Chapter 7: Deus ex Pomum

Youmu drifted towards the distant spire of Youkai Mountain, her thoughts at equal distance. Her body may have found itself in flight above the rustling grass, but her mind was embroiled in a greener meadow speckled with delicate flowers. The smell of milk and honey tickled her nostrils as the gentle buzzing of a lone bee floated on the gentle breeze. Here she lay, arm in arm with the silver ghost, here in her own paradise within the soul. Ghosts had always been a source of fear, but this one, it spoke beauty into her long dissociated spiritual half.

In the edges of her soul's own meadow, dark clouds gathered. Scratching at the corners of her peace was a devil known as duty, a devil with a spiral headband. This familiar storm had long sheltered her from the vast emptiness of sky, but now she stared into the blue with a peaceful heart and marvelled at this time that was entirely her own.

As the mountain's pointed silhouette grew closer, these clouds pressed in all around, choking out the peace. In their swirling eddies, a fiercer, bloodied demon roared with laughter. Black and white she wore, within her hands a flash of gold. The storm of duty fought her madness, but with Youmu's heart at peace it held no ground, and with the light and fire of infinite destruction the spectre of Marisa Kirisame scorched the meadow to the smell of burning honey and the sight of crisping flowers, a grim portent of the future.

Youmu shook her head, retreating from her blazing fantasy and into her immediate surroundings. Whatever came to pass, Marisa Kirisame must not claim the Apple, and all the more importantly, Yuyuko still waited patiently at home, her appetite as desperate as ever. It was time to find the Tengu village…

A thought struck Youmu, one that likely aught to have found its way towards her sooner. There was one flaw marring her plan, one she had no idea just how to overcome. The Tengu village was not known for the ease with which it could be located; indeed, rather the opposite was true. She paused, exhaling sharply. Locating a hidden village? That was not exactly a problem that could be cut, a challenge therefore insurmountable in its scope. A wealth of sword-related plans sprung quickly to her mind, but each had to be dismissed. Threaten a passer-by for directions? That was no good, the mountain's inhabitants were more organised than mere forest youkai, and she had little time in which to fight off Gensokyo's entire population of Tengu and Kappa. Cut the mountain apart? No, this may also rile the locals. Kill everyone and everything?

Youmu stroked her chin. A decent enough backup plan, perhaps. No life meant no rivals for the fruit, but it may mean more administrative work for lady Yuyuko. It would not do to needlessly increase her lady's workload, but it was an idea well worth keeping in reserve.

Youmu's thoughts continued to churn, soon mirrored by the world around her as the advent of some new calamity. Trees swayed and bowed, the earth roared, the very sky split open as a heavenly choir sung something or other in an unfamiliar language. A booming, melodic voice rose above the choir, it's timbre beautiful enough to wash the eyes with tears and wonder.

"Child of Life and Death! Youmu Konpaku! I look upon your confused heart with deep sorrow!"

Youmu spun her head around, the source of the proclamation hidden from her sight. The earth shook harder, swaying to the music's rhythm, deepest voices from the underworld joining the sky in song. Another, coarser voice echoed the above from down below, carrying the wisdom of the ages and the whimsy of the world's own heart.

"Fear not, ribbit! Let your lil' tender heart rest easy!"

Youmu scratched her head, bewildered at the sudden spectacle. Grey clouds spilled out from the tear in the sky, sprinkling rain down over her like angel's tears. The music of the sky rose once more in song.

"Can you see, child? I weep openly at your turmoil."

"Ribbit, ribbit! No longer must… Oh, this is just too melodramatic, Kankie, I can't keep my face straight. Hey, kiddo, want a hand?"

Lightning flashed from the cloudy sky, gouging out a crater right before Youmu's eyes, revealing a diminutive and now rather scorched goddess, one who quickly retreated back into the earth to a shrill yelping.

"Ah, uh, hmm, what the, ah, heart of the Earth is trying to say is, ah, dear child. Ehem. We, the sky and soil, shall help you in your quest, for we see all the tears of the downtrodden and the lost. You are not alone."

Suwako Moriya burst once more from the ground, leaning casually against a tree and smirking. Her hat was perched at a jaunty angle, both eyes atop it squinting in derision and rolling like a stray wheel set loose upon a hill.

"Hey, ignore her, ribbit. You're after the Yama's Apple, right?"

Youmu blinked. "I am! How did you..."

"Ehem. The sky sees all, child, all beneath her!"

Suwako winked. "Lucky guess. Well, well, you're in luck as well, ribbit, eh Kankie?"

The sky sighed, the rift across it imploding into a mature feminine form, a mass of rope adorning her shoulders. Even in her confused state, the sheer maturity of the goddess's chest dabbed pink across Youmu's cheeks. Kanako thrust her arms wide, presenting herself with a great flourish of the breeze, the grandeur of her entrance not entirely disguising the filthy glare she shot her miniature accomplice.

"Yes, yes, it is I, the great Kanako Yasaka. We accept donations of Yen or faith, or both. Ideally both."

Youmu squinted, suspicious. "Why would you help me? I'm not one of yours, you know."

Kanako alighted gracefully upon the ground, pressing her hand over her heart as though pained. "Why, dear child, do you really see me as so uncharitable as to take action only for my own self-interest?"

Youmu and Suwako both nodded enthusiastically. "Yes, oh, yes, definitely."

The air split with the thunder of broken sound as Kanako appeared in a blinking eye's space beside her smaller colleague, her fingers wrapping forcefully around Suwako's earlobe.

"You are not helping!" hissed Kanako from behind gritted teeth. The serpentine goddess was rather proficient at hissing, as it turned out, her forked tongue tasting the sharply whispered words as they stabbed into poor Suwako's pinched ear.

The taller goddess wheeled around towards the bemused Youmu, clearing her throat with a pinkish tinge to her cheeks.

"Ahem. That aside… In the spirit of total honesty..."

"We received a prayer!" interrupted Suwako. "Always an exciting time, ribbit!"

Kanako nodded. "A good one, too. Very juicy and fervent."

Suwako drooled, her eyes glazed in recollection. "Oh sweet me, sooo good!"

Kanako rammed her elbow into Suwako's ribs, then gave a satisfied smile. "We, the sky and soil, hear the pleas of the desperate and the frail. Such a soulful prayer deserves divine intervention!"

Youmu nodded, convinced. "Ah, I understand. So, this prayer..."

Suwako and Kanako shared a glance, grinning. "Utsuho Reiuji must not claim the Yama's Apple for her own!"

Youmu frowned in thought. "If that is all, why not send miss Okuu home yourselves?"

Kanako's eyes bulged. "Well… Ah..."

"Because," interrupted Suwako, "We've no wish to croak, ribbit."

Kanako stuttered briefly in disapproval. "Well, ah, what we mean to say is that the power of Yatagarasu is no trivial..."

"We'd have to fight like we mean it, and that's hard work, you know? We'd send Sanae but she's on strike right now."

Kanako shivered, nibbling at her fingernails. "So many orphans..."

The towering goddess shook her head, returning to her senses. "So, dear child, what boon might I, the sky..."

"...And I, the soil, ribbit..."

"...Grant you to aid in your endeavours?"

Youmu scratched her chin and frowned, deep in thought. Yes, there had been something on her mind, some problem, but what had it been? The answer appeared before she had time to thoroughly examine it.

"Could you kill everyo… I mean, could you guide me to the Tengu village please?"

Kanako and Suwako blinked twice in unison, surprised.

"..You have one boon to ask of a god..." started Kanako.

"...And you ask directions, ribbit?" finished Suwako.

Youmu nodded enthusiastically, prompting raucous laughter from the froggy goddess.

"I like you, ribbit! Something nice and easy, I'll be sleeping by… Ribbit!"

Kanako once more dug her elbow into her colleague's ribs, affixing an expression of concern onto her face. "Ahem. That will be hard to do, dear child. The village is well hidden, guarded by all manner of monsters! Still, I, the great Kanako, can lead you if you promise to believe in me."

Suwako shook her head, her own elbow striking in retaliation. "Oh, but, Kanako… Surely only one of us is needed as a guide. Here, let me take her, and you just go on home, alright?"

Kanako grabbed her froggy friend, drawing her into a huddle.

"Suwako," she hissed, "This is the easiest divine intervention we've had since that grandmother prayed to find the glasses that were on her head. You are not getting this one all to yourself too."

Suwako cleared her throat, her own voice low and quiet. "I agree, Kankie. Sharing is wonderful indeed, like when you outsourced those prayers for food and shelter to charitable humans. Although, didn't you forget to share the faith with them, ribbit, or me either?"

Kanako blushed. "The actions of a couple of humans are do not invalidate a prayer, Suwako. They received food and shelter, should I really have spent precious time informing each among my desperate faithful that their saviour wasn't really me?"

Suwako pouted, shaking her head until the eyes atop her hat span dizzily. "No! You should have cut me in on the racket! Faith from nothing, Kanako, easy faith! Like now! You owe me this, damned greedy serpent!"

Kanako stomped her foot, shattering the earth like a dropped vase. "All this fighting is why Sanae turned against us! Can't you be reasonable for just five minutes? Is that too much to ask?"

Suwako blinked furiously, stammering to find the words. "Do… Don't bring Sanae into this! She's just a child, she doesn't know any better!"

"You do know those poor bystanders were our faithful, right? As gods, we have to protect our faithful first and foremost!"

"Sweet [redacted] Ryu, I can and will start a second Suwa war right now!"

The air began to tremble and sway as the auras of the two goddesses battled in the little space between them. As the shuddering of incoming apocalypse rose to a crescendo, a pained voice cried out from the greenery. From out behind a blanket of leaves burst hair as green as any shrubbery, resting atop a head soaked wet with tears. Sanae Kochiya, mask abandoned to the wilderness, burst forth from the far reaches of a faithless isolation and embraced her deities in a great hug.

"Don't fight," she sniffed. "Why are you always fighting? I love you both!"

Instantly, Kanako and Suwako melted like butter in a celestial microwave. Any pretence of hostility was dropped in a heartbeat, replaced by the overwhelming need to dote that any mother feels towards her children. After all, when one becomes a miko, surely it is much akin to an adoption by their shrine's resident god? Was not then dear Sanny the beloved, mischievous daughter of the duelling divinities? The spotted miko quickly found herself buried beneath the croaking, hissing mass of matriarchal holiness, a godly blanket to match any bed of feathers.

"We love you too," crooned Kanako, pressing Sanae's face into her chest.

"We weren't fighting," croaked Suwako, her voice gentler than one might earlier have imagined possible. "Kankie and I were just discussing god business."

Sanae pouted. "You're always lying, great grandma. I saw you fighting, you're always fighting. I don't wanna pick a side. That's why I bombed the hospital."

Suwako squinted, mirthful. "Well, what about you, Sanae? Weren't you a punished crusader abandoned by us gods?"

Kanako sighed, nuzzling her precious servant. "That was obviously a ploy for attention, Suwako. Have we really been so busy that we've neglected our little Sanny?"

Sanae nodded in mournful agreement. "Nobody loves poor Sanae."

Those words were all it took to break what little godly dignity held the Moriya deities from revelling in utter adoration. Sanae's cheeks were pinched, her head was patted, and all manner of physical and verbal expressions of fondness were showered over her. Perhaps most crucially of all, her Playkappa was once more granted to her, an act of divine clemency that at last restored her faith in the goodness and the mercy of both gods and the universe as a whole. By the end of the affair, her tears were dried and in their place was a bright smile that filled her patron deities with warmth.

"Together, then?" asked Suwako, once the fondling had concluded.

Kanako nodded. "Together, yes, as our Moriya Shrine family."

Sanae clapped her hands, delighted. "Are we gonna do the cool voices?"

Kanako turned to where Youmu had been, shaking her head. "A bit late for that, Sanae, but… Where..."

Suwako and Sanae turned to follow her gaze. Much to their chagrin, there was no half-ghost present, no patiently-waiting follower to trust in their leadership and bear faith to their divine path. Instead, there was simply a hastily-scrawled note bearing a short, taunting message.

"Dear Moriya Goddesses.

You simply must be quicker. Opportunities do not wait. One must reap a ripened harvest before it withers and dies.

Sincerely, Minoriko Aki."

Kanako scrunched the note in her hand, her knuckles white with sanctified wrath. Her voice trembled as she uttered her retaliation, a command that signalled drought and thunder from a burning sky.

"If that potato-chucking lesser goddess wants a holy war, by me, she can have one!"

Youmu stared at the door before her eyes, a shiny red portal promising answers aplenty deep within its belly. She smiled at the dumpy goddess waddling off behind her, thankful to find even just one helpful face in this strange hell of sword-proof problems. Here it was, the entrance to the Kakashi Spirit News headquarters, or as it was known to the locals, Hatate's shack.

Mustering the confidence she sometimes displayed in moments of her mistress's greatest need, Youmu pushed the door aside, striding into the pitch-dark interior with footsteps only slightly trembling. This confidence was quickly shattered by a loud hissing and the whistling of a pen sailing like a missile out towards her. It flew past her nose, cleaving loose hairs free from her scalp, digging deep into the wall of whomever's house lay in its path.

"Close it!" screamed Hatate Himekaidou. "The light! It blinds us!"

Hastily, Youmu closed the door, plunging the room once more into an almost total darkness, the light from Youmu's ghost half casting a fickle alabaster sheen over the mess.

"Excuse me," asked Youmu, slightly dazed by the rude greeting.

"We have a visitor," muttered Hatate, nibbling on a feather that had certainly been plucked from her own wings. "Yes, yes, a visitor."

"How odd," Hatate answered, her voice shifting to a lower register. "No, no, nobody visits us. Here we are safe."

"Here we can be all alone," she followed in a high-pitched squeak. "Free from hateful sun and wicked greenery."

Youmu drew her Roukanken. Finding an apple, being lost, these were problems that cannot be cut, but craziness?

"Talk sense," she demanded, "Or I'll cut you."

Hatate shifted, licking her hands nervously. "It threatens us, the outsider. It trespasses in our domain, shoo, shoo!"

Youmu shrugged, readying to strike. If there was to be a fight, that was perfectly alright. Combat was perhaps the one true certainty to Youmu, a certainty of flashing steel and bloodied blades. Speech could be confusing, as could much of life, but combat? All there was to memorise was cutting and avoiding cuts. Youmu was something of an expert at the art of reducing complex structures into neat slices.

"No, no," shrieked Hatate, her body trembling with lunatic rage. "No, we mustn't fight, not here, not here! Here is safety! What does it want, the intruder?"

Youmu flicked her Roukanken, the youkai-forged steel slicing through the air with little in the way of force or effort. She cleared her throat, one last foray into the realm of diplomacy before locking in to that most direct of paths.

"My name is Youmu Konpaku. There is something I am looking for and I want you to help me find it!"

Hatate paused in the middle of chewing on her pigtail and scratching at her chin with sharp, crow-like toenails. She blinked, sat up straight, and ran a hand through her messy hair to straighten it. She smiled, her teeth sparkling like a rack of pearls.

"Oh, this is a business call? In that case, welcome, welcome! You've come to the right place, I assure you! Please, take a seat."

Youmu frowned quizzically, watching in surprise as electronic lighting burst into life, staring at the purple-black blur that swept aside empty food containers and spent paper. In the space it took to blink, Hatate's home transformed into a clean, crisp office. Her personal computer buzzed to life as images from all across Gensokyo danced across the screen. Hatate smiled all the wider, extending her hand in greeting.

"I do apologise, miss Konpaku. I don't get a great deal of visitors. With my telegnosis I rarely need to leave my home, so it may become a touch messy with time. Today marks my first glimpse of sunlight in almost two years now. Now, please, let me introduce myself as Hatate Himekaidou, writer and photographer of the Kakashi Spirit News, Youkai Mountain's second most popular newspaper! It truly is a pleasure to make your acquaintance."

Youmu took the proffered hand and shook it vigorously, the simple action cutting through her daze. She settled her behind into an unoccupied chair, freshly salvaged from its prior role as paper storage, and cleared her throat to speak. Whatever had just happened, it was well worth moving past and indeed pretending no such event had occurred.

"Ah, erm… Yes. Nice to meet you too. I'm looking for the Yama's Apple. Ah, that would be a large, golden apple. Have you seen it?"

Hatate frowned. "That doesn't sound especially newsworthy to me. Are you sure this is something worthy of my telegnosis?"

Youmu matched the tengu's displeasure for a moment. Newsworthiness? That meant nothing at all in the face of the lady Yuyuko's all-important hunger! Nevertheless, she thought for a moment, and in a stroke of brilliance, a thought came before her that precisely fit her needs. She smirked, readying to enact her genius plan.

"No, no," muttered Youmu, "No, I'm sure you're right. Of course, I did hear that Aya already has an article on the Apple written up and ready to print, I'm sure I can get the information I need from her regardless. Thank you for your time."

She rose and turned to leave, only to feel fingers on her sleeve and the seeping chill of frigid rage washing over her. As beings with more ties to the spiritual than to the physical, ghosts are quite attuned to the voices of feelings, and the screaming anger whipping around her like a hurricane told her that her ruse had been successful.

"Aya," whispered Hatate, gnawing at her pinkie finger with her prior animalistic nature. "Not again, Aya."

She pulled her finger from out betwixt her jaws and smiled again, a manic smile displaying all her teeth. "Oh, no, don't bother, miss Konpaku! I'm sure I can find this apple here and now. You're better off steering clear of lying Shameimaru, frankly. I hear she secretly starts all the incidents she writes about!"

Youmu nodded, her ego soaring with the success of her masterful bluff. Who said that Youmu Konpaku was naive, or worse, foolish? Let those naysayers taste the wrongness of their claims and drift into despair! Let all the world see the truth, that Youmu was a silver-tongued mastermind atop a throne of schemes and clever tricks!

"Thank you," she chirped, high on her success. "For the advice. Well… Apple?"

Hatate nodded, settling into her chair and flicking her sight out from her body and over the world. It would be hard to find a single apple in all of Gensokyo, but for the glory of defeating Aya, such a trial would be well worth the effort! Her psychic gaze leapt to and fro, taking in all that it saw and beaming it back home to Hatate's little sanctuary.

Youmu grinned as images began to flood across the PC screen before her. They were random, but each one was an elimination of a target. There was the miko Reimu, loafing at her shrine even as the smoke billowed out from the forest behind her. There was the witch Marisa, chatting to her fellow witch Patchouli in a library. A bird sold grilled eel to a firefly, a kappa worked tirelessly on her latest invention, a Buddhist monk arm wrestled with a Taoist as the rock beneath them cracked with strain. All these sights from all over Gensokyo flooded in one after the other, and for perhaps the first time Youmu was forced to appreciate just how large Gensokyo really was. There were so many stories being told, so many lives lived, so much beauty in this little bug jar all her friends called home. She smiled, taking a moment to reflect on what she saw.

"Perhaps," Youmu pondered, "After I have given Lady Yuyuko the Apple, I might take some time to explore this land."

A sudden tremor sent a chill racing up and down her spine. Was it an earthquake? Youmu looked around at the rattling shelves, the loose papers floating free, the rubbish pouring out of poorly-secured cupboards and out from under Hatate's bed. It was strange, she thought, for an earthquake to suddenly start, and just so suddenly draw to a halt. She turned back to Hatate, hoping to ask her thoughts, only to see that her host was paralysed with shock.

Youmu placed her hand upon the tengu's shoulder. "It's just an earthquake," she soothed, but as her eyes flicked to the computer screen she saw that no, it had been no earthquake at all. Upon the screen was the thoughtography of an explosion, a mushroom-shaped cloud reaching high into the sky, the shock of it flattening trees and sending ripples out along the misty lake. In the centre of the blast, a whirlpool of orange and red danced, the blasting fire and scarlet lashings soaking the earth and sky. Somewhere in Gensokyo, there was a battle going on, a battle between monsters, and poor Hatate had stumbled across it in her searchings.

She shook her head, then stared, her eyes goggling. She recognised the scene of the blast, it was at the shore of Misty Lake, barely visible in the distance at the mountain's base, had she been outdoors. For the shock to reach up here? It was absurd, the forces on display. However, it was not that which captured her attention. There was a fleck of gold in the photo's foreground.

Could it be? It was hard to make out. Was it, perhaps?

Yes. Yes it was.

Zmey's pride and joy, the golden Apple, lay sitting just beyond the blast, abandoned on the ground, there for anyone to take. Anyone willing to walk willingly right up to the battle that she now heard from all this space away as distant clattering and crashing, like an avalanche in the mountains or like the impact of tectonic plates.

Youmu gulped, drew her Roukanken, and rose to her feet. Lady Yuyuko was still waiting.

"My bet," shouted Zmey, far too loudly for the proximity of her audience, "Is on the witch, Marisa. I like her style. She has moxie, you know?"

"No way," roared Suika, matching Zmey in unnecessary volume. "It's gotta be the raven, Utsuho. Her power's awesome and I damn wanna pet her too!"

Yukari tutted, wagging her finger. "It will be Reimu, I assure you of that."

Zmey scowled, drunkenly throwing a rock in Yukari's general direction. It missed its target, but did at least manage to eliminate twelve innocent trees who had done naught wrong in all their centuries of life.

"Your precious Reimu isn't, as you may or maybe have not noticed, even doing anything! She's just sleeeping! I am awed you found such a fitting human to mirror your own lack of action!"

Yukari shook her head. "Once Reimu stirs to action, there is no force that can stop her. She's the most promising human I've seen in ten thousand years. Trust me on this, snake, she will foil your plans."

Mamizou blew a line of smoke directly into Zmey's eyes, prompting them to water. "Yukari ain't entirely off, Zmey. That human's somethin' special."

Zmey's face split into a sharp-toothed grin. "A special human, eh? Oh, I do so hope she's everything you claim. Do you mean special in an Archimedes way, or a Genghis Khan way?"

Without hesitation, Suika, Yukari, and Mamizou spoke in complete unison, their words breathing truth to life.

"Genghis Khan."

Zmey laughed, an unrefined, chaotic sound, her shrill cackles echoing off the devastated trees and dancing through the picnic area. "A conqueror, a warlord. A force of sheer charisma and outstanding power… Oh, those always make the finest playthings!"

Suika nodded vigorously, her sake sloshing wildly as she moved. "Oh yes, and dear Reimu is the best! Simply the best sparring partner I've ever had! Oh, trust me, Zmey, you are going to love her!"

Zmey let loose a contented sigh. "A crazy human witch like that black thing, a host of apocalyptic youkai, not to mention a grand conqueror… Why did I wait so long to play with your little Black Ark? I'm not so sure I ever want to leave!"

Mamizou tapped her pipe and placed a hand on Zmey's shoulder. "Ya know… Ya don't hafta leave. Ye could always give peace a chance for once."

Zmey gestured to the chaos unfolding on the images around them. "You call this artwork peace?"

"Yep."

Zmey frowned. For a moment, just one moment, her mind was unsure just what it was she really wanted.

It's me again, the author. I know it's been a while.

Truth is, things haven't been that good on my end and it's been hard to write. I'm actually not particularly confident in this chapter, so I apologise if it isn't as funny as previous ones.

I tried. I really did. I'm gonna keep trying, too.

You just wait, I'll get better and I'll give this story the best ending I've ever written.

So, wait for me, okay? I'm using all the speed I have.