Strength, Yuugi thought as she gazed into the abyss separating Former Hell from the lands above, was meant to be an unshakeable monolith.
She pulled her folded legs closer to her body and drank from her sake dish. Pondering her life philosophy was generally low on her list of priorities, but for the past several decades, it was what her mind inevitably drifted to whenever she approached the bridge. She didn't mind. It was better than the alternative topics, anyway.
Strength, then. To the oni, brawn was merely the beginning, and ultimately meant little if you were a coward. True strength meant putting your entire body and soul on the line when the situation called for it. Losing was only shameful when you failed to do that, and though she felt everyone should always strive for victory, the important thing was to never give up until the entirety of your strength had been expended. That was the way to live a clean, straight-forward life, like the blade of a fine sword.
"Did you come to see me? How thoughtful."
Yuugi straightened her back and kept her eyes on the chasm as she felt a familiar, putrid aura approaching. Apparently, Parsee had decided to slither out from whichever hole in the ground she'd been lurking in this time.
Without further warning, she was already sitting next to her, hugging her legs against her chest, her eyes shining with green bile. "It's been a while, hasn't it?"
"I'm waiting for a friend," Yuugi said bluntly.
Parsee's smile grew ever sweeter. "That's so nice. It must be lovely having so many friends."
"It is." She drank again, deeply this time. Parsee's words were invariably honest but coated with sickly poison, turning even the most innocuous compliment into a dagger. Alcohol dulled those blades.
Still, even after only a few moments spent in Parsee's presence, Yuugi could feel a creeping darkness at the edges of her consciousness, looking for suitable cracks through which to worm itself into her mind. She steeled herself and smothered the first inklings of jealousy under her loathing.
No, losing by itself wasn't shameful. But losing to a petty emotion to the point where you wholly give yourself up to it, squandering all your potential for good? She couldn't think of anything more pathetic.
Parsee was still smiling at her like nothing was amiss. "While you're waiting, I'd like to ask for a favour."
Another ploy to get her infected with jealousy, most likely. "What is it?"
"I need some rope."
"What for?"
"It's a secret."
Yuugi gave Parsee the critical eye. She was still wearing a mish-mash of garments donated to her by some of the lither oni, immaculately kept. Her bendy hair was neatly brushed and tucked behind her ears, and though her skin was sallow, in general she was as presentable as anyone living in a damp cavern could be.
Long gone, however, was the defiant gaze, that inner strength Yuugi had once found herself admiring. She had given it some thought after the worst of her anger had dissipated, but she still wasn't sure if it had ever been more than an illusion.
Not that it matters now, she mused as she gazed at the dull glow of jealousy shining forth from Parsee's eyes.
Out loud, she said, "If you find any lying around, feel free to pick it up."
"Thank you. You're so kind." Parsee really could make the most gracious of words sound like sugary poison. "I need quite a bit of it."
"Try the eastern plains. We left a whole bunch of construction material out there last month." Funny Parsee hadn't already found it by herself. Surely she wouldn't have waited to ask for permission if she had known about it.
"Thank you," Parsee repeated. From the corner of her eye, Yuugi saw her curtsey.
"Yuugi!"
She looked up to see Suika landing on her side of the bridge, grinning broadly.
She stood up, vaguely aware Parsee had vanished but not caring either way. She matched her smile to Suika's. "You kept me waiting, you bastard."
Suika laughed and staggered over, only growing louder as Yuugi placed her hand between her horns and applied enough force to crush human skulls.
"Was that the bridge princess that attacked me'n'Reimu a while back?" she asked, pushing Yuugi's hand away.
"Yeah." She looked in the direction Parsee had likely vanished to. "A real weakling."
"Eh, what can ya do?" Suika's tone suggested she really didn't care one way or another. Though a fellow Deva, she had always had a more relaxed attitude to strength and honesty. No wonder she could tolerate living on the surface.
Still, Yuugi had to agree with her on this matter. "Yeah. Let's go."
Her thoughts kept returning to Parsee as they followed the path down to the capital. In some ways she still felt responsible for the bridge princess. She'd been the one who had decided to take her in, the one to teach her the language, and the one who had made sure she had received the job as the bridge overseer. It had been her failure to see the truth which had led to the death of Touko and Kanna and those human saps as much as anything Parsee had done.
To think that after all this time, she could have been so summarily duped.
Never again.
"Hey, buddy! Whatcha getting all blue about?" Suika slapped Yuugi's back with enough strength to topple a small mountain. "Tonight's about having fun!"
Yuugi's cheer returned. "Right. First one to drink herself under a table is a tengu's toerag."
As Suika chuckled, Yuugi felt a sudden stab of envy for her friend's carefree nature. She shook it off, grimacing. Spend a minute with Parsee, be vexed by residual jealousy for the rest of the day.
She smiled back at Suika, focusing on her good memories of her. The jealousy was annoying, but nothing she couldn't deal with, especially with a party and thus endless sake ahead to aid her.
And with that, she forgot all about even speaking to Parsee that day. Regret didn't belong in the oni vocabulary any more than pity did.
It was several weeks later that she next approached the bridge, on a sudden impulse to cross the chasm and pay Suika a visit in turn.
She sauntered up the tunnel, whistling under her breath. Which season was it in Gensokyo, again? Suika had mentioned the Hakurei Shrine's well freezing, so barring a fairy prank it ought to be winter. How many centuries had it been since she had last seen snow?
Her visions of a wintry landscape came to a halt as she reached the cavern and noticed a change to the bridge. Someone — no points guessing who — had tied a rope around it a few feet from the wall of the chasm, stretched taut as though something heavy was hanging from it.
She halted and considered the rope. Was it some kind of a trap? Whatever the case, it gave her an uneasy feeling.
She stepped onto the bridge, certain it would carry her, then crouched down. She placed her sake dish on the ground with all due solemnity, cracked her knuckles, and jumped off.
A heartbeat later she caught the edge of the bridge with one hand and dangled herself from it, giving her a perfect view of the underside of the bridge, as well as what awaited those who allowed themselves to fall.
She swiftly forgot about that, however, as she saw what the rope was holding up.
Swaying gently from left to right above the yawning abyss, upside down and suspended from her ankle, hanged Parsee. Her hands were behind her back and her eyes were firmly shut.
Yuugi let go entirely and flew to her side. "Parsee?"
No answer.
She prodded her side. "Parsee!"
"Mm?" Parsee's brow furrowed, but she didn't open her eyes.
Yuugi sighed. Whatever this fresh nonsense was, she didn't care for it one bit. "If you meant to hang yourself, that's done from the neck."
Parsee's eyes fluttered open, the glow in them muted to where they almost looked like regular eyes. "I know."
Of course she did, but that didn't explain what she was doing, instead. "I'll leave you to it, then."
"Wait." Parsee's frown deepened. "Can you... help me back up? I can't move." Her eyes closed. "Too much... poison in the head."
"Tch."
When Parsee didn't respond, Yuugi hoisted herself back up and looked for the fastest way to free her. The knot looked well made, so she ignored it and instead took hold of the rope with both hands and twisted it in half. Discarding the other half, she allowed Parsee's weight swing to the left side of the bridge, then reeled her up.
In mere moments, the bridge princess was lying prone on the bridge. She had used some ridiculous sorcery to tie her hands behind her back while suspending herself. Yuugi tore the bindings off, then scooped her up.
Parsee leaned against her chest with a sigh, She was barely conscious if Yuugi was any judge of it, but breathing steadily, and looked calmer and more at ease than she had seen her in centuries.
Yuugi ignored both the long since forgotten fluttering feeling the sensation of her frail neck against her collarbone awakened in her stomach and the sudden urge to drop her, and instead carried her to the nook of the cavern she had made her home. There, she safely discarded her on the pile of rags that served as her bed, then leaned against the wall to see if she would wake up again.
"What were you even trying to do?" she asked, speaking more to herself than to Parsee.
"Mmm..." Parsee's eyes cracked open. "I was trying to gain wisdom."
Yuugi wrinkled her nose. It sounded like a lie. "Some fairytale of your land?"
"An old tale from a land far to the north-west." Once again, her eyes fell shut, as though she didn't have the strength to keep them open. "Maybe I should have hanged longer."
Having no answer to the comment, Yuugi moved her gaze onto Parsee's meagre possessions, namely the large pile of books and scrolls containing fairytales and other legends on top of a flat rock close to the head of her bed. On the topmost book was a stack of thin cards she didn't recall seeing before. She glanced at the top-most card, depicting a woman taming a beast, then ignored them, too busy being surprised by the fact she recognised the bulk of the scrolls as the ones she had gifted Parsee all those years ago, still in readable condition.
She glanced in her direction, and her surprise grew as she noticed not only that Parsee was also looking at the scrolls, but the smile she wore as she did so. Ever since she had been unveiled her true nature, even her most innocent expressions had a shade of slyness to them, but her current expression, no matter how closely Yuugi scrutinised it for treachery, appeared utterly guileless.
As soon as Yuugi thought of it, however, Parsee's eyes flashed, and the smile wilted away. She turned towards Yuugi with a new, more expected smirk dawning on her face.
"Thank you. For saving me, I mean."
Yuugi shrugged. "Forget about it."
"After you saved my life?"
"You could've flown up by yourself."
"During the first day, maybe. By the time it was safe to come back up, I felt so dizzy I could no longer move."
How long had Parsee hanged there, exactly? Still, Yuugi knew there was a more pertinent question. "Safe from what?"
"Oh, just things. Like wandering down to the city. Or else, well, you know..." Feebly, Parsee raised her hand and frowned at the burn the bindings had etched onto her wrist. "And they say youkai skin is strong."
Yuugi barely noticed her attempt to change the subject, still mulling over her previous words. Physically tying yourself up to compensate for lack of willpower? Really?
"Pathetic," she said out loud.
Parsee let her hand fall on her chest and turned her head towards Yuugi. "It must be easy to say that when you're as strong as you are."
"Don't give me that. You should be strong enough, too."
"It's kind of you to have such faith in me." Parsee's smile faded, giving way to a look of unmitigated envy. "If it had been you, you would have surely defeated it."
"It?" Yuugi asked, the likely answer occurring to her as soon as she said the word out loud. What else? Jealousy.
Parsee didn't respond for a long while. Slowly, she propped herself up with her elbows and cocked her head. "Want to give it a try?"
Yuugi gave her a hard look. It was all a trap, of course, likely starting from the supposedly earnest smile if not from the moment she had suspended herself, but the oni way of dealing with traps was to charge forward head on and take the matter by the horns. Furthermore, it was also a challenge, something a Deva of the Mountain never backed away from.
She walked over and crouched down next to Parsee. "Give me your best shot."
Parsee got up on her knees and pushed her hair behind her ears. She placed both of her hands — cold and slightly clammy — on Yuugi's ears, and carefully avoiding the horn, pushed her forehead against Yuugi's. She closed her eyes.
Yuugi waited with her eyes wide open, feeling Parsee's soft breathing against her nose and upper lip.
Then, Parsee opened her eyes.
And just like that, nothing existed in the world but a bright green glow, and the gut-twisting, blood-boiling, wretched agony of knowing everyone else in the world was stronger, more skilled, happier, brighter, more fortunate, that everyone held something she could not ever reach no matter how much she coveted it, a sheer white-hot burn that melted the flesh off her bones and suffocated the screams crawling up her lungs, no respite, nowhere to run, no escape from the poison that flowed in her veins and had already drowned her...
Yuugi gasped for breath, only to find herself back in the cavern, staring into the fading glow of Parsee's eyes. The forces of irrational jealousy continued to gnaw at her at all sides, but the jealousy at the forefront of her mind was tinged with amazement.
"What..." Her thought was interrupted by a violent coughing fit. It was as if the poison had been real, and her body was now trying to violently reject it.
Parsee looked on silently as she retched.
"You're lucky," she said as Yuugi finally stopped heaving.
"Suppose I am," Yuugi muttered. She had lost, but clearly to a superior force. She wasn't particularly prone to jealousy, but even when she had felt it before, it had never been like this, a downright physical force burning away everything in its way. No shame in this defeat.
"I didn't think you could pull away," Parsee continued. "I really should have, considering how strong you are. Oh, to have power like yours..."
Nor was she surprised that Parsee had essentially attempted to assassinate her. She had walked into the trap with her eyes open.
She lifted her chin. "I didn't pull away."
"Then you are really lucky." Parsee smiled. "I'm so jealous."
Yuugi stared at her. Surely she had to know Yuugi had been completely overwhelmed and had played no part in her own salvation.
"So that's what you lost to," she said quietly.
The glow in Parsee's eyes grew dim.
"You should go," she replied in an equally hushed tone. "It's dangerous here."
No, what surprised her was that Parsee Mizuhashi had been real after all.
Yuugi bowed her head. To live with such unfathomable jealousy and maintain even a vestige of your original self...
Owing up to your mistakes was strength, too. "I was wrong about you."
The usual smile spread across Parsee's lips as the poisonous glow returned. "You're so kind to say that. So kind..."
Something moved within Yuugi.
Without thinking, she wrapped her arms around Parsee and breathed in her scent. "I'm sorry."
All she got in response were endless peals of bright, hysterical laughter.