Light drizzle sweeps past
In the sky is a gold spot
Heavens lighting up

“Sweeping, sweeping, sweeping while making up a tune…” Today, like any other day, Licorice was doing the only job that the head maid had entrusted her with: sweeping the garden. With a broom made of straw attached to a stick, she made motions right-and-left to rid dust from the stone path of the garden. This was strangely therapeutic. Her brain turned off, and she forgot her worries about the future as she swept on and on.

By noon, Licorice had worked up quite a sweat. It was spring by now, and the sun shone brighter every passing day. She decided that she’d take a break. The head maid practiced the same laxness with Licorice as she had with the incompetent fairy maids: our heroine could do whatever she wanted as long as she wasn’t causing too much trouble. She didn’t know whether to be happy with her flexible schedule or be offended at the fact that Sakuya placed her at the same level as the kid-brained fairies.

Licorice had seen Meiling, when going on a break of her own, requesting tea from Sakuya. She’d have really loved a convenient way to acquire refreshments, but the head maid tended to avoid her like the plague. Our heroine couldn’t locate Sakuya outside of the times she was with the mistress, and even then Sakuya did her best to elegantly avoid addressing Licorice directly.

Without a convenient maid of her own to provide drinks, Licorice had to head to Meiling to acquire anything. She intended to do just that today as well. Our heroine, with broom still in hand, marched toward the gates, staring at the clouds along the way. The sky was clear, except for an errant bird going on its merry way…

Wait… Do birds fly that fast? And straight? Where are its wings? Licorice tried to look further, but this bird was quick… and heading straight toward the poor maid!

“What the… Stoja, stoja-” Crash! Licorice found herself flying, and landing head-first toward the ground. Thankfully the grass cushioned her fall, otherwise this story might have ended here with our heroine’s untimely death by fatal head trauma.

“Bloody hell…” The ‘bird’ seemed pretty hurt by her landing. “…I thought I’d use one o’ those fairy maids to cushion the fall, but…” She rubbed her hurt back. “Guess it ain’t meant to be, sometimes.”

Licorice got up to retort the unexpected guest. She was a young girl, clearly a witch judging from her hat, clad in a black dress and golden hair. “Don’t use people for cushioning, you…” She couldn’t think of a suitable insult at that moment. Her head was aching too much.

“Eh?” The errant tomboy looked surprised at hearing not a little fairy, but a woman. “I thunk that, almost, all the maids were fairies, ya new?” She, upon closer inspection, realized the identity of the new maid. “The blood bag that Reimu mentioned, innit?”

“I’m a human! Hu-man! With a name, you know!” Licorice got up and did her best to dust off the dirt that had gotten on her dress. “I don’t want to be called a blood bag by a blonde bird!” She was rightfully pissed off at being smashed by someone carelessly flying.

“I ain’t a bird, I’m just an ordinary human who uses magic!” This girl seemed to be proud of her self-proclaimed ordinariness. She puffed her chest out as she declared her name. “Marisa Kirisame, the Ordinary Magician!”

Licorice blankly stared in response to Marisa’s declaration. “…Nothing ordinary about being a magician, I’d say.”

“And there’s nothing ordinary about serving as a blood bag, sweet Miss Licorice.” The pair eventually calmed down when they exchanged harmless sass with each other. “So, anywhere got broken? I don’t want that mistress of yours getting all rowdy over me spoiling her drink.”

“I’m fine, mostly.” Licorice then noticed something odd about this ordinary magician. “Wait, why are you here anyways? I’m pretty sure you don’t work here.”

“Ah-” Marisa averted her eyes from Licorice. “You see, I’m just here to… borrow some books, as usual. Remilia is my friend, you see. Yes, we’re very good friends.” She waved her hand as she quickly began running toward the mansion. “I’ll get going now. I have many books I need to borrow, ya see!”

“Ah… Okay…” Licorice intended to let this incident go. She turned around to go back on her merry way of tea, only to find Meiling jumping with lightning-speed toward her general direction. Our heroine dodged at the last moment, she again found herself on the ground while Meiling sped past her and caught up to Marisa.

“Tíng!” Meiling raised her hands up, ready to engage in unleashing ultraviolence. “Stop right there, criminal scum! Nobody breaks the law on my watch!”

“Ah, good mornin’, Miss China. Fine weather, innit?” While casually speaking of the weather, Marisa raised her broom onto her shoulders and swung it like a club. “It’s a beautiful day outside. Birds are singing, cherry blossoms are blooming… On days like these, gatekeepers like you should be buggering off!”

“My name isn’t even… Geez, at least remember my name!” She seemed more offended by her name being forgotten than being told to bugger off. “I’ll be sweeping you off the pavement now, if you don’t mind.”

“And I thought that you’d be polite and piss off when asked. Fine, I won’t hesitate to help your poor maid by doing some of the sweeping myself.” Marisa swung her broom back down, and got on it. “The usual? Let’s go then.” She flew off on her broom, positioning herself above the garden.

“Licorice, please beware of stray bullets.” After giving this frightening warning, Meiling jumped into the sky to follow her opponent.

“Bullets? What are you talking about?!” Licorice screamed, but she couldn’t be heard when Meiling was flying a couple hundred meters above the ground. “Are they going to… No, I didn’t see any of them carry a gun.” Our heroine was quite concerned about a gunfight happening right in (or above) the garden she was currently responsible for sweeping.

“Do not be afraid, young one.” Licorice was startled; she turned around to see the mistress floating down toward her. She carried a parasol to shield herself from the sun. “This is just the morning show we get occasionally. Let us sit back, and relax.” She looked around, to see a lack of anything to snack on other than the maid. “How I wish there to be refreshments.”

Suddenly, Sakuya. “Here you go mistress.” She handed cookies on a silver platter. Her time controlling abilities came most handy in such occasions. The head maid disappeared as quickly as she came; she still had much work to do today.

“Excelent.” Remilia threw a cookie into her mouth, satisfied of the timeliness of the head maid. “Now we’re ready to a decent show of danmaku.”

Licorice had gotten used to hearing unfamiliar terms at this point. “A show of what?” She casually took a cookie for herself, carefully watching the people in the sky. From their body language, she could infer that the two were busy throwing sass at each other. “Is it a contest of sarcasm and sass?”

“No it isn’t. I guess you pitiful mortals of the Outside World don’t engage in danmaku. Let me enlighten you!” It seemed that today, Remilia was in a mood to play her role as an old vampire. “Danmaku is like wrestling but… like, way cooler, basically.” Her air of grandeur broke down when she realized that she didn’t exactly have the words needed to properly describe danmaku. “Just watch, okay? You’ll get it… probably.”

Her situation suddenly reminded her of a play from the Outside World. “…this isn’t like Waiting for Godot, isn’t it? I don’t want to be Waiting for Danmaku.” Danmaku being something absurd and nonsensical was a real possibility, considering her previous experiences if Gensokyo.

The mistress wondered who Godot was, and why anyone would wait for them, but she fell silent as the show of danmaku began between the two contestants.

Out from Meiling came a barrage, consisting of what looked to be bullets made of light. This barrage continued in a geometric pattern, with circular spirals and multicolored orbs, some making their way toward Marisa. She flew on her broom, dodging the bullets expertly, The ordinary magician also fired off bullets of her own, though hers was in a more straightforward pattern that looked more like fire off of a machinegun.

The mistress was calm in viewing this fight. Licorice was less so. “Are- Mistress, they’re going to kill each other!” Bullets flying around didn’t bode well for the health of Meiling or Marisa, or so our heroine thought with her puny human mind.

“Don’t fret.” Remilia added another cookie in her mouth. “Didn’t I say it’s like wrestling? People don’t intend to kill each other while wrestling, danmaku is like that.”

Licorice wasn’t convinced, and she was freaking out. “But- But people don’t shoot each other while wrestling, mistress!”

Remilia shrugged after receiving such a foolish answer. “At most, those bullets would sting a little.” She raised her parasol, arcing it slightly toward the general direction of the fight. “You might want to exercise more caution, though. They might be more effective against ordinary humans.”

“…might?!” Licorice had to content herself with staying near the mistress. She was afraid that she might end up being vaporized by a stray bullet. Being deleted from existence by what seemed to be a simple sport by the residents of Gensokyo didn’t seem too pleasing to our heroine. “I-”

Any words that Licorice might have wanted to say were interrupted by an enormous rainbow-colored beam of light that emanated from Marisa. Meiling dodged this attack, she was too swift to be caught by such an attack easily.

Remilia seemed enamored by this attack. Her full attention was on the sky now. “What a lovely Master Spark from Marisa!” She almost dropped her parasol from the excitement. All of her elegance had been suddenly erased by childish excitement. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen this one! Meiling has managed to make Marisa go all out, it seems.” The mistress seemed pleased with the performance of her gatekeeper.

A couple more beams pierced the sky, all aimed at Meiling. Licorice had to do her best to shield her eyes as to not go blind from all the light around her. The gatekeeper had managed to avoid the flurry of beams coming from Marisa.

Yet, something unexpected happened. Instead of the usual bursts, a continuous beam now occupied the sky. It wasn’t pointed toward Meiling, in fact, it was toward the opposite direction. Licorice, her eyes having gone red from fatigue by now, did her best to look up and see what was happening. Marisa was propelling herself with the beam, and she was heading back-first toward Meiling.

With elegance matching a self-guiding missile, Marisa avoided all attacks coming her way as she accelerated faster and faster toward the gatekeeper. The impact made by the two colliding was meteoric: Meiling was stunned while Marisa continued flying away from her.

After this, the heavens went silent. Meiling had stopped firing, and she came flying back to the ground, Marisa followed suit. It seemed that she had won, judging from her smile. “Another victory for the ordinary magician! Another defeat for China!” She cackled, doing her best to humiliate her defeated opponent.

“Good match, Marisa.” Meiling bowed toward her opponent with the finesse of a martial artist. “That trick at the end was dirty, though.” Indeed, even Licorice couldn’t see how bumping into someone butt-first fit into the spirit of danmaku. Our heroine didn’t get the details, but she at least had come to understood that danmaku was a form of dueling, and a sport. Bashing someone with your bum doesn’t seem like good sportsmanship.

“A-ha-ha! I’m ready to take on the whole bloody world today!” Marisa, satisfied with her victory, now intended to make way for the library of the mansion.

“Hmph. Are you ready to take on me?” Remilia flew in to block her. She felt a desire to have a match with Marisa after having seen her go all out. “O’ listen, ye who art ordinary in thine magic! If you wish to gain access to my acclaimed library, you must defeat me first!”

“No problem with that. Guess I’ll have to defeat everyone in the mansion, again.” She jumped on her broom, and the mistress followed her up toward the sky. Soon, a barrage of bullets filled the sky once again…