That day was odd in and of itself.

Of course, one's day will always turn out to deviate from normal when you wake up with a cheery witch holding a butcher knife over your head.

"Hi, Mokou!" said Marisa Kirisame. "Good morning."

I blinked, still half asleep. "Get outta my house."

Marisa pursed her lips. "You know, I left the Forest of Magic three days ago and just ended up here around midnight. So I got lost in this bamboo forest, and then I had to break open the lock to your house and sleep in your kitchen pantry all night! Don't I deserve some kind of award or condolences for my troubles?"

I sat up. I blinked again. She had her arms crossed, and still had the knife in hand.

"No. All you've done is add 'get new lock' to my to-do list. Now get out of my house, Marisa."

Marisa twirled her knife. "Hmmm. But then I'll have done all of this for nothing! If you don't want to help me, then I'll take the help for myself."

I scowled, and threw off the covers. "What exactly do you want from me? For that matter, why didn't you just ask Keine for directions here, and subsequently wait until I got up on my own?"

Marisa considered this for a moment, as I groped around for my hair ribbons. It was still early in the morning; the sun was just barely coming out, and the only light in the room was a pinkish haze.

"Oh please. That isn't how I do things," Marisa said, tapping the handle of the knife on her arm.

I stood up to face her. "Alright. Fine. You're insane and can't be bothered to make logical decisions. What in god's name do you want from me?"

Marisa smiled widely. "Your liver."

"...pardon?"

"Your liver!" She spread her arms wide. "It has trace amounts of the Hourai in it, right?"

"Marisa," I said, reaching for the knife, "you are not going to eat my liver. Now give me that knife and get out of my house."

She ducked out of the way, however, and frowned. "I thought about it, you know. If it means immortality I shouldn't give a rat's ass about how someone's liver tastes."

"I don't care about your insane thinking process!" I shrieked. "Get out of my house, right now!"

"Oh, why do you care?" she asked simply, approaching me. "You'll just regenerate."

"That doesn't account for the pain of your liver being ripped out with a knife," I said, sweating a little bit and inching towards the door.

"But Kaguya has done worse things to you, right?" she inquired, still advancing.

"It still hurts, thanks," I said, grabbing the door knob and flinging the door open. "Please leave. Now."

She shook her head. "I am getting what I came for!" she proclaimed, smirking.

"No. No, you are not!"

"C-mon, Mokou!" she said, lunging forward. "Help a witch out!"

At that point, I just darted off into the forest without any specific location in mind.

"Mokou, it'll be awesome! C'mon, you'll have someone other than Kaguya to keep you company for all of eternity!"

I climbed up behind a few particularly thick shoots, and called out in the direction opposite of me, "It's not as fun as you seem to think it would be!"

"Oh, why is that?" I still heard the pitter-patter of her shoes against the ground.

"It gets t-tiring. You spend a couple of decades thinking of creative ways to kill yourself...! And it's not cool seeing all of your friends die before your eyes—"

"Oh, that's not a problem. And I'll just slip it to Reimu and Alice and Patchy. And then all of us can be best buddies for all of time ever!"

That basically continued on for the next hour and a half.

I started getting exhausted at that point. I'd thrown god knows how many flame-balls at her and only succeeded in burning down a significant portion of the forest.

"Mokou!" she called. I saw her on her broomstick, a few meters away. "Mokou, you're going to get tired eventually."

Well, she was right. I decided to take a lucky chance, and fished in my pocket for a piece of spellcard paper.

"Marisa!" I yelled. She dived right for me. Perfect.

"So you're finally gonna let me—"

"Hourai Doll!"

That was, by far, the most amusing use I have ever gotten out of a spellcard. It hit her smack in the face, and sent her tumbling off of her broom in a straight path.

She flopped on her back on the ground, and muttered a very soft 'ow.'

I took the chance I would not get again, and restrained her with my foot.

"Why don't you just go barge into Eientei and eat Kaguya's liver?" I snapped, grabbing the knife, which was still firmly in her grip. "I'm positive she's a masochist of some sort, so—"

As soon as I released my foot from her chest, she sprung to her feet. "That's where I went first!" she said, scoffing. "Much easier to do than wander a forest until I found your house, and I thought I could nab some stuff while I was there."

I narrowed my eyes. "What happened?"

Marisa put her hands on her hips. "It was really weird. The whole outdoor courtyard was deserted. And when I went inside..." she stopped and bit one of her nails.

"And when you went inside?" I urged her.

"One of those little bunny fairies was on the floor, bleeding and dying. And I heard these weird noises coming from one of the side halls." Her voice dropped into a whisper. "I've gone into the Hell of Blazing Fires, and into the basement of a psychopathic little girl who likes to explode things for giggles. I've been in the demon realm many times. And I live next to a girl obsessed with making a sentient doll. But this," she shuffled close to me and finished, "this creeped me out."

I frowned. That didn't seem right. One of the bunny fairies was dead? Fairies revive when they're badly injured. Instantly. And when their lifespans run out, they dissolve into the atmosphere.

"I know I usually lie my head off, but I swear to the gods that's what I saw and heard."

For that matter, why was the courtyard empty? Kaguya had at least four-hundred of those annoying little rabbits and assorted other fairies frolicking all over the place. It was populated even at nighttime.

I stuck Marisa's knife inside of my pocket. "Okay, ignoring the fact that you said you spent three days wandering the forest, I'm going to go see what's going on."

"But don't you hate Kaguya?"

I sighed. "Yes. But I don't hate her entire household. If what you say is true, something very wrong is happening over there."

I parted a thicket of bamboo and flew off.

"Hey!" I heard Marisa call. "Hey, Mokou! Wait! I'm coming with!"

A few seconds later she appeared next to me, riding on her broomstick.

"I thought you were too afraid to go investigate."

"I didn't say that," she said, a bit angry. "I just said the situation unnerved me. And besides, I won't be alone now."

I sighed again. "Fine, fine. Just stay away from my organs."

She pouted, but said no more.

Well, she was right. The courtyard was completely deserted.

The sun was fully out by then. Not at midday sun, but I could tell it was late enough for everyone in Eientei to be up already.

I'd gone there before in the morning. Tewi was running around, Reisen was sweeping the halls and starting breakfast, Eirin was doing light paperwork in preparation for any customers she might get that day—

But there was nothing either of us could see. Marisa and I touched down in the courtyard and looked around.

"See?" she said. "Bone dry. Can't sense anyone's presence either."

I was heading over to the patio that lead out into the courtyard when Marisa called out.

"Hey! Look! I found something!"

She came running up with something in between her fingers. "Is this from one of the rabbits?"

I have to admit, when I saw what she brought up to me, I was frightened.

It was a piece of red and white material, and fashioned onto it was a single black button. The thing was utterly blood-splattered.

It was a piece of Reisen's ear.

"Oh..." I clamped a hand over my mouth. "You realize what that is, don't you? You just..."

Marisa gulped, and stuffed the thing into her pocket. "We should go look for them."

For a while, all we did was run through the trunk hallways, ripping open doors and checking for the mansion's inhabitants. But the halls were as barren as the courtyard.

"Listen," Marisa whispered. "Do you hear that?"

I didn't. Not at first, anyways. But as we crept closer to one of the hallways that lead up to Eirin's fake moon, I began to hear an incessant chit-chit-chit.

It was as though a gaggle of fairies were all speaking over each other, and their individual words were rendered as gibberish by the meshing of sounds.

All of a sudden, it got deafeningly loud. At that moment, all that I could hear was that damned noise.

"What the fucking hell!" I screeched, clapping my hands over my ears.

From behind us, a sliding door clacked open.

"Both of you, shut up!" someone whispered desperately.

I felt an arm snake around my neck and pull me backwards.

"Honestly, Mokou. I thought you'd at least have the common sense to stay quiet in a situation like this! Dumb hobo."

That voice—

Marisa giggled, and the owner of the voice turned its attention to her. "You're no better, stupid witch."

Kaguya zipped in between us and quickly shut the sliding door.

I rose to my feet and looked at her sharply. "What might the situation be, then? Because oh, we forgot to mention, we found a piece of Reisen's bloody ear in the fucking courtyard!"

She didn't seem surprised. "Frankly, I wish I knew what the situation was myself. All I know is that something is wrong with all of the fairies, and we got split up when one of them attacked Tewi. They're being violent. Unspeakably violent."

"Violent?" I asked with skepticism.

Kaguya threw her arms up in the air helplessly. "That's the best word I can give you. Out of nowhere, I just heard screams from the courtyard, and a bunch of them were swarming on Reisen and Tewi." She motioned to the piece of ear Marisa was holding. "One of them took a huge bite out of her ear, and I just told her to grab Tewi and run."

"And you haven't seen them since?" Marisa asked.

Kaguya shook her head. "And I haven't seen Eirin since before we went to bed last night." She thought for a moment, and then looked at us. "Digressing from the subject at hand, why are you two here anyway?"

"I came here earlier," Marisa said. "Whole place spooked me like woah. So I went to her house and-"

"-tried to rip out my liver and eat it."

Marisa just crossed her arms. "I ended up telling her about what I saw here and she got worried."

A smug look crept onto Kaguya's face. "Ohohoho. Is that the truth, Mokotan?" She poked her nose against mine. "Were you really worried about me?"

I grabbed a handful of her hair and yanked her back by it. "I wasn't worried about you, you stupid fucking NEET."

"Oi!" Marisa said, interrupting what would have inevitably turned into another fight. "I know you guys hate each other's guts. But I don't."

Kaguya dug her nails into my hand and I released my grip on her hair. She batted a hand in Marisa's direction, looking at her with disdain. "My liver is fine where it's at, thanks.

"But to the matter at hand," she continued, "we need to get out of here. Eirin's a big girl, so wherever she is, she can handle a bunch of fairies. And I know Reisen and Tewi are out of the mansion by now."

"So it's prolly only us here now, right?" Marisa asked.

Kaguya nodded. "We shou-"

She froze as that sound began again. It was right outside the door.

Cheet-cheet-cheet...

"This is your fault!" she hissed quietly, jamming a finger in my face. "If you hadn't barged in here, yelling like a crazed monkey-"

Cheet-cheet-cheet...

I took her finger and bent it backwards.

Kaguya opened her mouth as if she scream, but nothing came out. She merely sank to the floor and cradled her finger. "You damn bitch," she muttered.

Cheet-cheet-cheet...

"Well, think before you-"

CHEET-CHEET-CHEET-CHEET...CHEET-CHEET-CHEET-CHEET.

"Uh, hey. Guys?" Marisa interrupted. "Think we gotta problem here."

She was leaning against the sliding door, desperately trying to hold it closed.

"Whatever's wrong with these fairies, I dunno, but I think they know we're in here. So it might be best to run, like, right now."