Aya and Hatate have to team up. Why? Because someone with a grudge against them has kidnapped the kappa who knows how to make newsprint.
It is just after lunch time, and Aya has to do everything in her power to keep tongue civil as she looks across the table to the plaid-skirted tengu sitting there. Hatate frowns at a piece of paper in front of her. Around them, life goes on in the village. Tengu fly between their tall, balconied homes, some go to pay their respects to the Moriya shrine while others fly down toward the kappa village to pick up their fish for the day. Others appreciate the beauty of the little park where the two have met.
"Can you even read that?" Aya says after a moment.
"Easily," says Hatate with a little smirk, "I've dug out so much worse handwriting, you don't even know. Like this one time, I was looking at this picture of the old treaty the kappa made with the humans and it was so-"
"Just read the damn letter."
"Oh fine," says Hatate. She clears her throat. "Stupid tengu, I took your kappa printer. Stop with the bad stories and undies pictures or she gets it. Ha ha ha ha ha ha."
Aya frowns. "You telling me that she actually wrote out the laughter?"
Hatate nods. "You're lucky I didn't try to pronounce the spelling, it's something else." She sets the letter aside, giving it a dirty look.
"So," says Aya, as she rubs her chin and frowns at the sky, "The facts are: The printer's been kidnapped. Someone sent us both a ransom note, kinda. This person can't write or spell to save her life. And she's dumb enough to write out the laughter."
"That sounds right," Hatate says. "And no matter how you look at it, there's not a lot of people who fit that description."
"Well clearly, even you couldn't let this stand," says Aya, leaning on the table.
"As if," says Hatate. "We just have to figure out who did it, and then it's go time!"
"Oh, I already have a good idea who it is," says Aya.
****
"Gyaaaaaah!" cries Tenshi as she sails through the air and smacks into a tree with a meaty noise, crumpling around it.
"Give us back the printer now, bitch!" Hatate shouts as she soars after the celestial and smacks her in the back with a heavy branch. Aya follows a moment later, landing a solid kick to Tenshi's rear. The celestial groans as the two tengu loom over her and glower. After a couple seconds, Hatate smacks her with the branch again. "I said now!"
"Don't know...nothin' about...printers..." Tenshi groans, her voice partially obscured by the tree.
"How about now?!" Hatate says, smacking Tenshi with the branch again.
"Nothin'..." Tenshi says, choking back a sob, "You gotta...believe me."
"All I believe is I'm about to whup your ass!" Hatate shouts, raising the branch again.
"Hold it," says Aya, raising a hand. The plaid-skirted tengu halts her swing, and looks at Aya with a raised eyebrow. Aya kneels down by the battered celestial's head. "Tenshi, hon? Where's the kappa?"
"Y'mean..." Tenshi says, "The one...Alice had?"
"Oh son of a bitch!" Hatate says, flinging her branch down to the ground. "I am not going two places!"
"This will be fine," says Aya, as she takes a picture of Tenshi's bruised and bloodied form. "I have a plan. You see, Alice has one big weakness..."
"Oh really?" Hatate replies, snapping her own picture of Tenshi.
****
"So if you stupid tengu don't stop printing terrible fake stories about me and my friends," Alice shouts, shaking a fist with vigor. "Things are going to get nasty! This is just a warning!"
"Just a warning," Aya says, as she scribbles the puppeteer's words down. "Gotcha."
"I mean it!" says Alice.
"Mean it." says Aya as she jots that down too.
Alice narrows her eyes. "You know what? Just get off of my yard. I don't think you're going to get your printer friend back."
"And then the madwoman," Aya says as she writes, "flustered at having her own words repeated at her, ordered the reporter to leave and threatened her hostage. As well, she has still declined to answer the reporter's questions about the suspicious marks on her knuckles, in conjunction with the rumors that she beats her friends."
"There aren't any marks on my damn knuckles, you stupid chicken youkai!"
"She then denied the evidence, and made an ill-thought out personal attack against the tengu people as a whole..."
"What! That's not what I meant!"
"She vigorously defended her slurs," Aya continues over the sound of her pen scratching. "As well, she still has yet to explain why she thought making ransom letters with intentionally terrible spelling would really serve any purpose."
"Oh that's it," Alice shouts as she produces a spellcard. "I'm gonna beat you like a drum!"
"Got her!" comes Hatate's voice as she opens the front door to Alice's house from inside. Alice looks back, staring with wide eyes and a slack jaw as the plaid-skirted tengu steps out, leading a middle-aged kappa with long braided hair. Aya takes this opportunity to whip out her camera and snap a picture of the rescue, including Alice's face.
"Don't do that!" Alice shouts, whirling back toward Aya. She then has a visible facial tick as Hatate's camera snaps behind her.
"Tata!" says Aya, taking to the air.
"Hey!" Alice cries, "I'm not done with you yet!"
"That's fine, we're done with you," says Hatate with a smile, as she takes to the air after Aya, the printer following close behind.
****
"I'm still surprised Alice didn't follow us," Hatate says, as she and Aya fly back toward home.
"The thing with people like Alice," says Aya, "Is they like to think they're cool and rational. So if you wind them up, they hard a hard time thinking straight. By the time she would have decided how she wanted to chase us, we were already long gone."
"Oh, I see," says Hatate. "You know? We make a pretty good team."
"Like hell."
"Yeah, it just seemed like a nice thing to say. Your paper is still complete garbage."
"Your paper is the remains of an uncleaned catbox," says Aya. "Hey, is it just me, or is there an awful lot of smoke coming from the village?"
Hatate peers ahead and frowns. "Yeah, I think you're right."
"Stupid tengu whose houses got burned down say what!?" shouts a voice from above.
"Wha-?" says Hatate, looking toward Aya quizzically. Both tengu look upward, and see a distant figure hovering a few hundred yards overhead. Still, it is not hard to make out her distinctive dress and wide-brimmed hat, nor is there any mistaking her voice as she laughs down at them.
"Oh shit, my collection!" Aya shouts, zooming ahead and leaving Hatate. The plaid-skirted tengu hovers in place for a moment as she considers the situation. Then she swoops toward the ground and grabs a sizable branch that had fallen from one of the trees.