The Gensokyo Chronicle wasn't a book. It was a revelation.
From the moment Tenshi had clapped eyes on a copy during her most recent visit to Gensokyo, she had taken it everywhere with her. Even the most familiar and boring nooks and crannies of Heaven were vastly improved by being able to plunge into the impure world of phantoms and youkai at a moment's notice. The book was a far better companion than any of her peers, that was for sure.
At the moment, a lazy spring afternoon, Tenshi was lying on her back on her bed, holding the book high above her and squinting at the text, marvelling at how something so small could contain so much vital information. It had sections on all the jerks she had encountered during the summer, some more detailed than the others, some containing assessments Tenshi found downright laughable. Still, it was important to know one's enemy, so she pored over the details, and made sure to learn everything essential about all the creatures she hadn't met yet as well. It mentioned locations both charming and dangerous, all of which Tenshi promised herself she would go see at the first available opportunity. It had sections on all the races of Gensokyo, and even one on celestials, which made the author sound like huge dull dud for thinking the life of the average celestial was somehow enjoyable. It was a pity, because otherwise Tenshi had quite taken to this Hieda no Akyuu; insightful for a human, with an unusual ability and a wry sense of humour.
Still, as magnificent as the opus was, it had two flaws that no matter how Tenshi tried, she couldn't ignore. First, and most pressingly, Tenshi had no individual entry in the chronicle. It was understandable, even though it irked her: she had not been well known in Gensokyo by the time of its publishing. Surely the incident she had created the previous summer more than earned her a two-page spread in the book if some pointless spring herald fairy and bug youkai had made it in, too. Perhaps the next time she blessed the surface world with her presence, she'd pay Akyuu a visit, to make sure she added all the best details into the no doubt forthcoming expansion to the chronicle.
The other problem was minor, but bugged Tenshi nevertheless: The Dragon God had its own entry, filled with human ignorance (although it made Tenshi wonder if she had managed to make the eyes of the statue mentioned in the entry glow red), but not a word on the Messengers of the Dragon Palace. Normally, Tenshi wouldn't have bat an eye: the messengers were boring, and with one exception, she couldn't even tell them apart. It was that one exception that had first aroused her suspicion, and to which she had in vain searched for a confirmation or denial in the chronicle; were the Messengers of the Dragon Palace really youkai, like she had been led to believe, or something else entirely?
Tossing the book aside, she rolled off her bed and walked to the window, brushing past the heavy night-time curtains tied to the sides, and parting the gossamer-like curtains that stood in place even during daytime. The view had once been awe-inspiring, mundane as it was to Tenshi now: immediately beneath her window was a vast garden in full bloom, with an endless parade of vines, shrubs, and pastel-coloured flowers everywhere she looked. Beyond the white fence of the garden and the hill the Hinanawi estate was built on opened a view to the rest of Bhava-agra; neat houses, tidy walkways, and above all plants everywhere, everything from mighty peach trees to the smallest forget-me-nots. She saw but a handful of people: while Akyuu was clearly unaware of it based on what she had written in the chronicle, Heaven had plenty of legroom.
She thought she recognised one of the passers-by floating around and squinted. It was indeed Iku, easy to spot by her scarlet clothing. Tenshi didn't think much of it: it had been a while since her last report. She followed with her eyes as Iku encountered two celestials on a stroll and respectfully tipped her hat.
Tenshi narrowed her eyes and with a huff, drew the curtains.
There it was again. Even before her ascension, from her earliest memories, she had known youkai and celestials were at odds, and nothing in the Gensokyo Chronicle had disabused her of this notion. If anything, the emphasis Akyuu gave to the eternal rivalry between youkai and humans, including those being who had risen above humanity, had only further spurred Tenshi's suspicions that Iku was merely masquerading as a youkai. So what if she and her kind were called Messengers of the Dragon Palace? So what if everyone she had brought up the topic to, including Iku herself had firmly stated she was indeed a youkai? None of that meant anything when you really got down to it.
Tenshi flopped back onto her bed and buried her face in her pillow. That such a pointless matter was eating her up meant she had reached an extreme state of ennui. She had to come up with something interesting to do, and fast, or else she might, Heaven forbid, end up like those sad sacks, supposedly content celestials who were glad to do the same uninteresting activities day in, day out.
Idly, she picked up the Gensokyo Chronicle and leafed through it. She ignored the fairies with an eye roll, then landed on the celestial section. Her eyes brushed over the page. Nothing on it piqued her interest, but that was to be expected: everything on it she had already known before opening the book. She was just about the jump to the later portion of the book, with all the interesting locations, when her eyes caught sight of a particular sentence.
Again, it was nothing new. Quite the opposite, it was something she had known since childhood. Still, seeing the fact written in black and white made a seed germinate in her mind.
She shrugged. What the hell. It would provide a brief diversion at least, as well as answer the nagging doubt.
She jumped off the bed and back to the window. Iku was nowhere in sight. Tenshi was the only family member at home, so there was no need to hastily arrange her parents elsewhere. She quickly walked over to her drawing room and to the bell there to summon a servant. She had some preparations to do.
"Just normal spring rains, then?" Tenshi asked, taking a long sip from her glass before setting it back on the drawing room table.
"Quite normal, yes." Iku stood next to the table, her hands loosely crossed in front of her. "The people of Gensokyo are sure to be glad for regular weather, after the crop failure of the previous year."
"Uh huh." Try as she might, Tenshi couldn't feign interest. Then again, overt attention probably would have made Iku suspicious. "So, nothing new under the sun, beneath the clouds or otherwise."
"That is one way of putting it, yes."
"Oh well." Tenshi leaned backwards in her chair, her hands behind her head. She made sure to keep them out of Iku's sight: the wound she had cut into her left palm was already healing thanks to her celestial constitution, but it served her well to keep the messenger oblivious.
Her eyes landed on the heavily laden table, prepared just in time before her visitor arrived: a bowlful of the most succulent peaches, a crystal pitcher containing juice, three unused glasses neatly stacked into one another, and Tenshi's glass, into which she had poured a drink as soon as the servants had left.
Iku waited in place, her gaze unfocused. No doubt she was waiting to be dismissed.
Instead, Tenshi sighed and fanned herself with her healthy hand. "Maybe I'll go there anyway, if only to see the rain. I'm sick of warmth and sunlight."
"I'm afraid endless sunlight is the burden of those who live above the clouds," Iku replied with a slight smile.
"And endless clouds are the burden of those who live in them." Tenshi leaned towards the table and selected a peach for herself. "Don't you get hot when you come here? Since it's cooler where you usually are?"
"I thank you for your concern, Eldest Daughter." Iku inclined her head. "Fortunately, the difference in temperature is slight enough that I am capable of adjusting to it without difficulties."
"No need to pretend it doesn't bother you." Tenshi placed the peach on the table and gestured at the bowl. "Have some refreshments. There's way more than I can eat by myself, anyway."
"Thank you, but I wouldn't want to impose."
"Yeah, it's such an imposition when I'm literally offering them to you." Tenshi rolled her eyes. She was relatively sure Iku was just being polite by declining, but it was the kind of politeness she had never understood. "At least have a glass of juice."
"It really isn't necessary to offer me anything, Eldest Daughter."
"I insist."
Based on the faint smile that dawned on Iku's face, Tenshi had hit the required amount of offers for her to accept without breaking some dull decorum Tenshi didn't give a toss about. "In that case, I humbly accept."
"Good." Tenshi picked up the pitcher with her good hand and carefully placed it above the topmost unused cup, and slowly poured out a drink with her tongue at the centre of her mouth. Hopefully the gesture looked natural enough. "The next time I want to give you something, can't you just accept it the first time I ask?"
Iku tilted her head ever so slightly to the right, a gesture Tenshi had come to associate with her reading the atmosphere. "If you would prefer that, then yes."
"I would." Tenshi placed the pitcher back on the table, then used the same hand to pick up the glass and offered it to Iku.
Iku bend over and took the glass without further murmurs. The juice was a light orange. Perhaps just a tad more orange than peach juice in general, but from what Tenshi could tell, Iku hadn't caught on.
"Very well. I thank you, Eldest Daughter." With that, Iku raised the glass to her lips.
With all her willpower, Tenshi resisted the urge to curl her mouth into a smile.
As soon as Iku took a slight sip, her entire body went rigid. She slowly lowered the class, with a confused, vaguely disgusted look on her face.
Tenshi affected a puzzled frown. "What's the matter?"
Iku swallowed audibly, then brought her free hand to her mouth. "I'm sorry, Eldest Daughter. Perhaps it is an acquired taste I have yet to gain."
"Oh." Tenshi's shoulders slumped. Was her tampering that obvious? Or could it be heavenly peaches really were an acquired taste to non-celestials? Either way, her experiment would never work if Iku didn't drink at least some of the juice.
Iku took a quick look at Tenshi's no doubt crestfallen face, then visibly hesitated. Slowly and deliberately, she raised the glass back to her lips.
Tenshi looked on in amazement as slowly and steadily, Iku drank all the juice remaining in the glass, then placed it on the table.
That done, Iku visibly shuddered, her face scrunched up into a pained frown. "Thank you again for your hospitality, Eldest Daughter."
"You didn't have to drink it if tasted that bad," said Tenshi, while secretly celebrating in her mind.
Iku raised her hand to her forehead, in a gesture that seemed unconscious. "It wouldn't heed well to refuse a gift already accepted. Now, however, I must —" she paused and blinked rapidly as another shudder ran through her.
"Are you alright?" Tenshi shuffled to the edge of her seat.
"I'm...I'm not sure why, but..." Iku winced and squeezed her eyes shut. "Forgive me, Eldest Daughter, but—" With that, she swooned, collapsing into a heap on the ground.
Tenshi jumped to her feet and clapped her hands together in triumph, the cut on the left palm quite forgotten. "It worked! And if my blood works on you, you really must be a youkai! A weird youkai, but still." She smirked. "Pretty clever, wasn't it?"
When Iku didn't react, the initial rush of excitement of a successful experiment ebbed away, replaced by everyday ennui. "Well, that wasted five minutes, anyway. Do you have any ideas what I could do next?"
She crouched down next to Iku and prodded her shoulder, to no response. She prodded again for more of the same.
"Fine." She shrugged. "Play dead if you want. Be a big baby about being outsmarted. We both know I won, either way."
She waited a few moments more, and when Iku remained silent, got up and slouched back onto her chair.
"You know," she began after a while, then paused to pick up the peach she had previously discarded and took a juicy bite out of it. After swallowing, she continued. "I have all the time in the world. You, on the other hand, have to get back to work."
Still nothing. Tenshi rolled her eyes and looked out of the window, savouring the peach.
A thought crossed her mind. A silly thing, something she hadn't even considered while hastily concocting her plan.
She had never checked exactly how potent a poison celestial blood was to youkai.
She dropped the peach and took to the floor once more, rolling Iku onto her back. The youkai's features had smoothed out, and but for the slight crease between her eyes, she would have passed for sleeping.
"Iku?" She raised Iku's eyelid. The crimson eye revealed underneath looked forward seeing nothing, glazed over. Tenshi allowed the lid to drop again.
"Seriously." An odd feeling had taken to the bottom of her stomach, and she didn't much care for it. She took Iku by both shoulders and shook her. "Wake up already!"
When again she received no response, the strange suffocating feeling, so unfamiliar she didn't even have a name for it, tightened its grip on her like a vice. She laid Iku's upper body back on the floor, gently despite her shaking arms, and placed her head on her chest.
She caught the thrum of an unfamiliar heart, and let out a breath she hadn't known she had been holding.
After one last tentative shake, Tenshi sat back done, unsure how to proceed. Iku wasn't dead so that was a start, but neither did she show any signs of regaining consciousness.
After a minute spent chewing her lip, she stood up and reached for the bell again. She had to at least figure out what the effects of her blood were, and she could always cow the servants into silence. Better than allowing, well — Tenshi bit her lip — whatever could happen otherwise.
Tenshi tossed the book aside and grabbed the next one, quickly flipping to the index. Seeing nothing useful, she threw it over her shoulder and ignored the cling of breaking glass that follow the toss. Broken glasses could be fixed later. The broken messenger had to be fixed before she turned to blood on Tenshi's hands.
As she reached for the next book, her gaze briefly fell on Iku. With the servant's help, though she probably could have managed alone, she had lifted her onto the divan by the edge of the drawing room. As the mute and pale-faced servant left the room to fetch the books Tenshi had ordered, she had pulled her chair closer to the divan to better keep an eye on Iku's condition. She hadn't grown any worse, at least — her breathing was steady, and the cold sweat that had emerged on her forehead had dried up — but neither had she shown any signs of waking up.
While waiting for the books, Tenshi had finally been able to put a name on what she had felt when she first realised what might have happened.
Fear.
Scowling, Tenshi opened the next book. Immediately, this one showed more promise than the other books combined. She trailed the page with her finger and found the keyword she had been looking for, then quickly flipped over.
"Blood of celestials..." It took her a moment to realise she was murmuring to herself. She closed her mouthed and quickly scanned through the complicated kanji to where it spoke of lethal doses.
She did some quick calculations in her mind. She hadn't bled nearly that much, had she? And even if she had, some of the blood had to remain in the pitcher.
She peered more carefully at the section, then at the section following it at the possible side effects, then glanced at Iku. The knot of fear in her stomach finally loosened up.
"It's okay. You won't die. It's fine." She spoke up more for her own benefit than Iku's, but even then her words fell flat. She felt faint in a way she hadn't for centuries, and couldn't put a finger on why.
She continued to puzzle over the strange, unfamiliar emotions as she put down the book and settled down to wait for Iku to awaken.