Over and onto the following day, Yuuka finds herself fond of sleeping in, letting only the rays of the midday sun beaming through the skylight above her awaken her. She comes to, not finding the little oni from the day before. She seems to have gone without a trace. She sits up and looks around for just a moment, then decides to get dressed.

A few minutes later, she heads out the bedroom door without much of a reaction to the sudden mystery. She goes around her house, just walking around aimlessly and wondering if what she just experienced was a dream. It saddens her a bit to think about it, so she tries to forget. It doesn't work too well with the memory sitting at the back of her head, melded with the total serenity of what feels like morning; just a purgatory of soundless, peaceful thought. Despite the calmness, she still feels restless and wanders around a bit more as if she were exploring some unfamiliar home.

Eventually, she gives up trying to reason with herself and tries to think about something else. She decides to head outside through the front door, but is stopped by something tugging on her dress. She looks down and back and sees Takara standing there, quietly hugging a part of her dress. Yuuka smiles, finally realizing that the previous events really did happen. She then frowns, however, realizing the the previous events really did happen. This fades back into a smile as she shakes her head and picks Takara up, hoisting her up and holding her against her chest like a baby.

After a few moments of holding and hugging, Takara speaks up, "Can we go back to that girl's house?"

Yuuka wonders what she's talking about, thinking back to the previous day, then asks, "The shrine?" Takara gives her a quizzical stare, so Yuuka clarifies, "Red and white?" Takara nods and smiles faintly. Yuuka smiles as well and says, "Sure." They subsequently head off for Reimu's place.

On the way, Yuuka comments, "You like to go off on your own, don't you?" Takara nods against her shoulder silently. "Wandering off and looking at things, just being carefree..." Yuuka continues "...we're similar, you and I. What exactly were you doing, anyways?"

"Playing with the fairies. They're really nice." Takara buries her face into Yuuka's shoulder a little.

She raises an eyebrow, "Eh? But they're so stupid!"

"No they're not!" Takara lifts herself up and starts yelling.

Yuuka chuckles and continues to tease her, "Maybe you should hang out with more intelligent things, like that tree over there!" She points at a tree of a hundred others in the near distance, just as they approach the Forest of Magic.

Takara pouts and leans forward again, letting out an obnoxious groan. Yuuka pats her on the back and points out, "Hey, we'll be there pretty soon. What did you want to do there?"

"Just walk around and look at things, I guess." Takara nuzzles into her shoulder a little.

"Just walk around and look at things..." Yuuka whispers to herself. She relaxes herself, closes her eyes, sighs, and starts to stride leisurely in the absence of normal walking. "I wonder what that means." she adds.

"Huh?" Takara pokes her head back up.

Yuuka dismisses it, "Nothing, don't worry about it."

A few minutes later, they're already at the numerous steps heading up towards the shrine. Yuuka prepares to fly up, but Takara objects once more, forcing them to use the steps. Takara seems to relax at each step, but it begins to wear Yuuka out significantly even only halfway up. She eventually stops stepping and starts leaping just to save a little bit of time. It still takes a while, but they eventually make it all the way up to meet Reimu sweeping dirt off the walkway this early in the morning.

She spots the two and waves, yelling, "Oii! Welcome back!"

Yuuka waves back and approaches, "I brought this one with me, too." She sets Takara down and pats her on the back.

Reimu crouches down and stares at her for a moment; she softly asks the child, "So what's your name?"

"Ta-ka-ra." the girl enunciates clearly, looking up at Reimu wide-eyed who introduces herself in turn.

"I'm Reimu." she pats Takara's head "Don't go and cause any trouble around me."

Takara looks quite upset about that, with a very cute, scared fidgeting. She grabs Yuuka's dress and hangs close to her. Reimu sighs and turns around to head inside, beckoning the two to follow.

"You should go and meet the other youkai." Yuuka suggests "There's one that always hangs around here; I think you'll like her!" She smiles at her, nearly closing both eyes and tilting her head. Takara smiles back and follows as they head into the shrine itself. There, Takara separates from the others to meet Suika behind the building while Yuuka and Reimu hang around for a while.

Yuuka approaches the kotatsu; Reimu holds out her hand towards her while placing the broom against the wall, "Hey, you want something? I've got plenty to drink." She makes a slightly exaggerated quizzical expression with a cocked eyebrow.

Yuuka gestures "stop" with her hand while sitting. She acts aloof and anxious, "No, not really in the mood." Both of her elbows hit the tabletop, hands cuffed around her cheeks.

"Right..." she trails off, slowly lower her hand and wandering around the room for a moment until she finds a particular roll of paper. She tosses it on the table after checking it and states, "Ah, you made the front page. It got here just about an hour ago" She circles back around and takes a seat, lying back and holding herself up with both arms.

"She's fast." Yuuka says as she picks up the paper and unrolls it, taking a look at the front page. Right there, printed on the paper just above a long article is a landscape shot of Yuuka holding Takara and descending the steps of the shrine while the sun sets on the forested horizon, the torii towering above them and everything but the sky heavily silhouetted like the buildings in a skyline. Only the vague shape and light shading of the photo could hint that it's Yuuka who's standing there.

"Oh. That's pretty." she compliments, placing the rest of the roll down and looking away, back at the torii and imagining the shot in perspective. She spends a few long seconds lost in the ether until Reimu questions her.

"Hey, so what are you doing back here? We had pretty good closure yesterday." She's now taken up the same stance as Yuuka had earlier.

Yuuka takes a moment to answer, liking to look back with deliberation think the response through. Finally, she bluntly states, "No. She just dragged me here." She swipes one hand across her face and rubs her inner eye with the other's thumb. She leans on the former and chews on the thumb.

Reimu leans on one hand more, running its fingers through her hair; she stares intently at Yuuka and measures her answer, "Did you remember what happened?"

Yuuka bites her thumb, breaking the skin briefly; droplets of blood leak down and are swiftly taken by her tongue swiping by. She answers hesitantly, leaning around and making indirect eye contact, "Until you mentioned it?" She masks the question as a statement. "What do you think?" she counters, switching to her index finger.

Reimu barely holds back a smirk as she edges out, sucking air through her teeth, "Formidable." She throws both hands onto the table and shakes her head. "Well..." she hesitates "...try confrontation. Just don't get me involved." and then looks away.

"That answers my next question." Yuuka giggles, almost adorably enough to make Reimu smile, but she just grins. Yuuka spends the next few minutes simply staring at her, anticipating something and continuing to chew on her finger. She shifts her legs around and fidgets, breathing irregularly and narrowing her gaze on Reimu's hand.

As soon as it begins to move, she bites down on the index finger enough to make it drip profusely with blood. She swings it down and meets Reimu's hand as it reaches the center of the table. The blood drips down and onto the back of Reimu's hand, the saliva smears across her wrist. She retracts her hand quickly; the fluids further smear onto her hand. Her eyebrows scrunch, she looks half-disgusted and half-angry, but easily switches to looking worried. Her sudden sneer morphs quickly into a vague gape and her eyes dart between her hand that she tucks against her chest and Yuuka's that still lies on the tabletop.

Yuuka takes her hand back slowly after tracing it along the table, biting down softly on her middle finger this time. Her neutral expression becomes sly, with her mouth curving up into a sneer of her own and eyebrows raising suspiciously as if to communicate some sort of intent. Reimu can't decipher the game and looks quite concerned. Yuuka can read her like a book...

Meanwhile, Suika has been showing Takara around the grounds of the shrine. Suika takes her over to the storage shed first thing and announces, "And this is where I usually hang out! It's nice and cozy, but kind of cold in there." she rubs the back of her head with one hand and puts the other on her hip. They both approach the building, Suika shoves the door open, and they both head into the dark and cluttered room. Inside, they can barely see what's stacked up in mounds of apparent trash, but the one thing Takara can make out is a makeshift bed of stray cloth on top of a moderately tall pile that towers just slightly above their height. She takes one look around and is immediately not actually that impressed.

"Um...what's the point of all of this?" Takara hesitantly asks, scratching behind her ear in the process.

"Aaah!" Suika scoffs like a mentally retarded pterosaur "Reimu's just got a lot o' crap!" she swats her hand back and forth.

Takara can't help but flinch at the odd sound she made, but carries on anyways. She starts to shift around restlessly while asking, "Hey, could we get out of here?"

Suika scoffs once more, "Aaah! We've only just beg-" before she can finish her argument, her horn gets caught in the trash, forcing her to a stop and then onto the ground. "Right." she admits "Yeah, let's do this later." She tries to get out, but her horns get lodged at least twice in the trash. They even scrape along the wood of the door and nearly closeline her by getting stuck. A few moments of awkward dislodging later, they're finally both out mostly unscathed.

Next, she shows her the tiny shrine out back to Kanako, the goddess on the mountain. As they approach, Suika explains, "This little trinket back here is a tribute to the goddess on Youkai Mountain. I think her name was Kanako? Can't remember. Anyways, humans come to pray here sometimes, for good fortune. It's actually pretty weak."

"Wait..." Takara stops her "...the frog god?"

Suika just shrugs, apparently completely unaware of the affairs of outside gods. They both approach the idol and take a closer look. It's not really gold, just solid bronze. Despite that, the actual craftsmanship is indicative of having been crafted by the goddess herself. That being said, the proportions are idealized to look more perfect than they actually are. A strange, frog-faced demi-human is also perched on top of the other god that is much less idealized and more youkai-like in appearance.

"There are two?" Takara rhetorically asks, surprised. She goes wide-eyed at the sight of how shiny and intricate the statue is. She notices upon further investigation that the pole that supports the statue is intertwined in bronze snakes that coil up the rod and have their heads pointing towards the depictions of the two gods. The snakes' heads support the tiny roof on the thing.

All the two can actually do is stare in wonder at how well-made it is. This continues for a few minutes until Suika beckons her away from it, "Hey! I've also gotta show you th' orchard!" She swings around her...shapes...as she walks away. Takara follows her into a grove in the back filled with tall, top-heavy cherry blossoms that had finished their blooming a long time ago. Now they're a pleasant shade of light green that brightens with the reflection of the sunlight, but the grove is dense enough to make it dark regardless.

Suika finds it a nice time now to strike a conversation. She turns around with both hands behind her head and leisurely asks, "So what are you, exactly?"

Takara turns her attention as well, now totally focused on coming up with an answer instead of trying to figure out what the question means. She ends up confusing herself and is unable to respond properly, so she cops out, "Um...Yuuka's friend?"

Suika immediately retorts, "I mean what are you? I'm an oni, she's a...thing. Reimu's a human, so what're you?" She turns to face her full-body.

Takara turns her head and refuses eye contact just then, hesitant to respond in any way. Suika approaches her slowly, waiting and anticipating a reaction. She guesses, "You look like an oni too, but you don't seem very strong at all. And I bet if I punched you, you'dn't recover too well. Right? So what's up with you?"

Takara still refuses to answer until Suika is right up next to her. Takara grabs her by the collar of her shit and pulls her in closer while whispering, "Don't ask me that." The atmosphere changes dramatically, with Suika feeling genuinely startled. Then comes an overbearing feeling of pacifism, like all of her aggression was just replaced by something else.

The moment of her holding onto Suika and projecting...something...lasts much longer than is comfortable for either of them. The entire time, they're staring each other directly in the eyes. Takara is owl-eyed, them resonating with a light tone but a mixed intent. Through her gaze, Suika sees a husk of a person, one who isn't their own. Her pupils don't convey a personality, but a flat and black void. She can almost identify the feeling as being a challenge; "I dare you to understand." Yet, the hypnotism isn't aggressive. This repeat of thoughts would continue for what feels like hours, until they both hear something rustling in the grove.

"We need the others." Takara suddenly says.

Suika looks around, then acts dumbfounded and lost, "...What?"

Takara takes off aside from her, breaking into a sprint towards the shrine. She carelessly breaks leaves and twigs, but is on a completely isolated track right now. Suika gives chase after her and can just barely discern her surroundings at the moment, but still manages to almost catch up to her. Out of her peripheral vision, she can spy several people zipping past them in the near distance. They wear beige cloaks that can just barely manage to camouflage into the background. For nearly a full minute, they run while the apparitions give chase until they finally come in sight of the shrine! Just as they're about to make it, three of the figures step in the way with their identities totally hidden with their appearance. They don't look like they want to play by the rules, considering the daggers they brandish.

Takara skids to a stop, burning her feet in the process. She stands still, unsure of how to get out of this mess now. That is, until Suika comes charging through with a massive boulder! She sends the rock flying into the figures, who deftly dodge it and inadvertently give them enough time to run through! Suika stalls them an extra few seconds with a shockwave-inducing series of punches towards them.

Meanwhile, Yuuka and Reimu are still staring at each other in some sort of competition. Yuuka immediately cocks her head to the side when she notices Takara screaming her name not too far away. They both stand to attention and come rushing out! Yuuka is close to grabbing Takara and making a run for it, but she's stopped short by three daggers flying past everybody and nailing her in the torso! They go as deep as they can lodge themselves in, but Yuuka seems unfazed. Takara slows to a halt and gasps, staring on in abject horror for just a brief moment.

Before anyone else can notice or react, Yuuka grabs two of the daggers and rips them out, then the third! She throws them all on the ground and scoffs while her shirt is drenched in blood, "Tch! Think you can stop me with puny weapons like that!?" Her wounds immediately mend themselves. The bleeding stops, the wounds scab over, and then patch up like nothing happened all in a matter of a few seconds after pull the daggers out. "COME AND GET ME!" she screams at the cloaked figures!

Unfortunately for her temper, Reimu steps in before things get too ugly and erects a barrier just in time to let the figures slam against it. They've made their way past Suika with their superior agility, but Reimu is able to easily trap them in a barrier cube just then. Yuuka is disappointed by the anticlimactic win, but accepts it. She's about to grab Takara and just get the hell out of there, but notices her reaction.

Takara stares up at her, completely frozen and genuinely shocked at how she just tanked those hits like they were nothing, then proceeded to bleed everwhere for all of five seconds and finally taunt the enemy. All she can do is stare with a face that can at least vaguely make Yuuka feel partially guilty.

Yuuka shakes off the feeling and crouches down to her level, speaking in a soft and collected manner, "I'll be fine, but we should really go now." She looks around suspiciously to see if anyone is listening, then starts talking in an uncharacteristically cutesy manner wile grinning from ear-to-ear, "Hey Ta-kun, wanna go up?"

Takara is still pretty unsettled by the display that just unfolded before her eyes, but she brushes it off in some time. She reaches out and nearly hops into Yuuka's arms despite her shirt still being wet with blood.

At the same time, Reimu and Suika regroup and start to analyze the men they just caught sneaking around and attacking people. They remain cloaked, against Reimu's interests, but she marks them as "clearly heretical". Suika asks what she'll be doing with them.

"I'll interrogate them there. You know, The Cave."

"...of Punishment?" Suika continues with a raised brow and tilted head.

"Yes. That one." Reimu assures her. She lifts the box barrier above the ground with the men still inside and brings it with her while she travels back into the grove, but slightly off and towards some rocky hills beyond it.

Suika nods and tries to absorb everything that's happened so far with barely any success. She slowly waltzes over to Yuuka, who is now just holding Takara. She outright asks her, "Hey, you should really figure out what...she...is." She seems almost hesitant to refer to Takara, who looks back and stares at Suika. Yuuka just nods and skips along her merry way down the shrine's entrance path and then the steps.

Suika finally has a chance to relax, so she goes back inside the shrine and slips underneath the kotatsu for some alone time. Unfortunately for her, fate has other plans. Just as she's getting comfortable, she feels a dark and oppressive atmosphere befall the room. A rift in space appears behind her, and a hand reaches out from beyond while its owner speaks, "Haven't you had a good day?"