Gensokyo had no paved roads to speak of, and overnight the cat grass had spread from Mayohiga to blanket Myouren Temple—even crossing the river to carpet the entire Human Village.
Wherever Yimi's gaze fell, cat grass erupted from the earth through the power of the Third Magic, like the most devout pilgrims prostrating before a saint, like a harvest goddess made manifest.
The energy supplied by soul materialization had let the plants bypass the need for nutrients entirely. Like Yuuka Kazami's own power over flora, given sufficient will, the grass could even take root where no plant had any business growing.
"It worked!" The little cat's eyes sparkled.
She grabbed a handful of the nicer-looking shoots and held them out to her new friend. "Here, try some."
Rumia popped them into her mouth without a second thought. "Not very tasty."
She swallowed them anyway.
Then reached for Yimi's tail. Yimi wouldn't let her touch it.
Yimi pointed at her. "You're weird. Normal cats get all floaty from this stuff."
"Is that so?" The blonde girl stood with both arms outstretched, smiling with guileless simplicity. "Rumia isn't a normal cat."
"What cat? This is obviously that, right—an incident." Wriggle, who at least had half a brain cell to spare, grabbed a fistful of cat grass and sniffed at it appreciatively.
Perhaps because Wriggle often visited Yuuka to play, the cat grass Yuuka had provided didn't trigger the discomfort that normal catnip would cause in an insect-type youkai. At least, she herself didn't feel any discomfort. And if she didn't feel uncomfortable, that meant this grass was perfectly suited for insect proliferation. Which meant that with these fast-growing plants, insects could fill up the Human Village in no time, and then humans would surely fear insectkind once more!
Seeing her reaction, Yimi mentally classified her as a top-tier cat.
"An incident?" Yimi remembered Reimu using that word. Something about how the Hakurei shrine maiden's duty was to resolve incidents.
"Totally normal thing around here. Every new resident who moves in has to cause an incident to announce their existence to everyone."
"But if you're the one behind it, the annoying red-white and her wife will come after you real quick. She'll wipe out all the incident stuff you worked so hard to create."
Wriggle slipped naturally into the role of newcomer's guide. "And by tradition, a few people have to get in the red-white's way before she reaches you—stall her and her wife, and then finally she gets to face you at the end."
"The annoying red-white?" In the little cat's mind—which didn't know many people here yet—Reimu's image surfaced immediately.
Reimu was going to wipe out the cat grass she'd so painstakingly grown everywhere? That was outrageous! Mayohiga was allowed to grow grass but she wasn't? This was a great undertaking for the benefit of all cats everywhere!
"Don't worry, I'll help you." Wriggle clapped a hand on her shoulder. "Time to make insects great again!"
"Got it." The little cat nodded and returned the shoulder-clap. "You're Cat General No. 1."
"...That title feels weirdly insulting."
"Don't say such dangerous things! And besides, Wriggle can't possibly beat Reimu-san, right?" Mystia tried to intervene.
"Excuse me? I'm the Insect King!"
"Insectkind hasn't been relevant for who knows how many years. I'm pretty sure even I could beat Wriggle..."
"Grr... that's only because you're a bird!"
"Are you stronger?" Yimi turned to Mystia. "Then you go stall Reimu."
"Huh—me?"
"You're the Cat Vanguard now." The little cat bestowed a title upon her as well.
Mystia's wings were trembling.
She was going to get eaten. Word was that Reimu-san had devoured a lethally poisonous youkai a few days ago, slept it off like it was nothing, and came out the other side craving another tengu for a snack. The tengu barely escaped with her life.
Because of that rumor, Mystia hadn't dared open her stand on Youkai Trail for two straight days. She needed to find a chance to slip away quietly.
"What's there to be scared of?" Wriggle glared at her, frustrated by her lack of backbone. "Didn't they say the Hakurei shrine maiden and her wife just had a daughter? Just go kidnap their daughter and problem solved!"
"Uh... where did you hear that, Wriggle?"
None of them—small fry youkai who'd been rounded up and stuffed into a temple school—could even read the newspaper.
"What good would kidnapping Reimu's daughter do?" The little cat frowned. She'd been living at the shrine all this time and had never once seen a daughter of Reimu's.
And besides, Reimu might have a sharp tongue, but she was actually pretty good to Yimi. She never truly kicked her out when she crawled into the futon at night.
"Use your head! Grab the red-white's kid and she can't stop our incident! Just don't hurt the girl and it's fine." Wriggle planted her fists on her hips, fully embracing the role of strategist.
"Whether it's humans or youkai, everyone cares about their offspring, right? We might even be able to make her hand over the Hakurei shrine maiden position to one of us!"
"Okay. Let's go catch Reimu's daughter. Don't hurt her." The little cat raised a paw and declared it decided.
"First it was flowers, now it's grass?"
Reimu gripped her freshly finished new gohei and dangled a cat by the scruff. "Why are there cats growing out of this stuff?"
The grass looked awfully familiar, too.
Come to think of it, for the past couple days, the cat back at the shrine had been clutching that flower pot nonstop. At first Reimu had tried to see what was planted in it, but the cat wouldn't let her anywhere near it.
The trail of evidence was pointing in a very clear direction.
"Yakumo cat—this was you, wasn't it?" Reimu pulled out a talisman and aimed it at Chen.
Chen, rolling on the ground in bliss: "Meow? ( ⓛ ω ⓛ *)"
"Don't play dumb. The whole of Gensokyo knows where the most cat grass grows. Pretty bold for a shikigami's shikigami."
"That's ridiculous—it was obviously your little cat that did this!" When her own skin was on the line, Chen's betrayal came without a shred of hesitation. "Suspicion-wise, isn't it obviously the newcomer who'd start an incident?"
"You make a really good point. I don't even have a reason to hit you anymore." Reimu lowered the talisman in disappointment.
"Meow!" Chen grabbed her own cats and bolted.
She had to admit, Yimi's cat grass really did hit different compared to the Mayohiga stuff.
"That brat. I already warned her and she's still causing me trouble." Reimu gripped her gohei and took flight toward the Human Village, nearly colliding midair with a sparrow who tried desperately to dodge when she spotted her.
The harder she tried to flee, the more Reimu was convinced she had a guilty conscience.
"Re-Re-Reimu-san?" Mystia, hands over her head, stared up in terror.
"There's only one 'Rei' in my name." And from Reimu's perspective, something like an HP bar materialized beneath Mystia's feet, labeled Cat Vanguard.
Reimu drew a talisman.
"Don't hit me, I'm a good person, Reimu-san!" Mystia crouched with her hands over her head, tears already forming, and betrayed everyone instantaneously. "They ran toward Misty Lake! And they said they were going to kidnap Reimu-san's daughter!"
Not knowing where Reimu's daughter actually was, and having no real sense of direction, the slightly-more-savvy Mystia simply pointed in the opposite direction from the Hakurei Shrine.
"Kidnap my daughter?" Reimu's eyes went dead-fish flat. The first thing that came to mind was the rumor the crow tengu had tried to spread the night before.
Had she been wrong to blame the kid after all?