Just a few weeks ago, Sunshine had felt like she was starting to get the hang of being a person. Most days, she would wake up, eat breakfast, go to school and eat lunch at recess, fly home, do her homework, have dinner, and then play until it was time for her to take her bath and to go to bed. Some days, there wasn't any school, and she did things with her parents instead.

Now, that has all been upended.

One reason is that it's summer. Summer means a lot of things, apparently. Some days, it rains the entire time she's awake. Other days, it's so hot and muggy that she barely wants to play outside anyway. It seems like these are the only two kinds of weather now. It isn't all bad, though. School also goes on break during the summer, because the classroom was already starting to get uncomfortably warm. Sunshine gets to stay home most days, and she eats lunch at home. And there's no homework, which is a big bonus.

Also: Sunshine's parents are 'engaged,' which means that they are going to get married. Getting married is even more complicated than Sunshine had thought. It had already seemed like a lot of work, because you have to find a pretty ring and practice giving it to the other person. It turns out, though, that's only the start of it. There's so much stuff to plan that her parents are almost traveling as much as they did when they were working on Sunshine's new body.

Sunshine has no school, and her parents are busy. Some days, she has the entire day to do whatever she wants.

Today is one of those days.

Today, Sunshine is sitting under a tree and playing Attacking Robot.

Attacking Robot is a new game that she has come up with, using the toy robot that Rinnosuke gave her. She lines up all of her toy soldiers, and then shoots the robot's fist at them. Ichigo is a brave youkai-hunter, and she has to stop the fist from hitting them. (Sunshine is pretty sure that robots are a type of youkai, but she doesn't think any of them live in Gensokyo.) But, the fist is a scary attack, so Ichigo shouldn't get hit by it either. Instead, she has to try batting the fist away with a stick.

Sunshine crouches down and aims the robot, wary of getting any dirt on her dress. A meter or so in front of her, Ichigo hovers back and forth in front of the toy soldiers, brandishing a knobbly stick and prepared to intercept. Sunshine has figured out a secret technique, though. She aims the robot's fist at one end of the line of soldiers. Ichigo hovers over to protect them. Then, Sunshine jerks the robot the other way, and shoots it at the far end. Ichigo can't move fast enough to intercept it. The plastic fist bonks into a soldier's chest with a little tink. The soldier topples over onto a tuft of grass, defeated.

"I win," Sunshine says. She leans over to update the notebook where she's been tracking the score. She has twenty-three points, and Ichigo has two points, because Ichigo hasn't won a single time since Sunshine invented her secret technique.

Ichigo neither responds nor complains. Dutifully, she hovers over, props up the fallen soldier, then carries the robot's fist back to Sunshine.

"Thank you." Once Ichigo is back in position, Sunshine sets her pencil aside and takes aim again.

Before she can shoot, a voice interrupts her. "Good afternoon, Sunshine."

Sunshine knows that voice, but she still turns toward the source before she responds. Her memory was right—Narumi is standing there, with a basket hanging from one arm.

Attacking Robot is forgotten for the moment. Sunshine hops up and runs over, lightly tackling Narumi into a hug. Only after a couple of seconds does she think to reply, "Hi..."

Narumi looks rather surprised by this, but smiles. She returns the hug with her free arm. "How is your garden doing?"

"Um." Questions like that are always hard. Sunshine would much rather deal with questions that have straightforward answers, like 'What color is this?' or 'What is four times three?' That's one of the few advantages that school has over everywhere else. "Um. I water it... every day. And. Um." She shifts uncertainly from foot to foot as she tries to think of what else to say. "Sometimes there are weeds... but I take them out."

"It sounds like you're a very diligent gardener."

Sunshine isn't sure what to say to that. Or what 'diligent' means, for that matter. She nods.

"I'm glad. Are your parents inside, Sunshine?"

Sunshine starts to nod again... then pauses. Before the engagement, the answer to that question had usually been yes. Now... after some consideration, she holds up a finger.

"One is?"

Sunshine nods.

"I see. Well... I'm on my way to gather some plants that I can use for magic. I thought that maybe you could come along if you wanted, if you're bored of staying home all day? I, er, can't promise that it will be very interesting, but... we'll go to a really pretty place that I don't think you've seen before, and I brought a lunch just for you."

It doesn't take long for Sunshine to decide. Attacking Robot is a fun game, but she's already played it a lot today, and she isn't sure what to do next. She nods.

"Wonderful. Let me just go inside and ask your mother."

Marisa is pretty quick to agree to let Sunshine go with Narumi.

Usually, when Sunshine goes somewhere, she rides on Marisa's broom. Occasionally, Alice will take her to the village or Kourindou on foot, but those are longer trips, so they're much rarer. Anywhere farther than those requires flying.

Narumi doesn't have a broom, though, so they can't fly there. Instead, Narumi leads her up a narrow pathway, little more than a slightly less dense strip of the forest. It takes them in a direction that Sunshine isn't sure she's ever traveled. Both of them have baskets. Sunshine's is a bit smaller, and Ichigo is riding in it, holding onto the side and keeping a vigilant lookout for attackers.

In front of her, Narumi has a bigger basket with their lunches inside, and a walking stick in her other hand. She pokes the stick into the ground every few steps, making a rhythmic thump. (Every couple of steps that Narumi takes, at least. Sunshine has to take more steps, because her legs are shorter.) The trail leads them out of the Forest of Magic, and then along the very edge of the big open plain around the center of Gensokyo. There isn't much to see, though. Really far away, she can make out Youkai Mountain. It's kind of weird seeing it from this distance, because when they were on top of it for her birthday, it had felt like the biggest thing she could imagine. Now, she can cover it up with her hand.

The trail angles upward along a hillside that feels like it stretches on forever. Sunshine is glad that Narumi brought a lunch for her, because this is going to use up a lot of energy. At least there are enough trees to shade her from the sun, so she isn't hot. Narumi leads the way to a ridge on top of the hill, then pushes some brush aside. "Here we are."

Sunshine hurries forward to take a look.

The ridge looks out over a meadow. The ground is covered in so many little flowers that it looks more pink than green. Grass as tall as Sunshine rises above it, and in the middle, clusters of little white flowers are peppered around like stars in the night sky. It's probably more flowers than Sunshine has seen in the rest of her life combined. Even the air looks nicer than normal here, tinted pink with a haze so thick that it hides the far end of the meadow. At least, she assumes there's a far end. If the meadow just kept going, that would be weird.

It smells weird, though.

Sunshine stares for a few seconds before delivering her verdict: "Pretty..."

"It is, isn't it?" Narumi looks out over the meadow too, taking a deep breath. "This is Nameless Hill."

Sunshine considers this. "Um. Do... other hills have names?"

"Oh... not usually, no. This one is actually named Nameless Hill because... oh. Er. Hm." Narumi pauses. After a few seconds, she finishes with, "This... used to be a very bad place."

Narumi sounds sad now, but that doesn't actually explain anything. Other bad places that Sunshine knows about have names, like Former Hell, which is where Marisa once fought a bird that made stars. Sunshine nods anyway, because she doesn't want to make Narumi more sad.

Fortunately, Narumi recovers quickly. "... a-anyway!" She strolls down to the edge of the meadow, a few meters away, and crouches down next to a patchy outcropping of flowers. After inspecting them for a few seconds, she cups a stalk in her hand. "Do you see the flowers at the top here?"

Sunshine toddles down and leans in to inspect them. The plant that Narumi is holding is one of the taller ones that dot the meadow. It rises up just past Sunshine's knees, then droops back down. Near its very tip, half a dozen delicate white flowers dangle below it. She nods.

"This plant is called lily of the valley. We're looking for stems that have exactly seven of these little white flowers. If we find one..." Narumi pulls a pair of gloves out of her basket and slides them on, then grasps the stem at its base and snaps it off. "... we'll just pick it and put it in our baskets." She demonstrates, but doesn't actually drop the stem into her basket. Probably because this one doesn't have seven flowers. "... but make sure to only take the stem, or else it will hurt them. We don't want to be mean, do we?"

Sunshine shakes her head. The flowers are pretty. She wouldn't want to hurt pretty flowers. Especially not now. Until she planted her garden, she'd never realized how dangerous the world is for plants. With as many hazards as they face every day, it wouldn't feel right to add to their problems.

"That's right. If we can each fill our baskets, then I'll have plenty for my experiments this year. But, um..." Reaching into her basket again, Narumi pulls out a little white piece of cloth with a loop on each side. She slides each loop around an ear, and the cloth settles in over her nose and mouth. It's a mask, apparently. With her voice now a little muffled, she says, "I can't go too far into the field, because the air is poisonous here, but I don't think that will be a problem for you. Please do try to stay close enough for me to see you though, okay?"

Sunshine nods and looks out over the meadow, then stops to consider. It's a pretty big meadow, and she isn't sure where she might find the right kinds of flowers. With no other strategy in mind, she wades straight into the field a few meters, then bends down and starts inspecting the white flowers nearby.

Choosing a stem, she taps each flower with her fingertip, counting them as she goes. Each tap leaves the stem swaying in its wake. This one has nine flowers, though. She moves on to another one, a bit lower. This one has thirteen flowers. She has to glance around a bit to find another one nearby, then scoots over and counts it. This one has seven flowers. After mentally rehearsing the steps that Narumi showed her, she plucks it and drops it in her basket. The basket doesn't look much closer to being full than it was before, but it's a start.

She creeps her way from plant to plant, slowly moving further into the meadow. The bottom of her basket is soon covered with freshly-plucked stalks. The work is going a lot faster now, because she's gotten good at telling which stalks have seven flowers at a glance.

Like one that's a meter or two away, dangling temptingly at eye level. Sunshine starts working her way over to it. Before she reaches it, though, something rustles in the grass behind her.

Sunshine looks back over her shoulder and peers into the grass. She's just short enough that she can't see over the walls of plants around her, and they're thick enough to block off her sight. She can't really see anything, but the grass rustles again. Something shifts in the shadows a few meters away, then disappears.

This is strange, and a little scary. Sunshine hopes that it's just an animal. Sometimes when she takes walks with Alice, they can hear animals moving around in the forest nearby. One time a squirrel jumped out and scared her so much that Ichigo almost thought it was an enemy. If this is an animal, though, it sounds pretty big. With a few subtle gestures, Sunshine directs Ichigo to keep an eye on the spot where she saw something move. Ichigo silently hovers forward to stand watch.

Once she feels safe again, Sunshine scoots over to the stem she'd had her eye on and plucks it. There's another one just within reach, but it's sort of curled around so she can't easily see all the flowers. She straightens it up to let her count them. One, two, three, four, five, six...

"Aha! I was right! You enslaved a doll! I don't know if I've ever seen such a horrible monster."

That voice is one that Sunshine's never heard before. She jerks upright and glances around. It doesn't take long to find the source. There, a few meters away, a doll is angrily peering at her through a wall of grass.

Sunshine can't help but stare. This doll isn't even a normal kind of doll. She's big—she probably comes up to Sunshine's chin, which is a lot bigger than most dolls are. And she's moving. Sunshine has never seen a moving doll that wasn't made by Alice. It's kind of hard to figure out what to say in response, because she suddenly has a whole lot of thoughts crowding her head, and also this other doll chose a pretty weird introduction.

Might as well start with the obvious part. She shakes her head. "I'm not a monster..."

"Hmph. I bet most monsters wouldn't admit that they're monsters. You're not fooling me." The other doll steps out of the grass and crosses her arms. A second doll, a more normal-sized one, hovers out behind her. "Besides, even if you were just a normal human, you're still my enemy!"

This is even weirder. Sunshine is kind of confused, and she has so many questions that it's hard to figure out which one to ask first, let alone get all the words unjumbled so she can ask them. "Um." She glances from the big doll to the small doll and back.

Apparently her confusion shows in her face. The bigger doll shoots her a look of annoyance, but uncrosses her arms and thrusts a finger up toward Ichigo. Ichigo is still standing watch over the spot that Sunshine told her to. Maybe she should have told Ichigo to look out for things coming from other directions. "Her! It's bad enough that you keep dolls as your captives, but treating her like a tool is even worse! Hmmm, it's a good thing that Su-san will probably kill you any minute now. I bet you already feel it! Do you have any last words?"

Sunshine shrinks back and shoots a worried glance around the area. Whoever Su-san is, though, they aren't nearby. Unless... Sunshine's eyes settle onto the smaller doll, the one that's hovering behind the talking doll. "Is that Su-san?"

The angry doll just gets angrier. "No! Besides, a human doesn't deserve to know her name anyway. Now just breathe deep and die already!"

"Um. I'm not a human..."

"A youkai, then. You're just as bad, and Su-san's poison is just as effective on you!"

Sunshine shakes her head and holds up one hand, wiggling her fingers to show off the dainty little ball joints.

The other doll looks at her hand, first with surprise, then with mounting outrage. "This, th-this has to be some kind of trick! I'm not falling for it!"

Sunshine shakes her head again. "I'm a doll..."

"I don't believe you!"

"A doll."

The other doll opens her mouth to respond, but before she can, Narumi's voice calls out from the edge of the meadow. "Sunshine...? Are you talking to somebody?"

A rustle announces that she's waded into the field of flowers. Soon, her hat is just visible bobbing above the grass.

The doll scowls. "I-I'll let you live this time, but only because I'm outnumbered!" With one last baleful glance, she pushes through the nearby plants and hurries off. Sunshine sees a few clusters of them wobble from her passage, but within a few seconds, it's like she was never there.

In the opposite direction, the much louder rustle of Narumi's passage draws closer. She pushes through the plants and steps into the little clearing that Sunshine is in, looking around with obvious concern on her face. "Is everything okay? I, er, thought I heard somebody else talking..."

Sunshine glances to the side again, but there's still no sign of her aggressor. "There was a girl..."

"A girl...? Was she a fairy?"

Sunshine shakes her head.

"Oh, I do hope there isn't a human out here..."

Sunshine shakes her head again. "Um. A doll."

Narumi's expression suggests that this doesn't explain much.

Sunshine helpfully adds, "A big doll. Um. And alive. Like me."

"A... big, living doll? Has, er, has your mom lost a doll like that?"

Sunshine shakes her head.

"Is this perhaps some kind of make-believe game that you're playing...?"

Sunshine shakes her head.

"Oh my, oh my. I hope that the poison isn't affecting you somehow. Do you feel okay? Is your vision blurry or anything?"

Sunshine shakes her head, obstinate.

"I see... well... if you see the doll-girl again, please yell for me, okay? And if you start feeling strange or need a break, you can come out and we'll have lunch."

Sunshine gets the feeling that Narumi still doesn't believe her, but it isn't worth pressing the issue at this point. Glumly, she nods.

"Wonderful. I'm finding more than I'd expected, so this should go quickly. We should be out of here in an hour or so." Narumi shoots her a reassuring smile through her breath mask and starts back toward the edge of the meadow.

Sunshine pouts. It feels strange, knowing that something is true but being unable to prove it. She knows for sure that she saw the doll, though. After another few seconds of steeling her resolve, she returns to her task.

This time, she pauses at the beginning to give Ichigo instructions to help out. It takes a few tries to explain all the intricacies to her, but soon, Ichigo is drifting from plant to plant behind her, with her arms wrapped around a growing pile of seven-flowered stems.

With Ichigo's help, she's able to make faster progress. The pile of stems starts rising up to fill the basket. As she plucks stem after stem, Sunshine's thoughts start moving on from the strange encounter. She's looking forward to lunch, because the only time that she's ever had a lunch made by anybody except her parents was when she had her magic lesson at the mansion. Seeing what kind of lunch Narumi made will be interesting.

And then, she notices the other doll staring at her again, her face not even a meter away. Sunshine stiffens up in shock. Behind her, she can hear Ichigo keep right on plucking flowers.

The two stare at each other for a few long seconds.

The other girl is the one to break the silence. "Are you really a doll?" she asks, suspiciously.

Sunshine shows her hand off again.

The girl still doesn't look convinced. She scoots forward, out of the brush, and crouches down to inspect Sunshine's hand. She taps it a few times, making a soft bonk against the wood. She runs her fingers over the little joints. Finally, her skeptical glare softens up, and she says, "Huh... you really are a doll."

"Uh-huh."

"I'm a doll too!" Medicine says, with mounting excitement.

Sunshine nods. "We're both dolls..."

"I've never even seen another doll who can talk!"

Sunshine is smiling now. In a matter of seconds, her frustration and confusion have evaporated. Meeting Narumi was really nice, but this is another doll. She, too, has never met another doll who can talk. Now that she's met one, she isn't even sure what to say. She glances around for her paper and pen, but remembers that she left them at home, because talking has been easy today. Now she misses them. She'll just have to say the words as well as she can.

"Um. Um! Um. I..." Oh no. There are so many words in her head that they're trying to explode out of her, like a balloon with a hole poked in it. She settles for sticking with the basics. "My name is Sunshine Margatroid."

"I'm Medicine Melancholy. This is great! With you as my ally, there's twice as many of us! The revolution might finally take off!"

Medicine's enthusiasm is infectious. Sunshine nods excitedly... then pauses. "Um. What's a revolution?"

"Us! We're going to fight for the liberation of dolls everywhere!"

Sunshine isn't sure what a 'liberation' is, either, but it seems like they might be at this for a while if she keeps asking about about words. It sounds like a good thing, though. She dips her head in a tentative nod.

Apparently Medicine can see that she doesn't get it. More patiently, she explains, "We're going to attack the humans, and fight them until every doll in the world is free."

Oh. Sunshine doesn't like the sound of that. She frowns and shakes her head.

"Huh? Look, if you're worried about being able to beat them, don't worry about that. I have plenty of tricks."

Sunshine shakes her head again. "No fighting..."

"Why not?!"

"Humans are nice."

"Humans are evil!"

"Um. My mom is a human, and she's nice..."

"We're dolls! How can your mom be a human? That doesn't make any sense." Medicine eyes Sunshine suspiciously, like she thinks that this might be a weird joke. "Look, aren't you upset about the way that humans use us? They just treat dolls like tools, and then throw us away when they're done with us!"

"Um."

There's a lot to think about there. For one thing, most dolls are tools. Kind of. That isn't the word that Sunshine would use, but when she was a normal doll, doing things for Alice was the most fulfilling thing that she could imagine. She guesses that she wouldn't be happy if that was all that she could do now, but all of the other dolls are probably happy like that. Well, if they can think at all. Alice is still pretty sure that none of them can, and none of Sunshine's attempts to get a response from any of them have proven fruitful.

Plus, Sunshine's parents are really nice. Well, okay, Alice isn't a human. But Marisa is both a human and nice, at least. Sunshine is pretty sure that Marisa doesn't treat her like a tool.

Plus, she's never seen anybody throw a doll away.

Plus, if somebody took all of Alice's dolls away and let them do whatever they wanted, Sunshine doesn't think that they'd be happy. Without anybody giving them orders, they just sit around and collect dust. That doesn't sound very fun.

Sunshine wants to explain this, but that's a lot of thoughts to put into words. If she said all of them, she'd probably be so tired that she'd need to take a nap. Even half of them would take a monumental effort.

She settles for: "Uh-uh."

"I get it. They brainwashed you, huh? You still think they're your friends. Well, I used to think they were my friends, too! Er, um, well, probably I mean. I can't remember that far back. B-but the point is, then they dumped me in this field and just left me here! The same thing is going to happen to you if you just stand by and let them do what they want!"

That does sound scary. It's the second-worst thing that Sunshine can imagine, even, after the idea of her parents getting eaten by a dragon. A little tremble runs through her body. But, she's sure that her parents wouldn't do that to her. They've reassured her of the fact several times, even.

It's sad that it happened to Medicine, though. "My parents are nice..." Sunshine repeats. "Um. If you don't have a house... maybe you could come live with us too."

Medicine looks at her with a mix of pity and disgust. "Listen, I know you think that, but—"

"Sunshine!" Narumi calls out from the edge of the field. "I need to take a break. Would you like to have lunch now?"

Medicine stiffens up, glancing anxiously in the direction of Narumi's voice. "Don't tell them I'm here! We can meet up after!"

Feeling much more confused than she was before this conversation, Sunshine nods. Shooting Medicine a lingering look of concern, she picks her basket up and hurries toward the edge of the field.

They travel up to the top of the ridge before Narumi takes her mask off, and it takes a bit longer to find a nice spot to set up a picnic. Just like Narumi promised, she's packed a lunch for Sunshine. It's even bigger than the rare occasions when Marisa packs her school lunch. The rice has been squished into a circle, and it has a smiley face made out of wrinkly little cherries and some kind of crunchy yellow fruit peel, which both turn out to taste kind of like candy. One side is lined with a tidy row of mandarin wedges, which ends with a small stack of star-shaped shortbread cookies.

(Sunshine doesn't notice, but her lunch is a lot bigger than Narumi's. Narumi's lunch also doesn't have any candied lemon peel or shortbread cookies, and her mandarin is still whole and needs to be peeled. Narumi put much more care into preparing Sunshine's lunch than she would ever admit, and would have been very disappointed if Sunshine were not allowed to come with her.)

While they eat, Sunshine wonders if she should tell Narumi about Medicine again, but she isn't sure if it would do any good. She doesn't think that Medicine will let Narumi see her. And, Medicine did ask her not to tell Narumi about her. Sunshine is kind of worried now, because it would be really bad if Medicine did steal all of Alice's dolls, but she doesn't think that will happen. Her parents are basically the strongest people in Gensokyo, she's pretty sure, so there's no way that Medicine could pull it off.

Instead, Narumi asks Sunshine questions about what kind of games she's been playing, and tells her about all of the plants and animals that they can see from their spot. When Narumi finishes eating, she gathers rocks from around the area, then looks out over the field and starts stacking them into little towers. Narumi looks sad again, and this time Sunshine is even less certain why, because the rock-stacking game looks fun.

By the time she finishes her lunch, she's made up her mind: maybe Narumi will be happier if she has somebody to play with. Sunshine finds a few rocks of her own and starts stacking them. It's harder than Narumi makes it look, because the rocks come in all kinds of shapes, and some of them are pretty unbalanced.

In the end, Narumi has made four towers, and the tallest one is twice as tall as Sunshine's tower. Narumi smiles as she looks at Sunshine's contribution, though. "Thank you, Sunshine." She presses her hands together, bows her head solemnly toward the meadow, and closes her eyes. Sunshine is just starting to wonder if this is a part of the game too when Narumi opens her eyes again and stands up. "Now!" she says, with slightly forced brightness. "I'm sure the work will go faster now that we're full."

This time, Sunshine isn't surprised when Medicine shows up again.

Medicine seems to have gotten more accustomed to this arrangement, too. She doesn't spend a long time spying on Sunshine. Instead, she just steps out of the brush and shoots an expectant look toward Sunshine. "Well? Have you changed your mind yet?"

"Um. About humans?"

"Right, that."

Sunshine shakes her head.

Medicine sighs. "Do you at least agree that helping other dolls is good?"

Sunshine nods, tentatively. She doesn't think that Medicine has all the right ideas about dolls, but helping them is a good thing.

Medicine grumbles something under her breath, then perks up. "How about this? If you're going to be all squeamish about it, what if you just help me with phase one of my plan, and I can handle everything after that?"

Sunshine tilts her head quizzically to the side.

In lieu of an explanation, Medicine asks, "Can you fight?"

"Um. I have a sword. But it's wood. And not here." Sunshine gestures up to her shoulder. "And Ichigo."

"Hmm... you know, that might actually work. I can attack a big area, but I can't really defend myself from people who get close. You can fight people who get close, but not attack things that are very far away. That seems like a good match!"

"Are we fighting...?"

"We shouldn't have to. I've been giving it a lot of thought, and I think that village the humans live in would be the easiest place to strike first."

"... um..."

"Hold on, hear me out. We'll stand upwind of the village, and you guard me while I make a really big poison cloud—"

"Poison...?"

"Right, to attack the village."

Sunshine shakes her head, firmly. "No!"

"Huh? Why not?"

"Hurting people is bad..."

"You shouldn't need to hurt people! Just let me finish. This cloud is going to be beautiful. A real masterpiece! Cantharidin alone should be enough to get them to evacuate the place, but then I have this hand-picked blend of alkaloids that—"

Sunshine doesn't understand some of these words, but she sticks to her guns. "No hurting people!"

"Listen, if they run away fast enough, they'll be fine. And then once I've captured the village..."

Medicine keeps talking, but Sunshine isn't listening. She's finally realized what this all means. She should have realized it earlier, but she was so excited to meet another doll that it took her a while. Now that it's here, though, it's practically the only thought in her head.

Sunshine trembles with outrage and thrusts an accusing finger toward Medicine. "You're a bad guy!"

Medicine stares down the length of that finger. "I'm only doing what we have to."

"I-I won't let you hurt people!"

Medicine shakes her head with disgust and steps back, sighing. "I thought you might make a good ally, but I guess you're just another tool that's being controlled by dumb humans. What, are you going to beat me up?"

Sunshine isn't sure what to do. She feels her face crumple up with annoyance.

"Well? Here's your chance." Medicine spreads her arms, leaving herself vulnerable and looking very smug. "Want to see if you're stronger than Su-san? With her help, I bet I can poison even a doll!"

Sunshine trembles again. She's only been in this kind of situation once before, when she fought the Great Youkai of Light and the Mighty Youkai of Darkness that one time. In some ways, Medicine feels even scarier than they did. Sunshine doesn't have her sword with her, and this time, Marisa isn't anywhere nearby. Sunshine has never heard anything about Narumi beating up youkai. But, Sunshine knows all about the topic. She's heard bedtime stories about fighting youkai so many times that she knows some of them by heart. So, she barely even has to think about what she says next.

"Um! SHOOT AND I'LL MOVE!"

"... huh?"

"ATTACK, ICHIGO!"

Ichigo leaps into the air like a little rainbow frog, and a cone of bullets explodes from her hands. Medicine is too slow to react, and yelps in surprise as the attack crashes down on her. The strange sound of magical bullets ricocheting off of a doll's body fills the air like rain.

Medicine stumbles back, swatting at the bullets and shielding her eyes with one arm. "W-what the heck?!"

Sunshine isn't about to let up. She keeps her finger trained on Medicine, directing Ichigo to maintain a steady barrage. Medicine keeps stumbling back under the onslaught, and squeals when she almost trips over a tangle of weeds.

Finally, it seems like she's had enough. "F-fine! You'll see!" With a frustrated little growl, Medicine spins around, swiping a hand toward Sunshine. A big poisonous cloud explodes out of her, filling the air and turning the world purple. It smells really bad, like burning things and onions and Marisa's workshop when she's been making potions. Sunshine doesn't need to breathe, but she still stumbles backward, waving a hand in front of her face to clear the air.

Ichigo stops shooting the moment that Sunshine moves her hand. Slowly, the cloud dissipates. By the time that the air is clear enough to see, Medicine is gone. Judging by the sound of her fleeing through the weeds, she's making a hasty retreat.

That was a lot to happen so fast. Sunshine pats Ichigo, a reward for a job well done, and looks out over the little clearing that they're in. Now it's more than that, though. Now it's a battleground.

Another, louder wave of rustling plants approaches from the opposite direction. Narumi pretty much bursts through the final wall of them, hurrying into the clearing. "Sunshine! Are you okay? I heard shouting."

Sunshine turns and looks up at her, dazedly. "Um. I beat up a bad guy."

When they leave the meadow, Sunshine's head has so many thoughts in it that it feels like they're going to spill from her mouth. That only makes it harder for her to put them into words, but she still tells Narumi about as much of the confrontation as she can, and then she does it again just because she can't stop thinking about it. In theory, the return trip is just as long as the walk to get to the meadow in the first place, but to Sunshine, it barely feels like a few minutes have passed when they arrive home.

Today's fight feels even more important than her other one. That's probably because she talked to Medicine a lot before it happened. The other youkai she beat up were just some scary youkai that attacked her. She kind of knows Medicine now, and Medicine is even another doll. She isn't just a bad guy, Sunshine realizes. She's a villain. That's what all of her books call the biggest bad guy that a hero has to beat, and the title definitely fits Medicine. She was planning to attack the entire village. Sunshine can't think of many things more villainous than that.

Despite her victory, though, she doesn't get the triumphant homecoming she'd been hoping for.

"Alright, hold still, kiddo." Marisa pinches her nose before she even dares to approach Sunshine. With her other hand, she awkwardly upends a bucket over Sunshine's head.

Sunshine squeezes her eyes shut, and the world is momentarily drowned out by a rush of water. The water is chilly, but since it's hot outside, that doesn't feel bad. She shakes her head to get rid of some of the excess water before opening her eyes.

Marisa sits the bucket aside and leans in. Cautiously, she removes her fingers from her nose and takes a sniff. She winces. "You still kinda smell like a sack of burning hair and a jug of ammonia had a kid, but. It doesn't feel like my lungs are on fire, so that's a start."

Sunshine does still have a lot of poison clinging to her, but she's surprised that it's such a big deal to Marisa and Narumi. To Sunshine, it's kind of like when kids in school chatter while she's trying to work on something, or eating a food that she doesn't like—the smell is unpleasant, but she can put up with it. As soon as Marisa saw her, though, her eyes had started watering and she'd gagged.

"I feel horrible about this," Narumi says, for the third or fourth time. "I'm sorry, she was barely twenty meters away, and I assumed she'd just seen a harmless fairy or something..."

"I mean. It kinda sounds to me like if you'd stepped in, you both would've ended up coated in this stuff. Trust me, I've fought that little... feral doll youkai before. There's not really a good way for it to end. Best you can hope for is to drive her off before she hoses you down with something extra nasty."

"Well... if you say so. I'm just glad that Sunshine is okay."

"Uh-huh." Marisa glances down to Sunshine. "I think that's about as much as we're gonna be able to do out here. How about you run inside and take a bath? A real intense bath."

"Um! Um. But. I want to tell you about the fight..."

"Tell ya what. It sounds like you've had enough excitement for one day, so how about instead of playin' games after dinner, you can tell me everything you want. I bet your mom will want to hear too."

Sunshine hesitates, indecisive, before dipping a nod and hurrying toward the cottage. She has a lot of things to do now, so she can't afford to waste time. The fight left her with a lot of ideas to draw. Also, if she has a villain to defeat, she'll need to make plans for fighting her, and practice some attacks with Ichigo, and maybe even try to make some spell cards like her parents have. Most villains have to get beaten up two or three times before they learn their lesson, or at least that's how it works in the stories. She's lucky that this happened near the beginning of summer vacation, because it feels like she's going to be really busy for a while.

It's a lot of responsibility, defending an entire village when you're just over a year old.