Maroon and I walked through the gate to the Scarlet Devil Mansion. We left Meiling and the martial artists at the lake. The possibly-a-dragon had awoken just before we left, and had been in the middle of deciding whether to go for a swim.

I was all about accomplishing things. I didn’t stick around to see if she’d brought a bathing suit.

I also tried not to let anything distract me from my goals. We passed the colorful flowers on our way to the servant entrance. Maroon was telling me about how she had forgiven Cirno, because she wanted to be the bigger fairy.

“That reminds me,” I said. “Does your power come from shame?”

“No!” said Maroon. “I’m not a youkai of being embarrassed. But when my face is red, I get more powerful. Because it’s red. I’m a youkai of being red.”

“I see…” I said. “And the heart-shaped danmaku?”

“Hearts are red. I can also make roses!”

She demonstrated, and when the danmaku hit me, I was compelled to tell her that it was beautiful danmaku indeed. Maroon went on to tell me a bit about the beauty of fresh blood.

“It changes so slowly, like the autumn leaves, but about the time it looks like chocolate is when I stop paying attention. It’s not really red anymore.”

“There’s a lot of red in the Scarlet Devil Mansion, isn’t there.”

“That’s why I like working here so much,” she said. “Things used to be bad. I had to go wherever I could, looking for red things. Raspberries, flowers, blood… It gets easier in the fall, what with the trees, but there isn’t a lot of red around Gensokyo. Most of the time!”

“What about Hakurei Reimu?” The shrine maiden wore red. “Could you just follow her around?”

“She kept fighting me and telling me to go away. She’s a youkai exterminator.”

“Oh yeah.” It would be like wasps setting up shop at a pesticide factory, if wasps hadn’t been driven extinct by illegal gene drives.

“Anyway, it’s hard for bigger fairies to get what they need, because we need more.”

“More…what?”

“Time with our aspects. Not all the fairies of Gensokyo can find enough. And I’ve only gotten bigger while working here!” She laughed.

“Is that good or bad?”

“It’s both! I probably couldn’t survive, if I had to live at the lake again… but in the Outside World, I was an important youkai. I visited painters and kings!”

“They knew about you!” The world had been full of secrets I’d never noticed.

“Well, no… but they liked the color red. Anyway, in Gensokyo I was all but forgotten. I thought I was going to fade away until the Scarlet Devil Mansion took me in and believed in me!” In her, or in their own favorite color? “I’ve gotten so much stronger!”

“You have,” I said. “You’ve learned so much.”

“Yes.” She continued in a whisper. “They do that for a lot of the bigger fairies. Any that can hold a broom.”

“I see,” I whispered back. “So you need people to believe in you?”

“I need them to believe in the color red!”

“And vampires are fine for that purpose?” Sekibanki had said human belief sustained the fairies, but if Maroon was sustained by youkai beliefs, that suggested that humans weren’t all that necessary.

“Yah! Well, it’s mostly Miss Izayoi, and Miss Hon, and Patchouli.” She frowned. “They probably believe in me even more than Lady Remilia.”

“What about Flandre?” I asked. Flandre was Remilia’s little sister who had been locked in the basement.

In canon, she’d been the extra stage boss. Wiki wanted me to fish for information about her. Flandre had ‘the ability to destroy anything’, which was something worth following up on, because either it was limited or everyone was doomed.

Also, Flandre wore red, unlike her elder sister.

“Who?” asked Maroon. Whoops, I was leaking knowledge from the Outside World.

“Nevermind.” I needed to change the subject. “Does clapping do anything for you?” If only I could get some fairy dust to fly with, I thought.

“Nope!” Maroon wasn’t bothered by non-sequiturs, because so many things were non-sequiturs to her, but I appreciated it about her all the same. We were getting near the library. “Since I’ve been here, I’ve started to love doing chores. Patchouli says I’m the most trustworthy fairy.”

“I believe it.”

“But she’s the nicest witch I know!” Maroon trying to be humble was both endearing and kind of tragic, because she didn’t have to try very hard.

“She’s the only witch you know.”

“Haha, yeah.”

We entered the library. Patchouli Knowledge was sitting at her desk, surrounded by books, as per usual. Maroon and I walked up to her (or rather, I walked and Maroon flew).

“I think I’ve figured it out,” I said.

“Excellent,” said the librarian. “And?” And she’d been stupid, and I wasn’t about to miss the opportunity to point it out, even if I’d made the very same mistake. She hadn’t stopped reading.

“What language are the books in the library written in?”

“It’s been a long day,” said Patchouli, “So spare me the riddles and get to the point.”

She rubbed her forehead, and I spotted a bruise on her neck. Both her and Meiling seemed to be pulling their weight, as far as keeping the vampires fed was concerned. My sympathy increased, but not to the extent that I’d let her get away with her mistake. She’d called me dumb a lot of times since I’d met her.

“No,” I said, flatly. “This is important! What language are the books in the library written in?”

“They are written in many languages, of course. One language is primary among them, but as a matter of security, I will not reveal which.”

“Why would that make any difference for security?” I was getting distracted.

“If you can’t figure that out, it would be against security protocol to tell you. It doesn’t matter; there is a translation spell, so that any book will appear to be in a language familiar to the person who reads it.” She turned a page with her mind. “It’s a clever spell that can switch between languages to better convey meaning, if necessary, and if you happen to be an immortal witch who fluently speaks fifteen different languages.” Patchouli raised an eyebrow and put a finger on the side of her cheek. “You seem more like a one-and-done kind of guy, at least as far as language acquisition is concerned. At least.”

“But what if you can’t read in the first place?” I asked, persisting.

“Well then…” Patchouli stopped, and set down her book. “Ah. I think I see the issue.”

“Yeah. We went to the lake, and Cirno made some scribbles that I recognized as Japanese, although I couldn’t read them–and I wondered if teaching Maroon Japanese would work better, maybe Wiki could do it–then I realized that your library only had books in English, wasn’t that odd? It occurred to me that you might have done something with magic. Then I thought about how hard it would be to learn to read when given a random sampling of nonsense that a spell was warping into various languages.”

If the spell (or whatever it was) couldn’t decide what language to translate text into, learning to read would be next to impossible. Maroon was smart, but she wasn’t as smart as GPT-X (to be fair, nobody was as smart as GPT-X).

“That would present challenges,” admitted Patchouli. “Have you–”

“Tried teaching Maroon outside the Mansion? I have, and she picked up several English letters right away.”

“I’m up to D!” said the fairy with pride. “I’m told it makes smiles!”

“We went on a tangent about emoticons,” I explained to Patchouli.

“Thank you for bringing this to my attention,” said the witch. She stared at her desk in deep thought. “There are newborn humans in the village right now. I’ll have to talk to Miss Yakumo about it.” It must have been locals reproducing, I thought, because basically none of the transplants were in child-rearing circumstances.

“Did you also do a translation spell over the whole of Gensokyo?” I asked. It would be a spell that only affected the spoken word, I was confident. “For our arrival?”

“No comment,” she said with a sigh.

“Yes,” said Yukari from the crack under the door to the library. “It’s been in place for several months. I don’t think any children will be set back if we fix it right away, and we will. Today, if at all possible, Miss Knowledge.”

“Very well.”

“I’m glad,” I said. I was glad to learn of an innocuous use for a wide-area-of-effect spell, considering the sigil I’d spotted in a slideshow. That diagram had been of the human village rather than Gensokyo as a whole, though. “You should have spent more time testing things like whether your magic would give humans and fairies learning disabilities.”

Yukari didn’t respond, if she was even still watching. In front of me the reclusive mage sighed.

“You’re making additional work for me,” said Patchouli. She stood up.

“Yeah, well,” I said, not quite brave enough to say ‘actually it was your fault’ or ‘you did the same to me’.

“But you have made progress, so that’s commendable.” Hoping for an admission of having made a mistake was too much, so I’d take it. She walked toward the door. “I’ll work on making a toggle for the spell in the library. It will require the utmost caution, especially since I’ve got so much other work to do, and not all my reference materials are in… the primary language.”

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

“Where are we going to practice in the meantime?”

“With the martial artists, or wherever you want, I suppose.” She paused. “We could back out of the deal and teach Maroon ourselves, now that we’re aware of the difficulties that magic presents.”

“I suppose you could,” I said, feeling suddenly that I’d overstepped my bounds.

“We could, except for one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“A deal is a deal. Even if new information makes it seem like a mistake, we can’t very well make our policy ‘punish people who help us do better’. Even if we have all the power and could easily cut you off… Anyway. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” I said. Maybe I’d been a bit too harsh. Patchouli gently closed the door behind her as she left.

Maroon and I gathered up some supplies and exited soon after, to go to the entryway of the Mansion.

—

Wiki appreciated my news of progress, and also had news of his own.

“There have been three major developments,” he said. “First, Miko tore down all our posters about youkai safety.” I hadn’t seen the landlord very often. I supposed that was typical for a landlord, except, she still made herself available for the Quest and Attack sessions on festival days.

“What?” asked Sasha. “Why?”

“We didn’t get approval, she said,” said Wiki.

“We worked hard on those things!”

“I inquired about obtaining approval, and she laughed and described a process so byzantine and incomprehensible that I thought it would be easier to beat her in danmaku.” He looked disgusted. “I got the joke right away, but she kept on adding caveats and terminology until I interrupted her.”

“I’ll bet she didn’t make any business owners jump through hoops,” said Sasha.

“You’re right. It’ll be alright, though. I have a plan.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“We’re going to publicly beseech her to allow the posters, then fight her during the next Quest and Attack.”

“Oh, so we are just going to beat her in danmaku,” said Arnold. “Piece of cake.”

“Nothing ever comes of those,” I added, “Whether the person wins or not. And if a human wins, it's always because the youkai chose not to fight back.” I suspected Miko would fight this one; the amount they fought was a proxy for how much they opposed the suggestion. Someone had asked Hijiri for intimate activities, and after almost literally having a foot shoved up his ass he’d been compelled to clean the outhouses for eight hours without pay. He’d gotten to keep his head, though, which showed her growing tolerance.

“You’re correct,” he said. “But if we publicly challenge her, whether we win or lose we can have fliers ready. And nothing makes people more interested in information than knowing it is suppressed.”

“Great idea,” said Sasha.

We waited for her to add something like ‘if you’re twelve’ or ‘for a moron.’ She didn’t.

“What? Wiki can have good ideas, sometimes.” She scowled at us. “I’m not a total fucking bitch.”

“I give you an A+ in being a bitch, though,” I said. “Like a ninety-five percent.”

“You’re about to get an F in… having an unbroken nose!”

“Anyway,” Wiki said. “The next news is worse. Another human went missing.”

I felt my chest tighten. “When did it happen?” I asked.

“At night, of course.” He went on to explain that a seemingly-random person had gone out into Gensokyo, again, and not come back. It wasn’t anyone I knew. Wiki went on to explain that statistically, it was starting to look suspicious that only people who had skipped the danmaku lessons were disappearing.

“Didn’t ninety percent of people quit?” asked Sasha.

“Yes,” he said. “But none of these five made it to the second session. I think they’re being targeted.”

“That’s… awful,” said Arnold.

“Indeed. We need to organize a census to track further disappearances, and warn people against going out at night by themselves.” He sighed. “These two things, together, have led to the worst news I have to share.”

“Let’s hear it,” I said.

“I’m going to take that stupid test after all.”

I felt elation.

“It’s in five days,” said Sasha.

“Time to cram,” Wiki said, looking at me.

I felt despair.

—

“What happened to staying safe?” asked Reika.

“I’m trying my best,” said Wiki. “Sometimes, you have to risk it for the biscuit.” Wiki was so out of sorts, he was adopting Arnold’s sex idioms (although I still didn’t get that one).

“Well, I’ll escort you outside the village,” she said. “I don’t have much time for lunch, though… and I don’t think I can help you practice.”

“That’s fine,” said Wiki, nervously shifting from foot to foot. “We’re just doing this test to see if I die immediately.” Reika bent behind the counter to get her ‘Will Return Soon” sign. It had a tombstone icon on it.

“You might want to take the test too,” I told Reika. “Keine’s, I mean. Or at least advertise your danmaku abilities more.”

“I’ll think about it,” she said. She had never used her ability in front of us, so I was starting to suspect she had exaggerated them.

“You’re taking this pretty well,” said Sasha. “Aren’t you worried?”

“Yes,” said Reika, coming around from behind the counter. “But I think you absolutely should take steps to extend your life, like making it harder for youkai to kill you! That’s just prudent.” She gave Wiki a hug, then beamed at him. “You’re so brave!”

Wiki seemed both ashamed at the praise, and pleased.

“A good girlfriend might be more concerned for Wiki’s safety,” Sasha said, frowning. I was getting irritated with all the second-guessing and everyone poo-pooing my plans. If it wasn’t Wiki, it was Sasha.

“I don’t want the man courting me to be a coward,” responded Reika. “Nor weak.”

“I’m not weak!” said Wiki. “I can pick up a sword, for example.”

“Cowardice and weakness won’t matter if he dies,” said Sasha. “You’re kinda being callous.”

“Can anyone do anything right?” I asked, but the others ignored my philosophical quandary.

Reika sighed. “This is Gensokyo. You get used to the possibility of an untimely death. And those who are too afraid to leave the village never accomplish much–but Wiki is fated to affect the whole human village, right?”

“That’s right,” he said. “Remilia did say my choices would affect the entire human village.”

“So you can probably leave the village a few times over the course of becoming a major power.”

“I’m not sure that’s how I’m going to do it.”

“And I will support him in his endeavors, even if they are risky, because that’s what a good wi–woman would do, isn’t it?”

I wasn’t sure the logic of that checked out, but we arranged to leave the village right away, so I accepted it.

We didn’t go very far; just a few hundred feet past the nominal edge of the village. Sasha and I focused on being lookouts. Arnold stood by with his ax. Reika stood right next to her boyfriend, holding his hand.

And although Wiki still didn’t produce danmaku, we made it back without incident, which proved my point about leaving the village not being inherently deadly.

“We had to chance it to advance it,” I told Arnold on the way back.

–

“Nope nope nope nope nope,” said Satori as Sasha, Arnold, Wiki, and I got in her range. She threw a chicken back into the coop and slammed the door. Then she started to back away.

“Come on,” I said, “You can read minds! You’d be the best person to help Wiki figure out his emotions!”

Satori covered her ears. “La la la, not listening!”

“Is it really that bad…” said Wiki, his voice quiet.

“Gosh darn it, now I’ve hurt his feelings!” said Satori. “Look, Winston, just think of it like you think too fast, and with too much intensity, and also about too many things, and also your internal monologue’s voice is–'' She cut herself off. “Anyway, it’s not you, it’s me, and you could reasonably be proud of it, or rather, be proud of it reasonably.”

“I–”

“No.”

“I could try to stifle my thoughts a bit,” he said. “Tone it down a fraction.”

“It is too late to gain any benefit from the Myouren temple,” said Satori. “Rinnosuke does sell DVDs, but that’s too fine a line to walk–yeah, like vegetables,” she added. “I have a zero tolerance policy for petting-zoos.”

“What?” I asked.

“Mystia could give you hot-wings, sure, but I’m not teaching you danmaku while you sit in the outhouse. Eirin isn’t a dispensary of methylphenidate or anything else. And there’s no basketball league in Gensokyo, for good reasons that I cannot reveal, but we both know you’re too lazy to try out anyway.”

“The fuck?” asked Sasha.

“If you guys could hear this, you wouldn’t still be chasing me,” said Satori. I realized we were approaching the official edge of the village, past the coops. Satori had been backing up the entire time. “Oh, Arnold, that’s a good idea.”

We looked at him. “I was thinking we could hit the bar later,” he said.

“It’s called an izakaya,” said Wiki.

“Good thinking,” said Sasha. “Let’s try to solve this first, though.”

“Or did you mean to meet other youkai that could help us?” Wiki asked Arnold. Satori quietly screamed as she read from our minds that we all knew Heidontei used to be called Geidontei, and was still frequented by youkai.

“No,” said Arnold. “To get you drunk enough that you stop thinking.”

“Impossible,” said Wiki.

“No!” said Satori. “It’s a great idea. Fantastic even! Go there, and I’ll keep trying to think of ways to help you from here.” Satori grimaced. “I know you know I’m lying, this is a polite exit sign, get out of here!”

“Let’s cut her some slack,” said Sasha. “Sorry, Satori.”

“That was performative,” she said, “Me too, though.” We turned to leave.

“I’m starting to see why she lives underground,” said Wiki.

“We’ll be back later!” added Arnold.

“Eirin can treat ethanol poisoning!” called Satori, from behind us. “So try real hard, okay?”

—

I hadn’t been to Heidontei before. It was mostly a traditional Japanese izakaya with low tables and square chairs at the bartop, but there were a handful of booths on one wall as well. The place wasn’t packed, but it was far from empty.

In fact, three different people caught my attention as we chose our table. I noticed one-and-a-half youkai right away.

The first was Okunoda Miyoi, the server with a whale hat. She and some other staff shouted a welcome to us as soon as we walked in. Wiki had told us about her. She was a house spirit associated with the izakaya. In canon her hair was pink instead of blue, and Reika had warned us against outing her as a youkai. The change in hair color was a disguise, of sorts.

Even if I didn’t know a damn thing about Touhou, I would have thought the blue-haired, whale-hatted hostess with written seals on her dress was suspicious. She hurried from table to table after greeting us. However, the humans in the pub weren’t making a big deal about it; either they’d been warned, or they were oblivious.

The second person I noticed was Konpaku Youmu, the white-haired half-phantom, wearing a green dress and sitting by herself in a booth with two plates of food. I wondered if one of the plates was for her phantom half. It was a second body that looked a bit like a cloud, in canon at least. I’d never heard of it needing to eat.

The humans were also mostly ignoring her, which told me that she came here often. Arnold confirmed as much as we sat down.

“Youmu is a regular,” he said. “She eats a lot. Also, if you try to talk to her she slashes at you until you leave. Non-fatally.”

“Danmaku isn’t allowed in the village,” I said.

“She cuts your shoelaces shorter and shorter! Or trims your beard!”

“Did you try to talk to her?” asked Wiki.

“Once or five times, yeah,” he said. “She looks so lonely!”

“What about him?” I asked, pointing at the third and last person I recognized. “Is he here often?”

“Oh yeah, every time I’ve come by,” said Arnold. “He’s more of a regular than Miss Konpaku.”

Raghav was sitting at the bar and chatting politely with a human employee behind the counter. He looked at us, his expression unchanging, then looked back toward the server or cook or whoever it was. His fine watch glinted as he raised his hand for a gesture, perfectly suiting his nice Indian clothes. He laughed.

“A lot of interesting people here,” I said. I was ninety percent sure that Raghav had formed an alliance with a youkai, just like I had, and Sasha had. “Anyway, I’ve decided I’m the designated walker.”

“What?” asked Arnold.

“If you watched classic TV you’d get this,” said Sasha. “He’s talking about ‘designated drivers,’ who were people that wouldn’t drink so they could drive their friends home.” Self-driving cars had made the practice obsolete. “Jake thinks we’ll need help walking.”

“Can’t I be the sober one?” said Wiki.

“Nope!” said Sasha, before calling for the waitress.