Previous Generation

It was becoming harder and harder to believe that this person was some shapeshifting youkai the more she spoke. Indeed, Keine had to admit that she had something of a point there - few youkai would be so bold as to impersonate a Hakurei maiden, and those who did would probably find themselves dying in short order when Reimu found out. No… as unbelievable as it was, she would have to accept, for now at least, that this was… gods, what was her name? Keine felt like she should remember, but… but she couldn’t. Why…?

“Someone in charge… well, you could talk to the village council if you want,” Keine admitted, though at the same time, she realized a moment later that might not be a good idea. She could barely handle the idea of the dead Hakurei maiden being resurrected, there was no way they could. “But that probably wouldn’t be a good idea, I doubt they’d be able to really help you. I think your best choice would be me.” Yes, it had to be. “Keine Kamishirasawa, temple school teacher and guardian of the place, at your service. Would you mind coming with me?”

A school teacher... was the guardian of the place?  What insanity was that?  The old miko felt a mix of disbelief and annoyance, and it showed on her face.  Best case scenario, the village children were being taught by a compulsive liar.  Worst case, the village is currently being protected by a school teacher.  That would explain the guard being so light.

Old habits die hard and before she realized it, the old woman would take a lecturing tone.

“Then maybe you can explain why there’s at least four ways into the village that aren’t properly covered.  Or why a guard would use his spear as back scratcher, do you have any idea what that level of disrespect for one’s weapon does to it’s effectiveness?  And why wouldn’t a stranger that could be a potential youkai be stopped before getting into the village?”

Then a horrifying thought hit her.

“Yes!! I’ve been here ever since the shrine was built! Only recently I was able to start moving on my own. Now I’m training myself so I can exterminate youkai with Reimu!” Aunn’s tail was wagging profusely.

“Eh? What? So that means…”

“I died!?”

…

“Or you came back… which seems more likely… aha…”

“Is it that weird?  Reimu has been to the underworld has she not?”  As though just visiting was the same thing.  The old woman would shrug and shake her head.

What, that was all? No teasing nonsense or cryptic words, or anything like that? That didn’t make much sense… unless it actually was the dead Hakurei maiden, but that was surely impossible, right? “Is that so?” she asked, crossing her own arms in turn, staring Sendai in the eye.

“To me, you look like the last Hakurei maiden,” she explained. She was, of course, completely convinced that this was still Nue, but apparently she had to spell it out first for Nue to admit it. “But that’s not possible, she’s been dead for almost twenty years now. So the only option that makes sense is if you’re a shapeshifting youkai pretending to be her… and Nue’s the only one I know who would do something like this for fun. So if you’re not Nue, then who are you? Come on, you can tell me.”

It would seem her instincts were correct.  This was youkai foolishness indeed.  The old woman was briefly on the fence between finding this ‘Nue’ and ‘fixing’ the problem and leaving it to Reimu. Regardless, the problem at hand was finding someone in charge, and for that she would need to convince this woman that she wasn’t a youkai.

A harder problem than expected....

“Reimu is the Hakurei maiden now, not I.  Has Reimu really been so lax that she’d let the youkai become so bold as to impersonate a Hakurei?  That’s worrying.”

Or maybe that was part of those spell card rules.  Damn things made no sense.

hakureiofold started following you

Aunn freezes when she sees who she thinks she sees. She then immediately starts running towards her.

“Sendaaaaaaaaai!” Aunn immediately jumped onto the much larger woman, nuzzling her. “I’ve missed you so much!! I thought you were gone!!” Aunn couldn’t be happier.

This was a surprise/  A Komainu at the shrine.  Sendai would give the girl a nice ruffle of the hair.  Now to figure out where she knows her from.

Fortunately, the old Hakurei miko wouldn’t have a chance to go and punch something out before someone came across her. Not by coincidence, of course - the moment that Keine heard that there was someone described as ‘an older-looking Reimu’ by the younger villagers, and ‘but she’s dead, isn’t she?’ by the older ones, she was off running to investigate what the hell was going on. A ghost? Someone trying to pass themselves off as the miko? Or, the most likely outcome…

“You know, if you wanted to come and bother me again, you should have just come right to my door like you usually do,” she commented as she approached the person who she was one hundred percent sure was not the former Hakurei maiden. “Not that you’re causing trouble, but passing yourself off as a dead woman is a bit messed up, don’t you think, Nue?” Ah. It seems Keine had decided on an identity for the woman before her.

More proof for the theory of “punch every nail”, The old woman had only started thinking about such and the problem went away, perhaps times had not changed as much as she had thought.  (Probable) kidding aside, this person before her, seemed familiar... was that the Kamishirasawa girl?   Sendai could swear she hadn’t aged a day.... which was weird.

What was more weird is that Keine seemed to somehow recognize her and be mistaking her for someone else.... a problem that had the stench of youkai foolishness all over it. 

   “Want me to expand the dimensions of the shrine? Make it bigger on the inside?”    

“R– Rather, it’s not exactly that it’s surprising she has one, just… She’s never mentioned it to me, and I’ve never seen you before, s-so I figured… you know…”

“Weren’t living or something–? Sorry, that must be a rude assumption, I just…”

“It’s not rude when it’s true.”

“Moriya, actually, but yes! It’s sort of new to Gensokyo… it’s been here for a few years now, it’s actually much older than that! We just moved it. Mhm, Reimu has been–”

Sanae stopped for a moment at a slight lag in her brain.

“Wait, eh!? You’re actually her mom!? Reimu has a mom!?”

The old lady could not help but be silent for a few moments.  Of course Reimu had a mother.  Just what sort of reputation had she built for herself that made people think otherwise?  And with such surprise?

“Sure, that’s still a thing. But now humans are finding champions and whatnot who break the noses–or would in your day–of any youkai that wants to dig in and have a good meal out of a villager–ah, those outsiders are fair game still. So now most humans aren’t nearly as scared of us as they used to be. It’s gotten to the point that I even babysit kids now and again.”

Babysits out of her volition and want to be useful.

“Like just the other day, I cornered a human and tried to scare him so I could eat. He just laughed at me! Can you believe that? It really hurt my feelings.”

The youkai that willingly babysits is complaining about not being scary.  The old woman was at a rare loss for what to make of that.  Her first instinct was to simply decide this was a youkai was trying to trick her and needed to be punished.... spell card rules be damned, it was just one youkai after all...

...even so, her intuition said that wasn’t the case, and if a Hakurei maiden knows one thing it would be blind trust in her own intuition.  Still so she couldn’t hide the distrust and annoyance from her face, voice and posture; old habits die hard after all.

“N– No, it’s… I understand,” Reimu repeated, “That’s… how it was. Not that I trust all than many of them strongly myself, but… Alice, I do genuinely like her. A lot. And I’m sure she’d be happy to meet you.”

“Maybe you’d understand if you tried her cooking, hah… It’s kind of to die for.” This was speaking as someone with low standards of what even makes something edible, but still! It was good.

The old woman did her best to put her fears to rest, or at least have the appearance of doing so.  After all, Reimu was the Hakurei shrine maiden now, so if Reimu said that this youkai named Alice was trustworthy, then that was that.  In theory anyway.

“If she had red hair and a tacky purple outfit, that was me, yeah. Haven’t seen Lady Mima in a long time, now…” Even all these years later, Marisa couldn’t help but instinctively refer to the spirit with the title of Lady; it felt unnatural and wrong to call her anything but.

“So, if ya saw me at least once as a kid, where the hell did ya go? No one has seen you in years.” She couldn’t of died if she was standing here now, right? She still felt human, after all.