Banners flew everywhere proclaiming today to be the start of several days of festivities. A festival mood had certainly settled over everyone around. Already, there were businesses closing up early in the day, some taking their trade to the street thanks to relaxed regulations in these times, adding to the feeling of one of those festivals that cropped up in front of shrines. Strictly speaking, the nearest major shrine was some distance away. Meanwhile, its only known attendant, Kochiya Sanae, was walking among the crowds now, looking bemused at the increase in activity.

The pair of eyes that alighted on the shrine maiden hadn’t been necessarily looking for her in particular, though they also hadn’t not been looking for her. There was simply the matter of priorities; a long list of people needed to be notified. Of course, now that Ms Kochiya had entered her sight, there was no way the eyes’ owner could just let her go unaccosted. Kudamaki Tsukasa grinned to herself in her sharp-fanged, fox-like manner.

The distance between them was a short one. To a casual observer, the two might have looked all the world like friends on an outing, one trailing just behind the other — albeit, the idea that a human and a youkai might be ‘friends’ would have struck most as an absurdity, if not an impossibility. The fact of the matter was, though, that Tsukasa adhered to Ms Kochiya and seemingly remained unnoticed or unacknowledged all the while. There was little strange about a tube-fox like her being difficult to notice. One might have even called remaining in the ‘blind spots’ of recognition the essence of her species. Should she have wished, she could have got on tip-toe, leaned close to Ms Kochiya, and whispered an awful suggestion or two in her ear. If there was anything odd about the sight of the fox and the shrine maiden, it was that the former hadn’t yet done so. If the latter didn’t notice, that was her own fault for not exercising the sorts of faculties attributed to shamanesses like her.

Smirking, Tsukasa cast a glance around at the array of eyes that hardly acknowledged her, most of them tengu. “It sure is busy, isn’t it? What could possibly be going on?” she prompted Ms Kochiya.

“Almost looks like a festival. No idea what it’s about. Of all the time for Lady Kanako to throw a party, she had to pick right now. I’d have been better off going to the village, I think,” came the shrine maiden’s unguardedly gruff reply. She was too focused on squeezing through a gathering of tengu to let her attention wander elsewhere.

“Oh no, the village wouldn’t do. Better to stay close to home. You’ll be done quick enough, right?” The fox’s grin widened as she leaned closer, slipping through the bodies around her as if swimming through them.

“Good point. I just need a couple of things, anyway, and Lady Kanako doesn’t care what it costs.” Ms Kochiya’s expression became even more put-upon. “Even if she probably should.”

Like this, the two engaged in a running conversation as one tried not to be swallowed by the crowds and the other deftly followed on her heels. The presence of a human drew no real attention at this time, most of the tengu looking absorbed in revelry. Even the few wolfs standing watch who marked Ms Kochiya’s presence only had their attentions held momentarily. Normally, wherever one went in the civilised parts of the Mountain, if one weren’t a tengu, one could hardly so much as breathe without being watched. Even if one were a tengu, there could be no doubt observation was inescapable, though common delusion left this fact unacknowledged. For this very brief moment, that same watchful feeling must have been dulled for most, least of all Ms Kochiya.

The shrine maiden carried on in her shopping as if heedless of the shoving crowds and the endless impatience of tengu-kind. All the while, Tsukasa continued needling her, again and again returning to questioning the occasion of the day, turning into the voice of curiosity the human so evidently lacked.

“This guy’s in a good mood. Go on and ask him,” the fox muttered in Ms Kochiya’s ear as she concluded her purchase at a fruit vendor.

The greyed wolf instantly puffed up in pride at the query, answering effusively that today and the next few days were a true occasion to make merry if one ever did exist. Perhaps, he supposed, a human wouldn’t know, but today marked the time to hold a festival to boast of being tengu. The triumph of Tenma and tengu-kind over the Mountain — and, he added with only the slightest hesitation, the oni — had happened sometime ago, sometime around this time, after all.

Ms Kochiya was poised to follow up on her question, not seeing much answer in the old wolf’s words, but he was already too busy serving others by the time she could get a word in. Once more, the noise and presence of others served to block out all else. Huffing in a mildly annoyed way, the shrine maiden left the stand, Tsukasa still following close behind. Both had concluded what business they had in the tengu settlement and now had naught but to move on.

Owing to tengu oversensitivity to others flying in their claimed territory, taking to the air was a non-starter for Ms Kochiya, leaving her with no option but to travel a footpath to and from the Moriya Shrine. The nearest settlement relative to the shrine was thankfully only a matter of twenty to thirty minutes by foot, a mere hop in tengu terms, though the shrine maiden couldn’t be sure how many tengu visitors were ever from that particular settlement. Aside from the times she accompanied the Goddess Yasaka for business, it was one of very few she’d ever set foot in. She spent more time on average around humans, taking to the air to descend to the village, acting as shrine representative there in spite of the Moriya Shrine’s youkai-forward stance, welcoming faith from the Mountain’s denizens as enthusiastically as from the more traditional human wellsprings. Ms Kochiya herself expressed little outward enthusiasm for either, though whatever feelings she had on any matter of visitors was largely hidden behind her glistering smile.

Few would likely ever observe the Moriya shrine maiden as she was at the moment: ambling along absorbed in thought, teeth set and brows furrowed as if nagged by something. Even if someone saw her in such a state, they wouldn’t likely acknowledge it on any level, the fact that they’d even seen it in the first instance simply gliding over their consciousness before passing on like a mote of dust blown in the wind. Yet, someone was indeed watching her as she troubled over some thought or notion, her nose twitching as if she were about to sneeze. All of a sudden, Ms Kochiya’s eyes widened in realisation and she turned around to face Tsukasa.

“Hah! I knew something smelled funny. What are you doing following me home?” questioned the shrine maiden sharply, continuing her trek homewards by walking backwards.

Tsukasa’s tail waved happily and she offered a sneering grin in response. “How rude. I’ll have you know I’m cleaner than your average tengu. I take at least three baths a day. And I barely sweat.” She offered up her tail in both hands, the fluffy end wiggling tantalisingly in the air a short distance from the shrine maiden’s face. “Go on and sniff test if you don’t believe me. I also put on a nice scent when I go out.”

Ms Kochiya stopped to eye the tube-fox warily. Gingerly, she bent down until the various fine white hairs on the fox’s golden tail brushed her nose and drew in a careful breath. Her eyes opened a little wider. Again, she took a shallow sniff of the fox’s scent, then another. She reached out to grab hold of the tail, but Tsukasa retracted it quickly. Deprived of the tail, the shrine maiden made a disappointed face.

“Like a field of flowers on a sunny day,” the moony girl remarked whistfully, basking in her memory of the scent for a moment before suddenly shaking her head. Drawn from her revelry, she squared up to the fox again with a stern expression. “Hold on a moment! You’re dodging the question. Don’t even try to fool me. I know you’re up to something. Trying to steal the shrine out from under me, aren’t you?”

“From under you? I didn’t know you were the Goddess Yasaka now.” Tsukasa shrugged her shoulders, shaking her head and giving a sigh at the shrine maiden as if to say, ‘My goodness, aren’t we full of ourselves?’ Cutting in before Ms Kochiya could retort once more, she swiftly produced a small white envelope, conjuring it by some force of mystery inherent to all youkai. “If you must know, I’ve been tasked with delivering a message to that very same goddess. Directly, Lady Iizunamaru told me. As in, I should ensure it goes from my hand straight into hers. No handing it off, you see? And yet here I am, faced with a shrine maiden with an agenda against foxes. How troublesome! How troublesome!”

“Spare me the theatrics. If it’s for Lady Kanako, then I guess I can’t do anything about that,” the shrine maiden conceded, waving a dismissive hand.

The matter quickly settled, the pair continued down the Mountain path leading to the Moriya Shrine. Their conversation continued much as before, Ms Kochiya quickly lulled into a comfortable state of friendly unawareness, enough to cheerfully engage the tube-fox in airy chatter about happenings about the shrine as she might do with anyone else. Had Tsukasa had ill designs, the shrine maiden might have easily fallen prey; she did have something of a reputation among the tengu and others on the Mountain for being a bit slow on the draw. She was perhaps lucky that Tsukasa had more pressing business than taking advantage of defenceless shrine maidens.

Up the trail, the Moriya Shrine loomed. They hadn’t been more than another five minute’s walk away when Ms Kochiya had finally noticed her follower.

“With the blossoming of the cherry trees, spring’s arrival fills the air with the radiance and fragrance of endings and beginnings. Students, note you well the fleetingness of this moment…”

Such well-worn words of convention had opened the headmaster’s lengthy, nigh-breathless, winding graduation speech, presaging what must have seemed to the gathered assembly an endless emotional torrent of similar speeches, replete with appeals to the season, promises of greatness and accomplishment for the graduating class, pleas to take advantage of one’s youth in somehow bettering the world of the moment, and no small amount of weeping on the part of the impassioned speakers. Subjected to what could have easily been hours of this rhetorical exercise, a sobbing audience would have been no surprise, though out of what emotion only they themselves might know.

Toyono Kaname had extricated herself from a gathering of her classmates following the formal ceremony with the excuse of needing to daub her eyes once again. She had a reputation as the sort of young woman who might have fit into an earlier age of aristocratic girls, prone to displays of warm, simmering emotionalism, moved to jewel-like tears by the most trifling sentiment. As such, not a single one of her classmates questioned this hasty exit, casting sympathetic smiles after her retreating form, though some no doubt suspected ulterior motives. Stories of boys and girls rendezvousing during graduation were in no short supply, and evidence of newly formed couplings could be seen if one looked closely enough. Not that anyone had ever taken Toyono as one to find exceptional interest in others, nor others in her, a few quieter voices murmured.

Lost in a crowd of less familiar faces, other classes and their relations, Toyono quickly shed her mask of tearfulness and took on a more composed demeanour, strolling around the school grounds at a leisurely clip, glancing this way and that as she sought out a particular face. The actual relation between them was complicated in the way that all great-tengu families are complicated, sprawling as they often are, so Toyono had always simply reckoned her as something of an aunt. They had truthfully only met a handful of times. Of these few meetings, only once or twice did they ever have a conversation of any length, most of the time kept apart by other relatives wanting a word, not to mention her aunt’s immensely busy life. Still, those conversations revealed this aunt-figure of Toyono’s to be a vibrant woman, possessed of an intellect few could reproach and ambition that many did reproach. Her expressed views had questioned the established order favoured by the elders among the great-tengu, advocating for breaking from the stable placidity that characterised so many pillars of Mountain governance and commerce. She was, in a word, a reformist of some description, among a whole world of figures among the top of Mountain society whom the rest often found socially hazardous. For someone in Toyono’s position, lodged firmly into a family of highly-ranked bureaucrats who stood to gain little and lose much from shifts in the status quo, there was no doubt something mysteriously attractive in her aunt’s expressed views.

No matter how many times she made the rounds, Toyono failed to catch sight of her aunt. She lingered outside the school buildings near the edges of the campus in search of the elusive woman, moving about to avoid any chance sightings by wayward acquaintances. The school clock chimed the hour all of a sudden. The better part of an hour had passed with Toyono neither finding her aunt nor exchanging a word with anyone. She stood impassively watching the crowds begin to slowly filter back into the buildings for the beginning of the various class ceremonies and then other less formal happenings. At last, one of her classmates found her, suggesting that they make their way to the classroom to change from their formal kimono to the more showy casual one expected of the young woman graduates. Toyono nodded simply, wearing a thin smile, only stopping to cast one last glance at the gates before moving on. No one stood there anymore.

Pulled back into the undertow of events, Toyono became lost in a blur of indistinct conversations and ceremonies. After changing her outfit for the third time that day, to the formal dress uniform donned on occasions such as these, she looked at the clock to see that it was finally time for the evening post-ceremonies reception, more or less the end of graduation. If there was any time her aunt might make an appearance, that seemed the most likely one.

As might be expected of an elite school, the campus boasted a large hall dedicated to social events like the reception, to be filled to the brim with the graduating students, their families, faculty, and any other visiting guests permitted entry. Music from the hired band already echoed through the halls as Toyono approached the tall doors in the company of several classmates. Plans had initially been made for a whole group of them, numbering fourteen or fifteen, to all make their appearance together, splashy entrances a staple of post-graduation reception tradition. This intended display of the cheerful bonds of youth in their last flowering moment had been complicated by several of the group finding boyfriends, and thus dates to the reception, a couple of them failing to tell the others until nearly the last minute. That meant common friends came up absent, cutting the group down to five hold-outs after some elected to simply go as separate groups of their own. The remainder consisted of a well-known honour student, her closest friend from class, and three others who weren’t that close with the former two nor to each other, Toyono among them. To all who saw them walking towards the event hall, the fact was clear that this was a pair of friends accompanied by an entourage hastily assembled to help them stand out. Toyono walked along placidly at one flank, wearing the easy smile of a young woman of her stature.

Most of the faces who greeted Toyono and the others remained, as ever, part of the greater mass of the student body and others within the recognisable social sphere. Without saying a word, Toyono waved, bowed, and smiled her greetings to all who cared to see her, receiving about as much acknowledgement in turn. As part of the group, she was obliged to remain in her appropriate position relative to its centre and not try to pre-empt the group nor delay it. Thus, she had to stand still much of the time as others detained the honour student and her friend for minutes at a time, largely ignored by those hanging about, who understood implicitly that only the central figures of the group were of any import. Left to stand and decorate the group as a whole, Toyono spent the idle moments gazing out into the crowd in a pensive manner as if lost in thought, perhaps unaware that her façade of sociability appeared all the thinner for it, if not outright uncaring that it appeared so. No one was likely to approach, in any case.

“Ms Toyono Kaname? Pardon me. Might I be mistaken in understanding that to be whom I’m addressing?” queried a voice from within the crowd.

A diminutive blonde-haired girl, head topped with triangular ears, a similarly golden-coloured tail waving easily behind her, stood within arm’s reach of Toyono. In spite of the gratuitous appeal to formality in her tone, there was a sneering quality to the smile she displayed, hints of fangs hidden behind her pretty lips, their glinting tips only just visible to the observant eye. Contrasting the muted and often overly-choreographed smiles worn by most in the room, there was naked disdain in her expression — at what, no one could have been certain. Only when she looked directly at Toyono did her leering grin seem to widen a little, her ears waggling playfully. She clearly eschewed the perceived stoicness of the average wolf tengu, who would anyway be absent from the gathering except as hired help, and so couldn’t have been mistaken for one. Really, it took little observation to establish that she wasn’t a tengu at all, thus no one that could be taken for a student, a relative thereof, or anyone with any conceivable role in the gathering. She was, then, out of place at the graduation and she showed an aggressive lack of care for that fact with how she boldly stood in the room. Yet, no one but Toyono appeared to have noticed the girl in the first instance.

Toyono glanced over at the rest of the group. The two friends were still occupied, locked deep in gossip regarding the Himekaidou, one of those mercantile crow families long able to purchase measures of influence, in no small part thanks to sympathetic parties among the great-tengu, some of them even being among the few alumni of the school not of so-called ‘old stock’. Their interest in the seeming decline in fortunes of the family had the conversation circling back on itself endlessly, first to pity the poor crows, then to condemn their hubris in turn, only to swerve right around to reaffirming once more that it was their inherent simplicity that left crows unable to abandon misplaced pride, being the unfortunate beasts they were, though they were at least more akin to their betters than those ghastly wolfs. Reapplying her thin smile, Toyono at last acknowledged the blonde.

“Bold of you to step into all this. And without an invitation, no less. Maybe I should alert security to the crasher? They’re likely bored of having nothing else to do.” In spite of her vaguely menacing words, Toyono’s tone was light, as if passively commenting on the day’s weather. Her eyes showed amusement at the little intruder more than anything.

The blonde girl’s lips parted even more to show her fangs fully. “How nasty. Just what I’d expect of a girl from this kind of school. No, maybe worse. I guess at least some things run in the family. The looks certainly don’t. I wouldn’t have mistaken you for Lady Iizunamaru’s relative if I hadn’t been told.”

The following silence from Toyono reverberated admidst the buzzing around her. She and the blonde had been, unbeknownst to one or the other, plucked all at once from the world shared with others and suddenly deposited into a wholly different one, absent the presence of words, perhaps even lacking a need for such artifices. Toyono breathed deeply, then burst past the conversing group, straight into the reception hall, gripping the little messenger tightly by the hand.

The air buzzed in the main hall of the Moriya Shrine. Lady Kanako, the Goddess Yasaka, breathed heavily through her nose, the inhalation deep, the exhalation long and wavering. Seconds prior, she had been giving vent to her displeasure at a great, roaring volume to all unfortunate enough to hear it. Ms Kochiya and Tsukasa shared a mutual wincing look of discomfort; the former certainly heard a ringing in her ears that probably wouldn’t go away for a while. Behind her back, Tsukasa clenched a fist in an attempt to not visibly tremble before the fearsome goddess, though her vulpine ears were lying down in a gesture of supinity.

Clearing her throat loudly, Lady Kanako broke the tense silence in a tone of renewed, but obviously false, cheerfulness. Her face glowed a little pink in light of her prior outburst. “Well, I guess there’s no helping it, is there? I know the tengu have their matters. Yes, clearly, the great-tengu especially have their circumstances. Such a pity.”

“Yes,” Ms Kochiya concurred automatically, springing in to play the backup to her goddess, “what a shame about that. We meant to have such a feast, didn’t we, Lady Kanako? You even got hold of that fish…”

A pointed look from the goddess silenced her shrine maiden immediately. Clearing her throat as well, Ms Kochiya quietly made some excuses about business to attend and retreated from the main hall, glancing back briefly over her shoulder at Lady Kanako as she left. The goddess and tube-fox were left alone to face each other in a brief, heavy silence.

“Tell me, was your Iizunamaru aware of today’s plans? I know that this isn’t the exact day that we concluded our agreements, but it’s more the occasion than the day, I feel.” Lady Kanako took a deep breath, closing her eyes for a moment. Her voice had begun to tremble ever so slightly; she sat with one tightly clenched fist in her lap. “You’ll forgive me being a bit upset, won’t you? I had hoped that these great-tengu might be a bit more forthright with me this many years on. And yet, it seems like nothing much has changed. They are still, in the end, for themselves and no one else.”

“If I may, Lady Yasaka,” Tsukasa broke in with an uneven, wavering sense of levity, “whilst I can’t speak for all of the great-tengu, Lady Iizunamaru remains extraordinarily aware of and committed to the partnership forged between the Mountain and the Moriya Shrine. She would have ignored other engagements, even, to come here. But, you see, there are always delicate internal matters to contend with. Things far beyond my ken, of course. I only ask you not be so harsh on my lady, Lady Yasaka. She has at least acknowledged her fault, as I’m sure you’ll read in her response.”

The goddess gave a great exhalation through her nose, making a low, grumbling noise at the same time, visibly deflating. After a few attempts at speaking, she unballed her fist, bringing her palm down on the polished floor of the main hall, striking it lightly but still causing an echo under its vast roof. “I don’t trust that idea any more than I trust you, fox. Still, she did send a letter with her messenger. That’s more than the others cared to do. It might have been nice if she could have come herself, but I can’t be too unreasonable. I’d have sent Sanae were our positions exchanged. And perhaps my timing was a bit inopportune. I shouldn’t have assumed a positive response meant there were no conflicts. That was uncharacteristic foolishness on my part. I have little right to be upset or disappointed, all told.”

“Well, I don’t know what political game you’re acting as a pawn in, but I’ll be sure to find out next time I speak to Iizunamaru. There’s truly never a boring moment on this Mountain with the tengu around, is there?” Lady Kanako met the fox’s razor-tipped smile with an iron one of her own, brimming with the overwhelming force of an erstwhile war deity.

“It’s not my business to know what I’m wrapped up in; I’m just a simple fox,” said Tsukasa, laughing softly as if to herself.

The goddess chuckled, dismissing the fox’s air of feigned innocence with a wave. “Sure you are. At any rate, since we’ve no other guests tonight, and enough food to gorge a flock of great-tengu, would you care to join us at table? I’m sure there are matters regarding Iizunamaru we could discuss. And I doubt you get many chances to drink the same sake as a great-tengu, do you? Come! It’ll be as good a celebration as anything they’re up to.”

Tsukasa bowed deeply once again, this time giving a slight flourish with her tail. “My continued apologies, Lady Kanako, but I must be moving on. There are many others besides I have to inform of Lady Iizunamaru’s absence. Because of all that’s happening, I’m sure to be at it into the evening.”

“Is that so? Pity.” Lady Kanako shook her head and heaved her great shoulders in an all-encompassing shrug. There was something in her slight frown that looked more genuine than any other expression she’d shown thus far, but so too was the resignation in her voice. “I’ll not detain you further, then. My regards to Iizunamaru all the same. And tell her not to work you so hard during festivities.”

With one more bow to acknowledge the goddess’s joking words, Tsukasa swiftly left the main hall of the Moriya Shrine, found her way down it’s stone-lined path, and out through the torii, taking to the sky and leaving the shrine behind her at last. Though she was smiling to herself, there was a tension in her face that might have made one doubt the full degree of her calm collectedness. Besides, she did look run ragged and about to fall over at a moment’s notice. Being yelled at for simply delivering messages and having to scramble for excuses could no doubt take its toll.

Heat lingered in the atmosphere of the hall. Now, the band was playing a much slower tune, winching down the feverish activity that had overtaken the crowd gathered around just moments prior. As with the music, so too did the volume of conversation lower. Those who had less inclination to be on the dancefloor made their opportune retreat into the outer rings of the wide circle around the stage, some even finding their way outside, to relative solitude in one of the corners of the hall, where many had been in the beginning before gradually being compressed into the crowd, creating an otherwise unnoticed negative space to frame the party.

Toyono Kaname sat at a table alone in one corner on the far side from where she had stormed in. The conversation she’d had with the fox messenger, there on behalf of her somewhat distant aunt-figure, Iizunamaru Megumu, didn’t last all that long. The little blonde implied that she was in something of a hurry, not wanting to cause any sort of fuss by being noticed as an interloper amongst the graduation party in any case, so she had only reported that Lady Iizunamaru remained as busy as ever, adding off-hand that she most likely sent her congratulations on Toyono’s graduation. She’d capped off this dubious exchange by pressing a letter in a plain white envelope into Toyono’s hand. With the vague assurance of a more personal greeting in the letter, the tube-fox slinked off to meld into the crowd still pouring into the hall entrance, disappearing before Toyono could get any notion of pursuing her.

As yet, Toyono hadn’t opened the letter from her aunt. She had simply sat and looked at its nondescript envelope, turning it over and over, as if chasing for some unseen words that constantly fled from sight. The envelope itself was a fine one by all description, possessing a keen weight in spite of its thinness. What showed of the paper through the envelope, too, appeared to be some handmade sort, delicately made for writing with brush and ink. The fineness of the material lent even more of a weight of importance to the message. Yet, at the same time, such weighty sorts of material could also be said to lend a heavy, unbreatheable air of cold formality, turning what was otherwise words of congratulations into mere business correspondence. Tracing her fingers back and forth over its surface, Toyono toyed with the sealed end, never quite bringing herself to tear it open. By the time the band had finished its blistering number, she had set the letter flat on the table and turned as if pondering leaving it.

“Kaname dear? Is that you over there?” broke in a woman’s voice before Toyono could act on her impulses. “Of all the places to find you. Out here alone!”

The great-tengu addressing her, got up in eveningwear that would rival the dress uniforms of the students, was Toyono’s own mother, a not unexpected presence at the event, though Toyono might have hoped to not meet her there. The elder Toyono regarded her daughter with a faint smile that didn’t reach her eyes. Casually, she took a seat next to Kaname, who complied with her mother’s unspoken demand and abandoned her flight. Kaname sat with her chair angled slightly askew of her mother, eyes trained so that their gazes wouldn’t meet without a purposeful effort.

“I don’t suppose you saw the entrances made earlier. Everyone looked so wonderful. All those groups of girls, showing the best of themselves for everyone. It’s the sort of thing that has a lasting impact, you know.” Toyono’s mother opened her fan and half hid her face behind it. At the same time, her voice lowered and took on a jaggedness, contrasting the rounded, almost youthfully pretty character of her exposed face. “Careers have lived and died on such things. In our world, reputation is a double-edged blade we’re obliged to wield.”

“So you’ve often said,” intoned Kaname, her intonation buffed of any outstanding emotion.

Her mother clicked her tongue sharply. “Yet you don’t seem to listen. I heard your friends talking, Kaname. They said you ran off by yourself and left them there at the hall entrance. Did you honestly think they wouldn’t notice? Hardly anyone remembers a good friend, but a bad one is remembered for a long time. A long time.”

“I’ll be sure to talk to them later. I’m just…” Kaname’s eyes drifted towards the letter. She lifted her hand as if to slip it off the table but stopped short. “I’m simply tired from all of the ceremony. I didn’t wake up feeling very well, either.”

“Tired? Not feeling well?” Her mother scoffed, leaning forward with a severe look in her eye. “My child, do you think you have the luxury of such complaints? This is the end of youth, dear. From here on, your value only sinks. Nothing gets any better unless you set the foundations here and now. Celebrating isn’t optional. Do you understand?”

“I do understand, mother. I’d just like a few moments to myself. That’s all.” Kaname renewed her effort to casually retrieve the letter, only for her mother’s eyes to fall directly on it. The band wound their slow number down, concluding on a long, crescendoing outro, the pianoist’s ending notes swift and sharply played.

With hardly the space for a breath, the band banged right into a lively, uptempo number. As if spurred on by the music, Toyono’s mother snatched up the letter like a hawk diving for a mouse. Toyono could only look on as her mother tore the envelope open, peering at contents that weren’t meant for her eyes. She watched with her jaw set whilst her mother read the letter, the only sign of tension apparent in her otherwise muted expression. The elder Toyono frowned severely partway into the letter, gripping the thin paper hard enough to crumple it. Finished reading, she looked up at her daughter, mouth agape, fixing her with a stare that said everything words couldn’t convey at that moment.

Quickly refolding the letter and shoving it back into its envelope, Kaname’s mother stood up abruptly. She took a deep, quivering breath, speaking in a furious, barking half-whisper. “I want you to forget that woman. Do you hear me? She does not exist to you. Nor to any of us! She will do nothing but poison your ambitions out of spite. Never, under any circumstances, will you ever speak to her again if you value this family at all.”

Toyono’s mother departed from the hall soon after, dodging inquiries from various acquaintances as she left, seemingly intent on exiting the festivities altogether. For her part, Toyono watched her mother leave without a word of rebuttal spoken. She merely watched her mother’s retreating back, silently saying just how much she thought of the Toyono name and how much she valued it at that moment. The band had already finished the previous tune and settled into an insipid number that served only to fill in the silences in the hall. The rest of the revelers carried on in their equally tepid conversations, their conclusions as settled as they were before any of this celebration, not to mention much the same as when their participants’ forebears had had them. Whatever someone like Toyono Kaname thought of her, Iizunamaru Megumu more than likely was no exception in her own concluded youth.

Light played on the darkened condominium floor as the entryway door opened. Tsukasa hit one of the switches, lighting up the dining area, where Iizunamaru Megumu sat looking out the broad, tall windows, gazing out onto a view of the nearest settlement, numerous lights twinkling from a host of festivities happening simultaneously. A burst of fireworks lit up the night sky for a short while before settling back down. Without even looking at her familiar, Lady Iizunamaru gestured at a neighbouring seat that had already been pulled out, where Tsukasa obediently seated herself, albeit with a moment’s hesitation.

The table had been set for only two despite there being a far greater number of seats. Tsukasa, her legs suspended off the floor, kicked her feet restlessly as she sat watching Lady Iizunamaru, waiting for her to speak before saying anything herself, an unspoken rule between them that a familiar must never pre-empt her mistress. A glass of wine sat half-filled next to the great-tengu; the bottle appeared half-empty. A small spread of food lay undisturbed in the kitchen, lacquered boxes from the various restaurants commissioned stacked about. The casual observer would hardly have called it a celebration of any sort save a mild sense of extravagance in spending, something Lady Iizunamaru was not unknown for. Even to Tsukasa, the scene must have merely amounted to a lonely woman, alone among her riches, sitting in the dark, getting mildly tipsy to make time pass with less friction.

As if only just remembering it, Lady Iizunamaru took up her wine glass, taking a light sip. She cradled her chin in her hand and propped herself up on the table. “So? What news? I trust you handed them all out. Directly, as I asked.”

“I did, Lady Iizunamaru,” Tsukasa replied, ears springing to attention. “No one seemed inclined to take up your invitation.”

“As I expected, then. So much the better.” Lady Iizunamaru shrugged her shoulders and took a deeper sip of her wine. Humming a bright but tuneless tune, she poured herself even more to drink, the glass going from nearly empty to nearly overflowing. Seeing that there was a bit left in the bottle, she turned to Tsukasa, filling the empty glass in front of her without asking. The fox eyed the glass like she suspected it to be poisoned, hardly the worst thing a great-tengu might do to an offered drink.

In spite of her caution, Tsukasa did pick up the glass to have a minuscule sip of her own, only just avoiding pulling a face at the slight bitterness that hit her tongue. She held the glass aloft at a careful distance. “I don’t think any of them so much as peeked at your invitations. They were more preoccupied with you not being at their little parties. Maybe none of them even realised they were being invited.”

“Is that so?” asked Lady Iizunamaru, not sounding the least bit surprised, nor interested for that matter. Her finger traced a slow circle on the tablecloth, interrupted at intervals by the need to take another quick drink. Mouthful by mouthful, the wine was steadily disappearing.

Tsukasa jumped up from her seat with the excuse of the food getting cold, which was true enough. She briskly made her way to the kitchen with two plates and looked through the lacquered boxes, finding them piled higher than she’d realised at first glance. Every one of them was full of delicacies many would envy. The majority was likely to end up uneaten, dumped in the bin. The tube-fox clicked her tongue loudly, trying to pile as much as reasonable on the plates, careful to add an unreasonable amount to her mistress’s so that her own relatively full plate wouldn’t look excessive.

“If I may, Lady Iizunamaru?” she called from behind a wall of food.

“Yes?” the great-tengu called back in a sing-song voice. “Incidentally, could you grab the next bottle? This one’s gone dry somehow. There should be plenty around there somewhere.”

Tsukasa glanced over at a line of bottles left prominently on one counter, rolling her eyes since her mistress couldn’t see her. “Very good. But, more importantly, why go to all this trouble? You talk as if you expected none of those invited to appear. A nice meal and a drink is one thing. This seems excessive, all things considered.”

“Oh, Tsukasa dear, don’t be such a stiff. Now’s the time to get into a festive mood,” Lady Iizunamaru chided, her inflection already starting to waver from the wine. At this rate, she was likely to begin loudly singing off-key renditions of beloved songs, as a select few might have witnessed the unguarded Lady Iizunamaru do after a tipple.

With great effort, Tsukasa conveyed both the wine and food to the table without any incident, to childish applause from her mistress when she deftly caught the wine bottle as it nearly fell. Taking care not to let any annoyance show, the fox plastered on her most razor-sharp smile before popping a morsel of food into her mouth, chewing appreciatively and daubing her mouth after swallowing. “Yes, well, that festive mood is part of the point I’m making. Surely, it would have been better to join in some of the public festivities? At the very least, there are a few acquaintances whose own parties wouldn’t be disagreeable, I’d think. Why not let them shoulder the burden instead?”

Lady Iizunamaru prodded at different bits of food on her plate ponderously without bringing any of them closer to her mouth. “Tell me, Tsukasa,” she spoke up suddenly, “do you have any idea what today’s celebrations are about?”

“I was under the impression getting out from under the oni was the greater part of it. Perhaps also an occasion to just be proud of tengu culture?” Tsukasa made a difficult face, stopping herself short of eating anything else. “At the very least, that’s what most were saying out there. I can’t claim to know anything about specific days anything might have happened.”

“And that’s exactly my point. Hardly anyone knows the whys and wherefores of these little festivals. They’re a whole-cloth invention, conjured into existence by a committee. Just started this year, in fact.” Lady Iizunamaru laughed to herself as she tore the wrapping off the new bottle of wine and opened it with far more grace than a drunkard could reasonably be expected to possess. She looked apt to start drinking straight from the bottle for a brief moment, though she did eventually pour herself another nearly overflowing glass.

“Wait, you’re saying that everything about a decisive battle with the oni is false?” pressed the fox, taking a deep drink of her own wine. Her ears were laying askew.

“Tsukasa, let me tell you something about tengu history.” Some thought prompted Lady Iizunamaru to snicker loudly, soon breaking into an uncontrolled giggling fit before quickly bringing herself under control. “Anything you hear about we tengu ‘beating’ the oni is an outright fabrication. We never made them go away. They did that on their own. It’s a really boring story when you think about it. ‘The oni just kind of got tired and wandered off.’ A real fantastic foundation of a culture, don’t you think? I made the same point to the committee.”

Tsukasa’s eyes narrowed as if in disbelief. “Hold on, are you the one who—”

“—came up with it? Guilty as charged,” agreed Lady Iizunamaru.

Silenced for the moment, Tsukasa said nothing further, simply eating and drinking for the moment, fixing her mistress with a look of bafflement all the while. For her part, the now evidently inebriated Lady Iizunamaru finally decided to have a taste of her food, finding it agreeable enough to go at it with the gusto that drunkards find when faced with something delicious, seeming to have entirely forgotten the train of conversation.

Suddenly, smiling in a knowing way, Lady Iizunamaru prodded her familiar. “Say, Tsukasa?”

“Yes, Lady Iizunamaru? If you’re about to ask for more wine, I think you’ve had more than your fair share,” Tsukasa answered after a long interval, dabbing her mouth and sitting back with her arms folded expectantly.

The great-tengu dismissed the notion with a wave. “Oh, not that, you silly fox. You really don’t remember now, do you? What happened around this time a few years back. My big triumph. Or, really, tengu-kind’s big triumph, in other words.”

“You mean to say, the incident with that market goddess?” asked Tsukasa, giving an even more puzzled frown. Some thought ran back and forth in her vulpine head before one ear perked up. “Ah, come to think of it, you did say something about it being a triumph for all tengu. Even though it got all smashed up in the end.”

“Yes, that very thing. That’s what we’re all celebrating here!” Lady Iizunamaru raised her still quite full glass, drawing it closer to Tsukasa’s. The fox quickly seized her own glass as if to defend it from her mistress, but Lady Iizunamaru managed to gently knock them together with a melodious ringing before taking a deep gulp of wine, uncouthly wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.

Tsukasa gave a heavy sigh, finally mirroring her mistress in drinking deeply. The events of the day looked to finally be taking their toll. “So, why not just make that the subject of celebration? If everyone shares in the success, then…”

“It’s because real triumphs are easily forgotten.” All of a sudden, Lady Iizunamaru looked completely sober, the look in her eye as sharp as ever. “Only those who managed them will be the ones who actually remember. To everyone else, they’ll just become distorted stories, perhaps legends at best. Eventually, it’ll all just become a series of parties and rituals no one remembers the significance of. Worst case, someone will twist it all to fit their own ends, re-writing the whole narrative into something it never was. If that’s how it has to be, I thought, why not just start from there? As long as there’s a celebration, our victory is being commemorated in some way, don’t you think?”

At that, the tube-fox tried to find a response, starting to say something but sputtering to an incomplete finish every time. Eventually, she shook her head and gave up making any comment entirely. Her mistress had a knack for schemes that lacked any apparent sense. In many ways, someone like her would appreciate that lack of coherence, seeing it as an opportunity to sow the sorts of chaos that her kind thrived within. Nevertheless, there was always the lingering sense that the whole production amounted to little more than the private satisfaction of a self-interested woman with little else better to do. No matter the logic of the convolutions, their conclusion rarely left one with the sense of anything beyond having been made to dance atop Lady Iizunamaru’s palm.

Grumbling to herself through a haze of wine-induced drowsiness, Tsukasa fell asleep a little while later on her mistress’s couch, fully collapsing after so much effort expended over so little. There was likely a part of her that relished the challenge of outdoing her mistress, but there was also little hope of such a victory coming based on continually being misdirected by the great-tengu. Showing little mind paid to such things, Lady Iizunamaru smiled watching over her passed-out familiar and then yawned. Another day would begin soon enough. Celebrations would be put aside for the everyday concerns. Iizunamaru Megumu would go from triumph to working once more in obscurity, in hopes of securing another victory another day.

On the table nearby, hidden from Tsukasa’s sight all the while, had lay a letter, one of Iizunamaru’s, in fact. Somehow or other, the invitation letter had come all the way back to her hand, returned by someone claiming to be a messenger on behalf of the Toyono family. Packed in with the letter was a small note written in an elegant hand. The contents of the note largely consisted of calling Iizunamaru both a plague on tengu society and the sort of fool who took polite invitations seriously, ending by exhorting her to reflect on her errors and re-learn her place among her fellow great-tengu. At one time, Iizunamaru had noted to Tsukasa that there was nothing tengu society abhorred more than something genuine.

The clack of my shoes echo through the tunnel, one of only three things to mention as I walk the far path in. The other two: the entrance back out to the ravine and the heavy metal door inside, guarded by one kappa. I’m too far away for her to hear my approach, but it’s doubtful whether that matters. She looks to be having an entrancing visit to the land of dreams, slumped in a backless chair and resting her head against her bloated backpack.

The way her arms and legs meld into her outfit, as oversized and adorned with pockets as they are, often leads me to wonder how the kappa can be comfortable for something like sleep while wearing them. A useless question, seeing as how far gone this one is. In the time my thoughts were left to wander, I walked right up to her, no quieter than when I was some two hundred shaku away. While I could always invite myself into the hideout, I think I might as well be a dutiful passerby.

I clack my heels in front of her seat and lean in to pick her up by the collar, backpack and all.

“Wake up, whelp!” I shout as loud as I can.

The sound bounces over itself endlessly in the tunnel, ringing harshly in the kappa’s ears, as well as mine. Her head shoots up, eyes wide under her front brimmed hat. I hold her a mean look, acting like I’m well and truly mad at her.

“Sleeping on the job?! You’re an embarrassment to your duty! Anyone could walk by, be thankful that it was me!” I bite her head off.

She warbles meaninglessly out of confusion, mixing her need to greet me with the equal need to apologize for her wrongdoings. I drop her, letting the kappa land on her rear. She rubs the newly sore region, looking back up at me quietly.

When she starts to get up I drill into her, “Did I say you were allowed to stand up?”

It doesn’t take more to get her to reconsider the action. She even starts to sit a bit more formally from the warning.

“Now, you’re going to sit there and reflect on your negligence. It is your duty to ensure the safety of everyone behind this door from anything outside. Remember that. If I find you asleep when I leave you’ll have the shinigami to explain your mistakes to,” I pass on the righteous threats of my own predecessors, whom were far harsher than I could pretend to be. “Do you understand?!”

“Y-yes, miss Inubashiri!” the kappa yelps, a raw terror striking the very idea of sleep from her.

I nod, grunting as I pass by. The wheel-like handle on the metal door spins with a screech, metal grating against metal. I swing the thing from its frame, a hefty weight to push around, and step over the lower portion. I think I’ll bet Nitori if that kappa is still awake by the time I’m back here.

The door shuts by its own weight, and I make sure to secure the wheel like I found it. Kappa are particular about their things. Spic and span, they like to say. I never understood what they mean when every corner of their rooms are cluttered with random tools and materials. It’s even less sensible when they notice a single nail out of place.

There aren’t any kappa to greet me with such mundane things, though. The metallic halls of their hideout are starkly empty, aside from the errant pieces of half made projects and carts carrying work gear. It’s as if they left all at once, not bothering to put away anything. Or, maybe this is what’s considered clean for kappa? Maybe this hall, lined with scattered metals, tubes, and wheels is the cleanest the kappa can be. I step through the hall, my geta now clicking against the iron floor, and avoid stepping on everything I possibly can. I’m still forced to roll a cart or two out of my way, the wheels rattling against the bumpy surface under them.

I poke my eyes into a few rooms, seeing if a stray kappa remains to tinker on their own pet project, but even the reclusive ones seem to be absent. The only time this usually happens is when there’s an all hands emergency or a major festival is happening. I don’t hear the sounds of battle, and I didn’t see any major gatherings across Gensokyo on my way over, so I can’t imagine what is happening.

The clang of something in the distance catches my ear, turning in the direction it came from. I see nothing at the end of the hall, so it must be further down. Upon approaching the place where I heard the disturbance, I begin to hear faint murmurings through the walls. One particular door is loud enough that even human ears would hear through it.

I break open heavy metal hatch, a burst of sounds coming from the opening. Many voices, machines, and even splashes of water compound on each other through the narrow gap. I fit myself through the narrow entry, meant for someone at least two heads smaller than me.

“Oh! A wolf tengu, a wolf tengu!” a kappa calls out before scurrying away.

I’ve made it to the central hall. The place is large enough to host its own festival, maybe even two, and the kappa take up the area as they often do. Everything, all over the place, like an explosion of junk. Noises ring from the walls in an unceasing explosion. I strain to pick out any particular sounds.

But more noticeable than the sounds is the sight. A sea of blue pocket dresses everywhere I look. The kappa have gathered in this room en mass, amounting to hundreds. This is probably their entire population all in one room!

I scan around, trying to determine why they’re all collected like this. It reminds me of a time when they had a kick of playing games on their gadgets, but that’s a pale imitation of the current scene. They all go about their business moving things, banging things, using giant constructs to move even heavier things. It seems to all make it’s way, meanderingly, to the center. Normally a great, monumental pile of scrap is there in the center of the room, but its been cleared away for the kappa to repurpose. Specifically so that they might construct some other, actual monument.

Its only about halfway done, so the most I can make out of it is the fact that it’s a person, and that they’re wearing outside world pants. Blue paint covers the whole thing.

“What in the world is happening here?!” I call out to the nearby crowd of kappa, hammering away at a plate of metal the size of a table. “Where is Nitori?”

“Oh, miss Inubashiri!” a kappa with round glasses calls back from above, a paint can sitting with her in a hanging chair. Really just a wooden plank with rope attached on both ends. She settles a thick brush into the can and grabs another rope tied to the first, loosing it to start descending. “What brings you here today of all days?”

Even talking casually I still need to raise my voice exceedingly high over the crowd, “I was coming for a game of shogi on my day off. What is all this?”

The kappa giggles, “I’ll let Kawashiro explain, I wouldn’t ruin her fun of showing people around!” She carefully settles the crude chair to the floor before getting off.

I trail behind her as she maneuvers through the constantly moving groups. I pay attention to a kappa standing on another metal plate, using some powerful tool larger than herself to put metal bits into holed openings. The sheer might of the thing kicks them with every use. They lay their body over it to try and reduce the impact. It doesn’t seem to do much, save the visual of this kappa being punched in the gut.

“Are they doing that right?” I wonder aloud to my guide.

“It’s within standard procedure,” the short bespectacled woman informs me. “Don’t worry, it’ll make sense in a bit.”

I somehow doubt that. More than a little.

We pass myriad other kappa using equipment of similar strength on other large pieces of scrap metal, working in a fever pitch towards some ultimate goal surely involving the monument that the guide leads me closer to. The pieces are shaped in every possible way, the materials constructing the central figure, currently no more than legs and feet. At the base of the feet, clouded in a group of kappa heeding her instructions, I finally spot a more familiar face.

“Kawashiro!” the kappa with glasses gestures some half-measured salute to this head of the group.

She returns the salute, though not bothering to replicate the exact form of the hand, after which changing her view to lock eyes with me. The way she has to tilt her head up catches the attention of a few kappa in the crowd, following her gaze over to me. A tengu, no matter the rank, easily spooks most kappa, and the ones surrounding Nitori are no exception.

They begin to find any excuse to scramble away, returning to whatever it was they were doing, probably without resolving the conversation they were having with Nitori.

“No, you idiots, check the welding kits again!” Nitori shouts after them, stamping her feet once in frustration. “Momiji, what are you doing here?! You’re scaring the crew!”

“Huh?” I’m a bit taken aback. She’s not usually so temperamental with me. “I’m… here to play a few rounds of shogi?”

She’s close to further reproaching me in a fiery blitz, but stops before any syllables come fourth. Her stitched brows consider the current company, and unknit from fierce to frustrated. She drags her index finger and thumb across her eyes, groaning about nothing specifically.

“Sorry, Momiji. It’s a little stressful here right now,” she apologizes.

I joke back at her, “Every day is chaos here. What makes today different?”

That kappa in glasses really had Nitori pegged, as she lights up at the question.

She stands with a proud gait, announcing, “That, my furry friend, is because today we are celebrating!”

I look about. The madness of work and construction being literally over our heads seems like a far cry from celebration as I understand it.

I gesture to the crane above us, settling a new metal plate across the statue, and ponder, “I didn’t realize the kappa could celebrate like this.”

“That’s because we’re commemorating a historic event! The thanks of an outside world goddess,” Nitori explains. “This statue will be our offering. After which we will safely reclaim the metal from it.”

A temporary display? Seasonal, I suppose. “I think Lady Yasaka would be flattered to know you are all so devout… suddenly. But why is she wearing pants?” I ask, pointing towards the groin of the figure.

Nitori lurches her eyes upwards, and then back to me to clarify, “That isn’t Lady Yasaka. I guess I should have been more specific when I said ‘outside world.’”

“… So it’s Lady Moriya?”

She laughs at the notion, “You’re always a riot, Momiji. Let me show you around, I think you’ll get it.”

Does she? I don’t think so. The kappa’s insistence on these grand projects are always so hard to understand. It’s about the same difficulty as understanding why and when they’ll work together on said projects.

She begins to walk off to a different side of the area, motioning for me to follow after her. We head into the portion of the area that looked to be moving the most. Viewing it more directly I can tell that this region is the source of tools and materials for the kappa of other sections. Machines with kappa contained in boxes grab and manipulate metal plates as thick as entire tree trunks. Other kappa rally around the base of the machine to pick tools and bits out of bins. This seems to be the first step of everything.

Nitori stops at a catwalk overlooking the rest of the crew here. A few kappa hang off of another heavy duty machine, using it as a perch to reach higher bins.

“Hey, give a wider berth to the lifter!” Nitori harangues her coworkers. “Don’t be the dumbass that gets crushed on today of all days!”

They eye the treads of the lift, hopping off and taking a few paces away from it before they get back to ransacking the bins around them. It didn’t seem like those kappa were dangerously close to the machine, but then again I’m not someone working next to it. Nitori fetches a book from her sack, cracking it open to show scrawls and markers on every page. She consults it for a moments before nodding to herself. She further takes out a notebook to write something about each worker.

“Here’s where it starts,” she elaborates. “We take these raw iron slabs that we express ordered from the yamawaro and shape them as per each marked off piece in the smelting stages, which we’ll get to. But from here we send out the slabs, the tools for shaping, merging, and painting the pieces. And obviously the paint itself.”

“To make the statue,” I conclude.

“Yes, to make the statue,” she agrees.

“Why are you making a giant statue in the middle of the kappa hideout, again?”

“Celebrating, of course,” she answers, throwing her hands from her sides. “We all thought that we needed to make a deal of going six months without any recordables under our new god, and now here we are, making a giant statue in their honor.”

While absurd, it isn’t the strangest thing they could be doing. No, what causes my ear to twitch is instead, “And what’s a recordable?”

“It’s when you gotta send someone to the hospital during a workday.”

“Oh, so it’s a recordable event,” I parse her words, thinking to what some great tengu might say. I can finally question some of her absurdities, “Six months, though? The kappa don’t need care for anything short of losing a limb. How often was that happening before six months, and why is that something to do with your new god? … Goddess?”

She shrugs for the last part of the question, but answers the rest, “Yeah, we were having major injuries about once a month. You’d be surprised how often a kappa fries their entire arm working with electricity here.”

I nod, imagining such effects. “You’ve told me about the stuff that acts much like lightning before. I didn’t consider how you are working with it near water a lot.”

“Well, there’s that and also some that get their hands crushed by machinery.”

“H-… huh…” I drawl out, a little baffled by her willingness to describe these major plights. “And this god led to less of that… how, exactly?”

She gives me a look, sort of knowing that I’d ask that at some point, and turns her book, the one marked and tagged on every page, my way. “It’s easy, really. We just followed the god’s advice.”

I take the book. The title is perhaps on the nose, but otherwise straight to the point. OSHA Field Safety and Health Manual, it says. Of course, Nitori’s very first note is on the cover, pointing to the name Osha and a logo with the name, questioning why one uses it like a person’s name and the other like an acronym.

I glance up at her, not sure what to make of this. I guess the obvious thing would be, “So this god is named Osha?”

“Yep,” she replies. She rolls her hand, prompting, “Well, open it up, there’s a lot in there.”

My brows tilt in a way I usually beat back, but what I’m currently hearing is too strange even for me. They haven’t seen this god, only read their words, and yet they’re celebrating all the god has done for them?

I open the book, the first many pages making no sense to me. There’s so many formal names, dates, numbers, policies, and the format is just awful. Finally I find myself at the table of contents. A similar story, but I can at least pinpoint some items of interest. The chapters are clearly labelled, but with how thick this book is and the format only a magician could love, it would take more than a few minutes to find anything of use. Thankfully, Nitori did the major part of that work, pouring through the whole thing and noting everything she could in the vast empty spaces on each page.

I decide to skip to the first notable chapter about emergency contingency plans.

“I didn’t know you had a plan for evacuating the hideout,” I open the conversation again as Nitori is staring out over the inventory crew. “I guess you haven’t had to use it much since I don’t see you all outside ever.”

“Outside?” Nitori states as a question, for some reason.

“Yes? It says right here about exit stairways.” I present the page to her, pointing at the paragraph.

She leans into the page before popping up with a dismissive wave. “Oh, Momiji, that’s an example form. Not a real one. We don’t have an evacuation plan for the hideout.”

I blink a few times at the statement. “… Whyyy do you not have an evacuation plan?”

She stares back, acting as if the question should bewilder her. “Kappa don’t abandon the hideout. We’re the only ones able to put an emergency under control in here.”

“I mean, if it’s a fire, maybe. But how do you plan to make an earthquake safer to be inside for?” I point out.

She offers a finger in retort, but holds herself from saying anything. She ponders her answer before admitting, “Alright, maybe an escape hatch or two would be a good idea…”

She hadn’t considered natural disasters? What else does this book…

“Who is the emergency chain of command?” I question, wondering where this rabbit hole leads.

She thumbs to herself, confidently answering, “I am.”

I pause for a moment, making sure that’s all she had to say, before retorting, “Nitori, you aren’t a chain of command, you’re one person.”

“So? I’m always around for emergencies.”

“That’s not what a chain of–“ I stop myself, pinching my brow. I already know that she won’t listen to anything that doesn’t involve her at the top. I continue searching the book that I’ve been waving around. “What is all of this about protective equipment?”

I see page after page of the letters ‘PPE,’ but just as many times do I see Nitori’s own notes mentioning how to adapt kappa technology to fit the needs. The half finished schematics for absurd tree seed-shaped items, about the size of a fingertip. Finished schematics of over-the-eye armor. A note to line the kappa’s hats with chain or similar strength mail.

Nitori sidles up to my shoulder and points at the last one, “That one was my idea. I’m quite proud of finding a way to not need hard helmets.”

“Hard helmets?” I wonder. “Do you expect your machines to harm your heads?”

“No, but it wouldn’t be the weirdest thing if something were to fall on someone.”

A kappa yelps in the distance, they were once again perching from the lift, but it appears to have moved its treads under her. She crumples to the ground, her head landing squarely against the grated floor. From my view, there is no blood coming from her skull, but she still landed on a place the hat doesn’t cover. That’s easily a concussion.

Actually… I turn the book back to its front index, and find my way to the first-aid section. It notes the many treatment items they should have, but I point to the only one I recognize for this event.

“Oh, right, I think we have cold packs,” Nitori nods in understanding. She shouts at the kappa gawking at the first, “Hey! Get her a cold pack and have the doc take a look at her! I’ll tell her off later!”

The bystanders rally to the new objective, more in fear for what Nitori might do to them than for the safety of their friend. They dig an unlabeled metal container out from a bin, cluttered under needlessly similar metal bits, and break it open for the cold pack in question. Another kappa runs from the area to gods know where, but it would be best to assume it’s an effort to find this doctor.

“Doesn’t seem to be the speediest response,” I comment, not minding myself for a moment. I realize what I said aloud too late and whinge a bit at my lack of tact.

Nitori shoots an ugly eye my way, but makes no further mention of the transgression. “They’ll get it done like they should. Let’s go get a higher view for you.”

She starts up some steps out of the area, leading my eyes to something far above us. I hadn’t paid it any mind before, but blocks of raw metal trail across the ceiling. They come from overhead to the far wall of this material handling section before being lowered by a large system of pulleys.

“Nitori, shouldn’t I have some of that ‘PPE’ stuff?” I request, pointing at the hazards looming over our heads this very second.

She disregards the more overarching concern and instead consoles, “Oh, yes we have some beeswax earplugs around the corner here. I’m sorry, I didn’t think about your sensitive ears when you came in.” She turns her ear my way, brushing aside some hair to show the canal stuffed with beeswax. “Speaking of, could speak up a little more? Earplugs don’t really get a wide range of sound through.”

“Oh, uh, right,” I shout back in thanks, louder than I already was, as she hands me two oblong bullets of beeswax. I suppose for my ears? Would these work for my canine ears? I choose to stick the earplugs in my ears as best I can, though the feeling is more than a little disquieting. It’s ironic how quiet everything else is, though.

I hadn’t realized before now, but the noise was irritating to the point I tensed my shoulders. I guess my hearing really was too sensitive. Nitori looks satisfied by my relief and continues to walk along.

Of course, my knees still buckle at the real threat on high. An armored hat nor shoes with a metal toe could prevent the damage that would cause. It’s better to follow Nitori for now. Hopefully she’ll take us away from it.

The steps we’re still going up seems promising for the first minute, as they’re well supported by beams and nicely spaced. The next minute, though, they become attached at the side to high stacks of metal crates, steeply spaced to the point that I’m basically climbing a ladder. The minute still after they become attached by wires from above, slightly swaying with our steps. At this point, with my geta narrowly finding purchase with every step, I do consider flying to the destination in the distance, but decide against it. I wouldn’t want to insult Nitori, regardless of how odd… or perhaps dangerous… this may seem.

Some several shaku away, a room with a fenced scaffold hangs from the ceiling overlooking everything.

I look down again, now finding where the raw metal was being carried in from. Spitting out the occasional block is the entrance the kappa themselves use to the hideout: a large body of water inset at the wall opposite the storage zone, now mounted with long cables that drag extremely heavy material from it. The kappa around the space relax, fishing in the water, drinking at tables, or eating their bounty of cucumbers.

“Those at the waterway, are they on break?” I ask Nitori as we continue our unsteady path, now leveling out to the suspended room.

“Oh, yeah, that’s where all the pedestrian paths lead back to. We really wanted a break space by the water,” Nitori replies, tossing an eye down at the location.

“Should they really be under the blocks carried in? Better yet, should one of them be fishing?”

“Ah, don’t be a spoil sport, Momiji,” Nitori tuts. “We’re following Osha’s word how we can.”

They are? That’s hard to believe.

We step off of the swaying steps and onto the less swaying room scaffolds. From here I can look down at just about every kappa there is. The grand hall begins to make more sense as I can physically see the separate parts working in unison. The room we’re standing at is surrounded by glass windows, and looks more and more like a personal room than a workspace.

Nitori walks over to the opposing side as she describes, “From my foreman’s office I can communicate everything down for how we’re working. It’s only when we get some knuckleheads that I have to come down and show them what to do by hand.” A block of metal passes by. It’s big enough for an oni to use in weight training.

She continues, “Isn’t it all so cool, Momiji? All the kappa working towards a common goal. That never happens! And this is the best seat in the house to look at it all!”

I look down upon the great number of kappa, feeling more detached than usual from their strangeness. I can’t quite place why.

One question comes to mind, though, “Wait, do you need to descend these steps every time?”

“Well obviously. It’s a waste of fuel to use my backpack copter when I can just walk.”

The walking isn’t really the problem… No, the problem was–…

“Nitori, doesn’t this all seem strange to you in any way?” I question, resting a hand on the railing.

“Hm?” she utters, having to lift her backpack above the railing to turn around. “Strange how?”

“You are celebrating a god of safety?”

She curls an eyebrow at the question. “Yes..?”

“Does everything here look safe to you?”

“Safe enough,” she holds firm.

Looks like I should be more direct after all. I close the book she handed me, and direct it back to her.

“Open it to a random page. Maybe we’ll see something.”

“Hah?!” she gets up in arms. “What do you think you’ll see? Things are going swimmingly.”

She furrows her brows at me. Hardly intimidating for someone like Nitori, but she gets her mind across.

I point to something in the corner of my sight. The smelting area, where they’re reshaping the iron blocks into plates, seems to have a lot wrong with it. Large presses dot the area with kappa standing right next to them. There is no fencing or other type of barricade stopping them from walking under at the wrong time. The smelters themselves appear to be open furnaces, belching heat straight into the kappa working them. For an aquatic Youkai the intense heat dries them up quickly, and more than a few look to be suffering the beginning signs of heatstroke.

“The compress workers are very cautious, they won’t get caught unaware of where they are. The kappa at the smelters are hard workers, they’re just tired,” Nitori mounts an argument against my wordless judgment.

I point to the last section, the paint mixers. Large automatic tumblers spin at a dizzying speed, coating inattentive kappa in shimmering inks and colored fluids.

Nitori sighs at the very sight.

“That’s not safe for them to get covered in, is it?”

“No. I didn’t realize how much work I’ve been stockpiling. This is gonna take a while to make sure things don’t get too crazy,” Nitori bemoans her lot.

“So if you’ve been stockpiling, then you realized problems were still around you?”

She looks over to me, the binoculars still over her eyes, as she cracks, “Nobody likes a smart ass, Momi.”

“I’m not being a smart ass. I’m watching and describing what I see and hear,” I refute the insult.

“Well don’t do it around the other kappa. I want this whole thing to go off without a hitch,” Nitori warns, walking back into her office.

I follow her in and continue, “Do what? Bring up the unsafe environment? You realize it’s my job to make sure people are safe, right?” I argue, aghast that Nitori would be so reckless. “I don’t see the problem with showing the kappa below how they’re being unsafe. You have an entire book telling you how to do it right, for gods’ sakes.”

Nitori hangs a breath, resigning, “No, Momiji. We’re celebrating, and that’s final. Now get out of here if you’re just gonna ruin it.”

“What will ruin it is when a kappa gets crushed under one of those metal slabs,” I retort, pointing to the giant blocks passing by through the window.

Nitori glances over to it, but now threatens, “Don’t make me kick you out, Momiji.”

“Oh, really?” I put some emphasis in my voice. I feel a bit heated myself, now. “If you’re going to go that far, then don’t bother. I’ll see myself out. Tell me how bad the injuries are after.”

I shut the door behind me, still not angry enough to slam it and risk breaking the glass. I hop over the railing and fly back to ground level. Before leaving I try to convince any kappa I can that the whole celebration isn’t safe for them, and that they’re ignoring their own rules.

They’re not very happy to hear that. They’re even less happy to have me say it aloud.

It’s only minutes after that I’m properly kicked out of the celebration, and as I walk the corridors back out to the surface entrance I can’t help but think that’s probably for the best. They don’t want to listen to me and I don’t want them to ignore my concerns

Opening the heavy door once more, I step out to find a particular kappa well asleep.

I could wake her up. Lecture her on the duty of a guard again. But from what I saw, I think I’m more worried for whoever should decide to willfully wander in while the kappa are still constructing their monument. Or maybe I should just be worried for the kappa themselves.

I walk away, wondering how long it may take them to finish before I should try another visit. And if I should apologize to Nitori or slap her for every injury her crew gets.

When the common folk thought of “shikigami”, they usually thought of paper slips, controlled and conjured by wandering onmyouji. Nothing but scribbled calligraphy upon folded paper, simple scouts and messengers for those in the business of magic.

For those more in the know, “shikigami” was used more as a broader term; it referred to bound spirits in service, similar to how the word “familiar” was used in the western world. Like ravens or cats bound to witches, these shikigami similarly acted as servants for their masters, carrying out their will through a variety of tasks. They could range from slithering snakes, to cackling imps.

However, those that were fully acquainted with the mystic arts would instead say that the term implied something rather specific. It meant arcane programming applied to a spirit, binding it in mathematics and preset behavior. Where every action, interaction, and decision was bound in cold, immutable statistics. Where the spirit looked at the world through the lens of nothing but numbers, and the original personality was squashed beneath the weight of hard, unfeeling calculus.

In the case of Yakumo Ran, the nine-tailed kitsune shikigami, all the above were somewhat true; but not in the ways that people usually thought. Yakumo Yukari – Ran’s master – was not a conventional youkai, and thus her programming showed up in her creations in very… particular ways.

A cheerful ding roused Ran from her slumber. As she blearily got up from her futon –checking her health bar, stamina bar, and stat line in quick succession – the kitsune scowled, glaring at the new lines of text appearing at the edge of her vision.

New Quest Received: The Festival to End All Festivals
The party at the Hakurei shrine is getting uninvited guests! Can you maintain order, and prevent the situation from careening into disastrous results?
Success: Exp. Plus(+) Relationship with Yakumo Yukari.
Failure: Definite destabilization of the Great Barrier. Possible destruction of the Hakurei Shrine. Light possibility of the end of Gensokyo. Minus(-) Relationship with Yakumo Yukari.

“Seriously?” said Ran with a hiss.

Centuries of powerleveling her INT stat through solving “unsolvable” mathematical quandaries had given her the perk, “10 Steps Ahead”; which had allowed her to gain a certain level of precognition based off all the external data that she gathered, ran through the subconscious mathematical machine that was her brilliant mind. Picking up the perk had been a no-brainer at the time. But from then on it had been one prompted disaster quest after another, and she had no way of ignoring the additional missions the perk gave her. The worst part was that her Master knew that she had the perk, knew about the quests, and any inaction on her part could be seen as disobedience.

The budding, rebellious part of her whispered a defiant, “So what?”

Ran sighed longingly. Then she smothered the voice in its crib with practiced ease, and got up to make breakfast.

She’d play the obedient shikigami for one more day and go resolve the crisis, but the end of Gensokyo itself could wait until she had a meal. She was on a streak, and the gods themselves couldn’t make her break it.

After making her way to the Yakumo manor’s kitchen, Ran busied herself with making a western style breakfast. Yukari was out on one of her outside world sabbaticals, so it would only be her and Chen this time. Taking a few eggs out of the refrigerator along with a few strips of bacon, she quickly got to work on a cozy, diner style meal. As the morning light shone in through the window, she expertly folded up two omelets and seared the bacon until it was crispy golden brown. Several pieces of homemade rye bread, lightly toasted, completed the ensemble.

Supreme Housekeeper (Making the Most Important Meal of the Day!) – Day 77,739

That always made her smile. Consistency along with discipline were key components to the grind, and she was the very model of reliability. Humming, she plated up the food just in time to see Chen enter the kitchen – along with a familiar green box on top of her head.

Chen – Shikigami of the Shikigami of the Gap Youkai – LVL 32 Bakeneko (Shikigami)
Your best, cutest, cuddliest, shikigami.

The bakeneko was rubbing her eyes, looking more tired than usual. But having been roused by her sensitive nose, Chen would not go back to bed without having some breakfast of her own.

“Sleep well, Chen?” asked Ran, setting down a kettle to boil.

Chen yawned. “Nyaaahhhhhrm. Yeah. Like a rock.”

Insight Check (Success!)

Good. Great, even – she needed to start gathering those successful checks for the road ahead. Still though, she needed to set an example, regardless of her true feelings.

Clearing her throat, Ran slowly knelt down to eye height with Chen. With a voice that was both soft yet stern, she said, “Dear, you know that I don’t like it when you lie to me.”

Chen “eeped” a little and shrank in on herself. But Ran held firm.

“Well, Mistress Ran… I, well…”

“Hmm?”

“Well I—I stayed out late… playing with the other cats again.”

Ran nodded, satisfied. “You’re still young, and need your sleep to properly grow into your power. And also…”

Ran placed a plate of breakfast right in front of her shikigami, giving her a warm smile. Chen’s ears twitched hopefully.

“And it really matters to me that you’re getting the rest that you deserve,” finished Ran kindly. She turned back into the kitchen, tails swishing behind her.

“Let me get our tea going… there. Now, I know that you’re tired, and I hate to suddenly spring this on you – but I have something important I need help with today. Can I rely on you to try your best for me?”

Chen’s eyes sparkled. The cat could never turn down specific missions from her master. Even more so now that she had something to prove.

“Definitely! I promise that I won’t let you down!”

The Hakurei shrine was teeming with crowds of people. Spring had arrived in Gensokyo, and with it the annual cherry blossom viewing festival. Many youkai – along with a few brave humans – had made their way to the shine to picnic and drink under the falling petals. Cloths were spread on the grass and the cobbles for guests to sit on; dishes and alcohol alike were enjoyed with gusto. Ran could already see some familiar faces, and she could feel her headache grow with each and every potential troublemaker.

The event was in its early stages still and had not yet filled up with all of its guests. Sighing, she sent Chen over to the entrance of the shrine grounds to keep watch over new arrivals, and went directly to the Hakurei shrine maiden herself. Reimu stood in front of the center structure, idly looking over the line of worshippers making their way to pray.

Hakurei Reimu – Shrine Maiden of Paradise – LVL <Variable> Human Shrine Maiden
Lazy but immensely capable, Hakurei Reimu’s power borders on whimsy. The more she cares, the harder she often fails.

“Reimu,” Ran said with a bow.

“Ran,” replied Reimu curtly. But despite the short reply, the shrine maiden kept her gaze on the kitsune for a while longer.

Reimu tapped her lip thoughtfully, then inclined her head. “Hmm. Even Yukari’s best efforts don’t get you to come to these parties, Ran. And that look on your face… is there something I need to worry about?”

Sharp. Ran debated internally on what to reveal. Reimu’s almost divine intuition was both a blessing and a curse. Even with the shikigami’s best efforts, predictions involving the shrine maiden’s methods always went wildly askew… it was as if the girl was operating off of a different set of logic than the universe she dwelled in. It made her useful in some cases, but dangerous in others. If Ran set Reimu off on a hunt now, nothing could stop her. Not even Gensokyo. Could the shrine maiden herself be the spark that would ignite the fire?

“…I had a hunch, of sorts,” said Ran, making a vague gesture with her hands. “Wanted to clear it up before assuming the worst. Have you noticed anything out of the ordinary today? Something that sticks out compared to the usual get togethers you host?”

Reimu snorted.

“Mm. I don’t really ‘host’ these, if I’m being frank. But…” Reimu dipped her head down and considered the question.

“Shadows. More than usual,” said the shrine maiden thoughtfully.

Ran raised an eyebrow. “What, like spectres and ghosts? I’d say that while they aren’t exactly –”

Reimu shook her head. “No, like… the imprints of outsiders. They phase in, and out, for a short while. It doesn’t happen too often, but sometimes when the barrier is thin and the outside world mirrors Gensokyo enough, the Hakurei border gets confused. You know about them, surely?”

Ran was familiar with the concept. Instead of a full on “spiriting away” that the border or her mistress sometimes pulled, occasionally strangers from the outside would be lured in through the barrier, seeing all the sights as if through a hazy dream before ultimately being deposited back to where they started. The people would be more or less unharmed, just slightly puzzled by what they considered very vivid hallucinations. And once they left, those hallucinations would soon be considered little more than daydreams as time went on. As long as you didn’t manage to “wake” them during their interdimensional jaunt, they would not believe any of what they saw as real.

As such, for most part they were harmless. But in high enough numbers, it could lead to complications.

“More than usual, you say? Do they not usually show up at the shrine?” asked Ran, tapping her lip deliberately.

Reimu shrugged. “Eh. The shrine’s counterpart on the outside world is fairly barren, from what I can tell. Not a lot of foot traffic to start with. I think I see a person come through maybe… once per couple years? There was even one time where they tried asking me for directions, before fizzling out and shifting back out through the border.”

Perception Check (Success!)

Eyeing the shrine grounds, Ran could see it now. Occasionally, some of the people enjoying the view were garbed in modern clothing, instead of the traditional silks and linens made in the village. They weren’t bewildered by the obviously non-human denizens roaming the festival, but did look at them with distracted interest. Maybe thinking of them as elaborate costumes for the occasion?

Uninvited guests, indeed. Now Ran’s quest prompt was starting to make sense. But it was strange that Reimu was so laissez-faire about something potentially harmful to her shrine. Especially in such high numbers. With how prickly Reimu usually was…

Turning around, Ran moved in and examined the shrine maiden’s face closely. Reimu started, and backed away with a flinch.

Insight Check (Success!)

“Reimu,” said Ran, trying to keep her voice calm. “When these… shadows donate, do their coins successfully get left behind in your donation box?”

Reimu averted her gaze.

“I… I wouldn’t know. I don’t keep track of donations.”

A brief moment passed as both of them struggled to not react to Reimu’s boldfaced lie. Ran bit back a loud groan of disbelief, and instead settled on looking at Reimu flatly with the most unimpressed expression she could muster.

Reimu sniffed. “Ok, so their donations actually do get left behind. So what? I’m hurting on funds as it is, and they’re paying customers! More than I can say about most of you lot.”

And indeed, some in the line to pray – and donate – were wearing clothing distinctly out of place, and out of time. Ran slapped her forehead with a groan, making a mental note to start hiding her tails just to be safe.

“Reimu,” Ran said through gritted teeth. “One or two is fine. Numbers nearing a crowd? Not acceptable. What if one of the stupid youkai out there start using their powers, or start a spellcard battle? The outsiders may see them, and start ‘waking’! Worse still, what if those outsiders took videos of us?”

“…videos?”

“Gods help me. Do you at least know what could be causing these… shadows, to appear in such numbers?”

Reimu flushed. “I don’t know! Maybe cherry blossoms are also in bloom on the other side? If they’re in full bloom, there could also be a gathering on the outside as well. Strange that there’s so many people this year, though.”

Urgh. It’d be something Ran would need to check out, but she could imagine the cause. If some “influencer” or another had stumbled upon the remote shrine during cherry blossom season, the haunting, beautiful scenery that they captured could lead to viral videos… that could in turn lead to much higher traffic. She’d have to do something about that at some point. But for now, she just needed to make sure that none of the outsiders caught glimpse of anything drastically supernatural, or else the “boundary of common sense” could be severely harmed. Worse still would be solid evidence that they managed to bring back to their friends and families. To start with, she’d have to—

Perception Check (Failed!)

Ran frowned. What?

Reimu shuffled to the side with uncharacteristic urgency. And Ran barely had time to react before a small, horned missile pounced and struck her midsection, sending her sprawling to the ground, head banging painfully against the stone cobbles.

“Yo,” said the diminutive figure cockily.

Ran looked up and groaned. She’d know that wide, sharp toothed smile from anywhere. The red eyes and curled horns gave her further confirmation that she didn’t need.

Toutetsu Yuuma – Likely-to-Win Matriarch of the Gouyoku Alliance – LVL 79 Taotie
Leader of the Goyouku Alliance, and all-around glutton. This taotie from your gangster past is an old friend and even older enemy.

Another worst-case, uninvited guest. Voracious and wild, Toutetsu Yuuma was a relative newcomer to Gensokyo; while she dwelled mostly in the Animal Realm, after that whole deal with the ownership of land debacle and the subsequent mass invasion by animal spirits, the taotie had become a relatively common sight if you knew where to look. Yuuma had been fooling around above ground so much, that some of Ran’s old contacts in the Gouyoku Alliance had come to find Ran herself— trying to beg her to send their boss back if she ever found her.

And more than once Ran had to lie to them, because Yuuma had indeed invited herself over to the manor for tea.

“Hello, Yuuma,” Ran groused, trying to pick herself off the ground. But Yuuma’s supernatural weight on her chest meant that all efforts were for naught. There was an excited gleam in the taotie’s eyes.

“Hello… Ran,” Yuuma purred by her ear. “You are looking especially delicious today. Do something with your hair?”

Insight Check (Failed!)

Ran locked gazes with Yuuma, eyes wide. Was… was the goat planning something? Oh, gods. While her strength and drive were admittedly impressive, Yuuma was a horrible schemer. But, could she be the cause behind the rapidly approaching disaster as an “uninvited guest”? Did she already have her cohorts waiting in the wings, ready to conquer the Hakurei Shrine itself? Or maybe, something that would be so disruptive that the outsiders simply had to notice?

Putting down Yuuma was hard. While the taotie had largely accepted the use of spellcard duels as the proper method of resolving disputes, she was still damned powerful and a highly stressful opponent to fight against. Just thinking about a potential duel made Ran’s blood pressure skyrocket to record highs.

Yuuma frowned slightly and poked Ran in the middle of her forehead.

“Hello? Animal Realm to Ran. I didn’t think you’d be that surprised at me coming over. You were always the smart one. Shouldn’t you have expected this?”

Expected? Ran shook her head, hiding a cough behind one of her wide sleeves. “W-well. You on the other hand, were always the unpredictable one. Makes my life exciting whether I like it or not.”

Seemingly pleased by this answer, Yuuma preened and finally got off Ran. The kitsune brushed herself clean as she got up, thinking over her options. Which had, conveniently, shown up at the center of her vision in lines of text.

Option 1: Make some excuses, leave Yuuma by her lonesome.
Option 2: Leave Yuuma’s side, and instead perform surveillance on the taotie from a distance.
Option 3: Challenge her to a fight, cow her through force.
Option 3: Stick with Yuuma, ready to react if she tries anything.

Option 1 was the worst – Yuuma was always up to no good. Option 2 was not much better – it left Ran blind to everything else at the festival, and it wasn’t certain yet that Yuuma was up to something big. It just meant that she was up to something… which admittedly, she usually was.

And fight Yuuma head on? As thankless as her job was, Ran was not yet that suicidal. That left the final option.

With a growl, Ran bent down to grab Yuuma’s arm to lead her away from the main temple of the shrine. And while somewhat surprised, Yuuma allowed her to do so, padding after her without her usual squawk of protest.

Ran shouted as she marched Yuuma away. “Reimu, remember to keep watch over your section of the grounds! And let as many people as possible know to keep a low profile around our new guests!”

The shrine maiden waved back and gave her a thumbs up.

…Not the most comforting response, but it’ll have to do. As soon as they had established some distance, Ran spun Yuuma around and poked a finger into her chest.

“Alright,” said Ran as firmly as she could. “We can deal with whatever you came for afterwards. For now though I need to keep the peace, make sure everyone doesn’t do anything too crazy, and above all just do my job. Understand? I’ll owe you a favor if you’re on your best behavior.”

“Ooh hoo, a favor?” said Yuuma cheekily.

“Yes, and contr—”

“Ran,” came Chen’s hushed whisper from within Ran’s head. The kitsune stopped in her lecture midstride, listening carefully through their shared link. She placed a finger at the corner of her lip, triggering a line to respond back.

“Yes, Chen? I hear you. Did you get everything that I sent you from Reimu as well?” she said aloud. Yuuma raised an eyebrow, watching her. The taotie could hear Ran’s words, but not Chen’s.

“I did,” Chen replied. “Which – well, I just saw Kurokoma Saki pass through the tori gate with a gaggle of her underlings. She’s always aching for a fight. Should I – should we do something?”

Oh, blast it. And Yuuma was here, too. If they met, got into a fight, and all these outsiders saw it happen... Gensokyo’s delicate balance of forgotten, unknowable things could be thrown into chaos. Ran’s mind hummed with ideas, both practical and impractical, before she ultimately bit her lip and pulled at one of her mental triggers. She had finally gathered enough successful checks – might as well use them!

“The Brilliance of a Nine-Tails” Activated!
Upon a total sum of (3) successful perception checks and insight checks banked, you may choose to activate this ability to gain a valuable intuition that could solve your current dilemma.

And all of a sudden, what she needed to do became clear.

“Chen,” said Ran urgently. “Inform Prince Shotoku of her arrival at once. The prince is picnicking in the northern quadrant of the grounds with the rest of her followers. Hurry!”

Ran felt rather than heard Chen’s scramble towards Miko and her taoists. Keeping her face impassive she looked over at Yuuma, who was glancing back curiously.

“You seem to have a lot on your plate,” said the taotie, picking at her teeth. “And here I thought that the only things you did up here was get fat and grow lazy.”

The nerve of this woman. Ran led Yuuma to the side of the shrine, passing the Myouren temple crew, set up on several picnic cloths. A spread of chilled vegetarian dishes were on display, and several large umbrellas had been mounted to keep the members below sun-free. Yuuma waved cheerily at the sailor ghost as she walked by, prompting a grin and a middle finger from Murasa in response.

“Remember what I used to always say, way back when?” Ran replied, making sure the coast was clear from outsider eyes. Once it was, she floated quickly onto the shrine roof for a better view. Yuuma followed soon after, hopping upwards in a great leap, then squatting down on the rooftiles.

“You always liked to hear yourself talk Ran. What, specifically?”

“'Another day, another disaster'. Gensokyo has its own constant emergencies, despite how it looks. Looking back? Sure, the nonsense in the Animal Realm was much more dangerous. But it was hell of a lot more straightforward. My years in Gensokyo have given me a far finer touch.”

Yuuma scoffed.

“Sounds like a bunch of excuses for being weak.”

Ran looked back at her with a small smirk. “I wouldn’t say so. Please, observe.”

With their height advantage they could now see the entirety of the grounds. As Ran pointed, a blur of black feathers was making its way rapidly towards the exit of the shrine, all the while being followed by a cadre of confused wolf spirits. Behind her was Prince Shotoku herself, hair tuffs flapping in the wind, also in full sprint behind them. As the rest of the festival goers watched in amusement, Ran casually read the green boxes on top of their heads.

Toyosatomimi no Miko – Shoutoku Taoist – LVL 71 Saintly Hermit
Loved her horse, and misses her very, very much.

Kurokoma Saki – Matriarch of the Keiga Family – LVL 75 Pegasus (Kurokoma)
Would die of shame if she got hand fed sugar cubes again.
(But secretly wants to, regardless)

“Huh,” said Yuuma, reluctantly impressed. “I haven’t seen Saki run that fast since… since ever, really. Who’s that chasing behind her?”

Feeling a bit confident, Ran smugly poked Yuuma on the nose. Yuuma scowled and rubbed her touch away. Ran laughed.

“Now that? Is something you’ll need to figure out for yourself. All I’ll say is that Gensokyo isn’t a ‘lukewarm bath’, as you so poetically like to say it is.”

“Feh,” Yuuma grumbled. But eventually she rolled her eyes, and smiled grudgingly. “Not bad, I guess.”

Insight Check (Failed!)

What in the absolute hell? Yuuma wore her heart on her sleeve. What was the taotie hiding that was getting past Ran’s sky-high stat scores?

Perception Check (Failed!)

…And what the heck was that for? But before Ran could puzzle over it further, a slight rustle at her back answered that particular question instantly.

“I do hope I am not interrupting,” purred a voice.

Ran looked behind her. Immediately, she felt the blood drain from her face.

Kazami Yuuka – Flower Master of the Four Seasons – LVL 81 Flower Youkai
Her long life has mellowed and sharpened her in equal regards. Always on the lookout for interesting opponents.

Standing on top of the shrine roof as well – unnervingly close – was the infamous flower youkai, dressed in her usual: a cleanly pressed white shirt, along with plaid vest and skirt. Spring meant that she was at her prime; with the cherry blossoms in full bloom, she almost glowed with power, radiating the intensity of a drawn blade. Ran felt a bead of sweat flow down the back of her neck.

Yuuka had approached soundlessly, making no more noise than the falling petals. After lightly tapping her parasol against the rooftiles, she made a sweeping bow to the duo.

“Ah,” said Ran dumbly. “Lady… Lady Kazami.”

“Little fox,” Yuuka replied sweetly, before shifting her gaze over to Yuuma. “And of course! You must be Toutetsu. I am delighted to finally meet you.”

Yuuma looked her up and down. With a cringe, Ran noticed that the Taotie hadn’t even bothered to stand up. In the past, Yuuka had killed for far less.

“Likewise?” said Yuuma, scratching her stomach. “Can’t say the same on my end. Who the heck are you?”

Ran felt her fist clench nervously. But Yuuka was far too old to rise to the bait. She merely smiled, and opened up the parasol to shade herself from the midday sun.

“Kazami Yuuka. But my name is of no consequence here,” said Yuuka, in that infuriatingly melodic voice of hers. “What matters is you. I’ve heard of your strength. Your feats. It’s been some time since one like you has emerged in Gensokyo.”

“Hmph. So?”

Oh no. No no no no. Ran’s heart sank.

The flower youkai smiled. “Is it not obvious? I wish to battle you, and try you for myself.”

Yuuka was usually quite rational, but her only goal during this stage in life has ever been to fight. Her concern over the barrier would not supersede her desire to test herself against Yuuma, and their fight would be cataclysmic. Any degree of subtlety that Yuuka had was gone once the scent of blood was in the air. Ran wouldn’t need to worry about the outsiders capturing footage – she’d need to start worrying about preparing body bags.

With a pained grimace, Ran stepped in front of the taotie with an arm outstretched. Yuuka raised an elegant eyebrow.

“She’s mine,” said Ran coolly. “I’ve reserved her for the day. Apologies Lady Kazami, but you’ll need to find your own.”

The taotie stirred; but amazingly, did not comment. Yuuma merely crossed her arms, expression cool.

“Oh?” Yuuka twirled her parasol, eyes narrowing into slits. “Bold of you. Maybe there’s a spine in the lapdog after all; however, I don’t like leaving empty handed, fox. If you deny me one, then you must offer another.”

Insight Check (Success!)

Well, Yuuka was definitely serious. The old youkai knew what she liked, and there was nothing that could stand in her way of getting a good, interesting fight. However, she could also be delayed or directed elsewhere. If something of equal value was offered…

And so, Ran took a deep breath. This would land her in deep, deep trouble, but she didn’t have many good options left.

“Then how about… Yakumo Yukari?”

Yuuka’s eyes sparked with sudden hunger. Ran mouthed a silent apology to her mistress for throwing her under the metaphorical bus. Drastic times, drastic measures. And if Yukari wanted to be known as the guardian of the barrier, she had to put her money where her mouth was and actually be on the frontlines for a change. C'est la vie.

After an uncomfortably quiet five seconds, Yuuka finally replied.

“It has been many years, since I last crossed blades with one of the sages of Gensokyo,” said Yuuka softly. “I will enjoy such a fight. And I will try my utmost to ensure that Yakumo does not.”

Ran shivered. She hoped that the relation gain she’d get from completing her quest would more than offset the exasperation that her mistress would undoubtedly have for her. Drastic times, Ran reminded herself. Drastic times.

“Do I have your word, fox?” said Yuuka, voice hardening. “That you will hold your master to your deal?”

Ran winced and nodded. Threats were not needed from Yuuka – they were implied in every word. Pleased, the flower youkai curtsied mockingly and drifted away. Trailing petals in her wake.

Feeling a bit weak in the knees, Ran sat down with a stumble and dabbed at her forehead with her wide sleeves. A few outsiders seemed to have noticed the small commotion on the rooftops, not to mention the pretty lady flying away – but despite the strangeness, it didn’t seem to have broken through their distant, dreamlike haze. The masquerade was so far, still unbroken. Thankfully.

“Awww… feeling possessive? Didn’t think you’d sacrifice your master in place of me,” said Yuuma cheekily.

“Can’t let you off your leash and go rampaging on your own today,” said Ran snidely. “Besides, my master has it coming. It’ll be worth it to just see her face as I break the news.”

Yuuma guffawed loudly. Ran smiled, despite herself.

“Ran?” said Chen’s voice in her head.

“Yes, dear?”

“I believe that I’m seeing… yeah, Kicchou Yachie is climbing the steps. She has a large amount of otter spirits with her, it looks like she’s planning on making a statement of some kind. Any advice of what I should do?”

The dragon turtle? Eh, she could handle this one without triggering any skills or perks. Ran had always had Yachie’s number, even centuries ago. She looked around, sweeping her eyes over the festival again before finally finding what she was looking for.

Perception Check (Success!)

“Lead Himemushi Momoyo to the entrance,” said Ran, “The threat of her alone will make Yachie paranoid enough to turn tail. She’ll start seeing conspiracies everywhere. The centipede is drinking with the rest of the oni near the southwest.”

“Roger!”

“Pfft.” Yuuma laughed, showing rows of sharp teeth. “Yachie is coming? And you got rid of her, just like that?”

Ran shrugged. “We’re on similar wavelengths. I know what makes her tick.”

Yuuma snorted. “Ha! The day you left the Animal Realm was probably the best day of the turtle’s life. I heard her party from miles away. But damn, what a goddamn pisser of a week that was.”

Insight Check (Failed!)

Gods above, what the hell was Yuuma hiding that was so hard for her to figure out?

Distractedly, Ran looked back at the quest prompt that had landed her here since the start of the day.

The party at the Hakurei shrine is getting uninvited guests! Can you maintain order and prevent the situation from careening into disastrous results?

So far nothing had changed. No updates, no notice to sound off the quest’s completion. That meant that there were still risks in the area, possibilities of the disaster still at play. And she still hadn’t figured out Toutetsu’s deal yet.

Fine. She’d manage. She mentally rolled up her sleeves – and for the next hour or so Ran continued her tasks. Diffusing the primed bomb that was the cherry blossom festival, wire by wire, as Yuuma watched on curiously.

The Grassroots Youkai, she allowed in; same for Mystia and Kyouko, who had brought modern instruments which would ironically make the festival seem more “contemporary”. The Scarlet Devil Mansion, she had to divert just because they had brought Flandre with them. With some third-party finagling, Ran managed to get them to go to the Moriya shrine instead, which was also hosting a more youkai-exclusive event. The Three Fairies of Light, after lengthy consideration, got a pass… but only after she wrung a promise out of them to behave, and cut down on the pranks.

Eientei usually conducted themselves well, and since Mokou and Kaguya arrived together Ran assumed that they had both gotten their daily fight out of their system before they’d arrived. They got a pass. Joon and Shion, while usually up to no good, did not always perform inherently supernatural mischief, so Ran had let them in. If they wanted to sell their new pseudo-crypto or pictures-on-chains, they could.

Kijin Seija? Ran headed over and knocked out the amanojaku herself. With help from Yuuma, the duo – who were more familiar with this kind of work then should really be commended for – then skillfully dug a hole in the surrounding forest and shoved the girl in, filling it back up so only Seija’s head was left on the outside.

The taotie very much enjoyed that part.

And on and on it went. Until finally, the faintest edges of orange crept up into the sky as the day approached the evening hours. The guests of the Hakurei Shrine started making their way home, full of cheer and good drink. Some outsider shadows still remained, but many were on their way out, flickering back to their proper slice of reality. To them, it would all just be a pleasant, fantastical dream.

On the shrine roof Yuuma smiled, sitting down and kicking back. Ran remained standing, nimble feet balancing her perfectly on the ridge.

What a day. Ran stretched, yawning loudly. She saw Yuuma eyeing her again with that weird look on her face.

“Heh. After so many years, you still haven’t changed. Still running circles around the rest of the world, just like it was on the day we met,” said Yuuma, nostalgia apparent in her voice.

That same odd gleam in her eyes, the same look on her face when she had first appeared before Ran this morning. A mix of… wistfulness, maybe. And a certain degree of longing.

“I can barely remember that day,” Ran admitted. “It’s just been… so long.”

Yuuma turned away. “You’re lying. The ever-clever Ran, forgetting things? Maybe because it’s because I beat your fucking ass in front of your lads.”

“Hang on,” said Ran, furrowing her brow. “I don’t remember much, but it definitely didn’t happen like that.”

“So you do remember!”

Only if Ran wanted to. Her memory didn’t exactly work like normal person’s any longer. Many of her earlier memories had been organized, tagged, and bundled into “cold storage” whenever she didn’t see the need to access it often. It was the only way that she could remember everything in perfect detail, while still living for so long.

But despite herself, Ran had grown curious. Rolling up her eyes, she looked back. And back.

Nervous breaths. Crouched warriors. An explosion. A landslide, of Ran’s making. Rocks hurtling down the steep slope.

Yuuma with her toadies at the bottom of the gorge, eyes wide in surprise. Panic, even.

As Ran screaming her lungs out, riding a boulder the size of the Scarlet Devil Mansion, descended.

“I got the better of you in that engagement,” said Ran, a bit more heatedly than she originally intended.

“Nuh uh.”

“Nuh uh?!”

“When we meet up and fight, I always win,” said Yuuma cheekily. “Even when I don’t.”

Insight Check (Failed!)

Ran nearly screamed. For the entire day, for the entire festival, she’d been getting these failed checks almost always when faced with Yuuma. It made her want to tear her hair out. It was like an itch she couldn’t scratch, a constant reminder that Yuuma somehow knew something that she didn’t. Far beyond the ever-present curiosity was the grave wound to her pride.

Well fine! It was probably a good time to try to finally get the final troublemaker away from the premises, anyway. Besides, with Ran still not knowing what Yuuma was hiding, it was best to play it safe.

Surprisingly, Ran felt herself grow a bit dejected at the thought. Even with her hands full with everything, she had been having fun… “shooting the shit” with Yuuma today. It reminded her of simpler times, times when duties were more suggestions, and an aimless life had not yet lost its luster. But reminding herself of her responsibilities, Ran took a deep breath, and firmed up her resolve.

“While we’re on the topic, when are you going back to the Animal Realm? Your underlings can’t be happy that you’re here again,” said Ran nonchalantly.

“Hmph. They can make do without me. I’ve got plenty of free time before I have to go back.”

Alright. Ran would have to push a bit harder.

“Yuuma…” chided Ran. “I know I left the animal realm and all, and it might be a bit hypocritical for me to mention it… but they are your responsibility. Are you going to leave them to fend for themselves like that?”

Yuuma gave her an incredulous stare. “Damn right you’re being hypocritical. Responsibility? How about your responsibility to me, for that matter? You left! You just – just – up and left!”

Ran was somewhat bewildered.

“I— I— well, we weren’t even in the same alliance at the time! What do you mean by—”

“— But even so!” Yuuma’s eyes widened. “Wait, hold on. Are you trying to get rid of me now, too!?”

Quest Updated: The Festival to End All Festivals
Success: Exp. Plus(+) Relationship with Yakumo Yukari.
Failure Updated: Definite destruction of the Hakurei Shrine. Full destabilization of the Great Barrier. Definite end of Gensokyo. Minus(-) Relationship with everyone in Gensokyo (select to see expanded list).

Ah, fuck. Ran had to regain control of this, and fast.

“No, no no,” said the kitusne, paling. “That’s not what I mean. Hold on, could I just… do something real quick? I just need to tell Chen that she’s free to go home, that we’re all done. It’ll be really quick, I promise.”

Yuuma turned away, fuming. “Sure, whatever. What do I care.”

Come on, come on. Ran turned away, nervously tapped the corner of her lips again, and cleared her throat. Then with a whisper, she said, “Uh… Chen, dear?”

“Yes?”

“Remind me, have you done your homework yet?”

“Huh? Of— of course I have!”

Insight Check (Success!)

Ran sighed in relief.

“… Remember to do it when you get home, Chen. And you’re free to go now. Thank you for all your help today.”

“… Yes, mistress Ran.”

As cute as Chen was, she was easier to read than a picture book. It felt bad to use her shikigami to proc one of her skills, but drastic times! Ran growled, and pulled her mental trigger again.

“The Brilliance of a Nine-Tails” Activated!

Her mind sparked in a surge of brainpower, and suddenly, she had the urge to check a calendar. But a calendar? What? Today wasn’t even a proper holiday, just the date that the cherry blossom front reached Gensokyo. Unless…

Within milliseconds, Ran sped through her internal database, mixing and matching potential dates of note, diving through time as she worked her way back from present day. Memories flickered by in waves, starting from this week’s events, speeding up as it went. Aeons flew past in scattered years, centuries passing – before the answer hit her unceremoniously in the head.

Ran riding a boulder down a mountain, crashing it into Yuuma’s face. Yuuma grabbing onto one of her tails, and swinging her face first into the cliffside.

Ah. Of course.

It was the one-thousand-year anniversary of meeting Yuuma, from what seemed like a lifetime ago. Ran had set up an ambush, got the drop on Yuuma; and then they moved onto the process of trying to kill each other. That sentence, funnily enough, described at least half of their interactions in the Animal Realm.

But why did Yuuma care? She’d never been –

Insight Check (Success!)(Finally!)

New Quest Received: A Rekindled “Friendship”
It’s still your 1000-year anniversary. It means more to her than you know.
(She’s also been trying to hit on you, you dumb fox. It’s been weeks.)
Success: Plus(+) Relationship with Toutetsu Yuuma.
Failure: Minus(-) Relationship with Toutetsu Yuuma.

Oh.

Oh. Dumb fox, indeed.

Ran took a closer look at the pouting Yuuma, who was still looking off into the distance. It was true that they had… history, together. But it had been centuries. They had known each other for longer than most nations had existed. But then, they lost contact. And then they changed. Everything changed. And anniversary aside…

Ran snuck another look at Yuuma.

Goddammit. But the goat was cute. Always had been. And Ran did always have a weakness towards cute things. Text flickered across her vision.

Option 1: Go for it
Option 2: Pussy out.

“...Say,” said Ran. Her mouth was uncomfortably dry.

Yuuma grunted in response.

“I uh… the questions. I just wanted to know your schedule Yuuma, for that favor I owe you.”

Yuuma grunted again. But this time, it was a bit more hesitant. Ran swallowed, and continued.

“I know a place, in the Human Village. If we go in a bit later in the evening, it’s like a youkai-exclusive izakaya. The drinks are great, food fantastic… if you’ve time for an anniversary dinner tonight, we could talk about –”

Yuuma turned her head so fast, Ran legitimately feared that she cracked her neck.

“Yes! Gods, yes! Burning hells, Ran, you have to stop being such a fucking tease. I actually thought you forgot!”

“Haha, me? The great, nine-tailed strategist? I forget nothing,” said Ran, lying flawlessly through her teeth. “Come on. Let’s walk there, gives us more time together. What do you think of western liquor, by the way?”

As they walked down the shrine steps together, chatting amongst themselves about days long past, Ran cheered internally for a job well done.

Some days, it was thankless. Miserable.

But some days? She played it smart, saved the day, and got the girl. And there was no better life than that.

Quest Completed! A Rekindled “Friendship”
Quest Completed! The Festival to End All Festivals

ding!

Level Up!
Yakumo Ran – Scheming Nine-Tailed Fox – LVL 70 Kitsune (Shikigami)
You. A guardian of Gensokyo, who has watched over the realm for many years and likely will for many more. Decades have passed, one incident after the next, and anniversaries of all kinds have come and go.
But despite everything, you’re still you.

“Hey, I dinged! Finally!”

“…what? What the heck does that mean?”

She stepped out of the gap and onto a stone trail leading to a huge manor - it stood not exactly in a clearing, more of a thinning of the august hardwoods that seemed to stretch on for miles as she glanced around. From the angle which she observed, she couldn’t gauge how tall nor how wide an area the building spanned for the thick lattice of summer leaf whose shadow cast by the midday sun painted spots and stripes of light over the stark white walls, the nearly black wooden framework, the slanted shingle roofs in violet, the pond to her left and the small garden and detached building to her right.

The homes owner had been stood beside her, face half covered by a fan – clearly hiding a smile, by her eyes, looking over Reimu. “How do you like it?” Yukari asked.

“looks perfect for the occasion. If everyone really is coming to this mystery celebration then it sure looks big enough.” The absurd notion of asking exactly how big it was flitted into her mind. Yokai were creatures of mystery, and the gap yokai Yukari was one of the most “yokai” yokai she knew. She’d probably just say something vague and possibly aggravating.

- Ripples in the lake. Blue hair crowned from the inky waters, then a pair of fish fins. Wakasagihime casually surfaced and leaned forward onto the bank. “Hey girlies.”

“This ones a bit too old to be called that.” Reimu corrected.

The mermaid’s face paled as if she’d been the one insulted. Her eyes darted to Yukari and her anticipation turned to somewhat relieved, yet awkward, confusion.

“You try looking as good as me at my age”

“I’d be dead.”

“You could be dead”

“Don’t tempt me, Yukari.”

Wakasagihime stopped gaping and cleared her throat. “Ah, it was very kind of you to let me in your pond, miss Yakumo. And to bring me tea and snacks.”

“Must be a rare treat for you.” Reimu said, “Living underwater and all.”

“You’d be surprised!” The mermaid clasped her hands together, “Well, there’s these vents on the lakebed that release hot water – I thinks its from the heat of the fires of former hell – And I have this special teapot… Miss Yakumo?”

Yukari was reaching her free hand into a gap, from which she plucked – A reed?

Immediately splashing could be heard, followed by a sputtering and hacking cough from closer to the house, underneath a small decorative bridge. The swimmer tried to stand up and hit their head on the bridge – then again. Then they eventually waded through the shallows and took off, floating above the water with their hands on their hips. Cirno the ice fairy hung sodden with water in the air, steaming literally and figuratively. Or would that be misting?

“Hey, lady! That’s MY breathing rod!”

Yukari inspected the rod with mock interest. “Really? Well, thats my pond you’re lying in, seeping your cold into. What’re you doing in there?”

“Ooooh. You don’t know” The fairy dramatically facepalmed, shaking her head. “There’s a treasure hunt. You gotta look in all the hidden places for – wait, how wouldn’t you know? Aren’t you the
host?”
“From whom did you hear there was a treasure hunt?”

“From – uh, dunno.”

“Because whoever told you that has tricked you.”

A mixture of indignation and shock struck the fae creature’s face. “Wh – Well I heard it from my friends and they were all doing it! So they were tricked first! And - isn’t it normal to trust your friends!?”

She closed her fan with a sharp click and pointed to something floating in the lake. “Also, what’re those little icebergs floating in the water? I sure hope they’re not my frogs.”

“Ay- urm.” The flustered fairy froze up. But then she thawed out. “The – No, those are my frogs.”

“What?”

“They’re my gift. for Reimu! You’re always having people over, and you’re poor, so I got you some frogs to eat!” The fairy hovered down and started scooping up frogbergs.

Reimu looked over at Yukari expecting similar exasperation, but her stern expression was betrayed by a slight curve of the lips and a twinkle in the eye. “Well, isn’t that such a considerate gift! They must’ve floated out of your pockets when you were in my pond, right?”

“What?” The fairy’s tone was uncertain. “Oh. Yeah, yeah. Exactly!” Cirno’s frog-picking pace quickened now that she thought she’d bamboozled Yukari.

Observing the scene with none of the enthusiasm expected for receiving a gift, Reimu choked back a sigh. She couldn’t believe she had to humour this, but playing along with fairies was often the only way you could get past them without some commotion. Not that she’d tried to move past fairies peacefully often. “Cirno, thank you. But you shouldn’t give them to me now, I’m going to the party and they’ll melt.”

Cirno’s gaze wandered lazily between the three of them. It was only just now that Reimu realised that Wakasagihime had been completely silent, and sat as upright as the mermaid could. “Cool.” The ice fairy said. She waded over to the shore, and dumped the collected frozen frogs on a flat stone. It was only around a third of the total floating around. “Well. I’m headed insi-”

“You’ll need to dry off first, girl.” Yukari tossed a towel and a simple dress Cirno’s way, which landed draped over her soaked hair.

After a moment she removed the items from her head, and sneered at them. “What, you wanna watch me change? You think I’m stupid?” The fairy tossed them away and assumed a martial stance that was vaguely familiar – crouched, hands held high, perhaps one of Meiling’s styles? But horribly botched and imbalanced. “I’ll show you the power of the strongest!”

The icy mist around Cirno intensified and whipped around in a frenzy. She brought her hands down slowly and with palms open, and as she did so her clothes and hair froze stiff with white fuzzy frost.

When she’d brought both hands fully down, she realised she hadn’t fully froze dry her whole outfit, and hastily waved them over the end of her dress and her shoes. She then reassumed her previous pose. “why get dry by removing the water… When you can get dry by freezing the water?”

“Myriad reasons”

“A lot of reasons, yeah.”

Cirno simply shrugged off these criticisms, folded her arms, and walked stiffly off to the house, chuckling all the way to the genkan as her frozen dress crunched and squeaked.

Reimu looked the mermaid’s way again to see she was dying to speak, lips tightly parsed and shuffling from arm to arm. “Fairies, eh?” Reimu offered.

She chuckled nervously, then took in a deep breath to speak. A moment of anticipation – “I’m sorry that she went in your pond lady Yukari! I didn’t know she was in heres and I didn’t invite her in, she probably came in because she saw me in here but -”

With a wave of her hand Yukari a large gap a few meters to their right, and tumbling out of it was a woman with knees brought up to her chest , clutching an – Yuuka.

She landed in a heap, clutching an umbrella, giggling. Standing up and dusting herself off, she caught her breath for laughing. “My, its been so long since I’ve been in one of those gaps of yours, Yukari! We should organise something together, like tea, or a roast…”

Yukari crossed her arms and tutted. She turned to Reimu, “She was just staring at us from those trees. How rude!”

Reimu’s brow furrowed. “Don’t you peep on people all the time with those gaps of yours, Yukari?”

“Ah, but I need to do that for the good of Gensokyo.” Reimu remembered that she had a habit of checking for ribboned eyes whenever she was about to speak about anything private. “She just does it ‘cause she’s a creeper. Hey! Creeper! You know anything about a ‘treasure hunt’?”

“The only treasures I’m aware of are the lovely folks gathered here today to celebrate -” She paused – and looked to the treeline, putting a finger on her chin.

Reimu pointed at the green-haired woman. “Yukari, there’s no chance she of all people would tell. Its pointless aski-”

“Bah, what does that matter.” The flower yokai continued. “We should really move this conversation inside, though!”

No one made a move. Yuuka pirouetted silently and began her lonesome way inside. “If you’re staying out here, Maybe consider separating your hydrangeas and your azaleas in your east garden, they don’t get along too well. Not those ones over there, they get along swimmingly. Bu-bye!” She said, waving and smiling like a fond friend as she made her way into the house.

The atmosphere slowly loosened with her departure. Reimu once again glanced in Wakasagihime’s direction to see her literal fish-eyed gaze cemented upon where Yuuka had disappeared into the house. She tapped Yukari on the shoulder to bring her attention to the girl.

Yukari noticed and clasped her hands together, performing a short, curt bow. “Apologies.”. Wakasagihime began to choke and turn the same color as the shrine maiden’s clothes. “Well, it was nice speaking to you, but we should be off – we’re magnets for trouble, us two!” Yukari chuckled. “Make sure the others out here behave. Ta-ta!” And she was off.

Reimu shook her head. Waving goodbye to the fish, she unhurriedly followed Yukari into her home, glad that she’d packed a few needles and talismans for the night ahead.

I got overambitious and didn't manage my time correctly (Read - dedicated basically no time to writing) so this is all I could get done... If I get my life together i'll continue this coz I had some ideas I think were good for it.

The dark loam felt cold in his hands, dampened by the late spring rain. He pressed the inscrutable mass with both hands, using wave like motions of his fingers to shape it into a smooth ball. As soon as he stopped, the small cracks appeared in the soil and he placed it carelessly back into the small hole he had dug into the earth. Decades, if not centuries, of tilling and careful management had mostly transformed the area into a decent place for planting crops. Tsunehei’s gaze fell upon the fields that stretched all the way from the bottom of his hillock all the way to the edge of the village. Rice had already been planted, or was in the process of being planted, in most of the paddies despite the still unsteady variations in precipitation and temperature. With some indifference he scanned past some of the land where he had worked for decades previously, which his cousins now owned.

The sun floated a little distance from the mountains, causing rich bands of orange and purple to spread from the horizon. It reminded Tsunehei of the gay colors he sometimes saw in women’s sashes, used as a highlight which broke the monotony of the pattern of dress; the sober grey and brown of mountain and the darkened blue of the sky seemed more notable if only by contrast. There was little to indicate whether the sun was rising or setting beyond his own knowledge of the lay of the land and, as far as he was concerned, it did not particularly matter—he could be found at the same place on most days, mornings or afternoons.

Tsunehei brought a hand to his face and found that some dirt still clung on. He brought it close to his nose and sniffed. There was not much to say for the odor of the earth save that its constancy was of comfort. He rubbed his hands together, getting the bulk of the remnants off of them, and then stood up from his squat with a small groan. The small reminder that he ought to spend less time placing himself into uncomfortable positions went unheeded. In the distance, there was the same birdsong as always.

The leaves on the trees were a healthy green. That was the sort of thing that was more worthy of his attention. Tsunehei turned his back on the fields and the sun and the mountains and began inspecting the nearby trees carefully. It was the fourth time in the day he had done so and many of the same thoughts repeated themselves; he noted again which of the branches had to be observed in case they needed pruning at a later date; there were, thankfully, no pests to be seen but that did only meant that must continue his vigilance; small buds and young fruits developed apace and, thankfully, no frost had killed off these tender formations. He spoke, muttering half to himself and half to the trees, and reassured no one in particular that things would turn out well in spite of the fickleness of the weather.

A feeling of heat around his neck made him loosen his collar some. He rubbed his neck with a small towel he kept around more out of habit than anything else. He was not sweating and he was used to the walking and the physical work that was required of him. Though he had thought to head home before it got dark, he decided to circle around large part of perimeter of the hillock and dive into the depths of the orchard as he saw appropriate, to make sure that everything was in perfect shape for the next day. Those in the fields below preferred to make offering to the gods as a solution in the face of uncertainty but Tsunehei knew of nothing better than dedication to ensure a positive result. Of course that did not mean that he was especially impious; he did make the usual offerings come harvest time and during festivals. It was more that Tsunehei felt that his direct interactions with the trees and the earth were a less ambiguous way of communicating with the resident spirits.

“Have all the blossoms come and gone?”

For a moment, Tsunehei mistook the voice for his own as he examined a plum tree with a lover’s tenderness. Had they? He mulled it over. It would be summer before too long, despite the odd unseasonable day of cold and rain. So it would seem so.

“Yes,” he replied, “for weeks now. They are among the first to appear and the first to fall.”

“Then I’ve missed them this year. How about the cherry blossoms?”

“Further into the woods, perhaps there are still some. This orchard only grows fruiting trees and those follow their own schedule.”

“Yes, I know that. But you know that I could make them bloom again if you should like.”

“If you should like, my lovely.”

“Are you speaking to me or to that elegant plum tree?”

Tsunehei made no response. He finished the inspection of the tree, gently letting his fingers brush over the rough bark. His visitor waited for him to turn, and her lips held a wide smile suffused with the dazzling essence of the season as a way of greeting. The locks of her unusually-colored hair waved down along the sides of her head to her shoulder and just above her preternatural-red eyes. Fair skin and attractive features were tinged by the the pink light that was filtered through the parasol she held casually over her shoulder. A pattern of checked red rested upon a white blouse and trim with a yellow cloth highlight that was tied around her neck and provided an appropriate contrast to the rest.

It felt as if the morning mist had crept up while he worked, hiding the approach of something otherwise difficult to ignore. A thought nonetheless occurred—in sun-kissed fields and in verdant groves the embroidered sashes of flowers can make it difficult for an individual hollyhock or azalea to be noticed. Only the insects or the birds that hunted them had an eye for that level of detail.

“What brings you from the village?” Tsunehei asked, knowing full well that he dealt with something other than a human. It would be too bold of him to call her a goddess, or treat her like one, though the feeling in his gut told him that it would be appropriate if he did.

“I came to watch the blossoms,” she said, her eyes limpid and mischievousness.

“… I will gladly keep you company.”

Her smile deepened. The natural hue of her lips seemed to deepen and he thought for a moment that behind the charming display he might catch a glimpse of beautiful teeth that had been dyed black. Tsunehei knew better than to purposefully act the idiot around her. Years of visits had made it clear that she was the type of woman who possessed a boundless power and will—she was the sort that could bewitch a man at a single glance. And with a glare…! With a glare, she could destroy them entirely and erase them from this world of dust and toil. He heard the light rustle of fabric as she closed her parasol, held it to her side, and looked out towards the paddies below.

Tsunehei waited at her side. She was slender and about as tall as he was though she comported herself with an understated dignity and self-assurance that he could not match. A clear fragrance of a sweet nectar came from her and promised to refresh and revitalize should he come closer. Enticed—but not yet entrapped—he tried not to stare at the smooth dark material that covered her from at least just below the white hem of the skirt well into her laced boots. He knew full well that if she were ever brush a silken leg against him, his current self would dissolve entirely; he did not know if the depths of human passion was equivalent to the profoundness of sin but he knew he would be transformed either way. With measured caution he instead looked on at the few trees before them and waited for her to speak.

He became aware that the birds had gone quiet as well. The interlude lasted for an indeterminate amount of time, his lack of ordered thoughts making every second feel like a minute. Neither body nor mind knew what to do with themselves and he swayed in place, as if an impish breeze directed his motions.

Ultimately she broke the silence, asking, “Are you entirely alone now?”

“Yes,” he intuited her meaning. The mental imbroglio lessened. “Deaths in the family; the land has been redistributed; the village elders took their share as well.”

“And you’re stuck with this plot? The one with the smallest yield?”

“You insult me, miss,” Tsunehei shook his head. He knew he was being teased though nothing in her quiet demeanor gave the game away. Her eyes remained lucent but they narrowed as they swept over him. If anything the new development made her seem less friendly and playful and more hostile and pointed. That seemed like a reminder that she could tear him apart should she please, if he were to play unsavory games with her. He explained, “I chose this orchard above the fields that were my due. Rice, millet, barley … I care little for them or the money they bring.”

“A foolish man,” she judged with a smile that seemed aloof, if not outright icy. It was the sort of cold snap he wished to protect his precious trees from when the season failed to develop as it should.

“I grew up playing among the shade of the trees, getting sick from eating unripe fruit in defiance of my grandmother’s warnings, harvesting baskets of fresh and ripe fruit every summer, and making jam and pickles and whatever else with the excess. I prune and nurse, plant and nurture. I am happy among the plants, within the flow of the seasons, and with the occasional company. The earth here is known to me like a good friend and the trees are the wives I never married.”

She laughed, lightly and maintained a coolness to her words, “And the children who will keep you in old age too?”

“They keep me now in my old age,” he said seriously.

“You don’t know what old age is. Not even grey yet, like a cherry, plum, or persimmon that takes a few years to yield fruit….”

With sudden violence, she grabbed his chin with a hand. He felt immobilized not only by the surprising amount of force contained in her slender fingers but by the piercing predatory disdain showing in her non-human eyes. She looked at him and then through him in a matter of moments. Taking a breath and exhaling forcefully, she then closed her eyes and shook her head. She let go, lightly pressing her palm to her cheek as her eyes transformed back to their previous, almost playful, clarity. His breath caught in his throat as he dared to imagine a note of spring, a renewal of color and life, coming from the snow-white frost of her cheeks.

“Why do you come here every year? Why do you come to see me?” he dared to ask, with hope that the thaw he witnessed had not been imagined.

“I come to watch the blossoms and flowers,” she replied quietly.

“What good are they to see this late in the season? Wait for summer. It’ll be along soon and there will be plenty of new flowers then.”

“What good are flowers at any time? They exist for only a few brief moments.”

“True of man as well.”

“All the more reason for both to meet at any place and at every opportunity. When you meet for the last time at the cemetery you won’t be able to appreciate the encounter very much.”

She gestured at the trees before them and the withered remnants of flowers on the branches. They were coaxed back into life and immediately burst into radiant color and fullness, becoming pink and white; the plum trees were at their full splendor in short order. No matter how many times Tsunehei witnessed the miracle of their rebirth it still made his heart skip a beat. The chirping and tweeting of birds resumed in full force as if encouraged by the magical explosion of spring and the dissipation of tension.

Tsunehei made haste to fetch his coat from the large bag of tools and supplies he had brought from home. When he returned, he spread the old rough work coat on the grassy ground and invited his visitor to sit. The hemp was a little too fibrous and prone to scratching bare skin but it would be preferable to the direct damp and cold of the ground. “I have pickled plums if you would like. Though they’re very sour.”

She accepted his invitation to sit with a nod and bunched up her legs as she sat down, leaning back like a willow, and more of the hose was revealed as her shirt hiked up some. Without bothering to fix her skirt for modesty, she instead followed on from his previous comment, “I am very fond of sour and aged things.”

Tsunehei felt a heat in his face the likes of which he had not felt for twenty years. He produced the snack without bothering to hide his state—it was impossible that she had failed to notice. The sweetness of her presence, the vibrant perfume that emanated from her as she leaned in closer to help herself, enveloped him in numbing warmth and left him guileless, if not to say stupefied. His isolation at home and the fact that most of the talking he did was either to himself or to his trees left him unable to recover with anything like celerity.

“I brought sake with me, as is proper for blossom-watching,” she said, revealing a bottle she had kept previously unseen. The sleeves of her blouse puffed a little with a passing gust of air as she placed the bottle and a pair of cups between them on the coat.

“… Does that mean that you’ll continue watching me?” he said in almost a whisper, as loudly his courage would allow him to speak.

“Hm…” she considered the question by tilting her head slightly to one side. There was no doubt that she was having fun at his expense. There could be no helping it, even if he was sure that she understood the other reason why he had kept only the orchard, why he had severed himself from all the entanglements of family and domestic life. As if reading his thoughts, a mellifluous laugh came from her. His intoxicated head swam and his heart beat wildly.

Was that her answer? Some more time was passed in silence and the day began to show definitive signs of ending. Tsunehei, mechanically so as to not be totally paralyzed, made to pour the sake in a pair of cups. When he had filled one, he found himself gently restrained by one of her hands again as she held onto his shoulder. Wordlessly, she took the bottle and filled the other cup for him. With the darkening sky the blossoms appeared then as irises, a bouquet made especially for the moment. He leaned back and watched as a few of the petals fluttered in the wind and scattered against the backdrop of fields dyed blood red and an indigo sky. He felt as if he were dreaming of gazing upward at a garden in some remote land. There he was to be buried in a sea of bell flowers, peonies and even violets. Even after he was well in his grave and nothing but a memory he knew he would still be visited every year without fail; by rain, sun, snow, blossoms, fruits, and leaves again and again for eternity; by the most beautiful flower which would remain in eternal bloom.

“Thank you,” he said and took a sip of the sake. Tears flowed from his eyes despite himself. The birdsong had changed—cries of nocturnal birds slowly replaced those of their diurnal cousins. Though the volume lessened and some of the singing became intermittent, Tsunehei could still appreciate that their melodies were just as lovely. It would presently be too late for a right-minded villager to intentionally stray beyond the boundaries of civilization, beyond the mass of humanity and the warmth of the hearth.

“… Is that all you have to say for yourself?” she asked before taking a sip of her own.

“No. But that can wait. For now I just want to enjoy this moment with you by my side, Yuuka.”

The wind continued to take blossoms from the trees and they were swept up, away from the hillock, across the fields and towards the horizon. There they might act as fuel for the flames of sunset, providing an additional measure of warmth to those watching the bloom of life and progress of seasons together.

The rain chattered as it tumbled from the skies above and down onto the roof of the Myouren Temple. It slid to the sides, unhurried and uninterested in anything before it fell to the earth. It ran into the cracks in the roof where it hadn’t been repaired as thoroughly, and it would see that portion of the roof destroyed should she err too long.

Ichirin watched the droplets cascade down. The weather was downbeat. The rain fell, but in spite of the near-poetry she’d just been crafting, the rain fell in lazy and uninspiring ways, like a whole world slumping its shoulders and giving up. Ichirin wasn’t even sure she could blame it. The world felt uninspiring right now. Maybe that was why her captive hadn’t said much.

A Taoist cap, a collection of multicoloured ribbons around her limbs and neck, and, just for good measure, a tight roped currently tied around her wrists, This last addition had been Ichirin’s idea after she’d conferred with her closest friend. Said friend currently swirled around her, hazy and formless, as Ichirin took hold of the rope and yanked with a grunt. The sullen figure slid across the floor silently, but she soon took notice of the downpour she was being sent out into, and some life returned to her at last. “Nay, wench, I say nay! Thou shalt not cast me unto that deluge!” Her speech was a mess usually, but the panic of being tossed out into the rain had forced her hand. She tried to struggle, but with her hands bound tightly, she didn’;t manage much beyond impotently kicking her legs.

“Why not?” Ichirin asked between harsh breaths as she dragged the captive closer to the edge of the staircase at the front of the temple. “A little splash of water might sort out that mess you call a brain.” She paused and let her captive fall to the floor as she stretched her back and wiped the sweat from her brow. “I realise that this is an exercise in futility, but if you tried not burning down the Temple, this might not happen to you.” There was no response from the captive. “Oh, Futo?” Ichirin leaned down. “Are you ignoring me?” There was a certain level of smugness in this, even though she knew nothing she could say would convince the Taoist to cease her attempts to burn down the Temple. “Alright, I guess I’ll not bother untying your hands, then.” She hoisted Futo up, rearing back so she could toss the Taoist off the top of the stairs. This only elicited more struggling from the captive.

“Halt, halt!” Futo cried, kicking her legs. “Art thine ears robbed of thy senses!?” Ichirin paused, Futo precariously balanced on her shoulder. “Prithee, do not to thy hardy staircase throw me.” Her voice grew hesitant and begrudging, but the silver-haired woman swallowed and spoke. “To thee, mine apologies I offer.” She forced the words out through great personal effort.

And while Ichirin didn’t believe her, she was pleased that she’d tried. “Hm. Is that so?” After a moment of thought, she set Futo down on her feet and deftly undid her tied hands. “Isn’t life so much easier when we can get along?” She asked innocently, rearing back and planting a foot into Futo’s back before booting her clear from the stairs. “Never said I wouldn’t still kick you, did I!?” She shouted as the taoist just barely managed to drag herself into the air before she could crash into the stairs below. “Now, get going if you don’t want another trouncing!” Futo spun in the air, her hands clenched, but she looked up at the pouring rain and back at Ichirin, her teeth clenched, before spinning once more and bursting off into the distance. She’d likely be back trying the exact same tactics in a week or two.

Ichirin clapped her hands together and placed them on her hips as she watched Futo disappear. It was nice, she supposed. A regularly appearing target to beat up. Frankly, she could show up even more regularly. “You shouldn’t act in that way, Lady Kumoi.” A voice murmured from beside her. Ichirin didn’t look as that pink cloud swirling around her coalesced into thunderous eyes, thick eyebrows, and a massive beard. “It only hastens Miss Mononobe’s return.”

“What’s that, Unzan?” Ichirin asked with a hand cupped to her ear and a half-smile on her face. “I think I misheard you.”

The old man composed of clouds looked away with his teeth gritted. “You shouldn’t act in that way, Ichi.” He forced the words out as if the informality was cutting his throat. “It’s…unbecoming.”

“Oh, hush.” Ichirin rolled her eyes. “I think she likes me. She’s got to know that I’ll beat her every time, yet she still comes back.”

Unzan rumbled like thunder. “Almost every—”

“Hush, I said.” Ichirin cut him off hurriedly. “Ugh, this rain is the worst. Don’t want to do anything.” She rubbed her eyes and looked over at Unzan as he floated a little closer.

“Anything, Lady—” Ichirin shot him another look. “Anything, Ichi? You’ve been…somewhat distracted lately, haven’t you?” Ichirin scoffed, so Uzan tried again. “There’s…something I want to mention to you.” Ichirin turned to face him properly. This was not something Unzan did regularly. “It concerns Lady Murasa.”

“‘Mitsu?” Ichirin repeated incredulously. “Is she alright?” Ichirin hadn’t seen the black-haired girl in the last day or so. She’d assumed that she was busy with something.

“It is…hard to say.” Unzan murmured. “I believe she would benefit from your presence.” Unzan, in spite of essentially being a sentient thunder cloud, rarely spoke loudly. “Sooner rather than later.” Unzan’s eyes seemed to suggest something that Ichirin could only somewhat glean. “She is currently—”

“Yeah, I think I know. Thanks, Unzan. I think she gets like this sometimes.” Ichirin smiled lightly and extended her fist out. Unzan, despite his relative translucency, placed his massive fist opposite hers. It was the closest she’d come to making him ease up on some of his ‘traditional old man’ tendencies. “Oh, er, I think Sister Hijiri wanted to ask you about something. Just don’t let her try and needle you into talking, or she’ll never stop.” The head monk was a woman Ichirin trusted implicitly, but she certainly could talk someone’s ear off if given the opportunity.

Unzan rumbled in discontent like distant thunder. “So I shall, Ichi.” The nyuudou nodded at her before fading into the wind as he formlessly floated away.

Now alone, Ichirin sighed and rubbed her brow. “‘Mitsu, huh…?” she mused to herself as she spun and headed back into the temple, away from the pounding rain.

Minamutsu Murasa was a ship phantom, and as a ship phantom, she’d spent her time sinking ships on the open ocean. Then, she’d been trapped in the underground, and then she’d found life in the blood pools of Former Hell. Now, she resided in Gensokyo, a landlocked place with no oceans to traverse and no ships to sink.

And she hadn’t taken to that very well.

Ichirin stepped off of the veranda at the back of the Myouren Temple. The rain quickly began to patter upon her head, so she hurriedly pulled her hood up before rushing through the courtyard. Since the place was so big, this took a while, and Ichirin was soon dripping with water as she reached the back of the Temple and, more importantly, the staircase leading to the cemetery.

After all, Minamitsu was a ghost, and when the mood struck them, ghosts loved the macabre.

Deep in the cemetery, near the cave entrance that had once housed those annoying Taoists, there was a shack. It wasn't much - Just a little shed for storing tools that were used in the maintenance of the cemetery, but it was something else to the resident ship phantom. It had become something of a respite for her when her bad days surfaced. A place to hide away and wallow in misery.

Ichirin strode to the outside door of the shed and threw it open without a moment's hesitation. Inside typically lay shovels and cleaning supplies resting and hanging against the walls. Today, however, she realised that Unzan had been downplaying Minamitsu’s current state.

The room was dark, and the rain outside wasn’t helping. Deep at the back of the room, in the corner and slumped against the wall, lay Minamitsu. She seemed dead to the world, her eyes gazing listlessly at nothing and her body completely unmoving. “You’re in a bad way.” Ichirin bluntly stated as she stepped inside and slid the door shut.

When Minamitsu fell to these moods, it could be difficult to drag her back into the light. The past had a way of dragging her down the same way she had once dragged sailors to the depths. Ichirin wasted no time, striding through the darkness of the room until she came to the prone body of her friend. Her hair had grown unkempt, rusted and dirty. Pervading the room was a faint smell of blood, and it was easy to see why by the blood-stained uniform that Minamitsu wore. The blood pools of Former Hell had enticed her back, and she now drowned in her memories. She needed something to ground her. Something to bring her back to the present.

So, Ichirin dropped to her knees and wrapped her arms around Minamitsu’s body, dragging her up until she was slumped over Ichirin’s shoulder. She leaned in, pressing herself as close as she could. “Breathe, ‘Mitsu.” She whispered. “You’re still here with us.” A faint breath was all she got in response. “Listen to me…” Ichirin continued, squeezing her tighter. “Remember where you are. Who you are.”

Rattling breaths came from somewhere next to Ichirin’s head before she felt some pushback and found herself falling to her back. Before she could even sit up, Minamitsu had fallen on top of her and clung on tightly.

And that, as they say, was that.

“I’m fine.” Minamitsu murmured. She’d come back to the world, cognitive and somewhat functional once more. Her white and green sailor’s uniform was a mess with blood, and her hat sat upon her head crookedly. “Stop fussing, Ichi.”

And yet, she certainly wasn’t fine. She’d failed to explain why she’d been in such a mood at all. Ichirin pouted and brushed Minamitsu’s hair from her eyes. “I think not, ‘Mitsu.” She replied as she sat back and refastened her hood, which had fallen down, so that she could cover up her terminally messy hair. “You haven’t fallen into a state that bad for a long time. You went back to the blood pools.” Ichirin rose from the floor and took hold of Minamitsu’s hands. “You need a wash.”

Minamitsu sighed and let Ichirin pull her up. "Thanks." She mumbled quietly as she was led out of the little shack and back toward the temple, in the direction of the bathhouse. "You don't have—"

"I do." Ichirin replied quickly. "You’re my friend, ‘Mitsu. I’m not going to leave you like that. And I'm going to do more than that. You need a distraction. Something to keep you in the here and now." She smiled slightly. "And it happens that old Mami' told me about a party happening at the Hakurei Shrine tonight." She'd not pressed much further, but she probably knew what the party was for. It had just been the Spring Equinox, which meant that Reimu Hakurei was on the lookout for reasons to get people up to the Shrine for donations and merriment. The previous day, Lily White had taken to the skies of Gensokyo and made sure everyone knew that it was spring.

"A party?" Minamitsu asked hesitantly. "I, uh, don't think—"

"Wasn't asking. Much as I love Sister Hijiri, I'm dying for something other than the Temple tonight, and she's busy going over the ledgers with Shou." Ichirin continued dragging Minamitsu along even as she continued complaining. “Means we have the perfect opportunity to skive off Temple stuff and indulge in some vices.” She could practically hear Unzan mentally telling her off for not taking her faith more seriously. She told him to buzz off.

An hour later, the newly cleaned ship phantom was towelling her hair dry and grumbling. "I'm not in the mood, Ichi. Let me just stay here."

"Don’t. Come with me. You'll thank me eventually. Trust me." Ichirin nodded rapidly as she pulled her dress back on and tried in vain to smooth out her hair. She had no success.

Minamitsu sighed with a baleful look, but it wasn’t a no, so Ichirin took it as a victory. “You’re going to push me on this, aren’t you? In the old days, we’d have tossed you overboard for this sort of behaviour against the captain.”

“Yep.” Ichirin smiled. “Remember, ‘Mitsu, we’re not thinking about the old days now. Only the current days.”

With a final, dramatic sigh, Minamitsu gave in. “...Right. Fine. I’ll come, but expect me to bring down the mood. You’ll be apologising by the end.”

That was a bet that Ichirin would have to take.

“Why are you climbing the stairs?” Minamitsu asked, floating next to Ichirin as they trundled up the interminably long staircase that led to the Hakurei Shrine. “Looks exhausting.”

Well, Ichirin trundled. Minamitsu floated next to her, her eyes still dark and determined to have a dour effect on any joyful jovialities occurring up ahead.

At the top of the stairs, still a distance away, stood the torii gate, red and beaconlike for all of Gensokyo. The strains of music of conversation wafted out and over Ichirin. A joyful mood inhabited the world up there.

A stark contrast to the phantom floating next to her.

“Exercise.” Ichirin explained. “Or something. I think it’s good to…I guess, feel the strain sometimes. Feel like you’re really existing in the world and not floating somewhere above it.” She took another step and paused to brush some dust from her kesa. “Feelings. It’s good to feel things. Especially when we’re feeling…unmoored.”

“Right.”

They continued on in silence, but as they reached the final stretch of steps, Ichirin heard the telltale sound of boots alighting upon the rough stone. She didn’t turn back, but she listened as a second pair of footsteps joined hers for those last few steps. She took it as a challenge, Ichirin supposed. Near the top, Ichirin did look, and she found Minamitsu with her hands shoved deep into her pockets and her long coat wrapped around her shoulders tightly. Even then, she seemed to be willing Ichirin to adopt her awful mood. Ichirin turned back and took the last few steps at a jog, determined not to let Minamitsu win.

Gensokyo took on an airy nature in spring. With the joyful screams of Lily White as she soared through the skies came a light and bouncy feeling of ease at the winter coming to an end. This applied just as much to the Hakurei Shrine as it did to the rest of Gensokyo. Ichirin longed to be up there right now; To be away from the strict rules of the Temple for just a night, just enough to keep her on the straight and narrow the rest of the time.

The Hakurei Shrine was a bright spot in the darkness. It was a lone fire surrounded by a dark forest. Ichirin had once seen paintings - Long, long ago. A dark canvas with burning colours that sliced through the dark. A place that drew in all those who surrounded it, from youkai to humans to anything in between. Out there, in the distance and darkness somewhere beyond the light, lay more mountains and more trees. Behind her lay open air. And beside her stood someone who was determined to spend their days in that darkness rather than in the light.

The courtyard was brightly and comfortingly lit. Lining the pathway that led from the torii gate to the Hall of Worship were stone torches; Ichirin hadn’t expected that Reimu had such a supply. The torches marked a path that led around the Hall of Worship and toward the back of the Shrine, where the cheering and merriment originated. Of course, even in this situation, Ichirin couldn’t keep the slightest hint of a critical eye from emerging. It could be grander, she thought. The Myouren Temple made sure that the people coming to visit knew that their worries were safe in their hands.

“Bit barebones,” Minamitsu commented. “I know she doesn’t get many donations, but she could at least use them to pretty the place up a bit.”

“I think she uses most of them to, er, not starve, ‘Mitsu,” Ichirin replied softly. She tried not to agree with Minamitsu’s assessment mentally. “Come on, let’s go around back. That’s where it’ll all be happening.” She hurried on before Minamitsu could try and get out of it. As she heard the sigh and trudging footfalls, she tried not to smile.

But first came the path between the front and the back of the Shrine, and said path was not empty. Company came in blonde. Crouched on the edge of the veranda, her back out toward the path, there was a woman. Her shoulder-length blonde hair was far too messy to be intentional, and a jagged rip made itself known on her sleeve. “Shoddy craftsmanship. Bloody shoddy, Alice. Typical,” she muttered to herself. Ichirin’s eyes wandered across her, but she wondered what the girl was talking about. She wasn’t looking at her sleeve, which her words suggested. Ichirin looked back at Minamitsu, who didn’t look like she cared. “Right. Okay…” Alice, for that was who the girl was, continued muttering.

“Think she’s drunk?” Minamitsu asked, elbowing Ichirin without removing her hand from her pocket. “I wish I was drunk. Might make me not want to punch your lights out for dragging me—”

“Yes, thank you, ‘Mitsu.” Ichirin replied in a higher tone than she’d expected to use. Something that suggested more annoyance than she’d wanted. “Hello?” This, she said loudly. “Er, Alice, right?”

The girl squawked like a bird. Her head swivelled around to peer at Ichirin and Minamitsu, though her bright blue eyes struggled to keep focus. That was one point to Minamitsu’s assessment. She looked dishevelled from the front, too. Her hair sat askew, leaving one said of her face too empty. Sweat left a sheen on her forehead in the weak, flickering light of the torches between the front and back of the Shrine. She wore a capelet with white trim around the ends, but even that was dirty, a tinge of dark residue dusting it. Underneath it lay a light blue waistcoat left loose, and underneath that lay a darker blue dress. The dress carried a scorch mark on the right breast, and the waistcoat had a tear in the fabric.

“Ah - Urk. Um, yes, hello, Alice. I mean, Margatroid. I mean, me. I’m Maragtroid.” The words were a river running out of control. “What’s - Are you watching me?” Her eyes flicked back and forth. “Two ticks. I’m getting up. Good thing I didn’t drink much.” The magician, as Ichirin vaguely recalled her being, tried to stand, but at what seemed to be a head rush, she squatted back down. At the same moment, cheers crashed out of the Shrine’s back gardens like waves, washing over Alice and sending her off-balance just enough to fall onto her rear. “I’m not, am I?” she mumbled.

“Getting up?” Minamitsu asked. “Nope. Doesn’t look like it.” To Ichirin, she whispered, “You already dragged me here, and now we’re stuck watching a sloshed magician fall over. If this is supposed to make me feel better, it’s not working.”

“Shush, ‘Mitsu.” Ichirin hissed, looking back to Alice. “Here, er…” she reached her hand out. Alice stared at the offending extremity for a moment, but took it and allowed Ichirin to help her up. “What happened to you?” she asked as Alice tottered and leant against the wall. “You look a little singed.”

“Singed!” Alice repeated in a cry. “Set alight.” She’d been looking at something when squatting down, and Ichirin spied it now in her free hand. Something small, blackened and destroyed, but roughly humanoid in shape. “Shoddy craftsmanship.” Alice continued, raising the blackened thing. In the firelight, Ichirin placed it. One of the magician’s dolls. She crafted them adroitly. “Blew too early. Shoddy, shoddy, shoddy…”

“Is she broken?” Minamitsu asked. “Hey, can I just go ahead? Promise I won’t leave.” Ichirin frowned back at Minamitsu and waved a hand to tell her to stay. “Hey, Margatroid. Didja blow yourself up?” To Ichirin, she muttered quietly: “Can smell it. Gunpowder.”

“No.” Alice replied instantly. “Yes.” she replied an instant later.

That settled it in Ichirin’s mind. The dollmaker was drunk.

“It’s part of the craft. Dolls can have multiple uses.” Alice wandered just in front of Ichirin and Minamitsu as they continued heading for the back of the Shrine. Now that she was up, the dollmaker was just about managing to keep her footsteps straight, though she walked a little slower than either Ichirin or Minamitsu. “Hang about - I forgot my…Oh, nevermind. I have them…” Something shimmered in the air, with the very slight sound of strings tightening. Despite that, nothing seemed to happen. Perhaps, Ichirin thought, she’s run through her doll collection.“Reimu’s getting drunk. Too much!” Alice paused. “Sorry. I don’t usually talk this much.”

“S’fine,” Minamitsu lazily called. “You won’t even remember in the morning.” The ship phantom looked resigned to the goings on. Ichirin remembered her eyes in the morning; She remembered the hollow emptiness inside them. It was high time they got to the party. “Hey, so what are they doing back there?”

“Back there?” Alice spun, staggered, and took a moment to steady herself. “There there!? The party!” She waved a hand around as she continued onward. “All shouty and singy. Total nonsense. They were all surrounding that young girl when I left. The half-phantom. I can’t believe they didn’t get tired of it.” In the firelight, Ichirin caught the silver bands on each of her fingers. Her strings, but they were serving little purpose now.

They emerged then, into the back of the Hakurei Shrine. Noise and light hit Ichirin in the face sure as a danmaku shot. The pouring rain of the early morning hadn't put even a scratch in the mood of the party goers. Ichirin spotted them already - In the corners, in the centre, everywhere. Over by the overhanging trees at the edge of the Shrine were the fairies, cheerful and playful. Their moods felt not rain nor snow. And over there, near the pond that took up most of the back of the Shrine, Ichirin's eyes spied old Mamizou, her green, leaf-shaped hat easily visible in the night, as if her giant tanuki tail wasn't enough. Speaking to her animatedly was the hermit, the ever-elusive ascetic that inhabited the mountain.

And sitting upon the veranda, presently upending a bottle of sake into her mouth, there lay the Shrine's main resident. Reimu Hakurei finished the bottle with a loud gasp, slamming it down next to her.

"Busy, busy!" Alice was still yapping. "Too busy for me to work safely! Haven’t had a chance to do things properly...That's why the doll blew early." She was bustling now, and her words were as varied as her movement speed. "I think I should go home. I wanted to; I was going to, but I froze up."

"Yeah, I got that from the last five times you said it." Minamitsu growled in annoyance. "Got anything new?"

But then Alice spotted Reimu, and she spun in that direction instead. "Ooh, Reimu! Reimu, Reimu! I need to shout at you!" And she hurtled off, keeping her balance just in time to awkwardly slump onto the veranda next to the drunk Shrine Maiden.

Reimu looked down at her. She blinked. "You look like you’ve had a few too many." The Shrine Maiden finally said.

"Looks like she's plenty drunk too." Minamitsu whispered to Ichirin. "Are you sure you want to stick around all this? There's no way Hijiri won't know." There was nothing in the world more obvious than Minamitsu’s desire to go and sit in a dark room by herself and brood. “I mean, if you want to bear the punishment…”

“Yes, whatever, ‘Mitsu. Let’s have a drink.” Ichirin grabbed Minamitsu’s hand and continued out into the open area, toward the blanket and table that lay out in front of the pond, presently laden with bottles of all shapes and sizes.

“I’m just saying, if this is what making me feel better looks like—” Ichirin spun, finding herself pressed very close to Minamitsu. The ship phantom’s voice ground to a halt, then returned as something curious. “...Are you okay?” she asked, looking down at the shorter girl. “Why do you want this so badly?”

Ichirin groaned. “I’m fine, ‘Mitsu. It’s you I’m worried about. Now can we please go and get hammered?” Minamitsu continued staring at her indeterminately, but she let Ichirin continue pulling her along to the table of booze anyway. “Let’s see…” Ichirin ran through the bottles, finally settling on something that she didn’t recognise. “Yeah, this looks good…” Wasting no time, Ichirin unscrewed the cap and took a long swig. Heat burnt through her throat instantly, stronger than she’d expected but something she forced herself to handle. She took a second gulp as the burn moved down her throat. The heat was intense enough that she didn’t even notice the taste, if there even was one. As she went to take her third gulp, the bottle was torn from her hands. “H-Hey!” she cried.

Minamitsu stood over her, raising an eyebrow. “No point letting you get so smashed that you don’t even remember how you got here.” Shrugging, she took the bottle by the neck and drank from it, gasping as she pulled the bottle from her lips. “Gah, that’s strong stuff. Spiced.” Minamitsu watched as Ichirin found a second bottle to start drinking from. "...Busy day?" Ichirin groaned. She had already been woken up early by Unzan to stop Futo's latest asinine plot, and then she'd had to deal with Minamitsu's mood, and after that she'd been forced to spend hours sitting with the worshippers from the village before spending even more hours sitting with Hijiri and discussing the latest about the Temple.

"Fine. Just fine." Ichirin replied as she dropped the empty bottle on the table. "What had you the way you were this morning?" Minamitsu's moods were typically brought on by particularly bad inciting events. They didn't just happen. “C’mon, ‘Mitsu. Talk to me.”

“Talk to you?” Minamitsu repeated, raising an eyebrow. “It doesn’t matter, Ichi.” She was doing a fine job of looking fine, Ichirin found. She looked unflappable, even with the slight narrowing of her eyes and the way she was hunched over. “I was having a bad day. I’m okay now.” Ichirin took another bottle and went to drink, but before she could get there, something happened.

The bottle disappeared from her hand in a flash, but just as it was removed, a specific smell of tobacco arrived. “Well, well, what’ve we got here?” Standing up straight, the new arrival raised the bottle to her own lips. “Ichi and ‘Mitsu, is it?” Old Mami took a second swig of the bottle and handed it back to Ichirin, empty. “Good ta see ye both. Ta be honest, I didn’t think yous would show up. Yer dear Hijiri too busy ta bother with yous?”

“Mami’.” Minamitsu greeted the bake-danuki, raising her bottle slightly. “She’s busy with Shou. Poor avatara would’ve probably come along otherwise.” Ichirin looked between the two. Minamitsu always did get along with Mamizou. They had similar temperaments when Minamitsu’s mood wasn’t in the dumps.

“Whoa, kid, ye look like ye need a good night’s sleep.” Mamizou leaned in closer to get a look at Minamitsu. “Ain’t seen eyes like that in a spell.”

“Ah, shut it. I’m fine.” Minamitsu rolled her eyes and took another drink. “Had a bad morning.” Ichirin looked back and forth. “I’ve looked worse.” She looked at Minamitsu’s eyes, at the dirty turquoise shade of them and the way they looked like a pond in the sunlight. She certainly was miserable, Ichirin thought to herself as she picked up yet another bottle from the table and drank deeply from it. She watched as Mamizou told a joke and Minamitsu laughed. Whatever had upset Minamitsu couldn’t have just gone away.

“Listen, I’d love ta stay and chat, but I’ve got a thing.” Mamizou leaned down and pulled Ichirin to her feet, then wrapped her arms around both her and Minamitsu’s shoulders, pulling them in closer. “Now don’t go tellin’ no one, but I’ve got a bet goin’ with Shameimaru. Whoever can inconvenience Reimu the most tonight wins. I’m fixin’ to steal all her shirts and bloomers.”

“She’ll beat you black and blue if she finds out, Mami’.” Ichirin replied, stumbling slightly as Mamizou pulled her to the side more. Her eyes caught the crow tengu in the distance, balanced on the tip of one foot and chewing on the tip of a pen as she stared in Reimu’s direction. “Both of you.” Ichirin took in a grateful breath as Mamizou released them.

“Nah, she’s a sweetheart, honest.” Mamizou couldn’t keep the smirk from her face. “It’s real easy ta make her forgive an’ forget, yanno? Ya just gotta…use some finesse.”

“Uh, if you say so.” Minamitsu replied weakly. Mamizou grinned and waved, striding back toward the hermit she’d been talking to earlier. “I guess she’s in a good mood…” Minamitsu murmured, watching her go.

Ichirin wondered how she did it. Mamizou Futatsuiwa never seemed to let things touch her. Always unflappable; Always ready with a smug quip and a laugh. Ever since she’d come to the Temple, Ichirin had wished she could find some of that attitude.

Minamitsu was still talking. “Hey, you want to go and see if there’s any food here?”

Ichirin lurched to her feet. “Don’t have to ask me twice.” she said, drunkenly staggering for a moment before getting her feet back under her. “Temple food is…yeah. Let’s see.”

One could only take intense blandness with a pinch of salt for so long.

Her feet made six steps before her mind connected the fact that she wasn’t walking unassisted. Minamitsu had taken her arm in hers. “You barely ate anything all day and then you drank all that booze, Ichi. You’re probably more sloshed than a sailor on shore leave already.”

Ichirin frowned. “No, I’m not.” the hiccup she failed to suppress undercut her point somewhat.

“Very convincing.” Minamitsu replied dryly. “Hey, is that the snacks table?” She kept a tight hold on Ichirin, though Ichirin didn’t believe it necessary. Why would it be? She hadn’t drank that much. “Ooh, they’ve got fried tofu.”

Minamitsu’s grip suddenly disappeared and Ichirin found the world lurched slightly around her. Okay, perhaps she’d had a little more to drink than she should’ve, and certainly too fast. Did the ship phantom have a point? No, of course not. Ichirin was fine. Minamitsu was the miserable one.

“‘Mitsu, why were you sad?” Ichirin asked, trying to ignore the way the world was swaying slightly. “You’re not sad like that often any—”

In a flash, Minamitsu’s arm was around Ichirin and pulling her across the grounds again, finally depositing her at the veranda. Unprepared for the movement, Ichirin fell backward, thankful that the surface was dry and mostly clean. Her limbs felt heavy.

“Hang on, let me just…” Ichirin felt herself lifted upright, then felt her mouth being pried open. Before she could ask just what was happening, she was released to fall to the veranda again. “Thought so. Tengu liquor. No wonder. Mamizou could handle that with ease, but you? Yeah, no way Hijiri’s missing this tomorrow.” A hand grabbed hold of her kesa and dragged her back upright. Ichirin frowned and tried to shake it off, but suddenly found it was wrapped around her shoulders instead. “Here, open up. Eat something and you’ll feel a little better.” Ichirin opened her mouth to complain that she was supposed to be taking care of Minamitsu tonight, not the other way around, but something hot and tasty made its way into her mouth before she could.

She just shut up and chewed instead. “Mmh…” she mumbled once she’d swallowed. “Spicy…” It lingered on her tongue like the last frosts of spring. Something hardy that wouldn’t quite fade for some time. “Tofu?” she asked, feeling the slight burn on her lips. “...Spicy tofu…”

“Tofu.” Minamitsu confirmed, lifting the plate that she’d snagged from the table, full of little cubes of fried tofu. “Have another.” She’d apparently found a pair of chopsticks somewhere, and she used them now to ensure that the food went into Ichirin’s mouth. “This is about the only chance we’ve got of you not dying from a hangover tomorrow.” She made sure that Ichirin ate several more pieces of the tofu, keeping her arm wrapped around her so that she didn’t tip back over.

“That’s not going to happen…” Ichirin could feel the petulance in her voice even as the words came out. What had Alice said? Shoddy. Shoddy of her to not realise it was tengu liquor she’d picked up. And damn well shoddy it was to get drunk when she was supposed to be making her friend feel better. “Um, ‘Mitsu?”

“Yes?” The ship phantom paused in her feeding attempts, looking into Ichirin’s eyes. “What?”

“...Thanks.” Ichirin mumbled quietly. Suddenly, she felt like a child.

And for someone who wasn’t particularly happy, Minamitsu didn’t look remotely sad to hear her words. “...No problem, Ichi.” she smiled slightly. “Hey, I think I see that rabbit from Eientei over there. You mind if I go and see if she’s got anything to, uh…dull the hangover, maybe?”

Ichirin tried looking over, mumbling something all the while. She caught sight of the festivities - Of the merriment and the cheer that thoroughly infested each and every person at the party. She watched blearily as she caught the cheerful komainu who lived in the Hakurei Shrine in the midst of chasing a cat youkai that Ichirin had seen once around in circles. She heard, from somewhere that she couldn’t quite ascertain, music. Wailing violin and booming drumbeats. The musicians were out in full force.

There was a feeling, Ichirin thought. Something in the air, or perhaps inhabiting the hearts and souls of everyone here. A sense of wellness. She felt like there was something that every person here tonight felt was worth celebrating.

The fairies celebrated the appearance of Lily White and a new season to frolic and play. The musicians - They celebrated a new season for inspiration and a time when they could start performing outside regularly again. It was in their notes too - A giddy sort of happiness. Ichirin felt it as a trumpet and a keyboard joined the instruments playing back there.

And further across the back of the Hakurei Shrine, somewhere near the edge, Ichirin spied Nue, their dear unknown youkai. She appeared as she usually did, in the form of a girl with shoulder length black hair that curled to the side, wearing a black dress with a red pattern sewn into it. The firelights glinted off of those sharp appendages on her back, yet didn’t glint at all on the arrowed tentacles on the other side of her back.

She spoke quietly to the god of pestilence, Nue did. With a wry smile and a teasing demeanour. And the pestilence god, with her strange earrings and flashy jewellery, did not look disgruntled and annoyed as she usually did. She seemed to have a loose air about her, something that she’d never had when she’d been at the Myouren Temple.

Ichirin hoped that she had something worth celebrating too.

Suddenly, something stuck in her mind. Where was the arm around her shoulders? Where was the spicy and tasty tofu? Ichirin blinked and looked around. Minamitsu had disappeared. It was just Ichirin sitting on the edge of the veranda now. Perhaps she’d gone to find that Eientei person like she’d suggested. What it meant was that Ichirin no longer had anyone keeping her upright, and before long, she sighed and fell backward, pushing the breath from her with a whispered sigh and sprawling her upper body across the veranda, letting her legs hang lazily off the edge.

Half of her view was the overhanging ceiling of the Shrine. The other half was the dark, starry sky above, even though some of the stars were obscured thanks to the firelight. It seemed to all spin lazily, but Ichirin was unable to discern which direction it was moving in. She squeezed her eyes shut. Somewhere in the distant future of tomorrow, when the hangover set in, she’d surely regret this.

But fortunately, tomorrow seemed very far away.

“Art thou a drunkard?” The space somewhere above Ichirin and slightly to the right asked. It was a different voice - Not Minamitsu. And despite the speech patterns, it wasn’t Mononobe no Futo, either. Ichirin scrunched her face up into a frown and tried to force the thoughts through her mind.

“...No…?” she finally answered.

“Oh.” The voice replied. “That’s good.” Yes, definitely not Futo. Ichirin suspected that she knew the voice’s identity. “What’s that emotion?”

Finally, Ichirin cracked an eye open. She stared up at the figure standing right next to her prone body, looking down at her. Her pink hair had the colour of cherry blossoms, and her eyes were much the same. Her white pupils bore into Ichirin emotionlessly, and her unsmiling mouth didn’t return a hint of emotion either. Over her head, slightly pulled to the side, a mask wreathed in blue flames depicted something. Hyottoko, by the look of it.

She wore a blue shirt with sleeves that flowed outward, with four strange buttons in different shapes at the front. Her skirt was salmon-coloured, and it came with large slits that formed several dramatic facial expressions.

Ichirin found herself giggling. “I can see up your skirt.” she drunkenly told the newcomer.

Said newcomer looked down, then back at Ichirin before she seemed to take notice of what Ichirin meant. “Ah!” She cried, though her face didn’t make any new movements. Her hands hurriedly smoothed down her skirt to try and reclaim some of her modesty. The blue flames surrounding the mask over her face seemed to intensify, and then the mask itself separated from her face and floated to the side so that a new one could take its place. This time, it was a monkey. “Er, um, my apologies.”

“S’okay.” Ichirin mumbled lazily. “Not messing around with the Taoists today, Kokoro?” Hata no Kokoro generally split her time between three locations. She would spend some time with the Buddhists at the Myouren Temple, some time with the Taoists in their Divine Mausoleum, and some time with Gensokyo at large, with some attention paid to the Hakurei Shrine. This had been the outcome of the messy events that had formed her awakening as a youkai in the past. “Yunno Sister Hijiri will kill you if she finds out you’re drinking…” Words were hard.

“We were searching for inspiration.” Kokoro replied as she squatted down next to Ichirin. Her masks continued flitting around her head; Ichirin watched them like they were little stars. “For my next performance.”

“We?” Ichirin asked, trying to look around her. There didn’t seem to be anyone else nearby. “Oh…You mean you.”

Kokoro went to nod but hesitated. “We - I mean…me. We. Us.” Kokoro’s struggles with personal pronouns seemed never-ending. Ichirin supposed that it was difficult for a being composed of so many masks to understand individuality. The thought made her head hurt. “I was searching for inspiration.”

“That’s good.” Ichirin slurred, reached up hazily to try and pat the menreiki on the head. “Did you find any?”

“We have not decided yet.” Kokoro’s voice sounded conflicted. “Forty-two of us would like to continue with romance.” Ichirin frowned. Numbers were hard right now, and sixty-six, which was the sum of Kokoro’s existence, seemed particularly hard. The menreiki seemed to spot her struggle. “Twenty-four of us would like to explore other opportunities.” she explained.

“Oh…” Ichirin mumbled. She wondered what it was like inside Kokoro’s head. To have a group of sixty-six to make decisions with at all times, and to always have someone there with you. Ichirin had Unzan, but it was hardly the same. A childish impulse came over her. “Hey, Kokoro. Would you sit with me?”

The menreiki stared as impassively as always, but her mask flitted to something else. Ichirin hadn’t seen it before. The staring went on for a few minutes, so Ichirin gave up watching and let her gaze return listlessly to the stars above. “We…yes. We are in agreement.” Kokoro slowly replied before hopping off of the veranda and taking a seat on its edge. “Lady Kumoi, I wanted to ask you—”

“Too formal, Kokoro…” Ichirin grumbled.

“Ah. Er, we apologise. Miss Ichirin, I wanted to ask…What you said just a moment ago, about drinking…What is that?” Ichirin raised her head with a frown. Kokoro was watching her with her hands clasped together awkwardly, even if her face didn’t show it. “We do not understand.”

“Really?” Ichirin asked, feeling rather befuddled. “None of you?”

Kokoro’s head tilted slightly, and she flitted between yet more masks hurriedly. “We…A small number of us think we understand. We have not formed a consensus. I think it refers to alcohol. Or is it any liquid? Is that right?”

Ichirin let her head fall back down. “Yeesss. Drinking alcohol. Bad. Not very Buddhist of me to get drunk like this. You should stay away from it. Drink water instead.” Her hypocrisy was blinding. She knew very well that if she’d not grabbed tengu liquor by mistake, she’d have still been happily drinking away. “What did you say you were here for again?”

“Um, inspiration.” Kokoro replied. Ichirin felt something brushing against her leg repeatedly, and it took her a while to figure out that it was Kokoro’s legs. She was swinging them back and forth as she sat on the veranda. “I wanted to try and understand the emotions people feel at the start of a new season.” The menreiki looked out across the party. Ichirin tried to sit up and join her, but the world swayed unpleasantly as she tried, so she gave up and settled for awkwardly tilting her head enough to see out. “There’s so many people here, and they’re all so full of emotions that they could burst.” Out there, Ichirin spied Reimu, drunkenly dancing around the fire. No, actually. She was leading a dance that more and more of the partygoers seemed to be joining in on. “I want to understand the feelings that occupy people’s hearts.” Kokoro’s face was emotionless as always, but there seemed to be something deep within her eyes. A fire of some sort. Her mask had changed to a fox.

“That’s good…” Ichirin mumbled.

“Miss Ichirin? Wouldst thou - Um, would you mind if I asked you a question?” A tentative nature existed in the voice of the menreiki. Ichirin groaned something that might have sounded like approval. “Are you…Is something clouding your heart? Your emotions feel…repressed.”

“Ugh…” Ichirin whined, “Did you run into ‘Mitsu on the way over here? She’s the one who needs the talk about emotions.”

“Um, does she…? I did see her when I was coming over here, but she seemed fine. It’s you who seems unbalanced, Miss Ichirin.” Kokoro sounded confused.

Ichirin really wished she had the strength to sit up properly right now. Typical, Ichirin thought. Of course the one person to stumble across her would be the one who could sense her emotional state. “I’m fine.” Ichirin insisted. “Why would I not be fine? Don’t worry about me.”

“Um, okay…” Kokoro didn’t sound convinced. “But even so, I want to understand your emotions, Miss Ichirin. Can you help me?”

“...Can you help me sit up?” Ichirin finally grumbled. She was fine, but Kokoro clearly wasn’t planning to let this go. Kokoro took her offered hand and helped Ichirin sit up, though she still had to lean against Kokoro for support as the world spun. “I’m fine, you know. I’m just…um, drunk. Too drunk.”

Kokoro was silent for a moment. Ichirin watched as some of the partygoers took to the air to recreate that danmaku contest from a few years prior. “...I don’t think you’re fine, Miss Ichirin.” Kokoro slowly replied. “We have come to a consensus. You’re not telling me the truth.”

Now upright, Ichirin moodily stared into the distance, past the partygoers and into the dark treeline at the edge of the Shrine. “You’re too inquisitive for your own good, Kokoro.” she grumbled. “If I admit that I’ve been feeling pretty down, will you leave it at that?”

“Um, I’d like to know what you’re feeling, sorry…” Kokoro pulled her mask slightly more over her face, as if she was afraid of the response. “I don’t know if I can help or not, but I’d like to, um, listen to you.”

Ichirin Kumoi had not been doing well. Before Unzan had told her about Minamitsu, before Futo had attacked the temple, before any of that, she’d been in a rough mood. But she’d pushed it down, down and down until it was buried so deep that she wouldn’t have to think about it.

“I, um…” Ichirin hesitated, but in the silence between the words, she found a hidden urge to speak. “I’ve been wondering why I keep doing this.” She finally forced the words out. “Why I’m still here, being a Buddhist and trying to cast off my desires. What’s the point? And even if I continue doing it, I’m still stupidly short-sighted in other places! Like when that vengeful spirit was rampaging through the Temple, and I couldn’t even tell that something was wrong with Kyouko! And I even thought that Sister Hijiri might have been the possessed one for a moment, and that I’d missed that too! I couldn’t tell anything, and then that vampire came rampaging through and fighting with Shou and Sister Hijiri, and I couldn’t do anything at all! I just stood there while they all fought!” Ichirin let a ragged breath pass her lips and tried to ignore the hot tears forcing themselves from her eyes. “All I’ve done for practically my whole life is look up to Sister Hijiri, and I’m still nothing like her. I can’t even keep my wits about me at a party. Drunk on tengu liquor! Ha!”

And with that, she buried her face in her hands. She should’ve brought Unzan with her tonight. At least he might have been able to keep her from doing this. They were feelings that had been building for years, she supposed. The pressure to be an exemplary student for Sister Hijiri, the knowledge that she’d been more or less useless during the vengeful spirit’s attack, and the fact that she hadn’t even noticed that Kyouko had been possessed, they had all been piling up. She’d been so insistent that something was wrong with Minamitsu that she hadn’t realised that she’d been pushing all of her problems onto the ship phantom unthinkingly.

“Um…” Ichirin jerked back up at the reminder that someone had been speaking to her. More importantly, someone who probably didn’t need to hear all of this. “Is this…the emotion of frustration?” the menreiki asked, sliding a mask of a teary-eyed face over her emotionless face.

Ichirin laughed weakly. “Not quite, sorry…” she replied. “That’s more like sadness.” Ichirin wiped the tears from her eyes. “Sorry, Kokoro, I didn’t mean to make you listen to all of that.”

“No, it’s okay. We wanted to understand.” Kokoro hurriedly replied. “Do you, um…” the menreiki’s hands awkwardly reached out. “Do you want a hug?” Ichirin found herself weakly laughing again, but letting Kokoro put her arms around her. “I, um…I don’t think I understand every emotion yet. Are you sad?”

“... I guess. I think I just let everything build up for too long.” Ichirin mumbled into Kokoro’s hair. “Thanks for making me say it.”

Kokoro nodded as she gently leaned back from Ichirin. “When I lost my Mask of Hope, I didn’t know how to understand my own emotions. ‘Tis a hard task, still. But I learnt that letting them build up wasn’t good either. I think that if I let something build up, it would just hurt me more when it eventually did come out. I learnt just how important it was that I work to understand my emotions and how to control them.”

“So you’re telling me I should just suck it up?” Ichirin asked quietly. “Keep it controlled and quiet?”

Kokoro shook her head hurriedly. “Um, no, no, ‘tis not what I meant…” She took a deep breath. “I think you should let it out here.” Ichirin looked at her blankly. “I’m still figuring out how to…regulate my emotions, like when I should let them out and when I shouldn’t. But I think that…here is probably a good place to let them out.”

Ichirin rubbed her eyes. Let them out? She didn’t think starting to bawl her eyes out again was going to solve anything. “I guess I could try.” In fact, maybe Kokoro had a point. Maybe screaming and shouting and firing all sorts of danmaku would clear her mind. The celebrations at the Hakurei Shrine had evolved into danmaku duels in the skies above and loud singing and dancing as the musicians played up a storm below. “When did you become so wise, huh?” She asked Kokoro with a slight giggle.

Kokoro’s mask switched to Fuku no kami and she awkwardly pulled it over her face. “U-Um, we - I had a lot of good teachers.”

“Ichi~!” Ichirin heard the voice before she saw her, but soon enough Minamitsu wandered around the side of the Shrine, her hands deep in her pockets. “Ichiii~!” She was calling Ichirin’s name. “Ich- Oh, there you are. Hey, Kokoro. Didn’t realise you were here.”

“W-Well met!” Kokoro replied stiffly, straightening up. “Miss Murasa. Doth the night find thee well?” She hurriedly stood and bowed.

Minamitsu snorted and bowed back. “Quite well, milady.” she replied as she stood back up and wandered over. “Ichi, I’ve got a pill here from the Eientei lot to make you throw up, if you want. Might make you feel better afterward.”

Ichirin frowned and thought about that. No, she thought, throwing up probably wasn’t the solution. Kokoro’s suggestion seemed the better option. “Um…No, ‘Mitsu, maybe not. I think I’ve got a better idea.” It was probably the alcohol that led her to her next action. She raised her hand and fired a large bolt of danmaku right at Minamitsu.

The ship phantom’s eyes widened and she jumped, swinging her leg out and kicking the shot into the ground without even taking her hands out of her pockets. “...Feeling ornery, Ichi? I don’t remember you being this bad a drunk.”

Ichirin rose into the air, spreading her hands wide and letting all those repressed feelings of anger, bitterness, frustration, and rage flood her. “Maybe I wasn’t okay.” She replied, watching as Minamitsu’s eyes seemed to flash with understanding. “But I think I will be after this.”

Minamitsu looked over at Kokoro. “Did you put her up to this?” Kokoro nodded silently. “We’ve gotta stop you spending so much time with those Taoists. They’re a bad influence.” Her grin made it obvious that she wasn’t serious. “Hey, thanks, Kokoro. You’re probably the only one who could get it out of her.” She raised a fist toward the menreiki, who stared at it inquisitively. “Like we practiced.” Minamitsu encouraged her, and Kokoro finally did ball her hand up into a fist and tap it against Minamitsu’s. “Nice.” Miamitsu grinned before snapping back to Ichirin, who seemed to be pulling in more and more energy by the second. “Alright, Ichi, if we’re doing this, we’re not stopping until you can’t move a muscle!” And she took off, aiming right for Ichirin.

Hata no Kokoro watched them take off, then flitted through a selection of masks. “Hm…What emotion is this…?”

Morning found Ichirin and Minamitsu trudging through the deserted Human Village, with identical heavy bags under their eyes and exhaustion evident in every step. “We…are so dead.” Minamitsu groaned. “It’s past sunrise. Hijiri will kill us.”

“I know, ‘Mitsu. You said it three times already. You’re the lucky one. At least it’s only Sister Hijiri who will kill you. I’ll get killed by her, then killed a second time by Unzan. If I thought I could fly without crashing into a ditch somewhere, we’d be back already.” Ichirin’s exhaustion was possibly even deeper than Minamitsu’s. She’d vented so much frustration in the form of danmaku that she’d found herself entirely spent afterwards. “Hey…Thanks.”

“For what?”

Ichirin would have smiled if she hadn’t been so exhausted. “Making sure I worked everything out, I guess.”

“Hey, I should be thanking you. You’re the one who dragged me along.” Minamitsu weakly patted Ichirin on the back, but all it really did was make Ichirin’s head hurt more. “And here I thought this whole thing was about making me feel better.”

“Oh yeah, I meant to ask…What was it that had you so down in the dumps, anyway?” Ichirin had found the question still weighing on her mind even up to when she’d woken up in the Shrine this morning.

“Ugh…” Minamitsu groaned weakly, “Okay, I’ll tell you. Only because you weren’t doing well either. I know you were crying last night.” Even so, she made Ichirin wait a few minutes longer. “It’s really embarrassing…”

“‘Mitsu, answer the question or I’ll hit you with a shoe.” Ichirin growled.

“Fine.” Minamitsu whined. “With all the rain we were having, I found myself stuck under an awning in the village with a guy who I think settled from the Outside World.” Ichirin raised an eyebrow. There were precious few of those settled outsiders in the village. “I, uh, may have…said some things.” Ichirin waited. “...I may have offered something.”

“Oh, ‘Mitsu…” Ichirin sighed disapprovingly. “And, what, he said no?”

“Worse.” Minamitsu replied dryly. “He told me a story about his late wife. Told me how he proposed marriage to her on a ship, on the open sea. I don’t know - It shouldn’t have really affected me, but…something about it just got to me. Reminded me that I haven’t seen that endless sea in…I don’t even know how many years now. I existed to cause terror there, but that guy had one of the happiest moments of his life happen there. It just…made me wonder what place I had in the world.”

“So you went to the blood pools?” Ichirin asked. Her blood-stained uniform had been proof enough.

“...Yeah. It’s the closest thing I’ve got, these days. But when I went…it just rang hollow. I didn’t feel anything, Ichi, so I didn’t stick around. That’s why I was so out of it. If even the blood pools weren’t doing it for me anymore, then what hope did I have?”

“...And now?” Ichirin almost didn’t want to ask.

Minamitsu remained silent for a moment. “I think that…I’ve got more than I realised. I just needed a reminder. And a reminder not to try and talk up strangers during thunderstorms.”

Ichirin laughed involuntarily. So, it had been near enough the same issue that she herself had been struggling with. Minus the offers. She slapped Minamitsu on the back, which just made her clutch her head and whine. “Well, look at it this way, Sister Hijiri can kill you for getting drunk and partying, but at least she won’t know to also kill you for trying to make, uh, offers to random villagers.”

“...I guess that’s some small consolation.” Minamitsu weakly replied. “You did help, Ichi. If you hadn’t come to see me, I’d probably have kept wallowing. Thank you.”

Ichirin did manage to smile this time. “Well…you helped me too. And Kokoro helped me.” At the end of the day, wasn’t having friends who could help you what everything was really all about? “C’mon, let’s get back to the Temple. Maybe Sister Hijiri will only make us sit in the Lotus pose for twelve hours instead of sixteen.”

“Can’t wait…” Minamitsu groaned. “Some celebration this was…”

And on they trudged, like prisoners marked for death, even as the bright sun of spring shone down on them.

Gah, >>3244 here with a minor note. Because of the character limits I had to shift some things when posting, and I somehow ended up losing a paragraph in one part.

>The goddess gave a great exhalation [...]

“No, no, great goddess, there is truly fault on the part of at least some of the great-tengu. I’m sure a few could have done a little better to make sure their schedules were clearer,” the tube-fox replied, bowing deeply. The razor-sharp smile had renewed itself on her face. She casually named off a few names, casting their otherwise vaunted positions among the great-tengu as relatively unimportant. Though she remained straight-faced listening to the fox, there was a flicker of interest in the goddess’s deep red eyes.

>“Well, I don’t know what political game [...]