Whelp, after that last snip I'm all for letting things get silly all over again. Let's see what Renko had been up while everyone was preoccupied shall we?
-=-
- 1.1
-=-
With Meiling having vanished off to parts unknown and Patchouli busying herself with research, Reimu saw little point in lingering. As she had no idea where to even begin with talking to Meiling and she has zero research whatsoever, Reimu decided the most productive thing she could do given the circumstances was to head back upstairs and get changed into something more dignified than the pink polka-dot pajamas she was wearing.
Indeed, she hadn't been the only one who had taken her leave. While Remilia had decided to remain in the library, obstinately to conduct her own research into 'a personal problem', Sakuya had disappeared via the magic of time stop shortly after declaring she needed to get back to her chores. With both of the other investigators pretty much calling off the hunt for now, Reimu followed suit.
Besides, she probably could grab breakfast while she was at it. Free food was free food, and Reimu would be damned if she had to weather this miniature incident on an empty stomach.
Taking to the air with full intent on getting her morning routine sorted out before the day got any crazier, Reimu had been halfway to the exit when she saw a panicked Koakuma making a beeline towards her. "Oh, what now?"
"Reimu! Reimu, I need your help!" Koa pleaded as she flew up to Reimu, completely flustered, "Ms. Usami's gone missing again and I can't find her! Help!"
"Wait, what? Renko's missing?" Reimu felt a headache coming on. As if Meiling's newfound daughter wasn't a big enough problem to deal with! "How could you let her go missing? And what do you mean 'again'?"
"I keep losing her! She's running all over the library and I can't keep track of her!" Koakuma wailed, "This is terrible. I'm supposed to be the one showing her about, and I've lost her three times just this night alone. Master Patchouli is going to be so mad with me for letting someone go about in the library unsupervised! I have to find her!"
Reimu lowered her head into her hands and groaned.
Oh now this was a problem. Scarlet Devil Mansion was not the kind of place that anyone should be allowed to run around unsupervised at all. While it was perfectly safe for Reimu because of her reputation and power, Renko had no such protection. Any number of horrible things could befall an unwary guest, and soon Reimu's mind was awash with the many possibilities of what could happen to her charge.
Pranked by fairy maids so badly she was scarred for life. Accidentally stumbling into a magic trap for intruders and getting hurt. Wandering out of the library, going into the wrong basement and meeting Flandre…
Reimu paled.
"Forget breakfast! We have to find her, now!"
-=-
"Wait, you've lost her three times just this one night? Didn't she back upstairs to sleep?" Reimu said as she and Koakuma flew together, watching the rows of bookshelves below them in hopes of locating the wayward tourist. "Didn't she get tired at all?"
"No, she wasn't. She was running all over the place. In fact
I couldn't keep up with her!" Koakuma admitted, "You should have seen it, Reimu. She was practically bouncing off the bookshelves. I've never seen a human with so much energy, and I know Marisa!"
Well, that explained why Reimu didn't see Renko anywhere this morning. Oh, she should have seen this coming a mile away. Trust Yukari to have a friend who is about as energetic as she is sleepy!
Just then, Reimu spied something in the corner of her eye that caused her to do a double take.
"Koa, Koa look over there!"
Reimu pointed at the sight with one hand, wondering if her eyes were deceiving her. Koakuma turned to see what had caught Reimu's attention, and found herself likewise stunned by what she was seeing. The pair was so astonished they stopped in mid-air, just hovering there as they tried to absorb what they were seeing.
Walking across one of the Voile's many bridges while reading an open book was Renko Usami, their missing tourist. Behind Renko was a small procession of five fairy maids, following after the woman like a row of ducklings waddling after their mother. The arms of each fairy maid was occupied with holding a tall stack of books that was about as tall as they were, resulting in quite a strange sight.
One human woman, who wasn't looking where she was going because her face was in a book, was leading around a bunch of fairy maids who were carrying stuff for her.
"Did she have this before she went missing?" Reimu asked dumbly.
"No," Koakuma replied. "And I only lost track of her for about half an hour."
"How's that happen?" Reimu said to herself.
"No idea," Koakuma agreed, "You think we should go over there and ask her?"
"Yeah, I think that sounds like a good idea."
-=-
"Reimu! Nice to see you up and about so early in the morning," Renko greeted happily as Reimu and Koakuma landed next to the odd group. "Nice polka dots by the way."
"Renko, what the hell is this?" Reimu waved an arm at the line of fairies that Renko had somehow picked up in the short time Koakuma had lost track of her.
"Oh, this? These are my little helpers." Renko turned to regard the five fairy maids with a beatific grin, "Right ladies?"
"Please… Help us…" The one at the front of the row said, her childlike legs shaking and buckling under the strain of holding the small tower of books in her arms.
"Miss Koakuma, help!" The one behind her pleaded, "Please, you've always been kind to us!"
"We didn't do anything to deserve this!" Another declared, and was promptly proven to be a bald faced liar by the next one to speak.
"We'll never try skipping work by hiding in the library again! Get us away from this monster! She's worse than the head maid!"
"Oh, put a sock in it you guys. You're the five yahoos who tried jumping me so I wouldn't blab on you to your boss. Since I beat you lot fair and square, you guys have to carry books for me," Renko said without a shred of pity or remorse. "Geez, kids these days are so damn lazy."
"Wait, wait, wait, you beat them?" Reimu stared at her charge, wondering how she had achieved this victory. As 'weak' as fairy maids were, they nevertheless were a danger to normal humans who had no means to defend themselves. Yet it seemed like Renko had defeated them.
Reimu had her suspicions that Renko had powers as well, so perhaps now…
"Well to be honest it wasn't much of a fight. They rushed me, and I dropped a bookshelf on them. No biggie." Renko said as if it was the most natural thing in the world.
"
What?" Reimu and Koakuma exclaimed.
"Well if you want the specifics… I found them by accident, they threatened me, I provoked them into rushing at me and when they did I shot the bookshelf next to me with a concussive bullet and all the books came down on them. Like I said, no biggie." Renko shrugged with a grin, quickly whipping out her revolver and showing it to Reimu, "See, I told you I needed this for self-defence!"
"So many books… there were so many books…" One of fairies involuntary shuddered at the memory.
"Hard covers are so hard." Another agreed.
"My head still hurts!"
"Eh, actually make that several bookshelves… okay, make that the entire aisle. Yeah, bit of a mess, but I'm sure you guys can fix that in no time. The hardest part was actually trying to get out of the way so I wouldn't be hit with the books myself," Renko nodded with satisfaction as she slid her firearm back into her holster, "Blackmailed them with leaving them buried under there if they didn't help me out… and whelp, here we are."
Reimu and Koakuma stared at Renko with open mouths as they processed her wild tale. There were so many things wrong with that story that Reimu had no idea where to even begin!
"You dropped a bookshelf on them."
"Am aisle's worth of books to be exact. The bookshelves are still upright though."
"We didn't hear anything! If it's as big an explosion as you say, why didn't anyone hear anything?"
"Hey, magic library. This whole place has silencing charms everywhere to keep the noise level down. Ask the demon." Renko shrugged. Unfortunately, Koakuma wasn't about to answer Reimu's questions. The succubus had other things in mind.
"Master Patchouli is not going to like that," Koakuma whispered in horror, her eyes glazing over as she envisioned the scale of the mess that Renko had left in her wake, "All those books on the floor… oh, when Master finds out she is
going to be so angry!"
"Look if this is about the mess, you don't have to worry. I had the fairies put all the books back on the shelves. All good." Instead of calming down Koakuma, Renko's reassurances had the exact opposite effect. The little devil went pale as a ghost.
"The indexing. The organisation… oh no…" Koakuma managed out before her eyes rolled up and she fell over in a dead faint.
"Renko. I think it's time we left the library. Like right now." Reimu said sternly as she set a hand down on Renko's shoulder.
"Hey, I still have reading I want to do!" Renko protested.
"No." Reimu said, seizing Renko by the arm and dragging the other girl by the arm towards the exit, the line of fairy maids still in tow.
Koakuma was right. When Patchouli discovered what had happened to her precious library, she was going to be very
displeased with her visitor. Forget about revocation of visitation rights, Patchouli was probably going to slam the doors and ban her for life!
"We are going upstairs. We are having breakfast. We are going to go see something else. Right now.
You do not get a choice in this matter."
"But-"
"
Not another word out of you."
"This is SO going on my client feedback form." Renko complained.
Best to get Renko out of the library until she could blame it all on the fairy maids and smooth things over with the librarian… if that was even possible.
Yeah, no way in hell was Reimu letting this maniac out of her sight!
…wait, what the heck was a concussive bullet anyway?
-=-
A/N – Hm, not quite as good as I had originally planned. I'll have to think about this one for a bit.
Anyway, I'm thinking about having a few omakes where Twilight!Renko and Yukari actually DO get around to trolling their younger selves… endless potential for humour there.
Anyway, that's it for me tonight. Hope everyone enjoyed it. By the way, one last thing…
There's a surprising amount of sealing club material out there. Not as much as the characters in Gensokyo proper, but Merry and Renko do have their share of fans. Thanks for reading!
No way in all the levels of hell.
