Three months had passed since the end of the Vengeful Spirit Incident. It was that strange period of the year when winter has most definitely ended, but spring can't really be said to have started yet, grey and overcast with the nights slowly shortening but still seeming long and the air too chilly to be comfortable even if there was no longer any snow. Thus, it was also three months since we had first ventured into the city of Former Hell deep beneath the surface of Gensokyo, where we had so recently made a number of new friends (Underworld connections, you might say.)

What had we spent those three months doing, you might ask?

The answer is that we had been working on a project, a joint effort between forces both above and below the ground, both divine and monstrous in nature. It was just now reaching its final stages.

"Heeeave-ho! Heeeave-ho!" a dozen voices called out in rhythm.

In the dimly lit caves far beneath the surface, the brawny backs of a dozen oni strained and pulled on a series of thick, knotted ropes. Impelled by the terrible force of their muscles, an enormous wooden ship slowly slid across the ground, sitting on the polished granite runners of a huge stone sledge. The bare stone surface over which it was sliding was solid bedrock, mostly flat, but with ridges here and there that had had to be smashed into gravel with iron hammers ahead of time. This was the last leg of the ship's long journey, and its final destination was just a few dozen meters away - the Lake of Blood deep beneath the surface of Gensokyo, a vast, dark sea that had, at one time, been one of the many hells.

"After so long, it's hard to believe this project's finally coming to an end, eh Merry?" Renko asked with a broad smile on her face.

"I can't believe everyone agreed to such a nonsensical plan. Doesn't it seem a little weird to launch a ship like The Holy Palanquin onto the Lake of Blood though? The ship used to be a Buddhist temple right?"

The two of us were sitting on a reed mat, watching the ship's journey over the last few meters of its months-long voyage. All around us a crowd of youkai was gathered, chatting eagerly in anticipation of the impending celebration of the project's completion.

"You're worrying about the details too much, Merry," Renko said, as she watched the progress with undisguised excitement. "The Lake of Blood isn't being maintained anymore, so this is only a former hell now. It doesn't matter what the lake is made of, all that matters is if it can float the boat."

"Hey! Keep in formation, we're trying to pull this thing forward, not apart! Get lined up! Now pull! Heave!" This exhortation had been bellowed by the oni sitting beside us on the mat, watching over the work. When she wasn't shouting to keep the other oni in line, Yuugi Hoshiguma, leader of the oni gangs of Former Hell was grinning fearsomely, nearly as excited as Renko to see the project complete. Behind her, dozens of other youkai were standing around to watch the launch. Some were oni, but a wide variety of other youkai were present too, reviled and monstrous residents of the subterranean city, every one of them. Most of them kept their distance from our mat out of respect for Yuugi's position, but their faces were alight with building excitement as the rumble of the enormous sledge shook the ground, drawing ever nearer to the shores of the lake.

"I spent two decades helping to repair that thing, but even I never thought this would be possible," said another voice. It had come from Yamame Kurodani, the tsuchigumo foreman who had acted as lead engineer in our endeavor, designing the sledge that now carried the ship, the scaffolds that had been used to put it together after it had been brought here in pieces and the cranes and pulleys that had allowed the oni laborers, who were better suited to breaking things apart than putting them together, to easily connect the assembled sections. Smiling as she sat beside Yuugi, she looked up at the ship as it passed us, holding a bucket in her hands. The bucket was home to (or perhaps part of, I still wasn't clear on that) her friend Kisume, a tsurube otoshi who dwelled within it. Kisume was looking up as well, following Yamame's gaze as the towering walls of the ship's hull slowly slid by. "What do you think, Kisume? It's a pretty nice ship, isn't it?"

The green-haired girl in the bucket nodded emphatically.

Beside her was sitting Parsee Mizuhashi, another of the youkai invited to our little launch party, her gaze consciously fixed on the form of the ship. "I'm a bit jealous of all the attention that hunk of dead wood is getting," she muttered aloud, but even she seemed almost happy as her lamp-like green eyes turned toward the towering tip of the ships mast, which stood, proud and erect, more than twenty meters above us.

"Heeeave-ho! Heeeave-ho! Heeeave-ha!"

With one great, final shout, the workers, some of whom were now knee-deep in the blood of the lake, gave the ropes a final, powerful tug. The stone sledge collided with the edge of the launching ramp and, as they strained and held the rope, the ship itself began to slowly skid forward on the sledge, toward the ramp itself.

"Pull, you weaklings! If I have to come out there and pull for anyone, I'm throwing them as far out into the lake as I can!" Yuugi shouted.

The groans of the oni redoubled and the stern of the ship eased steadily forward, millimeter by millimeter until finally, under the force of its own weight, the ship began to slide along the stone rails of the launch. There was a cry of triumphant jubilation from all of the assembled throng which was quickly joined by the sound of an enormous splash as the prow of the long-dry ship cut into the red waters of the hellish lake for the first time. The laborers scattered out of the way, cheering as the ship plowed forward, throwing a gory wake to either side, then settling into its balance point. The Holy Palanquin, first a collection of burnt and shattered pieces, and later a reassembled and refurbished, but still landlocked vessel, coasted a short distance on the surface of the lake, looking like a proper sailing ship for the first time in a thousand years. As thunderous cheers rang out throughout the cavern we all rose to our feet as one, spontaneously applauding.

From the deck of the ship, two figures appeared, then leaped off of the side, plunging toward the blood of the lake. Neither seemed to ever quite hit it. One was scooped out of the air mid-fall by a fast-moving cloud of dense pink vapor on which she stood, leaning forward as it carried her towards us. The other descended as far as the surface of the pool but then ran across its slick and rippling surface towards us, paying the laws of gravity and inertia no thought whatsoever. The girl running on the surface of the lake was the first to reach us, her spotless white sailor's uniform shining with an inner luminescence as she ran from the shallows up onto land to greet us with arms spread wide and a look of pure elation on her face.

"Renko!"

"Captain!"

"It's working!"

"So far, so good!"

Captain Murasa didn't brake her sprint one bit, leaping forward and meeting Renko's upraised hands with a double high five. The force of her momentum carried her into a collision and the both of them stumbled into me. The three of us landed in a heap, piled up against Yamame's leg.

"Merry! Thank you for all of your help! You too, Yamame! And you, Yuugi! And you too, Kisume! Everyone! We couldn't have made it without any one of you!"

Yamame looked down at where we had all piled up and smiled at us.

"I've never seen you in such high spirits, Captain. I'm happy for you."

As we all climbed back to our feet the other girl who had leapt from the ship arrived, along with the pink cloud she was riding on. Stepping down onto the stone floor, Ichirin greeted us all with an equally broad smile as the cloud reformed into Unzan's towering face. Even his usually stern features had melted into a look of genuine happiness.

"Of course she's happy. After a thousand years of hopeless toil, the Holy Palanquin is ship-shape again. The day has come for us to depart and make our way toward mother Byakuren! Our one and only wish has finally been fulfilled!"

"Yes, yes. 8,000 points for Captain Murasa and all that," Yamame declared as Murasa grabbed both of Yuugi's hands and began dancing in giddy circles with her, almost mad with joy. "Are you ready for what comes next though, Ichirin? I imagine I can't convince either of you to stay for a while now that now that you have your ship, can I?"

"We're more than ready to go. We've had centuries to prepare, after all. The ship should automatically be drawn toward mother Byakuren's power as she invested so much of herself into it before she was sealed away. It's known where to go this whole time, we just had to give it the means. The fact that we can let it guide us now is all thanks to your generous aid," she said, bowing deeply and formally.

"Aww, forget about it. I only did a little of the actual work. Renko came up with most of the plans and the oni did all the heavy lifting."

"We couldn't have gotten here without all of your efforts," she said, turning to face all of us. "Unzan also wishes to express his heartfelt thanks." She bowed once again, the pink cloud of nyudo vapors behind her also rotating in the air in the approximation of a deep bow.

"I feel like words alone could never be enough thanks for all that you've done for us. Especially you, Renko," Murasa said, walking to stand beside Ichirin and offering a deep bow of her own. "You're the spark that made this all happen. Everything changed the day I met you."

"She has that effect on people. It won't be until later that you realize that the change isn't always for the best." I said, still smiling.

Murasa took no notice of my quip. "If there's ever anything that we of the Myouren temple can do for you, be sure to let us know. You're the first human besides mother Byakuren herself to have ever aided us."

"Well, if you're offering, and if it's not too much trouble, I'd actually love to accompany you to Makai. I'd like to meet this Byakuren, if I may."

"That's no trouble at all! We'd love for you to meet her. I'm sure she'd be overjoyed to know her benefactor, after all."

"Yes, we'd be happy to have you aboard. Unzan can carry you up. Will you be coming too, Merry?" Ichirin asked, turning to me.

"I'd be happy to come, if you don't mind. I don't feel like I had much to do with any of this though," I admitted.

"Nonsense, Merry, you're my plus-one. Where one of us goes, we both go. We're only the Hifuu Club when there's two of us, right?"

I smiled at her, but before I could respond, another pair of voices interrupted as two more figures drew closer, flying through the endless night of the caves, soaring over the heads of the crowd to land just beside Murasa, Ichirin and Unzan.

"There's so many people here, Orin! I've never seen this many. If I started doing fusion now, you could have so many corpses for the fires!"

"Not yet, Okuu! Wait until Renko says to start before you do any fusion, okay? We're not here to make a new Hell."

Standing so close to Yuugi and Parsee, and surrounded by a boisterous crowd of oni, Orin shrunk away, looking skittish and half-disappearing into Okuu's shadow. The hell raven, however, was too awe-struck to be nervous, staring around in empty-headed wonder at the crowd, the ship, the faces before her and even the broad, seemingly limitless extent of the cave in which the Lake of Blood sat, all of them sights she had probably never seen before.

"Hello, Okuu. Do you remember me?" Renko asked amiably.

Orin's wings shot outward, curling upward slightly in surprise as she concentrated on Renko's face. "Ummm, you're Renko, right?"

"Very good! That's right. I'm hoping you could help me today, with just a little bit of your divine fire. Does that sound like fun?"

"It's the best! I love nuclear fusion. I can start primary compression and heating of the deuterium fuel stocks now!" She declared happily, then planted her heavy, metal-encased foot and, leaning her weight on it, raised the bulky control rod on her arm to point at the crowd. Instantly a wave of intense heat and wind started to come off of her as a dull orange glow peeked from the mouth of her arm cannon.

"Not yet! Not yet!" Renko said, darting in front of her and waving her arms. "Wait until I give you the signal, it's still too early!"

Okuu lowered her arm as the heat radiating off of her faded. She cocked her head to one side, the green bow in her hair wobbling. "Unyu?"

"I'll have Orin tell you when it's time, okay? Just wait until she says the word. When she does, I want you to use your power to boil the Lake of Blood, okay? Not the crowd, or anything else here. Just the blood. Do you understand?"

"Okay. That's what miss God always wants too. Just use fusion to boil water. It's kind of a boring way to use it, but as long as I get to do a big fusion, I guess it's okay."

"Alright then, Orin. You remember everything we discussed?"

"I remember, sister. This plan still sounds crazy to me though. Are you sure you want to do this?"

"I've done the math a dozen times over. I'm pretty certain we'll be fine. It's going to be a hell of a ride though. How about your end, Lady Moriya? Everything ready?" This last bit Renko shouted toward the sky, or rather toward the unseen and distant ceiling of the cavern, somewhere above the reach of the lantern light surrounding us.

The answer resounded in the heads of everyone present at first, not spoken, but heard nonetheless. "Yes, yes. The shaft is all complete. You can go at any time. I'll seal everything up behind you." A moment later the tiny figure of Suwako Moriya descended from above, floating down out of the darkness, an iron ring carried in each hand. "I've reshaped the floor of the lakebed into the shape you asked for," she continued, speaking normally this time.

"Good," Renko said with a nod. "That's vital for producing the thrust we need to push the ship up to the surface. You're confident that the stone can handle the pressures we're going to put on it?"

"This is good, solid bedrock, and I've got as much of it to work with down here as I like. Just leave it to me, you have the assurance of a native god that the mountain itself will move to contain the force of your lift-off."

"I couldn't ask for more. That's perfect, as expected of the god of the mountain."

"Just make sure you offer some fine sake in my name later. It's been a long time since I've had a mortal ask so much of me. I'll expect quite the tribute in return."

"I assure you, Lady Suwako, if this goes off without a hitch, there'll be more sake drunk here and of a finer quality than you've seen in an age. I've asked Yuugi to see to it that every bottle raised will be drunk with your name on the imbiber's lips."

"And I've arranged for it to be one hell of a party, I had the breweries tap into a bunch of the old stock for this!" Yuugi said with a grin. "It's back in the city waiting for us. They're calling this batch 'Lady Suwako's private reserve.' They've assured me it's of a quality worthy of a god and strong enough to get one drunk too."

"Is that so?" the goddess asked with an eager gleam in her eye. "Well then, I might have to sample some myself. I don't suppose you're up to a bit of a friendly drinking competition?"

Rather than answering, Yuugi merely grinned fearsomely and grabbed a bottle and two stone mugs from the mat beside her. Bending down to loom over the diminutive goddess, she offered one of the mugs to Suwako. "Well, I did bring one bottle with me, just for a taster if you'd like to try a bit."

"Okay, Renko, let's get you going! It looks like I have some oni to beat!"

"Alright. Thanks again for all of your help, Yuugi. Best of luck here. I should warn you that this goddess and her counterpart in the shrine above have drunk all the tengu on Youkai Mountain under the table on several occasions."

"So what? They're tengu. That's child's play to an oni. If you're going to go with them, then I'll have to make sure this party is extra wild as it'll have to be your goodbye party too. Before you go though, at least have this before you leave," Yuugi said, filling the other cup and pressing it into Renko's hand.

"Cheers then. To Lady Suwako, for making this possible." Renko said, and drank the cup down. Immediately she coughed, barely keeping the sake inside her, her face flushing red as the sting of the alcohol brought tears to her eyes. "Hough! That's serious stuff! It's good though! That's enough of that for a human like me, Yuugi, but you two are in for some fun!"

Yuugi clapped her hands. "Now you've got me all excited. Let's get you going so that you can start your quest and I can start teaching this goddess not to underestimate the oni. Murasa, Ichirin, you get Renko aboard. Everyone else, get back from the shore, this is going to be a dangerous departure. I'll give 'em a proper shove-off myself." Yuugi shouted this last bit loud enough to be heard over the ruckus and the rest of the youkai present dutifully moved away from the shoreline, many of them waving goodbyes as they headed back through the tunnels toward the city. Only the eight of us remained behind, on the shores of the reeking lake -myself, Renko, Murasa, Ichirin (with Unzan), Yuugi, Orin, Okuu and Suwako.

"Alright Renko, we'll stand by for your signal," Orin said. Okuu nodded in agreement.

"Perfect."

"Unzan will carry you aboard. Let's go ahead and get everything squared away."

"Ah thank you, please pardon my step, Unzan. Come on, Merry, step on up."

"I'm heading to the helm. Even if there's no need to steer, I wouldn't feel right being anywhere other than somewhere I can lay my hand on the Palanquin's tiller," Murasa said, floating into the air and turning toward the ship.

"Get in place quick. I'm gonna count to forty then give you a shove," Yuugi said, beginning to wade out into the lake.

"As soon as you do, run for the city!" Renko called, as Unzan began to ascend. "This cavern's gonna become a real nasty place in a few minutes."

"Maybe I'll stay and watch for a little bit," Yuugi shouted up at us as she waded deeper into the blood. "It's been a long time since I've seen a sunrise, and never from so close."

Unzan deposited us on the deck of the ship and we quickly made our way with Murasa to the wheelhouse which stood on top of the deck at the rear of the ship. Perhaps 'wheelhouse' isn't the right word though, as the ship predated the invention of wheels for steering and instead had a long wooden lever about half the length of the room that was used to turn the rudder far below. At any rate, scant seconds after we arrived and Murasa laid her hand on the tiller there was a great swell of motion as the ship surged forward, away from the shore and into deeper waters (bloods?), propelled by the force of Yuugi's shove. As we coasted along, Murasa looked out over the ship toward the skeletal mast, which immediately began to glow with a faint, ghostly light. A moment later the mainsail unfurled, massive and shockingly white, glowing with an unearthly luminescence. Unzan flitted from point to point in the rigging, flowing like steam, checking the lines and trimming the sail. With Murasa at the helm, we proceeded away from the shore. After a few moments of gliding through the blood, the sail snapped and billowed, filled by a wind of a strictly spiritual nature. The ship began to rise out of the water and into the air, trailing rivulets of bloody mist as the hull lifted away from the surface of the lake. Bit by bit, we rose toward the opening of the tunnel Suwako had carved into the mountain.

"Alright, this is it, captain. No turning back now. When you give the signal, Okuu will flash boil all of the blood in the chamber underneath the stone nozzle, and a man-made geyser will launch us into the sky. Between the power of the blast and the focusing effect of this tunnel, we're sure to make it there. The only question is if you're sure this ship can take it. If you're confident, then go ahead and whistle."

"Actually Renko, I think it's only fitting that you do the honors. None of this could have happened if not for you."

"Well, thank you, captain, I'm honored, but don't you need to steer? Wouldn't it be easier if you did it?"

"No, I don't think that's necessary. This old girl knows where to go. All I have to do is say the word." She said with an almost wistful caress of the tiller.

"Well, alright then. Merry, you better have a seat. I expect this will be rough." Saying that, Renko smiled then walked out of the wheelhouse and over to the edge of the railing. By now the ship was a dozen meters above the water, almost half way to the hole Suwako had made in the chamber ceiling, held aloft by nothing more than the holy power Byakuren had invested it with. Leaning out slightly over the railing, Renko placed two fingers in her mouth, whistling sharply then waving her arm over her head. On the distant shore I thought I might have made out a figure waving in return. Moments later an orangish light began to rapidly swell from the point where we had left the shore. Renko ran back toward the bench where I was sitting and took her place beside me. The light on the shore continued to build, growing brighter and larger with each passing moment. A hot wind began to blow over us, rustling the sails.

Murasa locked eyes with Ichirin, an excited smile shared between them as a deep rumble began to sound from the shoreline. "Next stop is the world of Makai, to free holy mother Byakuren from her prison. This is it, Ichirin! The Holy Palanquin is underway!"

The moment she finished speaking the rumbling gave way to a deep vibrating tone. The orange glow that had been building at the shore vanished, replaced in an instant by a hair-thin line of searing, blindingly bright light that reached from the shore into the blood of the lake, striking a point somewhere deep below the ship. For a moment there was an eerie silence as the light faded away and the ship ascended past the roof of the cave, into the shaft itself.

A heartbeat later the largest explosion I have ever witnessed illuminated the Underworld.