*The story is entirely fictional, any resemblance to real event is purely accidental.

Episode 5: Truth

The atmosphere the next day seems somewhat heavy, maybe because it’s a cloudy day, there’s not much sunlight on the ground, especially at the Hakurei shrine, however, that’s not it because everything feels… a bit eerie actually, for some reasons. At SAAC factory airport, Sokolóv and Masayoshi, who are having morning tea and chatting together, can definitely feel that something isn’t right.
Masayoshi: “So you gave her the picture you took with her parents yesterday?”
Sokolóv: “Yeah, and now I feel like something is off, you feeling it too?”
Masayoshi: “Yes, I already do since when I woke up.”
Sokolóv: “I feel like, something supernatural is presenting.”
Masayoshi: “Spirits?”
Sokolóv: “Exactly, I’ve heard that war spirits cannot go to the after life until they tell the truth to someone, Reimu’s parents are among them.”
Masayoshi: “I guess it is your picture that has triggered something, but if that so, we can only wait for whatever wants to happen happens, we can’t tell anything yet.”
Sokolóv: “Okay… let’s just continue this day like normal, but stay conscious of our surroundings and the supernatural energy.”
Masayoshi nods and both continue drinking tea.

At the Hakurei shrine, Reimu does her normal morning routine until 9am. Then she goes to the backyard to check her plane alone since Rin Satsuki, her housemate is currently busy buying things in the city. After throughly checked her plane, Reimu goes to get some cookies, put them on a dish and bring it with her, she sits down on the shrine’s backyard floor and enjoys the snacks. While eating she looks at the sky, thinking about her parents, she’s now believing that they are her real parents thanks to Sokolóv. While she’s still in deep thoughts, she looks around the sky, suddenly… a strange fighter jet suddenly comes in Reimu’s view, snapping Reimu out of her deep thoughts, it is that same MiG-29 again, Reimu looks at it with her surprised eyes. She looks more closely and she notices that it is painted in red with a black nose and black control surfaces, there’s also no noise coming from it. After a while, it fires one of its missiles, it looks like an old R-27, the missile also makes no noise. However, again, after one blink, the aircraft disappears. Reimu looks down and thinks: (Didn’t I see that same plane last night? Now I’m totally well so… it can’t be a hallucination like what I thought last night.). Reimu looks at the sky one more time before looks down at her plane and continue eating until she has eaten all the cookies. Then she goes into her room, when she’s in her room, Reimu takes the picture Sokolóv gave her and looks at it. Yesterday, when talking with Sokolóv, Reimu only looks at her parents in the picture and not anything else, now, she looks at it again and… she sees it, there’s the same MiG-29 behind everyone at the edge of the picture. She’s already understand that that plane belonged to her parents from the picture, especially the fact that it has the same color scheme as her mother’s. What she can’t understand however, is why she can see it, it definitely isn’t a hallucination because she saw it when she was totally fine. After thinking and again coming to yet another dead end, Reimu decides to put things aside and continues the day like normal. At 12pm, Reimu has a lunch and then goes to take an afternoon nap. However, she can’t have a nap because a short while, around 5 minutes after every times she closes her eyes, she can faintly hear yelling and screaming from outside of her shrine, sometimes she even hears jet sounds and explosion sounds, she knows that these sounds definitely aren’t actually happening, but she just can’t not hear them either. Unable to sleep, Reimu decides to go to SAAC factory airport to tell Masayoshi and Sokolóv about what she has encountered till now. Sokolóv and Masayoshi are surprised because they haven’t thought that it would be that clear for a vision of the past, she saw and heard things in broad daylight.
Sokolóv: “Hmm… what you’ve encountered… do you believe in spirits Reimu?”
Reimu: “Y-Yes I do.”
Sokolóv: “Then it can be some spirit’s works, maybe they want to tell you something.”
However, Reimu asks something that makes both Masayoshi and Sokolóv at loss for words.
Reimu: “Are my parents also count as those spirits?”
After a while of silence, Masayoshi decides to speak.
Masayoshi: “We can’t say anything about it… yet. But I know that spirits need some times before they can reveal themselves, you should be able to know soon.”
Reimu nods, after a short while, she thanks everyone and goes back to her shrine. On her way back, while walking, Reimu suddenly hears a faint jet sound coming from her left, Reimu looks at that direction and… she sees Shinigami’s F-16JX, it furiously fires missiles and guns, but Reimu already knows that it isn’t real at the moment, there’s only Shinigami. The aircraft flies by above Reimu, her view can’t keep up with it, when she turns around, of course, it is gone, Reimu continues her way home. When she’s back at her shrine, she doesn’t notice that there’s a shadow on the door, she’s tired and just opens the door and goes straight inside. Reimu then has dinner and goes to sleep like normal.

The next day, Reimu wakes up at 7am, after she sits up, she looks at her room’s backyard door, there’s sunlight shining. However, there’s something else, she can see the shadow of two people sitting outside, a woman with a big bows and a ponytail, next to her is a man. She can definitely tell that they’re her parents because when she opens the door, there’s no one there. Reimu continues her morning routine until 9am while at the same time, waiting for something else to happen. but things don’t go the way she thought, because aside from the shadows in the morning, nothing happens during the entire day. Reimu day goes on normally… however, it all changes when nightfall. At 9pm, Reimu goes to sleep like normal, but she just can’t sleep, no matter how long she closes her eyes, she just can’t sleep at all. Time goes by, 9, 10, 11pm, but she still completely awake and can opens her eyes normally. Reimu decides to sit up and that was a right decision because after she sits up, a glowing red butterfly can be seen in the room. The butterfly flies to and stays above the drawer in her room, like it’s trying to point out something for Reimu. Reimu stands up and goes to the drawers, on the drawers was where she last put the 2 pictures of her family. Reimu takes the two pictures and the butterfly flies straight to the backyard door in her room, Reimu figures that it wants her to go to the backyard. She opens the backyard door, the butterfly continues a bit before stopping in place, then it suddenly descents down near the ground, making Reimu naturally follows it and sits down. After Reimu sits down, the butterfly lands on her hands and starts disintegrating into particles before disappears into thin air. Then Reimu looks down at the two pictures in her hands, after a short while, suddenly… “Reimu.”, a strange mature woman voice can be heard coming from her left, surprises her and also causes Reimu to naturally turn her head to see who just called her. Reimu eyes opens wide in shock, standing in front of her eyes and looking at her is a tall woman, around 170cm, she’s wearing a black and red shrine maiden outfit and a red and black bow tying up a ponytail on her head, she has black hair and dark red eyes. The encounter between Reimu and her mother creates a supernatural force powerful enough to wake up Sokolóv, Masayoshi and Yukari whom are currently sleeping.

Sokolóv quickly wakes up and runs to Masayoshi’s office, knocks on the door, after gotten permission, he opens the door.
Sokolóv: “Masayoshi!”
Masayoshi: “You’re awake, Sokolóv?”
Sokolóv: “Yeah, seems like you just woke up, you felt it too?!”
Masayoshi: “I did, it definitely comes from the Hakurei shrine.”
After Masayoshi finished his sentence, Yukari’s gap portal opens in the room, she pops out and sees the two man awake in the room.
Yukari: “Seems like you two know it too, you two coming?”
Sokolóv and Masayoshi nod and follow Yukari into her shadow realm. Then she opens another one right in front of the Hakurei shrine. The three then go to the side of the shrine and peek from there, they could tell where it’s happening because the backyard of the shrine is brighter than the natural moonlight.

Reimu and her mother stare at each other for a while, then her mother starts walking towards Reimu, she sits down next to her, lift her hand up and put it on Reimu’s cheek. Reimu asks her: “W-What… what’s your name…?”, her mother chuckles then replies: “Don’t be so scared, just talk to me normally, okay Reimu?… My name is Hakurei Nikita, I’m your real mother, I think you’ve already known that by now.”. After she finishes talking, a strange man walking towards them out of nowhere, he then sits next to Nikita and holds her hand. He’s as tall as Nikita, he has black hair and a faint beard, he was a Russian who lived in Gensokyo. Reimu looks down at the pictures and looks at the man, she asks: “And… you are my father?”, the man nods and he says: “Yes, I am your father, my name is Ivanov if you’re wondering.”. Reimu is at loss for word, she keeps looking up and down at her parents and the pictures. Nikita takes Reimu’s hand and hugs her, Reimu gets to feel the warmth of a mother for the first time in her life after a long long time. Then the family has a chat with each other for a long while, Reimu asks her parents about their past and they also ask her about some random things, it’s just a warming conversation like every family out there. Reimu eventually becomes happy and loves her parents. Nikita then suddenly asks Reimu: “I think that you might want to know what actually happened to us, as Sokolóv said, we are now spirits, but because of that, we can let you see what happened with our supernatural power.”, Reimu looks down at the pictures, she seems confused, worried and excited at the same time. After a while, she finally looks up at her parents and says: “Yes, I want to know the truth.”. After she said that, her parents smile, then they says: “Alright Reimu, close your eyes for a bit.”, Reimu closes her eyes. After a short while, Reimu opens her eyes, suddenly, everything becomes day, Reimu looks to her right, where the backyard is, she sees her parents sitting together, Nikita is leaning on Ivanov. Then, she hears the laughing of a child, Reimu stands up, steps down from the floor platform to the backyard, she sees a small girl, sitting and smiling happily next to the MiG-29, the plane is parked exactly where her plane normally be. Reimu looks around before looking back at her parents. Nikita is smiling happily while leaning on her husband and looking at her child. But suddenly her expression becomes dark, her smile is gone, her eyes look down, she looks a bit sad and worried. Everything seems normal and peaceful… but it all changes when an explosion sound can be heard. Young Reimu looks at her parents, curious about the sound she just heard, while at the same time, Nikita quickly stands up and looks at the sky. Just a few seconds after she stands up, the sound of an air raid siren blares across the entire atmosphere, young Reimu becomes scared, while both her parents have a terrified expression on their face. Nikita then quickly carries Reimu to sit on the platform, then both Nikita and Ivanov quickly run inside. After a while, Masayoshi and Yukari appear from the side of the shrine, they run to the backyard door and call Nikita and Ivanov. After a short while, both come out, already having their flightsuit on. Masayoshi worryingly looks at them, he says: “Y-You guys are going to fight? I’m here to call you both and Reimu to hide in the shelter.”, Nikita replies: “Yes, we already did 2 years ago, right? We are going to fight again just like how we did last time. W-Why you want us to hide?”, “Because Grim Reaper is here!” Masayoshi replies. That single sentence shocks everyone, even present Reimu. Then Nikita says: “But we have Sokolóv here with us, right? He can take care of Shinigami. We will try our best to avoid him, I’m just going to protect everyone as you go to the shelter.”, Masayoshi seems worried and anxious but finally decides to let them go. Before going to their plane, Nikita turns around to look at young Reimu, she lifts Reimu up and hugs her, young Reimu happily smiles and says “Ma.”. Nikita’s expression becomes extremely anxious, there’s also a hint of sadness on her face. Then she hands Reimu over to Yukari and she says: “Takes good care of her okay? We will try to finish this as quickly as possible.”, then she kisses Reimu and says: “Now go! Get to the shelter!”, then she goes to the plane with her husband. This, was when it all started.

Then Yukari and Masayoshi starts running to the side and then out of Hakurei shrine. Present Reimu stays back to see her parents until they take off, she wants to know about her parents but at the same time, what happened to her in the past. After the have taken off, she starts running to catch up with everyone. While running, Reimu looks at her surroundings and she can see Gensokyo is already an intense battlefield. Planes continuously fall from the sky, anti air tanks, turrets and missiles launchers constantly firing and black smokes come up from everywhere. She also sees Shinigami, he open fires at both the military and the civilians, he has no mercy. In fact he even finds killing people fun. Now she understands why people fear him. When Reimu finally catches up with Yukari and Masayoshi, she sees that they aren’t alone, there’s also a group of soldiers surrounds them, protecting them from the enemy and warns them about incoming dangers. Reimu’s still looking at her surroundings as she’s running, after a while she can see Sokolóv coming with an unknown squadron, he flies in a white and black SU-47 while his wingmen flies SU-30SM. Sokolóv’s wingmen then starts shooting down the normal Japanese fighters while he fights with Shinigami. They continue to run for a while before something else happens, no one notices but one of the ground-to-air missiles fires up into the sky and hits a B-52 high up there, breaks off its wing and cause it to fall to the ground. The B-52 falls straight at the group. When it’s close, present Reimu feels that something is coming, she looks up and sees the falling B-52. But it doesn’t hit the ground because a strange missile comes from out of nowhere hits the bomber’s fuselage, ignites the bombs inside, completely turns the bomber into a massive fireball. However, one bomb makes it out, falls right behind the group and explodes, sending everyone flying, Reimu is unharmed of course because this is all a vision. The soldiers and Masayoshi quickly stands up, Yukari however is injured and is lying on the ground, Masayoshi runs at her to check. At the same time, Reimu hears a jet sound passing by on her right, she looks up and it’s her parents plane, it turns around and as it’s doing so, it shoots down two more fighters. She turns back to look at Yukari, she sees that her past self is well protected in Yukari’s arms, When seeing young Reimu is fine, Masayoshi also exhale relievedly, some soldiers and he encourage Yukari to stand up. But… something unexpected happens, an explosion suddenly can be heard super close, causing Masayoshi and some soldiers to look up, then… his eyes widen in shock and he loudly yells: “NIKITA!!!”, Reimu hears that yell and quickly looks back… she’s terrified and in disbelief, because in front of her eyes, her parents’ plane is on fire, black smoke comes out from the right engine and the left wing is completely broken off. The uneven thrust and only one wing cause the red MiG-29 to fall down to one side, falling like so also reveals Shinigami flying menacingly behind, seeing Shinigami makes Reimu even more shocked. Sadly, the ejection seats aren’t working, the canopy is jammed, the aircraft continues to fall aimlessly into the ground. It falls onto a field behind a tall grass wall. And the last thing she sees of her parents… are fire and black smoke coming up a short distance from where then plane crashed. Masayoshi yells Nikita in disbelief one more time before orders everyone to quickly go to the cave because there’re close to it. Reimu looks up at the sky to see Shinigami and he’s currently chased by an angry Sokolóv, his SU-47 furiously fires missiles at Shinigami continuously. Then Reimu looks down at the black smoke from her parents’ plane.

Suddenly, everything flashes white and her surroundings turn back to the present nighttime. Reimu stands there for a moment, she now understands everything, the fear she has for Shinigami, Sokolóv, the pictures, they’re all connected, they all make sense, all the questions she has up till this point has all been answered. Reimu then slowly starts walking through the tall grass wall. After she made it through, she can see the remains of the MiG-29, it’s just a black ruin now, the same thing that Sokolóv visited a few days ago. Tears start forming on her eyes, she approaches the ruin, knees down, she puts her hand on it and starts crying. Masayoshi, Sokolóv and Yukari all are following her but she couldn’t see them. They approach Reimu, Yukari puts her hand on Reimu’s shoulder to comfort her. Tears still flows out excessively, she feels bad for her parents, she feels they shouldn’t die like that, it was so fast and so sudden.
Sokolóv: “Alright, Yukari, Masayoshi, I want to say that you actually don’t know what happened.”
Masayoshi and Yukari look at Sokolóv.
Sokolóv: “I was in the sky, I saw everything the clearest. And I saw it! I saw Shinigami started targeting Nikita and Ivanov! But I… it was too late, my missile couldn’t lock and fire at Shinigami in time… he got the lock first and open fired… I always wish that I could save them for 23 years, I always blame myself for not be able to save them… But well, it’s a thing of the past now, it was a situation we couldn’t control or change it by ourselves, we couldn’t do anything about it.”
As Reimu is crying and listening to Sokolóv, in her heart, she grows vengeful and hatred towards Shinigami, she now knows who her true life enemy is. She then suddenly says: “My parents have passed away long ago, even if travel back in time is a thing, it wouldn’t change anything… so, there’s one more thing I can do… it is revenge.” *looks back at the three “I want to avenge my parents, he must go down under my hand no matter what.”. Reimu surprises everyone with her speech, but it’s also understandable. Sokolóv then says: “Alright, about that… we might be able to help you, but we need a plan for it first, when have it, we will tell you okay Reimu?”, “Yes.” Reimu replies. After a while more, everyone starts going back to their places, Yukari goes back to her house, Masayoshi and Sokolóv go back to SAAC factory airport and Reimu goes back to her shrine.
When she’s back, she can see Nikita standing at the front door, waiting for her. Reimu runs at and hugs her mom, while at the same time, she starts crying again. Then the two go to Reimu’s room, her father is already sitting there, they have a chat with each other one more time before Nikita tell Reimu
Nikita: “Now that you’ve known the truth… we are no longer stuck here in the living world, we have to move on to the afterlife.”
Reimu: “W-Wha-… you have to go? You can’t stay here any longer??”
Nikita: *takes Reimu’s hands “Reimu, we were war victims, the reason we’re still here is because we haven’t told the truth to anyone. Now that we do, we can no longer stay here, the afterlife is waiting for us. We also know that you want to revenge for us, we believe in you Reimu, Shinigami is the primary power of the Japanese military, if you can take him down, it will give Gensokyo and Russia a massive advantage. You can do it right? For this land… and for us too… Reimu.”, “Yes, I will!” Reimu replies while still sobbing. Nikita and Ivanov hug and kiss her, then they say their final goodbye to Reimu and opens the backyard door. Before Nikita leaves, she turns around at Reimu and says: “Go to sleep Reimu, sleep early so you can have enough energy to do things. You’re in a war, not a peace time, okay?”, Reimu nods, Nikita closes the door and both of them disappears. Reimu opens the door and they are nowhere to be seen ever again. Reimu then lies down, wipes her tears, closes her eyes and sleep. It was an intense day for her.

*At a Russian weapon research facility.

“Yes, Dr. Kutnezsov here… oh, Snow Demon, it’s good to hear you… Yes?… Some of our experimental weapons? Okay, go ahead, tell me what you need, hold on, let me take a note… Okay, Electromagnetic AA Missile, and?… airborne EMP, anything else?… The Shredder? Hmm, we will need to test it again before we can import it to Gensokyo for you, we’ve abandoned it for like 2 years, when we’re done, we will bring it there for you okay?… Alright, see you later.”

*To be continued…

Thanks for reading, the next part will be released in the next Saturday so stay tuned!