"Nazrin! Get back here!" shouted a voice from inside the maze-like interior of the Palanquin ship. Nazrin didn't look back as her tiny legs slammed against the floor. The hard wooden floor made her feet ache through her thin grey shoes as she tried to find some way out of the ship before the angry monster better known as Shou Toramaru found her. Nazrin had been assigned a job by Shou, to go down to Gensokyo, to the Human Village. A sack of tea leaves, two bags of brown rice, a replacement rice steamer to replace the one that Unzan broke, a bottle of mixed spices, dumplings, chicken and several boxes of unspecified vegetables. Nazrin had gotten lost, forgotten several of the items on the 'list', returned with unacceptable replacements, and Shou had flown off of the hook. Byakuren insisted that Shou should not punish Nazrin, however Byakuren was no longer around. The cloud-wielding nun and the immortal captain had locked themselves inside their own rooms, so Nazrin had reason to even be there.
Drawing herself out of her long trail of thought, the mouse youkai ducked into a room to catch her breath. Behind the wood, she heard Shou flying past. Nazrin rested her forehead in her sweaty palms. Why had she not thought to fly? It wouldn't have tired her out as fast.
"Nazrin!" a hissing, whispering voice echoed from the corner of the dark room. Nazrin's heart lept furiously to her mouth, pounding like a hammer, and her red eyes darted to the source. It was Murasa! The captain edged closer. Nazrin quickly darted her eyes around the room, and immediately shot her glance to the hole in the floor with a chain snaking through it. The anchor room! The varnish on the wooden walls had began to peel and decay from age and Murasa's boredom-induced habits. The large, well-cleaned window overlooking Gensokyo was open. Nazrin had ran that far down into the ship? She was right in the belly of it! Murasa leant against the shoddy wall beside Nazrin, smirking at her.
"Haaa... my heart is... in my... mouth!" Nazrin panted, sweat dripping down her clammy forehead. Murasa patted the little youkai's head, laughing.
"Oh, please, you haven't seen Shou-chan's wrath yet!" Murasa giggled, loudly. Nazrin fretted to put her hands over the captain's mouth, but Nazrin's arms were held back. "Calm down! Ichirin said she saw Shou in the higher floors of the ship! Haha! How do I know? She just had Unzan pop down with a note. That's our way of communicating with each other without bein' on the receiving end of one of Shou-chan's curvy lasers." Murasa flapped her hand dismissively, but was met by Nazrin's teary eyes.
"Nazrin? Nazrin! Nazrin-chan? It's Hijiri-chan! Shou's gone looking outside for you, you can come out now, if you want? I'll handle everything when she comes back, promise?" chirped a sweet, melodic voice from outside. Nazrin gasped in happiness and went to open the door, but Murasa stopped her with a stern face.
"Ichirin! It's not funny!" growled the captain, "Carry on and I'll chain you to the anchor and send you straight into the ground!"
"Hehehe, sorry, Murasa. Nazrin's in here? Can I come in?" Ichirin whispered, almost inaudibly. "I actually did see Shou searching outside. Nazrin, I hope you know that you only set her off? Shou has been brewing all day. I'll tell you when I'm inside!" the nun rapped her knuckled on the door insistently. She sounded very frantic. Almost... too frantic. Murasa just smirked, sliding the door back. The sight she met caused both mouse and immortal captain to freeze.
"S-Shou?" Nazrin screamed, diving behind the vexed Murasa. Shou, having disguised her voice as Ichirin, just laughed maniacally. The very volume at which her voice carried left shivers down the spines of the immortal captain and the leader of mice.
"I may as well tell you why I'm so angry, eh, Nazrin?" giggled Shou, with wide eyes of lunacy piercing right into the souls of Nazrin and Murasa. "Well basically, yo-"
"Hello? Is this the Palanquin ship?" sang a small voice outside the window. Nobody payed attention, but Shou snapped. The tiger-patterned Vaisravana charged at Nazrin. Murasa leapt aside and Nazrin leapt outside. Right onto the passing being that had inquired about the identity of the ship. That person was none other than Hatate Himekaidou, the spirit-photographer tengu. Nazrin clung to the pigtail-flaunting girl's leg, and the tengu screamed.
"Nazrin!" Murasa screamed. The ship was so far above ground, and if Nazrin fell she may die. Shou didn't care. She dove out of the window, trying to grab Nazrin's L-rods and drag her from the visiting tengu. Hatate screamed, the extra weight of Nazrin affecting her flight. The harsh sunlight was burning Nazrin's eyes, and she moved her hands from around the calves of Hatate to rub her eyelids. Bad idea. Nazrin plummeted down to Gensokyo, too scared to even think of flying.
After about a minute of falling, she saw a flash of pink, black and brown, and was lowered back down to the earth in the arms of Hatate Himekaidou.
"Miss tengu! W-why did you help me?" Nazrin stuttered as she regained her balance. Hatate shrugged, holding Nazrin's elbow carefully to keep her steady. The red-eyed girl shook her off, quivering.
"Well, anyone in their right mind would help a girl if she was plummeting to the earth, right? Couldn't let you die like that, it'd be a waste of a pretty face." Hatate smiled. Nazrin blushed, and looked away. The tengu simply looked around, and the colour drained from her face. She looked down to see several sunflowers dead underfoot.
"Where are we..?" Nazrin murmurs.
"Mu...mu-mu...Mugenkan! Garden of the Sun! This is Yuuka's place! She'll murder us! We have to leave, go, go, go!" Hatate grabbed Nazrin's wrists and took off up into the air. Back-to-back, they both stared around the sunflower field in panic. Nothing. Hatate, still with a vice-like hold of the mouse-youkai's wrists, flew off towards Youkai Mountain.
"Uwaa! Where are you taking me, Miss Tengu?" Nazrin began to whimper, pinching her skirt between her legs to hide her panties from 'gusts of wind' more commonly known as 'upskirt-peekers'. Hatate sighed in irritation and picked up her speed towards her house. It was a small Japanese style tatami-house, with a little garden complete with it's own little pond.
"One, I'm saving your life. Two, people are going to look up your skirt even if you're on the ground, especially Aya, and three, my name is Hatate Himekaidou. Hata-chan, if you want to. I hate all this formality nonsense, and not to mention, you don't want to go back to that ship in too much of a hurry, do ya?" Hatate giggled as she flew through her front door. Literally flew. Nazrin screamed as Hatate stopped and the pure momentum sent the former plummeting right into a cabinet. Hatate raised her hand to her flushed forehead and pulled the dazed mouse-youkai to her unstable feet.
"Can you help me?" Nazrin gurgled as her eyes rolled into the back of her head. The twin-tail-hair tengu simply shook Nazrin's shoulders to drive the little mouse back to the real world.
"With what? You want me to take a spirit photo from that tiger-youkai? I can take a picture through her eyes or of her imagination or past. Whatever's in her mind. Like why she was so pissed at you." Hatate picked up her cell-phone camera and flicked through the pictures. She found one and showed Nazrin. It depicted a dragon, a woman with a dark purple ponytail and a miko's uniform and a border of light outside a shrine. Hatate smirked at Nazrin's dumbfounded expression.
"W-what... is that?" whispered the grey-haired youkai. Hatate just burst into giggles.
"You don't know your history of Gensokyo, do you? It's a picture I got from the mind of Yukari Yakumo, the gap hag. It's the making of the border that separates Gensokyo from the outside world. Pretty much nobody except Yukari has been in the outside world and is still alive to tell you about it. Whoever goes out there is lucky to get back, and by get back I mean found by Yukari. She brings in all sorts of stuff from out there, you know. Signs, gadgets... sometimes even people. Did you know she's even been to the moon?" Hatate was whispering enthusiastically as if she were talking about a precious, newly-discovered gemstone. Nazrin listened, her pure concentration causing her mouse ears to twitch on occasion. Hatate snapped the cell-phone camera shut, startling the mouse-youkai.
"Whoa... and here I was thinking Byakuren-sama was one of the strongest and most experienced people in Gensokyo... she has nothing on that Yukari..." Nazrin gasped. Hatate shot her an odd glance.
"Byakuren-sama? Who? You... you don't mean Byakuren Hijiri herself, do you? You know her?" Hatate re-opened her cell-phone and frantically flicked through the pictures. She came across one of a kind of four-branched flower in front of the person of which the point of view belonged to, shooting blue bullets in odd lines. In the middle of the flowers, was Byakuren Hijiri.. "I got this from Sanae Kochiya, the shrine maiden in the Moriya Shrine. Do you remember her? You should've fought her, that's what she told me. She fought somebody that matched your description."
"My description?"
"You know... small, dressed in grey... absolutely adorable!" Hatate shrieked, squeezing Nazrin's cheeks and doting on the little mouse. Nazrin wailed helplessly.
"Hata-chan! S-stop it!" Nazrin babbled. The small mouse-youkai whimpered and blushed, and Hatate fought internally to stop blood spewing from her nose. "I-I need to get back to Shou-sama..!"
"Eeh? What's that, Nazu-chan? Don't you want to stay the night? I have a futon that you can have in my room, or you can share my bed.." Hatate suggested suggestively, wiggling her eyebrows and whispering with perverted intentions. Nazrin shivered, and took a long stride away from Hatate.
"N-No, Hata-chan.. I'll be okay." the grey-haired youkai stammered. Hatate patted her sharply on the back with an annoyed expression.
"Fine, fine, shoot down my hospitality like a mere fairy, why don't you? Do I care, no.. no, not at all!" Hatate folded her arms, mocking hurt. Nazrin, her comprehension of sarcasm a little poor, immediately darted to Hatate with an apologetic hug.
"I'm so sorry, Hata-chan! I didn't mean to! I was lying, I need to stay! Shou'll kill me if I go back!" the mouse sobbed into the tengu's collar. Hatate smiled, and prised Nazrin from around her neck.
"Yeah, thought so. And that Shou won't kill you, not while I still breathe! I'll protect you, Nazu-chan, 'kay?" Hatate smiled. Nazrin looked up at her new bodyguard with a mixture of shock and respect. "Besides, I've got to get to work. Want to come?"
"Please!" Nazrin begged. Hatate just chuckled, watching the enthusiasm of the young red-eyed youkai.
"Come on, just watch your back. Around here, it's pretty unpleasant even at the best of times. Lots of savage youkai." the pigtailed tengu warned. Nazrin blinked and followed her protector out of the building and into the harsh afternoon sunlight.
A/N: Well, how do you like it? This is the start of a long saga of love between Hatate and Nazrin, my new favourite Touhou pairing. Stay tuned for the next chapter, where we come into contact with a large problem.