Sanae lead us happily around the shrine grounds, rattling off a memorized speech that wouldn't have been out of place coming from any tour guide in the Scientific Century. She showed us the raised stage adorned with numerous paper lanterns in front of the main shrine building and gave us a brief lecture on the enormous shimenawa before leading us around to the worship hall in the back. As we walked, Renko whispered in my ear, confirming something I had been suspecting: the layout we had seen so far was identical to that of the Akimiya, the lower autumn shrine, one of the four shrine complexes that, put together, made up the Suwa Grand Shrine we had visited in the Outside world.

It was a difficult paradox to square. The Suwa Grand Shrine existed in the Outside world, and yet here it was in Gensokyo, going by the name of Moriya shrine. Certainly, I had never heard it mentioned if there was a period near the beginning of the 21st century in which part of the Suwa Grand Shrine had disappeared. Clearly, then, the shrine that had existed in our world could not have been transported to Gensokyo, and if it hadn't then than what did that make this place? A clever replica? An imitation? Renko spotted me puzzling it over in my head as we walked and gave me a nudge.

"Don't worry about what this place is or isn't too much just yet, Merry," she whispered. "We don't have enough information to make a deduction and we wouldn't want to get so caught up in the what-ifs we miss something important. Besides, adding more mysteries to the ones we already knew of just makes this more interesting, don't you think? What is the nature of the Suwa Grand Shrine that appeared in Gensokyo and why is it now called the Moriya shrine? What happened to the Suwa Grand Shrine of the Outside world? This Incident is going to be a good one, I can tell."

I let out a small sigh as Renko walked ahead of me to catch up the Sanae, eyes shining with excitement. I wondered if there was anyone else in this or any other world who would get so excited at the thought of being caught up in an Incident. For that matter, I wondered if this even was an Incident. Something strange and new was going on to be sure, but it wasn't as if the goddess of the Moriya shrine was standing, cackling, atop the peak of the mountain, covering the whole of the world beneath in a scarlet mist or the like.

"By the way, miss Sanae, what sort of things do people come to this shrine to pray for?" Renko asked as she caught up to the priestess.

"Anything you want! Lady Kanako... er, I mean Lady Yasaka is the goddess of the whole mountain and everything on it, so anything on the mountain is within her domain. The kanji for Yasaka means many slopes and the goddess provides as many blessings as there faces to the mountain." Sanae spread her arms out and whirled around as if to encompass the whole breadth of Youkai Mountain. She seemed to be ceaselessly energetic.

"There are amulets and prayers you can buy for just about anything. I expect prayers for a good harvest will be our best sellers, but we have prayers for success in marriage, prosperity in business, health and long life, pain-free childbirth, protection from evil spirits and traffic safety! Oh, I don't suppose the last one will be very popular in Gensokyo though."

"Well maybe not, but there are already numerous gods worshipped here that count those other domains among their own. Do you think arriving here with a goddess who can offer anything and everything will cause some strife among the native gods who already call this place home?"

"I doubt it. Shinto had always held that Japan is a land of uncountable myriad gods and spirits co-existing and sharing the land with mortals. Even other religions mesh without conflict. Lots of people will honor their ancestors on Obon, then celebrate Christmas and enjoy Hallowe'en all in the same year."

"And yet, despite that, you're trying to take over the Hakurei shrine. Why, I wonder?" Renko asked, taking a step ahead and turning so she could look Sanae in the eye.

Sanae paused a moment and looked down. When she replied, her tone was completely unfamiliar, lacking all of the joy and excitement we had been hearing from her all day. "Even gods aren't immortal. A god who can't gather faith fades away as the people forget them. A shrine without a god present is just an empty hut."

The mood of the tour had suddenly changed. Renko seemed about to say something more, but Sanae turned away from her, saying "Let me show you something different. There's one more place here that I think you'll find very special."

As she came back towards me, the smile on her face was just as it had been when we arrived, as bright and cheerful as if nothing had changed. I glanced at Renko for only a moment before we turned to follow her.

-.-.-.-.-

What Sanae showed us was a lake. We had had to go around the back of the worship hall behind the main shrine to an animal trail that wound around the side of a slope and out of sight of the grounds. There, after a short descent, the dense trees suddenly gave way to a surprising scene.

Here, half way up a mountain, was a pristine alpine lake. Just by looking at it you could see it was larger than Misty Lake which lay far below. The river that flowed down from here must later become the magnificent waterfall that marked the edge of the tengu's territory. From there it flowed through the ravine that wound through the forests of the foothills before reaching Misty Lake and then eventually becoming the water source for the village and the farms beyond.

As awe-inspiring as the natural beauty of the lake was though, it was also home to an impressive man-made sight. Rising out of the waters of the lake in two precise rows were a series of immense wooden pillars, each taller than the last, standing proudly erect and seeming to float upright on the calm surface of the water. If this Moriya shrine really was the same as the Suwa Grand Shrine in the Outside world, then these pillars would be...

"Whoa, the Onbashira..." Renko said, looking on in awe.

"Ah, you really do know your Suwa traditions. Yes, these are the pride of our shrine." Sanae smiled as she reached out to touch one of the closest pillars, which stood on dry land on the shore of the lake, embedded in the ground and towering overhead.

The Onbashira were immense sacred poles, each carved from a single enormous fir trunk. Towering overhead I thought back to the festivals I had heard about. Every six years a new Onbashira was constructed by teams of celebrants who ascended the nearby mountains to secure the tree by hand then recklessly rode it down the slope of the mountain in a display that was half a religious ceremony and half a test of courage. It was not uncommon for people to be injured during the proceedings and there was even the occasional fatality when one of the trees flipped over or rolled out of control. The Onbashira festival was a unique and signature practice of the Suwa Grand Shrine and, as far as I knew, the pillars could be found nowhere else in the world. It seemed undoubtable that the Moriya and Suwa shrines had once been one and the same.

"These pillars and this lake are as much a part of this shrine as any of the buildings or practices," Sanae said. "When we came to this world, the lake came with us."

Renko nodded to herself, seemingly convinced of something. She flipped her hat, which she had taken off as she looked over the lake, back on to her head. "I see, I see." she said, turning to Sanae. "That has to be a record-breaking omiwatari."

Sanae nodded, smiling. "Yes, one for the history books, if anyone from the Outside world had been able to record it."

"Omiwatari?" I asked, interrupting. "That's the so-called 'path of the gods', right? The long, jagged trail from one side of lake Suwa to the other that forms in the ice when the lake freezes every year."

"It's a divine miracle the demonstrates the presence of the gods in our world, a path carved into nature itself by the footsteps of divinity," Sanae said, bowing her head.

The omiwatari was another unique feature, not of the Suwa grand shrine this time, but of lake Suwa itself. Its presence here left no doubt that not only the shrine but the lake itself had come from the Outside world. It beggared belief. Here in Gensokyo the impossible happened on an every day basis of course, but to transport an entire lake along with the grounds of the shrine and its inhabitants between worlds? Even the Scarlet Devil Mansion had likely been constructed here in Gensokyo according to Renko's theory, but this lake and the shrine above it would have constituted an area far larger than that, along with an unimaginable mass of water and stone. Could something like that really happen?

As I pondered, staring across the mirror-bright surface of the lake in awe, I rested my hand against one of the Onbashira. The moment I did, I felt a telltale tingle. My eyes, which had been absorbed in observing the natural beauty of the scene, shifted their view, revealing a fine but complex network of wards and boundaries interwoven between the upright pillars like thread on a loom. Just looking at it, I could see that the pillars formed a powerful boundary, enclosing the space between them. But for what purpose? To keep something in, or to keep everything else out? My eyes, as always, didn't tell me that much, giving me just enough information to spark a dangerous and troublesome curiosity, but never enough to allow understanding or justify prudence.

"Hey Merry, what's wrong? You're staring into space again."

"Oh sorry. It's nothing. Just a little tired." I gave Renko a significant look. She knew better than to ask me about it in Sanae's presence, but nodded faintly to me.

"If you're feeling tired, why don't we head back to the shrine. We can have some tea to warm up."

Still smiling, Sanae turned on her heel and began walking up the slope toward the shrine. Renko and I stopped to take one last look at the lake before following. Its calm surface was like a mirror, reflecting the beauty of the heavens back from Earth.

-.-.-.-.-

If this shrine and this lake were really the ones that had come from the Suwa region of the Outside world, which seemed at this point to be the inescapable conclusion, then what had happened to the those places back home? Renko was strolling up the path with an unconcerned expression on her face, but surely her worries were the same as my own: once more we confronted with the possibility that the world we had left was no longer proceeding in the way we were familiar with.

Suwa Grand Shrine was here in Gensokyo, that much seemed undebatable. If it had disappeared from the Outside world to come here, then who knows what else might have changed?