(Touhou x GKE Universe) The Unsung War

Leaving the Forest of Magic

Bang! A shot rang out in the darkness. Following that was the loud shatter of a ceramic pot. Little pieces of the orange clay were strewn all over the floor and a small hole resided in the wooden wall behind it.

"A bit high strung aren't you?" Marisa said, not lifting her head from her cup of morning tea. "What did that pot ever do to you ze?"

Skye sat straight up on the floor, smoke seeping out of the barrel of his pistol. He dropped the gun and sighed. His body was shaking and he had sweat drawing lines down his face. He shook his head and sighed again.

"Sorry..." He mumbled. "I sensed something moving there."

Out of the fragments, scurried out a beetle. It ran in zigzags before it dissapeared out of sight.

Marisa shook her head and inquired.

"Bad dream eh?"

Skye shook his head.

"Ah, I know a bad dream when I see it." Marisa said, nodding her head. "What happened?"

Skye remained silent. He placed his left hand on the side of his helmet. He shook his head again.

"Well?" Marisa pressed. She pointed out of the window. "While it may be early, we or at least I don't have all day."

It was still pitch black outside. Either it was really, really early, or the canopy of the trees in the forest simply obscured that much sunlight. A single candle was burning on the table, dimly lighting the room.

Skye nodded his head slowly. He spoke quietly.

"Headache... Give me a moment..."

Marisa waited. Outside the house, little yellow luminescent particles made themselves present, dancing around the trees like pixies.

"Bad things happened." Skye suddenly began. "You really don't want to know."

"Really?" Marisa replied with her eyebrow raised. "Could you like... elaborate or something ze?"

"OK... So, there was this giant black malicious thing. I can't really remember exactly what. It had... My commander in its grasp and was using both him and the red-white as human shields..."

"Reimu?"

"Yeah, I think that's what her name was. Sorry, not good with the names. Right, she wasn't injured but I and my commander was. Miyu, I wasn't sure. She was not there. But situation was that..." Skye paused for a moment. "What would you have done?"

"Me?" Marisa asked, pointing to herself.

"Yeah. What would you have done? The thing was shielding it's core unit with my commander and it's reactor with Reimu. What would you do?"

"Woah, woah ze! Calm down son. I'm thinkin'."

"Sorry." Skye apologized.

Marisa put her hands on her chin, deep in thought. Finally, she replied.

"I dunno. Doesn't seem solvable to me. What did you do then?"

"I think the answer is pretty obvious." Skye said with a monotone.

"Huh?"

"I shot through both your friend and mine. I dare say if that really happened, nobody was going to survive that."

"I... See." Marisa said, apparently lost for words. "Why?" she asked.

"Because that was the only thing one could conceivably do in that situation... Look, that's all I know OK?"