After seeing Iku off once again, we headed for the Hakurei shrine, or the place where the Hakurei shrine used to be, at any rate. Our intention was to talk to Tenshi, but seeing as Iku had flown off to the west this time rather than the east, I wondered if she had already confronted Tenshi or if maybe the celestial had fled to somewhere else. Sure enough, when we arrived at the grounds of the shrine, Reimu answered our question by saying simply:

"Tenshi? She's already left for the day."

Reimu was sitting on a simple stool in front of a temporary shack that had been built beside the rubble of the shrine. She was sipping tea from a chipped cup that she rested on a sawn-off chunk of a log she was using as a table. I supposed that this was where she was living for the time being. We had come by Reimu's shrine plenty of times before, but somehow, seeing her like this, living out of a tiny shack with only what she had dug out of the wreckage for furnishings seemed inappropriate, like we had walked in on her while she was dressing or something.

"What did you two want with her?"

"We just had some questions about the nature of the heavenly realms. Standard mortal curiosity about the beyond," Renko explained, dismissively.

"Stop sticking your nose into Incidents. Warning you hasn't worked, so how about a threat: if your interference causes more problems then I'm going to exterminate the two of you too."

"We're just a pair of regular humans, Reimu."

"There's nothing 'regular' about either of you, humans or not." Reimu said, fixing me with an untrusting stare.

Renko watched Reimu's eyes bore into me for a moment, then clapped her hands, saying "Oh! That's right. I wanted to ask you Reimu, have you seen the youkai sage lately? Either before or after the earthquake?"

"Yukari?" Reimu blinked in the surprise then tilted her head back as she thought. "She came by on the evening of the day the shrine was destroyed, just to mock me. She was all 'oh your shrine looks a little worse than usual, Reimu. It makes for a very pretty ruin though.'" Reimu imitated Yukari's voice, stretching her fingers out in front of her face like a fan. "I had already caught the culprit by then and told Yukari I was going to make Tenshi rebuild my house, but she didn't seem to care much about the whole affair, just saying 'That's good, she was probably bored and needed something to do.'"

Reimu then turned her eyes from Renko over to me and shuddered. "It feels really weird talking about Yukari with Merry here though." As if there was anything I could do about that.

"Huh. Is that all she said?"

"I think so. Why do you ask?"

"Well, its just that Suika had said that the threat of a major earthquake would be a big deal to her, so I'm surprised she was so blasé about it."

"The earthquake was absorbed by that Keystone Tenshi put down, so there's nothing to worry about, right?"

"I suppose so."

Suddenly Reimu jumped up and pointed at Renko. "Ah! You just reminded me. Yukari did say something weird. She's always doing that though, so I didn't notice at the time."

"What was it?"

Reimu assumed a stately pose, turning her profile to us, covering her mouth with her outstretched fingers and taking on a scheming expression. "Disasters will happen regardless of whether or not you prepare." She intoned. "Or... it was something like that, anyway. She was talking to herself at the time and nobody ever knows what she's thinking."

We looked at Reimu, hoping there was more or some explanation, but she merely shrugged.

-.-.-.-.-

On our way back to the village from the Hakurei shrine, Renko was constantly fiddling with the brim of her hat, a sure sign she was deep in thought.

"Renko, are you trying to figure out what the youkai sage is thinking again? I remember that not ending well for you last time."

"Well, sort of. I'm thinking about why Suika would have told us that Yukari would have thought this whole business was a big deal."

Back during the Spring Snow Incident and the Night Parade of 100 Demons Every Three Days Incident, trying to figure out the motivations behind Yukari's actions or inactions had occupied most of my partner's time. In the end, even though she had clearly taken enough of an interest in us to directly send the two of us (along with Alice) to the Netherworld, her motivation for doing so remained largely inscrutable. Renko thought she had figured it out after the fact, but of course we had no way to confirm her suspicions.

"Let's see if I can read your mind and tell what you're thinking now, Renko.

"Oooo deductive reasoning from Merry? This should be good."

"We've been living together here for more than five years now, Renko. It's natural that I'd be able to predict how you think."

"Well then, predict away! What am I thinking about?" Renko stopped walking and closed her eyes, holding two fingers to each temple while thrusting out her forehead at me.

I let out a sigh at her theatrics then glanced back toward the hill where the Hakurei shrine had once stood. "You're wondering why Yukari didn't take action to end the Incident sooner, especially given that numerous people both noticed the changes in temperament and knew they were omens of an earthquake long before Reimu's shrine was destroyed."

Renko opened her eyes as her smile deepened, from her usual cat-like grin to something genuinely warm. "You really do know me quite well, Merry," she said. "But your internal clock is running several minutes behind. I'm already past thinking about that."

"So you think you have an explanation for it all then?"

"I do, but I still have my doubts. I'm just too short on any information surrounding anything to do with the youkai sage to make much of a deduction. Even the great detective Renko Usami can't get a read on someone she's never met before," she said with a sigh and a shrug.

I thought for a moment, tapping my cheek as I tilted my head before asking: "Hey Renko, can I be blunt?"

"You? Blunt? You're full of surprises today, Merry. Go ahead."

"I think your model of how the sage thinks is pretty uncharitable. You see her as being slow to respond to Gensokyo's various crises, but I don't think that's how it works. Under your model, whenever something happens that threatens Gensokyo, the sage would have to do something about it, or else get Reimu to. But everyone knows Reimu's always slow to act and having the sage intervene directly is really rare, apparently. If your thinking is correct, then that would mean that the sage would have to be lazy, or unwilling to do anything herself, or just not care about Gensokyo all that much, right?"

"Well, do you have any evidence to prove that those accusations aren't true?"

A voice suddenly interrupted us, saying "I'll thank you not to start disparaging rumors about Lady Yukari." The voice had come, unexpectedly, from directly behind. We turned to see a figure standing there who hadn't been present a moment ago. Surrounded by a glorious sea of gold as her nine fluffy tails waved in the sunlight, there stood Ran Yakumo, shikigami to the youkai sage.

"Oh, hello miss Ran! What a coincidence seeing you here!" Renko said cheerfully.

"It's no coincidence, I assure you. Lady Yukari has charged me with watching over people who she has deemed 'interesting' and I overheard what you were saying, so I thought I'd come and offer some free advice. Is that really what you think of Lady Yukari?"

"Well it's hard for me to know what to think," Renko said, flashing her troublesome grin. "Seeing as I've never met her, I mean. Would it be possible for you to set up a meeting with her for me, Ran?"

It was not the first time Renko had made such a request of Ran in the years we had known her. The answer, however, was always the same.

"You know I'm going to say 'no'," Ran said with a sigh. "Lady Yukari's orders have not changed."

"And those orders would be to keep an eye on us whenever we are outside the village and to to refuse me if I should ask to see her?"

"Lady Yukari's orders are that no one should meet with her except by her own request, with the sole exception of the lady of Hakugyokuro. You should not consider it odd that you have never met Lady Yukari, miss Usami. Very few humans who live in the village ever have."

"Well, Merry got to meet her. I don't see why I shouldn't."

"Because she has not requested to meet with you. The choice as to whether to meet or not is entirely in her hands."

"Merry, do I have bad breath or something? Is there anything so horrible about me that a youkai sage wouldn't want to at least try meeting me once? Does she have something against Renkos?"

"I'm not even sure where to begin with a question like that."

"If you wish to think of it as the sage not wanting to meet with you, that's fine," Ran said. "I'm sure she wouldn't mind that characterization. But you shouldn't take it as an insult. There's very few people who she does want to meet with."

"Well, in that case, would it be alright if I started to advertise myself as 'Renko Usami: the brainy detective even the youkai sage fears to face!'" Renko asked, holding her hands out in front of her as if visualizing a marquis. I poked her in the head as Ran turned her attention to me.

"Miss Hearn. I overheard what you were saying and I'm afraid I don't have much evidence that Lady Yukari isn't lazy or doesn't prefer to leave her work to others to do, but you should not let the notion that she does not care for her creation enter into your head. The great sage loves Gensokyo. More than she loves anything else, and likely more than any other living being does. Even I can't claim to understand everything she's thinking all of the time, but of that much I am certain."

"I trust your judgement on that Ran, you know her far better than we do. I tend to agree with you as well. Yukari appears to have Gensokyo's continued existence as her goal. But in that case, do you have any insight into her lack of action concerning this earthquake turmoil? The Hakurei shrine and its maiden are part of her vision for how Gensokyo should operate, right? Wouldn't she want to do something to prevent the shrine from being destroyed?"

"Lady Yukari hatches schemes within schemes that move with a purpose that is far beyond my ability to predict. I don't know what she had in mind, but I am reasonably confident that events have and will continue to play out in exactly the way that she wishes them to."

"So we should trust then that whatever is happening, it's for the good of Gensokyo, even if it means the destruction of the Hakurei shrine?"

Ran nodded, solemnly, clasping her hands together within her drooping sleeves. "Of that much, you can rest assured."