If this was all staged in advance as a way of tricking Marisa, most of this makes sense (but they're ALL jerks for not telling Koakuma, and letting her sit their crying over Patchouli's death, then jerking her around by saying she's alive, no wait, she's still dead), except for the part where Alice is having an INTERAL monologue to unravel the mystery that she is already a part of.
Well, it's entirely possible, I would think, that Alice was not originally a part of the plan. Perhaps Sakuya explained the plot to her as they carried her down to the dungeon where she was "killed" and recruited.
Oh Patchy, you could've saved so much time and effort if you just fooled her when taking your share of the temporary death-inducing potion and taken the books back while she was out cold...
In other words, this was a double con.*whop*Looking at it like this, I am amazed she managed to steal this many from me. I have to admire her.She did not realize, however, that in fact she was the one who got duped.Marisa thought that she had Alice duped in testing a magic potion to fake her death.Patchouli, having heard of Marisa's plan, enlisted the help of Reimu, Remilia, Sakuya and Alice in her own scheme to retrieve her stolen books.
