Nazrin marched out of the library and right down the hallway I was to avoid. I called for her to wait, and she tapped her foot in irritation until she saw me hobbling around the long way. Then she backtracked to keep up.

“Hurry up,” she said. “If we take too long, the compulsion will end before I find your hat.”

“That… is an oddly meta way of helping me,” I said as we went through the mansion.

“I do want to help you,” she said. “Better enjoy it while it lasts.”

It was kind of horrifying if you thought about it; she was acknowledging the compulsion and trying to use it to her advantage in carrying it out. Would she go so far as to try to prolong her own brainwashing? Would she betray her original motivations and desires? Maybe the human resistance could acquire new ‘allies’ by compelling the right youkai to help us, long-term–or maybe the rebellious youkai could be quelled in the most obvious way, once I thought about it.

“Humans are immune to additional compulsions while compelled. Is the same true for youkai?”

“Are you contemplating making me your permanent slave?” asked Nazrin. Her ears twitched. “Youkai are also immune to secondary compulsions. And it takes a lot to compel us, even the second time.”

“Of course,” I said. When the compulsion ended, it would be just as difficult to convince the youkai as the first time.

“Beyond that, I’m just helping you with your hat, so don’t get any ideas.” The suggestion that I shouldn't have ideas made me want to come up with ideas.

“What if you told me when the compulsion was about to end and, I don’t know, I tied you up so that I’d have an easier time reapplying it?” She gave me a look that I probably deserved.

“I’m not your ally or your slave. I want to help you find your hat. So if you go to tie me up, I’ll call for my army of mice and they’ll free me.” She shuddered. “Then we’ll find your hat, and I’ll have them bite you until you say you are sorry, or you die.”

“Noted,” I said. “But wouldn’t allowing me to tie you up make it even more likely that we find my hat? Because I’d have your assistance for as long as I needed it?”

“Maybe, but I’m not willing to go that far,” she said. “I want to help a little, and less every second. Also, you are way creepier than I thought at first.”

“Sorry,” I said as we walked out the main gate. Hong Meiling and a few martial artists waved, so I waved back. “This is an intellectual exercise more than anything. I wouldn’t tie you up without your consent.”

“If you say so.”

“The problem is that you aren’t aligned,” I said. “Not exactly. If killing me would somehow find my hat immediately, would you do it?”

“Uh, no,” she said. “In case you didn’t notice, I’m one of the nicest youkai. I’m not going to randomly kill you!”

“That’s because you fear Yukari’s wrath?”

“It’s because I’m a decent person!” She kicked a rock. “And unlike most youkai, I can subsist on human food, so I don’t have to even pretend to be so horrific.”

“Wait, what?” I asked. I tried to pull out my notebook and walk on my crutch simultaneously. It went about as well as you’d expect. “How did you manage that?”

“I’m a mouse,” she said. “Figure it out!” Then she stormed off ahead of me.

Nazrin was still helping me find my hat, but she could have been more helpful about it.

–

“The duration of human compulsion versus youkai compulsion is one of the few advantages humans have over youkai,” I said as we walked through the woods. I avoided stepping on a mushroom. That was an easy way to get cursed.

“And their ability to talk for hours on end,” said Nazrin.

“We’ve been walking for like ninety minutes, tops.” I checked the position of the sun. “I admit it’s taking longer than I expected.”

“Me, too,” she said. “I wish you were less compelling, even if I can’t imagine how that would be possible.”

We’d walked all the way through the human village and to the south, which was outside of my original search range by quite a lot. Someone in dark clothes was approaching from up ahead.

“Sasha!” I called out. She walked over to meet us. The floating purple crystal was still doggedly following her.

“What are you doing out here, cripple?” asked my roommate. The insult didn’t carry as much weight as you might expect, thanks to advances in prosthetics. Instead of meaning you were physically disabled, it meant you were poor, which was much more common and therefore much less insulting.

“Looking for my hat.”

“Have fun with that,” she said with a huff. Sasha was sweating. “I’m going to go enjoy our new couch.”

“It’s a bench.”

“I’ll enjoy it by laying in bed and imagining how much less comfortable it is,” she added. Sasha lifted a few inches into the air. She practiced flying as much as I did. As she went to pass us, Nazrin’s rods swung around to the outside.

“What does that mean?” I asked. The mouse youkai turned to face Sasha. “Sasha, do you have my hat?”

“Not unless you shrunk it down when I wasn’t looking and seasoned a potato with it.” She was right; the brim was far too wide for her to hide it on her person.

“It means we’ve been going the wrong way,” said the mouse youkai as she repositioned. “Good news, though; we haven’t overshot by much. I’d say we are quite close, now.” As she backtracked she automatically avoided a ring of mushrooms–a fairy ring–in the middle of the road.

“I’m pretty sure that wasn’t there before,” I said. I looked around.

To the left I saw a group of purple toadstools. To the right was Sasha, and Nazrin, and a shelf of fungus on an immense tree that definitely hadn’t been there before. It was almost twice as tall as the other trees of the forest.

Ahead there was a washing-machine-sized red mushroom with white spots, next to a much more eerie white mushroom with red spots. I saw a fairy disappear behind a tree, one that looked like it was made of lightning.

“The forest of magic,” said Sasha, deadpan.

“Don’t touch anything,” said Nazrin as the three of us walked into an increasingly fungal forest. The path unceremoniously ended ten feet in front of us. “Most of it is toxic. To you.”

Toxic is more about the dose than the substance, in most cases. Patchouli’s voice was coming in through the crystal. Sasha didn’t seem willing to relay my comment, so I’m telling everyone individually.

“I’m too tired for this shit,” said my roommate.

She had been searching for the forest of magic, a place you supposedly couldn’t find unless you weren’t trying to find it. Of course she found it while exhausted from battle while trying to go home and rest.

The trees grew in size as we went, until the branches far above threw everything into shadow. I was right behind Nazrin, touching nothing, not even the trees. Sasha trudged along behind me. She perked up a bit once we got into the thick of it.

A fairy attacked. It was a sprite, translucent and made of green and blue sparks–unlike any of the fairies I’d seen before. I used danmaku to repel it. The battle was short, which was good, because I was supremely unsettled by the flying humanoid shape like a nervous system made of lightning.

The concentration of magic here is greater, came Patchouli’s voice, answering my unasked question. It allows for varied forms.

“An oasis,” I said. The other two ignored me; they either thought I’d touched a mushroom and was hallucinating, or they’d figured out that Patchouli was talking to me. She’d stopped relaying to them at their request.

Perhaps. More like a freshwater lake on an island in a briny ocean.

“So any lake in Japan, then.”

Another youkai attacked. This time it was a walking mushroom. It let out the most pitiful danmaku I’d seen since the end of our lessons, a smattering of brown and green that looked like slow floating golf balls. After just a few shots it squelched off in a different direction, having been compelled to leave us alone.

“The youkai here are friendly,” I said.

“That’s because the feeding frenzy hasn’t started,” said Nazrin, at just about the same time as Patchouli corrected me. They explained that most people and youkai wouldn’t be on foot. We were easy targets. “Let’s hurry.”

We trudged through the forest twice as fast. Eventually, we came upon a house in a small clearing, one that the youkai avoided for whatever reason.

–

Marisa Kirisame’s house needed something, but I couldn’t tell you what it was. The wooden beams holding up the roof were thick trunks, hand-carved and as pristine as the day they were cut down. The walls were stuccoed white, as clear as a whiteboard after the janitor had been by. The house itself was simultaneously two stories tall and squat like a mushroom, as though it stretched out whenever you weren’t looking at it.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

I saw a tube extending from a bulbous projection at the roof–an observatory. Beautiful flowers of unknown species spilled over planters at every window. A cheerful mat at the door bid us Welcome and the whole place looked like a fairytale idea of a cottage in the woods.

Despite its friendly exterior and perfect cleanliness, the witch’s hut gave the impression that it was about to fall down at any second, like the structure had been frozen in time mid-fall. I absolutely did not want to approach it, for the same reason I wouldn’t step into the middle of a busy road even if there happened to be a gap in traffic. That might have been because Marisa herself had a reputation more like a bulldozer than a bicycle.

We hid in some bushes at the edge of the clearing, in the shadow of a large tree.

“It’s in there,” said Nazrin. Her tail swished through the air. “Definitely.”

“Okay,” said Sasha. “I don’t think we should go in there.”

“But my hat!” I said. I might never get another chance to get it back before it stopped being a part of me. “Patchouli, is Miss Kirisame home?”

What makes you think I’d know?

“You have telepathy.” Also, in the fandom at least, the magicians were dating.

Patchouli Knowledge hadn’t mentioned Marisa much in the time we’d worked together. On the other hand, she was a very private witch. For all I knew they were married. The thought made me snort.

It only works on people I can see, came the clarification from the crystal. I can tell Miss Kirisame why you are here if you do encounter her, for what it’s worth.

“We could tell her ourselves.”

Telepathy makes it more likely there’ll be conversation before the battle.

“Oh,” I said.

“And the compulsion just ended,” said Nazrin. She stood up and stretched, a smile on her face at a job well done. “Hey, Sasha. I’ve got a deal for you.”

“What’s that?”

“I’ll guide you home safely, for a potato.”

“Deal,” said my roommate. They shook on it. The mouse youkai strode off into the woods.

My roommate did not. Nazrin turned back around. She looked at Sasha, who had her arms crossed. Then she looked at me.

“Fine,” she said. “I’ll wait. I’m not going in there, though!”

“It’s full of treasure,” said Sasha, relaying a well-known fact from the lore.

“And it stays that way somehow,” said the mouse. “Do you think Wiki will give me a potato if I bring back your charred remains?”

“He’d give you one because you asked,” I said. Now that the compulsion had ended, I was starting to feel salty about her recalcitrance again. “Even with a food shortage.”

“A gift incurs a debt,” said the youkai. “I don’t want to owe him any favors.”

“Patchouli, am I going to die if I knock on her door?” I asked, ignoring Nazrin.

Kirisame Marisa has never revealed any of her defensive measures to me, said the librarian. Nevertheless, I suspect they are non-lethal.

“How, uh, strong is your suspicion?”

She never comes to me with accidental injuries, and I know that she doesn’t keep her possessions organized. I cannot imagine her setting a trap and failing to trigger it herself within a week.

“Well, let’s try the obvious before anything else,” I said as I walked up to the house.

Sasha and Nazrin stayed behind in the shadows, but the crystal came with me. I knocked on the door. No answer came. I knocked a bit louder. Still nothing. I scratched my head. My scalp was tingling in the afternoon light.

“Maybe she’s not home?”

She has been assigned to guard duty a lot, recently.

I almost turned around and left. I could always come back later, I thought… except I really couldn’t. Without Nazrin’s help I might never see this place again. My hat, which the witch had obviously found in the woods and taken home, was just a few feet away.

“Is going in this house a horrible foolishness that will end in my demise?” I asked aloud.

Hallways notwithstanding, most places in Gensokyo aren’t trapped, said the librarian through the crystal. I’ll tell you what. If Marisa tries to kill you, I’ll come to your aid.

“You’re really on board for this mission.”

I’m tired of your moaning about missing your hat. And Marisa doesn’t kill people, because she’s human.

I sighed and grabbed the doorknob. It wasn’t locked, so I opened the door. It swung out rather than in.

You are a little braver than I gave you credit for, came Patchouli’s voice. It sounded grudgingly respectful, approving, and even a little awestruck. Yeah–I was brave, even if I was the one who got to decide how voices sounded in my head.

“Hello?” I called out, my voice wavering. “Is anybody home?”

The interior of the house was a mess. That’s underselling it a bit; it wasn’t that there was a lot of stuff, it was that there wasn’t a lot of airspace. It was full to the brim. Like a landfill.

Every inch of space was piled high with cardboard boxes, plastic containers, harvested mushrooms, garbage, accidental mushrooms, and books of all descriptions. There were children’s toys and knick-knacks, including a garden gnome in a dress and a videogame system hanging precariously on a flatscreen TV leaning against an identical flatscreen TV. Puzzle boxes were stacked inside an empty automatic litter box, itself balanced on a stack of wooden crates all labeled ‘junk’. There was so much stuff that I couldn’t tell if the floor was carpeted or wooden. It was piled to the ceiling in the corners, a meniscus of possessions that scraped the top of every wall.

I had hoped my hat would be on top of the pile, but it was nowhere in sight. I almost closed the door and gave up. Then I noticed something.

Some of the objects were moving.

In front of me stacks of material were lifting into the air and setting themselves down elsewhere, as though a silent leaf blower were displacing the junk. Except, it wasn’t as violent as that–I watched a glass egg gently land on an empty Mountain Dew can, perfectly balanced on a novelty lamp. The mysterious force was more like a horde of careful poltergeists.

There was a gap in all the junk and it was slowly approaching. I wondered if Marisa herself was coming to the door as fast as she could. But when the gap arrived it wasn’t the errant witch, or even a person.

Instead it was a roomba. Presumably one that had died in the Outside World and been sent to the roomba version of Hell. The threshold was clear for a moment when it arrived.

I put my foot down so that it wouldn’t get out of the door. The floor was wood, after all, and at least it was free of dust and hair.

I cannot deny the machine’s effectiveness, said Patchouli in my mind. The two square meters around it are very clean indeed. As she spoke the roomba slowly, jerkingly turned around on the threshold. Material lifted off behind it and reorganized with every faltering motion. I made a snap decision.

I followed the device as it went deeper into the witch’s house.

–

Standing in a silent tornado of useless junk was terrifying, disorienting, and ineffective for searching. At first I ducked as I walked, but I quickly learned that the flying items wouldn’t impact either me or the crystal. The piles of items were reminding me of something.

“Miss Kirisame grew up with Rinnosuke, right?” I asked.

Accurate, if irrelevant.

“I wonder if he gives her the overstock?”

We rounded a corner on the ground floor and went into the kitchen. It had two refrigerators, a mini fridge, a detached dishwasher, a built-in dishwasher, lots of dishes in various states of decomposition, an oven, a range, a stove, a microwave oven, a toaster oven, an air fryer, and about three hundred pots and pans. There was enough metal and compressors to build a racecar.

“She has electricity,” I said.

We don’t know that.

As we crawled past the refrigerators their doors flew open and the contents were shuffled. An apple that didn’t look like it was supposed to be green landed in one of three overflowing trash cans, but most of the stuff was put back, just in a different spot. You’d never be able to find the cream cheese.

“This is security through obscurity!” I said suddenly, and somewhat loudly. “You might want to steal something, but good luck finding it!”

Nazrin could find it.

“She’d have to come out of the woods, first.”

We continued the slow tour of the house. I spotted a 3-d printer and several reels in a corner full of tables. It would appear that Marisa Kirisame had unsuccessfully tried to print dozens of mushrooms, but Patchouli suggested the witch was turning them into real mushrooms after printing them. Only the failures remained.

Then we went back into the kitchen for a bit.

The third time we passed a bookshelf covered in binders full of Pokemon cards (official cards, rather than the rebranded Touhou ones we earned during festivals) I got impatient.

“I’m going to reposition it.”

There is a chance that the spell fails and you get covered in garbage, said Patchouli. I hoped I was imagining the amusement.

“Yeah, but at this rate I’ll never find my hat.” The constant repositioning of all objects meant that it could be anywhere. I’d also spotted a well-covered staircase. I hoped the roomba couldn’t fly or sprout legs.

I’m told that it’s on a statue on the other side of the room.

“Told?”

I ordered a gaggle of demons to help interpret the image. I’m getting nauseated. Now if you’ll excuse me–herk–

The voice cut out, and I felt really bad for dragging Patchouli’s attention into this. I looked for a statue. Sure enough, there was a marble bust on the top of a cabinet, with a familiar straw hat on top of it, alongside a dozen other wide-brimmed hats. The nearby cabinet was covered in them.

My goal was in sight. All I had to do was grab it and get out.

I gently rotated the roomba so that it started trundling in the right direction. When we got close enough that I thought I could reach it, I pulled out my pen and high centered the little robotic cleaner.

“Sorry, buddy, it’s just for a minute.”

The machine wasn’t advanced enough to talk, but I was taking no chances. This might be the manifestation of the true ideal of a roomba, which would explain the magical powers, and if it was it might turn into a fairy or something at any moment. I didn’t want to have a battle. Danmaku was out of the question, because there wasn’t room inside the house to dodge.

After a moment the tornado of moving items settled down entirely. I heard a gentle ringing sound as an ancient rotary phone landed on a five gallon tub of paint, itself holding down what looked like a complete socket set.

I went to grab my hat. The bust turned away, evading me.

“I knew it couldn’t be so simple,” I told nobody in particular.

I swiped again, and it dodged. I took a step forward and it lifted into the air, settling precariously on an unused exercise bike right behind me.

“Are you trying to say something about my habits?” I lunged and tripped over the roomba. I overbalanced and finally fell into a pile of debris.

Or I would have, if the junk didn’t all magically reposition itself before I could get there.

I landed hard on the floor. In one whirling second, I was surrounded by a Jake-shaped outline of towering stuff. I rolled over and stared at a suspiciously-clean ceiling and wondered if there was an antigravity roomba dedicated to it as well.

The floor roomba was dislodged. It crawled away. I lost track of my pen in the process.

When I sat up, tons of eager junk leapt to fill the space I’d vacated. I got to my feet and took a step toward the bust. Everything, even the exercise bike, hastened to get out of my way. My hat landed on a hook on the wall and avoided me like everything else.

“So it just does that for anyone,” I told the crystal. “Multiple layers of security.”

“Yep,” said Kirisame Marisa from the base of the stairs, making me yelp.

The magician was wearing gray and white pajamas. She wore an eye cover up over her messy blonde hair. It was a clashing pink. This wasn’t her usual outfit. She yawned.

“I put that spell down ages ago, but I usually just fly over all that stuff anyway..”

“Oh. That makes sense.” The magician hadn’t bothered getting dressed, but I noticed the Mini-Hakkero in her hands. It was an octagonal block of wood, a magical furnace ‘capable of reducing a mountain to ash’ according to Rinnosuke, the man who had given it to her. “You know it’s like five in the afternoon?”

“I work nights now,” said the witch. Whoops. “Who the heck are ‘ya, again?” she asked as she pointed the Mini-Hakkero at me.