One of my cousins gave us her old laptop, and I was able to take it to church retreat to work on this chapter. I could've used the resort's Wi-Fi to upload the chapter, but it's probably due to the laptop being faulty or something that it wasn't able to get connected to the best network that place has to offer. Found out that I was originally using the slowest networks there, but then for some reason, they became faulty, so I wasn't able to go online. Plus, I found out that this chapter still needed changes before I can get it up. I only finished the chapter entirely when I got back home.

Anyway, enjoy!

Chapter 6
Smell of Crime

On the same day the robot appeared and caused trouble in the woods at the base of Youkai Mountain, Shizuha was back in her home, sitting on a chair and thinking of what happened during the day.

"That robot… I'm wondering… Could it be…?" she said in her head.

FLASHBACK

"Well, I have to agree that life in the outside world is much more comfortable and convenient than here," Yukari said to Shizuha when the latter asked her the question regarding how life was in the outside world. "Actually, the former is subjective… Though if you ask me, I prefer living life like in the outside world, which is why my house in Mayohiga is like an outside world house, what with having electrical appliances and such. There's even internet connection! You pretty much can't go around without an internet in the outside world nowadays."

"I see…" Shizuha said. "I guess that's why outsiders who end up here tend to have a hard time getting adapted to life here."

"It's understandable," Yukari said with a nod. "After all, they've been spoiled by the entertainments and the inventions of the outside world that they cannot live the kind of life found in the ancient days. It wouldn't be a problem for old people, since they likely lived life like this in their younger days, but for the younger generation, life without video games, computers, vehicles, televisions, and mobile phones is torturing. Admittedly, I've gotten myself spoiled a bit by those things, so I sometimes find it hard to go through a day without surfing the internet… Yeah, I'm totally an outside world girl now… Haha…"

"You can say that she was horrified by the lifestyle here," Keine told to Shizuha when the latter asked her about how things were for Akemi when she first came to Gensokyo. "She couldn't believe that there was a place in Japan that still lives life like in the feudal era. I told her that this place is secluded from the rest of the country, so most of the people here have no knowledge of what's going out there, but she still had a hard time believing it.

"Apparently, she grew up in the big city and was in touch with the technological advances and the entertainments of the outside world, so she wasn't able to get used to this place at all. You can say she was in depression the entire time she was staying in the village… She also avoided going into the woods and even stayed away from tall grass. It's as if she is scared to death of anything related to plants… I've never seen anyone like her before…"

"And when she found out about the kappas' technology, she instantly moved to the lab?" Shizuha asked.

Keine nodded. "Yes, because the kappas have technology that are on par with the outside world, so Akemi was more than thrilled when she learned that she could live life like out there if she moved there. Luckily for her, she had skills that proved useful to the science department, because they don't allow people to live there without a reason."

"I guess she felt like being in heaven after moving there…" Shizuha said. "By the way, did she tell you why she is afraid of… plants?"

Keine shook her head. "She didn't actually tell me why. She only said that she had bad memories with them and that she didn't want to say more on that subject. When she said that, her tone changed. It sort of became… sadder… It's as if it's something she really doesn't want to talk about it or even think about it…"

"Guess she really does have bad memories with plants…" Shizuha said.

END OF FLASHBACK

Shizuha recalled everything Yukari and Keine told her and then thought of what she knew about Akemi.

Disliking primitive lifestyles, fear of plants, wanting to build a movie theater, and trying to burn a flower field…

Thinking of all those, Shizuha couldn't help but think that the robot was actually Akemi's creation and that she was trying to use it to cut down trees. Was she trying to build a movie theater again? Or did she simply hated and feared trees that she was doing this?

But then Shizuha remembered something, and that was Akemi no longer had arms, so it should be impossible for her to build a robot, unless…

"Considering that they have advanced technology, it's no surprise if they manage to, like, give her new arms or provide her with substitutes for them…" Shizuha said to herself. "If that's the case, then it's possible for her to build that robot…"

"What are you doing, sis?" asked a voice, and Shizuha turned to the door to see that it was Minoriko.

"Oh, it's you," Shizuha said.

Minoriko approached her and took a seat on the chair next to her. "What are you doing? Oh, I also heard from Hina about what happened at the woods, about a robot showing up and attacking some children. She also said that you defeated it."

Shizuha nodded. "It's true."

"Are you all right?" Minoriko asked while looking around her older sister's body for injuries.

"I'm all right," Shizuha told her. "I didn't give it the chance to fight back seriously at all. It was an easy job taking care of it."

"That's a relief!" Minoriko said. "I hope something like that doesn't happen again… It's quite scary having an out-of-control robot running around with a chainsaw…"

"The science department is looking into this," Shizuha said. "I'm sure they'll solve the mystery behind this and make sure that something like this doesn't happen again."

"Let's hope so…" Minoriko said. "Oh, and what were you doing?"

"Just thinking about what you asked me just now," Shizuha told her.

"Are you sure? Knowing you, you're probably thinking of more than that," Minoriko said to her while staring at her in a doubtful manner. "You're probably thinking of things like what if this happens again or if there's going to a robot apocalypse. You're a very negative person after all, so it's likely that you're thinking of stuff like those."

"I'm just thinking of what might be the possible reason for there to be a robot out there, okay?" said Shizuha, looking a bit annoyed.

"Knew your thoughts wouldn't be that simple… Anyway, let's hope for the best that the science department will do something about this," Minoriko said as she stood up. "I'm quite tired, so I'm going to take a nap. Helped the farmers a lot with harvesting today… Boy, my energy is all gone…" Then the goddess headed in the direction of the bed room.

Shizuha watched her close the door and then said in her head, "Should I tell the shrine maiden about this? Perhaps I'm worrying too much… Let's just see how things are for now without doing anything…"

With two bolts, one new and one charred, in her hands, Rika compared them to see if they came from the same place. Nitori, who was standing next to her, asked her, "Are they the same?"

"I think I can conclude that they both are indeed the same," Rika said. "I guess we can also conclude that the robot is made from parts that came from here."

"You really think so? Then who do you think built that robot?" Nitori asked. "Was there a project around these days that involves building robots?"

Rika shook her head. "None of that I know… I'm the head of mechanics around here, so I should either be the one to come up with a project like that or the first one to hear about it."

"Then that's strange… Who would be building a robot without our permission and in secret?" Nitori wondered.

"We'll check and see if there are anymore missing parts from our inventory before confirming if the robot really came from here," Rika said as she put the new bolt into a box of bolts on a table. "Also, I doubt they're going to admit it, but it wouldn't hurt to ask around and see what the others are up to, especially those involved in mechanics."

Nitori nodded. "Okay, I'll go and ask them."

Akemi let out a yawn while eating snack with her colleagues. "Feeling sleepy?" a fairy asked her.

"Yeah, a little…" Akemi replied. "Was busy with work yesterday night… Slept very late and woke up early…"

"What were you doing?" the fairy asked her.

"Buil… Just patching up some broken stuff, that's all…" the tired girl replied.

"Don't work yourself out," the fairy told her. "Working hard is good, but it's important to get some rest, too."

"Thanks for the suggestion. I'll think I'll go and take a nap after this…" Akemi said as she finished up her sandwich. When she was finally done eating, she stood up, packed her stuff, and left the cafeteria while waving good-bye to her colleagues.

She walked through the lab, making her way back to her living quarters. "Gotta move those twenty robots to the surface if I want to make more," she said in her head. "It'll take five days if I want to have an army of one-hundred robots, and then a big one… Not sure how long it's going to take to build a big one with my arms… There's also those things… Looks like it's going to take some time before I can execute my plan, but good things come to those who wait, right? Maybe I'll push myself to work faster if I want to get it done."

She came around a corner and saw Rika talking to a kappa with short black hair. "I've checked the inventory and can confirm that this amount of metal is missing," the kappa said to Rika. "Also, several nuts, bolts, gears, screws, and… Basically, they are all components for building machines, and judging by the amount of them missing, I'd say whoever took them built either something large and complicated or several of them."

"I see… I wonder who took them and built what?" Rika said with her hand underneath her chin. "Can it really be that the robot was built using those components? However, judging from what I heard, the robot shouldn't be a big one… Perhaps a large amount of them was built?"

Hearing this, Akemi became worried. "Uh oh… They're looking into this… I took all those stuff to build those robots… Looks like I'll have to work faster or decrease the number of robots I plan to build! There doesn't need to be one-hundred of them, I think… Maybe sixty or eighty is enough, as long as they're very strong…"

A cold breeze sent chills down Reimu's spine. The shrine maiden shivered while seated on the veranda of her shrine and then said, "Boy... The weather's getting colder by the moment... Winter is coming soon..." She looked at Ruukoto, who was happily sweeping leaves in the yard. "Must be good to be a robot, not being able to feel hot or cold... Or maybe it's not exactly a good thing..."

Wondering how Ruukoto was feeling currently, Reimu called out to her and asked her the question. "My internal nuclear reactor keeps me warm," the robot replied with her never-disappearing smile on her face. "However, there's also a cooling system inside me that will activate if my body temperature goes too high. Therefore, I feel warm in cold weathers and cool in hot weathers!"

"Wow... I don't think I ever asked you this question before, so this is the first time I learned about this..." Reimu said. "Must be really awesome to always have the desirable body temperature, no matter what the temperature around you is... Genji must really wish to have something like that, being a cold-blooded animal and all..."

Suddenly, someone descended diagonally from the sky and came to a skidding stop. Aya turned around to face Reimu while adjusting her hat. "Hey there, Reimu! What's up?"

"I should be the one asking you, considering that you came here yourself..." Reimu said to her.

"Wouldn't hurt to find out what the person I'm visiting is doing, would it?" Aya said. "Anyway, I heard something pretty interesting while flying around the sky near Youkai Mountain, and I thought you might be interested, since it seems to be the start of another incident."

Reimu twitched her eyebrow and said, "An incident again?"

"Yep!" Aya said with a nod. "I didn't see what happened myself, but I overheard the kappas talking about the appearance of a robot that was causing trouble in the woods near that mountain today."

"A robot?" Reimu curiously said.

"That's what they said," Aya said. "However, Shizuha took care of it and rescued some children who were being attacked by it. The science department is looking into finding out where it came from. I figured that I should tell you about this."

"If the science department is looking into this, then let them deal with it," Reimu said. "If it's their fault that the robot showed up in the first place, then they should be responsible for it. I'll look into it if it becomes a major issue."

"Somehow, I knew that would be your reply..." Aya said. "Well, at least you know that something may happen and that you may consider doing something."

"For the sake of everyone, nothing better happen," Reimu said before drinking tea.

"More like for the sake of wanting to be lazy and not having to go out there to solve an incident..." Aya said.

"Go away..." Reimu said to her in a frustrated tone.

That night, Akemi quietly led her army of twenty robots to an elevator that would take them to the surface, near the base of Youkai Mountain. They were close to the elevator when they saw a white wolf tengu armed with a sword and shield standing in front of it, keeping watch.

"Even if I were to distract her and get her to leave that place, I wouldn't be able to get all of them to the elevator in time before she returns..." Akemi thought. "Looks like rendering her unconscious is the only option, but how do I do it? But what if she makes report of someone knocking her out, and as a result, the others look into this and thus find out that it's me? I still need a bit more time before I can fully execute my plan..." Then a malicious look appeared on her face. "Looks like I'll have to do it the hard way..."

The white wolf tengu paced left and right in front of the elevator and stopped once to stretch and yawn. Suddenly, she heard the sound of something hitting the floor coming from her right, so she looked in that direction. While her attention was over there, a robot slowly approached her from behind with its chainsaw arm deactivated but ready to strike.

However, she sensed the incoming danger, so she spun around to block the chainsaw strike with her shield, and the former activated the moment it was swung. The tengu pushed back the robot with her shield and then proceeded to clash blades with it. While the two were trading blows, two robots ran at her from behind with their chainsaws activated, but she performed a back flip and jumped over those two when they got near to attack her. The tengu landed and then swung her sword at the two robots from the side, but it only knocked them away and was not sharp enough to cut through them.

Four robots came running at her from the front. Along with the one that first tried to attack her, they swung down their chainsaws at her, but she managed to block them all with her sword and shield.

Suddenly, a mechanical arm shot in between the robots and caught the tengu by the neck. With a very fast speed, the tengu was pulled in the direction of Akemi, who had her other hand in the form of a blade and pulled back. The tengu was unable to react in time, and when Akemi pulled her up close, she thrust her blade hand forward and impaled the former through the abdomen. Akemi twisted and turned the blade around inside the tengu's body and made her scream in pain, and then she removed the blade through the side, creating a large gash on the latter's body.

Dropping her sword and shield, the white wolf tengu placed her hands on the gash while crying in pain. When she looked at Akemi, the latter swung her blade arm straight down, hitting her right on top of the head.

The next morning, various fairy janitors were up and cleaning the lab. One of them spotted a dried up blood drop on the floor. This particular fairy was one who would always get to the bottom of things if she came across something peculiar, and the red spot on the floor was enough to make her bend close to it to inspect it. She was able to deduce that it was a blood drop, and because of her personality, she thought it was best to tell other people about it.

She told her fellow janitors to look at it, but they didn't care much about it, thinking that it probably came from a minor injury, such as a small cut. While they were talking about this, a white wolf tengu came over and asked them, "Excuse me, but have you seen Mia? She's the guard in charge of keeping watch here, and she should be reporting back to the base about an hour ago."

One of the fairies looked at her and replied, "Nope. There was nobody here when we came."

"Strange… Where did she go?" the tengu wondered. "She should be done keeping watch an hour ago… She isn't answering her walkie-talkie either…"

The fairy who spotted the dried up blood drop looked at the latter and then said, "Do you think… this blood drop… actually belongs to her… and that something must have happened to her…?"

"I think you read too much mystery and murder stories…" one of the fairies said to her. "A tiny blood drop isn't a big deal! Someone probably just cut his finger or suffered from a case of nosebleed! You're making a big deal out of this!"

"What blood drop?" the white wolf tengu asked as she went over to them. When they pointed to that blood drop, the white wolf tengu sniffed the air around it and realized something. "This scent… It's Mia's scent!"

Looking at the blood drop and sniffing the air around it, the long and wavy-haired leader of the white wolf tengu squad sent to investigate this matter said, "A large amount of blood used to be here, but the culprit cleaned it up to hide the evidence. Luckily, white wolf tengus have a very good sense of smell."

"I checked the security cameras, but apparently, the one here lost its connection," Nitori said to the tengu. "It seems obvious that someone did it to hide his crime, assuming that he really did kill that guard…"

"Assuming that the guard keeping watch here really is the one who got killed, do you think you can track down her body easily?" Rikako asked the tengu.

"Her scent went in the direction of the elevator," the tengu replied. "All we have to do is to follow the scent, and we will eventually find her."

"That's good to know!" Nitori said.

"Leave this case to us," the tengu told her. "We'll definitely get to the bottom of this. In the meantime, some of us will also check this place to see if anything happened. Discoveries here may lead us to the culprit."

"We're willing to cooperate with you in this matter!" Rika said to her.

Soon after that, a group of white wolf tengus went into the elevator and took it to the surface to look for the dead tengu, while some went around the lab to see if they could find anything that would lead them to the culprit.

As Nitori, Rikako, and Rika walked off together, the former said, "I can't believe that a case of murder happened here, if it really is one..."

"I'm just as surprised as well," Rikako said while adjusting her glasses.

"You know, I can't help but think that the missing components are related to this..." Rika said.

"Tell me about it," Rikako said to her.

"The robot that showed up in the woods near here had one of its bolts taken from here, and when I sent someone to check the inventory, she found out that several components for building something like a robot missing," Rika explained. "Nitori also asked some people here if they were up to anything, but she didn't learn anything."

"I think some of them are lying, though," Nitori said. "Obviously, this is something that nobody would reveal the truth about."

"Yeah, I figured as much..." Rika said. "So anyway, I'm thinking that if the person secretly using those components to build robots killed that guard in order to cover up his actions, because he was caught in the act and wanted there to be no witnesses..."

Rikako placed her hand underneath her chin and said, "You may be onto something there... Let's hope the white wolf tengus find out something soon..."

The leader of the white wolf tengu squad was watching her colleagues as they did autopsy on a body they dug out from the woods. "Innards cut and shredded by a blade, which then cut its way out from the left side of her waist," one of the tengus doing the autopsy said. "The death blow appears to be from the one on the head, a vertical split down to the collar. Seeing how it's a clean cut, it is done by a sharp blade. Time of death is around 1 A.M."

"Unfortunate news... Pack up the body and then report to her family members at once,"the squad leader said.

"There are the scents of metal all around her," the other tengu performing the autopsy told the leader. "The scents apparently went deeper into the woods. Also among these scents is the scent of a human, but it did not go in the same direction as the other scents."

"Right, I can smell that," the leader said. "That human scent was in the elevator as well, and it went back there. This can only mean one thing..." The leader turned to the direction of the elevator. "The culprit might be in the lab this very moment!"

TO BE CONTINUED

Lots of white wolf tengus and no Momiji? Actually, she's there helping with the investigation in the woods. I originally wanted her to be in the squad leader's place (but not necessarily as the squad leader), but then I thought that since we never saw her speaking firsthand in official materials and doesn't even have an official artwork from ZUN, I decided to reduce her role to that of cameo appearances, just like her appearances in Wild and Horned Hermit and Oriental Sacred Place.

That doesn't mean I'll never give Momiji a moment to shine, though. It's just that when compared to characters that have dialogues, official artworks, and more notable backgrounds, I won't be giving her as much screentime. Yes, I'm aware that Shizuha also has no dialogues in official materials, but the fact that she has an official ZUN artwork, her own profile in Symposion of Post-mysticsm, and appeared in more than one panel in Forbidden Scrollery likely means that ZUN sees her as a more major character than Momiji, so I am treating the former as such. Plus, Shizuha is one of my favorite characters in the series. Yeah, favoritism...

Also, my portrayal of Momiji does not have wolf ears, because she doesn't have them in canon. I know she is shown with wolf ears and a tail in Oriental Sacred Place, but the artist probably followed the fandom and drew her like that, even though ZUN didn't intend for her to have them. I haven't decided on whether or not she has a tail, though, so feel free to imagine her with one if you want to… Same case goes for Kyouko…