"Alice?" Reimu asked. "Which Alice? The one who lives in the forest?"
"Yeah, that one. Ol' stick-in-the-mud Alice," Marisa replied. "We met her for the first time here in Makai. Don't you remember, Reimu?"
"I told you I already forgot all about this place."
While the two of them were discussing it, Sanae turned to Renko and I. "They're talking about that puppeteer who lives in the cute cottage you took me to, right? Does she come from Makai? I thought she was a Rozen Maiden."
"That's the one," Renko replied, then turned back toward Louise. "Some of us here do happen to know her, but that has nothing to do with the captain's quest and the story of the living saint. Alice did, however, give me a message to bring to your mother if I should happen to see her, so it would be convenient for me if you could guide us there."
"A message from Alice?" Louise asked with genuine surprise. "She hasn't sent a single word back to us since she ran away," she said, looking toward Reimu and Marisa. "Tell me, is she doing well out there in your world?"
"Quite well. She asked me to deliver the message to her mother though, so I can't say any more until I see her, I'm afraid."
"Well, I'm sure she'll be very happy to see you in that case. Let's get you to meet her. Come on through, then I'll go and fetch her."
On that signal Sara waved her hand and the field of shimmering light visible through the open doors wavered and faded into a view of night sky dotted with unfamiliar stars and obscured by scattered, deep blue clouds lit faintly from below. All at once the ship lurched to life once more, slowly accelerating towards the gate as the power of its connection to Byakuren pulled it inexorably forward.
"I trust since you're being invited this time, you two won't be as violent as you were last time?" Louise asked of Reimu and Marisa.
"Well that all depends on what your mother has to say to us," Marisa said with an unapologetic grin. "If she starts tryin' to talk with danmaku again, I'mma have plenty of words to throw right back at her."
Louise frowned at her, but didn't say anything for a moment. Finally, just as the prow of the ship began to pass through the doorway she said "...You've changed since the last time you were here, haven't you?" If Marisa had any reply to that, I never saw it, as the moment we passed through the doorway I was overwhelmed by a roaring rush of static like you might expect to hear when passing under a waterfall.
As we emerged from that portal, the view below us was much more urban than I might have expected. We were floating at a height of several hundred meters above a city much larger than any in Gensokyo, which stretched out before us as far as I could see, although visibility was somewhat hampered by the darkness and a miasma of bluish fog that clung to the ground. From the look of it, it might have been something like a mid-sized town from back in the Scientific Century, though judging from the flickering candle lights in the many windows we could see far below I wouldn't expect it to be as technologically advanced. The architecture of the buildings I could see was decidedly western in its influences, with wood and plaster storefronts extending their awnings over cobbled stone streets and clustering around numerous small plazas adorned with fountains or marketplaces.
Marisa inhaled deeply, looking over the side in wonder. "Oh, this place looks different when its not all on fire. Everything's so full of magic!"
"This is Makai city. This quarter is almost entirely inhabited by demons and fallen angels, but there's a few magicians and sorcerers here too. It's a nice place to live if you want to practice diabolism. I went to school not far from here," Louise said casually.
"You have schools that teach demon summoning?" Sanae asked in wonder. "No wonder so many witches turn evil."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Marisa asked, whirling on her.
Before Sanae could reply though, everyone's attention was drawn to Nazrin, who suddenly cried out "Master! Look!" She was pointing to the stone pagoda, which Shou had apparently set down on the railing. Without anyone touching it, it had, seemingly of its own accord, focused its light into a tiny beam the width of a pin, which was pointing straight as an arrow into the far distance, at a spot where a strange ruddy glow was rising out of the distant fog on the horizon. As we watched, the ship slowly came around, and began drifting in the direction that the beam was pointing.
"It's pointing us toward mother Hijiri!" Shou cried, excitedly.
"That is the direction of the Realm of Truth, so that would make sense," Louise confirmed.
"Murasa, can this ship go any faster?" Shou asked, turning to the captain.
"Master, we said we'd meet with the Administrator of this world first, remember?"
"Oh, yes. Then by all means, let's get that done so we can go find mother Byakuren!"
"The tiller's been destroyed. I can't change the course or speed of the ship now. We'll get to the holy mother, but I can't speed us along. I can't make us detour either, so if we're going to see the Administrator, she'll have to come to us."
"I'm sure she'll be happy to come see you. I'll go fetch her once we get a little closer to home."
While Louise was talking with the crew, and Marisa continued to peer over the edge of the ship, Reimu was standing right where she had been the whole time, in the middle of the deck, arms crossed and a scowl on her face. Renko approached her with a slightly sheepish expression.
"Sooo. Miss Reimu. You're looking a little grumpier than usual."
"Who's fault do you think that is, exactly?" she asked glaring up at Renko. "You've really done it this time. Why would you want to help out a bunch of youkai like this? You're a human."
"Human or not, they were people in need of assistance, and their cause didn't seem likely to hurt anyone. The heresy that got their saint sealed in Makai was apparently preaching the idea that humans and youkai could live together in peace. That doesn't strike me as such a terrible thing."
"Of course it's a terrible thing! Youkai eat people! You can't be friends with something like that. People like you with no sense of danger create a lot of work for me, you know that?"
"You have youkai hanging around your shrine all the time, Reimu. Suika practically lives there. I know you may not exactly see a lot of those youkai as your friends, but maybe you could try to. Look at Sanae's shrine. She's been gathering faith from the tengu and the kappa almost exclusively so far, and that seems to be working out alright for her goddesses. Maybe you could do the same. Wouldn't it be nice if Remilia threw a few coins in your box when she came to visit?"
"I don't want money from a blood-sucker and I'd rather she didn't visit at all! Humans and youkai shouldn't be fraternizing. Drinking parties to lower tensions after an Incident are one thing, and that's mainly Marisa's idea, anyway. Personally I could do without all of the youkai who drop by my shrine at any hour they please. Half the villagers think I'm a youkai already. If you keep associating freely with youkai, you're either going to become one or become one of their meals, eventually."
"You're just scolding me because you feel you have to since I'm the mastermind behind this Incident. Have Murasa or her crew even done anything to cause any trouble or harm to you or the village?"
"Just because they hadn't yet doesn't mean they couldn't have. What if a child chased one of those floating things into a river, or people started trying to find ways to get aboard this ship because of the rumors of a treasure? You can't just let youkai run around freely doing as they please over the village, they're the enemy of humans!"
Reimu was in the middle of saying that, growing more enraged by Renko's nonchalance by the minute when she was interrupted by Louise calling out "Oh, there it is, Pandemonium! I'll be right back."
The building she was indicating was a strange-looking structure. It was a western-style mansion, reminiscent of the Scarlet Devil Mansion in some ways, but with a sizable tower of bluish-white crystal growing out of one end of it at a slight angle, extending, unsupported, high into the air and crowned with a ring of jagged geometric points. Louise floated away from the deck of the ship, but she hadn't gone more than a dozen meters away before she was met by two figures flying up from the mansion and zooming towards us. The two girls were rather dissimilar in appearance - one was dressed all in white, with light blue hair and pair of white, feathery wings adorning her back. The other was blonde girl wearing a black and white dress with a small, flat-topped hat, both of which looked like they might have come out of Renko's closet.
"Louise? Is that you?" The blonde girl asked. "What's with this big, broken boat?"
"Yuki!, Mai! I'm glad you're here." Louise said, addressing first the girl in black then the one dressed in white. "Can one of you go and get mother? We have some guests from another world who would like to meet her."
"I want to check out this boat. Mai, you go get her."
"Why should I go? You go get her, Yuki. I want to meet these guests."
"You go, Mai."
"You go! I got here first!"
"You did not!"
"Don't fight you two, I'll go," Louise said with a sigh, as she flew down toward the mansion. The two girls watched her go for a moment then turned and hi-fived eachother, grinning.
"Hey Marisa, is that your sister?" Renko whispered, leaning over to Marisa and pointing at the one called Yuki.
"I was gonna say I don't have any sisters, but looking at her, you're makin' me wonder now." Marisa said, with a look of astonishment on her face.
Yuki apparently heard that, as she turned and locked eyes with Marisa then gasped in surprise. "It's you! You're that hooligan who came here and smashed everything up before! And you were with her too!" she shouted as she flew up, raising herself high enough to see us all and pointing over first at Marisa, then at Reimu.
The other girl flew up beside her, looking over us and mirroring her expression of surprise. "I remember that! You got beaten so easily, Yuki!"
"Hey, you got shot down too, Mai!" Yuki protested. They both began to squabble. I wondered just what exactly Reimu and Marisa had done the last time they had come here. From the sound of it, it had included a fair amount of indiscriminate violence.
Renko watched the two girls floating in the air above us argue then turned to me. "Hey Merry, didn't Alice say she had a bunch of older sisters? That would make her the youngest right? I wouldn't have guessed that, myself."
"That is what she said, but you can't gauge a youkai's age by looking at them, or their maturity by their age, really. Look at Remilia, she claims to be over 500. Or Suika for that matter, she'd have to be over 1,000 if your theories about her are right."
While Renko and I were talking about this, two more figures came flying up from the mansion, both of them racing at high speeds. These two looked older than the girls floating before us, but both still quite young. Both were wearing simple, bright red robes, but one was wearing a maid's apron and head dress over top of hers, in the same frilly style as the ones worn by Sakuya. The other figure was dressed plainly but had her white hair pulled into a sloppy half ponytail on one side of her head and an almost frantic expression on her face, giving the impression that she had rushed over in the middle of something, or perhaps had just woken up.
"My little Alice!" the white-haired woman called as she raced up towards us. "Where is she?"