A red streak zipped through the air, leaving a trail of burning debris behind it. A sharp ninety degree nosedive towards the ground brought the streak down to the ground, amid a dormant volcano. One of the most remote places of Gensokyo, surrounded by a terrifyingly high mountain range, this was one of the few places only accessible via flight.

The red streak disappeared once it touched the ground, only to reappear suddenly in a burst of fire. A small, white-haired girl with a large bow tie on her head materialized inside the flames as they died down around her.

"So why did you want me here…" Said Mokou, talking to herself. The thought suddenly crossed her mind. How long had she talked to herself, a few months? Some years? Centuries? At some point, the years behind her blurred together, with only few memories remaining from that long ago.

And certainly not enough to remember when she started talking to herself, like some lunatic.

With no one around to judge her, she thought nothing of it, instead thinking of the piece of paper, sitting on the magma that had solidified many, many years ago, now only a blackened igneous rock. She carefully approached the paper. She was weary of Kaguya's schemes, and bringing her out this far from civilization was weird. Kaguya's powers were precise, instant, and deadly. Meanwhile Mokou's pyromancy was basically uncontrollable once she was fired up. Kaguya always chose to fight near population centers, or on top of forests. She could avoid collateral damage, while Mokou could not. Her reputation was maintained, as she could claim she was fighting off some youkai, and Mokou's was only soured, having her face plastered all over towns for "reckless arson."

The perks of being immortal, however, meant she only had to wait a few decades for the posters to go down, and everyone to forget.

But it was annoying not being able to go into town to buy drinks, having to cut her hair, and then kill herself to get it back… quite annoying.

She was letting her mind wander, so she shook her head, cleared her thoughts, and picked up the paper.

Dear Fujiwara no Mokou

"Dear? How… thoughtful of her."

I've grown annoyed at our petty rivalry. Over the course of the last thousand years, it's dawned on me it's a waste of my time to fight you, and a waste of my resources to repair the damage you cause. This has gone on long enough, and neither of us can kill the other. So I propose a solution.

"A… solution?"

Do you know where I sent you? This is an ancient and isolated volcano, not even discovered by humans yet, but I marked its location a few hundred years ago for just this very occasion. Since then, I've taken to studying geology, learning the specific working of nearby volcanoes. Do you know what a volcanic explosion is like, Mokou?

"Considering how many times I obliterate myself with my powers… I would hope so."

You're probably thinking something like "Oh, I can survive that, dummy."

"Damn, she knows me too well."

But it's not the thermal power of the explosion that matters, you see. I've also been studying physics, thermodynamics, biding my time for the last few decades until I can enact this plan. The plan to finally get rid of you forever. Around noon, you've probably landed on the volcano by now, and set off a magical heat detector I designed specifically to detect you

"I… what?"

You will see the fruits of my labor shortly. Goodbye Mokou.

Regards, Kaguya Houraisan

"Regards?"

Before Mokou could think any further, a set of lights appeared on the edges of the volcanic crater, igniting themselves autonomously in sequence. She spun around, tracking them as they turned on, before finally seeing the last one activate.

An explosion went off below her, shaking the ground as she stumbled, falling to her knees. Quickly getting up, she was about to ignite her flames, jet off this volcano, and fly away.

But it was too late.

A massive explosion went off somewhere down in the volcano, deafening her as a chunk of rock came from below and sprang up with staggering force. Multiple of Mokou's ribs instantly broke, among several other bones. But she was still alive, and would most likely be in extreme pain if not for the adrenaline. Using most of her effort, she managed to turn her head towards the side. From measuring the wind gusting past her, she was obviously flying up at immense speeds, probably supersonic. The near instant acceleration somehow kept her conscious, probably from years of training herself to travel vast distances in little time. But that training actively worked against her here. It would be so easy to activate her flames and fly away, but with all of her broken bones, she couldn't even feel most of her body, let alone start her flames. As her head finally moved sideways, she saw the tips of mountains, hurrying to her right and out of view. She was flying way faster than she expected. If she could just… die, then she could leave, get off this rock before she was past the point of no return.

But it was getting harder to breathe.

Mokou was no stranger to flying high in the air, and while she didn't know the exact mechanics behind it, generally the higher she was, the harder it got to breathe. Just like when traveling in any other direction, the area above her seemed nearly infinite, and she was limited in how far she could go. It always got harder to breathe. She never rebounded and found breathable air, regardless of how far up she went.

The friction heating from this speed would have killed any normal human. But again, her training hindered her. She couldn't die, she couldn't do anything to kill herself. Had Kaguya finally won?

Mokou could barely breathe at all now. Her vision was going black. Wait now, the sky itself was going black. The natural blue sky she had grown used to was now slowly leaving her, and being replaced by a black, starry horizon. But it was daytime, wasn't it? You couldn't see stars in the daytime!

She had passed a point of no return. Mokou stopped feeling friction on her body and was now in a state of freefall as the rock gradually left her back. She raised her only functioning arm to her ears, and once in vision, she saw they were covered in blood.

Oh, right, she couldn't hear. Her eardrums had actually exploded… or something. She was never good with biology, but her ears were bleeding and she couldn't hear anything.

She also couldn't breathe. Mokou took repeated gasps, but nothing came into her lungs. With her focus broken, she couldn't activate her power, what she had planned to do with her free hand. Now her vision was definitely going black, the rock she flew up with continued darkening, and then sun stopped casting light. In only a few seconds, she was out cold.

Mokou's last awake memory was the feeling of bubbling water on her tongue.


Mokou awoke suddenly, her flames from the revival instantly disappearing. Her first instinct was to take a big gulp of air.

But nothing went in. Mokou gasped, keeping her mouth open as she violently tried anything to get any breathable air. She could feel her skin boiling, and her vision was blackening. Her last memory was the view of a completely black sky, the sun in the distance, and the stars around her.


It was the same process; she revived in an ignition of fire, instantly extinguished by the lack of air. Once again she couldn't breathe, grasping her own neck in reaction. With the last of her energy, Mokou mustered up the effort to turn her head.

And she saw it.

The entirety of her home, completely indistinguishable from the vast amounts of green, blue, and white across the sphere in front of her. It was almost like seeing the moon, but from up close... and it was her home instead.

Mokou went unconscious moments later.


A burst of fire, instantly extinguished, and the feeling of permanent breathlessness. But there was a new feeling, a feeling she had either been ignoring, or too occupied dealing with other things to notice. Her skin was boiling. Not just her skin, but anywhere on her body where she has moisture. Her mouth, her eyes, her… unmentionables, all of it boiling off. It was quite painful, and Mokou wished she could go back to ignoring it.

She fell unconscious again.


Her home was getting farther away. Mokou's mind wandered to those lectures she sat through during one of her more studious decades, awakening memories long dormant. She remembered that the place she lived in, Gensokyo, was on a much larger surface called the Earth. And despite the magical prison enclosing Gensokyo, Earth was a massive sphere, comprising several tens of thousands of kilometers of ocean, land, various landscapes… from up here nearly all of it was indistinguishable. The rock behind her had disappeared. Or maybe it floated off.


Maybe she could try igniting her powers. Reaching her hands out, still choking on the lack of air, while her vision went black, Mokou attempted to let out a jet of fire.

Nothing came out.

Disappointed, she once again fell unconscious.


Has she already grown used to it? Has the feeling of breathlessness become norm-

Nope, not at all. Wandering thoughts had taken over her mind until now, but that moment once again took over. She gasped, but nothing came out. Right, she couldn't hear, could she? Mokou felt a pop every time she woke up, presumably her eardrum rupturing each time.


It's not cold.

Why isn't it cold?

She knew that the higher she got, the colder it got, but when did it stop getting cold?

This place was strange.


Ten seconds.

Ten seconds was how long it took for her to fall unconscious.

Nothing better to do than to count, anything to get away from the fact that he hadn't breathed air in hours.

Or was it days? Minutes?

Oh no.