Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Ugh.”

It’s been a fine night. Not too warm, not too cold. Leaves curling in the middle of autumn. The evening’s constellations in full view. Nath tries to keep her gait steady, her head straight.

They went to a club together for the first time. Of course, it was Sham’s idea. She took them to a place with smooth jazz, sparkling wine, servers in dinner jackets and sharp, pointed shoes. She dressed up for the occasion – maybe a little too much. She could feel people staring at her, even though she had her prosthetics on.

She never thought she’d wear this evening dress. Red, backless, with a v-shaped neckline and no sleeves. Form-fitting. For a long time, she didn’t have the courage to wear dresses like these; when she finally stopped caring, she found she no longer had the occasion to.

Beside her, walking a little more unsteadily than usual, is Sham herself. She was experimenting with a more boyish look tonight, she says – white shirt, black pants, a waistcoat, and a red tie. It’s a good look for her – stylish, without being too showy.

On her back, moaning softly in a little black dress, is Sora, who has spent her night discovering alcopops.

They crept up on her, of course. That’s what they’re designed to do. Attractive colours, flavours that mask the taste of alcohol. So many to try, so much to experience. She’s never been intoxicated before, and she didn’t see it coming until she tried to stand up.

At the very least, she is a happy drunk. Even now, with her cheeks flushed and her head spinning, she has a quiet, satisfied little smile. For Nath, there is something deeply important about that. She is safe and among friends, and she knows it.

“You wanna switch?” Sham asks. “She’s not too heavy, right?”

“It’s fine.” She grips Sora’s legs a little tighter. “But if she starts throwing up, I’ll make sure to pass her over. How’re you feeling?”

“Ahahaha. I think I had a couple of rum and cokes too many, but I’m alright. You sure it’s okay to stay at your house?”

“It should be fine. I’m short on beds, but I don’t think I’d trust either of you to get home by yourselves.”

It isn’t the most dignified way to end a night out. But it was fun. Even she can admit that. A little bit out of her comfort zone, and she’s still not sure the world is ready for this kind of neckline. But fun.

Sora presses her head against her as she walks – her cheeks warm against the cool skin of her back.

“Love you guys”, she mumbles, with the confidence of the happily drunk. “Really… really…”

They halt, and look at each other.

“Aw… I hope I’m not too drunk to remember this in the morning…” Sham mutters. There are tears in the corners of her eyes.

It’s been a fine night, Nath thinks. She’s looking forward to the next one.

Chapter Text

Sora talks differently with her to everybody else.

She’s seen it, from the corner of her eye, when Sora speaks with Hime or Suguri or Sham. Always quietly, politely. Such a soft voice, for a girl with so much power.

Perhaps it’s an issue of confidence. Communication has never been her forte; her kind words and desire for peace never won over anybody during the war. (For the record, Nath likes to think she would have joined her. But the skein of history is tangled. Nobody knows for sure what might have been, even them).

The uncertainty seeps through in her words. She slows mid-thought, picking and choosing her sentences. Trying to test their weight. She gropes for words that aren’t quite there, scowls ever so slightly when they slip through her fingertips. Often, she tires of explaining herself, and chooses not to. She is fortunate to be surrounded by the long-lived, who have learned patience by necessity; there aren’t many who make the effort to listen to her, as she needs to be listened to.

It’s why, in Nath’s opinion, Sham is a blessing to her. Anybody can see that. The idol has the gift of the gab, but more importantly, she is always listening to what Sora has to say – with both her ears, and her heart. She takes the words Sora is looking for, and renders them with charm and eloquence. Nobody else can provide that for her. Nobody could even hope to.

But in her own way, Sora is moving forward.

Words aren’t the only way to communicate, and bit by bit, she is exploring her avenues. Her face is more expressive than it once was; where once she kept her gaze fixed towards the person she was speaking to (eyes on the enemy, always look at your commanding officer when they speak), now she is full of meaningful glances, letting her eyes fill in the gaps that her mouth leaves.

More than anything, she has learned to speak with her hands. She has always been dextrous, and good at manual work; her gestures are understated, but wonderfully expressive for anybody who pays attention to them. With such small subtle movements, she nudges people along the path they need to go, and trusts they can find the rest of the way themselves.

Except for Nath.

When she speaks to Nath, her hands are perfectly still. It’s obvious why. In a sense, it’s an act of kindness. Of not flaunting privileges Nath doesn’t have. But it’s a kindness that forces Sora to stay in her quiet world, where people struggle to understand her. That’s not the kind of kindness that Nath wants. Not at all.

She has yet to consider the idea that for Sora, speaking with her hands is just as exhausting as speaking with words. That her hands are still because, with Nath, she is relaxed.

She will, though. In time. It’s easy to forget, after all, that communication has never been Nath’s forte, either.

Chapter Text

“Oi, Nitori. D’ya mind if I ask you something?”

Ordinarily, there would be a pause there – some chance for her to shake her head, say no, or make any response at all. But that’s just not the way Marisa is. Even three beers in, her wits are quick enough to realise that if she gives people the chance to say no, they might just take her up on it.

“Is it true what they say about kappa?”

“Ahaha… that depends what they’re saying.”

Nitori tugs at her collar. It’s a little too hot so far from the river, and the sake is only warming her body more. She came to the feast because she heard there’d be a new type of sushi stolen from the Outside World – gunkan maki wrapped with cucumber instead of seaweed. So far, there’s been rice and there’s been cucumber, but no evidence that the two can co-exist peacefully under clumsy human hands.

It’s not been a bad night, she supposes. Just a noisy one. She’s a rare guest at the Hakurei Shrine, and the bawdier youkai are a little much for her.

“We-ll,” Marisa begins, and Nitori’s heart sinks. Whatever they’re saying about kappa apparently isn’t good, because Marisa has lowered her voice. She’s not whispering – the witch has been to enough parties and doled out enough gossip to know that whispering can be louder than shouting, depending on where you do it.

It’s her way of being considerate, especially to a shy girl like Nitori. But it doesn’t matter how quietly she speaks. There are certain guests who will always hang onto Marisa’s every word.

The witch takes another swig of her beer. Still nonchalant. “Do kappa really have three anuses?”

Somebody at the table spits out their drink.

“H-hey! Don’t go spreading weird rumours like that!” Nitori hisses. But the damage is already done. People are looking at her. Or, rather, youkai are looking at her, with curiosity in their eyes. They’re not the type of creatures to let a mystery sit beneath their noses. They’re the type to roll up their sleeves and check, common decency be damned.

She feels herself shrinking back. She doesn’t want to be here any more. It’s too hot, too loud, too dangerous. She needs to make her escape. Maybe the optical camouflage – but will it work on so many different types of youkai? There’s bound to be at least one who’ll see through it –

“Oh, wait. Did I get it wrong?” Marisa throws her a meaningful, if drunken glance, and holds up one hand for peace. “That’s right, yeah. It wasn’t three anuses. It was three assholes. The blonde hair, the dark hair and the green hair, right?”

The talk quickly turns back to other matters; there’s no interest for random nameless kappa. For now, she is saved. Marisa mouths one word – sorry – and goes back to her drink.

Nitori sighs. What a clumsy and troublesome ally she’s found herself.

But an ally, all the same.

Chapter Text

“Oh, my. I’m very sorry, Suguri, but I can’t eat a bite more. I think I’ve been sufficiently baconated for one morning.”

This was a shame, because Suguri’s breakfast in bed consisted entirely of bacon. She’d been practising in secret, waiting for Hime to sleep in one day and allow her to activate her Emergency Breakfast In Bed Protocol. Unfortunately, she had practised so hard at making bacon that she seemed to have lost the ability to make anything else, or operate any piece of kitchen equipment that was not a frying pan. She’d tried the toaster. The toaster no longer worked. It was a disaster.

Only slightly less of a disaster was Hime’s hair, which did not officially exist at this moment in time. Hime did not suffer from bed head, and implying that she did was a war crime. Her soft, golden curls naturally arranged themselves the moment she woke up, and anybody who did not share this vision of reality could look forward to being summarily executed, or at least tickled until they had to relearn how to breathe. As a result, her hair was currently invisible, until such a time as it took a form humankind was more comfortable with.

This was, however, not the only oddity about Hime’s appearance. Her eyes, bowing to the pressure to be ecologically conscious, had brought their own bags with them to the store today. She was obviously tired – not a bad kind of tired, necessarily, but she had the air of a bedraggled philosopher who had been up all night achieving enlightenment, and who would have made considerably better progress if they’d just gone to sleep.

Suguri noticed, of course. As the significant other, it was her job to notice. The only question was how to broach the subject. In the end, she settled for tactfully suggesting that they could, if the mood took them, have a lie-in for the day. There would be cuddling.

“Well, it’s my own fault. After you went to bed last night, I stayed up for a little while on the computer.”

“Ah,” Suguri nodded. This made sense. There were many videos of cats that Hime was yet to consume.

“And, after a while, I happened to search your name on the internet.”

Suguri nodded. Then she shook her head. Then she shook the rest of her body as fear energy vibrated through her molecules.

“Did you know that people draw pictures of you and put them on the internet?” Hime said, with a distant smile. “In such a variety of… hmhm. Poses, shall we say.”

Suguri gulped. A wiser woman might well have taken the opportunity to start running.

“You know, I do think you’re right. I think that we, collectively, could do with a lie-in. And I believe you mentioned cuddles? Yes, I think I could use some cuddling.”

Hime’s soft smile permitted no escape.

And Suguri had the sinking feeling that even bacon could not prepare her for what was coming.

Chapter Text

Keine looked at the ruined remains of her plans for the day, and sighed.

She wasn’t sad, per se. Not really. Life in Gensokyo prepared a person for things going wrong; there were too many eccentrics, with too many fingers in too many pies, for even simple things to go without incident.

Her Sunday School was a perfect example of that. At first, it was meant to be just for humans. Unlike certain shrine maidens, she had no interest in helping youkai or playing at being friends with them.

But then the fairies started showing up, and things quickly went off the rails. The human children didn’t mind them – supported them, even, since they were energetic and fun to play with. Several thoughts had battled inside Keine’s heart – a genuine passion for teaching, a love of kids, pity for idiots, the desire to shield her human charges from any accidental harm, and the sneaking admission that fairies were not, technically, youkai. If they could be made more friendly to humankind, perhaps even useful…

Then they brought friends, and of course their friends were the low-level, punk youkai that were friendliest towards humans and most acceptable to the villagers. Soon she was outvoted by her own classroom, and before she knew it, she was teaching an entirely mixed class.

It had been a swelteringly hot day, and, as a treat – let nobody say that she was against fun – she’d prepared something special. The owner of Kourindou had sold her “a castle that is fortified with air and, once erected, can fully contain the power of water.” Or, in the words of the passing Moriya Shrine maiden, a paddling pool. It seemed like a good way to reward her students for their diligence (or what passed for it) on such a hot day.

Everything went well until Cirno showed up.

It wasn’t her fault. Not really. That was the worst thing about it. She saw the others sitting at the side, kicking their feet in the water, and followed suit. That was what fairies did; nobody could blame her for it.

But then the water started to freeze around her ankles.

Unperturbed, she hiked her dress and waded into the centre of the pool, miniature icebergs floating along in her wake, to join in on all the splashing and playing that the other children were doing.

But the water Cirno splashed was very cold. So cold, in fact, that some of the children started to take offence. One very bold child, the blacksmith’s son, gave her a rough shove as a warning.

Fairies were very light.

She toppled backwards, the sharp tips of her icy wings fluttering as she did.

Something went ‘pop’. And suddenly the school grounds were more irrigated than the village field.

Nothing ever went right in Gensokyo. As she looked over a ruined paddling pool and crying children, Keine sighed heavily.

But she still gave Cirno a comforting rub on the head as she cleared up the mess.

Chapter Text

Sanae closed her eyes, and listened to the silence.

Her clock, one of the last stubborn survivors from the outside world, had stopped last night. Out of batteries. She missed it already – the constant, re-assuring ‘tock-tock’ (it had been a cheaply made kind of clock. The budget had not allowed for the inclusion of ticks). She’d had it since she was a child, and now it was gone; she’d almost certainly never see another like it.

She rolled over in her futon.

Her mobile phone was, of course, dead. She took it out sometimes and played with the empty shell, as if hoping that it might come to life. Maybe it would become a tsukumogami if she wished hard enough. It wasn’t impossible, although it might take a very long time. A hundred years, or something like that…? It was a long time to wait to be able to play Tetris again.

The quicker option would be to get the kappa to make batteries, but it was a project that didn’t hold any interest to the majority of them. Kappa thought big, not small. Anything that didn’t need hydro-electric generators or nuclear power wasn’t worth bothering with; it could just be run off a person’s spiritual power as far as they were concerned. Which was fine, for new inventions, but it wouldn’t bring back the clock she missed, or the phone she had grown attached to.

It was strange how technology could be both modern and nostalgic to her at the same time. A bizarre oxymoron.

It wasn’t just her phone and her clock. Most of her wardrobe had been lost as well. The conditions were so different here, and modern clothes were only made to last a few years or so anyway. Not to mention the wear and tear was a little more excessive. Stains at festivals, tears from flying low amongst the branches. Singed holes from barely dodged danmaku. Her favourite jeans had never stood a chance.

But that was just how it was, wasn’t it? That was Gensokyo. The land of gods and phantoms and youkai, the land of the ancient and forgotten. Humans lived here, but they did not flourish or advance; they existed because they were allowed to, because it was convenient for things larger and stronger and more mysterious than them.

Modern things didn’t belong here. They atrophied. They broke down. And they did it so quickly, so easily, like the land itself was destroying them. They didn’t belong here, any more than kamaitachi or yamabiko belonged in the outside world.

She rolled over again.

When she thought about it –

When she thought about it, she really wasn’t too much older than that clock, or that phone.

She, too, was a modern thing in a land of myth. How long would it take for Gensokyo to reject her, as well?

She wouldn’t let it happen. She couldn’t.

She’d work harder. She’d change.

Gensokyo demanded myths. And Sanae had decided: she would become a legend.

Chapter Text

It was a slow morning at the Inugami Bakery. The winter had finally bitten, and even though the inside of the bakery was snug, the store window had frosted over on the outside. Even hot coffee and croissants struggled to tempt customers out of their warm cars and offices on a day like that.

It was, perhaps, for the best. One of the morning staff had called in sick with a fever, and Korone had been left to work the register. Usually she spent most of her time safely in the back of shop, working the dough and minding the ovens, but today the owner had decided to handle it. It couldn’t be helped, and she knew it couldn’t be helped, but still… For a shy person like her, it was tough to deal with the customers.

Thankfully, they were few and far between, so she spent the extra time and energy polishing the display cases and setting out tables for dine-in customers during the lunch rush. By then, things would have warmed up, and people would happily stroll back out of their offices to forage for food. When that was done, the owner would go out on delivery… the shape of the day was forming in her head.

The bell tinkled as somebody walked into the store. Her head shot up as she greeted them with the traditional ‘irasshaimase’ – and then her face broke into a smile.

“Oh, Koro-san. You’re on the till today, huh?”

Okayu. Her favourite customer. Possibly her favourite anything. There was a lot about her to love. A soothing voice, a way with words – always talking, always teasing, gently drawing you out of yourself, little by little. And a sense of humour so close to her own that if one of them laughed, the other inevitably joined in.

“Okayu!” she said. It was a start. The rest of the words muddled themselves up in her mouth; she wanted to say all sorts of things at once, and none of them came out.

“Hahaha. You seem like you’re doing fine. Just don’t box any of the customers, alright?” Okayu said, miming a three hit combo. Just like that, she cut through the mess of sound Korone found herself making. She was good at that. “So, what’s good on the menu today?”

“Everything. The owner’s baking today.” She put her hands on her hips and thrust out her chest proudly.

“Oh? But you know… I kinda prefer it when you bake. Right, here!”

The cat held out her hands. Korone looked at them, tilting her head, before reaching out…

“Gotcha!” Like a flash, Okayu pressed her cold fingers against her cheeks.

“Ahh! What you you think you’re doing?!”

“Warming myself up. What’s that saying – warm cheeks, warm heart?”

“It’s warm hands, and yours are freezing! Geez…”

She pouted, but it wouldn’t be long before they were laughing together again. Slowly, the customers began to file in – to a bakery that was just a little warmer than before.

Chapter Text

A still summer night in the Forest of Magic. Constellations wink down above the canopy; insects, of the kind the outside world has gratefully forgotten, fill the night with unsettling cries.

In the Kirisame Magic Shop, an oil lantern squeaks as Marisa adjusts the valve. She prefers candles when she can get them, because she’s as devoted to the aesthetics of a witch as she is any other part of the package, but her lantern is a reliable friend on her long nights of study and preparation. She’s found she can run it on the same mushroom extract that fuels the Hakkero, so she’s always got a ready fuel supply.

Fuel – where to get it, and how much you can grab – is part and parcel of being a witch. All spells need reagents; some are rare, delicate, hard to acquire and easy to waste. They don’t last all that long, either. When she first started to learn magic, she had no idea how much of her time would be spent on just pickling things to use later.

That’s why, for all their claims to the contrary, Alice and Patchouli are just as bad about hoarding as she is – they just collect dolls and books, whereas she’ll collect everything. Gunpowder, crystals, mercury… she takes them while she can, by force if she has to, because if she runs out the magic stops. Without magic, she’s no stronger than an ordinary human.

The scratching of her quill continues as the night draws on.

To be honest, she wanted to be in bed by now. But she finds that her materials have more potency if she prepares them under the stars. Maybe it’s just because that’s her speciality. Maybe it’s something more. With magic, it’s hard to tell the root cause of anything; all that matters is the result.

She’s grown to love reagents she can make herself, or at least source easily. Powerful spells are all well and good, but they’re useless if you can’t get the stuff to fire them. Sure, everybody makes fun of her mushroom picking habits, but the mushrooms work, they’re there in abundance, and she even knows how to grow them. Sustainable fuel sources for a practical lifestyle.

It’s the same with the materials she’s making now. They’re not free, by any means – she still needs to source ink and paper, and time is an ingredient that only gets scarcer as life goes on. But she’s not roaming around outdoors searching for the scales on a moth’s wings, so it’s something.

When she’s done, she folds the paper up carefully, and puts them in a drawer where nobody will find them. The last she places gently onto the hakkero, and watches as it burns. They came out well again tonight. Not that anybody will know about it, other than her – though they don’t work without a name on them.

How do you fuel a ‘love powered master spark’?

Get good at writing love letters, for a start.

Chapter Text

Monday evening at a back-street karaoke club, two drinks and five songs in. She’s belting out old anime theme songs into the microphone, digging deep for the low notes and hearing her voice whistle on the high.

It’s been a rough day. She heard one of the customers talking about her as they left, while she was rushing by a tray for the display window. ‘A troublesome woman’, they called her. It’s the small cuts that hurt the most. After that, it felt like her balance was off for the rest of the day – too loud, too quiet, too fast and too slow. Just a little bit wrong, no matter how she tried to adjust herself.

Okayu’s solution was karaoke. It often is. A chance to drink, to dance, to burn off whatever’s eating you in the privacy of a soundproof booth. “Just sing,” the cat says softly, “and let the rest take care of itself for a while. You’re always trying to do too much, Koro-san.”

It’s good advice. It helps that Okayu’s voice is mellow, soulful. It’s a pleasure to hear her sing. Even just to hear her speak. It’s easy to get lost in the music when Okayu takes the mic; her glass and the plate of snacks seem to empty by themselves.

The cat’s glass stays fuller for longer. She’s learned by now how to nurse a drink; she’s a little more slender than most, and the alcohol seems to strip away her social filter with surprising ease. After the first few times, she adapted, and now she drinks in small, measured sips, with the smugness that comes of being in control.

But even so, she’s a lot less guarded than she thinks she is. It’s the confidence that does it. She has the self-assuredness to reach out to people, even touch them, and her feelings come across in those little brushes of her fingertips, the way she nudges your shoulder. She doesn’t even seem to realise she’s doing it.

Sometimes, Korone wishes she could be like that – that she could brush past the fear of being a ‘troublesome woman’, to extend a hand to people without hesitation.. Or even just that she had more people she wanted to extend a hand to. Right now, the only person she can truly reach out to is just in front of her.

It must show on her face, because Okayu sighs when she puts down the microphone. “Geez, Koro-san. How much energy do you even have?” she chides gently. “Well. We’d better order an extension.” She pauses. “And another beer. It’s been a while, so I’ll keep you company tonight.”

“Ah… Sorry. I mean, thank you. Okayu.”

She waves her hand idly – it’s nothing. “We should look pick a song you can really get your teeth into, though. Let’s see… Wonder if they have any death metal?”

“Oi, oi!”

They’re both giggling as they browse the tracklist. But eventually – as always – they settle on a love song instead.

Chapter Text

Satori’s pen scratches against paper – a rare luxury. Gensokyo has access to paper from the outside world, but the kind of youkai that live in the Underground are the kind that really rather enjoy pulling the skin off things, so parchment is easier to find. Although she lives in a palace, she’s against buying luxuries for herself – but she’s friends with Remilia, for whom frivolous luxuries are a badge of honour.

The western style fountain pen she’s using is a gift from the vampire, too. As is the ink – a deep, emerald green. Not suited at all for bureaucratic functions. Not that it was ever meant to be. She smiles at that. All the stationary you might want to write a letter to a friend.

“Really now,” she murmurs aloud. “What kind of person tries to drop hints to a mind reader?”

The kind of person who doesn’t care if you’re a mind reader or not, somebody thinks in the other room.

Satori rarely ever speaks to herself. She is, almost always, surrounded by animals, pets of all shapes and temperaments. As a rule, their senses are finer than a human’s or an oni’s; they can hear her as well when she whispers as when she shouts. Most of them can tell when she’s in a bad mood just from the sound of her footsteps.

She can’t say it’s not a comfortable life, although it is a little noisy. Hearing so many minds echo inside hers can be disorientating, and opening herself up to so many creatures can be emotionally taxing.

There are, however, things she can do to offset it. Having a sprawling home means it’s easy to pick a room in one of the far-flung wings and designate it as a quiet place. She’s also been told (by the miko of the Moriya Shrine) that a hat made of folded foil is a good defense, although she can’t see how she’d stand the constant rustling.

Her secret weapon is Okuu, whose mind is a very interesting place. Listening to Okuu’s thoughts is a bit like putting your ear to a seashell; it is a pleasant, ambient noise without much character. Sometimes a coherent thought does make its way across her mind, in the same way that a caravan of travellers occasionally make their way across a desert without dying halfway through. And yet, her favourite pet is also a nuclear physicist. It isn’t that she’s stupid, it’s just… she’s quite close to achieving enlightenment, sometimes. Yes, that’s the kindest way to put it.

She scratches Okuu under the chin, and continues her letter to Remilia. She’s sure the vampire’s ‘pen pal’ obsession is just her newest fad, and will be forgotten quickly enough. A shame. She really rather liked the idea. It’s nice to speak in a way that has no danger of reading somebody’s mind.

In Remilia’s case, there’s little danger of being able to read her handwriting, either. But that’s a thought she keeps to herself.

Chapter Text

“I have no interest in being a lesbian in real life.”

She doesn’t know why, of all the countless inane things Konata has said over the years, that’s the one that’s stuck with her. Discarding the issue of her sexuality – and there is no issue that Kagami is quite so eager to gloss over – it poses an interesting question. Just how segregated is Konata’s online persona from her real-life personality? What is the point at which one bleeds into the other?

That, in short, was how she found herself staring at the stats screen of a popular MMORPG, wishing the gap between level forty and level thirty-nine was not nearly so large.

At first, she wanted it to be just a little side project. Just to satisfy her intellectual curiosity. If she joined the same MMORPG that Konata was playing, surely they’d run into each other in short order. It wouldn’t take long. She could just play it a little after finishing her homework.

But then she realised that the top level raids, the real meat of the game’s content and the focus of much of the community, were locked until level eighty. Those were the kind of raids that Konata would no doubt be doing. So, with only mild trepidation, she began to climb.

At around level twenty-two, she had begun to realise that, even online, she and Konata lived in different worlds. Exp curves, farming spots, cooldown rotations, drop rates, guild dues, twinking – she could barely believe the amount of things she had to do for her next level up. How had Konata, everybody’s favourite slacker, acquired a habit that took so much work – so much diligence? It was the opposite of how she behaved in real life. Perhaps the online Konata was a different person after all.

She’d gotten her first marriage proposal at level thirty-two. She declined, of course, but it stuck with her. An online marriage – a contract between two people that only existed in a fantasy world. Sometimes it was just based on material goods and added perks, but wasn’t that true of marriage in real life? For others, it seemed almost genuine. As if the fantasy was enough for them. A digital home, wife, even kids…

She stops for the night at level forty-one. She got a legendary bow that the forums say is good, but there are bags under her eyes that will still be there in the morning.

She’s making french toast for breakfast (diet be damned) when the phone rings. After a click, Konata’s voice floats through the speakers, with a distressingly familiar question.

“Kagamin, do you mind if I copy your homework?”

Unusually, she crumples. She’s too tired to give out a lecture today.

“Actually, that reminds me. Tsukasa said you’d started playing E**rquest. What server are you on?”

“Uh… Aradune, I think?”

“That’s a shame. I’m on Cazic-Thule.”

Kagami says nothing. The toast sizzles in the pan.

And the road to level eighty is very long indeed.

Chapter Text

Mogu Mogu… Okayu!

So, for the next topic…

I heard recently that memory and sense of smell are connected. Like, if you smell a seaweed and rice ball, it’ll bring back memories of when your parents made them for you as a child-cat.

So, when you think about it like that… when you think about it like that, isn’t Koro-san’s memory so good because she’s a dog?

Yeah, yeah. That must be right.

As for me, I forget things all the time. I guess you would say I’m the type that has a lot of RAM, but no storage. Wouldn’t that make it tricky to play PC games? Well, it’s just my brain, so I guess it doesn’t matter, ha ha.

Thankfully, I can rely on Koro-san for most of the big stuff. She’s scary good at that. I can just text her over Line at any time and ask her my schedule, and somehow she’ll know exactly where I’m meant to be that day. It’s convenient, but I wonder if it’s really okay like that.

Ah, but sometimes she gets the answer wrong on purpose. I’ll ask her and she’ll say, “Ogayu! You were meant to come and visit me at the station today! How could you forget?!”, and I’ll say, bzzt! Wrong! I’m meant to be at a dance lesson right now!

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s how it is.

Ah, but that’s Koro-san for you. She might act goofy, but she’s weirdly conscious of people around her, right? She’ll fill your glass as soon as it empties, and she’ll pay attention to your expressions so she can worry about them later. If she wasn’t so conscious about things, she’d probably have it a lot easier when it comes to reaching out to people. Ah, but if she wasn’t so conscious, she wouldn’t be Koro-san. That’s just how it is.

Actually, come to think of it, isn’t her memory a little too good? Hahaha. And considering how she watches people… She might be the kind of person who keeps her grudges for a long, long time.

Shion, Aqua, are you going to be okay? You might want to think about making arrangements, just in case. Ahahaha.

Eh? Using Koro-san is too convenient? Isn’t there anything I have to remember myself?

Hm, hm. Well, thinking about it… Yeah, yeah, that’s right. There are a few things like that.

For instance, I can’t ask Koro-san to remember her own birthday for me. That’s going a bit too far.

What else… Hm. I can’t ask her to remember stories about herself, either. Ah, but even I can’t remember all of them. There’s so many. Really, if you looked for a hundred years, you still wouldn’t find someone exactly like Koro-san, I think.

So, that’s how it is. I’ll work hard to remember all the Koro-san stories, and I’ll ask her to remember everything else. Ahahaha.

Let’s see… Ah, but next, let’s talk about Temanyan. Usually she’s so friendly, but the last time…

Chapter Text

Once more.

It’s been a cold, blustery day. Okayu draws her blanket closer around her body, and warms her hands on one last cup of cocoa before bed. She was meant to be in bed an hour ago, but she’s been watching archives of other people’s streams – trying to catch up a little with her co-workers.

She doesn’t usually watch any one video more than once. New ones are always coming out, after all. But there’s one exception – one little video that stayed in her tabs for a week after she first watched it, and then found its way into her bookmarks from there. Her favourite.

It is, of all things, a collaboration between Korone and Pekora.

What keeps drawing her back to it? It isn’t their natural chemistry, although there is that. They have a volatile, chaotic kind of dynamic, always pushing and pulling in different directions; it’s hard to keep up, so she finds something new on almost every rewatch. She’s honestly surprised by how well the arrangement turned out; at first, everyone had misgivings about a collab between two chaotic idols with communication disorders.

But maybe that’s what she likes about it. That the collab even exists is proof that her best friend is growing, becoming braver and more sure of herself through her own efforts. She’s learned to reach out to her kouhai, even the ones who were just as shy as she is. Little bubbles of pride swell up in her chest as Okayu considers the thought, as they always do.

However, if it were just that, almost any of Korone’s recent collaborations could be her favourite. But there’s something about Pekora – the way they interact and play off each other – that makes it special.

Pekora is… well. She has a talent for being teased. And people forget, but there’s a part of Korone that loves messing with people, if you can just draw it out. With Pekora, she’s a natural S-type: good natured but relentless, steamrolling her kouhai with smug doggo energy. It’s hilarious.

And, for Okayu, bittersweet.

Korone’s teasing is something she can can see, but never touch. In their private moments, the dog is meeker, milder, gentler. It’s wonderful, make no mistake; her best friend is as dear to her as her own skin.

But as a self-proclaimed masochist, Okayu can’t help but be a little jealous of her white rabbit kouhai. She’s seeing a part of Korone that Okayu can no longer touch.

“Well. Well, well,” she murmurs, and takes another deep draw from her cocoa. She can feel sleep creeping up on her.

At least this video exists. At least she can still feel this sensation, even if only vicariously. She’ll have to be nicer to Pekora in future – a little thank you for something she doesn’t know she did.

And while she’s at it, she might give Korone some tips. She has talent, but her teasing technique could use some work.

She can’t wait to see them in action.

Chapter Text

Nekomata Okayu’s tail was not in the habit of lashing. People often looked to it as an indicator of her feelings, and always went away disappointed; like its owner, it was usually relaxed, languid, and just a little ambivalent.

But as she watched Korone finishing off her boxing for the day, she felt as if it might.

It was odd. She never found boxing that emotive when she watched it on TV – not that she made a habit of it. If there was a fight on, sometimes she’d tune in, just to understand her best friend’s hobby a bit better. It didn’t help much. She admired top flight athletes for their willingness to go through incredible difficulties in pursuit of a goal, but it just wasn’t a state of mind she had experienced herself. It was hard to empathise with them, especially since they didn’t usually seem like they were having fun. Well, not like getting hit in the face is particularly fun anyway.

But was different when she was watching Korone. For one, she was a lot closer to the action. Even just sitting on the bench near her at the gym was an entirely different experience to lying on the sofa and watching people slug each other on the screen.

For two, when Korone hit, she hit. The jabs were fine, the jabs were okay, but every time she threw a hook, the fittings for the punching bag creaked ominously, and there was the alarming crack of leather-on-leather. Even though she was well out of pummelling distance, Okayu couldn’t help but flinch at the force of the impact.

All that would have been agitating enough. But there was another reason that Okayu felt her tail beginning to swish.

When Korone put on her gloves and stepped up to the bag, her eyes only faced forward. Left, right, left. The staccato rhythm of jabs with the sharp percussion of a hook or a straight; bobbing, weaving, attacking. There was no room in her world for anything else. For a few minutes – long, endless minutes – she entered a place where Okayu could not tread. Her attention was absolutely, irrevocably, undeniably on the punching bag.

And not on Okayu.

Such a silly, childish feeling. Jealous! Of a punching bag! She wanted to take herself aside and say, ‘There’s only so much of an M you can be, you know?’ In a way, she found it hilarious. There was Korone, competing with other boxers and with her own physical limits, and here she was trying to compete with the gym equipment. Maybe she was getting too clingy after all.

Still, she thought as Korone finished her reps and wiped the sweat from her brow, she had some advantages that the punching bag didn’t.

For one, nobody said the punching bag’s name the way that Korone said hers.

And two… well. Okayu smiled to herself as she thought it.

The punching bag didn’t get to see Korone fresh out of her post-workout shower.

Chapter Text

She doesn’t use her kitchen any more.

It’s not that she can’t cook. Or, rather, couldn’t cook. She probably can’t cook now. Time erodes; the skills she had as a young, lovestruck woman are no exception to that rule.

They used to take it in turns, her husband and her. When the opportunity allowed. She preferred his cooking. He preferred hers. It worked out. They had different ways of doing things, even though they were so close.

She was the organised, serious one. She liked everything to be in its place before she began; she would pick up a knife or a spoon, use it, wash it, dry it, put it away. Like a well-oiled machine. She was good with leftovers, too. She had a way of repurposing things, making something new and exciting from them. She’d taken satisfaction in that.

Her husband was more flighty, more impulsive. He liked spices, frequently tasted the food as it was cooking. Sometimes he would come up with something new and unusual, but generally good. He thought that cooking, like dancing, was important. One of those things that had fallen by the wayside during the war, one of the things that reminded humans of what they were. You cooked food, sat down, ate it with your family, talked, enjoyed the sensation of a full belly. You couldn’t get that from a ration bar and a nutrient drink. Those weren’t food. They were fuel, to move the human machine forward toward the next objective. Not to sustain a human being, with thoughts and wants and a life away from the front.

She misses him. Ten thousand years, and she still misses him. She misses him cooking her breakfast and spreading her toast with lime marmalade, because he found it and it was strange and he wanted to share that with her. She misses the way he adored her food, even when it was bad, because she made it for him. She misses wandering into the kitchen and seeing him at the stove, rigidly staring as the food cooked, and embracing him from behind.

He is a hole in her life that cannot be filled, and that she doesn’t want to fill. Cooking has no interest to her without her husband there to eat it. She snacks. She grazes. She subsists on coffee from vending machines, meals from a can.

It is fuel, not food. But if anybody could be called a human machine, it is her. The war saw to that.

One day, she will cook again. The Earth will be swallowed by the sun; a bored AI will run simulations to pass a billion year journey. In that sea of data there will be a different Alte, with a different life. A happier one. She will meet her husband, and in every simulation, they will fall in love.

She would be happy about it, if she knew. But whether she knows or not, the truth is this: her kitchen is waiting for her.

Chapter Text

If there was a single thing Okayu had learned, it was that every day with Korone had a surprise hidden somewhere along the way. She always ended up doing something she didn’t think she would, or experiencing something strange and unique.

Today, she was listening to her best friend brush her teeth on the phone.

Really, who did that? Seriously, who stayed on the phone – even held it to their ear like normal – and just brushed their teeth while somebody was talking to them? It was fantastic. The funniest thing that had happened to her all day.

And it wasn’t even like she called unexpectedly. She’d sent a message on Line – Can I call you? – well in advance.

That had been a difficult message to send, incidentally. It was always harder to ask questions when you thought the answer was going to be no.

It had been one of those days, you see. She had felt in her whiskers. One of those days where Korone had exhausted her supply of… energy? Patience? Sociability? It was one of those days where she she given too much of herself to other people, and now she needed to recharge.

So, Okayu had asked in advance – Can I call you? – expecting to be denied. Alone time was important to Korone; she understood that, with her whole heart.

But… that was why asking was important, too.

Even when people said no, even when they just ignored the question and spoke to you in the morning like they hadn’t seen it at all – it still sent a message. I want to talk to you. Or, in Okayu’s case: I want to hear your voice. Even if they couldn’t bring themselves to answer you at that moment, she thought the sentiment still got through. That you valued them, even on their worst days. That you were waiting for them to come back to you.

Well, in theory, anyway. Maybe she was just a hard-headed kind of cat, grasping all the social cues and then ignoring them anyway. Prodding for a funny response.

On the other end of the phone, the sounds of a dog brushing her teeth continued.

“Thanks for the ASMR,” she quipped when it was done. “I’ll be able to sleep well tonight.”

“Eh?” Korone sounded a little sleepy herself. “Seriously… Why’d you call when I was about to brush my teeth?”

“Ah, my bad. I just wanted to hear your voice.”

The dog girl made an interesting noise – somewhere between grumpy and elated. “But you can just watch my stream, right?”

“It’s not the same. Stream Korone is everybody’s Korone. I wanted mine.”

“Geez… You’re so spoiled.” The tone was much warmer than the words.

“You’re the one spoiling me, though.”

They laughed it off, and said their goodnights. As Korone headed to bed, Okayu thought she sounded a lot more cheerful than she had during the day.

But, more importantly…

This was going to be a great story to brag about on stream.

Chapter Text

Sora was a girl of many talents, and one of them was lying.

Not that she actually lied, of course. She always told the truth, almost to a fault. The problem was that she absolutely refused to explain anything she told you, and that she gave you the truth as it appeared from her perspective, which was was sometimes only distantly related to anything in the real world.

This fed directly into another problem: her very dubious relationship with metaphors. She vaguely knew what a metaphor was and had very little desire to know more, because she considered them a subclass of lie.

Which was, roughly speaking, how she and Star Breaker came to be standing in a sparsely populated discotheque, watching a small coterie of people do something that could be charitably described as ‘dancing’.

“You said,” Star Breaker hissed, “that there would be an inferno.”

“There is,” Sora replied confidently. “It’s a disco inferno. We just have to find out where they’ve put it.”

This was why, out of all the people left on the wretched ball of rock called Earth, Star Breaker hated Sora the most. She actually believed her own nonsense and that there would be a fire here, when anybody with a brain could tell that the geriatrics in their spangled jumpsuits wouldn’t go near an open flame if their worthless lives depended on it.

But the blonde soldier meant well, and that was the worst part. She was Star Breaker’s caretaker – some would say her warden – and was slowly working down her homicidal urges from wanting to watch the world burn, to only wanting to watch discrete bits of it burn (mainly the ones with Sora in them). She’d offered to show her something burning as a treat for good behaviour, and instead, had brought her to a disco. It was maddening.

“Tch. Stupid humans. Look!” Star Breaker said grumpily, pointing to somebody who was roller-skating around on the wood floor. “Even after ten thousand years, they’re still trying to augment themselves by sticking wheels to their feet.”

“They never learn,” Sora agreed sagely. “It does look fun, though.”

It did look fun, and Starby hated it. She hated everything in the room, apart from the weird old man who had extremely long tassels on his sleeves. They looked like they be a lot of fun to set fire to, like lighting the fuse on a stick of dynamite and watching the flame climb upwards. As if sensing her attention, Sora went over to talk to him.

“Good news,” she said, after chatting haltingly with him for five minutes. “He said he’s going to set the dance floor on fire later. So we just have to wait until then.”

Starby sighed. Reasoning with Sora was a waste of time. But in a world without war, time was all she had. Time, as it were, to burn.

But while she was waiting… maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to give the roller skates a try.

Chapter Text

My name is Koakuma, and I have a problem. I’m contracted to the wrong master.

It’s not that I dislike my current master. Mistress Patchouli and I get along well enough; she’s strict but usually fair, and the mana she sustains me with is top quality. Having such a powerful master is something of a status symbol, so if I ever end up back in Makai, I can hold my head up high.

But a few years after I contracted with her, the perfect master for me strolled into the library and made herself at home – after the obligatory firefight, of course. Marisa Kirisame, the eastern-style, self taught magician. I saw her once, and I knew – I was meant to be hers.

I mean, look at it from my perspective, okay? I’m a succubus. Succ-u-bus! Who do you think is gonna be the better master for me – a witch who stays in the library all day and never lets anybody in, or one who roams across Gensokyo, getting into trouble and charming all sorts of beautiful youkai women? On top of that, Mistress Patchouli gives me mana the normal way, which is to say, the boring way that doesn’t end with her screaming my name in the small hours of the morning. I’d get so much more action with Marisa that it wouldn’t even be funny. Just delicious.

On top of that, Marisa is cute! She’s so tiny, and she wears such elaborate clothes, like a doll. And her hair is always so silky. You can really tell she puts a lot of effort into looking like a witch. Mistress Patchouli, on the other hand, wears pajamas indoors every day and won’t let me mess around with her hair at all. Just wears it in the same style, time after time. I want to give her an updo! Of course she feels tired when she’s hauling all of that long hair around!

But even though she comes in and she fiches our tea leaves and makes off with our books, Marisa still hasn’t cottoned on and tried to steal me. Even though I fluttered my eyelashes and gave her cookies! What’s a devil gotta do to get abducted, huh?

But there’s one more reason why I want Marisa to be my master. An important one.

“Koa sure takes good care of you, huh?” Marisa asked, chewing on of my homemade cookies.

“As befits a familiar,” Patchouli scoffed.

While I’m a familiar, I can’t be anything more to Mistress Patchouli than I am now. Our contract won’t permit it.

I can’t hold her. I can’t kiss her. I can’t stroke her brow and soothe her worries. Marisa is cute, but Mistress Patchouli is beautiful. Unkempt, but beautiful. And I can’t have her.

Once Marisa’s my master, my first move will be to come back and seduce Patchouli. Until then, all I can do is serve her faithfully.

Incidentally, I laced the cookies with aphrodisiac.

A devil’s work is never done <3

Chapter Text

“And finally… Where do you see yourself in five years?”

Okayu blinks. It’s such a strangely rote question, considering the job they’re interviewing for is at an idol company. She assumed there’d be more singing, more dancing, more… everything. Maybe that comes later. She hopes so. She’s not confident in her singing voice, but it might be nice to try. Like karaoke as a day to day job.

Beside her, Korone is something of a nervous wreck. She’s seen a lot of people today. Had to talk to them, too. She’s well out of her comfort zone, and it’s impossible not to know it. Luckily for her, it’s charming. It’s relatable. This is one of the few jobs where force of personality – sheer likeability – trumps everything else. Okayu smiles. It’s a golden opportunity for her anxious best friend. For the both of them.

“Eh… The world’s kinda crazy right now. I feel like it’d be tough to predict what’s going to happen. But if we can reach out to people and give them a place to relax when everything else is nuts, then that’s probably good enough, right?” Okayu says.

That’s what it’s all about. Palliative care for a world gone mad. They can’t change the destination, but they can at least make the ride a bit more comfortable. The perfect viewpoint for a laid-back cat.

“And you?” the manager asks, looking to Korone.

“Um, ah… I’d like to… make a lot of friends,” she says, squeezing Okayu’s hand.

The manager looks ambivalent, but hopefully it’s a good enough answer. Soon, they’ll find out.

“So, Korone-san, Okayu-san. It’s time for your career review.”

The atmosphere is much more laid back than when they first interviewed. They’re no longer fresh prospects, but experienced hands; the managers are familiar faces to them. They discuss their challenges – the experiences of dealing with an emerging fanbase, of saying goodbye to beloved colleagues, of live events and brutal dance lessons. They also take a moment to speak about the good things – the sense of having a community, sharing a sisterhood, learning new things every day.

But the greatest change of all is unspoken, because it is written in their voices, in their posture, and in every motion they make: confidence.

It is buoyed by their fans as much as their achievements. Even when self-doubt rears its head, Okayu knows that there are thousands – hundreds of thousands, even millions – who come to her not in spite of her voice, but because of it. And Korone’s simple ambition to make friends has turned into a loyal fanbase and some devoted kouhai.

They are the same faces that sat across this table many moons ago. But not the same people.

“So, to conclude… where do you two see yourselves in five years?” the manager asks.

They glance at each other, and smile. Their fingers touch beneath the table. When they answer, it is in one voice – and it is the only answer they know how to give.

“Together.”

Chapter Text

He always made time for cards.

Even in times of war. Even as Mist overtook the world. The little mage, with his haunted eyes, would pull out a deck of well-worn cards and sit down to play with whomever he could. At each town they visited, Zidane would wander the streets, browse the item shops, scan the bars for pretty faces… and Vivi would always be trailing behind, slowly laying down cards on tables or barrels or any flat surface to hand, puzzling through his moves with the local townspeople.

It wasn’t that he always won. Tetra Master was notorious for being as much a game of chance as it was a game of strategy; it exemplified the idea of ‘luck is also a skill’. Vivi won more often than he lost, but it was a close thing. (He always won against Steiner, but so did everyone else.)

For Vivi, it was a way to break the ice. He could be nervous; sometimes he struggled to talk to people. A card game, especially one as lucky as Tetra Master, was something to share. You commiserated over losses, admired narrow victories. It was also, well, fun. He was a child, after all.

They only learned in hindsight how important it had been.

When the Black Mages finally began to come out from their village and walk amongst the people of Gaia, the people balked, remembering their roles as remorseless killers under Brahne and Kuja. But they also remembered the boy in the pointy hat, wandering from person to person with his little deck of cards.

They had learned first-hand that these strange creatures could talk. Could laugh. Could play. And if they could sit down for a peaceful round of cards, they could be reasoned with. Welcomed. Eventually, even trusted. The wounds of Brahne’s war began, slowly, to heal.

Even when it became clear his time was drawing to a close, he still took time to play games with anybody who requested them. In a peaceful world, there was no more enjoyable way to spend his last days than making sure people took time to enjoy themselves while they rebuilt.

A short time after Zidane’s return, a package arrived at Alexandria Castle via Mognet – fashionably late, as could be expected. A letter ad a deck of cards, wrapped in wax paper and signed with Vivi’s oddly stately hand. It took another week for the Queen’s newly minted consort to read the letter. He knew what it would say. He wished he didn’t.

Time passed. Traditions changed.

In the rebuilt city of Lindblum, Queen Garnet Til Alexandros stood beside her uncle as he addressed the crowd – full of sharp Burmecian noses, shadowy faces obscured by hats, and the curiously similar faces of the Genomes. Without the Mist, the Festival of the Hunt was no more; the only monsters now were in decks of cards.

Behind them, Steiner groaned as he lost to Zidane for the fifth time.

The Ornitier Festival was underway.

Chapter Text

Aya had many opinions. She collected them, like ordinary crows collected shiny trinkets, so that she could trot them out and recycle them in her newspaper whenever the occasion called for it. It was often difficult to tell which ones were hers, and which ones had been surreptitiously adopted from smarter, more well informed targets.

But she did have one opinion that was thoroughly and uniquely hers:

Momiji Inubashiri was cute.

For most youkai, ‘cute’ was not part of the Momiji paradigm. Most knew her for her ferocious defence of Youkai Mountain, her fine sword arm and sharp strategic mind. For the rank and file patrol tengu, she was something of a leader; even if her rank was low, the weight of her experience gave her word purchase with her superiors, allowing her to voice the troubles of the petty patrol tengu. Some knew her for her surprisingly modest drinking habits, born of a distaste for the smell of hard alcohol. She was wise, serious, reliable. A far cry from being cute.

She also detested Aya Shameimaru, a feeling that – much to her consternation – was far from mutual.

“Shameimaru. What do you think you’re doing, calling for me personally? I’m not under your jurisdiction,” the white wolf tengu snarled by way of greeting.

That shameless aggression, Aya thought, was what made her so cute. She and Momiji fought with each other almost every time they met, and Aya always won. Snapping and barking at somebody you couldn’t hope to beat… It made Aya understand why humans were so fond of puppies.

“Ayaya… I just thought that, since we’re friends–”

“We’re not friends. Save your lies for that newspaper of yours.”

“–you might be interested in helping me with an article. Here, look at this.”

She took out two tall bamboo cups, covered with an oddly shaped lid of kappa design, and presented one to Momiji. The white wolf tengu sniffed it warily, scrunching up her nose at the unfamiliar scent.

“It’s called a ‘la-tei’. The Priestess of the Moriya Shrine has been trialling them as a way to increase her donations – she calls it ‘Miracle☆Bucks’. Since we’re allies and neighbours, I thought we’d given them a little food review. How about it, Momiji?”

“Get someone else.”

“Oh? It’s too late for that. If you don’t want to give me an opinion, though, I can just extrapolate a tiny bit. Don’t blame me if it upsets that Wind Priestess, though.”

Momiji narrowed her eyes, and snarled. But as an avid dai-shogi player, she knew a losing position when she saw it. She wordlessly snatched the cup, downed the contents, and pulled a very interesting face as ‘bitter’ and ‘hot’ fought for dominance in her mouth.

“It’s good,” she lied, through gritted teeth.

Aya grinned. That stubborn determination to do the right thing, even if she hated it… so cute. “What a good puppy you are.”

With no hesitation, Momiji swung at her.

It was another lively day on Youkai Mountain.

Chapter Text

“Raphtalia, I want you to help with the evacuation.”

The Spirit Tortoise. A beast so strong it carried mountains upon its back, more a force of nature than living being. How many years had it lain dormant? Why did it have to awaken during our lifetimes?

We’d been doing so well. Mr. Naofumi’s name was cleared, and he’d finally started to reach out and trust people who were outside our little party. Even Therese and L’Arc turning on us hadn’t managed to shake that. Slowly, he was recovering from what his enemies had put him through.

But now there was a monster in front of us, and a city of innocents behind us. And Mr. Naofumi had every intention of standing between them.

I didn’t want to go.

I knew he had ordered me to evacuate the citizens because he trusted me. He was the Shield Hero; he might grumble and think horrible things, but ultimately, his first thought was always to protect people. On some level, I knew that was important to him. Important enough to send me away.

But I was scared. Scared for him, and for Filo. I felt like if I let them out of my sight, both of them would die. I was my master’s sword, and I belonged by his side. How would he fare without me? How could I possibly leave his life in the hands of another?

He had come into my life so suddenly, and every time he talked about wanting to return to his own world, it reminded me that he could disappear just as quickly as he came.

I almost felt like he was a cat, finding some hidden spot so that he could die alone.

I protested, but despite my misgivings, I would end up following his orders in the end. We both knew that.

If asked why, he would probably have talked about the crest on my chest, and how it demanded my obedience. That crest he hadn’t used in so, so long, and probably never would. All it did was keep me from betraying or lying to him, things I would never do in the first place.

It was purely ornamental. A symbol of ownership. But I was the one who wanted to have it re-applied; in that way, wasn’t it just the same as getting your partner’s name tattooed on your arm?

But he would have claimed that was why I would eventually follow even orders I didn’t like, missing the real reason.

Before I was a slave to that crest, I was a slave to my heart. I wanted to believe in Mr. Naofumi – in his hidden gentleness, in his strength. I was his sword, and I belonged at his side. One day I hoped to be more than that.

Until that day came, I would believe in him – that he would survive until I could return.

I was his slave. But he was my Naofumi. No matter how far apart we might be.

Chapter Text

“Mr. Naofumi, I still don’t see why it’s so important to you that I wear this outfit,” Raphtaila said, shaking her head.

“Quit complaining. It’s not going to change my mind. The miko outfit stays,” I told her. “It just looks too good on you. You can ask anybody.”

“I’m not interested in just anybody’s opinion. I want to understand yours. What’s so great about it…?”

She tilted her head to the side, apparently genuinely puzzled. Come to think of it, this is one of those rare occasions where she can’t seem to figure out what I’m thinking. Maybe that only works if I’m thinking something nasty.

But if it was bothering her, I figured I should try to come up with a better answer than ‘it’s cute’. So what is it about miko outfits and Raphtalia that make them such a killer combination?

Well, obviously, there was the fact that she looked amazing. Raphtalia turned heads regardless of what she was wearing, but there was something about the miko outfit that really took it over the top. Sometimes that was a bother, since the wrong type of guy ended up staring at her, but most of the time I felt proud to walk beside her – since she’s my surrogate daughter and all.

I guess maybe it was my otaku nature coming back to the surface. I’ve barely been able to indulge that side of myself in this world at all, come to think of it. Cosplay, themed cosmetics in MMORPGs… It wasn’t like I didn’t enjoy that kind of thing, back in the day. In this world you have to really, really worry about the stats of what you’re wearing, and most of the cute stuff is just clothing with no stats at all, so it was refreshing to see something both adorable and functional.

It might also be because I’m nostalgic.

Miko… Any way you look at it, they’re specifically Japanese, right? When Raphtalia wears that outfit, it’s a bit like she’s sharing the culture of my own world. I guess cosplay’s a bit of that culture, too. Maybe I’m just selfishly dragging her into it, but it really feels like I could imagine her in Japan with me – home, and safe, with no monsters or idiot bitch princesses to worry about. Seeing her in clothes from my culture makes it feel like we’re really family.

Maybe that’s what I’m after. I don’t think I’d be as excited about anyone else wearing the miko outfit, anyway. With Raphtalia, it really brings out that ‘yamato nadeshiko’, perfect wife kind of aura, even though she’s my surrogate daughter.

“If you really wanna know,” I said at last, “it’s because it makes you feel like family.”

She gave me a complicated expression, as though that was almost what she wanted to hear from me, but not quite.

Whatever. I’d figure it out later. For now, the waves were coming. And this lousy world sure as hell wasn’t going to protect itself.

Chapter Text

Life was full of joyous little moments.

The trick, of course, was that you had to be aware of them. If you were too busy, they would slip past without you ever noticing. It was a lesson that Nath had learned late, but learned very well indeed.

It was a sweltering summer day, and after an exhausting bout of play-fighting in the sky, one of those moments were unfolding. More specifically, it was the moment where Sora decided that as of now, shirts were strictly optional.

For a moment, Nath almost felt like she should avert her eyes. But, she reminded herself, Sham and Sora were her girlfriends, and there was nothing wrong with enjoying the sight of her girlfriend slowly peeling her top off. She still felt a tiny bit guilty about it, but the guilty pleasures were the deepest.

“Wooooo!” Sham hollered, bounding over to enjoy the festivities. As usual, she’d been refereeing the match between Nath and Sora, while helping herself to cold drinks from their picnic hamper. Sparring matches often turned into picnics halfway through, and then the picnics became sleepovers, and then sleepovers became drowsy mornings with four or five false starts as one of them tried to get up and was summarily dragged back into bed by the other two.

“Sham, don’t,” Sora frowned as the inevitable hug was initiated. “I’m sticky.”

“And I’m stuck! Uhihihi.”

“I think you’re braver than you are sticky,” Nath added dryly. “You didn’t even look to see if anybody was coming by.”

There hadn’t been, of course. They’d picked a grassy meadow in the middle of nowhere, where the country paths had been eroded with time. Not that it would have mattered much; Sora had been wearing a bra underneath her top anyway. But it was the principle of the thing.

“It’s okay. There aren’t any witnesses,” Sora confirmed.

“Aren’t there? Me and Sham count as witnesses too, you know.”

“I’ve got ways of keeping you quiet,” Sora declared, in a tone of voice lifted straight from the haunted house in an amusement park. There was more than a hint of ‘wooo-OOOO-oooo!’ to it. A few seconds passed. “That was a joke and a flirt. I’ve been practising them.”

Why she’d been practising such a specialised skill, Nath didn’t know. So they’d want to laugh and kiss her at the same time? In that case, she might as well just have stuck with the jokes; the ‘kiss Sora’ subroutine in Nath’s brain was running at all times, ready to be initiated as soon as any higher priority tasks were complete. (The ‘kiss Sham’ subroutine also existed, but sadly, Nath did not have two mouths.)

With the one mouth she did have, she smiled. It had been a good day, and she was exhausted but happy, which nowadays seemed to come hand in hand.

In another joyous moment, Sora soon decided that Sham’s shirt was also optional. The witnesses weren’t quite silent – but they didn’t exactly complain very much.

Chapter Text

There is nothing quite like Lulu under the stars.

She is new, original, made of whole cloth by a chaotic goddess; there came none before her, and perhaps there will be none after. She calls herself a dragon, because it feel correct, but nobody in her travels can tell her what a dragon actually is.

But sometimes, there are rumours. People say that dragons breathe fire (which she doesn’t), that they fly through the sky on huge leathery wings (which she doesn’t) and that every dragon has a vast hoard of glittering treasure (which she doesn’t). All Lulu does is lay eggs, which puts her closer to a goose or a chicken.

“Maybe the fire breath and the flying will happen when you get older!” Ellie tells her, her eyes glittering. The idea of traveling around on the back of a fire-breathing dragon is extremely appealing to her, and she makes absolutely zero excuses about her ambitions to ride her best friend. If she’s aware of the subtext, she apparently doesn’t care too much about it. “For now, let’s just focus on getting you a treasure hoard.”

Apart from their living and travel expenses, Ellie has been putting all of their earnings as adventurers into Lulu’s so-called ‘hoard fund’. Well, almost of all them. Some has to go on oil and whetstones for Ellie’s sword, fancy clothes for them to wear once and never again, and funding their obsessive consumption of meat skewers. It is against the spirit of an adventurer, Ellie has declared, to see a stand selling meat skewers and not patronize it. Lulu has begun to suspect that they follow Ellie around.

She’s not sure what Ellie intends to buy with this hoard fund of hers. Maybe she’s planning to take out a lease on a cave, since they keep hearing rumours that dragons like them. Lulu has no particularly strong feelings about caves, and would really prefer to live somewhere with plumbing, but even Ellie’s incredible parents keep complaining about how hard it is to get on the property ladder, so maybe a cave would be a nice little starter home.

Lulu has never had a home. She doesn’t know if she needs one. She woke up and the first thing she saw was Ellie’s face; since then, they have roamed together without pause. The idea of staying in one place sounds nice, but also somehow scary. She doesn’t know how people do it.

Perhaps she will, one day. Perhaps she’ll breathe fire and soar through the skies, and pay a mortgage on a nice cave in the suburbs. There’s a lot in life that she’s never tried, and a lot to figure out.

For now, Lulu remains a strange dragon. There is nothing like her under the stars. But she isn’t lonely. There is a treasure she is hoarding. Keeping for herself.

She wraps her wings around Ellie as they nap under the night sky. She has never known, or needed, anything more than that.

Chapter Text

There are times when Reisen regrets her commitment to office wear as a wardrobe choice. Is it stylish and unique in the sartorial wasteland of Gensokyo? Yes. But outside of the careful climate control of the Lunar Capital, her shirts and blazers lack in practicality. They manage to be too warm in summer and yet too cold in winter, and now that the snow is up to her ankles, she’s discovering that loafers are not all-weather gear.

She’s coping by wearing a scarf so long and thick that it affects her balance; she’s not sure what it’s made of, but she has the distant suspicion that it was once alive. Compared to the synthetic threads used on the moon, it’s a strange feeling.

Much less bothered by the cold is Youmu Konpaku, who plops down on the village bench beside her and stretches her legs out in an amiable way. For Youmu, the winter is a time of blessed repose; there is only so much a gardener can do when the plants have died back in the frost, and Yuyuko is loathe to leave the comfort of her futon to cause trouble, which leaves Youmu with free time to sit and socialise.

“You don’t get bored at all?” Reisen asks, blowing heavily on her hands. Reisen herself never has chance to get bored. Tewi is active all year round.

“Not really. There’s always training to do. And if I get bored of that, I can practice my embroidery.”

Reisen slowly blinks her red eyes. She’s sure it’s a little rude, and Youmu notices (after a few seconds).

“Sorry. I just wasn’t expecting such a feminine answer from you,” Reisen admits. She has the idea of Youmu as a serious, tomboyish maiden who lives only for the sword and spends her days working up a sweat. Perhaps she’s guilty of jumping to conclusions; rabbits excel at leaping, after all, and moon rabbits more than most.

“Huh? Feminine? I wouldn’t really say needlework is feminine,” Youmu replies, folding her arms. “Actually, I just have a habit of getting little rips in my clothes, from branches when I trim the trees, or handling my sword wrong, or bullets… Hakugyokurou is kind of isolated, so it would be a pain to visit the tailor every time I needed something mended.”

It’s a practical answer, lacking any romance at all. Yet Reisen — whose Lunarian fashion functions like the bastard child of kevlar and teflon — still can’t help but feel like she is losing in a contest of girl power. To Youmu, of all people. Things must be dire.

“Teach me a little,” she says.

As a moonborn Earth Rabbit, Gensokyo is full of new, old technology, ideas, and people. Reisen wishes to embrace them, if she can.

“Sure. So, to begin with, the key to embroidery is grit and determination…”

Youmu begins a lecture, during which nothing is sewn or embroidered. At least, Reisen thinks, she can warm herself with all of Youmu’s hot air.

Chapter Text

Hakurei Reimu checks the shutters to the shrine storeroom for the third time in two minutes, and sighs in exasperation. Privacy is a commodity she enjoys in short supply, given how many nosy visitors she gets. She has the misfortune of attracting people for whom violence is a stimulant rather than a deterrent.

“Alright. Get on with it,” she snaps.

Marisa Kirisame tilts her head, and clambers up to sit on a barrel of rice that is distressingly empty. It wobbles as she moves.

“Gotta say, Reimu, your customer service is just as good as ever.”

“Cram it. I’m only doing this because I lost to you at hanafuda last night,” Reimu spits back.

“Yeah, but you let me win. You had a great hand. You just went outta your way to toss it in the garbage.”

“Did not. I just got distracted.”

Marisa hums. Reimu plays better distracted than she does with her mind on the game; the less she thinks, the better she does. It feels dangerous to point that out right now, though.

“Anyway, let’s get this over with. Stop talking and give me your feet.”

“Boy, you sure know how to treat a lady, Reimu,” the witch replies, but concedes before she can get slapped for her insolence.

Their bet was for a foot massage, and Reimu was the one who suggested it. Why Reimu would want a foot massage is a mystery; she doesn’t leave the shrine if she has a say in the matter, and she certainly doesn’t walk when she does.

But Marisa is an active soul, and hikes through the forests and the mountains nearly as much as she soars through the sky. She wears stout boots everywhere, because a witch without boots would not be a witch at all, and her feet ache from the miles she puts them through.

In other words, it is almost as though Reimu has arranged things for Marisa’s benefit and simply doesn’t want to admit it. Not that anybody would air that suspicion and expect to survive, of course.

The silence goes on just long enough to become awkward as Reimu starts her work. Normally it would bother neither of them, but there is something about being alone in a locked and darkened room that makes quiet a little hard to bear.

“Uh, I’m not gonna lie, but… you kinda suck at this,” Marisa says, breaking at last.

“Of course I do! Do you think I’m out here giving foot massages on the regular?!” Reimu seethes. “And for that matter, take better care of your damn feet! You’re always moaning and groaning about how much they hurt—”

Reimu, distracted by her own ranting, presses her thumbs over the perfect spot. It is so unexpected that Marisa cannot help but gasp.

The silence thickens between them.

“Do that again,” Reimu says at last, smirking.

“Y-you first.”

It is the wrong thing to say.

Silence does not fall again in the Hakurei storeroom for some time yet.

Chapter Text

“….anyway, there’s no way I’d ever up and join that new Guild, even if I could fly a plane. I’d rather be a sky pirate instead! Ain’t it a bit more, y’know, romantic? Livin’ freely in the sky, takin’ what you want with your own strength! That’s a man’s dream, right there. Way better than sitting about in that Guildhall and totting up your fuel expenses.”

The grocer smiles and nods as his patron yaps about how he’d love to embark on a life of crime, clearly not taking him seriously. Conversations like this happen all over the place, in every town and city; when people see planes, they see freedom. When they see the Guild, they see taxes.

But a hard lesson that Marc has learned is that even planes don’t give you freedom from taxes, and she could add that even the sky pirates have to sit down and calculate their fuel expenses. The kinds of places that sell plane fuel tend to also stock the kinds of surface to air missiles that bring a lump to her throat. Some girls drool over shoes and dresses; Marc drools over heavy ordinance. And pirates who steal from fuel depots have a life expectancy measured in seconds.

The truth is that many parts of flying aren’t romantic, and that’s why they work. Pre-flight checks aren’t romantic, but they keep you alive. Hauling cargo and making deliveries isn’t romantic, but that’s what earns you the fuel for your pleasure rides. Flak-resistant flight suits aren’t romantic, but neither is bleeding out in the pilot seat.

Every moment where she soars through an open sky and the horizon is so majestic that makes her heart sing is created by hours of laborious effort — not just from her but from many other people who support her. She has her freedom, but it is bought with hard work. That, more than anything, is the lesson she is learning as she grows as a person and a pilot.

She considers having a word with the man in front of her, who is still rambling about pirates as he pays for his radishes. But this is just a simple stopover in a strange city; she’s buying dinner for tonight and will be gone in the morrow, and this man will go back to the same job he does day in and day out, without ever taking a single step towards actually becoming a pilot. There’s no point quarrelling if she doesn’t need to.

He’s welcome to his fantasies of the sky, and his ideas of a ‘man’s romance’. Perhaps they’ll do him good. But she knows what it really is to fly — the freedoms, the beauty, the mundane chores and the aching muscles. The reality is so much greater than the dream, and she wouldn’t trade it for the world.

“Sorry about him, li’l lady,” the grocer says, rolling his eyes as the man leaves.

“Don’t worry about it,” Marc replies, and resolves to do just that.

Chapter Text

“Ah, I caught a wolf again. And it’s the same one from last time, too.”

Tewi stares down into her pitfall trap with a malicious grin. Pouting at the bottom is a well-dressed werewolf, Kagerou Imaizumi.

For a werewolf, she’s something of an odd duck. Supposedly she hates the full moon, and the way it makes her hairy — which is obviously why she lives in the Bamboo Forest, the closest place to Eientei and thus the place you’d be at most risk of running into a Lunarian. 

Supposedly she thinks humans are scary, too, disregarding the fact that she herself is much more were than wolf in her attitudes. Never mind the fact that a youkai who’s scared of humans is flipping the order of Gensokyo on its head. She does more to fight the status quo now than she ever did under the influence of the Miracle Mallet.

Tewi can’t say she dislikes twisted individuals like her. They’re fun to mess with, and they remind her of the Princess, who is her favourite tenant. (Tewi prefers not to think of herself as living in Kaguya’s mansion; rather, Kaguya, Eirin and Reisen live in Tewi’s forest.)

“Don’t mean to be rude,” Tewi says, lying through her teeth, “but couldja maybe stop falling into my traps? As a rabbit, catching a wolf puts me in an awkward position.”

“Um, could you maybe stop putting traps in the forest so I fall into them?” Kagerou calls back.

“Of course not. I don’t dig out all these holes for the good of my health, you know?”

Another lie. The secret to a long life is to laugh every day, and Tewi, one of Gensokyo’s oldest, goes out of her way to laugh at everybody.

Kagerou groans. It has an element of a whining puppy to it.

“Tell you what,” Tewi says, sitting down and dangling her feet over the lip of the hole. They glance on a net of danmaku wire designed to stop Reisen — ahem, people — from just flying out. “I’ll let you out if you howl for me.”

“I’d rather not… It might attract other werewolves.” She can see Kagerou grimacing at the bottom of the hole. “I don’t know how to deal with them.”

“Eh? I would have thought you’d be popular, seeing as you’re a bit of a beauty.” Tewi’s grin widens. “Ah, I get it. It’s because they think you smell.”

“I don’t smell!”

“Sure you do. I can smell you from here. Like wet dog, you know? Sure you’re grooming right?”

Kagerou folds her arms, huffs, and turns to face the wall. Apparently she’s decided that speaking to Tewi is a waste of time. Which it is. Tewi lets two, three more seconds waste away —

And, of course, sees Kagerou discretely start to sniff herself. It’s like shooting fish in a barrel.

No, Tewi thinks. She doesn’t dislike people like Kagerou at all. And she’s always wondered what it would be like to keep a pet puppy.