We were lead down the stairs and into a room on the port side of lower deck, near the stern. The cabin, while far from opulent, was much larger than the cramped quarters that Murasa had shown us once before, and was tastefully decorated with a selection of fine rugs and incense burners. It was the only part of the ship that appeared to have been built for comfort rather than pure utility. Shortly after we arrived, we heard the clatter of a rattling chain as Murasa dropped the ship's anchor overboard, then came down to join us in the cabin. Upon entering, Murasa recognized Suwako and bowed formally, offering her sincere thanks. Suwako waved dismissively, and as Murasa stood back up, her greeting for Renko was far more casual.

"Renko!" she cheered, opening her arms wide.

"Captain! Good to see you again," Renko replied, accepting the hug. It was good to see them both enjoying eachother's company so thoroughly. "So where are little Naz and big Shou?" Renko asked as the captain patted her shoulder.

"Naz is out looking for missing pieces of the mast. I offered to go with her, but she insisted it was her responsibility after having lost the pagoda for so long. Shou's down in the hold doing her daily prayers, I think. What brings you back here?"

"Well, actually, I wanted to ask you a few questions, captain. I wouldn't want to disrupt the conversations here though. Would you mind if I came back to the wheelhouse with you for a quick chat?"

Murasa looked a bit surprised by that, but after reading Renko's face for a moment, seemed to understand. "Uh, sure. Please excuse us, mother Hijiri. I'll take these two and leave you to discuss the your plans for the temple with Lady Suwako."

"Oh, alright," Byakuren said, dismissing her with a nod. "I suppose it might get a bit dull to get into all of the details. I'll have Ichirin bring you some of the tea."

I followed Renko and Murasa out of the room, glancing back once. Sanae met my eye, seeming unsure of who to follow, but elected to stay at Suwako's side in the end. Murasa lead us back up the stairs and over to the wheelhouse, which had not only been repaired, it seemed, but also improved. It now had a bench along each wall, a heavy, stormproof door and glass panes set in hinged brass frames in the window that had previously been open to the air. Clearly, Byakuren's magic wasn't limited to merely repairing the ship to its previous state. We took seats on the benches on either side of the room while Murasa stood next to the tiller, leaning against a single, high seat built into the wall. We exchanged pleasantries for a moment, then Ichirin came in with three cups of fragrant, flowery jasmine tea.

"Oh, Ichirin, could you stay for a moment too? There's some things I wanted to ask you as well," Renko said as she accepted the steaming mug.

"Oh? What's this all about, Renko?" she asked as she helped herself to a seat on the bench beside me.

"Nothing too serious, I just wanted to confirm a few details of the stories I heard from you a few months back. It's been a while now, and I want to make sure I've got the specifics straight in my head."

"From a few months ago? You mean when we first met and told you about how mother Byakuren was sealed away?" Murasa asked.

"Exactly. Specifically, I wanted to ask about the order of events. I'm a detail-obsessed kind of person, so I just wanted make sure I understand."

"What events do you mean?" Ichirin asked, looking confused.

"Well, I know that you and the captain were discovered to be youkai, and that the temple got surrounded by an angry mob. Then at some point the Yama and the Hakurei miko showed up, you two, Shou and Nazrin fled the scene and Byakuren was sealed away, but what happened when, and who saw what? I also want to know when that pagoda could have been left behind and how it managed to end up at the store I bought it from. For that matter, how did you know that you'd need it or the mast of this ship to release Byakuren from her imprisonment?"

"Oh, I see. I guess I didn't explain any of that," Murasa said, scratching at her head. "Okay, let's see. I guess I should start by explaining the siege. After it was discovered that Ichirin and I weren't human, a couple days past. Humans from the surrounding settlements came by and threatened us and yelled at mother Hijiri. They seemed to think that we had deceived her or were manipulating her somehow. She tried to explain herself to them, but eventually they came back with a militia and surrounded the temple. Mother Hijiri wanted to go out an talk to them again, but the crowd was so riled up that Ichirin and I were worried they would tear her apart as soon as they saw her. At that point the crowd only knew about Ichirin and myself, so we thought if we were exterminated they would leave the temple in peace. We tried to sneak out and surrender ourselves, but mother Hijiri caught us and refused to let us go."

She paused for a moment, looking down. Ichirin picked up the story where she had left off.

"It was looking bad. They had made a few attempts to break down the gates and a lot of people had torches. When mother Hijiri caught us though, everything went silent for a bit. Then the Hakurei miko showed up. She told us she had held the crowd back with the promise that she would come in and sort everything out, but she wanted to know why mother Hijiri had been trying to pass us off as human. Hijiri refused to answer her, and just held onto the both of us in silence. The Miko waited for a bit then told us she was going to come back with the Yama, who would decide what should be done. She left and came back about an hour later. When she did, she, the Yama and mother Hijiri all went into the courtyard and talked for a while. She had me and Murasa locked up in the temple's storehouse with Shou and Nazrin guarding us so we wouldn't escape."

"None of us heard what they were saying," Murasa said, taking over the narrative again, "but when they came back, mother Hijiri gave that houtou to Shou. She told us all that we should try to run away. Not to surrender, but also not to fight if we were caught. Just flee and try to avoid capture. The Yama said the same thing to us. Something like 'you must not harm any humans. If you do, you will become the very thing they think you are.'"

"So what about Hijiri then?" I asked. "Did she say what she was planning to do?"

"She just told us 'I will stay here and accept the Yama's judgement.' I wanted to stay and be judged along side her, but she and the Yama both forbid it, saying that Ichirin and I were innocent and only she had committed a sin. I tried to protest, but mother Hijiri told us 'I have placed my power into this houtou. Whatever happens to me, if you have it with you, then you will have me as well.' I didn't really understand what she meant by that but there was no time to discuss it further. The crowds outside were getting rowdy again and mother Hijiri gave us a direct order -flee into the night, before the sun came up and made us easy to spot. Run away, offer no resistance and only return once it is safe to do so.' Then, she transformed the temple's storehouse into this ship and gave it to me. I offered to take big Shou and little Naz with us when we went, but they thought they'd have a better chance at escaping if we split up. So I sailed away with just Ichirin and Unzan. I guess it's a good thing that we parted ways, because the Hakurei miko caught up with us almost right away. The miko back then was just as powerful as the miko nowadays, but she didn't play around with danmaku. She forced me to run the ship aground not far from that shaft to the underworld. She told us that mother Hijiri had been sealed in another world, then let the angry mob that had followed her burn the ship. This ship is a part of me, and when it burned, it just about destroyed me. They couldn't burn the ship completely though. When the tried, it turned out that most of the mast and the parts immediately around it would light, no matter what. I realized that mother Hijiri must have also placed some of her power into this ship to protect us. After the fire died down though, there wasn't much left of the ship or of me. What there was, they threw into the hole, along with Ichirin and Unzan."

"I could have flown out of there of course," Ichirin added, "but Murasa was in bad shape. It took a long time to nurse her back to the point where she could even walk. As she recovered, the fragments of the storehouse started to restore themselves too. We found a quiet cave we could tuck ourselves away in and Unzan and I carried Murasa and all of the pieces of the ship down to it. We spent several hundred years after that barely moving from that place. As we worked to put the ship back together and mother Hijiri's power undid the damage, Murasa slowly got stronger. I think you two were guided to us right when you were by the Buddha. If you had come even ten years earlier, the ship wouldn't have been complete and I don't think Murasa would have been strong enough to sail it. She used to spend almost all of her time just floating in the Lake of Blood."

Their story ended, the two of them both were silent for a moment, reflecting on all they had been through.

"So at no point did Byakuren or anyone else specifically tell you that either the ship or the pagoda would be needed to free her?" Renko asked.

"No, never," Murasa confirmed. "I had believed that to be the case... It was my secret hope all of these years, that mother Hijiri must have planned for something like this. From what Shou told us, she felt much the same about that pagoda. Having lost it, she thought it was hopeless though. We were all very relieved to see that it worked."

"I see..." Renko said, rubbing the brim of her hat between her fingers as she stared into space. "I wonder if it was part of the sentence handed down by the Yama that Byakuren's power should be divided between the ship and the pagoda. That's a question for later though. For now, there's something else I wanted to ask you, captain."

"Oh, what's that?"

"How exactly do you steer this ship? Without any sort of thruster to generate propulsion, I don't see how that rudder would be very effective, and it doesn't seem to depend on the wind to sail. We got all the way across Makai without a mast, after all."

"Oh, that's actually an interesting question. Until recently I never had to actually do any sailing. The ship always just piloted itself once you told it where to go."

"But that changed recently?"

"Yes, since we left Makai and mother Hijiri repaired the mast, its much closer to an actual sailing ship now. It floats in the air with the power she put into it when she created it, but the wind is what makes us move. I have to actually pay attention to the sails and put down an anchor if I want to stop. As for maneuvering, I can turn or push the ship as long as I have my hand on the tiller here, but it's really hard now! I had to do that all the way out of Makai, but I don't think I could have taken us much further on my own. Honestly, it was kind of nice though, it's been a long time since I had to actually think like a sailor."

"And before you released Byakuren you never had to do any of that?"

"Well actually, the very first time I got to sail it, right after Byakuren gave it to me, I remember it being just like this. After we ran from the temple it started moving on its own at some point. I don't really remember when, but it would just go wherever I told it to. Maybe I could have done that from the beginning, but I didn't think to. I certainly can't so it now though. The ship doesn't do anything on its own."

Renko seemed troubled by that, hunching in on herself and glowering as she pondered.

"Is everything okay?" Ichirin asked.

"Don't mind her," I replied. "She just gets like that when she's thinking. That does seem odd though, I would have thought it would be the other way around. If you had had to pilot the ship while Byakuren was sealed away but it became easier to use once she was released that would sort of make sense wouldn't it? I wonder what it means for the ship to be harder to use now?"

"There's a number of possible explanations," Renko grumbled, "but I'm not sure which one I believe just yet. What about the pagoda though? Did Shou have that when she left the temple?"

"I imagine she must have. She had it when we left, and if it had been left here, I imagine they would have sealed it in Makai along with mother Hijiri. I've never asked her how she managed to lose something so important though."

"Well, I imagine it was a difficult escape. If your roles had been reversed and you weren't bound to this ship could you imagine how you might have lost something like that in the middle of a dash through the night?"

"I'm sure it was difficult," Ichirin responded, "and I can't know what all they had to face on their flight. But I know if it were me..." she hesitated. "I would have defended something like that with my life. Losing track of it would have been absolutely unthinkable." Murasa nodded in agreement.

I looked over at Renko, who had gone silent. From the way her fingers were playing thoughtfully with the well-worn edges of her hat I could tell that another grand delusion was taking shape in her mind.