The apocalypse has raven wings

It was a calm, mild day in Gensokyo. Cicadas were audible in the morning, and the sun was shining after a long week of permanent rain. The grass was green and a fragrant, faint and pleasant smell of cherry was in the air. It was spring once again. Byakuren Hijiri sat outside of her shrine, together with her followers Shou Toramaru and Nue Houjuu.

The three enjoyed the first tea in the sunshine.

"Say Shou, could you reach me the cookies?", asked Nue before sipping on her cup of green tea. Shou reached for the package, but grabbed into emptiness.

"...Where are the cookies?", she asked and looked at Byakuren.

"I-I-I di-did not eat them, really.", Byakuren answered hastily, looking around nervously.

Shou raised an eyebrow: "Really? It's a bad habit to lie."

"Actually...", a voice was audible from inside the shrine.

The unenlightened darkness offered an unimaginable deepness.

"... I ate them." The voice reappeared.

Two glowing-red eyes lit up from inside. Steps were audible and the old wood made sounds accompanying those slow steps. Then a girl came outside. Her large, black wings spanned, her jet black hair waving in the calm wind, she wore a large cape with a moving star pattern on the inside and a symbol made of a hollow circle and 3 bent, hollow trapezes around it in gold on the outside, a dark green miniskirt, a blouse in dark grey and on it was another eye, giant and red. Her boots and fingerless gloves were a very dark brownish-red, accompanied with flame symbols and she wore a dark hair band, a necklace with a ruby in cross-form and small chains everywhere. On her hip's right, she had something hanging, a kind of large, spiked staff emblazoned in mysterious symbols.

Shou readied her spear, feeling a strong presence coming from her: "Who are you? Tell me your name!"

"I am Utsuho Reiuji, the eternal flame of the old and new hell. I also am the last star in this universe, if I may say so.", the mysterious girl replied.

"You? A star? Don't make me laugh! I will show you what you say there is non-sense! C'mon!" Nue was angry. Someone ate the cookies she wanted, on such a peaceful day to boot. She readied her trident, and before neither Shou nor Byakuren could say something, she and Utsuho were already in the air.

"Very well then, I shall propose the rules. No hiding, no dirty tricks and no holding back." proclaimed Utsuho while taking her staff and fitting it like a glove over her right arm.

"Good, but we will not fight here. I know a region where we can fight as much as we want. Follow me!", Nue boasted in return.

The two went away to a near forest. Arriving there, Utsuho let out her voice again: "You may fire the first barrage if you want, asymmetric girl."

Byakuren wanted to follow them and make them stop before anyone will get hurt, but Shou held her back: "Please let them do. If you disturb them now, they might come and fight over here. Think about the children in the shrine."

"Oh god yes the children!" Byakuren hurried inside. In the meanwhile, Nue took her staff and had summoned a group of rainbow UFOs. She switched positions between them instantly, while they fired gradient lasers and danmaku all around. Utsuho remained in the position she was with closed eyes. None of the UFOs could actually hit her.

Then Nue appeared behind her, ready to slash her trident into Utsuho's back, but it was a futile action. Utsuho turned around, grabbed Nue's trident and broke it into two.

"Is that all?" she said while grabbing Nue's arm. "I hope not. Show me something else!"

She started to turn around in circles, faster and faster with each round and then let loose of Nue, catapulting her into a tree on the ground. "I'll end this quick and pain-free." she said with a monotone voice. Nue sat in the tree and looked up to her opponent. Charging her cannon, Utsuho made a creepy gesture – and fired a large, bright beam dwarfing even Marisa's Master Spark.

The explosion could be heard over several kilometres and a mushroom-like cloud appeared. Gale winds ripped everything away, even some houses. A crater of over half a kilometre was burned into the ground, and the trees around it where knocked down like they were actually made of thin paper. Settling down, Utsuho went to the ground to search for her opponent. Nue was somewhere in the dust and mud, badly hurt and bleeding heavily but still alive.

"Oh my, quite the resistant type, aren't you?" Utsuho held the soon-to-be corpse on her hair up.

"...Why... why?" Nue gasped.

"What do you mean with 'why'?", Utsuho asked in return.

"Why are you so... powerful?"

Utsuho smirked: "Because soon, you will be me as well." With these words, Utsuho stabbed her staff into Nue's chest. Wet noises could be heard, and Nue began to disintegrate into white spheres of light.

Testing out her new powers, the blood-stained Utsuho transformed her wings into the ones Nue had and back.

"I see, so your true power is to hide, is it? How useless. Oh?"

She looked down. Her boots were now accompanied by black long knee socks.

"Interesting..." was all she said. Flapping her raven wings, Utsuho went up with unimaginable speed, back to the shrine. Upon landing, both Byakuren and Shou stood outside, disgusted at the sight of Utsuho bathed in blood.

"Where... is NUE!" Byakuren screamed.

"She has... returned to the life stream. All souls do this. But a part of her has joined me. Hehe. Hahaha! HAHAHAHAHA!" Utsuho, with an insane facial expression, changed her wings again. "How about you? Don't you want to join me too?" she asked with a very scary voice.

Byakuren was devastated, Shou however was very angry.

"You monster!" she screamed and rushed forward. She slashed with her spear at Utsuho, who simply grabbed it like Nue's trident before and pulled Shou to her.

"Any last words?" An icy stare awaited Shou, and only moments later Shou fell to the ground, with a hole gaping in her chest. In agony, she breathed her life out, while Utsuho stepped over the bleeding girl for the next victim.

"Shou! No! No! NOOO!" Byakuren screamed.

"Hey, that was only your servant, wasn't she? What's the matter? She would have let you down sometime anyway." Utsuho commented coldly.

Byakuren had large tears in her eyes: "No, why did you do that? What did we do to make you commit such gruesome acts?"

"Nothing, really. Now, I sense you are stronger than her. Fight now or finally die, I don't care either way."

Byakuren took her magical scroll out. "You are a complete monster! I will allow no further victims!"

Utsuho smirked again: "Bring it on!"

The two of them went high in the air, and Byakuren flapped a large flower symbol on her back. The scroll glowed brightly and large amounts of danmaku came out of lotus-shaped orbs. Streams of energy fired through the air, hunting Utsuho down while she however had no problems escaping them.

"Is that ALL?" she screamed. "Show me MORE, damn it!"

Byakuren took a new position and began to rush around, following Utsuho through the sky.

While the hell raven fired her weapon multiple times with explosions resulting around the saint, Byakuren packed another strike. A lightning strike struck into the ground, just centimetres near the flight path of Utsuho.

The raven girl just waited for such a moment: "Interesting but not enough." She had charged her cannon all the time and fired. A large fireball almost hit Byakuren, but she was not the target. Once the energy orb hit the ground, it exploded, taking the shrine with it.

"NOOOOOOOOOOO!" Byakuren turned around to Utsuho after seeing the destruction: "There were CHILDREN in there! You are insane, totally insane! DIE!" she screamed and used instant-movement to get behind that devil of a bird. Byakuren wanted to stab her, but Utsuho did not let her.

"Don't be ridiculous. This just does not work, get that!" She grabbed her right arm and crushed it instantly. Byakuren screamed in pain and fell to the ground. Looking below, Utsuho readied her cannon once again.

"You just piss me off! Why don't you finally die!" she screamed and fired another beam. Byakuren closed her eyes and muttered a prayer. Then all flashed white. She could not hear the explosion any more, and was vaporised.

"Shit! I just might have overdone it." Utsuho said while patting her head. Nothing was left but just another crater, and no remains of Byakuren were left. "Great, just great... So much for acquiring that saint's power..." With these words, and without further thoughts, she went away immediatly.