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

After all of that, despite Renko's pompousness and inflammatory accusations, Seiga's expression didn't change a bit. "Is that the end?" she asked.

"Yes, that's everything," Renko replied. "Thank you kindly for listening to it all. May I ask what you thought of it?"

"Well, It's a more interesting story than I would have expected and you're a more interesting person." Seiga said as she leaned forward, her practiced smile becoming a leering grin. She reached out with one hand to brush her fingers along Renko's chin. "Given your interest in discerning my romantic preferences, I wonder if that means that you'd like to be one of my dolls as well?"

"—Um no! I mean, no thank you. I know my place in the world."

Seiga pouted childishly, with her bottom lip thrust out. "Oh. Well in that case why don't I just take her then?" Seiga asked, turning her unpleasantly leering gaze on me as a chill coursed down my spine.

"Unfortunately, Merry is 100% mine. It's non-negotiable." Saying that, she leaned to the side and threw one of her arms around my shoulders, squeezing me tightly.

"Gah! Renko, get off!" I said, pinching her in the side. She made a funny, squeaky yelp of a noise.

Still pouting, Seiga leaned back. "What a pity. You both would have made good little dollies."

Still leaning over and clutching me tightly, Renko turned her head to look back at Seiga. "Can I take your lack of any denial as confirmation then, Miss Seiga? Do you not have any intention of refuting my story?"

"Well, there were some bits that were rather distasteful, but I liked the part about me being the one that she loves the most, not Futo or Tojiko. So overall, I'd say it’s a good story." Seiga rested both of her cheeks in her hands and shook her head from side to side.

Renko furrowed her brow at that reaction, but ultimately couldn’t do anything but shrug. Maybe Seiga had just been enjoying listening to Renko ramble and lay out her delusional theories. At any rate it seemed she had no intention of letting us know if anything Renko had said was accurate.

"I see. If I might ask, Miss Seiga, could you tell me where Yoshika is now?"

"I buried her. I'm done with her for the time being, so I returned her to the earth."

"What? Really?"

"It's not like I can't wake her up again if I need her."

"Oh... yes, I suppose you could."

Renko seemed to have been shocked by that answer and let out a deep sigh. Returning Yoshika to the earth probably meant keeping her in some sort of torpor to prevent her corpse from rotting any further. If Seiga was willing to discard Yoshika so easily, it would have meant that Renko's theory about Seiga's motivations had been off. Renko was always asking the masterminds of various incidents we encountered to disprove her theories, but when confronted with evidence that contradicted her assumptions, you could see that she really did have a lot of pride and confidence in them. Well I suppose if she didn’t, then it would have been impossible for her to lay them out with such smug confidence.


All at once our conversation was interrupted by a loud bang as the door to the room we were in was thrown open. The figure that emerged from that doorway was Tojiko, her features distorted by fury as a furious aura boiled off of her body, along with crackling arcs of electrical energy.

"WICKED HERMIT!" She roared as she floated towards us, "I'LL KILL YOU!"

"Oop, time to go," Seiga said sheepishly. She once again pulled the hairpin from her head and disappeared into a neatly circular hole in the floor.

"DON'T! RUN!" Tojiko thundered. She reached out to grab Seiga but the hermit vanished a moment too quickly to apprehend. Tojiko was left fuming, crackling with arcs of electricity as she stared at the spot where Seiga had vanished. She then turned to look at us. Her expression was grim, but no longer furious. "Are you both alright?" she asked.

I can't help but wonder what she might have expected Seiga to have done to us here on the grounds of the Divine Spirit Mausoleum. It's probably for the best that I didn't ask.

"I warned you before not to get involved with Seiga. If she gets her claws into you, you may face a fate worse than death."

"Well, I've finished my business with her, anyway," Renko declared.

Tojiko glared at Renko for a moment before responding. "Then I'll ask you to stop putting strange ideas into Futo's head as well."

"Futo? What's wrong with her?"

"She's very opinionated, and even more so than usual lately. Somehow, whenever she's convinced herself of something, she ends up causing trouble and I'm the one who's always stuck cleaning up after her."

"Well I don't remember telling her to do anything."

"I'm telling you to stop prying into her affairs. I don't like the idea of nosy outsiders snooping around all the time."

"Well I suppose I am guilty of that. I apologize." Renko bowed deeply and Tojiko's shoulders drooped again as she let out a sigh. For anyone other than Seiga, Tojiko didn't seem the sort to hold a grudge.

"At any rate, if you don't intend to join us as one of the Crown Princes' disciples, then you should avoid coming here. The Divine Spirit Mausoleum is not a playground. Not only is there the risk of running into Seiga here, but this is the prince's sacred training ground. If I find you coming here to cause problems again, you might just find yourself on the wrong end of a lightning strike."

"You have my apologies, Miss Tojiko. It wasn't my intention to disrupt your routines. Merry and I will leave without causing any further inconvenience." Renko got to her feet and I followed suit.

Still looking a little annoyed, Tojiko turned away from us, back toward the door she had come out of earlier. "I'll show you the way out."

We walked behind her as she floated ahead, leading us through a dim labyrinth of corridors, storerooms and what looked like studios and workshops. As we proceeded, Renko asked "Miss Tojiko, would you mind if I asked you something?"

"What," she replied flatly, rotating around but still floating forward.

Renko responded with an innocent smile and asked simply: "I wanted to ask what you thought of the Crown Prince. Now that she's been reborn, I mean. What do you think of her current form?"

Tojiko frowned at Renko then turned away, facing back toward the stairwell she was leading us towards. "Hmm. It's irrelevant. The Crown Prince is the Crown Prince."

"I see."

"I am her disciple. Whatever form she chooses to take is up to her and it's not my place to question her decisions."

"You don't approve of her continued involvement with Miss Seiga though, I take it."

There was a faint growl to Tojiko's voice as she replied. "Stop prying into other people's business. The Crown Prince has said that I'm within my rights to hate her."

I wondered about that. If, as Renko surmised, Tojiko's existence as a vengeful spirit was due to the strength of her grudge against Seiga. Perhaps the prince might be aware of the grudge binding Tojiko to her existence as a vengeful spirit and was allowing or even encouraging Seiga to harass her as a means of keeping Tojiko connected to this world. I wondered if the prince stoking Tojiko’s resentment of Seiga could actually be seen as an act of love toward one of her former wives.

My musings were interrupted by the sound of running footsteps quickly approaching. I turned and saw Futo rushing forward, her clothes in tatters and bearing numerous scrapes.

"Tojiko! Tojiko!"

"Don't run in the mausoleum, Futo. And what's with your clothes? Also, stop yelling!"

"Mine ire is surely roused! Hear my words and mark them well for what I promise in speech I do intend to write upon the very surface of the world in flame this day! I'll burn that temple to the ground!"

"Be quiet, Futo."

"Nay, I shan't! And what's more I— Aaaahiiibibibibibibipah!"

Tojiko sent a jolting current through Futo’s body that left her collapsed on the floor with curls of steam rising off of her. After a moment more of twitching, Futo sprang to her feet.

"Mayhaps I should burn thee first!" she declared, glaring at Tojiko.

"I don't have a body left to burn, no thanks to you. Now what's going on? Did you get another beating from the disciples of that temple again?"

"Nay, not at all! I thrashed that nyuudo sorcerer most soundly today!"

"Then why are you here, looking like that?"

"She called for help! Some surly, ill-bred, fishwife of a ghost showed up and hurled an anchor at me! Truly, these Buddhists are an intolerable stain upon the world! They must be destroyed with all possible haste!"

"And so you came crying home to look for help?"

"She's a ghost, Tojiko. Thou shouldst be the one to vanquish her."

Tojiko glared down at Futo. "What? You want me to fight her? Now?"

"Aye! This very moment, if not sooner! Once she's vanquished there will be naught to hold us from putting the torch to that temple and— ahibibibiahpah!"

Once again lightning snapped in an arc from Tojiko's fingers, striking Futo where she lay. "I told you to calm down, Futo. I don't have time to clean up your messes or get into fights. I've got meals to cook for you and the prince. Besides, didn't her majesty tell you not to take any action about the temple for the moment?"

"I... oh... hmmm."

"If you're upset about being beaten by a Buddhist then you should go and train. That's what being a hermit is all about, isn't it?"

Futo returned Tojiko's glare for a moment then folded her arms and huffed. "How is it that thou canst speak sensibly and yet still inspire in me the will to rebel? Thy every word grates in mine ears."

"How should I know? Maybe you should meditate about it. After you go and change. You're a mess."

Despite the violence of their argument, there was a certain familiar playfulness to it. Whatever connection the two of them might have had in the past, after 1,400 years, this was the relationship that the two of them had built now. For them, maybe leaving the past as the past was good enough. And if that’s what worked for them, then who am I to judge? I'm sure anyone who sees the way Renko and I interact with each other thinks that both of us are just as strange.

◇

By the time we had returned from the Crown Prince's senkai back to the streets of the village, the sun had already set. We had been talking with Seiga for longer than anticipated. Renko and I grabbed an almost nostalgic meal at the soba shop near the temple school, then returned home and went to bed without incident.

We slept completely unaware that that very night Reimu, Sanae and the other recent incident resolvers were battling with the trump card that Nue had summoned from the Outside World to deal with any threat to the Myouren Temple.

◇

"So she's like the boss of all bake-danuki?" Renko asked as we all sat around the table in our office.

"That's what she said. She looks like a lady with a racoon tail that talked like my grandmother though. She said something about being Futatsuiwa from Sado."

It seems last night Sanae had come by our office to invite us to come incident-resolving with her, but had found us to once again have vanished. For that to have happened to Sanae twice in one incident must have seemed very unlucky.

"She's Danzaburou-danuki? Futatsuiwa is the name of a bake-danuki who became so famous they're revered as a god in the Sado region. That's a pretty big fish to come to a place like Gensokyo."

Renko nodded to herself in admiration. Danzaburou-danuki was a pretty big name if that's who this woman claimed to be, I suppose. According to local legends, Danzaburou-danuki was supposed to be the reason why no foxes could be found on Sado Island. As a fan of fluffy fox tails though, I can't say I was all that fond of the idea of someone who claimed to have drowned countless foxes in the sea of Japan. Thinking about it reminded me that it had been years at this point since I had last had the opportunity to fluff any of Ran's nine tails. I wondered if Ran really might come if I called her?

"So, you were able to beat her?" Renko asked.

"Sort of. She seemed a bit disappointed that she didn't really have a reason to fight any more, so she was just playing around, really."

"So I guess she went back home after that? A shame, I would have liked to have met her."

"Oh she's still here. She's staying at the temple."

"Is that so? Well then, we should go pay our respects to a local goddess, don't you think?"

—

And so once again the three of us set out for Myouren Temple.

"GOOD MORNING!" Kyouko shouted as the three of us approached the gates. Being as the temple was only a short distance from the village, we had left Genji behind and made the trip on foot this time. Kyouko was holding a broom and sweeping the temple's entryway, yelling out her spirited greetings to visitors as usual.

Renko smiled and waved in return. "Good morning, Kyouko, though it should really be 'good day' at this point, shouldn't it? I heard a new youkai is staying at the temple, is that correct?"

"You mean Miss Mamizou? She's really cool! I'll get her for you. HEY, MISS MAMIZOU!" Kyouko turned and shouted towards the temple. As the echoes of her shout faded away, something slinky uncurled itself from the roof over the font and dropped onto the temple grounds. A moment later, a woman with a pair of pointed, furry ears on top of her head who was wearing a pair of round, rimless spectacles uncurled herself into a standing position from that very spot, walking towards us.

"What're ya making so much racket for?" she asked.

As she walked towards us, I saw that following behind her was an extremely large and round striped tail.Were tanuki tails supposed to have stripes like that?

"Oh, yer that backup shrine maiden from last night, ain'tcha? Whaddaya need now?"

"Who, me?" Sanae asked, pointing at herself. "I'm just accompanying these two this time. My friends wanted to meet you."

"Lil' ol' me?" she asked, tilting her head and looking us over.

Renko grinned broadly and stepped forward, one hand extended in greeting. "It's truly an honor to meet 𝑡ℎ𝑒 Danzaburou-danuki from Sado."

"Oh, my reputation precedes me. Are ya from the Outside World then, dearie?"

"I used to live in Kyoto. My name is Usami Renko. I run a detective agency here in the human village. This is my partner, Merry."

"...Hello," I said with a bow.

The woman blinked. "A detective agency? They have those here in Gensokyo?"

"Well, there's not much call for hardboiled detectives in the Outside World anymore is there? It's not too surprising that one would fade into fantasy, I suppose. Though even here, we don’t get much business."

"Nah, there’s still all sorts of detective shows on TV. I'm Futatsuiwa Mamizou, a bake-danuki, as ya might've guessed."

"Welcome to Gensokyo. Did you really come here all the way from Sado?"

"Sure did. Had to cross the sea to do it, too. I came all this way, chasin’ a call from an old friend, only to find everything was already tucked away all neat and tidy by the time I got here. Heck of a trick to pull on a poor ol' granny like me."

"By 'old friend,' I assume you mean Nue, right?"

"Yep. I've known her for a dog's age, though I hadn't heard from her in quite a while. I thought maybe the ways of the world might've finally caught up to her, but now I find out she's been hanging around this place—eh?"

Mamizou suddenly stopped in the middle of her sentence and leaned closer to me, peering into my eyes and adjusting her spectacles.

"Ohhh," she suddenly said with a chuckle, leaning back away. "You must be that 'natural nemesis' Nue was talkin' about."

"Who, me?"

"Yes, you, missy. You've got some strange eyes. Well, no wonder Nue's so scared of you, you're the sort of person who can see a bunch of things others can’t, aren’t’cha?"

"You're not too shabby yourself if you can tell that just by looking at her," Renko said. "My partner is very talented."

"Is that so? Hmmm."

Renko nodded excitedly but I could only shrug.

"As fer you," Mamizou said, turning her attention back to Renko. "Ya said yer name was 'Renko?' Then you must be the human benefactor everyone in the temple was tellin' me about."

"It sounds like my reputation precedes me as well."

"Well ain't that somethin'? Maybe we should have a drink some night and I can hear the story of how that happened."

"I'd be happy to. There's plenty I'd like to ask a legendary figure like yourself as well."

Renko’s reply was relaxed and casual but the smile that bloomed on Mamizou’s face in response seemed like a wicked one. I'll say as an aside that some time later, that offered drink was indeed had. Mamizou talked Renko into a game of dice at that time and tried to swindle her, but Renko figured out her game pretty quickly and fought back with some cheating of her own. In the end it turned into a pretty fierce contest. With our next month’s rent wagered on the outcome, I found the whole affair to be nothing but a nerve-wracking hassle, but there's not enough space to talk about such things here. If you come by our office some time, I'd be happy to tell you about it. Getting back to the conversation in progress, however...

"So are there still a lot of bake-danuki living in Sado?"

"That’s right. Some of 'em are even living as humans here and there. You wouldn't know 'em though." She laughed to herself.

The way she chuckled seemed almost threatening. I wondered if that was true, or just a boast.

"Will you be staying here for a while Miss Mamizou? Or would it be bad to leave Sado unattended for too long?"

"Sado is just my retirement home, nowadays. They even killed me off in a Ghibli movie."

"You were in 𝑃𝑜𝑚 𝑃𝑜𝑘𝑜?" Sanae suddenly exclaimed.

"Well, in name only."

Sanae was nonetheless thrilled. Her eyes were sparkling like diamonds as she squealed giddily. "Oh wow! I had no idea! It's like meeting Totoro in person! What a blessing!" She bowed several times in quick succession.

"As I was sayin' though, since I've already come all the way here, stickin' around for a spell strikes me as a good idea. Maybe I'll even move in at this here temple. The head nun seems like a fine woman. I can see why Nue got ensnared by her."

"I'm not ensnared!" cried a voice from somewhere nearby. Nue must have been watching us from somewhere not far off. I thought about looking for her, but she wouldn’t like me doing that, so I made a point of ignoring that.

"I've got a question for ya though," Mamizou said, frowning as her nose twitched and she looked past Renko and I toward a spot behind us. "Just what in tarnation is that terrible stink followin' you two? Almost smells like a damned dirty fox."

"A fox?" I asked, looking behind us.

"What're you sneaking around here for, you sly little dog? Got some sort of crafty plan in your head?" Mamizou asked, addressing the empty space behind us. "Come on out and show yourself proper. Or would ya rather run off like the foxes of Sado rather than facin’ the great Futatsuiwa? Either one’s fine by me."

Renko and I looked in the direction that Mamizou was staring. There was absolutely nothing there, until...

"You tanuki truly are reprehensible creatures,"

All at once Yakumo Ran was standing in a place where she hadn’t been a moment before, surrounded by a gorgeous collection of nine fluffy, golden tails, all arrayed behind her like a fan.

"Oh, what's this?" Mamizou asked, adjusting her spectacles to peer at Ran. "I thought it was gonna be just some pathetic little squeaker comin' to beg at the temple, but it's a full on nine-tailed fox. You don't see too many of your kind around any more. Are you the leader of all Gensokyo's foxes or somethin'?"

"I am Yakumo Ran, the servant and shikigami of Yakumo Yukari, the Administrator of Gensokyo. I am charged with the maintenance of the Great Hakurei barrier and so, as part of those duties, I am required to keep an eye on any newcomers to this world."

Mamizou's eyes widened and a grin bloomed across her face. "And here I thought I found somethin' impressive, but you're just some lackey, aren'tcha?"

"What?" Ran narrowed her eyes.

"A nine-tailed fox oughtta be a legendary beast, but you've gone and got yourself turned into a shikigami, runnin' errands for some fancy youkai and spendin' your time spyin' on some poor 'ol tanuki granny. Oh how the mighty have fallen. Or is bein’ turned into a livin’ tool actually an upgrade for a fox?"

"I should inform you that I will treat any insult to my personage as an insult to Lady Yukari."

"Ha! Talk about the fox that borrowed the tiger's glory. Ah, dearie me. There's nothin' sadder than a beast that's given up it's true nature to wear someone else's leash."

"Tanuki are such detestable creatures. Perhaps I should hurl you into the middle of the ocean in the Outside World. If you're fortunate you'll wash back up on Sado."

"Oh, those are mighty fearful words comin’ from a fox like you. What'd I ever do to you, errand boy? I'm just a kindly ol' tanuki granny."

"Weren't you saying you're the great Danzaburou-danuki? Have you perhaps grown so senile you can't even recall your own name anymore? Or maybe you're just a pretender claiming the legend of Futatsuiwa of Sado?"

"Hey now, I'm still plenty spry. Foxes are always so rude. That’s why they’re always the villains in all the old stories."

"Is that so? I'm rather fond of the tale of 𝑘𝑎𝑐ℎ𝑖-𝑘𝑎𝑐ℎ𝑖 𝑦𝑎𝑚𝑎 myself. If you like, I could set your back ablaze and make you a boat of mud just like in that story before I throw you into the sea."

"If we're talkin' about burning people's backs, I think that gaudy eyesore of a tail behind you would probably light up better."

"It looks like yours has already been burnt. Or perhaps it was extinguished by being dragged through the mud. Why don't you use it to scrub out a bathtub? That might get it looking more presentable."

"I bet'cha do a great job of sweeping your master's house with yours. Maybe if you ask real nice, the head nun here will let you take over the job of sweeping the entryway. You come with your own broom an' like following orders, so I bet with a bit of schooling you could manage it."

Without anything to prompt it, this animosity had erupted without warning between Mamizou and Ran. I guess what they say about foxes and tanuki not getting along has some truth to it. It was hard to do anything other than stare at the spectacle.

Despite the brewing conflict, having Ran’s tails waving right before my eyes after so long made me want to bury myself in their springy floof. It had been so long since I had had a chance to be properly floofed and surrounded by those nine tails, after all… Surely no one would mind if I snuggled them just a little, right?

"If it's a matter of cleaning up," Ran growled, "then the best cleaning I could offer this world would be to see you out of it."

"Oh. Do you want to try, dearie?"

Ran tensed, seemingly about to launch herself straight at Mamizou, but thankfully she came to her senses. Regaining some measure of self-control she cleared her throat. "No. I did not come here to waste my time on a pointless argument."

"Now ain't that just like a fox. Make a big fuss over nothin' then as soon as someone complains about it, turn tail and run. Maybe I oughta tie a little note to your tails for you to bring home to master."

"Say whatever you like, I am only here to convey two messages. First, if you plan on staying in Gensokyo, then you must follow Gensokyo's rules. ‘When in Rome, do as the Romans do.’ Surely even an uneducated tanuki like yourself can understand that much. Second, as a resident of Gensokyo, you will be expected to respect Gensokyo's balance. I know asking a tanuki to understand and acknowledge even a guide as simple as that is a fool's errand, but part of the balance that you are required to preserve here includes the balance between Gensokyo's tanuki and foxes."

"Ah, so despite being a dog on a leash you are the leader of this world's foxes as well, aren'tcha? Well that's a hoot, all the foxes of this world, commanded by a sad, whipped cur."

"I'll not take any leadership advice from a bandit leading her minions from some burrow in the forest. Need I remind you that I am the servant of this world's very creator."

"That still makes you nothin’ but a servant."

"I warn you, if you speak one more insult against Lady Yukari, I will consider it a declaration of war."

"I've said my piece. Run on home to mommy, minion. You don't seem to have enough courage in any of yer nine tails to fight me anyway."

"I'm going to turn you into a pot scrubber," were the last words I heard her say before a ferocious danmaku duel broke out between the two of them and Ran’s beautiful tails ascended into the sky, out of my reach. I watched with sorrow as they sailed away until Renko grabbed my hand. "Come on Merry, we better get out of the line of fire."

How unfair. I had wanted to touch her floofy tails just a little bit...

◇

And so, that was how it ended.

From that day forth,the human village had a shikaisen who gathered faith by listening to people's problems and advising them on how to achieve their heart's desires in addition to its already existing temples and shrines.

Beyond that, Myouren Temple gained one new resident.

Other than those two differences, nothing changed as a result of the Divine Spirit Incident.

And so the story of that incident must now come to a close.

This case file will go on just a little bit longer though. There is one more brief anecdote for me to recount. It's not anything concerning the incident itself, but rather one more discussion regarding my partner's megalomaniacal delusions.

◇

It was a few days later when we were shopping among the market stalls in the village and happened to encounter Youmu of all people strolling down the street.

"Hello there, Youmu" Renko called out to her when she saw her. "Doing some shopping today?"

Youmu turned and noticed us, bowed briefly and then hurried over to chat. "Hello there you two. Lady Yuyuko asked me to run an errand for her."

"Ah, I see. It's been a long time since I've seen Yuyuko. How is she doing?"

"Still dead. Starting the other day though she decided she suddenly wanted to become a hermit."

"A hermit?"

"Yeah. I told her about the incident and all of those hermits we fought and she said that sounded like fun so she started training to become a hermit"

"Can a ghost do that?"

"I don't really know. Lady Yuyuko said something about being jealous of those people for being resurrected, but I don't know why she'd want that for herself. At any rate, she got bored of training pretty quickly and stopped."

The thought of Yuyuko trying to resurrect herself brought up several unpleasant memories. Something similar had happened once before, but rather than explain that here, I'll just refer you to my second casefile, which discusses that occasion in great detail.

"While we're on the topic of Lady Yuyuko, there's something I wanted to ask you, Youmu."

"What is it?"

"You've seen a lot of ghosts in your time in the Netherworld, I imagine. Do you know of any that look human like Lady Yuyuko, but are missing their legs?"

"Eh? What do you mean?"

"Well, I would have kind of expected ghosts to not have legs and just sort of trail off to nothing, but Yuyuko's not like that. Your half-phantom on the other hand, along with all of the other phantoms we've seen don't have any limbs or features of any kind though. Have you ever heard of a ghost where the upper half looks like a human, but the lower half is just wisps like the back half of a phantom?"

"I suppose ghosts that look like Lady Yuyuko are sort of rare, but it doesn’t really matter what a ghost looks like or if they have legs or not, does it?"

"Well I guess a ghost wouldn’t need them to move around."

"Right. Even Lady Yuyuko floats everywhere instead of walking. Legless ghosts do exist though."

"Really?" Renko blinked in surprise.

Youmu nodded. "If a ghost didn't have any visible legs, that would probably be a vengeful spirit. Ghosts that are angry about being dead would take a form that makes it clear that that's what they are. If they’re like Lady Yuyuko and don't really care if they’re alive or dead though, they wouldn’t see enough of a difference to bother erasing her own legs. A ghost could even regrow missing legs if that’s how they thought of themselves."

Shortly after that, we parted ways, with my partner and I making our way home. As we walked, Renko was once again holding her hat in her hands, running her fingers around its brim thoughtfully. I watched her walk mechanically forward, lost in thought for a moment, then sighed. Once again, I suspected that Renko's grand delusions had turned out to be based on nothing more than flight of fancy.

"...Renko did something Youmu said just shake your entire deduction apart?"

I could imagine what she might be thinking. Her reason for accusing Seiga had all begun with the fact that Tojiko's ghostly form was missing its legs. If her legs hadn’t been stolen to make Yoshika, then Renko's whole house of cards would come toppling down.

"No, no, not at all... Well, not completely anyway. Even if Tojiko didn't have her legs stolen that way, parts of her body might still have been used to make Yoshika and the rest of my theory could still be true... maybe..."

"Isn't it equally likely that Yoshika is someone completely unrelated to the Crown Prince and her wives in any way?"

"Don't say something like that, Merry! We're the Hifuu Detective Agency, sworn to make the world a more interesting place. Something like that wouldn't be interesting at all. No, if I'm wrong, then the real answer will be something even more fantastic. Something so convoluted that even I never thought of it."

"That sounds like the opposite of Occam's razor. Isn't a scenario like that the one that's least likely to be true?"

"How very un-Merry-like of you, Merry. Isn't it the position of Relativistic Noology that there's as many truths as there are people perceiving a given situation?"

"That's true but—" I glanced over at Renko to see she was grinning at me like the Cheshire cat. This wasn't actually a debate, just another of her little gotchas. I sighed.

"Nevermind, nevermind, forget about that," she said, still grinning. "Let's talk about mysteries instead. Merry, do you know why the detectives in your favorite stories are always able to find the truth?"

"What do you mean?"

"What makes a great detective something that can only appear in a story is the fact that the story is written in such a way that the conclusion the detective comes to is true."

I blinked. "Well you're talking about the meta-textual rules of the genre at that point, right? The author of the story determines that the detective's solution is in fact the correct one, so no matter how they come to that conclusion, it's guaranteed to be correct by fiat."

"Exactly. No matter how unrealistic a fictional detective's leaps of logic are, the author can ensure that in the end they discover the truth. You have to accept that basic premise going into any sort of a mystery novel that features a detective or else you run into the Late Queen Problem."

"I suppose that's true."

The 'Late Queen Problem' is an element of literary criticism common to Japanese mystery novels. Basically it questions whether a great detective in a story can ever actually be thought to have discovered the truth. Even if they make logical deductions supported by the evidence they collect, we have only the author's word that their investigation turned up all of the critical clues and discarded all of the red herrings. As such, the detective themselves could never be certain that their deduction was airtight or that they had uncovered all of the evidence.

The theory is easy to understand if as a reader you were to treat a mystery story as if it was a trial and yourself as if you were a member of the jury. In a real trial there's always the possibility that the prosecutors might have failed to find a key piece of evidence, or that some of the evidence they present might even be fabricated. However, you can’t base your decision on evidence that is only assumed to exist and never presented, nor can you assume that every piece of evidence might be fabricated. A trial must be able to reach a verdict with only the evidence that is presented and must assume that all presented evidence is genuine. The potential for flawed evidence means that there is always the possibility of a mistrial, no matter how fair of a trial it was.

Boiled down to its simplest possible summation, the Late Queen Problem states that 'no realistic story can possibly feature a detective who is right 100% of the time.'

"So since I'm not a great detective in a story written by an author, you figure that at least some of my conclusions are wrong then, right? My theories are put together based on only the fragmentary evidence I can collect and since I'm not a fictional detective, they can't ever get every detail exactly right. The thing is, I know that. I'm not conceited enough to believe that the rules don't apply to me. I'm well aware that some of the theories that I advance are going to turn out to be false. In fact, it would be a problem if my theories were always 100% accurate."

As Renko said that, she poked the brim of her hat back on her head, looking up at the sky with a smile on her face. Looking at her, I couldn't help but smile a little too.

"Because if all of your theories turned out to be true then that would mean that there are no more mysteries left in the world, right?"

"Exactly. What I’m after is a truth that’s always just beyond my reach. A more interesting world than the one I could possibly dream up. If the great detective is getting things wrong, then that always leaves the possibility that something even more interesting that what they deduced is what’s really going on."

The effect of this of course was that the more wild a story Renko could come up with to explain the events we witnessed, the more wild the actual truth of the matter could be, in her mind. A great detective who fires off 100 shots without a single one of them scoring a direct hit would create a web of infinite possibilities branching out from each of those misses. That’s the kind of great detective my partner is.

"Renko, I don't think being a detective who never gets things right is something to be proud of."

"It's fine, Merry. We're the Hifuu Club after all. Our purpose is to make the world a more interesting place." Renko flashed me another smile and took my hand in hers, giving it a squeeze.

I sighed, then squeezed her hand right back. Maybe, in all the years we had been here, some of Renko's theories had actually hit the mark instead of grazing harmlessly past. Ultimately, we'd never know the true from the false though. Usami Renko, the great detective who makes the world more interesting.

"Hey Renko?"

"Yeah?"

"If you're so good at introducing infinite possibilities then isn't it about time you addressed the mystery of how to make our detective agency more profitable?"

"—Guh, that's not what this is about." Renko palmed her hat back down on her head and shot me a dissatisfied look.

I smiled sweetly back at her as the two of us continued walking down the road. Regardless of what sort of 'truth' we might be searching for, Gensokyo remained, as always, a peaceful, beautiful place.

If, by chance, you have a truth of your own you've been searching for, then I'm sure you'll have no trouble finding it. Gensokyo's various shrines, temples and hermitages will all have an answer to peddle you, no doubt. But if, perchance, your mystery is not the sort that seeks a cut and dry just-so answer about how you should be living your life, then perhaps you'd be interested in pursuing a more open-ended investigation. Should that be the case, I know just the person for you to talk to. You can find her most days in the office behind the Hieda Public Temple School, where she'll be happy to tell you 'Welcome to the Hifuu Detective Agency.'

[End of Book 11: Shinreibyou ~ Ten Desires]


—


𝐀𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫'𝐬 𝐀𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝:

Thank you very much for your attention so far. I am Asagihara Shinobu, the author.

Regarding Renko's theory this time, the Seiga = Futohime theory that she came up with is not my own creation. I read it in someone else's fanwork first, but I won't reveal the title of that work here, because it would be a major spoiler and that work is an absolute masterpiece of fan fiction.

When I first read that doujin, I was seriously disturbed. I immediately thought 'If they're doing that here, then what should I do when I get to the TD arc for the Hifuu Detective Agency series...'

I thought about that really hard. In the end, this is the result of that thinking. I hope you can enjoy my hard work here, since everything but the Seiga = Futohime bit is completely original. But if you find this story derivative as a result of that aspect, I apologize.

Next up will be Touhou Shinkirou ~ Hopeless Masquerade. I look forward to your continued support.