"Did you by any chance play a gig in the village today?"

"...In the village? No? All three of us have been here at home all day."

And just like that, my partner's delusional theory immediately fell apart.

We had arrived at the abandoned-looking western-style mansion not far from the shore of Misty Lake which was the residence of the three sisters who made up the Prismriver Ensemble. Renko had run confidently up to the door as we arrived and knocked loudly until Lunasa had opened it, floating slightly off of the ground and looking surprised.

"Oh." Renko had replied, looking crestfallen. "You're sure all three of you are here?"

"Why? Did something happen in the village?"

Renko proceeded to explain about the simultaneous outbreaks of strange dancing behavior we had seen. When she had finished, Lunasa let out a melancholy sigh. "I see," Lunasa had replied. "So you immediately suspected Merlin."

"It's a pretty good guess, isn't it?"

"Well, it's true that Merlin could easily make a few dozen humans get all riled up and acting crazy..." Lunasa began.

She was interrupted, however, by the sound of one of her sisters calling out from behind her. "Is someone talking about me?" Merlin asked, floating down towards the door from the second floor balcony. "I heard my name."

Lyrica was not far behind her, also floating toward the sound of our conversation. With the three of them there and the two of us in the doorway, it was quickly decided that we should come inside to continue the conversation and so we once again found ourselves seated on the surprisingly comfortable but very old sofa in the drawing room of the poltergeists' house. Lunasa explained the situation to her sisters. Surprisingly though, it was Lyrica rather than Merlin who seemed most annoyed by Renko's accusation.

"Well of course Merlin could do something like that. That's why I never let her play solos when we're playing in front of humans! You have to balance her sound with Lunasa's or things will get out of control."

"It's kind of boring only being able to play solos for ghosts though. There aren't even that many around now that people are taking care of the human graveyard again. Maybe I should go play in the village! Wouldn't it be fun to see how many people I could get excited? Just once?" Merlin pleaded.

"No way," Lyrica said, shaking her head. "You don't even sound that good without Lunasa balancing you out and if there's going to be any significant number of people listening then you need me present too to keep the both of you from sounding discordant."

"Hey! That's not true, I can play just fine on my own. I play loud and fast! That's what good music sounds like!"

Lyrica rolled her eyes at that. Lunasa ignored her and posed a question to Renko instead. "You said the people in the village were singing and dancing. What did it sound like?"

"Oh, um, I think I can mostly remember it..." Renko said, climbing to her feet. "Merry, come dance with me, we can demonstrate."

"Absolutely not."

"Oh come on, it's no fun dancing alone."

I glared at her. Renko sighed dramatically then began her re-enactment without me, clapping her hands over her head and kicking her legs out. Renko's impression of the dance was mainly accurate if a little exaggerated, and she got the spirit of the lyrics right even if she might not have gotten every word correct in her version. Flailing about like that, she looked like an idiot, but Merlin seemed to get excited and was clapping in time with her before long.

When Renko had finished she took a quick bow while Merlin applauded then sat back down. Lunasa grunted contemplatively. "Hmmm. It's not exactly the same as the harvest festival dances they do in the village, but it's definitely related. You said there was just singing and clapping right? No instruments?"

"Not that we heard or heard any reports of, no."

"Well it definitely wasn't any of us then, we need the sounds of our instruments to affect people. Assuming that it was a youkai responsible for this though, I think it would have to be some sort of youkai that likes dancing, rather than a musical one. You said people were singing all out of order anyway, right?"

"Yeah that's true. A youkai that likes to dance though... Merry, do you have any ideas?"

"Hmm, there are various sorts of will-o-wisps and things like that that are said to dance about in the night, aren't there? I didn't see anything like that in the crowds though."

"I've heard that tsukumogami footwear like to dance!" Merlin said excitedly.

"Rather than worry about what sort of youkai it might be, I think the more important question is why a youkai would want to make a bunch of villagers dance crazily," Lyrica interjected. "I've never actually even heard of a youkai doing something like this, especially not so brazenly, right on the village's main street."

"Well it could be the work of a youkai who doesn't know they're not supposed to. A recently born or re-awakened youkai, for example..."

As soon as she said that she turned to look at me. I returned her meaningful glance. If it really was the work of a recently re-awakened youkai, there was only one obvious source for such a creature - Suzunaan and more specifically Kosuzu's collection of sealed youma books.

-.-.-.-.-

And so, just as spontaneously as we had showed up, we ended up leaving the crumbling mansion near the lake. On our way back to town, Renko suggested we stop by the Myouren temple to check on the villagers who had gone there, since the temple was along the road we'd have to take to get home anyway. We made the detour past the graveyard and walked the short distance along the path that lead to the temple's entrance. We found captain Murasa there, sweeping the entryway. She looked up as we approached and greeted us warmly.

"Merry! Renko! Ahoy there!"

"Hello again, captain. It's been a while."

The captain stepped forward and exchanged a high five with Renko, as high-spirited as we had ever seen her. "Have you come with all of the other villagers to join our temple?"

"Oh, uh, no, we're not here to join up, I'm afraid."

"Oh, really?" Murasa asked, sounding disappointed. "Mother Hijiri brought a whole bunch of people back from the village who wanted to join today, so I thought maybe you were coming along too. You should give it some thought, you two are always welcome here."

"Well if the worldly demands of being a teacher, detective or Planck-level genius ever grow to be to much for me, you'll be the first place I'll turn. What happened to all of those people who Hijiri brought here though? I don't see them around."

"Oh, they're in the main hall with mother Hijiri and Big Shou right now, listening to a sermon. I wonder if Shou's been able to stop crying yet? When she saw that many people coming here with Hijiri, she started weeping, being all 'It's a miracle, saint Hijiri's teachings have reached so many people!' I wonder if she's okay?"

Shou Toramaru, the Myouren temple's second-in-command seemed to be just as devoted to her master as ever.

"Ah, I see," Renko said, tucking her chin to her chest for a moment in consideration before looking back up at Murasa. "Captain, do you know why so many villagers came to the temple to hear Hijiri speak all at once?"

"You mean do I know that they were all doing a crazy dance in the street before she brought them here? Yeah, I'm the one who told her about it."

"Oh really?"

"Yeah, I was walking along the bank of the river near the village and I heard a bunch of people singing a sad, pessimistic song. But they were singing it really energetically and all over top of one another, so I went to the gate at the edge of the village and saw a whole crowd all dancing and singing and getting into fights. I don't know what it was about, but I ran to tell Hijiri since she told us not to go into the village. She must have thought it was pretty serious because she rushed right out to see for herself. I never expected she would have come back with half of them as new parishioners to our temple though. When she came through the gate leading a crowd like that, Nue got so scared she ran away again!"

"Oh, poor Nue," Renko said shaking her head. "Well, I'm sure she'll be back. What about Ichirin and everyone else, they've all been here the whole time?"

"Ichirin has been, she's been taking care of the readings and alms for Byakuren. Naz is out somewhere though and Kyouko's gone back home for a bit."

"What about miss Mamizou?"

"Mami? She's probably around here somewhere, but I don't know if I would really consider her having joined this temple. She hangs around a lot, but she doesn't perform any duties or sleep here. Really, she's kinda just a freeloader." Murasa looked around for a moment, to make sure no one else was in earshot then leaned in to whisper to Renko. "If you ask me, she's in danger of getting kicked out of here altogether though. She's always going into the village disguised as a human and I know she goes drinking and gambling while she's there sometimes. I don't know how much mother Hijiri knows about it, but she'll probably find out eventually."

Mamizou Futatsuiwa, a bake-danuki and accomplished shapeshifter who had been brought to the Myouren temple from the Outside world by Nue as a response to the resurrection of prince Shotoku, was someone we had been keeping our eyes on ever since her arrival as well. Hearing that she was unaccounted for at the time of the twin uprisings in the village was enough to make Renko and I glance at each other warily. We had begun watching her in connection with Reimu's request to keep an eye on Kosuzu for one simple reason -she was known to often assume a human guise and frequent Suzunaan. Apparently, that wasn't the only human-operated business in the village she frequented. I looked over at Renko with a concerned expression while she once again tucked her chin to her chest in consideration. With the Prismriver Ensemble ruled out as suspects, the list of parties who might be responsible for instigating the commotion in town seemed only to be growing.