I heard later that it was Aya Shameimaru who had finally guided the girls here. Upon hearing that Reimu and Marisa had invaded the mountain, she had apparently taken it upon herself to challenge them, intentionally lose, give them an escort to the shrine as their prize, then hang back with a telephoto lens and wait until the danmaku broke out. For this decisive and cunning action, which took place while the leaders of the tengu society were still deadlocked in indecision, she was later highly praised. That was the version she told us, anyway.
At any rate it was just past 17:00 when we heard a commotion from outside. The sun had nearly finished setting.
"They're here. You two stay inside. Don't come out until its over." Sanae said, then turned and walked out the door with a nervous look on her face.
I waited a beat before I turned to Renko. "I take it you plan on going?"
"Of course, now is the time for the negotiator to step in. I'm going to go settle this religious war before it can become an Incident!"
"If Reimu starts shooting, I'm going to run and leave you behind," I said, as I climbed to my feet to follow her into the hallway. I had no idea what sort of a gambit Renko might have in mind to negotiate with, but going with her to see would be less stressful than waiting alone for her to come back, even if I ended up having to run from danmaku. We left the outer shrine building and walked through the grounds, which were shrouded in the soft darkness of twilight. It wasn't long before I heard voices.
"So you came all the way here. Did you want to join up with us right away then?" Sanae asked, brightly.
"This really does look a shrine. I guess there is another shrine in Gensokyo now besides mine."
"This is the Moriya shrine. We moved it to Gensokyo along with the lake."
"You moved the entire shrine here along with a lake? From the Outside world? That's pretty flashy."
"That's the power of this shrine's god. If you join your shrine with ours we could take over the whole mountain. All the faith of Gensokyo would be ours and we could bring peace to this world."
"If you do something like that you'd just be inviting complaints from the myriad native gods of Gensokyo. You'd never hear the end of it."
"Hey! You're that shrine maiden that tried to take over the Hakurei shrine that Reimu was talkin' about, right?" This voice was from Marisa, sounding like she had just caught up to the other two.
"I'm Sanae Kochiya, a wind priestess. I guess you could call me something like a shrine maiden. You're Marisa Kirisame, aren't you?"
"Huh, how do you know my name... no wait, I know. You've met Renko and Merry right? You Outsiders have some sort of sneaky plan in the works don'tcha? Well, we're the heroes from the foot of the mountain, here to punish any naughty gods with wicked plans."
"We're doing this for the good of Gensokyo too though. Gensokyo will become weak if it continues in its current state of lessened piety. The power of miracles and the gods could even disappear from this world completely."
"What are you talking about? That could never happen, there are gods all around us. Gensokyo's brimming with them. We don't need your help to restore people's faith."
"Sounds to me like you're exaggeratin' to try to gin up a justification. Just the sorta thing a villain'd do."
"It seems you're determined not to listen to me. Perhaps actions would speak louder than words. Should I show you the awesome power of the gods' miracles then?"
By the time Renko and I rounded the corner and came to the plaza in front of the raised stage, the tension had risen dramatically. The silence was drawn taut as a cord and it seemed that at any moment it would snap, releasing a torrent of beams and bullets to light up the night.
The one who broke the silence, however, was Renko.
"Okay! Very good! That's some impressive posturing from both sides, very intimidating there, but I think that's enough for now!" She called, stepping forward from beside me and raising her voice to carry to the three of them.
"Renko?" Three voices spoke in a unison of confusion as all three of the hovering girls turned to look at my partner with dumbfounded expressions.
"Yes, it's me," she said with a deep bow as she removed her hat. "Thank you very much for that warm reception. I'm here in my role as chief investigator of the Hifuu Detective Agency to negotiate a settlement and defuse this religious war before it can tear Gensokyo apart."
"Religious War?"
"That's right. This budding conflict between the Hakurei and Moriya shrines, competing for worshippers and faith in a pointless and destructive clash of old against new. In order to avoid a fruitless conflict that would be of benefit to no one and promote peace in the land, I've appointed myself as your negotiator. Think of me as a peacekeeper, here to spread love and peace to Gensokyo through hard-nosed negotiation. If the Incident refuses to come to the bargaining table, then the bargaining table must come to the scene of the Incident, right?"
"What the hell are you talkin' about? This is Gensokyo, speak Japanese." Marisa exclaimed, staring blankly at Renko as she floated beside Reimu.
"Ah sorry, that was perhaps a bit too modern of an approach. Let me put it this way: this all started because Sanae here, as a representative of the Moriya shrine came from the Outside world and demanded that you transfer operation of your shrine to her, right Reimu?"
"That's right! She barged in like she owned the place and told me to clear out!"
"No I didn't! I was just trying to bring the power of Lady Yasaka to a shrine that had already lost nearly all of its worshippers!"
"Yes, that was the offer. In exchange for restoring the faith of the land and increasing the number of visitors to the Hakurei shrine, Reimu would have to enshrine the deity of the Moriya shrine, Kanako Yasaka. Reimu, I take it this is a condition you are unwilling to accept, is that so?"
"I don't know anything about her god. Of course I wouldn't let her take over my shrine!"
"But your shrine is practically empty already! There's almost no divine presence there at all!"
"Please leave any characterization of the shrine aside for the moment. Miss Sanae, do you consider taking complete ownership of the Hakurei shrine to be an absolute necessity?"
"Huh? Well, no, not particularly, but it's not very big and it's almost unused, so we'd probably need to tear it down to make a suitable place of worship anyway..."
"So rather than possession of the Hakurei shrine, your goal is simply to unify the religion of Gensokyo under the stewardship of the Moriya shrine's practices, yes?"
"Well yes, but do that we need to first raise awareness of the blessings Lady Yasaka can offer to the villagers, and to do that we need a shrine that they can visit."
Renko proceeded rapidly, firing off questions and clarifying statements with such fluency that no one had time to object.
"Alright, excellent. We've now clarified and summarized the key points of contention. Sanae, you want to use a shrine at the foot of the mountain to gather faith and Reimu you don't want your shrine taken over. Now comes the negotiation. Reimu Hakurei!"
"Me? What?"
"What if rather than having your shrine taken over you were to build a secondary altar on the grounds of your shrine and allow an artifact of Lady Yasaka's to be enshrined there. You would still retain control and ownership of your shrine in that case. What would you think of that?"
"I can manage my shrine's problems on my own. I don't need the blessings of some mysterious Outside world god to get worshippers."
"So you admit that gathering more faith is also in line with your own goals then?"
"Well, if that faith comes with worshippers and donations..."
"Excellent. I see that there is room for us to conduct negotiations here. Now Reimu, you want to gather faith, but don't want to give up your shrine. Sanae, you want take over the Hakurei shrine but are willing to assist or compensate Reimu for her loss. Both parties have something the other wants, so I think we can find a compromise that everyone can be happy with if we're willing to consider a rather outside-the-box alternative."
"What kinda' alternative do you mean? And how is any of this any better for us than just blastin' this shrine off the mountain and callin' it a day?" Marisa asked, crossly.
Renko smiled, the same troublesome grin I knew all too well. Flipping her hat between her fingers she placed it back on her head.
"It's simple. If its impossible for the Moriya Shrine to take over the Hakurei shrine, then we can achieve the same ends in a way that's amenable to both parties by just doing the reverse."
"The reverse?" Everyone including myself was staring at Renko with their mouths agape.
"All we have to do is dedicate the shrine at the foot of the mountain as the new Moriya shrine, and use this one as the new Hakurei shrine!"
