Without another word, Sakuya spun on her heels and began to trot away, her stilettos clicking on the ground with every step despite the muffling of the carpet underneath. We followed with bated breath, staying mostly close enough that the back of her dress did not escape the reach of Marisa's lantern. Once in a while, that would indeed happen, and the rhythmic tapping of her footsteps would stop until we caught up again. I privately wondered why the chandeliers attached at regular intervals to the ceiling were not lit so as to allow us to see what lay ahead, but that ponderance gave way to the more pressing issues that arose as we remained on the path to our ultimate destination.
It had been implied in passing by Patchouli Knowledge during one of my excursions to another "version" of the Scarlet Devil Mansion that I had once met the liege lord of this abode, although even that implication itself seemed to be an uncertain recollection. Of course, what mattered now was that in but just a few moments, I would come face to face with the one who had been holding my puppet strings all this time, the one who had set me on this lengthy and meandering journey, through all the hardship and helplessness I had been forced to confront, yet at the same time, through all the excitement and enlightenment that my travels had bestowed upon me. Ought I feel angry that I should have to endure such misery, such uncertainty, after being ripped away from a previous life I no longer recalled, or ought I be grateful to have had the chance to discover a world which no being of my kind from the outside world had consciously set eyes upon? Or could both such emotions coexist within me, diametrically opposed, yet never truly in conflict?
We stopped in front of a pair of maroon wooden slabs, unblemished save for the two golden handles installed on either side of the slit that bisected them. Sakuya rapped the wood brusquely, twisted the nearest handle, and pushed the door open.
The interior of the room beyond was, fortunately, far more well-lit than the corridors outside, a single chandelier above our heads comprising concentric clusters of candles and spreading its dim glow around the space, the tiny flames flickering as the musty air in the area was fanned to and fro by the opening and closing of the doors as we entered. A wave of crimson velvet curtains lined the back wall, suspended from a gray valance that stretched from one end to the other, though they did not appear to be obscuring any actual windows – no light bled out from beneath their sweeping fringes. The adjacent walls, though unsullied by decoration, were much cleaner and better looked after than their counterparts that flanked the hallways behind us, and the red carpet pooled across the floor, seeping into all four corners, leaving no spot of wood uncovered.
And there, sitting on a couch at the center of the room with a cup of tea in her hands, was the one who I, perhaps, had been destined to meet all this time. She was a dichotomy, a juxtaposition, an amalgamation of contrasting aspects and abstracts that could not be pieced together: a wicked leer plastered across a prepubescent countenance; a trailing pink gown clad upon a petite physique; an unassuming and otherwise altogether humanoid frame, behind which a pair of gnarled, cruelly twisted bat's wings were unfurled, flapping up and down slowly. There was, however, to be no confusion about the intent behind those blood-red irises which seemed to peer directly through us, as though carefully scrutinizing our very souls.
What was I to make of Remilia Scarlet? Even those amongst my companions who knew her well seemed unsure as to what exactly to make of the little vampire.
Yet the greatest surprise in the scene before us stemmed not from the presence of Remilia, nor from the maid standing beside her, but from the two divine figures – at least, divine in name, if nothing else – situated just behind Remilia's seat, one looking haughty and jubilant, the other seeming reticent and resigned. Upon laying eyes on them, Miko drew a sharp intake of breath and raised an accusatory finger at the more confident of the two.
"You!" the hermit exclaimed. "Working together with the Scarlet Devil Mansion? Have you no shame, Kanako Yasaka?!"
The icy smile of the Moriya Shrine's usurper god did not abate. "History is written by the victors," Yasaka said loftily, "and I intend to be the one who holds the pen. When presented with such an appealing venture, surely it would be amiss for one such as myself to pass up the opportunity. Would you so unkindly deprive me of the chance to obtain such a bounty of potential riches?"
"You had better explain yourself, Yasaka." Even Reimu, normally so unflappable and unperturbed, could not hide her disgust at the notion of her rivals in the contest of faith and worship within Gensokyo siding with her greatest adversaries, in what appeared to be an alliance of pure convenience between the two parties. "Is all this madness your doing? What part did you play in it?"
"It is only madness if the sane remain to tell the tale, Reimu Hakurei," Yasaka replied dismissively. "And I shall see to it that that does not come to pass."
"Restrain yourselves." Remilia allowed her empty porcelain cup and saucer to clatter on the glass table in front of her, and rose to her feet. Though her full height barely surpassed the backrest of her seat, she glared around at us in the manner of a schoolteacher admonishing a crowd of rowdy, bickering children. "Partners we may be, but I will not tolerate impudence from the two of you. Conduct yourselves in a manner befitting your station. Miss Izayoi, thank you for seeing them here." The maid bowed and stepped a few paces away.
"Now." The vampire stretched her arms upwards lazily and stifled a yawn. "I suppose as your host, it falls to me to welcome you to our home. Allow me to do so, then." She spread her arms out in an apparent gesture of hospitality. "You have come to the Scarlet Devil Mansion. I am its mistress, Remilia Scarlet. I suppose you should know that already, even if your memory has been somewhat, well, addled," she said as she cast her glance at me and emitted a short chuckle. "But such matters of little consequence can be left aside for now. The more important task at hand is for us to discuss terms."
"Terms about what?" Marisa queried warily.
"I would have thought that would have been obvious, Miss Kirisame." Remilia raised her eyebrows and tilted her head from side to side, as though bemused by Marisa's ignorance of the topic she had in mind. "Your situation is as clear to you as it is to me. Your proud defenders of the realm, envoy of the Moon, are engaged in a fight to the death with my vastly numerically superior youkai forces. Your gaggle of human peasants have had what little magic remains in them extracted and rerouted towards more efficient purposes, leaving them as nothing more than… objects, toys, to be commanded at my pleasure. You well know that any moves taken against me that I deem to be hostile will mean that, with but a whisper from my lips, their lives will be immediately forfeit. So, what I speak of now can only be…"
A satisfied grin tugged at her lips.
"…Nothing else, of course, than the terms of your surrender."
"But what meaning is there in that?" Reimu asked exasperatedly, shaking her head as she spoke. "We will not act against you, you can be fully assured of that, and we have nothing left to offer you – all that we treasure is already well in the palm of your hands. All that remains is immobility, inaction, inutility. What else would you have us do?"
All that was offered up in response to Reimu's plea was a contemptuous laugh. "That is where you err in your reasoning, shrine maiden." Remilia eased back into the soft cushions of her sofa and let out an insouciant breath. "One can always do with a little extra firepower, and I am cognizant from past battles that none of you are found wanting in that regard. But what I am concerned with today is not you, Miss Hakurei; nor either of you, Toyosatomimi no Miko, Miss Kirisame, Moon princess."
Her casual gaze passed slowly over the others faces', before stopping at mine.
"It is you, storyteller – or 'traveler from beyond', as I hear you are referred to as – that presently piques my interest. It is your surrender that I demand, above all else."
"Storyteller". In other words, "chronicler". So, she had known who I was meant to be all along, even if I did not know it myself. What, though, had she done – or would she do – with that knowledge? More importantly, what else was still being kept hidden from me?
Clearing my throat and taking a deep breath, I remarked, "I have been in a state of surrender since Yasaka stood guard over the realm between realms. With the gods of the Moriya Shrine at your beck and call, there is nothing I can offer you now."
"Nonsense. You are the key to everything that I have foreseen would come to pass – and perhaps beyond that, even. You simply do not realize the sheer potential that you wield."
Hearing Remilia Scarlet say that was, though coming from the most undesirable of sources, confirmation of what I had suspected for some time, a belief that had only been bolstered by what little had been revealed to me over the course of my traversals in this land: that there was more to me than had ever met the eye. The nature of my abilities, however unpolished and raw, had seemed without limit, and yet also without definition. What was the magic that allowed me to travel from one point to another in the blink of an eye, stepping across the bridges separating the dimensions as though walking on solid ground? Were the iterations of the Scarlet Devil Mansion I had awoken in been universes of their own that had existed long before I arrived, or had they been, as Miko once suggested, creations of my own volition? In short, the only pertinent question, the one that needed to be answered above all else, was this: what exactly was it that I was able to do?
Observing with wry amusement the internal strife that was playing out across my features, Remilia moved quickly to pour more fuel onto the fire that had started to burn within me. "If it is answers you seek," she added slyly, "all you need to do is submit yourself to me. I shall grant you the freedom from blindness that you so desire. You need but say the word."
"Don't listen to her, traveler," Reimu warned. "She does not know the truth any more than you do. It is a bluff, nothing more."
"Is it, now?" Remilia turned to Miko, who squinted as she returned the vampire's attention. "Tell me, Toyosatomimi no Miko, leader of those who follow the Taoist faith through you. Your legends speak of one who walks the world that contains all worlds, do they not? A figure of supposed legend who spins and breaks the threads of space and time at will?"
"They… do," Miko responded reluctantly.
"And tell me, is it your observation that the traveler, whom I presume you have so desperately sought to shield the truth from, may very well fit the description of such a being?"
"That is mere hypothesis, nothing more!" Miko spat. "It is a theory without basis, Remilia Scarlet; you know that as well as I. Do not deceive him any further!"
"Ha!" Remilia laughed triumphantly. In that moment, it seemed she had Miko exactly where she wanted her. "Why do you sound so desperate, hermit? Are you afraid that the truth may be let slip? That he may turn into the monster that you so feared he could become? This is a failure that lies solely at your feet, Toyosatomimi no Miko; do not seek to shift the blame to me. You are the one who has watched him all this time, and yet you have done little to advance those noble aims you claim to espouse. If you will not make your move, then perhaps I will." She beckoned Yasaka forward. "They are all yours."
"Gladly." Yasaka raised her arm, and at once, the four maidens were suddenly shrouded in a rippling, spheroid bubble of what seemed at first glance to be nothing but air, yet also appeared to blur the boundary between one sliver of space and another, preventing any movement in and out of the capsule. All four pounded on the walls of their prison, before throwing out whatever sorcery they could afford to wield without catching themselves in the resulting blast, yet their efforts were to absolutely no avail. They could do nothing but watch as I, the only one remaining untouched, was left to be subject to the newfound scrutiny of their captors.
"My turn," Remilia said as she took a contented sip of her tea. "Take a seat, storyteller."
I did as I was told, placing myself gingerly onto the leather armchair opposite Remilia, not daring to make any unnecessary movements or allow anything unbecoming to escape my mouth.
"Before I tell you what you want to hear, allow me first to indulge myself a little. More tea, Miss Izayoi." The vampire gestured towards the empty cup, and the maid duly filled it with a kettle from a drawer in the far corner of the room. "I know what motivates you, and motivates your new 'friends', if I can call them that – now, you should know what motivates me."
She paused, and for the first time, her physiognomy took on a more serious tinge.
"Centuries I have lived, storyteller, and centuries I have seen the sun over Gensokyo set and rise, over and over and over again ad nauseam. Imagine yourself in my place, trapped inside this Barrier, this great jail, for years and years on end. How, pray tell, would you feel?"
"I… do not know."
"Of course you do – you are as human as they come, after all. You know exactly what it is I speak of. Boredom, storyteller! I! Am! Bored! I have been bored for centuries, and I will be bored again, if you do not do exactly as I say!"
Gone was the façade of the prim and proper hostess, whose veneer of politeness and superficial generosity had been washed away, replaced by an insolent, almost manic expression of equal parts frustration and arrogance that was both somehow more in keeping with her appearance, and also somehow less so. Her measured smile had been replaced by a frantic scowl, her bloodshot eyes twitching anxiously as they drilled holes into me, her already emaciated wings wrung even further until they took on the form of two dead tree branches protruding from her back.
"But imagine my surprise," she continued, oblivious to my growing look of horror, "when a little human traveler flies oh-so-innocently into the spiderweb, thinking he can just waltz in here and threaten to overturn this realm and everything in it. I knew I could not just murder him, because his pesky powers were such that killing him meant killing everything around him, including myself. Yet I turned the tables on him by ripping his memories out root and stem, and let him walk around the place like an idiot for the next few months, wondering just what exactly had hit him! How do you like that?!"
I did not reply, because I could not reply. I dreaded to hear what she would say next, yet I was transfixed, stunned into deathly silence by her words, ears still wide open against my will. I could not run; I could not hide. All I could do was listen.
"Now, since we have arrived at this point, I might as well tell you everything. So, when it looks like his abilities are starting to come back, I devise a plan – with Yasaka's and Moriya's kind assistance – to make sure that he will never, ever turn against me. Firstly, I ask my dear friends in Hell for a tiny favor. Just a distraction, something that will keep the bulk of Gensokyo's annoyances off my back for a bit, and at the same time allow them some payback against their old enemies on the Moon. Of course, knowing the kind of person you are, you would not hesitate to follow them to the Lunar Capital, all so you can watch Junko's little show before flying all the way back. What a loyal pet this storyteller is! Look how much he loves his masters! And it's all thanks to me giving him the chance to roam free and find someone to commit his affections to.
"Then, I leverage the safety of the Moon against Eientei, who agree to stay out of the way as long as Junko does not go too crazy up there – fat chance of that – and then I bring the mist of the Mansion to bear against those weaklings who remain. Keine Kamishirasawa is a pretty tough nut to crack, I must admit, but the rest are obviously no match for any of us. And so, here we are." The victorious smile on Remilia's face only grew more crooked as she bore witness to my terror. "But, at the end of the day, you are still the storyteller, and a storyteller can do whatever he likes. So, you know what to do."
"What… to do…?"
"Amuse me, storyteller! Sing and dance for me! Use your powers in the ways you now know how! Bring all the dead peasants from the Human Village back to life! Turn the Lunarian Defence Corps into mush! Then, teleport away, and get the hell out of here! That, human, is what I want you to do."
Remilia leaned forward, lowering her voice to a barely detectable hush.
"Or else," she whispered, "everyone you know and love dies."
