Fractured — Roleplayer Guild

Palace of the Earth Spirits

	Koishi chased after the ravens in the garden, trying to catch one of them before they picked up all twelve roses scattered across the enclosed flower sanctuary. It was a little game they liked to play together, one that almost always ended with Koishi losing. But every now and then, the youkai would catch one of the small birds off guard and win the game—other times, she decided to cheat and nab them when they couldn't  notice her. Today was one of those times.

Sneak attack! The girl materialized in front of the pets and lunged forward at full speed—right into the cherry tree. Dazed, Koishi stumbled to her feet and brushed herself off before picking her signature hat up off the ground. That was probably enough playing for the day anyway. Still staving off a headache from the collision, Koishi made her way into the palace library to find something fun and interesting to read for the rest of the day. As she danced from one oak shelf to another, she eventually came across her seventy-fifth favorite book in the entire library: The Extended History of Gensokyo (Illustrated). 

	Koishi brushed her hair behind her ears and flipped through to the best chapter in the book, the creation of the Great Hakurei Barrier. She could never get enough of the beautiful details and thoughts crammed into every single illustration; at this point, she had practically memorized each individual brush stroke of the image. Except this time... something was off. The picture wasn't correct! The colors didn't match their usual form and the people weren't the same! Even the names in the book were those of youkai she didn't recognize. Something had gone horribly, horribly wrong in her precious library. Panicked, she scrambled to flip through another dozen of her top two hundred favorite books and found similar discrepancies in each one—changed names, unusual faces, completely wrong accounts of events. This had to be some kind of mean prank Rin was pulling. Or maybe it was a curse! Whatever was going on, Satori would know.

Big sis, big sis! Koishi shuffled into Satori's study chamber, interrupting some kind of investigation that almost looked like it was sort of important. But whatever it was, it couldn't be nearly as important as this brand-new terrible crisis of history. There's a problem with all the books in the library! They're wrong.

Koishi... The lovingly-named Satori closed her nuclear fusion book and looked with tired eyes at her jubilant emerald-haired sister. How could they be wrong? Books don't change.

You don't understand—these did! I opened to page seven hundred ninety one like I did three weeks ago; I read the story about the sages again and the names of people, youkai, and places were all jumbled up. It's almost like the books forgot who they were supposed to be.

I know you can remember a lot of strange things very well... but you must be misremembering. Even the thieving witch wouldn't swap our books with duplicates.

I'm not lying—it's as true as a circle is round and a square is square and a triangle is not.

Here's an idea. Why don't you go to the surface and see if you can't find another copy of that book? If they match, then it must just be a mistake. If they don't match, then you caught something mysterious going on.

	Koishi for one happened to think that her sister's suggestion was an excellent idea and was more than glad to skip through through the palace and toward the surface world. And not just anywhere on the surface—no, Koishi had to go to the best place to find dozens and dozens of copies of the same books. A place none other than the Human Village. The second the sun's hot beams cast her hat's shadow onto her face, Koishi took off flying toward the village.

Human Village

Mr. Book Keeper, does this story look right to you? Koishi waved her copy of The Extended History of Gensokyo in the face of a local bookstore owner, only to be promptly ignored. Heyyyyyy! He continued, willingly or not, to pretend that the imaginary youkai didn't exist. Koishi decided to instead wander about the village and ask people about the book. Some could hear her, others could not, and all returned to their normal lives once she had left. That is, until one particular celestial caught her eye.

Hey you! You're from heaven, right? Koishi opened the book next to Tenshi and gestured toward it. Can the residents of heaven change the past as easily as they can change the future?
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