As the commotion in the eastern wing of the Hieda manor drew further and further away, Hieda no Ajuu walked to the zenith of the footbridge and gazed down into the black waters. The sun was almost set, rendering the surface opaque, but if she squinted, she could just about make out the bones of the former manor, as well as the thick beams upon which the new manor had been built.
When she had passed away as Hieda no Akyuu, Gensokyo had had no ocean. When she had been reborn as Ajuu, three years prior, Gensokyo had been an ocean.
Ajuu crouched down and gripped onto the lowest rung of the bridge. She dipped her fingers into the waters below. It took some manoeuvring: the fashion for children tended towards bulky robes that wouldn't have been entirely out of place in a Heian court. On better days, she felt like she was being swaddled by them. On worse ones, they felt like burial shrouds.
The water was balmier than it looked, and sweet to taste. A reflection of pure water becoming a fantasy in the Outside World, no doubt. She missed the scent of salt, but no matter. After all, she could recall it perfectly.
The sound of running footsteps broke the silence. Ajuu left the bridge and walked back towards a nearby room, her expression stoic.
She made it back in time and sat down where the maids had left her earlier, as poised as an ornamental doll. Mere moments later, two maids barged into the room, red-faced and wearing troubled expressions.
"Take the young mistress," said the older of the two, pronouncing Ajuu's title as one might the name of a valuable but ugly vase.
Ajuu stood up without protest, pretending she didn't see the younger maid shudder as she took her hand. She had few allies within the household, caught between those who despised her for the heinous crime of being a child, and those who feared her precisely because she wasn't child enough, for her calmness and for the adult knowledge lurking behind her black eyes. She would endure. A few more years, and her body would have grown enough to suit the needs of her mind that the disdain and distrust would begin to turn to respect. Even if that didn't happen, she would at least have her work to content herself with.
"Have the master and mistress been informed?" The younger maid asked in a hushed voice, one Ajuu knew from habit she assumed to be Ajuu-proof. Ajuu made no effort to dispel her illusion. She kept her eyes straight ahead as they walked along the outer corridor.
"No need to trouble them. It left before it even reached the perimeter."
"It's so creepy! What does it want with us?"
The older maid glanced at Ajuu. Ajuu was still doing her best jizou impression, this time combined with a drowsiness that was only partially faked. All the same, the conversation came to an end.
It didn't matter. A halfwit would have guessed what it was.
The journey to Ajuu's bedchamber near the heart of the manor was long and circuitous: the narrow paths and walkways across water had been designed to confuse invaders. Ajuu rubbed her eyes with her free hand and wondered if tonight might be the night she learned more about the status quo. With enough quiet compliance, she could sometimes make the maids temporarily forget that she was older than the two of them put together.
Obey and be silent. Observe. Listen. And the words will come out, halting and never spoken to Ajuu directly, but illuminating nevertheless.
This was what she knew thus far. Even with the reduced living space left in Gensokyo, youkai rarely showed up at the Hieda manor. They arrived either by invitation to meetings to which Akyuu wasn't privy to, or lurked nearby mostly to prove that they could. At times, a resident of the manor might even forget that youkai even existed.
But there was one youkai which appeared night after night. Why it did so was a mystery: it had never once attacked or even approached any of the residents. It simply watched, eyes obscured beneath a mane of blood-dyed hair, long claws glinting in the moonlight that heralded its arrival. Once, it had gone so far as to cross the waters to the outer walkway, a clear violation of the treaty.
At least, that was what Ajuu had heard. She had never once set her eyes on the beast.
The older maid's thoughts were obviously on the same topic. She glared at Ajuu before opening a door and ushering her in. After all, the youkai's first appearance had coincided with her birth.
Ajuu made no fuss as the younger maid washed her and re-dressed in her night clothes, equally unwieldy as her daily garb but paler in colour. From there, it was straight to bed, with the older maid clicking her tongue over the lateness of the hour.
Nothing new gained. That was fine. She had already made up her mind to venture further.
It was the younger maid's turn to sleep outside Ajuu's bedchamber. Ajuu lay still for a good two hours before the maid's silhouette appeared against the door and disappeared once more as she lay to rest in the alcove.
Ajuu remained still till she heard the maid's gentle snoring. Then, just to be safe, she waited for a half an hour more.
She could just about discern the full moon through the clouds as she slid the door open and gazed at the skies. It was practically destiny.
She padded outside in just her socks, confident the maid would be dead to the world till sunrise. Might the woman be punished for what would appear to be negligence? Another irksome side effect of residing in a child's body.
In the end, the thought was enough to make Ajuu return to her room and fetch her writing tools from the cupboard. This particular maid had never been cruel to her in spite of her obvious revulsion. Besides, there was plenty of moonlight left.
It's not her fault.
After signing the note, cursing at her unskilled hands all the while, Ajuu carefully stashed the ink and paper. She left the note on top of her futon and returned to the crisp air outside.
The sky was a rich blue, far lighter than the waters around the manor. In the distance, shrouded in low clouds, the Youkai Mountain rose in a jagged peak. Rumour had that it teemed with more youkai than ever, locked in endless interspecies conflicts over living space.
Her night garments kept the cold at bay, but that was where their positive qualities ended. Even when she took only the controlled steps of a Noh actor, they broke the silence with their rustle. Fortunately, there couldn't be that many people to hear it. Only a handful of guards would be milling about, trusting the old tacit treaties holding youkai at bay.
Inertia was a powerful thing.
There was only one bridge to land from the manor, a thin wooden walkway propped up by pillars which connected the house to a small island devoted to the cultivation of legumes. Naturally, this bridge was watched at all times. Therefore, Ajuu stayed far away from it.
She padded her way to the eastern end to the manor. At its furthest point, the walkway dipped into the water to better enable those doing laundry. During daytime, anyone walking nearby was likely to catch snippets of lively chatter from servants at work. During nighttime, even the wind sounded stifled.
Ajuu extracted from the folds of her robes a pill she had secretly squirrelled away months prior, kept hidden in her cupboard underneath a pile of clothes she had already outgrown. The medicine were valuable, but not so precious that she felt any guilt as she swallowed it.
Five minutes later, she felt like a feather. She re-arranged her robe, took off her socks and, carrying them in her hands, walked into the water.
The drug took effect the instant the cold, cold water reached her ankles, keeping her afloat as though she was a piece of driftwood. Ajuu stood still only a moment to ensure the effect's stability, breathing sharply. She set her sights on the distant horizon.
Wading forward felt strange, akin to steering an unwieldy boat, but by the time she turned to look over her shoulder and saw the pier diminished into shadows, she had grown accustomed to it.
She kept moving. The cold currents that ran above the water crept up her robes and turned her skin to gooseflesh. When she next glanced behind her, seeking out the outline of the manor, all she saw was the sky melting into the water till the world was an ocean.
More than once, she wondered if her calculations had been wrong and the effect of the medicine would give out partway through, leaving her with no recourse but to drown.
And then there was solid ground, and mud, and grass, things she had not seen since her life as Akyuu. There were rocks, and leaves. And life.
Plants were few at the manor, small and guarded with tender care. No matter how perfect her recollection, it couldn't reduplicate the shock in her body as she breathed in scent of mist-drenched leaves. She hobbled to the nearest tree and glided her hands across its back, almost delighted when the rough surface scratched the delicate skin of her palms. She nearly hugged the trunk and then laughed. Her first bit of laughter in weeks.
The ground was softness itself and yielded underneath her steps. After only a moment, Ajuu's toes were caked with mud. She stashed her socks underneath her sash and kept moving along, trying not to think of just how cold her feet were. She focused instead on the birdsong drifting from the trees ahead of her.
That is, until all fowl fell abruptly silent.
The youkai, when it landed behind Ajuu, descended so silently that Ajuu wouldn't have heard it if she hadn't been expecting it. She turned quietly, only raising her gaze once she saw the youkai's feet, encased in simple shoes with ribbons on them.
The youkai was actually a bit smaller than the average human, but that was more than enough to make her tower above Ajuu. The much acclaimed reddish mane was merely pale in the scant light of the night, but the claws, each the length of Ajuu's hand, were exactly as impressive as advertised. Changes in fashions had affected the apparel of the youkai population as well: the trim on the youkai's short dress was understated, its sleeves gathered at the wrists.
The youkai's eyes, a nigh blinding scarlet, bore down on Ajuu.
Ajuu sighed. She kept meeting that hypnotic gaze, her cold feet momentarily forgotten.
"I told you not to wait for me."
The youkai shifted, suddenly awkward, her unreadable expression softening. Kosuzu's eyes still had their old light as she nodded. "I know. But then I thought it over."
Ajuu sighed again, but she couldn't put any rancour into the sound. She felt a sudden warmth, as though someone had lit a braze within her chest.
"Are you angry with me?" Kosuzu sounded shy, almost. Though her accent had shifted with the times, the timbre of her voice hadn't.
"I am. I meant what I said." Ajuu squinted to get a better look at Kosuzu. There was a scar on her neck, half slash, half burn, beginning at her chin and trailing all the way down to where it was obscured by the neckline of her dress. It looked at least a century old. So old, in fact, that Ajuu suspected Kosuzu had still been human when she had received it. "I knew what you would be risking."
"I did too. It wasn't a rash decision."
Ajuu sighed for the third time, shaking her head as she did so.
She walked to Kosuzu. Once she was directly in front of the youkai, she held up her arms.
Kosuzu's claws, when they closed in around her tiny frame, were cold. Cold, but as gentle as the first whisper of spring winds.
They were still gentle when they plucked Ajuu off the ground and placed her on Kosuzu's shoulder. Instinctively, she clutched at the tufty mane that Kosuzu's hair had become. It felt like squirrel fur.
"Put one leg on my other shoulder so that you don't fall." If Ajuu hadn't already recognised Kosuzu, the bright excitement bursting through her next words would have confirmed it. "There's so much I want to show you!"
Ajuu struggled to sit properly on Kosuzu's shoulders. Her arms were too short to grab onto anything much. In the end, she had little recourse but to keep holding onto her hair.
A part of her wished to tease Kosuzu, to tell her she hadn't quite forgiven her yet — and she hadn't, only it all felt insignificant as Kosuzu took hold of her ankles to ensure she didn't fall, somehow managing to keep the sharp edges of her talons from so much as scratching her skin.
There was a sudden rush of air behind Ajuu. She looked over her shoulder to see a pair of vast wings sprouting from Kosuzu's back, the colour of their feather muted in moonlight but presumably a vivid red. They streched out against the night sky.
The sound of beating wings was almost deafening as they took off from the ground. Ajuu held on, leaning against Kosuzu's strangely soft mane.
The ocean that was Gensokyo soon dissolved into void and mist, but Ajuu didn't mind. Already she was thinking about all the places and people she was to chronicle next. The long discussions and interviews ahead. Catching up with long-lived associates from her past life. And most importantly of all, making up for time lost.
She soon fell asleep, her body giving out even as her mind kept whirring. She probably ought to have felt alarmed dozing off a hundred feet from the ground, but all she felt was a deep sense of contentment. With Kosuzu, she would never fall.