Disclaimer: I do not own any of the Touhou characters, settings or any other original material created by ZUN or any other affiliates. All Touhou copyrights belong to their respective owners.
Ch. 39: Who do you call?
Satori, Orin, Ayaka and the vacationing quartet were still standing about the edge of the hot spring, now frozen over like in delicate looking but rock solid ice, its features resembling a still-life of moving water. The mob from before had already disappeared, and now there were only staff moving about, inspecting the rest of the facilities to assess the degree of damage. Satori was standing at the helm of the group, her eyes surveying the glacier before her calmly. Her facial expression however, remained grim.
"So… You uh, you were actually the first one to know about this problem, huh," Suika moved up to Satori's side and asked her.
"That's right," Satori answered, "I was the one who raised the alarm and got the nearby staff to act immediately. Michi who was monitoring the temperatures at the time was really panicking in her head, so there was practically no way I would not have known." Turning to Orin and Ayaka, she said, "Sorry girls, but the two of you were away tending to other parts of the resort at the time, so I did not call upon the two of you."
"Ah! Satori-sama! If only we knew about this earlier!" the two girls cried out in response, self-disappointment on their faces.
"I'm sure you would have carried your duties swiftly and professionally," Satori complimented, and the bird and the cat immediately brightened.
"But… Whooo… No matter how you look at it, it's remarkable," Yuugi squatted at the hot spring's edge and reached out to some delicate ice structures, the results of the steam around the pool depositing immediately into crystal. The brittle-looking structure resisted Yuugi's prod and Yuugi found herself being pushed back. "I mean… The whole thing really is solid…" Yuugi got up and frowned, "I've never seen anything like this…"
Parsee glanced at Satori. "How could this have happened?" she asked. "All the pools are affected. If it was just one or two-"
"… Old Hell's blazing fires…" Satori murmured.
"Sorry?" Parsee asked.
"Our hot springs are powered by the abandoned furnaces back in the former Hell," Satori explained. "I think all of you have at least heard the name 'Reiuji Utsuho'?"
"Ah!" Kogasa responded, and everyone else had a look of familiarity on their faces. "Isn't that your pet raven everyone else was telling me about?"
"The one from back then during the Subterranean Animism events…" Suika continued.
"That's right," Satori nodded. "She's the one regulating the temperatures of the furnaces down there. Such a large scale incident like this must mean something's gone wrong with the furnaces." Satori clenched her hands together nervously, "And if something's gone wrong down there…" she said a little more quietly.
"Ah! Okuu!" Orin suddenly sprang up and ran away from the group.
"Wait!" Yuugi started after her, but Orin had already disappeared. "Hey! W-Where's she going? She… She isn't rushing down there by herself is she? !"
"Utsuho, or 'Okuu' as she is known to us, has always been rather close to Orin," Satori said as she stared after Orin worriedly. "I'm afraid Orin fears harm may have come to Okuu."
"But she can't just go back down there on her own!" Suika exclaimed. "If something wrong has happened, who knows what danger she'll face if charges in there! What if it's some really strong youkai causing an incident again? !"
Satori looked at Yuugi and Suika curiously, and once again her eyes seemed to betray a glimmer of gratitude.
"It… seems I may owe you two an apology," she said simply. "You two are much more gallant and honourable then you seem."
Yuugi and Suika glanced at each other awkwardly. "We uh… We don't think now's the time-"
"My Orin's foolishly gone rushing into danger, which Okuu may already be in," Satori continued. "I must stay to handle the situation above ground," she steadily looked the two Oni in the eyes. "Can I… ask you for a favour?"
Yuugi and Suika glanced at each other again, and in an instance understood Satori's intentions.
"Say no more!" Yuugi beamed and thumped her chest. "We'll go back down there and check things out."
"And if it really is something serious, be it foreign gods fooling around or gap youkai messing things up, we'll take care of it!" Suika said confidently.
Satori breathed a sigh. "Thank you very much, the two of you…" she smiled.
"Wait!" Kogasa suddenly spoke up. "If… If Suika is going, then I'm going too!"
"Don't be silly!" Parsee restrained Kogasa by the shoulders. "If it's real danger down there, we'll… t'ch… we'll just be a liability," she grimaced, wishing there was a kinder way of phrasing it.
"But…!" Kogasa resisted for a moment, before relenting.
"I'll take you down there myself once I've settled things here," Satori said bracingly.
"O-Okay…" Kogasa looked at Suika with concern and anxiety in her eyes, "T-Take care, alright?"
"Don't worry, don't worry!" Suika grinned, "I am the one that smashed the moon out of the sky, after all!" And with that assurance, the two Oni turned to follow the path Orin took out of the resort, Kogasa staring after them completely, not assured at all.
"So… We'll just be visiting your backyard huh?" Suika said with her arms behind her head as the two Oni made their way through the dark cavern. It took only a short while before they found themselves underground. They had already passed the passage way Parsee usually guarded moments ago.
"Don't joke around, Suika," Yuugi said seriously. "It may be our 'backyard', but even we try to stay out of the Blazing Fires if possible," she said, referencing the rest of the underground Oni community. "In fact, I think only that hell raven would be safe down there."
"Sorry Yuugi, I had no idea you were so serious about this," Suika said apologetically. "And yet… if even that hell raven is in danger, then it must be really serious," she assumed an appropriately sombre expression.
"Yeah… Do you think we'll be back in time for dinner?" Yuugi asked, her face similarly sombre.
"… I knew it! You're not worried about it at all!" Suika grinned widely.
"As if you were!" Yuugi grinned back. "And to think, back up there, Kogasa's worrying her heart out for you."
The grin from Suika's face suddenly vanished. "Let's… Let's get this over with and get back above ground soon, okay?" she picked up the pace just a tad bit.
Yuugi stared at her with wide eyes, before remarking loudly to the side with a smirk, "Just marry her already, alright?" Ahead of her, Suika jumped and looked as if she had hit her head on the roof of the cavern several meters above her.
"I-I'm hungry and I just want to get this out of the way as fast as possible!" Suika exclaimed as she rushed ahead without a glance at Yuugi. Yuugi's smirk widened and she hurried after Suika.
But it would prove to be a quick trip. The two Oni's met little opposition. There were only countless fairies and evil spirits that were easily despatched of, mixed in with the occasional low level youkai. A hop, skip and a jump and the two found themselves before the entrance to the very deepest part of Old Hell.
The Blazing Fires. The original, ultimate high security prison cum torture chamber. At least until the Yamas, or judges of the dead, managed to get the funds to build a shiny new one elsewhere. Originally, when the new Hell was finished, the lease on the former Hell was still maintained. The official word was that due to the overcrowding problem, the Yamas required a back up Hell in the event the new Hell failed.
The whole plot of land was later carved up and sold for tidy little profits when estate prices increased in the following months, and the new Hell got along just fine.
Of course, property prices around the area plummeted with the geyser incident, and ever since then no one has dared challenge Okuu for the claim over the very core of former Hell. The Blazing Fires have ever since been truly abandoned, and they sure looked that way. The entrance, which once bore imposing gateways of heavy wood saturated with majestic carvings and scripture, was now bare rock pork marked with the holes left behind by the support beams.
As Yuugi and Suika walked deeper, they realized that the holding cells were gone too. Only square patches of worn out rock embossed into the ground and grouped in clusters of four showed where the cells were originally were. Once or twice they would come across a pit that was not as ancient as the others, and realize it was relatively new construction. Someone had tried to develop the area before Okuu took it as her own.
The only building that showed even the remotest sign of being kept was a lone little building amongst a group of ruins. Apparently, it was once one of the wardens' chambers, and had housed the gruff guards that kept the inmates in. As Yuugi and Suika drew closer to it, they saw that the building was in fact very well maintained. It was plain, but it had nice little windows with window sills which featured potted plants, and clean, orange-coloured curtains behind the clear glass. The door had a neat little knob on it, and the building even had a small plot of sunny flowers growing to the side of the entrance lane. It seemed homely and out of place in Hell.
"Must be the hell raven's place," Suika observed, and Yuugi nodded in agreement.
"You know, for a hell raven, she sure has a normal, I don't know, girly taste?" Yuugi rubbed her chin thoughtfully. "Maybe she isjust a normal girl…?"
"Yuugi…" Suika tapped Yuugi on the shoulder, and Yuugi turned around. What she saw stunned her. The entire vast cavern before them was frozen solid, the rock swallowed by crystal and the orange glow typical of the rest of hell replaced with a blue aura.
"There! There's the source of the incident!" Yuugi cried out. The two Onis exchanged glances, then dashed forth, their feet quickly transitioning from dusty rock to glossy clear ice.
"Wait…? Do you hear something, Yuugi?" Suika asked as they sprinted.
"I don't know…" Yuugi strained to hear over the pounding of their heavy footsteps. From a distance… sobbing?
"…! Someone's in trouble, Yuugi!"
"Got it!" and the duo made a beeline for the source of the sound. As they moved swiftly, the ice in the cavern grew thicker, jaggier and more rampant. It became apparent to the two that the sound they were headed for was located at the very source of all the ice.
Before long, a small, crouched, greenish black figure appeared in the distance, contrasted against and dwarfed by the vast ice cavern around her. The figure had her face buried in her hands, and was kneeling next to another. This other girl, laid on her back on the ground, had great black wings extended from beneath her. A great white cape sprawled out from beneath the wings. Her raven black hair was spread out luxuriously, and her hands lay clasped together on her chest, which bore a large, dull glass-like orb embedded between her bosom.
It was Orin, sobbing over the unconscious hell raven Reiuji Utsuho.
"Orin…" "Orin!" Both Suika and Yuugi made a dash towards Orin, and as they did so Orin looked up at them, her eyes red and puffy and tears streaming liberally down her cheeks.
"S-She won't wake up!" Orin cried, her body shuddering. Glancing back and forth from Utsuho to the Oni several times, Orin appeared hysterical. "She won't wake up! Okuu won't wake up! S-She's not responding to anything I'm doing! ! !" she wailed.
"Get back," Yuugi gently touched Orin on the shoulder, then moved past her to feel Okuu's pulse on her neck. It was stable. "She's fine. Her pulse's stable. She'll probably be fine," she reassured Orin.
But Orin did not seem to buy her reassurance. "But… But she won't wake up! She won't wake up! ! !" she kept repeating frantically. Orin placed her hands on Okuu's cheeks and tried to rouse the raven by rubbing them up and down, "Wake up Okuu! Wake up! ! !"
"Shush, Orin…" Yuugi pulled Orin back by the same shoulder and restrained her with a firm but light grip on her upper arms, "Calm down. You're not going to help her that way."
"Don't you worry," Suika knelt down next to Orin and looked her reassuringly in the eye, "That's why we're here. We're here to help."
Orin's body kept on shuddering, but she otherwise forced herself to breathe deeply and tried to be calm as the Oni advised. "I… I don't know what happened," Orin hiccupped, "When I came down here… She… She…!" Orin's self control began to break down again and her body shook vehemently. Yuugi instinctively increased her grip just a little bit and stroked the back of Orin's head soothingly.
"A-Alright… It's alright Orin," Suika said slowly. "Do you have any idea who may have done this to her?" she asked, but Orin just shook her head in response and began to sob again.
Suika looked at Yuugi, and both immediately understood what the other was thinking. Someone, or something, has obviously attacked Okuu. The attack also probably damaged the furnaces, hence the reason for the temperatures going whack. Was Okuu a victim because she was the guardian of the furnaces?
"Sabotage?" Yuugi suggested.
"I don't know… Who would want to sabotage the hot springs?" Suika pondered. "I mean, in order to reach the furnaces, one would have to obviously get past Okuu…" Suika looked up at Yuugi seriously, "Hey… You do realize that this person or group we're dealing with are seriously strong if they could do this to Okuu, right?"
"Yeah…" Yuugi agreed. "I guess we had better check on those furnaces, see if they can give us a clue to what's going on-"
"Oh, going to the furnaces won't tell you anything. Nothing was done to them," a voice interrupted.
Hi hi, for those of you who have still been following this series, sorry for the delay in these chapters. You have… no idea how many times I've re-written the following stuff… I can't seem to get it right…
That, and other ideas for other short series had been assaulting me. Three in total, in fact. I'll leave them in the back for now though, I need to focus on this series…