After that, things returned to normal for us for quite a while. It wouldn't make for a very interesting chapter in this story, so I'll just say that we spent our peaceful days teaching classes as usual and then relaxing in our agency's office afterwards. Sanae stopped by once or twice in that time, but after three weeks we hadn't seen any further sign of Mr. Easy, nor had he shown up at the Hakurei shrine. Kasen had apparently not been visiting Reimu since the last day we saw her either. All in all, everything seemed normal. There was no sign that Sumireko Usami or anyone else might be about to invade Gensokyo and as far as the events of our lives were concerned, it almost seemed like the request we has received from the youkai sage had never happened.

So then what was my partner up to, you might ask?

She was lying face down on the tatami mats of our office, her arms stretched out above her, her skinny body as straight as a pencil.

"Are you not feeling well Renko?" I asked, looking over reading exercises submitted by my students. "Summer heat getting to you?"

"It's almost autumn already, Merry." She mumbled into the floor without looking up.

"Ah. Then I take it you're still moping because you don't think that the youkai sage sees us useful or important?"

"She's the creator of this world, Merry!" Renko moaned, still talking into the tatami. "She's its architect, and even after everything I've done, she just sees me as someone to run errands or babysit people. Her opinion is basically Gensokyo's opinion and in her view I'm not really a great detective, am I?"

"That was just something you decided for yourself to begin with. Doesn't that mean that it's all just been your delusion from the start?"

"You're the Relativist who believes that individual views are all equally valid, aren't you? I don't want to hear that I'm being delusional from you."

Ever since Mr. Easy had been taken away by Kasen, Renko had been like this: utterly lacking in motivation and dissatisfied with the unavoidable conclusion that the case we had been given by the youkai sage appeared to not in fact be the key to any of the mysteries surrounding the Administrator or our presence in this world, but instead just another dead end. To Renko, it seemed like the carrot of hidden truths had been cruelly dangled in her face only to be snatched away when she tried to bite at it.

"I really thought we were getting to the bottom of things here. Mr. Easy was supposed to be our link to Sumireko, who would have revealed why we were brought to this world and what our purpose here was. Now he's gone and there's no sign that Sumireko is even going to show up."

"He's not 'gone', Renko, he's just training with Kasen, presumably. The fact that she came in and took him means we did what the youkai sage wanted us to do, right? Maybe Ran will show up at the end of the month with a paycheck and more coffee for you."

"That would be even worse! That would be like her saying 'your role in this is done now.' What about our plan to help my great aunt and Mr. Easy meet each other in person? It was going to be a touching reunion, after which all of the sage's secrets would be revealed." She raised one of her hands as if reaching for a distant prize then let it fall limply back to the ground.

"I thought it went okay," Sanae said, stepping through the door without warning as usual. "I'm kind of glad he's gone."

Renko rolled over and sat up to face Sanae, but was still pouting slightly. "Oh hey, Sanae. You never liked Mr. Easy at all though. Were you really suspicious of him the whole time? I think he was pretty harmless. Maybe if you had been a bit friendlier to him he would have come back by now."

Sanae looked down, seeming a little frustrated or perhaps embarrassed as she came in and took a seat opposite Renko. "Well, I don't think that he would have really hurt either of you now... And I know he wasn't going to come between the two of you either, but..." She paused for a moment and swallowed, her eyes darting away from meeting Renko's. "...honestly I don't really care why you guys came to Gensokyo... I mean, if there was something that you were brought here to do, then once you do it, that would be it, right? Maybe you'd go back to your original time, or be spirited away by the youkai sage or something..." In Sanae's lap her hands were clenching, twisting the material of her skirt.

"...Seriously? Is that why you never liked him? Sanae, you're so cute!"

"...Cute?"

"Super cute." Renko said with a nod. "A line like that in an anime would usually be followed by a confession, wouldn't it? Better watch yourself, Sanae, you're going to make Merry jealous."

"I told you, I'm not trying to come between you guys! I'm fine with the two of you doing your own thing without me."

"Oh, so you'd prefer to watch, is that it? What do you say, Merry, should we give her a show?"

"Could you be serious for once, Renko? I hadn't thought about it until now, but do you really think that could happen? If the youkai sage were to send us back now I think we'd actually be in a bit of trouble. How would we explain where we've been for the last ten years?"

"If we don't return, then how do you think they'll explain us having disappeared? Two girls vanishing suddenly out of a long-sealed room without a trace would be bound to attract some sort of attention, wouldn't it? If we stay here for the rest of our lives, what happens to the versions of us that existed in the 2080s? Do you think all trace of us just vanished? Or has history been rewritten so we never existed to begin with?"

"I'll leave that sort of question to sci-fi authors and physicists. I can't imagine what the implications are, but as far as Relative Psychology goes, we both recognize both ourselves and each other as being here and existing as the same people we were in the Scientific Century, so as far as I'm concerned there's no gap in our continuity."

"Ultimately I don't know either. Maybe if we saved Sumireko that would somehow prevent us from ever having been born. Look on the bright side though, Sanae. If we do get erased from history, then you probably won't remember ever having known us. If it's up to me though, my intention would be to stay here in Gensokyo."

"Really? Promise? You're not going to suddenly leave if Yukari shows up and tells you you're all done here?"

Renko smiled at her. "At the very least I would never leave without saying goodbye first. I promise." She held out her hand, offering her pinky to Sanae to take.

Sanae took it without hesitation, twining her finger around Renko's. "It's a promise!" She declared. "Cross your heart!"

Renko seemed like she was about to respond and seal the promise but at that moment the door to office slid open once again. Standing in the doorway was Mr. Easy. It was the first time we had seen him in weeks.

Renko blinked several times in surprise, then stood up. The man standing in the doorway was clearly the same one we had seen be carried away by Kasen but he had unquestionably changed somewhat. His eyes were livelier than they had ever looked before and he stood taller and straighter. His cheeks were no longer gaunt and sallow and his shoulders were no longer hunched. Life at Kasen's hermitage seemed to be agreeing with him.

Sanae saw Renko staring at the door and craned around to see who had come in. She gasped faintly once she did. "Oh no! Don't tell me you've been expelled from hermit school now!"

"Idiot. I've just come back to sort out my affairs and sever my ties to humanity. I'm going to become a full-fledged disciple." Mr. Easy sneered. "So thank you for your meddling, I suppose." He sounded more confident than he had before as well.

"Well I'm glad the training is working out for you," Renko replied. "But it wasn't really my doing. Despite appearances, I really wasn't colluding with Kasen at all."

"No? I still have no idea what the youkai sage would want with me, or even why master Kasen is bothering to instruct me. When she carried me away I presumed I was about to be eaten."

"I don't think hermits eat people. I take it the training is going well though? You're finding it suits you?"

"I'm not sure. The training itself is endurable. I'm not sure if this is the path for me or not, but I know I don't want to return to my old life anymore... and I don't want to be somewhere Sumireko can find me if she comes here."

Renko's eyes widened in surprise. "You don't want to meet Sumireko?"

"You were planning on introducing me to her when she arrived, weren't you? I was planning on that as well. There was something I had planned to do... But I don't want that now. And I don't want her to know what I had intended, either. If she really knew about me, I think she'd despise me now. If she appears, I ask that you not mention me. Tell her I vanished without a trace and no one knows where I've gone. Even if she searches for me, she won't find me if I'm in master Kasen's senkai."

Renko's brow furrowed. "What exactly were you planning to do?"

Mr. Easy reached into the sleeve of his robes and pulled out a small book. I'm almost certain it was the same one I had seen him pocket on the day we first cornered him.

"Take this," he said. "I don't want to have it any longer."

"What is this?" Renko asked, reaching to take the small volume.

"What remains of my plan. A plan that fell apart because of your interference. My plan was to kill myself when Sumireko arrived and leave that book behind for her. If she had found it, my hope was that, by reading it, she might have unknowingly resurrected me as a youkai."

Renko stared at him, wide-eyed.

"I spoke to her through divination and knew she was hopelessly fascinated by fortune-telling. I learned about the Outside world through her and came to believe that there was no hope that a human in this world could live a life as free as hers. My intention was that I might become a peaceful youkai, able to survive on the latent fear of the villagers without harming anyone else. In so doing, I had hoped to avoid being exterminated by the Hakurei miko. Even if I could never leave this boring world, it would be more tolerable to live in it as a creature with some measure of power... That is what I thought, at any rate. I reject that vision now. Through your interference you have shown me another way to live. My hope now is that I might eventually master the hermetic arts and free myself from the strictures of this world in that way. I don't know if I can succeed or not, but it's a method I'm willing to try."

Mr. Easy spoke with determination but there was still a hint of a sneer on his face. All the time he had been touring around Gensokyo with us he had been successfully hiding his true motivations. He must have thought us to be quite the fools.

"You were planning to make my aunt a part of your plan without her knowledge or consent?" Renko asked at length. "You realize that Reimu would probably have exterminated her for getting involved in something like that, right?"

"As I said, if Sumireko were to learn of this, I think she'd find me despicable. I can't tolerate living in the village, but I think the path master Kasen has set before me is a better one for everyone involved. So again, I ask you: if Sumireko comes looking for me, don't tell her where I've gone."

Renko sighed and looked down in the book in her hands.

"She's going to come, detective," Mr. Easy said after a moment. "She has your curiosity along with tremendous power. More than that though, she is tired of the Outside world. As tired as I was of this life. She will find a way to come here. Or she will die in the attempt. I do not doubt her resolve. She and I were kindred spirits of a sort. People who wanted to find a different way of being. I suspect you might be much the same. You have no love for the common sense of the mundane world, whether that is the world of this village or the one beyond the Great Hakurei Barrier. You think me a villain, but if you were trapped in this life as I was, without any soul to comfort you, I think you might have done much the same as I had planned to. Sumireko is just like that. She is a child who lives alone in a world filled with disappointment who has now learned of the existence of another world filled with hope and dreams. She will come here in search of it, rules be damned. I told her about this place and set her on a dangerous path. That was my sin, but what's done is done. The best thing I can do now is live my life in solitude and not let her know what became of me. As such, I will retreat from the world of men. I will become a hermit. So be it."

Having said that, Mr. Easy stepped back from the door. "That's all that I came to say. I can't control what you do when your relative arrives here. She will want you to tell her what you know of me. But I will do all I can to make myself impossible to find. If you care about her more than you care about the truth, then you will conceal my presence from her. If not... well then that sin will be yours to bear. Goodbye, detective." And then Mr. Easy shut the door. We heard the crunch of his boots on the gravel of the yard as he walked away.

Renko stood stunned for a moment then growled and rushed to the door, tearing it open and stepping out into the schoolyard without bothering with her shoes.

"Mr. Easy, wait!" she called, still holding his book in her hand.

I peered through the doorway behind her and could see that Mr. Easy had stopped moving. He didn't turn around though.

Despite having called after him, Renko seemed to be at a loss for what to say. Had I been in her position, I would have been the same. There were too many questions and possibilities. What could one even hope to ask in the face of a revelation like that?

"Will you at least tell me your real name?" she eventually asked.

He turned his head to look sidelong at her and smiled. "If you ever see me again, it will mean that I have either failed to become a hermit, or you will have lived long enough that fate has seen fit to cross our paths once again. The next time I see you, I'll tell you."

And then, Mr. Easy walked out of the schoolyard and out of our lives. As fate would have it, we did end up seeing him on at least one other occasion after that, but we've still never learned his name.

-.-.-.-.-

Renko closed the door behind her and came back in, sitting herself down on the tatami mats with a thump. She said nothing, just staring at the book in her hands in silence.

"Renko?" I asked tentatively, walking over to stand beside her.

"What's wrong, boss?" Sanae asked. "I promise I'm not imagining you and Merry doing anything now that he's gone."

Renko remained silent for a moment longer then looked up at me with a determined expression. "This means this case isn't over yet."

"What?"

"The youkai sage directed us to Mr. Easy, and we've saved him now but... I don't think that's who she wanted us to save. Or not the only person, at least. I think my great aunt may still be in danger."

"Because she's going to try to come here, you mean?"

"No, it's not just that. That was probably going to happen no matter what, but Mr. Easy's plan... I knew he was still hiding something from us, but this isn't quite what I expected." She put the book she was holding down on the tatami mats, but kept her hand on top of it. "Merry do you remember what Reimu's always warning us about?"

"I remember. She tells us not to try and be anything other than a human."

"Right. She's always saying that if we keep associating with youkai we might end up becoming youkai. Reimu's job is to exterminate youkai."

"You're thinking if Mr. Easy's plan had worked, Reimu would have exterminated him?"

"Yeah. But it wouldn't have been like the way she exterminated Remilia or Suika. You remember when she told us about those newborn youkai that were just barely starting to form a couple years back? She mentioned that she and Marisa killed a bunch of them. I don't think we've ever seen those sorts of creatures making a return here."

"You think she would have done something like that to Mr. Easy? Sealed him away permanently? Or even killed him?"

"Wait, Reimu kills youkai? I didn't think she did anything as decisive as that." Sanae gasped.

"I think she could, potentially. A previous Hakurei miko sealed Byakuren in Makai for a thousand years, for example. And Byakuren's also someone who gave up her humanity to become a youkai."

"So then you think the youkai sage's request had a double meaning?"

"With the way she specifically worded it, it would almost have to."

"Let's say you're right. If we hadn't helped Mr. Easy, he would have become a youkai and then gotten exterminated by Reimu. I'm glad that didn't happen, but what difference would it had made if it had, really?"

"Well I don't think the impact on Mr. Easy is the real problem. If that had happened though then what do you think would happen once Sumireko gets here?"

"...If she found out about it, she'd probably get in a fight with Reimu..."

"That's what I'm thinking. And if Reimu had actually killed the benefactor who lead her to this world, she might not have been satisfied with a danmaku match."

"Wait, what are you suggesting?"

"I think if we hadn't have saved Mr. Easy then Reimu and Sumireko would probably end up getting in a fight. A fight where one of them dies."

"Then the Administrator's request..."

"...Was to save a certain human. I'm just not sure which one. Maybe Mr. Easy, or maybe my great aunt. Or maybe it's Reimu."