I walked toward the human village. The trail was serene. Bird calls rang out over the natural space, and the air was clean and pure (after I got away from the outhouse, anyway). Gensokyo was a youkai preserve, but it became apparent that it was also a nature preserve.

The human presence here was lacking. Even the sign was faded and loose in its setting; no time for maintenance. I wondered if I was in the mountains of Japan, or on another plane entirely. Gensokyo was supposedly on Earth, but I secretly hoped we were as far away as possible from my home planet.

I saw an immense, beautiful bird with orange wings. It took flight, momentarily showering the branch it had been on with a wave of flame. A blue bird landed in its place and made a rumbling call, scattering blue sparks all over the ground. A phoenix and a thunderbird?

It called and an arc of lightning dropped a sparrow out of the air, one I hadn’t even noticed. The thunderbird languidly flew down and began to pull the dead bird’s feathers out. I decided to make my way to the human village as soon as possible.

As I walked I became aware of a slight slope. I was walking uphill. I wondered why Yukari had dropped me so far from the human village. I wondered what was in the other direction–the Great Hakurei Barrier, perhaps? That was the barrier between Gensokyo and the rest of the world, maintained by the shrine maiden Hakurei Reimu. She was the most powerful human in Gensokyo, and defeated youkai of all descriptions; she was the player character.

I’d wanted to be the player character on Earth, and had been more like a midstage boss.

Who was I kidding, I’d been just some stage enemy. Metaphorically, I didn’t even get my own theme. Oh well. That had been Earth, and I was in Gensokyo. I’d do better. I heard movement through the underbrush. It was the crunching of a large creature approaching.

A bearded man with an ax stepped out from the brush. He spotted me and waved (his hand, not the ax). Then he started walking toward me. He was wearing a red t-shirt and jeans, rather than overalls, but I couldn’t help but think of a lumberjack.

“There’s another one here!” He called back. Someone was behind him, probably another giant bearded man with an ax, if my experience with videogames meant anything. Ax men didn’t appear in Gensokyo; this might be more like a zombie survival game. He looked far too happy to see me.

I recognized death approaching, so I did the obvious thing and froze helplessly.

“Hello,” he said.

“Don’t come any closer!”

“Why not?” He looked at the ground by my feet. His voice was deep, but he spoke in a light and cheerful tone. “Is it dangerous?”

“...yes!” I said. “If you stand too close to me… bad things will happen to you!” I was a terrible liar; I prided myself on telling the truth as much as possible, and living by it too. I felt a compulsion to explain to the stranger that the worst bad thing that would happen to him is that I’d try to yell.

“Oh… you’re a cursed youkai!”

“Uh…”

“Thank you!” He nodded, and turned around to walk away.

I blinked. The ax man disappeared into the trees. I looked around; I was in the forest, but the trees weren’t terribly dense and I could barely see the sun over the treetops.

A few moments later I heard footsteps. If I wanted to hide, I might lose the trail. I thought about it as I ran to hide.

“He’s a youkai,” said the large man in a red shirt. “We shouldn’t bother him, he said as much.”

“If he’s a youkai, he’s a rare male youkai and likely has useful information,” said the other. “It doesn’t matter. We need a source of information that isn’t Miss Yakumo.”

“What about that one guy? Ringo, or…”

“Ringo is a moon rabbit that enjoys dango,” said the first. His voice was nasally. “Did you mean Rinnosuke?”

“Yeah.”

“If it’s Rinnosuke, he’s only a half-youkai, and we definitely want to talk to him. Did he have white hair?”

“No,” said the bigger man. I couldn’t see them, because I was hiding behind a tree. “Huh, he was right here.”

“Hello!” called out the smaller one. “Excuse me! We are newcomers here, we just wanted to ask some questions!”

They were also immigrants! Of course. Ax men weren’t a thing in Touhou, anymore than alignment researchers.

I had a decision to make. Would I reveal myself to these strangers, and fall in with them, and hope for safety in numbers? Or would I make my way on my own, at least as far as the human village?

When I thought about it, I didn’t have much to gain by hiding, and clearly these were displaced people like myself. I’d probably run into them at the human village at some point anyway. Fuck, they were probably my designated party… although shouldn’t there have been an elf chick and a priestess, or something?

Whatever. I wouldn’t be the hero alone, I thought.

“Hello,” I said, stepping out from behind the tree.

“There you are,” said the nasally stranger. He had orange hair and glasses, and was quite a lot smaller than his companion, at least in terms of height. He didn’t have an ax. “Are you a youkai? Yorigami Shion, perhaps?”

“Who?” I asked.

“The youkai that causes misfortune,” he replied, with some suspicion. I remembered her after he said it–she was from one of the Touhou fighting games. She had blue hair and was covered in seals, and wore a potato sack because she was so unfortunate.

He was calling me poor. A jerk, not that he was wrong.

“I’m not,” I said. They were walking up to me. “Why would you even ask that, I’m super obviously not Yori… her.”

“Well, appearances are probably arbitrary for youkai,” he shot back. “So Yorigami Shion could look like anyone. She doesn’t necessarily have to be a blue-haired woman in rags, or female, or wearing any underwear.”

“Good point,” I conceded. They had stopped about ten feet from me. “How can I help you?”

“We are just trying to get to the human village,” he said. “Want to escort us there?”

“I’m not a youkai either, actually.”

“But you said…” said the ax man, sounding hurt.

“I thought you were going to cut my head off,” I countered. He looked at his implement.

“Oh, I am so sorry!” He put the ax behind himself, as if it would help the situation. I could still see it poking out from behind him. “I just wanted to talk, that's all!”

“And here we are,” said the one with glasses. “I’m Winston.”

“Jake,” I said.

“Arnold,” said the big guy.

“How’d you get here, Jake?” asked Winston. He looked me up and down. “I can tell from the shoelaces that you aren’t medieval tech level.” He actually said that: medieval tech level. “Are you also a recent transplant?”

“Yeah, of course.” I explained to them that Yukari had allowed me to emigrate to Gensokyo.

They explained back that the same thing had happened to them. There hadn’t been a sign near where they’d been released, so they were lost.

I promised to escort them despite not being a youkai. I also wondered if Yukari had dropped one of them off, then dropped another for the ‘escort’ rule (she hadn’t actually said our escort must be a youkai), and then dropped me for them when they got lost. Maybe she was trying to fix her summoning with more summonings. I’d coded an agent that did that, once.

Sometimes my train of thought would go on these idiotic tangents. I couldn’t help it. As I tried to refocus, we walked back to the trail.

“Are you both Touhou fans as well?” I asked, foolishly.

“I’m a fan of the music,” said Arnold. “Not the games, like this nerd.” He said it lightly, some friendly teasing, and Winston's frown deepened only a little bit.

“You too, then?” asked Winston. “I hope you know more than this chump.”

“I’m pretty familiar with Touhou,” I said. His eyes narrowed.

“Name every character,” he responded. I gave him the look he deserved. He didn’t look away.

“There’s like two hundred,” I said. “I don’t know them all.”

“Two hundred and fifteen, and of course you don’t, because you aren’t a true fan of Touhou.”

“That’s completely unreasonable.”

“No it’s not,” he said.

“It totally is! Nobody could do that!”

“Oh?” The little shit started spouting off names. He had a smug look on his face, like he’d practiced for the pissing contest he’d started. I hadn’t even heard of most of them–because he was fucking naming them in order, and so he started with the PC-98 characters.

Touhou had started out on an aging computer system called the PC-98. That system was Japanese, and I’d never played any of those games. They were only released in Japan. The series’ canon had been reset with the fifth Touhou game, Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, and that was when the games had really taken off in popularity. I started recognizing names, about ninety seconds in, because he started naming characters from that game. If I wasn’t so irritated, I might have wondered whether the real Gensokyo had PC-98 characters.

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“Will you shut the hell up?” I said.

“I’ve got to prove you wrong,” he said, as though the necessity were completely outside of his control.

“Nah, you’ve made your point.” He went quiet for a moment, but then kept muttering the names under his breath. “Ugh. Arnold, can I borrow your ax, to murder this guy?”

“No can do, buddy,” he said. “Also, threatening a fellow human is not very paragon of you.”

“I was making a joke,” I said. “Where’d you get that thing, anyway?” Could an ax have been part of his daily wear? Maybe he always slept while holding one? If I’d known I’d be transported to a fantasy land, I’d have slept with a gun.

Actually, Touhou characters were famous for dodging bullets, and I’d have been limited by ammunition. I’d probably have slept with a phone and a download of the uncorrupted Wikipedia, or a backpack full of supplies. On the other hand, I didn’t know if technology would even work here; all the magic might make it go haywire. I fucking hoped so if we were still on Earth.

“Yukari–” started Arnold.

“Miss Yakumo,” corrected Winston.

“You too, huh,” I said.

“Miss Yakumo gave it to me, in exchange for emigrating to Gensokyo.” He looked at the ax appreciatively.

“She didn’t give me anything like that,” I said.

“Did you try negotiating?” asked Arnold, without a smug bone in his body–like I’d said my sink was clogged, and he asked what I’d done to unclog it. I hadn’t negotiated, and from the look on his face, neither had Winston.

“But why an ax?”

“I thought this was going to be a bit more like Minecraft,” he said with a shrug. Minecraft… guy liked the classics.

“What?” cried Winston. “Minecraft is nothing like Touhou!”

“I’ve never played the games, of course.” He swung his ax around and put it on his shoulder.

“How the fuck did you come to think that Touhou was like Minecraft?” asked Winston, and I noticed that he could swear, although it sounded artificial. Like he’d also practiced swearing, in case he’d need it.

“I asked Miss Yakumo what it was like,” explained Arnold, “And she said that a bunch of beautiful women went off into the wilderness to live on their own, because modern life was anathema to them.” He frowned. “It sounded pretty nice to me, actually.”

“Touhou is a bullet hell shoot ‘em up,” I said. Winston nodded.

“That sounds a lot less nice.” He swung his ax around again, back into his hands. “She said no trucks, but at least I’ve got something for defense!”

“She could have retrieved a truck for you,” said Winston. “You should have pressed harder.”

“I can’t imagine an ax is an effective weapon,” I said. “Do you know how to use it?”

“I’ve cut down some trees. Not just from Minecraft.”

“I can tell, somehow. You must be from an untamed area.”

“Alaska, yes sir.” Of course. I was from a megalopolis, like most people. I could tell from Winston’s consternated expression and pale complexion that he was also a city boy. Really, I could infer that just from probability; most people lived in cities.

“Have you seen a drone before?” Winston asked Arnold. He didn’t mean a camera drone; he meant a recycler.

“Let’s not talk about Earth,” I said, trying to head that whole conversation off. It was too depressing. “Let’s get to the human village.”

“We’re still on Earth,” said Winston, and I ground my teeth.

“Making a lot of assumptions there.”

“Good point.” My jaw relaxed. He wasn’t deliberately an asshole, he was just antisocial. Like most people.

We continued on our way. I heard Winston muttering, still. He was making unnecessary noise, which I thought was unwise, but I wasn’t eager to argue, which would be even more unnecessary noise. I consoled myself with the thought that if we were attacked I was probably faster than him. I realized a flaw in my plan.

“Do you think there’s actually safety in numbers?” I asked them. “Youkai are really deadly.”

“How deadly?” asked Arnold.

“Supremely deadly.” I said. “ At least one of them has the ability to destroy anything. We might have a better survival rate if we split up.”

“Flandre Scarlet,” said Winston. “A vampire who is at least 495 years old. She has the ability to grab the ‘eye’ of any object, and crush that eye, causing it to be destroyed. She is locked beneath the Scarlet Devil Mansion because of her inability to control her temper and follow the Spell Card System rules.”

“Seems like she could get out by destroying the lock,” said Arnold.

“The sunlight would incinerate her, then, as she is a vampire.”

“Seems like she could get around that by destroying the sun.”

“Not before she was incinerated,” countered Winston. “Also, please refrain from making suggestions like that, if we ever happen to meet her!”

“So she’s the most deadly Youkai?” Arnold asked, conversationally.

“Oh, of course not,” he replied. Winston looked thoughtful. “Patchouli Knowledge keeps Flandre Scarlet contained with magic, despite being a fourth stage boss.”

“I don’t know if–” I started.

“On the other hand, Izayoi Sakuya could pause time and kill us before we could take any action as threatening as approaching her. Remilia Scarlet could manipulate fate so that we never make it there in the first place. Kamishirasawa Keine could eat our history so it’s like we never even existed.” He looked at Arnold. “Most of the ones I just named live in the Scarlet Devil Mansion, together, except for Keine, who’s in the human village.”

“Should we even be going there, then?” asked Arnold.

Winston actually stopped to consider it. Neither Arnold nor I broke stride, and he caught up with us fast enough.

“The human village has a lot of humans in it. I doubt the same is true of the Scarlet Devil Mansion.”

“Maybe those other youkai work together to keep Flander or what’s her face in the basement,” said Arnold. “And stop her from blowing up the sun.”

“If anyone was going to blow up the sun, it would be Reiuji Utsuho, the youkai that consumed the sun god Yattagarasu. Even she might be more deadly than Flandre, given that she has power over nuclear fusion. If radiation works here like in the Outside World, just approaching her could be deadly.”

“I’m going to call you Wiki from now on,” I told Winston.

“Wiki?” he said. “As in, the Touhou Wiki?”

“Yes. For obvious reasons.” It would help me like him better, I felt sure.

Wiki pushed up his glasses. “I am like the Touhou Wiki. Thank you!” I suspected he was a regular contributor, even, which is saying something. It would need constant defense from autonomous edits.

“Can I have a nickname?” asked Arnold.

“No, your name suits you too well already.”

“Huh. Thanks man!”

We continued walking. Wiki and Arnold were both lost in thought. Me too. I was imagining what I would have put in my tactical backpack, if I had owned one and remembered to bring it. I had very few possessions, and fewer still as I sold them off for reconstitution. I’d have probably bought some supplies after selling my kidney.

“I need to learn how to defend myself,” said Arnold, suddenly. He started swinging his ax around experimentally, and I took a few steps back.

“That isn’t going to work,” I said. “Youkai are too strong for that, and they shoot bullets, besides.”

“They shoot danmaku,” corrected Wiki.

“Damn-what?” asked Arnold.

“Danmaku, or curtain-fire,” he clarified. “That’s what magic is called in Gensokyo. It’s like a lightshow, or a firework–but it doesn’t hurt you, necessarily, it just allows you to win fights without bloodshed.”

“Huh,” said Arnold. He buried his ax in the soil, then yanked it back up. “I don’t think this’ll help with curtains.”

“I mean, it might slow some of them down,” said Wiki. “If they were the weaker kind, like Rumia or the Wakasagihime.” The first was the human-eating Youkai that had provided darkness earlier. The latter was a mermaid. Wiki helpfully explained that she was a pacifist, and wouldn’t hurt anyone, except for that one time a specific magical artifact made her ferocious.

“It’s kinda scary that mental effects like that exist,” I said.

“I’ll be ready either way,” said Arnold.

“Miss Yakumo didn’t say we weren’t allowed to attack the youkai…” I said. “But, I feel like the spell card rules probably forbid using an ax?” On the other hand, I knew of at least one character who threw knives.

“Probably, but I don’t wanna die.”

“What are the rules again, Wiki?”

He frowned. “They are a mechanism that balances power between youkai in battle with other youkai, and youkai battling humans. They have never been specified directly, but Perfect Memento in Strict Sense talks about them a bit, as does Silent Sinner in Blue.”

“Those are books?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said. “Have you read them?”

“No, I can’t read Japanese.”

“翻訳って知ってる？使えばいいのに。” he said, which was completely incomprehensible to me.

“Look, I’ve played a few of the games, and listened to some music, and that’s it.”

“If I’m the person who cares the most about Gensokyo in Gensokyo, then I swear–”

“What are you doing here?” screamed a blue blur that flew down in front of Arnold. He yelped and hit it with the flat side of his ax.

The blue blur–actually a flying child with a blue dress–fell to the ground and started to gurgle. It was a fairy with blue hair and ice for wings. Cirno: perhaps the most famous Touhou character. She was four feet tall, or thereabouts, and was supposedly the strongest fairy. Her ice powers could freeze a person solid.

“Shit!” I said, helpfully. “Did you… just take out Cirno with an ax?” That was when I learned that fairies have blue blood, or at least Cirno does. She was spasming on the ground with a head wound, for a few seconds, before she fell still.

“I might have?” said Arnold. “Even I recognize this one!”

“Did you say ‘Sir-No’ and not ‘Chi-ru-no,’?” asked Wiki.

“Not important right now!” I bent down to examine the damage. Arnold had hit her with the blunt side by mistake. Before I could do much about it, another fairy was in my face.

“Stay away from her, you monsters!” This one had green hair with a yellow ribbon, and insectile wings. Daiyousei, the great fairy. She was even shorter than Cirno. “Get back!” She was brandishing a stick.

I got back, and put up my hands. “We’re sorry!” I said.

“Not yet you aren’t!” shouted Cirno from fifteen feet in the air. I hadn’t seen her get up. I felt relief wash over me. Apparently, her head didn’t contain anything vital.

“Cirno!” said Daiyousei. She said the name in the correct way, settling the debate about pronunciation once-and-for-all, and we would all say it that way from then on without question or fanfare.

The green fairy leapt up to hug the blue one. Cirno flew–hovered, really–with her hands on her hips in a threatening posture of triumph. Cirno didn’t have a head wound anymore.

“There is some debate about whether a nature spirit can actually die,” said Wiki. “In Strange and Bright Nature Deity, a fairy says that death is temporary for them. If you kill them, they come back within a short time–twenty-four hours or less.”

“How many Touhou books are there, anyway?” asked Arnold. There were something like thirty official games, so a fair few, I imagined.

“That wasn’t very nice of you!” said Daiyousei from where she was still clinging to Cirno.

“I’m sorry,” said Arnold, sounding genuinely contrite. “I was scared.”

Cirno laughed, regally, and kept her wide stance. “Good that you know your place! I was going to freeze you solid, for that, but I guess I can let you live!”

A little girl was boasting. I had two options; get offended and start posturing, myself, or laugh it off.

“Haha,” I said. “That’s so considerate of you!” She gave me the side eye.

“I could hit both of your eyeballs with icicles before you blink.”

“She’d probably miss, though,” said Wiki.

I’d played Embodiment of Scarlet Devil once before, and in the game Cirno has a move that you can dodge by standing still. She was famous for it. I wondered how true to the games real life was.

I wasn’t about to test it.

“Well, you won our duel, kind of,” grumbled Cirno. “‘Guess I’ll leave you alone.”

“Wait,” said Arnold. “Can you protect us on the way to the human village?”

“Oh ho ho ho,” said Cirno. “Are you that scared?”

“Legitimately, yes,” he said. He was a bigger man than I, to beseech a fairy for help.

“Too bad for you, weakling,” said Cirno.

“I think we should help them!” said Daiyousei. Her voice was very high pitched. I wondered if the really small fairies, the ones who were a foot tall or less, could even speak in an audible pitch. Daiyousei seemed to have forgotten that we’d hit Cirno with an ax, but to be fair, you couldn’t tell just by looking. Cirno gave Daiyousei an exasperated look.

“Then why did we–” she started, before glaring at us. She whispered into Daiyousei’s ear.

“But Cirno, they beat you,” said Daiyousei. “You have to help them now.”

“Is that a rule?” I asked. “Of the Spell Card System?” Daiyousei nodded.

“Well, alright,” said Cirno. “Fine. Try to keep up.” Cirno started flying off in some direction, just a bit faster than I could comfortably walk. We hurried to follow her.

“I wish I could fly,” said Arnold. “Seems pretty cool.”

“Every youkai can fly,” I said. I looked to Wiki to see if he’d contradict me. I could see him trying: he held up a finger and opened his mouth, but then frowned and let his hand drop.

“We don’t have evidence that there is any youkai that cannot fly,” he conceded. “Isn’t this opposite the way we’ve been going?”

“Us too!” said Daiyousei, happily. She didn’t seem perturbed at reversing course. “You interrupted our mission!”

“What was your mission?”

“Turn all the signs around.”