東方プロジェクト二次小説・オリジナル小説サイト
Chapter 8: The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil

Eight

𝘛𝘩𝘳𝘦𝘦 𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘵𝘭𝘦 𝘴𝘰𝘭𝘥𝘪𝘦𝘳 𝘣𝘰𝘺𝘴 𝘸𝘢𝘭𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘻𝘰𝘰;
𝘈 𝘣𝘪𝘨 𝘣𝘦𝘢𝘳 𝘩𝘶𝘨𝘨𝘦𝘥 𝘰𝘯𝘦
𝘈𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘵𝘸𝘰.


—23—

"Ugggh. Ow. Damn, I really didn't see that one coming." Those were the first words I heard spoken in the shocked silence after the light faded. They had come from the blonde witch, who was hovering shakily on her broom and floating toward the shrine maiden unsteadily.

"Oh, she's alive" I thought stupidly to myself.

The shrine maiden sighed with a heave of her shoulders, but I never caught any response she may have had, as the next moment the mistress of the house crashed into the peaked roof of the clock tower with bone-shattering force, sending shingles and chunks of plaster flying and carving an indent into the triangular face of one of the roof's sides. We heard her roll and slide off the pinnacle of the tower and saw her tumble over the edge to land in a heap on the section of the walkway just around the corner from where we had gathered to watch the fight. Everyone rushed over to her at once, but predictably Sakuya was the first at her side, appearing in an instant to take her hand and help her to her feet.

Amazingly, Remilia didn't look much worse off than any of the others had after their encounters with the two invaders. Her hat had been split down one side and she was covered in scuffs and minor scratches. When she took Sakuya's hand and opened her eyes, she was in much better spirits than I might have expected.

"Good grief. I hate to say it, but it seems like I lost." She climbed to her feet with Sakuya's help, but she never spared the maid a glance. Instead her eyes were fixed upward, focused on the shrine maiden who had flown over in the excitement and was now drifting slowly toward us, with a harsh, unimpressed expression on her face.

The shrine maiden adjusted her trajectory, floating to an unoccupied spot on the walkway to land. The moment her heels touched the ground, she spoke to Remilia without a word of introduction. "You're going to need to get rid of all of this fog now."

"Well, I suppose I don't have a choice. Patchy, help me out."

"Yes, yes of course, I figured you'd be asking as much." Patchouli opened the heavy tome she had brought with her and began to incant. Remilia joined in the chanting, seemingly working from memory, but chanting a different spell, a rhythmic counterpoint to Patchouli's raspy drone. As they chanted, the mist began to clear, losing its tinge and becoming thinner and less substantial, flowing back towards the center of the lake like a receding tide. Within moments, even the moon had returned to normal, a pale, waning crescent in the dark sky.



"Is that sufficient?" Remilia asked. Even in defeat, there was a boasting tone to her words, as if she expected the shrine maiden to be impressed at her swift reversal of the mist.

"It will do. If you ever make a scene like this again though, I'll come back and beat you even worse."

"Oh, I should hope so, that was quite an amusing diversion. I like you, Miss shrine maiden."

"I don't like being liked by a vampire. You, maid. Or you, magician. Whoever's she is. Keep this child in line. If I have to come back, I'm holding you accountable too." She glared at Patchouli and Sakuya, then seemed to notice the both of us. "You two. Are you… Humans? Do you work for the vampire too?"

She stomped over to stare at us closely. Up close she seemed to be quite a bit younger than us. A teenager at most, but between her small frame and her wise eyes she might have looked like she belonged in elementary school or high school depending on how she dressed.

"No, no. We aren't employed here at all..." I began.

"Well then who are you? If you don't work for the vampire, what are you doing here in this mansion?"

I wish I had a good answer. I'd been wondering that myself for quite some time. I knew if I let the question hang for more than a moment though, Renko would be sure to come up with some sort of nonsense to make the situation worse. "We wandered in here by accident," I explained. "Probably from another world..." Renko's mouth twitched, almost pouting for a moment, but both I and the shrine maiden ignored her.

"You're Outsiders? In a place like this? It's amazing that you've managed to hang onto your lives. If you're ready to return to the Outside world, I can show you the way."

"You know a way back?" It seemed too good to be true. Salvation delivering itself to us in the form of a flying shrine maiden, wrapped with a bow like a present.

"That's part of my job." She turned back to Remilia. "I'm taking these two with me, you can't keep them here."

"Do as you will, I'm tired. I'm going to call it a night. Sakuya."

"I'll prepare your bedchamber at once, milady."

Remilia turned toward the clocktower stairs and slouched off languidly, stretching and yawning like an overtired child as she did so. The shrine maiden let out a disgruntled snort then turned back to us. It seemed with the red mist dispersed, her work here was done. I would have expected a holy figure with the power she clearly wielded to want to put a more permanent end to a creature like a vampire or even to this entire mansion full of various devils, but for my part I'm glad that the situation had been resolved without bloodshed.

"Marisa, you should head home and sleep too."

"Aw man, I was just gonna have a little look around first, there's bound to be some good stuff here. You're probably right though, I could use the rest."

The witch called Marisa had approached silently while we were talking and had been hovering above us on her broom. Without another word she steered her broomstick around and accelerated away, leaving a glittering trail of fine golden stardust behind her. It was hard to believe that just moments ago there had been a lively and thrilling battle in the skies above us. Now, with the mistress' departure, everyone else had taken the hint and descended the stairs as well, leaving the walkway where we stood with the shrine maiden as lonely as shrine grounds after the end of a festival. As the breeze rushed by, she turned to us again.

"Okay. You, with the weird eyes. Your face reminds me of someone. What's your name?"

"Oh. Um, I'm Maéreverie Hearn"

"My-ii-ree.... I feel like I'd bite my tongue trying to say that."

I sighed while Renko grinned. "Just call me Merry, then."

"Merry. Right. What about you?"

"I'm Usami Renko, Merry's one and only partner."

"Renko. OK. I'll see you both safely to the village, then I'll see about setting up a way for you to return to the Outside." She turned around so she was facing the same direction that we were then reached out and grabbed our hands before suddenly seeming to remember something. "Oh. Can either of you fly?"

Naturally we shook our heads in unison.

"Right, you're Outsiders. I figured as much."

The next moment we were rising into the air and floating just behind the shrine maiden. I gasped in shock. Below us, the scarlet mansion was growing smaller and smaller. My body was suspended weightlessly in midair. There was no feeling of force or even much acceleration like one might expect if they were hanging in a harness or taking off in an airplane, instead it felt just like floating in water as the ground relinquished its hold on us.

"Merry! I'm flying!" Renko shouted excitedly, even though I could see her plainly beside me. She was squirming about, bending her body to try to look in every direction at once, but I had to focus on not looking down to avoid getting queasy. After a moment I decided to simply close my eyes.

"Don't let go of my hand or you'll fall." Was all the shrine maiden said to us. Then she kicked against the air and we took off like a shot. By the time I realized that I hadn't had a chance to say goodbye to Sakuya or any of the others, the Scarlet Devil Mansion had already shrunk to a tiny box on the vanishing shore of the dark lake behind us.

"By the way, Miss shrine maiden," Renko shouted over the rushing wind "what should we call you?"

"Huh?" she answered without turning to face us.

"Your name!" Renko shouted again, "what is your name?"

"Hakurei Reimu." The shrine maiden wasn't shouting, but somehow her voice carried to us. "I'm the shrine maiden in charge of exterminating youkai. Just Reimu is fine."


—24—


The girl called Reimu held my hand as I sailed along under the moonlight for a while. We flew over the surface of the lake that the Scarlet Devil Mansion had overlooked and found a river leading away from it. We flew, tracing its meandering path loosely from well above. Before long, the silhouette of a village began to come into view under the moonlight. It was larger than one might expect from the word "village" with numerous wide streets and large, tile-roofed buildings. Some of the buildings even sported the occasional smokestack or other bit of modern metalworking, suggesting that the level of technological sophistication here might be higher than it would appear at first glance.

Reimu flew for some distance above the village then gently brought us down near the middle, in a large, dusty square, deserted now under the moonlight. As our feet touched down, the familiar sensation of unsuspended weight returned and I breathed a sigh of relief.

"Akyuu will be asleep at this hour." She muttered. "I wonder if Keine is awake."

Neither were names we had heard before, but they seemed familiar to Reimu, as she walked directly over to one of the few buildings with a light on and knocked at the door. After a moment, the sliding door opened and a tall woman emerged from inside, ducking slightly as she did. This woman had long, silvery blue hair that reached to the small of her back and an odd, officious-looking square hat pinned to it. She looked to be in her early thirties and settled into a relaxed posture once she recognized Reimu.

"Oh, Reimu!" She said. Her voice was bright, but careworn. "I thought the fog had just settled on its own when we didn't see you return, but you must have resolved the incident after all. Thank goodness, I was getting worried."

"Nothing to worry about." Reimu replied. "I was just out on the lake, taking out some vampires."

"Vampires again? I had hoped they had grown up some since last time. Are you sure you're alright though? It's been several days since that tengu mentioned you were looking into it, so we thought you might have been beaten."

"What? Several days? What are you talking about? I wrapped it all up in one night."

"What?"

While the shrine maiden stared incredulously, the woman with the odd hat looked over her shoulder and appeared to notice us for the first time. "Oh? Who are these two? Outsiders?"

"Oh, they were wandering around in the vampire's mansion, so I brought them here. This is Renko, and this is um… Merry, or something."
"Well, I'm glad they're both all right." With a look of mixed amazement and consternation on her face, the woman with the square hat bustled over to us then smiled softly and extended a hand in greeting.

"Welcome to Gensokyo" She said to us. "I am Kamishirasawa Keine, a historian and protector of this village. From this moment on, this village accepts you as a human, and offers you its protection."

"Um, thanks." I offered dumbly as I took her hand and squeezed it lightly. Renko was, as usual, much more on the ball and her eyes were shining with curiosity.

"Nice to meet you. I'm Usami Renko."

"Oh, and I'm Maéreverie Hearn. Just call me Merry, everyone does."

"Miss Renko and Miss Merry." She nodded to herself. "I'm sure you have a lot of questions since you've only just arrived, but first you should get some rest. We can talk as much as you like in the morning. Or would you prefer to have something to eat?"

"No, thank you, we've already had a meal at the Scarlet Devil Mansion"

"I see. I'll lay out a futon for you in the side room. You can rest there, and in the morning we can talk."

"Thank you, I'd love to take you up on that offer. Shall we go, Merry?"

"Oh, sure."

We followed Keine as she walked toward the building she had come out of, passing Reimu on the way. The shrine maiden turned to speak as we walked past her. "You two should be safe here if you listen to Keine. Nothing should try to eat you here in the village. I'll leave them with you, if that's alright," she said, turning back to Keine. "If they want to leave, bring them to the shrine tomorrow evening. I'm going to go get some sleep."

"I understand. Thank you for all of your hard work, Reimu. Good night."

With an absentminded wave in our direction Reimu was already lifting off the ground and sailing into the night sky.

Keine watched her go, then ushered us into the building, which seemed to be something like a community police station.


—25—


When I opened my eyes the next morning, I had hoped against hope that I would find myself back in my room in Kyoto, but instead an unfamiliar wooden ceiling hung in my vision. I lifted myself from the thin futon laying on the tatami floor and looked around. It took me a moment to even remember that we had been taken from the Scarlet Devil Mansion to a distant village. Everything looked unfamiliar in the daylight and my body felt heavy and stiff, as if the fatigue of our excursions in the mansion was still weighing on me. I would have liked to have stayed in bed for a bit longer, but the morning light streaking in through the blinds was already quite warm, and far too bright for me to sleep through.

I looked over at the futon beside mine, and saw my partner sleeping soundly, with a carefree expression on her face. I couldn't know if it was bravery or insensibility that made Renko so able to relax in any circumstance, but just now I envied her.

I slipped out of the sleeping room as quietly as possible so as not to wake Renko, and urged my stiff body into the hallway. As I was looking around for the restroom, Keine stepped out of another room adjoining the hallway and met my eyes.

"Oh good, you're awake. Good morning."

"Good morning. Um, where is the toilet?"

"Toilet?" She sounded the word out, carefully mimicking my pronunciation. "Ah yes, it's at the end of this hallway. As an Outsider, you may find it a little distasteful, but I ask that you bear with us."

I headed the direction she had indicated with a fixed smile on my face. When I opened the door she had pointed out, a strong odor immediately assaulted my senses. A large water-filled basin and several smaller vessels were placed on a low shelf. At the back of the room was a small partition which sectioned off a reeking hole in the floor. Suppressing my disgust, I relieved myself as quickly as I could, then rushed to the basin to wash my hands and face in cold water before leaving.

As I came out, Keine was waiting to offer me a cup of tea before breakfast. I joined her in the room she had come out of, which appeared to be the main office of the community police station we found ourselves in. There was another girl in the room when I entered, a petite young lady with a long red ponytail wearing a kimono.

"Good mooorning." She greeted me, lazily drawling out her vowels.

Before I could do much more than wonder who she was, Keine introduced me, offering me a mug of hot tea at the same time, saying "This is my subordinate, Kotohime." Kotohime. It was an old-fashioned name, the final kanji of which meant 'princess.' Often not literally, but in the sense of an heir to some title or position. Would someone like that be working as a subordinate? In a police station? Was this all some kind of joke? She bowed to me, somewhat awkwardly, and I returned it.

I took a sip of my tea while trying to make sense of it all, but before I could ask another question a sleepy voice called my name in the midst of a yawn. "Maaaaahhhry? Oh, there you are." Renko had wandered in, rubbing sleep from her eye with one hand. Her hair was a mess, with cowlicks standing straight up in places. She slouched into the room and stared, dumbfounded and slack-mouthed at me and the girl who called herself Kotohime. Disgraceful.

"Good morning Renko. Do you want some tea?"

"Ooo, gimme." She remembered to bow to Keine and Kotohime when accepting her teacup at least, but slurped noisily from the hot brew. "Hey Merry, do you find yourself strangely tired after last night? Like, REALLY tired?"

"It's probably just because we were sleeping in unfamiliar beds."

"Huh, I dunno." After sipping tea in silence for a few minutes, Renko's hazy consciousness seemed to clear up and she began to return to her usual sharp self.

Seeing this, Keine turned to her companion. "Kotohime, can you please prepare some breakfast for the four of us?"

"Yup, can do."

As soon as Kotohime had excused herself and slid the door shut behind her, Keine turned to us with a serious expression on her face. "So. You two came here from the vampire's mansion, right? I'll admit, I don't know much about how they live over there, but I imagine you were able to learn some things. How much do you know about this world?"

I looked at Renko, unsure how we should respond.

Renko piped up readily, and with casual ease. "Well, humans can fly in the sky here. Vampires, magicians, and youkai walk around freely—it's completely different from the world we used to live in."

"Yes, that's more or less right. It's a world connected to, but apart from the one you've been living in. It's a remote and hidden area of Japan, warded off from the rest of the world by barriers."

"Oh, so we're still in Japan then?"

"Well, in a manner of speaking. It's probably not much like the Japan you know here. It was partitioned off from the rest of the world about 120 years ago, during the Meiji era. A human couldn't normally just travel here though. In order to enter or leave this place, you have to either follow specific rituals or inadvertently stumble into a place where the seals aren't perfect. I suspect it's the latter that brought you both here. What we call 'being spirited away.'"

I had always thought of the boundary-crossing that Renko and I did as part of our regular club activities as a sort of spiriting away, but for us to both be here physically was an unprecedented degree of transference. I wondered if we had both vanished suddenly from Renko's parents' house, and what they might think had happened to us. I imagined there would be a lot of uncomfortable questions to answer once we returned, if we should manage to. It pained me to think of Renko's grandmother worried over us.

As I was worrying over such things Renko suddenly held up her hand, with a concerned expression on her face. "Hold up a sec. Did you just say it's been 120 years since the Meiji era?"

"Hmm? Well let's see. It was the year 1885 when the Hakurei barrier was erected, so I suppose to be precise it's been 118 years."

"No way." Renko looked stunned, a blank, almost horrified expression on her face as she leaned back from the table. It took me a moment to catch up to her. I tilted my head, wondering what was so wrong about those numbers until I could complete the calculations for myself. When I did, I must have worn the same expression.

"What!?" I blurted.

Keine looked at us curiously. "What's wrong?" she asked.

"118 years after 1885" Renko mumbled.

"That would make this the year 2003," I finished her thought.

"80 years ago!" Renko shouted. She clutched at her head as if trying to steady it. We couldn't know if we were being lied to, but with everything else impossible we had seen in this world, was this any more unbelievable than the rest? Could we have crossed a boundary that not only separated worlds, but the flow of time as well?

I thought back to the amber and the insect embedded inside of it we had found in Sumireko's room. Could Renko have been right? If that amber, which held ancient creatures from before our time sealed in eternity was a sort of power stone, could it have caused the interference in the boundary I had felt back in that room? Could it have contained the power to transcend the chain of causality?

"You're from the future?" Keine asked, wonderingly.

"Yeah... probably." Renko answered uneasily, sounding uncharacteristically unsure.

Keine crossed her arms, with a look of concern on her face. "Well. This is the first time I've heard of an Outsider from the future. I'll have to ask Reimu if she can send you back to your own time as well as your own place." She looked apologetic. "This could take a bit longer than planned."

It was hard not to sigh as Renko and I both took in the news and looked up at the ceiling. If we were to return to the Outside World as it currently existed it would be no more familiar to us than this world was. It might be interesting to see a glimpse of what the world had been like years before our births, of course, but the message was inarguably that our chance of returning to the world we knew was diminishing. Despairing wouldn't solve anything though. I suppose it would have been foolish to imagine that returning to the state of things we had previously known would be simple given how strange this world was.

"If you both really are from the future, then as a historian, there's a lot that I would like to ask you. I should start though by answering any questions you have and explaining this world to you as best I can."



After breakfast, Keine took us outside. In the morning light, the village had a completely different atmosphere than the huddled, desolate-looking cluster of dark shapes we had seen at night. Men in samue and women in kimono filled the street alongside countless scampering children and the occasional pack animal. Some businesses had already opened and the occasional spirited cry announcing stock or advertising wares could be heard ringing out over the rooftops. It was a scene unlike anything to be seen in the world we had come from, carrying a bustle of energy and trade utterly foreign to the Kyoto I knew. As we took in the sights, Keine began to explain.

"Gensokyo is a place where things that have been forgotten or no longer have a purpose in the Outside World drift into. In addition to humans, youkai, fairies, myriad gods and other beings coexist here, living by their own rules. This village is the only settlement in Gensokyo that is protected by the accords that govern this land, and as such it's the only place where most humans can live safely."

Keine walked slowly as she explained to us, greeting passers-by while we gawked like tourists at the numerous unfamiliar sights.

"To the point of view of Outsiders, especially two like yourself, I imagine things here probably seem a bit backward," She continued. "But once you get used to it, many find this a comfortable world to be a part of. Outsiders like yourselves happen to wander into Gensokyo from time to time, and some do end up settling here in the village. Though the majority of them end up returning to their own world eventually."

"You had mentioned that we would be safe here in the village. I take that to mean that the same would not be true elsewhere?" Renko asked.

"I'm afraid so. This village is considered human territory, and operates under its own rules, free from outside influence. Beyond the walls of the human village though, this world belongs to youkai. If you don't take precautions, you might be attacked or even eaten at any time you're outside the village's walls. While there are rules saying that youkai are to refrain from killing any human from the village, youkai do not live in a society as we do, and so it's not unheard of for rogue individuals to ignore or fail to understand such constraints. In general, you should avoid going outside the walls of the village for as long as you stay here, most especially at night."

"Gotcha. If there's no access to the Outside World though, does that mean this village produces everything it needs? Like food and clothes?"

"For the most part, yes. Normal people can't pass through the Great Hakurei Barrier, but there are some who can. Occasionally, if something is needed by the people of the village that is not available in Gensokyo, the Administrator will obtain it from the outside world and bring it here."

"The Administrator?"

"She's a great youkai. Most people call her the Youkai Sage. She's the one responsible for creating Gensokyo. She's seldom seen however, only appearing in times of great import. I've yet to meet her myself, but the written histories suggest she's been watching over the village since the Great Hakurei Barrier was first erected."

So there was someone other than Reimu representing some sort of authority here then.

We eventually arrived at a plaza that seemed to be a hub for all manner of activity in the village. Mercantile carts shuttled back and forth, weaving among the plentiful pedestrians while people sat at the periphery of the square on benches, chatting, eating or simply enjoying the summer sun. At the center of the square was a stone statue of a dragon on a raised pedestal. I saw many people bow and clap their hands together before it as they passed, as if it were an object of worship.

I asked Keine about it and she replied "It's a statue of the Dragon God, and it's capable of predicting the weather. Its eyes turn one of seven colors, giving a forecast for the next few days." Given the agrarian nature of the civilization we had seen on display so far, I could imagine such an object would be considered extremely useful.

"If you don't mind me changing the subject a little" Renko began, "who exactly is Hakurei Reimu? You mentioned the 'Great Hakurei Barrier' and Reimu can fly around, but she's actually a human, right?"

"Oh, that's not so unusual here. I can fly too. She's our resident expert in youkai extermination. She lives at the shrine east of here. It's her job to resolve any Incidents that arise from squabbles between youkai that threaten the human village, like that crimson mist that was spreading all last week. That turned out to be the work of the vampire who's mansion you two stumbled into, right?"

"Yeah..." Renko answered, but her brow was furrowed and her thoughts were clearly elsewhere, trying to work something out. Keine didn't appear to notice and continued on.

"In that case, that means you must have seen her fight, right?"

Renko remained silent, walking with her head down and her chin resting on one hand, so I answered for her. "Um, I think so. You mean the exchange of light bullets. Playing danmaku, I think they called it, right?"

Keine nodded. "Gensokyo was created as an isolated paradise for youkai when the Outside World began to reject their existence in favor of science and an empirical view of reality. That materialist view was, in essence, a denial of the very existence of youkai and caused them to weaken and slowly die out. Here in Gensokyo, this village is filled with humans who still recognize and fear the youkai, giving them purpose and allowing them to maintain their presence. That's why the youkai obey the rule to never attack the village directly —they rely on us for their sustenance. That's also why the Hakurei shrine maiden is empowered and charged with resolving incidents. To prevent any youkai from foolishly destroying this sanctuary they have created."

"So you're saying that youkai can't exist if they are forgotten by humans?"

I avoided thinking of what horrible fate might have befallen us. It was easy enough to do as what Keine said was full of other more fascinating implications. "It sounds like a world where the concepts of Relativistic Noology are very much proven out...." I muttered to myself.

"Relative..... what?" asked Keine,

"Ah, sorry, I should explain."



I took the time to give a brief overview of the academic discipline I had majored in back in my own world: Relativistic Noology. It's very much a modern school of thought, primarily concerned with the conflict between subjectivity, objectivity, and the nature of perception and perceiver.

For any individual, the world can only truly be said to be experienced through the lens of one's own subjectivity, like how one's childhood home, if re-visited as an adult, seems like a completely different place. The world we experience moment to moment is only a virtual construct that exists within our own heads, created by the brain through signals gathered from the sensory organs. People with different sensory organs necessarily perceive reality differently, but the subjective view of an individual and the way in which they view the world is generally stable and reproducible, making each individual's perception of reality a mutually inviolable construct while rendering any actual objective reality ambiguous - reality is, in effect, nothing more than the consensus that individuals implicitly agree upon. Relativistic Noology concerns itself with the study of how such constructs are built and how they are communicated and shared by and between individuals.

Does that make sense? It's difficult for me to convey such an ambiguous and esoteric concept without resorting to academic language, but to put it simply the position of the Relativistic Noologist is "what seems real to me is real" whether that be day to day life, virtual reality, a dream or a paranoid delusion. Altered states of consciousness are no less internally consistent or logical than what we consider the 'typical' patterns of brain function, and so experience, consciousness, cognition and neuroses must all be assessed from the point of view of their impact on the subjective perceptions of the individual. For example, something that is perceived as an objective truth within a community that shares the same subjective lens might seem delusional to someone outside of the group, but is not an indication of an unhealthy or disordered mind as long as that individual is accepted by their community. As such, it is impossible for a student of Relativistic Noology to see the 20th-century obsession with, and insistence upon, a single objective reality as any different than other historical examples of mass hysteria, since mass hysteria arises from the adoption of a subjective perception as an objective reality within a group.

As a further example, to a religious community that recognizes the existence of God as self-evident fact and shares the same belief, the fact that the scientific consensus outside of that community holds that God doesn't exist and the universe came into existence with the Big Bang is completely meaningless. Such a fact would seem a delusional fantasy to them, regardless of how widely accepted it might be. Similarly, to the non-religious people outside of that community, creationism would seem to be the worthless fallacy. The only difference between an individual inside or outside the community is the subjective lens they adopt to make sense of the stimuli presented to their brains. No matter how much observational data either party might collect, their conclusions would ultimately be formed by their own subjectivity, and no amount of data would be likely to change that lens.

In the field of Relativistic Noology, in which everything is held to be subjective, the act of recognition —that mental connection of a sensorial signifier to an established thought construct, is seen as being of paramount importance. Conversely, the discipline holds that that which is not, or can not be recognized by an individual does not exist for that individual. A subjective world-construct is only made real through the illusory process of shared cognition—as a community comes to agree that a thing is objectively real, it becomes so for the members of that community. In the world Renko and I come from, scientific denial of the existence and influence of youkai and gods is the norm, and no one would credit the existence of echoes across a mountain valley, for example, to the actions of a yamabiko. In a world where the scientific recognition of the mechanics of the reflection of sound waves did not exist however, the yamabiko explanation would be sensible and consistent with the observed facts. It can be said then, that for the people living in that second proposed world, the yamabiko existed.

With that understanding, you can see how Gensokyo could be thought of as a world in which the shared perceptions of objective reality recognized by Relativistic Noology held physical power. Vampires, youkai, magicians and humans who could manipulate time or fly in the sky were believed to exist, and as such, without contact with any outside community to disrupt the stable consensus reality that had formed within this barrier, they did. It was a world in which existence itself depended on recognition, and the principles granted existence by that recognition became as real as any others that could be detected by the senses.



I'm not sure if I offered a good explanation to Keine or not, or if she could follow along with my meaning, but she listened politely throughout, then continued on with her own narrative thereafter. I had been lost in my own thoughts on the nature of the world and its implications for a bit, so I can't say how much of her lecture I missed, but when I caught up, she was still talking with Renko about the Hakurei and their role in the politics of the world.

"...and that's why youkai can no longer run amok and do whatever they please. For some, their dissatisfaction with the status quo had been building for some time. It all came to a head about six months ago, when the vampires arrived in this world and went on a rampage, attempting to subjugate all the nearby youkai. This event was called 'The Vampire Incident' and was resolved mostly by the actions of the Administrator, who, I'm told, put the vampires in their place and forcibly imposed certain restrictions on them. Reimu had a role in that incident too though. It was at that time, to relieve the youkai's frustration and give them a means of affecting the world and resolving disputes without resulting to apocalyptic violence that threatened the stability of this secluded paradise that had been built for them that she and a few other youkai created a method of dueling that would allow youkai and humans to fight on equal footing. That method is the danmaku game you witnessed."

"But only humans who can fly and create light bullets would be on equal terms with the vampires then," Renko interjected.

"Well, you may be correct but the point is that there are at least some humans who can oppose the power of the youkai this way, and more importantly an arrangement was established and agreed upon. Just picking up a pebble and throwing it might constitute a danmaku battle if the rules are agreed upon by both parties. If you create a barrage by any means at all that the other party is unwilling or unable to escape, you win. The only rules beyond that is that attacks that are completely impossible to avoid like the manipulation of an opponent's mind or similar are prohibited, and that the loser of a battle must honor the request of the winner. In principle, as long as all of those rules are observed, humans and youkai are on equal footing and the beauty and spectacle of the game can be a source of entertainment to other youkai, giving them a safe means of releasing their destructive urges. That is the essence of danmaku."

To me, it sounded like sophistry, or maybe wishful thinking at best. How could a human without the power to threaten a youkai impose such rules or expect that they would be obeyed when contending with an opponent like a vampire? But in a world where the tenets of Relativistic Noology were woven into the very fabric of reality, I supposed that if such rules were generally accepted and recognized then that alone would be enough to make them binding. Certainly it would explain why Remilia and Meiling had been so willing to give up any hope of reinforcing their positions after being defeated. I'm sure that that's what Sakuya had been referring to as well when she had mentioned that turning oneself into a cloud of bats wasn't against the rules.

"Miss Keine, you had said earlier that the red mist had been present for about a week, right?" Renko had once again cut into my speculation by completely changing the topic. I wondered if it was something she did on purpose, in hopes of getting an unguarded response out of someone or it was just a symptom of the scattered way her mind worked.

Keine blinked twice then tilted her head back while considering. "Hmm, yes. It was just about a week from the time we first heard reports of it on the lake until when Reimu showed up last night. I had heard from the tengu that Reimu had left to look into it three days ago, but we hadn't seen any sign of her since. The fog started drifting into the streets early yesterday morning, and several people reported feeling ill. People were considering abandoning some of the homes on the northern edge of the town, so I'm sure everyone will be very much relieved to see that it's been cleared up."

Renko and I stared at each other for a moment. It didn't make sense no matter how you looked at it—probably literally for Renko, who could tell how much time had passed with a quick glance at the sky. We couldn't have possibly spent a week in the Scarlet Devil Mansion, and Reimu and Marisa's intervention couldn't have taken multiple days either.