The skies above Youkai Mountain were mercifully cool as Sanae flew through them at a breezy pace. As long as the weather was right, this was one of her preferred ways of clearing her head after several days of difficult duties as a shrine maiden.
There weren't many people that Sanae would dare admit it to, but sometimes her duty as the wind priestess of Moriya Shrine could be quite taxing, and not always feel rewarding. Taking on the prayers and hopes of humans sometimes took quite a toll, but she knew that even her goddesses had it rough when faith was coming in slowly. When these kinds of thoughts crossed her mind, she typically asked herself the same questions.
" I wonder if it's easier or harder for them? Do I have an easier time connecting to the wishes of humans, because I am still human myself? Or do I have a harder time, because I'm not quite attuned to their desires like a divine being should be? "
The few times she asked Kanako or Suwako directly about such things, they told her that such things aren't really comparable nor possible to measure, so there was no reason to think about it. But it didn't stop Sanae from wondering out of curiosity anyway as she stewed in her own thoughts.
Sunlight was starting to break through the clouds, and Sanae could feel the air growing warmer. Wanting a change of pace, Sanae descended from her current altitude and headed towards the lower parts of the mountain, being careful to avoid any of the youkai territories that wouldn't like her presence without good reason. She came into the forest area near the foot of the mountain, where the thick foliage was perfect for keeping cool no matter how sunny it got.
Sanae flew along the river path, contemplating whether to soak her feet or not. She was distracted from her own contemplation when she noticed some objects floating along the river surface, before flying lower to get a closer look.
She quickly realised that the floating objects were dolls, specifically the kind used in the nagashi-bina ritual. Humans would place their misfortune into these dolls and set them downstream, where they eventually reach Youkai Mountain to be collected by a certain goddess.
Sanae didn't think anything upon seeing the dolls at first, but as she happened to go down the path of the river, she noticed that the number and the density of the dolls only increased. The dolls were so numerous that they almost looked like they would clog up the river somehow.
"That's not normal, is it...?" Sanae was now actively following the river's path, finding more and more dolls. All of a sudden however, she stopped sharply in the air upon spotting something far more surprising. "Hina?!"
Kagiyama Hina, the aforementioned goddess who makes it her business to collect the misfortune from these very dolls, was lying supine in the middle of the river, clearly unconscious.
Sanae gasped at the grim sight, before hastily descending from the air and rushing towards Hina. She skidded along the river surface before landing right next to Hina, taking her gently into her hands and carefully raising the goddess' head.
"Hina? Are you alright...?" Sanae gently shook Hina, and when she received no immediate response, she tried to recall everything she knew about first aid. ...And then wondered if any of it would do any good for someone who wasn't human.
Fortunately for Sanae, Hina began to stir, and her eyes slowly fluttered open. "H-Huh…?"
Once Hina fully opened her eyes, she was met with Sanae's relieved face at close proximity, looking down at her with the backdrop of forest leaves above. A second or two passed as comprehension caught up with Hina. She would have shot upright if there wasn't still a numbness in her limbs, so for the moment, she simply stared back looking flustered.
"M-Miss Kochiya?" Hina's eyes briefly darted all around, partly to get a read of her surroundings, and partly to avert her gaze from Sanae. Within a few moments though, she came to understand what was going on, and her whole body began to stir as she clumsily moved to stand. "Ack! I'm so sorry about this…!"
"Woah, it's okay! Just take it easy first." Sanae said reassuringly, assuming Hina was just apologising for somehow troubling her. She helped Hina to her feet, who took a steady posture as the hem of her skirt sat neatly along the river's surface. Sanae was concerned at first, and wondered if Hina would need to change into dryer clothes, but the fabric of Hina's outfit was apparently perfectly waterproof, as Sanae realised it looked perfectly intact despite being drenched a moment ago. "I'm glad you're alright."
"Oh, but I'm not alright..." Hina sadly shook her head. She took a step to the side and gestured to the dozens of dolls that floated around them. "There's still so much to do."
Sanae had almost forgotten all the dolls when she first found Hina passed out, but now her earlier curiosity regarding them returned. "I'm afraid I just got here, so I don't entirely understand. What's going on?"
Hina turned to Sanae with a shameful demeanor as she proceeded to explain. "I'm supposed to amass all the misfortune from the dolls that float down this river, and I swear I'm usually very prudent about it! Recently however, I… I slacked off a bit too much. Before I knew it, the amount of dolls, together with the amount of misfortune, started piling up to an outrageous degree. I thought I could let my guard down for a bit, but that's when they started coming in bursts. I've never been more humbled and humiliated…"
"I'm sure you did your best? " Sanae offered her sympathy in the midst of her surprise. She did not ever think Hina was the type to 'slack off'. "Were you busy with something else?"
"I hate to admit this, but…!" Hina only seemed to grow more ashamed upon being asked for the cause of all this, and covered her face with her hands as she stammered out the truth. "I was distracted, because I was too busy collecting these cute cards with the other mountain dwellers!"
"C-Cards? You mean…" Sanae realised there was no need to ask, and instantly felt a newfound understanding for Hina as she regarded her with an awkward, but amiable smile. "Well, you know… You shouldn't be too hard on yourself! Everyone slips up a little sometimes, and I think it's important that everyone take time to enjoy themselves."
"Miss Kochiya… You're far too magnanimous." At that moment, Hina's eyes were sparkling in awe of the wind priestess' shining spirit.
Feeling overwhelming and underserved admiration, Sanae nervously rubbed her neck, looking to change the subject. "Hey, didn't I say before you could just call me 'Sanae'? We're fellow goddesses, after all."
"I don't think we... operate on nearly the same wavelength, though." Hina said, not as depreciation or as boasting, but simply as a matter of fact.
"Okay… Oh, wait!" Sanae suddenly remembered a much more pressing mystery. "Why were you unconscious when I found you?"
"Oh... That's even more humiliating." With a hand to her cheek, Hina let out a dreary sigh. "It hasn't happened in such a long time, but I tried amassing the misfortune both too fast and too great an abundance at a time."
"So essentially, you overworked yourself? You should be more careful!" Sanae chided Hina, making sure to imitate the harsh scoldings she received in the past from Kanako over this exact same reason.
"There were exceptional circumstances today! It's my own fault I need to make up for lost time. If I don't, then all the people's misfortune will have nowhere to go, and it will inevitably leak out to the surroundings."
"What will happen then...?" It was a bit too abstract for Sanae to picture, but it sounded grave.
"Then misfortune will befall others in the mountain, and the same will be true for other parts of Gensokyo." Hina explained, in as exactly as grave a tone as Sanae had predicted.
"That does sound really bad… But I don't want you exerting yourself until you're comatose!" With that, Sanae had already come to a resolute decision. "I'll help you out! I wasn't doing anything else today, anyway."
"Help me out?" Hina blinked at Sanae for a moment, before giving the priestess a charmed smile. "Miss Kochiya, that's very generous of you to offer, but I'm the only one who can do this."
"Don't be so sure!" Sanae expected this skepticism from Hina, and was quick to respond with unflappable tenacity. "As a living god, I have a lot of experience with channelling prayers, miracles, and all sorts of energies, so amassing misfortune shouldn't be too far a step off. Obviously, I can't store any of it in me like you can, but I'm certain I can pass it to you instead."
"That's…" Hina wanted to call Sanae's claim ridiculous, but when she thought about it for a second, it actually sounded fairly plausible, and within Sanae's capabilities. "Even so, I don't believe you should be doing something like this."
"Why not? I can totally do it! My senses as both a human and a goddess are top-notch!"
"Whether you 'can' do it isn't the issue. It's like you said, you work with prayers and miracles, acting as a divine body to house the hopes of humans. If you started dabbling with misfortune as well, that would be like dirtying your hands. You wouldn't ask your followers to put their faith in someone tainted, would you?"
Hina's voice was soft, but Sanae couldn't help but feel a heaviness to her words, like they carried a deceptive amount of time and experience.
"Best to leave this kind of task to someone like myself, who is meant to do it." Hina said with an assured smile, expecting that to be the end of it.
All things considered, Sanae truly did take in and considered Hina's words... before dismissing them. "I don't entirely agree with all that. I mean for one thing, I'm still human right now, so I'm already 'dirty' by your standards. But all of that is moot, because you already said that there's a chance all this might spill out and affect everyone else in Gensokyo! It's totally my duty to do anything I can to protect the land, which means helping you clean up all this misfortune."
Sanae boasted with a proud posture, but when Hina just stared at her with uncertainty, she shifted to a pleading stance, directing a hopeful smile at Hina.
"So please let me help? I promise it won't be a problem for anyone."
It took a few moments, but eventually Hina placed aside her doubts and even appeared further charmed by Sanae's insistence. "Okay then, I suppose I do need any help I can get... Let's get started."
Sanae and Hina took some time to work out the logistics of what they wanted to do. The first thing that was decided was that the most efficient position for their needs was for them to remain in the middle of the river, and so Sanae discarded her shoes and socks off to the side. She was surprised that Hina kept her boots on, but assumed those were somehow special like the rest of her clothes.
With that, they began tending to the dolls, one by one. For Hina, it was a process that came as easily and natural to her as breathing. To an outside observer, all it seemed like Hina was doing was collecting the doll, glancing offhandedly at it, then setting it aside. If she were asked to describe what she was doing, there wouldn't be anything to describe.
On the other hand, Sanae's actions were considerably more involved. Once she came to understand what she was looking for, human's misfortune in this case, Sanae was able to go about 'extracting' it from the dolls.
As a human, Sanae couldn't help but think of things through an empirical perspective, and so once she focused hard enough, she began to literally 'see' the misfortune seep out of the dolls. The misfortune took the form of a purple radiance that somehow appeared bright yet dark at the same time. She willed it to hover over her cupped hands, where it swirled in place with a distinct sense of heavy burden despite having no weight. Sanae then focused on the 'destination', and when she pulled her hands apart, the misfortune was passed over to Hina a few meters away. Then it was time to repeat the process with the next one.
Sanae thought to ask for assurance from Hina at first that she was doing it correctly, since she saw no visible trace that the misfortune was actually going to Hina instead of just disappearing, but Hina appeared so quiet and engrossed, that Sanae was afraid of bothering or distracting her. However, there were a few times that Sanae heard Hina suddenly giggle softly to herself, and it made her wonder if it tickled to have misfortune stored in oneself.
Regardless, they kept going at a steady pace, and Sanae got into a consistent rhythm while also growing more confident, assured that Hina would let her know if anything went awry.
The next doll floated towards Sanae like any other, and she started to do the same thing she did with all the others. The purple dark-light 'radiance', what she understood as misfortune, seeped out and came to her hands. It was slightly bigger than most of the others so far, and Sanae found herself just a little entranced by the way its shape fluctuated depending on her level of focus.
Sanae continued to stare at it as her thoughts wandered. What did Hina see these as, if anything? If Hina had an innate understanding of human misery, was she able to tell exactly what kind of misfortune the person who chose the doll was suffering? If Sanae tried to look closer, or try 'shaping' the radiance in her hands, would she be able to gain insight into the suffering of whoever it originally belonged to?
The questions were all shoved aside however, when Sanae realised a second too late that during the time she spent just staring at the misfortune in her hands, it was fluctuating more and more until it was spiraling out of control like a wild flame, and Sanae couldn't contain it.
"Ack! Hina! What do I do with-" Sanae called out for assistance, but was cut off when the spiraling misfortune 'lashed out' at her faster than she could react.
It was only for a second, but Sanae's vision went completely black. She could no longer hear anything, not the flowing river nor her own breathing. Even more startling was that she could not feel anything either, not the water at her feet, not the wind against her skin, and not even her own heartbeat. The only thing she could sense for certain was a bitter emotion filling her mind, the kind that only came from having a grudge against the world for being unfair.
It was only for a second, but for the duration of that second, Sanae was convinced that she had died.
Once the second passed, all of Sanae's senses returned to normal. She gasped for air only to realise she never actually stopped breathing, before checking her surroundings.
When she turned around, she saw Hina in the same spot she was before, but now swirling towards her was a thick, purple miasma, which Sanae recognised to be the same as the one that 'attacked' her, and it looked ready to lunge.
"Hina, watch out!" The priestess stepped forward ready to do something or the other, but Hina held out a hand and stopped her.
"Relax." The goddess' voice was nonchalant, as the miasma indeed lunged at her.
Sanae gasped, fear for Hina bubbling up despite the latter's indifference. The 'miasma' was no longer just that to Sanae's eyes, but it was also like an angry flame, made of congealed suffering that literally radiated palpable hatred. On top of all that, it was actively trying to either smother or devour Hina.
Despite that, Hina did not flinch no matter how much the 'flame' thrashed around and against her. Her hands rested over her chest instead of moving to defend herself, and instead of appearing distressed, there was a pleasant smile on her face, and she even let out a small laugh like was enjoying herself.
"Wow.." Only one thought came to Sanae as she watched Hina treating the radiant misfortune with such benevolence, and that was that she looked like an angel.
The 'flame' soon dispersed into nothing, having been absorbed into Hina. A few silent seconds passed where Sanae was in open-mouthed awe, and Hina in turn glanced at Sanae out of the corner of her eye… Before Hina cracked an awkward smile and covered her face with one hand. "Um… Could you stop looking at me like that, please?"
"...Oh! S-Sorry!" Sanae covered up her embarrassment with some forced laughter. Had Hina not said anything, Sanae didn't know how long she would have simply kept staring. "I'm just… grateful! You did save me just now, right?"
"Save you?" Hina lowered her hand, revealing her beet red face. "I just thought that one looked like it was difficult for you, so I took over. I hope that's okay?"
"Difficult? Um, I guess..." Apparently Sanae wasn't actually under any life-threatening circumstances, according to Hina. "I got careless with it, and things looked really scary for a moment... But the way you handled it was amazing!"
"Is that what it looks like to you? I was 'handling' it?" Hina asked, slightly amused. "For me, there's nothing scary about it. Human misfortune cannot hurt me in any way. In fact, I welcome it."
"But I thought you were knocked out earlier today from taking too much of it in?"
"Well, you can have too much of a good thing." Hina shyly said. "Although, if that's how you've been seeing it, then I guess that's far less embarrassing for me."
"Why would you be embarrassed?" Sanae asked, stumped. "Wait, is that why you've been so quiet lately? I thought you just needed to focus."
"I suppose you wouldn't get it." Hina shook her head, before deciding to elaborate. "I naturally have a special relationship with the misfortune of others. Even if people don't know of my presence, I personally take their suffering onto me, I become one with their misery and get a peek into their very soul. There's a certain intimacy involved between me and misfortune."
"I think I get it. So that's… embarrassing for you?"
"No. I've been embarrassed because... It's not an experience I'm used to 'sharing'. You're here, taking misery unto yourself as well, before placing it onto me. So it's like you know exactly what makes up my being. You're seeing firsthand an aspect of myself that I've never shown anyone, something I didn't even think could be seen by anyone."
"You make it sound like I'm rifling through your closet or something…" Of course, Sanae couldn't help but start to feel embarrassed as well if Hina was going to describe it like that. "So, does that mean you're not comfortable with my help anymore? I'm sorry if-"
"No, no, the opposite actually! I think as long as it's you, Miss Kochiya, then I don't mind at all."
Hina quickly reassured Sanae, to the priestess' relief.
"If anything, I wonder if you're good to keep going? It sounds like dabbling with misfortune isn't quite as pleasant for you, and if that's true... Then there's a good chance it will only become even harder for you as we keep gathering misfortune into one place."
"Oh, nevermind that!" Sanae reassured in turn, just glad that Hina was actually happy to have her help. "I had a one little mishap, but we're still going at a good pace. Let's keep going."
Hina nodded in agreement, and they continued where they left off.
After some time, Sanae was starting to think that she should have heeded Hina's words more carefully.
She had been maintaining the same rhythm of actions for each doll, extracting their misfortune, and passing them onto Hina. She made sure not to waste any time between steps, so as not to repeat the mishap from before.
Despite that, Sanae slowly came to realise that each time she held a piece of pure suffering in her hands, she was allowing just a little bit of it inside her before she passed it on. It was as if with every doll she checked, she could feel a little bit of an entire person's collected despair and resentment brushing against her soul and leaving a trace, and it was adding up. The collective misery of the dolls was beginning to tax on her, physically, mentally, and even spiritually.
But whenever she considered stopping, she only needed to glance towards Hina in the distance. Watching the misfortune goddess take each and every ounce of misery from both of them, all while smiling and laughing… It made Sanae want to see it through to the end.
That thought carried her all the way until she actually finished. Sanae glanced ahead of her, and saw no more dolls flowing down the river towards her. A wave of satisfaction followed soon after.
"Hah! That puts a wrap on things." Sanae let out a relieved sigh. She didn't think they had been doing this for very long, but the forest had gotten progressively darker. A little longer, Sanae thought, and it might have become too dark to even see the dolls.
Sanae looked upwards, and was suddenly taken aback by just how dark it was. It looked like it was the thick of nightfall, which had to mean she and Hina had been doing this for hours.
"That… can't be right." Sanae might have been feeling tired, but she was certain that no longer than thirty minutes had passed since she last saw the morning rays. She turned her gaze downwards, and her eyes widened when she realised the river's water had turned a murky, practically opaque colour.
A sharp dread gripped Sanae, who believed she might have unknowingly made a mistake while handling the dolls, and thought she was in the process of being consumed by misfortune again.
She hastily turned around to look for Hina, wondering why she was having trouble spotting the goddess at first. ...That is, until Sanae finally spotted her. "Hina…?"
"Yes?" Hina softly replied, her voice muffled and distorted to Sanae's ears. Her visage was muddied, her moving, unsteady silhouette shrouded in a massive, swirling cloud of misfortune. Hina herself was actually spinning with a serene expression on her face, occasionally laughing to herself. "Oh, are you all finished? So am I! I was so happy that I started twirling."
However, Hina stopped spinning when she noticed Sanae was practically frozen, and staring at her with great apprehension.
"...Oh. You can see it, can't you?" Hina's expression shifted to a resigned smile. "All the misfortune we've amassed is finally in one place, and it's not letting itself be easily contained. I bet even regular humans can see pure misery this dense, but I wonder how it must look to you, with your top notch senses?"
"It's… I-It's…" For some reason that Sanae didn't understand at first, her words got caught up in her throat, and she could feel her heart pounding heavily and concerningly fast.
Sanae tried to sort her thoughts. She soon came to understand that logically, the fear and despair she was feeling as she looked at Hina was not actually her own. Rather, it was her instincts that were shaking her to the core.
Her instincts as a human were screaming at her to get as far away as possible from the entity in front of her, with the same kind of primal reaction she was supposed to have towards pain and disease. Her instincts as a goddess were warning her that she was standing mere meters from literal pestilence and misery given a human shape.
And yet, despite all that, Sanae's gaze was laser-focused on the familiar shape of Kagiyami Hina, who appeared so content, and smiled like nothing was wrong while standing within the thick of misfortune thick enough to suffocate.
The only thought running through Sanae's mind was how it felt like she was looking at a devil, but one she couldn't take her eyes off from.
"You should probably get away." Hina suggested in a sincere voice. "Being this close to so much concentrated misfortune isn't good for any human, even a living god. I'll need time to store away all of this, so go on. I can take it from here."
"But…!" Sanae swallowed, fighting down every one of her primal instincts as she shakily took a step forward. "I just… really, really … want to get a closer look at you."
Sanae forced her feet to obey her, instead of her brain. It felt like she was trudging through increasingly thick sludge as she slowly closed the distance between her and Hina. As she got closer bit by bit though, she realised the strangest thing.
The air of misfortune coloured literally everything in sight, from the trees, the sky, the water, and even Sanae herself, in a dark, bitter shade of purple and black. The more steps Sanae took, the worse everything around her looked.
But at the same time, the more steps Sanae took, the more she realised how immaculate Hina appeared. Hina took to the surrounding misfortune as if it was something to celebrate, and her bright, inviting red and green hues stood out all the more with the backdrop of blackness around them.
By the time Sanae was standing right in front of Hina, she had given up trying to figure out if she looked more like an angel or a devil. She just thought…
"...You're really beautiful." Sanae bit her lip as soon as she uttered that, but figured quickly that it was pointless to try and take back. "Like, really really beautiful. Um… I hope someone has told you that before!"
Within just a few short seconds, Hina's face shifted through open-mouthed shock, wanting to laugh, shyly averting her eyes, then finally settling on looking touched while locking eyes with Sanae. "T-Thank you. I think you're really pretty too, actually. I'm sure someone has told you that before."
"You hadn't." Sanae grinned. Each passing second she and Hina spent watching each other, it felt like the bitterness and resentment all around them were so far away. The face in front of her was so inviting, that Sanae couldn't quite help but to lean her face in close, and…
"No, Miss Kochiya." However, Hina promptly brought her hands up to shield her face, giggling as she pushed Sanae's face, and her puckered lips away
"Huh?! W-w-why-" Sanae stumbled back a step, eyes wide open and a whole new intense dread had creeped up in her, the fear that she might have just overstepped. "I'm sorry! I thought that-... I mean the moment seemed right, and…!"
Sanae's eyes darted to her feet in order to hide her red face. ...And at that moment, she also noticed that she could actually see her feet again, through the rightly transparent water.
In fact, all of the scenery had since returned to normal, with the morning rays seeping subtly through the foliage. Sanae assumed that Hina must have successfully absorbed all the misfortune during the time they were watching each other up close. ...Not that it made Sanae feel any better about her faux pas.
"You didn't do anything wrong, Miss Kochiya." Hina cheerily said.
"Oh, I'm still just Miss Kochiya, huh…" Sanae muttered, silently praying for a miracle in which the ground could open beneath her feet and swallow her up.
"I'm touched, honestly." Hina continued, grinning from how flattered she felt. "But you just spent a lot of time in the thick of pure misfortune, so at the moment you were probably really yearning for anything… warm, such as myself. Hence, that's probably why you started saying all that out of the blue, and why you tried to-"
"Woah, hold on a moment! That is not true at all!" Sanae indignantly protested, bringing her hands to her hips. "I promise you I know what I feel, and I also meant what I said."
Hina stared intently at Sanae, considering her words, before eventually answering with an understanding tone. "Okay, how about this? Wait on it for a few days, and if you're still feeling everything you are right now, let me know.."
"...Fine. But I won't be thinking of anything else even a week from now." Sanae determinedly declared.
"I'm just saying, the effect of misfortune can be greater than you realise." Hina replied, though still fairly amused by Sanae's insistence if nothing else.
"Still… I really can't convince you right here and now that I'm not under any unnatural 'yearning', whatsoever?" Sanae was still a little irritated, even if she understood Hina's concerns. "Okay, fine, but how about this? Would someone not thinking straight give you this?"
A stray thought had hit upon Sanae, and she reached into her clothes for something she just remembered she had on her. Sanae took out a white envelope, showing it to Hina.
"I'm sure this looks like a random piece of mail to you." Sanae smiled as Hina curiously took the envelope into her hands, happy to fill in the inevitable gaps in the goddess' knowledge. "And you've probably never heard of chain mail before, but this right here is something people in the outside world like to pass around. This one in particular-"
"People in the outside world like to pass around cursed objects?" Hina looked up from the envelope and at Sanae with a fascinated look in her eyes.
"Huh? What do you mean?" Sanae asked, completely thrown off from the strange statement.
"You didn't realise?" Hina held up the envelope with one hand. It was now her who was happy to fill in the gap for Sanae. "This little thing is a genuine carrier of pure, human emotion. I could tell from a single touch that it's similar to my own body."
"You're kidding?" Sanae didn't think Hina was just messing around, but it was still a bit hard for her to believe. "I mean, I'm a living god, and I didn't sense anything strange about it. It just looks and feels like a piece of paper, tucked inside another piece of paper."
"I think there are some things that can go even under a shrine maiden's notice." Hina said in an encouraging tone, though it only served to make Sanae more insecure.
"I guess… that's not impossible." Now that Sanae was made to really think about it, she did think it was perhaps a little strange how she had been illogically averse to taking the letter off her person ever since she received it, or how she felt it was meaningful even though she fully believed its contents to be a hoax.
...Then again, that could just have been because it was still an appreciated gift from someone she knew, and so she ascribed meaningfulness to it when there wasn't any. Either way, Sanae couldn't be certain of anything.
"Well… if what you're saying is true, then I guess that makes it even more appropriate as a gift to you then I realised." Sanae let out a laugh at the coincidence of it all. "I was more so giving it to you because of what's written inside it, though."
"I'll take a look when I'm alone, since there's a big warning label on it." Hina chuckled as she held the letter close, feeling a collection of small, positive emotions deep within it. It tickled in a different way than misfortune did.
"And just like you asked, I will come to see you again, and convince you I meant everything jut now." Sanae clenched her fists in determination, in the hopes that even a fraction of how serious she was would be expressed.
Visibly touched, Hina nodded gratefully to Sanae. "If that happens, I'll be very fortunate indeed."