https://pastebin.com/3vn8m8FE
the part I forgot is actually important. basically, komachi points out yukari had proposed another plan that meiling vetoed earlier, the "just throw her in the sanzu" plan. meiling understandably still hates that plan.
I remember now that the thing about "I'll go to mayohiga and kill her myself" was actually a line that got edited out :V
at one time it was part of it but the segue into yukari showing up got changed
right. so, when yukari said she spent time researching, what she doesn't say is the research is more for meiling's benefit. yukari is as sure of her suggestion as she always was, because she was always sure it would be safe and would work. but hina told yukari to try to see things from other perspectives, to try to compromise. so yukari had been scarce precisely because she was trying to put together enough information to satisfy meiling and get her to agree
anyway, she asks meiling to be patient - which is a BIG ask - because it's easier to approach the topic in a sort of roundabout way. (meiling isn't thrilled about this. she hates yukari being obtuse and yukari's like "if you'll allow me to be obtuse, that's the best way to discuss this")
she first asks komachi and meiling about their experience visiting the grove. they both got the sense that the heart tree had a will of its own, that something drove it to act and react. and they're like "yes..."
when enid talks about the force that powers the grove, she's very clear on one thing, that she doesn't manipulate or control it. at best, she interprets it. it is something independent of her, it can think and feel. it isn't human and doesn't have a mind that a human can exactly understand, so that's why it needs enid, but it is an entity that makes its own choices to some degree.
komachi and meiling are both like "okay, we get that, where are you going with this?"
yukari asks komachi if the sanzu has ever spoken to her. meiling is like "wat" but komachi is like, "sure, all the time."
komachi explains that the sanzu doesn't really talk but it, you know, makes sounds at her. it absorbs entire identities and memories, so it's full of little phrases. it's kind of like talking to a parrot. it repeats things.
yukari asks her "what kind of things does it repeat?" and komachi is like "well all kinds of things, but usually it sings." yukari presses her for more again and komachi explains that she spent a lot of time alone when she was doing her job, and she would often sit by the river and play her guitar and/or sing. sometimes the river would try to "accompany" her, by making little sounds that could sort of pass for music. sometimes when komachi was having a particularly bad day, and she was too unhappy to even make music, the river would make music for her.
yukari zeroes in on this, she's like "so we've established the river could recognize when you were having a bad day and that it tried to comfort you?" and now it's komachi's turn to be like "wat" and then she's like "oh. well I guess sort of yeah."
komachi figures out yukari is trying to draw a comparison between the river and the grove. and she's skeptical. meiling is also skeptical, she's like "so you're trying to convince us the soul-destroying river is alive and it just destroys souls because it wants to?"
yukari and komachi are both like "no :I" (komachi doesn't like meiling being rude to the river :V how dare). komachi's like "I think it's more complicated than that. I don't think the river is like the grove, it has thoughts maybe but it's not cohesive."
and yukari is kind of like, yes, but, it doesn't really need to be exactly like the grove, the point is that it's capable of making choices and it cares about komachi specifically. effectively, it's safe for komachi to throw herself in the river because the river WANTS to help her.
komachi is still like, extremely skeptical, but yukari also reminds komachi that she was on board with this plan before, it's meiling that wasn't. and meiling is like "you still haven't addressed the soul destroying part!"
yukari is like "listen, research only got me so far but I think the soul destroying is mostly power incontinence. the water isn't actually water, it's liquid thoughts. take a swim in liquid thoughts and you'd probably be pretty overwhelmed right?"
the river is how each soul is scrubbed clean so it can be reborn anew. so the river is made of everything that made up those souls. metaphysically, it's like getting lost in a crowd, there's just so much in the river that it's impossible for a soul tossed in there to really handle it
and meiling is like "and komachi is different because...?" and yukari's just like "because she's just different! I'm working on guesswork here but it's REALLY GOOD guesswork, okay."
yukari sums up her point as, we think the reason komachi is different from other shinigami is because she absorbed some of that soul-stuff via contact with the river. the essence of komachi's identity, the komachi we all know and love, already came from the river already - it was the sanzu that imbued komachi with feelings and personalities.
yukari thinks the source of komachi's nightmares were an unintentional side effect. komachi called them nightmares, but they were actually memories - she explained this once on-forum (komachi did, I mean), that she was basically dreaming about being a different person and experiencing a life that wasn't hers.
that's because they were the memories of the dead that had been discarded into the river. the memories were tinged with sadness and grief because those souls were giving up their lives, saying goodbye to their lives. so the dreams made komachi sad and so she called them nightmares. she was dreaming them because her shinigami soul was like "this doesn't belong here" and was trying to get them out.
anyway, komachi has been away from the river for a while since she quit her job. she stopped having nightmares because she had no more alien memories to shed, but the things that made her unique among shinigami kind of went with it. the traits the river had imbued her with were fading away because it was, well, wearing off?
and as yukari posited at the start of komachiplot, the only way to stop this from becoming an endless cycle is to complete komachi's transformation into...whatever the absorption of the river essence was turning her into.
so she needs to just absorb a bunch of the river. and that's why we need to just toss her into it. :V
it's kind of hard to explain which is why I got stuck on writing the post. it's definitely easier to say all this in my own words than try to put it in yukari's words though.
suffice to say a lot of yukari's theory goes over meiling's head, but she gets the basic idea that the river likes komachi and accidentally made komachi komachi, so the only way we can stop komachi from unbecoming komachi is to let the river re-komachi her. basically. very simple amirite
there's still a serious risk involved because the river doesn't destroy souls intentionally, it's just a natural consequence of the river being what it is. yukari thinks it will try its hardest to help komachi - it will actively refrain from hurting her because it loves her. but there's no guarantee of that.
meiling doesn't like that but... she thinks it over really hard and agrees. at this point something needs to be done or she'll lose komachi anyway, and komachi begged her earlier in the same scene to not try and make this decision for her. this is komachi's problem and ultimately it isn't meiling's place to call the shots here, it's komachi's.
and that's the end of that scene! that just leaves the actual finale itself.
~
a small group has come to the gensokyo side riverbank of the sanzu. there's komachi and meiling of course, yukari, nitori and mizuki, and norio. norio is here because He Works Here.
meiling insisted on being there, komachi wanted nitori there as moral support and mizuki is there because... probably because she's nitori's moral support. she's the moral support's moral support.
komachi is komachi and just had to warn nitori that she might die or something
prepare her for the worst case scenario
we have only seen the sanzu shore once or twice, so, to set the scene... imagine an impossibly huge cavern. it's also really, really dark. it's so dark that you can't see the ceiling or walls so you can't see how big the cavern really is, but you know you're in an underground cavern because you went underground to get here, and you're on a beach.
the beach is sandy, but the sand is very fine and white like... powdered bone. because it is bone. it's bone sand :V
there is a short, rickety dock with a familiar rowboat moored to it, and the sandy shore stretches off into the distance to the left and right, but ahead is just this endless expanse of water
the water is slightly glowy! and there's mist everywhere, which is also a little glowy. the mist seems to be given off by the water, and the mist is just everywhere
oh yeah, also there's spirits haunting the shore. nitori and mizuki and meiling are probably unnerved by it because there's just... so many ghosts, just drifting around. they don't seem to notice anyone and are just ghosts doing ghost things. some of them are weeping or talking to themselves or whatever.
not all souls of the dead cross the sanzu immediately. each individual soul has to decide when it's ready to make the journey. so the shore is populated by random souls milling about, being sad about being dead, coming to terms with the need to move on to the afterlife and all that.
but the group of not-dead people (and two shinigami) stand on the dock. komachi hugs everyone and is trying really hard to resist the urge to say goodbyes because this isn't supposed to kill her but there's a non-zero chance that it might and komachi is a pessimist.
yukari is bored.
actually correction, komachi doesn't hug everyone because yukari is also there and she doesn't hug yukari.
komachi hugs everyone else though XD
everyone else backs up and komachi stands at the end of the dock and tries to psych herself up to jump in. like imagine a long, tense minute or two of komachi standing there staring into the water, working up the courage.
even if this doesn't kill her, it will change her life radically forever, and the unknown is always very scary. she doesn't want to be stuck in this malingering state forever so she has to take the plunge, the leap of faith and just do something but she doesn't know what will happen and that's scary.
she takes a couple uncertain steps so she's on the very edge of the dock but then hesitates again, paralyzed by that fear.
and then an arm comes out of a gap behind her and just fuckin shoves her :V
and komachi falls in the water with a surprised shout
yes it's exactly what happened, yukari just fucking pushes her
so just to be clear, although they're only at the end of the dock, the water is still really deep. almost as soon as the shore ends there's a steep dropoff, it's like a foot or so where you can see the bottom and then it's just Deep Deep Water
the sanzu is claimed to be literally bottomless
so komachi falls in the water and meiling runs to the edge of the dock and norio grabs her by the arm and pulls her back a bit, he's not sure if meiling was going to reach after her but she could trip or something and so norio has a vise grip on meiling's arm to make sure she doesn't fall in or try anything. nitori and mizuki and yukari come up, everyone looks in the water. no sign of komachi.
it's hard to see very far into the water, it's murky. super murky.
the group waits in tense silence for a minute... waiting for komachi to come back up... yukari insisted this was safe and komachi would be fine... still no sign of komachi.
they're just waiting and waiting and finally meiling's rage boils over and she can't hold it in anymore and she turns and punches yukari in the face
'cause, you know.
well, maybe you don't. yukari doesn't, she's like "wtf?!" and meiling is just like "YOU KILLED HER!"
yukari is like "I didn't kill anyone, what are you talking about" and meiling tries to hit her again (and fails). meiling's eyes are red. she repeats that yukari killed komachi.
yukari is like "I gave her some encouragement" and meiling's like "fucking BULLSHIT. you KILLED HER." yukari is like "she was going to jump anyway!"
I promise komachi's not actually dead :V the characters are just supposed to think she is and the users have to entertain the doubt. but she's not.
anyway.
meiling screams "IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE HER DECISION!" and yukari actually flinches.
yukari weakly responds with a repeat of her previous statement ("she was going to jump anyway") and meiling rants that we'll never know if komachi was going to jump or not because the choice was made for her. and she hasn't come back. and that means yukari killed her.
yukari has this... conflicted expression on her face. and meiling basically says, she promised to accept komachi's decision. she didn't like this plan but she could have lived with it, if it was komachi's decision. if komachi jumped and the river destroyed her and she was gone forever meiling could have tolerated it because that was komachi's decision.
but now, regardless of what happens, it is not komachi's decision. it's the difference between suicide and murder. yukari killed komachi.
and this time when meiling goes to punch yukari, yukari doesn't dodge it at all, it's not a glancing blow or anything, meiling decks her square in the face - with no element of surprise or anything.
it was like telegraphed from a mile away and the hit still lands. yukari has this expression of dawning horror on her face like she has just realized for the first time in her life ever that She Fucked Up.
granted, meiling punches the sense back into her and when meiling goes to hit her a third time this one doesn't land and yukari gets her composure back, and goes like "I did what had to be done."
meiling was already Maximum Angry but somehow becomes Overmaximum Turboangry. she's like "no you didn't, you did whatever the fuck you wanted, just like always. that's the only thing that matters."
also idk what kappa are doing
norio is still watching seeing if komachi resurfaces
emotions are very new for norio and he's experiencing some emotions for the first time ever :V
he rates the experience 2/10
so yukari responds to meiling with "I was trying to help komachi!" and meiling is like "no, you WEREN'T. because if you CARED, you would have let her make her own decision. you were trying to get rid of the problem, prove yourself right, so you could go home or whatever. don't call it helping like you're some kind of altruist, you only care about yourself. komachi was a hundred times better a person than you and YOU KILLED HER."
at this point meiling stops talking and just goes all in on beating the absolute shit out of yukari
yukari is off kilter, she's upset, it's hard to tell because yukari is hard to read but meiling's words have gotten through to her. yukari isn't used to experiencing things like self-doubt or regret, which are her two primary emotions right now, she is just analyzing and re-analyzing the past ten minutes like if she thinks about it hard enough then her actions will make sense and be perfectly justified
but it doesn't work like that. she can replay the scenario in her head all she likes, it'll always boiil down to she did something stupid, rude and selfish, and she can't undo it.
it's the last part that's really throwing her off because no matter what she has to live with the consequences of the fact she pushed komachi, now. if komachi ends up not being okay then there's nothing she can do about it
at some point the kappa are supposed to join the fighting, I dunno if they do though
but nitori is supposed to join team beat the shit out of yukari, and mizuki being the rational one realizes two things, that we were Explicitly Told that killing yukari could destroy all of gensokyo, and that meiling is Way Too Angry to remember that important fact
mizuki is team this is seriously not helping right now
team everybody calm the fuck down
honestly? draco ain't wrong. if mizuki tried telling them not to kill yukari, idk about nitori's reaction, but meiling wouldn't care, she's 2angry
we all know meiling is a very good fighter, that kind of goes without saying. yukari isn't shabby but her fighting relies heavily on gimmicks, she might be able to match meiling in terms of raw power but meiling massively outclasses yukari in skill and technique
and more importantly, yukari isn't trying to fight back. she's mostly avoiding attacks, and is not even doing that well at it because she's having an antiheroic(?) BSOD
yeah her face hurts
:V
she lost a couple IQ points
it's fine, she has ten blajillion left still
mizuki is trying to get people to stop fighting, so no offense to mizuki but she's probably nearly useless :V
I assume she's slapfighting nitori in the corner because she'd look at meiling and have no idea how you stop an angry murder dragon
ordinarily that'd be a pretty effective strategy draco! but 1) meiling is just that angry and 2) mizuki's rack is not impressive enough
mizuki's chest is still excellent but it just isn't powerful enough
to counter meiling's fury
need bigger tiddy for that
speaking of komachi, it was planned the fight would go on for a couple rounds and then we'd cut to what's going on with komachi!
komachi......... is drowning!
it's a new experience for her and she does not care for it. would not recommend.
shinigami don't have to breathe, that includes komachi, this is an entirely different, new, more esoteric kind of drowning, where it's literally komachi's sense of self that is drowning.
komachi's mind is being flooded with so many memories that she can't remember her name or what was going on or why she's currently drowning in a river. it's just a billion different disparate thoughts and feelings crowding into her brain and chasing out every last shred of anything that makes any sense
she can in fact swim, it's just she has no control over her body right now because she can't form the presence of mind to actually move
her mind is busy experiencing being everyone that ever lived all at the same time
it sucks!
komachi doesn't notice it at first because it's hard to notice things in her current state, but the stuff going through her mind, the "feedback" she's getting, starts to be... different? gradually it starts getting more relevant to her as a person. first it's vaguely related, like random people singing, or random memories about random stuff komachi likes, like a person looking at her favorite flower, for example. vague stuff.
it starts getting less vague in its relation to her, then it's memories and stuff from people she recognizes - spirits she interacted with. then it's memories of her, because every soul that has crossed the sanzu has interacted with komachi at some point.
she starts regaining the ability to think/move as her brain isn't so overwhelmed, it's still a massive deluge of thoughts but there's a semblance of sense to them now and it clears her head a bit. she's seeing herself through the eyes of others, memories of her comforting the souls that wander the riverbank, memories of her chatting with the souls as they're crossing the river, memories of her singing to them or singing to the river
there's even one memory that seems to be one of meiling's memories. that is significant but I wasn't going to explain in the scene exactly why it's relevant, maybe you can guess :V
but it's a memory of when meiling had just been freed from being soul-eaten by miraak, and komachi helped restore strength to meiling's soul so she could be resurrected.
anyway, as this flood of memories keeps going through her head, komachi starts to hear something else. a voice. but weirdly, it's her own voice.
the memories of her singing to the river are being pieced together and played back to her. almost like she's... singing to herself?
this shit is hard to explain. I'm kind of glad I didn't have to write this in a post. thank fuck humansville plot isn't this ambitious, jesus.
https://pastebin.com/dGFWffLZ
basically it's komachi's own voice but the river is singing to komachi by handpicking memories of her singing to it
these are the lyrics, they're cobbled together from actual real songs
it was still a WIP but obviously no more progress will be made on it so I guess this is technically the finished version but if it's a bit rough it's because I wasn't sure if I was done with it
I spent a long time working on it
anyway, the last part is all from one song, so there is a link with a timestamp, listen from the point it starts at through to the end for the final part of the sanzu's song
anyway, as the river is "singing" to her, the memories going through her mind are slowing down and becoming less overwhelmed, but also now it's not memories of her... it's her own memories
memories of her triumphs, like defeating alan anderson and don genie. memories of happy times hanging out with her friends, doing fun stuff with them, them laughing and smiling. memories of sakuya, memories of dolby, memories of ibuki, memories of hina and meiling and mizuki and chiharu and everyone else she's ever cared about, and so so many memories of nitori. all of it memories of times when she felt happy or at peace or just felt... alive
komachi realizes that she has been resisting this whole time. the memories flooding through her, she has been struggling against it, like a drowning person trying to fight to swim and stay afloat. intuitively she knows that's the dangerous part, letting her identity get lost in the deluge, that's how the river un-makes souls and so she has been trying not to give in
but she realizes that the river is trying to help her and that for it to do so, she needs to give in to it. she has to trust it and surrender to it. so... she does
and we cut back to the group on the shore :V
some of that komachi stuff was a flashback - stuff that was happening while they all stood around waiting and then started arguing, etc.
so the fight has still been pretty short but it's still going on, and no one is paying attention to the river anymore. no, not even norio
norio is the first to notice that something weird is happening though. the glow is getting brighter.
the mist that permeates the whole area is glowing brighter and there seems to be more of it, making it foggier and harder to see, but then all the mist is drifting toward the water and the water is glowing brighter too, and it's turning into this swirling whirlpool/waterspout/tornado
of glowing water and mist
the glow is concentrating in the waterspout and the rest of the water isn't glowing anymore but that one spot is getting brighter
it becomes so noticeable that meiling and nitori and yukari all stop in their tracks (and mizuki)
they all move toward the dock to see wtf is going on
so now there's this big swirling water-tornado that is glowing, and it starts changing shape. instead of being round, it's like stretching and distorting in weird ways and it's starting to take on a vaguely humanoid shape... a female humanoid shape... a [s]marshmallow[/s] komachi shape.
the glowy water forms into a komachi standing at the end of the dock. a dry komachi :V and then all the glowyness stops and everything goes back to normal
and of course komachi gets rushed. nitori shouts in relief/joy and runs and bear-hugs komachi, and then norio gets there second and hugs them both because nitori's still hugging komachi, and then meiling gets there third and hugs all three of them and it's just a big bundle of hugging people
also keep in mind norio is hella fast so nitori somehow getting there before him is like. the power of love.
eventually while everyone's hugging people notice that komachi looks (and feels!) different. her skin tone is still pale, but it's like, a healthy human pale, not a "this person might be dead" super ultra pale
there's like a healthy hint of pink to it
and she's warm! her body temperature used to be cold. like touching something that just came straight outta the fridge or something
nitori is the one that notices that, because norio can't really tell a difference, he's still a shinigami, and meiling has too many layers of person in between her and machi
and komachi weighs more! meiling notices that because she picks up all three of them in her hug :V she can still do so easily, and admittedly she's ever picked up norio and nitori and komachi all at the same time, but she's picked up nitori and komachi enough to know their respective weights, and she can sort of hazard a guess at norio's, and the three of them are way heavier.
so they all finally let go and start asking questions and komachi... is not really sure what happened either, but she feels different now! she feels... human? but also sort of not? but mostly?
it's kind of weird. she has to breathe now and stuff, that's new and will take some getting used to.
beyond that I wasn't really sure how to wrap things up... it's just a bunch of everyone being relieved she's okay and being like "wtf happened? wait nevermind that's not important" and stuff.
except yukari. yukari poofed, she is nowhere to be found
at some point komachi is like "can we go home now, I'm tired" and everyone goes back to olympia and komachi gets to have her first night's sleep as a real human cuddling her snugglebug :3
there would have been an epilogue of just komachi being happy and experiencing old things with her new fully human senses. like magnolia making a bunch of food for komachi to try and be able to really taste things for the first time
and meiling turning into a bunch of animals so komachi can pet all of them and see what it feels like
the epilogue would have included yukari showing up and actually apologizing to komachi! (?!?!?!? shock and awe)
very awkwardly and she might have still been a tiny bit rude accidentally or something
lel, well I don't think meiling would have been satisfied with the apology, you're right, and meiling and yukari are not going to be frands anytime soon. however, the apology is to komachi and meiling is if nothing else genuinely impressed that yukari admitted she did a bad thing and apologized at all.
yukari doesn't admit her mistakes often so it's a big deal that yukari actually admitted it and said she was sorry
like, yeah it doesn't mean she's at all fixed her problems, but wao! progress!
also komachi is komachi and she says that she forgives yukari. like pretty much immediately forgives her. and it leads to a short but maybe kind of interesting exchange because yukari legit is like "really? just like that? you forgive me?"
and komachi's kind of like "you think I shouldn't?" and yukari doesn't know how to respond to that. and komachi just goes, "well things could have turned out much worse, but it didn't. I want to move on and be happy about my new life, not poison it by holding a grudge. and in the end your theory was correct and you did help me and you helped medicine."
and yukari takes a moment to process all this and thinks a lot of things that she doesn't say and finally just replies "you are a good person, komachi."
and komachi's like "it doesn't come as easily to everyone. but hey, keep trying."
