Archive of Our Own

One day, something strange appeared within the Bamboo Forest of the Lost.

The locals, in trying to find a resemblance, would probably have decided on the gates of the Human Village, or perhaps the gate leading to the Hakurei Shrine -- a square-ish doorway, made of a shining silver metal, with prongs extending outwards on either side of its top. But this gate was closed. Within its entrance was a sheet of metal, solid at first glance, but split into three segments along fine lines in a Y-shape. To one side of it was a small numerical keypad.

Who could say how long it sat there, unnoticed? The Bamboo Forest wasn’t known for its visitors, and it was in a remote corner, at that. It could have been months, or it could have been days. It seemed immune to the usual effects of nature; even falling leaves never landed upon it, instead sliding off to leave a pile heaped around it.

It was as if it were resisting, as best it could, being where it so inexplicably sat.

And one day someone threw a fireball at it.

Fujiwara no Mokou was one of the few full-time residents of the Forest. An immortal for more than a millenium, she had been through so much that at this point one could easily mistake her for jaded, but she could be as passionate as any other; especially of late, when she had begun to emerge and engage with the other residents of Gensokyo more often. She wasn’t on the level of “friendly” yet, but she had at least managed to reach “social”.

Accompanying her was a magician, and a former jizo statue, named Yatadera Narumi. Brought to life by the residual magic of Gensokyo’s other major forest, she was both introverted and lively; enthusiastic, but solitary.

Although this would normally be an unusual duo -- a pair of people more likely to keep to themselves -- recent events involving orbs and doors had led them to break out of their usual habits, which was how, through the help of a mutual acquaintance, Mokou had agreed to teach Narumi some of the fire magic she had learnt in her centuries of existence.

And it was whilst Mokou was leading them deep into the Forest, as far from her rivals at Eientei as she could, that they first saw the gate.

Narumi got as far as “That looks like--” before Mokou launched her first fireball.

It slammed into the door and dissipated instantly. Mokou frowned at it, whilst Narumi stared at her in bemused shock.

“…What was that for…?” she asked.

“It wasn’t here last time I was here,” Mokou replied. “Which means someone’s put it there. So I figure it’s one of Kaguya’s tricks.”

“Is… is that so…?” Narumi stared at it. “It doesn’t look like something from Eientei, though…?”

“That’s how she gets you,” insisted Mokou. “Anyway, stand back. I’m gonna show you some real fire magic.”

With that said, the white-haired girl leapt into the air and launched a barrage of flame bullets at the door, almost concealing it from view in the crimson blast. When it cleared, though, it was untouched -- as if the bullets hadn’t even been there.

Mokou landed on the ground again. All she said was “Hm,” before walking towards the mysterious door. After examining it for a moment or so, she noticed the keypad, and began examining it.

“Do you know what it is now?” Narumi asked. She shuddered just looking at it -- being a magical being, something about it simply felt… wrong to her. It was an anomaly, something that shouldn’t be there.

“No idea,” said Mokou, before tapping a button on the keypad. It made a soft beeping noise, and she tapped another one. “But I don’t think it’s Kaguya’s.”

She tapped a third button, and the gate suddenly opened, its three segments retracting seamlessly into its side and revealing an empty black void within it. Mokou grinned triumphantly, leaned in to have a look -- and instantly vanished. With an artificial hissing noise, the gate closed again.

Narumi instantly turned and ran, having just enough presence of mind to leave a number of small red orbs -- inactive bullets -- behind her as she did, a trail back to the terrifying door.

As she ran, she wondered who she could ask. Who could possibly know anything about this? It looked like something from the Outside World, but the only person she knew who knew anything about the Outside World was…

Kirisame Marisa was awoken from her nap by a loud knocking on her door. She picked herself off the bench, checked that she hadn’t drooled on anything important, and was just adjusting her hat to look respectable when her door fell off its hinges and landed with a thud on the inside of her main room.

She stared at it for a moment, as if baffled about how it had come to be there, before turning her gaze towards Narumi, standing in the doorway.

The other magician was shaking, clearly alarmed, and stammering something under her breath. Her hand was still in the position for knocking, and her eyes darted from the collapsed door, to Marisa, and then back into the woods.

“Hey, Naruko, are you okay?” Marisa asked. “You’re kinda… I mean, you knocked my door down? You only do that when you’re nervous.”

“Ah!” replied Narumi, as if only just noticing that she had. “I’m sorry! I’ll fix it! But I need your help!”

“Is it an incident?”

Narumi paused. She glanced back from whence she’d come once more. “I-- maybe. It’s something weird.”

“Something weird?” Marisa frowned, trying to look thoughtful. “What kind of weird?”

“It’s, uh, a big door, and it ate Mokou.”

Marisa nodded sagely. “So it’s a big door, and it ate Mokou.”

Narumi nodded along with her, until the two were nodding in unison. “It’s really weird, and kind of scary.”

“It sounds like it, it sounds like it,” agreed Marisa. “Luckily, you have the number two incident resolution expert here to help! I’ll go take a look, right as soon as you, uh… help me fix my door.”

As the two of them lifted it up, Narumi added, “I think it’s something from the Outside World. It’s all metal, like you said from before.”

--The Outside World.

In short, the place that is not Gensokyo. Or rather, Gensokyo is the place that is not the Outside World.

In it, humans rule supreme, and gods and youkai have long since lost their power. It is a world of noise and light, of beauty and darkness. It is the world of common sense that Gensokyo defies.

It is a world that Marisa once saw, and wants to see again.

A gateway from the Outside World--

A gateway to the Outside World…?

Those were the thoughts rushing through Marisa’s mind as she followed Narumi into the Bamboo Forest of the Lost.

“Looks kinda like the gate outside the Hakurei Shrine,” Marisa accurately stated.

The two of them were standing in front of it, just next to the keypad that had seemingly sealed Mokou’s fate. Although Narumi had been worried about getting closer, Marisa had insisted on examining it for ‘clues’ -- and on top of that, insisted that she knew what she was doing.

“So Mokou tried to blow it up, you said?”

Narumi nodded. “She threw a bunch of fireballs at it, but nothing happened. And then…”

“…She touched this thing, right?” Marisa leant down to examine the keypad, then took something from one of the many pockets of her coat -- a small, brown box. Opening it, she took out a few grains of what looked like fine, white sand, and then dropped them onto the keypad.

They shone as they landed, but only a few of the grains stuck onto it, the others sliding off and landing in the dirt. Marisa grinned.

“What was that?” asked Narumi.

“Something I’ve been working on,” Marisa replied. “It’s meant to detect traces of certain kinds of magic. Stuff from outside of Gensokyo. And since Mokou’s got that Moon stuff going through her, I figured it’d be able to pick up which of these things she pressed.”

“You’ve seen something like this before, then?”

“Never one like this, but Kourin’s got some similar stuff. Those are all way smaller than this door, though, so I guess they probably do different things?” She shrugged. “Stuff from outside’s weird. Other than Yukari, maybe, I doubt anyone knows how it works.”

Marisa tapped one of the buttons with a grain of sand on it. It made a beeping sound, and Narumi’s worried expression deepened.

“That’s what it did last time…” she warned.

Marisa hit another button, and then paused. She looked down at the remaining button carefully. It was slightly larger than the others above it, and whilst the others she’d pressed had numbers on them, this one had an odd sideways triangle.

“I don’t think these other two matter,” she said. “Those two have numbers on them, but this one…” She glanced at the door. “It’s just an open button, I think?”

“The door just has a button for opening it?” repeated Narumi. “That’s a pretty weak lock for something like this.”

“Maybe…” started Marisa. She was thinking very carefully, then shook her head. “I want to find out what happened to Mokou. And…”

“And you want to see what’s in there.”

“Don’t you?”

Narumi hesitated. “It’s not like I don’t, but…”

Marisa hit the final button, and once again, the door slid open.

Marisa took a scrap of paper from another pocket, and tore off the end. A burst of stars flew through the gateway, lighting up a darkened metal corridor. She grinned. “They left the door open, and the lights off, huh?”

Then, without another word, confident in what she was doing, she grabbed Narumi’s hand and walked into the gate.

Far above the Earth, something long dormant awakens. It senses the presence of life and begins speaking to itself, assessing what needs to be done. Generators, long-since left only to maintain the atmosphere, begin to pump clean air. Lights, what few still function, begin to flicker on. Unthinking minds take note of the damage and send out workers to repair it. Those that still function scurry to repair their companions, before they all speed out to repair the rest of their tiny, enclosed world.

A single figure wanders through the slowly waking world, listening to the almost inaudible whir of ancient machinery restoring itself. She seems unworried, despite the strange environment; but this is hardly the strangest -- or the most dangerous -- place she has ever found herself, so for now, she is content to listen to something long dead come back to life.

Below her -- but not so far as the Earth -- Marisa and Narumi emerge from a steel gateway, a reflection of the one in the Forest of Magic, to find Mokou sitting back against the wall, glaring at them. The hallway was still only dimly lit by Marisa’s stars, floating above them.

“Hey,” she said. “I was waiting.”

“For me?” replied Marisa, surprised.

Mokou shrugged. “For someone. Figured that Narumi’d go grab someone to work out what was going on. I was just tryin’ to work out who it’d be when you came through.”

“So have you worked out what this place is?” asked Marisa.

“It’s only been five minutes,” replied Mokou. “I thought I’d at least wait a bit to see if Narumi was gonna come through herself.” She frowned. “How’d you get here so quickly, actually?”

Marisa frowned back at her, but it was Narumi who replied, “It’s been two hours, Mokou.”

Mokou looked around. “Weird.”

The others nodded. “This is definitely weird.”

Marisa looked back at the closed door. “Maybe time moves faster on that side…? But that would mean…” She suddenly froze in shock. “Oh no!” she yelled. “What if we get back and like, fifty years have passed and everyone we know is all weird and Reimu has grey hair and married Sanae and--”

Mokou, who had had almost that exact situation happen to her on multiple occasions, walked over to the door. Through the dim lighting, she saw a keypad identical to the one on the other side.

“If this thing opened the door,” she said, “then it can probably stop that from happening.”

Marisa, partway through a torment of her own creation, stopped and moved in next to her. “So one of these buttons should do it…?”

Mokou nodded. “We just have to work out which one.”

Marisa examined them for a moment, and then pointed to a button with a square on it, next to the triangle one that had opened the door on the other side. “This one. It's the Paws Button. It makes things stop.”

“You sure?”

Marisa shrugged.

Mokou hit the button, and the door hissed open.

And then a light switched on above it, and then another, and then a blank white screen lit up above the keypad, and an unusual voice said, “Please confirm gateway deactivation.”

“Deactivation?” cried Marisa. “No, don't deactivate it!! That'd be even worse!!”

“Deactivation cancelled,” replied the voice, and the small screen suddenly showed a list of phrases: ‘destination’, ‘time period’, ‘time synchronisation’, ‘examine warnings’, and ‘deactivate’.

Narumi, who was watching as the screen switched on, tapped the ‘time synchronisation’ button, causing the screen to change to a single line, with a dot on one end. Without missing a beat, Narumi tapped the centre of the bar, and the dot moved there.

Marisa and Mokou looked at her in awe.

“How'd you know it'd do that?” asked Marisa.

“Oh, uh,” Narumi started, “it looked like the screen on Usami's phone, so I figured it’d work similarly… and I thought, if everything’s too fast over there, maybe if we put it in the middle, it’d be the same…? She showed me how to do that to make her screen less bright when she let me look at the photos she took at the fireworks festival.”

Marisa nodded. “That makes sense… one more thing, though~!” And she tapped the opposite end of the bar. “This should make it so that we can spend a lot of time here, and get back, and it’s like we never left! Hey, voice, can you confirm that?”

The voice -- whatever it was -- didn't respond.

Marisa pouted for a moment, then shook her head. “Whatever,” she said confidently, “it’s time to go exploring!”

Having said that, she began to walk down the metal corridor. After a moment, the stars floating above them began to follow her, and, subsequently, so did Mokou and Narumi.

After a surprising distance, the corridor split into three, but without hesitation, Marisa continued to walk forwards. Narumi, leaving a trail of red orbs behind them, followed, whilst Mokou glanced down the divergent corridors only to see more of the same.

“What’s up with this place…?” she asked quietly.

After walking for what felt like an hour, the group arrived at something that wasn’t another corridor -- a wide, semicircular room with high ceilings and a bunch of desks with chairs and computers. Despite being totally devoid of people, the computers were humming quietly, and for the first time there was artificial light, albeit still weak, from fluorescent lights on the ceiling. The desks were also arranged in a series of semicircles to match the shape of the room, all facing a blank screen that filled the flat wall. In addition to the entrance they had emerged from, they could see a number of other doorways leading out.

They were silent for a moment, and then Marisa declared, “I’ve seen something like this!”

“You have?” said Narumi, surprised.

Marisa nodded. “It was in a magazine Kourin gave me, around the time that Remilia was building that rocket. This is, uh, a control room! Where they control rockets from!”

“A control room, huh…” Mokou walked over to one of the computers and tapped at its keyboard, and was rewarded with its screen flashing to life. “Wonder what this controls?”

Unfortunately for her, the screen was requesting a password. She frowned at it, tempted to try blowing it up, but suspected that it would do no good. Instead, she began to circle through the desks, trying to find one that wasn’t locked. After a minute of this, Narumi joined her, looking at the ones in the inner circle.

Meanwhile, Marisa was staring at the big screen with a thoughtful expression. “I wonder…” she whispered. Then, at the top of her lungs, she yelled, “Yo, shikigami! Turn on the big screen!”

There was a pause, and then the screen switched on.

The first thing they noticed was the massive, blue-white orb that dominated most of the image, slowly rotating as white shapes rolled over it. As they adjusted, though, they noticed the shapes were clouds, and they were moving strangely -- they’d be moving in one direction, then seemingly get swept up and move in a totally different direction. Then, below the clouds, they gradually noticed a difference in the landscape -- one part of the orb was dry and yellow where it wasn’t ocean, but the other was almost entirely lush and green.

After a moment, Marisa realised. “It’s the world. We’re looking at the world.”

And then she noticed something else. “If that’s the world, then… what’s wrong with the Moon…?”

In the far corner, distantly visible, was a massive white orb with jagged red lines crackling across it, notably on the side that would usually be facing away from the Earth, which was almost entirely red. It looked like the Moon was scarred.

The three of them stared at it in silence for a moment. An unfamiliar Moon orbiting a world that two of them had never seen before, at least not like this.

In fact, they were so focused on it that they didn’t notice the fourth person until she walked up behind Marisa and whispered to herself, “What’s happened to Earth…?”

It had been her arrival -- entirely by chance -- a few hours earlier that had caused everything to come back to life. It had been her arrival that had opened the door to Gensokyo.

She was the first human to walk through these rooms in centuries.

Although she had no way of knowing it, the adjustment that Marisa made to the gateway had de-synced her along with Gensokyo, meaning that she would be spending much longer in this place than would be usual for her during her expeditions.

She had been wandering the halls when she had heard voices, and followed them in time to hear Marisa shouting. But when she wandered in from another side door, she had been so preoccupied by the image of the Earth that she almost bumped into the magician.

The other blonde girl spun instantly. “Who are you?” she asked suspiciously.

“I’m, uh, Merry,” she replied, startled in spite of herself. “Sorry, I’m not used to meeting people like this.”

She was Merribelle Hearn, and she was the most powerful human who would ever exist.

Marisa circled the new arrival carefully. “Is this place yours?”

Merry looked around her, partly to examine the room and partly to keep track of Marisa. “I’ve never been here before,” she replied. “I think it’s abandoned.”

“Hmm.” Marisa seemed to be thinking of another question, still circling.

“Do you know where we are, then?” asked Narumi, walking over. “Or did you come through one of the doors?”

“The doors…?” replied Merry, confused. “No, I-- I sort of woke up here. Whenever I go to sleep, I end up somewhere different.”

“Ah, like Usami does!” Narumi said.

“Usami?” repeated Merry.

“A human from the Outside World,” explained Marisa. “Every time she falls asleep, she wakes up in Gensokyo. It was a whole thing for a while there, but it’s mostly under control now.”

“You say that like you helped,” said Mokou, still examining the computers.

“I did help!” protested Marisa. “I scared her off, just like Kasen told me to! It’s not my fault that all that stuff with the Dream World was going on.”

“Wait, wait,” interrupted Merry, “have you met Renko?”

“Renko?” Marisa thought for a moment, and then grinned. “Ah, is that what you call her? I’d only ever called her Sumireko, but it makes sense that she’d have a nickname.” She nodded approvingly for a moment.

“No, uh-- it’s just Renko,” clarified Merry. “I think she has an aunt or something named Sumireko, maybe?”

“An aunt?” repeated Marisa.

“I didn’t think she was that old…” Narumi mused to herself.

Merry stared blankly at the group for a moment, before turning her gaze back to the screen. “So, you just talked to it, and it switched on?”

“She yelled, actually,” confirmed Narumi. “Quite loudly.”

Merry paused again, and then said, without yelling, “Computer, identify atmospheric composition over Japan.”

There was a buzzing noise, and then the unusual voice that had tried to deactivate the Gensokyo gateway responded, “Unable to identify atmospheric composition over Japan.”

Merry frowned, but the others looked at her in surprise. “You got it to talk!” exclaimed Marisa.

“It’s not that difficult?” replied Merry. “If it responded to you, then it’s got voice recognition. You’ve just got to know the right phrases to say.”

“Ah, so it’s like a puzzle,” agreed Narumi. She thought for a moment, then said, “Shikigami! Locate Gensokyo!”

“Unable to locate Gensokyo.”

--- KEYWORD “GENSOKYO” REGISTERED ---

--- REROUTING POWER TO PERSONAL INTERFACE ---

--- PERSONAL INTERFACE UNRESPONSIVE ---

--- REBOOTING PERSONAL INTERFACE ---

“So what did you mean, what’s up with the Earth, anyway?” asked Marisa, as Narumi began to ask the big screen questions to which it was almost entirely unresponsive, and Mokou continued to look for an unlocked computer. “It looks normal to me? Though, I’ve only seen it a couple of times…”

“It’s so… green, though,” said Merry quietly. “They never show it looking like that, except in the really old videos.”

Marisa looked back at the Earth. If anything, it didn’t look green enough to her -- although a lot of it was green, there were bits that were dry that she’d thought had been green when she saw the Earth from above on her visits to the Moon.

She shrugged. “Maybe they got the videos mixed up.” She glanced sideways at the other girl. “Where’re you from, anyway?”

“I’m from -- I suppose you called it the Outside World? I’m from Japan, now. Somewhere over there.” She pointed vaguely at Japan, which was near the epicentre of the green portion of the Earth. “And you’re from Gensokyo, right?”

“You ever been? I haven’t seen you around.”

“A few times, though not so often recently…” She sighed. “It’s dangerous to go to Gensokyo, so I’ve been trying to test my powers doing other things… though I’ve gotten in trouble doing that, too. Renko’s always worrying about me… but it’s just…” She turned back to Marisa, her eyes shining brightly. “When I see things like this, how can I stop?”

“I get what you mean!” agreed Marisa. “It’s like magic! Everyone said that I shouldn’t do it, but there’s so much to learn about it! It’s so-- it’s so--” She paused for a moment. “--I think, if I weren’t a magician, I wouldn’t even be me, y’know?”

Merry nodded enthusiastically. “That’s exactly it! I totally get you, uh--”

Marisa looked surprised. “Oh, I forgot to introduce myself! I’m Kirisame Marisa, a human magician! Nice to meet you, Merry!”

“Nice to meet you, Marisa!” said Merry. She glanced over at the others. “So, uh, who’re they?”

“She’s Naruko,” said Marisa, gesturing, “and she’s Mokou. Naruko’s a magical jizo, and Mokou’s an immortal human. They’re--”

She was interrupted by the screen suddenly making a crackling noise, which was followed by the image distorting for a moment before returning to normal. Around them, the room suddenly became much brighter as the lights above them all began to function, with even the dimmed lights from before shining at their maximum capacity. With a clicking sound, all the doors around them closed and reopened, and the computers that Mokou was still examining all flickered off before beginning to reboot themselves.

“What was that?” asked Narumi, looking around in alarm.

“I think…” said Merry, “I think that this ship is switching itself back on.”

“Ship?” repeated Narumi, turning away from the screen. “We’re at sea?”

Marisa looked out at the screen, showing the slowly-rotating Earth, and the ruined Moon inching ever closer. “We’re in space,” she realised.

To an outside observer, the vessel was unusually shaped, even by the standards of an orbital satellite. A thin, rocket-shaped segment gave way to a bulkier, cylindrical segment; halfway down that segment’s length, half a dozen smaller metal cylinders emerged perpendicular to it, as if they were the spokes of an immense wheel without its outer edge. At the other end of the cylinder, it connected to a massive spherical structure, possibly a mile across, possibly more, upon which hundreds of lights were slowly beginning to shine.

To that observer, they would have seen the spokes on its central segment slowly begin to spin, and with them spun the entire vessel, slowly propelling itself forwards for the first time in untold ages.

And it was observed; observed by an intellect on the Earth far below, an ancient and unknowable mind that gazed across the world and into the stars, taking note of everything it saw with careful, implacable patience. The awakening ship, and those aboard it, were noted matter-of-factly, and that careful gaze watched them attentively, waiting to see what would happen next.

“Anyway,” said Narumi, after a moment, “the shikigami won’t answer any of my questions.”

“…What were you asking it?” asked Merry.

“I was asking it to show me Gensokyo,” she started, “and it said it didn’t know where that was, and I know it’s in Japan, so I asked it to show me Japan, and it won’t show me Japan, but get this, it will show you some place no-one’s ever heard of! I asked it to show me somewhere random and it showed me some big empty desert called Decoder or something! I’ve never even heard of Decoder!”

“Wait, wait,” said Marisa, “what do you mean it won’t show you Japan? I mean, I’d get Gensokyo, ‘cause of the Barrier and all, but… I can see Japan! Hey, Shikigami! I can see Japan on the screen!”

“Unable to locate Japan.”

“It can’t see Japan…” Merry mused, frowning. Then, she glanced at Marisa. “What was the Barrier you mentioned?”

“Oh, it’s, uh…” Marisa waved her arms around in the vague shape of a dome. “It’s a big Barrier, all over Gensokyo. Yukari calls it a Barrier of Common Sense, and it’s meant to be immune to human stuff, or… something…? I’ve always meant to look into it in more detail, but I don’t wanna get the Sages on my back for messing with it, y’know?”

Merry turned back to the screen. “Computer,” she said, “display atmospheric readings for the Earth on-screen, along with… heat readings and human population readings.”

The slowly turning Earth vanished, replaced by a flat, slightly distorted map of the Earth. A lot of the Earth seemed orange, and there were little lines and markings all over it that Marisa couldn’t understand, as well as a number of small blue dots -- except over Asia.

Within a slightly distorted circle, seemingly centred over Japan but encompassing China, South-East Asia, half of India, half of Australia, half of Russia, Alaska, and a solid chunk of the Pacific Ocean, was an empty black space.

“…Can we see this next to the outside visual?” Merry asked quietly.

The images flickered and appeared next to each other -- the outlined Earth with its empty void, and the real Earth, with its odd weather patterns that almost seemed to …

Not almost seemed to. The shifting weather patterns -- and the change from the dry brown to the lush green -- matched the empty space.

They were silent for a moment, and then Marisa asked, “Shikigami, what’s the date today?”

And it replied, “The current date is the 18th of April, 2889.”

“Huh.”

They were silent again, watching the future Earth for a moment.

Then, from Marisa, “So you reckon that’s Gensokyo, huh.”

Merry nodded. “If it can’t observe what’s inside the Barrier, then I guessed that it could be that, but…” She was silent again. “If that date’s right, we’re--”

“Almost nine hundred years into the future,” agreed Marisa. Merry seemed about to say something, but closed her mouth.

“So that’s the future of Gensokyo…” said Narumi. “I wonder if I’m down there.”

“I wonder if I’m down there,” mused Marisa. “If I ever became a full magician, and lived long enough to see all this.”

“You’re seeing it right now, Marisa.”

“You know what I mean, Naruko.”

The person who would definitely be down there walked over, having given up on the computers. She glanced up at the screen, and shrugged. “I couldn’t get any of them to work,” she said, before turning to Merry and looking at her for the first time. Merry blinked at her in surprise. “Hey, uh--”

“Merry. You’re--”

“Did you find anywhere to eat whilst you were wandering around?”

Merry blinked at her. “Uhh… maybe…? It wasn’t working, and depending on how long this ship’s been dormant--”

Mokou grinned at her. “Don’t worry ‘bout it. What doesn’t kill you fills your stomach, and unfortunately, I can’t die.”

Merry gave Mokou a strange look.

“Look,” added Mokou, interpreting it as a look of no confidence, “we can probably get Marisa or Narumi to magic the food new, or something. You can do that, right?”

Marisa shrugged.

“I’ve, uh, never tried, and would have no way of knowing how to go about doing that,” said Narumi.

Mokou glanced at the others for a moment, and sighed. “Well, we’ll just -- see what’s there, at least. I want something to think about that isn’t these shikigami boxes, because if I do that for too much longer I’m gonna start breaking ‘em.”

Merry was still giving Mokou an odd look. “I’ll lead you to somewhere that might have food, but first, uh-- can I just ask--”

“Yeah?”

“--Have you ever fought a youkai rabbit?”

“…Huh?”

Rather than through the side door she’d come through, Merry led the group through the door directly opposite the screen into a wide corridor with a number of smaller corridors branching off each side. “I think this runs along the centre of this level,” she said, almost to herself. She was imagining what this ship would have looked like when alive -- based on the number of chairs in that room, and the smaller offices and living quarters she’d found, there could have been hundreds of people rushing through these corridors. Now, they were empty.

Towards the end of the wide corridor, they saw another wide door, which Merry led them through as well. It opened into a wide space with a domed roof currently displaying a similar image to the one on the screen in the control chamber -- the Earth and Moon, seen from above. Scattered throughout the space were dozens of tables and chairs, all empty, all neatly ordered. Around the sides of the room were what seemed to be a number of darkened, empty storefronts, and a number of internally-lit vending machines.

“Oh, they didn’t have the ceiling on when I was in here before,” Merry started. “Anyway, uh-- there might be something in the vending machines, but…”

“The vending machines?” repeated Marisa.

Merry gestured at them. “Those things. You put money in, or hit a button, or something, and--”

She was interrupted by Mokou running at one of the machines and kicking it over. It fell onto its side, and then onto its back, with a thud that was deafening in the humming silence.

“--or that, I guess.”

Wrapping her arm in her bow, Mokou smashed the glass. “We don’t have any money,” she said, looking through the contents, “and we don’t know the codes.” She frowned at her prizes. “This says it’s soba, but it’s way too small for that.”

It was too small -- in fact, it was a small white card, about the size of a credit card, with a series of indentations on it and the phrase ‘shrimp tempura soba’ on it. Merry frowned at it, then took it from Mokou’s hand and wandered over to one of what had seemed to be storefronts. On closer inspection, they were basically just a counter with an empty space behind it.

On the counter were a series of card scanners. Whilst the others fussed over the broken vending machine, Merry carefully placed the card into the scanner.

The storefront lit up almost immediately. Then, within seconds, a part of the wall opposite the counter slid to one side, revealing a strange shape that looked somewhat like a completely smooth metal salt shaker. On the top of its flat head was a bowl of tempura soba on a plastic tray.

It moved over to the counter, and from its sides emerged three spindly arms which grabbed the tray and placed it with mechanical diligence in front of Merry. Then, its job done, it disappeared again.

Merry stared at the bowl for a moment. It certainly seemed fresh, though she couldn’t imagine how it could be.

Luckily, she was spared from trying it by Mokou, who, having noticed what was going on, wandered over to lay claim to the soba. Taking it from under Merry’s bemused gaze, she sat at a nearby table and began eating.

“It’s good, y’know!” she called back, after a moment.

Merry glanced at the space the robot had vanished into. After a moment, her thoughts finally rearranged themselves.

“Well… that was odd.”

Having decided on that, she wandered back over to the defeated vending machine to pick something out.

“So you think it’s like the doors?”

“…I suppose. The robot waits until it gets the message, turns on a little timeless pocket dimension, it takes however long it needs to get the food done, and comes out instantly.” Merry thought for a moment. “Actually, that might be how they keep the food good, too. Just keep it locked in time, so it never goes off.”

Marisa nodded. “That’d make sense. Shame that you’re saying it’s technology. If it were magic, I’d be able to examine it, but…” She gestured around to the open space, a world of metal and plastic and artificial light that was so unlike anything in Gensokyo. “I mean, just seeing something like this is amazing! I can’t even imagine the sort of technology you’d need to like, stop time.”

“The vampire’s maid can stop time though,” said Narumi. “Why don’t you just examine her?”

“She tries to stab me if I try,” said Marisa. “And you can’t sneak up on her, and she won’t tell me how she does it, and Patchy doesn’t know, or she won’t tell me, either. It’s a whole thing.”

“Aw, that’s a shame.” Narumi looked disappointed. “I was hoping you’d be able to tell me. I could make some neat danmaku if I could stop time.”

Marisa looked down at her empty bowl, nodding solemnly, and then had a thought. She stood up, moving around Mokou, who was on her third bowl, and wandered over to examine one of the non-broken vending machines.

Merry and Narumi watched her for a moment, and then Narumi asked, “So what’s it like, in the Outside World?”

Merry seemed to think about the question for a moment. “It’s sad, I suppose. You don’t see people having much fun anymore. Just going off of how you all act, I think it’d be more fun in Gensokyo.”

“Hmm.” Narumi contemplated that for a moment. “But you’ve got all this cool stuff? Like, the metal shikigamis, and the instant soba, and the vending machines, and--”

“We, uh, don’t have the robots when I’m from,” said Merry. “I think this ship is from after when I was around, too.” She looked up at the Earth, still moving across the surface of the dome’s screen. “It was odd listening to you all talking about if you’re still around on Earth, since… there’s no way I’m still down there, or that Renko is, or anyone else I know. The world’s already moved on. It’s just that I’m here to see it.”

Narumi looked up at the Earth with her, and said quietly, “I’ve never seen the Earth before. Not even in pictures. I’ve never even really thought about it… But the world is so big. I’d never considered how small Gensokyo was. It’s no wonder why someone would want to go explore the Outside World.”

“…Do you?”

“There’s still things for me to learn in Gensokyo,” Narumi replied. “I think perhaps… the world’s too big for me, just now. I’ve only existed like this for a few years, y’know. One day I just woke up from being a jizo statue, and I thought to myself, ‘I want to learn more’. Now I know how much there is out there, and it’s a little bit scary.”

There was another thud, and they turned to see Marisa knocking down another vending machine. “This one’s got drinks in it!” she called, before wandering over to a counter with an armful of the little white cards.

Narumi stood up, and ran over to join Marisa in scanning the cards. Merry watched them go, and wondered to herself what it was that made them so carefree.

Then again, she was no different, having spent the past few hours exploring an abandoned spacecraft with a bunch of dangerous people she’d just met -- but she lived in a world where that was an exception. In Gensokyo, it seemed to be the rule.

“Maybe next time I go to Gensokyo, I should stick around for a bit,” she mused to herself.

Mokou got up to get a fourth bowl.

It was whilst Marisa was midway through a bottle of what the white card had enigmatically referred to as simply ‘sake’ -- something that she and Narumi, in a fervent debate, had determined was of alright quality, but had barely anything on any of the sake from Gensokyo -- that she had come to a sudden revelation.

“Y’know,” she mused, “with a big room like this, you’d think there’d be more people around.”

“Maybe they’re all sleeping,” replied Mokou. “They’d only get in the way, anyway.”

“I don’t think there’s anyone else here,” said Merry. “When I showed up, it seemed like the ship started fixing itself because I was here, so… I guess it was waiting for a human to show up. It wouldn’t have done that if there were already people here.”

“Weird,” mused Marisa. “I guess you did say that it seemed abandoned before… Wonder what happened to ‘em all.”

“We could ask the shikigami,” suggested Narumi, sipping her mystery spaceship sake.

“I wonder if it can hear us in here…” Marisa stared up at the dome ceiling, then jumped onto the table and yelled, “Hey, shikigami, can you hear us?”

The voice resonated around the room from hidden speakers. “Audio reception confirmed.”

“D’you know where everyone else is?”

“Unknown query.”

“You’ve got to speak like a computer,” Merry reminded her. She thought for a moment, rearranging her thoughts, and then asked, “Computer, show us all humanoid life signals on the ship.”

“Displaying internally determined life signals onboard Endless Dream.”

The Earth and Moon once more vanished, replaced with their first look at the ship -- or rather, a dozen cross-sections of it. Within the central cylindrical component, on what seemed to be the third floor of six, were four small red dots. Other than that… Merry’s eyes scanned the interior, the dozens of layers of the massive sphere nested within each other, and almost missed the single other, tiny dot hidden on one of the outermost layers.

“…There’s one other person on this whole ship,” she said quietly. “And they’re not moving. Computer… can you display the point at which this ship had the largest number of humanoid life signals?”

The screens flickered, and suddenly the image was covered with dots.

“How many’s that?” asked Mokou.

“Ten thousand, three hundred and eighty-seven people at maximum humanoid life signals.”

“Ten thousand people…” repeated Narumi. “That’s more than’s in Gensokyo, by… by a lot…”

Merry looked around the room. “What… happened here?”

“Oi, shikigami!” yelled Marisa. “Give us… show us everything that happened between back then and right now!”

The screens flickered again, and then the dots began shuffling around at massive speed. Some of them blinked out, others blinked in from the edges of the maps, but for a while nothing happened.

Then, with no warning, every dot in the sphere vanished. Barely a second later, every other dot on the ship vanished. Then, two dozen new dots appeared, shuffled around, moved into the sphere, and then all of those dots vanished, bar one.

The remaining dot shuffled around for what -- in the sped-up visuals -- must have been years in real time, before going into the outer dome and shuffling around mainly in that area.

Minutes passed of just that single dot, before a new dot appeared in the rocket-like structure, and three others in the cylindrical segment, and in the blink of an eye they had converged together and arrived at what must have been the break room.

Their gazes inexorably fell back onto that other dot.

“I thought it might have been…” started Merry, and frowned. “Computer, uh… how long was it between then and now…?”

“Time between maximum life signals and current time is five hundred and twenty-one years, seven months--”

“Alright, that’s enough, it’s been a while!” interrupted Marisa, and the voice fell silent.

“But, that means--” started Merry again.

“An immortal,” concluded Mokou. Her eyes were suddenly very sharply focused on the unmoving dot. Then she grinned, and looked back down at the others. “Well, if we’re all done eating, why don’t we go find out who it is?”

Merry had seen those eyes filled with blazing scarlet light before. But so had the others, and it meant something different to them.

“I was running out of stuff to do in here anyway,” said Marisa, jumping off the table. “Not that there is much to do ‘sides eating and talking to the shikigami.” She looked at the dot though. “Looks far away though… wonder if there’s a quick way of getting there without getting lost.”

Narumi, drinking the rest of her sake in a single gulp, laughed. “Can’t get lost with the Buddha’s protection. Just gotta…” She took dug into her coat and pulled out three red orbs from her coat, then tapped them across their surface a few times and dropped them on the floor. After a moment, they began to expand, until there was a trio of large red spheres sitting on the floor around her, their transparent skins showing interiors filled with swirling energy.

“Oh, you got multiple of them working!” said Marisa enthusiastically. “You’ve gotta show me how to do that when we get back!”

“Learn it yourself,” replied Narumi, grinning proudly. “It’s my trick, I get to show it off~! Now, everyone aboard the Yatadera Express~!”

The ship’s sole remaining occupant -- or the only one that wasn’t a robot, at least -- rolled over in her sleep uncomfortably.

She had been there for a very long time. After her followers had abandoned her to head for Earth, she had waited. Being aboard the human ship was bad enough. She wouldn’t go down to the planet itself. Especially not now.

It wasn’t that she was afraid, or that she thought they’d still hold a grudge, or anything like that.

--She just didn’t think she could bear the shame of it all.

She couldn’t stand in front of her and admit that she’d survived.

So she waited on the dead ship.

She’d been waiting for a very long time, and she knew what she was waiting for would never arrive. Every time she went to see the outside through one of the ship’s external windows -- which was getting rarer -- all she saw was a reminder of her failure, of all their failures. A flourishing Earth and a ruined Moon.

So she slept, and tried to dream of better times, and never noticed that her world was waking up.

Merry fell off her orb, stumbled, and fell against a wall.

After Narumi had revealed them, she’d proceeded to jump onto it, wrapping her limbs around it so that she was clinging to its upper half. She gestured vaguely at Merry and Mokou to do the same.

“Hang on,” interrupted Marisa, and gave Merry and Mokou a small blue-ish pill. “Chew on this. It’ll-- you’ll thank me later.”

“What about you?” Merry had asked her, chewing the pill, but Marisa had simply held up her ever-present broom, swung herself over it, and began hovering in the air, grinning. On Merry’s other side, Mokou, having eaten her pill, had jumped onto another orb, and was now sitting on top of it.

So Merry carefully climbed onto her own, copying Narumi’s pose. She felt an odd pressure keeping her attached to the ball -- less of a sticky sensation and almost something similar to magnetism. For a moment she’d wondered if, or how, they were going to roll forwards whilst their “riders” were on top of them, but then Narumi tapped the side of her orb, and in perfect synchronicity, all three orbs bounced forwards.

Merry had just enough time to get a terrifying glimpse of her immediate future before the orbs began bounding forwards rapidly, with Marisa floating overhead and grinning down at them.

They accelerated quickly, and soon the metallic landscape was speeding past them. As far as clinging to a giant bouncing orb went, it wasn’t totally uncomfortable -- it seemed to be specifically cushioned so that the actual shock of the constant impacts was almost unnoticeable, but that did next to nothing for the bouncing itself.

As they bounded out of the cylindrical segment into the spherical segment, Marisa noticed a shift from a plain, metal landscape into something with more human touches; painted walls, some pictures, false windows and the like. She also noticed that despite being obviously curved from the schematics they’d seen earlier, it appeared to be completely flat. As they passed through, she saw doors leading out of this and other branching corridors, as well as wider corridors leading into what looked like large, open areas.

Between the speed and the disorientation caused by the bouncing, the most that Merry was able to gather was that the walls kept changing colours.

They bounced down an immense stairwell, round more corridors -- Marisa was beginning to wonder how all of this fit inside the spacecraft, but chalked it up to the same kind of weird technology as everything else -- until they finally stopped, with a complete lack of regard for inertia, in front of a door much like any of the others.

Whilst Merry collapsed against a wall, waiting for the world to stop spinning around her, Marisa landed and gave Narumi a thumbs-up. “That worked great!” she said.

Narumi nodded, jumping off her orb easily, then tapping it on the side and watching as all three shrunk again. There was a thud as Mokou hit the ground. “It did! We managed to get to that speed, and it barely caused any problems! The stabilisers were a really good idea… Now I just have to work on the other stuff.”

“Just tell people to wear blindfolds,” said Marisa. “And probably keep a supply of my stomach pills.”

Narumi nodded back at her. “I always forget about that,” she said. Merry tried standing up and fell over again, so Narumi went and helped her up.

Merry looked over to see an enthusiastically grinning face staring back at her. “So, uh…” the face said, blurring across her vision, “…what did you think…?”

Merry simply shook her head, and then, as the world slowly clarified itself, glanced over at the door. “Is this… the right one…?”

Narumi glanced at it. It was exactly like all the other doors. “Uh… probably.”

“Only one way to find out!” declared Marisa, and knocked.

She was awoken by the sound of someone knocking on her door. At first, she thought it was part of her dream, but caught herself before she replied.

But still, who could be knocking?

She thought things over for a moment. Maybe someone had finally come to find her? But it’d been so long. What would have brought them here now?

Quickly getting dressed, she wandered over to the door and looked through the peephole to see a bunch of strangers -- seemingly humans. She briefly wondered what humans were doing on the ship, but that quickly gave way to an even larger desire to not interact with them. That wasn’t her business, and it wasn’t a mystery she was particularly interested in.

The solid door muffled the sound, but she could tell they were discussing something. She watched for a moment, and they began to move away, except for one -- a white-haired woman wearing a discoloured shirt and a red hakama -- who watched the door carefully for a moment.

The resident moved away from the door. Hopefully they would leave her alone, but if she was awake anyway, she may as well start getting ready for the day now that she was awake--

The door flew through the room and slammed into the opposite wall of her small apartment.

“What was that for?!” yelled Marisa immediately.

“There was someone in there,” said Mokou, in what could theoretically be referred to as a ‘reasonable tone’, “and I didn’t think they were going to come out.”

“But you kicked her door in!”

Mokou shrugged. “I mean, she can just move to another apartment. Not like there’s much demand for ‘em anymore. I’ll help her move, if I have to.”

Narumi looked over her shoulder. “I hope you didn’t hit her, at least…”

“Nah, she’s fine.” Mokou gestured. “See?”

The three of them looked at the occupant for a moment, and she stared back at them with an expression that mixed alarm, confusion, and distaste. Then, Marisa snapped her fingers.

“It’s you!” she said. “Whatserface, from the Moon!”

“Whatserface?” replied the Lunarian. She frowned at Marisa. “I don’t remember ever meeting you.”

“It would have been like… a while for you, I guess?” replied Marisa. “Well, it was a while for me, but not as long as for you! I’m Kirisame Marisa! I visited the Moon a few times, like, a thousand years ago?”

The Lunarian stared at her blankly. “I… don’t remember.”

“Wait, you’re from the Moon?” interrupted Mokou. “What’re you doing here, then?”

“Well,” said the Lunarian sharply, gesturing vaguely, “I can’t really go back there, can I? The Lunar Capital’s been destroyed, and all the others are either-- are either--” She hesitated. “They’re--”

Marisa caught her as she collapsed. She looked almost on the verge of tears, but had the attitude of someone desperately trying not to cry.

“It’s, uh--” she started. “It’s alright…?”

She looked around at the others desperately. Narumi looked around, saw a small couch in the corner, and helped Marisa take the Lunarian over to it. The Lunarian just stared down at the ground silently.

“Can I, uh… get you anything?” asked Narumi.

The Lunarian mumbled something.

“What was that?”

“She said she wants to go home,” replied Marisa. “Though I think a peach’ll be fine for now. Lunarians love peaches.”

As Marisa and Narumi began arguing over where they’d find a peach on the spacecraft, Merry, finally seeing straight enough to walk into the room, sat down next to the Lunarian.

She thought carefully about her opening line.

“…So you’re from the Moon?”

“I was,” she replied, not looking up at Merry.

“Why are you here, then?”

“I was sent to ensure that this ship wouldn’t find the Capital, when--” She looked at her, noticing Merry for the first time. She squinted at her, examining her, then glared, and then looked surprised. “It’s you!” she exclaimed, after that moment. “What are you doing here? But--” She frowned, and then squinted at Merry. “But you’re-- but--”

“I found a peach!” interrupted Marisa, and presented a sad-looking, slightly squashed fruit in front of the two. The Lunarian looked at it in disgust, and then back at the grinning Marisa. “It’s not from the Moon though, it’s just a snack I brought with me.”

The Lunarian’s gaze fell back to the peach. “I’m not eating that.”

Marisa placed it on a small table next to the couch. “In case you change your mind,” she said cheerfully. “Anyway, what did happen to the Moon? You’re kinda dodging the question.”

“It was attacked.”

The Lunar Capital had been observing the dead spacecraft for a while. Although there were no humans on board after the catastrophic plague had infected all eight of the Ark-Class vessels, their automated computers were still running, and they were getting smarter. Within a few hundred years, they could be able to detect the Far Side of the Moon -- and with what was happening on Earth, that could be a potential threat.

And even the most remote of threats to the security of the Capital was worth following up on.

One of the Emissaries, leading a group of Moon rabbits, was sent to resolve the threat. She led them to each of the eight ships in turn, carefully disabling the systems so that everything outside of the essentials was deactivated. Destroying them would be suspicious -- the gradual death created by switching the ships off would be far more effective.

And then, on the eighth and last vessel, she suddenly got an alert from one of the Moon rabbits. “There’s something weird going on at the Capital,” they said. “Everyone’s saying a hole opened in the sky.”

“That’s not possible,” she had replied.

“Something’s come through it,” the rabbit had replied. “But no-one’s been able to work out what it is.”

She could have said that she saw it happen. But deep within the ship, the first she knew about it was when she emerged from watching the rabbits fulfil their task, tried to take them all back to the Capital -- and failed.

With the ship switching itself off, they had a limited window of time to find out what happened, but she was able to see that the Moon itself had been shattered. A physical attack of incomprehensible proportions that tore down the line between fantasy and reality with sheer, brutal force.

The rabbits had discussed among themselves, and agreed to take an escape pod to go down to Earth. Apparently some of the other Moon rabbits had made it down to Earth; if anyone else had escaped, they’d probably be on Earth too. No-one really knew that the Lunarian and her rabbits were on that ship, after all, beyond her sister and a few others.

In other words, outside of a number of people she could count on one hand, who might not even be-- who might not be out there, no-one would ever come looking for her.

She stayed behind, though. At that time, it had been a simple matter of the thousands of years that she had believed in the impurity of the Earth. If it were a choice between a world of empty, unaging steel and a world so seeped in life and death, that was an easy one.

“So you were basically too stubborn to leave, huh,” concluded Marisa.

The Lunarian glared at her. “I’d rather stay up here than step foot on such an impure world,” she replied, scowling.

Mokou was giving her an odd look. “I’ve seen you on Earth before, though,” she said.

The Lunarian blushed, and looked away. “That was-- that’s different--” she started.

“You visited Kaguya a few times,” Mokou continued. “Or Eirin, but it’s the same difference. Hell, I think I gave you directions once.” She paused thoughtfully. “Might’ve been your sister. But you’re one of the Watastukis, right?”

Watastuki no Toyohime hung her head. “…Yes.”

“Now, I reckon,” Mokou gestured to Merry, who got up, allowing Mokou to sit next to Toyohime, whilst the others watched in fascinated silence, “that you just don’t want to admit that you’ve been up here the whole time.”

Toyohime’s face went through a variety of expressions, very quickly. “That-- absolutely not-- I--”

“You’d rather be a ghost on this spaceship, than admit that you couldn’t do anything.” Mokou smiled meanly. “Or that you didn’t even try.”

“You--”

“But it’s not worth bein’ a ghost, right?” Mokou gazed up at the ceiling. “I’ve tried it. Tried a lot of things. Haven’t been happy with any of ‘em for a long time. It’s only really recently that I’ve been thinking… I haven’t been this happy since long before I first drank that damned elixir.”

“…You’re the human who drank the Hourai Elixir. The one that Master Yagokoro told me about.”

Across the room, Merry wandered out of the room, and after a moment, Marisa followed.

Mokou turned back to face Toyohime. “I’m Fujiwara no Mokou,” she confirmed. “The immortal human.”

Toyohime was silent. Then, “Even if you say that, there’s nothing for me on the Earth.”

Mokou sighed. “Damned Lunarians,” she muttered. “At the very least, your precious Master’s still gonna be down there, y’know? She’s as immortal as I am. So’s Kaguya, but I’d get it if you didn’t want to see her again. And if you don’t want to stick around on Earth, you can always go to the Netherworld or something? That’s as much of a Pure Land as the Capital was. Least, that’s what Eirin told me.”

“I--”

Mokou got up, and shrugged. “I mean, you can stay here if you want to. We’re from like, a million years ago or something, so it doesn’t really matter what you do.” She thought about that for a moment. “Suppose it wouldn’t matter even if I were the me from now, unless you decide to go down and fight me or something. Anyway, do you want us to fix your door?”

Toyohime blinked at her from inside the haze of thoughts she’d been doing her best not to think for centuries. “Uh… I’ll just move rooms.”

“Suit yourself.” Mokou looked around. “I’m gonna go look for the others, then.”

Mokou walked out, with Narumi following shortly after. Toyohime looked at the sad, squashed little peach on the table next to her. Then, when she was sure no-one was coming back, she began to eat it.

“Computer, can you hear me?”

“Audio reception confirmed.”

Merry had only gone a few doors down, to another room. This one was empty, but spotless, like everything else on the ship. She sat down on the couch and spoke to the ceiling.

“Computer, how was the majority of the human population of this ship killed?”

There was an odd pause, and then a different voice answered her question.

“This is a message from the Endless Dream. Repeat, this is a message from the Endless Dream.”

The voice was calm, collected, carefully-spoken, and hoarse.

“As of three days ago, an unknown virus has infected the Ark portion of this vessel. We were unable to quarantine the area in time. Our analyses show that it had already become airborne and highly infectious before it began to show symptoms; due to the usual transfers with the other Ark-class vessels, it’s highly likely that the other ships are also infected.

“The virus is a highly lethal neurological variety. After three weeks of dormancy as it spreads throughout the body, it will attack the spinal column, resulting in loss of feeling and mobility, shortly followed by death. Due to this unusual behaviour, we suspect it may be artificial in origin. I have no speculations as to who engineered it, or why.

“To those who receive this message: do not approach this ship. Although it is likely the virus will expire without any hosts, it would require an extended amount of time to do so, especially considering it is already designed for dormancy. As manager of the Ark fleet, I have declared a quarantine on all eight vessels, to be maintained for a full century. All gateways have been sealed.

“My regrets to those within, those with relatives on board, and those with hopes for this project. I have done all I can. Along with my crew, I am already infected, and symptoms have already begun to show themselves. I wish you the best. Commander Okazaki, out.”

Merry sat there in silence for a long while.

“…Computer, what was this ship built for?”

“The Endless Dream is the flagship of the Ark-class fleet, intended to maintain the existence of the human species in the event of total environmental collapse until such time as the Earth can be repopulated. It contains samples of fifteen million extant life forms, as well as capabilities for travel to previous eras and locations on Earth in order to gather such lifeforms that could not be collected. It was based on the prior research--”

“But if everyone’s dead,” interrupted Merry, “then it’s over, isn’t it? How many humans are there still on Earth?”

“Eight hundred and fifty-one million, two hundred and eighty-four thousand, six hundred and forty-nine, as of the most recent scan.”

“Less than a billion…” Merry sighed to herself. “I want to go home.”

“If you’re like Sumireko,” said Marisa, standing in the doorway, “you should be able to go home at any time.”

“I’d normally be back by now,” agreed Merry, “but it’s not happening this time.”

Marisa shrugged. “Just gotta wait, then. But, c’mon. All this future stuff is…” She hesitated. “…I mean, don’t worry about it. It’s not… it’s not something you’ll have to worry about.”

“Every day,” said Merry, in a soft monotone, “we’re told the world’s going to end. Everything’s getting worse, and there’s no end in sight. And now I’m here, and it turns out that the world’s already ended, and there’s nothing left for us.”

“There’s Gensokyo.”

Merry laughed bitterly. “That’s not for humans. Gensokyo’s a world of youkai, and monsters, but not humans.”

“I’m human,” protested Marisa. “Plus, I know lots of humans there. Gensokyo accepts anyone who’s willing to accept Gensokyo. Least, that’s what Yukari says.”

Merry just nodded. “If you say so. For now, I’m just… tired.”

Marisa nodded back. “Maybe we could send you home through one of the portals? I think the one we used should still be open.”

“I don’t think it works that way.”

Nonetheless, Merry walked over to Marisa. “I don’t know how much of this works, really,” Marisa admitted, as they began walking out. “It’s all a bit outside my area of expertise. And I don’t really want to spend too much longer up here today.”

Mokou and Narumi walked into them right as they left the room. Narumi glanced at the haggard-looking Merry. “Is everything okay with her?”

“She’s just having a rough one,” said Marisa. “Don’t blame her, either. I think we should go reset the time door, and then head back home for now. It’s a cool place to explore, but…” Marisa looked up and down the empty corridor. “…I don’t really wanna spend the night here, y’know.”

Narumi took out her orbs again, but Marisa shook her head. “I think this time we should just walk,” she said carefully. “And if Merry gets too tired, Mokou can carry her.”

And they began to walk back.

“They’re going so soon?”

“Seems like it. Marisa says they’ll be coming back, but--”

“But of course, now we know what that ship’s capable of, we’re going to have to seal those portals. Wouldn’t want our Lunarian friend to get any strange ideas.”

“Was it for the best that we let them learn as much as they have? They could cause a lot of harm by knowing the future.”

“Or a lot of good. It’s all a matter of how you use it.”

“Are you still planning on visiting them?”

A pause. “I think they’ve learnt enough for now. But I’ll send someone up to close the portals behind them. Can’t give them the chance to change their minds, right?”

“Of course.”

“And after that… well, I’ve a mind to see what other secrets that ship has hidden away.”

As they walked out of the sphere and back into the wide, plain metal corridors of the cylindrical segment, Marisa paused for a moment.

The others looked at her, but she shook her head. “Thought I heard something.”

They looked around for a moment, but everything was the same. They kept walking.

“Is it alright, leaving her there?” asked Narumi, after a while. “The Lunarian, I mean. After you said all that to her, I thought, maybe--”

Mokou shrugged. “She’s free to do what she wants. If she wants to rot away up here, it’s fine by me.” She grinned suddenly. “Hey, maybe I should tell her fortune next time I see her, huh?”

“Probably a bad idea to tell people their futures,” said Marisa sagely. “No-one likes a fortune teller who’s too accurate.”

They kept walking. Everything was silent except for their footsteps.

After a while, there was a trail of red dots on the ground, and later than that, shining stars on the ceiling. They passed by the control room, with the screen still showing the battered Earth and the ruined Moon, slowly rotating past.

“I don’t think we’re ever coming back here,” said Marisa suddenly. She was looking back the way they’d come as she said it. “I wonder…” And she turned, and looked over at the Earth. “I could go anywhere from here. I could go down and see what Gensokyo’s like now, or I could go… I could go to the Outside World. Or I could stay here, like whatserface did, and just learn all about this place.”

“Are you going to?” asked Narumi.

“Nah,” replied Marisa cheerfully. “Wouldn’t be any fun without everyone else.”

She walked out of the room. After a moment, Narumi and Merry did the same. Mokou paused for a moment, then grabbed one of the computers off the desks, tucked it under her arm, and followed them.

The person that was following them laughed to herself. “That hasn’t changed, then,” she said quietly.

And so they came to the door. The corridor was brightly lit now.

Marisa went over to the controls, tapped through to ‘time synchronisation’, and scrolled it over to the middle.

Merry suddenly fell backwards against the wall, and smiled. “That must have been doing it,” she said, voice suddenly heavy with sleep, “because I’m suddenly… suddenly…”

And she vanished.

The three of them stared at the space she’d been for a moment.

“See ya, Merry,” said Marisa. “Or hope I do, at least. Anyway, who’s ready to go home?”

“Me,” replied Narumi. “This place still gives me the creeps.” And she jumped through.

“If it gave her the creeps, she should’ve said something,” said Marisa, going through. “I didn’t force her to come, after all.”

Mokou, still holding the computer, followed.

After a moment’s pause, the person following them rushed over to the console and tapped the ‘deactivate’ button.

The three of them stood on the other side of the door, looking around at the Forest.

“I hope I did that right,” said Marisa, “and it’s not been a thousand years or anything.”

There was a sudden, subdued hiss from behind them, and they turned to see the door suddenly fade from view, as if it had never been, leaving an empty clearing.

They’d had less than a second to observe their pursuer.

“That was--” started Narumi.

Marisa grinned. “Sure was.” She put her arms behind her head, and began walking off. “Hey, Mokou, if you’d like, we can take that to Kourindou, and see if we can get it working. If Kourin can’t do it, then maybe Sumireko can.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t grab a computer for yourself, Marisa,” said Narumi.

The other magician grinned, then reached into one of her pockets and grabbed out an odd metal object. “Took enough other stuff.”

“Of course.”

With Mokou leading the way out of the Forest, they left the empty clearing.

The most recent of the Endless Dream’s arrivals continued to work at the console for another few minutes, carefully switching it off, then blasting it to shrapnel to ensure it couldn’t be used -- not for a while, at least. She wouldn’t put it past the ship to be able to repair itself before they could properly secure it.

She wandered from gate to gate, deactivating and destroying the others without really noting what was on the other side. Then, she took a strange curved stick, somewhat like a microphone, out of one of her pockets. She tapped it, and the end lit up with a bright purple light.

“I’ve smashed all the gates,” she said into the light, and sighed. “I really did want to try them, though…”

“Maybe once we’re sure nothing bad is going to happen,” replied a voice, echoing through the corridors. “We’re in undiscovered territory now, after all.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she replied, wandering out and into the control room. “Anyway, Yukari, just--” She noticed something on the screen, hesitated, and then tapped the stick, causing the light to go out. Then, she jumped over the desks until she was standing next to the one right below the big screen. She looked down at a small, blinking blue light.

At the bottom of the screen, flashing, were the words:

--- PERSONAL INTERFACE REBOOT SUCCESSFUL ---

--- PLEASE ACTIVATE PERSONAL INTERFACE ---

She pressed down on the light, and it clicked, in the satisfying way that buttons should.

The screen flickered again, and then a series of holographic projectors switched on all around the room, forming the shape of a tall woman with a red outfit, complete with cape. The hologram looked around for a moment before noticing the other person in the room, who was sitting on one of the desks and looking up at it.

The ‘personal interface’ aboard the Endless Dream was a state-of-the-art sentient AI, intended to learn from those around it to adapt to any situation the ship might find itself in; but in the end, it had stubbornly remained based on the person that created it, and who had spoken to it for years before plugging it into a spaceship. When the crew had died of disease, it had recorded its creator’s last statement, transmitted it, and gone silent.

It had been the first thing the Lunarians had switched off; and the tiny, automated drones, repairing its systems, had taken hours to repair the damage they'd done, checking against backups and making thousands of miniscule, impossibly careful corrections to ensure its personality and knowledge were intact. But they’d finally finished, just in time for the human that woke them up to leave.

It hesitated. “Someone mentioned Gensokyo, but that was a few hours ago--”

“Oh, I can tell you about Gensokyo, but you’ve gotta tell me about yourself, too.”

The interface looked down at her.

“And… who are you…?” it asked.

A grin. “I’m Kirisame Marisa, a magician from Gensokyo. Pleased to meet you!”