Shujiko continued following Miko, though she listened to what Kamui and Suwako were talking about. Not that she really knew what.
They've never heard of coffee? Reisen wondered. I never knew Gensokyo was so 'accept no substitutes' about their tea...
Though that thing about these objects appearing in their home was... intriguing, to say the least. Was someone planting them there? If so, why? Would they ever find out?
...Well, Reisen wouldn't. She had to find that darned cake. Then there was the far more normal brand of work she had to do. And deal with Tewi. Yep, busy busy busy.
"Well... if that's all, I'm off to find that cake now." Reisen said to the two main characters as she moved to walk off in pursuit of the elusive treat.
"Marisa's?" Youmu repeated. "Why would Kirisame leave that thing? Or sneak in here in the mi... um, nevermind."
The gardener had certainly heard of Marisa's reputation as a thief, but not so much leaving strange items like this that could be attributed to her presence. As if she wanted to be caught... wait a minute.
"Um, 'we'?" Youmu asked. "I'm coming t-" There was a knock on the door at that moment, causing Ghost-Youmu to suddenly flit towards the stairs expectantly.
With a small roll of her eyes, Youmu said, "Let me get that for you." And headed for the front door, opening it to find...
Youmu tilted her head slightly. "Aren't you... that girl. From that one time?"
ALICE
The puppeteer took advantage of her bedroom's being vacated to rapidly start dressing, ignoring the chill that was already seeping into her skin. Clothing first, then find her grimoire, and finally check that she hadn't found a working heating spell and forgotten about the discovery. All of which could go horribly wrong if Youmu and the guest came back whilst she was changing.
SAKUYA
Pausing for a second, Sakuya moved her hand away from one cupboard and towards another. She didn't want to give Meiling excessively spicy food before she'd done anything wrong; the habit was simply ingrained by now. Much better than stabbing her, since she didn't have to pay for clothing.
MOMIJI
"Have either of you got anything else to do today, or are you going to take up my entire day off?" the youngest of the three tengu asked, taking some cups out... and then taking out the strange, oddly shaped... thing that had appeared there and placing it on the table. It didn't look like anything she had seen before, so... maybe Aya and Hatate knew?
"Before I make tea, do you know what this is? I just found it..."
Oblivious to the implications of Momiji's question, Aya thought over her plans. She didn't have any, to be frank, beside staying in her house until things warmed up. And that would be a boring afternoon. It would be far better spent with the people you know (even though they don't want you there) "Nope" She answered, no doubt to the annoyance of the the wolf tengu.
While slightly disappointed of the warm drink being held back for a moment, Momiji's new discovery perked the reporter's interest. Aya studied the strange item that the patrol guard had just found, looking for whatever clue that would betray it's identity. Aya scratched her head as she tried to remember all the odd contraptions the kappas had shown her over the years and the occasional trinket that falls in through the border. But nothing stuck. "I have no idea..." She admitted with a shrug, giving it an experemental poke.
Iku was surprised to find that she would be greeted by someon she's met before, one of the girls she had to fight when Tenshi had caused a ruckous down here in the mortal realm. Strange, she thought the ghost girl lived somewhere else. "Yes, it's me" She confirmed Youmu's question, feeling slightly embaressed. "Don't worry, no one is in danger this time. However, I sensed a disturbance here and I wanted to investigate it. May I come in?"
Sometimes I even amaze myself. Currently: Nice and sneaky like"Weird thing? Whatever could you mean by that, Moriya?" Miko had led the odd group to the base of the quiet stairwell that led up to the Hakurei Shrine. She put a single foot on the first step, then thought better of being the first person to make her presence at the shrine apparent and stalled slightly so as to let the other girls ahead. "Go on, I insist. Your desires are the reason we came here, after all."
Nue started when she realized that they had been heading to the shrine. Reimu was Reimu after all, she'd figure that one of the last places any manner of supernatural creature would willingly go would be the Hakurei Shrine with few exceptions. That made her intent significantly more difficult; a prank on the saint of Buddhism would be dangerous to her health if the erstwhile shrine maiden caught wind of- or worse, was accidentally pulled into- the attempt. Nue landed, silent as a cat, behind a tree and out of immediate sight of the ladies and cancelled her Seed's power. The Seed returned to being an unassuming garden snake coiled around her right arm. This would take some finesse.
Shrine Maiden of Paradise
"Yeah, yeah, see ya Raisin," Reimu waved the rabbit off absentmindedly. She was far more focused on what she could get out of this coffee maker, "Whether others have found these things in their homes or not, doesn't matter. I'd rather know how much Kourin would buy for this piece of junk."
Colorful Rainbow Gatekeeper
Meiling was still completely and utterly bored. She was now in every sense of the word, a child. Her attention span was minuscule, and she was the type to not sit still for even a second. But she made a promise and she intended to keep it. Or so she thought. Something shiny caught her attention in the corner of her eye. She could not resist the urge to reach over ever so slightly to try and touch it.
Modern-Day Spirit Photographer
Hatate nearly flinched at Momiji's words. It was like a stab telling her she honestly had no other friends. But that tends to happen when you keep yourself locked in your own home instead of going out and reporting yourself. To take her mind off such matters, the younger crow tengu opted to study the contraption Momiji had placed in front of them. She couldn't safely say she was familiar with it. Even if she got the latest technology from the kappa, there was still somethings they made that were a complete mystery to the girl, "I'm sorry... I can't tell what it is either."
"But if it has happened to other people, I bet it's an incident!" Marisa replied, suddenly stepping in front of Reimu and barring her way. She was familiar with Reimu's tendency to be, well, lazy about incident resolution unless it was directly affecting her in some negative way, and wanted to keep her from just fleeing. "Which means there's asses to kick, somewhere."
"Eh? Oh, uh... okay!" Suwako replied, before hurrying up to the shrine. She raised one hand... and loudly hammered at the door with it. "Hakurei-saaaaaaan, are you there?"
No response.
"Oh, dear. The toad, the monkey, and the dog have all screwed up."Nodding silently at Miko, Shujiko ascended the steps after Suwako. Looked like she was nearly there... the will youkai sincerely hoped this shrine maiden was powerful. She wanted to enjoy fighting again. She needed someone... well, 'worthy', as arrogant as that sounded.
Though, as Shujiko drew nearer, she noticed that no one seemed to be responding to Suwako's knocking.
"...She's not here?" Shujiko asked dully, eyeing the shrine with a hint of disappointment.
"A disturbance?" Youmu repeated with a slight tilt of her. "Oh, um... sure, I guess." Youmu added, stepping aside to let Tenshi enter. Once she had done so, Youmu closed the door and made sure her phantom half didn't rudely study the new guest.
"Miss Margatroid is upstairs," Youmu informed her, leading the way. "And may I ask just what this 'disturbance' you sensed was?"
Reisen's ear twitched again. Something was seriously off about how Reimu was saying her name, here... ach, well it didn't matter too much, she figured. Just as she was about to leave, however, Reisen realised that these two would more knowledge of the markets here, and where her item could possibly be found.
"Oh, by the way, either of you know where I can get a cake? With cat-ears?" The moon-rabbit asked without a trace of humour.
ALICE
Having not gotten out of bed much this winter, Alice had begun to forget where, precisely, she'd left her clean clothing. After a little searching she managed to locate it... but not quickly enough that she would be fully dressed when Youmu and the visitor returned. She'd certainly be decent but at the same time there'd be a lot of flesh on display, even if it was all her back.
SAKUYA
The shiny thing, as it turned out, was the bottom of a pile of miscellaneous implements that Sakuya hadn't gotten around to cleaning before being alerted that Meiling was causing problems in the library—AKA, going where it was warm and annoying Patchouli with her mere presence. Naturally, the disturbed knife on the bottom of the stack caused it all to come tumbling down... including one well-placed pot's landing on Sakuya's head, covering it completely.
"I thought I told you not to touch things?" the irritated maid said, voice amusingly echoey.
MOMIJI
The... whatever it was was rubbery, that much was clear, and vaguely resembled a cylinder. That was about all that any of the tengu seemed likely to identify, though it was likely reminding vaguely of something rarely-seen and easily forgotten. The on-off switch on the bottom did nothing, indicating that there was no power for the... whatever it was to do whatever it was meant to do.
"She's not here? A shame," Miko lied through her teeth. The shrine maiden wasn't even there. Now if ever was the time to exact a little creative revenge. "Are you sure that one of us would not make an adequate opponent for you, Ishi?" Miko cracked a knuckle idly. "I would be willing to duel with you, for fun of course."
Nue's Seed of Non-Identification slithered by the group. Any of the assembled girls who glanced in it's direction would only see some common variety of insect crawling along.
Kamui remained silent for the rest of the trip to the Hakurei shrine, seemingly somewhat offended that the goddess called one of her friends mean. She was just bored of life in heaven, and it wasn't like problems worse than the one Tenshi caused weren't happening constantly in Gensokyo, anyways! How could someone call her friend mean just because she wanted to have fun?
When they reached the shrine, Kamui sighed as she took a look inside and found not a single soul in it. Wasn't a shrine maiden supposed to be at her shrine all the time? Why wasn't nobody there?
Kamui's ears perked as she heard Miko's statement about Shujiko, however. "Shujiko was going to visit the shrine maiden... To fight her?" She sighed and shook her head. "You humans seem to like violence a lot. Is it the only way you can have fun, or something? I can't really grasp the reasons that bring mortals to fight."
"Suffer a vicious person and you will fear vice. Suffer a virtuous one and you will soon loathe virtue itself." Tony DuvertTaken aback by both the strange contraption and Masami's sudden appearance, it took Maria some time to come back to her senses. She shook her head rapidly, before lifting her arm and thwacking the youkai on the head with her Bible.
"What have I told you about using the aytch-eeh-double-ell word so casually, Masami?" She asked, going into full lecture mode. "As long as you are recieving sanctuary in this house of God, you will refrain from uttering such language! Now, apologise or I shall... Um... I'll think of some way to punish you, yes." She couldn't exactly throw her out during this weather, and it wasn't as though she could help being a blasphemous demon (the locals called them "youkai", but Maria could easily see through such things), could she? Even if she was a demon, she was still a child of God, and even an inherently wicked being like her could still find acceptance and forgiveness if they so wished it.
"Now, um, as for your question," she continued, staring at the strange mechanism lying on the floor. "I... Honestly do not know. It is... Something most unnatural, though. We should probably find some way to dispose of it."
"Hey, I can talk any way I like!" Masami's eyes darted from the weird metal thing to Maria. "Anyway, yer dinner is right there." she said. The fried fish dropped to the ground with a loud thud, followed by the youkai taking a seat. She might as well, she caught the food, right? "Aha, when I look at it I'm thinking it makes a vroom vroom noise!" she clapped her hands together. What made her say that? She had no idea.
Masami scratched the top of her head and then sat up from the seat she had just taken a moment before. "So Red," she changed subject," So any new believers or whatever?" her tone of voice suggested that she certainly didn't care about the state of the church. She cared about Maria, but not the church. A bit of difference in the two.
Her eyes then caught sight of the snowmen nearby.
"Kehehehehe..." she laughed. She couldn't help it, not at all.
edited 12th Mar '12 11:27:32 AM by RagnaTheSaviour
After a few seconds more of examining the mysterious item, the traditional reporter simply gave up trying to identify it. Though something in the back of her head told her that she had seen something like it before, she just couldn't get the thought out. Either way, she was far more interested in the tea Momiji was holding back. "I'm sure it's nothing important. We can ask one of the kappas when they're done with their little project at the hot springs. Now, may I please have a drink?"
Following the half spirit into the house after being allowed in, Iku's eyes couldn't help but wonder. The house seemed to hold a large collection of dolls, including a few actually moving through out the building doing menial tasks. Alongside a few magical gubbins scattered around room and the youkai was reminded of someone else she met during Tenshi's visit: A young magician who controlled dolls like a puppeteer. Youmu confirmed her suspicious as they headed in: This house belonged to the magician, not the swordswoman, who was merely a guess.
"That's the thing; I don't know that the disturbance is" Iku answered "It not any weather pattern or natural disaster I've ever sensed before. Tell me, have you noticed any strange recently?" Any information would help if she planed on making a report.
edited 24th Mar '12 12:07:15 AM by Luke_Prowler
Sometimes I even amaze myself. Currently: Nice and sneaky like"Tsk," Reimu clicked her tongue at the pestering witch. If this incident wasn't hurting anybody, why should she bother? She could even get a decent profit from this. But the shrine maiden knew that Marisa would not stop bugging her until this incident was solved, so it was better to get it over with quickly, "Fine, I'll help solve the incident, but you owe me a weeks worth of donations for this."
Then the moon rabbit asked about something completely and utterly baffling, "...a cake with cat ears...? I.. can't say I have."
"Wah!" Meiling jumped back in a panic again. Oh no. Oh no. She had surely made Sakuya mad this time. What should she do? Run? Apologize? Pray to a human deity? She opted for the second choice, hoping that by some stroke of luck that Sakuya would be in a more forgiving mood, "I'm sorry, I'll be a good girl now. I promise! ....Please don't punish Meiling..."
Hatate wasn't as easily put off from observing the object. Now that she was getting a better look at it, there was something vaguely familiar about it's shape. Now what could it possibly be. It felt as if she had seen it once before when searching for images on her phone. Something... wait... it couldn't be, could it?
...
Suddenly the crow's face heated up, her ears turning a very noticeable shade of red. Now, now she defintely knew what this was. How many times has she come across this sort of thing when she forgot to exclude explicit items from her image searching. Why did it take her so long to recognize it?
"T-that... ah... uhm... that is...uh," She couldn't get the words out of her mouth. Far too embarrising. Of all things, why did it have to be something like that?
edited 23rd Mar '12 11:16:46 AM by FlameHaze17
"Awesome, Rei-chan!" Marisa replied, giving Reimu both thumbs up and grinning rather incredibly widely. she could get those donations pretty easily, after all there was sure to be some people who wouldn't miss a little bit of yen here or there, right? "We should go see if Ari-chan got any weird stuff first. Ari-chan's house is always a good place to start."
Suwako frowned at the door, as if it was some evil entity purposefully obstructing her access to the Hakurei miko. "Why couldn't she be here? I wanted to see if she wanted to set things up, but... but... why did she have to be somewhere?"
The childish goddess flapped her arms weakly, frustrated.
"Oh, dear. The toad, the monkey, and the dog have all screwed up."Shujiko glanced at Miko doubtfully, unable to gauge her power. The will youkai wondered if someone like Miko would last longer than a human, but this particular human excelled at beating youkai, right? There was always the witch, but...
Kamui didn't seem to approve of Shujiko's intentions, however, and her eyes were cast downwards, watching a random bug pass by.
"...Well, I'm a youkai." Shujiko corrected Kamui quietly. "And... well, I like fighting. 'Epic' battles, more accurately."
Shujiko looked unsure as to explain exactly. "Um, anyway... I suppose we could, Toyasatatamimo." She said, then blinked. "...No, it was..."
"Um... can't say that I have," Youmu replied, having no reason to suspect that weird toy was unusual. Well, apart from whatever material it was made with and its exact purpose, but it seemed to be just another doll. "My mistress has sort of sent me here to make sure the Spring is not stolen ag-" Youmu began to explain, when she entered Alice's room.
Seeing her change from behind, there was nothing much to see, though a small blush crept up on the half-ghost's face as she stopped. After a moment, she bowed low.
"My deepest apologies, I wasn't aware you were changing!" Youmu apologised, keeping her head low. Myon, meanwhile, hovered above her. Despite resembling an ephemeral blob, it almost gave the impression of leering.
"...I see." Reisen sighed. She wasn't looking forward to returning empty-handed. "Well... do you know if these even exist? Because I'm really doubting that they do, really."
ALICE
Blushing furiously, Alice finished dressing in record time, refraining from blasting Youmu and her other guest with a doll in retribution for their carelessly walking into her room. That would solve nothing. Whilst she used one to lacer her boots, sat upon the end of her bed, the puppeteer asked who it was that had decided to visit. She hadn't had a chance to tell yet, after all.
SAKUYA
Sakuya fought the urge to stab the child. Repeatedly. With a dozen knives. She did not, would not, hurt a child. There was a reason that it was usually Patchouli that was used as a sacrifice to try and calm Flandre down: Sakuya would refuse to do anything that might harm her and nothing would be solved. She wasn't above refusing to give the blonde girl dessert if she misbehaved, though, and that appeared to have some success rate.
"I want you to wash these pots whilst I finish your breakfast," the maid said, one pot still over her head.
MOMIJI
"It's what?" Momiji asked eagerly, leaning forwards a little and looking at Hatate eagerly. What was the strange thing? And why was it causing the other tengu to blush so much?
Aya
Aya had also noticed Hatate's sudden blushing. It seemed the young crow knew what the mystery item and whatever it is had her flustered "Yeah, Hatate, spill the beans. What is it?" Aya asked with a playful smile. The tengu also wondered what was causing that reaction. Was there something embarrassing about this despite it being so forgettable?
Iku
Sadly Youmu had nothing to tell her, it seemed she saw nothing while she was here. While slightly disappointed, Iku did not take to heart and simply resolved to search the area around here once she had talked to the master of the house. Being led upstairs the youkai listened to the gardener about why she was hear, something about protecting spring from being stole (which Iku remembered observing but was order to not intervene), when they entered the puppeteer's bedroom, who was in a state of mostly undress. However, unlike Youmu, Iku seemed completely unfazed by Alice's lack of clothing. The near apathetic atmosphere of the heavens had led to some having a rather laid back attitude on clothing, and this had happened enough times for her to stop caring about it (she had walked in on worse, anyway).
However she still knew enough social rules to know it was still unnerving to stare and immediately stared upward to find something interesting to look that on the ceiling (no such luck). "My apologies if I am interrupting something" The oarfish said, trying to keep her best manners in the hopes of keeping the situation calm "I merely came here to talk"
edited 25th Mar '12 7:36:05 PM by Luke_Prowler
Sometimes I even amaze myself. Currently: Nice and sneaky like"Alice? I would have suggested Yukari, myself. But since I'm not in the mood to deal with her riddles, checking with Alice first sounds like a good idea. Though I'm sure, that's the only reason you want to go there," There was a hint of sarcasm in Reimu's tone on that last statement. She knew all too well the other reason Marisa would suggest going to Alice's. Not that Marisa kept her particular interests well hidden anyway, if she even bothered to hide them. Not that she minded going to Alice's place. Despite what she said, she much preferred to go to there before any other place.
Oh the rabbit was still around, didn't she say she was leaving? "No, Raisin. I've never seen a cake with cat ears, so I wouldn't know if it existed."
"Y-yes ma'am, I'll do my best!" Meiling replied, quickly going about to take care of the pots. She was glad her punishment didn't involve any knives. No matter how many times she had endured them before, they were still somewhat painful, though she had been getting better at shrugging them off.
A slight problem came up though. Meiling was now alot shorter than she used to be. She stood, on her tip toes, jumped, anything to try and reach the pots. Soon and idea popped into her head and she dragged the chair over and got onto her knees in it. That as better, now she could finish this punishment set out for her!
"Well, it's uh..." Hatate could feel herself getting even more embarrassed as the other two focused on her. How was she going to explain what this was to these two without dying of embarrassment? There was no other choice, drastic times called for drastic measures. Time to evasively change the subject! "A-anyway, where did you find it anyway, Momiji-san? It's not something you can find in the street.... at least I hope not..."
"Well, fighting is a means to an end, more than anything else." Miko shrugged at the dragon youkai, gesturing at the empty shrine building. "Some take it seriously, of course. Case in point. And others are more casual about it." She turned to Shujiko. "As for you... why the doubt?" She could only sense some manner of doubt, which didn't serve to clarify anything for the saint of Ten Desires.
Meanwhile, the insect that Shujiko had seen passing by skittered under the door of the shrine, brushing against Suwako's feet in the process. Nue wondered if she could possibly play some auditory tricks on the gathered youkai. So with a quick application of power, she began to have her seed make some strange noises, undefined to her but what the rest of the gathered girls would expect to hear from within the shrine.
Reimu made a sarcastic remark? Time to render it completely pointless in one fell swoop. With a grin, Marisa turned to face the miko. She was excessively shameless. "Of course not, there's ogling Ari-chan too. That's always a good reason to head to her house!"
Turning away, to face the direction she was plenty sure Alice's house was in(she'd gone there so many times that she was sure it was the right way), she spoke again. "Let's go, Rei-chan!"
With that, she hopped astride her broom and took to the air.
"Aa-uu?"
Suwako tilted her head. "There's stuff inside... I hear stuff!"
She then attempted to do the logical thing and push the shrine door open. Well, the logical thing for someone who's impulsive, at least.
"Oh, dear. The toad, the monkey, and the dog have all screwed up."Well, at least Miko didn't seem to mind the screw up with her name, but Shujiko was still unsure how to answer without inadvertently offending her. After a moment of silence, Shujiko opened her mouth to speak, and ended up distracted by the weird noises from within the shrine. Puzzled, she turned her head, seeing Suwako open the door to investigate. Did this mean the shrine was inhabited after all?
"You weren't interrupting anything," Youmu firmly stated, hoping to dispel any odd thoughts as she straightened herself. "As I said, I was just making sure the Spring was safe and that were was nothing suspicious near this area."
Youmu gave her phantom half a glance. It was simply floating in place, but Youmu was at least aware of the reason, and it was making her face flush slightly. Good thing no one else was likely to understand it was essentially a dreamy state. Alice sure had a nice back, after all...
"...Aw." Reisen sighed once more. Might as well take her punishment like a tough soldier...
Her ears perked up at Marisa's suggestion, though, and she gave Reimu a questioning look. "...Is that what you two are into? Peeping? I have to say, I thought you had more class than that..."
Kamui rises her eyebrows lightly as she listened to Miko talk and Shujiko explain her reasons. "I see... That makes sense, I guess. But I think that fighting is not really that fun. Specially with the way fighting is handled here. It's too complex for my tastes."
Hearing Suwako trying to open the door to the shrine, she stroked her chin thoughtfully and walked towards the goddess, then heard a sound inside. "Hmmm? What was that?" She tried to help Suwako open the door, cursing at how it didn't seem to cooperate. "If there's someone inside the shrine, then why is the door locked? It's illogical! Doesn't the shrine maiden want to be visited, or something?"
edited 7th Apr '12 8:43:26 AM by Sachiko
"Suffer a vicious person and you will fear vice. Suffer a virtuous one and you will soon loathe virtue itself." Tony DuvertMiko started. "You ladies hear that as well? Hm. I normally wouldn't condone breaking and entering but whatever's happening in there sounds dangerous." As if to punctuate her point, an unseen Nue changed the noise into a distinct, human squeal. It wasn't exactly Reimu's voice, but it was something along the lines. "Hm?" Miko was clearly sensing the mischievous intent somewhere in their vicinity, but she figured that it would be best to stay silent and let the chips far where they would. Whatever happened here, it was probably to the benefit of her petty revenge. "You hear that? Someone might be in trouble, we have to get in!"
Nue giggled, to herself so that no one else could hear. This was going well so far, they were taking the bait.

"Not a clue!" Marisa replied, cheerfully, "But it sounded kinda nice. But I was thinking about how this weird thing showed up in the shrine, and I got a weird thing showing up in my home too. I wonder if it happened to anyone else?"
"Hinanawi..." Suwako thought for a few moments, recalling... yes, blue-haired girl. Did some stupid things that got a lot of people angry at her and wanting to beat her up. Now she remembered! "Oh, her! She was mean! But it was fun fighting her, if I could just fight her and not talk to her that would be nice."
"Oh, dear. The toad, the monkey, and the dog have all screwed up."