The figure-eight grows faster. The pyon becomes a chant. The shrine’s boundary with reality frays just a little more, replaced by a cozy, dreamlike loop where nothing unexpected ever happens. Where no one questions the maiden. Where every incident is solved before it begins.
“…pyon.”
“You’re just in time,” Reimu says. Her voice is flat. Not angry. Not kind. Just there , like gravity. Her eyes are half-lidded, unfocused, but they track you perfectly. “Version 1.13. I’ve been debugging.”
Your legs feel heavy. Good heavy. Safe heavy. The gohei taps your forehead once— pyon —and a warm, empty bliss floods down your spine. Hypnosis Reimu -v1.13- -Pyon-Pyon-Pyon-
You want to run. You want to scream. Instead, your own lips part, and a soft sound escapes.
“Sleep now. When you wake, you’ll remember only the peace. And you’ll bring it to others. Pyon-pyon-pyon~”
As your consciousness folds neatly into itself, the last thing you hear is Reimu’s quiet voice, soft as a sealing charm: The figure-eight grows faster
The first thing you notice is the sway. Not the gentle drift of a shrine maiden’s sleeve in the wind, but something metronomic. Deliberate. Reimu stands in the center of the Hakurei Shrine’s clearing, her gohei—the paper-tipped wand of purification—tracing a slow, lazy figure-eight in the air. The sound it makes is less a rustle and more a whisper: pyon. pyon. pyon.
Pyon.
The gohei twitches. Your tongue freezes mid-syllable. Where no one questions the maiden
You try to laugh. “Debugging? Reimu, what are you—”
“Version 1.12 had backlash,” Reimu muses, as if discussing tea. “Subjects retained too much self-awareness. They knew they were hypnotized. That led to resentment. But 1.13?” A rare, small smile. “They thank me for it. They even help spread the pyon .”
You didn’t come here for this. You came to report an incident—fairies acting strangely, drifting in circles, muttering about "the new rule." But the moment you stepped past the torii gate, the air thickened. The usual scent of incense and old wood was replaced by something sweeter. Cloying. Like poppies and static.
You realize the pyon-pyon-pyon isn’t just a sound. It’s a waveform. A hypnotic carrier signal layered into the ambient reiki of the shrine. Every time you hear it, the edges of your thoughts blur. You try to recall why you came here. An incident? What incident? The memory slips away like a fish in murky water.