There was truly something unique about non-existence, she found. It was a contradictory state of (non-)being that made absolutely no sense if you gave it enough thought. She had no body and as such, no brain to use to think, yet she could do so anyway. She had no eyes or ears but she could still see what was happening in the world. The world she couldn't interact with at all. But somehow she could still see and hear and think, and she just wanted it to stop.

Being a bundle of memories attached to a vague idea of a person she once was, was difficult to handle. It gave her just enough mind to think but why would she do that if not holding on to what she was would cause parts of her to slip away and be gone just like that?

She had a name, once. She couldn't remember it though. It was the price for learning what would happen if she didn't focus on maintaining her rather fragile sense of self. She could still recall her terror when the memory strand containing what was her name fell down into the bottomless Sanzu River.

It really stung that even the one who did this to her forgot it as soon as she was finished.

She couldn't blame whatever-her-name-was of course, reality itself was changing to accommodate for her not being there as she was being erased after all. All traces of her were gone. The timeline changed, unraveled to the point of her conception. The ground she tore up in her last fight? Back in it's place as if nothing happened to it. Her house? Gone. The ground it was built on was turned into a playground for children. The one who done this? Still had both her shikigami and her right eye. Her best friend and partner in crime? Gone, sealed away in the place she would have freed her from. Those two kids they mentored? Well, at they were still around, thankfully. Doing even better than if she stuck around actually. Small blessings, she supposed. Gensokyo was a lot more peaceful with the Spell Card System in place. The blond one that Mima doted on even still had her left arm! And seeing Her teasing Reimu and drinking tea with her? Well, if sheer desire to kill and maim could have brought her back she'd be the one drinking it with Reimu. Too bad she forgot Her name too.

It all boiled down to her attitude really. Her bitterness and the arrogance that rose from it made her step on toes of a lot of powerful people. Most importantly Hers.

She shook her non-existent head. She had no body but her field of vision followed the would be movements. That train of thought cost her a strand of memory containing her annoying neighbor's name. It fell to the ground and no one would ever know it was there. A small price to pay but that memory could have been spent protecting a piece of her theoretical magical knowledge she could use to get back into existing.

Not that she could think about a way to do that without sacrificing much, much more.

Time flowed so fast when she didn't limit it with thoughts. A mere moment before they were all drinking tea after the Spring Snow Incident. Now Reimu was fighting Sanae with the blond kid hanging in the back and observing. She floated herself over to where the witch was and looked on. She could see a few hundred strands of herself on her being, unnoticeable to anyone but her. Back when she followed them like a lost puppy, futilely hoping they would notice her. She could appreciate the beauty of Danmaku. Sanae's bullets seemingly trapping Reimu with no escape, only for her to find a way out just in the nick of time. The way the brown haired shrine maiden was casually shooting projectiles of her own, nailing the still girl with needles and talismans alike and how they dissipated upon impact. How they kept up their casual banter. How they weren't at each other's throats, covered in their own and each other's blood like they would be if she was still there.

That fight stretched on for ages. The power of the Hakurei bloodline and Reimu's natural skill found a worthwhile opponent in the ability to create miracles, call on gods and ability to command and become the wind itself. In the end the winner was obvious and she didn't regret forgetting Reimu's expression when she was staring at Kochiya's broken body. The Moriya gods never forgotten the transgression, even when the girl eventually recovered with the help of one of her miracles. Merely another nail in her coffin.

She wasn't sure she could do Danmaku herself. It was an art in it of itself. You attacks were expected to be artistic and beautiful and you weren't supposed to actually kill your opponent when you've beaten them. Power still mattered of course, but brute force didn't win duels alone. She had loads of power, too much even for a mere human magician but she was brutal in her fighting style. Limit their mobility first by crippling their limbs, taunting them along the way to destabilize them emotionally before going in for the killing blow or two. Often much more with youkai, thanks to that damned durability of theirs prolonging their lives and suffering. She wondered how Mima would have done in this system. The spirit was hideously powerful and had the temperament to match it but grace wasn't one of her defining traits. Then again in the timeline where she didn't exist...? Who knows. Not like she can come into Makai now. It was an entirely different realm and she couldn't interact with the physical world and break the way into it open to it.

She absently noticed the duel had already ended and the blonde flying off after Reimu. She didn't follow, instead choosing to examine the loser of the duel. She was panting and holding her head, complaining about a headache. It was strange seeing her like this, not covered in bleeding cuts, with needles stuck in every inch of her body, face unrecognizable and all limbs twisted in unnatural ways.

The visage of the broken version of Sanae she was seeing faded out and she flinched, judging by how her vision shifted. The strand of the memory disconnected itself from her and attached itself to the girl. Another memory gone. Another payment rendered.

She flied away without looking back. As far as she could.

And time flew by once again.

There was not a living soul in sight this time.

In retrospect, her situation was hopeless and she knew it from the beginning. She just didn't want to acknowledge it. There wasn't that much left of her now. What she would have considered most important has remained up to this point, that much she was grateful for. Images of Mima smiling as she ruffled her pupil's dirtied hair. The sound of Reimu's laughter after she told her a bad joke. Them sitting in Mima's residence around the fireplace during a cold winter night as a snowstorm raged outside and chatting it away.

She would have cried, if she could.

Sitting there in a small opening in this middle of a sunflower field she felt defeated, utterly crushed. In the end was holding on truly worth it? She only prolonged her own suffering. No one would admire her resolve when they didn't even know someone like her once was. There was no heaven or hell, no ending, final destination for her. All this effort… it was for nothing. She was falling apart, one strand of memory dragged out of her after the other. Over and over and over and over.

It wouldn't be long now.

She had, at most, a few hours left. But it wouldn't be long before she forgot even them.

The desperation was overwhelming.

Still, she wouldn't go out without a fight. Youkai or threat of ceasing to exist completely, it didn't matter. She never gave up. That wasn't her. And most importantly...

Quitting was for losers.

So she stopped focusing and started acting.

If she had a mouth she'd be screaming something what one of those shounen manga heroes from the outside world would be.

She tried to call on what power she had left in herself to do something, anything. Leaving a dent in the dirt beneath her, killing an ant, wilting a sunflower, it didn't matter. A mark on the world that abandoned her, something that would last, if only for a fraction of a second and in the grand scheme of things, wouldn't even be a footnote. The world SHE rejected her from. The only person she would ever truly hate. For taking everything away from her and daring to forget. For erasing her from existence. She would pay for that. She wouldn't let her succeed. With her dying breath she'll do everything in her power to screw her over.

Rage boiled her non-existent blood. Defiance in the face of that Hag's punishment bolstered her confidence. Anger fueled her resolve.

A scream of primal, incomprehensible hatred. It was muted, barely a whisper in the real world but she heard it. The sound of her own voice. She had no memory of it now, yet she managed to recognize it as her own. And to no small amount of surprise a single strand of those shed memories, came from gods know where and flied into her.

Yukari Yakumo.

Two words etched themselves into her thoughts. She didn't know what they stood for, but it wasn't coincidence. It couldn't be.

Yukari Yakumo.

They echoed across what was left of her and she found herself growing even more furious.

Yukari Yakumo.

There were more strands of memories rapidly closing in. The ones which she dropped in the sunflower fiel-No, the Garden of the Sun were dragging themselves on the ground towards her.

YUKARI. YAKUMO.

She remembered.

There was no other moment in history where someone hated so intensely.

The wind was blowing so hard it was bending most of the thick sunflower stems, even breaking some of them. Yuuka would be mad, but she didn't care enough. Her idea of revenge would be a brutal beating, Danmaku or not and she would gladly take that. It would make her feel alive once again.

She could see her own hands. She clenched them and felt the fingers touch her skin, real and existing skin. A smile was coming onto her face and she allowed it to form, marveling at the sensation of muscles working underneath her skin to place it on her countenance.

To say that the wind was blowing now would be an understatement. It was a full blown tornado with her right in the eye of the storm. Her white and red dress was flapping in the wind, and the red bows were barely holding on to her blond hair.

Her smile took an appearance of an outright demonic grin and she bellowed at the top of her lungs, barely hearing her own voice over the cyclone of power and wind raging her as she stood up on her shaky legs.

"You failed Yakumo!" She would have followed that up with her name and an even louder exclamation of being back in business, but try as she might she couldn't remember her name.

That did a wonder on her mood, bringing her down from her high horse. That damned hag might have not succeeded at erasing her very concept but she still managed to steal her name from her. She gritted her teeth and glared at the heavens. She slowly turned in the direction of Mayohiga and started walking there before she stiffened. What would she even do? Yukari has beaten her once already. She gave her a run for her money, yes, but in the end it was the hag who was the victor.

No, fighting her now was a dangerously stupid idea. Even the ice fairy would consider it suicidal. Besides she was sorely out of practice. Out of power too. Coming back from the brink cost her too much, and she just now realized how drained she was.

No, revenge would have to wait. For now she needed to gather her strength and lay down for a while. It wouldn't do to get caught before she fully recovered after all. And there was the matter of getting her name back. It was lost for now, but she would find it again.

"Best served cold, huh?" She muttered and turned back before she jogged off slowly.

She could wait. She already rejected her fate after all. What's a few more months or years in the face of sweet satisfaction?