"Alright then, Merry! To Hieda manor!" Renko declared, raising one finger in the air as soon as we had arrived home and dropped off our things.
"It's evening already, Renko. Murasa and Ichirin are going to be looking for the pieces of their mast for a few days at least, so there's no reason to rush. Let's go tomorrow after classes. Besides, don't you want dinner?"
Arguments like those, combined with the rumbling of Renko's own stomach had eventually won her over and we ended up returning home to sleep immediately after eating. I hadn't realized just how tired our busy day had left me and nearly overslept the next morning.
The next day we taught our classes as usual at the Temple School, which had undergone significant changes since the previous winter. To sum up these changes in a single sentence, our school had mostly outgrown us. As a result it was now being managed by the Hieda estate directly. Keine had long been an associate of Akyuu's due to their shared professional interest in history and they had worked closely together for some time before our arrival, but the school had always been a private endeavor of Keine's. As the number of students enrolled in the school steadily increased, however, it was quickly becoming more than one woman could manage. The recent winter, with its heavy snows which had caused frequent closures of the school and high heating and maintenance costs had been an especially lean season, resulting in both Renko's salary and my own having been paid late on two occasions.
Renko had suggested that we should raise the monthly tuition and set a cap on the number of students in the school, but limiting access to education was both counter to Keine's goal of growing the school and her moral sense of obligation to the children of the village. Adding more school rooms or hiring more teachers seemed entirely off of the table, however. Although word of the school's quality and the effect it had on the students had now spread throughout the village, we simply weren't in a position to be able to accommodate the large number of families wanting to enroll a child for the next semester.
A solution to this problem had come in the form of a formal offer from the Hieda household. Starting this spring the school had been renamed as the 'Hieda Public Temple School' and three new classrooms had been constructed on the school's lot, connected to the original building in such a way as to make the whole collection into an elongated U shape with the two arms framing a central courtyard. Along with the new classrooms had come new teachers, vetted by the Hieda family and teaching classes such as calligraphy, geography and music. The biggest change, however, had been to the school's operational model. Keine, Renko and myself had all been kept on as teachers, with Keine also serving as the school's administrator, but our salaries, along with those of the new teachers were now being paid directly by the Hieda household, who had opened the doors of the school to the public, allowing children from any family in the village to attend classes for as long as they wished for only the most nominal of fees. Long gone were the days when villagers could be heard whispering dubiously about the shady school run by a half-youkai and two suspicious foreigners. Not only did the Hieda household pay our salaries and cover the school's expenses, but Akyuu was happy to let us still run our detective agency out of the storeroom behind the new classrooms. Truly, she had been very gracious to us.
In truth, it's only because Keine had been so busy handling the administrative tasks associated with the transfer of the school and the construction of the new classrooms for the past several months that we had been able to so easily sneak out of town on a somewhat regular basis to assist with the work on the project of lifting the Holy Palanquin to the surface.
Despite all the changes, Renko's duties and my own remained much the same. I spent my days mainly with the younger students, teaching them to read and write while Renko taught three classes of basic mathematics in the morning and three advanced mathematics classes in the afternoon on alternating days.
"Bye, miss Merry!"
"Goodbye. See you tomorrow!"
Just like usual, my classes ended for the day with the sound of children laughing and playing as they scampered through the increasingly cramped schoolyard towards the gate. I let out a breath as I moved to close the door to the classroom and let the tension begin to drain out of my body. As I looked out into the hall before sliding the door closed, I happened to notice Keine poking her head out of her door as well.
"Another day done!" She said with a smile. "I suppose you and Renko will be heading to your office now?"
"Actually, I think we were planning to go stop by Hieda manor for a bit."
"Hieda manor? Are you dissatisfied with your current position here?"
"No, not at all. We're both glad to still be employed, not to mention that the Hieda are allowing us to continue to both live and run a side business out of a building on school property. The recent raises are appreciated too. No, this is strictly a social visit, Renko and I have nothing to complain about."
"In other words up until now the work was bad and the salary was too low, right?"
"That isn't what I meant to say!"
"It's alright, I understand. We were all a little fraught trying to make ends meet." Keine smiled but I couldn't tell if she was joking or not. "So what did Renko want to ask Akyuu? If it's something related to history, maybe I can help." As was typical now, she immediately discerned the truth of Renko's motivations without needing to ask.
"Oh, well it's about Gensokyo's history, but it's quite old, about a thousand years ago."
Keine frowned and tilted her head to one side contemplatively. "Hmm, in that case you might be better off asking Miss Akyuu. I know the written history of that era, but Gensokyo wasn't anywhere worthy of mention back then. The Hieda have lived in this area for countless generations though. If anyone would know, it would be her. Why the sudden interest in history? If you've started enjoying getting into the past I can give you a comprehensive guide."
"No, no need for that, but thank you," Renko said, walking down the hall towards us. "My inquiry is related to an investigation being carried out by our detective agency, so I'm afraid I'll have to keep its nature confidential."
Keine's shoulders slumped in defeat. "Oh, I see how it is," she said despondently. History was Keine's true calling and an endless source of fascination for her. That very fascination was also one of her biggest failings though. Her knowledge was so extensive, and filled with so many dates, names and events that it became impossible for her to converse on the subject with anyone who was not as fascinated with the topic as she was. Even Mokou enjoyed the occasional historical discussion with her, but the immortal's memory was no match for Keine's encyclopedic knowledge despite having lived through many of the events they might discuss. This left her with no one to discuss the minutia of her preferred topic with. Anyone she tried to engage on the topic had tendency to nod off half-way through.
-.-.-.-.-
At any rate, we left the temple school behind and headed to the Hieda estate. Upon arriving we were soon told that the child of Miare was not available though. "She's gone to Suzunaan again" was the answer when we asked after her.
It was a common enough story. Despite being the symbol of the village and a figurehead leader of the humans of Gensokyo, Akyuu was still just a teenage girl. Despite having numerous lifetimes worth of inherited memories, she was still her own person, and one who wanted to live freely, experience the joys of life and make friends. It was not uncommon to see her walking around town with only one or two attendants, despite her esteemed position.
Suzunaan, the village's book rental shop, was one of her favorite haunts. Renko and I made our way there from the estate. Suzunaan was an unusual store in the village, and one that I frequented as well. In addition to books written or reproduced from older texts in Gensokyo, it also collected and rented a chaotic miscellany of books, magazines and manga from the Outside world. For Renko and myself, it was a rare and cherished reminder that the world we now found ourselves living in was indeed connected to the one we had come from, however distantly. For my part, I had long ago given up any thoughts of every returning to the Scientific Century, but knowing that the Outside world hadn't just been a delusion the two of us shared was still a welcome comfort.
"Hello! Welcome!" A cheerful voice greeted us as we came through the curtain and into the store. It had come from Kosuzu Motoori, the only daughter of the store's shopkeeper, a girl just slightly younger than Akyuu, who had grown from one of the village's playful children into a dedicated and industrious assistant to her father in the years we had been here. Nowadays it wasn't uncommon to see her running the shop on her own during the afternoons. I had come to know her well over the years as Suzunaan was just about the only place in town to get new books with any regularity.
"Hello Kosuzu," I greeted her. "Running the shop by yourself today as well?"
"Dad's out collecting overdue books. Was there something you were looking for?"
"Yes, but it's not a book, I'm afraid," Renko said with a smile. "We heard Akyuu was here, we were hoping to talk to her."
"Oh, she's just reading over some books in the back."
"I'm here," came a voice from behind the line of bookshelves separating the front half of the store from the private collections and block printing tables in the back. "I can hear you." A moment later Akyuu emerged from behind a curtain strung between two shelves carrying a hand-bound volume. She laid it on the store counter and pressed her seal on several forms that Kosuzu hurried to present her with.
"Sorry to disturb you, Akyuu, I hope we aren't interrupting anything."
"Nothing that can't wait. Is something going on?"
"Just a few questions I'd like to ask you about an ongoing investigation of ours."
"Well in that case, let's head back to the manor to discuss it."
Despite Akyuu's friendly smile, I felt a little bad for stealing a customer away from Kosuzu, so while she and Renko talked, I randomly selected three titles from the latest trove of imported books and checked them out.
"Thank you, Merry. I'm always happy when you come by. Almost no one else ever checks out the novels in English. Please return it in two weeks," she said with a bow as I handed over the money then hurried back to Renko's side.
"Goodbye, Kosuzu. See you later." Akyuu waved as we left.
"Okay, bye-bye!"
We made our way back to Hieda manor once again and were admitted along with Akyuu, who, as always, was greeted by a half-dozen handmaidens who fussed over her and carried her rented book away to her reading room. We were shown to the usual, spacious reception room and a few minutes later Akyuu entered and took a seat on a cushion across from us as more servants brought tea and fruit.
"My apologies for interrupting your time with Kosuzu, I know you rarely get an opportunity to go out and enjoy yourself," Renko began.
"Think nothing of it. Suzunaan is nearby, so it's usually no trouble to convince the staff to let me go over there to see her. Now, what can I do for you?"
"I'd like to know about an Incident that occurred in Gensokyo a thousand years ago. I'm told the Hakurei maiden of that time was involved, so I was hoping you'd have some record of it."
"I hope you've got more than that for me to go on. I can't give you much with only that information."
"Indeed I do. It involves a Buddhist temple located somewhere around here that was burned to the ground by humans living in the area after accusations arose that the nun running the place was sheltering youkai. The name of that nun was Byakuren Hijiri, if that rings a bell."