The grass was grey. Assuming grass still existed.
It hurts.
The sky was fog. Her thoughts were fog. Even time was fog, slowly drifting towards nowhere in particular.
It hurts.
She was most likely lying down, but she wasn't sure. She felt at once suspended in the air and riveted to the ground.
Boredom was fine. She was used to it. This was no different from being holed up alone at the shrine for days and weeks at a time, feeling the eyes of her ancestors judging her every move.
Boredom wasn't fine. It chipped away at her foothold on reality until soon there would be nowhere to stand on.
Her mouth was so dry it was caving in on itself. Earlier, when she had had more strength, she had stuck her fingers down her throat till she gagged and so found some relief. Now the effort of raising her hand was rarely worth it. Besides, she could no longer feel her fingers.
Sanae suggested it was due to frostbite, but then Marisa pointed out that it was still summer. From there things escalated into a cheeky argument, and suddenly Reimu felt a thousand years old, surrounded by the chatter of children who couldn't comprehend anything beyond the reach of their hands.
You're hallucinating again.
Her bones were steel folded seven times over. Would her skin turn into bark or into bedrock? She already felt her hair and fingernails lengthening, wild and strange and soon to be lichen.
I could just expire. I've done everything I can. It's not my fault if I give up now.
Reimu opened her eyes. The voice in her head was hers, almost. Just a half step too high when compared to her usual internal monologue. And the 'now' had petered into a drawl.
And now I'm starting to doubt my own thoughts, the voice persisted.
It was almost insulting how gullible the creature thought her.
You might as well come out into the open.
Nothing happened. Then nothing happened some more. Reimu was acutely aware of her heart hammering along in her chest and the possibility that the voice hadn't been the youkai's doing, that it had been her all along and she had simply lost herself in the mire the fog had turned even packed earth into mist.
"If a shrine maiden falls and there is no-one around to hear it, does she make a sound?"
The shadow rose up like a tree, wearing Reimu's shape and speaking with Reimu's voice. The titter that followed the comment was its own.
Despite everything, Reimu found herself relaxing. It's just another persistent and unfairly powerful youkai. Another Yukari, in other words. If Yukari wasn't at all personable. And didn't like you. And didn't have a reason to keep you around.
The shadow giggled once more.
What do you want? Reimu thought instead. As much as it irked her that the youkai could access her thoughts, it was better than trying to force words through her tortured throat.
"This isn't about what I want, my lady. It's about what you want." The shadow grew pale as its resemblance to Reimu melted away. "Here you are, with no demands to your attention. No petitioners. No distractions. No need to even lift a single finger."
Reimu rolled her eyes. You're here.
"I demand nothing of you. Rather, I have come to offer you a favour. A favour to the shrine maiden who has chosen to expire in the wilderness for no ostensible season."
Fingers of frost crept upwards, ensnaring Reimu's ankles.
"Or perhaps you think there is a purpose to your being here? Do you believe this to be a noble sacrifice?"
If I can't be loved, then I want to at least be of use, whispered a treacherous voice so much like her own.
It's fake. It's fake. And if it's not, it must die. The frost reached up to her knees. No. It's a distraction. Know your enemy.
She studied the silhouette hovering above her, faint now but still discernible. Long hair. Shorter in stature than she would have guessed from the presence.
A-ha. And horns. Two vast horns, splitting and stretching outward like reverse roots. And with them, an intuition. One that made little sense. But there it was.
It's not like an oni to be this underhanded.
"I will take your word for it, my lady, although I fail to see the relevance of your comment." The apparition spoke casually enough, but had it been too dismissive? Just a bit too slick?
Reimu would have smiled even if she no longer entirely trusted her gut feeling, but that would have required nearly as much effort as a frown. She remained blank and focused on breathing.
The apparition leaned in, so close Reimu felt its non-breath against her nose. Reimu got the sense of something animal, of fur and bloodstained fangs. Something that most certainly hadn't been there before. Something that was almost certainly a lie. "Now then. It is my understanding that through this act, you hope to finalise your reputation as a somewhat adequate shrine maiden. Such concerns are an endemic human condition, after all." The fog's fingers caressed Reimu's face even though the shadow kept still. "Or did you really come all this way for no other reason but the lack of all mental fortitude?" The fog momentarily dispersed before regaining its previous shape. "That might be for the best. If it was recognition you craved... well. I discern a certain kink in your plan."
Even knowing she was at most three heartbeats away from death, Reimu couldn't resist rolling her eyes again. Do they always have to be so smug about comments that aren't even clever?
"Or perhaps it is simply release that you want?"
Audible sharpness rang through the fog. The moment Reimu saw it, the silhouette of a blade dispersed, but its suggestion remained. A warning. Or perhaps a promise.
As soon as she thought the final word, the apparition began to chortle. "Oh, yes. I see how it is. Human frailty wins out once more. Only, it will not. I cannot put an end to all death, but I can keep you alive for a remarkably long period of time."
The frost rushed onwards. It now reached up to Reimu's neck. No death. No escape.
She bit the inside of her cheek. Why?
"There is only one recourse available to you," the shadow continued as if Reimu had thought nothing. "An utterly painless escape that will simultaneously give your life some paltry meaning."
Up her cheeks. Up her forehead. Encasing her whole.
She breathed. She waited.
"Embrace me. Grant me your powers, and I will free you with no strings attached. You will be able to rest safe in the knowledge that your legacy will be carried out without any further suffering on your behalf."
A complete silence fell, the kind Reimu had only ever experienced in dreams before.
She wasn't sure she was still breathing. Maybe, if the shadow truly demanded a spoken answer, she could catch a breath and croak something out.
"Well, my lady?"
Reimu closed her eyes. They were still unfocused when she re-opened them, but the shadow seemed closer and deeper than before.
She caught a breath. Just one. It was enough.
Is that it?
The fog shimmered. The apparition said nothing.
Seriously? Was this all a play to get me to make some kind of a stupid deal with you? It was almost funny, but above all rose a simmering anger. I couldn't give myself to you even if I wanted to. And if you think I'm going to panic and forget I'm mortal just because you keep injecting false thoughts into my head, all that means is that you're even more stupid than you think I am. Go away.
The shadow blinked out.
The attack was sudden, and the shock of it hurt almost as much as the steel did. One minute her hand was still and whole. The next it was nailed to the earth with a sharp blade as though it had always been so. Her fingers convulsed once before going entirely numb.
"I tire of your empty defiance." The voice was at once cold and sickly sweet. The shadow kept flickering in and out of view. It reminded Reimu of moths. "How do you plan on stopping me if I take what I want by force? You are alone. Truly alone."
You are alone.
I'm alone.
Reimu swallowed around the stone of bile in her throat. The answer was obvious even through the haze of pain, but it didn't feel important. Something else did.
"I'm alone," she whispered. "And so are you."
In an instant, she felt the fingers on her throat, felt the hand squeezing down and wringing the last drop of oxygen from her. The blade tore out of her palm with a gush — who knew there was still liquid in her body? — and plunged instead into her heart.
The pain burst forth from the wound, needles and nails and fever-poison. Some shade of mercy, almost.
There were only two things she saw beyond indistinct movement in the fog as it blackened to night. The blade, iron-hot, corrupted with her blood. And silver eyes, rippling like moonlit lakes, radiant with hate.
Her suspension over, she fell.
She woke up staring at her bedroom ceiling.
For a long while, she lay still, feeling entombed in stone. It was definitely her bedroom ceiling. There was the eye in the grain that winked at her every time she averted her eyes from it. There were the puncture marks and stains caused by the Cursed Toffee Apple Incident. There was the lingering shadow in the corner that had once housed an entire colony of tiny black spiders.
That established, she took in the rest of her surroundings. She was lying on top of her futon in her day clothes. Not the ones she had been wearing when she had left the shrine. The skirt she was wearing was so old and softened with use she only wore it indoors. At least it was clean.
A heaviness draped itself over her the moment she lifted her head off the pillow. She ignored it and absent-mindedly straightened her ascot. It had been hanging loose around her neck. It was almost like someone didn't want her to choke in her sleep.
A silhouette was visible through the door.
Reimu checked her bearings. No ofuda. No orb. No spell cards, either.
Couldn't be helped. She dragged herself upright and slid open the door.
She could honestly say that the sight of Yukari Yakumo wearing an apron and busying herself with the making of miso soup was among the last things she had expected to see.
"Finally awake?" Yukari turned to smile at Reimu with her typical, softly devious crook to her lips. "You have a moment to take in some fresh air before breakfast is done. After that, we'll be expecting visitors."
Reimu stared. Then, when that didn't appear to answer any questions, she allowed the most pertinent thought on her mind to make its way to her tongue. "Will it come back?"
Yukari paused. For once, she wasn't playing coy. "Yes. Eventually." She turned back towards her cooking and pointed at the door. "Fresh air."
Reimu nodded and stepped outside.
After months of clouds melting into fog with no gaps in between, the clear blue sky looked fake. Reimu glared at it, half expecting the paint to start peeling off.
She retreated back indoors, suffocating in the clean air. Yukari kept her back turned, busying herself with the meal. When had Yukari last cooked her own food? Surely this was something she delegated to Ran.
At least the shrine wasn't on fire. In a sense, that would almost have comforted her.
Reimu settled against the wall and stared at Yukari's long curls, shimmering gold in the filtered sunlight. Her instinct told her that strange though it seemed, she was seeing the real Yukari. It was herself she was less sure about.
She pinched her arm. It stung. Unconvinced, she moved to poke the flesh of her palm.
She paused.
She looked at her hand.
As though sensing a sea change, Yukari turned. "What is it?"
Reimu shook her head, instinctively rather than with meaning. She kept staring.
Yukari set the chopsticks on the counter and took a step towards her. "Reimu..."
Reimu's entire body jerked. She thrust her hand forward to stop Yukari in her tracks.
Her hand, whole and blemishless. Her hand, without a single scratch or the faintest of scars. Her hand, with skin so soft it might have belonged to a newborn.
It wasn't damning evidence, she knew. It felt fatal all the same.
Yukari hadn't budged an inch from where Reimu had stopped her. She studied first Reimu's hand, then her face. She said nothing.
Reimu followed suit. They remained a pair of statues, her with her hand extended, Yukari with her arms down and relaxed.
Finally, Reimu's closed throat opened enough to let the words out.
"Did I die?"
Yukari still said nothing.
Reimu let her hand drop. "How many times have I died?"
After fifteen seconds of bland silence that felt like hours compressed into a few heartbeats, Yukari turned back towards the soup.
When breakfast was served, Reimu sat down by the table without feeling her legs. The food tasted real.
After the meal was done, Yukari busied herself with cleaning up, with surprising effectiveness for someone who had likely never been to a kitchen before except in passing. Reimu sat by the porch, waiting for the promised guests to show up. She didn't look at her hand. She didn't look at Yukari. She did her best to enjoy the sunlight on her skin.
And she certainly didn't look at the wisps of mist lingering in the shadow of the shrine.