Reimu swerved violently to the left as a trail of green bullets approached her with surprising speed. "It's still after me!"
"I can see that." Yukari had sounded casual since the beginning of Reimu's journey into the underworld, but now her tone was so remote Reimu suspected she had gotten into the snacks again. The distant sound of chewing before Yukari continued confirmed the suspicion. "If you keep going towards the wall, I can warp you over to the other side."
Reimu looked up ahead as she considered her options. Her opponent, a bridge princess with glowing green eyes and strange rummage sale clothes, hovered in the air above her with her fingers splayed against her forehead presumably so she could better direct the spell. She was watching Reimu's plight with a quiet smile and seeming indifference to the spirit needles Reimu kept pelting at her. "It'll be hard to hit her from that angle."
"Do as you see fit. I have every confidence in your ability to overcome this little obstacle."
"Because otherwise you'd have to come over yourself and clean up this mess?"
Reimu ignored Yukari's cheerful and false protests about how lending Reimu a fraction of her powers was a fair trade-off to having to venture into a dank cave filled with noxious youkai and focused on the fight.
As vexed as she was, she had to admit the spell was clever: the bullets chased her much faster than she would have expected from a spell card belonging to the kind of small fry youkai she inevitably ran into at the beginning of each major incident. In fact, she was already a little curious in spite of herself about what other attacks the bridge princess had up her sleeve.
But this wasn't the time to think about such things. She zigzagged ahead, trying to find a balance between moving fast enough to keep the trail of danmaku from overwhelming her but not so fast she wound up boxing herself in. A glance to her right told her she most likely couldn't circle back without being hit in time to resolve the spell card. Yukari's plan seemed like the best one, annoyingly enough, but maybe if she was careful she might...
The bridge princess was now right in front of her. From close up her smile wasn't half as satisfied as Reimu had assumed from a distance. Her lips were curled upwards, sure, but there was something hollow and sad behind the green glow of her focused eyes.
Reimu shook her head at once in irritation. She really didn't have time to worry about things like that.
However, she couldn't help but notice the bridge princess was now within arm's reach. And there it was. The way to get out of this mess without Yukari's help.
She made another swerve, then reached out. The bridge princess did little more than blink as Reimu's arms latched around her shoulders. In fact, Reimu wasn't sure she was fully aware of what was happening at all.
Reimu didn't have time to worry about that, either. She quickly brought a yin-yang orb beneath her foot and kicked herself off it to gain momentum. Holding on tight, she swung herself around the bridge princess as though she was circling a slender tree.
The bullets were momentarily tricked: they kept moving forward while Reimu was back in front of the bridge princess. It wouldn't last. She began at once looking around for a clear path to safety. The spell card was near to resolving, but was it near enough that she would survive staying where she w—
A pair of arms locked around her neck.
She swivelled her gaze back forward to discover the bridge princess' face inches from hers. Her eyes were no longer glowing, but her irises were very green indeed. Her expression was unreadable.
Reimu stilled for a moment without meaning to. Common sense suggested the bridge princess was trying to trap her in place so that the spell could catch up to her, which in turn meant she ought to wrench herself free as soon as possible.
Before she did that, however, the bridge princess bowed her head until it came to rest upon Reimu's shoulder. The movement was followed by a sigh not entirely unlike the sound Reimu made when collapsing onto her futon after a long, wearisome day. Unlike that sigh, the softness of the bridge princess' voice carried a palpable sense of longing to it.
At length, Reimu realised the spell card had resolved itself around them. She likewise noted that at some point she had gone from holding onto the bridge princess for practical reasons to hugging her back. Neither of these things seemed important enough to make her relinquish her hold just then, especially since the bridge princess' body felt so pleasantly cool against hers.
After several quiet moments, the bridge princess raised her head and blinked. The next, her arms sprang away like she had been struck.
Reimu loosened her hold likewise. The instant she did so, the bridge princess slipped away from her arms and fled deeper into the cave.
There's a city close ahead."
"Great."
"You're not at all curious about an underground city in an abandoned cave?"
"I'm just trying to get this over with."
"I see." Yukari's tone was light and decidedly teasing even through the distortion caused by the distance between her and Reimu. "Still thinking about your new girlfriend, are we?"
"Shut up."
As it happened, Reimu was indeed thinking about Parsee Mizuhashi. She had returned to challenge Reimu by a chasm leading to the depths without so much as a nod at their initial encounter. Reimu had fought through her trick spell cards, watched her flee again, and moved on. Clearly whatever madness had taken hold of both of them earlier had already evaporated.
Only... there had the look Parsee had given her while glancing back during her escape. Her eyes had gleamed with what Reimu's gut told her was a very dangerous power, but that hadn't been all there was to it. It had been a look of recognition, a kind of understanding whether real or just imagined. Something that seemed like a perfect match to the sigh of quiet relief which still rang in Reimu's ears.
She smothered the urge to turn back. She didn't want to give Yukari any more fuel for her teasing comments, and this wasn't the time anyway. There was an incident to solve, and beyond that she longed to see daylight and breathe clean air again as soon as possible.
Even so, as she kept flying forward she found herself idly daydreaming about coming back one day soon to find Parsee again and perhaps finding some answers.