東方プロジェクト二次小説・オリジナル小説サイト
Chapter 11:Double Dealing Character

—31—


"I missed it again!" A voice cried out in frustrated exasperation. The outcry was followed almost immediately by Sanae, who slid the door to our office open without warning as usual, a look of anguish on her face. It was later that same day and of course neither of us had any idea what she was talking about.

"What's wrong, Sanae?" Renko asked, standing up to greet her.

"It's that 𝐷𝑟𝑢𝑚𝑀𝑎𝑛𝑖𝑎 girl again! She did something! Reimu went out and exterminated her last night and I missed it! I should have done it when I had the chance! How are we going to gather faith from the villagers now?" Sanae punctuated that last question with a stomp.

I looked over at my partner in surprise. What could Raiko have been doing that would have gotten her exterminated by Reimu? Immediately I thought of the Tsukumo sisters. We hadn't heard from them for a few days at this point...

"Hold on, Sanae, let's start at the beginning. Can you tell me exactly what happened?"

"Well... I don't actually know any of the details..."

"I see. Well, shall we head to the Hakurei Shrine to hear it straight from Reimu then?"

"What? I just left there."

"Do you want to wait here while Merry and I go then?"

Sanae grumbled something under her breath. "I'll come along..." she sighed.

—

When we arrived at the shrine Marisa was there as well, sitting beside Reimu on the veranda at the back of the shrine, sipping tea. We heard her loud, carefree laugh before we saw her, and she turned and smiled at us as Renko called out a greeting.

"Hello there, you two."

"Oh, it's Renko. Sanae, did you leave just to go get these two?"

"No, no, we decided to come here on our own. I'm glad we caught you while you're here though, I wanted to ask you both about what you were up to last night," Renko said, her hand already beginning to play with the brim of her hat. Reimu and Marisa exchanged uncertain glances.

"What were we up to last night? That's none of your business."

"Did Sanae tell ya about it? That drum lady was pretty strong for a newborn tsukumogami."

"You're talking about Miss Raiko, right? What did she do?"

Reimu raised herself up off of the veranda with a heavy sigh. "I was wondering why Sanae knew about that tsukumogami already. You guys were all up to something, weren't you?"

"Ha, I should've guessed. What were you plannin' with that drum?"

"No, no, we weren't planning anything with her, but do you two remember meeting two tsukumogami sisters? One's a biwa and the other's a koto."

Reimu looked confused for a moment. "Who? Was there anyone like that?"

"Those two?" Marisa replied. "Yeah, I remember them. You should too, Reimu, it was those two girls who were like the Prismrivers minus one member."

"Oh, them. They were just small fry, who cares?" A very Reimu-like response.

Behind her, Marisa shrugged. "What'd those two have to do with anythin'?"

"They were on the verge of dying out due to the power of the Miracle Mallet being recalled. They asked us to find a way to save them. We ran into Miss Raiko while I was looking for one and she convinced both sisters that she could save them. I don't know exactly what she intended to do with them though."

Marisa rose from the veranda to join Reimu. "Oh yeah! That drum lady was sayin' somethin' about that. How she was goin' around teachin' tsukumogami how to survive without relyin' on the power of the mallet. So that's why those two were there."

So the Tsukumo sisters had been there last night too. I was glad to hear they were still safe. Well, 'safe' might be too strong of a word if they had run across Reimu and Marisa and gotten into a fight...

"So what was Miss Raiko doing, exactly?"

"I don't really know what she was doin'. When she pulled all of the mallet's magic outta those two tsukumogami it made a big storm that was sorta spinnin' all around just like the one coverin’ that upside-down castle. Sakuya, Reimu an' I went to check it out and we met that drum lady there. We just shot her down cause she was hanging around a suspicious place lookin' shady."

"She wasn't just 'looking shady.'" Reimu added. "She was being all cocky about how strong she was. It wasn't an incident or anything, more like just still cleaning up after the last incident. Which is still all your fault, by the way," Reimu said, lightly tapping the cricket cage sitting on the veranda with her foot.

"Hey, don't kick my house!" Shinmyoumaru's voice cried from inside. A moment later the gate on the cage rose up and her tiny head popped out.

"Oh, hello there, Shinmy."

"Oh, Renko. Hello there."

"Did you get to meet Miss Raiko by any chance, Shinmy?"

"Oh, yeah. Reimu was worried that something was happening with the Miracle Mallet, so she had me go with her. I was hiding in her sleeve the whole time she was fighting."

I could just imagine Shinmyoumaru clinging to the folds of Reimu's drooping sleeves, waving her needle sword about as Reimu dodged across the sky. It was a cute mental image.

Renko fiddled with the brim of her hat for a moment then asked "So in that case, as the owner of the Miracle Mallet, what do you think of Miss Raiko having found a way to survive without it?"

"I'm not really sure. I don't really understand how the mallet works, but it was surprising to see that there were any tsukumogami that hadn't returned to just being objects yet. I guess that sort of thing can happen sometimes?"

Shinmyoumaru looked somewhat bothered by that, crossing her arms and grumbling to herself. "Still, even beyond that there was something about that drum tsukumogami... I almost feel like I've seen her somewhere before..." Upon hearing that, Renko tugged down on the brim of her hat, casting her eyes into shadow.

"So what did you come back here for then?" Reimu asked, glaring at Sanae as she stood off to one side.

In response to the question, Sanae puffed out her cheeks and thrust a finger at Reimu. "You think you've won, don't you! Hehehe it's not over yet! Soon all of the village's faith will belong to the Moriya Shrine! I let you resolve this incident without me because I had more important things to do! Just wait until we reveal our secret masterplan! The vengeance of the heavens will be swift and glorious! Remember that!"

I sighed and buried my face in my hand. "Sanae that sounds like a line from a Saturday morning cartoon villain."

Good grief.

—

Not long after that we made our way back to town, flying with Sanae as usual. "Sanae, what was that you were mentioning to Reimu? Were you talking about the ropeway to the Moriya Shrine?"

"You mean our secret plan to gather up all of the village's faith? Yes, that's part of it."

The Moriya Shrine had been working for years now to try to build some means to allow villagers to directly visit their remote mountaintop location. Sanae had told us about it on numerous occasions, but construction of the project had only begun recently due to difficult negotiations with the tengu of Youkai Mountain, who had resisted the idea of building a ropeway through their territory. Now that it was underway, of course, the project was facing a whole slew of new delays due to the whims of the kappa engineers performing the actual work.

"...Part of it?" Renko asked. "I take it you've got something more planned?"

Sanae smiled mischievously. "Heheheh...Yep! It's my super-secret plan."

"Oh?"

"Yes. Miss Reimu seems to think that this incident is already over just because she captured that inchling. But the true culprit behind things is still on the loose! I'm going to go out looking for her and be the one to really resolve the incident! It'll be a complete upset in favor of the Moriya Shrine!"

So she had set her sights on Seija. I suppose it was undeniable that this incident's true mastermind was still on the run. With Reimu watching over Shinmyoumaru and the Miracle Mallet there might not be much threat of the incident repeating itself, but having a revolutionary fighter like Seija running free across Gensokyo was still a threat. If she were to find someone else who was both strong and gullible...

As I was thinking that, Renko grumbled audibly, sounding much less enthusiastic about the idea than I would have expected. "Hmmm. I know it certainly looks like Seija's the one behind everything, and I wouldn't want to deny you your chance to make a name for yourself, Sanae, but..."

"But what?"

Renko let out a sigh, then turned to look Sanae in the eye. "It's just that Seija probably isn't really the mastermind behind everything."


—32—


And so once again the scene was our small combination office and bird breeding center.

"What do you mean the amanojaku isn't the mastermind? This was all her plan, wasn't it, Boss?"

Renko let out a sigh and took a seat behind the table, gesturing for Sanae to do the same while I offered them both a cup of tea. Sanae looked flustered at the thought of her 'super-secret plan' being so easily dismissed, but she took the teacup and sat down.

"Normally I'd want to run a theory like this past the mastermind before I present it to anyone else, but in this case I think doing that would be a little too risky for me, so I'll relate it to you, Sanae."

I frowned at my partner. "You seem uncharacteristically pessimistic, Renko. Weren't you the one saying that the whole reason you come up with these theories is so that a mastermind can refute them and reveal a more interesting truth?"

"I'd very much like to hear anything a mastermind might have to say in response to my theory, but there's something even more important I have to say first. Sanae, what I'm about to tell you is only my theory, based on my own deductions and you should treat it as such. You definitely shouldn't just fly off as soon as I'm done talking and exterminate the person I'm about to name. Do you understand?"

"Huh? Why not?"

"This is important, Sanae. Will you give me your word you'll be careful about this?" Renko asked, clasping her hands pleadingly in front of her.

Sanae blinked in surprise. "...Alright. If you say so, Miss Renko."

"Thank you. Sorry to have to ask this of you, Sanae."

"So if it's not the amanojaku, who is it already!?"

Renko took a deep breath then began to explain. The truth (according to her) of the amanojaku and the inchling’s resistance.

—

"The key to all of this is the legend of Issun-boshi."

"That old fairy tale?"

"Yes, Sanae. Do you know it? Specifically the story of how Issun-boshi got his hands on the Miracle Mallet?"

"Umm, I think it goes that it was dropped by an oni that came to kidnap a princess, right? He got it when he chased the oni off and saved her."

"Yes, that's how the story goes. The Miracle Mallet originally belonged to an oni and was an oni's tool. Now Merry, do you remember what Shinmy told us about the mallet? There was one thing she mentioned over and over, right?"

"...She said that the Miracle Mallet could only be used by an inchling."

"Exactly. That's a major contradiction. Why would an oni have something that they could never use?"

I was left speechless—it was an obvious flaw in the story. A tool only becomes a tool when it's recognized as such by a user, so if the oni Issun-boshi had taken it from couldn't use it, it couldn't have been a tool.

"Umm, but in the legend the princess uses the Miracle Mallet too, doesn't she? She swings it and wishes for Issun-boshi to get bigger so they can get married, right?"

"That's right, Sanae. The oni had the hammer to begin with and then it was used by the princess so she could be married to Issun-boshi. If we assume that all the details of that story are true, then what Shinmy told us can't be. Shinmy seemed to believe what she was saying though, which must mean that the idea that only inchlings can use the Miracle Mallet must be a lie that someone had told her."

"But let's put that aside for now," Renko continued. "Even if that was true and only inchlings could use the mallet, there's a bigger problem here. Clearly the Miracle Mallet is very powerful. Maybe even powerful enough to achieve the goal of overturning Gensokyo's ruling order on its own. There's just one problem with that."

"...You're thinking that if the oni had a tool like that which could grant any wish, there's no way they would just let it fall into someone else's hands, right?"

"Exactly right, Merry. Once you realize that it sort of sheds new light on the idea that the inchlings had been persecuted for generations, doesn't it? After all, the original purpose of a castle is to act as a fortress to protect something valuable, right?"

My eyes went wide at that. "You're suggesting that Shining Needle Castle was created as a fortress to keep the oni from being able to reclaim the Miracle Mallet?"

"I'd say that makes more sense than the story that someone just wished the castle into existence as a symbol of their power, at any rate."

"...So in that case the inchlings weren't slaves being unfairly imprisoned in the Land of the Oni, they were prisoners held captive in their own castle?"

"Right, which means that at some point the oni must have taken the castle and with it, the Miracle Mallet. Now that you know that, don't things suddenly start to look different?"

They did indeed.

If the Miracle Mallet wasn't a treasure held and forgotten by the inchlings, but instead a tool of the oni that had been stolen from them once and now been stolen again by the people they had taken prisoner in retribution for the original theft...

"This wasn't really a rebellion against the ruling powers of Gensokyo. It was a prison break. Executed by the inchlings in order to escape from their captivity at the hands of the oni. Seija's intention was to get the Miracle Mallet back into the hands of the inchlings and to get Shinmy free of the Land of the Oni. As soon as she was out of the Land of the Oni, she immediately had Shinmy use the mallet to cause an incident in Gensokyo so that Shinmy would end up being captured by the Hakurei shrine maiden before her oni pursuers could get to her. If you think about everything that happened, it all makes sense."

Sanae stared at Renko, mouth agape. "...Wait a minute, Boss. You're saying that the amanojaku started this whole incident just to protect that inchling girl? Why wouldn’t she just explain things directly if that was—oh, because she’s an amanojaku, right?"

"Indeed. And not only that, what do you think would happen to a group of people like the inchlings if they had been held prisoner for so many generations that they couldn't even remember why any more?"

"...I suppose if they weren't being mistreated by the oni, then there would be no reason for them to try to escape."

"Exactly, there'd be no reason for any resistance, at least not until Seija came along and made Shinmy into a revolutionary by telling her that her people had endured generations of unjust persecution."

"But why would she tell all of those lies about the inchlings being oppressed? Couldn’t she have just told her the truth about what happened and—oh, right. Amanojaku.”

"That could be the case, or it might be that she thought the real history wasn’t convincing enough. 'Your people are being punished for something they did generations ago' sounds a little less compelling than 'you are the destined hero of your people and need to save them,' don't you think? I can’t be sure if Seija’s intent was to inspire the inchlings to rise up and fight for their own freedom or if this was all just a cruel prank at their expense. If her goal was to get Shinmy to believe in a revolutionary cause though, then telling her 'only an inchling can use the Miracle Mallet' certainly makes sense. Because of that lie, she probably wouldn’t have expected the oni to come after her."

In other words, it was so that Shinmyoumaru wouldn't realize how weak she truly was. Had Seija lied to Shinmyoumaru to prevent her from realising that her dreams of revolution were hopeless? Or simply out of malevolence?

"So then the reason why Miss Seija ran away and abandoned Miss Shinmyoumaru back then is..."

"As long as Seija's still on the run, the incident can't be considered resolved. Which means that Shinmyoumaru will still be under guard by Reimu. Which is probably the safest place you could possibly be if you were worried that an angry oni was looking for you. As long as Seija can stay on the lam, she can make sure that no oni can lay a hand on Shinmyoumaru."

Could that really be the reason that Seija had caused an incident? Were she and Shinmyoumaru, two fugitives from the Land of the Oni, desperate to find someone strong enough to protect them from their pursuers? If so, then causing an incident that was sure to draw the attention of the Hakurei shrine maiden was a solid, if unorthodox plan. One that, paradoxically, would allow them to use the power and reputation of the youkai-exterminating shrine maiden as a shield.

"But why would an amanojaku go to such lengths to protect an inchling? This is way too big a scheme for some small-time youkai to pull off!" Sanae protested.

Renko let out a sigh and folded her arms in front of her. "I can only think of one answer to that question. And it just so happens to be the answer to a bunch of other questions that had been bothering me as well: what was an amanojaku like Seija doing in the Land of the Oni? And how did she happen to know enough about the history of the inchlings that she was able to convince their princess to follow her? How was she able to get her hands on the Miracle Mallet if the oni had stolen it back from Issun-boshi? And yes, why would she do all of this to save Shinmy?"

"The answer to all of those questions came to me when Seija noticed that my trenchcoat was turning into a tsukumogami. She implied that it must be due to the 'price' of using the Miracle Mallet's power. Whether or not that was true, the only reason she'd think that is if she thought the Miracle Mallet was the sort of thing that might turn you into a monster as a price of using its power."

"I said that the legend of Issun-boshi was the key to all of this, but did you know that there's more than one legend involving him? The story of Issun-boshi comes from the 𝑂𝑡𝑜𝑔𝑖 𝑍𝑜𝑠ℎ𝑖, a book of stories from the Muromachi period. If you actually read those old legends though, Issun-boshi doesn't really seem like a hero in them. He's actually a conniving, cowardly sort of guy, defeating the oni with trickery and winning the hand of the princess only after getting her disowned by her family through framing her for a crime."

Sanae and I looked at each other. That almost sounded like the twisted sort of thing someone else would do...

"I think you can see where I'm going with this. If I'm right, then Seija's true identity is probably that of Shinmyoumaru's storied ancestor. I think Issun-boshi must have eventually been turned into a monster by the power of the Miracle Mallet."


—33—


Kasen had said to us that amanojaku were not oni. However many oni and other youkai in legends had once been humans, as was the case with Shuten Douji or the hashihime. I don't know if an inchling would count as a type of human or something else, but if a human can become an oni I suppose it's perfectly reasonable to believe an inchling could become an amanojaku.

"Wow," Sanae breathed. "But I still don't get it, boss. You said the amanojaku wasn't the mastermind. Who was responsible for this incident if not her?"

Renko nodded to herself, seeming to consider how best to explain things. "The answer to that is simple. It’s the oni who was the original owner of the Miracle Mallet that lost it to Issun-boshi. They took their revenge by stealing it back from Issun-boshi and imprisoning him and all of his descendents. But then one day, one of those descendants managed to get the mallet back and fled, along with Shining Needle Castle, to another world. Worse still, that inchling descendant is now under the protection of the Hakurei shrine maiden along with the mallet and the amanojaku who stole it back from you has up and vanished. If you were that oni and you couldn’t get your hands on the inchling, the amanojaku or the mallet, what would you do?"

Sanae put a finger to her chin in thought. "Well I don't think I'd just give up and go home..."

"Of course not. If you were that oni, what's one thing you'd probably notice about the situation right away? Any guesses, Merry?"

"...The magical power of the mallet being used up to start this incident, maybe?."

"Exactly."

Was that what Renko was thinking? When Shinmyoumaru had spoken to us about the Land of the Oni, there was one thing that she had mentioned that must have acted as the basis for Renko's theory. By taking that one piece of information, she would have been able to work backward and come to her current conclusion.

"Shinmy told us that the mallet worked by giving some of its power to other things to turn objects into tsukumogami and make weak youkai more powerful and aggressive. Then, after all of its power has been distributed, it starts recharging by calling that power back. If you just left things alone, then all of the power that the mallet had given out would eventually flow back into it and the Hakurei shrine maiden would be the one in possession of your tool. And while you couldn't get your mallet back..."

"...I could just make a new one."

"That's right. If you were to gather up all of the scattered power that the Miracle Mallet had distributed before it could return to the mallet on its own, then you'd have what you needed to make a brand new tool. On top of that, you'd prevent the Miracle Mallet that had fallen into Reimu's hands from ever becoming dangerous again. It's a plan that kills two birds with one stone."

"But..." Renko continued, holding up one finger. "What if instead of just making another mallet like the one you had before, you were to improve on your design? A mallet is a tool for hitting things, but we saw Shinmy use it by just swinging it in the air. She didn’t actually have to hit anything with it. If you were able to remake the mallet and allow it to fulfill its original purpose of hitting things, wouldn’t that make for a stronger tool? In other words, if you were able to turn the mallet into a set of tools that consisted of both a thing for hitting and a thing made to be hit, wouldn’t that be more effective?

Sanae stood up, her mouth hanging open. "No way!" She exclaimed after gasping for a moment. "Are you saying that 𝐷𝑟𝑢𝑚𝑀𝑎𝑛𝑖𝑎 girl's drums are the new Miracle Mallet?"

Renko nodded slowly. "That's right. She's been going around finding the tsukumogami that were created by the Miracle Mallet and encouraging them to give up what power they had and find something else to sustain themselves. Doing that would free up all the magical power used to create those tsukumogami and return it to the Miracle Mallet, or in this case, Raiko's drums. It also gets those same tsukumogami onto her side, which would be useful if she planned to have them take revenge on Seija if she's ever found."

"So then... that drum maniac's true identity is..."

"She was never a tsukumogami of a taiko drum. If she was, she would have already known the Tsukumo sisters, since she would have gone tsukumogami at the same time they did. She might even have been the third sister. The missing taiko, biwa and koto were all stored together in the same warehouse."

—Thinking back on the first moment we had met Raiko, it was definitely true that that occasion had seemed to be her first time meeting the Tsukumo sisters. If she were really the tsukumogami of the taiko drum we had been looking for, she should at least have recognized the biwa and koto who she would have been born alongside of. We couldn't rule out the possibility that she was the tsukumogami of some other taiko drum we didn't know about, of course, but Marisa had said that Raiko was much stronger than you would expect a newborn tsukumogami to be.

"Horikawa Raiko isn't just a drum maniac. She isn't even a tsukumogami. She's the oni who's been pursuing Seija and Shinmyoumaru in order to retrieve the Miracle Mallet. And not just any oni, either. Judging by how we'd seen her control lightning and thunder and how powerful Marisa said she was, I think she's really the ruler of the Land of the Oni. The oni god of wind and thunder, Raijin."

—

Back when we had been talking to Shinmyoumaru at the shrine, Renko had asked her "Other than oni and amanojaku were there many other types of people in the Land of the Oni?"

Shinmyoumaru's answer had been this: "There were some gods who lived there, but they might have been oni too. They were the rulers of the Land of the Oni. Lord Fujin and Lord Raiden, the gods of wind and thunder."

When she had said that, the famous illustrations of those gods by Tawaraya Sotatsu had come unbidden to my mind. It goes without saying that those two gods were nearly always depicted as oni.

—

Silence fell over our little office as Renko finished revealing the shape of her latest delusion. It was hard to know what to say to something like that.

"...So what you're saying..." Sanae ventured. "Is that Miss 𝐷𝑟𝑢𝑚𝑀𝑎𝑛𝑖𝑎 really is the one to blame for everything!"

"Well I guess that depends how you look at things. You could say that this all began with the oni that tried to kidnap a princess and was defeated by Issun-boshi, leaving the Miracle Mallet in his hands. Or you could say that it started with Issun-boshi, who framed the princess for a crime in order to have her to himself and used the mallet selfishly. As far as the inchlings are concerned, the oni are definitely the bad guys here, but from the oni perspective, the inchlings stole and misused the mallet."

"Well if both sides are to blame, then let's just exterminate them both! That will solve the problem, right?"

"Reimu already exterminated both Shinmy and Miss Raiko though."

"No way.... So I really was too late!?"

Sanae groaned loudly, burying her face in her hands and shaking her head. As she did so I whispered to Renko.

"Renko, if Raiko's not really a tsukumogami, then was she lying about having seen the Outside World?"

"I don't think so. That drum set she was using was definitely a tool from outside the barrier. She may well have been right about magical power from the Outside World flowing into it. Besides, she wouldn't have any reason to make up such a random and nonsensical lie just for the sake of a powerless Outsider like me."

I suppose that much made sense, at least.

"There's another possibility too. Raiko might not be Raijin, and instead be the tsukumogami of the new Miracle Mallet itself. If the strength of a tsukumogami is proportional to the strength of the user of the object that tsukumogami is created from then that would still explain things. If she were the tsukumogami of an incredibly powerful tool like the Miracle Mallet who had been used by someone as powerful as Raijin, and she then gained the power of the Outside World on top of that, it wouldn't be surprising to find that she's the strongest tsukumogami in Gensokyo. Oh wait, actually that’s more likely. If she were just Raijin himself, then Shinmyoumaru probably would have recognized her."

"So if that's the case, could Raiko grant wishes like the Miracle Mallet just by playing her drums?"

"Well, the Miracle Mallet grants the wishes of its user, so I think she could only grant the wishes of Raijin that way, so unless he's commanding her, she's probably just a remarkably powerful tsukumogami. If the Miracle Mallet could choose how to use its own power then it wouldn't be a very useful tool, right?"

It would be like Marisa's Hakkero when it had gone out of control. Definitely not what you'd want in a tool.

I let out a small sigh and tried to put it all together in my head. Reimu and the others had told us that they had gone out into the storm and fought Raiko after noticing the Miracle Mallet acting strangely. In doing so they might have ended up preventing another incident before it could start. But since they had interrupted Raiko before she could finish whatever she had been doing, did that mean that there were now two Miracle Mallets in Gensokyo? One in Shinmyoumaru's possession and the other a part of Raiko?

I suppose as a powerless human living in the village, all someone like me could do was hope that neither would be misused.

I leaned back over to whisper to Renko again. "...So if you could present your theory to the mastermind behind this incident, which mastermind would it be? Seija? Miss Raiko?"

"That's a good question. Seija is missing and even if we found her, I doubt she'd give us any kind of useful answer. Miss Raiko would probably be easy to find, but I wouldn't want to risk upsetting her..."

"Because she's our only source of information about Sumireko, right?"

"Exactly. We need to learn as much about her connection to the Outside World as we can. At the moment, she's our only means of doing that, so we need to stay on her good side."

Saying that, Renko clammed up and pulled the brim of her hat down to shade her eyes. In the end all of her theorizing amounted to nothing more than idle gossip passed among the three girls in our office. The question of whether her theories ultimately had any merit or not is something that you will have to decide for yourself, dear reader. Unless of course you think you could get an answer out of an amanojaku or a drum tsukumogami, that is.