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

—10—


Tojiko was adamant that we not see the Crown Prince in any way until his resurrection was completed, and thus we were forbidden from entering the inner courtyard for the moment in no uncertain terms. Instead, we were all escorted to a room to wait. Tojiko led us there and sent Futo away, saying "go keep an eye out for anyone suspicious." Futo left excitedly, but I expected that the task she had been charged with was simply an attempt by Tojiko to get her out of the way for the time being.

As Renko and I seated ourselves on the room's bare and dingy tatami floor, she whispered to me. "What do you think Prince Shotoku looks like? Do you think it'll be anything like his portrait on old paper money?"

"That old portrait was just an artist's guess at what he looked like, but here in Gensokyo he’d probably look that way just because that’s what most people imagine him looking like."

I thought about that for a moment, but before I could reply Tojiko came back into the room. "My apologies for my poor hospitality but we have nothing to offer you."

Renko waved her hand dismissively, saying "don't worry about it."

Genji seemed similarly unconcerned and drew his head and limbs into his shell as he settled onto the floor beside us, presumably to sleep.

Tojiko turned to Renko with her eyes narrowed. "So. What is your purpose in coming here, really?"

I could hardly blame her for being suspicious. Finding a way to explain that we had been hired by the Myouren Temple without making us look like we were on their side was a needle I had no interest in trying to thread myself, so I just shut my mouth and let Renko do the talking. I glanced over at her and she shot me a smug grin before replying.

"As I said before, we were hired by the head nun of the Myouren Temple, Hijiri Byakuren. She asked that we investigate and identify the powerful spiritual presence that she had detected beneath the ground. Originally, my intention was only to discover the entrance to this tomb and see if it could be opened. I did that easily enough and would have returned at that point, but my partner and I were captured by that hermit who delivered us here."

Tojiko clicked her tongue and sighed, looking away. "Of course. This is her doing." Her eyes then turned back to us, her expression hard and cold. "If you're in the employ of that temple, I can't let you leave here and report back to them."

As if to emphasize her point, Tojiko's body crackled, tiny sparks jumping off of her shoulders. It was a grim pronunciation that left me with a sinking feeling of dread in my stomach, but as usual my partner, who seems completely incapable of fear, was unfazed.

"I understand that you have to be conscious of security concerns, but you'll have to trust me when I say we have no intention of interfering with your activities in any way. My partner and I were hired by the Myouren Temple, yes, but our association with them extends only as far as our commission. I consider myself to be a neutral negotiator. In fact, if I may be so bold as to recommend my services, I think you'd be well advised to hire me to negotiate with the people of the temple on your behalf. There's nothing better than a compromise that leaves both sides happy, right?"

"A compromise? What is there to compromise about?"

"Well that's something I would need to investigate. The first step in any successful negotiation is to understand the nature of each side's position. I already know about the Myouren Temple, but could you tell me more about what your circumstances are? Why is the legendary Prince Shotoku sleeping in a tomb under Gensokyo? It would be useful if you could tell me more about yourself as well, Miss Tojiko no Iratsume."

Tojiko's eyes went wide as Renko spoke that name. She looked away as she replied. "...That's a name that I gave up long ago. I'm just Soga no Tojiko now, servant to the Crown Prince."

Princess Tojiko no Iratsume. That name had belonged to one of Prince Shotoku's four wives, this one being the daughter of nobility from both the Soga and Mononobe clans. She was said to have been the mother of prince Yamashiro, himself a nearly-legendary figure in Japanese history. I'm presenting these details handily now but my knowledge of ancient Japanese history isn't so thorough that I was able to recall any of this at the time. You may safely assume, dear reader, that any time I mention any sort of historical detail like this it's a result of me writing out this story after the fact and being able to cheat by asking Keine about the names and lineages of the people involved. At any rate, it seemed the ghost in front of us was the woman in question herself. A living, or un-living I supposed, historical witness.

"The fact you know my previous name suggests that the Crown Prince's exploits must still be talked of at this point in time, correct?" Tojiko continued, "I suppose for a great man like him, that's to be expected. Tell me, what does the world think of the Crown Prince in this day and age?" Asking that, Tojiko's expression became slightly less guarded.

"Well, let's see," Renko replied, looking up as she rattled off the facts.

"He was the son of Emperor Yomei and the father of Prince Yamashiro. Supposedly he was born in front of a stable and originally given the name 'Umayado' to reflect that. Even as a child he was said to be so intelligent that he could follow and participate in ten conversations at once. As a youth he became a Buddhist pilgrim and was so loved by the Buddha that he was said to have been given another name by Bodhidharma himself. Later, he's credited for spreading Buddhism across Japan and defeating the Mononobe clan who had opposed him in the name of Shinto. While administering the Japanese state along with Soga no Umako under Empress Suiko, he dispatched envoys to China and formulated a 12-rank system for managing the imperial courts and drafted Japan's original 17-article constitution. As a devout Buddhist, he founded two major temples - Shitenno and Horyu as well as numerous smaller ones. He also is said to be the author of several treatises on law and philosophy that are thought to be among the first books ever written in Japanese and..."

Renko continued to speak smoothly, listing off Prince Shotoku's many storied accomplishments. Her expertise and familiarity sounded like something taken directly from a textbook, likely because it mostly was. For years we had taught alongside Keine in the temple school and such lectures on important historical figures were the foundations of her teaching method. Between our own education in the Outside World and our time in the Temple School it's no surprise that she had heard these stories enough times to memorize the details.

"Well," Tojiko said once Renko had finished. "I see the Crown Prince is still quite well known. I wonder if Seiga was lying to me about that as well..."

"I don't know all that much," Renko said with a chuckle. "Some of that I picked up from a friend who's a historian, but the rest is just something every kid in school gets taught."

Of course the bit Renko didn't mention is that while we had indeed been taught all of those things about Prince Shotoku in the Outside World, we had also been taught that the 'Prince Shotoku' that existed in the 𝑁𝑖ℎ𝑜𝑛 𝑆ℎ𝑜𝑘𝑖 had probably never existed. There likely was a historical Prince Umayado at one point, but most of the great deeds and accomplishments attributed to him were first spoken of in writings that had not been composed until a century or two after his death.

Deifying the legendary figure of Prince Shotoku was a way of differentiating him from the historical record, making him a figure more in line with the other gods and monsters to be found in writings of that age, which were generally understood to blend folklore and history together in a way that the rationalists of the modern Outside World would likely reject.

Although some of the accomplishments Renko had listed off might have been carried out by prince Umayado, in all likelihood many of them were either awarded to him posthumously or simply fabricated. Though with Tojiko no Iratsume, one of the legendary Prince Shotoku’s wives, sitting before us and nodding along as Renko spoke, perhaps the prince’s reputation might be better deserved than I had imagined.

"Well it seems that history has mostly remembered his greatness. There's one fact you have quite wrong though."

"Oh? What would that be?" Perhaps I had spoken too soon. I wondered which details Tojiko was about to correct. Had the Crown Prince not really been born outside of a stable? Or the bit about being able to listen to ten conversations at once? Oh, or maybe the bit about his time in China?

"It's about his faith," Tojiko answered plainly. "The Crown Prince was never a Buddhist."

Renko and I exchanged looks. Of all of the aspects of Prince Shotoku’s story to be incorrect, that seemed the least likely. How could the man who had been so influential in spreading Buddhism to Japan not be a Buddhist?

"What do you mean?"

"Well if you understood that, you'd understand why the Crown Prince is interred here, awaiting resurrection. To put it simply, the Crown Prince helped establish Buddhism in this country, but he was never a Buddhist himself. He was a Taoist."


—11—


"The Crown Prince has been a renowned intellect and a great leader of men from a very early age. He knew though, as all men must, that his time in this world was limited. 'Why must humans always perish, while the world itself and the nature that inhabits it remain unchanging, thriving just as it has since the days when it was first shaped by the gods?' That was a question he became obsessed with. If only he could have eternal life, he felt he could use it to guide humanity toward a better future.

Listening to Tojiko's story, I had to make a conscious effort to keep my expression neutral. Having met Mokou, who had actually gained eternal life, I couldn't really think of anything suitable to say. Mokou drank the Hourai elixir 1300 years ago—if Prince Shotoku had been born a century later, then it would have been he who received the Hourai elixir left behind by Kaguya.

"It was around then, when the Prince was consumed by the idea of immortality, that the wicked hermit Seiga appeared. She is the one who brought the ideas of Taoism to the palace and taught the Crown Prince to follow in her footsteps. She promised the Prince that by doing so and learning the truths of the Tao he could achieve immortality, which was exactly what he wanted."

"...So you're saying that the Crown Prince spread Buddhism as a smokescreen to hide the fact that he was secretly learning Taoism with the aim of becoming immortal?"

"It wasn't just for that. Taoism is a religion all about individual refinement and following an amoral path toward self-improvement. Allowing Taoist teachings to spread among the general populace would have made people much harder to control. Buddhism, on the other hand, reveres discipline, making it more suitable for spreading among a populace in need of governing. The Crown Prince understood that and so spread Buddhism among his people while pursuing Taoism for himself in secret. Using what he learned from Seiga he was able to become a great ruler, capable of doing the sorts of things you mentioned before, which are evidently still spoken of today."

To me, Tojiko's story was a little hard to swallow. 'Prince Shotoku was secretly a Taoist! Study Taoism and you can be just like him!' It sounded more like the tagline for a shady mail order scam of some kind than anything that could actually be a historical truth.

"After accomplishing all that he felt he needed to in his lifetime, the Crown Prince gave up his life, planning to be resurrected later as an immortal hermit. The seals on this mausoleum were set so that if the power of Buddhism that he had built up ever waned or if the country ever fell into ruin, then he would awaken to once again take the reins of the world. Futo and I were the only ones trusted enough to follow him into his deathly slumber."

"So to do that you all first had to die, right?" Renko asked, looking pointedly to the hem of Tojiko's dress from which the shapeless white vapors of her ghostly form protruded.

"Not everything went as planned. My body failed to regenerate and I awakened almost immediately as a ghost. I've had a long time to get used to this body since then. It was only just recently that Futo finally began to awaken. Now all I have to do is wait a bit longer and the Crown Prince will finally be resurrected as well."

"If that's all true then the timing of awakening now seems a bit odd to me. As far as I know, Japan isn't exactly in turmoil at the moment, though it has definitely faced several existential crises in the last 1,400 years. Why would the Crown Prince be awakening now? And for that matter, why here in Gensokyo?"

"Buddhism is to blame for that," Tojiko said bitterly. "The Crown Prince had intended for Buddhism to be a tool by which he could cement his rule. When he abandoned his throne though, the Buddhists had already gained too much political power. They were afraid that he might eventually reawaken and that if he did, he would again rule over the nation and restrict the power that they enjoyed. They built a temple on top of this mausoleum to act as a seal, intending to prevent him from ever reawakening."

"That temple that was built to act as a seal... that wouldn't be—"

"It was Horyu Temple. The new one anyway. The original was built as a center for governmental rule, but after that burned down, they rebuilt it on top of this mausoleum."

It was a shocking revelation. I looked over at Renko to find her looking back at me. Even in the 𝑁𝑖ℎ𝑜𝑛 𝑆ℎ𝑜𝑘𝑖, Horyu temple is said to have burned down long ago and have been rebuilt. Archeological investigations in the 20th century had revealed this to be true, but also showed that the rebuilt temple had a vastly different floorplan than the original and had actually been built some distance away rather than on the same grounds. Speculation about the reason for this had ranged from practical considerations about the soil and animal paths in the area to unfounded conspiracy theories that the move had been due to a curse placed on the temple by the descendants of Prince Shotoku, who had all been eradicated in a political purge a century after the prince's death. If Tojiko could be believed then the truth of the matter wasn't so different from that last theory.

"So this mausoleum was originally in Nara then, but you moved it here because the Crown Prince couldn't be revived where it was?" The situation didn't sound that different from what had happened to the Moriya Shrine, which had also been moved from the Outside World to Gensokyo.

"That's more or less correct, but don't underestimate the Crown Prince. The fact that he hadn't awakened up until now just means the world hasn't yet truly needed him."

"In other words," A voice started mockingly from the far side of the room, "you decided that since the Outside World no longer had any need for gods or saints instead move to a world that does, right?"

"Seiga!" Tojiko cried, rising up from the floor and crackling with power. "I thought I told you to stop cutting holes in the walls here!"

We looked over to the direction where the voice had come from. There, on the far wall of the room was a perfectly circular hole, and leaning through it—with her body hovering horizontally as if she was lying on a bed—was Seiga. The hole she was poking through was a truly odd thing. Perfectly circular, and smoothly cut through the wall, its edges shimmered in my vision. As near as I could tell from looking at it, the hole existed not in the material of the wall itself, but in the very nature of the wall as a closed border that separated the things on one side of it from those on the other. Seiga appeared to have cut a hole into the very concept of the wall, and then stuck her body through it to have a look around.

"You complained that I knocked on the door earlier, so I came through the wall like usual, but you're still mad at me. You're so mean, Tojiko."

"It's not your method of entry that I'm complaining about, it's your presence. You're a pollution upon this sacred mausoleum. Say whatever you came here to say and then go! And while you're at it, keep going until you get back to China."

"You see?" Seiga said, pointing to Tojiko, her wrist upturned. "So rude. You'd think she'd be a little grateful after I moved this mausoleum all the way to Gensokyo for her."

"When you brought us here you said there would be no Buddhists and the Crown Prince would be free to revive at any time! Then a week after we arrive a temple gets built on top of us! I can't believe that's just a coincidence!"

"Even I couldn't have predicted that a flying ship would suddenly appear from Makai and turn itself into a temple right above us. You can't blame me for that."

The two of them glared at each other. As they did, I leaned over and whispered to my partner. "Hey Renko, it would be bad if she knew we helped Byakuren set up the temple, right?"

"Best not to bring it up." Renko whispered back at me.

If the Crown Prince, who had been prevented from resurrecting by the construction of Horyu Temple, had come to Gensokyo in order to awaken, only to have a new Buddhist temple built right on top of him once again then I can't imagine Tojiko would react well the the news that Renko and I had helped her escape from Makai. I'd rather not be electrocuted, so I made a point of keeping my mouth shut.

Renko shifted on the tatami, leaning away from me and raising her voice. "Excuse me, Miss Tojiko, I have a question."

Tojiko broke away from her staring match with Seiga to glare at Renko instead. "Tch. What?"

"Ooo, scary scary! I'm running away." Seiga called tauntingly before Renko could respond. We watched as she withdrew through her hole, floating backwards out of the room. The hole closed itself back up as soon as she was through it, leaving the wall perfectly intact, with no trace that anything had ever been amiss. In Renko's vocabulary I suppose you would call something like that a 'wormhole.' Looking over at her, she seemed fascinated by the way it had disappeared, but visibly forced herself to turn back to Tojiko and the conversation at hand.

"It's about Futo. She said she was a member of the Mononobe clan. That clan was killed off by the Crown Prince as a political maneuver though, wasn’t it? If I remember my history right, he even had the help of the Soga clan to do it. How did someone like that come to be one of the Crown Prince's most trusted devotees?"

Tojiko turned her attention toward Renko with a sigh. "When Buddhism and Taoism were first introduced to Japan, the Mononobe clan opposed Buddhism. The sort of nature worship they practiced had more in common with Taoism. Futo realized, just as the Crown Prince did, that a country full of Taoist hermits would be ungovernable, so she introduced the idea of spreading Buddhism among the masses for the benefit of the ruling class to the prince. She was even willing to betray her own clan to support the Soga, who had adopted Buddhism wholeheartedly. She worked with him to destroy the Mononobe clan from within. That was enough to earn the Crown Prince's trust. She may not look it now, but she was a cunning strategist back then. Since awakening though, she's very different. Rather childish, and I'm not sure her mind is quite all there."

"I see. So the religious conflict between the Soga and Mononobe clans wasn't really a battle of Buddhism against animism as most people think it was, but rather a battle between the Crown Prince—who was planning to use Taoism to become immortal—and the rule of the native gods of Japan. And in the end, it was Buddhism, which the Crown Prince had only intended to use as a weapon against the gods, that actually triumphed. History certainly has a sense of irony."

"Believe whatever you like. When the Crown Prince is resurrected, everything will change." Tojiko crossed her arms and snorted derisively. She reminded me a little of a pricklier version of Mokou. I wondered if perhaps that was what nobility of that era must all have been like. If so, she would have been a difficult wife for her husband, Prince Shotoku, to live with, but that wasn't for me to say.

"Oh! Another question!" Renko suddenly exclaimed, raising her hand as if she was in a class.

Tojiko arched an eyebrow at her in irritation.

"From what you've said, it sounds like the Crown Prince's plan was to be resurrected as a hermit once the nation was in crisis, then take over as the country's leader and harness the faith gained from saving the nation to become a god. I'm not sure how much you know about Gensokyo, but this world is cut off from the rest of the country by a barrier. Even if it wasn't, Japan has changed a lot in the last 1,400 years. It's a peaceful democratic nation now. So why would the Crown Prince be awakening now, in an isolated backwater cut off from the rest of society in a time of peace? I don't know the Crown Prince like you do of course, but it sounds to me like he wouldn't be satisfied with ruling over an isolated backwater like Gensokyo."

Certainly if someone had the goal of ruling the whole country or becoming a god, then Gensokyo was too small a place to launch such an ambitious project from. If you thought of Gensokyo as just one small stepping stone on a road to greatness such a plan might work, but with the Great Hakurei Barrier surrounding this world, that didn’t seem like a feasible option.

"I wouldn't expect a commoner like you to be able to understand what someone like the Crown Prince is capable of. None of that will matter once he awakens." Tojiko dismissed Renko's question without even considering it. It was quite surprising to hear Renko's concerns be so readily discarded, but I suppose the sort of person ambitious enough to see themselves becoming a god or ruling the world doesn’t think the same way someone like Renko or I would. That said, the two of us knew several gods personally and counted a living god as one of our closest friends. Given that, Tojiko’s faith seemed a bit more fanatical than was warranted to me.

"The Crown Prince intends to become a god. While I'm certain that the country has changed in his absence, that just means that the Crown Prince’s ambitions can stretch farther than ever before. Besides, if Japan was able to survive the crises it has faced to date then they can't have been bad enough to require his intervention. And if the country is as stable as you say, then it just means the time for the Crown Prince to awaken hasn't yet arrived."

For her to dismiss everything that had happened in the last 1,400 years, including the Mongol invasion of Japan, the arrival of the Black Ships or even the devastation of the second world war as minor crises was hardly believable. According to the history Renko and I had learned in school back in the Scientific Century, the nation was indeed soon to enter an era of crisis, but that was an era of slow collapse and decline. I doubted it would be the sort of thing that would require the intervention of a great ruler according to their standards.

"So you think now is the right moment for the Crown Prince to be resurrected?"

"It may be, or it may be that the Crown Prince has decided to awaken now before a new seal can be put in place. If that is the case, then the eventual outcome will be the same—he will establish a foothold here in Gensokyo, and from there move to return to the country as a whole as a savior. Either way, we will do as the Crown Prince commands us."

Hearing that, I couldn't help but wonder if, in her zeal to protect her followers from a potential threat, Byakuren might have inadvertently awakened something that would have better been left undisturbed. I thought it wisest not to say that out loud though.

"To think that I’ll be able to bear witness to the beginning of the reign of the eternal emperor Shotoku here in Gensokyo..."

Renko thought for a moment and seemed like she was about to say something more when the door suddenly burst open and Futo came rushing noisily into the room.

"Ho, Tojiko!"

"Quiet."

Without a second's hesitation, Tojiko reached out her hand and loosed a bolt of lightning that coursed through the air and into Futo, who convulsed violently on the spot before falling to the ground, gibbering.

"Ahhhjyibibibiibah! Ugh! By the heavens, who would be so cruel as to jolt someone the moment they enter a room?" Futo cried as she recovered herself to a sitting position.

"I told you to calm down and stop being disruptive."

"Saw you not Seiga, then? She was just here, mocking me as I stood guard! Thou shouldst allow me to punish her insolence! ‘Tis only suiting!"

"Mocking you is a perfectly reasonable thing for anyone to do."

"Oh, thou thinketh thyself my better, then? Perhaps I would be best served to deliver punishments unto you first!" Saying that, Futo suddenly flung out one arm toward Tojiko. I might have expected a burst of danmaku or some other sort of magical projectile, but both Renko and I were completely unprepared for the large ceramic plate that whirled out of her sleeve to shatter against the wall beside Tojiko.

"Futo! Don't throw plates in here! You'll make a mess!"

Futo gave no response other than to fling her arms wide, hurling several more spinning plates forward. Tojiko growled and shot forward like a streak of lightning, tackling Futo into the hallway, leaving the two of us alone in the room to stare at each other in shock silence for a moment.

"Well, they're quite the pair," Renko said. "What do you make of their story?"

"It's hard to know what to think of any of it."

Tojiko herself certainly seemed to have a distorted view of the Crown Prince. In her mind, he seemed already to have been deified, and every circumstance, no matter how unfortunate, could be reasoned away as a part of some inscrutable plan of his.

Reading between the lines of the story she had presented, it sounded to me as if Prince Shotoku must have been sealed by the Buddhists at Horyu Temple and ended up completely stymied for more than a millennium. As the temple continued to see worshippers even in the Scientific Century, I can only imagine that any seals preventing the Crown Prince from resurrecting would still be intact today. If that was the case then coming to Gensokyo as he had was not so much a cunning master plan as it was a last desperate gamble to keep from losing everything. Rather than a powerful saint about to reawaken, he sounded like a defeated general who had fled the battlefield after the collapse of their stratagem. Perhaps that was a bit of an exaggeration, but certainly this mausoleum didn't seem like the sort of place an all-knowing saint on the verge of apotheosis would be biding their time in.

I said all of that to Renko, who nodded. "I agree," she replied, fiddling with the brim of her hat. "Still though, there's one thing that seems strange about all of this..."

"What's that?"

"Well, you've heard the theory that Prince Shotoku was never actually a real person, right?"

"I've heard the basics. Essentially, some historians believe that Prince Umayado was a real, if unremarkable person, and the character of 'Prince Shotoku' was created by writers affiliated with the Fujiwara clan two centuries later so that they could claim a relationship to a nearly divine figure responsible for everything the Soga clan had ever achieved, right?"

"That's as much as I was taught as well. I think it was around now that that theory was starting to become widespread though."

"Ah, I think I see what you're trying to say, Renko." It was something that had occurred to me earlier, if only briefly. "You're suggesting that the Crown Prince who's about to be resurrected here isn't really Prince Umayado, but rather the Prince Shotoku that people believed in in the Outside World until recently?"

"You really are a mind-reader, Merry!" Renko said, laughing as she pulled the brim of her hat down. "I doubt it's that simple though."

"Oh?"

"Well there's one fact that doesn't make sense. If the prince who's about to be resurrected here were just the result of people's imaginings of Prince Shotoku fading into fantasy, then why would they be a Taoist? That's the bit I don't get. If he's the result of a legend, then he should be a Buddhist, shouldn't he?"


—12—


It was definitely a strange story. The legendary figure of Prince Shotoku was inextricably associated with Buddhism. One of the articles in the 17-article constitution he supposedly penned was 'respect the three treasures of Buddhism with all your heart.' The 12-rank court system he instituted was based on a school of Chinese thought which combined aspects of Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism among its tenants, but I had never heard it even suggested before that the figure, seen as Buddhism's greatest historical champion in Japan, might not have been a Buddhist himself.

"Sometimes things are different here, Renko. The version of Princess Kaguya who lives here never returned to the moon, for example, even though the old legends say she did."

"The story of the Bamboo Cutter still makes sense though. Everything that happened in the story people know was true."

I suppose that was true. Eirin killing all of her fellow Lunarians and absconding with Princess Kaguya is something that only could have occurred after the story had ended with the departure of the Lunar Emissaries.

"Prince Shotoku being a secret Taoist and only using Buddhism as a means of controlling the populace so that he could become a god is a pretty big departure from how most people would perceive him, don't you think?"

"...You're right about that. What does it mean though? Are you going to say that despite all of the circumstantial evidence, the person who's about to be resurrected here isn't really Prince Shotoku?"

If you've read all of my previous case files, then you understand why this idea, wild though it may sound to read, wouldn't seem all that outlandish to us. In fact at this point it might even have been something you expected.

However, if that were the case then what did Futo, Tojiko and even Seiga have to gain from making up such a story? What reason could they possibly have for wanting to convince us that it was Prince Shotoku and his allies being resurrected here?

"I don't know. We don't have enough information yet. I guess we'll find out more once this prince comes back to life."

As Renko said that, a tiny translucent blob of a spirit drifted past me, toward the inner courtyard of the tower. A spirit of desire, or so we had been told. Supposedly if a spirit like that, meagre though it was, were to receive enough faith it could become a full-fledged goddess like Kanako.

Phantoms were the embodiments of temperaments and temperaments themselves were in essence just the sorts of biases and preferences anyone might have. Humans are multifaceted and could feel multiple ways about something at one time, giving rise to countless little wisps of temperament like this one all the time. A ghost was supposedly just a phantom that contained the most fundamental parts of a person's temperaments.

The most important part was that a single person could give rise to multiple spirits, and any one of those spirits could become a god if given enough faith even if it wasn't the spirit that contained the person's soul. If a novelist wrote a book all about their love of humanity and that book became famous, then that's what the author would come to be known for—no matter how much of a misanthrope the author themselves actually was. The opposite could happen too, of course. It was the object of faith, the conception of a thing that spread and absorbed worship. Not necessarily the thing itself.

I wondered if the version of Prince Shotoku contained in this tower might be something like that.

The actual Prince Umayado and the legendary Prince Shotoku might be thought of as two distinct spirits born from the same person. The spirit of Prince Umayado would have been born from the actual person who had been involved in politics during the reign of Empress Suiko. The spirit of Prince Shotoku would then have been something imagined generations later. The mythical, almost divinely competent figure who personified all of the achievements of the Soga clan. The two might not even have had any connection to each other at all.

But if that were the case why would the spirit of the legendary Prince Shotoku not be a Buddhist? Alternatively, if it was actually the spirit of Prince Umayado that was about to be reborn, then maybe the idea of him being a Taoist hermit wasn't so far-fetched. But in that case, why would Tojiko have acknowledged the achievements attributed to Prince Shotoku to him?

To be honest, I’m not sure myself. I'm no historian, so I couldn't come to a conclusion myself. The real Prince Umayado would definitely have come into contact with Taoist thinking during his lifetime, so to hear that he had decided to pursue immortality as a Taoist hermit wouldn’t have been too shocking to hear. I'd have to make a point of asking Keine about it later. I'd need to make sure I had plenty of time for a long and drawn out lecture before I did though.

"Hey Merry, what do you think about the idea of becoming a hermit?"

"What's this all of a sudden, Renko? Are you thinking of taking Seiga up on her offer? I don't have any big ambitions myself."

Renko pulled her knees up to her chin and stared into space for a moment. "You know, if we're going to continue living in Gensokyo from now on, maybe we ought to consider it. I'm sure pursuing immortality would make Mokou mad, and I'm certainly not sure if I could trust either Eirin or Seiga with my life, but as a concept, immortality doesn't seem so bad. Almost everyone we know here will have a much longer lifespan than we will."

"You mean all the youkai we know."

"I mean everyone. Think about it, do you really expect to outlive Sanae? She's a living god."

I suppose Renko was right. Even Keine was a half-youkai, and so was Rinnosuke for that matter. Reimu and Marisa were both fully human as far as I knew, but they lived like youkai already and I wouldn't be at all surprised if Reimu were to eventually be enshrined as a goddess or Marisa were to become a youkai magician.

"Would becoming hermits and living long lives really be so bad? We'd get to spend more time in Gensokyo with everyone, and have all the time we need to explore this world and learn its mysteries. Don't you find the idea of being the only people we know who will be restricted to a regular human lifespan kind of frustrating?"

"This is uncommonly introspective for you, Renko. I didn't think you were the sort to worry about your fate, or what comes next at all, really."

"I can be self-reflective sometimes, Merry. I'm a sensitive girl."

"You’re only sensitive in the way that a landmine is. The sort of thing that might get me killed at any moment."

"That's sad, Merry. Don't you have any great ambitions for the future? Well, I guess it's fine either way. The concept of eternity is scary but so is the concept of finality. Well if you don't want to live a long life then I don't either. There'd be no point to exploring eternity without you."

I could only reply to a declaration like that one with silence. I wished she wouldn’t say things like that out of the blue. How is anyone supposed to respond to a statement like that?

"Well, if you decide you want to become a hermit that might be for the best. Then you could go off on these foolish little adventures of yours and I wouldn't be scared that you'd die. As a result, I'd be less likely to get killed as well."

"I wouldn't want to outlive you though, Merry. Let's just try and live long, healthy lives together. Until we die."

"Are you saying that I'm going to spend the rest of my life being dragged around by you?"

"Maybe even beyond! If we become ghosts we could set up shop and open a new detective agency in the Netherworld, beside Hakugyoukurou."

"What if I go to Heaven?"

"I don't care where you go. Whether it's Heaven, Hell, reincarnation or the Netherworld, I'll follow you anywhere."

"Then if I'm going to be stuck with you either way how about you be a bit concerned with keeping me alive!" I said, seizing a hold of her cheek and twisting it.

"Aaah! I jus wabba be wib you, Mebby! Lebbe go!"

I sighed and shook my head in exasperation as I continued to twist her cheek.