When I told Wiki about how Maribel could apparently repel the most powerful youkai in Gensokyo, his thoughts were just like mine. Maybe Maribel really was Yukari after all.

We discussed it in the dorm together. Arnold, Wiki and I were sitting and chatting. Sasha had gone out to do some work. She was extraordinarily motivated among humans to be doing so while we were all slowly starving.

Arnold was frying up one of Emeff’s eggs. The chicken was producing fewer in the winter, or perhaps even chickens were feeling the effects of the food shortage. I realized I had no idea where her food came from. Wiki was talking about how suspicious it was that Maribel located the protein bars that were the answer to Human Town’s prayers.

“It makes sense that Yukari might leave a piece of herself behind as a last-minute workaround to her inability to direct things,” said Wiki, rubbing his chin. “Having that piece claim to be human is strange, though. Perhaps her mind is split in two.”

“So you suspect Maribel has, oh, what’s it called.” Arnold scraped the pan. “Dissociative identity disorder?”

“Not at all,” said Wiki.

“Then how could she secretly be ‘a piece’ of the most powerful youkai?”

“Maribel isn’t Yukari–yet,” he said, balancing two markers on his fingertips. “Time travel is a common theory among the fans. The difference between past and future is just another boundary that Miss Yakumo could manipulate, after all, so maybe Yukari is from the future.” He dropped a marker. “The present, I mean.”

“Time travel is impossible,” I said.

“Perhaps you failed to notice that we are in the land of fantasy?” said Wiki, his eyebrow raised. “We have no idea if time travel is possible.” I frowned at him.

I couldn’t tell Wiki that Patchouli had taught me about time magic–even her limited lessons were controlled information. There were many ways that one could manipulate time, but straight up reversing it for everyone supposedly wasn’t one of them. The librarian had stated as much with the certainty of a physicist discussing entropy. She’d also told me that she’d been trying to figure out a way to go back in time for decades anyway, because it would be so powerful.

I couldn’t tell Wiki any of this.

Wiki met my eyes and something passed between us. He seemed to realize that I had good reasons for my belief, beyond those I’d had in the Outside World, and he didn’t immediately ask for me to explain. Maybe after the scare with the tengu he’d learned some discretion.

“Well,” he said. “If Maribel can repel powerful youkai, we should try to cautiously investigate the phenomenon.”

“How are we going to do that, Wiki?” asked Arnold as he cut an egg into thirds.

“The same way we investigate every phenomenon involving youkai,” replied Wiki.

–

“So I might become a goddess or something,” said Maribel.

Arnold and I had gone to ask her directly. It was the most obvious way of seeking information–ask someone who’d know. She was holding a broom as she swept the tiles outside the Hakurei Shrine. I might be worried for her safety outside Human Town, if she hadn’t repelled Yuuka and if Reimu Hakurei weren’t lazing about nearby, observing her assistants’ work.

“More or less,” I told Maribel. Wiki hadn’t come with us–outside Human Town was too much danger for him–so I’d been the one to explain. “One theory is that Yuuka hesitated because attacking the past self of such a powerful being would be dangerous."

Wiki and I had debated it for a bit. ‘While she’s a human’ would be a convenient time to defeat Yukari, true–but when a side effect could be Gensokyo never existing, caution is warranted. Yuuka was anything but reckless. Cruel, indifferent, maybe even impulsive–but not reckless.

Arnold had argued that it was an instinctual retreat, not a reasoned one, and that next time she might very well attack.

“If you are destined to become Yukari, it would explain a lot of things,” I said.

“Careful with your blasphemy,” said Hakurei Reimu. The shrine maiden was lazing about, but she wasn’t entirely idle. She was painting talismans. Reimu seemed to wait two or three minutes between each, as though appreciating her handiwork was a job of its own. “Not that Yukari cares if you spread rumors, but Maribel doesn’t need that kind of attention.”

“So you think it’s possible?” I asked.

“Of course not. If Maribel was Yukari, Yukari would have left two dozen cryptic prophetical hints to mislead us about it, and you two would be asking about Renko instead.” Reimu turned her latest talisman upside down as she looked at it, then put it on the pile that way.

“Leave me out of this,” said Renko, who also had a broom. “It sounds dangerous.”

“I’m surprised to see you outside the village,” I told her.

“I’m here to be with the strongest danmaku user,” said Renko, glancing at Reimu.

I smiled. I’d had similar thoughts when I first came to Gensokyo. Hakurei Reimu’s vicinity was even safer than Human Town, and even if Renko’s power had nothing to do with boundaries, she could see how flimsy tradition was in that respect.

“Where were you earlier, by the way?” Arnold asked Reimu.

“Hmm?”

“During the attack?” Renko and I gave him a look. One did not talk to the most important human in Gensokyo without deference. Except, Reimu didn’t seem to care one bit.

“I was on patrol,” said the miko. “Repelling other attacks on the town.”

“There was a simultaneous attack on Human Town?” I asked. Wiki had speculated that one attack might be a distraction for another. It was a strategy that the youkai rebellion had used before, to great success; if both targets were important, either distraction was effective. But we hadn’t heard of anything like that.

“Yeah,” said Reimu.

“Which youkai?” I asked.

“Oh… whatsername…” Reimu made a stabbing motion with her fingers. She was talking about Trident, the youkai we could not identify. “I beat her, though, and sent her packing.”

“You didn’t ask for her identity?” I asked.

“No, I did,” she said. “I just forgot what it was. Hold on a second, I wrote it down.” She showed me a piece of paper and I couldn’t understand what it said, translation spell or not. “Anyway, the point is that I’m very busy, so deal with it.”

I nodded. “Your priorities are in line, if you protected Human Town.”

“You know, you could always ask the Human Council to allocate more funds to youkai extermination,” said Reimu.

“You never exterminate youkai,” I said. She hadn’t even done so to Trident. Reimu had Batman’s criminal justice philosophy. You could really see its effectiveness in the slow but steady population decline.

I checked myself mentally. We didn’t know whether people were leaving town of their own accord, and it would make some sense if they were: there wasn’t enough food. If Reimu murdered rebellious youkai outright it might not help anything, and it might make things worse.

“That’s why they’re always happy for me to defeat them,” said Reimu.

“I’d kill Trident at least,” said Arnold. It was hard to imagine him killing anyone, despite his axe.

“I’ll tell you what, you solve two dozen incidents and then you can get back to me about strategy.”

“Thank you for protecting Human Town, Lady Reimu,” I said with a bow. She nodded. I turned back to Maribel. “Anyway, Miss Hearn, if you would accompany us to the Scarlet Devil Mansion, and possibly Eientei, we can figure out whether you are destined to become Lady Yakumo or not.”

Patchouli could perform some tests and experiments at the mansion and detect any time travel. Eirin Yagokoro, the doctor at Eientei, would probably be able to directly see if Maribel had any youkai-like properties or anything unusual about her physiology.

“No, thank you,” said Maribel cheerfully.

“I know it seems dangerous,” I said, “But given that Yuuka didn’t want to mess with you before–”

“No, I mean, I don’t want to know,” said Maribel. She was leaning on her broom, but after a moment she remembered to keep sweeping. “Grand destinies are cool and all, but I’ve got enough to worry about as it is.”

Like what? I thought. Starvation, perhaps–but hidden powers could help!

“Miss Hearn,” I said, “If you are destined to become Lady Yakumo, then maybe we can leverage that to locate her and save Gensokyo? Send a message to your future self, prevent yourself from disappearing?”

“Yukari’s absence really is common knowledge, now, huh…” mumbled Reimu.

“Leverage it how?” asked Maribel. “By, I don’t know, trying to compel myself not to do the thing I still thought was a good idea after having hundreds of years more wisdom and experience?”

My head jerked back involuntarily. It was an extraordinarily good point. On the other hand, Maribel had a mindset that was totally alien to me. “Refusing to know doesn’t make the problem go away,” I said.

“Knowing isn’t going to make it go away either,” she said. “Unless paradoxes are allowed…?”

“They aren’t!” said Renko with the confidence of a physicist discussing entropy.

“You couldn’t possibly know that,” I said. “But I tend to agree anyway.”

“Anyway,” said Maribel. “Thanks for letting me know, but I’m just going to keep doing what I was doing before.” I stared at her like she was crazy, because she was.

“The fate of Gensokyo hinges upon us locating Yu–Miss Yakumo,” I said.

“I’m not her,” said Maribel. “In the future–or past I suppose I might be, maybe. But not now in any case.”

“But–”

“That’s final, Mister Thorne.” She continued to sweep.

I looked over the hill and toward the location of the Scarlet Devil Mansion. For the first time in my life, I wanted to use danmaku to compel a human.

“You should learn danmaku so that I can promote you,” Reimu told her subordinate. Maribel smiled.

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

“Because this foolishness passes for wisdom?” asked Renko, voicing my thoughts.

I liked Renko. She’d probably want to know whether she was turning into a monster, and she’d probably try to save Human Town if she was–or wasn’t.

“No,” said Reimu. “Because youkai are scared of her, and that’s what it takes to be a good youkai exterminator. That, and minding your own business.”

–

Arnold and I went back to town in fuming silence. He wasn’t the one fuming. We walked along a street covered in wet mush. When we came to a cross street, I turned to go to a different edge of town.

“See you later,” I said.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

I didn’t have a plan; I just knew I didn’t feel like being cooped up in a dorm. I had the vague desire to go to the Scarlet Devil Mansion and prevail upon Patchouli for stress relief, but I’d read somewhere that taking things slow was smarter at the start of a relationship.

“For a walk,” I said. “To cool off.”

“Alright,” he said with a nod. “See you later, then.” I wouldn’t think about it until later, but Arnold was also nice enough to give people space when they needed it.

I walked through town, purposefully squishing snow against the street. I was doing a public service. I had the intuition that snow would melt faster if it was spread out while it was soft, to catch as much sunlight as possible. The temperature rose above freezing for a few hours each day, which wasn’t even close to enough to melt all the snow that fell.

There were big persistent drifts in the shadows of buildings, but only a smattering on the street.

Locals were still shovelling the ground, which was a nice thing to do considering they’d be hungry like the rest of Human Town. Protein bars were now being distributed, but still. Taking the time to make walking easier for anyone, at the cost of one’s own calories, was very noble to me. I didn't judge the shovelers for the thin smattering of slush that sometimes lingered on the street.

I smashed some more. Maribel was being obstinate, even if she had a point about the details of her future not being very actionable information. And yeah, it was her right not to figure out things about her own fate or body… but it still rubbed me the wrong way.

I didn’t realize I was walking toward the chicken coops until I saw the barbed wire that had been installed to protect them.

–

“Hey Jake!” said Sasha. She had thin gloves on, and was collecting the eggs that still barely maintained the village. A short pink-haired youkai was standing next to her.

“Ohh, he’s mad,” said Satori with one fingertip to her bottom lip, and another on her creepy third eye organ. I gave her a raised eyebrow and she winked at me. “As a matter of fact, I don’t have anything better to do, thank you very much!”

“Me neither,” I said, visiting the Scarlet Devil Mansion notwithstanding. “Mind if I work for a bit?”

“You’re getting here at the eleventh hour,” said Satori. “You won’t get paid for a whole day’s work, or even a half day.”

“I’d do it for free,” I said.

“He means it too,” Satori told Sasha, as if my generosity was a secret or something. “Sure thing, Jake!”

“Why are you mad?” asked Sasha as I grabbed a basket.

“Maribel Hearn doesn’t want to take a low-probability path to helping Human Town,” I said. “Because she would rather not know some things about herself.”

As I put eggs into my basket, my stomach rumbled. I wondered about workers stealing.

“Do–” I started.

“Hard to steal with a mind reader for a boss,” said Satori. “You’re right, I’m not here all day, but I can see in your heart you aren’t planning on exploiting that fact. I’ve shouted down a few would-be thieves already! Not everyone is as considerate as you.”

“Thanks,” I said. I appreciated it when Satori painted me in a good light, however rare it was.

“You should talk more about Maribel,” said the short youkai. “You’re more mad than you realize, and you shouldn’t try to distract yourself from your emotions.”

“Wait,” I said. “Can you tell me a secret about her?” Satori never revealed youkai secrets so as to stay on good terms with them. So, if she wouldn’t reveal anything about Maribel–

“No,” said Satori. “That plan is stupid for three reasons. First, if she’s a human now, I can tell her secrets just fine. Or else I’d hesitate to tell yours, lover-boy, because you are still playing with fire. Nice, by the way.”

I thought really hard about how my dalliances with Patchouli were technically a youkai’s secret, and Satori rolled her eyes. Sasha’s head tilted. I hadn’t been thinking about Patchouli earlier at all, nor the fact that technically our activities would turn me into a youkai if we weren’t careful, so it was bullshit that Satori brought it up.

“Actually you are thinking about it, because you’re stressed out and you want to feel better,” said Satori. Before I could get too upset she continued. “Second, I could easily tell you a secret of a youkai’s that doesn’t matter, and you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.”

“So you’d pretend Maribel was human,” I said.

“Egg-zactly!” She knew we weren’t amused, which was why she laughed. “Has it occurred to you that the fact that someone is a youkai at all is a huge secret for most youkai? And that I’d have thought of ways to deflect suspicion, like having a list of secrets to reveal about them if needed?”

“Fair,” I said.

“Finally,” said Satori, “I’ve never met Maribel, so I don’t know any of her secrets. No, I don’t know all four thousand humans in Human Town. I’ve got better things to do… like care for chickens!”

She went to sneak up on a chicken, probably for good reasons.

“Did Maribel insult your mother or something?” asked Sasha.

“No, it’s no big deal,” I said.

“Are you sure? Satori is getting a contact-high on your anger.” I hadn’t noticed, but I could see it in the way the youkai pounced on an unsuspecting bird.

“It’s not that big of a deal,” I repeated. “Maribel’s just being obstinate about possibly being Yukari.”

“Wait what?”

I explained the situation to Sasha, and some of my frustration at Maribel’s pigheadedness. She listened, and Satori patiently said nothing. The youkai was working a bit further away, perhaps to give us some privacy. I didn’t really believe that though. Satori fed on embarrassment, so she’d be nearby to better feed.

“Anyway,” I said. “If Maribel’s going to become Miss Yakumo herself, that’s extraordinarily valuable information.”

“Perhaps,” said Sasha. “But I get why she hesitates.”

“You’re taking her side?” I asked. Maybe I was wrong?

“No, well, not exactly. This reminds me of the Machine of Death.”

“The what?” I asked.

“A thing from a book I read once,” she said. “It’s a machine that predicts how you are going to die with a short cryptic phrase, and it’s always right no matter what.”

“I see. Science fiction or fantasy?”

“Eh, a little bit of A and a little bit of B.”

“I wonder if it’s in Patchouli’s library…” I said.

“If there was a machine like that, would you use it?” asked Sasha.

“Of course.”

“And be like Wiki?” she added. Our roommate was afraid to leave Human Town, because Remilia had seen his fate and refused to try to protect him. He was going to die to a powerful youkai, in all likelihood–one that was more powerful than Remilia herself.

“Good point,” I said. “But in general, more information helps you make better decisions.” Never refusing to know was a rationalist tenet, and one that I held dear.

“Not if it’s from the future,” she said. “Then it just becomes self-fulfilling.”

“Oh come on. We both know parables and fables and whatnot exaggerate how bad that would be! For drama!”

“No, think about it,” said Sasha. “The machine is never wrong, right? And it affects what you do, so it has to tell you to do something that will make its prediction come true?”

“I guess?” I said.

“So that means it has to fucking cause your death, in order to be accurate. That means that using the machine is the same thing as giving it permission to decide how you die.”

“Huh.” She said it with an intensity that surprised me. Sasha was still gently gathering eggs, but clearly she had strong opinions on it.

“That’s why all their deaths were so weird,” she continued.

“It’s fiction,” I said.

“But it makes sense.”

“You’ve thought about the Machine of Death a lot, huh?” I asked. “Nerd.”

“Shut up,” she said with a smirk.

Sasha faked annoyance at being called a nerd, to be funny. I’d thought she was an angry person when I’d first met her, but I’d come to realize that her cynicism lacked malice. She didn’t hate nerds; she liked pretending to be opinionated on it.

“I think I see what you’re getting at,” I said. “But that doesn’t apply here. This is about whether Maribel becomes a youkai, not whether she’ll die.”

“No it’s not!” said Satori from across the coop. We ignored this. Satori’s interjections were either helpful or derailing; there was no in-between.

“Same thing, right?” asked Sasha. “We aren’t allowed to become youkai, so admitting you’ll become one is like admitting to a capital crime.”

“There is no way Yukari would kill her past self to follow her own arbitrary rules.” As I said it, I wasn’t so sure. “Anyway, that wasn’t Maribel’s objection. She just doesn’t want to know.”

“Because knowing really could make it true, in this case,” said Sasha. “And she hates feeling powerless in front of a fate she cannot change.”

“I don’t think so,” I said, even as my empathy for Maribel increased. “I think it’s already the case that she’s going to become Yukari, or not. Or else Yuuka wouldn’t be afraid!”

“You guys are getting stuck discussing objective facts instead of exploring Jake’s emotions,” said Satori, and we continued to ignore her.

“Not necessarily,” said Sasha. “Maybe there are ten potential Yukaris running around, and whoever gets unlucky gets chosen for the role.” She gently moved a chicken out of her way. “If he wasn’t so fond of over-explaining, I’d worry that Wiki was destined to become her. He certainly knows enough about Gensokyo.”

“This is fun,” said Satori.

“Ten Yukaris?” I said. “I find that unlikely.”

“It’s just an example,” said Sasha. “More likely, it’s something fucking else from out of left field, and you can’t even imagine it.” She closed the door to the last coop. All of the eggs had been collected.

“You have really good epistemic humility.” I said.

“Th–” started Sasha. She glanced at Satori, who nodded. “Thank you.”

“And you agree with Maribel.”

“No, I understand Maribel,” she said. “If it were me I’d go figure it out and save Human Town. Obviously. Also I’d maliciously exploit my powers from day one.”

“Thank you,” I said. “You’re sane!”

“You’re fucking right I am.”

“Ugh,” I said with a sigh. “This whole thing reminds me of AI in the Outside World.”

“How so?” asked Sasha. “Because everyone’s life is at stake?”

“No, because there’s an obvious course of action to take, and people are putting their fingers in their ears and ignoring it when I point it out to them.” I blinked. My eyes were a bit wet, surprising me.

“And there it is,” said Satori as she came to pat my back. “I’m going back to the underground. Wait for the guards, but don’t stay here too long, kids.”

“You look like a fifth grader,” I said to the short youkai. I immediately regretted saying that–maybe I’d crossed a line.

“And you act like one,” retorted the youkai with a smile. “And I can read in your mind that you think I look sixteen, so nyeh nyeh.” She stuck out her tongue and pulled down an eyelid. Sasha started to laugh. “See ya!”

I waited until Satori was outside of thought range before I let my thoughts continue. Youkai liked to leave a situation on their own terms, I was starting to realize.

“Man, she’s so much less serious after you get to know her,” I said.

“Only if she likes you,” said Sasha. “She’s cold and overbearing to most.”

“You don’t say,” I said. Sasha had spent more time with Satori than just about any of us.

“So it reminds you about AI,” she said. “I didn’t expect that.”

“Well… it’s not quite the same,” I said. “A moratorium on AI is a lot harder to enforce. But her flat refusal reminded me of how difficult it was to talk about AI when I was last in the Outside World. When propaganda got real bad, even saying the words ‘AI alignment’ would make people tune you out, or get foaming mad.” I looked at Sasha, and saw that if she had strong opinions on slowing down AI, she had set them aside or forgotten about them since coming to Gensokyo.

“I can see why her refusal to even think about it would rub you the wrong way.”

“I wish I could convince her it is worthwhile to know. Even if it risks affecting her fate… or perhaps especially then!” I shook my head. “Anyway, thanks for listening.”

“Of course,” said Sasha. “I’m going to the bathhouse after this, but there’s something I wanted to talk to you about first.”

“I’ll walk you there so we can keep talking.”

“And not bathe? Look, man, I’m trying to be subtle about my hints…” She pinched her nose.

“I don’t have any money,” I admitted. A short argument followed, in which Sasha said she’d pay for me to use the bathhouse and I didn’t have to repay her, just to stop the stank. “I don’t freaking stink, I take a cold shower every day!”

“I’m trying to do you a favor, asshole, and let you enjoy some hot water.” The night guards had arrived. We waved to them as we left. “It doesn’t matter if you stink, just take my gift.”

“Fine,” I said. “What did you want to talk about?” Her face fell.

“I think Arnold’s turning into a youkai, just like we were.”

I exhaled. If it wasn’t one thing stressing me out, it would be another.