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 Mystic Girly Danmaku Story 東方妖々夢　～ Perfect Cherry Blossom.



=1. Summary=

"東方妖々夢　～ Perfect Cherry Blossom." is a girly danmaku shooting game.

Please enjoy the finest selection of bullet hell and bullet avoiding in its most ultimate and beautiful form.


 * This game contains an extreme amount of bullet hell scenes.

Small children and people with danmaku allergies should consult a doctor before playing.

=2. Back story=

—Gensokyo Record—

This is a remote place in an eastern country, far from any human habitation.

In ancient times, this was a place of terror. Those who wandered too close would be eaten by youkai. People named this place Gensokyo and never dared to approach.

Most people feared the youkai, but a brave warrior would occasionally rise to defeat them. Some of those brave humans settled in Gensokyo to keep close watch on the youkai. In those times, humans would fight with youkai every night.

Stories like those were common in this mountain country, and many places like Gensokyo existed in those times.

Over a thousand years have passed since then...

Humans gradually built up a civilization. Humans don't fear the dark anymore. Since they grew to the point where they could produce light to make it seem like midday even at midnight. Because the humans blindly followed materialistic science, unscientific worlds - in other words, those with things like youkai and oni - were eventually excluded as superstition.

Gensokyo was deemed useless to the human world as well, so priests sealed it away with the Great Barrier, which could never be opened again. Of course, both the youkai and the descendants of the brave humans who kept them in check were sealed away in the process as well...

That marked the end of the history of humans and youkai.

With the passing of time, those who still knew of Gensokyo died out...

Though innumerable years have passed since its sealing, Gensokyo is still home to many youkai and just a few humans. The youkai of Gensokyo have built up their own culture; one that is all that like the culture of the world when Gensokyo was sealed. However, it was not a materialistic culture - it was a culture centered upon spiritual awareness far exceeding that of the human world. The wise youkai sought not the bounty of objects, but the bounty of the heart.

For the youkais with such a civilization of magic, it is very easy for them to open the Great Barrier sealing Gensokyo. However, the youkai do not attempt to open it. On the contrary, they actually reinforced the barrier with an even stronger power. The barrier that had once locked Gensokyo away was now used in order to prevent invasion by the humans.

Nonetheless, the main diet of youkai is, of course, humans. Natural products are especially popular. Food-gathering teams would go out at regular intervals to hunt humans. Of course, the youkai couldn't let the humans know about their presence. Under the guise of various accidents and incidents of people running away from home, the youkai hunted humans. A simple missing person would barely even make the news since there were too many people in the human world.

Thus, the history of humans and youkai began anew.

The world may be a land of youkai, but even now, lost humans sometimes end up there. They are said by the outside world to have been "spirited away".

Most of the humans that end up in Gensokyo aren't able to return, but in the event that they are able to return to their original world, their spiriting away would only be met by a mountain of questions. Those people would unanimously say that the person was crazy, and would be believed by no one.

They'd claim things like "I saw Togenkyo", or "I went to Mt. Hourai".

Those who visit Gensokyo seem to believe that it is a legendary paradise. At first glance, it looks like a utopia without anything unnatural, everything working in favor of the creatures living there. There is no doubt that, from the point of view of a person from the human world, this place was none other than paradise.

Gensokyo is a paradise for many youkai and a few humans. It will remain a paradise until humans are destroyed, or it is discovered by humans.

The following story is a record of the peaceful and fantastic everyday events that take place only in Gensokyo.

P.S. So, why is Gensokyo a paradise for humans if they have to live with youkai? Well, that's because when everyone has enough power to defeat youkai in combat, and that's anything but boring!

(Inscribed by the 13th shrine maiden of the Hakurei Shrine)

東方妖々夢 (Touhou Youyoumu: Eastern Ghostly Dream) ~ Perfect Cherry Blossom.

- 0 -

As spring turns to summer, the land is coated in silver illusions. People relax and bask in the calm of a winter with no end in sight.

However, none of that mattered to dogs or youkai, who are as energetic as ever. There have never been many humans in Gensokyo, but youkai of the winter were making plenty of noise.

The time is ripe for snow to melt away, and for snow storms to be replaced with storms of cherry blossoms. Even Gensokyo changes with the seasons, but this year...

...It is now May, and spring has shown no sign of arriving.

- 1 -

Reimu Hakurei, the maiden of the Hakurei shrine who lives in Gensokyo, didn't like the cold.

Reimu: "Ahh, it's cold."

It's just that this time, her complaint was that it was already May. The snowfall and blizzards had been fierce for a week, with no sign of stopping.

Reimu: "The cherry blossoms should have bloomed by now.　　Why is there so much snow this year?"

She figured she could find out why without asking about it. More talking would have made her colder anyway, so instead, she headed out to go straight to the source of the problem.

Reimu: "(Hmm, it seems to be coming from this direction, I guess?)"

Being of old-fashioned construction, the shrine was easily penetrated by wind, and even some snow, so it was as cold inside as it was outside. As usual, she turned to her intuition for guidance and set off.

- 2 -

Marisa Kirisame, an ordinary magician, liked the cold sometimes and hated it other times, just like other ordinary humans.

Marisa: "It's ordinary, but I don't hate spring."

The Kirisame residence was always warmed by a magical heater. Or, even without it, the magical room were warm by themselves anyway.

Marisa: "I can't visit the shrine during such a storm."

She saw some light pink petals floating by in the snowstorm in front of her house. They were petals that came from a flower that only bloomed in the spring in this eastern country. Yes - they were petals from a cherry tree.

Marisa: "Is this the only place that still feels like winter?　　May's already here, but you wouldn't know it from the cold."

If she followed the wind, she should find cherry trees blooming. The snowstorms and high altitudes on a mountain should cause flowers to bloom slower, so why were cherry petals coming from that direction? She decided to follow the trail of cherry blossom petals to find the spring that wouldn't come.

- 3 -

Sakuya Izayoi, a maid of the Scarlet Devil Mansion, was sipping bitter coffee in a warm room.

Sakuya: "We'll run out of charcoal and coffee beans soon."

Indeed, humans couldn't survive this winter without anything to burn for heat.

Sakuya: "I didn't expect winter to be so long.　　If we run out of supplies, the mistress will start complaining."

No one does home deliveries this far. Residents of Gensokyo prepare food and fuel for an entire winter in advance. Roads were buried by the snow, rendering them completely useless. Thus, the preparing has become a tradition that hasn't been changed in a very long time.

Sakuya: "I should put an end this winter before fuel run out.　　My lady, I'll be away until spring comes."

The mistress confirmed that spring would come the very next day, so she happily bid Sakuya on her way.

- 4 -

Gensokyo was in the middle of a truly long-lasting winter. May had only seen the coming of even stronger snow storms.

But in Gensokyo at this state, there was a place unknown to anybody that was filled with flowers in full bloom. Or literally, no "humans" knew about it.

In Gensokyo, there are few "humans" to begin with.

And spring has yet to come.

=3. Introducing the player characters=