Chapter Text
Kogasa waved her umbrella around her head. “And then, the beautiful princess heard a sound from just behind her!”
Rumia jumped out of the shadows. She had two triangular leaves pushed into her hair. They looked like an animal's ears, even if the resemblance was vague at best. She let out an unimpressive growl.
Kogasa bobbed her umbrella up and down. “Oh no! A wolf!”
A small group of young children and their parents silently watched the simple play. The children had all rushed out of the haunted house earlier, and Kogasa had decided to cheer them up with an improvised performance. Her fear needs were met for at least the next week, so she might as well go back to babysitting.
The children had mentioned something about knife wielding ghosts inside the haunted house, but with all of the attraction's customers already evacuated, that was the goddesses' problem. Kogasa didn't know all the details, and she preferred it that way.
“Stay back, wolf!” Kogasa lightly tapped her umbrella against Rumia's head.
Rumia howled in pretend pain. “Ouch! How can a simple maiden be-”
Without warning, danmaku lit up the night sky behind Kogasa and Rumia. There were so many bullets and lasers in the air that Kogasa couldn't even hazard a guess at what was going on. It was nothing but an incomprehensible spattering of color.
Kogasa and Rumia's original audience started to ooh and aah at the display, while the would-be performers simply looked on.
For several minutes, the danmaku display dragged on. Kogasa saw something get caught by a bullet, then fall to the ground. She quickly lost track of it in the mayhem above her. The battle seemed to continue on as normal.
A few more minutes passed, and a figure appeared in the darkness between Kogasa and the danmaku. It was Shizuha. Her clothes had holes shot through them, and her hair was filled with twigs and leaves.
Kogasa was totally stunned for a moment. “Shizuha?!”
“I see you found that shadow youkai.” Shizuha's voice was filled with exhaustion.
“Are you okay?”
“Considering I just went up against seven opponents in a danmaku match, I'm doing fine.”
“You fought seven people at once?!”
Shizuha looked to the ground and twiddled her thumbs. “Well... they decided to fight us in a sort of gauntlet match.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning they fight us one at a time. Raiko volunteered to go first.”
“But you were fighting alone, too, so it's pretty fair. You put on a pretty good show.”
“Actually they let all three of us fight her at the same time.”
“And that was you, Minoriko, and Chimata, right?”
Shizuha nodded.
Kogasa squirmed. “I'm sure you still put a good-”
“I didn't.”
The pair fell silent. As far as Kogasa could tell, Rumia and the spectators hadn't even noticed Shizuha was there. The constant, faint sounds of danmaku droned on in the background.
“So... despite the whole ghost thing. How did it all go?” Kogasa asked.
“After all the renovations, we're in the hole by about five thousand yen,” Shizuha replied.
“That's not so bad. How much did you make tonight?”
“Just over two thousand.”
“Wait... so you only spent about seven thousand on repairs?”
“Well, Chimata gave about three thousand, too.”
“That's...” Kogasa was speechless for a moment. “How...”
“On the more immaterial front... I don't really feel any different. I don't think I'm any more popular, or am getting any more faith.”
“To be fair, it's only been one night.”
“And it's going to stay that way, judging by what's going on up there.”
Kogasa and Shizuha silently watched the danmaku above them. After a brief pause, Shizuha spoke again. “I think they just got Minoriko. I'm not seeing her bullets anymore.”
Kogasa was silent for a minute. “You know, I have a place you can set up a new haunted house.”
“I'm not sure the Myouren Temple will help us.”
“Not the temple! The graveyard near the temple.”
“I'm not sure they'll let us do that either. It's a bit disrespectful to set up a silly Halloween thing in a real graveyard.”
“We can probably do it without them noticing.”
“And if they do?”
“Then we'll ask them to use the temple.”