東方プロジェクト二次小説・オリジナル小説サイト
Chapter 1: Perfect Cherry Blossom

One


𝘐𝘯 𝘠𝘰𝘴𝘩𝘪𝘺𝘢𝘮𝘢, 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘳𝘺 𝘣𝘭𝘰𝘴𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘴 𝘣𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘮 𝘰𝘯 𝘣𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘴 𝘥𝘶𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘴𝘯𝘰𝘸.
𝘊𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘥𝘳𝘪𝘧𝘵𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘢𝘯𝘺 𝘸𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘣𝘦 𝘴𝘰 𝘤𝘰𝘭𝘥 𝘢𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘥𝘪𝘮 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘪𝘳 𝘨𝘭𝘰𝘳𝘺?


—1—

In the world that Renko and I came from, snow is beautiful but fleeting. It was not until we came to this world that I learned that it could be anything else. Here in the human village, the magical peace of a world covered in silvery snow decorating every surface is a wonderland that quickly fades from mystifying to annoying. The reality is that soon after a snowfall, snow must be gathered up and piled away on roadsides and in vacant lots, where its pristine beauty is marred by dirt and mud. Where the snow isn't cleared, deep drifts become hard to walk in or slippery when hard packed. Even the act of clearing it away to create such a disappointing scene is slow, difficult work. To learn that the soft, fluffy snow which looks so gentle outside a window can become such a heavy and dangerous force when its weight and wetness are piled up over time is enough to make me want to sue for false advertising.

Even here, in this world of dreams and fantasy, real life can be quite hard.

—

"Bye Miss Merry! See you tomorrow!"

"Yes, I'll see you all tomorrow. Everyone, be sure to help out and be good at home."

The children quickly dispersed from the classroom and made their way through the snow to the gates, waving their hands overhead at me as they left. I waved back and watched my breath puff out in white clouds. I was tired from shoveling the path the children were following earlier this morning and now I had just finished my morning classes full of more than a dozen kids. It was not even noon yet, and I felt like I had used up at least a full day's allotment of energy already.

"Good work, Merry. You look tired."

It was my partner, Usami Renko, who now teaches math at this school and introduces herself as the director of our 'Hifuu Detective Agency' that was standing behind me, smiling her usual, cat-like grin.

"Renko. I didn't think you had any students today."

"I don't. I've just come to sweep you off of your feet and carry you away from all of this drudgery. Let's go have lunch."

"You won't carry me very far in this snow. You could have just waited for me back at the office, I would've been there in another five minutes or so."

"Enh, I was bored of waiting around in there anyway." Of course, with all this snow, we weren't seeing many new clients or prospects stopping by with mysteries to report either.

According to the calendar, it was late April. It should have been clearly spring by now, and Keine had confirmed that warmer weather would normally have arrived by now, but only yesterday we had to endure yet another dump of snow. Many of the villagers were starting to become concerned, and the unusual weather was the topic of every casual conversation on the street.

"The children manage to make it to the temple school every day," Renko mused. "Why don't they ever bring any fascinating mysteries with them?"

"If you skip school, you can expect a headbutt the next time Miss Keine sees you. If you don't report a mystery, probably no one will notice. Or if it gets bad, the neighborhood watch or the Hakurei shrine will take care of it."

"Ah, there's too great a gap between duty and voluntary acts. I envy the great detectives in novels, who always have mysteries come to them, even when they aren't looking for them."

"I wouldn't like it if everywhere you went someone ended up getting murdered."

My sigh disappeared to mingle with the clouds blanketing the winter streets of this land of fantasy.

It was more than half a year ago that Renko and I had come to live in this village. It was not so unusual for Outsiders to wander into this world, and any who came here and wanted to return home would be allowed to do so. For some reason, however, when Renko and I had come here, we had also jumped roughly 80 years back in time in the process, leaving us with no means of returning to our own world even if we were to leave Gensokyo, a process we had been informed was a one-way trip. As such, we had been left with no choice but to stay in this world, at least until we could figure out a way to properly return to our own.

With no means of supporting ourselves here, we had been taken in by Kamishirasawa Keine, who had given us not just a storehouse in the back of the temple school she ran to use as a home, but a job assisting her in running it and later two positions teaching classes at the school. Setting up the Hifuu Detective Agency to seek out fascinating mysteries unique to this world on top of that had been Renko's idea.

Keine, for her part, had been rather confused by Renko's strange proposal, but had ultimately relented from my partner, and given us permission and assistance in setting up the storeroom as a basic office and opening it to the public. Despite our efforts however, it was quite some time before anyone in the village had been interested in coming to the office of such strange visitors as my partner and I and as such, the office was deserted most days.

Keine's school had also been struggling to attract students in the time we'd been here. When we asked why, Keine had revealed to us the open secret that she was not entirely human. Some measure of youkai blood ran in her veins, and as a result, prejudice against her from the humans made most loathe to entrust their children's safety to her. As it was, only those families who had an interest in seeing their children educated in history bothered enrolling them.

Upon hearing of this, my partner Renko had proposed a drastic reform. She had said "I think part of the problem is that you only teach reading and history here. The fundamentals of education should include composition and arithmetic as well."

"That would be great," Keine had sighed "but I have my hands full with the lessons I have, and the school doesn't bring in enough to hire another teacher."

"Well, as luck would have it, one of the foreign students you're so graciously putting up right now is skilled in mathematics, and the other happens to be a hikikomori who spends her days with her nose buried in books, so I'm sure she knows a thing or two about literature."

"Renko! Don't volunteer me for something without asking!"

My protests were quickly ignored, however, as the two of us were really in no position to argue. Keine had rented this storeroom to us on the grounds that we help her out at the school, and while that had initially meant helping her clean and organize, requesting that we assist with the teaching was hardly unfair. Thus, Keine's temple school gained two new classes, taught by bona-fide humans to attract more students: A comparative literature and composition class taught by me, and a course in mathematics run by Renko. Renko had also taken it upon herself to advertise the school whenever possible, and now children from merchant families were beginning to show up, one after another to be instructed in reading, writing and arithmetic.

As more people had arrived at the school, Renko had also taken to casually promoting our detective agency as well, and by the end of autumn, we had had a few clients come by from time to time. Most of the cases we were asked to take up, however, turned out to be the sorts of trivialities not worth troubling the neighborhood watch with, or requests to investigate the veracity of idle gossip. This was, perhaps, unsurprising, since most of the clients coming in were children who attended the school, meaning that very few such reports became cases worthy of a proper investigation.

At any rate, Renko and I had settled into a sort of routine here in Gensokyo. We couldn't know how long this quiet life in a fantasy land would last, but given the option, we would hope to return to the Kyoto of our own century as soon as possible. Impatience served us no purpose, however, and as we had not yet found a means, or even any hint of how we might return to our own time and place, we had no choice but to accustom ourselves to this new way of life.


—2—


Renko and I walked down the street to find lunch at the neighborhood soba restaurant that we often frequented. My breath was forming clouds and my footsteps were crunching on the loose snow. It was a little past noon, and the air was still cold, but not bitterly so. Despite this, the shops around us all had workers out front, vigorously touting their wares to passersby while people met and gathered in the streets to exchange greetings and complain about the weather.

"Merry, your hair has gotten really long."

Blown by the wind, strands of my hair had risen up to tickle Renko's cheek. She caught them and ran her fingers along their length as she said it. When I first came to this world, my hair had reached to my shoulders, but in the six months since then it had grown to the middle of my back.

"There's no proper salons here, so it can't be helped."

"Are you going to let your hair grow out forever? There are barbers in the village you can visit."

"Unlike you, Renko, I prefer to have my hair taken care of by a proper professional rather than just let anyone with a razor take a hack at it like a child."

"Well, please excuse me for being childish, then." Renko's mouth twitched a little. "Though if that's how you feel, I could cut it for you."

"Maybe, if there's no other option, that may be what I have to do."

"Or maybe since I'm so childish, you'd prefer I go out and find someone to cut your hair for you," she teased.

"You know what? I don't need lunch. I'm going to Suzunaan."

"Merry, you're always going there. If you're going to storm off in a huff, at least branch out a little and explore more of the village. We're a detective agency now, we should get to know the lay of the land."

"Maybe once the snow melts, I'll consider it."

While we were chatting this way, I noticed that a small crowd had gathered on the opposite side of the street. Many of those assembled were children, including some who attended the temple school. At the center of the small crowd was a beautiful girl with doll-like features, who looked to be in her early twenties. She had golden hair and was wearing western-style clothing, a rarity for the village. Suspended from her hand by a single shining string was a well-crafted marionette, which danced and cavorted with eerily lifelike movements as the girl narrated a story to her audience. The children watched with rapt attention as the puppet show proceeded, hanging on her every word.

"Recently, I've been seeing that puppeteer performing around here a lot." I murmured as we passed.

"Oh, rumor has it that she's a magician who lives in the Forest of Magic." Renko whispered to me.

"Really? Well, I suppose she doesn't look like the sort to live in the village."

"See, this is why you need to branch out more and put your ear to the ground. If you did, you'd know better than to doubt my information network. I'm a great detective, you know."

—

The Forest of Magic spreads out far to the west of the village and covers a huge expanse. Its dense canopy is said to shelter many strange varieties of mushroom, making the air in the forest filled with a miasma of hallucinogenic spores that discouraged most humans from visiting it. Magicians often found both the seclusion and the diverse flora there useful, however, and Akyuu had mentioned to us on an earlier occasion that Kirisame Marisa also lived there.

We had never been any further into the Forest of Magic than the doors of the curiosity shop called Kourindou. It was a store that proudly boasted that it carried an inventory of things from the Outside World that, like us, had wandered into this place through some happenstance or another. For Renko and I, for whom everything in that store was from nearly a century before our time, the various mismatched and powerless electronic devices gathering dust on the shelves looked like nothing more than props from some last-century period piece. Even still, laying hands on the machines of the Outside World, useless though they might be here, helped to remind me of the lives we had once lived beyond the barrier surrounding Gensokyo.

—

At any rate, popular as the puppeteer was, lunch took priority over a puppet show. We made our way to the soba restaurant and were about to enter when the sliding door was opened from the inside and a customer began to make their way out. We stepped to the side to let them pass. It was a woman in a somewhat unusual set of robes that had emerged. She was dressed in a Taoist style robe with voluminous sleeves made of fine watered silk and wore an similarly unusual hat perched on her head, but before I could note any further detail she twisted around to close the door she had just passed through and—

"mmfffm!"

A soft, warm gold that seemed to be both texture and color filled my vision, surrounding my face with the most luxurious fluffiness.

"Woah!"

Renko made a noise like she had stumbled, but I couldn't see her. Something wonderfully fluffy and warm had covered the whole of my upper body. It was as springy and resilient as a brand new cushion and as warm as a hot water bottle. It felt like being wrapped in a comforter that had just finished drying in the sun while also hugging an enormous plushie, and it tickled my face, neck and ribs as if it had a mind of its own. Wrapped in such a blissful world of soft comfort, my vocabulary was pitiably diminished. I doubt I could have said much more than "soft" "warm" or "fuzzy" at that moment, but even that was muffled by the padding all around my face, such that nothing more came out of me than a blissful sigh and the occasional "floof"-like sound. The feel of this fluffy thing that had surrounded me was like a drug, draining my will, my consciousness, all of my higher functions and drawing me into a feeling like sleeping in on a cold winter morning beneath a warm blanket. Its smell was like sunshine in a meadow on a clear summer's afternoon, befitting its golden color. I closed my arms around the springy warmth of it, snuggling my face closer. Just being wrapped in the warmth of the floof I could feel my will draining away to a degree that might have been scary if it wasn't so unbelievably comfortable. Even as I thought that to myself, I found myself thinking I should stop worrying about things like that and just enjoy the sensations around me. What greater bliss could there be than to never think about anything but the fluff ever again. I barely noticed as my body contorted, my arms moving to cling to the warmth, to bury me deeper in the ecstatic bliss of it.

"Ah… floofy floof." I mumbled senselessly into the cushiony softness.

"...Excuse me, could you please get off of me?"

The voice was business-like. A woman's voice, but unusually deep. As she spoke, the veil of golden warmth began to pull away from my face. I clutched at it ever tighter. I couldn't see anything, but if only I could find a way to take this feeling with me, I didn't doubt I could be happy for the rest of my days.

"Merry come on, get off of her. How long are you planning to cling to her?"

"Renko? You're here too? Can you feel it?" I asked. The fluffy thing was pulling away, letting the wintry air again touch my face. How cruel it felt to have known this bliss then have it taken away. I opened my eyes, but I didn't look up, not yet. If only I could have a moment more in this ecstasy of warmth.

"I'm sorry ma'am, my partner's being very rude." Renko was apologizing. To whom? I wondered, vaguely.

"It's all right, I'm actually used to it."

Renko grabbed my collar and pulled me back, forcibly extracting me from that golden paradise. Recovering my senses, I found myself standing before the woman who had just come out of the restaurant and was now regarding us with a fixed smile that seemed to be trying hard to mask her annoyance. Now that I could get a better look at her, I could see that aside from the vaguely martial looking robes, she wore a hat that was pointed to look like animal ears on top of her golden hair. Behind her though.....

A fluffy golden fox tail was spread out. Or rather several tails—one, two, three... nine tails in all, arrayed behind her like the fan of a peacock but much more glorious, standing puffy and warm above the muddy snow, glowing in the winter sun like a halo of golden fire. When she saw my face, she seemed surprised for a moment, then her twinkling eyes narrowed as they took me in.

"Is she from this village?" The stranger asked.

"Ah no, we're both Outsiders. I'm Usami Renko and the person who I just detached from you is Merry. We teach math and Japanese at Miss Kamishirasawa's temple school. We, uh, also run a detective agency."

"A detective agency?"
The fox-like woman peered closer at my face, leaning in as I tried to regain my composure. Behind her the fan of gorgeous fox tails waved alluringly. I reached out for them, but Renko slapped my hand away, hissing "stop that!"

"You look like someone else though..." the strange woman said.

"Eh?" Renko asked. "Like who?"

"It's nothing. Sorry to have troubled you. Please excuse me for being rude." With that, the stranger turned without giving her name and began to walk away.
Looking surprised, Renko bowed as she left, but not so deeply that she didn't notice when, staring, mesmerized by the swaying of the nine golden tails as the woman walked away, I began to chase after her. Or more precisely after the beautiful golden fluffiness that was receding from my vision. Her arm shot out and grabbed mine.

"Hey Merry, what are you doing?"

I'm told I mumbled something in a dream-like haze. "The floofy is leaving..."

"Ugh, this is no good. What's wrong with you Merry? Let's go have lunch. Lunch, OK?"

Renko was holding me by the shoulders to keep me from leaving, but I was peering around her, to watch with sadness as that blissful warmth drifted further down the road.

"Nooo, the fluffy! The wonderful floofy floof!"

My cries became white breath and disappeared into the uncaring skies of Gensokyo.

—

"It was like a massage, Renko, if a massage could touch your soul and your body at the same time. If you put a kotatsu on top of a futon and then dived in the middle, it wouldn't be half as warm or snuggly. If we had that tail, we wouldn't need anything else! That fluffiness could end wars and bring peace to mankind! Are you listening to me Renko?"

"Hey Merry, your noodles are getting cold.."

How like Renko to worry about something pointless at a time like this. I sighed at her nearsightedness and sipped the warm broth from my bowl of tsukimi-soba. The noodles here had always been good, but I couldn't even pay attention to them now. The fluffy tail was the only thing on my mind. Snuggling it had been the very epitome of the enjoyment of everything that had ever been soft or warm, a pleasure that no amount of money or honor could purchase.

Renko looked across the table at me with concern, but I could only look back at her with pity. A slight difference in position, a momentary fluke of luck was all that had deprived Renko of experiencing that heaven of golden warmth alongside me. Had she buried her face in floofiness as I had, maybe she could have understood what I felt now.

"Oh Renko, I wish you could have felt it too. If you had, the two of us could have chased that fox together! We could've sat down together behind that woman, and still be experiencing that endless bliss now. I wonder where she lives? She can't have been a human, so she must be some wonderful friendly sort of youkai who comes into town. If I ever get to see her again, no matter the circumstances, I'm going to bury myself in those tails. If a youkai were to eat me for such an indulgence, it would be a small price to pay for being able to cuddle that fluffiness again."

"Whoa, rein it in, Merry. Can you hear what you're saying?"

Renko waved her chopsticks in front of me. I pitied her ignorance, but I could only tolerate so much rudeness.

"Honestly, Renko! We're wasting our time just sitting here! We should be chasing that woman down right now! That fluffy tail is all I can think about. I'd sell my soul to the devil if I could just feel it again. I don't care if doing so destroys the world, even that wouldn't be too high a price. We have to find her so you can try it, Renko! Once you understand how floofy it is, you'll understand how I feel!"

"Calm down, Merry! Do you realize you're making a scene? Have a little consideration for others."

"That's the last thing I want to hear from you after all the nonsense you've dragged me into, Renko!"

"Wait a minute, why are you the straight man in this act now?" Renko puffed out her cheeks in frustration for a moment, then sighed and looked up at the ceiling before turning back to me. "This isn't an act, right Merry? What happened to make you like this?"

"Argh, you're only asking that because you didn't feel how fluffy it was. If only we could experience it together..."

"Oh dear, did you get to touch her tails? That's most unusual." The woman who said this was the shopkeeper's wife. She had approached unseen while Renko and I had been talking.

"You know her? Who is she?" I blurted at once.

"She's a regular customer, but I'm afraid I don't know beyond that. She's definitely a youkai, but she never causes any trouble. She just buys kitsune-soba and always looks like she enjoys it with all her heart then pays properly for her meals."

"Kitsune-soba? For a Kitsune? How basic." Leave it to Renko to ignore the important bits in favor of a trivial detail.

"What about the tails?" I asked.

"They look so comfortable, don't they? But I've never touched them. We can't. I tried once, but I couldn't get near them, it was like there was some sort of invisible barrier preventing me from touching them. You did though?"

"They bumped into me as she was coming out of the store."

"Oh, I envy you. What were they like?"

"Amazing," I sighed. As if my words could do the sensation justice.

The woman smiled at my reaction and nodded in agreement. She hadn't touched the floofy floof like I had, but she understood! Why couldn't Renko get it?

"Renko, we have to find out who she was. I want to touch those tails at least once more. If possible I want to spend a day buried in them. And you need to too!" I slapped the table hard and stood up. "Renko!"

"What is it, Merry?" Renko looked shocked for once.

"We're going to find the owner of those tails. As the Hifuu Club!"

"What?"

"You heard me. If a fascinating mystery won't walk into our office on its own, we'll have to seek one out ourselves! Locating an unknown supernatural entity is a perfect activity for the Hifuu Club, and figuring out how we can talk them into letting us mooch off their tails as much as we want is our top priority!"

"Merry, this is entirely irrational, let's think this through."

"I don't care if it's rational! And we don't have time for you to formulate theories and foreshadow vaguely while collecting minutiae that no one else will care about."

"Don't say that, Merry, it's unbecoming of a mystery fiction otaku like you. Besides, you're letting your soba get cold!"

"Renko, we have an unsolved mystery filled with strange concealed truths staring you in the face! Are you really going to turn it down? Can you even call yourself a detective if you do?"

Renko stared at me slack jawed for several moments before weakly muttering "How did it end up like this?"

"If you're decided, then hurry up and eat. We have an investigation to begin!"

Disregarding Renko, who was clutching her head and sighing, I vigorously slurped up my soba.


—3—


"Ah, that would be Yakumo Ran."

At the Hieda residence, our investigation had almost instantly reached its conclusion. There was no mystery to discover here.

After finishing our meals at the soba restaurant, we decided that if the person with the tail was a youkai, then our best bet would be to ask Akyuu about them. As the author of the 𝘎𝘦𝘯𝘴𝘰𝘬𝘺𝘰 𝘊𝘩𝘳𝘰𝘯𝘪𝘤𝘭𝘦, she had interviewed, cataloged and described countless youkai over her many lifetimes, and while even she couldn't claim to know of every youkai in existence, there was a good chance she would know any that regularly showed up in town. The only other real option was to ask Reimu, as most villagers would have made a point of consciously avoiding and not wanting to find anything more out about any youkai they encountered. Given the condition of the roads and the cold temperatures, making the trip to the Hakurei Shrine on foot would have gone from the worrying voyage it usually was to a miserable ordeal. The Hieda residence, on the other hand, was just down the street from our own lodgings. Although we came by the imposing Hieda manor compound without an appointment, Akyuu met us at the gate and gave us the aforementioned answer straight away.

"As I'm sure you noticed, she is a nine-tailed kitsune. She often comes into the village to buy fried tofu at the tofu shop."

"So she actually likes fried tofu? That's not just a myth?" Renko asked. I couldn't imagine why she was so hung up on the kitsune's choice of meals.

"As far as I know, yes. Why would that matter though?"

"I just wonder if that's how it is in Gensokyo, with common perceptions dictating the nature of things. If that were the case, then you would expect all the mice here to eat cheese..."

While Renko was mumbling such inconsequential nonsense to herself, I leaned in to talk to Akyuu.

"Where does she live?" I asked, trying to keep the excitement out of my voice.

"Ran? I have no idea. Not in the village, certainly. I don't have that much more information about her, to be honest."

I sighed and leaned back. I shouldn't have expected it to be that convenient. Still, if she was known to frequent the noodle house and the tofu shop, then we should be able to get in contact with her again by just carefully observing those two locations.

"She's a very busy and important person though, the shikigami of the Youkai Sage, so even if you wanted to meet her, I don't imagine it would be easy."

"The youkai sage?"

I remember having heard such a name before —when we first came to this world. During the Scarlet Mist Incident, they had been mentioned a few times...

"You mean the great Dragon God, right? The one with the statue in the town square?"

"No, the Youkai Sage is another creature, one of the founders of Gensokyo and the creator of the Hakurei barrier. Her name is Yakumo Yukari, and Ran is her shikigami."

"Shikigami," Renko asked. "Aren't they those little human-shaped pieces of paper used by court diviners and the like?"

"Where did you hear that?"

Akyuu tilted her head with a dubious expression on her face. It seems the image of shikigami that exists in the Outside world is totally different from the one that defined them here.

"I don't know much about the process," Akyuu began, "but it seems that she was a nine-tailed fox given a new name by Yukari at some point and made to act as a servant and familiar. I have no information at all on what she might have been like before that."

"I see..." Renko remarked. The way Akyuu said she was 'given a new name and made to act as a servant' reminded me of that vampire and the time-manipulating human we met in the Scarlet Devil Mansion. I wondered if the Youkai Sage might have been involved somehow in the creation of that story as well.

"I'm afraid I can't tell you where Yukari can be found either," Akyuu continued, anticipating my question and ignoring Renko's commentary. "She's always disappearing at a moment's notice only to reappear somewhere else so the locations of both herself and her shikigami are unpredictable."

"Miss Akyuu, why is it that you're referring to the Youkai Sage by her first name, but her shikigami is referred to with her full name or title? Wouldn't it be customary to refer to the Youkai Sage by her title?"

Akyuu sighed and considered the question. "I think you'll understand if you ever come to meet the Youkai Sage. She's not the sort of person who deserves that kind of respect. Ran, on the other hand, is quite dignified."

"What kind of person is this Youkai Sage?" I wondered aloud. Could they even be thought of as a person? Their title alone confirmed they weren't human, but if they wore a human shape, it would probably be easier to think of them as a person.

"Well actually..." Akyuu said as she narrowed her eyes. She was staring intensely at me, causing me to shift uncomfortably on my cushion.

"What is it?" I asked nervously.

"I've wondered about this for a while but... If you want to see the face of the youkai sage, Miss Hearn, all you have to do is look in the mirror."

"What?"

"You look very much like her. The spitting image of Yakumo Yukari."

—

We left the Hieda manor stunned by this unexpected revelation. On the walk home, Renko and I tried to twist the facts we knew into a shape that made sense.

"Well, that explains why Ran was staring so intently at your face," Renko began.

"Regardless of any resemblance, I'm not her though. I have no idea why she'd look like me."

"Me neither, but it's certainly noteworthy. I know they say that everyone has three people in the world that look just like them, but it's not everyone who gets to go back in time 80 years and find that they not only have a doppelganger but that she's the one who created this world."

"It would have been more interesting if Ran had looked exactly like you, Renko."

"Hold on now, are you saying you're going to take my name and make me yours, Merry? Why would I end up as the servant? I'm the director of the agency."

"Yes, yes, of course you are, Miss Director. But I'd still like to meet this Ran, and this person that looks just like me too. I wonder what they're like."

"I agree, it's an interesting question. But you just want to meet her so you can fluff her shikigami's tail again, don't you Merry?"

"Yes, absolutely."

"Sheesh, talk about shameless. Seriously, Merry, that's weird." Renko stopped walking for a moment and took off her hat to scratch her head. "Still, now that we've discovered this inexplicable circumstance, we can't exactly ignore it. To do so would be to betray our legitimacy as detectives."

"Really, Renko? Does that mean...."

"There's no helping it, I guess. The origin of the case may have been a farce, but there is a concealed truth to uncover here, so we may as well give it our all. Let's locate the Youkai Sage. If they really are anything like you, there's plenty I'd like to ask. Why did she create this world, and why did she seal it off from everything else, for example." Renko placed the hat back on her head and eased it back to reveal eyes shining above a troublesome grin. "Starting tomorrow, we'll stake out the tofu shop and the noodle joint!"

"Only when we don't have classes to teach, though."

Walking and talking, we made our way back, dreaming up plans as we went. This has been our routine ever since we were just the Hifuu Club and it hasn't changed since. Even though we had come across unknowable boundaries of space and time to a world full of magic, but devoid of modern convenience, our days were spent much as they had been when we had been students in the Kyoto of the 2080s.

—

The next day we immediately began our surveillance of the two shops... or we tried to anyway. Although it was April, it was still miserably cold outside in the blowing snow, and since we had arrived here in the middle of summer, we didn't have any warm clothes with us. Buying proper winter gear simply wasn't on the table with the small salary Keine could afford to pay us, and as such, we had no choice but to tough it out as best we could.

By the second day, it was already a severe test of will to stand in the cold and wait for the tails to appear.

"Oh, I miss those tails more and more. It's so cold out here!"

"Merry you have no patience, it's barely been an hour yet."

"I can't help it, I've been ruined by the divine fluffiness of that perfect floofy floof."

"You can just floof me up instead. Would that be good enough?"

"Hardly. You're not even a little bit floofy."

"Awww."

We passed the time with idle chit chat while we watched and waited. I wondered if we'd be able to last for the whole week we had planned.

—

It was on the fifth day, as the calendar finally rolled over into May that we finally got a break. We weren't out standing in the cold and watching either shop when it happened though.

"All right, let's all read the next part together."

That day my literature and composition class was in the second period, just before noon. Children from the nearby merchant houses had filled the classroom, taking seats on cushions set before small writing desks, where I did my best to teach them to read and write, thinking back to the same lessons I had taken back in my own time. We were fortunate that the language spoken in this world was Japanese, and while some phrases and characters in use here were quite archaic, it was more or less the same as the language we had spoken in Kyoto in the 2080s.

"𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘎𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘚𝘩𝘰𝘫𝘢 𝘣𝘦𝘭𝘭𝘴 𝘦𝘤𝘩𝘰𝘦𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘪𝘮𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴; 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘭𝘰𝘳 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘢𝘭𝘢 𝘧𝘭𝘰𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘳𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘶𝘯𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘢𝘭 𝘵𝘳𝘶𝘵𝘩 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘴 𝘮𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘥𝘦𝘤𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘦..." the children droned in unison. Keine and I had prepared the texts ourselves, painstakingly copying out passages from suitable books we had found at the book-lender's shop. Today we were beginning the 𝘛𝘢𝘭𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘏𝘦𝘪𝘬𝘦. The archaic text presented a challenge for the novice readers in the class, but the varied vocabulary and poetic structure was perfect for showcasing the structure and cadence of the Japanese language.

In Keine's history class, she was covering the Genpei war at the moment, so the two texts would hopefully reinforce both lessons. Though it seemed that many students had a habit of nodding off during Keine's lectures.

"Teacher, what's a Gion Shoja?"

"It was the name of the temple where the Shakyamuni Buddha preached."

"What does the 'impermanence of all things' mean?"

"It means that nothing lasts forever."

"What's the bit about ‘universal truth' mean?"

"It's pointing out that everything, no matter how powerful or permanent it may seem, eventually falls. The Heike clan were thought to be invincible, but this tale is the story of their destruction over the course of the Genpei war."

"Ugh, this sounds like Miss Kamishirasawa's class. I'm getting sleepy already."

While I was dealing with questions like these from the children, I suddenly heard the sound of running footsteps pounding down the hallway toward the classroom. A moment later, the door to the hall was flung open and Renko stood at the entrance to the classroom, panting to catch her breath as the whole class turned to stare at her.

"Merry!"

"What is it, Renko? You're disrupting our lesson."

"Forget about that for right now, we have a visitor!" I heard new footsteps in the hallway, catching up to Renko at an unhurried pace.

"A visitor? Who is it? Can they wait until class is..."

My question fell away as I looked behind Renko and saw the person who was coming down the hall toward us.

With a soft smile on her face and a cunning twinkle in her eyes, Yakumo Ran stepped from behind Renko and stood in the doorway of the classroom, her nine golden, fluffy tails swinging behind her like a priceless tapestry.