東方プロジェクト二次小説・オリジナル小説サイト
Chapter 3: The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil

Three

𝘌𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘵𝘭𝘦 𝘴𝘰𝘭𝘥𝘪𝘦𝘳 𝘣𝘰𝘺𝘴 𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘷𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘯 𝘋𝘦𝘷𝘰𝘯;
𝘖𝘯𝘦 𝘴𝘢𝘪𝘥 𝘩𝘦'𝘥 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦
𝘈𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘴𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯.


—7—


A girl—or perhaps in this case it would be more appropriate to call her a child. She was as arrogant as a king, as refined as a noble, but there was nothing innocent in her. Her soul was that of a monster.

"Hmm. Two people who have broken into my mansion directly from the Outside World, eh?" Her small form was looking down on us from atop an ornate rosewood throne that sat upon a raised dais opposite the doorway as we entered the audience hall. In her crimson eyes there was an unnatural hunger that appraised us with an unmistakably predatory intent. From her back, a pair of bat-like wings larger than those of the red-haired girl in the library grew. The points of her canine teeth just barely peeked from her mouth.

"What's the point of having a gatekeeper at all, I wonder?" she idly mused.

"I'll reprimand her later." Sakuya replied, standing aloofly by her mistress' side. The girl chuckled softly.

"Tell me your names, humans."

Her tone was commanding and arrogant, as if she believed that no one in the world could dare disobey. Perhaps because of her young appearance or the elegance that permeated her mannerisms, however, the impression she gave off was not obnoxious or precocious, but simply imperious—her words seemed more like the command of an arrogant king than the whims of a spoiled child. While I was thinking this, my partner stepped forward and bowed politely.

"Pleased to make your acquaintance, ma'am. My name is Usami Renko."

"And I'm Maéreverie Hearn."

"And I am Remilia. Remilia Scarlet. I am master of this mansion and a descendant of the great lord Dracula himself, Vlad Țepeș."

"Lord Dracula? That means you're..."

The girl's eyes narrowed like a cat's and a cruel mirth spread over her face at Renko's recognition of the name. "A vampire, yes."

I saw for the first time what the phrase "a terrifying smile" might mean in real life. I found I had taken a step back without realizing it, even though the girl in front of me couldn't have been more than ten years old at most. A shiver ran down my spine.

I was not the only person in the room though. There was also my partner, a strange creature in her own right, bizarre enough to not be bothered in the slightest by the presence of a blood-sucking fiend. Renko took a step forward, as if to counter the step back I had taken. "It's an honor to meet a real vampire!" She exclaimed, without a hint in insincerity in her voice.

"Oh? Are you here to beg to become my thrall?"

"No, I'm afraid not. I wouldn't hesitate to experience the life of a vampire if I could return to my original state afterward, but that's the whole thing about vampires, once you become one you can never go back, right? I'm still a human, so I would like to observe vampires from a human's point of view. It's a rare opportunity as well, so I'd like to make some objective physical observations. For example, can vampires really not be seen in mirrors? Are they harmed by crosses, garlic, and holy water? Does sunlight reduce them to ash? Can they cross running water? Or how do..."

"Renko!" I gave Renko a poke as I hissed at her to interrupt her stream of speech. What kind of human would ask a vampire to prove all of their weaknesses? The kind standing beside me, apparently.

I turned fearfully to Remilia to gauge her reaction and was surprised to see her grinning with what looked like genuine warmth. "I see why Patchy asked that you be treated as guests. You're quite amusing."

"I'm very pleased you think so." Renko's smile was equally without guile.

"But I don't feel that I'm under any obligation to answer your questions for free." At once, a cold detachment had returned to Remilia's features.

"What do you mean?"

"I am bored. Terribly bored, human, in a way you mortals couldn't comprehend. I am willing to answer your questions if you will do something to relieve my boredom. What do you say?"

This seemed like the sort of bargain where if you failed to amuse the creature demanding distraction you'd be eaten on the spot. If I could have, I would have turned around and left the mansion right then and there. To think that I had ever wanted to meet the mistress of this manor now seemed insane. Curiosity is a frightening curse.

I was terrified, but Renko was smiling. It was that same grin she always got right before doing something that was sure to get us into trouble.

"Indeed, boredom is the greatest enemy of all sentient creatures. It's only when you approach new stimuli with the curiosity of a child that life is at its most enjoyable. I suspect even when you were a young human, you probably enjoyed all the pleasures of the world to their fullest, right? And now you seek a pleasure that even a vampire wouldn't know of..." With a theatrical turn and a scholarly tone, Renko began to lecture, pacing slowly back and forth as she did. "What causes boredom is the dulling of the senses through repeated exposure to the same stimuli. Whatever it is you are bored with, might I be presumptuous enough to suggest that what you should do is broaden your horizons, rather than seek distraction from a mere mortal like me?"

"And how would this mere mortal suggest that the Scarlet Devil go about doing that?" Remilia's eyes narrowed. I couldn't tell if she was annoyed or bored but either way her dissatisfaction was unnerving. I'd rather be anywhere else at the moment, but Renko seemed completely unbothered.

"Well, as a descendant of Lord Dracula, isn't it a shame that despite your noble bloodline, you rule over only a single mansion? Why don't you try to conquer the world, for a start? It should be easy for a vampire, you could raise an army simply by sucking humans' blood."

"I've already done that, and I got so bored I stopped halfway through. Gensokyo is too small to be worth ruling over, and acquiring human thralls is just a hassle. Sakuya is all I need." Remilia's tone had become less animated, and her face was slackening with boredom already.

"Gensokyo?"

My partner had caught the unfamiliar word just as I had. Remilia's eyes widened slightly.

"You don't even know the name of the world you're in?"

"We emerged directly into the library after disappearing from my parents' house."

"Sakuya, tell this ignorant girl what you know."

"As you wish, milady." Sakuya, who had been standing silently at her mistress' side this whole time, stepped forward.

"This world, where the Scarlet Devil Mansion resides, is called Gensokyo. It's connected to the Outside World, but it resembles a walled garden, separated from the rest of existence and sealed by a barrier. A fantasy whose existence is thought to be impossible in the Outside World. It's a paradise where gods and youkai live. We of the Scarlet Devil Mansion are relative newcomers to this world, just like you."

Gensokyo. For some reason the word, which I had never heard before, had an odd ring of nostalgia to it. Could it be something I once heard in a dream? I couldn't be sure.


—8—


"If you came here through the hole in the barrier that Patchy opened, then you must be from the Outside World. This world you've fallen into is a rather annoying sort of place, I'm afraid. I've been considering returning to the Outside World myself. It gets so hot here, and the sun is annoying this time of year."

Remilia fanned herself lazily with one hand, though the temperature inside the mansion was comfortable and cool. With no outside light entering the house, summer heat didn't seem to present much of a problem, though I imagine the long days would be a hassle for a vampire if they were indeed sensitive to sunlight. While I was considering this, Renko flashed her troublesome grin again.

"Well young lady, why don't you go about making this world more comfortable then, if you find it so troublesome?"

"Didn't you hear me the first time? I don't want the trouble of ruling over your kind." Remilia's tone had become bored, with an edge of annoyance.

"Pardon me, I must have given you the wrong impression. You don't have to conquer this world, just make it more comfortable for you to enjoy. For example, if the sun is the natural enemy of vampires, you can just eliminate it from the world. With your power and wisdom, surely it would be easy enough for you to accomplish such a thing, wouldn't it?"

At this, Remilia stared at Renko with first incredulity, and then something very much like the same smile Renko always wore moments before things started getting dangerous. In Remilia's case, however, the smile had fangs. All at once she leapt up from her throne and burst into laughter.

"Ha! The sun should retreat, you say? Why, you're right, human! It's just as you say! Why should the Scarlet Devil, Remilia Scarlet, the Eternal Red Moon hide from the sun? Rather the sun should be ashamed before my greatness and retreat to a pitiful cave! Isn't that right, Sakuya?"

"As you say, milady."

"I've come up with a fun idea thanks to you, human. As a reward, I will allow you to stay in this mansion for a while. You can spend as much time as you like, as long as Sakuya can tolerate your requests. Sakuya, see to their needs, then call Patchy for me."

"Of course, milady."

The next moment after Sakuya nodded her head, her figure, which had been perfectly posed at Remilia's side, vanished and appeared directly beside us instantaneously. I blinked in disbelief. Without a doubt, it had to be teleportation. It was pure and simple and without any preparation at all.

"This way, please. Excuse us, milady."

Sakuya opened the grand doors and ushered us into the hall. Remilia stood, watching us leave with her bat wings fluttering excitedly and a mischievous smile playing across her young face.



"I thought we were going to die there." I let out in a whisper as we walked down the hallway, trailing behind Sakuya. "What were you planning to do if you had displeased her? No matter how many extra lives you might have saved up making your way to the boss, it wouldn't have been enough."

"That's why I bought us a continue, Merry. I'm not about to fight a vampire in the flesh. As long as I don't know what her plans were, the risk was going to be the same no matter what I tried, so the best course of action was to get her to focus her attention somewhere else, right?

I've known Renko for a while now, but I still couldn't begin to guess where many of her ideas come from. "You're crazy, Renko."

Sakuya turned to face us and asked, "Shall I take you back to the room you were in earlier? Or is there something else you require?"

We could have gone back to the room, but my mind flashed to the lost amber pebble and my memories of Renko's great aunt's musty room. "Miss Sakuya, you're heading to the library to call for Miss Patchouli, aren't you? Would it be all right if we accompanied you? I want to try to figure out how we ended up in there and if there is any way back. Or if not, I'd at least like to look at the collections there. Maybe we could find something that might help us find a different way back."

"Are you sure you're not just excited to look through so many old-fashioned paper books, Merry?" Renko piped up, unhelpfully.

I wondered whether we would be allowed to move about the mansion freely. Especially to visit somewhere to look for a way to go back to our world. Would we find ourselves no more than prisoners in this gaudily gilded cage?

To my surprise, Sakuya replied simply with "Yes, follow me." Her face was carefully expressionless.



And so we returned to the underground library. Patchouli was sitting on a stack of books when we arrived, holding up a thick hardcover volume and squinting in the dim light. I wondered if the library contained any furniture other than the endless rows of bookshelves.

"Lady Patchouli."

"Oh, Sakuya and the humans from earlier. You're here again?"

"Miss Usami and Miss Hearn here have been officially recognized as guests by the mistress. Additionally, milady would like to see you."

"Would she now? What does she need this time, I wonder? Very well then. —Koa!"

"I'm right here!" In response to Patchouli's call, the red-haired girl with the bat wings had appeared, nearly diving through the air around the corner of a bookshelf.

"I'm leaving you to deal with these humans, treat them well, but don't let them ruin anything."

"Got it!"

Patchouli rose to her feet, but a moment later swayed unsteadily and stumbled forward a few steps. Instantaneously, Sakuya appeared at her side, supporting her body.

"Is everything all right, Lady Patchouli?"

"I'm fine, just a little dizzy."

"Please do not strain yourself."

"It's just a little anemia, nothing for you to concern yourself with. You're Remi's servant, not mine." At these words Sakuya released her hold on Patchouli and stepped away, her face lowered in embarrassment. "All right, let's go see Remi." Without waiting for a response, Patchouli moved off toward the door we had entered through. Or would it be more accurate to say she slid away? The sight of Patchouli floating 30 cm off of the floor and gliding straight forward through the air without moving any part of her body was still somewhat surreal. Sakuya rose up and followed behind. When the two had disappeared out the entry door there were only the two of us and the bat-winged girl left in the sprawling library. The girl turned to us and bowed politely.

"It's nice to meet you uh, Miss Usami and Miss Hearn, was it? Welcome again to the great library of the Scarlet Devil Mansion."

"Ah, I'm Usami Renko. Just Renko is fine."

"And I'm Maéreverie Hearn. You can call me Merry, everyone seems to. What can we call you?"

The girl gave a little giggle, sending a tiny quiver through the black wings that sprouted from her temples. "My name is only for my master, Lady Patchouli to speak. You can call me Koakuma, if you like." 𝘒𝘰𝘢𝘬𝘶𝘮𝘢. Little devil. Was that how she thought of herself?

"Does that mean you're Miss Patchouli's familiar, then?"

"Yes, that's right. I am bound by contract to Lady Patchouli, and I'm in charge of organizing this library."

In response to Renko's question, Koakuma nodded and smiled brightly, without any hint of reservation. A mansion full of unapologetic devils. Even for a devil though this was quite a large library. Maybe with a devil's cunning something this large could be managed by just one person, but it would be surprising.

"If I may ask," Renko began, "Who exactly is Miss Patchouli to have contracted you like this?"

"Lady Patchouli is a true wizard. She is neither a self-proclaimed human practitioner nor a witch who has transcended humanity but a true born magician of the highest order. She's been living in this library for about 100 years now."

The distinctions between such things seemed nebulous to me. Renko however perked up as soon as Koakuma finished speaking. "By that you mean that she's not a human who learned to use magic or a human who gave up their humanity in pursuit of magic but someone who was a born magic user, right? Someone who was never human to begin with?" Koakuma nodded, beaming with pride. Perhaps this difference explained the inhuman aura that had so struck me about Patchouli when I first saw her.

"The mistress and Lady Patchouli are old friends, and the mistress offered this library in the mansion as a place for Lady Patchouli to reside. She summoned and contracted me only recently though, so I don't know much about anything that happened before that. More importantly though, what can I do for you now that you're here?"

Koakuma tilted her head and stood waiting. This time, I was the first to speak up.

"We want to determine how we got here."

"Oh, Lady Patchouli already figured that out."

We looked at each other in surprise.

"The holes that Lady Patchouli made in the Great Hakurei Barrier when she moved this mansion to Gensokyo had already been sealed up, but it seems some of the seals were imperfect, likely as a result of some kind of magical interference. Because of that, some of the breaches in the barrier might have connected to a sort of non-space between worlds. You two just happened to be there, and tumbled out when Lady Patchouli opened the barrier on this side to mend it. She was curious as to how the two of you could have reached the liminal space between either side of the barrier from the other side."

"And where is this hole in the barrier?"

"Oh, I sealed it already, as Lady Patchouli requested." The little devil smiled as she said this, a sweet smile without a hint of malice, just a blasé statement of our fate, like a judge dispassionately pronouncing a life sentence.

"Can I ask you to open it again?"

"Hmm, I'd have to ask Lady Patchouli to do that...."

Of course Patchouli had been called away by the mistress for now. Well, we'd just have to wait for her to return.

Renko had been listening intently to Koakuma's explanation, but now she spoke up. "You said the seals were affected by some kind of magical interference, right? I wonder if my great aunt could have had something to do with that? Speaking of whom, Merry, do you know where the notebook or the piece of amber went? I think I dropped them when we came through."

I thought back to this afternoon, when we had been standing in Renko's aunt's room. I remembered the faintly pulpy texture of the notebook's cover and the way the amber chunk had glinted as it fell, tumbling end over end with the insect frozen inside. The moment I had touched it, the barriers of the world had convulsed so violently that we had both been thrown to this place. It was highly likely that that amber held some kind of power, whether by design or chance. If we could recover it, perhaps that power could be used to cross the boundary again.

"Koakuma, when we arrived here, we scattered a bunch of books everywhere."

"Oh yes, there were quite a few that had fallen off of the shelves. I cleaned them up already though, don't worry."

"Ah, sorry about that. But I don't suppose when you were putting them away, you came across an old notebook or a piece of amber with an insect trapped inside?"

"Amber and an old notebook? No, I hadn't found anything like that. Shall I go take a look?"

"Please, if you would."

"Of course. Feel free to read any books you like here, but do be careful. Some of these tomes are dangerous, and if you touch them without the proper wards, you'll be bitten." Having said that, the little devil quickly flapped her wings and flew toward the back of the library. I wondered what she meant by ‘bitten.' While I couldn't be certain, it was enough to make want to refrain from touching any of the neatly arranged spines surrounding me.

"Maybe that insect-infested amber was some kind of power stone." Renko said as she pulled a book from the stack on the floor beside her.

"Power stone? Amber is fossilized sap, right?"

"Well, it's not a mineral, true, but it's still considered a gemstone, I think. If it was natural, then it would be a gemstone in which thousands of years of time have been sealed without moving. Much more impressive than your average sparkly rock."

"Sealed time, huh..."



It is an ancient Japanese religious belief that kami come to reside in things that have been around for a long enough period of time. Japanese people envision gods in mountains, trees, boulders and other objects that remind them of the passage of time, and these gods and the objects they reside in have been worshipped and propitiated with rituals since time immemorial. In the modern understanding of spirituality it would be inarguable that such objects were inherently sacred, simply because they had been worshipped for so long. As a product of collective consciousness, gods come to be associated with objects of faith or, in many eastern traditions, are said to inhabit those objects. In direct contrast to the western conception of God existing in the beginning and then creating man, Japanese spirituality holds that in the beginning there was man, and the eight million gods were his creation. Once given existence in this way, the gods of sacred things do not disappear, even if people were to stop worshipping and forget them, instead, the humans would simply lose access to that god, its ritual significance once again returned to humanity's collective unconscious from which it had sprung.

The same concept holds true for other mythological entities like youkai and ghosts. In the 20th century, when spiritual research was discouraged, the world was thought of as something that could be perceived with pure objectivity and the existence of such creatures was denied. This objectivity, which was so sought after until the latter half of the 21st century, was in fact nothing more than a widely agreed-upon bias toward a particular subjective lens labeled with the name 'objectivity.' Such notions of excessive objectivism are now considered outdated, as scientific consensus itself is nothing more than the accumulated subjective biases of scientists formed into stuffy, inflexible laws. The unsolvable contradictions of quantum mechanics, the placebo effect and numerous crises in scientific reproducibility eventually ushered in the collapse of the old philosophy and birthed the methods of our new Scientific Century, founded in the principle that that which is observed to exist, must, in some way, under some circumstances, actually exist, even if such existence contradicts the known laws of reality. It was in the spirit of this principle that our occult club was founded, to identify and investigate the unexplained mysteries we believed to exist in the world, using the methods and techniques of scientific inquiry.

A vampire, a magician, a devil, a maid with supernatural powers and two visitors to this scarlet mansion who became lost in time through the power of a magical stone might seem a little over the top, however. Even in this age of accepted subjectivism, to assert the existence of things so far removed from consensus reality would beggar belief. And yet, so far as either I or my partner could tell, this was the objective reality in which we found ourselves. Here, in our subjective observation, to deny the existence of these supernatural phenomena would be the more nonsensical thing to do. To insist on a purely objective explanation for the plainly inexplicable events we had witnessed would move us no closer to understanding the world we found ourselves in or discovering how we might return. As such, we were compelled to try to find the so-called power stone. To do otherwise would have been unscientific.



"Anyway, if that amber is the key to the door between worlds, then our first step is to find it. I think that notebook of my great aunt's may also be important. I didn't get a chance to read it though."

"Yes, the mystery of the name 'Hifuu Club' was still bothering me". Why should the name of the club, which had been thought up by Renko, appear in her great aunt's notebook from half a century ago? Was it a coincidence? Could a proclivity for overly dramatic naming run in a bloodline? Or perhaps— I sighed. Thinking myself in spirals wasn't going to help us out any. I forced myself to change the topic.

"By the way, Renko..."

"Yes?"

"Is that book safe? Did it try to bite you at all?"

"It's fine. It's a treatise on the philosophical concept of the five classical elements. Although why a western-style magician would be so interested in the five-element model, I don't know."

"It's because Lady Patchouli is the famed seven-day magician." Koakuma had returned, answering Renko's unasked question as if the title provided any answers we could need. Her hands were conspicuously empty. "I'm afraid I didn't find what you were looking for. I'll check again later, and extend my search to the entire library."

"I'm sorry to cause you such trouble."

"It's no problem. As a librarian, it's my duty to know the place of everything in this library." The little devil puffed out her chest with pride at this statement. She was evidently proud of her position as librarian, though I wondered if anyone other than the residents of this mansion had ever made use of this place. I didn't say anything though.

"When you say the seven-day magician, do you mean a magician who has mastered the elements each day of the week is named for? Wood, fire, earth, metal, water as well and sun and moon?"

"You guessed it, yes. If you would like more information on what that means, you'll need to ask Lady Patchouli directly though, I'm afraid."

The little devil bowed again and flew away, carrying a book from a nearby pile off with her. There was nothing to do but wait for Patchouli to return from her visit with the mistress. Even if I had wanted to read a book to pass the time, how could I know which ones might be safe to read, and which ones might bite if I tried?

I looked around the bookshelves and noticed that among the many thick hardcover volumes there was one shelf packed with thin, modern, pocket-sized paperbacks, each with familiar Japanese along the spine. Inspecting them, they seemed to be manga from the last century, with many serial volumes lined up in a row. The title of the series was one I had heard of a long time ago, but the dark style of the bold illustrations on the covers seemed a bit out of place in a magician's library.

As I was thinking this, the doors to the library swung open, the weight of the heavy wood creaking as they drew apart. I wondered if Patchouli had returned, but when I turned to look, it was Sakuya that I saw striding through the open doorway.

"Are you both getting along alright?" she asked.

I nodded as I placed the manga back on the shelf.

"Then allow me to show you around the mansion. Dinner will be served shortly."


—9—


We had been inside the windowless mansion for so long that we had lost all sense of time, but when Sakuya led us outside, the sun was beginning to set. I couldn't be sure how long we had been inside or if time here was connected to the world we had come from.

A large full moon was shining in the dusky sky. I couldn't remember if it had been a full moon the last time I had seen it in our world or not. I glanced over at Renko's profile, bathed in the warm hues of the sunset. My partner has the ability to know the time by looking at the stars, or Her own location by looking at the moon. I wonder where this place would seem to be to my partner's eyes, though to be honest, I think her so-called "ability" is just a quick bit of calculation on her part.

"Renko, do you know where we are?"

"No... There's something wrong with that moon. It's not the moon we know."

Looking up at the moon, Renko shook her head. I should have expected something like this. Pinpointing our position in another world would be far too convenient a thing to expect of someone who can only calculate time in the JST time zone regardless of their location.

"Miss Sakuya, what time is it?"

Sakuya produced a pocket watch from her apron and answered my question "8:12 PM."

I turned on my cell phone, which had been off for several hours now and found that my phone's clock was off by quite a bit. "Miss Sakuya...." I asked, "just to confirm, a day is 24 hours, an hour is 60 minutes and a minute is 60 seconds here, correct?"

"Yes, that's correct."

In that case it was safe to assume that the display on my mobile phone was still accurately representing the time back in our world, even if the time in this world was different. I assumed it would continue to do so for as long as its battery lasted. I set the time to match Sakuya's watch then tucked the phone into my pocket.

When Sakuya had mentioned that we would be having dinner, I imagined her conducting us to a grand dining room with long tables and creepy candelabras, but instead it was the carefully manicured front garden of the mansion that she led us to. Beyond the impressive front doors of the façade, we saw a stone-paved path bracketed by colorful flower beds, a high wall that surrounded the entire mansion and, at the end of the stone path, a substantial iron gate. The scene was the same one I remembered from my dream, but now from the opposite side. When I first saw that gate from across the garden I felt something strange, though I couldn't grasp what it was at the time.

"This way, please."

Sakuya led us on a meandering path between the flower beds to a small arbor where a simple but substantial wooden table and several wrought-iron chairs had been set up, along with an oil lantern. She then plucked a tablecloth out of thin air and laid it gently on the table, somehow causing it to slide neatly under the lantern, then pulled out two chairs and invited us to sit. As we did so, she similarly produced two long-stemmed glasses and a bottle of wine from nowhere, poured a glass for each of us and set the bottle down on the table. As usual, I couldn't tell if this was teleportation or simply an impressive bit of prestidigitation.

"Will the mistress or Miss Patchouli be joining us?" Renko asked. Sakuya, without ever losing her elegant and enigmatic smile, replied, "The young mistress and Lady Patchouli are preparing the evening's entertainment for you."

"Is there going to be a show, then?"

"Yes, I'm sure it will be quite a magnificent spectacle."

As soon as she finished speaking, Sakuya straightened up and her eyes darted to the side, as if she was noticing something alarming. Her brow knitted minutely in a suppressed grimace of concern, the first crack in her impassive mask I had ever noticed. "What are you doing over there?", She called out.

"Ah, sorry!" came a bright voice from the hedges beyond the edge of the arbor.

With a rustling of branches, a crouched figure rose up and emerged from behind a rose bush. There were still more residents of this mansion we hadn't met yet, clearly. Renko and I glanced at each other momentarily before taking in this newly-appeared figure.

She was a striking woman, very tall, with long, shockingly red hair that reached down to the middle of her back in a straight wave behind her, but was tied into two small braids that hung just to her ears in front, just like Sakuya's. She was wearing a small, soft hat like a beret with a star shaped pin on the front bearing the kanji for "Dragon", and a long, green, Chinese style dress that was slit to the hip. The dress seemed quite out-of-place amidst this western-style garden and mansion grounds. No wings adorned her back, like we had seen on the mistress or the librarian, but like Patchouli, she gave off an unsettling aura of inhumanity and danger that seemed quite at odds with the goofy, apologetic look she gave as she approached Sakuya.

"I heard an unfamiliar voice, so I thought it might be an intruder."

The woman looked at us both quizzically, but without reproach. Sakuya's glare back at her was like ice though.

"These two are guests of the mistress. Miss Usami, and Miss Hearn."

"Oh, excuse me then!" The woman snapped to attention and stood erect. The snap was almost comical, but standing there saluting, I could see the muscle definition on her arms. Had I been standing, she would have been a full head and shoulders taller than me. "I'm Hong Meiling, the gatekeeper of this mansion."

"No one asked to hear your name."

"Ah, sorry again." The woman called Meiling responded to Sakuya's every comment in a tone of pathetic subservience, bowing her back as she spoke, though even in such a pose her head was still above Sakuya's.

Hong Meiling was clearly a Chinese name. A young vampiress, a seemingly human maid of unknown nationality with supernatural powers, a western-style magician who studied eastern-style philosophy and magic, her familiar, a devil out of western mythology, and a Chinese gatekeeper. It was a jumble of names and influences that seemed an unlikely mix. What in the world was the connection that bound these women and this house?

"I'm about to serve our guests dinner, so you should get back to work", Sakuya continued.

"Oh, that's right! Where's my dinner?"

"I'll make sure to have one of the maid fairies deliver it to you."

"Okie-doke!"

Renko spoke up. "If you haven't eaten yet, why don't you join us for dinner? Would that be alright, Miss Sakuya?"

Meiling's eyebrows shot up in surprise, but her eyes had lit up with hope at the prospect.

"It would be disrespectful to make our guests dine with the help", said Sakuya calmly.

"No, no, we don't mind at all. In fact, I insist! I would like to get to know everything I can about the people here, regardless of station."

"As you wish, Ms. Usami. I'll bring out the food now. Meiling, your portion is separate from theirs, understand?" She gave the gatekeeper a look I couldn't guess the significance of, then conjured up a third chair identical to ours from the same nowhere she had pulled the tablecloth from. Without another word, she then turned and walked back toward the mansion. I wondered if the teleportation trick was only for the benefit of others. Meiling stood and waved to Sakuya's departing form for a moment, then took her seat with us at the table.

"Sorry to intrude on you both", she said, but she wore a warm smile and a thankful expression on her face.

"If anything, we should be the ones apologizing for showing up so suddenly. I hope our arrival hasn't gotten you into trouble."

"Ah, maybe a little, but I had been watching the gate all day. I suppose if you both managed to get in without me noticing, I'm not much of a gatekeeper."

"Oh, please don't blame yourself. We appeared directly inside the mansion, so I hardly think you can be held responsible."

"Really? That's even more worrisome. If humans can just ignore the gate like that, then guarding it may not be enough. Hmmm, this could be a bad situation."

Meiling crossed her arms and pondered, The two of us shared a glance and laughed a little to ourselves. Despite the ever-present inhuman feeling she gave off, Meiling seemed to at least be the friendliest of this bunch. She looked at us then with a flustered expression and apologized again. "Uh, if you've both been accepted as guests already though, then that must mean you're not dangerous intruders. If you're going to be staying here for a bit, what should I call you?"

We gave her our names, and Renko asked how 'Hong Meiling' was written. The characters she drew, with exquisite penmanship, would have been "red", "beautiful" and "bell" in Japanese.

"Red, eh?", asked Renko. "With the sun setting, the walls of this mansion are also quite red. And the name of the lady of the house is Remilia Scarlet, is it not? Is there some relation there between all of these red names?"

At this question, Meiling opened her eyes and shook her head. "No, no, no relation whatsoever. I'm just a humble youkai in service to the mistress."

"You're... a youkai?"

"Ah, don't worry though. I won't attack people who don't mean any harm to this mansion."

It was an unexpected response, but one that made the line between us and the inhuman creatures inhabiting the mansion perfectly clear. Their logic, as well as their sense of morality would necessarily be fundamentally different from ours. As would be expected of a different order of being.

Sakuya appeared without warning, pushing a small kitchen cart. On the table, a large bowl of steaming red soup, steaks so rare they were almost bloody, two small bowls filled with a colorful salad and a basket of bread rolls appeared in the same instant. It looked every bit as good as the food one might expect at an expensive western hotel.

The smell of the food stimulated my hunger, and I found myself instantly salivating. For a moment, I wondered if eating such a steak might lead to gaining weight, but now was hardly the time to worry about such things. Though the thought that the staff of the vampire's mansion could be fattening us up to eat us did cross my mind.

As I was thinking this, Renko looked up and asked Sakuya, lightly "uh, just to make sure, what kind of meat is this?"

My hand, which had been about to reach for the knife, froze in midair. Sakuya answered with that same smile we had seen once before—perfectly calm and amiable, but never quite reaching her eyes. "Human meat..."

Time seemed to freeze, the sentence hung in the air like a palpable thing.

"...looks and smells entirely different, so don't worry."

Sakuya bowed elegantly to us and turned on her heel, saying "Enjoy your meal" as she moved to collect the cart. Time had resumed its flow. I looked at Renko, and then down at my steak. Even as a joke, it was deeply unsettling, and she had never mentioned exactly what kind of meat this was. The appetite I had had only moments before was now nowhere to be found.

"Uhhhh, Miss Sakuya?" Meiling asked plaintively.

"Ah, I forgot. Here's yours." She took a cloth-wrapped bundle from a box on the cart and put it down in front of Meiling. As I watched Sakuya's back recede toward the mansion, Meiling unwrapped the package and unfolded the contents. There were two large rice balls and a small tin of pickled vegetables. The four star meal in front of us was a world apart, but Meiling didn't seem to mind as she clapped her hands together before her excitedly.

We followed her lead. "Thanks for the meal!", we all cried at once.

I was still concerned over what kind of meat this might be, but I didn't think it would hurt me to eat it. I cut it into careful pieces with my knife, then tasted one gingerly. If this was the kind of food that could trap you in another world, or cause you to turn into a pig, it might be worth it.

"Oh, it's delicious!"

The meat was so tender that it melted in your mouth as you bit into it, and the flavor of its mellow juices filled your palate. The taste, which was something far beyond the reach of a college student, made me feel almost euphoric. Renko, a beat behind me, took a mouthful of steak and murmured "Oh, this is amazing..."

"Isn't it delicious? Miss Sakuya's cooking is the best in the world." Meiling said this with a look of blissful satisfaction on her face as she tucked into her rice ball. I felt a bit bad for eating such an opulent meal in front of her, but the satisfaction on her face as she chewed made it seem alright.

The seasoning in the soup was rich and complex, enough so that I couldn't be sure of the ingredients in it either, but despite the mystery both the meat and the soup were delicious, and I set to the meal with gusto.

As we were finishing our dinner, a cold white mist began to creep into the garden, carried by a soft breeze that wafted toward the mansion.

"The fog from the lake...." I watched the creepers of mist twist and curl around the legs of the table, growing more substantial by the second.

In no time at all, the whole of the garden was enveloped in a milky white fog, luminous in the dwindling twilight. I tossed the last slice of the steak into my mouth and watched as the mansion became a hazy crimson blur.

In the next moment, the whole world changed color.

"What the—"

For a moment, I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me. Perhaps in a sense they were, for in that instant I felt as if a boundary surrounding us was shifting and twisting. It was the same shaky sensation that had been waiting for us in Sumireko's room. I was still unable to grasp the exact nature of this phenomenon though, and there was a much simpler and clearer change happening at the same time.

The world was turning red.

"The fog—" Renko was as speechless as I, craning her head to take in every angle.

The white fog that had drifted into the garden had all been dyed a vivid crimson. The entire garden, to the limits of the wall, was filled with a rapidly spreading stain of deep scarlet. Above the wall, the mist seemed to be multiplying, billowing like scarlet steam, and spilling over the red brick walls in voluminous clouds.

Meiling put down her second, half-eaten rice ball and stood up. Without a word, she walked off into the fog and disappeared. We were left behind, lost in a sea of mist and staring dumbfounded up at the mansion. Tendrils of mist had already reached so high that they were beginning to color the moonlight. The entire mansion was disappearing into an endless sea of featureless scarlet mist, with an angry red moon hanging in the sky above like a fearsome eye.

The red moon looked like a disastrous omen, round and pregnant with malevolent fate. Was it the dampness of the mist or the chill the sight inspired in me that made it feel as if the temperature had dropped ten degrees? Or was it because of another sight my eyes now picked out—a strange shape silhouetted against the crimson moon, a blot of deeper red against its shining face that defied human logic.

"That's... the mistress, isn't it?" Renko muttered, not really seeking an answer.

With the shining moon behind her, Remilia Scarlet, the proud vampire, stood on the roof of the mansion's clock tower, the highest point on the building, looking over the lake to the horizon with her arms crossed defiantly.



This was the beginning of the incident caused by Remilia Scarlet. The incident which would later be resolved by the Hakurei shrine maiden and the witch Kirisame Marisa. It was the beginning of the now-infamous "Scarlet Mist Incident."