Hey there everyone! New chapter again. Believe it or not, this was supposed to be a really short chapter, but then I added some plot points in order to try and help resolve certain things and then I had to write how I thought the characters would respond to them and it ended up being about as long as a regular chapter. In retrospect, that may not have been the best idea. Oh well. Good news is, we're very close to the end now! Probably going to be two, maybe three chapters left at this point, which means things are actually going to start happening! I know, shocking. I'll have a bit more to say/ask about this chapter once it's over, so stick around, if you'd like.
In any case, thanks so much for reading/favoriting/following/reviewing! I, as always, appreciate it.
Previously on the Nine RED Men Incident: After the Pyro woke up, they, along with Mokou and Suwako, were led to the meeting place by Aya, where, eventually, the entire team was reunited. After introductions, they decided to head to the Hakurei shrine, where they believed Merasmus to be.
We now return you to the Nine RED Men incident.
Progress was relatively quick, despite the large number of people. Before they knew it, they were passing by the village, to the confusion of the guards. As they weren't trying to enter, the guards only stared sternly (save for one, who cowered behind his watchmate), though the presence of Mokou did limit their concerns, despite the strange person (they assumed it was a person, at least, from the shape) she was holding back from running to the village. She idly wondered what would have happened if they'd tried to enter, causing her to shudder slightly. Soon enough they'd left the village behind and had started to climb the path up to the Hakurei shrine, which wound it's way through a forest, which, though nowhere near as dense as the Forest of Magic, still managed to cover the ground in leaves. As they crunched up the path, they eventually heard snippets of yells coming from further up the path.
"Oh, c'mon please don't take me to her!" a voice the Heavy recognized was yelling. "I'll – I"ll meditate on my mistakes, or whatever, just don't let her punish me."
There was a slight delay when they assumed someone responded, though they couldn't hear her over the crunching leaves.
"D-don't be like that, Byakuren," the voice said. "I apologized, didn't I?"
The Heavy looked at the Spy, whose eyes were wide. "Merde," the Spy said, as he slapped his palm over his face. "Heavy, would you be a dear friend and cover for me for just a second?" he said. The Heavy nodded. "Thank you, my friend," he said as he slipped off into the forest.
"Where's he going?" the Scout asked.
"I think he was cold," the Pyro said, before the Heavy could respond, causing the Scout to jump into the air in surprise. "He asked the Heavy for covers." Their face fell. "If he was cold, I could have-" they began, reaching for their flamethrower.
"I don't think that would have been the kind of heat he wanted," Mokou said, her hand grasping their shoulder. "Most people can't really take the heat from rainbows," she said. "It's," she paused, looking for the right words, "it's too hot to be comfortable."
"Really," the Pyro said. "No one's complained before. They've all enjoyed it."
"Maybe they were just being polite," Mokou said. At the Pyro's downcast expression, she sighed. "But probably not, probably not," she said. The Pyro cheered up a bit.
"Heavy think Spy not want to meet them," he said, gesturing to the two people who they'd managed to catch up with.
A tall woman with purple hair that faded to brown at the tips was calmly walking, tightly holding on to a somewhat short girl with black hair, who had six strange protrusions on her back, three angular red ones on her right side, and three curvy blue ones on her left.
"Oh hey, it's that girl from-" Cirno began, before Dai covered her mouth with her hand. At the sound of Cirno's voice, the pair turned to see the large group coming towards them.
"You!" the girl said, pointing her finger at Cirno. "This is all your fault!"
The taller woman simply grabbed the girl's arm and pulled it back, saying, "It's not nice to point, Nue."
"But she was with that guy I was telling you about," she said. "The one from the Taoists."
The taller woman sighed. "I don't believe the Taoists would do something like spying, even though we don't exactly," she said, before looking away for a second, "get along. Besides, we don't close our doors to anyone in the first place, there's no reason to hide."
"But he admitted it," Nue said, adamantly. "Didn't he?" she said, turning back to Cirno and the Heavy.
"I have never met you before," Cirno said, having been instructed by Dai.
"Eh? Yeah you did! You led me to that psycho teacher and almost got me tortured!" she said.
"Psycho teacher?" Mokou said, a scowl on her face. Dai whispered in her ear to try and placate her.
"Yeah! She took that spy and made him scream while he," she said, pointing to the Heavy, "tried to watch us." Her face lit up in realization. "W-wait, what are you doing here, anyway?"
"Heavy fired for letting you escape," the Heavy said, shrugging. "Is shame, but Heavy deserve it."
"Well then how did you end up with her?" she said, pointing to Cirno.
"We ran into him when we were going into the village," Dai said. "I-I'm sorry, but you couldn't have seen Cirno at the schoolhouse, because I w-was with her the whole time, and we never went there."
"Bullsh-" Nue was about to say, before the purple-haired woman clamped a hand over her mouth, her expression looking particularly calm and collected.
"Nue, what have I told you about saying such things?" she asked, her voice never leaving her normal speaking tone, and yet somehow causing everyone in her presence to feel at least a little bit nervous. Nue, who had been struggling, went still at the woman's voice. "No more of that, ok?" the woman asked. Nue reluctantly nodded. "Ok?" the woman repeated, and Nue nodded slightly more emphatically. "Good," she said, taking her hand away from Nue's mouth. She focused her gaze on the rest of the group and bowed. "I'm sorry, I neglected to introduce myself. To those of you who I haven't met before, I am Byakuren Hijiri, and this is Nue," she said. "Am I to believe that you have met her before?" she said, turning to the Heavy.
"Ah, da, we met at job Heavy had before," the Heavy said, nodding.
"Oh? What job was that?" Byakuren said, sounding genuinely curious.
"Heavy hired to protect school building. She showed up with known disruptor, but escaped, so Heavy was fired," the Heavy said.
"Oh really?" Byakuren said, looking at Nue, who took a step back.
"Look, th-that's not the whole story!" she said. "It's not that I was trying to cause trouble, I was trying to infiltrate their ranks. To protect the temple!"
Byakuren sighed. "Sure, sure. In any case," she said, turning back to the Heavy and bowing, "I'm sorry you were fired due to my tenant's actions."
"Wha-tenant?" Nue said, looking shocked. "D-don't be like that, Hiji-Byakuren, I was just trying to help, for once."
"Is ok," the Heavy said, waving his hand. "Heavy had to meet friends anyway."
"Ah, hence the large group, I see," Byakuren said. "Might I ask if you are heading to the Hakurei shrine?"
"Well, we were, though at this point I'm beginning to think we're all just going to stand around talking forever," Marisa said under her breath, causing the Scout to let out a grumble of agreement. The Heavy ignored them and simply nodded.
"Ah, wonderful," Byakuren said, clapping. "I was just taking Nue to the shrine maiden for some advice," she said, ignoring Nue's slight shudder. "Would it be alright if we joined you?" The Heavy turned and looked at the rest of the group, who mostly gave a collective shrug, so the Heavy, unable to think of a good excuse, nodded. "Thank you very much," she said, a smile brightening her features.
"Wait, Byakuren, you can't seriously be asking me to go with them. We don't know anything about them! He tried to trap me in a school building with a torturer!" Nue said, causing Mokou's eye to twitch slightly.
"I don't think that will be an issue with a group of this size," Byakuren said. "Especially with such upstanding people as Miss Hina and Miss Nitori here, right?" she said, turning to the women in question.
"Eh?" Nitori said, surprised at being called out specifically, while Hina simply stared at Byakuren. "I-I mean, I suppose so," she continued, rubbing the back of her head.
Byakuren bowed slightly. "Thank you. We shall be in your care." She turned to look at Nue, beckoning her forward. Resigned to her fate, Nue reluctantly joined the group, though she stayed as far away from the Heavy and Cirno as possible, Byakuren following behind her. Since they were at the back, they were one of the first to hear the man's yells.
"Hey, wait up!" he was yelling, as he ran towards the group. "Don't leave me behind, you guys!" he said, as he approached. He was almost as nondescript as you could get, average height, average build, the common mop of brown hair on their head, dressed in a plain tan outfit. The group paused as he approached, allowing him to catch up and catch his breath. "Jeez, I just stopped for a second to rest for a bit and you all leave without me." The Scout opened his mouth to say something, but the Sniper stepped on his foot, causing him to drop to the ground moaning, while Tavish distracted the Soldier by asking about what the plan of attack was for when they actually found Merasmus.
"Who are you?" Marisa asked, causing the man to reel back in shock before collapsing to the ground.
"R-really? I know I'm average in pretty much every way, but you forgot about me that easily?" the man said. He sighed as he stood up. "I guess I should be used to it by now. I'm Heikin! Heikin!" At her blank stare, he continued, "I ran into the Heavy's group and asked if I could follow along? I was at the big meeting at Nitori's place? Asked about my part in the plan a couple times?" She continued staring at him blankly. He turned to the Heavy. "Back me up here," he said, pleadingly. The Heavy squinted at him for a second, scratching his head. "Oh come on, not you too," the man said, despairing.
"Ah," the Heavy said, snapping his fingers. "Heavy remembers now. But Heavy thought you got lost trying to follow us to meeting place," he said, shrugging. "Heavy did not see you at meeting."
"I don't remember meeting you at all!" Cirno said, cheerfully. The man slumped forward, a cloud of gloom descending on him.
"I should have known this would happen. Even being with such an interesting group doesn't make me stand out at all," he said, walking towards a tree and thumping his head against it. "Stupid. Forgettable. Moron," he said, between hits.
The group stared at one another awkwardly, before directing their gaze at the Heavy, who nodded. Walking over to Heikin, he grabbed him and pulled him back from the tree. "Heavy is sorry for forgetting you."
"R-really?" Heikin said, blinking away tears of pain from his eyes.
"Da," the Heavy said, nodding. "Now come," he said, bringing the man back into the group. "We keep moving now, yes?" Heikin nodded. "Good," the Heavy said, smiling.
As the group began moving again, Heikin whispered, "Thank you, my friend," to the Heavy, who nodded. As they walked, the organization of the group shifted somewhat, causing "Heikin" to end up walking behind the arguing Scout and Sniper and wind up next to Byakuren and Nue.
"Excuse me," Byakuren said, catching his attention. He turned to look at her, feigning surprise.
"Oh? You noticed me? Thank you, thank you," he said, shaking her hand enthusiastically, causing her to let out a light laugh.
"Oh, no, it was no trouble," she said, waving a hand airily, causing Nue to let out a snort. At Byakuren's light gaze, she decided to go wander next to Marisa and Patchouli. "So I heard you met the Heavy outside the village?" she said, sounding genuinely curious.
"Well, him and the Engineer," the man said. "They'd already met up at that point."
The woman frowned. "Really? You didn't meet them earlier? Say, outside the border perhaps?" she said, smiling. A sense of dread began to seep into the Spy's bones.
"Eh? The border?" he said, tilting his head to the side. "I've never been outside the border. How could I have been?"
"Oh? Perhaps I'm wrong then," she paused, before clasping one of his hands excitedly. "Did I tell you someone fell into our temple recently, dressed all in red, just like all these newcomers here?" she said, looking at his eyes.
"That's a rather abrupt subject change," he said, trying to look surprised.
She frowned slightly. "Well, I thought it was kind of interesting. You like interesting things don't you? Isn't that why you joined up with this group?"
"Well yeah, I guess," he said, scratching the back of his head.
"See, it's fine then," she said, smiling again. "Anyway, we took him to a bed and bandaged him up, but he had this mask on, and it got a bit twisted on his head, so I took it off." The Spy's eye twitched slightly. "When he woke up, he got really angry about it. Do you have any idea why that would be?"
"Maybe he values his privacy?" the Spy said, sounding slightly interested.
Byakuren smiled. "You know, that's basically what he said. Admittedly, he had a knife to my throat at the time, but, well, that's just the presentation, right?" she said. "In any case, he eventually managed to anger one of my pupils into killing him, but then there was this funny thing that happened," she said, before the Spy could interject with a shocked gasp, "The 'corpse' was surprisingly stiff, and when I tried to take the mask off again for burial, we found that we couldn't. Somehow, the mask was stuck to their face." The Spy cursed under his breath. He didn't think they would have bothered to try. "But then, before I could look into it further, I found out that one of our members had left with someone new. And after I found her again, she was spouting some story about a Taoist spy. It seemed like a strange coincidence. And now, I meet up with a group of people who seem to be that person's teammates, and you're here, another person no one seems to know, though that one who's now hobbling seemed to recognize you." She paused, smiling at him. "What do you think? Interesting?"
"Indeed," the Spy said. "That's very strange. I wonder what could have possessed that man to do such things. But do you seriously think they're me? That's rid-" he began, before she let out a light laugh.
"Ridiculous, were you going to say?" she said. "Oh, I wouldn't say it's that ridiculous. The pieces all fit. And if you're going to claim it could be anyone here, let me remind you that you are the only one whom not everyone knew. I would imagine that you were late in meeting up with the group because you had to run off to disguise yourself, no?"
The Spy bowed his head, realizing that she was far more perceptive than he had hoped, before letting out a dry laugh. "Well done, Madam. It appears I underestimated you," he said, shrugging slightly.
"You don't get to be my age without paying attention," she said, smiling. "So, would you care to explain yourself?"
"Would it make a difference if I told you I didn't believe you to be true Buddhists?" the Spy said, as he dropped his disguise. Luckily, he was only noticed by the Heavy, who caught his eye, giving Byakuren a significant glance, but the Spy shook his head. "I had believed you to be enemy agents."
"Oh? Why is that?" she asked, tilting her head.
"You don't have the traditional submachine guns that Buddhists are supposed to carry," the Spy said.
"What is a submachine gun?" she asked, confused.
"It is a weapon, of sorts," the Spy said.
Byakuren blinked, before looking into the distance, worry on her face. "What happened to our faith while I was gone?" she said.
"I believe it had something to do with a Buddhist saying," the Spy said. "Something about a monk dreaming he was a man with a submachine gun and not being sure which he was when he woke up."
"So it's symbolic, then?" Byakuren said, hopefully.
"That's what I am led to understand," he replied, not wanting to ruin her hopes.
Byakuren let out a sigh of relief. "Thank goodness."
As she spoke, the Soldier, who was at the front of the group, let out a yell of triumph. "Attention, men!" he said, turning and forcing the rest of the group to come to a halt. "Right up ahead is the gate that, if our intel is correct, marks the entrance to the asylum of that coward Merasmus! Now, our goal here is simple! Beat that wizard till we're free of this place, steal his book, and, uh, whatever it is you wanted to do," he said, gesturing to Byakuren, who looked shocked. "This battle will be dangerous, and glorious! If anyone's not prepared, too bad! Now, let's CHAAAARGE," he yelled, turning around. Before he'd managed to run very far, two figures appeared at the top of the shrine and slowly approached them.
"Reimu!" Marisa yelled, as one of the figures, a young woman with black hair, dressed in a red and white shrine maiden outfit came fully into view. The other figure was unfamiliar to her, a stern-looking man with dark hair dressed in a tuxedo. "Where've you been?" Reimu raised an eyebrow. "Well, ok, here, right, but why?" Marisa asked.
Reimu shook her head, smiling. "Knew you'd end up involved. Wasn't expecting all of you though," she said, her gaze jumping from person to person. "This'll be interesting." She rolled her shoulders and stretched. Those of the group familiar with Reimu tensed up. She nodded towards the Soldier. "RED team, right?"
"How do you know who we are? Are you a mind reader like that communist spirit?" the Soldier said.
Reimu blinked, before her eyes widened in recognition. "Ah. Satori. No, I'm not a mind reader. The person who brought you told me."
"Wait, you are working with them?" Marisa said. "But you're supposed to resolve incidents!"
Reimu let out an annoyed grunt and turned to Marisa, her eye twitching. "I am, am I? Maybe I decided it was someone else's turn." Marisa took a step back, shocked. Reimu sighed and shook her head. "In any case," she said, turning back to the Soldier, her gaze passing by all the other RED team members, "are you prepared?" The Soldier nodded, sticking his chest out proudly. "Good," Reimu said, nodding. "Then," she said, nodding to the man beside her, who bowed, "follow us." She turned and began walking towards the gate.
"Wai', you're no' goin' ta figh' us?" Tavish said, confused.
"Not unless you force me to," Reimu said, as she continued walking.
"Why'd you come down then," Marisa said, still on her guard.
"I was going to investigate why someone was shouting on the road," Reimu said. "It just happened to be you all."
The RED team members looked at each other and shrugged, before following after her, while the residents of Gensokyo present allowed themselves to relax slightly and follow as well.
After a few tense minutes, during which the only sounds were the many footsteps of the group and the nervous chatter of the Scout, they climbed the last few steps to a view of the shrine's courtyard, empty save for the figure of Merasmus, who stood in the empty center, facing the shrine, his hands nervously fidgeting behind his back.
"MERASMUS!" the Soldier yelled, running towards the wizard, hastily followed by the rest of the team. Merasmus turned around, the surprise on his face quickly being replaced by an evil-looking smile.
"Oh good, you've all made it," Merasmus said, rubbing his hands together. Looking around, he added, "And you've brought other guests as well! Excellent, excellent."
"We have come all the way to this shrine to kick your sorry meta-meta- um," the Soldier said, pausing.
"Metaphorical?" Dell said, cocking an eyebrow.
"Ah ha, yes! Thanks!" the Soldier said, before turning back to Merasmus. "To kick your sorry metaphorical ass all the way out of purgatory, you piece of my subconscious!" he yelled, drawing his rocket launcher as his teammates did the same for their weapons.
"Well you'll - wait, what?" Merasmus said, tilting his head to the side.
"Don' ask," Tavish said, shaking his head.
"Very well!" Merasmus shouted. "Merasmus will not ask. Instead, Merasmus would like to welcome you all, fools," he said, before pausing for dramatic effect, "to Merasmus' wedding!" As he spoke, rows of white benches seemed to appear all over the clearing, while collections of balloons sprung up out of the ground. Merasmus spun in place, and when he was facing the group again, they saw that instead of his normal long brown robe, he wore a tuxedo, though his traditional skull hat still sat upon his head.
As one, the RED team shouted, "WHAT?!"
AN
Yep, that's what this has all been heading towards. I was trying to keep this part of it secret enough to be a sort of twist, while putting in enough foreshadowing that it didn't seem to come completely out of the blue. Admittedly, since most of that foreshadowing was in the chapters with Merasmus, and it's been a while since we had one of those, any foreshadowing's probably been forgotten by this point, but I'm still interested to know how you think I did. If you'd like, please leave a comment letting me know if you thought it was too obvious, or not hinted at enough, or if you thought it worked fine. I'm always trying to improve (even if it may not seem like it sometimes). And I'm sorry this ended up being another talking-only type chapter. Anyway, thanks for reading, especially if you bothered staying to read this note at the end!
*Random note: I got the name Heikin from typing "Average" into google translate. I think it's the mathematical definition of average (as "mean" also got the same result), but it works pretty well, especially since it kind of sounds like "hiking" which is basically what they're doing.