The gohei twitches. Your tongue freezes mid-syllable.
Pyon.
From the corner of your eye, you see them. Cirno. Aya. A few nameless fairies. They stand in a loose ring at the edge of the clearing, swaying in perfect unison. Their mouths move silently, forming the same syllable over and over. Hypnosis Reimu -v1.13- -Pyon-Pyon-Pyon-
“That’s it,” Reimu whispers. She’s close enough now that you can see the faint, spiral-shaped glint deep in her pupils—a reflection of something not present in the physical world. A self-hypnosis loop she’s turned outward. “Let go of the incident. There is no incident. There is only the shrine. And the shrine needs peace.”
Reimu nods, satisfied. “Good. Now, let’s begin the induction properly. Look at the gohei. Follow the light. Don’t think about resistance. Resistance is just another bug—and I’ve already patched it.” The gohei twitches
“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’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.” From the corner of your eye, you see them
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.