Chapter 35 – The Source of Madness
"My… You don't look too well…" stated Eirin as soon as all the girls have gathered on the third floor corridor of Eientei. "But you've brought some fairies as I see… Follow me then. We'll need to strap them down in case they'll still be aggressive when they wake up."
The Lunarian doctor walked into a nearby room equipped with beds with leather restraints. Once the fairies were all strapped to their beds, Eirin took out a small flask filled with some colorless liquid and filled three syringes with it.
"This ought to wake them up in a few minutes." she explained as she injected the little youkai with the drug. "I'm quite curious to see this unnatural behavior of the fairies… By the way did you have any luck in looking for this Satori-san you mentioned earlier?"
"I'm right here." murmured the quiet girl as she gently waved her hand above her head so that Eirin would notice her more easily.
"Oh…" the Lunarian blinked a few times in surprise. "My apologies then, Satori-san. My name is Eirin Yagokoro, pleased to meet you."
"Satori Komeiji."
"And I'm Koishi~!" the little sister introduced herself with a cheerful tone. "Satori's my big sister."
"So… you're the one who can…"
"…read people's thoughts, yes." the young satori finished Eirin's sentence. "And I can see you have doubts about it, Eirin-san."
"Well, I'm aware that Gensokyo is full of youkai with various abilities, but I'd just like to be sure… I'm also quite curious to see how your power works… Mind if I…"
"Give me a test?" Satori read the doctor's intention. "Please, go ahead."
Eirin was already quite impressed that Satori could guess what she had planned for her, but she was curious and proceeded with giving her a little test.
"Okay, Satori-san. Tell me what number I'm..."
"Four." came an answer before the question was even finished.
"…thinking about…"
"You still think that was a coincidence, don't you?"
"Hmm… how about we try again?"
"Seven hundred and forty-eight." said the mind-reading girl with a stoically calm voice.
"And now?"
"One thousand nine hundred and sixty-nine… Is that a year of a certain event?"
Doctor Yagokoro smiled in amusement and admiration as she thought up another number for Satori to guess. "How about now?"
"Minus five billion, nine hundred and twenty two million, seven hundred and thrity-one thousand, two hundred and ninety-three… point zero, zero, zero, seven, two, one, one, five."
Eirin was astonished. She turned her amazed look at the other girls in the room only to see a shrug from Reimu and Marisa.
"Well, Eirin-san… Are you satisfied? Can we get back to the important stuff?" asked the impatient shrine maiden. "You can play mind games with Satori later."
"Just one final number." Eirin insisted on continuing the test, trying to trick Satori by not thinking about any number.
"Kaguya Houraisan… But that's not a number, Eirin-san, is it? No… That's… a name… of your mistress. A moon princess… Interesting…"
"Satori-san… I… You've left me speechless." stuttered the Lunarian after Satori again answered correctly. "You've passed with flying colors."
"Obviously! She's a satori, ze." Marisa couldn't forgive herself not giving a remark about everything.
"I believe we can all consider your observation of the fairies' minds as trustworthy, Satori-san." said Eirin, throwing a brief look at the beds to see if the little creatures haven't woken up yet.
"Can't we just slap them over a few times so they'd wake up faster?" asked Reimu who was growing tired of waiting.
"Now that wasn't very nice of you, Reimu." Alice looked at her scoldingly. "The fairies have feelings too."
"Nobody ever gave me donations for being nice to youkai. I still think they should all be hunted down without exception."
Marisa cleared her throat loudly to give a hint to her miko friend that saying such things in a room full of powerful youkai could be hazardous to her health. Even Ichirin's cloud companion threateningly shook his fist. The unpleasant looks of the youkai girls who frowned at Reimu's last remark were suddenly shifted to the beds, because the fairies were slowly waking up from their narcosis.
"Oh, they're waking up…" Alice took a few steps closer to the beds.
The two fairies that were captured during the recent battle began stirring in their beds. One of them had a bright-red dress and orange pointy wings, the other one had light-brown dress and branch-like wings. As soon as they opened their eyes, they tried to stand up, but of course, they were tightly secured by the leather straps. Eirin cautiously approached them to take a closer look at them. As soon as the fairies saw someone approach them they both began struggling violently in attempt to set themselves free.
"Well, well, well… What do we have here?" murmured the Lunarian as she watched their reaction. "It seems they're still pretty feisty…"
After the two fairies were fully awake, the third one began to come back to her senses as well.
"Mmnnmf… Let me go, you stupid frog!" she spoke, still half-asleep, trying to move, but without success.
"Did she just call me a stupid frog?" asked the surprised doctor.
"No, Eirin-san." replied Koishi, gently tapping her finger against Cirno's forehead. "She's just having a bad dream.
"Oh… I see. Well, then we better help her wake up."
"Leave it to me~!" exclaimed Nazrin, the mouse youkai, quickly grabbing a small vase from one of the night tables. She took out the flowers and trotted to Cirno's bed, ready to pour the water over her.
Before Byakuren noticed her and realized what the mischievous mouse girl planned to do, she was too late to stop her. "No, Nazrin! Waaait~!"
Nazrin had already splashed Cirno with all the water in the vase. As soon as the water made contact with the fairy's body, however, it formed a layer of ice over her face. Now poor Cirno couldn't breathe and was struggling even harder to free her hands from the straps.
"It just occurred to me…" spoke Marisa in a nonchalant manner, even as Eirin and Alice were trying to remove the ice from Cirno's face. "…but how does Cirno drink if everything she touches turns into ice?"
"Do fairies even need to eat or drink?" Reimu asked another question with the same level of indifference to the dramatic situation in the room.
"Hmm… Good question. I think I'll ask Patchy about that if I see her, ze."
In the meantime, Alice finally managed to melt the ice by a weak version of her standard attack. Cirno could finally breathe freely. She was now awake and very confused.
"Huh? What…? Where…? What happened? Where am I? Who are you all? And where's the giant toad?"
"Good morning, Cirno-san." Eirin greeted her warmly. "I understand your confusion, but please calm down."
"You know me? I don't remember you at all…"
"We told her your name, you idiot!" answered Reimu. "You are now inside Eientei and that lady is Eirin-sensei…"
"Uh-oh… It's the evil miko…" murmured the ice fairy in a barely audible voice.
Eirin nodded with a smile and continued explaining. "I'll get right to the point… If you look to your right you may see two other fairies who are, as you can see, not very… cooperative."
"Wait a second." Cirno halted her, as she needed a bit more time to process her thoughts. "What's Eientei?"
"The house of eternity. It is the permanent residence of princess Kaguya here on Earth. It is also a place which I and countless moon and Earth rabbits call their home. A couple of centuries after its establishment, I've decided to provide medical care to Gensokyo's inhabitants, so now you could think of Eientei as a sort of hospital for both humans and youkai."
Captain Murasa giggled and raised her hand. "That's discrimination! Hehehe~!"
"Well, it's true that we've had a ghost here a couple of years ago, but she didn't come here for medical treatment… Anyway, this is where you are right now, Cirno-san."
"Why am I here?" Cirno inquired, taking a confused look at the two other fairies who were still acting aggressively.
"Thank Sakuya for that, ze." said Marisa as she pointed her thumb at the maid.
"There's a disease spreading among the fairies." the immortal Lunarian went on with her explanation. "Or perhaps I shouldn't call it a disease, because the cause isn't bacterial or viral, but magical. In other words, something or someone is affecting the minds of Gensokyo's fairies and driving them insane. We know for certain that this behavior disorder spreads like a disease, but we don't yet know how or why. Another interesting fact is that it doesn't affect all fairies and that's what I'm also trying to do a research on."
"Wait… You think I'm sick too?" asked the ice fairy. "You think I'm crazy or something?"
Marisa laughed heartily. "No, we don't THINK you're crazy. We all know you are."
"I still can't believe she kicked your butt in a danmaku fight…" Reimu whispered to the witch.
The magician gave her a sharp glance with a frown. "…shut up. If this goes public, my reputation will be screwed."
She was lucky that Satori wasn't looking at her at the moment.
"Don't worry, Cirno-san." Eirin comforted the fairy. "The fact that you're talking with us instead of trying to freeze everything in the room is already a proof that you have not been affected by this craze."
"Actually, that was her first idea when she woke up." Satori informed her. "To freeze us all…"
"See? I told you I'm okay…" said Cirno in an almost boastful tone. "I won't get driven mad like the other fairies, because I'm the strongest!"
"I suppose we can let her go then, right?" Alice suggested, looking at Eirin's face to see if she'll approve of this idea.
The Lunarian took a while to think before she made a single nod. "I suppose…"
While the puppeteer was unstrapping Cirno, the ice fairy took a slow look at everyone in the room.
"Wooow… So many people…"
"Most of them are youkai actually…" Marisa corrected her.
"Are you girls having a party or something?" Cirno asked with a carefree tone.
"Hehe…" Reimu laughed weakly. "You've almost guessed it. We're currently in the middle of resolving the incident that causes the fairies to go insane. The real party starts in eight days at my shrine – the long-awaited Tanabata festival."
"Yaay~! Festivals are fun~!" rejoiced the ice fairy. "Cirno wants to come too!"
"Don't look forward to it just yet." Eirin brought her back to reality. "I need to keep you her for a couple of days for observation."
"But… But you said I'm healthy! Why can't I go home?"
"Because you may be immune to the madness and if you really are, I'd like to learn why so that we could perhaps develop some sort of countermeasure."
"That won't be necessary if we can find the culprit behind this and stop them." argued Reimu, confident that she'd be able to resolve this incident on this very day. "All we need now is to know what is driving the fairies mad. That's why we've brought Satori here."
"By the way, Cirno…" Alice spoke to the fairy as she was unstrapping her left arm from the bed. "Have you come into contact with some of those crazed fairies recently?"
Cirno shook her head. "No, I haven't seen any crazy fairies. But maybe Dai-chan has… I've been playing with her for the last couple of days. Maybe she has seen some of them…"
"Daiyousei?" Reimu raised her eyebrows. "Your fairy friend?"
"Yes… But I haven't seen her today, so I went to look for her a bit further from the lake."
"There were several big forest fires in Gensokyo yesterday… You sure you haven't noticed anything suspicious?" Alice continued the interrogation as she finally set Cirno free from her restraints.
"Of course I've seen the fires~! But ice fairies and fire don't go well together, so I hid myself home."
"I was looking for you yesterday for over fifteen minutes. I was hoping to find you so you'd help put those fires out with your powers…" pouted the blonde puppeteer. "Where exactly is that home of yours?"
"Ha~! As if I'd tell you! That's a secret!"
"Not anymore." said Satori quietly with an expressionless face. "She lives on the southwestern shore of Misty Lake in a burrow covered by willow trees and magically camouflaged. A place that maintains the same cool temperature all year around, making it an ideal shelter for an ice fairy… She has a single bed made of dried-up leaves and she furnishes her household with her self-made ice-sculpted furniture in winter."
Cirno gazed frightenedly at the mistress of the underground palace, wondering how could she know such confidential information. "W-who… are you?!"
Satori smiled and bowed gently. "Satori Komeiji, pleased to make your acquaintance."
"That's my onee-chan~." added Koishi with pride in her voice
"Getting back on-topic…" Eirin again became the center of attention as she spoke, "…could you please try to recall the recent couple of days, Cirno-san?"
"Sure, I remember…"
"Good." the Lunarian didn't let her finish. "Now can you tell us, Satori-san, what do you see?"
The purple-haired girl nodded and looked carefully with her third eye at the fairy who was recollecting the fragments of the recent happenings.
"…."
"Well?" asked the doctor after seeing that Satori was quiet for a while.
"I see nothing out of the ordinary." spoke the satori after a long pause. "Even that fairy friend of hers seemed to behave normally… for a fairy that is…"
"So perhaps Cirno's not immune; she just hasn't come into contact with any of the crazed fairies…" Reimu stated her opinion.
"Well then, let's get to the thing that we've all gathered here for…" said Eirin and gestured towards the two other fairies who showed obvious symptoms of this magically-induced insanity. "What do you see in the minds of our other two subjects, Satori-san?"
Satori's third eye shifted its pupil to one of the captured fairies and scanned her mind thoroughly. As she peered into the fairy's confused and enraged mind, Satori's own mind became blurry and an unpleasant throbbing pain spiked up inside her head.
"Aaaah…" she moaned as she grabbed her aching head. "Uuuunf…" She began breathing hard as droplets of sweat appeared on her forehead.
"Oh my… Onee-chan, are you alright?!" called Koishi, hurrying to her sister's side.
"Satori-san!" exclaimed Eirin at the same time, making it just in time to grab the girl, before she lost balance. "Turn away! Don't look into their minds, please!"
But Satori didn't oblige. She just grabbed Eirin and Koishi tightly by their arms to support herself and kept staring at the crazed fairy. "…s-s-something t-t-o write…." she uttered as if she was in some kind of trance. "…round circles… sharp edges…spirals and loops….words…. names….numbers… Aaaah! It hurts!"
"What was that, Satori-san?"
"She's losing it." commented Marisa. "We better get her out of this room…"
"I think she wants us to give her something to write on…" speculated Byakuren who was just close enough to hear the satori's nearly incomprehensible muttering.
"…a faraway land… lies closer then one step away… See with the eyes of your enemy… Yaah~! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! KILL!"
Satori's manic scream really scared the hell out of the other girls in the room, Eirin included. Even the Earth and Moon rabbits that were flying on the third floor's corridor stopped for a moment in shock and then hurried away from the room where the screams were coming from. Eirin was just about to take the poor satori out of the room, but the short girl pushed her away with surprising strength.
"…Hurry!" she screamed with her eyes wide open and her hand trembling uncontrollably. "…pen, brush, pencil, chalk, charcoal… anything!" she demanded.
As Byakuren helped Eirin stand back up on her feet, she took her notepad with a pen and passed it slowly to Satori.
"Hey, what are you doing?" the Lunarian protested. "I'm going to need those notes…"
Satori ripped the notepad out of Byakuren's hands and crudely grabbed the pen with her shaky hand. Not even looking at what she was drawing or writing, she began making intricate and complicated pictograms of some sort. When her hand came to the edge of Eirin's notepad, she began writing on the floor. It looked like she was writing a text, because she drew all the pictograms in a single line. After about thirty seconds, she dropped her pen and turned her face down. She was breathing hard like after a marathon, but she was finally regaining control over her senses.
"Onee-chan, onee-chan… Are you okay?! Say something!"
"…hah… hah… haaah… What happened? And why am I sitting on the floor?" she asked with a confused look.
Koishi quickly stepped in front of her sister to block her view of the crazy fairies. "You dove into their minds and then you drew something, look…" she pointed down at Eirin's notepad and the floor where Satori wrote the strange pictograms in her trance.
"Oh… I see…" she muttered while grabbing onto her sister's hand and slowly standing up. Her mind was still hazy, but she still vaguely remembered what she saw.
"So what did you see?" Reimu impatiently demanded an answer. "Do you know what or who is behind this? Is it Yukari?"
Satori glanced back at the shrine maiden to once again see the mental image of Yukari Yakumo as Reimu remembered her and then shook her head. "No I didn't see her. But these symbols… They were the most prominent thing flashing up in the minds of these poor insane fairies…"
"Really?" asked Marisa with a smirk. "I thought the most prominent was the "kill, kill, kill" part."
"This isn't a laughing matter, Kirisame-san." Eirin gave her a scolding gaze before lowering her head down to observe Satori's writing. "Have any of you ever seen such symbols?"
"Nope…" shrugged the witch, and looked at the other girls to see any of them have any clue about the weird symbols. None of them appeared to know what the symbols meant, though.
"I think we better call Patchouli here. She's a bookworm; she knows all sorts of languages. If anyone can decipher these letters, it's her."
Eirin nodded and without a moment of hesitation, she left the room, not saying a word. All the girls exchanged their confused looks and formed a circle around the place where Satori drew the pictograms.
"What if we interrogated those two fairies?" suggested Reimu, throwing a menacing glance at the mentioned fairies. "Perhaps they'll reveal who their master is after a little torture…"
"Reimu-san… You're scaring me, you know…" sounded Sakuya, taking one step back away from the miko out of caution.
"How can you be so cruel?" asked Alice, looking Reimu straight in the eyes.
"Hmpf… I think the question is: How can YOU be so soft, Alice? Especially after what those annoying, and now even dangerous pests have done to your house…"
"Seriously, Reimu-san…" Byakuren joined the conversation. "I don't think torture is the best way to go…"
The shrine maiden exhaled and shook her head. "Sheesh… you guys… Couldn't you tell I was just kidding? Besides, I doubt these wild fairies can even speak."
In the meantime, Eirin returned to the room, followed by Patchouli who was still dressed in white doctors' uniform. She stopped for a moment to give all the girls in the room a once-over and then walked up to the writing on the floor.
"This is it…" said Eirin tersely, tapping her foot gently against the floor to direct Patchouli's attention to the line of unknown symbols.
The youkai sorceress widened her eyes in surprise as she witnessed the signs. "Now this… is quite surprising…" she muttered as she made an underline of the text with her finger.
"Ha! I knew it!" said Marisa, beckoning at Patchouli. "You recognize these symbols, right? So what's so surprising about them, Patchy?"
"The thing that I can't understand them." replied the librarian surprisingly.
"Oh… Wait… What?"
"I've never seen such language before, so I presume that this may be a code of some sort."
The fact that not even the notorious know-it-all could read what Satori saw in the minds of the crazed fairies was just as surprising as it was disappointing.
"Oh, great." grumbled Reimu. "Now what?"
"I do have quite a number of books in my library written in unknown languages left for translation, but I haven't gotten to studying them closer. Perhaps if I focused my time on researching these symbols, I'd be able to learn something… But then again, my research could also end up in failure. It's a 50 – 50 chance."
"I'm almost afraid to ask you this, Patchouli…" said Reimu with a concerned tone. "But how long would this research of yours take?"
The purple-haired sorceress hummed, lost in thought. "Well… As soon as I do my job here, which could take up to five days, I could get to translate those foreign books… And since there are over two hundred books that I planned to translate, I'd say it could take over a year and a half."
"A YEAR AND A HALF?!" exclaimed the shocked shrine maiden so loudly that her voice could be heard even from the floor below.
"Ah…" Patchouli suddenly raised her index finger again as she got an idea. "…I just recalled I also have quite a collection of books dealing with cryptography… However, my theory is that these symbols that Satori-san has scribbled here are an ancient arcane incantation. A spell that alters the mind… I better look into some of my eldest grimoires in my library too…"
"Still… This will take so long…" Reimu lamented as she crossed her arms. "This isn't how I thought it would go…"
"Don't worry, Reimu." Marisa stepped close to the miko to comfort her. "If it's Patchouli, I'm sure she will find something. For now, we've no choice but to trust her. She will do her best, right, Patchy?"
The sorceress nodded, but a strange look of anxiety and uncertainty settled on her face. She felt that too much responsibility now rested on her shoulders and she was worried that this burden is a bit too much for her to carry. On one hand she felt the need of assisting Eirin at Eientei, and on the other hand she felt a pressing urge to find an answer to the source of this new and serious incident.
"I'll do my best… But I don't know myself… What should I do first?"
"Whatever you consider as appropriate, Patchouli-san." replied Eirin, giving her a freedom of choice.
"Look, Patchy, we've handled a lot of fairies today…" said Marisa with an unusually serious tone. "Even if we haven't stopped the source, it will take a lot of time before the crazy fairies will dare to make another attack. If you want to help Eirin and her patients, then do so…"
"But Marisa…" sounded Reimu to make a counter-argument. "We've battled hundreds of fairies yesterday… And today… today we've faced an army of them… There were so many… I don't even want to think what awaits us tomorrow."
"We've all managed to stop them, even if there was so many of them. If need be, we can handle even more, ze… I'm sure we can think of something to stop this…"
Reimu rubbed her forehead with her fingertips and nodded. "Yeah… We'll think of something…"
"Now, how about we let Eirin-sensei and Patchouli do their work and finally get something to eat?"
Eirin smiled lightly and gestured towards the door. "Please, be our guests… The dining hall is on the fist floor and if you lose your way by any chance, you know where to find Reisen, right? She'll point you wherever you may need to go."
"You've heard the lady. Let's go get some grub, ze." said the witch with a more lighthearted attitude as she opened the sliding door and waited for the other girls to go with her. Slowly, the room has become much less crowded as the group of hungry humans and youkai left and headed down the corridor, hoping to find Eientei's dining hall.
"Hmph… This isn't like one of those usual incidents that we could get resolved within one day, is it?" said Reimu quietly, as if she was just saying her thoughts aloud. "And there I was, thinking that the mass spiriting-away of the people from outside world was serious… This is one of those times when we could all use a little help from Yukari… Just a little hint… Why isn't she here? Why…?"
"Get a hold of yourself, Reimu!" Marisa gave her friend a moderate palm-smack on her shoulder. "I'm serious… The last thing I want to see is you depressed."
"Marisa."
"Sure, it would be nice if that youkai helped us out for once… But it seems that ever since the Imperishable Night, she's become completely indifferent to almost all happenings in Gensokyo. And recently to all the happenings in Gensokyo… But we can do this even without her. We can protect our Gensokyo by ourselves and we've just proved it again today and yesterday. So don't lose faith in yourself, Reimu… It doesn't suit you at all…"
"Who says I'm losing faith? I'm just annoyed that's all. And now you're starting to sound annoying too…"
"Hehehe~! Now you sound more like yourself again! Now… where did Eirin say this dining hall was again?"
By now the girls have just walked down the stairs to the first floor and wondered which door led to their desired destination. It didn't take a genius to figure out, as they could see some of the rabbits exiting one door with plates of food in their hands, making deliveries to all the rooms with patients.
"Oh, look, look…" Nazrin pointed at one of the doors. "See those rabbits leaving that room? They've got food! Let's go there! I'd like to have a cheese dish, please~!"
"Nice observation, Nazrin." Shou praised her mouse youkai friend and together with the rest of the band, took steps towards that door. Once they reached the door and opened it, they saw a large room furnished with many large tables, all of which were cluttered up with food ingredients or cooking utensils. Several separate fireplaces were heating cauldrons with soup and sauce, while many smaller stoves were preparing all kinds of different foods. Dozens of busy youkai rabbits dressed in little white cooks' uniforms were doing all the necessary tasks to prepare enough food to feed all of Eientei's residents as well as patients.
"Wait… This is no dining hall, it's a kitchen." said Reimu after a while of looking around. "Let's try the next door."
However, some of the girls have already entered, as if they couldn't wait to get their meal.
"Hey, are you listening?! This is the kitchen~! Helooo~!" called the shrine maiden, waving her arms to get some attention, but without much success.
"I can see that, Miss Obvious." Marisa returned a sarcastic reply.
"Then why are you still hanging around there, dummy? Want to steal something? Or are you just THAT hungry?"
"Just checking the place up a bit, ze… What's wrong with being curious?"
"…So that's how it looks like in Eientei's kitchen, huh?" muttered Sakuya who also got carried away by her curiosity and entered the room to take a better look around.
"Oh, great… Now you too?" Reimu looked questioningly at the maid.
"I see…" Sakuya continued admiring the kitchen, not paying any attention to Reimu's protests. "It's a bit smaller than our kitchen, though."
Marisa was more curious about the various foods that were being prepared there. "Hey look, Sakuya, these rabbits are making some omuraisu…" Then she walked up to one of the cauldrons and took a whiff. "And this delicious smell can be nothing other than miso soup…"
Now even the maid was curious how the rabbits cooked the meals. After a while of looking at what ingredients and inappropriate methods the rabbits used, Sakuya opened her mouth in a funny-looking shocked expression. "What are they doing?!" she called while flailing her arms.
"Uhh… Cooking?" asked the witch, not certain as to what Sakuya meant by her question.
"This… this is a disgrace to cooking!" she exclaimed while pointing at a group of Moon rabbits who were preparing curry sause. They all looked startled by this unexpected visit and subsequent criticism. Two of the rabbits even bumped into each other as both of them had their eyes focused on the maid who was scolding them.
"This is all wrong…" she hurried to the table to show the rabbits how to cook properly. "This meat isn't even cut-up properly… And you put too much oil into the sauce… And oversalted it too… And you…" she pointed at one particular rabbit cook. "Don't stir it so fast; you'll spill the sauce all over the place."
"Umm…. Sakuya?" Marisa tried to calm her down, but her attempt went unnoticed.
"Here… Let me show you how it's done…"
Sakuya was determined to take the matters into her own hands and show these inexperienced rabbits the true art of cooking.
"Oi, Sakuya… Come on! Let's go find this dining hall already." the witch tried to persuade her. "I don't mind if our meal won't be top-notch."
Only now the maid snapped out of her reverie and looked at her. "Huh? No way! You go on without me… I have an incident to resolve here…" she said with a cold-blooded look in her eyes as she reached and grabbed one of her throwing knives. She raised it above her head as if she was about to throw it or declare a spell, but instead, she used it to slice an onion into tiny bits. Her skill was truly a marvel to behold. The onion was chopped perfectly in less than two seconds. Marisa immediately thought that Sakuya was demonstrating her time-manipulating powers.
"Heh… Good luck then…" chuckled the blonde witch, slowly walking out of the kitchen. "But don't take too long with cooking, because we're all hungry."
"The meal will be done shortly." replied Sakuya, who already began preparing a new meal. All the rabbits in the kitchen stopped working and gathered in circle around her, watching the real master at work.
"Come on, Marisa. If she wants to stay here, I don't care…" Reimu called at her friend and waited until she walked out of the kitchen. "Okay… I believe we've missed the dining hall just by one door, but…"
As the shrine maiden looked left and right, she suddenly realized that the other girls were no longer there on the corridor.
"Whoa! Where did everybody go?" she wondered. However, Alice was at least polite enough to leave Shanghai wait for the other girls. The magically-controlled doll made "follow me" hand gesture and through a door that was slightly ajar, she flew into a room. The witch and the miko followed the doll and upon opening the door widely, they found themselves in a very large room with a single table that stretched well over 30 meters in length. Some of Eientei's rabbit residents were enjoying their lunches that were being brought in through a door leading directly into the kitchen.
"I wonder what's on the menu…" murmured Marisa, looking at others' plates.
"Whatever Sakuya cooks for us." Reimu gave a reply with a light giggle.
"Yeah… That's right. I just hope it won't take her too long."
"Sakuya-san isn't going to eat with us?" asked Alice curiously while calling her doll back to herself.
Reimu replied with a shrug. "She said the meal would be ready soon, so…"
Not even getting to finish her sentence, the elegant maid walked gracefully out of the kitchen, carrying several plates at once, followed by a small crowd of rabbits who carried the rest of the plates with food.
"Sorry to keep you waiting." she said with an apologizing tone, serving her own version of curry to all the girls who were sitting at the table.
"Now THAT was fast." noted Reimu who almost refused to believe that the maid actually managed to make all of that food from the scratch literally in a blink of an eye.
"Hahaha~!" Marisa made a hearty laughter. "That's Sakuya for you… Oi, Sakuya! Did those rabbits learn something from you? Or did you just make it so fast that they only saw as food suddenly appeared out of nowhere?"
"I froze time and taught them how to make a GOOD curry step by step… Whether or not they learned anything from my demonstration is still questionable, though."
"Mmm~." hummed Alice as she took a whiff of the pleasant smell. "This smells very good, doesn't it, Shanghai?"
Her doll leaned over the plate making a gentle head motion, as if she was actually taking a whiff as well and then she turned back to Alice, nodding repeatedly.
"Oh… You think it looks delicious too? Well, then we better start eating before it gets cold, right?"
Alice politely waited until Sakuya and the Moon rabbits served the meal for everyone and until Sakuya herself took a seat at the table.
"Before we indulge ourselves in this tasty-looking curry, I'd just like to say one thing…" spoke Byakuren as she stood up. Everyone's glances were now directed at her person, wondering what the monk had to say. "…Thank you for the meal, Sakuya-san!" she uttered and bowed to the maid.
This caught Sakuya off-guard, since she wasn't used to hearing thankful words from anyone besides the Scarlet sisters and Patchouli. The maid blushed in her cheeks and resolutely shook her head.
"It was nothing… You don't really need to thank me so…"
"Oh yes, we do!" Alice seconded Byakuren's opinion and also stood up to bow and express her thanks. Like a domino effect, all the other girls followed suit and thanked Sakuya for her hard work, not just with cooking, but also her assistance in the most recent battle.
The silver-haired girl now sported a bright pinkish blush on her face and an expression of slight embarrassment, but inside her heart, she was very happy to get such an acknowledgement.
"And now, I would also like to say a few words as well." Reimu suddenly demanded attention.
"Huh? Reimu?" Marisa raised an eyebrow at her.
"Don't worry, it will be short, since I bet you're all as hungry as I am…" she said in unison to the growl of her stomach. "In spite of the recent unsettling events that we were all forced to deal with, I would officially like to invite you all to the annual festival which will, as every year, take place at the Hakurei Shrine on Tanabata. I hope to see you all there… And get ready for a Spell Card tournament. That is all, thank you."
"Reimu-san…" sounded Nue with a raised hand.
"Hm? What is it?"
"I will gladly accept that invitation… If you can defeat me in a battle right now." she said with a wide grin.
The miko was struck dumbfounded. "W-W-Whaaaat?!" she exclaimed her question. Eientei's dining hall was large enough, but it really wasn't the most suitable place to hold a duel. Normally, Reimu wasn't afraid to go up against any opponent, but now, hungry and exhausted as she was, she would surely lose to even a much weaker opponent. Not to mention that Nue ranked among Gensokyo's elite in terms of power. The fact that this girl still donned a carefree smile even after dealing with thousands of fairies and receiving countless hits from danmaku projectiles only proved her incredible endurance. And now, she proposed a duel against Reimu, as if she didn't have enough battling for today.
"Juuust kidding~ !" she chimed merrily and sat down. "Of course I'll gladly go to see the festival with Byakuren-sama and everyone…"
Reimu exhaled with relief and a bit of annoyance. "Geez… Such Yukari-like jokes really aren't funny…"
With that said, the shrine maiden again seated herself at the table and unable to resist the unbearably pleasant smell spreading from the food in front of her, she grabbed her chopsticks and declared: "Let's eat already!"
"Itadakimasu~!" sounded the mixed voices of all the other girls and the feasting began.
Sakuya reaped another wave of praises after all the girls have finished their meals. Shou and Alice even stared asking her about the exact ingredients and procedure she used to make such a sublime combination of flavors.
"Aaahh~…" Reimu gave out a satisfied sigh. She wiped off a grain of rice off her lips and with evident reluctance, she stood up from the table. "Umf… Now if only someone was so kind as to carry me back to my shrine…" she muttered a wishful thought.
In the end, Reimu had to fly home by herself. After the lunch, the large band of girls split up into smaller groups, each taking separate ways. Byakuren and her loyal youkai followers returned to the Temple of Myouren, Satori headed back to the Palace of the Earth Spirits, after a long time being accompanied by her sister. Marisa accommodated Alice at her house and Sakuya, having fulfilled her part for today, returned to the Scarlet Devil Mansion. Nitori said her farewell too and flew towards the base of the Youkai Mountain, where her home was located. Patchouli, of course, remained in Eientei, trying her best to be of any assistance to Eirin and the many patients with various different problems.
As the tired miko finally landed in the shrine yard, her heart was pleasantly surprised to see Suika basking in the sun on the porch, sipping from her endless gourd and relaxing.
"Yaaay~! Hi, Reimu~!" she clumsily stood up and ran with her arms spread wide to welcome her human friend.
"Huh? Suika? When did you…?"
"Reimu, Reimu, Reimu, Reimu, Reimuuuu~ !" rejoiced the little oni as she threw her arms around the slender waist of the Hakurei shrine maiden.
"Hey! Calm down, Suika!" she tired to free herself from the tight embrace, but she was no match for the raw strength of an oni. Even though Suika was incredibly strong, she was also careful, so that she wouldn't accidentally hurt Reimu.
"Look… I'm glad you came back again, but please… Let me go… I'm very tired… I need a bath and fresh clothes."
"How about some sake~?"
"Are you even listening?!"
"Huh?"
Only now the oni noticed Reimu's tattered clothes and bandaged wounds. "Whoa… What happened to you, Reimu?"
"That's a long story and I'm too tired to explain everything to you now… Could you at least make some tea for me while I take a bath?"
"Of course~ ! Let me take care of you." she released Reimu and hurried inside the shrine to boil some water for the tea.
"Wait a second…" Reimu halted her just before she entered the shrine. "Where have you been? Do you even know there were several forest fires recently?"
"Yeah… I noticed the burned area near the shrine as I was returning here… But I don't know what really happened. I was in Heaven, so I didn't know what was going on."
"Heaven? What were you doing up there? Having another drinking session with the Celestials?"
"Heeeh? How did you know?"
"Geez… You're so easy to see through…"
"But that's not the only thing I've been doing there~. I also told them about Yukari and that she went missing, so Hinanawi-san ordered a thorough sweep of Heaven… But they couldn't find her… Guess we'll have to go looking for her elsewhere~."
"Really?" asked the shrine maiden, slightly surprised by Suika's helpful act. "So she's not there either, huh…? I wonder if the upcoming festival is going to change anything…"
"Oh~!" the little oni exclaimed as she got an idea. "When you mention the festival, perhaps I could do the same thing I did back then… You know… Turn myself into mist and spread my presence all over Gensokyo. That way if Yukari would appear, I'd be the first to know…"
Reimu sighed with a sad scowl. "I know how you miss her… I feel the same way, but you've heard Satori when she checked that amulet, right? She said that Yukari's not in Gensokyo… Besides… We have other things to worry about."
"Other things?" Suika repeated with a curious look.
"I'll explain everything… Just… not now. I need a rest…" said Reimu in a strained, almost whispering voice.
"Don't worry, Reimu. Like I said, I'll take good care of you~!" Suika reassured her with a bright smile. "Go take a bath. I'll make you some tea and get you some clean clothes…"
Once the miko got out of the bath, her body wrapped only by a towel, Suika was already waiting at the table with two cups of steaming-hot tea.
"You look like you've been through a tough battle, Reimu…" noted the oni. She couldn't have guessed it better.
"Fairies…" murmured the Reimu with a sleepy voice and without waiting for the tea to cool down, she took a sip. "Yaah! It's hot!"
Suika giggled amusedly. "Of course it is~! I just made it… But did you just say "fairies"?"
"Mhm…" muttered the shrine maiden and resumed cooling her tea by gently blowing at its surface.
"So there was another attack of the fairies?" Suika asked to make sure she understood the situation correctly. Despite having drunk enough sake today to kill an elephant, she was unusually sharp and her voice and face seemed rather sober.
"Those forest fires I mentioned earlier… They were caused by several fairy attacks."
"Whoa~! Really?" exclaimed the little oni in surprise. "This is getting really serious… Was anyone hurt more seriously?"
The miko gently shook her head. "Fortunately not. But you should have seen what happened today…"
"What, what?" Suika excitedly demanded an answer.
"Imagine an army of fairies… So many, that if they were to stand next to each other, they'd completely cover up an area as large as the Misty Lake. We've just fought against such an army today…"
Suika looked genuinely surprised. "Where was that? How come I haven't noticed this?"
"Near Kazemura…" answered Reimu, finally having cooled her tea to a drinkable temperature. "It's quite far from the shrine so it's natural you didn't notice…"
"So you escaped from them, huh?"
The miko reacted with a raised voice. "Escaped?! We've shot down every single one of them!"
"You and Marisa?"
"No, not just us… There were others too… Like Byakuren-san and her band, Satori and her sister, Sakuya, Alice and Nitori too…"
"Oh! I see now… You were teamed up, huh?" muttered the oni to herself and took a light sip of her tea. "I wish I was there to see and fight in that battle… But it looks like you already got that incident resolved without me…" she said with slight disappointment in her eyes and voice.
"I wouldn't look so uptight if I had it all resolved." frowned the shrine maiden as the burden of an unresolved incident still bothered her mind. "We might have stopped an army of crazy fairies, but we haven't found out what their source is… Even if Patchouli is working on it, it will take her a very long time to figure it out…"
"Hmm…" Suika hummed as she brainstormed for the most reasonable options in order to help Reimu, but no good ideas were coming her way. "I wish I could do something to help you~…"
"All we can do for now is to be vigilant, I'm afraid…" sighed Reimu with contempt. "We'll need to be checking the forests in northeastern Gensokyo regularly, so the fairies wouldn't have the chance to amass themselves into an overwhelming army… The best thing would be if we could evacuate all fairies from that area, but that's a task near impossible."
"Yeah…" Suika agreed with a nod and finished her cup of tea, immediately flushing it down with an ample dose of sake. "I might have an idea, though…" she said with uncertainty, because the idea that she just got could bring more harm then benefit.
"And I'm desperate enough to believe you…"
"Well, I guess there's no harm in just saying it…" shrugged the horned girl and started explaining. "I could use my ability to gather, focusing my attention to the critical area and lure all the fairies to another location…"
"That's…!" Reimu widened her eyes suddenly. "That's actually one good idea from you after a long while…"
"But…" Suika interrupted her halfway through her sentence, raising a finger. "There's a little problem with that~."
"What? You're too drunk to do it?" Reimu started picking fun at her. "Or too sober perhaps?"
"No, I feel fine, thank you~." smiled the oni girl while shaking her head. "The thing is, I might stir up a hornet's nest by doing that… It wouldn't be good if I lured thousands of crazed fairies to an area near Human Village, would it~?"
"Well… That certainly wouldn't be a wise thing to do…" acknowledged Reimu. "Being responsible for bringing a disaster to the Human Village wouldn't really help my reputation with the locals."
"That's why I said it was just an idea; not a suggestion~."
"Ahhh~. I'm so tired I can't even think straight." murmured the miko resignedly as she yawned.
"Then you should go have an afternoon nap. Don't worry, I'll watch over you~." said the oni with a reassuring smile.
"Mmmhmm…" came an agreeing response from the sleepy human girl, who had conveniently placed her futon near the table and lied down without even dressing up into any clothes after her bath.
"Hey, Reimu, Reimu… You should at least put on your nightgown; you'll catch a cold if you sleep like that."
"Mamfmfrrmrmn…" Reimu replied with an incomprehensible mumbling, as she cared little about anything else but rest right now.
Suika covered her up with the futon cover and ran a gentle stroke over her head. "Sweet dreams, Reimu~." she whispered. "I'll watch the shrine for you…"
…
Watching the shrine, as Suika put it, meant that the oni would lie down next to Reimu and pass out right on the floor, making muffled snoring sounds. Both girls were lucky that they had no other visitors at the shrine on that afternoon and could sleep peacefully for as long as they wanted.