X day, O month

Silence has become the habit of the Hakurei Shrine. I paid yet another visit this morning to find it empty as usual, yet somehow the air felt heavier. There was a feeling of overwhelming solitude. No sign of the shrine maiden, Hakurei Reimu, could be seen anywhere obvious. Many times recently, I’ve feared the shrine might be abandoned at any time. Could the next visit be the end of the end? I was immersed in this anxiety when the sound of sweeping brought me back to myself.

Following the sound, I came upon a rare sight these days: the hermit Ibarakasen. Once a fixture of the shrine and its gatherings, she became a more uncommon visitor in the past few years following a sudden disappearance and reappearance. However, her visits to the Hakurei Shrine have seen a sharp uptick as of late. It seems she started showing up more regularly within the past couple of weeks. This marks the second week I’ve encountered her more than four days out of the week.

“Reimu is out of sorts,” Ibarakasen admitted after some pressing about the Hakurei shamaness, continuing in sweeping the neglected walkways as we spoke, “but what can be done for it? She gets this way from time to time. She has little motivation in the best of times, and there’s little anyone can do, much less me, to shore that up. I’m just picking up slack so things don’t get any worse. There’s nothing more to it than that.”

While it’s certainly true that the resident medium and keeper of the shrine is notoriously unmotivated, doubts rage as to how typical this degree of lethargy is. There have been past episodes where the shrine has also appeared nearly abandoned from lack of evident activity, with the cause being everything from sudden sicknesses to binge reading on Miss Hakurei’s part. Ibarakasen has filled in for her in some of these instances. Nonetheless, neglect hangs particularly heavy over the shrine at the moment. Case in point, the walkway went possibly weeks without sweeping before the helpful hermit stepped in, and became piled up with leaves, acorns, and dirt.

Sources in the village paint a grim picture as well. “I thought she was stocking up for a party. I’d worry a little if she were having it all to herself,” says one sake vendor, remarking on a recent large purchase by the shrine maiden. Meanwhile, a certain tea shop’s employee noted that, though she’s ‘a pain’ and ‘a bit stingy’, they’ve noticed a lack of patronage from Miss Hakurei. “She’s spent a lot before, but I haven’t eaten this good off of her maybe ever,” reports a rice cracker seller. Beyond these comments, no other purveyor of foodstuffs or other everyday goods has seen Miss Hakurei lately, all expressing some concern given her otherwise regular patronage.

Later, while hauling away a tray laden with dishes from the back, Ibarakasen swiftly and emphatically denied that Miss Hakurei might be living off of rice crackers and sake. “She has bad habits, yes, but I’ve never let her get that bad. While it can be easier if she drinks herself drowsy, she makes an absolute mess if allowed too many rice crackers. Even if it’s a battle, I keep her fed. That said, it wouldn’t kill her to come out and have a proper meal at table.”

As far as the festival announced in answer to the upcoming Moriya Shrine festival announced some time ago, that appears to be called off indefinitely. I saw numerous boxes that looked to have been hauled from the shrine’s storage lying about; I was asked firmly not to touch any of them. Preparations had been in progress for an antiques and curios exhibition, according to Ibarakasen, before Miss Hakurei suddenly became harder to contact. Whether those two things coincide, she claimed ignorance, having not questioned Miss Hakurei about it directly.

Many questions remain unanswered to date. Regardless, one thing remains clear: without support, the Hakurei Shrine is apt to fall into ruin once more. For reasons to be determined, Hakurei Reimu has become almost a shut-in and has left her normal duties to those willing to help. Yet, how long can that help last? Miss Hakurei’s lacking social network provides few substitutes, and it doesn’t seem likely that figures like Ibarakasen will be in a charitable mood forever. Once their help is exhausted, what will happen? It’s my hope that we never find out.

Still clad in her ceremonial tengu garb, Aya threw herself down in her seat, fanning out her wings, relieved but also irritated. Scraps of half-laid-out papers lay haphazardly across her desk. A lot of the material, she opined, was now less than fresh. At best, perhaps some minor touch-ups could be done to make it more ‘current’, but she hated using rhetorical tricks to stretch bad material. She also resented that many of the photos taken would probably have to also be scrapped. All of the business with the Moriya Shrine and its fickle, closed-off goddesses had been having a knock-on effect on the Bunbunmaru.

She pulled a closely bundled stack of notes and half-written pieces closer and looked over them yet again. Journalistic pride all but required her to crow from the rooftops that it was all about the story. Yet, looking over images of the Hakurei Shrine and its neglect, Aya felt a sting of worry. In all this time, not once had she managed to speak to Reimu. When it wasn’t a hermit keeping her away, the shrine maiden’s own sullenness gave no opening for questioning. Struck by a thought, Aya quickly scribbled “Bring drinks?” on one of the drafts and circled it. Not the most innovative plan, for sure, but it was a work in progress.

Setting that notion aside, to the pile of photos, she joined a few fresh snapshots. These featured an entirely different backdrop: the Moriya Shrine. She gave a joyless smile at the memory of today’s chance ‘lead’ having all but walked up to her after a lack of chances to search. Nothing like pursuing one’s hobby on the job.

Aya took up her pen again and began composing a new draft. Something had to be done with her latest notes.

---

XO day, O month

In the course of other duties, I had the privilege of visiting the Moriya Shrine. Shown to the veranda of the lecture hall, I took tea with the resident shrine maiden while discussing business. As we talked, we were joined by someone unexpected: Komano Aun, the lion-dog most often seen at the Hakurei Shrine.

Based on my recent investigations, affairs at the Hakurei Shrine appear to not be in order. The shrine seems to be in a general state of neglect, with its infamous medium and sole proprietress, Hakurei Reimu, hardly ever seen on the grounds lately. A recent festival has even been cancelled suddenly and without explanation before solid arrangements could be made. Speculation has run rampant in the past weeks about Miss Hakurei and her soundness of mind and body. As far as I've uncovered, the shrine is being held aloft by the efforts of a few close to Miss Hakurei.

That does not, however, include Miss Komano. Previously seen so regularly as to be practically counted as a resident there, the lion-dog has been a noteable absence from the Hakurei Shrine since the shrine maiden’s sudden isolation. Questions as to her whereabouts netted little clue, leading me to believe she had all but vanished. As she tends towards places housing gods and Buddhas, taking it upon herself to be their guardian, I shouldn’t have been surprised that she might also be at the Mountain shrine. Nevertheless, it was my duty as a journalist to question the lion-dog as soon as I had the chance.

“I haven’t been around to know anything about Reimu,” Miss Komano said of the situation, obviously reluctant to share much. Repeated questioning got an unsure answer as to when she was last at the shrine. Neither did she seem to remember the details of the cancelled event. “I helped clean some things up. Or I tried, anyway.” At this point, Miss Komano teared up and needed consolation.

Asked if she was relocating to the Moriya Shrine permanently, she had this to say: “I don’t live anywhere. I just try to help out shrines and temples. That’s what a lion-dog does, right? But I kind of wonder if I can even do that right. It doesn’t matter where I go if I can’t do my job. I just don’t know now. I don’t know why I’m here.”

Further details weren’t forthcoming about exactly what transpired between Miss Komano and Miss Hakurei, but it’s obvious a quarrel of some sort has strained relations between shrine maiden and shrine guardian-beast. Previously, Miss Hakurei seems to have left much menial work to the lion-dog, up to and including sweeping the paths, wiping the verandas, carrying in firewood, heating the bathwater, checking over sales records, and many other critical everyday tasks. By exploiting Miss Komano’s naturally helpful nature, the Hakurei shamaness was able to obtain stable unpaid labour to offload undesirable work. “Sometimes I got fish bones to suck on. When she could afford it. Or a rice cracker. Never any tea, though. She said it was too expensive to let me have. But I know she drinks cheap tea.”

“Reimu’s really bad at saying thank you. There were a lot of times I did things and she said nothing. Nothing good, nothing bad. Just nothing. Most of the time it was like that. She expected me to keep doing stuff without even a ‘good job’. I hate to say it, but I didn’t feel rewarded,” the lion-dog said of the labour conditions at the Hakurei Shrine.

Based on the picture of the situation laid out by Miss Komano, it shouldn’t be any surprise that she won’t likely return to the Hakurei Shrine anytime soon. Yet, when I informed her of the shrine’s current state, she seemed regretful. “If I could just be better…” she started to say, but refused to elaborate further.

Does all of this mean the Hakurei Shrine is truly in decline now? With the departure of its guardian-beast, perhaps for good, the picture is grim. Of course, the question does remain about what might have caused this state of affairs. The burning of bridges between Hakurei Reimu and helpful figures like Komano Aun certainly suggests many things. Perhaps the Hakurei shamaness has shed some of the few inhibitions that keep her from total despotism against youkai. Perhaps Miss Komano is a lucky escapee from being first in a line of victims. Or maybe Miss Hakurei has simply started to crack under the pressure of her position. Given her unreasonable isolation, knowing may prove difficult.

OX day, O month

The fall colours deepen and the Hakurei Shrine is still as dormant as it’s been in the past few weeks. The resident shamaness, Hakurei Reimu, after events as yet unknown, has largely ceased acting in any public fashion. She has been spotted outside the shrine as of late, but never for too long and always with the minimum interactions possible, making herself relatively inconspicuous in both dress and bearing. It seems that she’s usually out shopping for snacks and alcohol on these excursions. Pressing Miss Hakurei for comment during these outings has yet to produce any result beyond ill-tempered denials.

Having only just escaped a potential heated moment in the village, I withdrew to have a look around the Hakurei Shrine once more and bask in its sombre tranquility. I arrived at the main hall when I noticed a diminutive figure skulking away as if trying to flee unnoticed. My journalistic curiosity piqued, I detained the figure with superior tengu speed and strength, only to behold the ineffectively thrashing sight of Kirisame Marisa, human magician and noted friend and rival of Hakurei Reimu. A jingle of coins hitting the ground sounded, dropped from her hand.

A strange thing I’ve noticed in my investigations into the Hakurei Shrine has been the random mysterious donations found in the donation box. On most days, one would never expect to see more than leaves or other detritus stuffed in by faeries, tanuki, or others of that ilk. Yet, time after time, I saw the glint of small coins on various days, as if spirited into the box by some whimsical god. When I asked hermit Ibarakasen, the current most regular custodian of the shrine, she denied any knowledge, and I staked out the donation box in hopes of catching her in the act, to no avail. In retrospect, it seems obvious that it was more a matter of timing than anything. In every case of the mysterious offerings, Miss Hakurei was absent for a period of time.

Once I had her calmed down, Miss Kirisame was most concerned with whether or not the Hakurei shamaness was present. “I really can’t stay around too long. You never know when she’ll [referring to Miss Hakurei] get back. I don’t really want to talk to the hermit, either. She’s too much of a pain in the hind-end.” Asked if she was the only donator as of late, she had this to say: “I haven’t seen anyone else offering anything. As far as visitors, there’s me, the hermit, you, and a couple of others. Nobody from the village, for sure. So, you know, nobody normal.”

I was able to extract a promise for further comment later and caught up with the witch at Geidontei in the village that evening. In a less excitable mood, if not outright subdued compared to the norm, she detailed her own lack of presence around the Hakurei Shrine as of late. “She’s been really hard to talk to lately,” she said of Miss Hakurei. “There are times where she’s like that, but this is something else. I’ve tried. I’ve really tried. It hurts when words don’t get through to a friend. That’s the truth.” That difficulty communicating, she says, stems in part from the shamaness’s present intractability. As to what she’s being stubborn about, I was surprised to hear Komano Aun’s name mentioned. “Reimu treated her okay for a while. Not great, but okay. Then, all of a sudden, they had this argument over something. I think it was an argument, anyway. Whatever it was, she goes and kicks Aun out. She says Aun left on her own, but I know better. And that’s what doesn’t sit right with me. That girl didn’t deserve that. Reimu didn’t want to hear that, but I said it anyway.”

Recently, I ran into Miss Komano at the Moriya Shrine and gleaned from her that her treatment at the hands of Miss Hakurei was less than ideal. The nature of their disagreement and her departure remains unexplained as of yet. Hearing that the lion-dog was at the Moriya Shrine, Miss Kirisame didn’t appear surprised, though she did seem more downcast at the notion. Asked why she hasn’t visited Miss Komano, the witch had this to say: “That place is… hard to visit. That shrine maiden there is a weird one, and there’s always tengu hanging around. No offence. It’s a bit much, is all I’m saying. In any case, what good would it do? I don’t think I can convince Aun to go back. Even if I could, I’d still have to convince Reimu. Easier said than done, as you can imagine.”

“Even if we’re not on the best of terms, I can’t just sit by and let her go to seed,” was Miss Kirisame’s eventual comment on the phantom donations. Most of the donations consisted of small change from purchases in the village. Based on what I saw, I would figure the total amount to be enough for a few rice crackers. “She’s still a friend. I can’t do much for her, so I’m doing what I can. Not that I’m going to break my own bank doing it.”

Asked what she knows of the current state of the Hakurei Shrine, Miss Kirisame offered little insight. She herself seemed unclear on many aspects of the shrine’s lacking upkeep and lagging business. Despite her awareness of Ibarakasen’s presence, she looked slightly caught off-guard when told that the hermit was feeding her friend and sweeping the grounds. One small insight she did inadvertently offer was that others visiting included noted oni Ibuki Suika. However, the witch couldn’t say what those visits might be about, just that she herself often dodged the oni as she came in to make her surreptitious donations. Should I encounter her in future investigations, I will be questioning Miss Ibuki.

For the time being, Kirisame Marisa remains a friend of Hakurei Reimu’s, albeit with their friendship somewhat under strain. The issue of lion-dog Komano Aun’s departure has become a point of disagreement and has left the witch with concerns about her friend’s management of shrine affairs. Perhaps the future may bring reconciliation. As far as Miss Kirisame is concerned, all it would take would be frank dialogue and a willingness to admit fault from Miss Hakurei. Until such time, the diminutive witch will continue sneaking her equally small donations into the Hakurei Shrine’s donation box as a form of covert support. Given that donations usually attend prayers, I closed by asking Miss Kirisame what she was asking the gods. “For Reimu to not be so thick-headed.”

---

Despite what she said in the interview, the little witch did pay a visit to the Moriya Shrine soon after. Aya couldn’t be sure, but she felt that her own suggestion had played a role. As she watched over the witch and the lion-dog talking from afar, she felt a certain hope that she couldn’t quite name, uncertain and a little fearful. There was no reason to hope for such a small thing to be any sort of catalyst. Yet…

At length, Marisa sped off in the air on her broom, leaving the mountaintop shrine behind her. The lion-dog’s reaction to the conversation was muted. She appeared troubled as she swept the large shrine walkway. Aya gnawed on the end of her pen. Curiosity similarly gnawed at her, yet she felt she couldn’t go down just yet. The story still had yet to play out.

XX day, O month

The Hakurei Shrine in its present sombre mood has a strange magnetism for animals. In my visits, I’ve played with stray dogs, petted strangely tame rabbits, fed birds of all sorts, shooed off tanuki, marvelled from afar at deer, and even startled a troop of prowling mountain monkeys. Some of this draw can be accounted for by the presence of Ibarakasen, known ally to animals, able to command them with an ease befitting her hermitly stature. A few of the animals I encountered were likely her familiars, trained to carry out work in places eyes won’t normally follow. However, just as many were simply wild animals or roving pets, maybe drawn by the hermit’s presence. Ibarakasen offered little view either way. “I don’t go out of my way to draw them here, if that’s what you mean,” she claimed when asked about the less noticeable visitors. Indeed, at least one seems to come of its own accord.

On one occasion, with the hermit turned temporary keeper of the shrine absent, I wandered the grounds with a bit more freedom and was able to get closer to shrine maiden Hakurei Reimu’s domicile. A glint of red in the soft autumn sun had my pulse quickening. Had I stumbled onto Miss Hakurei in the open for once? Curiously, though it turned out that I hadn’t, I wasn’t disappointed. The reason was spotting an unexpected loiterer. Pacing near the shamaness’s rooms was a normally underground feline. Not just any cat — this was the kasha Kaenbyou Rin, known more familiarly to many as Orin.

Miss Kaenbyou is one of the many strange and often disturbing youkai of the Underground, as well as a pet belonging to the Palace of Earth Spirits, and thereby its mistress, the satori Komeiji Satori. Her appearance is often ominous due to being attended by vengeful spirits. Humans in particular find her an uncomfortable presence as she often whisks away their dead in her wheelbarrow to feed the Underground fires. Following the incident Underground that led to the emergence of hot springs on the surface, the hell-cat became something of a semi-regular visitor to the Hakurei Shrine for reasons hard to fathom. It’s speculated that she might have some particular interest in carting off Miss Hakurei’s body upon her death, given her disinterest in the living, but the shamaness appears nowhere close to her inevitable expiration. There’s also the simple theory that she sometimes gets fed at the shrine, one that seems patently ridiculous considering its primary resident’s notorious stinginess.

When I came upon Miss Kaenbyou, she was calling plaintively for the shamaness as cats are wont to do, pawing at the shutters outside her rooms pitifully. Noticing my presence, her guard immediately went up. The promise of dried fish softened her wariness around me, and she soon relented to my request for an interview.

“I haven’t seen [Miss Hakurei] in so long. I’m dying of loneliness out here,” Miss Kaenbyou opined on the topic of the shamaness’s confinement; perhaps a week had gone by, by her recollection. A bit of probing suggested that she sneaked inside in her feline form the last time the shutters were open. “This place is so cozy, y’know? There’s all these ghosts and spirits hanging around. Feels like home. Kinda like a graveyard but even more comfy. And Ms Reimu can be nice if you play it up a little.” Asked about the presence of other animals, in particular other cats, she puffed out her chest. “I’m their senior when it comes to Ms Reimu. She gets ticked off at most of them and shoos them off. You can’t be all demanding from the get-go. You gotta charm her a little. I try to tell them, but most of these youngins don’t listen. Of course, the other cats get a pass a lot of the time. They never thank me for that, the little ingrates.”

With the hell-cat now freely talking, at this point, I changed gears to approach the main topic. Though there is still room for speculation, my own probing into the matter has suggested a link with the departure of guardian lion-dog Komano Aun and Miss Hakurei’s recent inactivity. I put to Miss Kaenbyou the question of Miss Komano’s absence in hopes of any relevant comment. Her expression immediately soured at the mention of the lion-dog.

“Who cares about that flea-bitten half-pint? She acted so big, chasing me off even though I wasn’t doing anything. She’s not a lion or a dog, so what the heck is she, even? What’s that horn about? Or that shirt? None of it makes any sense.”

From this account, it seems interactions with the guardian statue-beast were mostly hostile. According to the feline, the lion-dog even physically ejected her from the shrine on a number of occasions, claiming it was for the shrine maiden’s protection. However, Miss Kaenbyou admitted that she wasn’t always treated brusquely. “Sometimes [Miss Komano] wasn’t always so serious about the job. Come to think of it, she was always in a bad mood those times. Usually going on about ‘Miss Reimu did this’ and ‘Miss Reimu doesn’t appreciate me’. I didn’t really listen, so I don’t remember most of what she said. Still, she made it sound like Ms Reimu was a real pill. Nothing like Ms Satori.” I interrupted her praise of her own mistress ask her opinion on the lion-dog’s absence. Her answer was a shrug. “I don’t miss her. A bit quieter, I guess, but at least I get some peace here. Hope she stays gone.”

Miss Kaenbyou having any grasp of the nature of the present situation seems doubtful. Having understood that fact, I gave her the promised dried fish and excused myself.

As yet, beyond those closest to Miss Hakurei, it seems few truly understand the state of affairs at the Hakurei Shrine. Is this a product of the shamaness’s lack of real ties to anyone? Has she brought this quiet catastrophe upon herself? I don’t think such a judgement can be made so far. What is clear enough, though, is that Komano Aun’s departure from the shrine continues to echo into the present. Until Gensokyo fully recognises the effects of this rift and moves to correct what has gone wrong, I feel nervous about the future.

---

Pulling open the shutters, Aya found that Reimu had, in fact, been absent the entire time. Irritated that she had gotten her hopes up, she slammed the rain doors, startling off the still-loitering hell-cat. She then returned home with the idea of drawing what little she could from the encounter. There was little hope for anything better than a fluff piece, assuming it didn’t end up in the pile with all the others, a difficult assumption to make with how hard approval for stories involving the Hakurei Shrine was to get nowadays. At least, Aya thought to herself with a bitter smile, someone seemed the least bit aware.

It had been a while since I’d been up to the roof. Being vice-president of the student council had taken away opportunities to goof off, even if I didn’t actually do that much. I still had to keep up a certain image, you know? Plus, I did help our world-weary, put-upon prez sometimes.

Because of that, though, my life was pretty jam-packed. Things that used to be important to me, like playing games at the arcade or sneaking out of class to hang out on the roof with Suika, weren’t so important anymore. When Big Sis handed me the key to the roof in exchange for my ‘coöperation’, things had been different: I’d had more time on my hands. I wondered in some ways if that was why she’d handed off something otherwise so forbidden to most of us students. Either that, or she knew I’d eventually take a tumble over the unsafe railing, leaving her minus one Arc-sized problem.

Either way, I felt nervous as I climbed the stairs leading to the roof, swallowing a lump in my throat as I fingered the key in my pocket. There was no telling what was awaiting me in the landing.

The previous night, as I was lying spaced out on my bed, pondering considering to think about going to sleep, I felt my phone chirp and vibrate. Somebody had sent me a text message, but I couldn’t imagine who it would be.

Hardly anyone wanted to talk to me that late in the night anymore, a fact that made me a little sad to remember; I sort of missed Suika and her weird drunk texts, even if she could be annoying a lot of the time. There was the occasional sudden remembrance of business and/or prodding-Arc-to-actually-do-business message from Madame President Hakurei. If it was that, then she’d keep on until I answered. And if I turned my phone off, a certain childhood friend would be ever so benevolently bashing me over the head about it in the morning.

Heaving a sigh with the weight of the world hanging on it, I flipped open my phone to see if the prez was indeed dropping a planet on me.

heyyyyy cn u come 2 the roof tmrw??? got sumtn joozzy 2 share! its aya btw lol

I blinked in disbelief. First of all, how did she get my number? I didn’t remember ever giving it to her in all the times we’d talked. I felt a little bit of a blow to the gut remembering that she’d never even asked. Then there was the fact that she’d pretty much blown me off, and not in a good way. I didn’t have anything of use to her, she’d told me. No reward, all risk… or so I liked to think.

only if u wear something 2 get my <3 racing, I replied, smiling a little bitterly at myself. Even if she had everything over me, I’d still do anything for those long, shapely legs.

My phone buzzed not even seconds later. She was ridiculously fast at this. LOL it is u! but…… ok<3<3 ill wear sumtn nice jst 4 u xoxo jst come 2 the roof pls!!!

I texted back a noncommittal affirmation and flopped back on my bed, feeling a bit disgusted at myself. Here I was, leaping at a mysterious invitation from a girl who, whilst attractive and not disagreeable to me, had only ever been someone I could deal with in a transactional way. Was I really that desperate? That starved for attention?

The answer was ‘yes’, of course. Neither Alice nor Marisa had given me much face-time in the past few weeks, and Reimu had been pretty severe about ‘keeping things professional’. And there were the others who seemed to have moved on when I wasn’t looking. I’d been left to play dating sims, read girly mags, drink myself to sleep, and generally fall away from the regular fabric of youth social life. Life had become one long string of daily chores and tasks to fulfill, filling time rather than truly making a difference to anyone. Thinking about it that way, it was no wonder I’d been down in the dumps and a bit eager over any sort of invitation.

As I approached the landing the next day, I was newly assailed by doubts about this little rendezvous. There was definitely something fishy about a girl who had no reason to talk to me suddenly wanting to talk, much less inviting me to meet after fishing my number up from somewhere. If I’d had any real enemies, I’d have suspected it was a plot to lure me up to the roof for an assassination…

...surely, none of the girls I’d interacted with over the past few months hated my guts that much, right?

I had to laugh at myself. For all that bravado I wielded, I got nervous just like any teenaged boy faced with the possibility of being alone with an attractive girl. Never mind my whole image as vice-president of the student council or even as Arc the loveable, rakish delinquent. Those were just representations of Arc the boy, who was a small, small boy at the core of things. And he had an overactive imagination that cobbled together scenarios from too many dating sims and manga.

Pulling myself together, I took a deep breath and found the key to the rooftop door in my pocket. I put it in the lock and tried to give it a turn. However, to my surprise, the lock was already undone. I turned the handle, and the door came right open onto the roof.

I squinted walking out into the sunset-lit roof. Someone was waiting for me at the other side: someone with black hair and long legs showing in the cool air.

“Yo, Aya!” I called out, my voice only a little shaky with my nerves. I had to approach with a firmness in my step. Otherwise, she’d probably eat me alive.

She turned around to meet me with the wide-eyed, almost leering grin I’d come to know and love, beaming a sense of fae energy into me with her gaze alone. There was a note of surprise to her expression, subtle but nonetheless noticeable. Then again, I’d left her hanging more than once, so I couldn’t blame her if she thought I wouldn’t show up.

“And here I half-expected our accomplished vice prez to be too busy for the press,” Aya said by way of greeting. She didn’t move away from the railing. Clearly, she was waiting for me to come to her. She threw an easy, airy wave that I pretended not to notice.

“I think you might have the wrong school,” I jibed back, putting on my own devil-may-care smile and shrugging a shoulder. I kept a distance, not eager to approach the edge. Suika had dangled me over it one too many times for my comfort. “Accomplished? This school’s vice president? Come now, Ms Shameimaru.”

“Well, naturally, the president gets all the credit. It’s only those with an inside look who know who to really blame for the successes.”

The remark felt like a backhand to the face. Still, wilted though I was inside, I kept a tight smile on. “Ah, yes, the illustrious successes of our club-saving initiatives. And our money-saving initiatives for the clubs we couldn’t save. Fills me with pride, it does.”

“That’s just how it is, isn’t it? No jamming up the gears if you need the machine to change the system, right?” Aya’s smile waned a little. There was a clear sardonic note to her words.

A heavy silence descended between us, during which time Aya waved again for me to move closer. Despite my misgivings, I gave in and walked until we stood side-by-side against the low railing.

Losing the smiling politician façade, I craned my neck down, brushing some of Aya’s lustrous black hair out of the way to speak in her exposed ear. “How’s Himekaidou been?” I asked in a hushed voice, as if saying it any louder would invite some impending disaster.

“Distraught. Withdrawn. Disheartened,” she murmured back in my ear. Her answers were pronounced in an almost loving clarity, delivered through a cocked half-smile. Though they were clearly meant to deliver a bite of venom to me, I felt a tingling in my neck listening to her. Once more, self-revulsion made a pit in my stomach.

“I’m sorry.”

“Oh, but she was mopey so much of the time, anyway, club or no club. Even if she came in, she had no real motivation. Not enough to do real legwork. It was all I could do to get her to do some busywork instead of holing up in the corner of the clubroom. No one can fix that poor girl. It’s hardly your fault.”

“But…” I had no real words for how I felt. I just couldn’t fully accept that I’d been part of destroying Himekaidou’s one real connection to the world.

Aya let out a sigh, leaning away from and turning around to lean her backside against the rail. “God, Arc, I didn’t call you out here for this. Honestly. You can stop apologising and telling me how bad you feel. That whole business is behind us, okay?”

“Then, what did you call me out here for? I could have sworn Journalism Club prez Shameimaru had no more use for boys like Arc — especially when they’ve done away with her club.”

She shook her head slowly, almost pityingly. “I mean, you’re right. About me nursing a bit of hurt over that. I do still feel raw, mistreated, and generally kicked around. Especially after all we did together.” There was a long pause where Aya looked troubled. For her to be lost for words was rare. After a few moments, she gave a strained smile, forcing a laugh. “I bet you’re laughing at me, aren’t you? Thinking I’m a real fool of a woman. Look; I kept my promise. Come on and have a look. This sort of thing gets your heart racing, right?”

“Aya, please, I don’t—” I whipped around abruptly to face her, only to lose all of my momentum as soon as I actually took a look at her. With no real understanding of why, I let out a little chuckle.

Aya had gone for an understated, conventional, office lady-luscious sort of look, close to her normal school uniform but just different enough to make an impact. She’d shed the usual jacket for a short vest and a long-sleeved blouse that described the soft swelling around her chest very well, not transparent enough to give me a glimpse of brassière, simply and matter-of-factly showing off where her waist tapered. The habitual pleated skirt, too, had been swapped for a pencil skirt that picked up where her shirt had left off. Of course, the real attraction could be found once the lines of her body reached her well-toned thighs: white stockings covering the entirety of her long, curvy legs, emphasising just how far on they stretched.

I’d seen far racier views of Shameimaru Aya, but something about the clean, almost chaste look of her did send my heart pounding.

She frowned and moved as if to hide herself. Maybe it was the subtle layer of makeup she had on, but her cheeks looked a little red. “You are laughing.”

“It’s not… You don’t look bad at all. You’re, um… I really like the way you look. Honest,” I babbled in a pititful display of my calculated cool dissolving all at once.

“You did laugh, though. I heard it.” She turned slightly as if to hide her face, fiddling alternately with her tie and the short ponytail she’d gathered her hair up in. “But, well, thanks. If you mean what you say, that is.”

“I do mean it, Aya. It does get my heart racing. Especially the stockings. One question, though.”

Aya pushed the hair away from her ear. An otherwise subtle earring dangled from the lobe; I’d never noticed her having pierced ears before. “Yes?”

“Why go to all the trouble? We both know I’d have shown up anyway.”

The question drew another long sigh from Aya, she cradled her rarely-exposed forehead as if pained by my idiocy. “Why, indeed, Arc? We both know I’ll just doll myself up for someone I don’t like, after all. Yep, Shameimaru Aya is the sort to tease and lead on without any sort of interest whatsoever. She’s certainly never had a thing for someone like Arc, now, has she?”

I didn’t know how to respond for a moment.

Sure, she’d said she’d fancied me a bit in the past, mostly in first year. She even didn’t keep the door completely closed in the present. Still, we’d never done more than dance around each other, coming closer and closer, only to back off soon after. I’d doubted she had any real interest in me anymore, so I hadn’t tried to be any more serious about it. Even if she did have some kind of feelings for me, I felt I’d been distant enough that she’d lost hope for anything more than a brief diversion.

There was also a part of me that didn’t feel prepared to reciprocate. I didn’t dislike Aya by any means, yet there was something holding me back from fully giving in to fascination with her. Maybe it was the same insecurity I felt around everyone. Maybe it was because of how clearly she could be about how she felt that I was insecure. It didn’t help that I was weighed down with guilt every time I so much as thought about her. Even if she said she forgave me, I couldn’t forgive myself.

“All right,” I said at last, “hypothetically—”

“Yes, hypothetically,” Aya cut in with a roll of her eyes.

“—if you were, dare I say, fine with me, how could you love the guy who killed your club? The guy who left you hanging so many times? Who hardly gave you the time of day most of the time? If I was you, I wouldn’t stand for that. I’d be telling me, ‘Me, you’re a handsome bloke, but goddamn if you aren’t a jerk.’ There’s just too many lines that have been crossed, don’t you think?”

Aya paused as if waiting for me to go on. Seeing that I was indeed through, she took a deep breath, leaning in closely enough that I braced for a real verbal thrashing. “Arc, listen to me closely. Read what my lips are saying: I. Don’t. Care. About. That.”

“You don’t?” I asked in complete surprise.

Having clearly had enough of my nonsense, Aya closed the gap between us until we were face to face. I could smell a scent on her, some kind of perfume, not too floral, just a slight bit of a citrus-like sharpness. She hovered close, leaning up so that the tips of our noses just barely touched. Her warm breath tickled my face.

“If I did, I certainly wouldn’t be talking to you. And I’d probably be doing everything I could to ruin you.” Despite the joking lilt in her voice, there was a piercing character to the look in her eyes. I honestly couldn’t tell if she wanted to kill me or jump my bones. “Do I need to spell it out for you? Yes, I really do like you. I don’t know about love. That’s too tough to figure out right now. All I can say for absolute certain is that I like you, you absolute moron.”

Her warmth pressed against me, causing me to shift backwards, hitting the railing. Despite a jolt of fear on my part at being so close to the edge, something about that nervousness of teetering near the abyss heightened the sudden soaring feeling I felt. Yes, Aya liked me. She liked me enough that she was trying her damnedest to press her lips to mine. When she did manage to lock onto my lips, her kissing was fierce, unforgiving, leaving absolutely no room to shift away for a breath. I was so lost in Aya that I felt suspended in air.

Except when I opened my eyes to see that I was, in fact, suspended in air. I was hurtling towards the ground.

In those last moments before I hit the ground, I couldn’t even see Aya. All I had was a sense of clarity about everything: She had liked me all this time. She had wanted me to read between the lines and realise that she was serious. She had been scared of being rejected by me. She had worked up the courage to tell me because I was a massive idiot. We had kissed. I had fallen backwards off the roof whilst we kissed. I was about to die just as I found out that a girl really, truly liked me.

I cracked a smile. There was no more fitting end for such a fool. I wanted to laugh, but the primal terror of impending death prevented me. Frankly, there wasn’t enough time, anyway. The ground was rushing at me too fast to manage so much as a chuckle.

I really hoped there was a hell. Maybe I’d punch through the earth and drop straight into it.

---

There was a big blank following those last few words.

Aya eyed the scrap of writing blankly. There had certainly been times where Alice had treated Arc a bit roughly, but this was an order of magnitude higher on the scale of character violence. And, of all things, it had to happen when he was finally romancing the right girl!

She was about to cast aside the filched papers when she noticed that there was another page following the gruesome end of Arc. Most of it was blank but for a single message scrawled in large, forceful handwriting, rendered in red ink:

STAY OUT OF MY WRITING DRAWER, AYA!

Aya had to laugh. In that moment, she felt a weird sort of empathy for Arc as he plummeted to earth. All this time, she’d thought Alice would never notice. Showed what she knew.

At the very least, she had her surreptitious copies of the rest of Arc’s adventures. Tenma forbid she try her hand at rendering them with the same kind of love and attention.

A present for a friend. Sorry that it ended up a little rushed. Love you, big guy.

The door swung open with enough force to almost take it off the hinge, battering the already somewhat abused wall behind it. It opened into a single room mostly piled at random with newsprint and other detritus. Smells of soot and solvents hung heavy in the air, and different strata of dust had formed over everything, never swept away in the name of tidiness. Machines that would have hummed incessantly lay still, a cold, metallic graveyard.

Footsteps bashed at the floorboards as the room’s owner, Shameimaru Aya, almost hurled herself into the room. If someone had been near, they would have caught a bouquet of strong liquor generally permeating the air around her. She listed to this side and that crossing the room, her feet punching the floor with every stride, her hands in tight balls. One hand unballed and reached out for the corner of the room. There lay her hammock, practically falling from its hook. She lunged for her substitute bed. Her shoulder violently hitting the hammock took it all the way off the hook, and she unceremoniously plummeted to the floor, knocking her head first on the wall, then on the floor.

Cradling her shoulder, Aya lay in a twitching pile for some time before eventually sitting up and pulling herself flush with the wall. One hand balled itself up again. She struck the floorboards with the side of her fist, not causing any major damage but exacerbating cracks that had long been there. Then, she fell limply back against the wall, unmoving for a time.

Much of the hours prior, Aya had been first locked in meetings with her superiors. Following the last of those, the meetings had continued in their unofficial form at a nearby bar, where pouring drinks and supplying expected answers became part of her expected duties. After a certain point, joining in the drinking was also expected, and she drank until she resembled the red-faced prototype of a tengu. They had laughed at her drunkenness. They had turned her into a spectacle for their own amusement. She had loudly laughed along with them.

They had once more denied Aya her permission to publish. The situation with the Yasaka Shrine, they claimed, relied on a stable and unified public opinion — or at least the appearance thereof. Unless there was a demonstrated need, they concluded, Aya’s accustomed access to newsprint and ink was curtailed, and necessary funding to run her presses was still halted. Once she had found a new line of inquiry, they cajoled, such matters could be reconsidered. Nothing concrete could be said on how long such reconsideration might take.

Tengu society abhorred captive, caged animals. In particular, caged birds stoked the righteous fury of the average tengu. However, the image of such also held a certain utility in common consciousness. Those in Aya’s position could be said to be ‘in the birdcage’. They were viewed as kept, confined, waiting to cease existing. At the same time, even if their door were thrown open, they would eventually fly back in, if they ever exited at all. Freedom would come at a price of having their spirit slowly broken, at which point it would be no freedom at all. As they engaged in this transparent brutality, their superiors would nevertheless talk of the virtue of animals and their remaining wild. Nature’s force of wisdom — and at times wisdom of force — was to be neither denied nor questioned.

Regaining consciousness, Aya unsteadily groped around for the low table near the former site of her hammock. She tried unsuccessfully to turn on the electric lamp several times before finally succeeding, then dug around the pile of effects on the table in the dim light, turning over old newspapers, empty beer cans, food wrappers, and any number of other artefacts of static life in her search. At one time, a small notebook and pen had been set aside on the low table, to be used in times when Aya had taken to the hammock. The pen was a relic, a memento, not produced anymore, a gift from someone or other in her fledgling years; the ink had also been a gift, though it was still produced and not a rare thing to find, even if it was not the sort Aya bought habitually. Neither pen nor ink nor nondescript notebook, one of many similar such things of uncertain provenance, had seen exceptional use. Normal circumstances hardly dictated they be used.

Yellowing encroached on the edges of the earlier pages of the notebook. Lines in faded blue ink spiralled about the pages next to cross-hatch patterns and crosses drawn in messy rows, all of it drawn for the sake of testing the pen. Lines of writing lingered like shy ghosts, hiding amongst scribbles and strikeouts, rendered illegible by the cheap paper’s fading integrity. For pages and pages, this all extended, stories and headlines alike conjured more from chimerical notions than from observation, gradually fading, blotting, and being erased by time. A rueful smile crossed Aya’s face running her eyes along these disused pages. Then, like a hungry carrion-bird separating meat from bone, she ripped the many dead pages straight from the spine. Corpses of stories now lost wound aloft in the air, abruptly concluding as yet more parts of the disordered fabric of the floor.

The pen nib initially refused to impart ink to paper. Again and again, Aya ground the implement to its medium until, giving up its futile resistance, thin blue lines flowed onto the page once more. Words began to pour across the notebook, forming anew a story that would likely never be seen outside of its confines. Like a pond, it would sit still; like a grave, it would sit silent.

---

OO day, X month

In their infinite wisdom, those above me have decided I still can’t publish any of this. “Political sensitivities,” they said. No matter what I say, it all comes back to the still-yet-unconcluded talks with the Moriya Shrine, and apparently talking about even rival shrines is seen as jeopardising We Tengu’s position. Never mind that one shrine is infinitely more important to foundations of Gensokyo. Better to bury our heads in the Mountain, they believe.

Well, screw them. Even if I have to shove all of these collected pages in people’s faces and pass them around until they’re falling apart, I’ll still tell the story. Those bastards can all remain buried in their offices.

Things had been about the same as ever around the Hakurei Shrine. Silence hung around the place, so loud it might split your ears open. Not even the sound of the dying leaves falling to earth could break that curse. I listened for a while, hoping beyond hope that I might hear sweeping, footsteps — anything. I couldn’t account for all the recent days I’d sat perched on the torii, only to retreat in the evening with nothing observed, another day spent in vain. One more day of a further decaying shrine and I was apt to go mad and begin shouting for all Gensokyo to hear. Fortunately, I was spared this fate when I heard someone skulking about.

Like a frightened mouse on watch for the cat, I caught sight of none other than the minuscule frame of the black-and-white witch, Kirisame Marisa, peeking around the back of the shrine’s main hall, casting about this way and that in search of something or someone, looking prepared to take to her trademark broom and streak off if taken by surprise. All of a sudden, I had a pressentiment of some queer happening, if not an occurrence likely to traumatise the squat magician; I was getting a nervous sense of dejà vu from the scene in front of me.

I had resolved to not let obstacles be any matter between myself and the shrine’s nominal custodian, Hakurei Reimu. She had evaded me through happenstance numerous times, and had been entirely unpersonable when I had caught her in public outings. Some around Ms Hakurei had prevented me from speaking with her, such as the hermit, Ibarakasen, who had, despite asserting the contrary, taken to almost mothering the girl. Others, like Ms Kirisame, seemed to largely be avoiding the shamaness for their own reasons, even if they couldn’t stay away entirely. Still others lurked about, as yet unnoticed, intent on things I wasn’t privy to. My first encounter with that last category came soon after I caught the witch by surprise.

Just as this past day, Ms Kirisame had peeked out in search of an unseen pursuer. I knew that among them was the Hakurei maiden herself, the two having quarrelled not so long ago and having strained what good relations existed. The little witch eluded notice much of the time but was far from invisible, and I left her to depart the shrine unmolested on various occasions, her distant circling of Ms Hakurei not of immediate interest. This time, there was a subtle hurriedness to her manner. There it was in the shortness of her breath and the constricture of her pupils: the human magician was in an agitated state. I could practically hear her heart pounding from where I sat. Right away, my journalistic instinct snapped to attention.

“You idiot! Could you have picked a worse time?” the witch hissed at me once I had her arrested. Even as I stood pressing her bodily to the wall, she was frantic in her attempts to punch and kick her way out of my hold. She was like a frantic animal using every ounce of its strength to remain alive. Fending off her attempts at gouging my eyes, I prodded her as to the cause of her panic. Her voice became the shrill squealing of a kettle on the boil. “She found me! I was trying to get away and she saw me! After all this time!”

Ms Kirisame was answered by a gleeful, predatory voice that instantly sent a chill down my spine. “You don’t think I hadn’t noticed, did you? No, little girl, you’re not fooling any youkai with that third-rate sneaking act. I let you go all those other times, even though you were rude and didn’t greet me, ‘cos I’m so nice. So I’ll ask nicely that you don’t run when I have business with you,” growled the voice from below my shoulder. I was brusquely hauled off of Ms Kirisame by my shirt collar and effortlessly thrown aside. Having momentarily failed to recognise such an otherwise distinct voice, looking up from the ground, I was surprised to see none other than the oni Ibuki Suika menacing the poor human. “You can wait your turn,” Ms Ibuki threw over her shoulder at me before carrying the kicking and screaming magician away on her other shoulder.

Reminded of that scene, I was first relieved that Ms Kirisame was alive then uneasy, echoes of the same chill running all the way to the ends of my wings. The greeting I got from the witch when I swooped down, eyes wide and mouth slack, told me that she too felt an ill wind blowing. As I approached, she shook her head frantically, seemingly unable to even produce a sound. I only made it two steps before an overwhelming force seized my shirt collar, hoisting me off my feet like someone holding up a kitten by the scruff of its neck. “Look at you, saving me the trouble of coming up there. Good on you!” greeted Ms Ibuki in her most odiously cheerful roar. She quickly scooped up a fleeing Ms Kirisame and made off with the both of us in her best mockery of the classic youkai pastime of kidnapping.

As it turned out, the journey to the oni’s lair was a short one to the now seemingly always unlocked Hakurei Shrine storehouse. She roughly placed me down in a space previously occupied by the many dusty curios still dotting the shrine months later and, pulling the door to, warned us not to think of escaping. Despite demands to be let down, Ms Kirisame was unluckily slung over Ms Ibuki’s shoulder much of the time we were there in the storehouse, and even later was kept close to the oni. A dank, musty animal scent mingled with the expected smell of years alerted me to another party shut in with us. Striking a match and lighting her pipe, Futatsuiwa Mamizou, self-proclaimed tanuki boss, grinned at me in the dimness as she also lit a couple of lanterns. “Good of you to join us,” proclaimed Ms Futatsuiwa as if I’d had a choice in the matter.

In the words of Ms Futatsuiwa, we were gathered in the shrine storehouse as ‘concerned friends of Reimu’s’. I began to retort that we could just as well have done conducted such a gathering in a less confined and dirty space, such as Ms Hakurei’s actual living space, but I thought better of interrupting and let the prelude continue. “In the Outside,” Ms Futatsuiwa went on, calling on her credentials as a former resident outside Gensokyo, “there’s something called ‘exposure therapy’. To cut a lot of complicated stuff short, you get someone used to being around something they don’t wanna be around. In Reimu’s case, that’s people.” As far as the tanuki was concerned, the problem was that the resident shrine maiden had become unsocialised; she not only shunned contact with others, but she had become unable to tolerate it. In order to build her tolerance up, Ms Hakurei’s barriers would need to be broken and she would have to be forcibly exposed to the presence of others. Over time, the thinking went, she would stop showing a completely averse reaction and become used to having people around her again, eventually growing to want company. “We’ve had to start small, of course. We started with Suika over there, then dragged in the shorty. It’s about expanding her network. Once she’s used to one of us, we add someone else, see?”

“You’re worried too, ain’t you? Why else would you be practically stalking Reimu and writing your little notes?” replied an amused Ms Ibuki when asked why I was tapped to be part of the affair. I took umbrage with the idea that I was ‘stalking’ Ms Hakurei, but more of interest was her knowledge of my draft articles. She reminded me of her ability governing densities and demonstrated by bursting into a fine mist, like a cloud of dust, and reconstituting right where she sat before, recapturing the briefly freed Ms Kirisame before she could scramble away. In other words, I’d been stalked in the course of my work. “I mean, you ain’t publishing anything, so I’d have guessed you had a lot of time on your hands, anyhow.” Chagrined as I was, I had no response. Besides, a part of me was glad to have some acknowledgement from someone, even an oni.

This is where I wish I had some kind of groundbreaking conclusion to the story, but I’m afraid there’s not much to say. The rest of the discussion with the oni and tanuki was more of an ‘orientation’ than anything, going over the generalities of the little social calls being made, dragging more and more of Ms Hakurei’s acquaintances, close and distant, into the picture. I asked who in particular might be in consideration to be called upon next, but I was told that such considerations were ‘getting a few steps ahead’. Ms Ibuki soon departed with the black-and-white magician still held captive, now resigned to her fate, apparently set to visit Ms Hakurei soon after. Ms Futatsuiwa also quickly excused herself, seemingly unwilling to answer many questions about her own role in this little exercise. I thought of pursuing the two meeting with the shamaness, but I decided to trust that there was some method to the madness and leave off for now. The promise was that I would at some point in future meet with the Hakurei maiden at last. The circumstances are murky at best as yet, but I have hope that perhaps this can be where things turn around for the Hakurei Shrine and Gensokyo; I don’t dare acknowledge what might happen if not.

Ms Shameimaru,

I’ll be blunt in starting off by saying that I’m baffled as to why a youkai such as you would willingly tell me about these happenings. I must say that I find it dubious and difficult to trust, particularly coming from a tengu. Even if this isn’t some ploy, what could you possibly gain by telling me of all people?

I should be clear here: I have little influence regarding Ms Hakurei. My family’s hold is on the village, and even that is rather tenuous at times, I’ll be so bold as to admit. The present batch of elders hasn’t consulted me much on the matter of the Hakurei Shrine beyond very general queries, mostly historical. If there is anything to note there for my part, it’s that they have indeed made enquiries some months ago. However, I’ve not heard much recently, so there’s little I could share. Surely, someone of your craft could connive something out of the elders directly?

There was a noticeable break in the letter, a great blank before it resumed. To the reader, it resembled a taking of breath or a pregnant pause. Perhaps the writer had ruminated.

Forgive my harshness above. I’ve not been in the best health, as you well know, and my strength fails me at the most inconvenient times. There are even times lately where I feel my clarity of thought leaving me. In those times, I’m left terrified. Maybe it would be more accurate to say that terror fills me and robs me of thought? Either way, it leaves me in ill temper. My servants can unfortunately testify to that fact. In the interest of not excusing myself, I won’t excise the above.

The truth is that I also have noticed in a very roundabout way how Ms Hakurei has carried on. Most in the village don’t notice the Hakurei girl readily until she draws attention to herself, but those who do have whispered from time to time of her disposition. It’s apparent that she is, as you’ve surmised, largely shunning others. It wasn’t so long ago that I reached out to her through one of my messengers and was rebuffed. I’d hoped I might speak with her, albeit not out of concern as such. I don’t know where things might lead should she keep on in this way, but I’m not as convinced of an imminent collapse as you. Nonetheless, I might like to hear what she has to say.

What I can share is that there were questions from the elders about succession in regards to the Hakurei Shrine. With Ms Hakurei not unsusceptible to the passage of years, there seemed to be concern regarding how we humans might deal with the sudden departure of the current Hakurei. It’s funny to me in some ways how a situation can be so similar whether privileged or of meagre means. Everyone preoccupies themselves with what happens if we die yet hardly pay us mind in the present. That aside, it’s clear to me that they’re questioning her longevity. Given all we know, they’ve likely been pressuring her on the subject as well.

If I might be permitted some indulgence, I feel a great sympathy for Ms Hakurei at this moment. Even with the immensity of my position, did you know that my parents have exerted pressure on me to agree on a son they can adopt? I don’t know if this is some personal urgency on their part or a political current, nor do I care about the why. What I know is that such obligations bear a weight that often feels too much for my slight shoulders. You might not take Ms Hakurei for being so delicate as me, but look her in the eyes sometime. I need not tell you what you’ll see. Whatever our differences, we are of much the same spirit now. Whether or not she’s met with the same sort of pressure, I don’t know, but I do feel that strongly. Call it a woman’s intuition, if I can be so hackneyed.

As to the other things covered in your letter, I can only convey my sympathies as a fellow scribe who finds her pen paralysed by circumstance often. I’m fascinated by the intricacies you’ve indicated in tengu society, at the very least. Should you, fast an outsider in your own domain, find it in your interest to share more, I would be glad to listen. That is all I can promise. Anything you say will remain in the confines of my memory and committed to the depths of records no one will ever voluntarily plumb. I apologise for my weakness on this account, but you should know I’m not so influential as I appear at times. What should I, a human, have to say to a great-tengu? No matter how vaunted my position in things, I am one of many transient flames ever flickering in the wind, destined to become naught but a fleeting wisp of smoke. Will you remember me after I’m gone? You won’t and don’t tell me otherwise; I’d like if no one were to remember me, not even myself.

I’m left at a loss as to what else I can offer. However, I am glad for the companionship offered in correspondence. If there is no other way those of us who are truly alone in Gensokyo can find the barest measure of warmth in our chill, then let us at least have this. I wish you luck in whatever you pursue regarding Ms Hakurei. If you could convince her to talk to me, I would be ecstatic, but I won’t ask miracles. I simply hope that whatever you seek is found. After all, do those of us who write not wield our pens in pursuit of something far off? I have lost my sense of what I’m seeking, and maybe that’s indeed what’s plaguing me even more than my health. I am sicklier in spirit than anything. I pray that you shouldn’t meet with such an unpleasant fate as mine. Keep heart, no matter how difficult the going.

— Akyuu, present head of the Hieda family

---

OXO day, XX month

Of the great pieces of civilisation we can boast on the Mountain, one cultural touchstone closest to the heart of most tengu, not to mention many others, is the variety of hot springs dotted around the peaks. A quintessential pastime of one’s limited holiday involves a trip to one of the many hot spring inns to enjoy the natural delights. We as a culture seem secure in our enjoyment of these pleasures, so much so that there isn’t much curiosity about the possibilities beyond the Mountain. This leads me to a question I found myself asking recently: What about the Human Village?

The past couple of weeks saw me staying off of the Mountain, taking up an undercover position in the village. Though there are certainly public baths of varying quality in the village, the mindset is quite different to that of a typical hot spring. One gets clean and has a soak in either case, yes, but there is a sense of nature I find critical to the hot spring that’s missing in the public bath. The water that would be heated deep in the earth is instead warmed through a boiler or some other artifice and fed into large tubs, even if it’s fed in some cases directly from streams. The result is often sterile at best, lacking the sense of beneficial minerals in the water and feeling a bit thin overall on one’s skin. For that reason alone, I’ve tended to save village baths for more desperate times.

Also lacking is any sense of hospitality. If the water feels too sterile, the same applies double to the spirit of service from anyone manning the baths. At most, there is an attendant who boredly demands payment and points one to the baths. One might also encounter the occasional worker hard at work cleaning the unused baths; they will do little else besides, no matter how much they’re implored for assistance. There are so few frills to these public baths that one can’t even find a cool post-bath drink, to say nothing of a bottle of sake to enjoy. The little touches like decorations of mountain views aren’t even common, hardly to be found among the baths I visited. The experience bathing is a utilitarian exercise in scrubbing and soaking with little else on offer. Seeing this lack of true leisurely bathing, it might be easy to despair of the village as a cultural wasteland.

“There’ve always been a couple, haven’t there?” remarked an anonymous self-described man of leisure, turning to his companion at the bar. Having overheard my lament about a lack of springs as I was having dinner at Geidontei, the greyed human laughed and assured me that I was wrong about that. “I remember them from when I was young. There weren’t as many people running public baths in those days. Too costly in firewood and water both. Maybe a steam bath at best a lot of times. You pretty much had to go to the springs to get a good soak.” Before his friend could wax poetic on the springs, the balding retiree next to him snorted and cut in at this point: “Yeah, all the way through the farmland, out where anything could happen. I wasn’t dumb enough to be caught out there back then.”

I quickly interrupted a childish argument about who smelled worse at the time to ask the long-time friends if they could point me to any of the springs of their youth. The events of years ago, when dozens of springs popped up on the surface, spewing up vengeful spirits in the process, left a certain public distaste for most springs. Not helping matters was the immense odour of sulphur that hung around the village and elsewhere for some time afterward. As a result, those running facilities around them largely closed up shop and warded others away from the waters as a precaution. It was possible, they claimed, that one or two continued quietly operating, but they avowed no specific knowledge of any such springs. The most I came away with from the conversation was a general neighbourhood where one operated some time ago. Unfortunately, my search in that end of the village turned up nothing of any note.

Having been led on with only the promise of a hot spring, I was close to bewailing my fate while having yet another unsatisfactory soak in a public bath. Cutting through the pleasure quarters going towards my usual getaways, I was struck by a certain quietness of a nearby alleyway, not to mention a musky scent that seemed to emit from a hurried girl in a showy kimono, an otherwise common sight in those environs. This lady of the night was carrying bathing implements, suggesting to me that she was headed to a bathhouse, though I couldn’t see any obvious building of the sort nearby. I decided to follow her out of curiosity and tracked her down the alleyway mostly by the bright click-clack of her flashy red-lacquered geta. The trail soon ended at an understated edifice that could have just as well been a restaurant or an inn as anything, albeit eerily devoid of traffic. All there was to indicate that it might contain a bath was a discreet sign with a crudely-drawn rendition of the typical steaming water symbol. Steeling myself for whatever might be inside, I slid the door open and made my way quietly inside.

To my surprise, no one was manning the front. I thought that perhaps the attendant may have stepped away and called out softly, but I soon noted that there wouldn’t likely be a response. Set up on a counter in the front was a cracked plate and sign politely urging that patrons leave the appropriate payment. Yes, this strange, out-of-the-way bath was operating entirely on the honour system. Hardly more than what looked like spare change sat on the plate, and I was amused to see a scattering of leaves about as well. I exercised a measure of tengu noblesse oblige in leaving a nicely-sized coin to make up for the poor quality of the other customers. I had few expectations past this point, having figured out the likely source of the operation. Still, I had paid, so I was going to have a bath nonetheless.

The same showy kimono and flashy geta greeted me in the changing room, the only articles of clothing left there besides my own. As I entered the bath, I quickly noted the same girl already in the water, giving me a cautious stare from a long ways off. However, I had no time to indulge my curiosity further, as I was struck by a shocking fact: the bath was, in fact, a natural hot spring! Slightly clouded with sediment and sitting in its native rock, the waters roiled and steamed and gave off a heavy sulphurous scent. The décor may have been lacking otherwise, but I was certainly looking at the bubbling spring that my Mountainous heart desired. Eager for a soak, I quickly — but thoroughly — scrubbed off and made my way into the waters. Pride may compel me to say that it wasn’t as hot as a typical Mountain spring, but I can assure you that it was. Enraptured, I sank into the water with no intention of leaving for a good while.

Remembering my fellow bather all of a sudden, I engaged the suspicious girl in some light conversation, which she seemed none too eager to reciprocate at first. I had been careful enough to make myself inconspicuous, so I didn’t believe that she knew my true identity. My journalistic senses compelled me to prod at the girl and her odd sense of agitation. I started by asking her about the spring and the bathhouse. Her answers were terse and uninformative: the bathhouse had been there a while; she came around every now and again; no, she didn’t know who ran it; and so on. At this point, I could tell that she was deeply uncomfortable with any question posed, so I decided to put her further off-balance. I posed my working theory about the place’s management: this bathhouse was clearly a tanuki business, understated in its operations in order to serve a contingent of tanuki who entertained in the nearby brothels and perhaps others filtering into the village. Aside from a few unknowing walk-ins, anyone likely to be coming in or out was probably a tanuki. The mischievous mongrels were monopolising one of the few operational hot springs in the village for themselves, in other words.

Under the excuse that she had clients to attend, still soaking wet, the flustered girl hurriedly fled the bath for the changing room. I couldn’t be totally sure, but I thought I glanced a poorly-disguised tail poking from her rear end. What I could be sure of was that I wasn’t likely to be running into anyone else in the bath that night. Sinking back in and relaxing, I kept an ear out for a while but heard no other signs of life anywhere in the vicinity. As yet, it looks like the mystery of this hot spring is yet to be fully solved. Though it may be a tough job, I shall continue investigating. Look forward to updates as the situation develops!

---

With a wide but obviously uncomfortable smile, Geidontei’s poster girl finished reading the piece in Aya’s yellowed notebook. “Who could have known? Tanuki running a bathhouse! There sure are strange things about in the village,” she commented with a stiff titter.

“Well,” Aya crooned, leaning back on her stool, “we can’t know for sure, can we? I mean, that story was only about hot springs. Still, it was quite strange. Awful suspicious. But still quite the mystery. I doubt there’s anyone here who would know anything for sure.”

Both Aya and the waitress turned to regard the neighbouring stool. Their gazes simultaneously fell on the self-styled boss of the Gensokyan tanuki, the erstwhile outsider Futatsuiwa Mamizou, who pointedly looked the other direction, her ears flattened out atop her head and her lips pulled into a surly pout. She took a measured sip of sake, only to pull a face.

“Miyoi, darling, I think this one’s a little…” The supposed elder tanuki scratched her cheek and narrowed her eyes in search of her own meaning. Finding no words, she shook the flask to signal that she was referring to her drink.

“Eh? That’s strange. I could have sworn it was from the same bottle. Hold on a moment,” replied the waitress before flitting off to check the kept bottles, only stopping for a moment to peek at her only two customers before disappearing from sight. Aya smirked openly. The fuzzy mongrels were busy, that was for certain — perhaps far busier than she’d suspected and in more places than she knew.

Adjusting her glasses conspicuously, Mamizou cleared her throat. Aya inclined her head as if to ask what she wanted but said nothing, letting the obvious conversation hang heavy in the air between them. After a few moments of silence, the tanuki grumbled, fixing the journalist with a sour look. “Look here, if you’ve got something to say…” she began, only for Aya to hold up a hand.

“I wouldn’t presume to poke my nose into any business that isn’t mine.” Aya paused for effect, prodding her lip with her finger as she feigned pondering something before shrugging her shoulders. “Well, maybe I would. That’s not the point. The point is that it’s sure possible there might be some tanuki up to something around the brothels, don’t you think? Perhaps in them? I’m not too up on how you lot operate, but I feel like it’d be odd for anything to happen without the big boss’s approval.”

“Big boss, huh,” groused the tanuki boss. Cradling her chin in her palm, she propped her elbow on the bar, looking disgruntled about the whole topic already. She glanced over her shoulder after Miyoi but otherwise sat with her eyes fixed on the wall. “As if you tengu are any better,” she remarked after a few more moments of silence. “If this is about the other thing, I really don’t appreciate this kind of pushing. She’s—”

“—not ready yet. Yes, so you’ve said. Numerous times.” Aya’s voice lost much of its false, menacing cheer and became as brittle as dead wood. Gone was her smirk and the animation in her eyes that most would see. All that was easily disposed of with this interlocutor. “What are you even accomplishing slow-walking things like this? Frankly, I don’t think you care that much about her. It’d be so easy to keep things going at your own pace forever, wouldn’t it? Wouldn’t that be just so convenient?”

“You’re forgetting,” Mamizou snarled, rounding on Aya at last, “that our mutual friend’s got her horny head plunged right in this here sake barrel. If you think I’m fully in charge here, your observation ain’t too good for a journo.”

Aya rolled her eyes. “Listen, I may have problems back home, but it doesn’t mean I can hang around here forever. Tell her to let me in already. Knowing her, she’ll probably take it as a challenge. Worst comes to worst, she’ll give you a smack upside the head. What are you really afraid of here?”

The tanuki cringed, looking around as if an oni might appear from the shadows at any second. “For one, getting smacked by that girl. And, two, I don’t wanna upend the whole basket by getting hasty, Aya. We’ve got her talking a bit after so much struggle. Do you really wanna jeopardise all that? We might not get another chance if we screw up.”

Her point made, Aya got up from her seat and headed to the door, lingering there a long while with her hand on it, not quite opening it to the night air. She was aware of the risks involved, of course. Nevertheless, she couldn’t escape the nagging anxiety clawing away at her like a tanuki digging through the rubbish. The only thing that might be a balm would be any degree of certainty. Good or ill.

“If you can include the witch, you can include me. Tell that oni I need to be there next time. No more delays.” Aya took a deep breath before going on. Tugging the door open loudly, she stepped half out into the moonlit street. “If she wants someone to blame if it goes wrong, well, what have I got going for me at this point? Put it on my head. Oh, and I’m bringing a guest, too.”

Not waiting for any response, Aya put Geidontei behind her. She had hardly been in any mood for a drink. If the walk weren’t in the entirely opposite direction to her lodging, she might have gone back for a long soak.

“Hold up, you damn bird! I ain’t paying your tab!” shrieked a voice after her. It was too late, of course. All that remained on the street were a few black feathers and a chill night breeze.

Aya stood back fretfully. Despite the chaos, there were enough eyes trained right on her that she could neither advance nor retreat. It wasn’t particularly that Aya was thinking of running away, though it wasn’t that she wasn’t, either. Decision of any kind felt impossible. Acting at all didn’t seem like it would fix anything. However, what would inaction do? There seemed to be no winning. She could feel expectations piercing her from every which way, her assailants frenzied by the atmosphere of the gathering. Or were they even real at this point?

Maybe her anxieties had taken the form of the tanuki, the oni, and the hermit just to torment her further. She had somehow found herself condemned to an undying hell where her mind and spirit would be continually shattered and built anew, again and again.

Perhaps the wailing shrine maiden clinging to the hermit, practically clawing at her arms, was herself an illusion, a daemon of the mind made manifest. None of it — the room, the figures, the cold breeze that leaked in — felt connected to any reality that Aya knew. She half-expected to come to herself lying on the floor of her room, her hands still clasped tightly about her ears, eyes wide yet seeing so little. Everything would dissolve away and reveal itself to be yet another delusion.

Yet, everything seemed to maintain its solidity however much time passed. No spider’s thread had descended from the heavens. A look passed from the tanuki to the oni, who shook her head reproachfully. The minuscule ogre had a look in her eyes as if she couldn’t decide whether to be enraged or simply upset. She looked apt to spring upon Aya and inflict some sort of harm, though she would need to make up her mind on what sort. After several long moments of deliberation, the oni appeared to shout something.

A hand arrested Aya by the shoulder, startling Aya in its sudden realness. No matter how she twisted, it wouldn’t leave her alone. Another hand turned her suddenly to look at someone. A figure stood there that Aya tried to pick out through the haze of recognition. The witch — she had still been there. She mouthed insistent words to Aya, taking her by the arm and trying to lead her elsewhere.

The next thing Aya knew, she was sitting on a veranda. This was still the shrine. There was the donation box. There was the torii. There were the many stone steps. The grounds were absent any life save for a gathering of small birds. Damp leaves covered the walkway, the dank smell of decay hanging over everything. The lion-dog statues were buried in leaves and moss. Aside from a breeze blowing in intermittently and the soft trilling of the birds, the cool autumn air was still and quiet. Only a slight creak of wood next to Aya disturbed the peace of the scene.

“Still a mess. Guess that’s to be expected,” spoke the uncharacteristically even voice of the witch. Normally coarse and childish, there was an odd gentleness and femininity to her demeanour. The same small hand grasped Aya’s shoulder once more, giving it a firm squeeze. “What about you? You look ready to cross the river. If youkai can even do that.”

From somewhere deep within Aya, far away from herself, words seemed to churn up in a slow trickle, as if spoken by someone else. “Not even being remembered would be nice, don’t you think? Never having been there at all.”

“Oh, don’t talk like that.” Marisa ran her hand back and forth across Aya’s shoulder. Her eyes were dewey, almost doe-like, as she looked over the crow. Had Aya been herself, she might have joked that the witch, for all her magic, had the face of a girl who had finally known love. As things stood, she could only perceive in a vague way the troubled look of the little woman. “There’s only so much we can do. Only so much any of us can do.”

“That’s the problem, isn’t it?” replied Aya with a mirthless laugh.

The witch gave a wan smile at Aya, her expression like wet paper apt to tear apart at any moment, and she shifted her hand to rest atop Aya’s, clasping it with a firmness a human might find uncomfortable. In spite of its softness, callouses of labour and repeated wounds mottled the tiny, warm hand.

There were clearly words of some sort that wanted to assert themselves from Marisa’s lips, but the overwhelming silence of the scene drowned them out. All the two of them could do was sit and be battered by the calmness around them, adrift within the current of life and time moving onward. On occasion, Marisa peeked backward as if to see something happening a great distance off, even though all she could feasibly see was the main hall of the shrine behind them.

Time might well have carried on into its extremes without either having moved or said a word had the hermit not come padding around the corner. She regarded the pair with a nigh-maternal look that was equal measures disapproving, probing, and gently concerned. Taking a breath, she looked ready to launch into a sermon, yet words seemed to elude her for moments at a time, her concentration snared by the chirruping of the birds and the softness of the fading sunlight in the greyed sky. She finally opted to have a seat next to Aya and Marisa, taking on the image of an immortal hermit rendered in stone.

“I should warn you,” Ibarakasen addressed Aya, “that Suika is none too happy. The tanuki and I talked her down somehow, but she’s always been one to follow her own will. If you come loitering around here, I won’t guarantee your safety. Not for the time being. I suggest you not pursue your projects at the shrine any further for now. Suika will be fairly irascible for a time, I suspect.”

Furrowing her brow, Marisa looked over at the hermit. “What about…”

“She’s shaken but otherwise fine. I put her to bed as soon as I could get the others to clear off. Suika kept fretting, but I finally got the tanuki to walk her out.” Pausing momentarily, Ibarakasen’s rosy eyes flitted towards Aya once more. “Incidentally, stay away from the rear of the shrine on your way out.”

“I see,” was Aya’s detached response, only having heard the hermit’s words as if from a great distance.

“What’ll you do?” probed the witch. She had already collected her hat and put it back on, though she hadn’t quite let go of Aya’s hand. Her grip was suddenly shakier.

The hermit seemed to notice Marisa’s clasped hand and gripped both the witch’s and Aya’s hands carefully in her bandaged hand. Something reminiscent of gentle Mountain mist showed through in her gaze. She, too, contained a part of that staid, overwhelming silence.

“So strong. I’m kinda jealous,” Marisa murmured, her already uneasy smile becoming more and more crooked. “I could never just hang back like that.”

“It might surprise you to hear this, but I don’t disagree with wanting to push ahead.” Ibarakasen loosed her grip, leaning back on the veranda, suddenly looking weary and not at all the same imposing figure. She even heaved a heavy sigh. “I just can’t do it myself. The most I can do is hold things as steady as possible. Even if I sometimes also just want to shake her and tell her to get a grip. Neither of you is wrong. It’s just a difficult thing to deal with. For all of us.”

Having said all she could say, and repeating her warnings to Aya, Ibarakasen stood up and left after a short rest. Marisa stood up soon after. Her trembling hand still held onto Aya, perhaps even more fiercely than before.

“Come on,” she said to Aya, summoning her broom. She looked up to the greying sky and back at Aya. Clouds had silently gathered in a portent of a cold shower.

Aya truthfully had little mind to accompany the witch anywhere. However, the roar of silence around the shrine wouldn’t be drowned out in the rain, nor would it abate the lingering upset of an oni. She had no real next destination in mind, anyhow. More than that, something about the beseeching look in the witch’s eye made her chest tighten; neither could stand to be alone right now.

They alighted on the edge of the village and walked their way in, by which time a light drizzle had already begun to pour. Marisa guided them into a sweets shop whose proprietress effusively greeted the witch, prompting awkward smiles and glowing cheeks from the latter. Aya opted to not pry and quietly sat on a bench, quiet murmuring passing between the two humans for a time as she tried to focus her tengu ears on the sound of the rain above. Whatever might be going on in the witch’s life didn’t concern her.

“Life is happy in the village, is it?” remarked Aya when Marisa finally sat down next to her, a sudden feeling of annoyance having risen within her. “Congratulations, by the way,” she added with a deliberate lingering glance at her companion. Despite the intended barb, Marisa only gave the same gentle smile, and she softly grasped Aya’s hand once more.

“A bit. Though not that happy,” Marisa responded at length. She gave a soft laugh and released Aya, looking as if she had more to say but was holding back. “How about tea and sweets? I don’t know about you, but sugar always gives me a lift. My treat this time.”

A flicker of some much more intense emotion passed over Aya, but she tamped it down. Letting herself get riled up wouldn’t serve any purpose at this stage. “What a coincidence,” she said with honeyed venom, “I eat sweets when I’m down, too.”

Marisa turned and gave a signal, sending the proprietress racing off. Leaning back on the bench, her gaze remained trained on the ceiling for a while, in thought about something. Her smile had been tempered when she looked at Aya again. “Weird question, but I’m not really celebrating, right? I don’t think it’d be fair.”

“Can’t be happy with others miserable, is it?” Aya shrugged her shoulders. She wanted to put on an even more saccharine demeanour, but the sound of the rain had intensified, cleaning away the stains on her emotions. A silence as heavy as the one at the shrine resounded in her chest. She hardly needed to look at Marisa to sense that she felt that heaviness just as keenly. She took the witch’s hand this time, shaking her head. “I don’t know what to say here. Hard as that might be to believe.”

“Yeah, sorry. I’m just kind of doing whatever I want here — dragging you around, saying weird stuff. I know I’m being selfish. Can I be forgiven?” The witch removed her hat with her free hand, running her fingers through her wheat-coloured hair, which shimmered under the lamplight of the shop. Her hair cascaded past her hips, having grown longer and softer looking.

Aya touched her own hair and found it longer than she was accustomed. Time had certainly passed, hadn’t it? She had a strange feeling of having been roused from a midday nap, unsure if she was dreaming or awake. The days, weeks, months, and seasons had no meaning as they’d come and gone, yet Aya pined for them now that they were lost. The rain beating on the roof was carrying what remained away, leaving silence in its wake. She suddenly longed to fill it with something, anything at all.

Their conversation turned to more removed sorts of pleasantries with the arrival of their tea and sweets, sweet potato-and-chestnut fancies that served to cement the feeling of autumn. Tengu society had been successful at even keeping someone like the witch out, so she displayed enough of a childlike inquisitiveness about the Mountain that Aya could ignore the unpleasantness of the subject, smiling at the little woman’s doggedness in pressing her on the most inane topics. Perhaps, Aya thought somewhat ruefully, in a different life, Marisa would have made a better reporter than her. That human curiosity could be so boundless but manifesting in only fleeting examples stung Aya with regret, and she once again found herself pitying them as a whole. She wished that such small brilliances as the Kirisame girl could remain in perpetuity.

After a while, with the passing rain and the sweets shop having taken its signpost down for the day, Marisa suggested that they might move elsewhere for a drink and something more substantial than sweets. She named off a few possibilities aloud before strongly pondering Geidontei. The waitress there was fine enough to keep people around late, even if everyone else was getting home due to the weather, she reasoned. Aya wondered silently if either oni or tanuki was apt to pay a visit that evening.

“I’ll have to get back soon,” the crow parried. She gulped down what remained of her tea. Even with the certain finality with which she’d said it, she didn’t make any move to get up. “They’ll want me back, I’m sure. There’s always something to be done.”

“In this weather? Come off it,” objected Marisa. She seized Aya by the shoulder as she had done earlier. “Nope, I won’t hear of it. If anyone wants to complain, they can do it to me. And I’ll show them what’s what.”

Aya gave a chuckle. “Is that so? Well, all right, then. I’ll leave it to you. But let’s maybe go somewhere other than Geidontei. I’ve been around too much lately, and Miyoi’s probably sick of me for now.”

“Huh, didn’t notice you around at all.” The witch threw back the rest of her tea and stood up. “I was mostly joking, anyway. There’s an easier option.” Calling to the proprietress, she asked if a certain establishment would still be open. The place would normally be closed, but the pleasant woman assured them that exceptions could made.

Guided by lanternlight, they were taken to a place apparently of some relation to the sweets shop, an appeal made for a meal despite the hour. They were happy to accept whatever was to hand, which wasn’t sophisticated fare but was fine enough accompanying a late drink. There, Aya and the witch exchanged a lot of pleasant gossip about various figures in Gensokyo and other trifling subjects, more keen to simply soak in another’s company than truly talk about anything. Despite her shadow falling heavily across their thoughts, not a word passed between them about the Hakurei girl for the rest of the evening. The shrine and its silence and decay remained only as a distant image set against the long-darkened eastern sky.

[Weird] Party at the Hakurei Shrine Where Almost No One is Invited [Shrine]

XX day, OO month

If you weren’t paying much attention like me, you might have missed that there was an embargo on shrine news for a while because of the long-stalled Moriya Shrine talks. I don’t care about politics, so I wasn’t keen to cover that shrine in the first place, but the order was a blanket one on all shrines. That means it affected Gensokyo’s other shrine too, which was kind of weird. Out of curiosity, I decided to look into it and dug around to see if anything interesting had happened there in the meantime.

First up, plans for some antiques fair got upended at some point in late spring. Nobody’s sure why, considering it got a bit of advertisement at the time, and there was speculation that the shrine was hurting for donations. Everything apparently was left stacked around the shrine for a while like they were planning on still going through with the event, but there’s no indication anything actually ever happened. A few prospective kappa vendors never heard anything back, leading to some annoyed muttering around the Mountain for a time.

Either way, things got pretty quiet around there to the point that there were some quiet remarks about there being no traffic at all. Almost nobody who had gone up had seen the Hakurei shrine maiden. Some people were even talking like Ms Hakurei had maybe abandoned the shrine. A little bit of chatter suggests that she wasn’t seen much in the village either, though few people seemed to have paid her much mind normally.

Even weirder was how many people were said to be hanging around all the time, among them a hermit, an oni, a tanuki, a human witch, and a crow tengu. The hermit was at least helping keep the shrine in order, but the rest were apparently just there to harrass Ms Hakurei, who didn’t want to see anyone. As someone who also just wants to be left alone, I felt for the shamaness when I heard about all that. I was also a little curious, though. I couldn’t find anything about who that fellow crow might be. Why was some nobody chasing a story nobody else was paying attention to? It was a pain, but I had to find out for myself.

Images showing curios stacked around the Hakurei Shrine yard, the familiar main hall and donation box prominent in the background, were included. At least a couple of the images appeared to be from an older event, judging from the presence of others in the background. Speculative price tags were already affixed to a few lots in the newer images. Also included was a reproduction of a crude flier advertising an event at the shrine, followed by an image of a weathered handwritten note on the shrine office advising visitors to only leave donations and to come back at a later date for other business.

The first couple of times I went around the Hakurei Shrine, things were certainly dead looking. Snow was piled up enough to make walking around hard, and it was even all over the already sad looking donation box. When I tried knocking on the shrine office’s shutters, I got no answer. There wasn’t any sign anyone had left any money recently. There was even a gross layer of dust that had settled on the bells and shimenawa. If Ms Hakurei had any inclination to do her job, it wasn’t showing here.

Which brings me to the next weird thing. Dissatisfied, I came back a third time to see if anything had changed. This time, the snow was plowed; the dust was gone; and there were even a few coins in the donation box. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Even though there still was no sign of life from the office, I did hear sounds of chatter from around back. There was a bit of a festival energy to it, even though I didn’t see any signs of any event going on. Considering the season, it’d have been dumb to do any sort of outdoor event, anyway. Unsure what I’d find, I crept around towards the living quarters.

When I got around there, the shutters were thrown wide open despite the cold and mild snowfall, and I could hear a small gathering carrying on at some volume. The smell of warm alcohol hit my stinging nose along with the sounds of off-key singing. My blood ran colder than the outdoor temperature when I noticed that the singing was coming from an oni, who I quickly recognised as Ibuki Suika. She was dancing around for a circle of known faces gathered around the hearth: Hakurei Reimu, attendant of the shrine; Futatsuiwa Mamizou, tanuki gang boss; Yakumo Yukari, youkai sage; Moriya Suwako, native goddess of the Moriya Shrine; and Ibarakasen, Mountain hermit.

The next series of images was a mix of grainy, low-resolution shots and more professionally framed shots obviously taken by someone else. One was an obviously staged shot of the Hakurei Shrine’s rear side with its shutters wide open, showing a pristine room inside, devoid of anyone. Another was a similarly framed nighttime shot, the entirety of the shrine’s living quarters draped in eerie shadow. Also included were various pictures taken during different events at the shrine, each showing off the figures named at the gathering, their subjects looking unaware of the camera, probably taken from a fair distance off. The grainier images were harder to make out, mostly showing open shutters and unclear shapes that suggested a gathering of people. The clearest two showed a dispirited looking Hakurei Reimu with her eyes fixed on her cup, and a gleeful Ibuki Suika running towards the camera with her hands in a classic ‘claw’ pose, respectively.

I was stunned at the booze-reddened faces I was seeing. They were all carrying on, hooting and singing along with the oni, save for a couple. Ms Hakurei was uncharacteristically quiet and just nursing her drink, sticking close to the fire to keep herself warm. The hermit also seemed more interested in watching over Ms Hakurei and wasn’t too far removed from her all the while. Those two looked to be the only ones talking as the others carried on. In my personal opinion, the shamaness looked about as miserable as I’d be if some big-name youkai, a god, and a hermit invaded my place and threw a party. Of course, it’s hard to say without talking to her. I wasn’t about to get a chance of doing that, though.

It wasn’t too long before the little Moriya goddess pointed me out to the others, causing all of them to look my way. What happened next is a little scary for me to remember, so I’d rather let the pictures speak for themselves, but I’ll try for the sake of the readers. The gist is that the tipsy oni snared me before I could even move and brought me to the tanuki, who told me that it was a private party and that she and the oni were tired of snooping tengu. She was about to confiscate my phone, but the hermit told her to leave me alone. I used an argument between them as a chance to free myself, though not without the oni giving chase, cackling in glee as she ripped across the shrine grounds trying to catch me. If I’d been caught again, I was sure my wings might have been ripped off.

So, what was going on in the end? It’s hard to say. What I saw was some kind of party at the Hakurei Shrine, but it didn’t look like the shrine maiden herself was celebrating. If it weren’t for the hermit there, I’d have almost guessed she was being held captive by the oni and others. After all, not to brag, but I’ve been to a few celebrations at the shrine and have seen with my own eyes that Ms Hakurei gets just as loud, drunk, and obnoxious as the rest of them. If someone like that isn’t living it up, there’s got to be something up. The Moriya goddess being at a rival shrine was also pretty weird. I guess she’s not known to be as involved with her namesake shrine, considering it’s under management of a different god, so maybe she just has a lot of time on her hands. It wouldn’t be that surprising considering those talks that ended not that long ago. The others were also pretty suspicious, but that’s not saying much when they’re all naturally suspicious.

Incidentally, I never found out who that other crow might have been. The reception I got makes me kind of wonder if they didn’t meet the same fate I almost did. Super scary if true. If they are out there still, I hope they’ll keep investigating, because that’s the last time I poke my beak into this one.

Until next time, this has Himekaidou Hatate, idol of the Kakashi-pathic Report. I’ll look forward to your votes in the spring, kay?

---

Of all the times for the Moriya Shrine to extend an invitation, thought the thoroughly chilled and aching Hieda family head. Then again, her closest advisors had cautioned against going for many reasons. Stubborn girl that she could be, Hieda no Akyuu insisted that neither her health nor appearances of abnormalities in the political situation would detain her. Thus, she had made the journey to answer the summons, coughing and stifling complaints of her pains, from the village to the ropeway, from checkpoint to checkpoint, and finally up those perilous steps leading to the shrine. She had glowered at its gaudy new torii, which stood proud and hearty in almost a mockery of her own frailty.

The actual talking had made for a dreadfully dull event, and Akyuu thanked her capricious eidetic memory for its blessed limitations, only the vaguest extracts apt to linger with nothing recorded to paper. Most of the time, her attention had wandered elsewhere.

Her favourite excuse of using the privy had been enough to escape the attentions of both her hosts and her servants, and she’d taken advantage of the freedom to take to the shrine’s spacious yards, traipsing through a blanket of seasonal snow. She peered at the dull, leaden skies above and heaved a deep sigh, finding her own feelings in a similar state of heaviness. Some part of her chided herself for not listening to the voices opposed to attending. She could well have stayed home — and suffered the very same aches, she quickly reminded herself. Everyone was already stifling in their attentions in the best of times, and her recent fits had only served to worsen that tendency. Gripping her walking stick, she compelled her wobbling legs to propel her just a bit further along the grounds.

All of a sudden, an icy patch disturbed her footing and she stumbled, losing her balance with a sharp cry. Hitting the snow did little to cushion the impact. Akyuu’s already aching frame erupted into a brilliant, white-hot corona of pain, and she could do little but lie writhing and moaning in the snow. Gritting her teeth, she pushed through the pain to find her walking stick but saw it lying far out of reach. She fell back with a hissed invective, now feeling too short for breath to shout. Of all possible ends to meet, this was not one she would have hoped for. It was just a wait to see if she froze to death or if her battered body gave out first.

The crackling of footsteps in the snow sounded at the edges of awareness. Akyuu turned her head to glimpse through decayed vision an unclear figure striding toward her. A high voice sounded out, but her ears were ringing far too loudly to make anything out. Small but sturdy hands seized her about the shoulders to lift her out of the snow, and Akyuu instinctively looped her arms around her saviour’s thin neck. Supporting her carefully, Akyuu’s mystery rescuer clutched her to a warm, sturdy chest. She could feel the lines of their thin body, suggesting a build as slight as hers, yet they seemed to have quite the strength in their arms. The feeling of being safely buoyed along brought out a strangely pleasant tiredness that allowed her to shut her eyes for a time, holding fast to warmth. It had been so long since she’d been close to something so primordially comforting. All that was missing was the gentle thudding of a heartbeat.

Opening her eyes wide in realisation, Akyuu came to on the floor of a small room, no more than three or four dirty tatami mats in size, wrapped in several blankets. She tried to sit up but was stayed by a small hand on her chest. Sitting beside her, looking down at her worriedly, was none other than the lion-dog, Komano Aun.

“Stay still,” commanded the lion-dog. Gently, she guided Akyuu’s head down onto her lap, and the lion-dog’s curly tail wrapped around to lay heavy across her shoulders. “You were already really cold when I got you up here.”

Akyuu looked around for any clue what building she might be in. “Up here? Where is that?” she asked groggily, noticing she was lying on a futon.

Slivers of dull grey sky showed from behind a wooden lattice. In spite of her efforts to recall different parts of the shrine, consciousness remained hazy for Akyuu. She shivered underneath the threadbare blankets. Even without the lion-dog arresting her, she couldn’t find the strength to move. She looked to the Aun, who looked down at her with the impassiveness of her native form. A kettle whistled.

The lion-dog excused herself and grabbed the kettle, pouring out a small cup of hot water, which she brought to Akyuu. Propping Akyuu up, she helped her drink the warm liquid, though Akyuu hardly needed the encouragement, realising how parched she was as soon as it touched her lips. A few cupfuls revived the feeling in her extremities, and she soon felt warmer underneath the blankets.

After drinking her fill, Akyuu sat up more fully. “I appreciate your help, Ms Komano, but I would still like to know where I am.”

“The main hall,” answered Aun with a long pause. She lapped at her own cup of hot water with some difficulty, the temperature evidently disagreeable to her tongue. “Ms Kanako said I could stay in the living room, but I didn’t want to. I wanted to be by myself.”

Squinting to compensate for her failing vision, Akyuu took in the tiny room more fully. The main hall was indeed where the spirits of enshrined gods lived, but the idea that there was even a barely adequate residence inside the Moriya Shrine’s main hall took her by surprise. That a statue-beast might be living in it was even more unthinkable. Everything from the patched-up futon to the dented kettle spoke of quite some time spent living in the tiny space.

“What were you doing out there, anyway? It’s really cold. You weren’t walking very well, either.” The lion-dog wore a stern frown as she questioned Akyuu.

“Taking a walk. Or, trying, at least,” Akyuu answered simply. She pursed her lips. “Just like you, I wished to be alone. I was tired of everyone. I just wanted a moment where someone wasn’t fussing over me. No offence.” Remembering something, she laughed quietly. “Good to see you in good spirits, by the way. I suppose what I heard from Ms Shameimaru was right. You do jump to everyone’s rescue, don’t you?”

Aun’s brows knitted at the mention of the journalist. “That crow? You talked to her?”

“Ah, you do remember her. That’s good. I suppose she was in good spirits, too?” Smiling, she shook her head to pre-empt any answer from the lion-dog. “It’s been a little bit now. I don’t suppose she’s been back?”

The look in the lion-dog’s eyes grew more distant. She shook her head slowly. “Just the time before.”

“Fickle as the autumn skies, even in winter,” Akyuu said with a sigh that betrayed equal measures of weariness and exasperation. Thinking back through her recent notes, she pondered her next words slowly. She looked about the room. “Not a paper, one. I’d guess you’re keeping to yourself, then. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. You must stay busy with the snow.”

“I guess. Things have slowed down some recently, though. Sanae’s picked up some of the work. It’s been a while since she helped. All of the stuff with the tengu and Ms Kanako seems done, so she should be less busy. I stayed out of that. There wasn’t anything I could do, they said.” Evidently unused to talking so much at a time lately, Aun stopped to lap at her more lukewarm water. She threw a sudden questioning look at Akyuu. “Do you think they still need me here?”

A little taken aback by the sudden question, Akyuu took a measured sip of her water, finding it similarly lukewarm. There were naturally topics she wished to press upon, but now they felt as precarious as her footsteps in the snow. If anything, she wondered the same thing about herself much of the time.

“Under normal circumstances, were you strictly needed anywhere?” she finally replied, trying her best not to sound grave in her pronouncement. There seemed little point in being overly gentle and roundabout with the lion-dog.

Aun cradled her knees to her chest, resting her chin against them with a profoundly tired look. “I liked to think so. I’m not that sure lately. I’ve spent so much time trying to help get things back to normal. Not much time to think about it. Now that everything’s not crazy anymore…”

Feeling warmed up, Akyuu wormed her way out from beneath the blankets. Her joints were still uncomfortably stiff, if not outright sore, but she couldn’t stand being immobile any longer. Even creaking bones were preferable to not being able to stretch them out. “There aren’t too many others around. That temple has enough hands as it is, so you’d be left with, well, the Hakurei Shrine.”

A silence heavier and stonier than the lion-dog descended over the tiny room. To look at her, Aun didn’t appear to be particularly upset, but a pensiveness had crept into her expression. She hid her face in her knees as if to cut herself off from the reality around her. A sharp twinge of sympathy made Akyuu grimace; her own study served much the same role as the dingy little room: a place all its own, removed from all else.

Even so, Akyuu knew well that reality in all its relentlessness had a way of penetrating even the remotest pockets eventually. Distant thoughts of home brought waves of dread that she fought off with a sharp shake of her head. She reached over to quietly pet the lion-dog on her stony head. The green curls of hair felt like moss under her palms rather than the expected rock, yielding to her touch. Aun shifted slightly, leaning into Akyuu’s touch. Akyuu allowed herself a quiet smile. Perhaps there was room for some gentleness.

“I still don’t know if I’m ready — if I’ll ever be ready,” came Aun’s voice, muffled in her knees.

“Nobody’s hurrying you.” Akyuu grabbed bits of mossy fur between her fingers, running them through until the curled hairs felt almost smoothed out. A distant echo of voices calling across the cold shrine grounds reached her ears. Her voice fell into a low murmur. “If nothing else, you have that small blessing.”

“I wonder,” Aun said, raising her head at the sound of the calls, “if she thinks the same thing. Wouldn’t she have already come and talked to me? Everyone else has.”

Crunching footsteps in the snow seemed to be coming closer. Akyuu rose to peer out of the lattice, unable to quite see anyone yet. “Probably,” she admitted with a small laugh at the shamaness’s notorious stubbornness.

“—really ought to have kept better watch. There will be reprimands after she’s found, I assure you,” said a voice that carried from somewhere close by.

“If our lion-pupper found her, she’s fine. No milady-sicles on her watch, believe you me,” answered a much cheerier voice. A couple of blurry figures were hurrying their way towards the main hall. Akyuu wouldn’t have to squint to see them soon enough.

“Looks like this is me. I should have liked a longer talk, but perhaps it’s for the best.” Akyuu gathered up her scarf from near the futon, winding it thickly around her neck, and found her walking stick on the floor. She turned to Aun, turning her parting words over. The footsteps had already stopped trudging in the snow. Time was nearly up. “She’s doing well now. There are a close few supporting her. No need to worry about her, I think. She’ll probably still need some time.”

Taking in this news, Aun gave a faint smile and nodded, something of the heavy silence having left her face. Her tail softly wagged, perhaps in spite of herself. “I’ll keep waiting, then.”

“Well, that’s embarrassing,” warbled the overheated Mamizou, somehow retaining her sense of irreverence despite being laid out on a bench, her normally full-bristled tail rendered a soggy mop that drooped over the side like some kind of limp and hairy vegetable. An excess of time in the bath thoroughly reddened her hide, and she steamed like the fish cakes in a dish of oden.

However much Aya wanted to laugh venomously at the tanuki boss’s sorry state, she couldn’t bring herself to find it more than pitiable. From the moment she walked into the bath, there had been a fierceness beaming through Mamizou’s steamed-up spectacles. She had clearly been called in to have abuse hurled at her, and the tanuki had certainly started off in quite a temper. However, it was clear that Mamizou had also been imbibing long before getting in the bath, her words slurred and her wrath unfocused.

The excess of excitement had clearly made the drink go to her head that much faster. Mamizou tipped over in the bath, sliding under the water as her limbs failed to steady her. The bathhouse being purposefully low-traffic, there had been no other patrons at the time, so Aya was obliged to haul the drowning tanuki boss out of the water and drag her into the changing room, a feat by no means easy even with tengu strength.

Back with a cool cloth, Aya laid it on Mamizou’s steaming forehead, drawing an uncomfortable groan of satisfaction from the tanuki. She produced a fan from her personal effects and gently fanned Mamizou.

“Be careful or I might turn into a squid!” Mamizou laughed hoarsely at her own tipsy wit.

“Always about food with you. You might want to tone down the hedonism. Dragging you out of there was far from easy, you know,” groused Aya. As she spoke, her eyes slid down to regard her own uncovered figure, a bit worse off in her reckoning as of late.

Grumbling, the tanuki frowned, her unspectacled eyes squinting as she tried desperately to keep one of several Ayas in focus. She lifted her head off of the bench, taking a deep breath as if prepared to launch into a tirade. “You think you can lecture me, bird? I’m your senior in life! You’re practically a child compared— Oh, bollocks.” She sank back with a distinctly uncomfortable look, groaning with nausea. She held up her hand before Aya could even react. “No, no, it’s all right. It’ll pass. My fault, that. Shouldn’t have worked myself up.”

“You’re telling me,” retorted Aya. Feeling slightly overheated herself in the steaming environs, she flopped down on an adjoining bench, still fanning the sweating tanuki in spite of a tired forearm. The alcoholic fumes emanating from Mamizou weren’t helping matters; they were strong enough to overpower even the sulphuric smell of the spring. “And I think I can lecture you when you end up in this sort of state. I like a drink and a bath, too, but this is ridiculous.”

Mamizou gave a dismissive wave. “Please. If you can get sloppy over boss trouble, I can do just as well. You’d be doing just the same if you had an oni putting the screws to you. Your fault, by the way.”

Aya opened her mouth to lob a tart response at the tanuki but held back. A sting of conscience told her that she had no place to speak on that subject. She had, after all, more or less gone out of her way to tip the situation out of its stasis. However much she might try to justify herself, there was no changing that it was never her party to crash. All she could do was continue to fan Mamizou.

Noting the crow’s silence, Mamizou frowned. She had the air of someone deprived the satisfaction of an argument. “Well, you don’t gotta look so glum over it. It’s been trouble for me, I won’t lie, but it ain’t life or death. Suika’s just been pushy. That’s all. She’s a bit wound up. Staying wound up.”

“That sounds like her, all right,” Aya murmured. Her experience of oni, however shallow, had shown them to be nothing but pushy balls of muscle. There was little surprise that the tanuki was being run ragged. Aya almost felt sorry for her.

“If I’m honest,” the tanuki boss went on, “if it wasn’t you, it probably would’ve been her eventually. She was already raring up out of the gate. The whole state of that Hakurei girl had her pacing in circles. Can you believe that? Big, bad oni worked up in a froth over that girl. And how she tried hiding it, oh me.”

She reached a hand out to Aya, signalling that she wanted to be pulled up. Unsure of the risk of a vomiting tanuki, the crow slowly brought the unsteady tanuki up, stabilising her by the opposite shoulder as she went. Though she was no longer steaming, Mamizou still looked deeply flushed. Aya rifled through Mamizou’s belongings to find a drinking gourd, quickly disposing of the sake inside — ‘cheap stuff’, according to Mamizou — and went to fetch some cool water, which the tanuki guzzled with animalistic fervour, uncaring how uncouth she might appear.

Mamizou daubed her sweat-soaked forehead, her fuzzy ears sagging in relief as she heaved a deep sigh from her belly. She patted around for her spectacles, which Aya handed over. Balancing them on her rather tiny nose, she regarded Aya with an altogether cheery smile. “Cheers, bird. You ain’t so bad sometimes, I’ll admit. Maybe you’d make a good underling. How about that?”

“I don’t need any more bosses to deal with.” Aya rolled her eyes at the bare thought of being at some mongrel’s beck and call. “Besides, I somehow doubt you’d make it worth my while.”

“Not out of the kindness of your heart?” joked Mamizou, giving a chortle and slapping her knee loudly enough to echo in the small room. The sharp movement of her laughter drew a nauseated grunt, and she steadied herself on the bench.

Aya placed herself on the same bench to hold the tanuki boss up by the shoulders, needing as much to keep herself steady as Mamizou. She could even ignore the leathery scent of tobacco that seemed to leak from Mamizou’s pores for the time being. “I thought you called me here to yell at me.”

“Might’ve done, yeah, but I can’t be that mad. More disappointed than anything. I worked with Suika on a whole plan, stages and everything.” Mamizou smiled bitterly. “I was slow-walking things. You were right on that. It felt safer but also more beneficial. Maybe to all of us, but it was a sure benefit to me and the gang. Can you blame me? We’re all a little selfish on these sorts of things.”

“True enough.” However much Aya wanted to disagree, she couldn’t. The most well-intentioned of the more social youkai were still fundamentally self-interested in the best of times.

Mamizou’s eyes closed and she chuckled at the recollection of something. “She was pretty pitiful when she wasn’t being hard-headed. You should’ve seen how Suika fussed over her. Like an owner babying her pet. She was always gutted when Reimu went to the hermit over her. Who could blame her? Having someone like Suika hanging on you.”

“And what about you? I guess it was all business with you, then?” Despite attempting to remain level, a flutter of reproach had crept into Aya’s voice.

“Appearances would demand I say yes,” said Mamizou, shrugging her shoulder and jostling Aya slightly, “but what’s there to hide here?” She gave a hoarse bark of a laugh, gesturing between the two of them, at their present nudity. Sighing deeply, she looked off into the distance. “Dunno, really. I guess she’s all right, that girl. We ain’t been close like her and Suika. Probably a matter of timing. The little horny bugger knew her earlier than me, so of course they’d be closer. I tried to say a nice thing or two, but she didn’t have all that much to say to me. Just made her tense. It was clear there wasn’t much I was good for but keeping things on track. As much as I could.”

Looking over and seeing Aya’s softened expression, the tanuki squeezed her by the shoulders in an avuncular sort of gesture. “That’s the kind of face she made sometimes. Nothing I could do for it, either. Probably why I don’t feel too raw about Suika grabbing the reins in the end. Everything was too lopsided to start, and then it got all upended, anyway.”

“I’m sorry about all of that. I—” Aya began to say before being squeezed again by Mamizou.

“Yeah, I know. Believe you me, I saw enough of Suika to get it. Apology accepted, though.” Mamizou let go of Aya and gestured for her to do the same. Daubing her forehead again, she sat upright without any support. “All the time I was waiting for you, I’d kind of hoped you’d come with a bit more fight in you. Give me more reason to be mad, you know? Kind of flatlines things when you act all cute like that.”

“Now you’re making it weird,” groused Aya, leaning away from the tanuki. She was relieved anyway to get a break from tobacco-tinged sweat.

Mamizou winked at her notional rival in influence. “Ain’t right without things being a little weird where us youkai stand, yeah?”

Aya shook her head but found herself laughing along with Mamizou. This was the problem with tanuki; as irritating as they could be, it was hard to stay mad at them for how utterly ridiculous they often were. A less prideful part of her felt that her own kind could learn a thing or two, though she’d sooner have her feathers pulled out one-by-one than admit it aloud.

In a fit of mischievous pique, she seized the tanuki boss, coiling her arm around and drumming on her belly with a great ‘pon poko pon’. Mamizou retaliated by squeezing the tengu closer and pinching the excess flesh on her thigh. However much it might have hurt, neither one allowed it to show on her face, merely facing the other with a tight smile. Rather than soggy, tear-wetted sympathy, this was the most natural expression between the two of them. Their endurance contest might have continued longer had their ears not perked up at the sound of approaching footsteps.

Before they could put any appreciable distance between one another, a figure breezed through the noren and into the changing room. Aya quickly placed her from the showy kimono and decorative geta as the girl she’d met at the bath before, evidently not even taking pains to hide her ears this time. The lesser tanuki’s eyes widened for a moment catching sight of others in the changing room. Nodding to the boss, a gesture that was returned, she peered quizzically between the two of them, glowering in recognition at Aya. Mamizou’s only response was a tense grin and a slight shrug of her shoulders. After one more look thrown at the tengu, the girl huffed sharply through her nose and turned her back to the pair, disrobing in one swift motion and continuing on her way into the bath.

“You know,” Aya spoke up from within the ensuing haze of awkwardness, “I’ve wondered one thing for a bit.”

Clearing her throat and righting her glasses, Mamizou sat up straighter on the bench, her ears standing up with her. “How’s that?”

“Well, you know, about their customers.” Aya reached down to hold up the still wet, limp end of Mamizou’s normally voluminous tail. The wet fur smacked against its owner’s shoulder with the sound of a mop hitting the floor. “How can they stand that smell?”

“Oh, get off it!” bellowed Mamizou, snatching hold of her tail back from Aya.

---

The greenery had come in on the trees, but it was still some time before the sakura were likely to bloom. Aya wondered if there would be a flower-viewing this year as usual. Then again, what did it matter? She wasn’t likely to attend. Even so, some part of her felt restless at the thought that one might not be held. She abruptly looked around for anything else to think about.

As she peered about the street, someone sat down on the adjoining bench behind her. Her pointed ears gave a jump, wiggling in spite of her best attempts to hide them. “Looks like I kept you waiting. Sorry about that,” said a voice that belonged to a young woman whose youth was evidently reaching its limits.

“I take it spring has made things busy.” Aya intoned her words evenly, masking the unease she felt. There was no way of knowing what tone to take here. At the very least, she couldn’t find it in herself to be glib, even for the sake of irony.

“Life has made things busy,” opined the young woman with a sigh that sounded more at home in autumn than in spring. For the briefest instant, Aya dared to peek backwards, just catching a glimpse of ribbons. The voice’s owner made an equivocal noise. “We don’t have to sit like this. How about I come around there?”

However much a more perturbed part of her yelled ‘yes’, Aya shook her head. “Sorry, but I’d rather not at this point.”

“That so? Suit yourself.” There was a long, heavy pause. The young woman’s shoes drummed on the ground, disturbing bits of gravel. She shifted slightly on the bench, Aya feeling a gaze brushing her back. “Your hair’s longer than I remember. Not bad from what I can see. I think it’s a good look on you. Mine’s too long and messy now. Guess it’s been slipping my mind to ask for a cut.”

Aya shyly grabbed at a lock of her hair and twisted at it, finding it frizzing and a tad greasy. “Funny; I’d say the same for myself. I’ve slipped on upkeep for a bit.”

The young woman’s only response was a low, noncommital noise. Even looking Aya’s way, she seemed absent, her attention on something much further away. A stillness crept into the atmosphere around her, not entirely unpleasant but a little unnerving to Aya. “I guess I made things hard for a lot of people,” the young woman said at last, “especially myself.”

Aya drew a sharp breath but quickly bit her lip. “There were a lot of us causing trouble. It’s what youkai do, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, that’s true,” affirmed the young woman without hestitation. The bench creaked as she shifted around, her shadow showing her sitting cross-legged. “That doesn’t make me completely faultless. I’ve still got problems sitting in front of me. My doing, a lot of it.”

“Not counting problems sitting behind you, right?” Aya finally dared to offer as a jab.

The young woman gave a light, chimelike laugh, patting at her chest in mimicry of a landed blow. “You just had to aim at my opening. But, well, I’ll admit you weren’t in my thoughts much. Not much at all, really. So, I wouldn’t call it a problem. Not for me.”

Truths like liquid lead fell lightly from the young woman’s lips, such was the lingering innocence of her remaining youth. On a conscious level, Aya knew that she oughtn’t recoil, and should lean forward to accept all truth, welcome or unwelcome. However, that heavy, corrosive truth did cause her to wince in pain in all its gentleness.

She had wondered for a long time what this moment might be like. The romance of a grand confrontation crooned its beautiful falsehoods and intoxicated her just as much as the drink she had fallen into. Kicking up loose papers in her frenzy, she rehearsed all manner of heated dialogue, swallowed up by a drama of her own creation as she paced her room for sleepless hours. The first blow being taken so totally and seemingly without response had brought only emptiness, regret seeping into the void with time. Yet, here it was at last. The return strike carried devastation far beyond her reckoning.

Lost for words underneath defeat, Aya dug into her satchel to retrieve a few sheaves of yellowed paper covered in dense writing. The weight of months seemed to be contained in the small bundle, and even the young woman didn’t entirely fail to notice as she carefully took them.

For minutes at a time, all that could be heard from the young woman’s side were pages being flipped. She was only stopped by the arrival of her tea and dango. “I guess I see your point. This could have been a bit of trouble for me,” she asked following a long sip of tea. In spite of her calm, her prior cheer had been modulated by Aya’s words. “You can be a pest, I’ll give you that.”

“What do you think I should do with it?” Aya asked, hurling the question at the young woman to make up for what force she lacked.

The young woman’s shadow sat with its head tilted contemplatively, chewing over her answer along with a dango. “I don’t know what you want me to say. ‘Burn them’? ‘Give them to me’? ‘Line your nest with them’? What I think doesn’t really matter, does it? They’re your words. I think you should do what you want.”

“Even if that comes back to hurt you?” Aya took back the papers. However much she may have wanted to hurl them skyward, her authorial conscience wouldn’t allow for it. Besides, she felt a challenge in the young woman’s words. She, the downed opponent, was being prodded.

“There’s no one who can hurt me more than me. I learned as much from your words there. And I’ve done my share so far.” The young girl sounded far more muted, drawing further into herself with every word spoken. She wasn’t contrite, but neither was she defiant. This was her bare nature wending its way into the still, cool air that gave either of them gooseflesh. “I wonder how long it’ll take for everyone to talk to me again. A long time, I bet. Really long for some more than others. Not that I’m going to have a lot of time for talking. Not to anyone I want to talk to. I’ve got to go see the village elders after this. All about my future, they say.”

“Sorry.” The crow wasn’t sure what she should be sorry about at this point, yet she still offered her mild apology.

A warm hand brushed Aya’s fingers, laying over them for a brief moment. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry, too. I’ve been stubborn enough to make a lot of trouble.”

Feeling the conversation having run its course, Aya gave a long sigh and stood up. There really was nothing more to say at this point. “That’s just the natural way of things, isn’t it?”

Not once looking back, Aya put the sweets shop behind her, only stopping to put her hand up in a silent wave goodbye, a lightness creeping into her step the further she drew away. Only for the briefest of seconds did she wonder if the young woman felt anything similar before disregarding her, the whole encounter likely to be forgotten soon, like a strange dream under the spring sunlight. The beginnings of buds on a sakura tree caught her eye as she passed it.

---

XOX day, OXO month

Springtime has brought the promise of rebirth to a Human Village institution, Kirisame-ya. The previous year’s passing of the managing Kirisame family head left many in doubt about the longtime general goods vendor’s future. Quiet rumours even circulated of others in the village merchant’s association buying up its many operations piecemeal. Of most concern to us at the Bunbunmaru was the standing of Kirisame-ya’s material and financial support of Suzuna-an, one of a handful of village publishing and printing operations at scale, a major contributor to this paper’s circulation. Answers about contracts with the booklender-cum-publisher became scarce for much of the preceding year, leading to tense contigency arrangements being made. Thankfully, there is at last a bit of sunshine peeking through the clouds.

Lone daughter and successor to the Kirisame house, Kirisame Marisa, announced this week that she is stepping up as head of management for Kirisame-ya, owing to her mother’s recent poor health. This comes on the back of a widely-announced betrothal, the Kirisame adopting the eldest son of an equally distinguished sweets seller. With the impending marriage, Ms Kirisame will be assuming her place as matriarch of the house and manager of family financial operations, and will accordingly take over day to day management of the business. “This isn’t a decision I’m taking lightly. The time has come to let my mother rest and to honour my father’s legacy,” Ms Kirisame said at the recent announcement conference. The exact date of her marriage is yet to be announced, though she assured attendees that news on that front will come sooner rather than later.

Complicating matters is Ms Kirisame’s own business, the Kirisame Magic Shop, a consultancy and miscellaneous retail operation out of her residence in the forests outside the village. In spite of a vanishingly small clientelle, estimates of proper customers not even reaching the double digits in the past decade, she has continually advertised her services wherever possible, including the pages of this publication at times. The entreprenurial witch insists that the Magic Shop will continue on even as Kirisame-ya moves into its next phase, though she remains tight-lipped as to what that might look like. The fact remains that circumstances behoove her to spend more of her time in the village, leaving her forest residence as a remaining loose end.

“Right now, I’m hopping back and forth. There’s a lot of clean-up to be done,” the witch told me when I asked later. She had arrived not long before from the forest with an armload of items, both magical and ordinary, bound for the already overflowing Kirisame storehouse. Ms Kirisame says that she hopes to offload anything remotely saleable to Kirisame-ya’s stock, but that will likely take more time. “There’s got to be someone in the village who wants a grimoire or two. Just for the fun, you know? Or maybe a few girls might want love potions. I could see those flying off the shelves. I’m pretty sure I threw away all the failures, though I can’t be too sure right now. That’s for tomorrow’s Marisa to worry about.”

Taking the opportunity to quiz Ms Kirisame about something besides business, I brought up the topic of her bridegroom-to-be. She insists that her fiancé is someone who shys far away from publicity, and I’ve been asked to not cover him in much detail, but she did say that the marriage was ‘not just a business arrangement,’ and that the two have had time to get to know each other. “My father may have had others in mind, but I think he would have agreed in the end, stubborn as he was. My mother was surprised but accepted everything right away. She was just happy I was finally settling down, I think. As much as I can settle down, anyway.” The timing was, in her reckoning, as much about getting herself in order as getting her household affairs in order.

At this point, I asked if the witch was contemplating a ceremony at the Hakurei Shrine, at which she hesitantly shook her head. “With everything how it is, we’re keeping things quiet. The old go-between and sake cups routine, you know? It just makes more sense not to make too big a deal out of it. We’re practically hitched already. We just got to make it official at some point.” By all appearances, Ms Kirisame and the Hakurei Shrine’s attendant have difficulty facing each other these day. She insists that she sees the two of them as friends, but that she can’t ask something of that magnitude from Ms Hakurei. “I just hope that she’ll accept [the marriage]. I feel like I’d have heard something by now if she didn’t, but I don’t know. Maybe she’s got things of her own to worry about. There’s no hard feelings from me. It would be nice to hear from her, though.”

On an editorial note, I should add at this point that the Bunbunmaru now counts Kirisame-ya as one of its sponsors. Thanks to funding from the Kirisame and associates, we have been able to successfully reëstablish our own operations. However, I will strongly note that this will in no way influence our coverage, nor does the present coverage of Kirisame-ya affairs have anything to do with these arrangements. We have asserted to all financiers that our journalistic interests will still continue to be represented in this paper, no matter how beneficial or otherwise that may prove. Editorial independence will be maintained at all costs.

The brief article was followed by an even briefer advertisement for an upcoming sale at Kirisame-ya. There was a distinctly celebratory tone to it, suggesting that the upcoming Kirisame wedding was a fantastic opportunity to stock up on sundries at bargain prices. To anyone who might have seen adverts for the Kirisame Magic Shop, the copy carried a familiar air.

The Hieda girl peered over the stack of papers with a look of mild reservation. “Are you absolutely sure? If it were me, I’d keep it as a memento, at least. Especially considering you went to all the trouble to write it.”

“It’s all yours. I have a new job to worry about. Finally worked up the nerve to ask for a transfer. It turns out my bosses didn’t care as much as I’d hoped.” Aya gave a sardonic laugh. She waved at the papers as if sending away a pestering neighbour. “I just think of it as a bit of spring cleaning.”

“Ah, yes, spring. I look forward to the hay fever, assuming it make it that long,” Akyuu remarked with a glum look at a still bare tree in the garden outside. In spite of the mild weather, she was still wrapped up tightly in scarves and a padded kimono and sitting close to the hibachi. Every once in a while, she gave a quiet, muffled cough.

“Might want to take it easy. You look like you’ve been resting as well as me.” Aya pointed to the swelling under her eyes brought of nights and days spent in the wake of her transfer. However simple it was to ask, actually accomplishing the change was as easy as anything ever was on the Mountain. Any energy she had at the moment was akin to a runner’s high in the wake of concluding her business. Nevertheless, she did feel a certain lightness that complimented to spring sunlight.

Akyuu scoffed. “Please. You know as well as I do that a scribe’s work never ends. Speaking of which, I’ve heard you’re back in circulation.”

Aya produced a copy of the Bunbunmaru for Akyuu. Unlike most who’d received a copy, she was quick to spot the side column including a mention of the new sponsorship, giving a giddy laugh upon noting it. “Leave it to two oddballs to find common ground.”

“We’re both moving on with life, I guess.” Aya gave a look at Akyuu that stood in for any mention of what she and witch might be moving on from. Akyuu nodded in solemn understanding and shifted the papers to somewhere deep in a stack on her overflowing desk.

As she shifted various papers around, among other documents, a few drawings spilled onto the floor. The Child of Miare made to collect them before the tengu but was in no state to move quickly, Aya swooping to retrieve them. The drawings consisted of stylised depictions of men draped in fineries and sitting in impossibly august poses, faces constructed to be stern to the point of scowling, scrub-like eyebrows pushed close together, eyes nearly crossed. They resembled kabuki actors in their composition, albeit far chubbier or haggard in physiognomy than specimens of the stage might be imagined. There was also a sore lack of dynamism in the compositions: they all looked far too ordinary for stagecraft.

Eyes cast away, Akyuu demanded her documents back and, snatching them from Aya’s hand, shoved them into an even remoter pile in agitation. She tried loudly clearing her throat but only succeeded in erupting into a coughing fit. Once she had pulled herself together, her face was glowing in embarrassment. “Of all things. My parents have passed me innumerable of these ridiculous introductions. By all first impressions, toads, the majority. And I’m to meet as many as it takes to secure a union. ‘They’re fine with a sickly girl,’ they say. ‘It makes for a form of beauty hard to replicate.’ Bah. You see what demands my time now.”

“Ah, pragmatic parents,” remarked Aya drily. As a crow of middling status, she knew all too well of mercenary practises in matchmaking. “Going to dig your heels in as long as possible?”

“‘As long as possible’ might well be the remainder of my lifetime. At least, I can see the effort making sure of it.” The Hieda family head propped herself up on her elbow, appearing all the wearier for it. Surprising to Aya, there was a resolution in her eyes when she looked her way. “No, I think I have to find my strength in moving forward regardless. You and Ms Kirisame have come to the same conclusion, haven’t you? Not to mention…”

Aya was the one to look away this time. She had no idea at this point whether she was moving forward or not. Perhaps it was better to say that she simply wasn’t sitting still anymore. She avoided a bitter smile at the realisation that she was still drawing lines between herself and that girl.

Conversation between Aya and Akyuu reoriented towards the springtime weather, the seasonal foods, and the impending bustle of the season. Though neither was of much inclination for company, there was a vigour implied in the emergence from cold-season immobility that was mildly infectious. They both named off spots from memory that were particularly appealing in the spring, Akyuu drawing more from the stores of her predecessors than her own experience. As they spoke, the clear desire for a flower-viewing grew ever keener.

“You know,” Akyuu put in suddenly, wearing a knowing smile, “I’ve heard talk of flower-viewings at a certain shrine. The blooms shouldn’t be too far off from what I hear.”

Aya quirked an eyebrow. “Oh? How intriguing. Too bad it’s too far a trip to make in ill health. Unless you’re suggesting entrusting yourself to the care of some youkai to get you there.”

The two met each other with a silent look, neither letting on what she was holding back. At last, they couldn’t hold it anymore and both burst into giddy laughter. As ridiculous as the notion was, neither could deny that it wasn’t a terrible idea.

— Fin —