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Hifuu Club Investigations No.1 - Epilogue: Hifuu Club Report Files

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Epilogue: Secret Sealing Club Report Files

Club Member Profile: Usami Renko (宇佐見 蓮子) - The Human GPS

Species: Human. ... What? Well, we might as well put that down for ourselves, Merry, it's going to become relevant sooner or later.

Age: 22 (b. 2042-09-29)

Ability: I can see the current time and date in Japan Standard Time, and my current geographic coordinates, by looking at the stars. Doesn't work on photographs or screens (or photographs on screens).

Profile: Let's see ... I'm the president of the Secret Sealing Club, of course ... um, my family lives in Tokyo, but I've kept in touch long-distance. I've been interested in both science and the occult since I was nine years old; I didn't think it was contradictory at the time, and, well, given the strength of evidence, I don't think it's all that contradictory now, either.

Author notes: One of the protagonists of the official Touhou music CDs. Mostly canon.

Club Member Profile: Maribel Hearn - The Girl with the Uncanny Eyes

Species: ... Human, heh.

Age: 24 (b. 2041-03-23)

Ability: I can see conceptual boundaries, like the boundary between two hallways, or the boundary of a college campus; these boundaries appear to be a slight "edge" in space. I can astral-project into worlds of "fantasy" in my sleep, which is part of my boundary-sight, I'm not sure how.

Profile: I was raised in northeast Massachusets, and I've always had an interest in the human mind and its capabilities. I've been speaking Japanese since my early teens. I'm actually a distant relative of Lafcadio Hearn, a nineteenth-century English author who wrote a lot about Japan and became a citizen under the name Koizumi Yakumo (小泉 八雲). I've always had my ability, but ... well, let's just say I learned to keep quiet about it, and eventually stopped taking it seriously.

Author notes: The other protagonist of the official Touhou music CDs. Diverges from canon; I confess that I really couldn't write Merry just straight up not realizing her "dream-worlds" were real on some level, especially in the first person.

Club Member Profile: Usami Sumireko (宇佐見 菫子) - The Mysterious Founder of the Secret Sealing Club

Species: Human, as far as Merry could tell from a half-remembered dream.

Age: 65 (b.2000-04-10, previously thought to have died 2036-11-29 at age 36)

Ability: Uncertain. Supposedly had psychic powers. She could astral project in her sleep, just like Merry.

Profile: My great-aunt. She lived in Kyoto her whole life, and started the Secret Sealing Club in 2015, in her first year of high school. However, she was always the only member. There were all sorts of stories which sounded weird for the sake of being weird, and which I never took seriously until I saw that piece of bamboo sitting on Merry's mattress.

Author notes: The final boss of Urban Legend in Limbo. Details in this story are unclear.

Unusual Location File: Bamboo Forest of the Lost

Type: A forest of bamboo (where people get lost).

Area: A region called Gensokyo, into which I astral-projected; exact location is unknown.

Time of encounter: 2065-04-04 in the waking world, 1969-07-29 within my dream, for the entirety of my dream between 10:18 PM and 10:49 PM.

Profile: According to local legend, this area used to be in the former Inaba Province (modern-day Tottori Prefecture), but was washed into Gensokyo by a tsunami. It is full of "cracks", which produce a non-Euclidean geometry: if you pass through a crack, you'll find yourself on a path in another part of the forest. Avoiding these cracks requires either an ability which allows you to see them directly, or foreknowledge of their locations; however, it is also possible to exploit them if you know where a given crack leads.

Youkai and Unusual Humans: Fujiwara no Mokou (藤原 妹紅) - The Guide of the Bamboo Forest

NOTE: For internal Secret Sealing Club use only! Do not publish!

Species: Immortal human.

Age: Eighteen in CE 705, which would make her 1282 years old in 1969. If she's still alive today, that puts her at 1378.

Time and place of encounter: 2065-04-04 in the waking world, 1969-07-29 in my dream, at approximately 10:25 PM, in the Bamboo Forest of the Lost.

Unusual attributes: Fire-magic and immunity to getting burned: she could create magical flames from nothing, and control and shape them with a kind of psychokinesis; however, if they ignited anything else, she was unable to control them. Her immortality, which appears to allow her to regenerate from any injury. Flight, with or without flaming wings.

Profile: A guide and youkai-hunter living in the Bamboo Forest of the Lost, she claims to be responsible for the fact that youkai do not approach fire in that area. When I found her, she was recovering from injuries she received in what she claimed was a fight with youkai, but due to a few specific turns of phrase she used, I have reason to think she was actually fighting another person. She was prone to bouts of depression, though I wouldn't want to make a diagnosis based on a single conversation like that; she had a minor breakdown immediately after the arrival in the forest of Reisen (see other file).

She stated that the source of her immortality was the "Hourai Elixir", the same one used by Princess Kaguya in that old story. Neither of us is sure what to make of that; it wasn't clear if Mokou had actually met her, but my gut says that even if she didn't, she was implying that she had sufficient reason to think that she actually did exist somewhere. — We can't put this in another file, Renko, we literally only know about it because of Miss Mokou ...

Author notes: The extra stage boss of Imperishable Night. Details in this story are unclear.

Youkai and Unusual Humans: "Reisen" (レイセン?) - Deserter of the Moon

Species: Youkai - lunar rabbit.

Age: Unknown. Merry described her as a "girl", and didn't get a good look at her.

Time and place of encounter: 2065-04-04 in the waking world, 1969-07-29 within Merry's dream, at approximately 10:45 PM, in the Bamboo Forest of the Lost.

Unusual attributes: She looked like a human with a pair of rabbit ears; Merry didn't see whether she also had human-like ears. She had glowing red eyes, referred to as "lunatic eyes", which have the ability to induce symptoms including hallucinations, physical instability, and overwhelming fear; she can also reverse these effects, even if you aren't looking at her eyes. She could also fly without any apparent visible means.

Profile: Apparently, there is a Capital of the Moon (c.f. the tale of Princess Kaguya?) with its own army, including rabbits such as Reisen herself. She deserted this army following the moon landing of 20 July 1969, which the people of the Moon apparently interpreted as an "invasion." I woke up Merry before she could find anything else out, however.

Author notes: The stage 5 boss of Imperishable Night. Details in this story are unclear.

Concluding remarks

Merry and I both agree that this whole investigation was poorly-conceived and poorly-implemented. Setting aside the fact that we only got what felt like a tenth of the story, Merry was in serious danger in the Bamboo Forest of the Lost. If she hadn't instinctively realized that running would make too much noise, [if she hadn't found Miss Fujiwara (NOTE: Delete from non-Secret Sealing Club published materials),] or if she'd encountered a youkai more dangerous than Miss Reisen, she might have been killed or worse, and I wouldn't even have known why.

Now that we know what to expect, however, I believe we can take steps to ensure she's not placed in similar danger again. If nothing else, the traditional method of pinching her cheek served to wake her up instantly, even with the non-Euclidean geometry of the Bamboo Forest. In fact, we might even be able to communicate directly, if we can figure out something reliable that doesn't require a phone signal or wifi ...

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