Chapter Text
For all the fighting, conflict resolution, and partying Reimu does, she really enjoys days like these. The weather was warm with a cool breeze, she had no obligations, and the shrine was nearly empty besides the usual. After stopping the Hell Raven from blowing up Gensokyo, it was finally time for her to get back to enjoying some peace and quiet.
“Reimu!” Sanae yelled, stomping up the steps of the rival shrine. In her determination and anger she had neglected her ability to simply fly up the hundreds of stairs, but upon realizing was already at the top. Mentally, she patted herself on the back for the extra steps. The less athletically inclined shrine maiden simply raised her head from its resting spot on the shrine’s front porch, then flopped it back down limply. “Where is that woman!” she demanded.
“Sanae, please elaborate further.”
“That witch! With the broom, and the blond hair!” She was still sore from her second defeat at Marisa's hands. “Twice now she’s left me sore, and I mean to seek revenge.”
This was apparently enough to get Reimu to sit upright, and took a second to cough up the tea that had inadvertently traveled down her windpipe. “She did what?”
“Defeated me. I had her pegged for a strong rival, and today I’ll come out on top.”
“You’re going to what?”
“This time she’ll be the one to submit to me >:)”
“Oh my gods. I just, I need a moment. Also, did you just speak an emoticon outloud? H-how did that even work? How did-”
“Did somebody say strong rival?” Yellow and blue flashed in the air above, and the witch dressed in black and white sat 15 feet above the shrine on her broomstick. Her orange-yellow eyes shone with bravado.
“Marisa, did you two-,” Reimu started to say.
“Marisa! I’m ready to take you on again!” Sanae announced valorously.
“Stop wait no,” said Reimu as she was picking up her tea, “I shouldn’t be here for this; continue without me here please.” She hurried into the bowels of the Hakurei shrine and shut the door.
‘Yes!’ Sanae thought to herself. She had found somebody finally worthy of the title rival and meant to savor every heart throbbing moment of their third encounter. The training her moms helped her with was about to pay off. “I challenge you to a danmaku duel, right here, right now! Your winning streak comes to an end today, Marisa!”
“You’re on! I call three spell cards!”
“I accept,” Sanae replied with a grin. She tried to look as confident and determined as Marisa did, but wondered if it had the correct effect. Was her hair looking good right now?
The Hakurei airspace soon became a warzone from danmaku and lasers. Bright, multi-colored pellets, stars, and pentagrams filled the air. Sanae was certainly improving but by Marisa’s first spell card she knew it was her battle to lose. She barely managed to dodge a master spark, and grazed past the auxiliary stars (a small victory for her considering the card had spelled disaster for her two times before). Sanae bet everything on her Miracle God’s Wind card, to which Marisa flew directly into the line of fire, straight into Sanae. She sped past the wall of bullets with blue stars trailing behind her, and slammed into Sanae with a magic barrier.
The battle was over, and there was a certain peace in the air, like the calm after a storm. ‘Wait, was that the phrase?’ Sanae was thinking, right before she crashed into the grass with a solid thump.
“Owie,” she said out loud to herself as she stared up at the trees overhead, before rising to rub her lower back. What a duel!
“Hey are you ok?” Marisa asked the green goddess. She floated down to Sanae and took a knee next to where she sat upright. Sanae looked up to meet Marisa’s gaze, which was startlingly close.
Oh my gods. Marisa’s face was like, right there. Her eyes were two suns blazing relentlessly into Sanae’s face. Her own face must have been flush red with sunburn. Something akin to heat stroke overtook her, and some of her vision was blurry around the outsides. But not Marisa, the witch’s face simply refused to turn blurry, unapologetically occupying the center of her vision and all of her thoughts. Her two cheeks were fluffy clouds that retained red tones from sunset. Her bright yellow hair, which curved out any direction it wanted, billowed out from underneath her slightly dorky oversized hat. Marisa’s lips captivated her stare, and she caught herself questioning what Marisa’s lips tasted like. Oh my gods. Those lips… they were moving; forming words, too.
Like trying to play the most stressful game of catch up, she tried to comprehend Marisa’s meaning. Then, lips ceased their mesmerizing movements, and Sanae sat staring like an idiot.
“Whuh?” Sanae meagerly squeaked using as much willpower and brainpower as she could muster in her current state.
Marisa spoke slowly, pronouncing everything much clearer than she typically does. “Are you hurt? Do you wanna come inside the shrine to lie down?”
“Mm hmm,” hummed Sanae in general agreement.
Marisa held out a hand and Sanae took it, hoping that her pulse was calm enough to avoid freaking out her captor, but she lost hope as her hand met Marisa’s. Whatever her heart was doing could not have been healthy for her. Suddenly, Marisa started pulling upwards on Sanae’s arm. Oh! She stood up to full height with Marisa’s help, standing about half a head above the witch. Sanae’s heart sank when Marisa let go of her hand.
“C’mon let’s see if it’s bad,” Marisa said and gestured her hand for Sanae to follow. She obliged and walked towards the steps of the Hakurei shrine. As she understood the situation, Marisa thought she was badly injured, and wanted to give her a chance to lie down, and potentially check her back for damage. Wow what an absolutely wonderful idea this was great.
Upon reaching the shrine’s steps, this was a terrible idea and decidedly not great. Her heart was in her throat, her lungs were nowhere to be found, and it felt like frogs were jumping around in her stomach. At last, Sanae found a signal to her brain, allowing her to speak and function normally. “Marisa, wait, I think I left my cat on. No, I forgot to feed my oven. Gah!” Well, mostly normally. She took off into the sky. “This isn’t over, you… woman!” Satisfied with this scathing rebuke, she blasted off at high speeds towards the Youkai Mountain. She was already gone when Reimu popped the shrine door open, and Marisa asked, “What the hell is an oven.”
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How could it be, a third loss! She was a wind priestess, and a god! Kind of.. she thinks… The witch was certainly her rival, and it was quite kind of her to offer some time to rest and hang out after their encounter. Sanae will definitely take her up on the offer next time, once she beats her onto her butt in some form of combat of course.
She slowed her flight and came down to a landing in front of her home. Kanako was outside in the garden next to the shrine, with her purple hair tied back, and her simple garden clothes on. No matter how many times she saw her mom like that, there was just something so strange yet adorable about her mom, the two thousand year old god of wind and rain, wearing blue jeans and a band T-shirt that Sanae brought from the outside world. Noting Sanae’s presence, she stood from her place of work on a calendula bush.
“Ah, Sanae. Welcome home,” she said regally, and when seeing Sanae’s face added, “dear, what’s wrong?”
“Hi mom. I’ve developed something of a nemesis, and I wasn’t able to defeat them in combat,” Sanae said, shuffling towards the garden.
Kanako beamed at her daughter. “Ah, picking fights already I see. I couldn’t be more proud of you. Remember, every lamppost does not shine without their darkness. Sunlight upon a star is a mute point, which is why we must all learn to rain occasionally.” The god placed some dead calendula buds in her blue jeans pocket.
Nodding her head as if she understood, she took a second to look thoughtful. Sanae asked, “But what if I really just can’t beat her? What if she’s just stronger than me?”
Kanako took a moment to think on the question, opening her mouth once, then closing it again. She raised a pointer finger into the air with understanding and wisdom in mind. “If ever you face a woman on the battlefield who you can not defeat, fall deeply in love with her and work for her shrine. Marry her, even.”
“Mom, I think you’re just projecting how you and mama met,” Sanae replied.
“Hmm, perhaps I am. Perhaps she would be a better candidate to answer your questions,” her mom replied. “Good luck my little Goddess.”
“Ok mom,” Sanae smiled warmly, “thank you for your help.”
When approaching the Moriya Shrine living room, she heard Suwako hiss “Scatter!” to some unknown audience. Rounding the corner, Sanae saw her mama standing in the center of the room smiling at her with her hands behind her back. She raised an eyebrow at the native god.
“Oh! Sanae, welcome home,” she said eagerly.
“Hey mama, how’s it going,” she replied in a leading, suspicious tone. A frog jumped out of the couch cushions and landed directly on Suwako’s arm.
Sanae gasped with immediate happiness welling in her gut. She jumped to the couch and sat down, patting her leg to entice a place for the frog to rest. It did! They landed squarely on her leg and opened up their mouth making a mlem mlem noise. They were fairly dark brown with two yellow stripes running from their eyes to their hind legs, clearly a painted antnest frog, part of the lithodyte genus. Her mama sat down next to her on the couch, producing a frog from behind her back.
“Welcome home Sanae, how’s it going?” She asked her daughter.
Sanae took out a spray bottle she kept with her, and misted the frog. This frog is native to tropical regions in the outside world and as such benefits greatly from humid environments. The froggy looked up at Sanae and licked one of their eyeballs in appreciation.
“I’m doing ok,” Sanae looked up from her friend, “well I guess it could be better.”
“What’s wrong honey?” Suwako was rhythmically swinging her feet in the air.
“Well, I have a new rival, I haven’t won once in our first three battles, and I’m feeling complicated emotions about it.”
“Hmm, and who’s the rival?” Suwako asked monotonically.
“Oh, it’s that witch, Marisa. The one who helped Reimu fight the two of you when we established our shrine. She was here a second time after the Hell Raven incident and we spent a long time talking, but I don’t think you were there at the time…”
Suwako sighed and rubbed her face a bit. “Sanae.”
“Yes?”
“Please remember that you are a lesbian. You need to grow past picking fights with every woman you’re interested in,” Suwako said slowly, as if explaining how to add the numbers two and three together. “Maybe you could try asking her if she’d like to get lunch with you, instead of challenging her to some form of battle?”
“Hmmm,” Sanae thought to herself in deep concentration.
“Here, why don’t you spend some time thinking about it in the frog pond? I made sure there were extra frogs today.”
“You know that sounds like a good idea.”
⛤ ⛤ ⛤
“You’re sure you’re not gonna go around and gossip to everybody? You’ve been buddy buddy with that wind tengu since the Hell incident, and I don’t even want to know what she’d write about it in her stupid newspaper,” Marisa asked, finishing a bowl of rice on the Hakurei Shrine floor.
“Come on, just ask it already,” Reimu replied with her head down on the low table.
“Alright, alright. It’s about Sanae. If I asked her out, do you think she’d say yes?”
Reimu laughed loudly, looking down at her bowl and wiping a tear from her eye. She looked up and met her friend’s gaze. “Oh you weren’t joking.”
Marisa shook her head, now wearing a concerned face.
“For someone so smart you really are stupid. Wait but, haven’t the two of you already..?”
Marisa returned the maiden’s gaze quizzically, whose concern was quickly turning to dejected sadness.
“No you know what that’s rude of me. I respect your decisions and bodily autonomy. The answer is yes, she’s very into you and it’s hilarious that you don’t see it.”
Marisa sighed contently and flopped her back onto the floor. Fiddling with her hair, she said, “I always end up beating the girls I’m into in danmaku battles and scaring them away.”
“Really now, I can’t remember you winning against me until years after we met.”
The witch smiled and lightly bonked her friend on the head with the soft end of her broom. She looked, and Reimu was smiling, but it was clearly Too Hot Inside for her. She whipped out her mini hakkero, setting it on the table in cooling mode. It blew cool air up and towards the red white shrine maiden, and she responded thanks with her eyes.
“Marisa, it’s truly amazing how many people you’ve dated despite being so incredibly oblivious.”
“Well,” Marisa said, looking at the ceiling in thought, “Alice was pretty outgoing, and it took a lot of time at the Scarlet Devil Mansion for me to ask Sakuya out.”
“And me?” Reimu asked, sipping her tea.
Marisa looked up at her like it was the most banal question in the world, “And you’re you.”
Reimu smiled and set her tea down, then flopped her back onto the shrine floor
⛤ ⛤ ⛤
Sanae sank into the pond until the water was right at her chin, and took a deep breath. A skeleton frog, part of the boophis genus, floated past on a lily pad.
‘Me? A lesbian? Marisa?? Clearly her mother had gotten something incorrect. Is there no greater bond than nemeses? To learn your enemy through combat, and grow close to them through trial? To see your opponent’s face, reddened and sweaty looking at you in mutual adoration of the others’ power? Marisa is a great rival, and romantic affection has nothing to do with it. All her confidence would only make Sanae’s victory all the sweeter. She’s powerful, too. The way she zips around the sky like a shooting star with bundles of bright blond hair blowing in the wind, the way those explosive eyes stare at you, the way those lips… Oh my gods, mama was right.’
The frog pond had cleared Sanae Kochiya’s mind. Tonight there would be no rest, she had important business to attend to. A plan had to be hatched, and Sanae’s devious brain began cranking on one.