The very next thing I can remember is waking up sprawled on my back on the tatami mats of a strange house. There was a vague, jumbled memory of lights, sounds, laughter and flavors in my mind, and some sense of intervening time, but it was all a blur.

"Oh, you're awake. Did you survive?"

I blinked dry, gummy eyelids that felt like they each weighed a kilogram. Slowly, very slowly, I turned my head toward the voice, an act which, I am confident, took at least 250% the normal amount of muscles. My view fell upon Yamame, standing and holding a tray with two steaming bowls on it. Beyond her, my partner was laying on the ground, partially slipped off of a futon and groaning miserably.

"Where are we?" Renko groaned, slowly uncurling herself from the tight ball she had rolled into. "And why does my head feel like this? I don't appear to be blind, but this is worse than the first time I went to Eientei."

"You're in my house," Yamame said brightly. "And you're just hungover. Have some of this rice porridge and you'll feel better." She set the tray down on the floor, with its two spoons and two bowls of hot, fragrant gruel. "You both passed out shortly after Orin showed up with the booze last night, and I couldn't get you up to the surface like that, so I brought you here. Eat up. Once you feel up to it, we'll see about getting you out of here."

That was enough to make me sit up, something I instantly regretted, as the room spun and tilted wildly. "Oh no! Did we miss our chance to escape?"

"Not at all," Yamame assured me. "It's only been about ten hours. Oni wouldn't consider anything less than 24 hours to even count as a proper feast, and Orin came through with plenty of booze for everyone. You'd be surprised what she can fit in one of her little carts. You guys can consider your price paid in full. There was enough there that Yuugi started a drinking competition. You both lost right away, and I bowed out pretty soon too, but she and the other oni will be at it for a while, and sleeping it off for even longer. I may not have gotten to keep much of what Orin brought, but Yuugi will remember that I introduced her to a friend and threw a great party. That's worth more than money with someone like her. In fact, if you guys want to stay longer that'd be fine by me. For the time being having you around is paying dividends in terms of my position with the oni."

"Thank you," I replied, "but we really should get going. Renko, sit up and eat your porridge, we need to get moving."

"I'm too dead to move, Merry. You'll have to feed old granny Renko again, let me put my head on your lap and just put something tasty in my mouth."

"If you're well enough to make ridiculous demands like that, you're well enough to eat by yourself." I thrust Renko's spoon into her mouth and tried a spoonful of the porridge myself. It was wholesome and nourishing, not at all the sort of meal I would have expected to receive from a man-eating youkai spider. "Oh, this is quite nice, Yamame. Did you make this? I didn't know youkai ate rice porridge to cure hangovers too."

"When you live among oni, learning how to deal with hangovers is a necessary survival skill," she said solemnly.

-.-.-.-.-

After eating, we scraped ourselves off of the floor and prepared to set out. Yamame's house had a washroom complete with a shower and running hot and cold water, which went a ways toward making me feel more human, but Renko was still groggily leaning on my shoulder as we departed. She had managed to recover quickly yesterday, but having put herself through the wringer of an oni drinking party two days in a row, I wouldn't be surprised if she was barely functional for the rest of today. When we get to the surface, we'll have to stop by Eientei before heading to the Moriya shrine, I thought to myself, hoping that Eirin might have a cure for the common hangover.

Just as Yamame had predicted, it seemed that Renko's goodbye feast was still going on in the city's main marketplace as even from several blocks away we could hear the festivities and see the lights and scores of drunken figures staggering about. From an intersecting street I caught a glimpse of a mound of youkai collapsed and piled atop one another like corpses in a mass grave, but still moving and groaning. From over the rooves of the buildings I heard Yuugi calling out. "Ha! Who's next! Bring another bottle and someone to drink it with!"

Yamame lead us straight toward the square without hesitation. Before long we emerged from between the buildings and on to a scene of carnage. Aside from the groaning pile of passed out youkai, the streets were littered with semi-conscious or unconscious forms splayed out, some of them with bottles or jugs still in hand. Dirty dishes and the bones of countless animals were scattered here and there as were the charred remnants of several cookfires. Mats were strewn about at random and the awning overhanging one of the buildings had been pulled down. In the fountain in the middle of the square an oni was sitting wrapped in a string of lanterns, some extinguished, others still burning. As we swiveled our heads around looking over the damage, Yuugi called out to us.

"Hey, who is that there? Yamame? Come and drink with me! Is that Renko with you too?"

"You already beat me at drinking last night, remember Yuugi? I'm only stupid enough to lose to an oni once, not twice. As for Renko, let the poor girl rest, she's a human. Any more would probably kill her."

"Agh, alright. She did pretty well for a human, I suppose. Are you all leaving now then?"

Renko stirred on my shoulder and did her best to stand upright. "Uuugh... Yes, we're going. Thanks for all of your help, Yuugi. The next time I'm down here, I'll be sure to say 'hi.' If it's in this lifetime though, I can't be sure I'll be up to drinking. Uuugh. How can it be so painfully bright underground?" She forced a wavering smile onto her pale face, and managed to only wobble a little.

"Oh Renko, that reminds me. If you should happen to see another oni on the surface, I want you to tell them something for me."

"Another oni? Do you mean Suika?"

"No, a different oni. She left here a long time ago, though no one is quite sure where she went. You'll know her if you see her though, she only has one arm."

"A one-armed oni? Who lives on the surface?"

"Well, I don't know if she's on the surface or not. But you seem like someone with a nose for trouble who's good at getting around to all sorts of places. If you ever see a one-armed oni from Gensokyo in your travels, tell her that Yuugi Hoshiguma is asking that she stop by and show her face down here from time to time."

"Alright, I will," Renko said, laying her head back down on my shoulder. We turned and were about to start walking out of the square when suddenly her head shot straight up and she whirled around unsteadily to face Yuugi again. With her arms and legs spread wide for balance, she hunched over to keep her footing, the length of her trenchcoat brushing against the ground. "Wait a minute! Are you talking about Ibaraki Doji, one of the Four Heavenly Kings of the oni?"

"Oh, do you know her?" Yuugi asked with surprise.

"No," Renko said, shaking her head, "but if you're talking about an oni with only one arm, that's the first one that came to mind."

"Well that's her, alright. Kasen was her name. Kasen Ibaraki. She was very un-oni-like oni. She may not even call herself an oni any more, she kind of rejected that way of living before she left."

"Kasen Ibaraki... I've heard that name before... oh! Oh. Oh, I see."

"Huh? What's with that reaction? Do you know her or not, Renko?"

"I'm not certain. It's possible I might know someone who could be her. I'll make a point of checking when I get back to the surface. For now though, I'd also like to ask a favour of you, miss Hoshiguma, if you would."

"Miss Hoshiguma? This must be serious. Just call me Yuugi."

Renko nodded and walked unsteadily over to where Yuugi was sitting, extracting a folded sheet of paper from the pocket of her trenchcoat. She must have written it while I was washing up this morning. "Please give this to miss Satori Komeiji when you have an opportunity to go to the Palace of the Earth Spirits. I would have liked to deliver it myself, but I'm afraid this pressing business with the leaking spirits requires my attention and I can't be sure when I'll be back. This letter conveys my apologies to miss Satori for not being able to resolve the case she tasked us with."

"You're asking me to deliver a letter? I suppose I'm going there anyway, but why not just use the mail? We have ravens down here that can carry letters."

"This is an important message, and I think miss Satori would appreciate if I didn't share the information within it broadly. I know that I can trust an oni to be true to their word and deliver it without looking inside."

Yuugi gave Renko a surprised look, but sighed and took the letter. "Alright, I'll give it to her, but when this is all over you should come by again and explain to me what all these secrets and mysteries are all about."

"I'd love to do that." Renko said with a queasy smile. "Just as soon as I'm up to it."