uika hurried, when she saw the beam of light, as she could feel that it symbolized something bad. She did not seem to get much closer, while the giant black tortoise, Genbu, kept increasing in size. This was testament to its sheer size; it must have been as tall as the mountains in the north, the only ones that could be called so in face of Yôkai Mountain’s overwhelming height. It meant that the castle on the back of the tortoise was of an immense size as well.

From Kyôma she had heard about the various Yôkai he had encountered so far, who had seemed likely to be conspiring with O-hakuka. Among them the one that had sounded most troublesome had been the shapeshifter, which even close friends could not distinguish from the original. Suika knew that being one of the honest Oni race she would all too easily fall for it – and even knowing this fact, she could not think of a way to counter a shapeshifter posing as someone she knew and was close with.

Rather than landing properly, the little Oni decided to make a grand entrance: She fearlessly crashed right into the castle wall and threw back her arm to punch a hole into it. Entering through the crumbling outline, Suika realized that the interior was indeed shaped like a traditional castle, including the wooden floors and paper sliding doors. However, due to the sheer size of this building, it would take her a long time to find what she was looking for. The scent of the Kasha had disappeared over the Garden of the Sun, understandably, as the smell of the sunflowers overpowered everything in a large area. The only reason Suika had come this far was because her destination had been obvious.

“The light is still there… something’s going on,” She muttered and looked down the empty hallway on both sides. No guards were rushing in to stop her and she could not feel any defensive spells; maybe there was nobody in and the light came from Genbu itself, or only one person was present to activate the spell behind the beam. Searching alone would take her too long, so she took a deep gulp from her treasured purple Sake gourd. Puffing up her cheeks, the little Oni breathed out tiny clouds that consolidated into miniature versions of her, all in all over a hundred. “Alright, everyone, move out!” With this, the army of mini-Suika dispersed in all directions, opening holes in paper sliding doors to go through or helping each other up the stairs. Despite the situation, they were more comedic than serious, and would fumble around, trip each other up or roll along the floor at random times, as if having fun.

Suika sighed at the sight, then looked up to the ceiling and jumped, crashing through it to ascend to the next floor. It seemed to be an unspoken rule that the leader of any castle was always to be found on the top floor, so that was where she was headed. It did not take her long to reach the top; Suika immediately knew without crashing through the roof of the castle, because there was a throne seat at the end of the room. Unexpectedly, the large room was completely empty.

“It can’t be that the beam was an automatic spell…?” The little Oni scratched her head and looked around for any clues. Yet, what was empty remained empty, no matter how much she searched. “Maybe the mini-mes had more luck…” With this she clapped her hands together, causing all the mini-Suika to disperse into mist and fly back to her. Suika began to suck in the air around her, including the Oni mist, until none was left. With this, she gained the memory of all the miniature clones she had sent out, including everything they had seen during their search.

Apparently they had not met a single soul, but there was a suspicious place in a windowless corridor deep within the castle. If this had been a castle on the ground, it would have been an underground room, but now it must have led into the giant tortoise’s body. That was Suika’s destination now, into the bowels of the beast, a room sealed with a heavy lock and a large number of ofuda.

She jumped back down the holes in the floors she created, all the way to where she first broke in, then proceeded to punch her way through like she had on her ascent, until she landed in a corridor that was build out of stone, rather than wood. At the end of it, around the corner, would be the door one of her mini-mes had found, and it most likely contained something of great importance.

“Well, maybe it’ll just turn out to lead to Genbu’s heart or something boring like that,” The little Oni muttered, as she walked forward and around the corner. The door was there and still, nobody in sight. “This is where normally a guard would be waiting…” For some reason Suika looked annoyed at the fact that she had not had a fight at hand already.

Grabbing the heavy lock, she simply ripped it off as if it was a made of paper. Instead of kicking it open, Suika rammed her fingers into the metal door and pulled it out of its hinges, ignoring the Ofuda parched all over it. From being with Reimu for a long time, Suika understood that these were actually sealing strips for Yôki, the energies and auras of Yôkai. Looking into the room, Suika’s eyes widened; within was the person she had come to find. Koishi was bound to a hexagonal pillar using shimenawa, with ofuda covering her bare body, and screaming in agony as the pillar of light surrounded her.

There was no enemy in sight, even in this place, so it meant that this must have been a trap. However, it was not part of the Oni’s nature to be careful in their conduct, and when forcing themselves to take a moment to think rather than act immediately, bad things tended to happen. Suika had lived long enough to know this from experience, and she had lost people dear to her in the process. At one point she had decided that rather than contemplating the potential risks from immediate action, dealing with them when they came up was more favorable. Indeed, this was the conclusion many of the Oni race had come to during their long lives, which resulted in the common misconception that they were a simple people who let their fists do the thinking.

Thus, regardless of the consequences, saving Koishi right now was the priority and the sole reason she had come to this place. Without hesitation, Suika rushed forward and stretched her hands to rip off the shimenawa that coiled around the Satori Yôkai’s body. However, the light surrounding the girl repelled the Oni’s hands as if it was solid matter. Not wasting time on being surprised, Suika put her hand on the pillar of light and activated her ability to control the density of matter, in an instant creating a hole in the barrier. Without hesitation, she grabbed the god binding paper, which burned her hands upon contact, and tore them off, freeing Koishi from her bindings.

The moment Suika pulled off the ofuda pasted over Koishi’s body, the girl stopped screaming and went limp. The Oni was about to pull her out from the pillar of light when the enemy finally appeared before her. A woman who could only be described as white, floated in the air, blocking the exit. Her long hair was an ethereal white and her face was almost unhealthily white, with gray lips curled in a slight smile. She wore a pure white haori and a long white skirt that reached all the way down to her ankles, if she had ankles in the first place. Instead of feet extending from underneath the skirt, there was only white steam, wafting and dispersing into the air around her, causing the temperature to drop by several degrees. It was the sign that she was an Onryô, a ghost with a vengeful affixation, making her a dangerous existence to anything that was considered living. However, her most striking features, even in this assortment of the supernatural, were her hands. There was neither skin, flesh, nor muscles on them, only blank white bones, held together by some unearthly magic.

“The ritual is not over yet, so I cannot have you remove the catalyst,” The woman said in a bewitching tone. Suika looked up at her dubiously, decided to ignore her and proceeded to pull Koishi from the light. Seeing this, the woman stretched out a skeletal hand. Upon this, the little Oni seemed to freeze up completely. In reality, she was still moving, but had slowed down immensely, as if time had been warped. “As expected of an Oni, my power cannot compare to your muscle strength after all!”

“So that’s it, huh?” Suika muttered. The white woman approached with a wide smile, showing off her perfectly white teeth.

“Even if I cannot stop you completely, at this level you are nothing to worry about. Well then, be patient, while I put the catalyst back in its place,” She said and passed Suika. However, unexpectedly, the little Oni’s hand shot forward and grabbed the woman’s skeletal wrist. Gasping in surprise, she attempted to free herself, but was unable to compete against Suika’s immeasurable strength.

“You think playing around with some bones can stop me?” Suika grumbled and her grip intensified to the point that the skeletal wrist gave off an unhealthy creaking noise. Whether the woman could feel it or not, her expression was filled with surprise rather than fear. Instead of attempting the futile, she simply drew back and in the process her trapped arm detached, leaving the Oni with a skeletal arm in her hand.

“I have underestimated you, but you have wasted your hand,” The woman said, her grin filled with triumph.

“Ah, no… you wasted yours,” The Oni responded and dropped the discarded arm carelessly.

“You think you have disarmed me with that?” The white woman remained unperturbed by the sight and from her wide sleeve a new skeletal arm appeared. “I still have enough hands to play.”

“Ok, can we please stop with the hand puns? It’s getting tiresome,” Suika said and in the next instant extended both her arms, gathered matter around them to increase the size of her palms, before bringing them together on the woman, as if clapping her hands. It all happened very quickly, but in the last moment the woman was able to slow Suika’s momentum down enough to slip out from the attack that would have ground her entire body to dust.

“I cannot help but think that you tried to have the last word just now…” The woman muttered with an unhappy expression.

“You noticed?”

“That was too straightforward. But I must say, I never knew Oni could have more than just their raw strength. That is a really handy ability you got there.”

“Alright. That’s it. I’ll deck you!” Suika snapped.

It was a fight between an Oni, a protector of the spirit world, and an Onryô, a disturber of spirits. From the beginning, it was one-sidedly in favor of Suika, who had nothing to fear from the woman in white, whose power appeared to be unable to affect her in any significant way. On the other side of things, the Oni could win with a single hit, pulverizing her opponent with raw strength.

Added to the fact that Suika had already removed Koishi from inside the pillar of light and ripped off the ofuda that appeared to be part of the ritual, the winning conditions were in the little Oni’s favor as well. The Onryô was surely pressed for time; with the catalyst of the ritual out of the picture, it would without a doubt collapse, if not put back in its place soon. Therefore, all Suika had to do was protect the Satori Yôkai until the light behind her disappeared. When it came to stamina, an Oni had a near endless amount of it, so attempting to tire her out would prove to be a fruitless effort.

“I know this fight is not in my favor, but whoever said I had to fight you alone? Let me introduce you to my right hand!” The woman in white said, earning her a growl from Suika. From behind a pillar a child, about the same height as the Oni, emerged, carrying a gigantic lantern attached to a wooden pole. Whether it was a girl or a boy could not be determined due to the child’s androgynous appearance or the nondescript yukata that could be worn by either males or females. The lantern looked like the typical Chôchin-obake, a traditional Japanese lantern that became sentient and turned into a Yôkai due to old age. It featured a single lidless eye and a rip in its side that resembled a mouth with jagged teeth, revealing a ghostly pale flame inside it.

“This one looks like a small fry, though,” Suika commented. Chôchin-obake were a staple member of the Tsukumogami family, Yôkai that came to life from everyday inanimate objects such as umbrellas and pots. It also meant that their levels within the supernatural rankings were exceptionally low, to the point that they were treated as familiars by Yôkai of higher orders, such as Bake-danuki or Kitsune, like Mamizô or Yakumo Ran.

“Hey, that’s rude! I’m a proper Yôkai, and I will show you my power!” The child said and swung the lantern around, from which a flash of light emerged, momentarily blinding the surprised Suika. “Haha! How is this?”

In the next moment the Oni felt a light impact on her face and reflexively swung her arm, hitting something in the process. She felt feedback from her hand on something soft that did not feel like flesh. A split second later she heard the impact of something soft against something soft, immediately followed by the crushing noise of something soft making high-velocity contact with something hard. Her eyesight slowly returned, to see the Chôchin-obake leaning against a pillar, buried by its own lantern. Apparently she had swung the lantern against Suika while she was blinded, causing her to retaliate and punch it away, sending it flying right into its owner. The power and speed had been enough to take the little girl off her feet and send her crashing into the pillar. It had ended in the expected result.

“I… have no words,” Suika said with a pitiful gaze, before turning back to the woman in white, who was looking between the Oni and the child. She rushed over to the lantern girl’s side, leaving Suika to do what she wanted, who immediately picked up Koishi and walked out of the room. From behind her she could only hear the white woman lamenting the sorry state her right hand had been turned into. It was then that the pillar of light disappeared, upon which the entire castle shook; Genbu had begun to move.

Leaving the same way she had come in, Suika looked from the outside to see that the giant tortoise had indeed moved from its position, its destination most likely the human village in the center of Gensôkyô. However, she felt no obligation to stop it; she had achieved what she had come for, and was heading towards Yôkai Mountain to meet up with Kyôma. Looking at the path of Genbu, Suika could only shake her head in pity.

It would pass through the Garden of the Sun.

 ow, this feels quite nostalgic. It’s been a long time since we last came here.”

“We’re not here for sightseeing.”

“But really, this place is as strange as always. We came down right next to the light, but passing through the barrier made us end up so far away from it.”

“…”

“Oh, there it is! This brings back memories of that travel incident.”

A black-haired Miko and a blonde girl who could only be described with the word “witch” were soaring through a world of eternal twilight, bathed in a transparent purple miasma. It did not obstruct one’s vision, but drained the life out of those who did not belong in this alien world. Even then, these two humans were formidable enough to defend against the poisonous atmosphere using their respective means.

“The gatekeeper was not in her usual spot. Be careful,” Hakurei Reimu said, her expression one of subdued anger. She was in a foul mood due to having to leave behind a dinner during its preparation and coming here on an empty stomach. If there was no food to be found here, she would likely vent her frustration on whomever caused the incident.

“You mean the gatekeeper we defeated easily last time?” The witch clad in black and white responded with a rhetorical question. Her expression was that of frivolous enjoyment; her attitude towards supernatural incidents was always that of a thrill-seeking adventurer’s. She was Reimu’s long-time friend and one of the few full-fledged humans within Gensôkyô who were able to fight against even the strongest supernatural beings. Even if so far it had been generally under the Spellcard Rules, this particular human’s raw magical output could be compared to a natural disaster.

“Don’t let your guard down, Marisa. Mima is here,” The Miko scolded her friend.

“Intuition?” Was all the girl named Marisa remarked.

“Intuition,” Reimu responded. Shrugging, the witch shook her head with a resigning smile and began to focus on the task at hand.

The pair of trouble-solvers had investigated the pillar of light coming from the caverns behind the Hakurei Shrine and detected that the barrier between Gensôkyô and Makai, the world of demons and strong Yôkai, had become flimsy once again. During the incident with the returned Hijiri Byakuren, only the Palanquin Ship was capable of traversing the dimensional barrier that kept the two worlds apart, but now it had once again become easily passable to anyone. This alone could result in a full-blown catastrophe, but Reimu sensed that opening the gate was just a means to ends. Ends she was unable to hazard a guess at, at this moment.

They had been flying in the direction of the light, the only thing familiar, but so out of place in this dark world, and arrived at the large city of demons they had come across on their last venture into Makai. It was here that they had met a god of a different caliber from Kami, a being that did not need faith or the affirmation of human beings to possess power and sustenance. It was a divine but unholy existence, absolutely alien to the concepts of the human world.

“You shall not pass!”

A voice suddenly proclaimed and a young girl shot up into the air in front of Marisa and Reimu. Sporting purple hair and eyes, she wore a red dress with short white sleeves and a white scarf around her neck, more out of a fashion sense than necessity. Her piercing eyes were fixed on the pair of intruders, and her body language suggested that she was ready to fight.

“There she is,” Marisa remarked, relaxed despite the fact that a battle seemed imminent. “Hey, don’t you remember us?”

“Yes, I remember you, and that is why I will not allow you to proceed into the city,” The girl responded firmly.

“So the usual way,” The witch stated with a grin and prepared herself.

In the next moment, the gatekeeper shot forward without warning and attacked with a straight punch towards Marisa’s face. Dumbfounded by the sudden physical attack, only Reimu’s intervention prevented the fist from impacting on the blonde’s face. Coming from the side with a kick, the miko diverted the attack, causing it to only graze Marisa’s hair. The speed and strength was enough to cause a gust of wind, which blew her black witch hat off her head.

“Woah, hey! That’s dangerous!” Marisa shouted, dropped down from her broom, holding onto it with one arm, and caught her hat with her other. Showing off her strength and dexterity in one move, she swung herself back onto it, now sitting on it in a straddling position rather than sideways.

“Makai is not bound by the Spellcard Rules either!” Reimu shouted and backed away from the girl’s follow-up swing. Without letting up, the gatekeeper chased after the miko now, throwing out punches and kicks in quick succession. Reimu had to give it her all just to dodge the onslaught, leaving no space for fighting back. However, Marisa swooped in on her broom and prepared to ram the enemy with the tip of her ride.

Dodging it by twisting her body, the young girl grabbed the base of the broom and attempted to knock the witch off her wooden steed, when an orange glowing square-shaped light hit her in the face and knocked her backwards, causing her to let go. The light was a barrier, thrown out by Reimu. Marisa used the diversion to spin around and shoot a volley of glowing stars from her hands at the opponent, who was unable to dodge and raised her arms to protect her face.

The stars broke into light particles and disappeared upon hitting the gatekeeper, but seemingly did no damage. Surprised, Marisa distanced herself in the reprieve given by her covering fire and took out an octagonal box-like object from a pocket hidden inside her large hat. Engraved on its wooden surface was the Bagua, the Eight Trigrams of the Earlier Heaven, the “Primordial Heaven”. However, instead of the Yin Yang symbol that was usually found in its center, there was a hole, exposing a red metallic sheen in its inside. This was a Mini-Hakkero, a high-power magical furnace that could generate unimaginable energies.

“Love Sign…” Marisa whispered gently, holding the box to her mouth. Reimu, who had once again become the target of the gatekeeper’s physical assault, heard it and reacted immediately. Blocking an attack with an ofuda, rather than dodging it, she quickly threw out a barrier between herself and the enemy with her other hand. Kicking off of it, she gained considerable distance, then swung her gohei around and caused the barrier to form into a box shape, trapping the purple-haired girl inside.

“This is not going to hold me-” She shouted, when Marisa’s voice overpowered hers.

“Master Spaaaark!”

A gigantic, rainbow-colored beam of energy shot out of the little device in the black and white’s hand, illuminating the twilight of Makai in radiant colors. In the last moment, Reimu gestured with her hand and the barrier around the gatekeeper disappeared, leaving her exposed to the light. In the next instant, she disappeared in the radiance that shot up into the darkness of the sky. When it was over, there were no signs of the opponent; either she had been evaporated completely or had been pushed far away by the beam.

“Let’s go. If she’s still alive after that, it’ll at least take her some time to come back,” Reimu said and flew ahead, towards the palace in the center of the city, the point from which the pillar of light they had followed extended into the infinite darkness above and into Gensôkyô. Shrugging, Marisa followed, blowing off the smoke rising from her Mini-Hakkero and placing it back inside her hat.

 he stench was overwhelming, even to those without a sensitive nose. Breathing with the mouth resulted in inhaling the scattered poison in the air, causing a prickling feeling in the throat. She did not remember how she had ended up in this place, but it had been in the wake of chasing something. Surrounded by the feverish yellow and green of poison-spewing organic growth, all she could do was try and find a way out now. It appeared that her powers could not activate properly in this biohazard environment.

“Nyaahhhh! I want to burn this place down!” Kaenbyô Rin screamed, as she walked through the field of oversized sunflowers, the trademark of the Garden of the Sun she found herself in. The pollen scattered in the air created a heavy atmosphere and to her sensitive feline nose it was pure torture. She sneezed. Apparently she had contracted hay fever now, too. The main reason why she could not just up and fly was because of the suppressive nature of the pollen, causing her to be unable to breathe properly enough to fly.

As if in response to her dangerous notion of wanting to bring harm to the field, the heads of the sunflowers turned towards the cat girl. Surrounded by flowers more than three meters tall, with large disc-shaped heads that seemed to stare at her, Rin shrank in fear. A rustling ran through the field and suddenly the large stalks parted to reveal a path. However, rather than meaning for the cat girl to walk down the path to potential safety, it was created solely for the purpose of letting someone approach.

“Would you care to repeat what you just said?” The person who came down the flowery path asked. She wore a red plaid vest over a white long-sleeved shirt that featured a yellow ascot. A long plaid skirt of the same color as the vest reached down to her ankles. She was carrying a large faint pink parasol that shielded her short leaf-green hair from the sun. Her amber-colored eyes were fixed on Rin.

“Hm? Who are you?” Rin looked at the woman suspiciously. There were no humans in these parts, that much even she, a dweller of the underground, knew. As to what kind of Yôkai she was, the cat girl could not tell from her appearance alone.

“I’m just a flower Yôkai, tending to my garden of children. My name is Yûka,” The woman introduced herself. A relaxed expression with a faint smile on her lips spoke of her self-confidence, her entire demeanor testament to an unknown power dwelling within her well formed body. Aside from the unnatural green hair color, her appearance was entirely human, testament to her old age as a Yôkai. Rin knew that the more human a Yôkai in Gensôkyô looked, the stronger it usually was, save for a few exceptions. Ironically, the physically superior supernatural beings were in an eternal pursuit to mimic the form of their prey, as they were forbidden from eating them here.

“Uh, I don’t have time for this… I need to get to that giant tortoise,” Rin muttered impatiently. “Tell me how I can get out of-” One look at Yûka’s expression caused the cat girl to stop mid-sentence and freeze up; the flower Yôkai’s smile had disappeared and the look in her eyes could only be described as unadulterated killing intent.

“In what way are you related to that giant thing?” The flower Yôkai asked quietly, her tone of voice commanding a response. Rin instinctively knew to answer truthfully, lest she was killed on the spot for hiding intentions that would be one-sidedly judged as hostile towards the green-haired woman.

“I-I only followed the trail of my mistress here. I don’t know anything about that tortoise!” Rin spewed out, her hairs standing on end in face of the overwhelming pressure emanating from the amber gaze. The sunflowers surrounding her appeared to bend down and loom over the cat girl, as if scrutinizing her expression to determine the truthfulness of her statement.

“Then why are you in my garden?” Yûka questioned, her expression unchanged. Rin wanted to know the answer to that as well. When she came to, she was inside this cursed place, with no memory as to how she had landed there despite being high up in the air and seeing the giant tortoise in the distance.

“I have no idea how I got here,” She answered truthfully, causing a rustle to run through the sunflowers surrounding her. Rin looked around anxiously, unable to understand the meaning of the flowers’ apparent agitation. However, there was one who understood their language.

“Hm, it would appear that something hit you in midair when you were passing above. My children just told me that. They have been worried about you, you know,” The flower Yôkai suddenly said, her expression relaxing once again, dispersing the pressure on the cat girl in the process. “But you said such dangerous things, so they could not overlook it,” She added, a glint in her eyes revealing that if Rin had actually attempted to burn the garden down, she would not have lived long enough to regret it.

At that moment a heavy noise resounded from the direction of the giant tortoise; it was the first footstep of a titan, announcing that it would ever so slowly but steadily approach their location. The earth shook under their feet and the sunflowers wobbled as if in panic. Yûka turned to look at Genbu, unmistakable murderous intent plastered across her face. The Garden of the Sun was on the giant tortoise’s path, if one were to assume that its target was the human village. With its enormous feet, it would trample craters into the field, and the flower Yôkai would not stand by idly as her children were killed.

Just then, in a twist of fate, Rin spotted the small shape flying across the sky, away from Genbu. The only thing she was certain of was the light green medium length hair fluttering in the wind. It was Koishi, and she was being carried by a small figure with ginger hair. Her feelings for her mistress overpowered the discomfort of the pollen saturating the atmosphere and the Kasha leapt into the air, flying towards the two and leaving Yûka behind without a word.

“Stop! You, what did you do to Koishi-sama!” Rin shouted when she blocked the little ginger-haired girl’s flight path. Only now did the cat girl notice the two large horns sticking out of her opposite’s head, clearly denoting that she was an Oni.

“I guess not even the Garden of the Sun can erase your stench completely, if you’re this close, Kasha,” The Oni did not answer Rin’s question but instead made a snide remark about the latter’s nature as a Yôkai. Her expression was relaxed, but she possessed an air similar to the one surrounding Yûka, albeit different in the fact that she obviously belonged to the immensely powerful species of Oni and exuded the confidence of inborn might. “I just saved her from some ritual. She should be fine now, just lost consciousness.”

“Where are you taking her?” The Kasha was not fully convinced and remained on guard, even though she knew that Oni never lied. However, remaining on guard would mean nothing in face of an Oni’s strength. She knew of Hoshiguma Yûgi, an innkeeper in the underground village, and had witnessed her fighting prowess. Even if this individual before her was small, and even if she only possessed a fraction of Yûgi’s strength, Rin would be crushed single-handedly.

“I was going to meet up with Kyôma at the shrine on Yôkai Mountain,” The Oni replied. Rin’s eyes opened wide at the mention of that name; it would appear that Kagami Kyôma was on friendly terms with an Oni.

“Let me take Koishi-sama,” Rin finally said, and summoned her cart in a burst of flames.

“You mean to make a naked girl ride in that dirty thing? I’m fine with carrying her like this, let’s just go… before the flower awakens,” The little Oni urged, looking down below at the sunflower field. Rin wanted to protest, but seeing the ginger girl’s expression, she swallowed her response; the Oni seemed genuinely concerned at what might happen when “the flower awakens”, whatever that may mean.

Thus, the two set off towards Yôkai Mountain, leaving Genbu and the Garden of the Sun behind them.