東方プロジェクト二次小説・オリジナル小説サイト
Chapter 4:Double Dealing Character

—10—


I suppose this is what you might call a metaplot.

Or maybe a meta-plot, in the sense that it was a scheme to use the rules that govern the world to our advantage. Such metanarratives are not uncommon in fiction—lots of modern detective stories have criminals who try to exploit the conventions of the genre, for example. A killer might arrange for their target to accompany a great detective on their travels, knowing that everywhere a great detective goes people end up getting murdered.

Even as far back as the very beginnings of detective stories, you can find examples of criminals who try to turn a great detective's reasoning against them by leaving false clues that implicate someone else or some similar scheme. In order for such actions to make sense, the criminal has to understand that they exist in a world where the character of a great detective who solves mysteries through logic and reasoning is an accepted convention.

In this way, what Mokou was proposing was similar to the actions of that metanarrative murderer I mentioned before: instead of using the fact that people around the detective always get murdered as means of offing someone, she was using the fact that in these stories we always arrive in the presence of the mastermind before Reimu to achieve her own ends. I never would have imagined that I'd see someone try to abuse reality's metanarrative like that in real life, and if I did, I certainly never imagined that the schemes would involve me.

Once she laid out her reasoning though, I had to admit it sounded sensible. Taking advantage of a system like that would be the same as finding a loophole in a nation's laws and exploiting it to gain some sort of competitive advantage. In essence it was rules-lawyering. Was Gensokyo really something that could so easily be hacked and repurposed?

When I thought about it further, it seemed like many of the incidents we had witnessed in our time here may well have been attempts by various masterminds to do exactly what Mokou was now proposing, in a way. Many of the schemes we had witnessed ultimately came down to someone trying to take advantage of the rule of 'incidents are resolved by the Hakurei miko.' If that was the case, then maybe Renko and I had been intervening with that rule all along without even realizing it until now.

I'm losing track of my point with all of this. Let's get back to the conversation at hand.

"...Um, Mokou, are you being serious?"

"Of course I am."

"They say that the moment you notice a pattern in something like this, the spell is broken and your luck runs out, right?"

"It's happened with every single incident that's occurred since you came to Gensokyo, right? That sounds like more than just a streak of luck to me. I think things are destined to end up that way."

I hoped that wasn't the case. How could two Outsiders like us be part of the rules of Gensokyo? Even if we had been here a long time at this point the fact remained that the two of us didn't really belong here...

—"𝐹𝑜𝑟 𝑌𝑢𝑘𝑎𝑟𝑖 𝑡𝑜 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑔𝑜𝑛𝑒 𝑡𝑜 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑡𝑟𝑜𝑢𝑏𝑙𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑏𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑔𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑜𝑓 𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑝𝑒𝑜𝑝𝑙𝑒 𝑡𝑜 𝐺𝑒𝑛𝑠𝑜𝑘𝑦𝑜 𝑚𝑒𝑎𝑛𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑡𝑤𝑜 𝑜𝑓 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑚𝑢𝑠𝑡 𝑏𝑒 𝑎 𝑝𝑎𝑟𝑡 𝑜𝑓 𝑠𝑜𝑚𝑒 𝑝𝑙𝑎𝑛 𝑜𝑓 ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑠."

Suddenly the words that had been spoken to us a few months ago behind a mysterious floating door resounded in my head.

Hata no Kokoro's former owner, the secret god, Matara Okina. She had suggested that our presence in this world had all been part of some scheme hatched by the Youkai Sage. By Yakumo Yukari, the youkai who looked just like me.

If that were true, then had we been a part of this world’s rules from the moment of our arrival?

No, no, that would be impossible. In almost every case we had only ended up meeting the mastermind because of my partner's personality, which paired an insatiable curiosity with a complete lack of any sense of danger. If I started assuming that the Youkai Sage was behind Renko being so uniquely broken compared to the average person, then that would mean that she could manipulate someone's personality to the point where all of us would essentially be nothing more than puppets under her control.

As a student of Relativistic Noology, I wouldn't want to believe that something like that was possible. To deny our agency was to call into question our existence as individuals. Even if free will was just an illusion, self-consciousness was still based on the recognition of that illusion. Believing oneself to be in control of one’s own actions was what defined a person as an individual, regardless of whether or not they actually were.

All of this is a digression. Let me get back to the story.

"Well that's certainly an interesting proposal, Mokou." As usual, my partner had no qualms whatsoever about participating in such a scheme. She grinned happily.

I sighed beside her. "I don't think trying to use the two of us as some sort of cheat code is wise."

"What are you talking about, Merry?" Renko asked. "Just think of it as a long-overdue recognition of The Hifuu Detective Agency's investigative talents."

That struck me as a rather simplistic way of looking at things. Perhaps if I could be like my partner and believe whole-heartedly that the world was a machine programmed using the language of mathematics, then I could live a more comfortable life.

"Alright Mokou, you've got yourself a deal," Renko said, extending her hand for Mokou to shake. "The Hifuu Detective Agency will take your case and resolve this incident so that Keine has a little less stress in her life. If we can help her live even a little bit longer, then that's more quality time for the two of you to spend together, right?"

"I said this isn't about that," Mokou replied with a sigh. "But thank you all the same." She reached out and shook Renko's hand. Just like always Renko had agreed to take the case but it was my eyes that we’d be relying on to actually find anything. Good grief.

I let out a quiet sigh and was about to stand up, when suddenly the walls of our office rattled and groaned, as if a strong wind were blowing outside.
"Oh, is the weather changing?" Renko asked, looking over her shoulder towards the door.

"There was no sign of that earlier..."

The shaking and creaking intensified. If there were a windstorm blowing, it would have to be a proper gale to generate this sort of a response. The earth beneath our feet was still though, so it definitely wasn't a quake, despite the rattling of the (admittedly, not very sturdy) doors and windows. The three of us stood silently holding our breath for a moment until the rattling subsided.

Mokou stood up and stepped past Renko on her way to the door to have a look around. Renko moved to follow her, but stopped to grab her trenchcoat off of the wall first, thrusting her arms through its sleeves.

Mokou slid the office door open.

The moment she did, something completely unexpected happened. Renko's trenchcoat suddenly fluttered intensely, as if it was blowing in an intense wind. No wind came through the door, however. The trenchcoat flapped and fluttered, then began lifting up and away from the door, dragging Renko up off of the floor with it.

"Eh? Wha—?" Renko blurted.

She looked as if an invisible giant had pinched her by the back of the coat and lifted her up. Her arms and legs pinwheeled uselessly as she continued to drift up and back, rising until she was perhaps a dozen centimeters off of the floor with the coat juddering back and forth, shaking her as she dangled from it.

"Whoah!"

"Renko?"

"What's going on!?"

Without thinking, I rose up from my position at the table, while Mokou hurried and grabbed onto Renko's wrist. Once she did, Renko stopped rising, but still remained impossibly aloft. It seemed like something was trying to lift her, but she was too heavy to move easily, and with Mokou latched on, she was held in place. I felt like I had seen something just like this before.

"Hey Merry, were you just thinking about my weight?" Renko asked accusatorily. Was this really the time for that?

"What is this, Renko? Did you learn to fly?" Mokou asked.

"No! I’m not doing this! But I am really floating now, aren’t I? Huh, this feels a bit different than flying with Sanae. Maybe this could be fun once I get used to it."

"I don't care if it's fun or not! What's happening, Renko? Did that coat just turn into a tsukumogami?"

Hearing Mokou say that reminded me of something. "It's just like all those books at Suzunaan!" I shouted. The way Renko's coat was flapping about was just like the pages we had seen fluttering there. Renko's trenchcoat had been part of her trademark look ever since she had started the Hifuu Detective Agency. She had only got it from the Scarlet Devil Mansion when we arrived though. Could such a garment really be old enough to develop a soul of its own? I suppose we had no idea how long it had been in the mansion before we arrived.

"Oh, do you think that's it? If so, I wonder how long it will keep this form before it turns into a girl I can talk to. Oh wait, maybe it can already hear me. Hey there Trenchy, are you a person now?"

My partner was floating just above the ground, dangling from her own coat, talking to it as if it was the most common thing in the world. As usual she has absolutely no sense of danger or normalcy.

"Renko, you should probably take that coat off. It might not be safe."

"You don't know that, Merry. It hasn't done anything aggressive and this is pretty fun, actually. I wonder if this is what it feels like to be Reimu and be completely unbound by gravity. This feeling of freedom from gravity's oppressive yoke is why humans have yearned to explore outer space. Though I'll admit it's a bit inconvenient."

"I'm taking you out of that thing," Mokou said decisively.

"I appreciate the interest, Mokou, but you should at least buy me dinner before you start trying to tear me out of my clothes. Or better yet, save your efforts for Keine."

Mokou ignored Renko's comments as she grabbed a hold of the coat. As soon as she seized its fabric, the coat rebelled against her, twisting and bunching in her hands, slipping out of her grip then weaving away from her repeated attempts to grab it again. As soon as she managed to get even a single button undone, the coat would button them right back up again without any help from Renko.

"I can't get it off..."

"Is this like when you equip a cursed item? Should I go to a church to have it cleansed?"

"This isn't 𝐷𝑟𝑎𝑔𝑜𝑛 𝑄𝑢𝑒𝑠𝑡, Renko."

I shook my head at Renko's idiocy. After all, there aren't any churches in Gensokyo. Mokou grabbed a hold of Renko's coat with both hands and started to try to pry it open, but after a few minutes of struggling, she sighed and let go. Renko continued to drift in the air, flapping her arms and twisting about with a smile on her face.

"I wish you could feel this, Merry." Renko said, grinning. "It reminds me of TORIFUNE."

"I'd rather not be reminded of that." Being attacked by a chimera once was more than enough. I didn't want to repeat that experience here in Gensokyo.

"If that coat won't come off, then we'll have to ask Reimu to seal it."

"It's fine like this. Let's just leave it for a bit,"

"Renko, you don't know anything about that tsukumogami. What if it decides to eat you? It could be secreting digestive juices onto you right now."

"My favorite coat wouldn't do that to me, right Trenchy?"

"Don't give the coat a weird name, Renko..." Especially such a terrible name. I question where Renko gets the nicknames she’s constantly giving everyone.

Obviously, Renko couldn't stay this way forever. Even if she was having fun at the moment, being stuck in a coat would eventually start to be a problem. What would Renko do when she needed to sleep or take a bath? I've always thought Renko had her head in the clouds, but that could literally be a concern if she went outside now.

"What do you think we should do, Miss Mokou? If we need a shrine maiden, I could probably call Sanae from the branch shrine outside."

"The Moriya shrine maiden?" Mokou asked. "I guess that might work..." She turned to look out the door then, seeming to remember that she had left it open. She leaned over to close it but froze mid-step. "...What is this presence?" she muttered aloud.

"Miss Mokou?"

I looked up at Renko once more, then went to the doorway. As I looked out over the schoolyard my vision suddenly shifted. The colors of the world seemed to change abruptly.

It was as if the familiar garden in front of the temple school were being covered by some sort of veil. Something transparent and insubstantial but undeniably present was washing over everything, subtly altering its appearance with a hazy, mist-like distortion.

There was no wind, but I heard the door rattle in its frame again. No dust was kicked up, but something like a transparent wave of distortion seemed to be sheeting off of the roof of the storehouse. Could this be the mysterious force that the Tsukumo sisters had been talking about?

I took a few steps outside of the office and turned to look in the direction the distortion had come from. When I did, my eyes suddenly went wide.

There, in the western skies over the Forest of Magic, I saw it. Right where Narumi had told us to look. An immense, irregularly shaped blob of distortion.

"Oh! Miss Mokou, come look! What is that up in the sky?"

Mokou dashed out to join me and turned her head to look where I was pointing.

"There's something big to the west..." she muttered. "I can't see it, but I can feel it."

Whatever it was, it seemed only I could really see it. To Mokou, it just felt like a vague presence, but to me it was like a huge lens hanging in the western sky, swirling and distorting everything behind it. That had to be where the feeling Mokou was sensing was coming from.

I certainly hadn't seen anything like this in the sky yesterday. Had it just suddenly appeared? Or had it just been too far away to see yesterday? Maybe it had gotten bigger?

"Hey Merry, way back when Renko was blinded, you saw through the barrier around Eientei too, didn't you? Is this something like that? Whatever you're seeing is the cause of all of this, right?"

"I don't know. Maybe."

"Alright, we should go check it out," Mokou said, clapping her fist into her palm.

"Hold on, what about Renko?"

"We can bring her along. It doesn't seem like whatever is going on is hurting her. If the mastermind behind this is up there, then her coat should go back to normal when I kill them. If it doesn't, well then I'll just burn it off of her."

Wouldn't that burn Renko too? I wondered if Mokou could really control fire precisely enough so as not to burn my partner. Well I guess I'd have to trust that she could, not that it was me who would suffer if she couldn't.

"Hey, uh, a little help?" Renko's voice was calling loudly from inside our office. I looked over to see her pinwheeling her arms around and looking like a child doing a poor job of learning how to swim.

"I can't really move much like this, it's hard to get any momentum!"

"...So just float quietly then."

"That's no fun! I want to see it too!"

Mokou looked over at Renko with an incredulous expression and shrugged her shoulders as I let out a sigh.


—11—


We knew that if Keine found us, she would definitely stop us. As such we decided that it would be best for us to depart before sunset, as Keine would definitely be on the lookout for anything unusual after dark.

Mokou grabbed Renko and pulled her around as we made our way over to the pond to retrieve Genji. Once we explained things to him, Renko sat down on his back. I took a seat behind her, sitting on top of the back of the trenchcoat and wrapping my arms around her waist to hold her in place. We headed into the sky, with Genji carrying the two of us and Mokou flying alongside. Our destination was westward and upward, headed for the source of the magical disturbance.

"What are we flying towards?" Genji asked. "I feel something unpleasant ahead of us."

"Oh, you can feel it?" Renko asked in surprise. "I suppose that makes sense. What's it feel like?"

"It's making me feel a little agitated. I almost feel like someone is shouting slogans at me over and over again."

"...You can hear someone shouting slogans?"

"No, but I feel like I can. It's like someone is constantly telling me to rise up and rebel, but that sort of thing is too hard on my old bones. Old folks like me don't have the energy for a revolution."

—So whatever this power was, it was not only empowering weak youkai, but exhorting them towards some sort of coup d'état as well?

If someone was specifically trying to get weak youkai to resist oppression by humans, the first organization to come to mind was the Myouren Temple. Byakuren's philosophy involved protecting youkai from undue persecution and encouraging equality. That wasn't too far removed from the idea of empowering weaker youkai and encouraging them to rebel. Moreover, Narumi had told us that whatever the force affecting everyone was, it was magical in nature and Byakuren was a powerful magician.

Could Byakuren be using some spell she had learned from the Administrator of Makai to empower youkai in a bid to overthrow humans? While it might sound possible on the surface, to anyone who had ever met Byakuren, encouraging violence, especially between humans and youkai definitely didn't sound like the sort of thing she would do.

Although the Myouren Temple is openly inhabited by youkai, there are a fair number of human villagers who attend sermons there. By this point it was well-established in its role as Gensokyo's only Buddhist temple. I can't imagine that Byakuren would be the sort of extremist who would incite her followers into a violent uprising. There would be no reason for her to want to give up everything she had achieved so far to try something like this.

With that in mind, it seemed like the most likely answer was that whoever was behind this was someone we had never met. But what would some newcomer to the scene gain by giving power to the weak and inciting a rebellion?

"It's really weird feeling my body constantly wanting to float up instead of fall down." My train of thought was disrupted by this mindless statement from Renko, who was still tightly gripping the band holding her cushion onto Genji's shell.

"Maybe it's a sign that you need to be a little more grounded, Renko."

"What do you mean 'grounded?' I work as a math teacher for a living. Being a humble civil servant is about as unpretentious as you can get, right?"

"Does working for the Temple School count as being a civil servant?"

"Well the Hieda family runs the school and they're one of the ruling families in the village, so I'd say it's close."

"You don't even call yourself a math teacher most of the time though. You think of yourself more as a self-employed detective, don't you?"

"Hey, sorry to interrupt, but you need to hold on to Renko tighter, Merry. She’s starting to float away." Mokou said, turning to face us while continuing to fly forward alongside us.

My partner had become something like a balloon now. If I let her out of my arms for even just a moment, it might be the last I'd ever see of her. I put all my strength into my arms, squeezing tight around her waist. Renko was facing away from me, but I could feel a catlike smile spreading across her face.

"You're feeling frisky today, Merry. If you keep squeezing me tight like this, I'm going to get aroused."

"I could just let you go, Renko. Or maybe I could get a better grip if I held you by the neck."

"No, no, stay where you are. I'd like to keep enjoying the feeling of you pressed up against my back a bit longer. Ow! Hey!"

She flinched as I poked her in the ribs. She deserved it.

"Now's not the time to flirt, you two. It feels like we're getting closer," Mokou called back from ahead of us.

I looked around to get my bearings. We were over the Forest of Magic by now. To the north Youkai Mountain towered over the Scarlet Devil Mansion and Misty Lake lay before it, shrouded in clinging fog. I wondered if Wakasagihime was alright down there. I didn't imagine Mokou would have hurt her badly, but if she was unlucky enough to attack Sakuya she might just end up as sashimi.

At that moment another thick wave of whatever it was descended from the sky ahead and washed over us, making me flinch reflexively. To me, it looked as if the gauzy veil overlaying everything were slowly getting thicker. Something like a very thin mist was looming beyond the Forest of Magic, swirling slowly outward from something floating far away in the sky. If I looked away in any direction I could see waves of magic cascading away from this point. During the Scarlet Mist Incident we had been directly in the center of the events and I had never had a chance to view the situation from afar. If I had, I wonder if things would have looked to me then like they did now.

"This is really getting intense," Mokou grumbled. "Tonight's going to be the full moon too." The look of concern on Mokou's face worried me. If weak youkai normally got more aggressive and powerful on full moon nights, what would they be like with this aggravating magic affecting them? If there was some sort of major attack then I'm sure Reimu would intervene to stop it, but it would be better for everyone if we could prevent that from happening in the first place.

"How's it looking, Merry? Can you see the source yet?"

"It doesn't look like anything in particular, but everything's definitely coming from inside those clouds," I said, doing my best to indicate a direction without releasing Renko. "The borders I can see look like they're swirling around inside of there."

"Swirling around? Like a hurricane?"

"More like a bunch of rings all stacked on top of one another and spinning in a circle."

"Like from 𝐿𝑎𝑝𝑢𝑡𝑎 𝐶𝑎𝑠𝑡𝑙𝑒 𝐼𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑆𝑘𝑦?"

Renko laughed, but really, that's almost exactly what it looked like. The giant mass of swirling clouds in the western sky must have been all that Mokou, Genji and Renko were seeing. The hazy veil that I could make out within the clouds was a completely different story, however.

The fact that the others couldn't see the churning vortex suggested to me that someone must have erected a barrier in order to conceal something beyond the clouds. To my eyes though they may as well have put up a bunch of searchlights. I suppose in the end I had ended up acting like the anomaly detector Renko kept treating me as.

I swallowed a sigh and directed Mokou what to look out for. She nodded and changed course, taking us around the swirling border storm within the still mass of clouds. We barely got any closer before we were stopped though. As we drew nearer to the cloudbank, two figures raced towards us from below and stood before us in the air, clearly intending to block our path.

"Oh! It's those human tools!" one of them called.

"They brought another human with them. Or is she a human?"

Standing before us were the very same two Tsukumo sisters who had abandoned Renko and I a day before.


—12—


"Hey there! Yatsu! Benny! It's been a while!" Renko waved at the Tsukumo sisters as if she hadn't a care in the world.

"Who's Yatsu?"

"Don't greet us like we're your friends! You two are our tools! Where did you run off to yesterday?"

"...Nowhere. You flew off and left us behind..." I interjected.

"Shut up! Only the most useless sort of tools would fail their masters like that. You couldn't even locate anything! What good are you as a tool?" I shrank back from Yatsuhashi's glare, but I couldn't really argue with her assessment of me.

Mokou slowed her flight, drifting until she was right in front of Genji. "Hey Renko," she asked over her shoulder, a confident grin on her face. "These two tsukumogami are the ones who kidnapped you yesterday, right?"

Renko nodded. "That's right. They're both tsukumogami of musical instruments."

"Wooden musical instruments, yeah?" As she asked this, Mokou casually threw one hand out to the side, palm upward, fingers curled as if she were holding a ball. A flame blossomed in her hand then immediately expanded, hissing hungrily as it licked high into the air.

"Whoa! Hey sister, look, that human's on fire!" Yatsuhashi blurted.

"She's flying too. She must be one of those human youkai exterminators."

"Oh! Then that makes her one of the chief enemies of our youkai revolution, right?"

"Yeah. She's an obstacle to our cause!"

"Oooh! Let me fight her! Watch this, sis! I’m gonna absolutely wreck her."

"Okay, do your best." Benben floated back, moving away from her sister without any argument while Yatsuhashi looked toward Mokou with a menacing grin.

"Oh? Feeling brave?" Mokou settled into a relaxed but ready stance. "I don't mind taking you both on at once."

"What are you saying? It's my dream to defeat a strong human by myself. I'm going to show you what happens to rulers who get overthrown in a revolution!"

Mokou sighed. "Look, I don't really care about your revolution or whatever, but you threatened and abducted my friends. You’re gonna have to pay for that." There was a faint whoosh as fire raced up her arm. The light of her fires alone was enough to dye the sky a dim red around her.

Across from her, the expression on Yatsuhashi's face had changed dramatically. It was very much the face of someone who was realizing they had just picked a fight they shouldn't have. Benben meanwhile was looking away, not meeting her sister's gaze at all. Genji wisely decided it would be better to watch this match from a distance and backed us well away.

"How about it? If you won't start, I will."

"Umm, just hold on a minute. Time out, okay? Time out!"

"Time's up," Mokou said. There was an explosion as Mokou threw her arm forward and then a jet-like roar that swallowed Yatsuhashi's scream.

—

To Yatsuhashi’s credit, I will say that it wasn't a completely one-sided battle. Being a wooden instrument, she had to keep her distance from Mokou to avoid being burned. She spent the brief fight launching several complex patterns of unusual-looking danmaku from afar to try to pressure and trap Mokou, but whatever patterns and gambits she might have been planning didn't count for much when Mokou could just burn everything in her way.

"Fine! I give! I give! I admit defeat! Don't burn me up!" Yatsuhashi yelled, raising her hands in defeat after another of her patterns disappeared into a sea of flame.

Mokou let out a breath that was somewhere between a grunt and a sigh as the flames covering her arms died down and settled into a few drifting cinders before winking out altogether.

"You can't give up, that's so pathetic!" Benben cried from her position far off to the side of the fight.

"Then you come fight her!"

"I don’t want my biwa to catch fire though."

"Stop being a baby! You’re making big sisters look bad! You’re supposed to be protecting your little sister!"



"What exactly is the deal with you two?" Mokou asked, exasperated.

"We’re instrument tsukumogami sisters, obviously. Can’t you see?"

"I know that much from Renko. What are you doing here, I mean?"

"We're trying to find the source of our power. We haven't been able to get close to it though."

"We know it's somewhere around there!" Benben said, pointing right toward the swirling heart of the barrier storm that only I could see. Now there was no doubt that this really was the origin of this whole incident.

Mokou drew closer and stared into the cloudbank for a moment. "...There really is something there, isn't there? I can't see anything, but I feel it..." I was glad to have someone else confirm what I was seeing. To everyone else I'm sure it just looked like a large grey cloud.

"It’s being hidden by that magical storm. Hey! Fiery human! Can you do something about that?" Benben asked, turning to Mokou.

Mokou frowned. "What do you want me to do about it?"

"Blow it up! Or burn it away or something! If you get rid of that storm, then I'll allow you the privilege of going to see what's inside first."

"I don't think you're in a position to ask that. What do you think, Merry?"

"...Whatever is causing this incident is in there, I'm pretty sure."

Mokou nodded. "Alright. I'm going to go all out then. You'd better stand back."

Genji turned around and began flying away without having to be asked. I craned around to look behind me. "Miss Mokou, is this okay?" I asked as we retreated.

"Yeah. Brute force is my specialty." Mokou clenched both of her fists at her sides. As she did, flames raced up her arms and exploded from her back. The flames jetted outward, dancing and surging as they took shape, twisting into the glowing, coruscating form of an immortal phoenix that illuminated the sky with a deep crimson glow. Renko and I stared in awe. We had seen Mokou using her full power only once before, but that had been at a great distance. Up close it was truly a spectacle to behold.

Mokou's battle cry resounded like a clap of thunder. "Let's see what's in there! [𝐒𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐡 𝐖𝐢𝐧𝐝, 𝐂𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐫 𝐒𝐤𝐲—𝐅𝐮𝐣𝐢𝐲𝐚𝐦𝐚 𝐕𝐨𝐥𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐨]!"

The whole of the immense fiery phoenix was drawn forward as if by a vacuum, sucked into a compact ball that raced toward the cloud before exploding with a deafening boom. That was just Mokou's opening salvo however. As the blast detonated she threw her arms forward and a roaring torrent of swirling flames leapt forth to follow the explosion. There might have been even more to her Spell Card, but if there was I didn't see it, for it was at that moment that the first blast wave hit us, hot and forceful like a desert wind. Renko had to clamp her hat onto her head and we both had to close our eyes to resist the sting of intense heat and bone-rattling force booming outward.

When the last of the many, many flashes and booms that followed finally subsided we opened our eyes to see Mokou floating with her back to us, wiping sweat from her forehead. Beyond Mokou, in the center of what had once been a towering cloudbank, something else was now visible. An impossible, nonsensical vision hung in the air, as undeniably real as it was fantastically unbelievable.

From the heart of the storm the keep of a traditional Japanese-style castle had emerged, floating in the sky. It was floating completely upside down, with its multi-layered and gracefully arched roofs pointed down toward the earth. Held up by nothing at all, the huge tower loomed over the skies of Gensokyo.