The Forest of Magic was no Bamboo Forest of the Lost. While the trees did move on their own accord and you could safely bet one day's straightforward footpath would be as twisty as a fairy-tangled piece of yarn the next, if you knew what to expect, you could trek more or less safely to your destination, assuming you were willing to withstand the gloom of the shadows and the pranks and giggles of the forest's supernatural inhabitants
Sanae still preferred to avoid the forest, but the prospect of travelling through it, especially in company, didn't daunt her. Even so, she had to admit she was somewhat unsettled as she and Reimu traced their path towards Marisa's house. The forest was quiet. Too quiet. It was as if every single bird and fairy and insect had fled the area and left behind a palpable sense of hush. Mindful of what happened in horror movies when a character uttered such concerns out loud, she kept her observations to herself and pressed the bundle of clothes more tightly against her chest. The anticipation in the air most likely signalled an incoming prank, or at worst a low-key incident. Nothing the pair of them couldn't handle.
"Thanks for this." Reimu sounded flat even for her. She carried a bundle no heavier than Sanae's, but it appeared to weigh her down like stones.
"I'm happy to help." Maybe if Sanae made her smile airy enough, it would lift some of the burden on Reimu. "I'm surprised you're taking gifts to Marisa rather than the other way around."
"I'm not. These are hers. She left these in my storage house without asking."
"Why?"
"She must have finally run out of space at home."
"So now she's squirrelling her possessions elsewhere?"
Reimu nodded. "I'll take them back with me if she asks nicely. I have the room. I just hate people sneaking around behind my back."
I think it's because you would have charged her rent for the storage space if she had asked. But Sanae didn't bother to comment, because she knew Reimu had already thought of it herself and that extorting back rent was likely the chief reason behind the trip: Reimu was never one to pass by even slightly unethical opportunities to make money. It wasn't the most endearing trait, perhaps, but Sanae had come to think of Reimu's greed fondly as a sign of passion for life. Then again, she had come to think of most things regarding Reimu fondly.
She looked down at the overgrown path. Thinking about how much she liked Reimu inevitably reminded her of just how often Reimu had given her the cold shoulder lately. Curt and often sarcastic, brushing Sanae off at the first possible opportunity, Reimu seemed determined to show even rivalhood was too much of a bond between them. Sanae had done something to offend her, that much was obvious, but she couldn't for the life of her figure out what.
Then again, things were already looking up. After all, hadn't Reimu invited her to come along that day? Maybe the reason for the rift wasn't anything Sanae had done after all. Reimu could simply have been in the thrall of one of her odd moods and had now finally escaped its grip. Whatever the case, Sanae meant to appreciate this afternoon.
She glanced over her shoulder. She had expected to see Reimu with a dreamy look in her eyes, calculating just how much money she could make by lending out space at the shrine. But her eyes were hard and staring directly ahead. In other words, she too had noticed the strange silence.
"Do you think..." Sanae began.
Before she could think of the correct words to broach the subject with, Reimu's head jerked to the side. "What's that?"
Sanae turned, following Reimu's gaze. That appeared to be a fist-sized orb nestled between tree roots. She would have assumed it was an oddly shaped mushroom — no odder than most other mushrooms that sprung up in the Forest of Magic — if not for the fact that it was glowing brightly enough to out-do most electric lamps.
"It could be a bioluminescent fungus." Sanae hesitated, then took a few tentative steps towards the mushroom. It could be what she had said it was, but it could also herald an incident. In other words, it had to be investigated.
What happened next took all of three heartbeats. Sanae had just enough time to see the glowing lines of an unfamiliar sigil lighting up underfoot like veins in the forest floor, and then she was already choking on a scream as her skin turned inside out.
And then it was over. She staggered, unsure how she had managed to stay upright. She patted herself down and found herself without so much as a wrinkle on her clothes. There was an echo of pain reverberating through her, as if she had been stabbed in a dream, and a strange sense of loss that made her feel very hollow, but nothing was outwardly out of place. The orb was nowhere in sight.
Remembering she wasn't alone, she whirled around. "Are you al—"
She heard the ofuda whoosh past her ear the exact moment two others struck her, one attaching on her sleeve close to her wrist, the other landing on her upper shin. The sensation had only just registered when it turned into fire. This time, there was no swallowing back her screams.
After several blinding eternities of pure, searing fire, the burn subsided from open flames to still searing embers. She blinked back tears of shock as she struggled to regain her balance. A misthrow? Had she been in between Reimu and a threat so urgent it was worth the collateral damage? She glanced behind her and saw nothing of note.
Then, she looked at Reimu.
Reimu wasn't looking at a foe behind Sanae. She was looking at Sanae. Sanae recognised the knitted brow and the stony cast to her eye and knew at once it hadn't been a mistake.
The world went blurry around the edges.
Reimu stepped over her discarded bundle of clothing, her gohei firmly in hand. "Hold still."
Sanae couldn't have stayed in place even if she had wished to. The burn in her leg made her stagger until she placed most of her weight on her unmaimed side. She didn't even dare to look down to see what the damage was: it felt like the ofuda had burned straight to the bone. "Reimu?"
"Yukari gave me a choice. Either I could take care of this, or she would." Reimu halted several feet away from Sanae. "I told her the last thing I wanted was her touching you."
Until that moment, Sanae had still tried telling herself what she thought was happening wasn't happening. She could do that no longer. Whatever was going on, it had been planned. And she was the target.
"Wh—" She stumbled backwards. The burn reasserted itself at once, and it was all she could do to stay upright. "I don't understand."
"You've become a threat to Gensokyo."
"I... I still don't understand." She couldn't help repeating herself, because none of this made sense. Had Lady Kanako gotten involved in some strange scheme without informing Sanae? But even if that were the case, she couldn't imagine it ever coming down to this.
"It's pretty obvious if you think about it." Reimu paused for just long enough for Sanae's mind to draw a blank. "Your presence threatens the stability of the border."
"But... I've been here for years and years." Could this be an unusually elaborate prank after all? But no: the second-degree burn on her shin was no joke. Nor was the sullen blankness of Reimu's stare. "Does it have something to do with the Moriya Shrine? But I thought everything was fine!"
Reimu said nothing.
Out of other explanations, Sanae's mind reverted to her earlier worries. It had to be something connected to whatever had made Reimu draw away from her after all. "I've... done something to hurt you, then."
"You haven't."
"Then is it because I'm from the Outside World? But that was never a problem before."
"It's not that either." Reimu pinched her eyes shut, then just as quickly opened them again. "It's about who you are, but not the way you think it is. The problem is how I feel about you."
The forest remained hushed, as though it had become one of the vastest cavern of Hell, so massive the nearest walls were too far for even the thinnest of echoes.
Even without an echo, Reimu's words kept ringing in Sanae's ears. She stumbled again, shattering the silence by scuffing the leaves underfoot. The back of her left foot struck against the bundle of Marisa's clothes she didn't remember dropping. "W-what?"
"The Hakurei Shrine Maiden must remain impartial." Reimu sounded like she was reciting something she had learned by rote. "Nothing can come between the Hakurei Shrine Maiden and her duty to keep the Great Hakurei Barrier intact. I know it doesn't look like that from the outside, but it's the one thing I've never let slip my mind. You can call me a slacker or too worldly or whatever you want, but it's the truth."
"I wasn't going to call you those things." Sanae shuddered, and it wasn't just because of the burns. "But I still don't understand."
"I've always put the border first. Even when I haven't felt like it. But according to Yukari, it was only a matter of time before that was going to change." Reimu's gaze was pitiless as it met Sanae's eyes. "And it's because of you."
This had to be a nightmare. None of it made sense. Only the pulse-like throbbing in her wounds convinced Sanae that it wasn't: pain in dreams was always fuzzy around the edges. "But why?"
"Because I love you."
The words were flat, hurled out like something hateful and unclean. They rang true.
Sanae couldn't utter a single syllable in response. Time and time again, both in the Outside World and in Gensokyo, she had daydreamed about what hearing those words would feel like. Never had she imagined it would feel like this, that the initial disbelief would give out to fleeting joy, followed by a pit of despair opening up within her.
"But..." She found her lips curling upwards. Not because she wanted to smile, but because the situation was simply too absurd for her to control it. "That's not... that's not a bad thing, right? If you weren't allowed to like people, you wouldn't have any friends to begin with. We've been friends for years and it was never..." Had they been friends? Not for the first time, she found herself wondering if she had always completely misread Reimu. "Um, at least, that's what I thought. Aren't we friends?"
"As long as it was just that, it was fine. Even when I started to feel something else, it was still fine as long as I could keep it under control."
"And who decided that you can't?"
The lack of an answer was itself an answer. Who was the person in Gensokyo most aware of the boundary between harmless and dangerous feelings? But even Yukari Yakumo shouldn't have had the right to suddenly decide Sanae had to die. She shook her head, as much in denial as in an effort to wake herself up. "This still doesn't make sense! How could she possibly ask you to take the life of another human—"
"So you still haven't noticed."
Sanae opened her mouth to protest when it struck her. The sigil on the ground. The reason the ofuda had seared her flesh. Reimu's merciless attitude. The sense of loss Sanae felt was due to the severance between her and her humanity.
Reimu stepped closer.
Sanae stepped back in concert, pain momentarily forgotten as electricity-like panic pulsed through her brain. "Reimu, please. You don't have to do this. I'll explain the situation to Lady Kanako and Lady Suwako. I'll go back to the Outside World. I won't get in your way ever again, as long as—"
"I have to make it clear where my priorities lie. I have to always put Gensokyo first." Reimu had already sounded emotionless, but now she spoke like a robot running out of power, monotone and slightly slurring the ends of her sentences.
Desperate, Sanae allowed her head to whip to the side. There had to be someone around who was aware of her plight. How far away were they from Marisa's house? Marisa wouldn't simply stand by and let this happen if she knew—
Another ofuda struck her in the chest. The world went black for a moment as the flesh seemed to melt from around her ribcage.
The next time her eyes worked, she was on her knees on the path. She was aware she should at least struggle, but she barely found the will to look up at the face looming above her. The face of the person who until ten minutes ago she had considered one of her closest friends. The person she had secretly dreamed could one day be something else to her. She didn't want to look. But she had to.
She had expected frost. She had expected steel. She had expected indifference, or revulsion, or resentment. She hadn't expected the tears streaming down Reimu's cheeks, glistening silently in the solitary ray of sunlight that pierced the gloom of the forest.
"I..." Reimu fell silent. When she next spoke, her words were all business, but her eyelashes trembled. "I'm sorry. Goodbye, Sanae."
The final bolt of flame was almost painless.