"I'm borrowing these!"
"You rotten black-white mouse! Why don't you get your wife to support you!"
"That rumor should've expired ages ago! Just wait till I'm dead, then you can have them back!" Marisa muttered to herself as she flew out of the Scarlet Devil Mansion with a massive bag on her back.
From an outsider's perspective she seemed to spend every day adventuring, but behind the scenes she did put serious effort into studying the magic she loved—though perhaps not quite two hundred times the effort of an ordinary person.
A large portion of the knowledge she studied came from the grimoires treasured by other magicians across Gensokyo. Naturally, Patchy was never willing to lend them, and Marisa had no intention of asking for permission.
"Hm?"
Flying back to the Forest of Magic, Marisa stared at a certain tree in front of her house. A cat's tail poked out from behind it, swishing back and forth. Going by the color, it definitely wasn't the one from the Yakumo household.
As if noticing her gaze, a small paw reached out from behind the tree to grab the tail and tuck it away, then a single ear poked out to listen for her movements.
Marisa scratched her cheek and stood there staring at that ear for quite a while. She'd been looking for this ear's owner the past few days—she hadn't expected her to show up like this, right at her doorstep.
Perhaps because Marisa paused too long without approaching, the cat grew curious. Yimi cautiously peeked one eye out to glance at her.
Marisa averted her gaze to avoid eye contact. Yimi shrank back behind the tree.
"Ah, here I am, walking home all by myself, completely defenseless," Marisa deadpanned, walking toward that direction.
"Yah!"
Yimi leapt out!
"Oh my, you scared me!" Marisa hurriedly stepped back, patting her chest in a show of being terrified.
"Mm." Yimi patted her, satisfied. "Don't be scared, don't be scared."
Marisa's house wasn't as remote as she'd imagined. Although Yimi hadn't spent much time with Marisa in her cat form, she'd been held by Marisa often enough in human form that she'd more or less memorized her scent.
"Oh, it's you! I thought a tiger jumped out or something." Marisa patted her head.
She was properly dressed in autumn clothes too—looked like she'd already checked in with Reimu.
"What's, this?" Yimi pointed curiously at the big bag on Marisa's back.
Marisa's eyes shifted to one side. "This is my magic bag. I heard the Outside World has this thing called Santa Claus? This year it's my turn to be Santa."
"Santa Claus?"
"You know, the person who wears blood-red clothes from head to toe and sneaks into your house through the chimney in the middle of the night."
"!" Yimi cautiously tucked her hands close and took a step away from Marisa.
"It's not what you're thinking! It means giving presents. Apparently the Outside World has a tradition where, on a holiday called Christmas, someone called Santa Claus gives gifts to good children."
"What kind of, presents does he give?" Yimi wagged her tail.
"Don't underestimate Santa. Santa only gives presents to good children." Marisa closed one eye, teasing her on purpose. "But a certain naughty kitten just tried to scare—"
"I'm a good child." The little cat raised her hand immediately and offered proof: "I never steal anything!"
Whatever Yimi wanted, she'd only ever trade for it with someone.
"..." Marisa looked down at her own "magic bag" and, under the little cat's pure, innocent gaze, felt a wave of shame wash over her.
She began to seriously consider that maybe she should steal a bit less in the future. For instance, she could take books she'd already finished reading—the ones she'd previously stolen from Patchy—and trade them back to Patchy for new ones. Exchanging item for item would surely be more acceptable...
"This is for you." Yimi held out her last piece of Kyubey meat toward Marisa.
"What is this thing that looks like an artificial embryo?" Marisa pinched one of Kyubey's ears, but since Yimi had given it to her, she couldn't just throw it away.
Yimi crossed her arms unhappily. "There's only, a few left."
She'd calculated it all out. One each for Reimu, Marisa, and Chen—the friends she was closest to in Gensokyo. Originally there wouldn't have been a spare for Nitori.
"But because Chen, bullied me, so that's that."
"..."
Yimi's characteristically muddled speech made Marisa look in horror at the Kyubey meat in her hand. "Because Chen bullied you, so you turned her into this??"
On closer inspection it did kind of look like a cat shape.
"No, this is Kyubey meat, but I'm not giving any to Chen." Yimi tugged at Marisa's clothes and pressed her head against Marisa's stomach. "I finally managed, to come back this once. I'm not playing with her anymore."
"'So hard'—does that mean you'll be leaving again?"
"Came to see, Black-White. Then I'm going."
"I worry about you traveling alone—what if someone tricks you?" Marisa ruffled Yimi's head. "Where does your family actually live? Why don't I just take you home? My business covers a lot of ground, you know."
Yimi shook her head and patted her again. "I'll come back, to see you later."
Even though she hadn't really done anything yet, she'd finished giving out all the presents, so she really did need to go.
---
In the Human Village, Nitori Kawashiro sometimes disguised herself as a human to sell things, and the little stall called Kawashiro General Store was her spot.
"What a pain, but I got it open." Nitori tossed the crowbar aside and examined the back of the Kyubey.
That's right—she'd used the simplest, most brute-force method to pry open the door on Kyubey's back. In a sense, this was actually the sort of thing kappa excelled at.
The door on Kyubey's back should have connected to some space within its own world, and would normally seal shut upon death—but after arriving in this world, it had lost its connection to wherever it once led.
"Well, I really did get my hopes up for nothing." Nitori complained as she pulled out an object from inside—jet-black throughout with a sharp pointed end—and sat on her workbench, swinging her small legs in their blue hiking boots.
"If this were a shirikodama I'd at least be happy, but this thing that looks ominous at a glance is probably some kind of magic tool, right?"
A Grief Seed. Most likely because Kyubey had just recovered it before Yimi offed it and tossed it into storage, it had ended up dropping loot here instead.
Nitori wasn't particularly interested, though. While kappa were technically fantastical creatures themselves, she really wasn't cut out for studying magical tools. The moment a physical-principles investigation suddenly escalated to the level of the mystic, she tended to lose interest immediately.
"Whatever, selling it to some gullible rich magician would still be a profit. This kind of thing... huh?" Just as Nitori's attention wandered, the thing she'd mentally filed as "suspected shirikodama" simply vanished.
She had no idea how it vanished. Truly, not the faintest clue. It was just gone.
"Hm?"
A little girl wearing a black bowler hat, looking about the same age as Yimi, grinned widely. She wasn't grinning because she was pleased with the Grief Seed in her hand—she was simply smiling without any purpose or thought, just as she didn't even know why she'd taken the thing in the first place.
---
Side Story: Christmas
Gensokyo.
"Christmas? Today's already Christmas?"
"Probably. Supposedly it's to celebrate the birth of some holy child—who knows? People in the Outside World seem to celebrate it, or maybe they don't. Either way, it's got nothing to do with me."
Reimu was burrowed entirely inside the kotatsu, peeling the mandarin oranges that Marisa had given her—well, technically given to Yimi.
She'd mostly only read about it in books. Marisa had told her about it before too, and for a good while afterward Reimu had been convinced Santa Claus was a youkai.
"The day the holy child was born?"
"A birthday, basically. You don't even know that much?" Then again, it wasn't like Reimu herself knew who her own shrine's enshrined deity was.
A shoe was suddenly kicked over to Reimu's side. She looked over with dead-fish eyes and saw Yimi pulling the cotton sock off her right foot.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm preparing, a stocking."
Yimi placed the removed sock beside her pillow and patted it. "Marisa said, it's her turn to be Santa Claus, so I need to prepare a stocking for presents."
Her socks were too small—they couldn't hold much of anything.
Yimi pulled off her other sock and took out her markers to write something inside.
"Is that so? If you're not afraid of cold feet, suit yourself. Putting it by your pillow isn't going to smell great, either." Reimu reluctantly crawled out of the kotatsu and headed toward her wardrobe.
Counting the socks she'd kept from childhood and never thrown away, she should have over a hundred...
"My feet don't smell!" Yimi raised a fist in protest.
Reimu ignored her and threw in a jab: "Why would presents go in socks anyway? Does this 'Santa Claus' youkai have some kind of special fetish?"
"Ah." Yimi suddenly clapped one hand into the other.
Reimu looked at her quizzically. "What?"
"You don't have, a chimney." Yimi pointed at the ceiling.
"A chimney? Of course not—how would you install a chimney in a wooden building?"
"But Santa Claus enters, through the chimney."
"Where'd you pick up that weird rule? The shrine door doesn't even have a lock. Just tell Marisa to use the door tonight."
"I'll go tell her." Yimi put her shoes and socks back on and ran outside.
But when Yimi reached Marisa's house, the messy interior held no sign of its owner.
Yimi sat outside glumly, waiting for her to come home.
"What are you doing?" Yimi's friend Rumia popped up with her arms spread in her signature pose.
No telling where she'd popped up from, but on a day like this, jumping out with that particular pose of hers was a bit much.
"I'm waiting for Marisa, to come home."
"Is that so?" Rumia responded with a smile.
"What are you, doing?" Yimi asked in return.
"Rumia doesn't know, either."
"Mm..."
"But Rumia just saw Black-White fly that way." Rumia pointed in a direction.
"I'll go find her." Yimi scurried off on her little legs.
The direction Rumia pointed was the Scarlet Devil Mansion. Marisa was practically a regular there, though ninety-nine percent of her visits were uninvited.
Yimi counted as Flandre's friend, so Hong Meiling, who was perpetually asleep at the gate, was sharp enough not to stop her.
At the same time, Yimi hadn't forgotten that Marisa's biggest connection to the Scarlet Devil Mansion was that her "other woman" was here, so she headed straight for Mukyuu's library.
But the homebody Mukyuu wasn't there. The only occupant was a red-haired girl with bat wings, sitting and sipping tea.
This seemed to be Mukyuu's familiar, Koakuma.
"Um, who are you looking for?" Koakuma tilted her head to glance at her.
"I'm looking for Marisa."
"That Black-White? Patchouli-sama just blasted her out. She's probably being hunted down as we speak."
Koakuma looked at Yimi with annoyance. "Has it become common knowledge that Black-White's spawn point is in the Scarlet Devil Mansion? What do you want with her?"
"Marisa is, Santa Claus. I have something important, to tell her."
"Santa Claus?"
"The good person who, on Christmas night, comes through a good child's chimney, dressed head-to-toe in blood-red, carrying a big bag, to give good children presents."
"That's called Santa Claus? That's obviously a burglar." Koakuma replied with displeasure.
"You're lying! Marisa isn't a thief. Earlier, I saw her carrying, a big bag of presents." Yimi defended Marisa angrily.
"A big bag of presents? Thieves also carry a big bag to stuff their stolen goods in. She comes here and steals piles of books every time."
"You're making that up."
"I am not. I have proof."
Koakuma opened a drawer of Patchouli's desk, pulled out a plush doll that bore a striking resemblance to Marisa, then held it in front of her own face to provide voice acting:
"I'm Marisa! I come to the Scarlet Devil Mansion every day to steal things! All of this is true!"
"You're the one saying all that!" Yimi wasn't about to fall for it.
"Then go see for yourself. Patchouli-sama is hunting her down right now. If you don't believe me, ask Patchouli-sama."
"Hmph!" Yimi turned to leave, but not before delivering a threat to Koakuma: "I'm telling Marisa, not to give you a present tonight."
"I don't want one anyway. You said it yourself—Santa Claus is covered head to toe in blood-red. A fresh-from-the-kill Red-White is obviously a closer match, right?"
Inside Koakuma's head: Reimu, drenched in blood after a fresh kill, the big bag on her back stuffed with her victims' severed heads, leaping down a chimney in search of her next prey...
"Ow!"
Yimi kicked her in the shin and ran out.
"Wait up, Patchy—don't you usually stop chasing at the front gate?!"
Above Misty Lake, Marisa yelped and dodged through Patchouli's dense danmaku, the bulky bag on her back making her grazing painfully clumsy.
Patchouli's temple vein throbbed. "Normally I turn a blind eye, but snatching the book right out of my hands while I'm reading it—what is that supposed to mean?!"
"The stuff in there is interesting! You're not a kid anymore, so why were you reading that? I told you I'd give you something to make up for it later!"
"I'll read whatever I want, thank you!"
"Ah!"
One careless moment—danmaku sliced through the bag on Marisa's back, and every book inside came spilling out.
Everything that bad person said was true. Marisa wasn't Santa Claus at all. She was a thief.
Yimi's ears drooped. She covered her little face with her arms and ran back toward the shrine. More than the fact that Marisa was a thief, what hurt the little cat the most was that Marisa had lied to her.
---
"What's the matter? You were so excited when you ran out earlier." Reimu eyed the lump under the blankets.
After running back with her face covered, Yimi had burrowed under the covers and gone completely silent. She looked really sad.
"Going to sleep."
"Sleep? Suit yourself. Since you're going to bed first, don't come crawling into my blankets tonight."
What kind of troubles could a little kid have? One nap and she'd forget all about it.
Reimu glanced at the sky outside. Seemed like thick, heavy snow had started falling again.
She burrowed into her own blankets too.
The sky had gone dark.
An unknown amount of time passed before a shivering Marisa pushed open the shrine door and stepped inside, shaking snow off her body.
"Already asleep, huh?"
Quite some time had passed, but she still remembered the promise she'd made for the sake of her earlier lie.
Marisa held up the Mini-Hakkero to cast a faint glow, keeping her footsteps as quiet as possible. She crept to Yimi's bedside but didn't find any stocking laid out.
Marisa scratched her cheek helplessly.
Kids always forget things. But even if the kid forgot, the grown-up still had to keep her promise.
She pulled out the book she'd swiped from Patchy earlier—it was just an illustrated book of fables, really. Of course, she'd compensate Patchy later. She'd already resolved to stop stealing.
Marisa searched around and found Yimi's socks inside the cotton boots neatly placed by her bedside.
She could just set it on top. A bit small, but it would do.
"Hm?"
By the faint light of the Mini-Hakkero, she could make out something scrawled sloppily on the sock.
"Marisa (crossed out) Santa Claus, can you give that ol"
It cut off there. A child's sock was only so big—even writing as small as she could with markers, there wasn't room for much.
So she hadn't forgotten after all.
After a moment's thought, Marisa picked up the other sock.
Continuing from the last one: "d guy a present too, today is his birthday"
Full of spelling mistakes, but not hard to understand.
Marisa thought it over, then fished out a gem she'd gotten from Patchy and placed it on top of the other sock.
She tiptoed backward to leave—and caught, in the corner of her eye, over a hundred socks arranged on Reimu's bedding.
Marisa walked over, puzzled, and found a note.
The note read: "Put one copper in the first sock, two in the second. Each one after that, multiply by 2. Please fill all of them."
"Go to hell!"
Marisa couldn't help but kick Reimu.