Chapter 89: Even Among Shrine Maidens, There Are Differences.
....
"Happiness built on another's suffering — that saying really does hold up."
Watching Aya Shameimaru's humiliating exit from the window, Tatsumaki felt the specific satisfaction of cosmic balance being restored. The tengu had been the one to send her chasing after Yagokoro Eirin for medicine with a completely fabricated story — and now, with five hundred candid photographs archived in Kihara's phone as collateral, the debt had been settled with interest.
Something that had been wound tight in her chest for a week finally unwound.
"Now that you've cheered up," Kihara said, "consider actually going outside. You haven't left the house in seven days. Akane and the others are worried."
"Fine. I'll go to the mine and fish. I'll bring back Stonefish for dinner."
"...Ah." He very carefully did not say that the household's current relationship with fish had progressed well past enthusiasm into something resembling a hostage situation, and that several people had begun taking alternate routes to avoid the kitchen on fish nights. Tatsumaki's fishing passion was one of those things you managed around rather than confronted directly. "Sounds good."
Maybe I'll make a run to the Immoral Guild world today. Grab some otherworld fast food for everyone. Give the fish a night off.
Having successfully un-hermited the esper, Kihara headed back to the farm.
The fields had transformed in his absence.
Every crop had come in simultaneously — a sea of color moving gently in the summer breeze, fruit heavy on the vine, leaves a deep satisfied green, the whole expanse looking like something a landscape painter would claim was unrealistic. He rolled up his sleeves, activated acceleration mode, and got to work.
The harvesting experience bar climbed at a visible rate. A clear ding announced Farming Level 6 — which meant a meaningful chance of higher-quality yields going forward. By the time he'd finished, even his dimensional pouch — upgraded to forty-eight slots some time ago — was packed to capacity with four tiers of produce, and there was still more unharvested at the far end.
He kept back a selection of iridium-quality vegetables for household use and gifts.
Everything else went into the shipping box.
The math at the end of the session: halfway through Level 6, field reduced to the perennial crops — blueberries and hops, both of which would carry him to Level 7 before autumn arrived.
With Akane and the others running mining expeditions more frequently, coal had become less of a bottleneck. He took the opportunity to install three additional preserve jars in the kitchen — useful for turning fruit into jam, vegetables into pickles, sturgeon roe into caviar. The markup was respectable, but the three-to-four-day processing time made bulk production impractical compared to the fishing income Tatsumaki and Hestia were pulling in without apparent effort.
He set the jars running and moved on.
"Strange..." He paused at the edge of the field, looking back. "I'm certain Marisa did something to these crops. But the harvest looked completely normal. Am I imagining it?"
He thought about it for approximately four seconds and then decided it wasn't worth the investigation. He knew she'd interfered with something. If it became a problem, he'd know exactly whose door to knock on.
He packed a selection of vegetables and a box under his arm and headed for Moriya Shrine.
Pelican Town ran on summer time — heat, long days, the particular lazy weight of a season that encouraged sitting still.
Gensokyo, on the other side of the boundary, was enjoying spring.
The path up Youkai Mountain was pleasant in the way that paths through places with their own opinions about weather tend to be. By the time the stone steps of Moriya Shrine came into view, Sanae was already waiting — standing under the red torii with her long green hair moving in the breeze, hands folded, smile in place.
"Welcome to Moriya Shrine, Kihara."
"I've got the thing I promised." He reached into the dimensional pouch. "You ready?"
Her breath caught. "Don't tell me—"
"Gunpla." He produced the box. The illustration on the packaging was extremely cool.
"Yes!!"
Even with her most wanted item materializing in front of her, Sanae maintained the composure that separated a proper shrine maiden from certain alternatives he could name. She pressed both hands to her abdomen, inclined her head, and kept her voice at a level appropriate for sacred grounds. "The shrine's not quite the right place for this conversation. My room — tea and snacks while we talk?"
"Works for me."
He followed her down the inner corridor, internally cataloguing the gap between Sanae's composed professionalism and certain other shrine maiden conduct he had personally witnessed. If Yukari had offered him Sanae as a match from the beginning, he reflected, he'd probably be building Gunpla with her until midnight every night by now, surrounded by kids.
Same shrine maiden uniform. Completely different energy. One type left you wondering if there was anything in the pantry. The other type had the pantry and also a system for organizing it.
The difference between character types, he thought philosophically, is vast and humbling.
Sanae's personal room was spartan by any measure.
Futon packed away in the closet. A single round table in dark wood at the center. Nothing else. No decoration, no clutter, no accumulated material evidence of a life being lived in this space.
"Is the shrine... financially comfortable? Your room has essentially no furniture."
"Money isn't the problem. Almost nothing I actually want is available to buy in Gensokyo." She sat down across from him, perfectly straight. "And I've never liked having too many things around me. It just stayed this way."
The things she wants was obviously Tokusatsu merchandise. He nodded, understanding completely, and placed the box on the table.
She opened her mouth to thank him.
He put another box on top of the first.
Her hand came up to cover her mouth.
He kept going.
Box after box emerged from the dimensional pouch, stacking with the methodical patience of someone who had done their research and taken it seriously. The tower grew. It stopped at twelve.
"These are the rarest models I could find in the other world," he said. "Limited by what was actually available, so I hope twelve is enough."
"How could twelve possibly not be enough!!"
The internal battle playing out behind Sanae's eyes was visible in real time — every instinct she had telling her to rip open the first box immediately warring with the six years of shrine maiden discipline that knew that was not how this worked. She breathed. Counted. Breathed again.
"Let me get the tea." She rose. "Don't go anywhere."
"I'll be here."
He sat.
In his peripheral vision, something appeared at the sliding door — specifically, the brim of a hat with frog eyes on it, peering through the gap with the careful caution of someone deciding whether to commit to an entrance.
Kihara turned his head. "Moriya-no-kami. Good afternoon."
A pause from behind the door.
"You can see me directly." Suwako Moriya stepped inside with the unself-conscious ease of someone to whom doors were more of a suggestion than an architectural feature. The frog eyes on her hat blinked. She walked a slow circle around him, nodding to herself at whatever she was evaluating, then gave his shoulder two firm pats. "Suwako is fine."
"Calling a deity by name — I'm worried about my crops."
This was not a joke. Suwako Moriya controlled the land. If she decided to express displeasure with Pelican Town's agricultural output, she had the capability. The outcome would be personal.
Something lit in her expression — not offense, but genuine interest. "You know my abilities. You're respectful without being afraid." She tilted her head. "You're a peculiar human."
"I'm a farmer. The land feeds me. Respecting the relevant deity is self-interest with good values."
The frog eyes curved with delight. She snapped her fingers — and the room changed around him, Moriya Shrine's interior sliding past like a shuffled card, delivering him to a different room entirely. She extended one hand, palm up, with the directness of someone who did not waste time on preamble.
"That divine sake from the watermelon — any left? Hand it over."
"Two jars remaining. Please be conservative."
"Good. You understand things." She settled cross-legged on the floor and cracked the first jar with the reverence of someone communing with something sacred.
Sanae returned to her room with a full tray.
Set it down.
Looked at the empty space where Kihara had been sitting.
Looked at Kanako Yasaka, the other divine pillar of Moriya Shrine, who was cross-legged on the floor with the first Gunpla box open in her lap and packing material around her like a nest.
"Kanako-sama. What are you doing."
"Ah, Sanae! Kihara had something urgent come up — he had to go. Come sit, we can build this together—"
"Urgently."
"Hmm?"
"He left very urgently."
"Well—"
"The first box." Sanae's cheeks had puffed out with a feeling that was difficult to categorize but very easy to feel. "I was going to open the first box with him."
"Ahaha, don't worry about small things! Next time he visits—" Kanako waved a hand cheerfully "—I'm sure he'll bring something even better!"
Sanae sat down. Accepted this. Began separating parts with the focused calm of someone who had decided not to pursue the conversation further, because the conversation was not going to give her what she wanted.
She would bring it up with Kihara.
Directly.
Next time.
The next morning, Sanae opened her eyes.
Unfamiliar ceiling.
Kihara beside her, without his shirt.
She stared at the ceiling for a long moment, conducting an internal review of the previous evening's events.
The review was not immediately helpful.
....
Thank you for reading.