Author's notes: Sorry for the long delay between 3 and 4 – Schoolwork is piling sky-high.
"Found anything yet, outsider?"
"Nope, not yet, Miss Kirisame," I replied. "This flower you're looking for is really rare, isn't it?"
"That is exactly why we're looking for it," the witch answered, somewhat crossed (hopefully it wasn't me who crossed her). "Augh, where could it be? I saw loads of them two years back in Spring time and yet this year they've all but totally disappeared or something!"
"Maybe something did happen two years back that gave you that false impression?" I quipped, while looking for the plant. After all, bellflowers that looked like they got a rainbow tint to it didn't seem like something that'll happen very often, yet Miss Kirisame was very persistent and insistent that it must be around.
"Maybe that's true, but that's not an excuse to slack. I've got to do more if I want to become the best human magician there is, ze!"
"'Human' magician?" I nearly questioned her over the term, but decided it might be better not to. Still, she answered me anyway of her own accord.
"There is a race of youkai who are humanoid, and weak in physical ability, but man, they cast the craziest spells around! I think that's what the outsider call 'this is da BOMB'! Geddit, ze?"
The way Marisa spoke of it seemed like it was a big deal, and since I know nothing at all I naturally assumed that a big deal to her is as big a deal as it was to anyone else. I still had a lot to figure out about their nomenclature and stuff.
"When we made our way over to the devil's mansion for the first time, I had a really hard time holding off the witch while red-white went to fight deeper into the mansion. I was so tired out afterwards, I had to rest at home for two full weeks without so much as touching a grimoire, ze!"
"Found it!" By a stroke of luck, my brushing aside some weeds revealed a bellflower tinted in the exact way Marisa had wanted it. She was evidently thrilled and hopping about like a child when I passed the flower over to her. The sad thing was, all it took was one full minute before she decided to do something else – again.
"This can be developed for a Master Spark upgrade at long last! All that's needed now is a little water from the Sanzu River…"
Wait what? It wasn't even too long ago that we found a fantastic-looking flower, and now, out of the blue, we're going over to a San-something River?
Then, slowly but surely, the reluctance on my face translated into eagerness; I just remembered that I had little clean clothing left, so the best would be to get to a nearby source of freshwater (whether it's purified or not it didn't matter anymore).
"Miss Kirisame, can we go back to the shrine? If I don't get my clothes cleaned I'll be left running around in a pair of briefs."
"Goodness, the imagery," she cried while slapping her palm on her forehead. "I'm not sure if the lady of the River would allow you to, but I guess you can give it a try, ze."
"'Lady of the River'?"
"She's a grim reaper," Marisa remarked in a casual manner. "Well, yea, nothing particularly striking about Komachi, really, but you'll find her easy to chat with. She's multilingual too, ze."
Wait, what, a Grim Reaper? What the hell? Why would a Grim Reaper – on top of that, a multilingual Grim Reaper - be at a river?
"Outsider humans, easily surprised by the littlest of things in Gensokyo," snorted Marisa. "If you're going to keep getting surprised you'll soon find yourself in a whole lot of trouble."
Well, forgive me for being a noob!
***
The river was… kind of small, I thought. To think Marisa spoke of it at length on our way there and in the end the river wasn't that big, something like a stream maybe.
"What's the matter, out--- seriously, what's your name again?"
"Pasonia," I replied nonchalantly.
"So, what's the matter, Pasonia? You reckon this river is big or what?"
I took a look again at the stream. "Uhh… it's small. I don't know why you call it big," I quipped.
"Oh, hey," greeted a young woman clad in a blue traditional costume – by now 'traditional' is a generic term from me that meant clothing I don't know how to describe – carrying what seemed like the most ginormous of scythes I've seen, even comparing to those I've seen in mortal combat fight clubs. "Real nice to have visitors around these parts, this time of the year."
"Hey, Komachi, d'you mind if my friend and I here use some of the River's water? I need it for my Master Spark upgrade."
The 'grim reaper' now looked more like a 'grin reaper' to me with her rather cheerful smiling and ultra-casual demeanor.
"Suit yourself. I'm going to check on the flowers a bit in case red-white comes after me like she did a few years back. By the way, I haven't seen this guy before."
"I'm an outsider," I noted candidly. "My name is Pasonia Seltia Keros."
"Oh, hello… outsider, you say-"
Not again… argh.
"- but how'd you manage to get in?"
"With lots of luck, I suppose," I quipped. "Miss Ibuki brought me in here. By the way, I have a question."
"A question? I suppose I could answer if it doesn't involve Shikieiki-sama."
I jabbed a thumb at the river. "Why does Marisa call this a river, when all I see is a really small stream of water?"
Komachi chortled at length, but I wasn't sure if that was a good sign or a bad sign.
"Oh ha ha… Actually, well, you're right too, but so is she."
Hardly amusing, Miss Grin Reaper, I can't even laugh at that. "What's the deal, really?"
"Okay, you see, the length of this river is, should I say, 'variable'. Take it this way – the river itself is a sort of barometer to the cumulative spiritual progress you've made in your lifetime. This won't change even after you die and become a spirit looking for me."
Those words struck me really hard.
My spiritual progress is quite close to nil if that was what Miss Grin Reaper meant.
"Huh… no shitting me…"
"No kidding. But for outsider humans this is hardly surprising. So far, the only outsider human passenger I got who commented that this river was wide was a centenarian who recently came to me from the outside. Says she's kind of placed all her faith in the Bodhisattva or something since sixty years ago, which I reckon does help, but that's about it. I don't know how Shikieiki-sama judged her, though I'm expecting something favorable. Maybe that old lady got herself a rebirth into Shangri-La, or Bhava-agra."
"How's hell look like?"
Komachi stared blankly at me. "As much as I would like to say more about it, my contractual clause forbids me to mention this to anyone without clearance. Else I'll be fired from my job, heaven forbid."
"Oh for the love of god," I grumbled.
"Say, I sense a combative aura around you, the sort that emerges from people who's gotten themselves in a whole lot of physical fights. Were you some boxer or fighter?"
"Uh-" I was quite taken aback (more of surprise) by the grin reaper's question. "I was the best fighter in my fight club. I fought all over the world for prize money," I explained. "It seemed interesting and exciting to those who're not in the midst of the shit behind the scenes, believe me."
"I can emphatise with that. Some ghosts did say that the job of a Shinigami is interesting, but in the end the one who doesn't get leave or overtime pay is also me," she sighed.
"You're not the only one Komachi," interjected Marisa. "You forgot Youmu and Sakuya, ze."
"Oh, right, yea."
By the time our little talk ended, my dirty clothing's all finished washing (it smells kind of musky now that I don't have soap for the clothes) and it was nearing sunset with the faintest of orange glow hanging in the skies above. Still, what the grim reaper said did kind of bother me, but thankfully I was ready to let that go and let someone else decide how to judge me in due time.
After all, when you're in foreign lands, it's a bit of a no-brainer not to think such deathly thoughts.
***
"Welcome back, you two."
Surprise, if it isn't the horned girl back at the shrine.
"Where'd you been to, Suika?" I blurted out as soon as I saw her waving at us.
"I went back to the Youkai Mountain. Word has it they're ready to make some sort of foray into nuclear materials harvesting or something."
I furrowed my eyebrows at that statement about nuclear materials.
"What's the matter? You don't sound pleased at all."
"Well, yea, sort of. I don't claim to be very learnt, but the matter on nuclear materials itself is a subject of hot debate."
Suika shrugged, while belching deep from her gourd again.
"Whatever is happening in the outside world is the very reason why the Hakurei Border was created. Reimu, you know what's up with your seniors before?"
"Huh, why me Suika? Can't you leave me out of your lectures sometimes?"
"Just answer already, you old hag," Suika groaned.
"Well, I don't claim to know, but, well, the Hakurei miko of old times said it was the result of a massive collection of faith."
Faith? Why faith, of everything?
"The collective faith of the land that united the youkai and humans alike, the collective faith that the land of Gensokyo is a better land leading better lives than the ignorant, war-infested world outside. That was all that was ever told to me."
Then why the heck did my alleged 'family', the Konpaku family, leave Gensokyo? Something seriously doesn't add up here.
"What has faith got anything to do with the border?"
Reimu shrugged. "Faith has a lot to do with the very reason shrines like this one exist. I know because my powers are derived from the people who believe in the powers of the Hakurei Shrine, at the very least."
Faith, huh, I wondered aloud. "It's just remote to me, I guess."
"I haven't the slightest clue why you'd be remote to faith, but what I do know is that I've seen your face of disbelief somewhere before, in the face of a devil I fought years ago. She prides herself as the strongest, but in the end, her distrust of even the people around her…"
I noticed Marisa shuffling uncomfortably, which was why I decided not to push the question further. I'm not the sort of guy who'd not care even if I rub people the wrong way, I guess.
"Anyway, faith is a strong thing. If faith can bring about miracles and the powers of gods, then it stands to reason that as long as you have faith you won't be lost. Even if your faith is misplaced, it still works. That's the essential essence to the concept of 'family' and 'kinship'."
"I'm not asking for a lecture," I blurted out, "just being curious."
In truth, I know I was frustrated. How blind can it get, really, faith and trust and all that bullshit that seemed more likely to be in fairy tales than in real life, seriously? At the very least, I only know what I have experienced as a dropout, as a fight club big-money fighter, and as a general rebel to society (at least I truly think so).
It was then that I felt a sharp thing poke at my back; it was Suika, tapping her horns on me (literally, I might add).
"We'll talk more about this back in the room," she murmured.
***
Once again, it's the time of the night where Reimu blows off the candles that light the place. Suika waved her away saying she'll blow the candle out a while later; I know for sure that those are, in fact, my candles that won't come back to me. I totally forgot the reason why I brought candles in my travel bags, though.
"Now, Pasonia, I know you've got some seriously stuck-up issues, but didn't you look before you leap?"
"Whoa, whoa, Suika, wait a moment there, I didn't know you get so serious on issues like those. They weren't that sensitive, were they?"
Suika (once again in her drunken state) suddenly stood up, then held me by the left wrist and half-dragged me all the way outside of our room, and then outside of the Shrine. I didn't understand what was with her sudden gesture, but I took that to assume she wanted me to look at something.
What I didn't expect was to be dragged all the way into the deep darkness of the forest surrounding the Shrine.
***
"Ya got binoculars with you?"
"Not really."
"Doesn't matter now. Take a good look at the purplish figure to the back."
I strained my eyes looking into the dark forest. I didn't have night blindness, but man, it gets so hard to distinguish the forest path around me, let alone stare into some space. But that was moot after a purplish figure showed up prominently, glowing bright in the distant.
"That's the crying spirit of Mima, one freakin' devil for a Spirit, who was driven off by Reimu. In case you didn't know, she was also one of Marisa's mentors from almost eight years ago."
Suika really didn't need to speak further, though; I could literally feel a powerful sensation, a burning passion, yet with so much pain and hurt.
"We should leave soon, though… That was Mima's spell: Heartbreaker's Sonata. It communicates her strong emotions to the beings around her, affecting them ever so subtly. Even I have trouble resisting it on a night when I'm more sober."
"That... was some serious depression she's got," I commented. "Just what the heck happened between her and the... uh, miko?"
Suika chortled. "Well, she and I had a bet years before Reimu knew of my existence. I told Mima to go cry and wallow in self-pity if she couldn't even beat the youngest of the Hakurei Shrine's maidens. Not knowing who's the youngest, though, Mima just murdered every other maiden who got in her way... except Reimu."
Nasty… so that's the primary reason why Reimu is alone at her shrine now. Heaven wonders how she managed.
"Let me guess, you won your bet. And, of course, you never actually told Reimu about the bet even once."
I could feel Suika stare at me really fiercely, as once again she used the blunt side of her horn to slap at my back.
"Of course I did win that stupid bet! Though I wasn't being serious in the bet, Mima took it really hard when she came looking for me, torn and tattered. On top of being subdued by a mere young acolyte, she lost her sanity. I saw that happen right in front of my eyes."
I had that experience before with a previous opponent, who tried so desperately to win against me that he secretly put in weights for his boxing gloves, so in a way I could emphatise with Mima for going insane after losing to someone like Reimu. Then again, I wasn't here to ally with Mima against Reimu or something.
"So what's this Mima gotta do with me?"
"Well, Mima's solely obsessed with herself, and placed her faith on herself alone and did not trust Marisa to help her revive herself. In the end, though, and funnily so, when Mima did obtain enough power to subdue Reimu and resurrect herself, she was instead kicked in the proverbial behind by Marisa when Mima's trump card, the Vial of Eternity, was shattered to pieces by Marisa's own doing. Even Reimu didn't know this."
I chortled a bit. "Looks like she got kicked at a time where it mattered the most, huh?"
We both heard a loud screech from the purple apparition, and then decided it was the best time to leave. I guess Suika was trying real hard to subtly impress upon me the fact that, on top of the fact that I did not trust in faith, I had a really loose tongue; then again, I wasn't about to begin apologizing for stuff I don't feel I've done anything wrong in, so I just played along.
***
It was almost a week since I took refuge in the Shrine. For two days straight after seeing that purple thing called Mima, I literally had nothing better to do. Marisa wasn't at the shrine for a couple of days, saying she needed to go to the Youkai Mountain or something like that to gather materials for some Master Spark thing. Suika was also out, apparently going through the portal and back into present-day Japan, and ever since the incident that night the miko and I - the only ones left in the Shrine - weren't exactly on great speaking terms; guess that's what happens in life sometimes, even in an alternate world.
Since modern devices run on batteries, I'd no more music or games to play even if I wanted to; all of the devices' power went flat out by the end of the first idle day, and by the second day I decided to look for a secluded area around the church to engage myself in some physical practice. I wouldn't risk getting a beer (in this case, wine) belly from drinking too much from the ever-generous Suika's gourd.
"… Reimu? Reimuuuuuuuuuuuu!"
Who the flying heck was that?
"Strange, where's the shrine girl when I needed her," I heard her say.
The girl wore a kind of garb which I found rather amusing. Her beret bore a star sign with a fancy Chinese character on it, but the militaristic getup overall looked kind of strange, almost like a Communist Chinese girl who's stuck in a distant past associated with some Mao guy. Still, the girl seemed kind of cute, and overall there was a very Chinese-y feeling around her which didn't seem intimidating, a kinda feeling that reeks of Chinese musical instruments, for lack of a better descriptive.
"Hey, excuse me, d'you know where the shrine girl went to?"
…Eh, she speaks English. On top of that she speaks with a Chinese accent to it. Miss China, perhaps?
"Ah, sorry, I don't… quite know."
The medium-built girl took a while to size me up. "Who are you, anyway?"
"Err, well, I'm just an… outsider human taking lodging here," I answered, trying not to raise suspicion.
I hoped nobody else besides the people at the Shrine knew about me.
"An outsider human, taking lodging at the shrine? Strange, I seemed to have heard that somewhere before."
Here's hoping you didn't, missy!
"She was telling me she wanted to do some taijiquan practice the other day because even a little bit of practice seemed to aid her in flight, but now that I'm free with a rare off-day from Lady Remilia the shrine girl's nowhere to be found, goodness."
She sure talks a lot, much like that Grin Reaper Komachi.
"Oh, I remember. Alice came to our residence and talked a bit about the 'last person' or something…"
…Goodness, can't anyone keep their mouth shut around these parts?!
"…I am not the last Konpaku," I blurted out instinctively, following which I promptly realized I let out a Freudian slip.
"Wait, how did you know? I was having trouble remembering the exact word and you just said it out so… smoothly. You must be it!"
Eeek!
"Well, uh… yea, I was kind of told, too... a ha ha ha!" I laughed weakly. Inadvertently I blew my own cover, stupid me.
The gaze from the beret girl became pretty sharp, almost too murderous and too dangerous. Then, all of a sudden, in an unprovoked fashion the girl swung a straight punch at me, and instinctively (it was almost second nature to me) I raised my right arm and deflected her blow. The unprovoked, well-struck punch was followed by an obviously well-practiced backhanded punch from her non-active left fist, and this time I just swooped low and flipped backwards before she could hit me, using my legs both as a shield and a weapon to deflect and counter the beret girl.
"What the hell, miss? I don't remember pissing you off or anything!" I protested loudly.
"Ah, so it was true you're a fighter, as they were saying."
Oh, god, this is not some kind of Louis Cha martial arts novel, puh-lease. It made absolutely no sense to break stuff in the shrine just for some kind of faux-epic fight.
"Can we take this fight somewhere else, Miss China? It's not very nice to fight here!"
The moment I finished talking, she roared out loud and lunged after me like a madwoman, with a stronger and much, much more murderous intent, and her overall movement became a lot faster than the initial unprovoked strike. Seeing as there was no way I could convince her, I had to think of a way to quickly lure her out of the Shrine and into the open, beyond the gate-like structure, but it was horribly difficult. Once she closed up the physical distance, she began lashing out a series of unpredictable feints and strokes. Her moves were downright simple yet extremely fast, so even if I knew how to counter, the execution of the counter was totally impossible, not as far as a human is concerned.
Several times glancing blows struck my forearms so hard it felt like my shoulders were about to dislocate, and I yelped out of shock. Thankfully nothing connected with my head yet.
"I have a name," she screeched as she continued raining blows, "and that is Hong Meiling! Stop calling me China! I hate that!"
Oh, what in twenty two heavens have I done?! It's not my bloody fault she looks like a Chinese girl!
And then...
To be continued…