"Yes, you. What happened to your normal red and white look? Aren't you hot up here in that coat?"

"Ah, sorry, there must be some mistake. I'm not who you're looking for. I'm not a shrine maiden at all, just a regular old boring human. My name's Renko Usami."

"What? Are you sure you're not the Hakurei miko?" She asked, bending over to peer closer.

"Sadly, yes."

The girl blinked twice more then put her hand on her chin and grumbled. "I suppose you don't look much like her. You have a very similar aura though. Your temperament is nearly identical."

"Really? Is that true? Hey Merry, is my aura like Reimu's?"

"I'd never thought about it before, but you do sort of float through life, making things up as you go. You generally get along well with strong youkai too... Oh! And you're wildly arrogant!"

"Was that supposed to be a complement? Sanae, what do you think, am I like Reimu?"

"Renko! She might be your grandmother or something! You said you came back in time 80 years, right? What if you came back to save her life and ensure that you're born, somehow?"

"That's impossible! My grandmother was born in Tokyo! In 2001! She was still healthy when we left in 2085!" Renko shook her head in dismay.

Sanae was off about the details of course, but she was surprisingly close to the truth. We had never told her about Renko's great aunt Sumireko, or how we had fallen into this world after exploring her room. Right now, in the Outside world, Sumireko would have been in elementary school. I had met her there a few years ago, just after the end of the Spring Snow Incident. It was impossible to think that she might somehow be the same person as Reimu.

"Anyway, if you're looking for Reimu, she's probably still mourning her broken home or else flying around looking for the person responsible and exterminating everyone in her way. I just run a detective agency in the human village. Merry there is my partner and this is Sanae Kochiya, a wind priestess with the Moriya shrine on Youkai Mountain and our part-timer."

The girl with the peach-ornamented hat sighed. "Oh. Well, whatever. You're all here to defeat me aren't you? Maybe you can keep me entertained until she gets here then."

"That's right!" Sanae answered, stepping forward. "For the honor of the Moriya shrine and peace of Gensokyo, I will defeat you, even if you are surprisingly easy-going for a final boss. Merry, Renko, please stand back."

"Oh, I'm fighting this girl first? I guess it doesn't matter to me. Alright then." She smiled cheerily and reached out, as if to grab something from the empty space in front of her. Her hand closed around empty air, and then, where there had been nothing a moment before, there was... something.

The way she held it in her hand, and the overall impression I got when I looked at it was that it was a sword. Holding it before her now, it definitely seemed sword-like, but I couldn't describe its shape. It seemed at one moment to be a scimitar, or the next a hooked sickle or a moment later a straight and heavy blade with sharply curved protrusions running along its length. To my eyes, it seemed like she was somehow holding the concept of a sword itself: a shifting, formless boundary that contained the conceptual space of properties like sharpness and rigidity. The whole thing looked like it was made of semi-solid scarlet fire, and it bristled with lethal intent.

"I'm Tenshi Hinanawi," she said with a carefree smile. "A celestial and inhabitant of this heavenly realm. I don't particularly care who you are or why you're here, but please try and at least put up a little bit of a fight, alright?"

Sanae slid her right foot back, shifting into a ready stance as she eyed her opponent. Tenshi just stood smiling, both of her hands resting atop her sword-thing which stood, point down, upon the ground. I turned to Renko, then reached out and grabbed her sleeve, pulling at her as I looked around for anywhere we could take cover, but she brought her arm forward and shrugged me off, instead taking a step forward to stand between the two duelists.

"Ah, just one moment, if I might interject. Miss Tenshi, before you begin can I just confirm a few details? You mentioned you were the one to destroy the Hakurei shrine, yes? I take it that means you're also behind the recent spate of unusual weather?"

"Renko!" Sanae pleaded with exasperation. "You can't interrupt the final battle! Where's your sense of drama?"

"Sorry, Sanae, this'll only take a minute. Now, miss Tenshi, if you would?"

"You're more or less right. This is the Sword of Scarlet Perception. It reveals and saps the true nature of a person, making their temperament leak out of them and manifest as whatever sort of weather corresponds to that person's nature. It then gathers that nature as a scarlet mist to increase its own power. That earthquake earlier was me testing how much power it's absorbed so far. With what I have now... if I were to strike at the right place, I could shake all of Gensokyo, I think."

"I see, I see. Very impressive. And if I may ask, what would your purpose be in doing that? Is there a reason you want to shake Gensokyo to pieces?"

In response to that question, Tenshi leaned forward, putting her weight on the upturned grip of her sword and slouching. "Life in the heavenly realms is boring, alright? All anyone wants to do up here is drink and sing and dance and study and work and repeat that over and over and over forever. I had taken to watching the mortals in the earthly realm out of boredom, and I saw humans and youkai having fun enacting and resolving Incidents."

"So you just..."

"Made an Incident of my own to join in? Yeah! But I waited a whole month and no one came to stop me, so I had to make things move a little faster. I figured flattening the shrine should get some attention, and sure enough, more people have been coming up ever since. Apparently not the Hakurei miko yet though."

Her tone in announcing this was matter-of-fact and utterly shameless. I could only imagine the fury it would provoke in Reimu to find out that her shrine had been destroyed so callously and for such a senseless reason. To think that she was now preparing to unleash even more havoc soon just for the sake of her own amusement was terrifying.

"That's awful!" Sanae said, pushing her way around Renko. "I'll stop you before you can do something so horrible again! You won't be around long enough to see Reimu!"

"Oh, that's good! I like that. Get angry! I want to see your very best. If you can't stop me, then all of Gensokyo will be destroyed!"

I honestly couldn't tell if Tenshi was playing into the role or sincerely embracing villainy. If she was being earnest, she was a far more reprehensible criminal than anyone we had met thus far.

Sanae's reaction to her unrepentant malice was unexpected. She stood silent for a moment, her head down, seemingly concentrating, then looked up suddenly, eyes shining with excitement. "I love it when the villain is so reliably evil! The recent trend of having all of the bad guys have sympathetic backstories just doesn't work when its time to to face the final boss! If I can defeat someone like you, Moriya's prestige will be off the charts! They'll write songs about me in the village!"

"Oh, this is all for your glory now? I suppose I shouldn't expect much in the way of righteousness from a human from the earthly realm. It's fine either way though. If you want to defeat a truly black-hearted villain then show me what you can do! I'll engrave the mark of your foolishness on your body with this scarlet sword!"

With that, both girls kicked off of the ground at the same instant and rushed towards eachother. I barely had time to realize that Renko and I were completely unprotected and still in the open. I turned to run, but suddenly felt myself lifted by my armpits as my dress was pulled up and backward. My legs dangled uselessly as I rose into the air. Looking over I could see Renko beside me struggling at her collar as she was lifted too.

"Whoops, let's get you two out of there, ish dangerous!" The voice had come, thunderously loud, from above us. Craning my neck around, I saw Suika, a dozen meters tall, pinching both of us by the backs of our clothes between her fingers as she lifted us out of harm's way. She took a wobbly, stumbling step away from the the battle, clearing a huge distance with a single stride, and moving us well away from the fight and into a dense grove of peach trees.

"Whoa! Suika, I didn't know you could get this big!" Renko called up to her.

"Ish handy for carryin' stuff." She said simply, as if it were a common event. Having stumbled with us into the trees, she began to shrink, causing us to rapidly descend to the ground. As she contacted smaller and smaller, the ground rushed up to meet us and we landed in a heap as she resumed her normal form, much smaller than either of us.

As we climbed to our feet Suika smiled drunkenly up at us. "If you think her Inshident is annoyin' wait 'til you see the way she fights. It'll get bumpy over there, so let's just have a drink over here an' watch. Only snacks are peaches tho."

Before I could think to object, Suika was pouring sake from a earthenware jug into a tiny stone cup and pressing it into my hands. "By th' way," she continued. "You shaid the Hakurei shrine was destroyed."

Renko nodded as she took a cup of her own. "That's right, earlier this morning."

"Ish Reimu okay?" For all of her rough edges, Suika seemed genuinely concerned.

"Well, she wasn't hurt, but she's pretty upset about losing her home. I can't imagine she can afford to rebuild."

"Wow, well tha's one way to get yourself a fight." Suika enthusiastically took a long pull from her gourd. "Maybe after things are done here I'll go back down and fix it up for her."

"What, the shrine? I don't think it's really in a fixable state."

"Then I'll make a new one. I owe Reimu a little for lettin' me stay and hostin' all o those fights and parties. You two too. If your house gets flattened jus' call me and I'll come make you a new one."

It was a generous offer, though personally I'd rather see a house built to survive an earthquake than wait for one to hit and rebuild after.

Renko paused for a moment, her cup raised halfway to her lips, then turned her attention from the flash and rush of the battle visible through the trees down to the little oni. "Suika, did you know Tenshi was going to cause an Incident? Did you try and stop her?"

"That wouldn't have been very friendly of me if I did, would it? Folks got a right to act out if they wanna. That'sh Gensokyo's way."

"Well maybe, but isn't causing a major earthquake a bit much?"

"Not compared to hidin' th' moon, or coverin' everything in flowersh or the like. Thish celestial's a pain, but solvin' stuff like that is Reimu's job. I'm an oni, not a miko."

"Huh, I guess so." Renko nodded, seeming to accept it, but the logic was incomprehensible to me. I guess a powerful youkai like Suika would be fine in the event of a major disaster, but most youkai still depended on the village for sustenance and recognition. Surely a disaster that threatened the village's existence would be a problem for them...

As if predicting my thoughts, Suika responded. "'sides, if it were gonna be a real problem, then Yukari'd be here. If she's not, then it can't be that bad."

"The youkai sage? Does she often intervene directly?"

"Only if she has to. Or if she feels that Reimu can't or won't. Maintaining the balance of Gensokyo is everythin' to her."

Renko offered her cup to Suika, who poured her another shot. "The youkai sage, huh?" she muttered to herself. "I still haven't ever managed to meet her."

"Really? You've been here for yearsh now, right? And you come by the shrine almost as often as she does."

"Yeah, but she seems determined never to appear in front of me. I've never even seen her at a distance."

"Huh. Tha's weird. It'sh Yukari though, you can never know what she's thinking."

"Renko, you met her at Eientei, didn't you?" I interrupted.

"She was there, and I was there, but I couldn't see at the time. It's like she knew."

"Oh, right."

I had only met the youkai sage on two occasions myself. Once at Eientei during the Endless Night Incident beside Renko, and once, terrifyingly, in a place I couldn't even give a name to, just after the conclusion of the Spring Snow Incident. We had seen her shikigami, Ran Yakumo, much more often. It was hard not to conclude that she had been avoiding us from what we had heard from others.

"I've known Yukari a long time, but there'sh no figuring her out. She does things that don' seem to make sensh until much later, an' she's always got a plan. If she doesn't want you to see her, she must have a reason. It'll be one that only she knows though. Maybe it has somethin' to do with you bein' from the Outside world."

Renko and I looked at eachother. What reason could she have for avoiding us? I knew Renko still believed that she had somehow been responsible for our arrival in the world, which otherwise would have seemed to be doubly impossible, crossing both the Great Hakurei Barrier and 80 years of time. At this point I had become so used to living in Gensokyo that I no longer thought about it. The Outside world was something I remembered, but it seemed more like a memory of a dream to me. Gensokyo was the reality I lived in now.

"I wonder what she could be up to." Renko mused.

"If she was the one who brought us here and she had a reason for doing so, don't you think we would have found out what it is already, Renko? It's been five years."

"Maybe she can't tell us. She might be avoiding contact to avoid changing history or creating a paradox."

"I don't see how she could. We're cut off from the Outside world, nothing that happens or that we learn in Gensokyo will ever effect the history of the Outside, right?"

"So you think she just let us come into this world of hers and is content to let us wander around and do what we like here? That doesn't sound likely either. She's more protective of her creation than that."

"Well. I don't know what to tell you, I don't know what she's thinking either. Oh! Have you tried these peaches yet, Renko? They're amazing!"

"No, give me a bite. And try this booze Suika's got, it goes down easy."

I extended the peach I had pulled from a tree for her to try and sipped at my own cup. The liquor was strong, but sweet and smooth. Moreover, it paired wonderfully with the peaches. Even someone like myself, who wasn't much of a drinker, would find it easy to get smashed on something like this.

Through the gaps in the trees we caught the occasional glimpse of a burst of danmaku or one of the duelists as they swooped and soared, locked in battle. From the area at the bottom of the hill, the sound of rending earth and howling wind resounded, vying for dominance. It may not have made for the most pleasant background music, but it was still a lovely afternoon as we sat in the dappled sunlight, enjoying our meal as well as eachother's company.