As those who have read my case files up to this point would know, we here at Hifuu Detective Agency are frequently at the center of Incidents, often long before the Hakurei shrine maiden gets involved. Perhaps this is our destiny, as our original arrival in Gensokyo found us deposited unceremoniously in the great library of the Scarlet Devil Mansion just hours before the beginnings of the Crimson Mist Incident.
Up until this point, however, our role in these numerous Incidents had been strictly that of an observer, or at least something close to it. The biggest impact our presence had ever had on an Incident to date was probably during the Scarlet Mist Incident, when my partner ended up enticing the mastermind behind that Incident into action, though even without Renko's influence, I am sure something similar would likely have happened eventually. Similarly, during the Eternal Night Incident I was taken as a hostage by the mastermind behind those events. Again, had I not been present, however, the outcome of the event wouldn't have changed. The people responsible for resolving that Incident all had their own reasons for opposing Eirin's plot. Even during the time surrounding the arrival of the Moriya shrine, my partner was arguably responsible for sparking off the religious war between the two shrines that were at the center of that Incident, but had she not been present, the domineering presence of the goddesses of the Moriya shrine would almost certainly have caused the same thing to happen either way.
Thus, for the last several years that we have been living in Gensokyo, my partner and I have been in the strange positions of being involved in every Incident, always hanging around the sidelines, near the periphery of the Incident's mastermind, even though we are neither in the business of solving Incidents nor are we acting as henchmen to those responsible for the chaos.
In the spring of the year that saw the Hifuu club venture into the Underworld for the first time, however, all of that would change. This is the story of a different sort of Incident. It is the story of Myouren Temple, which was recently built just to the north of the village, just beyond the cemetery on the road leading toward Misty Lake. It is also a story about the disciples of the heretical nun Byakuren Hijiri, and how they struggled to free her from her imprisonment in Makai, the demon world, in which she had been sealed. Finally, it is also a story of three heroes - the Hakurei miko, an ordinary magician of the Forest of Magic and the Moriya wind priestess and how they dealt with the rebirth of a power that threatened to upset the balance of Gensokyo.
To Reimu Hakurei and the rest of the heroes who opposed this change to Gensokyo's status quo, this Incident came to be known as the Treasure Ship Incident. From the temple's point of view it is simply recorded as the tumultuous founding of a single temple and a not particularly noteworthy episode in vast history of Buddhism. There was, however, one thing about this Incident which was wholly unique, and which separated it from all previous Incidents:
Put simply, this time around the masterminds behind this Incident were none other than the Hifuu Detective Agency -Myself, Maeribel Hearn, that is, along with my partner Renko Usami (who, honestly, should shoulder most of the blame.) It goes without saying of course that this is not something we did intentionally, nor is it anything we achieved all on our own. Many people were involved, each with their own aims and agendas. In the end it was just a matter of our little agency working to help several different people that caused a situation that, from the point of view of the Hakurei Miko, seemed like an Incident.
Despite all of my equivocation and qualification of the facts, however, there is one point that I cannot deny: it was my partner, Renko Usami who both laid the groundwork for everything that happened and made the arrangements to set the the forces in motion that ultimately culminated in the Incident.
Thus, no matter what our ultimate fate in this world may be, Renko and I will leave our indelible stamp upon the history of Gensokyo in the form of a record within the Gensokyo Chronicle in which our names will be recorded as the architects behind the Treasure Ship Incident.
This volume you are reading therefore stands not only as my confession, but a record of the events of the Incident from the mastermind's point of view. It is a recording of what happened and why, and what the results of those events were.
It is also, of course, a record of my partner's grandiose and paranoid delusions, as had become typical of my writings.
It is the story of the living Bodhisattva and powerful magician, Byakuren Hijiri who was sealed away in Makai 1,000 years ago by the Yama.
It is the story of a ship phantom and a nyudo sorcerer, a tiger youkai who devoted herself to the worship of Bishamonten and the mouse youkai who watched over her.
And it is also the story of yet another youkai who interfered and confused events further for her own reasons.
Ultimately, it is a mystery story, whose central theme can be summed up in a single simple question:
"Why did any of this have to happen?"
So begins the story of the Treasure Ship Incident, an Incident which was caused by us directly. These are the delusions that lead my partner to such ends, and the events that unfolded as a result.
