東方プロジェクト二次小説・オリジナル小説サイト
Chapter 5:Mountain of Faith

—13—


"Well, well, well. Might I presume that you would be the true, secret god worshiped here at the Moriya shrine?" Renko asked, looking up at the silhouette atop the pillar and easing her hat back on her head.

"The ‘true god?’ There’s no way you heard that from Kanako. Who are you two?" the silhouette asked.

"Just garden-variety human visitors from the Outside World. My name is Usami Renko. This is my partner, Merry."

"It's Maéreverie Hearn, actually."

"Outsiders? That must be why Sanae was so excited then. I suppose that makes sense. If we came all the way here, then others must have too. I suppose that's a stroke of luck for Sanae, I was worried she'd be all alone here." The tone that the shadow atop the pole responded with almost sounded like she had come to a decision regarding the situation.

"Well, since we've found you now, would you mind coming down so we can have a look at you?" Renko asked.

"Oh, pardon me, it's been so long since any human has come to see me I've forgotten my manners." All at once the shadow sprung from the top of the Onbashira before landing lightly directly in front of us. "Welcome to the 𝑡𝑟𝑢𝑒 Moriya Shrine. In honor of Sanae having met two new friends, I'll overlook your trespass and forgo the cursing"

Lady Yasaka had worn an unusual outfit that marked her as someone special the moment you laid eyes on her. I suppose the same could be said of this god, but the effect was entirely different. She appeared to be a girl a head shorter than either of us, but with an air about her that was closer to that of a kind, if slightly mischievous, old granny. Though her face was unlined, her eyes held an unspeakably deep wisdom to them. She wore a simple dress that looked like it must have come from the Outside World, as it had a pair of cartoonish frogs screen printed onto the material. By far the most noticeable and alarming aspect of her outfit was her hat, however. It was a tall, sloped thing of woven bamboo surmounted by a pair of glassy white ornaments with black cores that looked almost exactly like fist-sized eyeballs.

The goddess looked us over, with the sort of appraising look that would have been at home on the face of an old woman examining produce at a market. "So what is it that you two were hoping to find behind those seals and wards in the dead of night? I can't imagine that Kanako let you back here."

"My apologies for entering without permission. I suspected that behind this seal was where the true god of this shrine was kept and I simply wanted to confirm that suspicion, I mean you no disrespect."

"You said you were from the Outside World. Do you happen to know of our shrine from there?"

"Well, I know that at the Suwa Grand Shrine the god they outwardly venerate is Takeminakata, a deity who was thought to have come to Suwa from elsewhere back in antiquity. It's said that the people indigenous to the area still worshiped an older, native god of the land, one who wasn't spoken of to outsiders. A Mishaguji, I think it was."

I had heard the story before. The worship of the native god of the Suwa region was a religion that had fallen mostly out of practice. Supposedly the Suwa Grand Shrine had originally been built to worship Mishaguji but then switched to the worship of Takeminakita after that god had invaded the Suwa region and defeated the shrine's patron deity. If that story was accurate, then as the true form of Takeminakata, Kanako would be the outside, publicly visible god of this shrine and this girl would have been the original native god, sealed behind these wards.

"So, do I have it right?" Renko asked boldly, "Are you the god known as Mishaguji?"

"It's something like that," the goddess replied. "Suffice to say I handed control of this shrine over to Kanako and retreated back here to the true shrine willingly a long time ago."

"Hah! Well in that case I should greet you properly." With almost comical exaggeration, Renko bowed twice, clapped twice and bowed again, like a worshiper on New Year’s. I followed suit in a bit of a panic.

To my surprise, the goddess laughed happily. "Oh, you even have proper manners! Even in the Outside World that's rare nowadays. That's not necessary though. If you're one of Sanae's friends then I welcome you just as I'm sure Kanako must have. I am Moriya Suwako."

"Suwako? As in lake Suwa?"

"As in the whole Suwa region. I'm the native goddess of those lands, though we've left them far behind now thanks to Kanako. Coming here was something she decided more or less on her own," she said, crossing her arms and pouting. Suwako didn't seem upset by the idea of not being the primary god of this shrine, but the idea of leaving the Suwa region seemed to be a bit of a sore spot. I wondered exactly what kind of a relationship she and Kanako had.

"Well, that's all in the past anyway," she continued, waving her hand dismissively. "Right now the most important thing to worry about is how Sanae is getting along. Your names were Renko and Merry, right? I hope you'll be good friends to her. She needs to make connections with the people of this world, and find peers who will understand her. Sanae is... a special girl. It can be hard for her to make friends."

"Well, if Sanae doesn't mind, I'd be happy to call her a friend. I'd like to know all about her, and about her gods too for that matter," Renko continued. "Speaking of which, let's talk about you."

"About me? I'm not like Kanako, you know. Are you sure you want to get to know a curse goddess?" The smile that lit up Suwako's face at that statement seemed inhumanly cruel. It was the first real reminder I had had that the being in front of us was not a human.

Renko didn't flinch for a moment. "Of course!" She replied with a smile. "Lady Yasaka and yourself both seem to be Sanae's guardians. It's only proper that if we're going to be her friends we should get to know her family too."

At those words Suwako turned away from us, taking a step to look out over the surface of the lake instead. "Her family..." she muttered. "I wonder if, had Sanae met someone like you two in the Outside world, things might have turned out differently?"

Suwako's question faded into the inky night, unanswered. At the time we had no way of knowing its meaning.


—14—


"There you are! What are you two doing here!?"

A loud voice resonated along the stones of the pathway, cutting through the silence of the night. We turned around to see two forms flying through the air and while it was too dark to make out their faces, I didn't need to in order to know who they were.

"Ah, hello Sanae. Oh, is Kanako with you too?"

Sanae landed softly on the stone pathway, a gust of wind swirling out to cushion her descent. Kanako was right behind her. The expression on Sanae's face was utter confusion, but Kanako's glare was much less forgiving.

"Were you two unable to sleep? How did you end up here?" Sanae asked.

"How, indeed," Kanako asked, looming over us. "The barriers I placed here should be both impenetrable and invisible to humans."

I couldn't help but flinch away under her glare. As I did, Renko stepped forward, removing her hat and scratching at her head. "Ah, sorry about that. I was merely curious about why someone would have placed a barrier over those pillars going out into the water and wondered what was inside it."

"Wondering is one thing, how did you get in? How did you even know it was there, for that matter?"

"Well, it just so happens that my partner is something like a living boundary detector. She's very skilled, and if the barrier has even a little gap, well, she just pops right in." Renko said that with a smile, pushing me towards Kanako with both arms and a wide smile on her face.

"Wait a minute, Renko. Don't pin this on me! This was your idea! Besides, I'm not your human boundary detector. If you're going to call me that, I should start referring to you as some sort of inconvenient watch that only works at night."

"That's not fair, Merry! You're forgetting about my GPS function."

"...It seems the both of you possess some unusual abilities."

"What should we do Lady Kanako?" Sanae asked nervously. "You were planning on keeping Lady Suwako a secret, right?"

Kanako sighed and looked down at us, glaring as she crossed her arms. "I suppose it would only be natural to assume this sort of thing would be inevitable. These two already seemed to have some dim idea that there was a hidden god in this shrine from their familiarity with the Suwa Grand Shrine of the Outside world. As you can see, Suwako Moriya is the original god of this shrine. I would ask, however, that you keep her existence a secret."

Renko chuckled, smiling up into Kanako's glower. "Well that's fine, I suppose, but why the secrecy?"

"Although you are friends of Sanae's, you are still visitors to this shrine. I have no obligation to reveal the mysteries of this place to the uninitiated. I advise you not to press the matter further unless you want to end up cursed."

It was a flat and wildly suspicious denial, but delivered in a voice with such dignity and confidence that as mortal humans we had little choice but to accept.

"There's no need to be so harsh on them, Kanako," Suwako said from behind us. "They didn't cause any harm just by being here. In fact, they were a welcome distraction. I was bored just sitting here. No one even invited me to dinner."

"Sorry about that, Lady Suwako" Sanae mumbled with a pained expression.

"No need for 𝑦𝑜𝑢 to apologize, Sanae. Kanako told you not to invoke me, right?"

"Of course I did. We can't let visitors know of your existence."

"Well maybe, but these aren't just any shrine visitors. These are Sanae's friends. That makes this like a little festival for our family, and even the hidden treasures of the true shrine get brought out for festivals!"

"Don't be ridiculous Suwako, it wasn't a festival."

"There was a feast, wasn't there? And a celebration! You know how hard a time Sanae has making new friends! You should have invoked me to help make these newcomers feel welcome! I could have baked Sanae’s favorite cake! I’m as much of a parent to Sanae as you are but you always exclude me from making decisions involving her! I demand an apology! And compensation! And sukiyaki! I know you ate some!"

"Hey, Suwako, can we do this later? There are potential worshippers here."

With one enormous bounding leap, Suwako sprang over us to land between Renko and Kanako, waving her arms as she shouted up at the goddess.

"Oh yes, the last thing you'd want is to look bad in front of worshippers. You wouldn’t want them to ever think of you as anything less than the perfect divine ideal of a parent. Well I'm as much her mother as you are! Sanae finally brought home some friends for the first time and you don't even think to introduce me! I ought to curse you! I should make frogs sing at your bedside for three days!"

"Lady Suwako please, you're embarrassing me," Sanae pleaded, tugging at Suwako's sleeve.

Somehow the scene that had looked like it was about to end in a divine condemnation a moment ago had turned into a heartwarming domestic squabble right out of a sitcom. Even in the darkness of the night I could see the blush on Sanae's face as she looked away from the feuding goddesses, mortified.

"Alright, alright. It hardly matters now that they've seen you anyway, and they certainly aren't going to forget about it now. I'll call you for breakfast in the morning and you can meet them before I take them home."

Suwako had been leaning forward on her tiptoes as she shouted but suddenly stopped, rolling back onto her heels and smiling up at Kanako. "Really?" she asked.

"Really. For now though, these three should all head back to bed. Young girls shouldn't be wandering around at night, even on sacred grounds. I'll overlook your trespass into the true shrine, so please just get some sleep. You've still got an early morning tomorrow. Sanae, can you show them the way back?"

"Oh, sure. Of course. Thank you Lady Yasaka, thank you, Lady Moriya. Please excuse me."

She delivered the briefest flash of a bow, then turned and hustled back up the path.

"Oh, uh, please excuse us too," I said, tossing off a quick but deep bow and making sure Renko did the same before we turned to follow Sanae. Behind us I could still hear Suwako complaining about something while Kanako tried to calm her down.

—

"Remind me not to follow you into the hidden domain of a secret god ever again Renko. What would you have done if we had gotten cursed?"

"Figured out some way to deal with it I guess. It didn't happen though, so no reason to worry about it, right?"

As always, what passed for planning in my partner's mind was little more than senseless bravado and a reliance on dumb luck. As I sighed she was grinning, staring up at the stars as we walked.

Ahead of us Sanae turned her head, talking to us over her shoulder. "You guys really surprised me, wandering off in the night like that. I woke up when I heard you leave, but I thought you were just going to the bathroom."

"Ah, I am sorry about that, but I did warn you we're the curious type. Could you perhaps overlook it as just a club activity conducted at your shrine?"

"I don't think even occult clubs usually try to sneak into something like an innermost shrine that's protected by wards."

"Well, we didn't know that's what was behind the barrier. We were just conducting our investigation of Gensokyo's newest mystery spot, the Moriya Shrine!"

Sanae giggled softly at that. "As long as Lady Kanako and Lady Suwako don't mind, it's fine. You ought to be careful though. Despite how she looks, Lady Suwako really is a curse goddess. Walking into her home unannounced in the middle of the night is risky."

"Well, she doesn't look like something out of a Yokomizo novel, I'll admit. She was pretty cute for a curse goddess, has she always looked like that?"

"Gods appear as they wish to appear. Faith is about more than what can be seen with the eyes."

At least in Gensokyo that certainly seemed to be true. How else could you explain the curse god we had met further down the mountain who dressed in gothic lolita style?

"So being a dangerous curse god explains why Lady Moriya is sealed behind that barrier, I guess?"

"What? No, she isn't trapped in there or anything. It's just that when we came to this world we wanted to try gaining faith through Lady Kanako's blessings, rather than out of fear of Lady Suwako's curses. We were planning on having her stay in the innermost shrine and work behind the scenes until we had settled in a bit and had built up a reputation. Sorry for hiding it from you."

"No, I’m sorry for exposing it, in that case. So Lady Yasaka took the shrine over from Lady Moriya, but now the three of you run this place together. You all even seem to get along pretty well."

"We do. Lady Suwako is really nice, despite being a curse god. She's been looking after me and Lady Kanako for as long as I can remember, though she might deny being nice if you asked her. She likes having a scary reputation."

"So those two really are like parents to you then."

"Yes. I've been able to see and speak to them since I was a baby, and they've always watched over me. I know it's not typical but we think of each other as family and we always will." Sanae's smile as she answered Renko was utterly without guile or regret, shining as bright as the moon that hung in the cloudless sky.


—15—


When we came into the dining room early the next morning, Suwako was already sitting at the table, eager anticipation written on her face beneath the staring eyes of her hat.

"Sanaaae, hurry it up, I'm hungry!"

"Oh, Lady Suwako! Just a moment, it’s almost ready."

"Suwako if you're that hungry you can help out in the kitchen. We don't want our guests to think you're a lazy goddess, right?" Kanako said from her seat beside Suwako.

"So says the goddess who tried to pretend I didn’t exist yesterday. She told you she was the only god here, didn’t she, Renko?"

"Oh, um, it might have been something like that. Merry, what do you think?"

"Me? Don’t put me in the middle of the argument, Renko!"

"Here you go," Sanae said, hustling in from the kitchen. "We’re having blessed rice porridge"

"Blessed porridge? Does that make it any better than regular porridge?"

"It’ll bring you good luck. Or at least good gut health."

"Mostly the latter," Suwako said as she raised the spoon to her mouth. "Don’t take that for granted though, health is quite the blessing."

"Eat up you two, we still have to get you back to the village before work, right?"

"Yes, go ahead and help yourselves."

"Don’t mind if I do! This omelet looks good!" Suwako's chopsticks darted forward in a blur, snatching a rolled egg before the dish could even be set down.

"Suwako, that was my omelet!"

"Then you should have been quicker! A god who doesn't guard the treasures in their charge is sure to lose them!" She opened her mouth and swallowed the omelet in one enormous bite. "Ahhh, the first one to eat wins, Kanako."

Kanako sighed heavily. "Suwako, please try to show at least a little grace in front of our guests."

"Don’t mind her, you two. Take some of everything while there’s still some left."

"Thank you very much, we appreciate all of your hospitality," Renko said, beaming. "Here, Merry. I grabbed you some miso and an omelet."

"Thank you, Renko. Oh, this is delicious!" I said around my chopsticks as Renko piled more food on my plate.

"They came out nicely today, didn't they? I'm very proud of them."

"Sanae, can you pass me the soy sauce?"

"Here you go. Lady Kanako, do you want any of the burdock?"

"Leave some for me, I'll get it when I’m ready, Sanae. You go ahead and enjoy your meal."

All in all it was the same sort of lively conversation as one might have found around any family table at breakfast. It would have been easy to forget that this was not a normal family and instead a wind priestess and the two goddesses she served that we were eating with. Perhaps in Gensokyo facts like that are not enough for this situation to be considered abnormal though. Thus far we had met demons, flying humans, monsters, aliens, ghosts and gods. As far as I knew, all of them ate breakfast. For all I knew the same scene might be playing out at Hakugyokurou, Eientei or the Scarlet Devil Mansion right now.

"Merry, you're grinning from ear to ear. Do you really like Sanae’s tamagoyaki that much?"

"Hmm? Oh, no, though these eggs are certainly good."

"Well, what is it that's got you smiling then?" Renko asked, giving me a nudge.

I slurped at my miso soup, exhaling a cloud of hot breath before answering. "I was just thinking how nice it is to be sitting around a family dining table enjoying a lively meal."

"I'm hurt, Merry! Are you saying meals with just me are boring? As bad as being alone? Now you'll have to eat with a sad Renko, that'll be even worse."

"Oh come on, you know I didn't mean it like that."

"No? Oh, is this your way of proposing to me then? We could start a family together and have a dozen little Renkos and Merrys running about, wouldn't that be fun?"

"Don't say something like that in public! Why are you like this?" I said, giving her a smack on the back of the head.

"Ah, you'd rather I save that sort of discussion for when we're alone then. I gotcha, Merry," she said with a lascivious wink.

My next smack caught her while she was drinking her soup and Renko dissolved into a spasm of spluttering coughs.

Sanae and the others laughed, with Sanae commenting happily. "Renko, I had no idea you and Merry were so close."

Before coming to Gensokyo, I had been alone in Japan. I had no close friends other than Renko and no relatives anywhere in this country. I didn't even have a pet. Since coming to Gensokyo I had enjoyed the few occasions we had had to gather around a table with Keine and Mokou and their friends. More than nearly anything else, the feeling of eating surrounded by friends may be the greatest gift I’ve gained since coming to Gensokyo. It was a feeling that I hadn't felt in a long time, surrounded by people who didn't see me as a stranger or even as strange. It felt like having a family, but with Renko as a part of it. Was that such a terrible thing to want?

—

"I know it's quite a trip to get here, but I hope you'll come visit us again."

"Thank you very much for your hospitality. I'd love to do just that, should we get the opportunity."

"Thank you for having us. I apologize for any trouble Renko may have caused."

"No harm done, and thank you for teaching Sanae about Gensokyo!"

"Alright, let's get going. Take my hands and hold on tight."

After breakfast, Suwako and Kanako had come as far as the shrine's Torii to see us off. Standing between us, Sanae took our hands and the three of us once more sailed into the sky, carried on a buffeting cushion of fierce wind, just like before. The air was crisp and clear, and beneath us all of Youkai Mountain was arrayed in the beautiful colors of autumn. If not for the constant threat of our hats being blown off or our skirts being blown up around our shoulders, it would have been idyllic.

"Thank you both for coming," Sanae said as the scenery rolled past. "It's been a while since I've seen Lady Kanako and Lady Suwako both looking so happy.

"Oh? Was that happy for them?"

"Very much so. Ignore the bickering, they're always like that. Before they came here they were under a lot of stress about all kinds of different things. Since we came here... well they still fight, but I think that's just because they're worried about me, even though I've told them countless times that I came here because I wanted to too." She added this last sentence with a grumble that faded into a pout.

If anything, the goddesses' overprotectiveness and Sanae's reaction to it only made the three of them seem more like a family. Divinity and its implications aside, there's no mother anywhere who doesn't fret over their child's wellbeing, and no child of Sanae's age who doesn't find their concern annoying.

"I do hope you'll come visit us again soon. Our doors are always open to worshippers."

"Well, I'd like to, but the mountain isn't easy to climb, and I don't think the tengu would let us cross through their territory."

"I could come and get you and bring you up the mountain."

"Why don't you plan to come and visit us at our office instead?"

"Oh, would that be okay?"

"Of course. Or better yet, bring us a mystery to solve!"

"A priestess of a remote mountain shrine paying a visit to a detective's office. It sounds like the start of a murder mystery."

"Please don't feel obligated to commit a murder just to see us again. Besides, you're probably the only person living at that shrine who could be killed, Sanae."

In the short time it had taken us to discuss such things we had made it as far as the cemetery north of town. Sanae descended here and we watched as the wind she expelled kicked up a tiny cyclone of dust and whirling leaves as our feet touched down.

"Are you sure you don’t want me to fly you closer?"

"It’s fine, if we hurry, we should be there before the first bell. Thank you for everything, Sanae, we'll see you around."

"It was my pleasure. Tell everyone about Moriya Shrine, okay? Goodbye!"

Sanae was rising back into the air even as she waved at us, accelerating away towards the mountain. Renko and I turned and hurried toward the gate and into town.

We stopped by home just long enough to grab our teaching materials before running over to the school and arriving mere minutes before the first bell. Renko had her advanced math class first thing this morning and I was scheduled to teach Japanese to the lower class at the same time. Most of the children were already seated in the classroom.

"Oh there you are!" Keine called to us as we came into the staff room. "You two are cutting it close. I was about to ring the bell and call both classes together so I could try to make up a lesson for both of them. Did you oversleep or something?"

"Yes, sorry, real late night last night," Renko said, as she dropped off her materials at her desk and turned around to head back out the door.. As she passed me by she gave me a wink. It seemed the two of us had made it back safely, if only barely.

"Night is the time of youkai, not teachers, Renko. You're doing the children a disservice if you can't be ready in time for class!" Keine said just as Renko reached the door to the hall.

"Thanks, I'll keep that in mind!" Renko replied before darting down the hallway toward her classroom.

I made my way to my own classroom as well, doing my best to pretend I didn't feel Keine's glare boring a hole in the back of my head as I did.

—

"Bye, Miss Merry, bye Miss Renko!"

"Yes, goodbye. See you tomorrow."

"Hey, don't forget that homework!"

"Alright, good work today, you two. Gather up anything you need, I'm going to lock up the school."

"Are you off to the neighborhood watch office now, Miss Keine?"

"Yes, the harvest festival preparations keep us busy this time of year."

"The village is lucky to have you working so hard to keep everyone safe."

"Well thank you, but if you think so, please show it by trying not to make me worry all the time."

I scratched my cheek awkwardly and Renko tried her best at an innocent smile. "Oh, by the way, Miss Keine, I heard something recently. Apparently a new god has appeared atop the mountain. Have you heard about it?"

Keine's eyes widened. "A new god? No, this is the first I've heard of it. Are they from the Outside World?"

"Apparently so. The tengu on the mountain are all up in arms about it. We heard about it from Reimu, apparently they sent a messenger to the Hakurei Shrine the other day as well."

"That's worrying. I hope it's not an evil curse god or something. Thanks for letting me know, I'll see what I can find out." She stopped then, in the middle of fixing the padlock to the door of the school and turned, fixing Renko with a cold stare. "I'm warning you now though, Renko. Don't even think about going up into the mountains on your own to try to check this out. Youkai Mountain is a very dangerous place."

"I understand completely. I assure you, I have no plans to head up into the mountains any time soon," Renko said, replying with an easygoing smile. She was still wearing the same clothes we had climbed the mountain in yesterday. Keine narrowed her eyes suspiciously, but said nothing more. After finishing locking up, she departed for the neighborhood watch office with a wave.

"Why do you always push your luck like that, Renko? You just about stepped on a landmine telling Keine about the Moriya shrine."

"Give my scheming a little credit Merry, it's all part of the plan. Now if Keine should find out about the shrine via some other means we have an alibi. Besides, if the watch already knows about Sanae then it will be easier for her to come to the village and start spreading her faith, right?"

"I suppose that's true, but I don't like the idea of lying to Keine."

"That's why I made it so we don't have to. We did meet Sanae at the shrine after all, and we did hear about the god on the mountain from Reimu, the details of what happened after that don't render either of those facts untrue. But enough about the past now, you and I need to make plans for the future and decide what's next for our investigation."

"Our investigation? Is there more you're planning to pry into? We got the whole story from Kanako, didn't we?"

"We got a story from Kanako, but who's to say if it's the whole story? I'd like to start by learning everything I can about the traditional religious practices surrounding the worship of the hidden god of the Suwa Grand Shrine in the Outside World. All the materials I had gathered on it from our last visit are back in the Scientific Century though, and I can't connect to the web from Gensokyo."

"Well the Hieda family might have historical records of practices in the area, that might be a place to start."

"Hmmm, yeah, that seems more likely than finding something relevant in Suzunaan or the library of the Scarlet Devil Mansion. Let's go talk to Akyuu later then."

And so, while discussing our plans we opened the door to the storehouse behind the temple school. We had expected that, as usual, our office would be deserted except for the generations of songbirds that had made their home on its roof. Instead, upon entering we found someone already waiting for us, sitting on the cushions in front of Renko's desk.

"Hello you two, sorry to have come in unannounced."

"Sanae?"

She giggled, smiling up at us from the floor. "I decided to come visit right away, I hope you don't mind."