東方プロジェクト二次小説・オリジナル小説サイト
Chapter 4:Phantasmagoria of Flower View

—10—

When we arrived the village was in quite a commotion.

The farmers especially seemed to be upset. The early flowering of many of their crops was an ill omen that could lead to plants dying before they could be harvested or being ready to harvest at the wrong time of year. Adults were pacing about with worried expressions and arguing in the street, but children were frolicking in vacant lots that had suddenly become flower gardens.

We ran into Kotohime in the town square, wearing the official armband of the neighborhood watch along with a full police uniform which stood out rather noticeably as she made the rounds of the village, keeping a close eye on the tense situation.

"Oh, you two," she said, sounding more official than was typical for her. "Keine was looking for you. Please report to the neighborhood watch office when you can." Then she leaned in conspiratorially, casting her eyes from side to side before whispering to Renko "I think this might be an incident."

Renko grinned. "I don't really see how it could be anything else."

Kotohime looked around, then tilted her head as she considered. "Hmmm. It doesn't seem like a very exciting incident, to be honest," she said as her eyes settled on a vacant lot filled with colorful flowers. She sighed briefly before walking away, leaving the two of us to glance at each other bemusedly.

—

When we arrived at the neighborhood watch office, Keine greeted us with a troubled look. "Oh, it's you two! Where have you been?"

"Just out to Eientei. For a flower viewing, apparently."

"Even though it's daytime, you should refrain from leaving the village without permission. Especially right now, this is an incident, I'm afraid."

"It appears to be. The flowers aren't confined to the village. The whole bamboo grove is in bloom and the Garden of the Sun was covered in sunflowers."

Keine looked up from her paperwork to regard Renko. "Sunflowers too? Chrysanthemums, autumn cosmos, hydrangeas and sunflowers, all at the same time?" She crossed her arms and frowned, displeased.

Renko looked out the window, eyes turning to the east. "If it's already officially an incident, does that mean Reimu's involved?"

"I hope so. I just got back from visiting the shrine myself. She's not there, so we can only hope she decided to look into it on her own. Hopefully she'll be able to get to the bottom of this quickly —I'm sad to say it but there's not much I or the watch can do about something like this."

"What do you mean?"

"Really all that's happened so far is that flowers have bloomed. No one's attacking or doing anything dangerous. There are a few fairies flying around and playing pranks, but that’s more or less normal for springtime. At the moment, all I can do is dispatch watchers to warn if any youkai are spotted flying overhead."

"What about the farmers? They seem pretty upset."

"That's not really our business either. Problems with the crops are the domain of the fertility god who lives near the edge of the village, not the Neighborhood Watch."

"A Fertility god? Oh, the ones the farmers set up those little shrines to. That's right, you said she comes to the yearly harvest festival too, right?"

"That's right, but no one has reported seeing her around. If there were really a threat to the crops, she'd show up, but since she hasn't, the watch is assuming it's nothing to worry about."

We had heard mention and seen little roadside altars dedicated to local fertility god scattered throughout the fields surrounding the village. This being Gensokyo, she takes a human-like form. She even gets invited to the village's harvest festival. We’ve never spoken to her directly, but word among the locals was that she would bless the crops of farmers who worked hard and took good care of the land, but farmers who cut corners or shirked work would have their crops wither and fail. Even in a world like Gensokyo, replete with magic and supernatural presences, there was no substitute for hard work, it seemed.

"For now," Keine continued, "there's not much for us to do but wait and see what happens. The youkai are all likely to be stirred up by an incident like this though, so it would be wise to stay in town." Keine picked up a cup of tea from the desk she was at and sipped at it.

Renko waited until she had put the cup down before asking "Miss Keine, if I can ask you to think like a historian rather than a volunteer with the neighborhood watch for a moment, have you ever seen any record of an incident like this one occurring before?"

Her eyes widened in surprise. "What?"

"It was something Mokou mentioned having happened a long time ago. She couldn't be any more specific though."

"An incident where Gensokyo was covered in flowers? I don't remember anything like that, but if Mokou does it could easily be something that happened before I was born, I suppose."

It occurred to me that I had never asked Keine just how old she was. Having youkai blood, she might well have been older than she appeared. Youmu, who had a similarly mixed ancestry claimed to be around fifty but looked like a teenager. Come to think of it, Youmu didn't remember anything either...

"Hey Renko, Youmu said she didn't remember anything like this either, so if it has happened before, it must have occurred over fifty years ago or so, right?

"Could be. I wonder if Akyuu could tell us anything about it."

"Maybe. I’m curious about this myself now. We can go ask her if you like." Renko nodded and Keine stood to follow us out the door as we all set out for Hieda manor.

—

And so, a short time later, Renko, Keine and myself could be found sitting in one of the Hieda manor's elegant reception rooms.

"Have there been any incidents like this one in the past?" was the first thing Renko said after exchanging greetings.

Akyuu Hieda looked back at us with a calm expression on her face. "I'm surprised you would know about such an old event. I would have thought nearly everyone would have forgotten about that by now."

" Do you remember anything like this?" Keine asked.

Akyuu shook her head. "Personally, I don't. But I think I've read something like that, during the time of my predecessor, Aya. Give me a moment to re-read those records."

Saying this, Akyuu closed her eyes and rested two fingers on her temple. Akyuu had demonstrated before that she had an astonishing capacity for memory, never forgetting anything she saw or heard. For her, any document she had ever seen before didn't need to be present in order to be re-read. It still took her time to read the documents, however,. In all, remarkable as it was, her ability sounded like a pain to use. I imagined Akyuu having to wander a vast library in her head, fussing with dim lanterns and dusty scrolls as we waited for her response, though of course I have no idea what the process was actually like for her.

"Ah, I found it."

Akyuu reached behind her and took a small bell from a table. Ringing it, she summoned a handmaid, who she then dispatched. Several minutes later, the maid returned, carrying several scrolls and old, traditionally-bound books.

"Thank you," she said. "This one and this one are all I need."

Spreading the documents out on the desk she indicated several passages. "This has actually happened before, it turns out. It was in the time between the life of my previous incarnation, Aya and myself. It was exactly sixty years ago."

I looked over the records Akyuu had turned toward us. They were written with thick, curvy strokes, making it difficult to read. Even after two years here, I was still more comfortable with typed fonts than traditional, handwritten Japanese.

"Typically," Akyuu explained, "It takes a little under a hundred years for the Child of Miare to be reincarnated after their death. During that time, the retainers of the Hieda household are charged with protecting these records and recording the events of Gensokyo. This is one of their records, as Aya died not long after the Great Hakurei Barrier was erected. According to them, 60 years ago all of Gensokyo was covered in a multitude of flowers of every conceivable type, regardless of season."

"And on that occasion was the incident resolved by the Hakurei shrine maiden?"

"No, actually." Akyuu said, pointing out a passage. "Apparently the incident resolved itself spontaneously. They claim the event had nothing to do with any youkai and had no long term effects."

Renko and I shared a questioning glance. Could an incident really occur without a youkai's involvement? If such a strange event were to happen, especially in the case of one that recurred, one would think that even if no youkai had set the events in motion, the nature of Gensokyo might create a youkai to personify the event.

"There's also this note in Aya's records from the time the Great Hakurei Barrier was established. Apparently this is something she heard from the Youkai Sage herself." She read from the yellowed page:

𝑂𝑛𝑐𝑒 𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑦 𝑠𝑖𝑥𝑡𝑦 𝑦𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑠, 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝐺𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑡 𝐻𝑎𝑘𝑢𝑟𝑒𝑖 𝐵𝑎𝑟𝑟𝑖𝑒𝑟 𝑤𝑖𝑙𝑙 𝑤𝑒𝑎𝑘𝑒𝑛. 𝐹𝑜𝑟 𝐺𝑒𝑛𝑠𝑜𝑘𝑦𝑜 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑤𝑖𝑙𝑙 𝑏𝑒 𝑎 𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑜𝑑 𝑜𝑓 𝑟𝑒𝑏𝑖𝑟𝑡ℎ.

"60 years, that's the full cycle of the Chinese zodiac, isn't it?"

"Yes, but according to Lord Yama, that's all a bunch of nonsense," Akyuu said with a smile.

Renko tilted her head questioningly. "The Lord Yama?"

"Yes. I work for her while awaiting reincarnation."

Would that count as a near-death experience, I wondered? Akyuu's ability to remember everything she had ever read was impressive enough, but I had never heard of anyone being able to remember what they did while they were dead before. Without that ability though we never would have heard this anecdote.

"After Aya's death, she heard Lord Yama say this at one point," Akyuu continued. "'Every sixty years, the number of lost souls who do not yet realize that they have died increases. At the same time the barriers around Gensokyo weaken,and as a result these spirits flow into Gensokyo. These lost souls often did not have time to realize that they had died, and so they naturally re-enact their death again, possessing short-lived flowers and making them bloom out of season, that they may then wither and die properly.' In essence, what we're seeing all over Gensokyo right now are haunted flowers."

Did that mean that all of those flowers... the bamboo, the spindle trees, the autumn cherries, even the sunflowers were all phantoms? Phantoms unaware of their own deaths, yearning to understand the depth of their own loss before they could cross the Sanzu river to await reincarnation.

Suddenly the blossoming landscape of Gensokyo seemed a lot more lonely.


—11—


"And so, if we were to give this Incident a name, it might be the 'Sixty Year Cycle Great Barrier Incident.' Its cause is the natural and cyclical weakening of the Great Hakurei Barrier. The out of season blooms are caused by an excess of phantoms. The incident should naturally resolve itself once the shinigami have successfully ferried them to the other side of the Sanzu river. At least, that's what happened last time. That means that for the time being, my advice to all the would-be incident resolvers and investigators would simply be to take some time to smell the flowers," Akyuu concluded.

Thus, the mystery of this incident's origin was solved, with no need for the deductions of a great detective. It seems that, like Kotohime, Renko would have to resign herself to making do with a less than earth-shatteringly important incident. Such is the way of things, from time to time.

After leaving the Hieda residence, we returned home to our room beside the sign of the 'Hifuu Detective Agency.' Upon arriving and closing the door behind us, our esteemed director and chief investigator promptly collapsed face first onto the tatami, hat and all, seemingly utterly drained of motivation. Sighing, I hung up my cloak and cap and took a seat beside her. After a minute or two I lowered my head to rest my chin on my hand.

"Come on Renko, that's enough sulking."

There was no response.

"Are you sulking because all of the mysteries have already been solved before you got a chance to be a great detective? In the end the incident will still be resolved without any harm done and we already know why. Isn't that enough to sate your curiosity?"

Renko suddenly pushed herself up from the ground, arching her back to look me in the eye. "Merry, do you really think that's what's happening here?"

"What do you mean?"

Renko rolled over to sit cross-legged on the floor across from me. "The mysteries aren't solved. Not by a long shot. If anything, Akyuu's story just raises more questions."

"Oh? Like what?"

"Ah Merry, you should have read a little more history and a little less fiction back in the Scientific Century. What year do you think it is right now?"

"It's 2005 in the Outside world right now, right?" I asked, calculating in my head. Gensokyo was said to have been isolated from the rest of the Outside World in the 18th year of the Meiji era, which would have been 1885. This year marked 120 years since that time, so it should have been 2005.

"Correct. So what happened 60 years ago?"

"60 years before now? That would have been 1945... the end of the second world war."

"That's right. Akyuu said that every sixty years there's a sudden increase in the number of lost souls who don’t realize they’ve died. Reading between the lines, then that has to mean some sort of major conflict or natural disaster in the Outside World."

"Well 1945 would have certainly qualified. In Japan alone there was the battle of Okinawa, the firebombing of Tokyo, and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki."

"Well, if this incident happened in spring last time, then that would have been too early for the nuclear bombings, but a hell of a lot of people died in Tokyo and Okinawa too. However…"

Renko hunched her chin to her chest, deep in thought. "What happened in 2005 then? I don't remember ever reading about another conflict of that scale back then."

"The great Japan earthquake and tsunami was in.... 2011 I think. There were those terrorist attacks in America, but I think that was in 2001... Wasn't there a major train accident in 2005?"

"I think so, but there's no way it was anywhere near the scale of 1945."

"Well what about elsewhere in the world? America was involved in a bunch of wars in the middle east at the time, weren't they?"

"I suppose, but Gensokyo is essentially a remote village somewhere in rural Japan. I'd be surprised if souls from so far away would be drawn all the way to Gensokyo when everyone who died would have no connections to this place."

"Well in that case, what could have caused this many souls to be released at once?"

"That's the mystery, Merry. What indeed?"

We could probably trust Akyuu's story as far as the Great Hakurei Barrier weakening every sixty years. She'd had dealings with the Youkai Sage before after all and that's really the only place that information like what she had conveyed to us could have come from. We also had no reason to doubt her assertion that the sudden profusion of blooming flowers was a result of plants being possessed by phantoms. Certainly we didn’t have any better explanation for what might be going on.

For any human living in the village, without any knowledge of the Outside World, this explanation would have sufficed. Moreover, any villager hearing such a story would no doubt conclude on their own that the Outside World was a dangerous, chaotic place in which vast numbers of people might die at a moment’s notice.

But we, being Outsiders ourselves, knew better.

What had been history to us was now the Outside World of the present day. There was no war or catastrophe affecting Japan that could have killed thousands or tens of thousands of people.

"In that case are you saying that the Youkai Sage was lying to Akyuu?"

"That's one possibility. The other is that this is more of your Relativistic Noology at work."

"Oh? How so?"

"It's the old chicken and egg debate. If this happened before and the cause back then was the release of a huge number of souls, and the expectation is that this would happen every sixty years, then with the residents of Gensokyo none the wiser about what's happening in the Outside World, might this not have happened regardless of whether or not there were thousands of souls wandering around? Maybe the perception that there would be a large number of souls caused the souls to be here, regardless of where they might have come from."

I opened my mouth in surprise. "Well we've seen that perception and expectation hold a lot of power here, but are you suggesting that Gensokyo somehow created a wealth of lost souls to meet those expectations? Or are you thinking that all of these phantoms we're seeing are something else? Or wait, there's a bigger issue!"

Renko grinned. "You're catching on, Merry."

"How could those expectations be influencing happenings here in Gensokyo if almost no one remembers the last time this happened? No one in the village seemed to know about this incident. Mokou only had a vague recollection, and even Akyuu had to be reminded and look it up."

"Exactly. Good reasoning, Merry. If everyone knew about the history of this incident, then this would be expected. Seeing as it was only 60 years ago that it happened, you would think some people would remember. It's especially surprising that Keine didn't know about it. I'm not sure how old she is, but she's a historian with a strong interest in protecting the village from youkai. She definitely should have known about any incidents that occurred within living memory. She didn't though, so I think it's safe to assume that what we're seeing isn't happening as a result of people's expectations that it would."

"So then some part of the story that the Youkai Sage told to Akyuu had to be a lie then, right?"

Renko frowned and leaned her head to one side, looking somewhat dissatisfied. "Maybe that's the case. We can't rule it out. I have another theory though."

"...Which is?"

"I don't like the idea," Renko said as she stretched out on the tatami mats again. She laid on her back, picking up her hat and whirling it around one finger. "Are you sure you want to hear it, Merry? You may regret it." Giving the hat one last whirl she whipped her hand forward, throwing it at the hook on the wall.

I scowled as the hat fell far short of its mark and rolled on the mats. Sighing, I got up and put it away for her. "Don't be so dramatic, Renko."

"All right," she said, sitting up again. "I'll tell you."

"The presence of all of these souls here is undeniable. They have to have come from somewhere, which means it's possible that there is a disaster or war happening in the Japan of the Outside World right now that we don't know about. Something that would cause death on the scale of the firebombing of Tokyo."

"But nothing like that happened in 2005."

"Nothing like that happened in the 2005 we know of. But you and I have no ability to observe events in the Outside World right now. There's no way we can know if time is proceeding along the same rails and stopping at the same stations that we knew of. There's a possibility that our traveling backward against the flow of time could have changed history in unforeseen ways, even though we ended up in this sequestered world, unable to influence events outside of it. It's even one of the staples of time travel sci-fi."

It was indeed a common trope. Here we were, two time travelers displaced from our own world by 80 years. Was the idea that we had crossed into a different timeline any more unbelievable than anything else we had experienced here?

"Are you saying that the Outside World on the other side of the Great Hakurei Barrier isn't the one we know of?"

If that were the case, then the Great Hakurei Barrier did more than separate us from the Outside World. It separated us from a realm of possibilities beyond imagining.


—12—


In the world of sci-fi literature, such stories are called alternate histories. 'What if Hitler had been assassinated early in the war?' 'What if Japan had won the Battle of Midway?' Those are the sort of 'what if' scenarios they usually explore, extrapolating the curve of an alternate world's history from the data points already on the line we know.

Even in more traditional sci-fi stories, the premise of 'history diverges and an alternate timeline is created' is often used as a tool to avoid paradox in time travel narratives. Under this theory, the past a time traveler arrives in when going backward is already a different universe than the one that supported their point of origin meaning that their actions have no potential to create paradox.

In the view of a Relativistic Noologist, the solution to the dilemma of Schrödinger's cat is Everett's many-worlds interpretation. Briefly put, this idea holds that there is a world in which the cat in the box is alive and a world in which the cat in the box is dead. Both worlds exist and do not overlap, with the observer always finding whichever result is appropriate to their world upon opening the box.

Where Relativistic Noology differs from other interpretations of the many-worlds interpretation is in its view of the inviolability of the subjectivity of others. In essence, it applies the many-worlds interpretation to the level of individual cognition. The idea that a person from the world in which the cat is dead is a separate individual from the person from the world in which the cat is alive is akin to the idea that no one individual can ever truly experience the subjective cognitive experience of another. At best, two individuals might agree that in their respective worlds the cat was one way or another, but they could never travel to someone else's world to check and make sure.

Relativistic Noology never accounted for people traveling between worlds or back in time, however. Being as the two of us had taken such a journey, it was just as reasonable to suppose we could have crossed into the subjective world of another version of ourselves, one that came from a reality in which the very events Renko was describing might have been a part of history. "I suppose that's possible," I admitted. "At any rate, we can't rule it out."

"Oh, you're taking that surprisingly well, Merry. I thought you'd be bothered by the prospect."

"Well, as far as we know there's no way for us to return to our old lives at this point" I said with a sigh of resignation. With no way to return to our own world, it didn’t make much difference whether or not Gensokyo was connected to the future we had come from. As long as we were living here there was no point in worrying about such abstract concepts as alternate timelines.

"But Merry, what if being in an alternate timeline is the reason why we can't return?"

"You're suggesting that when we crossed the Great Hakurei barrier we also crossed over the border between one timeline and another? Well even if that’s true we crossed the boundary once, why couldn’t we cross it again to go back? "

"That's a very laissez-faire attitude, Merry. I wish I could be so laid back about it. Maybe the ability to go with the flow is your secret super power."

"Now you're just mocking me. During the Spring Snow Incident I was brought to the Outside World by the Youkai Sage, remember?" Back then I hadn't gotten a good look around, but Tokyo hadn't seemed like it was in the middle of a war. I’m still not entirely certain if I actually traveled to the Outside World or if that was just a dream though.

"Well maybe that visit was the point at which history diverged. For all we know your actions might have changed everything."

"In the event that my speaking to a little girl in another world ended up causing all of Tokyo to be obliterated, I would like to officially say 'I'm sorry.' Even in that case though, you could hardly blame me. I had no control over my actions at the time. If anything, that would be the Youkai Sage's fault."

"This is a pretty big deal, Merry. I’m surprised that hearing that the Outside World on the other side of the barrier might not be the one we know isn’t bothering you."

"...Renko, do you still want to go back?"

Renko, who had been about to speak, closed her mouth and sat silently for a moment. She looked down, consolidating her thoughts, then raised her face to look me in the eye. "Gensokyo is a world filled with mystery and excitement. Life here is devoid of the comforts and convenience of the Scientific Century, but it's nothing you can't get used to. If I had to decide right now between staying here or going home, I'd choose to stay. There are so many mysteries here left to explore. But if I had to make one choice and stick with it for the rest of my life though... I couldn't say. I can't be decisive on something like that without consideration."

"That makes sense." I looked down as I thought of everything Renko would be leaving behind if we were to stay in Gensokyo forever. "You still have family in Tokyo, after all. I’m just a rootless person without any friends or relatives in Japan..."

"Merry…"

"I've thought about the same thing... I think as long as I can be with you I..." I muttered, vocalizing my thoughts without realizing it. It was only a breath before I spoke the last words that I realized I was talking.

"Merry? What were you going to say?"

"Nothing!" My voice was unexpectedly loud. The ringing in my ears seemed to be coming from somewhere other than its echo though, like the reverberations of the drum frantically hammering in my chest were coalescing into a single tone droning aloud. I felt a hot blush spreading across my cheeks as I stood and rushed out of the room.

I have no memory of putting my shoes on and rushing out the door. I couldn't hear the sound of my boots stomping over the dirt of the schoolyard as I sprinted for the gate. The words I hadn't said were echoing too loudly in my mind. "I could be happy forever," I repeated under my breath.

Even if I could never return to the Scientific Century. Even if I never saw Kyoto again and my bones were buried in Gensokyo. If I could be by Renko's side, holding her hand, investigating mysteries... that was where I wanted to be. Now and forever. Back in Kyoto my family was an ocean away. Other than Renko I had no close friends. My connection to Kyoto, to the world, to all of humanity was just one girl. Just Usami Renko. Where she was was where I belonged.

—

I had run through the streets at a dizzying pace, without any sort of plan or destination in mind. Now I found myself on the outskirts of the village, on its northern edge, not far from the gate in the wall that opened onto the road that wound toward Misty Lake. At this time of day the gate stood open and beyond it, at the limits of sight along the path, just before it turned around a bend I could see the little cemetery. Flowers were blooming there too, spots of red and yellow visible even at this distance between the drab gray of the headstones.

Had those flowers bloomed because of an excess of wandering souls too, I wondered? If so, then whose? Who were the people whose souls now acted as decorations for every field, road and hedge in Gensokyo? What had their hopes and dreams been? Now that they were cut short, what was keeping them from crossing the Sanzu river? In time would I become like them? A cold, translucent wisp of a phantom floating senselessly about? If I did, would I remember ever having been Maéreverie Hearn?

I walked as far as the village gate and rested my hand on the wooden palisade. This too formed a boundary. Separating the village from the world outside of it. Separating the realm of humans from that of the youkai. At this time of day, with just a step I could cross that boundary.

Some boundaries were more solid though. Every individual held their own inviolable subjectivity, their own unique lens through which they viewed the world. There was no gate in the boundary between Maéreverie Hearn and Usami Renko. I was not her, and she was not me. Her thoughts, her subjective perceptions would remain forever closed to me. No matter how much I might want to understand her, or how familiar with her ways of thinking I could become, I could never experience the same perceptions as her.

I knew that. It would be childish and selfish of me to think that I could understand everything about her. Or to expect her to understand everything about me.

"Merry!"

A voice called out to me. Of course. I had known that she would come after me if I ran out the door alone. Was I really so selfish and underhanded to demand her attention this way? Had I only run because I wanted her to chase me?

I felt a childish shame wash over me as I interrogated my own actions. It was hopeless to dream of understanding or experiencing the subjective reality of another. What we might think of ‘understanding one another’ was really nothing more than the result of a process of subconscious statistical analysis. The brain, locked in the unfeeling darkness of the skull, had no first-hand experience of the world; it could only infer patterns from the information we had gathered about the people we met.

And thus I had run away from Renko, expecting that she would chase me. The model of her that my subconscious had assembled had made the prediction that she would find me and tell me that she wanted me by her side as much as I needed her by mine.

Renko's understanding of me was just the same. Mere statistics, data points graphed against experience and recorded responses to stimulus. No two people can ever share the same truth. The heart of another person, their subjective experience of the world will always remain a mystery.

But part of me —some childish, foolish, selfish part, truly hoped that Renko was the great detective she claimed to be. That she could solve the mystery to which I couldn't give a name. Find the clues I couldn't tell her about. Learn the truth I couldn't speak.

I heard footsteps slowly approaching. I stayed facing the graveyard, one hand leaning against the stakes of the palisade, not looking back.

My partner's arm wound itself around my shoulder, warm and solid.

"Hey, Merry."

She leaned forward, resting her weight on me as I rested mine against the wall. I could feel the warmth of her skin through the material of her shirt. She must have been running hard to find me.

"I'm not going anywhere," she said, her voice low and close to my ear. "Not without you."

"...Renko, I..."

"...'Cause you know, Merry, whether it's ghosts or vampires, snakes or oni, you're a mystery bigger than any of that. I can't leave Merry's side until I understand everything about her."

How? How could she possibly know exactly what I wanted to hear from her? Even if I can share the experiences of my dreams with her using my abilities, she shouldn’t be able to understand my thoughts. She doesn’t have the ability to know how I think and her brain’s capacity for statistical analysis is no different than that of my own. So why is it that whenever she looks at me it seems like she can see right through me?

I smiled bitterly. "I don't think you ever will. The inviolability of an individual's subjectivity is the foundation of Relativistic Noology."

"Yup, and that’s why you're just going to keep being a mystery to me. The most important one. I might have to spend eternity figuring you out."

I smiled, but I couldn't bring myself to look at her yet. I reached up with my free hand and grabbed her arm though, squeezing it tight.

Is there really some part of me beyond Renko’s understanding? I couldn’t know her mind any more than she could know mine, so I suppose I’ll never know.

"I'm going to be haunted by Renko for the rest of my life. What a cruel fate."

"Oh, isn't that exactly what you wanted though? I think maybe you just wanted to make me run as punishment for focusing on Reisen so much earlier. Is it possible that you were just the tiniest bit jealous?"

I didn't say anything, continuing to look down and away from Renko, who was now peering around from the side, putting more of her weight on me as her face loomed into my peripheral vision. With her so close I could feel the soft tickle of her breath on my neck.

"You're so cute, Merry."

"Shut up, Renko."

The two of us just stood there, leaning against the wall surrounding the village, staring out at the grim and lonely flowers of this dreamlike world. Feeling the weight and warmth of her arm across my shoulders I was too embarrassed to look up. For a moment, I stopped listening to the information coming from my senses and trying to model reality. Just for the moment, I was content only to feel, surrendering myself to the comfort of her arms.