After spending a half hour providing Reimu with somewhat questionable lessons on the basics of economics, advertising, management and product development, Renko was able to successfully negotiate her way into borrowing two towels and some soap, on the condition that the towels be promptly laundered and returned. With her prizes in hand we set out for the hot spring, making our way down the shrine's stairs toward a hastily stomped and only partially cleared trail which lead into the forest from the road. After a few minutes of walking we began to see steam rising in the distance.

"Well, this is... rustic..." I said, looking around at the facilities. "Is that a dressing room?"

The 'dressing room' in question was nothing more than four wooden posts that had been driven into the ground with a cord wound around them and a bunch of old woven mats hung from the cord, making an enclosure about three meters on a side. It was completely open to the sky, which is a concern in a place like Gensokyo where so many people could fly and it would have been utterly useless in the event that it were to rain. I suppose not many people would come to a hot spring in the rain though.

Beside the dressing room, facing toward the fence surrounding the hot spring was a splintery old set of cupboards into which several woven baskets had been placed for storing clothes. Only two of the baskets were filled at the moment, both with wads of balled-up clothes and petticoats in black and white. At least it wouldn't be crowded.

"Come on, Merry. Let's enjoy this, it's nice to get back to nature sometimes, you know? Go wild, like animals do. Besides, how many five star hot spring resorts offer the chance to bathe with real, live youkai?"

"I'm not a beast or a youkai, Renko. I'm a human. I'd prefer to bathe like one if given the chance."

"Well, rough or no, it's still a hot spring, Merry. Are you really going to pass this up?"

I sighed and made my way toward the vertical slash in the woven mats that served as a door, casting one last glance at the basket of black and white clothes as I grabbed an empty basket of my own. I wondered if Marisa was visiting the spring just now.

"Oh! There's not even any stalls in here." I said, looking at the open space inside the enclosure with its bare dirt floors.

"So what?" Renko asked, walking through the hanging mats behind me while un-knotting her necktie. "I won't tell if you won't. Turn your back if you're scared to see."

I hastily turned away as I began undressing, carefully folding my clothes and placing them into the empty basket I had grabbed as I did so. About halfway through, I paused and called out over my shoulder.

"Renko, had you planned to come to the springs when we came to the shrine, or did you just decide to come here in the hopes of seeing the youkai sage?"

"I'll admit the thought had crossed my mind. If she happened to be here when I arrived she might have a harder time running away if she were in the middle of soaking at the time. Although, now that I think about it, if you don't have any clothes on maybe I wouldn't be able to even tell you apart from her. Quick, Merry! Do you have a birthmark or anything? Let me count your moles!"

"Renko get off me! If you're done undressing, just get out of here already!"

"Pretty suspicious not letting me check, Merry. How do I know that's even still you?"

"Because even you wouldn't be this much of a pain to anyone else. Get out, Renko!"

"At least let me have my towel first!"

I shoved her out of the other side of the changing area, then grabbed her towel and thrust it after her.

"Oh wow, if you thought the change room was wild, wait until you see the pool! Come on out here, Merry."

I sighed as I wrapped the borrowed towel around myself and headed outside.

Calling the bathing area a 'pool' was definitely a stretch. What awaited beyond the change room was a pond of bare rocks. The topsoil had been swept away and the rocks had been arranged to form a depression of roughly appropriate depth, but other than a fence of wooden stakes surrounding the pool, that's as far as the modifications to the natural environment had gone. Hot water from the spring that had once been a geyser trickled in rivulets over several boulders to tumble down into the pool, with the overflow emptying over the lip of a stone on the opposite side and following a trough that ran under the fence and out into the woods. Renko was squatting down by the edge of the pool with her hand extended, dipping a finger into the water.

"Oh, Okuu's doing a good job. This is just right, not too hot for a human at all."

"As long as a vengeful spirit doesn't happen to come up while we're here, right? Reimu said that still happens sometimes."

"I'm counting on you then, Merry. It's the buddy system. If I turn evil, take me to Reimu and get me exorcized. Even if you have to run through the woods in the buff to do it," she said while dipping a bucket into the spring. Scooping up a load of hot water, she poured it over her head, then shook her hair, flinging water droplets about in every direction.

"I'm not agreeing to that. I'm not even sure I would know if you got possessed. If a spirit of recklessness or crazy ideas were to take you over, I'd never notice any difference. In fact, maybe we should go get you exorcized now, just in case."

"Well, if I'm not acting any different than usual, it can wait until after the bath, right?" she asked as she swung her legs into the water, then hopped in. The silty, aquamarine water splashed up as she did so, rippling around her. "Oh, that's nice. Come on in, Merry." She beckoned me with one hand while reaching for her towel with the other, then folded it up and placed it on her head.

I followed Renko's example, drawing up some water and splashing it over my head before gathering my hair up and tying it in place with my towel. I carefully eased myself into the pool. The water was quite pleasantly warm but gritty and a little sulfurous. The high level of silt in it made it mostly opaque, and that combined with the gravel-strewn floor of the rocky pool made it hard to find a comfortable place to stand. Eventually though, I was able to sweep an area clear with the side of my foot and lean my back up against a rock beside Renko. Sinking into the water up to my shoulders, I began to relax.

"Oh, I think this is paradise, Merry."

"I admit, it's quite nice..." I said lazily, closing my eyes as I leaned against the rocks.

Once we settled in place we could hear other sounds coming from the far side of the pool. With the steam rising off of the water, it was hard to make out any details of who the previous visitor to the spring might be, but from the tone of the laughter we could hear over the splashing, it sounded like a child.

I peered through the steam for a moment, trying to discern who might be on the far side of the pool when a momentary breeze partially cleared the clouds away, revealing the person standing across the way, peering into the mists in the same pose as me.

"Oh, I thought I heard someone else come in. Hey, you two."

"Hi, Marisa. Is that Rumia with you back there?" Renko asked, raising an arm to gesture at the figure further towards the back of the pool. It was this person who we had heard splashing and laughing, and she was still busy flailing her arms in the water and watching the droplets fly about. I had thought that the area around the baths seemed strangely dim, and Rumia's presence would explain it. I smiled as I watched her golden hair bob, still bound up with a red ribbon as she splashed and giggled. Rumia was a stray youkai who lived somewhere in these woods, on the side closer to Misty Lake. We had seen her a few times since initially meeting her at a party at the Scarlet Devil Mansion, usually in Marisa's company, as she seemed quite fond of the young witch.

"Yep," Marisa answered. "I ran into her on the way to the shrine. She smelled like she's been sleepin' inside of a dead cow, so I brought her here and threw her in."

"It was a horse!" Rumia said with a big smile as she stopped splashing and floated over beside Marisa. "And I don't like bathing when it's cold."

"Well then come by my house once in a while or somethin'. I could at least heat you up a bath. If you fly around smellin' like death you'll scare all the animals away before you can eat 'em, right?"

"Is that so~?" she asked, looking up at Marisa in wonder. "Hey Marisa, can I get out now?"

"Well, you ate half of the soap, so I guess that takes care of cleanin' the inside of you. Go in the water up to your shoulders and count to 100. I'll scrub you off, then you can get out.

"How high is 100?"

"As high as you can count, then some more. Just keep countin', I'll tell you when you get there."

Rumia looked unhappy, but extended her arms to her side and slowly floated lower until her shoulders were immersed. She glowered for a moment as Marisa retrieved some soap from a nearby rock, then suddenly her expression brightened. She swiveled her head to try and look at Marisa while still keeping both arms stretched out. "Hey Marisa, is Renko someone I'm allowed to eat?"

"Nope, she's a villager," Marisa said, working the soap into a lather across Rumia's back. "Villagers are off limits, remember?"

"But she's out here in the woods. Villagers don't come here."

"Renko wouldn't be any good to eat, she's low in fat and very bony," I volunteered.

"Is that so~?" Rumia asked in the same tone of wonder.

"Hey wait, what do you mean 'low in fat?' Are you saying I'm flavorless? I might be delicious for all you know!" Renko protested.

Ignoring Renko, I turned my attention instead to the ribbon decorating Rumia's hair. Despite all the splashing she had been doing and all of steam coming off of the water, it still looked perfectly dry, tied in a neat and precise bow.

"Marisa, why didn't you take that ribbon off of Rumia's head? Won't it get ruined in here?"

"That thing? I couldn't take it off if I tried."

"Why not?" Renko asked. "Is it stuck?"

"It's warded. I asked Reimu about it before and she said it's some kind of seal. Not even Rumia herself can take it off."

"Really?" Renko asked as she waded over towards them. "Rumia, do you mind if I try?"

The girl shook her head. Renko glanced back at me for a moment then delicately reached out, pinching the end of the ribbon between her fingers.

"Ah! Yowch!" she cried, retracting her hand and shaking it out. "It's like a static shock! Hey Merry, come take a look at this. Is it some kind of barrier?"

"I've never heard of a barrier being placed on a person before," I said as I moved to join them. I strained my senses, trying to notice anything unusual about the ribbon, but it looked entirely normal to me. "I don't see anything, Renko. It's not like the sutras on Hoichi the Earless or anything."

"I wonder who put that seal there, and for what reason? Do you think it could be sealing away a secret power?"

"On this kid?" Marisa asked. "All she does is make the area around her darker. I kinda doubt she has anything worth the trouble of sealing."

"Well that could be quite strong. If she blocked out all the light of the sun she could freeze the world, for example. Or what if she teamed up with a vampire?"

"You mean like Remilia or something? I guess that could be a pain, but I don't think Remilia would ever let anyone else share her spotlight, you know?"

"Well, what if she hid all the light of danmaku for someone else? Invisible bullets would be hard to dodge, wouldn't they?"

While Marisa and Renko continued to discuss Rumia's potential applications she looked up at them both, swinging her gaze from one to the other, before suddenly declaring "I'm getting out now!" Arms still outstretched, she shot up out of the water between the two of them and began floating out toward the entrance.

"Hey, wait! If you're getting out, you gotta dry off first! Don't go outside like that!" Marisa said, climbing out of the water and grabbing a towel hanging off a nearby rock as she chased after the floating girl. The two of them disappeared into the drifting steam, but I could hear Rumia's giggles and Marisa's shouts for a while longer.

After watching them go, Renko leaned back up against the rocks and ruffled her hair as a big smile played across her face. "Quite a day, eh Merry? We get to ride a nuclear-powered blood rocket out of Hell, go looking for sacred treasure, and now we've found a mystery in an unexpected place. Who was it that sealed Rumia? What were they trying to lock away? If we break the seal will she become one of the most powerful monsters in Gensokyo?"

"I kind of doubt that last one, Renko. Rumia's just a child, right? This isn't one of Sanae's manga."

"Maybe not, but appearances have no relation to strength in Gensokyo. Look at Flandre. Or Remilia for that matter. Or Suika or Suwako."

"So you think it's the same sort of story as with Flandre? She was so dangerous she had to be sealed away? I suppose it's possible, but she doesn't feel like Flandre does. Flandre always seems like a huge dam barely holding back a tidal wave of power. Rumia is just... Rumia."

"Well there had to be some reason for someone to want to seal her -there's no question that she's been warded. Maybe she's more like the earth spirits, who got sealed away not because they're powerful but because they're hard to control. Or maybe..." Renko trailed off, mid-sentence.

I looked over at her. "Renko? What's wrong?"

She lowered her head, cupping her chin with her hand as she hunched up, descending until the water was up to her chin.

"I was just thinking, Merry. The captain never told us why Byakuren had to be sealed away, and the Yama didn't seem to want to let us know either. What if the reason why Byakuren was imprisoned wasn't because of something she did, but because of something she was?"

In reaction to a question like that, I could only blink in surprise.