So...
It's been a while. Over three years, to be precise. I was just finishing up my (disastrous) sophomore year of high school when I last updated this, and I'm in college now. AND I took a year off in between high school and college.
I've held off on doing this for a long time, out of some vague hope that I might decide to come back to this (and if I did ever decide to come back to this, doing what I'm doing now would utterly spoil everything for all of you). However, I've made a decision.
I'm here to do three things, now.
1: Officially pronounce this story dead, officially announce For Want of a Nail dead, and announce the third iteration of Gensokyo's Heart, which will be very different but hopefully much more manageable: GH: Re;Start. Keep an eye out for Gensokyo's Heart: Re;Start if you really liked this story.
2: Analyze why this story died the way it did.
3: Explain my original plan for this story (it won't make up for the story not being there, but it'll help, and I want to get this off of my chest anyways).
Anyways, yeah.
For #1, I don't gotta do anything else. The two original iterations of Gensokyo's Heart are dead, but I'm working on a third one that I'm gonna try really hard to keep from dying. I'm fairly confident that it won't die simply because it's so short.
For #2... the analysis.
The initial reason why updates started to slow down was a combination of writers block and school absolutely kicking my ass. Updates stopped completely when I basically failed tenth grade and got grounded while I went to summer school. After that, I just never really got back into it, even though I tried a handful of times simply out of a sense of duty.
However, school kicking my ass wasn't the root cause of this story's death, it was just the final nail in the coffin.
The real problem... was that this story was just too ambitious for a story I decided to write on a whim.
You wanna know why I started this story? Because I really wanted to write Abathur, and I was really into Touhou at the time. That's it. And, like, that's fine! It's as good a reason to write a fanfic as any. The problem is that it was just a whim- whims can't entertain you for very long. So, if you feel like writing a story on a whim, you should probably plan to write a shorter story.
But, I was younger and more naiive, and I didn't want to write it if it wasn't a long epic because those were all I cared about. So, I planned out this huge epic trilogy, with very specific plot beats, full of epic crossover action, with a shit ton of unique original characters and concepts. I had so many ideas for where I wanted this fic to go... which was dumb of me, because I was never going to care about it long enough to get there.
I still like long epics, but I'm not as attached to them as I was when I was sixteen. I can appreciate all types of stories now. I know that longer does not equal better. If I had started this story about five months ago, it'd probably be done by now, unless real life got in the way, because I would have written something more appropriate for this whim.
So, Gensokyo's Heart: Re;Write is gonna be a lot shorter than I originally planned Gensokyo's Heart to be (although, it'll probably be as long or possibly even longer than how long it ended up being), and a lot lower key (although, probably just as intense as it ended up being). Yeah, I never had the chance to get to the really exciting stuff. Even worse, this story kinda became a tumor, weighing down on my mind and limiting my abilities as an artist for YEARS. This simple whim of mine. Uegh.
Worst of all, though, is how you, my readers, were treated by this story. I had a pretty sizeable fanbase for this story that I honestly could have done a lot better on, and then the story just kinda disappeared, with no explanation.
So, yeah. In the future, I'm gonna write stories more appropriate for what inspired them.
For #3, my plans. If I'm not gonna continue the story (and Re;Start is gonna have a completely different story), I might as well tell you what I had planned.
Gensokyo's Heart, as I've said in some of the story's author's notes, was going to be split into three acts: Youkai Zerg, Battlefield, and Revenge.
The Youkai Zerg act was still only about a third of the way through by the time this story died. Yeah. We were only a ninth of the way through the story. I told you I bit off more than I could chew with this.
As the name implies, Youkai Zerg focused on the, well, Youkai Zerg that Abathur created. He was going to eventually make one Youkai Zerg for every strain of Zerg, sans Drone. Also, he was working on a new Zerg creature inside his body, using all of the Youkai essence as well as his own sequences. Over the course of this act, Reimu and Alice officially became an item.
Abathur was not the only one doing things, though. We also had Bob, Stettman, and the Mysterious Woman and her subordinates. Bob was mostly comic relief, but Stettman and the Mysterious Woman were hugely important. Stettman would be a major ally over the course of Youkai Zerg, and would also set the stage for Battlefield; meanwhile, the Mysterious Woman was set to be Youkai Zerg's main antagonist.
Abathur and Aya would get consistently closer over the course of the story. Eventually, Aya would realize that she was starting to develop romantic feelings for him, which caused her some minor emotional distress because she felt like Abathur's life view had no room for love in it.
Eventually, once all of the Youkai Zerg were gathered, they'd also find a clue to where the Mysterious Woman lived. So, all of the Zerg and their allies would storm the Mysterious Woman's hideout.
After defeating all of her forces, they'd confront the Mysterious Woman... and she'd turn out to be the Queen of Blades. No, not Kerrigan- rather, the consciousness that controlled her body from SC1's Zerg Campaign all the way through the ending of Wings of Liberty. Narud had saved her mind at the last minute and sent her consciousness to Gensokyo in a new body loosely based on the Primal Zerg to grow into a new powerful minion for Amon.
The Queen would attempt to sway the Zerg back to her side... before Abathur made it clear that he followed Greatest Leader, not her, and even if he did, he liked Gensokyo's inhabitants too much to side against them.
Then, he'd reveal what he'd been cooking up inside his body this whole time- a new body. A female Youkai body that was vaguely similar to his old one, but actually humanoid. And cute. This new one had a much more feminine and less monstrous voice, but still spoke in the same weird speech patterns. Also, it could still spin strands and sequences.
Then, Aya would be captured and put in a situation where she would probably die without help, and Abathur would have to rescue her. Now that Abathur had a human-looking face, Aya found it much clearer to read her emotions, and realized that Abathur was terrified at the idea of losing her- so, after being rescued, Aya confessed her love.
Then, they'd all defeat and kill the Queen (for real this time), and get a happy ending... or not. Remember, that was only the first act of three. In the final scene of Youkai Zerg, just as the Zerg and their allies are celebrating, Amon's forces invade Gensokyo.
Battlefield picks up about a week later. Overnight, Gensokyo had been transformed into a war zone, with Gensokyo's inhabitants fighting the Hybrids. The Youkai Zerg, Bob, and Stettman's team now all considered themselves inhabitants of Gensokyo. Also, just because it was now a war zone didn't mean the entire place was chaotic- Stettman's base, the Youkai Zerg's hive, the Hakurei Shrine, and Mayoiga were all still perfectly safe for now, and battles didn't rage 24/7 or anything.
Anyways, soon, reinforcements arrive from Koprulu- Raynor, Kerrigan, and Zeratul all arrive to offer assistance with large forces of Terrans, Zerg, and Protoss, and they all set up bases across Gensokyo, too. The flagship of their combined forces is the Science Vessel Halo, which began construction shortly after the destruction of the Hyperion. Although, the Halo is too large to actually fit in Gensokyo, so it just waits outside.
Soon, they gain more assistance from a creature named Gen who has extroardinary powers. When they question her on who she is, they find that she is the goddess of the Hakurei Shrine, and the personification of Gensokyo itself.
Also, she reveals that Humans naturally have Purity of Essence, and that the Youkai were the result of an older incarnation of Xel'Naga uplifting them. Lunarians have Purity of Form, and they were also uplifted- but like the Protoss, the original species no longer exists. Youkai and Lunarians were intended to be an incarnation of the Xel'Naga, but it never went through.
Eventually, they'd push Amon's forces back through to the Koprulu Sector... but by then, it was too late- Gensokyo was in ruins. So, everyone who's capable of putting up a fight agrees to follow the Terrans, Zerg, and Protoss back to the Koprulu Sector, hop in the Science Vessel Halo, and take the fight to Amon.
End of Battlefield.
Revenge picks up a month later, with Gensokyo's inhabitants still struggling to get used to life on the Halo. At this point, the Youkai have their own unit structure, which I doodled in a notebook in class when I was bored.
Revenge follows them all fighting Amon.
They win. Yay.
Notice how my plans got less detailed as they went. That's because, as much as I planned this out in advance, there WAS still stuff that I was totally winging. I'm pretty sure there's also plenty of stuff that I forgot, given that it's been three years since this updated. Also notice how Abathur became less relevant after Youkai Zerg. I actually didn't notice that myself until I was writing this, and it really annoys me that it never occurred to my younger self that I'd planned to spend over a hundred chapters building up something that we didn't even get to see do that much.

Anyways, that's the very sudden end for this incarnation of Gensokyo's Heart... but I hope to do better with the next one.

Also, don't hold your breath for the next incarnation to come soon. It'll probably be a while before I really have a decent amount of time to work on it, especially since it's no longer my only priority. But once I actually start working on it, I fully intend to see it through to the end... especially now that it's gonna be a significantly shorter story.