"No entry means no entry. As long as I'm standing here, don't even think about setting one foot past these gates." Hong Meiling looked down at three pint-sized troublemakers the way someone would glare at noisy brats disrupting a perfectly good nap.
She might doze on the job regularly, but when it came to doing her duty, she was serious.
"Why not?"
"You're so annoying."
"How nice of Mukyu to volunteer as our decoy."
"Huh?"
Three little girls talked over each other, and Meiling's brain short-circuited.
What was going on? Were they with Patchouli-san? Things looked dire out there—she had no idea what happened. All she'd seen was Sakuya sprinting back with the Lady in her arms looking absolutely frantic.
Wait—if even Patchouli-san could only buy time, then it had to be her. Red-White?
"No means no. I haven't received any orders to admit guests. If I let you through without authorization, they'll dock my wages all the way through August three years from now."
"Hmph, what a heartless person—willing to watch three innocent little girls get torn apart by Red-White right before her eyes." Wriggle launched her offensive: guilt-tripping.
"Are we going to get torn apart in front of her? Will the blood splash on her face?" Rumia opened her mouth wide. Was she... drooling a little?
"Nope." Yimi puffed out her chest—meaning: kitty will protect you.
But Wriggle immediately hijacked the line. "Nope—because heartless people can't see children's blood."
Rumia crouched down and patted Meiling's long, fair legs. "I'm going to write the word 'tragic' on your legs in blood later."
"How did I suddenly become the villain?! Also, there's no way innocent little girls would get on Red-White's bad side, right?" Meiling sighed, shaking Rumia off her leg. She'd never encountered guilt-tripping like this in her life.
"Not true." Rumia had standing to speak on this matter.
During the Scarlet Mist Incident, she'd had nothing to do with it and still got beaten up.
"That really is tragic..."
Meiling clenched her fists. Her entire demeanor shifted, gaze locking forward with dead seriousness.
"Fine. I'll stall Red-White at the gate for you—can't beat her, though. Don't go inside the mansion. Just run that way, toward Misty Lake."
Following Meiling's gaze, they could see Reimu in the distance, having already speed-cleared Patchouli, whose asthma had flared up again. Her second-run experience was clearly paying off.
Spotting Meiling in a fighting stance, Reimu's dead-fish eyes narrowed. "Why are you AFTER Mukyu? Since when were you behind her in the lineup?"
The Scarlet Devil Mansion's reputation as co-conspirators behind the kitten's incident was now cemented in Reimu's mind.
She'd been thinking: that little squirt who still needed help taking a bath—where would she get the ability to pull off something this big? The Scarlet Devil Mansion had to be backing her up.
Send her to school, and this was the result? A bunch of weird friends? How infuriating—the whole thing planned right under her nose.
"It's a cat grass incident, so why am I re-clearing the Scarlet Devil Mansion?!"
"What—Patchouli-san actually held her off—"
"Move it! Don't waste Mukyu's and Green Hat's sacrifice!" Wriggle selectively forgot Meiling's warning and dragged Yimi straight into the mansion.
"Enough talk!" An impatient Reimu swung her gohei.
Meiling caught it bare-handed. She glanced back at the trio. "Didn't we agree you wouldn't go inside?! Who's sacrificing?! Wait—you said Red-White was almost dead. Why hasn't her power dropped at ALL?!"
Hearing that, Reimu swung even harder.
"They're here. Let me count..." The kitten held up her fingers.
All kitty wanted was cat grass available everywhere, all the time. That was a good thing for ALL cats. Why were Red-White and the Scarlet Devil Mansion making such a fuss?
Once past Meiling, there was essentially no one left to stop them. The mansion's servants were mostly fairies and goblins, and given fairy intelligence levels, the moment they spotted the blonde Rumia they panicked: "Second Young Lady!" The goblins heard the fairies say it and didn't dare ask questions.
Wriggle counted on her fingers too, then nudged Rumia. "You're up next."
"Is that so?"
Seeing that line trotted out again, Wriggle pointed at her in exasperation. "What's your problem? We already settled this! You might never get the chance to debut this late in the lineup again."
She turned to Yimi. "Don't you have a home base? Normally the incident-maker stays put and waits for challengers to show up."
"Is that so?" The completely clueless kitten frowned.
Should she have stayed at the shrine and waited for Reimu to come fight her?
Clatter—
While running, they heard a cardboard box shift beside them. The curious kitten slammed on the brakes, causing the two girls behind her to crash into her back and crumple to the ground.
"Ow ow, why'd you stop?!"
Yimi didn't answer. She stared at the box.
A strange box. Two holes cut in the front, two more on the sides. From each side hole poked something that looked like a wing, shaped similarly to Remilia's but without the membrane for flapping. In its place, each segment was a differently colored crystal.
Yimi pulled the box off. Underneath sat a very cute blonde girl with crimson eyes, crouching on the ground, staring blankly back at them.
This was Remilia's little sister—Flandre Scarlet.
The kitten ignored her, turned the box over in her hands, and put it on her own head. It covered her down to her waist.
"Let's go."
She gave Flandre a fistful of cat grass as payment for the box, then continued running in this mysterious getup.
"?"
Flandre looked down at the grass in her palm, dazed. She didn't react until they'd rounded the corner: "Give it back!"
"Wait wait wait—how did you just walk past a whole person?!" This time Wriggle hit the brakes, grabbing the other two by their collars.
"Ow!" Flandre, who had caught up, bumped her nose on the back of Wriggle's head.
Wriggle turned and scrutinized her. "Who are you? I've never seen you before."
"Flan hasn't seen you either." Flandre snatched the box back from Yimi.
This was her latest discovery for stealth-crawling around the mansion. Crouch inside and she was indistinguishable from a real cardboard box—even someone as meticulous as Sakuya only ever glanced at it and walked past during patrols.
"No mistake—it's her!" Wriggle jabbed a finger at Flandre's chest.
Flandre looked down at her own chest blankly.
The strategically brilliant military advisor pressed on. "Keine-sensei taught us that humans have this thing called heredity. Look at her hair—it's the same gold as Red-White's wife. And those eyes—red, just like Red-White!"
"So it IS you." Yimi's eyes went wide with realization.
Reimu hid her well. Kitty had lived at the shrine all that time and never knew.
She waved a commanding hand. "Take her!"
"Okay." Rumia grabbed Flandre by the waist and hoisted the girl—roughly her own size—above her head.
Flandre: "(._.)?"