you took from me, with that cheap shot." The dark Flandre lunged her right fist directly at Flandre's skull, and while Flandre tried to redirect the punch, she was unable to and it caved into her, further pushing her head into the ground which cracked and dented under it. However, this actually caused the ground under them to open up. By some coincidence, a sinkhole had been forming under the ground there, with Flandre and the destroyed car falling in. The dark Flandre, however, flew and stayed back, absorbing the blood and skin from Flandre into her fist, and starting to repair her wound. "Tch, it's fine. I probably got enough from her to not be a threat anymore. If I had to bet, I've probably taken most of her memories and perhaps ability too. She'll be a husk of a youkai living in whatever sewer that leads to." the dark Flandre said to herself. She swung her arm and created a stone path across the sinkhole, hiding what had happened. She turned to look at her sister, and the two dissapeared into the night as scarlet mist.

Chapter Text

Flandre woke up staring at a new ceiling. She lay in a bed in the room of a moderately sized house. Her bed was on the wall, facing away from the entrance and by a window which had its curtains drawn such that light would not get in. A small desk beside a larger cabinet and mirror was by the bed, and the rest of the room had a matching white carpet with pink highlights, a mirror, and a closet. A small lamp hung from the ceiling. Flandre's hat and clothing, whos damage was stitched up, laid on the nightstand beside the bed. Flandre looked down to see bandages all across her arms, face and body, along with her legs under the blanket, and she was wearing a light pink nightgown. Connected to her arm was a tube leading to a small blood packet. Flandre's mind was blank for a moment until a woman with blonde hair, a light blue dress with long white sleeves and red ribbons across her waist and neck, and that was carrying a brown book walked in. "Ah, you've woken up." She said in a sweet voice. "I was wondering how much longer you'd be asleep for."

"You... where am I? Who are you, and what am I doing here?" questioned Flandre. Her voice now was slightly deeper, and more tensed. The woman responded "Ah ah, one question at a time, please." She smiled, and said "My name is Alice. Alice Margatroid. I took you into my care in my home after I saw you severely injured under some machine. It was even on fire... You've been resting for the last two days."

Flandre put her hand on her head. "Well, thank you, but it's not like I would have died there if I just laid there, at least from the fire... I had to sacrifice some device of my own though. I don't know where it is, nor where I got it from... but I think it was important. I was fighting myself, but different..."

Alice put her hand on her lip. "Tell me more. What's your name? Where did you come from?" she said.

"My name..." Flandre hesistated. "My name is..." She tried to recall her memories deeply, eventually finding where the other Flandre said her name. "Flan-dre. Flan..dre. I had to... to find a place called.... Gensokyo... and to find... umm..."

"It's on the tip of my tongue. What's going on?" Flandre wondered to herself. She looked down at her bandaged arms and fists. "Anyways, the me I was fighting. She was important. I need to defeat her, but she knocked me into this hole. She was full of herself, and talked about how she'd absorbed me thousands of times before. That's all I remember right now.." she said. Flandre looked somewhat sadly and blankly at her blanket. "Hey, miss Alice, I'm quite hungry. Do you have anything I can eat?"

Alice looked confusedly with pity at the girl. "Well, I only have tea and cake right now, but you look like the type of youkai who eat humans primarily. Can't stand sunlight or smelly vegetables, or objects of silver."

Flandre started blankly at Alice. "That's true. I'll have the tea, then." she said. Alice turned around to go back, but stopped as Flandre said "By the way, what time is it?"

"About time for the sun to set." Alice said. "Usually I don't go outside often, but I could show you around if you're feeling better. And by the way... 'Gensokyo' is the name of the closest town. Its only inhabitants are humans and a few hidden youkai. Are you sure that's where you had to go?"

"...Yeah, sure." Flandre responded. Alice left the room and Flandre went back to looking at her coversm and her bandaged hands. "I can't remember..." she muttered to heself "...what I'm supposed to be doing here. Where did I come from? The only thing I remember were being a vampire and fighting two people the other day." Suddenly, an idea came to Flandre's mind, and she lightened up a little. "I've got it! I'll have to take revenge on that 'other me!' I need to re-understand abilities! But..." Flandre looked back down at her hands. She tried to recall the events of the fights she was in. "Abilities..." she thought to herself. "Did I have one..?" She scanned the room again. She saw her Lævateinn in the corner. "I remember using this... weapon. Still, what an odd design. Did I always have it?" Flandre folded the fingers on her hand into the shape of a gun. "I remember using this too. What was this, some type of magic..?" She charged it up, perhaps subconsciously as she was actually surprised, but didn't fire and decharged it. Flandre tried really hard now to scan her thoughts, recalling trying to 'squeeze' the other Flandre, while the other Flandre could absorb parts of her. "Were these also contenders for my ability? Besides that, the only thing I have is my own biology... Well, I suppose the 'weapon' and the 'bullets' are good contenders for now..."

Alice came back into the room with two cups of tea, and handed one of them to Flandre. Flandre asked "Alice... tell me, how do abilities work. Do you have one..?"

Alice looked at Flandre and made a thinking face. "You could describe me as a magician. Once, long ago, when I was a human child, this book in my hands was granted to me. It's not something really worth talking about though, and since then, I've dedicated myself to studying magic. You could say my ability would be to use magic... however, I don't like the idea of being restricted to one thing. I've been pursuing the art of manipulating dolls in the meantime." explained Alice.

Flandre felt like this answer was somewhat off-beat and short. "Maybe she doesn't like this topic..?" she thought to herself. "Flandre, do you feel well enough right now to walk? I can explain more outside." Alice said.

Flandre pulled off her covers and got her feet off the ground, and stood off the bed. She wobbled for a moment before stabilizing. Flandre's height stood to around Alice's chest. "I'm fine." she said. Flandre quickly got changed (Alice wasn't in the room) and the two left the white house. In the distance, the sun had just set. Trees surrounded the house with a dirt path leading out behind some of them. Alice started walking along the dirt path. "Hey, where exactly are we going?" Flandre asked. Alice explained "Along this path leads to 'Gensokyo.' Usually this far out there's some stray animal or youkai looking for some traveler to hunt. I can explain easier on a target."

The two continued down the path for around five minutes. After that, Alice stopped Flandre suddenly. Alice was looking up to see someone who was flying down towards them. "Flandre, you're injured right now, so stay out of this. Just watch what I do." Alice said. Flandre nodded. Alice continued, "Sorry, I don't know who you are, but you're in my way right now. Would you mind moving, please?"

The figure had a brown hat brown and white clothing with bird-shaped ornaments lining down her dress and hat. She had pink hair and grey eyes along with owl-like pointed ears and light pink bird-like wings with purple highlights. "Who would you two happen to be?" she ignored Alice to ask her own question. "I'm a human." Alice lied. She gestured to Flandre to go along with it. The youkai, however, was not a fan of this answer. "Clearly not, I can smell your youkai-ness. And what about the one behind you? She couldn't hide her youkai-ness even if she tried!" she pointed at Flandre. Alice went in front of Flandre and pointed back at the figure, and said "Fine, I was taking her human hunting. On this road."

The figure became quite mad now, and shouted "This road is 'my' territory! I'll blow your head off if you don't get out!" Alice looked back at Flandre and grinned. "Now that I've provoked her, I can show you what to do. Just stand back any pay attention." she whispered. Flandre obliged and flew back a few feet. "Then I'll gladly take you up on that challenge!" Alice shouted back. "Flandre, listen up! A 'temperament' can be what makes or breaks a fight, it essentially determines your 'ability' along with your strengths and weaknesses. An ability can be inherited by anyone, but only those with potential can awaken it and use it effectively. A 'temperament' can reveal one's connection with the forces of nature and, potentially, their strengths and weaknesses." Alice explained. "Hey, wait! What are you talking about? You're going too fast!" Flandre said.

"Think about it like this." Alice continued. "Everyone has an innate connection to nature, so everyone is born with their own unique temperament. If one can realize their own potential, they can be granted an ability from their temperament, but they will be fated to have some sort of strength and weakness. Does that make sense?" Flandre stared with an intent expression, yet was a little confused. "By the way..." Alice started again, "Anyone's ability can take a different form based on their temperament, but you can't see it unless it's revealed in some way. As for mine..." Alice summoned some dolls from the rings on all of her fingers. "It's not really my temperament, but I've taken up a hobby for fighting with dolls. As for my opponent, I recognize you from around here! Your name is Mystia Lorelei..!"

Mystia crossed her arms and looked dissapointed. "So, you were planning to use me as bait to show off your abilities?" She stated. Alice responded with "You're known for being deceptive and cunning while also being an airhead. If you're not hunting, you make humans night-blind and lure them into buying your food." Mystia started flapping her wings and flew up into the air quickly. "As expected of you, you know quite a bit. I'm sure we've met in the past, but I won't lose." Mystia exclaimed. "Recently, I've been feeling pretty good. My ability, 'Midnight Chorus Master,' has grown a lot in the past few days. So, I wonder if you can keep up!" Mystia summoned out two night sparrows from her sides that started flying away from her. However, behind them what looked like arrows came out of them, suspended in mid-air and aimed towards Alice. They were purple and yellow and suddenly fired off at Alice's position.

"Those arrows..." Flandre remarked. "How are they being created..?" Alice's two dolls that were out created a shield that blocked the arrows from the sides, however, Mystia herself had fired a chain of balls of energy directly towards Alice, who had let herself fall down backwards to dodge them. Instead of hitting the ground, however, four of her dolls had caught her before she reached the floor, holding onto her head and torso. "dolly express..." Alice said. "That is my ability's name." Alice got herself back on her two feet and sent the dolls that caught her towards Mystia. Thought the length of the string itsself did not reach the flying night sparrow, they started forming balls of light at their hands. "By the way..." Alice said, "Over here, we have a tradition of using light or other objects to attack, called 'spell cards.' I'll explain more later, but they're quite handy. This one is... Puppeteer Sign: Maiden's Bunraku!"

The two dolls shot out a ball of light that connected with each other, and exploded to have multiple small dolls come out of it. The dolls fired red lasers along with a spew of blue and red balls of light, with some aiming randomly and some aiming towards Mystia. Mystia's summoned birds were continuing their attack however while she herself was attempting to dodge Alice's attack, so Alice jumped out of the way towards one of the night sparrows. Alice took out yet another doll and tried to launch it at the bird, however, Mystia, who had been clipped by some of Alice's attacks, started her own attack. "Hawk Sign: Ill-Starred Dive!" she shouted out. The two birds flew away and with them stopped their attack, but at the same time, Alice's field of vision had been severely limited and she was unaware of this. From her point of view, she could see no more than a few meters ahead of her, but Flandre, who was out of range of the attack, became confused as to why Alice persisted to attack thin air.

Mystia made a loop mid-air and went down to charge at Alice. As she was flying down, it seemed like beams of light were coming from her sides. They shot out what seemed like large arrowheads that would fly in X-shapes, crossing each other. Flandre shouted out "Alice! To your left!" Alice opened a pocket on her upper dress, and let out what looked like a net with 8 dolls, forming a ring. It extended out around two meters from Alice and caught Mystia as she was about to fly down. "What?!" Mystia shouted as she struggled to break free from the dolls. "My ability to manipulate dolls is unmatched anywhere in the world. With it, I have a good coverage both close up and at a distance." Alice said to herself. "Still..." She thought. "I can't see anything. This must be from Mystia. I'll bring her in." Alice grabbed the strings that caught Mystia and started pulling them towards herself. The previous dolls she let out from her own attacks went back around Alice. Mystia was still out of Alice's sight, but she suddenly stopped struggling and started charging herself up - with what seemed like breathing in. Flandre saw this, and shouted out "She's going to attack! Prepare yourself!" Instead of defending herself, however, Alice pulled the string harder and used her stationary dolls to attack Mystia's neck - using special needles that were on their backs. Mystia's attack was called off as she was overwhelmed by the amount of dolls, with her neck bleeding from the wounds. However, Alice still had limited vision and couldn't see Mystia.

Mystia grabbed two of the dolls on her neck and pulled them off, however, the dolls from the previous ring and those which had stabbed Mystia now seemed to be charging up energy to attack Mystia. Mystia put her hand on one of the dolls from the ring and sent some sort of energy into it. This energy traveled from the doll through the wire into Alice, which made her body recoil and fall backwards, cancelling her own attack. "Hey! What happened?!" Flandre exclaimed. The freed Mystia descended to the ground, with a hand on her bleeding neck wounds. Some of her clothes were also torn from Alice's previous spellcard attack. "Her visibility will be even worse now. I'm infamous for my singing, so even with a damaged throat, I can still transmit the energy through a 'conductor.'" Mystia boasted. Alice got back up and called back all her dolls to form a ring around her, holding their needles in hand. From her point of view, Alice was no longer able to see more than a meter in front of her. "I'm not very physically strong, but don't underestimate my ability to dispose of morons who try to get in my way." Mystia continued. She then thought to herself, "Her friend will tell her everything that's going on now, so I can't just charge into her, right?"

"I've decided how to finish you off, Alice!" Mystia shouted out. She flew directly above the blinded Alice, and summoned two more night sparrows. "Deadly Toxin: Poisonous Moth's Dance in the Dark!" The night sparrows started flying in circles around Alice, dropping more arrowhead-like objects around her, circling in as Mystia started to charge up an attack on her hand. "Alice! They're circling in on you!" Flandre shouted. "I know!" Alice shouted back. Alice stood there as the night sparrows and their 'bullets' circled in on Alice. She looked very focused yet unconcerned about Mystia's attack. "Hurry up and move!" Flandre shouted again, more worried. Alice did not respond as Mystia continued charging her attack in her hands.

Mystia unleashed her attack as the night sparrows' 'bullets' were about to hit Alice, a large blue laser. Alice did not flinch whatsoever, if she could have even seen it. It dissipated before it impacted her as four of Alice's dolls, carrying a tree trunk, had hit Mystia in the head. Mystia fell down to the floor as the two night sparrows flew off before Alice was hit.

Flandre ran over and the two looked at Mystia's body. She was not unconscious, but was definitely unable to continue fighting due to her injuries, with her head bleeding as well as damage to other parts of her body from the fall. Alice recalled all her dolls and told her "Your ability is useful, but you got too ahead of yourself." Alice brushed off some of her clothes from the dirt. "Though you gave me a bit more trouble than I expected. Now then, Flandre, do you understand how fights tend to go now?"

Flandre responded with "I don't understand. You said an ability could connect to temperament, but I didn't see any of that." Alice smiled and responded with "Well, the main advantage I had was my opponent being an idiot, but her ability was based around blinding me. But, my intent wasn't to kill. I'll take her to a nearby 'hospital,' but us youkai tend to be hardy anyways." Flandre looked down to see Mystia's bleeding was almost stopped, and her breathing had almost returned to normal. Flandre thought for a moment, and said "I have no idea what my temperament or ability is. Right now, the most I can do is this." Flandre charged up her finger gun, and fired it at the ground. "But, this girl over here seemed to be able to do something similar with ease - even those birds could. You even said there was a system with this stuff, but where does this mean I go from here?!" Flandre shouted. She was feeling somewhat conflicted emotions - ranging from sadness and anger to confusion. Alice thought for a moment and said "I can't determine what path you should take, but there's nothing stopping you from developing your 'technique.' I can even help you develop a spellcard."

Flandre then said "I have no memories of why I'm here or who I am, so then, why are you helping me if you don't know who I am either?" Alice looked at Flandre with some pity, but attempted to console her by saying "One's 'temperament' can bring others together, almost like gravity. I have some things of my own I've lost, so I'll help you get both of our lost objects back. That is why I plan to help you." Flandre tried to reject this by saying "What about from when you saved me from my fight? How did you know I would be one to survive like.. that..?"

Alice put her hand on her hip and said "You could say I have an instinct. I've had more than my own fair shares with this type of stuff, so I know it when I see it. Besides, I have my own motivations as well."

Mystia coughed for a moment and interjected with "Beyond 'Gensokyo' there's a river nobody's allowed to cross. Rumor has it a band of 'thieves' hang out beyond there. Maybe you can try looking there, but I doubt you'll get far like *that*." Flandre looked down at her hand and thought to herself "My priority has to be getting information about who I am. I need to find the 'other me' at all costs, so I'll work with her."

Alice continued from what Mystia said with "I actually have some business in Gensokyo. Flandre, if you're feeling fine, let's head out at once."

"I'm alright." Flandre said. Alice nodded and lifted Mystia onto her back. The three continued back onto the dirt road in the night.

Chapter 3.5: Untaken Youkai Road

While the three were walking, they took the time to talk to each other regarding their situation. Naturally, Flandre would be asking most of the questions.

"By the way Alice, where do you store so many dolls?"

"If you know a little bit of magic, it's easy to temporarily deconstruct stuff until you need it and hide it around your body. I can teach you along the way." She responded.

"And this 'Gensokyo...' the name feels familiar. Can you tell me what it's like?"

Mystia responded by saying "It's a town closed off from the rest of the world, so it's hard to get to. Humans mostly live there, but some of us hide amongst them. We only attack humans who wander from it, though. Never inside the town."

Alice added on with "To be more specific, some parts of Gensokyo have started to accept youkai, and in turn youkai developed a sort of unspoken rule to not attack them directly. Some youkai need humans in order to survive, but as a species we rely on the 'fear' of humans in order to keep being alive. Youkai have been driven out from a lot of the rest of the world, so we're forced into areas like this where 'the natural flow of logic isn't constant' in order to stay alive. That's the type of situation we have."

Flandre thought to herself "I should probably still hide my wings to not draw attention to myself."

Alice continued with "That aside, it's a relatively normal town, although it's noticeably more technologically behind from the rest of the world. I can blend in well enough as a human that I visit occasionally without much fuss."

"Is there anyone I can eat there?" Flandre asked blankly. "I still don't remember much of anything, but my biology tells me that if I can drink humans' blood, I'll recover."

"It's probably a bad idea to attack someone in the town." Alice responded.

Mystia added "Recently the village has had an uptick in strange incidents occuring, though. The last major incident was when winter lasted into spring for a while, and that was around a year ago. Recently there's been some reports of gang activity with the outside world and public outcry with things flying over the town, ranging from debris to what looks like people. They say it's connected with the thieves across the river. Since I can fly easily and the river is within the confines of the town, I tried to fly over there, but it feels like I got repelled even without interacting with the barrier. It was as if some pure force of evil was restricting me from going any further. I've always been able to make people night-blind, but ever since that day I've felt like I had even more control over it. It's a pretty bitter-sweet experience."

"Barrier?" Flandre asked.

"Around 10 kilometers around all sides of Gensokyo is a huge barrier that seperates us from the outside world. It isn't physical or anything but you can't get close to it or cross between it without some special interferance." Mystia replied.

"Come to think of it.." Flandre said, "The other day, I remember fighting a guy who said his ability was 'awakened' as well. But the only thing I can think of that was upgraded was he used magnetism to make it dig into my skin. He could make his body fluids become metallic, but I disposed of him pretty easily."

"It's probably not just thieves either." Flandre thought to herself. "The one who stole my memories is likely involved there. Getting to there and defeating them should be our top priority. Along the way, I want to discover more information about this place... about 'abilities,' 'temperaments,' and all that."

"Once we drop off Mystia, I'll find you a map somewhere to show you where we can go." Alice said. "Lately, a new doctor's come in to the village and she's something of a miracle worker. I haven't met her in person, but I suspect she might have some kind of connection to this situation. Mystia, I'd like you to help keep an eye on her for me."

Mystia pouted and replied "Since when did I agree to work with you? You were the one who initiated the fight in the first place."

Alice sighed, saying "This incident is likely bigger than anything I can imagine. I can feel it in the air. Something is deeply wrong with this world."

"I'll only consider it on the basis of me being interested in your friend here. Besides that, don't expect a lot of favours from me." Mystia said in a lously tone.

Flandre looked at the ground as she walked, kicking up some of the dirt from the path. "Just what have I gotten into?" She wondered.

Chapter Text

Before long the three had made it into the town, Gensokyo. The dirt path merged into a wider cobblestone path with various houses, stores, and other traditional eastern-looking structures. By the path was a shrine and a statue in the shape of a dragon's head. Very few humans were walking around and they didn't pay much mind to the trio. Leaning on the statue was a purple umbrella somebody had left behind, which Flandre picked up, thinking to herself "I'll probably need this later."

"Well, let's keep going." Alice said. They continued walking around the town. Flandre looked around at the buildings with somewhat of a sense of wonder as the other two paid little mind. "So this is Gensokyo, huh..." Flandre thought to herself. "I should probably look around here later."

"I would say it's about two in the morning right now..." Mystia said. "I doubt any doctor's open right now. Besides, it doesn't even hurt anymore. I can fly on my own now. Even more, any doctor in here would be hesitant to operate on a youkai."

"That's not my point. If this doctor can operate on you or Flandre, it would be great, but as I said before, I want to investigate them." Alice responded, turning her head to look back at Mystia as they walked.

"I've got a real problem with you trying to use us as test subjects for your 'investigations.' Do you even know who or where this doctor is?" Mystia retorted.

"Oh shut up. People always say you're the one who drives them insane with your singing, so you don't have any right to be talking." Alice re-retorted, with Mystia glaring back at her. "That aside, supposedly she goes by Dr. Yagokoro, and her clinic is near the center of the town, so we'll keep walking for a bit."

"Oh, were you talking about my master's clinic?" A voice said. The three in confusion turned to their right, facing the road to see who said it. A woman with baggy purple clothes with a straw backpack and hat was standing there, with her finger over her smiling mouth. She had tied-up purple hair and red eyes. "Oh, sorry about that. I'm a bit sensitive to sound and am very fond of talking, so sorry if I startled you. My name is Reisen Udongein Inaba, but you can just call me Reisen. I work as Dr. Yagokoro's assistant. I was just heading home from work, but she should still be in the office. I can come vouch for you if you'd like, especially the one in red clothing with all the bandages." She spoke in a very peppy, enthusiastic voice with great speed, disallowing anybody else to get a word in. With that last sentence, Flandre looked down at her arms again. "Yes, that would be very nice of you." Alice said for the other two.

"Great! I'll lead the way! Follow me!" Reisen enthusiastically replied. She turned around and started walking in a diagonal direction across the road. Flandre leaned in to Alice's ear and whispered "Do not trust her. She's definitely bad news." Alice and Mystia, who had now gotten off of Alice, both nodded and reluctantly followed Reisen.

The trio said nothing as they walked, so Reisen decided to break the silence. "Let me tell you a bit about myself. I sell medicine under Dr. Yagokoro around the village, sometimes as a street vendor and others as somewhat of a delivery woman. This isn't what I normally wear, but it was the only thing I had for now. One day I want to be a nurse under her, but for now I'm happy to be blessed with this job as well! She's really a workaholic though, nobody's open at this time of day and she's increeedibly precise. Not only that, but she isn't even fussy about money! She's like a perfect doctor!" Reisen's monologue got no responses, but the three decided to store the information for potential later use.

"Geez, tough crowd huh? What happened to you lot to need Dr. Yagokoro? Was there some kind of incident or fight? I'll tell you why I decided to work under Dr. Yagokoro. By the way, did you know her first name was Eirin? It's not easy to find that out. Anyhow, you all know the bamboo forest next to here right? The one you're not supposed to go in? A couple of days ago I ended up over there and was lost for a day or so and was losing all hope of getting back into society, but then, Dr. Yagokoro found me. She said she was moving to Gensokyo and offered to guide me out. Despite her odds and her being brand-new she found her way out so easily! She said she bought some land to use as a clinic and asked if I wanted to try working under her, and she moved me so much I couldn't help but accept, and here we are now! So now it's your turn! What happened to you, in the red and white?"

"Uuh, well, like you said, I got into a fight." Flandre replied, rather uncomfortably. "Aah, I see. We'll have to get that checked out ASAP. We're not too far now, almost there!" Reisen replied. She appeared to miss the existence of Mystia, who felt slightly annoyed at this.

Shortly after this, Reisen walked up a small flight of stairs and knocked twice at the door, saying "It's meeee! I know we were wrapping up for the day, but I found some emergency clients on the road." After this, a tall woman opened the brown door. Her dress was split down the middle between red and navy blue with constellations decorating them. She had depe blue nurse cap, glasses, a pin on her chest reading "Dr. Yagokoro," and a long braid of silver hair on her back. Inside the clinic on the wall was a very large bow and arrow hung on the wall, with potted plants and small couches below it. Markings of the constellations decorated the wall as well.

"Welcome to Dr. Yagokoro's medical clinic." the doctor said, her voice slightly deeper than the original Eirin's. "Please take a seat, I'll have you checked out right away." The trio nodded but said nothing. They went inside and sat down. "Hehe, did I do a good job master? It's a bit late but I've never seen these people before!" Reisen said enthusiastically. It fell on Eirin's deaf ears, however, as she went into a room away from the chairs, looking at a clipboard and paper she picked up from a table. "Ah, don't worry. She's not a very talkative person, but she'll fix up you guys in no time. Just wait for her real quick, I'll be right back." Reisen added as she went into the room with Eirin, closing the door behind them.

"Gaah, she feels way too familiar." Flandre complained. "I've never met her before, but this doctor, I swear I've seen her before. It's uncanny."

"What do you mean?" Alice said.

"If that story the Reisen girl said was true, maybe you saw her a couple of days ago. But, hold on, you didn't even know what Gensokyo was, and you don't feel like a newcomer or a newly-born youkai." Mystia said. "What's going on with you?"

"That's what I'm trying to figure out." Flandre said. "Everything that's happened from this night is brand new to me. I don't know where this is or who I am. No matter how hard I try, I can't remember anything about me, except that I had to fight myself. All I can see when I close my eyes is the face of the different me. I was completely outmatched against her. She's probably the one who took my memories..."

The other two tensed up at this. "I see... So you've lost your memories." Mystia said.

"You've said that before, but I had no idea it was that deep. Still, are you sure it was another you you were fighting?" Alice responded.

"It's the only thing I can see when I close my eyes." Flandre responded. "I have to find her again. That's the only way I can get back my memories."

Eirin re-entered the room, and said "I apologize for the delay. Which one of you is here for me? Is it the one with the bandages?"

"Yes, that's right." Flandre said. "Should I step into the room?"

"Oh, you appear to be a vampire." Eirin, said, shocking Flandre who was hiding her wings. "It's no problem at all, just give me one more moment please."

Eirin left the room again, closing the door behind her, and Flandre re-opened her wings. "How did she notice so easily?" Flandre said.

"Anyways, this is perfect." Alice suddenly said. She took out a small doll and handed it to Flandre. "If you have any pockets, put this inside. It has a specialized wire that's difficult to see, but perfect for transmitting sound. It'll transfer what's being said in that room through the wire to my other dolls where I can hear what's going on."

Flandre nodded and took the doll. She patted her skirt for pockets, but found one in her vest.

Eirin came out and said "You may enter the room." Flandre got out of her seat and walked over to the other room, looking behind her as she saw a nearly invisible thin black wire coming out of her vest and entered the room. Suddenly, Mystia commented "Oh, there's a map on the wall here." Flandre tried to look behind her, but she was already in the room, and Eirin closed the door behind her.

Flandre sat down on a reclining medical chair, and Eirin turned her back to a desk with various medical supplies on it, but neither individual was saying anything. "Geez, she's unnerving." Flandre thought to herself. "I can feel an aura of authority around her. Maybe Alice was right to be suspicious of her, she's not saying anything..."

Flandre, to try to stir up some type of conversation, said "So, I got into a fight and had to retreat. As you may know, I'm the type to recover more quickly with human blood. Ah, not to offend you or anything, just that if you have some anywhere, you don't have to preform any surgery on me..."

Eirin simply responded with "I don't mind. However, I rarely operate on youkai, so I simply want to recieve more information on your species in case I must preform more operations on vampires in the future." She turned back to face Flandre with a scalpel in one hand, and reached to pull down a gas mask from the ceiling. Flandre thought to herself "I don't know what that does, but it can't be good news," she she launched herself out of the chair, moving backwards slowly towards the wall.

"I'm serious." Flandre continued, "I don't want any operation done on me. You haven't even told me what you're gonna do after all."

Eirin sighed. "I have been serving patients here for the last three days, and have been serving patients in general much longer than you can imagine. Not once have I had any errors, oversights, complications or complaints. You will be healed, I only want to confirm something directly before I just let you go, and I hoped you would be fine with that given your natural potential regenerability."

Back in the waiting room, Alice thought to herself while holding a doll by her ear "She's getting information out of her, but there has to be a deeper reason for the doctor to want to be so direct with Flandre. Just hold out for a while longer, and I'll bust you out of there..."

Flandre responded to Eirin, saying "I'm sure you can find a different youkai to 'confirm' with, what do you even plan to do anyways?"

Eirin said "No, your body is special. Even amongst youkai, I've never seen anything like it. Can you remove the bandage on your right arm?" Eirin had not moved an inch from where she stood, but Flandre had backed herself against the wall with some cabinets and another desk.

Flandre looked over at the desk behind her. It had a sink, some cupholders, and a glass vase with flowers. Flandre looked back at her right arm, whos bandage started unraveling on its own. This surprised Flandre, who quickly grabbed it and tried to put the tape back. "I can't let her see my arm at any costs. She's just too quiet and suspicious." she thought to herself.

Despite this, the bandage on her arm was coming off more and more on its own. To Flandre, it felt as if something was physically pushing the bandage to unwravel from the inside, and despite Flandre's best attempts did nothing to stop it while Eirin stood there silently watching. "I knew it! She has an 'ability!'" Flandre thought to herself. "Alice!" she screamed. "She's an ability user! Get in here!"

Flandre's bandages on her arm came off completely, revealing an equivalent to swiss cheese on her arm. There was no blood, but medium-small sized holes lined the arms and the hand, showing some bone and muscle, grossing out Flandre when she looked at it.

"So you've encountered 'her' then. I understand everything now." Eirin said. Alice burst down the door to the room, with two dolls at her sides holding small spears. "You have nowhere to run, doctor!" She shouted.

"Both of you are misunderstanding me." Eirin said. "I am not here to harm you two, I will just collect some more information. That is all. In the red and white, I will tell you directly: You are not of this world."

This shocked both Flandre and Alice, as well as Mystia who was in the other room still. "Huh?!" Shouted Flandre, rightfully confused.

"Stop talking nonsense!" Shouted Alice. "We won't believe anything you say! I've been suspicious of you from the start. You're involved with something shady, aren't you?!"

"No, I'm speaking the truth. The vampire in front of me bears wounds caused only by a different vampire I know. That's exactly why I moved to this town, I could not work with her." Eirin said.

Flandre grew more concerned, saying "You mean... you know the 'me' who attacked me? How?" Alice positioned herself to be ready to attack, but decided to let Eirin talk a bit more.

"She's a terrible woman. She, her sister, and her whole group. They tried to make me work under them, but I refused. Ah, I might have said too much." Eirin said, putting her hand on her mouth calmly.

Flandre, however, desperately wanted Eirin to keep talking. "No, keep going. I want to hear everything." Alice, however, had a different idea, and told Flandre from across the room "Wait, Flandre, it might be a trap! There's no reason for us to believe her."

Eirin, however, paid no mind to this. "Living as an amnesiac in a totally new world is undoubtably understandably and extraordinarily tough. I am willing to help you, Flandre. I only require a small sample of your skin and I will be your ally, moreso than the one behind me. Is that not a reasonable trade?"

"N-no.." Flandre said. "I don't trust you.." Flandre's mental state had tug of war being played with it, something totally new to her, even if she wasn't an amnesiac. She had no idea who to trust. If she accepted Eirin's request, she might have a chance of getting closer to the dark Flandre, but it could very well backfire with Eirin helping the dark Flandre, or something entirely different. The solution she opted for was shouting, "If anyone takes a step closer to me, I'll kill you." She took out her weapon and held it in her holed right hand.

The four stood in place, nobody saying or doing anything. Alice broke the silence by saying "Dr. Yagokoro, take one step back and I will not attack you. I will move back as well." Eirin, however, did not move back or pay any attention to this.

In response, Alice took out two more dolls and fired them at Eirin's neck, aiming to slice it. Before the dolls could reach her neck, though, Eirin held out her right arm. Without even looking at Alice, Alice's fingers crumpled on themselves and her dolls stopped their attack. "What?!" Alice said as she held her fingers. "Hold on..." Alice thought to herself. "There's no blood and it doesn't hurt, but the positions of the fingers should have my bones be breaking. What kind of 'ability' is this?"

Flandre, too, was quite shocked at what happened to Alice, despite just threatening to kill her. Eirin started walking towards her in this moment of shock, and explained "I'll let you in on a secret about my ability, Drachenblut. I can change whatever part of your body I desire, but only if I touch you in some way."

"But she never touched me or Alice!" Flandre thought. It was then she realized something. "The doctor must have already known about the string. That's why she was standing there, her foot was on it. Even though it was indirect, it showed a link between both of us. I need to get this doll out of my chest..!" Flandre looked to see Eirin holding some of the string in her hand, and tried to form a gun-like shape with her left hand to shoot it quickly. She shot two bullets but Eirin morphed her hand into what looked like a sea urchin, and moved her hand before the bullets impacted them. However, this also made Alice's hand go back to normal. Alice quietly called back one of her dolls and cut the string leading to her, removing her commection with Eirin, but Eirin was still approaching Flandre.

Eirin then created a wall of flesh between Flandre's feet and legs, reverting her hand back to normal but not allowing Flandre to move anywhere. Eirin reached to grab Flandre's left hand, but Flandre quickly swiped her weapon in a clockwise motion, cutting the string and hitting Eirin's arm. Eirin's wrist started bleeding, so she grabbed it with her other hand. Flandre's impediment continued as the wound healed instantly. "Was I just seeing things?" Flandre thought to herself.

Alice launched four of her dolls at Eirin, but Eirin quickly moved out of the way and smashed a glass cabinet window and some of the liquids in the flasks inside them. Flandre attempted to fly away from the debris, flapping her wings manically, Eirin quickly touched the falling shards of glass, which had some of the liquids on them and turned the liquid parts into two organs. The organs deflated and created what were equal to glass bullets, and fired into Flandre's arms, knocking her into the wall and piercing her arms, momentarily holding her in place. Alice continued her assault at Eirin, firing two more dolls, but Eirin then touched the dripping liquid, turning it into a a bundle of hair. She quickly grabbed a fire-starter and lit the bundle on fire, and fired it off towards Alice. The dynamite exploded, and also set off a chain reaction with Alice's dolls, destroying most of the medical chair and some parts of the wall and floor. Within the confusion and dust, Eirin started rushing towards Flandre. Behind her, however, Mystia came through the dust and pierced Eirin's arrow directly through the center of her head, shouting "Take this, asshole!!"

Reisen re-entered the room as the smoke cleared up. Eirin, who still had the arrow going through her brain, held it with her left hand and pulled her head off of the arrow, and covered her wound on her forehead with it. "That was close." she said. "If it had been only a few millimeters more to the right, that would have given me a headache." The wound on her forehead and back-side of the head, which was bleeding profusely, quickly started healing again.

Reisen was frozen in place, only saying "I rushed back because I heard an explosion, but... what... what have you guys done to master..?", now in a much quieter and tense form. Flandre looked up, dazed from the explosion and damage. Mystia was extremely scared that her attack hardly hurt Eirin, and Alice attempted to stand up, coughing all the while.

"I could smell from a distance that you filled your dolls with gunpowder. The liquid in the cabinet was the saliva of one of my previous patients. Even with the limitation of only allowing one transmutation at a time, fighting Drachenblut is futile. I hope the two of you can understand this." Eirin boasted.

Reisen let out a loud scream, and forced her hand into a gun-like shape similar to Flandre's strategy. She fired off many shots at Mystia, who tried to fly away, but one of the bullets cut through her wing, and she fell down. Reisen then shouted out "I thought you guys were simple visitors, but you're enemies of master Yagokoro. For that, I won't even give you the chances to regret your deaths! I'll send you into a world of madness..!"

Chapter Text

"Udonge, there's no need for you to get involved." Eirin said. Eirin, who now held the arrow Mystia attacked her with continued walking over to Flandre, who quickly re-realized the situation at hand. Flandre did a low sweep with her weapon aiming at Eirin's legs, but Eirin jumped up and attempted to stab the arrow into Flandre. Flandre quickly made her left hand into the gun-shape and fired off as many bullets as she could at Eirin and the arrowhead.

Some of the bullets hit the arrowhead and destroyed it, while a few of the others hit Eirin's stomach and abdomen, sending her stumbling backwards with some bleeding bullet wounds. Flandre quickly got up and rammed herself backwards against the wall, breaking it and having her fall down onto the roads of Gensokyo below. Flandre saved herself from the fall, however, by flying with her wings and shot several more bullets at Eirin.

Eirin, however, went further backwards to dodge the bullets just in time, and faced to have a bleeding Mystia on her left and a wounded Alice on the right, with Reisen behind the both of them, seemingly charging up an attack. Alice quickly understood she was in danger, and formed a similar ring of dolls around herself like when she fought Mystia.

Reisen appeared to want to target Mystia first for causing direct damage to Eirin, and was glaring at her, with her eyes growing redder and brighter. However, Eirin redirected her by saying "Udonge, the puppeteer on your left is the greater threat. The vampire can't do anything without any combat experience, so the two of us can finish these two off together. Do you understand?"

"Yes, master." Reisen said flatly and coldly. "However, where is the vampire with blonde hair right now?"

"Probably flying above the building now, it hardly matters." Eirin replied.

Alice got herself into a fighting position, facing both Eirin and Reisen. "Anything they throw at me..." she thought to herself. "I'll overcome it, no matter what." Mystia crawled away quietly as Reisen covered one of her eyes. "Special ability: activate. Lunatic Red Eyes! Welcome to a world of lunacy and madness!"

Alice thought to herself "Does she plan to make me go insane? I might want to play defensively here..." Eirin touched some of the blood on her forehead and morphed it into a bundle of pure-red arrows. She made a fist with her left hand and morphed it into a bow made of flesh and bones. She prepared one of her arrows in the bow, as Reisen shot some of her own hand bullets at Alice.

Alice saw this all happening normally, but what she missed was that Reisen shot her hand bullets in a spreaded fashion. From Alice's point of view, Reisen shot a stream of bullets straightly. Alice reformed her ring of dolls into a net covering the front of her and moved to the side. However, one of the bullets from Reisen's hand hit right above her right eye, causing her to recoil. She put a hand on it to stop the bleeding as Eirin then shot two arrows at once - one aiming at Alice's chest, and another for the ceiling. Alice saw both of these events happen normally, however, but still in shock from the impact before, assumed these two arrows were under the influence of Reisen's Lunatic Red Eyes. Alice launched a doll up to snatch the arrow aimed for the ceiling quickly, while sending out a 'wall' of four dolls on the latitude of the regular arrow.

The doll caught the arrow flying up and started taking Alice with her, but Alice had miscalculated where the first arrow would aim due to her being under the effects of Reisen's ability, and the arrow grazed her leg, cutting it slightly above the ankle. Alice grunted as she was flying. "These two together are too dangerous..." Alice thought to herself. "I can't trust my vision."

The arrow flew into a light and broke it, sending glass falling down. Alice, however, interpreted it as more of Reisen's bullets flying at her, from all directions. "What?!" She screamed as the illusion bullets seemed to approach her. Alice jumped down in Reisen's direction with the goal of attacking her, cutting her arm on the glass in the process. Reisen, however, disappeared in front of her as she jumped down. "Another illusion?!" Alice said to herself. She looked around the room. Everywhere she had been to, she lined a similarly difficult to see string. At each corner and turn she laid a small doll, difficult to see in the heat of battle.

Alice grabbed her strings connecting all of them, and said to herself "This is just a touch of my old magic." Eirin observed as Alice sent an electrical shock through the strings, immediately searching throughout them. The dolls she laid sent out beams of lights - similar to bullets - that persisted in the air for a moment. "Reisen." Eirin said. "She will fire an attack that will aim for you the moment you reveal yourself." The beams of light organized themselves into clusters, forming a strange white elliptical in the room, moving outward slowly.

While this was happening, Mystia lay on the floor, aiming not to draw attention to herself. She thought to herself "Alice, we can win this with my ability to blind people. I'll activate it when there's a perfect opportunity, the doctor is too smart. She will immediately figure out what I can do, so just hang in there..!"

Also while this was happening, Flandre was flying in the air above the building, thinking rapidly about what to do. "I can't get a good hit on the doctor. She recovers faster than I do and definitely knows what she's doing. How am I supposed to beat her?" She paused for a moment, thinking "Alice and Mystia are still down there. Maybe all I have to do is cause a distraction." She pondered her hand bullets for a moment, thinking "Even Reisen fires the same type of bullets as I do, huh..."

Eirin cautiously watched the strange lights, suspended mid-air, with Alice glaring back at her. Eirin's arms had now gone back to normal, but she was still holding the blood arrows. Both sides were thinking about what to do, and Reisen was nowhere to be seen. "Too dangerous." Alice thought again. "So she has a limit of changing one external body part, but she can change herself to fit however she likes. Is that how none of our attacks are doing anything to her..?" Alice suddenly saw the beams of light travel rapidly towards her. "No!" She said to herself. "This is another illusion!" The beams of light pierced through Alice without damaging her as she turned around. Instead she saw her own doll moving to attack her. Moving on instinct, she went to grab the doll to hold it in place, being even more shocked when she could feel it physically. "It really is moving on it's own!" She yelled out. Eirin took the initiative to combine her remaining blood arrows, all within her hand. This created a very long spear stretching much of the room, with Eirin aiming it for Alice's heart quickly while she was distracted. "It's curtains for you." Eirin said quietly as she prepared to kill.

Before this could happen though however, several bullet holes came through the ceiling, with two of them hitting Eirin's head. A part of the ceiling that was cut out from the shape of the bullet holes came crashing down with Flandre's weapon impaling the center of it. Flandre came swooping down and made a sharp turn facing Eirin, quickly taking her weapon and tackling her onto the wall and throwing the both of them outside into the street with yet another part of the wall crashing down. In addition, the lights from Alice's dolls chased after them rapidly, and Alice's doll returned to normal, as well as Eirin's spear of blood had broken into 'pieces' and melted into regular blood. Both Mystia and Alice were stunned from confusion following this action, and the two quickly ran to the damaged wall to chase after them.

Flandre jumped herself off of Eirin and flew to the level of the other two, and shot repeatedly at Eirin, impacting her neck, face, chest, and missing some of her shots hitting the wall behind her. "No, Flandre, she makes weapons out of her wounds!" Alice shouted. Flandre, however, did not hear this, thinking to herself "The bullets from my hands, they come from energy that gets released at the space between my nails and fingertips. The energy... finding out the energy should be my goal." Flandre continued shooting at Eirin, and threw her weapon onto her neck, splitting it from her head. This made no difference, however, as immediately after this, the skin fused back together, the bleeding stopped, and her wounds faded. It was as if Eirin was never harmed at all, and got up from the ground with ease, looking up at Flandre. "Is she... immortal..?" Mystia asked.

Alice, however, was more scared of Flandre than her current enemies. She thought to herself "This type of energy and raw strength... I knew she was a vampire, but if she has nothing to lose, then she'll go for anything..." Alice suddenly felt a prescence behind her, this time preparing herself physically and mentally before turning to look. It appeared as if the spilt blood in the room was drawing towards Alice, although not very quickly. This unnerved Alice, and she told Flandre "Flandre, I'll defeat Reisen. Keep Eirin out of my way for me, please. Mystia, you will help too."

Flandre nodded to this, and Mystia looked towards the room. The blood continued drawing nearer to Alice's position. Alice tried taking two steps to the right, and it followed her there, approaching closer and closer. "I don't even want to think about what will happen if the blood touches me." Alice said.

Alice thought to herself "Reisen's attacked with her finger bullets like Flandre, but her ability is actually more defensive. It started when I looked at her eyes, and she manipulates my vision. But based on Mystia's reaction, the doll and the blood are real, but what happened to my attack..?" Alice thought harder about what had happened. "The lights went through and in front of me, and then dissipated. But even if it was an illusion, I don't see it now." The blood continued drawing closer to Alice. "Mystia." Alice said bluntly. "Use your ability on me."

"Huh?" Mystia replied. "Did I mishear you?"

"Activate Midnight Chorus Master on me. Don't do it on anyone else." Alice continued. Mystia reluctantly agreed, reaching out her arm towards Alice and motioning down, limiting Alice's vision severely. "If I touch you in some way, I can increase its effects." Mystia informed Alice. "Do that." Alice responded. "And keep an eye on the room, you'll be my eyes for me."

"This girl..." Mystia thought to herself, "Did Reisen really make her go insane?" Mystia walked over to Alice and reluctantly touched her shoulder as she watched the blood. As she drained more of Alice's vision, she watched as the blood, which had now gotten within a foot of Alice, stopped their movement. The blood vibrated violently for a moment before immediately caving the floor under them, creating deep perfect holes within the floor, scaring Mystia and making her shout. "What happened?" Alice asked.

"Th-the blood that was coming towards you made holes in the ground." Mystia said shakily. "Oh, I see." Alice responded. She deployed four dolls in a large rectangle around her, thinking to herself "This can help me detect vibrations. The way Flandre attacked Eirin... it's certainly concerning, but inspiring as well. Perhaps I can learn from her, despite her back of memories or experience." Alice walked forward, past the holes, with Mystia looking around to see if anything else would move.

Alice continued moving her dolls around, trying to sense if any change has occured within the environment, but nothing would pop up. After a moment of this, Mystia spotted Reisen re-appearing to Alice's left, looking considerably winded. "Alice! She's to your left!" Mystia yelped. Alice responded with coldly saying "Good. Can you attack her for me?"

"Hey hey hey hey hey hey!" Mystia retorted. "I agreed to help you, but I'm not exactly in fighting condition either." Alice responded with "I don't care, just do it." Mystia faced to see Reisen already shooting at her, so Mystia quickly went to the side and jumped towards Reisen. Reisen attempted to re-activate her ability by charging up her eyes and turning them red, but Mystia wasn't paying attention to her eyes and threw herself onto Reisen, inflicting Midnight Chorus Master onto Reisen as well. Alice heard this and quickly ran over to the sound, with Reisen putting her fingers on Mystia's head. Reisen attempted to shoot Mystia, but Alice extended one of her dolls - holding a small sword-like object, and pierced Reisen's hand before she could shoot. Alice pulled the doll and Reisen closer to her with Mystia getting off of Reisen.

Alice grabbed Reisen's neck, who was already breathing heavily, and looked at her, despite neither being able to see. Alice said to Reisen "By the way, I never introduced you to my dolls, have I? I call them Shanghai and Hourai." Reisen gave no coherent response, spouting out gibberish. "Fine then, I'll let you rest." Alice used her dolls to lift Reisen into the air, and shot out a fireball from her book into Reisen. It created a small explosion, burning her and knocking her back into the wall and the cabinets. The lights from before reappeared from the wall to attack the downed Reisen as well. "You can unblind me now, Mystia. Thanks." Alice said. Mystia gulped and undid her ability, and as the two looked at each other, they rushed back to the roadside of the clinic to see what was happening between Flandre and Eirin.

During the fight against Reisen, Flandre got back on the ground to retrieve her weapon, which was laying shortly away from Eirin after she got up. Eirin looked up at the room, and said out loud "That Reisen girl will likely be defeated in there." Flandre glared at Eirin, saying "You need to tell me everything, doctor. Where am I from..?"

Eirin rotated her shoulders, responding "There's nothing I can do about lost memories or parallel dimensions. Somehow, someone, conjured you into this world, and the other vampire attacked you."

"No, I won't take that from you." Flandre retorted. "I want to know everything about her... because I will defeat her."

"It's not as if I lack the power to play with you until morning, but..." Eirin replied, "You'll never be able to defeat her. That's why I only need your arm, so I can develop something that 'can.' That way, we can both stop fighting and save each other some time."

"I don't need you to do it." Flandre replied, "This matter has become personal. I'll force information out of you no matter if you're immortal or what!" Flandre got herself into fighting pose, positioning her weapon closely.

"Hmph. Young children such as yourself can't stand a chance against me, an eternal being. What little history that you've built up--- Divided by my history, the result is zero. From eternity's point of view, you are but a mere instant." Eirin said. "Drachenblut!" Eirin's arm extended rapidly into what looked like a screw of flesh towards Flandre. Flandre dodged rapidly moving to the side, and shot bullets out of her left hand towards Eirin. Eirin spit out her saliva and turned them into doves that crashed into the bullets, cancelling them out. Eirin used her screw-arm to make a 90 degree angle downwards and pierce into the ground. Eirin ran towards it and made a self catapult using her arm towards Flandre. Flandre looked up as Eirin turned her long braid of hair into a large snake-like creature made of hair from above to attack her. Flandre attempted to block by cutting the hair creature with her weapon, slicing its head in half down the middle, but the pieces and strands of hair that were cut turned into leech-like creatures that went for Flandre's body.

Flandre attempted to cut down the hair leeches but it proved unsuccessful, as many of them attached themselves onto Flandre's arms and legs, draining her blood. Flandre paused in motion to try to figure out how to get the leeches off of her, meanwhile Eirin landed behind her. Flandre turned to look at Eirin and attempted to shoot her some more, but Eirin created holes in her own body where the bullets would have gone, having them effectively phase through her. "How the hell am I supposed to beat her..." Flandre thought to herself. She continued to grow weaker and weaker from the leeches as Eirin sapped Flandre's strength from her and poured it into herself, and to attempt to counteract this, Flandre jumped herself into the sky to to try fly and manually pull off the leeches. However, even trying to grab one connected her hand to the leech, in a web of hair. Flandre attempted to cut this with her weapon, but all the hair leeches quickly connected themselves and turned into a giant net to trap Flandre in, forcing her to fall. "What?!" Flandre shouted as she fell.

Flandre fell to the ground, making a loud "oof" sound. She started to rip out of the hairs themselves using brute force, but it was surprisingly tough. Eirin approached her slowly, morphing her arms back to normal. "As I said, there's nothing you can do. Are you ready to give up yet?" Flandre glared back at her in response. "I'm not a monster, however. I've figured out one thing about your temperament. It's normally not an easy thing to figure out, but the reason I've determined you're not of this world is because of how you connect to nature. I can see it." Eirin explained.

Flandre looked back at her with confusion, but listened. Eirin continued her explanation with "It's as if fate itsself has turned upside-down around you. That's how I would describe it. Of this world nothing like you exists, except for 'those people.' In this world, your temperament would be that of an aurora, but you excude one of scarlet mist."

"I have no idea what she's talking about..." Flandre thought to herself. Flandre conjured up the strength to her self freezing technique to make her hands and arms ice cold, freezing the strands of hair attatched to her, and breaking through some of it. "Shit, I need to keep fighting her, but I'm really running out of energy here, and there's nobody around I can even eat from..." she thought.

"I need to take a risk... if she's human, no, just at all, if I can get close enough to her to steal her blood... I can keep fighting. But she'll probably defeat me if I do. What do I do..." She continued thinking. Flandre broke out from the cage of hair as Eirin created a bow and arrow yet again from her arms and blood. Flandre jumped up to fly onto the roof of a nearby building and ducked. "She can change one part of someone's body one-at-a-time, manipulate herself how she likes freely, can change liquids like spit or blood into various objects without much issue from each other, but she didn't do anything to me when I was attacked by those hairs even though she was touching me. In fact, there were multiple times she touched me or Alice and didn't immediately incapacitate us. There has to be some kind of weakness to her ability." Flandre said to herself.

It was then she peeked her head out to see Eirin aiming directly at her, and a crazy idea popped into her head. "What if I let myself be hit by the arrow?" She thought. "What would she be able to do to me if I got hit by it?"

Flandre jumped up into the air, and Eirin fired her arrow at Flandre - aiming for the neck. Flandre moved her hand in front of her neck to block it. Eirin, however, immediately realized that Flandre was doing this on purpose, and split the arrow up into 8 pieces before it could impact Flandre's hand. The arrow stretched in a whisk-like shape encircling Flandre. Flandre, however, did not give up, and rushed towards the 'base' of the arrow with as much speed as she could muster, to the point that Eirin had no time to react. Flandre reached her hand out and grabbed the hilt, attempting to suck the blood into her body from the arrow. This proved somewhat effective, surprisingly to her, as she sucked what wasn't flying off around her into her body, helping her to start heal again. Eirin let out a 'tch,' which Flandre observed.

"Could it be that the weakness is range?" Flandre thought. "If I keep my distance, neither of us can do damage, but if she gets an opportunity, she might try to mess up my internal body structure or something. But that means I need to find a way to defeat her from a distance somehow, through her regeneration. Ugh, what an annoying ability."

Flandre tried to aim at Eirin with her hand, but Eirin moved away from her. "These things aren't very strong." Flandre thought. "Maybe if I could have gotten Alice to teach me how to spread them out like that, it'd help, but I don't even know how to condense this thing." Flandre stopped flying and landed on the roof. "Not good, this isn't enough. I can't keep this up for long. Damn it, what should I do..."

Eirin looked up at Flandre when she heard an explosion from inside of the clinic, and then a crash. "That was probably the sound of Udonge's body flying backwards. Come to think of it, her body would be a good vessel for me to use. The vampire's probably figured out that my Drachenblut has a limited range. But that's fine, if I can get to Udonge." Eirin said to herself. She looked up to see Alice and Mystia approaching from the damage.

Not only that, but another person was walking in from the distance. She had long silver hair with blue highlights, brown eyes, and a dark blue dress with white sleeves with the bottoms and corners of the dress having green highlights, however, she had two large horns with green highlights on her head. She spoke with confidence and authority to the group, saying "Dr. Yagokoro, you were initially welcomed to Gensokyo as a medical professional, but after hearing two explosions, I see you fighting with several youkai and your office is on fire. Which one of you would like to explain what's going on?"

Flandre was stunned. Alice had her hand over her mouth, and Mystia attempted to reclude herself. Eirin was also silent for a moment, until she responded "Miss Kamishirasawa, as you may know, strange incidents have been happening recently around us. I was investigating within my office until these youkai came in, requesting a check up, and provoked a fight with me. I'm simply defending myself. I'm sure you can understand as one who's both human and youkai, Miss Kamishirasawa, that my actions are in favour of Gensokyo's survival, correct?"

The woman looked angrily at Eirin, who looked rather calm in contrast. "I may share my blood from both of these races, but that does not mean I will be tolerant of such destructive and brash nature from either. All of you will face my punishment before morning comes!" Kamishirasawa announced.

"You have got to be kidding me..." Flandre thought to herself. "She probably has an ability as well. Plus, the doctor looks as if she really has it out for me now. I can feel it. Alice, help me..."

Alice thought to herself "This woman... I recognize her. She's somewhat of the head protector of Gensokyo, Keine Kamishirasawa. Supposedly she's also principal of the school here. This is not going to be a fun fight..."

Mystia thought to herself "I need to get out of here as quickly as possible, but I can't fly with this hole in my wing..!"

Chapter Text

Keine immediately revealed her ability to the group, conjuring from colored dust five hakutakus around her - a white ox like creature with three eyes on its head and sides, ranging in colors from green to blue to white. "Plain Asia - is what I like to call it." Keine said. The beasts appeared to walk around, eying up their oppontents.

Alice thought to herself "If I can trap them somehow we might be able to escape. But Flandre is too far away from me and I don't want to draw any attention to myself..."

Flandre thought to herself "There's no way she won't attack me, but I still have questions I need to ask the doctor. But that ability... it's very ominous. Maybe even more than Eirin's. It's like I can feel it... Feeling. Damn it, everything since I met the doctor feels like it's been on the tip of my tongue. It's like I can feel something that I can't see. Something beyond my biology and the situation around me."

Eirin said to Keine "You're very famous, Miss Kamishirasawa. I know your Plain Asia's ability to take and restore parts of history. But it won't work against me, as I already told the vampire, since I'm an infinite being."

Keine did not respond to this, and her Hakutakus fired off ten balls of light that traveled around two meters away from them, with another two meters of seperation between the other two. Keine shouted out "Future: New History of Fantasy -Next History-!" The orbs started shooting out blue beams of lights - bullets, that went forward. The orbs started turning sending these in all directions, although not hitting Keine, who made an X-shaped motion with her arm, summoning a barrage of large red light bullets that at first went randomly, but then aimed themselves and rapidly fired towards the four in front of her.

When the blue bullets hit something, it would absorb part of the material it hit into itsself and mold itsself with such. For example, if a blue bullet hit the cobblestone road, it would mold itsself into stone and become a part of the road, creating a small spike on the road, only around a finger's length in size, similar to the bullets Flandre and Reisen shot. However, in light of this, the many that would fire off would easily pile up on each other. Blue bullets that hit skin or flesh will only damage the target, however, although not very much. The red bullets from Keine, however, were large and long, around thrice the volume of the smaller blue bullets and similar to the ones Alice and Mystia would fire. Once a red bullet hit something, it would take away a large chunk of an object as if it were erased from existence.

Alice and Mystia went to duck behind what was left of the wall, but they quickly found themselves in hot water as the wall melted away from Keine's attack and fell backwards quickly. Flandre had to quickly run away from the red bullets as she jumped onto another roof and then down onto a balcony of another house, with red bullets taking away pieces of its walls and roof. Eirin made a run for the clinic while needing to avoid the trailing red bullets and the onslaught of blue bullets headed her way. She found herself pelted by blue bullets, stabbing at her arms and neck, which slowed her down considerably despite immediately regenerating anyways. A red bullet was about to impact her head, but she called out "Drachenblut!" and created a large dent in her head, making it look like a downwards L. This let the red bullet pass through without her getting harmed.

Alice immediately noticed Eirin rapidly approaching the clinic. "I need to slow her down somehow so she gets hit by Keine, but these bullets won't let me get close..!" Alice and Mystia were rapidly moving backwards from the wall and red bullets, which were tearing away parts of the floor and what was under it, leaving huge dents. "Alice, if I can activate Midnight Chorus Master on the both of them, we can win, but I need to get to them somehow!" Mystia shouted. Alice turned to her, trying to think of a plan.

Flandre was running closer to Keine from running from the bullets. Keine's initial attack seemed to be ending, but it seemed as if she was about to unleash a second wave of her attack. "I don't think she's noticed me over here yet. If I can get close to her, maybe I can attack her in secret. It would be nice to turn into a bat right now, but I need more energy..." Flandre said to herself. She looked over at Eirin, who was rapidly climbing up the wall into her clinic. Eirin stretched her hand and made it into what looked like a pickaxe, and smashed it into the floor, and pulled herself up. "No, I can't worry about them right now." Flandre said to herself. "I need to get her blood!" Flandre lunged towards another building to Keine's side, as Keine repeated her same attack.

Large clusters of spikes formed around where there was large depressions and dents in the ground and buildings, creating a dangerous minefield for anyone caught in the attack with little room to run from. Eirin only just entered the room when Mystia lunged herself at her, hitting her stomach and knocking her backwards. Mystia was holding two of Alice's Shanghai dolls in her hand - which had large needle-like swords. Before Eirin could react, Mystia blinded her, and Eirin fell into a barrage of Keine's red bullets, creating huge holes in her body going from left to right as Mystia stumbled herself backwards. This resulted in Eirin having her entire stomach and chest area as well as parts of her head be erased - as well as parts of the wall behind them. However, Alice noticed something strange. "Hey, the doctor isn't regenerating! But, isn't even spilling blood! Did we defeat her?"

Eirin's legs and lower body remained on the floor, but they quickly got up and started running towards Mystia. "Huuuh?!" Mystia shouted as she quickly bolted away from the legs. More of Keine's red and blue bullets impacted the room, with Alice running in an opposite direction from Mystia and the legs, creating large holes and filling some of them with spikes of the same material. Mystia looked behind to see Eirin's lower orans were still in shape - though part of them were cut off, there seemed to be no issues within the body itsself, greatly disorienting Mystia.

Flandre continued having to dodge the stream of red bullets headed her way. "They're pretty scary, but as long as you don't stop heading in one direction, you should be fine..." She thought to herself. She tried her best to silently jump down and approach Keine from behind. The bullets from the attack didn't reach here aside from some of the blue ones. Flandre then lunged towards Keine, aiming for her neck, but Keine's hakutakus quickly ended their attack and stream of bullets and charged to defend Keine, some of them even phasing through Keine to attack Flandre. They grabbed one of Flandre's limbs each with the fifth one, a white one, standing beside Keine. They were rather large, with it getting to Keine's head, even without the horns.

Flandre attempted to move her hand to shoot Keine, but the fifth hakutaku quickly bit it before she could do anything. "I already foresaw your desperate attack, vampire." Keine told Flandre. "But, did you really think that would work? Or were you that desperate." Flandre said nothing in response to Keine. "I can't overlook your actions today, but I won't kill you. Nobody will. I've temporarily erased the environment and parts of Dr. Yagokoro's body from history, but everything will be put back once I've evicted you all from Gensokyo. Although, if worst comes to worst, I can permanently eat yours or anyone's history. That is my Plain Asia."

Flandre looked up at Keine, and thought to herself "These beasts... I can feel their energy. It's strange. It's like I can feel blood running through them and air being inhaled and exhaled through them, but they're entirely spiritual. What is this?"

The rain of bullets ended back at the clinic, Alice was pushed against a corner of the wall facing towards the road, with the sides and part of the top being destroyed. Mystia, too was against the wall near the cabinets and Reisen's unconscious body. Eirin's legs suddenly stopped chasing Mystia, and turned to spring towards Reisen's body. Alice immediately recognized what was going to happen, and shouted "Mystia! Don't let her get to Reisen!" Mystia attempted to push away Eirin's legs, but Eirin created a large spike from her left thigh that cut Mystia's hand, halting her from impacting Eirin. Eirin put her feet on Reisen's body, healing up her wounds by transfering some of the flesh from her legs, and had Reisen wake up.

Eirin's legs fell to the ground as Alice and Mystia watched in caution as Reisen sat up from the debris, doing some quick arm stretches. "It's a shame I had to temporarily abandon my old body in exchange for this one, but it will do for now. Although it seems our targets have exchanged, my goal is the same. What's more, now I know both of your abilities, so you two won't be hindrances for much longer."

Mystia quickly backed up, saying "She transfered her consciousness into Reisen's body. I knew it, she's a monster!"

Alice quickly approached the posessed Reisen, saying "But, does she have Drachenblut or Lunatic Red Eyes now?"

"Hmph, it doesn't matter." Mystia responded. Mystia attempted to inflict blindness onto the posessed Reisen, but she quickly grabbed her hand before she could. Alice let out five of her dolls and sent them to attack the posessed Reisen's arm. The dolls cut deep into her arm, and Alice tried her hardest to pull them off, but the posessed Reisen wouldn't budge. Alice attempted to send more dolls to attack the posessed Reisen's neck and face, while Mystia said "Hey, Alice, it feels like my blood vessels in my arm are about to erupt. It's like she sent a bunch of bee stingers inside. Do something about it!"

"Damn it." Alice responded. She had the dolls quickly conjure up the elemental energy for fire, setting the posessed Reisen and her arm on fire, but still nothing, despite the amount of dolls now attacking her. Alice gave in and rushed in to go fully physical against the posessed Reisen, going to punch her in the face. The posessed Reisen, however, created a second arm from her burning arm holding Mystia, and grabbed Alice's neck. Alice sent her attacking dolls into Reisen's face as a last resort, lighting them on fire. "Magic Sign: Artful Sacrifice!" She shouted as the dolls created a collossal explosion in between everyone.

Mystia and Alice were sent back by the street-side wall, severely damaged now from the explosion, as the wall and corner the posessed Reisen and Eirin's legs were in were vaporized and Reisen's destroyed body was sent back to the wall waiting room, sustaining extreme injuries to the shoulders, chest, and face and creating a large dent in the wall. Alice barely got herself to sit up to send a doll towards Reisen's body, that created a net around the body, regenerating slowly but nowhere near as fast as before. Alice quickly realized Mystia was unconscious from the blast, and tried to crawl towards any medicines that were laying on the ground.

"Drachenblut... I wonder how she really makes herself immortal.. huh." Alice said to herself. She found a medicinal vial on the floor, claiming to aid with healing wounds and help with fatigue, reading "Yagokola Herb & Medicine." Alice crawled over to Mystia and poured it in her mouth. "Mystia... when you wake up, help Flandre at all costs." With that, Alice's energy ran out and she fell unconscious as well.

Flandre heard a loud explosion over at the clinic, with her and Keine looking back to look at it. "What was that?!" Flandre said to herself. "It matters not." Keine said. "I'll help myself to your history and then confront the others back there." She put her hand on Flandre's forehead, and then made a surprised face. "Oh? It seems I can't read it. I've never seen that before."

Flandre paid no attention to this, thinking about how she can sense the energy of the hakutakus holding her in place. "I can feel it between all of them touching me, and even the woman touching me, but I feel it best from the one biting my hand."

Keine made a thinking position and said "I'll have to finish you off now then, and then head over there. Don't worry, you won't die. I just need to deal out punishments." The hakutakus clamped down harder on Flandre as Keine prepared another attack. Flandre braced herself for the worst, almost accepting there was nothing she could do. However, she suddenly felt a sort of flow around her hands. Flandre looked to see a rainbow colored mist going around her hands. Unconsciously, they shot bullets down into the ground surrounding Flandre. Keine was about to launch an attack at Flandre, but a blood vessel on her neck suddenly burst. She was forced to reconcile and called off the attack, trying to put her hand on the bleeding, shouting out "What?!". The grip of the hakutakus also weakened as a result, and Flandre wriggled out to get herself freed.

Flandre fell to the ground and tried to see what had happened. She saw a bullet hole in the road that had a black stretch on it's side, leading up to the neck of the hakutaku that was holding her hand. The same situation happened on the other side, and Flandre looked down to look at her hands. The rainbow mist continued to flow around it, but she was missing some of her fingertips - as if they had never been there in the first place, with the other hand being much the same. "What is this..?" Flandre said to herself. She reached out to try to touch the bullet hole in the ground, but she got a splitting headache from it and immediately backed off. "What is this hole, and what happened to my fingers..?!"

The hakutaku re-surrounded Flandre, who was crawling backwards, as Keine looked at Flandre, still holding her hand by her neck, and slowly walked closer. "That technique... the bullet you shot, it was endowed with qi, but you don't have any history of any knowledge of qi. Is it possible you subconsciously used it?!" Flandre got herself up, and Keine said "There are 11,520 types of youkai in this world. The amount that can use qi in such a way, however, is unmatched. Are you truly a vampire..?"

"Qi? What is that?" Flandre said. "Are you trying to confuse me?!" Flandre took out her weapon again, anticipating the hakutaku to lunge onto her as if they were some type of dog or cat. The hakutaku, however, remained in place. "Hakutaku are far wiser than any human. Although, because I'm half human, some parts of them are limited, such as being unable to talk to anyone besides me. They won't try to pounce onto you, though." Keine informed Flandre. "Hakutaku are knowledgeable about all things creation, but part of being human is being naturally destructive, as shown through history time and time again. That is the yin and yang." Flandre looked over to the side to see that the previously made waves of spikes from the blue bullets had seceded, and it looked as though the hakutaku were charging up some sort of attack. Flandre braced for the worst and tried to quickly go to the side, but the hakutaku rapidly released large shards of stone sprayed all over Flandre and the surrounding area in a messy fashion, as if she was stuck in a hurricane of broken off roads and tree logs, with Keine shouting "Land Scheme: Three Sacred Treasures - Country!!". Naturally, Flandre was unable to defend against all of this, having large shards pierce through her neck and ribs.

This attack didn't last for very long however, ending as soon as it started. The remaining shards littered the surrounding ground and pierced into the houses, with what flew up eventually dissipating into dust if it didn't hit anything. Flandre lay on the ground, trembling from the impact with several pieces of debris stuck inside her body, with blood naturally ensuing from the wounds. "This is crazy..." She moaned to herself. "I'm really running low on energy now... Damn it. Right when I felt like I was about to remember something important." Keine remained in place, and lifted out her arm in Flandre's direction. The hakutaku lifted their upper bodies into the air and smashed down into the road, and the stone shards stuck in Flandre's body grew themselves, connecting into the floor and raising up into the sky. Flandre was now stuck to the floor with large stone and wood mixed spires through her neck, ribs, and hand. "It's over." Keine said. "This is Plain Asia." Behind Flandre, the some damage to the walls caused by Keine's previous attack had disappeared, as if nothing had ever happened, with the exception of a couple of stray holes and the remaining shards lodged in.

Keine walked up to Flandre, and told her "As I said before, I won't take your life. You have intrigued me without so much as even knowing you for five minutes, but I'd like to go check up on that clinic now, and I doubt you have strength remaining to break the spires or even shoot any bullets, but just in case, I'll leave three of my hakutaku to watch you. The instant you make a move, they'll pierce your remaining limbs and sew you into the road." Three of the hakutaku, two blue ones and one white one, approached Flandre, having the shards in the ground dissipate and spread out into small stools and slabs as they walked towards Flandre. Keine took her remaining two green hakutaku and left to investigate the clinic.

Flandre remained motionless on the ground as blood started to make a pool around her. For her, she felt nearly hopeless, but all she could think about was the bullet she had just shot a moment prior, with one of the wounds still remaining on one of the blue hakutakus watching her. She looked down to see the fingertips on her hands still missing, with minor rainbow mist still flowing around them, although now considerably darker and washed out looking. "This is... qi?" She thought. "It looks much weaker than before..." She looked back at the hakutaku, now vaguely being able to see a similar rainbow mist around them, but with much more of it compared to her hands. Flandre, however, noticed that the hakutaku she had previously shot had a slightly less intense mist flowing around it, and around the bullet hole on it's neck where some blood was pouring out, there was a small ring of rainbow mist circling it. Flandre also observed its breathing and balance was now more shaky compared to the other two, and the mist surrounding it was slightly darker, similar to hers.

It was then it was as if Flandre heard a voice behind her, simply instructing her "...If your heart of wavering, do not shoot." Flandre tried to look behind her to see who it was, but nobody was behind her. "No, even if someone was behind me, the hakutaku would have said something. But, what was that?!" She heard the voice again, instructing her "...Do not shoot." This caused Flandre to have a bit of a shock, moving her slightly and arousing the hakutaku's suspicion. "I don't understand, all of this feels too familiar... but I don't recognize any of it. Is the voice I'm hearing... is it something I'm making myself believe, or was it something really there..?"

Flandre looked back to see the rainbow mist around the hakutakus starting to flow faster around them as they slowly approached her, and the density of the mist themselves frontloaded slightly more around their heads and necks. "Don't shoot..?" Flandre asked herself. "I'm about to be attacked! What do you mean not to shoot?!" Flandre then felt two motions occuring: Firstly, she felt stone twisting and rising beneath her head, at the bottom of the spot right above the middle of her eyes, starting to skewer into her head, and secondly, she felt as though her life force was draining - specifically into her hands, as if it was being redirected there. Flandre's senses and vision got worse and blurrier as she saw the rainbow mist around her hands grew substantially in amount and grew more and more radiant and bright. Flandre went blind and unconscious as a large piece of stone skwered right through the center of her head, as the rainbow mist around the hakutakus somewhat dissipated and they seemed to grow calmer.

Chapter Text

Keine's father, originating from the Kamishirasawa family, hails as long standing assistants to the Japanese emperor, particularly as notetakers and record-keepers. While Keine's father was a well respected member of society and paid well by the emperor, but after he married his wife and during the time of World War II, he had grown to greatly distrust the emperor and country itsself.

As per his lineage, he had access to a great number of imperial secrets and information that had never been revealed to the public before - ranging from old legends, youkai databases and historical events, and would often sneak out to study them in search of some type of solution he could use to combat his feelings. Keine's father had an unusual special ability he kept to himself - where he was able to mask the sounds of his own movement and footsteps, that he supposedly got after a strange encounter with a vampire after he was coming home from work one day. After repeating this cycle of sneaking out to look at historical data, he eventually found an old legend recorded by a distant ancestor from around 500 years ago, discussing a certain phenomenon that had hidden a small village in northern Japan from the world, where strange energy gathered around it.

Keine's father, shortly after his daughter was born, faked his family's death and secretly moved them towards this mythical location overnight. While heading there however, they were interrupted by five of of Japan's royal guards. As it has been the emperor had still taken up suspicion of Keine's father regardless of how careful he had been. Keine's father tried his best to fight off the guards, but as a mostly normal person still, he was quickly overwhelmed. His wife gave him the chance to run away, sacrificing herself and giving Keine to her husband, and was killed shortly after. Keine's father had no choice but to respect his wife's final wish and ran as fast and far as he could.

Upon arriving there, there was a swamp where the village once stood, and in the center of it was a pond with pure white water in front of a small shrine. When Keine's father approached the pond, a god presented itsself before him, and told him "Your family can enter, but you cannot. Your reasonings have merit, but those with guilt will bear its sins for eternity. Do you wish to continue, even knowing that?"

Keine's father thought in front of the pond for a long time, before eventually accepting this offer. He dropped his infant child into the pond, and the god accepted it, transporting her to Gensokyo, and Keine's father ran far away without a trace.

Keine was found on the footstools of a shrine far on the outskirts of Gensokyo, and its shrine maiden took her to Gensokyo to look for anyone willing to take care of her, not having the capability to care for her herself. The then-principal of Gensokyo's only school and his wife accepted Keine as their child, naming her that as that was the only word she could say. They were a very old couple, easily capable of being Keine's grandparents and lived somewhat far from the main village, by a large river near the border of Gensokyo.

Occasionally, books among other objects would flow down this river. Keine would regularly pick up books and newspapers about Japanese culture, history, and lifestyle and read them along the river, while she was educated both by her caring foster parents and at the school of Gensokyo. Keine, despite her circumstances, was not much of an unusual child, being sociable and curious about all things natural, and although she was always well behaved she was always curious about her true origins and true parents, and theorized the reason she had so much information about the 'outside world' compared to everyone else were because her true parents were still alive, somewhere, somehow.

When Keine was around eight years old, she was walking around the river as usual under a full moon. It was then she recieved an intense headache, having two large horns morph out of her head and growing a long tail. Wilting down in agony like this for a while, dealing with the pain while crying, she felt a presence in front of her. She looked up to see a very large figure of a hakutaku in front of her, that dissipated into dust shortly after. A book titled "The Hakutaku-zu" then washed up at her feet, a legendary book describing all youkai as told to a Chinese emperor from a hakutaku. Shortly after, she discovered how to use Plain Asia, now as a half human, from her mother's side, and half hakutaku, from her father's.

Keine would later become a teacher for the school of Gensokyo and inherited the position of principal and director of the School of Gensokyo, and sought to use her power to protect the humans of Gensokyo, while still wanting to learn more about the outside world.

Keine was still walking away from Flandre's body, noticing a signal from the Hakutaku she left behind. "What a shame. I even warned her too. I'll have to find some way to heal her wounds later." she said. She turned back around to look at Flandre's body, but suddenly noticed a large hump seemingly under the cobblestone road, with a black trail behind it leading from Flandre's body. It rapidly beelined towards Keine, making a loud "CHK CHK CHK CHK CHK" noise as it approached closer. "What?!" Keine shouted. She shot out a large red bullet to erase the hump, and it succeeded in creating a large hole in the ground, but the hump continued drawing nearer and nearer towards Keine - as if nothing had ever happened to it. Keine became unnerved and tried to move to run away from it, turning around, but the hump had already caught up. A hand made of the same rainbow mist from before grabbed onto Keine's heel, and through the shoe absorbed some of Keine's foot through the shoe, causing Keine to fall down and having damage reflect onto the hakutaku in the form of having their back right foot - the same one that was attacked by the mist, be thinned. The rainbow mist hand dissipated immediately following this, but still leaving behind a hole similar to the two Flandre shot before.

"The vampire... she's still capable of making such an attack?!" Keine shouted. Keine looked to see Flandre still unconscious, but with her entire left hand missing. The hakutaku went to try to attack Flandre, but immediately halted as they noticed what looked like a flower emerge from Flandre's stunted arm, made completely of the rainbow mist. "The hakutaku are signalling that they want to attack..." Keine thought to herself. "But this is brand new information. I'll try to hold out a little before I start to seriously attack her. Sorry, hakutaku." The hakutaku all backed away as the flower extended away from the body, and Keine stood up. "She's capable of doing such complex movements without even being conscious?" Keine said to herself. The flower started rotating and pulsing as it levitated in the air, and Keine realized "This qi movement... I recognize it! This movement is extremely lethal to vampires! Her entire existence is a contradiction!" Keine blocked herself and the hakutaki ran away from the area, as the flower ignited itsself and voilently exploded, sending crystalized shards of the rainbow mist flying in the shape of a flower as if it were a spellcard pattern. The shards were incredibly small in size, being around the length of a fingernail and the width of a needle, but they flew quickly in all directions. The hakutaku ran far enough away to where most of the shards didn't hit them, but keine had a full row of them fly right at her. Keine, however, was able to think quick enough to quickly erase their history and avoid damage done to her. Keine watched as all the shards that would have hit Flandre immediately dissipated back into mist before they could impact her skin, and the other shards had created a clean cut across the spires, which were now falling in Keine's and the hakutaku's direction.

Keine, however, instead of running, used this as an opportunity to fight back. "You're not the only one that can attack like that! Great Fire: Flower of Edo!" Keine shouted out. A large ring of fire formed around where she was standing that extended outward in spikes as if it were an omnidirectional star, and it sent what looked like fireballs out in all directions, aiming it toward the falling spires and Flandre's body. The fireballs collided with the falling spires, and they melted away anything that would have fallen onto Keine. This attack quickly dissipated, however, leaving only ashes to fall.

As the ashes fell down, Keine heard another chk-chk-chk-chk sound coming from the ground. Keine looked down to see various small versions of the previous attack coming from the ashes, with several tiny holes and their trails forming, beelining towards Keine. "What?!" Keine said as she stumbled backwards. The holes suddenly stopped and shot out what looked like small fingers, firing rapidly towards Keine and impacting her hand, creating cuts along her fingers. Some of the blood from her fingers dripped and seeped into the holes made before, while Keine looked at her hand, questioning to herself "Was this some kind of trap the whole time? Just what type of attack is this..?"

Keine watched as Flandre's body suddenly seemed to start moving again. Flandre's body was missing its right arm up to the elbow, and her left hand had no fingers on it, but the wounds across her legs and body that weren't impaled started to heal slightly, as Flandre tried to move her arm to try to sit herself up. Keine wondered to herself "Are those holes wormholes of some kind..? None of this is making any sense... it's as if someone posessed her while she was unconscious. The precision and ferocity of these attacks coming through something that had no history. I might have to get serious about this, regardless of what my curiosity is telling me."

Flandre sat herself up, able to pass her wounds through the shaved spires with them slowly healing, but remained mute and had her numb arm on her head. "Vampires have some of the best regenerative abilities of any youkai, but deprived of blood for very long, it won't be as good." Keine thought. "The attacks were unaffected by my erasure of history, and I couldn't read her..." It was then Keine had a realization, "She's not from this world, and neither are her attacks. This was likely something the doctor realized, but that also means I can't erase her own history. I need to brute force her and keep her from attacking again!"

Keine called back her hakutaku, with the five of them dissipating into dust and re-appearing at her sides, and prepared for another attack with them. "Psuedo-History: The Legend of Gensokyo!" Keine shouted.

Bullets started forming mid-air, but Flandre gave no response. Keine noticed she wasn't even twitching or breathing, just sitting with her head on her arm, somewhat annoying her. The energy of the hakutaku flowed towards Keine's raised arms, creating a faint white orb of red and white mist, with three others being made around it. She aimed a stream of lasers and arrowheads directly at the sitting Flandre, but before she could fire, she was suddenly blinded and unable to see, but persisted and fired anyways, aiming roughly at Flandre.

Abovehead was Mystia, damaged and burnt but just barely able to fly despite the wounds in her wings. "Flandre... I'm sorry... This is all I can do." She said, and glided herself slowly to the ground, lacking the energy to continue flying. The bullets rushed roughly in the direction of Flandre, while Keine recalled her hakutaku to go towards her, turning them into dust and reforming them at her side. The bullets impacted Flandre's shoulders, upper chest, and lower neck, but with minor damages and with a short attack, the wounds started healing immediately.

As this was happening, 3 of the hakutaku went to attack Flandre, while the other two went to attack Mystia, while Keine was stunned by the blindness. The hakutaku raced towards Flandre, who then calmly stood up from her spot, and aimed her numbed arm at the floor. She fired off what remained with the rainbow mist trailing behind and around it, straight into the cobblestone road, creating a speeding bump within it headed towards the hakutaku in a loud CHK CHK CHK CHK CHK. The hakutaku split into different paths, creating their own orbs of light to fire bullets at Flandre. The bump in the ground fired off parts of Flandre's body to deflect all the attacks of the hakutaku, and furthermore, after cancelling out the bullets, they continued to fire directly towards the hakutaku. The hakutaku attempted to create a wall from the road to block against this, but the parts of the arm that were fired off dug itsself into the wall, creating yet another bump that followed the hakutaku around. The more obstacles they tried to create, the more the burrowing attack would pursue them, although shrinking over time through each obstacle.

The hakutaku kept getting further and further away from Flandre, and it was then the three bumps fired off the body parts inside of them. The body parts fired off to Keine like their own bullets, and Keine, while able to sense from her Hakutaku that an attack had been fired off at her, was unable to dodge the parts of Flandre's arm that fired off at her. Two of them hit the hakutaku that were going to attack Mystia, impacting their behinds and sides, while one hit Keine's hip, tearing a whole through her. Flandre naturally used this advantage to heal up the rest of her wounds. In addition, the rainbow mist surrounded itsself around where Flandre's arms once were, and regenerated them as if nothing had ever happened.

Flandre walked towards the downed Keine, who had recalled her hakutaku into dissapearance. Keine coughed up some blood and told Flandre "I surrender... I should have taken you more seriously. If you plan to kill me, please tell me first... what are you?" Flandre, as she looked down at Keine, started saying "I'll tell you what I saw while you were trying to attack me back there... I saw a scene of a flower field inside the walls of a large mansion. A woman in green clothes with red hair was tending to the flowers. Surrounding her was a tornado of rainbow mist energy, but it seemed as if she was totally under control of it. That was when another figure came up to her... I don't remember what it was, but they were shorter than the woman. But the figure started to release some type of red smoke in the air, and that's when it cut out." Flandre grabbed Keine by the collar and held her up. "What does this mean?!"

Keine grimaced at this, saying in a strained voice "You're not from this world... I don't know what this means. If you spare me, I can try to look for something..." Flandre looked down to see multiple wounds on Keine's body, imminent she would bleed out soon. "...Do you really promise?" Flandre asked again. Keine looked up at her and nodded. "The doctor...!" Flandre said to herself. She dropped Keine onto the road and rushed towards the clinic. "I don't like the idea of leaving her alive with an ability like that, but I need any information I can get." She thought to herself. On her way there, she saw Mystia, unconscious. "Mystia... thank you." Flandre said internally.

Flandre got up to the destroyed room with ease, and braced herself for the worst when looking inside. She saw the remaining legs of Eirin, Alice's body laying on the floor by the corner of the wall near the cabinets, and Reisen's body wrapped up by wires and string tied to the wall in the waiting room. Across the floor, however, stretched a web of skin, originating from Reisen's legs. This grossed even Flandre out, with her making a face of disgust, but landing on the floor by Alice, stuttering and saying "D-Doctor, are you here? What happened here..?" Flandre looked at Reisen's body, with much of the face and upper body being torn, damaged, and burnt, but healing slowly. It was then the idea that Eirin had transferred her ability or perhaps even consciousness into Reisen's body. "Doctor, if you can hear me, I need to you heal the others. It's obvious now you're defeated already." She heard Reisen's voice, saying "You're an amnesiac who doesn't even remember her own memories, while I might just know how to defeat her. Even if you offered your aid to me, you'd only get in my way. It's said that one death is a tragedy, but a million is a statistic. Those people have likely gobbled up more worlds than crumbs of bread a human has eaten."

"I don't care about that." Flandre said, without hesitation. "I already told you, this is a personal matter now. If you don't help get my memories back, I'll go through your immortality and kill you. I'm almost there now." Flandre then thought "Well, the part about going through her immortality is a lie still..."

The posessed Reisen's legs started to glow a dim blue, with her saying "Hoh? I'd love to see you try." Flandre got annoyed and aimed her hand at the posessed Reisen, despite knowing full well it won't harm her in the long run, she figured "Maybe if I hurt her enough she'll give in..." Flandre noticed yet again a rainbow mist flowing around her finger, although not very much. "This stuff circling around my finger is qi, isn't it?" She thought. "I still don't really get it, back then I wasn't exactly conscious still. I guess I just have to trust my gut."

The posessed Reisen's web of skin created an explosion, which sent Flandre flying backwards, but she was prepared and jumped very shortly after, only recieving minor damage, and got her wings to keep her in the air. She shot her finger at the posessed Reisen, clearing away the smoke around it, the finger shot straight into the posessed Reisen's heart.

Flandre wasn't exactly conscious while Keine was being attacked with all those energies, but she could feel the qi around her being manipulated. She thought that following through this ability, perhaps a similar attack to the homing attack or the exploding qi flower would commence, but instead, nothing at all happened. It was simply a powered up version of her regular bullet, that started to heal up quickly - although still not as fast as the regular Eirin's body. In addition, some of the wires and string had been snapped from the explosion and bullet, so the posessed Reisen simply started getting up, saying "I already told you, it's useless. Why can children not simply follow directions..?"

Flandre was confused, and looked down at her right arm where she fired from. A very small amount of rainbow mist circled around Flandre's hand. "There's less than I remember..." She said to herself. "Did I do something wrong?" She looked over to see the posessed Reisen snapping off the remaining wires, and throwing them away. The web of skin on the floor seemed to have also dissapeared after the explosion, and damaged the floor. "It seems as though my Drachenblut is weaker in this body, but that's hardly a problem." The posessed Reisen said. In Flandre's moment of thinking, she picked up a broken iron bar off the floor from the original operating chair and spun it around in her hand a few times. Flandre dove down onto the floor and took out her weapon. "Tch, I'll figure that out later. I can still defeat you with this, it's easily sturdier than that scrap metal." Flandre said.

"I wasn't intending to sword-fight you with this." The posessed Reisen said. "I was wondering how easiest to trick you into letting me turn you into a sitting duck with it, so I thought I could use it as a ruler. It seems that won't be necessary though." Flandre made a confused look on her head, but quickly realized what was going on. The posessed Reisen turned the hand holding the metal rod into a jellyfish like structure of intestines, and let it fall to the ground, crawling towards Flandre. Flandre thought about shooting the thing, but decided it would be safer to try to hit it with her weapon.

Flandre charged it in her hand as if it were a baseball bat, and hit the metal rod part with her weapon's blunt side, but this only knocked it onto its side on the floor. The intestive jellyfish then started to twist itsself off of the metal rod on the floor and fired itsself off of it directly towards Flandre. Flandre counteracted this by trying to hit it again with her weapon, but the jellyfish creature latched onto it and started climbing towards Flandre, so Flandre dropped the weapon and flew up into the air to try to shoot it again.

Flandre tried to decide whether or not to aim at the jellyfish creature or at the posessed Reisen, and looked at the posessed Reisen to see what she was doing. The posessed Reisen seemed to have been trying to turn her other hand into a second jellyfish creature, and was already almost done making it. "Weakness, weakness, weakness... There's nothing for me to exploit!" Flandre thought to herself as she tried to fire off two more fingers at her other hand. Flandre noticed again how the rainbow mist around it seemed very thin, and it didn't seem to have much of an effect on the posessed Reisen's hand. "I'm wasting my ammo. It's like while I was on autopilot I could control it better than when I'm awake... it's like I was posessed." Flandre looked for the hole that she made previously in ceiling, and thought about leaving through it to think about what to do, but she then noticed the two jellyfish creatures headed towards Alice. "You piece of dirt..!" Flandre said through grit teeth as she dove towards Alice.

Flandre landed at Alice and tried to pick her up to carry her, but she already had one of the jellyfish creatures grab her leg. Flandre now aimed one of her fingers at the jellyfish creature, but she heard the same voice from behind her, saying "Do not shoot. You'll never find the path that way." Flandre snapped behind to see who it was, rapidly trying to think through her frustration. "It's not Alice, that's not how Alice sounds at all, nor anyone else I've seen..." It was then an idea popped into her head. "Could it be that the voice I'm hearing is the woman that I saw in that dream..?" Flandre looked down at the jellyfish creature, with another one now attatching to her legs. "I determined earlier that they can't affect my organs from this range, but... don't shoot while I'm being attacked? Don't shoot? Don't... shoot..." Flandre leaned down and dug her hand into one of the the jellyfish creatures, and sucked out the blood and fluids from it, deflating it and stopping its attack.

Chapter Text

The posessed Reisen now seemed somewhat concerned at this new development of Flandre's fighting capability. Flandre dug her hand into the other jellyfish creature and siphoned its energy as well. Flandre looked around her arms, now seeing a very large amount of rainbow mist flowing around them. "Doctor... can you see this?" Flandre asked. The posessed Reisen, still not able to regenerate her hands yet, thought to herself "Inside each piece of furniture, I hide a special type of poison from a certain ally. Though my Drachenblut was too weak to deliver the poison I hid inside that metal rod, it still got it inside her body. If I convince her I admit defeat, I can take her back to Miss Kamishirasawa and have her regenerate my body as it was, and by that time the poison would have subdued the vampire, and I can face Miss Kamishirasawa head on!"

The posessed Reisen said "I surrender. You have outclassed my capabilities with Drachenblut, but I can heal Miss Kamishirasawa if you take me to her. That's what you wanted in the first place, isn't it?"

Flandre stared at the posessed Reisen, thinking what to do. "Is this true?" She asked. The posessed Reisen responded "Of course, but we have to go fast. A vampire's greatest trait is their immense speed and physical ability, and I lack the power now to get there in time. I also need to get my real body back so I can heal her more effectively. So, will you help me?"

Flandre contemplated on this as she walked to pick up and put away her weapon. The posessed Reisen, Eirin, thought "She's more combat capable than I initially expected, but if I manipulate her emotions, I will win." The posessed Reisen then said "I promise not to attack you. As a doctor, there's nothing more important to me than the wellbeing of other people. I promise you that."

"So, you're not human then." Flandre said. The posessed Reisen stared back at Flandre. "Correct." she said. "But I'm not a youkai either. Still, I don't discriminate between my clients."

Flandre hesitated, and told her "The instant you do something I don't like, you will be eliminated." The posessed Reisen smiled, and said "Very well." Flandre stabbed her weapon into the legs of Eirin's previous body, and then got a hold of the posessed Reisen by squeezing her between the weapon and herself, and dashed off towards Keine's body.

Mystia remained unconscious, with Keine sitting beside her clutching her wounds. One of the hakutaku, the white one, remained around her. From the cobblestone road, it had created a sort of stone wire that Keine was using to stitch herself and Mystia up. She looked over to see Flandre flying towards her with multiple bodies larger than her in her hands, and dropped down the three by Keine. Flandre panicly rambled to Keine, saying "Undo your ability so the doctor can heal you and her and her." She then noticed the stitches around Keine where there had last been large wounds. "...So you're okay then?" Keine looked over to see the legs of Eirin by the posessed Reisen, and asked "Did you bring her here to try to heal me?" The posessed Reisen told Keine "I am aware you might not trust me, but if you undo your ability to erase history on my body, I promise not to put a hand on anyone. You have my word."

Keine stared deeply at the posessed Reisen, unsure of what to do. "I can survive very well with my own ability." She said. "I'll consider giving it back once we've gotten away from everyone." The posessed Eirin looked dissapointed, but said "That's fine. Not a concern to me at all." She turned her back as Flandre suddenly fell over, clutching her heart. Though nobody else could see it, the rainbow mist that circled Flandre before had not severely thinned and gone a dark green. "W-what..?!" She looked back at the posessed Reisen and said "You... what did you do?" while kneeling. Keine got up from the floor and demanded to the posessed Reisen "What have you done?!"

The posessed Reisen went to pick up the legs from her normal body, and said "As a doctor, I hide a variety of different chemicals to make my medicines. It's not my problem if she tripped over one of them and reacted poorly to them." The posessed Reisen then smiled, saying smmugly "Maybe if you gave me back my body I could heal her, what do you think?" Keine scowled at this, saying "It's obvious you injected this into her when she wasn't looking." She started charging up an attack, saying "I'll make an imperial feast out of your history!"

Flandre crawled towards Mystia's body as this was happening, looking concernedly at the green mist around her arms. Around Mystia, she saw a faint fire-like rainbow mist rising from her. "This poison is different from everything else. Damn it..." Keine and the posessed Eirin were already fighting each other, but Flandre didn't pay much attention to it, only focusing on getting to Mystia.

Flandre eventually made her way to Mystia, and lied down on her side. She took out her weapon and aimed the 'tip' at her chest, and thought to herself "All this chaos has made me think of a name in this moment... I'll call this weapon... Clock Corpse, because it looks like a clock. And my ability..." Flandre stabbed the tip of Clock Corpse into her chest, and cut it downwards, spilling out a large amount of blood turned a dark green-brownish color from the poison. Flandre stabbed her fingers from her other hand into Mystia's neck, and started draining her blood to save herself, saying out loud "...will be Scarlet Destiny!" The more Flandre drained, the healthier looking the rainbow mist around her looked, growing greater in size and regaining its true colors, and alongside that, she was starting to feel better again from most of the poison exiting her body, and the wound she made started healing itsself quickly. "Mystia, I swear I'll pay you back for this!" Flandre told her.

Flandre looked at the large puddle of blood on the floor beside her, with a small ring of the rainbow mist around it orbiting it. "If this still counts as part of my body, then maybe I can get it to attack somehow..." Flandre recalled the events when she tried shooting Eirin with her fingers only a few minutes prior, and thought "But I don't know how to control it still..." Flandre put both of her hands in the pool of blood and tried to think of a plan. "If I can get that homing thing to fire off a surprise attack on the doctor, it might work, but, how do I even do that?" Flandre closed her eyes to try to think deeply about how to do it, being quite surprised when she felt the blood itsself seep from her fingers and going under the cobblestone road. "That woman... that woman..." Flandre repeated to herself, trying to think of the memory she had regained.

The only thing in Flandre's mind was the woman in green tending to the flowers. She was unlike anyone Flandre had seen yet, yet she felt very familiar. The rainbow mist around her was qi... she was someone who had immense control over qi. Flandre opened her eyes to see a new homing attack had been created from the blood and her thoughts, and tried to control it to maneuver towards the posessed Reisen, still fighting with Keine.

Flandre poured all her focus into trying to maneuver the homing attack, rather than rely on it unconsciously. "Ten meters... five meters..." She thought. Despite the loud CHK-CHK-CHK sound it made, it seemed neither of the two were aware of this attack until it had gotten within three meters of the posessed Reisen, who turned around to look down on it. "Fire!" Flandre commanded and detonated it early, sending her highly poisonous, pressurized blood in all directions facing the posessed Reisen.

Eirin, as an immortal, had grown largely accustomed to attacks and didn't train her reflexes very much, on top of having an ill-suited defensive ability and in a weakened form easily made her subdue from the continuous pressure of the attacks from Keine and Flandre. The blood from Flandre's attack destroyed the posessed Reisen's right knee, created large holes across her stomach and chest, and impacted the sides of her shoulders, causing her to fall over. Keine looked relieved and worried at the same time, while Flandre only stared down at the posessed Reisen from her spot. She grabbed Mystia's now thinned and malnutriotined body and stood up to walk over to the posessed Reisen.

Flandre only said "Now, get to work." She set down Mystia's body next to her, looking at the posessed Reisen's face. Despite the immense amount of wounds throughout her body and the colossal amount of blood pouring out of her, she retained a blank face, sighing and conceding.

The posessed Reisen's wounds were slowly healing on their own, but she reached out to Mystia's body and slowly started pumping her own skin and nutrients into her, healing her up as Flandre watched carefully to make sure she wasn't pulling anything. Keine clutched up the injuries she recieved as well and moved herself from her previous fight closer to the posessed Reisen.

As the posessed Reisen continued to repair Mystia's body, she made a motion with her mouth indicating she was about to speak, but this jolted Flandre anyways to tightly grip her throat with her hand and she shoved her other hand, now in the shape of a gun again against the posessed Reisen's temple, pressing into it. "Don't even say anything! Just do your job or you'll be spewing more than bullshit." Keine reached out to ease her, but the posessed Reisen continued without regard for Flandre's threat, saying "You know, even as an immortal, I'm still capable of feeling pain. Though I stopped being human long ago, those people were way beyond any youkai. I was thinking that since you looked so similar, you'd either be one of them or I could use you, but you're too violent for any of that."

Mystia's body and wings were now almost back to normal, with the posessed Reisen's wounds also starting to close back. Keine went to grab Alice's body, but the posessed Reisen grabbed her arm and started healing her before she could. "What's your point?" Flandre asked. The posessed Reisen responded "I'd like to hire you to work for me, so we can both get information. How does that sound?" Flandre shoved her fingers deeper into the posessed Reisen's temple "Hey hey, what did I tell you before?" The posessed Reisen muttered out "E-xcellen-t..." while this was happening, as Keine stared uncomfortably as if she was watching a train crash. Thankfully for her, her body wasn't as damaged and was healed slightly quicker than Mystia's, and she went over quickly to get Alice's body.

"Well, it doesn't matter what you choose anyways." The posessed Reisen continued. "One of my allies lives nearby 'their' hideout. Needless to say I'll be keeping an eye on you regardless." she said as she smiled. Flandre gave out a look of disgust that quickly faded as she saw Alice start to be healed after Keine gave the body to the posessed Reisen.

"Damn it, everyone I've met today has been so weird." She said to herself as she turned around. Flandre could now properly take in the scale of the destruction that had just occured, with the road resembling a close up of a golfball, the clinic area being completely destroyed, and what was left of the road being all torn up. "This is..." She felt her stomach turning. "This scale is crazy... I need to leave before I get any more attention." Flandre turned back around to see Keine looking at her, and as if reading her, walked towards her and said "Fights like this aren't so uncommon. I've taken it upon myself to be the protector of Gensokyo, so people know not to investigate. There's no denying you're a violent youkai, but maybe you can at least understand." Flandre had no reply to this, having too much to think about. Keine looked back at Alice to see she was almost recovered, but still unconscious. "Well, it's almost time. Sorry about this." Keine reached out her arm towards Flandre's face and quickly shot out a large red bullet, and before Flandre even had a chance to react, she dropped onto the floor with her head missing. Keine had erased Flandre's history temporarily. Keine picked up Flandre's body and looked back at the posessed Reisen, whos wounds were now almost recovered.

"I've decided you can stay here, but you'll be under my supervision for a while. I'll carry your other body back. I couldn't keep you and her erased for long, though, thanks to your immortal body. I'm quite drained." she sighed, as she summoned out some of her hakutaku and placed Flandre's body on it.

"That's fine. I'd prefer being under home arrest anyhow." The posessed Reisen said. "I wonder if this girl will be able to bear the pain remaining, though." She said as she stood up. Two other hakutaku came next to the posessed Reisen, and she put the bodies of Mystia and Alice on them. "I'd love to study this vampire more, but I'm sure you wouldn't let me. Is that right?"

Keine put Eirin's legs on a fourth hakutaku and replied "I'd love to as well, but I get a really bad aura from her. But I've seen this puppeteer come to this village sometimes. You couldn't tell she was a youkai, but she's relatively peaceful. I worry what reason she has to involve herself with these two."

The two started to walk away from the village, with the erased and created history across the road slowly seceding and healing.

Shortly after, Alice woke up on the floor by some trees with Mystia and Flandre beside them. She sat up suddenly to see Keine standing in front of them. Keine simply said "I'm not sure what you're getting yourself into here. Make sure they don't come back." Alice replied with confusion, but Keine had turned her back and started walking away, making it clear she was not up for discussion. Alice understood, but wanted to follow anyways, but when she tried to stand up, she noticed a piece of paper on her dress. Alice took it, and noticed it was the map of Gensokyo Mystia had found in the clinic. It was slightly damaged and smelled of smoke, but it had some writing on it. A large X in the trees at the upper-east side not far from the town, and an arrow pointing further northeast from there, into a field nearby the legendary Sanzu River. "Is that where we have to go?" Alice questioned. She then looked back at Flandre and Mystia. Flandre's head had returned and her wounds had all healed, but Alice has noticed that everyone's clothes were damaged. She summoned out some small dolls and took out some string and started sewing the clothing back until they had woken up.

Back in Gensokyo, Eirin was back in her regular body administering a Reisen who was screaming and writing in pain on a chair in the waiting room. "There there, the medicine will kick in any moment now, you don't need to be so noisy. Keine walked in through the front door and looked at Reisen and Eirin, and then at the damage from outside. "I can create a wall here to patch up for a while, but I would recommend hiring someone to help repair this. Want me to go fetch someone?" Keine said casually through the screaming. "Do what you want." Eirin responded. "How were those troublemakers?"

Keine disimissively said "The puppeteer youkai woke up first. And it seems she found out what to do pretty quickly." Reisen's screaming faded and she grew calmer, drooling and trying to comprehend what exactly was going on around her, and Eirin smiled.

"Lovely. That's fantastic. It seems I'm finally reaching what I've been waiting for for so long." Eirin said.

"...And what would that be?" Keine said, suddenly more suspicious of Eirin.

"I'll finally be able to revive my sister..."

"Kaguya."

Chapter Text

It was almost dawn in Gensokyo. The sunlight started to tear a few holes through the trees, lightly illuminating the grass below. Alice looked towards the rising sun for a moment, breathing in deeply. Mystia sat next to her, with her legs spread out and carrying a rather dazed look. Alice went to pick up the still unconscious Flandre and strapped her to her back using some wires, and then quickly started to weave a blanket quickly out of some leftover string.

The now more awake Mystia took notice and immediately questioned Alice with a "...what are you doing?" Alice continued sewing and said "Vampires aren't good with sunlight, right? This'll have to do for now."

Mystia looked more confused, again asking "What's the hurry for? You've even strapped her onto you and everything. Can she even breathe?"

Alice looked annoyed, saying "We need to leave now. It's not like we can even return to the town or back home. Here, look at this." Alice stopped weaving and took out the map Keine gave her from her skirt pocket, and showed it to Mystia. "When you were asleep, Miss Kamishirasawa showed this to me. As you can see it clearly indicates where we need to go."

Mystia looked even more confused, retorting with "Still, it's too early to head out. We haven't gotten any rest at all - besides, how do you even know that was from her? The writing looks childish. Besides..." Mystia started to look more upset now, "we don't even know what's there. Besides, look at us. Our clothes are all dirty and soaked with blood, not to mention tighter feeling. What's with you?"

Alice took a deep breath, then saying "I believe that we're very close to the masterminds behind this incident. I don't think I can defeat them yet, but I want to investigate what they're doing. If I can't at least do that, then I'm not sure I could even return home. Do you understand?"

Mystia looked disgusted at this, saying in return "Don't *you* understand what you're putting Flandre through? We've just come out of a horrific fight we haven't even finished recovering from, and you're forcing her to take such a huge risk."

The now angry Alice got up from the floor following this and pointed at Mystia's chest, saying "I think you might be the selfish one here. Besides, this isn't just for Flandre. All of Gensokyo could be at risk. And, besides, I'm certain she wouldn't mind, given how quickly she seems to learn."

"Tch, fine. I'm not gonna help you anymore if you're so insistent you can honestly do this!" Mystia said through grit teeth. She leaped up and flew away through the sky. Alice sighed, saying "It's not like I needed her anyways, right, Flandre?" She sat down and quickly finished her blanket, and sewed it to parts of her back, completely enveloping her, and started walking away from where the village was.

As Alice walked through the forest, she started reflecting on what Mystia said, and what she had done during the fight with Eirin. "Well, she let herself help us out of interest in Flan, so she'll probably come back around soon anyways." She said as she shrugged. "Still, I do wonder what's up ahead. I'll have to stay alert." Alice let out a few dolls around her back where Flandre was resting, acting like whiskers to her in case anything tried to attack Flandre.

She continued walking ahead, where the relatively small forest eventually led into a large field, with what seemed like a flower field blanketing a large hill.

"So this is the nameless hill..." Alice thought, "I heard of it before, but I've never actually been here. It might be easier to go around it, though... But, this flower field is huge. I might just have to cross through it."

The flower field contained a wide variety of flowers, where on the hill there were mostly sunflowers, the lower side had a huge amount of purple and white flowers. Among them, Alice identified some lily-of-the-vallies. "Beyond this, by the river, there's supposedly a road lined with spider lilies. Going there means you're in higan..."

Alice continued walking, taking another look at her map. Looking closer, she noticed the arrow stopped at the Sanzu river, instead of crossing it, and she started to get a little suspicious. As she kept walking, she suddenly heard some rustling in the flowers.

Alice immediately responded with "Who's there?!" and assumed a fighting pose. No further rustling continued, and she slowly walked up to where she thought she heard the noise come from. Expecting the worst, she pulled back one of the flowers only to find a small fairy walking, stopping to look up at her. "Ah, s-sorry to bother you." Alice said embarassedly as she put back the flower. She quickly recalibrated and continued going on her way.

Alice kept walking along, trying to be alert while looking around. She started walking around the side of the hill, where she could see past it, and looked over to see what looked like a vortex pattern of sunflowers surrounding a mansion. "...I heard the owner of all these flowers lives there. Supposedly she's a youkai of unprecedented strength that rarely comes out, but she takes a more laid-back approach to letting people in her flower field so long as they don't hurt the flowers." Alice said to herself. "If that's true, I wonder how they manage that. This flower field is huge, I can't even see the end of it."

"Hey, what are you doing talking to yourself?" A voice said. Alice quickly turned around to see a short girl with blonde curly hair and blue eyes. She had a bright red ribbon around her head matching with her skirt. She had a deep purple shirt and had red-black stitches lining her clothing, combining to make a cross at her chest. "Has your mind been infected and subdued with the poison?" She said.

"...A child?" Alice said. "Wait, no, you're... a youkai, aren't you?" The girl sighed, saying "Hey, Su-san. What should we do about this one?" A small fairy-looking doll, similar in appearance to the girl, came out from behind the girl's back as Alice took a step back and reached at her back, looking to activate some dolls in anticipation of a fight. The girl continued, saying "Oh? What's this? Su-san's saying you're my target. Well, you look human enough to me anyways..."

"Target? Are you going to try to kill me?" Alice said, now with several dolls in position to attack. "I'll be teaching you two lessons. First, not to come around here, and second, not to abuse your dolls!"

"My dolls..?" Alice thought to herself. "Wait, I don't have timme to think about that now." Alice then said "Well, I was only just trying to cross this flower field, but I'll entertain you if you so please!"

From the child's feet she created a green web that stretched out quickly to about a meter in radius, starting to release a type of green fog. As it was hidden by the flowers down below, it was difficult to notice due to the flowers, but while talking, Alice had been carefully positioning her dolls specifically to notice some type of sneak attack like this. Alice quickly jumped out of the way to her side, carefully trying to position her boots when landing such that it wouldn't damage any of the flowers, thinking to herself "If that rumor is true, I'll have to try to avoid drawing attention to this. I'll dispose of her as quickly as possible and move on."

It was then Alice noticed the green fog rising from the ground, saying to herself "...gas?" The child responded monotonely, saying "Fog of Poison. Fog is completely different from gas." This made Alice think to herself again, with "She's bought up poison again... and come to think of it, lily-of-the-vallies are quite dangerous to humans and animals as well. So then I suppose she gets stronger from this poison... How annoying." Alice then saw the doll that the child called Su-san charging what seemed like a small green ball in its arms. Alice shouted out "I won't let you! White Sign: Chalk-White Russian Dolls!"

Alice repositioned her dolls to create a large arc around her, which started firing off clumps of white bullets aimed towards the child, as Su-san fired off a relatively small green laser that Alice quickly dodged by tilting to the side, but Su-san tilted it downwards aiming for Alice's neck. Combined with the additional weight of quite literally carrying Flandre on her back, and an awkward position from trying to dodge the attack made Alice have to create an arc with her back, making a backbridge position and quickly jumping off of her hands, landing back on her feet with care so as not to damage any of the flowers.

The dolls from Alice's attack were disrupted due to this, but the bullets they shot were still firing at the child. However, the clumps of bullets that would have hit her neck were drastically slowed down once they reached where the fog was, as if a type of forcefield was protecting her. She simply moved to the side and let the bullets miss. As she walked, it seemed as though the poisonous fog followed her, and the web beneath her feet grew as well. Alice positioned her dolls such to form a large circle in front of her, with a cross in the middle. "Damn it, fighting with Flan on my back is harder than I thought... maybe I should run away." Alice thought to herself. "If she damages my back, it might be over for Flandre." Alice began spinning the dolls like a wheel, observing the child intently.

Alice saw what looked like small, brief flashes of light around the poisonous fog, now surrounding it. She was suspicious, but couldn't assume what she was planning. Suddenly trying to reason, Alice said "...Alright, alright. I'm leaving now, okay?" The child scorned at this, saying through grit teeth "Whether human or youkai, your treatment of dolls is purely irredeemable." The flashes of light around her got more and more quick and fierce as Alice figured the worst was coming. "Blue Sign: Fraternal Orléans Dolls!" she shouted out, having her dolls quickly create a large bloom of green arrowheads, multiplying quickly and flying torwards the girl. This completely seperated their views from each other, which alice used to recall her dolls to hold onto her back, where Flandre was, and tried to run away.

The girl paid little attention to Alice's attack however, with the beam of light now seemingly circling her in speed, the girl dispelled all the poison gas around her, ricocheting the beam of light - a bullet - straight through Alice's, heading straight towards her. The bullet missed Alice slightly, grazing enough only to put a scratch on her neck. She barely felt it, but the blood vessel it cut quickly started festering from the poison, having the poison work its way up and down the vessel. Alice stopped running to put her fingers on her neck before the poison could spread too far. Alice rushed to a slightly lower area, trying to hide herself in a very dense patch of flowers without damaging any, sitting down to try to think of something.

"Damn it, I was a fool for thinking I could fight like this." She said to herself angrily. The area in between her fingers where she was originally cut had a very large bulging part of the vessel, leaking greenish blood. Alice used one of her dolls to make another cut in it, exploding it in the process. Alice tried her hardest to hold in a scream from the pain as she pushed her fingers upwards to try to remove the poison from her bloodstream, with some of her dolls assisting in the process. While the poisoned blood leaked out from her neck, some of the dolls were trying to wipe it off of her, and later tried to sew the wound back.

While this was happening, Alice was biting some of her nails, trying to think up a plan. "She gets power from the poisonous lily-of-the-vallies around here and can control it however she likes." She took out the map again, trying to look at it. "She didn't give me any specification on what to do, and the arrow is too far off from where the flower master's mansion could be. This map doesn't give any real information either... the arrow stops right before the river, where I'm not far from. Don't tell me that child back there was someone I had to meet this whole time..!"

Alice looked back to see where the girl was. She saw her trying to look for her around the area, but hadn't found Alice yet, giving Alice some more time to think. "She can nullify anything I try to throw at her, but maybe I could trick her and somehow bind her with my strings. It would be easy if I could move around better, but I need to find some way to offload Flandre's weight. Maybe if I could bury here here for a bit until I'm finished, but if she wakes up she'll be screwed. Maybe I should take the risk and unroot some of these flowers..?" As the girl turned her head to face Alice, she quickly ducked her head back behind the flowers. "I'm out of time anyways, I just need to work with what I have..." It was then Alice then felt movement behind her, coming from her back.

Chapter Text

Alice turned her head quickly to try to get a look behind her, sending two dolls to investigate as well. She felt movement again. "Flandre, did you wake up?" She whispered. She got a muffled "Nna... where am I? I can't breathe..." in response. Alice shushed her and said "Listen, I'm in a fight right now and I'm trying to get away so I can put you somewhere safe. Just bear with me for now."

The girl then pulled back some of the flowers, saying "Found you." in a cold tone. Alice, almost instantaneously launched some dolls at rapid speed towards the girl's chest and legs. The dolls, with needles in their arms pierced through the girl's shirt, but couldn't go any further. Poisonous fog started to leak out from the tear, and it would be apparent that she was completely unharmed. From the fog, the doll's needles started to melt, causing the dolls to seem as if they were panicking. At the girl's legs, Alice quickly had two of her dolls wrap themselves in a large, thick knot as fast as possible. While this was also happening, she shot out two dolls from her back that went far beyond the girl, in an attempt to try to grab her.

Trying to immobilize the girl's legs was Alice's goal, but she was quite surprised at what had happened to her attempted diversion, seeing her doll's weapons be melted. "...What the hell?" she said. As Alice had her remaining two dolls try to wrap around the girl's chest and arms, the girl put two of her fingers inside the cut in her shirt and made an arc around her with her arm as the string was closing in on her, melting it and causing Alice's attack to fail. Alice was shaken at this, but knew this time she couldn't run away. "She's close... If that poison gets in me, I'll be in trouble." She thought to herself. "Perhaps I can stall for time... but you can't really know with children. No, that's not a good plan. Perhaps I can set fire to the flowers? That could draw her from her power source, but I don't know if I could deal with the flower master. But she has to have a weak spot somewhere... I just can't see it." It was then an idea popped into Alice's head. "Maybe Flandre's capabilities as a vampire can help me out here, but there's no time for me to get her to do anything. Damn it."

A thought crossed Alice's mind that made her grimace. Backing up a bit from the child, she said "You've corroded my steel-woven strings and needles. Well done. May I ask your name?" The girl looked dissaprovingly at Alice, saying coldly "Medicine Melancholy. The leader of the doll emancipation army. Remember it well." Alice responded with "Yeah, got it. I'll remember it well when I turn you into my latest experiment." Alice used her dolls then to quickly fastened a tight string around her neck and nose, preventing her own breathing, and before Medicine could react she opened her grimoire - a sealed book she carries at her belt or in her armpits at all times. "Veil of Original Sin: Recluse Type!" A large piece of cloth washed over her, turning herself, Flandre, and her dolls invisible to Medicine's confusion. For Medicine, she couldn't see anything, but for those inside, they could see the outside world - acting as a one way mirror.

"Flandre, listen, we're only here for five seconds, but I have a plan to defeat her since I can't do it alone. At least, not right now. But I need you to shoot a bullet through me so you can see. Don't worry, I'll be fine. My only regret is being forced to open my grimoire once again."

This understandable wildly confused Flandre. "What's going on? Poison? Are you fighting the doctor? Why do I have to shoot you?"

Alice said "It's a doll tsukumogami that draws power from the poison flowers. My attacks don't affect her, but it's daylight outside. If you can see outside, you can shoot. I'm not as agile as you, but with teamwork we can do this!"

"Got it!" Flandre shouted as she started to gather rainbow energy around her finger. "The qi... I still don't understand it, but I can see it. It's lighting up this dark spot.

Internally, Alice was slightly disappointed that Flandre agreed to shooting through her so easily, but had no time to dwell on it as she started to think about her next plans. "Now!" She shouted and quickly started to brace herself for the worst. The covering disappeared, and Flandre used her gathered up energy to violently shoot a bullet that pierced through Alice. Before the veil had even finished disappearing, Flandre's bullet loudly came out of Alice's chest with rainbow mist - qi - surrounding it, splattering blood and hitting Medicine square in the forehead before she could do anything, knocking her straight back into the flowers. Alice kneeled down from the pain but quickly stood back up on shaky legs from the attack. "F-Flandre, can you see? Are you alright?"

"I can see, and my eyes aren't getting burnt. I think I shot below your breast." Flandre responded. "I think the energy cauterized your blood vessels, so I can see fine." "Yeah, that's great..." Alice said through grit teeth. "But this is where the battle really starts." Flandre saw her rainbow qi rising up from Medicine's forehead - and all around her was a dark green energy. For Alice, it was barely visible, but for Flandre, it radiated with great intensity. "T-this is the same type of poison the doctor poisoned me with!" She shouted. "Are you an ally of the doctor or something?!"

Medicine sat herself up, wiping away the blood on her forehead, only revealing a small cut where the bullet hit. Poisonous fog leaked out of it. "The doctor? You mean the weird woman with a braid? She just buys my poisons from me since I have so many - this Tetrodotoxin's capable of making your muscles stop contracting." She shot what looked like a pillar of toxic gas straight at Alice. Flandre screamed "Alice! Look out", making her quickly duck under the attack. "My qi didn't take into effect much at all this time... is it because it's hard to breathe?" Flandre thought to herself.

"Alice, I need to undo this string. Otherwise I can't kill her." Flandre said, and she cut the strings binding her neck and chest. "You don't have to be so destructive..." Alice said. Medicine stomped the ground, sending poison running through the ground towards Alice and Flandre. Flandre, seeing it intensely, shouted "An attack's coming! Go to the side!" Alice nodded and rushed to her left, trying to be careful to avoid stepping on the flowers. However, it was then she noticed she had started getting a mild headache, thinking "A headache...? This is no time to be off balance. Was it from the injuries? Or is it the poison? I... no, we need to finish this quickly." Flandre then shouted "It's still chasing us! It took a turn!" "What?!" Alice shouted. She continued trying to get out of the way as the line of poison fog played snake through the lily-of-the-vallies, homing after Alice and Flandre. This wore off on Alice's stamina more and more as her headache increased, making her feet wobbly and decreasing her precision. This was noticed by Flandre as well, who continued to try shooting bullets through Alice's chest hole into the floor in an attempt to make her own homing attack against Medicine like she did against Keine. However, these were all either failed due to Flandre's inexperience with Qi, or getting slowed down and cancelled from the effect of Medicine's poison, frustrating and tiring Flandre.

Alice was forced to take a few more jumps while Flandre continued unsuccessfully firing. "Damn it, we're not making any progress. What is it with these enemies that can just nullify my attacks like that?" Flandre complained, but she then noticed Alice wobbling around and breathing heavily. "Hey, maybe we should retreat for now. This isn't looking good." "...No, Flandre. I... We can win this. But I need you to trust me." Flandre was confused at this, but noticed out of the corner of her eye that the poison attack was at her doorstep. "Alice!" She shouted. "Yeah!" She shouted back. Alice leaned back, hard, surprising Flandre and started to dissolve herself into string, starting from her legs and lower arms and hands. Flandre couldn't see this, but Medicine took a step back in shock, and made a worried looking face. "Hey, Alice?! What are you doing?!" Flandre shouted. "Cheating!" Alice responded. Flandre instinctively shot down both of her wings into the ground for support, tearing through the fabric Alice made. Due to Alice's body being above her, they weren't burning, but Flandre's peeping hole was about to face the sun, and Flandre already started feeling a burn on her cheek. She quickly cut off a patch of her skirt and held it up to the hole, minimizing the amount of sunshine getting through.

"Damn it Alice, what are you doing?" Flandre said, somewhat angry. Outside of her pouch, Alice's dissolved body parts were re-forming themselves inside of Medicine's poisonous fog, not letting it get to Flandre or the rest of her body. Alice's legs and arms were gone, and she was being only held up by Flandre's wings. She said smugly "Thanks to you, Flandre, I understand the nature of her poison now. This magic is unique and can only be used for a minute, but that's all I need." The string, on its own, started to form itsself into a humanoid figure, around that of Medicine's size, all while not only being unaffected by but retaining the poison around it like its own shield. "The poison, at least her poison works by attaching itsself onto other things like a kind of string. By using magical energy, I can keep it attached to the strings without damaging it, but only for a minute. Since it's my body parts, I can control them!" The sentient string doll seemed to have finished forming, being an entirely featureless body of sky blue string, staring straight at Medicine.

Medicine looked very unnerved, but shook it off of herself and made a more serious face. She ran towards the doll, preparing to summon more of her poison from the ground, shouting out "Fog Sign: Gassing Garden!" Alice observed closely, making the doll assume defencive stance. "Flandre, if you think anything's up, let me know. Be prepared to do anything to win. I have a festering wound on my neck still from earlier. You can see it on the doll's neck still." Flandre replied "I can't see, actually. And I don't know what you think I'm capable of, but I'm not exactly a force field reader." Medicine summoned out several yellow and purple bullets aimed at the doll and greatly increased the poisonous fog around herself, moving from dark green to a lighter purple color the closer it got to her. The fog shot out from her like huge spears towards the doll, which added to the poisonous aura around it, but without causing any damage. Even the flowers within the fog cloud started to wither away from the intensity. "This youkai... she has to be young. Nothing else can explain this unrestrained power. Once this magic runs out, I may very well die... fifty five seconds remaining." Alice thought to herself.

The doll handled the poisonous spears well, but it now reached out its arms making a large cross of itsself, and ran towards Medicine itsself, avoiding all the bullets aimed to rendezvous at its location, pulling with it all the poison around it away from Alice and Flandre and causing Medicine herself to stop in fear. The doll was grabbed at the legs by Medicine's vine-like powers and Alice noticed again Medicine starting to charge up that flashing bullet attack she did earlier, but this time in much more intensity. Alice made the doll cut its own legs off, narrowly grazing one of such bullets that passed by its shoulder and went into the ground. This reflected on both the doll and Alice, creating a quickly festering injury from a shallow cut. "Fifty seconds." Alice thought to herself. Still Flandre noticed something was off about this. "Alice, you alright?" She said worringly. Alice gave no immediate response, making Flandre more worried. "This body... If only it wasn't weak to sunlight, I could actually be of use!" Flandre repented to herself.

A thought once again crossed her mind. Shortly before Flandre had lost her memories, she was able to freeze her own body. This was not an ability of its own, but more like a natural vampire technique, and while she didn't exactly know what was going on, she decided to give this a try. From her wingstems, ice started to spread all across her own body, reaching to the outside from the tears from Flandre's wings and coming over Alice, temporarily stopping her wound. "Nice going, Flandre!" Alice thought to herself. "Thankfully I can still control this doll, but this should help delay injuries. Since what happens to each of us is shared, this is like a set of armor for my doll! Although, I doubt this will be very safe for long..." The doll continued running towards Medicine, who took a step back but continued firing shots. The doll was forced to tank three more bullets - two at the chest and one in the head, and while these injuries transferred over to Alice she was able to keep going.

At last, the doll was within its range. It rapidly extended its arms to wrap a layer of string around Medicine - which even that still corroded, again transferring onto Alice in other ways. In response, it wrapped layer around layer of its arms' string around Medicine. Medicine was unable to do anything about this, and was thrown up into the air by the doll. The doll's head unwrapped itsself to grab onto the airborne Medicine, bringing the rest of itsself up quickly and throwing her back down into the ground. The strings wrapped around the injured Medicine's wrists and ankles, but again corroded due to the poison fog's potency. When the doll landed, much of its body was unraveled and damaged, but Alice was still continuing to fight. "Thirty seconds remaining!" She thought to herself. "This is where the real fight starts!" Medicine got herself back onto her feet with some difficulty and bruises, but bearing a more determined face than before. The two dolls were nearly face to face and ready to attack at any time.

"Alice! Something is coming!" Flandre announced as she put a hand on her head. The piece of fabric from her skirt remained in place to block out the sunlight from the ice. "I have a headache... I don't know what this is. But it's not good. I see the rainbow mist around me thinning..." Alice's physical body couldn't move, but she tried to sense what was going on closer from her doll, and felt her heart drop. "She's preparing a last word..!" Alice thought. "An ultimate barrage attack when you're cornered... after it happens, you exhaust 90% of your energy. Was she that desperate to kill me?"

Alice tried to prepare herself for what could come next, as Medicine said through grit teeth "The Return of Happiness!"

Chapter Text

Immediately after summoning her Last Word, four light purple vortexes were summoned around Medicine's head. Poison fog started being mass produced all around her, quickly doubling the size off the existing cloud. "What is she doing?" Alice thought. "Is she trying to increase the size of the concentrated poison that corroded part of my doll?" As the fog approached Alice however, she realized "No, that's not it! She's trying to make the poison spread to me while me and Flandre are incapacitated!" Alice tried moving her body at all to try to signal to Flandre to move, but the ice was too solid. "It's a double sided sword... it'll protect us from the poison, but once my magic runs out, we'll be done for... heh heh." Alice made her doll run at Medicine before she could directly attack the ice. "I don't know what this ice is capable of, but I'll finish this as soon as possible!"

The range of concentrated purple fog around Medicine had a radius of a meter around her at this point, with Medicine reaching out her arms and seeming as if she was gathering some sort of energy. Crystallized versions of the poison fog were beginning to form around her, however obscured from Alice due to the dense poison fog, which at this point was only a meter away from Flandre and Alice. Flandre, though still cooped up inside Alice's back pocket, still managed to notice the poison due to her sensitivity as a vampire. She melted the ice around her head, and shouted "Alice, the poison's next to us. I need to move!" Flandre tried to unroot her wings from the ground to try to walk away from the fog, but the combined weight of Alice and Flandre made her too shaky and slow, with the poisonous fog soon catching up to them.

Medicine shot out the crystallized fog at Alice's doll, and with it being unable to dodge they hit the doll head-on. Thanks to Alice pre-emptively putting the doll into a more defensive stance while having it try to run at Medicine, the doll didn't have pieces of it ripped off, and rather it fell to the floor. The crystallized fog exploded into more pieces of dense poison fog, continuing to wear on the doll's corossion. Alice and Flandre were now engulfed in the poison fog, with Flandre re-covering herself and her wings in ice to try to try to protect against the poison seeping in. Alice tried to shoot out more condensed string from the doll around Medicine's legs, but they corroded and fell before they could even touch her. Alice tried shooting the strings in through the dirt and then re-emerging at Medicine's feet, but it similarly failed. Next she tried unwraveling one of the dolls remaining arms and shooting it straight at Medicine as quickly as possible, which did pierce her neck causing minor damage, but the attack was ultimately unsuccessful as the string broke into pieces and fell to the ground. The concentrated poison gas now fully engulfed where the doll sat, extremely damaged and starting to fall apart.

Alice's main body was immensely damaged from all the poison it had recieved, bearing festering wounds only suppressed by Flandre's ice, and the stench of vomit lingered in the air around her. "Fifteen.. no, ten seconds left... this isn't looking good..." Alice thought to herself. "My consciousness is starting to fade..." Medicine retracted her poison-making devices and walked over to Alice's rapidly decomposing doll, breathing heavily, and picked it up, looking at it. "This is the punishment people who misuse dolls like you deserve. Lament about it in your next life, you piece of trash." Medicine said. She looked to see a piece of the doll's string had been mixed with her arm, causing her to suddenly freak out and try to drop it. The doll sagged beneath her hands, held up by pieces of string attached to both of her hands. "What is this?!" She screamed in confusion. She watched as the string started to make its way up under the skin of her arm in horror, trying to stop it with her other arm but which was held back by the string. "S-she's still alive?! How?! S-Su-san, help me out here!" she continued yelling. The small doll beside her she called Su-san went to her arm and tried to put her hands at the head of the string, but it easily pushed past it. The string wrapped around Medicine's neck and squeezed tightly, as the string from her other hand slithered up beneath her skin as well.

"C-can't breathe..! What's going on?!" She choked out. She looked down to see what looked like rainbow mist from the ground, rising towards what was left of the doll, which then lit itsself on fire. "What is this?!" She yelled out, as she then suddenly noticed she was being pulled in closer to the doll from her neck. She tried reaching out to put her hand on it to stop it and inject poison into it, but instead her hands only sunk inside the doll through the strings. She panicked more as she was forced to get closer into the doll, with her cheek brushing up onto it, and Su-san instinctively ducked behind Medicine's shirt. The fire spread from a string to the main part of the doll, and Medicine screamed as a large explosion triggered from the doll, blasting Medicine out of the area and having the poison mist disperse through the area, allowing Flandre and Alice to rest. Incredibly, none of the flowers were harmed during the fight, and what was left of the burnt, corroded, and generally in poor condition doll slithered back to Alice. Flandre, after noticing the poison fog was gone, released the ice shield from them and allowed the strings to re-attach themselves as Alice's limbs.

"Flandre... to our right, there's a large tree among the flowers. Head over there..." Alice could barely manage to croak out. "I got it." Flandre said. She could barely manage to walk with her wings, now needing to hold even more weight, but had to persist anyways. "Don't... step on the flowers..." Alice said again, but Flandre didn't hear. After walking about a hundred meters, Flandre noticed the area she was in was slightly cooler, and assumed she was in a shaded area. She ripped herself out of Alice's back pocket and crawled out, stretching her limbs and wings on the grass. "Mwaaaah~, feels good to be out." She said happily, and turned around to look around. The flowers around them were different from the other, part of a different section of the flower field, being white and light pink and very low to the ground, and they were beneath a very large tree, with a lot of space around them. Alice then looked down to see Alice's extremely harmed body and started to panic. "N-not good, the poison's still there! She's all bruised and beaten all over too! What am I supposed to do..?!" Flandre said. "I could try to suck her blood and get her poison out, but that'll probably kill her before it does anything..." Flandre tried to check around Alice's body, which was breathing at a very irregular pace. Rashes started forming around her, and she had to quickly back off from the intense smell of bloody pee and vomit. "I-I need water, but where would I even get any of that..?!" Flandre tried to look around the shaded area, but couldn't find any at all, let alone within the shade, before coming to a realization and looking down at her wrist. She walked over to Alice, braced herself, and made a chop to her left wrist from her right, letting the blood pour over Alice. Flandre tried to surpress her scream as much as she could, letting out a "Dzzzhhhhh..!" while trying to spread her flowing blood onto all of Alice's wounds.

Flandre felt something nudging on her knee while this was going on. She looked down to see one of Alice's dolls holding a roll of string with a needle. "A-ah, thank you, little doll." She put her hand on her wrist's wound, which had already stopped bleeding and was mostly already regenerating, and tried to take the string and needle from the doll, but fell over onto Alice. She picked herself back up and grabbed the needle amd string, and tried to sew some of Alice's wounds. Behind Flandre, a bruised and dirtied Medicine walked up behind her, watching Flandre try desperately to help Alice. "What are you doing, you dummy?" Medicine said, now in a slightly lighter, more monotone voice compared to before. Flandre turned around in shock, looking up at the doll youkai. "Y-you're the one that attacked Alice, aren't you?!"

Medicine sighed, and walked over to kneel down beside Alice. Su-san pressed her nose shut and motioned for Flandre to give her the sewing kit without even looking at her. Flandre asked confusingly "What are you doing..?" Medicine replied with "Nausea and lack of coordination are one of the many symptoms of poison. Look at these cuts, it looks like you've never sewed in your life. Well, maybe you haven't... Anyways, I'll get her fixed up." Flandre begrudgingly handed Medicine the supplies and she got to work immediately, tying string around Alice to halt bloodflow and creating cuts to let out some of the blood. "I don't know why you're helping us now, but the instant you do something I don't like, it'll be over for you." Flandre threatened.

"Relax." Medicine replied. "I only wanted to teach your friend here a lesson, but the way she uses dolls wasn't even that bad. I only hold grudges against humans. Anyways, I would like you to pay close attention. I can easily undo my poison with my Typhoid Mary, but this'll almost certainly happen again, so I want you to know what to do in this situation. Besides, it's a little bit of payback for causing me so much trouble. That explosion really did hurt, heh heh..." This made Flandre's blood boil for a moment, and she thought about trying to attack Medicine, but restrained herself, realizing she should just accept the help for what it is.

Medicine undressed Alice, explaining how leaving the clothes on would develop more rashes and would let her do her work better, and laid her grimoire down next to it. Flandre wondered what exactly was in that grimoire, but decided against investigating for now to not let down her guard. Medicine then noticed some of the burn marks across Flandre's body, asking "You're a vampire, aren't you? Ahh, I wanted to ask you to run some errands for me while I prepared some medicine. We can't even dry the clothes." Medicine lamented. "What a shame. What a tremendous shame." Flandre was annoyed at this, saying back "I wouldn't do anything for you in the first place. Still, this weakness of mine is very inconvenient. I have an umbrella I found off the street, but it has a hole in it... Hey, what do you mean by preparing medicine?"

"Heh heh, come and see." Medicine said. She lead Flandre to Alice's body, which had several ties and artificial severs along the arms, to let some of the poisoned blood out. Su-san, who held a small purple crystal, flew in between Flandre's and Medicine's heads, startling Flandre. "You got lucky with the stunt you did earlier. Thankfully, Alice has an AB blood type. Still, I suppose there was nothing else I could do if I was a vampire who had to clean something." Medicine explained smugly. Flandre grimaced slightly, "Right, blood types. How could I forget about those? I remember reading about them in a library... library?" She thought aloud. Medicine paid no attention to this however, continuing her explanation. "The medicine Su-san is holding in her hands is part of a special cocktail only I can make. It takes a small enough dosage of my poison - small enough to be medicinal, and some special chemicals that stimulate antibody creation, and a bit of caffine."

"And what do you exactly do with this... thing?" Flandre asked. Medicine seemed rather upset, saying "Let me finish first! Since you can't run any errands, you'll be helping me, but you need to remember precision is key. Normally this would have to be inserted either through the nose or through the eye socket, but with you here we can insert it directly into her heart, which will reduce the time we need to wait and increase the success rate." "Success rate? Have you tried this before? What are the chances of survival?" Flandre asked worriedly. "Hmm... Well I haven't actually gotten to experiment on anyone yet, but Su-san tells me it's about 25%. Every human that's come here I killed off too quickly to get a chance to seriously experiment on..." Medicine replied. Flandre felt her stomach churn slightly. "Thankfully, this one is a youkai." Medicine continued "Even though she looks like a human. So the success rate should be higher in theory."

Medicine commanded Flandre on how to create an incision at the right spot. Flandre used one of her fangs to create the cut, as it was the sharpest part of her body, bending down to Alice's chest and creating a gap into her heart. Su-san stayed around the area to try to limit bleeding. Flandre and Medicine watched Alice's heart beating through the ribs. "...Some of her ribs are fractured." Medicine commented. "I don't have anything for that, though, except removing some of the shards. She'll have to recover on her own." Flandre asked "How are we going to get the medicine inside of the heart?" Medicine replied back "Aren't you a vampire? You already lost a lot of your blood just now. Store some of it inside yourself so we can make another cut without it getting messy. Then we can put it back and it'll heal." "Damn it, why can't you just undo your poisoning!" Flandre shouted. "...Nevermind. I'll do it."

Flandre made a tight knot around her left arm, where she cut herself, with the help of Medicine and dug her fingers inside Alice's wound and made her way to the Aorta, sticking some of her fingertips in it and sucking the blood out of it into her arm. After that, she took it out and made a small cut on Alice's now slowing and more unhealthy looking heart with a fingernail. Flandre had to also try to grasp the heart as much as possible, which was difficult with the ribs and some extra blood getting in the way. Before Medicine could put her medicine inside Alice's heart, Flandre said "Remember, if you do anything to hurt her, I'll kill you immediately." "Calm your paranoia. Once I put this in, you just have to re-pump the blood. I'll handle the stitches while you just relax." Medicine said. "...Fine." Flandre responded.

After the procedure was done, Medicine picked up some metal needles on the ground from Alice's dolls and started picking out some shattered bones, while Su-san cleaned blood off of Alice and started stitching. Flandre joined into the cleaning and started asking Medicine some questions. "So, remind me again, why were you attacking us and why are you helping now?" Medicine continued her work without looking up, responding with "...It looked to me that she was a suspicious human who had been abusing dolls and intruding on this flower field, with a strange lump on her back, so I wanted to test out some of my poison on her. I could tell she was holding back, though. And that's when I realized she was a youkai." "...So you're helping now because you feel bad?" Flandre said. "Well, I don't think the way she uses dolls is bad, unorthodox sure, but she does take genuine care of them. As for the gunpowder though... Yes, the real reason I'm here is because I must admit that I'm a new youkai. I don't remember how long it's been since I awoke, but I was a doll who was forgotten and thrown out here, where the poison gave me new life. I seek out vengeance from humans to liberate all dolls, but I know nothing except poison. I came here to ask what that trick you and your friend did where you blew me up, as exchange for my surgical effort." Medicine explained as she picked another bone shard out of Alice's rib. "I think I'm done here, I'll stitch it up and try to prepare some healing stimulant. Besides, I have no energy left to fight anyways. Do you have a ladle, Su-san?"

Flandre took a look at Medicine's injuries and dirt, asking again "...I see. What about you, though? I'll explain what I did, but you seem quite unharmed from basically hugging a bomb." Medicine stopped her sewing for a moment to look down at some of the bruises and cuts on her along with charred and somewhat torn clothes, and shrugged. "I believe I simply have tough skin, even among youkai, but I've only ever seen bug youkai and fairies in the field, and the owner of the flower field."

"Huh? This flower field has an owner?" Flandre continued asking. "You... you're distracting my work, but all right. From when I was still a regular doll, I'd overhear the children in the village talk of a legendary youkai who has a mansion in this flower field who can split herself into two. That's how she knows what happens when one of her flowers gets damaged and comes to punish them. One day I was taken there by my owner, a young girl, who was dared to go there with some friends after sneaking out of the village. They started playing around in the flower field until one of the girls stepped on one of the flowers, and then the flower master showed up. Even for me still, she's an imposing and terrifying figure, and the kids all screamed and ran away, throwing me behind without even thinking. I remember the flower master saying 'Don't they know a walking tool is dangerous? What exactly were the foolish humans thinking when they threw something in the flower field?' After that I woke up as a youkai, but I don't know where Su-san came fromm, but even so I pay a certain homage to the flowers and the flower master here for keeping me safe. I'd like to meet that woman again..." Medicine, while explaining her backstory, had almost finished up treating Alice's wounds. "Ah, I understand now." Flandre spoke again, "So you've sworn against human foolishness, and you hate them all, but in reality you don't even know anything yourself."

Medicine got angry and shouted "That's not true! I would watch my previous owner read and do chores all the time. She would even take me to the library at Gensokyo's school to read about health. She wanted to be a nurse. Still though, that first part was true..." Medicine made a thinking pose and went to get Alice's dirty clothes to wrap over Alice like a blanket. "Your friend is interesting. She fought me despite being intensely poisoned without harming a single flower all from her paranoia. In fact, she gave off a similar aura to the flower master, but she let herself get beat up like this. I wonder if you can really trust someone like that..." Medicine pondered. Flandre replied again "Actually, there was supposed to be someone else here, but I don't know where she went. Her name was Mystia, a night sparrow. But she didn't like Alice in the first place since Alice beat her pretty hard, so maybe she just abandoned us." Medicine made a more solemn look on her face, and Flandre continued saying "In truth, I have no idea where I am or who I am. I lost my memories, and Alice and Mystia were the only ones to help me. I froze Alice over when she was on me and lit the string the made on fire. Ever since last night, I've had strange visions and can see certain auras around things. For example..." Flandre pointed at Medicine, "You have quite a lot of rainbow mist around you, meaning you're quite well, but Alice's is thin. It's re-growing in strength though, so your ridiculous surgery may have actually been successful." Medicine replied with "I understand. That also means we can remove these strings now.

The two cut off the strings limiting Alice's blood movement, and Flandre watched as the paleness in Alice's skin began to fade slightly. "I have just one more question for you." Flandre said. "Ask." Medicine replied. "Your name... Medicine, right? Can you tell me more about the doctor?" Medicine took a moment to collect her thoughts, before saying "A long while after I re-awakened, I saw her come onto the flower field. She looked very deranged and messy, and I thought it was a human who had come for the flowers, but she had beaten me down with raw force and could twist and contort her body, all without harming a single flower. She said I was very interesting and wanted to take me, so Su-san helped me release my most potent poison yet, it melted off half of her body. It was the same type of poison I released during my Last Word, but she recovered quickly. I suppose she recognized my desire for freedom and suggested a trade deal, where around once a month I'd give her a variety of poisons and she'd pay me in a variety of flowers. At that point, I was exhausted and just wanted to get her away, so I accepted. Every month since then, we've come by to exchange, and she brightened up her appearance. I buried the flowers near where the spider lillies grow, by the river, but she always addresses me as her ally. I'm not, okay?" "Alright." Flandre responded.

After this, Alice's body had started moving. The two turned to look at her body tossing slightly left and right, before she sat herself up and threw up blood. "Alice, are you alright?" Flandre asked concernedly. "Y-yes, thank you both for your assistance." Alice said while wiping her mouth. Flandre went to look at Medicine, who said "Since our way of surgery was so direct, something like that is inevitable, especially if poison is still in you." Alice continued, saying "I was conscious the whole time... but my nerves went numb from the pain. I didn't feel it, but I was listening in. The whole time, I was concerned about something, though..."

Medicine asked "Why don't you worry about yourself if you have time to worry about others?", still slightly mad at Alice from the previous fight. "I have no worries," Alice responded. "It isn't even a trifle. I have three changes of clothes for myself and have been nursed back to health, but..." Alice pointed at Flandre, trying to cover herself still with the old clothing, "Despite having lost your memories, you know a lot of pretty complicated topics. Internal organs, fighting knowledge. You're a walking contradiction. I want to find out what you really are." Flandre gulped and stood up, "W-what do you mean?" she asked. Alice explained "You and me are going across the Sanzu River. If we can't find the masterminds, we'll find the yama. Perhaps she can find something..." Anger boiled up in Flandre, and she went over to slap Alice down across her face, shocking even Medicine. "You moron. Miss Kamishirasawa tried that already and couldn't find anything. And how about how selfish you've been? You're acting like I'm an anomaly or prophet without considering how I feel at all. I want to get my revenge on the ones who stole my memory, but look at you! Your ribs are fractured, you know!" Flandre vented. There was a moment of silence where medicine thought to herself "These two... how am I supposed to feel about this?" Alice, however, hunched over on the ground was smiling, and said "Very well. I understand." and laughed, unsettling Flandre and Medicine more. "Perhaps Mystia was right." Medicine looked to the side and felt her heartrate start rising again. A large, imposing figure was making its way through the flower fields. "I-it's the flower master. But why..?" She said. Flandre and Alice turned to look at the approaching figure.

Chapter Text

A large, dark cloud rolled over the area, and while Medicine and Flandre quietly watched the flower master approach, Alice quickly slipped away behind the tree. Once she approached, Medicine stepped up first to try to ask something, but Flandre stepped up to ask "Are you here because we disturbed the flowers?"

The flower master was a tall woman with long orange hair, part of it covering her right eye, and a long plaid orange and red skirt and closed vest over a white shirt. She had a large umbrella at her back stylized to be a large sunflower, and had a sharp face with red eyes and a mischevious smile. She laughed to herself and said "Quite the opposite." with a deep, quiet voice. The instant these words came out of her mouth, Flandre felt an immense pressure on her, like she had an anvil strapped to her back. It was a similar type of feeling to the masterminds from before. "What did Medicine mean by Alice being comparable to this? This is completely different!" Flandre thought to herself. "My name is Yuuka Kazami, Flower Master of the Four Seasons. I came here because Elly said there was an explosion, but I had been watching this whole time. I came to congratulate you children on managing not to harm a single one of my precious flowers."

"What's your real reason?" Alice suddenly said coming out from behind the tree with a fresh new pair of clothes. Yuuka and Alice locked eyes, with Alice looking more intimidating than usual. Yuuka started saying "Have you ever heard of a type of forest that's actually one connected organism connected by a root system?" Medicine widened her eyes in terror and Flandre watched as sweat started forming on her forehead. "That is the type of youkai I am." Yuuka explained. "From the very beginning I have understood why you are all here, and I already know what is going on. That is because..." Medicine took Flandre by the hand and started running with her away from Yuuka, towards the Spider Lily field, thankfully without Flandre burning up due to the large cloud. "...I am one of the sages of Gensokyo." Yuuka finished.

Flandre tried to ask Medicine "Where are we going?!" While trying to keep her balance as Medicine ran as fast as possible through the flowers with a terrified look on her face. "Think about it! Why would someone who rarely reveals themself as much as her reveal information like that?! Something bad is about to happen!" Medicine shouted back.

Yuuka watched the two run, and looked back at Alice, who look at Yuuka with intense eyes, trying to think about what to do. Yuuka sighed, saying "Ahh, children scare and flee so easily, don't they?" Alice tried commanded again "A-Answer my question," being nervous after Yuuka's status reveal. Yuuka turned back to watch Medicine and Flandre run, listening to Medicine ramble to Flandre about what she thinks Yuuka would do. "I thought she said she wanted to meet me again too. Maybe she was trying to look tough, but I am not here to fight anyone. You're here to gain information about the Super-Unified incident, are you not?" Yuuka said, as Alice turned to face Yuuka, and felt her heart drop. "What did you just say..?" Alice said nervously. "Oh? Did you not think a sage of Gensokyo would be keeping in touch with what happens to it?" Yuuka said as she shrugged.

Medicine and Flandre made it to the edge of the Sanzu river in the Spider Lily field, where they took a moment to breathe. "B-but she said we didn't damage any flowers. Why would she attack us?" Flandre asked. "She probably knows who or what removed your memories, but we're in no position to defend against something like that. Something like that... it's probably a terrifying power that would already know if we know!" Medicine explained. "But Medicine... I already know who stole my memories." Flandre said.

"Alice Margatroid. Please bare with me for a moment." Yuuka instructed. She sunk into the ground and several vines came out from the ground to wrap around Alice, at a speed too quick for her to react to, and dragged her into the ground. The litter that had been left behind from the surgical operation and battle were dragged down into the ground as well. The two re-emerged right behind Medicine and Flandre, who turned to look in fear at the two as Alice was let go and fell to the ground, while Yuuka retained her posture. Yuuka walked slowly towards Flandre and leaned down towards her to ask "Child, do you have a concept of God?" "God..?" Flandre asked. "Forget it. Vampires are irreligious in the first place." Yuuka said. "But the masterminds of the Lost World incident are as close as you can get to a god. No, they go beyond even that." Yuuka turned to gaze at the Sanzu River as she continued her explanation.

"As far as I understand, this vampire, Flandre... she isn't the first one here. Nor was she the second. The Flandre with you right now is the third one to exist in this universe at any given time." Yuuka said. A concerned look washed over everyone's face, especially Flandre, at the center of it. "The universe can be described as a type of root system stemming from a tree. While I do not personally believe in fate, it seems across all universes there is a law for those who have lived to always exist in some way - no matter how unlikely. Every action that someone takes - every time a dice is rolled, a bee flaps its wings, or a decision is made, the universe branches off from the main source. Which universe was the original is not within my knowledge or care. The reason I know this Flandre isn't our Flandre isn't due to my title as a sage or my powers as a youkai, but because I have already met this universe's Flandre, spoke with her, and watched her pass away. The second... was the one who took her from me. From Gensokyo." Yuuka explained as Flandre made a gulp, stuttering a "Y-you..." Yuuka cut her off, continuing her monologue with "It wasn't long after me and some of my allies formed Gensokyo. We created it due to the world's modernization, and the waining faith of mythology and things that cannot be explained by science from Youkai. Two vampires accepted our refuge - introducing themselves as Remilia and Flandre." A fire ignited within Flandre's heart hearing this, and she shouted out "Remilia?! Is that what I just heard you say? Remilia?!" as she suddenly clung to and looked up at Yuuka. Medicine hugged Flandre, while Yuuka continued her story.

"I don't know what the Remilia of your world was like, Flandre. I can't even say if she was your sister. But those two were dirty and ragged vampires. They had no home or family, and could only barely survive. Supposedly, their entire society was wiped out by the humans except for them, and they were just barely older than toddlers at the time. The two fended each other off and escaped here. They never caused any issues and we worked closely with them. How to structure the balance between human and youkai, how we'd maintain a stable supply of food for youkai. Gensokyo is now about 500 years old, and I watched those two grow at the time, as if they were my very own daughters. Today is the five year anniversary since they were murdered - or perhaps I should say stolen." Yuuka continued as Medicine started tearing up. Alice had a worried look on her face and Flandre untightened her squeeze from Yuuka's skirt.

"Every once in a while, due to the diversity of youkai and humans here, incidents can occur. These are intended, and effectively keep the flow of Gensokyo going as if it were the cycle of life. This time, beast spirits invaded from another realm - the animal realm. I'm more of a methological person, but usually we have dedicated incident resolvers anyways - Flandre and Remilia being one of them. During the night, the sisters met with three of the animal realm's leaders in a more open field for negotiations and perhaps to fight, with me overlooking them. Suddenly a gap formed next to them, and out came another Flandre - a much more darker, sinister, and arrogant Flandre - if you could even call her that. I transported myself towards the area immediately although I had not planned to reveal myself, but before I was there, she had already impaled the hearts of the two vampires, and the matriarch of the eagle clan with her draconic tail. I was forced to use my full power as a sage for the first time in 500 years, and even so I was put down without much effort. I still remember what she said, saying 'Ah, so this is what Reimu was talking about. I remember you. Flower girl, I'm quite hungry. You're the overseer of this place, ri~ight?' I immediately offered my life in exchange for a promise that those three would be kept safe, but she refused. Flandre, Remilia, and the matriarch tried to fight back from this position, but they were absorbed entirely into her like she was a black hole. After that, she told me if I left the premises of my flower field, a similar fate would happen to me and the rest of gensokyo, and told me that our gensokyo was the only one left. Once I tried to leave, and the tip of my finger was removed from when it left, and it's still gone. She called herself a liberator and told me that every other world's flowers decayed, and 'not to ruin it for everyone.' She left after that - as did the animal spirits and matriarchs, and I lost connection with the other sages since that day. I knew she was wrong and I never even gave it an inch of my heart since that day - but it was as though she tapped into my heart and forced herself into me, with her knowing my deepest thoughts... I haven't had a feeling like that in my 2,500 years of living until now." Yuuka continued.

"But what she said about Reimu, the legendary shrine maiden of Gensokyo, stuck with me. A year before that, Reimu inexplicably stopped going out to resolve incidents, she had stopped leaving the shrine, and wouldn't even talk to her closest friend, a magician named Marisa. She changed her clothes to be pure white and sat on a rock overlooking a cliff by the barrier behind her shrine - day and night, like some kind of monk. It sent Marisa into a depression and she couldn't do her incident resolving job either. After that, any incident started was forced to be resolved on its own. There were several other people I never saw after that day as well - mostly associated with some of the other sages as well, so I theorize that something similar happened on their side as well, and Reimu's involved with it. The sisters lived in a mansion obscured by a forest on the opposite side of the lake from the main town, and I don't know how it's doing nowadays. Maybe you can find something there." Yuuka finished her story. Medicine fell to her knees and started crying, and Alice approached Flandre and put her hand on her shoulder. "Are you ok, Flandre?" she asked. Flandre stared out onto the Sanzu River with Yuuka, taking a while to answer "...I have... a lot to think about."

The four sat in silence for a long while, only hearing the sounds of the river and the wind against the Spider Lilies. "...Yuuka." Flandre finally said, breaking the silence. "Is there... anything else you know about that me... or that me's sister..?" Yuuka took a bit of time to gather her thoughts, before saying "One thing I've learned is that some parts of your personality is to be kept forever. The Flandre and Remilia of my time were loud, loved to talk, and loved being the center of attention, but they also knew to be humble. They donned silver robes with gold lining and had long red hair, but the materials from those robes were gifts from the parties they would hold for youkai. They enjoyed being feared by the humans, all except one. A maid for the Hieda residence who quit to work for them. Your clothing quality is high, but quite old." Yuuka dug around in her skirt pocket, before taking out a bit of silver clothing and showing it to Flandre. "This was on the floor from when the other Flandre impaled our Flandre's heart. I picked it up after she had been stolen." After that, she turned it around. It had "F. Scarlet" woven into it neatly. "Flandre Scarlet..." Yuuka continued. "As a sage, I must be a forward thinking person. Lacking memories and being from a different realm must be the definition of neutrality - without worldly posessions or desires. It's like being reborn again. You're polite yet unhinged - intelligent yet sometimes childish - other times mature yet naive. Will you help us, or will you go against us? It is not my place to say." Yuuka finished.

Flandre felt tears welling up in her eyes, before breaking down and starting to cry. "I... I'm no hero of justice..." Flandre said. "Flandre Scarlet... Flandre Scarlet. Is that truly me..?" She said to herself. Alice tried to comfort Medicine and Flandre by rubbing their backs, as Yuuka ended off with "The doll's paranoia is likely correct. By telling you this, I have effectively painted a target on all of our backs. However, I think simply being associated with Flandre in the first place has made us all traitors to their system. I don't know who else is in their leagues, but I think they're planning to take us over. Their goal is beyond me, however..." Yuuka stared solemnly into the distance as Flandre and Medicine cried while hugging each other. Alice sat down as well, looking defeatedly at the floor. "I... I had a plan..." Alice said to Yuuka. "I was going to go with Flandre... to the border of Gensokyo. There are rumors of criminal activity around there... And I wanted to investigate. I wanted for us to regroup and march onwards, but..." Yuuka then interrupted Alice, saying "You were the one who took on the burden of caring for Flandre, were you not? Was it out of naive kindness, or were you, too, affected by the Lost World incident? I've known of you before, but not on a personal level..."

Alice again took a moment to respond. "...Do you know Makai?" Yuuka's eyes widened slightly, "Makai?" She asked. Alice made a slight smile and moved her head up. "Yes, the legendary realm of demons that was destroyed from the inside. While I don't think I can say everything now, the truth is that its demise - where I got my grimoire, and where I transformed from a human to a youkai was all in Makai, and I caused it. After it was destroyed, I... I saw someone. She was like Marisa, although I didn't know her at the time, but she fit Flandre's description of her alternate Flandre very similarly. Draconic features, black clothes, and a terrifying aura. After all the flash and drama, I saw her out the corner of my eye, filling out a checklist. I was still a child, and I had never seen another human in makai before, so I tried to ask her what she was doing. She gave me a friendly slap on the back, smiled at me and congratulated me, and left through a portal. I didn't know what to make of it since that day and it's kept me up on many nights, and a year later when I met our Marisa, she was confused out of her mind with my explanation, but it's all starting to make sense now. There's a bit more to it than just that - but that's the gist of it." Alice explained.

"...I understand." Yuuka responded. "So you found yourself in her and decided to take advantage of it to investigate - even with a lack of materials, supplies, and with broken ribs. What a strange person..." she said. "But, I like it." The four of them sat in silence for a while. Medicine had stopped her crying to continue hugging Flandre, who was still continuing hers. They understood how much of a bombshell this was to the amnesiac Flandre, and let her try to process her emotions before they could start to dicuss their next move, and Yuuka lent her large sunflower parasol to Alice to keep above Flandre - just in case the cloud started to pass. Suddenly they heard footsteps coming from beside them. They turned around to see who it could be, and found Mystia with a big smile on her face standing with the somewhat tired looking Keine Kamishirasawa, with a bag on her back. Mystia let out a cheeful "Yo!" as Keine said somewhat shakily "T-the flower master of the four seasons..? What is one of the legendary sages of Gensokyo doing out here..?"

Alice stood to rise as Mystia flew over to her, and gave the parasol to Medicine, asking "M-Mystia? What are you doing here?" Mystia laughed, responding with "Well, it'd be bad news if something bad were to happen to Flandre. While I was going back, I saw Miss Kamishirasawa combing over some papers. I asked her about last night, and she said Flandre let her live if she promised to help find information about her past, so I had her come along with me. I saw you guys fighting in the flower field, but after that we couldn't find you. Keine kept insisting not to step on the flowers while we were lost, so I tried to carry her by her horns, but she kept saying it hurt, and then I told her to put off some of her weight, and then she sai-" "Enough." Keine interrupted. "Anyways, it seems our efforts were not in vain. Is Flandre alright? Miss Flower Master, what is the situation at hand?"

"I've heard a lot about you, half-hakutaku. You've done well for Gensokyo. Flandre needs some time to process herself. Shall we move elsewhere and leave her be?" Yuuka said. Everyone except Medicine and Flandre moved a few meters away to discuss the situation at hand, while Medicine continued hugging Flandre.

Alice quickly explained what happened with herself, Flandre and Medicine, and then some of what Yuuka discussed. "Alice, you still plan to invade the mastermind's territory?" Keine asked. Alice responded with "Well, I don't know. Me, Flandre, and Medicine are injured, and Yuuka can't leave her field. Yuuka said we could try investigating the old mansion, but..." Mystia then jumped into the conversation, asking "Hold on. I don't really know how long I've lived here for, as I'm a Gensokyo native, but I'm sure I'd have been around long enough to know about this Flandre and Remilia, and I'm sure Alice and Keine would too. So how is it we didn't know about this at all except for Yuuka telling us?" A cold shiver was sent down their spines, and Keine said again "Th-that's right. Even thinking back to it, the children would refer the the mansion as just an abandoned old mansion." Yuuka shuffled around in her pocket again to take out the old piece of fabric. She flipped it to the back and the name was erased, causing her to feel legitimately confused. "...Something bizarre is going on." Yuuka said. Alice ran back to Flandre, who had calmed down with her crying slightly, and asked her "Flandre! Do you remember what Yuuka said your last name was?!" Flandre looked up at Alice, and then looked down. A drop of sweat rolled down her face. "I... I can't remember... I was just thinking about it..!" She said. Medicine added in "What..? I can't remember either!" Alice looked back at her other group, who had heard what they just said.

"Yuuka was right. We're already under attack! Do you remember their names at least, Yuuka?!" Alice shouted. Yuuka tried to concentrate, squeezing the piece of fabric in her hand. "Flandre... Remilia... Flandre... Remilia... I.. I can't get it!" she said concernedly. "I doubt the mastermind will reveal themselves here. Perhaps we should go investigate at once." Keine suggested. Keine took off her bag and started fumbling through it, pulling out two walkie-talkies. "This is technology from the outside world. When we press this button, we can talk to each other. I have some blood packets for Flandre and first aid kits for the rest of us as well, just in case. What do the rest of you suggest?"

"...I would like to ask the doctor for help." Mystia said. "But I don't know how much time we have or if we're in any imminent danger, nor do I know how fast I can get her here." "Let's strategize then." Alice said. "Perhaps it could be better to split up. Mystia and Keine can go with me to investigate the border, while Medicine and Flandre go the the Mansion. It'll probably be easier on them and the longer distance gives Flandre more time to process her emotions. Keine, how many of those do you have?" Keine looked in her bag, and responded with "Four. Two for each team. Are you sure those two can handle it on their own?" Alice responded with "Those two are much stronger than they let on. They're beyond capable."

"What do you suggest about your and theirs' injuries?" Yuuka asked Alice, who responded with "I'll be fine. I don't mind us going to heal them now. Mystia, what do you think?" Mystia rubbed her arm and looked downwards. "I mean... I don't really want to fight..." Alice walked over and put her hands on Mystia's shoulder, and smiled, saying "The dawn of Gensokyo is at hand. You can do it." This cheered up Mystia slightly, saying "Y-yeah..."

Medicine and Flandre watched Alice excitedly start discussing what to do, and Medicine bent over to whisper into Flandre's ear "It's always the adults telling us what to do, huh..." Flandre responded with a simple "Yeah." Yuuka watched in silence, needing to try to process her emotions again as well. She thought to herself "How embarassing it is as a sage to feel a depression like this... Yakumo, Ibaraki, Matara. Will you give these young youkai your blessings?"

Keine handed Medicine and Flandre two of the walkie-talkes she called a phone, and instructed them on how to use it, as well as giving Flandre the blood packets which she stuffed in a skirt pocket, and Medicine a first aid kit. Alice worked quickly to fix Flandre's umbrella and Medicine and Flandre's clothes before the clouds left and gave the sunflower parasol back to Yuuka. Alice's team then prepared to set off as well, with Yuuka instructing Flandre's team to go southeast to get to the mansion, and instructing Alice's team on how to get to the Shinigami to cross the Sanzu River. Yuuka stood in the middle as the two faced each other, ready to depart.

"Medicine, Flandre... stay safe, alright?" Alice told the two. "Don't push yourself too hard, okay?" Flandre said back. Mystia added in "Let's promise to each other to come back in one piece, alright? In case of anything, let's meet back here - or at Yuuka's mansion." "The flowers are always watching." Yuuka replied to that. Finally, Keine said "The reason for my existence is to protect Gensokyo. Whatever the issue is, I will not fail. If I die, pass on my condolences to Yagokoro for me." Medicine didn't say anything, as she was quite bashful around people and just looked down while shuffling slightly. Knowing the spotlight is on her, she squeaked out "G-good luck to everyone." The two groups bowed to each other and went their seperate ways, with Yuuka watching the two until they had left her field of view. She melted herself back into the ground and re-formed herself in front of Elly, who let out a "Yeep! M-miss Kazami, when did you leave the house..?" Yuuka looked down blankly. "Elly, if you see the vampire, doll youkai, magician youkai, night sparrow or half-hakutaku you told me about, they are welcomed guests. Let them in if they come here." she instructed. "Understood." Elly said as she saluted Yuuka, and moved aside to let her inside of her mansion. Yuuka poured herself a cup of tea and watched as the sun started to set. "Flandre... how did you get here. Will you end the Flandre that ended mine, or end up in their ranks? I wonder just how you'll get torn to pieces..." Yuuka said to herself, and delved into her own thoughts.

"Torn to pieces... torn to pieces..." The phrase echoed through Yuuka's mind "Huh?" a small yuuka said. She had long green hair with a small sunflower in it, a dark red plaid shirt and pants, and had overalls. "Why am I crying?" she asked herself. She looked around herself. It was raining heavily and she was under some tall trees. A corpse lay down in front of her in a pool of blood, rippling and splashing from the raindrops. She looked up from the corpse to see the dark Remilia and Flandre under a tent. Strange dark robot lizards and fairies - at least twenty of them were carrying around corpses of people inside a small village surrounded by tall grass and trees. The servants had wings and a long tail connected to a chubby but metallic body, with a series of light blue lines and circle lights for a face. "Does this one have anything that fits the criteria?" The dark Remilia asked one of the servants, pointing down to a corpse as she held a board with a paper and pen in her hand. It shook its head, and the dark Flandre put her hand into the corpse and sucked its blood until the skin was dark and bone tight. The servant threw it into a large pile of corpses.

"Th-that was papa..." Yuuka whispered to herself, feeling a lump in her throat. "That's right. I remember now. Suddenly, they came in and said they were here for a checkup due to an epidemic... but they killed everyone who they said didn't pass, but I was left alive. The village had a prophecy like this because of the forest next to us, but..." she thought to herself. Yuuka collapsed to the muddy ground, looking at the corpse in front of her and started panting and crying again. "M-mama!" she yelled out and tried to hug the already dead body. The dark Remilia looked over at her coldly and simply said "Please be quiet, this is important." Yuuka looked up at at her through the rain and her wet bangs and grit her teeth. "Y-you slimebags. Pieces of shit! Why won't you kill me?!" Yuuka said as she rose up to try to run at the dark Scarlet sisters. She was held back by the servants, although she kept on her struggle and Flandre teased her by saying "Genocide is just another game! It doesn't matter if it's humans or youkai." Remilia motioned to Flandre to be quiet, and explained in a monotone voice "Your temperament is beneficial for us. We don't plan to hurt you." This only served to enrage Yuuka even more. She started screaming and struggling against the servants harder and harder to where they could barely hold her back, even as a child. She burst a nerve inside her head, having blood flow down her cheeks from her eyes as she screamed "I'll kill you all, or kill myself trying! Y-you..! I'll have you torn to pieces!" Yuuka was cut off as she slipped against the mud and fell face-first into the mud. The dark Remilia paid no mind to this and went back to reading her list.

Yuuka lifted herself up by the elbows and and continued her snivling, with the servants having let go of her arms. The dark Flandre looked over to the pile or corpses as Remilia repeated what she had done to the corpse again, and said curiously "...Flowers?" Through and on the corpses, sunflowers poked out facing towards the dark Flandre. "Was that always there?" The sunflowers suddenly started shooting out all their seeds onto the dark Flandre and Remilia like a minigun, creating a grid of holes through them and knocking them backwards into a desk the rain, where their heads started getting melted. "Genocide is just a game?" Yuuka said menacingly as she picked herself up from the mud. "Yeah, I'll track you all down to where you came from and kill every single one of you! I'll make it into a game!" she shouted. All the servants started piling up onto Yuuka to attack her, but she punched the servants off of her, leaving cracks in them as they fell backwards. Her knuckles were bleeding, but she didn't care. The dark Remilia dragged herself back into the tent, where she reformed her face and regenerated her wounds as the dark Flandre did the same. "You've pushed past your limits and became a youkai. Excellent!" she shouted.

The small Yuuka rushed at them and jumped over the fallen desk and reached out to try to punch the dark Remilia, but she had turned herself into mist temporarily, having Yuuka phase through her and fall facefirst into the mud again. The dark Remilia looked down at Yuuka with contempt as she picked herself back up from the mud and went to try to punch the dark Flandre and Remilia yet again, but her fist was stopped in the dark Remilia's palm. She transformed her arm into a venus flytrap and bit the dark Remilia's hand straight off, turning her hand back into a normal one and biting Remilia's flesh, ripping it off with her own mouth as though she was a rabid dog. The dark Remilia didn't seem to mind much, but the dark Flandre made a disgusted look on her face. "Is this really okay..?" She asked. The dark Remilia said "We have enough data for now. Let's go." She used her other arm to punch Yuuka's face straight down into the ground and picked up her arm to re-attach it to herself, and created a dark portal she and the dark Flandre left through, leaving Yuuka alone in the dark, heavy rain to scream and cry to nobody but herself.

Yuuka, a now much more mature and modern looking one who still had her long hair was being called to. "Yuuka. Yuuka? Are you there?" She snapped back into reality, and looked down at two very small, injured vampires. "Sorry, I was caught up in my thoughts. You were asking me what to do with them, right?" she said. "Yes, that's right." the same voice replied. The vampires made desperate puppy eyes up at her, but Yuuka felt no twinges of remorse or pity. She stared at them for a while with cold eyes, recalling her previous experiences with vampires and how these two were oddly similar to those from that day. "I couldn't care less either way." Yuuka said as she turned her back and started walking away. "Really? Is that a yes or no then?" The voice called back. Yuuka gave no answer.

Later Yuuka found herself staring at those very same vampires by the lake under a full moon. Together they learned to knit a small blanket that read "I love Yuuka!" with a small crochet of a sunflower. She accepted the gift without saying a word, and turned her back to leave.

The vampires were slightly older now, and were bragging to Yuuka about resolving their first incident inside their new mansion. Yuuka looked down on them still with cold eyes without saying anything, but entertained their childish bragging. This time, she gave them each a small headpat before leaving without saying a word.

Next, Yuuka had cut her hair shorter and was planting and managing flowers around the mansion as Flandre and Remilia watched her work in awe. At this point, she decided to put her feelings aside and started talking about what she loved most, explaining what every type of flower did, what genus its from, and where it's native to. The two vampires listened in closely for hours on end.

A little later on a new years' celebration, Yuuka and somne of her fellow sages were sat around a dinner table at night in the mansion, discussing and having fun while drunk. It felt like for the first time since that incident, Yuuka's heart began to finally open up and she could cherish memories like this. While she didn't drink or talk much, she stayed around the vampires nearby, occasionally giving some insight or trivia to them as they did the same thing back, all night long.

The day after the murders and her second encounter with the dark Scarlets, she woke up in her bed in her light pink pajamas, which were supposedly Remilia's favourite color. She refused to get out of bed, and stayed inside to lament the series of unfortunate events and mourn. "Finally... just as I started to gain it back, it was taken away from me again... Is this truly fate? It's a sick joke. I swear, Remilia, Flandre... I'll kill them all for you. Just wait for me and watch." She thought to herself over and over, day after day, week after week.

Finally, now sits Yuuka watching the clouds above grow darker and hearing thunder in the distance. "What a headache of a history with vampires... For what reason, I wonder, was Gensokyo truly established..?" She thought to herself. "Was it truly for the protection of youkai?" Yuuka finished her tea and got up, walking to a door and opened it. It led downstairs to a basement, where she had to light a torch on the wall. The basement was cobblestone and bare aside from empty bowls and spiderwebs on top of boxes, but at the center of it at the ceiling was a bat hanging upside down. Yuuka looked up at it as it hid its face from the light. "What do you think, Kurumi?" Yuuka asked. "The last vampire of Gensokyo."

Chapter Text

Alice, Keine, and Mystia were walking along the riverbank, where the Spider Lilies were plentiful, and the air took up a more bugurndy and stuffy feel. Mystia lay out her hand and felt raindrops on her palm as thunder crackled and the background and the sky grew darker. "I hope those two will be alright." Mystia said annoyedly. Keine looked over to see Alice stumbling a little, and asked "Alice, are you alright?" Alice laughed, responding with "I tried to look tough in front of you guys, but I feel awful from the poison still. My broken bones and cuts are still taking some time to recover, too."

Keine responded with "You're not a born youkai, aren't you? Since you were originally human, your wounds don't heal as fast. I'll help you, come." Keine and Alice put their arms on each other's shoulders, and Alice leaned slightly on Keine as they continued walking. "Thank you." She responded as she looked down behind Keine, noticing a large, white fluffy tail with green highlights. "You're half human, but you look more youkai than I do, aha. It must be nice for someone to sleep on it..." She joked. Keine seemed somewhat uncomfortable, and tried changing the subject by saying "Anyways, we should be preparing and brainstorming. Mystia, did you see anything potentially while you were flying?"

"It's impossible to see the other side of the Sanzu no matter how high you are, and nothing of note along the bank. Do you think we 'really' need the shinigami to take us? I don't think I trust someone like that... Like, I'm just thinking, what if the yama and shinigami are already in cahoots or incapacitated by those people?" Mystia responded. "I've heard of youkai who live around here who can take you across parts of the Sanzu in exchange for certain things..." Keine said, "But I don't know of any personally or where they could be." Keine looked around as the rain grew heavier and the air started turning into a dark purple fog. "Our vision is getting more limited, but that should mean we're not far from Mayohiga..."

Alice asked "I heard of it before but, do you know what exactly Mayohiga is?" The loudness of the rain with heavier crackling of the thunder only increased as the three continued to get drenched, and Mystia started shivering. Keine summoned out part of her Hakutaku's head, which shot at the ground and created an umbrella for them and Mystia. "It's an abandoned town overrun by stray cats that leads to the shinigami's ferry. Legends say that the density of spider lilies and the sheer amount of souls create a dense miasma. Inside abandoned stalls you'll hallucinate vengeful spirits trying to convince you to buy their stuff, and that's when you get attacked. Stray cats come along sometiimes, but even other youkai seldom approach this area. There's a large central road where spirits walk, so let's try to keep our eyes on it." Keine explained.

They continued walking in the intense rain without saying anything to each other. After Keine finished, Mystia allowed herself into Alice's arms to try to warm herself up. After that, they finally saw the back of a brown house. "We're here!" Alice said happily. "Stay cautious, we could be attacked by vengeful spirits at any time. Plain Asia!" Keine said as she summoned out two of her hakutaku. "The instant one of them start shooting something, I want you to follow suit, Mystia. Alice still needs to rest." Keine commanded. "My right arm is still fine. My dolls can protect us if need be." Mystia bit the inside of her lip a little, and said "I'll make them night-blind. Don't worry."

The three made their way onto a road between two houses. A few small stray cats hid under rooves and discarded litter from the heavy rain and silently watched the trio walk. Alice's mind drifted off seeing the empty dark windows and decaying wooden doors, and had an idea, suggesting: "Hey, wasn't there a rumor that there's a lot of useful materials here for travelers?" Keine made a serious face, responding with "That's just a good way to invite vengeful spirits to attack you. And lower your karma." Alice made a big grin and parted from Keine's aid momentarily, taking out two dolls to float around her on either side, and walked over to one of the doors giggling to herself and saying "You'll just have to defend me then, right? Let's find some easy-to-carry tools now..."

Mystia made a quiet "Eek!" to herself and ran over to cover Alice under her umbrella and looked around nervously as Alice stopped at a door and started rummaging through one of her vest's pockets. Keine wasn't actually particularly worried but was quite interested in seeing whether or not those rumors were true, and she had the hakutaku scan around as she walked a little towards Alice. Keine's thought wandered as well, thinking to herself "There's a lot of rumors about this place, including or perhaps due to one where those who enter here rarely leave... During the Spring Snow incident the incident resolvers had to get through here to go to the netherworld, but... looking around, how exactly?"

Alice excitedly took out a small leather pouch and opened it with a big smile. It opened up to three seperate parts going down and was completely filled with small metallic tools in miniature pockets for each individual one. These ranged from needles, extended hooks, lock picks, bars and more all slightly different in size, shape, curvature and width. Alice held the pouch with her left hand and took out a somewhat worn-looking lockpick and a medium thickness turning tool, a somewhat thin L shaped piece of metal. Alice handed the case to one of her dolls to hold, and kneeled down as Mystia and Keine watched with differing curiosity levels as Alice inserted the turning tool into the bottom of the door's keyway and pressured on it slightly with her left hand while inserting the lockpick into the keyway with her right. She carefully and slowly moved and felt the pins inside - 5 standard pins. Her smile grew bigger as she expertly and skillfully set them and turned the keyway, making quick work of the lock and sneaking a glance at Mystia's very surprised face. Alice took the opportunity to brag while flipping her hair and standing back up, saying "Ahah, a dollmaker like me has to be dexturous, and this type of hobby is quite nice isn't it?" Alice moved her hand to the doorknob and turned it open, excited to see what was inside. She opened the door slowly...

Alice's good mood quickly faded, and Mystia and Alice grimaced from what they saw inside. The light from outside was just enough to cast a light onto a decaying, headless corpse in the middle of the room. Stray cats and mice stood on the dried pool of blood and were feasting on the corpse, but stopped to collectively glare at the intruders. Keine's tall height made her be able to see from behind the two, and she had her hakutaku shoot some bullets at the animals, making them scurry off into the corners. Disgusted but lead on by morbid curiosity, Alice plugged her nose and recalled her dolls and stepped into the room. "Are you crazy?" Mystia asked Alice. "No, but aside from my intentions of theft, I want to know more about this human... They were probably one of the 'spritied away,' someone bought in from the outside world to be used as cattle to sustain us as youkai.

"Well, you said it yourself. Humans are just cattle, what's special about this one?" Mystia asked, making Keine slightly angry. Alice responded, however, before Keine had a chance to. "Well, I'm not a human eater since I'm not a born youkai like you. But I do notice them sometimes... I don't tend to interfere unless they come knocking on my door though. There've been less and less of them that I've noticed however. Am I right, Kamishirasawa?" "Correct." Keine responded. "When spirited away, humans primarily either find refuge in the village or at the Hakurei Shrine. Those who don't and aren't immediately eaten by youkai might be able to camp out somewhere and in rare instances become youkai themselves, but for a human to come here..." Keine looked at the corpse's clothes. They were more modern and western, with a brown vest over a formerly white shirt, very obviously not a Gensokyo native. "This person had to be either exceptionally skilled or lucky to get here. Perhaps even stupid, and to die in such a gruesome way..." Alice picked off from Keine's tangent, saying "Most of the spiriting away is intentional from the sages, but if something like Yuuka's story happened to the sages, it's probably possible for the process to have been hijacked, likely by those same people. But the Hakurei barrier should be extremely difficult to bypass from the outside, so do we have an insider in Gensokyo, or are they just exceptionally powerful?"

Mystia went deep in thought hearing this, thinking about what Yuuka said before. "Probably both. The shrine maiden, Reimu... she's definitely suspicious. Alice, are we investigating the right area?" She said. "We're not in the wrong place." Keine said. "This is still a useful thing to investigate. Besides, even I don't want to fight someone like her. Alice, will you let me search the body?" Alice and Mystia stepped aside, allowing Keine to kneel down to the body and summon out one of her hakutaku. Keine shot some bullets at the pockets, erasing them temporarily and allowing things to fall down, including a wallet. She picked up the wallet and opened it, revealing a drivers' license and some Japanese Yen. "A man, seventeen. The name on the drivers' license seems to have been erased somehow. Please stay on guard, we might be being watched." Alice and Mystia nodded and tried to prepare themselves. A strong gust of wind blew from outside, trying to get the door closed, but Keine aggresively shot at it, completely removing everything except the very top including some of the walls. Some more of the light coming in illuminated part of the back walls, with Mystia being the first to notice.

"Guys, look over there." Mystia said as she pointed to some pictures on the wall. There were a few photos of a girl hung up above a very dusty dresser which had cobwebs bridging them. The dresser had extinguished candles and more photos and paintings as well, as if it were an altar. "Th-this is..." Keine muttered to herself as the three walked around the corpse to approach it. Taking a closer look, the black and white photos and some colored paintings depicted a woman with dark purple hair and eyes, with a red skirt and hat that had a star on it. She had a white shirt with detached sleeves. Keine looked up at the photos with disbelief. "No way..." She muttered. "You know this girl?" Mystia asked her. "This... This was the sixth Hakurei Shrine Maiden..!"

Alice grew very concerned, asking "What? What did you just say?!" "I... I don't understand either. I knew the Hakurei Shrine Maidens recieved a special burial process, but altars being here was out of my knowledge..." Keine responded. "So where's the body?" Alice asked as she looked around the room, seeing a large mound that looked suspicious. She walked over to it and slowly tried to lift it up, to the disapproval of Keine who asked "What are you doing?" Alice ignored this and opened it, revealing it to be a coffin that was empty. The three were now even more confused and suspicious. Alice heard something dripping from within the house, and through the dark noticed the wall - which faced where the corpse's head would have pointed - was painted in blood. She looked up the wall where the dripping seemed to be originating from, and locked eyes with red eyes from a cat, hanging from the ceiling. Alice wasted no time in firing off a huge amount of bullets at the creature with Keine and Mystia joining into the chaos, creating a huge dust storm and destroying that part of the wall, leading to the outside. Keine noticed spirits starting to gather around them and grimaced with sweat starting to form. "Everyone, we're in danger! Mystia, use your ability right now!" Keine announced. "It's indiscriminate, I can't descipher between friend and foe!" "Me and Kamishirasawa will be fine, just do it!" Alice said.

Keine summoned out all of her Hakutaku and Alice got into a fighting position with her dolls as Mystia inhaled sharply, shouting "Creatures of the dark who hunger on human or youkai, I'll have you know what it means to be night blind! Take my 'Midnight Chorus Master!'" And activated her ability. The spirits around the trio started wandering and wobbling without direction, and stray cat and mice revealed themselves from their hiding spots and started acting erratically, flipping onto their backs and screaming. Mystia started at them and was confused as to why everything was acting erratically, and turned to see both Alice and Keine on the floor, with even the hakutaku being affected. Keine rolled around with her hands on her head while reciting jumbled, incomprehensable words while Alice covered her stomach and threw up blood. It seemed as though anything that could be considered animate around Mystia was acting incredibly strange - affecting all of Mayohiga except for Mystia.

"G-guys! Are you alright?! Is this the enemies' doing?!" Mystia asked with obvious fear in her voice, with sweat rolling down her cheek. Suddenly, a bright light and a strange wind-like sound came from behind Mystia. She turned to see the cat with red eyes from before on the floor by the corpse with some blood dripping from its mouth change its size and shape - with Mystia being so in shock she didn't even think to shoot - letting it complete its transformation into a more human like form.

The cat transformed into a girl around Alice's size with dark red eyes and hair tied into two long braids with black ribbons at the ends. She had a pair of cat ears with their own bows with a nebulaic black and green dress with green frills, and was kneeling down in pain after her transformation finished. The girl looked up at the petrified Mystia while forcing a smile and wiped away some blood on her chin, saying somewhat shakily in an energetic, light voice "Not bad sis..! I didn't think you'd have it in ya to preform somethin' like that!" The girl got a headache and coughed up some blood, sending Mystia into more of a panic, shouting "Did you do this?! How can you see me?!" Mystia tried her best to fire at the girl, who looked up and just barely jumped out of the way before contact, jumping over the corpse and rolling over on the floor.
While struggling trying to pick herself back up, the girl continued talking "Th-the name's Orin. I can't see you... but I can see your 'soul.' That's a scary ability you got... haa, but for those like me accustomed to hell, I'm resistant. What do you say about turning it off and saving your friends, huh? Their souls are goin' berserk - everyone's is." Mystia started feeling quite overwhelmed, not sure whether or not to believe Orin. She chose to go with her instincts and attack, trying to shoot bullets at Orin.

Orin tried her hardest to move out of the way after they came into her field of view, but she was affected too greatly by the perplexion and took all the hits directly, knocking her backwards and causing her to bleed profusely from her forehead, releasing a muffled angry "Nyaa!". Still, she tried to play it cool.

"Heey, you know I didn't do anything ri~ight? Attackin' me ain't gonna help your friends over me..." Orin continued, coughing up some more blood and wiping some more from her eyes. "T-tell you what... you turn that off and I explain who I am, sound good?"

Mystia grit her teeth, her mind still racing. It finally occured to her that the chaos of the area was of her own unintentional doing, and shut it off the same way she'd shut off her ability previously. Orin made a smug grin as she felt her intense pain and headache fade with her blindness, while watching the spirits around them return to normal behavior. Keine and Alice were also starting to recover, but much more slowly.

"Good t-see ya comin' to your senses." Orin said through a grin. "Hey sis, before your friends realize what's goin' on, I'll tellya' why you're gonna forgettabout this, capiche?"

Mystia tried to get herself to go attack Orin, but she noticed her knees being too shaky. "Why?!" She thought to herself. "I just hit her straight on without any resistance, so why am I so scared of her?!"

"Y'see, the Yama and her shinigami 'ere operate by takin' the souls and transportin' em across the river, but I take the ones useful to me back t' my home. That corpse y'saw died some seven off years ago, but I preserved it for later use like this. I'm already hunted by Yama's people, but to think some westside youkai would show up!" Orin continued, licking her lips. "Well, it was a nice chat sis, but I'll need'a kill you off now since you saw my business."

Keine and Alice finally got back up to their feet as Mystia noticed stray cats starting to form a circle around them. Mystia forced Keine and Alice onto her and she made a desperate jump out the damaged wall into the rainy, spirit filled street, and starts looking around.

Through the harsh rain, Keine asks "What happened?! What's the situation?!" Keine watched Mystia look down at her with intense fear and concentration in her eyes, and tried to make a plan as Mystia said "She's attacking us! Don't use your ability no matter what!!"

Alice looked around at the spirits, noting their strange movement. "These weren't nearly as visible before, and it looks like they're moving in some kind of connected line. What is this..." Her eyes looked down to see several stray cats jumping towards her, Keine, and Mystia. Alice quickly moved her dolls and created a wall to stop them, and then kicked them off to the side.

Through the rain, the three heard the footsteps of boots on the floor approaching them as they saw Orin leave the house with a grin on her face, looking ready to attack.

Chapter Text

The waterfall-like rain pierces through the skin of Keine, Mystia and Alice as they're surrounded on all sides by hostile cats and those who control them. The cats strangely seem to be unaffected by the rain, but the three are still too dazed to have noticed, focusing in only on the imminent danger around them.

"Alice, Mystia, stay close. We're going underground!" Keine shouted. "B-but!" Mystia tried to retort, but it was already too late. Keine launched out several of her red bullets from behind her back and pummeled them into the ground, creating a moat-like cirular hole around the group. Cats who tried to enter this zone had their history erased with whole parts of their bodies getting nulled. Alice tried to keep her eyes on the mysterious person in staying in the shadows as Orin pointed her fingers at the group.

The lines of spirits from around the area started rushing in and shooting their own bullets at them in place of the cats who realized the danger. Keine summoned two of her hakutaku above her and started forming a large wall around them as she dug deeper and deeper into the ground. This chaos continued for a moment until the trio dropped down into a large cave, along with some cat corpses.

Alice and Keine dusted themselves off as Mystia started coughing, moving away from the intense rain and crumbling rocks. "I read about there being a salt mine below some parts of Gensokyo..." Keine said. "But, damn, that took out a lot of energy..." Alice held Keine's shoulders and unexpectedly pulled her in closer, saying "That makes the two of us, then."

Tears started flowing down Mystia's cheeks from the overwhelming amount of things that had just happened. "Damn it, that Flandre is such bad news. All this only started happening when she showed up... Besides, why was it only me who got screwed up..?" She thought to herself while starting to chew at her nails. Spirits started coming down below the ground, beelining towards Alice and Mystia's positions. "Enough already!" Mystia shouted as she wantonly shot bullets towards them.

Some of the bullets connected, but it didn't really matter and the spirits fired down onto them anyways. Alice stood and fired back in a more collected manner, but the amount of spirits in the cave now were now far too many.

"Keine, how far does this cave go?" Alice asked quickly. "Half of it caved in around here, so not far..." Keine responded.

Mystia suddenly got an idea, and dove behind Keine and Alice, shouting for them to cover her. The two were confused, but obliged anyways, having trust in their partner. Mystia put one of her ears to the floor and closed her eyes. She started listeng closely, trying to weave through the chaos. Through the sounds of bullets colliding, cats moving anxiously, spirits moving around and clothing getting torn, she manages to pinpoint someone's footsteps.

Mystia got up and takes Keine's arm, to her initial shock, but pointed it towards the area she heard the sound coming from. Mystia pressed her hand tightly against Keine's, letting her emotions take over. Keine gathers as much remaining energy within her as possible, charging up a large attack to end this quickly.

While holding off the spirits, Alice looks back, worried about the situation. "If this fails, Keine can't fight anymore. Then this might become a big pain..." She thought to herself.

Keine fired an almost laser-like large bullet up at the ceiling, piercing through the ceiling of the cave, letting the rain and built up water flow down, along with some more cats and the upper half of Orin.

Orin fell down into the cavern, still alive but unable to do anything except be immensely confused and panicked. As she falls, the spirits dim and cease their attacking, and the sound of cats loudly meowing and running away, now suddenly wet, can be heard. The three breathed a sigh of relief as Mystia helped Keine sit down. "Don't relax yet, there's still one more." Alice said. "In the meantime..." She quickly ran over to Orin's helpless body and took out some string.

"H-hey... what are ya' planning to do with that?" Orin asked nervously. Alice stared into her with dead eyes, saying "Don't worry. You'll get the rest of your body back later. Maybe." Orin tried to move her arms at Alice, but they were already getting tied by some of her dolls. Alice finished the job by quickly tying her mouth and eyes shut and leaving her struggling as she walked away.

"Are you two injured anywhere?" Alice asked, but the two of them shook their heads. Suddenly, someone jumped down from the hole. The three looked towards the figure who had jumped down, it was the one from the shadows. She was smaller than Orin, but had the same cat ears and tails with a fierce, serious look on her face. However, she seemed injured, bleeding from the arms and head. "My name is Chen. I control the cats of this area... but I won't need them to get rid of yo-"

There was a loud bang that reverberated throughout the cave. The girl who called herself Chen fell to the ground forming a pool of blood from the head as cats from around the area scurried away. The three and Orin looked around in confusion. Suddenly a voice and footsteps came from the direction as the three tried to prepare themselves. "Well, well..." The voice said, slowly stepping into the light. It was a somewhat tall woman with blonde, medium length hair wearing a red bow that had cherries sticking out. She carried an erhu upside down, with its bow in her other hand smoking. She had a white blouse with red patterns lining it and a long red hakama. She had a stern look on her face, moving her eyes from person to person staring at each other eerily.

After a moment where only the sound of the rain could be heard, she simply said "...Be gone with the clouds and wipe this place from your memories." Her voice was almost whisper-like, being calming yet commanding and ominous at the same time.

"D-Damn it... I fucked up..." Orin thought to herself. She began motioning her fingers and started to cut the wire quietly.

"Who are you?" Alice said confidently, unaware of Orin's impending escape. She didn't care, however, thinking to herself "She shot that instrument like a gun, completely different from our danmaku. This woman's dangerous... let's see what I can get out of her."

"Alice! What are you doing?!" Mystia shouted at her as Keine simply looked on, but Alice ignored her.

Alice and the mysterious woman glared at each other, with Alice starting to think to prepare for another attack. However, the woman simply turned her head and body and started walking away, saying "Must you make me repeat myself? I'll repeat it back to you in a language you can understand: get lost."

Alice took a step forward and started motioning to summon her dolls. "Hey, I'm not done with you!" She shouted out, starting to channel magical energy around her. She gathered energy to shoot out a cluster of quickly moving bullets towards her target, and a second after she was knocked down by Mystia onto the floor, causing her to shout out "What are you doing?!"

The woman didn't even turn around to deflect the bullets, summoning two barely visible, transluscent figures from behind her which caused the bullets to scatter around her, protecting her. They disappeared the moment after.

Alice kicked and struggled to get Mystia off, with Mystia pleading to her "Enough with engaging fights! We can't continue like this!" The two looked at each other for a moment, with Mystia continuing, saying "She's clearly beyond our paygrade. Let's find some other route."

"You two continue by yourselves then! I can feel it now, this woman is our target." Alice shouted back. Mystia was left speechless, watching Alice pick herself up and start walking towards the mysterious woman. Keine put her hand onto Mystia's shoulder, whispering to her "Let her figure herself out. We shouldn't stay here..."

Mystia attempted to help Keine onto her shoulders as she looked sorrowly at Alice preparing herself to attack again. She jumped off the ground and started flying up to the surface against the heavy rain pouring down onto Chen's still twitching body, with her slowly picking her head up.

Alice trailed behind the woman with neither of them saying anything, observing her with great interest. "I can feel it... we're on the right path to something big." Alice reverberated to herself. "You, do you even have a destination? There's almost no light here." She said out loud.

With that, the woman stopped walking, and so did Alice, with there being a few meters of space between them. Again, not a word was exchanged between them. "Normally when you have guests, you answer them. Or are you another vagabond like those cats?" Alice said with a more frustrated tone.

"You are an uninvited guest, and thus a trespasser. You should concern yourself more with your friends on the surface. I have no intent to fight you." The woman replied.

"So you do own the town." Alice said back, ignoring everything else. "I want to offer you a deal: If you would be so kind as to answer some questions of mine, I'll leave you be and not speak a word of this town. Would you be so kind as to entertain the thought?"

The woman sighed and turned around. Alice felt herself growing excited as the woman opened her mouth to speak. "This site is formerly a town built around a sacred religious site, and has since been turned into a burial ground for the former Hakurei Shrine Maidens. I hold no ties to society and only came to check here because of the intense ruckus. None of you three or those two criminals serve a purpose here. Now, away with you." The woman said as she turned around to walk away again.

"Wait, that isn't what I wanted to know." Alice called out again. "You work for the Yama, is that correct?"

"That is of no importance to you." The woman said back.

"Then I'll force it out of you!" Alice shouted out as she started running towards the woman.

The woman turned around and started to brace herself for Alice's upcoming attack. Alice revealed several dolls holding knives and spears, shouting out "Malediction: Dolls' War!"

Alice fired off a burst of these dolls while throwing some others behind her into the darkness. The dolls lunged at the woman's throat as Alice grinned. "That's right, show me your 'temperament.' Show me what you're capable of..!"

Alice watched as two translucent arms appeared in front of the woman right before the dolls would have impacted. These arms were connected to two different women. While barely visible, one of these women were blonde with dark, frilly clothing decorated in crosses. The other woman was a chinese looking girl with white and red clothing and dark hair, with a star in the center of her red cap. The arms smacked away the initial wave of dolls, however shortly after, the second wave of dolls raced down into the woman.

The mysterious woman grit her teeth. The two girls surrounding her were too slow, and the dolls impacted her. However, instead of pierced and cut, the weapons on the dolls had turned into flowers, and thus they only hit her head with enough force to knock her to the ground.

The woman raised her head in surrender while putting her other on her now slightly bleeding head as Alice's dolls went back to floating around her. "P-please stop..." The woman asked. Alice looked confusedly at her.

"Huh? I thought you were stronger than that. Are you trying to fool me?" Alice said slightly disappointedly.

The woman picked herself up. "You haven't felt it then. That makes sense... the only one who did was that night sparrow."

The two of them emerged out of the hole. Keine and Mystia let out a sigh of relief, and Keine undid her ability, releasing the hole and turning the terrain of the road back to normal.

Inside of a house, Keine artificially created a torch as the woman dusted herself off and Mystia and Alice helped tie bandages around each other. Finally, the woman started speaking.

"Night sparrow, your name was... Mystia, correct?" The woman asked. Mystia shook her head.

The woman took a deep breath, continuing with "I work with the Yama to monitor this place. My name is... Rin Satsuki."

The three exchanged glances with each other as Rin continued.

"Around a week ago, the barrier started fluctuating. At first it only affected the spirits and humans. However, its effects inverted, starting to affect the youkai of Gensokyo. The closer the target was to the barrier, the worse its effects were. At present, only myself and the night sparrow, Mystia, seem to be affected. The reason for this is we were born youkai." Rin continued.

"And about those cats?" Keine interrupted. "Were those formerly human as well?"

Rin put her hand onto her chin. "I recognize one of them as being a shikigami of the sages, I'm not sure what happened there. The other... Do you remember how Mystia seemed to make all of you go insane earlier? This was a result of her ability being turned berserk from the barrier. They say a night sparrows' singing can turn others insane, but..."

Mystia made a more frustrated look, saying "What are you talking about? Firstly, my singing is excellent. Secondly, I wouldn't start singing during a fight."

"Right... I discovered a technique to prevent abilities from us born youkai going fully berserk, however it isn't practical and why I did not intend on fighting... Alice, I believe?" Rin continued. "You can only use it weakly, or concentrate what you can in a quick burst. That's how I defeated one of those criminals hiding out earlier, and I believe what one or both of them were doing. I had hoped it would scare you all away, however..."

Keine interjected, saying "Most of the leading figures of Gensokyo are unable to act due to outside figures. Are the yama and sages unable to repair the barrier?"

"Precisely." Rin responded. "I don't work for the sages or yama, nor am I friends with them or the Hakurei. I've stayed here for the last 500 years or so as a side hobby while I conduct research, and only from it I awakened my ability around five years ago. Since then, I haven't heard from any of the authorities at all. I thought to investigate myself, however..."

Rin flashed a hint of her ability again, showing the translucent outlines of the two women for a second. "My ability is called Descending Red. It controls the wind and flowers. Needless to say, without training, it is somewhat impractical for combat on its own. Even if I had my own strength to rely on, whenever the mere thought of investigating popped into my mind, I was filled with dread. I kept telling myself I must train and study, or I'd be killed. I was effectively kept a prisoner of my own home..."

"I-I see..." Alice said, as Mystia started fiddling with her fingers.

"Hold on." Keine said again. "Five years? The climax of the incident was five years ago. If the barrier is this ingrained with its functions, someone aside from the sage in charge of it must be tampering with it. The awakening and strengthening of these abilities are probably its side effects...."

"It has to be Reimu." Mystia suddenly perked up. "If she's working with the masterminds, then it would make sense, as she's the only non-sage who can manipulate it. Five years ago, she opened the barrier so that the mastermind vampires could execute their plans. My ability evolved around the same time our Flandre says she entered the world..." Rin had a confused look on her face from the unfamiliar name, prompting Mystia to say "...She's a vampire without memories who was discovered a few days ago. We believe her to be connected to everything going on."

"I myself saw someone unfamiliar flying in the night around a week ago." Alice said. "I wrote it off as being some youkai, but thinking about it, the girl looked very similar to Flandre. You may very well have a point..."

Mystia said to all of them "What should we do? Should we continue to visit the Yama, or confront Reimu directly?"

Rin scoffed, saying back "Even I who has been secluded from society have heard of Reimu. You three currently stand no chance of defeating her. If you can, try to visit the Yama. I'm certain her advice would be more valuable than mine. Perhaps you could also check on the barrier as well."

"No chance?" Alice asked. "What if you join us then? It would be a four on one, plus two of our allies who aren't here."

Rin sighed, saying back "Impossible. I will be of no assistance, nor do I have interest in putting myself in unnecessary danger. Aside from that, the Hakurei Shrine is right on the border. Until further notice, the hypothetical friend and Mystia, and if the other two are born youkai, are banned from using any abilities they may have. I suspect our temperaments may also be involved, however this is something I will have to research myself..."

Alice looked disappointed for a moment, but patted around in her clothing for a moment before pulling out one of her walkie talkies and handed it to Rin, explaining "This is a communications
device. Tell us any new information you get and we'll recieve it, just talk into it while pressing this button. If you refuse to help us physically, I won't press you for it, but something tells me you'll prove to be or more help than you think."

Rin stared at the walkie-talkie for a moment, and accepted it without changing her serious look. "...I understand." She said. "I believe there is nothing of significance further to discuss. You are free to continue your trip. I shall clean up your mess in the meanwhile."

The three made a slightly guilty look after the last sentence, but nodded and started preparing to head out.

The four stood facing each other outside the door, just barely protected by the harsh rain as Keine created three umbrellas for their group. Rin said to the three with a broom in hand, "My home is beyond this village by the Garden of the Sun. If you need me, I shall be there."

"Thank you for your service." Keine said to her as she bowed. The other two bowed after her, and started turning to leave after Keine handed all of them their umbrellas.

As they were turning, Rin's parting words were "You have a Qilin's blessings," said as Alice saw what looked to be a hint of a horn sticking out from the protection of Rin's oversized hairbow. Alice swallowed saliva and continued walking, as Keine started relaying the information they had recieved to Flandre and Medicine.

"The spirits seem to be back to normal now..." Alice thought to herself. "This place... it reminds me too much of that place. That place... Makai..."

...

...

...

"Dammit..." Orin thought to herself, stuck in the darkness of the cave still but just barely able to see. Her body's history had returned to normal with some injuries, and she had assumed her cat form again. Orin stood in Chen's pool of blood, who was still breathing.

"That's sure is a nasty hole in your head... dammit... be strong. I know your master very well 'is." Orin said to Chen. "I'll get revenge on all of 'em. I promise you. You'll recover 'an we'll get 'em all. I'll even call my own allies in..."

Chapter Text

Medicine looked behind while walking with Flandre as Keine, Alice, Mystia and eventually Yuuka disappeared past the terrain and into the slowly growing darkness.

"Ahh, what a day, isn't it?" Medicine asked. She put her hand out, feeling some raindrops. Flandre opened her umbrella and put it over herself, motioning to Medicine to join her. "The first time I'm leaving the garden's turned into a real pain." Medicine said again.

Flandre said back "Every moment since I've waken up, I've been busy either fighting or worrying about somebody else's life. If this is all there is to life, maybe I'll put down my umbrella now..."

"What do you mean?" Medicine asked, to which Flandre replied with "Running water or rain hurts us, so I'll die."

"Hey, don't say that..." Medicine replied with a somewhat sad tone. "At least now, we should be able to relax. We shouldn't run into anything more than the fairies..."

"Hmm..." Flandre said monotonely. She stared at the ground as she walked, breaking the silence by saying "By the way, I haven't eaten at all since I woke up. Is there anywhere we can get food from? Preferrably humans."

"I don't need to eat or take in nutrients, so don't know." Medicine replied. "It's a long walk, so we'll definitely find something. Do you know how long you can go without blood?"

"No idea." Flandre said, "I don't really feel hungry yet, but I'll probably feel it soon enough..."

The two continued walking as the sky grew darker, with Medicine sharing bits of random, unconnected information about Gensokyo and her life as Flandre listened attentively.

"...Honey is a type of food that will never spoil, so you should never be afraid to eat it." Medicine informed.

"Yes, that fact I remember..." Flandre replied, with a concentrated look on her face.

"Tetrodoxin is one of the types of poison found in pufferfish where even eating just a little can kill a human. Professionally trained chefs, however, can make it safe for humans to eat." Medicine shared.

"Fascinating!" Flandre said back with a surprised face and tone.

"...So that's why you should always treat tools kindly, like that strange object of yours. I don't really know what it is but, you'll really regret it if you let it grow into a tsukumogami." Medicine concluded.

"I understand... thank you." Flandre said. She felt a bit of jostling within her clothes and the two stopped walking. Flandre felt around her clothes and pulled out the walkie-talkie. "A message? Already?" Flandre said.

"Flandre, Medicine, can you hear me?" The walkie-talkie squawked.

"Yes, is that you, Keine?" Flandre replied back.

"Have you two had any difficulties or encounters so far?" Keine said back without answering the question as Flandre and Medicine exchanged glances after.

"...No, we've just been talking, but the rain's getting worse. Flandre can see well in the dark, but my eyesight isn't so good..." Medicine replied. The two of them had to talk quite loudly due to the intensity of the rain hitting the umbrella, with Flandre shivering a little out of fear from the umbrella's potential to tear, along with bits of water getting on her skirt and flowing around her shoes through the grass. Medicine looked worried for her.

"That's good..." Keine said back. "Listen, what I'm about to tell you is very important. Please give me your undivided attention." Flandre and Medicine nodded to the walkie-talkie.

"We got attacked by some enemies, however we were able to fend them off. Mystia's ability went berserk and we met an ally who goes by the name Rin Satsuki..."

"Satsuki?" Flandre said to herself.

Keine continued with "She told us that born youkai are being affected from the barrier. If you're close to the barrier, your ability will go berserk. The abandoned mansion is quite close to the barrier, should you encounter anyone, you two are forbidden from using your abilities. Is that clear?"

"What?!" Medicine shouted. "H-how am I supposed to fight then?! Grahh!" Medicine put her hands onto her head in panic as some sweat rolled down the side of Flandre's forehead as she looked at her.

"That should be fine for me..." Flandre said, "But what about my biological abilities as a vampire? Would that be affected too? What about danmaku?"

"We lack the information to say for certain... I would advise you excercise caution if you must, or try to avoid it, but I am unsure." Keine replied.

Medicine had finished her complaining as Flandre said "I see. Thanks." and thought to herself "I should be physically capable enough to defend myself from anything, but what about Medicine..?"

"...Any other news?" Medicine asked. "Ah right, who is this Satsuki person? And who did you get attacked by?"

"Hmm, we were attacked by a gang of cats and their masters, two youkai, but weren't very hard to deal with... Rin Satsuki's an engimatic one, however. She seems to be older than Gensokyo but is completely antisocial. I get the feeling she's much more than she lets on... She appears to be friendly for now, but should you meet her, exercise caution please." Keine explained. "That is all. We are en route to the Yama now. Do you have an estimation for your current position?"

"I can see the lake coming up." Flandre replied. "Is there anything to note over there?" The Sanzu River flowed into the Misty Lake where a forest surrounds it on almost every side except for where the river flows into it. Through the thick mist around the area, due to the rain, the water level of the river and the lake are raised higher than usual.

"Only fairies and mermaids appear on the surface or immediately around the lake regularly. The bigger issue is that it's notable for its unnaturally high mist. Don't circle close to the lake or your field of vision shall get even worse." Keine explained yet again.

"Understood. Pass our regards to Alice and Mystia." Flandre said back.

"Best of luck. Stay safe." Keine concluded as the walkie-talkie clicked and shut off. Flandre put it back into a pocket as the two of them continued walking.

Flandre looked over at Medicine, who was staring ahead blankly, and asked "Are you afraid?"

Medicine nodded back. "Vampires are naturally very strong, but I'm nothing without my poison. I don't want to be just another burden on you, who already's dealing with so much with so little..."

Flandre pouted at this, replying "I don't mind at all, it's okay... besides, I'm sure we'll be fine. If this place is abandoned, the worst we'll see is probably some burglars or something."

"Hmmmmm..." Medicine said in a low tone. "Still... I might just be paranoid, but ever since miss Yuuka explained that story, I've felt like something's watching me..."

Flandre looked at her free, left hand, thinking to herself "We should be far enough away still, right? No, there's nothing I can do yet anyways." Disregarding that, Flandre suddenly stopped walking and curled some Qi around her hand and turned around, firing it slightly far out at the ground in behind the two. "This is a homing shot." Flandre explained. "If there's anything around us, it'll search for it."

Medicine and Flandre watched with interest as the lump in the ground stayed still and eventually melted back flatly into the ground, leaving but a hole, as Flandre took an extra mental approach so that it didn't search for Medicine. "...Seems we're okay." Flandre said.

Medicine made a bashful face, flicking her eyes back and forth from Flandre and the wilderness as they turned around to continue walking, sucking in her lips slightly. "It's a little relieving, but I'm still pretty nervous. I mean, this is the first time I'm both leaving the Garden of the Sun, and the first time I've had a friend besides Su-San and my previous owner, but given the circumstances... I'm scared, Flandre. I would be surprised if you weren't a little scared too."

"Huh..." Flandre said somewhat blankly. "I didn't really think about it... Hmm..."

"Even if you told me you were scared, I don't think it would make me more scared, however." Medicine continued. "I think it might even put me at ease, if just a little... to know I would be on the same wavelength as someone who has nothing to lose - no, as my friend. Ummm, this might be selfish of me, but I have a bit of a request for you, if that's okay..." Medicine said as a blush started forming across her face, fidgeting a little.

"To be honest, I'm scared in case I encounter one of the masterminds. One of my only memories remaining was getting beat by them... I'm in even worse shape now. Oh, I went on a tangent. What do you need?"

"U-um... Can you hold my hand please, for just a moment?" Medicine said through a suddenly squeaky voice, looking at the ground as she talked. "I... I just want reassurance... Ah, n-no, that was too strange. Forget about i-" Medicine stopped as she felt a warm sensation enveloping her hand. She looked over to see Flandre holding her hand and smiling warmly at her, even if just a slight smile, and felt her face get hot.

"I don't plan on losing." Flandre told Medicine. "Whatever happens, we'll get through it. Don't worry."

"Flandre..." Medicine paused, and then she smiled back at her. "Yeah, you're right. We'll get through it. Together."

"I'll have to warn you about one thing though." Flandre said more seriously.

"Hm? What is it?" Medicine replied.

"I don't want you or any of the others misplacing your hopes in me. I'm not some kind of hero of justice or anything, I'm only in this for myself. I'm thankful for your support, but I don't owe anything here aside from my own reasons. Please understand." Flandre said.

Medicine felt dissapointment swelling inside of herself, but said somewhat quietly "It's okay. I understand..."

The two continued walking holding hands as Flandre started explaining what she remembered about the masterminds she encountered, and about her newly gained ability, as the two entered into the area where the river flowed into the lake, staying on the border of where the mist ends.

"...From what I remember, the masterminds were dressed entirely in black, overly complicated clothing. One of them looked like me, the other... um, was like her but with blue hair and different wings." Flandre explained.

"Right." Medicine replied. The loud sounds of the heavy rain drowned out any other potential noises in the area under the dark black and grey sky. While it would have made sense to be especially alert at this time, it seems all thought of combat right now had left the girls' minds.

"I don't know how many there are though, or if it's just them, so be suspicious of anyone you see in there." Flandre continued explaining. "They all give off a super overwhelming aura though. You should feel it from far away."

"Hmm, we should avoid starting fights with anyone there if we can." Medicine replied, "Especially people of their level. In case of something, we can use hand symbols to communicate quietly."

"If I see her again, though, I'm not sure I could hold myself back. But that is a good idea..." Flandre said back.

Medicine smiled to herself as she noticed Flandre's shaking had stopped, and she noticed in herself she felt a little less scared. "Maybe..." Medicine thought to herself, "Maybe she'll change her mind."

"Ah, by the way." Medicine suddenly said, "I noticed it before, but I haven't seen any kind of danmaku like yours before. What is that?"

"Ah..." Flandre said, looking at her hands again. She could see rainbow mist circling around hers and Medicine's arms. "I developed this suddenly yesterday while fighting the Doctor. The term for it is called Qi, but I've decided to call it 'Scarlet Destiny' if everyone else is gonna name their abilities."

"Qi? What is that?" Medicine asked.

"You don't see it, then? I guess that would make sense. I think it's some kind of representation of life energy, but I can shoot it as my fingers and control it, but it's hard. It takes a lot of energy..."

"As your finger?"

"My finger gets turned into the bullet like it's filled with the stuff, but after it's done it regenerates into me like nothing ever happened. Weird right?" Flandre giggled.

"But what's even weirder," Flandre continued, "I got it after passing out. I saw a dream..." The vision she saw of the woman came back to her. This time, it seemed slightly less blurry than before. She could see the colors of the flowers, and tears within the Qi tornado surrounding the woman in green. She could even start making out details of the two peoples' clothing and hair, however, neither of them had any facial features at all - like a blank slate. "...I'm not sure what to make of it, but I can tell it's important. It's one of my 'memories,' I'm sure!"

"How bizarre..." Medicine said.

The Misty Lake was one of those lakes that seemed much larger than it actually was, only stretching about 5km, with the Mansion facing the lake behind a few trees where the forest starts about 3km in.

"Can you fly?" Flandre asked Medicine. "We need to cross the river now."

"No. My body isn't very well suited for motion, and flying for regular youkai takes a lot of practice..." Medicine replied.

"Hmm... Grab onto me, then." Flandre said, looking at the jostling river water.

"Huh?" Medicine said with a somewhat surprised look on her face.

"No, wait." Flandre thought to herself, looking back at her wings. "These are already taking some energy to suppress. If I flap them to fly, the rain will definitely hit them and cause an issue. Maybe I can jump across with her? But I don't think I could jump that high with her, and then my legs would get all scratched up from the recoiling water. Damnit..."

"Hold on." Flandre said. She took her hand off of Medicine's, to her dismay. "Medicine, can you hold the umbrella for a moment?" Medicine nodded and took it from her, and Flandre lifted her arm in the air, with Medicine watching. Flandre took out her Clock Corpse and wrapped her arm and the weapon in rainbow mist. "What exactly am I hoping to achieve here..?" Flandre asked herself while thinking.

Flandre walked towards the river with Medicine speeding up to follow her, anxiously carrying the umbrella overhead, with her asking "Where are you going?"

Flandre stopped right before the water and the dirt met and looked at the ground with her Clock Corpse in both her hands, pointed straight down. Medicine watched as Flandre held it up overhead, and plunged it straight down into the earth. Even Medicine could see as Rainbow mist violently jolted around Flandre's arms and Clock Corpse like electricity, and went down into the ground and cut through the river. The electric-like rainbow mist went down to the bottom of the river and started splitting the water apart, at first only a few centimeters, but slowly widening.

"What?! The river's splitting like in that one western myth about that prophet!" Medicine shouted.

"Medicine... put the Umbrella on me... look, my wings can grab it..." Flandre said through heavy pants. Sweat was running down her face and she was breathing heavily from the immense amount of power getting exerted. Medicine watched as Flandre's wings coiled themselves up on her back making a type of stand for the umbrella hilt to go in. She could see her own reflection in the crystals.

"Got it!" Medicine said and quickly put the umbrella into Flandre's wings. She ran down and through the rivers bottom with just enough space for her to pass through, with her looking inside the water as she ran and eventually made it up to the other side.

The sanzu rivers width is said to be incalculable by all except the shinigami and the top minds of Gensokyo, however, this is only so at certain crossing points in the right location, such as Mayohiga. In regular parts of Gensokyo such as around the lake, it is but a regular river, only across ten meters across.

Flandre removed her Clock Corpse from the ground and smiled as she saw Medicine waving to her from across the river. She continued kneeling slightly on herself to catch her breath.

"Shit... it feels like someone knocked the wind out of me... this ability isn't very sustainable... but, I need more information. I can't get information unless I keep using it..!" Flandre thought to herself.

Suddenly realizing Medicine was still being hilted by the rain, she prepared herself and took a few steps back with caution to prevent stepping in any water. Flandre ran forward and jumped highly over the river, landing right next to Medicine and quickly inviting her in.

"Flandre, that was so cool!" Medicine said happily as she took the umbrella from Flandre. "You split the river! I could even see the 'qi' you were talking about! What a cool ability!"

Flandre coughed for a moment and said "...Yeah." Medicine's mood quickly fell as she saw Flandre standing shakily, leveraging her weight onto the clock corpse that dug into the ground as some blood tricked from her arms. "...Did you get wet?" Flandre asked.

"No, but, what happened to your arms? They're bleeding!" Medicine said back.

"Ah..." Flandre looked at her arms without much concern. "That was the first time I did anything like that. It took a lot of energy from me, so I couldn't hold my body together well enough and some of the raindrops grazed me... but it doesn't hurt much. It's okay."

"Here." Medicine said. She took out the first-aid kit that was wrapped around her back like a bag and wrapped Flandre's arms quickly, stopping the bleeding.

"Thank you." Flandre said, looking at the bandages flipping her arms.

Medicine smiled while putting away her materials and the two continued walking around the lake.

"They say a terrifying youkai lives at the bottom of this lake, the 'master of the lake,' but he's so deep down only fish can get down there. They say he's the source of the mist here." Medicine explained while walking.

"Interesting.. Has anyone ever seen them?" Flandre asked.

"No. It could be a local myth from the humans." Medicine replied.

"I see... Ah, I see it!" Flandre said, pointing to the top of a large spire poking out from the trees. It was heavily obscured by the darkness and rain, barely visible.

"Great! Let's hurry on then." Medicine replied.

After a bit of walking, the two finally came across the path leading down to the front gate.

"...This lake's mist really is eerie, isn't it..." Flandre said. "I'm glad we didn't run into anything..."

"Look look, down this path is the front gate. Do you think anyone's there?" Medicine asked.

Flandre watched her hand as she squeezed it shut. She could still see bits of rainbow mist floating around her hand slowly. "I don't know... I guess this is the point where we need to stop relying on our abilities, though. Stay alert..."

The two walked along the winding road as the large mansion started to cover more and more of their field of vision. No lights or hints of life in the mansion were present in what few windows it had, nor along the road or path. Both Flandre and Medicine looked around nervously while watching, anticipating a potential enemy.

At last, they came across the front gate of the mansion. It was a large iron gate with an oriental design stretching ten meters wide and five meters tall, with a large iron gate drawing a perimeter across the mansion's gardens with large brick structures seperating parts of the gate into 10-meter sections. A bare dirt spot stood squarely in front of it.

Medicine stated "What an overwhelming presence... I never imagined there was a place like this in Gensokyo, even miss Yuuka's place isn't this big. But look, it's getting quite decrepit. I guess nobody's been taking care of this place for a while... How are we supposed to get in?"

Flandre looked up and down the gate, handing the umbrella to Medicine and asking "Can you hold this for me?" to which Medicine took the umbrella and replied "Sure."

Flandre walked up to the front of the gate where the bare patch of dirt was, with Medicine trailing behind. She muttered Medicine "This place doesn't feel right at all..." and started preparing her fists.

Flandre launched an all out punching attack on the gate, hitting it over and over again with rapid speed as if there were a tornado in her arms. Medicine looked on with shock as Flandre unleashed the full potential of a vampire's speed and strength onto the gate, and after a few seconds, the gate had the lower section bend and warped to where it created a suitable walkway for the two and their umbrella, and the middle and top section where the gate was locked had its locking mechanism snap, having the gate further open itsself up slightly.

Flandre paused for a moment after to catch her breath and deal with the stinging pain of her knuckles. She looked back on Medicine, whos jaw was wide open, and said to her "...The steel bars looked too thick to cut with the Clock Corpse, so I had to do this instead. Was it too loud for you?"

"N-no..." Medicine said quietly. "Well, let's keep going..."

The mansion's front door had at its middle a large spire that stretched to the highest point and had a large clock on all its sides, with two smaller spires on opposite sides of the mansions front from the front spire, and two other spires of nearly the same height as the original at the mansions' two extremities. A red brick roofing lay utop the white-painted mansion front walls which had started cracking and developing moss. Across the front between the mansion itsself and the gate had gardens with an extreme array of both natural and experimental botanical exhibits stretching from five meters from the main walkway all the way to the endpoints of the gates on either side, where the iron walls had become brick-and-wall patterned like the mansions on the corners for a few meters on either direction.

And it was then, while Medicine and Flandre were walking down the last stretch of the walkway Flandre had looked at one of these corners. "Hold on, there's no way..." she thought to herself, looking at the corner on the right. "It's the exact same one!" She shouted out. Flandre then put her hand on her head, feeling an extremely sharp pain which she yelled out from, and collapsed to the floor, blacking out.

She had seen another vision.

Chapter Text

It was a foggy, desolate land. Both the sky and the rocky ground were a drab grey, and a sharp breeze blew across the terrain. A single figure walked alone in this field, wearing a very large straw hat and large, thick green robes waving in the wind. Under the shadow was a single aqua blue eye open under some strands of orange hair. The wind picked up in intensity against the direction she was walking in, yet she continued walking anyways, towards no forseeable destination or direction.

Eventually, she came across a cave hidden deep within, and entered. It was dark, but offered protection against the intense wind. She reached inside her robe and took out a large stick, and without moving, lit it like a torch. She continued walking down the cave in silence, only hearing the echoes of her footsteps and breathing reverberating against the walls.

After a bit of walking, she came across the end of the tunnel with two small, winged figures sitting in silence, playing cards, and the two of them looked up at her expectedly. This sentiment was not shared with the wanderer, who looked down on them with cold eyes, and asked in an equally cold tone "You. Are you the demons of the Wudang?"

"...Who?" The girl with blue hair and a pink dress responded. She had a pair of bat wings on her back.

The woman in the robes tipped her hat downwards, and said "So that is your response. I apologize, however, I must eliminate you now."

The girl with blonde hair and a red dress said back "...Sis, do you want me to take care of her?" Her wings looked like sticks with crystals of the rainbow hanging from them.

"No." The girl with blue hair responded as she stood up. "You don't know how to deal with humans, but first... You, remove your hat." She pointed to the robed woman.

"I have no obligation to respond to you, however, I will not attack first. That is my rule." The robed woman responded.

The girl with blonde hair put her cards down and put her hands behind her head, reclining on the wall. The girl with blue hair stomped her foot down, which shot some red arrows out from under the ground. The robed woman reclined herself, and the arrows hit the front of her straw hat, knocking it off her head and onto the floor.

The robed woman rushed in to counterattack, but the blue haired girl had flown up with her bat wings and stood upside-down on the cave wall, looking at the robed woman. The two stared down at each other, one in slight curiosity, and the other in annoyance.

"You- get down." The robed woman said as she started up. The girl with blonde hair put her finger on her lips. The girl with blue hair chuckled, saying "Ah, you're that... mercenary, aren't you? Or maybe you're just a wanderer..."

The robed woman let out a stern "hmph" and grabbed the hat to put it back on her head. She grasped her torch with both of her hands and started charging up an attack - leading to rainbow mist with such intensity streaks of it were visible even to the two girls. It circled around and increased in volume and speed, with the woman aiming it at the girl on the ceiling.

"It's like my wings..." The blonde girl said, leaning in with interest. The blue haired girl, too leaned in and reached her hand into the flames, to the robed woman's shock, and said "We were watching you for a while. You're an interesting human, you know." The girl took her hand, now burning, out of the fire and waved it in the air to extinguish it. "This fire isn't-"

Her monologue was interrupted when a burst of rainbow energy like a laser erupted out of the torch like a futuristic gun. It shot straight into the blue haired girls' face, knocking her backwards into the ceiling, and dissipated after a moment. The blonde girl had no reaction besides tilting her head sideways, still staring intently at the robed woman.

The blue haired girl fell from a small crater on the ceiling onto the floor, and picked herself up. Despite having a charred face, slightly burnt hair and a nosebleed, she had a smile and simply dusted off her clothes, saying "You've got guts, you know. A regular human wouldn'-"

"Must demons always endlessly talk? Take this seriously!" She was interrupted by the now angry robed woman, who took off her hat and threw it like a frisbee. Rainbow mist circled around it as it flew, and it cut into the stone as if it were butter. The rainbow mist traveled through the hat into the crack and towards the blue haired girl in a loud CHK-CHK-CHK noise, making a hump in the ground. The blue haired girl looked down on it, letting her smile fade and jumped in the air, turning into a bat and flying away from it.

However, the robed woman charged up a punch, with the most amount of rainbow energy thus far being displayed, even being visible to the others around her, and punched forward into the air. A moment later, the bat form of the girl was knocked into the wall, and she transformed back on the floor, looking even more injured than before. The robed woman reached inside of her robe and pulled out a silver kunai, with a kudzu flower and stem wrapped around it. She charged it with rainbow mist energy and threw it aimed directly to the blue haired girls' heart, and turned to face the blonde girl, looking somewhat disappointed.

However, instead of hearing flesh being penetrated, she instead heard metal clinking. She cautiously turned around, bearing note that the blonde girl did not show any signs of wanting to attack. The blue haired girl had caught the kunai straight between her fingertips, smiling. The robed girl watched in awe as it crumbled into dust, hearing the voice of the blonde haired girl giggling behind her.

The robed woman felt a burning desire in her stomach to try the fight again, however, the blue haired girl simply turned around and dusted off her clothes, still smiling, saying "You've already accepted your defeat, haven't you?"

Even surprising herself, the robed woman was taken aback by this dismissive response, and stopped, grit her teeth, and asked slightly shakily "Pray tell, what do you mean? Do you not wish to kill me?" There was no response, and she got even angrier. The girl with blonde hair said from behind her "My sis, Remi, hates being direct, so I'll say it for her. She doesn't like killing interesting humans, and prefers trying to recruit them, but they usually end up as food anyways." She smirked, saying "You should consider yourself lucky."

"Thank you, Flan." The blue haired girl said in a slightly annoyed tone while getting up. The robed woman turned her head to look at her regenerating all her wounds. The nosebleed dried up and the burns on her skin faded.

The robed woman grimaced, saying "I am but a nameless mercenary. I only work for money. I hold no loyalties and have betrayed all that hired me. Still, I will never answer to demons such as yourselves. Kill me now instead of this nonsense.

The blue haired girl, who seems to be called Remi, frowned at this, saying "Hmm? What's with the sudden loss of energy?"

The blonde haired girl, who seems to be calld Flan, also pitched in with "You know, I think you're closer to us than you realize."

"That's right..." The robed girl said. "No other human is as isolated from others as I, who has spent my entire life to Tai Chi. I come from a bloodline of its masters, however I was forced to learn in secret and outcast due to being a rejected by my family. That's why I bear the moniker of the Demon of the Wudang."

"And yet you still despise youkai?" Remi asked.

"That's right." The robed woman responded.

However, Remi and Flan shared a smirk, and Remi said to her "Would you like to know a secret then?"

"No, I would like you to kill me." The robed woman replied sternly. "Humans are nothing but pigs wearing human clothing. This life is not for me."

Remi completely ignored this, however, answering her own question: "Us youkai only exist because of human belief. I only came to realize this not long ago. In short, if you stop believing in us, we would disappear. However!" She pointed straight at her, "I can't guarantee you won't disappear as well."

The mercenary was clearly taken aback by this and confused, whether or not to trust her. The possibility that she was correct weighed on her considerable.

"Good grief Remi, I told you to stop speaking in code, there's no need for formality right now." Flan continued. "Youkai are created through human ostracization and fear. We're young, but because of this humans have been turning into youkai for millenia. For someone as feared and mysterious as you, with as much power as you have, for a human at least, there's nothing seperating us."

"I was getting there!" Remi whined, but the robed woman collapsed to her hands and knees, and Remi quickly regained herself. "Feeling your last shreds of humanity slip away? To tell you the truth, we were only passing by. I stopped here because humans who can use any type of supernatural ability are growing rarer and rarer, so I took an interest in you. To tell you the truth, if you were a bit stronger, you could start harvesting the power of the sun and actually threaten vampires like us. We have a mansion back in Europe, and we were thinking to move out, but we need some workers and-"

"Why?" The robed woman asked quietly.

Remi pouted, saying "It's rude to cut off people while they're talki-"

"Why me?" The robed woman continued again. "I will die. I've always known this is an inevitability, I would not be remembered. I don't even have a name. Why are you doing this to me?"

The two sisters smiled again, and came together. Remi held out her hand and created a bright, fluctuating red light as the robed woman looked up, saying "My name is Remilia Scarlet, a vampire. I can manipulate fate. Will you entertain me and heed this call to join in an unholy pact between Human and Youkai? Or be sentenced to the dustbowl of history forever?"

Tears streamed down the robed woman's cheeks as she reached her hand out to Remilia's. Her screams were inhuman as she quickly underwent an internal metamorphosis, letting go of her last scraps of humanity. The red light clasped between their hands grew exceedingly brightened, lighting up the entire cave and even going outside of it, but Remilia and Flan simply smiled and watched as she submitted herself to them. As they were being swallowed by the light, Remilia said to her "Your name shall be Hong, after my own surname, and Meiling, after Hong Mei." The hat and robes on Meiling's head were thrown back and her flowing orange hair became more reddish.

The three were completely swallowed up by the light, and everything eventually seceded back to dark and quietness. The only proof of something having happened in the cave were craters, a deck of cards, and some mist that dispersed throughout the air.

...

...

"...Flandre!" Flandre had felt in her heard. "Flandre, Flandre! Please tell me you're still alive..!" It was the sound of Medicine's voice.

Flandre slowly opened her eyes and rubbed them, putting her hands on her head afterward, and asked "Did something.. happen..?"

Flandre found herself suddenly embraced under the resting umbrella by Medicine. She sheepishly hugged her back, and then realized what had happened as she was sitting on the path. Flandre started coughing heavily and uncontrollably, and turned her head away from Medicine to throw up. She looked back up at the corner of the garden to see what had happened, and connected the dots.

"What happened?!" Medicine asked. "You were asleep for almost ten minutes! I was so worried I started crying..." Medicine still had watery eyes and unwiped streams running down her cheeks.

After Flandre felt herself feeling a little better, she turned back to look at Medicine, grabbed the umbrella and stood up, saying "I'll explain inside. We can't spend more time out here."

...

The two walked up and were able to open the main door, which seemed to be unlocked, with ease. The huge double doors opened in front of them and they walked in, with the doors closing slowly on their own behind them.

"...This is just a thought, but I came up with something just now." Flandre said, still holding her head. "Medicine, hold the crystals on my wings and give me the umbrella."

Medicine was confused but obliged, holding together the tips of a red and pink crystal by the tips of Flandre's left wing while Flandre shook the closed umbrella of rain. Medicine said "Did the colors of these crystals change? When I first saw you, these were cyan and yellow. What does it mean?"

"Did it? I have no idea." Flandre said. She thought about the makeshift torch Meiling had made in her vision, but she couldn't use the qi here. She wanted to start a fire using any nearby wood, however, looking around, there was too much water damage across the mansion for anything to be usable. "She told me not to do this, but, maybe if I just do it a little, it should be fine..." She thought to herself. Flandre funneled a small amount of Qi through the umbrella, lighting it like a torch. It 'burnt' faintly, and Flandre moved her wing slowly closer to her front without warning, with Medicine following on short notice.

"To be honest, I have no idea what these are at all, but I can fly with them still." Flandre continued, transferring the torch-like umbrella to her left hand. She noted that it did not burn the umbrella. Next, she moved her arm and the umbrella behind it, and put the tip up to the crystals, which made its colored lights help in lighting up the entrance and main hallway of the mansion, particularly in the directions the diamond-shaped crystals were facing.

"Woah!" Medicine said, looking around. The mansion was decrepet. Cobwebs hung between the corners, the walls were all dirty and dusted - with even some of the paint peeling off. Random litter was drawn throughout the facility, and water damage stains were commonplace. Insects and rats scurried back to the darkness from where the light shone, and lightning and thunder could be seen and heard from outside the few windows of the building. The lobby itsself, however, featured many different doors leading down different corridors.

"What a mess." Medicine said, looking around. "Do you think there's anything useful here?"

Flandre looked sternly, putting her hand on her lip. "Your fingers on my wings feel the same as skin on my fingernails. It's interesting." And with that, she started to walk down the main hall, with Medicine following without further questioning the random statement.

Going down the wide hallway, mold stretched from door to door. Even to a living doll like Medicine, the smell and aura was putrid. The whole building was like a rotting corpse, causing Medicine, as the two approached the kitchen, to say "I should be used to this, but even this is a bit much..."

The scene was very similar inside the kitchen, and rats scurried away as the two stepped in. Beside the kitchen was the dining room, featuring huge dining table with some of its chairs knocked over or missing. Flandre grit her teeth and held the umbrella tightly, even shaking a little. "Medicine, I have a very bad feeling about this place. We shouldn't stay here for long."

"Right." Medicine responded. The two continued walking in a different direction through the halls, featuring broken windows, doors, busts and the like, and they eventually made their way below ground. She got a little closer to Flandre as she walked, making Su-San help hold the crystals as she put her hand on Flandre's arm. It soothed Flandre's trembling. "Poor Flandre..." Medicine thought to herself. "I can't imagine how she feels right now if what Miss Yuuka said was true. I want to get out of here myself as well..."

"I swear, the next time I see that version of myself, I might bust bust a nerve." Flandre thought to herself, combing over the events of the last few days. "Looks like a library's up next." She said, looking up. "Do you know how to read?"

"Not really." Medicine replied. "I know individual words, but putting together sentences is beyond my capabilities."

"That's fine." Flandre said. "All the useful books are probably gone by now anyhow."

Entering the library, some of the bookshelves were knocked over, and many of the books were missing or otherwise damaged. However, the room itsself was quite well-lit, with candles on nightstands beside the walls and bookshelves staying lit. Medicine let go of Flandre's wings and Flandre retreated the umbrella into mist.

"Candles? Could someone be here?" Medicine asked.

"Likely so. Let's stay quiet and avoid going in." Flandre whispered back.

The moldy red carpet with its thick smell helped mask the sounds of Flandre and Medicine's footsteps. While the room wasn't well-lit, looking up, some of the bookshelves seemed to go miles high despite what should be the mansions' limits. In fact, both of them noticed that this library seemed to be much bigger than the mansion itsself.

Walking around for a minute, they tried peering down some of the maze-like alleys without seeing or hearing any signs of life, and eventually hit a bookshelf wall with a closed door with an engraving of a pentagram on the library wall next to it. Flandre thought to herself "It would be easy to carry Medicine and fly over this, but over here the bookshelves are low. If anyone's here they could easily see us." She looked around to see the door, and Medicine made an overexaggerated hand signal to show it was locked.

"It's worth a try anyways." Flandre thought to herself. She put her hand on the doorknob and turned, hard, breaking the locking mechanism and pushed the door open slightly. Flandre motioned to enter after poking her eye through a small crack, and Medicine obliged, thinking to herself "How strong..."

The room inside was surprisingly neat and clean. It was quite small, featuring a made bed fit for only one person and a closet opposite of it. A dresser was to its right by the wall with a nightstand and magical-looking lamp on it to its left, with a mirror beside it. Books and outside-world magazines were piled in several stacks beside the furniture, along with a walkman and some home supplies. Paintings hung from the reddish walls featuring a landscape far more distant from anywhere in Gensokyo.

Flandre closed the door behind her, and Medicine asked "What is this room? It's so different, it looks like someone could have been in here today." She picked up a piece of red hair on the bed and examined it between her fingers. Flandre looked around, seeing no way to go to a different part of the library from here, giving her answer of "Maybe someone who lived here is still alive. It would explain the candles, but not the disrepair."

"Maybe they're in shock and don't want to go outside this part of the mansion." Medicine replied. "Or they just can't clean outside of this small room. It would make sense."

Flandre put her hand on her head again, opening the closet. It had several sets of clothes hung up, featuring long skirts, blouses, ties and more. "Maybe we can come back later. I do like it here, though."

"Is something the matter?" Medicine asked, looking over to Flandre.

"I don't know. Everywhere I look, it feels like I've almost been able to remember something. Especially here. I have a headache, let's move on." She reponded.

"You really need sustenance. Maybe we can find a corpse around here somewhere..." Medicine replied, slightly opening the door softly.

"Let's investigate the interior of the library." Flandre said, with Medicine turning back to look at her. "Thinking about it, if whoever lives here still maintains this room at least, they could just be out to get a book. I don't know much about how the 'me' of here past lived," she said, looking down at her hand, "but she might be friendly with me or even recognize me. Even if we find nobody, we could still get a clue."

"Are you sure about this?" Medicine asked.

"I'm confident." Flandre replied, to which Medicine nodded.

Exiting the room, Flandre picked up Medicine without warning to her surprise, and flew her up on top of a nearby bookshelf. From its height, the library seemed almost endless, even with Flandre's natural resistance to night blindness. However, aside from several rows of bookshelves downed like dominoes, it was almost forming a pattern of squares overlapping squares. Long metal chains with handles hung down from the darkness of the ceiling. To the far side, opposite of their position at the library, was a swimming pool mostly obscured by bookshelves. Within what semed like the center of the library was a large crescent shaped table and some chairs, although chairs with small desks and even bean-bags and beds were strewn throughout the corridors of the entire library - all fallen into disrepair however. Most of the central area, however, was obscured by other bookshelves, but a faint light could be seen peaking out of it and making itsself known on the floor - in a way that would seem unnatural for how the candles were arranged on the crescent table.

"Medicine, do you see that?" Flandre whispered, to which Medicine replied with "Yeah. Do you want to investigate?"

Flandre nodded. Despite them being nearly the same height, Flandre had no issue jumping and lunging to and from the tops of bookshelves, quietly making her way to the central area as the light stood still. Between one of the jumps, Medicine looked down, thinking to herself, "Twenty Five- no, thirty meters. I was given life by the energy of the flowers, but the damage I'd endure if I fell from here could be permanent..."

Stopping at the second-to-last bookshelf behind the central room, Flandre again set down Medicine on top of a bookshelf and looked over, staring into the next bookshelf on all fours in an almost animalistic way.

"What's wrong?" Medicine whispered.

"...I was just thinking it would be awkward if she knew who I was, but I didn't know who she was." Flandre replied. She took hold of Medicine yet again and set her down onto the ground.

"Wait here, just in case." Flandre instructed, whispering. "If you run away, get to the kitchen."

Medicine nodded, staying behind in the darkness of the bookshelves, while Flandre started walking towards the flickering light. She felt a slight pain in her stomach, putting her left hand over it while summoning her Clock Corpse in her right, just in case.

"Am I nervous?" She thought to herself. Thoughts of the memory she had witnessed prior circled through her mind again. It had been on her mind the whole time. "The girl I saw is probably dead by now." She thought. "Hong Meiling. Beautiful Scarlet Chime. Scarlet... that was what she said. Am I Flandre Scarlet? Aside from that, I can't imagine that room or anything I've found here would have let me gain her abilities, but I heard her voice back when I was fighting the doctor in the human village. Maybe I can find more information on her here." She momentarily paused her thinking, and continued with "Thinking about it, Medicine said something about feeling that Alice was formerly human before, didn't she? Maybe she could know... But it's all so bizarre."

Flandre's mind wandered to the girl who seemed to live in the room from earlier. "I wonder what the purpose of this mansion was for. My sister... I don't even know if I could call her that. Perhaps she just enjoyed living. The girl who lived there could have been a friend of mine or my sisters'. Could she be another vampire..? But that landscape doesn't look like anything natural. Perhaps she just liked that aesthetic..."

"That aside, I.. no, we should try to find mine and my sisters' rooms. Something tells me it's not far, but, if I pass out from those visions again, it could be an issue. Perhaps if I were alone it could be easier, but..." Flandre looked up from the floor. "I'll put it aside for now." She was at the corner of the side of the bookshelf and the central area. The light continued to flicker and she heard a page being flipped. Flandre felt a wave of surprise roll over her. She swallowed, letting the pain in her stomach peak, and turned the corner to meet the mystery woman.

Flandre saw a girl slightly taller than her standing in front of the bookshelf, reading a book with her left hand and holding a lantern with her right. She had an oversized, stylized black witch hat resting on top of long, flowing golden hair. A braid of hair trailed down the side of her head, leading to an equally overstylized black jacket, cape, and tie over a white blouse, with a sub-cape trailing behind from her waist over her skirt and white leggings. Most notably, however, she had a pair of large, blackberry-colored dragon-like wings and a scaley, smnooth writing black tail from her.

"Y-you..." Flandre said, shakily. She felt something in her head snap. She gripped her clock corpse with vigor, and her knees started shivering.

"Oh? Sup." The girl said in a slightly boyish voice, closing her book and turning to look at the shivering Flandre. "The name's Kirisame Marisa." She smirked, "And you must be..."

"Are you with the one who took everything from me?" Flandre asked in a low, shaky voice.

"Ye~ah, there it is." Marisa replied with a wide grin. "Nah, we rarely talk. We help each other out even less, but, shit, she really fucked up leaving you alive eh? I haven't been able to hear the end of it."

"Shut up!" Flandre said back. "I'll cut you open and eat your organs!"

Marisa's smile faded, now looking more disappointed. She put her hand across her mouth and chin, saying "I have no intention to fight you here, you know. Even so, I'll let you know I'm scors above the other you in both power and rank. We can both turn around and pretend we never saw each other, but..." She observed Flandre's shaking, barely able to hold herself back. "...it seems you'd rather go down with your death wish."

Marisa set down the lantern and summoned in a small, hexagonal object, which once held in her hand produced a long, blade-like yellow beam of light and energy. She swung it around her body and posed in a provocative, over-the-top way towards Flandre, re-wearing a particularly mischevious-looking smirk.

Medicine peaked around from behind the corner, looking at Flandre. Both of them were at a crossroads.

"I can't make heads or tails of what she's saying." Flandre thought to herself, "I can't even think straight. I need to calm down, but.. I don't think anyone can stay calm in this situation. Every bone in my body is telling me to beat her head in, but, I'd surely die."

"Why did it turn out like this?!" Medicine thought to herself. "That woman looks like the living embodiment of evil, even as a youkai! I need to calm down, think. If I used my poison smog, I could seperate them from each other and pull Flandre away before she starts fighting, but I was told I shouldn't use my ability here. What would my poison going bersek look like? No, this plan inherently puts Flandre in danger. I need to think of something else. Su-san, help me!"

"You, what is your purpose here?" Flandre asked again. "Why did you do this to me?"

Marisa shrugged. "We all act on our own. There's quite a few more of us, but, generally, we want to take back our world. This is the only way to do it, so we don't need grassroots vigilantes to get in our way."

Flandre was so taken aback by her straight-forwardness, she momentarily lost the urge to fight, and Marisa kept talking.

"You might see us as evil, but to tell the truth, we've already transcended the definitions of 'good' or 'evil.' How many times do you think I, we've had this exact encounter, where someone from another world calls us the bad guys and swears to defeat us. Hundreds? Thousands? I lost count in the four-hundreds." Marisa pointed at Flandre. "'There's nothing special about you.' Is what I want to say, but, I lost my ability to lie long ago."

Marisa continued, to Flandre's dismay and shock. "How good is your concept of parallel timelines, kid? Do you know anything about the secret god? This is a question for you to answer. Attacking me is also an answer."

"Secret god? Parallel timelines? Did losing your ability to lie also make you lose your ability to have coherent thoughts?" Flandre said, taking a step back. Some sweat rolled down her forehead.

Marisa giggled. "Aye, that's a good one. Listen well, make sure to reflect on it well. Though I'm one of the primary 'masterminds' of this incident, I'll keep you alive, because I like you. You'll discover what I mean with due time. Now... Flandre Scarlet. You are the 'original' Flandre Scarlet, the only true one with the name "Flandre Scarlet" because you come from the original, unaltered timeline. From every action your world has taken, exponentially more worlds were born from it, but you were the first, even if you were not born first. The records of memories from your sister and that girl Meiling you saw earlier were also those of, what we like to call the 'grand central terminal.'"

"Y-you, shut up! I said I'll kill you!" Flandre said, however internally, she was in even more shock. "What is this?" She thought to herself. "Original universe? How did she see my vision? What is this overwhelming feeling? It's like I'm losing my will to fight..."

"I bet you're asking yourself how I knew that." Marisa replied, "I didn't, but it was more like an educated guess. You've inherited Hong Meiling's ability to manipilate Qi, something most other versions of you never had. But just like you can vaguely sense qi in the air that we call 'dark matter.'

"Dark matter?" Flandre said, now thinking to herself "I think I remember that from somewhere. Was it a book? Should I listen to what she's saying?"

"This dark matter is a byproduct of our work. It spreads throughout each and every world without regard for laws or time, it has its own will. Put bluntly, it's information in its purist form, only accessable to those who work closely with it, like us, or... you." Marisa's smile faded. "Fate's blown in your direction, or it could be a prank of sorts. Who knows. But this likely won't be the last time you have an encounter with it. The more is around you, the bigger your migraines, by the way. Stop by the doctor if you need medicine."

Marisa watched Flandre grit her teeth, and grinned. "Now then, there's more information, but it'd get boring if I told you everything. I've left you with just enough information to break your spirit, but I'll tell you some secrets, because we're buddies now."

"First." She continued, "If you try to observe one of us, we'll feel it back. But this is across all universes, so you're not necessarily alone. I felt it and removed traces of the name "Scarlet" from history temporarily to bait you, or someone into coming here. And as such I'll give it back, just this once. Secondly, I'm probably the nicest of my colleagues. Don't think for a moment if you encounter any of the others, they'll be as nice to you, especially the other you. She's probably as close to 'evil' as it gets, but we can't feel each others' presences, so I don't know who's where."

"Now then, you can go on your seperate way." Marisa said, bending down to grab another book. "I'd love to stay here and read, but it seems it would be awkward for one of both of us, especially your friend hiding behind here. She looks like she's about to pee herself."

Marisa used her energy blade to open a gap, similar to the one the dark Scarlet Sisters made earlier, and stepped in. "By the way, if you're friends with Alice, you should have already heard about me. Feel free to ask her for more details. Now, until we meet again, my new friend." Marisa tipped her hat with a smile and stepped inside the portal and it closed. Flandre collapsed to her knees, and Medicine rushed to her side.

"Why... why does it have to be me..." Flandre said staring down, with tears streaming down her cheeks. "Fate's blowing in my direction? What bullshit. I'll kill her next time, I swear!"

Medicine patted and hugged Flandre's back, comforting her. "I'll help you out however I can, Flan. We shouldn't stay here.

Lifting herself up, Flandre and Medicine held onto each others backs as they started making their way back to the entrance of the library, with Flandre letting out her emotions, looking down at the floor as she walked.

"Medicine... I don't want to do this." Flandre said after a few sniffles. "I don't know why I'm here. I want to go home and never think about this again."

"Yeah, I get it..." Medicine replied. "I'm just happy you're not hurt, though. You were right about that aura thing though, when I saw her it felt like somebody had stuck an icicle inside of me. What overwhelming pressure..."

"But," Medicine continued, "If I may for a bit, I think she had a point. Meeting her here, I don't think it was a coincidence. I don't know why they chose our world specifically, but, for you to arrive here and have such fast contact with the culprits, it's like you were chosen to be the main character. That's just what I think."

"So it's like we were interwoven then." Flandre said with a sigh. "I'm so exhausted from everything. I can't even understand what just happened still."

"Perhaps that means you have a chance at beating them, then." Medicine said. This peaked Flandre's interest, and she looked up at her.

"What do you mean?"

"She said you were the original. That should mean everything else is after you, so you should have more potential, shouldn't you?" Medicine said.

"I'm not sure. I doubt it." Flandre replied, looking down again. Her eyes went wide with a sudden realization, however.

"The original world, I wonder how it was like... If I got these... visions and abilities from that Hong Meiling girl, it might already be too late for it, back home..." Flandre continued. "Right now, I hate everything this world has to offer, I want to burn it all down because of this mansion, but there's still one more thing I want to investigate before we leave. Is that alright with you, Medicine?"

"I'll go anywhere with you." Medicine replied with a smile. "Also, feel free to call me Medi."

"Got it." Flandre sighed. "Right, I forgot to tell you about what I saw, so basically..."

...

"Is this what it feels like to have friends?" Flandre thought to herself.

...

"Maybe so."

...

"In any case, it looks like I've used up a continue. So whether or not I like it."

...

"I'll fight on."