東方プロジェクト二次小説・オリジナル小説サイト
Chapter 6:Imperishable Night

“𝑀𝑦 𝑑𝑎𝑢𝑔ℎ𝑡𝑒𝑟, 𝑤ℎ𝑦 𝑑𝑜 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑐𝑟𝑦?” 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑜𝑙𝑑 𝑏𝑎𝑚𝑏𝑜𝑜 𝑐𝑢𝑡𝑡𝑒𝑟 𝑎𝑠𝑘𝑒𝑑.

𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑎𝑛𝑠𝑤𝑒𝑟 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑑𝑢𝑡𝑖𝑓𝑢𝑙 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑙𝑜𝑣𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑑𝑎𝑢𝑔ℎ𝑡𝑒𝑟 𝑔𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑤𝑎𝑠 𝑛𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑙𝑦 𝑏𝑒𝑦𝑜𝑛𝑑 𝑏𝑒𝑙𝑖𝑒𝑓. 𝑆ℎ𝑒 𝑠𝑎𝑖𝑑 𝑡𝑜 ℎ𝑒𝑟 𝑎𝑑𝑜𝑝𝑡𝑖𝑣𝑒 𝑝𝑎𝑟𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘰𝘰𝘯 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘳𝘶𝘦 𝘩𝘰𝘮𝘦. 𝘚𝘩𝘦 𝘵𝘰𝘭𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮 𝘴𝘩𝘦 𝘩𝘢𝘥 𝘣𝘦𝘦𝘯 𝘴𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘩 𝘢𝘴 𝘱𝘶𝘯𝘪𝘴𝘩𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘮𝘪𝘵𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢 𝘤𝘳𝘪𝘮𝘦, 𝘴𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘬 𝘶𝘱𝘰𝘯 𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘮𝘦𝘳 𝘩𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘯𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘢𝘨𝘢𝘪𝘯 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘪𝘵𝘴 𝘣𝘦𝘢𝘶𝘵𝘺. 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘨𝘰𝘭𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘩𝘢𝘥 𝘣𝘦𝘦𝘯 𝘧𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘣𝘢𝘮𝘣𝘰𝘰 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘢 𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘱𝘦𝘯𝘥 𝘱𝘢𝘪𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘫𝘢𝘪𝘭𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘣𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘰𝘰𝘯, 𝑏𝑢𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝐸𝑎𝑟𝑡ℎ 𝑤𝑎𝑠 𝑛𝑜𝑡 ℎ𝑒𝑟 ℎ𝑜𝑚𝑒.


—16—


Having told you how the Eternal Night Incident was resolved, I now return you to the story of Renko and myself, and resume my role as your narrator.

"This way, slowpoke! Toward the sound of my clapping hands!"

"Hmmm... you're right... here!" Renko's hands lunged out and closed around a rabbit. She scooped the squirming creature into her arms, stroking its fur and smoothing back its ears as it cuddled against her. Feeling at its neck with her hands, she sighed. There was no sign of a ribbon. She released the rabbit, which bounded away to nuzzle Tewi's ankle.

"Heh heh, that brings your grand total score... to zero."

Renko allowed her head to droop in mock despair. "I really thought I had it that time. Hey Merry, she's not cheating right? Are you cheating, Tewi?"

"Not as far as I can tell. You were really close that time, the one with the ribbon was just to the right."

"Damn it. I'll get this yet! One more time, Tewi!"

The rabbit girl chuckled and began to dance around Renko, clapping and singing. The rabbits scattered in all directions then froze in place, awaiting Renko's selection. It was already the fourth day of Renko's recovery and our imprisonment in Eientei. Renko had been doing a lot of sleeping, but was spending every afternoon playing with Tewi and the other rabbits.

"Gotcha!" Renko triumphantly lifted a rabbit into the air. A long turquoise ribbon hung from its neck. "I got it, right? This is the one?" Renko scruffed the rabbit's fur and tickled its chin before letting it down. "I’m getting better though, right? Even without the ability to see I’m becoming quite the rabbit hunter."

Tewi turned her attention to the rabbit Renko has just released, clicking her tongue in admonition. "You’re not Reisen, so don’t get caught so easily." She grinned as she looked back to Renko. "If you’re getting so good let’s see if you can catch a moving target. Thiiis waaay Reeenkooo" Tewi sang and scarpered as the rabbits again scattered in every direction and Renko blundered about, following the sounds and waving her hands in front of her.

Tewi had been the one to suggest this game to the newly blinded Renko and had been steadily increasing the difficulty as Renko improved. It seemed to be a good distraction, letting her grow accustomed to moving around without being able to see and training her to navigate by sound alone. It was more than I could have given her if she had just stayed put chatting with me. By now she had become quite good at navigating around the room we were staying in and locating rabbits both by sound or spoken direction.

Seeing her laugh and reach out to feel her way around the room, I wondered how things would have been different if I had been in her shoes. If it had been I who had been blinded by the moon instead of her, would I be able to play cheerfully with rabbits? Or would I have sat around and moped? Moreover, if my eyes had been damaged would I have gone on seeing boundaries regardless?

"Merry!"

I was jolted out of my thoughts by someone suddenly calling my name. "What is it?" I looked up to see Renko facing a few degrees off of my direction and shouting.

"Come play with us, Merry! These rabbits are fast, but I bet I could catch a Merry. If I do, I'll give you pets and scritchies too."

"You go on. I'm not nearly as fluffy as a rabbit."

One of the bunnies bounded over to me and leapt on to my lap. I stroked its fur. It was warm and soft but nowhere near as snuggly as Ran's tails. But what else could be?

Tewi wasn’t far behind the rabbit. "Come on," she said, raising her hand to tag out. "It's more fun watching the both of you fumble about."

I sighed and climbed to my feet, hesitantly slapping her hand to tag in as I released the rabbit. I suppose even a children's game would be more interesting than just sitting and watching.

"Alright, let’s go. Hey big, scary oni! Your meal's this way!" I yelled.

"Raaarrr I'm gonna gobble you up!" Renko roared and began groping her way toward me, arms outstretched. I smiled as I danced to the side and began to clap, leading her along toward the marked rabbit. Back in the village, I was sure Keine and the students would be worried about us. For the time being, however, spending our days here, relaxing and enjoying simple pleasures while Renko recovered wasn't so bad.

Tewi had been playing with us for the last few days —or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that we had been joining her in playing with the other rabbits. Despite this, it seemed that she was not actually a resident of Eientei, but rather a denizen of the bamboo forest itself and merely a frequent visitor to the manor.

According to her, the residents of this manor had built this place on their own all of a sudden long ago and immediately hid it away. Tewi had simply been the first of the rabbits to find a way in. "You can think of me as the master of this bamboo forest," she had said. "Which makes the people of this manor something like my tenants, I guess."

If any of Eirin's story could be believed, that made Tewi over 1,000 years old. If she really was the legendary Hare of Inaba, she was probably even older. Despite that, she looked up to Eirin and addressed her as 'master' much as Reisen did. "If you want to live a long life, staying healthy is the most important thing. I respect a competent doctor, no matter where she's from." She had said.

"So who exactly is this Dr. Yagokoro, and why does she live out in this isolated bamboo grove?" Renko had asked one morning while the three of us sat in the room where we had been staying.

"Dunno." Said Tewi. She winked at me then whistled tunelessly. Thus far she had cooperated with my request to keep the details unspoken until Renko's eyes recovered or Eirin allowed us to leave.

"Hmmph." Renko snorted, unsatisfied. "If I could see, I'd like to explore that mansion or even just take a look around these grounds, but without my eyes, I don't think I could do it."

"You should be careful, Renko. This temporary blindness might just be your karmic punishment for always being so nosy."

"That's terrible, Merry. You say it like I'm some sort of paparazzi. I'm simply leveraging my intellectual curiosity to reveal hidden truths to the world and assuage my grey matter's need for constant mental stimulation."

"What would you do if you had lost your sight for good then?"

"Hmmm, I don't know. Is there a market for blind detectives? I might have to have Merry take care of me for the rest of my life."

"When did I volunteer to do that?"

"Oooh, you should do it, you two are such a cute couple, I'm sure you'd take great care of her." Tewi grinned a nasty smile.

I glared at Tewi, then poked Renko in the ribs.

"Agh! I'm mortally wounded! Done in by my own caretaker!" Renko flopped over dramatically on the tatami.

"You will be if you don't work on getting better. I expect you to recover, not rely on me for the rest of your life. If you don't get healthy, I might have to seriously hurt you."

"I'm just blind, Merry. Everything else works fine. It's not like I have some wasting disease." Having said that, she yawned broadly and stretched out.

"All right, Renko. Let's get you into the futon before you collapse. It won't matter if you can see or not once you're asleep. I'll wake you up when it's time to eat."

"At least I can still see you when I’m dreaming,"She yawned as I led her by the hand to the bedding. I lay Renko down and pulled up the covers for her and within minutes she was breathing slowly and evenly. I let out a breath and returned to the veranda where Tewi was sitting, dangling her legs off of the stoop as I closed the door.

"You seem to be handling this well." Tewi said with a smile.

"I’m making do. We’re only here because we’re being confined though."

"Well that's the Master's choice. Us Earth rabbits have no say in it." She had one of her rabbits in her lap and was stroking her fur as she said this. "That veil they have over this place has been the same for 1,000 years though, and now it's so thin it's practically gone. I wonder if anyone from the moon is actually coming after them. Reisen was a deserter, right? That’d be bad news for her."

I couldn't comment. I didn't know how much, if any, of the story could be believed. I sat down next to Tewi in silence. Silence was common in the mansion nowadays. I hadn't seen Kaguya since that first night. Reisen came by several times a day to bring food, but whenever she did she would always set the food down with only a word or two then scurry away, in a much more rabbit-like way than I had seen Tewi do.

It was hard to avoid the conclusion that Reisen was afraid of us. At first I had thought she was just brusque, but her actions in the days since had convinced me it was something more. She seemed determined to minimize contact with us as much as possible. Even if she was a deserter though, I couldn't imagine what cause she had to fear us. We had no connection to the moon or Lunar society and as a youkai I imagine she was a much stronger creature than either of us, especially given Renko's state. If anything, she seemed more afraid of Renko than me. "Why would Reisen be afraid of us?" I muttered to myself.

Tewi grinned and stretched out on the veranda, laying on her stomach and resting her cheekbones on her upturned palms. "Same reason that Master and the princess are afraid of you."

I looked at her flabbergasted. They both claimed to be immortal, and Eirin had the power to conceal the moon behind an enormous illusion. I couldn't imagine that Renko or I posed any threat to either of them.

"It's not you they're afraid of, of course." Tewi said. "It's the impurity of a living Earthling."

Impurity is a concept that has long been a foundational element of Japanese culture. From ancient times to the Scientific Century that Renko and I had come from, every day actions and ways of viewing the world were tied up in the belief that certain actions, thoughts or locations left a stain of impurity on those that experienced them, and that minimizing contact with such impurity was a key factor in both physical and mental wellbeing.

"Master once told me that the people on the moon had once come from Earth, but hated the impurity of life here. They sought to journey to the moon in order to create a pure land for themselves, free from such things, in the hopes that doing so would make them immortal. Sounds silly if you ask me. If they wanted to have a long life, they should have just taken care of their health, like I did."

"Is that really something they fear that much?"

"Like you wouldn't believe! The Master and the princess committed some sort of crime on the moon and were forced to flee to Earth where everyone from the moon would be too disgusted to look for them. You saw the barrier around the manor right? It's not just to hide, it also keeps impurity out. Us rabbits can only go as far as this garden and annex. Well, personally, I could get a little deeper inside if I wanted to."

I thought about the concept of impurity. The word for it could mean a lot of things. Dirt or filth, certainly, but also shame, pollution, disgrace and a host of related topics. Death and illness had of course been considered a source of impurity since ancient times, but the word also had ties to concepts like menstruation, childbirth, and standing water. Even in the Scientific Century, when the germ theory of disease and the concepts of hygiene were widely understood, pseudoscientific superstitions about impurity still persisted on a social level. Properties in which a previous tenant had died, for example, were difficult to ever resell (though this might have had more to do with the popularity of horror novels by writers like Ono Fuyumi.) Similarly, society as a whole often ostracized both the perpetrators and the victims of crimes alike, embracing the just world fallacy and imagining that anyone suffering a terrible fate must have done something to deserve it.

Such a nebulous and difficult to define concept created a stain that was similarly difficult to locate and remove. Once seen as impure in the eyes of the public, there was little an individual could do to redeem their image, as the concept of impurity transcended logic or rationality. So too did the definition of what might constitute an 'impure' action or thought vary from person to person.

For Eirin and Kaguya however, the impurity they feared seemed to be of a narrower scope. If the people of the moon had fled from Earth in search of immortality, then it must have been a fear of disease and death that drove them, or maybe a fear of the biological necessities of life itself. If that were the case though... Something clicked in my mind. A sudden realization that something didn't make sense, leaving me with a discomforting sense of incongruity.

Before I could scrutinize my thoughts any further though, I heard a voice calling out to us. Eirin Yagokoro was walking across the garden towards us, calling Tewi's name.

"There you are," she said as she approached. "I've been looking for you."

"Oh, hello Master. How's Reisen doing?"

"She's fine as far as I know. I have her working on something special for me just now. How is my patient doing?"

"Renko? She's sleeping right now."

"Good then. Maéreverie Hearn, I'd like you to come with me for a moment. Tewi, can you gather the inaba and come meet us inside the mansion?"

Tewi blinked in surprise as my own eyebrows shot up. It seemed the good doctor had another experiment to perform on my unusual eyes.


—17—


"Are you sure, Master? Is it really okay for me to bring everyone inside?"

"This is part of our plan for defense against any pursuit from the moon."

"In other words you want to use us as cannon fodder?"

"If someone were to attack and try to take the princess away though, wouldn't you and your subordinates be sad?"

The rabbits around Tewi's feet bounced up and down excitedly. It seemed that Kaguya was popular with the rabbits. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised to find that a princess from the moon was popular with all of the local rabbits.

Eirin led us into the mansion, through a long, wide, and highly polished wood-floored corridor with shoji on either side leading to rooms. The corridor seemed to stretch on forever, passing by room after room after room in an endless, identical procession. More than any mansion could need. More than could possibly have fit in the length of the mansion I had observed from outside.

I stopped. I had been subconsciously ignoring a slight headache from the moment we stepped inside. Now I focused on the pain and tried to determine what was causing it. My vision shifted, as if tuning my focus to a slightly different plane. The hallways of the Scarlet Devil Mansion had been impossibly vast and this hallway reminded me of it in some way, though there was something different about it as well. The phase of the space had been distorted somehow.

Massaging my temples, I turned and looked about, until my vision became unfocused. The numerous doorways lining the hall seemed to double and slide sideways. The doors themselves were right there, but overlaying them were illusory copies, afterimages just out of phase with reality, shifted ever so slightly out of place. All of those copies were vibrating silently, with an ever-so-faint tremor, in sync with one another but out of sync with everything around them. I doubt opening any one of those illusory doors would have led anywhere other than back to the very hallway we were already standing in.

There was, however, one doorway that looked different. The sliding door within it was physically closed, but the doorframe’s boundary was right where it belonged. It was simply a normal door. Looking about, every single other door I could see had its borders convoluted into the same buzzing pattern. I let out a sigh and turned to the one undistorted doorway.

Eirin's hand grabbed my shoulder before I could reach out to touch it. "I knew you'd find it," she said. Her eyes narrowed as she stared at me.

"Udonge," she barked. Reisen instantly appeared, emerging from a spot just between two identical sections of the repeating hallway. "You missed this door."

"Ah, sorry. I’ll fix it." Reisen's eyes glowed red and the doorway in front of me distorted wildly, staying in place in my normal vision, while being covered by another of the illusions in the other plane of my sight.

I looked up at Eirin. "Is this why you brought me here?"

She smiled pleasantly. "Your eyes are a precious resource. Let me know if you spot any other gaps in the warding."

"...Right." I mumbled. Her intention seemed to be to turn this corridor into a hazard of sorts to foil any pursuers who might find this place. She would need my eyes to check for any spots where someone could slip through the illusion.

"Tewi, you and the rest of the inaba will have the job of laying in wait within the spaces of this corridor and intercepting any intruders. Udonge will assist you."

"With how all the rabbits love the Princess, I suppose I don't have much choice."

"I'll be counting on you Tewi. You as well, Maéreverie Hearn."

"...I —I don’t think I’ll be of any use to you in a fight, if that’s what you’re thinking."

"Ah, but you have those eyes." Staring into my eyes again, she laid one hand on my cheek. "You'll be able to see them if they conceal themselves using the same power as Udonge's. You can also help us keep the wards from being broken and spot where they might be weakening. With you, it's highly unlikely they'll be able to escape this trap I've set, and Udonge can simply mop them up."

It felt like she was ordering me to the front lines of a conflict. With Renko here as a hostage though, there wasn't much I could do to resist. If a military force from the moon really was coming, who's to say what they would think of humans apparently aiding and abetting their enemies. If it came down to it, I'd hope to just hide in the shadows. Hopefully this would all be over before any pursuers from the moon could arrive.

"We need to make sure the seal is complete by tonight."

By tonight? It was natural that she and Kaguya would be afraid of the thought of pursuit by the agents of the Lunar Capital if they were fugitives, but for their desperation to be so great that they were willing to go to such lengths and prepare for an armed standoff, even going so far as to compel uninvolved bystanders to act in their defense —the punishment from which they were fleeing must have been extreme.

"Um, Miss Eirin..." I began, unsure of what I was about to say, even as I said it.

"Hmm? What is it?"

"What exactly are you and Kaguya running away from? What sin did she commit on the moon? In the old legends she was eventually forgiven for her crimes anyway, wasn't she? That's why she returned to the moon, I thought."

I had asked her the question head-on. Renko had undoubtedly been a bad influence on me. I'd have to remember to poke her for that later.

Eirin's expression went blank as she turned to me with a sigh, saying "I suppose since you've become involved in this it won't hurt to explain our circumstances. Shall we talk for a bit? We still have quite some time before night falls. Udonge."

"Yes, Master!"

"Please brew us some tea."

'So people on the moon drink tea as well' was the inane thought that flashed through my head as Eirin led me away.


—18—


What follows here is a transcript of the story that Eirin told me over tea in a side room off of the corridor at the entrance of Eientei. I had been training my memory and skill at transcription with Renko and Keine, writing down long passages from dictation to make the primers we taught the children with, so I am fairly confident that what you find below can be thought of as close to verbatim. It's certainly what I told Renko later, at any rate.

✱ ✱ ✱

So you want to know what crime Kaguya committed? It was that she drank the Hourai Elixir.

That elixir was my creation, the same elixir of immortality that Mokou drank. In the society of the Lunar Capital, drinking such an elixir is the ultimate taboo. Anyone who drinks such an elixir is exiled to the Earth as they become a source of impurity. That is the law of the Lunar Capital.

Kaguya was born on the moon, as the princess of a ruling family. Back in those days I was her tutor. Knowing that my interest lay in pharmaceuticals, she one day asked me if I had ever tried making the Hourai Elixir. I told her not to pursue such things, but she was persistent. I was equally to blame of course, as I wanted to see if it could be done. 'There's no harm in only making it' she had told me, and like a fool, I allowed myself to be swayed. The elixir was thought to be only a legend, but with my talent and Kaguya's ability it at least seemed possible. Kaguya has the ability to manipulate moments. Do Earthlings have the concept of a moment? It's the smallest possible unit of time, so instantaneous as to be beyond further division. Time seems like a continuous flow, but just as matter is made of a plethora of tiny particles, time is made up of a continuum of imperceptibly small moments. From the perspective of a moment, an arrow in flight is stationary. That's not a paradox, simply a self-evident truth.

At any rate, there's no point in me trying to explain the process of making the Hourai Elixir to an Earthling, so I'll skip the details. With Kaguya's aid, I made the concoction. Not with any intent to use it or any thought that she might want it for herself, but merely to see if I could. It was a masterwork. Among the finest of my creations.

Little did I know, however, that Princess Kaguya had grown tired of life on the moon. She wished to come to Earth, despite how reviled this world was to the people of the Lunar Capital, and so, she did the only thing that could earn her such a punishment. She went behind my back when I wasn't looking and drank my invention.

From that point on, our story becomes almost the same as the legend of Princess Kaguya as it survives in your culture today. The Princess' memories were wiped before she was sent to Earth. Eventually, they sent me along with several other emissaries to retrieve her. I knew though that with all the impurity Kaguya had accumulated in her time on Earth, she would never be allowed to live freely on the moon. The moment we returned, I do not doubt that she would have been imprisoned somewhere they could keep us from ever escaping. Knowing this, I did what I had to. The making of the Hourai Elixir itself was thought to be impossible and as such it wasn't a crime. I might have avoided punishment altogether, but I couldn't stand the thought of letting Kaguya be punished for my sins. More than anything, I wanted Kaguya to be able to enjoy her dream of living on the Earth, and with the power of the Hourai Elixir, she had the means to do so. And so, I killed all of the lunar emissaries who had traveled with me to Earth and absconded with Kaguya to this place. I then took a dose of the Hourai Elixir myself, becoming an exiled sinner just as she was.

There's no need to be frightened. I killed them, yes, but only out of necessity. I am not a rabid beast and would prefer never again to sully myself with such boundless impurity. That is the reason we are hiding in this secluded place. I am a criminal and a murder with the blood of numerous countrymen on my hands. I am sure the authorities of the Lunar Capital are still frantically searching for me even now.

That is why they hunt us. But that is also why I protect her. Among my many crimes, the greatest was allowing the princess to be irredeemably tainted by my creation. I live in atonement for that act now. Everything I am exists only for her.

That is also why she can never again return to the moon. I can never go back either. I shall remain her servant for all of eternity. We have lived here now for a thousand years. Compared to eternity, however, that is but a heartbeat. I will not let our time on this world be cut short. By anyone.

✱ ✱ ✱

I had thought it was a long story when Eirin told it to me, but looking back, it's rather short when written down. Hearing it told though, it definitely seemed longer, if only because of my terror at the cold, calculating madness that suffused her voice in the telling.

Perhaps, as an Earthling, I have no right to judge the sanity of a person from the moon. Eirin had murdered several people in a dispassionate, planned act, made herself immortal and then devoted herself forever to the service of one girl. In the process she had thrown away any connections to the society she lived in. If someone like that was considered sane and rational by the people of the moon, then our conceptions of reality are so different as to preclude meaningful communication.

To a human like myself, eternity is an unimaginable thing. To even conceive of living so long that one could describe a millennium as a heartbeat baffles the imagination. I asked Eirin "Why did you decide to go as far as devoting an eternity to the princess?"

She reacted to my question with confusion, tilting her head and looking at me as if I had grown horns. "Because I chose to? What other reason could there be?"

I wondered myself. An eternity of devotion. Could it be love? Guilt? Or something else entirely? The Lunarians were aliens. I couldn't hope to know. And so, I stopped thinking about their backgrounds and willed myself to think only of the present. Deserved or not, a threat might be approaching. So long as Renko and I were here and Renko was defenseless, I had to do what I could to keep her safe.

—Later, my partner would chastise me for this. "How could you, of all people, have overlooked a crazy story like that?" Renko would say. But that's a story for another time.

—

"Master, we're all finished. The corridor is secure."

"Good work, Udonge. Let's have some dinner now. Tonight and tomorrow will be absolutely pivotal."

"Understood, master. I'll be ready."

Reisen had turned to look at me one last time before turning on her heel and running away.

"What happens tonight and tomorrow?" I asked.

Her face was completely without expression as she replied. "Tomorrow will be the time when the path between the Earth and the moon will open. That means we have to complete our seal tonight.

Even Eirin could not have predicted, however, that on this night two witches, a vampire and her maidservant would collude to stop time and elongate the night. No one knew that within a matter of hours two humans and two youkai would crash the gates of Eientei, in search of the missing full moon.