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File 17194204583.jpg - (2.11MB, 2034x1358, __miyako_yoshika_touhou_drawn_by_kurachi_mizuki__c.jpg)
__miyako_yoshika_touhou_drawn_by_kurachi_mizuki__c
THE STORY SO FAR:
The world has ended, but five (well, it’s complicated) humans get a chance to do it over, and make things right. Only problem is, for their second go around, they're not going to be 'human'...

Kudamaki Kosuzu has reawoken, and promptly been given a task; escort and advise the Dragon Miko for her last few days in the Animal Realm, and her entry into the world of the living. Fortunately, said Dragon Miko is actually her old friend, Reimu, reborn as the heiress of the Kicchou line and the Kiketsu family as a whole.

As they were preparing to head to the surface, however, another girl fell into peril. A human piloting a strange craft known as the Probability Space Vessel crash-landed in Keiga territory, and pilot and vessel both have now been seized by Saki Kurokoma.

The fortune-teller Ichi seems forewarned of - and especially invested - in this event. She has tasked Reimu, Kosuzu, and the haniwa Mayumi with rescuing them, from Kurokoma and her new wicked hermit ally. With a tube-fox’s cunning and a bit of combat spells learned from a grimoire penned by Yakumo Ran, Kosuzu must now guide her friends and their target to safety…


Previous Threads:
Redo/Reimu >>205449 >>205720
Again/Akyuu >>206017 >>206302 >>206595 >>206906 >>207202
Yester/Youmu >>207370 >>207705 >>208027 >>208337 >>208664 >>208978
Kaizou/Kosuzu >>209221 >>209492 >>209799
Epilogues and Shorts >>/shorts/2804

Or read the story archive on Ao3:
https://archiveofourown.org/series/4062991



Kosuzu flinched, huddling close into the shoulder of the one carrying her. The sound of snapping trunks and scattered earth behind them shook through her.

Even in the dark night, she could see it - the rampaging beast. It was almost fluid, a swarming, angry mass. Clawed hands reached out, trying to snatch for the two fleeing foxes.

“GET BACK HERE!” It roared in utter fury, chasing them with relentless abandon. Kosuzu pulled in close, and trembled in fear.


“Kosuzu?” The fox blinked, stirring awake. “Is something wrong?”

She took a moment to regather her bearings, looking around. Reimu and Mayumi were on a rooftop, overlooking a small, seemingly hollow building - seemingly some sort of warehouse, or maybe a workshop, with lots of tools and hardware Kosuzu didn’t recognise. Wolf spirits patrolled around it, in twos and threes. Kosuzu shook her head, wriggling out of Reimu’s hood.

“No, just… an old, old dream. Kinda the evil counterpart to the singing dream. Just a vague memory or something.” She hopped down, looking at the guards. Aside from being in small groups, the guards were hardly following some kind of patrol or schedule, and largely just seemed to be in a slightly more mobile version of loitering.

…Well. It wasn’t hard to spot the jiang-shi, being the only corporeal being among the guards. She was dressed in red and black, with an indigo hat just above her talisman. clothes, and had an expression so vacant Kosuzu had a hard time believing she’d ever had a functional brain. Still, aside from the deathly pallor, Kosuzu couldn’t see any tell-tale wounds or anything.

She was staring at a trio of wolves, drooling something Kosuzu’s nose could smell even from here. One of the wolves looked at the zombie, glaring. “Can you go leer at someone else already? You’re grossing us out.”

“Oooookaaaaaayyyy…” The jiang-shi spun around, hopping away, as the wolves began to mutter about their new allies. And not, for that matter, in favorable terms.

“So.” Kosuzu turned to them. “What’s the plan here?”

Reimu cracked her knuckles. “Why don’t we just get in there and start taking names? Go in guns blazing and knock out everything we can?”

Mayumi shook her head. “They’re all scattered about, but there is a good number of them. And if we alert them, they could call for help, or abscond with the hostage.”

Kosuzu nodded. “Yeah, I think we’re gonna need a better plan. Mayumi, do you have any ideas?” Reimu’s face started to sour, but Kosuzu waved her off. “Come on, it’s got to be at least worth hearing out?”

The haniwa grinned. “Of course! There’s a perfect weapon for this, back in Keiki’s territory. We take that, and we can take all the wolves out at once.”

Kosuzu perked up. “That sounds perfect! Do we need to circle back to get it?”

“No need, it can deliver the payload from home turf easily.” Mayumi’s smirk only grew wider. “Nothing’s quicker for dealing with a crowd than an artillery strike!”



Kosuzu whipped her head around to the haniwa, who was just about to start typing. “What?! No! That’ll kill her!”

Mayumi waved her off. “But then we just pull her spirit out. And then she’s safe!”

Reimu dragged her hand on her face, her tail flicking. “...Mayumi… this is one of those cases I was talking about, and one of the things Keiki's been trying to teach you. Where humans and human spirits are not the same thing. I get that us Immaterial Children don't help matters...”

Kosuzu stared up at the two of them. Suddenly, Ichi’s request to keep the other two in line was making a lot more sense. “Just… both of you, just… let me take a proper look, and offer some suggestions, alright?” They briefly nodded at her, leaving Kosuzu to her devices while they began to debate their plans - a race for a (hopefully) very distant second place.

She looked down. The jiang-shi was just finishing her requested leering - or rather, she’d been asked by the wolf she was leering at to ‘go bother someone else’ and was dutifully doing so. …Jiang shi were meant to be fairly simplistic, right? What rules were actually in the magic being used to govern her?

Decisions, decisions… and where to even start? The fox observed the wolves, and tried to think it through.

[ ] Write-in plans open!
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[X] Fox Sign - What in the world can no, I doubt that would actually work.

We've got two things to worry about here (from the immediately visible threats, anyways): the wolves and Yoshika. We should plan ways to get past them seperately, as well as together.

Depending on the layout of the wolves, this trio might not be visible to the others. There are three of them and three of us. Knock them out with a silent takedown and then wear them like a disguise to shuffle past Yoshika, who hopefully doesn't notice anything amiss.

What I'm curious about is the method Yoshika is using to determine who friend and foe are. If we could just walk up to her and say "Hi, I'm a member of the Keiga, can you lead me to the hostage?" that'd definitely be helpful.

What might actually be really nice is if we could get on top of the zombie. Discounting any talisman shenanigans, we probably are small enough to hitch a ride on her. Don't know how we'd manage it, but it'd be a good way to do it.

Here's where I'll concede the benefits of picking silence- it would've let us sneak everyone through really well. We didn't know at the time, though.

We could try disguising our smell as corpselike and vaguely trying to look like Yoshika, maybe?

Gonna take some time to think of more detailed plans. Might review r/r real quick for specifications on somethin.
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That dream is an intriguing almost-clue. Of course, it's missing the key pieces of information - who is holding Kosuzu and why, and who is chasing them and why.
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Kind of want to try using kitsunebi (we learned fox danmaku, let's put it to work!) to incinerate the talisman. If Kosuzu's precise enough with it, that could remove Yoshika from play right off the bat. On the other hand, I don't want to accidentally cremate her if Kosuzu misses, there's no guarantee that uncontrolled Yoshika wouldn't still be a problem, and unless the spirits are stupid... more stupid than the average Keiga... it'll let them know there are intruders whether it succeeds or fails.

I don't know, I'll think about it for a bit before voting.
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Tube foxes are all about whispering bad ideas in people’s ears undetected right? Do they shrink down and dive into people’s ear tubes to do it? Yoshika’s rotted brain would be easy to manipulate for Kosuzu.

[x] Do that tube fox thing to whisper bad ideas into Yoshika’s ear.
-[x] “Those wolf spirits sure do look mighty tasty~”
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I'd kill for a pair of binoculars right now to just figure out exactly what rules Yoshika is following right now. Even if they turn out to be unhelpful for the reprogramming idea, it'd be nice to know exactly how one of our enemies thinks and operates.

I like the idea of using kitsunebi, though. The whole point of foxfire is to distract travelers and make them lose their way- maybe we could light up a dark alleyway with some and... I dunno, fan the scent of some roast pork at Yoshika to lure her in where we can ambush and hopefully pin her down. Could we use animal shaped danmaku as bait, maybe? Would love to workshop this idea with others.

Maybe we should take an inventory on everything we have between all of us and see if we have any useful little combinations of doodads.
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>>210145
I was considering something like this, but we would have to get close enough to Yoshika for that sort of manipulation (either through sweet words or through extensive modification to her talisman) to occur.

All in all, it really depends on whether Yoshika is currently moving towards us, blissfully unaware of our presence, or whether we'll have to sneakily ambush a few wolf spirits at a time to get to her.
But if the former is true, then the plan might work depending on Kosuzu's persuasion modifier & essence of time. I would assume that modification of the talisman, or implanting a new talisman, would be time-consuming...? But then again, what do I know about talisman configuration?

Still gonna hold my vote... until later.
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[x] Do that tube fox thing to whisper bad ideas into Yoshika’s ear.
-[x] “Those wolf spirits sure do look mighty tasty~”
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Even if we did get close enough to Yoshika to whisper in her ear, I don't think we could get her to act against her programming, and if she's not eating the wolf spirits already, she's probably has instructions not to. And anyway, I'd rather find a youko solution than a kudagitsune solution.

Yoshika's the key here, and I definitely agree we'll get the best results from making her 'malfunction,' though. Just need to figure out how. I think isolating her so we can reprogram her (problem: how to keep wolf spirits from following or retrieving her?) or damaging her talisman at a distance both sound good (problem: how to not make it obviously sabotage?). Still not ready to make a decision here...
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The main goal right now is to secure Yumeimi right? My suggestion would be to
A: Have Kosuzu scout the place properly to make sure that Yumeimi is actually there and that the only enemies we have in the immediate vicinity are the ones we already see.
B: Have one of us, probably Kosuzu again, lure Yoshika away from the rest of the group.
C: Have the other two smash and grab Yumeimi from the wolves, then rejoin the 3rd to gang up on Yoshika and take her out before escaping.
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>>210149
The wolves clearly don't like her presence, and they aren't following some strict patrol routine. If we lure her away somehow in a non-obvious manner when she's not close to any of them, they'll probably just let her wander off.

I don't suppose that we could maybe have ourselves or Reimu put on our human disguise as part of the bait for the foxfire plan? It'd be risky if she raised the alarm but if she just was hungry enough we could maybe use that.

>>210150
I think the big problem (aside from leaving Reimu and Mayumi unattended which might cause emergent problems) is that I'm not sure Kosuzu can just sneak in without some kind of setup first. Wolves are kind of known for their sense of smell, so even if we aren't seen we might be at risk. The smash and grab is iffy as well- as Mayumi pointed out, there's enough that they could probably at least call for help if not escape with "Crisis". We can take on just Yoshika and the wolves probably, but what if they call in an eagle squadron or some VIPs?
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Maybe we can use a cardboard box to sneak past everyone?

Now, seriously speaking, we need to take some things in consideration:

- Location of the person to be rescued.
- Amount of guards and their possible patrol routes.
- Entrances and exits, for possible escape routes.

We know almost nothing and even if time is of the essence, we need to have patience and figure these out before doing anything rash.

Maybe there's something in Ran's book that lets her disguise as a (maybe smaller?) wolf with a lesser illusion.
I suggest luring Yoshika away from the wolves and making "idle chitchat" asking her about what is she guarding and where is it... or anything that's useful to us now. As long as she thinks we're part of the Keiga clan she shouldn't be aggressive but also there's the chance she doesn't remember what she is supposed to guard.
Maybe even command her to stare at a wall or something like that until we tell her to stop, since she just obeyed a wolf earlier.

I won't put all of this into a vote, yet. I'll see what you think and vote later.
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well we could use Reimu to trap the wolf with the seal to ease the situation and then have kosuzu whisper to yoshika.

Spirit wolves are considered resources right? maybe we could give yoshika more programming then it would be something like....

eat wolf spirit > add another programming > eat wolf spirit > add another programming > eat wolf spirit

so on and so forth until she is generating enough chaos to give us a free pass to rescue uh.... Yumemi?

Regarding mayumi and her artillery maybe it could be used for the escape and generate more confusion or use it if someone detects the group.
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I wonder… all 4 of the guards seem very distractable. What are the chances we can just have Reimu or Mayumi cause an explosion nearby and have all of them run to investigate.
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[X] Wait for Yoshika to pass somewhere out of view of the other guards, then create a few danmaku foxes at the mouth of an alley or corner and have them run deeper in, hopefully luring her with the idea of getting to eat a fox spirit.
- [X] Once she's successfully been isolated, approach her pretending to be a Keiga. If she buys it, ask her where the hostage is located inside the building and if there's anyone but her and the wolves here. Then see if she'll just let you take a ferry atop her to the hostage.
- - [X] If she doesn't believe the initial lie or refuses to take you inside, Mayumi and Reimu will rush her and try and knock her out so that you all can tamper with her.
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Hmm. How do we feel about this one?

[X] Lure Yoshika down a blind alley with foxfire. Have Mayumi ambush her and hold her down. If Reimu feels up to it, reprogram Yoshika; otherwise remove talisman. Either way, pump her for information.

A few assumptions here: foxfire looks sufficiently like delicious non-wolf spirits to distract Yoshika; wolf spirits won't follow her; Mayumi can't be infected even if bitten; Yoshika has retained any information whatsoever.
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>>210142
>> If we could just walk up to her and say "Hi, I'm a member of the Keiga, can you lead me to the hostage?" that'd definitely be helpful.

Funny, but I really do think Yoshika would just cooperate with that as long as she doesn't see us as a foe. The real problem with that, is the wolves.

>> We could try disguising our smell as corpselike and vaguely trying to look like Yoshika, maybe?

Reimu can actually do this one, especially the smell (not that Kosuzu knows this yet, I think?)

>>210146
I don't think the rules are specifically written in her talisman. Usually jiangshi talismans only say "by order of X, obey" (I'm going from memory. It's rooted in taoism and it's "by order of the emperor" or "divine missive" or something like that?)

Binoculars really would be useful here, though.

>> Maybe we should take an inventory on everything we have between all of us and see if we have any useful little combinations of doodads.

Bingo, excellent idea. Pool the resources together, this takes care of the "Kosuzu doesn't know this" part.

>>210152
Yeah, unless the wolves were commanded to keep an eye on the rotting guard, too.

>> Wolves are kind of known for their sense of smell
This can be counteracted by Reimu's ability to smell however she wants.
Escaping with "Crisis" will be the hardest part if we enter sneakily. Maybe will involve fighting in the way out.

>> what if they call in an eagle squadron or some VIPs
VIPs, likely. I don't think they're still cooperating with Yuuma after what happened at the clock tower. This is strictly Keiga business.

>>210154
I agree that Mayumi's artillery barrage should be used as a diversion while escaping. I don't think that the "programming" works like that without prior knowledge.
Also, the more complex the programming, the more chances it goes wrong.

--

You're all assuming that Reimu just can override her at a whim, when even if she's (maybe?) talented at talismans, the kind of magic used in Yoshika's is from a taoist source (which should be unknown to Reimu, or at least very hard to replicate). On the other hand, I can see Reimu making a different -shinto- talisman, with an enchantment to keep undead paralyzed.
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>>210158
ah, right, I'd misinterpreted a line about both factions looking for new power after the alliance as them still in their own joint venture alliance.

yeah, unfortunately the whole idea of remaking Yoshika probably isn't as easy as Kosuzu taking a brush and writing her own name over Seiga's. I think we're better off trying to just tamper with her by messing with her talisman than literally converting her to our side as cool as it would be to literally convert the enemy.

good call on the smell changing- the ability to change our scent as Reimu has been useful a surprising number of times.
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I think any plan to disrupt Yoshika with talisman's is unlikely to be successful at the moment. While Reimu can probably lock her down with talismans of her own should we be strong enough to beat her (important given that Seiga can bring Yoshika back to 100% at a moments notice), if any VIPs show up the operation would get out of hand quickly.

As a reminder for those keeping track, we have at a minimum Seiga and Saki to worry about amongst the Wolves, and Chiyari for the Eagles. Of these, the most likely person to show up at this stage is Seiga (who likely is responsible for the entire perimeter), followed by Chiyari if we happen to create enough of a stink to justify the eagles showing up. If any of them detected a battle, there is a high likelyhood they would respond, so we should plan around some stealth.

I think the best option we have is trying to distract Yoshika with Foxfire and taking out the Wolves patrolling with her: that opens up enough combat space to hopefully allow for our trio to incapacitate her for a few hours without alerting Seiga or Chiyari to our infiltration.

[X] Lure Yoshika down a blind alley with foxfire before defeating her separate from the Wolf Patrols
- [X] Take out any stray wolves with her or in the area so they can't go for backup!
-- [X] If possible, use talismans to temporarily take Yoshika out of commission so she can't be resurrected quickly

Now, for the other meaty part of the update.

>Kosuzu flinched, huddling close into the shoulder of the one carrying her. The sound of snapping trunks and scattered earth behind them shook through her. Even in the dark night, she could see it - the rampaging beast. It was almost fluid, a swarming, angry mass. Clawed hands reached out, trying to snatch for the two fleeing foxes. “GET BACK HERE!” It roared in utter fury, chasing them with relentless abandon. Kosuzu pulled in close, and trembled in fear.

This... actually complicates Kosuzu's backstory by alot. Now the singing memory could legitimately fall into Fox!Kosuzu's camp, while also feeding questions on what the heck Tsukasa was messing with with Kosuzu nearby. As far as I can tell the only Arm themed attack it could be is MAYBE from Ibaraki Douji's Arm, but why are they anywhere close to finding where Kasen hid it?

Alternatively, of course, is the Mama!Ran hypothesis having a VERY angry Ran, but I don't think jumping the gun on that is very wise, even if it is probably more likely than Ibaraki Douji being out and about.

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>>210158
According to Symposium of Post-Mysticism's entry on Seiga, in reference to her jiangshi:
>Written on the charm is a "To-do List", which they follow dutifully because of their mindlessness.

It also says that when the talisman is off, what's left of Yoshika's original personality tries to reassert itself and she ends up just standing around trying to remember her poetry, so getting it off her should remove her from play whether or not we can forge a replacement.
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>>210160

I like the idea of distracting Yoshika, but I’m hesistant to go into combat if we don’t have to. Again, I bring up the idea of just making an explosion with Reimu and Mayumi’s danmaku to make everyone in the patrol think there’s a fight going on somewhere close by, making them go and help in the “combat”. Then we sneak in, grab Yumemi, and get out.
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Maybe we could do something with Reimu changing her scent to something appetizing?
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Rather than any votes to act now, how anout a vote for reconnaissance?

Don't have time to vote yet, but instead of a vote to try to get in/act right now, we try to get as much info as we can

- how many normal entrances are there?
-how much can we see inside?
- depending on the answer to the above, can we tell if there is additional guards inside? (Or is there an ambush of a VP inside waiting for us?)
- can we tell where inside crisis is?
-is there a way to see what is written on Yoshika's talisman?
- if so what ways can we take advantage of the wording?
-are there alternate ways to sneak inside (air piping for A/C on the roof, plumbing from below? If they are small on top of that can Kosuzu recon inside?)

From the (lack of) sounds i don't think that Keiki and Yachie have started their attack yet. So on top of all this we might not want to act until we can hear fighting in the distance. Though i'm assuming the animal realm not to be big enough that one can hear conflict pretty far from one side to the other...

Also wasn't Chen supposed to be sticking with us to (ostensibly) make sure the book didn't get damaged?

And correct me if i'm wrong, but has Tsukasa been present when Chen and Yukari were in the room as well? (Aside from at the beginning when Chen was disguised as Orange.)
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>>210164
Chen left to go deliver some of Kosuzu's fur to Ran to make a new disguise ring.
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going to try and compile the current plans we have going for ease of discussion:

Bait Yoshika
We use foxfire/danmaku foxes to lure Yoshika away, as well as having Reimu smell like freshly barbequed meat or something to add to the bait. We confront the sole Jiangshi pretending to be a Keiga, and try and pry information out of her. Then there are two suggested branches:

- Bait and Tackle
Mayumi, being made of ceramic, goes in with the steel chair (probably just jumping on Yoshika from above) since she can't be bitten and pins her while the other two use seals/danmaku/something or other in order to take her out. We can then mess around with her however we please. We could either tamper with her talisman or steal her hat (which is hopefully enough to make Reimu look like yoshika at a glance because I do not want to take a corpse's clothes) and use scent meddling to disguise as her.

- Bait and Switch
If Yoshika is empty-headed enough, we could convince her to just take us straight to the hostage, at which point we can begin the break-out process. Simple, but we can probably only bring fox kosuzu so it might not be as easy to get her out without one of the heavy hitters in there with us.

Where's the Fire?
Preying upon the Keiga's brute nature and love of fights, we start up a fight with Reimu and Mayumi with some explosions or something, hopefully luring the disorganized guards away. Kosuzu gets in while the wolves are distracted by going around Yoshika.

Cunning Manipulation
Tube foxes gonna tube fox. We sneak around and somehow get by Yoshika's ear, then try and convince her to go after the wolf spirits, inciting chaos that probably would let all three get inside the building as the guards have to pin down the zombie.
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>>210164

Maybe something like

[X] Case the building as sneakily as time and prudence will allow. Pay special attention to any additional security, potential entrances, and viable tubing targets.
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>>210160
talking about kosuzu's memory
In that memory they don't mention the name of the fox, so it could be Tsukasa or Ran.

If it was Ran maybe it would be Yuuma who is chasing them since she can go into beast mode (in the final fight of 17.5 or when she has her water meter maxed out) maybe Kosuzu lost some memory due to how unclear the memory is and found by tsukasa.

If it was Tsukasa it could be Yukari? she can do some things with her gaps and I doubt it's Ran who's chasing them since she can't make giant claws maybe?, besides they don't mention when it happened so it could be that kosuzu was a 4-6 year old girl at the time.

Other characters with huge claws or looking big would be Suika, Ichirin, Shinmyoumaru and the and the mentioned Kasen but I doubt they are because kosuzu saw a beast besides many of those characters are not evil.


Well I don't have any more ideas for the rescue other than sneaking into the warehouse to find her and not scaring her after they defeat the guards and yoshika.
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>>210160
Remember we're looking at this through a nightmare remembrance of something seen by a terrified child. I think all we've really learned here is that Kosuzu was pursued by someone very angry with clawed hands, which could be quite a lot of people.
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>>210169
Oh, and the person carrying her being conspicuously unidentified isn't strictly learning something, but it is suggestive. Of what, I dunno yet.
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[X] Go over carried items and abilities with the others to make sure everyone knows what we have.

[X] The plan is simple: you'll use fox-shaped magic and Reimu will make herself smell delicious, luring Yoshika away. Then you'll confront her for information, before Mayumi gets the stealth drop on her and Reimu & you will take her down while she's restrained. You'll figure out what to do with her from there.
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>>210160
Kasen didn't hide it, in fact she in WaHH was trying to find it it was in the outside world

>>210145
maybe something more like "Just a taste wouldn't be bad, right?" or something along the lines where we don't need Yoshika to actually attack the wolves... we just need them to think that she is...

do we need to actually lure Yoshika anywhere? considering that she's moving from one group probably to the nearest one to stare at them, and considering how simple the programming actually is... we could figure out if there is a pattern that emerges from her wandering and work around it as long as possible

>>210167

I think I'd go more like

[x] Slow down and gather as much information without getting noticed as you can before acting. (slow is smooth, smooth is fast.)
- [x] see if you can scout out the inside to make sure both where Crisis is and if there are any ambushes or traps waiting for us
-[x] what are the possible entrances, and more importantly exits, (escape is victory after all) such as underground conduits and/or other sorts of pipes, roof vents, etc
-[x] can we get someone to be able to see Yoshika's talisman without being noticed(binoculars? super vision?) and if Kosuzu can't use it, have the person who can look and copy it down so that Kosuzu can read what it is.
-[x] with Yoshika being regularly told to leave by each wolf group, is there a pattern in her pathing that emerges that can be worked around without engaging her?

though yeah, yours is far more concise... just I don't want to miss anything here...

----

[x] If we know if its possible, wait until Yachie's and Keiki's attacks go off and are noticeable to have the guards distracted.

as for an possible plan once the information is gathered:

[x] Kosuzu sneaks into the warehouse in fox form, then if there isn't a way to sneak out with Crisis, Reimu and Mayumi cause a distraction acting as if they are breaking in to open a way out for Kosuzu and Crisis, then once Kosuzu and Crisis are away, Reimu and Mayumi withdraw (or finish off the guards.) and meet up in a nearby pre-determined location and everyone skedaddle.


...that's probably one of the longer votes of this quest isn't it...
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>>210172
Eh, it's an open ended write-in prompt with no obvious ways to approach the problem. Length just means you're accounting for everything.

I think the point of luring Yoshika is specifically to lure her into a prepared ambush and make sure no wolves are around to stop our interference.
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I agree that we should bait away Yoshika, but I don't think we can reprogram her. Reimu don't want to hurt/kill Yoshika disable her yes, likely with a talisman, but I don't see Reimu attempting a reprogramming of her.

>>She gave a hollow chuckle. “I got pretty desperate. Did more than I should have to try and make it stick. …For all I know, maybe she was just preserving herself, and would have recovered if I didn’t screw her up. Or maybe my meddling just attracted one of the Pyres to her. But… whatever happened, the next time I saw her, she was torn to pieces.”

>>Kosuzu nuzzled her friend. “...You can’t blame yourself for that, Reimu… There might just not have been enough power left to revive her.”

>>Reimu’s voice was still glum, “Hah, maybe my talismans are the right trick. Just seemed to doom Aunn, maybe it’ll doom the jiang shi, too.”

Using Reimu's ability to change her smell if she can get close enough to Yoshika (after we lure her away) smelling like a wolf spirit without Yoshika seeing her we might be able to trick her into creating a distraction for us, as she seems to be ordered to follow the wolf spirits commands. Then again Yoshika was looking at the wolf spirits not smelling them so it might not work.

After we disable Yoshika's threat (either by having her act a distraction or K.O.ed), we still need to deal with/distract the wolfs. I think using a less powerful version of Mayumi's artillery strike might be able to do just that, at a location down the road might pull at least a wolf. At this point we can hopefully take out the rest of the guard with out to much trouble.

Option 2) the infiltrate in pure sight path.
Mayumi and Reimu are both known quantities, Kosuzu isn't and the gangs are recruiting outsiders as much as they likely dislike it. She can act as a messenger sent by Saki who "recently recruited her master Tsukasa" (lie) to check on the human prisoner. This will allow her to get to "Crisis" by having the guards take her there. That way she can calm down, rescue, and protect "Crisis" until Reimu and Mayumi secure an escape path. I think this path is riskier as Kosuzu has to hold off an unknown amount of guards before her teammates can get to her, and the whole thing would fall apart depending on communication a badly timed message from Saki would blow our cover, but I thought I would throw it out there as an option.
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I do so wonder what clay fragments traveling at high speeds would do to wolf spirits, but the answer's probably nothing if we're being completely honest here.

Hmm… Let's try an even worse plan and [X] go make friends with the dead-girl-walking and all her canine companions.
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Just another option I've been thinking:

Would it be possible to access the ring's debug feature and try to reprogram Reimu's disguise to make a passable Yoshika-lookalike, and lure the real deal replacing her with Reimu to infiltrate the warehouse? I think this might be a gunsmithing factory or something like that, if Crisis is here they might have her actually building a weapon instead of being a proper hostage

Maybe the wolves weren't paying enough attention to Yoshika because she creeps them out (plus the smell) and Reimu can pull it off.

I'll be honest with you, the only real thing going for this plan is that I find Reimu trying to mimic Yoshika's stiff jumping very funny.

On the other hand:

>> Ichi watched them go, sighing. “Right - I’m sure we’ve all got places to be?”
>> Keiki raised an eyebrow. “I mean, me and Yachie will be coordinating attacks. What will you be doing?”

They are coordinating attacks so we might have some external diversion.
We might want to wait? Do we have something to communicate?

For now, I'm going with:

[X] Slow down and gather as much information without getting noticed as you can before acting.
[X] Go over carried items and abilities with the others to make sure everyone knows what we have.
[X] If we know if its possible, wait until Yachie's and Keiki's attacks go off and are noticeable to have the guards distracted.
[X] If the opportunity arises, lure Yoshika somewhere away from the wolves.
- [X] Kosuzu: try tricking Yoshika into thinking we're part of the Keiga while the others wait nearby.
- [X] If it works, ask her for information about "Crisis".
- [X] If this fails, Reimu and Mayumi can deal with Yoshika as they see fit.
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I honestly doubt we can trick Yoshika unless Kosuzu can specifically pass herself off as a wolf spirit. She's, if anything, too stupid for that. She sometimes forgets she's even got a master, or who her allies are, and she defaults to assuming people she doesn't recognise are enemies. If she's remembering she's supposed to obey the wolf spirits, I'd bet it's because it's specifically written on her talisman and she won't be friendly with anyone else.

I'm still keen on removing her talisman and seeing if what's left of her free will is agreeable, especially if we want to try and communicate with her. Then, depending on how that works out, either she's obviously malfunctioning and therefore a solid distraction (and fixing her delays Seiga if she shows up), or maybe even an extra helping hand for us.
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>>210157
Oh, right, revising this.

[UNDO] Lure Yoshika down a blind alley with foxfire. Have Mayumi ambush her and hold her down. If Reimu feels up to it, reprogram Yoshika; otherwise remove talisman. Either way, pump her for information.

[X] Slow down and gather as much information without getting noticed as you can before acting.
[X] Go over carried items and abilities with the others to make sure everyone knows what we have.
[X] If we know if its possible, wait until Yachie's and Keiki's attacks go off and are noticeable to have the guards distracted.
[X] If the opportunity arises, lure Yoshika somewhere away from the wolves.
-[X] Have Mayumi ambush Yoshika and pin her down, using Reimu's talismans to bind her if necessary. Make sure to block her ability to bite.
-[X] Remove Yoshika's instruction talisman.
-[X] Attempt to communicate.
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>>210160

I'm happy to change to a more detailed plan, and having a bit of precaution is probably necessary.

[UNDO] Lure Yoshika down a blind alley with foxfire before defeating her separate from the Wolf Patrols
- [UNDO] Take out any stray wolves with her or in the area so they can't go for backup!
-- [UNDO] If possible, use talismans to temporarily take Yoshika out of commission so she can't be resurrected quickly

[X] Slow down and gather as much information without getting noticed as you can before acting.
[X] Go over carried items and abilities with the others to make sure everyone knows what we have.
[X] If we know if its possible, wait until Yachie's and Keiki's attacks go off and are noticeable to have the guards distracted.
[X] If the opportunity arises, lure Yoshika somewhere away from the wolves.
-[X] Have Mayumi ambush Yoshika and pin her down, using Reimu's talismans to bind her if necessary. Make sure to block her ability to bite.
-[X] Remove Yoshika's instruction talisman.
-[X] Attempt to communicate.
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:3

[X] Slow down and gather as much information without getting noticed as you can before acting.
[X] Go over carried items and abilities with the others to make sure everyone knows what we have.
[X] If we know if its possible, wait until Yachie's and Keiki's attacks go off and are noticeable to have the guards distracted.
[X] If the opportunity arises, lure Yoshika somewhere away from the wolves.
-[X] Have Mayumi ambush Yoshika and pin her down, using Reimu's talismans to bind her if necessary. Make sure to block her ability to bite.
-[X] Remove Yoshika's instruction talisman.
-[X] Attempt to communicate.
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I don't think we can possibly persuade or tempt Yoshika to deviate from her programming; her programming is just about all she has to begin with. We need to subvert it. Which is of course trickier when we don't know exactly what her instructions are to find loopholes in. Luring her works if she has the leeway to pursue intruders or oddities, but not if she's been ordered to stay near the target or to alert her allies. The fact she takes new orders from the wolf spirits would be fabulously useful if we can disguise someone as one of them, or possibly if we can get her to just register someone as an ally in general.

...More than anything, though, I agree that more reconnaisance would be nice. I don't have any bright ideas.

As for the memory, the detail that catches me is the monster/"monster" being described as like a fluid, swarming mass. Makes me think of someone who can control some manner of substance or swarm, or else a very visceral shapeshifting.
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[K] Sneak into the place through the sewers.
-[O] Try and find a brown bottle and fill it with damp sewage. Throw bottle at zombie's forehead, breaking the Taoist paper code thing.
[S] Install TempleOS on liberated corpse.
--[U] Acquire motor vehicle, use said motor vehicle to run over bioluminescent ghost canis lupis gangsters.
[Z] Scream as enemies horse and Taoist witch come through two separate walls in two separate ways.
-------[U] Artillery strike.

And in case that fails, which it won't but its always nice to have a plan B:

[X] Slow down and gather as much information without getting noticed as you can before acting.
[X] Go over carried items and abilities with the others to make sure everyone knows what we have.
[X] If we know if its possible, wait until Yachie's and Keiki's attacks go off and are noticeable to have the guards distracted.
[X] If the opportunity arises, lure Yoshika somewhere away from the wolves.
-[X] Have Mayumi ambush Yoshika and pin her down, using Reimu's talismans to bind her if necessary. Make sure to block her ability to bite.
-[X] Remove Yoshika's instruction talisman.
-[X] Attempt to communicate.

[X] Pay especial note to the areas surrounding. Were there any buildings connecting into the one Crisis is held? Do any of them have Keiga presence? Do we know anything about the building itself which could help us route our own mission?
[X] From where will the assaults from our forces be coming from?
[X] Could either Reimu or Mayumi fill us in on where we are?.. We fell asleep on the way here...

I think this approach with Yoshika is best. We're interacting with something that's closer to a robot than a person, and she might just attack first without bothering to talk. If we end up writing a talisman, it wouldn't have to be complicated. Just something to the tune of "Fuck off".
We need more information. Best to hang back. I smell something very wrong here...
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[X] Slow down and gather as much information without getting noticed as you can before acting.
[X] Go over carried items and abilities with the others to make sure everyone knows what we have.
[X] If we know if its possible, wait until Yachie's and Keiki's attacks go off and are noticeable to have the guards distracted.
[X] If the opportunity arises, lure Yoshika somewhere away from the wolves.
-[X] Have Mayumi ambush Yoshika and pin her down, using Reimu's talismans to bind her if necessary. Make sure to block her ability to bite.
-[X] Remove Yoshika's instruction talisman.
-[X] Attempt to communicate.

[X] Pay especial note to the areas surrounding. Were there any buildings connecting into the one Crisis is held? Do any of them have Keiga presence? Do we know anything about the building itself which could help us route our own mission?
[X] From where will the assaults from our forces be coming from?
[X] Could either Reimu or Mayumi fill us in on where we are?.. We fell asleep on the way here...
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Counting to >>210184:
Write-Ins:
Note that due to the variety of answers provided, I'm counting the # of the combined instances. This may result in certain sections being repeated in other instances, but should improve overall awareness of what others are suggesting overall.
Hm... On second thought, I'll highlight sections repeated.

--------------------------
[2] Do that tube fox thing to whisper bad ideas into Yoshika’s ear.
-[2] “Those wolf spirits sure do look mighty tasty~”
(>>210145, >>210148)
--------------------------
[1] Wait for Yoshika to pass somewhere out of view of the other guards, then create a few danmaku foxes at the mouth of an alley or corner and have them run deeper in, hopefully luring her with the idea of getting to eat a fox spirit.
-[1] Once she's successfully been isolated, approach her pretending to be a Keiga. If she buys it, ask her where the hostage is located inside the building and if there's anyone but her and the wolves here. Then see if she'll just let you take a ferry atop her to the hostage.
--[1] If she doesn't believe the initial lie or refuses to take you inside, Mayumi and Reimu will rush her and try and knock her out so that you all can tamper with her.
(>>210156)
--------------------------
[1] Case the building as sneakily as time and prudence will allow. Pay special attention to any additional security, potential entrances, and viable tubing targets.
(>>210167)
--------------------------
[1] Go over carried items and abilities with the others to make sure everyone knows what we have.
[1] The plan is simple: you'll use fox-shaped magic and Reimu will make herself smell delicious, luring Yoshika away. Then you'll confront her for information, before Mayumi gets the stealth drop on her and Reimu & you will take her down while she's restrained. You'll figure out what to do with her from there.
(>>210171)
--------------------------
[1] Slow down and gather as much information without getting noticed as you can before acting. (Slow is smooth, smooth is fast.)
-[1] See if you can scout out the inside to make sure both where Crisis is and if there are any ambushes or traps waiting for us.
-[1] What are the possible entrances, and more importantly exits [Escape is Victory after all]), such as: Underground Conduits, and/or other sorts of pipes, roof vents, etc?
-[1] Can we get someone to be able to see Yoshika's talisman without being noticed (Binoculars? Super Vision?)? If Kosuzu can't use it, have the person who can look and copy it down so that Kosuzu can read what it is.
-[1] With Yoshika being regularly told to leave by each wolf group, is there a pattern in her pathing that emerges that can be worked around without engaging her?
-[1] If we know if its possible, wait until Yachie's and Keiki's attacks go off and are noticeable to have the guards distracted.
-[1] Kosuzu sneaks into the warehouse in fox form, then if there isn't a way to sneak out with Crisis, Reimu and Mayumi cause a distraction acting as if they are breaking in to open a way out for Kosuzu and Crisis, then once Kosuzu and Crisis are away, Reimu and Mayumi withdraw (or finish off the guards.) and meet up in a nearby pre-determined location and everyone skedaddle.
(>>210172)
Note that the section above has a lot of questions, which can be used in conjunction with the section below.
--------------------------
[6] Slow down and gather as much information without getting noticed as you can before acting. (>>210176, >>210178, >>210179, >>210180, >>210184, >>210185)
[6] Go over carried items and abilities with the others to make sure everyone knows what we have. (>>210176, >>210178, >>210179, >>210180, >>210184, >>210185)
[6] If we know if its possible, wait until Yachie's and Keiki's attacks go off and are noticeable to have the guards distracted. (>>210176, >>210178, >>210179, >>210180, >>210184, >>210185)
[6] If the opportunity arises, lure Yoshika somewhere away from the wolves. (>>210176, >>210178, >>210179, >>210180, >>210184, >>210185)

-[1] Kosuzu: try tricking Yoshika into thinking we're part of the Keiga while the others wait nearby. (>>210176)
-[1] If it works, ask her for information about "Crisis". (>>210176)
-[1] If this fails, Reimu and Mayumi can deal with Yoshika as they see fit. (>>210176)
-[5] Have Mayumi ambush Yoshika and pin her down, using Reimu's talismans to bind her if necessary. Make sure to block her ability to bite. (>>210178, >>210179, >>210180, >>210184, >>210185)
-[5] Remove Yoshika's instruction talisman. (>>210178, >>210179, >>210180, >>210184, >>210185)
-[5] Attempt to communicate. (>>210178, >>210179, >>210180, >>210184, >>210185)
-[2] Pay a special note to the area's surroundings. Were there any buildings connecting into the one Crisis is held? Do any of them have Keiga presence? Do we know anything about the building itself which could help us route our own mission? (>>210184, >>210185)
-[2] Where will the assaults, from our forces, come from? (>>210184, >>210185)
-[2] Could either Reimu or Mayumi fill us in on where we are...? We fell asleep on the way here... (>>210184, >>210185)

--------------------------
Counting is fun... :3
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Ah dang it, made a mistake.
>>[1] If we know if its possible, wait until Yachie's and Keiki's attacks go off and are noticeable to have the guards distracted.
This should've been highlighted.
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[X] Slow down and gather as much information without getting noticed as you can before acting.
[X] Go over carried items and abilities with the others to make sure everyone knows what we have.
[X] If we know if its possible, wait until Yachie's and Keiki's attacks go off and are noticeable to have the guards distracted.
[X] If the opportunity arises, lure Yoshika somewhere away from the wolves.
-[X] Have Mayumi ambush Yoshika and pin her down, using Reimu's talismans to bind her if necessary. Make sure to block her ability to bite.
-[X] Remove Yoshika's instruction talisman.

Back to sleep
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[X] Slow down and gather as much information without getting noticed as you can before acting.
[X] Go over carried items and abilities with the others to make sure everyone knows what we have.
[X] If we know if its possible, wait until Yachie's and Keiki's attacks go off and are noticeable to have the guards distracted.
[X] If the opportunity arises, lure Yoshika somewhere away from the wolves.
-[X] Have Mayumi ambush Yoshika and pin her down, using Reimu's talismans to bind her if necessary. Make sure to block her ability to bite.
-[X] Remove Yoshika's instruction talisman.
-[X] Attempt to communicate.
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[M] Take the human, and PUSH her spirit somewhere else!
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[X] Slow down and gather as much information without getting noticed as you can before acting.
[X] Go over carried items and abilities with the others to make sure everyone knows what we have.
[X] If we know if its possible, wait until Yachie's and Keiki's attacks go off and are noticeable to have the guards distracted.
[X] If the opportunity arises, lure Yoshika somewhere away from the wolves.
-[X] Kosuzu: try tricking Yoshika into thinking we're part of the Keiga while the others wait nearby.
-[X] Have Mayumi ambush Yoshika and pin her down, using Reimu's talismans to bind her if necessary. Make sure to block her ability to bite.
Doesn't Yoshika need the instruction talisman to stay "alive?" I thought the talisman had a part of animating the corpse. Also I don't think we can get anything if we try to communicate she doesn't really have anything going on in her head.
>>…Well. It wasn’t hard to spot the jiang-shi, being the only corporeal being among the guards. She was dressed in red and black, with an indigo hat just above her talisman. clothes, and had an expression so vacant Kosuzu had a hard time believing she’d ever had a functional brain. Still, aside from the deathly pallor, Kosuzu couldn’t see any tell-tale wounds or anything.

>>She was staring at a trio of wolves, drooling something Kosuzu’s nose could smell even from here. One of the wolves looked at the zombie, glaring. “Can you go leer at someone else already? You’re grossing us out.”

>>“Oooookaaaaaayyyy…” The jiang-shi spun around, hopping away, as the wolves began to mutter about their new allies. And not, for that matter, in favorable terms.
We have 2 goals here 1) calm down and get the info we need to make a more solid plan of attack as we were hired to do. 2) weaken the enemy by removing one of their defenders, and the best part is they don't want this defender around so they won't look for her when she goes missing.
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Anyone want to bet Seiga has some sort of alarm or failsafe with her talisman?
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>>210193

I'd be surprised if she didn't honestly.
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>>210192
I don't know how Gooboi plans to play it, but Yoshika's profile from the Post-Mysticism book says she stays alive (... for a given value of alive) without the talisman

>When the charm is removed and she is freed from the wicked hermit's control, it seems that she will revert back to her old behaviors. One time, she was reciting poetry while staring at nothing with the whole cemetery covered in a carpet of fallen leaves. It was a little horrifying.
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[X] Slow down and gather as much information without getting noticed as you can before acting.
[X] Go over carried items and abilities with the others to make sure everyone knows what we have.
[X] If we know if its possible, wait until Yachie's and Keiki's attacks go off and are noticeable to have the guards distracted.
[X] If the opportunity arises, lure Yoshika somewhere away from the wolves.
- [X] Kosuzu: try tricking Yoshika into thinking we're part of the Keiga while the others wait nearby.
- [X] If it works, ask her for information about "Crisis".
- [X] If this fails, Reimu and Mayumi can deal with Yoshika as they see fit.

Slow and steady and all that
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>>210172 here

[X] refrain from directly interacting with Yoshika before we've completed recon and met with Reimu and Mayumi to put together a proper plan

Since it seems we've agreed to put off the actual rescue of Crisis until we've checked things out i am am wary of getting ourselves locked into a plan with Yoshika before we have a full plan for what will happen next, especially if doing so ends up setting off an alarm or something with Seiga and ends up severely limiting our options.

Also

[X] if Keiki and Yachie's attack are distant enough that it might be difficult to notice them starting from here, see if that artillery Mayumi mentioned might be able to be incorporated in Keiki's (or Yachie's, or both) attack to make it more noticeable.
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File 171954356134.png - (1.59MB, 1765x1304, ReimuDisguise.png)
ReimuDisguise
>> Reimu took the ring off Kosuzu, slipping it over her finger. A few more seconds, and her own figure flickered. The jidiao traits just… vanished. Flickered away, into thin air. What remained was… something a lot closer to the Reimu Kosuzu remembered, though obviously younger, and with brown hair rather than her old black. Reimu spun around, seemingly looking for her tail.

>> “H…how do I look?” Kosuzu realized, belatedly, that the room didn’t include a mirror, and began to anxiously look around for one.

>> “U-um, you look great! Aside from your hair being a different color, you’re pretty spot on to old Reimu!” Not spotting anything she could use to show Reimu, she turned to look for support. “What do you think, Lady Yachie?”

>> Yachie’s expression was… complex. She said nothing at first, slowly standing up and walking closer to her daughter, examining her closely. After a few seconds, she reached out, gently laying her palm on Reimu’s forehead. Her fingers swept back and forth, bumping into and then closing her fingers around her hidden, stubby horns.

>> “...It’s a powerful illusion. I can’t spot any issues with it.” She stated, matter-of-factly. Then, with just a little too much emotion to fully mask, she followed that statement with another. “Please do not use this unless it’s absolutely necessary.”

Mom feels conflicted.
This one is not anything super elaborate, but I just had to draw Yachie's reaction to Reimu's disguise.
For this drawing I wanted to draw a contrast against the earlier one where Reimu was little. Happiness against sadness (well, more like an amalgam of different, more complex feelings but you get my point).
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__hakurei_reimu_and_wolf_spirit_touhou_and_1_more_
[X] Slow down and gather as much information without getting noticed as you can before acting.
[X] Go over carried items and abilities with the others to make sure everyone knows what we have.
[X] If the opportunity arises, lure Yoshika somewhere away from the wolves.
- [X] Kosuzu: try tricking Yoshika into thinking we're part of the Keiga while the others wait nearby.


Kosuzu took a moment to inch just a bit further forward, to examine the jiang shi more closely. She was really just going along with whatever the wolves said, huh? …Most likely, that was the order she’d been programmed with, or at least one of them.

…Actually, looking at it more closely, one of them was more accurate. There looked to be a second tag, mostly hidden under her hat and off to the side. That was a bit worrying…

With that said, most of the wolf groups were only in twos or threes. A decently coordinated strike should be able to deal with any given clump, but if Yoshika got involved, that’d be a different matter.

She turned to the others. “Hey, need to check something. You guys got any special equipment I should know about?” Knowing the equipment they had on hand was probably the best thing for any plan, especially as Ran’s Grimoire had been left behind - Kosuzu hadn’t expected to get the time to read a different chapter on the trip, and the haniwa and Kiketsu had gone straight into attacking the Keiga - the distraction was already in place.

The other two turned away from their bickering to look at her. Mayumi spoke first. “I’ve got my baton, and I can call in the artillery strikes if necessary. And of course, the armor isn’t just for show.” She thumped the chestplate.

“Uh…” Reimu fished through her pockets. “I’ve got my talismans and gohei, and a radio to call our getaway guy in when it’s time. Either of us should be able to take out a wolf in a split second. Oh, and the ring! D’you think we could rework that somehow?”

“Mmmm… I doubt it.” Kosuzu shook her head. “That’s an incredibly complicated piece of magic, I’m much more likely to break it than change it. But… maybe we could convince them you’re an ordinary human?”

The shrine maiden hummed. “...Maybe, though they might just guess I’m the Dragon Miko.” She tilted her head. “Guess I could change my scent…”

“Speaking of disguises…” Kosuzu tilted her head. “I… think I can make a decent wolf spirit disguise? Here, lemme…”

Kosuzu focused a bit, letting her form shift. She watched her fur redden, and felt her features shift.


…They were half incorporeal, but with the addition of half-tubing herself, she could at least get the tail going. She turned to the others. “...How do I look?”

Mayumi… shook her head. “...More like a domesticated pup than a Keiga. No way the wolves are going to fall for that. Anything with a functioning brain is going to see right through it.”

“But it might fool the jiang shi, no?” Kosuzu gave a toothy grin, as the other two exchanged a glance. “I’m thinking she’s programmed to do whatever the wolves tell her to. If I can trick her into thinking I’m a wolf, maybe I can get her to leave early, or something.”

Reimu and Mayumi shared a glance, the haniwa speaking up. “Sure, but… can’t we just kaplow her and call it a day?”

Kosuzu shook her head. “She’s got a second talisman on her. Maybe more, too. I think it might be a trap.”

Reimu thought about it for a moment… then nodded. “It could be, maybe. Either some kinda trap that attacks anyone that interferes with her, or sends an alert to her master.”

“So… we gotta be careful about this, I think.” Kosuzu mused. “I can probably do a delayed shot like Ran said, to take them out in an instant too. So we can take any given group here safely, we just gotta pull this apart, piece by piece. Hmmm…”

[ ] Try to disguise as a Wolf Spirit to get Yoshika out of there.
[ ] Lure her some other way.

{ } Aim to disable Yoshika entirely.
{ } Just get her out of the way, for now.

( ) Only take out the bare minimum number of opponents to safely get inside, to avoid the risk of someone going to get help..
( ) Clear out as many as possible, to minimize the chance of getting ganged up on later.

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Gonna be at least slowing down on updates for a few days, FFXIV Dawntrail is calling for me!

With that said, in exchange for that, I'm going to actively try to answer a few of the what-if questions and similar for that time. Just so there's still something coming while we slow down - requires a lot less thought than actually -writing- writing. Please do feel free to ask (in fact, please do ask again if necessary - there's a few questions that I remember typing an answer for but refreshed the page or similar, so they were lost.
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>>210200
Another victim of Dawntrail... damn you Final Fantasy! Damn youuu! lol
Of course I want to see more updates, but you deserve that break.
Just make sure to give us life signals from time to time ^_^U

Now, for the voting:

[X] Try to disguise as a Wolf Spirit to get Yoshika out of there.
We just have to try.

{X} Just get her out of the way, for now.
Trying to disable her early might backfire. If we can get her out of the way without doing something drastic, it's better. Even if we have to battle against her on the way out, we can just escape with Crisis in tow.

(X) Only take out the bare minimum number of opponents to safely get inside, to avoid the risk of someone going to get help..
Again, taking them out all at once is suspicious. Well... both options can end up being suspicious, but since we're "stealthing", this might be better.
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Completely understandable on the FF hook, enjoy yourself and sink as much time as you want into it. I'd certainly rather you cut down on writing than sleep.



For the voting section itself...
[X] Lure her some other way.
- (X} Fox-shaped lures running away from the perimeter + the scent of fresh meat. If it gets the Youkai's mouths watering, it'll lure the undead with no problem.
Wolf disguise might be useful for interrogation, but we don't know how much we could get her to move as a wolf. Now, I'm willing to drop this idea because it does have some flaws. We don't know whether Yoshika has strict orders to not go chasing random animals, the scent might hit some wolves if we're not careful, etc. Definitely willing to hash this part out the most.


{X} Aim to disable Yoshika entirely.
I know we've been talking about her as though we can easily take her, and I think we could if we got the element of surprise, but Yoshika is no pushover.
Even without her self healing she is really only held back by the stiffness of her form. If she was able to take advanced calisthenics and free up her limbs she would be an implacable predator with no real sense of pain and a very dangerous bite. Plus, she'd almost certainly alert Seiga if we couldn't take out that secondary talisman fast enough, I bet.
We have to disable her as a threat completely one way or the other, I think. Even in the worst case scenario, we also take Seiga out of the action for a bit before she starts chasing us as she needs to spend time fixing up whatever we did to Yoshika. (I'm assuming we'd do more damage than what would happen under spellcard rules to Yoshika during the TD Seiga fight if we opted to really break her, for instance.)

(X) Only take out the bare minimum number of opponents to safely get inside, to avoid the risk of someone going to get help.
Getting in requires being quiet. We can be as loud as we want when we're leaving, since the presence of a lot of guards probably means nobody of real power is actively here.



Just out of curiosity for what-ifs, are you talking more as in "What if we had taken Mike's route?" and "What if we'd left Koishi with Orin while we talked with Akyuu?" or "What if we tried to get on the roof of the storehouse to see if it could be tunneled through?"
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>>210202

Speculative questions, clarifications on mechanics or motivations, anything!

Ah, maybe to make it easier for me to find them, prefix your questions with [?]. Tallyanon, you don’t have to tally these, or keep count - I’ll just make a list in my own time.
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>>210203
Ok :3
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Based on what we've seen, a wolf spirit disguise would lure Yoshika... eventually. Probably not before an actual wolf spirit spots us and raises the alarm, though.

[X] Lure her some other way.
-[X] Foxfire that looks like a a spirit she's allowed to eat instead of just drool at if possible, a disguise of the same otherwise.

{X} Just get her out of the way, for now.
-{X} By disabling her talisman. Check what the secondary talisman does beforehand if possible, though!

I'm still attached to the ambush her, bind her up, and take her talisman idea, although that secondary talisman is worrisome. Tamper-proofing? If we can get info out of Yoshika while she's not under Seiga's control, great! If we can convince her to help us, even better! If neither, at least preparing new talismans will slow Seiga down. That's a big plus too! If Yoshika's completely out of commission and Seiga shows up, I think she'll probably not bother with Yoshika, so I want to give her something she could fix quickly enough that she'll stop for it, but'll still slow her down enough to give us an advantage.

(X) Only take out the bare minimum number of opponents to safely get inside, to avoid the risk of someone going to get help..

Ideally they don't even notice we're infiltrating. Not having to hide the bodies will help with that. But nothing ever goes ideally, so we'll want to still be prepared to go loud.




As for what-ifs... How would Amanojaku Akyuu have gone? That's the one I really wanted to see. She was supposed to have directly been Sagume's daughter, right? When she made it to Gensokyo, would she have ended up with Seija? ... what would her relationship with Seija have been like? Closely familial? Hated distant cousin?
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>>210205
Sorry, the new instructions got posted while I was writing this.
[?] How would Amanojaku Akyuu have gone? That's the one I really wanted to see. She was supposed to have directly been Sagume's daughter, right? When she made it to Gensokyo, would she have ended up with Seija? ... what would her relationship with Seija have been like? Closely familial? Hated distant cousin?
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[X] Lure her some other way.
-[X] Foxfire that looks like a a spirit she's allowed to eat instead of just drool at if possible, a disguise of the same otherwise.

{X} Just get her out of the way, for now.
-{X} Have Reimu disguise her scent and get close enough to read what's on the talismans (and if there's any more) before taking her out.

(X) Clear out as many as possible, to minimize the chance of getting ganged up on later.

desperately hoping we can keep reining in mayumi and reimu throughout the rest of the mission and we don't blow our cover until we reach crisis, at which point we can just grab and run. even then i'd rather we just have a few (or one, depending on who else is in the facility) heavy hitters to worry about rather than lots of goons to fight or stealth through. if mayumi and reimu can take out the small fry in a split second, might as well take advantage of it and take out as many as we can for when shit inevitably hits the fan.

shooting my shot again here- i've asked the first question a few times before but with all the excitement it wasn't really answered. and uh. sorry for the amount of questions i ended up writing out, i'm curious about a lot of things.

[?] Who was the other final boss of Youmu's arc?
-[?] Since it was going to be a stealth section, was it going to focus on stealth checks or would it inevitably go pear-shaped and we would revert back to a "regular" final boss with one of the tengu?

[?] When did you decide to bring Sanae and Tenshi in as the trial run for the immaterial children and have another failed timeline?

[?] So far, Reimu's the only one without a third stat- Akyuu got some instinct resistance, Youmu's been cultivating jenny-say-kwah, and Kosuzu has a mystery stat. Any plans on giving one to Reimu?

[?] Will you be incorporating elements from arcs not chosen (e.g. daitengu!Reimu, vampire!Akyuu, pegasus!Youmu, etc.) into future arcs? Have you already incorporated elements from those arcs into the current continuity? (the tengu from akyuu and youmu's arcs, the keiga and taoist stuff we might be seeing in kosuzu's arc, etc.)

[?] How do you go about all write-in options like the previous vote? Aside from compiling and picking out what you think is appropiate/interesting to include, what do you do if the write-ins go in a completely different direction than you expected or planned for? How do you adjust to acommodate that?

[?] How much do you plan in advance? You've mentioned having plans for Kosuzu's maneki-neko arc and incorporating bits of that for her current one, but how detailed are those plans? There's an overall narrative with the Pyres and sets of arcs, but how much of that is already detailed and how much of it is you waiting for us to get to that point to iron out said details?

[?] What were the general plans for tengu!Youmu's arc? Since it heavily interacts with the human village and the tengu are actively looking for Immaterial Children, what would've been the plot? Would Suwako still have been involved and looking for her missing descendant (they live on the same mountain, after all!)?

those are just the ones i've been dying to ask for a while now. i... might have more bouncing around in my head if i ever scrounge those up.

have fun playing dawntrail!
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[X] Try to disguise as a Wolf Spirit to get Yoshika out of there.

Come on, we gotta use the funny disguise.

{X} Just get her out of the way, for now.

Yoshika's still a rather tough opponent, and we don't know the purpose of her extra talisman either (or any extras she might have). Going for incapacitation is too risky right now.

(X) Only take out the bare minimum number of opponents to safely get inside, to avoid the risk of someone going to get help..

Kosuzu, this is a stealth mission. You need to get in and out without alerting the guards so that you can safely rescue the hostage before she's forced to build METAL GEAR.

>>210205
Damn, you asked the exact question I was gonna ask. XD
How 'bout this, though?

[?] What would wolf tengu Youmu have been like, considering how desperate the tengu seem to be to locate the Immaterial Children?
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[X] Lure her some other way.
-[X] Foxfire that looks like a a spirit she's allowed to eat instead of just drool at if possible, a disguise of the same otherwise.

{X} Just get her out of the way, for now.
-{X} Have Reimu disguise her scent and get close enough to read what's on the talismans (and if there's any more) before taking her out.

(X) Clear out as many as possible, to minimize the chance of getting ganged up on later.
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[X] Try to disguise as a Wolf Spirit to get Yoshika out of there.
{X} Just get her out of the way, for now.
The second talisman most likely has programming to the effect of "if anyone except Seiga tampers with the main talisman, disregard all other orders and eat their face", and Yoshika is tough enough that I'm not sure we can subdue her before she sounds the alarm.

(X) Only take out the bare minimum number of opponents to safely get inside, to avoid the risk of someone going to get help.
Fighting a few wolves in less-than-ideal conditions is one thing, but I'm much more worried about getting jumped by Saki and/or Seiga on the way out.
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[x] Try to disguise as a Wolf Spirit to get Yoshika out of there.
{x} Just get her out of the way, for now.
(x) Only take out the bare minimum number of opponents to safely get inside, to avoid the risk of someone going to get help...

:3
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[X] Lure her some other way.
-[X] Foxfire that looks like a a spirit she's allowed to eat instead of just drool at if possible, a disguise of the same otherwise.
{X} Just get her out of the way, for now.
-{X} Have Reimu disguise her scent and get close enough to read what's on the talismans (and if there's any more) before taking her out.
(X) Only take out the bare minimum number of opponents to safely get inside, to avoid the risk of someone going to get help..

Stealth is a vital part of Kaizou/Kosuzu/Online.
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oh, the story was updated in the early hours of the morning (at least where I live).

[x] Try to disguise as a Wolf Spirit to get Yoshika out of there.
{x} Just get her out of the way, for now.
(x) Only take out the bare minimum number of opponents to safely get inside, to avoid the risk of someone going to get help.

>>210203
ok it's question time! xd "Insert here Mario Party 1 chance time ost"

(?) What is your favourite final fantasy I really enjoy their games but my favourites are 5 for the flexibility of the jobs and 9 for the plot.

(?) Utusuho will also learn to use katana? like youmu although of lesser skill and if she does Utusuho will also have his own named katana?

(?) Will Marisa's father play an important role in Marisa's arc?

(?) Will Koishi learn any different abilities apart from mind-reading in order to differentiate from Satori?

sorry I had to delete the previous post because I came up with another question lol
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While I had not voted for it to make sure we waited for the recon to finish, I was partial to the idea to pull a two for one and rescue both Crisis AND Yoshika... but with the unknown number of extra talismans probably best to shelf that (at least for now.)

there was another idea someone had though that I think should still be workable?

>>210145

though refining it just a little bit.

so instead of a two for one rescue, maybe we can pull of a rescue and at the same time a minor false flag. see if Kosuzu can posses Yoshika and convince her to do something that doesn't actually attack the wolves, but instead makes them think that she is, it should pull some of the wolves out of position to give Kosuzu or someone an opening to get inside, AND at the same time potentially weaken the bond between the Keiga and their new recruits. Though then again since this is Saki's only connection to Miko that might be difficult?

[X] Lure her some other way.
-[X]Posses Yoshika to tempt her into an action that makes the wolf spirits think she is trying to eat them.

{X} Just get her out of the way, for now.

(X) Only take out the bare minimum number of opponents to safely get inside, to avoid the risk of someone going to get help..

as for questions, I had one regarding A Young Girl's Name that I'm not sure to ask again as it is has... interesting lore implications. eh, if it doesn't get answered it doesn't get answered

[?] since Akyuu confirmed that at least parts of The Works of Misumaru are canon to R/R, is AYGN also canon?

[?] does the Suima Akyuu mentioned during the chess match have a chance of coming up again?

(?) Did Saki set up those billboards with that picture of Yuuma she took? is it still visible?

(?) had we gone with Daitengu Reimu, would we have had a chance of Aya being the equivalent of Asami for Tengmu?

(?) speaking of, was Aya involved in the Tengu's swarming of the village?

(?) Did Yachie ever join her daughter for a Fun Family Vigiliante excursion?

(?) what's Bishop up to right now?

(?) How's the Eagle that brought Yuuma the whiteboards?

eh that's all I got so far.

oh if you don't mind one more suggestion Kosu for art, perhaps the immaterial Plushies? (either just in a row or with Reimu's map setup.)
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(?) What are your plans for when Redo/Reimu wraps up? Will you make some new quests?
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[X] Try to disguise as a Wolf Spirit to get Yoshika out of there.
{X} Just get her out of the way, for now.
(X) Only take out the bare minimum number of opponents to safely get inside, to avoid the risk of someone going to get help..

Yoskika definitely has an order to follow Wolf Spirits, we don't know any of her other commands so tricking her as a Wolf Spirit should be the safest bet as if one of her orders is to sound the alarm if spotting intruders the mission would get harder.

After we have Yoskika out of the way we should prioritize getting to the hostage as fast as possible so we can keep her safe. After "Crisis" is safe we can have Reimu and Mayumi take out most of the guards while Kosuzu takes out any foes that sneak past them protecting "Crisis"

[?] Are we going to get or do you have plans for a Yukari short, about how she sees this whole Immaterial Children Incident?

There are many scenes that I would love to see her thoughts on. 1) When she first finds out about the incident (likely around when Reimu or Akyuu failed to be born) 2) After Kiene was found to be the "Mastermind," 3) After discovering the truth of the incident likely soon after Akyuu saving Haru 4) but most of all her interview with Reimu would be most interesting, after all Reimu is an open book. Reimu would likely have a look of both relief and guilt at seeing Yukari after seeing Yukari alive after seeing her die. How would it feel to know that the person you are talking to is from the future and that person knows you very well, has seen you die but you have no current connection to that person. In the end I think it might be best if it comes up after we do the paradox pair's prolog in case something happens in one of the other arks that we would want Yukari to react to.

>>210195
Thank you for correcting me using Post-Mysticism, it's been so long since I read that it completely left my mind about Yoskika's charm.
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X] Lure her some other way.
-[X] Foxfire that looks like a a spirit she's allowed to eat instead of just drool at if possible, a disguise of the same otherwise.
{X} Just get her out of the way, for now.
-{X} Have Reimu disguise her scent and get close enough to read what's on the talismans (and if there's any more) before taking her out.
(X) Only take out the bare minimum number of opponents to safely get inside, to avoid the risk of someone going to get help..
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Belatedly realising that phrasing it as "a spirit that Yoshika's allowed to eat" like we have any idea what that is instead of as something more like "a generic unaffiliated spirit" might have been silly. Oh well.
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>>210215 here

tweaking my vote a little bit as the method of how to get close to Yoshika to possess her is easier with the wolf spirit disguise.

[UNDO] Lure her some other way.
[X]Try to disguise as a Wolf Spirit to get Yoshika out of there.

so the sub option to the vote stays the same.

also for the questions

[?] if it does turn out that Aunn has come back in time, granted that there won't be a origin vote, but will we get an Aunn arc?
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Counting to >>210220:
Main Choice #1:
[7] Try to disguise as a Wolf Spirit to get Yoshika out of there.
[6] Lure her some other way.

Main Choice #2:
{1} Aim to disable Yoshika entirely.
{12} Just get her out of the way, for now.

Main Choice #3:
(11) Only take out the bare minimum number of opponents to safely get inside, to avoid the risk of someone going to get help...
(2) Clear out as many as possible, to minimize the chance of getting ganged up on later.

Potential Additions:
For "Try to disguise":
-(1) Possess Yoshika to tempt her into an action that makes the wolf spirits think she is trying to eat them. (>>210215)
While that would be nice, I'm pretty sure that Kosuzu is not a vengeful spirit and would be unable to do such an action.

For "Lure her some other way":
-(1} Fox-shaped lures running away from the perimeter + the scent of fresh meat. If it gets the Youkai's mouths watering, it'll lure the undead with no problem. (>>210202)
-(5) Foxfire that looks like a spirit she's allowed to eat, instead of just drooling at it. If possible, a disguise of the same otherwise.(>>210205, >>210207, >>210209, >>210212, >>210218)
Just a quick question for the second half, a disguise of "what" exactly? I've tried to understand what you intended, but I do apologize for not understanding.

For "Just get her out of the way, for now":
-(1) By disabling her talisman. Check what the secondary talisman does beforehand if possible, though! (>>210205)
-(4) Have Reimu disguise her scent and get close enough to read what's on the talismans (and if there's any more) before taking her out. (>>210207, >>210209, >>210212, >>210218)

Sorry for being late, Gooboi. :/
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>>210221
I was trying to say something to the effect of: foxfire should be able to pass for a non-wolf spirit, but if it's not convincing enough, Kosuzu should try to disguise herself as a non-wolf spirit
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>>210221
Possessing and then tempting (if not straight up mind controlling.) someone to do something is a power of tube foxes. At least according to Wild and Horned Hermit ch.8. Which is why i thought it was an idea that could work.
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[X] Lure her some other way.
-[X] Foxfire that looks like a a spirit she's allowed to eat instead of just drool at if possible, a disguise of the same otherwise.
-[X] NOT an otter spirit.

>>210221
It basically means make foxfire that resembles an eagle spirit, otter spirit, or something else completely. Eagle spirit would be ideal. Otter spirit would be such a horrendous idea that it isn't funny. (Why didn't the person who made this write-in specify?) And I'm not sure what other unaffiliated animal spirit she'd be interested in eating.

Not even sure if Kosuzu has seen animal spirits besides otters or wolves at this point.

{X} Just get her out of the way, for now.
(X) Only take out the bare minimum number of opponents to safely get inside, to avoid the risk of someone going to get help.

We'll get out fill of fighting going out. It's best to do a delicate infiltration.
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>>210215 here,

Thinking about it a bit more while tube foxes can possess people, so can the animal spirits as Wily Beast and Weakest Creature shows. Which means that one of the talismans on Yoshika would likely have something preventing or dealing with that. The fact that Kosuzu isn't a spirit might help, but i doubt it so...

Despite the fact that it wasn't really picked up anyways and might not matter:

[UNDO] Possess Yoshika to tempt her into an action that makes the wolf spirits think she is trying to eat them.
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(?) what was Yachie's reaction like when she learned that Hakurei Haru had in fact survived? (the one in private I mean when Reimu couldn't see her.)

(?) how long was Yukari hanging off of that mirror?

and this one might be more for the rest of us to worry about, but...

(?) Since from Akyuu's observations Haru wasn't maimed as she ended up being in tWoM... is Rumia not currently in a sealed state right now?

>>210215 and >>210225 here

since I removed the write in add-on which I had switched the main vote to support, I am switching again

[UNDO] Try to disguise as a Wolf Spirit to get Yoshika out of there.

[X] Lure her some other way.
-[X] Foxfire that looks like a a spirit she's allowed to eat instead of just drool at if possible, a disguise of the same otherwise.
-[X] NOT an otter spirit.
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I feel like Gooboi is either going to have to be very selective picking these questions out of the QnA, or hit a fair amount of them with a RAFO.

Actually, I never threw out any, here's three:

[?] If you have a favorite _____, what would it be?
- [?] Individual update / chapter.
- [?] Fight scene.
- [?] Write-in.
Sorry to be open ended but it's always interesting knowing an author's personal tastes.
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more questions!

[?] What were Sagumes's motivations for giving Akyuu the device to send her and Reisen back to the moon?

[?] Are we going to see the rest of Eagle Ravi again eventually?

[?] If we had taken Hakurouken from Youki all the way back in Reimu's arc, what would have changed for Youmu's story?

[?] Are we ever going to find out how Haru died in the last timeline? If not, then what's the cause if her death?
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Yee haw! Still alive, approaching the end of the MSQ for Dawntrail.

GOnna answer some questions quickly.

[?] If you have a favorite update/write-in, what would it be?
This prompted a brief review of my work so far, and I'd say my answer to one is the chapter that spawned from the other, >>206422:
-[14] “Yes ma’am!” Inaba Akyuu gave a crisp salute… “And… I’m looking forward to working with you, Big Sis.” followed by a warm smile.

Just such a sweet, sweet chapter. Let me say, compared to some of the shit the other girls are having/going to go through, Akyuu's really got it made.

[?] How would Amanojaku Akyuu have gone?
I'm going to mention this one as a specific case, because this is a potential, technical RAFO. Tenshi and Snae are going to be set up a very particular way: they're going to have two new options, of which there may or may not be some hinting already, and they're going to have one returning option from a previous character's arc. Amanojaku is one of the options I'm considering for Tenshi - because I feel like it'd be, in a weird way, fitting for miss reverses-her-words Sagume to name a daughter she wants to stay on the moon with her "Chiko". after all, it means Earth Child.
One of Marisa's options is also a candidate for subbing in for Sanae's options.

[?] Will you be incorporating elements from arcs not chosen (e.g. daitengu!Reimu, vampire!Akyuu, pegasus!Youmu, etc.) into future arcs? Have you already incorporated elements from those arcs into the current continuity?
[?] How much do you plan in advance? You've mentioned having plans for Kosuzu's maneki-neko arc and incorporating bits of that for her current one, but how detailed are those plans?
[?] What were the general plans for tengu!Youmu's arc? Since it heavily interacts with the human village and the tengu are actively looking for Immaterial Children, what would've been the plot? Would Suwako still have been involved and looking for her missing descendant (they live on the same mountain, after all!)?

So, for the most part, potential arcs to me are a series of key scenes I want to do. Like, if I went down the Kuda-gitsuzu's route, I always wanted her to sneak in to Reimu's room and see the plushies. These often play out differently in practice than I originally envision them - for example, the earlier idea of toobsuzu's arc had her being in human form, and snarking to Reimu as she was revealed.
With that said, about Youmu's arc: it was always going to revolve around Koishi and Suwako, in largely the same roles as they currently are. Koishi would sneak to the surface (in this case, not being caught by the undergrounders, but instead by whichever faction Youmu was a part of), Suwako would petition Youmu to take a piece of the Yatagarasu, and all going well, Koishi would find out the truth of Suwako's grief.
Doggo Youmu really only had one unique key scene planned; Youmu getting told that a god wants to see her, orders from up top - and getting momentarily confused and asking if they mean the Aki's or misumaru. Only to be corrected by saying the order's are from up top - aka, the summit.
I'm not going to say what I've lifted from Nekosuzu, because it hasn't actually been officially confirmed yet in-universe, or given anything beyond vague hints. But I will say there's a connection between Kosuzu's three arcs, and while Kappa Kosuzu was by far the least thought out, it arguably demonstrates that connection most explicitly.
There are two people who either know, or have enough information to guess what the Nekosuzu twist would have been. For everyone else, I've been looking for a way to incorporate that extra information into the thread.
For what can't be integrated, I'm sitting on an opening blurb for a thread called XOR/Xenologue that'd cover all the various what-if ideas as shorts. But the blurb by it's very nature would probably end up containing massive spoilers for the framing.

[?] So far, Reimu's the only one without a third stat- Akyuu got some instinct resistance, Youmu's been cultivating jenny-say-kwah, and Kosuzu has a mystery stat. Any plans on giving one to Reimu?
They will all have an Instinct Resistance stat, in time, and technically Reimu may have some already. I just haven't found a good time to have Reimu's timeskip stat shifts be brought up.

[?] since Akyuu confirmed that at least parts of The Works of Misumaru are canon to R/R, is AYGN also canon?
AYGN hasn't happened in Redo/Reimu's storyline. Not in the original timeline, or either of the altered ones.

(?) What are your plans for when Redo/Reimu wraps up? Will you make some new quests?
[?] does the Suima Akyuu mentioned during the chess match have a chance of coming up again?
[?] Are we ever going to find out how Haru died in the last timeline? If not, then what's the cause if her death?

I have a few ideas (and a warhammer 40k crossover languishing in silence).
One of the big ones is a story with an ace attorney theming. As the japanese name for the old english ace attorney games is Dai Gyakuten Saiban, this story would be called Daiyousei Gyakuten Saiban. Needless to say, a mystery like that would be perfect for that sort of story, no?
There is also an idea I'm toying around with for putting everyone's favourite serial killer-slash-maid through her own re/awakening, under the title Reboot: Be Sakuya. This would not be part of the current loop of timelines, obviously.
And an idea around Renko being the god of the Hakurei Shrine. That one could be fun.

(?) had we gone with Daitengu Reimu, would we have had a chance of Aya being the equivalent of Asami for Tengmu?
There's a vote I want to do whenever Reimu and Aya finally meet. Just particular options I find funny. So yeah, she probably would have been something like that, though more of a big-sister sort of role rather than a bodyguard.

[?] if it does turn out that Aunn has come back in time, granted that there won't be a origin vote, but will we get an Aunn arc?
There will most likely not be an Aunn arc. Neither one where she's the focus, or one where she's playable.
There are actually very, very specific reasons why the IC's are CYOA, and the non-IC's aren't. Eiki's description at the end of A/A is part of that - their identities are somewhat fluid due to having two sets of memories.
What's happening with Aunn is different. You may find out in Youmu's epilogues.

[?] Who was the other final boss of Youmu's arc?
-[?] Since it was going to be a stealth section, was it going to focus on stealth checks or would it inevitably go pear-shaped and we would revert back to a "regular" final boss with one of the tengu?

It was a stealth mission, potentially with a potential follow-up boss of Rikako Asakura. Multiple named tengu would have been involved in the process, hunting down Youmu and Koishi. The two would have had to blend in with the chaos and use it to their advantage.

(?) Will Marisa's father play an important role in Marisa's arc?
Well, if it turns out the village marisa is true, it's almost inevitable that the Kirisame family will get involved, no?

(?) What is your favourite final fantasy I really enjoy their games but my favourites are 5 for the flexibility of the jobs and 9 for the plot.
I have played a grand total of 2 FF games to completion; FF1 and FF14, not counting Kingdom Hearts. Of the various games I've played to various degrees, FF14 is my absolute fave. Great game with godly music.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMBZEHSPyxM

[?] When did you decide to bring Sanae and Tenshi in as the trial run for the immaterial children and have another failed timeline?
Sanae I decided I wanted in pretty early. I wanted to have the twist where someone key to gensokyo as we know it is missing.
Tenshi came later - in fact, after Raven Youmu was confirmed and I was considering the groundwork for IC-Okuu. I ended up feeling that the colour palette of the ICs was missing a blue, and with Sakuya confirmed human by that point, I decided to look a little deeper. Tenshi just has some concepts that are... fun to integrate into the becoming-youkai plot.
If only I didn't overlook that plushie...

[?] Are we going to get or do you have plans for a Yukari short, about how she sees this whole Immaterial Children Incident?
There will be an epilogue most likely attached to Yester/Youmu that will explain the Yukari of the previous timeline's perspective. For this Yukari, she's gonna feature fairly prominently throughout Kosuzu's arc; we might get more from her perspective then.
I'm curious how you all will see her. My Yukari's got some somewhat unusual ideas in it :3c

Just two FYI's, though -
To be clear, she did not Re/Awaken, nor is she an equivalent to an IC. That was a red herring, meant to keep people off the scent of the real reason Yukari knew about Re/Awakening - that being Sanae and Tenshi.
And regarding the mirror, she actually was holding it upside down when she went through the portal, and flipped as she came over. requires a lot less core strength.

Most of the remainder are either "Read And Find Out" or "Thanks for the reminder".
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Neat answers!

And i was just about to ask another i noticed as i was rereading through the story (specifically Again/Akyuu)

[?]who was it that the rabbits spotted running through the armoury during Akyuu's desertion?

>AYGN hasn't happened in Redo/Reimu's storyline. Not in the original timeline, or either of the altered ones.


Hm, so either i am incorrect in my guess on what's gonna happen to Haru in tWoM (which isn't unlikely), or there's a difference between what happens there and what might be revealed here.

> no mention of Rumia,

>Most of the remainder are either "Read And Find Out" or "Thanks for the reminder".

Ohhhh dear, well, at least it doesn't seem like its going to be full on EX-Rumia that the ICs might run into?

Also, Thanks again Gooboi for this great story. I like how you use not only the winning vote for the resultant post, but many times the discussion and how close some of the other options came for how the character thinks about which options they go with. And really just in general. This is an incredible story and i am glad i managed to be here from the start of it!
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> This prompted a brief review of my work so far, and I'd say my answer to one is the chapter that spawned from the other, >>206422:
> -[14] “Yes ma’am!” Inaba Akyuu gave a crisp salute… “And… I’m looking forward to working with you, Big Sis.” followed by a warm smile.

> Just such a sweet, sweet chapter. Let me say, compared to some of the shit the other girls are having/going to go through, Akyuu's really got it made.

As the one who came up with the write-in, I’m pleased to hear you say that.

Excellent going with the story so far, Gooboi! I can’t wait to see more from it, but just make sure not to burn yourself out from writing it. K?
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> So yeah, she probably would have been something like that, though more of a big-sister sort of role rather than a bodyguard.

oh, what could have been. looking forward to that reimu and aya meeting vote, though.

> And an idea around Renko being the god of the Hakurei Shrine. That one could be fun.

any chances the idea's inspired by dreams and navigation by ailingstar on ao3? that fic has the same idea. i'm really interested in your take on it, though. you haven't covered the hifuus in any of your works yet and they're some of my favorite characters.
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>>210230

That was Ringo! Ringo and Sagume/the Watatsukis were actually working together - as the information officier, Ringo was aware of Akyuu's plan for desertion, and she went along with in the hopes of bringing Akyuu and Reisen both back, and in so doing get Akyuu out of the military and back to being a pet. Ringo was ready to head Akyuu off if she went for the Veil, while Sagume waited by the meteor pod.

[?] Any chances [Renko being the god of the Hakurei Shrine] is inspired by dreams and navigation by ailingstar on ao3?
It is, it is! Though my characterisation of Hakurei-God-Renko and Once-Merry-Yukari are wildly, wildly different. In fact, it was inspired largely because my interpretations are so different (though I do love me a Reimu with negative confidence). You may get some sense of one of the big differences when we get to Kosuzu's epilogues, in fact.

I also forgot one more story I want to do, to maybe be written around the time of next April's start. I won't get into all the details, but i will give it a name: Grand Theft Cirno.
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[?] By the end of Y/Y, is JSK still a stat we should be worrying about, or is Suwako's opinion on Myon as a vessel no longer really a deciding factor thanks to Satori being an active member of discussions?

[?] Have there been any suggestions (writeins, spellcard names, tactical plans) that sparked your interest even if they didn't end up getting picked? (Current tactical discussion notwithstanding since obvs it's still unwritten)

[?] Did you expect people to immediately latch onto Yoshika or was the funky zombie an unexpected hit?
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>>210234
Have people latched on to Yoshika? I think a large chunk of that may actually just be me. There's definitely other people having some zombie fun, but I think that most of the "I like her and want to keep her around" has been me.
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>>210233

Oh no! Ringo must feel horrible! ( i﹏i ) Being a part of that plan... and then the last thing she hears from Akyuu is her panicked cries that are quickly drowned out by everyone else as the meteor pod starts up...

and then nothing.

There thankfully is a chance for it to look up if the moon has some sort of tracking connection to the beacon they left Akyuu when it activated nearly a week later from Akyuu's touch... though without any followup for nearly a month now I wonder if they are going to hit the point in that case where they just hit the activate button early...

...Would that end up being an only slightly early SSiB incident or a REALLY early LoLK?

Heck if it is SSiB...

>"It's perfect plan for an incident Sakuya!" said Remilia, thrusting her finger skywards, "Our first incident was so rudely interrupted by someone hiding the moon, so instead our incident will be us conquering it! Then we can lord it over all the Youkai of Gensokyo! With this rocke-" a loud bang cut off Remilia's bombastic speech as the doors to the mansion's throne room were kicked open.

>"Hey Remy, we need to use your rocket." came Reimu's voice as she strode through the doors

>"First of all, Could you not interrupt my triumphant monologue? and second of all HOW did you even know I have one!"

>"Doesn't matter, the Lunarians took Akyuu, we need your Rocket."

>That brought Remilia up short, Akyuu, the centerpiece of the ruination of her perfect entrance... but also the one that prevented Remilia's mistake from being dooming her future subjects Gensokyo. She owed the bun-

>Actually hold that thought.

>"Sakuya no." Remilia turned, pointing her finger at her maid's direction, catching Sakuya running a finger along a drawn dagger.

>"Sakuya yes."

>"Sakuya, I owe her!"

>That thankfully gave the maid pause, after a second the dagger disappeared.

>"Very well mistress, we shall be assisting them in the rescue mission?"

>"Indeed! we shall-"

>"Yeah yeah, thank you. Now can we get going?"

>"COULD YOU NOT INTERRUPT MY SPEECH!?"

I do not know if I got the characterisation right... but uh, yeah, inspiration struck.
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>>210235
I mean, I'm definitely attached to the cold, unthinking zombie. I suggested repurposing her in the first place.

>>210236
Remilia's plans to make a show are an endless torment of failure and interruption. Eventually, she goes on a rampage across Gensokyo alongside Sakuya solving literally every single problem she can find before it can escalate into an incident to interrupt her, only to find that now everybody thinks of her as a hero and thinks she isn't serious when she finally launches her own incident.
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>>210235

I myself would vote on saving her and keeping her around too, though Crisis would come first and it seems to be going to be difficult to pull off with those extra talismans. Hopefully we can find an opening though.

also, something that occurred to me as I was rereading through again/akyuu.

[?]Did Tewi's gang/contacts (or whatever she has.) in the Animal Realm make any gains off of the weakened Gouyoku Alliance?

[?] With Reimu and Akyuu messaging each other now, has Tewi and Yachie worked any sort of deal with each other given the new circumstances?

Which kinda expands into a question regarding the current arc... are we going to be running into any bunny spirits during this mission?
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>>210237
Hell yeah! Great taste. I'd post one of those handshake memes at you if I had one on hand.
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What's AYGN? I saw some people mention it but idk what it is and I can't seem to find anything super concrete
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>>210240

another one of Gooboi's fanfics: A Young Girl's Name

I really recommend it!

https://archiveofourown.org/works/52395943
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Oh, I finally figured out something I want to ask that doesn't feel to me like so much of a spoiler I wouldn't want it answered.

[?] Is this setting rolling with any variation on the (admittedly fringe AFAIK) "Hieda no Are was a pseudonym for Fujiwara no Fuhito" theory? ... that is to say, is Akyuu Mokou's dad, or related to Mokou in any way?
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__doremy_sweet_and_slime_touhou_and_1_more_drawn_b
AYGN is presumably A Young Girl's Name (actually The Young Girl's Name, but potato potato), a short I posted on Ao3 at the start of this time writing.
https://archiveofourown.org/works/52395943
It's got a similar but simpler core idea to Redo/Reimu. But the various shorts I tell are... while not necessarily canon, many of them do relate to each other. For example, TWoM (The Works of Misumaru), where Misumaru is an active part of a pre-Windows Reimu's life occurs in at least some form in each of the ones discussed so far, as is my Sendai being an awesome-by-analysis Haru.

[?] By the end of Y/Y, is JSK still a stat we should be worrying about, or is Suwako's opinion on Myon as a vessel no longer really a deciding factor thanks to Satori being an active member of discussions?
It's still important.

[?] Have there been any suggestions (writeins, spellcard names, tactical plans) that sparked your interest even if they didn't end up getting picked? (Current tactical discussion notwithstanding since obvs it's still unwritten)
None that come specifically to mind. Confusing this a bit is that sometimes a write-in or someone's guess gets integrated into the story, just not yet. But rest assured that the spell card suggestions in particular are being kept on hand.

[?] Did you expect people to immediately latch onto Yoshika or was the funky zombie an unexpected hit?
I didn't, but I've played enough DnD that I should have known better. All parties either go for kill 'em all strats or fluffy tamer strats.
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>>210243

wha-? how'd I miss that it was 'The' and not 'A' at the start of the title??! whoops! O.o'
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I think I was also calling it A Young Girl's Name a few times.

>>210242
No, but I do find that theory fun. Ever read that karaagetarou comic?
https://danbooru.donmai.us/pools/681
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>>210247
I have! It's really fun! I think that's where I first encountered the idea, in fact.
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>>210229
thanks for replying! it's interesting the variations that have been discarded and hidden in the fic

>>210235

Well why not, Yoshika has an interesting backstory in the canon and the person she is based on.
Rarely does anyone attempt to delve into the character and the last relevant one I read was one by an artist called (flying bear).
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I've been late getting to this, but since you're still taking questions...

[?] What are some of your favorite stories to read? Let's divide this one into non-fanfics, non-Touhou fanfics, and Touhou fanfics.

[?] Aside from the route-start votes of what kind of youkai to be, are there any "path not taken" kind of options that would have significantly changed the course of the story?

[?] On a related note, what would the consequences have been for failing boss-fights? Were there any other potential bad-ends available if we took enough poor decisions before a boss?

[?] Aside from possibly dooming all of Gensokyo as we know it, would Akyuu and Reisen have been happy if they'd been reclaimed (via the fake emergency device) as Lunarian pets? (Admittedly, this one has a certain amount of "Aside from that, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln?" energy to it.)

[?] Who's your favorite touhou? Has writing this story noticeably changed your opinion on any touhou characters?

[?] With all these PC-98 characters roaming around, does Mima have a noticeable role to play in this story?

[?] What would be your advice for anyone looking to write their own story?

[?] What's the in-universe reason for Sakuya not becoming a paradox child? Did she just refuse to abandon the SDM?

[?] With just about all the main characters being some variant on beast youkai, are we going to see any entertaining reactions from Satori as she goes into pet-owner mode? I feel like Akyuu and Kosuzu's new forms both absolutely invite pets/headpats.

[?] What's your favorite childish/cute quirk of the reincarnated characters? (Personally, I like Reimu's plushie pile, in large part because she's the last character you'd expect to have one.)
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[?] Just for clarification, are the Sanae and Tenshi arcs going to be during loop B or the current loop C?

[?] A follow up to the above, if the arcs do take place in timeline B, would one of the options for Tenshi give us a chance (if we vote for it ,and vote right during it.) to have Tenshi become friends with Reimu? I had found it sweet in the first arc that despite the REALLY rocky start that Reimu had considered Tenchi a friend, and it would still be sweet if somehow despite not remembering it Tenchi still ended up gravitating to Reimu and ending up her friend even earlier than canon. (and hey as a bonus it would make the appearance of the catfish brilliant! Even if she was a different youkai than the catfish would imply it could be a weird convergence of Hakurei Reimu’s Timeline B memory and both H & K Reimu’s instinct regarding Timeline A)

[?] What would be the name of Tewi’s gang in the animal realm?


Also for everyone, maybe a bit of planning for what happens once we get into the building and barring any surprises waiting for us inside, like a forewarned Seiga (come on Tsukasa, prove me wrong… may your “scouting ahead” not being a double cross…) perhaps we can double back as we exit and see if we can nab Yoshika via a quick attack from Reimu and Mayumi (thus making Reimu happy.) while covering our tracks with that artillery (Thus making Mayumi happy.) as we speed away with…would the Driver’s name be the one from the same vote as Asami? Or have we seen the name appear yet?
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>>210255
they're going to be set during loop b.

> Obviously Paradox/Prologue is set before everyone else's arcs, and covers the second timeline, up to the very end.
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>>210262
thank you, wasn't sure where to start looking or what to put in ctrl-f

...and I somehow managed to mess up Tenshi's name. I managed to do it correctly the first time... and then every subsequent time somehow defaulted to spelling it Tenchi. m(_ _)m
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File 171993485818.jpg - (865.33KB, 1459x1598, ReimuDoodle.jpg)
ReimuDoodle
Hi, sorry for not posting. I wanted to keep the pace and try to get more stuff done so I can "catch up" with some of the suggestions you've given me, but work and life stuff got in the way and I ended so drained that I could barely sketch the next drawing.
It's not the same, but in the meanwhile, have a Reimu doodle I did while bored out of my mind during an online work meeting (yeah, one of those long meetings that could have been addressed in an e-mail).

I'll be honest with you: for a drawing done in a post-it using only a pen and going completely from memory, I really like how she turned out.
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>>210266
it turned out very well! nice!


also:

[?] I ended up during the first arc seeing a noticeable divide between Hakurei Reimu and Kichou Reimu, but less so (if at all) for the others so far. was that a quirk of how the stats turned out, was I reading too far into that or something else?
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>>210266
That's one adorable dragon-turtle right there. Turned out really nicely. I appreciate how all the different types of pen strokes give different parts of the sketch a recognizable texture, even when it's all ink and yellow.

Take all the time you want on sketching out ideas- there's no deadline to hit, and it's much appreciated whenever they do come around, so just work at whatever pace you find is good to work at.
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>>210266
from memory? damn that's impressive. it's real detailed too.

but yeah, take all the time you need for drawing. however long it takes, we'll all be waiting warmly for you.
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[X] Lure her some other way.
-[X] Foxfire that looks like a a spirit she's allowed to eat instead of just drool at if possible, a disguise of the same otherwise.

{X}Just get her out of the way, for now.

{X} Only take out the bare minimum number of opponents to safely get inside, to avoid the risk of someone going to get help..

[?]- Say hypothetically, one of us wanted to write a non-canon omake for this. Should we post it on this thread or make a separate one?
[?]- How do you keep track of all the characters? Notes? Maps? Some other third thing?


>>210266
Aww, I love her nubby little horns.
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[?] Does Reimu have a animal form?

[?] Will Youmu mom appear? if so will the parents of every IC have so relevancy?

[?] After R/R is done will you continue your other fics like TWoM, IR and LG?
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[?] Are there any other interesting fanworks you know about that involve human characters becoming Yokai?
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>>210267

building off of my question here, if there still is a distinct separation between H.Reimu and K.Reimu, has H.Reimu lightened up on K.Reimu? or still being as harsh as the first day?
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>>210281
shoot, that was supposed to start with a [?]...

[?] building off of my question here, if there still is a distinct separation between H.Reimu and K.Reimu, has H.Reimu lightened up on K.Reimu? or still being as harsh as the first day?
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[?] What are some of your favorite stories to read? Let's divide this one into non-fanfics, non-Touhou fanfics, and Touhou fanfics.
I really like the discworld series. Those are always a classic.

[?] Aside from the route-start votes of what kind of youkai to be, are there any "path not taken" kind of options that would have significantly changed the course of the story?
Not super-drastically. probably the most drastic is not asking sagume questions, and deciding to go with Yachie's plan to escape.

[?] On a related note, what would the consequences have been for failing boss-fights? Were there any other potential bad-ends available if we took enough poor decisions before a boss?
Generally speaking, if you fail a boss fight, i'll give you a choice between failing to protect the person you're trying to protect, and risking the playable character's own wellbeing. For example, if Reimu had failed to beat Youki, she would have had to either let him die, or essentially brute-force herself into a re/awakening, and come out of it with a borderline-suicidal mindset. The only exception is when the person whose mind/life is at stake is also the playable character, in which case they're gonna lose it either way.

Needless to say, bad shit happens when you lose.

[?] Aside from possibly dooming all of Gensokyo as we know it, would Akyuu and Reisen have been happy if they'd been reclaimed (via the fake emergency device) as Lunarian pets? (Admittedly, this one has a certain amount of "Aside from that, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln?" energy to it.)
possibly. They would have both lost a lot of memories, setting Akyuu back to being basically on par with the other characters.

[?] Who's your favorite touhou? Has writing this story noticeably changed your opinion on any touhou characters?
My personal favourite is Mayumi! That's why she was my gmpost mascot for Redo/Reimu (the others I've picked for a different reason). And it hasn't wildly changed my opinions, but it has forced me to elaborate on them a fair bit.

[?] With all these PC-98 characters roaming around, does Mima have a noticeable role to play in this story?
She does! In fact, she might well be a Youki for an arc.

[?] What would be your advice for anyone looking to write their own story?
Understand what type of writer you are. Particular whether you're the careful, prepared type or you're the agile, spontaneous type. If you plan everything out meticulously and then don't actually create something, you're not a planner, and don't try to force yourself to be one.

[?] What's the in-universe reason for Sakuya not becoming a paradox child? Did she just refuse to abandon the SDM?
Sakuya was in a seperate enclave in the SDM, so they weren't putting all their eggs in one basket. For all the good it did them.

[?] With just about all the main characters being some variant on beast youkai, are we going to see any entertaining reactions from Satori as she goes into pet-owner mode? I feel like Akyuu and Kosuzu's new forms both absolutely invite pets/headpats.
Honestly, I think the more exotic jidiao will be just as far up her alley.

Looking at the roster, the only ones that might not be beastly youkai left are Marisa and Sanae, who have at least non-beast-looking heritage each. Every one of the current tenshi options has at least some monster traits.

[?] What's your favorite childish/cute quirk of the reincarnated characters? (Personally, I like Reimu's plushie pile, in large part because she's the last character you'd expect to have one.)
Probably Reimu's plushies. They're fun, and good to make references with.

[?] Just for clarification, are the Sanae and Tenshi arcs going to be during loop B or the current loop C?
[?] A follow up to the above, if the arcs do take place in timeline B, would one of the options for Tenshi give us a chance (if we vote for it ,and vote right during it.) to have Tenshi become friends with Reimu? I had found it sweet in the first arc that despite the REALLY rocky start that Reimu had considered Tenchi a friend, and it would still be sweet if somehow despite not remembering it Tenchi still ended up gravitating to Reimu and ending up her friend even earlier than canon. (and hey as a bonus it would make the appearance of the catfish brilliant! Even if she was a different youkai than the catfish would imply it could be a weird convergence of Hakurei Reimu’s Timeline B memory and both H & K Reimu’s instinct regarding Timeline A)

Paradox/Prologue will take place throughout loop B. Sanae and tenshi's named arcs will take place in Loop C. Yes, there'll be options for Tenshi to be friends with Reimu. Imo the best optionfor that is also the one that best justifies the catfish plushie :3c.

[?] What would be the name of Tewi’s gang in the animal realm?

{ } Suggestion Box is open.

[?] I ended up during the first arc seeing a noticeable divide between Hakurei Reimu and Kichou Reimu, but less so (if at all) for the others so far. was that a quirk of how the stats turned out, was I reading too far into that or something else?
[?] building off of my question here, if there still is a distinct separation between H.Reimu and K.Reimu, has H.Reimu lightened up on K.Reimu? or still being as harsh as the first day?


There is a difference, but it varies from person to person, and is related partially to the spirit stat. Reimu conceptualises her past self as something like a mentor, something to try and live up to as a baseline.
They technically all have dual personas, that's what the spirit stat represents, but there's differences in how each one understands and reconciles it. This is also why re/awoken Akyuu comprehends all her past selves as other voices. Human!Akyuu is perfectly fine to indulge Rabbit!Akyuu and is having fun doing so, and Raven!Youmu isn't wildly different from Half-ghost!Youmu in needs and wants, she's just more comfortable in her own skin.

[?]- Say hypothetically, one of us wanted to write a non-canon omake for this. Should we post it on this thread or make a separate one?
Prefer if you make it a seperate thread, as a rule, and link to it here. No restrictions otherwise.

[?]- How do you keep track of all the characters? Notes? Maps? Some other third thing?
MOMENTUM.

[?] Does Reimu have a animal form?
No.

[?] Will Youmu mom appear? if so will the parents of every IC have so relevancy?
At least some member of each IC's family will have some relevance. No guarantee that's gonna be parents, though.

[?] After R/R is done will you continue your other fics like TWoM, IR and LG?
Possibly, possibly even write some of them during it.
Not sure what you mean by LG, I've just checked Ao3 and there's no works under the Gooboi name like that.

[?] Are there any other interesting fanworks you know about that involve human characters becoming Yokai?
Very few. And usually it's either about someone becoming a generic 'youkai', and then dying, or someone getting brain-wiped or whatever and losing all identity. I want more stories like this, though! Again I beg unto the void...
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>>210283
> Not sure what you mean by LG
I was referencing Little Gensokyo: The Hakurei Dispersion Project put spoiler due to NSFW
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>>210284
I think that's either under a different person, or OP wants to keep that a bit seperated from his other works.
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>>210284
Will delete if requested
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Not sure what's happening but it's been a week since AO3 was updated. As far as I could tell, the thread is active... Unless the write-ins have generated so much voting that it lengthen the time to write and make a proper chapter? that or Gooboi is busy IRL and can't write rn.

(Somebody that did not particpate in the write-ins and prefer general choice voting and reading the results)
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>>210287
Goob is busy. They mentioned here in the thread some time ago that Dawntrail was coming out, and that would eat a lot of their time, but to make up for it, they're running Q&A 'til the next chapter's ready.
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>They would have both lost a lot of memories, setting Akyuu back to being basically on par with the other characters.

Well that answers the question on how important taking the meteor pod was!

and for Tewi's Gang, I tried for a similar style to the other gangs, with two attributes? not sure if these end up too on the nose or something.

Clever Luckiness
{X}Kashikoikouun Family

Lucky Knowledge
{X}Rakkiinarejji Syndicate

Not sure what to have for the second word of the name? what we have is two families, and an Alliance.
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>>There is a difference, but it varies from person to person, and is related partially to the spirit stat. Reimu conceptualises her past self as something like a mentor, something to try and live up to as a baseline.
They technically all have dual personas, that's what the spirit stat represents, but there's differences in how each one understands and reconciles it. This is also why re/awoken Akyuu comprehends all her past selves as other voices. Human!Akyuu is perfectly fine to indulge Rabbit!Akyuu and is having fun doing so, and Raven!Youmu isn't wildly different from Half-ghost!Youmu in needs and wants, she's just more comfortable in her own skin.

it makes sense that reimu's re/awakening is imcomplete as described.

>>210287
he said a few days ago that he would be busy with the FF online I just wish he would update it tomorrow TT.TT

>>210266
nice art you have a good memory to do it on a post-it

for Tewi gang uh...

Shadow Fortune
{X} Unmeikage Federation
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I just have to follow up after that response.

[?]What's your favorite Discworld novel? Or if that's too hard a choice, favorite theme? (i.e. Watch, witches, wizards, etc.)

[?]Do you ever find yourself hoping for an arc to bad-end, that it might make for a better story? Or are you rooting for us to get the best ending?

[?]Are there any Touhou characters you actively dislike? Again, has writing this story changed your mind on any of them?

Oh, and for Tewi's gang:

{X} Efrafa's Owsla.

It's just a group from a cute little story about rabbits, nothing to see here.
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>>210236
a follow up to this post

[?] Can the fake beacon be remotely activated even without the second dna signature? has Eirien blocked it if that is the case?

Because yeah, if the veil definitely eats a large chunk of Akyuu memory, well hopefully then my little SSiB situation doesn't come about!

(maybe hopefully instead Ringo and Seiran come down instead for a second try at retrieval and instead end up staying.)
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[?] You said you will be playing ff, what are other franchises and games you engage with?

[?] What is your favorite group dynamic in touhou(SDM, Buddhists, ets...)?

[?] Favorite touhou game, if any?
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For Tewi's family name:

Lucky trickery
{X} Kousa Family

幸 Kou - luck, fortune
詐 Sa - trickery, deceit, con

Also, even though it's pronounced "Koh-sah", it looks like "Ko-usa" > "Small usa" > "Small rabbit"
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[6] Try to disguise as a Wolf Spirit to get Yoshika out of there.
[9] Lure her some other way.

{1} Aim to disable Yoshika entirely.
{14} Just get her out of the way, for now.

(13) Only take out the bare minimum number of opponents to safely get inside, to avoid the risk of someone going to get help..
(2) Clear out as many as possible, to minimize the chance of getting ganged up on later.

A few minutes had passed, of careful, tense preparation. The fox inched, closer and closer, to the edge. She took a moment to scan the perimeter, before focusing. Now was the time.

A ball of yellow, glowing mist appeared. A recommendation from Reimu, of a formless spirit common to the animal realm. Kosuzu waited until she was sure she had the look right, then gently pulled it around the corner, in sight of the zombie.

Yoshika turned to stare at it. A wolf followed her gaze, before sighing. “Alright… go fetch that, will you?”

“Ooooookaaaaaayyyy…” The zombie hopped off, leaving the wolf spirit to sigh. Kosuzu wondered what was going through the spirit’s head - nervousness about their hideout being spotted? Relief from being away from the jiang shi? Curiosity about what the spirit had been?

It was largely a rhetorical question, as the next thing to go through the spirit’s head was a jidiao’s gohei. The one next to him lasted only a fleeting instant longer, before Mayumi cut him down.

The jiang shi paid seemingly no mind to this, hopping along as she was after the glowing ball of light. As her co-conspirators moved back to the fox’s position, Kosuzu tested just how much of the zombie’s focus she had.

Enough, it seemed, to lead her into a trap. Lifting the orb of foxfire up a bit so the zombie’s head was tilted up was enough for the zombie to not be able to see her feet, and with a bit of careful positioning, Yoshika mindlessly hopped into an open sewer grate, leaving her awkwardly hanging by her rigor mortis-afflicted arms.

Kosuzu hopped down, as the zombie seemed to have enough intelligence to look around, bewildered. As the zombie awkwardly - rather pathetically, really - tried to turn and bite her, she took a moment to examine the seals.

…Well, the orders she was under were simple. Do whatever a wolf spirit last told her to. It was simple enough for the wolves to get use out of, while at the same time making it very difficult for anyone to hijack it. Kosuzu still personally believed her disguise would have fooled the zombie, but she wouldn’t have been able to do much more than set the zombie away.

The other seal, meanwhile - she scooched around a bit to get a better look, and keep the wobbling zombie from possibly scratching her - was essentially an anti-tampering function. It didn’t control Yoshika itself, it just made it so that if anyone else tried to mess with her, her master would be notified. The fact that it was still sitting on her head most likely meant that this form of disabling didn’t count. Which would at least mean that the zombie’s master wouldn’t be notified. Probably for the best, then, to leave it as is, at least for now.

She clambered back up, joining the other two girls. She took a moment to examine the patrol routes of the guards again, selecting a few of the more stringent packs.

The trio of girls watched carefully, waiting for the right moment. Each time a wolf trio wandered away from the pack, it was cleanly and brutally cut down. Kosuzu needed the most time to prepare her strikes, winding up and preparing a ring of danmaku to descend on the wolves, but that allowed Kosuzu to act as shot caller, telling the other two girls when it was time to strike.

Once three other groups had joined the initial pair in shuffling further off their mortal coils, Kosuzu finally approached the building herself. The remaining wanderers wouldn’t check around for a bit of time, and if they took any more, the wolves would start to suspect foul play. As it was, though, it was trivial for the three of them to approach the door.

Quietly, the three girls approached. Kosuzu found herself grinning. It was a slightly risky play, to leave so many standing, but it did mean that they were right in the heart of their base, and the enemy didn't even know to look. And that alone was a powerful tool.

…As long as nothing blew their cover.
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Very poor choice of words at the end there, Kosuzu. This is how you end up with a surprise Enoko or something.
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Neat. It worked.
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>>210315

or a moma(?)fox looking for a better deal. hopefully I'm wrong.

>>210316
so far, we're only partway through. And no wood to knock on...

-----

this is just a reference more than anything, but to repair the PSV is it going to happen to need a joystick, car battery, vacuum, and some Everclear?
aka is there a Commander keen reference here? we are facing off against the wolf spirits too while we are at it...
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>>210317
In my mind we're not trying to go unnoticed the whole time, we're just trying to make it far enough so that we can have Yumemi provide us with support while fighting our way out during her extraction. Delicate infiltration. Well-armed extraction.

There is no way we make it through this without a shitton of fighting, anyway.
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The trio crept through the building, as quietly as they could. It was large and spacious, with high, metallic shelves. More tools and building materials than Kosuzu previously had known to exist lined the walls, and the shelves extended so high that Kosuzu wondered how anyone could reach the uppermost ones - it was fine enough for spirits, but supposedly this kind of building was in the outside, living world too. A ‘hardware store’, Mayumi had called it, a place where individuals could buy their own building equipment. Her memories offered vague musings of various outside-world structures falling down; perhaps this was part of the reason why.

Regardless, it wasn’t too hard for the trio to sneak through undisturbed. The wolves were clearly not overly comfortable in such a place, glancing around every which way, but even in a place of so many instincts, their eyes were focused on the horizontal, not the vertical. Not to mention, in the dimly-lit walkways, it was far, far easier for the trio to spot the spectral red light of the wolves, than it was for the wolves to see them. And staying high and far away kept their scent from flowing down, at least quickly.

Kosuzu looked down at the shelving units. Eventually, she turned to the other two, whispering. “...How bad would it be if one of these things fell over?”

Mayumi blinked. “It would… make a huge racket, that’s for sure. Might even knock the others over too.”

Reimu tutted. “And it’d surely kill any of us who were underneath it, and depending on how much of it comes from Keiki facilities, it could take out some of the wolves, too. Never mind the hostage.”

Kosuzu mused. “Well… we might be able to use it, still, as long as we’re clear. It’d certainly be a convincing distraction… and if they thought she was under there, then they’ll slow down trying to pursue us…”

Mayumi hummed. “These foundations are well-supported. It would take some serious force to knock any of them over, like an artillery stri-” She faltered, as the other two girls glared at her. “Well, I suppose that if Reimu were to use her breath to melt one of the supports, that would be enough to start a cascade.”

Reimu looked down at the supports. “...Just understand that isn’t gonna be subtle. Might be good as a getaway, though.”

“Mmmm… Kosuzu turned, looking at the various tall structures. There were long wooden struts, tools of all sorts, various heavy-duty electrical equipment like thick cables… there was a lot to work with here. Her mind was abuzz with ideas.

At the back of the building were a series of smaller rooms, likely the offices and staff facilities of the store. There was a rather conspicuous trio of wolves outside one door in particular, and the trio of rescuers set upon them, dismantling them viciously. Kosuzu ran up to the door, eagerly looking through the keyhole.

…In the center of the room was a soot-covered young girl, in a set of clothes not wildly different from Reimu’s in general style. She had been bound up to a chair, and seemed to have folded over a bit, quietly sobbing.

Kosuzu stood up. “She’s in there. And I don’t see, or hear, anyone else in there.”

Reimu pumped her fist. “Great!” She reached out, rattling the door's hand, but found no luck in successfully opening it. “...Dammit.”

Kosuzu looked over at the other two girls. “...Well, we found her! That’s a good start. Now we just gotta get her outta here, and make our escape.”

The other two girls nodded. “We can probably bust down the door, nice and easy.” Mayumi pumped her fist. “One good shot should-”

“We’re trying not to scare her, remember?” Kosuzu said, stern. “Besides, that will give our position away. If we’re going to have to do that… let’s make sure we’re as prepared as possible, first.”

[ ] Kosuzu could crawl through the keyhole again. This key cavity was compressed to a calibre comparable to a card, but she was still confident she could creep through.
[ ] Kosuzu’s key-finding cleverness was considerable. Collecting a key was clearly a crucial quest.

{ } Rely on Reimu for reassurance while Kosuzu was reaching their target, or for her skills in key-related reconnaissance.
{ } Request Reimu’s resilience in requisition or readying for rebuke. (Write-in.)

( ) Make Mayumi assist in moving towards the maiden minor. Whether that manifested in moving with Kosuzu or manning the door, it was a major necessity.
( ) Maybe Mayumi could moil in myriad other methods? (Write-in.)




Sorry for delays! We are back, the dawn has been trailed, and I've even managed to beat the current EX trials for Dawntrail at least once. Good times! Now, back to Metal Gear Kon-line.

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I'm actually not confident in our ability to pipe right now with that unknown stat still flipping around. Kosuzu hasn't exactly walked any of those calories off, either.

I don't think going to look for a key is a wise idea, though. In fact, I think it's a damn stupid one.

[X] Kosuzu could crawl through the keyhole again. This key cavity was compressed to a calibre comparable to a card, but she was still confident she could creep through.

(X) Make Mayumi assist in moving towards the maiden minor. Whether that manifested in moving with Kosuzu or manning the door, it was a major necessity.

I am not at all sure what to have Reimu do yet.

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>>210323
{X} Rely on Reimu for reassurance while Kosuzu was reaching their target, or for her skills in key-related reconnaissance.

Nevermind, I take it back. Sure, Kosuzu could probably get in without a key, but how would she get Yumemi out? We probably will be needing the key.

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It's a difficult choice, to get stuck in the door and give Reimu and Mayumi trouble or to look for the key and possibly have it in the possession of a relevant person.

and if someone enters that room with kosuzu it would be better than Reimu entering because of the illusion the ring is giving her.

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[X] Kosuzu could crawl through the keyhole again. This key cavity was compressed to a calibre comparable to a card, but she was still confident she could creep through.

This is a hardware store that’s being used as a prison. Crisis is bound to a chair so the door may be unlockable from the inside, though this is improbable. Either way, having someone on the inside is useful and Crisis may have a way to leave the room once we unbind her.

Not really sure what to do for the other two though, splitting up to find a key seems very risky, but standing around won’t help at all.

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I wonder how much of Keiki's creation ability Mayumi has... After all, the group is in a hardware store.
Not sure about what to vote for the other two yet, but...

(X) Maybe Mayumi could moil in myriad other methods? (Write-in.)
-(x) start Macgyvering!

(Darn, "make with the Macgyvering" would kon-tinue with the alliteration, but doesn't sound quite right...)

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A hardware store! Fit with anything you could dream of, from allen wrenches to gerbil feeders to toilet seats to... etc. not quoting the whole song.

To raise an alternative idea: what if we just took the door off of its hinges? We've got all the tools we could possibly need somewhere in this store, and random tools are probably easier to steal than important keys.

Of course it all fails if we can't access the hinges, but does it have any merit?

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[X] Kosuzu could crawl through the keyhole again. This key cavity was compressed to a calibre comparable to a card, but she was still confident she could creep through.

Yeah, this is a bad idea, considering how we barely fit through Reimu's keyhole, but also, the other idea is Worse.

{X} Rely on Reimu for reassurance while Kosuzu was reaching their target, or for her skills in key-related reconnaissance.

And there's nothing better than the calming words of an old friend during a difficult task, especially if getting stuck induces a trauma based panic attack.

(X) Maybe Mayumi could moil in myriad other methods? (Write-in.)
-(x) start Macgyvering!

Huge fan of >>210330's idea here. Having a makeshift Something oughta help us considerably, whether it's to help unstick a stuck Kon-suzu, free Crisis, create a distraction to keep us from being noticed, or any other Macgyvery ideas.

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[X] Kosuzu could crawl through the keyhole again. This key cavity was compressed to a calibre comparable to a card, but she was still confident she could creep through.

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Alright, if you guys want someone to 'Macgyver'. you're gonna have to give them a vague direction of what you have in mind. A tool to escape? Something to break down the door? A weapon? If so, what sort of qualities are you looking for? Something that anyone can throw and use, something for Crisis to use to defend herself, just whatever Mayumi can come up with?

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(X) Maybe Mayumi could moil in myriad other methods? (Write-in.)
- (X) Mayhaps Mayumi might Macgyver a mechanism to mutedly make a way past the door. (Figure out a way to take down the door without alerting everyone in the radius and startling Crisis, like taking it off its hinges, quietly breaking it open, or picking the lock.)

[X] Kosuzu’s key-finding cleverness was considerable. Collecting a key was clearly a crucial quest.
- [X] Konsidering the context, though, keeping count for a collectable kit of tools the ceramic crafter could use to copy her creator was certainly a copacetic contemplation.

{X} Rely on Reimu for reassurance while Kosuzu was reaching their target, or for her skills in key-related reconnaissance.

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(X) Maybe Mayumi could moil in myriad other methods? (Write-in.)
- (X) Mayhaps Mayumi might Macgyver a mechanism to mutedly make a way past the door. (Figure out a way to take down the door without alerting everyone in the radius and startling Crisis, like taking it off its hinges, quietly breaking it open, or picking the lock.)

[X] Kosuzu’s key-finding cleverness was considerable. Collecting a key was clearly a crucial quest.
- [X] Konsidering the context, though, keeping count for a collectable kit of tools the ceramic crafter could use to copy her creator was certainly a copacetic contemplation.

{X} Rely on Reimu for reassurance while Kosuzu was reaching their target, or for her skills in key-related reconnaissance.

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(X) Maybe Mayumi could moil in myriad other methods? (Write-in.)
- (X) Mayhaps Mayumi might Macgyver a mechanism to mutedly make a way past the door. (Figure out a way to take down the door without alerting everyone in the radius and startling Crisis, like taking it off its hinges, quietly breaking it open, or picking the lock.)

[X] Kosuzu’s key-finding cleverness was considerable. Collecting a key was clearly a crucial quest.
- [X] Konsidering the context, though, keeping count for a collectable kit of tools the ceramic crafter could use to copy her creator was certainly a copacetic contemplation.

{X} Rely on Reimu for reassurance while Kosuzu was reaching their target, or for her skills in key-related reconnaissance.

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(X) Maybe Mayumi could moil in myriad other methods? (Write-in.)
- (X) Mayhaps Mayumi might Macgyver a mechanism to mutedly make a way past the door. (Figure out a way to take down the door without alerting everyone in the radius and startling Crisis, like taking it off its hinges, quietly breaking it open, or picking the lock.)

[X] Kosuzu’s key-finding cleverness was considerable. Collecting a key was clearly a crucial quest.
- [X] Konsidering the context, though, keeping count for a collectable kit of tools the ceramic crafter could use to copy her creator was certainly a copacetic contemplation.

{X} Rely on Reimu for reassurance while Kosuzu was reaching their target, or for her skills in key-related reconnaissance.

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[X] Kosuzu could crawl through the keyhole again. This key cavity was compressed to a calibre comparable to a card, but she was still confident she could creep through.

{X} Rely on Reimu for reassurance while Kosuzu was reaching their target, or for her skills in key-related reconnaissance.

(X) Maybe Mayumi could moil in myriad other methods? (Write-in.)
- (X) Mayhaps Mayumi might Macgyver a mechanism to mutedly make a way past the door. (Figure out a way to take down the door without alerting everyone in the radius and startling Crisis, like taking it off its hinges, quietly breaking it open, or picking the lock.)

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[X] Kosuzu’s key-finding cleverness was considerable. Collecting a key was clearly a crucial quest.
-[X] While we're at it, maybe there's a map of the facilty around, might be useful for an escape.
{X} Request Reimu’s resilience in requisition or readying for rebuke. (Write-in.)
-{X} Maybe her intuition can lead us to a better entrance? Like a ventilation kon-duct that leads inside from an adjacent, open room?
(X) Maybe Mayumi could moil in myriad other methods? (Write-in.)
-(X) While we search for an alternative entrance, Mayumi inspects the door so she can find the proper tool to either pick the lock, disassemble the door or force it open without making much noise.

If it's an outside-world looking facilty, then it might have proper ventilation, or air kon-ditioning for Kosuzu to use. Also, these warehouses often have the building plans with emergency doors marked. My vote for Kosuzu is "find a key" but I prefer them finding the ventilation shaft and entering that way, while Mayumi forces the door open for the escape. For that she could find the right set of screwdrivers to remove the hinges if those are on this side so we open the door without noise, or something with a little less finesse: acquire crowbar, use crowbar on door, profit. I would love if she could find lock picking tools and actually pick the lock, but that is harder to do and maybe a set of skills no-one in the group has, or arguably, all of them have?
- Kosuzu might know how since she's the "rogue", but on the other why bother learning lockpicking if you can bypass the lock anyways?
- Depending on her training, Reimu might have been taught how to pick a lock. But she might not like to do it.
- Mayumi might have knowledge about locks and how they work so she could figure it out but this is a stretch.

Anyways: find air duct, enter that way, Kosuzu calms the girl and explains the plan while Mayumi removes the door hinges and then the door proper.

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> Mayumi hummed. “These foundations are well-supported. It would take some serious force to knock any of them over, like an artillery stri-”
I hope Mayumi wanting to solve problems with artillery remains a running gag. I want her to argue that they should install cannons on the grounds of Hakurei Shrine.

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I don’t think we need all three girls on door opening/getting past duty. If Kosuzu finds a key or an alternative entrance, Mayumi trying to lock pick/disassemble the door goes to waste. Come on, we’re in a hardware store, lets Dead Rising this shit.

And I feel like Reimu’s gonna have an easier time picking the lock than Mayumi is. She’s part of the Kiketsu, she’s gotta know, while Mayumi’s idea of subtlety is artillery strike.

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[X] Kosuzu’s key-finding cleverness was considerable. Collecting a key was clearly a crucial quest.
-[X] While we're at it, maybe there's a map of the facilty around, might be useful for an escape.
{X} Request Reimu’s resilience in requisition or readying for rebuke. (Write-in.)
-{X} Maybe her intuition can lead us to a better entrance? Like a ventilation kon-duct that leads inside from an adjacent, open room?
(X) Make Mayumi assist in moving towards the maiden minor. Whether that manifested in moving with Kosuzu or manning the door, it was a major necessity.

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[X] Kosuzu could crawl through the keyhole again. This key cavity was compressed to a calibre comparable to a card, but she was still confident she could creep through.

{X} Rely on Reimu for reassurance while Kosuzu was reaching their target, or for her skills in key-related reconnaissance.

(X) Make Mayumi assist in moving towards the maiden minor. Whether that manifested in moving with Kosuzu or manning the door, it was a major necessity.

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[X] Kosuzu’s key-finding cleverness was considerable. Collecting a key was clearly a crucial quest.
-[X] While we're at it, maybe there's a map of the facilty around, might be useful for an escape.
{X} Request Reimu’s resilience in requisition or readying for rebuke. (Write-in.)
-{X} Maybe her intuition can lead us to a better entrance? Like a ventilation kon-duct that leads inside from an adjacent, open room?
(X) Maybe Mayumi could moil in myriad other methods? (Write-in.)
-(X) While we search for an alternative entrance, Mayumi inspects the door so she can find the proper tool to either pick the lock, disassemble the door or force it open without making much noise.

>>210346

I actually disagree with you. If we succeed in finding another entrance, then as other people have pointed out, Mayumi removing the door allows for a much quicker escape. If we don’t find anything by the time she does, then we can just walk through the removed door.

Though come to think of it…

-[X] Have Kosuzu remain relatively close to the door while searching for the key.

Sure it restricts our range, but I do not trust the girl who thinks artillery strikes are a form of subtlety to be a good comforter. She probably shouldn’t be the only one by the door.

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(X) Maybe Mayumi could moil in myriad other methods? (Write-in.)
- (X) Mayhaps Mayumi might Macgyver a mechanism to mutedly make a way past the door. (Figure out a way to take down the door without alerting everyone in the radius and startling Crisis, like taking it off its hinges, quietly breaking it open, or picking the lock.)

[X] Kosuzu’s key-finding cleverness was considerable. Collecting a key was clearly a crucial quest.
- [X] Konsidering the context, though, keeping count for a collectable kit of tools the ceramic crafter could use to copy her creator was certainly a copacetic contemplation.

{X} Rely on Reimu for reassurance while Kosuzu was reaching their target, or for her skills in key-related reconnaissance.

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[X] Kosuzu’s key-finding cleverness was considerable. Collecting a key was clearly a crucial quest.
-[X] While we're at it, maybe there's a map of the facilty around, might be useful for an escape.
{X} Request Reimu’s resilience in requisition or readying for rebuke. (Write-in.)
-{X} Maybe her intuition can lead us to a better entrance? Like a ventilation kon-duct that leads inside from an adjacent, open room?
(X) Maybe Mayumi could moil in myriad other methods? (Write-in.)
-(X) While we search for an alternative entrance, Mayumi inspects the door so she can find the proper tool to either pick the lock, disassemble the door or force it open without making much noise.

I agree with this set.

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[X] Kosuzu could crawl through the keyhole again. This key cavity was compressed to a calibre comparable to a card, but she was still confident she could creep through.

{X} Rely on Reimu for reassurance while Kosuzu was reaching their target, or for her skills in key-related reconnaissance.

(X) Maybe Mayumi could moil in myriad other methods? (Write-in.)
- (X) Mayhaps Mayumi might Macgyver a mechanism to mutedly make a way past the door. (Figure out a way to take down the door without alerting everyone in the radius and startling Crisis, like taking it off its hinges, quietly breaking it open, or picking the lock.)

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>>210330 here


>>210336
good point, giving Mayumi a open licence to macgyvering would probably end up with a macguyver'd artillery cannon just sitting in the middle of the hardware store.

though what I was thinking was something that would make Kevin McCallister jealous, but on the other hand the shelving should do the job.

for Kosuzu's vote, I am a little torn, she seems confident in being able to get into the key(?)hole. and I do want to trust her... but the alternate route but going around works too, just in case the door is alarmed or something, soo

-(UNDO) start Macgyvering!

[X] Kosuzu’s key-finding cleverness was considerable. Collecting a key was clearly a crucial quest.
-[X] While we're at it, maybe there's a map of the facilty around, might be useful for an escape.
{X} Request Reimu’s resilience in requisition or readying for rebuke. (Write-in.)
-{X} Maybe her intuition can lead us to a better entrance? Like a ventilation kon-duit that leads inside from an adjacent, open room?
- (X) Mayhaps Mayumi might Macgyver a mechanism to mutedly make a way past the door. (Figure out a way to take down the door without alerting everyone in the radius and startling Crisis, like taking it off its hinges, quietly breaking it open, or picking the lock.)

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>>210333
This me. When I posted that, I had just woken up and huh... didn't realize that the other choices were other choices to make / write-in. Since I don't like writing in because I don't have any ideas... I'll just piuck the non-write ins for both.

{X} Rely on Reimu for reassurance while Kosuzu was reaching their target, or for her skills in key-related reconnaissance.

(X) Make Mayumi assist in moving towards the maiden minor. Whether that manifested in moving with Kosuzu or manning the door, it was a major necessity.

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Counting to >>210355:
Main Choice #1:
[7] Kosuzu could crawl through the keyhole again. This key cavity was compressed to a calibre comparable to a card, but she was still confident she could creep through.
[10] Kosuzu’s key-finding cleverness was considerable. Collecting a key was clearly a crucial quest.
-[5] Konsidering the context, though, keeping count for a collectable kit of tools the ceramic crafter could use to copy her creator was certainly a copacetic contemplation. (>>210337, >>210338, >>210339, >>210340, >>210350)
-[5] While we're at it, maybe there's a map of the facility around, might be useful for an escape. (>>210342, >>210347, >>210349, >>210351, >>210354)
-[1] Have Kosuzu remain relatively close to the door while searching for the key. (>>210349)

Main Choice #2:
{11} Rely on Reimu for reassurance while Kosuzu was reaching their target, or for her skills in key-related reconnaissance.
{5} Request Reimu’s resilience in requisition or readying for rebuke.
-{5} Maybe her intuition can lead us to a better entrance? Like a ventilation kon-duct that leads inside from an adjacent, open room? (>>210342, >>210347, >>210349, >>210351, >>210354)

Main Choice #3:
(4) Make Mayumi assist in moving towards the maiden minor. Whether that manifested in moving with Kosuzu or manning the door, it was a major necessity.
(12) Maybe Mayumi could moil in myriad other methods?
-(1) Start Macgyvering! (>>210332)
-(8) Mayhaps Mayumi might Macgyver a mechanism to mutedly make a way past the door. (Figure out a way to take down the door without alerting everyone in the radius and startling Crisis, like taking it off its hinges, quietly breaking it open, or picking the lock.) (>>210337, >>210338, >>210339, >>210340, >>210341, >>210350, >>210353, >>210354)
-(3) While we search for an alternative entrance, Mayumi inspects the door so she can find the proper tool to either pick the lock, disassemble the door or force it open without making much noise. (>>210342, >>210349, >>210351)

Should be right...? :3

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I'm so fucking late! Shit!

[X] Kosuzu’s key-finding cleverness was considerable. Collecting a key was clearly a crucial quest.
{X} Rely on Reimu for reassurance while Kosuzu was reaching their target, or for her skills in key-related reconnaissance.
(X) Maybe Mayumi could moil in myriad other methods?

-(x) Try to check the door for any enchantments. Don't want any nasty surprises!
-(x) If we happen to find any thermite in the store, we could use that to melt the door off its hinges. Apply the thermite paste to the bolt or the door hinges, whatever's most exposed, and set it alight using Reimu's fire breath.
-(x) Could Reimu discretely melt the door's hinges or its bolt by standing very close and breathing a very concentrated flame?

Someone more clever than me could have made this stuff alliterate, but alas.

Thermite produces extreme temperatures, enough to melt steel. But we'd have to apply it directly to some crucial part of the door for it to work, which might not even be exposed... And that's considering if we find it!

But, Reimu's fire might just be hot enough to melt through the steel. if its not magically enhanced, that is, and considering this is Gensokyo, it more than likely is. But its worth a try, right?

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From the current vote counts i note we don't have anyone on watch to deal with any wolf spirits that could come across the group.

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[X] Kosuzu’s key-finding cleverness was considerable. Collecting a key was clearly a crucial quest.
{X} Rely on Reimu for reassurance while Kosuzu was reaching their target, or for her skills in key-related reconnaissance.
(X) Maybe Mayumi could moil in myriad other methods?
-(X) Mayhaps Mayumi might Macgyver a mechanism to mutedly make a way past the door. (Figure out a way to take down the door without alerting everyone in the radius and startling Crisis, like taking it off its hinges, quietly breaking it open, or picking the lock


>>210361
Yeah, if we had a fourth then they could definitely be on Wolf Watch. But for now, it's all hands on deck for the jailbreak.

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[7] Kosuzu could crawl through the keyhole again. This key cavity was compressed to a calibre comparable to a card, but she was still confident she could creep through.[12] Kosuzu’s key-finding cleverness was considerable. Collecting a key was clearly a crucial quest.

{13} Rely on Reimu for reassurance, requesting key-related reconnaissance, or guarding the door while Kosuzu was inside. {5} Request Reimu’s resilience in requisition or readying for rebuke. (Write-in.)-{5} Maybe her intuition can lead us to a better entrance? Like a ventilation kon-duct that leads inside from an adjacent, open room?

(4) Make Mayumi assist in moving towards the maiden minor. Whether that manifested in moving with Kosuzu or manning the door, it was a major necessity.(12) Maybe Mayumi could moil in myriad other ways? (Write-in.)-(8) Mayhaps Mayumi might Macgyver a mechanism to mutedly make a way past the door. (Figure out a way to take down the door without alerting everyone in the radius and startling Crisis, like taking it off its hinges, quietly breaking it open, or picking the lock.)

“First thing, we gotta get in there, no matter what.” Kosuzu said, firmly. “So let’s look for a key or some other way to get to her. Mayumi… can you look for a way to open the door quietly, using the tools around here? Maybe pick the lock, or something?”

As the haniwa nodded, she turned to Reimu. “And we’ll look for the key in some of these other side rooms. Never hurts to cover all bases, no?”

Reimu hummed. “Alright… sure. We’ll see how that works. And remember everyone, keep your heads down and your voices even lower. Let’s do this.”

“Hey.” Reimu asked, as she closed a drawer. “Have you been hearing any… voices? Since you woke up?”

The room immediately to the left of the prisoner’s room was some sort of office, likely for the staff of the hardware store. Reimu and Kosuzu were rifling through the main desk, trying to see if a key was located there.

Kosuzu looked at her, curiously. “...Uhhhh… what do you mean?”

The shrine maiden waved a hand vaguely. “Uh, so… how do I put this? How easy do you find it to… to imagine what you would have done, were you in your past life?”

The fox tilted her head. “...Kinda hard to say. I didn’t really have a lot of cases where I can easily compare, you know? Both because I don’t have a lot of memories, and because this whole espionage stuff is… very different.” She straightened up. “But what does that have to do with hearing voices?”

The jidiao coughed. “Well… I guess you could say that… I can really, really easily imagine what my past self would do. Enough that it feels like she’s speaking to current me, sometimes.”

Kosuzu shut her drawer, before opening up the one below it. “Oh yeah? So how do you rate yourself, then?”

Reimu chuckled. “Well, better than when I started. Now that I’m actually training to be a miko again, it feels less like there’s a massive disconnect, and more like I’m being… guided. By myself I guess, but still.” She shrugged. “...At the start, though, it really was bad. Kicchou Reimu is pretty spoiled, you know.”

“Yes, I can see that-” Kosuzu could feel a little bit of irritation stir in her throat, but… well, there wasn’t any way either of them had known how they’d ended up, “-oh princess of the plushies.”

Reimu flushed a bit. “Yeah, yeah… what about you? Have you had anything like that?”

Right on cue, the little voice in the young fox’s head sounded off. Calling on her, to tell Reimu about that. But Kosuzu kept that voice down, just shaking her head instead. “Nnnnope! Nothing like that.”

The jidiao pouted a bit. “Really? Apparently Eiki claims that something like that should be in all of us, but Akyuu’s so in-sync that she barely notices.”

“Well, maybe it’s just…” Kosuzu was finding it hard to think of a good equivalent, with the voice sounding off again. “Maybe it’s just a different thing for each of us. You’ve always been a straightforward person, Reimu.”

The voice protested, again, and Kosuzu took a slow breath through her nose, trying to calm it down. That wasn’t something to discuss now. Not in the middle of an enemy base, and not with a scion of a manipulative family like the Kicchou.

For a moment, that inner voice stilled. It conceded it wasn’t something to talk about with a manipulative yakuza princess… But it was something to talk about with a friend. Before Kosuzu's more entrenched judgement could muster an appropriate response, she heard Reimu chuckle. “I suppose so. So… I have to ask, what’s casual life for Kon-kon Kosuzu?”

The fox shifted some jaw-shaped office tool she didn’t recognise to look underneath. It bumped against a wall, clicking and dispensing a piece of folded-up wire from the end of its iron tooth. “I’m sorry, what do you mean?”

“You know. Got any friends? Any major hobbies? Things you do differently?” Reimu stood up a bit, stretching.

Kosuzu shook her head. “...No real friends. I’m kinda a secret, really.” She ruffled through a few blocks of square, colorful paper. “If I keep myself hidden, then… people don’t know Mom’s got an extra card she can play. She can give herself a perfect alibi, for example, while I sneak in and do the actual deed.”

Reimu looked at her. “What? Really? Surely there’s someone other than your mom that knows about you on the surface?”

The fox… let out a long, weary sigh. “Mmm. Not many that know 'Kudamaki Kosuzu', at least. There’s Lady Iizunamaru. I spent some time working for her, about a week or so.” She glanced over, stifling a giggle at Reimu’s concerned expression. “The other tengu may have feared her, but… Lady Iizunamaru was always nice to me. And she’s so good at petting, too! I remember wondering if she’d do it to the Wolf Tengu, but she said that’d be improper. …And besides, she said she preferred my fur, anyways. Told me and Mom that mine was the softest she’d ever touched.” Kosuzu chuckled a bit, at the memory. “...Wish I could go back there again.”

Her friend tilted her head. “You can’t? Why not?”

The fox slowly shut the drawer she was looking through, and stood up. “...Because I screwed up. One morning when I was meant to go in, my mother told me that I’d made a mistake, left some evidence behind - and now they’d found out about the work I’d done for Lady Iizunamaru. So… if I ever went back to the Daitengu’s office, I’d be more likely to get a tripod to the skull than a pet behind the ears.” She sagged. “...I wanted to apologize. I even wrote a letter and asked my mom to deliver it to her. But I never got a reply back.”

Reimu reached out, scratching her behind the ears. “Well… maybe you’re better off without her. Megumu’s a real sh- a real pain in the butt, sometimes.”

…Right. Yeah. She wasn’t just Kosuzu of Suzunaan anymore. She didn’t have to go whimpering to Reimu and Marisa about every little thing. She could deal with that herself.

The fox gently pushed Reimu’s hand over to the Good Spot. The little voice’s primary concern at least temporarily quelled, it raised a note of a different tune than it’s usual, and this was one Kosuzu could agree with asking. “...Not that I’m telling you to stop, but aren’t you weirded out to be petting me like this?”

Reimu shook her head. “Nah, not really. Did this sorta thing to Aunn all the time. Do you do the kicky-leg thing?”

Kosuzu chuckled. “Never found a spot good enough for that, sadly.” Reimu put on a face of mock disappointment, then - something seemed to catch her eye, turning her head skyward.

“Hey, Kosuzu…” She pointed up at some rectangular… pipe? Above their heads. There was some kind of panel of slanted pieces right where she was pointing, held in place by four screws. “What if you crawled through the ventilation ducts?”

The fox blinked. “...Would that work?”

Reimu nodded. “Definitely! It leads right into the next room, see?” She grinned. “And we can probably get a screwdriver through that gap to undo the panel on the far side, so you can both get out that way! I don’t think my shell will fit, though…”

Kosuzu floated up, getting a little closer to the vent… and immediately getting a whiff of what seemed like a decade of dust. Ugh. She turned to the beaming Reimu, giving an awkward smile. “...Well, we can do that if we have to. But-” She caught a glimpse of something in the pot plant, and smiled. “But I don’t think we’ll need to. Can you check the rocks of that pot plant, there?”

The jidiao did as asked, quickly unearthing a small set of keys. “Ah, nice spotting!”

Kosuzu grinned. “Well, the better angle helped. Come on, we don’t have to use the vent as long as we can use the key!”

There was a sound of snapping metal, and the two girls paused. Kosuzu slowly, hesitantly, stepped out of the room, and turned to look at the other door.

A door fronted by a guilty-looking haniwa.


“I’m really, really sorry, Kosuzu!” Mayumi bowed again. The fox just grunted, unscrewing another corner of the panel.

Really, it was her fault. She’d asked Reimu along with her for her good luck, and to be fair, she had succeeded - but maybe she should have asked the straightforward Mayumi to do something other than that - after all, with two teams working on ultimately the same task, the best case scenario was that someone’s efforts would go to waste. Being unable to shift the door from the hinges with the lock in place, the haniwa had tried to find a wire she could use to pick it open. It was a sound-enough strategy… right up until the point the wire chosen was just a bit too brittle, and had broken when it got caught.

Now the lock was worse than useless, and the girl on the other side was, technically, more trapped than when they’d started. Whether or not Kosuzu could have squeezed through the keyhole was a moot point when a wire was jammed right through it. She sighed, pulling out the screw and turning to look at the guilt-ridden haniwa. “...Well, at least we have another way to get to her.”

Reimu looked over at the door. She’d been quick to point out that the wire Mayumi had grabbed was not a suitable choice for the task, after the damage was done. But apparently revealing her infiltration expertise ahead of time hadn’t occurred to her. …Maybe she’d just wanted a few moments to talk to Kosuzu. “Mmm… well, worst comes to worst, we can break the door down. Maybe even bust out the back wall, it’d lead us right outside. It’s just not going to be subtle.”

Mayumi turned to her. With her initial screw-up, she was eager to help. “Think we can burn out the lock with your fire? Or with a torch, maybe?”

Reimu shrugged. “Probably? But that’s gonna be a bright light, unless we can muffle that somehow. Just trading the sound for a different problem, in a place like this.”

“Mmmm. We’ll figure it out. Ahhhh… I’m gonna need a shower after this. Can someone give me a lift?” Kosuzu slid the panel off, carefully placing it down on the desk. She focused, grabbing the screwdriver between her teeth, before shifting into fox form. Reimu lifted her up, so she could step off into the duct.

…Ugh. Yes, a shower would be the first thing she did, when she got back to base. She paused for a moment to think, setting the screwdriver down for a second.

From here, Kosuzu’s part was relatively straightforward. It was a short walk to the grille in the prisoner’s room, and from there she could crawl through the gaps - bringing the screwdriver with her - and open the vent from inside. Then there would be at least one way to get the girl out, albeit an awkward and dusty one. She should decide on how she’d approach the girl, and what the other two should do in the interim.

[ ] Act a calm, cool, collected benefactor. A real infiltrating spy type might reassure her that things were under control (jammed lock notwithstanding). .[ ] Be soft, cuddly emotional support. A fuzzy friend was just what the poor girl needed right now.[ ] Something else?

{ } What should Reimu do, while Kosuzu’s inside?

( ) And what should Mayumi do?Considering the issue with the jammed lock, either setting both on the same task, or on two entirely different tasks may be more effective than having them working at cross purposes.

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[x] Be soft, cuddly emotional support. A fuzzy friend was just what the poor girl needed right now.

Kosuzu has never been cool, calm, and collected in her life. Fuzzy and pettable, on the other hand, seems more her speed.

{x} Keep an eye out, make sure nobody spots the group.

(x) Prepare an artillery strike the moment they're all out of range!

I feel like Mayumi's going to be disappointed if she doesn't get to unleash that artillery strike eventually.

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[x] Be soft, cuddly emotional support. A fuzzy friend was just what the poor girl needed right now.
{x} Keep an eye out, make sure nobody spots the group.
-{x} Decide on the signals for 'going loud'(i.e. getting caught and unable to neutralise the target) and for signaling the artillery

(x) Prepare an artillery strike the moment they're all out of range!

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Artillery strikes already prepped, and it’ll be some time before you’re all clear enough to use it. And they’re all keeping an eye out - after all, they’re not the team that glows wherever they go.

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[X] Act a calm, cool, collected benefactor. A real infiltrating spy type might reassure her that things were under control (jammed lock notwithstanding). .
[ ] Be soft, cuddly emotional support. A fuzzy friend was just what the poor girl needed right now.
[ ] Something else?

Still not writing in. So that's it for me.

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I'm guessing the wire is really jammed in there? Or could a magnet get it out?

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[X] Be soft, cuddly emotional support, but stay calm and quiet about it.

{X} Get a blowtorch to cut the lock.

(X) Get a big tarp to conceal the light.

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[X] Something else?
-[X] Maybe this outside world woman, needed an outside world personality to help her through this... Act like (how you think) an outsider acts.

This is a little zany, but Yumemi Crisis is a little zany herself. Or, her alternate/future/past self Ichi is. I hope. I also think it'll be very funny.

(X) Have Reimu melt the hinges or the bolt off the door, whatever seems most efficient.

A red glow isn't going to really be conspicuous in a warehouse full of wolves that glow red. I hope.

(X) Have Mayumi scout the rest of the rooms for escape routes.

I hope that this method of opening the door should take a relatively short time. In the meantime, I'd like our ceramic robot friend scouting for exits. She seems a better candidate for scouting than Reimu; I'd imagine she might know at least some information about our location that could help us find a good escape route. I hope...

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[x] Be soft, cuddly emotional support. A fuzzy friend was just what the poor girl needed right now.

{X} Have Reimu melt the hinges or the bolt off the door, whatever seems most efficient.

(X) Have Mayumi scout the rest of the rooms for escape routes.
- (X) If she spots any enemies, she has to take them out without them noticing her or the others.

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[X] Be soft, cuddly emotional support, but stay calm and quiet about it.
{X} Have Reimu melt the hinges or the bolt off the door, whatever seems most efficient.
(X) Get a big tarp to conceal the light.

I like these other two write-ins. Poor Mayumi just wants to help. And blow things up (I would always be pushing for an artillery barrage to solve my problems if I had access to a battery to be honest. When all you have is a hammer...)

I'm curious about Kosuzu's inner voice, she's repressing it... come on Kosuzu, you can tell Reimu everything!
Also, I'm worried more and more about her relation with Tsukasa. I feel that the job for Megumu wasn't a failure and she was given a bogus excuse to keep her off from her side for any reason.

Maybe Tsukasa is actually jealous of Kosuzu being at the side of Megumu? Maybe Kosuzu proved herself better at the job than Tsukasa actually tells her she is, and is worried she might lose her spot as her right hand?
Thus far, Kosuzu has been "mommy's little tool" and nothing else, I feel bad for her.

Tsukasa thus far has been everything I feared Yachie was going to be before we knew better, and more.
I hope there's an actual reason, a redemption arc, or at the very least it doesn't get worse.

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SuwakoReminiscence

>> One bird perched on her hat, from behind. Suwako didn’t respond, at first. After a few moments, she felt the bird begin to peck at the center of her hat.

>> “...Oi, stop that.” The bird diligently did so. “...you suicidal, birdy? Didn’t you see what happened yesterday? You make a curse god angry, and she’ll burn you right up.”

>> The bird let out a bit of a squawk. A crow, maybe? Felt heavy for one. “...You with the tengu?” Another squawk. “...Can you keep a secret, birdy?”

>> The goddess looked up, holding her hat. “...I dunno how old you are, but… no sane person wants to outlive their children. ‘Tis the curse of gods who bear children, though, to do so. To see your loved ones die, and their loved ones die, over and over and over again…”

>> “I… I still don’t want to give up. I want to believe they’re out there. But… what is there even left to look for? Why can’t I let it go?” She tilted her head up, fast enough that her conversation partner had to flap to steady themself. “...What am I holding out hope for? Am I just going to hurt more innocent girls who don’t deserve it because I can’t give up? I… what am I supposed to do?”

>> There was no immediate response, and the goddess sniffled, sagging. Well, here it was. She’d absolutely gone crazy now. She felt the bird cautiously walk forward, to the brim of her hat, and peek its head over the edge... It was a raven, she assumed. Looking at her, with a strangely sorrowful expression. Maybe it was the angle or the misty lighting, but the color of its feathers looked weird. Lighter than pure black, lighter than most grays.

>> …Almost a ghostly white- Her eyes shrank, and she stared up at the bird. “Y-Youmu?!”

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>> The haniwa grinned. “Of course! There’s a perfect weapon for this, back in Keiki’s territory. We take that, and we can take all the wolves out at once.”

>> Kosuzu perked up. “That sounds perfect! Do we need to circle back to get it?”

>> “No need, it can deliver the payload from home turf easily.” Mayumi’s smirk only grew wider. “Nothing’s quicker for dealing with a crowd than an artillery strike!”

>> …

>> Kosuzu whipped her head around to the haniwa, who was just about to start typing. “What?! No! That’ll kill her!”

>> Mayumi waved her off. “But then we just pull her spirit out. And then she’s safe!”

Just a quick doodle, since I wanted to draw Mayumi for a while now. I'll probably tweak a thing or two in her design when I draw her again in the future, just wanted to illustrate the gag in a callback to Reimu's "horn hiding" question from way back.

I like this "crude", more chibi look for jokes, is it OK for you guys if I do this from time to time?

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[X] Be soft, cuddly emotional support, but stay calm and quiet about it.
{X} Have Reimu melt the hinges or the bolt off the door, whatever seems most efficient.
(X) Get a big tarp to conceal the light.

That "serious mistake" thing just came to my mind that Megumu found out something important about Kosuzu and Tsukasa is hiding it from her.

And the voice she hears might be human!Kusuzu trying to warn them about something related to Tsukasa?

>>210379
suwako's sad scene looks nice!

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[X] Be soft, cuddly emotional support, but stay calm and quiet about it.

Cute, cute, cute, cute, cute! Kosuzu is very much not the cool and collected type, so this really is the much better avenue for keeping Crisis from having a crisis.

{X} Have Reimu melt the hinges or the bolt off the door, whatever seems most efficient.
(X) Get a big tarp to conceal the light.

So Mayumi doesn't have the same finesse her mom does. Probably should've expected that from Miss Artillery Strike, honestly. 😆 She can just run support on a task that doesn't need her to do that.

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[X] Be soft, cuddly emotional support. A fuzzy friend was just what the poor girl needed right now.
{X} Have Reimu melt the hinges or the bolt off the door, whatever seems most efficient.
(X) Get a big tarp to conceal the light.

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[X] Be soft, cuddly emotional support. A fuzzy friend was just what the poor girl needed right now.

(X) check to see if a magnet can get the wire out, if so, then Reimu can pick the lock.
-(X) If not, Have Reimu melt the hinges or the bolt off the door, whatever seems most efficient.

>>210375

>A red glow isn't going to really be conspicuous in a warehouse full of wolves that glow red. I hope.

Especially since there are supposed to be wolves sitting there guarding the door in the first place!

(X) Have Mayumi scout the rest of the rooms for escape routes.
- (X) If she spots any enemies, she has to take them out without them noticing her or the others.


Hello M.Kosuzu! Nice to see ya coming to the fore a little! And yeah, she’s right that you should share with Reimu there K.Kosuzu! You already shared about the vial incident!

>>210378

This happened a week ago… right in the middle of the Tengu Mountain gearing up to try to find any of the immaterial children… who by her reaction Tsukasa hasn’t been paying too much attention to, either because she hasn’t heard too much about it, or has not bothered to think it was important… BUT. with what we are starting to suspect… There is a weird point where our suspicions intersect with the IC incident, namely where a child ends up with a different parent.

I think that Megumu had a suspicion that Kosuzu was an immaterial child and started asking Tsukasa about it. But asked it in such a way that Tsukasa thought that Megumi was saying that she had literally taken the child, and so suddenly cut off contact. (yeah, I bet that Kosuzu’s letter never made it to Tengu mountain, probably was burned the moment Kosuzu was out of sight.)

>>210381

the joke style looks great! I'm all for it!

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... So the bit about screwing up with Megumu could not more obviously be a lie, right? And that letter definitely never got sent, right? ... I'm pretty confident now in

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>>210390

Oops, fat-fingered the buttons and posted that early. Damn you, mobile phones.

So as I was saying, my guess now is that the plot element adapted from maneki-neko Kosuzu is that she was actually not a maneki-neko, but a bakedanuki being raised as one for... some reason. This has been adapted into Foxsuzu as her being stolen as a child from someone. I guess Ran? I wasn't willing to put that theory in a form stronger than "the Yakumos are looking for someone, and want to know if Kosuzu is that person" before, but now I'm really starting to think Kosuzu is Ran's kid, and her memories of the mountain village got manipulated somehow - she was being kidnapped with that tube, not saved from it. Although that leaves the questions of how Tsukasa pulled that off and why on Earth she thought it was a good idea.

Anyway, votes.

[X] Be soft, cuddly emotional support. A fuzzy friend was just what the poor girl needed right now.

{X} Have Reimu use a pen, small screwdriver, drill, or something to try and shove the broken wire out the other side of the keyhole.

Pushing something stuck in a small aperture through is frequently easier than getting it back out. In this case in particular, we already know the wire breaks pretty easily, so correctly applied force should be able to snap it into more manageable pieces, too. It seems to be one of those old style locks with the big keyholes (since Kosuzu could see through it), too, so there should be room to fiddle around like this.

{X} Have Mayumi take up position somewhere hidden out of the way but still able to see Reimu and at least a few of the most likely points she could be spotted from. If anyone spots her while she's working the door, take them out before they can raise the alarm.

I'm assuming that directly in front of the door is the most visible point in the immediate vicinity, mind you. That just seems like good security. But if the door is actually out of the way enough that a lookout point is more visible, this could backfire.

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> Kosuzu could feel a little bit of irritation stir in her throat, but… well, there wasn’t any way either of them had known how they’d ended up.

Oh, that’s just a bit of jealousy

> Calling on her, to tell Reimu about that. But Kosuzu kept that voice down.

That… can’t be too bad, right?

> my mother told me that I’d made a mistake […] if I ever went back to the Daitengu’s office, I’d […] get a tripod to the skull […] I wanted to apologize. I even wrote a letter and asked my mom to deliver it to her. But I never got a reply back.”

……… damn. I think I’ve reached my limit now. I’m jumping on the Tsukasa hate train, all aboard!


Aaaanyway, Kosuzu likes pets and I’m sure a constantly stressed, both during kidnappings and academia, Crisis would love some emotional support while the other two bust open the lock.

[X] Be soft, cuddly emotional support. A fuzzy friend was just what the poor girl needed right now.

I am unfortunately not too much of a write in person. However,

(X) Prepare an artillery strike the moment they're all out of range!

Is very necessary.


>>210379, >>210381 You can honestly feel Suwako’s depression emanating from the art and Mayumi’s excited expression is just perfect.

Love your art Kosu! And I really like the chibi look, so if it helps you practice, use it for the silly ones.


And lastly, for no reason in particular, how weighted would the [X] Kill Tsukasa option be? And would using an artillery strike lower the artificial votes?

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I dunno. I feel like the anti-Tsukasa theories just aren't quite plausible enough yet.

If anything, it already feels too simple. Tsukasa's an unrepentant backstabber; we've been side-eyeing her from day one. Tsukasa being a bad guy and nothing more feels like the obvious, and we've been fed information just vague enough that we can reinforce this preconception. If Tsukasa were actively trying to deceive us, I don't think she'd be this easy to spot.

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>>210391
I don't think Kosuzu would be a bake-danuki in the Nekosuzu option. Because tanuki are canines, not felines, and they don't have many traits that you could pass off as maneki-neko ones.

Also, OP's specific comment about it (>>209455) was this:
>My slight preference was for the maneki-neko option, but to be fair, that was for reasons I told essentially no-one.

Which seems to suggest that whatever he liked about that arc wasn't hinted at in the options, at the very least.

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>>210394

the thing is that most of our information is coming from Kosuzu, Tsukasa is not getting a lot of chances to present her side in order to deceive us...

I'm open to her being like Yachie and thus proves us wrong here, but I am open to the kitnapper Tsukasa potential plot, either way I am intrigued to see where it goes!

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[X] Be soft, cuddly emotional support, but stay calm and quiet about it.
{X} Have Reimu melt the hinges or the bolt off the door, whatever seems most efficient.
(X) Get a big tarp to conceal the light.

if ichi and crisis are the same person (very highly likely), then there's already precedent that she likes pets. very soft ones.

> Ichi smiled. “After all, Reimu and Mayumi can look pretty human, but you’re outright soft and fluffy. I bet she’ll be drawn to you - she’s gonna need someone like you to be there for her.”


reserving judgement on tsukasa til later. there's not a lot in her favor right now and every mention of kosuzu's time/relationship with her is digging the grave deeper and deeper. andher being a manipulative backstabber probably would invalidate any defense she could give herself by way of explanation. if she really does care about kosuzu, she's gonna have to prove it through her actions, not words.

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Counting to >>210402:
Main Choice #1:
[1] Act a calm, cool, collected benefactor. A real infiltrating spy type might reassure her that things were under control (jammed lock notwithstanding). .
[13] Be soft, cuddly emotional support. A fuzzy friend was just what the poor girl needed right now.
-[5] But stay calm and quiet about it. (>>210374, >>210378, >>210382, >>210383, >>210402)
Did something... Hopefully this works?
[2] Something else?
-[1] Maybe this outside world woman, needed an outside world personality to help her through this... Act like (how you think) an outsider acts. (>>210375)

Main Choice #2:
{2} Keep an eye out, make sure nobody spots the group. (>>210368, >>210369)
{1} Get a blowtorch to cut the lock. (>>210374)
{1} Check to see if a magnet can get the wire out, if so, then Reimu can pick the lock. (>>210388)
-{8} Have Reimu melt the hinges or the bolt off the door, whatever seems most efficient. (>>210375, >>210377, >>210378, >>210382, >>210383, >>210384, >>210388, >>210402)
{1} Have Reimu use a pen, small screwdriver, drill, or something to try and shove the broken wire out the other side of the keyhole. (>>210391)

Main Choice #3:
(3) Prepare an artillery strike the moment they're all out of range! (>>210368, >>210372, >>210392)
(6) Get a big tarp to conceal the light. (>>210374, >>210378, >>210382, >>210383, >>210384, >>210402)
(3) Have Mayumi scout the rest of the rooms for escape routes. (>>210375, >>210377, >>210388)
-(2) If she spots any enemies, she has to take them out without them noticing her or the others. (>>210377, >>210388)
(1) Have Mayumi take up position somewhere hidden out of the way but still able to see Reimu and at least a few of the most likely points she could be spotted from. If anyone spots her while she's working the door, take them out before they can raise the alarm. (>>210391)

:3

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>>210395
Rather more importantly, bakedanuki are shapeshifters.

And I don't know that your interpretation particularly follows from that statement at all. That reads to me as merely "I didn't tell anyone the thing that made me prefer that choice," which by no means excludes "there was evidence that, combined with other evidence delivered later, could allow people to guess at what that thing was." ... of course, Gooboi is around to clarify their intent, but then again any response might be a spoiler of some degree or another.

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[X] Be soft, cuddly emotional support. A fuzzy friend was just what the poor girl needed right now.
{x} Keep an eye out, make sure nobody spots the group.
-{x} Decide on the signals for 'going loud'(i.e. getting caught and unable to neutralise the target) and for signaling the artillery
(x) Prepare an artillery strike the moment they're all out of range!

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Note to self: Mayumi is confirmed not handy... Guess that should have been obvious from the insistence on artillery strikes.

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She can be handy! You just picked the technically-youngest, and least-experienced-in-subterfuge person to do the fiddliest infiltration task.

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>>210391

I think i just figured out a Why Tsukasa would do it...

because she was hired to do so.

adding to that, it would give an alternate explanation as to why Kosuzu was working for Megumu for a week, and then was subsequently yanked from that job. After all if you are at Tengu Village, you are practically at the footsteps of Moriya Shrine. I think we may have just found out how the burnt cherry found its way to Suwako... Tsukasa was hired to do so, and had Kosuzu nearby working with Megumu.

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>>210414

Another addition to this, this explanation does leave room for a more nuanced explanation for Tsukasa.

she might've been hired to "remove Ran's Kit" and instead creatively interpreted it as "remove Ran's Kit and take her to be Tsukasa's own daughter."

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Then again, thinking about this a little more, Tsukasa keeping Kosuzu a secret and cutting off contact with the tengu is, I think, broadly consistent with having secretly known that Kosuzu was an Immaterial Child. That still doesn't explain why Chen was so suspicious/curious about her or what was up with probably-Mayohiga, and raises its own questions, but it is enough that I'm inclined to back down from my brief confidence about what the twist might be.

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>>210414
It's plausible, but the question here is why was Tsukasa hired to give the thing to Suwako? and by whom?

>>210388
The explanation for Tsukasa making Kosuzu avoid Megumu because the thing with the immaterial children makes sense too, but only if Kosuzu is actually at risk of being caught. If the only person who knows about Kosuzu being a strange pregnancy is Tsukasa (or if she stole her from some other place) there's no need to cover her own tracks.

>>210391
bakedanuki doesn't make sense, iirc Mamizou was the option for "mother figure" that wasn't actually a mom. Maybe she ended adopting Kosuzu. As for what Kosuzu would be in that situation, maybe she shared a family with a cat that is related to Ran, too? It's either that or Mike, if it is a switcheroo maybe that's the thing.
Maybe Mamizou wanted to raise a cat herself to show a kitsune how it's done (jk)

I was not expecting the artillery girl to try to pick the door open, I expected her to find a fire axe and tear it down while shouting "Heeere's Mayumi!"

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>>210418

I think even Ichi/Yumemi doesn’t understand the context behind that, it would do the opposite of comfort her.

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>>210418

That's the question, isn't it? Who would hire someone to take out an immaterial child, and also sneak a burnt cherry onto someone missing their (greatxALOT) grandchild.

We might be closing in on our first clue to our true culprit...

Also since she was on the vote to macgyver something, she could have also gone full Jamie Hyneman and made something that blew the door off the hinges...

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>>210419
It was a joke.
>>210421
Now I want her to make a pipebomb or blow up a propane tank next to the door, thanks.

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>>210418
I don't believe Mamizou's role was ever described, I think that was just an assumption people came to based on her smoke and danmaku being presented as part of the manekineko choice. But we've been accumulating possible evidence that Fox Kosuzu is being deceived about something in her background (Tsukasa's keeping secrets, Chen's suspicious about something, I'm starting to think that Kosuzu's memories have been deliberately suppressed, and probably some other little things I picked up on subconsciously/picked up on and then forgot about), and we know that there is a mysterious plot element in the fox route that was adapted from the tanuki route, so I think it might be worth re-examining the evidence with that in mind.

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maybe it's something like this but who knows

As mentioned in the nightmare, kosuzu and someone (Ran) ran away from a "giant youkai" because of all that chasing she lost her memory or was too young to remember well the people she was with, but she was found by tsukasa and she raised her and educated her as if she was Kuda-gistune and prohibited her other fox abilities because she suspected her of being a Kitsune.

She tried to hide it from others without revealing the name because sooner or later people would get suspicious about the missing girl and she didn't want to return her original family and Tsukasa was possibly involved in something serious in that "village" and warned her not to go to that place but she was caught and then rescued.

To make it worse she found out that her daughter was a IC now she had 2 families looking for her and also her boss Megumu became suspicious about Kosuzu because of Suwako and Kanako's fight they probably talked about that topic or it's related about that "village" where Kosuzu was captured.

She escaped and went to the animal realm to start again introducing Kosuzu this time as she thought no one would know about it but once she realised that Yachie's whole group is involved about the Immaterial Children, Tsukasa is now looking for another place with his adopted daughter with the excuse that she is scouting.

In short Tsukasa wants nothing to do with the incident or the families and just wants her daughter for herself.

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>>210425

For at least the Megamu bit, the timing is a little off, Yester/Youmu took place over a single day, which was, well Yesterday for Kosuzu. The Fight between Suwako and Kanako was the day before that, so that was 3-4+ days after Kosuzu had already been removed from her work with Megumu at least. Or from the wording further back than that, it wasn’t just yesterday that contact with Iizunamaru was broken off…

My own theory is thus:

The one that is carrying Kosuzu in the nightmare is Tsukasa, having hit Kosuzu with some sort of mental whammy so she can’t tell who is who and potentially as you said lost her memory. The one pursuing them is an Utterly Enraged Ran, going full Mama bear shapeshifter trying desperately to catch up and rescue Kosuzu. And from context, failed.

After that Tsukasa has spent the entire time forcing the impression that Kosuzu is only a Tube fox. Note how Yukari mentioned that the line between different Fox spirits isn’t as solid as Kosuzu was thinking… but Kosuzu from her jealous reactions has been thinking she drew the short end of the stick for powers (and affection.)… so we can pick up despite being raised as a Tube fox, by a Tube Fox. She has been told over and over again that she is not powerful or useful. If you are a proud tube fox, who can also straight up access, and also be considered potentially a full Kitsune ability list why would your daughter not think that well of her abilities… it's not because she has been slow to develop her abilities (though that too should be noted, almost like she was being forced to learn a special sub category of her magic before the basics…) but the abilities themselves have for some reason been painted in a negative light to Kosuzu, with a very short list of suspects of who would do so.

In short I think that for the last…7? Or so years, Tsukasa has been doing the inverse of what Yukari suggested, instead of surmounting the boundaries between one type of Fox and the others, she has been enforcing, if not straight up creating the boundary between Kosuzu’s full abilities, and an identity as a Kuda-Gitsune.

Sometime later Kosuzu attempted to approach Mayohiga, but Tsukasa had caught onto her intent, and intercepted her via vials, Rattled her hard, and then left her for awhile before “rescuing her” hours later.

Then Kosuzu starts working for Megumu, probably within the last month if this theory is to be correct, as Tsukasa would hear about the Immaterial children emerging as Youkai… and working closely to Kosuzu probably quickly notice weird quirks that makes Megumu suspicious that Kosuzu is potentially a Immaterial Child and attempts to bring it up to Tsukasa, who hasn’t been following it much, seeing it as “some big scheme to [her]”. And because she hasn’t been paying too much attention to it, misinterprets the question as being about Kosuzu being Ran’s Child instead of the Motoori’s, panics, and cuts off Kosuzu’s contact with Megumu.

That last part of your theory could work, worryingly… mine isn’t much better, being that Tsukasa has just gone shopping for a better deal with the other factions… and will come in to “assist” later. Assist the group right into a trap or something

As to why she would. Well, if Kosuzu is Ran’s Child, then she was the only so far Immaterial child that was in an accessible place from Gensokyo, at least to a larger degree than the underground, Animal Realm, and the moon, so she was noticed first. Especially so if Chiyuri is right and it is someone that can distort fate. I’m assuming that if you have the ability to distort fate, you can also tell what fate was supposed to be and the administrator of Gensokyo having an extra Kitsune would probably be a clear alteration of fate. So they hire Tsukasa to get rid of it (it being Kosuzu.) Tsukasa creatively interprets this, and captures Kosuzu instead, escaping from Ran. Then, years later. When she is hired by Chiyuri to stir up Tengu mountain to go after Youmu, and has a side deal to slip some weird stone to Suwako…

This is just a theory though, a STORY theory! and I look forward to Tsukasa’s next appearance, even if it is her actually giving some parental vibes and proving this completely wrong.

Also, another point for the Kosuzu is actually Ran’s Kit… her notably soft and pettable fur… there is another fox that has an article (by Akyuu specifically) mentioning how pettable and fluffy their fur is… and it is not Tsukasa.

Also

>”should I say nice to meet you, or long time no see?”

Dangnabbit Yukari with your potentially double (triple?) meaning! You’re doing it on purpose!

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[x] Be soft, cuddly emotional support. A fuzzy friend was just what the poor girl needed right now.
(X) Have Reimu melt the hinges or the bolt off the door, whatever seems most efficient.
(X) Prepare an artillery strike the moment they're all out of range!

Explosions are very cuddly.

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I did vote for reimu to melt the door off, but Reimu did point out that they could pass Kosuzu a screwdriver and with it her and crisis could escape back through the vent (reimu seems to be the only one that can't fit in the vent on account of her shell.)

On the other hand having the door opened might be useful for afterwards, as long as Reimu can make it appear afterwards that the door had been melted from the inside rather than the outside of the room. Maybe have crisis and mayumi rig something up from things in the room to make it look like it melted thd lock and/or the hinges... But also one of the supports to the shelves behind it, then as long as we can make sure attention isn't drawn to the actual escape route used, have the wolves think that Crisis broke free, tried to flee through the store, but that the shelves collapsed on top of her. That should draw all the guards on the inside to try to find her, and perhaps even a good chunk of the outside ones to help, then as the group is getting away (with a last-second detalisman'd yoshika in tow.) Call an artillary strike on the warehouse. Which will be more effective with them all bunched together!

...sorry Kosuzu, we were the ones that need restraint more than Reimu and Mayumi XP

Though some of this plan will be over more than just this vote (gooboi did say that we're not quite at the point where we are ready to prep the artillery strike call yet.)

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For those getting a tarp, might i suggest changing it to a more general vote to help prevent the glow from being noticed? Especially with >>210375 in mind a big tarp covering where the prisoner is being guarded is a lot more noticable than a glow that resembles the glow the guards give off...

Not a lot of time before cutoff/update but might change my vote in my next break considering that Kosuzu and Crisis already have a way out and thus we don't even need to both with the door...

Yeah actually

>>210388 here

(UNDO) check to see if a magnet can get the wire out, if so, then Reimu can pick the lock.
-(UNDO) If not, Have Reimu melt the hinges or the bolt off the door, whatever seems most efficient.

(UNDO) Have Mayumi scout the rest of the rooms for escape routes.
- (UNDO) If she spots any enemies, she has to take them out without them noticing her or the others.

{X} Have Reimu scout the rest of the rooms for escape routes.

(X) have Mayumi help Reimu, particularly by keeping an eye out for anyone that are about to spot them and take them out without being noticed as best as possible.

And for the artillery strike votes, note the post here: >>210371

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[1] Act a calm, cool, collected benefactor. A real infiltrating spy type might reassure her that things were under control (jammed lock notwithstanding).
[15] Be soft, cuddly emotional support. A fuzzy friend was just what the poor girl needed right now.
-[5] But stay calm and quiet about it.

[1] Maybe this outside world woman, needed an outside world personality to help her through this... Act like (how you think) an outsider acts.

{8} Have Reimu melt the hinges or the bolt off the door, whatever seems most efficient.
-{6} Get a big tarp to conceal the light.

(5) Prepare an artillery strike the moment they're all out of range!

She turned to look at the two girls. As she paused to think, Reimu brought her back down, to a resting position in her palms.

“While I’m in there, can I get you two to look at getting the door open? Even if the door’s locked, it’s nothing a little fire breath can’t fix, I’m sure.”

Reimu nodded, a little hesitantly. “I… I probably can, but the light-”

“That shouldn’t be a problem if you find something to cover the light.” Kosuzu waved a paw. Like a big piece of fireproof cloth or something.”

Reimu blinked, then smiled. “…Alright, I’ll look for something. Should be easy to fix.”

“Alright, I’ll leave it with you.” The fox turned to look at Mayumi. “When we get the girl out, they’ll probably find out we destroyed the lock pretty quickly. We’re gonna need to cover our escape… think we can use the artillery strike?”

Mayumi hummed. “Well… we’re in the building now, so it might bring it down on top of us. But… I’m sure I can think up something that’ll do the same for us inside.” She let out a slightly devilish smirk.

Kosuzu leaned out, doing her best to look stern. It wasn’t very effective, considering she was a small kit in Reimu’s hands, but shifting back to human form now would just waste time. “But make sure we’ll all be safe, alright? No grazing us.”

The haniwa saluted. “On it!”

…Well, that’d have to do. She bit into the handle of the screwdriver, and nodded to Reimu, who brought her up. Slowly, hesitantly, she padded into the dusty, makeshift metal hall.

At this size, she was easily able to walk through the tunnel, but she kept her strides slow and careful. It wasn’t because she expected to make much noise running - she was small and light enough to avoid causing the metal from making any noises. Nor did she have issues seeing well enough in the limited light to get to the next grate.

There was only one reason why she kept her pace slow and careful. The dust. So much dirt was getting on Kosuzu’s paws that it was almost like walking through the sands of the world’s most horrid beach. She didn’t want a single bit more of this dust to get on her than it had to.

Especially up her nose. She wasn’t the most prone to sneezing, but it’d be hard to find a situation more prime to provoking it than the dust-bunny warren she was crawling through. And if she did sneeze? The sound would resound throughout the ducts, she’d probably alert the guards, and she’d definitely get absolutely coated in dust. To say nothing of what would happen if she dropped her screwdriver in the process. Blech! And it wasn’t like she had many options to suppress a sneeze, either. Not when her paws, and probably part of her tail, were dusty already. So she kept her walk slow, and cautious, and put everything she could into suppressing any itchiness in her nose.

Slowly, agonizingly slowly, she made her way over to the right grate. …It did seem to lead to the young girl’s room. Looking down, she could see the shock of red hair from above. After making sure she wasn’t about to drop it straight onto the girl’s head, she put down the screwdriver, and pushed it through with her nose.

The clatter got the young girl’s attention. She looked around, confused, wondering what had dropped and why. Kosuzu stuck her head through the grate, and began to talk. “Hey! Up here!”

The girl looked up, tear-streaked eyes confused at what she saw. Now that she was looking at her… Well, she looked very familiar.

No wonder Ichi had asked them to do this. She was clearly the girl’s relative or something.

Kosuzu kept squeezing through the grate, popping out on the other side. It was a bit of a long fall, but while she was no maneki-neko, she did land pretty gracefully on her feet. She looked up at the girl, returning to human form.

“Me and two friends are here to rescue you.” She whispered. “You’re gonna be okay, alright? Let’s just get this off of you…”

She stepped around to the back, carefully undoing the knots on the back of the chair. When the girl’s hands were free, she stood up… and yanked the chair back, defensively.

“S-stay back. I-I don’t trust you.” She held up the chair awkwardly, the weight making it difficult. Kosuzu stood back as requested, taking a moment to scan the room more fully.

It appeared to be some sort of kitchen-like area. A sink and various tea- and coffee-related ingredients were immediately identifiable, though the various machines and strange boxes were not. What was clearly a set of cutlery drawers was by Kosuzu’s side - and without those, Kosuzu was fairly certain she could deal with the consequences if the girl came to blows.

Not that she’d let it. She gave a gentle smile, holding her arms in as non-threatening of a posture as she could. “It’s okay… we’re not here to hurt you. We’re not with the Keiga - we’re actually working with Haniwa Corp - they’re the protectors of all humans, down here.”

The chair lowered, slightly. “Y-you’re telling the truth?”

Kosuzu nodded. “Yep! You’re gonna be okay, miss… uh… what’s your name?”

The girl looked at the fox, trying to size her up. At length, she took a deep breath.

“...Yumemi. My name is Yumemi.”

Kosuzu smiled, reaching a hand out. “Nice to meet you, Yumemi. I’m Kosuzu the ku-the cute kitsune.” She grinned as the other girl took it.

Yumemi looked at her. “You’re a kitsune? …So the ears and tail…”

“They’re real!” Kosuzu chuckled, leaning in close. “Have a feel, why don’t you?”

The girl reached out, hesitantly reaching out to feel Kosuzu’s ears. “W-wow… they’re real…? U-uhm, can you turn back into a fox, please?”

Kosuzu did as asked, hopping up onto the counter in the process. “See? I’m a fox, through and through.” Yumemi stared at her, bug-eyed. “Bet you’ve never seen anything like that bef-”

The girl surged forward, scooping up Kosuzu and pulling her close. …Well, so much for avoiding the dust, now a good half of her was covered in soot. “A talking fox! You’re so so so so so so so cute!”

Kosuzu knew that if her face wasn’t covered by fur, she’d be blushing furiously. She squirmed a bit, her legs scrabbling for purchase. “W-well, uh, of course I’m cute! I’m a cuddly rescue fox, after all!”

Yumemi beamed. “I-I - uh, I’m sorry, I don’t know if this is an awkward way to say it, but I always wanted a talking pet! I tried to give our dog that collar but he never said anything interesting with it, and the goldfish were completely useless, ah, you’re so cute Kosuzu! How are you doing this? You’re a girl my size one moment and the cutest little cuddle bug the next, doesn’t that violate the conservation of mass? Do you give off a ton of heat when you shrink down? Do you take in a ton of heat when you grow back? I guess you don’t because I’d probably be irradiated. What about your voice? Your voice doesn’t seem to change, even though just by the most obvious anatomy it should shift at least a little bit-”

Kosuzu tried to protest, or at least get to a slightly less sooty position, but there was simply no stopping it now. The girl babbled excitedly, jumping seemingly at random from topic to topic, petting the fox all the while. It was all Kosuzu could do to try and hold on, vaguely trying to figure out the flow of her hyperactive logic leaps.

When the girl finally stopped for her third breath, Kosuzu did her best to clear her throat. “Uh, Yumemi. Those stories are very sweet, and those questions are very interesting. But we gotta get out of here first, alright?”

The girl nodded, pulling the chair back to where it had been. Kosuzu squirmed a bit in her grip, trying to get free, and after a few gentle taps with her foot, Yumemi got the message, and released her.

“So, the screwdriver!” Yumemi leant down, picking it up and standing on the chair. “You were the one who brought this, right? You hoping for us to crawl out the duct?” She began unscrewing the panel, with surprisingly practiced speed.

Kosuzu gave an awkward chuckle. “I wouldn’t say hoping… more like making a backup plan. She hopped up on the chair, reaching up to undo the screws. “It’s really dusty in there. My payment for rescuing you is that if we have to use that, you gotta go first.”

“Then…” Yumemi turned to the door. “What’s the main plan? And who have you got to do that?”

Kosuzu stuck up a finger, pointing to the door. “The big one is I’ve got a friend called Reimu. She’s a dragon turtle, and she’s out there right now, breathing fire on the lock.”

Yumemi gasped. “She can breathe fire? What temperature can she breathe it at? If she’s a dragon turtle, does that mean she can lay-”

“And the other person-” Kosuzu interrupted, trying to keep the young girl on track. “The other person, Mayumi, is making some stuff with the tools here to help us make a clean getaway! Mayumi’s a living haniwa, and - and no, I don’t know how she works at all. But I’m sure you can ask her creator when we get you back outside!”

Yumemi pulled the duct panel off, took one look at the inside, and grimaced. “Sounds like a plan… I don’t want to get in there, either.” She turned to the door, smiling. “Can’t wait to give these stupid dogs the slip.”

As the girl turned back, though, her expression changed.

“...Kosuzu? Reimu’s outside the door, and Mayumi’s in the main body of the store, right?” The fox nodded, as Yumemi pointed to a wall behind her. “Then… then who’s doing that?”

Kosuzu turned… and blanched.

A perfect circle was being slowly carved into the wall.

Reimu had, briefly, given her a description of the hermit who had joined forces with the Keiga. Kosuzu didn’t know much, but none of what she had was good - she was wicked, through and through, and had a tool that could let her pass through walls. A hairpin, that she could carve temporary holes with.

And that was, undoubtedly, what was happening now. From the outside, right into this room.

Kosuzu’s mind shot into high gear. Her brain was abuzz with desperate trawling for ideas. A glance back at the door handle revealed no signs of a jidiao on the other side, trying to break the lock. And Mayumi was likely further afield again.

While they seemed trapped, the hole was being carved slowly, and it was drawing a rather large circumference. Kosuzu did have enough time to prepare something, do something about this.

One of the two of them could jump into the ventilation, and try to quietly crawl back. With the duct on the floor, it’d be difficult to get it convincingly back into position in time, but whoever was left could frame it as an almost-started escape attempt. Kosuzu could go, which would hopefully not clue the wicked hermit in on the fact Yumemi had allies, but ditching her after just getting to her left a bad taste in her mouth, and if she was taken away, they’d be back to square one. Or Kosuzu could try taking Yumemi’s place, shapeshifting into a clone of her. The hermit had probably only met Yumemi in passing, and Kosuzu could definitely escape things meant to hold a normal human. But Yumemi and the others might struggle to meet up, and this felt… worryingly well-timed.

…One more thought occurred to Kosuzu, as she looked at the carving hole. …The book. The grimoire Yukari had bestowed upon her. It had a whole description about staggering attack speeds to get a single, unified hit on a stronger enemy, and Kosuzu had tried it herself, to decent success. It likely wouldn’t take the hermit out, but… but Kosuzu didn’t need to take her out. All she needed to do was separate the hermit from her tool, and the hole might close with her still outside - or if she took it, Kosuzu could carve a hole through the lock and then they’d escape that way. Escape was victory, after all. And she did know, exactly, where the tool was.

She didn’t have a lot of time. She had to make her choice, and hope it was a good one.

[ ] Kosuzu vents, Yumemi stays.
[ ] Yumemi vents, ‘Yumemi’ stays.
[ ] Trust in the book. Prepare a sneak attack.

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I don't think Kosuzu can do illusions. Leaving Yumemi is a bad idea since Ms. Corpse Lover will probably just extract her and move her to a more secure locstion. This plan is dogwater and will not work, but it may be best to engage in a fight, even if we can't win.

[X] Trust in the book. Prepare a sneak attack.

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[X] Yumemi goes through the duct, ‘Yumemi’ stays. Have Yumemi stay in the duct until there's an opportunity to continue with the plan so she doesn't get lost.

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I like this idea:

[X] Yumemi vents, ‘Yumemi’ stays.

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I do think we have the capacity to make illusions, but if we use that here Kosuzu is still going to be stuck, and we have to break her out loudly anyways. Besides, I don’t think we’re skilled enough to fool Seiga. So if we’re going to have to be loud to get out of this, we’re gonna get LOUD.

[X] Trust in the book. Prepare a sneak attack.
-{X} After the attack is executed, tell the others their cover is blown and to just bust down the door.

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Transforming into Yumemi is not a good idea since kosuzu has transformed into a wolf and was not that good (with yoshika it might work but with Seiga it's a very bad idea), leaving Yumemi is out of the question.
Using the danmaku she learned from the book in an ingenious way is the best choice even Reimu said she is quite skilled when she was training.

[X] Trust in the book. Prepare a sneak attack.

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[X] Yumemi vents, ‘Yumemi’ stays.

I actually want to take any excuse to use the spellbook, just to see if that leads to anything, but...

Saki is allied with the Mausoleum. Seiga is at best loosely part of that cohort, and can't be relied on to act in line with their interests at all times. If she's coming in like this instead of just using the door, I'm inclined to think she's doing something she's not supposed to. I want the opportunity to find out what.

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[X] Trust in the book. Prepare a sneak attack.
-{X} After the attack is executed, tell the others their cover is blown and to just bust down the door.

Trust in the book. This is something we can do, so let's do it. Plan A sets us back too far, and Plan B is a nightmare, especially against someone as cunning as Seiga. This is our best option by far.

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[X] Trust in the book. Prepare a sneak attack.
-{X} After the attack is executed, tell the others their cover is blown and to just bust down the door.
Surely violence can solve this issue

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[X] Yumemi vents, ‘Yumemi’ stays.

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[X] Trust in the book. Prepare a sneak attack.
-{X} After the attack is executed, tell the others their cover is blown and to just bust down the door.

The question for me; is Yumemi in the right headspace to try and sneak out, reunite with Reimu? And, despite cuddle therapy, I don't think she has the mental bandwidth to do that right now. So, better to try for a sneak attack, go loud, try to get backup.

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[X] Trust in the book. Prepare a sneak attack.
As Kosuzu herself pointed out, this looks suspiciously as if Seiga got tipped off. This means she most likely has our description and knows what we're capable of (or at least what Tsukasa thinks we're capable of). She's expecting illusions and trickery, but a brute-force ambush like this has a decent chance of catching her off-guard.

>>210449
>>210452
Reimu and Mayumi are both absent at the moment:
>A glance back at the door handle revealed no signs of a jidiao on the other side, trying to break the lock. And Mayumi was likely further afield again.

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[X] Trust in the book. Prepare a sneak attack.
-{X} After the attack is executed, tell the others their cover is blown and to just bust down the door.

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Seiga most probably already knows there's foul play at hand. If she was tipped off, or if she has a way to check on Yoshika before coming here, she knows there's something up.

Leaving Yumemi, as people said, might set us back a lot if Seiga takes her away, so that's a no-no.

Leaving "Yumemi" is a coin-toss, but I don't think it's that bad of an option. Sure, her previous attempt was not the best, but we have to keep in mind that Kosuzu was trying to disguise from a small animal form, to another animal that's way larger than she was, I don't think the transformation was that bad, just really small. Now, Yumemi is currently covered in soot and Kosuzu should be of a similar size, so she shouldn't have to worry about disguising too much in that case, the most she has to really worry about is the ears and tail. If they had time to switch clothes, we could play a game of "guess who's the real escapee" with Seiga while the others arrive, but I doubt there's time to do that.

The danmaku is not a bad option, but not a guarantee either. If Seiga can't complete the hole, she might just try again if the hairpin is in reach. And I don't think that's her only trick up her sleeve if she gets separated with it.

[X] Yumemi vents, ‘Yumemi’ stays.
- [X] If there's time to do so, swap clothes so Kosuzu doesn't have to worry to transform those.
- [X] Warn Yumemi to cover her nose and mouth inside the vent, we don't want her to sneeze or cough in there while Seiga is here.

I choose this because it's the most amusing option. But if danmaku wins, I'm OK with that too.

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Adding to >>210454:
- [X] Warn Yumemi to cover her nose and mouth inside the vent, we don't want her to sneeze or cough in there while Seiga is here.

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This kinda reminds me of the vote from the Yuuma boss fight where we had a choice that was a follow up to the choice between talismans and needles.

its not quite the same admittedly.

but yeah, if we had studied seals we probably could have voted to stop her from cutting through. I don't know how the sound would factor in here.

but there is a difference between that vote and this one, because technically Kosuzu has read up on 2 of Ran's techniques. the danmaku... and the code for the ring's illusion spell

So! while I am voting for the Danmaku... I have a suggestion for a write in for you guys voting 'Yumemi'

[USE THIS]Incorporate parts of the code from the ring's illusion code that Kosuzu read over to improve the 'Yumemi' Illusion (ask for some hair if needed.)

[X] Trust in the book. Prepare a sneak attack.

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[X] Trust in the book. Prepare a sneak attack.
-{X} After the attack is executed, tell the others their cover is blown and to just bust down the door.

Smite the foul hermit!

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[X] Trust in the book. Prepare a sneak attack.
-{X} After the attack is executed, tell the others their cover is blown and to just bust down the door.

Could cause a Re/Awakening?

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[X] Yumemi vents, ‘Yumemi’ stays.
- [X] Warn Yumemi to cover her nose and mouth inside the vent, we don't want her to sneeze or cough in there while Seiga is here.

Let's 'Parent Trap' Seiga!

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[X] Trust in the book. Prepare a sneak attack.
-{X} After the attack is executed, tell the others their cover is blown and to just bust down the door.

Punch her in the face!

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>>210466

we aren't in a boss fight yet, so i doubt it?


>>210428

I was thinking this over a bit more, and have a couple questions that might add some more to my little theory here:

- I had been operating a bunch of the theory off of the assumption that If Tsukasa had kitnapped Kosuzu, it had been because she was creatively reinterpreting what she was hired to do… and taking Kosuzu as her own to have a kid…

-But what if it wasn't?

What if, kitnapping her and raising Kosuzu as Tsukasa has, was the entire point?

Kosuzu is raised isolated (even Reimu who was more of a secret than Kosuzu still had the Otter spirits! And an affectionate mother too!) no friends, and the one time someone gets close to her (as in AS Kosuzu), Kosuzu is told that she "messed it up" so badly that said new friend will attempt to assault her if she ever shows up again.

Despite being raised by an unrepentant Kuda-Gitsune, Kosuzu has grown an impression that her powerset is weak, incapable and useless, and that she has been slow to learn them. ("Late-Bloomer, bordering on Truant" which means not actually truant in a backhanded sort of way, said within Kosuzu's earshot)

Despite a Kuda-gitsune being known for their appetite, she is being told she eats too much. (despite from what I recall from WaHH eating being a notable part of what fuels their powers!)

The only notable independent attempt at her powers is so thoroughly punished using test tubes. that it leaves her deeply traumatized by the mere sound of clinking glass.

Her "mother" has not yet given her one word of congratulation or worry that we have seen so far, even though she managed to sneak right into the largest secret of the Kicchou.

Being raised like that sounds like it has at least the potential of generating

Despair

Doesn't it?

so, here I think is the horrifyingly important question that comes up if you ask why could Tsukasa possibly be hired to the insanely risky job of stealing A Kitsune child from right under the might of Miyohiga... and raise her as we have seen.

What
Happens
If
An
Immaterial
Child
Becomes
A
PYRE

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[X] Trust in the book. Prepare a sneak attack.
-{X} Have Yumemi work on the lock while we prepare the attack. Surely a talented inventor like herself could think of something to bypass it?
-{X} If Reimu comes back in the middle of it, try to communicate with her through the door.
-{X} All else fails, Yumemi builds a makeshift weapon to defend herself with.

can't just have yumemi stand around doing nothing while we attack, can we?

i do not trust us to be able to fool seiga. someone else from the keiga, maybe. saki herself? no. seiga fucking kaku? no. absolutely not.

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>>210470
I dunno, Saki I'd say we have a pretty good chance to do so, she is pretty know for being Brawn over brains...

ol' Nyan Nyan?... no I'm largely in agreement with you on that. even if I did supply a possible write-in for the option.

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...that feels a bit grim, and honestly not particularly convincing.

Why would this be sufficient to feed the absolute despair that seems to be necessary to trigger the Pyre? What possible benefit would come of taking such a long and convoluted plan? Why would Tsukasa agree to a plan that involves massive risk and effort on her part for no meaningfully apparent reward? Who would be both invested in this circumlocutious scheme while having to rely purely on external factors to carry it out?

It doesn't really make any sense. Too many holes.

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>>210471
saki's been in close contact with yumemi before- she was the one to bring yumemi in. and actually carried her herself. i'd still say a very hesitant maybe, but i'd rather not risk it.

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[X] Trust in the book. Prepare a sneak attack.
-{X} After the attack is executed, tell the others their cover is blown and to just bust down the door.

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>>210472

Well the information pointed out is only the stuff we've seen so far, the tip of the iceberg , and there has been... well considering she's just turned 10 iirc, and she could barely remember the 'event' that might be her kitnapping as a dream. So estimating the event as probably around when Kosuzu was 3-4 years old I'd say... about 6-7 continual years of stuff like this? and many more to come? Years more of any friend she makes she "messes up" and they want to hurt her, again and again and again and again.(and that's before you factor in any subconscious memories of Kosuzu having all the friends she had in timeline A&B) along with everything else we’ve seen so far, (especially once you hit the teenage years… if Youkai aging even works like that…) yeah, I could see that building despair… and if I’m also right about the source of the Burnt Cherry that found it way to Suwako… then there’d also be the spark needed to light it on hand.

Kosuzu wasn't even supposed to be leaving the animal realm for this job until Reimu discovered it was her. She was supposed to be sitting in some hidden office alone with a bunch of Otter spirits that didn't trust her cooking the books for however long the job took... Really good that she stumbled into Reimu when she did...

As for why, well, yeah that is the weaker explanation right now, if this is the true culprit of the week of fire that has some way of distorting fate, and well, If that power comes with the prerequisite to be able to tell what fate was supposed to be. then turning what is likely a measure meant to oppose you as your own tool would be the goal, but if this is the true culprit, well this would be the first chance we get to see any sort of clue about them aside from despair fuelled black fire, a power ramp that has them weak now, but in... 15? 20? years capable of punching a hole through Yukari's chest. so yeah, we don't know what they could offer to know if it would be possibly rewarding to a Kuda-Gitsune.

and yeah, this is all a Big IF and Tsukasa doesn't just turn out like Yachie...

Though I swear if I read one refrain of "Mother Knows Best" from that fox...

>>210473

fair enough XD

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New question I just realized... Why is Seiga cutting the hole to be so big?

It is apparently large enough to slow her down...

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Regarding >>210428

I don't see Ran being a shapeshifter, even though she should be able to do so, that would be her main method of attack imo. An illusion? Maybe that's more her alley.

Speaking about her abilities, I think the prime reason for Kosuzu not being good for kudagitsune tricks is because she must be attuned to a different kind of fox magic/abilities. Yukari gifting her Ran's grimoire to practice might be less "any kind of fox youkai can do this" and more "you specifically can use this book to its full extent", and for a reason.

I'm more in the camp of people that think that Tsukasa was the target to keep imprisoned in the tube, for whatever reason. Kosuzu just was at the wrong place, in the wrong time.

About Megumu, what >>210388 said might be true too, maybe Megumu suspected something and Tsukasa had to keep her away, but that's still in the air.

>> "I’m assuming that if you have the ability to distort fate, you can also tell what fate was supposed to be"
Not necessarily, Remilia is supposed to be able to manipulate fate but she had no clue of anything amiss.

>> Also, another point for the Kosuzu is actually Ran’s Kit… her notably soft and pettable fur… there is another fox that has an article (by Akyuu specifically) mentioning how pettable and fluffy their fur is…
Where does it say this? I'm not the best searching for this stuff but I couldn't find the direct quote. In PMiSS, the most I could find is Reimu saying something like "her tails look really warm"

"Favorite food? Fried tofu, this time." from Yachie's "interrogation" of Kosuzu
"She has no particular weaknesses, but she is extremely fond of fried tofu" in Ran's page of PMiSS.
The only similarity in that regard between Kosuzu and Ran would be that both like fried tofu (which itself might be unrelated since not just Ran but most foxes in japanese media love it).

Regarding >>210469
Someone making a kon-tract with Tsukasa (sorry had to slip a kon somewhere at least once) for the sole reason of making an Immaterial Child miserable in order to create a pyre? That's... convoluted. Very much so. If getting rid of the ICs was the plan, why not just order to end her there?

As always, I say we use occam's razor:
If Tsukasa stole a child, she just wants a kid for herself to mold as she sees fit.
If it's her real mother, then she's just too strict with her for her own good?
Maybe there's a third option, in which Tsukasa actually adopted Kosuzu after she saved her from something else, doesn't know what to do with the kid and kind of didn't want the responsability of raising her but didn't want to just get rid of her, so she prepares her so she can fend herself in the cruel world. I'm really trying to give Tsukasa the benefit of the doubt here, though. Maybe it's a sum of all parts.

Another option that kinda "fits" very loosely, is that Kosuzu was accidentally (or purposely) abandoned by a not-yet-shikigami'd Ran for whatever reason, depending on when she was converted but still, really shaky grounds here and I don't really think this is the case.

>>210478
If you need the thingie that was left with Suwako to convert Kosuzu, why leave it with Suwako in the first place and get your possible plan discovered before you can do anything about it?

Kosuzu wasn't supposed to be leaving alone, which is what Reimu ultimately wants by not wanting anything to do with Tsukasa, but they would both leave with Reimu if possible. It's not like Tsukasa was just going to give Kosuzu away to Yachie.

As >>210472 said, why? Why would Tsukasa agree? What would she gain from all this?

I want Tsukasa to prove me wrong, but to me she's just like the stereotype of strict asian parent: overly strict "for the child's sake": No praise when you do something good because that's what you're supposed to do. Punishments when you do something bad. You're supposed to do anything I tell you because I know better. That kind of stuff.

Sorry for the long text.

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Counting to >>210474:
Main Choice #1:
[0] Kosuzu vents, Yumemi stays.
[6] Yumemi vents, ‘Yumemi’ stays.
[14] Trust in the book. Prepare a sneak attack.

Potential Additions:
For [x] Yumemi vents...:
-{1} Have Yumemi stay in the duct until there's an opportunity to continue with the plan so she doesn't get lost. (>>210447)
Hopefully this works?
-{1} If there's time to do so, swap clothes so Kosuzu doesn't have to worry to transform those. (>>210460)
-{3} Warn Yumemi to cover her nose and mouth inside the vent, we don't want her to sneeze or cough in there while Seiga is here. (>>210460, >>210461, >>210467)
-{1} Incorporate parts of the code from the ring's illusion code, that Kosuzu read over, to improve the 'Yumemi' Illusion, ask for some hair if needed. (>>210462)

For [x] Trust in the book...:
-{9} After the attack is executed, tell the others their cover is blown and to just bust down the door. (>>210449, >>210452, >>210453, >>210455, >>210450, >>210465, >>210466, >>210468, >>210474)
-{1} Have Yumemi work on the lock while we prepare the attack. Surely a talented inventor like herself could think of something to bypass it? (>>210470)
-{1} If Reimu comes back in the middle of it, try to communicate with her through the door. (>>210470)
-{1} All else fails, Yumemi builds a makeshift weapon to defend herself with. (>>210470)

:3

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Whatever the case, I think it's clear that Tsukasa is abusive and extremely keen on keeping Kosuzu under her thumb - having never shown her any genuine affection seemingly ever, forcibly isolating her when she develops a positive relationship with anyone else, and regularly undermining her confidence (presumably to make her more pliant to manipulation) - and Kosuzu is better off without her. Just as >>210469 says, although I don't think that their explanation for why she's abusive holds water. Just seems a bit... evil-for-evil's sake, cartoon supervillain-y for Tsukasa, who is ultimately completely out for her own gain. Helping end the world gains her nothing.

This may just be optimistic of me, but I can't help but feel that if Kosuzu were genuinely her daughter, she wouldn't be this bad. Probably still the sort of parent who shouldn't be, but the way she is now, it sort of feels like Kosuzu's some kind of tool to her. In a way that makes me feel like she acquired her for a specific purpose. Although I hardly know what, since she hardly seems interested in building up Kosuzu's capabilities at all. Perhaps just having her in her custody has some kind of value.

Or perhaps she's just a dime-a-dozen neglectful, manipulative, abusive mom. That doesn't feel right for her character, but that's just to me, not necessarily to Gooboi.


>>210479
My suspicion is she's betraying the Keiga, and by extension the Mausoleum, and planning to make off with Yumemi on her own, and therefore she's making the hole extra big to fit two people through.

That, or some other voters have the right of it and we've been sold out - and the apparent inaction from our allies on the other side of the door seems to point to this, too - and Seiga's coming in with reinforcements.

To be honest, I'm of two minds about the danmaku approach precisely because of that. From a battle tactics perspective, Kosuzu controls a very narrow, temporary chokepoint, and that'll allow her to punch way above her weight. On the other, immediately opening fire on an enemy force of unknown size, composition, disposition, and possibly even affiliation is... not sound tactics, in my mind.

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Adding to >>210457:
-{X} Have Yumemi work on the lock while we prepare the attack. Surely a talented inventor like herself could think of something to bypass it?

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>>210428
>>210469
There are some interesting points but I think a lot of people have already said the same thing as tsukasa, I don't think she's too evil to do that.

Although I have a bit of hope, she hasn't talked to her daughter or explained her situation to at least defend herself (Especially the chat that wants to shove a MasterSpark in her face lol) , still I'm looking forward to how the story will continue. :D

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>210481

>I don't see Ran being a shapeshifter, even though she should be able to do so, that would be her main method of attack imo. An illusion? Maybe that's more her alley.

Well from Kosuzu’s perspective would it being an illusion rather than shapeshifting make a difference?

>Speaking about her abilities, I think the prime reason for Kosuzu not being good for kudagitsune tricks is because she must be attuned to a different kind of fox magic/abilities. Yukari gifting her Ran's grimoire to practice might be less "any kind of fox youkai can do this" and more "you specifically can use this book to its full extent", and for a reason.

Yeah, agreed with you there.

>I'm more in the camp of people that think that Tsukasa was the target to keep imprisoned in the tube, for whatever reason. Kosuzu just was at the wrong place, in the wrong time.

Yeah, I thought so too earlier, with Mayohiga doing it to be ironic or something like that. Not sure about it now…

>About Megumu, what >>210388 said might be true too, maybe Megumu suspected something and Tsukasa had to keep her away, but that's still in the air.

Well I do agree… but that’s mostly because that’s me who posted it. XP that bit i think still works with this theory. Tsukasa could've just used the oppertunity the need to remove Kosuzu from Megumu's prescence brought to break down Kosuzu more. Tsukasa could've blamed Megumu for the need to remove Kosuzu from her presence. (As Reimu just did when told about it.) But no, it was somehow Kosuzu's big mistake that did

>Not necessarily, Remilia is supposed to be able to manipulate fate but she had no clue of anything amiss.

Au contraire, Remilia IS a strong source of proof for this. When Akyuu altered fate by her arrival and ended up derailing Remilia’s “perfect entrance” Remilia did feel something was amiss. More than that, she used her ability of fate to lead her exactly where to find Akyuu, and from a single glance at a distance knew exactly who her target was despite never meeting her before.

>> Also, another point for the Kosuzu is actually Ran’s Kit… her notably soft and pettable fur… there is another fox that has an article (by Akyuu specifically) mentioning how pettable and fluffy their fur is…

>Where does it say this? I'm not the best searching for this stuff but I couldn't find the direct quote. In PMiSS, the most I could find is Reimu saying something like "her tails look really warm"

Someone brought it up in USiL when Mamikyu was spinning a yarn about how bad Ran was, I don’t recall if I brought it up or someone else did and I just built from that… ah, no, looking at it now, the post had said her tails were warm, my mistake. Must've gotten it muddled up with some other fanfics that involve Ran’s tails getting attention where their fluffiness is praised.

Though I do note that Akyuu strongly agreed with Reimu regarding their warmth

>Of course they're warm.

>She's the strongest beast, after all.

>"Favorite food? Fried tofu, this time." from Yachie's "interrogation" of Kosuzu
>"She has no particular weaknesses, but she is extremely fond of fried tofu" in Ran's page of PMiSS.
>The only similarity in that regard between Kosuzu and Ran would be that both like fried tofu (which itself might be unrelated since not just Ran but most foxes in japanese media love it).

Regarding >>210469
>[spoiler]Someone making a kon-tract with Tsukasa (sorry had to slip a kon somewhere at least once) for the sole reason of making an Immaterial Child miserable in order to create a pyre? That's... convoluted. Very much so. If getting rid of the ICs was the plan, why not just order to end her there?

Maybe because it's not that the culprit or Tsukasa wants to make it that complicated, but that they have to do so. The culprit is currently weaker than they will be during the week of fire. What if that means they are under similar restrictions and Chiyuri and Yumemi and can't directly alter things?
Heck they don't even need to be able to detect alterations in fate. They had a big giant neon sign that told everyone that it had,

Or rather 4 of them (later 5.)

the immaterial child incident would have tipped them off

And if your plan results in the destruction of Gensokyo you'd want to keep an eye on Yukari, right?

So then either right when the IC incident is happening, or a couple of years later, our culprit discovers that Ran suddenly had a kit right around when the immaterial children incident happened.

So a child that can alter fate by their mere presence that could stop our culprit's plans… and the kid is directly in Yukari's hands?!! that couldn't be allowed to stand. If Yukari notices something is up with Kitsuzu and uses gap shenanigans to awaken her when she was 5? And already start planning at that point? That would be a big problem for our culprit.

>[the immaterial children’s] mere existence disturbs fate wherever they go. One who has the ability to Re/Awaken reshapes the world around them in their image, whether they like it or not.”

But, that's just one of the ICs and at the very least thanks to the IC incident our culprit knows there's at least 3 more somewhere (at the time, a couple more as time passed.)… but probably can't figure out where. So eliminating Kosuzu won't solve the problem. And they still can't directly alter fate on top of that which might make eliminating Kosuzu themselves, if at all, dicey.
So how to deal with both problems? Got a hold of the one you know of. And then break them so that they can be used against the remainder. (As Deltarune chapter 2 genocide route shows, just because you can't alter fate, doesn't mean you can't manipulate someone who can)[/spoiler]

Of course our culprit is not strong enough to face off against one Ran or Yukari yet, much less break into their home to steal a kit…
But there is this very mercenary Fox whose ability can exploit a weak point (in the soul, but still usable for this theory.), might’ve been Chen, might’ve been Ran (really doubt it was Yukari.) that our infiltration specialist used to get in, nab the Kit and then escape and keep her out of view.

Now Tsukasa doesn’t necessarily need to know about the part to turn her into a Pyre, just the bit of ‘take her, keep her, and cut her down whenever you like.’ bit

>As always, I say we use occam's razor:
>If Tsukasa stole a child, she just wants a kid for herself to mold as she sees fit.
>If it's her real mother, then she's just too strict with her for her own good?
>Maybe there's a third option, in which Tsukasa actually adopted Kosuzu after she saved her from something else, doesn't know what to do with the kid and kind of didn't want the responsability of raising her but didn't want to just get rid of her, so she prepares her so she can fend herself in the cruel world. I'm really trying to give Tsukasa the benefit of the doubt here, though. Maybe it's a sum of all parts.

Well from what we are seeing, she’s NOT preparing her for the cruel world: no allies, no trust in even her own abilities, I made a reference to “mother” Gothel from Tangled, but really, other than the fact that Kosuzu can leave the ‘tower’ there are a LOT of comparisons here with Gothel and Tsukasa. It seems rather than molding Kosuzu, Tsukasa is trying to break her.

Furthermore, if Tsukasa rescued Kosuzu from something else… and considering that if it is Mayohiga that she forbid Kosuzu from approaching, then she has at least a VERY strong clue where Kosuzu was from.. Then why not treat her like she tells Kosuzu to do with read material she comes across, to get some sort of reward out of it. Or in this case Kosuzu, since she seems to have an idea, just approach Mayohiga and say, hey I have some information on that person you are looking for, can i get a reward?

But she doesn’t and instead keeps Kosuzu and from what we’ve seen kneecap her mentally and emotionally constantly.

>>210478
>If you need the thingie that was left with Suwako to convert Kosuzu, why leave it with Suwako in the first place and get your possible plan discovered before you can do anything about it?

Who says that’s the only Burnt Cherry that Tsukasa, (or her supplier) has on hand? (hmm, that name for it loses the 'stone’ part of the name, coal cherry maybe? Ember Cherry?)

>Kosuzu wasn't supposed to be leaving alone, which is what Reimu ultimately wants by not wanting anything to do with Tsukasa, but they would both leave with Reimu if possible. It's not like Tsukasa was just going to give Kosuzu away to Yachie.

>>209753
>[spoiler]it was originally discussed with the expectation that I’d be your advisor and Kosuzu would stay back and help with something like cooking the books

Kosuzu wasn’t supposed to be going with Tsukasa and the Dragon Miko at all.

>As >>210472 said, why? Why would Tsukasa agree? What would she gain from all this?

Yeah, again, I have a hard time even beginning to guess since we know so little about our true culprit. (thus all the Ifs in my theory above.) Whether they are a canon character, fan character, or an entirely new character. From the only information we have, namely black flames fuelled by despair… the current best guess I have right now is Shion and it doesn’t sound like her, especially from timeline A since she at that point would have a good friend finally (Tenshi) and her sister iirc had lightened up on her after training under Byakuren for awhile. So I doubt it is her (thought maybe she’s being used rather than being the culprit?)

I do have a couple of theories on what they could possibly offer though.

Firstly, being the Sole survivor of Gensokyo (or the last if you catch my drift.)

also it could be some treasure or wealth and Tsukasa isn’t being told the whole picture and what this will lead to.

Or… we could be coming at this from the wrong direction, what if it's not something that the culprit is offering Tsukasa, but instead threatening her with?


>>210494

well Tsukasa doesn’t have to be evil enough to be purposely making Kosuzu into a Pyre is she isn’t being told why she is to treat Kosuzu as we are under the impression she has been, just evil enough to be doing the acts that would lead to it, even if she doesn’t know of it.

Though yeah, I am also interested to see what her side of this is. Its going to be interesting and fun to read one way or another!

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>>210486

>That, or some other voters have the right of it and we've been sold out - and the apparent inaction from our allies on the other side of the door seems to point to this, too - and Seiga's coming in with reinforcements.

If this follows the pattern from Megamu… then after they escape from this, there might be “evidence” found that points to this being Kosuzu’s fault…

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>>210498
this particular post made me realize that its kinda weird how we've been talking about this whole thing in spoiler tags. why are we redacting this theory..?

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>>210499
That thought did occur to me while making that post XD

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>>210499

I just started doing it because everyone else was doing it, but it doesn't really make sense, does it?

>>210498

Let's assume this mysterious contractor does, in fact, exist - there are two possible reasons why she'd want to carry out this plan.

A) To eliminate one of the Immaterial Children

or

B) To bring the Pyres into play as early as possible.

The biggest problem with either is that, well, the contrivance serves neither of these purposes. For A, there are dozens of ways Kosuzu could have been disposed of beforehand, lethally or otherwise. For B, that means that focusing on an Immaterial Child is kind of unnecessary and might even backfire.

To accomplish either of these goals, there are so many different options between "just kill or torture them" and "incredibly convoluted scheme a decade in the making." Like, Tsukasa isn't really acting like a seven-headed monster parent who wants to make her children suffer; all her actions are explainable as her being a run-of-the-mill shit mom / generational trauma.

It's also worth repeating that it's very hard to see why Tsukasa would be a part of this - for someone as sneaky, underhanded, and untrusting as Tsukasa to be baited along on some vague promise of reward in exchange for massive risk over literal years... it doesn't compute.

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>>210501

But if she isn't the mom, then why is she taking this massive risk over literal years?

With some sort of payment (or threat) there is some explanation of why she would kidnap someone from right underneath Yukari's nose and hold onto them for years, at risk of discovery... While at the same time undermining kosuzu's emotional state in multiple instances (though there is also the other theory that i had that she was doing the inverse of Yukari's explanation about Kitsune and was instead enforcing the distinction of a Kuda-gitsune.

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on the topic of the theorys running around.
what if the topic is more simple, i never wrote the idea that pop in my head during the start of Suzus arc, and the idea was that Suzu is the last surviving kit of her litter.
what if that is what is/has happend, Tsukasa lost her children and in then stumbled upon baby Suzu and kidnapped her because of this.

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And Yumemi and Chiyuri have been doing things in an round about manner, As i said (in my admittedly rather large post), what if our contractor was under similar restrictions to them and thus its not that they want to have things convoluted, but they have to. (Not to mention they probably are doing their best not to show themselves in the open ever and risk being discovered.)

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Regarding why discuss it in spoilers, I thought maybe some people that only come here to read the voting and such without spoiling themselves or theorycraft would appreciate it.

I'll just go into "wait and see" mode until we have more information for now.

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[X] Trust in the book. Prepare a sneak attack.
-{X} After the attack is executed, tell the others their cover is blown and to just bust down the door.

As Bain from Payday 2 said: "New plan people, cause the old one's dead!"

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>>210505

Yeah, i think that was a part of why i was putting the stuff in spoilers.

And yeah a non work mode scene with Tsukasa or something like that will probably give us a bunch more info one way or another.

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File 172066778990.png - (328.49KB, 796x679, Screenshot 2024-07-11 131318.png)
Screenshot 2024-07-11 131318

I'm not gonna say anything definitive regarding the discussion of Kosuzu's backstory, but I am gonna say that in terms of what to call the stone cherries of Pyrefairies, I've been calling them Endless Embers.

Though, perhaps Charred Cherries would be a more descriptive term for them.

...What? If you didn't realise the author liked alliteration by this point, you CLEARLY haven't been paying attention.

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>>210509

Missed opportunity to say that the author adores alliteration. Shame on you.

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File 172071562559.png - (6.48KB, 510x332, __hinanawi_tenshi_ibuki_suika_and_doremy_sweet_tou.png)
__hinanawi_tenshi_ibuki_suika_and_doremy_sweet_tou

A short thread in terms of updates, but an informative one, regardless. Next stop: >>210522!

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