seki108

splitting it up here

A sunflower maze would certainly be a pain to work your way through in real life if you had to be concerned not to damage any flowers.......especially since almost every NPC in the Garden of the Sun cautions against it.  Thankfully, we have overhead view to avoid the wrath of an angry flowermaster.  I was definitely relieved when the theme for the area was Yuuka's theme from Touhou 9, instead of either theme from Touhou 4.

At the end of the maze, its caretaker comes to greet us.  We saw from a distance earlier in the game that she was something to the Liberation Front, and we finally get an answer.

So, she was the Geist to Medicine's N.........if Geist was completely hands off and only viewed it like Yuuka, instead of a means to an end of region domination.   Actually saying it, she's nothing like Geist, except for the manipulation angle and possible ruthlessness depending on the game/interpretation.

Thankfully, she uses a remix of her best theme for her battle theme

Like Medicine's A.I., Yuuka's is certainly one of the better ones.  Even her three mons were challenging enough, especially since one of the Knock Off equivalents of the game confirms that the named NPCs are using held items by this point.  They probably have for a while and I just haven't gotten confirmation.  With my lowest at level 55, Yuuka's last mon bridged the level gap.

Well, beating her pretty much puts the final nail in the Puppet Liberation Front.....maybe permanently??  Either way, I like that Yuuka's house become a new 'Fly' point on the Gap Map.  Still, she isn't the one causing the puppet incident, but she does hint at having the full picture.  Unfortunately, she isn't keen to tell us much aside from looking outside Gensokyou......and then leaving it that (second spoiler).