Epilogue
Yukari must have gapped me just outside of her home, leaving me to drop to the valley floor. It was hard to tell, with only wind and rain and darkness all around. My body tumbled and spun. Rushing wind threatened to tear my frock off. I tried to breathe, but the air blew past so hard that I couldn’t draw any in. Lightning flashed again, followed quickly by a bellowing thunderclap.
It wasn’t fair. I had just gotten this body.
Out the corner of my eye, I saw another flash, but this was no bolt of lightning. It was a streak of pink and blue.
---
I landed, mostly on my side. My body bent around the thing I had fallen on. A Gaaah! noise burst from my mouth on impact. My landing spot sank proportional to my falling speed, absorbing my momentum so the impact didn’t break me.
Then it lifted up, and I was no longer falling. I heard a deep, rhythmic noise: fwump fwump, fwump fwump.
“Are you all right, dear?” said a familiar voice.
I tried to sit up, or do anything that would help me understand what had just happened. I had landed on something big and soft, bright with pink and blue that lit the clouds in a sphere all around. Hard drops of rain pelted us.
We were on the back of a gigantic glowing butterfly. It was spun from the same bright filaments as the smaller butterflies I had seen in the netherworld. It looked hollow, but it was solid under our weight, holding us aloft with no struggle. Its wingspan was the size of a small house, and those wings were decorated like a traditional folding fan. On the left wing was the distinctive image of a two-wheeled wagon.
Yuyuko sat astraddle near the butterfly’s head, holding its antennae like reins. Its wings kept beating, fwump fwump.
“Do you like my construct?” she asked, looking back over her shoulder.
I crawled up the butterfly’s body and straddled its head behind Yuyuko. I wrapped my arms tight around her waist.
“Yes,” I said. “I like it a lot.”
“Glad to hear it. I think it turned out well, especially since this is the first magic I’ve ever worked in the mortal world. I might keep it as a familiar, with the name Sumizome.”
She pushed the butterfly’s head down, causing us to descend in a graceful arc. The clouds slowly parted, bringing nighttime Gensokyo into view. It was too dark to see the land, except for frequent flashes of lightning that cast a bone-white brilliance over the valley. Far away, a cluster of orange sparks persisted in the darkness. Those must be the lights in Jinri.
“Now it’s time we get you home,” said Yuyuko. “Shall I drop you off at the Scarlet Mansion?”
“Yes,” I said, but a better thought came to me. “Wait, no. Can you take me to Marisa’s house in the Forest of Magic? I want to make sure they’re all right.”
“I can, but are you sure? You’ll have to make your own way home from there. I need to go back and see Yukari as soon as you’re safely on the ground.”
“Yes, I’m sure. The walk home will do me good.”
---
Yuyuko had no trouble navigating despite the nighttime storm. She steered the butterfly slightly to the right, then down and down. More detail stood out as we approached the ground. We were flying over the Forest. A few orange lights stood apart from each other across the woodland, marking where each magician hermit lived.
After we had flown in silence for a while, I realized that Yuyuko felt solid in my arms. The pouring rain sloshed us both. Her hair was soaked and slicked to her neck, just like mine was. Her kimono stuck sheer to her body.
“By the way,” I said, “aren’t you supposed to be a netherworld spirit? How are you here?”
Yuyuko flashed a smile back at me. “Why should you girls be the only ones who get new bodies from the spring flood?”
“I’m not complaining. You’ve saved my life twice now. Maybe three times.”
“That’s why I’m here. I couldn’t trust Yukari to leave you alone, after all that’s happened. She and I need to have a talk. A very long talk.”
I looked down, scanning the woods below. We came ever closer to the treetops.
“I think we’re getting close to Marisa’s house, but I don’t know which one is hers.”
“It’s that one, right there.” Yuyuko pointed to one of the orange lights. “She’s a bright soul, impossible to miss.”
“Yes, she is.”
---
Sumizome couldn’t land at Marisa’s home without its wings slapping the roof and the surrounding the trees. Yuyuko landed us in a nearby clearing that was barely big enough, maybe a hundred yards from Marisa’s home by the trail. The butterfly’s six spindly legs easily held both our weight and its own.
I hopped off Sumizome’s back, relishing the feeling of mortal earth under my bare feet.
“Thank you so much, Yuyuko,” I said, giving her a deep bow. “We’ll never be able to repay all the help you’ve given us.”
“No need to repay me,” said Yuyuko. “Just take care of yourself and your loved ones. Live a life to awe Higan’s judges.”
“I’ll try,” I stood upright. “I suppose I’ll never see you again.”
“I hope you will.”
Yuyuko yanked up on Sumizome’s antennae. The butterfly’s wings beat, fwump fwump, blowing rainy wind against me. It carried her up off the ground, turned, and gently rose into the night.
I stood and watched her fly away, until she was a pink-blue speck that disappeared into the rainclouds.