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

[𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐃𝐚𝐲 𝐨𝐟 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐃𝐢𝐬𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫]


—16—


The etymology of the word 'thunder' or kaminari comes from the combination of words kami and nari, meaning something like 'the rumbling of the gods.' As the deep vibrations of the thunder echoing through the clouds sent their rattle buzzing through our bodies, it became eminently clear why that might have been. Every aspect of this environment seemed to be proclaiming this place to be the domain of the gods, and not of humans. If not for the fact that both Renko and I were clinging to the hands of a living god at the time, I don't imagine it's a place we could ever have seen.

"Don't worry, Merry. Lady Kanako wouldn't let any harm come to me."

"That's fine for you, but what about Merry and I?"

"As long as you don't let go of my hand you should be safe. Wind element characters are always strong against lightning, right? If the party mage got burned every time they cast fireball, they'd be a joke."

"Renko and I are just normal humans though. I don't think we have elemental types."

"Oh, maybe if you get hit by lightning you'll get one! It might awaken your latent abilities or something."

"Well, Merry already has a bunch of abilities, but I'd be interested to see what more she could do. What do you say, Merry? Have you got an umbrella you could hold up or something?"

"Sanae, if your arm is getting tired, feel free to just drop Renko."

We continued to bicker senselessly back and forth for a moment until suddenly Sanae called out in surprise.

"Oh! Look, there, through the break in the clouds, I see ground!" She cried, staring at a drifting hole in the swirling crimson mist all around us.

"Is that the peak of the mountain poking up through the bottom of the clouds?"

"No, we must be higher than that. I bet we're not even on Youkai Mountain any more. It must be Laputa! Look out for giant ancient robots guarding birds' nests!"

Still clinging onto Sanae's hands, we descended and touched down. The ground we had found was a rocky plateau of stone and gravel. It looked like a mountaintop to me, but I had never been to the peak of Youkai Mountain, so it was hard to be sure.

"Do your eyes see anything Merry?" Renko asked.

"I can't be sure. Between the dim and the lightning flashes I can barely even see the ground. I'm not sure if I'd notice if there were a barrier here."

All around us, lightning was flickering from point to point at irregular intervals, followed by claps and peals of thunder. I wondered if being at Sanae's side was really enough protection to justify standing on top of a mountain in the middle of a thunderstorm. If my life was going to come to an end in Gensokyo, I'd prefer it didn't involve any event that would leave my corpse charred into black soot. As another crash of thunder, this one nearer than the last, clamored from above I instinctively clung onto the sleeve of Renko's trenchcoat. As I did so a booming voice called out, rising to be heard even over the peals of thunder.

"You don't look like tengu. But you're not ghosts or kappa either. Are you three... humans?"

All three of us looked up to see a figure floating in the air above us, glaring imperiously down on us with her arms crossed. As the rumble of thunder reverberated everyone was silent for a brief moment, then Sanae turned to Renko excitedly.

"Renko... is that your mom?" she asked in wide-eyed wonder.

"What? No! Why would you think that, just because we have similar fashion sense?" Renko shook her head as the woman who had been floating above us began to descend, eventually alighting just in front of us with a puzzled look on her face.

Sanae's presumption was unwarranted, but I could see where it might have come from. Although it was hard to see in the intermittently pulsing light, the woman wore a spotless, ruffle-covered white blouse adorned with red ribbons and ruffles over a simple black skirt. The two biggest differences in their appearance, other than their age and the trenchcoat Renko currently had on top of her usual outfit was that this woman was wearing a strange garment like a scarf or a shawl edged with ruffled red ribbons wrapped around her arms and shoulders. In terms of age, she did look old enough that she could have been Renko's mother. Given that she likely wasn't a human though, her age was anyone's guess.

"This is a very dangerous place," she said, with an almost apologetic tone. "Ordinary humans shouldn't be here. I think it would be best for all of you to turn around before the Eldest Daughter chases you away herself."

"Lucky for us I'm not an ordinary human then!" Sanae said, hands on her hips and chest thrust out proudly. "I'm a living god!"

"A living god? You don't seem very powerful for a god."

"Wow, rude! What kind of a person says something like that the first time they meet someone? You could stand to learn to read the atmosphere a bit better."

It was not an accusation I ever expected to hear coming from Sanae, of all people.

"Tone it down a little, Sanae, we're not here to pick a fight. Pleased to meet you, miss. My name is Usami Renko. This is my partner, Merry, and this is Kochiya Sanae, wind priestess of the Moriya shrine. We may all three of us be humans, but none of us are exactly what you would call ordinary. What can we call you?"

"...I'm Nagae Iku. A Messenger of the Dragon Palace."

"'Messenger of the Dragon Palace...' Ryuugu no tsukai... Isn't that what they call those weird-looking deep sea fish with all the frills?"

"You say something like that on our first meeting and I'm the one who gets accused of failing to read the atmosphere? You're just like the Eldest Daughter."

"I didn't fly all the way up here to be insulted by an oarfish!" Sanae cut in, indignantly.

"I never claimed to be an oarfish!"

"By that do you mean that you're not a beast youkai? You're actually a literal messenger of the Dragon God?" Renko asked, moving to get in front of Sanae. "Then the Dragon Palace of legend is a real place and it's actually in the sky rather than at the bottom of the ocean?" Her eyes were sparkling with curiosity. Iku, the messenger, flinched back slightly at the intensity of her expression.

"...I just came here to warn you of an approaching danger to Gensokyo," she said, re-asserting herself. "It's not my duty to tell humans anything about Heaven."

"Oh, and what would that danger be?"

Iku composed herself, speaking in a formal tone as if delivering an official proclamation. Her shawl continued to flutter around her, billowing in a way that seemed to have nothing to do with the soft breezes inside the rotating cloud. "Creatures of the earthly realm, heed now my warning!" She intoned, taking on a profound air. "As a messenger of the Dragon Palace I have swam the skies to warn you of a coming incident. This scarlet mist is a mist of temperaments, and a harbinger of disaster soon to come. Soon these scarlet clouds shall shake the very earth beneath you. I swim the heavens only to tell you these things."

"Shake the earth?" Sanae asked. "You're talking about an earthquake! You're the one who flattened the Hakurei Shrine!" She held up her wand, the charm at the end of it snapping to rigidity. "I won't let you do that to the Moriya Shrine's future base of operations! I'll stop you here!"

"Sanae! Sanae! Just wait! Let's try listening to what people have to say. Detectives ask questions before they start fights, right?" Sanae groaned as Renko held her back, wriggling ineffectually as Renko pinned her arms from behind. "Sorry about her," Renko said with a weak smile. "She can be a little quick to jump to conclusions."

"Getting mad at me won't achieve anything," Iku replied. "I'm just the messenger. I have nothing to do with the presence or absence of any quakes. Humans like you should be spending your time and energy making preparations."

"Well, your warning has come a little late, I'm afraid. There was already an earthquake this morning."

"What? Are you sure? Once the earthquake happens these scarlet clouds should dissipate."

"Well, the earthquake was extremely localized. As far as we can tell it destroyed one shrine and no one else even felt it."

"Ah. Is that so? I see. Aha, that must be... oh, why me?" Iku responded with a nod that ended with her head and shoulders slowly drooping lower and lower.

"I take it you have some idea who might be responsible for this disruption of the natural order then?"

"Yes, I'm afraid I do. But because I do I must warn you again not to go any further."

"Boss, she must be part of the mastermind's gang! She's just a henchman if she's saying something like that!" Sanae yelled, struggling again to escape from Renko's grasp.

"I'll admit it's a bit suspicious..." Renko said. While she was busy considering it, Sanae wrenched her arms free from Renko's hold.

"I'm not affiliated with the one responsible for this," Iku huffed. "And if I were to be, I wouldn't be her henchwoman. The earthquake you saw already was probably just a test of her power. If the clouds are still growing like this, then the real disaster is yet to come."

"I won't let it come! I'll crush your entire gang starting with you! With the power of the Moriya gods, I'll punish you before you can strike again!" Saying this, Sanae leapt into the air, hovering in place above us.

Iku turned to face her, bracing herself and settling her feet on the ground while letting out a sigh. "The warnings of the Messengers of the Dragon Palace were intended to prevent disaster and allow you humans the chance to prepare yourselves. Fighting like this is squandering the gift of time that has been given to you." Saying that, Iku thrust both arms down to her sides, the floating shawl twining itself around her as she did so. The cloth of the shawl wriggled and fluttered seemingly of its own accord, occasionally crackling with arcs of blue-white lightning.

It was at that moment that I abandoned any hope of a peaceful resolution and instead grabbed Renko by the shoulders, pulling her with me as I scrambled to find cover behind a jagged thrust of slate poking up from the ground at an angle. The very moment Renko and I were out of sight, the crash of thunder signaled the opening of a dazzling barrage of danmaku, illuminating the gaps between the blinding flashes of lightning.

—

To label the fight 'a clash between the uncontainable power of wind and the unstoppable force of lightning' seems a bit overblown, and maybe like a chapter title from a fantasy manga. At any rate, I won't make an effort to describe the battle here, as the nuances of their contest have no bearing on this story. Maintaining the readability of a narrative is important. As for the outcome of the match, however...

Iku slammed into the ground with a clatter, throwing up a spray of gravel. Wincing, she skidded to a halt and began to sit up just in time for Sanae to drop to the ground directly in front of her, her wand pointed at Iku's face.

"Now point me to the leader of your gang, minion!" Sanae declared.

"I'm not part of a gang!" Iku said with a heavy sigh, climbing to her feet unconcernedly and brushing herself off before clearing her throat and addressing us.

"Up above the top of the scarlet cloud is someone capable of controlling earthquakes though. That's probably who you're looking for. It's likely that she's the one responsible for the destruction of that shrine you mentioned. It’s likely that all of this has just been her idea of a prank."

"Alright! All we have to do is find this troublemaker and beat her up and the peace of Gensokyo will be restored! The village will be saved and the Moriya Shrine will be known far and wide as the new source for everyone's incident-resolution needs. Miss Renko, Miss Merry, let's go!"

Sanae darted over to where Renko and I had been sheltering and grabbed our arms without a moment's notice. All at once we found ourselves floating off the ground and accelerating upwards before we had even had time to properly stand up.

"Hey, wait a second Sanae, we haven't even gotten a name or description of the culprit yet!" Renko protested.

Sanae hesitated for a moment, looking back down toward Iku as she dwindled to a dot below us. "We don't need that, we can just look for someone suspicious!" It’s hard to know if Sanae was actually confident of such spurious reasoning or if she didn’t want to make a fool of herself by returning to ask Iku. I looked over at Renko, full of anxiety. She looked back with a similarly worried expression. With the two of us unable to fly on our own and already a dozen meters above the summit of Youkai Mountain, however, we had little choice but to cling on to Sanae.

Soon we were pressing into the cold mist of the clouds again and the sound of thunder was slowly fading away below us. I closed my eyes and concentrated on just holding on to Sanae's hand.

A moment later, with our momentum still propelling us upward, we pierced the heavens and rose above the final layer of cloud.


—17—


Once upon a time, the Hifuu Club was carried up to Heaven by a friendly god.

If I had written something like at any point during my life in the Outside World it would have been a silly daydream at best and more likely a sign of a delusional break with reality. Nonetheless, that was exactly what we were experiencing.

The scenery that we observed upon breaking through the upper limit of the scarlet cloud is the sort of thing that it would be difficult for me to describe with mere words. With only words I can never be sure that the image you envision in your mind will match up with the reality that I witnessed. As I am merely a writer and a Watson to Renko’s great detective, however, I can only hope that you will accept my bumbling apologies for this and know that no matter what you may be envisioning in your heads as you read my words, what we actually saw was something out of this world.

The phrase 'a sea of clouds' is one often overused and rarely taken to be literal, but looking out over the seemingly infinite expanse of the heavens, that's precisely what we saw. A calm, undulating plane of sun-drenched cloud reached beyond the limits of sight in every direction, dotted with a scattering of earthy islands that floated in it, as if somehow buoyant enough to settle on the vapor. We landed on one of these and took time to take in the sights before us.

The islet was dotted with tiny, delicate white flowers. Slim, leafy trees, abounding with peaches stood above them. It didn't resemble the conception I had in my head of what the Garden of Eden might have looked like, but it was close enough to the idyllic depictions of paradise that if I were to show you a picture of it, your first impression would likely be "that looks like Heaven." In the air above one of the islands a short distance away, a woman was dancing, wearing a floating, diaphanous shawl that twined and moved around her just as Iku’s had. She seemed oblivious to our presence. After we all spent a few moments gawking in the gentle sunlight, Sanae was the first to speak.

"Is this really Heaven? It's more boring than I would have expected."

"Sanae, what in the world were you imagining?"

"I figured there'd at least be a castle for one. And a huge garden with wondrous plants—"

"What's happening over there? It looks like that person's having a good time at least." Renko said, pointing toward the figure of the woman dancing in the air.

Sanae nodded and was about to set off, having taken a single step forward when a familiar, and audibly drunk voice called out to us.

"Izzat Renko and Merry? And the mountain shrine maiden? How did all of you get all the way up here?" The voice seemed to come from all around us, but as soon as it spoke, a white mist began to gather up before us, coalescing against the flow of the wind and gathering to a single point. The mist continued to condense, flowing together as more and more thin streamers collapsed into a small cloud and then, all at once, Suika's diminutive form popped out of it. Sanae's eyes went wide with amazement. I suppose it was one thing to have heard our stories about Suika's abilities, but it's another thing to see her demonstrate them in person.

"Oh! It’s Suika! I thought you were back at the Hakurei Shrine."

Suika’s red face reeled back slightly as she struggled to maintain her balance. "I came here cuz I heard there was some was manipulatin’ temperaments and stuff, and I wanted to see who it was." She pitched forward suddenly, but recovered herself with a wobbly step. "When I got here tho... it turns out this place is pretty nice, so I’m just stayin’ here ‘til I get bored now. You should all come join me for a drink!" Suika held out her gourd, waving it in our general direction.

I’m not much of a drinker at the best of times, but if I were going to drink something, I’d rather that it wasn’t oni sake. Judging from its effect on Suika, that stuff seemed terribly strong.

"Oh! Don’t mind if we do!" Renko said with a broad smile, starting towards Suika.

"Wait, Miss Renko! We're not here to drink, remember?" Sanae said, pulling on Renko's sleeve with a concerned expression.

"Oh? What're you all here for then?" Suika asked. "The only things anyone does up here are drink an' sing an' dance an' sleep."

"We've come to exterminate the evildoer responsible for the earthquakes below and to demonstrate the might of the Moriya Shrine. Wait a minute, was it you?"

"Aww don' be like that. You should like that boring magician from the Scarlet Devil Mansion now."

"So Miss Patchouli made it all the way here too?" Renko asked.

"Yeah, that one. She had it all wrong though. She thought I was the one gatherin’ up all the temperaments and said the weather had to all be my fault or sumthin'. If I was doin' this I wouldn't have been so sloppy as to let all that weather leak out though. It's annoying being falsely accused like that."

"Ah, my apologies then, that sounds like it wouldn’t be any fun. I take it that you have some idea who the culprit behind all of this really is though?"

"Oh, sure. Like I was about to say..."

Suika was suddenly interrupted by a tremendous rumbling that drowned out her words. A shivering tremor passed through the ground, bowing our legs as the earth shook beneath our feet. I stumbled, trying to maintain my balance.

"Is this an earthquake? In Heaven?" Sanae asked in a panic as she spread her arms, trying to stay upright. The ground bucked and both Sanae and I stumbled forward, ending up clinging on to either of Renko's sleeves for support, hanging off of her arms as the tremors subsided.

Renko grinned down at us, looking first to me then to Sanae. "Oh my, beautiful girls hanging off of both arms, is this what they call having a flower in each hand?" I frowned and reached up to poke her, but she blocked. As the last of the rumbling faded away and I got my feet under me again, I was about to retort when another voice spoke, calling out to us.

"Being in Heaven, control the land. Being on Earth, remove the keystones. In so doing, lay bare the scarlet heart of man."

The voice had come from above us, and looking up, we now saw its source. A long-haired girl wearing a sky-blue dress with a glimmering, rainbow-edged apron, wearing a hat ornamented with what looked like some of the same peaches clinging to the branches of the nearby trees. She was standing in mid-air, slowly lowering herself downward toward us. As she touched down she wore a confident smile on her face.

Sanae thrust her wand out in front of her. "Miss Renko, look! Anyone who makes an entrance like that is super-suspicious. This must be the culprit behind the abnormal weather and the earthquakes!"

The newcomer looked the three of us over. "So you're the incident resolution specialist aren't you? I've been waiting for you. Yes, I'm the one who destroyed your shrine."

Sanae blinked in surprise. "Eh?"

"You must be pretty confident to bring spectators all the way up here. I see you've even changed your usual clothes. Did you dress up just for me?"

Renko and I turned to each other in surprise before looking to Sanae. It seems I'm not the only one to constantly be mistaken for someone else. Sanae stood silently for a moment, trembling slightly.

"I'm Kochiya Sanae!" She exploded. "Wind priestess of the Moriya Shrine on Youkai Mountain! I'm not just a palette swap of Reimu! We don't even look anything alike! I'll show you the wrath of the gods!"

The long-haired girl blinked twice in surprise. "Excuse you," she said, "you’re not even who I’m talking to. Right now my business is with that one!" She said, flinging one arm forward, her finger outstretched.

"Who, me?"

The person on the other end of that finger was none other than my partner, Usami Renko.


—18—


"Yes, you. What happened to your normal red and white look? You look hot in that coat."

"What? Me? I mean, um, sorry, there must be some mistake. I'm not who you're looking for. I'm not an incident resolver at all, just a regular old boring human. My name's Usami Renko."

"What? Are you sure you're not the Hakurei shrine maiden?" She asked, bending over to peer closer.

"Sadly, yes."

The girl blinked twice more then put her hand on her chin and grumbled. "I suppose you don't look much like her. You have a very similar aura though. Your temperament is nearly identical."

"Really? Is that true? Hey Merry, is my temperament like Reimu's?"

"I'd never thought about it before, but you do sort of float through life, making things up as you go. You generally get along well with strong youkai too... Oh! And you're wildly arrogant!"

"Was that supposed to be a complement? Sanae, what do you think, am I like Reimu?"

"Miss Renko! She might be your grandmother or something! You said you came back in time 80 years, right? What if you came back to save her life and ensure that you're born, somehow?"

"That's impossible! My grandmother was born in Tokyo! In 2001! She was still healthy when we left in 2085!" Renko shook her head in dismay.

Sanae was off about the details of course, but she was surprisingly close to the truth. We had never told her about Renko's great aunt Sumireko, or how we had fallen into this world after exploring her room. Right now, in the Outside World, Sumireko would have been in elementary school. I had met her there a few years ago, just after the end of the Spring Snow Incident. It was impossible to think that she might somehow be the same person as Reimu.

"...Anyway, if you're looking for Reimu, she's probably still mourning her broken home or else flying around looking for the person responsible and exterminating everyone in her way. I just run a detective agency in the human village. Merry there is my partner and this is Kochiya Sanae, a wind priestess with the Moriya shrine on Youkai Mountain and our part-timer."

The girl with the peach-ornamented hat sighed. "Oh. Well, whatever then. You're all here to defeat me aren't you?"

"That's right!" Sanae answered, stepping forward. "For someone to deliver a line like that so carelessly she must be the final boss. Merry, Renko, please stand back."

"Oh, I'm fighting this girl now? Well as long as you came here to solve the incident, I guess that's fine." She smiled cheerily and reached to grab something belted around her hip. Her hand closed around what almost looked like the handle of a weapon and she drew it forth. Then, where there had been nothing but a cloth-wrapped grip a moment before, there was... 𝑠𝑜𝑚𝑒𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔.

The way she held it in her hand, and the overall impression I got when I looked at it was that it was a sword. Holding it before her now, it definitely seemed sword-like, but I couldn't describe its shape. It was clearly a weapon of some sort, with a solid hilt connected to a shifting, formless mass of energy that writhed and boiled as if it were made of semi-solid scarlet fire.

"I'm Hinanawi Tenshi," she said with a carefree smile. "A Celestial and inhabitant of Heaven. I don't particularly care who you are or why you're here, but if you're going to try to resolve this incident please try your best, alright?"

"You want her to try to stop you?" Renko asked, blinking in confusion. While my partner and I were surprised, Sanae didn’t hesitate for a moment, striding forward with her wand in hand.

"Sorry Sanae, just one moment please, I'd like to confirm a few details first." Renko said, rushing between the two duelists before they could begin.

"Miss Renko!" Sanae pleaded with exasperation. "You can't interrupt the final battle! You're ruining the excitement!"

"I'd just like to make sure we're understanding what you're fighting over correctly. Now, Tenshi, you're the one who destroyed the shine and caused all of the recent abnormal weather, right?"

"That's right. This is the Sword of Hisou. All human temperaments are laid bare before it. It gathers those temperaments up as a scarlet mist to increase its own power. That earthquake earlier was me testing how much power it's absorbed so far. With what I have now... if I were to strike at the right point, I could shake all of Gensokyo, I think."

"I see, I see. Very scary. And if I may ask, what would your purpose be in doing that? Is there a reason you want to shake Gensokyo to pieces?"

In response to that question, Tenshi put her hands on her hips and sighed. "Life in Heaven is boring, alright? All anyone wants to do up here is drink and sing and dance and repeat that over and over and over forever. I had taken to watching the mortals on Earth out of boredom, and I saw humans having fun playing with youkai to resolve strange incidents."

"So you just..."

"Made an incident of my own to join in? Yeah! I would have expected the Hakurei shrine maiden to be the first to arrive. Having people like you come up is fine though, as long as you can keep me entertained for a bit."

Her tone in announcing this was utterly shameless. It was just as Eirin had imagined. This whole incident was nothing more than the result of a Celestial's boredom. For the sake of that and that alone the Hakurei Shrine had been destroyed and an even more destructive earthquake might soon be unleashed. It was a terrifying level of callousness I could scarcely comprehend.

"That's awful!" Sanae said, pushing her way around Renko. "I'll stop you before you can do something so horrible again! You won't be around long enough to see Miss Reimu!"

"Oh, that's good! I like that. Get angry! I want to see your very best. If you can't stop me, then all of Gensokyo will be destroyed!"

Tenshi seemed to me like she had entirely embraced the role of the villain but in a much more thorough way than Remilia ever had. Sanae's reaction to her unrepentant malice was unexpected. She stood silent for a moment, her head down, seemingly concentrating, then looked up suddenly, eyes shining with excitement. "I love it when the villain is so reliably evil! The trend of having all of the bad guys have sympathetic backstories just doesn't work when it's time to face the final boss! If I can defeat someone like you, Moriya's prestige will be off the charts!"

"Oh, this is all for your glory now?. It's fine either way. I'll engrave the mark of your foolishness on your body with this scarlet sword!"

With that, both girls kicked off of the ground at the same instant and rushed towards each other. I barely had time to realize that Renko and I were completely unprotected and still in the open. I turned to run, but suddenly felt myself lifted by my armpits as my dress was pulled up and backward. My legs dangled uselessly as I rose into the air. Looking over I could see Renko beside me struggling at her collar as she was lifted too.

"Whoops, let's get you two out of there, it's dangerous!" The voice had come from above us. Craning my neck around, I saw Suika, who had grown to a dozen meters tall, pinching both of us by the backs of our clothes between her fingers as she lifted us out of harm's way. She took a wobbly, stumbling step away from the battle, clearing a huge distance with a single stride, and moving us well away from the fight and into a dense grove of peach trees.

"Whoa! Suika, I didn't know you could get this big!" Renko called up to her.

"It's handy for carryin' stuff." She said simply. Having stumbled with us into the trees, she began to shrink, causing us to rapidly descend to the ground. As she contacted smaller and smaller, the ground rushed up to meet us and we landed in a heap as she resumed her normal form.

As we climbed to our feet she smiled drunkenly up at us. "If you think her incident is annoyin' wait 'til you see the way she fights. It'll get bumpy over there, so let's just have a drink over here an' watch. Only snacks are peaches tho." Before I could think to object, Suika was pouring sake from her gourd into a tiny stone cup and pressing it into my hands. "By the way," she continued. "You said the Hakurei Shrine was destroyed?"

Renko nodded as she took a cup of her own. "That's right, earlier this morning."

"Is Reimu okay?" For all of her rough edges, Suika seemed genuinely concerned.

"Well, she wasn't hurt, but she's pretty upset about losing her home. Financially and psychologically it's a pretty big blow."

"Wow, well that's one way to get yourself a fight." Suika enthusiastically took a long pull from her gourd. "After things are done here I'll go back down and fix it up for her."

"What, the shrine? I don't think it's really in a fixable state."

"Then I'll make a new one. I owe Reimu a little for lettin' me stay and hostin' all of those fights and parties. You two too. If your house gets flattened jus' call me and I'll come make you a new one."

"Oh. Um, thank you," I said, turning away from the fight visible through the trees to face Suika. "That's a generous offer, but prevention is better than rebuilding after the fact, don't you think? Did you know Tenshi was going to cause an incident? Why didn't you try and stop her?"

"That wouldn't have been very friendly of me. Folks got a right to act out if they wanna. That's Gensokyo's way."

"Well maybe, but isn't causing a major earthquake a bit much?"

"Not compared to hidin' the moon, or coverin' everything in flowers or the like. Solvin' stuff like that is Reimu's job. I'm an oni, not a shrine maiden."

I nodded uncertainly but the logic was incomprehensible to me. I guess a powerful youkai like Suika would be fine in the event of a major disaster, but most youkai still depended on the village for sustenance and recognition. Surely a disaster that threatened the village's existence would be a problem for them...

As if predicting my thoughts, Suika responded. "'sides, if it were gonna be a real problem, then Yukari'd do somethin' about it. If she's not, then it can't be that bad."

"The Youkai Sage?"

"Whenever anything threatens the balance of Gensokyo, that means it's Yukari's turn."

Renko offered her cup to Suika, who poured her another shot. "The Youkai Sage, huh?" she muttered to herself. "I still haven't ever managed to meet her."

"Really? You've been here for a while now, right? And you come by the shrine almost as often as she does."

"Yeah, but she seems determined never to appear in front of me. I've never even seen her at a distance."

"Huh. That’s not like her," Suika replied, narrowing her eyes.

"Renko, you met her at Eientei, didn't you?" I interrupted.

"She was there and I was there, but I couldn't see at the time. It's like she knew."

"Oh, right."

I had only met the Youkai Sage on two occasions myself. Once at Eientei during the Endless Night Incident beside Renko and once just after the conclusion of the Spring Snow Incident. We had seen her shikigami, Yakumo Ran, much more often. It was hard not to conclude that she had been avoiding us from what we had heard from others.

"I've known Yukari for a long time, but there's no figuring her out. Still..."

"What is it?"

"Well there must be a reason she's avoiding you. It'll be one that only she knows though."

"What reason could she have for not wanting me to see her?"

"Maybe it has somethin' to do with why you both got brought here from the Outside World."

Renko and I looked at each other. Why had we come to this world? At this point I had become so used to living in Gensokyo that I no longer thought about it. The Outside world was something I remembered, but it seemed more like a memory of a dream to me. The 80 years we had crossed to come from our previous lives to this world hardly seemed real.

"I wonder what she could be up to." Renko mused. "If the Youkai Sage was the one who brought us here and she had a reason for doing so, you'd think she'd let us know what it is already. Do you think she intends for us to rewrite history or something?"

"Maybe our being here is already the point. Maybe just by bringing us to Gensokyo she changed history."

"If that's the case, do you really think that she'd just leave us to roam free in this world of hers and do what we like here?"

"Well that’s just Yukari for you. Have you tried these peaches yet? They're pretty good."

"No, give me a bite. Merry, try this booze Suika's got, it goes down easy."

There was no point in trying to guess what the Youkai Sage’s motivations might be at this point. I reached out to take the cup that Renko was offering and sampled a sip. The liquor was sweet and smooth. Moreover, it paired wonderfully with the peaches. Even someone like myself, who wasn't much of a drinker, would find it easy to get smashed on something like this. In light of these refreshments and given the spectacle of the ongoing match between Sanae and Tenshi there was no point in worrying over things we couldn't do anything about.

Through the gaps in the trees we caught the occasional glimpse of a burst of danmaku or one of the duelists as they swooped and soared, locked in battle. The sound of rending earth and howling wind resounded, vying for dominance. It may not have made for the most pleasant background music, but it was still a lovely afternoon as we sat in the dappled sunlight, enjoying our snack as well as each other's company.