As I saw her sitting there I opened my mouth to speak, but found I hadn't the faintest clue what I should be saying. While I wrestled with indecision, she waved her finger at me. At once, the space itself directly in front of me split open, a clean cut in the fabric of reality appearing before my eyes. In the span of a moment, the gap enveloped me, and I found myself sitting on the roof of the school, directly opposite the youkai sage, face to face.

"...Yukari Yakumo..." I managed to speak, finding my throat suddenly dry.

"It's been a long time, Maeribel Hearn."

The youkai sage propped her elbows on a tiny rent in space and leaned toward me, resting her face on her folded hands and smiling at me with cruelly playful eyes.

"Why are you here?" I managed.

"What a question! You summoned me, didn't you?" As she leaned back, her smile was hidden behind the fan that had appeared in her hand, but the mirth in her eyes was still plainly visible.

"Me?"

"That's right. You seemed to want to talk to me, so I went to the trouble of coming all the way here. Don't tell me you were only toying with me."

Had I wanted to talk with her? I had questions, certainly, but her presence was terrifying. I had long since become used to the unsettling aura that surrounded most youkai, but the sage was altogether different. Her power came off her in waves, with a feeling closer to malevolent amusement than mere predatory hunger. Even if I had wanted to see her though, I had no idea what I might have done to summon her, or how I even could have.

"You know," she said. "Despite how I make it look, being this world's Administrator does keep me rather busy. I only have time for a limited number of questions, and not the sort of lengthy diatribes your partner is fond of. So, if you have something you need of me, let's hear it." she prodded, snapping her fan closed and pointing it at me. I stared at the tip of it. It looked perfectly ordinary, black lacquer over finely made wood bookending thin folds of hand-made paper. I let out a slow breath and clenched my fists tightly at my side.

Why had she come here now? I couldn't believe it could be anything more than a whimsical youkai's boredom. The youkai sage was not someone at my beck and call, and I couldn't adopt the conceited belief that our presence in this world as time travelers made us special. I suppose I could ask her about that. I had promised Renko I would try to test her theory if the opportunity arose though. And there were other, more personal questions I could ask too...

"Your partner seems to have dreamed up some rather interesting theories about me."

"You were listening in on us?"

"No, but it's my business to know everything that happens here." Even if she hadn't been listening, Ran easily could have been. "Was that what you wanted to spend your question on?" She said, again smiling like a cat.

"Ah, no!"

"Well then, spit it out. I have other business to attend to tonight."

If Yukari had heard Renko's theory, it would be easy enough to ask her about it. But in ruminating on Renko's words all night I had come up with a question of my own. Swallowing once more, I posed that now. To the only person who could possibly answer it.

"You were the cause of the recent Incident, weren't you? But you weren't the mastermind behind it, I don't think."

There was no response to that statement, so I took it as permission to continue.

"Renko thought you orchestrated events to get the Keystone driven into the Hakurei shrine grounds in hopes of protecting Gensokyo from being destroyed by a major earthquake that you know is going to happen in the future. But if you knew those earthquakes were going to occur, I don't think you would have ever created Gensokyo in a location that would have been affected by them. I think all of this recent fuss, with the weather and the earthquake and Keystone -I don't think any of that was something you expected. I think this was a rare example of something not going as you planned."

"There's the question of how Tenshi got that sword, and why no one stopped her. Renko thinks that was your doing, but I think it's simpler than that. I think the powers that be in the heavens are perfectly fine with her having it. I think her causing a ruckus with it and disrupting life here on the ground isn't even noteworthy, or is maybe even desirable in their eyes. If terrible damage is wrought on the Earth by the selfish pranks of a child, that works out well for them. Not only does Tenshi take all the blame, but they can reinforce to the gods of the Earth that destroying anything on this world would be literal child's play for the gods of the heavens."

"But why would they need to make such a show of power? The rule of the heavens over earth has been established since ancient times. Why would they go to the trouble of re-asserting that rule now? My guess is that someone here on Earth did something to provoke their ire. Really, that was Eirin's idea, that someone on Earth might have angered the powers of the heavens. I didn't think anything like that was possible at the time, but maybe I didn't see the full picture. Maybe there was someone powerful and far-reaching enough to have attempted a strike at the heavens without us even knowing. The only one I can think of who might try something like that... would be you."

"If you were the one who brought all of this down on Gensokyo through some action in the past, that would explain why you felt the need to go after Tenshi with your own hands. If all of this was retribution for your acts, you'd want to at least punish who you could, knowing that, to the heavens, Tenshi was just a disposable messenger."

Still there was no reaction from the sage. I looked down to avoid her gaze, but continued with my reasoning. "Renko thinks all of this is some grand scheme of yours, but I think that's just her megalomania talking. Besides, my explanation explains why no one from the heavens has tried to stop Tenshi or take the sword back and hers would rely on you having somehow prevented them from doing so or convinced them not to. I think that would be beyond even you."

I had expected anger at that last statement. A threat, or at least an uncaring dismissal. Her response, however, was simply a glimpse of a charming smile before she covered her mouth with her fan again. "An interesting story," she said. "But I'm quite sure I've never in all my years done anything that would bring the anger of the heavens down on this little paradise of mine. What reason could the heavenly court possibly have to want to send me such a warning?"

I let out a sigh. In the end, I suppose I really am only the Watson to Renko's Holmes. As plausible as my theory had sounded in my head...

"In the end, disasters occur randomly and not as a result of heavenly influence." As the youkai sage said that, a terrible chill passed through my body. I raised my head to look at her as my mind filled with a terrifying, unreasonable imagining. The sort of megalomaniacal idea that could only be the result of my long association with my partner. But weren't Yukari's words the same ones we had heard from Iku several days ago?

The words leaked out of my mouth before I was aware that I was saying them. "No way..." I muttered. "Did you... was that the original history? You did something to the heavens and in retaliation they destroyed Gensokyo with an earthquake? Then you looped backward in time and brought us here to try and avoid the same thing? Are we already in an alternate timeline?"

There was no answer. The youkai sage's eyes merely smiled at me above the fan, looking amused. "Ran said you're always looking for the best future for Gensokyo. Is this world just one of many? A test case for you to try out? One of your attempts involved Gensokyo being destroyed by an earthquake, so you tried this timeline in which you never took any action against the heavenly realms, but then Tenshi came along and caused an earthquake anyway! That's why you were so mad at her! Because this solution isn't any better for you! Gensokyo is protected against earthquakes, but you still can't take any action against the heavens! Are you going to..."

I had run out of breath. In the moment it took me to inhale, I had lost my train of thought to a thousand different possible outcomes. Was this what it was like to have a mind like Renko's, constantly considering every possible way the facts could fit together? It was maddening. Through the storm of countless arguments, impossibilities and scenarios whirling through my head, one theme began to emerge. I swallowed, then spoke again. "Was that why you brought us here? To change history again? To create yet another timeline? To try to find the best future for Gensokyo?"

-.-.-.-.-

The folding fan collapsed with a click as Yukari once more pointed it at me, slowly rising up into the air, still seated as she did so. "Alright, your time is up!" She said with a smile. "That was an amusing little diversion, so I won't punish you for wasting my valuable time. But I would be careful not to overestimate your own importance, miss Hearn."

Unfolding herself from her sitting position, she stood, still rising toward the moon as she looked down on me. "Gensokyo is a small world, but even in a place like this, the power of a single human is insignificant. No one person can change the world. To believe otherwise would be ignorant and reckless. I would think you would know that better than anyone."

She continued to rise until she was silhouetted against the moon. A figure in shadow surrounded by a hazy mist of silver light. Slowly her form began to dissolve, fading from my sight. "There is no such thing as 'objective truth' Maeribel Hearn. The world is only what we perceive it to be."

And just like that she was gone. Leaving me alone in the schoolyard, gazing up at the placid, mysterious moon which floated untethered in the sky, as serene as a reflection on still water.

I wondered how I was going to get down off of the roof.