"And that...is everything I know."
"..."
"I'm sure you have a lot of questions."
"...You didn't tell me what happened to Shina, mom."
"She did make it to where the Cosmos Drive is, that much I am certain of, but..."
"But what?"
"The energy surrounding its location...Is able to block off my clairvoyance. If she has emerged from that place since then, then that means she's still there."
"Still there? But why? Wouldn't she have gotten the Cosmos Drive?"
"...I don't know dear. I wish I could tell you, but I simply do not know."
"Then...I'll have to go there and rescue her myself!"
"...I figured you'd say that. I can do nothing to stop you from going, you know?"
"Just like you did nothing to stop Shina?"
"..."
"Mom...Thank you for telling the truth...But...Shina would've never been in this mess if you let her stay behind!"
"Even if I said no, there'd be another version of me who would have said yes. That's how time works dear...In the end, there'll always be a timeline where a young, frightened little girl is deprived of her sweet older sister."
"I don't think that's true! We beat Justek! We changed the future he saw! ...And now I'm going to change Shina's future, and bring her back home safe and sound!"
"Again, I'm not going to stop you. Do whatever you must dear."
"...Fine. I'll do it myself!"
"..."
"...But ummm...There's one more thing that's bugging me mom."
"Its about Alex Whiter, isn't it?"
"So he came back to life...and went after that Yukari person..."
"Yes."
"And ONLY Yukari...right?"
"..."
"So, why would he suddenly want to destroy the whole universe?"
"I don't know. He returned to Gensokyo, I know that...But everything between that and him releasing Justek is a blank."
"A...blank?"
"Yukari would know of my clairvoyance. She must have done something to cut me off. But honestly, I'd fully believe that Alex Whiter simply went insane."
There is some truth to that, Auris Aurora. But I am getting a little too far ahead of myself.
There is a gap to fill in this story. One last tale that desperately needs to be told. The last piece of the bridge connecting 3 to 6, so to speak. It is a tale of woe. It is a tale of loss. It is a tale...of despair. This is your last warning to turn back now, and accept a blissful ignorance of the truth. I will not fault you for this decision.
But what you are about to read is the truth, and nothing BUT the truth. And thus may our story begin from the start...
CLASH OF THE ELEMENTS PART 4 EX TRUE END:
THE FALL OF FANTASY
Chapter 1: The Fall of Fortune
The Moon. The glistening pearl in the night sky that is coveted so longingly by humanity. To many, its a calming presence that lulls even the most trembling hearts to rest. To others, it is a goal, the first of many footsteps towards greater heights that humanity can reach.
But what very, very few people know is that this particular moon had been claimed long, LONG before humanity first stepped forth from the primordial ooze of the Earth. Hidden where no one can see by a barrier more divine than the heavens is a single city, the Lunar Capital.
The residents of this city, the Lunarians, pride themselves on having lived long lives devoid of the slightest impurity. They see themselves superior to all other races, going so far as to consider the Earth a prison. Death is considered both a rarity and disgraceful, and as such their fear of the concept has driven them to isolate themselves from contact with anyone but themselves.
Though there is a second species on the moon that, by some technicality, can be considered Lunarians as well. These are the moon rabbits, a small group of diligent workers that have toiled and slaved for their more human-like masters since time immemorial.
There are the rare few Lunarians who think differently about the lessons they've been taught. They tend to keep to themselves, speaking openly only when their peers seek to wipe out entire races or species.
One such individual currently strolls near the perimeter of the Capital's barrier, which rests adjacent to a sparkling silver-blue sea. She has short silver hair which is braided in the back, and quiet red eyes. Her skin is so pale, that it takes little to make a blush appear in her cheeks. Her garments consist of a knee length rose-purple dress with the rim cut into a pattern of jagged arrows pointing left, and a grey-brownish vest with a few symbols strewn about her shoulders and waist. On her right shoulder blade is a single grey wing twice as big as her head. It looked dismembered, but could still flutter with ease.
She walked along the sea's sandy coast and peered out at the glistening, watery horizon. Her left hand was up near her mouth, with three fingers covering it and the last one touching her nose. Her expression showed a reclusiveness that didn't desire to be disturbed, yet as she crossed this path for the thousandth or so time, something felt...different.
The sea's surface was gently rippling as it reflected the light of the stars and the visage of the impure blue-green rock high above. She whiffed the scent of fresh peach trees that surrounded her backside, and her stomach nibbled at her mind with hunger.
"Not now..." She carefully whispered, her hunger fended off by the more pressing presence of goosebumps on the back of her left hand.
"Hmm..." It might be little more than a brief stint of unease, she thought, as it hadn't been that long ago that they had been invaded by the devilish Goddess Hecatia and the vengeful Junko.
She kept walking along the beaten path with a sluggish pace, keeping an eye on the sea for any abnormalities. Along the way, there was a group of moon rabbits all wearing the same black business suits while practicing with their muskets. Yet there was a clear lack of focus, as they fumbled to-and-fro and were mostly goofing off, almost as if on purpose.
But the moment she showed her face, the rabbits yelled her name in reverence "L-Lady Sagume!" and collapsed into an organized box-shaped heap of bowing bunnies.
The Tongue-Twisted Goddess of Fortune: Sagume Kishin
Sagume's expression didn't shift in the slightest as she calmly asked, "Where is Lady Yorihime?"
"S-She had to report back to the Capital!" The head bunny speedily detailed.
"I see..." Sagume closed her eyes and hummed for a bit, "Have there been any intruders?"
"Its been quiet all day!" One replied with a very high-pitched wail.
"Are you sure?" She persisted only due to an incident a while back involving a pink-haired ghost that snatched away a very important jar of sake from under their noses.
"Absolutely! Everything's c-clear!" Their fear secured their sincerity, though it didn't leave Sagume feeling any less uncomfortable.
"Continue your training." She requested with a firm voice as she gently turned away and retraced her steps.
She turned to look past the bountiful forest of peaches and saw the many towering skyscrapers and traditional Japanese buildings that littered the Capital. They looked similar enough to those on Earth to be recognized, yet different enough to fit the divine, technologically advanced Lunarian culture. As Sagume looked at those buildings, she felt her body heat up, as though she was standing in the presence of the sun.
"An ill omen," She plucked the words carefully from her mind as she gazed shiftily past her right shoulder, "I've felt this before."
The winds changed around the middle of the sea. The waters were now being pushed in tiny circles that slowly grew bigger as a breach in time-space expanded above it.
Sagume faced the breach and slowly lowered her hand to her chin as someone walked out of it. To her, this human wearing a red shirt, blue jeans and short brown hair was a complete stranger. But we know him as Alex Whiter, the Elemental Overlord, the Phoenix of Destruction.
His hands were tucked into his pockets as he walked out, then wiggled free as he stepped along the water's surface with his head held high and his eyes wide open. The breach closed, and the dismal light of the sun cast a pale shadow over his body.
He stopped after a few steps and looked straight at Sagume as she inquired in a gently hostile tone, "Who are you?"
He didn't respond with words, but with a slight grin. And at that moment, the water rippled faster around his feet, forming miniature waves. Sagume curled her fingers inward and felt them trembling just a bit. She clasped them shut to stop the sensation, then addressed Alex again.
"I see. I knew I had felt this before..." Her voice grew evermore hostile, "You're the Elemental Overlord. A new one, to be precise."
As her eyes squinted partway shut she raised her chin up and pressed him further, "What business do you have here?"
Alex chuckled as he closed his fists and zipped straight across the water in an instant. A flash of amber reflected off Sagume's eyes as she swung her wing up before her face to block his sword.
The waters behind him were forced back, while the trees behind her were pushed around like caught up in a hurricane. All the while, Alex kept pressing forward with a one handed grip and a wide, toothy grin.
Sagume slid back a couple inches and looked entirely unamused as she remarked, "Ah, so you are settling his affairs."
Sagume brushed Alex away and set a few golden lasers no thicker than her thumb after him. He flipped back onto the water, tumbling his way past them and splashing down atop the peak of the water pushed away moments ago.
The water rushed towards Sagume, who levitated a couple feet above it and planted her hand firmly before her mouth. With a clear focus she sent a couple more lasers at Alex, which he batted out of the sky with the back of his blade.
Then boiling hot water erupted below her, forcing her to shift left then right in quick succession, evading the sting of even a single drop. Alex thrust his left hand out to offset her balance with a bolt of lightning, but with just her wing she blocked the whole thing.
Millions of volts tickled her crystallic feathers like static. She then dropped the wing slightly and saw that the boy had vanished entirely. The winds shifted behind her, and in the next second she swung her wing back and wrapped its tip around Alex's wrist to hold his sword at bay.
"One wing taken by your ilk was one too many." She murmured with a subdued scorn before pushing him away and turning around.
He lost his sword and clapped his hands immediately, bringing two hefty curves of rock up to crush her flat like a pancake. She floated over them and summoned a few mystical ruby orbs to attack Alex with a barrage of cold diamonds.
He swung around her clockwise and threw fireballs towards her until he was back over the sea. Once she caught him in her line of sight he bolted forward and threw everything he had into a single blistering hot punch.
Thankfully Sagume's back weathered the blow enough to keep her from crashing into the forest. She turned around and immediately threw out a couple large golden orbs, which unleashed a flurry of lasers in an inescapable funnel.
Alex crossed his arms and grunted as a few of them was all it took to push him back fifteen feet. He then cocked a grin and swung them down, calling flames before his palms. The next second, a loud "Bang!" came from the left and caused his eye to squeeze shut as something cold and tiny bounced off the side of his face.
"W-We're here to provide assistance Lady Sagume!" Yelled a brave if foolish moon rabbit as her squadron fired upon Alex with their steadily cocked muskets.
Alex floated there and shook his head in dismay as the bullets continued to bounce off him, then slammed his left hand up and knocked the moon rabbits down like bowling pins, no elements necessary.
Sagume raised her right hand up and quickly etched a silver five-pointed star in the air. The water below Alex twisted up like the petals of a rose and then in a flash his body was encased in a foggy blue crystal. She then turned towards the rabbits and calmly remarked, "Head to the Capital. Alert Lady Yorihime."
"What about you Lady Sagume?" One of the bunnies asked as they stood up.
But any reassurance on her end would merely twist the whims of fate out of her favor. So with a silent dismissal she turned back to Alex, who broke free as easily as flexing his muscles, like she expected. She floated above the tree and brushed her wing out, a glint of silver flashing upon the tips of her feathers.
From that light came a rain of sparkling beams that followed Alex as he flew to the right, inadvertently running straight into a glyph that Sagume had laid a second beforehand. The glyph forced his body upright and bounded his limbs together as though strung together by invisible strings.
He gnashed his teeth together and grunted with every attempt to tug himself free. During his strenuous flailing, he caught a glimpse of the moon rabbits turning tail for the forest and started smirking. Sagume struck him with a few more lasers, but now he kept still and took in a deep, deep breath.
Closing his eyes, he focused on his bindings and the arctic chill of the moon. After exhaling a frosty fog from his mouth, he was able to see his bindings clearly and quickly froze them over to easily snap them apart like brittle bark. Before he'd be ensnared again, he brought his right fist down upon the glyph and shattered it.
Sagume was only mildly impressed, and continued to throw out beams with nary a show of exertion on her part. Alex twisted his whole body around to launch his sword out with all his might, where it then spun like a sawblade to intercept Sagume's attacks.
He then threw both his arms out and raised the ground in a mile-high wall around the moon rabbits to keep them from reaching the forest. He then remained lurched over as he glared up at Sagume and called his sword back into his right hand, telling her in a gruffly blunt tone of voice, "You're my opponent, Sagume Kishin. Don't think I'll let you call for back-up."
"So, you will hurt me?" Sagume's choice of words was interesting to say the least, but her confidence in saying them bored Alex to tears.
After a deep yawn Alex smacked his lips, wiggled his arms a bit, then flew straight at his silvery foe. He swung with a blade lined with fire and eyes filled with scorn. Sagume weathered his attack with her wing and was dragged ten feet back. Alex came at her swinging some more and she deflected every strike the same way.
Alex let go of his sword and mentally guided it to keep swinging faster than before while he flipped behind Sagume and went for an uppercut aimed at the back of her head. She shifted it aside at the last second and glared back, then quietly shut her eyes and summoned more crystals to her defense.
Four in total surrounded and shot diamonds into his body. A few breeched his skin before he could retreat and swing his arms together, which forced the crystals to slam into each other and shatter.
Sagume brought down a ray of heavenly light to force Alex's sword to the ground then turned around with right hand already raised. He flew in close and grabbed her wrist, trying to push it back down. But the frailty of her appearance was a deception of the highest caliber, for she was able to resist his goliath strength and drag her hand up before his face.
With a snap of the fingers she created a mellow burst of silver energy that repelled Alex back first into another glyph, which grabbed onto his arms and legs and stretched them out so the pain'd keep him from fighting back. Yet he was smiling even as his tendons were being pushed to their limit.
Sagume lowered her left hand in front of her chest and pinched two fingers together while her right hand looked to be tugging at the back of an invisible bowstring. Silver energy formed into an arrow between her fingers, which she launched without a word.
Alex opened his mouth and called his sword back so he could bite down onto the handle and swing it at the arrow. Its impact forced the back edge dangerously close to his face, but held off the arrow long off for its energy to disperse.
He panted a bit afterwards and spit his sword straight at Sagume's face, where it managed to cut off a couple strands of hair. She glared at him some more and shifted her head to avoid it boomerranging back into his right hand, which broke right through the shackle while she got distracted.
After he broke the whole glyph he laid his sword by his hip and set it ablaze, relaxing after one last sigh of relief.
"No wonder you're one of the Lunarian Sages." What should have been reverence came off merely as mockery in her mind, and while solemnly closing her eyes she spoke with near equal amounts of venom.
"You are different from the other one. Weaker, yes?"
Alex's smile went flat and he pointed his sword up at Sagume's face. She peeked at his defiance and commented, "Your flames will burn me, that is your intention?"
"Hahaha!" He reared his head back and tried to contain his laughter, only to fail. Sagume's stance didn't change until he gave her a lowly glare and remarked with a humored, confident tone, "I thought lying was considered...Impure?"
She didn't reply. With a hearty guffaw he combed his frontal bangs back with his fingers and lunged forward with his blazing sword slicing down. Sagume glided back and swung her wing up to pepper Alex with silver beams. But every one that hit only stalled his advance the tiniest bit, and he was once again in her face dragging the sword dangerously close to her body.
She managed to escape, but found her heartbeat increasing. She flipped over him as he attacked horizontally this time, then surrounded him with sphere of gold lasers to give her time to escape. He swung his arms down and dealt with the attacks with a burst of power, the light glistening like sparkling snow around him.
He turned around and swung his left hand up, violently ripping a dozen peach trees from the ground to throw in Sagume's path. She evaded them as nimble as a feather, even going so far as to plant her feet on one of them to rub it in.
Alex swung his arms down to send that one tumbling around and get her off. He then spread his arms out and flames burst around his body, with the trees combusting as well. He gathered them together and threw them down at Sagume.
This time when she swung her wing up, a shield glyph came to her aid, pushing the ashen splinters and embers out of her way. Alex charged in like a bull and swung his left fist at her, causing her to swerve her head aside. But as his elbow passed by her neck he bent it in and wrapped her in a chokehold, slamming his forehead into her nose to keep her from budging.
Then he ignited his other fist and brought it straight up into her gut with all he's got. She lightly coughed and her eyes bulged, after which she snapped her fingers and repelled Alex with a burst of energy. Then she bombarded him with a dozen beams at once, which he deflected by swirling his sword around in circles.
Goosebumps riddled her left hand as she covered her mouth with it. Narrowly squinting her eyes, she remarked in a voice of certainty, "You move quite a lot. Almost as though you are as fast as Raijin's lightning."
Alex raised his brows then gave a coy smirk. He leapt back and swung his sword out, dispersing the flames into a rain of large fireballs. Sagume countered with a set of golden lasers, which she coiled around him in an attempt to hamper his movements.
He tumbled past them and threw is sword out. She deflected it skyward with her wing, which her rose to grab and swing back down. Sagume evaded it and he slashed at her in broad strokes, giving little room for her to evade from a stationary position.
She ducked under a particularly rough slash and flapped her wing out, using a burst of energy to hurtle Alex back. He turned his sword around and stabbed into the glyph behind him to shatter it. Then he sliced the air to send a huge wave of fire at his slippery foe.
She floated over it, then flew to the left as the second one came vertically. Alex then thrust his sword up and down to call lightning upon Sagume. After escaping its wrath she zipped back towards the Lunar Capital with Alex in hot pursuit.
She kept up the laser bombardment from all around her body, and while Alex managed to keep them off him it halted his advance greatly each time. He propelled himself forward with a burst of air from his feet and flew over and swerved past the beams, responding with flame beams of equal size.
While Sagume evaded them, Alex found they served a better purpose that way, for he guided the flames into creating a single massive orb behind her. By the time she saw it had grown to the size of a hot air balloon, Alex was able to close the distance and place a palm on her chest to shove her into it.
The fire burst with a bright crimson flash and expelled Sagume towards the ground, where only a few barely visible burn marks marred her clothes. She skid across the silky stone path leading to the Capital's heavily armored front gates, stopping just a couple feet from the steps.
She was greatly suspect of what was going on as she poked her head up to look at the boy, and once more said something rather odd, "All of your elements appear to be working perfectly. Your technique is without flaw."
Alex swung his left hand up by his shoulder and yelled bluntly, "Give it a rest already! I know what you're trying to do. Its a waste of time!"
Sagume raised her left brow and stood upright, testing things a little further by asking him, "You know a lot, do you now?"
With a rough smirk he boasted, "Your power is to reverse a situation with your words. So you thought you could stop my powers by speaking oddly."
He then thrust a thumb up to his chest and declared, "Sorry! Reality warping? You're out of luck! That kinda shit doesn't work on me!"
Sagume felt her legs trembling slightly. It was doubtful that he'd willingly divulge his secret, but this was a little...concerning. She closed her eyes and spoke softly, "Very well."
Alex drew his sword back and set it ablaze before diving straight down at Sagume. She stood her ground and peeked only one eye open as a figure wearing a dark red dress cut in and effortlessly blocked Alex's sword with a sword thinner than the width of her arm. She held it one-handed behind her head and hunched forward to put her back into supporting it.
Alex wasn't too surprised, just peeved.
The lithe warrior was a female with light blue hair tied lovingly into a ponytail thanks to a yellow ribbon. Her eyes were brown and sharp, with a gaze that could cut through the finest folded steel with ease. The dress she wore had its left strap cut off, and underneath it was a white short-sleeved blouse. Finally, a loose belt with a gold sword-shaped buckle was wrapped from her left hip to just above her right knee.
"Lady Sagume! Sorry I am late!" Her voice was slightly deep and full of reverence. While firm, it also displayed her masterful discipline and iron will, which was akin to a samurai.
"I let the intruder get too close. But you managed to catch the commotion. As expected of one of your position, Lady Yorihime." Sagume responded.
This interloper was certainly one of the more interesting Lunarians. She was not only a master swordswoman, but she was sharp. Very, very sharp. If it is possible for her to know something, she'll learn it almost instantly. She may honestly be more of a threat than Sagume.
And yet? Alex was smiling. His heart was racing. He repelled off the woman's blade and landed gently on the ground, grabbing his sword in both hands and propping it before his waist. The woman turned her body sideways and placed her sword at the hilt on her hip, cautiously keeping one hand hovering over it. Her name, as Alex bothered to recall, was...
The Brilliant Swordsman of the Gods: Watatsuki no Yorihime
"I'll hold the intruder at the gates! You handle the retreat, Lady Sagume!" Yorihime swung her left hand up and directed her superior with the utmost respect, and with a silent nod Sagume floated over the gate.
Yorihime then pierced right through Alex's body with an icy glare and demanded of him, "State your purpose, intruder."
Alex flashed a smug grin and taunted her, "What? Your parents never tried to scare you with boogie tales about me?"
Yorihime stabbed her sword into the ground with one hand, and a garden of blades immediately surrounded Alex's body. His body froze up, and his will to move around swiftly dwindled. She then raised her hands up beside her shoulders and smiled, "This is the power of Lord Gion. If you do not wish to incur his wrath, then I would suggest you answer my questions."
"Hehehe. You could at least try and be a little more accomodating." Alex slowly squeezed his right hand, and the blades bent back until they all snapped in twine and let him walk out completely unimpeded.
Yorihime raised her brows, then widened her eyes a bit as she pulled her sword from the ground, "I see. You are the one referred to as 'The Butcher of Sin'. You are a lot...younger than the history books suggested."
"That's because I'm not the same guy. I guess you could call me his successor." He stated with a nonchalant bob of the head.
"Different body, same arrogance," Yorihime stated plainly while drawing her sword close to her hip and telling him, "You should have never come back here. I will deal with you before you even catch a glimpse of the inner Capital."
"I look forward to seeing you try." Alex licked the side of his lips and leapt so hard off the ground it tore up ten feet behind him.
He attacked Yorihime with a simple downward slash that she short hopped back to evade. She drew her blade in a flash and slipped past Alex's arm to cut his chest. The blood drawn splashed out in a thinly lasting wave as he retreated, swiping his hand along the wound to cauterize it.
While his hand burned bright, he called a giant pillar of fire underneath her feet. She leapt off the stairs and spiraled around with her blade electrified. She penetrated Alex's defenses like she was a drill and sent millions of volts surging through his body. Then with a graceful landing in a kneeling pose she closed her eyes and turned around, aiming cleanly for his neck.
He swung his right hand up and snatched it midslice, squeezing it tight in hopes of breaking it. Yorihime let go of the blade and her arms suddenly became consumed in dark red flames. She pushed them straight out and Alex threw her sword up while bouncing far back in retreat.
"Can't touch those flames. They're nothing like my own." He gripped his sword in both hands and looked up, where Yorihime vaulted up high and snatched her blade upside-down. She descended with the blade's tip aimed for his right shoulder, and managed to cut into it even as he swerved aside.
The two landed on the ground at the exact same second, but it was her who rushed forth first. She attempted to stab his heart, which he blocked with the blunt edge of his blade, and then raised the sword up to cut the bottom of his chin.
The action was smooth and precise, as the blood she drew was then splashed against his eyes to cut off his vision. She zipped behind him as he swung down, but in doing so alerted him via gentle tremors in the ground. He dug his right heel back and launched the stone tile she was standing on upward.
She hopped right off it and turned around, steadying her blade before her face and planting two fingers against the edge, "Divine serpent of heavenly rain and glistening snow...I invoke your name to mesmerize my enemy. Obey, Kuraokami!"
A veil of white snowflakes covered the whole battlefield, its presence thick enough to keep even Alex from seeing his enemy. He kept his sword nailed to his hip and sensed out Yorihime's power.
"Just because you're hiding in the snow doesn't make you invisible." The hairs on the back of his neck stuck up on end and he spun around, fending off an unseen steel blade. The flash of light shadowed Yorihime's frame for a second, but she was off before he could attack twice.
He turned around and matched her strike again, but this time she followed through with a diagonal stroke towards his left hip. With a rough "Tsk!" he waited for Yorihime to strike again, and this time not only blocked her blade but planted his foot down on his toes to keep her down.
He leaned in closer, imagining he was smugly smiling into her face, only to have a blade impaled through his abdomen that left him speechless. Yorihime spoke through the wintery clout with a clear and concise voice, "Totsuka-no-Tsurugi was originally crafted by Takemikazuchi. It means 'Sword With the Length of Ten Fists', and was used by Susanoo to slay the demon Orochi."
"History repeats, and yet another demon shall fall to its steel." Yorihime could be heard tugging at the blade to get it to budge, but Alex had already hardened the skin around his wound with a metal similar to what the blade was made of.
With a grin trickling with blood, he laughed at her a bit and remarked, "Its not going to be that easy. If you want to kill me..."
A wind was roused at violent speeds, funneling all the snow into a tornado surrounding just the two of them as Alex yelled excitedly, "You'll have to do much better than that, Lunarian!"
Quickly condensing the snow into a pillar no bigger than a finger, Alex set it all loose in a chilling explosion that exposed Yorihime's presence once more. She stood upright at the edge of the stairs with only her original blade at her side. Alex cauterized the wound, then flicked his hand around like the previous proceedings were just a warm-up.
Yorihime gripped the handle of her blade tightly and attempted to hammer the difference in skill into his skull, "There are millions of techniques at my disposal. You host a myriad of powers yourself, impure Butcher, but the gap between us is as grand as that between the Moon and the Sun."
Alex closed his eyes and boasted, "Your prideful of your ability to defeat any foe with just one or two techniques. I'm not remembering that wrong, am I?"
Yorihime paused in silence and took noticed of what her enemy was saying. He tapped his forehead with one finger and chuckled, "But off the top of my head, you've used five."
He opened his eyes with a sneer and remarked, "So don't get cocky. I'm not some garden variety Shrine Maiden looking to lose."
"What do you even hope to accomplish with this reckless, thoughtless assault? Even if you somehow managed to get by me, the others would do you in in the blink of an eye."
"You're right," Alex lazily shrugged his shoulders and sighed, "Even I'm not confident that I could take on every single Lunarian all at once."
He lifted his head up high and flashed a smirk that left Yorihime feel an ominous shift in the air around her, "That's why I'm the dis-trac-tion."
"...What did you just say?" While she mulled over this troubling sentence, Sagume had finished organizing all the Lunarians towards the center of the Lunar Capital, where the grand Moon Palace stood untouched by the slightest flaw in its architecture.
"Lady Yorihime shall stay behind. Once she's done, she will open the way to the Dream World to retrieve us." After the mildest reassurance that everything would turn out alright, she faced the Palace's front doors and held her left hand out.
The puzzled murmurs behind her did not mar her concentration, yet for some reason, she could not open the rift to the Dream World.
"...What is going on here?" She murmured.
Outside the Capital, Alex closed his eyes and started reaching for his right pocket. Memories from a few hours ago stirred in his mind as he started to smile triumphantly.
Alex stood before two people hiding in the shadows of a hot, hellish realm with arms crossed and his expression as stern as could be. He'd created hot flames, but this place was something else. He couldn't stop sweating, and thus made the conversation quick.
"I came to ask for your help."
"Oh, you're back! Neat!" A person said in a jolly tone.
"You wanted my help dealing with the Lunarians? You got it. But...if we do this, it'll be my plan we go with, got it?"
"No complaints here! It's like, totally a good idea to get some fresh perspective!"
"...Your original plan of swarming the Lunar Capital with Fairies was sound...Except you didn't account for them turning tail like cowards."
"Yeah, that might've been a teeny bump in the road."
"What if I told you that I could prevent them from running away?"
"I'd say 'I'm all ears!'"
"...I'll sneak around the moon undetected and use my Gaia Temporis to close any rift, portal or gap they might have at their disposal. Then I'll emerge and alert the first Lunarian I can find. With any luck I'll get someone revered enough to get them to attempt a retreat into the Dream World. But when they fail to escape, that's when I'll bust open a portal for you two and the army of Fairies you'll bring with."
"Ooooohoohoo. How delightfully devilish. Cage 'em like rats and then wipe them all out, is that it? And just how many Fairies will we be needing?"
"...All of them. I don't want a single one left behind in Gensokyo, Hell, or anywhere in-between. We do this, and we do this right."
In the present, Yorihime had caught notice of Alex's movements too little, too late. He tapped the Gaia Temporis in his pocket and took a bit of pleasure in taunting her ignorance, "Today...The Lunarians shall meet their end!"
Sagume reached out once more, and was blown back as a massive rift in time-space shattered wide open. Hundreds upon hundreds of Fairies spilled out from the seams and immediately went wild in the Lunar Capital, playing around like this was a simple kindergarden playground.
"Fairies again...? Then this can only mean..."
"Heeeeelloooo again Lunarians!" A chipper voice echoed from the center of the rift, drawing all Lunarians' stiff, frightened gazes towards it as two bigger folk floated their way out.
One was Hecatia Lapislazuli, the mischievous Goddess of Hell, and the other was Junko, the embodiment of pure wrath. Hecatia crossed her arms against her chest and relished the chaos unfolding with a casual smile.
"So this time we meet face-to-face Sagume Kishin. You were so rude the last time, what with hiding yourself away without so much as a 'Hello'."
Sagume's unease continued to rise, and for the first time in her life her heart beat faster than normal. Hecatia peered both eyes open and froze the divine amanojaku with a hollow gaze, "Such a shame we're meeting on the day of your funeral."
With a wide and blissful grin, she leaned down closer and whispered into her ears, "Welcome to my Hell, Lunarian. I hope you enjoy our visit~"
Next Time: Rage of the Gods