> "The most obvious option is a sword, but I'm open to any number of things. Basically, part of the process of being able to reach the heavens from Gensokyo in the first place involved making a wager with another heavens-faring faction from Gensokyo, where the winner is whomever brings home the most valuable object. Our intel-"
> Point at Koa while still talking to the Lady of Kashima.
> "-says their purpose for traversing the heavens is as couriers between the Lunar Capital and Lunarians in Gensokyo, and strongly suggests it is that cargo that they'll submit to the contest. So I need something more valuable than whatever that might be. The particulars beyond that don't really matter to me; anything works as long as it wins. Hell, I'd even return it to you after the fact if you wanted me to and it was within my power to do so."
>"Perhaps you could visit the library of swords," the Lady of Kashima says. "But I imagine none of those would be valuable enough for your purposes. Certainly I could not let you have them, I am not sure I could let you borrow any of them."
>"And the one she works on now is pledged to me," Princess Saru says with an assured nod.
>"No," the swordsmith says, as she starts to hammer on a different part of the glowing steel. "You have tried to lay claim to it, and I have not yet acceded to that. Perhaps it will amuse me to gift it to a gaggle of visiting kappa and their child of Shinki."
>Princess Saru says nothing, and does no visibly react. But you can simply feel that she didn't like that one bit.
>_
