-.-.-.-.-
-10-
-.-.-.-.-

When we arrived the village was in quite a commotion.

The farmers especially seemed to be upset. The early flowering of many of their crops was an ill omen that could lead to plants dying before they could be harvested or being ready to harvest at the wrong time of year when they would be more likely to be consumed by vermin or ruined by floods. Adults were pacing about with worried expressions and arguing in the street, but children were frolicking in vacant lots that had suddenly become flower gardens. Flower crowns, cut bouquets and garlands were everywhere.

On the way back to our home we ran into Kotohime in the town square, wearing the official uniform and armband of the neighborhood watch for once and seemingly making the rounds of the village, keeping peace and breaking up confrontations at merchant stalls.

"Oh, you two," she said, sounding more official than was typical for her. "Miss Kamishirasawa is looking for you. Please report to the neighborhood watch office when you can." Then she leaned in conspiratorially, casting her eyes from side to side before whispering to Renko "I think this might be an Incident."

Renko grinned. "Yeah, I think so. Enjoying the excitement yet?"

Kotohime looked around, taking in the commotion then tilting her head as she considered the question. "Hmmmm. Yes? A little? It doesn't seem like a very exciting Incident, to be honest," she said as her eyes settled on a vacant lot filled with colorful flowers and frolicking children.

"Well, keep your chin up. We've seen a few danmaku battles outside of the village already and who knows, it might always get worse."

Kotohime nodded in agreement and straightened up. "Yeah, you're right. I've got to stay alert. Who knows, this could turn into a real disaster. Thanks, detective." Saying this, she smiled and walked away without so much as a 'goodbye' as the two of us stared, bemusedly.

-.-.-.-.-

When we arrived at the neighborhood watch office Keine was busily ordering reports of various disturbances and odd sightings from all over the village. She was wearing her armband and moving with a focused intensity that seemed practiced, but just a hair short of frantic. She nearly didn't notice us when we walked in the door.

"Oh, it's you two!" she said, when she could spare a moment to look up. "Where have you been?"

"Just out to Eientei. For a flower viewing, apparently."

"Even though its daytime, you should refrain from leaving the village for now. This is an Incident, I'm afraid."

"It appears to be. The flowers aren't confined to the village. The whole bamboo grove is in bloom and the Garden of the Sun had sunflowers up to here." Renko said, standing on her tiptoes and reaching above her head.

Keine looked up from her reports to regard Renko. "Sunflowers too? Chrysanthemums, akizakura, hydrangeas and sunflowers, all at the same time?" She crossed her arms and frowned, displeased.

Renko looked out the window, eyes turning to the east. "If it's already officially an Incident, does that mean Reimu's involved?"

"I hope so. We sent a runner to the shrine already, and they've just returned. Apparently she's not there, so we can only hope she decided to look into it on her own. I hope she's able to get to the bottom of this quickly -I'm sad to say it but there's not much I or the watch can do about something like this."

"What do you mean?"

"Well the flowers are blooming, but other than that nothing's happening. No one's attacking or doing anything dangerous. Fairy sightings are way up, of course, as are reports of their pranks, but that happens every time there's an Incident. At the moment, all I can do is dispatch watchers to warn if any youkai are spotted flying overhead."

"What about the farmers, they seem pretty upset."

"We've had to break up a few arguments, but actual problems with the crops are the domain of the fertility gods who live near the edge of the village, not the Neighborhood Watch."

We had heard mention and seen little roadside altars dedicated to local fertility gods scattered throughout the fields surrounding the village. This being Gensokyo, several such gods were known to live in the area and were said to take human or human-like forms. Some were even regularly invited to local harvest festivals, but we had missed seeing the most recent festivities due to our involvement in the Eternal Night Incident. Word among the locals was that the gods would bless the crops of farmers who worked hard and took good care of the land, but farmers who cut corners or shirked work would have their crops wither and fail. Even in a world like Gensokyo, replete with magic and supernatural presences, there was no substitute for hard work, it seemed.

"For now," Keine continued, "there's not much for us to do but wait and see what happens. The youkai are all likely to be stirred up by an Incident like this though, so it would be wise to stay in town." Keine picked up a cup of tea from the desk she was at and sipped at it. From the look of it, it must have been stone cold.

Renko waited until she had put the cup down before asking. "If I can ask you to think like a historian rather than a volunteer with the neighborhood watch for a moment, have you ever seen any record of an Incident like this one occurring before?"

Her eyes widened in surprise. "What?"

"It was something Mokou mentioned having happened a long time ago. She couldn't be any more specific though."

"An Incident where Gensokyo was covered in flowers? I don't remember anything like that, but if Mokou does it could easily be something that happened before I was born, I suppose."

It occurred to me that I had never asked Keine just how old she was. Having youkai blood, she might well have been older than she appeared. Youmu, who had a similarly mixed ancestry claimed to be around sixty but looked like a teenager.

"Well Youmu didn't remember anything either, so it must have been at least sixty years ago or so. Don't worry about it Keine, we'll go ask miss Akyuu."

With that, my partner nodded and tipped the brim of her hat to Keine before turning and walking out the door.

-.-.-.-.-

And so, shortly after lunch, Renko, Akyuu and myself could be found sitting in one of the Hieda manor's elegant reception rooms.

"I'm surprised you would know about such and old event," Akyuu said calmly in response to Renko's question about this Incident being a recurrence of an older one. "I would have thought nearly everyone would have forgotten about that by now."

"How about you, Akyuu. Do you remember?"

Akyuu shook her head. "I don't remember personally of course, but I think I've read something like that, during the time of my predecessor, Ami, the third Child of Miare. Those are very old writings though, so give me a moment, I'll need to re-read them.

Saying this, Akyuu closed her eyes and rested two fingers on her temple. Akyuu had demonstrated to us several times in the past that she had an astonishing capacity for memory, never forgetting anything she saw or heard. For her, any document she had ever seen before didn't need to be present in order to be re-read. It still took her time to read or translate the documents, however, and I imagine she still had to decipher the handwriting of the original author, faded or damaged as it might have been by the passage of time at the point when Akyuu first saw it. In all, remarkable as it was, her ability sounded like a pain to use. I imagined Akyuu having to wander a vast library in her head, fussing with dim lanterns and dusty scrolls as we waited for her response.

"Ah, I found it."

Akyuu reached behind her and took a small bell from a table. Ringing it, she summoned a handmaid, who she then dispatched. Several minutes later, the maid returned, carrying several scrolls and an old, traditionally-bound book.

"Thank you," she said. "This one and this one are all I need."

Spreading the documents out on the desk she indicated several passages. "This has actually happened several times, it turns out. The most recent was in the time between the life of my previous incarnation, Aya and myself. It was exactly sixty years ago."

I looked over the records Akyuu had turned toward us. They were written in a faint, fluent hand, as might be expected of someone trying to record a lot of information quickly, making it difficult to read. Even after two years here, I was still more comfortable with typed fonts than traditional handwritten Japanese.

"Typically," Akyuu explained, "It takes a hundred years, give or take, for the Child of Miare to be reincarnated after their death. During that time, the retainers of the Hieda household are charged with protecting these records and recording the events of Gensokyo. This is one of their records, as Aya died not long after the Great Hakurei Barrier was erected. According to them, at that time all of Gensokyo was covered in a multitude of flowers of every conceivable type, regardless of season."

"And on that occasion was the Incident resolved by the Hakurei miko of that age?"

"No, actually." Akyuu said, pointing out a passage. "Apparently the Incident resolved itself spontaneously. They claim the event had nothing to do with any youkai."

Renko and I shared a questioning glance. Could an Incident really occur without a youkai's involvement? If such a strange event were to happen, especially in the case of one that recurred, one would think that even if no youkai had set the events in motion, the nature of Gensokyo might create a youkai to personify the event.

"There's also this note in Aya's records from the time the Great Hakurei Barrier was established." She read from the yellowed page:

Once every sixty years, the Great Hakurei Barrier will weaken. For Gensokyo this will be a period of rebirth.

"60 years, that's the full cycle of the Chinese zodiac, isn't it?"

"Yes, but according to the Yama, that's all a bunch of nonsense," Akyuu said with a smile.

Renko tilted her head questioningly. "The Yama?"

"Yes. Or Lord Yama, I guess I should say. I work for them while awaiting reincarnation. That's part of the bargain that applies to all of the Children of Miare. That's why we're allowed to retain some memory of our past lives."

"I'd say its more impressive that you can remember what you did while you were dead!"

"It's because I can that I remembered this. After Aya's death, she heard Lord Yama say this at one point: 'Every sixty years, the world is struck by a great calamity that releases a great many souls all at once. At the same time the barriers around Gensokyo weaken, so it's natural that many of these souls end up there as the place calls to things forgotten by the outside world. Those who are lost in an instant, along with everyone who knew them, are quickly forgotten. These lost souls often did not have time to realize that they had died, and so they naturally re-enact their death again, possessing short-lived flowers and making them bloom out of season, that they may then wither and die.' So in essence, what we're seeing all over Gensokyo right now are haunted flowers."

"Do you mean to say that all of those flowers... the bamboo, the spindle trees, the autumn cherries, even the sunflowers... they're all ghosts?" I interrupted with an expression of awestruck horror.

"Well something like that anyway. Ghosts are souls that avoid reincarnation because of attachment to this world. These are souls that simply haven't had a chance to reincarnate or be judged yet, and may not even realize that they've died. The flowers are their natural instincts to live and experience joy made manifest, and the natural withering of those flowers is how the souls come to terms with their demise."

I turned and looked out the window to where a neatly trimmed azalea was blooming in brilliant fuchsia. Suddenly the blossoming landscape of Gensokyo seemed a lot more lonely.

-.-.-.-.-
-11-
-.-.-.-.-

"And so, if we were to give this Incident a name, it might be the 'Sixty Year Cycle Great Barrier Incident.' Its cause is the natural and cyclical weakening of the Great Hakurei Barrier. The out of season blooms are caused by an excess of disembodied souls. The Incident should naturally resolve itself once the shinigami have successfully ferried these souls to the other side of the Sanzu river. At least, that's what happened last time. That means that for the time being my advice to all the would-be Incident solvers and investigators would simply be to take some time to smell the flowers," Akyuu concluded.

Thus, the mystery of this Incident's origin was solved, with no need for the deductions of a great detective. It seems that, like Kotohime, Renko would have to resign themselves to making do with less than earth-shatteringly important Incident. Such is the way of things, from time to time.

After leaving the Hieda residence, we returned home to our room under the sign of the 'Hifuu Detective Agency.' Upon arriving and closing the door behind us, our esteemed director and chief investigator promptly collapsed face first on to the tatami, hat and all, seemingly utterly drained of motivation. Sighing, I hung up my cloak and cap and took a seat beside her. After a minute or two I lowered my head to rest my cheekbones on the writing desk and bring my head almost even with hers.

"Come on, Renko that's enough sulking."

There was no response.

"Honestly, Renko. What kind of detective pouts because the mystery is solved? Sure you would have rather have figured it out yourself, but in the end you know the story and the Incident will be resolved without any harm done. Isn't that enough to sate your curiosity?"

Suddenly Renko pushed herself up from the ground, arching her back to look me in the eye. "Merry, do you really think that's what's happening here?"

"What do you mean?"

Renko flipped herself over to sit cross-legged on the floor across from me. "The mysteries aren't solved. Not by a long shot. If anything Akyuu's story just raises more questions."

"Oh? Like what?"

"Ah Merry, you should have read a little more history and a little less fiction back in the Scientific Century."

"History? It's the year 2005 in the Outside world right now, right?"

"Gensokyo was founded in 1885, 120 years ago from today, so yes, it should be 2005 now, but if that doesn't ring a bell for you think back sixty years before that. What happened back then?"

"That would have been 1945... the end of the second world war."

"That's right. Akyuu said that every sixty years there's some sort of calamity that releases a lot of souls all at once. People who die so suddenly they may not even realize they've died, who die so catastrophically that everyone who remembers them dies at the same time. If we assume the souls in question are human than that has to mean some sort of major conflict or natural disaster in the Outside world."

"Well 1945 would have certainly qualified. In Japan alone there was the battle of Okinawa, the firebombing of Tokyo, and the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki."

"If this Incident happened in spring last time, then that would have been too early for the nuclear bombings, but a hell of a lot of people died in Tokyo and Okinawa too."

"Well, what happened in 2005 then? I don't remember ever reading about another conflict of that scale back then."

Renko hunched her chin to her chest, deep in thought. "The great Japan earthquake and tsunami was in... 2011 I think. There were those terrorist attacks in America, but I think that was in 2001... Neither of those caused death on the scale of 1945 though."

"Well what about elsewhere in the world? There were a bunch of wars going on in the middle east at the time, weren't there?"

"I suppose, but I'd be surprised if souls from so far away would be drawn all the way to Gensokyo where they have no connections."

"Well in that case, what could have caused this many souls to be released at once?"

"That's the mystery, Merry. What indeed. I trust Akyuu's story as far as the Great Hakurei Barrier weakening every sixty years. She's had dealings with the youkai sage before and that's really the only place that kind of information could come from. As for the explanation that the blooming flowers are being caused by wandering souls, well it would explain what we're seeing and we don't have any evidence to the contrary so far. The thing that bugs me is that that explanation seems perfectly suited to appease the people of Gensokyo, who have no knowledge of the Outside world. The message it sends seems to be something like 'something horrible is happening out there, good thing you're here, don't try to leave, this problem will resolve itself shortly.' It's very convenient."

"But we, being Outsiders know better. Is that what you're thinking?"

"Well, we know more about the Outside world, certainly. More to the point we know that there was no major disaster or war in 2005 that killed thousands or tens of thousands of people in Japan all at once."

"In that case are you saying that Akyuu was lying to us? Or that the youkai sage was lying to her?"

"Well that's a possibility. I think this is more a problem of Relative Psychology than a logic puzzle though."

"Oh? How so?"

"It's the old chicken and egg debate. If this happened before and the cause back then was the release of a huge number of souls, and the expectation is that this would happen every 60 years, then with the residents of Gensokyo none the wiser about what's happening in the Outside world, might this not have happened regardless of whether or not there were thousands of souls wandering around? Maybe the perception that there would be a large number of souls caused the souls to be here, regardless of where they might have come from."

I opened my mouth in surprise. "Well we've seen that perception and expectation hold a lot of power here, but are you suggesting that Gensokyo somehow created a wealth of lost souls to meet those expectations? Or are you thinking that all of these phantoms we're seeing are something else? Or wait, there's a bigger issue!"

Renko grinned. "You're catching on, Merry."

"How could those expectations be influencing happenings here in Gensokyo if almost no one remembers the last Incident? No one in the village seemed to know this had happened before, Mokou had only a vague recollection, and even Akyuu had to be reminded and look it up."

"Exactly. Good reasoning, Merry. If everyone knew about the history of this Incident, then this would be expected. Seeing as it was only sixty years ago that it happened, you would think some people would remember. There's definitely people in the village older than that. It's especially surprising that Keine didn't know about it. I'm not sure how old she is, but she's a historian with a strong interest in protecting the village from youkai, she definitely should have known about any Incidents that occurred within living memory. She didn't though, so I think it's safe to assume that what we're seeing isn't happening as a result of people's expectations that it would."

"So then some part of the story that Yukari told to Akyuu had to be a lie then, right?"

Renko frowned and leaned her head to one side, looking somewhat dissatisfied. "Maaaaaaybe that's the case. We can't rule it out. I have another theory though."

"...which is?"

"I don't like the idea," Renko said as she stretched out on the tatami mats again. She laid on her back, picking up her hat and whirling it around one finger. "Are you sure you want to hear it, Merry? You may regret it." Giving the hat one last whirl she whipped her hand forward, throwing it at the hook on the wall.

I scowled as the hat fell far short of its mark and rolled on the mats. Sighing, I got up and put it away for her. "Don't be so dramatic, Renko."

"All right," she said, sitting up again. "I'll tell you."

"The presence of all of these souls here is undeniable. They have to have come from somewhere, which means it's possible that there is a catastrophe or war happening in the Japan of the Outside world right now that we don't know about. Something that would cause death on the scale of the firebombing of Tokyo."

"But nothing like that happened in 2005."

"Nothing like that happened in the 2005 we know of. But you and I have no ability to observe events in the Outside world right now. There's no way we can know if time is proceeding along the same rails and stopping at the same stations that we knew of. There's a possibility that our travelling backward against the flow of time could have changed history in unforeseen ways, even though we ended up in this sequestered world, unable to influence events outside of it. It's even one of the staples of time travel sci-fi. Something might have changed just because we and everyone else who knows we're from the future might have expected it to, for all we know."

"Are you saying that our disappearing from your parents' house in 2086 somehow caused a war in 2005? How does that make any sense?"

"You and I are time travelers, Merry, even if we're reluctant ones. When we came to this world, we crossed the Great Hakurei Barrier, which is supposed to be impossible. If we're already changing the laws of possibility by being here, then who's to say that the laws of causality hold any more sway? There's a distinct chance, Merry, that just by being here, you and I might somehow be responsible for death on the scale of a nuclear bombing in the Outside world."

-.-.-.-.-
-12-
-.-.-.-.-

In the world of literature such stories are called alternate histories. 'What if Hitler had been assassinated early in the war?' 'What if Japan had won the Battle of Midway?' Those are the sort of 'what if' scenarios they usually explore, extrapolating the curve of an alternate world's history from the data points already on the line we know.

Even in more traditional sci-fi stories the premise of 'history diverges and an alternate timeline is created' is often used as a tool to avoid paradox in time time travel narratives. Under this theory, the past a time traveler arrives in when going backward is already a different universe than the one that supported their point of origin meaning that their actions have no potential to create paradox.

In the view of a Relative Psychologist, the solution to the dilemma of Schrödinger's cat is Everett's many-worlds theorem. Briefly put, this idea holds that there is a world in which the cat in the box is alive and a world in which the cat in the box is dead. Both worlds exist and do not overlap, with the observer always finding whichever result is appropriate to their world upon opening the box.

Where Relative Psychology differs from other interpretations of the many-worlds theorem is in it is view of of the inviolability of the subjectivity of others, in essence applying the many-worlds theory to the level of individual cognition. The idea that a person from the world in which the cat is dead and a person from the world in which the cat is alive is akin to the idea that no individual can ever truly experience the subjective cognitive experience of another. At best, two individuals might agree that in their worlds the cat was one way or another, but they could never check to be sure.

Relative Psychology never accounted for people travelling between worlds or back in time, however. Being as the two of us had taken such a journey, it was just as reasonable to suppose we could have crossed into the subjective world of another version of ourselves, one that came from a reality in which the very events Renko was describing might have been a part of history. "I suppose that's possible," I admitted. "At any rate, we can't rule it out."

"Oh, you're taking that surprisingly well, Merry. I thought you'd be flustered by the prospect."

"Well, as far as we know there's no way for us to return to our old lives at this point. Whether we've ruined the future or not, we'll both never have to worry about it and never know. In all likelihood neither of us will survive to see 2086 again," I said with a sigh of resignation.

"But Merry, what if having changed the timeline is the reason why we can't return?"

"You're suggesting it's not a many-worlds proposition, but rather a complete destructive re-write of the chain of causality? That you can't go back and change something without changing everything that arises from that moment? That still wouldn't affect us though. We're the cat in the box in this situation Renko, not the observer. We don't get to know if we make it out of the box called Gensokyo or not."

"That's a very laissez-faire attitude, Merry. I wish I could be so laid back about it. Maybe the ability to go with the flow is your secret super power."

"Now you're just mocking me. During the Spring Snow Incident I was brought to the Outside world by the youkai sage, remember? I didn't get a good look around, but Tokyo didn't seem like it was in the middle of a war or anything back then."

"Well maybe that visit was the point at which history diverged. For all we know that amber might have set events in motion that changed the face of the planet. Maybe the great empires of the last superpowers fought a devastating war to get that power stone. Or maybe it called an asteroid down on Tokyo. Who knows, right?"

"In the event that my speaking to a little girl in another world ended up causing all of Tokyo to be obliterated, I would like to officially say 'I'm sorry.' Even in that case though, you could hardly blame me. I had no control over my actions at the time. If anything that would be the youkai sage's fault."

"Yeesh, just thinking of it is enough to make me think maybe we'd be better off staying here than trying to find a way back to our own world."

I paused. I had had my suspicions for a while now, but it seemed like an opportune time to address the issue head-on.

"Renko, do you even want to go home anymore?"

Renko, who had been about to speak, closed her mouth and sat silently for a moment. She looked down, consolidating her thoughts, then raised her face to look me in the eye. "Gensokyo is a world filled with mystery and excitement. Life here is devoid of the comforts and convenience of the Scientific Century, but its nothing you can't get used to. If I had to decide right now between staying here or going home, I'd choose to stay. There are so many mysteries here left to explore. But if I had to make one choice and stick with it for the rest of my life though... I couldn't say, I can't be decisive on something like that without consideration."

Her answer made sense. I looked down as I thought of everything Renko would be leaving behind if we were to stay in Gensokyo forever. Aside from her family, who must have been shocked by her disappearance, there was her degree, the potential for a career and whatever friends other than myself Renko must have had at university. Unlike me, she had a promising future waiting for her in Kyoto. She might have made a groundbreaking academic, or a famous professor if she followed her natural ability to teach. Her social life might have blossomed into a relationship and a family. The employment prospects for my field were relatively few - Relative Psychology was an academic field rather than a clinical one, and while there was the potential for some crossover in the field of research and the development of new therapeutic practices, demand was not particularly high. As for my social calendar, as both a foreigner and someone with such repulsively unnatural eyes, I had few friends or even acquaintances in Kyoto. People had always kept their distance from me, averting their gaze as if I had some sort of gruesome disfiguration. Everyone except Renko.

"I've thought about the same thing... I think in the end, I want to be wherever..." I muttered, vocalizing my thoughts without realizing it. It was only a breath before I spoke the last words that I realized I was talking.

"Merry? Wherever what?"

I looked up. Renko was still staring right at me. Her eyes opened wide, listening with genuine interest. As she always had, no matter how ridiculous a thing I were to say. Some things are beyond the pale though. Some things are better left unsaid. Looking into her eyes, I knew this was one of them.

"Nothing!" My voice was unexpectedly loud. The ringing in my ears seemed to be coming from somewhere other than its echo though, like the reverberations of the drum frantically hammering in my chest were coalescing into a single tone droning aloud. I felt a hot blush spreading across my cheeks as I stood and rushed out of the room.

"Merry? Hey, what were you going to say?"

The shoes we had worn when we first came to Gensokyo had long since worn out. The replacements I had bought in the village were tall but simple leather boots, comfortable, but far from fashionable. I was grateful for them as I stepped into them though. They were far faster to put on than the heeled and buckled ankle boots Renko had found at Korindo. Thus, I was out the door and around the corner, almost to the gate in the fence surrounding the school before I heard Renko come after me. I didn't look back until I was several streets away, far enough to be sure she hadn't followed.

The words I hadn't said echoed in my mind. "Wherever you are, Renko," I repeated under my breath. Even if I could never return to the Scientific Century. Even if I never saw Kyoto again and my bones were buried in Gensokyo. If I could be by Renko's side, holding her hand, investigating mysteries, dancing like a fool in the moonlight, smiling and laughing as we dreamed impossible dreams... that was where I wanted to be. Now and forever. Back in Kyoto my family was an ocean away. Other than Renko I had no close friends. My connection to Kyoto, to the world, to all of humanity was just one girl. Just Renko Usami. Where she was was where I belonged.

I couldn't ask that of her. I couldn't possibly ask her to give up the shining future ahead of her just to keep me company. Whether Renko decided to remain in this world or return to our own in time, whether I followed her or not, sooner or later I'd have to say goodbye. There were too many opportunities in front of her, too much for her to do and see and explore to be held down by me. No matter how much she meant to me, my need for a companion didn't trump her need for a bigger world, or the world's need for her unique mind.

-.-.-.-.-

I had run through the streets at a dizzying pace, without any sort of plan or destination in mind. Now I found myself on the outskirts of the village, on its northern edge, not far from the gate in the wooden wall that opened onto the road that wound toward Misty Lake. At this time of day the gate stood open, and far beyond it, at the limits of sight along the path, just before it turned around a bend I could see the little cemetery. Flowers were blooming there too, spots of red and yellow visible even at this distance between the drab grey of the headstones.

Had those flowers bloomed because of an excess of wandering souls too, I wondered? If so, then whose? Who were the people whose souls now acted as decorations for every field, road and hedge in Gensokyo? What had their hopes and dreams been? Now that they were cut short, what was keeping them from crossing the Sanzu River? In time would I become like them? A cold, translucent wisp of a phantom floating senselessly about? If I did, would I remember ever having been Maeribel Hearn?

I walked as far as the village gate and rested my hand on the wooden palisade. This too formed a boundary. Separating the village from the world outside of it. Separating the realm of humans from that of the youkai. At this time of day, with just a step I could cross that boundary.

Some boundaries were more solid though. Every individual held their own inviolable subjectivity, their own unique lens through which they viewed the world. There was no gate in the boundary between Maeribel Hearn and Renko Usami. Her thoughts, her subjective perceptions were forever closed to me. No matter how much I might want to understand her, or how familiar with her ways of thinking I could become, I could never experience the same perceptions, never predict her reactions to a given stimulus with real certainty.

I knew that. It would be childish and selfish of me to think that I could understand everything about her. Or to expect her to understand everything about me.

"Merry!"

A voice called out to me. Of course. I had known that she would come after me if I ran out the door alone. Was I really so selfish and underhanded to demand her attention this way? Had I only run because I wanted her to chase me?

I felt a childish shame wash over me as I interrogated my own actions. It was hopeless to dream of understanding or experiencing the subjective reality of another, but could I even understand my own actions? Was my mind such a deterministic machine that my consciousness was an afterthought, merely constructing reality as a narrative after the fact to make sense of the events it had already witnessed, the actions it had already taken? What we as humans knew about anything, about our reality, about our bodies, about others, was only a result of subconscious statistical analysis. The brain, locked in the unfeeling darkness of the skull had no first hand experience of the world -it knew only what its sensory organs reported to it, or what it could infer from that data. Replace what someone saw with a VR construct and you could convince them they inhabited a different body. Replace what someone knew about a subject with misinformation and you could convince them they were an expert, even if they were demonstrably wrong.

Was my perception of Renko any different than this? Unthinkingly, I had constructed a model of her in my mind, and my analysis of that model had compelled me to run away. So that she would, as I predicted, chase me. So that I could believe that she wanted me by her side as much as I needed her by mine. This model was only based on statistics, however. Statistics and an imperfect understanding which suggested, despite my rational knowledge to the contrary, that one conscious being could truly comprehend the reality of another. That somehow, despite the inviolable boundaries of bias and perception, Renko could read the feelings in my heart.

Renko's understanding of me was just the same. Mere statistics, data points graphed against experience and recorded responses to stimulus. A model based on questionable observation, constructed by inference and guesswork with unavoidably incomplete information and subject to an observer's bias, doubt, forgetfulness and misunderstanding. No two people can ever share the same truth. The heart of another person, the subjective experience of their soul would always remain a mystery.

But part of me -some childish, foolish, selfish part, truly hoped that Renko was the great detective she claimed to be. That she could solve the mystery to which I couldn't give a name. Find the clues I couldn't tell her about. Learn the truth I couldn't speak.

-.-.-.-.-

I heard footsteps slowly approaching. I stayed facing the graveyard, one hand leaning against the stakes of the palisade, not looking back.

My partner's arm wound itself around my shoulder, warm and solid.

"Hey, Merry."

She leaned forward, resting her weight on me as I rested mine against the wall. I could feel the warmth of her skin through the material of her shirt. She must have been running hard to find me.

"I'm not going anywhere," she said, her voice low and close to my ear. "Not without you."

"...Renko, I..."

"'Cause you know, Merry, whether its ghosts or vampires, snakes or oni there's one mystery bigger than all of that. I can't leave Merry's side until I know everything about her."

I sighed. No one but Renko would even attempt a line that pathetic.

"You've got your own dreams, your own thoughts, your own way of viewing things. Even when you cover my eyes and let me share your dreams or perceptions, I don't get to know how you interpret those stimuli, or what you think about them. I don't get to know your heart."

I smiled bitterly. "I don't think anyone ever can. The inviolability of an individual's subjectivity is the foundation of Relative Psychology."

"Well then, I guess you're just going to keep being a mystery to me. A big one. I might never get you figured out, even if it takes my whole life. I'm still going to try though. Sad to say you're stuck with me."

I smiled, but I couldn't bring myself to look at her yet. I reached up with my free hand and grabbed her arm though, squeezing it tight. "I'm going to be haunted by Renko for the rest of my life. What a cruel fate, and with neither of us even dead yet."

"Oh, isn't that exactly what you wanted though? A Renko following you around like a toy on a string? You're a surprisingly good runner for such a hikikomori, Merry."

"Well, if I'm going to keep investigating mysteries with you I need to keep in shape. I can never know what sort of danger you'll walk us into next."

"I think maybe you just wanted to make me run as punishment for focusing on Reisen so much earlier. Is it possible that you were just the tiniest bit jealous?"

I didn't say anything, continuing to look down and away from Renko, who was now peering around from the side, putting more of her weight on me as her face loomed into my peripheral vision. With her so close I could feel the soft tickle of her breath on my neck.

"You're so cute, Merry."

"Shut up, Renko."

For once she listened to me, and said nothing more. The two of us just stood there, leaning against the wall surrounding the village, staring out at the grim and lonely flowers of this dream world. Despite the beauty and vibrancy of the flowers, I saw next to nothing. For a moment, I stopped listening to the information coming from my senses and trying to model reality. Just for the moment, I was content only to feel, surrendering myself to the comfort of the arm around my shoulder.