> Mental note #1: Be sure to visit Renko's house in the evening and offer the same explanation to her blonde friend that we did to Renko.
> Mental note #2: Have VIVIT present when discussing our Kosan adventures with the 'rents.
> Mental note #3: Offer up the Shouchuu to share with the 'rents while Yamame is still around. Maybe VIVIT will want some too.
> "Of course. Catch you around, if you want."
> Assuming Shuuei does not prompt us to remain, take flight and resume our course to the Sanzu dock.
>With everything dealt with, you make your way back to the fair on the Sanzu River. Before meeting with your parents, you round up Yamame, who is easy to find the bag of cotton candy she is carrying, which is big enough to stuff a large child into. VIVIT is a little harder to find, eventually you encounter her trying to win a game, failing time and time again to hit a stack of bottles with a ball. It is almost hypnotic to watch her fail at this, and in the end you are forced to conclude that machine people sure are difference. You proceed to spend much of the day with them and your parents. You talk about small things at first, but soon talk turns to more weighty matters. They are both very interested in your trip to Kosa, and VIVIT is very helpful in filling in some details.
>At first, Komachi tries to convince you to come back to Higan, but you can tell she doesn?t expect it to succeed. Instead, you quickly find yourself negotiating just how often you intend to visit. In the end, you agree to come to dinner every two weeks, with additional visits as needs be when you find food running a little low. As well, you have to go into detail about how you?ve survived day to day in in the wilds outside the Ancient City, and predictably neither of your parents are particularly pleased with it your banditry. You do manage to keep the resulting lecture to a minimum however, and Shikieiki is pleased to hear that you are making it up to at least one of your victims. You manage to make a case that at many of them were spoils of battle, but it doesn?t do much to alleviate the displeasure. The issue lays unresolved in the end, but the argument wasn?t really a bitter or angry one, so you feel reasonably good about things overall. Eventually, though, after a sizable dinner of various grilled meats on a stick and the bottle of aged Shouchu, you have to return home.
>While passing through human town, you stop to reclaim your knife from Ichirin, and find she has sharpened it nicely. As well, you get your book back from Tenshi, who has completed it and raves about how wonderful it was. You leave the VIVIT off at Yukari?s home, she declines your offer to stay longer, citing she is eager to get home and commune with the rest of herself.
>Returning Underground. it?s all too easy to fall back into your familiar routines of lurking in the shadows and quietly scavenging what you can. However, you also quietly set yourself to scouting out a good place to put your sun shard to use, eventually settling on the patch of soil that you discovered while wandering in the eastern caverns. This quickly leads to faeries wearing dog ears finding it and nearly stealing it before you are able to run them off. Later on, you end up calling in your favor with them to get them to agree to leave the area alone.On Yamame?s advice, you get this in writing; or rather in pictures as none of the faeries in the Cobalt Legion are actually literare. Yamame ends up convincing you to lead her make use of the soil, too, in exchange for paying for all of the seeds. The seeds are really a nominal cost, but frankly you suspect she?d probably do better with topside merchants than you would; she always did have a talent for getting things from people. As well, it?s less time spent on the surface.
>At one point, you venture back to the surface to pay a visit to your old victim. She is...not initially pleased to see you, but you are able to placate her with some quick words and offering her back the money you stole, a sum of 5☼. You are then invited to dinner, and after some early tensions are broken, you have a rather good visit, particularly when the sake comes out. For some reason, Maribel seems very interested in your family, once you let slip just who you are. You end up making her promise to keep that to her herself, there?s no need for that to get out...
>A few days after you settle back into your routine, you find yourself approached by a vaguely familiar nekomata; you manage to remember that you met her on the road outside the human village the morning that you started wandering topside. She presents you with two spellcards, one of them being your own Horror "Well-bucket-dropping Monster" and the other being Music Sign: ?Year's End Procession?. She quickly explains that Yukari found them while on a visit to Yumemi?s homeland, and felt you would like them back. Unable to get more details from her, you make a mental note to visit Yukari when you can.
>Before that can happen, you find yourself approached by Iku one morning, who apologizes for not being able to find you previously before duties called, and letting you know that your message has been delivered. You suggest to her that she should visit Shikieiki when she can, which she agrees to do when she has the time. You also learn from her that Shuuei is slowly adapting to life without her protective illusion, though she is as nervous about being seen as ever, but not to the point that it seems to have stopped her from living her life as she was. Rather, she seems be finding new ways to be sneaky about it.
>Your first visit back to your parents is pleasant. You were afraid of some tension, with some of the things you have done still laying unresolved, but your worries turn out to be for nothing. You almost find yourself reluctant to go at the end, but some of Komachi?s gossip is just too much for you, even if you wonder why Maribel had visited her...
>Some time later, you encounter Kasen near the surface, who invites you to have tea with her, which you can hardly say no to. You catch up with her, and find that she has returned to her duties as a hermit and tending to her many pets, as well as periodically visiting Reimu and now yourself when she has the time. In particular, you learn a bit about the goings on at the Hakurei Shrine, which seem to involve periodic visits from the Black White, faeries wreaking havoc in small ways, and Yukari visiting occasionally much to Reimu?s irritation. Unfortunately, now that things are less tense, Kasen also seems prone to lecturing about various things, and doing a rather unpleasant impersonation of Shikieiki in one of her moods. You can see, at least, why Reimu may not delight in Kasen?s presence as much as Kasen might hope, and you make notes to carefully censor what you tell her about your own activities.
>While Shuuei never comes to visit you, sometimes you encounter her in the human town and have brief but reasonably pleasant conversations with her. While she never says it, you deduce she probably has no desire to go underground, where tunnels allow her to only flee in a couple directions and offer fewer places to hide than she would like. You come to expect her to say little about herself, but you deduce that she is indeed adapting well to her new situation.
>Eventually, you get around to reading that book, figuring that it must be pretty good if Tenshi had so much to say about it. It turns out to be a novel about life in the Ancient City, though you are certain all the names and places are fake. In particular, it is about a proud oni and her recently-captured human slave, and love blossoming between the two among rivalries and fighting between various oni factions. It starts as a fairly mushy story. Then it becomes embarrassingly mushy. There are some neat parts here and there, but the romantic aspects dominate everything, and they?re so overly sweet and idealized that you think you might have gotten cavity from reading it...
>Your crops ripen quickly and beautifully, putting Yamame?s plot to shame. You think she is secretly jealous, but she praises your green thumb even after you explain your divine assistance. Soon, laden with more food than you know what to do with, you make your way to the Ancient City to try to get make use of some of it. This trip is a little different than others; the oni are a bit more respectful and a bit less likely to ignore you while lumbering down the street in various degrees of inebriation. You manage to cut a few satisfactory agreements with an oni grocer, and leave with more money to your name than would have imagined possibly a few months ago.
>You also make a few discreet inquiries about a certain kidnapping victim in the care of one Deva K. You find it hard to learn much, even when you ask Nue about the issue. He apparently isn?t that well known to the Ancient City. Those who do report that he has been fairly troublesome, which is something the Deva has rather enjoyed. Nue assures you, as far as she knows, nothing bad has happened to the recalcitrant slave, but is seems the two have been drawn into a battle of wills that doesn?t seem to have a clear victor as of yet. He has also made several escape attempts, but they seem to have failed. You aren?t able to learn much more, and get the feeling that digging deeper would cause you problems.
>Unfortunately, on your way out, you encounter a rowdy oni who has taken an interest in you, and challenges you to a danmaku battle. While hardly ideal, you had prepared yourself for this eventuality. No one had really bothered to take Sariel?s Wand from you, after all, and after some experimentation, you?ve found it to be a rather handy talisman. Unfortunately, it is not enough to keep things from ending in a draw, but a draw is much better than some of the alternatives.
>Eventually, you are able to meet with Yukari and ask her some details about the fate of Yumemi?s home. She is evasive, dodging and selectively ignoring your questions as she pleases. You do learn that she has visited it a few times, quietly pulling on this string and that to keep things ?lively?. She tells you that the Imperial leadership has broken into several factions, all claiming this degree or that degree of legitimacy and brandishing evidence against their rivals. She won?t say anything, but you suspect that she had a hand in that, if she was able to retrieve your spellcards. She also tells you that Yumemi, Chiyuri, and Ruukoto are doing well, and were unhurt in their escape efforts.
>Yukari even has a letter for you, which you open and find is from Ruukoto. It is not much more specific on current events, but it does reveal that she and the others are hiding in a new city. They have apparently taken to developing Ruukoto further, a phrase that Yukari is not able; or more likely not willing; to elaborate on. She expects to be put to her proper task any day now, as soon as her reflexes are improved a little. She has nothing but kind words for you, thanking you for taking a stand against the Empire and setting these events into motion; in particular she thanks you for freeing her from the onus of spywork and ?impersonating an inferior android?. She reveals that Yumemi is doing her best to develop the Model Eight, but apparently it will be difficult to visit after meeting with Yukari.
>Yukari herself refuses to elaborate on that beyond pointing out that letting Yumemi come and go as she pleases would cause nothing but problems for the integrity of the Barrier, and likely problems for Yumemi herself. She has to clarify the latter isn?t a threat. However, she will be notified when it happens, and intends to make certain that they don?t miss you. You ask her to carry a letter back, but she declines, saying she doesn?t want to give them ideas on skirting the edges of their agreement. While not completely satisfied with that, you?re largely happy to learn that they are well and will be able to return again someday. Your opinion of Yukari suffers a bit for her secrecy and obstructionism, but to be honest, you imagine there?s a reason why Nue was so emphatic after all about why she?s bad news.
>Shikeiki, unfortunately, is equally unable to tell you much about the fate of Sariel. You learn that she is being kept somewhere within Higan, and is undergoing ?corrective incarceration?. You cannot gather many details about it, but Shikieiki assures you it is nothing brutal; certainly not on the level of being sent to one of the many hells. And while Shikieiki acknowledges that Sariel would doubtless be sentenced to such if she were to be judged as one of the dead, the case is slightly different for the living. As well, the authorities of Higan seem reluctant to allow Sariel out of their sight again. Komachi privately confesses that she doesn?t know any more than you do, but suspects there?s a high probability that Sariel has been sealed away.
>In the end, you decide not to let it worry you. You?ve been managing to do well for yourself in agriculture, you have made amends with your family, you?ve quietly saved Gensokyo, and you?ve even managed to win some respect from the oni. It?s taken a long, long time, but things are finally going your way.
>You have gotten a
Good End!>Original Inspiration: TranceHime
>Programming, Music, Typos, Database Errors: Purvis Hobotech
>Title Art: Aoshi
>Ending Art: Himiko
>Great Player: You!
>And now, I give you the terror.
