Chapter 225: Incident — Oni Girl
After safely escorting Youmu back to Hakugyokurou, Ran returned to the Yakumo Residence. The sprawling estate was completely silent. She checked the usual lounging spots, but Haruto was nowhere to be found.
Stepping out onto the veranda, she glanced up at the darkening sky. Night had already fallen. She recalled her young master mentioning something about scouting their next location in advance.
Raising a hand, Ran tore open a jagged Gap connected directly to the damp, shadowy depths of the Forest of Magic. She stepped through, her golden eyes scanning the dense underbrush and towering, moss-covered trees, but she still couldn't catch a single glimpse of Haruto's figure.
Left with no other leads, she could only speculate based on his usual habits. Given his utterly fearless, borderline-shameless personality, there was really only one place he would willingly wander into without a second thought... the Sunflower Field.
Ran hesitated. Her hand hovered in the air for a long moment before she finally gathered the courage to open another Gap. She stepped into the vibrant sea of yellow blooms, sweeping her gaze across the swaying petals. Still nothing.
"Where could he be?" she muttered under her breath, her fox ears twitching.
Just as she debated whether she should risk approaching the Dream Mansion to ask, the heavy wooden doors of the estate suddenly groaned open.
Yuuka stepped out into the cool evening air. Her movements were slow, deliberate, and utterly relaxed. Yet, as if sensing a disturbance in the atmosphere, her crimson eyes shifted, glaring indifferently toward the empty void on her left.
From within the shadows of the Gap, Ran froze. The moment her eyes met that chilling, apathetic gaze, the fur along her nine tails puffed out, standing rigidly on end. Pure survival instinct screamed at the fox shikigami to snap the tear shut and flee for her life, but sheer willpower forced her to suppress the urge.
Taking a steadying breath, she widened the Gap and stepped out into the open, bowing respectfully.
"Lady Yuuka."
"Looking for Haruto?"
Ran blinked, caught off guard by the instant deduction. "Is Haruto-sama with you?"
"You're too late." Yuuka's tone was entirely flat, devoid of any real interest. "He left just a moment ago. Headed toward the Hakurei Shrine."
"Thank you, Lady Yuuka."
Ran hurriedly bowed again, not daring to linger. She didn't let out a long, shaky sigh of relief until the terrifying Tyrant of Flowers was completely out of sight. She had fully expected to be blasted point-blank by a Magic Cannon—just as Yukari occasionally was when she annoyed the flower youkai—but not only was she completely unharmed, she had actually gotten a solid lead.
Counting her blessings, Ran immediately shifted her destination to the Hakurei Shrine. Specifically, the overgrown backyard.
"I think we can charge it a bit more! Hold steady, I'm funneling more Spiritual Power into you!"
Haruto drew in a sharp breath, his eyes narrowing as he pushed his Boundary manipulation to the absolute limit, forcefully converting the concept of Stillness into Motion.
Right behind him, Reimu had both palms planted firmly against his back. She was recklessly dumping massive reserves of pure Spiritual Power into his body, treating the sacred energy as if it cost her absolutely nothing. Haruto gritted his teeth, acting as a living conduit to convert her spiritual energy into dense, volatile Demonic Power, which he then funneled directly into the battered merry-go-round sitting in the center of the yard.
"Are you sure this is okay?" Haruto asked, a bead of sweat rolling down his cheek. "I feel like something's really not right here..."
He stared at the eerie, red-tinted Ghost Girls trapped inside the amusement park ride. They were multiplying rapidly, splitting apart and cloning themselves like a bizarre cellular division. The sheer number of glowing red eyes staring back at him made his scalp tingle.
"It's fine, it's fine!" Reimu insisted, her voice brimming with absolute, unwarranted confidence. "I've looked closely at them. These spiritual bodies are incredibly weak. A light toss of my yin-yang orb can smash them to pieces, and I can bind the rest with any random low-level Sealing Technique. How could anything possibly go wrong?"
Haruto remained highly skeptical, but considering Reimu's absurd track record of solving incidents through sheer brute force, he pushed his doubts aside. He refocused his attention, continuing the dangerous cycle of converting Spiritual Power and packing the merry-go-round with explosive Demonic Power.
More and more Ghost Girls materialized inside the ride. Within seconds, they had completely crowded the wooden horses, packing the small space so tightly that not even a single Gap remained for a foothold.
Their piercing, shrill laughter echoed through the air, carrying all the way down to the foot of the mountain. The sound was so deeply unsettling that a passing tengu journalist shuddered violently, nearly tumbling out of the sky in fright.
It's going to blow.
Haruto's eyes widened as the realization hit him, but the volatile energy had already reached its absolute breaking point. It was too late to stop.
BOOM—!
The merry-go-round violently ruptured. Splintered wood, twisted metal, and chunks of plastic rained down across the courtyard. A tidal wave of eerie Ghost Girls burst from the wreckage, scattering in every conceivable direction while shrieking with manic laughter. The sheer force of the blast sent some of them flying so far over the horizon that they instantly vanished from sight.
Haruto immediately ducked behind Reimu, using the shrine maiden as a human shield.
"Didn't you just say there was absolutely no problem?" he asked dryly.
"Who would've thought this stupid thing would get squeezed to the point of exploding..." Reimu replied weakly. She casually whipped out her yin-yang orb, smashing a few of the approaching Ghost Girls into red mist. "It's fine. It can still be solved... as long as we can catch them all."
At that exact moment, a spatial tear ripped open in the courtyard. Ran stepped out of the Gap, finally arriving at the Hakurei Shrine.
The very first thing that assaulted her ears was a chaotic chorus of shrill, echoing laughter. A split second later, several small, glowing red figures darted past her legs, giggling maniacally.
She looked toward the center of the shrine in utter confusion, and her entire body froze.
The smoking wreckage of a merry-go-round sat in the dirt, pulsing with an ominous crimson light. Countless spiritual children were fleeing in every direction, swarming over the shrine's roof, diving into the bushes, and sprinting down the mountain path.
Staring at the absolute disaster unfolding before her, Ran's brain completely stalled. For a full three seconds, she just stood there. She instinctively squeezed her eyes shut, took a breath, and opened them again.
The crowd of screaming ghost children was still there. This was not an illusion.
A heavy wave of blue Demonic Power erupted from Ran's body, instantly washing over the entire Hakurei Shrine. The sheer pressure of the nine-tailed fox's aura locked the immediate area down. The Ghost Girls who had been screaming and running suddenly froze in place, their unstable forms collapsing under the weight of the energy. In the blink of an eye, every single spirit within her line of sight dissipated into harmless smoke.
Despite clearing the yard, Ran's expression did not improve in the slightest.
Those spirits were only a tiny fraction of the horde. Hundreds more had already fled far beyond the shrine's borders.
Her gaze slowly swept over the smoking crater, the scattered debris, and finally landed on her young master, who was currently hiding behind a very guilty-looking shrine maiden. She marched forward, her steps heavy.
"Haruto-sama," Ran began, her voice trembling slightly. "What... what exactly happened here?"
Haruto cleared his throat and quickly explained the entire sequence of events, leaving nothing out. As she listened to the sheer absurdity of their experiment, Ran's expression shifted from confusion to a deep, soul-crushing despair.
"...If Lady Yukari finds out about this," Ran whispered, rubbing her temples, "you and Reimu are probably going to..."
She didn't even need to finish the sentence. She could already vividly imagine the terrifying, colorful expression that would cross Yukari's face the moment she saw hundreds of cursed ghost children running amok across Gensokyo. The Sage of Youkai would undoubtedly drag both Haruto and Reimu into a Gap and give them the thrashing of a lifetime.
Reimu visibly shrank, pulling her neck back like a startled turtle.
Haruto coughed twice, quickly straightening his posture to look as serious and reliable as possible. "It's fine. As long as we hunt down all those ghost children before she notices, everything will be perfectly fine."
He reached out, patting Ran firmly on the shoulder. "Ran, you're not going to say anything, right?"
Ran slowly shook her head, looking entirely defeated.
"Exactly!" Haruto beamed, his shameless confidence returning in full force. "If you don't say anything, and I don't say anything, how would Mother Yukari ever find out? She's currently relaxing at Hakugyokurou, isn't she? There's absolutely no way those ghosts could run all the way over there."
Meanwhile, in the tranquil gardens of Hakugyokurou.
Yukari and Yuyuko were lounging on the veranda, enthusiastically gossiping about the latest developments in Haruto's daily life.
Mid-conversation, Yuyuko suddenly paused. She blinked, her wide, innocent eyes scanning the empty courtyard as if she had just sensed a shift in the wind.
"Yukari," Yuyuko murmured, tilting her head cutely. "Did you hear some kind of sound just now?"
"A sound?" Yukari paused, taking a sip of her tea. "What sound?"
"Like... someone laughing and screaming at the exact same time." Yuyuko rested her chin on her hand, humming thoughtfully before shrugging. "Never mind. That's impossible."
"Exactly." Yukari waved her hand dismissively, a relaxed smile on her face. "Yuyuko, you must have just heard the wind—wait. No..."
The Sage of Youkai froze, her sharp ears twitching. She set her teacup down. Floating through the serene, ghostly atmosphere of the Netherworld was the distinct, unmistakable sound Yuyuko had just described. It was growing louder by the second—a bizarre, overlapping chorus of young children shrieking in terror and laughing like absolute maniacs.
"Hiss... there really is something out there," Yukari muttered, her eyes narrowing.
"I told you there was! How could I possibly hear wrong when it comes to things near my dining area?" Yuyuko mumbled. She casually grabbed a delicate strawberry cake from the table, stuffing the entire thing into her mouth. As she chewed happily, she glanced over at her gardener. "Youmu, you heard it too, didn't you?"
"I heard it," Youmu nodded, her grip tightening slightly on the hilt of her sword. A strange, conflicted expression crossed her face. The sound was incredibly eerie, yet... somehow familiar.
It felt like she had heard that exact same manic laughter somewhere very recently.
Her brow furrowed deeply as she searched her memories. Then, her eyes snapped wide open.
"I remember now!!" Youmu shouted.
CRASH!
Almost simultaneously, a massive force shattered the elegant sliding doors of the veranda. Splinters of wood and torn paper rained down as two small, glowing red figures violently launched themselves into the room.
Shrieking with laughter, the Ghost Girls crashed directly onto the low table. They crazily stomped across the delicate porcelain plates, kicking the carefully prepared pastries into the dirt, before lunging directly at the three stunned women.
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