This is the Hifuu Detective Agency: Case 8 - Subterranean Animism

by That-which-isn't

The 8th book in the Hifuu Detective Agency series. Events have been set in motion that are slowly raising the pressure in Gensokyo. When a mastermind's scheme threatens to boil over to the surface, threatening to release a stream of vengeful spirits into Gensokyo, it falls to Renko and Merry to get to the literal bottom of things, as the Hifuu Club descends into Former Hell.

43. Subterranean Animism: Epilogue

As Renko concluded we at last heard a sound from behind the screen -the sudden scraping of a chair as Satori abruptly stood up.

"If you're finished, then I'll ask you to leave now" was all that she said. The tone of her voice made it clear that no further answer to Renko's question should be expected.

Renko stood up as well and put her hat back on, tilting it low over her eyes. "My apologies, miss Komeiji. I'm sorry to have offended you. I'll take my leave now, but I'd like to offer one more suggestion before I go. Reimu and Marisa, the two humans who invaded the Underworld yesterday, will likely be heading to the Moriya shrine today or tomorrow to confront Kanako about recent events. If you want to spread Koishi's story among powerful and influential surface dwellers, you couldn't do much better than those two. Marisa might have trouble seeing her, but I expect Reimu will at least be able to sense her presence. Her whole line of business as a miko is listening to invisible spirits, so no matter what Koishi's nature is, I'm sure Reimu could be of help to her."

"...Do you intend to tell Koishi about this?"

"Well, that all depends on if we happen to see her again. As you said yourself, that's more up to her than it is us. My hope is that since, according to Parsee, Koishi is down here somewhere, she might appear before Merry at some point before we leave. If she does, we'll let her know. Maybe if you happen to see her here, you could tell her the same."

"I doubt she'd ever willingly come back to see me."

"She's been seeking out children on the surface who can see her and she reached out to Merry as well. That suggests she might be lonely. Maybe if you made an effort to go out and look for her yourself, she might notice and pay you a visit."

"Alright, you've said your piece now. Do I have to get my pets to chase you out?"

"No, we'll take our leave. Come on, Merry."

With that I turned and bowed to the folding screen, then followed Renko as she made for the door.

-.-.-.-.-

After leaving the room we made our way back toward the entrance of the palace. As we walked I looked over at my partner whose head was lowered contemplatively. A troubled expression played across her face as she marched, shoulders slumped and hands buried in her trenchcoat pockets.

"Renko, are you really okay with leaving things like this?"

"I don't think we have much of a choice, Merry. I was really hoping Satori would have denied some part of my story, told me there was some detail I had missed due to not being a mind reader or something." Her hat was pulled low, hiding her eyes in shadow as she continued to walk on, staring down at the ground. "I guess in the end it doesn't matter. Whether my theory is correct or not the ultimate solution is the same either way - Satori needs to talk with Koishi. She can't keep leaving it to hired hands to deal with her sister."

"Do you really think that's the issue, Renko? Koishi said she didn't want to come back here because her sister was always ordering her around, if I remember correctly. Maybe Satori getting people like us and the Yama to look for her sister is her way of trying to reach out, but Koishi sees it as controlling."

"All the more reason that the two of them should talk face to face. It's the only way they'll figure eachother out now that neither can read the other's mind. I think if Satori made a show of going out and looking for her sister herself, she might be able to find her. There's one way we could know for sure though, Merry. You could try asking her yourself."

"I haven't seen her around since we got here though, Renko."

"Well, it's probably pretty easy for a girl who's mostly invisible to hide," she said, looking up at me with a smirk and stopping her steady march through the hallway. "Why don't you try calling for her?"

I looked incredulously at my partner for a moment then let out a sigh. Taking a few steps forward I called out.

"Koishi? Are you here? If you are, could I talk with you for a bit?"

There was no response, but after a moment of standing and waiting, I heard the distinct patter of running footsteps echoing off of the stone floors back along the corridor behind us. I looked in the direction of the sound, then back at my partner.

"Renko, wait here. I'll be back in a little bit."

"Got it. Be careful," she said with a small wave.

Walking back along the corridor we had just come through I tried to determine exactly where I had heard the footsteps. It didn't take me long to notice a room branching off of the hallway to which the door stood conspicuously open. Inside of it, I could only see darkness.

Cautiously I stepped into the room, feeling ahead of me for any obstructions. "Koishi? Are you here?" A few more moments passed in silence, then a pale face loomed out of the darkness towards me.

"Here I am!"

There wasn't even an instant between the moment I saw her face and moment I saw the knife. It was a simple thing, a blade like you might find in any kitchen, human or youkai, solid and practical, easy to hold. I caught the reddish light from the hallway glinting off of it for only a fraction of second before it lunged straight for my heart.

I couldn't tell you how I managed to dodge the blow. It was instinct more than anything else, an action I didn't remember taking until after it was over. Even then I couldn't tell you how I ended up on the opposite side of the room, behind Koishi as she drove the blade forward, into the space where I had been a moment before, past where I had been standing to impact against the the wall. She overbalanced from her lunge and stumbled to recover as the knife glanced off of the wall and clattered to the ground.

"Aww, I missed!" she whined. "All that time sneaking up on you and I missed. Oh well, where did you go, Merry? Oh, there you are. What should we play next?"

My breath caught in my throat as I stared at her. For a moment I was too frightened to talk, but she made no effort to retrieve the blade or take any other aggressive action, merely staring at me with a blank, disquietingly calm smile.

"Koishi, did you just try to stab me?"

"That was the game, silly. Did you forget? I'd been stalking you all this time, but you kept staying near people I didn't want to see me, so I had to wait. You're too good at this game though, Merry. After all that I still couldn't kill you. Let's play something else."

"I think I'll pass on another game. Can we just talk for a bit?"

"Okay. What were you talking to my sister about though?" she asked, cocking her head to the side.

"Oh, a whole bunch of things, actually. Why not go and ask her yourself?"

"She wouldn't tell me." Koishi said, emotionlessly, looking down and shifting her weight from side to side. There was no inflection to her voice, but her movements and body language conveyed an unmistakable sense of loneliness. Koishi may have been the sister to close her third eye, but I wondered if Satori might have committed the deeper transgression, in closing her heart to her sister. That's uncharitable of me to say though. I couldn't know what emotions or motivations might pass through Satori's mind.

"I see," I said, nodding and bending over to bring myself to eye level with the girl. "Well, I can tell you about a few of the things we talked about. Do you know what's been going on with your pet Okuu recently?"

"She got really strong! And she got a third eye like mine, I don't think she can see people's minds with it though."

"That's the eye of Yatagarasu. It was given to her by a mountain god."

"A mountain god?"

"Mhm. Do you know the big, tall mountain on the surface? Well, half-way up that mountain there's a shrine. That's where the mountain god lives."

"Oh! Is that where the shrine maiden comes from? I watched her fight Okuu."

"Umm, she's actually from a different shrine. If you go to the mountain shrine in the next few days though, there's a good chance you might meet the same shrine maiden that Okuu did."

"Can I meet the god too?"

"She'll be there. If you make a donation she might even come out to say 'hi.'"

"Wow, neat!" The smile she wore was utterly innocent, an autonomic reaction not meant to convey anything, simply a pure, in-the-moment expression of joy. The very essence of a smile. It quickly faded, however. "Even if I go though, no one will see me. You're the only one who can."

I smiled back at her, trying to appear comforting. "Well, I'm the only one who's noticed you so far, but I think that might be about to change. I think if you really want someone to notice you, and you try to express that from the bottom of your heart, I think people will probably be able to see you."

She looked back at me with a puzzled expression on her face.

"Really. I've only met you a few times, but I think your emotions are the strongest part of you. Why don't you try it now? Let's leave the knife behind, but if you sneak up on my buddy over there and concentrate really hard on being seen, I bet you could surprise her. Just gather up all your will to be noticed and let it go in one burst."

-.-.-.-.-

"Merry, where's Koishi? Did you find her?"

"I found her, but she ran away again."

In the end, Koishi had refused my proposal, coming as far as the door with me, but then taking one look and Renko and declaring "No. Don't wanna," before bolting off. My hope was that she might show up at the Moriya shrine in a day or two though as I hadn't really answered any of her questions and she had seemed interested. I could only hope she would remember my words when the time came. I felt confident that between Sanae, Reimu and Marisa at least one of them would be able to see and hear her if they tried.

"It's me, isn't it? She ran away when you suggested she come talk to me?" I nodded. "Why, Merry? Am I really so horrible? Her and the youkai sage both. What do they see about me that they so despise?"

"If she really has become a youkai of the unconscious mind now, she wouldn't be able to tell you even if she was here, Renko. She would just know she doesn't like you."

"It's hard, Merry. Now both Komeiji sisters hate me," she said, laying her head on my shoulder.

"There, there Renko. Speaking of that though, I think I might have found a problem with your earlier theory. Maybe you should consider running them by me before springing them on the mastermind for once."

"I can't do that," she said, raising her head back up to frown at me. "It'd be completely contrary to the nature of a great detective. What are you thinking though?"

"Well, you mentioned that you thought Koishi might have been revived as a youkai of the unconscious mind after completely disappearing, but if that were the case, then how was I able to see her before I ever heard about there being such a thing? The first time I saw her I thought she was a ghost, or partially invisible or something, but I could still detect her. If she was really a new kind of unconscious youkai, wouldn't I have not been able to sense her until I knew that the possibility of such a thing existed?"

In terms of Relative Psychology, my question made sense. That which cannot be subjectively recognized cannot be perceived. Normally when encountering someone or something for the first time we still have a number of comparisons we can use to categorize things, adding more layers of meaning over time. A person you've just met for the first time is still recognizable as 'a person' and if you had been told something about them, then you might make those associations as well. Koishi wasn't like that though. She was permanently without context, the ultimate living non-sequitur. If she really was a new kind of youkai, then until I heard from someone else that that sort of youkai existed, I wouldn't have had any associations for her to connect to at all. She should have seemed like something entirely new to me, not just a lonely girl in a cave. At best she might have appeared like a formless hallucination if Renko's theory was right, but right from the beginning she had had a definite and distinct nature of her own.

Renko eased her hat back on her head, rolling the brim between thumb and forefinger contemplatively. "Hmmm, that's an interesting observation. I wonder if having been perceived as a youkai of unconsciousness by others might have stabilized her somehow. The Yama would have seen her, for example, and classified her as 'existing' that way, so maybe that made her solid enough for you to see. It almost sounds like a specialized case of Sheldrake's theory of morphogenetic fields. That's only a theory though, there's no way we could confirm that now that you already know about her."

Interlocking her fingers behind her head, Renko began walking toward the foyer again, looking up as she mused. "Whether she's a youkai on the verge of fading away, or a newly created youkai whose very essence is to inhabit an intermittent and ephemeral existence, it amounts to the same thing. Questioning her existence is the same as affirming it. It's a bizarre state to be in. What do you think it would be like to live like that Merry? If you had to constantly question whether or not you existed in order to keep existing wouldn't that drive you crazy? It almost sounds like a Zen koan -'what is the nature of a mind that cannot be read?' Can one be conscious of their own unconsciousness?"

"That's an old problem in psychology, Renko, it's basically a rephrasing of the philosophical zombie question," I said, falling into step behind her. "If you had a creature that had no conscious mind but reacted to stimuli as if it did, there'd be no way for an outside observer to determine if that creature was conscious or not. In essence it's impossible to know what Koishi's internal thought processes are like. We don't even really know if Satori was telling the truth about not being able to read her mind. Maybe she's just so hard to see that something sight-based like Satori's third eye has a hard time focusing on her."

It'd be an interesting wrinkle if we could bring Satori back to the Scientific Century somehow. We could have her look at a neural network or a vat-grown collection of neuroglia and tell us if they really had minds or not. Maybe the measure of consciousness would become whether or not a mind could be detected by a satori. I wonder what Alice would make of her ability in her quest to create an artificial soul? Moreover, I wonder if Koishi would say that she has a soul or not. I wonder if she could even ponder the question."

"Well, I'd say she does, at any rate. In fact, I think I understand how she must feel."

"Oh? How so?"

"Back when she was a normal satori, everyone around her would have hated and feared her because of her abilities. When you live like that it's a natural instinct to try to make yourself invisible. You try to hide who you are and become someone else, or else become totally undetectable to everyone. You start to become afraid to show yourself for fear of being rejected. Maybe Koishi isn't an unconscious youkai. Maybe she's just a shy, sensitive girl. That could be why she always runs away from you Renko, she's afraid that if you saw her for what she is, you'd hate her or be scared."

I sighed and passed my hand over my eyes. Maybe I was empathizing a bit too much in this case. There was a fine line between understanding and projection. Unpleasant memories of my own adolescence came unbidden into my mind, but I resolutely stamped them back down.

Forcing a smile, I looked back up at my partner, who had stopped walking again and turned to face me. This arrogant girl, who had forced her way into my life without asking, taken me by the hand, and pulled me along after her into a world of adventure and mystery, a world utterly different from the stoic, reserved life I had known before. More than once since then I had cursed her name, or wished that she wouldn't pull me into dangerous situations, or that I could do a better job of reigning her self-destructive tendencies in. Never once though had I wished that she wasn't at my side. Never once did I regret having met her or wish that I had been able to remain as I was, withdrawn and scared, with my heart closed to the world around me.

"Hey, Merry, it's okay," she said, stepping close to me and raising a hand to my cheek. I closed my eyes and felt the warm softness of her fingers against my skin. Sighing slightly, I lightly pressed my hand over hers, holding it there. I didn't have to bother explaining, and Renko didn't have to bother trying to reassure me. It was enough just to feel her hand. With the feeling of our hands overlapping, I could be certain. Of many things. Of my existence, and of hers. Of our future together, bound to be full of endless mystery, excitement and more than a little danger. That no matter what happened or where I might get lost, Renko would always find me.

-.-.-.-.-

Well, it wouldn't be appropriate to put the brush down here. If I did, I'd never hear the end of it from Sanae. This isn't a love story between Renko and I, after all. This is a mystery novel. And so my epilogue will continue a little longer.

-.-.-.-.-

"Oh! Are you done talking with miss Satori, sisters?"

"Yes, we are, Orin. Sorry to make you wait."

I had wondered where Rin had disappeared to ever since we left Satori's office, but we found her easily enough at the junction leading to the main hallway, surrounded by a dozen or so of the Komeiji sisters' other pets. They seemed to all be indistinguishable black hellcats, slightly larger than the average housecat, but otherwise identical. Although they had intimidated us before, now they greeted us with cute meows and pink yawns. Part of me wondered if one might make a good pet for us to bring back to the surface. Another part wondered if, as youkai, they would be likely to simply eat both of us while we slept.

"I can go talk to Satori anytime then. If you want to go back to the surface, I can take you now."

"Before that, I was actually hoping I might talk to Okuu for a bit," Renko said. "Does she ever come up here to the palace? I'm not too eager to go back down into that inferno."

"She only comes up when she remembers to. I don't think you guys want to wait that long, so I'll go get her. Just wait here for me." With that Orin bounded off, scampering on all fours until she reached the corner and turned out of sight. I smiled and crouched down, reaching a hand out toward one of the hellcats. It regarded me suspiciously and got up and walked past, close enough that its fur brushed against me, but far enough that I couldn't have grabbed it. With even that faintest brush of contact though, I could feel that its body was tremendously hot, like burning coal covered in fur. Settling back down it joined the other hellcats, who were all purring in a pile, but keeping their distance, more than a meter back from us. Perhaps arms reach was as close as humans and youkai ought to get. We spent perhaps ten minutes admiring the cats and taunting them with bits of string before a voice called out to us.

"Oh! It's... those people... the fuels I met the other day!"

Black wings flapping heavily, Okuu was flying down the corridor towards us. The smell of smoke clung faintly to her clothes as she landed in front of us with a heavy thunk, and a happy, if clueless, expression on her face. Apparently we had made enough of an impression on her to stick somewhere in the corners of her memory, but only just barely. Orin was not far behind her, running to catch up and pushing one of her wheelbarrows, draped with a dingy-looking cloth.

Pressing her heels against the stone floor, Orin slowed to a stop, then tilted her head inquisitively. "Nya? When did you two meet Okuu, sisters?"

"Just the other day," Renko said, rising to her feet. "We were introduced by the mountain god. Speaking of which, Okuu, I heard that you decided to give up on burning the surface world?"

"Ummm, It's not that I really gave up so much as I don't think it would be a good idea any more. The shrine maiden and the witch live up there and they're really strong!"

"Well, as a human who also lives on the surface, I appreciate your restraint. Now that you're not planning on doing it anymore though, do you remember why you had wanted to in the first place?

"Huh? I don't know."

"You were saying before you thought you'd be happy if you did, right?"

"Yes! I still think it'd be a good idea if I could. I just can't though."

"Well, do you remember why it would make you happy?"

"Ummm, let me think... Hey Rin, do you remember why I wanted to make a new Hell on the surface?"

"How would I know?" Rin asked, leaning forward with her hands on her hips and an exasperated expression on her face as Okuu continued to twist her head from side to side, pondering.

"Well, I can take a guess," Renko said, holding up one finger. "Okuu, Orin is your best friend, right?"

"Yeah!" Okuu answered excitedly, all traces of her pensive self-examination forgotten.

"And when Orin is happy, you're happy too, right Okuu?"

"Wait a minute, where are you going with this, sister? None of this was my idea!"

Renko ignored Orin's outburst and continued. "Now Okuu, your friend Orin is a kasha, right? What sort of things make a kasha happy?"

"What makes Orin happy? Ummm, she likes to wear pretty dresses... and when you scratch her behind the ear... Oh! But most of all she like it when there's lots of corpses and vengeful spirits for her to take! Ah! I just remembered! If I burn the surface world, it would make Orin happy because there'd be lots of corpses! It was going to be my surprise for her!" Okuu declared that with a big smile, clunking the heavy metal of her control rod into her palm as the link finally connected in her brain.

Orin stared at her, jaw agape for a moment.

"You were doing all of this for me?"

"Uh huh! It's a surprise!"

"Okuu, you told me about this weeks ago. You came by every day to show me how much hotter you were able to make the flames in preparation for your attack. You made the fires so hot I couldn't go anywhere near you any more!"

"Unyu? Was that bad?"

"Okuu, it can't be a surprise if you tell someone about it! Were you really going to burn the whole world as a gift for me?"

"Orin deserves a big gift! She always helps me when I forget things, and tells me what I'm supposed to be doing and helps me find my stuff when I lose it! Orin's the best! I'd burn everything for her!"

"Okuu, you're an idiot!" Orin said, leaping up to embrace Okuu and trembling as she did so.

"What's wrong, Orin? You look sad now."

"I'm okay Okuu, you're the one who should be sad, you could have died doing that!"

"Unyu? Is that wrong? I don't want to die, but if it made Orin happy..."

"Idiot!" Orin muttered, burying her face in Okuu's ribs.

"Sorry, Orin. Did I do a bad thing?" Okuu asked, wrapping her weighted right arm around Orin's back and using her left hand to stroke the kasha's hair.

"The worst. You're such a dummy, Okuu... and you're the sweetest girl in the world."

"Unyu... I don't get it Orin."

"Just be quiet, Okuu."

Obediently, Okuu shut her mouth, but continued to pet Orin's hair, smiling softly down at her as she did so. Despite the topic of discussion being the near-success of a plan to start a genocidal war of extermination against the humans and youkai of the surface, I couldn't really see the scene as anything but a heartwarming tableau of friendship between the two of them.

-.-.-.-.-

After that, we made our way out of Chireiden without further delay. It didn't seem appropriate to interrupt the endearing moment Okuu and Orin were sharing, so we saw ourselves out without an escort. I was a bit worried about the prospect of wandering the city alone, but as it turns out we didn't have to. As we were making our way through the back alleys and quiet streets surrounding the palace we happened to run into Yamame, whose head was still wrapped in a bandage, but who looked overall remarkably more recovered after having had a few hours to feast and drink.

"Heeey! Renko, Merry!" she called, waving us over. "Come back to the party with me, Yuugi's been waiting for you!"

As an invitation to party with the leader of the oni gangs of the Underworld wasn't really the sort of thing you could refuse, we ended up following Yamame and making our way back to the party. At this point I don't think I need to bother explaining what the oni party was like, but I will mention that Yuugi seemed to keep in mind that the two of us were humans and not oni this time. She regaled us with the story of her fierce battle against both Reimu and especially Marisa, who she seemed to have taken a real liking to. I could see why the two of them would be compatible, as both were straightforward, uncomplicated people who faced challenges head on and cared little for either social niceties or warnings from more timid folk about what was or wasn't possible.

In the end, after several hours, Renko managed to come away only slightly more drunk than she would have been after one of the usual parties at the Hakurei shrine. Having been released from conversation with Yuugi for a moment, she was taking a breather, slumped against my shoulder and drinking water from a wooden cup Kisume had brought me.

"So I assume you wanted to go see the hermit on the mountain because you figured that's who Yuugi was talking about?" I asked, thinking of the last time we had been up to the Moriya shrine. "That hermit wasn't an oni though, was she?"

"Well, the name she gave us is very similar to the one Yuugi did, and she had bandages all up her right arm. It seems like even if they aren't the same person they must have some connection. Maybe Ibaraki Doji left the underground to intentionally do to themselves the same thing that Koishi had done to her. Maybe she wanted to change herself into a different type of youkai. Would a hermit really count as a kind of youkai though? Or could an oni change themselves into a human?"

"I don't know, Renko. Maybe you can ask her when we see her again. With her living so close to the Moriya shrine, it seems likely we'll get to at some point."

"I'm looking forward to doing just that," Renko said, poking the brim of her hat back, away from her eyes. The sparkle shining in those eyes was more than just the warmth of the alcohol she had consumed. For my partner, even as we were in the process of resolving one mystery, the promise of more mysteries yet to come was always enough to grab her attention. I suppose I can't count myself as being any better, as I'm always eager to follow along on her discoveries.

"For now though," Renko continued, "we still have one more pressing bit of business to take care of. We need to go talk to the crew of the Holy Palanquin again."

"You're really going to suggest that plan you came up with to them? Do you think it has any hope of working?" I asked, resting my head on my hand and regarding Renko with an unimpressed expression. She had mentioned a plan to extract the ship from the depths to me earlier, but I hadn't included it here as it was among the more ridiculous of her musings I had ever heard.

"Hey, what are you two scheming now?" Yamame asked, suddenly appearing over Renko's shoulder. She leaned forward and draped her arms over the both of us, clearly drunk on oni sake. The bandages around her head were now drooping loosely, and although they were bloodstained in places, there was no hint of a wound visible beneath them. "You two come up with some crazy ideas, but they always seem to end up making Yuugi happy, so maybe I should hang around you more often. I could get in her good books. So tell me, what have you got planned now?" She wobbled unsteadily for a moment, resting her weight on both of our shoulders, but then recovered her balance. Behind her, Kisume was floating in her bucket, tugging on the hem of Yamame's skirt.

"Actually Yamame," Renko said, smiling up at her, "I'm glad you're here, you're just the sort of person this particular crazy scheme could use."

"Oh yeah? Just leave it to Yamame, the most popular tsuchigumo in Former Hell! What do you need? Something built? Someone infected with a disease?"

Renko leaned over and cupped her hand to Yamame's ear, quickly whispering the specifics of her plan. I didn't doubt that the version she told the tsuchigumo was somewhat more technical than the version she had relayed to me earlier, as I had seen Renko making some calculations the other night, and their whispered conversation included a few simple diagrams and figures scratched into the dirt. After a few whispered back and forth discussions between them, Yamame nodded. "It's totally insane, but I don't actually think it's impossible. It's definitely not the sort of thing I'd normally come up with, but Yuugi's being real generous with the sake right now, so why not? Oh, in fact, let's ask her. Heeey Yuugi! Renko and I are gonna try something crazy, wanna help?" This last part she shouted across the square after rising unsteadily to her feet. I noticed that as she stumbled this time she leaned deeply to one side but recovered her balance just as soon as the hem of her skirt touched the ground. For a moment I thought I saw a rigid form distorting the drape of her skirt as she recovered, as if the fabric were draping over a stiff appendage that quickly retracted beneath the bulbous folds of the cloth.

"Oh, is this Renko's idea? This oughta be good." Yuugi said, rising up from the mat where she had been drinking with other oni and lumbering over to us. "What sort of nonsense are you planning now?"

Yamame climbed on top of a nearby barrel to bring herself level with Yuugi and cupped a hand to whisper into her ear. As she related Renko's plan, Yuugi's expression went through several stages, at first doubtful, then confused, then finally, as Yamame finished, she turned and looked at both Yamame and Renko who were staring up at her hopefully and burst out laughing.

"Bwahahahah! That's insane. I knew you'd come up with something good, Renko. Are you sure you're alright in the head?"

"Well, I think I am," Renko said, grinning as she stood up. "But maybe that doesn't count for much. Are you okay with following a plan designed by a crazy human?"

"I said it was good, didn't I? Oni don't lie. It might make a bit of a fuss for the people living on the surface, but if it does, I'll just tell them it was your idea. No one would ever expect a human to do something like that, so there's nothing against it in the pact we signed."

"That works for me. If the Administrator wants to complain about my plan, she can come talk to me herself. I'd welcome that, in fact." Renko said with a grin.

Personally, I couldn't believe how readily Renko's plan was being accepted. Aside from being ludicrous on its surface, it seemed wildly irresponsible to me. Neither Yuugi nor Yamame seemed to share my concerns though.

"I'll help any way I can," Yuugi declared. "Just let me know if you need any laborers. I'm sure I can convince some people to help you out."

Renko turned to me and shot me her cheesiest grin along with a big, drunken thumbs-up. I sighed and buried my face in my hand. I could only hope that whatever repercussions fell upon Renko for this wouldn't affect me as well, though honestly that seemed like a rather unlikely chance.

-.-.-.-.-

"Renko, Merry, console me. I just had the worst day."

Two days after our visit to the Palace of the Earth Spirits, Sanae stopped by our office, making this announcement as she came in the door, then proceeding to immediately collapse on the tatami mats without even bothering to take her boots off first. Renko and I were sitting at the kotatsu at the time and turned our heads as one as she landed, face down, arms pinned to her sides.

Renko waited a beat, watching as Sanae lay motionless before prodding her gently with a finger. "Let me take a wild guess. Reimu and Marisa just came charging up to your shrine to have words with Lady Yasaka again, is that it? I take it they got in a fight with you too?"

"I didn't even make it to Reimu this time. I fought Marisa first, but she's really strong! I thought she was supposed to be Reimu's sidekick or something. I even tried out the new Spell Card you suggested, but she just blasted all of the rice at once," Sanae moaned into the tatami. After saying all of that she sat up, still frowning, and took off her boots before scooting over and sliding under the kotatsu to join us.

"While all of that was happening, did you by any chance happen to spy another visitor to your shrine? She might have been hard to see, a youkai with a very weak presence."

"You know about her too?! I thought at first I had imagined her, but then she came up and shouted at me. She seemed to want to talk to lady Kanako, but Reimu and Marisa arrived just after she did and got in a fight with her just outside the outer shrine. Who was she? Do you know her, Renko? Why was she so hard to see?"

"Well, it's a long story to explain everything about her, but the important bit is she's a youkai who's basically a Zetsu master. She has something like a permanent version of [God's Accomplice] running at all times."

Sanae's eyes went wide with wonder. Rather than being confused by that explanation, as I imagine any sensible person might be, she instantly understood perfectly. "So she's a cuter version of Meleoron? Cool!" If you ever desire to understand what Sanae was talking about, you'll have to ask to borrow volume 23 of HUNTER x HUNTER from the Moriya shrine.

"Basically, yes." Renko said, nodding along. "Her name's Koishi Komeiji."

"She's an odd one. She fought Reimu and Marisa, but I'm not really sure why. She just started attacking them until they figured out where she was and fought back. After that she went and talked to Lady Suwako for a while, even though she showed up looking for Lady Kanako. Then she left."

"Yeah, she's pretty unpredictable. She's mostly harmless though, just be careful if she asks you to play a game. Enough about her though, what happened when Reimu and Marisa got to Lady Yasaka?"

"Reimu spent a lot of time yelling. I had no idea what she was talking about, but Lady Kanako didn't seem too mad or surprised about any of it. In the end they both just made her promise to tell them if she was going to do something like that again. I don't know what she even did though! Something about generating power? Why would Reimu be mad about that?"

"Well, that's a good question Sanae. Maybe you'd have more luck asking Lady Moriya about that. We could go with you for moral support if you like. I even have some questions of my own I'd like to ask her."

"Oh, okay. Should I fly us back to my place then? What is it you want to ask her about?"

"Nothing much, just a small civil engineering project, since she's decided to work on modernizing Gensokyo," Renko replied with a mischievous smile.

Sanae blinked in surprise at that response, but didn't question it further.

-.-.-.-.-

And that, dear readers, is where this story ends. To go any further and explore the nature of Renko's plans or what became of them would be to step into the territory of the next Incident, which followed almost immediately after this one. I'll be telling that story too, but you'll need to wait for my next casefile to read it, as this particular story has already gone long enough. I'll leave all discussions of Renko's plan to my record covering the Treasure Ship Incident, which was in full swing by the following spring. It was that Incident which lead to the creation of the new temple outside the village, which has quickly become a barely remarkable feature of day-to-day life for the humans of Gensokyo as I alluded to in the introduction to this record.

From here, we have never heard any further details about the Vengeful Spirit Incident, or how it may have affected the lives of those living in the Underworld. In my mind though, I like to imagine that after fighting with and being recognized by Reimu and Marisa, Koishi would have wanted to tell someone about her adventures, and being as few people could see her at all and she never appeared at our office in the village looking for us, she might have gone back home to the Palace of the Earth Spirits. If there's any hint of truth to my partner's suspicion that this event was a caused by Satori for her sister's sake, then I think such an ending would be appropriate, even if it's only my baseless fantasy.

I can see in my head exactly how it would go. After the sound of Koishi knocking faded, on either side of the door to Satori's office would be the two Komeiji sisters. They would both hesitate, not knowing what to say, or who should be the first to open up to the other. Maybe after a moment they would both speak. "Hello again, sister" both might say to the other, as the door was thrown open. Both would be happy to sense the other's presence again, even if they couldn't see or know eachother to the extent that two mind-reading sisters must once have been used to. Despite that, Koishi would be invited in, past many doors that had been closed to her for too long. In my heart, I hope that the two of them might find opportunity rather than tragedy in eachother's presence, a chance to get to know the other in a way that they never could have before. A chance for both of them to find a new way to be sisters.

Perhaps Renko is right about me, I'm getting to be just as delusional as she is.

But then again maybe that's the way things should be. After all, Renko would be the first to remind me that as a member of the Hifuu Detective Agency, our sworn and solemn duty is to make this world more interesting. If I can shape this world to be a happier place for the people who live here, then I think that would be a goal worth pursuing, no matter the risk.

They say the first step to any successful plan is imagining your triumph, so that you can be ready to recognize success when you get there. Maybe someday, if you have a problem of your own you need a little help with, you'll come by our office behind the temple school and my partner and I will do our best to dream up such a happy ending for you as well.

Until that day arrives, we'll be here, waiting.

[End of Book 8: Subterranean Animism]

-.-.-.-.-

Author's Afterword:

Thank you for reading this far. I am Shinobu Asakihara, the author. I hope you enjoyed reading the record of The Palace of the Earth Spirits. It's the longest story I've ever written, and one I had been looking forward to for a long time.

When I initially conceived of this story, I intended for Renko to solve a mystery for every one of the eight characters introduced in the prologue, and the initial question which opens the story is a bit of a remnant of that. If anything, that would have made this story even longer though. In the end, I decided that my story involving the Komeiji sisters was the most important and decided to focus on that, but a lot of the characterization I have in mind for them comes from other secondary works and doujins I have read, so I apologize if things strayed too far from the truth.

The next story will be UFO, which I already have mostly done. I hope to release it soon. Until then, thank you for your ongoing support of the Hifuu Detective Agency.