Kasen stood on a ridge, viewing the breadth of Gensokyo below: the Human Village, the Myouren Temple, the Bamboo Forest of the Lost, the Misty Lake, the Scarlet Devil Mansion, and Hakurei Shrine. Between the village edge and the youkai-occupied areas, there were countless farm plots ripe for the harvest. Humans scurried around, heading towards venues for the moon viewing ceremony. Moriya Shrine, Myouren Temple, the Hourai Pharmacy, and the Hakurei Shrine were all hosting events this year. Everyone—except for the Pharmacy—went all out trying to one-up one another. She had left Reimu to Aunn, but felt a mote of pride for her, nonetheless. In contrast with the bombast of the Moriya Shrine and Myouren Temple, Reimu had adopted an approach of similar austerity to the Hourai Pharmacy, albeit with more alcohol.

The Pharmacy was in the lead this year, but Reimu had earned the Hakurei Shrine a respectable second place. Kasen allowed herself a deep intake of breath, tasting the chill night air, listening to the rustling of the leaves, letting the corners of her mouth rise into a modest smile. She decided she'd have to congratulate Reimu later.

"Enjoying the harvest?"

Kasen stood unfazed as Komachi's scythe pressed against her neck, its cold steel hugging her skin. She turned to the shinigami. Komachi lounged in the air, her scythe held awkwardly, reaching around Kasen's neck. Distantly, both of them noted the black birds watching from the treeline.

"Komachi, does Eiki know you're here?"

The shinigami removed her scythe from around Kasen's neck. "Nope."

"Well, then." Kasen paused, letting her smile stretch wider as she looked at the Hakurei Shrine, "I'm happy how the moon viewing festival turned out for Reimu. She hasn't gotten into a fight, carried away, and there wasn't an Incident. Even if attendance could be better."

"Sounds like things turned out all right." Komachi landed beside her. Kasen half-chuckled, not entirely sure if she was joking. "Anything else happening?"

"No, it's been peaceful since the last incident." Kasen scanned the shrine grounds, spotting the new arrivals from the recent incident. Reimu sat with them and Marisa, drinking and talking.

"Yeah, glad the Ministry didn't have to step in. Eiki and that annoying Zanmu lady had some plans if you guys didn't end up solving it, but Reimu and Marisa ended up cleaning the incident up pretty nicely." Kasen nodded absent-mindedly. She hadn't met Zanmu in person, but from what Aunn and Reimu said, she was troublesome.

"They should have told me." Kasen still felt sore about that, especially Yukari's solution. Reimu and Marisa still had those incident stones; Kasen didn't think it was a bad thing. However, the girls having the stones excited Okina.

"Would you have done anything about it?"

Kasen huffed and crossed her arms. "Nothing, but it's the principle." She raised a finger as she recited her lecture. "We're supposed to lead Gensokyo together. Instead, they go off and do whatever they want, causing incidents and–"

"Why don't you cause an incident yourself then? Be a little selfish, nobody's stopping you." Among the trees, black birds flapped their wings, feathers rustling. Komachi locked eyes with one for a moment before turning away.

Kasen folded her arms. "No. I have to be better than them; somebody has to set an example. Besides, there isn't anything I want that's worth causing an incident over." Kasen shook her head and looked towards the forest. The birds were watching them. Kasen thought it would be troublesome to speak openly.

Kasen could tell as Komachi crept closer–her scythe gleaming in the moonlight–that she had the same idea. "Are you sure? Just think about it. Are you sure there isn't anything you want that'd make you risk Gensokyo peace for?"

"Well–" Kasen closed her eyes. There was that project she had been working on, but then she thought of a familiar face, "–There is someone I'd like to meet again, but I won't cross the Ministry. I'm sure I'll find her eventually; she is a human." Kasen let the feeling roll over her, a quiet melancholy. Humans died and reincarnated all the time, but she was sure she'd meet Yoshika again.

Komachi shrugged. "Anything else? If you don't, I can always talk about who I met on my last trip."

"Please, no," Kasen rubbed the fingers of her prosthetic bandage-arm against each other as she mulled it over. Her project wasn't exactly bad or incident-worthy. She caught the black birds brazenly leaning forward. There were still their stalkers. "I have this one thing, follow me." Kasen fully turned away and walked towards the forest. The birds scattered, and she reached forward, her hand parting the space in between the trees as a gate formed. She turned back to Komachi and outstretched her prosthetic hand, inviting her forward.

"Wow, you're almost like a real hermit! Guess that horned owl looking one had some effect on you after all."

"Komachi." Kasen gestured with her hand again.

"Fine, fine." Komachi took a step forward and took Kasen by the hand, "Now what do you want to show me?" They dipped into the gate and disappeared, leaving the clearing desolate of everything but the pallid gaze of the harvest moon.

"It's warm?" It was night in Kasen's senkai, but humidity hung in the air. She and Kasen had arrived at the edge of a sandy lake, its waters a gentle, bluish-green that dropped off into an abyss so deep it looked bottomless. Beyond them was Kasen's tiger Houso walking along the forested edge of her senkai, where a path cut through, leading to her mansion.

Kasen crouched down near the water and put her natural hand in, "Gensokyo lacks a tropical climate."

Komachi sat down next to Kasen, feeling the sand beneath their feet. "So, I'm not the only one who wants a vacation?"

"It's not that," Kasen stressed, pressing the fingers of her prosthetic hand together, "You see, we have temperate and cold zones, but no tropical zones. That means we're limited in what we can take in from the outside world. Gensokyo exists for what the outside world rejects. That includes extinct or endangered species. Even if Japan's climate becomes more tropical, that doesn't mean the situation is better for tropical species. For instance, part of the changing climate is the increase in water temperature and acidity that has caused coral destruction. This blue hole I made already has a connection to the outside world and a localized tropical environment. It's a proof of concept." Komachi could believe her; although its surface was calm, its abyssal blue promised depths deeper than the Sanzu River.

"So what, you're going to flood Gensokyo or something? Either way, a beach day sounds fun."

"Maybe, but that's extreme. But Gensokyo has to expand somehow as the human range increases. Breaking from the geography of the outside world would weaken our connection to it, but it's only natural. I think adding a coastal region on the edge of Gensokyo would help–the only problem is choosing which beach to copy, and then attaching that copied space to the edge."

"Ah, you've already put a lot of thought into this, haven't you?"

"I have been ever since the dandelion incident." Kasen had furrowed her brow as she looked at the edge of the barrier in the distance. "Now, there might be issues with introducing invasive species, so I'd have to copy the landscape first and then slowly build a contained, self-sufficient biosphere with species only native to Japan," Kasen ran her hand over her bandage-prosthetic arm, splaying out its palms and flexing its fingers, "But I could do it. Starting here, close this area off from the rest of my senkai and expand it–well, that would be the first step."

Kasen dipped her natural hand into the water. A tentacle emerged from the deep blue, reaching out to meet her. "Meet Yamata. He's a cryptid that was forced to the edges." Komachi sprang to her feet as even more tentacles reached out from the blue hole, wrapping around Kasen's hand.

Komachi looked down at the tentacles in disgust. "What exactly is he supposed to be?"

"A lusca, that means octopus shark. As in an octopus that's like a shark, not an octopus-shark, or a shark-octopus. It's a tropical species related to those snake gods the Kappa occasionally take care of." Yamata wriggled in agreement, its tentacles exploring the shore of the blue hole.

"Well, I'm sure they'll be happy about that."

Kasen ignored Komachi's backhanded comment, stroking the tentacle, causing the cryptid to release her from its grip. "Go along now, Yamata. I'll have something for you in the morning." The cryptid's tentacles retreated into the deep blue.

"Actually, that reminds me, I had this interesting passenger."

"Komachi–"

"No, come on, this one is interesting. No suicides or dead kids this time. I promise."

Kasen looked away. Her two eagles, Kume and Kanda, circled her and Komachi; there were no black birds in sight, and nobody else was in her senkai. Besides, she had already shut Komachi down once. "Fine."

Komachi pushed off the ground, falling onto and lounging in the air, hovering mid-fall. "Okay, so this guy was some robber, he accidentally killed some old lady, and got death row–"

"Komachi."

"Wait, a minute. Instead of getting hung here, he got tossed into a lake, and guess what was in there?"

Kasen perked up as she caught on to what Komachi was talking about. "A snake god?" There was a slight twinge of panic in her voice, but Komachi was deaf to it.

"Yep. I gotta say, even if they deny the existence of youkai, those humans from the outside world still got it; Making a mess of things as usual."

Kasen nodded. "I suppose some things never change." Even if they denied the existence of youkai, some of them knew the truth and would relentlessly seek to exploit youkai for their own purposes. "This really only furthers my point. Can you imagine what raising something like that in a human-controlled environment will do? They certainly don't, and neither do I. Humans can accidentally domesticate plants and animals; the same principle applies to youkai. Now there are some out there trying to do it on purpose." Kasen shook her head as her tone grew more worried.

"Uh, isn't that what you're trying to do here, or in Gensokyo? Make more human-like youkai, a lot of the youkai I see here are barely like the ones from the outside world."

Kasen rolled her eyes. She had heard more or less the same thing from Reimu–albeit as a complaint, somehow. "No, what they're doing is worse. They aren't trying to reduce their aggression towards humans. Can you imagine a cryptid adapted to better fit in with modern humanity but without more passive behavior? I'll have to talk to the others about this. As a hermit and a sage, it's my job to–"

"That's nice, Kasen, but there's still moon viewing festivals going on tonight: I'd like to attend one before I have to go." Komachi looked up at the sky, trying to spy the moon through the cloud-thin covering over Kasen's senkai that blocked the gaze of the moon.

Kasen lifted a finger, rearing for another lecture, but the look on Komachi's face stopped her. "Right, thanks for the idea anyway. I guess Gensokyo will end up having an unseasonably warm winter this year." Kasen moved from her crouch to a sitting position, laying her legs into the warm water of the lake. "Would the Ministry do anything? About Gensokyo or the snake god."

"Just for your information, no." Komachi rolled her eyes. Even when Kasen was planning an incident, she was an insistent rule follower. "Although they are cautious about Gensokyo becoming too disconnected from the outside world. For the snake god, I'd say an even bigger no. We deal with dead humans, not living ones."

Kasen nodded. "Either way, there's only so much that can be done. Gensokyo is a controlled ecosystem; if the outside world becomes an existential threat, no matter the circumstance, the connection will have to be weakened. We already have contact with the outside world; the only reason we have no ecological problems is because of our efforts." Komachi rolled her eyes, imagining the sages standing side by side with Kasen at this moment. "And if humans make threats like that in Japan, we'll have to clean up those mistakes as well." She at least felt a little lucky it was a snake god, and not anything with higher cognition.

"Well, I guess for both cases we'll come to that eventually." Komachi shrugged. Kasen agreed: the current status quo had only existed for less than a thousand years. A small amount of time in the grand scheme of human history. "You know how humans are–they never live long enough to suffer the consequences of their actions, so they just end up making a mess of things and killing each other."

"Yes, 'Eventually'," Kasen rubbed the fingers of her prosthetic arm against each other, "That's the favorite excuse of humans, isn't it?"

Komachi's pink hair swayed in the warm breeze. "Beginning to see the light about them?"

"Don't be silly. Protecting Gensokyo is one thing, but I won't give up on humanity. It's in their nature to better understand how to use the world to their benefit more so than to understand the consequences of their actions or themselves."

"Well, even if they don't reap what they sow in life–" Komachi stood and swung her scythe through the air, "–The Ministry will make sure they suffer the consequences of their actions in death. However, they have been getting better at avoiding it lately. It's a bit silly, don't you think?"

Kasen dusted the sand from her clothes as she rose. "It's only natural. They aren't shinigami."

Komachi laughed and flipped herself back over, her scythe singing as it cut through the air. "On the upside, they might eventually live long enough to suffer properly. If they don't kill themselves, that is. I've been getting so many suicides lately. Just the other day this–"

"You know how I feel about your topics of conversation." Kasen shook her head. "We should go to the shrine. I want to see Reimu, and I should tell the others about this."

"Lead the way."

Kasen obliged and opened a gate from her senkai to the backyard of the Hakurei Shrine. The moon's gaze illuminated the shrine as black birds hid in the trees, observing the Hakurei Shrine Maiden, her guests, and the festivities. Behind the shrine, a trio of fairies plotted amongst each other, huddling together. Then, as space folded, and the two entered the backyard, the fairies called out:

"Look! It's the hermit."

"And she brought a ghost!"

"Run!"

The three fairies vanished over the shrine's roof, leaving Komachi and Kasen alone. "It seems the fairies are as scared of us as ever." They could hear the festivities on the other side of the shrine, murmuring voices and an unseasonable warmth in the air borne of so many people in one place.

"Why should we care what they think?" As Komachi spoke, both of them could hear the childish screeching of the fairies on the other side of the shrine.

"So you're still jealous that Eiki is more popular with them?" Komachi's grip on her scythe tightened; she vividly remembered that incident years ago, where the fairies dressed up like Eiki, all the while ignoring or fleeing from her.

"She used to be a Jizo, of course, she's popular with them. Jizo and fairies are too similar for them to dislike each other. It's just common sense."

Kasen chuckled. She might as well have said, 'Well, Yamawaro and Kappa are so similar, why don't they get along?'. She walked up the steps to the shrine's back porch. "Really? There's been this Jizo in the forest of magic, all the fairies are terrified of her."

Komachi followed Kasen up the steps, "Well, maybe they just have foul taste, I'm wonderful."

Kasen remembered Reimu's stories of that incident. She reached to open the shrine's back door. Before she could grasp its handle, the door flew open, slamming against the frame. "What are you two doing here?" Reimu drunkenly scowled at the duo, one hand on her hip.

"We just came to enjoy the moon viewing," Kasen said.

"Well, next time, don't pop out of nowhere. If you want to join, come the normal way like everybody else."

"I will, I will," Kasen said.

Reimu nodded and returned inside, leaving the door open. The two followed her, passing through the shrine and onto the front porch, the sound of revelry welcoming them. She walked over to the new arrivals from the recent incident. They waved to her, only giving a passing glance as Komachi and Kasen stepped off the porch.

Kasen looked over the yard of the Hakurei Shrine, where the usual guests were in attendance, sprawled among picnic blankets, benches, and tables. Among them were the Scarlet Devil Mansion, residents from the Palace of Earth Spirits, the Yorigami sisters, Mizuchi, and Aunn sat next to each other, then Suika, as well as miscellaneous local youkai she couldn't name, some phantoms from the netherworld, and a smattering of human villagers. All gathered into their own cliques.

Suika waved over to Kasen from the gathering of humans that surrounded her. Kasen pointedly ignored them. At the farthest edges of the party, Kasen's gaze caught on Okina, Yukari, and Yuyuko, seated around a table while their servants watched over them. "Give me a minute." Kasen left Komachi and the front porch, crossing her arms as she approached her fellow sages. The two greeted her with smiles, and Komachi resigned herself to waiting for Kasen to return.

The other guests, youkai and human, gave Okina, Yuyuko, and–the plumper than usual–Yukari a wide berth as Yukari dined on the food and sweets before her, and Okina read under the shade of a parasol. The density of black birds increased along the forest that faced them, although neither of the sages paid them any mind as Yukari ate and Okina talked to her and their servants. As she approached, Yukari flexed a finger, forming a soundproof barrier. Between Yukari and Okina, Yuyuko smiled kindly at Kasen while helping herself to the tray of sweets.

"You two!" Kasen held out a hand, pointing towards both of them rapidly while she ignored Yuyuko.

"Sweet potato?" Yukari offered. Next to her, Yuyuko chuckled, and Youmu followed suit tentatively, looking lost.

Kasen pushed the potato away, pointedly refusing to look at the plates of sweets that Yuyuko was still eating from. "No! You won't bribe me this time."

"This time?" Okina said. Beside her, her two servants gave Kasen sly looks.

"No. I'm not engaging with your nonsense, I have something important to say..." Kasen launched into her explanation about what Komachi had said to her. She quickly brought Yukari, Ran, and Okina's servants to attention–even if Okina's looked like they only understood every other word. Okina was unaffected as she opened her book again. Yuyuko and Youmu were like Okina: one uncaring, the other not understanding.

"My, my. Those humans, always getting up to trouble," Okina said, mirth dripping from her voice. "Do they really want to speed up the extinction of their species that fast?"

Yukari nodded, but didn't respond to Okina's mockery as she turned to Ran. "Deal with that. I'm going into hibernation tomorrow."

"Yes, Mistress Yukari." Ran bowed and took a step back, disappearing through a gap in space. In her absence, Kasen crossed her arms and gave the two sages a long, hard stare. Between the Sages, Youmu tensed up, unsure of what to do.

"Kasen," Yuyuko said, "I don't mind you giving these two a lecture, but you're making poor Youmu here uncomfortable." The half-phantom followed her master up by giving an unwarranted apology, but just as Kasen relaxed her gaze to apologize, Okina spoke.

"Well, you came here for more than this, didn't you? Youmu won't understand what you're trying to say anyway, so there's no harm in telling us. After all, I suspect that I'm not the only one who has or is going to cause an incident, am I correct?"

Kasen flinched back; she could feel the embarrassment as her eyes narrowed at Okina. Yukari spoke before she could: "Really, how could you tell?"

Okina puffed out her chest and posed. "I am a god of secrets, after all." Her servants followed her lead, striking a pose behind her. Kasen read her tone. Okina hadn't known; Kasen had fallen for one of the first tricks in the book.

"You two." Kasen's prosthetic arm twitched; she felt herself being dragged into their nonsense again. "We're being watched right now." Just outside the range of Yukari's barrier, the black birds fluttered their wings, and the gaze of the moon intensified.

Okina smiled like a Buddha as her red and green aura flared. "Let them read our lips, after all, it will make their despair even sweeter." Okina opened her book again. "Kasen, have you read this book before, 'The Three-Body Problem'?"

"Only you would talk like that after our last incident," Yukari said, "This is just like that time–"

"You don't get to complain," Okina said, "You are the one who commissioned the creation of those incident stones." The secret god clapped her hands together as her smile widened. "They'll make wonderful weapons against the Lunarians." She then placed a hand to her chin. "That reminds me, Reimu had that idea about using dear Flandre against them, didn't she? I'm sure some others would appreciate her input."

Kasen fumed, "I already talked to her about that article. Now you two see here, as sages–"

>>3341

As the night dragged on, Kasen launched into another lecture. Komachi claimed a platter of food, a gourd of sake, and a spot on the porch. Everyone else gave her a wide berth, but she didn't mind. Then, as she finally settled in to view the moon, space bent, and a chill wind brushed against her face. "Hello, Miss Shinigami, slacking off as usual?" The voice was even, without inflection, betraying no emotion.

"Ah," Komachi recognized the voice, "You're that maid from back then. How's it been?" Komachi kept her gaze on the moon.

"Good, although we haven't had another flower incident yet. I enjoyed those flowers."

"Well, it hasn't been sixty years." Komachi glanced back over to Kasen and her companions. She still couldn't hear anything; she could see Yuyuko now arguing back, and Youmu wilting behind her. Okina had put her book down, fully enjoying the argument.

"Hasn't it? It's a shame, I'd like to see those flowers again." Komachi saw the maid lean against the railing of the porch next to her, a glass of wine in her hand. The first half of her sentence sounded like a joke, but Komachi couldn't tell.

"That's easy for you to say. You're not the one who has to clean it all up and usher the souls on their way. At least some of them make good conversation partners, especially the psycho killers. The infants and young ones have no good conversation topics."

"Really, the psycho killers?" Sakuya's tone was odd; rehearsed, teacher-like.

Komachi perked up, "Yeah. They're easy to spot; so excitable, always trying to make excuses for themselves. It's pretty funny seeing them smacked down, way better than the ones who committed suicide; they're always so down on themselves. There are only so many times you can listen to a self-pitying monologue, especially from those who have living relatives. You don't know how many times I've heard people cry about the mother, child, brother, or whoever they left alone."

"That's harsh. Isn't it?" There was a hint of inflection to her voice this time, but Komachi couldn't pin the emotion down.

"That's funny for you to say, psycho killer."

"I butcher human corpses as part of my profession; I take no particular joy in it either way. Neither do I give any thought to killing." As before: Her voice wasn't cold, harsh, or kind. It was excitingly even, lacking any inflection and expressing nothing but the literal meanings of the words. Komachi idly wondered: Sakuya might have trouble expressing herself, she might do it for dramatic effect, or those were her true feelings. Komachi decided it was the last option.

"Is that better? Even if you don't care, you're still killing people and butchering their bodies." Komachi looked out at the gaggle of humans who drunkenly talked to Suika. A few of the phantoms that followed Yuyuko had joined their conversation.

Sakuya nodded. "I took your master's words to heart; sometimes all that can be done is preventing somebody from meeting their sentence in hell. After all, my mistresses require humans as food, and the younger one has no stomach for butchering corpses."

"They'd survive without you, y'know? Same thing about the rest of that mansion's staff, I'm sure those girls can take care of themselves. So it's not like that absolves you of anything."

Komachi could feel Sakuya's gaze. "It does not, but I'm not trying to justify my actions."

Komachi shrugged. She wondered how long a sentence a dead Lunarian would get. "Either way, I guess there are worse reasons. I've certainly heard my fair share, you know, just the other day I–"

"SAKUUUUYAAA!" Remilia's voice cut through the festivities as she stood up in her highchair, waving at the pair. In Sakuya's absence, Alice had joined the SDM staff. Both of the witches and Koakuma had books open, comparing the contents. Komachi couldn't hope to guess what their argument was about.

"Apologies, but my Mistress needs me and I won't be entertaining such topics around her. They're poor for her education." Komachi nodded, but Sakuya had already vanished. She had already returned to her mistress.

"Well, I'll see you in hell."

In her absence, Komachi turned her attention to the conversation between the sages as it grew animated. Several others were staring now as well, their conversations lapsing into silence. Soon, then, Reimu went over to send Yukari and Okina off, with Yuyuko and Youmu following Yukari. Kasen stayed and claimed a gourd of sake and a picnic blanket before waving Komachi over.

Komachi rolled her eyes at her theatrics and joined her, ignoring the rest of the party. "Well, it's been nice spending my moon viewing here this year. Are you going to be here next year, or will you be busy?"

"Maybe. I've been wanting to hold one in my senkai–" Kasen looked at the moon, its silvery gaze illuminating the party where youkai. Beings cast out of the outside world partied and mingled with humans. "–But it's nice being able to see a scene like this."

Komachi followed her gaze, looking over assorted youkai and humans as the festivities died down. She was ambivalent. "Looks like you'll have to put some effort into making yourself approachable then."

Kasen looked over to a gathering of humans who were looking at the two of them out of the corner of their eyes. "Maybe the shinigami I've been spending my evening with is scaring them all off?" As she spoke, the humans flinched and tried their best to look occupied.

"It's those two you've been spending so much time with," Komachi said, gesturing to the now-empty space where the sages had been, "leaving me with the maid. Actually, speaking of work, are you going to tell Reimu about–" Komachi's eyes darted to the birds watching the party, and then to Reimu as she drunkenly lay on top of Marisa while the incident stones lay haphazardly strewn around them, "–the thing, you know? You didn't even tell her how proud you were."

Kasen's eye flitted over to where Reimu was, drunkenly and animatedly talking to the two new gods, "Well, it wouldn't be exciting for her if I tell her now, would it? Besides, I'm sure Reimu understands how I feel."

"Ha! Guess you'll be reaping what you'll sow in a bit, won't you?" Komachi poked Kasen with her elbow, earning her an annoyed grunt from the hermit.

Kasen crossed her arms, "Don't you have a harvest of your own?"

Komachi let loose a long sigh as she turned away from Kasen and got up from the blanket. "Do I have to? The busy season just started, and I don't feel like going to work." She slung her scythe over her shoulders and spun on her heel so that she was facing Kasen. "Do you want to get rid of me that quickly?"

"I'm not the one you have to be worried about; your master arrived here before you did, she's looking for you."

Komachi looked like she had tasted something bitter, "Well, if she's been looking for me all this time, I'd better go find her; avoiding her will just lengthen my inevitable lecture. Just be thankful the Ministry is filled with people like me; the world would be a quiet place if everyone worked like Eiki." The party had thinned out even further, and now there was almost no one around–except for the black birds–to hear them.

"It would be quiet if everyone in the ministry were a hard worker, but there's nothing wrong with being a hard worker." Kasen saw the birds nod at her comment and rolled her eyes; the Lunarians were being rather obvious with their spying.

"Says you," Komachi stuck her tongue out at Kasen, pushed off the ground, and floated into the air. "See you later. I have to go."

Kasen smiled up at her. "Happy harvesting. I hope you don't have too much work this year."

Komachi smiled as she rose into the air. "I'd say the same to you!" Komachi's smile stretched even wider as she swung her scythe, disappearing with her parting words. "But it looks like you're going to be busy!"