The Legend of Hoshiro

Sent from the heavens, wielding rainbows and lightning in the name of peace and justice, Hoshiro Nijinazuma is Gensokyo's greatest warrior. Her decision-making skills, however, leave a lot to be desired.

Joined by like-minded friends, laughed at or reluctantly put up with by heroines from throughout the series, Hoshiro will fight her way through Touhou history and get every Incident completely wrong. What hilarious mishaps await her? Will she find love? The answers ("lots of them" and "maybe") lie within...

~Chapter 2: The Frozen Maiden~

"Blizzard Sign: Shattered Cryoclastic Flow!"

"Air Mastery: Four-Coloured Gale!"

A spear of sparkling storm clouds smashed into roiling colourful wind, hurling smoke out in all directions. Slowly but surely the gale pushed through and hurled Letty into the trees, where she crashed through a leafless canopy and landed in a snowdrift.

"Oof... You're definitely a dragon, I'll give you that." Letty stood up, piles of snow sloughing off her torn dress. "But you forget who has the type advantage. With a yuki-onna's full power, it'll be the work of a moment to put you on ice!"

"Put me on-? Aaugh!" Hoshiro felt a cold, firm grasp on her legs. She looked down in shock as an iceberg grew around her clumpy red boots, anchoring her to the snowy ground. "A cowardly trick like that won't stop me! I'll defeat you and bring back Spring if it's the last thing I do!"

"Some chance! Whether it's pulling strings or freezing the world, I'm the most powerful of all the ice youkai!" Letty laughed triumphantly. "Although now that you mention it, I'm not actually making the long winter-"

"Don't you lie about that!" a voice cried out. It was Cirno, flying towards them in a fierce temper. "You're not the most powerful anything! When it comes to chilliness, I'm the strongest!"

"Not you!" groaned Letty.

"That's right!" said Cirno, puffing her chest out with pride. "It's the one and only incomparable me!"

"Ohh...! Gee, is that the time? I'm going." Letty turned her back on Cirno and flew off. Looking down over her shoulder, she shouted a farewell to Hoshiro. "You can come and die to me tomorrow if you want! I'll be around!"

Hoshiro and Cirno watched her depart, the former wide-eyed and open-mouthed, the latter pouting heavily.

"I can't believe it," Hoshiro finally said. "How'd you scare her off like that?!"

"She must have known she didn't stand a chance against me," sniffed Cirno. "Sometimes it's a shame to be the strongest."

Hoshiro's eyebrows rose. "Strongest? That's not what I remember."

Cirno gave her a quizzical look, then she gasped. "It's you! The dragon who narrowly defeated me half an hour ago! I didn't recognise you with your legs encased in ice!"

"Ohh, you can't see any higher!" gasped Hoshiro, stunned by the revelation. She flexed her calf muscles to shatter the ice. "There we go."

Cirno scoffed. "Trust Letty to leave her ice half-baked! She couldn't freeze a boiled egg without my help."

"I don't know. She does make things chilly," said Hoshiro. She tried to brush some ice off her shorts, but it only made them soggier. "Very chilly. Have you duelled her before?"

"Of course! I've had her on the run dozens of times!" Cirno lied, adopting a heroic stance. "Whether it's spell-cards, fencing, the steeple chase, the triathlon, competitive eating, word searches, mud pie competitions or kickboxing, I could take Letty any day of the calendar!"

"Fencing?!"

Cirno nodded. "I had my ice fence up before she'd hammered a single picket! Then she called me a cheetah because I was so fast and ran away to cry!"

"Wow...! Not only are you strong, you can handle a wordsearch and even make fences!" Hoshiro ran in front of Cirno, her eyes shining. "Cirno! I ask you, for all the world's sake, to lend me your strength! Together we can take Letty down for good!"

Cirno gasped. "Y... You mean it?! I'm the help you need?!"

"That's right! You'll be the Sun Wukong to my Xuanzang, the Ieyasu to my Nobunaga, the Toph to my Katara! A fearless warrior, a tactical genius, a companion there to the end!" shouted Hoshiro, offering Cirno her hand. "Are you with me?!"

"You bet your kneecaps I'm with you!" Hovering a couple of feet above the ground, Cirno grabbed Hoshiro's hand and gave it a mighty warrior's shake. "Let's hunt us a yuki-onna and end the eternal winter so I'll have warm things to freeze again!"

"Behold! The architect of nightmares has been vanquished with some English beef!"

"Eh?" said Reimu, who was comfortably perched on the shrine stairs finishing a large slice of Sakuya's cherry pie.

"English beef? I'm full, but thank you anyway," said Sakuya, licking her plate.

"I didn't do it!" shouted Marisa, pouring her friends some more beer.

Before the tired and bewildered warriors' eyes, Cirno came howling through the air and slammed into the courtyard. She pouted when the tiles failed to shatter beneath her fist, then she cried a little when her fist almost shattered on the tiles.

"Cirno! Oh, my gods!" A worried, sack-toting Hoshiro touched down and knelt in front of her. "You should never punch the ground without gloves. Let me see your hand."

"Shut up! I'm fine!" whimpered Cirno, kissing her injured knuckles. "I've looked mightier beasts than the floor in the eye and still come up smelling of roses. This is nothing!"

"You mustn't push yourself so hard, Cirno. You have friends who care about you!" said Hoshiro reproachfully. "Please be careful from now on."

Cirno stuck her tongue out and offered no reply.

"Excuse us," said Sakuya, "but where are you going with this cabaret?"

"What? Oh, sorry!" Hoshiro stood up, eliciting a startled yelp from the heavy sack slung over her shoulder. "Good news, everybody! We captured the yuki-onna!"

"You captured...?" Reimu realised what must have been tied up inside the sack. "You what?! What yuki-onna?!"

"Letty! The one trying to create eternal winter!" said Hoshiro proudly. She hoiked the sack off her shoulder and dumped it on the courtyard, making its contents swear angrily.

"Oh, no, I don't believe it..." groaned Reimu.

"Letty was innocent, Hoshiro! It was the mistress of the Netherworld!" laughed Marisa. "I can't believe you did it again."

Sakuya blinked. "This has happened before?"

"Yeah, but it was Yuuka last time," recounted Marisa. "Hoshiro thought she was the one making all that red mist."

"Did she? Oh, how silly of you, Hoshiro!" giggled Sakuya. "I suppose I should be glad you didn't come after Lady Remilia as well. Fighting three young ladies in the same evening would have been so tiring."

Hoshiro looked at Cirno, hoping for some moral support.

Cirno was wiping her nose on a lacy blue handkerchief. "What's happening now?" she asked, stuffing it back in her pocket. "I'm bored! When are we executing Letty?!"

"Ohh... We boobed, Cirno. Letty was innocent!" Hoshiro dolefully explained. "Come on, let's let her out and apologise."

Cirno's jaw dropped. "You said boob!" she declared, breaking out in a wide grin.

"Actually, I think that was the archaic definition of 'boob', which refers to stupid behaviour!" Marisa piped up. "Basically, a 'boob' is an idiot who never gets anything right and 'boobed' is the past tense of 'boob' because it's a verb as well, which means, um." She giggled. "They're a total pair of boobs!"

"P-pair of boobs?! You're so naughty!" Cirno laughed her head off. Then she stopped, her expression turning instantly sour. "Wait, did you call me a boob?! I'm not a boob! Hoshiro, tell her I'm not a boob!"

"We are boobs," said Hoshiro regretfully, "because we did boob. I know it's a confusing word, but the fact that we boobed makes us boobs. Still, there's no harm done!"

"Yes there is," said Letty icily.

"Everyone boobs sometimes. How we come back from it's what counts," Hoshiro went on, ignoring her. "We might be the idiots today, but next time we'll be better, cleverer... Not boobs but heroes!"

"Yay!" squealed Cirno, hugging Hoshiro tightly around the waist. "Can I be Katara next time?"

"Sure!" Hoshiro patted her on the head.

"Can I go to bed now?" said Reimu heavily.