Chapter 2: Kosuzu

"So, Akyuu. What exactly are you researching now?" Kosuzu Motoori asked of her friend, who had holed herself up in the Suzunaan library almost constantly for the last day or so (aside from a brief period of about an hour for which Kosuzu could not account for, nor would Akyuu elaborate upon). "I don't see what most of this stuff has to do with Rumia." Ever since Reimu, Marisa, and the others had gone into Makai to hunt down that darkness youkai, Akyuu had gone to Suzunaan with Kosuzu to begin researching on Rumia's origins. Yukari had given everyone in the shrine a brief explanation of her own past encounters with Rumia following the Lunar War, and Akyuu had taken it upon herself to try and learn more.

"Just some additional research, Kosuzu. I'll need to update the Gensokyo Chronicle, after all," Akyuu replied with a brief smile, before delving back into her books. Ever since that short period during which Akyuu had seemingly left the library, something had overtaken her. A sort of unsettling nervousness that bordered on madness. Though Akyuu still delved into many books on ancient youkai, her research had drifted into another direction entirely, a much broader area of study. Instead, she'd begun asking Kosuzu for books relating to long forgotten gods and goddesses (in addition to those about similarly forgotten youkai), ones who had long since lost faith, and faded out of both memory and existence. While youkai whose existence had been recorded had a chance to return to life through demon books (artifacts that Kosuzu possessed many of), goddesses returning to life weren't quite so common, and records of their existence were rare. Kosuzu had no idea just what it was that Akyuu was trying to accomplish.

"You know, it'd help if you actually told me what's gotten into you," Kosuzu said, as she lifted another stack of books onto the desk on which Akyuu was working. "I'm the only human in Gensokyo who can even read these demon books, and that's probably where you're gonna find any information on Rumia, or... whatever else it is you're looking into now."

Akyuu seemed to consider this, and her gaze drifted toward the small collection of demon books that Kosuzu had gathered into a pile near the desk. It was true that Akyuu could not read them, she had even tried to (very carefully) peruse through a couple of them. While she had indeed memorized their contents, she couldn't actually understand them. It seemed there was plenty that Akyuu wasn't telling Kosuzu, and on more than one occasion Kosuzu believed that Akyuu might finally reveal just what that was, until she reconsidered the matter again and kept her silence.

Kosuzu's collection of demon books was easily the largest in Gensokyo, even larger than what had been held in the library of the Scarlet Devil Mansion (Kosuzu believed that hers was in fact the largest collection in the world, but she was quite mistaken). Kosuzu and Akyuu both had spent some time at the mansion for their own safety while Rumia was on her rampage (though Akyuu had been none too fond of spending any prolonged time in a mansion populated by powerful youkai), and Patchouli Knowledge, a friend of Remilia Scarlet and the resident librarian, had been more than happy to allow the two into her library. 'Better you than that thieving witch,' she had said, although Kosuzu had been very tempted to take some of Patchouli's own demon books, which she'd been reluctant to show in the first place.

The so-called 'demon books' were very aptly named, as they had a tendency to be very dangerous. Many of them, if not handled carefully, were capable of unleashing ancient and powerful youkai back into the world. Kosuzu was well aware of this, but in the time since she'd attained the ability to decipher these demon books, she'd read through many of the ones in her collection.

Though even she knew to be wary of a certain few. The first example that jumped to mind was a fabled tome in her possession known as the Necronomicon, which strangely enough in spite of her power, even she had difficulty deciphering. There were also, of course, a few others that she recognized to contain long extinct youkai. On more than one occasion, she'd even inadvertently released a few of these youkai, which had of course involved both Reimu and Marisa in setting things back to normal.

Kosuzu suspected that Akyuu knew something that she herself did not. Something that might spurn her into delving into one of those books that even she thought better to be left alone, and thus Akyuu had opted to remain silent. If anything, it only made Kosuzu more curious. In another room, out of Akyuu's sight, Kosuzu had already gathered up a few of her rarer demon books, the Necronomicon among them, for a bit of research of her own. She had yet to have any luck finding anything in relation to Rumia, however.

Kosuzu had just been about to return to her research, when Akyuu finally did speak up. "I can't tell you exactly what it is I'm looking for, Kosuzu," Akyuu began, "but there are a few names that might help narrow down my search, if you can find them."

"And these names have something to do with Rumia, right Akyuu?"

"Maybe." Kosuzu frowned. Seemed that was all the confirmation she was going to get. "There's two in particular I'm looking for. The first is 'Garnet Ferre', but I don't think you'll be able to find anything about that one." It was certainly never a name that Kosuzu had ever heard before, that much was obvious. "The second is only a surname, 'Marama'." A troubled look took Akyuu's features then as she added, barely above a whisper, "I know I've heard that name somewhere before..."

Kosuzu caught the quiet statement all the same. Something really must have been bothering Akyuu if she of all people was having trouble remembering something. After all, Akyuu had the ability to remember anything she'd ever seen or heard, including most of the memories of her previous incarnations, as far back as the original Hieda no Are.

"Marama, huh? I might have read that one somewhere before..." While Kosuzu did not share Akyuu's near photographic memory, hers was still quite good. She was certain the name had popped up in one of her books somewhere. "I'll go take a look, I think I might be able to find it for you."

"Just one last thing," Akyuu added as an afterthought, not even looking up from the desk this time. "Look for anything in regards to Lilith Maestra or her siblings, too."

"That succubus who tried to steal all the souls in the village? Didn't Reimu say she was new to Gensokyo?" Akyuu remained silent. Kosuzu knew better at this point than to try and push the subject, curious as she was. Rumia, Lilith Maestra, Garnet Ferre, and someone of the surname 'Marama'. What was the connection between them?

With that question still drifting through Kosuzu's mind, she returned to her back room, where she still kept her most secret and dangerous books. The Necronomicon itself sat alone atop a small side table, as of yet untouched since she'd taken it out of storage. The book was ancient for sure, older than even Akyuu's first incarnation, and she doubted that Rumia would be mentioned within its page, let alone Lilith, who Kosuzu believed to be somewhat young by youkai standards, given her rather recent appearance. Yet maybe she'd find something about this mysterious Garnet Ferre, who she'd never heard of before.

Kosuzu's curiosity had gotten the better of her, and she couldn't help but take that ancient book from its place and begin paging through it. The book was as infuriating as ever, she found. Most of what she could make out was either utterly uninteresting (in the case of some in-depth analyses of human-youkai relations of ancient times), or just completely nonsensical (countless prophecies of how the universe would end, many of which had apparently already come to pass: including one that detailed the destruction of the Hieda line and how it had apparently ended the world). As was the case with most demon books, there were documentations of ancient youkai, just waiting to be revived. Kosuzu was careful to avoid any of those segments. But as always, trying to decipher anything in that insufferable Necronomicon gave her an incredible headache.

With Lilith in mind, Kosuzu did come across a new verse that she was able to translate. Not quite a prophecy of sorts, but something along the lines of an excerpt from a youkai fable: "... born of sin, the mother of all succubi and demons ... the first child of the world, daughter of Eve, born in her image, and she would become the queen of all succubi, subservient to neither her creator nor the dragon ..." Kosuzu noted that the text which loosely translated to 'demon' could have possibly been interchangeable with the translation for 'youkai'. The name Eve was clear, though perhaps a stand-in for something else. Kosuzu thought perhaps that it correlated to the Hebrew myth of Adam and Eve, and in certain texts that mentioned Lilith as the first wife of Adam, who would later become the mother of all demons. But in the text she'd managed to decipher, the roles seemed to have been somewhat reversed if Lilith was this supposed 'daughter of Eve, queen of succubi'. Nothing else in that infuriating book made any sense anyway, so why should some weird youkai fable be any different?

Kosuzu set the Necronomicon aside. She'd already developed a near splitting headache from what little she'd managed to translate, and wasn't about to continue when she suspected that she'd only find more nonsense. Instead, she picked out another demon book from her collection, a small one with a known youkai author, an ancient youkai seeress from several thousand years in the past, of the surname Shikon, who had been born with the ability to prophecise the future.

Kosuzu flipped open the book, and found that it was much easier to decipher than the Necronomicon, and was written in a language common among demon books. Also unlike the Necronomicon, she found that its predictions were actually reliable. There were vague allusions to the Lunar War, prophesizing that Yukari's youkai army would be defeated at the hand of the Lunarians (though Yukari was not mentioned by name), as well as other events of some historical significance. The book as a whole hadn't interested Kosuzu much in the past, as it read almost like a very vague history book. It was rather eerie just how accurate most of the predictions had been. There were, of course, ones that Kosuzu had no way of confirming the truth of, but she had no doubt that their events had come to pass as well at some point.

It was a single prophecy that stood out to Kosuzu now, one of those ones that she had not given any thought to in the past. The moment she'd read it, she knew it was exactly the sort of thing she'd been hoping to find.

"Akyuu!" Kosuzu called out, darting back into the library's main room with the book of prophecies in hand. "Akyuu, I think I might have found something!"

Akyuu glanced back up from the book she'd been reading through, an enormous book detailing the known gods of the world, both past and current, and gave Kosuzu a mildly curious look. In that moment, Kosuzu realized just how heavily this was weighing on Akyuu's mind. Just in the past day, she seemed as if she'd aged ten years. "Really? What is it?"

Kosuzu had been too excited by what she'd found, she somehow knew it was exactly what Akyuu had been looking for, to spend too much time fretting over what was potentially aching her friend's mind. "Look here!" Kosuzu said, placing the book down on top of the page Akyuu had been glancing down at. "This line, right here!"

Akyuu glanced down at the line of text Kosuzu was pointing to, and stared at it for a moment with a blank expression. She turned then to Kosuzu, and said, "Kosuzu, you know I can't actually read this, right?"

"Oh! Eheh, right... sorry about that!" In her excitement, Kosuzu had almost forgotten that she'd found the old prophecy in an ancient demon book, something only she would have been able to read. "It's a compilation of prophecies from an ancient youkai with the ability to foresee the future. But there's one in particular I found, this one here: 'The resurgence of darkness shall come herald by the child of the moon. It shall sleep for a thousand years, until the light is born of the avatar of the sun. The darkness shall return to cover the Earth, and draw the creeping emptiness'"

Akyuu pondered this for a moment, as a realization slowly dawned upon her. For the first time since she'd begun her research, Kosuzu could actually see her friend's usual self in that look. "'It shall sleep for a thousand years, until the light is born of the avatar of the sun,'" Akyuu repeated, as she realized the same thing that Kosuzu had. "Yukari said that Rumia first appeared in Gensokyo about a thousand years ago, after the Lunar War. Then Yukari sealed her powers away, and they were only just recently awoken."

"Exactly! And the part about the light being born, do you think maybe that has something to do with Miasma's sister, Hana?" Though Kosuzu hadn't actually met Hana, she had read Aya's article on the two sisters that had been published a few days before Rumia's first attacks. Although she had in fact met Miasma at least once before, during the meeting at the shrine.

"Hana's parents are Utsuho Reiuji, a hell raven with powers of nuclear fusion, who ate the Yatagarasu, an avatar of the Sun Goddess Amaterasu," Kosuzu nodded her head excitedly, listening intently as all the pieces fell into place, "... and Yuuka Kazami, the flower youkai who lives at Mugenkan, and frequents the Garden of the Sun... Everything fits perfectly."

"The only parts I don't get are the part about the darkness being born of the moon, and the part at the end, about the creeping emptiness," Kosuzu said, pointing out the lines in the text (which only she could read anyway, making it a pointless gesture) that she referred to.

Akyuu lightly smacked her own forehead with the base of her palm. "Of course! How could I be so stupid?" Akyuu pushed Kosuzu's book aside, and began flipping through the listings of gods and goddesses throughout history once more, as she searched for a particular category. "You remember what I said that day, back at the Hakurei Shrine, about Rumia's powers being linked to the phase of the moon? I never made the connection before, until just now."

When Akyuu seemed to reach the page she was searching for, she stopped and gestured at the other books that had begun to collect around her. "I had heard the name 'Marama' before, in one of my earliest lives. I just couldn't remember who I had associated it with at the time. My memories of events not specifically relating to the Gensokyo Chronicle are a bit unclear. I felt like it had to be some youkai or goddess of some significance, and that's what I was searching for." Akyuu then pointed down at the page she had flipped to, and Kosuzu noticed with some interest just what was there. A brief list of known gods and goddesses of the moon, among them included Lord Tsukuyomi himself, the founder of Lunarian society. Further down the list, with barely more than a brief description, was an account of a moon goddess by the name of Selena Marama, whose last documented encounter had been in an area of Japan not far from what would eventually become Gensokyo, at least 1500 years in the past.

"So, this moon goddess, Selena Marama..." Kosuzu said, reading the brief description that had been provided. The most agreed upon appearance for the goddess was of a blonde-haired woman most commonly dressed in red. "You think that she was Rumia's mother?"

"Not only do I believe that she was Rumia's mother," Akyuu replied, flipping over to the next page of the book, which listed further moon deities from societies all around the world, most of whom Kosuzu had never even heard of, "I also believe that she was most of these other gods and goddesses. If not all of them, aside from Tsukuyomi. But most importantly, I believe that Rumia killed Selena at some point shortly after her birth."

Kosuzu clasped her hand to her mouth in shock, and looking down at the pages, she could see just how Akyuu had jumped to that conclusion. "All of these gods and goddesses... no one has seen any of them in over a thousand years!"

"Exactly," Akyuu said, as she slammed the book shut with a heavy-sounding thud. The two sat silently in the library for a time, Kosuzu trying to process everything she'd just learned, and Akyuu seemingly in deep thought over some unspoken dilemma. Finally, Akyuu did speak up, though she seemed to be mostly thinking aloud. "I need to tell Reimu."

"Oh! Oh, can I come too, Akyuu?" Kosuzu asked enthusiastically, clutching her demon book of prophecies in her arms. She'd never dreamed she would ever get involved in an incident quite so big, not in all her life. And although Rumia frightened her, as did anything to do with her, really, she was still excited beyond belief. "I'm the one who found the book, and the prophecy, so I want to be there to tell her."

Akyuu looked at the book still held in Kosuzu's arms, and then closed her eyes. Once again, she seemed on the verge of divulging whatever secret she kept, the thing that had been bothering her ever since that mysterious absence of hers. Kosuzu could tell that whatever it was, it was big.

Finally, Akyuu relented. "Before we go... there's a secret I have to tell you. And you can't tell anyone a word of it."