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The Human Village’s annual hina-nagashi ceremony was a loud, boisterous affair, but Kagiyama Hina had never seen the event up close. She waited further down the river, at the edge of the Great Youkai Forest, waiting for the tiny boats of dolls to cross the horizon and be drawn towards her. The most ornately-decorated vessels always came first; as the event came to a close in the village, they grew smaller and smaller, until only a few haggard vessels remained.
Hina stooped over by the banks of the river, pushing reeds out of the way as she slowly crept towards a small, woven boat caught on a sandbar. Holding her dress above the water with one hand, she reached down to the boat with the other, and slowly tugged it closer to her. Inside were two dolls made of roughly-carved wood; their faces were little more than crude knife-marks, and they wore clothes of rough, uncoloured sackcloth. She could feel a grimy slurry of misfortune swirling around the dolls; whoever had sent them was truly desperate.
With a deep breath, she pulled the misfortune from the dolls, and felt it settle into her spirit. The jagged, v-shaped smile on the dolls’ faces looked slightly relieved. She held the small boat close to her dress, and turned to walk back to the shore. A small pile of wooden boats sat up on dry land, each home to its own, often vastly different, set of dolls. She set the latest down next to a miniature junk bearing a whole family of ornate porcelain dolls. From where she stood, it seemed that each group were peering over the edge of their vessel to look at he other one.
Smiling down at the small collection of dolls, Hina turned to walk back towards the river. She kept her eyes fixed on the horizon, in case there were to be any latecomers this year; sometimes a boat would get caught on a snag, or be disturbed by a curious kappa, or otherwise be delayed in making its way down the river. Thankfully, the day was clear, but she still needed to pay diligent attention to the horizon to anticipate the boats.
As such, she was taken completely by surprise when a tall figure with brown, leathery skin and a shining round head burst up from the riverbed. A single clump of what looked like long, shiny hair ran from the top of its head back into the river. Hina stumbled back, landing with a soft whumpf on the grassy riverbed.
The creature pointed at Hina with a long, black spear; she reached for a spellcard, her eyes trained on the figure. It stuck the spear into the ground, and Hina relaxed; it then began frantically massaging its head.
“Excuse me?” the creature said; its voice was like a human man’s, but heavily distorted and ever-so-slightly stuffy. “There is someone there, yes?” The creature tapped its head. “I’m afraid something’s turned my helmet around, and my hands are too slippery to adjust it myself. Do you mind?”
“Helmet?” Hina asked.
Getting a better look at the creature, its (his?) body was less like skin and more like some strange form of leather, seamless save for some strips of metal carved with a zig-zag pattern. His head was shining because it was made of metal, and the “hair” rising from the river was some sort of long leather tube. She could also sense lingering misfortune, though irregularly; as if he had been slathered in an uneven coat of paint, rather than draped in it like most humans. Hina concluded, then, that it was less a creature and more the most strangely-dressed human she had seen this year.
“Ah, of course, it wouldn’t resemble any of the helmets we’re used to here in Gensokyo,” the man said, a heavy note of pride entering his tone, “this is state-of-the art equipment created by a rare outside-world youkai known as a ‘frogman’; my research has led me to believe they are likely a relative or subspecies of the more common kappa which has adapted to climates outside of Japan.”
“I see,” said Hina, her tone all but shouting that she didn’t. “You said you needed help?”
“Yes, yes, of course.” He tapped the back of the right side of his head. “There’s a glass pane here, I need you to turn it around for me, so it’s facing you.”
Hina stood up, and took hold of the sides of the helmet. The metal was cold, and enough water still clung to its surface that it was slick to the touch. With a jerk, she twisted it around; the seamless plate was replaced by a small glass window, held by metal bars. Behind it, she could see the distorted image of something resembling a face.
The man took a step back, then reached up to fiddle with the side of the window. It slid open, and a steady stream of water poured out. The man grabbed the helmet and kept twisting it around, until he finally lifted it up and forward, releasing another rush of water. Beneath the metal dome, the man’s head was covered entirely in a dark black fabric; a strange mask was fitted over his mouth, and his eyes were behind a large, clear facemask rimmed in bright orange.
The man walked towards the shore, each footstep a heavy squelch, and set the helmet upside-down on the grass. He pulled the mask off his face and took a long, deep breath. “Thank you,” the man said, turning around slowly. When the man turned to actually see her, he winced, and took a long, deep breath.
Hina sighed. She should’ve expected this, really. “I can leave, if you-”
The man shrugged. “It’s quite alright. Even discounting my partial inhumanity, I suspect whatever truth there is to your legends has already wreaked its havoc.” He yanked on the cord above his helmet, and with a splash of water, the plainly-torn end of the hose leaped from the river. “Besides, it’s often said that one’s misfortune can be another’s good luck;” he slapped the side of his strange trousers, which jingled, “and I expect I have gathered enough of others’ misfortune to be due my own.”
Hina gave him a stern look. “If those are nagashi-bina, then-”
“Oh, it’s nothing like that.” He pulled on a tab on the side of his trousers, opening some sort of compartment. He shoved his hand in, first drawing out a pair of eyeglasses, followed by a set of shining metal objects. He tossed the latter in Hina’s general direction; they ended up sailing over her shoulder, and landed with a jingling clatter near her dolls. “...Please pick those up.”
Hina turned around; the small pile of metal was easy to spot. As she picked it up, she looked it over; they looked like keys, but assembled differently than any Hina had seen. She turned back to the man; he had pulled back the black cloth on his head and was now carefully balancing his glasses on the edge of his nose. Hina rolled the keys over in her hand; one of them had something written on it. “What does ‘Toyota’ mean?”
“Ah,” the man said, “that is a native Japanese breed of ‘automobile’, a sort of steed which has become popular in the outside world. They’re formidable beasts, which feed upon the remnants of ancient youkai and can travel from Tokyo to Kyoto in less than half a day.” Hina’s eyes went wide, and she tossed the metal back at the man. He plucked them out of the air and slowly shook his head. “No, no, that item is simply part of the bridle; as far as I have been able to determine, it is used to connect the reins. I have yet to find a full assembly, unfortunately.”
Hina nodded slowly.
“Regardless,” the man said, shrugging, “I am Morichika Rinnosuke. You may know me as the proprietor of the curio store by the Forest of Magic.”
Hina didn’t know any such thing, but saying so would be rude. “Of course.”
Rinnosuke smiled. “Splendid.” He turned around, staring over the bank of the river. “You wouldn’t have seen a pair of fairies, by any chance?”
Hina shrugged. “There’s always a lot of fairies around here, though the boats keep most of them away. Why?”
Rinnosuke sighed. “Well, it’s certainly not because I’m going to pay them.” He waved his hands limply in the air. “It seems even standing still and watching a rope is beyond them. How they manage to make them do anything at that mansion, I’ll never guess.” He scoffed. “Though I suppose I can sell the rest of those ration cakes to that vampire…”
“Rations?” Hina asked, privately dreading the answer.
“Oh yes. Food items from the outside world rarely make the transition intact, but I discovered several boxes of individually-wrapped survival rations. Some say they last hundreds of years. I haven’t dared try them myself, but they’re good bait for fairies.” Rinnosuke sighed, but then slightly perked up. “And even with this failure, it was cheaper than hiring Marisa to watch the line…”
Hina sighed, and started walking back to her dolls. There was quite a pile, this year. She bent over to pick the first boat up. “Do you need help with those?” Rinnosuke called over her shoulder.
“Yes, if you can-” Hina started, turning around again.
“I’ll send Marisa by if I see her, then.” He bowed slightly. “Thank you for your time, and if you find yourself in need of any curiosities, my shop is vaguely that way.” He waved in the direction of the Forest of Magic. “Goodbye!”
He walked off, the squelching sounds slowly fading into the forest. Hina sighed, and began shifting the dolls into the larger boats to carry them. That haphazardly misfortunate man, she decided, almost certainly made his own luck.