Blossom of Bodhisattva (Touhou)

[X] [The Defected Agent]

—

The medicine bowl lies shattered on the ground.

In your haste to react, in your instinctive reaction to the sounds of gunshots, you tipped it over on your way out of the storeroom.

Even as you catalog the movement of the earth rabbits (sloppy, sloppy, they haven't practiced proper evacuation drills), even as old skills are painfully dredged out of dormancy as you stalk from doorway to doorway, you somehow can't get that mistake out of your mind.

You wouldn't have made that mistake, once. You wouldn't have been making medicine, once, either.

The sounds of violence have only intensified, as you push through the tide of fleeing, panicking rabbits. There's a particular ring to the sound, familiar enough to have been engraved in your soul. Tsukuyomi, 49cal, lunar titanium casing. Moon weapon. Close, nearby, too nearby.

You've been on edge for days, and you weren't sure why. Now you know - unconscious bleedthrough, from the Lunar ESP bands. They're here.

And -

A flash in the corner of your eye, barely noticed through the commotion. But you've spotted it.

A disruption to the pattern, an anomaly in the waves of motion, something going against the tide. Someone moving towards Eirin's lab.

No time to think - you launch yourself up above the crowd, pinballing off of one wall, then another - you can't let them sabotage the lab. Lady Yagokoro has entrusted you with it, and it holds secrets that long predate your birth.

The crowds are thinning, now, the last few stragglers making their panicked way outside. There weren't many rabbits to begin with, in this wing of Eientei's absurd architectural maze - not much interest in Eirin's experiments.

You don't see the intruder - they're too far ahead of you - but you can see the signs of their passage. Marks of forced entry, broken open doors.

You round one last corner, and-


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RI0K4ffTEco

The mine is on a proximity sensor.

There is no time for conscious thought. By the time your mind has realized what has happened, you're already embedded in a crater in the hallway wall outside the lab, only the cracked and thinning shield you're projecting keeping you from having instantly perished.

"Sloppy, very sloppy captain." A familiar voice says, tinged with cruelty and… hate.

No. Nonononono.

Not Saki.

But it is.

You don't know what your expression is, when your gaze locks onto her. What parts of the emotional maelstrom you're feeling have leaked out, when you look at the last surviving member of your original squad. The one you abandoned when you fled.

But whatever that expression is… it pleases her.

And then the gunshot rings out. At this distance, with your shields already so depleted, it's a certain killshot. But it hits nothing. You've already moved, only an illusion left in your place.

"Rusty rusty rusty. Too much drink? Too much lounging around with the princess, dear captain?" Saki calls out, then the rush of magic. The illusion is gone, a bullet through its skull. "I was hoping you'd be around!"

You're cataloguing the threat (and you hate it). Saki (no surname, she never earned a surname, she wanted one so badly), demolitions specialist, heavy anti-materiel focus, secondary focus on organic asset denial. Pistol in one hand, shotgun in the other. Shorter than you, more stocky - she was weaker than you in CQC, once. You don't know if that's still true.

She's been through hell, it seems - there are a multitude of scars running down her face, one of her ears seems to have been replaced with a prosthetic. No pink in her outfit at all - it used to be her favorite color. Just a grey and dull Lunarian combat suit, clearly well worn, the stitching telling the story of many past missions with it.

She smiles, it's a broken thing, literally. Part of her lip is missing. "What? Don't recognize the last member of the Udongein squad?"

"I-" It's a quiet, involuntary sound. The urge to explain yourself is too much to bear. And it's a mistake.

She orients on your position quickly, too quickly, the sound cue enough to let her pierce through your veil of invisibility. You barely duck into a roll in time, as the shotgun reports, taking a chunk out of the wall, and the fluid tank behind you. You barely hear the clink, as the grenade lands just beside your right foot.

Predicting your movements, trying to fence you in - you can't let her force you into her rhythm or you'll die. So you do something stupid, and unexpected. The Udongein specialty. Her eyes widen as the grenade gets kicked right back at her, with all the force a rabbit can muster. But she's fast, far faster than you remember as her pistol swings up an-

Bang.

*BANG*

Smoke, shrapnel, the scent of gunpowder as her bullet hits the grenade and sends glass, machinery, and debris scattered all over. You lose sight of her, but not of her voice, her breathing. "I am Udongein squad. They forced me to stay, you know that? Last survivor, I stayed loyal, but the squad remained as a reminder to others of the price of betrayal. Suicide mission after suicide mission."

And it makes you want to puke. The squad was already treated poorly - you were already being sent to die. That was why you ran, in the first place.

And Saki, cheerful Saki, impossible Saki who still believed in the virtues of the moon after everything. What could they have possibly done, to make even her sneer with such vitriol? You don't want to - can't - imagine it.

But it seems to have been the reality.

Your pistol is in your hand, now, as you peer out from cover, scanning the room. The grip is rock steady, not even the slightest tremor affecting your aim. Funny. You can't remember drawing it.

A rush of movement, a glint of light. Saki diving around a computer bank, finger on the trigger, shotgun in hand. Pellets in the air.

Your cover gets obliterated, flimsy earth-made materials not offering the slightest bit of defense against the wrath of Lunarian weaponry. Misjudged instincts - if this was the moon, a site like this would be filled with marble and hihirokane, but Lady Yagokoro has no patience for that sort of pointless extravagance.

But it doesn't matter - you're already gone, having started moving before she even shot. She orients again, seeking the sound of your movement… as you expected. The rustling of cloth, the squeak of shoes against tile - these are all sound waves that fall within your domain. A simple transposition, to make it seem like you dodged the other way…

And the pistol shot nearly hits you regardless, her aim having snapped straight towards your new position.

Saki's lips are curled into a sneer as she shakes her head. "Captain, captain, I wasn't born yesterday." And with that, she pounces, hatred pushing her to move faster than you've ever seen from her as she barrels towards you, kicking the table so powerfully that it snaps clean in two.

"Still running away? Still nothing to say?" Saki calls out. "Nothing for Miya? Or Moe? They don't even have portraits in the memorial gallery anymore!"

You hunker down in the corner, not trying to fool her anymore, just trying to hide. All your efforts curled in on yourself, cutting your waves off from the rest of the world.

Her gaze scans the room, passing over your hiding space. "Run, then! You ran from the moon, now you can run from the earth! But I'll find you, even if you hide in hell itself!"

And then her tone turns darker. "That's the kind of coward you are, and we both know it." She looks at the laboratory around her, already wrecked from the fighting - but you both know that this is only superficial damage. The truly valuable information, the irreplaceable resources… those are still largely intact… for now. "We're going to kill all of your friends, and lock the princess and the doctor in the heart of the sun." The shotgun racks, and you feel a thrum of magic. "Maybe then we can call ourselves even, captain."

Your grip on your own pistol is painfully tight - you can feel the advanced polymers and composites creaking beneath your grasp, can feel the tension on your joints ramping up to an unbearable crescendo, as you hyperventilate.

"Or maybe, you won't even care. Maybe your bonds here are just as fake as the ones with our squad!" And then she's there, two feet in front of you, diving, shotgun in one hand, pistol in the air, a look of manic delight on her face.

And you-

Snap.

She's had experience with Lunar Aikido, but her form is made sloppy by her emotional outburst. You step into her motion, and it's trivial to redirect her momentum, push her weapons so you're out of the line of fire.

She reacts to your reappearance, as you knew she would, the twitch of her trigger finger happening before her conscious thoughts can respond - and so you can use the recoil of the shot to help push her further off balance.

You sweep the leg even as your other hand comes up for a nerve jab right at the gap in her suit's protections at her elbow, right at the joints, and no amount of strength would be enough to let her keep the grip on her shotgun in those circumstances.

You snatch the gun, and don't bother to turn it around, instead using its stock as a bludgeon as you ram it straight into the target's face - another moment of disorientation, another window of opportunity to act.

The target is still well-trained, moving into a solid recovery position as the pistol comes up towards you once again. A feint, a lunge. Teeth in your shoulder, knocking you to the ground. You tumble, slamming into a row of shelves and sending them, and the books upon them flying. You twist, pulling her, only for her head to slam into your own. Perhaps it was the training, perhaps it was Tewi's pittraps, but it barely discombobulates you as you grab her by the head, squeeze and then slam hers into the ground. She lets out a gasp of pain, her back arching, her eyes going wide, but you don't give her time to recover. You snatch the target's pistol, throwing it to the side. But only her pistol.

The shotgun swings around, perhaps on instinct, perhaps via training. With a bang it goes off just next to your head, a ringing filling your ears as plaster rains down from the ceiling. The force of firing, the bad angle, drives her shoulder into the ground and causes the shotgun to bounce in her hand. Just enough.

Bang.

Your pistol fires, the round slamming into the barrel of the shotgun and causing it to go flying out of Maki's hands. Then you sit there, laying on her, staring down at the panting, bleeding, mad former squadmate beneath you.

She jerks, then stops as she notices your pistol pressed into her forehead. A sound comes out, and it takes you several seconds to realize that you were the one who spoke. "Please…" It's not a threat. It's a plea.

Saki stares up at you, and grins, showing bloody teeth. "Now you care?"

The sounds of violence are still coming from outside. Everything in your training says to tie up the loose end and get back to work.

"I always cared."

Her grin only grows.

"Tick, tock, tick tock. Tell that to the bits and pieces of me the bosses let remain. Regardless, you've gotten better, Reisen."

"Surrender."

Saki tilts her head. "Seize or destroy, Lunarian directive number three. A rabbit... never fails her mission."

Your eyes widen, your fingers spasm, nearly pulling the trigger. You have to stop her. You can't let her do this. But-

-you also can't be the one to kill your last squadmate. Impossible paradox, two unacceptable options.

You really have gone soft.

And then the moment passed. The brief window you could have stopped this.

Saki's hands reach down, gently pulling her vest aside.

You begin to mo-

You blink slowly, you are holding... the shredded remains of a suicide vest. Saki was still laying on the ground, the grin on her face facing away to abject confusion.

"Now then," a voice says quietly, serene despite the chaos still audibly going on outside. "I see the Moon has lost none of its cruelty." Kaguya says, and you jerk your head to see her standing just beside you. The lab was on fire, nearly every machine destroyed, what wasn't was sparking and obviously wrong.

Saki, meanwhile, looks like she was seeing the Gods.

You, on the other hand… what was Kaguya doing here? She was a VIP, a priority Lunarian target - she should be going to ground, not wasting her time on you.

Kaguya smiles, it's a slight smile, it's that small smile she liked to wear when she knew she was right about something. You saw it a lot. "I will have no rabbits harmed on my property, lunarian or otherwise. I would not wish to try Tewi's patience." Then her gaze shifts down to stare at Saki. "Naughty bunny, blowing up the lab like that."

Saki opens her mouth, perhaps intending to say something, but… there's nothing to say. She sits there, speechless, as you stand up. With Kaguya here… there was no need to restrain her. Time itself would bend to prevent her from causing harm.

"I'm sorry." You're not sure who you're apologizing to.

"Never apologize for the cruelty of the Lunarians, for you no longer are one Reisen." Kaguya says softly. "Now, for you." She says, gesturing to Saki. "You are our prisoner, I expect you to behave yourself. Understood?"

Saki doesn't understand - you can see it in her eyes. But she's at least willing to play along, if she thinks it'll give her a chance to do more damage later, and so she begrudgingly nods. It's a start.

Kaguya smiles broadly. "Wonderful." She then bends down and ruffles Saki's hair. "Fussy little rabbit."

Saki, for her part, adopts a look of great offense… and keeps it. She doesn't blink, or breath, she just… freezes. Kaguya plays with her hair for a moment longer and then turns to you. "Please kindly take her to the cell we used to keep Eirin in. She won't be able to move for… well, until I say she can."

Your arms twitch up, nearly snapping into a Lunarian salute before you manage to stop yourself. "Ye- of course, Kaguya."

You gaze around the lab, at the destruction of Eiren's research. Lady Kaguya saved you, and Saki, instead of the lab. You want to ask, but…

You know she'd only smile if you did.

—

Meanwhile, possibly to the detriment of Gensokyo.

Chaos! It was chaos! Booms and bangs and people shouting a lot! Also Myouren was missing, which means you needed to show everyone how good of a baptist you were!

[] [Rally the Fairies!]
Great Fairy War Five! The Fairy War to End All Fairy Wars!

[] [Go get Shinki!]
Alice's mom was kinda mean but also almost as strong as you, she could do stuff!

[] [Put out Reimu's shrine!]
It was on fire! And Myouren said you should do nice things!

[] [To the Mansion!]
Flanders owes you a favor!