As Utsuho descended towards the Farthest Cliff, which was the name the cats and hell ravens had given the final outcropping connected to solid ground before the sea of magma, she took in the facts as she understood them.
First, she was hungry. That was pretty important.
Second, someone was already on the cliff. Orin sat there with her back turned to Utsuho, dangling her feet on the edge, her cart discarded sideways nearby.
Third, Orin had found a corpse. Its head rested on Orin's lap almost like it was asleep.
Utsuho wondered about all these things as she alighted onto the cliff. Holding onto a corpse's head usually made sense — everyone knew the eyes were the tastiest part — but Orin was a weirdo who often shoved bodies into the pile of furnace-bound corpses without even taking a nibble. And then she'd go and hunt for another one. It really wasn't like her to cling to a corpse. So maybe — Utsuho's heart leapt at the thought — maybe she meant to share.
She hurried to Orin's side. "Can I have the toes?" she asked, graciously leaving the eyes, the greatest delicacy, to her friend.
Orin didn't seem to see it that way. She jerked away, squeezing the corpse to her body like it was her own child. "This one's not food, Okuu."
Utsuho sighed. "She won't need all of her parts in the furnace, O—"
She gave the corpse a closer look and fell silent. It glowed like it was made of molten gold.
"Did a god give you that?" she asked eagerly. Sure, this golden woman in white and red looked very different from the corpse of the god she had once devoured. But it had a similarly weird air, close enough to rekindle Utsuho's memories of that strange day that had changed her life.
"Nah, I found it myself." Orin wouldn't look at Utsuho. She focused instead on brushing strands of gleaming hair off the corpse's brow. "Only now I don't think I can burn it."
"Why?"
"Because it won't burn."
"Oh." After a moment's thought, Utsuho frowned. "Wait. That's weird. The fires burn everything."
"Yeah. It's real weird."
"Are you sure you did it right?"
"There ain't that many ways to cast something into a fire, Okuu. It floated on top like the flames were water." When Orin turned her head, Utsuho noticed that her eyes looked golden, almost like the light from the corpse had sneaked into them. "It's weird. It's like the body's here," she pressed two of her knuckles against the corpse's cheek to make her point, "but at the same time, it's not here. And I've never seen her, but somehow I feel like I know her. Ya know what I'm saying?"
Utsuho tried to get it, then shrugged. "It's a god. Are you sure you won't eat it?"
"No way!"
"You should have just a little bite from around the edges! It could give you a lot of power!" Utsuho licked her lips. "Or maybe you could give it to me? Burning the corpses is my job, anyway."
Orin sighed. "Sorry, Okuu. I've got different plans." She then jerked her attention back towards solid ground. "I think I heard intruders. Didn't Miss Satori tell ya to watch out for them?"
"That's right!" Utsuho shot up to her feet, eager from some action. "Don't eat it all while I'm gone, Orin!"
With a flutter of black wings, she was aloft once more.
The walls of inanimate water forced eternally still grew warmer with each passing step Mokou took to follow Tewi and Eirin to Former Hell.
Sure. It wasn't like this was the strangest thing she had ever done.
They passed the source of the spring and kept going, walking and climbing in equal measure as the tunnel floor grew uneven and littered with rocks. Tewi skipped eagerly ahead at the front, leaping onto and across rocks twenty times her size. Combined with the sweltering heat pushing against them, Mokou felt like she was stuck in a waking dream.
Finally, the tunnel widened, and once it did, it widened. They stepped into a cavern which Mokou could at first only describe as "cavernous." Upon further thought, she could also describe it as burning hot, suspiciously red, and sadly lacking in solid ground between where they stood and the distant waterfall of lava which seemed to signal the path forward. Even knowing she was less susceptible to fire than most and that any consequences she would face from a misstep were temporary, the back of Mokou's neck began to sweat.
Something landed heavily behind them.
The newcomer, a large raven, pulled in her wings and looked at them with wide eyes. Mokou's gaze drawn to her right arm and leg: the latter appeared to be encased in concrete. As for her arm, it had some kind of a large gun mounted to it — Mokou had never cared to learn the details of newer lethal weapons — which Eirin observed with some degree of academic interest.
The raven straightened herself out, sending the star-patterned lining of her cape aflutter as though it was the reflection of the night sky on waves. "Are you the intruders?"
"I'm afraid not. We have an appointment," said Eirin.
"Oh." The raven's wings dropped, then perked back up. "Welcome to the Hell of Blazing Fires." She gestured with her armed hand at a somewhat more carefully hewn tunnel going southwards which Mokou had previously failed to notice. "Miss Satori's down at the palace."
"As it happens, Miss..."
The raven stared at Eirin as she let the ending of the sentence trail on, then tilted her head just as a mundane bird would.
Eirin gave her a tight smile. "What is your name?"
"Utsuho! But everyone here calls me Okuu..."
"Utsuho. We were invited not by your mistress, but rather a co-worker of yours. A kasha named—"
"Orin," Mokou supplied.
"Really?" Utsuho tilted her head to the opposite side. "She didn't say anything about visitors."
Eirin nodded. "I'm not surprised. When we last saw her, she was particularly preoccupied with a treasure she had just found."
"She still is." Utsuho stretched out her wings and turned so that Mokou could only see her in profile, her outline blazing in the firelight. "She's over there, close to the furnace. You'll want to go there quickly if you want your share of the treasure. She has plans for it, even if she won't explain what they are."
"Thank you." Eirin glanced at Tewi, who was grinning from ear to ear. "We will go and have a chat with her."
As they walked on, Mokou looked over her shoulder at Utsuho. The raven stood stock-still where they had left her, quiet and pensive. Then, she turned her head as though she had heard a loud noise elsewhere and fluttered off, acting like Mokou and the others had never even existed.
Mokou shrugged and kept moving. After all, this was still Gensokyo, or at least Gensokyo-adjacent. Strange people abounded.
There remained a single walkable path forward, even as the ground tapered out under their feet and split to make room for rivulets of magma. It led them uphill towards a solitary cliff by a vast lake of molten rock. A troop of ravens swooped nearby and then retreated, cawing as they went. The only other sign of life in this part of the cavern was a number of strange, pale fairies hovering above the fumes, too distant for Mokou to assess them in any way.
And there, sitting at the edge of the cliff right above the magma and the spires sticking out from it, was a red-haired kasha, wearing a dress patterned with swirling galaxies and embracing something which shone even brighter than the firelight surrounding it.
They slowed near the foot of the cliff. Eirin took a few steps further up to ensure she was audible above the flow of magma. "Rin Kaenbyou?"
Orin — Rin? When and how exactly had Eirin learned her full name? — swivelled her head towards them. Her fangs showed as she clutched the pale corpse to her chest. "Who are ya? What do you want?"
"We are friends," said Eirin. Mokou idly wondered if she had intended the words to be technically true.
"You're not my friends. Leave me alone."
Tewi, who till then had been happy to stand half a step behind Mokou, leapt into action. She skipped past Eirin and smiled at Rin. "We've met before, the two of us. Aren't we friends?"
Rin's eyes narrowed to mere slits. "We're not friends! Ya cheated me of a great corpse I'd found!" She suddenly smiled. It wasn't pretty. "You won't do it again. No-one will. No-one can now that've got this corpse. As soon as I figure out how to burn it, I'll be stronger than anyone in Hell!"
Tewi clapped her hands together as though she was cheering. "We heard! That's why we came here to see just how powerful you are going to get."
Rin stood up and turned to face them. It was the first proper look Mokou got at the corpse, and it left her speechless. Even with all her centuries under her belt and long decades spent living in a land where oddities were the norm, there was something simply... off about the glowing woman, a kind of toxic aura which she couldn't have given a name to, but which made her skin prickle.
"All I can tell ya is that you're gonna be impressed." The guileless curve of Rin's smile suggested to Mokou that she was generally a cheerful person. Even so, there was no cheer in the hunger in her stare. "I'm gonna be so powerful I can go back up and do what Okuu didn't."
"Really?" Tewi whistled. "That's impressive."
"Hold on." Mokou tore her eyes away from the corpse and frowned at Rin. "Do what, exactly?"
Rin's fangs re-emerged. "I'm gonna make sure we never run outta fuel, basically."
Without warning, she leapt off the edge off the cliff. She landed on a spire protruding from the lava and grinned madly. "I'm gonna channel the power from this corpse and use it to make as many corpses on the surface as I want! I'll start with you if you try to stop me!"
It was a good thing Tewi kept clapping and smiling and generally drawing attention to herself. Mokou was sure her own expression showed very plainly what she thought of this plan.
"Ya know..." Rin glided her hand across the corpse's face. When she pulled back, her fingertips glowed. "First order of business, I'm gonna try it out in Gensokyo. I wanna see what kinds of corpses everyone there leaves behind, and especially..." Here, she turned to grin at Mokou and Eirin with the golden glow overpowering in her eyes. "What's gonna happen when you throw someone who resurrects into the furnace."
Before Mokou had time to ask just where Rin had learned about the effects of the Hourai Elixir, Eirin sighed and drew her bow. "Looks like there's no other choice."
"Wait!" Tewi gestured at Eirin to halt. Eirin lowered her bow.
Sure and swift, Tewi raced to the edge of the cliff. She leapt over, heedless of the sparks of heat swirling all around her, and landed on another precarious spire close to Rin's. Once straight-backed, she faced Rin, who in turn cringed and swivelled away.
"You're really something, Orin! You're gonna have power most youkai can only dream of!" From a distance, there was obvious guile to Tewi's otherwise eager smile. "If you come back to the surface with your new powers, the moon and stars and even the sun will have to bow to your will." She hopped onto another narrow pillar ever closer to Rin, as comfortable with her footing as a mountain goat. "Only, there's one snag. What if someone steals the corpse from you?"
Slowly, Rin lowered her shoulders and looked at Tewi with fresh eyes. "Like who?"
"Another kasha, maybe. Or a hungry hell raven. Or even a human from the surface, since they like taking things that don't belong to them." Tewi giggled. "It's okay, though! I can help you come up with a way to make sure no-one can take the treasure away from you."
"Nah." Rin launched herself into the air and flew back to the cliff, landing next to her wheelbarrow. She turned back towards Tewi as though Mokou and Eirin weren't even there. "I can take care of it myself, sis. I can fight."
"Really? I heard that last time humans showed up here, you—"
"Things are different now." Rin shifted the corpse so that it rested against her left shoulder, held up with just one arm. She raised her free hand towards the cavern ceiling.
A hundred-head swarm of fairies descended from the shadows and surrounded the cliff.
Mokou appraised the fairies with a curious eye. These weren't just pale underground fairies: a visible miasma of decay clung to them like sodden dead leaves. She sought the gaze of one, and was met with blank, blind gaze of bug-black eyes in a green-tinged face.
Another cohort of zombie fairies emerged, rising from all around the cliff and doubling Rin's numbers. Where there hiding holes in the rock formation? They couldn't have arisen from the magma itself...
"See? We've got an army." Rin leapt back onto the cliff, her smile brighter and less malicious than any of the ones she had previously flashed at them. Behind the gleaming cast to her face, Mokou could see the shadow of a cheerful kasha. No doubt dangerous, but hardly a megalomaniac.
"It's a good start." Tewi followed Rin. She balanced at the very edge of the cliff with her hands behind her back. "But you know, an army is only as strong as its commander. You should see what happens at home when Reisen gives orders no-one cares about."
"That ain't a problem with me, sis. The fairies do anything I say."
Tewi scoffed. "That's what Reisen says too. And then she's left barking commands while we sneak off to do something fun instead."
"Then I'll prove it with danmaku!" Lightning fast, Rin flourished a spell card. "Cursed Sprite 'Fairies Possessed by Vengeful Spirits!'"
As one creature, the fairies sprung to action. Within seconds, they had surrounded Tewi and began circling around her. Their chittering had a musical quality to it, almost like they were playing Kagome Kagome, but with a dissonant bite that made the hairs on the back of Mokou's neck stand on edge.
Tewi squealed and tugged at her ears, squatting to make herself as small as possible. All it did was make the fairies crowd in even closer, obscuring the rabbit entirely from view.
Mokou stepped forward, intent on stopping what was clearly not a proper duel, only to find Eirin's hand gripping her upper arm and pulling her back. The Lunarian kept her eyes peeled on Rin and the fairies and let go the moment Mokou halted, her hand returning to her bow.
Once the commotion of the fairies grew deafening, Rin waved at them to back off. They dispersed, revealing Tewi, reduced to a quivering heap.
Only, when she lifted her head from the ground, Mokou saw that she was smiling.
Rin had the fairies make a few more overhead swoops before finally calling them off. They arranged themselves into a vast constellation of death above the magma. "Are ya convinced, sis? I can control them perfectly. None of them actually touched ya, right?"
Tewi stood back up, trembling and avoiding Rin's eyes. "I see your point." The next moment, she didn't even try to hide her amusement. "But a thief isn't going to stay far away from you when she comes for the treasure. Unless you can trust the fairies to leave you alone when they're right next to you as well, who cares?" She shrugged with alarming theatricality. "But I guess that would be too much to ask."
"You think that's clever, sis? Like I can't do it? Watch this!"
This time, Mokou clearly saw Rin pull out her spell card from behind her ear — hold on, how many ears did she have? Four, Mokou saw now, two human, two feline — before holding it up.
"Small Demon's Revival!"
Again, it was like watching a school of fish suddenly transform into a single shark. The undead fairies gathered all around Rin, hiding her and the corpse behind a wall of fluttering wings. Mokou could only imagine the reek at the centre of it all.
Abruptly, Tewi jumped to the side, flattening herself against the cliff. "Now!"
The arrow whirred through the air so fast it wasn't even a blur. Eirin lowered the bow the very moment the arrow struck the throng of possessed fairies.
The explosion which followed was so bright that for a moment Mokou was convinced she had somehow gone snow blind.
Rin hit the cliff with a thud. As the surviving fairies flew away, her body began to shrink. Moments later, a slim, dark-furred cat lay where the humanoid girl had been. It didn't move.
The corpse landed next to the cat. Its fall made no sound.
"There we go!" Tewi hopped over to Eirin and Mokou, clapping her hands like a child who had just won a race. "Easy-peasy!"
Eirin nodded. "We should take both of them back to the surface before the kasha wakes up." Without further ado, she walked over to the cat and the corpse and gathered the corpse in her arms.
As soon as its radiance fell upon her face, something shifted behind her eyes.
She straightened her back and retraced her steps, walking past Mokou without a word. Tewi capered after her.
Mokou was left to pick up the kasha. She weighed no more in her arms than a regular cat. Mokou pressed her close, ignoring the stench of singed fur.
Utsuho had returned near to where they had left her. She was just done eating... something, the mutilated remains beyond Mokou's recognition. She licked her fingertips clean as they approached, her eyes widening as they fell upon the unconscious cat. "Oh no! What happened?"
"I'm afraid Orin has had a work-related accident," said Eirin, using the same tone of voice she used for prescribing medicine.
Tewi hopped forward. "It's okay! We'll take her to Eientei, and Eirin will patch her right up!" Mokou noted that Tewi had moved to block the direct line of sight between Utsuho and the corpse. Well, as much a slight rabbit could, anyway. "We'll bring her back good as new!"
Utsuho nodded fervently. "That's good." She angled her head for a better look at the corpse. "Bring the food back, too."
The uphill journey up the tunnel felt nearly as surreal as the way down had. Only the gradual cooling of the air and the soft-furred kasha in her arms reminded Mokou that she wasn't dreaming. Even then, she wasn't sure she trusted those sensations.