Chapter 12: Hidden Truths, Obvious Lies

Back in the forest the tension was so thick that not even an oni wielding a mountain-sized knife would be able to cut it. Alex's eyes contained a wildfire of confusion as Mamizou looked at him back with that curvy little smile of hers. She did a damn good job hiding her intentions for one so elderly, Alex thought, not realizing that very age is just why she was proficient in secrecy.

The tanuki tended to her smoke pipe every couple seconds, the puffs she let out just adding to the infuriation surrounding Alex. And the captive Nue behind him was caught in the crossfire of this confrontation, whistling her way through it with an attitude as cool as a cucumber.

Eventually the disharmonious noise grated on Alex's ears and he spun around with his fist swung back and proclaimed, "Will you shut the hell up already?!"

She puckered her lips and her whistling flatlined into silence. He then grit his teeth and let out a hot hiss between them as Mamizou broke her silence to reprimand him in a nonchalant manner, "Ey ey...weren't the bindings not enough? Then you gotta go and yell at her like some misbehavin' child."

Alex whipped his right pointer finger straight beside the shoulder and narrowly glared the tanuki in the eyes to boomerrang that reprimanding right back, "I don't want to hear that from the bad parent enabling her."

"Ohohoh?" Her cheeks glistened a jolly red as she waved her cigar out and said, "Yer flatterin' me 'ere!"

His eyelids shut just a fingernail's depth apart as he wondered once again just what puppy he must've kicked to deserve this kind of hell. Then, with zero tolerance remaining, he just outright told Mamizou, "Quit getting your jollies off you old hag, and tell me how you know about that title!"

"Yes yes, guess we oughta get down to brass tacks, as the youngins tend to say." As she wiggled her pipe around to loosen unnecessary ashes, Alex's expression slumped into something that looked molded out of mud.

"What kids would ever be caught dead saying that this day and age?"

Since she seemed to be compliant, Alex crossed his arms against the chest and eased up just enough to present a respectable, neutral expression to Mamizou. After she had cleaned her pipe out and took another smoke she gleamed at the boy from the corner of her eyes and politely asked, "But ya mind lettin' my friend go first? She ain't gonna bite, promise!"

Alex growled internally and looked back. Nue's smile was so big that her eyes were shut, and just staring at it made his eyebrows twitch. So he pulled away from that unpleasant sight and snapped his right fingers up, and the roots unraveled in a second.

She sprung up and glided over to Mamizou, spinning around to perch and hover on her stomach above their right shoulder. She continued to smile and pressed her hands against her cheeks to make it even bigger. Alex tried to look at Mamizou, but kept gravitating towards Nue.

She was deliberately puffing her cheeks up to act like a nuisance, but it wasn't flying for Alex. He shook his head and then forced himself to stare at the tanuki with little recourse but to groan in a gravely manner.

Mamizou kept smoking the pipe for a few seconds, pulling it away to give him the occasional glance. At a certain point he widened his mouth and held his arms out, garnering an eyebrow raise from the tanuki before she kept going.

"Hey! I asked you a question!" Alex yelled while digging his feet into the ground.

She popped her pipe out and leaned back with percolating eyes, then twisted a pinky finger around in her left ear to say, "'M sorry, but could ya speak up? These 'ere ears of mine ain't what they used to be."

"Phoenix of Destruction. You know about it. How?" Everything he said was punctuated with growing irritation, but none of it could even tickle the tanuki's slick expression out of place.

With a few terse nods she plucked her finger out and flicked the loose earwax aside, then crossed her arms and hovered them before her stomach with an offer, "Say, how'd ya like to play a little game first?"

Alex stiffened his lower lip up and tickled the bottom of his chin, "Oh geez let me think..."

He then swung his arms out and yelled, "How about NO?!"

With a jolly, homely grin the tanuki waved her left fingers out and whispered, "Aww schucks, don't be a stick in the mud."

Alex reeled back and clenched his arms up against the chest he hissed out, "You just want to play Danmaku in some vain attempt to be hip with the new kids."

"Ohohoho! Well there ain't no survivin' the changing times lest ya keep up with the trends!" Mamizou took the boy's aggression in stride by pretending they were having an actual conversation, and flexed her vocabulary a little to get him seeing things her way, "Sides, maybe a little play will help ya vent your frustrations out on me."

"...So you're offering to be my punching bag." Alex interest had certainly been ensnared, judging from his growing smile.

"Rather violent way of putting it but sure, guess I can play the part today." Mamizou's head lowered and her glasses got a faint gleam, which when combined with her tiny smirk got Alex suspecting her intentions right away.

"Hey, you better not be trying anything funny..." He looked down and just happened to see something small and round dangling off the edge of her sleeve. It was made of glass and filled with smoke.

Her smirk got wide and wavy as she gave him a jolly laugh and said, "Yer not very well-informed when it comes to tanuki's, ain't ya?"

Alex swung his right arm up to protect his nose and mouth as the ball dropped onto the floor and shattered, spreading a thick cloud of smokescreen to cover the mischievous duo. The boy sensed nothing peculiar about the smoke and blew it aside with a gale kicked up by his arm, but the two had already vanished.

He looked around at the forest trees and saw some leaves ruffling, followed by a playful echo bouncing off the branches, "Ohoho! Think you can find me?"

"Another game of hide and seek, seriously?" Alex leaned back with a tired snarl of the lips and raised a clenched fist adjacent to his chest, "I swear if you start throwing your dirty old dentures at me..."

"Your mouth is crass, but d'you got the balls of brass to match?" Mamizou's wit was followed by the ring of a Spell Card being activated, and the declaration of its name, "Lets see how ya hold up to my 'Mischief Troupe of the Forest' in the meanwhile."

Alex turned back to hunch down, keeping his ears perked to detect even the slightest hint of the tanuki's movements. His hands were on fire, but the crackles weren't enough to distract.

"Alright, tanuki's can disguise themselves as anything, so there's no point trying to sense her energy. Sound's all I've got for now..." He took a couple steps forward and looked around. There were no signs of bullets, which was troubling, but not as much as the fact that silence pervaded the forest.

"Where are you Mamizou..." His murmuring was halted by the rapid ruffling of leaves from above, which made him spin around and look up. His vision then became mostly obscured by a sleek onyx cylinder that konked him square in the nose a second later.

His head was forced back, followed by his feet leaving the ground. Then before his eyes could close in response to the pain he had collided with a nearby tree, dislodging dozens of newborne leaves from the branches. After sliding to the ground he picked himself up and rubbed the red on the tip of his nose while his vision got wobbly.

"What. The HELL. Was that...?!" He'd find out soon enough, as that same object came swinging down from the tree tops attached to a wooden stick of indiscernable length.

He threw himself at the ground and looked back, watching the object smash into the side of the tree and break off some bark. It quickly slid back into the canopy and disappeared. Alex stood up with his jaw almost detaching as he tried to comprehend how blatantly ridiculous what he saw was in the context of a Spell Card duel.

"Hammers?! Freakin'...HAMMERS?!" His whole face turned red as he shook his fist skyward and yelled, "Hey tanuki, what's the big idea?!"

"Huh? Somethin' the matter?" She replied in a faintly ignorant manner.

"Don't give me LIP, I'm talking about your hammers!"

"Oh those? Yer raisin' a fuss over that after likely taking yer fair share of licks from knives?"

"There's a damn world of difference between throwing utensils and blunt weaponry!" Right as he said this another hammer swung down and knocked him down with a bonk on the scalp, then kept its momentum going to escape his notice.

He punched the ground with both fists and pushed right up with head swung back, throwing a kink into his spine. The leaves were rustling to suggest the perpetrator's escape, but there was no hint of the hammer's presence nor of the person wielding it.

Alex rubbed the back of his head with an energyless growl and was grateful the pain didn't even register as a 1 on his scale. But it was an 10 on his "what's got me annoyed right this moment" scale. 'Was', because Mamizou's playful attitude rubbing salt in the wound would quickly bump it up to an 11.

"They're flyin' through the air for you to dodge. Ain't that Danmaku at its core?"

As much as it pissed him off to admit it, Mamizou wasn't breaking any rules. A Spell Card did go off, the sound was there and everything. But instead of letting her have that victory, he snapped back with an unnecessarily fierce taunt, "Oooooooh when I get my hands on you tanuki I'll be turning your tail into a fur coat!"

"A fur coat in Spring? What a gaudy fashion sense ya got dere."

Alex's right eye started twitching just as not one, but two hammers came barreling down at the sides of his head. Being sandwiched by two equally powerful blunt objects left his brain rattled and a terrible ringing trapped in his eardrums, and when they were pulled away he stumbled forth a couple steps.

His senses recovered fast, right in time to hear the faint giggling of an energetic girl in the treetops, their pitch just the slightest bit higher than Nue's. He rubbed the side of his head and let the throbbing subside before getting a move on, refusing to be a sitting duck for the tanuki to play around with.

"So what's the deal tanuki? Too scared to come and face me yourself so you sent your kind after me instead?" He kept his head on a steady pivot as he engaged the enemy in conversation.

"Don't get yer britches in a bunch over nuthin'. Its just a game, there ain't no need for me to stretch my legs too much 'ere."

The forest carried her voice around so much that it was impossible to pinpoint its exact location. Alex could now see why she made it her perrogative to ambush him here. She was the master of this domain, and he was but the lowly court jester stumbling around for her amusement. And her perception of how events played out was so precise that she mocked him for his realization the very moment it clicked.

"You still got four other senses, maybe you'd have better luck tastin' where I've been, ohoho!"

But perhaps because his brain had gotten rocked so hard he wasn't thinking normally, Alex didn't bother with insults. He instead dug his heels into the ground and stopped himself by swinging his arms out and leaning out, filling his with the air compressed down around him. Then with confidence he told Mamizou an undeniable truth, "Who needs senses when I got elements?!"

He raised a circular part of the ground and used it to swivel around while thrusting his arms at the canopy. Dozens of air bullets blew off tree branches and leaves, but not enough to get a clear view of what devilry was going on up above. So he doubled the pace and output, becoming a human tornado.

Soon after he did that though the air bullets started getting ricocheted right back like baseballs, clocking the sides of his body and slowing him down. When he had clear visibility of his surroundings he halted in place, entangled by the leaves that got caught up in his rotation, and looked over his shoulder. A hammer came flying in aiming for his back, so he leapt up and flipped backwards, hoping to catch a glimpse of his enemy.

But instead another hammer came barreling straight down onto his face, planting his head square in the ground and erecting the rest of his body upright like a telephone pole. That same kind of giggling came through for a longer time, but once Alex pulled himself free and spit the dirt from his teeth the person responsible made a made dash out of there.

Those hammers may not have been real, but they still wore him down as much as getting hit by one-hundred Danmaku would. Their existence was also simply illogical. There's no such thing as a hammer not made of metal or stone, Alex knew deep down, even in Gensokyo. Yet he couldn't sense them.

"Dealing with those thugs' is a waste of time. I need to find the head honcho of this operation..."

"Where could I be, where could I be? Hmmm, am I in the trees? Perhaps I'm amongst the leaves? Ain't a doubt I could even be under yer knees?"

Alex instinctively looked down, but then swung back up and declared in embarrassment, "S-Shut up! And stop reading my mind already!"

"Eh? I'm just doin' general chit-chat to pass the time. No need to get so persnickety."

"Maybe I wouldn't HAVE to be if everyone in Gensokyo stopped treating me like a child!"

"Yer so used to being at the top of the food chain ain't ya? But is it so wrong to wind up back at the bottom and be forced 't rely on yer basic instincts for a bit?"

Alex paused and closed his eyes for a moment, deflating his body into some mangled slump as he gave her words a brief moment of his time, "I can't tell if she's mocking me or not..."

With that tiny bit of self-reflection Alex also began to recognize that perhaps what was infuriating him the most about all this was how the tanuki greeted him. He'd been recognized as the Elemental Overlord before. That was annoying, but not that big of a deal. But that other "title", that horrible, undignified trio of words...It got his blood boiling like magma.

That's the kind of greeting you give to someone if you hate them, but nothing about Mamizou's actions suggested malicious intent. She was playing her game with the dangling snippets of truth used as the perfect bait to ensnare the boy into galloping along to the beat of her belly drum.

Biting his teeth and swallowing his pride like a solid stone, Alex squirmed for a moment before he asked "Will...will you actually give me the answers I seek when this is over?"

"Eh? Told ya to speak up before didn't I? Ohohoh, age is a terrible thing."

With a rough scoff, he chose to interpret her joking around as her saying "Yes". Perhaps he did it out of desperation, but he didn't care. The circumstances were leading him to believe that the Cosmos Drive being here held a double-meaning. This wasn't meant to just close out Shina's journey, but his as well. Mamizou Futatsuiwa, out of the incalculable trillions upon trillions of people in the universe, may very well hold the key to the identity of the mastermind who had troubled the two's search for the Cosmos Drive.

Now his heart couldn't remain stiff with rage. It rushed with an undying yearning for the truth, and as he swung his left hand out and parted his legs he looked to the trees and declared, "I'm going to get the answers one way or another. So brace yourself Mamizou Futatsuiwa, because I'm coming to find you!"

"...Ohohoho! Watch that fire in yer eyes, lest ye turn this forest to ash."

A hammer swung down from the trees like a gulliotine towards his face, but he threw himself to the right and rolled off the ground to escape it. Another hammer came falling right away, but he flattened on the ground just so it'd graze over his back. Then he got up and turned around, where the previous hammer hovered in place and then changed its course to come at him again, with the possibility of it intersecting with the other being 100%.

Alex leapt back and let them collide, where the vibration shook some leaves from the trees. He threw a couple air balls up to distract his aggressors and then ran ahead to hopefully shake them off. But only a second into his sprint a glance back showed the hammers in pursuit side-by-side. He cut to the right and rounded the tree trunk, only for the hammers to make the turn on the dime just as fast.

He rounded the tree a couple times with the hammers keeping pace, then stopped and pounded the trunk with his elbow to rattle his pursuers and escape again.

"Come on, there has to be some way to find Mamizou..." Alex looked back at the hammers coming after him again, and had to silently compliment the two's lack of tiring. But he couldn't be on the run forever...

"Ya need to think of something that'd make you feel as relaxed as you were after that massage. THEN ya'll be in the proper mindset to dodge Danmaku..."

Alex's eyes widened and he instantly stood still and closed them. Time seemed to slow to a crawl to allow his thoughts the chance to focus on what was necessary. His chest puffed as he filled his lungs to full capacity, pushing out all stress with a single breath as the forest went silence and the image of Shina became focused in his mind. He didn't lose focus to lucidity and could feel the tranquility spreading out across his body.

The hammers got close to his head, but he ducked forward in the nick of time to avoid them. Taking in a deep breath to keep himself in this state of mind, he was able to better sense the movements of the weapons by feeling the air being pushed as they descended. He swiveled his body around without moving his feet and kept them from coming in contact, and then stretched the reach of his senses across the entire forest.

That was when he caught the whiff of something foul. Smoke, the smoke of the tanuki's pipe, and it was coming straight from the north. He widened his eyes and said "Found you!" before zipping straight along the thin trail of smoke, rising right up under the tree it came from to find the tanuki lounging with her back against the tree.

She widened her eyes and Alex smirked, then drew his sword to slice the branch down at the end without touching Mamizou. The branch and her dropped to the ground, but her tail was firm and fluffy enough to cushion the fall. Alex landed and pointed the tip of his blade at her face to declare triumph, "And that's why smoking's bad."

The tanuki twirled her pipe around between two fingers and smirked as her body started to break apart into a familiar distortions of static, "Yer right..."

As Alex's face turned a perplexing shade of white 'Mamizou' turned back into Nue, who was using her trident in a slant to act as the tanuki's tail while a tiny stick had been disguised as the pipe. She winked and poked her tongue out to say, "But that's pretty much your fault to begin with."

Before he could speak the cold touch of metal adhered itself to the back of his shoulder to freeze him up. He peered back and Mamizou was behind him with a sword shaped like her leaf hat that had smoke seeping from the tip. A cold sweat dripped off of the boy's left brow and trickled down his face, dropping only once he swallowed a wad of saliva.

She still had that playful look in her eye, and it was reflected in the surprising choice of words she chose to say upon tilting her head right, "Congratulations, looks like you've won."

She whipped her sword back and it transformed back into a pipe. Or maybe it became a pipe. The mystery of its true form was the least of Alex's concerns at the moment. He grit his teeth, closed his eyes and scoffed tiredly at the tanuki, "You have a pretty strange way of 'congratulating' someone."

Nue floated right up and poked her head over his shoulder to whisper in his ears, "Hey hey, you found who you were looking for, it just wasn't the real deal!"

She pulled away before Alex could throw a nasty glare at her, then kicked back with her arms folded behind the head and said, "So hey, its been a lot of fun but I think I should go let Hijiri know what's happening now. Bye!"

She was off faster than a fly swept up in a hurricane, and to that Alex could only whisper 'Good riddance'. He then looked to the tanuki and asked as she lazily smoked her pipe, "So is there going to be anymore fooling around, or...?"

"That bit of persevering at the end dere was pretty impressive, not gonna lie," She poked her head up with glasses glistening and said, "But ya never did figure out all the tricks to my Spell Card."

With a garish brush of the hand out Alex closed his eyes and sighed the answers out, "Nue used a Seed to disguise herself but still smelled like smoke from earlier, then you had your tanuki thugs wield those strange hammers from the shadows while you hid out of sight."

Mamizou closed her eyes and shrugged, "Eh, two outta three ain't bad."

"Does it matter, really?" He groaned.

"Course it does. Those two 'ittle scrappers took the time outta their busy day to come and play along. At least give 'em the chance to say 'Hello'." Her 'old hag' style of pleading wore him down in an instant, but only cause he wanted to move things along.

"Fine fine, I'll say 'Hi' to your tanukis."

"Ehh? Who said anything about workin' with my fellow kin on this? No no no, the two I'm talkin' bout have a more vested interest in ya being here than you realize," Leaving the boy confused for now Mamizou turned back and pinched her thumb and pointer finger in the mouth to release a shrill whistle, "Fun's over for now you two! Come on down!"

The tree leaves ten feet away shook up and two figures dropped down, neither of whom Alex could've possibly guessed would be here, especially not together. The girl on the left was a long blue-haired child with a haughty posture and cocky 'take on the world' sort-of smirk. Her white button-up blouse with a red bow on the collar, blue dress, brown-lace up boots, sleek white apron with a rainbow-pattrerned shark link around the rim, and black hat decorated with two peaches and leaves made her come across as someone of great importance. But honestly, she's just a delinquent who got into Heaven through familial connections. As Alex could bother to recall, she was...

Tenshi Hinanawi ~ A Celestial Too Caught Up In Mischief

The other girl looked even younger than Tenshi, but had a more mature air about her...Though that may be due in part to her lack of visible emotions. With her mouth opened no bigger than a pin needle, this young gal with waist-length lavender hair stared straight at the boy with blank eyes of a similar color. She was dressed well with a blue plaid blouse adorned with four buttons of different shapes, while her legs were covered by a salmon colored, pumpkin-shaped skirt lined with holes that alternated between smiling and frowning faces. Floating by the side of her face was a mask made to look like a strange puckering lipped monkey. Alex couldn't explain why he felt sad looking at this girl, but it didn't distract him from recalling her name.

Hata No Kokoro ~ Youthful Heart Divided Amongst 66 Masks

There were tons of questions to ask regarding how and why Tenshi was here, let alone why Kokoro would be too, but Alex just flung his arms at his sides and decided it wasn't worth the effort to ask even one. Instead he just kept staring at the two, noticing that they were carrying around those strange hammers from before. Tenshi had hers swung over the shoulder, while Kokoro kept hers clenched tight in both hands and lowered to cover part of her face.

The Celestial didn't start off on a good foot as she blurted out with zero tact, "Hey tanuki, is this guy really the Elemental Overlord? I can't tell him apart from the rest of the garden variety humans in the village..."

Alex didn't think a response was warranted for the most blatant attempt at getting him riled up since he arrived in Gensokyo, so he just crossed his arms and started squinting at the hammers some more. Mamizou chuckled and replied, "Looks can be deceivin', I should know. Ya did yer part well though Ms. Celestial, as did you little Kokoro."

The boy's gaze happened to glide over to the tsukumogami, who flinched and hugged the hammer tighter. After a big shrug Tenshi commented in a tone as flat as her chest, "Yeah yeah, I guess so. But is this really all there is to it after all the crap that-"

"Just leave the rest to little ol' me. I'll be sure to compensate ya handsomely for yer time," Mamizou's interruption was rather unlike her, but she kept speaking along as though it was natural conversation, "Oh! But before ya skedaddle."

She whipped her pipe up and with a quick circular flick sat back and looked at Alex's dumbfounded expression as the hammers turned into tightly-knit bundles of the most basic spherical Danmaku ever. As they were dissolving, a single strange seed plopped into the two's open palms.

"Think ya can give those back to Nue?"

Tenshi squeezed hers tight and swung the fist out before the chest before saying, "Fine, but then Kokoro and I are outta here!"

The Celestial patted the frozen stiff tsukumogami on her back roughly twice before she reacted with a muted gasp and turned her head. She coiled her fist and socked Tenshi in the side, but still didn't say a word. Alex was worried he was to blame for that, for his hostile demeanor was surely venom to a Youkai of emotions.

But it'd become no concern of his in a moment, for the two parted ways with him and Mamizou by flying right out of the forest. After that the tanuki sat right down with legs crossed and her bushy tail wrapped up by her side. She patted the ground and quietly insisted, "Sit, sit, we got plenty to discuss."

He was compliant to a fault, and rested his keister down just a couple feet away. With his hands planted on both knees he looked the tanuki square in the eyes and watched as she rested her pipe down atop one leg and leaned forward, asking him in no broader terms, "Well, whatcha waiting for? Ask me anything."

"Anything?" Alex raised his brows, having a knack for knowing when something sounded too good to be.

But rest assured, Mamizou was there to alleviate any concerns with little more than a chuckle to suggest hesitation, "Yes yes anything. S'long as I know the answer at least..."

"Fine, since you're being so generous Mamizou..." He crossed his arms and fiddled around with his fingers for a bit while thinking of where to start. After clicking his tongue twice he came up with an obvious topic.

"...Remilia, Kanako, Eirin...I could understand them knowing about me. But what's your deal?" Alex thrust his right pointer finger out hard enough to kick up a gale that matched his growing ferocity on the subject, "Actually scratch that...! You know WAY more than they did!"

"Ohohoho well..." Mamizou picked her fallen pipe up and wiggled her lips into a cheeky smile, "For once in 'er life that vampire knew when to keep a secret."

"Remilia knew too?" He didn't know what was more hard to fathom. That, or the fact that Remilia actually knew when to keep her yap shut.

"The whole lot of 'em knew actually. Along with Ms. Celestial, and little Kokoro, and the whole Buddhist and Taoist gang too..."

"Stop, just...stop..." Alex waved his hand out and looked away. His head started to hurt, while his skin broke out in a rash of sweat, gripped by an undeniable sense of paranoia. He had avoided hearing that name for so long, but here it was as commonplace as something you'd read in a newspaper article. Why? Why? WHY?! That agonizing screams of confusion terrified the boy.

"...Lets take two steps back before we take another forward eh?" Mamizou reached out and rubbed the boy's back a little to try and soothe his pained muscles, backing away only once even a hint of his gaze reached her.

His eyes were still shrunk with a crippling sense of dread sweeping his mind, but somehow being in the tanuki's gentle presence made everything tolerable enough to continue. She flipped her hand out and used her leg for support, posing a question of her own, "This may seem a tad outta the blue but...how's your time in Gensokyo been treating ya?"

He crossed his tensed arms back up and got to thinking, but his answer came about in seconds, "...Gensokyo's a nice place with bizarre as hell rules and an even more bizarre cast of characters..."

With a long-winded sigh he whispered under his breath, "But...I'd be hard-pressed to say that anyone I've met's actually a bad person. They're just...different than what I'm used to dealing with."

"Cause yer not used to people givin' ya much lip back all the time I can imagine..." Mamizou chuckled before taking a quick smoke break, leaving the pipe wiggling around to accentuate her point, "Not sayin' nothin' bad about yer character either by that. Just means you've got spunk, and plenty to spare."

"...How do you feel about Gensokyo?" Alex asked in a soft voice. Mamizou froze up amidst readying her pipe and put it down with a drier chuckle.

"Hows about that...Don't think I've ever been asked that during my time 'ere. Well..." Mamizou perked her head back and looked at the forming night sky, "If I had to describe it in one word, it'd be 'Paradise'."

"...Paradise."

"Yep yep, Paradise..." She closed her eyes after lowering her head, "Think of it in Youkai terms. Ye get to live a life of leisure whenever ye please, there's plenty of wine and booze to go around, ye can fight without fear of dying...Hell, ye even got a fresh supply of food packed in wholesale if ye happen to be the carnivorous type."

She leaned in and opened one eye with a slyly stiff gaze to whipser the last bit, "And the best part? No need to worry about going 'Poof!' just cause some humans suddenly decided yer old hat."

"Save for the eating humans bit, I can see what you mean. Shit, if that's meant to be a sales pitch to take residency in Gensokyo, then its sure as hell working on me!"

"Not to say Gensokyo's perfect. Too many youngin's these days trying to take control...The Moriya Goddesses, Ms. Scarlet, hell I like the two, but Hijiri and the Crown Prince ain't any better about it sometimes...Then there's the Tengu, that recent upstart Ok-"

"Ok ok, I get the point. So there's a power dispute in Gensokyo. Can't be any worse than the shitshows back on Earth." Alex put it mildly.

"Only from the perspective of the Youkai, I reckon. The poor humans don't have much luck in the matter though, since they're frankly defenseless."

"...And I guess Reimu's not much help there."

"Ohohoh, peggin' her as unreliable that soon eh? Well...I suppose I ain't in any position to disagree, to some extent..." Figuring the boy was curious ahead of time, the tanuki leaned back and rustled her tail a little to continue on, "There's a lotta folk in Gensokyo fightin' the good fight, so the Hakurei girl can't be faulted for being a little lax at times. Why, not with the likes of Marisa, Sanae, Yukari-"

Alex's body stiffened up with a paralyzing chill and his heartbeat worsened. Mamizou paused and curled her lips, then rested her right hand under her head and raised her right brow all the way up, "Now that's curious...who'd tell ya enough about 'that' person to get you ready to jump outta yer britches like that? Could it perhaps...be the same person who told ya my name ahead of time?"

Half-assing a grin even with his teeth clattering Alex tried to feign ignorance in his response, "W-What are you-"

"Oh hogwash, I weren't born yesterday kid," Mamizou shut him up halfway through and thrust her pipe at his face to get him reeling back, "Nobody woulda mentioned my name since you arrived besides my good ol' friend Nue, and she didn't. So ain't that the most curious little thing that you are familiar with who I am?"

Feeling backed into a corner, Alex bit his teeth down and whispered out deaf profanities for a bit before thinking, "S-She figured that much out on her own? W-What the hell..."

Squeezing his eyes shut, he crossed his arms and had no choice but to be honest, "L-Look...its complicated."

"No doubt it is, but there ain't a need for me to prod ya for more info. Some thing's are just better off remaining unknown..." She went back to smoking her pipe, giving Alex a chance to catch his breath before she covered the more pressing matter.

The mood shifted to a more ominous tone as even Mamizou couldn't hide behind a playful facade for this one. She gleamed the boy in the eyes with a deadpan expression and asked him straight out, "So, that whole bit about how I knew ya by both yer names...Needless to say, that nasty witch is at the center of it all."

Alex pursed his lips shut and let the tanuki had her time in the spotlight. She didn't have to give a warning, for her shift in attitude told him that he needed to brace himself for a bit of a long-winded tale. Once nice and comfty by her tail, she put the pipe down and started from the top.

"It began quite a few years back, thinkin' it was after that whole Religious War silliness? Yeah yeah, then! Well if ya need to know anything about Ms. Celestial, its that she loves to cause mischief. Needless to say, news of little Kokoro's Incident reached the high heavens...specifically her ears, and-"

"W-Wait a second..." Alex interrupted to ask, "You're...not going to tell me about that Incident first?"

"Ohohoho, what's the point retreading ground yer probably quite familiar with already?" Her response dumbstruck him into silence, so she could safely proceed unimpeded.

"Now where were I...Ah yes! So Ms. Celestial descended to Gensokyo and tricked little Kokoro into pulling some nasty pranks on its denizens, shifting all their emotions all willy-nilly. Shoot! I reckon Gensokyo woulda been irrevocably ruined had Kokoro not caught on to Tenshi's trickery."

"...Those two seemed pretty buddy-buddy though."

"Yeah that they 'ere...Ye ever see them then ye can ask them yourselves why that is, but needless to say it wouldn't-a been possible had I not hammered into Ms. Celestial's head that she had this little thing called a 'conscience'..."

"But yes. The Incident was resolved, no fuss no muss right? ...Except, there was one peculiar moment that stuck out strongly amongst the rest of that very, very rotten mess."

"...Yukari."

"Ohohooh, you catch on quick. Yes, that nasty ol' woman ambushed Tenshi during a time Kokoro was left vulnerable and tried to convert the little menreiki to her side. Tenshi thwarted her efforts, but the witch in all her devilry later tried to play the incident off like she came down with flu...Bah! Phooey to that!"

"Anyways, after the Incident got resolved I happened to have a run in with her in the forest by the Misty Lake. It was our first encounter, and we basically just shot the shit for a bit...Until the end. She left me with a warning that day...that two beings would descend upon Gensokyo, and one of them...a boy yer age, would leave our land in ruin."

"...And just how many years ago was this?" Alex dreaded to ask.

"Doubtful our timelines match up but on the off-chance they do..." Mamizou pondered on this for a minute and then answered casually, "Five years ago, I reckon?"

"F-Five years ago...?" Alex's face turned a dreadful pale shade, and his skin felt as cold as ice, "I-I wasn't even the Elemental Overlord back then...What...what the hell is going on here..."

His head grew woozy and shook even with a hand supporting it, but Mamizou chose not to be delicate with these matters and continued unimpeded by a guilty conscience, "Some time passed afterwards with Hijiri and Miko adopting Kokoro as their daughter to help her emotional growth. Oh, and Tenshi of course became friend with 'er for real. But the shady of Yukari loomed over the poor menreiki at all times, leading me to come in conflict with her on numerous occasions."

"She kept throwin' out these crazy stories about her plans for the future and the dangers you possess, and frankly I find myself a fool for botherin' to listen to any of them...But there was one thing that's stuck to my mind since then."

"What?"

"A prophecy of sorts...She claimed that 'When the moon burns red with flames, and the judge of the dead's been held accountable for her only crime, then the destroyer shall make himself known,'" The tanuki shrugged her shoulders and had a good laugh, "Hohoho! The only moons I've viewed lately are those pearly whites in the night sky, and there surely ain't no way you've been to see that lecture lovin' fool yet. So guess that means yer off the hook, yeah?"

"...No, no no no. Keep going with this story. You're leaving a lot out, I can feel it."

Mamizou settled back into place, shook her head, and gave her tongue a couple regretful clicks, "Sheesh, when'd I become so see-through? Yeah, yer not wrong. There's about a third of the story left, and I suppose it'd be worth your time to know the ending anyways..."

"To say that witch got desperate would be a bit of an understatement...See, she had this whole idea that we'd listen to her whack job boogieman's tales and make preparations for battle. But when we didn't, she took matters into her own hands by comin' up with this crazy convoluted plan to kidnap Kokoro."

"Huh?"

"I'm talkin' makin' her sick, trickin' the tengu and Underground to go to war-"

"Hold up hold up...Why Kokoro?"

"...Boy even I dun think I could confidently explain that to ya with all the time in the world available to me. Lets just say that witch valued her as a precious lynchpin to keep you in line, and leave it at that."

"A girl like her...?" Remembering that terrifyingly meek expression that the menreiki seemed to have now had a different context, "Is that why she was so...scared of me?"

But Mamizou kept on going regardless of what appeared to be on his mind, "We all had to launch a massive rescue operation to get Kokoro back. Not just me and Ms. Celestial, but Hijiri and Miko's groups...And hell, even the Scarlet Devil crew got wrapped up in this mess."

Before Alex could speak a syllable she interjected, "Again long story, you'd have to ask Remilia for the details."

"Yukari was no joke though. She certainly earned her title as Gensokyo's Phantasm...But ultimately it was Kokoro and Ms. Celestial's teamwork that won us the day. Though...the experience was quite harrowin', so much so that it changed the tune of us non-believers."

"Yep yep...We reckoned that if a 'Phoenix of Destruction' did indeed come to our world, we'd take matters into our own hands..." Mamizou lifted her head up with a more genuine smile and said, "And let 'em prove to us whether he deserved to be labeled as such or not."

"...Beg your pardon?"

"Ya heard me. I'm sayin' yer no Destroyer. I knew from the moment ya didn't hurt Nue that ya got a firm set of morals on dem shoulders of yers..." She closed her eyes and bobbed her head a few times with a chipper tone of voice, "So if anyone's gonna give ya lip for that dumb title, then frankly I'll just tell 'em to shove it."

"Are you serious? ...Just like that?"

"None of us ever put much stock into the paranoid ramblin's in the first place. Just enough to bother to test ya, certainly but..."

"Well that's all well and good, but..." Alex couldn't shake one fact of the story that had initiated this particular topic in the first place, "What about...Yukari?"

Mamizou leaned back onto her tail and took a light puff of the pipe, remarking with a casual shrug of the shoulders, "Eh who cares? Hi-ho the wicked witch is 'dead'..."

"W-What...? What do you mean she's 'dead'?"

"Ya didn't seriously think we just...walked outta her realm scot-free didja? When Ms. Celestial took care of that witch, she took care of that witch, catch my drift?"

"You sure don't seem certain about that..." Alex noted with his voice sounding ever-more grim.

Mamizou hunched forward a bit and balanced her pipe out on one hand, then closed her eyes some more as though preparing to drift to sleep, "I wish I could be but...There's been some curious circumstances happenin' after her so-called 'death'. Like how I've actually been seein' her around a few times since then."

"...Then she isn't dead..."

"Easy to assume that but like, yer not gettin' it...I'm not the only one been seeing her around. Everyone involved with that rescue operation's caught a glimpse of her at least once since then, but I've been the only one finding somethin' odd with that. And it ain't like I'm goin' crazy either...Little Miss Hakurei's been chattin' with her too."

Alex closed his eyes and laid his chin against the chest to get deep in thought, "...So what's your theory here?"

"Wish I could enlighten ya, but I'm at too much of a loss of words on this one..." Mamizou humility in the matter was very regretful, but she had something else to say in regards to the matter that Alex may find interesting, "So if ya don't mind me askin'...Why're you so hung up on that witch anyways?"

The boy growled for a good few seconds out of a hesitation to respond. The tanuki's been pretty up-front so far, but was it worth trusting her with what he wanted to say? There were a lot of questions unanswered about how deep her involvement was in these affairs, so it's be regrettable if it turned out she was working with Yukari to undermine him...But that just came across as paranoid ramblings in his mind, so upon lifting his head back up and looking Mamizou in the eyes he divulged all he knew.

"For roughly the last two years Shina and I have traveled the universe in search of this object called the Cosmos Drive. But ever since day one we've been followed by the shadow of something wicked. This 'mastermind' has used their abilities to corrupt the world's timelines in various ways...All because they want to see me suffer. Given the evidence of your story, it'd seem like Yukari IS that mastermind, but..."

"...Buuuut?"

It was unbearably difficult to squeeze the right words through his mouth at that moment, "But I'm just...having a hard time believing that she'd be able to do everything she's done without attracting the attention of some higher power. Especially since she's 'dead'."

"Hrrrrm, I do wonder about that. I do reckon it'd be tough, even for her..." Mamizou took a long puff from her pipe and then wagged it out while giving advice, "I wouldn't throw out the possibility that yer right though. Just...keep that at the back of yer mind for now."

"I'd rather you not take this so lightly, Mamizou..." Alex's arms fell into a slump as every muscle in his body had ended up wound up tight.

"I ain't. This is as troulbin' for me as it is you...I'm just sayin' that you got other priorities to attend to, ya?"

"The Cosmos Drive..." Alex grabbed onto his knees and remarked after a long dejected sigh, "We haven't even gotten any damn leads since we arrived."

"Hmmm...then hows about I lend you a hand or two?" Mamizou waved her hand out in a sincere gesture of good-will, catching the boy by surprise.

"What? And just how would you be able to help?"

Perking up with her jolly, wavy smirk the tanuki boasted her talents with not a hint of shame, "Got a lotta fellow tanuki who'd work pretty well in getting into tiny spaces no human'd dare try and crawl into. Not to mention I've familiarized myself with these lands pretty well...So if you'd be willing to throw a little trust my way, I'd help ya find that Cosmos Drive in no time at all."

Alex blinked a couple times then laid a hand on his chin while turning away from Mamizou, "She does raise a valid point. Her tanuki crew has to at least number a hundred, and that's not even getting into how many other Youkai she's likely got on her side..."

He twisted his head back to peer at her from over the shoulder, noticing her grin seemed to be mischievous. With a grumble of hesitation he asked her upfront, "So what's in it for you, Mamizou?"

"Hope ye ain't accusin' me of wanting to snatch up that object for myself there..." The tanuki barked in an offended manner before straightening up and insisting, "Doubt that thing'd be much use to me anyways, from the sounds of it."

She waggled her left hand out and remarked, "But I'm gonna have to ask ya to cough up that artifact that led you here to begin with. Otherwise I'd just be runnin' around blind."

Some alarms were going off in Alex's head, all of them blaring loud and obnoxiously, but not enough for him to not see things from a logical standpoint too. So as rude as it may have been, he addressed Mamizou's request with his usual bluntness, "I'll leave the matter of trusting you in Shina's hands. You've been pretty helpful, but I'm still keeping my eye on you, tanuki."

"Ohohoho, you've learned a few things after all. Yep yep, ya always gotta keep a weary eye out for tanuki's at all times," She then stood up and brushed the dirt off the back of her bloomers with a sweep of the tail, "Well if that's all settled, whaddya say we head on over to the temple? Night's comin' quick and all, and I'm sure yer friend's just as worried about ya as you are of her."

Alex got up right as the tanuki twirled around and started walking along her merry way. He kept his arms crossed and lingered behind for a bit as he thought over everything she had said.

"Mamizou and some others learned about the 'Phoenix of Destruction' from Yukari Yakumo...But if she 'died' then would it still have been possible for her to influence events in her favor? I remember learning on one of the worlds that the 'mastermind' had a parasol, which would fit Yukari to a 'T' but...But what if that's just what the 'mastermind' wants me to think? Maybe the 'mastermind' wants me to go after Yukari to fulfill their own devious goals..."

With a tight and bitter 'Tsk!' he couldn't understand anything he just thought, "This is goddamn ridiculous...! Do...do I really have no other choice but to just wait and see what happens? How can the 'mastermind' feel so close and yet so far away? ...All I know for sure is that I can't tell Shina about this, not yet. Not until I know for certain what's going on with Yukari and her involvement with the 'mastermind'..."

Next Time: A Much Needed Break