Yakumo Yukari Gapped Me to Another World; Now I'm Trapped in the Human Village Full of Pathetic Touhou Maniacs

Rinnosuke’s shop was filled with things from the outside world. Supposedly it was stuff that he picked up from near the edge of Gensokyo–at the great Hakurei Barrier–but both Wiki and I secretly suspected that Yukari stocked him with stolen goods. We debated the exact nature of the arrangement as we approached the storefront.

“Yukari might go and get things he requests,” I suggested.

“Or even more likely, she just gives him useless detritus from her resource-gathering expeditions and he sits on the junk.”

“Her what?” asked Reika.

“Resource gathering expeditions,” said Wiki. “She obviously goes to the Outside World for things, probably pretty regularly.”

“What makes you think something like that?”

“Stainless steel pipe, axes, and clipboards,” said Wiki in a rush. “They come from somewhere. Also, in the print works she sometimes brings technology back from the Outside World.”

“I hope she stops that soon,” I said, darkly.

“I’m surprised her secrets are… so open,” said Reika. “Anybody from the Outside World could read about them.”

“Yeah, they could have,” said Wiki while looking around at the rest of us. “Everything I’ve read could be all wrong, too, of course.”

We were entering the shop. I had to admit, immediately, that it was overflowing with junk rather than things any sane person would want. The ironic part was that most of the crap would probably be a collectible of some sort, in the Outside World.

There were shelves lined with bits and bobs like pens, plastic tops, gas-station lighters, and little globes full of gold-leaf. There were piles of dusty tomes interlaced with socket sets and ancient laptop computers. There were wooden bookcases full of novels, video cassettes, and magazines that were useless to me because they were written in Japanese.

“Sweet,” said Wiki. He walked toward a manga section that I was positive had no two volumes from the same series, or possibly even the same decade. There were five books.

“This place needs some service,” said Sasha, wiping her finger on a dusty shelf.

“Welcome in!” said Rinnosuke as he stood up from his chair. He walked around from behind a wooden counter to greet us. His expression changed when he got a good look at us, from mild surprise to shock. “It’s you!”

“Yep,” I said.

“Hello, Mr. Morichka,” said Reika. “Long time no see.” It had been two days at most; he’d been with us to the bathhouse, after all.

“Yes, Miss… Apologies, but I seem to have forgotten your name.”

“Shiraki Reika is my name.”

“Miss Shiraki,” he said, nodding. “Mr. Jake, Mr. Arnold, and Mr. Winston.” We’d given our names to him in the wrong (Western) order, but nobody felt like correcting him. Wiki had almost had a conniption fit when he realized that the translation magic failed to fix name order.

“We’re here to repay a debt,” said Wiki. The manga section hadn’t held his attention for long. “We brought our friends, as required of us.”

“Two young women, I see. That is most surprising.”

“Just friends,” I said before Rinnosuke could get any ideas. “This is Sasha.” Sasha gave a bow that Rinnosuke returned.

“Welcome to my shop. You arrived here much faster than I expected.” He frowned at Reika. “You didn’t go to the lamprey stand to find an escort, I see.”

“Mystia–I mean Miss Lorelei—was too hard for us to get to,” said Wiki. “So we started asking around the human village.”

“That makes sense, even if it’s not the strategy I would have employed.”

“We figured if we were going to break the rules anyway, we may as well go with a human.”

“I’m sorry things didn’t go as planned,” he said. “Well, are you interested in anything you see?” He extended his arms to encompass that shop. Arnold was behind him, looking at a magazine which definitely shouldn’t be on display.

“Disgusting,” said Sasha.

“It’s Arnold,” I said.

“Merely deplorable. C’mon, Reika, let’s look around.” Rinnosuke looked between the two women and us, and decided to help us.

“Those don’t sell very well, for some reason,” he said to Arnold, who was still leafing through the porn mag. “Are you interested in buying one?”

“What do you think it’s for, just out of curiosity?” asked Wiki.

“A guide to human mating rituals with diagrams, of course.” He pushed up his glasses. “I, for one, am totally baffled that none of the other youkai seem to care about this aspect of human tradition.”

“Did you… ask them?”

“Of course! Also, it’s fascinating that humans need enlarged pictures of exceptional examples to learn what to lust after.”

“Yep,” was all I managed.

“Ever put those rituals to use?” asked Arnold while wagging an eyebrow. Rinnosuke sighed.

“Sadly, I only seem to get the ones that focus on feminine presentation, and the very few masculine ones have been… uninformative.” He shook his head. “Do you have need of such a guide, Mr. Arnold?”

“I’m not sure,” he said. “How much?”

“Fifty thousand rin.”

“Fifty thousand! Dang. Do you need some wood chopped, or anything?”

Rinnosuke looked at a dusty cast-iron stove sitting to one side of his shop. “Not really. I appreciate the cold, actually.”

“How about some cleaning?” offered Wiki. “Do you have a feather duster?”

“Why would you need to dust feathers? Also, absolutely not. If you try to dispose of any of these treasures, I will exterminate you.” Technically ‘exterminate’ was a term for what happened to youkai, not humans, but nobody wanted to correct Rinnosuke there, either.

Wiki held up his hands. “I meant I’d clean up the dust, not that I’d dispose of your wares. Surely you don’t mind if we get rid of that?”

“It depends on the dust,” he reluctantly said.

“This magazine has a price written on the back of it,” I said. “It’s five hundred yen, which is like what, five dollars?”

“Approximately,” said Wiki.

“So it does,” said Rinnosuke. “What an interesting fact about its former position in the Outside World, which is totally inapplicable here. Unless one yen is worth exactly one hundred rin?”

“I don’t think so,” I said, imagining a thirty dollar potato. “That’s a shame, because Arnold’s mating prospects aren’t looking good.”

“Says you,” said Arnold.

Rinnosuke sighed. “Apologies. You don’t resemble anyone in the magazine, Miss Arnold, it’s true.”

“That’s not–”

“I’ll tell you what. You may read the guide for free in my shop. However, I will retain it so I can later sell it to a collector.”

“No, thank you,” he said, putting the porno mag back. “I appreciate it though!”

“Not in it for the articles, eh?” I said.

“I can’t read Japanese. Honestly, I was just goofing around. I’ve never even seen a magazine like that before.”

“So you appreciate its value,” said Rinnosuke.

I’d never read a porno mag either. Pornography had been officially banned before I’d ever gotten my hands on one, a knee-jerk response to image generation technology. There were ways to get around the ban that I’d never bothered to figure out. Magazines were mostly out of vogue, anyway.

“Who in Gensokyo would even collect such a thing?” asked Wiki. “Patchouli Knowledge has a library, but…”

“She has purchased several already,” Rinnosuke primly informed us. “Miss Knowledge is my most reliable customer for all print works, but those especially.”

“Wow,” I said. “Does that mean …” I tried to think of a delicate way to phrase it. “Does that mean she is interested in human mating rituals, or she isn’t?”

“Look, it’s probably just because she just doesn’t discriminate with regard to books,” said Wiki. “Does she buy manga?”

“Absolutely,” said Rinnosuke.

“That doesn’t mean much,” I said.

“It explains the selection,” said Wiki.

“What about, I don’t know… newspapers?” Rinnosuke might have some of those, if he still had magazines.

“If you want the Bunbunmaru, there are places that sell it in the human village.”

“I meant from the Outside World.”

“Why would I have those, when they are for disseminating out-of-date news that doesn’t apply to my customers?”

“Actually, they’re for lining the bottom of cages,” said Wiki, but I was no longer paying attention. We were wasting valuable time. I looked around the shop, at things without naked women on the front cover.

A whirly-gig caught my eye, and it took me a moment to realize it was supposed to be a plastic toy helicopter. I idly wondered how much this shop would be worth to an AI recycler. Probably a lot. As I browsed through the items, I thought that most of them were things I wouldn’t have bothered to bring to Gensokyo, even if I could. There were some old cell phones, but there wasn’t electricity, so they were useless. I eventually found a grimy bottle of sunscreen.

“How much for this?” I called out.

“It prevents cancer, in fact it can screen off the very sun, so it costs five hundred thousand rin.”

It was a good thing I already had a hat. I also found a pretty sweet bowie knife, but Rinnosuke informed me that awe-drawing artifacts for nerds had undergone an anticipatory price hike.

“You’d be surprised how many of my wares are for drawing awe alone,” he said. “I’m immune to the effect, though.”

“Is this for dogs or people?” asked Sasha, holding up a spiked collar.

“It is for subtly informing paternal figures of your intent to ignore them,” said Rinnosuke.

“I’ll take it.”

“Fifty rin,” he said. Sasha pulled a single larger coin out from her coin pouch. “I’m curious, are dogs often paternal figures in the Outside World?”

“Not unless you’re talking about politics,” she said.

“An anti-canvassing device,” he said, snapping his fingers. “I’m sad to part with it, but a deal is a deal.”

“That you know what canvassing is, but not whether people look up to dogs, is terrifying,” said Wiki. “Is there voting in Gensokyo?”

“Not that I’m aware of,” he said with a serious expression on his face, as though voting were a monster that might attack you.

“I’m not going to wear that,” said Reika to Sasha.

“It’s not for you. Talk to one of these shitheads if you want a gift. Mr. Morichika, do you have a mirror?” Rinnosuke and Sasha went to dig through some other piles of junk.

“I will attempt to purchase something for you that costs fifty rin or less,” said Wiki to Reika. “I understand that it doesn’t give us much leeway, and it won’t be very impressive. I’m being nice in the hopes that we can do this again sometime.”

She grinned. “Suits me!”

Wiki and her eventually settled on a plastic rose. It apparently also hadn’t sold well, which made sense because it was pretty obviously fake, but Wiki had to borrow thirty rin from me to buy it anyway. Rinnosuke informed us it was ‘a reusable courtship practice device’ for ‘permanently signifying a temporary signal of affluence.’

“If I sold it for a lot of money I’d be undermining its function,” he added, apologetically.

“That description is at least a little fitting, because the whole reason we are out here is so we can practice,” said Wiki.

“Yeah,” I said, looking at the door.

“Aren’t we?” said Reika. “Thank you for the rose!”

“You’re welcome,” said Wiki. “Let’s go out now.” She snorted.

“Two sales in one day,” said Rinnosuke. “I should help humans more often.”

“Hell yeah you should,” said Arnold as we walked to the exit.

“I agree,” said Reika. “There are a lot of potential new customers, after all.”

—

My fear was a bloody knife. It was red, oozing, and inescapable. It came from injuries I already had. The fear wanted to flow out of me like blood from a deep arterial wound.

I took a deep breath and exhaled. Then I slammed the ground with my fist. I was failing, and time was running out. I glanced at the others, but they hadn’t noticed my outburst. My thoughts had been too real for a moment.

My danmaku was nonexistent. That didn’t change after ten minutes spent meditating, or fifteen. Wiki and Arnold started talking, distracting me.

“Mine would be green,” said Arnold. “Like the forest canopy.”

“Why?” asked Wiki.

“I like the color green.”

“I don’t think that’s sufficient.”

“It doesn’t have to be more complicated than that. Do you think I could get little flying axes?”

“Nothing in the lore contradicts that, per se….” he said. “Well. My danmaku would be blue, because I’m calm and rational, and it will be laser-focused, just like I am.”

“Wow, you guys really suck at this,” said Reika. I grit my teeth, tried to refocus, and failed.

“My danmaku’s probably red,” I said aloud for no good reason. “Like blood.”

“Ooh, spooky,” said Reika while wiggling her fingers. Then we all looked at Sasha.

“I’m pretty sure mine is invisible,” she finally said. “Yep, that’s it. But you’ll be the first to know when it changes.”

“That ‘when’ is a pretty big ‘if’,” said Reika.

“Help us then, bitch,” said Sasha.

“I would if I could. My lunch break is almost over, though.”

“Five more minutes,” I said, settling down to try again.

“Do you have a watch? Are you going to look at it? Because if I had one, that’s what I’d be doing right now.” I hadn’t bothered to check if Rinnosuke’s watches worked. He’d probably have said that the power to know when things would happen was extraordinarily valuable.

“Technically, we were told to try, not to succeed,” said Wiki. “We’ve therefore done our homework.”

“The point isn’t to try!” I said. “If Keine cancels all future lessons, I’ll keep striving to learn how to fight with danmaku.” I realized it was true. At some point, I’d decided that knowing danmaku was essential.

“Me too!” said Arnold, throwing down his ax like a cane. Sasha was nodding where she meditated, even though her eyes were closed.

“At some point, you've got to cut your losses,” said Wiki.

“We are nowhere near that point.”

“I mean, congratulations, but that really does sound like empty bluster,” said Reika. “On average humans almost can’t learn danmaku.”

“Why not?” I said, getting to my feet. She shrugged. “You can do danmaku.”

“I’m exceptional.”

“I’d like a demonstration as we walk back.” We were all getting up to leave.

“Nope. It doesn’t work that way.”

“In fact, just hit me with it. Reimu and all the others seem to think that will help.” I kicked a stone. “Heck, that was even how Yukari taught you, right?”

“Miss Yakumo and the others are all youkai with hammers looking for nails,” she responded. “I won’t use danmaku on you.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t feel strongly about something right now,” she said with a shrug. “Feeling strongly is a prerequisite, as you probably know.”

“I feel strongly about not feeling strongly,” said Wiki. “Maybe my danmaku is also invisible.”

“Or really microscopically tiny,” said Sasha. “Dust-sized.”

“I’m pretty strongly frustrated,” I said, because I was. I needed magic to survive and it seemed like nobody in Gensokyo was setting me up to succeed, not even the most motivated of the native humans. “Can that become danmaku, if I get really pissed off?”

“You should visit the bathhouse to keep a cool head,” she said. “But yes, any emotion can become danmaku. If you get really good you’ll be able to produce multiple flavors at will, or try to communicate with your enemy with your danmaku.”

“So the reason you can’t just hit me is because you aren’t ‘really good’.” Her nose wrinkled, but she didn’t contradict me. “Or you’re a liar, and you can’t do danmaku at all.”

“Goading me isn’t going to work, either.”

We walked in an awkward silence, and I started to regret what I said.

“Reisen said something about having options,” said Arnold, “But she also said it’s more effective to rely on a few strengths?”

“Emotions are complicated,” said Reika. “If you can understand even one of your own emotions well enough to learn danmaku, you’ll be leagues ahead of everyone else. Just like me.”

“I'm curious,” I said, gently, to try and mend the fence. “Which emotion did you get to work first?”

“That’s a secret,” she said. Of course it was.

“Why?” asked Wiki, so I didn’t have to.

“That would be telling.”

“Is it embarrassing?” asked Arnold.

“No. Suffice to say, I can’t just feel it here and now.”

“Is it lust?” he asked, and she laughed at him.

“It has to be an emotion you’d feel in combat for it to be useful,” said Wiki. “What about fear?”

“I can see why you’d think that, but no.”

“Determination, then?” he asked. “Pride?”

Reika’s expression cooled. “I can also see what you are trying to do. Stop guessing, because I won’t answer anymore.”

“Darn.”

“How about I just give you some tips on the way back? You sure could use ‘em.”

“Deal,” he said, and I nodded. It was better than nothing.

“Well, the first thing you have to accept is that human emotions are ugly as hell,” she said. “Most of your emotions are petty, base, stupid, and self-contradictory. If you think they aren’t, you don’t know what your emotions are like.” I felt a wholly-unalloyed desire to argue with her, but I let her continue instead.

Reika went on to explain that most people made up pretty little reasons for their emotions, rather than accept what they were feeling as a given, and that the reasons they made up had almost nothing to do with reality.

“That’s not a problem, though. It doesn’t matter why you feel an emotion–only that you know what you are feeling, so that you can express it. Sometimes knowing why helps, sometimes it doesn’t.”

“I think the ‘why’ matters a great deal,” I said. I had prided myself on getting to the bottom of my emotions, once upon a time. “If you know why, your emotion will match the circumstances. Then it will become stronger, or weaker. Whichever is appropriate.”

“That’s why you are struggling,” she said. “Just feel; don’t worry about ‘why’. Most people make a mistake, pretending they don’t feel things they don’t want to feel, instead of introspecting. Or they are so desperate to introspect that they make up all kinds of feelings related to their personal history, and those aren’t the ones they should be using because they are fake.”

“Hmm,” said Wiki. “Suppose I find a feeling that I don’t like. What should I do about it, then?”

“Do whatever you want,” she said, “But if you can’t accept the feeling, if you can’t will others to feel the same, then you can’t make danmaku with it. That’s why danmaku are beautiful. Most people put their beautiful emotions on display.”

“Ah,” I said. That pretty much explained it. I felt fear, but I absolutely hated that part of myself and wished it on nobody. Not even youkai who were there to eat me. Fear might have worked for me, if it were so all-encompassing that I wished for others to feel it too just to save myself–but I didn’t, because I thought it was ugly.

I guess I did have a little bit of pride.

I’d have to find a different emotion. Perhaps rage would work instead. It wouldn’t be optimal, because my anger tended to burn out pretty quickly. Actually, after I thought about it for more than a second, I realized I didn’t like rage either. Nevermind how foolish it would be to enrage a youkai; I just didn’t like feeling angry, myself, or making other people feel angry.

Were there any of my emotions that I did like?

“Is lust an okay emotion for danmaku?” asked Arnold

“No,” said Sasha, even as Reika said she didn’t know.

“I’ve never heard of a human or youkai using that one,” said Reika.

“Odd,” said Wiki. “You’d think it would be pretty powerful.”

“Not for youkai,” she said. “They spring from spiritual energy, wholly-formed. Most can’t even reproduce.”

“Good point,” he said. “But there are heart-shaped danmaku, and even patterns that look pretty phallic?”

“Which danmaku are those?” Reika asked innocently. “Are you sure you aren’t just seeing what you want to see?”

“The dick in the mirror is you,” said Sasha.

“I was asking about consent, actually,” clarified Arnold. “If I make someone I’m fighting feel lust, and then one thing leads to another…” he was gripping his ax tightly. “Is that rape?”

“You’re planning for things that will never happen,” I said. I admired him for not beating around the bush, though.

“Don’t worry,” said Reika.”Most youkai will be disgusted if you do that–all the ones that were never human might not even have those emotions–but even if they didn’t throw up in their mouths, they’ll just empathize with lust in general, not with lust for you specifically. After they defeat you they might go look for a more capable person to keep them company, if the compulsion didn’t end quickly.”

“But, what if they feel it so much that suddenly I start looking pretty good to them, when I normally wouldn’t?” Did he not remember that we were talking about bloodthirsty monsters? Which were expressly not thirsty in any other way at all, at least according to Reika?

“I don’t think that would happen. Your lust just wouldn’t be that strong. On the other hand, if you are rushing into battle to try to seduce a youkai…” she seemed to consider it. “It’s too bad for you that ‘stupid’ isn’t an emotion.”

“Are you sure?” asked Arnold. “If you can feel it, it’s probably an emotion.”

“‘Shame’ is what you mean, and that’s no good either, even if I’m sure you feel both often. Anyway, the point is that you definitely won’t get laid that way, not unless the youkai had designs on you already, I suppose.” Reika still wore a shit-eating grin. “Not that that would ever happen.”

“That’s a relief,” he said, smiling back. Reika frowned.

“I insulted you like three times. Are you just too slow to get it?”

“Too smart to let it bother me,” he replied. “I’m just glad I can express my emotions without consequences. And guess what–so can you!”

“Joy,” she said, with none of it.

“Wait, literally disgust them?” asked Wiki. “Putting them off their appetite could actually be pretty useful, now that I think about it. You could weaponize your lust to convince them not to eat you.”

“That’s idiotic,” said Sasha.

“If that’s more convincing than whatever emotion you were going to give them instead, that's what you should do. Repelling youkai is the whole point, after all.”

“You’ll have a leg up in that area,” Reika replied.

“Thanks,” he said. “I’m pretty good at munchkining things, even weaponizing lust.”

“Like a professional fencer with a cocktail sword,” said Sasha.

“She’s way better at this than you,” Wiki added, still talking to Reika. “My feelings were almost hurt!”

“Maybe you guys aren’t as fun as I thought,” pouted Reika.

“Also, there’s a loophole,” he continued. “What if Arnold had extreme lust for himself, then made that the emotion he projected to them? Would it be lust for him specifically, then?”

Part of me wanted Wiki to stop red-teaming consent in Gensokyo, but I had to admit he had a point. The obvious exploit to making people sympathize with your emotions was to try to choose your own emotions. None of us were even close to that level, though.

Reika shrugged. “They’d probably go off to find a mirror, then. Let me know if you ever manage it and survive.”

“Will do,” said Wiki.

“If you successfully made a youkai hot for you, I think they’d just eat your flesh with greater enthusiasm. Maybe starting with different parts.”