As fortune would have it, we were spared the indignity of having to explain ourselves to Keine or suffer through one of her punishments after returning home from our harrowing journey. The feeling of safety and relief was nearly overwhelming the moment that Alice dropped us off in the snow-covered schoolyard. After making another successful test of the communication device and the remote manipulation of her doll through its link, she departed, leaving the two of us alone again.

Houses in Gensokyo don't heat up quickly like those in the Scientific Century, however, especially when those houses are actually repurposed storerooms without a hearth of their own. Thus, we didn't go inside immediately -it would have been just as cold if we had. Instead, Renko took the time to go around the side of our house toward where the small branch shrine to the goddesses of the Moriya shrine had been erected.

Rubbing her hands together for warmth, she bowed in front of the altar, then spoke. "Lady Yasaka, might I request an audience again?"

There was a longer-than-typical pause, then suddenly Kanako Yasaka, mountain goddess of the Moriya Shrine appeared before us. "I've told you before not to use a branch shrine like a telephone, Renko. You're lucky I'm not the curse god here or you'd be covered in boils by now. Did you need me to tell Sanae something again?" Here in Gensokyo, where no telephone network existed, the goddess' ability to divide her presence among any number of places at once had often proven extremely useful, though often not in ways that she might have approved of.

"Actually, no," Renko replied, huddling into her coat and rubbing her upper arms. "Today I have a request directly for you, Lady Yasaka."

"Oh? And what is that?"

"I'd like to talk to you about the power that you've given to the raven who lives in the Hell of Blazing Fires."

Renko spoke confidently, with an easy grin on her face, but Kanako's expression immediately stiffened. She looked around, as if checking to see if anyone else was listening and took a step toward Renko, bending her head down to speak confidentially.

"Where did you hear about that!?" She hissed in a harsh whisper.

"Actually, I've just returned from a visit to Former Hell. We visited the Hell of Blazing Fires while we were there."

"You went to the Underworld? And into the remnants of Hell? How? With whom? No human could survive that!"

"Well, it wasn't pleasant, I'll admit. Merry and I happened to physically fall down there. It's quite a long story, but we ended up taking an extensive tour while we were visiting. Over the course of that, I happened to hear about various goings-on involving a hell raven living beneath the Palace of the Earth Spirits who had recently come into a new source of power and put two and two together."

Kanako glared at us for a moment with a mixture of incredulity and offense on her face before resting her fists on her hips and shaking her head. "You really are a completely incorrigible pair of humans. What kind of person descends into Hell for the sake of curiosity?"

"I'll admit not everything went as planned. Falling into the Underworld at all was a bit of a mistake on my part. We managed to make it through with only a bad hangover and a few frightening experiences in the end though, so it's fine, isn't it?"

"'Fine' wouldn't be the term I'd chose, but if you've discovered it now, I suppose that I have no choice but to accept it. I hadn't planned on telling Sanae about any of this yet, but if you know there's no way you'll be able to keep the secret from her indefinitely. You really have a talent for exposing the most inconvenient truths."

"Well, I thank you very much for that compliment. That's rare praise to hear from the mastermind behind an Incident."

"I hadn't intended it as any sort of compliment. Though I will admit that your dedication to your ideals is impressive. For now though, let me be perfectly clear: I'll tell you what you want to know on the condition that you understand that this information is not to be shared. Not with Sanae and most especially not with the tengu. I intend to make all of this public eventually, but this is still a top-secret project in the early phases of its development. It's not ready for release yet. As a scientist, I assume you understand that R&D takes time."

Kanako narrowed her eyes threateningly as she spoke, but Renko responded only by bowing floridly, hat in hand. "Madam, you may, as always, rest assured that the Hifuu Detective Agency operates with only the highest degree of professionalism and will always put the confidentiality of our clients first."

-.-.-.-.-

A short walk to the charcoal seller's stand and a few coins was enough to get us a basket full of hot coals to put in the brazier under the kotatsu and make our room tolerable. As warmth slowly seeped into the nooks and crannies of our living space, Lady Yasaka answered Renko's questions.

"As you know, the aim of the Moriya shrine is to gather faith and revive the practice of spiritualism among all the peoples of Gensokyo," Kanako began. "In order for Suwako and I to gain widespread faith, beyond the slopes of Youkai Mountain itself, we need to spread our blessings to all the land, nourishing and reaping belief and praise just as the waters of the mountain nourish the rice paddies before the harvest. Our plan to achieve that consists of two parts. First, we intend to introduce technology from the Outside world to Gensokyo in the form of divine miracles. Second, we plan to institute agricultural reforms to improve the productivity of farmers and herders operating in the village. To achieve any of this though, there are certain basic infrastructure projects that must first be completed. Roads, reservoirs, earthworks and the like. We have been working with the kappa to ensure that such things are possible, but before we can guarantee their support, we need the resources to both undertake the projects themselves and to entice the kappa to supporting our cause and providing us with worship. To that end we need energy. Specifically, we need electricity. The kappa have knowledge of electrical engineering derived from Outside world devices they have reverse engineered, but no means of large scale power generation. By supplying that infrastructure, we can make the rest of our dreams possible."

Renko nodded in understanding. "Yes, Sanae demonstrated to us the other day that she had been able to charge some of her devices. I take it that that means you've already had at least some success on that front?"

"Yes, that electricity was generated using a prototype dynamo built by the kappa and run by the power of one of the waterfalls that flows through their domain in the Genbu Ravine. It's a very small-scale demonstration. I've invited a handful of tengu to witness its operation already, but that device is merely a test unit. I intend to build a much larger production facility, capable of providing power to both the tengu city and the kappa labs as an initial divine gift to assure their fealty. My dreams are much grander than a mere hydroelectric project though."

"You're thinking of using geothermal energy powered by the Hell of Blazing Fires, right? A closed-loop condenser system?"

"You're still thinking too small. Something like that might be doable, but would require constant fueling and maintenance and produce only limited power. The heat of The Hell of Blazing Fires has been slowly dwindling since the Underworld was abandoned. What fire remained there was a result of residual heat and the combustion of the sins weighing on those souls still trapped within as well as whatever few corpses or vengeful spirits the creatures tending the flames could cast in. Such a heat source would be ultimately unsustainable. I'm thinking about something grander. Something inexhaustible. A true miracle worthy of being known as the 'power of the gods.' In the vernacular of the Outside world, you would call what I'm planning a helically symmetrical gravitic fusion reactor. Here in Gensokyo though, it shall be known as the divine fire of Yatagarasu."

I looked over at Renko in light of the unfamiliar technical terms and found her staring wide-eyed at Kanako. "Your taking about a stellarator? That sort of design was discarded as impractical decades ago. Commercial fusion power is an enormous undertaking requiring highly advanced manufacturing and thousands of workers. There's no way you could replicate something like that."

"You think not? Recall that here in Gensokyo it's not a matter of scientific know-how or logistical planning. Here it's simply a question of power. Science and magic operate the same way, ultimately, in that they force the natural world to bend to a desired state. The only difference between the two is the approach. Science manipulates the conditions of nature bit by bit, through gradual steps until nature grants the intended result through its own processes. Magic, or more directly in this case, the power of gods and youkai simply wills nature to be a certain way. Both require that those wishing to override the natural order supply enough power to achieve their goal. In the Outside world that power might come from magnetic torsion and superheated plasma. Here it comes from the raw will of Yatagarasu."

Renko's eyes were wide with awe. "I think I see what you're saying. You mean that the phrases 'a reflected sound wave' and 'a youkai yamabiko' are actually describing the same thing, it's just a different way of viewing the same phenomena. There's not actually any difference between the two is there?"

"The difference is only perception. A lens through which reality can be viewed. The gods and youkai view things one way, and science has a different view. They both can look at the same things though. What I gave to that hell raven was the divine power of Yatagarasu. If I were to express it differently, in terms that you as a student of physics would understand, I believe it would be called a self-sustaining proton-proton reaction within an ultra-dense plasma mass."

"Wait a minute, wait a minute. Hold up, please." Renko said, raising her palm as Kanako smiled smugly. "Do you mean to tell me that the source of the extra heat reigniting and intensifying the flames of the Hell of Blazing Fires is nuclear fusion? I know that the laws of physics can be broken here in Gensokyo, but there's no way that place was reaching the 5 billion-degree temperatures necessary for that. We went there. It was hot, but not that hot."

"Your mind is still trapped by the common sense of the Outside world. You are correct that what I am proposing would be impossible if I were to obey the laws of physics as you know them, but here in Gensokyo I don't have to. Within the Great Hakurei Barrier, the power of divine will takes precedence over the logic of the science from the Outside world. Science is rooted in observation of the natural world, as as that nature crosses the border, its rules extend here. But only up to the point where a will of sufficient strength denies them. That is the power by which humans can fly, gods like myself can grant miracles, and youkai can exist as corporeal manifestations of fear. It's all a matter of will. In your terms, you might say that the eye I gave to that hell raven contained a microscopic gravitational singularity which compresses mass to the point where the electrostatic repulsion of individual protons within hydrogen nuclei can be overcome. In Gensokyo's terms you would simply say that it was the will of Yatagarasu in material form. An eye which commands divine fire. Yatagarasu is an incarnation of the sun and that eye can command that divine fire to exist. Both of these truths are the same."

Renko half stood up, frozen mid-way through the act of climbing to her feet, one hand dancing over the brim of her hat. Her face was contorted in a bizarre expression, with a twist to her mouth like she had just drank a cup full of vinegar, but a far-off, unseeing glaze to her eyes. "What you're saying is not that the flames in the Hell of Blazing Fires have become nuclear fusion... but that you gave someone down there the ability to create fusion reactions at will? To break the laws of physics with the same ease that Sakuya can stop time?"

To me the news was surprising, but no more outlandish than hearing someone declare that they could manipulate fate or transcend the boundaries of space. If anything, it actually seemed less far-reaching and questionable than Kaguya's claim to be able to manipulate eternity or the numerous impossibilities we had seen Eirin perform. To Renko, however, whose concept of reality was grounded in the scientific principles she had learned in the Outside world, it seemed to be uniquely unthinkable.

"That's correct," Kanako continued. "Ever since I first arrived here, I've known that there was a source of tremendous heat beneath this mountain, but it didn't seem to be a magma vent, and the rock of the mountain doesn't look like the sort to be shaped by even ancient volcanism. When I heard that there was supposed to be a vast abandoned city below the ground filled with sealed and hated youkai, I thought that there might be an opportunity to work with one of them in a mutually beneficial way. I spoke with Yatagarasu, and he was eager to have the opportunity to shine his light into a world that had never known it. We needed only find a suitable host to contain his power."

"And so you fed one of Yatagarasu's eyes to Okuu."

"Oh, did you go so far as to meet that girl?"

"No, we couldn't get close. We've only heard the story from one of her friends."

"Ah, that kasha, I presume. Yes, she was never happy with the whole idea."

"...Lady Yasaka, did you force Okuu to eat the eye of Yatagarasu?"

"Not at all. I merely offered it to her. I even explained to her what it would do. I'm not entirely certain she actually understood though..."

To me that sounded like the business practices of shady companies who conceal the details of a contract in the fine print. Not quite technically fraud, but nearly as predatory.

"Why Okuu, then? Was there anything special about her? From what we've heard, she doesn't seem like the sort to be capable of understanding the importance and danger of what you were giving her."

"It was an intentional choice. She was a promising candidate. A hell raven able to tolerate the flames of a blazing Hell, with great power and a solid existence as a youkai derived from centuries of feasting upon the dead, but little will of her own. I had hoped that by choosing her as the wielder of this power, I would have a vessel that was reliable and easy to control."

"Control? How exactly?"

"Well, that's proved to be a bit of a challenge. My hope was that she could be trained to limit and utilize the divine fire, releasing only enough to suit our needs and acting as a control system for Yatagarasu's will. The problem here is much the same as that faced by the science of the Outside world. Fusion is achievable, but controlling and harnessing that power in a way that it can be made use of is not so simple. What might be an issue with containing and compressing plasma within a magnetic field to scientists in your time is here expressed by her inability to learn the skill necessary to limit her output. The divine flame of Yatagarasu is, in some ways, a fire like any other. It seeks always to grow, to consume more and more fuel. That desire is inside her now, and I had hoped I could convince her to suppress it and clamp down on that power through rigorous training and conditioning. Much as one might train an animal to perform a trick or wait to eat until commanded to. As it turns out though... not all animals have the disposition to be trained."

"So you just left her down there out of control?"

"Of course not. I have been working with her to help her try to obtain mastery over her power. Just recently I gave her something to help. A symbol, to teach her the importance of restraint."

"A symbol? You gave her a symbol?"

"Perception has power in Gensokyo. Symbols, in the form of divine relics, can be extremely potent tools. It's through the power of the relic enshrined in your branch shrine that I can be here, talking to you now."

"Well, what kind of symbol did you give her to limit the power of nuclear fusion? Surely you didn't have a divine relic conveniently on hand for such an extreme purpose."

"A divine relic is simply an object touched by the gods, is it not? I made one myself, for just this occasion."

"What was it?"

"An Onbashira of course. What else? Though in the view of the Outside world, I suppose you might call it a 'control rod'"

Upon hearing that, Renko's pupils, previously wide in awe, shrunk into two black dots, as a cold sweat of terror broke out on her brow.