I was dead. I knew this with absolute, unshakable certainty as we fell. My vision was a blur, but even if I hadn't been twisting end over end, there would be nothing to see in the darkness of that shaft. Whether or not my eyes were open, I wouldn't see the end approaching. At some point in the next few seconds, I would simply cease to be conscious forever, all because of a simple silly accident, my partner's recklessness and my own thoughtless impulse to cling to her. In the end it would not be a youkai, or a god's curse or the machinations of some scheming villain that did me in, but simply stumbling clumsily into a hole. Although it would be a difficult ending to accept in a story, it somehow seemed fitting as it happened. This must be what Makoto Sahara felt in the moment after the pressure differential blew him off of the electrified steel beam, I thought to myself, the panels of the old gambling manga I had borrowed from Sanae coming unbidden to my mind.
Renko and I would never return to the Scientific Century. Our bodies would become soil deep beneath the surface of Gensokyo in a time 80 years before our departure, with our cause of death being the same as had slain numerous heroes before us - our bones would molder at the bottom of a nearly bottomless pit along with those of countless Mario brothers and mega men. Sadly, my final casefile for our detective agency would never be completed. My next book will have to be published from one of the afterlives. If I had to come before the Yama as a result of literally diving into Hell after my partner, she might not even bother having me collected and just leave me here. These were the meaningless and conflicting thoughts rushing through my head as I hurtled to my death. Lacking the focus of a Buddhist monk, I couldn't hope to meditate as I plunged to my doom, but I would have hoped that my last moments of consciousness might have been slightly more profound or had some modicum of gravity to them.
-.-.-.-.-
BOOOO YO YO YOIING
-.-.-.-.-
It was a stupid sound. Something like a sound effect from a children's cartoon, but drawn out and stretched with a much more profound bass vibrato to it. It was certainly not the first sound I expected to hear after death, but I wondered if hearing it at all meant that I was standing before the Yama. Disembodied phantoms aren't supposed to be able to hear, after all. If that was the case, then I was pleasantly surprised to find that my death had been completely without pain. I hadn't even felt an abrupt stop or sting. I just wished I could be rid of the nauseating sense of vertigo that washed over me, making me feel like gravity was constantly switching polarity, swapping up and down with each other. Eventually that sensation passed too, and the sense of momentum in the pit of my stomach lessened. I was surprised to find I still had a stomach. I suppose I should have expected it -we had seen ghosts eat voraciously, after all. About the same time as the sense of momentum calmed down, the annoying, twanging, spring-like noise faded away too.
It wasn't until perhaps a minute after that point that I came to a completely nonsensical, yet seemingly inevitable conclusion. Somehow, I was still alive. I could feel my heart hammering in my chest, the unpleasant dampness of my cold sweat, and the presence of all of my limbs, though I couldn't seem to move them. Impossibly, my motion had been arrested. I wasn't falling any more. Stranger still, there was some sort of light source here, I realized. Something dim that nonetheless filtered through my eyelids with a warm orange glow. My sense of equilibrium still felt off, as if I were lying down at an unusual, diagonal angle, on my side, but not parallel to the ground. I chanced opening my eyes, unsure of what I might see.
I hadn't expected my vision to be filled with my partner's face, wide eyed and blinking in surprise, mere centimeters from my own, and sideways from my perspective.
"Renko?" I asked shakily. "Are we alive?"
"I..." She swallowed. "I'm not sure. Are we alive?"
"Hey, are you alive?" shouted another voice, from above us.
Instinctively, I tried to turn toward the voice, but found that my body was somehow restrained. I could still twist my neck far enough to see above me though. Far, far in the distance was a tiny circle of searing white light that illuminated nothing around it. After a moment I realized that must be the opening of the pit. Closer than that was another source of light. A small iron lantern with a wobbling flame inside being held by... a small, pale hand, which was reaching out of the top of a wooden bucket suspended on a rope. For a moment I thought I saw a glimmer of movement from the top of the bucket as if the top of someone's head had peeked out over the edge for just an instant, but it quickly retreated. The bucket didn't seem to be the source of the voice though. The lantern's light illuminated another figure beside the bucket, a girl with golden hair tied back with a black ribbon, hovering in the air. I looked up at the girl, but I was still too disoriented to speak.
Blinking at me, Renko seemed to notice as my eyes settled on the figure. "What? Who's there, Merry? Are we dead? Is this Hell? Or the Netherworld? Or Higan? Merry, can you pinch my cheek? I can't seem to move my arms."
"I don't think I can either, but that would be for checking if this is a dream or not, right? If you're asking that question doesn't it mean you must be alive?"
"Hey, if you two are both alive, then don't ignore me!" The voice rang out from above us again.
"Please excuse me, ma'am," Renko said, trying to find a way to contort her body to look upward. "You seem to have me at a bit of a disadvantage. I can't seem to see you. Whom do I have the pleasure of addressing?"
While Renko shouted at the figure above us, I tried to determine why I couldn't move. There was no sense of a weight pressing us down, and I felt like I could feel my fingers and toes, but even if I tried to lift my upper body, there seemed to be something holding it firmly in place. The light drew slightly closer, and I came to realize what was happening. Both Renko's body and my own were attached in numerous places to a thick, sticky white thread that was stretched out before us in a radially structured, net-like pattern. It immediately called to mind a spider's web, but hundreds of times larger and stronger than any we had ever seen before.
"Is this... a spiderweb?"
"I hadn't expected to catch any humans. It's been a long time since a meal that big has fallen into my net. You two are very lucky to have ended up getting caught. Or maybe I'm the lucky one." Perhaps it was a mercy that Renko couldn't see the terrifying smile on the girl's face as she descended or the horrible inhuman glow in her eyes, "It's been ages since I've had a live human to eat."
It seemed this miraculous reprieve from sudden death was destined to last only a few minutes or hours. I tried to reorient myself, but my hands and feet were both securely bound by the threads wrapped around me. Renko appeared to be trying to squirm free as well, but having no better luck than I.
"Well, this is quite a big meal. I'm sure it won't be a problem if I try a little taste right away. I wonder which of you will be yummier?"
There was a sudden vibration that went through my whole body as the blonde girl landed on the web we were trapped in. She licked her lips as her gaze flicked between the two of us and settled on Renko. "You were asking for someone to pinch your cheeks just now, weren't you? Maybe I'll have just a nibble. Don't worry, I won't kill you yet." She moved quickly, and with impossible agility, stepping on the gleaming threads of the web in a way that seemed surefooted despite the thinness of each strand, bounding over me and lowering herself over Renko's body, bringing her face just next to my partner's. The feeling of her youkai aura washed over me as her glowing eyes stared into mine. I was frozen in fear, unable to speak while Renko tried to twist away.
I only regained a modicum of presence of mind when she suddenly broke eye contact, looking up and away from me as the bucket and lantern descended beside her, dangling from a long rope. I could see now that there was someone inside the bucket, a small, green-haired girl in a simple white robe who was shrinking away from me, seeming to try to avoid being seen. She dropped down to just beside the blonde girl and raised herself up on her knees to whisper in her ear.
The blonde girl stopped, then raised herself up, pressing against the stands of the webs with her hands. "Oh, you're right!" she said. "It's been so long since I've had a human. I'm forgetting my manners. It wouldn't do to not show you off to the others, and wounded prey isn't nearly as pretty as something fresh and intact. I'll have plenty of time to eat you later. The girl in the bucket nodded, then rose out of my sight, the rope suspending her retracting to some unseen destination. "You two really are lucky! It looks like you get to live a bit longer today. Let's get you properly wrapped up. I'm taking you to Former Hell! You're going to get to see our youkai paradise here. There's lots of fun to be had."
Renko's eyes met my own, the same worried expression passing back and forth between us.
