>"Sorta. It keeps us separate from the outside world, but some things can get through, like animals."
>"That's part of it. There's a lot more to it, though." Reimu sighs, resting her head in her hand. "Believe me, keeping track of it all is a pain."
>"I ain't about to claim I understand it all myself, but I can tell ya this." Marisa takes over. "When the barrier was built, Yukari and all those other wise-asses she had working with her built it as a way for youkai to survive, a place they could coexist with humans without running the risk of just fading away. But part of the barrier was conflict."
>Reimu nods. "The Barrier was build with the basic premise that humans and youkai would always conflict with each other. Humans fear and exterminate youkai, youkai despise and eat humans. We'd live in the same place, but never really coexist."
>Celes, finishing her tea, asks, "And, this has somehow changed?"
>"You got it, sister." Marisa says. "You got youkai going to school with humans, humans now live all over youkai mountain, the tengu have open borders, the oni even make human-strength booze now. There's really no seperation between human and youkai anymore."
>"Except for the most ignorant humans, and the most feral youkai, there's just no racial conflict anymore. And even those are rarer than ever."
>As Reimu takes a bite out of another rice biscuit, Marisa carries on, "If Gensokyo's a house, its one whose upper levels didn't mesh with the foundation. So Ran's decided to fix that."