Before I reveal the solution to this mystery deduced by Renko, I should first make a disclaimer.

Renko's theory explaining this particular Incident is closely related to and entangled with her theories regarding the Night Parade of 100 Demons Every Three Days Incident. Her findings will seem a bit more plausible if you've already read that casefile, and if you haven't, this story will contain spoilers for that one from here on out. I'd recommend you read it first.

-.-.-.-.-

From what I heard later, it seems that just as Renko and I were sitting at our Kotatsu worrying about Reimu and Marisa, those two were busy actually infiltrating Former Hell with the support of several youkai who aided them in various ways without actually being present.

Reimu was aided by the youkai sage herself, as well as Suika Ibuki and Aya Shameimaru, all of whom had various connections to the oni of Former Hell, but no knowledge of the events taking place at the palace. Marisa was aided by Alice, Patchouli and Nitori, who had interest and varying levels of information about the geysers and what might causing them, but no knowledge of the oni or other denizens of the city. As such, neither Incident resolver had a full picture as to what was going on when they descended into the Underworld to investigate the origin of the vengeful spirits. As for the youkai supporting the two girls, each had their own agenda and reason for wanting to explore the Underworld, but they were united in their desire to provoke humans into doing their deeds for them rather than going in person.

Despite the lack of information and their fragmentary and occasionally conflicting support, the two of them shot down Yamame, Kisume and Parsee without slowing down, then fought Yuugi in the middle of the entertainment district of Former Hell and impressed her enough that she befriended them and showed them to the palace. From there, they met and either spoke with or fought Satori (reports are conflicted as to whether there was an actual battle or just an extremely unpleasant conversation.) Afterwards, they made their way to the Hell of Blazing fires itself, where they were challenged and tested by Orin, then finally confronted and defeated Okuu in the very bowels of the inferno. I wasn't witness to any of these battles and this story has already grown quite long, so if you want to know the details of those confrontations, you'll have to wait for the next addendum to miss Akyuu's writings to be published.

We didn't know about any of this at the time though. We first began to hear about it the next day...

-.-.-.-.-

That day saw only a light snowfall in the morning and so Keine opened the school for a half-day of classes in the afternoon. Seeing the children's smiling faces in the classroom was a welcome return to normalcy after everything we'd recently been through. After classes, however, Renko was champing at the bit to continue our investigations and so we made our way along the dim and slippery road toward the Hakurei shrine, carefully navigating the icy stairs and passing through the snow-choked path under the torii.

Ours were the only footprints in the snow around the shrine that day, and nothing had been shoveled. Still, we trudged our way through the yard and over to the offertory box, where we each dutifully clapped our hands and threw some coins between the slats before venturing around to the back of the shrine to look for Reimu.

The scene around the back of the shrine looked less neglected and more serene, with a centimeter of fresh snow sitting untouched and glimmering atop the irregular shape of the Keystone protruding from the earth. There was no sign of Reimu here, but instead we saw an unexpected figure dozing on the porch. A large black cat with a pair of red-tipped tails. Renko and I turned to look at one another in surprise, then Renko spoke.

"Orin? Is that you?"

The cat looked up in surprise at her voice and perked up its ears, then stretched itself out, flexing its claws and arching its back before erupting in fiery light and transforming into the same cat-eared girl we had seen before. "Hello surface-sisters! What are you doing here?" She asked with a mystified expression.

"What are we doing here? What are you doing at the Hakurei shrine?"

"Hakurei? She never told us her name. I take it you know the miko here then?"

"We know her. If you've met her too though, then I'm guessing she went down to the Underworld and fought Okuu?"

Orin nodded happily. "Mhmm! She came down yesterday. Since then Okuu has calmed down and given up on invading the surface. Do I have you to thank for that, sisters?"

"Well, I can't claim to have any responsibility for Reimu's involvement, but we did tip off some other interested parties. Did a blonde witch riding a broom happen to show up yesterday too?"

"She's the one who took Okuu down! They had a huge, flashy fight. It was really something to see!"

"Well, I'm glad that that was resolved relatively peaceably then. How's Okuu doing? I guess there's no more hot springs if she's been beaten now, eh?"

"What? No, Okuu's fine and still just as powerful, they just made her promise not to set the surface on fire. The geyser's still running, but it's not as hot now, so it may not be more than a trickle. I'm not sending the vengeful spirits up any more, either. I had to break a bunch of seals to do that in the first place though, so a few may end up leaking out on their own from time to time." She explained this as casually as one might discuss the weather. Given that she was supposed to be the one in charge of managing the vengeful spirits, I wondered if such a blasé attitude wouldn't end up making for more trouble in the future.

"Well, that's nice to hear, but what are you doing on the surface, Orin? Isn't your presence here a violation of the treaty between the surface youkai and the residents of the Underworld?"

"Not my fault, sister. I got caught by a strange youkai who looked exactly like your friend there and brought here. It was never my idea."

Renko's eyes went wide. "The youkai sage brought you here?"

Before Orin could respond further the door to the living quarters of the shrine slid open and Reimu poked her head out. "What's all this noise back here?" she asked, craning her head around the door towards us.

"Hello Reimu, I hear you went down to visit the Underworld. What'd you think of Former Hell?"

"Merry, Renko. I should have known. I'm used to you two inserting yourselves into the middle of Incidents by now, but seriously? A former Hell? A city full of oni and man-eating youkai? What were you thinking? And how did you manage to get out alive?"

"Well, it was a bit of an adventure to be certain. I'd love to tell you all about it some time. I take it you heard we were down there from Yuugi?"

"Imagine my surprise when after a knock-down drag-out fight with the strongest oni I've ever seen she waves goodbye to me, saying 'say hi to Renko for me'"

"That's nice of her. I'll have to go pay her a visit again sometime."

"You most certainly will not. But now that you're here I've got some questions to ask you both," she said, glaring suspiciously at me with half-lidded eyes. "That hell raven was given the power of Yatagarasu by a mountain goddess. I'm guessing that was the one from the Moriya shrine. You're close with her and Sanae, aren't you? Is she the one who sent you guys down to the Underworld?"

"Lady Yasaka was mixed up in all this? Really?" Renko asked, performing a shoddy pantomime of ignorance. "I assure you she had nothing to do with our visit to Former Hell." Reimu stared at Renko with an unimpressed look while beside her Orin looked confused.

"Don't play dumb with me, you two are just regular humans. There's no way you could have gotten into and out of the Underworld alive without outside assistance. So who sent you there? Did Kanako have Sanae fly you down so you could check on her experiment or something?"

"Honestly, she had nothing to do with it Reimu. We fell into the shaft while looking for a safe way down. We would have died for certain except that we ended up getting caught in the web of a tsuchigumo. Maybe you saw her down there? Her name's Yamame Kurodani, and she usually hangs out in the vertical shaft before the bridge to the city."

"A tsuchigumo? I think there might have been someone like that near the beginning..."

"We fell down there and were captured, but I managed to talk our way out of being eaten by befriending Yuugi. Then we went on a bit of a tour and ended up meeting little miss Orin there. At no point were we aided by Lady Yasaka in any way."

Reimu glared at Renko. It seemed like she could tell something was missing from the story but didn't know what to ask. Eventually, she settled on simply saying "...seriously?"

"It's the honest truth. Lady Yasaka had no involvement in our trip to the Underworld. If you don't believe me, go ask Sanae, she won't know a thing about it."

"Something about this is still suspicious. I know she got the power of Yatagarasu from somewhere, and I know you know more than you're telling me, I just don't know what I don't know, you know?"

"Well the Moriya branch shrine is right over there, Reimu. Why not call Lady Yasaka up and have her come explain everything to you? I'm sure she has a perfectly reasonable explanation at the ready."

"I'm not a priestess of the Moriya shrine, I can't just call up a god like that." I thought about that for a moment. I suppose Kanako's appearance, or even acknowledgement of Renko's summons at the branch shrine near our house really was a special privilege granted to us due to our friendship with Sanae.

Reimu glared at us a moment longer then sighed, hugging her shoulders against the cold. "Well anyway, it's cold out here. Why don't the three of you come inside. I'll make some tea and we can talk without freezing."

"Why thank you, Reimu, that's uncharacteristically hospitable of you. What's the occasion?"

"I heard some coins falling into the offertory box."

"You heard that but not us calling out on our way in?"

"No one comes to the shrine this time of year, so I thought it would just be someone annoying out there."

"Well lucky for you it was just us instead. As for your invitation, it's much appreciated Reimu, but I'm afraid there's somewhere else I have to go, now that I've paid my respects to Gensokyo's greatest Incident resolver."

"Where are you headed now? Up to the Moriya shrine to warn Kanako that I'm on to her?"

"Not at all. Actually, if it's alright with you Reimu, I was hoping to take this stray off of your hands when I go. Miss Rin, would you be so kind as to take me and my partner back to the Underworld? I can show you the way to get there from here."

Reimu's eyes widened slightly in surprise, but Orin looked positively bamboozled. With a tone of complete astonishment she pointed to herself and asked "who, me?"

-.-.-.-.-

Thus, for the third time, the Hifuu club descended into Hell. With Renko giving directions, Orin had flown us directly from the grounds of the Hakurei shrine to the vertical shaft leading down into the Underworld and was now carrying us carefully down to the bottom.

Flying with Orin wasn't nearly as comfortable as flying with Sanae or Reimu as, like Ran and Aya, rather than making us float she simply picked us both up and held onto us while she flew. In Orin's case, however, although she had no trouble holding us up, she was too small to get an arm comfortably around each of our waists, meaning we were constantly having to squirm and adjust our positions in midair. "What do you two want to come back here for?" she asked as we descended.

"I need to talk to your master and ask her some questions about her sister. I trust that now that the Incident is resolved you're no longer worried about what might happen if she finds out about Okuu's plan?"

"Hmmm, Okuu's given up on trying to attack the surface, so I guess it should probably be ok to go back. I don't think she'd put Okuu down just for having a stupid idea. That happens all the time."

"From what we heard from the mountain goddess, Satori already knew about Okuu eating the eye of Yatagarasu anyway and it didn't seem to have made her angry. I have to ask Orin, why were you so worried that Satori would be mad at Okuu? Was there a pet at the palace that had to be destroyed in the past?"

"No, nothing like that but... Okuu and I are Satori's pets, but she hasn't played with us in a really long time. I worry sometimes is all. Maybe she's too busy now and doesn't want us around any more." Orin said, looking down and away from Renko.

"Ah I see. I think your fears are unwarranted though. If Satori has been playing with you less frequently, have you tried asking her why? I suspect you might be surprised by her answer.

"Huh?"

"Satori keeps so many pets because, I think, unlike humans and youkai, animals appreciate her ability to read their minds and aren't frightened of her. I expect if you were to ask her why she's been spending less time with you and Okuu, you might find that she was afraid that since you two are more human-like and can talk on your own, you might develop a human-like revulsion for having your minds read and having her do all the talking. She seemed to be rather convinced that everyone hated her without even bothering to check."

"Miss Satori... thinks... that we hate her?"

"Well, I'm not a mind reader like she is, but that's my deduction."

"I wonder if that could be. If it is... then all Okuu and I would have to do would be to let her know that we still love her! Then everything could go back to the way it was before!" Orin looked up at Renko, smiling now. "Come on! Let's go find out if you're right or not! Hold on tight!"

I barely had time to reach up and clamp my arms onto her body before she surged ahead, the two of us swaying in her unsteady grip as she dived head first for the bottom of the shaft, and then into the utter darkness of the winding tunnels leading to the city.