東方プロジェクト二次小説・オリジナル小説サイト
Chapter 13:Undefined Fantastic Object

—37—


"Hey boss! Can I borrow Miss Merry for a bit?"

It was the evening of the next day when Sanae said this while bursting into our office without warning. We both stared at her blankly before Renko responded.

"Sorry Sanae, Merry's mine. I'm not in the habit of loaning her out."

"Wait a minute Renko, I don't belong to you."

"Come on, boss. I only need to borrow her for a bit. I'll return her all as soon as possible!"

"Sanae, I'm not an object."

"Well at least tell me what you're gonna use her for."

"I just need to borrow her eyes for a bit."

"I can't just pop them out, you know, they're part of me."

"That's why I have to borrow all of you, Miss Merry. I need some help to find the mastermind behind all of those little UFOs."

Renko and I glanced at each other for a moment.

"You mean the youkai responsible for making all of the floating pieces of the 𝐻𝑜𝑙𝑦 𝑃𝑎𝑙𝑎𝑛𝑞𝑢𝑖𝑛'𝑠 mast look like UFOs, right?"

"Exactly. I went to Makai to hunt youkai, but I ended up helping them. This time it's simple though, there's a bad youkai out there who needs exterminating. All I have to do is find her before Reimu does! I tried looking for the remaining UFOs, but I couldn't find any. If I had Miss Merry be my boundary detector though, I could get that youkai."

"I just see boundaries. I'm not a youkai detector."

"Come on, Miss Merry! I was so excited that we had found real life UFOs and it turned out they were just dumb chunks of wood. I want to get back at the youkai responsible for that!"

"They probably never would have looked like UFOs to anyone if you hadn't told people that's what they were, right?"

"That's exactly what makes you so useful, Merry," Renko said, showing the first signs of being infected by Sanae's contagious enthusiasm.

"Renko, don't you start too."

"It's a good idea, Merry. You're the only one who hasn't been affected by this unidentified youkai's ability to make things look like other things, so you might be the perfect countermeasure. Good thinking, Sanae." Renko stood up from her desk and flashed me an idiotic grin and a thumbs up. As I heaved an exasperated sigh she retrieved her hat from the peg by the door. "If Merry’s going, I’m going too."

"I never said I was going, Renko!"

"I'm curious to find out who that unidentified youkai is, aren't you, Sanae? Come on, the Hifuu Detective Agency is on the case!"

"That's right! For the glory of the Moriya Shrine!"

In the end, things proceeded just as might be expected. The combined weight of all of the heavy sighs I exhaled was not enough to slow the momentum of Renko and Sanae's flight of fancy. I ended up following along like usual as the three of us set out into the evening in search of a nue.

—

As before, however, it was still nearly impossible for Sanae to carry the both of us and try to fight as well. As a result, we decided to stop by the 𝐻𝑜𝑙𝑦 𝑃𝑎𝑙𝑎𝑛𝑞𝑢𝑖𝑛 first. We encountered it near the shores of Misty Lake, where it had seemingly just recently stopped for the night. We came across Ichirin and Unzan first as usual, with Ichirin floating up to us with a greeting as Unzan loomed behind her.

"Hello again, Ichirin," Renko called out amiably as she flew toward us.

"Hello again to all of you. What brings you all out here at night?"

"We're here to see you this time, Ichirin. Or more specifically Unzan. Do you think you could lend him to us for a little bit?"

"Unzan? What do you want with him?"

"Well, just to confirm, no one's caught the youkai responsible for breaking the mast of your ship yet, right?"

"That's right. Nazrin's been looking for them along with all of the remaining pieces of the flying storehouse."

"Ah well, Sanae here has volunteered to help with the hunt for the trickster, but she can't fight and carry us at the same time. That's why we were hoping Unzan could help us out. Not being able to fly makes us too much of a burden otherwise."

"What do you think, Unzan? You're okay with it? Alright then, have fun." It seemed like it was decided. Unzan moved from behind Ichirin to under our feet and we cautiously let go of Sanae's hands to gently drop down.

"Thank you very much, that's a huge help. I'll try and have him back by the end of the night, okay? And Thank you for carrying us, Mr. Unzan."

We felt Unzan's body move beneath us as he bowed his head. Ichirin did the same.

"Aww, that looks just like the flying nimbus. I'm a little jealous," Sanae said, pouting.

"There's room for another if you want to ride too, Sanae."

"Would that be okay? Okay I'm gonna have a seat too then," Sanae said, settling into position beside me.

With that, the three (four?) of us sailed off into the twilight, leaving a somewhat uncertain-looking Ichirin behind us.

—

And so we flew off. We were supposed to be pursuing the culprit behind the UFOs, but since we didn’t have any idea where to find them, what ended up happening was…

"What are you three up to now?" Reimu asked incredulously.

"Yeah, and why are you two riding that nyuudou?" Marisa asked from beside her.

We ended up encountering Reimu and Marisa who were also flying about.

"Good evening to you two too." Renko responded with a grin. "What brings you out so late?"

"I'm hunting that youkai."

"I just came along to watch."

"Oh, us too!" Sanae added. "But I'm gonna find them first!"

"Huh? Do you know where they are?"

"We're searching for them! That's why I brought a youkai radar with me!"

"I'm not a youkai radar, Sanae."

"I'm used to these two sticking their noses into everything whether you want them to or not, but they can't fight and they can't fly. They're a hindrance and a danger. You shouldn't be encouraging them to come along."

"Give us a chance, Reimu," Renko protested. "Merry at least can be useful."

"How?" Reimu asked flatly, looking unimpressed.

"Just watch, we'll show you. How were you two planning on finding your target?"

"We've just been following these guys," Marisa said, pulling a chunk of wood out from under her hat. She fiddled with it a bit then fished out one of the same tiny, faintly luminous seeds I had seen before. "If you set these little snakes free, they turn into birds and go flyin' off. I'm geussin' they're goin' back to their master." She demonstrated by releasing the seed from her grip. It bobbed in the air for a moment then shot off in the direction of Muenzuka.

"Alright, let's follow that!" Renko declared.

"You don't have to tell me that," Reimu said, kicking off the air and rushing to give chase. We asked Unzan to follow along as well.

"I'm gonna exterminate them first!" Sanae declared and leapt from Unzan's back, speeding toward the west as fast as she could in pursuit of the seed.

"Hey, don't interfere!" Reimu said, speeding up.

"Oh, you both got some guts to challenge me in speed!" Marisa called as she launched herself forward on a jet of stardust.

Within moments it became clear that Unzan had no hope of catching any of them, but with how the three of them were squabbling in mid-air, crowding each other out of the way and trying to climb over top of one another we could hear them for some distance.

"Boo! I messed up last time! You have to wait until night to surprise humans!"

"You’re in the way!" three voices called out all at once.

Foolishly an umbrella-wielding youkai leapt in front of the trio, surging toward them from below. The three incident resolvers didn’t even slow down as they blew her away without ceremony, continuing to race each other and tumbled out of sky after being bombarded with countless stars and ofuda.


—38—


It seems that Marisa's theory about the destination of the flying seeds was more or less correct. As we arrived at Muenzuka, it was clear that something was up. Several dozen of the little wooden splinters were floating about here, drifting with random momentum and bouncing off of each other. To everyone else they must have all looked like UFOs.

"It looks like there's lots of UFOs around here. There must be someone suspicious nearby."

"I can hear something... It sounds like a bird."

"Or maybe an animal."

"Or a baby."

"A creepy sound of unknown origin... Good it be…?"

Reimu's face hardened as the strange cry repeated. To my ears, it might have been any of those things. It was an odd, unsettling sound, not quite like anything I had ever heard, but reminiscent of each of those things. From Unzan's back I looked around at the tree tops, trying to make out anything drifting splinters of wood that had gathered here, each one glowing faintly. It was a startling and unexpected coincidence when for just a moment the glow of one of the luminous wooden shards illuminated the uppermost branches of a large tree. In the brief second that the light passed over that point, I saw the form of a black-haired girl sitting amongst the uppermost branches, looking directly at us. The moment our eyes met her face contorted in a look of sneering disgust and she leapt out of the tree with a grunt. The light swept away from her in the next moment but I could still dimly perceive the outline of her standing in the air as several oddly-shaped wing-like limbs spread out behind her.

"Sanae! There!" I said, pointing toward her. "Youkai girl on top of the tree!" When I called out not just Sanae, but everyone turned to look at once.

"This voice of misfortune!" Reimu muttered. "It's the mysterious ancient youkai... That's the voice of a nue!" She pointed her gohei at the top of the tree.

As soon as Reimu called out, the girl rolled her eyes, shouting "Oh come on!" Then with a sigh she began moving through the air toward us, occasionally illuminated by the patchy glow of the drifting lights, her odd, almost tentacle-like wings fluttering as she flew.

The nue, or rather, Houjuu Nue, as Murasa had told us at this point that that was her name, tried to feign an air of confidence as she approached, but she couldn't completely hide the frustration written across her face.

"That's right. Even though you went all the way to Makai to free that monk, I never would have guessed that you would break open one of those illusory UFOs and come chasing after me."

"She's a nue?" Marisa asked. "I thought a nue had the head of a monkey, the body of a tanuki, the limbs of a tiger, and snake for a tail or somethin'?"

"Nue... nue... oh is it like Meisuke Nueno?" Sanae blurted, suddenly excited. "He's awesome!"

The girl seemed somewhat surprised by such characterizations. "I'm an unidentifiable youkai, so why would people know what I look like?"

"Well there's an old legend," Marisa admitted with a shrug. I doubt Sanae was on the same page at all though.

"I hardly ever show my true form to humans. Because I know the best way to scare humans is to make sure they don't know what you really are."

"Well we've all seen what you look like now," Sanae said simply.

"Yeah, and that's her fault!" Nue pointed at me with a look of undisguised annoyance.

"Me? What'd I do?" I asked, looking around.

"You're even more unknowable than I am! Not one of my tricks has worked on you, ever since I first saw you underground! You've been ruining all of my fun! I hadn't even intended to appear in front of any of you now, but you're here again..."

I suppose I could understand her frustration, but there was nothing I could do about it. I had simply never seen any of the things she had been showing to everyone else.

"Renko, is this what you meant by ‘Merry being useful?’" Reimu asked, turning toward us as she floated over to take a position between me and the nue.

"That's right! Nue's abilities don't seem to affect Merry's eyes. That's bound to be good for something, right?" Renko replied with a laugh.

"Well, whatever," Reimu said with a sigh before turning back to face Nue and drawing forth several ofuda. "I'll be honest. I'm in a bad mood right now and I expected this hunt to be just one more annoyance. If it means I get to take down a legendary youkai like a nue though, that sounds like fun! Let's see what the legendary mysterious youkai is really made of!"

As Reimu began floating toward the approaching youkai she had an unusually happy smile on her face.

Nue matched that smile, moving fearlessly toward the shrine maiden. "Do you know how I became a legendary unknown youkai? It's because everyone who ever saw my true form died before they could tell anyone. You humans seem to have forgotten your fear of the night. Now die to the terror of this Unidentified Flying Object!"

Thus, battle was joined and the two of them fought a flashy, fast-moving battle amidst the drifting lights of the glowing fragments of the 𝐻𝑜𝑙𝑦 𝑃𝑎𝑙𝑎𝑛𝑞𝑢𝑖𝑛'𝑠 shattered mast (UFOs, to everyone else watching.) Reimu seemed to be genuinely enjoying herself, darting between bursts of blossoming danmaku and exchanging volleys of fire that lit up the night with streaks of vibrant light. Marisa made no attempt to interfere, even waving Sanae back when it looked like she was about to jump in.

"Let her have her fun, Sanae, we can sit this one out."

"This was supposed to be my victory though!" Despite saying that and puffing her cheeks out in frustration, Sanae stood down and watched the match from the sidelines.

As for us, now that my role as a youkai radar had ended Renko seemed to have other concerns on her mind. As the boomed overhead, she leaned forward to ask Unzan a question.

"Mr. Unzan, do you know if Nazrin is around, by chance? I'd like to ask her some questions if I can."

The nyuudo nodded his cloud-like head and we felt his muscles contort, as we turned and headed toward the Forest of Magic, descending to where Nazrin was standing in the shadows. She was wearing a wicker bin on her back which looked large compared to her small body and from the light spilling out of it and the occasional thump from inside it seemed like it must be full of captured UFOs. Nazrin noticed us approaching and lowered the dowsing rods she was holding, a somewhat unpleasant expression visible on her face.

"Unzan? Why are you carrying around those humans from yesterday?" She asked. If she received any response, I couldn't hear it, but Renko was happy to fill the silence.

"Good evening, Little Naz," she began.

"I told you that you have no right to call me that!" she roared, stomping a foot against the ground.

"Mr. Unzan, I have some private business to discuss with Little Naz here. Would you mind giving us a moment?" she asked as she leapt down to the ground then offered me her hand. Unzan let me off of his back then looked suspiciously at Renko for a moment before turning and floating off into the sky.

"Don't waste your breath. I have nothing to say to a disrespectful human."

"But we're here to collect the money you owe us for the repairs to our office, Little Naz. And the reimbursement for the pagoda as well."

Nazrin grumbled and muttered something along the lines of "Like I had said, I'll pay you back later."

"I see. Well, while we wait for 'later' to arrive, why don't you listen to a little story of mine then? I would think lending me your ear is the least you could do."

"...What story?"

"It's about Miss Hijiri Byakuren." Nazrin narrowed her eyes suspiciously. "I may have been the mastermind behind this incident, but there are some secrets about her sealing a thousand years ago that are still a mystery even to me. I was hoping you might be able to fill in the gaps in my story for me."

"Why ask me at all? I'm not one of her disciples. I probably don't know anything that you don't."

"Really?"

"Really."

"Well then just sit back and listen. You don't have to tell me if I've made a mistake or hit the mark dead on. I'm just a bystander sitting on the sidelines after all, so I'll just tell you how things look to me."

"Why should I listen to some crazy story from someone like that?"

"I suppose you're right. Well then, I guess I'll just go tell my story to Captain Murasa and the others instead. I wonder how they'll react when I tell them that you and your master are the ones who were responsible for sealing Byakuren away?"

Nazrin stared at Renko in silence, her eyes wide and furious.

"...What are you talking about?"

"Oh, would you like me to explain, Little Naz? Well I'd be happy to tell you how I came to that conclusion. Or rather how I came to that tentative conclusion. Maybe you can tell me something that would convince me that the story should be different. Now then—" Renko pompously cleared her throat, harumphing and squaring her shoulders before looking Nazrin dead in the eyes and expounding her latest megalomaniacal delusion.

"—The crime committed a thousand years ago by Hijiri Byakuren is just this: she refused to accept her brother's death."


—39—


Nazrin listened to Renko's theory and all of the accusations it included with a completely expressionless face, not letting the faintest hint of emotion show at any point.

"Right from the beginning there was one clear question mark regarding the story of Byakuren's sealing a thousand years ago: How did the four of you — the captain, Ichirin, Shou, and yourself all manage to escape from the Myouren Temple before Byakuren was sealed, carrying with you the houtou and the flying storehouse in the form of the 𝐻𝑜𝑙𝑦 𝑃𝑎𝑙𝑎𝑛𝑞𝑢𝑖𝑛, the two keys to Byakuren's prison? That's a bit of a strange story even on its surface, don't you think? What sort of a jailer locks someone away then gives the keys to the cell to the prisoner's most trusted friends? Leaving those items with the four of you is practically begging for Byakuren to be released. In fact, sealing her at all would have been pointless. With you four holding the keys to her prison, you would have freed her right away. Even if you say that this was all Byakuren’s plan and she had intended for the four of you to be able to rescue her, I doubt the Yama would have made such an oversight given all the trouble she went to in making sure that Byakuren was sealed away in a completely different world."

Nazrin continued to stare at Renko, stone-faced and unmoved.

"The only way any of this makes sense is if at least one of the two parties who fled the temple actually agreed with the sealing and cooperated with the Yama to make it happen. Given that the captain and Ichirin were the ones who got sealed into the Underworld, I'd say they probably weren't the collaborators."

That was enough to provoke a reaction. "You think that just because the master and I weren't captured, we weren't trying to save Hijiri?"

"Well, that alone would only be enough to raise questions, not to prove anything. The proof came from when I talked to Lady Shinki, the Administrator of Makai. She mentioned that the seal covering Houkai was created a thousand years ago and was made using that same houtou that you supposedly carried out of the temple. How could that happen if the houtou was supposed to be with you and Shou? I have no choice but to consider the possibility that your master may have assisted in the act of sealing Miss Byakuren. Shou also knew that both the houtou and the ship would be needed to free Hijiri from her imprisonment but despite that she never tried to rescue Murasa and Ichirin or recover the wreck of the 𝐻𝑜𝑙𝑦 𝑃𝑎𝑙𝑎𝑛𝑞𝑢𝑖𝑛 once in the thousand years you were all separated, did she?"

Nazrin continued to glare at Renko for a moment then turned and walked to where a tree had fallen near the side of the road. Brushing it off, she hopped up and seated herself on its trunk, composing her thoughts for a moment before speaking.

"I'd like to say that that's a completely baseless accusation, but it’s true that Master was being overly passive in leaving the ship in the Underworld for so long. Is that the extent of your story? You think that Shou and I are traitors who betrayed Byakuren and the others?"

"No, I don't, actually. Quite the opposite in fact. I think Shou has been the truest and most reliable of Byakuren's disciples for the last thousand years. The only one of her subordinates that Byakuren could have trusted to honor her true intentions."

Nazrin lapsed into silence again, still staring intently at Renko.

"I think being sealed in Makai was Byakuren's idea to begin with. She had something she wanted to atone for and your master was the only one of her disciples to whom she revealed the truth. If that's the case, then everything leading up to Byakuren's release starts to make sense— including your master losing the pagoda."

"You see, I was wondering just how Shou could let something as important as that pagoda slip out of her grasp. It occurred to me that maybe she didn't. Maybe instead of doing that, she decided to give it up of her own free will. It's just a guess, but I'm wondering if maybe she was conflicted, torn between wanting to free Byakuren and feeling guilty for having secretly sealed her away in the first place without ever telling the captain or Ichirin what she had done."

Nazrin's lips quirked into a smirk. "You really are just guessing, aren't you?"

"I am indeed. I’m guessing at why Hijiri was sealed and what the Yama found her to be guilty of. But I do have some evidence to support my theories.

"...which was given to you by the Administrator of Makai, right?"

"Very perceptive. Yes. I had asked her why Byakuren had become a youkai magician. Captain Murasa and Ichirin told me that her reason for doing so was so that she could carry on her brother’s will in spreading the Buddha's teachings across Japan after he died. Lady Shinki told me something different though. She told me Byakuren's aim had originally been to revive her brother..."

—

"Did Miss Byakuren ever tell you why she wanted to become a youkai magician in the first place?" That had been Renko's question as we sat on the porch of Alice's house in the twilight, waiting for her to come back.

"She wanted to try and revive her brother," had been Shinki's answer. "She first came to Makai carrying her brother's corpse. She said she wanted to bring him back to life and was willing to make any sacrifice to achieve that aim. She had said that her brother had been a great saint during his lifetime and she couldn't let him die before her. She herself didn't have long to live at that point and she was willing to sacrifice her own life to save his."

"...I see. What did you tell her?"

"I refused to help her, actually. Commanding a soul that has not yet crossed over the Sanzu river into a body is not so hard, but with a body like hers that was old and feeble, it would be a waste. Byakuren was determined though. She said to me, 'if that's the case, then make me into a magician. I will make my body immortal, then offer my undying life to my brother. No cost is too great.'" Shinki had teared up then, sniffling as she reminisced about the scene.

"You've always been weak to that kind of story," Louise had said.

"It's a good story, Louise! Why shouldn't I cry? The strong bonds of family uniting a brother and a sister even past the ends of their mortal lives. It's sweet!"

Renko however had been unmoved, latching onto one particular detail as she often did and letting out a gasp.

"Going back to what you were saying earlier, you taught Byakuren a spell to put her soul in a new body, right? I've heard about spells like that before. You also said that she was planning to give her body over to her brother. What would happen to Byakuren's soul if she did that?"

"Two souls would coexist in one body. That's an unstable situation though. I warned Byakuren that I couldn't predict what would happen if she did that. She didn't care though, she signed the contract anyway."

—

"She told me that Byakuren's aim had originally been to revive her brother, and to that end she transferred his soul into her own body to preserve it. From that point on both Myouren's soul and Byakuren's existed within her body, almost like a split personality.

Byakuren gained the body of a youkai magician and Myouren became something like a ghost possessing that body. I suspect Byakuren never intended for that arrangement to be permanent. In fact, I think that's the reason why she began helping youkai, originally. Her goal wasn't to save youkai. She was just looking for someone whose body she could use as a permanent vessel for her brother's spirit. For that she needed a body that could live even longer than a magician’s body. The body of a youkai."

"That was the crime she committed," Renko concluded. "That was the sin grave enough for the Yama to appear and pass judgement on someone who was still among the living. If I'm right about that, then I'd go further and guess that the reason the Yama passed down the judgement that she did was to separate the soul of Myouren out of Byakuren's body where it had been residing. What made Byakuren's actions a crime is that she prevented her brother's soul from achieving enlightenment. As a punishment, it would be fitting that her soul was separated from her brother’s and she was sealed in Makai. Additionally, her magical power was taken from her and sealed in the pagoda. The reason why the barrier around Houkai was magical in nature is because it was created through the use of Byakuren’s own magical power."

"What a ridiculous delusion," Nazrin said with a snort.

"Indeed it very much stretches the imagination."

"What you’re suggesting is that my master knew of Hijiri’s sin and kept it hidden from everyone else then for whatever reason waited a thousand years before helping them to undo the imprisonment that Hijiri herself has asked for. Besides, if Myouren's soul had been freed from Hijiri by the Yama like you propose, he would have attained enlightenment and become a Buddha at that point. If that happened, then any sin committed in the course of delivering him to Enlightenment would have been forgiven, right?"

"But what if the soul of Myouren didn't want to attain Enlightenment? To achieve Nirvana you must be free of attachments to this world, right? What if Myouren's soul, having just been separated from his sister's body, and having just witnessed all that his sister had done for him, ended up with the sort of lingering regrets that would tie him to this world? If that had happened, he might have sought out a vessel that could keep him in this world. Maybe even a vessel filled with his own power."

Nazrin's expression stiffened.

"Originally Byakuren had been the one preventing Myouren from achieving enlightenment but this time he did it of his own free will. He would have given up nirvana to haunt what had once been his flying storehouse and become a ship he could fly with his own spiritual power. The reason the captain and Ichirin were sealed in the Underworld was merely because they were with the 𝐻𝑜𝑙𝑦 𝑃𝑎𝑙𝑎𝑛𝑞𝑢𝑖𝑛. Myouren, whose soul had rejected enlightenment, was cast down into hell, dragging the two of them with him."

"That's why the pagoda and the 𝐻𝑜𝑙𝑦 𝑃𝑎𝑙𝑎𝑛𝑞𝑢𝑖𝑛 were both needed to free Byakuren. The keys to her prison were her magical power and the soul of her brother, which was possessing the 𝐻𝑜𝑙𝑦 𝑃𝑎𝑙𝑎𝑛𝑞𝑢𝑖𝑛.

Byakuren herself may not have even known that Myouren's soul had come to occupy the 𝐻𝑜𝑙𝑦 𝑃𝑎𝑙𝑎𝑛𝑞𝑢𝑖𝑛, but she could never be released until she had come to accept his death. That way, even if she realized that he was tied to this world, she wouldn’t be tempted to try to revive him again."

That explained why Murasa's ship had gone from steering itself to requiring manual operation after Byakuren's release. Up until that point it had actually been piloted not by Murasa or Byakuren's power but by the spirit of Myouren.

"That's also why the Yama showed up just as we were leaving Makai. She was there to verify that Myouren's soul had been released from the ship. What she was there to officiate was the release and redemption of an earth spirit, which escaped from the Underworld via a superheated geyser."

Renko finished laying out her delusional deduction and took a deep breath.

"In the end, I guess all of this was really just a continuation of the previous Incident, just drawn out over several months."