And so the three of us returned to our office for a brainstorming session.

"Alright. Let's start by laying out everything we already know. I think my great aunt would be the best place to start with," Renko began. "She was born in the year 2000. According to the journal entries left by her older brother, my grandfather, she was intelligent, arrogant, self-centered and probably a psychic. Between those abilities and her personality, she apparently had very few friends and was a loner."

"Oh, that almost sounds like me when I was living in the Outside world..." Sanae said, a little sadly.

"I know you said you had never had friends before you came here, Sanae, but are you calling yourself intelligent, arrogant and self centered? I won't argue against the intelligent part, but I think you're selling yourself short."

"Even living gods aren't perfect. Having some character flaws is one of my charm points!"

"I don't think people usually get to define their own charm points..." I protested.

"No, I think she's onto something, Merry. A character with no flaws wouldn't be cute, and Sanae's definitely that. In fact, if I had somehow met her before I met you, things might have worked out very differently for all of us. A beautiful girl whose powers defy the logic of the Scientific Century, and she's a living goddess to boot. That's pretty hard to compete with. You should appreciate how lucky you are to have me around more."

"Renko! You can't cheat on Merry! You two are Gensokyo's cutest couple!"

"Honestly Sanae, you can have her if you want her. Go right ahead."

"Don't be like that, Merry. Sanae was saying she wanted to be between us earlier, remember? We could make a Sanae sandwich."

"I didn't mean it like that!"

"Stop! No more of this. We're supposed to be doing serious scientific hypothesizing here, remember?" As always happened whenever Sanae joined us for a case, things were quickly getting more complicated, even though all we were doing at the moment was sitting around in the office and chatting.

"You could have let it go on a little longer, Merry. But alright, let's get back to what we were discussing. My great aunt apparently decided after graduating from junior high school that she wanted to attend a high school a fair ways away from her home. She got an apartment of her own and moved out. I don't remember the exact date but at some point after that while she was still in high school her family got a call saying she hadn't been showing up for classes. When they went to check on her they found out that Sumireko had been falling asleep in class and showing up late on a regular basis. Whatever was causing that had now advanced to the point where she was sleeping for entire days at a time. Whenever she woke up she would say things that made no sense to anyone else, then fall back asleep again. Eventually she stopped waking up altogether and then died after being in a coma for a long time."

"Wow, a real Sleeping Beauty story, huh? In that case I really don't like that Easy guy being involved. What if he turns out to be like a fairytale prince?"

"What's wrong with a prince?"

"Princes in fairytales are all creeps! The one in Snow White is a necrophile who kisses a random dead woman he finds lying in the woods!"

"Well as long as we don't put my great aunt on a pedestal in a glass coffin she should be fine. Seriously though, the important question is why she would have fallen into a coma in the first place. We don't know for certain that it has anything to do with her coming here, but it certainly would be a surprising coincidence if it didn't, I think."

"You're assuming she's actually going to come here, Renko. As far as we know that's impossible, isn't it?"

"Well, assuming she isn't going to do like Sanae did and completely disappear from the Outside world, it would certainly be counter to everything we've heard about the Great Hakurei Barrier so far. There are other ways she might come here though. I was thinking of your old dreams, Merry."

"Oh, I suppose it could be something like that..."

Back when Renko and I were living in the Scientific Century I had dreamed of strange and distant places on numerous occasions. Some of those places, we later discovered, appeared to have been part of Gensokyo. Furthermore, physical evidence suggested that during those times I had actually been here in person to at least some degree. A note that I recalled having written in a dream had been found hundreds of years ago in the Bamboo Forest of the Lost and cookies that were given to me in the dream by Sakuya Izayoi had been in my hand when I woke up one day. My wandering through dreamscapes was neither purposeful nor seemed to follow any discernable chronology, but it was hard to dispute the evidence that it had, in fact, happened.

"For a relativist like you, Merry, dreams and reality are the same thing anyway, right? Maybe Sumireko's the same way. Perhaps she comes to Gensokyo in her dreams and eventually either becomes so comfortable here she decides not to leave or else she gets trapped here somehow and becomes unable to return."

That was what Renko suggested, but another possibility had occurred to me as well, though it wasn't one I wanted to bring up. In the course of another of my travelling dreams I had once been injured. When I had awoken, I had been bleeding from the same wounds I sustained in the dream. It wasn't pleasant to think about, but if Sumireko had died while visiting Gensokyo in her sleep, that might explain what happened to her too.

"Question, boss!" Sanae shouted, raising her hand.

"Yes? What is it?"

"If we know that your great aunt visited here and then died, isn't it more likely that she's the one that Yukari wants us to save? Not Mr. Easy?"

"It's a possibility, I'll admit. But as far as we know Sumireko hasn't come to Gensokyo yet. The youkai sage hired us just the other day. Unless Sumireko is showing up quietly in a way that no one has noticed, it wouldn't really make sense to hire us at this point if it was to save Sumireko, would it?"

"Maybe she'll show up tomorrow!"

"Well that's a possibility, and if that happens then we can re-assess what we know. If that were the case though, why would the youkai sage be unclear about who we were supposed to save? She could just say 'save Sumireko,' and we'd know to wait and watch out for her. I think there must have been a reason she was being vague. Saying 'there's someone who I need you to save' seems like a deliberate choice. Thinking about what that could mean is how I ended up thinking it was Mr. Easy we were supposed to save originally. He's got to be related to what's going on somehow, he already knows my great aunt, after all."

"Hmmm." Sanae grunted and puffed out her cheeks, her brow furrowed in thought. It seemed like she really didn't like Mr. Easy for whatever reason. I'm not sure if that was due to a general dislike of men or if she was being honest when she said she didn't want a stranger coming between the three of us. Either way, she was sulking over Renko's continued insistence that he was important now.

"Just for the sake of argument, let's assume that Mr. Easy is the person the youkai sage wants us to save. Why would that be? Lady Yasaka had an odd reaction to him too. She seemed to think that he was on the verge of doing something dangerous."

"You see? I feel the same way! He's a creep! He's hiding something nasty from us, I just know it. I should just go exterminate him now!"

"Hold on there, Sanae. The Youkai Sage asked the Hifuu Detective Agency to handle this and while my talents are diverse, extermination is not one of the services we offer here. She clearly wanted us to pursue some sort of solution that didn't involve summarily cutting him down. The timing is important too. She must not have wanted us to keep him from ever contacting my great aunt or she would have come to us sooner." Renko paused for a moment and took a deep breath.

"I think the most obvious way to square this circle is to assume that Yukari wants Sumireko to come here but somehow when she does, Mr. Easy is planning to do something that will cause Sumireko to fall into a coma."

Renko turned to me with a questioning expression. I thought about it for a moment then nodded. "I think that makes sense. In that case, the one we need to save would be Sumireko again then, right? From whatever it is that Mr. Easy is planning?"

"Hmm, you're right. That can't be it then or she would have just said 'there's someone I need you to stop.' Stopping the risk factor would be the simplest way to save my great aunt in that case, right?"

"Reimu always says Yukari never talks in a straight line. Maybe she's just like that?" Sanae suggested.

Renko groaned. "I suppose that's possible too. I've never met her, so it's hard for me to assess that..."

"I think we should start by thinking more about you, Renko," I interrupted.

"Oh? Why's that?"

"...Mr. Easy is the one who taught Sumireko about Gensokyo. If that's the case then I think it's safe to assume that one of Sumireko's main motivations for wanting to come her would be so that she could meet him in person. If you were visiting a distant city where a pen-pal lived you'd want to at least say hi to them, right? Well, what would happen if Sumireko came to Gensokyo to meet Mr. Easy and he didn't show up? Sumireko is your relative, Renko, and she's at least curious enough to have already heard of this place while living in the Outside world from the sound of things. If you were in her shoes and managed to find a way to come to this place but then found out the person you wanted to meet was dead or nowhere to be found, what would you do?"

Renko's eyes widened. Her fingers drifted toward the brim of her hat.

"If it were me... I'd want to find out why that was. Especially if he was dead. I'd need to know what had happened since the last time I spoke to him."

"Exactly. Maybe that's what the youkai sage wants to stop. What if the problem isn't Sumireko coming here, but her investigations? Maybe she uncovers something inconvenient for the youkai sage. Think of how many people you've gotten mad at you by poking your nose into other people's business over the years, Renko. If your great aunt is as curious as you are but has actual psychic powers, she might cause huge problems here."

"Are you suggesting that Sumireko might arrive and cause such a big Incident that the youkai sage will have to deal with it herself, and that's what puts Sumireko into her coma?"

"It's just a guess, but maybe? If that's what's going to happen, then Mr. Easy would be the person we need to save. But we'd be doing it so that we could save Sumireko from herself."

"That would make sense if whatever it is that Mr. Easy is planning is something that is dangerous for him rather than for Sumireko. It's a lot of assumptions, but it makes sense, Merry. In that case we'll have to do everything we can to make sure Mr. Easy stays alive and well until Sumireko shows up. If they have their reunion, then the crisis would be averted, right?"

I could only hope that's what the youkai sage had intended for us to do. But who knows what effect meeting Mr. Easy might have on Sumireko. I nodded to Renko.

"Well alright then. It's the best theory we can come up with for the time being. Let's proceed down that route. How do we keep Mr. Easy safe then? Sanae do you think you could ask Lady Yasaka to watch over him through her branch shrines?"

Sanae frowned. "I suppose I could..."

"I'm already doing that," said Kanako's voice, resounding in all of our heads. "I'm the one who put the fear of the gods into him, so it's only appropriate that I keep an eye out to see what he decides to do after something like that. I'm more than a little curious myself anyway. I'll keep an eye on him from afar and let you know if he's about to do anything dangerous. Sound fair?"

"That would be perfect, thank you very much." It was hard to know where to address such thanks when Kanako was making her presence known only as a voice, but Renko nodded vaguely in Sanae's direction all the same. A moment of silence passed as we all waited to see if Kanako would say anything more, but the sense of her presence faded.

Sanae let out a sigh. "Even if we're going to try to protect him, you're not really going to hire him, are you?" She asked, frowning at Renko.

"Well that's up to him now. If he comes back and wants to work with us, that would make for an easy way to keep tabs on him. Don't worry though, Sanae. No matter what, he's not going to replace you."

"Good! And if he joins, I get to be the senior part time assistant! I'm not taking orders from him!"

"Mr. Easy might make for an important lead in this mystery, but you're our friend, Sanae. I'd never do this to him." Saying that Renko rose up and walked around her desk, then turned her back on Sanae and allowed herself to collapse, so that her back was pressed up against one of Sanae's shoulders and pressing her off-balance.. "Oi, Merry, come here and help me squish our favorite part-timer."

"What are you doing, Renko? Are you playing Oshikura Manju?"

"Don't squish me, I said I was fine just watching, didn't I? I don't want to get between you and Merry!"

"No, I think Renko's right for once," I said, scooting over to the other side of Sanae. I turned and leaned my back against her, propping her up on the side opposite where Renko was leaning on her. "You're our number one assistant, so we may as well squish our appreciation into you."

"You're out-voted, Sanae. Alright, Merry. One, two, squish!"

"You're our favorite, Sanae. We're not going to let you go."

"Gyuu. Oh, I kind of like being a Sanae sandwich."

"Careful Sanae, Lady Yasaka could be watching. You wouldn't want her to think her shrine maiden had become tainted by immoral thoughts."

"I'm not thinking anything immoral! It just feels really nice to have two people I like pressing up against me."

"Someone could definitely get the wrong idea if you said that. What do you think, Merry? I won't tell if you won't."

"Renko, stop. You're the one giving her the wrong idea."

"Yeah! Quit teasing me! It's not fair when someone cool says something like that out of the blue. Anyone would get embarrassed!"

I leaned back, increasing the weight I was resting on Sanae. "Sanae, did you just call Renko 'cool'? Renko!?"

"What's wrong with that, Merry? I'm a great detective who unravels the hidden secrets of the world. That's at least a little cool, right? Or are you complaining because you think I'm more cute than cool? I'm okay with being seen as cute if its by you."

"Sanae, don't listen to Renko. You really are going to be corrupted if you develop a brain like hers that tries to turn every word spoken in her presence into a double-entendre."

"Wait, are you saying she should be more like you, Merry? Then our Sanae sandwich would have two Merrys in it. Does that mean I should get in the middle?"

"You see what I mean, Sanae? She's incorrigible."

"Forgive me, boss! I'm not on your level! I feel like whatever I say you're just going to play with me like a toy!"

"Seriously, Sanae, are you trying to lead her on now?"

-.-.-.-.-

Looking back now, our conversations were so frivolous and carefree then. We had no idea what lay in store for us.