Another story! A relatively short first chapter since I didn't want to give out too many details.

Also, it's in the main timeline of my series. Old readers will understand that.

For now, enjoy the first chapter of Reforming Gensokyo everyone!

"…You look miserable, Yukari."

"Yes…"

"…Want to talk about it?"

"No…not yet."

It is a normal morning in Gensokyo. The sun is rising, and the birds are singing. The blooming Sakura trees indicate another spring is coming to the Land of Illusion.

Reimu Hakurei, the last maiden of Hakurei bloodline, wakes up in her shrine, without any disturbances, and does her morning routine without any problems. After wearing her usual maiden attire, she wakes a certain Oni in her shrine up by kicking her right in the head, then she heads outside and picks up a broom and starts sweeping the shrine's ground. While doing so, she occasionally glances towards the blooming trees, then takes a long sigh once a while. Since spring is coming soon, people are going to gather at her shrine and make another party again like usual, and she could really do nothing but to enjoy it. Though, she always has to take care of the aftermath, so she's not looking forward to it.

After the sweeping is done, she returns to the kitchen and makes some tea, then brings the tray filled with a tea set and a disk of desserts to her main room and puts it on her kotatsu, then she sits down and enjoys the morning tea…

When a tear of space appears on the other side of the kotatsu. Since it is normal in this land, Reimu expects the Sage Youkai to come out and enjoys the morning with her. Instead, she sees her shikigami, Ran Yakumo, holding her up bridal-style while walking through the portal, while the woman's wearing the most dreadful face Reimu has ever seen. Placing the woman down, the fox Youkai then notices Reimu's questioning look, she just asks the shrine maiden to look after her master while she prepares her best dishes for the evening party. She then returns to her house, leaving the sad Yukari behind.

If there's any rules to never violate, here are two of them:

Never piss off the Shrine Maiden of Hakurei.

And

Never piss off the Youkai Sage.

And those rules apply to everyone, even the person in the rules themselves.

While the appearance of Yukari irritates Reimu a bit, it does make the maiden concern to see the sorry state that the youkai is in. Even when Ran scolds Yukari for being irresponsible or something, the woman would just wave it away like nothing, although she does take the words in her mind. Now? Basically she looks like a kicked puppy.

After asking the question, Reimu sighs and pushes the dessert plate to the Youkai, who just looks at it then sighs. And that makes Reimu raise her eyebrow in suspicion. Whatever happened to Yukari seems to be a very serious event. She decides to push it and orders: "Yukari, I'm going to kick you out of the shrine if you didn't tell me what's going on. It's a fresh morning, and I don't want to see a moody face this early."

That seems to make Yukari jump a bit, but she hides it by using the tip of her right index finger to pull the plate a bit closer to her. "If you really want to know… I was cursed."

"…Give me another reason to NOT kick you out right now." There's literally no way that the almighty Youkai could get that. "You, getting cursed? This is not April Fool." Yukari says nothing and points towards her mob hat and Reimu looks up to see the mob hat slightly moving up and revealing a mini Shion Yorigami lying under it with a bored face. "…You can't get rid of her?" While it's possible for the Poverty God to place an unfortunate event on a person like Yukari, the Sage Youkai could just warp her away.

"That's…the thing, Reimu." Yukari whines. "Shion is not the culprit this time…" Reimu points directly to the mini god. "No, that's not her. It's just to show how strong this curse is."

"…You're making even LESS sense." Who the hell could actually push the Youkai in that state? Not even Yama or the Celestials could make Yukari feel down like that.

Seeing Yukari poking the dessert while pouting, Reimu scratches her head in annoyance. "Tell me who did this, and I will make the person apologize to you."

"…It's…no need." Surprisingly, Yukari declines her offer. "I'm sure… he would come here and lift the curse… soon…"

"…This is a weird morning… tell me what happened this morning."

…

"That…how?" Of ALL things, Yukari misused her power due to the unlucky curse that caused her mansion to nearly break down in a chain of exploding items? Just what kind of person did she encounter?

"I… wish I knew. But, given by the person… I expected nothing less…" Having returned back to normal, Yukari takes a sip from the teacup Reimu offers.

"…You stay here. Suika!" Standing up, Reimu shouts out to the Oni in the shrine.

"You called~" Climbing towards the edge of the rooftop, Suika pokes her head down.

"Take care of Yukari for me. I'm heading out."

"Okay!" Suika waves her hands and confirms. Nodding, Reimu says her goodbye to Yukari before floating off to one place. The Oni then asks Yukari: "Bad day?"

"You have no idea." Yukari sighs, taking another sip.

"Hm… are you hiding something?" Dropping to the floor, Suika swings her gourd in her arm before asking.

"…Yes."

…

"Um…hello?" Hong Meiling greets the maiden flying towards the mansion she's guarding. Though, she's not expecting her to come at all. "Why are you here, Reimu? Mistress Remilia is not doing anything…yet."

"I'm not here for her." Reimu lands on the ground and explains her reason for arriving. "I'm finding Patchouli."

"…Is the world going to collapse?"

"I know it's weird." Reimu could totally understand why Meiling is caught off guard. "However, she's one of the best mages in Gensokyo, not counting Marisa and Alice. I believe she could be able to track somebody, or at least lift out a curse."

"Well…I can see why you're finding miss Patchouli. So, who's the one getting cursed?"

"Yukari."

… Hong Meiling tries to clear her left ear with her pinkie. "I'm sorry, something must have stuck in my ear. Might saying the name again?"

"Yukari." Reimu says again, firmly confirming that she didn't say it wrong.

"…You're pulling my legs."

"You can go to my shrine and ask the victim herself." Reimu points her thumb towards to where her shrine is.

"…Well, since you're looking for miss Patchouli…" Meiling pushes the gate open. "But, please don't cause the others any problems."

"If they don't attack me first."

…

In the library, Patchouli gives the maiden her utter disbelieving look when Reimu retells the story. "I… How?"

"Beat me. I'm just as clueless as you are." Reimu pinches her nose bridge. "Do you think you can do anything for that?"

"…That's not a very good way to start spring." Closing her book, Patchouli starts floating off her seat. "But, it seems to be a very interesting case. Someone who dared to curse Yukari, succeeded and got out with no concussions? It should be written down in a record book as the best victory of all times."

"It's not something to joke about." While she could agree with the Mage Youkai about the matter, Yukari has taken care of her after the disappearance of her parents while she was still five, and this event is more serious than the previous ones. "So you're coming?"

"Yes. Also, the party is tonight, right? And I do need to go out once a while." She then coughs once. "Damn asthma."

"That's for staying inside for too long."

…

"This…is surely interest…" Placing her finger under her chin, Patchouli observes as her detecting spells are analyzing the curse on Yukari, while Suika and Reimu watch from the kotatsu. "Whoever did this spell is a powerful person…not sure if he's a human or youkai, though. The signals are mixed…"

"…Yukari, speak. Who did this to you?" Reimu crosses her arms, waiting for the answer.

"…It's an Outsider…that I have gapped in here…" Yukari admits.

"…I know this habit of yours…" Reimu deadpans. "But this is the worst case you have done for yourself."

"I know…" Yukari fake-cries.

"Hm…" Patchouli then opens a book that she brings with her when she exits the SDM. "Let's see… how about this…" She starts chanting a spell to try to dispel the curse…

Right in the middle of the spell, Reimu notices the mini-Shino pokes her right arm out of Yukari's mob cap and raises her index finger up, then waves it around in the manner of 'Nuh-uh, you're not doing that', and then pulls it back. Sensing something wrong, Reimu calls out: "Um, Patchouli…"

"Not now, I'm concentrating." After suing the maiden, the mage continues her spell. Deciding to follow her gust, Reimu slowly backs away from the duo while pulling Suika with her…

The moment Patchouli finishes her new spell, all of the previous spells suddenly explode, creating huge smoke in the shrine. At the last possible second Reimu has raised her Cautionary Barrier to protect herself and Suika. When the explosions are gone, Reimu calls out: "Yukari, Patchouli! Are you okay?"

"I'm *cough* fine." Patchouli answers first, as she swings her book around to wave off the smoke. Reimu has also dropped her barrier and pulls out her gohei and swats the smoke away… and she sees Yukari looking fine, if not counting that her dress is completely covered in soot.

And said Youkai is NOT happy as she's having crocodile tears.

"…You deserved that." Reimu states. "But, the person is going too far…"

"A curse with a counter-spell effect… this person sure hates you to the guts…" After recovering, Patchouli warns Yukari, who just nods.

Then, they hear sounds of camera snapping from outside of the shrine, as the group turns to see the Tengu having the object pointing directly at the Youkai Sage. "AYAYAYA! This is going to be the biggest scoop of all time! 'The Youkai Sage got blasted in Hakurei shrine by the Library Mage of SDM'!"

"Stop right there!" The Tengu plans to fly away, but Reimu is one-step ahead as she creates another Cautionary Barrier to stop her in place. Once Aya is stunned, Reimu floats up to her and grabs the Tengu's collar. "While I don't mind you posting that…" She completely ignores Yukari's protesting whines. "I need you to do something in exchange."

"…You? Calling for an exchange?" Aya asks, not expecting the event to happen.

"Do you want me to throw Yin-Yang orbs directly at your face?" The response is a constant headshaking. "Good. I want you to return to Youkai Mountain and bring Sanae here."

"Sanae? I think she's still preparing for…" The Tengu plans to talk about the party everyone's eventually joining in the Hakurei shrine.

"We got a more important thing. Just go get her." Reimu looks directly at Aya's eyes, not waiting for a 'no'.

"…Fine." Aya submits.

"Good." Retracting her hand, the maiden watches the Tengu flying away as she returns back to the shrine…

"Wow, what happened here?" Turning back, she sees Nitori Kawashiro standing behind her with a shock expression.

"…Nice timing." While the maiden of Moriya Shrine is being fetched, it wouldn't hurt to make another test. "Nitori, I remember that you're testing some sorts of curse-expelling machines, right?" Earning a nod, Reimu points to Yukari who's wiping the soot away. "You have the best subject right here."

Nitori looks at the Youkai Sage, then back to Hakurei Maiden a few times before asking: "Are you really sure? I mean, it's still a prototype…"

"Technology has proved to be effective a few times, right?" Patchouli asks while reading her books. "And the curse has a counter-spell effect, so my magic is useless here."

The Kappa blinks at the revelation. "Patchouli's magic…didn't work?"

Reimu sighs. "Just, try your best, okay? Seeing Yukari getting cursed is the last thing I would like to endure, and everyone else for sure."

"O…Okay…" Still in confusion, Nitori walks up to the porch and heads inside, then places her enormous bag down to the floor and starts searching for the machine in the bag.

While the Kappa is doing her work, Reimu starts thinking about Yukari's situation. While it's STILL possible for her to mess up, Yukari could just instantly fix it with her power. Not even the Celestials, the Moon Bunnies or even the ones from Hell could mess with the woman with this kind of tenacity. The curse itself is also a high-level spell that could counter the spells that Patchouli could use against it. And if what Yukari said is true, then its effect is very strong since it's compared with the Poverty God herself. And the person who casted that to the Youkai Sage… just who, or what, is he? Is he human, or a Youkai…

Or something greater? Or worse?

Chapter 1 end!

Yeah, short. Kinda because I'm in the middle of some other reports.

About the characters being a little OOC to you guys, there are reasons that will be shown in the future chapters. Just wait.

I think it's good enough for now. See you all again soon!