The night before was a wild party in Gensokyo. Everyone had been invited, and as a Celestial, I absolutely had to be in attendance. Iku came along, too, and it was easily the biggest event in the land.

I mean, duh, why wouldn't it be? All the big shots were there! Even that bookworm girl had been dragged out of her library by the little devil by her side, and that's saying something.

I'm not even sure if the blasts in the sky were fireworks, danmaku, or both. All I know was that it was bright, and colorful, and easily one of the best nights of my life. I saw fairies flying around everywhere, so I'm pretty sure they got hired to produce danmaku fireworks. They were doing an impressive job, as it was probably able to rival even the biggest shows of the Outside World.

There was alcohol, obviously, and I know I spotted several people drinking, even Reimu and that amanojaku who everyone hated. I don't know why she attended.

There was a different-looking kind of drink, too, kinda shiny, but Iku snatched it away before I could even get a drop in my mouth. Sad. Though, I probably should have thanked her. Half the youkai in attendance got so drunk that I was positive they'd hide themselves away until the shame wore off. I wished at that moment I'd "borrowed" one of Aya's cameras like Marisa "borrows" things, just so I could have something to hold over their heads later.

The witch girl, Kirisame, had a glass of that weird-looking drink, too, and she didn't actually seem to be drinking it, as she was somehow balancing a notebook and pen in the other hand. Sheesh, knowing her, she probably wanted to replicate the thing for herself. I'll give her some credit, whatever that drink was got people absolutely smashed. It was downright hilarious watching cool-headed Youmu turn into an incomprehensible drunken wreck, and I kind of wish I recorded that.

I'm pretty sure I could actually start seeing the occasional sunbeam over the horizon by the time I ended up being the one to drag Iku back to bed. Sheesh, she got into the alcohol, too... Maybe she drank it to try and keep me from getting any of it. If so, it worked, as I remained one of the only sober people at that party. Or maybe I did drink, and my Celestial-level alcohol tolerance kept me sober! Ha!

... I've had a lot of time to think about it since I woke up this morning and found the heavens completely empty.

-

Gensokyo is beautiful.

I didn't really notice it until this morning. I just woke up, and everyone was just... gone.

The land itself was untouched. There wasn't any sign of a struggle, just... Like everyone turned into dust or something.

At first, I'd just assumed I'd been ditched, so I climbed out of bed and ran through Heaven, looking for Iku. She never did turn up, so I wondered if everyone was on business down below in Gensokyo.

None of the Celestials really liked going down there, with their whole uppity selves, so Iku and I were usually the only Heavenly officials to go down there. There were times they'd go down for meetings with the Sages, though, so that's what I suspected happened.

Maybe they're talkin' about the after-effects of such a wild party on the land, I thought as I descended on a keystone.

That's when I first realized something was amiss.

You see, flying around in Gensokyo isn't as clear-sky as most people would expect. There's a metric ton of fairies flying around, so you're usually bound to run into at least fifteen or so when going from, like, Reimu's shrine to Remilia's mansion.

But when I was flying over to ask Reimu what in the Sages' name happened, there were literally no fairies. It was like flying over a painting, except the painting was real and so was everything else.

I wondered if I was dreaming, so I took a moment out of my journey to land and feel the ground. It was real, alright. It was so surreal. Just yesterday, I could have been standing in this very spot, letting the wind blow my hair and watching the fairies and people passing by, except now I was the only one here.

So I shouted.

"Hello?! Can anyone hear me?!"

It seemed like the very wind itself carried my voice. I never got an answer. I tried not to let how unsettled I was manifest on my face, as I took flight on another keystone to arrive at Reimu's shrine.

As I'd feared, it was barren. No Shinmyoumaru, no Suika, no Reimu Hakurei. The broom I'd spotted her sweeping with before was lying on the ground, a job left unfinished.

I smelled something quite... bizarre, however, as I was wondering where everyone vanished off to. In the heat of the party, it was difficult to notice, but I smelled something off inside the shrine. I'd brought my trusty Sword of Hisou with me, and I cautiously entered the shrine, one hand on the hilt of the sword just in case I was attacked. It would be difficult to fight in close quarters like this, but you could never be too careful.

I entered the shrine, held out my sword--

... And it was empty, too. It was still recently-lived in, but the smell was much stronger now. Whatever it was, it was awful! I'd have assumed Reimu was storing poison in here or something with that smell!

Biting my tongue (And trying to stifle my sense of smell), I navigated closer to the source.

It was one of the glasses I'd seen the prior night. In fact, judging from design alone, it was the same glass I'd seen Reimu carrying throughout the night. It was nearly empty. Some of the drink was still there, and I could see it clearly in the glass.

Nobody else was around. I could have taken a drink, but the awful smell easily made me reconsider my decision. It smelled fruity, but also had a disgusting odor. It smelled like one of Yagakoro's potions, the ones she always needed "test subjects" for.

I covered the drink instead with a cloth I'd found to try and stifle the smell. On second glance, I think this was one of Reimu's hair-bows, but it's going to a good cause. The smell's finally tolerable, but I don't intend on staying in here much longer.

Besides that drink, there was nothing of value to look into here, anyways.

I did "borrow" a few of her talismans before I left. If she's not around, who's gonna use these to protect Gensokyo?

-

They're all alive.

Well, at least Reimu, Yukari, and the Sages are, anyways. Without them, Gensokyo'd cease to exist. So that at least gave me some relief. But 'alive' doesn't mean 'okay', so I kept up my search.

I searched Gensokyo mostly up and down. Nobody turned up at all. I entered Remilia's front door politely, and no Meiling stopped me. No Sakuya threw knives at me, and I managed to find the basement, but I couldn't find Flandre.

Her mansion's way creepier abandoned. Patchouli and Koakuma were missing, too, but I didn't bother taking any of the books. I did spend about an hour or so in there, though, just reading to try and figure out what the heck even happened.

However, much to my surprise, as I was putting back the eleventh volume of Cryptids of the Outside World, I heard the distinct fluttering of wings that belonged to a fairy! A fairy! A single fairy was still around! I walked cautiously, until I saw the loyal fairy maid flitting around. I signaled to her, asking where the heck everyone went. She didn't know, either, so I asked her to take me to Remilia's throne room.

As I'd feared, the place was abandoned. The fairy told me she was trying to keep up on the mansion, but she doesn't know how the heck Sakuya does it alone.

A single fairy's doing a mansion's worth of work. This fairy deserves a raise. Sakuya just time-stops, I'm sure of it.

I asked her to show me to the exit, and we arrived without any incident. As a thank-you, I gave her one of the peaches from my hat. It regrew quickly, anyways, so I didn't lose anything.

I really needed to see if Yukari was still around. Granted, she'd have probably turned up like the creep she was, but she could be hiding.

-

I forgot you can't really get to Yukari's place without one of Yukari's own gaps. Damn it.

There's no trace of Ran or Chen. They're probably with Yukari.

-

Gensokyo is kind of boring without anyone around. Granted, in the woods, it'd be scary, but there's legitimately nobody here.

On the way to said woods, however, I flew over the lake where Cirno usually stayed. A quick fly-by confirmed my suspicion, though - She's gone, too.

I didn't even see Cirno drinking any of that stuff, but her fort's all scuffed up.

It looked like there'd been a fight. Had everyone been kidnapped? God, I didn't want to think of that. I'd have thought most people would have put up a better fight than just... vanishing.

Now I really needed answers. What had happened last night? As I was flying over to see if Marisa had also vanished, I spotted something that stuck out quite a bit.

Whatever it was, it looked weird, and like something that honestly, really shouldn't have been in Gensokyo. It looked like something the Kappa would work on. So obviously, being the head detective in the case, I landed down next to it to see what in the world it was.

I'd seen pictures from the outside world, but I really wished I had some of them to compare to this bizarre scene. It looked like a beacon to the stars. But practically in the middle of Gensokyo's nowhere? That didn't make sense. At all. In fact, even its location seemed to be hiding something, literally! It was at the bottom of a valley.

A thought crossed my mind, at that point. Had whoever built this intended to hide it from the rest of Gensokyo? They didn't do a very good job of it, I thought as I crossed my arms.

I'd figure this out later. For now, I needed to do some more research! So I hopped on my keystone again, remembering the location of this bizarre setup for later as I flew towards the woods I knew Marisa lived in.

-

Not even Alice's dolls stopped me. They were still dangling around, obviously, but nobody was controlling them. Sheesh, it was creepy. I tried not to think about it too much as I flew over to Marisa's-- Shoot, almost overshot!

I landed outside her house and left the keystone there. I could hear some weird magic noises inside, and I wondered if Marisa had vanished while brewing something. If that's the case, the whole forest could burn down! I had to save it!

So I bravely opened the door, stepped inside, reached for my sword--

And got a Mini-Hakkero pointed right at my face. "What the hell--" "Away with you, intruder--"

...

We both stood in an awkward silence for at least thirty seconds before Marisa (alive alive and okay) put the Mini-Hakkero away, before chuckling.

"Well, ain't this a surprise! I'm not the only one here after all!" She sounded relieved. "And from the look on yer face, yer thinkin' the same thing!" I guess my look of both relief and shock is clearly visible.

I shoved the sword back into my pocket, and pulled the magician into a tight hug. After almost a whole day of seeing absolutely nobody when you're used to seeing lots of people every day, you can get pretty overemotional when you finally see a person again.

Well, in my case, it was 'a person that didn't mysteriously vanish in the middle of the night'.

"I was so worried... everyone was gone! Even the fairies!" Marisa awkwardly pried me off of her. "Yeah, I know about the fairies and stuff. Freaked me the hell out to wake up and BAM, everyone's gone! But I think I have a possible clue." My eyes widened. Wow, Marisa's been doing quite a bit. "Oh? Show me."

She led me over to her work-station. On the table is a journal, and about three feet away, sits a setup with the glass she had last night! "That drink struck me as super fishy. Everyone else was drinking it, but I didn't trust it one bit, so I brought it back here to do some tests with it."

She handed me the open journal, and I looked over the pages it was open on.

The cocktail seemed to be an all-white color, with a pinch of pink to it. It smelled way worse than sake, almost fruity and chemical like. I coulda sworn that based on smell alone, it was flat out poison!

I sure as hell didn't plan on trying any of it, since I didn't wanna be sick, and it looked like it got you way, way smashed.

Over my period of observing it, the contents separated into three distinct layers. An oil looking layer at the top, a creamy one in the middle, and a gel-like one at the bottom.

It's potent, without a doubt. As much as an ounce can intoxicate you, so drinking the whole thing would either give ya alcohol poisoning, knock ya out, or maybe even kill you.

I gingerly handed her back the journal, suddenly very relieved I didn't drink that. "I found a glass of it in Reimu's shrine! Well, a mostly-empty one. She'd been drinking it the whole evening!"

Marisa looked quite surprised. "Damn it... I thought she was smarter than that! This thing could be lethal, and half of Gensokyo probably drank nearly-fatal dosages of it!" I began to tremble, as much as I tried to hide it. Had half of Gensokyo indeed gotten alcohol poisoning? No, no, everyone was smarter than that! Surely they wouldn't drink themselves into comas, right?

In an attempt to hide my nervousness, I spoke up. "I think I... I found a clue too." That definitely got her attention. "What is it?"

I cleared my throat before continuing. "Some strange site in a valley. It looks like it was deliberately hidden." Marisa then abruptly grabbed my shoulders, startling me and making me hold onto my hat so it didn't fall right off. "Ya gotta show me that! It's definitely worth looking into!"

Now it was my turn to pry the magician off of me, awkwardly laughing. "Let's head out."

-

Surprisingly, there wasn't much conversation between us as we flew towards the site. I guess the whole 'everyone went missing except us' thing took priority.

Marisa informed me that she'd seen a few fairies herself over the course of the day, but Gensokyo itself was eerily quiet. I told her everything I'd learned.

As we arrived at the site, we'd come to the mutual conclusion that everyone had not just vanished, they'd been abducted.

98% of Gensokyo, or even more than that. All abducted in the middle of the night. Marisa had gone straight to the Moriya shrine, and everyone there had vanished, too.

"Whoever did this is real ballsy for goin' after gods," she said while we flew.

A mutual check of Eientei confirmed our suspicions. The Lunarians had vanished. Mokou also presumably vanished.

Actually, Mokou definitely vanished. Marisa confirmed that much.

Eventually, we reached the valley, and I gestured for her to follow me down. I definitely didn't expect her first words upon arriving to be--

"Holy shit, Tenshi, this is a rocket launch site!" I officially had no idea what she was talking about anymore. "Please explain."

"It's a craft that can go into space! But from the scale of the site, then this has to be an absolutely massive craft!" Marisa was geeking out at the sheer technology, and I'm honestly surprised she didn't just straight-up turn into Nitori from all this.

"Well, they didn't clean up after themselves very well. And when was this built, anyways?" I counted the paces it took for me to reach one side from its parallel, walking across the charred ground. It's quite far across - Enough that you could easily gather a crowd in here.

Wait...

Marisa notices my pause. "What's on yer mind, Tenko?" I ignore the nickname, and look to her with an expression that gives her pause. It must be fear.

"... What if everyone went up on whatever craft launched from here?" Marisa looked at me as if I'd officially gone crazy.

"Tenshi, it's been a day." "No, listen to me!" I interjected. "A wild party, some crazy, probably drugged alcohol, 99% of Gensokyo vanishes overnight, and there's a rocket launch site right here! They were put into space for some reason!" She put a thumb to her chin.

"Ya do have a point. It's not adding up, though! Why would someone shove Gensokyo into space?!" The magician threw her hands up in the air. I could feel her frustration radiating, as we both tried to make sense of what the hell was even happening.

"Though, Marisa, if they really did go into space, you know what we have to do, right?" I looked up, and I could see that mutual understanding in her eyes.

She took a deep breath. "If our friends and families really did end up there," she pointed at the above, and I spoke, after her. "Then it's pretty easy to see what we have to do next."

Then, we both spoke at the same time.

""We have to follow them up there.""

To be Continued in Future Installments of: