Congrats on your (impending) victory, Sanrisa!(?)
I concur.
Still, sometimes, one simply must write to clear one's mind.
I somehow combined a Jack'O'Lantern origin story with "Jack and Jill". huh.
+++
Jack of the Spark.
===
It is all too easy to imagine life as a flame; a consuming force that inexorably converts low-entropy mass into high-entropy mass in the (arguably) ultimately meaningless "pursuit" of its own propagation.
A flame that flickers is a deviation from the "ideal" flame; buffeted by outside forces or distorted by internal chaos, flames may become unpredictable. It is a matter of personal preference and circumstance as to whether this is endearing or dangerous.
So ran the thoughts of Shikieiki as she eyed the most recent arrival. The soul that stood before her had wavered in its youth, blazed in its prime, and, as death neared, it did not fade gracefully but instead guttered.
Komachi was unnaturally punctual; the soul was obviously freshly dead despite a languid manner that suggested boundless patience for delays. Such a quality was almost unthinkable the last time Shikieiki met that person; nonetheless, she betrayed no sense of surprise.
"Marisa Kirisame, you have a choice...."
===
Komachi understood Celestial politics only to the extent that she knew her actions confused it.
She understood that power corrupted; she had witnessed the games conducted by those who fancied themselves players as they danced to the strings of the neuroses brought on by authority. She watched weaker players pushed around like so many coins until she could not contain the disgust, the hot, ineffably unclean feeling that drove even rage from her mind.
She also understood that such realities must never come to light; that the Pure Lands must obey at least the pretense of eutopia, that the joyless marriage of infinite time and tiny dreams must be praised even as its participants dallied elsewhere.
Her boss's offer was something she could understand. Shikieiki was honest, introspective, and, despite appearances to the contrary, unconditionally kind. These traits made her dangerous in Heaven.
===
"So, are you going to talk my ears off like last time, or are you going to just send me on my way?" Marisa japed.
"No. You have every right to go to Heaven. You deserve it more than many of its actual inhabitants." Shikieiki's voice was unusually soft for this judgement, but the magical authority of its post granted it the same terrifying quality of an accusation.
Marisa, unfazed and cheeky, retorted, "Knowing Tenshi, that's not saying much."
Shikieiki's firm glare silenced further speech but lacked the power to wipe away Marisa's smile.
"However, your soul still has two hungers. Until you are rid of them, you must still ride upon the ever-turning wheel of suffering known as life."
A mocking raised hand foreshadowed a mocking question. However, substance was more than style.
"Really. I thought there was only one. I'm guessing you of all people can help with this new one."
Marisa gripped Shikieiki by the shoulders. The smile did not disappear; it was annihilated, laugh lines smoothing to form a visage that gave nothing but took in sensation greedily, a perfect companion to eyes that seemed to devour without hunger.
"What. Happened. To. Reimu."
===
The Yama was not cowed. No mortal fear could compare to the constant, crippling fear that possessed her since she decided to openly defy the heavens.
She knew, and she wished she did not. It would be so fitting, to bring happiness to a liar through lies.
But the hunger within the poor soul in front of her would not be content. Shikieiki saw past the layers of manners and learned compassion, past the layers that proclaimed themselves to be love. Marisa's core was a thirst for knowledge, a strange and wondrous grey blot that refused to part into its manichean components.
"I sent her to heaven. In doing so, I sent her to her true death."
Marisa did not react so much as conspicuously restrain herself so that no hint of coherent feeling escape.
"So. It is true that oblivion exists."
Shikieiki nodded.
"That is an open secret. Heaven does not acknowledge it, but uses it as a convenient way to dispose of troublesome souls."
"Is that why you are going to give me a choice?"
"Yes"
Marisa paused, then asked one more question.
"Why am I troublesome?"
Shikieiki smiled faintly, before responding,
"Why do you ask?"
===
And so Marisa chose hell, armed with the knowledge that Heaven's open gates disguised an open maw. She found herself hastily hustled through an immigration checkpoint to a guardhouse, where she was chained and brought into an ornate room.
Upon a throne sat a stately woman in a red dress. Six black wings radiated from her back, their red patterns continuing into their adornments and the walls. With a wave of her hand, she dismissed the guards. With another wave, a spirit clad in blue appeared at her right hand. A maid stood at her left, tense and ready to strike.
"So we meet again, Marisa."
"Good to see you, Shinki."
===
Of course, Marisa was not a good guest. Other residents of Makai were terrified of her, a half-forgotten nightmare that spawned some of the most impressive and twisted works of art. Her name was a mark of respect among sellswords; the xenophobic faction of Makai's toy parliment (Shinki still held the last word) considered her adequate justification for isolationism; Miko protected their lands, Spirits carried out grudges, and Elder Youkai traveled for entertainment, and were hence manageable. However, kleptomaniac outsiders with powers were not.
Therefore, within a day of Marisa's arrival, Shinki requested that Marisa leave. Out of generosity, she offered a scroll for the conjuring of one item.
===
Marisa walked Gensokyo, her trusted Mini-Hakkero in hand. She made herself substantial by drawing upon its magic; her furnace glowed with eerie light as she wandered, planning her next step.
+++
Jack and Jill
==
JackMarisa neared her house at a leisurely pace. She did not fear the night, for its inhabitants rightly feared her. Her strange lantern cast phantasmal plays if light and shadow that she could safely ignore.
and JillPatchouli inspected the spine of the book in her hands. After a cursory magical examination, she returned it to its pile with pride. Marisa had returned the books from the library years ago; Patchouli found herself inheritor of a large body of research.
Alice dug through piles of imported texts, claiming the occasional tome. She directed a small army of autonomous dolls, seeking the secret behind Marisa's last gift.
Nitori eagerly helped herself to a number of strange mechanisms. The clattering disguised Marisa's return.
"Hi"
==
went up the hill Marisa threw herself at the unfinished work, as if challenge alone was her sustenance. Her three partners found themselves drawn in again, reassured by their own knowledge and all but slavering at the offered chance. They were all but drooling over the possibilities. Unless millennia of mysticism and experimentation were completely wrong, their work would lead straight to the Akashic Records. To each her own; Patchouli dreamed of an ultimate library, while Alice fantasized about finding the very methods of creation. Nitori sought out of curiosity, entertaining wilder and wilder flights of fancy as she grasped within her mind's reach more and more of the very stuff of reality.
to fetch a pail of water==
The ritual began with a wondrous interplay of lights, each spark so charged with meaning that they invoked a yearning within the hearts of the three Youkai, then pain when they faded, uninterpreted.
Awe struck again when they gazed down. They were supported by wisps above a chasm of scrolls, scrolls which were instantly readable despite the great distance that should have stood between them.
Jack fell downMarisa, however, was on her knees, shaking and retching. She vomited a stream of darkness that was joined by her flesh as it flayed itself off of her skeleton. Her Hakkero dimmed for a moment, and she was gone, the furnace plummeting sideways, winding Alice before capture by Patchouli
and broke his crownThe little tube of darkness that issued from Marisa's mouth *disappeared*, seeming to merge with the surrounding air.
At that moment, an ancient cry resounded through the Records, concurrent with a wave of ruin. The varied structures which supported displays, books, and scrolls disappeared, followed by their contents. Spheres of many colors materialized; an accidental touch revealed their fleshy nature. The neat corridors and rows merged and twisted into psychedelic caverns of flesh, strange organs and odd bones littering claustrophobic channels. Impossible shapes beckoned, pointing towards paths out of the limited existence shared by all children of the gods, whispering perverse chants that at once implied brilliant insight and crushing madness.
==
Marisa was swallowed by the strange beast immediately; she found herself in a fleshy knot, nerves spread haphazardly through places that she felt no need to describe. Reaching, she found a ball of tangled threads. Such a description barely did justice to the sheer wrongness of the object, the way it refused to be reduced to figment, the way it inspired within Marisa a feeling of utter insignificance and helplessness.
And yet she could not look away. She *shifted* towards it ("walking" seemed to imply too much motion and insufficient displacement) and gathered threads within her hands, feeling them. She plunged them into her orifices, tasting them, smelling them, hearing them, and seeing them in ways she never thought possible. As she pulled, she noticed that the sphere would respond, and so she pulled more, testing it.
==
After what felt like an eternity compressed into a moment by childlike glee, Marisa found the ball shrinking. When she measured it again and found no change, she realized that it was not size that was changing; the feeling of terror that nearly drowned her when she first gazed upon the sphere had abated; she consumed it without a second thought, not realizing how or why she had such an impulse.
She stretched, feeling every point of her being, marveling at its novel form. Hazy recollections of adventure returned to her, and so she reached through herself, seeking the companions that brought her here.
==
and Jill came tumbling after
