"The crown prince has been a renowned intellect and a great leader of men from a very early age. In his time he shaped the fate of nations and brought prosperity to all beneath his rule. He knew though, as all men must, that his time in this world was limited. Even great men must die after all, while the world itself and the nature that inhabits it remains unchanging, thriving just as it has since the days when it was first shaped by the gods. 'Why must humans always perish?' was a question he became obsessed with. Humans have the power to improve the world, but they are fleeting creatures and in time all of humanity's accomplishments are lost. Why can humans not remain, to better direct the course of history?'"

Listening to Tojiko's story, I had to make a conscious effort to keep my expression neutral. Having met Mokou, who saw her own immortality as a curse placed upon her by a combination of her own foolish impulsiveness and the corrupting nature of the lunarians, it was hard for me to imagine the arrogance one would have to possess to willingly curse themselves in such a fashion. Mokou was said to have drank the Hourai elixir 1300 years ago. If prince Shotoku had been born a century later, then it would have been he who received the Hourai elixir left behind by Kaguya rather than his grandfather. Japan's history would likely have looked very different in that case, ruled over as it might have been by an eternal, deathless emperor.

"It was around then, when the prince was consumed by the idea of immortality that that wicked hermit appeared."

"You mean Seiga, I presume?" Renko asked.

Tojiko nodded. "She tempted him into training under her in Taoist hermitic practices by offering to teach him the secret of immortality."

"Learning to be a hermit is supposed to take a really long time though, isn't it? This must have been when the prince was relatively young."

"Indeed, we had only just been married at the time."

"But prince Shotoku founded many of the temples associated with him later in his life, didn't he? Are you saying he kept up the ruse of being a practicing Buddhist for decades while spreading its influence but not believing any of it himself?"

"Taoism is a religion all about individual refinement and following an amoral path toward self-improvement. Deceiving others in order to secure his power and bring harmony to the nation is not against its teachings. Furthermore, if the crown prince had allowed Taoist philosophy and the hermetic arts to spread among the general populous it would have made people much harder to control. Buddhism, on the other hand, reveres passivity and condemns violence. If one is tasked with managing a country plagued by upstart warlords and feuding nobles, it's an effective tool for quelling uprisings. Everything you've heard about the crown prince founding Buddhist temples and spreading the influence of the religion is true. He merely did it for political ends though. The prince reserved the power and the secrets of Taoism for himself. As his mastery of Seiga's teachings improved, he cemented his position as an unquestionable ruler even further. He was able to influence people, read their true motivations at a glance, and curse his enemies undetectably. I'm not surprised he left a legend to be passed down from generation to generation. His rule at the time was absolute."

"Well that's quite a story," Renko said, leaning back to rest both hands on the tatami. "'Prince Shotoku was secretly a Taoist! Study the secrets of the Tao and you can be just like him!' That'd be a pretty good pitch for a dubious correspondence course."

Tojiko frowned at that comment, but continued. "After accomplishing all that he felt he needed to in his lifetime, the crown prince decided to undertake a ritual he had been taught by Seiga. His intention was to give up his life while preserving his soul within a sacred object. The spell was set up such that if the country ever fell into ruin, the seals on this mausoleum would break and his resurrection process would begin automatically, awakening him to retake the reigns of the world. The ritual was a secret, one he shared with only his two closest followers, Futo and myself. The three of us sealed ourselves into this tomb, prepared the ritual workings and drank mercury and arsenic together as one."

"So the intention was to be reborn after you died? It seems that didn't go exactly as planned though," Renko said, looking pointedly to the hem of Tojiko's dress from which the shapeless white vapors of her ghostly form protruded.

"Not for me, it didn't. My body failed to regenerate and I awakened almost immediately as a ghost. I've had a long time to get used to this body. It was hard to wait all those centuries alone, but I could sense that the spirits of the crown prince and Futo were both still present, sealed within their vessels. It was only just recently, about a month ago that Futo finally began to awaken, proving that the process could work. The gathering of all of those vulgar spirits indicates that the prince's resurrection will soon be complete as well. It can't be more than a matter of days away at most now."

"About that. The timing seems a bit odd to me. As far as I know, Japan isn't exactly in turmoil at the moment, though it has definitely faced several existential crises in the last 1400 years. Why would the crown prince be awakening now? And for that matter why here in Gensokyo, far from the seat of any center of imperial power?"

"Buddhism is to blame for that," Tojiko said bitterly. "The crown prince had intended for Buddhism to be a tool by which he could cement his rule. When he abandoned his throne though, the Buddhist nobles operating several of the larger temples had already gained too much political power to allow themselves to ever be used as tools again. They didn't know exactly what he was planning in this mausoleum, but they were afraid that he might eventually reawaken and that if he did, he would again rule over the nation and restrict the power that they enjoyed. This mausoleum was originally constructed deep beneath an important Buddhist temple. After the prince's death, that temple was burned to the ground by other Buddhists and a new temple was built atop the ruins. The new temple was specifically constructed to act as a seal. It's intention was to prevent this mausoleum from ever being opened."

It was a shocking revelation. I looked over at Renko to find her looking back at me with an eager glint in her eye. I can imagine why. Even in the Nihon Shoki, Horyu temple is said to have burned down long ago and have been rebuilt. Archeological investigations in the 20th century had revealed this to be true, but also showed that the rebuilt temple had a vastly different floorplan than the original and had actually been built a short distance away rather than on the same grounds. Speculation about the reason for this had ranged from practical considerations about the soil and animal paths in the area to unfounded speculation that the move had been due to a curse placed on the temple by the descendants of prince Shotoku who had all been eradicated in a political purge a century after the prince's death. Seeing the gleam in Renko's eyes, it was clear this revelation had sparked in her that same curiosity that endlessly compelled her to investigate Incidents like these.

"So this mausoleum was originally in Nara then, but you moved it here after it was sealed?" I was reminded of the Moriya shrine, which had also once existed in the Outside world but been transported along with a nearby lake into this world as if it were nothing more than a box to be packed up and moved.

"Well, I didn't move it myself. That was Seiga's doing as well. She found me down here, alone and waiting, and convinced me that moving to this world might well have been part of the Prince's plan all along. After all, Japan was managing to get by without the crown prince well enough, so maybe he was needed here. I didn't want to believe her, but what choice did I have, really? I couldn't do anything to awaken him on my own, nor could I have stopped her if she was determined to act without my cooperation."

"It was a good plan, wasn't it?" A voice asked sweetly from the far side of the room. "The Outside world no longer had any need for a ruler, so why not bring the ruler here?" We looked over to the direction where the voice had come from. There, on the far wall of the room was a perfectly circular hole about a meter in diameter and leaning through it with her body hovering horizontally as if she was lying on a bed was Seiga, resting her chin on the backs of her crossed hands and kicking her feet girlishly in the air behind her. Halfway in and halfway out of the room, she beamed a sinister smile at us. The hole behind her was a truly odd thing. Perfectly circular, and smoothly cut through the material of the wall regardless of its variable thickness, its edges shimmered unnaturally in my vision. As near as I could tell from looking at it, the hole existed not in the material of the wall itself, as nothing had been displaced, but in the very nature of the wall as a closed border that separated the things on one side of it from those on the other. Seiga appeared to have cut a hole into the very concept of the wall, and then stuck her body through it to have a look around.

"Seiga!" Tojiko cried, rising up from the floor and crackling with power. "I thought I told you to stop cutting holes in the walls here!"

"Earlier when I came by you complained that I knocked on the door, so I thought you'd be more comfortable if I did things this way. You're so mean to me Tojiko."

"It's not your method of entry that I'm complaining about, it's your presence. You're a pollution upon this sacred mausoleum and you've already done what you intended to do here. Why not disappear back to China for another 1400 years?"

"You see?" Seiga said, pointing to Tojiko, her wrist upturned. "So rude. You'd think she'd be a little grateful after I saved her from an eternity of imprisonment alone in the dark."

"When you brought us here you said there would be no Buddhists and the crown prince would be free to revive at any time! Then a week after we arrive a temple gets built on top of us! I can't believe that's just a coincidence!"

"Your faith in me is appreciated, but sadly not even I could have predicted that a flying ship would suddenly appear from Makai and set up shop right above us. That's not my doing in the least."

The two of them glared at eachother. As they did, I leaned over and whispered to my partner. "Hey Renko, do you think she knows that we were involved in the temple being setup when and where it was?"

"Best not to bring it up." Renko hissed back at me.

"Do you think Byakuren's temple was built to seal prince Shotoku away like Horyu temple was?"

"Byakuren did seem to have some very specific plans for how it was supposed to be laid out, but if that was her intention, it doesn't seem to have worked. Maybe she slowed it down some, but the appearance of all of the desire spirits suggests that the resurrection really is about to happen." Renko shifted on the tatami, leaning away from me and raised her voice. "Excuse me, miss Tojiko, I have a question."

Tojiko broke away from her staring match with Seiga to glare at Renko instead. "Tch. What?"

"Ooo, scary scary! I'm running away." Seiga called tauntingly before Renko could respond. We watched as she withdrew through her hole, floating backwards out of the room. The hole closed itself back up as soon as she was through it, leaving the wall perfectly intact, with no trace that anything had ever been amiss. In Renko's vocabulary I suppose you would call something like that a 'wormhole.' Looking over at her, she seemed fascinated by the way it had disappeared, but visibly forced herself to turn back to Tojiko and the conversation at hand.

"It's about Futo. She said she was a member of the Mononobe clan didn't she? They were all killed by the crown prince during the establishment of his rule, weren't they? With the help of the Soga clan, if I remember my history. How did someone like that come to be one of the crown prince's most trusted devotees?"

Tojiko glared at the spot where Seiga had disappeared for a moment longer then sighed. "When Buddhism was first introduced to Japan, the Mononobe clan opposed its philosophy. They followed their own esoteric form of Shinto that had been heavily influenced by Taoist teachings. Futo realized, just as the crown prince did, that a country full of Taoist hermits would be ungovernable, so she introduced the idea of spreading Buddhism among the masses for the benefit of the ruling class to the prince. In the days before our clans were in open conflict, the Mononobe as well as the Soga were both frequent visitors to the imperial court. She spoke to the crown prince about her thoughts one time while visiting and the crown prince revealed to her that he was secretly a Taoist. He convinced her to betray the Mononobe clan and work with him in secret to train as a hermit. She opposed the Soga clan, who adopted Buddhism wholeheartedly, but supported the prince in his efforts to spread Buddhism in order to ensure harmony and peace throughout the country. Eventually, as things escalated her loyalty was tested and she had to decide between aiding her clan or siding with the crown prince. She chose our lord, working with him to destroy the Mononobe clan from both within and without. That was enough to earn the crown prince's trust. She was a cunning strategist back when she was alive, but I don't think her resurrection went completely as planned either. Since awakening in her new body she's very different. Rather childish, and I'm not sure her mind is quite all there."

Unexpectedly, Renko laughed at that. "So more than 1000 years after the death of the last Mononobe or Soga, the ancient clash between religions continues with you two, only now instead of being a battle between Buddhism and Shinto, it's a contest to see who can better earn the favour of someone who's about to be reborn as a Taoist hermit, eh? And despite the fact that everyone was only using Buddhism as a tool to leverage one faction or another into a position of power, in the end, they're the ones who ended up as the dominant religion across Japan."

"Mock us all you like but when the crown prince is resurrected, everything will change. He will usher in a new faith to this world and in time, all worlds." Tojiko crossed her arms and snorted dismissively. It was the same sort of unmoving obstinance I had seen Mokou display on occasion. I wondered if it was a trait common among the nobility of that era. Perhaps someday Tojiko and Mokou could become friends.

"Oh! Another question!" Renko suddenly exclaimed, raising her hand as if she was in a class.

Tojiko arched an eyebrow at her in irritation.

"From your statement, I take it you intend for the crown prince to reestablish himself as a leader once he's awakened, correct? I'm not sure how much you know about Gensokyo or even modern Japan if you've been trapped down here the whole time, but this world is a small bubble of reality, probably not even as large as the greater Tokyo metropolitan area at the moment, and it's completely cut off from the rest of the country. Even if you were able to go beyond the borders of this world, you'd find that Japan has transitioned into a peaceful, unified democracy. It's hard to imagine that the prince would be satisfied with ruling such an isolated backwater, and if his ambitions are larger, the country as a whole would definitely resist unifying under one all-powerful eternal leader."

I would have expected reasoning like that to have at least given Tojiko pause when Renko laid it out like that, but she didn't hesitate for a second. "Hmph. You think that way because you're just regular humans, accustomed to the limitations of human ways of thinking and human leaders. The crown prince is more than that, and will not be contained by any such limits. I do not doubt that the nature of the country has changed in the prince's absence, but I am equally sure those changes will be of no consequence to a divinely ordained ruler of the prince's caliber." She again snorted dismissively.

"Well alright, but even if the prince has the power to escape Gensokyo and lead this country, why would he do that? He was supposed to awaken at a time of crisis, in which Japan faced an existential threat, right? Well that's happened on several occasions, but somehow this nation has survived and the prince has slept throughout, right? At the moment, as far as I know, Japan is prosperous and at peace. Why would prince Shotoku awaken now?"

"The answer is obvious, you stated it yourself. If Japan was able to survive those previous crises then as bad as they may have been they weren't calamitous enough to require the prince's intervention. As for why this moment, it may well be that some great calamity is approaching for which the country is currently unprepared. The prince's role may be to prevent a disaster rather than recover from one. As a devoted follower, I do not question the crown prince's wisdom in choosing this moment."

I was glad Renko was doing the talking. Had I been conversing with Tojiko, I wouldn't have been able to keep the incredulity out of my voice in response to a statement like that. If she were to learn everything that had happened in the last 1400 years, would she really think that the Mongol invasion of Japan, the arrival of the Black Ships or even the devastation of the second world war were minor crises unworthy of the crown prince's attention? According to the history Renko and I had learned in school back in the Scientific Century, the nation was indeed soon to enter an era of crisis, but that was an era of slow collapse and decline due to political stagnation and environmental catastrophe, not an abrupt and intense calamity like a civil war or invasion. I doubted there was much a single political leader could have done to mitigate it at this point in time.

Renko didn't say anything, but Tojiko seemed to read the doubt on my face, or perhaps she merely spoke to quell doubts of her own. "It may also be that the time when the crown prince is truly needed has not yet arrived. I can't know myself. Perhaps with us having been removed from beneath the seal the Buddhist monks placed on this mausoleum, the crown prince has decided to awaken now before a new seal can be put in place. If that is the case, then I imagine it will be much the same - the crown prince will establish a foothold here in Gensokyo and from there move to return to the country as a whole as their political savior. Regardless, that will be up to the prince himself to decide."

Hearing that, I couldn't help but wonder if, in her zeal to protect her followers from a potential threat, Byakuren might have inadvertently awakened something that would have better been left undisturbed. I thought it wisest not to say such a thing out loud though.

Renko was much slyer than I could be, taking Tojiko's declaration in stride and replying smoothly. "To think that I might be present to bear witness to the beginning of the reign of an eternal emperor. I am truly blessed. I suppose today will mark the start of the Shotoku Era." She grinned, a look that I couldn't read as anything but mocking, but Tojiko seemed unbothered by it, tucking both of her sleeves into eachother and exhaling slowly with a dignified expression on her face. She seemed to be about to say something more when suddenly the door to the room was flung open and Futo rushed in.

"Ho, Tojiko!"

Without a second's hesitation Tojiko reached out her hand an loosed a bolt of lightning that coursed through the air and into Futo, who convulsed violently on the spot before falling to the ground, gibbering.

"Ah! By the heavens, who would be so cruel as to jolt someone the moment they enter a room? Truly I am cursed to be so struck by lightning without hearing even the faintest rumblings of the heavens discontent." Futo cried as she recovered herself to a sitting position and glared at Tojiko. "What crime have I committed to deserve so harsh a rebuke?" Other than being annoyed, she didn't seem any worse for the wear for having just been electrocuted in front of us.

"For the crime of being so senselessly noisy. I told you to calm down and stop being disruptive."

"Saw you not Seiga then? She was just here, mocking me as I stood guard at the door! Thou bade me guard against any disruption to the crown prince's resurrection, but now you would have me hold my tongue when I am insulted by a wicked hermit?"

"Mocking you is a perfectly reasonable thing for any sane person to do. I know Seiga's here already and her making fun of you is no cause for alarm. Anyone would do that."

"Oh, thou thinketh thyself my better then? Wouldst thou join her in base wickedness? I may not be able to raise a hand against my master's master, but I have two stout enough to smite thee!" Saying that, Futo suddenly flung out one arm toward Tojiko. I might have expected a burst of danmaku or some other sort of magical projectile, but both Renko and I were completely unprepared for the large ceramic plate that whirled out of her sleeve to crash and shatter against the wall beside Tojiko. I might have yelped slightly as tiny chunks flew in every direction.

"Futo! Don't throw plates in here! You'll make a mess!"

Futo gave no response other than to fling her arms wide, hurling several more spinning plates forward. Renko and I flinched away as these crashed all around us. Tojiko growled and shot forward like a streak of lightning, tackling Futo into the hallway. They tussled on the floor for a few moments then their scuffle became a running battle as they chased eachother down the hallway, loud crashes and the booming of thunder following behind them as they rounded the corner out of sight.

Slowly I rose up from where I was crouching with my hands covering my head to see Renko doing the same, grinning maddeningly as she stood up and walked over to the door to peer into the hall after them. After a moment, she shut the door and came back to me.

"Well, they're quite the pair," she said as she sat down beside me once again. "What do you make of their story?"

"Tojiko seems to see Shotoku as basically a god. I don't think her reasoning as for why he'd be awakening now of all times holds much water though. If anything, it makes more sense that he would have fled here and that tried to awaken as soon as possible after having been confined by the seal of the Buddhist temple at Horyu. I don't think he's nearly as all-powerful as she expects if he ended up trapped like that. If anything, it seems he basically got outfoxed and is now fleeing to Gensokyo in defeat. That said, I don't know what intentions to read into any of it if Seiga's the one responsible for him being here in the first place. Who do you think is really in charge here, Renko?"

"Who indeed? Have you heard the theory that prince Shotoku wasn't even a real person, Merry?"

"I've heard the basics. Essentially, some historians believe that prince Umayado was a real, if unremarkable person and the character of 'prince Shotoku' was created by writers affiliated with the Fujiwara clan two centuries later so that they could claim a relationship to a nearly divine figure responsible for everything the Soga clan had ever achieved, right?"

"That's my understanding of it. It's a modern theory, so we can't ask Keine about it, but I think it was something that was becoming popular around this time if I remember correctly. If that were the case, what do you think would happen if everyone in the Outside world decided that prince Shotoku was a fantasy more or less all at once?"

"You're suggesting the person who's about to be resurrected is a creation of Gensokyo rather than any relation to the historical figure? A youkai, in other words?"

"Maybe. Wouldn't that be a nice thought? Someone being created as the ultimate benevolent ruler just because everyone wanted someone like that to exist?" She grinned and twirled her hat between her fingers, flipping it over before putting it back on her head. "I doubt it's that simple though."

"Oh?"

"Well there's one fact that doesn't make sense. If the prince who's about to be resurrected here were just the result of people's imaginings of prince Shotoku fading into fantasy, then why would they be a Taoist? That's the bit I don't get. If he's the result of a legend, then wouldn't he conform to the image people have in their heads?"