Well, I don't think anyone's gonna be surprised by the angle I ended up taking with this.
-------
This was the boring part.
Ichirin absently stretched her arms, the sun beating down on her relentlessly as she cracked her fingers. It was warm, as it always was in these parts, and she’d opted for a simple white vest and skirt. The days of walking around in a full hood were long gone - she was likely to melt within an hour if she tried that here.
Looking to her side, she saw Unzan looking at her with anticipation. He shifted form into a giant fist, which was his way of challenging her to a game of rock-paper-scissors. Ichirin barely hid a groan of frustration - this was how he always wanted to pass the time, and there was only so often she could play the game before she got tired of it. He managed to wring about two dozen games out of her, winning more than half of them without much difficulty.
That was the first sign that Ichirin was about to have a lousy time waiting.
She’d have to convince Byakuren to buy something if they had the money to spare. One of the board games the kappa had come up with. Maybe an instrument for her to vainly strum at. Anything that was more intellectually challenging than rock-paper-scissors.
She found her superior on the edge of the ship, staring outwards. She seemed unfazed by the wait she’d had to endure. Unsurprising - Byakuren Hijiri was used to waiting. She was the sort to spend hours in quiet contemplation, meditating over the old Buddhist truths.
Her companions were not quite as patient.
“So, uh. Nice weather, huh?” Ichirin asked.
It wasn’t, really. This was the same sort of weather Gensokyo always had nowadays. It came in two distinct flavours - blinding sunshine and drenching rain. No distinction, no deviation from the extremes. Ichirin had wondered now and again if the weather itself could be bipolar.
“Oh, yes. Wonderful.”
Byakuren nodded along, half-paying attention. One hand fidgeted at the black bikini she was wearing, straightening it out. She was looking vaguely into the distance, and Ichirin attempted to follow her eyes to see what was so interesting.
She saw the same landscape she had to look at most days - water in every goddamn direction. She couldn’t understand how Byakuren managed to look out at it without being sick to death by now.
The rocking of the boat didn’t help with the ‘being sick’ part.
“Watch it down there, Murasa.”
Ichirin shouted at the floor, where she was right above the captain’s quarters. As if she’d been summoned, a ghostly figure poked her head out from below.
“Cool it, Ichi. This isn’t like one’a the Flotsams where you just tie your boat up and it’s fine, y’know. Out here we’re pretty much at the mercy’a the waves.”
Murasa was the only member of the group who hadn’t needed a distinct change of outfit since...then. As a ghost, the concept of heat had never really affected her, and she wore her old sailor’s uniform whatever the weather. Seeing her grin without a single bead of sweat on her face, Ichirin couldn’t help but feel a little jealous of the girl. Maybe being dead wasn’t that rough.
“Count yourself lucky, too,” Murasa continued. “Back in my day, the oceans were full’a salt, and even if you didn’t take a step in the water it got right under your clothes and made you sweat like hell. You’ve got it good with all this freshwater crap, believe me.”
Ichirin considered continuing a discussion with Murasa to get her mind off of the tedium, but the captain insisted on returning to her quarters. Had to watch the cameras in case anything dangerous came up, she said. What was there that could be dangerous? The mansion had been abandoned for months now, and there wasn’t a living thing to be found inside. It had already been ransacked a dozen times by other teams - they were here mostly to scavenge the scraps, look for anything valuable that the other groups had missed. In particular, the kappa were interested in some of the magical tomes the old family had kept around - they’d be magically protected, of course, so water would have done them no harm.
She’d tried watching the cameras with Murasa once or twice, just to find something to do. It was an amazing experience in that it somehow managed to be more frustrating than doing nothing. The cameras were poor quality, the best they could afford with their miserable finances, and Ichirin was greeted more often than not with a wall of blue while those horrible noises wafted through the speakers. The hissing, the gurgling, the bubbling - with all their supposed advances in technology, why couldn’t the kappa have made the damn things a little quieter?
At least when she looked at the ocean from up on deck she didn’t have to hold her fingers in her ears. Now she looked a little closer, she could make out a speck in the distance, though it hadn’t been what Byakuren was focusing on. Based on how high it stood above the water, it had to be the Mountain of Youkai. It was the only natural surface still above land nowadays, and the tengu had taken immediate measures to keep out anyone who couldn’t pay their way in. They weren’t as social as they used to be, typically flying high above ships and Flotsams to take their photos, occasionally having one of the lower-down members of the race send in the latest publications.
Ichirin never read their work. It was second-rate slander when it wasn’t outright fabrication.
A splash came from the side, and Ichrin turned to look at it. A school of fairies leapt out of the water, their little wings fluttering to keep them in the air for a little bit longer before gravity pulled them down again. She remembered the days when the creatures had legs like the rest of Gensokyo did, the days when nature would personify itself in roughly human form. Now that water had become the dominant element in nature, it was incredibly rare not to see fairies that weren’t half fish, flapping around their scaly tails to try and gain a bit more leverage before splashing back into the water.
The fairies were still as harmless as they’d always been. There’d been one incident when a trio of them had come together and tried to sneak onto the ship - a plan that failed miserably when they remembered they couldn’t walk anymore. And the incident where one strong-looking fairy had built a ring of ice around the ship, looking to hold it in place.
She’d treasured the look on the fairy’s face when the ship just rose out of the water, floated along, then dropped back down and went on its way.
How long had it been? The sun was her best guide nowadays, and from the looks of this it had been maybe an hour. Same as usual for those two. They never came back up too quickly. They were thorough. Well, to be more accurate, one of them was thorough, and the other wouldn’t get away with being careless in her presence. It meant nothing was overlooked, and they always came up with all the treasure they could have found.
Ichirin just wished it didn’t come with boring her out of her skull as a side effect.
She’d stopped paying attention to the sun after so long, playing out a percussion piece with her fingers tapping against the side of the ship. She looked absently at the rope hanging over the edge, dipping down into the water below.
There were bubbles starting to surface.
“Hey, they’re coming up,” Ichirin said to Byakuren, with audible relief. The monk turned towards Ichirin, her mouth shaping a tiny circle as she walked over. She looked down, nodding as the streams of bubbles rising up grew heavier.
Byakuren grabbed at the rope, rooting her feet on the wooden deck. She tugged at it, a silent warning to those at the other end that she was ready to pull. A few seconds later, something below the surface of the water tugged back in understanding.
It always amazed Ichirin watching the head of the Myouren temple in action. It was strange to think this woman had once been human, seeing the ridiculous physical strength she was capable of. She pulled back the rope as if it was weightless, even though Ichirin knew she was hauling up two fully grown youkai.
Not to mention all of their equipment.
As the pair was being lifted up, Ichirin could hear the start of a dispute between them. She only caught the last few sentences as they were on the verge of making it to the deck.
“...and that’s why you don’t touch anything unless I give you the okay.”
“Come on, I figured it’d fall slowly. I mean, it was underwater and all...”
“If it had been any heavier, you’d never have lifted it high enough to get me out.”
“Yeah, but...”
The argument was cut short when the pair came over the edge of the ship and landed unceremoniously on the deck. As usual, there was some groaning and wincing as they squirmed around, struggling to stand with all the whatsits and doohickeys strapped to them. Ichirin didn’t know how most of them worked, but it wasn’t her job to understand the details of diving equipment. It was her job to put together the money to pay for it, all while keeping enough money for them to not starve on a daily basis. They told her what to buy, she told them it was too expensive. They got on their knees and pouted a little, she growled at them and said they’d have to skip lunch for the next week to afford it. They said it was okay, because they needed it to keep everyone else fed...she caved in, because Shou’s pout was impossible to resist.
Shou was also the unlucky one here, having made the poor decision of grabbing onto the rope first. As a result, her companion plopped on top of her, and she was now being crushed beneath both a mouse youkai and the various gadgets she needed to stay underwater without dying. Ichirin helped the mouse to her feet, hanging onto the still-soaked fabric of her grey wetsuit. It was a hard job lifting her up, especially with that tank strapped to her back. She’d quickly learned from these experiences that air DID, in fact, have weight, and when you compressed it in a small space it weighed a hell of a lot.
“Nazrin, couldn’t you dive with something a little lighter?”
Nazrin wasn’t exactly taken in by the comment, stumbling forward as Ichirin brought her to her feet. It was hard for the mouse to walk in the black flippers the kappa had insisted would make her faster. They worked, but only just enough that Nazrin didn’t dump them from inconvenience.
“Sure, as soon as I start breathing a little less.”
Nazrin started to dress down, starting with the tank and then moving onto the fins the moment she could feel her back again. Seeing that she’d be fine by herself Ichirin turned to her partner, who’d just about stood up thanks to the help of Byakuren.
Where grey and black had been the defining colours in Nazrin’s attire, Shou’s were gold and yellow. All in all, she looked much more cheerful than her counterpart, even going so far as to have a star emblem across her chest with the word TIGER running beneath it. The wetsuits were custom-made anyway, so she’d figured that while she was spending the money it was worth going for something a little special. In her hands she held two objects: in her left, the jeweled pagoda that had gone from being a symbol of divine faith to an invaluable light source; in her right, a velvet pouch that was full-to-bursting with magical tomes.
“We found most the books the kappa were looking for,” Shou said, her eyes looking elsewhere. “Although there were...complications.”
“That’s Shou’s way of saying she dropped a bookshelf on my leg.” Nazrin’s helpful interpretation came with a hefty dose of annoyance, glaring across at Shou from the other side of the deck. The tiger bit her lip, pulling the expression of guilt that had practically defined her.
“I said I was sorry, Nazrin...”
Nazrin’s expression as she glared at Shou was stubborn, childish. They’d be over it in a few hours, like they always were. Shou never meant any harm with her mishaps, and she usually managed to clean up her own mess. She was kind-hearted in spite of that, and although Nazrin always acted harsh around her the pair were closer than they would openly admit. Byakuren stepped in to break up the lovers’ quarrel, smiling as she always did.
“Let’s not get angry, you two. What matters is that you’re both alive, and we’ll be eating tonight.”
Byakuren leaned down, knocking on the wooden floor. Murasa rose up from beneath the planks in response.
“Murasa, set sail for the nearest Flotsam.”
The ghost gave an enthusiastic salute in response, standing to attention. Probably. It was hard for Ichirin to tell when she could only see the girl’s head and shoulders.
“Aye aye, ma’am. Setting sail for Suhyo. We should arrive within a few hours.”
Ichirin could tell Murasa was enjoying this. She’d probably had the most positive reaction to this entire situation - it had given her a chance to live life on the seas again, remember her days among the living. It was good to see that someone had profited from it, at least.
The ship came to life beneath them, beginning its slow trawl across the waters. Time for another long wait, but this time Ichirin at least had something to preoccupy her. She listened in to the infantile debate breaking out between Nazrin and Shou, smiling as the mouse pointed out every little flaw in her partner’s technique. This was their usual routine, and thus Ichirin could approach it with a grin.
It took her mind off the weather for a moment, though she came back to that thought after she caught her hand wiping another layer of sweat off her forehead. She caught herself wondering how great it would be if there could be a little rain on a warm day like this.
Then she remembered how this whole fiasco had started, and decided that she could deal with a little sun.
-----
They hadn’t been present on the day that Sanae Kotiya doomed Gensokyo, but they didn’t have to look hard to see its effects.
Gensokyo had been suffering an unprecedented drought. The land had gone without rain for well over a month, with no sign of respite. The youkai grew worried, concerned that their land would wither and die beneath the unrelenting sun. Crops failed, lakes shrank, and heatstroke left much of the human village incapacitated.
At last, it came to the point where Gensokyo needed divine intervention. The call went to the Moriya Shrine, requesting a miracle from their shrine maiden to bring forth rain. Seeing that almost all of Gensokyo was behind this call for help, and realising the vast amounts of faith they’d draw from it, the gods of the Moriya shrine accepted, and the miracle was performed that evening.
Hundreds gathered to witness Sanae Kotiya call to the heavens for mercy, begging for rain so that Gensokyo would be spared. Practically every creature in the land was relying on her, and thus the faith that empowered the miracle was astronomical. It was a miracle the sort of which would never be repeated, an entire nation coming together to channel a divine power.
Their plan went horribly right. Almost immediately, dark clouds formed above all of Gensokyo, bringing fierce rains down on the land. The crowds cheered, the farmers celebrated, and humans and youkai united in feasts and praise to the Moriya Shrine.
That was for the first week of rain. After that, it started to become clear that while they finally had the rain they needed, they were now getting far too much of it. The lakes that had been drying up were starting to flow over, and a sheet of water was running across the ground of Gensokyo.
And once again, there was no sign of mercy from the heavens.
The Moriya Shrine were quick to realise their mistake, but they’d created an unparalleled miracle in bringing the rain. They had no way of dispelling it, and thus Gensokyo had no choice but to ride it out. Other youkai attempted to hold it back - Yukari Yakumo went so far as to open a massive gap in the sky, trying to catch the rain and send it elsewhere, but even with all her strength she could only stop a small fragment of the rain.
The first of Gensokyo’s civilisations to feel the brunt of this onslaught was Chireiden, the underground. Much of the rainwater drained there through tunnels and caverns, sparing the surface the full force of the flood. There were plans above the surface for a mass evacuation, but before any action could be taken the youkai of the underground blocked themselves inside, closing the main entrance to Chireiden with a massive rockslide. It served to halt the flow of water into the city for a few weeks - until the sheer weight of the water shattered the makeshift dam, turning what would have been a gradual flow of water into a flash flood. When surface-dwellers saw water gushing into the main entrance without relent, they knew that Chireiden was lost.
On hearing of this, the kappa saw fit to begin with their emergency measures. Now that the underground wasn’t around to drain the water, the surface was going to flood with terrifying speed. Next to fall would undoubtedly be the human village, located on a simple plain and already taking on a good six or seven inches of water.
What had once been an experimental idea turned into a reality within days, with hundreds of kappa working around the clock to create it. In the nick of time the deed was done, and the kappa offered the human village a last-minute respite from the storms - by enclosing them inside an airtight dome, along with all the necessary magic and technology to keep their air fresh and breathable. It was intended as a temporary measure, to keep the village going until the rains receded.
Now that the village was several hundred feet underwater, it didn’t look set to be removed any time soon.
The rains continued, now swallowing up much of Gensokyo with the same devastating pace. The residents of the Scarlet Devil Mansion simply disappeared, presumably returning to the world outside the border where their mistress could survive. The Forest of Magic was lost, its residents taking refuge in the Human Village air-dome in the hope that they’d recover their goods soon. Like the rest of the Human Village, these hopes led to crushing disappointment.
Eientei was a strange case. Though it was next to be engulfed by the tides, Princess Kaguya refused any sort of aid from the kappa. The mansion was engulfed, along with the forest of bamboo - and yet its rabbit armies were seen going strong weeks later, with newly-found gills on their necks. A genetic advancement on the part of Eirin Yagokoro, presumably - and not one the Lunarians were willing to share with anyone else. Needless to say, when they locked themselves up in the now-flooded Eientei, no-one was heartbroken at their disappearance.
Help from other realms wasn’t going to happen either. When the flooding turned deadly serious, lands like the Netherworld cut off their links to Gensokyo for their own safety. Makai and the realms of Heaven closed their doors, leaving the nation to fend more or less for itself.
In spite of the cataclysm, the Great Hakurei Barrier managed to hold together. Reimu Hakurei’s protection had become Yukari’s top priority when she had failed to stop the rain, and the Hakurei Shrine was enchanted with a series of charms that allowed it to float above the water. The youkai of boundaries tended to her every need, keeping Gensokyo from falling apart as a result.
The waters continued to rise for weeks, covering hills and mountains, until the peak of the Youkai Mountain was all that remained above water. Many feared it was next to fall, that the entire country would be submerged within the week.
Then, finally, the miracle of rain subsided. The tengu were spared, as was the shrine whose maiden had been responsible for the entire disaster. They denied responsibility in the usual divine way - Yasaka moves in mysterious ways, if they hadn’t intervened Gensokyo would be a desert instead of an ocean, and so on. No-one was particularly convinced.
The water showed no sign of disappearing, so instead the kappa made the most of it. It was safe to say that in this environment, the kappa were more or less entirely in control. The rest of Gensokyo was depending on them for survival and shelter, and both of these were provided. First and foremost they built the Flotsams - floating cities that drifted across the surface of the water, which served as new homes for the many displaced youkai. Then came further research into the diving gear humans outside the border used to survive in the ocean. Inefficient and clumsy, the kappa agreed, but a good base to work from. Finally, after some indistinguishable tweaking, the first K-1 set went for sale. It offered everything a youkai needed to dive beneath the waves, from the necessities like an air tank to the small conveniences like a diving mask. As time passed, updates and upgrades were made, until at the present day the best equipment on offer was the K-5. Supposedly it made the thought of diving all the way to the sea floor plausible, but it was too expensive for anyone to test that claim.
The kappa remained the main driving force behind Flotsam economy, also pursuing fisheries to keep a constant supply of food. Once the basic needs of Gensokyo had been met, though, the kappa turned their attention to more intellectual matters. Much knowledge and history had been lost in the flooding, and they’d be willing to pay a good fortune to get hold of it. Though they wouldn’t finance dives, they’d offer massive rewards for returning missing artifacts that would advance the causes of knowledge and science.
This was the beginning of the group known as the Treasure Divers.
Mostly, they consisted of tengu - white wolves, to be precise, working on the orders of their crow superiors. As the only race not to lose their territory, the tengu had the edge on the rest of Gensokyo in terms of wealth, which meant they could afford more suits and send out more teams. There were about two dozen Treasure Diver teams currently active, and only one of these teams didn’t include the tengu race.
This was the team from the Myouren temple, now known as Myouren’s Ark.
The temple had been utterly unfazed by the rising waters - it was formerly a ship, after all. The main issue that emerged was the need for funding - the onboard food supply could only last them so long, and there was no easy way for them to make money on the Flotsams. Since the divine realms had retreated, religious belief in Gensokyo had fallen substantially, to the point where it just wasn’t possible to make a living as a temple any more.
When they caught wind of the Treasure Diver initiative, it seemed almost too good to be true. Two of their number were practically designed for the job - Shou had an ability to draw treasure towards herself, while Nazrin was able to detect treasure in her vicinity. They tested the idea out, having the pair go for a swim near the Youkai Mountain to see if anything valuable hung just beneath the surface.
One particularly rewarding success later, they managed to buy their first K-1 sets, and things went naturally from there.
It had been a few months now since the pair had started their Treasure Diving career in earnest. They’d needed to put aside money for upgrades on top of food, because with every day that passed other teams were scouring the ocean and bringing back treasures. The shallow areas grew less and less fruitful, and they had to dive deeper and deeper for any chance of success. Even then, they were mainly bringing back the items that other teams had failed to find, making just enough to keep the process going.
It was a tough life on the pair, and on the residents of the temple in general. But it beat starving to death in a Flotsam ditch any day of the week.
-----
Nazrin had managed to get herself dried and changed ten minutes before the ship’s arrival at Suhyo. As usual, she placed most of her equipment in a neatly-kept corner of her room, with the oxygen tank in a bag on its own. She was going to have to take that in to be refilled - one of the many maintenance bills they had to deal with on top of everything else.
It was awkward, seeing how the K-3 set took up almost as much space in her room as the bed. Diving had become an everyday part of her life now, her new day job. It was definitely more engaging than being sent out to look for lost pagodas on a daily basis, but it was also a lot more dangerous. The kappa made no attempt to act as if their machines were infallible - all it took was one loose valve and suddenly you were without air and a hundred feet beneath the surface. That was why Treasure Divers always worked in pairs, looking after each other in case something went wrong. The buddy system, they called it.
She fell backwards onto the bed, annoyed that she could recite that fact at will. She was getting too into this, too into the new way of life. She missed Gensokyo - the
real one, not this soaked-through piece of junk. Where were the days when her idea of a busy day was rummaging around some bushes to figure out where Shou had dropped the pagoda
this week? She was sick of having to drain water out of her oversized mouse ears whenever she surfaced. She was sick of the fact she spent every dive worrying there was nothing to be found, that the tengu had already scavenged everything of worth, that she was going to all this effort and risking fatal danger for absolutely no reward.
Nazrin looked over to the wardrobe, seeing her favourite dress collect dust. She’d tried to keep wearing it, but it was just too much to wear in this climate. She wore it when the monsoons hit and rain started pouring down, but otherwise she had to settle for outfits like the grey one-piece she was wearing now. It was another reminder of a time past, a time that’d probably never come back.
She rolled over on the bed, pressing her face against the pillow. She wasn’t going to cry, not if she wanted to keep some pride. But she’d allow herself to sniffle a little. She needed a moment to let these feelings out, before they welled up and took her apart.
She’d been wallowing in self-pity for maybe half a minute when a knocking resounded in the room.
“Nazrin?”
Shou spoke up from the other side of the door, knocking before she entered. It was a little code they’d put together - Nazrin had to be warned beforehand if anyone was entering the room, so they didn’t see her doing anything she didn’t want people to see. Looking miserable, for example. She lifted her head up, looking towards the door.
“Come in.”
Nazrin had managed to bring herself to an upright position, sitting on the bed as Shou entered. The tiger had evidently just finished changing, given that the top half of her striped bikini looked set to come undone at any more. She caught Nazrin’s eyes falling on the impending wardrobe malfunction, and nervously tied it up more securely.
“Ah, thanks for that,” she said with a hearty laugh. “Just wanted to check up on you, Nazrin.”
Shou grinned, with the same radiance her smile had held before this nightmare had started. How did she do it? How could the girl stay so cheerful, so resolute, when her world had been flipped on its head? Nazrin was impressed, but jealous at the same time. She couldn’t stand that part of Shou, and yet she wanted to emulate her more than anything.
“...I’m fine.” Nazrin replied, not even sounding remotely convincing. She fell into these moods whenever they came back from a dive - first by venting her frustrations at Shou for every mistake she could come up with, then retreating to her room and remembering the good old days. She wasn’t comfortable living like this, and she didn’t think she ever would be.
Shou took a seat on the bed beside Nazrin, wrapping an arm around her. The tiger gave her a little peck on the cheek, which earned her a blush in response.
“It’s gonna be fine, you hear me? One day we’ll hit the big money, and we won’t have to work like this any more.”
“I don’t want to stop working,” Nazrin said, her voice trailing. “I want my old Gensokyo back.”
Dammit, she was crying now. Just a tear or two, but that was already more than she was planning to give off. She was just being picky now, wasn’t she? Gensokyo wasn’t coming back, and crying about it wasn’t going to help. God, she was pathetic, wasn’t she?
Shou’s arms wrapping around her pulled her back out of that line of thought.
“Nazrin...I know we’ve lost a lot. I know it’s hard. But I want you to know that no matter what happens, I’ll always be here for you.”
Shou’s body was warm as it pressed against Nazrin’s. She’d come from behind to give the mouse a full embrace. Nazrin’s head was just beneath hers, resting on her chest as their bare skin touched. It was purifying for Nazrin, feeling as if the darkest feelings were being drawn out of her and fading into thin air.
Maybe Shou was clumsy. Maybe her overeagerness had nearly killed them both on more than one occasion. But damn if she didn’t know how to make Nazrin feel loved.
“...Thanks, Shou. Really.” Nazrin mumbled out a thank-you, not wanting to sound too needy. She turned around a little, enough so that she could give Shou a hug in return, wrapping her arms around the tiger’s waist. Shou didn’t respond with words, but Nazrin could make out a satisfied-sounding growl resounding in her throat.
The pair held the embrace until the ship shuddered violently, stopping on the spot. They’d arrived at the Flotsam, right on schedule. By now it was heading into the afternoon, and they’d have to hurry to get their shopping done before business closed for the day.
“Well, then,” Nazrin said, rising to her feet with a spring in her step. “Let’s see how much those kappa are willing to pay for a few crusty old books.”
-----
The answer to Nazrin’s question turned out to be ‘quite a lot’. The kappa curator was rummaging through Shou’s sack of treasure, each item he pulled out bringing a larger smile to his face.
“You even managed to recover the Abyssal Grimoire? I have to say, I’m impressed.”
Shinjiro Mizutaka was the Flotsam’s curator, which basically meant he was the man every Treasure Diver wanted to be best friends with. He handed out dive spots where he figured there’d be worthwhile treasure, and he paid the lucky few who returned with the goods. Physically, he was indistinguishable from most of the kappa running around to keep the Flotsam running - dark blue hair, light blue eyes, and a navy jumpsuit which must have been unbearable to wear in this heat. He stood out mainly because he was the only member of the kappa squad to wear glasses, as an almost cliched symbol of intelligence.
His office looked no different from any of the other buildings in the Flotsam. For all their work in science and engineering, the kappa had never managed to get their heads around architecture, and as a result most buildings were featureless cubes with the occasional window. People were grateful for them, of course - the rent was tiny and they were decently sized. They just never had the same appeal as the extravagant mansions and cozy cottages the youkai of Gensokyo used to call home.
Furniture was all that separated one house from another, and Shinjiro hadn’t bothered with much. There was a bed in the corner, a desk in the centre where he dealt with his Treasure Diver business, and behind him was an unruly mess of retrieved artifacts. The invaluable was mixed with the worthless, and only the curator had a clue which was which. Maybe it was intentional, to serve as a theft deterrent. More likely he was just poorly organised.
Removing the last of the books that Shou and Nazrin had recovered, Shinjiro piled them up and planted them under the desk for now. More than likely they’d join the pile behind him and stay there until the museum made its weekly visit, looking for new artifacts to display. It was another of the kappa’s initiatives - to keep the old Gensokyo alive, they made sure everyone could see the treasures they’d once valued so dearly. They were mostly useless now, but the nostalgia was worth enough.
“I have to say...considering you two are on the back foot, you’re remarkably talented,” Shinjiro said, not making it obvious whether that was a compliment. “I haven’t seen a pair like you since Inubashiri’s team.”
“You mean Shameimaru’s team,” Nazrin corrected. They knew who he was talking about - Momiji Inubashiri, white wolf tengu and the best-paid Treasure Diver in the country. She had two distinct advantages over the rest of the competition - firstly, in a race renowned for their brilliant eyesight, Momiji was head and shoulders above the rest. Secondly, her diving partner wasn’t following the same rules the rest of the Treasure Divers had to obey - mainly because she was a shark, and didn’t have to worry about running out of air.
However, it was also common knowledge that like many other Treasure Divers, Momiji was answering to a superior. Hers was the crow tengu Aya Shameimaru, one of the Youkai Mountain’s best known journalists. She was loved by the masses who read her paper - and hated in equal measure by the residents she ‘interviewed’. Frankly, a better description would be ‘talked with, then warped the words in a sufficiently humiliating manner’. She had managed to eke an interview out of Shou, who had at one point commented on how the kappa running the Flotsam looked like he needed to shave sometime soon.
After reading about apparent hatred of the authorities keeping Gensokyo alive, Shou had not found the bravery to read the Bunbunmaru since.
“Oh, so you haven’t heard?” Shinjiro was visibly surprised by Nazrin’s response, falling backwards in his chair. It swivelled, falling back a few inches.
Four brows furrowed in unison. The entire crew had arrived to hand over the goods - apart from Murasa, who was unable to leave the ship for otherworldly reasons. Shinjiro, seeing the lack of understanding in their eyes, proceeded to elaborate.
“Inubashiri bought herself out of her boss’s pocket. She’s on her own schedule now.”
The crew of Myouren’s Ark portrayed their surprise in their own ways: Shou and Ichirin gasped. Byakuren let out a tiny ‘oh’. Nazrin blinked.
“That...” Shou was the first to find her voice. “That’s great news for her.”
White wolves typically didn’t get the chance to reap the rewards of their own work. Because the crow tengu were covering the payments for diving equipment, they also claimed the rights to most of the profit produced as a result. The white wolves got enough to live on, but nothing extravagant.
At least, that was unless the white wolf found a way to cover their own expenses.
“Yes, well,” Shinjiro said, with a nervous hint in his tone. “I wouldn’t be saying that too loudly, if I were you. If you’re looking for her, though, she’ll likely be in the Cephalic Mist getting herself a drink.”
Shou bowed deeply to the curator, with Ichirin and Byakuren nodding along in agreement. He reached into his pocket, pulling out a hefty-looking sack of coins.
“5,000 units. That’s more than I promised you, right?”
At that, the tiger’s eyes started to glimmer. She picked up the bag, feeling its weight, grinning madly. She looked ready to hug the kappa at any moment.
“T-Thank you very much, sir. We’ll be sure to keep up the good work from now on.”
She turned to leave, maybe so she didn’t give in to the urge to embrace the curator. Her companions quickly followed, walking out into the crowded streets of Suhyo.
“What’s with you?” Nazrin asked the tiger when they’d stepped outside. “I don’t see why we should care so much about an enemy.”
“Inubashiri isn’t an enemy, Nazrin. She’s just a fellow diver. It’s not like we’re fighting to the death over treasure, is it?”
“We barely know her. We’ve met her, what, once? And she was hardly very talkative.”
“That doesn’t matter,” Shou replied, becoming more desperate. “If she’s managed to work her way to freedom, I’d say that earns her some congratulations from anyone.”
Nazrin had crossed her arms, looking out into the crowd at no-one in particular. This was her way of saying she didn’t agree with Shou, but she knew full well that when the tiger got an idea into her mind there was no reasoning her out of it. In short, she was telling her ‘I don’t think this is a good idea, but I know better than to stop you.”
After a few seconds without a response, Shou decided that she’d won the argument. She turned to Byakuren, who was still hauling around the tanks that needed to be refilled.
“You two mind heading to the shop to take care of maintenance? She’ll give you the discount if you tell her you’re with us.”
The tiger handed over the bag of coins to Ichirin, keeping two or three for herself so she could buy a few drinks. Ichirin nodded, clamping her hand around the bag and hanging close to Byakuren.
“We’ll see you back at the boat this evening, then?” Byakuren asked.
“Sure, assuming Shou’s sober enough to walk,” Nazrin replied, looking snidely in Shou’s direction.
“Hey, he didn’t tell me it was alcoholic...”
With that, the group went their separate ways: Shou and Nazrin to the Cephalic Mist in the western district, and Byakuren and Ichirin to the dive shop in the eastern district.
After they’d broken far away enough from their companions, Shou tutted to herself a little. “Poor Inubashiri. She has to celebrate by getting drunk on cucumber beer, of all things.”
“I know,” Nazrin replied. “I don’t understand what the kappa see in the stuff.”
-----
In the otherwise poorly-organised Flotsam, the Kawashiro K-Supplier was a shining ray of orderliness. Every inch of its cubic volume was used to full capacity, shelves and walls stacked with more of those doohickeys Ichirin didn’t quite understand. The owner had scientifically determined the smallest amount of space she needed to place between shelves so that she could fit as many shelves of equipment under one roof as possible without making it impossible for customers to reach.
As she found herself unable to lift her arms, Ichirin suspected the kappa had made a rounding error somewhere down the line. Unzan, being immaterial, had half-merged with the shelf to her right, looking perfectly fine with the matter. Ichirin was suddenly reminded of the time when Unzan had tried to suggest a game of hide and seek instead of rock-paper-scissors. When it became clear he was cheating and slipping through walls every time she came near, she banned the game for the next decade or so.
Some of these prices these things were going for were ridiculous. 2000 units for a camera? That was enough to feed the whole temple for a week. Maybe it was deliberately expensive because they figured it was the sort of thing their crow tengu would waste their money on. The more Ichirin thought about it, the more it made twisted financial sense.
Finally, after spending far too long cramped up, Ichirin made it to the end of the shelves, coming up to the checkout desk. Most stores in the Flotsam would have considered leaving that so far from the exit suicidal - someone could grab an expensive item and then head out the entrance without even being noticed. Kawashiro had planned for that however - no-one knew the particulars, but the words ‘missile launcher’ came to mind.
A final eye-catch was laid out just before the checkout, with a set of dummies each kitted out in a full set of gear. The K-1 was cheap nowadays, only going at 2,500 units for a set, but the prices grew dramatically with every upgrade. The K-3 that Shou and Nazrin were using now came at a hefty 20,000, and the top-of-the-range K-5 was a heartbreaking 500,000 units. Ichirin could only tell the difference between them thanks to the labels attached - physically, the equipment looked more or less identical, but the signs beneath insisted on ‘more efficient air compression’ and ‘improved reliability’. In terms Ichirin preferred, they let you dive for longer and they were less likely to get you killed.
To her side, Byakuren emerged from the central aisle. It was the largest (though only by a small margin), and when she was carrying the tanks as well she needed all the room she could get. After the pair had walked around the dummies Byakuren hauled the bags onto the unattended desk, hitting the metal surface with a loud clang.
A head popped up behind the desk.
“Oh, customers! Sorry, doing some last-minute tweaking.”
Nitori Kawashiro rose to her feet, her jumpsuit covered in a black substance that looked suspiciously like soot. Some of it had made its way onto her face as well, and she giggled as she rubbed it off, trying not to lose face in front of the customer. She was an inventor in her spare time, allegedly inventing new technologies that’d make life in this new Gensokyo even easier.
She hadn’t managed to get anywhere yet, but prospects remained optimistic. Or so she claimed.
“I swear it’s not gonna explode,” Nitori said, thinking it stop Ichirin from looking so worried. If anything, it made her feel even worse. For a few seconds there was an awkward silence, cut short when Byakuren cleared her throat.
“Ahem. We were looking to have these refilled, if you wouldn’t mind. We’re here on behalf of Shou and Nazrin, the Treasure Divers.”
Nitori’s eyebrows lifted at the sound of the names. Somewhere in the back of her head the gears started to spin, recalling a chance meeting from what must have been a year ago by now. There was an almost audible click as she finally managed to place Ichirin’s face.
“Oh, yeah. You guys are the ones who crashed your ship in the lake way back when. Damn, that was forever ago, wasn’t it?”
She started to untie the bags, hauling out the tanks within. They went down behind the desk as well, which did nothing to allay Ichirin’s fears. They couldn’t see much from this side of the desk, but they could hear Nitori fiddling with something loud, mechanical, and uncooperative. After a few loud, satisfying clicks, there were two loud hissing noises as the machine pumped more compressed air into the tanks.
Filling them up was even louder than emptying them. Ichirin hadn’t even been sure that was possible.
“So how’s life been treating you guys?” Nitori asked, making small talk while she was waiting. “I assume the girls have been keeping you fed and all. Always holding a bit of money back for you, y’know.”
There was no condescending or frustrating tone in Nitori’s voice. She genuinely did sound like she appreciated Shou and Nazrin not blowing their whole paychecks on upgrades. If there was anything good to come out of this whole disaster, it was that it had inspired Gensokyo to care more about each other - putting little rivalries aside for the greater good. It wasn’t perfect - there were still fallings out, and assholes would always be assholes, but there was less need to call upon the spellcard rules than ever.
But that camaraderie hadn’t come for free. Some said they’d never be able to make a full list of those who lost their lives in the rains, and that was before they even considered Chireiden. Thousands of youkai, all sharing a watery grave together. An entire civilisation just wiped off the map. It was a thought that even the most egotistical of youkai couldn’t consider without feeling their heart sink.
Even as Nitori spoke so caringly, Ichirin could see that pain in her eyes. It wasn’t uncommon. Everyone seemed to carry a trace of it with them. Survivor’s guilt, or something along those lines. By now most people had come to terms with it, but others still struggled. Nazrin would have probably broken down entirely if she didn’t have Shou to comfort her. In the end, she’d probably come to the same conclusion everyone else had - there was only so long you could let it get to you. Eventually, you had to just put the pain aside and get back to living.
No matter how different life was by now.
“...You okay? Something on my face?”
Ichirin flinched, realising she’d been staring at Nitori the whole time.
“Uh, yeah. Sorry, I just spaced out,” she replied, spitting out the response as quickly as her tongue would let her. She was prone to thinking too hard about this, even now. It was a habit she was working on. Thinking too much wouldn’t help. It wouldn’t bring anyone back, and it sure as hell wouldn’t get rid of the goddamn water.
“Oh, the heat must be getting to you. You mentioned the weather earlier, didn’t you?” Byakuren responded with a laugh. She gently placed a hand on Ichirin’s shoulder, and as Ichirin turned she could see a look of silent understanding in her companion’s eyes. She knew what Ichirin had been thinking of, what she couldn’t stop coming back to. With that simple gesture, Ichirin could immediately understand the message Byakuren wanted to get across.
You’re not alone, Ichirin. Remember that.That was enough. It took a deep breath, and a little bit of effort, but Ichirin got the thought out of her head. She had a new life to live, one with all her old friends and a friendlier society in general. Look at the positives and all that.
The hissing from beneath the desk finally ended, and Nitori hauled the tanks back into their bags. She had a lot more trouble lifting them this time around, which was a good sign in terms of how much air was in there. She needed a minute to pack them, tie them back up, and hand them over to Byakuren again.
“Thanks. That’ll be 2,500 units, then,” Nitori said.
2,500 was, unbelievably, a discount. Normally refilling a pair of K-3 tanks would have set them back at least 3,000, but Nitori always cut a little off the price for Nazrin and Shou. “Rooting for the underdogs”, she always said. Ichirin rummaged through the coin purse, placing a handful of coins on the table.
“That should be enough,” Ichirin said with total confidence.
Nitori eyed the money, doing the numbers in her head. Satisfied, she nodded to the pair.
“Pleasure doing business, ladies.”
Ichirin and Byakuren bowed at once. Byakuren grabbed the now full bags, still showing no struggle with the weight as they started on their way out. They still had about 2,000 units left, which would sustain them for a week. Nazrin and Shou typically went for a dive at least two or three times a week, so in terms of sheer numbers they had a little spare cash.
May as well pop the question now, then.
“Say, Byakuren...how much do you think a deck of cards would cost?”
-----
The Cephalic Mist was one of Gensokyo’s last remaining bars. The human village managed to produce rice on the seabed with magical assistance, but it was used primarily for food rather than alcohol. In most countries, this would have been a shortage that the community struggled through but ultimately overcame.
Not the case with Gensokyo. Alcohol was the glue that kept otherwise hostile races friendly. Everyone forgot to be racist when they were plastered, and it wasn’t uncommon to see tengu singing karaoke alongside humans, or other sights you’d never see when they were sober. There needed to be a replacement, and as usual the kappa had an answer.
The rest of Gensokyo wasn’t keen on cucumber beer. Its taste could be described as ‘watery’ at best, and its alcohol content wasn’t ridiculous to make up for it. Still, it was all that was on offer, and more importantly it was cheap - sake did come up from the human village on occasion, but it was too expensive for anyone but the tengu to afford. Thus, in the last few months, cucumber beer had become a new habit for most of Gensokyo’s residents.
Shou and Nazrin had never picked it up. They were amiable enough without alcohol, and besides that the tiger was already clumsy enough when she was sober. She’d been drunk once, by accident, and the damages the temple needed to pay off cut into their dinner portions for about a month. She’d been restricted to glasses of water ever since.
As the pair entered, they were greeted with the faint smell of cucumber and the sound of frivolity. Patrons laughed at jokes that weren’t funny, hands crept close to inappropriate areas, and old folk songs were shouted across the room whenever the band of poltergeists started playing. It was cheerful, and more importantly it did a good job of keeping people’s thoughts away from ideas that’d make them feel bad.
Shou didn’t have to look very hard to find Momiji. She was sitting right at the bar, a glass of beer still half-full in her hand. She wore a white short-sleeved shirt with matching shorts, and a pendant hung around her neck weighted by some sort of tooth. A pocky stick hung out of her mouth - one of those new snacks the kappa had invented, a biscuit covered in chocolate. From the mildly pleasant look on her face, Shou assumed it tasted good. Her red eyes were eyeing the clock intently - presumably a learned instinct from her time on duty.
In general, though, her stance seemed rigid, unnatural. She wasn’t relaxed, perhaps the only patron in the bar who wasn’t completely at ease. That must have been her first drink, Shou thought to herself. Was celebration really that unnatural for her?
The door to the bathroom opened, a loud call interrupting Shou’s train of thought.
“Momiiiiii~, I’m hoooooome~.”
A youkai that Shou didn’t recognise stumbled out of the bathroom, bumping into every patron physically possible on the way over. The dim lighting stopped the tiger from seeing her in detail until she’d made it to the bar, clinging to the wooden surface to keep herself upright. What must have once been a well-cropped set of hair was sagging on all sides, covering one of her jet-black eyes.
“’Ey, Momi,” the youkai slurred. “‘Zat your first drink? Yer sloooooooow.”
She was tanned too, the tiger noted. Everyone had earned a little bit of a tan in this weather, but this girl took it a dozen steps further, her skin coffee-brown. She’d never seen anyone with that shade of skin, before or after the Moriya incident.
But strangest of all was her choice of clothing. She seemed to be dressed in a wetsuit, which was strange in and of itself - Shou had never seen one worn in public before. It was silver, with a white stripe running down its centre. Stranger still was that she had some sort of breathing apparatus on her as well - there was a collar on her neck, seemingly pumping water, and a small pipe ran out of it to end in a mouthpiece. She couldn’t tell where it ended, and it was possible the machine ran on down her back as well. For a second, Shou started at the contraption, trying to understand what purpose it served. Who would want diving gear that let you breathe water?
When the girl turned and Shou caught sight of the large, jagged fin on her back, she ended up answering her own question.
So this is the shark youkai Inubashiri goes diving with...The shark stumbled onto the seat beside Momiji, laughing to herself at a joke no-one else heard. The white wolf looked at her partner, sighing as she took the pocky out of her mouth and dropped it in the glass.
“Jozu, this is why I didn’t want you to order the pitcher. How many fingers am I holding up?”
She raised her hand, holding up three fingers. The shark, Jozu, squinted at the hand, muttering to herself, using her own webbed hands as reference. When she started using her second hand, Momiji decided that the point had been proven.
“You’re drunk, Jozu.”
“’N’ what’s wrong wi’ that? This is yer speshul day ‘n’ stuff. Makes sense we oughta cellarbrate.”
The wolf looked unconvinced, still as awkward as before. Shou watched the entire conversation unfold from a distance, wincing at every move from both parties.
“Someone needs to bail her out,” Nazrin said, speaking up from Shou’s side. Shou nodded in response, and the pair made their way up to the bar, trying their best to fit in despite being sober. Shou was the first to reach Momiji, slapping a hand on her shoulder.
“Heard the good news, Inubashiri. Congrats!”
The wolf visibly flinched when Shou’s hand touched her, and for an instant her eyes registered shock as she turned around. When it became clear she was being congratulated, though, her nerves started to dissipate a little, though she was still clearly uncomfortable. She glanced curiously at Shou, trying to place the face and failing.
“...Sorry, have we met?”
“Oh, sorry, you must not remember,” Shou said, holding her other hand out for Momiji to shake. “I’m Shou Toramaru. Treasure Diver? We ran into your ship a few weeks back on the way out for a dive.”
Momiji continued to examine Shou’s face, and the tiger could practically hear the gears in her head turning. The face wasn’t getting results, but the name was triggering something. Finally, after maybe ten seconds of silence, the wolf managed to place it.
“Ah, the team from Myouren’s Ark? And here I was thinking you and your mouse friend were an urban myth.”
“It’s hard to believe, I know,” Nazrin said, interrupting. “I find it hard to believe a girl like Shou can survive an occupation so dangerous, but-”
“Hey!” Shou turned back to the mouse, who was currently grinning at her expense. Shou responded with a childish pout, and for a few seconds they forgot everything else to take part in a stare-off.
“D’awww, they’re so cute’n’all. Pretendin’ to be mad. I can see it, the love’n their eyes...”
Jozu’s drunken rambling was painfully accurate, and both of the girls in question looked to her in shock. It was hard to determine which of them was blushing harder, but they responded to the remark by jumping onto the closest seats in the bar and ordering glasses of ice-cold water. Something that’d cool them down, anything.
Momiji allowed herself a smirk at that. The pair were totally unprofessional, but charming in their own quirky way. It probably helped that Shou passed her a few coins soon afterward.
“Get yourself another drink. Your friend’s right - you should be celebrating for real.”
That part had been spoken with honesty, with a sound of genuine congratulations. What Shou said next wasn’t quite so altruistic.
“And you could get your shark friend something to eat, too. Y’know, so she doesn’t say anything awkward again...”
-----
They spent a while talking about small things. Most of it was Shou asking Momiji about her work as a Treasure Diver, and in particular how she ended up working with a shark youkai. Momiji explained that they’d met well before any of the rain nonsense, actually, and that things had just turned out conveniently.
“Wasn’t my idea to start diving either,” she continued, letting the words flow freely now that she’d started. “Shameimaru proposed it, and I agreed. In the old days she’d just threaten me with panty shots, but she threw those out after things changed. Something about how most outfits today were so provocative that panty shots didn’t mean anything any more.”
She’d taken a few drinks, and she was starting to get into the drinking mood. Jozu was munching down on a bowl of fresh fish beside her, silenced by her dinner - much to the relief of Shou and Nazrin.
“It was good work with Shameimaru. She had contacts, and she caught rumours fast. Just always got to me that she was taking more outta this job than I was when it was me who was trying my best not to drown every other day. I saved up for a while, kept a little after every job, and when I managed to afford my own equipment I told Shameimaru I was gonna be a freelancer now.”
She sounded proud of herself, taking a large swig of her beer as she finished her monologue. She winced, scrunching up her lips and regretting that decision. This stuff was awful.
Shou nodded along, listening to Momiji’s stories of the trouble she’d run into. The time she’d had to use a paper bag as an emergency air supply when her equipment failed. The time she got trapped in a rockslide and needed to be dug out by Jozu against the clock. The time she had to fend off another team of Treasure Divers when they both went for the same spot. It wasn’t clear how much of her stories was truth and how much was fiction, but what mattered to Shou was that the wolf was definitely having fun now.
“So, what’re you gonna do now?” Shou asked. “Got any plans for the future?”
Momiji paused, looking off to the distance, thinking the question over. “Well, I’m probably just gonna stick to the usual. I figure I’ve made a name for myself in this job, so I should still be able to keep myself fed. And if I land the Chireiden job, then-”
“Wait,” Nazrin said, cutting Momiji short. “Chireiden job?”
Momiji looked at the pair, befuddled. “Y’know, how the kappa society wants a Treasure Diver team to go excavate the underground.”
Shou and Nazrin looked at each other for a moment, wearing matching expressions of shock. It was a few seconds before Momiji reacted as well.
“...Oh wait, I wasn’t meant to tell anyone about that. Dammit, the drink’s getting to me...”
She placed her head on the counter, muttering to herself. Beside her, Jozu pulled an arm over and gave the wolf an over-excited hug.
“Momiiii~, why’re you sleepin’? ‘Snot bedtime yet!”
She gave Momiji a little shuffle, convincing her to stand up again. By now Shou and Nazrin had recovered from their initial surprise, and the mouse took advantage of the opportunity.
“You’ve started talking,” Nazrin said. “You may as well go all the way now.”
Momiji didn’t seem sure about that at first, but the alcohol worked away what was left of her uncertainty. She shrugged.
“Eh, sure. Worst case scenario, it’s public knowledge. A job’s a job, right?”
She laid out the plan the kappa authorities had set out for the mission. Apparently they’d been interested in sending a team into Chireiden for months, but the diving technology wasn’t up to scratch until the K-5. They were hoping to get a ton of interested applicants, especially since the reward for this mission was set to be five million units, but the main issue was that no-one could actually afford the equipment they’d need to make it that far down.
“So from what I’ve heard, the job’s going to the first team that can afford a K-5. ‘Course, that gives me a headstart above the rest because I only need one.” Momiji motioned to her companion, still guzzling down her meal like a true predator. Every so often the girl got over-excited, growing short of breath and clutching at the mouthpiece around her neck for an extra burst of water. The machine kept her breathing when she wasn’t too excited or rushed, it seemed - if she pushed too hard, she needed to breathe from the mouthpiece to recover.
Still more convenient than the other way around.
Shou and Nazrin looked at one another. The tiger’s eyes were full of hope, thinking about that hefty sum. Nazrin brought her down to earth with sheer realism, as she often did.
“Shou, forget it. We have enough trouble putting food on the table. Where exactly are we expected to find the million units we’d need to buy a pair of K-5s?”
Shou thought the point over, looking for some sort of answer, but nothing came to her. Her shoulders slumped, and she took a large gulp of her water in disappointment.
Momiji frowned, seeing what she’d inadvertently done to Shou. She offered the girl a pat on the shoulder, like Shou had given her earlier.
“Hey, don’t feel rough about it. No-one’s gonna be able to afford it for weeks. Not even me.”
It didn’t quite work, and Shou still seemed to be in a temper despite Momiji’s efforts. The wolf thought for a moment, eyes darting around, then finally caved in.
“OK, tell ya what. Since you came all the way out here to congratulate me, I’ll give you guys a tip for free. A job I had on the back-burner, so to speak.”
That was the key, it seemed. Shou raised her head up, eyes back to their natural curiosity. Momiji grinned, knowing she was in the presenc
