東方プロジェクト二次小説・オリジナル小説サイト
Chapter 5:Undefined Fantastic Object

—13—


During the week or so after Renko bought the houtou from Kourindou and we ran into Alice, not much happened. We visited Koakuma in the Scarlet Devil Mansion's library during that time, and while she confirmed a few details about Makai, she wasn't able to tell us anything about Byakuren.

"I've never been to Houkai, sorry," was all she said. She had been able to confirm that Alice was one of the daughters of the Administrator of Makai, however. We learned from Koakuma that Makai's Administrator was referred to as 'Lady Shinki' and thought of herself as a goddess, but was generally perceived to just be an exceptionally powerful magician. "It's a bit of an exaggeration to say she created 𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑦𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔 in Makai," Koakuma had told us, "but she did create a lot of it. All of the inhabitants there other than devils like me and fallen angels might well be hers."

You may ask if we saw Captain Murasa in that week, to tell her about what we had heard from Alice or show her the pagoda. The answer, sadly, is that we did not, for one simple reason:

"Merry, we forgot to figure out a way to contact the 𝐻𝑜𝑙𝑦 𝑃𝑎𝑙𝑎𝑛𝑞𝑢𝑖𝑛, didn't we?" As we had no means of communication nor any idea where the ship might actually be at the moment, we were stuck waiting for its crew to reach out to us. We also didn't hear anything from the three fairies of light during the whole of that week. Being as they were fairies, it was entirely possible they'd gotten bored of the whole affair and forgotten about it.

It was the eighth day after our trip to Kourindou, a day when we were free from our regular teaching duties that things took a turn for the worse. I was sitting in our office, listening to the sounds of the birds who had made their home on our roof while Renko continued to stare at the glowing pagoda, trying to see if there was any means to extract the glowing crystal sphere in its center from the stone pagoda surrounding it.

"Don't break it,Renko."

"I won't break it, Merry. I paid too much for it."

Renko said that but I could see the way she was staring at the houtou. It was only a matter of time before her curiosity got the better of her and she tried to crack it open to see what was inside. I was watching her nervously out of the corner of my eye when suddenly there was a knock on our door. The only people we might expect to see would be Keine or perhaps Sanae. "Yes, one moment!" I said and got up to open the door.

"Oh! Hello there," I exclaimed in surprise.

The knock had come from a small, hooded figure, barely larger than one of the children in my classes who was standing just outside our office. My initial thought is that it must be one of our students, but a necklace the figure was wearing, ornamented with a sizable crystal pendulum caught my eye. The crystal was glowing faintly. I definitely would have noticed if one of our students was wearing something like that. Additionally, the person at the door was holding a strange object in each hand. These were a pair of sturdy, long, and sharply bent iron rods. They weren't crowbars or fire pokers, though those were the first connections my brain tried to make. The bars weren't tipped with anything that looked like a tool head, but rather something more akin to the cardinal direction indicators that might decorate a weather vane. From the way they were holding them though, I could only assume they were... dousing rods, perhaps?

"Oh, hello." I said, looking down at the stranger's hooded form. "Welcome to the Hifuu Detective Agency. How can I help you?"

Rather than replying, the small person deftly slipped around me and pushed their way into our home, moving me aside with surprising strength. Walking uninvited into our office, they made straight for Renko, who was still gazing intently at the underside of the pagoda, trying to pry the top off with her thumbs.

"I've finally found it," the figure muttered. Their voice was difficult to place—it might have belonged to a teenage girl or a young boy, but they spoke with a sense of deep relief evident in their words. Renko looked up from her examination of the pagoda just as the hooded figure spoke again. "I want that pagoda back," they said bluntly.

Renko stopped what she was doing and looked up at her. "Huh?"

This strange, small person had not only shown up unexpectedly and barged into our home, but was no making unexpected demands. Renko and I exchanged a glance over the top of their head, looking at each other in confusion.

"Um, no. That’s not it," the figure stammered. "I apologize, I don't mean to treat you like a thief. That pagoda that you're holding originally belonged to an associate of mine. I've been searching for it for quite a while. Since the only reason we lost it was due to my master’s carelessness I’ll offer you a deal. I'll pay you a fair price for it, but I must have it back. Without it, we'd be in a great deal of trouble. Will you give it to me?"

Renko regarded the figure with surprise, her eyes suddenly lighting up with interest. "Oh, I see. You must be one of Saint Byakuren's disciples then. Would you by any chance be one of the two youkai who managed to escape the destruction of Myouren Temple a thousand years ago without being caught? If so, have you been in contact with Captain Murasa yet?"Renko said, setting the houtou down on her desk and grinning.

In response to the barrage of questions the little figure suddenly stiffened, their shoulders rising as their grip tensed on the metal rods they were holding. "Why do you know all of that? Are you the one who originally stole the pagoda?"

Seeing the figure tense up Renko raised her hands plaintively. "Hold on, hold on. I’m just a regular human and I'm not a thief. I bought this pagoda at a local junk shop."

"Then how do you know about events that happened 1,000 years ago? How do you know about Hijiri? Or me? Or Murasa?"

"Ah, you haven't been in contact with the captain yet, I see. I bet you haven't been in touch with the others yet because you're ashamed that you avoided being captured all those years ago, but ended up losing something so important. My guess is you've been looking for it all this time and didn't want to let anyone know you'd lost it. Is that about right?"

The stranger lowered their arm, and took a step back, their stance loosening. Renko grinned at them with the cat-like smile I knew so well. "Don't worry," she said. "We're on your side."

"How can I be sure of that?"

"Perhaps I ought to explain. Are you aware that for the first time in a thousand years the 𝐻𝑜𝑙𝑦 𝑃𝑎𝑙𝑎𝑛𝑞𝑢𝑖𝑛 has been repaired and is sailing the skies again? It's somewhere over Gensokyo right now."

"Oh... uh, yes. I saw it."

"I see. So you hope to join them. Well I bought this to give to you guys. I suspected that it might contain a part of Saint Byakuren's power and would be helpful in releasing her, so this is fortunate."

"...Who are you?"

Renko laughed, a brief bark of mirth before replying. "Isn't it polite to give your own name before asking someone else's?"

"Oh, of course. Excuse me." The stranger reached up, pulling back their hood to reveal a face that looked young and girlish but was surrounded by a bob of dingy gray hair surmounted by two round, flexible mouse ears. "I'm Nazrin, a disciple of Bishamonten and servant to Toramaru Shou of the Myouren Temple."


—14—


"Oh, I see! You're the 'Little Naz' that the captain mentioned and your master would be 'Big Shou.' Are you a mouse youkai? You're so cute!"

"Don't underestimate mice." Nazrin said, narrowing her eyes. "The mice I command prefer meat to cheese. If you underestimate mice, you'll end up a meal."

Renko smiled and raised her hands, palms up. "My apologies, I hadn't intended to offend and I have no interest in being eaten by mice. I'm Usami Renko, chief investigator of the Hifuu Detective Agency, whose offices you've just barged into. That's my assistant Merry over there."

"Pleased to meet you," Nazrin said, with a slight incline of her head. I nodded back to her as well, but she had already turned back to face Renko. "That tells me who you are, but not how you know any of this," she said bluntly.

"Well then, allow me to explain. I suppose you could call me the mastermind responsible for the emergence of the 𝐻𝑜𝑙𝑦 𝑃𝑎𝑙𝑎𝑛𝑞𝑢𝑖𝑛 from the Underworld." Nazrin furrowed her brow at that. I didn't blame her for being suspicious. Who would believe an ordinary human would be responsible for releasing a ship that had been sealed in Hell for a thousand years?

"As luck would have it, I ended up meeting the captain and Ichirin in the Underworld about three months ago. I was able to make some connections both here on the surface and in the Underworld to come up with a plan to get the boat unsealed."

Nazrin blinked, silently staring at Renko.

"I know it sounds a bit far-fetched, but just the captain later if you don't believe me, I'm pretty well known here in Gensokyo."

Nazrin continued to glare skeptically at Renko, but after a short while let out a sigh. "That doesn't sound particularly believable, but with how much you know about us it makes sense that you must at least have met Murasa or Ichirin, so I suppose I may as well believe you for now."

"That's good enough for me."

"So then, can you give me that pagoda?"

"Well, I don't mind giving it to you, but there's one other issue..." she said, pulling the pagoda toward herself. "I bought it from a used goods store that charged me quite a bit for it..."

"Of course, your compensation. I'll pay you whatever you paid for it as well as a finders fee on top. How much do you need?"

"Oh, that's very generous of you, but actually that isn't what I was going to say. There was something else I was going to ask of you."

"What is it?"

"The two of us are just regular humans, so we have no way to contact Captain Murasa. Would you be able to bring my partner and I to the 𝐻𝑜𝑙𝑦 𝑃𝑎𝑙𝑎𝑛𝑞𝑢𝑖𝑛?"

Nazrin blinked and looked up at Renko, frowning. "You want a mouse to carry two humans while flying?"

"Is that not possible?"

"I suppose I could manage. If I do that, you'll give me the pagoda?"

"I was planning to give it to Murasa myself, but I suppose that would be embarrassing for you. Hmmm. What if I tell her you found it, Little Naz?"

"You have no right to call me that!" Nazrin said, leaping to her feet and thrusting one of her iron rods at Renko's face. "I won't be condescended to by a human. It would have been simple for me to just take the pagoda by force. I'm doing you a favor by even negotiating with you at all."

"Whoa, whoa, easy there." Renko said, raising both of her palms again. I wondered how many times Renko had risked her life just on the basis of being overly familiar with youkai for no reason.

A tense moment passed in silence as Nazrin glared down the length of her rod at Renko, seeming to decide what to do next as Renko leaned away from the implement with a nervous grin. Then everything happened all at once.

Suddenly the door flew open.

"Miss Renko, Miss Merry! It's an emergency!" came a cry from just outside.

All three of us turned toward the doorway in surprise.

"What?"

Standing in the doorway was Kochiya Sanae. There was a brief moment of silence as everyone stared at each other. How would Sanae see the current situation, I wondered? A youkai was standing in the middle of our office pointing an iron rod at Renko as if it were a weapon, while my partner had her hands raised in a position of surrender.

No one could blame her for coming to the wrong conclusion given the circumstances. Probably.

"I'll save you, Miss Renko!" Sanae declared.

"Wait a minute, Sanae, this isn't..."

"Who are you?"

"No excuses, villain!" Sanae barked as she waved her wand with a swift, cutting motion. At once a fierce gale sprung from nowhere and howled through our office, toppling bookshelves and scattering the pages of my half-finished manuscript, books borrowed from Suzunaan, our shoes from the entryway and all manner of other objects. As the gale intensified, the walls of the house groaned.

Nazrin braced herself against the raging wind just as the pagoda lifted up and tumbled off Renko's desk. Reaching out with one of her rods, she snatched it as it flew away and knocked it into her hand. As soon as she had it, she turned and leapt toward the window. An instant before she would have collided with the far wall, she kicked out with both legs, smashing our office's only window and punching through to the other side. The wind howled as it swirled through the new opening.

"Ah! Wait!" Sanae shouted as she charged forward, carried by the wind, her wand glowing with power as she raised it to lash out with a wave of light bullets.

"Sanae! You can't play danmaku in here!" Renko cried, rushing over to her and laying a hand on her raised arm. Even my partner isn't so reckless as to risk letting our office be destroyed in a crossfire.

"Don't stop me, Renko! Youkai who attack humans need to be exterminated!"

"Your wind is destroying our office! We live here, Sanae!" Renko shouted over the howling gale.

Sanae glanced around and frowned at the state of our office before lowering her arm and banishing the glowing bullets and raging winds. After a moment she looked at the broken window. "Awww, she got away. Sorry, boss." She said, shrinking away in embarrassment. I let out a held breath and looked around at the devastation.

"She took the pagoda…"

"Never mind that, Renko, look at this mess!" I said as I stooped down to pick up a damaged book. "This belongs to Suzunaan!"

The pages of the book were folded and stained with dirt. There was no way we wouldn’t be fined when we returned it now, and we were already short on money with what Renko had spent on the pagoda…

"S-Sorry." Sanae said in a small voice. "I was just trying to save Miss Renko."

"I wasn't being attacked, Sanae." Renko said with a sigh. "But I see how you could have come to that conclusion. For now, let's try to clean up and we can explain what was going on."

"What about the window?"

"We can extract the costs for repairs and fines from the captain along with payment for the pagoda once we find her. It was Little Naz who broke it, after all."

We spent the next half-hour or so tidying up the office. I was relieved that all of this had happened during a day when we didn’t have classes to teach and there wouldn’t have been any children around, but I couldn’t imagine how we were going to explain the broken window to Keine tomorrow.

—

A half hour later, once everything had been put back in order, I made three cups of tea and we all sat down on the floor to drink them.

"Well Sanae, what brings you here today?" Renko asked.

"Oh, that's right! I had something I wanted to tell you! June 24th has come early this year! It's international UFO day already!"

"What?"

Renko and I blinked at her in surprise. Being the two members of an occult club, we of course knew about UFO day. It was the day in 1947 when American businessman Kenneth Arnold had made the first report of witnessing a flying saucer. That didn't do much to explain Sanae's excitement though. For one thing it was currently March.

She looked at us, seeming to expect a response. "Haven't either of you ever had a dream of a whole city losing power at once? Do you know what the fourth color of a traffic light is? Does the phrase 'a heart wrapped in aluminum foil remains unaffected by hexagonal radio waves' not mean anything to you!?"

We continued to stare at her, growing only more confused. "Sanae, are you feeling alright?" Renko asked.

"Seriously!? No one reads 𝐼𝑟𝑖𝑦𝑎 in the 2080's? One of the greatest sci-fi series ever penned? Akiyama could put Azimov to shame! Does this mean that he never ends up releasing EGF? Damn it!"

It took a while for Renko to calm Sanae down enough that we could make sense of what she was going on about. Eventually we were able to determine that she was referring to 𝐼𝑟𝑖𝑦𝑎'𝑠 𝑆𝑘𝑦, 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑆𝑢𝑚𝑚𝑒𝑟 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑈𝐹𝑂𝑠, a series of light novels that had been extremely popular just before Sanae's arrival in Gensokyo. Renko and I were both, of course, later forced to read all four volumes. I will say they were quite interesting.

Once we got that much figured out, Renko asked her "So what's this about a UFO day?"

"Yes, UFOs. You guys were members of an occult club that investigated strange phenomena, right? I bet you know all about them. There's all sorts of Unidentified Flying Objects, right? Cigar shaped ones, spherical ones, wing-shaped ones, but the best are the Adamski type, right? The classic flying saucer-shaped ones, with little bumps on the bottom and the like!"

Sanae said, clenching her fists as she leaned forward, her eyes shining.

"Well about that…" Sanae added, leaning forward as if to whisper confidentially. "I saw one!" she whispered excitedly.

"A UFO?"

"That's right! And not just one or two! A whole flight of perfect Adamski UFOs! It's a childhood dream come true! That's not all though! I saw something even stranger! Way up high above the UFOs there was a much bigger ship flying! I didn't get a good look at it, but it looked like an old wooden sailing ship! I bet it's the flying treasure ship everyone's talking about!"

Renko glanced at me with a worried expression. "What was that about the flying ship that everyone's talking about?"

"Haven't you two heard? The story is all over Youkai Mountain. Supposedly kappa and tengu have spotted a mysterious ship sailing through the clouds that's supposed to be loaded with incredible treasure or something."

"...Haven’t heard that one yet, have we, Merry." Renko said, looking nervously over at me. I shook my head as Sanae continued excitedly.

It was obvious what must have inspired these rumors. The 𝐻𝑜𝑙𝑦 𝑃𝑎𝑙𝑎𝑛𝑞𝑢𝑖𝑛 must have been spotted as it was flying about collecting the missing shards of its splintered mast.

"You guys are really slow on this one then, Miss Renko! A mysterious treasure ship and a horde of Adamski-style UFOs are flying through the skies of Gensokyo! This is an incident! An invasion! We're probably about to be attacked by octopus-looking aliens or something!"

"Oh! Well, no need to go after them just yet, Sanae. They haven't done anything hostile, after all. Maybe it'll just end up like 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑊𝑎𝑟 𝑜𝑓 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑊𝑜𝑟𝑙𝑑𝑠 and they'll all die from catching the flu or something."

"Well then we have to act before that happens! This could be the best incident ever! If we can figure out what that treasure ship is, maybe we can stop it! The Moriya Shrine will be famous as the shrine that saved the people of Gensokyo! The Hifuu Detective Agency will become famous too! It'll be killing two birds with one stone!"

"Well, recognition would be nice, but isn't an invasion by aliens the sort of thing the Hakurei Shrine is supposed to deal with?"

"Lady Kanako says there's no reason to let the Hakurei Shrine have a monopoly on youkai extermination."

So that was why Sanae had decided to shoot first and ask questions later with Nazrin. Just what had Lady Yasaka been telling her, I wondered?

"This is a job for the Hifuu Detective Agency, right boss? Where do we start? Tracking down that rat that escaped?" Sanae asked, climbing to her feet and pointing her wand out the smashed window.

What could we do? Probably the smart thing to do would have been to reveal everything to Sanae and tell her what we had been caught up in. If we didn't explain things, it seemed like she was likely to head out on her own even if we refused to go along. The best course of action would be if we were to just come clean and make her an accomplice to the incident we had started, but...

"What's wrong, Renko? You seem low energy."

Renko exchanged a glance with me before skirting the question. "I'm just not sure if this is a case our agency should take. This is the first time I’ve heard about these rumors, and I’d like to at least have some proof that there’s something to them before we commit to doing anything."

At this, Sanae began chuckling happily and took several slow, deliberate steps toward the entryway. "I thought you might have said that, so I arranged a little surprise," she said, stooping over to pick up a bag she had left beside her boots. "Let me show you my proof!"

"Proof? Is that a camera? Did you snap a UFO photo, Sanae?" Renko asked, climbing to her feet and moving closer to inspect Sanae's prize.

"I did something even better. Prepare to be amazed!" she declared, digging her hand into the sack and fishing about inside. "I captured a real live UFO!" she said, revealing the object she had retrieved from within.

What she held in her hand was an inert chunk of wood, slightly larger than my hand, oblong and splintered jaggedly on both ends. It glowed faintly, with a light similar to that emitted by the pagoda.


—15—


"What is that thing, some kind of toy drone?"

"What? No, it's a UFO, clearly. Look, if I let go of it, it flies on its own!" Sanae demonstrated by releasing the chunk of wood, which immediately began to float away from her, changing course at sharp angles and flying in long, slow, zigzags across the room. She had to lunge to grab it before it could float out of the broken window "See?" she crowed proudly, holding the chunk of wood up. "This is better than Roswell! Kochiya Sanae, mankind's first point of contact with an alien species!"

"We already know several extraterrestrial aliens though, Sanae."

"What? Since when?"

Technically speaking everyone at Eientei had come to Gensokyo from the moon. If we consider 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑇𝑎𝑙𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝐵𝑎𝑚𝑏𝑜𝑜 𝐶𝑢𝑡𝑡𝑒𝑟 to be fact, then first contact with extraterrestrials would have happened about 1300 years ago. If that was the case and aliens not only resembled humans but found it easy to understand and communicate with them, then Stanislaw Lem must be spinning in his grave. If a world like Gensokyo where sentient, non-human beings like fairies and youkai were common place could exist then maybe a world like 𝑆𝑜𝑙𝑎𝑟𝑖𝑠 was even more distant than he had imagined.

"That aside, this is interesting." Renko continued. "Gensokyo is a place where fantasies and delusions from the Outside World are made manifest, so it makes sense that Adamski-style UFOs might show up here, but what is this thing, really? Have you checked if there’s anything inside?"

"I can’t open it, but from the size it must be remote controlled or something, right?"

"Ah, I see. It must be some sort of drone. Those started coming into use around this point in time, I think."

"A drone?"

"I guess they hadn’t quite become popular yet when you left the Outside World. They're little radio-controlled aircraft. I think the first civilian application was as things farmers used to spray pesticides."

"Oh, I think I’ve heard of those. They call them 'drones?'"

I looked at the two of them, completely baffled as they carefully examined the chunk of splintery wood. No matter how I looked at it, it didn't resemble a UFO or a drone in the slightest to me. Between its ability to float on its own and the soft glow it was giving off, its identity seemed obvious —it had to be one of the lost fragments of the 𝐻𝑜𝑙𝑦 𝑃𝑎𝑙𝑎𝑛𝑞𝑢𝑖𝑛'𝑠 mast.

"Umm, Renko. Can I talk to you for a moment?"

"Huh? Sure, Merry. What's wrong?" Renko said, handing the chunk of wood back to Sanae and taking a step toward me.

I leaned over and whispered in her ear. "What are you doing, Renko? That's definitely a chunk of the 𝐻𝑜𝑙𝑦 𝑃𝑎𝑙𝑎𝑛𝑞𝑢𝑖𝑛'𝑠 mast, isn't it? How are we going to get that to Murasa without Sanae noticing?"

She leaned back from me with a shocked expression then leaned in again to whisper. "What? Where? Did you see a piece outside or something?"

"No, that UFO of Sanae's. It's clearly a floating, glowing chunk of wood."

We both leaned away and looked at each other for a few seconds, incredulously, then turned to Sanae. She was still staring at the chunk of wood in her hands, turning it over carefully while staring intently at it, the tip of her tongue poking out of her mouth.

"Hey Sanae, that thing you're holding right now is a UFO, right?"

"What else would it be? It's a perfect Adamski-style UFO!" Sanae said, holding up the chunk of wood.

Renko looked back at it then looked back at me.

"Alright, I understand that Gensokyo works on the principles of Relativistic Noology, but we should both be seeing the same thing, shouldn’t we? If one observer sees a live cat and one sees a dead cat then something’s gone seriously wrong somewhere, hasn’t it?"

"What? I'm not trying to be argumentative or anything. That just doesn’t look anything like a UFO to me. It's a piece of wood, Renko"

"But it doesn’t look anything like that." Renko stared at the piece of wood in Sanae’s hand for a moment longer then suddenly pounded her fist into an open palm. "Ah! I’ve got it!" She paused suddenly and lowered her head, whispering hurriedly. "Merry, do you remember back when we first met the captain in the Underworld and we got pranked by an unidentified youkai?"

"Huh? What do you mean? Oh! You mean when Yamame walked into the wall?" The event I was thinking of had occurred the past winter, while we were in the Underworld, just before we met Koishi Komeiji for the first time. Renko and Yamame had both been absolutely convinced that the entrance to a tunnel and a flat section of wall had switched places. To me the proper location of the entrance had remained as plain as day, but both Renko and Yamame had needed me to guide them to the correct exit.

"According to Yamame, stuff like that used to happen from time to time in the area around where the 𝐻𝑜𝑙𝑦 𝑃𝑎𝑙𝑎𝑛𝑞𝑢𝑖𝑛 was being rebuilt. It was presumed to be the work of an unknown youkai, remember?"

"And you think that same unknown youkai is now making pieces of wood look like UFOs?"

"Exactly," Renko whispered. "It seems like that youkai’s tricks didn’t work on you and If that same youkai is the one that Murasa thought was responsible for damaging the mast on the 𝐻𝑜𝑙𝑦 𝑃𝑎𝑙𝑎𝑛𝑞𝑢𝑖𝑛, then maybe she could have done the same trick on the pieces of the flying storehouse—made them look like something they're not. That would explain why you and I are seeing different things right now."

"According to the precepts of Relativistic Noology, we probably always are." What one person and another might both call the color blue could well be an entirely different set of electrochemical signal patterns in their individual brains, but due to humans ability to socialize we could agree on a set of characteristics to define a shared experience. This youkai's tricks appeared to interfere with that, making my concept of 'a chunk of the floating storehouse' equivalent to the concept of 'an Adamski-style UFO' for Renko and Sanae.

"Hey you two, what are you whispering about over there? Is it something lewd?" Sanae asked, sliding into our view and looking a little hurt at being left out of our conversation.

Renko turned to face her. "Hey Sanae, where did you find that UFO?"

"Some fairy near the Hakurei Shrine was playing with it. When I asked her if I could see it, she started shooting danmaku at me, so I shot her down and took it."

"This fairy, what did she look like? Did she have two friends with her by chance?"

"Yep, a red one, a blue one and a yellow one. Do you know them?"

She was undoubtedly talking about the three fairies of light. It seemed like the three of them had been dutifully collecting fragments of the mast, despite my doubts. How unfortunate that the three of them had ended up running into Sanae.

"Wait a minute, this was near the Hakurei Shrine you said. You went there before coming here?"

"Uh-huh! I was going there to check on the branch shrine. I would have expected Miss Reimu to be looking into the treasure ship rumors already but she and Miss Marisa were just sitting around on the porch and talking."

"...Did you tell them about the treasure ship?"

"Miss Marisa had already heard the rumors. They both left to go find the ship afterwards. I wanted to come grab you two before I started looking on my—""

Renko and I both stood up in a panic. This was a big deal. The Hakurei shrine maiden was already on the move and the 𝐻𝑜𝑙𝑦 𝑃𝑎𝑙𝑎𝑛𝑞𝑢𝑖𝑛 was nowhere near ready to journey to Makai. Which meant that in Reimu’s mind this must already count as an incident. An Incident with Renko as its mastermind.

"Sanae! We have to get to that treasure ship!"

"Now you're getting into it, Boss! Why were you so hesitant before?"

"Forget that now, this is an emergency dispatch!"

"Yes ma'am!" she declared, snapping a stiff salute, "UFO interceptor Kochiya Sanae ready to scramble!" Sanae stood up and stuffed the UFO back into her bag before dashing out of the office. We followed close behind her and grabbed her hands. Within moments we were soaring into the air, our destination the 𝐻𝑜𝑙𝑦 𝑃𝑎𝑙𝑎𝑛𝑞𝑢𝑖𝑛 somewhere over Gensokyo. We had no idea where it might be by now, but we had to reach it before Reimu and Marisa could.

As we flew, Renko shouted over the rushing wind. "By the way, Sanae, we might see a bunch of fairies playing with more of them on the way. If we do, it's critical that you shoot them down. We need to capture as many of the UFOs as we can. To protect Gensokyo from the menace of the treasure ship. Here, give me that bag, I'll hold it," she added, snatching the old sack from Sanae.

Sanae's eyes twinkled excitedly as we turned north, still rising, the village shrinking away beneath us. "Yes ma'am!"