Two updates in two days? OMFG, it's a sign, you guys! Mima's coming! Hide your kids and women!

XD that all aside…

This chapter features almost no Sanae (Kochiya) or Kogasa, and I focused more on Mima, Yamame, and also got a bit of Moriya madness in there, which is always good. I also pulled a couple fast ones in this chapter, so remember to expect the unexpected.

"You." The mistress of the Scarlet Devil Mansion didn't look happy in the least with her unexpected visitor. After all, this was Mima. The person who locked Remilia away in her own basement and usurped control of her mansion. The person who turned Sakuya into a blood-crazed monster, even if the head maid was back to normal by now. The person responsible for at least half of the bad press Remilia had been getting in the last couple of months. "Whatever you're doing here, it had better be good. Unless you'd like to formally meet Flandre."

"My, how charismatic." Making herself comfortable on a chair that was built from green sparks - some form of materialization magic no doubt - Mima continued "It is on the very topic of charisma that I wish to speak to you, Lady Scarlet. See, I am in need of residence within any of the fine homes in Gensokyo, and yours was the best choice. It would only be temporary, you understand; eventually I would depart from here and reside with Marisa instead."

"And what do you have to offer me in exchange? To let somebody like you live here, it had better be nice."

"Protection? I could guard your home from all forms of misfortune with just a wave of my hand in the appropriate situations. Or perhaps you want power? I could teach you all the arcane secrets you could possibly wish to know, and even a few that are forbidden knowledge~" It was because of forbidden knowledge that Mima was here now, negotiating with Remilia. "Or perhaps you'd rather I fight you for my pending residence."

"You don't do danmaku fights, I understand. You'd destroy the very place you're trying to live in with your magic."

"Oh my. Did you think I was referring to actual battle? No. I will instead try to defeat the alleged master at her own game. Remilia Scarlet, I hereby challenge you to a battle of charisma! The winner will decide whether or not I am permitted to move into this fine mansion."

"Charisma, eh? You're on! Let the battle of charisma begin!"

Yuka's cottage…

"Come back some time soon," the flower youkai called out to her three departing guests. "And Wriggle, I'll be searching for you next week~"

"Even after that story, the way she says that still creeps me out," Wriggle commented. "I can't do much to hide, though, so maybe I'll just come right over; save her the effort."

"That would be pretty nice to do, but…I dunno," Sanae said. "Just heading over here knowing that you're going to get hurt and humiliated? It sounds a little masochistic to me."

"I-I am not a masochist!"

"Never said you were."

"It's good that Yuka's making friends," Kogasa threw in, changing the topic of conversation completely. "Maybe she can make people love her like they used to now!"

"Um, I'm pretty sure she was bullied, not loved."

"There are some people who show their love specifically by bullying people~" Kogasa's optimism and cheery mood never died, it seemed. "Yuka herself is such a person, you know."

"Yeah, I know." Sanae watched as the firefly youkai's path began breaking off from that of herself and Kogasa, Wriggle's path being bound for Youkai Mountain while the duo was moving in the direction of the Myouren Temple. Three of the GLPC's members were currently living there, and it was only good to check up on at least the two new members. Yoshika, who joined after being fired from her gatekeeper job at the Scarlet Devil Mansion, and Tokiko, who was a youkai widely bullied to this very day. There was also Byakuren, but ever since she was freed from Hokkai, Sanae had never seen her alone. Even when going to and from GLPC meetings, she always had somebody escorting her. It was kind of strange…

Meanwhile, in the house of Sanae Moriya…

"No more," Rumia begged, trying to escape from her crazed captor. "Please, no more!"

"But it's good. Admit that you love it!"

"Please stop!"

"Say it first. Say Master, I love it!"

"Are you crazy?"

"Yeah~"

"Okay, okay!" Rumia had given up this round. When Sanae captured her, it was mostly wandering around and showing off the fact that the crazed doll had captured Rumia in the first place, but now that the two had free time, it was absolute torture! The food tasted great and all, if a little strange, but even Rumia could only eat so much before getting full. Sanae was pushing her beyond that limit. The dish that she served more than enough of was a soup, or at least…Rumia was pretty sure it was a soup. It was hard to tell at this point; the restless and senseless cook had smothered it in soy sauce and syrup. The combination wasn't the tastiest thing in the world, but there were other ingredients in the soup that made it taste better than it should have. "I-I love it…"

"Yes? You love it…what's my name?"

"…I can't say it!"

"Chow down~" It was apparently time to give Rumia some more of Sanae's soy-sauce-syrup-surprise-soup. "It's just four words, Ru~mi~a~"

"But if I say it, I'm practically surrendering all my free will!"

"I know~" That was kind of what Sanae was aiming for. She had captured a cute youkai pet, and now she just had to break down, in this order, Rumia's will, her pride, and her independence. First in the line was her will, which Sanae was in the process of crushing now…

Meanwhile, back at the Scarlet Devil Mansion…

"I surrender!" Remilia's charisma was a point of fame across Gensokyo, but now that she was having a charisma fight against Mima, she could see that hers was about equal to a yukkuri's charisma when put up against the charming dominator that was Mima. "Your charisma is greater than mine!"

"Excellent. I'll be making myself at home, then…oh!"

"Hm?"

"I have something for you." Mima fished into her clothes, and pulled out a green bag. The bag was enchanted by the great green witch herself, and it never ran out of space no matter how much she put inside, and it never gained a single ounce of weight. Perfect for carrying an absurd amount of things. Digging into the bag, Mima started explaining "As I was approaching your house, I passed by this shop that sold things from the outside world. I asked what the shopkeeper had in relation to vampires, and he gave me this book." When Mima's hand emerged from the bag, she held the book mentioned. It was absurdly thick, more than probably any other vampire book, both in Gensokyo and the outside world from which it came. "I also happened to like the name of it. Feel free to skim its contents and tell me what you think." Mima hadn't started reading it. She had no intentions to; the shopkeeper told her that he'd read it through once, and it wasn't all that great.

"Let's see here…" Remilia flipped through the pages, skimming over the words to see if she really wanted to read it or not. As she did, her eyes widened and her pace slowed in an increasing amount of shock and disgust. "What is this? Sparkly vampires? Vegetarians?"

"Even I can tell that's no good…"

"Rubbish!" With every ounce of vampiric strength Remilia had, she turned around and threw the book as hard as she could. "My ancestor Vlad Tepes would be turning in his grave if he saw this!" Just before the book collided with and broke through one of the few windows in the mansion, however, it stopped instantly, in the hands of the mansion's perfect and elegant maid. Now that Remilia was a little cooled down, she realized it was better that way. It would be a waste to break a window just to get rid of a book. A window was too good a fate for that book…

"Mistress, would you kindly explain to me what you're doing?"

"Sakuya, I want you to deliver that book to Flandre. It's a vampire novel, though whoever wrote it twisted our grand image, and I would like to see what she does with it."

"Very well." As she will to get from A to B quickly, Sakuya froze time, making her way toward the basement. Even in frozen time, it would be quite a walk, so to help it go by a little faster, Sakuya flipped open the book and started reading through its contents.

Meanwhile, somewhere else in za warudo…

"I'm not sure, Kisume." Speaking to the bucket-loli was one Yamame Kurodani, hanging as she will from a web, upside-down and swinging gently from one side to the other. The topic of conversation? Potential members for the GLPC. "I don't think Parsee really qualifies. She's got that Yuugi girl, and she chooses not to hang around other people. Besides, she's kind of a bitch."

"Really, now?"

"Yeah. She's always jealous, even if it's something stupid, and then she's always mad at whoever she's jealous of. That said, she's always mad at everybody but Yuugi."

"Hey, how come you're a member anyway?"

"Because people don't like hanging out with an earth spider that spreads diseases. Can't say I blame them. There's this doll in the GLPC who spreads poisons, and I wouldn't wanna get poisoned on accident. I guess that's how people think when they don't want to be around me."

"But if you fixed that, you wouldn't be a member anymore, right?"

"Yeah. What're you getting at?" What was Kisume getting at? The secondary goal of the GLPC was to insert its members into Gensokyo (or Former Hell) society so that they wouldn't be lonely again, though Yamame hadn't drawn up any conclusions as to what she could do to get a disease-spreading spider like herself into Gensokyo's society. Not to mention that Underworld youkai were despised and detested by those above.

"Get a job! I'm sure if you had a job, you'd fit right in up above in no time! Or even down in Former Hell, you know? Just something."

"A job, huh? And who do you think will hire a disease-spreading spider?"

"The clinic up in Gensokyo. I hear that the doctor who runs the place can make any kind of medicine or poison, so maybe she can make you some kind of power-canceling medicine to stop you from spreading diseases on accident. Or, you could also help her in perfecting her medicines by giving another employee there a disease that she might not have heard of. Remember, in this world, you've got a few different families of diseases." There were human sicknesses, youkai sicknesses, viruses exclusive to Former Hell (none of which were pleasant in the least) and probably a few other kinds of sicknesses Kisume didn't even know of! Yamame if anybody would know, the world was crawling with diseases when one took it to a global scale.

"A job in a clinic? Seems pretty ironic for me, but…I don't want to go up there alone."

"Take me with you then," Kisume proposed. "That way, you know your best friend is right there with you!"

Sorry, Stephanie Meyer, but that's just what you get. M-hm. Vamps = not sparkly.

I bet lots of you (coughcoughAzureXuchilbaracou gh) were enjoying the Sanae/Rumia scene until I pulled another food-based trick out of my sleeve. It's funny once the soup gets mentioned, though I wouldn't want to eat that. Soy sauce and syrup sounds like a bad combination…

On the other hand, people say grilled cheese sandwiches and syrup sounds like a bad combination, but that's one of my favorite things in the world.

Oh, a final note about Yamame. I wasn't sure if her power was "ability to the extent of spreading disease" or "…manipulating disease" so I went with spreading disease since it seemed more like an Underworld power and it meant I could finish this chapter. So that's good, yeah?