The fire had started when Mokou and Kaguya's fight got out of hand. The blood on the ground was from them beating each other senseless. Keine's arrival had simply added another layer of carnage.
By now Keine had cooled off. She gave Reimu a small bow. "I'm terribly sorry, Reimu-san. I've caused you trouble."
"Oh, it's just a married couple having a little misunderstanding. And you made me come all the way down here for this." Reimu's voice was flat.
Most of the time, she was the type who preferred not to leave the house at all. She'd been expecting something like Keine snapping and going on a murder spree—an actual incident.
Keine twirled a strand of hair around her finger. "Married couple... that's really... all I want right now is to teach my students in peace..."
"Don't go saying weird things, you red-white! Keine and I are perfectly innocent!" Mokou had already respawned at full health.
Thwack! Keine headbutted her back into the dirt.
"Why..."
Hadn't she already been punished enough?
Reimu watched all of this through dead-fish eyes, then turned and took Yimi's face in both hands, squishing it around. "And you—stop going around making trouble for everyone. Do you even live at the shrine anymore, or have you moved in with the tengu?"
Yimi shook her head free. She couldn't understand what she'd done wrong. All she'd done was honestly relay what Mokou had said to Keine-sensei.
"No, you really can't blame her for this. Children don't have the vocabulary to accurately convey what they've seen and heard. The root of the problem is still Mokou's own bad habits." Keine shot another glare at the corpse on the ground.
Since even Keine said so, Reimu couldn't very well keep scolding Yimi. She patted the kitten's head. "Let's go. It's already noon, and I really don't feel like cooking."
"I'll cook for you."
"Go play somewhere. My hands aren't broken." The memory of that mouse soup resurfaced. "And if you ever put another rodent in my pot, I will end you. Are we clear?"
"Mm..." Yimi was still a little scared of Reimu—the last time she'd gotten spanked, Reimu had looked completely unbothered. The damage reflection hadn't fazed her at all.
Reimu took her hand and they walked back together.
"Is this what a shrine maiden does?"
"It's less of a job and more of a responsibility. People like you keep popping out of the woodwork to make trouble." Reimu answered, glancing up at the sky.
The sky utterly refused to set the mood—no sudden dusk, no sweeping canopy of stars.
When you got right down to it, she was more enforcer than shrine maiden. Her jurisdiction just happened to be youkai instead of illegal street vendors. She didn't even care which god her shrine was supposedly dedicated to.
And the so-called crisis of lost faith—where gods withered without worshippers? For the deity sheltering this kitten, that probably wasn't a concern.
"Now that I think about it, I never did ask. You've already got a deity's blessing. Why are you so set on becoming another shrine's maiden?"
"Want to go home. Become shrine maiden first."
"Somehow that makes it sound like someone conned you into trying to take over Gensokyo."
Midstep, Reimu noticed Yimi had stopped walking.
"What's wrong?"
"My shoe broke." Yimi lifted one foot. The children's shoe had split open at the front.
These weren't the ones Marisa had given her—they were the pair she'd worn all the way from her previous world. The shoes Dog Eye had bought her were decent quality, but neither the pirate seas nor the wild terrain of Gensokyo had done them any favors. She also had a habit of kicking pebbles.
"Did my poverty rub off on you?" Reimu muttered, then crouched down. "Get on before I change my mind. And knowing my luck, this is the exact moment a tengu takes a photo, right?"
Yimi had been reaching into her storage space for a replacement pair, but stopped. She climbed onto Reimu's back instead.
If she didn't have to walk, she wouldn't.
Reimu hooked her arms under Yimi's legs and stood, bouncing her once. Lighter than expected.
"I know this sounds a bit rich coming from someone like me, but if you want to be the Hakurei Shrine Maiden, you have to be willing to shoulder the responsibility. It's not something you can just decide to do because you have some ulterior motive."
"How did you become one?" The kitten wrapped her arms around Reimu's neck and rested her chin on her shoulder. Time to learn from the expert.
"I more or less inherited it from the previous generation? Though to be honest, it hasn't been that many years. And let me just say—you almost certainly can't become the shrine maiden. So don't go pulling some manga dark-side-revenge arc when you grow up."
"Cheese!" That stinking crow appeared right on cue, snapping a photo of them.
Then she checked her camera and wilted. "Ugh, the whole 'Hakurei Kitten is Red-White and Black-White's lovechild' thing is common knowledge already. No shock value left. Any chance you could go kiss Marisa for me?"
Reimu: "While I'm inconveniently occupied, you still have a chance to run."
"Farewell!" Aya hugged her camera and fled.
"Kiss?" Yimi looked at Reimu, curious.
"Something you don't need to know about."
Reimu picked up where she'd left off. "As the Hakurei Shrine Maiden, whenever an incident like the one just now breaks out, you have to be there to deal with it. If the troublemaker has no money, you don't even get compensated. The safety of all Gensokyo rests on one person's shoulders. That's what responsibility means."
"So when you're out playing and causing chaos, just know—I'm the one cleaning up after you." Aside from the ninety percent of her time she spent drinking tea and reading manga at the shrine.
"At any moment?"
Yimi's brow furrowed. Something clicked into place.
Being the Hakurei Shrine Maiden meant staying here to protect this place. But she still needed to find her way home. She couldn't do both. And there could only be one shrine maiden.
But—what if she inherited the title and immediately passed it on? Reimu had just said she'd taken over from the previous generation.
She reached forward and pushed Reimu's cheek. "Then—what happened to the previous Hakurei Shrine Maiden?"
"Who knows. Maybe she retired. Or maybe she's already dead." Reimu said it like she was commenting on the weather.
"Dead!" The kitten's mouth fell open.
"Why the shock? Oh—right. At your age, you probably don't have a very clear concept of what death actually means." Reimu didn't feel like explaining death.
She had no idea whether the kitten's lifespan followed youkai rules or human rules. But everyone went through a funk for a couple of days the first time they truly grasped what death meant, and she'd rather not spend the energy coaxing her out of it.
Yimi didn't say another word for the rest of the walk. For Reimu, the silence was a relief.
"Cooking is such a pain. Should we just do hot pot again... tch, Marisa took her Mini-Hakkero back."
Back at the shrine, Reimu set the listless Yimi down. "What do you want to eat? I'll let you pick today."
"Nothing hot. Anything's fine."
"You might as well just say you want snacks. Go to the bathroom and heat up a bucket of water—I'm giving you a bath after dinner. Take your shoes off."
Reimu dug through the cabinet and pulled out needle and thread. "My shoes split open too, now that I think about it."
No choice—the second she'd heard about the incident, she'd rushed out without a thought.
Yimi kicked off her shoes and handed them over. She stared at Reimu's focused face as she threaded the needle, spacing out.
If she became the Hakurei Shrine Maiden—would Reimu die?
She'd been hoping since day one that Reimu would hurry up and kick the bucket so the position would open up. But lately... she'd been wanting that less and less.
She looked at her portal energy. It was enough for another use.