"What do you three Outsiders want here? Seeing the three of you together is suspicious. Especially you, you look like you're about to melt."

That was what Reimu said as the three of us came up the stairs to the Hakurei Shrine. The sun was shining brightly overhead, casting stark shadows that looked like pits in the ground. One of them was shaped like a girl in a wildly unseasonable trenchcoat.

"Don't worry about me, I'm just fine like this in the summer," Renko panted, liar that she was.

"We're here to -mmph!"

"Hold on Sanae, just a minute," Renko said, reaching out to cover the priestess' mouth. Sanae continued to make muffled noises underneath Renko's hand.

"Nothing much going on today, Reimu, we're just here to visit the shrine and pay our respects, same as anyone else."

Reimu glared over at Sanae, then back to Renko, crossing her arms. "That's pretty suspicious. Why would you even come here for that? Wouldn't you all go to that Outsider shrine?"

"We go to both. This is Japan, nothing wrong with multiple gods living in harmony."

Reimu grunted. "I've heard from Keine that the three of you are often seen hanging out in the village. What are you plotting together? If you start talking about exchanging shrines or something stupid like that again, I'm exterminating you. Humans or not."

"We're not plotting anything. We're just friends who hit it off, like you and Marisa. You don't think Marisa's up to something every time she comes here, do you?"

"Only about half the time for her. Whatever. It's too hot for this today. If you're going to leave a donation, go ahead. If you make me have to exterminate you, I'm going to do it twice as punishment for making me have to move when it's this hot out." Reimu threw up her hands as she said this, turning aside to let us pass and going back to her sweeping.

As soon as she did, Sanae threw Renko's hand off her mouth, exclaiming "I knew it! The weather is weird here too!"

"How is it weird? It's just sunny. That's normal in the summer."

"Just ignore her, she's being silly," Renko said with a fixed smile as she reached out again and grabbed Sanae's face, pinching thumb and forefinger into either of her cheeks. "Sanae, may I have a word?"

The two of them put their heads together. Renko seemed about to speak, then stopped herself and waved frantically to me, beckoning me over. I tried to suppress my sigh as all three of us huddled together in the heat.

"What is it, Renko?" Sanae whispered.

"We're trying to solve this Incident before Reimu, right?"

"Oh, right!"

"Well, she doesn't seem to have noticed that anything is out of the ordinary yet, so just play it cool and don't give away any info."

"Oh, I see."

"Reimu never investigates an occurrence unless it affects her directly, so as long as it stays nice and sunny here, we have a head start. Just leave this to me."

"Right."

"What are the three of you whispering about?" Reimu asked, peering at the three of us side-eyed.

"Just Outsider stuff, you wouldn't get it. While we're talking though, it really is kind of hot here. Have you been getting a lot of sunshine lately?

"Almost nothing but. It rained for just a little bit earlier today, but it was over in a minute. I'll start to worry about a drought in the village if this goes much longer. You guys know something about the weather though, don't you."

"Well, you know what they say, Reimu, summer weather's always changing."

"They say that about autumn weather." Reimu declared flatly. "You guys are being even more suspicious than normal. Are you plotting something with the Scarlet Devil Mansion?"

"The Scarlet Devil Mansion? Why them?"

"Because they're suspicious too! Remilia tried to cover the whole world in fog, then three days ago, Patchouli came by mumbling about something weird."

"Patchouli? She came by herself? Not with Remilia or Sakuya?"

Reimu turned and called into the shrine. "Hey! Marisa. Was Patchouli alone when she came here?"

The door linking the main room of the shrine with the room behind it slid open and Marisa stepped through it. She was wearing just a pair of bloomers and white cotton undershirt, and fanning herself with a paper fan. Compared to Renko's ridiculously inappropriate coat, she looked much more comfortable, though almost a little distressingly so, considering she was walking around in just her underwear.

"Oh, Renko, Merry and the mountain priestess. That's the most visitors this shrine's seen all month."

"You don't need to mention that. When Patchouli came by here was she alone? Do you remember what she was talking about?"

Marisa waved the fan busily. "Yeah, it was just the lazy purple homebody, which is kind of rare. She was goin' on about somethin' that made no sense, like always. Seriously though, Reimu, why is it so damn hot here?"

"Because it's summer. That's when hot happens."

"It's not nearly this hot back at my place. I'm gonna head back as soon as my clothes are dry."

"Of course it's not hot at your place, it's always drizzling in that forest, right?"

"Has been for almost a month now. I'm glad I got to dry off here, but this is too much, there's not even a breeze."

The three of us shared a glance while Reimu and Marisa talked. Hakurei shrine was baking in the sun, the Forest of Magic was awash in drizzle, and Moriya shrine was seeing a steady downpour. At this point it was hard to chalk these observations up to the weather merely being "unpredictable."

"If Patchouli's coming out here without Sakuya, that is pretty suspicious. Are you three sure there's nothing going on?"

"We're innocent. It's been a long time since we've seen anyone from the Scarlet Devil Mansion," Renko said. "You can go ask them yourself."

"Yeah, maybe I'll stop by the library on my way back. To investigate."

"Alright, I'll leave the investigating to you. It's too hot to be going out in the sun."

"That's probably a good idea, Reimu." Renko said with a smile. "Other than the heat, anything else been going on recently?"

Reimu tilted her head, thinking back for a moment. "Not much, earlier today Yuyuko came by for a visit."

"Yuyuko? From Hakugyokuro?"

"Yeah, she was complaining about how much it's snowing there, but I chased her off. I don't want to hear anything about snow from her. It even started snowing here when she came by. It all melted as soon as she left though."

Snow. In July. I glanced over at Sanae, but she quickly shook her head, indicating that she didn't know anything about it either.

"Whoa, wait, Yuyuko came here too?" Marisa asked, crawling out onto the veranda beside Reimu.

"What? Did she go to your house too? I didn't know she even knew where that was."

"Me neither, but it started snowin' out of nowhere early this mornin' and then down she came. I thought I had slept clear until winter or somethin'."

"Hmmm, now she's suspicious too. Maybe she's gathering all the winter up in the Netherworld this time."

"Ooo, ya think? Maybe we can go bag ourselves some winter youkai and bring 'em back here to keep cool."

"It's summer though, it's supposed to be hot. Just go and catch the ice fairy who lives near your place if you want that."

"It's not hot enough to want ice at home. Maybe you're hoardin' all the heat here. If you just gave me a little, we'd both be just right."

"Well then, go find Suika and make her get all misty. That would be a little cooler, right?"

"Oh, that's a nice idea. Where is she, anyway?"

"Huh, now that you mention it, I haven't seen her in a while. I wonder where she went?"

"How unreliable, she up and vanishes right when we need her most." Marisa flattened herself on the veranda, stretching out shamelessly to lay on her stomach.

Renko crossed her arms and nodded. "Alright then," she declared. "Our next destination is either the Scarlet Devil Mansion or Hakugyokuro. Thank you very much for that information, Reimu."

"Wait a minute, you guys are investigating something, aren't you? And what about those donations?"

"Ah, sorry Reimu. Trade secret."

"That's suspicious. Too suspicious! Especially you two. Renko and Merry. Always right in the middle of any Incident. Maybe if I were exterminate you preemptively, they'd stop happening."

"You're giving us too much credit, Reimu. We're just regular flesh and blood humans with no special powers."

"Is that why you brought in someone who isn't a regular human?" Reimu asked, glaring at Sanae.

"Who, me? I'm a regular flesh and blood human! Well sort of. I'm a flesh and blood living god!"

"What kind of human proclaims themselves to be a god? I'd say that proves you're not human, but you're way too weak to be an actual god."

"I don't want to hear such blasphemy from a shrine maiden that doesn't even do anything to gather faith for her god! That branch shrine you made was a disgrace. I ought to tear it down and build a new one myself!" She glared in the direction of the shoddily built shrine around the corner from the main building. "A shrine maiden who neglects her sacred duties deserves divine punishment!"

"Divine punishment? Not from you, surely."

"From the gods! Your shrine will collapse in an earthquake. Or be hit by a meteor, or something."

"Things like that never happen. We barely ever get earthquakes here."

Reimu glared at Sanae, who glared right back, banging her fist again one of the pillars at the front of the shrine. Before either of them could speak again though Renko cut in, stepping between them. "Whoa there, Sanae. Save it for later. We've got lots more information to gather still."

Sanae fumed for a moment, her face red with fury beneath the green sea of her hair, but ultimately, she snorted dismissively and turned away, saying. "You're right, let's go. If Reimu wants to laze around here and slack off, she can. I'm going to go gather faith instead."

"That's the spirit. Come on, Merry, let's go."

Without another word, Sanae stomped through the torii gates to the edge of the shrine's stairway and extended her hands out behind her for us to take. Renko followed behind her and waved to me.

I bowed quickly and followed along. "Bye Reimu, bye Marisa. Good seeing you again," I said quickly, before taking Sanae's hand. Instantly, the wind whipped up around us and the ground began to fall away.

Sanae flew for a minute or two in silence before turning her head back towards Renko. "Alright boss, where to now?"

"Between the Scarlet Devil Mansion and Hakugyokuro, we may as well head to the one that's easy to get to first. Let's head for Misty Lake."

"Aye-aye!"

The wind swirled and roared behind us and we began to move faster, hurtling over the trees below as our course bent northward, toward the lake. By far the most convenient thing about having Sanae as a part-time member of our agency was our newfound ability to quickly fly from location to location without hiking whenever she was around. It was a welcome change of pace for my overworked feet, especially after a full day of standing at the front of the classroom. Though, a part of me wondered though if we might eventually deserve some level of divine punishment of our own for using a living god as a taxi in this way.