The first of many questions immediately formed on my lips.
"Pleased to meet you. Are you not from Japan?" I asked. "That's a very foreign-sounding name."
The corners of her lips curled slightly, though her smile remained unflinching. "Who can say? I'm a dream-eating youkai, if you're curious, so that must make me at least a little Japanese."
"A dream-eating youkai? That sounds just a little ominous."
"Right on. You better watch your step, 'cause I might just get a little hungry. You look like you might have some succulent dreams in you."
I thought back to the times Suwako Moriya had materialized in my head in order to summon me to places that I had no business going to. "I wouldn't be so sure."
"Anyway, putting that aside for a moment…" Doremy straightened up and surveyed her guests. "If you're all here in your physical forms, that must mean something's going on with the Moon again. Am I right, or am I right?"
"You are… right." Reimu coughed, evidently put off by Doremy's unrelenting barrage of informality. "The moon has been replaced by a false image, and the magic that it normally bestows upon Gensokyo is no longer present. Eirin Yagokoro had something to do with its substitution, but she will not tell us the reason why she did so – though we know that it was done on Princess Kaguya's orders."
"Hm, hm." Doremy nodded sagely, as though she immediately understood everything that had transpired. "So, you're trying to go to the moon to figure out what's going on. If Reisen is here, I'm guessing you had a little help from the one who caused you all this trouble in the first place, since I know the little bunny would never disobey her mistress."
"You're quite correct," Miko replied. Upon hearing her own name, Reisen squeaked and darted behind Reimu, clearly somewhat intimidated by the self-proclaimed Ruler of Dreams. Doremy snorted at the sight of Reisen's terror, and twirled her finger with a flourish before she spoke.
"If that's the case," she said, "that must mean that our pretty Princess has been put in a bit of a bind. She'd never do something this provocative and explosive if the safety of her or her scions weren't threatened in some way. Something – or someone – has a sword hanging over her head."
"Like Damocles," I blurted out instinctively.
"Very good!" Doremy clapped, whilst the other maidens looked on with completely blank expressions. She turned to stare at each of them in turn, as if not quite believing what she was seeing. "Don't tell me you don't know about the sword of Damocles?"
"It's a Western story," I hurriedly explained to the bemused onlookers. "So, Doremy, it seems like you are Western after all."
"You're free to draw your own conclusions," Doremy tittered. "I am a student of the West and the East. Dreams know no geographical boundaries, as you know. From the aristocrats of Europe to the samurai of Japan, all must sleep, and all must dream. And what I see in those dreams tells me much about the world, and about the state and fate of humanity. This is such a drab and boring place on its own; I can't help but entertain myself by playing with the toys that are offered to me."
"Quite so." Byakuren, whose voice I now realized I had not heard in a long, long time, cleared her throat. "But I believe we should be going. Time does not wait for anyone, even in the Dream World. I agreed to join you because Reimu suggested I assist you in return for a compromise on the previous deal between Toyosatomimi no Miko and I, and while I am happy to be of help, my students are waiting for me back home."
She sounded strangely impatient and irritated, which was at odds of what I knew of her. But judging by how Miko was steadfastly refusing to look at her – in fact, I had not seen the hermit glance once in Byakuren's direction this entire time – I figured I might know the reason why. I privately hoped that this would not hurt our chances of escaping unscathed should we encounter any hostile entities, though I trusted the two great spiritual leaders to be sensible and cooperative when push really came to shove.
"Alright, alright, alright." Doremy looked a little hurt, though I couldn't tell if she was being facetious. "Keep your britches on. I never said I wouldn't tell you where to go. I just don't exactly recommend an extended stay on the moon right now, for reasons that will become obvious once you hear them."
"What reasons would they be?" Miko asked.
For the first time since we had met, Doremy did not appear amused. Her eyes fell, and she bit her lower lip as she pondered what to say next. For a brief moment, we waited in silence, staring at her conflicted features.
"It's probably best that I take you to someone who can tell you," she finally replied. "Come with me."
We started walking again. In contrast to the past few minutes, where the vacuum of space had at least been filled with conversation, the silence that now ensued was so repressive and uncomfortable that I couldn't help but place each of my steps more forcefully in an attempt to generate some noise… only to find that my steps made no sound at all. It really did seem that for all intents and purposes, we were in outer space, though maybe it was a relocation of a dimensional nature rather than a physical one.
Regardless, whatever the ground was made of, it seemed to absorb all sound. Peculiar, then, that we should be able to hear each other talk in this "vacuum".
"The entrance to the moon is just up ahead," Doremy warned after a few minutes of shuttling through the void. Not words that you heard every day.
"Not a very long walk, considering how far away the moon is," I commented, though I knew what Doremy would likely say in response. Distances in different dimensions could differ wildly depending on how coordinates corresponded to each other; a trip that took three days in one dimension could be completed in the blink of an eye in another. I had long since given up on trying to understand how exactly everything worked in this weird and wonderful world, though that would not stop me from being inquisitive about them. The formal marriage of science and magic was a complex endeavor best left to more elevated minds – Suwako Moriya's Nuclear Furnace sprung to mind.
Sure enough, Doremy duly obliged. "Everything in the Dream World is within an hour's reach," she explained. "I thought you'd be aware of that by now, being something of a dimension hopper yourself."
"You know about my abilities?"
"It'd be hard not to." Doremy paused. "There's a lot about dimensions that I still don't know. Some parts of the Dream World are linked to the so-called world between worlds, and I can see a lot of what goes on there, though most of it just flits in and out of my vision. Maybe the Dream World is merely a subset of the world between worlds, merely one world out of many. Or maybe not. It's all a little confusing, so I prefer not to think about it too much."
"So, how did you get here in the first place?"
Doremy shrugged. "Who knows. Do you remember how your dreams ever begin? It's the same for me – one day, I was here, and I've been here ever since. This place is me, and at the same time, I am this place. Maybe this is the reason I was born: to watch over the dreams of people." She laughed, though her chuckles contained no mirth.
A pang of pity shot through my chest. As isolated as Gensokyo was, the people who lived there had each other to rely on, even if they didn't always see eye to eye. To be truly alone, and be doomed to such solitude for eternity, was a different matter entirely. It was an experience that at least one member of our party had to suffer through – though Byakuren, to her immense credit, never once gave in to resentment.
"Here we are," Doremy said abruptly. "Watch your step – the stairs are a little hard to see."
I stared down at my feet. We stood at the top of a staircase that seemed to phase in and out of focus, as if the strands that demarcated the path upon which we walked were in themselves becoming dimensionally tenuous, ready to snap at a moment's notice. The staircase stretched on as far as the eye could see, vanishing into a point in the vertical horizon.
"Gonna be a long walk," Marisa muttered.
"Come on, it's not like you haven't been here before." Doremy skipped down the first steps and beckoned for us to join her. "Let's hop to it."
"You've been here before?" I had to ask.
"A while ago." Marisa raised the hem of her skirt slightly and descended gingerly, making sure she could still see where she was putting her feet. "Though last time, we didn't have so much baggage, so we could just fly instead of having to walk."
"Sorry for burdening you," Reisen said hastily. "But you do need a guide through this place."
"Oh, it's fine, I don't have a problem with walking. We probably could have flown some of the way if someone didn't show up uninvited." She glared in my direction, and I immediately turned away.
By now, I was fully cognizant of the selfishness of what I had done. I had been asked to stay home for good reason, and by being here I risked dragging the rest of the party down. If I were attacked, they would have to save me. If I got lost, they would have to bring me back. I cursed my helplessness, but above all I felt, for the first time, a deep sense of shame and regret. My prior mistakes and incapacities had been forgiven due to my status as an otherworldly newcomer to Gensokyo, but I had been here for some time now, and I could no longer brush my errors in judgment off as mere products of inexperience.
I had to wise up, or I really would meet my end one day. More importantly, I could not keep exploiting the patience of those who had helped me.
Still, before I beat myself up too much, I had to consider why Miko had bothered to go to the effort to try and bring me here. Maybe she knew something about our current predicament that the others didn't. Maybe she had foreseen an eventuality that required my capabilities, though that sort of thinking seemed like little more than hubris on my part given how little I could do right now. Or maybe I was being used as a makeweight to prevent the air between her and Byakuren from getting too frosty.
Whatever it was, I trusted her to make the right decisions. And clearly, she trusted me, too.
"Here we are."
My head jerked up. "What?"
"What? We're already on the moon. Pay attention." Doremy spread her arms wide. "Here we are."
Somehow, whilst I was deep in thought, the vast emptiness of the Dream World had given way to a small enclave that looked similar to the visitor rooms of the many shrines that I had stayed at in Gensokyo. Translucent paper sheets lined the walls, and the floor was matted with green bamboo straw. I looked around to find the entrance whence we had come, but the room appeared enclosed, and as normal as any you would expect to find on Earth. It was as if the staircase had simply melted into nonexistence – indeed, I had half-expected to trip over the sudden lack of steps, but I now found myself standing quite firmly on the tatami.
"We are… on the moon?"
"Don't look so surprised." Doremy sighed. "Sit. And take your shoes off."
Still mildly stunned, I removed my boots and eased myself onto one of the cushions surrounding the square table in the middle of the room. Marisa knelt onto the cushion next to mine, but decided against it and moved to the cushion opposite me, leaving the seat for Reimu to occupy instead. Byakuren and Miko placed themselves as far from each other as possible, which led them to sit at the corners of the table. Doremy, who possibly understood the nuances of the arrangement but did not wish to exacerbate the situation, continued to stand.
An awkward silence fell upon us. Yet just as I opened my mouth to speak, the only door to the room slid open.
"Well, well," said the smiling face that peered in. "An unlikely group of guests, indeed."