Hello new readers and welcome back old readers! Boy it's been a while hasn't it?
I've had this sitting in my files for some time, however I was never inclined to post it until I was certain I regained interest in writing again. After finishing I've Got Strings I needed to take a break and recharge, so I wrote this over the course of several months instead of my usual sessions. I think I'm ready to get back into the saddle, so I finally sat down and had a decent writing session.
This isn't the result of said session, you'll see that one later.
Anyway onto my next work, Sleepless. I highly recommend you read I've Got Strings before reading this story, as the events covered in that story are the primary catalyst for this one.
Kagiyama Hina was feeling justifiably proud of herself as of late.
There had been a spate of misfortunes the last few weeks, terrible curses which forced her to travel across Gensokyo to visit the afflicted and take their troubles away. There had been outbreaks before, but the scale was something else. It was a nice excuse to get out of the Great Youkai Forest and see a bit of her humble world again.
Of course, her reputation kept trouble far and away from her. All knew of her, all who had the sense ignored her existence outright to avoid any residual misfortunes that may escape her. She liked seeing human and youkai alike outright flee from her at times, it reminded her of a child who disturbed a hornet's nest.
Sometimes she'd follow them, just to see their reaction. It was unnecessarily cruel, but the amusement factor was well-worth any myths this would fabricate about her later.
She was a benevolent girl when it came down to it, she'd never dare pass along a curse. At least intentionally, there was this one time the bubonic plague struck a coven of youkai, she had to make a quick trip to recover the disease before it spread too far.
It would have been quicker if they didn't run.
Regardless, Hina was more than in a good mood. She had just one last location to visit. Something drew her to the banks of the river Sanzu, and she couldn't quite place why. She'd usually find out about curses and misfortunes along the way from travelers who were ignorant of her nature, but this time she heard nothing.
She stood on the rocky banks overlooking the cursed waves of that rotten river, the billions upon billions of dead souls making up its liquid contents.
"Oi! You're scaring off the dead again!"
Hina blinked, spotting Komachi floating by in her ferry, a man who cradled his severed head under his arm was the passenger.
"My apologies," Hina said, her gentle voice somehow carrying over the roaring rapids of the river, "something draws me here."
The shinigami looked unconvinced, her brow quirking visibly, "it's all pain and misfortune here," she said, "not much you can do about it."
Hina shook her head, "it is not the Sanzu or the spirits who wait on its shore," she lifted off and slowly floated along the riverbank, keeping pace with Komachi's boat, "something happened here, something that normally doesn't."
"Someone with cash got shoved in?" Komachi helpfully supplied with a careless shrug, "what do you care? You know what happens when you fall in these waters."
Hina's frown deepened as she nodded, "I feel great suffering here, but..." she trailed off, staring back at the original part of the shore she stood on. She could still feel the insistent tug, something terrible happened there, "did you see anything happen over there?" she asked.
Komachi followed Hina's gaze, "the water got pretty rough a while back, but it calmed quickly," the shinigami answered, "you're not going to find anything here, curse goddess, I suggest you turn back now and save yourself some daylight."
Hina's gaze stayed on that disturbed bank of the Sanzu, where large stones had been kicked about and rotten, bloated bodies had been strewn across the shore.
Something had to have happened there.
However, the shinigami had a point. She could spend the rest of her allotted eternity sitting on this shore and learn nothing more, she was better off heading back to her forest home and waiting for the next spate of misfortunes to strike, "please let me know if something happens here again," she said humbly.
Komachi waved her off, "I'll keep you in mind," she said flippantly. The headless man waved farewell as Hina parted their company.
There was a reason she was brought here, there had to have been. She would look into it in the future, ask around maybe. People didn't make it their business to know what happens at the Sanzu, but for something so terrible she was naturally drawn to the location, there had to be at least one soul that knew what happened.
She just didn't know where to start looking.
Hina could still feel it, the urge to return seemed to grow the greater the distance. She needed to figure out what's going on, she needed to help whoever suffered such a great misfortune.
It was muffled, like it had been wrapped in a thin cloth, but she could feel it. It was something great, something she hadn't felt in thousands of years.
There's no way it could be that.
Time will have to tell just what was festering beneath the waves of the Sanzu, there was nothing to be learned here. She slowly bobbed in the steady breeze and drifted back into the misty forest thicket just beyond the craggy shores of the river. She tried shaking the feelings from her mind, but the sensation was so nagging, it felt like a parasite gnawing at her senses.
Hina blinked when she caught something in her periphery, a few flickers of orange in the otherwise depressing shades of gray that made up the Sanzu's rocky shoreline. She saw the lights dance into the trees, and spurred on by curiosity, the goddess hurried along to keep pace with the phenomena.
Was this what she was feeling?
She could certainly feel the lingering trail of suffering the lights were leaving behind, a stray spirit perhaps?
The way they danced, they almost looked like embers flowing with the stirring winds—graceful, but with a sense of spontaneity and mischief about them. Hina thought of each ember as a little demon whose whim fate relied upon when spreading a flame through a forest.
Which became entirely apt when the embers bumped against a tree and swallowed it in a furious blaze within seconds.
Hina darted after the embers, who quickly shot into another tree and swallowed it in a raging blaze. It weaved betwixt two tress, making sure to bump into them both and light them aflame. Hina reeled at the sudden, intense flames, instead opting to rise before the smoke of the blaze eclipsed her sight, maybe she could follow the embers from above.
When Hina cleared the blazing wood, she saw just how quickly the damage spread.
What she thought was only a few burning trees was now a raging inferno, rooted deep into the local woods, so massive and ferocious that it would likely burn for days without intervention. The goddess found herself hesitating. She could gather so much misfortune by letting those embers run rampant for a while.
Yes, that's what she would do. Hell, someone else would eventually confront the spirit or whatever it was, Hina herself could just roll in and take care of the misfortune. The goddess smiled as she turned away from the inferno.
This would be fun to watch.
=][=
"Komachi."
The shinigami blinked, tearing her head away from the beheaded spirit. Before her stood the very person she'd rather not have to deal with as much as she has to. "Heya Shiki," Komachi said with all the enthusiasm of a hooked carp.
The enma's brow twitched, but her stern expression remained. She kept her grip on the Rod of Remorse firm, restraining herself from smacking the redhead in front of her with it, "we can talk about your tone later, since there is something far more dire to discuss than our mutual feelings for each other."
"Rude," Komachi responded, trying to sound offended.
"Now since you haven't brought it up with me I know you don't know about it," Shiki continued, once again ignoring the sounds that came out of Komachi's face-hole, "first though, I'm sure you're well aware of the Sanzu's new guest, and the strife its arrival has brought upon the trapped spirits."
"A nice way of saying those two chumps kicked a hornet's nest," Komachi said flatly, "so what's happening?"
The enma's frown deepened, "it appears this shakeup has done far more than just upset the spirits. According to some of the reapers, spirits have found ways to eject themselves from the waters of the Sanzu."
The shinigami laughed at that, but it quickly died in a few seconds, "I wish you had a reputation for making jokes."
"I'll let you know if I decide oxygen is depreciating in value," Shikieiki responded smoothly, "in the meantime, I need you to vacate your station and track down these rogue spirits."
Komachi snorted, "why don't you ask your precious reapers?"
"Because they need to monitor the Sanzu and keep anything worse from getting out," Shiki said.
"You really think that corpse is going to come back out?" Komachi prodded.
"While whatever our strangers dumped in the Sanzu can now be considered a threat, there are other things beneath those waters that we need to keep quarantined."
At this the woman couldn't help sneering, "so I'm too dangerous to have around?"
"You'll be more useful elsewhere," Shiki said, "I expect you to make all haste in tracking down these rogue elements before they do any harm."
"It's not like you'll let me do anything else," Komachi retorted snidely, "I do like my ferry job."
"All evidence to the contrary," Shikieiki responded in kind, "I know, low stress, slow pace. Now go and find those rogue spirits so you can get back to work that requires far less effort. You can start back at the shoreline where you spoke to Hina."
"How did you-?"
"I know everything my shinigami are doing at all times," the enma said matter-of-factly, "there was a forest fire nearby, that should be enough of a clue to put you on the trail of our wayward spirits."
Komachi rolled her eyes, "why don't you do it then, if you already know," she mumbled as she turned to put as much distance as she could between herself and her minuscule boss. She closed her eyes and sucked in a breath, picturing where she needed to go.
It was nice having the power to cover great distances in a short amount of time, just fold the world a bit and you can make it where you need to go in a few dozen paces. Within a matter of seconds Komachi covered the usually great distance from the realm of the enma back to the banks of the Sanzu. With the roar of the rotten river just behind her, Komachi focused on spotting a trail of billowing smoke or the hot glow of flame, but she couldn't spot anything from the banks of the river.
The shinigami lifted off, and the moment she began cresting the deep gorge that lined the Sanzu she spotted the fire Shiki told her about, what was left of it anyway. It looks like it had been put out for a few hours, snuffed out in what looked like a localized blizzard. Wherever there was charred tree and earth, there was a layer of frost covering them.
Komachi drifted over to a nearby tree and cleaved it with her scythe. As the top fell clean off she inspected the heart of the charred wood, still glowing hot, embers leaking from the cracks. The fire was big, it was no wonder that someone capable enough would come along to put it out, but that begged the question of who did it.
There were a few culprits that came to mind, and if she remembered right one liked to hang out close by. Hefting her scythe over her shoulder Komachi touched down and decided to take a walk. If Shiki was going to make her play detective, she might as well go at her pace.
She already knew where she wanted to go. There's always a place where you can catch wind of Gensokyo's latest woes, especially some of the players involved. The shinigami twirled her scythe and swung it playfully, cleaving another tree as she started to hum a few haiku to herself. She hoped the red-white was involved, it would make finding the source of this nonsense all that much easier.
=][=
"Come over for dinner again, Mokou?" Kaguya prodded.
"Shut up before I kill you," the noble snapped, sparks of fire shooting across the table, "Doctor Yagokoro summoned me here, and I would be remiss to not answer."
"Nice to see you still have your propriety," the lunar princess observed as she glided past Mokou, "though I think you should apologize to the humans for burning their crops."
"That wasn't me!" Mokou barked, her skin gaining a healthy glow as her temperature flared, "how many times do I have to tell people that?!"
"You're the resident pyromaniac, not me," Kaguya said nonchalantly, lazily floating about, "so if you didn't, who did? You gonna go on a mad quest for revenge and fail just about every time you find your target?"
"Don't test me you lunar whore!"
"Temper, temper," the princess chided, giving Mokou a wider berth, "how do you expect to find a good husband with the emotional appeal of a dead spider?"
"You've said your piece, Kaguya," floated in a new voice. Yagokoro Eirin silently made her way onto the scene, making a shooing gesture to the princess, "give us some space, I want to speak to lady Fujiwara about something."
"I can't listen in?"
Both girls looked pointedly at Mokou, who snarled and made a far less polite shooing gesture at Kaguya, who only snickered and retreated. From the sounds of things she quickly tracked down Udongein and started yammering with her, leaving Eirin and Mokou alone for the time being.
"It's not the first time you've burnt down a forest," Eirin said flatly.
"That's what this is about? I should have realized, whenever something burns down they always blame me! I thought you were smarter than the rest of those idiots in the human village!" Mokou retorted hotly, a few embers flying out of her mouth.
Eirin wafted the glowing embers away with a hand, "you weren't always so charitable in the past, Mokou. The Soga come to mind."
"Look if you're going to say something, just say it and stop bringing up the past. You think I did it, what are you going to do about it?" the noble hissed.
"Help find the real culprit if you're so ready to claim innocence," Eirin said, "Reisen said a child that she would play with was consumed in those flames, and is happy to help you track down whoever did this."
"And just what is your stake in this?" Mokou snidely asked.
"A burnt down human village is bad for business," Eirin responded, "As much as I'd rather not make medicine for every idiot who decides to keep a pet spider, I do enjoy eating something once in a while. Human food isn't very filling, but it does taste nice, and I need their money to indulge that vice."
"So Reisen wants to avenge some crispy kid, and you want money," Mokou clarified, "and what if I refuse?"
"I can just shoot you and put your head in a box to make sure it isn't you," Udongein answered, arriving with Kaguya in tow, "but if you're innocent, which I'm pretty sure you are, it will be helpful to have our local fireball around."
"Where do you plan on starting?" Mokou asked
"Well whatever started the fire is not going to be in the same spot, but if the location is anything to go by I'm pretty sure its intent is giving those poor humans trouble," Udongein answered, "our culprit has to be hiding close to the human village, but far enough away to not draw attention to themselves," she gave Mokou a pointed look, "know any good places someone might want to hide?"
Mokou's eyes narrowed, "I'm guessing you think I'm an authority on the subject?"
The rabbit snorted, "well to be fair, you're not exactly a people person."
The noble just about ripped Udongein's ears off, but decided against it, simply sighing in annoyance, "yeah I know a few spots around the root of Youkai Mountain, we can start there."
=][=
Komachi was surprised to find that the recent blaze managed to reach the human village, she expected better. However, as a newly minted reaper (at least that's what she'd tell people), she was surprised to find that nobody recognized her by either her attire or the giant scythe she was expected to carry through woefully small doors.
Should she really be surprised? Probably not, the only person she knew that had crossed paths with a shinigami and survived was that prude of a hermit.
"Miss! Miss over here!"
Komachi turned around, seeing a merchant and his cart. She was about to dismiss him when he presented something curious to her, a glass jar filled with fireflies-... no those were embers.
The crafty merchant smiled wryly, "I see my trinkets have caught your eye! Come come! Take a closer look at this contained essence of fire!"
Essence of fire, huh? Komachi hazarded a stroll over, making sure to throw an extra bit of sway in her hips. She caught the slightly balding man's eyes wandering just a tad, perfect. "Oh my," she said, putting on an airheaded voice and trying to look more impressed and bewildered than just genuinely curious, "essence of fire? I've never heard of such a thing!"
The -not as crafty as he thought he was- merchant found his grin only growing at the tall woman's words, "true, this is quite the rare commodity! It is said that essence of fire can only be produced from those who died in a terrible inferno, I captured these little demons last night during the forest fire that threatened the village!"
"Oh you must be very brave to capture these embers all by yourself! May I see a jar?" Komachi asked, keeping the act on.
The merchant flushed at the shinigami's praise, offering a jar full of mischievous little flames, "here you are miss. Do be careful though! Each of these little embers has the power to create infernos that rival the one that occurred the night prior. However, they do make great lanterns!"
Komachi found herself laughing, "that's not all it does," she said, her voice going low, "it will help me find our little troublemaker," she placed the small jar in one of her satchels, "you've done a great service to the shinigami."
The merchant paled, "sh-sh-shi-," he swallowed a generous lump, "o-of course!" he said, taking a deep bow, "a-anything to help a servant of the enma!"
Komachi ruffled what little of the man's hair was left, "good boy, now run along, your time hasn't come yet," she didn't need to tell him twice, the moment she gave him permission he packed up his cart and hurried home, probably to relieve himself. The shinigami couldn't help another laugh before pulling the jar out of her pocket again, inspecting the glowing embers therein, "now then, show me the way, little ones."
"You're not actually going to open that up are you?"
Komachi turned, spotting the familiar black cap of Gensokyo's most famous thief. She looked down, her gaze meeting the substantially shorter girl's eyes, "hey Mari, what's up?" she asked casually.
Marisa hefted a basket of fruit, "gettin' some snacks."
"More like stealing."
The young magician waved Komachi's retort away, "I consider it takin' for the needy. Now you gonna tell me why you're about to start another fire?"
"Shiki sent me to track down a mutual friend," the shinigami gestured to a burnt down house in the background, "these embers haven't gone out, they're packed full of residual ki. We can use it to locate the little pyromaniac," Marisa's frown turned thoughtful, which teased a grin out of Komachi, "wanna help?"
The magician's frown grew to oppose Komachi's grin, "the last time I decided to help someone it didn't end well..."
"This won't end up like that," Komachi said dismissively, "the worst thing that's gonna happen is that we have another fire to deal with!"
"I already put out one inferno, I don't feel like putting out another," Marisa retorted.
Komachi's grin remained, "so help me catch the little torch before it causes more trouble!"
Marisa shook her head, "look, I'm trying to stay out of the whole charity thing for a while. I don't need it right now."
"You look like you need some heads to bust," came Komachi's retort, "and you're not doing charity, you've been enlisted by a shinigami to track a fugitive," she ruffled Marisa's hair, "so you don't have a choice missy!"
Marisa rolled her eyes, "if it means getting rid of you faster, let's go then."
Komachi laughed and started unscrewing the lid of her jar, "That's the spirit! You don't regret this Mari, trust me!" she tossed the cap away and tossed it into the air, watching the free embers shoot from the open jar like fireflies. As a group, they all fluttered about before flying off.
"Of course it's in the direction of youkai mountain," Marisa intoned, still unbearably grumpy. She squeaked in surprised when Komachi casually picked her up with one arm like a distressed damsel.
"Hurry now! We can't lose them!"
And there you have it, the start of what will hopefully be a fun little adventure.
I've decided to make this the full-on sequel to Strings. So behold! Shortcomings Manifest the rewrite!