東方プロジェクト二次小説・オリジナル小説サイト
Chapter 8:Hopeless Masquerade

—22—


And so we resumed our search for the mask of hope.

Since I'm the only one who could see Koishi, I was sitting up front on Genji's back as we flew over Gensokyo, searching for any sign of her. While I was busy straining my eyes and peering down at every shadow and flicker of movement, you may ask what Renko was doing as she sat behind me.

"Okay, that was definitely better this time, Kokoro. Let's try a smile again. Say 'cheese!'"

"Cheeese" Kokoro responded, emotionlessly.

"You're moving your mouth, but your eyes aren't smiling. Look at the way I'm squinting, try to do that. Also, try for a bigger smile, you're barely moving the corners of your mouth."

"Cheeeeese"

"Whoa, that's a little too much. You look like a kuchisake-onna."

"Kuchisake-onna?"

"She's A youkai from the Outside World. A slit-mouthed woman. She's a woman with a disfigured face hidden behind a mask who asks humans 'am I pretty' then reveals her face and asks them again. If they say no she tears them apart but if they say yes she mutilates them until they look like her."

"Am I pretty?"

"Hmm. It's not really scary at all when someone as cute as you is saying it."

"F-Flattery won't save you."

These were the sorts of conversations they were having as I was trying to search for Koishi. Supposedly, Renko was trying to teach her to express her emotions in a subtler way.

We were flying over Muenzuka at the moment. Since Koishi's movements were unpredictable, I didn't see the point in trying to search in any sort of organized fashion and so we had just chosen a direction at random and set out with Kokoro flying behind us. It didn't strike me as a particularly effective method of searching, but we hadn't been able to think of anything better.

Of course the idea of just camping out in the Palace of the Earth Spirits and waiting for her to stop by had occurred to us, but I rather doubted Satori would want to let us stay and we had classes to teach at the school. As such, we were wandering around like this.

"Alright let's try another one. Show me embarrassed!"

"How do I do embarrassed?"

"Here, come closer, I'll help you."

"Like this?"

"Even closer."

"Here?"

"That's good. You know, you really are very pretty, Kokoro. Just stay right there for a moment and let me gaze into your eyes."

"...L-like this?"

"I've never noticed that youkai have pores before. Your skin is really as soft as a newborn baby's, isn't it?"

"That-that tickles a little."

"Your eyes just seem to draw me in."

"Could you move back a little?"

"You're asking me that while wearing a provocative skirt like that one with a bunch of holes cut out of it?"

"It's not provocative."

"Well I think it is. With you this close to me it almost feels like something's about to happen."

"Like what?"

"Like what indeed? Kokoro, just how old are you? Maybe there's some things I should teach you about being a girl."

It was barely a conscious decision when my elbow jutted out behind me to strike Renko in the ribs. She groaned and clutched at her side before pinwheeling her arms to keep from sliding off of Genji's back. She deserved it though.

"Just what are you teaching Kokoro back there?"

"I was trying to teach her what it feels like to be ashamed."

"First Sanae and now Kokoro. You're utterly shameless, Renko."

"Are you getting jealous, Merry?"

"Seriously. I'll shove you off."

"Don't do that Merry. Par-par will think you're stealing her bit." Personally I think 'Par-par' would've been angry if she knew Renko was calling her that.

"Speaking of Sanae, I wonder what she's been up to?"

The last we had seen of the wind priestess had been when she had said she wanted to consult with Lady Kanako on the question of Kokoro and the ongoing incident, but we hadn't seen her since then. Certainly, she hadn't been participating in any of the frequent danmaku battles between the various religions.

"I wonder if Lady Yasaka has her wrapped up in some sort of scheme again?"

"If that's the case then whatever it is doesn't seem to involve fighting the other groups for faith. The Moriya Shrine might actually be the most reasonable of the religious institutions in Gensokyo at the moment."

I sighed. The village was sort of a mess at the moment. The danmaku battles in question had become more and more frequent since Miss Keine and Miss Mamizou had had their discussion a few days ago. Reimu had entered the fray, squaring off against Byakuren and the Crown Prince. Marisa was a regular participant in the battles as well even though she wasn't fighting on behalf of any particular religion. Strangely enough she wasn't the only such independent in the running. The kappa Kawashiro Nitori had also gotten involved for some reason. She seemed to be gaining supporters among those uninterested in religion as well as from people who had grown tired of the religious conflicts by saying things like "Don't rely on hokey religions!"

"It's probably for the best that Sanae's not getting involved," Renko observed. "The last thing Keine needs is yet another faction to worry about."

"Hopefully we'll find the mask soon..."

For now it was a relief just to know that Keine was in good spirits and hadn't collapsed under the burden of everything she had taken on. She had seemingly accepted Mamizou's plan and was letting the danmaku matches continue above the village as a way to allow the villagers to enjoy some entertainment and blow off steam. Whenever there were any reports of one of the fights beginning now, she would always rush to the scene and set up the area to make sure it was safe for the spectators.

She had also taken to speaking to the combatants and telling them to limit their fights to particular areas where they weren't likely to cause harm and to watch out for stray bullets. Reimu and Marisa had both been unhappy about that, grumbling about Keine telling them how to fight, but Keine had convinced them both to restrain themselves, saying 'your intention is to try to build up popularity with the crowds, right? If so then there's no point in fighting where no one can see you and if anyone in the audience catches a stray that's going to hurt your popularity.'

As a result, individual danmaku matches had become less chaotic and dangerous, but the frequency of clashes between the various religious factions had increased. Unfortunately, secondary clashes between the supporters of opposing factions had started to become an immediate concern. Supporters of the Myouren Temple—who saw desire as the root of all evil—and the adherents of the Divine Spirit Mausoleum in particular seemed to have a highly acrimonious relationship, and Keine was starting to worry that it might lead to long-term problems.

At any rate, the reason why we were flying here, so far from the village was to get away from the noise and spectacle of the constant battles, and also to give Mokou a break from watching Kokoro. We couldn't expect her to keep watching over the menreiki forever, after all.

"I don't sense the mask anywhere around here..." Kokoro said in the tone I had come to associate with her 𝑢𝑏𝑎 mask.

"Well we've been all over Muenzuka by now. Where do you think we should try next? The Sanzu River?"

"I'd rather not run into the Yama again if we can avoid it. She might yell at you, Merry."

"I think she's much more likely to yell at you, Renko. Maybe it would be worth it though. Do you think the Yama could find the mask of hope if she used her mirror to look at Kokoro?"

"Maybe, but she'd definitely yell at us if we tried to use her that way."

As we debated the point, Renko suddenly looked over to the side, squinting and shielding her eyes from the sun.

"Hey, I think that's Marisa over there," she said. "Kokoro, you'd better go and hide. See if you can find some cover down amongst those trees."

"You got it!" she said, turning and descending as the ℎ𝑦𝑜𝑡𝑡𝑜𝑘𝑜 mask slid into place.

It was still too soon to tell Marisa about Kokoro or that she was the cause of the strange happenings in the village. We had discussed the possibility with Mamizou, but everyone had agreed that it would be safer to keep Kokoro away from anyone who was participating in the ongoing fights until such time as someone had gathered enough hope for us to make use of.

As Kokoro vanished into the canopy of the forest bordering Muenzuka, Marisa seemed to have noticed us and had begun to approach.

"Yo, you two. Are you out lookin' for treasure? Kinda an odd place to run into the both of you."

"We are indeed," Renko replied with a grin. "In fact we're looking for that same treasure we had told you about before. I assume you've been looking for it too? Any luck?"

"I've been tied up with all the fightin' lately. No time to search for treasure when everyone's begging me to put on a big show. Popularity's a burden, I suppose." Marisa said, puffing up her chest with pride. She had a point. Of all of the various danmaku artists I had seen since coming to Gensokyo, her magic was reliably some of the flashiest.

"Marisa, I have to ask, what's your stake in all these religious battles? You're not a shrine maiden, but you're not an atheist like Nitori either."

"I'm just participatin' 'cuz it's fun." she said plainly.

"That's a very Marisa answer."

"Nah, I'm not the only one. Koishi's doin' it for the same reason, isn't she?"

"—Koishi? Marisa, have you fought her?"

"Sure, just now, back in the village. Oh yeah, you two were lookin' for her, weren't 'cha?"

"Absolutely! When were you fighting her? Just now? Is she still in the village?"

"Yeah, it was just a few minutes ago. don't know where she went afterwards though... Oh I see, you're lookin' for her, 'cuz she knows about that treasure, right? Damn, I forgot to ask her about it."

Marisa scratched at her head self-consciously but Renko reached out and patted her on the shoulder, a big grin blooming on her face. "I knew I could count on you, Marisa. Okay Merry, let's go! Back to the village!"

"Calm down, Renko" I hissed, whispering into her ear. "We can't go without Kokoro, remember?"

"Ah..." Renko said, looking nervously about. With Marisa watching us we couldn't just go down and grab Kokoro either.

"What're you two whisperin' all suspiciously about?" Marisa said, narrowing her eyes at Renko.

"Nothing, nothing. We're just having a quick strategy meeting."

"Well if you're gonna waste time with somethin' like that, I'm gonna just go make Koishi tell me where it is myself. First come, first serve in the treasure huntin' game!"

With that Marisa vanished in a scattering of stardust, carving a trail through the sky back towards the village. Renko watched her go for a moment then breathed a sigh of relief. I directed Genji downward and Kokoro appeared from beneath the canopy after Renko called out.

"That girl was carrying a large amount of hope with her," Kokoro said, wearing her 𝑘𝑜-𝑜𝑚𝑜𝑡𝑒 mask.

"Oh really? You think she had enough to make a new mask?"

"...only enough for a day or so." The 𝑢𝑏𝑎 mask took the 𝑘𝑜-𝑜𝑚𝑜𝑡𝑒 mask's place.

"Ah that's no good. We'll have to keep relying on the professional preachers."

"It won't matter if we can find the original mask though, right?"

"Good point, Merry. Let's go look for Koishi."

"We'll have to take Kokoro back to Mokou's place first though, won't we? We can't risk bringing her into the village in the middle of the day."

Renko sighed heavily. Keeping secrets was getting to be a pain.


—23—


My apologies for dragging on and stretching out this record with all of these chapters detailing our long search for Koishi. I was quite pleasantly surprised when, after dropping Kokoro off at Mokou's shack, we managed to locate her straight away.

"Hey Merry, is that Koishi?" Renko asked as we returned to the village on Genji's back.

"What? You can see her, Renko?"

"Well I see someone in the middle of that crowd fighting Ichirin. Who's the girl in the hat that everyone is cheering for? That's her, right?"

Sure enough, just outside of the village, along the road to the Myouren Temple was an ongoing danmaku match between Kumoi Ichirin and Komeiji Koishi. A crowd of villagers had gathered around to watch from the village gates or along the side of the road. This time around it seemed clear that the villagers could see Koishi without issue as they were cheering and flinching as she and Ichirin fought.

—how had Koishi become visible to so many people?

It was unquestionable that something unusual was going on. Previously, only people with unusual extrasensory abilities like myself and Parsee had been able to see her at all. I wondered if returning to a readily visible state might mean that Koishi was in the process of becoming a typical satori again, rather than the imperceptible, unconscious youkai she had been. I wouldn't think that changing one's very nature could be such a simple process...

Any way you looked at it, Koishi's nature was difficult to understand. I did my best to put such existential questions out of mind to focus on the mystery at hand: had she found the mask of hope?

"Oh! It looks like Koishi won," Renko said, cringing slightly as Ichirin was struck by a sudden and dense storm of heart-shaped danmaku.

"Ichirin definitely got the worst of that exchange. I wonder if Koishi's movements are hard to read because she's so erratic?"

As Ichirin tumbled from the sky and collapsed to the ground Koishi descended as well, landing in the midst of the crowd of onlookers who quickly swarmed around her, cheering and shouting congratulations. Koishi looked happy and confused by all of the attention.

I lost sight of Ichirin as the crowd pressed in, but a moment later captain Murasa emerged from the temple calling out "Out of the way! Everyone disperse! It's over!" Obediently, most of the onlookers cleared a path for the ship phantom who quickly extracted Ichirin and half-walked, half-carried her back into the temple. We quickly descended as well. We couldn't let Koishi get away after spending this long looking for her.

"Koishi!" I called out over the indistinct voices of the people who were turning to head back to the village. "Over here, Koishi. May I talk to you for a moment?"

She turned her head and looked at me without any hint of recognition in her eyes. "Huh? Who is it?"

"I'm Merry," I said, forcing my way through the stream of people to finally arrive at her side. "Don't you remember me? We met several times in the Underworld."

"Oh. No. I'm not very good at remembering stuff," she said amiably.

"Oh. Um, well, we're friends of your sister's. I'm Merry and this is my partner Renko."

"Usami Renko," my partner said, bowing quickly as she caught up to me. "Pleased to meet you at last, Koishi."

"You're friends of my sister?" Koishi asked, looking suddenly uncertain. "Did she send you here to make me come home?"

"Well she is rather worried about you," Renko admitted, "but more than that there's something we'd really like to ask you."

"What?"

"It's about a mask that we're looking for. A white one, with the face of a child on it. Have you by any chance seen something like that recently?"

"A mask? Was it a smiling one, like a Jizo statue?"

"That's the one! I take it you've seen it?"

She nodded. It was our first break in the search for the missing mask of hope. Without a doubt the mask must have something to do with why Koishi was so much easier to see now.

"Do you remember where you saw it?" Renko asked excitedly.

"It came out of a fissure. It was kind of creepy so I picked it up and kept it."

From a fissure? Where could she have possibly seen something like that? Had it fallen into a geyser on the surface and travelled all the way to the Underworld?

"Koishi, do you know where that mask is right now by any chance?"

Koishi eyed Renko suspiciously and took a step away from her.

"That's a secret."

"A secret? Why's that?"

"Because it's my treasure now. I'm not telling you. Oh? I wonder why I can remember that though?"

"Relax Koishi. We're not going to take it from you. We just wanted to have a look at it. You can show us, right? Just a glimpse?" Renko asked, clasping her hands in front of herself pleadingly.

"No way! It's mine and I'm not giving it to you. Bleeeh!" Koishi kicked off the ground and into the air, flying off before we could hope to work our way back out of the crowd and pursue her with Genji.

"She got away..." Renko muttered.

"More like you chased her away."

"This was my fault? I was just so excited to finally see her." Renko pouted and I shrugged my shoulders at her.

After a moment, Renko let out a breath and straightened up, pushing her hat back on her head as she did so. "Well at any rate we've now confirmed that Koishi knows where the mask of hope is."

"Too bad you scared her off."

"Come on, stop pinning this on me. If we find her again I'll let you talk to her and keep my mouth shut."

"That's assuming we can even find her again." It had taken us several days to find Koishi this time and in the end we had only managed it because of a lucky encounter with Marisa. Who knew when we might see her next? There wasn't even any guarantee that she would remain as visible as she had been by the next time we found her.

"Well then maybe we should change the target of our investigation a little," Renko suggested, grinning like a cat as usual.

"Change the target? What do you mean?"

"We're going to go look for the place where Kokoro lost her mask of hope in the first place, of course!"


—24—


And so, once again we found ourselves descending into Old Hell on Genji's back with Kokoro in tow.

"Yoohoo, Yamame! Over here!" Renko called once we spotted the tsuchigumo in Old Hell's busy marketplace.

"Huh? Renko? You're back again, and with that mask tsukumogami too. You're coming here a lot lately."

Renko nodded and proceeded to explain the purpose of our visit: to try and locate any connection between the surface and the Underworld that might have allowed Kokoro's mask to fall into it. She figured that, being well connected in the social webs of the Underworld, Yamame might either know where to find such a thing or at least know who to ask. If she didn't know, our next hope was to ask Orin.

"Huh. A fissure that leads all the way to the surface?" Yamame mused once Renko had explained everything.

"It might be a geyser or something. I don't think it would be anything big enough for a human to fall into or someone would have noticed it already, but it would have to be big enough for one of these masks to fall through it," Renko said, indicating the cloud of masks hovering near Kokoro's head.

"Well there's probably a lot of holes like that. Do you really think your friend lost her mask down a hole like that?"

"Koishi told us herself that she picked the mask up after it fell through a fissure. If we can figure out where that fissure was, we might be able to figure out how Kokoro lost the mask in the first place."

"Hmm." Yamame grumbled, crossing her arms. "I'm not sure how much I can help you. I doubt there's anyone who knows every single hole between here and the surface, especially ones too little for anyone to fit through." She continued ruminating for a moment, tilting her head from one side to the other then suddenly opened her eyes wide. "Wait, you said a fissure, right?"

"Yeah, that's what she told us."

"And it was Satori's sister saying this, right? A fissure, a fissure. Yeah, maybe she could go there…"

"Did somewhere just come to mind?"

"Is my mask there!?" Kokoro asked, the fox mask's snout protruding as she shoved between us to stare at Yamame.

"There's a place I know of with a crack in the ceiling that goes straight up to the surface, but..." Yamame groaned, knitting her eyebrows speculatively. "Well I can take you there, but I can't guarantee you'll be able to go inside."

"Why not?"

"There's someone living there who doesn't like company. If you try to enter that place she'll probably make it impossible for you to pass, depending on her mood."

"Oh? What sort of youkai is it? A nurikabe?"

I suppose if you were thinking of youkai that make it hard to get somewhere a living wall like a nurikabe would be the first thing to come to mind.

Yamame shook her head and replied with a rather unexpected answer.

"No, not that. I think she's a kappa."

"A kappa?"

Renko and I couldn't help but look at each other in surprise.

—

After a little more wheedling, Renko was able to convince Yamame to take us to see this kappa. Genji had been complaining that he was tired so we left him to rest as we made our way into the caves.

"Honestly I don't think you'll get much out of going to see this person. I've hardly ever talked to her. I don't even know her name."

"So there's someone down here that even the most popular tsuchigumo in the Underworld can't call a friend?"

"There's all kinds of youkai living in the Underworld, and a lot of them don't get along well with others because of their abilities. Like Parsee for example. But in her case Don Yuugi looks after her anyway."

"Does that include you, Yamame? You have the ability to control infectious diseases, right?"

"Hey don't clump me together with people like her. I can choose who I make ill at least. How'd you like to catch a cold in Hell?"

"No thank you, please."

We walked close together, bantering with each other in this way with Yamame leading the way. After walking for a while, Yamame eventually stopped in her tracks, saying "Oh, if we've made it this far then she must be in a relatively good mood today. Well we can keep going, but I can't guarantee it will be safe for you."

"It's okay," Renko replied. "I'd kind of like to see what an underground kappa is like."

I let out a sigh as I walked along."Renko, why go if it's dangerous?"

"Because it sounds interesting."

"...Kokoro, does Renko even have any fear or is that part of her brain missing?"

The 𝑘𝑜-𝑜𝑚𝑜𝑡𝑒 mask slipped into place. "I'd notice if her emotions were unbalanced. She's in the normal range for a human."

"You see, Merry? I'm a perfectly rational person. Fully menreiki certified."

"If you count as normal then there's no such thing as a weirdo."

As we continued to converse, eventually the ceiling of the passageway rose, giving way to a grotto. At the far end of the cavern was a bright light of some kind set in the ceiling. It took me a moment to recognize what I was seeing. Pale sunlight was shining into the Underworld through a jagged crack high in the distant roof of the cavern. Where it shone upon the floor of the cave, small, stunted plants grew in a wide patch. Within the patch of plants, a figure was sitting, her head turned down towards the floor.

She was a girl dressed all in red. A red uniform-like dress, a soft red hat with a scallop-edged pattern, light pink hair and most noticeably of all, a large red 'Do Not Enter' sign in her hand. As we entered the figure slowly lifted her head and looked in our direction. Her eyes were dark and lifeless, devoid of any emotion, but with a coldness that gave me pause. The first time I got a good look at her face I got a strange sensation of déjà vu I couldn't quite place.

Upon seeing her, Renko walked forward and raised a hand in greeting. "Hello there!" she called amiably. "You must be the underground kappa I've heard about. It's a pleasure to meet you."

"Humans? What are humans doing in the Underworld?"

"We're searching for something, actually. In fact, I was hoping to ask you about that..."

"Don't talk." she said, pointing the road sign in her hand at us and interrupting. Instantly, Renko shut up. I looked over at my partner to see an expression of absolute shock on her face. "Renko? What's wrong?"

Renko turned toward me with a worried look in her eyes and mumbled something with her mouth closed. "Mmm! Mmmrmrmrm!" She blushed faintly, then growled, then tried again, seeming to mumble more animatedly. "Mmm! Mrmmrmrmmrmrrrmrm!"

"I tried to warn you!" Yamame said, scratching her head. "It wears off once you get far enough away from her, so just calm down. You won't die just from having your mouth closed, right?."

"What did she do?"

"Um, I'm not really sure how it works, but if that girl tells you not to do something, you can't. If she says 'don't come closer' then you won't be able to move near her and if she says 'don't talk' well, that happens." Yamame said, indicating Renko, then shrugging.

"So she has the ability to prohibit the actions of others?"

"I guess?"

That seemed like a tremendously powerful ability. With something like that you could kill someone instantly by just saying 'don't breathe' or the like. Even when it came to other youkai, she might be able to win a fight just by saying 'don't hurt me' or 'don't live.' How did a kappa end up with such an overpowered ability?

I looked back to Renko but she was still mumbling unintelligibly. As I tried to figure out what to do next, Kokoro tugged at my sleeve.

"Miss Kokoro? What is it?"

"That kappa," she said. "Her emotions are on the verge of collapse."

"What? What does that mean?" I asked in a panic, swiveling my head from Kokoro to Renko and then to the kappa standing opposite us.

"Her feelings of hatred are extremely strong. Maybe strong enough to overwhelm the rest of her mind. And they seem to be directed at you."

I had never met this girl before, what reason could she possibly have to hate me?

It was while I was thinking that a metallic glint caught my eye. The light coming through the crack in the ceiling was glinting off of something reflective on her chest. A small, squarish object, shining with a brassy glow above the middle of her red dress. Without thinking, I peered into the gloom. A padlock? A padlock with two straps running through the shackle, securing another road sign to her back, strapped in place like a backpack.

I felt like I had seen something similar before. It took me only a moment to remember where. Another kappa I knew wore something similar—Kawashiro Nitori, the only kappa I could put a name to, wore her backpack in a similar way with the straps routed through the hole of a large brass key. It was at that moment that the sense of déjà vu I had felt before suddenly made sense to me. The shape of this girl's face reminded me of Nitori's. In fact, the similarity was remarkable now that I looked closely. The two girls could easily have been sisters.

Without knowing what else to do I spoke up. "...Do you happen to know Kawashiro Nitori, by any chance?"

Immediately, the overwhelming sense of hostility seemed to fade from her face. The girl's dull eyes focused on me, seeming to see my face for the first time.

"...You know Nitori?"