//I've been enjoying the quest thus far, good job. Thank god Tom was keen enough to shoot down the spirit or else we'd probably be dead
> Have we ever gone to the Netherworld?
> What do we know of the mistress of Hakugyokurou?
>No, you never have entered the Netherworld. Mostly because you have never needed to.
>Yuyuko Saigyouji... She's strange. She was one of the people who came to Heaven and met you during the Scarlet Weather Incidenet. But unlike everyone else, she
didn't want the Incident to stop. She was apparently so enamoured with the beauty of the unseasonal Summer Snow that she didn't want it to stop. That was probably one of the first times you fully instigated a battle beyond starting the Incident. You know that she, similar to you, caused unseasonal Snow, but when you asked her how she did so she essentially said that her willpower to bloom the Saigyou Ayakashi made it so. Which... Isn't a bad mindest in all honesty, that's partially how you change the weather. Her nature as a Spirit makes it easier for her to enter Bhavaagra and she was apparently the
very first to figure out that you was responsible for the Incident, or at least, that a Celestial was involved. That alone makes her smarter and more clever than she looks and presents herself, as a carefree Spirit both figuratively and literally.
// Who or What were you inspired and regarding the original and canon-aligned the "Shinigami Reapers Trio" Lav?//
// Arecn you hinting Tenshi, with all so Shion and Shinmyoumaru, could be again coming across them much lter in this I.D.O.(Tenshi. Quest), is that true//
// Your "#Good job on shooting down that spirit before it left. As Ichiko implied, if that spirit left then it would have called in Suiki and she would have drowned you in a high-pressure cylinder of endless water." means it would have been An Unavoiadable Bad End?
Or is it meant, which is a Better Story-Choice Progression, as a "Not-Avoided Difficult Challenge to be Well-Prepared, Coordinated, Go Through for or else Bad End?" //
//"#But despite what it may look like, Shion and Shinmyoumaru have selfish reasons for joining you on this journey. "
Oh-oh. First they were suspicious but still just suspects, but now with this Parser's/QM's confirmation we better be more perceptively prudent and balancedly relying about our duo-team of friends-allies...//
"Response to Branneg Xy":
#The Shinigami Trio were made up whole cloth from the idea of The Ministry of Right and Wrong having different roles for different Shinigami, such as the Shinigami who calculate lifespans who are said to exist in Perfect Memento in Strict Sense, pg. 103-109. Komachi would not be coming after you because she's a Ferryman, but we have no official Reapers in any material, Mainline, Spin-off, Literature, or otherwise. The Shinigami were named after Flowers (Amaryllis), Concepts associated with (Buddhist) Hell (Lavana) or regular names with deeper meaings (Ichiko). Lavana in particular, as Tom has figured out, is a Mirror of Tenshi on the Shinigami side with some issues unresolved.
#You probably are going to see them again later due to the aforementioned lack of Reapers in Touhou proper. I have the (unfortunate) habit of needing to create Original Characters to fill in gaps that Touhou itself doesn't. For example, In Minor Existence Quest, I had to create Black Apple, Worm in Red, Hanako Sakura, Ame, and Kawa from already existing concepts that weren't fully explored in Touhou Lore itself. I want to keep that part under control unless I explicitly get feedback that it's okay.
#Suiki would not have been an instant Bad End, putting one of those in the Prologue of all places would be bad form. She would have been incredibly difficult and frustrating to escape from, but entirely possible. The "Taoist Hermit" that escaped her before was Seiga Kaku in Wild and Horned Hermit, Chapter 12. Sure, Seiga has an ability made for escaping closed spaces, but if she can do it then you can too.
> Answer to Shinmyoumaru, but also turn to look at Shion, we know the Border of Life and Death is still weakened by Yukari Yakumo and. not fixed by her or others, which means...
> ... the Gate to the Netherworld is weakened too and ready to be tested for safe passage...
>... which could be by simply flying over, and do make an attempt at that...
> Like has been already suggested try flying over or around. // Imagining it as a fence gate minus the surrounding fence!
>...There's no way. Even if the Barrier of Life and Death was weakened there's no way that the Gap Hag or The Hakugyokurou Mistress would leave such a massive security fault in it.
>At least, that's what you thought.
> You fly over the Gate out of curiousity and have absolutely no difficulties doing so. Shion quickly follows after realising that you can
just fly over.>Shinmyoumaru looks back at the other side of the very unobstructing massive gate.
"I have so many questions and I feel like none of them have adequate answers.">Shion looks at her hands as if pondering the nature of them. "Are we dead now? How does that even work in my case?"
>She then perks up in shock and digs through the bag full of peaches she brought.
"Huh, the peaches aren't dead or decaying.">It would be a mystery, but you know why.
>This atmosphere is very familiar, you are not Iku but you can feel it. The Netherworld is a
Pure Land, just like Heaven and supposedly The Moon. This is why the Peaches haven't rotted, they were made for this kind of place.
>For a land of the dead, The Netherworld is surprisingly picturesque. The flowers and trees seem to be in eternal blossom and bloom, any buildings you see are pristine, and anything that seems old appears to be that way for purely aesthetic reasons and fits in perfectly with the surroundings.
>You see a mansion off in the distance, and a very large set of stairs going upwards for a nearly impossible to track height.
>You also see a lot of Phantoms, but it's the Netherworld so that was entirely expected.
>_?