Candle Flame (Touhou X Male Reader)

13. Bamboo Forest of the Lost

After my encounter with Yukari yesterday, many red flags were raised in regards to her. She wasn't an average youkai you'd see anywhere in Gensokyo for many reason which left a looming question over my head being why she was so fixated on me. There were many questions that I ended up not asking simply because I knew that at best she'd give me a vague answer that would only complicate things more and who knows if Yuyuko was told to keep silent about her so if I want any straight answers now, the best person I could ask would have to be Reimu since she seems to know Yukari well and she was the only person I could rely on now.

Making my way up the hill stairs, I was hoping that Reimu would be home and there was a good chance that she was since it has been raining heavily ever since this morning and for a good couple of hours before stopping 20 minutes ago so the odds of her being home were in my favour.

Upon reaching the top of the hill I was standing in front of the shrine grounds facing directly at the shrine itself. As I took one step forward, the shrine door slid open with Marisa emerging from the shrine before sliding the door shut being her.

"Talk about being irresponsible." Marisa muttered before placing a sign at the door which read

"Warning: Do not enter, please come back another time."

"Hehe that should do it, ze." Marisa grinned as she spun around to face me standing at the entrance to the shrine grounds which caught her off guard for a moment but she quickly snapped out of her sudden shock.

Marisa:"Yo Y/N! Came to visit Reimu?"

Y/N:"Yeah so Is she home?"

Marisa:"Well yeah but I wouldn't advise going inside, ze."

Y/N:"Did something happened?"

Marisa:"Reimu got the great idea to eat something old since she forgot to go shopping and was trapped inside thanks to the rain. Now I gotta drop by Eientei to grab her some medicine so we'll have to chat another time, catch ya later!"

Hearing all that made me feel sorry for Reimu and I wanted to help but Marisa seems to have everything under control so it would be best that I just head back home and let Reimu rest until she feels better. Right as Marisa was going to get on her broom and fly off, a massive explosion could be seen making itself known far off in the distance where the human village was which caught Marisa's attention instantly.

Marisa:"Guess I spoke too soon, guess there's gonna be a change in plans, ze."

Y/N:"So your not gonna go get the medicine?"

Marisa:"Well someone's gotta nip that disaster in the bud in case it turns into a full blown incident so how about ya help out a lil!"

Y/N:"Huh? Me?"

Marisa nodded as she reached into her back pocket and took out what seemed to be a folded up map before throwing it off to me.

"This should bring ya to Eientei, I never really used it but I keep it around just in case, cya!" With that said, Marisa blasted off towards the direction of the explosion as soon as I caugh the folded paper, leaving me with the task to pick up Reimu's medicine and deliver it back.

Unfolding the map, I was expecting to seem a detailed depiction of what you'd usually see in a map but instead what I ended up with was a hand written guide to reaching Eientei which made this map feel more like a set of instructions than a map thanks to the extremely vague drawing of Eientei's location in Gensokyo at the corner of the paper and the incredible amount of writing all over the map, guess this won't be as easy as I expected it to be.

"Alright let's see here..."I said as I started reading through the paper and after a few head scratching minutes of confusion later I got a rough idea of where Eientei was located on the map by connecting the drawing of Eientei's location to some of the instructions of the map that would guide me from where I was right now and to it's location so I better get a move on now that I wasted enough time scanning through the map.