The Youkai Mountain—though never at a loss for trees, fluffy animals, and things that shred intruders into bite-sized scraps without offering so much as a good morning—always lacked…something. Was it atmosphere? While other forests had weather-worn way-stones and jolly fairy-guides that would lead travelers back outside (eventually), the Youkai Mountain boasted a crooked wooden sign slathered with "STAE OWT HYUMANZ" in bulky, blocky letters—dripping red, no less, which could only raise plenty of unfortunate questions.
Reimu apprehensively approached the tori gate at the forest's edge. Leaning on the sign was a witch with a black dress, a pointy hat, and a devilish grin. She did not much improve the forest's décor.
"Marisa," Reimu said tersely. "What brings you here?"
"My broomstick," the witch replied. She regarded Reimu with a critical look. "You look mad at me."
Reimu ground her teeth. "That conversation with my client was private. You told Aya everything. Don't you know how much trouble you've made for me?"
Marisa whistled. "You're grumpy today. Get up on the wrong side of the bed this morning? Or the wrong bed? That happens to me sometimes."
When Reimu delved into her sleeve pockets for something to throw, Marisa laughed to calm her down. "Relax, Moo! I'll fix it! Tell you what, I'll help. Two of us can cover double the territory. And nobody reads Aya's rag anyway. Don't worry about it. Besides, I only told her the juicy parts."
"I'll have your juicy parts if you don't shut up and follow along." Reimu stomped into the forest. "Keep quiet, while you're at it."
Sure to her word, Marisa clamped her mouth shut. She slung her broomstick across her shoulders, and strolled through the forest like she owned the place. She puckered her lips like she was about to whistle, but ultimately decided against it.
Most of the youkai remained woozy from last night. But their champion drinker lay sprawled under a cherry tree, dozing in a sunbeam. When they came upon her, the detectives exchanged glances. A lead?—could be. Good place to start. After losing at rock-paper-scissors, Marisa prodded the prostrate body with the tip of her broomstick. "Oi. Oni. Get up, would ya? We've got something to ask you."
Once shaken, Suika stirred. She stretched, wiggling her clawed fingers, wagging her horned head, and waggling her jaw open in a fanged-filled yawn. First priority, she gulped a swig from the gourd chained to her wrist. Blissful vacancy crossed her face. "Whazzup?"
"It's last night, at the festival." Reimu inched back, eying Suika closely in case she tried something dangerous. "Did you see anything suspicious?"
"Sus-pi-cious?" Suika squinted, which meant her thinker was working overtime. When the thinker quit, she resumed sucking on her gourd.
Ever helpful, Marisa translated. "Any weird people, she means."
Suika tapped her chin. "Hmm…there was this fancy-dressed man in a big blue box. Then I saw that pointy-eared kid in green with a short, fat flute—an ocarina, think it's called? And some six-armed guy who had all sorts of swords…"
Marisa chuckled. "Sounds like quite a party."
"So the border IS weakening," Reimu murmured to herself. She leaned back against the cherry tree. She was exhausted; this job wasn't helping. Maybe Meiling would pay well, but Reimu doubted it. How much does a gatekeeper earn? More than a shrine maiden, I'm sure.
"Thanks, Suika," she said. "That's all we need to know for now."
Suika paused to sniff the air. Following her nose, she pawed around in the grass. Then her hand wrapped around Reimu's waist. She snatched Reimu by the ribbon and yanked her close. As Reimu squirmed in the oni's iron grip, Suika nestled her nose in Reimu's lips. "Your breath smells gooood," she slurred, squinty eyes gleaming. "Mount Ooe sake, right? Best stuff there is. C'mon, lemme have a taste…"
"S-s-Suika, that hurts…let me g—agh!"
"That's enough of that." Marisa bopped Suika on the head, distracting her long enough for Reimu to slip away. When Suika looked back, her arms were empty.
"See you next festival," Marisa called back, as she dragged away an irate Reimu.
"Did you see that?" Reimu cried, once they were out of earshot. "I won't put up with this level of disrespect! I'm the shrine maiden—sexual harassment is out of my job description! What's wrong with everybody today? They're acting like…like…"
While she groped for the right word, Marisa nodded expectantly. The answer came to her—"Like you!"
Marisa burst out laughing. "You're hilarious when you don't mean to be. Don't ask me why folks do what they do. Personally, I think everyone's all lovey-dovey 'cause they're still buzzed from last night." She smirked. "But for me, every day's a party."
"Aha."
"…And for the record, you smell like something crawled down your throat, built a nest, and died."
Reimu started. Nothing like the fetid fumes seeping from the pickled oni's mouth, she hoped. She exhaled into her hand and took a whiff. Ugh.
The trees rustled. Up in the canopy, a blue blur whooshed by, dodging the slapping branches and scratching twigs. In her wake, yellow pamphlets fluttered down like confetti. Reimu caught one and read it: "EXTRA! Murder at Scarlet Devil Mansion! Vampires Deny Involvement!" Below that, a subtitle screamed, "Outsiders?! In MY Gensokyo?! Has the Barrier Maiden Lost Her Touch?!"
Grousing, Reimu crumpled up the pamphlet and flung it into a puddle. For added effect, she incinerated the wadded paper with an energy bullet. Zing.
"Don't suppose we could catch her," Marisa muttered. It was admirable how, when she wanted, she could exaggerate or altogether eliminate her apparent responsibility for a situation.
Reimu moaned. "Too late. Damage's done."
They walked in silence for a while. As usual, Marisa spoke up first. "Look, we're not detectives. I'm a crook. You're a priestess. What're we supposed to do, fight crime?"
"My reputation is at stake," Reimu retorted. "As soon as people think I've gone soft, they'll be all over me. And if I go down, who's going to protect this land?"
Marisa nearly said a name beginning with "Sanae," but finally held herself back. Impressive. She didn't do that often.
"Enough talk," sighed Reimu—"work now. What do we have?"
Marisa rattled off the list: "So far, we've interviewed the first person at the crime scene, a sleepy vampire, and a drunken little girl. All admit something weird happened, but we don't know what. Nobody does. Enough to build a case?—I think not."
"There's more. Remilia acted strange, like she knew something we didn't."
"She's always like that."
"I meant more than usual. And if she's in on it, she can't have told everyone in her staff. Meiling went to me first."
"Which makes HER the prime suspect!" Marisa declared.
"What? Why would she do that?"
"Whoever finds the bodies is always suspicious."
"In fairy-logic, that's ingenious."
"Yow."
Reimu massaged her eyelids. "Remilia's hiding something. Nobody at the Scarlet Devil Mansion went to the festival."
"Maybe they got hungry," Marisa suggested. "Every meat-eater knows Gensokyo humans are tough and stringy. Now, Outsiders…"
"What? That's stupid."
"They're vampires. They must've killed somebody in their long lives."
"Oh, I'm sorry. That's stupid and racist."
A twig snapped. Reimu glanced at the brush and bushes along the path. Doubtless, countless eyes watched them. The forest felt too quiet for comfort. She stifled a shudder.
"We'll look anywhere we can."
Every trail led to a dead end. Keine had no record of unusual history. Komachi didn't have time to comment, since she partied all night and missed her soul quota—if she had ferried the souls of any egregiously mutilated humans, she wouldn't have noticed. And Yukari picked the worst of times to be inaccessible.
Marisa was still aggressively suggesting suspects.
"What about Aya? She'll do anything for a scoop."
"She's unscrupulous, sure, but not the type to resort to murder—too stupid to get away with it."
"If we had Satori on the case, we'd read everyone's minds and know at once."
"That'll never happen."
"Moo, are you trying to contradict everything I say?"
"No."
And then they saw the sign for the "Underground Geyser Center."
Marisa sparkled. "Hot springs!" she cried. "Let's take a break, Moo!"
"I swear, you've been waiting to say that all day."
"And Iswear that a good soak would clear your head. C'mon, I'll even pay!"
"Now you're getting somewhere."
They strolled through the front gates, marked with a cutesy caricature of Okuu proclaiming the joy and glory of nuclear fusion.
Marisa plunked copper coins down on the desk, and a grinning nekomata ushered them into the changing rooms.
At this stage, Reimu always balked. Without the proper clothes, she didn't feel like a shrine maiden anymore. Naked, she was just another girl, flatter and flabbier than she'd like to be, and awfully pale at that.
She was insecure enough before a certain witch started staring.
"Marisa, do you mind?"
"Not at all. Please, continue."
"Honestly, you…"
Wrapped in white towels, Reimu and Marisa plodded down the path to the fenced-off bathing area. The place was bustling with familiar folks. Many cast peculiar looks at Reimu. Others avoided eye contact. Some sniggered openly.
"Best ignore them," Marisa advised. Reimu nodded. At the water's edge, they slipped into the steaming stream with a synchronized sigh of sweet release.
"Why don't we have one of these at the shrine, Moo?"
"We'd need a century's worth of donations, that's why."
"Totally worth it."
Reimu slunk down and sunk up to her chin, gloomily blowing bubbles. Though hard to see through the haze, the satisfied smile on Marisa's face was plain.
"Say, Marisa. Things have passed through the border before, right?"
"We're here on vacation, and all you want to do is talk about work?"
"Call it a 'Eureka!' moment. And keep your voice down! Anyway, things make it through. People, and places too—Poltergeist Mansion, Scarlet Devil Mansion…"
"Moriya Shrine."
Reimu froze. She shot to her feet with a sudden splash, smacking Marisa in the face with a wall of water. "Of course!" she whispered. "The festival—it's connected! This isn't the first time they've hatched harebrained schemes, but this time people have gotten hurt. If anyone's responsible, it has to be…"
"Oho? Is that Mumu I hear?"
Reimu stopped and squinted through the steam. To her dismay, there were Sanae and Kanako, leaned back against the hot rocks. (So that rope circle floating behind Kanako was detachable—odd to see her without it.) Still…
"Sanae. I see you even wear that ridiculous frog hair accessory in the bath."
"More than you had on yesterday, party girl," replied Sanae with a supercilious snicker.
Reimu flushed. She silently begged every god she knew that she never learned what happened on the nights she got sloshed. Now that I think of it, when I woke up this morning…
She slipped silently back into the spring.
Marisa continued the conversation instead. "How's the shrine, ladies? Anything left standing? After last night, the place must be—"
"Milady Suwako is watching it now. Now that the anniversary festivities are over, we've accumulated enough faith to last us another year."
"Just think," said Marisa. "If you'd thought of this sooner, you'd have fewer harebrained schemes and more wild parties!" Marisa cackled melodiously, Reimu more malodourously.
Kanako choked back a chuckle. "Actually, we've amassed more faith in one night than Hakurei Shrine has had in its whole history. Imagine that."
Sanae slapped the water with her feet. She tittered and taunted, "Pretty soon, you'll be at our front gates, begging for handouts."
Reimu cast an envious glare. Faith wasn't all that Sanae had more of.
Stop. Relax.
She closed her eyes and breathed through her nose. The steam seeped into her system, cleansing her body from the inside out. She could feel her head clearing. What a joy it was to think again.
"Ayayayaya! There you are!"
Oh gods. Not again.
Aya strode across the bathhouse, that damned notebook tucked into the towel around her middle. "Yo, Hakurei! Been looking for you all day. You might have read my morning report, but I need a follow-up interview for the evening edition. So…! How convenient that I find you here, kicking back at the hot springs! I could throw together an opinion piece on your support for nuclear fusion research, but I'll save that for another day. There's a killer on the loose! Tell me, have you given up the investigation?!" Even when she spoke, she sounded like a big, bold, obnoxious headline.
"Aya," said Reimu carefully, "where do you put your wings when you're not using them?"
"Eh? Well…" Aya nibbled her pen. "Trick of the trade, actually. I can't tell you, but it's somewhere secret and seldom-seen."
"Then why don't you take yourself, your book, and all your idiotic questions, SHOVE them in there, and STAY OUT OF MY LIFE!"
Aya scrambled away at the first sign of Reimu's rage. Although she turned back for one mild moment—"Does that mean, 'Declined to comment'?"
"OUT. NOW."
"I get it, I get it. I'll ask again tomorrow."
Aya turned to leave, only to discover someone standing in her way. In front of her loomed a tall, blonde, buxom witch wearing a lecherous leer and nothing else.
"Hey, crow-girl. Wanna find out how many ways there are to ride a broomstick?"
Aya chuckled hoarsely, feet frozen, knees knocking. Suddenly, she slipped on a bar of soap—she squeaked—but Marisa caught her in her arms. With a soft, soothing shush, Marisa stroked Aya's plump red cheek, fingers tracing down her neck, hand sliding underneath her moist towel. Aya blushed; Marisa smiled. Then with a snapping motion, she wrenched away the towel, twisted it, and drove Aya out of the bathhouse, rattail whapping at her bare bottom all the way.
Their hoots and howls hung awkwardly in the air.
"I don't think we'll be hearing from them again for a while," Kanako managed.
Reimu groaned. "I'll say. Marisa doesn't stick around long after." That girl had the strangest ways of showing affection, and they seldom lasted long. The only serious relationship Reimu remembered her having was—
Whatever the connection is between baths and brilliant bursts of inspiration, Reimu experienced it for the second time that day.
There's only one way to breach the border. Only I knew how…until now.
"Something wrong, Mumu?" Sanae glanced at her, idle concern in her eyes. "Hey…you're not looking too well. Need a drink? Fresh air?"
"No time!"
Reimu charged back to the changing room, thoughts racing. She didn't so much mind the peculiar looks, the stifled sniggers, or the shattered pottery in her wake. Her mind was sharp, fast, focused—an arrow swiftly sailing toward its target.
She tensed. Not here. Not there. Not here either. She rifled through every basket, ransacked every drawer. It's gone. My shrine maiden uniform—gone! Down to the socks and shoes. A cloud of dread settled over her. This means…
Desperate, she threw open a storage closet and pulled on a bathrobe.
Curious yet cautious, Sanae crept into the room. "Mumu? What are you up to?"
"Isn't it obvious?" Reimu stuffed her feet into wooden sandals, cinched up her sash, and tossed a grin at Sanae.
"I'm going to catch a killer."