Chapter Text
Nestled humbly among alike buildings in the Human Village, at the end of a well-trodden road, the rental book shop Suzunaan faced the morning sun like any other day. Its worn signage hung lopsided from the angled rooftop, above an old, dry curtain door, open to the air for all who would humor books foreign to the rest of Gensokyo. This business, perhaps, was not an especially popular one in such a secluded and old-fashioned town, but nonetheless, those curtains parted easily to any touch.
On one morning, not a special one in particular, they opened wide and let pour in the fluid gold of the daybreak sun. One Motoori Kosuzu, the primary staff of the establishment, pivoted at-attention from behind the counter, the bells tying down her bright orange hair jingling gleefully. "Good morning-- Oh, Marisa! Back so soon?"
A bold, black, broad witch's hat tucked under the cloth covering the entrance, braced by a hand all too careful to keep it from being knocked right off the wearer's head this time. "Ah, don't go mindin' me," a tomboyish edge with a casual twang called reassuringly. "Just trading up for the next volume, same as last time." The dust glistened in the bright yellow light that flooded in from behind her, a reminder of the musty, familiar stench of old tomes that came to greet Kirisame Marisa like an old and perhaps overly-familiar dog.
Practically leaning over the counter with interest, Kosuzu crossed her checkered sleeves in front of herself. "You've been on a tear through this series lately, haven't you?"
"I mean, you know me," the magician smirked with pride, her rucksack clattering against the table as she opened it up to look for the title she'd just finished the night prior, "I can't let a good book stay down!"
"Haha, yeah..." Laughing along as best she can, Kosuzu commented a little too loudly for her intent, "I'm just glad you're actually... purchasing them this time."
Her curled lips twitching just the slightest bit, Marisa fired back, "Hey, what's that supposed to mean?"
"N-nothing!" As if in self-defense, Kosuzu's front-turned palms raised up in front of her. "Nothing at all. Promise." Her tiny figure disappeared under the countertop obediently, and even still she tried to carry on the conversation. "Although... Can I be a little bit curious?"
Marisa froze, just a little more abruptly than such a close friend might have expected. "... Shoot?"
The apron-covered width of her backside stuck up from below, swaying this way and that as she wrangled with whatever was binding those particularly dangerous books down there. Kosuzu's small indoor voice rose up as best as she could, "I've been impressed at your ability to read these youma books, of course, but--" And then she stood up to full 140 centimeter height, brushing off the lettering on a leather-bound book cover. "Don't you think these ones... Isn't the content a little..." She rolled the shape of her words around on her tongue to sound them out carefully and, ideally, sand off the impolite nature from the edges, as she glanced back and forth between her friend and the book she wanted.
"... 'A little' what?"
"... Rudimentary for someone like you?"
"H-huh?"
"I- I mean!" The young bibliophile reassumed defensive posture and hid her face behind the book as if taking cover. "Y-you told me yourself! You're a seasoned magician, right? From what I can gather, isn't this a little bit... basic, compared to your usual work?"
Marisa could feel her posture start to waver, and she rapidly composed her alibi, trying to smoothly slide the old book across the counter to pave over that thought-- "H-hey now, which of us is the magician here? It's, uh, never too late to get back to basics! Yeah."
"O-oh, I see!" Entirely ready and happy to back down from her valiant conversational stand, Kosuzu corrected course, "I just meant to say, I... had started to wonder if these were for someone else, maybe. I was almost wondering if you were training someone...?"
Awaiting a more clear answer, Kosuzu held the book out expectantly.
"... That too!" The storied magician snatched up her new rental and vanished it into her pack just as quickly. "Yeah, that too. Definitely. You know how it is."
The bells in her hair jingled again as Kosuzu's head skewed on one side. "... I thought you just said that I don't?"
"And you're gonna stay that way if you don't keep learning!" Holding her head high as she turned about, Marisa enunciated her parting words especially clearly as she made her exit, "That's just how it works, ze!"
"R-right...! ... I- I think," Kosuzu mumbled behind her with an utterly boondoggled smile sprawled across her face. "Take care, Marisa!" She called out her farewell, watching the shadows of the curtains fall back over the carpet once again as her friend Kirisame Marisa disappeared through them.
---
"Up there! Up there!"
"Aw, no way..."
"It's Souta's fault! He kicked it too high!"
The village's ambient bustle crowded from all sides, and Marisa's marigold lengths bounced as she traveled down dirt roads, her half-full pack slung across her side. Adjusting her hat's brim, she checked her shadow for the time; she may have bled the morning away a bit carelessly, but she was still on a good pace running her daily errands.
"Ya damn kids deserve it if you're gonna be hoggin' the street like that!"
"Well, where else are we supposed to go, old man?!"
"Anywhere but here! Now go on, get gone!"
As she ran herself diligently through her list of chores at the back of her mind, a sudden patter of footsteps rushed up from behind her, and a small tug on the back of her skirt suddenly grabbed her attention. "Hey, miss, you're that Marisa girl, right?" A small voice, a young boy she'd never met before, pleaded up to her as she jolted in her surprise.
"Eh?" The pride of recognition painted a smile on her face when she finally found the eye-line of the one addressing her. "Who wants to know, ze?" Her hand patting the child's head ruffled his hair and bid him off of her dress.
"C-can you help us...?" A limp point traced a line up from another boy to a nearby rooftop-- where a white shape was visibly caught on a gutter, about twelve feet from the ground. "My friend lost my ball all the way up there, and--"
"She's not gonna help you, idiot!" A third boy in the group suddenly hurled his voice across the road, "Adults have better things to do! Didn't your mom teach you that?"
"She can fly, stupid!" Another shouted back, as indignant as if someone had insulted his favorite superhero during recess. "I've seen it!"
"Can you...?" The first looked up at her with pleading, pathetic, undeniable eyes like those of a stray cat. "I don't think my dad would buy me another..."
Put upon the spot and feeling her boisterousness flee her all at once, the witch's arm crossed in front of her, and she rested her chin on her palm-- "A-ah, damn, of all the days to get caught without my broom, huh..."
"See?! I told you!"
"Shut up, you don't know anything!"
Back and forth with vitriol only children could have over something so small, the argument continued, and despite what should have been her nature, Marisa couldn't help but feel the responsibility in this situation, with all eyes on her. Bead of sweat trailing down the side of her head, clenching her eyes shut as if it would absolve her in the moment, eventually--
"Hey, kid."
"Huh?"
Marisa pulled her rucksack off of herself, and she held it out by the strap for the boy in front of her. "Hang onto this for me, mkay?"
Taking the pouch into his small hands, the child looked down at it, then back up at her with a growing sense of anticipation.
Rolling her shoulders and taking a few steps back, bouncing on the toes of her loafers, she held onto a deep breath and took in the scope of her bad idea; an approaching cart sparse with produce being hauled nearby just might do the trick. Eyeballing heights wasn't something she considered a secret forte, but, surely all she needed was to put her back into it.
At the right moment, she sprang into action; breaking into a sprint for momentum, her feet carried her forward, then off the ground, planting squarely onto the back of the wooden cart, then launching majestically like a forest beast into the air, hands outstretched ready to seize the sky--
And at her less-than-impressive height, she just barely clutched onto the gutter at the edge of the building's roof. At the very least, the children sounded impressed down there. That much felt reassuring, from her rather high perspective.
With her legs flailing unflatteringly beneath her for some sense of balance, she stretched out one arm as far as her poor bones would allow, and just as the metalworking sounded as if it were growing strained beneath her weight, Marisa had barely managed to knock the ball free from its prison into the dirt below; just in time for her to let go and drop into a hardly-stable crouch from that height, and claim plausible deniability if anything happened to fall apart seconds later. Thankfully, that didn't prove a concern.
"Hey! Crazy little freak, what do you think you're doing?! You're gonna break my cart!"
"That's not flying, stupid! Haven't you ever seen someone fly before?"
"Shut up, idiot! She got the ball, didn't she?!"
A profound puff left her chest as Marisa sighed with relief. Surprise mission accomplished. The peanut gallery doesn't need to be pleased.
She figured that much, as the boy picked up his ball with wonder writ in his face, and he hugged it to his chest with effusive appreciation, "Thanks, miss! That was awesome!"
Sunlight glinted off her wink as she grinned with her pearly whites, "Don't mention it, kid. Now you and your friends go find someplace less crotchety and mad about it to go play ball, won't ya, ze?"
"A-alright! We'll try!" His little backpedaling steps took him across the road, and his unremarkable little face functionally disappeared among the likes of his friends, fitting in just so well. "Thanks, miss Marisa!"
With her smile sly and the tip of her witch's hat shallow, Marisa decided to take the scenic route from here; that would serve as enough excitement for one day, she'd hoped, as her steps took her to disappear between the alleyway shadows.
---
Professional motion guided the squared knife across the marbled flesh, just the latest of a thousand times the butcher had produced this cut. "Y'know, I'd have never taken such a pretty girl to be quite such a carnivore," was the woman's idea of complimentary small-talk. "Expensive taste, too! I swear I used to hear you spent all day in the woods eating mushrooms all day, whatever happened to that?"
The corner of the countertop dug into Marisa's forearm the further she leaned into it to make herself look casual. "Ah, I already told ya, ze. Somethin' magical or another blew up in my face, and I kinda had to clear the house out for a while. I'm just bein' slow peckin' away at fixin' it, but I don't mind where I holed myself up for now."
"You still liking that inn I recommended? Real lovely place, close friend of the family. Told you they'd treat you right."
"You did, you did," Marisa smiled back, hungrily watching the way the meat slid off the silvered edge. "It's a real great room they picked for me, I just hate feelin' like a burden in the meantime is all..."
"You? Everyone's favorite Ordinary Magician?" The lady nearly laughed as she slid all the cuts and chunks she'd prepared into the appropriate papers, folding them up as nicely as a rugged woman of her stature could manage after decades on the job. "They probably call it an honor, and you know it!"
"Ahh," her limp wrist fanned away the flames of praise halfheartedly, "I don't wanna pump myself up quite so much. I'm just happy to be a face people want around, y'know, ze?"
"'Course you are, 'course you are!" She passed the packaged groceries along the polished wood to her new favorite customer. "Now, if you don't mind, that'll be--"
Interrupting her in the middle of her tally of the pricing, a sack of coins that must've had its weight measured in pounds hit the table in front of her, casually flung over Marisa's shoulder. "Keep the change."
The butcher dipped down her glasses to look between the offering and her customer in shock and awe. "Whuh? Wait, really now?"
"You've got better cuts than anyone else I've ever ordered from," her grin split the shadow her hat and her hair cast over her face, "gotta be the least I can do to pay ya back some, yeah?"
Doing the incredulous woman the kindness of pretending that generosity stemmed from anything but devious fingers and another person's loose coin-purse, Marisa let herself out from the store with a wide and confident stride.
---
A full pack and a light purse evened out Marisa's step as it carried her through the market. She combed through the stalls with discerning eyes-- it was a Friday, after all, it only seemed responsible to treat herself. A hefty dinner was only the simplest way to pull that off. Barely containing herself as she passed a chef offering fried tofu, second-guessing her choice to pass up a stall with fresh green onions, she fantasized so deeply about the scents and the promise of a good meal that she let the drool trickle from the corner of her mouth. Only just self-aware enough not to bump and bother among the crowd of gathered villagers, she--
"Oy, Reimu! Over here!"
A particular voice shot up over the idle clamor; a tomboyish edge with a casual twang.
"Check out the sale this guy has on beef! Think Aunn will appreciate these?"
Marisa suddenly felt a chill up her spine.
"I'm sorry, are you going to be the one paying for that?"
"Come on, it's hardly half the price!"
"And I've got hardly half the patience to pretend you're not goading me into spending my whole budget on one hotpot! Again!"
Actually, no-- it wasn't just a chill. It was closer to the sensation of being dunked headfirst into an ice bath altogether.
Her pace picked up. At first, she tried to maintain her composure. Stay calm; stay casual; don't make a scene. Stay calm; stay casual; don't make a scene. That phrase repeated itself three times in her head. Four. Seven or eight, actually. Nine? She lost track soon after that. When passersby wouldn't make way for her, she started to very gently shove. Then, a little less gently. That was when she realized her hands had gone numb. Those voices had come from behind her; she needed to get away. She needed to be anywhere but there.
By the time she had made it to the open mouth of a narrow alleyway cut between two shops, 'Marisa' hadn't even the self-awareness to imagine how she must have looked, slinking away like an unwanted pest; it didn't matter. She needed to vanish. She needed to disappear, or it was all over. This was the most important thing in the world to her. The shadow took her into its gentle, comforting embrace, swallowing her shape whole as she wedged herself into such a cramped, tight corridor, deeper and deeper, taking a turn and completely cutting herself off from sight.
When the voices and footsteps of the human village felt far enough away, when she was truly sure she was alone, after she had double and triple-checked that no curious children looking her way had followed her, she pressed her back to a wooden wall, and clutched at her heart in her chest, pounding as if to break free of her rib cage and leave her behind for better pastures. She slid down an inch or two. Her breath didn't come easy; how long had she been holding it? This and other unimportant mysteries went unanswered as she reached up to her hat, as it had skewed from its place atop her head, but didn't quite fall off.
Taking her witch's hat off, looking past her hairline, and feeling at the fuzzy fox-ish ears that had anxiously emerged from hiding when her spell had wavered, The Girl In The Shape Of Kirisame Marisa groaned at herself and her amateurish magic, her body filtering out the unbridled terror she'd just been through.
Sensation and warmth slowly returned to her borrowed face. Her sigh came with a heavy shiver. The voice she had trained so well failed her as she thanked whichever god was responsible for getting her out of that situation under her breath. Squinting her eyes shut tight, and not without audible strain, those telltale ears of a fox youkai 'popped' back into her head, disappearing as if they were never there.
The rim of the hat she'd worked so hard to replicate fit back around her forehead, hiding her shame beneath the shadow cast by its width. This was her karma at work, The Girl In The Shape Of Kirisame Marisa told herself. She'd been caught having too much fun today. It was a bit of a shame, to have to pack up and turn in for the day so early, but it was a necessity; if the real Kirisame Marisa were out and about, it can't be helped. She couldn't afford to be seen.
If she were seen, people would know. They would learn the truth. They would realize their Kirisame Marisa was a fake.
To the best of her ability, she mapped out where she was in the village, compared it to where she remembered the inn she had been staying at was, and skimmed the math looking for the fastest possible path she could take, one that risked the fewest open spaces. Hell, it was hard; she was so bad at managing her spatial awareness. How could anyone spend their whole life in a village this dense without getting lost...?
She had to move. She took another turn. Her steps were light, and cautious. She felt like a burglar in broad daylight. She felt like a criminal, and in an unpleasantly different way to the real Kirisame Marisa. She felt unbelievably aware of how guilty she must have looked to anyone watching. Her best solution was to keep people from watching; sticking to the shadows, avoiding eye contact, taking cover behind whatever would hide her figure, and--
"Well now, if it ain't li'l miss Marisa."
Dammit.
A thick, purple wisp of smoke drifted from the pipe of a brown-haired woman draped in older-fashioned clothes with earthy tones, plain and unfashionable. She sat wide upon her usual bench, the same as it ever was, one leg crossed in front of herself as she indulged in her ornate pipe. The thick circles of her glasses made her eyes all the more obvious, and unavoidable, even under such a wide straw hat.
"O-oh, hi, Mami-san," The Girl In The Shape Of Kirisame Marisa offered in shaky greeting, absolutely pummeling herself internally for managing to pick a route that directly passed through this spot-- a spot she literally knew would certainly not be safe at a time like this. "I'm-- I'd love to stay and chat, but I'm, uh..."
"Come now," Tsuiwa Mami's composed attitude cooed through a chronic smoker's lung, "what's the rush? Don't got time to have a sit with an old friend all the sudden?" Her slack grin felt almost scathing. "Too many places to be, is it?"
Weaving a lie together from disparate threads in record time using only the motions of her shaking hands, while doing her best not to stammer like a fool the whole time, The Girl In The Shape Of Kirisame Marisa felt her wits failing her; "It's just, I, you see, I picked up fresh meat, and I need to, it's gonna spoil, ya know? And that'd be no good, it's the expensive type--" And the entire time, she spoke in machine gun rhythm, messy spray-and-pray bursts that fumbled out of her mouth the longer she went on--
And it went on right until old lady Mami suddenly blew a narrow stream of that pinkish smoke directly into her face. Caught off guard, The Girl In The Shape Of Kirisame Marisa found herself suddenly hacking and swatting that sweet-smelling cloud away from her delicate nose...
... This was how she fought back in the first few moments, before slowly at first, then all at once, the pressure of the situation felt further and further from her mind. A sensual tingle slid down her back, as if physically straightening her out with a gentle touch.
"Deep breaths now, dearie." Even the warming tone of Mami's voice felt clearer after long enough. "Ain't nobody who ever came out better after a downward spiral. Git yerself a seat and be comfy for a spell, yeah? You're safe here."
In something of a cozy daze, The Girl In The Shape Of Kirisame Marisa reached out at waist-level, looking for the bench she knew was there to steady herself upon, and then sit herself onto. "Wh-whoa, um... Potent..."
"Oughta be," Mami confirmed. "Tastes like if Hell were made a' sugar n' gumdrops, comes from halfway up the mountain, and costs an arm n' a leg. Got it from an ol' pal who's got herself business thereabouts. Meant to keep her rowdier clientele all calm and quiet-like. Sounded like the sorta thing you could use a hit off of, the way I seen you actin' lately."
"M-maybe..." She could still feel her heartbeat in her throat, but in a different way than before.
Mami looked her up and down, inspecting the wrinkles left in that witch's outfit. "So." She took another, smaller toke on her pipe. "Mind if an old girl asks a friend what the hurry is? Y'look like death, if ya pardon me sayin'."
"N-no, I'm... fine. Just a... little scared, is all," The Girl In The Shape Of Kirisame Marisa confused herself as she stuttered that out a tad too honestly; that drug was proving even more relaxing than she'd anticipated.
Cheek twisting in a small smirk, Mami sympathized, "Aw, come on now, that ain't right for a girl like yerself. What's Kirisame Marisa got to be afraid of? Where's that comin' from?"
"It's..." The real Marisa has been coming to this part of town more often lately. She brought the Hakurei Maiden with her this time. If they find me, they'll surely kill me. This place isn't safe right now. Sometimes it feels as if it never was. "... Complicated." Bullet narrowly dodged. "That's all."
"Hmm..." Mami's pipe scratched at her scalp through her thinly matted hair. "If'n a girl can guess... Does it have anything to do with the whole living situation dealie? We love to have ya, but, over a year away from home now's gotta mess a poor girl up somethin' fierce."
"No, no," The Girl In The Shape Of Kirisame Marisa shied away from the very idea, repeating herself, "that's all totally fine and good, trust me, I'm..." She cleared her throat and shook out whatever amount of the wooziness she could. "I'm actually... I'm happy here. I can survive here. It's nice."
Silently staring a hole through her friend's placid and inebriated face for a moment, Mami eventually leaned back, conceding, "... Well alrighty then, but a girl what calls herself happy oughta be relaxed about it, right? How happy can ya really be if'n ya think you're scared all the time?"
Trying to recall the words necessary to fight back, the fox youkai in witch's clothing denied, "Not... I'm not scared all the time. Things just... aren't perfect, is all. Sometimes, you just have to--" She regained some shreds of lucidity as she coughed herself back into her accent-- "I mean, ya just gotta take it on the chin, right? Stay humble? Ze?"
The sun's glare blocked out Mami's eyes from the angle she looked down at her friend. "... Sure thing, kid. Just as long as nobody's hurtin' themselves, yeah?"
"Yeah..." The Girl In The Shape Of Kirisame Marisa blinked her eyes back into focus, with some difficulty. "Yeah. Definitely."
Another long drag upon Mami's pipe drew out the space in between. She adjusted her hat for better vision under the blinding afternoon sun. People passed the two of them by as they sat together, the daylight slowly dwindling.
"... Y'know," the elder of the two spoke with a purplish puff, "ain't somethin' that makes a lot of sense, but, it ain't enough to survive. Y'gotta start livin' at some point, too. Else dyin' don't even mean much."
"H... huh...?"
"... I'm talkin' about how we never go drinkin' anymore, remember?" The smirk suddenly returned to Mami's face as it caught the right light once more. "Y'need to live a li'l bit, dearie."
"O-oh... Oh! Yeah, that sounds like it'd help," the fox youkai in-hiding admitted.
"Been a right couple a' weeks since last time, yer real cruel to leave a girl hangin' like that, y'know."
"And it's 'cause I know I can't beatcha if ya go and make it a game again!" Falling more and more back into her character, The Girl In The Shape Of Kirisame Marisa likewise remembered how to smile. "And ya had me be the one footin' the bill last time!"
"You n' I both know ya hardly spent a thin coin a' yer own on that, n' you know it."
"It's the principal of it all, ze!"
"So, Geidontei, tomorrow night?"
"I always figured ya had, like, a thing on Saturdays."
"Ah, mostly. This time, I'm good for it. So, how'zat sound?"
"I dunno," The Girl In The Shape Of Kirisame Marisa confidently cushioned her head against the wall with her laced fingers, "I've been gettin' real popular around these parts lately. Wouldn't it tank my reputation to start hangin' out around old ladies again?"
Conking her friend on the head with a pipe right through her hat, Mami chided, "C'mon now, I'm not that old!"