The Hakurei shrine. It's a location that has featured so frequently in these stories that you might think of it as a familiar, everyday sort of location at this point, but there were a great many villagers who had never been there. It was a significant walk from the village, usually taking an hour or two on foot to reach depending on the weather. Aside from that it also had a reputation among the villagers as a dangerous place to visit -the grounds were said to often be haunted by youkai and even if the shrine itself was safe, there was still the possibility that one could be attacked while on the road leading to the shrine from the village. That was enough to turn most people away, especially now that Myouren temple, which offered a similarly tranquil but youkai-haunted religious experience, could be found much closer to town.

The shrine, however, had a reputation that the temple did not. It was, after all, the shrine. If someone was referring to a shrine with the definite article, there was never any question which shrine they meant. The Hakurei shrine had existed for longer than Gensokyo had and was where you went if you knew of a youkai that needed to be exterminated. Everyone knew that without question. Myouren temple was home to an impressive incarnation of a treasure god who would hear your prayers and a nun who was happy to explain scripture and provide help to the poor and the suffering. The hermit in the town square was often around to listen to your problems, settle disputes or offer life advice. The branch shrines to the goddesses of the mountain scattered throughout the village were where you said prayers and left offerings when you were worried about the harvest or the possibility of a natural disaster. But the shrine? That was just for dealing with youkai. There were no blessings to be gained from praying to the god of that place, no interesting theological or philosophical discussions to be had with its miko, and really nothing to do once you arrived but drop a few coins in the box and head back home if there wasn't a festival or a performance of some kind going on at the moment.

Beyond that, many of the issues Reimu had solved, including several of the ones written about in these casefiles were ones that very few people in the village knew about, or at least that they wouldn't have thought of as dangerous. Everyone knew that Reimu was the hero who had brought the Scarlet Mist Incident to a close, but only those who had the interest in such would have read Akyuu's writings and learned that she had been the one to end the long winter during the Spring Snow Incident. The Night Parade of One Hundred Demons Every Three Days, and the Sixty Year Cycle Great Barrier Incidents were events that most villagers had never heard of. Some people had a vague recollection of the Eternal Night Incident having occurred, but most hadn't realized it was an Incident or that Reimu had resolved it. Sanae's arrival hadn't been an Incident in the eyes of anyone except Reimu, and the earthquake Incident had again been resolved without most villagers ever hearing about it. The Vengeful Spirit Incident had been the same and the Treasure ship Incident was generally seen as a positive event by most of the village rather than something that would have required the Hakurei miko's intervention. The whole fuss with Hisoutensoku was definitely thought to have been an Incident, though it probably didn't qualify as one and people believed that to have been resolved by Sanae and Hisoutensoku. Reimu was seen as the resolver of both the Divine Spirit and the Tsukumogami Incidents, but both of those were seen as harmless irregularities that had provided minor annoyances at most in the eyes of the village.

Despite all of that, everyone in the village agreed that if an Incident or suspicious youkai were to appear, Reimu would be the person to talk to. Despite that, the average person on the street also saw her as someone without much in the way of work to do most days, and as someone who spent the vast majority of her time in lazy idleness. The Hakurei shrine was not, generally, somewhere anyone would go for regular worship. Even Sanae, who was known to loudly preach in the village square and shout strange slogans at passers-by was generally more widely liked by the villagers than Reimu was.

In short, the Hakurei shrine and its maiden were taken for granted by the village. This was Gensokyo. Humans lived within the walls of the village, youkai lived outside of them. The Hakurei miko lived amongst those youkai, ready to exterminate them should the need arise. This was the way things were thought of in the village, even if the truth was more nuanced. It had always seemed odd to me that one girl, especially one as young as Reimu was so universally trusted with the role of youkai extermination. It was no secret in the village that she could often be seen fraternizing with youkai at her shrine and rumors abounded from time to time that Reimu might be a youkai herself, or else in league with them, their agent who came into the village from time to time to make sure that no one was threatening their plans. This lead to the paradoxical situation that everyone knew that if you went to the shrine and asked Reimu to exterminate a youkai (ideally while making a donation) it would get done, but no one wanted to go to the shrine to do it.

At any rate, I'm digressing. What I'm trying to get at is that it wasn't too surprising to hear that Mr. Easy had never been to the Hakurei shrine, nor was it inherently remarkable that he had no desire to go. For him to have avoided the location for as long as he had been travelling with us was a little suspicious though, and so one Sunday Renko, in her usual, clever manner, talked Mr. Easy into a position where he couldn't really refuse and we all set out.

-.-.-.-.-

When we arrived the scene was much as you might expect. The trees were a vibrant green atop the hill that the Hakurei shrine perched on and although the grounds were swept clean there was no sign of anyone around when we walked through the torii gates. About the time Renko finished throwing coins into the offertory box we heard Marisa's loud laugh echoing from the back of the shrine though. The four of us walked around the back of the Hakurei shrine, having made the journey on foot, without Genji's aid.

"Whoa, who's that old guy followin' you?" Marisa asked as we rounded the corner of the shrine. "That the sort of person you're into these days?"

"Hello Marisa. Nice to see you here. Busy day as usual?"

"'Bout the same as always, just two innocent maidens enjoyin' a summer afternoon. Not exactly the same atmosphere if a grown man walks in all of a sudden tho."

"Who's an 'innocent maiden?' Reimu asked from beside Marisa, looking over at Mr. Easy. She didn't seem bothered by his presence but I was surprised to see that Mr. Easy shrank back a little from her stare. "I had heard that you two were travelling around with someone from the village, but I hadn't expected it to be just some guy. Are you giving random villagers tours of dangerous places now?"

"Well I suppose technically speaking we are," Renko said with a grin, "but that's not our intention. This is more like a bunch of people with some free time just wandering around together."

"That sounds like a date," Marisa declared. "Or a double-date since there's four of you. Who's with who?"

"You shouldn't be dragging random villagers to go see youkai with you." Reimu cut in. "You're already way too involved with youkai for your own good. Don't go dragging someone else down with you." She took a sip of her tea. "You're going to end up making it so there's more people I have to exterminate."

Mr. Easy flinched briefly as she said that. It was another of his reactions that he had tried to suppress, but I was sure I had seen it. I wondered if Renko had caught it too. If she did, she gave no sign.

"Don't worry about that, Reimu." Renko said carelessly. "We've got Sanae with us. If he goes youkai, she'll chop him in half, right?"

"I'd rather not have to." Sanae said with a pout. "Honestly, haven't these tours been going on a little long? Don't you have a job to keep you busy yet? We've taken you all sorts of places, why not try working at one of them? You could sell medicine for the moon doctor or work as a gardener for the vampire or something. Those who don't work don't eat!"

This point was something Sanae had been harping on for the last few weeks. Mr. Easy didn't seem to mind her criticism much, or rather, he had become used to it. It was a little surprising that he hadn't settled into a new job of any kind yet though. Nearly every artisan, farmer and merchant in the village was always in need of more labor. Jobs weren't hard to find here, though the labor for most villagers was probably a good deal more grueling than the positions Renko and I held.

"She's got a point" Renko said, turning to face Mr. Easy as well. "Why not become a teacher at the school? I don't think Keine would let you teach a class on fortune-telling, but we could use a new calligraphy instructor."

"...Ugh, no. I hate dealing with brats."

"Marisa do you know of any good employment opportunities for a guy like this?"

"Me? I don't work in the village, and I don't think you'd cut it tryin' to live in the woods. Why not go join the temple or ask to be one of Miko's disciples? You used to be a fortune-teller, right? Why'd you quit that?"

Mr. Easy looked away from her, avoiding her gaze. "...I was expelled from the grandmaster's school..."

"So what? You should go independent. You don't have to follow that old fart."

"...I never much liked being a fortune-teller anyway."

Marisa narrowed her eyes as she stared up at him. "Well whatever then, I guess. Do what you want. Don't look to Renko for career advice though. She gets even fewer visitors than Reimu. Don't look to Reimu either. Her job is mostly just sittin' here and drinkin' tea."

"Hey! We may have fewer clients than the shrine but several of ours have been paying customers!" Renko protested.

"Don't compare me to her. Or her to me." Reimu said, reaching out to punch Marisa in the shoulder.

Marisa leapt off the porch to avoid the blow and landed standing on the bristles of her broom which had shot off of the porch to meet her, its handle rising up to smack into her waiting palm. "Oooh, scary, scary," she teased, leaning against the broomstick and hovering just out of Reimu's reach. Reimu sighed and put down her teacup.

"Did you two come here just to try and find someone to take this guy off of your hands?"

"No, but I suppose he does need something to do with himself. He can't keep following us around forever. Everyone in Gensokyo has a role, don't they?"

Both Reimu and Mr. Easy glared at Renko in silence for a moment. "Well don't ask me," Reimu said in a huff. "I'm just a lazy, do-nothing shrine maiden, right?"

"I think I might have a suggestion," a voice called out. It had come to us from the edge of the woods on the north side of the shrine. We looked over and saw Kasen Ibara emerge from the trees.

"Kasen? Why are you here all of a sudden?"

Kasen ignored Reimu's question and continued walking towards us, smiling peacefully at Mr. Easy. He seemed a bit alarmed by Kasen's sudden appearance and took a step back, but Kasen hustled over quickly, almost as if she was determined not to let him leave.

"Pleased to meet you," she said, stepping right up to him. "My name is Kasen."

Mr. Easy looked down at her suspiciously. He was a good several centimeters taller than her, but seemed to be withering in her presence.

"How would you like to train with me? You don't seem to like being around other people and I can tell you have the ambition to want to know more about the world. The path of the hermetic arts sounds just about perfect for you."

At those words everyone assembled other than Kasen blinked in total surprise.