Thus, it was decided that we would make for the peak of Youkai Mountain by air, flying with Sanae as usual. The summit was far higher than our usual destination of Moriya shrine, however.

"Do you think it's safe to fly that high? Aside from the winds, there's also extreme temperatures and altitude sickness to worry about, right?"

"Aw, we don't have to bother with any of that, Merry!" Sanae said cheerily. "We're flying with divine winds! All I have to do is say a little prayer for good air, and all of that will be taken care of."

"That sounds awfully optimistic, are you sure it's safe?"

"That's why they call it a miracle!" Sanae smiled as we continued to rapidly ascend.

We were able to fly as far as her shrine without my ears so much as popping, but as we continued to climb, things seemed to get a bit more difficult. Once we cleared the tree line and had only the bare and rocky surface of the mountain beneath us, the force of the winds buffeting us from all directions began to increase. The bubble of air both supporting and surrounding us remained intact and tolerable, but Renko and I had to again clamp our hands to our heads to keep our hats in place. Ever since we had drawn close to the shrine we had had to contend with driving rain, but at this altitude the wind whipped so fiercely that the rain was almost horizontal. There wasn't the faintest hope of keeping anything at all dry at this point. As we continued to press onward, the winds grew even more intense, stinging our faces and chafing our skin even as the roar threatened to deafen us.

"Sanae, isn't this a little too much wind?" Renko shouted over the gale.

"It's not me!" She shouted in reply. "I keep doing the same thing, but the wind keeps coming!"

"Then there's got to be interference. Maybe this is the effect of someone else's temperament?"

Renko craned her head around, trying to scan the skies while simultaneously squinting against the wind. Just then an intense wall of air pressure washed over us, braking our progress and nearly knocking us off our feet in the air as a tremendous boom thrummed through the sky and a single black shadow dived past us from above. As we struggled to maintain our balance, the figure rose back up, spiraling through the air before unfurling her night-black wings to hover, flapping, before us.

"Ayayayayaya. It's the Moriya miko and the two detectives again, isn't it? You're well outside of your territory now, aren't you, humans?" Once more it was the familiar form of Aya Shameimaru that was fluttering before us, shaking her head with a look of open suspicion on her face.

"Oh, it's the tengu reporter! Good to see you again," Sanae chirped. "Was all of that wind from you? How do you manage all that with such a short skirt? We're going up to the peak of the mountain today! Have you been up there? Do you want to come along?" It all came out in a single breathless torrent, with no time to respond to one question before the next was posed.

The winds had begun to kick up again, swirling cyclonically around us, blowing the raindrops in a chaotic scramble, first one way, then the other. "You're trying to reach the peak in winds like these? I wouldn't even recommend that for a tengu. But you three are definitely not tengu, which makes you trespassers into this territory. You should be thankful that you ran into me and not one of the border guards. I might just let you turn around and go home alive."

Sanae blinked in surprise as she tried to steady herself, subtly adjusting the flow of air around us. "What? why would you turn us away? We're friends now aren't we? You come to feasts at our shrine all the time."

"We respond to summons for treaty discussions and land-usage negotiations at your shrine, they're not social visits."

"Well then, miss newspaper, why don't you invite us into tengu territory? You have permission to speak on behalf of the Great Tengu, don't you?" Sanae asked with an innocent smile. I wondered if many beings could have survived making a request like that of the tengu.

"Ayaya. That was a temporary delegation of power. I can't do something like that now. What were you even planning to do at the summit of the mountain?"

"Oh! We were..."

"That's a trade secret, I'm afraid." Renko shouted, cutting Sanae off. "Client confidentiality and all that, you know. As a reporter, I'm sure you understand the need to protect sensitive information and its sources."

"Really? That's very suspicious. Is mountain-climbing suddenly becoming the latest trend or something? It's a very annoying trend for us tengu if so."

"Oh? Why do you ask that? Have their been others trying to reach the summit recently?"

"Yes, it's been busy. That's why I'm here -to try to figure out why so many people have been coming up and how to stop them. Yesterday a maid from the Scarlet Devil Mansion came by here, and before that there were reports that their wizard was spotted at the peak. After that we increased the guard, but then lady Ibuki came through and everyone scattered. The lady of Hakugyokuro was spotted too, but the guards turned her away."

I turned to look at Renko to find her already deep in thought, her chin tucked to her chest. If Sakuya, Patchouli, Suika and Yuyuko had already come through here, then we must be on the right track. Did that mean that the ringleader of this Incident really was someone from the heavenly realm?

Renko's mind was apparently already running on a different track though. She turned and spoke, just barely audible over the rushing winds. "Aya doesn't seem to know about the Hakurei shrine yet. If she did, there's no way she'd be here instead of there, covering the news." I nodded.

"Well, if you've already let all those people through to the top, what's the harm in letting us through?" Sanae asked, shouting to be heard.

Aya merely folded her arms and shook her head. "You know I can't do that. It would mean my head if my superiors found out. I'd rather not fight you while you've got two detectives clinging to you like that, but I'm not letting you through either. Why not just turn around before you get hurt?"

"What if we were to pay you for our passage, Aya?" Renko shouted. "In the only coin of real value to the tengu: information! How'd you like a real scoop?"

"I don't take bribes." Aya answered resolutely. "But if it were a story big enough to demand my attention, I suppose I wouldn't have time to watch this pass. It would have to be a very interesting story though."

"How about a major Incident at the Hakurei shrine? An unprecedented disturbance!" Sanae asked with a broad smile.

"what kind of 'major Incident?' If you're just trying to draw me away with a fake story you realize there'll be hell to pay for your shrine, right?"

"I would never tell a lie! I swear on the names of Lady Moriya and Lady Yasaka, the Hakurei Shrine has been destroyed."

Aya seemed shocked for a moment, looking from Sanae to Renko to me then back again. "Is that a fact? Well that does seem like the sort of story that I would need to confirm with photographic evidence. Very well then, I think there's somewhere I needed to be about ten minutes ago. I'm not responsible for anything that happens to you if you keeping going up though, including any other tengu you run into."

"Awesome! Thank you miss tengu!" Sanae cheered, smiling as Aya turned to dive down the mountain.

Aya froze in the midst of her contortion, turning to Sanae in annoyance. "It's Sha-mei-maru. Please try to remember my name, miss miko."

"And I'm Sanae Kochiya, the wind priestess, not the 'Moriya miko.' Please try to remember that, miss Shamei."

"It's Shameimaru!" She shouted before disappearing in a streak of motion, diving toward the plains far below at a steep, nose-first angle. As she hurtled into the distance, the rain and wind that had been slashing at us gradually lessened, and our flight once again became stable. Sanae sighed then gave both of our hands a squeeze before beginning once more to ascend.

"Sanae, you and Aya seem to have a bit of a history, eh?"

"I wish we didn't. She's got a terrible drinking habit, and the first time she came to our shrine I got so drunk I was sick for two days. She kept putting bigger and stronger drinks in front of me the whole night. I try and avoid her at parties now."

"I dunno, I think Aya appreciates having someone to spar with and you both use wind powers. You might be a good match."

"Ugh, don't ship me with a tengu. I'm a living god, we're completely incompatible."

"This is Gensokyo, Sanae, is there really that much difference between a youkai and a living god here?"

"Of course there is! That's like asking if there's any difference between a pin and a drill. They both make holes, but one's way cooler! Mazinger would never use a pin!"

With that statement, delivered as an unassailable and self-evident truth, Sanae pressed on, accelerating even as we climbed. As we neared the summit, a layer of clouds drew closer and closer, covering us in tendrils of cold mist as the visibility dropped. For the second time in a week, I found myself envying my partner's trenchcoat, despite how ridiculous it had seemed for her to be wearing it just earlier today. With how drenched I was from the rain we had flown through, I soon found myself shivering despite Sanae keeping the air surrounding us a comfortable temperature.

"Renko! Merry! Look! That's the scarlet cloud!" Sanae suddenly called out, trying to point despite both of her hands being busy supporting the two of us. Sure enough, as we ascended beyond the bounds of the layer of more typical clouds, a single, enormous and almost entirely vertical scarlet cloud towered above them, seeming to reach up forever, into the glaring sunlit expanse of the heavens. The cloud was thickly opaque and swirling, a slowly rotating column of shockingly red vapor. As I watched it churn, the sound of a thunderclap washed over us, resonating in our stomachs with the profound depth of its rumble.

"This is getting exciting," Sanae said, tugging at our arms, "it's like we're about to visit Laputa for real! I had egg on toast for breakfast this morning, so we've got everything we need! We'll be ready in 40 seconds!" Then, with a twist of her head, Sanae changed the course of the winds propelling us and we banked to the left, bringing our path in line with the crimson cloud. Without a moment's consultation or hesitation she sped us forward, humming the theme song from the classic Ghibli anime as we plunged into the churning scarlet mist.