Chapter 42 – Fire Demon of the Bamboo Forest
"Shit…" Soudai muttered a curse. "I told you I had a bad feeling about this. Why didn't you keep your eyes on that damned detector of yours?" he scolded Kyouichi.
The younger outsider blamed him in return. "I knew I shouldn't have let you go with me. You've negated my good luck blessing."
"What in the world are you accusing me of?! You're the one to blame here!"
"I'm not going to repeat myself…" Kyouichi hissed with anger. "Keep your voice down or we're finished… Let's just lay low for a while and hope it will go away without noticing us."
"Yeah, that would make sense, but only in case that thing wouldn't see us from the start." retorted Soudai with sarcasm. "Because it seems to me that it's coming our way…"
And he was right. The bright fiery light was apparently becoming brighter as its source was getting ever so closer to the two scared humans. They needed to make another tough decision without wasting any time.
"Stay hidden or run?" Soudai whispered a question.
Kyouichi didn't respond. He kept nervously staring at the detector in his sweating palm, watching as the huge flashing dot was approaching the center of the glass. Definitely not a good sign for the two of them…
"Stay or run?" Soudai repeated his question with a more urgent tone.
No longer looking at the detector, Kyouichi now gazed ahead at the flickering fiery light that penetrated the shoots of bamboo. It appeared that there were two sources of this strange light hovering close to each other, slowly flapping up and down in a synchronized rhythmical motion. Kyouichi had no idea what they were and he didn't even want to know. In the next moment when the lights got even closer, both outsiders could see something between them…
It was a human-shaped figure.
That's when Kyouichi finally found his lost voice. Turning to Soudai he whispered: "With all my optimism, I'd say we're pretty much screwed…"
"…" Soudai responded with a silent stare, thinking that he's living his last moments.
"Run, damn it, RUUUUUUN!" Kyouichi shouted as he instinctively grabbed his friend by the collar of his shirt, urging him to stand up.
Both of them sprinted for their lives, as fast as their legs allowed them. No longer caring whether they were running north or not, they dashed and slalomed through the bamboo trees, not even thinking about slowing down or looking back. Panicked and desperate, it was only a matter of time before one of them would trip over something and fall down.
"Gaah! Shit!" Kyouichi let out a pained shout.
Only then Soudai stopped and turned around to see what happened to his only friend in this ominous forest.
Kyouichi was already standing up from the ground, ready to sprint another mile if he had to. He was so thrilled from the adrenaline rush that he didn't even notice that his knee was now bleeding from the fall. Although he could tell that his running wasn't as fast and comfortable as the moment before his accident.
As he was catching up to Soudai who was nearly 20 meters ahead of him, he called at him.
"Hey! I'm fine, just keep on running! Don't stand there like a moron!"
But Soudai's feet were still nailed to the ground, as if he was waiting for his friend to catch up.
"Are you deaf?!" Kyouichi shouted as he reached his position. "Run!"
Soudai, however, didn't move even after his friend got ahead of him. He just stared back at where they were running from with eyes focused into distance. Kyouichi thought that he fell into some sort of trance, so he stopped and tried to snap him out of it. For a moment it seemed that they shook whatever they were running from off their trail, but the younger outsider didn't want to stand around. He gave his older buddy a semi-powerful palm smack on his back.
"Aaagh! Hey! What are you doing?" Soudai grumbled in displeasure.
"That's my line!" Kyouichi bellowed at him. "Have you lost your will to live?!"
Soudai again turned his face away from him, staring again into the distance. "Is… is that…? No…, can it really be…?"
"I'm gonna count to three and then I'm leaving you here!" Kyouichi gave him a warning.
Not even when given an ultimatum would Soudai listen to him. Just when his younger companion was about to fulfill his threat, he heard a distant voice calling at them…
"Waaaaait~!"
It was a human-sounding voice that could belong to a young female. Both outsiders exchanged their surprised looks in the next moment.
"Stop~!" the voice sounded again, being a little louder this time.
Kyouichi's paranoia kicked in again. "Don't listen to that voice! It wants to lure us do our death!"
"Call me crazy, but I think… I've heard that voice before…"
"What?" Kyouichi couldn't believe him. "Heard it before…? You mean like your dead relative or something? Because if so, then we better resume our athletic course out of this goddamn place!"
"No… I can't quite remember, but it definitely sounds familiar. Who was it?" he asked himself as he kept staring in the direction where the voice came from.
"Somehow, I don't think I want to know." grumbled young Kyouichi with a tragic scenario playing inside his mind.
"Just hold on a bit and let me see that person." requested Soudai.
Unwilling, but obliging, Kyouichi stood by his side, even when all of his instincts were screaming at him do otherwise.
"F-fine…" his voice shook with a blend of anger and fear. "But if we're going to die now, I swear to every god I know that I'll be haunting you in your dreams forever…"
"And… how are you going to do that when I'll be dead too?" Soudai retorted with a bit of black humor.
"Well… uhh… then I'm gonna… I'm gonna… errr…" Kyouichi was unable to come up with any witty remark. "Aw, forget it! Let me at least make one last prayer…"
As soon as he said that, a human-shaped shadow appeared just several tens of meters in front of them, slowly and silently gliding through the air and becoming clearer. While Kyouichi had his eyes closed and muttering some sort of prayer, Soudai was more curious than scared.
He watched the shrouded figure approach him the whole time and was soon able to make out its features. As the voice suggested, it was a female figure with youthful appearance. She had very long, ankle-length light-purple hair. She wore a simple light-brown shirt and a dark-red pair of loose overalls. This unusual piece of clothing for a girl was even stranger due to the numerous rectangular red and white paper amulets that were randomly attached to it, probably as a form of decoration. Her impressively long hair was likewise tied by another number of these paper charms that highly resembled the ones Reimu Hakurei used as weapons. Even her shoes that matched the color of her pants seemed to be decorated by the same amulets.
She approached the two humans slowly, as she observed them curiously.
"You two must be from the village." she stated matter-of-factly.
Kyouichi interrupted his prayer and timidly opened his eyes. The young female floated even closer and slowly descended to the ground. She then looked left and right, as if to check if there wasn't anyone else besides the two lost-looking humans.
"Sorry…" the girl suddenly apologized, "I must have startled you a while ago…"
Soudai now realized why she seemed so familiar to him. He gave Kyouichi a gentle elbow nudge and whispered: "Dude! That's HER!"
The younger outsider looked puzzled. "Uhh… you two… know each other?"
"That's the girl who saved me…" Soudai elaborated. "She must have carried me all the way to Eientei…" He then turned to this mysterious young female and bowed slowly. "Eh… Thank you very much, young miss… I partly owe you one for still being alive."
The girl's face suddenly brightened up a little as she also seemed to remember Soudai's face.
"Ah~… I remember now. I found you wounded and unconscious lying on the ground. It looks like they managed put you back together, though. Sorry again that I scared you like that…"
Kyouichi slowly gathered the courage to speak to her as well. "Umm, excuse me, but what do you mean? We were scared by something else… A horrible, fire demon-like thing. It was chasing us just a while ago, but… I guess we lost it."
The girl let out a giggle. "Fire demon? You mean this, right?" She again floated up to approximately 5 meters above the ground and spread her arms wide.
A sudden bright-orange flash appeared behind her and in the next instant, a pair of large, intimidating wings made of pure fire grew out of her back.
This shocking revelation made both outsiders take two big steps back and open their mouths wide.
"W-what are you?" Kyouichi asked a bit crudely.
"Don't worry." the girl calmed them down. "I won't hurt you." Her ominous fire wings, however, made her words sound anything but convincing. As she saw the reactions of the two humans, she again made her wings disappear and once more descended to the ground. "I only use these to scare weak youkai away and as a light source in this dark forest…"
Both outsiders still wore the same freaked-out expressions, despite the fact that this young lady didn't seem to have any harmful intentions.
"The name's Fujiwara." she lightly nodded as she introduced herself. "Fujiwara no Mokou. Don't worry; I can get you out of this forest…"
"My name's…" Soudai was about to introduce himself in return, but Mokou raised a halting hand to cut his sentence.
"I don't care who you are… I don't really like to get involved with the affairs of you village folks." she said a bit coldly.
"Aww~… But I wanted to introduce myself to you…" pouted the more outgoing Soudai.
Mokou shrugged her shoulders with an indifferent look. "If you insist…"
Soudai's face brightened up with a smile as he got the chance to introduce himself. "I'm Asakura Soudai," he bowed once and pointed a thumb backwards at his friend, "and the shy one's Ishimaru Kyouichi…"
"Who are you calling a shy one?" he gave him a weak prod in the shoulder, although he had to admit that in comparison to Soudai, Kyouichi really seemed rather reserved.
Ignoring his friend's remark, the older of the duo went on with the introduction. "…and we're not your typical village folk per-se. We're from the outside world, you see…"
Kyouichi, who knew all too well how dangerous it can be to tell this information to a complete stranger in Gensokyo, angrily growled into Soudai's ear. "Why don't you tell her your shoe size too?"
His friend looked at him with a raised eyebrow. "What would I want to tell her that for? That's completely irrelevant to our situation…"
The young Ishimaru sighed resignedly. "Asakura, you're such a dumbass sometimes…"
"Uhh… please excuse my friend here…" Soudai again gestured at him like at some object, "he's a little nervous when dealing with the members of the opposite sex. He may be adult, but still not quite matured, you see…"
As Kyouichi listened to him, his facial expression was at first the same as Mokou's – unamused and frowning. Now he was staring daggers at him, his hands twitching a bit, as if in an attempt to strangle.
Soudai's lips, however, kept spewing more unnecessary and irrelevant words, much to Kyouichi's and apparently also Mokou's displeasure. "By the way, I'm 25 and single… Uhh… just in case you'd like to know. I have a younger brother, but he's an ass… Damn… now that I think about it, that little bastard must be hogging my PC all for himself now! Probably got it infected with all sorts of Trojans due to his dilettante manipulation and constant downloading of hentai and eroge… Not that I don't do the same, but hey, I at least know which sources are reliable."
While Kyouichi's hand slap against his own forehead echoed throughout the forest, Mokou, with an unchanging deadpan expression and crossed arms had next to no clue what this ridiculous human kept talking about.
"So… uhh… where was I again?" asked Soudai, who seemed to have completely forgotten that he was running away from this girl in sheer terror just a few moments ago.
Kyouichi clenched his fist and gently knocked it against the top of Soudai's head before he began telling his whole biography to this strange fiery girl.
"Ow… What was that for? I'm just being sociable." Then he suddenly gasped, as if he realized something. "Oh! Now I get it… Sorry, I forgot you had a thing for purple-haired girls, right, Kyou?"
"Soudai, please… Just… shut up already." Kyouichi begged him with a pleading gesture.
"Okay…" shrugged the older outsider nonchalantly.
"Finally…" muttered Kyouichi with relief.
Mokou spoke up again after being the silent sufferer for a while. "Very well… Now that you've told me all this trivial information, which I don't give a damn about and which I'll forget sooner than the sun sets, we could have already been on our way to the village…"
"See? I told you that this youkai lady isn't interested in any of your nonsense." Kyouichi provokingly spoke to his companion.
Mokou's face suddenly darkened with a scowl and her dark-red eyes narrowed. "Youkai? Youkai… Hm… I guess… I guess you're not exactly wrong about that…"
Kyouichi raised a questioning eyebrow. "Excuse me if I said something… inappropriate…"
"Perhaps I've changed so much from the way I used to be that people mistake me for a youkai… Can't say I blame them."
"If you're not a youkai, then…"
"I'm a human… Was." she suddenly corrected herself. "Perhaps a little bit of me still feels that way. Maybe a small trace of my former self still lives on inside me… and will live on… forever…"
"Forever?" Kyouichi repeated as a lot of questions came to his mind. "You're immortal… too?"
Mokou lowered her head and sighed with contempt. "You said "too"… So you must have met HER…" she said the last word with emphasized disdain. "You two are on your way from Eientei after all…"
"Excuse me, I'm a little lost here…" Soudai waved his hand to get some attention. "Who are you talking about?"
Kyouichi knew only about one resident of Eientei who openly proclaimed to be immortal. "Houraisan Kaguya-hime?"
"The Moon princess?" asked his older friend. "Uhh… why yes, we met her, alright. Both of us even got her autograph, see?" he searched his pocket and flashed a piece of paper with a signature. "Oh, wait… That one's from Cirno-chan… Ah, yes… this one… See? It's authentic!" he boastfully smirked as he showed Mokou his autograph card.
This time it appeared that Mokou was staring daggers… Not at Soudai in particular, but at the autograph card. Her breathing suddenly became more shallow and frequent, as if something had just angered her, but the mysterious girl managed to keep her cool. "Don't go exhibiting that thing so openly, young one… Something bad might happen to it…"
"Hmph… Okay…" Soudai shrugged and folded the card up, putting it back into his pocket.
"So if you've met that person," Mokou continued after a pause, "she must have told you a lot of interesting things…" she again laced the word "interesting" with an apparent dose of contempt.
"Uhh… well… not that much really." said Soudai after scratching his head. "She was a bit too busy to tell us anything more interesting than the fact that she was getting tired of all those patients… I guess that included us too."
"She? Busy?" Mokou asked incredulously. "Are we still talking about the same person?"
Soudai looked a bit puzzled for a moment before replying. "Why, yes… I'm talking about Kaguya-sama, of course… Ahh~, she's so beautiful… But as I said, she was too busy, because she was assisting Eirin-sensei with tending to the patients… But I'd watch myself around that doctor lady if I were you… Just saying…"
Mokou blinked twice and nodded. "I see… That's a bit… unexpected."
That's when Kyouichi stepped back into the conversation. "However, I've had the rare privilege of being invited to the princess's quarters where she told me quite a bit about her past…"
Soudai opened his eyes wide in an incredulous stare at Kyouichi. "What?! When did it happen? Why wasn't I invited as well?"
"Because you weren't around at that time."
"That's just not fair…" pouted Soudai with a regretful face. "We'll talk about that later, Ishimaru…"
"Yes, yes, Soudai… Later." Kyouichi nodded agreeingly as he brushed him off.
"So…" Mokou glanced over to the younger human. "You've heard her story… So you must know well who I am."
Kyouichi bent the side of his lips and raised his eyebrows, looking puzzled. "Uhh… No, I'm sorry, I don't know who you are, Fujiwara-san… Are you somehow related to Kaguya or…?"
"So she hasn't even deemed me worthy of mentioning, huh?" Mokou cut off his question with her own. "Hmph… I'd think she'd have at least enough respect to say a word or two about her arch nemesis."
"Arch nemesis?"
"Yes…" she drawled as she affirmed. "From time to time she sends assassins to get me if she's too lazy to go after me herself… But no matter how hard she tries, she cannot kill me. No one can…"
"So… does that mean you're another Hourai victim?" Kyouichi asked, referring to the elixir of immortality.
Mokou chuckled bitterly. "Nicely put… A victim… All those who ever drank of the elixir are nothing short of victims. Sometimes victims of our own folly, or curiosity, or despair… Our punishment is to live on and suffer in our fleshy husks for all of eternity."
"So you drank the elixir…" muttered the outsider. "What was your reason? No. More importantly… how did you get to it? And why does Kaguya hate you?"
Again Mokou gave out a weak chuckle, this time less bitter-sounding. "Kaguya doesn't hate me any more than I hate her. Our hatred is mutual. We often fight to the death. There's barely any greater satisfaction for me in this accursed life than to bring her as much pain as I can."
"That's horrible!" sounded shocked Soudai. "What has the Moon princess done to you?"
"It's thanks to her that I'm stuck in this undying, unaging body. I should have been dead, resting in peace for over thirteen centuries… if only she wouldn't have come down to Earth."
"Would you care to tell us more?" Soudai asked her to elaborate.
"It is not a story I often tell to strangers. And it's not very short either."
"So… uh… how far are we from the edge of the forest?"
"If you could fly like me, I'd say not too far." replied Mokou, looking somewhere into the distance over Soudai's shoulder. "But on foot… It's still quite a way."
"How about you told us a bit about yourself as we go then?" Kyouichi proposed a suggestion
"If you care to know that much about a person you're likely not to meet again, then fine." Mokou accepted. "Follow me then. The village is this way."
The immortal girl took the lead, heading in different direction than the two outsiders originally followed. Kyouichi and Soudai could only wonder where they would have ended up if they continued in their northbound course out of the forest.
"So…" Mokou resumed her speech. "You've heard the Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, right?"
"Sure thing. It's a well known folktale after all." nodded Soudai, even though he only had the outside world version in mind.
"I have." confirmed Kyouichi tersely.
"Good." said Mokou as she walked onward. "Then you know well about the Five Impossible Requests, which that damned Lunarian used to reject all her suitors."
"Yes, go on…"
"One of those requests was to bring her the Jeweled Branch of Hourai."
"Oh, I would bring her ten Hourai branches if I could marry her…" murmured Soudai with a daydreamy look on his face.
Mokou scoffed at his remark. "Yeah… My father used to think the same way as you do now."
"Your father?" repeated both humans at the same time.
"Yes… Kuramochi no Miko, also known as Fujiwara no Fuhito… Believe it or not, I was born in a wealthy family."
"So your father was one of Kaguya's suitors?" asked Kyouichi.
"That's right. But as the Five Impossible Requests are called impossible for a reason, he naturally failed in his quest. That's when I decided to exact revenge upon her. I swore an oath to make her life as miserable as I could. But for a long time, I couldn't find any way to confront her personally. However, one day I caught a rumor that she planned to give some sort of present to the very emperor of Japan. I later learned that the emperor has ordered one of his servants, Iwakasa, accompanied by a group of soldiers to take Kaguya's gift to the very summit of Mt. Fuji for some odd reason…"
"The Hourai Elixir…" Kyouichi completed the information.
Mokou nodded. "I had no idea what was the content of that jar that was carried by the soldiers, nor the reason why they carried it there. My mind was set solely on revenge against Kaguya. I secretly followed the group all the way to Mount Fuji, which was said to be the tallest mountain in the country. My plan was to steal that jar if it meant meddling with Kaguya's intentions. Of course, I had no idea how would I steal that jar from the soldiers, but that didn't matter to me. After several days of following them and hiding like a bandit I grew very tired. By the time we've reached approximately four fifths of the mountain's height, I had collapsed from exhaustion. However, the man called Iwakasa knew that I had been following him and the soldiers. When I was at the limit of my strength, he walked up to me, bringing me food and water…"
"How nice of him." stated Kyouichi and let Mokou continue her story.
"That he was… After saving my life, he was trusting enough to let me go with him to the top of the mountain. When we were finally at our destination, I asked him why he was climbing all the way up to the top, even though he should be the one asking me that question. "Men have to obey their orders." he simply told me. I told him an absurd tale that I was following them, because I was a bandit, which actually wasn't far from the truth, since I did want to steal that jar. That only managed to elicit the soldiers' laughter. Even if I was what I had claimed to be, what threat was a single young girl to a band of armed soldiers? Iwakasa then ordered the soldiers to put the jar down on the ground. As I wondered what they were going to do next, they began tying a ribbon around it. They said that would make it easier to fling it far away and that they planned to toss the jar into the volcano's crater. I had no idea why would they do that. I thought that perhaps the emperor wanted to spite Kaguya too. Hmph… I had gone through all that trouble of following the soldiers and climbing up that mountain just to steal the jar, but all I could do then was sit by and watch what would happen to it… Then as the soldiers approached the edge of the crater, this strange woman appeared out of nowhere…"
"Oh, don't tell me that Yukari had her hands in this too…" Kyouichi interrupted the narration.
Mokou gave him a questioning look. "Who's Yukari…? Oh, wait a minute… Ahh~, but of course, I remember now… But no, that woman wasn't Yukari. It was the goddess of Mt. Fuji herself."
"Goddess of Mt. Fuji? You mean Konohana-Sakuya-hime?"
"That's what she introduced herself as." Mokou affirmed. "Princess Sakuya… Her sudden appearance had changed everything. The soldiers were taken aback. Some of them even bowed down before her. She said that it was her divine power that kept the volcano from erupting and she had told the soldiers not to throw the jar into the crater. Then Iwakasa told her that by the order of the emperor he was obliged to burn the contents of the jar in the sacred fires of Mt. Fuji. The goddess was, of course, not very happy to hear that. She gave him a warning that should he toss the jar into the crater, the volcano will resume its activity and not even she would be able to contain it. She said that the jar contained power even greater than that of a god such as her. Then she asked Iwakasa whether he even knew what's inside it.
None of the soldiers could actually answer that question. Even I knew only that it contained something that was left behind by Kaguya as a gift. And just as Princess Sakuya was about to answer her own question and reveal the jar's secret, Iwakasa halted her, telling her that she couldn't tell that to the soldiers. The goddess disagreed, saying that the soldiers deserved to know the truth after climbing all the way up here. She said that the jar contained the elixir of immortality. The soldiers couldn't believe their own ears. To think that by following Iwakasa's order they'd commit something to anger a god. In addition, the jar that they carried themselves all the way to the top contained the elixir of immortality… I was surprised too, of course. That such a thing even existed and that Kaguya had left it behind… And that such a thing was right there before me. The revelation had caused a great deal of unrest among the soldiers. As they found themselves unable to move, they couldn't throw the jar into the volcano. Despite this, Iwakasa attempted to light the jar on fire, but for some reason it just wouldn't burn. Having run out of reasonable options, they decided to spend the night on the mountain's summit, trying to figure what to do next. Princess Sakuya was originally a water deity with power to ward off fire. That's probably why Iwakasa's attempt to burn the jar ended up in failure. I had spent the remainder of the evening trying to get some more details from Iwakasa about his orders. I wanted to know why he had come all the way here to dispose of the elixir of immortality. He explained that the jar was a Hourai jar and its content, the Hourai Elixir. Kaguya Houraisan had probably left it behind before she returned to the Moon as a token of gratitude to the old bamboo cutter who had raised her, as well as the emperor, whose heart she had broken…"
"Perhaps she should have apologized to all of those who were turned down by her." speculated Kyouichi as he tried to keep up with Mokou's brisk pace of walking through the forest.
"An apology would have been a good start, but it would hardly make up for the pain she had caused not just to me, but dozens of other people…"
"So… wait. Are you saying you wouldn't hate Kaguya if she let your father marry her and became your stepmother? Is that really what you'd like?"
Kyouichi could only see her long veil of hair sway from side to side as she shook her head disagreeingly. "No… The fact whether or not she would let my father marry her was of no consequence to me. There is a big difference between turning down a proposal and sending people on a fool's quest, dishonoring them and even sending them to their death. Had she turned down my father with the tiniest speck of respect, I would have lived a happy life of a wealthy aristocrat's daughter and we wouldn't be having this conversation…"
"So your family pride is to blame too, huh?"
Mokou shrugged. "Perhaps so. I have always kept convincing myself that all the pain I had felt at that time was entirely her fault and that conviction fueled my lust for revenge."
"But thirteen hundred years have already passed since that event!" Kyouichi remarked. "Don't you think that's a long enough time for even the greatest of enemies to set aside their differences? I'm not talking about being friends… just… leaving each other alone and living your own lives, you know…"
"No." she replied coldly. "I don't expect anyone to understand… The two of us have already caused so much anguish and suffering to each other that we're stuck in an endless loop of mutual hatred. Killing Kaguya every time I get the opportunity is the only thing that brings me satisfaction in this accursed life. I'm fairly sure she'd say the same thing about me. And we'll hate each other even after all life on Earth will fade away."
Kyouichi frowned with great disdain at her ice-cold words. "Geez… Soudai was right. That's just plain horrible! Is there no way you could end your feud?"
"It's no use, young human." the immortal shook her head again. "There's no turning back for either of us, so please don't try to understand. I don't need anyone's compassion or understanding… Don't try to be a saint and give me lectures about the error of my ways. I don't believe my attitude towards Kaguya will ever change and vice-versa."
"I guess we better not get involved ourselves in certain matters." said Soudai to his friend with a concerned tone. "Besides, I still want to hear the rest of her story… What happened next? How did you get to drink that elixir then, Mokou-san?"
"Indeed… Some matters are better off left as they are." Mokou agreed with the older of the outsiders at least this time. "Now, returning back to the events that forever changed my life… Kaguya's adoptive father was an old man and said he did not want to live forever. The emperor likewise refused her gift, saying that he had no wish to live an eternity in a world without her. That's why he ordered his men to carry the elixir all the way to the top of Mt. Fuji and burn it. It was difficult for me to understand that the old man and the emperor would refuse such a thing. Iwakasa seemed to have anticipated the same level of doubt from the ranks of his soldiers. Worried that they'd be unable to carry out their order had they known the truth, he decided to keep the contents of the jar a secret. What if they were to catch each other in attempt to steal it and end up killing each other? What if someone would secretly replace the real elixir with a fake one? Those were the things that worried Iwakasa, so it was in his best interest not to tell the soldiers the details of their mission. As the night fell upon the mountain's summit, we all formed a circle with the jar in the middle. One could already tell the huge tension and mistrust spreading among the soldiers just by watching them guard the jar – always in pairs. Nobody fully trusted anyone at that moment. I was reluctant to fall asleep too, but the weariness of climbing the mountain has finally got to me. Then a voice woke me up… It was the voice of Princess Sakuya. I opened my eyes and was met with a grisly sight. Dead bodies of the soldiers lay scattered across the campsite in pools of blood. Only me and Iwakasa were left alive. Princess Sakuya told us that the men started killing each other. However, that just didn't add up. Some of the bodies were not just slashed or stabbed, but even burned to crisp. It must have been a very fierce battle and there was simply no way me or Iwakasa could have slept through that massacre."
"So… could it be that…?"
"Yes." Mokou nodded before Kyouichi even formulated his question. "It was without the slightest doubt Princess Sakuya who had killed them all. All except me and Iwakasa... I was quite sure that she let us live only because she had some intentions with us later. Iwakasa then knew that he could no longer fulfill his mission and he believed what the goddess had told him. She then said that the elixir was simply a tool to deceive foolish humans. Even though nobody said anything about it, all those around it fell into misfortune. She approved of Iwakasa's intention to get rid of the elixir, but she also clearly said that such a task was too much even for her, and that he should forget about throwing the jar into that mountain. Iwakasa then explained his mission to the goddess that he was supposed to take the elixir to the place closest to the Moon and burn it there. "Is there any place closer to the Moon than this? Any mountain taller than this one?" he asked her. Princess Sakuya answered that she knows of such a place. Located northwest of Mt. Fuji, there was supposedly even a taller mountain called Yatsugatake. She explained that Mt. Yatsugatake was the home of her elder sister, Princess Iwanaga - the goddess with the power over immortality and the unchanging. She said that the best place to dispose of the elixir would be that mountain. "But Yatsugatake isn't taller than this mountain, is it?" argued Iwakasa. But Princess Sakuya corrected him. "No, it was once in fact much taller than this mountain." She explained that long ago, there used to be a great dispute among the two sister deities…"
"Yes, I've heard that legend before." said the outsider.
"No doubt…" agreed Mokou. "But that was the first time both me and Iwakasa had heard about that. Anyway, the fight between Princess Sakuya and Princess Iwanaga is not that important… The important thing was the fact that we were told that the distance to the Moon may be somewhat shorter from the peak of Mt. Yatsugatake. Iwakasa then decided to immediately travel to that mountain to burn the elixir there. The goddess of Mt. Fuji disappeared as suddenly as she appeared, and as the new day dawned, we were already descending down from the summit. Iwakasa just kept on going forward, never even stealing a glance at me, not saying a single word for the whole time of our descent."
"Was it then when you seized the elixir?" Soudai asked impatiently, earning a frowned gaze from the immortal girl.
"It was all like a daze…" she continued after turning forward again. "It was all weighing heavily on me… The persistent silence, the unchanging scenery and the pointlessness of our ascent to Mt. Fuji… I kept switching my attention from the jar on Iwakasa's back to the steep rocky slope along which we were descending. Indeed, I remembered my original objective and the reason for following him in the first place. It seemed like the perfect opportunity to fulfill my goal. But even with these thoughts in mind, I bore no ill will against Iwakasa. He was, after all, the man who had saved my life. Could I have really brought myself to stealing the jar and simply run away? However, I simply couldn't get one thing out of my head. The words that Princess Sakuya said... It seemed no matter how little I'd care for the consequences, everything would somehow turn out over the course of eternity… Immortality… Before I even knew what I was doing, I had pushed Iwakasa down the steep slope in our path, took the jar and ran…"
"You killed him?" Soudai couldn't believe her words. "How could you?"
"I regret that I killed the man." Mokou admitted. "But I no longer cared about anything… I became what I am now. Later, when I learned that Kaguya, in fact, never returned to the Moon, I ran all the way here, to this very bamboo forest, to Eientei. No longer afraid of anything or anyone. I didn't have to worry about starving or about feral wild animals, or about the youkai. I could finally begin my payback against Kaguya. And I've been doing so for the past three hundred years… As for the Yatsugatake Mountain, you may see it as soon as we get out of his forest."
"You mean the Youkai Mountain?" asked Kyouichi. "Because I really don't understand how it can still be standing tall after Princess Sakuya broke it down to a smaller mountain range."
"Well, after that event, Princess Iwanaga grew tired of her younger sister's attitude, so she moved here, restoring her mountain in secrecy. Since she had the power over the unchanging, Mt. Fuji had lost its inextinguishable flame, which is why it is no longer an active volcano. And Gensokyo's Youkai Mountain is thought of as the original form of Mt. Yatsugatake before it was torn down." explained Mokou and concluded her story.
It wasn't long after that when the two outsiders noticed their environment getting a little brighter.
"We're getting close to the edge." announced the immortal. "We're almost out of the forest. From there on you'll go alone, but it's quite a safe area and the village is plainly visible, so you don't need to worry about getting lost."
"Excuse me if I'm too curious, Mokou-san." Soudai sounded timidly. "But… Why did you save me back then? And why are you helping us now?"
She turned back at him with a faint smile. "Because it's a part of what I do. Feuding with Kaguya, exterminating youkai, helping lost and injured humans and running a yakitori stand…"
"A yakitori stand?" he asked her with an amused tone. "Why didn't you say so earlier? I sure could go for a nice crispy yakitori right now…"
"Well that's a pity." Mokou shrugged. "I'm not opened today. But if I was, I probably wouldn't have met you and the two of you would be probably still hopelessly wandering around the forest."
"That's… true." Soudai had to admit. "Anyway, what's with those wings that you had? Where did you get such magic?" he kept inquiring.
"Over the course of my prolonged, unending life, I had encountered and battled countless youkai. Some killed me on spot, others I managed to drive away. Eventually I discovered that some of their power was transferred to me. It's basically the same way as with all of Gensokyo's native human inhabitants. However, whereas it took many generations of warriors and their families to gain enough power to rival the youkai, I never died, and so, the power had accumulated within me. Now, after over thirteen centuries I am able to defeat even the most powerful of Gensokyo's youkai. I can basically keep on fighting until I can no longer take the pain, and to that I've developed quite a resistance… My forte is manipulation of fire, as you might have noticed."
"That's awesome." Soudai remarked admiringly. "So perhaps even people like us could once gain some little magic power if we lived here long enough, huh?"
"That's doubtful." the immortal girl gave him a disappointing answer. "Well... Perhaps if you fought against the youkai every day and didn't get yourself killed, then perhaps in several decades, you could pick something up, but as I said, that's highly improbable… However, if you had any children born here, their chance to gain some powers would be slightly greater. And the next generation would be even more likely to learn some magic."
"That's… an interesting fact to know." said the older outsider with a hint of disappointment. "But not that it really matters if we're going to be leaving Gensokyo in three months, right Kyouichi?"
"Yeah." his younger friend affirmed.
"Leave Gensokyo?" Mokou asked with a genuinely surprised tone. "Isn't it going to be a problem with the Great Barrier in the way?"
"That's a longer story." Kyouichi gave an avoidant reply. "And I'm not in a mood to retell it again."
"Neither do I have the time to listen." noted the immortal pyromancer. "Look ahead. There's the end of the Bamboo Forest of the Lost." she pointed forward towards the beams of daylight that seeped through the last stalks of bamboo in their way. "And this is where we part ways." Mokou stopped and turned at the two mortals who followed her.
"You're not coming to the village?" Kyouichi asked her.
She shook her head in a negative response. "My home is here in this forest. In fact, I believe you must have passed by it just before I saw you running away from me."
"I see…"
"Life in isolation is my fate. I simply prefer it that way… I hope this was the last time I had to help you. You'd be wise not to wander into this forest again."
"Uhh, yeah, we'll try." Soudai reassured her.
Mokou paused for a while as she thoughtfully scratched her chin. "I'd ask you to say hello to Kamishirasawa-san for me, but you probably don't know her…"
"Kamishirasawa-san?" he repeated. "You mean Keine-sensei? Of course we know her. She's our teacher."
Mokou raised her brow. "Really? So she teaches you Gensokyo's history, huh?"
"That's right. And geography and a thing or two about the various youkai races... Is she your friend?"
"She's the closest person I have that still lives."
"Hmm…" Soudai seemed to be surprised. "I wonder why she never told us anything about you."
"Maybe because she didn't want to, you genius." Kyouichi jabbed at him. "Mokou-san's past and even her present life is not exactly… sinless. Keine-sensei most likely doesn't want to be openly associated with her or it could hurt her reputation…"
"I guess that makes sense." the older outsider admitted. "Don't worry, Mokou-san, we'll keep your relationship with Keine-sensei a secret from the public. We'll tell her that you send your regards."
It was probably the first time when both outsiders saw a warm, pleasant smile from this lonely immortal girl. "Thank you."
"No, we thank you." Soudai expressed his gratitude and together with Kyouichi, he bowed to her. "I wish your grim life would change for the better, but… that depends only on you and your choices. Farewell then."
And so, as Mokou silently made her goodbye nod, she floated up, spreading her fiery wings and disappeared into the deep dusky forest. The two outsiders were left without a guide, but they no longer needed one. The end of the forest was in their sight. With their spirits bolstered again, they jogged on towards the fading daylight…
"Holy shit, I think we actually made it!" Soudai expressed his joy as he was greeted with an open land.
"Bamboo Forest of the Lost, eh?" Kyouichi looked back at the mentioned forest. "Well, not anymore!"
"I think I can see the village!" called Soudai as he covered his eyes, which were still only adjusting to the brighter environment. He was pointing towards northeast at the distant formation of buildings.
"It looks like we're south of the crop fields." stated the younger outsider as he figured out his whereabouts. "Mokou-san changed our course… So if we kept heading north as we planned…" he paused as he stretched out his arm and roughly measured the northbound heading. "We'd probably end up somewhere near Kourindou… That Eientei is quite a distance from the village, isn't it?"
"Yeah, I wish I knew how to fly too…" said Soudai and resumed his walk towards the Human Village.
The farmlands belonging to the territory of the Human Village were stretching along the vast valley directly north of their current position. It wasn't hard to see the unmistakable architecture of the Temple of Myouren and the local cemetery lying no more than half a klick southwest from the said temple. The setting sun spreading its rays over the sky, painting the sky from orange to blue, was drawing long shadows of everything it shined on. With great feeling of relief and elation, the two misplaced humans were making their way towards the safest place in Gensokyo for the likes of them.
"I guess you could say we were lucky that we ran into that Mokou-san." said Soudai after spending some time in silent thinking.
"Maybe it was part of Tewi's good luck blessing." Kyouichi speculated. "While I'm not too sure what to think of Mokou, we both owe her one…"
"Well, we'd probably manage to find our way out of the forest anyway." shrugged the older one. "But we'd be quite a bit further away from the village. Not to mention that we could run into something really malevolent… like that invisible youkai that got me the other day."
Kyouichi sighed with relief. "Yeah… It's a good thing everything turned out okay and we got out of the forest unscathed."
"Uhh… Kyouichi? What about your knee then?"
The younger outsider only now brought his attention to the tear on his hakama, soaked with a little bit of blood. "Huh? Where did that come from?"
"Geez… Straight out of Eientei and you mess yourself up again." Soudai shook his head.
"Well, if I noticed it just now I can't be that serious, can it? Besides, I've got this…" Kyouichi reached into his backpack to draw out the bottle with potion that caused him so much trouble.
"Aw man, not this crap again…" Soudai frowned disapprovingly.
"One day, Soudai, you may need it too. It's quite convenient not having to wait to heal up naturally…" retorted his friend and took a light sip of the bottle's content.
Just as he expected, the wound and the area around it became increasingly more sensitive to the pain, which soon turned into a burning sensation. With gritted teeth he endured the unpleasant feeling until it faded away. As he pulled up his hakama to check on his knee, there was no trace of any injury.
"Even with that potion, we still better just be careful." Soudai gave a friendly advice. "I mean, look… You've already nearly wasted one bottle. At this rate you'll have nothing when the day of our return journey comes…"
"Then I guess I'll better pay a visit to Xeng-san once more." replied Kyouichi with an easygoing attitude. "Hmm… Now that I mention him, I think he had hinted to me that there were three more immortals besides him who live in Gensokyo… Guess that means I've already met them all."
"And that reminds me…" Soudai paused himself and cleared his throat. "How the hell come were YOU invited to Kaguya-sama's private quarters and I haven't?!" he yelled at him his question.
"It was all a sort of lucky coincidence." the younger outsider smiled sheepishly as he tried to explain the situation. "I'm sure she'd invite you too if you were there with me…" he tried to cheer him up, but that only helped to frustrate Soudai even more.
"Damn! Damn, damn, damn~!" he angrily bashed his fist against his palm. "Why didn't I go with you?"
"Sheesh, dude, calm down… You were most likely being examined by Eirin when that happened."
"Damn… Even if you say so… If I had known about this, I'd let some of those fairies to be checked up before me."
Kyouichi chuckled amusedly. "Would you? What happened to your "never trust an alien" creed?"
"Uhh, well… Erm…"
"Kaguya is just as Lunarian as Eirin and from what I've heard, those folks up there don't think of us humans or youkai as anything more than means to an end… That's part of the reason why they wanted to brew the elixir of immortality. To manipulate and to deceive."
"I just hope they're not planning an invasion or something…" muttered the older outsider.
"Well, it's not that they couldn't, but they see Earth as a very "impure" place to be, so it's more like they don't want to be here… Eirin and Kaguya are different cases, though, since they're both exiles." explained Kyouichi.
"No doubt because of conducting illegal experiments with shady drugs."
The younger outsider let out a weak chuckle at Soudai's last remark, despite the fact, or maybe because of the fact that it wasn't too far from the truth.
"That's not funny, Ishimaru. I'm being serious right now, you know…"
"Yeah, yeah…" Soudai was again brushed off by his friend. They walked the rest of the way to the village quietly.
As they reached the central market district, if one could even dare to divide such a small village into districts, Soudai suddenly stopped and looked at his companion. "Well, it's been quite some adventure during those past few days, wasn't it?"
"Yeah…" sighed Kyouichi with a tired voice. "One hell of an adventure, alright…"
"One can only hope for things turning out a bit better when we make our return to the outside world." commented Soudai and turned away from Kyouichi to one of the streets to the south. "I'd even call you for a beer or two, but right now, a good sleep and a good dinner is all that I'm thinking about… See you next Tuesday then… Club prez…" he smirked weakly as he said the last words to his friend. Of course, by next Tuesday he meant the regular weekly meeting of the so-called Transfer Students' Club held at the school library. Kyouichi's hospitalization made him miss the last one, but Soudai was absent for over two weeks. They both had some catching up to do and… new information to learn. However, to simply see each other again, they wouldn't have to wait until Tuesday, since they'd simply go back to school again tomorrow.
"Ah, that's right…" said Kyouichi as he remembered something. "You live like most of the folks from outside… In the militia barracks, huh?"
"Yeah… It's no Hotel Ritz, but we can get by. We pretty much don't need to worry about most of our living needs, be it food, lodging or clean clothes, but we take shifts with menial tasks like cleaning and cooking… All the things that the warriors don't like doing very much."
"Do you get along well with each other?"
Soudai shrugged with an ambiguous expression. "So-so, I guess… I can handle cleaning duties. I'm not that bad of a cook either… At least good enough for the standards of their mess hall. However, some of our folks don't like it there at all. Especially that girl… You know, she's your deputy in terms of our club's hierarchy… Iwakami-san."
"Midori." Kyouichi nodded, as he knew the person well. "Yeah, she told me about her problem long ago. I had already asked a… err… a friend of mine to let her stay in his house. She's been living there for almost as long as you've been absent and she seemed to like it there… oddly enough."
"Huh? Why oddly enough? Who is that so-called friend of yours?" asked the older outsider a bit pryingly.
"Well, uhh… He's…" Kyouichi had a bit of a difficulty choosing the right words, since he couldn't tell himself what exactly his relationship with the old Naota Tanisake was. "I guess I COULD call him a friend even if I don't agree with some of his opinions or his lifestyle. His name's Tanisake Naota and if he wasn't almost 80 years old, he could be our club's president."
"An outsider, huh? I see then…"
"Yeah." Kyouichi went on describing the old man in more detail. "An ex-carpenter. Partly self-taught. Got spirited away by the end of the second war… Ehh… The Second World War, not the Lunar one…" he specified, so that there wouldn't be a misunderstanding. "Now that he's in retirement, he's living his days peacefully here in the village, drinking sake and meeting his old friends. I think he's lived alone. I've been to his house once, but there wasn't anyone there besides him... But that all changed now that Midori moved in."
"So that's how it is…?" Soudai nodded understandingly as he listened. "But you sounded like you don't trust him enough…"
"Well…" Kyouichi shrugged. "As I already said, he drinks sake. A lot of it, actually. And he's sometimes… quite prejudicial. He doesn't seem to trust strangers easily and he stays away from any and all youkai. Honestly, I didn't think he was the best person for Midori to take example of, but… I guess I was wrong."
"Really? Why?"
"Don't get me wrong. I never said that he's a bad person or something. He has his good points. While Naota barely has more than a handful of friends in the village, he seems to be more open towards outsiders. We are all pretty much peers in Gensokyo after all… He showed the same level of openheartedness to Midori as he did to me. Not only that, but he seemed to limit his sake consumption and he also seemed to have… softened up a little… I don't know… maybe it's just me, but I think that he likes to take care of people in need. He even seems to be a bit… overprotective sometimes… he's been giving me all sorts of patronizing lectures… even slapped me a few times when I did something he deemed wrong."
"Hmm… Maybe he's just taken a liking to you." speculated Soudai with a thoughtful face. "Perhaps you remind him of someone close to him…?"
"I don't know…"
"Or perhaps he sees his younger self in you and doesn't want you to the same mistakes that he did."
"Yeah, perhaps so." admitted Kyouichi. "He's been a sort of a father-figure to me here in the village besides Saitou-san. He's got a lot of flaws, but… I can't help but to like him. And Midori never complained about him either. I just hope things haven't changed since then."
"Maybe you should pay him a visit again soon… Perhaps you might even want to introduce me to him." Soudai suggested nonchalantly.
"Yeah, you're right… I'll go see him again. As soon as I rest up a bit from our... "adventuring"."
Soudai laughed softly. "Then we should already stop standing around here, blocking the marketplace and go get some rest… Until next time then, Kyouichi."
"Yeah, be good, man…" the younger outsider informally saw his older friend off and casually waved his hand as he departed.
Leaving the still-crowded marketplace behind, the young Ishimaru entered the familiar street in the northern part of the village where the family of his caretakers – the Saitou family, had their residence. While he couldn't wait to see their faces again, a part of him was worried what their reaction to his week-long absence would be. Would they welcome him with joy and relief? Would they scold him and punish him? Or would they simply say "welcome home" without asking any questions? The answer to that question didn't matter to Kyouichi that much. The Saitous were almost like his family and no matter their reaction, he'd still return to them.
"I'm back…" he timidly announced his arrival as he let himself inside the house.
At first, there was no reaction, since there was nobody in the hallway, but as he opened the kitchen's door, he was greeted with Minako's astonished face.
"Ah~. How nice to see you again, Minako-san." he smiled at her warmly.
"Kyouichi-kun! Oh my god, are you alright?" she began asking him, as if she was his real mother. "What happened to you? I heard that you were taken to Eientei, but… When were you discharged? And… my… Look at your clothes… Don't worry, I'll mend them for you. More importantly, you must be hungry, right? Why don't you come in and have something to eat? You can tell me everything once your stomach's full."
"Easy there, Minako-san." Kyouichi gave her a reassuring smile. "I'm fine, as you can see."
"But we were all so worried! When I heard the news that a caravan from Kazemura was hit and that several people were hurt, I almost passed out…"
"I'm sorry to make you worry so much, but… Really, you should also take it easier on yourself. It's not like I'm really your family or anything."
"How can you even say that?" asked the mother of the Saitou family, barely able to believe her ears. "You may not be my own, but me and everyone else already takes you as a part of our family."
Kyouichi frowned and gave Minako a serious look in the eyes. "You're already well aware that I'm not staying here forever. In fact, no more than three months. I've told you about that, didn't I?"
Minako copied his frown as she nodded. "I know… But still. It's not going to be so easy for me to say farewell to you."
"Time can take care of any heartache, Minako-san. And you are a strong woman. I bet you won't even remember me in a few years."
"Please, say such words no more." Minako pleaded him. "Just… please…"
"As you wish." the outsider obliged and said nothing more on this topic.
"Please, have a seat at the table, I'll tell Mizuto and the children that you've returned from Eientei." said the tailor and disappeared behind the corner. Her hasty footsteps echoed as she walked down the narrow corridor of her house to inform the other family members of the good news. Not long after that, her footsteps sounded again, accompanied by those of the rest of the Saitou family as they rushed into the kitchen where Kyouichi was already comfortably seated by the table.
"Kyouichi~!" sounded the deep voice of Minako's husband, Mizuto. He sounded quite thrilled as he greeted the outsider with a smile. "Glad to see that you're still in one piece. I knew that we can always trust the folks at Eientei with saving our lives, eh?"
"Ehh… Yeah…" the outsider replied hesitantly as he camouflaged his mistrust towards the mentioned institution.
"Onii-cha… I mean… uhh… ehehehe... Kyouichi-kun," the firstborn daughter, Chitose corrected herself as she welcomed him. "Welcome back. I've heard what happened. Did you really stand face to face against a vicious youkai?"
"Well, uhh… I don't know what you've heard, but it was more like I was just cowering behind…"
He left his sentence unfinished, since Tadao, the youngest child of the family interrupted him with a greeting of his own. "Good to see you again, Kyouichi. I'm interested to hear something about Kazemura. Did you see that latest archeological discovery they've made there?"
"Why, yes, I have actually…" Kyouichi began to explain, but was cut silent again by Minako.
"Kyouichi-kun has been through a difficult day, no doubt, so I think you should let him eat something first."
"Yes mom~." replied the Saitou siblings in unison and assumed seats at the table along with their father.
After Kyouichi filled his stomach to the point of satisfaction, he shared some his recent experiences with the curious children as well as their parents. Naturally, he didn't tell them everything, especially the parts regarding his daring escape from Eientei. In other words, he made up a few lies as he retold his story. After that, there was a session of questions and answers about the specific parts of his past several days. Their conversation went on until the late evening. Kyouichi had a feeling that his life in Gensokyo would again slow down and his days would be again peaceful, if somewhat stereotypical. However, he still had a few problems on his mind that he yet needed to sort out. One of them included finding himself a new job, since he decided to quit his old one in the bookstore. While he still had enough money saved up to live without worries for a week or two, he didn't simply want to waste it all on food and drinks. After all, he and all of the outsiders that joined the Transfer Students' Club, had some common responsibility. They all bound themselves to contribute a certain sum of yen to their fund in order to supply themselves for the hard journey that awaited them, and even as the club's president, Kyouichi was not excluded from this obligation.
When he returned to the guest room, which mainly served to store Minako's tailoring needs and materials, he almost felt as if he was returning to his own room in his own apartment in Tokyo. He already got used to this house and he couldn't deny it.
"Huh? I still haven't returned these, have I?" he asked himself as his sight fell upon the pile of 21 books, making up the entirety of Gensokyo Chronicle compilation. Since he was already steadfastly convinced that he would return to the outside world with Reimu's assistance, he felt that he no longer needed the books and had planned to return them to their owner. However, now that he looked at them again, he was having second thoughts. Not even knowing what rekindled his interest, but something subconscious urged him to pick up one of those books and browse through its pages.
"Hmph…" he chuckled weakly. "I guess that'll have to make up for the lack of television in this house." He said to himself as he opened up the book he took from the top of the pile – the latest in the compilation – Perfect Memento in Strict Sense. There he skipped right to the youkai encyclopedia section, and since he had the fairy incident on his mind, he decided to expand his knowledge about those creatures. It turned out that the articles about the youkai in the encyclopedia were rather short and simplified. Besides some simple trivia, he didn't really learn anything new about the fairies that he didn't already know. While the "Threat Level" and the "Human Friendship Level" colons were adding an interesting touch, the articles were rarely exceeding the length of one page and Kyouichi found their quality almost disappointing. He blamed that, however, on the fact that he was holding an unfinished test printout, not yet ready to be officially sold and distributed. The article about the fairies, of course, held no explanation for severe, aggressive behavior where the creatures would attack settlements in huge numbers in an almost organized manner, so even after reading the whole entry, Kyouichi wasn't a step closer to understanding the incident than he was when it began. With tired eyes blinking in the dimly illuminated room, he put the book next to his futon and prepared himself for sleep. He still had school to attend and he didn't want to oversleep after all…