Chapter 91: Gensokyo — Your Name.
....
While Akane and Sanae were busy exchanging intelligence in the shrine room — cataloguing habits, quirks, and enough personal information to convincingly impersonate each other — the same phenomenon had quietly spread across Gensokyo like a ripple through still water.
Eientei, The bedroom of NEET Princess Kaguya Houraisan.
The room's primary light source was a computer monitor in sleep mode, its glow falling across an energy drink can, half a bag of chips, and a girl who had fallen asleep at the desk sometime in the small hours and hadn't moved since.
The small head shifted.
Rose.
Red eyes — usually the particular flat crimson of someone who had optimized their environment for maximum stillness — snapped fully open. They found the monitor's screensaver: Kihara, shirtless, tie caught between his teeth, expression calibrated to cause damage.
The red eyes contracted.
A thin line of red appeared beneath one nostril.
Something moved across a face that was normally categorized as three-no — no reactions, no expressions, no affect — and that something was flustered.
"What. Is happening."
The phone on the right side of the desk began receiving messages in rapid succession. She picked it up.
Eris: Eris! You're in my body right now, aren't you!
Kaguya: ...You're the shut-in?
Eris: Tch. That's seriously how he describes me to you people?
Kaguya: I just find it a convenient shorthand.
Eris: Whatever. This situation seems interesting. Stay in my room, play some games, let me live your life for a bit — deal?
Kaguya: No dungeon grinding scheduled for the near future, so — fine.
Eris: Thanks. If you don't know how to play anything, just call or text.
Kaguya: Noted. Can you send me a copy of your screensaver?
Eris: I'll swing by in person at some point.
Scarlet Devil Mansion. The basement.
Flandre Scarlet's red eyes opened in Flandre Scarlet's bed, and a voice that had absolutely no business coming from Flandre Scarlet's mouth said:
"Why am I at the Scarlet Devil Mansion? No — wait, this sensation is..."
The body's right hand rose, fingers extended toward a light bulb by the door. The fingers closed, gently.
Pop.
The bulb didn't break. It ceased — glass, filament, everything, absorbed into nothing, not even dust left behind.
"Flandre's Taboo ability... so I'm in her body now." Shinobu assessed the situation with the unhurried calm of someone whose life had contained sufficient strangeness that this registered as a midrange event. She had no intention of notifying Kihara. She had, instead, a different priority.
Izayoi Sakuya. The perfect and elegant head maid. Who existed, by professional definition, to serve the residents of this mansion.
As the Second Mistress of the Scarlet Devil Mansion, requesting one hundred donuts was completely within her rights.
Sakuya's culinary skill was not in question — anyone who prepared British afternoon tea for Remilia Scarlet on a daily basis could handle donuts of varied flavors without breaking stride. Shinobu could practically smell them already.
She threw back the blanket and hit the door at speed. "Sakuya!! Sakuya!!"
"Yes, Milady? Is something the matter?"
"Donuts. One hundred of them."
A pause. "...Just donuts?"
"Just donuts."
Sakuya processed this request. The Second Young Mistress had not, upon waking, immediately gone to find her sister for their usual morning conflict. Had not demanded Kihara's presence. Had asked, instead, for one hundred donuts. Simple. Achievable. Unlikely to result in structural damage to the mansion.
"Of course. I'll begin immediately."
"I'll be in my room."
The quiet this will buy, Sakuya thought, heading for the kitchen with genuine gratitude, is worth any number of donuts.
Pelican Town.
Hestia looked up from the breakfast table as a familiar figure shuffled out of the bedroom, hair uncombed, clothes askew, eyes carrying the specific unfocused quality of someone who hadn't fully finished arriving in their own body yet.
"Lili-kun! Your hair — and your clothes — here, let me—"
"Hm?" The figure that wore Liliruca Arde's face and carried her small frame blinked at Hestia with an expression of genuine confusion. "Why... am I here?"
Hestia tilted her head. "Are you still half-asleep? Or are you not feeling well? Do you want to stay home today? I can go fishing by myself—"
"Ah... yes. That would be fine."
"Are you sure? Okay — I'll be back by afternoon!" Hestia collected her fishing rod and sunglasses, already brightening with the particular enthusiasm she reserved for fishing days. "Today I'm going to catch a sea cucumber for Kihara, something really nutritious—"
She was out the door before the sentence finished.
The figure wearing Liliruca's body watched her go, then made its way to the bathroom. After some searching — the bathroom was not designed for someone considerably shorter than the body's usual occupant — Suika Ibuki located a step stool, stood on it, and finally got a proper look at herself in the mirror.
"Huh. This is what she looks like up close." A thoughtful pause. "I was drinking somewhere near Pelican Town last night... I should probably find the real Lili and get things sorted."
She finished dressing, stepped outside, and reached automatically for her hip.
No gourd.
She blinked. Laughed, short and surprised. "Swapped bodies and the craving just... isn't there." She considered this. "Maybe I'll ride this out sober for a few days. Then have one extremely good drink at the end."
She set off toward town, considerably more philosophical than her reputation suggested.
Elsewhere.
Maidena woke up feeling like someone was sitting on her chest.
Her first assumption: Tokishikko, pulling another uninvited early morning visit. She inhaled sharply and sat up—
The weight on her chest shifted to her shoulders.
She looked down.
Two soft white shapes greeted her. Not large by most standards. By her standards, the relative scale was approximately architectural.
She picked them up gently. Weighed them in her hands with the reverence of someone handling evidence in a case she had strong feelings about.
Her eyes filled with genuine emotional tears.
"Finally," she whispered. "Finally I can properly mock Tokishikko."
Ding-dong.
"Mei — ah, ahem. Ryuu-san? Are you home? I'm Maidena Anger — I need to discuss something with you."
Her own voice, coming from outside. Maidena went very still. For approximately three seconds she was convinced she was experiencing a haunting.
Then she caught up.
"I — I'm not sure what you mean — wait, that's not my voice—!"
She stopped. Breathed. Processed.
She got up to dress, misjudged the weight and balance of her current body badly enough to nearly put her head into the wall, corrected, and made it downstairs to open the door.
On the other side: herself. Maidena's own face, her own eyes — but the eyes were sharper than she usually kept them, carrying a focused, evaluating intelligence that Maidena recognized as belonging to someone else entirely.
"Maidena-san," said the person wearing her body. "I trust you have some understanding of our current situation?"
"I... think so. We've switched souls?"
Ryuu shook her head. "Consciousness, not souls. Souls remaining in place is why we can't access each other's magic."
"Oh." Maidena's frown deepened. "So what do we do?"
"For now — play each other convincingly. You're not suited to combat, which works in your favor since I have no escort assignments for the next few days and nothing pending in the dungeon. There is, however, one scheduled commitment."
"Which is?"
"A date with Kihara."
"—WHAT?!"
Ryuu blinked at the volume. "You haven't been on a date with him yet?"
"...No."
"Don't worry. I have an extensive reference library on the subject. Help yourself to anything on the shelf."
"But this was your date—"
"Our consciousness will swap back eventually." Ryuu's expression was serenely practical. "Think of it as a favor I'm outsourcing to you. I have complete confidence."
Maidena stood in the doorway, wearing someone else's body, looking at her own face wearing someone else's confidence, and came to a decision.
"Understood. I will study every book on that shelf before the date."
"Good. And my schedule — your schedule — just the usual Bud Forest patrol with Hitamuki's group. Subjugation of anything that poses a threat to the settlement."
"That I can handle," Maidena said. She paused. "...Wait, your body is going on a date with Kihara. In my body. While I'm—"
"It will all work out," Ryuu said calmly. "I'll take good care of your reputation."
"That's not what I was worried about—"
Ryuu was already walking away with Maidena's legs carrying her at a stride that was slightly longer than Maidena's usual gait.
Kihara, at that precise moment, was having a pleasant morning and had absolutely no idea what was coming.
He would find out shortly.
Several times over.
....
Thank you for reading.