I can imagine either Megumu or Yukari dumping favours on Doremy to get that man laid

"Greg how the fuck did you seduce someone we've been here for 10 minutes" - Sumireko, probably

Words can't describe how much I appreciated this. I had a blast reading this. Thank you very much, as always!

Also, kudos and many thanks to my friend Crown for the drawing, too. You can check his art here https://x.com/ThrownAloeCrown

It's funny that Reimu asks Sakuya if she doesn't have any other goal in life besides serving Remilia, only for her to want to rule all the animal realm... , seemingly even ignoring her memories of her past life.

Like the comment above said, she needs Remilia to guide and keep her in check.

Matt and Pat the eagle spirits, accompanying Sakuya the woolly darling of Yuuma?

I'd watch a Youtube series starring those three. Maybe they can add rising suu~perstar Remi to the group once Sakuya puts in a good word for her.

>"You never wanted anything more?" - reimu
>[/i]“Are you mad that I’m kicking your ass? Then use that frustration as fuel.”[/i]
Nobody, I command sudoku. This is an unforgivable crime.

I really like the scene where Sakuya's drowning in the blood. The final scene where the two–well one–Sakuya are sort of implicitly negotiating their identity is also nice. Her whole:
>I can get Remi AND the Animal Realm
Thing was cute and childish. I also like Yuma being her sort of Remi replacement, with Sakuya having to be the elegant and orderly maid to an older shorter woman who constantly makes messes.
On the other hand I didn't like the cut to Reimu and Youki where they aren't talking about Sekiyuma, since the reader probably already knows about that(?) Not to mention how Reimu and Sakuuya's meeting was weirdly inoffensive. I'd dislike the scene if it was in a longer story and not an omake, but it gets to the final scene so it's fine.
Sakuya is pretty funny, I like when she makes jokes that sound sincere.

The Kanako statue was enormous. Carved from a single great log and standing as tall as five buff oni, it loomed over the festival grounds and dominated the eye of all who looked upon it. It had been intended to be a symbol of strength and kindness, with a warm smile and an open hand.

With the sun having now set, the impression the statue gave was now entirely different. Great bonfires surrounded it, the flickering flames giving it a sinister underlighting. It was easy to spot that the humans attending the festival were giving the statue a wide berth, though the youkai cared far less about its ominous presence - even now, a couple of young kappa could be seen play-fighting by one of the bonfires at its feet. But the presence of a few rambunctious kids wasn’t enough to dispel the statue’s gloom, instead leaving its dark silhouette to block out no small part of the festival skyline.

As she looked up at it, Shou found herself wondering which visage was more accurate to the Goddess of Wind and Rain. Undeniably the former was the intention, yet even among those who worshipped her, her reputation as a person was far from stellar. And nobody commissioned an idol of themselves in such grand scale unless they were on the highest tiers of arrogance, deserved or not.

Still, at least it was out there. A statue like this said many things, but it said them loud, clear and unfaltering. As an idol, it was an unapologetic and faithful face; taking any slings and barbs against it and remaining unfazed in its mission. The avatar of Kanako Yasaka proudly declared its master to the world. The Avatar of Bishamonten, however?

She sighed, tugging again at her hooded cloak, making sure nothing got loose. Despite being in many ways the figurehead of Myouren Temple, she simply couldn’t bring herself to face the starry-eyed devotees. More controversy was the last thing the buddhists needed right now, so she’d kept as clear of the temple as she could.

Of course, the others had tried to get her to stay, but right now, gentle words of encouragement stung more than any jeers. She’d eventually managed to sneak out under the pretense of wanting to understand the Moriya Sh

It took a few moments for Shou to rally together a coherent thought. It took longer for her to manage to voice it. “You - you want me to set myself on fire?”

“Well, yes?” Futo gave her a look like she was the one talking insanity. “Is there not a great affinity between tigers and flame?”

“Where the hell did you hear that?!”

“Not merely heard, Toramaru-dono; witnessed with mine own eyes. A hermit on this very mountain showed me a wondrous display - her tiger familiar, leaping through a fiery ring with nary a hint of fear!”

“That’s just an acrobatics trick,” Shou countered, “And the whole point is that they don’t get burned. Is some circus act all you’re going off to tell me to set myself alight?”

“Far more than that, Toramaru-dono; some tigers go well beyond mere parlor tricks. The Outsider Esper Usami-dono told me of a warrior who shares their form with yours, yet has mastered fire to an unparalleled extent. Indeed, even though its opponents can command the earth and the sky, no name is more feared than the mighty Incineroar!”

“Usami-dono- you mean Sumireko? She was probably babbling about some fictional character, and we’ll be lucky if that fiction wasn’t something she wrote herself!” Shou groaned, collapsing her head into her hands. “Please, Futo, you should have learned this by now: fur burns, got it? So I’m not about to throw myself into a fiery death on parlor tricks and hearsay, alright?”

“Toramaru-dono, you wound me.” The taoist’s tone contained a thoroughly undeserved tone of righteous indignation. “I do not task you with this for mine amusement; mine intent is purely noble, and naught else.”

“Well forgive me for a little suspicion when you try to trick me into believing myself fireproof.” The tigress growled, turning away. “Especially from someone who’s set good men and women alight before.”

That seemed to draw more pause from Futo than anything said before. She lowered her baton slightly, her gaze suddenly seeming mor

Shou flew above the crowd, cursing her own self-centeredness. The closer she got, the more obvious the Kanako idol’s lean was - if only she’d seen it sooner!

Futo had been more correct than either of them had dreaded. Even in a normal gathering, something that big collapsing could cost dozens of lives - and when it was surrounded by bonfires? The downburst could set the whole festival alight.

The odd pair had split up on unspoken agreement. The taoist had taken off in the direction of the mountaintop lake, undoubtedly to get water for the almost-inevitable wildfire. That left Shou to spread the alarm and evacuate everyone she could. She reached the center plaza with a blast of magic already in hand, firing and yelling at the same time.

“EVERYONE EVACUATE! THE TOWER IS FALLING!”

Those who didn’t hear her over the crowd certainly saw her bullets land, a ripple of panic surging through the crowd. Those looking up to see their source would see the tiger launching herself at the statue. From the corners of her eye, Shou could see four wolf tengu reach for their swords, only to follow her movements and realise the far greater danger.

Shoulder-crashing into one of the idol’s teeth sent a shock of pain through the tigress’ body. She gasped, gritting her teeth as she pushed against it with all her might. She might as well have pushed against the world itself - she could feel herself losing ground, second by second. And she could feel the misfortune - even to someone as relatively inexperienced on the matter as she was, the statue’s wood seemed to writhe beneath her fingertips.

A wolf tengu barking orders was what informed her they’d arrived to try and help push it back, because she struggled to notice a difference in the weight she was pushing against. because she didn’t notice any real difference in the enormous weight upon her. Glancing side-to-side revealed four wolves at her flanks, and two more approaching. It wasn’t enough. The tower kept tilting over, bit by bit, the lean putting more and more weight on them.

Could they try to set it down? Not with any control. It was still more upright than vertical and already its fall felt inevitable. Push it b

Preface: I'll have to start this by saying I'm not exactly sure if this fits as a standalone story, but I feel it is also kind of self-contained. The major characters here are from my entry in the previous Flashy Exhibition, "Burakumin". And, yeah, it really only features them so if you're not too interested in OC stuff then feel free to skip this. Oh, and there's a bit of suggestive stuff towards the end.

---

After hours.

A dark, sinewy arm slips between long curtains, parting them carefully. Aging eyes peer into the cold, alien world brought about by strange and late hours. For a moment, all they conjure is a swirling current of inky blackness, interrupted by errant blots of light stubbornly clinging to vision. They strain to make sense of things. It clears by the second, forming familiar brown trails, black silhouettes and white margins. The shortest day of the year is past, but the world seems content to grow colder. Minding to grab his hat and boots of thick straw, the old man crosses the threshold.

Night lingers in a languid pace. The winds are gentle and flakes fall like feathers, and all about him roof and street are blanketed in piles of pillowy white. He figures to let the mood settle into him, drinking of the softly nibbling air as he ponders the dark grey of the murky sky. Endless clouds reign tonight, robbing him of the stars. Only a great ink-like splotch of silver light manages to shine through its cotton-like tufts, and he can but wonder if its portentous power too is suffocated.

Steady, well travelled feet make certain of the uncertain ground. A real hazard, he's had the misfortune to learn, for someone advancing in their years. A little slip had landed him a few weeks' stay in that bamboo clinic, leaving him to the tender mercies of harebrained nurses by the dozen as they enacted what was ominously dubbed "physical therapy" upon him, and all under the steely gaze of its mysterious doctor. All in all, a begrudgingly convincing treatment. He's made good on his plan not to return, if only not to disappoint her. And all that trouble at the behest of one very insistent

The old man does not stay true to his word.

Treading through the snow-strewn roads dividing the open fields, he instead stops by a particular ditch along the northwestern edge. There would have been plenty of quaint sights along the way but, shrouded as they are, the night offers sad little. Nearby, a shabby post warns of wandering bears. The first scatterings of a great forest stalk about, and though the charcoal sky has swallowed it from sight, the old man knows that spire of the mountain lies beyond. Here he sets his lantern down, waiting.

A dormant rice field spreads before him, collecting snow as the soil renews. By the far margin is an old-fashioned farmhouse with its steep thatched roof layered with white. Late as it is, a soft glow bleeds through paper panels. A door is curiously ajar.

He's noticed how much quieter it is here, now. It wasn't so when he was tending to the harvest, and much less summer. Neither crickets nor cicadas sing anymore; their littering husks buried by winter. The frogs have burrowed and the fireflies are gone too while the throngs of men, beasts and birds make do. Such is how things go. But what to do if snow piles too thick, winds blow too strong? Out here, huddling the fire all day, alone, subsisting on rations of dried goods for the better part of a month, is dreadfully dull. He begins to dream of livelier prospects.

By the seventh minute, he is swooning for a hot, citrusy bath. He has a mind to head to the nearest tree. Whether from bodily fatigue or his incessantly wandering mind, the thought of surrendering himself to the stillness is suddenly a terrible temptation. His haphazard plan will not see the day, however. The audacity of his action did not pass unnoticed when he left the gates.

"Oughf!" the old man sprays, loud and sudden.

He feels all the air leave his lungs when the all world around him is suddenly spinning. One moment he was reminiscing of snow apples so vividly he could suddenly smell them, the next he suffers the savage blow of a spiteful god as the weight of what must be the entire world crashes into him—specifically his right side.

Apples.

An imposing se

In a corner of the garden, under the wooden porch, sat a rectangular box. It was protected from the warm summer rain that had been falling all morning. The air was dense and moisture clung onto most surfaces, particularly onto skin. I sat in another room close to the box, enjoying a cup of matcha. The aromatic and wisp-like vapor that wafted from my cup seemed eager to rise up and I imagined that it sought to prove itself by countering the downward motion of rain. I thought about that and many other things besides as I stared out through the open sliding door, through the fine sheet of water, past the plants and walls and out into the vivid green of the endless bamboo that surrounded our home.

---

Half a year ago, when the garden had been covered by a layer of powdery snow, I had also been drinking a cup of tea and staring out while lost in thought. I was wearing a pale and thin unlined kimono, one that allowed the frigid winter air to penetrate it unchallenged. I shivered involuntarily from time to time but resisted the urge to put on a coat. I must have looked like a fool. Eirin sipped from her own teacup, offering no comment, as she wore an impassive look on her face.

“Don’t you think the moon looks lovely tonight?” I asked. It was not quite yet full but it appeared large and brilliant in the night sky, its silvery light giving it a dignified, if aloof, look. I had been wondering for some time how the inhabitants of Earth felt on nights like those. I could not decide on whether or not they even bothered to look up at the sky on most nights.

Seemingly reading my thoughts, Eirin responded, “Many different cultures ascribe to the moon magical properties and even go as far as to think it as a mysterious, unknowable, entity. For the most part, for most of these people, the moon acts as a sort of mirror to their own feelings and thoughts.”

“Hm, is that so?” Eirin’s wisdom and depth of knowledge was the sort of thing I normally deferred to without hesitation but there was something about it all that failed to make me uncritically accept her words. Maybe it was because we had once lived in the Lunar Capital and it felt like w

>“Ah, I see. You’re the sort who gets off on fondling womens’ hair. And young ones at that.”
Aya is being rather generous to herself, we all know she's a hag.
Before this, it was my own headcanon that Yukari who would properly slap Reimu and tell to her stop looking at and properly do as she's expected to and perform her function. This is good too, if not as dramatic.
>Once she started down this road, she wasn’t likely to see much beyond herself, to say nothing of others’ existences. All that could be done was to patiently hold on and avoid upsetting her further.
I like how Rinnosuke is also annoyed by Reimu's selfishness. As the Hakurei she exists for the sake of Gensokyo, not the other way around. She priority she be perfoming her function above all else, a lot of people rely on her and she shouldn't waste any of it self pitying. But for now she's just annoying important person everyone else has to put up with.

>>3355
Sorry for the late response and thank you for the kind words!

In all honesty, this epilogue was a little bit of an unexpected thing for me as well. When I initially wrote the 'ending' post, I'd kind of considered things done and dusted. However, I spent various late nights re-reading — yes, the vanity of a writer — and feeling as if it didn't quite feel conclusive enough. Besides, I'd read a couple of early comments that knocked at a few loose ends, so I began to think, "Why not?" This is, of course, the beginning of a disaster in most cases.

The actual writing of the epilogue was uneven and took a bit to really find a direction. Initially, I started off with a much different situation. There are lingering indications of this in the final product, but I started off wanting to show that the people around Reimu had sort of organised themselves into a bit of a team dedicated to looking after her. The opening was Rinnosuke showing up at the shrine, exchanging some banter with Kasen, and looking to see his assigned task for the day on a whiteboard. In the whole process, Kasen had turned into something of a burnt-out project manager, and Rinnosuke was a somewhat unwilling volunteer. The intended tone of it was comedic, but I'd say it had little direction besides showing off that sort of situation and 'being farcical'.

Mid-way, after a lot of time with no movement, I started to feel I was heading the wrong direction. It wasn't until I was fairly deep into a re-watch of the Monogatari series that I hit upon the present form. Something just kind of clicked into place and I threw out what I had. In typical fashion, I'd had some intention of going fairly deep into things and being fairly baroque with the psychological convolutions of everyone involved, but I got a bit winded after a short time. Not having an exceptionally solid concept beyond the barest essentials didn't help, so I found myself crawling a bit towards the end. In the end, I kind of decided it was getting a little long and felt it could use a bit of a s

>>3333
I hope you're well and that life is okay. More than that, I'd still love to hear those thoughts. Just wanted you to know the door is more than open if you're somehow hanging around in doubt.

Everything under the moonlight appeared made of shimmering satin. A wind blew that I knew could chill to the bone, yet I felt strangely warm, removed from the temperature around me. Hardly anything around me lay in shadow in spite of the deep night. The whole world stood underneath the moon as if cast under an enormous spotlight.

I stood looking out beyond the lake from a distance off. I supposed I couldn’t sleep. My shoes were in my hand, rocks scraping at the soles of my feet. Why on earth had I worn my leather shoes out here? For that matter, my school uniform served little better for comfort in this wilderness. I sloughed off my overly warm jacket, aghast that I was wearing long sleeves underneath in spite of the summer. Still, the night air failed to relieve my feeling of being stifled. In turn, I removed all I could remove. There was no gaze falling on me but the moon, so I felt no shame standing in my boxers. I was blissfully alone.

I blinked. Yes, I realised, I did seem to be alone. In fact, I looked about to catch sight of no cabins, no lodge, nor anything else familiar. The rocky shore and the shimmering water of the lake told me I was still where I expected to be. There, too, were the mountains, though unclear and painted in sharp relief with the moonlight, a black so deep as to suggest absence. The woods loomed as ever. I somehow had the feeling I had walked out of them, though I couldn’t recall ever doing so. This place felt as if it might be on a different shore, from a different angle.

The day spent helping Reimu had battered me from all sides. No matter how I shuffled away with my arms crossed, someone had to seize me and drag me back into the fray. I’d had hardly a moment to stand and look at the skies or the lake. Life only served to be more relentless out here. Responsibility and the sense that I had to be an adult — whatever that truly meant — hounded me like monsters arisen from the shadows, come to find me wherever I was to drag me into the murky deep. Every smiling, cheerful face asking for me seemed leering. Every sullen demand for my attention was a creature’s growl. Yet, I felt no more relief standing alone than I did in all that time.

A soft cras

It was an ordinary country inn among other ordinary country inns. If I were being extra flippant, I might have called it the countriest of inns. Not to imply that the place was particularly bad, but it did have that air of sleepiness and time having stood still that seems so endemic to businesses in the middle of nowhere. The car park being sparsely populated as our cab pulled in didn’t help things. Suika shot me a dubious look that said, “You friggin’ cheapskate,” and asked the driver if this was really the place.

The driver laughed as he shifted down gears. We rolled to a slow stop right at the front entryway. “Get that question about this place a lot. Think their pamphlets are a bit out of date.”

I thought about mentioning how young and broke we were just to head off any ‘recommendations’ from the driver, but he thankfully put the car in park without further word. After depositing our luggage on the curb, I reluctantly parted with the fare, every spent yen a keen absence from my wallet now, and awkwardly returned a slightly embarrassing goodbye salutation from the driver as he no doubt sped back towards the station.

None of the inn’s adjacent scenery made you gasp for breath. Auntie told me our relatives had assured her of some ‘splendid autumn views from the baths’, but I couldn’t help a latent scepticism itching at my neck. The place looked as if it had by chance been washed down a craggy mountain road and deposited up against the woods. Some of the wood that held up the building certainly looked waterlogged.

I scratched at my neck, drawing yet another look from Suika. “Hey, you liked camping, didn’t you?” I attempted to joke, but the force of her glowering took any pep out of me. I groaned and picked up my suitcase. “Yeah, yeah, I know what you’re going to say. I wanted better too, just so you know.”

“Oh, get off it,” Suika scoffed, grabbing her suitcase with far more ease than I had mine, “I was just going to tell you not to bitch the whole time. I know you, Arc.”

“I would hope you do by now.”

I gave a little laugh tha

I did try to go at the game as seriously as I could. Unfortunately, there were few opportunities for the gap in our scores to close, as Suika well knew, and those chances would have involved throwing her to the wolves. One slip-up and she’d lose her last life, and that’d be it. Feeling the futility in trying to overtake her, I stopped worrying about it after a while and just played back-up. Suika occasionally threw herself into dangerous spots tauntingly, trying to tempt me into taking advantage, but I always intervened.

Even if I didn’t have time to look over at her, I could feel the overbearing smugness radiating from her. I also felt a couple of fellow patrons’ stares, probably thinking we looked like such an attractive young couple. Little did they know.

We came to a late stage boss that we’d only had minimal trouble with in the past. On occasion, RNG would throw us a curve ball, but it was otherwise pretty predictable. That’s probably why Suika decided to start screwing around again, getting right in the trajectory of all the attacks only to pull back at the last second. The small-fry enemies rushed to intercept her, calling for my swift defence. Even as I managed to keep up, she would just get more and more erratic with her movements, rushing far off course from where I’d expect her to be. No matter how much I complained, she just told me to keep up. The game quickly went from trying to beat the boss to racing with Suika.

“Fuck! Go left! Left!” I shouted, spotting an enemy coming in hot. I was all out of bombs, and this one would outrun my reactive volley of shots.

Heedless of my command, Suika stood still, continuing to shoot the boss. It was hopeless. She had all of a split second before she was dead. I didn’t want it to end like that. Whatever my chances of winning our little contest, I couldn’t fail as back-up. What kind of husband would I be, otherwise?

I threw myself in the path of the enemy. There was a blip and I was dead — Game Over. The name entry screen beeped its taunting melody at us.

I looked to Suika, expecting to see her upset that we hadn’t made it to the end, but her expression was one of relative contentment. She set the c