It was something we had never considered before. To have traveled from the Scientific Century to Gensokyo in the early 2000's via two separate stages was no more or less fantastic than the prospect of us being here at all, but in a way it made a certain amount of sense. The amber in my pocket was supposed to be a tool for crossing the Great Hakurei Barrier, after all. No one we had talked to had ever mentioned anything about it being able to move through time. If that was the case, did that mean that something else had been responsible for us going back and time and the stone had simply dumped us in the Scarlet Devil Library as the result of interference with that process? Or could our arrival in the place and time that we had reached have been the result of two different parties both vying for control over us, or over the amber? Thinking about it got us no closer to determine who might have been responsible, but it had a certain believability to it. The amber was a powerful, dangerous object, and it hadn't been with us when arrived in Gensokyo. It's entirely possible that on its own, the amber might have moved us across one border and then someone might have immediately moved us across the other in order to snatch the jewel from the two unsuspecting rubes who had brought it to this world.

The only problem with the theory was that we had no memory of having made the trip in two stages. To my knowledge we had never seen Gensokyo as it might exist in the Scientific Century.

"Merry you have a better memory than me, do you remember being anywhere else after we found the jewel, but before we showed up in the library?"

"I have a vague recollection of there being a swirl of colors and a sense of movement, but otherwise no. We were there, everything got all distorted, and then we were here."

After that our conversation was cut short. Sakuya had been showing us to Remilia's audience chamber while we talked and once we arrived all of Renko's attention went to the act of convincing Remilia to cause an Incident. Quite frankly it didn't seem like it was too difficult. All Renko had had to do was casually mention that the number of fishers willing to venture out to Misty Lake in search of a catch had increased lately since the youkai in the area had been so calm lately that villagers felt they didn't have any reason to be afraid of the lake or its environs any more and Remilia had immediately decided that something needed to be done to properly terrify them. Mentioning that the floods experienced the previous year worried the villagers far more than the thought of a vampire did had been the final straw. Once Remilia was good and fired up and eagerly looking forward to the upcoming full moon we had taken our leave and headed home.

-.-.-.-.-

It was later that evening that we got to discussing the idea again.

"I keep thinking about what Sakuya mentioned, Renko," I said, enjoying my tea while Renko stood in the kitchen, scrubbing the dinner dishes. "If she's right, why would the youkai sage pull us across time after we got to Gensokyo?"

"Maybe in the future there's something in Gensokyo that she wouldn't want us to see. Who knows what your look-alike is thinking, Merry? I've never met her."

"I've been wondering about that. We were brought to a very specific time in Gensokyo's history, just after the invention of the Spell Card rules, but before they were ever used. Doesn't that seem odd to you? Prior to that, battles between youkai or confrontations between youkai and humans were probably much more likely to be lethal for at least one of the parties involved. Maybe we were brought to the safest period in Gensokyo's history. Maybe in the future something happens that would be far more dangerous to be around for."

"Maybe, but I kind of doubt that. If the Administrator were looking to protect us wouldn't the most effective way to do it have been to just send us back to our own time and place rather than bringing us into Gensokyo? Whether she pulled us through time or across the barrier or both, leaving us where we were would have to be easier for her, right? If we were still in our own time but here we could have just found the Hakurei miko of that time and gone right on out. If we were in the wrong time but still in the Outside world, well then we probably weren't even her problem to begin with."

"Hmm, that's true."

As always, attempting to intuit the motives of the youkai sage seemed all but impossible. This was why most mysteries are written as whodunnits, rather than whydunnits. Determining the motivation of a mastermind is always difficult, if not impossible. Someone who would commit an elaborately concealed crime of the sort that tend to show up in detective novels is by definition the sort of person who's not likely to be entirely rational. And for a detective or the reader to be able to predict the ending of the book and solve the crime, events had to follow logical patterns. Whimsy, irrationality, or random, unpredictable events were the sort of things that had no place in such stories, except perhaps as red herrings, even despite the fact that actual human beings performed illogical actions all the time. The youkai sage was someone who everyone who had met her described as 'mysterious' or 'the sort of person where you never know what they're thinking.' Having met her myself I was inclined to agree. But given that, how could anyone possibly hope to intuit her motivations?

Once again, despite all the clues we had discovered and all of the progress we had made we were left with more questions and mysteries than we had had when we started. Trying to follow in the Administrator's footsteps was a lot like attempting to run straight through the Bamboo Forest of the Lost. Your path was often blocked unexpectedly and any path that resembled a straight line would quickly turn out to be anything but. There was no Mokou to guide us here either, so getting to the end without getting lost might as well be impossible. After thinking myself in circles for a moment I deliberately changed the topic.

"Hey Renko, if you could go back in time and meet a past version of yourself, what would you tell her?"

"A past version of me? That's a tough one, Merry. I don't think I'd be very inclined to believe anything I had to say, generally speaking." She turned toward me, drying her hands on a dish towel and looked at my face as she considered. "Well, if I met a version of me that was from before I met you, I'd tell her to look forward to meeting the most intriguing girl in the world in university. Someone who would provide me with more and greater mysteries than I could ever imagine."

I laughed sardonically. "Well if I met a version of myself from back then I'd tell her to rethink going to Kyoto University. I'd tell her if you go there there will be a megalomaniac who follows you around every day and regularly puts you in situations where your life is in jeopardy."

"Hey don't tell her to run away, Merry! That's not nice."

"It wouldn't matter if I did, Renko. You'd chase her, wouldn't you?"

"Damn right I would. Wherever she went, no matter how far she ran." Saying that, Renko put down the towel and walked across the kitchen towards where I was sitting and wrapped her arms around me. "I've got you Merry. I'm never going to let you get away."

I smiled at her and placed my free hand on top of one of hers.

-.-.-.-.-

It's nice isn't it? It would be nice if it could stay like this, wouldn't it be? To just stay like we are right in that moment forever? Why am I asking myself, of course it is. I'd be lying if I said it wasn't what I want.

I don't want to solve this mystery. I don't need any truth other than this one. My life with Renko in this world of fantasy, filled with playfulness, happiness and wonder. I don't need the logical future of the world that was. Or that will be or that ever was. Is it still going to happen that way? Or was it never really like that? Was there ever really anything other than this sense of inertia? This momentum driving us forward? This wild rotation around the polestar of Renko's gravity as she travels in search of new wonders, new mysteries?

I don't want it to end.

I want to keep chasing those unobtainable truths with Renko. I think... it's the only thing that's ever really made me happy.

The youkai sage. Sumireko Usami. These people don't really matter to me. They do to Renko, but they're goals for her, questions. They aren't a part of what we share, just distant stars for her to set a course for as we sail together through the night. I want to stand by and watch my partner as she sets our heading, directing us toward ever-greater mysteries and the vast depths of the unknown. There are no maps that show the way we're going, but she can tell me a story as we travel. One full of mystery and grandeur. We'll navigate the darkness by the light sparkling in her confident eyes.

This is... This isn't me... These feelings feel like someone else's or like memories of something I've forgotten. To have something like this. Like that, with Renko...

It would be too selfish. I couldn't ask her to give up the whole world to stay with me, even if it meant we could be together forever.

Forever... Always and forever.

That would be a long time. Has been a long time. Is a long time now. Yes, that's it. We've been doing this for a long time. A very long time indeed. That's what I'm feeling.

-.-.-.-.-

That night, I shared another dream with Renko. The location we found ourselves in this time was not the Lunar Capital, but the strange, inorganic and empty space we had visited once before. Lifeless black earth was divided into an endless grid beneath us by seething red lights. Doremy Sweet was waiting for us.

"Hey, sorry about this, you two," she said with uncharacteristic humility. "I wouldn't have wanted to bother you again myself if I could have avoided it, but Sagume needs to know something, and I think you're just about the only people I can ask."

"Oh, we're being summoned by the Administrator of the dream world herself to answer questions?" Renko sniffed, grinning broadly. "Well, I think I'd be willing to answer them if I could ask a few in return. Can you bring us back to the Lunar Capital, Doremy? There's lots I was hoping I could have asked Sagume about, but I never got the chance. Plus, we never got to say goodbye to any of those rabbits."

"Absolutely not. You two shouldn't have been there in the first place and the fact that you were has already caused a bunch of trouble. You're never going back there if I have anything to say about it."

"Don't be like that, Doremy. I wanted to ask Sagume about the Hourai elixir and the stories Eirin's told me."

Doremy glared down at us, crossing her arms and floating slightly higher. "Those are the last sorts of things she'd want to talk to you about. If you ever get the opportunity to mention something like that to her, I'm not responsible for what she might do. You really do love to cause problems, don't you?"

Renko just shrugged and grinned. "So what did you want to ask us then? I'll consider answering anyway if the questions are interesting."

"I hadn't wanted to ask you myself, but Sagume insisted and, quite frankly, she's right. No one is more likely to know this sort of thing than you."

"Oh? What do you mean?"

"She wanted me to ask you about rumors from the Outside world. Specifically, about rumors about the moon. Are there any stories people tell about what might be there? It doesn't matter if they're true or not, it just matters if they're the sort of things people discuss. Do you know of any tall tales like that?"