Chapter Fourteen

The house door slid open again. A bigger cloud of pink-and-blue butterflies emerged, carrying a long wooden box.

A second after seeing it, I realized – that must be my coffin. I froze.

Yuyuko levitated two inches off the ground, then floated toward the butterflies to receive their payload.

“I hope you’ll forgive how plain it is. Everyone deserves their body’s final rest to be aesthetically pleasing. If we had more time, I could have constructed one with beautiful designs of blooming flowers and full moons, as would fit your name.”

As Yuyuko spoke, she guided the butterflies to set the coffin down on the lawn. With a wave of her hand she instructed them to detach and fly away. The cloud reformed, bumbling back toward the house – and they passed by Youmu. I hadn’t noticed before now; she had stepped out onto the porch. She looked tired and upset, which oddly contrasted the glowing butterflies casting flickers of cheerful pink and blue over her face.

I gave Youmu eye contact. Neither of us hailed.

“I placed your possessions in with your body, Sakuya,” said Yuyuko, taking my attention. “Your clothes and weapons. If you’d like them back, we can... well, you can’t take anything physical on the return trip, but eventually we might—”

I cut her off. “No, no, it’s fine. Don’t open it. Only the knives are irreplaceable because I don’t have any more at home – but I don’t want them. If I need to be armed, I’ll figure something else out.”

“I think that’s a good idea.” Yuyuko then beckoned to Marisa. “Come join me, my dear witch. We have a truly gargantuan spell to work.”

Marisa walked over, stretching out her hands and wrists.

“You knows, occurs to mees... using a dead bodys to bring three ghosts back to lifes. That’s the actual definitons of necromancys. Super big no-nos.”

“It’s not too late to change your mind,” said Yuyuko.

“Oh please,” said Reimu. “Marisa would love nothing more than to be known as Gensokyo’s greatest necromancer.”

Marisa stabbed a finger toward Reimu. “She gets its!”

---

Yuyuko and Marisa stood over the coffin, holding out their hands palms down, eyes closed, muttering old language words under their breath. Yuyuko began the spell setup: translucent tendrils of pink and blue swirled down from her hands and into the material of the coffin. Marisa soon understood what Yuyuko was doing and mimicked her, so that little streamers of yellow and white connected her to the coffin as well.

It seemed like the magicians would need a few minutes, so I walked toward the house. Youmu was still there, eyes still locked on me. As I approached, I saw something new and surreal: the ghostly twin that hovered beside her. It shared her body language and was clothed in a transparent copy of her dress.

Yuyuko had mentioned the half-ghost, but why hadn’t I seen it before? Was it only visible at night?

I stood near the edge of the porch. Youmu and her ghost moved aside, then held down a hand to gesture that I should step up beside her. I did so, and we faced each other.

“Knowing what you now know,” she said, “would you do anything differently?”

“Absolutely,” I said. “Would you?”

“All of it. Every single thing I’ve done for the last six months.”

I nodded, somber. Then I bowed to her.

“If ever we meet again, we draw blades only as allies.”

Youmu smiled, and she returned my bow.

Until now, I wouldn’t have been certain that Youmu could smile. I’m glad to have seen it before I left her world.

---

“Girls!” Yuyuko clapped her hands together. “It’s time! Sakuya, come stand by Marisa and place a hand on her shoulder. Reimu, you as well.”

We did as asked, with my hand on her left shoulder and Reimu’s on her right. Marisa kept focus on the spell Yuyuko had left her with. Her fingers manipulated those yellow-white magic strands connected to the coffin like puppet strings.

Yuyuko checked our positions, then stepped back.

“Good. Stay put so the magic flow will carry you. Don’t flinch or flee. I must go up to the top of the Ayakashi to do my part, which means leaving you here.” She levitated, her shoes losing contact with the ground. “Are you ready?”

“I am.”

“Yes.”

“Me toos.”

Yuyuko lifted up higher, and gave us one last piece of advice with a friendly smirk.

“Don’t blink.”

With that, she shot up into the sky. We craned our necks back to watch her ascend. Soon she was a mote of light, a pink-blue twinkling star that came to rest upon the Ayakashi’s highest branches.

“Hoo boys.” Marisa took a deep breath, trying to keep the shudder out of her voice. “This’ll be a real big shows.”

“You’ve got this,” said Reimu. “We’re with you.”

“Whatever comes next, we’re doing it together,” I said.

Marisa nodded, then renewed her concentration on the spell.

Yuyuko’s called to us from high above, her voice magically augmented so we could hear.

“Here it comes!”

---

The three of us tensed. We waited.

It seemed like nothing would happen.

Then the Ayakashi split open.

To my mind, the process should have taken at least a few minutes. The Ayakashi was a tremendous amount of matter, so it should need some time for bark and branches to turn, twist and snap, like any tree removal we had seen in the mortal world.

That expectation was dead wrong. A tremendous vertical fissure instantly appeared in the Ayakashi, from the top of its roots up to the lowest of its branches. The loudest sound I had ever heard bellowed out. The brightest light I had ever seen shone out. Everything shook around us, nearly knocking us off our feet. An entire country’s spring sprayed from the fractured trunk, casting a gigantic column of bright pink energy that threatened to shred reality itself.

Somehow, over all of that, we heard Marisa’s voice.

“Spring sign: Gensokyo Salvation!”

Marisa triggered the spell, and it was quickly obvious that the spell was made mostly from Yuyuko’s expertise. My coffin and its contents didn’t burn away like spellcards do. Instead it burst into a cloud of billions of particles. So did the Ayakashi itself, and Yuyuko’s house, and the ground we stood upon.

All became a hot whirling void, surrounding us and enveloping us. We grasped for each other, each taking the others’ hands, so that our arms formed a ring.

“Hold on!” I screamed against the chaos. “Don’t let go!”

We clasped each other’s hands tightly as we could, tossed around in a billowing ocean of spring. Our hands started to slip. We were going to lose each other.

Then it ended. The light, noise, vibrations, heat, all of it vanished at once. We were left weightless in a dark, quiet, empty place. At first it seemed like we were alone, hanging in a void – but we soon saw shapeless things lingering in the shadows. Eyes slowly blinked in and out of existence all around.

There came a new voice.

---

“How resourceful! Yuyuko made clever use of the loose ends I failed to tie.”

The voice came from nowhere but echoed everywhere, like thunder bouncing off hillsides. It pounded the three of us, threatened to rip us apart. We held on, barely.

“She knows I can’t refuse the spring, nor can I avoid converting it. Gensokyo’s season is returned.”

“Who are you?” I shouted into the nothingness. My voice seemed to vanish as soon as it left me, but I was noticed.

“And... what’s this? The little lost humans? Brilliant! They’ll even generate new bodies on their way home. I underestimated Yuyuko. I should have known better, but I’ll make the best of it. Let’s have a look at you three.”

An irresistible force smashed down on us, breaking the three of us apart. We reached, grasped, cried out for each other, but it only separated us further.

“Don’t make such a fuss. I’m not completely cruel.”

The presence focused on Reimu. Its perception drilled into her, and its mind knew her. She struggled to get away, but she was powerless.

“What a small world! You’re the shrine maiden, the one who staked Remilia Scarlet through the heart. You and your witch friend cleared the sky mist. Does that mean...?”

Its attention left Reimu, leaving her to drift. It turned to Marisa, pinning her in the same way.

“Yes, it’s the young witch. You gave Flandre Scarlet a knife in the back. So if you two are the notorious pair, then who’s this third one?”

The presence came to me. It grabbed me and looked me over, scanning me inside and out with searing lights of yellow and purple.

“You’re Scarlet’s maid, but you’re different somehow. Are you actually human? Was Chen right about you?”

Reimu and Marisa, now free of its hold, tried swimming back to me through empty space. They meant to grab me and wrench me away from this hostile mind. It noticed them and swatted them away like bothersome bugs. They went tumbling off into the void.

“Not now, you two. Go back to the witch’s home in the woods. I have business with your friend.”

With a metaphorical wave of the hand, it banished Reimu and Marisa. They were gone in less than a heartbeat. I couldn’t sense them, far or near. The presence turned back to me. It looked at me more closely, scrutinized my every detail. It knew more of me than I did.

“This can’t be. You’re not even from Gensokyo? Not Hakugyokuro either? Where did you come from? How did you get in?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” I yelled. “I’ve lived in Gensokyo my whole life!”

“No – you’ve spent almost your whole life here, and you didn’t know that. How is this possible?”

“I don’t know! Let me go!”

“You and I need to have a talk, but it must wait until I’m done with more pressing matters. Go relax at my place. My Shikigami will keep you company.”

It swung me up, then threw me down. I fell. Faster than anything could possibly move, I fell.

I saw Gensokyo below me, from the outside as I had seen it once before. I dropped into it, from the highest part of the sky. I was going to land in the mountains again, but on the opposite side of the valley from Reimu’s shrine. A rock outcropping on a cliff had been carved into a home.

I saw someone, lying flat on her back on top of the outcropping. Her eyes were closed and her face was pale. Her hair was silver like mine. Her shape was tall and slim like mine. She was naked, but she was whole.

It was my new body. In the instant before I landed, I had enough time for one thought.

It’s so beautiful!

Then I crashed into my new self, and I awoke.