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“You know, of all the souls I’d be delivering to the yama today, I didn’t expect you to be one of them, Marisa-san.” said the ferryman, or rather ferrywoman, of the Sanzu River. “I’ll admit I did find it a bit disappointing that you didn’t bring any spare change for the ride, but just this once, out of pity, I guess I’ll give you a freebie considering your… rather unpleasant experience during the mortal realm. The yama would probably be pissed at me, but I can’t really just stand there and continue to see you in this state, even though a free drive down to the courthouse is all I can do really.” An eerie, momentary silence broke out throughout the boat. “Aw, cheer up, Marisa-san! Look, the road to the yama’s is not that far away, I’m sure solving those incidents would probably earn you some merit in spite of some of the petty crimes you did like… well, it’s primarily just stealing but still. I mean, aside from that one instance when that vengeful spirit was still around where you tried to crucify Reimu and burn her alive, you haven’t really done anything that overly violated Gensokyan law, so if you’re lucky, the yama might just spare you from the wrath of Hell and send you to a flat in Heaven! How’s that sound?” Again, a momentary silence engulfed the perimeter. “…jeez, not even a word? From what I’ve heard you’re usually a relatively energetic and talkative person, Marisa-san. You act like the world would be better off had you just- whoops, sorry about that, I forgot that talking about your death is quite a sensitive topic to you… or rather, a sensitive topic to bring up with anyone here, really. If you wanna be silent the entire ride I can’t stop you I guess. It’s just been a while since I’ve last talked with a soul y’know?”
Throughout her 17 years of living, Marisa Kirisame has found no other person more hated than her. When she was born, she was hated for her hair color. She was able to find some joyous solace through the tutelage of the vengeful spirit Mima, however this in turn gave Gensokyo another reason to hate her ; her willingness to learn magic, which had caused her father to disown her at her youth. Not like it mattered anyway, since before the Scarlet Mist Incident, her own “best friend” Reimu Hakurei had sealed Mima away somewhere beneath the shrine, never to be seen again, and the magician wasn’t there to mitigate the situation, assuming she had just abandoned her, just like her parents had done to her as well. And if being hated for her hair or being “abandoned” by her master for decades wasn’t misery enough for the young witch, there’s also the fact that just about everyone in Gensokyo she had a crush on hated the guts out of the young witch. Reimu, her “best friend”, was less of a friend per se, in reality she only tolerated Marisa because it was her duty as the Hakurei Shrine maiden to keep watch of every human from the Human Village, and that includes Marisa. If allowed, she’d probably just ignore Marisa entirely, as if she’d never existed. And if given a reason to exterminate her, there’s a 25% chance she’d jump the gun and kill her on the spot. Then, there was Alice, her next door neighbor. If there was a competition on who of the witch’s crushes hated Marisa the most, Alice would probably be one of the two people who’d share the same first place spot. While she doesn’t have any legal obligations that restrict her from killing Marisa on the spot, she’d much prefer to tease her over the fact that she and Patchouli were now dating and have little to no interest in going as far as to even say they were friends, often times inviting Marisa over for “magic research” if only to drive her away in tears through verbal abuse and gaslighting Marisa into thinking that she’d be able to snag one of them out for a date, which is relatively a normal thing to do for each of the witch’s crushes, really. The puppeteer had hated the guts out of the witch’s annoying childish nature and grading optimistic outlook from the moment she met her in Makai. Had the rest of the living options in Gensokyo attained better qualities of living, she’d move there on the spot, as far away from Marisa’s antics as possible. Patchouli, Alice’s girlfriend, was no better either. Growing an eternal hatred from the witch’s constant kleptomania and tomfoolery, the closest thing to happiness she’d experienced when Marisa’s around was participating in her daily torments together with Alice. Yeah, she shared Alice’s number one spot for hating Marisa for a damn good reason.
Taking a break from Marisa’s greatest haters, next on the list is Sakuya, and well, there’s 3 different ways to summarize this really, would you prefer “knife”, “excessive laughter”, or “oh she’s gone” as an explanation? And last on Marisa’s crush list was Nitori, who was relatively tame when it came to everyone else the witch had a crush on. Not like it mattered much, since really the only thing keeping Nitori back from being any more hostile against the witch is how little she makes contact with her, seeing as kappas are by nature, introverted science freaks. Attempts had come for Marisa to try to build a meaningful relationship with them, and just as many had gone. At best they ended with simple rejections and at worst public humiliation. Even outside her love life however everyone else too seems to hate Marisa, as the tengus are more interested in Reimu’s exploits than they are with Marisa’s despite them practically being about the same damn incident. All the credit, all the hard work Marisa did, none were spared towards her direction, as it all went to Reimu. The shopkeep of Kourindou, Rinnosuke, was the only one who actually valued her existence, although bonding for the sole reason of family ties wouldn’t be too out of the picture. At best everyone else felt neutral towards her, albeit veering a bit close to mild hatred.
Eventually, for a while, Marisa shut herself off from the world. After gods know how many violent rejections from her crushes, she’d slumped into a deep depression. 17 years of torment and misery had caused her to forget how it feels to be genuinely happy, and she had come to the realization that she never really had any friends. Her parents had long since denied her existence in the Kirisame household, and the closest to a “friend” she ever got “abandoned” her after their little field trip to Makai. Concluding that the world probably would’ve been better off without her, she took a knife from her mess of a kitchen and slammed the door shut to her room. Having written her final “research log”, she took the knife, ignited it with one last flame from her Mini-Hakkero, and then…
STAB!
Marisa embedded her flaming knife deep within her heart. Pints of blood flooded away from her chest and before long, her mouth followed suit. The magician let out one final smile from her face as blood pooled around her vicinity. She’d lived a life full of hate, a life where genuine love had become nothing but a foreign concept to her, where love had become as comparable a concept as scraps of bones were to the local fauna and youkai of Gensokyo. The witch had died alone, her body rotting in the secluded haven of magic that was her home, and she wouldn’t have it any other way. After all, no one would miss they whom no one ever loved. If a human was bred just to be sentenced to an eternity of hate and torment, never allowed happiness despite their greatest attempts in order to achieve and retain it, why were they even permitted to live? Why did they exist? What use did their existence serve other than to fuel the twisted humors of those whom lived amongst them? These were the final questions the magician had muttered before she left the mortal plane, but nobody came to stop her pondering. Nobody expressed the slightest concerns, and nobody was there to help cheer her up. A glimmering full moon shone brightly as Marisa Kirisame laid herself to eternal rest on her deathbed, and everyone was there to miss it.
Back in present day in the Sanzu River, the soul of Marisa Kirisame was being ferried over by the Sanzu River ferrywoman Komachi Onozuka all the way onto the supreme court of the yama, where she’d be sent to her afterlife. Heaven, Hell, Purgatory, the Netherworld, reincarnation, none of it matters to her really. No one had cared for her, and she saw no reason to continue doing so towards everyone else. However, miles before she’d be delivered to her penultimate destination, the trip to the court took a bit of a… hectic turn so to speak.
“Okay, Marisa-san, we’re almost at the yama’s court! I will admit, it’s been fun talking to you even though you’ve probably zoned out in most of my conversation throughout the entire journey. But as a Shinigami, it is my duty to deliver all fallen souls into the yama’s for judgement, so I’m sorry if it felt like our conversation had been cut short.” “…” “…Still as silent as ever, huh…? D-don’t worry Marisa, if you’d like, I could take some of my time to uh… visit you in the afterlife! Be it Heaven, Hell, Purgatory or Netherworld, I’ll make sure to keep in touch with you assuming of course, I have some time to spare when I’m done ferrying the dead across the river. Afterlife won’t seem so bad, I promise! And hey, maybe if you’re really lucky, you may as well be reincarnated altogether! We can visit each other again in the mortal world, have some friendly danmaku battles, and get drunk on some hard booze, just like old times!” “…” “…Hey uh, Marisa? If you’re still listening, I just wanna say that the yama had warned that the waters here are in quite the frenzy during this time of year. Ride’s gonna get a biiiit bumpy, so uh, hold onto the boat VERY tightly okay? Like your life depends on it! Or rather, your afterlife. Hehe. Sorry… that was probably a terrible joke. Getting back to the topic at hand, whatever happens from this point onwards, NEVER LET GO!” “…”
In spite of her laziness, Komachi was the ferrywoman of the river for a damn good reason. Out of every potential candidate the yama could’ve picked for the job, Komachi was the only one least likely to accidentally let a soul drop into the Sanzu River during what has been infamously called by many as the “Restless River Season”. No matter how hard the rapids are, Komachi would always deliver her passengers to the court in tip top shape. Even if she may have accidentally let a couple souls slip past the boat and into the river, she’d do a bit of a detour to try to snatch them back up from the grasp of the restless souls that lie beneath the riverfloor. However, every soul that Komachi had delivered successfully to the yama had one thing in common ; they didn’t want their afterlives spent drowning in the Sanzu River. For those that do, this would be the first and last time Komachi would deal with such a case.
“Whew, that was quite a tough trek, I swear the souls in the river are getting more and more restless every season. Good thing we made it out in one piece, in spite of it all, right, Marisa-san? …Marisa-san? MARISA-SAN!” With nothing left to live for and zero care for wherever the yama would sentence her soul to for her to bother, Marisa didn’t even make an effort to hang tight onto Komachi’s boat, and shortly fell onto the Sanzu River, lying in a pool of restless frenzied souls. Finally taking notice, Komachi took a quick detour to the spot of the river where Marisa laid, and when she arrived, she reached out her hand in a last ditch attempt to send Marisa to the yama. “Marisa-san! Grab my hand! If it isn’t too late, we can still get you to the yama!” But Marisa made no effort to stretch her hand out for Komachi to grab to safety, only chuckling slowly like a maniac. “Heh… heh… heh…” “MARISA THIS ISN’T FUNNY! C’MON, YOU CAN STILL MAKE IT! DON’T YOU WANNA MOVE ONTO THE AFTERLIFE?! AND EVEN IF YOU DON’T… I’LL... UHH… TRY TO CONVINCE THE YAMA TO GET YOU REINCARNATED! JUST PLEASE, GRAB MY HAND, AND WE CAN TALK ABOUT THIS, I PROMISE!” “Heh… heh… heh… heh…” “MARISA-SAN! PLEASE!” “Why… should I…?” Marisa said, finally speaking throughout her entire final field trip to the yama’s court, “If anything… this is a good thing… for the both of us right…?” “WHAT PART OF DROWNING IN THE SANZU RIVER IS A GOOD THING? MARISA-SAN! GRAB MY HAND, WE CAN FIX THIS, I PROMISE!” “It’s a good thing… because… now… Gensokyo doesn’t have to be burdened by my existence anymore… you don’t have to waste your time and pity trying to… comfort me… just like the rest of Gensokyo… and everyone will be… hap… py-“ “MARISA-SAN? CAN YOU HEAR ME?! MARISA-SAN! MARISA-SAN!!!”
As Marisa’s soul sinks further and further into the riverbed, Komachi’s voice gets softer and softer, until eventually it is silenced. When the witch’s soul had sunk so far that Komachi’s voice can’t be heard anymore, she mutters her final words, in a place where no one could hear her. “A Kirisame that wastes their time… learning magic… should have never been born… I now understand your parting words… Father… be happy ze… for once in my damn life… something you said was actually right…” And with that, the life, times and legacy of Marisa Kirisame had come to a close. A cold, cruel end, befitting of a cold, cruel existence.
“Marisa-san…” Komachi shed tears as she watched Marisa’s soul drown in the Sanzu River. This was the first time she had seen a soul willingly succumb to the river’s restless hunger, and out of everyone that it had to happen to, it was the one person whose existence had been plagued with eternal misery. Having lost a passenger to the demons within the waters, Komachi made a silent trek back to the yama’s, no longer uttering another word during the trip.
“Komachi. I assume you failed to bring our special guest back here.” “Yeah… I guess my laziness got a bit out of hand, haha…” Usually for cases in which Komachi failed to fill the quota of souls that she had to deliver the following day, Eiki would’ve fixed the Shinigami with a stern, soul-piercing gaze before lecturing her for her work ethic, but in this scenario, the yama had fixed her with a normal stare instead. Having seen the outcome through her all-seeing mirror, even she would agree that Komachi slacking off and forgetting to do her job of delivering Marisa would’ve been better if this were the fruit that’d be born from her labor. “…ah who am I kidding, Eiki-sama, not even trying to cover it up would help me in this situation…” “Komachi… it wasn’t your fault. Through my all-seeing mirror I had anticipated this outcome from the very start. Even if you were to do your job perfectly, I doubt the outcome would be any better. If anything, considering everything that she’s been through, bringing her here in one piece would have given her a worse time. Heaven, Hell, Purgatory, Netherworld, whichever of these places I send her soul to I doubt she would’ve been any better had we allowed her soul into another plane of existence. What Marisa did wasn’t inherently moral… but if it is her decision then we mustn’t dwell on it too much. The past is in the past, and the only thing we can do now… is to continue on with the present.” “I understand… Eiki-sama…” “Normally I wouldn’t permit such thing, but for now, I believe it is best that you clock out for today. This has been a traumatizing experience for the both of us, and seeing how Marisa has nobody of note that would help with arranging her will, it would seem that we shall take care of it ourselves.” “…I understand, Eiki-sama.”
The annual Hakurei Shrine spring festival had come to Gensokyo. A special occasion in which the cherry blossom petals of the shrine start blooming brightly like pink mini stars of the Earth, or at least that was the intended occasion, the cherry blossom viewing is just one part of the event, the other parts being as an excuse for salesmen to show off, and for everyone in Gensokyo to get drunk hard on booze. Reimu, Patchouli, Alice, and Nitori are currently setting up the decorations as well as assisting local shopkeeps with setting up their stalls for the festival.
“Thanks for helping out with the arrangements, you three. Usually Marisa was the one to help with some of the work, but for some reason, she didn’t even bother to show up.” “…Odd. Every time we came to help you with the decorations, Marisa is usually the first face we see in the shrine helping out with the festival preparations.” “Just like how she’d try to flirt with us every day in the library to no avail?” “Haha, nice one, honey.” “Actually, speaking of Marisa, has anyone even seen her these past few weeks? I know Marisa has had long absences before, but at most she’d usually show her face again after a week, 6 weeks just seems a bit too long for someone like her.” Nitori asked. “I dunno, and frankly, I’m not sure I care really. Things have been a lot more quiet without Marisa around. Outside the occasional incidents of course, but Gensokyo still hasn’t felt more serene without her around.” “I guess you’re right, though in some occasions and call me a bit weird for this…” “Alice, honey, you live in Gensokyo and you control an army of sentient dolls that you can blow up at will. Whatever you say I’m pretty sure it won’t veer anywhere past the border of common sense, at least for Gensokyo standards.” “I guess so… but without Marisa around… anyone noticed how things around here have gotten… a little too quiet?” “Ok, nevermind, that is a little weird.”
“Having fun?” Behind the Hakurei Shrine maiden stood the stern figure of the yama herself, Eiki Shiki. In her hands wasn’t the usual sword she had constantly brought on her outings, but rather an envelope. “Oh. It’s you Eiki. Uhhh… how long have you been standing there? The festival doesn’t start for another few hours.” “Long enough to overhear your conversations about Miss Marisa, which brings me to the reasoning behind my early arrival. As of late night yesterday, Kirisame Marisa… has died.” A deafening silence radiated throughout the shrine. “Wait… what? You can’t be serious, right? Marisa’s pretty tough for a human so I’m sure she hasn’t gotten herself killed yet…” “Miss Marisa is indeed strong, that much is certain, Reimu. However, she had recently lost to the only foe she wasn’t able to beat, one that you may not have even noticed even existed ; herself.” “Wait… what? Nonononono, you can’t be serious. Marisa would never stoop so low as to kill herself. She’s the most persistent and optimistic person I’ve ever known, there’s no way she was willing to kill herself! Right…?” “While I’d be happy to stay and talk with you about Marisa’s mental well-being, for now, as part of Marisa’s will, I am here to deliver to you her suicide note. Komachi and I have taken care of everything else that was written in her will, including any and all tomes and possessions she had borrowed from various people over the years, this is merely just the last thing we needed to deliver in order to complete her will before the festival. Considering you’re her “best friend” I find no other person more suited to send this letter to than you. I’d send you Marisa’s regards, but considering the conversation you just had I’m sure it doesn’t feel necessary anymore. I suppose we shall see each other again during the spring festival, maybe then I’ll be happy to oblige in your talk about Marisa’s mentality.” stated Eiki, as she fixed the shrine maiden with an intense, silent, yet wrathful glare before she flew off to prepare for the festival.
Opening the envelope given to her by the yama, Reimu, Alice, Patchouli and Nitori looked in shock as they witnessed the contents of “Marisa’s suicide note”, as the yama put it. It is said that sometimes simplicity is the best approach to carry your point across, and Marisa’s final “log” reflects it best. The contents of the paper were very minimalistic, containing a drawing of 5 stick figures, one with a bow, one with a hat, one holding a book, and one with a headband. The final stick figure, which donned a witch hat, was scribbled out entirely from the paper, and there were only 5 words scrawled onto the paper ;
“Now everyone can be happy.”