A/N: (Note/Disclaimer) All recognizable objects and characters belong to their respective owners. Mainly Team Shanghai Alice for Touhou Project or, as per usual, my own characters belonging to me.

Note 2:

("Common Language [Japanese in this case]/Speech")

(‘Foreign Languages’)

(" Thoughts (In their own native tongue)" )

(Attacks/Weapon names)

(Other/Foreign/ Speech & Text/Written, Titles)

(Actions/POV)

(Titles / Flashback/Time/Dates/Place)

(Narration & Everything else)

(“Demonic Speech”)

(‘Demonic Thoughts’)

A Retired Officer’s Shop In The Eastern Wonderland Chapter 10

Gensyoko: Universal Board

August 19th, 2003: 0800

Third Person: Omni

“First up, I play Seamstress Mai . Next, I activate Career Ascension , allowing me to rank up a character card with a profession. I select Seamstress Mai and rank her up to Master Seamstress Mai.” Quickly milling through half her hand to get started the setup for one of her top cards. She needed to do something drastic to win this at this kind of disadvantage.

“I agree to the rank up,” Desmond said with a smile creeping onto his face, it was getting more exciting than before. As much as he enjoyed crushing someone. He had far more enjoyment in seeing the other player have fun as well.

“I once more activate a card from my hand, Record Of A Legend. This card ranks up a card with an advanced profession into a Legendary Profession, I once more select Mai as the ascender.” Desmond nods to show his consent in the matter.

“Once more she shall rise up the ranks, this time into a being that creates legends of her skills. Acend, The Waiver: Mai.” She made a pointing gesture after placing the new card down into the playing field. The image had a young woman with black hair standing over a field covered in an artwork of thread that was unable to be seen due to the small scope of the image.

“That was quite fun actually” Alice mumbled to herself in surprise, she thought it was to hype up the game itself, but instead of being even slightly embarrassing, it only left her with a sense of childish joy.

“I know right? But you can not attack with that 50 damage attacker this turn after all.” Desmond’s smile grew to a grin as his jade green eyes sparkle. She jumped a bit in her chair after hearing his words, not fully expecting him to hear her quiet voice like that.

“But, I use the card Quick Launch, This card allows me to attack you directly at the cost of being unable to attack the next turn. Now, let’s get onto more even ground then.” Desmond just smiled while motioning towards himself.

“Alright then, I take the 50 damage,” Desmond states with a calm tone despite the smile giving her a premonition that the storm is about to reach the climax that she did not know before.

“I set another 2 cards and end my turn.” She states while trying to keep a calm face and even tone, his smile is morphing into something unnerving for her as an aura starts surrounding him. The sense of fun is still there, but she was getting unnerved by the force of his aura.

“And I draw my last set card. With this, my pieces are all set.” They both knew that he would win, not because his deck was so optimized to the ruleset, but the experience in making decisions in the game.

“I use the active card Karma, if the last attack delt more than 20 damage, add half the damage dealt to a character card, I select D.” It was not just Alice feeling his aura, Mokou and the doll were feeling the muted effects alongside her.

“Then, I activate the active card: Sacrifice For A Fleeting Dream, I may remove one character card with the Eternal attribute to render my card invincible.” The card had a person falling asleep for a utopian dream. Alice had the feeling that the last two cards would finish this game…

“I activate Counter Spelling to target your Sacrifice For A Fleeting Dream.” Even if it was a faint hope, negating immunity took precedence, if they had the equal attack, she had a chance to recover.

“Trigger card: Activate. Faulty Trap: Negate and destroy a trigger card that would destroy a card.” He smiled with a wink as he flipped the card on the board. The card itself had the image of a bear trap not springing when a weight was placed in the middle

“I counter with another of my face down cards. Spell Decoy, by destroying this trigger card and another in my hand, I may destroy the activated Trigger Card.” A dummy with a magic circle dragged a light to itself in the card art.

“All right, my card eternal dream is destroyed, my card stays mortal,” Desmond said with a still smiling face, they both knew that he was already expecting the destruction of that card.

“However, I activate my facedown card, Confinement. Using this card, I may take an enemy’s character card out of play for a single turn.” The card had a figure sitting on the ground with the bars of their cell to their back. Wearing the black and white prison uniform, they did not have any particular bindings on their person.

Alice did not have any cards that could destroy that active card… now that she thought about it, she went right into his trap.

“Now to end this game, Police Captain D attacks directly for 50 damage Final Bullet.” He points directly at Alice as he said so, the digital display that held their life in their eyes quickly drained to zero.

“Alrighty then, good game.” Desmond smiled while offering his hand to her for a handshake. All of a sudden, his aura suddenly disappears without a trace it was there originally. All of them were taken aback for a second before Alice shook his hand with a slight smile. Even in loss, the match was still fun.

“Shall I point out some points where you went wrong?” Desmond asked Alice with his regular smile returning to his face. His sparkling eyes returning to a more human luster.

“Of course.” Her drive to become better igniting itself when she was trapped in that corner by him.

“Remember that hindsight is the sight in which all clouds are cleared, foresight is the ability to clear a bit of fog infront of you, but nowhere near enough to understand anything concretely. Just blaming yourself for the simple mistakes is worth nothing but a waste of time. So improve with those failures.” Mokou froze when he said those words, something that she probably needed to hear far too long ago. Even when he was not addressing her, it still felt the words were just for her.

“Right” Alice nodded in understanding. She had heard something along the same lines coming from Marissa when she was addressing herself while doing work. She did go through so many failures to reproduce many things, like, Maser Spark, through hard work and visual reference alone.

“The latest mistake you made was using your counterspell card too eagerly you should have waited till I was going to sacrifice an eternal card… do you know why?”

“To make sure it was a legal move?” Alice asked while holding her right hand to her chin, Desmond was holding onto his card in question while motioning to the card that she owned.

“Correct, I was bluffing the move. I had no such cards in my hand or discard, so if you were to dispute the motion, I would have destroyed the card that I used. Since you didn’t you wasted that card, netting me the victory.” Yep, she felt the sting of that bout of hasty thinking and actions. Though his aura while playing the card clouded her decision.

“That is the reason why formal events would have slightly more restrictive rulesets when it comes to these kinds of rulings. Though it was more of a game to spot bluffs this time.”

“Two turns before the end, you should have taken police force’s attack and wire trapped D instead to keep you from taking 25 damage and instead take 20. This way D would not be an obstacle since I did not have anything to revive him.”

“With that, you would have made me a bit more nervous since I did not have any character cards, and I probably would have only been able to play a fairly small one to block an attack while you would have been able to summon more characters.”

“I wanted the police force in the graveyard to stop a card action in the first place, so I expected you to do something to destroy it sooner or later. If you instead destroyed D, it would have been an issue for me.” Desmond explained while resetting the table to show just that, him attacking directly to get her to 45, but with her having 70 attacks in total with only the police force would have spelled the end for him.

“Of course there are smaller ones you made during the course of the game, but we do not have enough time in the video for that.” Desmond reminded everyone that, yes, they were still being recorded. Though none of the girls knew exactly how the cameras worked in that regard.

“Thank you all for watching this tutorial, whether it is recent and you are watching with only this or later down the line and have many options to watch, I hope you enjoy the game and understand this ruleset with the help of this video.”

“This has been Desmond Howard...” Desmond leadoff for the others to reveal their identities to the audience.

“Alice Matrigold.” She found his intentions quite quickly.

“And Fujiwara No Mokou.” Mokou finished off after all of them, the doll was unable to speak after all, so it could not introduce herself.

“Signing off.” Desmond waved at the camera that was capturing his face. For a few seconds, he did so before the red light that indicated they were recording this game shut off.

“Can you hand me your member card Alice.” Desmond had his palm facing towards her with his hand out, waiting for the card to be placed in his hand. She had not placed the card in her bag yet, so it was a quick affair to hand it over to him.

“Alrighty then, Owner challenges with one loss…” Desmond remarked while filling in the spot after placing the card into the reader. Quickly fill out the details of the duel and the actual number that indicated that she had lost.

“Alright then, owner challenges don’t count against your regular win-loss ratio while playing here, so you can challenge me any time… the main question is whether or not I would accept. Just make sure you have at least one game’s space inbetween challenges.” Desmond confirmed the entries and waited for the data to save.

“Winning against me will give you certain rewards, but since you helped me with the introduction video and were my first duel here. You will get these even after you haven’t lost.” Desmond said while pulling out the card and handing it back to her.

“Can you both wait here for a few seconds?” The girls in the room nodded their accent as he stepped out of the room to receive something to give to them. Though, it was not a surprise that they would end up talking.

“How are you doing today?” Mokou was the one to speak first. Despite being antisocial to an extreme, she was still a noble… well a former one now that it has been many years since they had fallen from grace. But a noble nonetheless… and one with manners.

“I am doing well, I was originally here to pick up some books that I requested from him before,” Alice responded, while he did not have what she was looking for, he was able to somehow get it a bit later. It was mostly books about different woods and fabrics.

“What are you doing here if I may ask?” Alice herself was extremely anti-social… it was Marisa that usually dragged her out to do stuff and have fun instead of staying cooped up inside her home for weeks on end.

“I was actually dragged here when I accompanied him from The Bamboo Forest of the Lost…” The noble rubbed the back of her head with a small sheepish smile. Yeah, it was actually surprising that he would just drag her into the shop to eat and make her stay the night.

“Yeah, I can definitely imagine him doing that.” Alice also laughed slightly at the thought, it was something that she knew about him when it had not even been a month yet.

“So how did you meet him?” Now that the conversation went into stories about him, Mokou wanted to know a bit more about him. She couldn’t help but get a positive aura from him, something that actually made her want a friendship with him.

“And here is the thing that I wanted to give you.” Desmond steps back into the room carrying some stuff in a box. Smoothly setting it down and bringing some stuff out of the box.

“A deck box, two sets of 100 sleeves based around the puppeteer archetype, and a set of counters,” Desmond said while placing each of the items infront of Alice. Alice took the deck box in hand and observed it. The young master puppeteer and his masterpiece of a daughter with strings weaving behind them.

“What are card sleeves for?” Alice asked while taking one of them from the pack. The front plastic was clear with the inner part being a simple violet color. On the back, the illustration consisted of the masterwork puppet having a young man having his head on her lap under a tree.

“To help protect from unexpected things, like accidental spills and general oily fingers that all human hands have.” Desmond said before turning to Mokou.

“I had this set before going to sleep last night, just heat it up for a few minutes before eating.” Desmond set a package of prepared food infront of Mokou. Once again, Mokou was surprised, but she was starting to expect that he would keep doing these kinds of things for her as long as she did not know how to cook.

“O- okay…” She mumbled out while taking it into her hands. She knew if he ever fully found out that she regularly starved herself to death just to return from oblivion in a healthy state, she would never live it down.

“Stay if you want to buy something or the other. Go if you would like, I will be checking on the bamboo that I harvested today.” Desmond bid them goodbye to leave for his inner sanctum, leaving the box there for Mokou to use for the cards and food.

“And he left again before we could say anything. And he forgot to give me my books.” Alice sighed, he forgot to ring her up on the amount, she already paid for them, but they just got here today.

“Is there something in your deck box?” Mokou noticed that there was something amiss about the box, namely that it was not in fully sealed packaging like the sleeves and the tokens.

“Let’s see… A note? “Your stuff is on the counter for when you leave, it is inside the box with the shop’s emblem. Have fun. -Desmond.” Well… it seems that I am wrong.” Alice just chuckled slightly with embarrassment, he probably knew that she would open up the deck box and place the sleeves inside of it to have less volume of things to deal with.

“Yeah… I am off to go back home and deal with someone.” Mokou remembered that she had not attacked her greatest enemy today, so better get to the daily entertainment.

“Right, I will be going as well. Shanghai? Could you please help me carry these?” The doll hopped off of the chair and flew over to their master without any hesitation.

Number Of Words: ~2700

Date Completed: 5/5/2021

Note: Hope you all enjoyed the chapter. Hope you are all enjoying Touhou 18. I really need to step it up, so expect more chapters soon.