東方プロジェクト二次小説・オリジナル小説サイト
Chapter 8:Urban Legend in Limbo

—22—


"Hey Renko, if a lunar tour is too expensive, why don't we try thinking of another way to get there?"

It was a long time ago that Renko and I had that conversation, back in the Kyoto of the Scientific Century. I remembered it now though. She and I had been discussing how even though moon tours had recently theoretically become something that anyone could go on, they were sadly far outside of the sort of price range the two of us could ever even hope to dream about. At that time Renko had idly speculated that there might be a hidden civilization living on the moon.

We never did end up using my abilities to try to travel to the moon and find out for ourselves, but thinking of how we might do so had led me to the experiment that had allowed us both to visit the artificial satellite TORIFUNE. It was there that I had been attacked by a chimera. After that experience, I hadn't been keen on intentionally trying to slip into the gaps between worlds any more, but all of that is just an aside.

Now, we were here. On the moon we were never able to visit through the lunar tours of the 2080s, standing out in the open on its surface, staring up at the Earth hanging in the sky.


The air was breathable and the lunar seas were filled with actual water. The gravity affecting us felt like it was close to earth-normal as well. If it weren't for the Earth floating serenely in the sky, no one would have ever imagined that this peach-scented shoreline could possibly be located anywhere other than on our home world.

"This can't really be the actual moon, can it? Given the circumstances, wouldn't it be more likely that that's an illusion?" I asked, still staring up at the Earth.

"What do you mean 'more likely?' Since when do you care about objective reality? "

"Well could this be your dream, then? You were the one who believed that the Lunar Capital might be real."

"I thought maybe it might be the sort of thing you might be able to see through a gap. I never expected to actually come here in person! This is all so sudden, I wish I'd had some time to prepare."

Renko's fingers danced nervously around the brim of her hat as she looked all around.

"This must be the moon that's visible from Gensokyo."

"Right, the one Doctor Yagokoro, Princess Kaguya and Reisen all came from. It has oceans, breathable air, and gravity of about 1G, all in defiance of physics. It's the imaginary version of the moon, the one the people of Earth used to believe in."

"Does that mean we can expect to find rabbits pounding mochi here?"

"Probably. This moon would be held in place by the will of the gods rather than gravity. It predates Galileo's observation of the ugly, bumpy surface or Isaac Newton's theory of gravitation, much less Neil Armstrong's giant leap for mankind."

"Oh, speaking of Neil Armstrong, weren't the Apollo moon landings the reason why Reisen fled the moon?"

"I wonder. Maybe the residents of the Lunar Capital feared the advance of Outside World scientific reasoning. Just like the spreading of western science threatened youkai at the end of the Meiji era. I can understand why the thought of humans landing on the moon would have been terrifying for Reisen."

Renko looked away from the shore as she said that, scanning the unbroken, uniform line of peach trees further up the slope. Peach trees and nothing else as far as the eye could see. Who would have thought that the moon would be so peachy?

"So then the question becomes how did we manage to end up travelling to the Lunar Capital? Maybe the power of your eyes was amplified by that amber and you were able to cross the barrier or something, Merry."

"You say that as if you had any idea how any of this worked."

"I'm just drawing conclusions based on the evidence available."

I sighed and looked down at the amber chunk in my hand. I had found this jewel in a place that felt like the Usami household, but somehow different then the place I had visited with Renko.

Could this really be the same jewel that had been given to me by the Youkai Sage before she sent me to the Outside World at the end of the Spring Snow Incident? If so, then it should still have been in the possession of Usami Sumireko. How would those two shadowy figures I had seen back in that room have gotten a hold of it? And who were those people anyway? None of it made any sense and the more I thought about it, the more confusing it became.

"Well, no matter why we've come here, there's no point in just standing still and staring at the sky!" Renko declared, snapping me out of my reverie. "Come on Merry, let's have a look around."

"I expected you'd say something like that. Shall we go see if we can find any moon rabbits?"

"That's not a bad idea. If this really is the Lunar Capital then Reisen's friends should be here somewhere."

Saying that, Renko turned and started walking. I followed suit. There was no question of where to go: our only choices were to either walk into the sea or explore the woods. Thus, we walked into the woods, surrounded by the delicious smell of peaches with the bright Earth hanging in the sky above us.

"It's just peaches," Renko said as we made our way between trees that grew in neat, even rows without any hint of undergrowth. "peaches and nothing else, as far as the eye can see."

"Isn't there a poem by Taneda Santoka like that?"

"Maybe the entire city of the Lunar Capital is contained within a giant peach."

"Now you're thinking of Toson Shimazaki."

We continued chatting lightheartedly as we moved deeper into the grove of peach trees. The scenery was odd here, but it was pretty in its own way and the smell was divine. I reached up and plucked a ripe, dangling peach from a low-hanging branch and brought it to my nose, inhaling deeply.

"Are you planning on bringing that back with you when you wake up, Merry? I wonder if moon peaches are as good for your body as the ones from Heaven?"

"Do you want to try a bit, Renko? They certainly look tasty."

"I don’t think eating anything in a dream would actually fill up our bellies, but sure." Renko reached out to take the peach I was offering her.

Just as she took the peach from my hand we both heard the sound of something moving nearby. I looked up to see a figure, standing right behind Renko. The figure was raising some sort of weapon to point it directly at Renko's back.

"Don't move!" The stranger barked. "I'll shoot without hesitation if you so much as twitch!"

She was a girl wearing a uniform that looked almost exactly like Reisen's—a short skirt with a blazer that seemed more suited for a prestigious private school than the military. The only difference was that this girl was wearing an almost spherical white helmet, from which two long rabbit ears emerged from small holes. The weapon in her hand looked like a rifle, but an old-fashioned one with a bayonet fastened to the tip of it. My guess upon looking at it would have been that it might have been a relic from the second world war.

Beneath the helmet, the rabbit girl pointing the weapon at Renko had red eyes that contrasted fiercely with the blue hair she had tied into two long braids. "Who the hell are you guys?" she demanded. "What are you doing here?"

I slowly began to raise my hands. Renko read the expression on my face and must have realized that someone was pointing a weapon at her back. She moved to do the same, her hands still holding the peach I had given her.

"You're not from the moon—are you two Earthlings!? D-Don't move! Move and I'll shoot! I really will! If you look like you're going to cause any trouble, I'll shoot for sure! Or even if you don't!"

Renko, of course, was used to being threatened by creatures with the power to destroy her in an instant. It was clear that between her and the girl pointing the gun at her, Renko was far less nervous. I mouthed the word 'rabbit' at her. She nodded ever so faintly.

"Um, Miss Rabbit, would you mind if I turned around to answer your questions?" She asked.

"N-No! D-D-Don't move a muscle!"

"Well alright, but it's a little hard to have a conversation this way."

"I'll definitely shoot if you move! For sure!" The rabbit girl's voice cracked. It was clear that she seemed absolutely terrified despite the fact that she was the one with a gun pointed at us and we were both unarmed civilians. I was worried that she might accidentally shoot out of sheer nervousness.

"Hey Seiran, calm down a little, why don't'cha?" said another voice.

"Ringo! If you're here then help me out already!"

"I am helping. I'm observing two suspicious intruders."

"That's just sitting around and watching! There are two of them. Get over here and take the blonde one!"

"Do I have to? They look pretty weak, and they don’t even have any weapons on them. You can take 'em both on your own. I believe in you, Seiran."

"They might be Earthlings! Any Earthling who could make it here definitely isn't just a normal person!"

"Oh, in that case you'll be a hero when you bring them to lady Yorihime. Awfully nice of me to let you take all the credit like this, isn't it? You be thanking me instead of criticizing me."

"JUST GET OVER HERE AND HELP ME!" The blue-haired rabbit screamed, looking frantic.

"Alright, alright, if I have to."

There was a momentary rustling of leaves and another rabbit girl appeared just to the side, walking over with an unhurried stride. Like the one called Seiran, this girl was wearing a blazer and a skirt paired with a smooth, round helmet and carrying an old-fashioned rifle. Her helmet didn't seem to fit quite right though as both of her long rabbit ears were pressed down and protruding from underneath it on either side of her straw-blonde bob. She leaned her weapon, complete with bayonet, casually against her shoulder as she squinted her red eyes at us.

"Alright. I guess you're prisoners now. Come along quietly, okay?"


—23—


And so, the two of us were captured and forcibly marched off to see someone important. By now this is exactly the sort of thing you would expect to happen to us except that there wasn't any sort of incident going on at the moment and as such no mastermind for us to be shown to (or so I thought, anyway).

Whenever a situation like this comes up, I leave the duty of talking us out of trouble to my partner. As we walked ahead of the rabbits with our arms raised, I gave her a significant look. She gave me a faint shrug in return, then turned her head to talk to the blonde rabbit named Ringo while continuing to walk forward.

"So are you both rabbit soldiers of the Lunar Defense Corps? I guess all of the moon's soldiers must wear uniforms like that."

"You hear that, Ringo?" The one with the gun pointed at Renko said excitedly. "She's already got information about our forces! She's some kind of spy!"

Ignoring Seiran, who didn't seem to have calmed down any, Ringo looked over at Renko with a frown. She snorted, the bayonet on her rifle bouncing against her own shoulder as she walked rather than being pointed at us.

"Hmm, I've never seen either of your faces before but you're not covered in impurity like I would expect. Are you two really Earthlings?"

"As far as I'm aware, we are, but I can't tell you how we got here."

"You must have done some really careful purification then. If you are Earthlings though, there's something I'd like to ask you."

"Oh, what's that?"

"Did you come here with the help of a moon rabbit deserter living on Earth, by chance?"

Serian visibly flinched as Ringo asked that.

"Ah, I see," Renko said, nodding. "So you guys are friends of Reisen?"

"Reisen!? You know Reisen!?"

"Be quiet for a bit, Seiran."

Ringo shot her partner a look and Seiran went quiet, her ears flopping limply on top of her helmet.

Hearing that, Ringo stopped walking and slowly took her rifle off of her shoulder and raised its bayonet tip toward us.

"I really don't want to have to do anything unpleasant, so please answer these next questions truthfully. Is Reisen here now?"

"What would happen if she was?"

"That would be up to Lady Yorihime to decide. Is she here or not?"

"Unfortunately it's just the two of us. I know the moon rabbit you're talking about, or at least I know of a moon rabbit living on Earth named Reisen, but she's not involved with our being here in any way, at least not as far as I'm aware of. Assuming that we’re both talking about the same Reisen, that is."

"The Reisen we're thinking of is a cowardly Lunar Defense Corps soldier who fled the moon because she was scared it might be invaded by Earthlings. When she gets stressed, her ears go all limp and wrinkly.

"Yes, that definitely sounds like the Reisen we know."

"And she's not here with you now?"

"No, she's not."

Ringo considered a bit before asking her next question. "...Do you know if she plans to ever come back to the moon?"

"Who knows. I can't read her mind or anything, but my impression would be that she's more or less settled in and has become comfortable living on Earth now. She's found a place to live and work and made a little life for herself."

Seiran's face took on a pained expression that was hard to read upon hearing that, a mix of emotions playing across it. Ringo let out a small sigh. "So she really has betrayed her comrades then."

"R-Ringo, What should we do with them?" Seiran sounded more jumpy than ever.

"Well..." Ringo spoke slowly, carefully considering her words. "I don't know if we can trust what they're telling us, but I think it's safe to believe that they've at least met Reisen. That means we shouldn’t be trying to deal with them alone. I think we should ask Lady Yorihime what to do."

"...Right. Okay. Let's do that."

"Alright, I'll call for backup. You keep an eye on them."

"W-What? All by myself!? How should I guard them!? Umm, uh, alright, if you leave, I'll shoot you!"

Ringo leisurely turned her back on us. Her ears twitched, the points of them sticking up under her helmet. After a moment, she began to speak.

"Ah yes, hello. This is Ringo. Who's with Lady Yorihime right now? Sakimuni? Okay. Could I get you to tell Lady Yorihime that we captured some suspicious people?"

While she was talking to whomever was on the other end of the connection, Renko took the opportunity to turn her head, looking over her shoulder at Seiran.

"Do you mind if I lower my arms now? I won't do anything else but this position is kind of awkward."

"Don't move!" Seiran cried, training her weapon on Renko again. She looked even more flustered. With how hi-strung she was I certainly hoped that Lunar Capital weapons weren't the sort of things that could go off accidentally.

"Why don’t you try to calm down, Seiran. Waving that thing around like that could be dangerous."

"Shut up! I'll shoot! I really will!"

"I'd advise against it. If you were to shoot us, we’d probably die and spread impurity all over the Lunar Capital. That would be bad for you, wouldn’t it? Honestly shooting us might cause more trouble for you than it does for us." Seiran didn't respond to that, but she looked terrified by the thought.

"Come on, why don't you put that dangerous thing down. As you can see I'm unarmed, so if you lower your weapon then we can just have a nice chat and not have to worry about spreading impurity all over the place, right?"

"No! I mean... I, er, that is..."

By this point Seiran looked practically wild with panic. I half expected steam to start whistling out of her ears at any moment. Given the way the weapon in her hands was shaking, it was extremely concerning. I was tremendously relieved when Ringo turned back around to face us, her conversation seemingly having ended.

"Hey, don't confuse Seiran with your barbaric Earthling logic like that," Ringo chided. "We're trying to resolve this peacefully."

"That's very wise of you."

"So you know that if we shoot you, your impurity would spread across the moon, huh? You know a lot about the Lunar Capital for an Earthling, don't you? Still, you were trying to stop her safe, peaceful violence with your barbaric Earthling logic, so I suppose that means you’re still sort of dangerous." Saying that, Ringo reached into the pocket of her blazer and pulled out something unexpected. A single dango, which she popped into her mouth. Was that something like Kuro Momotaro’s Kimi Dango? Ask the Moriya Shrine to lend you 𝑌𝑢 𝑌𝑢 𝐻𝑎𝑘𝑢𝑠ℎ𝑜 if you don’t know what I’m talking about.

"Putting that aside, we could always hurt you in a way that wouldn't spread any impurity. Though really I hate doing this kind of thing."

"I'd rather you didn't do that either," Renko said, turning back to Ringo. "Could I convince you to just join in our barbaric Earthling discussion instead?"

"I don't think so," Ringo said, pulling out another dango and cramming it into her mouth as well. "Your expression tells me you’re pretty confident you could win a battle of words. You’re pretty cocky for an Earthling, aren’t you?" Ringo tilted her head from side to side, cracking her neck and limbering up her shoulders as she began walking back towards us.

"It would probably be better if I shut you up so you don't say anything until you get to Lady Yorihime. That would calm Seiran down some too."

All at once Ringo stopped walking and froze in place with a surprised look on her face. One of her ears began to twitch about again.

"What!?" She said suddenly. "What do you mean Lady Yorihime isn't there? You can’t find her? Well at least send some reinforcements then. Oh, you already did that? Thanks for the quick response. How long until… Nevermind, you’re already here."

All at once there was the sound of many feet stamping together in a rush and a group of rabbits in identical uniforms and helmets were all suddenly standing in a ring around us, their rifles and bayonets pointed at us from every angle.


—24—


"Seiran! Ringo! Are you okay?" More than a dozen rabbit girls had surrounded us. While they held us at bay, one girl with peach-colored hair ran up to Ringo.

"Oh Sakimuni. You reacted immediately as always, huh? Um, Seiran's being useless as usual, could you maybe do something to calm her down?"

"Got it. Kyuu? Could you, please?"

"Yeah, okay. Come on Seiran, let's go calm down, okay?"

"I can't move! If I move I'll shoot! I mean if they shoot, I'll move! I'll do it! I mean it!"

A short-haired rabbit moved toward Seiran, pressing her gun down, then grabbing her by the wrist and dragging her off and out of sight. The other rabbits closed ranks as they left, tightening the circle of bayonets surrounding us. Despite the fact that we were surrounded and unarmed, most of the rabbits looked terrified.

"...These guys look suspicious. They're definitely not lunarians."

"Hmm? Oh yeah, they're definitely suspicious, you're right, Shakka. They're suspicious Earthlings, in fact."

A bespectacled rabbit, with her dark hair styled into a short bob spoke to Ringo while staring intently at us. Meanwhile the peach-haired rabbit that Ringo had called 'Sakimuni' looked from us to Ringo and back with a confused expression.

"What are Earthlings doing here?"

"They seem to know Reisen."

"What!?"

All of the rabbits surrounding us gasped in surprise. Rather than looking at us or Ringo though, the three newly arrived girls were all staring at one of their own number, a petite rabbit with sky blue hair. For her part, that rabbit seemed terrified by the statement.

"Not that Reisen," Ringo said, shaking her head. "The other one. The one who escaped to Earth."

"She survived?" Sakimuni blurted. "Is she living on Earth now?"

The rabbits began to chatter excitedly amongst themselves as the one rabbit they were all staring at continued to shrink away, looking increasingly uncomfortable with all of the attention.

"Calm down, calm down. Yes, it seems like Reisen's still alive, but according to these two she isn't planning on coming back. Apparently she's living comfortably down there."

Sakimuni looked down and bit her lip. She must have been a close friend or comrade of Reisen's back when she had lived on the moon.

"She's not just deserted then, she's become a traitor? And now she's sending Earthlings up here to sabotage us?" Shakka asked, her eyes flashing coldly behind her glasses.

Ringo shrugged her shoulders. "That I'm not sure about. They claim that while they know Reisen, them coming here has nothing to do with her."

"What? Why would they come here then?"

"I don't know. That's why I was looking for Lady Yorihime. Where'd she go?"

"I don't know. She and lady Toyohime have both been gone all day. " Sakimuni said, shaking her head.

It seemed clear that this 'Lady Yorihime' that everyone kept mentioning must be their commanding officer. My guess was that she wouldn't be a rabbit like these girls, but rather a lunarian citizen, like Eirin or Kaguya had been.

"So what do we do then? Should we interrogate them here? Or maybe we should bring them back to the mansion...?"

All of the rabbits exchanged glances uneasily.

"Maybe we could do that..."

"Maybe Lady Yorihime would say we were heroes for capturing two spies!"

"But they're Earthlings, right? Wouldn't they be covered in impurity?"

"We might get in big trouble instead!"

"I'm not doing it!"

Another wave of nervous chatter passed among the rabbits. Ringo shrugged, while the rabbit with the glasses, Shakka, sighed despondently. After a moment the rabbit who had dragged Seiran off—Kyuu, I think she was called—returned, clapping her hands together to get everyone's attention.

"I just finished calming Seiran down, I don’t need the rest of you getting all panicky too! Ringo, you're the one who found them, right? It's your choice. We'll all follow your lead."

"Don't make me responsible for this!" Ringo cried exasperatedly. "It was Seiran who found them first. The whole reason I called you all was because I didn't want this to become my problem."

"I don't think we're supposed to say stuff like that," Shakka replied, looking uncertain.

"Just make a choice, Ringo. If anything happens, I'll take responsibility for it."

"You're spoiling Ringo, Saki. You used to spoil Reisen too, that's probably why she stayed a coward and became a deserter."

"Shakka…"

"Don't say that, Shakka. And Saki's not spoiling anyone. Besides, if anyone finds out about this we'll all be punished together anyway." Kyuu sighed, looking over the faces of the other rabbits one at a time. "Ringo, just make a decision quickly. Unless anyone else has any ideas?"

The rest of the rabbits all fell silent.

Ringo sighed. The power dynamics of this strange little group of rabbits was becoming clear. The peach-haired one was named Sakimuni, but mostly called 'Saki' by the others. She seemed to be in charge, but a little too mild-mannered to actually command. The short-haired rabbit called Kyuu appeared to be her trusted second-in-command and acted as the squad's mediator. The black-haired, bespectacled Shakka seemed to be something like the squad’s drill sergeant. Despite not appearing to hold any sort of official rank, Ringo was strangely respected by everyone.

"Alright, well... I guess it doesn't have to be Lady Yorihime or Lady Toyohime, just someone important who knows what's going on. Let's take them down to the beach where they can't foul anything up. Shakka, can I ask you to go find someone who can help? You don't really care about hearing Reisen’s story, right?"

"Yeah, I guess. Okay. I'll go run and find someone."

Saying that, Shakka turned and sprinted off, running deeper into the forest. The rest of the rabbits watched her go, then turned back to us, once more raising their rifles.

"Alright then, now let's interrogate you in detail."

Renko and I exchanged glances and shrugged.

—

And so we marched out of the woods and back on to the grey sandy beach where I had first awoken. The rabbits had us sit down on the sand, with Renko and I in the center of a circle and surrounded on all sides. Our interrogators were Ringo, Sakimuni, Kyuu, the now calm Seiran and the small rabbit with the sky-blue hair whose name I hadn't heard yet.

"Right," Renko said, sitting up straight. "I'll start with introductions. My name is Usami Renko and this is my partner Merry. I'm a detective from Earth."

"A detective?" Seiran asked.

"Someone who solves mysteries for a living. A professional investigator for hire, basically. Now, I've given you our names, and I know you're Seiran..." Renko turned to nod at each rabbit in turn, "You're Ringo, You're Kyuu, and you're Sakimuni. Your name I haven't heard though," she finished, nodding to the girl with the sky-blue hair who looked like she was trying to shrink behind Sakimuni to hide.

"Oh, that's Reisen," Ringo replied.

"Ah, so that's why you wanted to make sure who I was referring to."

"Right. The old Reisen left and Lady Yorihime named her new pet Reisen as a replacement."

The small rabbit nodded vigorously. Well that explained that. The Lunarians must really have seen the moon rabbits as nothing more than pets if they were reusing names like that. In any case it would certainly be confusing to always have to distinguish between the new Reisen and the original.

"Hmm, this is going to get confusing. How about I call you 'Reisen' and I'll refer to the one down on Earth as Udonge?"

"Udonge?" Sakimuni tilted her head questioningly.

"Down on Earth, Reisen uses three names now.. They’re Reisen, Undongein, and Inaba.'" She proceeded to write Reisen's name in the sand of the beach. Unexpectedly, the rabbits all looked at the kanji Renko had scratched with surprise. 'Undongein—優曇華院' was, unsurprisingly, a bit too complex to be able to write in sand, so it came out as a blur, though.

"Huh. So she has kanji in her name now. That’s kind of nice," Kyuu muttered, sounding a little envious as she peered over at what Renko had written.

"Don't your names have kanji in them?" Renko asked.

"Rabbits don't get names like that," Seiran replied, shaking her head. Ours are just spelled with kana."

"Well I can fix that. For you, Seiran, with that hair color, I think 青嵐 would be the first thing to come to mind," Renko declared, writing out the kanji for 'blue' and 'storm' "But that's a little too obvious. How about this: 清蘭?" This time it was the kanji for 'clean' and 'orchid.'

Seiran's eyes widened as Renko wrote the symbols out. The other rabbits around her cooed appreciatively. "That's so cool, Seiran."

"Oh, I'm glad everyone’s into it," Renko said with a grin. "Who's next?"

"I want one!" Kyuu said, half-leaping to her feet so she could see what Renko was writing more clearly. Her rifle tumbled into the sand, utterly forgotten.

"Well that's easy. It's just Kyuu, right? There's a whole bunch of kanji that are read like that, but how about 穹?" She asked, writing the kanji for 'sky'.

"Oooh, that one's neat looking."

"Hmm, Sakimuni's a little trickier."

"Oh, do I get one too?"

"Hmm, how about 咲夢丹" she asked, writing the kanji for 'blooming', 'dream' and 'vermilion'.

"That's way too hard to write." I couldn't help but interject.

"Okay, how about just your nickname then? You can write 'Saki' as 皐期" She said, scratching out the previous symbols and writing the kanji for 'shore' and 'season'. "It's almost autumn where we come from just now, but during the season where it starts to get comfortable walking along the shore, the peaches back on Earth would just be turning the color of your hair."

"Oh." She giggled for a bit before she was able to stammer out a 'thank you.'

"Now then, Ringo..." Renko tapped her chin in thought. "林檎 would be easy, but it's kind of obvious," she said, drawing, then scratching out 'wood' and 'apple'. "How about 鈴瑚? That's a little more interesting, right?" She wrote the characters for 'bell' and 'coral' this time.

"Oh, that's kind of interesting..." Ringo said, nodding as she looked the characters over.

I'll never understand the sort of things my partner gets hung up on. Sure these were all names for moon rabbits, but was it really necessary to try to force the 月 radical, meaning 'moon' into every single combination she had picked? Oh, not all of them, I guess, she hasn't been able to find a moon-themed kanji for 'Kyuu.'

At that point all of the other rabbits who had been sitting to the side with Kyuu began asking for Renko to try writing each of their names out with kanji as well. In the end, she came up with a writing for every rabbit except for Reisen, and Shakka, who wasn’t present. Such are the sorts of situations I find myself getting caught up in.

By the time she had finished, the rabbits seemed much friendlier and less wary. As such the conversation that followed was hardly the sort of thing you would think of when you hear the word 'interrogation.' Sakimuni was the one to ask the most questions, but almost all of them were only concerned with Reisen.

"Is Reisen really alright? Down there on the Earth, all alone?"

"She's making do. She's living well and learning to fit in but the master she's been working for keeps her pretty busy all the time."

"That's okay, she's at her best when she has something to keep her busy."

The other Reisen listened to Renko's stories with an awkward expression. It had to be a little uncomfortable to hear everyone asking about someone with the same name as you and hanging on every word of the replies, especially if she had never met the Reisen we were talking about. I sympathized with her, but there wasn't really anything I could do to help.

—I should mention, by the way, that Renko skillfully avoided ever mentioning the names of Kaguya or Dr. Yagokoro. I'm sure that was a wise decision on her part.

After a period of sustained questioning, Renko was beginning to carefully probe our captors for information, replying to their questions about their friend with questions of her own about the Lunar Capital, when Sakimuni's ears suddenly perked up and she interrupted us.

"Oh!" she said, suddenly rising to her feet and pressing a hand against one of her ears. "Shakka is back."

Sure enough, just a moment later we heard the sounds of footsteps approaching from the forest. We turned towards them just as two figures emerged from the woods. The first figure was Shakka, looking just as we had seen her before, but the sight of the person accompanying her made all of the rabbits gasp in surprise.

The woman walking along beside the rabbits was much taller than any of them. Her hair was of a shimmering, almost metallic silver color, similar to Eirin's but brighter. She was also clearly not human. From her back a singular pure white wing sprouted gracefully, looking at once angelic and unbalanced. A one-winged angel?

The winged woman was staring at us dispassionately as she approached. She didn't speak, instead, as soon as she stopped walking, her hand rose to lightly cover her mouth as she regarded us.