So here it goes:
The ?council of the youkai sages? was pretty much another name for ?Yukari's Clubhouse.? It had been in existence for centuries, and convened whenever a member wanted to drink with other old-timers, or very rarely to discuss the gravest matters of the land. It consisted of the following seats:
- Yukari, the ?Youkai Sage? proper.
- Princess of the Netherworld, meaning Yuyuko, Yukari?s closest friend.
- Lord of all Tengu, meaning Lord Tenma, who voted with Yukari out of gratitude of being free from the oni rule.
- Head Kappa, meaning Lord Ohki, who voted with Lord Tenma out of survival instinct.
- King of Beasts, a seat that was nominally for the white hare of Inaba out of seniority, but who could find Tewi these days? Ran sat there while the rabbit played truant. You can guess how the fox voted.
- Hellmaster, a seat left vague since hell had moved elsewhere. On a technicality, one of the two satori sisters who had bought the empty place at a bargain price could sit at this seat, but they never bothered to appear.
- Oni King, meaning usually Yuugi, the Strong, which was traditionally Yukari?s only nut to crack at the council. Only that Yuugi rarely bothered to come, sending instead any oni or youkai she could find idling around. There had been a solemn council session attended by a very terrified bucket spirit in the past.
- Vampire Lord, created about a century ago, belonging to the odious (at Yukari?s reckoning) eldest of the Scarlet sisters, Remilia.
The Vampire Seat for Remilia was the kind of stuff that, while technically a boon and a recognition of the vampires' might, was part of Yukari?s many-pronged, long duration revenge against the "bat brats", for all the ruination she had to endure in her dear realm when the Scarlets arrived and made their serious, almost successful bid for total domination.
Remilia Scarlet hated the council, which consisted in a group of close knit old people that, as far as she could tell, all hated her. Moreover, she was the kiddy member, target of kiddy jokes, while everybody else who happened to have an adult-looking body drank and joked about the times she was not around to see.
Out of all council members, Yuugi the strong was the only one who cut Remilia some slack. Remilia was pretty sure that if not by Yuugi also being present, the food served at the council meetings would consist solely in roasted soybeans with garlic. Probably with a cup of holy water to help to gulp down.
Even then, Yuugi?s relief to Remilia consisted of mostly in the elder oni existing and having much of the vampire's same weaknesses. The few times Remilia tried to start a conversation with Yuugi were met with a snort and a glare. The vampire girl endured all this, mostly by lying to herself: ?It?s just them bullying the new member... They should warm up to me by the next century.?
But after one day Remilia couldn?t opine on the issue being discussed due to not existing in Gensokyo for time enough, Yuugi went and gruffly proposed that the vampire should be allowed to bring a ?sagely retainer? to the meetings. Since nobody really opposed Yuugi at whatever Yuugi bothered to propose, the motion was passed and Remilia could at least share the meetings' pain with her best friend.
Which meant trouble for Patchouli, of course. Trouble being mostly ?moving?. The girl, a young looking youkai magician, enjoyed being in her library the most. She suffered of asthma, which not only was humiliating enough for a youkai already, but also made vigorous physical activity, like ?leaving her reading table and coming up for dinner? sometimes painful. Yet sagely she was, and a technical retainer of Remilia she was, even if the truth between those two was much more complicated than this, so she tagged along with Remilia to the hours long sessions of drinking and occasional barbs at the western, uncouth devils.
Not at that particular day, however. Patchouli?s asthma crisis was one of the worst she had ever experienced and for more than once she gasped in vain for air, prompting the timid demon that was her own personal attendant to come running with a glass of water. The magician coughed, whizzed and was about to send Remilia into a double fit of panic: First because Patchouli was Remilia?s dearest and most trustsome friend inside a downright hostile land, even if Patchy herself couldn?t remember most of their shared story. Remilia hated how her own innate magic was made only to destroy or command and was powerless while her friend suffered. Second because an urgent summon for a Council of the Youkai Sages? meeting had just arrived via Tengu carrier, with the implication that urgent matters would be discussed, and not coming was not an option.
The remedies that vampire and magician knew how to prepare were already prepared and applied but weren?t making their usual effect. Remilia paced around Patchouli?s bed. Sakuya, flawlessly trailing behind her mistress, was at a loss of what to do, too, but had some clues:
?If I may be so bold as to suggest... A warm cup of tea should provide some relief for Lady Patchouli.? the maid finally said. Tea made everything better, in Sakuya's opinion.
?Yes, yes, tea. Have tea made, Sakuya.? said Remilia, never looking to her maid, waving her gloved hand to dismiss her.
Sakuya turned and her tall, slim form slipped a bit, as in a badly executed movie cut. Nobody could really tell what the maid was up to during the time she froze time, but usually she got the work done. Case in point, she now had a complete tea service in gold gilded bronzeware in hand.
?Sugar, Lady Patchouli?? Sakuya asked, pouring tea.
Between bouts of cough, the magician made the hand sign for ?two?. Sakuya expertly served Patchouli and helped her to drink the tea between the fits, at what Remilia considered the least possibly demeaning, most elegant way for a bed-ridden, shaking person. The vampire could smile even in that crisis because her maid was another one of her few allies, and a competent one, to boost. Everything was more dignified when Sakuya was at hand.
?Milady, if I may be again, so bold as to suggest, the gatekeeper often boasts about her land?s traditional medicines...?
Well yes, Hong was another ally, but not one of the competent ones. Remilia glanced at the window, wincing at the hateful sunlight, and could see a hint of green at the distance, outside the gate, beyond the red gardens. Whatever Hong Meiling was doing there, it was not standing in guard as she was supposed to do, as Remilia could see the green cap prancing around. ?Playing with the faeries again, probably.? the vampire thought in disgust.
?Hong?s medicines are 90% cheap quackery, Sakuya.? said Remilia. Still, her chinese stowaway had rarely been truly useful. "But anyway, go check with her and bring whatever medicines she has. Patchy, I trust you can scan them and separate what?s good for you.?
Patchouli and Sakuya nodded and Sakuya blinked out of the room. Outside, a glint of silver appeared right besides the green cap. Remilia left the window and and their servants? antics and took the chance of being alone with her friend to sit on Patchouli?s bed and hold the magician's hands in her own:
?You won?t be good in couple of minutes, will you??
To this, Patchouli sadly shook her head. She was concentrating on "not coughing" as if she could suddenly create a spell for just that. Remilia sighed.
?Well, then it?s me alone at the lions? den. Get well, and wish me luck!?
?
A few minutes later, every youkai and ghost were sitting at their appointed seat at the council. Ran, ever a spotless facade, made sure Remilia couldn?t sniff the polem she had been spreading around the misty lake, all day. Her head still smarted from Yukari?s danmaku sneak attack. Really, her mistress had such unreasonable demands.
Remilia sat at her rather humiliating risen assent chair (humilating or not, she did the same at home) and found a scroll before her, sealed white paper over the smooth, cold black marble. Every council member had his or hers scroll. They were all personally adressed because Ran was meticulous like that. The hellmaster's seat was empty as always, King Oni's seat was occupied by Yuugi which put Remilia slightly more and Yukari slightly less at easy.
"Where's your sage, kid?" Yuugi asked, glaring down to the vampire.
"Sick, couldn't come." Remilia answered, with a sad shrug of her wings.
"So, this is the sad state of affairs at the vampire's rule..." Lord Tenma said, his mouth elegantly hidden behind his fan. There were way too many fans elegantly hiding mouths in that council, Remilia thought, and repressed the urge to answer: "I had your entire petty kingdom stolen right from under your ridiculous long nose, fool!". But bringing back the past like that would only make she look immature and as Patchouli usually said, it was better that she left the old wounds to heal, so she looked directly forward, ignoring the tengu.
Yuugi cleared her throat and pointed her chin to Yukari: "So, Yukari. Spit it out at once: Why did you summon us?"
Yukari lowered her fan and said: "Noble youkai, and ghost, I have just received a most wondrous proposal from the current Hakurei Shrine Maiden. I direct your attention to the scrolls before you..."
The Youkai and ghost took the scrolls, removed the Yakumo seal and started to read. On their copies, Ran had added the Annexes I and II after the end. Remilia was pretty sure Ran was instructed to use the oldest, most calligraphic convoluted Kanji hand to write the copies, or at very least the vampire's copy, to make things harder for her. Remilia was a child from the mechanical press age and hated that stuff, but she wouldn't be fooled by such simple, petty tricks. She was already proficient at both written and spoken mandarin and japanese when she arrived, a bit over a century ago, and it wasn't as if she could do much more than sit inside her mansion and play, or read, every day since then. So she played a lot and studied a bit, but even occasional studies tend to pile over a century. She read, and her eyebrows arched.
Yuyuko finished reading her copy and giggled, which prompted Lord Tenma to put down his and do the same, which prompted Lord Ohki to do the same. Yukari and Ran had their copies closed before them and were watching the others' reactions.
Yuugi and Remilia had curiously about the same about the spellcard rules: Excitement. Maybe the other youkai and ghost were feeling the same and were just better at hiding it, but Remilia had her mindset permanently locked at the stage where kids can't play poker, so her wings had spread and started to flap excitedly, right there where the word
game was used again and again. Yuugi was grinning madly, doing the kind of closed mouth guttural growl that you'd expect from a viking. She finally slammed her copy on the table, vaporizing the paper with the impact:
"THIS!" she exclaimed "Does this mean I can finally fight freely again, against ANYONE?!"
"Yes..." said Yukari, fanning herself, properly. "It's exactly this that Reimu Hakurei, the shrine maiden I sponsored, just proposed."
Of the two other people in the room who knew about Yukari's half-truth, one giggled, but she did so all the time anyway, so the others felt free to take her for a fool, and the other was a greatmaster of poker face. Tenma finally broke the excited silence by looking to a point beyond his long nose, waving his fingers after extending his arm in a quite theatrical gesture, and produced a maple leaf bullet. The youkai and ghost stared at the projectile for a moment. Then the tengu turned in a faux-menacing pose to the kappa and asked: "Seriously? Non-lethal magic? Isn't this stuff for kids?"
He was trying to provoke a laughter and throw sand on the idea, but such rhetoric failed to register with Yuugi: Glaring madly at nothing for a moment, she made a simple spherical red bullet, and then
punched it towards Tenma. It was one of those punches that caused sonic booms and gaseified stones she happened to hit. The Tengu was frozen in a moment of pure panic and horror as the oni propelled spell hit him squarely at the chest. He had stood up, alarmed, magic energies surging around him in a delayed flight or fight response, when he finally took notice of the absence of a bullet hole in his chest, and at the seat's back behind him, and so on. There was some minor clothing damage at his priceless heirloon haori, and it was all.
The arcane energies were dissipating everywhere else at the room, as the youkai and ghost finally agreed to themselves that the oni king hadn't assassinated the lord tengu. Fans were lowered in relief and then brought up again, to start fanning the heated faces. Yuyuko giggled, and this time Yukari, Remilia and Lord freaking Ohki followed suit. Tenma glanced at the madly happy oni before him, her muscular arm still extended into a closed fist, realized that there was nothing else to be done in that situation, and sat down.
"Well, I couldn't dodge your bullet, so I guess I lost this duel, Lady Yuugi." he said, fanning himself.
"You may be sure you lost, Tenma!" shouted Yuugi. "When it was the last time you seriously fought, uh? One millennium ago? Two?"
Tenma elegantly cued his fan to Remilia: "Barely a hundred years ago, Lady Yuugi."
"Oh yeah, there was that." nodded Yuugi, looking down to Remilia, that by then was too hyped to get angry that the oni couldn't even remember her own little total war. "I'm sorry I forgot your war, kid. I was in a terrible mood those days." said Yuugi, with a wide grin. If she had playfully tousled Remilia's hair right then, the vampire would have probably fallen in love, but the Oni didn't. What Yuugi did instead was to put her hands on her hips and look up, antecipating all the fights she could get into again.
Before Remilia could elaborate a lady-like enough way to express her thoughts ("THANK YOU, ONI, WANNA BE MY FRIEND AND GO ON ADVENTURES?") Yuyuko waved her long sleeve in a rather silly way to attract everybody else attention:
"Youkai Lords, please! Please. A minute of your attention. Aren't we forgetting about three quarters of the rules here? These bullets should be first formed into ?spell cards?, if I read it right. Right?"
The council recomposed itself at Yuyuko's call and then Yukari guided them through a vote, that approved the motion to make the spell card game the official way to resolve conflicts in Gensokyo. She had just one amendment to make, that passed, because even Yuugi agreed that rotten cheaters deserved no better: "The part found cheating or using lethal magic during a spell card duel shall be put to true death." Because what were laws without sanctions, anyway?
With the motion passed, Yukari set upon the task of creating the means to enforce it. She tasked Ran with creating a spell engine that would oversee the rules and report violations to the council, and opening a gap, uncerimoniously pulled Kamishirasawa Keine from the futon.
The teacher, suddenly standing in her nightgown before who she instantly recognized as Yukari?s Clubhouse, blushed and covered herself: "Lady Yukari! This is an outrage!"
"There, better?" said Yukari, tapping her closed fan at the table. Keine found herself fully dressed in her usual blue dress and hat. "I apologize for the most sudden call, Miss Kamishirasawa, but we do have an urgent task for you."
The task was to change Gensokyo's history so that everybody suddenly knew and understood the spellcard rules. Keine gasped, first at the news, then at the job?s enormity.
"Th-The whole realm? I cannot do such, Lady... I cannot wield a fraction of the power to make a change this profound"
"Oh, don?t take me by a fool~" said Yukari. "Nobody is asking you to do it alone, daughter of the hakutaku. We'll all lend you all our power. We only need you guiding the process with your unique skill."
Keine took an involuntary step back as the council members stood up and everything went pure black: Yukari had opened a huge gap around all them. She felt a hand clad in the finest silk resting at her shoulder and prayed that it wasn't from one of those non-entities that inhabited Yukari's gaps. It wasn't, it was from Yukari herself. She smiled to Keine, invaded her personal space and whispered with a wink: "Refusing to cooperate. Is. Not. An. Option. Miss Keine."
The experience, that Keine would later describe as forcing a sea through a one inch wide tube at once, went successfully. While Yukari didn't particularly care for the teacher's well being, she was skillful enough the accept the willing power of the greatest Youkai and ghost she had at her call, professional enough to put her little revenge game against Remilia aside (the bat brat, when the time for serious work came, calmed down, concentrated for but an instant and started to emit a plainly unfair endless torrent of scarlet colored destructive mana) then convert it to a form harmless to half-beasts, and then drop-feed it to Keine, who knelt at the middle of a circle formed by the council, with a long parchment scroll unfolded at her lap, in just the exact amount so that she could do her job without being literally torn apart.
Hours passed...
A new day was breaking and Gensokyo was now working under the spellcard rules. Yukari, that should rightfully feel the most exhausted in that small group, oversaw her dear realm (she had gaped the entire council plus Keine to a plateau high in the mountains so that Keine could work while seeing her subject) and felt great. Everybody felt elated and in high spirits after the huge work done, and for the briefest instant it seemed like the youkai (and ghost) of Gensokyo could take on any challenge, and win. It was glorious.
Then the moment was over. Yuyuko said something that irritated Remilia, Lord Tenma respectfully remembered Yuugi that she wasn't even supposed to be overground anyway and the group felt apart. To be a guide for the youkai, to guide her race to their deserved heaven, that was Yukari's longest and dearest dream, the vision who made her choose a role for herself, to brand her tabbards with the "Gathering" hexagram and to come with the whole "Youkai Sage" oxymoron.
Yukari?s most cherished dream was essentially trying to herd cats.
No, wait, it was like trying to herd supernaturally powerful, even more malicious and more spiteful, flying cats. Yukari felt suddenly very sleepy, and left the bickering youkai and ghost to their own petty devices. One by one, they teleported or flied back to their personal domains. Ran received via the shikigami link an order to take Keine back to the village and Remilia back to her mansion, in that order. The Sun had just peeked over the montains and was starting to shine.
