Chapter Ten

I felt sick and hollow. I slumped against the wall of the hellevator. I could feel the stone’s heat through Satori’s thermoward, but it wasn’t enough to hurt. The red lights passing by grew brighter.

“So,” I said, “if we don’t stop Okuu, best case scenario is that our friends get melted.”

“Worst cases,” said Marisa, “get to sees end of world up closes. No pressures.”

“Truly, I wish the situation were less dire,” said Satori. “The burden is great, but you must ready yourselves. We’ll arrive shortly.”

I pushed myself off the wall, made myself stand straight. “We need some kind of plan. Four people charging in like berserkers won’t threaten someone of Mokou’s level.”

“Two,” said Satori.

I glared at her. “Two what?”

“Two people. Orin and I can’t approach Okuu. Earlier today we begged her to stop, but she forced us away. She established a spherical tracking spell that will alert her if Orin or I cross its perimeter.”

“But she made it only to spot us,” said Orin. “No way she’d expect two human girls. Even we didn’t expect it. Surprised Satori pretty big when you tripped the door ward.”

My jaw wanted to hang to the floor. “You’re sending us in by ourselves? That’s a suicide mission!”

“Likely so,” said Satori. “You knew that when Ran lowered you into the pit. How hopeful were you that two humans could rescue your friends from a power strong enough to override Yukari?”

“Gotta points,” said Marisa. “Maybes get surprise drops on bird-girls, blast head offs with some spells.”

“If that’s the best we can come up with,” I said, “just hit me with a Master Spark and save me the trouble.”

The red lights scrolling past the hellevator slowed, then stopped in place on the wall. I felt lighter for one second, telling me that we had come to a stop.

“This is where you get off,” said Satori. “Orin will cart you across the underside, getting as close to Okuu as she can. This is faster than you walking the distance.”

The hellevator’s door slid open, letting in harsh orange light from a landscape of barren rock. Orin twisted her barrow around to point it through the door and headed out.

“C’mon girls!” she said. “Even if you’re gonna die today, you’ll wanna see this. Bet you got no sights like this in Gensokyo.”

I took a breath, pretending that I had any courage to gather. On a whim, I looked back at Marisa and held my hand out to her.

“Hold my hand,” I said.

Marisa snickered. “No probs.”

She took my hand in hers. Like children nervous for their first day of school, we walked out of the hellevator, hand in hand.

“Good luck,” said Satori from behind us. “Everyone is cheering for you, whether they know it or not.”

The door slid shut. A flash of red showed the hellevator descend.

---

We stood on the side of a slope. From here a worn path led between the crevice of our hill and another, down to a flatland below. All surfaces were stone and dust. There were no animals, no plants, no moss or mold. It felt as if we had stepped onto sterile world, far away from home.

All of this I noticed only after Marisa and I spent one minute staring up at the sky. Our hands grasped each other with white knuckles.

“Oh my god!”

“Really is blazing skys!”

It didn’t look like a sky at all. The skies I knew were blue with puffy white clouds, or a slate of overcast gray, or full of lightning forks as sheets of rain fell. My personal favorite is a dark sky full of twinkling stars and a full moon that shone rainbow colors through the Boundary. The sky above us now was none of those things.

Hanging high above us, stretching to every horizon, was a borderless field of molten churning fire. There was no equivalent to the sun or the moon, no single brightest point. Instead the whole sky was alight with swirls of yellow, orange, red, and darker spots continually mixing against each other. Occasional plumes of flame burst downward, but the sky was too far up for those firespouts to reach us.

“Quite the sight, innit?” Orin was nearby, gazing upward with us.

“I’ve never imagined something so hellish-looking,” I said.

“Oh, yeah. You know that one poet who wrote a story about going down to Hell? Maybe this inspired him, if he ever saw it... but nothin’ down here’s organized into circles.” Orin smacked a hand on her barrow. “Anyway, let’s abandon all hope and get a move-on.”

---

While Orin held the barrow steady, I climbed in and sat, gripping both hands on the rim. Marisa got in behind me, holding the sides like I did. The barrow creaked under our weight.

“This thing’s made of woods?” said Marisa. “How’s not lighting on fires?”

“It’s enchanted!” said Orin. “Got a more permanent thermoward worked into the wood, which is a lot easier for nonliving things. Now, hold on tight. We’ll really start movin’ once we hit the flat.”

She hefted the handles up, leaning us forward, then pushed. We headed along the path that snaked down the hill, to the crevice between this hill and its neighbor. Our speed was a trot, fast enough to make Marisa and I bounce and jostle over every bump in the road.

“Orin,” I said, “do you know how far underground we are?”

“We’re all the way down, my human friend.”

“No, I mean distance from here to the surface. Some unit of measure.”

“Not sure! If I had to guess: about twenty miles, thirty kilometers, sixty-five thousand cats if you don’t count the tails.”

Twenty miles. If I could walk from here to Gensokyo, it would take a minimum of ten hours. A sinking feeling punched my stomach, and not just because Orin ran us over a loose rock. I was probably never going to see the sun again.

We rolled down between the two hills. Orin’s shoes smacked against stone and gravel, and the barrow’s wheel squeaked on every turn. The remainder of the path curved down and to the right until it reached the flatland. The dark shapes of a hilly range stood in the distance, with a dead expanse between here and there.

“This is the most horrible place I’ve ever laid eyes on,” I said.

“We got a ways to go,” said Orin. “Want me to pass the time with a song? There’s one tune I love to do on my trips down here.”

“I’d prefer if you didn’t,” I said.

“Well it’s my barrow, so if ya don’t like it, get out and walk.”

As we descended the slope and started across the flatland, a foul crosswind blew over the path, smelling like soot and sulfur. Orin sang with this wind in her face, letting it push her hair and ears back.

BE ~ OF ~ GOOD ~ CHEER!

DEATH ~ SHARES ~ HIS ~ BEER!

A tyrant took the polls.

Your head is soon to roll.

Your wife is leaving you,

For a man of greater girth.

You don't have any skills.

Your friends have all been ki~illed.

Yet this life, for true

Hasn’t lost its deepest mirth.

I refuse to live any day be~ing sad!

I don't care what horrors you throw at meeeee.

It's the only chance anyone e~ver had,

Since we've got no sight on eterniteee~eeee~EEEE!

Bones are broken, God has spoken:

"You don't deserve happiness."

Flesh is torn, soul is worn.

Was there something that you missed?

Seems like no one else's deal

is even half as raw as yours.

I ain't jokin', super unreal

that you ain't partyin’ ga~lore!

Last night I stubbed my toe; it hurt!

And I smiled until I went to bed.

Funniest thing I've ever had!

I'll always grin with death; take me to dirt!

A laugh will be the last thing I've said.

And I'm more than all-the-way convinced: it's really not so bad.

Orin was true to her word; we picked up speed once we were off the hill. We went from a trot to a gallop. Orin’s feet pushed us forward with greater strength than a human could. Every crack, dip, and bump tried to pitch us out of the barrow, but we held on tight.

The plain wasn’t entirely flat. There were gentle slopes up and down, crags jutting up and open fissures that Orin had to drive around. Clearly she had the land memorized. She dodged every obstacle with swift grace.

“We’re close to Okuu’s little base now.” Orin pointed ahead to another hill, which had a trail up one side. “Just behind that peak, can’t see it from here. Her detector spell goes about halfway down the hill, so that’s as far as I go.”

“Then what do we do?” I had to yell over the rushing wind and the clattering of the barrow. “Walk up and say hello?”

“Well, I’ve been thinkin’ about what strategy ya might take. Can’t beat Okuu with brute force, so you’ll hafta use brains. If you wanna sneak up on her, that’s your call. But if it were me, I’d try to exploit Okuu’s one weakness: she’s a big ol’ ham!”

“She’s a what?”

“A ham! She loves to perform, give speeches. We loved listenin’ to her recite great works from memory, especially when she got it mostly wrong. ‘Life is like a long journey with heavy syrup. Let thy step be warm and bready, that thou hunger not. Persuade thyself that there’s no such thing as a perfectly-cooked beans.’ It’s like listening to a shogun who had to skip breakfast so he could give a speech.”

“Bird-girl’s a showoffs, but not very smarts,” said Marisa.

“I won’t repeat that,” said Orin, “but I will nod and agree. So I’m gonna suggest, throw Okuu a bone. Give her a chance to feel impressive. When a crack shows in the armor, that might be your chance.”

“Are you seriously giving us advice on how to kill your friend?” I said.

“You can’t kill her, but if we’re lucky, you might be able to stop her.”

We rushed toward the base of Okuu’s hill. A column of light appeared at the peak, ahead and above us, a glowing cylinder that stood straight up to the Blazing Sky. The light was mainly green, but black streaks swirled and twisted their way up.

“Oh fun,” said Orin. “Ya get to see Okuu doing a ritual.”

Two seconds later, a shrieking noise blared out from the hilltop: WAAANH, WAAANH, WAAANH. We were too far away for it to hurt my ears, but it had to be deafening up close.

The light atop the hill rapidly changed color to match the yellow, orange, and red of the sky. With a roar that echoed through the barren landscape, plumes of flame swirled down the light column and disappeared behind the peak. As if bouncing off the land, giant flaming arcs erupted up and out from the hilltop, disappearing like smoke as they grew. Slowly, the lights and noises faded.

“Looks like that wasn’t the winner,” said Orin.

“What was thats?” said Marisa. “Looked likes she’s pulling fire downs.”

“Okuu thinks the Sky has some power that can break Koishi free,” said Orin. “She hasn’t hit paydirt yet, but she might be close.”

We reached the base of Okuu’s hill. Orin rounded a corner and pushed us up the path that wrapped around the slope. A short ways above us, I could see a dim green shimmer in the air, stretching all around the hill like a transparent wall.

“Orin.” I pointed at the green flickering. “Is that Okuu’s detector spell?”

“Yep. I’ll have to leave you there.”

“Maybe you should leave us right here instead,” I said. “We should try to get up the hill unnoticed, at least at first. I don’t want to risk her hearing us approach.”

“Sure, if that’s how ya want it.”

Orin let the barrow roll to a stop, set the handles down. Marisa and I climbed out, and not a minute too soon. My butt was sore from the ride. I looked back over the flatland that we had just ridden across.

“I really hope this nasty place isn’t the last thing I ever see,” I said.

“That’s on you now, sorry to say.” Orin spun her barrow around, pointing it the way we came. “I gotta get back, supposed to help Satori evacuate after I drop you off.”

“Evacuate wheres?” said Marisa. “If Yukaris gets smoked, nowhere to runs.”

Orin shrugged. “Yeah, it’s probably pointless, but we’re all takin’ long-shots today.”

She started down the path, but then stopped and looked back at us.

“Oh, Marisa, one more thing. If we survive this, you should come visit me sometime for, um... petting.”

Orin winked and made a clicking chkt noise with the side of her mouth. Marisa’s face flushed again.

“Anyway, here’s hopin’ we’re not all dead in an hour. See ya!”

---

Orin rolled her wagon away, left us at the foot of the hill. I turned and headed up, giving Marisa a pat on the shoulder as I passed her.

“Oh boy. Alice will not be happy about this.”

Marisa followed me. “Maybes don’t tell hers.”

“I won’t,” I said. “At least not while sober. But if Alice lives to see tomorrow, that means Suika probably will too, and when the sake starts flowing—”

“Swear Reimus, if big miko-mouths gonna gets me in troubles, will starlight-smack yous right off this hills.”

“Then you’d have to deal with Okuu alone.”

“Worth its!”

Banter distracted us from our frazzled nerves. We were tired, dirty, our clothes torn and burned. We were stranded in a hostile badlands that would have already killed us if not for a paper-thin spell around our bodies. Best of all, we were hiking up to meet an insane bird youkai person who was trying to kill us and everyone we cared about.

Even so, we walked up. Maybe there was no hope, but when the alternative is sitting down and waiting for death, you don’t need hope.

We stopped heckling each other and tried to step lightly as we approached the detector spell. I stopped with the shimmering green light right in front of me. I glanced at Marisa and pulled out my yin-yang orb. She nodded, got her hakkero in hand.

I took a breath. “Here we go.”

I stepped forward. The spell passed over me, and it felt like nothing. I looked back at Marisa, who was tinted green through the curtain. She followed me, stepping through with no reaction or resistance.

“Nothing happened,” I said. “Orin did say the spell would only detect her and Sa... what?”

Marisa’s eyes grew wide. The color drained from her face. I spun around to find what she had seen.

Someone hovered in air beside the hill’s peak, who must have flown out while my back was turned. Even from this distance, I couldn’t miss the great black wings flapping to keep her aloft. A white sparkling came from a cape draped over her wings. She waved at us with her right arm, which was far longer than it should have been.

“Didn’t stealths,” said Marisa.

“I guess not,” I said. “That must be Okuu.”