Chapter 29 - A New Dawn

A New Dawn
It's finally over.

I'd been awake all night, ever since the Hakurei Barrier went down. Just drinking and drinking and drinking. I got news that Gensokyo was abolished and that the administration was going to be 'justly punished'. Well, to hear that from Ganondorf wasn't exactly the most comfortable of things to hear. I just drank more until morning. Then there was a knock on my front door.

The first thing I said was, "I have a doorbell."

Imagine my surprise to see Reimu and Marisa on my doorstep. They came to apologise for what had since Doomsday. To be honest, I don't remember much of what they said, I should probably have laid off the drink. But deep inside, I was glad to see they were alright. I do distinctly remember one of Marisa's eyes to be glowing green and I do remember asking about it, though I think I fazed out during her explanation. They mentioned that they had to go to meeting and they'd meet up with me with everyone else in the near future. I wonder if I have enough money to buy them all Christmas presents.

I'm definitely happy that the three kingdoms are now working together. There's already rumours that the three empresses orchestrated all the events that went on this past day to make them look innocent and try to place all the blame on Ganondorf and Doom. But I'm sure that's not true. I'm sure they wouldn't do something like that.

As far as I'm aware, the three kingdoms are continuing the restoration projects that Doom and Magneto started. I admit, the fact that the villains started the restoration does put a dampener on their efforts. Noticeably, the three kingdoms have not re-established their territory. Something most people hadn't noticed was that the Hakurei Barrier and the Sonic Barrier prevented so many natural disasters like earthquakes. With the deactivation of the Sonic Barrier, the world began to destabilise again with widespread hurricanes, flooding and the restarting movement of tectonic plates. Apparently, Yamaha had been undergoing global warming, which didn't mix well with North High's much cooler climate. Despite this, there were absolutely no casualties. I do recall Ganondorf reporting that Haruhi had 'been dealt with' but surely this was something only a god could do. Maybe Haruhi did plan this all along. If she did, who cares? No one died and that's what counts. Or maybe, there was another god like her out there, watching us from the shadows. Maybe I should read up on the Haruhi novels, to see what sort of person she was like and whether she could ever have evil intentions.

But all in all, I'm happy my creations are well. I love my creations. I could never ever disown them.

It's time to celebrate. Hmm... I'll go get more sake.

Jun'ya Ota aka ZUN, re-established member of Team Shanghai Alice and creator of Touhou, 22nd December 2013, one year and one day on.

[Diary entry translated from drunken gibberish.]

-

Barely an hour since Haruhi's return, a meeting was being held in the Scarlet Devil Mansion, still unmoved from the Ivory Coast. The sun was only just rising, the moon once again in the sky.

"... Where's Naluri?" asked Miku, at one end of the long but narrow dining table. On Black's request, she was wearing black boots. There were eleven people sat at the table, the three empresses sat on one end, Remilia sat at the other end, noticeably in a every elegant and fancy chair, with the Anti-Nine sat on both sides of the table with the exception of Cirno and Naluri. Cirno was sitting on the floor by Ritsu, Konata and Flandre, the four of them franticly absorbed in the video game they were playing, in front of the modestly sized and seemingly out of place television. Sasaki was no longer in her Liquid Barrier, her collar gone for good. Sakuya was going round the table serving tea.

To Miku's left, round the table's corner was Haruhi, "She's... tired..." she sighed, "Or so she says." Everyone in the room was fully awake, thanks to Haruhi, to allow for the meeting. Naturally, she was unable to re-energise Naluri but many people present suspected that it was only an excuse anyway. Seeing her future self die in front of her was definitely not a pleasant experience. "She went back to District 9. She won't be coming... I'll go to talk with her personally afterwards." She stood up, looking at the Anti-Nine. "I would like to thank you, personally and on behalf of North High, for what you have done for us." She bowed to the group. "I would also like to apologise to Solace for using you like a tool."

Solace had nothing to say. Her opinion of Haruhi had naturally declined over the past day and Haruhi was fully aware of it. "Umm... It's okay, I guess."

Miku followed suit, "Thank you all, personally and on behalf of Yamaha. Ilse, I apologise deeply for my treatment of you and all dolls."

Ilse frowned, "I won't lie. I have no love for Yamaha. I want to see you repair all relations, not just with dolls but with everyone you mistreated. Then we will be on better terms, yes?"

Miku gave an immediate nod, still bowing, "Also, Sora and Lynette, I am sorry for selfishly using the both of you."

Black stepped forward from behind the two of them, "I would like also say so-"

"Black!" protested Miku, "It was not your choice. My apologises also go to you, the Black Squad, the Strike Witches and the crew of the Akagi."

After a pause, Black took Naluri's seat between Sora and Santiago at the table, "I'll... pass on the message to the others."

"To be honest," began Sora, "Yamaha's actions have portrayed our kind very wrongly. Miku, you are essentially our top representative. I would like to see you act like one."

"I second Ilse's notion," added Lynette, "Even natives suffered heavily in Yamaha."

Reimu, to Miku's right, also stood up. Even though Reimu was fully awake, she did look rather rattled. "Thank you, personally and on behalf of Gensokyo. Alice, I sincerely apologise for the pain and suffering I put you through." Her voice was shaking. "... That I put everyone through..." She suddenly broke down, crying loudly, covering her face with her hands. "I'm so ashamed of what I've done. Everything I've done," she sobbed, "I'm so sorry!" Reimu was not in a stable mental state after having her memory restored as it reminded her of everything that had occurred the past year, essentially forcing her to relive her life.

"Erm..." started Alice, genuinely concerned about Reimu, "As long as you've learnt from your experiences, I am satisfied." Santiago, seeing how fragile Reimu was at the moment and recalling Marisa's explanation back on the HMS Thunder Child, made no comment.

"In Reimu's defence," began Marisa, "She did cut your sentence down from ten years to one." Marisa was sat on a wooden chair on one side of the room's double doors entrance behind the three empresses. She had her legs and arms crossed and her head leaning back against the wall. Everyone not playing video games turned to her. Despite her eyes being closed, a faint green glow could be seen under her left eyelid. "Reimu had been having all sorts of regrets ever since Doomsday ended."

"That doesn't make what I did right," argued Reimu, Marisa opening her normal right eye.

Marisa opened her left eye, the green shining strongly. She pointed to it, "This, is my wish. I want to remind everyone, particularly you, Reimu and Miku, to stick to your word. The Meltdown Directive and The Fission Strategy went much too far." The room fell into a sombre silence as Marisa closed her eyes again.

Cirno turned around, "Does that mean you're not going to steal anymore?" she asked innocently. Marisa's eyes twitched but she did not reply, most likely trying to fake sleep. The three empresses sat down, Reimu wiping her face with a towel supplied by Sakuya.

"I'll like to spend this time to settle some of your concerns," continued Haruhi, "Some of you have worries about friends and family. Ilse, all your friends are doing well and have met up. They haven't yet decided where they're going to live permanently but I can easily have you reunited."

Ilse nodded with approval. She realised that settling somewhere had not crossed her mind over the past year. "That is fine with me."

"Alice, Solace, including yourselves, only seventy eight residents of Arcania City were brought in by Doomsday."

"Seventy eight?!" repeated Solace with shock, "Out of thousands? How could they have managed?"

"In short, they couldn't. They all had to move to the neighbouring Barton City. Arcania has been abandoned for a considerable time. Sasaki and I can help with its restoration."

"... Is there anyone who didn't make it through Doomsday that we should know about?" asked Alice, reluctantly.

"... From your canon, only Arcania residents were brought over." This immediately ruled out the entire family of Solace, who was not a native Arcanian, as well as Alice's mother. While Alice was unnerved by the news, Solace just ran a hand through her hair in inconclusive thought.

"... And Carnis Fells?"

"Ælious' wife in his canon?" Haruhi scratched her cheek awkwardly, Alice realising the answer before it was said, "The Carnis that Doomsday brought in is of your canon. Ælious wife did not make it through. Only two other's share Ælious' canon, KC and Chamber." Solace blinked. Chamber was essentially a cyborg, a human mind with a machine body. He, at least in her canon, was her best friend. Who knew what this new Chamber was like. "I will escort you to Arcania after this." Haruhi turned to Sora, "And finally, Sora." Glancing over at Reimu, she continued, "I think the question you have in mind would be important for people to hear."

Sora paused, puzzled at the odd request, "Erm... Okay. Reimu, I was wondering how you deal with containment of dangerous individuals? Like Yamaha has the Arctic."

"The Gensokyo Administration doesn't manage with containment," answered Reimu, "We have to resort to third parties to contain them as we do not understand the technology to do so. There... is one exception. Area 51 was originally used as temporary containment... until..." she gulped, "Our first meeting with the infectious undead. Area 51 is now used to contain non-sentient and infectious undead creatures and related technology, sealed behind several layers of my Barrier. After Doomsday was over, we freed as many prisoners that were safe to do so, based on information from the internet. With Haruhi and Sasaki, we may be able to release the rest of them safely."

"Do you know if a girl called Rulia was in your territory?" asked Sora eagerly.

"Err... I don't manage records," Reimu looked over at Haruhi, wondering why Haruhi wasn't answering Sora's question, "I wouldn't know." Sora also looked at Haruhi in confusion. Haruhi diverted her attention to Miku.

Miku sighed with sorrow, "Sora..."

Sora shook her head in disbelief, "No..."

"Please listen to me, Sora."

Sora stood up in anger, "I have been in Yamaha for a whole year!"

"Sora."

"I have been publicly looking for her a whole year!"

"Sora, please-"

"I have been in the same kingdom as her. For a whole year?!" she shouted. The entire room had become silent except for the sound of snoring. White, who was by the windows, turned to observe. Rin, stood near to White, bowed her head down. Marisa had opened her right eye again. Even the gamers were looking in Sora's direction, having paused the game. Only Meiling, sat on the opposite side of the doors to Marisa, was making noise, snoring heavily despite having been made fully awake very recently.

"... I'm guessing that Rulia is in the Arctic?" asked Santiago, trying to force Miku to spell it out. Miku did not answer immediately.

"Miku," coaxed Black, urgently, unsure herself, "Is it true?"

"... Yes," unwillingly nodded Miku, "She is in the Arctic. But please, let me explain."

Sora lifted her fist up above the table in fury when Remilia coughed loudly. Once Sora's attention had been caught, Remilia spoke up calmly, "I realise you're angry. But please note, there is no need to take it out on my dining table."

Sora slowly sat down and ran her hands down her face, "... Start explaining."

"Unlike Gensokyo," began Miku, "We had very little information on prisoners. We had no access to American servers nor full access to Japanese servers that would have information about them. We couldn't risk allowing any of them free without proper research."

"... How did Rulia end up being a prisoner? She's an innocent girl."

"... I personally came across her on Doomsday," continued Miku, "She looked innocent at first but then she changed form to something more threatening. I was not prepared to take the risk so I had her shut in stasis. She's been in the Arctic ever since..."

Sora dropped her hands in disbelief, "She... changed forms?"

"While the information and images you circulated in search of her matched her original appearance, none of it matched her transformed form." A hologram of a girl appeared over the centre of the table, fitting the description Solace had given Sora when they first boarded the HMS Thunder Child. The girl was short with brown hair that was tied with metallic pieces that were black instead of the usual white. She had red eyes but they were glowing. She was indeed wearing a school uniform, white shirt, red tie, blue dress but was wearing it as a skirt. The most noticeable aspect of her was her lower arms, morphed into literal arm cannons. Alice recognised Rulia by her looks, having met Rulia via Solace.

"I... don't recognise that form," admitted Sora, looking over at Solace.

"Never seen it," noted Solace, shaking her head. Solace in turn, glanced over at Haruhi.

"This form does exist, created before Doomsday," nodded Haruhi, "But there is no evidence pointing towards any particular canon she is part of. She could be another person altogether. I will need to meet up with her to find out. Since the Arctic is covered in White Noise."

"Superman told me on the helicarrier that many family and friends are in the Arctic," brought up Solace, "So Rulia is only one case of many?"

"There are many others," admitted Miku, "We had to ignore reports of missing people to avoid backlash while we tried to find out if they were safe to release."

"If they're in stasis, then they haven't aged, right?" asked Lynette.

"That is correct. Everyone and everything inside are still the same age they were when they went in on Doomsday. The Arctic has not been touched since Doomsday's second day."

"Err... I'm sorry," interrupted Alice, confused, "Did you say Doomsday's second day? Doomsday lasted more than a day?"

Marisa unexpectedly spoke up, "Doomsday lasted from noon UTC on 20th December 2012 to noon UTC on 22nd December 2012. At any point of Doomsday, it was the 21st somewhere on the planet." She sighed, "It was a rough forty-eight hours. As far as I recall, you ran into the Hakurei Barrier near the American-Canadian border near the end of the first day."

"We pushed back Yamaha a considerable distance with that surprise Hakurei Barrier," grinned Remilia, "We absorbed quite a few of their assets since they had been concentrating on invading the United States so much. Who knew that Reimu had so much potential?"

"We were caught unaware," admitted Rin, "We hadn't seen anything like it. Though to be fair, we were paying more attention to stopping North High with the Sonic Barrier."

"Which is probably another reason why we managed to take so much of Gensokyo's territory," commented Ritsu. The four of them had started playing again but Ritsu was still listening in on the conversation.

"Erecting the Hakurei Barrier was difficult for Reimu," added Sakuya, stood next to Remilia, "Miss Raymour taught us early on that the Barrier could not withstand even light impacts. So the Barrier had to be formed in smaller sections before being merged together into one massive Barrier. It took the entire second day for Reimu to do it. It was definitely a difficult task for her."

"The Sonic Barrier went off to a slow start," noted Black, "I believe the first few Sonic Amps were built on site in Africa against North High. But once we found out that they worked, mass production started, though actually getting the Amps to their positions took a while. We still didn't have the drop pod technology implemented at the time." Reimu, Miku and Haruhi made no contributions to the conversation.

"Is it safe now to take Rulia out?" interjected Sora impatiently, bringing the conversation back to it's original topic.

"Like I said," answered Miku, "We haven't touched the Arctic since Doomsday. Since we have it covered in White Noise, even Haruhi and Sasaki don't know if anything's happened inside since then."

"The Arctic was built like a prison," explained Rin, "So it has many cells, one for each prisoner, each with their own individual stasis field and each surrounded by White Noise, all electronics inside with power supplies that could last hundreds of years, assuming no malfunctioning. It is possible that there could be something inside that is, say, immune to stasis and took the facility over."

"Sasaki and I only have images of the prisoners to identify them with," noted Haruhi, "Some of them, like Cloverfield, are recognisable immediately. But then there's the issue of which canon they come from. And, hypothetically speaking, there might be a risk of something inside that could be immune to our powers." Naluri's, and Rokiahi's, immunity to god powers was not common knowledge. Indeed, only the Anti-Nine, the North High Administration, Rin and KITT, who was not present, were aware of it. The room fell silent as Sora covered her face to think.

"... I can take you there to free her," offered Miku.

"No," protested Black, unexpectedly, "You, Miku, have plenty of other business to take care of. I'll take her."

"I'll go too," suggested Sasaki, "It'll be good to take you along, Solace." Solace nodded.

"... Thank you," sighed Sora.

"Reimu," began Haruhi, changing the topic, "Your shrine is in the Antarctic. I did have it in a good condition over the past year but between my... disappearance and the future Sasaki's arrival, it was levelled by heavy winds."

"It's fine," thanked Reimu, "We've had to rebuild it before. We'll take care of it." Marisa smirked behind Reimu's back but said nothing.

"Santiago," continued Haruhi, "I realise you have concerns about newcomer city infrastructure."

"Yeah," began Santiago. He was the only person in the room living in a newcomer city brought in through Doomsday. "Like you said about Arcania City, populations in newcomer cities have dropped dramatically. As a result, an extreme number of industries in our hometowns are suffering or have completely collapsed like education, healthcare, agriculture, maintenance etc. etc. etc. Gensokyo's rent policy prevented us from recovering. Can you reverse all this?"

"Most of it. I can restore or maintain your supplies, at least until you decide to do it yourselves. As for the population, however, I hope you understand that I do not want to recreate former residents that were not brought in by Doomsday. Now, the world's population hasn't exactly declined. There is more than enough newcomers out there to repopulate diminishing cities. My biggest concern though is how many cities and how many potential residents are willing enough to set aside their differences and promote each other's coexistence."

"I see." There was plenty of tension between newcomer franchises. But even this could not compare to the void between newcomers and natives, most obvious in former North High territory with each District completely separate from their attached city. Newcomers outnumbered natives by almost three to one.

Haruhi stood up, "I will take my leave. I know some of you are concerned about where you should permanently reside but I think that is something you should think a bit about. Please, take some time to talk to each other. There's no need to say goodbye. In this new world, you really are just a thought apart." Her eyes locked with Sasaki's. Haruhi knew Sasaki had a question burning her heart. While Sasaki was preventing Haruhi from reading her mind, Haruhi knew what the question was and knew that Sasaki was aware that the question shouldn't be asked. "Well, see you all. And have a Merry Christmas." She disappeared.

"Haruhi's changed a lot since Doomsday," commented Ritsu, "She's been really jumpy lately."

"The SOS Brigade's told me that she's never slept at all since Doomsday," added Konata, "She apparently had nightmares as soon as she tried the day after Doomsday."

"Maybe with the conflict over she'll feel more at ease."

"So what about Gensokyo, Reimu?" asked Marisa, "What are we going to do now?"

"We step down," answered Reimu, "Gensokyo will no longer be one of the three kingdoms. We could probably move all of Gensokyo's locations here and just... live life."

Black looked at Miku, "Miku, Rin, what about Yamaha? Don't you miss singing?"

"The Yamaha Kingdom is hereby abolished," reported Miku, "Our primary objectives will be to clear up our mess, free up the Arctic and dismantle the Sonic Barrier. And then to settle down, as we should have on Doomsday."

"This only leaves North High," noted White, folding her arms, "Though I guess we can't abolish North High, at least not by nature. Things could get very dangerous without Haruhi and Sasaki's control."

"Well, we can say that Gensokyo and Yamaha are no longer military factions," grinned Remilia, "The Administrations and the Big 15 will still be around, at least by name, right?" She stood up. "Black!" she called, "The Scarlet Devil Household is Gensokyo's new Enforcers of Order. The Black Squad's performance in the Atlantic caught our attention. We will be keeping an eye on you and your group."

"Yeah!" shouted Flandre gleefully, pumping a fist into the air, "Tell Gold that our fight was a draw!"

"Well," Black, rather humoured, "I stepped down as Black Squad's leader." Both Sora and Lynette were surprised at this revelation. "Gold's the new leader."

Remilia laughed whole-heartedly, "Hahaha, like anyone would ever consider anyone else the leader of the Black Squad."

"She has a point," smirked White, placing a hand on Black's shoulder.

"Don't start, White," groaned Black.

"Remilia," started Reimu, rather peeved, "I remember asking you to be the Enforcer of Order back on Doomsday. But you gave me Meiling instead." Meiling was still snoring away behind her.

Remilia shrugged with a grin, "How times change, Reimu. How times change."

That morning signalled the end of The Three Kingdoms.

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