Chapter Text
Humans feared Youkai.
It was one of the oldest truths in Gensokyo.
When a big, strong Youkai appeared before a group of helpless humans, they would either run, scream, or stand frozen, paralyzed by instinctive terror. It wasn’t just natural—it was essential. Fear was the very thing that kept Youkai alive. A world without frightened humans was a world where their kind began to fade.
Everyone knew this. Everyone accepted it.
Well—almost everyone.
That was what made Kogasa’s current situation so deeply embarrassing.
She was the one afraid.
And not of some monstrous Youkai either, but of a human—an outsider, no less—who looked like he was about to pass out face-first into the grass.
“Where... am I?”
His voice was hoarse, barely audible, but his eyes were sharp. Too sharp. As Kogasa stood there awkwardly, silently cursing her luck, she could feel his stare burning into her, heavy and unblinking. She opened her mouth to reply—but nothing came out.
It was around 2 a.m., and she’d just been flying back to the human village from what was supposed to be a cheerful little reunion (well—a party, really). She’d gone only because she’d been feeling a bit lonely that day. The air was quiet, the sky cloudy. All was still...
Until she heard the sound.
That was when she heard it—a deep, rattling clamor echoing from somewhere just beyond the trees. Curious, and maybe a little concerned, she turned in midair and flew toward the source.
What she saw made her stop cold.
A Gashadokuro.
Or at least, something like one. It was massive, malformed—twisted in ways that didn’t match the children’s picture books she remembered. The skull was lopsided, its bones jutting out at strange angles like snapped branches, and its eye sockets glowed with a sickly, greenish haze.
Kogasa blinked.
She recognized the creature from some old illustrated books that had come from the Outside World—books meant for children, oddly enough. She had once read them aloud to the village toddlers while working as a part-time babysitter. Looking back, she never understood why humans would publish bedtime stories about man-eating skeletons for their kids—but they made for decent entertainment.
Beneath the towering Youkai, a man was being dragged through the dirt like a sack of sweet potatoes. He was barely conscious, his body tossed about like a rag doll as the Gashadokuro casually whipped him across the ground. Each impact left dark smears on the earth, and every breath the man took was labored, wheezing, pained.
The creature wasn’t just killing him—it was toying with him.
Kogasa felt her stomach twist. She’d never liked the idea of eating humans. It wasn’t necessary for her survival, and frankly, the whole process seemed grotesque, messy, and in poor taste. Seeing it done right in front of her—like this—turned her stomach.
Now, it might have to do something with the fact she had babysat those little, whining, innocent kids that always treated her umbrella-self as some kind of toy, but it didn't sit quite well with her to simply let him die. The fact she also did not wanted to have the thought of leaving what seemed to be an innocent human getting murdered in such a gruesome way to be haunting her for the rest of her week while she was trying to mind her own business didn't helped as well.
So, against her better judgment, she’d taken a deep breath, clutched her umbrella tight, and rushed in.
To do what exactly? She hadn’t the slightest idea.
Then, just as she closed the distance—she stopped.
The man, who moments ago had been limp in the Gashadokuro’s grip, suddenly moved. His fingers twitched. Then his hand slipped inside his coat and pulled out a small object—dark, metallic, no larger than his palm.
He raised it weakly, pointing it at the giant Youkai’s skull just as its gaping jaw began to open above him.
Then: click.
A sharp sound cut through the night, followed by a flicker of a spark.
Whatever weapon the man had used, it was—without a doubt—effective.
For a moment, it looked like nothing had happened. The strange object sparked once, weakly, almost like it had misfired. The Gashadokuro loomed over him, jaws wide and ready to snap shut—
—and then its skull began to disintegrate.
It started with a thin crack at the base of its jaw. Then the bone split like glass under pressure, spiderweb fractures racing up across its face. With a screech that shook the trees, the Gashadokuro violently flung the man aside, howling in agony as its skull crumbled into shimmering dust.
The giant Youkai staggered back, half-blind and stunned—but before it could retaliate, the man forced himself to his feet, dragging his battered body upright on sheer willpower alone. He raised the weapon again.
Sure enough, the giant skeleton body would start to crumble away.
The man who was getting dragged on the floor like nothing more than a toy and got stabbed a few moments ago, somehow ended up killing the Youkai many times his size. However, she would quickly snapped out of her astonishment when the man suddenly turned around to face her and pointed his weapons toward her, seemingly being ready to shoot her at any moment as he tried his best to get up from the ground.
Although she did not doubt that she could probably dodge whatever came out of his weapon, even more considering the distance of a few meters between them, she still felt reasonably uncomfortable with getting pointed by it. Especially after seeing it reduce a giant Youkai to bone-dust in seconds.
“W-Wait! I’m not here to hurt you!” she blurted out, holding her umbrella defensively but keeping her hands visible. “I-I just wanted to help! Or at least… I mean… you were bleeding a lot, and…”
The man didn’t lower the weapon at first. His breathing was ragged, and blood still poured from the gaping wound in his abdomen. Yet somehow—somehow—he was still standing.
From this distance, Kogasa got a better look at him.
He looked to be in his thirties. His clothes were torn, dark with blood and dirt, and not like anything worn by humans in the village. His face was hard—haunted—but even in that pain-twisted expression, something was off. She also got a closer peek at what the man had used earlier to defend himself. It was a kind of small metal tube that had a handle with some kind of lever attached to it, with a small hole on the end of the tube.
She tried again. “I-I really don’t mean you harm, I promise. You’re hurt, and—” Her words stopped cold when the man suddenly dropped to his knees and doubled over, coughing violently. A dark splash of blood hit the dirt.
Kogasa winced, wanting to move in order to help—but she stayed put. He still had the weapon.
For a human, it was impressive that he could even stand with such a giant opening on his abdomen, but that didn’t mean too much if he was still going to die from bleeding out in the middle of the night.
To Kogasa’s surprise, however, the man forced himself back to his feet one last time. He swayed, shoulders trembling, breathing like someone at the edge of death. But he raised his head and locked eyes with her again.
This time, he didn’t point the weapon.
“Where… am I, girl?” he rasped. His voice had lost some of its threat, but it still carried an edge—like a wounded animal unsure whether to fight or flee.
Her mouth opened, then closed.
She couldn’t answer.
Not because she didn’t know. She did. But the words just refused to come out. Her tongue felt heavy. Her thoughts a blur. Her chest tight.
She was afraid.
Of a human.
How pathetic, she thought bitterly.
A Youkai being this scared of a human? She was far from being good at scaring or surprising people, she knew that, and that already bothered her a lot, but this was a whole new level of failure, yet, she could not help but feel that way.
The man was after all, taller than her, covered in blood, was still looking at her with a rather angry face, and had just killed a way more impressive youkai than her, but on top of this, Kogasa couldn’t help but feel a weird kind of aura around him, something that just make her uncomfortable.
“Girl. Tell me where I am.”
Asked—no, demanded—the man, this time with a tone that left no room for delay. He wasn’t going to wait any longer for what, to him, should’ve been an easy answer.
Kogasa gulped and took a shallow breath.
“Y-You’re… in the forest,” she blurted out clumsily.
The man stared at her with an unimpressed frown.
“U-Uh—I mean, you’re in Gensokyo!” she corrected herself quickly, straightening her posture like a student caught slacking. “You’re in Gensokyo,” she repeated, more firmly this time.
“Gensokyo…?” the man echoed, squinting slightly as if trying to make sense of the unfamiliar name. But before he could ask anything further, a sharp jolt of pain made him flinch and grunt under his breath.
Kogasa instinctively took a step forward, trying to help.
“Where we are doesn’t matter right now! You need help—!”
“Don’t take another step,” he cut her off coldly.
Kogasa froze, her foot barely touching the dirt before she pulled it back, arms raised slightly in surrender. The man didn’t raise his weapon this time, which was at least something, but his expression was enough. He glanced at her—not with fear, not even with caution, but with a distinct look of disgust.
More specifically, he seemed to be looking at her umbrella half. His eyes flicked between her and the grinning, single-eyed umbrella like she was some kind of twisted scarecrow.
Was he… suspicious of her?
Did he think she was going to do something?
Well, yeah. Probably.
She guessed that was fair, given the situation—but still! It was annoying to be doubted when she was literally just trying to help a dying man not die.
.
.
.
.
But wait.
Was he suspicious of her… because he was afraid?
…He was afraid of her.
A human… was afraid of her.
Her eyes widened.
He was scared of her!
A human, one who had just defeated a Gashadokuro, was scared of Kogasa Tatara!
She hadn’t even done anything yet!
Sure, she was more into surprising people than scaring them, but at this point, she'd take any emotional reaction. Who would've thought that the key to spooking a tough guy like this was to let him get nearly killed by a giant skeleton Youkai and then pop up afterward like a horror movie jump scare?
Wait.
Oh gods.
She was getting excited about a fatally wounded man being scared of her.
“…Okay, not a big deal,” she muttered under her breath, trying to center herself. “You can do this.”
With her very recently rediscovered confidence, she gave it another try.
“Listen, sir, it’s okay! You don’t have to be scared of me—I’m not gonna hurt you, I promise.”
The man’s expression shifted.
From mild distaste… to flat, unimpressed unamusement.
“I’m not scared of you,” he replied, dully. “I don’t trust you.”
“…Oh.”
And just like that, Kogasa’s confidence plummeted back into the abyss where it came from.
She stared at the ground, crushed beneath the weight of rejection and self-pity.
Still, that didn’t mean she was going to leave his man out in the night to be eaten alive by Youkais, so she persisted.
“But you need help! You can’t survive like this out here on your own!” she pleaded. “Not at night, not with a wound like that! Let me at least—uh—do something!”
The man looked at her for a long moment, then muttered a flat, almost sarcastic, “Sure thing.”
Kogasa blinked.
“…Wait, really?”
His tone made it hard to tell if that was agreement or apathy—or both.
“You’re going to pass out from blood loss!” snapped the tsukumogami, frustrated by the man’s complete disregard for his own well-being.
“My wounds are already closing,” he replied flatly.
“That’s not possi—” Kogasa began, but stopped cold as she glanced at the man’s abdomen.
The gaping wound that had nearly torn him open was now visibly closing, muscle and skin pulling together like it was being stitched by invisible threads.
“How?!” she thought, staring in stunned disbelief at the inhuman feat unfolding before her.
While she stood frozen, trying to process what she’d just seen, the man quietly turned and began to walk away—slow, aimless steps with no clear destination in mind.
“W-Wait! Where are you going?” she called out.
No response.
“You do realize there are more Youka—more creatures like that around here, right?” she pressed.
“I imagined as much,” he replied curtly.
“Then why are you just walking off?!” she shouted, rushing to catch up with him.
“Let them come.”
“…What?”
Kogasa could only stare, dumbfounded, as he continued on like a man out for a midnight stroll instead of someone who had just barely survived a brutal fight with a giant skeletal Youkai.
“What are you planning to do if another one attacks you? You’re lucky to even be alive!” she pressed, now flying beside him.
The man didn’t look at her, only spoke:
“Of course. I imagine the giant creature that could’ve crushed me at any moment, but instead chose to throw me around like a ragdoll, was simply playing with me.”
Kogasa narrowed her eyes.
“Then why are you still heading toward danger?”
Her voice now held a blend of confusion, irritation, and concern. She didn’t understand what this man was thinking—or if he even was.
The man paused only briefly to answer:
“Because with some luck, I might find another one with the same attitude.”
Kogasa’s eyes widened.
Was he serious?
“Do… you have a death wish?” she asked, the words slipping out in disbelief.
The man wouldn’t answer, leaving Kogasa behind with baffled expression. As the man kept ignoring every one of her warnings, the karakasa obake started wracking her brain in order to find what she could do in order to stop the man from keeping to walk towards his certain death.
She had to do something. She couldn’t just let him walk off to die like that! Regardless of whether he had the “moral right” to do as he pleased with his life, letting him keel over from sheer stubbornness wasn’t just depressing—it would be pathetic on her part.What kind of youkai would fail to stop a dying man from walking to his doom just because he has a thick skull—
That's when a light bulb would go off in her head, an idea coming to her mind. A terribly reckless, probably ill-advised idea. But an idea nonetheless.
As the man kept making his way to god knows where, he would suddenly feel an object hitting him on his head, making quite a funny sound in the process.
Bonk!
Behind him stood Kogasa, arms awkwardly extended, a sheepish look in her eyes. Her face said it all.
“Did you... just try to knock me out?” the man asked, genuinely bewildered.
“Uh… well, I…”
Kogasa’s mind scrambled for an excuse—maybe something about trying to swat a mosquito—but she gave up immediately and yelled:
“I’M SORRY!”
With a sudden burst of energy, she blasted the man in the face with a low-powered danmaku shot—just strong enough to knock him down, but not enough to do any lasting damage.
He collapsed to the ground with a thud.
Kogasa froze.
Hand over her mouth, she stared in silence for a few moments.
Then, cautiously, she approached him. Poked him a couple of times with her umbrella.
"Ok..." she muttered, exhaling sharply.
She reached down, grabbed him by the arm, and started trying to hoist him up—struggling immediately
This was going to be a very, very long night for her.
As the sun rose from he horizon, and people started coming out of their houses prepared to start their day, a faint stray from sunshine would sneak past the gap of a old wood window, prompting the unconscious foreign would finally open his eyes after a long night of sleeping. With a small grunt, he would raise himself from the small bed he found himself in, resting a hand on his head. He would look at his surroundings, finding himself on top of a bed inside a room, stripped of his clothes and his gun, with a mixture of both confusion and annoyance, he would quickly stand up off the bed, just to hear an elderly woman's voice talk to him.
“Great, you finally woke up.” A fairly old woman would say to him, prompting him to turn around.
“Where am I?” Questioned the man
“You are in an inn if that’s what you are wondering, and your other clothing are in that little wardrobe in case you are wondering about that.” Replied the old woman
“How did I-” Before the man could finish the question, the old woman would answer him.
“A young lady brought you here.” Explained the woman. “You truly are lucky, hasn’t she found and carried you all over here, you would have probably sleep the entire night on the cold. She even pay for you to be able to stay here for the night. So if you don't have anything else to wonder about, you should start changing so you can leave.” Leered the woman to the outsider, as she was ready to leave him in the room before she could leave however, she added something.
“She also told me to give you this, she said she “fixed” it for you.” Said the woman, handing an object wrapped in a handkerchief with a note attached to it to the man, before finally leaving him alone.
The man would hold the object in his hands for a few minutes, before unwrapping the handkerchief around it.
It was his gun.
The man wondered what the girl could have done to the weapon for a few seconds, before reading the note left for him that came on the handkerchief.
“ Hello!I hope you are okay as of the time of reading this. In case you are having problems doing so, I am terribly sorry that I knocked-out you out like that, or that I had knocked you out, to begin with.
I pray that you are doing fine at the moment you are reading this.
I will also inform you that I took your 'weapon' for a bit since it has this ugly crack in it that I think formed when you were attacked by that monster, do not worry though as I did a few fixes on it.
-Kogasa”
After reading the note, the man would take a look at his weapon taking care to examine it. IIf it was true what she said, then he had to admit, it was impressive how there was no sign of that supposed crack. After a few minutes of thinking, the man would decide to get up and start putting his clothes on, getting ready to leave the Inn.
As much as it weirded him out to think such a thing, he wanted to meet her again.