東方プロジェクト二次小説・オリジナル小説サイト
Chapter 2:Phantasmagoria of Flower View

—4—

Now let me return to the spring of this year, which happens to be the 120th since the creation of the Great Hakurei Barrier and the creation of Gensokyo.

It had been six months since the end of the Eternal Night Incident and was now our second spring since arriving in this world. The two years seem to have flown by. At this point we had become so comfortable and familiar with life in Gensokyo that I rarely found myself thinking of Kyoto or its conveniences any more. Back at the end of the Eternal Night Incident, Reimu had confirmed to us that there was no known way for us to return to our own time, and I had made peace with that. I was content with the idea that I might live out the rest of my life in this world, and, as long as that life didn't end with the two of us being a meal for a youkai that Renko had managed to annoy just a little too much, I found the thought unobjectionable.

The day-to-day routine of our lives was proceeding much as it ever had. The detective agency continued to have few to no clients and Keine's temple school continued to improve its enrollment numbers semester after semester. Renko's math class has been especially well received and its outcomes were praised among the village's parents who were impressed by the children's aptitude. The persistent gossip about the school being run by a half-youkai and a pair of suspicious Outsiders began to die down as conversation instead began to circle around the skill the children under Renko's tutelage now displayed. Few such happy discussions ever mentioned my literature and composition class. Many children learned the basics of reading and writing at home, after all.

"Bye, miss Merry!"

"Goodbye, see you tomorrow!"

As the last of my students disappeared through the gate to the yard after the end of classes one day, I let out a slow, tense breath I hadn't realized I was holding. Back in my life in Kyoto, I had never thought of myself as being good at dealing with children, but after repeated exposure, I was starting to get used to their needs and habits now. I counted my blessings that I was lucky enough to have mostly well-behaved kids in my class.

I returned to the classroom of the temple school to put away my teaching materials and gather up the textbooks for next time. I was mildly surprised to find Renko, who had had her students during first period this morning and should have been waiting back in our office, standing in the classroom, snooping over my records.

As soon as I walked in the door, she looked up at me saying "All done, Merry? Get packed up, we've got to get moving."

"I was just going to put these away first. Get moving where? What's got you so excited?"

"That girl will be coming back again today. This time she's mine for sure."

I sighed heavily as my partner grinned at me.

"Again, Renko? How long are you going to keep stalking her?"

"The intellectual curiosity of a genius mind cannot be stifled, Merry, nor is it dulled by the passage of time. Waiting only gives me more time to think up new experiments we could be performing."

"And what about the trouble these experiments are causing her? She only comes into town to work, you know, and you're disrupting that."

"That's why I pay her the professional courtesy of only bothering her when she's here in the village. I'd love to spend all my time at Eientei experimenting, researching and investigating the nature of her abilities, but I'm pretty sure she's actually busier when she's at home. As a super-unified physics student, how could I do any less? I'd be shirking my lab duties!"

"Alright, that's enough about your specialty. If I let you say any more this will turn into another one of your endless lectures."

"It's my specialty, Merry," Renko continued, heedless of my sighs. "I guess you could say she's just my type. I'd be an idiot not to pursue her."

"Well, what do you need me to come along for, then?"

"You and I make one Hifuu Club, Merry, we're inseparable! Besides, if we end up leaving the village without an escort, Ran would be obligated to keep an eye on us. If we're in two different places, that would make her work much harder, wouldn't you think? I'm just trying to be considerate."

"How long did it take you to dream up that excuse? And why are you able to be considerate of Ran, but not of the girl you’re stalking?"

Ran, the shikigami servant of Gensokyo's Administrator, had told us she would be following and observing us on the Youkai Sage's orders. I never felt like we were being observed, but her presence or the threat of it was probably the reason why we had never been attacked by wandering youkai after leaving the village.

"Come on, Merry. If you come along and we end up leaving town, there's always a chance you could end up seeing that floofy tail again."

"...Alright, I'll pack up."

It was useless to fight the compulsion. It wasn't the possibility of potentially having another chance to snuggle the blissful golden warmth of Ran's tails that motivated me, though I'll admit the thought was a nice bonus. It was just in my nature to pursue these mysteries and indulge Renko's curiosity, as much as I might hate to admit it. Investigating strange events to sate Renko's endless curiosity was just part of how our relationship worked. We wouldn't be the Hifuu Club we always had been if we didn't. From the moment we had first joined hands while exploring that graveyard in our own world, through all our time in Kyoto, right through to our present day in Gensokyo, we were still the same old Hifuu Club as always. Renko answered my resigned sigh with a troublesome grin as she took my hand and led the way out of the school.

—

And that's how I ended up in this improbable situation.

As soon as we had left the office, Renko had turned to me, saying "The game is afoot, Watson. She shouldn't be too hard to find."

"Of course, Sherlock" I sighed as I hung the 'Be Back Later' sign on our door. "It would be nice if for once someone would pay us to do something like this."

Renko paid no attention to me as we made our way out of the school grounds. It didn't take us long at all to spot Reisen and as soon as we did, Renko began doggedly tailing her, following her from house to house. She was wearing a pack large enough to obscure her vision on her back and there were lots of shadows in the alleys between dwellings, so it shouldn't have been too hard to stay out of her sight. Nonetheless, we hadn't tailed her for more than a few blocks when—

"Oh no, not you again." The figure ahead of us had stopped in her tracks and turned to face us. "There's no point in hiding, so you may as well come out," she called sternly. Renko and I glanced at each other then stood up with our hands raised.

The girl who was lifting her conical straw hat to stare at the two of us was the same moon rabbit we had first met at Eientei, Reisen Udongein Inaba. She had traded her modern-looking blazer and skirt for a loose-fitting jinbei of light purple cotton and had her ears concealed under her large woven hat, making her look almost human as long as you didn't look her in the eye.

"Hello, hello, hello! Good to see you again," Renko greeted her enthusiastically, tipping her own hat back with a poke of her finger.

"You two refuse to learn your lesson. Would it change anything if I specifically asked you to stop following me?" she asked.

After the Incident at Eientei, the veil of illusions covering the mansion had been lifted, making it so that anyone willing to brave the Bamboo Forest of the Lost could enter or leave the grounds of the estate without issue. Since then Yagokoro Eirin had taken to treating human patients and allowing visitors to come and go freely. As part of her efforts to integrate themselves with the human community, she had even taken to dispatching Reisen on a weekly basis to travel through the human village as a medicine peddler, going door to door selling all manner of concoctions. As a new face in the village, people had initially been suspicious, but as the efficacy and convenience of Eirin's medicines became better known, Reisen was becoming a welcome visitor.

"I'm trying to work here. Would you mind not interfering in my business?" Reisen asked before Renko could respond to her first question.

"I wouldn't dream of it, my friend," Renko said with a smile. "We can wait until you're done for the day and talk to you when you're off shift, if you like."

"I'd rather you didn't talk to me at all! I never agreed to be a part of your experiments!"

"Please, be reasonable, Reisen. Your abilities to manipulate wavelengths on a quantum level might well provide the evidence needed to overturn more than a century's worth of quantum mechanical theory! You could hold the key to advancing the state of physics in the Scientific Century beyond what was previously thought possible."

"And that's precisely why I have no intention of helping you! My job is to help with Master's research, not yours." Reisen crossed her arms and turned away, but as she began striding away from us Renko chased after her.

"No, no, no, wait. What if we just tried a few things? If you'd just..." Renko was speaking rapidly, trying to badger and cajole Reisen as she turned and walked away. It had been like this for several months now, with Renko doggedly pursuing and harassing Reisen the whole time she was in town or on her way home, raising theoretical questions and proposing experiments that could test the limits of Reisen's ability to manipulate wavelengths with her eyes.

It wasn't hard to see why Renko was so interested in her, even if she let her curiosity drive her to annoying extremes. Quantum mechanics and Relativistic Noology are two fields with a certain degree of connection, with the question of the role observation played in shaping the nature of reality being central to both disciplines. The famous Schrödinger's cat experiment was also something taught in Relativistic Noology classes, after all. Thus, I could see why Renko thought that Reisen's ability could potentially offer the opportunity to directly observe quantum phenomena that thus far had only been theorized or modeled. The very ability to set quantum properties of a system itself violated the uncertainty principle as I understood it, making for a limitless number of possible applications. According to Renko, it opened the possibility of constructing 'Laplace's Demon,' though she lost me when she tried to explain how or what that would mean.

Personally though, I rather doubted if quantum mechanics as it had been understood in the Scientific Century could possibly have any relevance in a world where people could fly in the air and fairies, gods and youkai were real.

"Merry, say something. You have to help me convince her how important this is."

"Me? I'm not a physics major. Here in Gensokyo though, quantum mechanics may well not be what we're dealing with. When you think about it, isn't Reisen's ability more likely to be related to Relativistic Noology?"

"How do you figure?"

"Well, Reisen can recognize and manipulate wavelengths with her eyes. In Gensokyo, those wavelengths, like all aspects of observable reality, are governed by the tenets of Relativistic Noology. That means that the acts of perception and recognition have impacts on the nature of things, as if the reality we live in followed some of the same rules as particles do on a quantum scale. Her ability to manipulate wavelengths descends from her eyes' ability to perceive them—if you could see the individual quanta before they passed through the double slit, you'd always be able to predict which way they would go, right? In fact, by observing them, you'd be able to control which way they'd go. Right now you're like a stage magician trying to play a shell game without knowing where the ball is to begin with. If we could eliminate that uncertainty, then controlling where the ball ends up becomes simply a matter of execution."

"Hmm, that's a very interesting observation, Merry. An interesting observation about observation, even. In that case Reisen could even become Laplace's Demon herself with a broad enough field of view. Could moon rabbits end up being the ultimate deterministic observer? A whole watchmaker's universe ticking away on the spring of a bunch of bunnies?"

Reisen whirled on us with her red eyes flashing in annoyance. "If you're going to make unreasonable demands of me, at least make them in a language I can understand. What are you even talking about?"

Renko responded before I could even think about how to explain. "Right! It's settled then. I know just the way to make clear both my intentions and the importance of this scientific endeavor in the quickest, easiest way possible."

Both Reisen and I looked at her incredulously. "What?" we asked in unison.

"We'll have a physics seminar hosted by none other than the illustrious professor Usami Renko at Eientei. As part of our newly begun traveling lecture series."

"What? I didn't agree to any of this. Why would an Earthling come and teach at—"

"No need to fret, Reisen, old friend. I've got it all figured out," Renko said, tapping her temple with one finger. "We'll see you after you're done with work so we can get started." With that, Renko spun on her heel and began to march off, leaving us both behind.

"Don't just decide by yourself!" Reisen yelled as Renko happily marched back towards our office with her head held high.

The first time I ever met Renko, her interest in my eyes had been much the same. Seeing her act this way again, I was struck by a bittersweet nostalgia. What would it be like if Renko were to recruit Reisen to become the third member of the Hifuu Club, I wondered.

What would it be like if Reisen replaced me as the object of Renko's endless fascination, a voice deep inside me asked. What a ridiculous question to ponder. I shook my head from side to side, disappointed in the meaningless garbage my overanxious brain had decided to ruminate on. Sighing softly to myself I set out to follow Renko.


—5—


A few hours later, we found ourselves walking along behind Reisen as she made her way back to Eientei after a day selling medicine in the village.

"Quit following me already!"

"We're not following you," Renko called out from our position a dozen paces behind her. "We're just on our way to Eientei."

"Even if you come to my house, I'm not going to agree to be your lab rat. Just save your breath!"

"Don't worry, I'm not going to dissect you or anything."

"That's not the point!" Reisen cried, refusing to even turn around to address us. From our position behind her I could see the tension in her shoulders rising as she walked.

"Hey Renko, if you're really so interested in this, why cause Reisen all of this trouble? Why not just ask Eirin? I'm sure she's both studied how Reisen's ability works and knows as much about physics as you'd be able to learn from studying Reisen herself."

"Come on, Merry. You've spent enough time talking to Eirin to know why that won't work."

In other words, Renko had already had the same idea and gone ahead and asked Eirin. The fact that she was still so obsessed with Reisen's abilities after having done so meant that the great Usami Renko had been completely frustrated in her attempts to make any sense of the Lunarian science informing the explanation that Eirin had offered her.

"So even the illustrious professor Renko couldn't follow an explanation from the Lunar Sage then?"

"Hey, don't make me sound so clueless. There were whole concepts and units of measurement completely unknown to the model of physics of the Scientific Century in what she told me. If I wanted to understand her explanation, I'd have to first systematize the physical laws of Gensokyo and come up with a new unified model which includes perception as a fifth fundamental force. Coming up with something like that in a few months, with no access to research materials or proper lab equipment is beyond even Professor Renko's abilities."

In other words, it was exactly as I had imagined. Asking Eirin to explain anything was hopeless. As soon as you came across one unknown unit, she'd explain it using another. Even for my partner trying to make sense of anything she said would be the same as if a layman were to try to dive into the deep end of string theory with no grounding in the fundamentals.

"I'd like to learn more about Lunarian science, but I don't think Eirin's much of a teacher. I wonder just how much more advanced their technology is compared to what we had experienced in the Scientific Century?"

"Despite all of her knowledge she lives more or less like any other human in Gensokyo though, doesn't she?"

"When in Rome, do as the Romans do. You and I are the same, aren't we?"

I couldn't argue with that, I suppose. Even if I had wanted to though, there was a more pressing problem that caught my attention at that moment. It seems that Reisen was intent on giving us the slip. We had been planning on following her through the Bamboo Forest of the Lost to Eientei but as soon as we approached the edge of the grove, she sprinted ahead and vanished between the leaves. Without her we had no way of penetrating the maze of the forest to reach Eientei.

Renko ventured a few steps into the forest, looking around for any sign of Reisen, but without her to guide us we didn’t dare to try to find the way on our own. I was about to try to convince Renko that pursuit was hopeless when there was a sound from somewhere up ahead. It was a girl's voice, singing playfully. Renko and I glanced at each other for a moment then charged toward the sound of the music.

We arrived to see that the source of the song had been Tewi, who was standing surrounded by many of her rabbits. She had apparently cut off Reisen's escape as soon as she had entered the forest, as Reisen was standing here too, looking as if she were trying to find a way through the press of hopping bunnies.

"Tewi!"

"Oh hello, Reisen. How lucky for you to run into me here. And you've brought guests home with you." She smiled up at us as several of her inaba hopped over to playfully swarm around our ankles. "You'll have to forgive Reisen at the moment, I'm afraid. She looks a little grumpy. And irritable. And self-important, overly serious and uncooperative too. It's so nice of you to come and cheer her up when she's having a bad day like this. Why don't I show you to Eientei so we can play?"

"I didn't invite them! They can just go home!" Reisen protested.

"I should probably get an adult's permission before coming over to play." Renko said with a broad smile on her face.

Reisen made a strange grumbling noise. "What are you planning, human?"

"Well, you're always so busy working that you never have time to play, Reisen. I'm going to see if Miss Eirin and Miss Kaguya would mind lending you to me for a while so we can all have fun together."

"You can't borrow people like they're tools!"

"Let’s ask Eirin about that," Renko said, grinning ever broader. "Sorry, but playtime will have to wait, can you inaba show me the way to Eientei?" The bunnies swarming over our feet bounced excitedly up and down before all bounding off in a rush as if to say ‘this way!’

Renko laughed and followed along. I sighed and looked over at Reisen for a moment, then turned toward Renko. Reluctantly, I jogged after her as Reisen's frustrated cries echoed behind me.

—

"You want to borrow Udonge? I don't mind."

That had been Eirin's response when we had arrived at the mansion and Renko had asked. There had been no prior discussion of what Renko had planned. All of us were now gathered around a table in one of the rooms off the hallway, sipping tea. When Renko had brought up her proposal Eirin had agreed without the slightest hesitation.

"It would be a bit troublesome if you were to dissect her though, so I'll ask that you refrain." Eirin's delivery was completely deadpan, as usual. If she was joking, there was no way to tell.

"I wouldn't do anything like that of course. I just want to investigate some of the properties of her eyes."

"I explained the theory of their operation to you already, didn’t I?"

"Indeed, but the theory must be tested and confirmed through empirical observation."

"I see. How true."

Reisen's shoulders fell as she looked on hopelessly. "Really, Master?"

"You've made your first friend on Earth, Reisen," Kaguya interjected happily. "It's important to build up those connections."

"Please don’t start saying things like that, Princess! She's not my friend! Why would I have an Earthling friend?"

"Because you can't go back to the moon, remember?" Tewi smiled, clapping Reisen on the shoulder. "You tried that already. You may as well give up and become an Earth rabbit."

Reisen lowered her head in defeat. The woven bamboo of her hat clunked against the table as she sighed. "I'm going to go change." She said in a tone of utter despair. She threw off Tewi's hand and scurried out of the room. As she left, one of Tewi's rabbits leapt up onto my lap. I gently stroked its soft fur and another one came up beside me, nuzzling my hip. The inaba were nowhere near as fluffy as Ran's tail, but having their warm bodies nuzzling me contentedly was quite nice.

Kaguya watched Reisen leave, then turned to us. "Reisen's been working as a peddler in the village, hasn't she? How’s she been doing at that?"

"Your medicines have made her quite popular, but Reisen herself is very suspicious and standoffish." Renko explained, nodding to Eirin.

Eirin considered that for a moment. "Hmm, I wonder if I should assign her the task of socializing with the humans."

"She still has too much pride as a moon rabbit." Kaguya tittered softly. "She needs to broaden her horizons and learn to love the Earth. Open herself up to new experiences, like this newly opened Eientei."

"Oh, this coming from you, princess?" Tewi asked in wonder. "That incident the other day really changed you. Before that, you were content to stay in your room for a century at a time."

"Oh, is that unusual?" Kaguya asked, resting a finger on her chin and tilting her head in consideration. "Maybe I should make a point of getting out more then. Hey, human."

"Who? Me or Merry?"

"Either or. When you do Reisen's dissection, can I come observe?"

"Well you’re welcome to come observe, but I’m not planning on dissecting anyone," Renko said with a grin.

"Oh? It's quite unusual for you to show interest in anything on your own." Eirin said, looking impressed.

"Eirin, don't make me sound like a shut-in," Kaguya protested, though it was hard not to think of her as one after she had spent most of the last millenia within this mansion’s walls. "Besides, doesn’t it sound like a good time?"

"Again, I’m not planning on doing anything that interesting, but if you’re looking for something entertaining to do then I would love to test your abilities too, Princess." At this statement, Kaguya's eyes widened in surprise and Eirin's narrowed suspiciously. "Eirin mentioned you can control 'moments' and 'eternity' but I'd like to develop a more practical understanding of what that means. For example, I was thinking we could..."

All at once our conversation was interrupted by a sudden shriek of alarm coming from the back of the mansion.


—6—


At the moment we heard the scream, all of the inaba instantly perked up their ears. Tewi looked up at me with a worried expression, as I looked at Renko and she looked at Tewi, as if all of us were confirming the same thought.

Renko spoke first. "That was Reisen's voice, wasn't it?"

"Definitely Reisen," Tewi confirmed with a nod.

"Maybe I should go check on her," Renko said, rising to her feet. Kaguya and Eirin dismissed her with a nod, with Eirin adding. "I doubt it's anything serious, but be my guest."

Tewi and I followed Renko out of the room. Perhaps it was my imagination, but she seemed a little disappointed at Eirin's lack of alarm. I wonder if she had been hoping for the start of an incident? Tewi seemed to read Renko's mood and scoffed as we walked toward the rear of the mansion, saying "she probably just found a weird bug or something." A half dozen of the inaba followed behind us.

As we proceeded down the hallway, we soon heard the sound of hurried footsteps rushing toward us. We stopped and a moment later, Reisen rounded the corner wearing her usual skirt and blazer. She stopped in her tracks as soon as she saw us, standing with both her hands behind her back.

"Oh, glad to see you're okay," Renko began. "What was that noise?"

"N-nothing."

"Nothing? I'm pretty sure we heard you scream."

"I said It was nothing!" Reisen shouted. Behind her, something seemed to be moving. A white and translucent tendril squirmed and twisted like it was alive. Was she holding something behind her back?

"Reisen," I asked. "What is that?"

"What's what?" She asked indignantly. The white thing had drooped down like a long tail and began to twine itself around her legs. A moment later it constricted around her thigh and she yelped in alarm.

Reisen cringed away from the contact and tried to disentangle herself from the coiling, translucent thing, but ended up hopping to the side and landing in a heap. As she held her skirt down with both hands, the translucent object rose up over her shoulder, floating, wispy and bulbous, into the air.

"...A phantom?" Renko asked.

"A phantom." Tewi agreed.

It looked just like the ones we had seen in Hakugyokurou. Like those ones, it radiated a faint aura of cold. If this one had snuck up on Reisen and touched her, I could understand why she screamed.

As the phantom wobbled and floated in the air, slowly drifting toward us, the inaba all turned and bounded away in fright. Tewi scoffed as they passed her by, darting down the hall or out onto the veranda. "Tch! What are you guys doing, it's just a little ghost!" She called after them.

Reisen climbed to her feet. "Well, they can surprise you if you're not expecting them!"

"Oh? Are you afraid of ghosts, Reisen? I think I hear your voice trembling."

"Shut up!" Reisen's face was rapidly turning red.

Renko reached out and grabbed the phantom by the tail, examining it with a concerned expression.

"What are you doing, Renko? It's just a phantom like any other right?"

"Sure, but what's it doing here?"

"Unless you want to bring it to Youmu or Yuyuko, we can't exactly ask it. Phantoms can't talk, after all."

"Where did this come from, Reisen?"

"I was getting changed and I saw something weird moving on the veranda," she grumbled. "I stuck my head out to look and that thing touched my neck. But there's more."

"More?"

"A whole bunch more! Out in the courtyard." She pointed and we turned to follow where she led. She guided us through another sliding door into a room that adjoined the carefully manicured inner garden. There, dozens of the wispy spirits were drifting lazily about.

"Whoa, Eientei's become the Netherworld!" Tewi exclaimed.

Indeed, the scene of phantoms drifting about among the shrubs and flowers was eerily reminiscent of the Netherworld.

"Where did these all come from?" Renko asked as she slipped on a pair of sandals and stepped into the garden. She glanced around, taking in the strange scene for a moment before thrusting out her arm, toward the back of Eientei, saying "Merry, look!"

There, past the back of the mansion, the far edge of the grounds were marked by a fence of bamboo that had been planted to form a dense, living wall. Once there had been a veil of illusion and a barrier against impurity set flush with the wall as well, though that was long gone now. Instead, the bamboo which reached dozens of meters above was covered with... flowers?

Hundreds of flowers, of every imaginable type were growing from bushes, ground plants, vines and fronds. Many were varieties I had never seen before. Borrowing a pair of sandals myself, I joined Renko in the garden. Perhaps because of all of the phantoms, the air here was chilly, but not unbearably so.

"That's a Japanese ginseng," Renko said, pointing out a cluster of small red petals. "Though I've never seen a live one before."

Tewi stepped into the garden too, not bothering with shoes and several of her inaba followed behind her, causing several of the floating phantoms to scatter. "Look, the bamboo flowers are blooming too, that's rare." Indeed, dozens of soft, tube-like flowers were hanging from the branches above, bobbing gently in the breeze.

"Renko, bamboo only blooms once every sixty or 120 years, right?"

"We must be lucky to get to see them in bloom."

We took in the scene of the grove covered in blossoms. Normally the Bamboo Forest of the Lost was a slightly ominous place, but crowned with the colorful flowers it now sported, it was actually quite beautiful.

"Wait a minute, Renko. What's that? Isn't that an autumn cosmos?"

"What? It's spring now." Frowning, she followed the direction I was pointing, glancing over to a dwarf tree with a dome-like canopy planted in the corner of the yard. Its branches were covered in pale pink blossoms. The autumn cosmos tree was not alone. Beside it, a willow was covered in delicate fuzz and beneath it numerous flowering plants each displayed their own brilliant plumage, as if each were celebrating its own season, independent of the rest or the actual time of year. Taken together with the calmly drifting phantoms that filled the courtyard, it was an intensely bizarre panorama.

"Renko... Do you think this is..."

Renko gleefully tugged her hat down over her eyes and fixed me with a ready stare.

"No question about it, Merry. This is the beginning of an incident."