東方プロジェクト二次小説・オリジナル小説サイト
Epilogue: Perfect Cherry Blossom

Epilogue

When we arrived home, the first thing Renko said to me was: "Oh man, why is it always Merry!? You not only got to meet the Youkai Sage, but after coming all this way back in time you went and met my great aunt. Come on, that part should have been me at least, I'm a blood relative! This would make a terrible sci-fi story, you couldn't even set up a proper bootstrap paradox with this relationship."

"Don't complain to me, complain to the Youkai Sage."

"Hmm, let me look around and see if I see anyone who looks exactly like Merry here. Wait a minute, how do I even know it's really you? What if you were replaced? You were being awfully clingy earlier. I don't think the real Merry liked burying herself in my chest that much. Are you a fake?" Renko grabbed my cheek and pinched while staring into my eyes as if trying to examine my brain through them. "The real Merry would tell me if she was a fake."

I endured Renko pulling at my cheek and peering into my eyes for a moment or two before I slapped her hat off.

"Owww, my precious brain cells. Only the real Merry would be so cruel."

"Don't joke about that. It can be hard enough to tell what's real sometimes. My consciousness recognizes myself as Maéreverie Hearn though, that's as much as any of us can say."

"Oh, but according to your Relativistic Noology, self-definition is the only valid measure of reality, right? So would a fake that thinks it's real be any different from the real thing?"

"No. I'm not getting into this debate with you, stop being intentionally dense."

"Ah well, I like this Merry, violent though she is. So how was Tokyo in 2004?"

"Well I didn't have a chance to go sightseeing or anything. There were a lot more cars, a lot more people and everything was asphalt in every direction, but other than that not much different than the Tokyo you've shown me in the 2080's from what I could tell."

"It's weird to think of a quiet, spiritual place like Tokyo as a big concrete city, huh. So how was my aunt?"

"She seemed like a smart kid, but she was only three or four, so that's all I can say. She had the same cheeky, rebellious look in her eyes that you always do, Renko."

"I'm not sure if that's a compliment or not. But you said you gave her the amber?"

"Yes, I did. That makes it a causal ouroboros, right? It's a paradox, the amber didn't come from anywhere."

"Not necessarily. We can't be sure that the amber given to you that you gave to Sumireko was the same one that we found in my aunt's room. We don't even know if that one came here with us."

It was a good point. When we had arrived, we had never found any trace of the amber or the notebook we had been holding the moment before. It was more likely they had been left behind in the Outside world of the future.

"That takes care of the paradox, but it just raises even more questions."

Renko crossed her arms behind her head and flopped down on her back on the tatami floor with a sigh. "The Youkai Sage going to the trouble of making sure my aunt had the amber in the first place suggests it's important, and therefore probably the thing that brought us to this world. I don't know if it's the same jewel circulating through a time loop or not, but if it is, then Sumireko's will becomes much more significant."

"Her will?"

"What my grandmother talked about just before we came here, if you remember. She said 'one day those who uncover secrets will discover the truths I have found' or something like that. I can only assume that my great aunt knew we'd come some day and discover the amber in her room."

"Does being a psychic mean she could see the future too?"

"Well that's the question. That, and why she would want us to find an amber that would transport us to the past. You had already met her through the Youkai Sage's interference, so if all she wanted was to meet us, it seems the amber wouldn't have been necessary..."

Suddenly Renko sat up, and looked me in the eye.

"Merry! What if the secret my aunt found, that one she wanted us to discover, was the existence of Gensokyo? In that case the amber and the notebook she left behind would have been intended to lead us here!"

The 70-year old notebook, with its mysterious inscription on the cover had gone missing along with the amber when we had first come to this world. I wonder now what hints it might have held if we had been able to read it before this all started.

"Hey Merry. You didn't happen to mention the words 'Hifuu Club' to my great aunt in the past, did you?"

I shook my head. The words I spoke at the time weren't my own, but Renko wouldn't understand the sensation I felt at the time, even if I were to explain it to her.

"So she still came up with it on her own then...." Renko crossed her arms and looked down. "That must mean that we'll meet her at some point then. In this world."

"Sumireko fell into a coma around 2015, didn't she? Does that mean we'll be stuck here for at least 11 years?"

"That's one possibility. Another is that the reason my aunt fell into a coma might have been because she chose to stay in this world and leave reality behind. Maybe right now our bodies are back in the physical world in comas in a hospital. There's no way to know though, unless we can find a way to return to our own time. What we do know, on the other hand, is that whatever's going on, the Youkai Sage is definitely involved. There's something in this time period she's trying to have us do, or something she wants to make happen that we're supposed to be involved in."

"Well we've already ended up embroiled in two Incidents," I sighed.

"Right. That might be part of her intention."

"To have us witness Incidents?"

"And maybe to have a genius like me figure them out, even."

"Sure, sure, oh great detective."

My partner's overconfidence can be grating sometimes, perhaps even more so because she can frequently back up her bravado. Perhaps for a great detective like Renko, a certain degree of arrogance is part of her charm.

At the moment though, genius detective or not, Renko and I lacked the clues needed to determine why we had been brought to this world.





The Youkai Sage, Yakumo Yukari, fought with Reimu and the others as a result of their altercation with Ran in the Netherworld before agreeing to restore the boundary between the worlds to its previous state. As a result, her name was recorded in Akyuu's records. Despite knowing of her existence, it seems that Akyuu had been instructed not to record anything about her up until that point. .

As the gap youkai who could be anywhere and manipulate any boundary, it was not the last we would see of her, as several incidents that followed also saw us get entangled with the cunning sage. But those are stories for another time.





At this point there is nothing more to say about the Spring Snow Incident itself, but there are still a few chronological details I'd like to tie up, and one related mystery I have yet to explain: the discrepancy between the death of Saigyou 800 years ago and the last known blooming of the Saigyou Ayakashi, which was said to be around 1000 years ago.

It all started with a client who came to our office a few days after the party at the Hakurei Shrine, just as we were settling back into our routine at the temple school.

'You're being haunted by a snake?"

"It's not my fault! I haven't done anything to deserve this!"

Such was the testimony of a young boy, a student at the temple school, who had sought us out in our other professional capacity one day after classes. According to him, he had been suffering recurring nightmares for several weeks about being crushed by an enormous snake. After consulting his parents, they had suggested that he might be suffering from a curse inflicted by the spirit of a snake he had killed, but he had no recollection of having done such a thing.

If he was really being haunted, of course, the proper thing to do would have been to go to the Hakurei Shrine for an exorcism rather than come to us, but with no recollection of anything that might have lead to a possession and no other evidence to go on, he hoped to avoid both the long, potentially dangerous journey to the shrine.

"Well you may not have ever killed a snake, but do you remember injuring or tormenting one?"
"No, when I see them in the fields, I always just chase them away." Renko sniffed at the boy's sullen expression.

"Merry what do you make of this, from the perspective of a Relativistic Noologist?"

"Why ask me, Renko? Relativistic Noology isn't Freudian. We don't make character judgements based on people's dreams any more."

"Well that may be true, but on the other hand, Freud's theories may have reached Gensokyo by now."

"If there's no reason for it to be a haunting, then it's reasonable to assume that a physical or psychological factor may be the cause of these dreams."

"What's your opinion on snakes?" Renko asked the boy. "Do you really like them? Or conversely, are you really scared of them?"

"Neither. My sister's a crybaby though, she really hates them."

"You have a sister?"

"Yes."

"Have you ever used a snake to scare her?"

At Renko's suggestion the boy froze, suddenly going stiff and blanching.

"Ah, you have, haven't you. Let me guess. After you have one of these nightmares, you always wake up with your blankets pulled off of you, don't you?"

"How did you know that?"

"I'm a great detective, remember? That's what it says on the door. Now your sister, does she sleep in the same room as you?"

"Uh-huh"

"And I'm betting she usually wakes up before you?"

"Yeah..."

"Alright then, mystery solved." Renko crossed her arms and looked down at the boy. "Your parents were right, you are cursed. By a snake spirit that feels sorry for your sister and is punishing you on her behalf."

"No way."

"Yes way. You're a big brother, you should be protecting your sister, not bullying her. If you want the nightmares to end, you need to apologize to your sister and refrain from scaring her anymore, Okay?"

The boy moaned in protest.

"Hey, I'm also your teacher, don't forget. If you can't promise you'll take good care of your sister, I'll have to tell Miss Keine."

"Ugh, okay, okay, fine."

Renko swore the boy to a pinky promise before he departed and with that the case was closed.




It was another case that hadn't generated any income, as Renko saw it more of her teaching duties than real detective work.

"That was definitely just his sister getting revenge, right?" I asked once our client had left.

"For sure. She probably moved his blanket down and whispered 'it's a snake!' in his ear every morning. The fact that there's a snake appearing in his dreams is probably a sign he's feeling remorse somewhere deep down.

"So it's another completely uninteresting case."

"But here in Gensokyo, hauntings do really happen, don't they? After all, people here believe they do, so they must, whether or not spirits are involved."

"We'd have to ask Reimu, I suppose. If the perception is that possessions happen, then that's probably something else she has to deal with beyond any Incidents. We know there are ghosts that walk around and eat meals here, maybe there's vengeful spirits like that too. "

"Like Emperor Sutoku?"

"Or Taira no Masakado, yeah. If either of them were in Gensokyo, I might actually want to meet them…"

Renko trailed off.

"Renko?"

"Hey Merry, Taira no Masakado. His rebellion took place in the middle of the 10th century, right?"

"It was 940 CE or so, I think."

"Right, where's Miss Keine?"

"What? She's probably at the watch office right now, I'd imagine. Hey, where are you going Renko?"

She was already walking out the door. I hurried to follow her, not understanding what was going on.


—


Keine was having tea with Kotohime inside of the neighborhood watch office when we found her.

"Miss Keine!" Renko called from the doorway as she barged in.

"What's that matter?" Keine asked.

"Oh, no problem. I just need to ask you some questions about history."

"Oh really? Go ahead, I can teach you anything you want to know."

Keine was proud of her encyclopedic knowledge of history. It was a dangerous road Renko was treading though. Asking about the wrong topic could easily start an hours-long lecture.

"I need to know about Saigyou, or rather the samurai Satou Norikiyo before he became a monk and took the name Saigyou. What kind of ancestry did he have?"

"Saigyou's lineage? He was a descendant of Fujiwara no Hidesato. The 9th generation. His family had been samurai for generations..."

" Fujiwara no Hidesato.... that's the man that defeated Taira no Masakado during his rebellion, right?"

"That's correct. Fujiwara no Hidesato was actually an interesting figure. For example, did you know that..."

"We can talk about him later. For the moment let's go back to Taira no Masakado. At the time of the Masakado rebellion there was another rebellion by Fujiwara no Sumitomo happening at the same time in western Japan, wasn't there? Wasn't it rumored that the two rebellions were a conspiracy?"

"Yes, there's a legend like that. Supposedly the leaders of the two rebellions looked down at the capital from Mt. Hiei and swore that one would become emperor and the other the regent. There was never any evidence of such a meeting though. People likely just imagined such a legend since the two were both large revolts in opposite ends of the country at around the same time. We were just discussing one of those rebellions in detail in my class the other day, the textbooks cover most of it."

"I see, I see. One more question. Where does the name Saigyou come from? Do you know why he would have picked that for himself upon becoming a monk?"

Keine's eyes widened in wonder.

"That... I don't actually have an answer to that. I'll see if I can look anything up, and I'll let you know."

"I see," Renko said. "Thank you for your help." Then she turned on her heel to face me. "Come on, Merry. We've got to go back to the school."

"Renko, wait! What is this about?" She was already gone, marching quickly back the way we had come from.

Kotohime tilted her head and regarded me quizzically. "What's gotten into her?"


—


I caught up with Renko on the main street of the village as she walked back toward the school. She had her hat in her hands, fiddling with its brim as she walked.

"All right," I said as I approached her back. "What amazing discovery have you made now?"

"Just a fantasy. A little story I made up."

I smiled. "One you wouldn't want Miss Keine the historian to hear, I take it?"

"It's an explanation of the one remaining mystery of Hakugyokuro, an all-too-absurd hypothesis explaining how Saigyou died 800 years ago but the Saigyou Ayakashi bloomed 200 years before that. I'm not sure of everything yet though. I need to check Miss Keine's textbook to be certain."

We made our way back to the temple school without further incident. Keine's textbook was right where she always left it, on the desk in the reference room. Borrowing it, my partner flipped through the pages.

"Let's see...." she said, searching through the chapters. "Yes. The Johei-Tengyo Rebellion... Ah, just as you said, Merry, Masakado was killed in 940 CE. Hmmm."

Renko's eyes widened in surprise. "Wait a minute, that would mean Saigyou was...." Her voice was trembling and she reached out a shaky hand to find a chair and lower herself into the seat.

"Merry," she said, lifting her eyes away from the book. "I've just come up with a ridiculous theory. It might actually be crazy this time, but hear me out."

"Oh, a historical mystery this time? That puts you up against Kamidzu Kyousuke and Kuwabara Takashi."

"Nah, I'll leave that to Inspector Alan Grant. —But listen. About 200 years before Saigyou changed his name and went from being a samurai to being a monk, two bloody rebellions took place, on opposite ends of the country, at almost the same time. One in the east, and one in the west. Miss Keine said the idea of the two uprisings being coordinated was just a legend, but here in Gensokyo, it seems like every legend is true, regardless of how unlikely. So maybe it really was a conspiracy. Either way though, Masakado was killed in 940 CE, before his forces could meet up with Sumitomo's forces. Both rebellions were suppressed and Masakado's dream was crushed. As the legends go, this left him a vengeful spirit that cursed the land for generations. Everything from earthquakes to car accidents was blamed on him."

"Right. Supposedly they buried his head in Tokyo."

"Yes, but let me digress for a moment. 200 years after Masakado's rebellion failed, Satou Norikiyo, a descendant of Hidesato, becomes a Buddhist monk and takes the name of Saigyou. Why Saigyou though? Taken literally it means 'go west', but west of where? West to the rendezvous he could never make. West to join with Sumitomo and overthrow the emperor."

"You're suggesting Saigyou was the ghost of Masakado?"

"Probably not to begin with. Masakado had died 200 years before in a failed uprising. But if he had become a vengeful spirit he might have spent those two centuries haunting the descendants of the man who killed him —Fujiwara no Hidesato, and eventually Satou Norikiyo, the man who would become Saigyou. If someone was being haunted like that, they might want to leave a life of warfare behind. They might even be interested in finding a way to give a disembodied spirit a physical form so they could properly put it to rest."

"How does that make any sense? If that were the case then why would he call himself Saigyou?"

"Because his plan to lay Masakado's spirit to rest didn't work! Instead of creating a new body for the vengeful spirit, Satou Norikiyo got his own body taken over. When Masakado took over his body, he still had his old desire to go west and rendezvous with his co-conspirator to take over the capital. So he took the name Saigyou."

"That still doesn't make any sense. Even if Saigyou was Masakado there wouldn't be any point to going west. The ally he was trying to meet would have been dead for almost 200 years."

"Which is why Saigyou started working on the technique to create an artificial person and bind a soul to it. He wanted to bring his ally back to life! That's the mysterious friend who he spoke to at mount Koya, and who's leaving he was saddened by."

"This is crazy, Renko."

"It explains so much though! —I'd always wondered how and when a dutiful samurai like Satou Norikiyo would learn the art of manipulating souls and the question of why he had a sudden change in personality and became a monk and poet has been a question for centuries. Masakado wanted nothing more than to make his scheduled rendezvous and overthrow the emperor, but upon gaining a body, he realized that he was 200 years too late. There was no more rebellion to fight at that point, but Masakado still had other plans. He tried to resurrect his co-conspirator—the friend who had gone to the capital, using the artificial person, but he failed. Maybe becoming a poet at that point was a result of the spirit of Satou Norikiyo trying to reassert some control after being possessed."

"Don't you think you're being a little paranoid, Renko? Seeing connections that aren't there, maybe?"

"But there's so many! Youmu said Youki had told her it takes 200 years to learn to cut time. If Masakado had been lingering as a vengeful spirit for that long, then that would make sense for how long he waited to have his chance again. Youmu was trained by a master swordsman, but Saigyou was only a samurai for 23 years before giving up the blade for the inkbrush. Wouldn't the spirit of Masakado, who lived a lifetime as a warlord and conqueror, have been a better teacher? It also explains why Youki was said to have witnessed the Saigyou Ayakashi 1000 years ago when Saigyou only died 800 years ago! If Youki was Saigyou and Saigyou was Masakado, then when he said he saw the Saigyou Ayakashi in full bloom a thousand years ago, he was talking about when Masakado was at the height of his power and calling himself the new emperor!"

I was speechless. The theory was so farfetched and unusual that I was horrified by how convincingly Renko was presenting it.

"There's more. If Saigyou was Masakado, it explains his wish."

"You mean to die under the flowers?"

"To die under the flowers 𝘪𝘯 𝘴𝘱𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨. Under Kisaragi's moon, no less. That's around the middle of February in the modern calendar. Why then? Why not any other time?" Renko turned the page of the text book and ran her finger over a section toward the end.

I followed her finger and in my surprise couldn't help mouthing the words as I read them. "Masakado's coup came to an end with his defeat and route on February 14th, 940, under Kisaragi's full moon."

—

Of course, this is an aside that has nothing to do with the Spring Snow Incident, and there can be no guarantee that it is true. If it were, it would be one more corpse and one more lie piled upon the rest, on a mound so large already that it becomes difficult to know start from end.

If you prefer, you can see it as a grandiose delusion that demonstrates just how overconfident in her own conclusions my partner can be. It works equally well as an explanation for why she acts the way she does as it does for the mysteries surrounding Saigyou and Saigyouji Yuyuko.

In any event, no matter what you choose to believe, the official story of the Spring Snow Incident has been recorded and confirmed in the 𝘎𝘦𝘯𝘴𝘰𝘬𝘺𝘰 𝘊𝘩𝘳𝘰𝘯𝘪𝘤𝘭𝘦, and you can be sure that no one will ever ask you where you heard your wild theories on the matter from if you stick to that version.

Think of this story as just an anecdotal bit of history that fits in between the 𝘚𝘦𝘯𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘩𝘰 and the 𝘎𝘦𝘯𝘴𝘰𝘬𝘺𝘰 𝘊𝘩𝘳𝘰𝘯𝘪𝘤𝘭𝘦 on your mental bookshelf. There you can leave it, to surprise the next person to peruse your internal library, as dark things hidden in the gaps between known spaces often tend to.

—

One last thing.

After the case with the boy and the snake spirit, we had a visitor while we were cleaning up the classroom. The students had all been dismissed and Keine had left for the neighborhood watch office when we heard footsteps approaching the classroom door. A moment later Ran appeared in the doorway in all her glory.

"Oh, Miss Ran. Hello there. Nice to see you aga—Hey Merry, leave her tails alone!"

The mere sight of the tails was enough to awaken something in me. I had gone weeks without thinking about Ran's tails, but as soon as she walked through the door, nine beautiful segments of wagging golden fluff melted all rationality away in an instant. Even though the season had become pleasant and warm, the comfort of their fluffy resilience was too much for me to resist. As Ran stood in the doorway, I had wobbled toward her without thinking and Renko caught me by the collar. Seeing the two of us, Ran laughed, saying "it's alright, I don't mind. As a gratuity for your services the other day, you may indulge yourself. In moderation."

"Thank you so much!"

Renko released my collar with a sigh and I bounded across the room to kneel beside Ran and bury my face in the tails. The softness, the warmth, the tickle of being surrounded by the floofy floof for the first time in a long time filled me with such utter relief that I let out a shameless squeal of pure joy.

Ran and Renko meanwhile, were having the following conversation, preferring dull words to the bliss I was experiencing. Pearls before swine.

"It's a pleasure to see you again Miss Ran. What can we do for you?"

"I'm here to settle my fees, and deliver this thank you gift, from Lady Yukari herself."

What Ran placed on the table then was a half-kilogram bag of roasted coffee beans —a true rarity in Gensokyo, along with a hand-turned grinder, and a carafe with a reusable filter. Renko's eyes lit up at the sight of it.

"Coffee! Wow! Thank you very much!" She rushed over to take a deep whiff of the roasted beans.

"I hope you enjoy it."

"This couldn't have come from anyone else. The Youkai Sage is the one who controls what does or doesn't get imported isn't she?"

"Indeed. Lady Yukari likes coffee too, so that was just some we had on hand already though."

"Could you ask her to increase the amount you import enough that someone could start selling it at the teahouses in the village?"

"I'll pass that idea on to Lady Yukari."

Renko put her hands together in gratitude, saying "Thank you!" very earnestly.

"There's one more thing I should tell you as well, but first…" Ran suddenly shook her tail, saying "Time for you to let go now," before jerking the wonderful fluffiness away from me. As I bounced backward, she turned to face me, bringing her sly face close to where the lovely tails had been just a moment before. "Just so you know," she said. "I've been assigned to keep watch on you."

Renko and I glanced at each other. We had expected that the Youkai Sage had been watching us for some time, but we hadn't expected a formal notice.

"That said, while you are in the village, I'll just be coming by every once in a while to check on you. You already have a guardian to look after you here, after all. The only time you will be under constant surveillance is if you leave the village."

"I guess we should see you as more of a bodyguard then, rather than a tail." Renko grinned.

"If you prefer, you may think of it that way. The arrangement has some advantages for Lady Yukari as well though." Ran squinted at Renko, with her clever, foxy eyes.

"You will not see me very often, but you can think of me as escorting you from the shadows. Please do not take this as a cause to endanger yourselves needlessly, however. I am quite busy, and I would appreciate you not adding more to my workload unnecessarily."

"Yes, sir, understood, sir" Renko said with a mocking salute. "What does the great sage want with us to make her go to such lengths for a couple of ordinary human Outsiders though?"

Ran's eyes narrowed. "I'm not sure," she said. "Her actions are often beyond my understanding. But I'm certain she has her reasons." Her eyes turned on me, as if trying to discern some secret connection between myself and her master. "So. If you can get an escort when leaving the village, please do so. If you cannot, you can assume that I will be nearby."

Renko met the news with a grin. She was obviously quite happy at the prospect of having the opportunity to explore more of Gensokyo safely and no doubt get herself embroiled in further calamities. I bit back a secret sigh at the thought.

Henceforth, if you find any scenes in this record where it appears strange to you that Renko and I could so carelessly walk around outside the village, just assume that the shikigami of the great Youkai Sage was in the shadows nearby. It was the same logic we would come to operate under. Even the terrifying Youkai Sage could be useful.

—

And thus ends the tale of the Spring Snow Incident. The next story will take place two months later. It will relate to the incident known as the 'Night Parade of One Hundred Demons Every Three Days' Incident. If you'd like to hear that story sooner than I can write it out, then I invite you to knock on our office door.

We'll be happy to provide you with whatever tales you desire if you can bring us a mystery that will sate my partner's hunger for the unknown.

Until then, we'll be waiting to welcome you to the Hifuu Detective Agency and solve your most mysterious conundrums in the storage shed behind the temple school.

[𝗘𝗻𝗱 𝗼𝗳 𝗕𝗼𝗼𝗸 𝟮: 𝗣𝗲𝗿𝗳𝗲𝗰𝘁 𝗖𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗿𝘆 𝗕𝗹𝗼𝘀𝘀𝗼𝗺]



𝑨𝒖𝒕𝒉𝒐𝒓'𝒔 𝑨𝒇𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒘𝒐𝒓𝒅:

Hello again, and thank you for reading this far, I'm the author, Asagihara Shinobu.

This story was quite difficult to write, and I ended up changing the concealed truth behind the events twice during the process. If you've been reading my writing for a while, you may remember that I wrote a story called 𝘋𝘺𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘯 𝘚𝘱𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘜𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘊𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘳𝘺 𝘉𝘭𝘰𝘴𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘴 about Yuyuko and Youki's past before. Originally, I had planned to end this story like that one, but over time due to a few other changes made here and there I decided to rewrite the whole thing.

Recently, a line came out saying that Yuyuko's hobby is 'the preservation of her own corpse'. I had started writing this before I read that, but I like it being there now, it makes me think she'll take good care of Youmu.

At any rate, I hope you enjoyed this.

The next story will not be Imperishable Night, but rather Immaterial and Missing Power, as it falls earlier in the chronology even if it was released slightly later.