"You're trespassing!" Mayumi scrutinised Kogasa with a stern, disapproving look. Somehow, the other haniwa that backed her all carried a similar strictness despite their faces not being as expressive. "Get out of here, or face the wrath of the Haniwa Army Corps!"

"But…! But I just…!" Kogasa waved her hands trying and failing to calm down the angry clay soldiers pointing weapons at her.

"Kogasa…!" Raiko's voice called out from behind. When Kogasa looked over her shoulder, she saw both Raiko and Sakuya running over.

"More intruders?!" Mayumi raised a hand, and her fellow troops adjusted their aim towards these new arrivals as well. "You youkai need to leave right now!"

"Says who?" Raiko snapped back. "We have our own reasons for being here."

"And I'm no youkai." Sakuya declared as she pulled out a knife, pointing it towards Mayumi. "I'm also not so easily deterred."

"H-hey!" Kogasa squeaked, not feeling too safe despite the reinforcements, since she was standing right in the middle between the haniwa's weapons and Sakuya's knife. "Before any of you do anything, can I just step somewhere else-"

"Enough of this!" Mayumi extended out her hand, and gave the order. "Attack!"

The haniwa archers let loose their arrows, the swordsman approached from other angles, and Kogasa scrambled out of the way while Raiko and Sakuya leapt away to avoid the incoming assault.

Just as Kogasa hit the ground, Raiko hopped onto her bass and took out her sticks. She summoned her drum pads. With each successive hit against her drums, she brought down an equivalent lightning bolt down on the haniwa soldiers.

At the same time, Sakuya leapt into the air. In one instance, there was only one knife in her hand. In the next, there was a flurry of knives all around her that she let loose, and it rained down on the soldiers.

"Way too close…!" Kogasa picked herself off the floor, checking over herself and her umbrella quickly for any wounds or holes. She turned around, clutching the shaft of her umbrella, and wearing the meanest frown she could muster. "Alright! I didn't want to get rough if I could help it, but you've- …Oh."

By the time Kogasa turned around, the haniwas' formation had been greatly disrupted. Quite a few were tending to one another as they were covered in burns or puncture marks. Those that had taken severe hits withdrew and headed towards the structure in the distance, but all the others marched on forward on Raiko and Sakuya.

"Nobody is even looking my way..." It seemed Kogasa had already been forgotten about during this skirmish. Although she felt a little annoyed, she also saw it as an opportunity, and began to stealthily circle around everyone else. "I guess I'll just slip by while I have the chance, and see what's in that big rock…"

Meanwhile, Mayumi clicked her tongue as she observed the status of her troops. She herself remained unharmed, having dodged the initial counterattack. "The living creatures of Gensokyo are as annoyingly strong as always. Archers, rally to me!"

Mayumi shouted out, and many small, haniwa archers took formation around her. With a series of swift hand movements from her, the other haniwa took aim in sync. With another gesture from Mayumi, they all fired into the air.

Raiko was keeping the sword and shovel-wielding haniwa at bay, blasting them away when they tried to close in on her. In the midst of the fight, she noticed the arrows approaching from high in the air, and began to move away while shouting out a warning for Sakuya. "Miss Maid, incoming…!"

"Hmph. I see it." Sakuya had also seen the incoming arrows. But instead of dodging and risk losing her current favoured position, she decided to intercept the attack with her own. Time stopped for all but the maid, and she took that frozen moment to count exactly how many arrows were coming her way, and to estimate their trajectory. Then she threw out her knives, one to clash with each and every arrow.

Time resumed, and her knives went flying. …However, Sakuya's knives did not clash with the enemy projectiles like she expected to. Her eyes widened when the arrowheads actually shot through her knives, either knocking them out of the way or outright splitting the silver blades in two.

With no time to spend being surprised, Sakuya performed several backflips, narrowly avoiding the arrows just before they hit the ground where she was just standing, and getting away with only the smallest cut on her leg from grazing the last arrow.

Once out of immediate danger, a bewildered Sakuya stooped down and picked up one of her stray knives that had been knocked aside. The metal of the blade was chipped and ruined. Every single knife she had thrown was rendered unusable. "How did my silver blades fail against those rustic weapons…?"

From the other side of the arrow-covered field, a smug laugh escaped Mayumi, taking clear delight in Sakuya's troubled face. "Don't be so surprised! It's only natural that your shoddy weapons can't stand up to our arsenal. Our perfect tools are all crafted by our great sculptor god, after all.."

"Perfect tools, you say?" Sakuya's eyes carried a sharp, red-tinted glare at Mayumi. "Well, I am my mistress' most perfect and elegant servant."

She still had a few usable knives to spare, and was determined to drive them into the talkative idol across from her. Before any of the other haniwa could attack again, Sakuya vanished again. Moving through her personal time and space, she threw out her knives in a wide arc from multiple tricky angles.

Time and space went back to normal for her, and she watched the knives fly. Mayumi's keen reflexes allowed her to dodge most of the incoming projectiles, but not the last blades that now flew directly towards her head.

A direct hit appeared inevitable. …Until Mayumi caught the soaring knife by the blade with her bare hand. She clenched her fist, and the knife was crushed to pieces in her grip. Sakuya couldn't help but gasp in shock. "What?! For your flesh to be stronger than my silver… Are you some kind of divine being?"

"You could say that! already told you that your shoddy weapons don't compare to our sculptor god's craftsmanship." Mayumi dusted her hands, while wearing a vain smile. "And that includes my very body, gifted to me by our god, Lady Keiki! How can you claim to be 'perfect' in the presence of myself, an idol without a single flaw?"

Sakuya gritted her teeth, but as frustrated as she was feeling, she was lacking in options. Though she didn't like letting Mayumi have the last word, Sakuya turned on her heel and sprinted over to Raiko, who had just finished fighting off the converging haniwa swordsmen.

"I'm in a pinch. Lend me your sticks." Sakuya bluntly demanded.

"What?" Raiko glanced over shoulder, unsure if she heard right.

"I need to skewer that annoying 'idol', but I ran out of knives. Lend me your sticks so I can throw them at her eyes!" Sakuya said, already reaching for Raiko's drumsticks.

"Wha- No way! These obviously aren't for throwing!" Raiko urgently raised her hands, keeping her sticks out of Sakuya's reach. "And how can you run out? I've seen you throw hundreds of them!"

"I pick them up and reuse them often, but they've been shattered! So I need a replacement right now." Sakuya insisted, as she began to climb up the bass and over the percussionist herself.

"Stop it! Get off!" Raiko did her best to keep the maid at bay with her foot. "Just go find some twigs or something!?"

"What are they doing…?" Mayumi raised a brow as she watched the maid and drummer having some kind of quarrel, but it wasn't in her business to care. "Doesn't matter. Everyone! Forward and surround them!"

The skirmish continued on, with the haniwa troops appearing to gain advantage. But getting further and further away from all that in the meantime however, was Kogasa. She had sneaked past everyone thanks to the commotion and now found herself in front of the large structure the haniwa were excavating.

"Woah. It looks a bit like… a tomb? Spooky!" Kogasa noted with a mix of awe and perhaps a bit of excitement. The 'tomb' appeared to still be partially buried, but she saw some potential openings that could be used as entrances. "Might as well take a look inside…"

Kogasa stepped forward, intending to make her way inside the structure. However, she stopped when she spotted someone else exiting from those very same openings.

"Ah!" Kogasa awkwardly stopped mid-step. "Um. I was just…"

"What do we have here?" The other person was dressed in a distinct outfit and headkerchief, while also adorned with an assortment of sculpting tools. Right away, Kogasa could feel a strong, otherworldly aura emanating from them. "A lost, stray youkai?"

"Why do people keep thinking I'm lost? I came here on purpose, to search this place!"

"A would-be prospector? How cute." The strange woman smiled warmly. "But I can't allow that, and neither will my dear companions."

"Companions?" Before Kogasa could ask what that meant, she received an answer when many animated haniwa exited the tomb-like structure as well. Every haniwa that had been damaged earlier in the fight had since been repaired, and now came marching out good as new to flank the woman who called for them. "Ack?!"

The haniwa marched towards Kogasa, who immediately turned tail and ran back the way she came as they chased after her. At the same time, the strange woman followed them all at a nonchalant pace.

She took in the scene happening in the field before her. While the youkai with the strange umbrella was scrambling about, the rest of the haniwa troops including their lance corporal Mayumi were still engaged in battle with another pair of odd-looking fellows. One appeared to be a youkai of some sort, and the other a human.

While it was nice to see everyone so lively, she felt compelled to interrupt. She cleared her throat and called out loudly to them all. "Everyone! Mayumi! Could you all please stop for a moment?"

"Lady Keiki?!" Upon hearing the voice, Mayumi in turn shouted out to her fellow haniwa. "Cease fire! Group up!"

Every one of the haniwa soldiers stopped what they were doing, to the great confusion of the three 'intruders', and they all withdrew over to Mayumi's side.

"What's going on?" Raiko asked, putting away her drumsticks for now, just as an out-of-breath Kogasa made it over to her and Sakuya.

"If I had to guess," Sakuya said. "That colourful-looking lady is their mistress."

"Hey! You will not address our goddess so rudely!" Mayumi shouted from across the field, before turning to said goddess. "Lady Keiki, we were just about to fend off these intruders. There's no need to trouble yourself."

"Who are you calling intruders?!" Raiko hollered back. "Where do you get off treating this place like it's your private property?"

"That's right!" Sakuya added. "If you're going to claim this land as your fiefdom, I'd like to see some proof of your nobility. Otherwise, you're just a group of squatting peasants."

"...What in the world are you talking about?" Mayumi started to argue back, but she then felt a hand on her shoulder.

"Let me, Mayumi." The goddess gave Mayumi a reassuring nod. "We are visitors to the Human Realm, so it's only fair to explain our business. I'll do the honours."

All the haniwa cleared the way as she stepped forward, and offered a friendly smile to the odd trio before her.

"I am the Idola Deus who created these faithful haniwa, and the one who protects them. My name is Haniyasushin Keiki."

"So she's really a god…" Kogasa remarked. "I didn't think any gods lived so far from the mountain."

"Oh, no, we're not from anywhere in this realm. We hail from the Primate Spirit Garden in the Animal Realm. We've come a long way to retrieve something." Keiki briefly gestured to the tomb-like structure in the distance, implying that what she and her haniwa came to retrieve was everything that resided inside. "This entire structure used to be part of an ancient burial mound from the place you all refer to as the 'Outside world'."

"So you're interested in the old antiques as well?" Sakuya asked. "Do you want them to adorn your 'spirit garden' as well?"

"Adorn? Is that why you're all after the treasures inside, to use as display pieces?"

"She doesn't speak for all of us." Raiko chimed in. "All the old tools that have been washing up around Gensokyo, they're definitely coming from inside that strange monument you're digging up, right? If the objects in there have been abandoned for as long as they have, then they'll definitely become tsukumogami! As a trusted figurehead among tsukumogami, I have a vested interest in guiding them when that happens."

"I see!" Keiki was intrigued by what she was hearing, but it wasn't enough to make her reconsider anything. "Well, that all sounds very noble, but it doesn't matter now that I am here to reclaim this monument, and everything inside. You see, I've been making an effort to be on top of any news in the Human Realm during my visits. This 'Gensokyo' is fascinating to me, but seeing the first sign of this burial mound was a great surprise! From a single glance, I instantly recognised the familiar craftsmanship at work."

"Familiar?" Kogasa began to ask. "Do you mean you're the one who created those old tools being washed up? You're their owner?"

"Not quite, actually. This burial mound and everything within, be it the paintings, bells, mirrors… everything was created by the hands of humans from an age long past. But you could say I had a hand in it as well. As a god of creation, pottery, agriculture, and soil among other aspects, I would be the deity that those humans prayed to while they worked tirelessly. Their sense of craftsmanship comes from the same school of design as my own."

Keiki explained with great pride, while Mayumi and the other haniwa respectfully nodded.

"Of course, had they prayed for me back then to handle all the sculpting directly, I think I could have created something even greater! …Oh, but what's here is still very impressive. …Anyway, since all of this was just lying around untouched, we came here to retrieve it. My reliable haniwa have been working at digging it up for a few days now, and we only recently patched up the crumbling foundation where the items inside were being washed out by the water."

"I think I get the gist of things, but…" Even now, Kogasa was still only concerned about one thing, which she proceeded to voice. "You said you're here to reclaim those tools, right? Does that mean you're going to put them to good use?"

"Why, of course I am!" Keiki cheerfully responded. "I'm the only one who can."

"Phew! I'm so glad to hear that!" Kogasa breathed a sigh of relief that she didn't realise she was holding. As long as these abandoned tools could find new purpose under a new owner, and a god no less, then she needn't be concerned. "A god who can make haniwa like those all by yourself, I bet you'd be really good at refurbishing all those tools until they're good as new too!"

"Hm? Who said anything about refurbishing ?"

"Huh?" Kogasa's relief was then replaced with confusion. "But you just said you're going to put them to good use, right?"

"That's right. I intend to bring them all back with me and break them down for their raw material."

"What?!" Kogasa yelped. Raiko and Sakuya were also taken back. "You're going to destroy them?!"

"It'd be impractical to do anything else, wouldn't it?" Keiki said with a nonchalant wave of a hand. "All the treasures within are well over a millenia old, and wouldn't even be useful as ornaments. The most respectful and constructive thing to do is to make use of their raw material to create new, better, and more beautiful works of art that will last for many more ages to come."

"N-No! You… You can't do that…!" Kogasa stammered out in a panicked tone.

"And why not?"

"B-Because…!" Kogasa's hands began to shake as she gripped the shaft of her umbrella tightly, the very suggestion of what Keiki intended to do made her feel ill.

As an old, forgotten umbrella, Kogasa believed she had a good sense of how other abandoned tools felt as well. Perhaps part of it was her projecting her own feelings, but when she thought about all those 'treasures' that had been buried and sealed away for centuries upon centuries, whose original owners have all passed on despite themselves preserving against all odds… Her heart ached as she imagined the wishes they must surely carry, to still serve a purpose after all this time.

She was about to try voicing all those strong feelings, but the people beside her beat her to it.

"There's no way that's going to happen!" Raiko dramatically declared. "They didn't wait all this time just to be turned to scrap! They're definitely going to become tsukumogami, and I intend to invite them to my paradise of tools!"

"What a presumptuous god." Sakuya added, unimpressed with Keiki's explanation. "If you can't see the value of those cute objects as anything other than something to discard, then you shouldn't have them. I'll take them off you, in that case!"

"...Yeah, what they said." The moment had passed, so Kogasa settled for just going along with the two of them. At least Raiko's cause was respectable and Sakuya's intent would still be putting the tools to actual good use.

"Oho, the residents of the Human Realm are always so lively." In response to the others' disapproval, Keiki just chuckled. "Sorry, but only I know best what should be done with these ancient treasures."

"Lady Keiki." Mayumi spoke from beside the god. "These people clearly intend to keep causing us trouble. Shall I have them removed?"

"This has been an entertaining diversion, but I agree it's about time we get back to work." Keiki nodded before turning to Kogasa and the others. "It's time for you all to leave."

With her goddess' approval, Mayumi gave the command and all the haniwa troops followed in sync. Their numbers were large, appearing even greater than before despite how long Sakuya and Raiko had already been fighting, and they began to close in on the group with weapons drawn.

"It's like there's no end to them." Raiko wasn't one to usually show worry, but the situation wasn't looking favourably for them. Especially since we saw in the distance that Keiki was actually reconstructing the damaged haniwa even as others worked. "That god just puts them back together, which is pretty annoying…"

"Their formation is too tight for a frontal assault, so it'll be hard to get to that tomb they're guarding." Sakuya clicked her tongue. " If my knives weren't broken, I could have tried from different angles, but…"

"Um, it sounds like you're both thinking the same thing as me. That…" Kogasa uttered, before noticing the haniwa archers were also preparing their arrows, and her tone grew even more urgent. "...That we should probably back off?!"

Neither Raiko nor Sakuya wanted to admit it out loud, but with the army of haniwa continuing to march towards them, they couldn't come up with a good reason to stick around.

"Let's get out of here!" Kogasa shouted, and all three of them fled from the approaching wave haniwa and their loose arrows.

After a hasty and somewhat clumsy escape, the three of them had made it back to the foggy path near the entrance of Muenzuka. They only stopped after making sure they were no longer being chased. Catching their breath in the middle of the road, there was an awkward tension in the air between the three of them, what they knew to be the shared sense of defeat.

"...What a botched show." Raiko couldn't stop her sullen mood from showing on her face and stamped her foot on the ground. In her mind, the stage was set up perfectly for a hero to swoop in and save her fellow tsukumogami, but she wasn't able to follow through at the critical moment. "All that and absolutely nothing to show for it!"

"You think that's bad? My pride as a maid hasn't been this disgraced in a long time!" Sakuya grimaced as she pulled out a few of her knives in one hand, the blades on all of them either chipped or completely destroyed. "My trusty tools broken by that inelegant idol. What a joke!"

"They were all really scary, too…" On top of being embarrassed by how many times in quick succession she let the goddess and her haniwa followers scare and surprise her, Kogasa didn't have a clue on how she could stand up to all of them.

Yet, when Kogasa thought about those ancient tools that the sculptor god intended to break down without a second thought, she couldn't stand the thought of simply going home and calling it a day.

"D-Does anyone have a plan?!" Kogasa cried out to her only allies at this time, desperate for any solutions. "I want to save those tools, but I don't think fighting that whole army head on is an option!"

"I would love to take them all down, but I don't think there's time for that anyway." Sakuya folded her arms, contemplating the facts as she knew them. "That 'burial mound', as that god called it… It looked like they were very close to fully digging it up. I suspect it won't be long at all before they'll have scavenged everything inside, then they'll be on their way back home to some whole other realm where nobody can follow them."

"All the more reason to act quickly!" Raiko suddenly asserted, forcibly casting away her previous gloom, and replacing it with a burning desire to take action. "I don't give up easily, and I'll do whatever it takes to liberate those tools before they are destroyed."

"I have no intention of leaving things be, either." Sakuya said with a fierce look in her eyes. "Not only do I have to see my task to the end, but I have to get even with those haniwa. If you have some sort of plan, I demand you let me in on it."

"Ah, me too! Me too!" Kogasa begged, practically bouncing as she spoke. "I'm in this for the long haul, rain or shine!"

"I only have some vague thoughts right now, but I'll happily take any backup I can get! Now, here's what I think we could do…"

After that, there was a lively discussion between Kogasa, Raiko and Sakuya, as they traded wild ideas and suggestions. Of course, they already knew nothing too grand or elaborate could be put into action against the sculptor god and her haniwa, considering the lack of time and resources available to them. Even so, the three of them hoped to collectively make up for any deficiencies with a surplus of passion, elegance, and the element of surprise.