Chapter Text
She needed to tell Reimu. On their return voyage to the surface, Marisa had been too damn exhausted to give full account. There had been no opportunity since then. Marisa felt it weighing on their every interaction — what few they’d had. Dealing with the continued fallout of the incident kept both of their schedules hectic. At least there wasn’t literal fallout.
Marisa had gone to see Alice first, to keep her promise. She greeted Marisa warmly at the threshold of her humble dollmaker’s workshop and magician tower. Inviting her in, Alice cleared off sewing materials from her kitchen table and Marisa joined her for refreshments and light conversation.
“Enough of pleasantries,” Alice said over the rim of a cup of strong black tea. “Tell me all about it.”
Marisa told her all about it. She trusted Alice, of course, but this also helped her with the shape of what to tell Reimu. The tale was fantastic. It still sounded unbelievable to Marisa, and she had lived it. Of course, she had corroborating evidence. Marisa cleared off another spot on the table to display her trophy.
Alice took a sip of tea. At length, she said, “Goodness.”
It was nearly the size of the teapot, and glowing warmly.
Marisa scratched the back of her head and grinned with embarrassment. “It was, uh. It was a lot.”
Alice looked pointedly down at the shorter magician sharing her tea. “How on earth did that come out of you?”
Marisa caught the precise thrust of Alice’s look and tried to sit up straighter, fuming. “Look, our combined body was bigger. It was still a lot.”
Alice finished her cup and set it aside. A Shanghai doll topped it off. She gave Marisa a warm smile, but one that some cryptic nuance rode. “You know, I always assumed you’d join our ranks one of these decades, but I must admit I could have never guessed how. It’s so quintessentially you.”
“Is it?” Marisa blushed. “But I mean, I ain’t yet, is the thing. I’m still human. We made sure of that when we… decoupled.”
“Are you?”
“I think I’d know if I’d stopped being me,” said Marisa.
“What gave you the impression you’d stop being you when you stopped being human?” Alice responded.
Marisa took a bite of pastry and mulled on her answer for a moment. “Because for a little bit in there I did. At the height of it there wasn’t a Marisa or an Okuu. No clean divide, no messy divide. Not even a little partition like we were able to set up after a while. We were something else entirely. Someone new.”
Alice leaned an elbow on the table and looked out the kitchen window. Snow gently fell on the Forest of Magic outside. “I can’t decide whether that sounds romantic or terrifying.”
“Now that I’m on the far end of it, I’m leanin’ towards romantic. Coulda gone either way though.”
Alice savored the aroma of her tea for a moment, then looked back at Marisa. “I’m not so far removed from my own history that I’ve forgotten the moment I shed my humanity.” She smiled. “I’m happy for you, Marisa.”
Marisa sputtered. “Look, I told you, I ain’t a youkai! I’m just an ordinary witch!”
“True, you may not be a youkai.” She ran a fingertip along the rim of her teacup. “The prospect of evoking fear within you still seems tantalizing to the palate.”
Marisa grinned with a hint of defiance. Now that a youkai was theorizing on her taste, the conversation was temporarily in familiar territory. “Thought magicians like you didn’t need to feed on fear.”
Alice leaned back in her chair and returned a lovely smile. “Nor pastries, nor tea. I’m no stranger to a bit of indulgence. All that said, there’s a new air to you. As if your fear has become a forbidden evocation. Warded, perhaps.”
“I mean, I don’t feel too scared right now,” said Marisa, gesturing with a pastry. “No offense, but you’ve always been a softie.”
“Certainly,” admitted Alice. “The strongest negative emotion I glean from you now is anxiety.” Her eyes gleamed. “I’d wager a nice dip in the Hakurei shrine’s new hot springs would be just the thing for that.”
Marisa sighed. “Nah, there’s still all sorts of vengeful spirits in ‘em. Okuu said she’d come up with Orin tomorrow to help clear ‘em out.”
“Ah. Nevertheless. You’ll have your opportunity soon, I’m sure.”
Marisa slid onto the table, stretching her arms in front of her. “Never been one to like waitin’.”
“In the meantime,” Alice nodded at the glowing egg on her kitchen table. “What are you going to do about that?”
———
The next morning, Marisa met Reimu at the mouth of the wide cavern that led down to the underworld. Orin and Utsuho hadn’t arrived yet, so they sat just inside the entrance and enjoyed the clear winter sky. Marisa hummed softly.
She grew conscious of Reimu’s attention and shot her a glance. The shrine maiden was smiling faintly at her. “You’re excited to see her, aren’t you?” said Reimu.
Marisa laughed defensively. “Yeah, I s’pose I am. We really hit it off. I’ve been thinkin’ about all the places up here I wanna show her.”
That hadn’t been all she was thinking about. But she couldn’t tell her now, not when they were about to receive the subterranean delegation. Not when there was still so much to arrange.
“It’s cute whenever you get like this. Are you coming back with us to the shrine?”
“Not right away. We’ll catch up later today,” said Marisa.
Reimu smirked. “Thought of a place already, hmm?”
“Ahh, it ain’t like that,” said Marisa. “Nitori’s been talkin’ my damn ear off wanting to see Okuu for the power thing. Figured we’d swing by the workshop on the way down the mountain.”
“Might as well keep them busy while they’re up here. Keeps them out of trouble.”
“Not too busy, I hope. If gals like those want trouble, they’ll sniff it out no matter how much work gets piled on ‘em.”
A sharp whistle echoed up from deeper within the cavern. Shortly, two figures approached from the darkness. Orin had her arms clasped behind her head in a staged nonchalance. Utsuho looked slightly winded — the gifts of the Yatagarasu weren’t particularly suited for un-spelunking — but broke into a grin when she saw Marisa’s witch-hatted silhouette waiting for her.
“Well, well!” said Orin. “If it ain’t Big Sis Strong Corpse and the other one!”
“Hi,” said Utsuho.
“Hi!” said Marisa.
“I have a name, you impudent cat,” said Reimu.
“Now, Reimu,” said Marisa, “That ain’t no way to badger a lady into cleaning up a ghost spill.”
“Don’t worry, sis,” said Orin, winking. “This is a personal favor for the witch who saved my favorite gal in all of Hell.”
“Let’s get to it, then,” said Reimu.
Marisa turned to Utsuho and took her free hand in both of hers. “A kappa friend of mine wanted to meet you and go over the power plant stuff. I figured we could go there while Reimu and Orin start on cleaning up the springs. That okay?” It felt good to be close to Utsuho again. It felt good to feel her hand in hers. It especially felt good when she smiled in response.
“I’d like that,” said Utsuho. She squeezed Marisa’s hands.
Orin grinned hungrily. “More vengeful spirits for me, then. See ya there, Okuu.” With that, she jumped onto Reimu, shifting into cat form mid-jump. Reimu yelped as Orin’s claws found purchase. The kasha clambered up to drape herself over the shrine maiden’s shoulders.
“Cat,” said Reimu through gritted teeth, “I’m not a fucking transit service.”
Orin meowed, her tails swishing idly.
“She, uh,” Utsuho started, “She says she’s tired from the climb.”
Reimu sighed heavily and looked at the morning sky. “Whatever.” She lifted off and disappeared over the treeline, towards Hakurei shrine.
“I know she can fly,” said Marisa.
“Oh, totally,” laughed Utsuho. She leaned forward, ducking under the brim of Marisa’s hat, and kissed her warmly. She smelled like a bonfire. On her, it was a comforting scent.
“It’s good to see you again,” said Marisa, after their first kiss parted. It was tempting, so tempting, to let herself slip together with her again. She could almost feel the same desire in Utsuho.
After their second kiss, Utsuho said, “You haven’t told her yet.”
Marisa shook her head. “It’s… hard.”
Utsuho squeezed her hand again. “I don’t want to keep hiding what we have. Who we are. Who we can be.”
Marisa sighed. “I don’t either. I’ll tell her. I just gotta find some time with her and sort out what I’m gonna say.”
“I’ll back you up.”
“Nah, I should handle this one myself. She can get ornery when she feels like she’s outnumbered. Thanks, though.”
———
They followed the river as it coursed down from the wild reaches of the mountain. It wound through thick forests and gushed through carved ravines. The kappas’ workshops were only a short flight along the river from the entrance to the underground. From the surface, only a few structures lay visible on the banks below a great cascade. Marisa knew that more were built into the cliffside and behind the waterfall. A gaggle of engineers milled outside the largest workshop, waiting to greet them. Marisa barely had time to introduce Utsuho before she was swarmed by kappa, each brimming with dozens of questions.
“Miss Reiuji!” An engineer would say. “What’s the optimal time coefficient for injection of fusion material?”
Utsuho would look off in thought and say, “Well, you don’t want to go too fast or the whole thing goes haywire, and you don’t want to go too heavy or it starts getting crunchy.”
The engineer would scribble down notes furiously, then say, “Thank you, Miss Reiuji!” Another engineer would have already started a new question. While the two were fused, the instinctual knowledge and application of fusion processes had come as easily as breathing. Seperated from Utsuho, it took a bit of abstract thought for Marisa to dredge up the feeling again. Her recollections felt imperfect and piecemeal, yet Utsuho’s explanations resonated with her nonetheless. Whether the kappa felt the same was dubious, but they didn’t seem to mind.
As the engineers continued to bombard Utsuho with questions, Marisa pulled Nitori off to the side.
“Nitori,” she said, “I got somethin’ of a personal matter I’d like your help with.”
Nitori looked irritated at being wrenched away from the proceedings. “What is it, human?”
“I need a special display case for an egg. Alice said you could probably help.”
“That’s weird,” said Nitori. “Do humans usually display their eggs?”
“No, but—” Marisa flushed slightly. “This one’s somethin’ of an edge case.”
Nitori rolled her eyes and started spinning a spanner around her gloved finger. “I’ve laid dozens of eggs and you don’t see me bragging about it. What kind of specs are you looking for?”
“Well, check this out,” said Marisa. She pulled the glowing egg from her pack. Nitori goggled. The spanner flung from her finger and splashed into the river behind her.
“Holy fuck!” she said.
Marisa flushed even brighter. “I mean—”
“What kind of supplements have you been taking? Hang on—” Nitori slung her oversized backpack down and started rummaging through it. She emerged with a clicking box with an attached sensor wand and ran it over the egg. The clicks remained steady.
“It’s kind of a long story,” said Marisa. “Uh, should I be worried about that?”
“Hmm? Guess not. Damn, I was hoping it was fissile.” Nitori stowed the Geiger counter and looked back at the egg. Her eyes narrowed. “Is this really a human egg?”
“Humans don’t usually lay eggs, Nitori.”
Nitori turned her scrutinizing gaze from the egg up to Marisa’s face. Her eyes narrowed even further.
Marisa broke her gaze to glance over at Utsuho. Kappa still flocked around the hell raven, but she easily stood out over the crowd. She gave a small and slightly embarrassed wave at Marisa. Marisa smiled and waved back. “It was a group effort,” she said.
“Ohh!” Nitori straightened up and pat Marisa on the back. “Congratulations, hum— ah, Marisa!”
“You’ve probably got the wrong idea,” said Marisa. “‘Cuz the right idea’s like, way weirder. Anyway, can you help me or not?”
“Hmm. May I?” Nitori held out her hands and Marisa gently passed her the egg. “Oh, it’s warm.”
“Yeah, it’s been nice keepin’ it in my pack. Like a personal backwarmer. Think it’s probably magical or somethin’.”
Nitori remained silent, lost in a reverie of assessment and calculation. The kappa engineers milling around Utsuho finally depleted their reserves of questions and dispersed to put the answers into haphazard practice. Utsuho looked a bit frazzled as she joined Marisa. She rested an arm on Marisa’s shoulder and grinned at Nitori.
“Pretty cool, right?” asked Utsuho.
Marisa leaned her head on Utsuho’s arm. “Whaddya reckon it’s made out of anyway, Okuu?”
“I dunno, but whatever it is can happily withstand the inside of a sun.”
Nitori looked as though she was trying to drill a hole into the egg with her eyes alone. Finally, she asked, “Can I… run some tests on it?”
Marisa straightened up a bit. Nitori was one of the few people she could successfully loom over, and the witch never let the kappa forget it. “I better get it back exactly how I lent it to ya.” She cracked her knuckles through her fingerless gloves. “Or else there’s gonna be compounded interest.”
“Sentimental value, I get it.” Nitori waved a hand dismissively. “The thaumodynamic implications are mind-boggling. I don’t want to break it either.”
“We can always make more,” said Utsuho. She ruffled her hand through Marisa’s hair.
“Well, yeah, but—” Marisa subtly leaned into the ruffling and lowered her voice. “That’s from our first clutch, y’know?”
“Well!” Nitori passed the egg back to Marisa and hefted her backpack over her shoulders once more. “ Miss Reiuji! Allow me the honor of providing you with a guided tour of Kappa Industries! Now, if you’ll follow me…”
———
It was late afternoon when they reached Hakurei shrine. The sun dipped in the winter sky. Steam rose from the woods behind the shrine, where the geyser and its springs had emerged. The main path had been cleared of snow. Marisa led Utsuho to land in the side courtyard next to the residence. At this time of day, it was most likely they’d find Reimu anchored to the kotatsu.
Marisa’s heart always started beating a little faster every time she came to the shrine. This time, its pace sped for a different emotional response entirely. She slid the door open.
“We’re back!” said Marisa.
Reimu sat at the kotatsu, as expected. “Welcome back,” she said.
“Ah, just the woman I wanted to see,” said her guest. Sitting across from Reimu was the head reporter, editor, and proprietor of the Bunbunmaru Newspaper, Aya Shameimaru. The crow tengu smiled pleasantly. “I’m told you had the good fortune of resolving this latest incident.”
“Hgrk,” said Marisa.
“Oh!” Aya’s gaze flicked from Marisa to Utsuho and she stood in greeting. “And you must be the final boss. Aya Shameimaru, with the Bunbunmaru Newspaper.” She offered her hand and Utsuho shook it.
“Utsuho Reiuji, administrator of the Blazing Hell’s heating power. Nice to meet you. What’s a newspaper?”
“Makes for a good firestarter if you can’t find dry brush,” said Reimu, sipping her tea.
Aya flourished her notebook and tapped it to her brow, just under the bill of her newsboy cap. “It is the journalistic publication through which the denizens of Gensokyo remained informed and socially conscious. The organ that pumps truth itself through the body of our society.”
“It’s a gossip rag,” grunted Marisa. “I ain’t got nothin’ to say to the damn paparazzi.”
“You wound me, Marisa,” said Aya. “Think of all your adoring fans just waiting for a riveting account of your latest heroic exploits. Unless, of course—” In a blink, she flipped her notebook to a new page and pressed her pen to it. “—you triumphed through less-than-heroic means?”
“Nah,” said Utsuho. She looped an arm around Marisa’s waist and pulled her into a squeeze. “She beat me fair and square.”
“I did?” said Marisa.
“You did! Give yourself some credit.”
Aya jotted notes in feverish shorthand. “A high-stakes duel in the heart of Hell. A thief with a heart of gold is all that stands between Gensokyo and total geothermal devastation. And the climax…?”
Marisa’s heart pounded. Reimu watched the conversation with a bemused disinterest. The slightest hint of what had transpired down below could transmute that disinterest into an exceptionally pointed interest that Marisa would prefer to avoid entirely.
“Well…” Utsuho looked away. “She convinced me that there’s things on the surface to love.”
Marisa blushed. “Look, the how of it ain’t important. Okuu here’s got the power of Lord Yatagarasu, but it was that god from the Moriya shrine who told her where to get it.”
“That’s true!” said Utsuho. “I would’ve never known there was a god’s corpse to eat somewhere in the Hell of Blazing Fires if she hadn’t come down and pointed it out.”
Marisa nodded triumphantly. “Exactly! You want the real scoop? Go bug her!”
“I assure you, Miss Kirisame, the how of it is of the utmost importance. But,” Aya stowed her pen and notebook, her eyes gleaming. “—I must thank you both for that lead and your time. It confirms some suspicions of mine. I’ll pencil you in for an in-depth interview tomorrow, yes?”
“Uh—” said Marisa.
“Excellent! It’s a date,” Aya smiled and lifted her camera. “Portrait for the article?”
“What? Sure, but—” Utsuho still had her arm around Marisa.
“Hold it—!” Marisa sputtered. The camera flashed.
Aya gave a lazy wave and stepped past them out the door. “Tomorrow, then. Ciao!” With that, she took flight into the winter sky, her blazer flapping softly around her.
Marisa shook her fist at the retreating tengu. “Goddamn paparazzi!” Well. Now she had a time limit.
Reimu took another sip of tea. “Come in and close the door already, you’re letting in cold air.”
“Right, right,” Marisa sighed and joined her at the kotatsu.
“Uh, I’m gonna—” Utsuho gestured out the door anxiously. “I’m gonna check on Orin, okay?”
“Have fun,” said Reimu. Once Utsuho closed the door behind her, she turned to Marisa. “Pretty quick thinking, getting that reporter out of here. I’m a bit surprised you passed up the chance to brag, though.”
“Is it that special an occasion? You only beat me fifty percent of the time.”
“Sixty.”
“Sixty, sure. Anyway, I’m beat,” said Marisa. “Been crawling through kappa tunnels all day. Didn’t feel like bragging.”
Reimu took a cookie from the tray in the middle of the kotatsu and nibbled, waiting for Marisa to fill the silence.
“I just wanted to tell you before it was all over the papers, y’know?”
Reimu laughed softly and leaned onto her elbows. “You know I’m fine with you seeing other women. I like seeing what they bring out in you.”
Marisa blushed and took the opportunity to pour herself a cup of tea.
Reimu continued. “You seem different when she’s around. I don’t know what it is but you’re almost… radiant.”
“Since when do you call me radiant?” said Marisa, equal parts flustered and incredulous.
Reimu’s head jerked in surprise, as though she consciously realized what she had just said, but stayed her course. “I’m serious! I really don’t know what it is!”
“It’s…” Marisa searched for the words and found herself wanting. “Tell you what. Let’s you and me have a private party at the springs tonight and I’ll tell you all about it.”
———
By the time Utsuho and Orin had finished for the evening, the springs were much safer. The few spirits still lurking in the mists posed little active threat to a pair of seasoned youkai hunters. Every now and again one would flit overhead and the full moon’s light would refract through the steam and the mists in a spectral kaleidoscope. There was still quite a bit of masonry work to be done before the springs could reach their ideal form, but one or two natural pools held steady at human-tolerable temperatures. The setting was as lovely as Marisa’s company. They had sake, a few snacks, a joint pilfered from Nitori’s hydroponics, and yet still Marisa couldn’t fully relax.
Their clothes lay on the dry safety of a nearby rock. The pool they shared was small and made for an intimate proximity. Under normal circumstances, Marisa would have reveled in it. The secret weighing down on her only made her feel guilty about it.
“You really pulled out that ‘warrior of love’ line again, huh?” laughed Reimu.
“It’s cuz I am! Bite me!” sputtered Marisa.
“Thief of love, maybe.” Reimu punctuated her comeback with a sip of sake.
“I’ve never taken love that wasn’t freely given.” Marisa lifted a hand from the water to tug on the brim of her witch hat, then felt a new pang of guilt over how much she was enjoying the repartee.
“So you’ve drawn out her final spell.” Reimu motioned with her sake cup to continue.
“So Okuu goes— ‘The ultimate energy is nuclear fusion energy!’” A bit of uncertainty tripped her up in the midst of her recounting. “Uh, ‘Won’t you fuse with me?’” She glanced at Reimu. The shrine maiden said nothing but took another sip of sake. Had her gaze changed? Had she already sensed the conclusion? It was impossible to say. Marisa continued. “And she busts out one called ‘SUBTERRANEAN SUN’ and the Black Sun of the Yatagarasu basically just fuckin’ eats her. It was huge. She changed gravity.”
Reimu whistled. “Do I need to amend the spellcard rules?”
“I wouldn’t complain, but you’d probably break her heart.” Marisa took a gulp of sake. “So Okuu’s just screamin’ in there. And now I’m thinkin’, this sun she made’s tryin’ to suck me up, my broom ain’t gonna make it back to Chirei, well, I got a final spell too. I promise Alice I’ll see her back up there, and I use her last doll to blow a hole clean through the sun. I go in, and I go in hard.”
“You flew into the sun?” Reimu asked in disbelief.
“Look, there was only one pair of wings down there and that’s where it was.” Marisa topped off her own sake cup again.
“You have got to learn to fly for real one of these days.”
“Excuse me? What do you call what I do with my broom?”
Reimu waved her off. “You know what I mean. Go on.”
“So I’m Final Sparkin’ my way down. I finally reach the core right as my broom’s about to fall apart. Okuu’s all ‘What??’ and I’m like—” Marisa stood from the pool, arms flung wide. “I AM A WARRIOR OF LOVE!”
Reimu shielded her sake cup from the splash and burst out laughing.
Marisa chuckled, and the guilt flared stronger. “I land on her. We kiss. And that’s, uh. That’s when...”
She lowered herself onto the natural lip of the pool and clasped her cup before her. Reimu’s laughter settled as she sensed Marisa’s mood shift. All the fire and brashness deflated from Marisa’s posture. “That’s when I did something I’ve seen you kill people over.”
Reimu blinked.
Marisa forced herself to meet her gaze. “We, uh. We fused. I fused with a youkai.”
“Fused?” Reimu’s voice was terribly quiet.
“My Okuu, she can take the stuff that you’re made of, that I’m made of, that everything’s made of, the tiniest stuff, and she can just push that stuff together until it’s something new. And she did that with us. We were something new down there, together.”
“Why are you telling me this?” asked Reimu. Her voice wavered.
Marisa felt her face burning. “Because I don’t want to hide things from you! Because I would’ve fucking died if I hadn’t and then I’d never see you again!”
Reimu’s gaze widened. A shockwave of cold fury raced through that gaze. “If she made you do it—”
“No!” Marisa pointed forcefully, sloshing sake from her cup. She sat up and felt the fire returning. “Let me fucking finish! Because I was an active participant! Because I liked it and I’d do it again! Because I want to do it again. We were a fucking goddess, Reimu.”
“Do you think,” Reimu’s voice shook, “the balance of Gensokyo is a game?”
“That ain’t—”
“Let me finish.” Reimu stood from the pool. Steam roiled from her skin in the winter moonlight. “Do you know how many factions are breathing down my neck at any given moment? Do you have any idea the level of scrutiny that falls on my every action? Do you know how much deliberation I do every day before I decide to do anything? I’ve heard you out on the hunt, Marisa. It’s all ‘final boss’ and ‘treasure’ and ‘experience points’. There’s always been a tiny part of me, when you joke about it—” She took a deep breath. “—that gets really pissed off.”
Marisa scrambled to her feet. “Are we airing grievances? Well it’s always pissed me off how you get to be a real purity-obsessed weirdo sometimes!”
Reimu willed herself slowly upwards from the water until she hovered over Marisa. Moonlight caught on her tears. “Do you think I had any say in turning out that way? This is my duty! This is my life! And it’s all just a fucking game to you, isn’t it?”
“Reimu…”
“Don’t.” Reimu held out a hand and her purification rod flew to her grasp.
Marisa’s shoulders sank, but she stood her ground. “That’s how it is, huh?”
“This is a duel.” Reimu’s breath shuddered. “If it were anyone but you, it would be an extermination.”
“Feels about the same from this end,” Marisa said. She snapped her fingers, and her mini-hakkero jumped to her. Reimu floated backwards and disappeared into the ghostly steam.
Marisa suppressed a shiver. The ambient temperature of the hot springs helped keep the worst of the night’s chill at bay, but all she had was her hat. She took no solace in the fact that Reimu must have been suffering similarly. It wasn’t supposed to go like this.
“I’m still human, Reimu!” Marisa cried to the mists. “Ain’t that count for anything?”
“Spirit Sign: Fantasy Seal!” Rainbow blasts of energy thrummed through the mists at head-level. Marisa ducked out of the way and snapped off a quick counterattack in the vague direction of their origin.
Marisa scrambled to a new position. The bare rock of the springs was sharp underfoot, and she had left her broom back at the shrine. The slightest misstep could send her into a thermal pool hot enough to boil her. Colder than the night was the logistical weight in the forefront of Marisa’s mind: Reimu won their duels sixty percent of the time when they were on equal footing. This was anything but equal. The perfect environment for a romantic evening’s soak was suddenly an inescapable tactical nightmare.
She couldn’t pick out her target through the swirling mists, but precision had never been Marisa’s forte. “Celestial Apparatus: Orreries Universe!” Magical orbs coalesced around her and sent searing beams cutting across the hot springs. It made her position unmistakable, but she was already moving. She heard the clatter of exorcism needles impacting on the rocks behind her.
“You think I have the liberty to let this one slide?” Reimu cried from the darkness. Marisa swung a beam towards her voice, but had no way of knowing if she had scored a hit. Moments later, Reimu’s next attack came. “Divine Arts: Omnidirectional Dragon-Slaying Circle!”
A storm of ofuda slashed over Marisa. Clearly, Reimu had the same realization towards their battlefield’s visibility. The witch skittered to find any sort of cover. She suppressed a yelp of pain as an ofuda slapped against her shoulder and sizzled against her bare skin before she could rip it away.
They had always hurt. Had they always sizzled?
The pain awoke some primal response within her. “Who are we hurting?” cried Marisa, half growl and half scream. She lifted her mini-hakkero above her to gather power and slammed it against the ground. “Light Sign: Earthlight Ray!” As the power of her spell poured into the earth, her mini-hakkero split along its eight panes. The artifact flowed up her arm in a segmented wave, stopping at her elbow. She could feel it as a new conduit for her magic.
An arm-cannon. That was new.
The ground rumbled. Cracks spread out across the springs and light seeped through them. Pillars of light erupted from nodes on the geothermal leylines and speared into the night sky. She spotted Reimu at last, wheeling in midair from a blast. She was hurt, too.
“It’s not about that!” the shrine maiden cried. “It’s about the division between humans and youkai! It’s so the humans don’t turn themselves into something that preys on other humans!”
“That’s a shitty excuse and I know you know it!” barked Marisa.
“Great Barrier: Hakurei Danmaku Barrier!”
The ground beneath Marisa gave way to open sky as Reimu wove her boundary magic against her. She found herself falling over the springs through a maze of boundaries and spiralling cords of needles. Some instinct within her pushed and for just a moment, she found herself suspended in midair under her own power. Flying.
Before she could harness this new ability, a storm of needles sprayed from the boundary above her. She tried to dodge, tried to blast them away, but they came from too many angles. Bleeding, she fell. She hit the hard ground.
Reimu drifted through the steam towards her. Marisa braced her cannon against the ground and tried to lift herself. Her strength had fled her.
“What happened to this bein’ a duel?” she croaked.
Reimu held the gohei readied before her, clasping its streamers in her off-hand. Even battered as she was, with red welts livid on her skin from where magic and steam had scored her, her poise was unflinching. She was every bit the perfect shrine maiden.
“What happened to you?” said Reimu. Her faltering voice held none of her poise. “Since when do you have an arm cannon?”
“Guess she’s rubbin’ off on me,” said Marisa. Her mouth tasted of blood. Her instincts screamed for her to escape, but she couldn’t even stand.
“I didn’t want this,” said Reimu. She raised the rod. There came the sound of wings.
The geyser erupted behind Reimu. She flinched in surprise.
“Marisa!” cried Utsuho, diving from the night sky. Black wings folded around the fallen witch. Utsuho lifted Marisa from the ground and she leaned back into the embrace.
“Okuu…” said Marisa. “I messed up.”
Power flooded into her. It was familiar and welcome, like a missing piece of herself slotted back into place. She felt herself sinking back into Utsuho. The touch of her mind returned to her. With it, she felt all of her anguish, all of her empathy, all of her fury, all of her love. The power of the goddess melded them together and burned away the exhaustion and pain.
Wings sprouted, bodies merged, limbs shifted, feathers flowed across her reassembling form. The hakkero-cannon burst from her lower arm and reattached, segment by segment, to her control rod until it formed an instrument of sublime force. She raised herself to standing on three talons of a divine raven. The red eye winked open on her chest and flared its halo. Within the cocoon of her burgeoning wings, she reading her four arms in combat stance.
With a harmonic cry, she whipped open her wings to reveal her full splendor. The gust blew away the steam and clinging mists. Her cloak of stars billowed behind her.
“We are the Lady of the Black Sun,” she said. Tears streaked her faces. “Please, surrender.”
Reimu lowered her arms from where she held them to shield her face. Her expression contorted with a riot of emotions, from envy to heartache to awe.
“You know I can never have that,” said Reimu. Her voice was guttural. She wept with rage. “You’re just flaunting it.”
“Reimu, please,” said her Marisa. “You can’t win.”
“I really can’t,” said Reimu. She rose higher and prepared an attack.
The Lady gave her no opportunity. She leveled her cannon and called forth her first and final spell.
“BLACK SUN: MAIN SEQUENCE MANDALA.”
A fulgurating beam erupted from her cannon and seared glyphs in the language of the heavens into the sky surrounding Reimu. From each glyph cascaded whirling microcosms of rainbow-hued suns, confounding all sense of scale and constricting around her in a dire syzygy. The Lady of the Black Sun had forged the machinery of the cosmos into a weapon of unparalleled grandeur.
The spellcard ran its course with a grim inexorability. Night reasserted itself. Hovering in the sky, against all reason, was Reimu. She looked like utter hell. Her jaw worked silently, and her gaze fought to focus on her divine adversary.
“Impossible—!” hissed the Lady. She took wing while the battle’s momentum remained with her. A yowling feline blur rushed past her. As Reimu floated in a seething daze, Orin pounced through the sky, buzzing past the shrine maiden’s head. She came away with something indistinct and scintillating clutched in her jaws — a vengeful spirit.
The instant the possessing spirit left Reimu, so too did any trace of resistance. She plummeted from the sky.
“Reimu!” called the Lady, spinning forward into an intercept course. She caught the falling shrine maiden. Clutched to her feathered breast, Reimu’s skin felt clammy and chilled, and she shivered violently.
The Lady glided down into the warmer air of the springs and landed gently. She kindled the stellar furnace within her and her body radiated nurturing warmth. Wrapped in her embrace, Reimu felt so fragile, so human. She still couldn’t respond.
“Reimu,” the goddess said with a quiet urgency.
Orin landed a short distance away, noisily swallowed the evil spirit, then shifted out of her cat form. She nudged the errant sake bottle with her boot.
“Y’all went out drinking where you knew there were still vengeful spirits and then you got in a fight? In the buff? Wow,” Orin giggled. “Okuu, your new squeeze and her girlfriend are strong as all get out but they ain’t too bright.”
Within herself, her Utsuho sorted through the tumultuous emotions surrounding the conflict while her Marisa concerned herself with the unconscious Reimu. “So everything she said,” asked the Lady, “—that was because she was possessed?”
Orin winced. “We~ell, yer average vengeful spirit won’t bother if there’s nothing to latch onto in the first place. But once it finds something, then it just kinda shunts all the emotional responses towards whatever leads to the most violence. Then, if you’re lucky, I come by and I haul away the corpses.”
“Reimu, can you hear me?” asked her Marisa. Reimu’s shivering had subsided and her breathing evened out. The tidal weight of emotion within the Lady placed strain on the processes that kept her consciousnesses unified.
Orin sauntered closer and poked her head between the goddess’s two heads to look down at Reimu. “Still alive, huh? Welp. Guess that’s lucky too. Oh, wow—” she pressed herself closer. “—y’all are warm.”
As Orin started purring, Reimu’s eyelids fluttered open. “M-Marisa?” she breathed. “Oh… Lovely…”
“You’re hurt,” said the Lady. “I’m sorry.”
“I should have seen it.” Reimu smiled faintly and threaded her fingers through the white pinfeathers framing Marisa’s face — the face Marisa brought to the Lady’s fusion. “I should have known that radiance.”
Two of her constituent selves’ favorite women were pressed against her. It would be trivial to bring them within herself. She would not. The constraints of Reimu’s duty assured that she could never accept such a fusion. The Lady would never subject herself nor anyone she loved to such a feeling of disunity. There were other means to make her feelings known.
“Reimu,” said the Lady. Tears beaded at her eyes. “Reimu, call on our power. Call on me.”
Reimu breathed softly and closed her eyes. When she spoke, her voice was hushed. It carried a tone that had never been directed towards Marisa or Utsuho before. “O, Lady of the Black Sun...“
And there, blossoming within her mind, was a prayer. She had never realized how hungry she was for it until it reached her. Even battered as the shrine maiden was, it did not falter. This was the force of prayer that had once ferried her to the moon. There were avenues within the human mind through which the divine could flow. Reimu’s mental disciplines ensured that those avenues were as wide and welcoming as possible.
The Lady poured herself down Reimu’s prayer. Her presence entered the shrine maiden, and her stellar radiance began to slowly mend her wounds. Reimu gasped. Their minds met — Reimu’s, the Lady’s, those of her constituent selves; emotional currents in confluence. There was a morass of anguish around all parts of herself and of Reimu. Safe within their beacon of love, they began to sort through it.
From Reimu, her anguish stemmed from the purpose Gensokyo’s humans had assigned to the weapon they’d made out of her. It was a purpose now leveled against her dearest friend — the woman she loved.
From her Marisa, it was the anguish of the constant outsider. The social realities of her upbringing had kept her outside of a family, outside of her own gender, outside of polite society. Now it threatened to keep her outside of the love she dedicated herself towards every day.
From her Utsuho, it was the terror of losing the woman who had brought her back from the brink of dissolution and atrocity. What good was the surface and its humans if they would sentence that woman to death?
Reimu and the goddess wept together in silence. The shrine maiden needed no words or incantations to maintain their communion. All that needed to be said could be felt and known instead.
Within Utsuho stung the memories of a hell raven whom Hell left behind. When the bureaucracy of Hell found no space within its ledgers for the Hell of Blazing Fires, they had inflicted upon her the abandonment that had most defined her life. In its wake, she clung all the tighter to her fellow castoffs. How could every loss not wound her just as deeply as that first abandonment? How could she not strive ever more fiercely for any new cause she found?
Within Reimu simmered a resentment towards the villagers and their authorities for never affording her a choice in what she’d become. At the same time, there was a fierce pride in her power, and a fiercer pride in the friends she’d made despite the burden of her duty. Every youkai-infested flower viewing or kappa’s stall at a festival was a rebellion that she knew she was essential enough to get away with. So, too, was each a gesture towards a peaceful coexistence in a future in which she was no longer necessary. Was that not the plea of every weapon, to be someday sheathed?
Within Marisa bloomed the acceptance that she was truly something more than human now. From the start, ever since she had realized her own girlhood so long ago, she had craved for the means to transcend the limits of her humanity. It was only through growing into adulthood with Reimu that she had come not just to accept but to enjoy the possibilities that still waited for her within her own humanity. The shrine maiden made being human bearable, beautiful. How long could she still enjoy those uniquely human experiences now that she had twice tasted divinity?
They sat in the steam and the warmth and simply felt bad with an acceptance, a purpose, and a unified clarity. And, after time and effort spent together, the anguish passed.
“Thank you,” breathed Reimu at last. As she wove her prayer to completion, she slowly released the Lady’s power.
“Call on us any time,” said the Lady. While her presence still lingered within the shrine maiden, she leaned in for a kiss. Reimu lifted herself to meet her lips. Their senses flared for a moment in positive feedback. Then, the prayer was complete. No longer did she feel Reimu’s mind, but the satisfaction remained.
Reimu sighed and nestled herself against the Lady’s warm plumage. “Hey,” she said at last. “Marisa said she had a joint. What happened to that?”
“Oh! It’s in our pack.” The Lady gestured towards the rock where Reimu and Marisa’s clothes were piled. It had remained miraculously untouched during the battle. “Orin, could you…?”
“I got it~” Orin peeled herself away from her cuddling spot with mild reluctance and strolled to the pile of personal effects. She hummed softly as she rummaged through Marisa’s pack, then gave an appreciative whistle. “Holy smokes, sis, you can roll ‘em!”
“It’s thanks to hard work and guts,” said the Lady.
Orin returned and nudged Reimu. “Scoot over, will ya?”
“She’s got two laps,” retorted the shrine maiden.
“Yeah, and you’re hoggin’ both of em. Scoot or I ain’t sharin’.”
Reimu grudgingly made room for the kasha. It made little difference to the Lady which lap they picked, but both settled in according to their favorite half. The Lady rested her head on top of Reimu’s. It was a novel feeling for her Marisa — unfused, the same position generally required stairs. Orin patted at her dress.
“Anyone got a light?” she asked.
“Who said you could have first hit?” Reimu sniped.
“Hey, you didn’t wanna get up!” said Orin.
“Yeah, and I’ve had a more emotionally taxing evening than you,” said Reimu.
The Lady plucked the joint from Orin’s mouth and kindled a tiny star at her fingertip. “Both of you get the second hit,” she said. Both of them looked back at the goddess. Reimu raised her eyebrows and Orin’s ears perked up.
“Now, breathe out,” said the Lady. She lit the joint on her miniature sun and pulled. The smoke tickled, thick and sweet. Her lungs could breathe plasma happily — smoke was nothing. She held it, savored it, then leaned down for a pair of kisses. As their lips met, she poured weed-smoke and goddess breath into Reimu and Orin. She let her kisses linger.
“That’s good,” said Reimu at last, between coughs. Orin, a creature of the Hells, simply leaned back against the Lady’s feathered breast and purred smoke from her nose. They passed the joint between the three of them at their leisure.
“Feelin’ a bit overdressed now, next to y’all,” said Orin.
“You’ve only got yourself to blame,” said the Lady.
The kasha shrugged out of her dress and sighed in relief. “A gal could get used to moonlight on her tits.”
“The surface world has its perks,” said Reimu, sinking back blissfully into the Lady’s warm embrace.
The Lady scratched behind Orin’s ears, and she purred in appreciation. They sat for a time and enjoyed the steamy springs, the winter’s full moon, and the strength of Nitori’s appropriated weed. It became clear, after a time longer, that Reimu had fallen asleep.
Orin snickered quietly. “She hits the blunt and then passes out immediately. What a sleepy little bitch.”
“She just fought within an inch of her life,” said the Lady. “Give her a break.”
“Sure, sure.”
The Lady made gently to get up. “C’mon. Let’s get her home.”
———
Marisa woke the next morning sandwiched between Reimu and Utsuho in the living quarters of Hakurei Shrine. Orin remained curled up in cat form at the foot of the futon. Marisa and Utsuho had regretfully unfused after bringing Reimu back to bed — neither felt like sleeping elsewhere and too many unannounced visitors dropped by the shrine. Marisa felt better than expected considering how close she had come to extermination last night. She ran her gaze over the sleeping shrine maiden, careful not to disturb her.
Reimu’s skin visible out of the covers sported several bruises and welts, though they were far less livid than they had been in the heat of battle. The Lady’s power had helped speed her healing in some capacity. It felt strange, intellectualizing her own divinity — the power of the sun and nuclear fusion seemed only tangentially associated with the body’s healing processes. Regardless, she had poured everything she could through Reimu’s spiritual connection. Even something tangential could have tangible effect with enough sheer magnitude. At least sheer magnitude was a technique Marisa understood well.
She would have to expand her understanding soon. She was a goddess now, that much was unmistakable. It didn’t feel real. She still had only the dimmest conscious awareness of how to harness her new abilities. Much as Marisa was loathe to patronize the Moriya shrine, Sanae would probably have some insight into her new reality.
A sleepy kiss to the back of her head redirected her reverie. She rolled gently to face Utsuho. This was something she would savor for as long as they were visiting the surface. She returned the kiss, and relished in the subtle tingling of something greater than herself that played through her senses every time they touched. She knew from the time she had spent intermingled with her memories that Utsuho had only had a week or so more experience with being a living goddess than Marisa, but she still felt that Utsuho was on an entirely different echelon from her. Perhaps it was the raw power that coursed through Utsuho from having eaten a dead god — power she could summon up and direct at a whim. Her fundamental metaphysics had been radically altered. Had the same thing happened to Marisa, too?
“My wing fell asleep,” Utsuho quietly groaned.
“Oh no,” said Marisa in a whispered laugh.
Utsuho shifted into a better position and Marisa accommodated her as best she could. She was silently grateful that Reimu was a heavy sleeper. They stayed in bed for most of the morning, quietly basking in the other’s presence. Hunger drove them to the kitchen eventually. Reimu slept until halfway through breakfast preparation, and remained in bed until breakfast was ready and waiting at the kotatsu.
“How ya feelin’?” asked Marisa, as Reimu joined them at the low table.
Reimu blinked groggily. “Thirsty.”
“Could be worse,” said Marisa, serving herself a portion of rice.
Reimu took a long drink of water. “And like a handcart ran me over.”
Orin held up her hands. “Hey, I ain’t run anybody over in weeks. Don’t look at me.”
Utsuho poured tea for herself and Orin. She glanced nervously at Reimu. “You’re not still gonna try to…”
Reimu waved her off. “It’s become clear to me,” she said between bites of rice, “that this is something different from a human becoming a youkai. After all, there’s no edict against a human becoming a god. You don’t see me try to exterminate Sanae every time I see her.”
“Nah, just that first time,” grinned Marisa.
Utsuho visibly relaxed. “Um, I’m glad. You’re strong and I’m glad I don’t have to keep fighting you. Fighting you for real, I mean.”
Reimu puffed herself up a bit with an air of quiet satisfaction. “If I had been the one who stopped you down there, we’d never be in this mess.”
“Probably not,” said Marisa. “No offense, but I’m glad I beat you down there. I like this mess.”
“Should’ve known, given the state of your house,” said Reimu. Her smile softened. “I shouldn’t tease you so much. I know you’re still getting used to all this.”
Breakfast wound down, and the four of them made short work of the dishes. As the midmorning sun warmed the day, they took their conversation to the front steps next to the offerings box.
“It’s a lot like when I channeled the trifold Sumiyoshi gods to take us to the moon, remember?” said Reimu. “A god’s spirit maintains its original power no matter what size it’s been split into.”
“And if you split it enough it can multiply infinitely, assumin’ you’ve got the proper containers,” nodded Marisa. “Does that make me a proper container, then?”
“A living avatar, maybe,” said Reimu. “I believe the Lady of the Black Sun’s spirit resides within both of you, even when you’re not physically a part of her.”
“My, my.” Pipe smoke drifted down amongst them in a lazy coil. Above them, an eye-filled gap split open the underside of the shrine’s awning. Yukari Yakumo stood within it, suspended upside-down. By all rights, her hair should have been covering the four of them and her robes should have been dangling around her face, but the gap seemed to provide its own personal gravity that kept her appearance impossibly immaculate. It was unsettling to look at her. “It’s heartening to see my previous efforts to expand dear Reimu’s knowledge base have borne fruit.”
“Shut up, Yukari,” said Reimu. “Why are you here?”
Marisa’s pulse spiked at Yukari’s sudden intrusion into their delicate conversation. She tried to assuage her panic with the rationalization that it was a fool’s errand trying to keep secrets from Yukari.
“Oh, simply to gather a bit more information on the political ramifications of the Hakurei shrine maiden’s latest decision.” She smiled coyly at Marisa and Utsuho. “My goodness, the boundaries on you two. Scandalizing. And me a woman of my years.”
“Look, if you’re gonna judge me—” said Reimu.
Yukari tittered softly. “Who said anything about judging? You know I’ve always valued that intuition of yours, my dear. I think it’s led you to a fascinating outcome this time. Perhaps Gensokyo could use a living reminder of the memetic hazards of godhood.”
Marisa wanted to snap at her, but as she opened her mouth to speak, she had a sudden reevaluation of Yukari. She was irritating, troublesome, downright dangerous, but at the same time, here was a being who had been alive for thousands of years. Certainly she was doing something right. “You think—” said Marisa. For a moment, her tone hadn’t caught the shift in her thoughts. “You think it’s gonna be safe for me and Okuu to be open about this?”
Utsuho nodded towards Yukari to second the question and clasped her hand over Marisa’s.
Yukari shrugged. “Any worthwhile venture bears some amount of risk. If you want odds, you’ll have to ask my shikigami. If you want to succeed, you’ll have to forge a future with your own burning will. Was it not a founding principle of our Gensokyo that we must carve out from this world a place where we can flourish?”
Marisa and Utsuho remained silent in consideration of her statement. Reimu looked out across the courtyard. Orin’s ear flicked and she shifted into a better spot in Utsuho’s lap for her cat form. Yukari’s pipe smoke still drifted down, where logic dictated that it should have risen in the cool winter air.
“I could be one of those risks.” Yukari winked and sank upwards into her gap. She let her gloved hand dangle through it as it sealed itself. "Good luck either way," she called, gave a wave, and disappeared with the gap.
“There’s…” started Reimu. She took a breath. “If you want to learn how to channel her power better, there are a few mental techniques I could teach you, Marisa.”
“For real?” Marisa was struck by the offer. “I mean, yeah, right now I can’t do squat with it unless I’m literally about to die.”
“It’s probably not that different in practice from some of the techniques you already use for witchcraft,” said Reimu. “It’s largely a matter of your starting point and structure.”
“Damn,” said Marisa, grinning. “Guess I’m multiclassin’!”
———
Practicing Reimu’s techniques had kept them busy enough that they had nearly forgotten the threat of Aya’s followup interview. The crow tengu blew in on the midafternoon breeze.
“Shit,” said Marisa as she spotted the approaching reporter. “How much d’ya suppose she already knows?”
“It would’ve been pretty hard to miss that duel last night,” said Utsuho.
“We’ve got about 10 seconds to get our story straight,” said Reimu.
“Wait, maybe it’s fine. Look at her,” said Marisa. Aya landed in the courtyard. Her blazer was scuffed and torn at the shoulder seam. She approached them with the slow deliberation of someone trying to hide the amount of pain they were in.
“What happened to you?” asked Reimu.
Aya sighed. “Dire times, that respect for honest journalism could sink so low. I was assaulted.”
“Oh? Publish the wrong bit of gossip, maybe?” said Marisa.
Aya looked affronted. “I was just following up on your lead, Marisa. In the middle of my investigation into the Moriya shrine, I was assailed most severely.”
Marisa rubbed her jaw in sympathy. “Ah, yeah, Kanako’s got a mean right hook. And like, three hundred hunting knives.”
“No, no, Mrs. Yasaka was quite hospitable, actually. Very forthcoming. She was the one who found me after the assailant knocked me unconscious. No, it’s the damnedest thing,” Aya placed a hand on her chin in an expression of perturbed consideration. “I can’t seem to remember who did it.”
“Sounds like you should be at home sleepin’ it off,” said Marisa. “You gotta be careful with head injuries, y’know.”
“Alas,” said Aya, bracing her hands on her lower back and popping it theatrically. “Investigative journalism waits for no woman. Now, what can you tell me about the former Hell of Blazing Fires?”
Utsuho brightened. “Well, we may not be an official part of Hell anymore, but I think we’re due for a revival. Thanks to this fusion power project, we can be a relevant part of life both below ground and up here. You know, once we figure out how to harness it and everything.”
“The future’s so bright, we’ll all need parasols,” said Aya, jotting in her notebook. “The kappa always go feral for the scientific articles. What about the journey down?”
“Well, let’s see,” said Marisa. “There was bucket gal, the earth spider, that bridge lady, and then we made it to the Former Capital.”
“That’s where we were separated,” said Reimu. “Marisa managed to slip past her, but I got roped into a drinking competition against Yuugi the Strong.”
Aya whistled. “One of the Big Four of the Mountain? How did you fare?”
Marisa snickered. “She was laid out for like a whole day. I went on ahead to the Palace of the Earth spirits.”
“That’s where me and Orin usually live,” said Utsuho. “Orin is the kasha out back cleaning up the hot springs. We’re both pets of Miss Satori Komeiji.”
“...Satori Komeiji,” Aya said under her breath as she transcribed. She frowned and tapped her pen on her chin. “Komeiji. Komeiji?”
“Somethin’ wrong?” asked Marisa.
“Mm. Thought I remembered something, but it’s gone. Go on.”
“Satori is…” It was strange, how another’s memories had informed Marisa’s feelings regarding the resident youkai of Chirei. There was an emotional space around her own brief interactions with her that softened and deepened from Utsuho’s memories, clinging to her like a half-forgotten dream. She thought of how Satori had kept their secret. “A lotta folks down there don’t like her because she can read minds, but… she’s sweet. I kinda feel bad about bargin’ in there and makin’ a ruckus.”
“That’s just the Gensokyo greeting,” said Reimu, sipping her tea. “Say it with spellcards.”
Marisa continued. “She showed me out to the courtyard after we tussled some. There’s an even deeper tunnel down there that connects to the Hell of Blazing Fires. Orin fought me down there while I was lookin’ for the core. Y’know, it’s real sweet, actually — the whole reason the geyser up here got infested with vengeful spirits is ‘cuz Orin spilled ‘em in there. She was trying to get the attention of someone strong on the surface to come down and reign in Okuu.”
“I must admit, it’s hard to see it,” Aya said to Utsuho. “You’re as pleasant an interviewee as I’ve ever had. Was it truly so bad?”
Utsuho leaned forward on the stairs and rested her elbows on her knees. “Have you ever eaten a dead god, Miss Shameimaru?”
“I can’t say that I have,” said Aya.
Utsuho shook her head. “I almost lost myself. Marisa found me down there and… she brought me back.”
“Fascinating,” said Aya. “I’ll have to remember your cautionary tale when next I find myself peckish around a dead god. Now, what about spellcards?”
Marisa groaned. “Did you really come here for a damn play-by-play?”
“Miss Kirisame,” Aya said pointedly, “duelists across Gensokyo wait on tenterhooks for the Bunbunmaru’s Danmaku Digest. I regret to inform you that this special feature does not write itself. Would you rob them of the chance to see the dueling styles of the underworld? Would you cut down this beautiful opportunity for cultural exchange just as it has barely sprouted?”
Utsuho rested her chin on her hand and gazed across at Marisa. “Go on, which one was your favorite?”
Marisa scratched the back of her head. “Oof. I mean — it was hard to rank ‘em when you were trying to kill me with ‘em, y’know? But ‘Hell and Heaven Meltdown’ was pretty fuckin’ cool. It was hard to dodge when I was stuck between two suns. Plus, that was the first time you just straight-up swam through a sun. Really left an impression.”
Utsuho blushed.
“Could I trouble you for a demonstration?” Aya asked. The reporter’s eyes gleamed avariciously.
Reimu cleared her throat. “Not at my shrine, you can’t.”
“Fine, fine,” Aya smiled innocently. “Now, what about—”
“Marisa! Marisa!” Across the courtyard, running under the archway at the entrance of Hakurei shrine, came Nitori.
Reimu sighed. “And now the kappa’s here too? Great. Wasn’t expecting any donations today anyway.”
Marisa shot a nervous glance at Utsuho to find the hell raven shooting a nervous glance right back at her. Nitori reached the group and leaned forward to catch her breath, bowing under the weight of her backpack.
“Nitori,” said Marisa, making a conscious effort to unclench her teeth. “Can this wait?”
Nitori took a deep breath and looked up at Marisa. “I finished it!”
“Nitori,” said Marisa. Conscious effort had failed her. “Can this wait?”
Nitori shook her head. She slung her pack from her shoulder and started rummaging through it. “I was just so fired up over that egg you laid that I couldn’t stop until the case was done!”
Marisa groaned. Reimu sputtered on her tea and started coughing violently. Aya looked from the kappa to the witch, then flipped to a new page in her notebook.
“Nitori, have you slept?” asked Utsuho.
“No!”
Marisa finished groaning, then took a deep breath. “For fuck’s sake, Nitori! Can you read the room?”
Aya jotted down shorthand notes and muttered under her breath. “‘Local Witch Lays Egg.’”
“Found it!” cried Nitori. She pulled a cloth-wrapped object from the depths of her pack and pulled away the twine around it. It looked almost like an oversized crystal ball. The round, four-legged base was of rosewood with a tasteful silver inlay. Around its rim ran a bubble of glass, too full for a dome but not quite a globe. In the center, nestled in a perfectly-sized indent within the rosewood base, was the glowing egg.
“Wow!” said Utsuho. “You made that in a day?”
“Well, I had to do some prototyping first,” said Nitori. “Now check this out.”
She flipped a switch on the back of the base. The case began to hum softly and a corona of plasma coalesced around the egg inside. Gentle beams of corsucating rainbow light played between the egg and the glass bubble. Nitori touched the glass and several beams converged at her fingertip.
“‘Local Witch Lays Magical Novelty Egg’?” muttered Aya.
All protestations died on Marisa’s lips. “Oh my god,” she said. She took it carefully from Nitori and ran her hand over it, dazzled by the way the arcs followed her touch. It tingled softly. She put her cheek against the glass. “I love it.”
Utsuho tested it herself. “How is it doing that?” she laughed.
“It’s all a bit technical,” said Nitori. “The natural thaumic resonance of the egg is enough to create a conductive plasma field when you run it back through a repeater or two. This next bit is just personal conjecture, but I think it might have some sort of connection or attraction to the dreams of the living.”
“Hey, Reimu,” said Marisa. “When was the last time you had a new goshintai to display?”
Reimu’s face betrayed a fierce internal deliberation. “Absolutely not,” she said at last. “It’s bad enough competing with the Moriya shrine for faith. I already have to do upkeep on their little branch shrine down here. I don’t need my best friend skimming off the top too.”
“Stall fees~” sang Marisa.
“Absolutely not!” said Reimu.
“If you don’t mind my asking—” said Aya.
“We do!” said Marisa.
“—how in the blazes did you manage that? I’ve laid dozens of eggs, but none quite so...” She gestured at the glowing case, then shrugged.
“She told me it was a group effort,” said Nitori.
Aya sized up Utsuho with a newfound respect. Utsuho sighed. “Why don’t we just tell them?”
“I can think of a million reasons, but…” Marisa leaned back against the stairs. “Well, we were gettin’ to it anyway.”
They told them the rest of what had happened down in the core, haltingly and with considerable gloss over the more explicit details. Reimu, Aya, and Nitori all listened with rapt attention.
Aya tapped her pen on her chin as they finished recounting it. “I must say, publishing some of that would almost certainly violate public decency guidelines. And to think, you sent me off to the Moriya shrine yesterday to be waylaid by some mystery goon!”
“You sent your own damn self,” sniffed Marisa. “Yesterday, I hadn’t even told Reimu yet, and I wasn’t about to do that with the paparazzi in the room.”
“Mm,” said Aya. “And what are the thoughts of the Hakurei shrine maiden?”
Reimu looked up to gather her thoughts. “We had a bit of a misunderstanding at first.”
“A misunderstanding? Wait — the signs of fresh combat?” Aya ran her eyes over Reimu’s appearance, then wailed. “I missed a duel at the Hakurei shrine?”
“As I was saying,” said Reimu. “A misunderstanding. Sure, it’s my job to reign in rogue goddesses and exterminate humans who become youkai — but Marisa already reigned in the rogue goddess here and she hasn’t become a youkai.”
“I was all jumbled up while I was digesting the corpse of Lord Yatagarasu,” said Utsuho. “Marisa helped me sort myself out. We took all that power, all that… metaphysical tangle, and we turned it into something new together.”
“‘Local Witch Attains Godhood, Lays Egg’...? No, no.” Aya snapped her notebook shut. “Well, you’ve given me more than enough to publish something on the geyser incident. As to this newcomer to the divine landscape of Gensokyo, I’d rather do a bit more research into the ramifications before publishing something hasty.”
“We need a cool outfit first,” said Marisa. “So far, all we got is the hat and the cape.”
“The feathers aren’t enough?” asked Utsuho.
“Most goddesses around here don’t go for the ‘titties-out’ look,” said Reimu.
Utsuho shrugged. “Their loss.”
Marisa hefted the display case in her grasp again. “I’m still not over this. Nitori, ya really outdid yourself.”
Nitori beamed. “Thanks! When you make more, drop a few off with us, okay? There’s still so much to test.”
“You got it,” said Marisa. “Almost makes me feel bad about all the weed I’ve stolen from you.”
Nitori’s smile turned manic. “Please stop doing that, human!”
Aya stowed her notebook and made sure her personal effects were ready for flight. “I anticipate I’ll call on you again when I have further questions. Thank you for your time.”
“Take care,” Utsuho waved. “Don’t get thrashed again.”
Aya waved back and took off into the winter sky. Marisa let out a breath and with it felt the escape of a tension she hadn’t even realized had filled her. It was all in the open now. Whatever would come of it, she wouldn’t have to face it alone. She still had the women she loved.
“What if we called it a ‘Phoenix Egg’?” muttered Reimu.
“Do you want Aya to write an exposé on my sex life to debunk that? Because that’s how you make her do that!” Marisa said.
“Stall fees, though,” groaned Reimu. “I have to finance a whole construction project to get those hot springs how they should be.”
Nitori’s eyes gleamed. “Did you say ‘hot springs construction project’? Because my prices are negotiable.”
Utsuho clapped her hand on Nitori’s shoulder and gave her the look of a concerned senior administrator. “Not on no sleep, they aren’t.”
Nitori blinked and ran a hand in front of her face. Her eyes still gleamed. “Miss Reiuji, you have a point! I’m going to bed!” She hefted her backpack to her shoulder and strode back out the shrine entrance. At the archway, she turned and waved. “Stop stealing our weed!” called Nitori, and was gone.
“Hey, hey,” said Marisa. She stretched her arms out and pulled Reimu and Utsuho to her side. “I love you. Both of you.”
Utsuho made a pillow of Marisa’s hat as she leaned against her. “I love you too, Marisa,” she said.
Reimu sipped her tea, then closed her eyes and rested her head on Marisa’s. “I love you too, you troublesome witch.”
Marisa sighed contentedly, surrounded by the warmth of two girlfriends.
“Let’s build a fuckin’ onsen together.”