東方プロジェクト二次小説・オリジナル小説サイト
Chapter 5: Perfect Cherry Blossom

Five


𝘐𝘧 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘴𝘦𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘳𝘺 𝘣𝘭𝘰𝘴𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘴, 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘤𝘢𝘯𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘸𝘩𝘺
𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘵 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘣𝘦 𝘱𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘥 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘪𝘳 𝘣𝘦𝘢𝘶𝘵𝘺.

—13—

Perhaps it was only an illusion. Perhaps I merely felt a gust of wind rushing through the night as she turned to us. Perhaps the roar I thought I heard was the creaking of boughs, the squealing of old wood, or the cry of some far off bird, carried by the wind. I will never shake the impression, however, that it was something else—a brief but anguished cry of sadness and torment that cut off abruptly as it reached us, washing over us with a damp, forceful warmth like a breath exhaled from the mouth of a corpse. What was it about that singular, enormous cherry tree that was so disturbing? After seeing so many others on the way here, why did this one fill me with such a strong aversion, such an intense desire to turn and run?

"Oh my goodness, Youmu. Do we have guests?"

The tension was broken by the carefree voice of the girl standing beneath the towering tree. The cherry tree had already fallen silent. Or perhaps it had never made a sound in the first place..

The girl who had been standing beneath the blossoms moved toward us in the same way Patchouli had - floating above the ground while remaining perfectly still. She was dressed in an elaborate, frilled kimono, decorated with an elegant sakura pattern. On her head she wore a simple silk cap, but over that a triangle of cloth cut to resemble the hood of a set of traditional burial robes. I wondered if it could be a badge of office, or just a cliché bit of morbid humor for a ghost to wear something so cartoonishly iconic. Her face, with a demure smile upon her lips, was ladylike, noble in a way that was completely unlike Remilia's imperious swagger. A calm, well-mannered nobility, like a princess in a storybook.

"Lady Yuyuko. I found these suspicious strangers wandering around and..."

"Youmu!" she chided. "You're being rude to our guests."

"What? Are they... are these people acquaintances of yours, Lady Yuyuko?"

"Hmmm, acquaintances of acquaintances, perhaps." Her voice was playful, lilting as if she was always about to burst into laughter. She had produced a folding fan from an inner pocket of her robes, covering her mouth with it when she spoke. "I've heard about you two from Yukari. Though I hadn't heard that the puppeteer would be with you. That's alright though. Youmu, please show our guests around."

Youmu stared, slack-jawed for a moment before sheathing her swords. Standing up, she turned to us, with her back straight and a serious expression on her face. "This way then, please." She said stiffly, gesturing for us to follow.

—

Thus, we were taken to Hakugyokurou proper, a large, traditional, Japanese-style mansion. The place was extremely spacious, but not overwhelmingly, pointlessly so as the Scarlet Devil Mansion had been. Instead each of the interior rooms was large enough for several dozen tatami mats, and could be partitioned and reconfigured through the use of sliding screens.

Throughout the rooms of the mansion, floating white objects of indeterminate shape were flowing to and fro, similar to the one that trailed behind Youmu, but slightly smaller. Each of them emitted an aura of cold around them, and in rooms where several were gathered, it felt positively wintry again.

"Ummm, what are all these white things, Miss Youmu?" I hoped the question wouldn't be seen as terribly rude.

"Hmm? They're phantoms. This one here is my phantom. Or half-phantom, anyway." Youmu reached out and put her hand on the odd puffy thing that had been following her around as she said this. It squirmed under her touch as if it were both alive and had the consistency of a pillow, then contorted itself and darted behind her back.

Another of the white globs —a phantom, I suppose, passed close by us. It was chilly, but utterly featureless, moving with a sense of purpose and an animation that suggested life, but with no face, body or means of expressing itself, making it difficult to think of as a person. I thought back to old paintings of damned spirits depicted on hell scrolls I had seen hanging in museums. Youmu had told us that this was a world for spirits awaiting reincarnation, but that begged the question of just what one did while waiting in such a state.

"The phantoms take care of most of the housework in Hakugyokurou," Youmu continued, seeming to anticipate my question.

"Can a phantom even do housework?"

"Of course," she answered, as if my question had been ridiculous.

That seems to be the way things work here. The logic of Gensokyo is unfathomable to people like me, but internally consistent. People expect things to work in a certain way and they do - the 'how' of it all simply didn't come into play.

"Renko, as a student of physics, what do you make of these phantoms?"

"I don't think even a super-unified model of physics would be of much use in a world where people fly in the sky without expending thrust to do so. Here in Gensokyo it seems like belief in a thing's existence establishes a physical presence for that thing, bounded only by the degree to which it is perceived. Like faith was a fifth fundamental force and the accumulation of charges on that plane cast three-dimensional shadows with weight and energy. Or something to that effect. This is more your field of expertise though, isn't it, Merry?"

"Hmm, sounds right to me. Congratulations Renko, you're becoming a proper Relativist."

"It seems like in Gensokyo the concepts of Relativistic Noology act as a fundamental force, creating matter and energy that otherwise obey the laws of the super-unified model. That calls into question just what exactly a phantom is. The souls of the dead? A bundle of thoughts and desires? They seem to have a physical tangibility to them, which makes me wonder if all humans here have additional mass to accommodate their presence. Figuring this sort of thing out might tell us more about the nature of life and death in Gensokyo." Renko's eyes were glimmering and she was looking up, lost in thought as we walked. I sighed in resignation, having lost her down another mental rabbit-hole.

Youmu opened another sliding door and led us into another spacious but minimalistic room. She drew out three cushions from somewhere and Invited us to sit. "I'll get you some tea" she said, then left us alone in the room.

"So," Renko began, once we were alone, "something really weird just happened, right?"

Alice sighed and nodded. It seemed even for Gensokyo, this was unexpected. We had been in the Forest of Magic one moment, and in the garden of a mansion in the Netherworld the next. By the sound of it, that's not even somewhere any of us should have been able to go.

"Hey Renko, when we travelled from the forest to this place, did that feel at all familiar to you?"

"Yeah, I know what you mean. It was just like when we travelled from my great-aunt's room, right?"

I nodded. It hadn't been my imagination. That same strange, eye-filled rift, the non-place between all boundaries that was neither one side nor the other—that had been the same disorienting nothingness we had travelled through on our trip from the Scientific Century to our current situation in Gensokyo.

"So that must be what it feels like to go through a rift then."

"I don't understand how it could have happened though. I haven't seen any natural rifts between borders anywhere since we came here. Every boundary is impossibly stable. Do you really think we're in a different world now? One outside of Gensokyo?"

"Technically speaking, yes. The Netherworld is not a part of Gensokyo, but it's not the Outside World either." It was Alice who had responded, unexpectedly.

"So Gensokyo isn't really an isolated world then?"

"Only from the rest of your world. It's connected to numerous other planes of existence. The celestial Heavens, the Netherworld, Higan, the various Hells..." she listed them off on her fingers. "I'm even from Makai originally, myself."

"I see, so while it is a separate world, you could say that we're closer to Gensokyo here than we would be in the Outside world, right?"

"That's right. Going from Gensokyo to the Outside World is very difficult, but going from Gensokyo to somewhere like Makai is simple."

Did that mean that even though we're in a different world, the same logic that underpins Gensokyo operates here, I wondered? If Gensokyo was like a world contained within a dome then what were these other worlds? Would they be like additional domes beside the first one? Or were they all superimposed over top of one another in layers? At any rate, all of them were cut off from the Outside World, so presumably the same laws governing reality operated here as did in Gensokyo. Probably.

Even with these worlds being more closely connected than Gensokyo and the Outside world though, that didn't explain how we moved from one to the other. That would still require some outside force to bridge the barriers between the two, shouldn't it?

"There's a lot of interesting things going on here." Renko agreed. "That lady appears to be the one who's stealing Gensokyo's spring, but we don't know why yet. Then there's the matter of who brought us here, and why?"

"When you get right down to it," Alice said dryly, "there's probably only one person who could have instantly taken us out of the forest like that and deposited us here of all places."

"Exactly. My guess for who would be this rumored Merry look-alike. The so-called Youkai Sage. The lady of the house did mention she had heard about us from Yukari, after all."

I considered Renko's theory. Ran said that Yukari was 'retired' for the winter, but it wasn't clear what that meant exactly. Moreover, it was clearly spring here in the Netherworld. If the Youkai Sage lived here, then they might already have arisen or returned from whatever state prevented them from acting in the winter.

"How would the sage have known where to find us though? Are you suggesting she's watching us?"

"Possibly. Ran would likely have reported having met a lookalike in the human village to her if they're in contact."

"Are you saying this is all my fault?"

"Well they're probably as curious about you as we are about them. They could even be watching us right now." Renko stood up and began hopping on one foot, waving her arms and shouting at the ceiling. "Hey! Hey! Miss all-knowing Youkai Sage, are you watching us? We're over heeere. Come and say hello!"

I buried my face in my palms. If there were a way to burrow through the boundaries between worlds using only the power of embarrassment, I could be confident Renko would deliver us home in no time. Even here in the Netherworld, surrounded by spirits of the dead, twice removed from anything we could call home, immersed in a mystery and at the mercy of deadly forces with unknown aims, Renko could find time to act like an utter buffoon.

"What are you doing?" Youmu had returned, carrying a tray with tea for everyone. From behind her, Yuyuko, the young lady we had seen earlier emerged, drifting lazily just above the ground.

"Oh whoops, pardon me," Renko returned to her cushion and sat with as much grace as she could manage.

Youmu distributed the mugs of tea. As before, I wondered briefly if eating something from the Netherworld might doom me never to return. The cookies had seemingly been fine to eat in the Kyoto of the Outside World, however, so I tried to banish the thought.

"My my, this is the first time in quite a while that we've had any living guests here other than the Yakumos." As she spoke, her eyes were fixed on me, looking me over appraisingly. "No need to introduce yourselves, Yukari has told me all about you. Her bringing you here was a bit of a surprise, but she asked us to treat you as her guests, so please make yourselves at home. Though it does seem like the puppeteer there might have been an uninvited tag-along, but that's fine all the same."

"Well, I thank you kindly for your hospitality then." Alice said with a curt nod.

Yuyuko's manner of speech was unhurried and oddly mirthful, as if everything playing out before her was a joke the rest of us weren't in on that she was content to casually observe. "Now, it seems the great detective accompanying you has many unanswered questions, isn't that right?"

Yuyuko turned to face Renko, who was already grinning eagerly, raring to begin.

"You bet, I've got a mountain of them," she said.

"You look like you could keep me answering them until morning. Oh well, that might be just the thing for relieving boredom. I'll start by answering the question you haven't asked yet. I am Saigyouji Yuyuko, owner of Hakugyokurouu and Administrator of the Netherworld. Despite my title though, I don't have much work to do here."

"If you don't mind me asking," Renko began, "are you a ghost too, madam?"

"You could think of me that way. I've been like this for a very long time."

"You seem to be fully aware of your state, but not particularly resentful. Do you not have any desire to move on and leave this world behind?"

Yuyuko sighed "That would be impossible for me, I'm afraid. That's why they made me the Administrator of this place."

I wondered if some strong sense of regret or desire might still be tying her to this world. Renko might have had the same thought, as she tilted her head then asked "Do you have any regrets then?"

"I don't remember anything from the time I was alive, so if some unfulfilled desire is what's keeping me here, I can't remember what it was. It doesn't bother me though, as I don't have any particular desire to reach enlightenment. I'm content to remain like this."

She was quite a carefree and easygoing ghost, not at all like one might expect of a spirit bound to the mortal plane. If all ghosts were like her, then centuries of spooky stories would be deprived of their antagonists and humanity would have little cause to fear restless spirits.

"I see," smiled Renko, "if you wish, our detective agency is equipped to investigate the mystery of the cause of your haunting."

"Oh dear, are our visitors just a couple of salesmen?"

"Well, call it a bit of personal interest if you like. Searching for what could be preventing the soul of the Netherworld's Administrator from moving on is exactly the sort of fascinating mystery our agency was founded to pursue. If the mood takes you, just send word to 'Hifuu Detective Agency' in the human village, and leave your conundrum to the brains of the Outsiders." Renko delivered the line as if it were a slogan, with a perfect sales smile. For my part, I didn't expect the villagers would appreciate it if spirits from the Netherworld began filtering into our office.

"You are a most unusual human," Yuyuko laughed softly. "I suspect this is why Yukari is so interested in the two of you."

"On that topic," Renko continued, "the conversation keeps coming back around to this great Youkai Sage we've heard so much about. Who is she, exactly?"

"A very old friend of mine. From the time when I was still living apparently, though I can't remember that myself."

"Well it would seem that this sage is responsible for our being here now, since arriving by normal means would have been impossible for us. Why might she have invited us here, do you think?"

"Hmmm, I wonder. Sometimes I can't understand what Yukari does or why, but my guess would be that there is some important connection between her and Miss Lookalike here." Yuyuko turned to me and inclined her head ever so slightly. Despite everyone's assumptions, I still had no idea whatsoever of how I might have anything to do with this sage.

"Speaking of things done with no discernible reason behind them, why are you ladies gathering up springtime here in the Netherworld?" Renko leaned forward as she asked this, cutting suddenly to the heart of the matter. If her intention had been to catch Yuyuko off guard, however, it missed the mark. The ghost's expression remained as carefree as ever.

"My only intention was to make our cherry tree bloom."

"Ah, by ‘cherry tree', I assume you mean that enormous tree we saw you looking at earlier and not the more mundane trees already in bloom?"

"Yes, our pride and joy here at Hakugyokurou. Saigyou Ayakashi, the youkai cherry tree." As she said this, Yuyuko snapped her fan shut. The smile she had hidden beneath it was cruel and inhumanly sinister. "With the amount of spring we have now though, Saigyou Ayakashi will never reach full bloom, I'm afraid. We must gather a little more to truly see its glory."

"A youkai cherry tree?" Renko asked, with a tilt of her head.

"Ah that's right. You humans had best stay away from it." She thrust the folded fan toward the both of us. "For mortals, being present during the full bloom would mean death."


—14—


"But let us continue this conversation over drinks," Yuyuko had said, after making that ominous proclamation. At that the cushions had been whisked away, snacks and party preparations were laid out and she would say nothing more until we found ourselves seated as if at a flower viewing party, with snacks and sake laid out before us on straw mats that had been spread beneath the sakura lining the stone pathway outside.

Here the cherry blossoms were in full bloom, illuminated by the dim moonlight. The cherry blossoms were swaying quietly in the breeze, every bit as beautiful and as frightening as Kajii Motojiro or Sakaguchi Ango had imagined them to be.

"The Phaigyou Ayakafi ifn't in full bloom yet, fo we fould be able to watch from here--"

"Lady Yuyuko, please don't talk with your mouth full."

Youmu was admonishing Yuyuko while both were kneeling on the mats. Yuyuko had immediately taken to stuffing her face with dango as soon as she had arrived, and was attempting to explain with her cheeks stuffed with food, with no more reservation or dignity than the noble lady of the Scarlet Devil Manor had shown. I was surprised to learn that ghosts in Gensokyo eat food, and more surprised to find that, at least in Yuyuko's case, they did so with tremendous zeal and abandon.

"So Lady Saigyouji, why go to all of this effort to bring the Saigyou Ayakashi to full bloom? Is it just for the purpose of flower-viewing?"

Renko was sitting casually, sipping from the cup of sake that had been poured for her. It was an unusually thick sake, slightly cloudy, with a fragrant sweetness that I had never tasted in alcohol back in Kyoto. I'll admit that I don't have the most discerning palette for sake but this was absolutely delicious and I couldn't help but reach for my cup when I saw Renko drink. Alice was quietly sipping her cup from the corner of the mat, sitting a meter away from anyone else.

Yuyuko gulped heroically, thumping her chest to get the last of the dango down before responding. "The Saigyou Ayakashi has never bloomed in all my memory," she said. "Wouldn't it be nice to see it at least once?"

"So you have no other intention than to simply observe the blossoms once it reaches full bloom?"

"Hmmm, I wonder. Do you suspect something else will happen?" Yuyuko was smiling, but regarding Renko with narrowed eyes. Behind her shoulder, something that looked like a glowing butterfly fluttered upward. It danced in the sky for a moment and was lost among the tumbling cherry blossoms. We had not seen a single living creature beyond ourselves since arriving here, no birds called, and no bugs crawled through the garden. I wondered if it could have been the ghost of a butterfly, or perhaps something else entirely.

"I was merely wondering. After all, where we are sitting right now we are surrounded by a magnificent plethora of cherry blossoms already."

"I'm glad you think so, but for me these are the same cherry trees I've seen for hundreds of years now. There's no reason to hide it though, so I suppose I may as well tell you the full story."

Yuyuko floated up to a standing position then over to one of the cherry trees and laid her hand against its trunk. "It seems," she said, "that someone's corpse is sealed within the Saigyou Ayakashi."

"Sealed within it?"

"Yes. That may be why the tree has never bloomed. I think though, that if we can force the tree to reach full bloom that person would be released, and might come back to life."

"I see. And is the person sealed inside the tree someone you know?"

"No. I have no idea who it is. I found old records indicating that it should be 'Fuijimi's daughter', but that's all they say."

"Fujimi? Written as 不死身? Meaning immortal?"

"No, as 富士見, meaning 'one who looks upon mount Fuji, though it's pronounced the same."

Renko hunched up, burying her chin in her hand as she pondered. As usual, I couldn't imagine what details she was hung up on, but as she had grown silent, I opened my mouth to keep the conversation flowing.

"You said that the Saigyou Ayakashi is a youkai cherry tree. What does that mean, exactly? It doesn't seem to be a person like other youkai we've seen."

"It's a youkai that lures people to their death," she said with a blithe smile.

It was disturbing how she could say something like that so thoughtlessly, though I suppose to a ghost the concept of something that could kill anyone who approached it wasn't particularly frightening. Renko and I had seen it up close earlier though. A shiver coursed its way up my spine.

"I don't know all of the details, but Youki told me that about a thousand years ago, a poet wrote that he wished to die in spring, beneath the flowering branches of a cherry tree. When he got his wish, the poems he wrote inspired many others to do the same, often flocking to the same tree under which he had breathed his last. In time, the stain of all of those deaths tainted the very nature of the tree, and it became a youkai, capable of drawing even more people to it, to die beneath its branches."

"A poet that wanted to die beneath a blooming cherry tree? Saigyou Houshi? Is that why it's called the Saigyou Ayakashi?" I thought back to the poems I had read. '𝘓𝘦𝘵 𝘮𝘦 𝘥𝘪𝘦 𝘪𝘯 𝘴𝘱𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨 / 𝘣𝘦𝘯𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘩 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘣𝘭𝘰𝘴𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘴 𝘢𝘵 𝘒𝘪𝘴𝘢𝘳𝘢𝘨𝘪'𝘴 𝘧𝘶𝘭𝘭 𝘮𝘰𝘰𝘯' was probably his most famous composition. But Saigyou's poetry had fallen into silence beneath the cherry blossoms of Hirokawa-dera temple. That tree had actually existed in the Outside world, and might still be standing for all I knew. How could it be here?

Renko perked up at that story as well, but as usual she seized on a seemingly meaningless detail, ignoring the thrust of the story. "Who is this Youki?" she asked.

It was Youmu who answered this time. "He's my grandfather, and was the groundskeeper here before me for almost 300 years. He left recently, but I remember him saying that he had seen the Saigyou Ayakashi in full bloom more than 1000 years ago, and it had been an awesome sight."

"Youki was a most dependable servant, unlike Youmu." Yuyuko smiled amiably, despite sitting directly beside Youmu as she spoke. "Though he was too stiff for my liking. I wonder where he got off to?"

"Lady Yuyuko, do you really think I'm unreliable? Please don't tease me in front of guests!" Youmu pouted like a child while her master continued to tease her, giggling to herself as Youmu grew increasingly flustered. I didn't know what to say.

"So was this Youki a ghost?" Renko interjected, interrupting Yuyuko's fun.

"Huh? No, he was a half-phantom, just like me." Youmu responded then went back to sulkily glaring at Yuyuko. Renko meanwhile had retreated back into consideration. I couldn't imagine what was bothering her so —unlike Patchouli during the previous incident, Yuyuko had been very open and direct with us.

Alice, who had been sitting silently and apart from the rest of us until this point, suddenly stood up and walked over to Youmu. "Half-phantom..." she muttered. "So which half is really you? The human or the ghost?" She asked in an accusatory tone. I wondered if the sake we had been provided with was getting to her.

"I'm partly each, both halves are part of my body."

"So do you control that wisp, or does it have a will of its own?"

"Well, I sort of...."

"Your human body doesn't seem to have any trouble expressing its will, what about the other half?"

"Well that part can't talk."

Alice reached out her hand and gently ran a finger along the surface of the wispy blob hovering just above Youmu. "What about this, can you feel it?"

"Fuwaaah! Don't touch me without permission!" She shivered like someone had dropped an ice cube down her back.

"Oh, my apologies. So you share sensations with it then?"

"Oh dear," Yuyuko giggled. "Youki would have never let anyone get close enough to touch his spirit half, with his constant vigilance and murderous presence. Is it ticklish, I wonder?"

Youmu scooted away from the others and scooped the phantom into her arms, clutching it like an oversized stuffy as she pouted. "Then I won't either. Don't touch it. I'll master being just as vigilant."

Renko, who had ignored the whole scene, suddenly lifted her head and locked eyes with Yuyuko, a serious expression on her face. "Lady Saigyouji, would it be possible for me to look at the old records concerning the Saigyou Ayakashi?"


—15—


The cherry blossom viewing party came to an end not long after that, as soon as everyone had had their fill of eating dango under the drifting petals. For Yuyuko, this took longer than the others, but I suspect that had more to do with an appreciation for dango than a fondness for flowers. Alice declared that she was going to lay down for a bit, and was shown to a guest room. After seeing her off, Youmu led us to the records room of Hakugyokurou.

"I wonder why Alice hasn't tried to go home yet? If she's been here before then she must have a way back and this time she was brought here against her will." I mused as we walked along.

"That's a good point," Renko replied while twirling her hat around her finger. "She doesn't seem overly upset about being here at all, so I suspect being here is somehow convenient for her. She might have some scheme of her own that she's working on."

I couldn't imagine how that could be, but I assume Renko had already dreamed up some convoluted theory about it. "Renko, what are you thinking about?"

"Hmm? Me? Various things. All sorts of things. More and more things, and more by the moment. There's a lot going on here."

"Could you give me an example?"

"Do you really expect an answer?"

"No, but I can hardly play my role as your Watson if I don't provide you with an opportunity to make an astonishing revelation every now and then, right?"

"Oh, that's very thoughtful of you, Merry. On that topic though —Miss Youmu?" Renko stopped walking and called to get Youmu's attention before she could leave us behind.

"Yes?"

"I just wanted to ask, what is it you usually do for your mistress, in your work here at Hakugyokurou?"

"I'm a groundskeeper. I prune trees, I weed, and if anyone intrudes, I chase them away."

"So you don't see yourself as a bodyguard?"

"Bodyguarding is a part of the job. I'm also supposed to be a swordsmanship instructor but... well, Lady Yuyuko has never even held a sword."

I wondered if work like that could really be enough to keep someone busy. I wouldn't think Youmu would get many intruders here. She couldn't possibly be using those swords to prune trees and weed, could she?

"So then having a pair of intruders like us show up is a rare event then?"

"I would have liked to have been told ahead of time if Lady Yakumo was planning on sending guests to stay with us." She sighed. As someone who had almost been cut to ribbons after surprising Youmu I could only agree.

"Speaking of whom," Renko continued, brushing the topic aside. "This look-alike of my partner's, the Youkai Sage, what kind of person is the mysterious Yakumo Yukari? Or perhaps I should say, what kind of youkai is she?"

In response to Renko's question, Youmu's eyes darted about uncertainly. "I... I never know when she might be listening or what she might be watching..." She hurried a step closer to Renko and beckoned her in. We both leaned down to listen.

"She looks like Merry, but her personality is quite contrary"

"What does that mean?" I asked.

"Judging from the fact she's whispering, I think it means she may not be the sort of person it's safe to talk about." Renko whispered in response.

Youmu nodded thankfully then continued in a tense, rapid whisper. "You never know what she's thinking at all. She'll show up unannounced and disappear similarly without warning. She says all sorts of confusing things that don't make sense. Most of the time, she's just here to eat and gossip with Lady Yuyuko though."

"What about Ran?" I asked.

"The nine-tailed shikigami? She shows up sometimes with Yukari. She's okay to talk to at least so I'm glad when she's present."

I recalled that Akyuu had said the same thing. Perhaps she and Youmu were kindred spirits in that they were both the servants of unpredictable masters.

A thought suddenly struck me. "One more question, Miss Youmu?"

"Yes?"

"It's about my look-alike... When we were sent to this place, it seemed like there was suddenly a hole in space filled with eyes, then it swallowed us up and--"

"Oh, that was definitely the work of Lady Yakumo then. She's a youkai who can manipulate boundaries."

"Manipulate boundaries?"

Renko was looking at me, wide-eyed. I instinctively moved my hand towards my eyes. These eyes of mine that were always able to see cracks in the boundaries of the world. Our Hifuu Club had been founded with the goal of using them to peer beyond the limits of our world. But how could it be that an ability as bizarre as mine could find its twin in another world, belonging to someone who looked just like me?

"Hey Merry?"

"What?"

"Do you think this Youkai Sage might actually be you?"

"What? How could that be? You know exactly where I've been since we both came here last year!"

"Well, in your dreams, you seem to have come to this world before, and at different time periods, at least once you seem to have arrived in a bamboo forest hundreds of years in the past."

"Even if I did, I'm still here right now and I have been since before we arrived. How could I be her?"

"Well, I'll admit. Going back in time and then meeting your past or future self is pure science fiction right out of a plot from the last century. This isn't a Tadashi Hirose story." Renko scratched her head for a moment. I couldn't deny that when we came to this world, we seemed to have slipped back more than 80 years, and notes I remembered having written were found hundreds of years ago and kept by the Hieda clan. "As impossible as it may seem, the answer to this mystery might be closely related to the root cause of our having come to this world. If this Youkai Sage is your look-alike and has abilities similar to yours, but more developed, then the most likely explanation would be that she must be you. Or a version of you from a different timeline or a past life. Or a relative of yours. Or something."

"Even still though…"

Renko pushed her hat back and massaged the bridge of her nose. "Agh. I've got a lot to think about right now, I don't know if I have time to figure out all the different mysteries. Let's put any questions involving the Youkai Sage aside for now. If she really is interfering with us directly then she's bound to try to make contact soon."

With our conversation cut short, I was left in a state of limbo, with nothing to do but ponder my situation. I wondered why Akyuu hadn't told us about the nature of the Youkai Sage's abilities, but I supposed I could only blame myself for not asking, preoccupied as I had been with Ran at the time. I closed my eyes and took a steadying breath.

I could remember when I first began to see rifts in the boundaries of the world. Seeing mysterious things that no one else could had been a part of my life since I was a child. Once I realized that no one else could see the things I could, I kept my abilities hidden for a long time, even from my family.

Renko's the only one who ever told me she envied my abilities to see boundaries. She often jokingly calls my eyes creepy, but back when we were talking about the moon tour, she had said she envied me for being able to see so many mysterious worlds, and she seemed genuine. In Kyoto, the two of us had searched for rifts together and I had even shared the visions I had seen of the worlds within them with Renko by covering her eyes with my hand.

How in the world did I end up with this ability? It was a question I had often asked as a child, but had long since discarded, thinking the answer would be meaningless. Now it once again was on my mind. Could there be any meaning to my having been born with these eyes? Was my coming to Gensokyo preordained? If I had come here as a result of falling into a rift in Usami Sumireko's room, then where did the lines of cause and effect intersect? How far back did the Youkai Sage's manipulation of my life go?

"This is it," Youmu announced, drawing to a halt before an unmarked door.

Our conversation was cut short as Youmu ushered us into a dusty storehouse-like room lined with wooden shelves and countless cubbyholes. Each of the many cubbies held an old book bound in the traditional Japanese style, with thick, smooth pages punched through with cord and tied. It looked like the vault at the Heida manor, stacked floor to ceiling with more of the same shelves, nearly all of them full.

"It's rather dark in here, so please be careful." The smell of old paper was in the air as Youmu lit the lantern she had brought. I wondered just what sort of records exactly might fill the archives of the Netherworld.

"Lady Yuyuko had said that she left them out somewhere..." Youmu muttered.

"Have you read the records she was talking about, Youmu?" Renko asked as she picked up a random book and flipped through it.

"No. One day Lady Yuyuko came in and said 'it appears someone is sealed inside the Saigyou Ayakashi, so please go and collect spring.'"

Those seemed like awfully vague instructions to me. How was one supposed to ‘collect spring,' exactly?

"Is this it?"

Renko was pointing to a book that had been left open on a desktop bookstand. It was so old the paper was brittle and yellowing, to the point where it looked like just picking it up might cause it to crumble to pieces.

"Oh yes, that must be it. It's dark in here, so let me bring it to the guest room for you. Lady Yuyuko already gave me permission to remove it."

After leading us to a guest room, and setting down the bookstand, Youmu had bid us goodnight and walked off. As she left, I watched her phantom half twist and flutter in the air behind her, wondering what it felt like to have half your body floating around disconnected.

"Merry, are you coming?"

Two futons had already been laid out for us. Laying in one of them, Renko had positioned the lantern near the bookstand and was staring at the weathered paper.

"What does it say?" I asked as I took my place beside her.

"Hmmm, it's an ancient document, with really archaic writing. I wish Keine were here, she'd be able to read it right away. You think you can decipher it Merry?"

I smiled a little. Every now and then it's nice for Renko to have a reminder that there are some things her analytical mind can't instantly solve. Any student regardless of major had to take at least a first year course on the basics of reading archaic Japanese, but that had been more than a year ago for both of us and this document was both badly weathered and lettered by hand, with delicate brushstrokes that looked more like worms strewn on the page than any sort of modern typeface.

"Right," I said hesitantly, trying to find somewhere to begin. "We know we're looking for something about 'Fujimi's daughter' so let's look for that, at least." A great many of the characters were kanji I had never seen before, or drawn in ways unfamiliar to me at least. If Keine had been here, she would have been able to estimate the age of the document by the style of the writing. I should have asked her to follow us back when we left the village.

Sighing, I gingerly gripped the brittle paper and turned the page as carefully as possible, willing the sheet not to crumble as I did so.

"Oh! There it is!"

Renko was jutting a finger at the page I just flipped to, restraining herself from prodding the paper. I nodded as I found the string of characters. The text was difficult, with parts of each character obscured by the aging paper and no spaces between words or sentences, but with enough review, I could begin to guess at a translation. "Ummm let's see... Fujimi's daughter... beneath the Saigyou Ayakashi in full bloom... parts the boundary between light and darkness."

"Does that just mean she died?" Renko asked.

"It seems quite poetic. Now let me concentrate. 'Then she went to...'"

After some time, I was able to read the following text:

𝘖𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘥𝘢𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘚𝘢𝘪𝘨𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘈𝘺𝘢𝘬𝘢𝘴𝘩𝘪 𝘩𝘢𝘥 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘥 𝘧𝘶𝘭𝘭 𝘣𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘮, 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘥𝘢𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘰𝘧 𝘍𝘶𝘫𝘪𝘮𝘪 𝘤𝘳𝘰𝘴𝘴𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘢𝘳𝘺 𝘰𝘧 𝘭𝘪𝘧𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘥𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘩. 𝘚𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘴𝘰𝘶𝘭 𝘮𝘢𝘺 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘵 𝘪𝘯 𝘱𝘦𝘢𝘤𝘦 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯 𝘏𝘢𝘬𝘶𝘨𝘺𝘰𝘬𝘶𝘳𝘰𝘶, 𝘐 𝘴𝘩𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘴𝘦𝘢𝘭 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘵𝘳𝘦𝘦'𝘴 𝘣𝘭𝘰𝘴𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘣𝘺 𝘧𝘢𝘴𝘩𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘴𝘦 𝘭𝘪𝘮𝘣𝘴 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘰 𝘢 𝘣𝘢𝘳𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘳. 𝘐𝘵 𝘪𝘴 𝘮𝘺 𝘩𝘰𝘱𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘴𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘯𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘢𝘨𝘢𝘪𝘯 𝘳𝘦𝘪𝘯𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘯𝘢𝘵𝘦, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘶𝘴 𝘯𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘢𝘨𝘢𝘪𝘯 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘶𝘧𝘧𝘦𝘳 𝘱𝘢𝘪𝘯...

Beyond that, the characters disappeared into a jagged tear in the page, where age had crumbled the paper into dust. Reviewing the string of characters we looked at each other.

"Hey Renko, do you think that..."

"Yeah, that's what I was worried about ever since I first heard her story."

Renko groaned and covered her mouth with her hand, lost in thought. The text I was able to read was difficult and poetic, but its message was impossible to ignore. A girl, resting in peace at Hakugyokurou, never to reincarnate. —There could be only one conclusion.

"So the person sealed in the Saigyou Ayakashi is Yuyuko herself?"