"Thank you for all of that information, miss Nagae," Renko said as we showed Iku to the door. "I appreciate your co-operation, but what made you decide to answer my questions today? You seemed rather closed-lipped before."

"I simply read the atmosphere," Iku said matter-of-factly. "It didn't feel like I was revealing anything dangerous for you to know." With that she departed, flying off from the schoolyard and heading east, toward the Hakurei shrine. We watched her go, her shawl fluttering in the wind behind her, then returned to our office where my partner stretched out on her back on the tatami, looking up at the ceiling, her brain hard at work.

I sat down beside her, looking down at her face. After a moment, I broke the silence. "I can see you're in thinking mode again Renko. What's got you so concerned? Do you think Tenshi will cause another earthquake in protest? Or are you worried that Tenshi read your temperament and discovered your secret weakness?"

"Enh, those sorts of things don't really matter any more." She let out a puff of air then sat up sharply, turning to face me. "I thought this was going to be a simple Incident Merry, but it doesn't look that way. Someone's hiding something again."

"You don't think Tenshi was being honest about her aim in starting all of this?"

This was generally the way it had always gone with the Incidents we had been involved in. The mastermind set out to achieve something, safeguarding their goal by concealing their true intention behind a false façade. Then upon being defeated by the Hakurei miko, as almost inevitably happened, only their ostensible goal was sacrificed, while their real aim for the most part went off unimpeded. Of course whether there had ever been a 'real goal' hidden behind the surface appearance to begin with was a matter of some contention and hinged on just how much you could trust my partner's delusions.

This time, however, Renko shook her head slowly. "No, Tenshi is easy to figure out, she's not subtle enough to have concealed her purpose beyond what I already discovered. She wanted to put a Keystone in the Hakurei shrine to give herself a reason to come down to earth from time to time, either to maintain the stone or to cause problems, whichever suits her mood, I guess. Everything we know about her points to her actions being guided by that motivation. That's not what concerns me."

"Oh, then what's the problem?"

"There's just one mystery still outstanding about this whole affair: how'd she do it? Or moreover, why didn't anyone stop her? She's living in a society of heavenly beings, some of which are in positions to watch over her, and she ends up with something that's not only an incredibly dangerous weapon but a priceless heirloom to boot and then uses it to cause a ruckus. That can't be an easy thing to do. If it was, this would presumably happen all the time. The question is, why did all of the other celestials turn a blind eye to Tenshi's misdeeds?"

Renko got up to get herself a cushion, then sat back down beside me. "Not only does she get her hands on that sword and wave it around like its nothing, she also put down a Keystone. If the dominion of heaven over the earth is enforced by earthquakes, then fooling with something like this should not only be a problem down here, but a huge scandal in the heavens too. With everyone in the heavenly realm having nothing to do all day, you'd think they'd have caught her when she first took the sword, and they definitely should have caught her when she used it to cause an earthquake. But for her to then go a step further and implant something that would prevent future earthquakes from occurring endangers the supremacy of the heavens. There's no way they could ignore that."

"Well, she only affected one shrine in Gensokyo. Whether she flattens everything here, or sets up a Keystone to protect it all, Gensokyo's a small place. If Heaven extends over the Outside world too, then maybe it's not worth noticing a quaint little backwater like this world."

Although I said that, the thought terrified me. If it were the case that all of this world could be smashed by the idle boredom of a single unruly celestial child then that was a much more frightening prospect then the idea of a malevolent heavenly being.

"Hmmm, I suppose that's a possibility, Merry, though we don't have any evidence one way or the other to suggest whether or not the heavenly realms hold dominion over the earth of the Outside world too. I should have asked Iku when she was here. Shoot."

"The heavenly realms operate according to the laws of the gods," responded a voice from outside the door.

"Huh? Iku is that you?"

Renko got up and slid the door open. Once again, Iku Nagae was standing behind it. "Miss Nagae? I thought you left."

"I read the atmosphere and detected that you still had some questions you wanted to ask, so here I am."

"Oh! Well, thank you for being so perceptive and for coming back. So when you say that the heavenly realms operate under the laws of the gods, does that mean it can be wherever they chose for it to be, or it only exists here, in Gensokyo, where the gods are more powerful and more easily perceived?"

"The heavenly realm you visited is known by many different names and is connected to many different places. Where there is sufficient faith to sustain a connection, that connection is present, and where there is not, it is absent. It is connected to all of the realms and parts of realms it is connected to at once, and that number of connections can fluctuate at any time. The hells, the Netherworld and Higan operate much the same way. However, here in Gensokyo there are none who doubt the existence of the heavenly realms. As such, you might say that the heavens are closer to here than to any other place on Earth. It is because of that that a living creature like yourself was able to visit them."

"So although Gensokyo is closer to the heavenly realms than any other point, it's still a small place and the heavenly realms wouldn't be too concerned over anything that happened here, is that correct?"

"Hmmm, in some ways that's true, however Gensokyo is only separated from what you call the Outside world by a barrier of common sense. Thus, if an earthquake of sufficient magnitude were to strike Gensokyo, it would doubtlessly affect the Outside world too, potentially causing an unscheduled earthquake, one outside of the will of Heaven. That's the reason I'm bothered that the Eldest Daughter has placed a Keystone here."

"Why would that bother you? Keystones are used to prevent earthquakes, aren't they?"

"They are, but they do so by absorbing and storing the energy that would have otherwise become a quake. If one is damaged or removed, then that energy will be catastrophically released. Over time, they can accumulate energy and become even more dangerous than any single earthquake would have been."

"I see..." Renko said, crossing her arms and pondering.

"Well, at least with the Keystone in place there will be fewer messages about upcoming earthquakes to deliver." Iku said, looking almost sad at the thought.

"So will the Keystone placed here in Gensokyo also reduce earthquakes in the Outside world?"

"Only those that would have originated here in Gensokyo from the thrashing of the heavenly catfish beneath the earth. Earthquakes in the Outside world happen for other reasons and wouldn't be affected."

That much made sense at least. Japan has always been an earthquake-prone country and the history of the 21st century was dotted with a number of major quakes that had caused significant upheaval and loss of life. If those quakes had been prevented by the placing of the Keystone here and now, it would represent a significant departure from the history we knew.

"I see, I see. On a different topic then, what do the ruling powers of the heavens think of Tenshi's actions then? Do they condemn her, as you do, or do they simply not care?"

"I can't know what Lord Soryo himself thinks of the matter, but I would expect that the act of implanting a Keystone here would likely cause some finger-wagging at the very least. Now that it's been done though, there's nothing they can do about it without causing a bigger mess."

I couldn't help but think that as big of a mess as removing the Keystone might be for the heavenly bureaucracy, it would be a bigger mess for us mortals living here on the surface of the earth. At any rate, it seemed clear that a question like Renko's wasn't going to find a satisfactory answer from Iku.

That meant, of course, that our next step was to ask a bunch of questions of someone else.