Backfiring Lunacy

Chapter 12

The rest of the trip home was exceedingly difficult for Tewi, having to limp home with an impoverished left arm. With every step the rabbit took inching her closer back to Eientei, Tewi couldn't help but be grateful she made it out of the garden alive - however it came with that Eirin was forcefully going to plant another sunflower in the garden against her will. It was a rash, roguish choice to make, but it wasn't the wrong one either. What could've happened if she babbled on without giving an answer?

Tewi blew out those thoughts to counteract the windy mashup slewing in the head. The darkness in the sky hadn't won over the light just yet, making it clear youkai weren't going to ambush Tewi anytime soon and likely brutalize her piece by piece.

Staggering, the rabbit imagined the world in a grayish texture. Not white, not black, not good, not bad; everything instead was gray to her - a blanket of comfort and discomfort simultaneously. The atmosphere felt bleak to her, fog and emptiness sat within her pit to descend into morally ambiguous and complexity, further becoming a dulled branch that resonated enough for Tewi to feel...disconnected.

Anything and everything wasn't black from the darkness, malevolence, solemnity, and cruelty experienced throughout this journey, nor the combination of light, benevolence, frivolous, and kindness. It was all just...gray. No answer at the bottom of the well that diplomatically called back positivity, and no prayer to the heavens responded with a lightning strike that produced negativity over the human soul once it hit.

Tewi didn't know how to feel. She felt like a ravaging shadow injected her with a nihilistic point of view to render her irremediable, but she held steady, hellbent on returning back to Eientei in contrast with superfluous orders failing to coerce her into docility. The only thing she knew for real was moving forward, to push through the struggles until it was done. When this is done, Tewi thought to mentally shove herself through it. Then everything can go back to the way things were, and all I need to do is get back to Reisen!

The newfound vigor transitioned the rabbit's senses and determination into hurling through the gravity trying to slow her down - it was only a matter of time before she reached her destination, but the newfound vigor was ultimately short-lived when the atmosphere immediately rusted with familiar bearings; shade traveled overhead to point in amusement at the maimed bunny. Tewi paid no mind to the encroaching shade. That was, until she felt a drop of water land on her head, lecturing her tacitly to set her eyes upward.

That's when the rain came crashing down.

Fathoming with a quixotic imagination, Tewi thought the rain felt like the time she fell unpremeditatedly into one of her own traps set for Reisen and the gravel traveled down to maliciously burden the shoulders of Tewi. Rain, small water droplets that carried no real weight, heavily struck down the rabbit patiently - and more corrosive strikes would be delivered if Tewi did not throw in the towel.

The rabbit trudged through the rain begrudgingly, pondering if the world that unceasingly desired to averse her could exacerbate her further. The depths of the ground oozing into a mud-like slop, coating the rabbit's shoes in its thick, goopy substance - the wet grime hugged her shoes in a taut grip.

Tewi felt forlorn, distant from any part of Gensokyo gushed in a foggy mist. Certitude became dubiety, peacefulness because chaos, sensible became nonsensical. Scattered across time and space, forgotten and exerted from any known location existent in her homeland, this foreign dreamscape danced in nothingness until it manifested into drenching despair that urged Tewi to stop, but she spat it in the face.

"I'm so close," Tewi spoke softly, panting with her left arm crooked. "Just a little further..."

At last, Eientei opened itself to welcome the return of the smaller rabbit in its space, but when Tewi entered, she noted that the halls were eerily quiet - only the sounds of her footsteps and shallow breathing filled the interior, and this information made Tewi succumb to an inference that Eirin still wasn't home yet. She must be a busy doctor, Tewi thought, colliding with a wall accidentally that threw her position off momentarily. T-That youkai...my arm hurts so much...