Mentioned Characters: Reimu, Yukari, Ran, Chen, Kasen, Okina

Gensokyo has a handful of figures known as sages, who hold some administrative authority over the land, and Yukari Yakumo is one of them. No one knows what kind of youkai she is, or even what species she belongs to. Only a couple of things have come to light. She spirits people away, and she has a deep connection to gaps. She's believed to have been around since Gensokyo was founded over a thousand years ago, watching its whole history unfold with her own eyes. That also means she's seen the Hakurei family's journey from its very beginning. Despite being such an essential part of Gensokyo, surprisingly little is actually known about Yukari Yakumo. Then again, you don't need to know the cast to enjoy a play, or to have witnessed the events yourself to enjoy a film. She gives away next to nothing about herself, yet she's always lurking just out of sight. She's the very definition of a youkai. No one is more worthy of that name than Yukari Yakumo. In the 80th provisional Gensokyo, she's the very thing that keeps the Probability Space Hypervessel from falling apart. Without her, the whole thing is just a theory on paper. Her presence is what turns it into reality. It's the same principle that holds Gensokyo together: a boundary system propped up by a double barrier.

[Part 1 of an unresolved investigation into a lost world] Yukari Yakumo couldn't stand being bored. Hiding a yawn behind her hand, she sat at her desk, just as she did every other day. She was no noble lady, no princess, no queen, and yet she somehow seemed like all three at once. She was stunningly beautiful. She was the student council president, chairman of the board, head of every committee, president of all the clubs... and that barely scratched the surface of her titles. Officially a mere student, she was in fact the founder of the entire academy, and not even the faculty's pay was decided without her consent. It was so preposterous that none of it seemed real, and because none of it seemed real... she became, in effect, someone who didn't exist. Said aloud, it sounds like nonsense, but when you're confronted with a thing that genuinely shouldn't exist, the impossibility of it is, literally, impossible to comprehend. And to be impossible is, ultimately, to not exist. Gold is rare, and so it is cherished and sought after, but the air, despite being vast and indispensable, goes completely unnoticed. It's said that a huge ship once crossed the sea, but no one even recognized it as a ship, so the foreigners who came ashore appeared as though they had descended from the heavens. "Maybe I should only come to class about once a week," she murmured to herself, and no one reacted. But if she did start attending less often, people would actually notice, which would be bothersome. The current state of things was easier. Still... there was something not quite satisfying about it all.

[Part 2 of an unresolved investigation into a lost world] "Well, that's because you suddenly started talking to me out of nowhere." Kasen Ibaraki hid her real self and went about acting like some kind of prefect, so of all people, she should've understood how it feels to have almost no one who understands you. Or so Yukari assumed... though she probably didn't understand Kasen any better. "It wasn't out of nowhere. This, right now, isn't out of nowhere either." "No? It sure felt that way to me." There was nothing sudden about how Yukari had approached her. She'd walked over and talked to her like anyone would, building on a previous conversation they'd had, one that wasn't even all that long ago. She did the same thing that ordinary people do. "Look, I'm not made of stone, so I can see you're after some kind of advice. So let me put it to you this way..." Kasen was a good person through and through. People didn't call her Miss Hermit for nothing. She was about as good-hearted as Ran, Yukari's right hand on the student council, or Chen, who cheerfully did anything Yukari asked. "You're a giant elephant, and everyone else is a tiny mouse." "I beg your pardon?" "What I mean is, when an elephant talks to a mouse, the poor thing can't keep up. Think how many generations of mice live and die in the span of a single elephant's lifetime. Your senses and your values are worlds apart. And because the two of you can just barely make out each other's words, the mismatch only stands out all the more." Yukari had to admit Kasen was rather clever. "And what's just harmless fun to the elephant is a matter of life and death to the mouse." Now that, she thought, was just cruel.

[Part 3 of an unresolved investigation into a lost world] "Isn't that a pretty carefree thing to be worrying about, all things considered?" Yukari had figured Okina Matara, of all people, would understand. Then again, had the two of them ever really understood each other? They did have one thing in common. Both of them were forever hiding themselves away while secretly dying for the spotlight, but beyond that, Yukari couldn't say they'd ever truly clicked. "You of all people should know this," Okina went on. "The average student at this academy is the type to trash the gymnasium overnight, or launch a startup, lease space in some high-rise office, then blow it all to bits and end up drowning in debt. That's the crowd we're dealing with. And here you are, practically their figurehead, fretting over... what, exactly?" "You mean it's too girlish a thing to worry about?" "Don't sugarcoat it like that. If you're going to wander off soul-searching, there's nothing the rest of us can do for you." "But surely you've agonized over something similar yourself, haven't you?" "Even if I have, I'm certainly not telling you about it." "Time to go home, Master!" Okina's two servants chimed in together. Yukari was annoyed at the interruption. If she could've just pushed a little longer, she might've pried something out. Or... perhaps not. She wondered if it was really fine for her to just go on living like this. But what was the point of saying any of this out loud? Here she was, right in the middle of her youth, agonizing over who she was and where she was headed, and yet no matter how honestly she put it into words, nothing would change. Youth wasn't a story going somewhere; it was just something that happened to people, whether they wanted it or not. So whatever she did or didn't do, time would keep moving on, and one day she'd just be another grown-up. And then she'd probably look back on all this and think, "Those were the good days," or, "I should've done things differently when I had the chance." What she actually did or didn't do probably wouldn't matter much. She'd just keep those memories tucked away inside her and quietly get through the long, dimmer years that came once her youth was behind her. She wondered if that was all her youth was even for. Something so pointless. And whether being a girl had ever amounted to anything more than that.

[Part 4 of an unresolved investigation into a lost world] "There you are. I've been looking all over for you, Yukari." The voice caught Yukari from behind as she made for the gates with the evening sun ahead of her. And right then she found herself wondering whether anything had ever set her heart racing quite like this. "You caught me off guard before, so I couldn't say anything, but... what's this about you stepping down as chairman and giving up everything? Is it because you're graduating? What's going on with you?" The setting sun lit Reimu's face, and she looked ready to burst into tears. Fortunately, Yukari had the sun behind her, so her face should've been impossible to read. "So if you graduate, you're just... gone? You won't come to the academy at all anymore? And with you not being chairman or anything... no, forget it, you're too unpredictable. Who knows what you'd get up to next, I'd be better off without you anyway... no, wait, that's not, that's not what I meant... ugh." "Hehe. No, you've got it all wrong." Her thought was that if she quit all of it, the titles, the roles, every last bit of it, she might actually get to be an ordinary girl. That was all it was. Just a whim, a sudden notion, a flash of an idea she'd blurted out. So it really was one of those "out-of-nowhere" remarks that Reimu was always complaining about. She simply felt like saying it out loud. And wasn't that exactly what it meant to be young? By definition, a girl is someone who will grow into an adult. Take that away and the word loses its meaning. Someone who can never grow up was never really a girl to begin with, and someone who already has isn't one anymore. Being a girl exists only in that fleeting in-between, and that was exactly where Yukari wanted to stay, forever. "I want you to be the next chairman of the board... Reimu Hakurei." "Yeah, no thanks." "..."