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 17

Gensokyo: Universal Board

May 18th, 2004: 0600

Third Person: Omni

“Another day,” Desmond said as he turned the sign, signaling the opening of his store once more. A slight smile on his face as he turns away from the glass door that kept the chilled air at bay.

“And another day closer to the end of the long Winter,” Letty said from her position at the counter. Her cheek resting on her hand. She could feel it so vividly, the spring in the world had been slowly flowing back into the world, and just last night it suddenly flooded.

“Or more like the end of this incident,” Desmond said with a glance at the still snowing outside world. It was extremely heavy this early morning, almost on par with the one that caught the exterminator as she went and solved the incident.

“True enough.” Letty let out an unconvincing sigh. While it would spell the end of her being able to wander around in the outside world, now that she was able to stay in Desmond’s freezer, she didn’t have to hibernate the other seasons.

“The concept of Winter is extremely strong in your freezer for some reason… how you were able to do it I will never understand.” Though she could also reinforce the concept of Winter within the confines of the machine, she didn’t need to.

“I don’t even know how either, it was already like that when I got it.” The shop was still a mystery even after almost a year of time living within the premises. Rena was quite thorough in the design of the place, and the particulars, even to the point where all of the AIs with him were unable to analyze all of its secrets even with almost a year of time to do so.

“Yeah, I didn’t even know that there was a freezer in there originally, a game store is not usually a place where you need that big of a freezer for after all.” The entire place was over-engineered from the stars to back. He would not be surprised if the place were somehow impervious to the heat death of a universe.

“But as long as you are comfortable within the freezer, I don’t really care about it. It is not like I use much of the thing in the first place…” It is not like he was creating large vats of frozen delights, or had objects that needed to be kept blow freezing… though the possibility of his experiments involving such a thing was more than real.

“Well, it is certainly far more comfortable than the cave that collapsed.” She was still quite bitter at the loss of her cave, despite it not being the most comfortable, it did have some sentimental things contained within.

“Yeah, I lost a lot of sentimental things when I moved and got suddenly transported to this world… I was just checking the premises after all.” Despite knowing that he would be moving in, none of his more personal and sentimental items were transportable…

“Well, it will take a bit for me to get the freezer to my personal taste as well.” She said with a laugh, since a majority of her time will be spent there, it would probably end up looking quite nice sooner rather than later.

___(TOUHOU PROJECT)___

“Welcome… you look like you were put through a bullet storm.” Desmond greeted the slightly messed-up fox woman as she entered the store. Ran walked into the store, scuffed up with soot covering her frame.

“It would seem that Lady Yuyuko decided to inform the shrine maiden of my mistress being lazy.” The fox said with a sigh as he handed her a wet handkerchief, letting her clear her skin of the soot. Her mobcap was also a bit crooked, letting some of her blond hair splay out messily.

“Well, what do you expect when it is still incredibly cold and when the shrine is barely insulated,” Desmond said with a laugh. It had been basically 10 days of her dealing with the cold, it was surprising that she didn’t try to find the Mistress of the Fox earlier.

“What I did not calculate was having the maid show up at the end…” She said with a sigh. In all respects, Sakuya should not have shown up in the battle, after all, she was dealing with several supplies for the Scarlet Devil Mansion. She had no way of knowing that the incident had not ended… especially with Remila saying that the incident would end on the 8th.

“Yeah, I kinda gave them some food yesterday and talked about Reimu leaving suddenly.” Desmond could only chuckle as the fox glared at him for his admission. They both knew that Sakuya would infer the situation and figure it out quite quickly with the information Desmond stated.

“Why must my mistress be like this…” She just plants her head on her arms while resting on the counter beside him. Desmond just smiled, every time she spoke of her mistress, he wanted to find out more about her. He just pats her head while readjusting her mobcap.

“Well, what can I say: lazy bosses create a bunch of issues.” Desmond could also give a testament due to his work as a lab assistant. While she was a genius, Rena was incredibly lazy when it came to literally anything that she had to deal with.

“Here, have some tea.” Desmond places a cup of tea right beside her head, with Ran shifting her head to look at him with tired eyes. He could tell that she had a long night even after suffering from Reimu and the gang.

___(TOUHOU PROJECT)___

Gensokyo: Hakurei Shrine

May 19th, 2004: 1600

Third Person: Omni

Desmond nodded to the guardian on the shrine, whether or not it was truly alive and sentient enough for it to acknowledge it was something that many would not be able to answer. Every time he came to the shrine, he always felt a multitude of gazes upon his figure from unseen figures.

The lion-headed statue was covered in snow from the recent snowfall. Icicles originating from its jaw as the stone figurehead stares at the Torri gates of the shrine sparkle in the slight amount of sunlight that escaped the clouds falling snow. The fact that the icicles had formed was a testament to how spring was slowly returning to the world.

“Well, I will be going out to the back porch,” Desmond said as he walked past the guardian. The snow had covered the stone cobbles, making it crunch slightly when compared to the regular clacking of his boots on the stone.

Despite his heavy footfalls, the deep footprints within the snow were swiftly covered by the silent snowfall. The sight of the shrine covered in a heavy layer of snow was enchanting to Desmond, even if he had already seen the sight many times during the winter.

“Honestly, it is still a sight that I am unused to,” Desmond remarked to himself softly. Even with his frequent visits, the Wonderland-like appearance of the shrine… no Gensokyo as a whole is still something that he would never be used to.

As he turned the corner to see the open porch of the shrine, Desmond could only pause his steps as a trio consisting of Reimu, Marisa, and Yuyuko flew off and left the shrine unattended. Though it didn’t matter much due to the low level of traffic that it received on normal days, much less the winter-like weather.

“Honestly, leaving everything till last minute.” Desmond looked over to the shrine, it still had a steaming cup of tea sitting on the kotatsu. The other cup was empty due to someone drinking it quickly before they left. The room was also quite messy.

Whenever he decided to visit, he could tell that the place got more and more disheveled, one could mistake her as a police officer that barely had any time at home. Though to be honest, he would have had this issue as well if Eve hadn’t forced him to clean.

“Well, no use in complaining, since it is not something that really needs me… from what I can infer at the very least, may as well give her a spring cleaning service.” Desmond sighed as he took off his boots to switch to some indoor slippers. Despite it being almost a year since he arrived, he never once saw Reimu extensively clean the porch or any of the places she actively lived in.

Thankfully for Desmond’s sanity, none of her more personal items were mixed into the mess, she was at least clean in that regard. Although he was used to dealing with women’s garments, he did not want to have his dignity questioned.

At worst, the most personal items that were scattered around were her ribbons and ofuda. The kotatsu had its cloth atop the wooden table, showcasing the glowing coles in the heating pit. The one thing that kept Reimu relatively warm over the winter.

As he worked, the originally steaming cup of tea slowly cooled down, finally becoming the temperature of the cold air around it as he finished his work. The coals in the kotatsu had turned from its warm red to a pale white, still giving off plenty of heat to the shrine.

“Well, that is that.” Desmond sighed out as he placed an unlabeled box of items onto a table. The ground was now clear of any garments and stray items, showcasing that the tatami mats under it were somehow in quite a good condition.

“Well, at least I am warmed up,” Desmond said with a sigh, it was only a few minutes’ worth of time, but he had already shed his jacket and was working in his long-sleeved shirt. In fact, despite it not being demanding, he worked up a slight sweat.

“Still, it is strange seeing cheery blossoms while the trees are still covered in snow.” It was never warm enough for the trees in question to open their buds to the outside world, yet, against scientific knowledge, they still bloomed rather prettily. Though he got the feeling that they would have a viewing of these flowers soon.

He stood still as he watched the snowfall atop the branches of the blooming trees. Pink and white filled his eyes as a gentle wind blew off both snow and flower every so often. The feeling of several individuals spying on him forced well into the back of his mind.

“Well, may as well give them their delivery.” Desmond states with a sigh, they might not need winter supplies anymore, but the mansion residents still ordered things from him. Though Sakuya usually picked up such items, they requested delivery every once in a while.

As he turned to pick up his jacket once more, he felt like he saw a flash of purple and yellow from the corner of his eyes, the figment of light caused him to pause and look out once more.

“That is strange.” Just when his eyes had played tricks on him, one of the gazes faded out, instead of being cut like how it would normally be. The presence behind such a look grew weaker on a spectrum compared to just suddenly disappearing.

Netherworld

“This incident is taking far longer than it has to be…” Reimu grumbled as she barely moved from her position, letting the danmaku just graze on by her. Green filled her eyes as storms of green kunai projectiles flew from the spinning fox in the air.

“Almost finished Reimu!” Marisa cheered from beside a fainted Chen as she watched the battle of bullets unfold infront of her. In standard style for exorcist style of danmaku games, one had to survive a fixed set of spell cards from the challenged.

As the fight unfolded over the steps, one could barely make out the spinning Ran from the amount of kunai that she was throwing. Making it quite a funny sight for the magician who was laughing with the intermittent pauses to cheer the shrine maiden on.

It was not only the current iteration of regular shots that had the fox spin but every intermission between her spell cards and even some spell cards was iterated by her spinning. As Reimu hit her several more times with her ofuda, Ran paused in the middle of her line of sight.

“Shikigami: Chen” The card that signified a facet of her spun on the center axis once more. Immediately, Chen floated to her master’s side as the card took effect.

“Eh, two versus one? That is not fair!” Marisa yelled out as the pair of shikigami started their bombardment of danmaku. As Ran moved back with a volley of indigo danmaku and a whirlwind surrounding her, Chen charged with a spin forewords.

When Chen finally stopped her linear charge, a set of red danmaku were shot forth from her. In the same moment that Chen shot off the red danmaku, Ran also shot out a set of indigo bullets. Not even a second passed before Chen decided on another point to dash to.

“Hmmm…” Reimu had her eyes squinted as she dodged the two bullet patterns, making sure to have her ofuda trained at Ran and not accidentally target Chen. Her instincts told her that shooting Chen would not advance the spell card duration.

Chen never directly charged at Reimu, sometimes even going behind the shrine maiden with her dashes. To the exterminator, it looked like Chen was using a zig-zagging pattern in her charges.

This process repeated while Chen sped up her charges and Ran shortening her attack intervals. This spell card was fully focused on Chen not as an individual, but as a culmination of Ran’s raising abilities.

Just as Chen paused once more, the sound of a glass shattering could be heard by the participants, Chen immediately disappearing as another spell card was immediately materialized in place of Shikigami: Chen, with shards not even having a chance to fade away in the time she spoke.

“Kokkuri-san's Contract” Ran’s voice fell into the ears of all three of the witnesses. Both players were immediately surrounded by spell circles. But Ran did not stay for long as she suddenly disappeared from Reimu’s sight. Yet, the spell circle that had spun around Ran did not fade away, it instead floated to Reimu’s magic circle.

“Right…” Reimu mumbled to herself as the magic circle under her feet faded, and pillars of light stood in place of the edges of the circle, slowly spinning and giving a sense of danger to the Reimu.

Number Of Words: ~2500 Words

Date Completed: 9/1/2021

Note: Really late chapter tonight, and a month past my Warped Commander Anniversary. Well, nothing I can do since I am preparing for college at the moment. Well, I hope to write this month, so I hope you all enjoyed the chapter.