Chapter Text
Shinki was worried.
There was nothing in particular to be worried about, she knew that perfectly well. Of course, she was a god of an entire realm almost entirely sealed off from outside threats, and yes, her living creations that populated the world she had created doubled as a steady supply of faith, and indeed, her recent negotiations with the tengu had amassed her great capital, but she was still uneasy. She had poured herself a glass of wine in an attempt to relax but to no avail.
Those tengu negotiations…
Many years after the so-called “invasion” of Gensokyo by her creations, a certain Iizunamaru Megumu had requested an audience with her. Out of curiosity, she accepted. What business could a youkai like that possibly have with her?
As she soon found out, this strange tengu had a proposal for her; why not attempt a reverse of that same incident? In exchange for Shinki’s blessing and protection, Gensokyo would host tours of Makai and she’d end up with a generous cut of the profit.
Now, Shinki didn’t really see what was so interesting about Makai to the residents of Gensokyo, but she didn’t have much reason to turn down the offer. It’d be the most interesting thing that happened in years, after all.
During the delegations, though, Shinki recalled what had happened when her creations escaped to Gensokyo. A miko, a witch, a spirit, and a flower had torn their way through her realm, leaving a path of destruction in their wake. Shinki herself had been defeated in combat and Makai was left in ruins. For the first time in her life, Shinki had been disgraced and asked for mercy. To prevent this possibility from ever happening again, she made the deal on the condition that no humans, no gods, and no spirits were to set foot inside her realm and that she’d thoroughly vet every single youkai who entered to ensure that they were too weak to cause chaos.
That pesky spirit, Shinki thought to herself. At the time, she deceived me by referring to herself as a god, but I know better now.
Shinki swirled around the remainder of the wine from her glass as she stood up, gazing through the window. Distant lights broke through the purple shroud that enveloped Makai and dotted the horizon, and a multitude of light beams illuminated the passageway to her residence. Makai was, on the whole, a fairly dark place, as her youkai children preferred it that way, but Shinki had taken the creative liberty of contrasting it with small regions of pure light. You can’t fully appreciate something while lacking knowledge of its opposite, she thought to herself.
But rebuilding Makai, the second most precious thing to her, after the disaster had taken a very long time. And true to her promise with the miko who spared her, she had gone through every single one of her children by hand, removing their ability to enter and exit Makai at will. Makai had remained almost entirely undisturbed since then.
Still, though, she couldn’t shake the feeling that somehow, someway, her authority would be threatened once more. The tours always made her nervous, and the next one was only five days away. The same tengu would also pass through the gate to negotiate with her, as she had every time before and every time to come.
“Lady Shinki, are you well?” a familiar voice called from behind her.
Shinki sighed. Despite being the god of Makai, there seemed to be just one thing she couldn’t fully control- her own train of thought. She took her final swig of the wine glass, turned around, and gently placed it down on the table nearby.
“Yes, my dear Yumeko, I’m fine,” Shinki replied. “I’m just a bit tired.”
“With all due respect, that’s no good, Lady Shinki!” Yumeko said aloud. “Our guests are to arrive in five days, and you need to be at your best.”
Upon observing the face of her loyal maidservant, Shinki saw that Yumeko had adopted a look of concern. You always were the type to overreact to my well-being, Yumeko.
“You’re right, my dear Yumeko,” Shinki responded. “I’m going to retire to my chamber. See to it that my children don’t misbehave in my absence.”
Yumeko reached for the empty wine glass and placed it on her serving platter. “Of course, Lady Shinki.”
As Shinki walked away, she thought about her own usage of the phrase “my children”. All the youkai that populated Makai were brought into existence by her hand, so she had accepted her role as a mother to them all.
All but one.
Truth be told, there was only one genuine reason she had ever accepted the deal with the tengu in the first place, one she kept buried in the deepest parts of her soul and shared with no one, not even Yumeko.
She wanted to see her daughter again. Her only human child, the only one she played no part in making. While she called all of her creations her “children”, there was only one person she truly believed was worthy of the title of “daughter”. Furthermore, Shinki had heard through external sources that her daughter had become a magician youkai, which meant that she was eligible to visit her on tours with that tengu. Yet she never had.
Shinki had remained firmly within Makai mainly to honor her agreement with the miko, but she longed to see her daughter’s face once more.
Alice…
She shook her head. One day, we will meet again, I’m sure of it, she thought to herself. Until then, just sit tight.
“I’m so bored! Isn’t there anything to do around here?!”
I glanced behind me to look for the source of the noise. I was mere inches away from successfully stealing a wallet from an unsuspecting villager, and the fact that my concentration had been broken was an annoyance, to say the least.
The declaration had been made by a girl dressed in a white blouse and a blue skirt, patterned with an intricate cloud design and adorned with a rainbow chain link. Just as striking was her long, wavy blue hair- a very unusual hair color for someone inside the village- and atop her head sat a black hat decorated with peaches that were so convincing in appearance it seemed as though one could simply bite right into them. She wore long, lace-up boots, similar to a pair one might find on a doll. She certainly would’ve stood out from everyone else even if she wasn’t disturbing the peace with her complaining.
This is no ordinary girl, I thought to myself. Maybe she’s the daughter of some rich family? In that case, she probably has something worth stealing.
As I was lost in thought, hatching a plan, the girl quickly scanned the area and her eyes met mine. Almost immediately, her eyes lit up and the sides of her mouth lifted, forming a devious smirk. I broke eye contact as quickly as possible and turned away, but judging by the low tapping of her footfalls increasing in volume behind me, I had been too slow.
“You there, peasant. Entertain me.”
I clicked my tongue in response. What right did this girl have to command me? Also, “peasant”? True, I wasn’t particularly well off, but I certainly didn’t deserve such a title.
I moved my head around to glance at her sideways. “And who the hell are you?”
All of a sudden, she shot out her hand and grabbed ahold of my wrist. Instinctively, I tried to pull my hand back, but she held on and began to squeeze it like a vise. I began to panic and tried to use my other arm to break her grip, but she didn’t even falter for a moment.
My eyes widened as I saw my hand turn into a dark shade of red, while the rest of my arm turned pale. What’s up with this girl? This bitch is six inches shorter than me and she’s this strong?! She’s insane!
“That’s not the best way to address your superior, now, is it? For your sake, I’ll just pretend I didn’t hear that little comment of yours, human. Do you have any complaints?”
At this point, I just wanted her to let go, so I quickly responded with “No, miss”. Once she had released her grip on me, I quickly examined where she had held onto. The skin there had gone blue; I could expect a bruise to form there soon. Wonderful.
Just then, the exact words that this girl had just said struck me. She called me “human”? Ah, so she’s not one of us, then, if that display of strength earlier wasn’t proof enough, I quickly deduced. Wait, but she doesn’t seem to be some kind of youkai either, or at the very least, it isn’t obvious. Just what exactly is she?
“Good!” the girl said cheerfully, snapping me out of my thoughts. “That’s a much better response, one befitting someone like you. Calling me ‘Miss’ is a little strange, but we can work on that later. Now!” she clapped her hands together once and pointed towards a group of people further down the road.
“Do you see that lady over there in blue?”
I squinted. Sure enough, there were two women, a taller one dressed in blue and a shorter one clad in white. The former was actively conversing with a man while the latter was meandering about, investigating certain parts of the building they were all standing in front of. The blue one was in a proper suit carrying quite a few papers with her. She, too, seemed rather out of place in this district of the Village judging from her attire and was here for business negotiations, it seemed.
“Do you see that paper sticking out of her pocket? Go steal it.”
It took me a second to process exactly what she just said. Just to make sure I hadn’t misheard, I responded with a simple “Excuse me?”
“You heard me correctly. Go take it from her.”
I balked. “I- I don’t think I can pull it off-”
“Don’t play dumb with me, now. I’ve been watching you sneak around, stealing anything you can get your hands on. You’re not bad at it either.”
My eyes widened. “You’ve-” I glanced around, becoming aware of my surroundings once more. Leaning in, I brought my hand up to my mouth and quietly asked, “You’ve been watching me this whole time?”
“That’s right~! I’ve been noticing you around for a while now!” A grin quickly broke out across her face as she hunched over, meeting my gaze the whole time. “You’ve been darting around here, taking whatever you please. One or two items, not a big deal, I’d just consider you some loser and not give it a second thought. But you’ve gone well into the double digits. If you were to get caught now, the charges against you would be pretty severe. You wouldn’t want to get into trouble over a moment of weakness, now would you?”
I have to give her credit. She’s sharp.
I had always held a sense of pride regarding my ability to pickpocket people, with my victims none the wiser. Items that just drifted out of their consciousness, ready for the taking. It’s amazing just how much the brain ignores when someone gets focused or distracted, making for the perfect opportunity to commit a bit of thievery. In particular, I had always gone for the small things, the ones people most likely wouldn’t even notice were gone or wouldn’t miss too much. These skills hadn’t come to me naturally either; I had honed the very art for years, even back when I was on the Outside.
Here in Gensokyo, I had never been caught a single time. Each theft never took more than several seconds at a time, and having quietly learned the ability to create a small pocket-dimension to store all my prizes in from a place called the “Suzunaan” had only made things easier.
But one of the most critical parts of theft is trust. Specifically, the mutual trust one has for their fellow man, and exploiting it. Everything I had taken today was something small, as per usual, so any sort of sentence placed upon me probably wouldn’t be too severe, but if my reputation was to be tarnished, things would get much harder going forward. The streets were busier than usual today and it seemed I had gotten too greedy.
So, after a moment’s deliberation, I nodded.
“Great! Glad to see you finally learning from your mistakes. So, as I was saying before, go do this one thing for me, human, and do it right, and I’ll give you a reward. It’ll be something great, I promise. On top of that, I’ll forget you ever existed and you can go on with your sad life.”
She turned her head sideways and quietly whispered to herself, “Like every other human, heh!” without making any serious effort to ensure I hadn’t heard her.
Turning back to me, she said “Oh, by the way, if you fail or refuse, you won’t get anything. And I’ll personally turn you in myself. How’s that sound?”
I’ll teach you a lesson in respect, you brat!
Doing my best to not let my internal monologue show itself, I took a deep breath and nodded a second time. Just play along for now. This is nothing I’m not used to.
I faced my target, taking slow, plodding steps towards them. Eventually, I made my way towards my target until I was a mere five feet away from them. I shuffled closer and closer, pretending to inspect the building they were in front of, my hand beginning to drift towards the papers. My hand just barely scraped along the edge of the papers, and hoping to get a more solid grip, I stretched just the tiniest bit further, until-
“Hey! What exactly do you think you’re up to?!”
I quickly whipped my hand back into my pocket and faced the direction of the sound, trying to make my face seem as innocent as possible. “Hm?”
The individual in question who had called out to me was the girl in white. A fox youkai, judging from her ears and tail. Some youkai typically tried to disguise themself while within the Village borders to varying degrees of success, but it seemed that this one hadn’t even tried.
“We’re busy here, and you’re getting too close to Lady Megumu. Back off right now. I won’t ask again.”
The woman in blue- Megumu, evidently- turned around to see the commotion. The man had stopped talking mid-sentence to see the disruption as well. A look of annoyance was written across both of their faces.
Moving one foot back, I began to apologize. “Sorry abou-”
“MOVE IT!” the fox yelled out. She jumped towards me with both her arms out, gripped my vest, and threw me down with inhuman strength before I could even react, landing hard on my hip.
“What the hell’s your problem?! I was about to m-”
“You have no business here, peasant. We have absolutely no time to waste with someone like yourself. As a matter of fact, you should be grateful all I did was move you aside. Being acknowledged by a great youkai like myself is already the most significant thing you’ll ever do in your life.”
“Tsukasa!” Megumu had interrupted.
“Ah, yes, Lady Megumu?” Tsukasa slowly turned around to face her master.
“That’s enough. We’re here on business. Don’t cause unnecessary trouble. Furthermore, don’t go attacking people inside the Village. You know the rules.”
Tsukasa turned aside and pointed a finger at me. “Lady Megumu, he was getting far too close. What if he tried to attack you? I only had your best interests in mind!”
“That’s. Enough.” Megumu responded cooly, staring the fox down.
Turning around to face me once more, Tsukasa shot one last look of hatred before returning to Megumu’s side. In the meantime, Megumu gave me a sardonic smile as she made a hand wave motion, silently telling me to leave. Once Tsukasa was far enough away from me, she resumed her conversation with the man.
Slowly getting back on my feet, I hobbled back over to the brat from earlier, holding my hip with my good arm. A huge grin was written all over her face.
When I was close enough to her, she said, “Excellently done! I saw what you did there, and I’ll admit, I didn’t think you’d do something that clever!”
Making sure my back was facing the trio from earlier, I gently reached into the pocket dimension and pulled out the papers. Right when my hand had touched those papers, I’d whisked them away. That fox- Tsukasa- may have noticed I was up to something, but she never accused me of theft! I couldn’t help but grin a little. Megumu, you should have listened to her!
“Now here’s your reward!”
Before I realized what was happening, the girl reached her hand behind her shoulder and flung something just past my leg, hitting the ground with a distinct thud.
I instinctually dodged out of the way after the object had already passed me, making me feel somewhat silly. After the brief shock had worn off, I examined exactly what it was she had just thrown.
On the surface of the road lay a peach, coated with dust.
Somewhat insulted, I turned back to face her. “Now what in the hell was that for-”
She jabbed me in the ribs with her finger, silencing me. “THAT. Is your reward. Do whatever you want with it, eat it, throw it out, use it as a paperweight for all I care.”
Looking back into her eyes, I simply asked “But why’d you have to go and throw it on the ground?”
“Are you dense? You’re a thief. You aren’t exactly worthy of someone like me just handing it to you.”
She turned herself back towards the group down the road. “Now get lost.”
Still somewhat baffled about the whole situation, I held out the papers in front of me and asked “Aren’t you forgetting something? What about these papers?”
The girl turned her head to glance at me sideways. “Who said I needed those? I don’t even know what those are. Personally, I’d suggest you make yourself scarce sometime in the very near future. As for me, I’m going to enjoy the show!”
As much as I wanted to tackle this brat while she wasn’t looking, I couldn’t afford to attract more attention, so I turned around and sprinted away, pocketing her papers as I left her behind. Several seconds later, I heard a shout of surprise behind me. Turning my head to see what was going on, Megumu bore a very nervous expression, with her pockets turned inside out, and was looking around every which way. Tsukasa wasn’t faring much better; she was clearly panicked, quickly scampering around the nearby area and scanning the ground nearby. The man they were with had his hands in his pockets, glancing around sheepishly. A small crowd of people had formed around them to witness the commotion. In the meantime, that blue-haired brat from earlier was covering her mouth with both hands, trying her hardest to not laugh.
Wow, what were these, anyway? Something important to them, evidently, given how hard they were trying to find them.
Once I had gone several blocks and ducked into an unoccupied alley, I shuffled through the papers and analyzed my findings.
Property deeds?
No wonder this Megumu had been so upset. She was most likely in the process of transferring ownership of the building they were in front of! The papers in my hand were for properties scattered throughout the district and she was probably trying to add another to her collection.
Reading between the lines closer, though, I noticed something… odd. Or rather, the lack of something that should’ve been there.
Where’s her signature?
Scanning through the short stack of papers, I couldn’t find the name “Megumu” anywhere. If she’s not the one who owns the property, what’s going on here? Why does she have someone else’s deeds?
In any case, these weren’t any good to anyone anymore, but I put them back inside my pocket dimension regardless. Who knows when scrap paper might come in handy? As for Megumu, I’m sure she’d manage to get those forms reprinted. The last thing I wanted to do was hand them back, especially with that fox attendant of hers. Never was fond of those aristocratic types.
Now, as for my other prize…
I took out the peach the girl had thrown earlier. In spite of being slightly bruised on one side due to its hard landing and its slight coat of dust that had stuck to its thin layer of fuzz, it wore a magnificent shade of pink that almost seemed to shimmer in the sunlight. This would’ve been an excellent subject for a still-life painting, at the very least.
Peeking out from the alleyway to ensure nobody was after me, I eventually made my way to a nearby well. Although I was still somewhat insulted by that girl’s display of arrogance, I wasn’t about to let a fruit this good-looking go to waste.
After rinsing the peach off and rubbing the surface with one of the deeds, I bit into the peach.
The burst of flavor hit me instantaneously. It was so sweet, so juicy, it just about lit my mouth aflame. It was so delicious, in fact, it almost made me want to go back to that blue-haired brat to ask for more. I’d never tasted anything so good in my life.
Hell, maybe that deal wasn’t too bad after all if I ended up receiving something like this, I thought to myself. If I see that girl again, I’ll see if I can’t try and steal another from her.
All good things had to come to an end, though, and several minutes later, I found myself mournfully observing a peach seed.
Hm.
After a moment’s consideration, I decided to place the seed in my pocket dimension.
If I never end up seeing her again, at least I can try to make more of my own.
I’d never gardened a single day in my life. I understood farmers well enough- their profession was noble, mass producing the food that kept the entire population from starving- but people who grew food as a hobby? It just seemed as though so much work was required for barely any return. Dedicating hours a month to save a pittance on something one could simply buy, or in my case, steal, never seemed practical.
But this?
This was different, this was something I couldn’t get anywhere else. If all food tasted like this, I’d join the hobbyists in a heartbeat.
Eventually, I resigned myself to hiding between the alleyways, making my way back over to peek at my handiwork from a safe distance. From what I could hear, Tsukasa was profusely apologizing to Megumu over being unable to find the documents, her dress caked in a layer of dust after trying to scavenge along the ground. In contrast, Megumu simply stood in silence, a cold fury lit within her eyes. She had gone beyond the point of anger, of shouting profanities, and entered the point where the mere act of speech took great effort. As for the girl from earlier and the man they were with, they were nowhere to be seen.
“That man from earlier is responsible for this, I’m sure of it!”
Uh oh.
I ducked back into my alley as far as I could while still being able to watch them. Luckily, a small crowd of villagers was still surrounding the area, so getting spotted right now wasn’t very likely.
“Let’s go,” Megumu spat in a low voice. “We don’t have time to waste.”
“A- at once, Lady Megumu!” The fox stood straight up and dusted herself off. “We need to prepare for the next tour!”
Tour?
So between the deeds and the mention of a tour, this Megumu was clearly some kind of entrepreneur. She didn’t seem like a participant, either, since the fox had called it “the next tour”. No doubt she was very wealthy, either. Maybe I could even figure out where she lived and try to steal something there? I had already taken something from her and I wasn’t too fond of repeating my targets, but the deeds meant nothing to me.
Bringing my attention back into focus, the duo had already left. Wow, they sure were in a hurry. Must’ve been a really bad time to inconvenience them like this.
Well, I’d need to keep a low profile for the next few days. If Megumu sent out someone to find me, things could go south very quickly. She certainly seemed the type to send others to do her dirty work judging from Tsukasa’s behavior.
There were still many hours of sunlight left and plenty of people still roamed the streets, but enough was enough for one day. I’d already been caught by one person and nearly caught by another, not to mention the over a dozen thefts I pulled off earlier. Perhaps this was the world’s way of telling me to not push my luck?
No matter. Tomorrow is another day.
Strolling back through the alleyways to my usual hiding place, I considered just how I’d be able to grow that peach seed of mine.
Find somewhere secret, off the beaten path. Can’t risk anyone destroying it.
Somewhere along the outskirts of the village it was, then. I’d need to be fast.
I took out the seed and pondered it for a while.
Thanks for this, brat. I don’t know who you are or how you got your hands on something like this, but this gift of yours isn’t too shabby.
I’d get this seed planted tomorrow, I decided. I’d had enough action for one day, and now was the time for a well-earned respite.
All things considered, today wasn’t too bad. Good work.