6 Icicle Sukima

by WillieG.R

After a chain of events, a new and odd kind of sukima is created, though it's unstable and unreliable, but could be someone's salvation. Does it have anything to do with the odd light-blue haired twins, or this new visitor from elsewhere?

2. Chapter 2

A/N:

This chapter is long, so get some cookies. Also, gameplay Mechanics ahead! You have been warned.

---

It is still midday by the time Rika Onkamikami reaches the entrance to the underworld, which looks like a simple, oversized, dark and moist cave with vines clinging to its sides, spooky roots hanging from all around, and has a girl in a bucket dangling at the very middle of the entrance.

Kisume, the shy bucket-girl, has dark-teal hair tied to twin pigtails with white bobbles, has brown eyes, wears what looks like a white robe, and is inside a cherry-brown bucket that hangs from a rope, which hangs somewhere inside the cave.

At least that is what Rika hopes as she looks up at the cave entrance.

Kisume hides half of her face behind her bucket while looking at Rika, then asks "it's Rika. Are you going to come inside?"

Rika twitches, nervously bows, and says "m-miss Kisume. S-sorry for staring like that.", then straightens up and continues "why yes. I need to get a few things, so if it's alright, I'll just-"

Kisume bluntly replies "you can't come in."

A bead of sweat rolls down the back of Rika's head as she looks with confusion at the little youkai, then asks "um, I see. And why not? Is everything alright?"

Kisume starts moving left and right, and in a monotone voice, says "you are getting sleepy. So very sleepy. Your eyes are feeling heavy... You are falling asleep.", then, in a more natural tone, asks "so, are you sleeping yet?"

Rika is confused beyond words, and stares at the tsurube-otoshi as she swings around and tries to, apparently, hypnotize the shrine maid.

From inside the cave, a more mature-sounding girl exclaims "Kisume, stop hypnotizing passersby and making them think they are buckets!"

The little bucket girl stops, slowly sinks into her bucket until only the top of her head is visible, and in a high-pitched tone of voice, she whimpers "eep. I'm sorry. I'll be good.", then, somehow, without even using her hands, pulls herself up the cave's ceiling, and vanishes into the darkness.

Rika continues to stare upward, wondering how Kisume did that, but she suddenly shrugs and shakes her head, then says "no, no. It's best to keep that a secret.", and walks inside the cave.

Inside the ample cave, though it is dark, she can admire the countless giant spider webs coming from the ceiling, hanging just feet over the ground, allowing her passage.

The rocks and boulders seem to have been recently moved to the sides, placed on top of each other in an rather dangerous manner, but seems they can hold in place, at least for a while, and thus, this allows anyone to walk in and out of the cave; walking out of it being the least likely, unless you came prepared for the youkai that live inside.

As Rika walks forward, she calls "miss Yamame, it's me, Rika."

There is no answer, so feeling a bit worried, Rika softly calls "Yamame Kurodani? Hello?"

A woman with blonde hair tied up into a bun with a brown ribbon, brown eyes, and wearing a reddish-brown dress that's puffy around her waist and is wrapped by yellow straps, a black, long-sleeved shirt, and a pair of white socks and black shoes, dives down from the ceiling right above Rika, wraps her arms around the maid, pressing her face against said maid's chest, then exclaims "RIKA~! Welcome!"

Rika twitches violently when she is hugged by Yamame, the surprisingly friendly spider, but manages to calm down, but still nervously say "Ya-Yamame. Y-you s-surprised me."

The youkai lets Rika go, rises up to meet eye-to-eye with Rika, then says "sorry, I didn't know your boobs were so sensitive."

Rika blushes, and bashfully looks away.

---

Meanwhile, after following the long trail of knocked out and dead fairies sprawled all over the ground, we find Reimu, Marisa, and Sanae flying above the fields leading toward the Myouren Temple and the Human village.

After blasting a large group of fairies dressed in red and white, Marisa sighs and asks "why do these stupid fairies keep getting in our way?"

Reimu taps Marisa's shoulders, then points to up to the right.

Marisa realizes they are all inside a large rectangular screen, and to the right of it, she can see a grid with their score, which keeps adding up, their lives, which are five, their bombs, which are three, how many bullets they have grazed, which right now remains at seven, how many point tabs they have picked, and though they have about fifty, Marisa hasn't really seen a single one, and finally, their power, which is at a surprising sixty-seven.

Marisa sweats after reading all that, then asks "and how long has that been there, ze? And why haven't you answered my question?"

Sanae giggles, then says "well, seems little miss blonde witch is lost."

Reimu sighs, then quickly says "we're in a 'game', so keep your eyes peeled. Probably some drunk fairy's joke."

Marisa sweats and smiles nervously, looks up, above the score grid, then says out loud "Normal. I guess I can cope with that."

Suddenly, a girl loudly says "that's as far as you go!"

Reimu, Marisa and Sanae stop their advance to look around, then a girl holding on to a large red honey pot flies in front of them.

She has very short teal hair, blue eyes, a pair of bug-like antennas on her head, and wears a white, long-sleeved shirt, blue baggy pants, a cape that's black on the outside and red on the inside, and a pair of white socks with red shoes.

Reimu stares at the girl for a while, face palms, then asks "I'm sorry, could you please tell me your name, so that I can insult you properly?"

Furious, the girl shouts "it's me, you stupid shrine maiden! Wriggle Nightbug!"

Right after saying that, her name appears written in gradient blue and gold, with the title "honey-munching bug girl" underneath it.

After reading that, Wriggle picks more honey from inside the pot with her right hand, then munches away while angrily saying "great. That's what I get for helping him out. Still, the honey is good."

Sanae takes front and center, and says "I'll take care of this one, you guys."

Marisa smiles and says to herself "thank goodness. I didn't want to blast her, after she helped me last time."

Reimu gets closer to Marisa with a wicked smile on her face, and asks "what was that? Feeling sentimental, or perhaps you forgot your flashlight?"

Marisa grits her teeth, pulls her hat over her face, then says "none of your business, red armpits!"

Wriggle starts shooting danmaku-wrapped bugs all around her, and has them fly straight toward Sanae, though the maiden grazes that easily, and shoots rapid, colorful stars and wind blades back at the bug-girl.

After a quick exchange of bullets, Wriggle licks the honey out of her hand, takes a spell card from her pocket, then says "alright, time for my first spell card! Wriggle Sign, Little Bug Storm!"

Wriggle summons a swarm of flying roaches that spiral above her raised hand, and spread around a very wide area.

They stop spreading close to the bottom, then scatter randomly around Sanae.

The shrine maiden screams as though she's had death creep her hands around her.

Her face has turned blue, her eyes have lost focus, and as soon as she feels one of the roaches' wings graze her left leg, she shrieks, lifts a spell card, and screams "Snake Sign, Orochi of Ancient Times!"

The entire rectangular screen becomes the skin of a gigantic brown snake that literally obliterates Wriggle's roach friends, and forcefully cancel her spell.

Burned, annoyed, and hurt by the loss of her friends, Wriggle shouts "wah~! You monster! Look what you did to them! I'm gonna- Eh?"

Now Sanae is flying around with a white spray can that has a black bug under a red slashing circle, and is spraying the remaining roaches to their deaths, while repeating "ew, ew, ew, ew! Gross! Kill them. Kill THEM!"

Wriggle drops her honey pot and rushes over to Sanae, shouting "WAIT! DON'T! They're my friends!", but right when she's going to grab Sanae's left arm, the shrine maiden turns around and sprays Wriggle's face, causing her to violently blow up and fall dead to the ground below.

Reimu and Marisa fly to Sanae's side, helping her calm down, the Reimu looks down and says "wow, you really killed her."

Marisa sighs, then says "well, not gonna blame ya for that, but only this time."

Sanae has tears of fear dangling under her eyes, her entire body is shaking badly, and as she looks at the other girls, she asks "aren't you disgusted by these things?"

Reimu and Marisa shake their heads, then Reimu says "I've seen worst things. Trust me.", then remembers a time when Yukari mooned her via-gap, during a moon-viewing party.

She shudders and clenches her eyes, then says "I scrubbed my eyes for days after that."

Marisa and the still-nervous Sanae stare at Reimu while raising an eyebrow each, wondering what could be so horrible to have Reimu act so disgusted.

---

Meanwhile, at the underworld's moist entrance cave, when Rika and Yamame reach the hole that leads straight to the bridge between the surface world, and the Ancient City, Rika waves at the blonde youkai and says "thanks for everything. Take care!"

Yamame happily waves back, then says "no, thank YOU for that meal!", then Kisume drop from the ceiling and adds "it was delicious!"

Rika giggles, and bows elegantly at the girls, then drops into the hole, letting herself fall at a rapid pace.

The decent is uneventful, so it doesn't take her long to reach the wooden bridge with red rails, where she slows her decent exactly two feet before crashing on the surprisingly well-kept wooden boards.

Underneath the bridge, one would expect water, but instead, there is a sea of jagged rocks with rather sharp and pointy tips.

Upon landing, Rika looks around and ahead, but finds no signs of the bridge's guardian, Parsee Mizuhashi, the jealous, green-eyed princess, so she shrugs, then walks toward the Ancient City.

As she reaches the end of the bridge, she starts to admire the city lights, which come from the windows of the many stone houses, the restaurants, and the open shops.

She can see the spirits and oni going about their daily lives, giggles at the sight of the many oni holding to either a cup, a gourd, or a bottle of sake, and that's when she realizes to her left, is a short blonde girl with short hair and green eyes, and to her right, a towering blonde woman with long hair, red eyes, and a red horn on her forehead.

The green-eyed girl is Parsee, and she wears Yuugi's white, short-sleeved shirt with red borders, though it looks huge on her, Yuugi's semi-transparent blue skirt, which she has to hold on to so it doesn't fall, and drags around the ground, plus her black panties are barely visible through them, and Yuugi's wooden sandals.

She blushes as she scowls at the staring shrine maid, then angrily asks "wh-what? Do I have something on my face?"

Rika chuckles nervously, lightly shakes her head, then says "no, it's nothing, miss Parsee."

Yuugi Hoshiguma, the happy, drunken, towering oni, wears Parsee's clothing.

A brown jacket with purple borders that are adorned by white waving strings, which reaches down to the oni's waist with a blue extension, yet leaving her belly-button exposed, a black shirt underneath that looks as though its ready to break around the breasts, a black skirt with red crossing strings on the bottom, a pair of pink socks, and to top it off, a pink scarf around her neck and around her waist, and pink arm socks.

Yuugi keeps her shackles on her wrists and ankles, seeing as they look hard to remove.

Rika stands dumbstruck at the sight of the girls, suppresses her desire to point at them, then asks "so... why are you two-?"

Yuugi aims her confident eyes straight at Rika and says "this? It's nothing! We were just having some fun!"

Only moving her eyes for fear of losing her grip on the large skirt, Parsee looks at Yuugi, and in an angry undertone, says "that's enough fun. Give me back my clothes... You're stretching the fabric."

Now Rika's lips wriggle, her cheeks puff and turn pink, and her eyes start getting watery as she tries her best to hold in her laughter, and after taking a deep breath to calm herself down, she says "ahem... right. I need to go to Chireiden, so if it's alright, I'll..."

Yuugi walks over to Rika, smacks the maid's back with her large hand, making Rika cough and stumble all the way to the end of the bridge, then loudly says "sure thing! You go on ahead, and send Satori our regards!"

Parsee whispers "not mine. I still want my own palace."

Rika turns around and bows while saying "thank you very much! I'll let miss Satori know."

Right then, there is a loud ripping sound, then Yuugi says "whoops. It broke. Oh well, it's a lot fresher now."

Rika lifts her head and sees Yuugi, smiling while rubbing the back of her head, and Parsee's black shirt with a large hole right in the middle of the chest, showing off a good chunk of cleavage.

Parsee looks as though frozen in shock, the skirt falls off to reveal a pair of tight black panties, but the jealousy youkai is too concerned for her broken shirt to care, then suddenly stomps furiously with her left leg and shouts "you idiot! Look at what those meat-mounds did to my shirt!"

Yuugi chuckles, then says "it's alright, calm down. I'll get you a new one."

Parsee starts roaring while raising her arms, then Rika starts to giggle loudly.

The blonde girls stare curiously at Rika, who suddenly stops her giggling when she realizes what she did.

Blushing hard, Rika flaps her wings hard, covers her mouth with her right hand, wraps her left arm under her chest, then bows and nervously says "I'm sorry! I'm so sorry! That was so inappropriate of me!"

Yuugi just laughs out loud, while Parsee looks away to hide her blushing face, then says "y-you're lucky I like you, or I'd whack that face of yours into shape!"

The jealousy youkai starts biting down on her left thumb while thinking "so cute. So darn cute! I want to jump her! No, Parsee... Look away! Just look away!"

Yuugi continues to smile while blood gushes out her nose, then says "you know, you are just too adorable, miss Rika. Can I hug you?"

---

Meanwhile, Reimu, Marisa and Sanae are flying above the Myouren Temple, and have left a large trail of fairies on the ground on their way there, then Sanae suddenly says "I don't know why, but I think I want to kill Ail the next time I see him."

Reimu sighs, then says "you know, if you keep trying to hunt him down, he's going to get tired of you."

Marisa looks away with longing eyes, then says "you listen to her. That's how I lost my last three boyfriends."

Reimu looks angrily at Marisa and barks "you've never had boyfriends, you liar!"

Marisa looks away from Reimu while holding her pink cheeks and smiling, then says "it's like you don't know me at all, daze."

Sanae gasps after realizing something, then asks "hey, how would you know about that stuff, Reimu? You've never had a boyfriend."

Reimu twitches, her eyes hide under her hair, then she suddenly smiles brightly at Sanae and says "sorry, it's just that I read something over at Patchouli's library... so, umm... yeah."

Sanae rubs herself under her chin while thinking, then says to herself "well, she might be right. He's been avoiding me a lot lately. Hmm... but he's a half youkai, and I'm a shrine maiden, so..."

Before Sanae can finish thinking, Reimu and Marisa shout "look out!", then Sanae is hit hard by a blue bullet that comes accompanied by a cluster of red and blue shard bullets.

After Sanae yelps and falls, various red and white "P" tabs appear in the air, which Marisa and Reimu claim immediately.

Sanae returns, looking translucent for a moment, then cries out "hey, those are mine!"

Marisa shrugs and says "you cost us a life, so fair's fair, ze.", then Reimu adds "whatever. You take care of this one."

They are now behind the Myouren Temple, and in front of them, smiling childishly, is Lily White, the exceedingly adorable spring fairy.

She has long blonde hair, green eyes, white feathery wings, and wears a white cone hat with red waves on the lower borders, a long white dress that reaches to her ankles, with red waves on the lower borders, a white capelet with red borders, and cute little white shoes.

Sanae stares at stage two's mid boss and asks "but it's almost summer. Why are you even here?"

Lily twirls in the air, and says "it's still Spring! Besides, I promised him I'd slow you down... so~"

She twirls in the air again and unleashes quite a few red and white shard-bullets, though not as many as when it's the start of Spring.

The bullets slowly make their way toward Sanae, who moves lazily to the right to avoid being hit, and shoots exploding white frogs, along with those colorful stars of hers at the fairy.

Lily confidently twirls left to avoid the colorful stars, but doesn't notice the white frog that's headed her way.

It's too late to move away by the time the fairy notices the frog, so all she can do at the time is sweat, groan, and say "shoot, Spring's over."

The little fairy screams as she explodes and while falling to the bush below, and right after she's out of the way, the girls continue their way toward the Human Village.

Right before reaching the village, Sanae says "next one is yours. I want to think for a moment."

Reimu chuckles, then says "sure. We know what a task that is for you."

Sanae completely ignores Reimu and engages in thinking hard about her relation with Ail, and now that she's concentrating on that, she's shooting down fairies without even looking, blowing them up even before they make it to the rectangular screen.

Reimu and Marisa look awestruck at the green-haired maiden, then nod simultaneously and fly behind Sanae, allowing her to freely shoot the poor fairies down.

---

The Human Village; a peaceful place for humans, and human-friendly youkai to reside and commute. It is surrounded by a large and sturdy wall with four exits; to the north, the south, the east, and to the west; and has many wooden houses, particularly around the north, east and west exits, though some are uninhabited at the time.

Around the south, and south-west are the many shops and kiosks, as well as restaurants, bars and a few food stands.

This area is usually where most people are to either commune, or, of course, shop, and so, the fairies can play with the three heroines as they make their way through to the northern exit.

In the center of the village is the large school with a small bell tower, as well as a few more houses around it, and at the very exact center, surrounded by flower patches, a few trees, and various bushes, is the Dragon-God statue with jeweled eyes.

These jewels are no mere adornment, as they predict the day's weather, as well as warn of dangerous incidents, and right now they are glowing white, which means today is, and will remain a sunny day.

Marisa takes the lead when they reach the center of the village, and is shooting the fairies she can with green sparks and bright stars, clearly going for the overkill.

From behind the school, a girl shouts "wait a minute, you guys!", then another girls shouts "Mary, you first greet friends, then make dem- I mean, requests!"

Marisa and Reimu, even though they are in mid-air, skid to a stop, while Sanae quietly halts behind them, and thinks some more.

Two girls fly up to meet with the three heroines, one being Maribel Han, the bubbly, free-spirited thinker, and the other is Renko Usami, the plain and studious schoolgirl.

The girls stare at their names and titles, written in gradient purple and gold before them, then Maribel giggles and says "oh my.", while Renko growls and says "I'm not plain, dammit!"

Maribel has short, curly blonde hair, blue eyes, and wears a long, purple, long-sleeved dress that reaches to her knees, a white mop cap, a white sash around her waist, and a pair of white slip-on shoes.

Renko has short, brown hair, brown eyes, and wears a black hat, a white, long-sleeved shirt, a red tie, a black skirt that reaches to her knees, and a pair of white socks and black shoes.

Maribel claps her hands under her chin, smiles, and in a bubbly tone, says "so, Renko and I came up with these cool spell cards, and we'd like you three to be the first to see them."

Speaking in a low tone of voice, Renko smiles and adds "and also be our first targets."

Reimu and Marisa are already taking attack positions, then Reimu says "alright, we'll play with you for a bit."

Marisa snickers, then says "you should have picked better targets."

Both Maribel and Renko gulp, watch as a life bar appears over their heads, whimper, then Renko says "alright Mary, you're up first!"

The brown-haired plain girl makes a hasty retreat to the sidelines, while Maribel is left to fend for herself.

The cute blonde girl looks to her left, noticing the grid with the scores, then shouts "hey! Why do I have to be first? And my name is Maribel! Ma-ri-bel! Say it right!"

Marisa and Reimu look like demons ready to attack, smiling with glowing eyes and taking aim at the human girl, then Reimu says "don't worry, we'll go easy on you."

Marisa, in a more sinister voice, says "since you are human, we'll stop short from killing you, but we'll still hit hard."

Maribel trembles, curls up as if trying to hide in mid-air, then suddenly screams and cries while shooting pink and red hearts from her extended hands.

---

While the girl shoots, she closes her eyes and cries out loud "they want to kill meee~! Renko! Renko, save meee~!"

Not only did Maribel shoot at Renko, she has also, single-handedly, depleted the first life bar, and then, her bullets stop.

Renko peeks her furious, burned face from behind the gird, glares at Maribel, then calmly says "you... just shot at me... and depleted our first life bar."

Maribel's cheeks turn pink as she smiles at Renko, trying to save herself from her friend's rage, but it obviously fails when Renko shouts "AIM THAT SPELL CARD AT THEM, YOU IDIOT!"

Somehow, Renko has managed to strike Maribel on the head from far away, and with a fresh, steaming bump, and tears of pain and regret, Maribel lifts a spell card on her right hand and cries "Illusion of my Mind."

Reimu and Marisa stop laughing when they hear the sound of the spell card activating, then gasp in awe when behind Maribel, the illusion of a flower field becomes solid, making the flowers in particular, seem real.

Maribel smiles, then says "and you haven't seen anything yet!", then the flowers start shooting small pink hearts in straight lines, while Maribel shoots large hearts in various colors that explode when they reach the middle of the rectangle screen, and the smaller hearts that come from that explosion flutter toward Reimu and Marisa like snowflakes.

The girls smile while gazing at the admittedly-pretty, but simple pattern, and move up, down, left, or right between the bullet's gaps to avoid being hit, plus adding more points to their graze.

While casually moving around the wave of bullets, Reimu asks "so, you want to take a whack at her?"

Marisa grins, aims her right hand at Maribel, then asks "do you need to ask?", and without hesitation, she fires her stars and green sparks at Maribel.

The blonde girl complains when those burning stars and sparks make contact with her, making small burn marks and tears on her clothes, and when a pair of stars hit right below her stomach, she bites her bottom lip, crosses her eyes, and stops her spell.

While Marisa and Reimu admire the large numbers in yellow, showing them the spell card bonus, Maribel grabs Renko from the side of the grid, pulls her to the center, then says "need to pee! Be right back!"

Renko growls, then shouts "you should have done that sooner!", then faces Marisa and Reimu, smiles, then says "you'll get no mercy from me!", and starts shooting earth-element bullets at the two girls.

Reimu takes the front and says "allow me", then shoots her talismans and homing amulets at the brown-haired girl.

Renko manages to avoid Reimu's bullets with ease, then sticks out her tongue at the maiden, but before being able to taunt her, the homing amulets she forgot to doge attack from the sides, striking her hips, and gaining Reimu her victory.

Renko looks up at the life bar as it goes down unfairly fast, then cries "hey! That's not even fair!"

She aims her glare at Reimu and shouts "FINE! Take this then! Earth Sign, Rising Pikes!"

Small stone thorns rise from the ground directly below Reimu and Marisa, and rapidly fly up at the girls in a random order, while Renko grins viciously and showers them with diagonal showers of stone pikes.

Though simple, Marisa and Reimu are having a hard time dodging the spikes form below, losing bits of clothes when the spikes graze them, and Marisa's broom almost gets hit by one of Renko's pikes.

Annoyed, Marisa says "tch! I better knock her down a peg before she messes my hat.", then starts shooting bright-green sparks and spiraling stars at Renko, who screams when those bullets hit her.

Reimu can see how each of Marisa's bullets sends a small shockwave that penetrates Renko's defenses, and even her clothes, and doing so drains that life bar, like a sponge absorbs water.

Again, Reimu and Marisa score the spell card bonus, while Renko moans in disbelief.

Maribel flies to Renko, smiles, then says "alright, I can continue now. Oh, seems to me they beat you already."

Renko grabs Maribel's left hand with her right, then says "time for the last one! Mary, with me!"

Maribel cries "it's Maribel!", then raises a spell card with her right hand, Renko raises another with her left, then both shout "Loving Earth!"

Three massive earth spikes appears in front of Renko and Maribel, and all are surrounded by silver hearts, but what shocks Reimu and Marisa to a heart-stopping gasp, is the staggering number of small hearts and earth bullets behind the girls that seem to be dancing around each other.

Reimu opens her mouth wide and shouts "HEY! That's a Lunatic level spell!"

Marisa nods in assent, but Renko just smiles and says "all's fair in love and war."

Two large golden washtubs fall right on top of Maribel and Renko, knocking them both out of the air, cancelling their spell, and giving Reimu and Marisa the full spell card bonus score.

While the two human girls explode before crashing on the roof of the school, Marisa looks at Reimu, chuckles, then says "and so we move on."

Reimu sighs, then says "that'll teach them to bend the rules. Come on Sanae, we're going to stage three now."

Sanae appears from the left-side border of the screen, then says "I have decided that I will stop trying to hunt Ail down! And with that, let's go and beat... wait, what happened to the girls? Er, the bosses?"

Reimu face palms and Marisa raises both hands in the air, both lightly shake their heads at the same time, then Reimu says "we're happy for you, now focus, or we're leaving you behind."

Sanae shrieks nervously, then hurries to the front while saying "ah, wait, no! Sorry! I'll be more careful!"

Marisa laughs as she flies after Sanae, while Reimu stays behind, sighs, then says to herself "that pampered girl gets too many good things at once, undervalues them... and still..."

She shrugs off her thoughts, then flies after Marisa and Sanae, towards the next stage.

---

Meanwhile at Chireiden's front yard, which is currently filled with flowers of all colors, probably from Petal, Rika looks up at the large white building with stained-glass windows, and red roof, and wonders if she should bother the inhabitants.

But she really needs those gloves, and the materials she needs are precisely in Satori's inner garden, and the entrance to the Remains of Blazing Hell.

Behind her, she can hear the many spirits and oni calling out to her, inviting her for drinks and party, but she knows she has to return to the shrine before Reimu does, so she takes a deep breath, expands her already voluptuous chest, walks to the door, then knocks hard on it with her right fist.

She only waits for about fifteen seconds in front of the large wooden dual-door before she hears a shriek from within, then Satori's voice as she nervously says "ah. Mi-miss Rika! I-I-I'll be there in a moment!"

While she waits, she hears a little girl's giggle in the area, but when she looks around, she fails to see anyone.

When she turns around to the door again, she starts admiring the recently painted red roof, the white walls and columns adorning the front of the palace, and the little girl with long, wavy grey-greenish hair and dark green eyes standing beside her.

Rika shrieks and jumps away, then exclaims "m-m-miss Koishi! You startled me!"

Koishi Komeiji, the subconscious little monster-wonder, wears a black hat with a yellow ribbon, a yellow, long-sleeved shirt with light-blue diamond-shaped buttons, black frills on the sleeves' borders and green collar, a green skirt with light-green flower designs, black ankle-high boots, and has a closed blue eye with a string going over her shoulders, around her waist, and link to hearts on her ankles.

She smiles innocently at Rika, then asks "well, miss Rika, how are you? Did you come to mess with sis again?"

Rika stares at Koishi as though in shock, then shakes her confused head and asks "mess with...? What?"

The dual-door opens up, and there is Satori Komeiji, the peace-loving mind-reader.

She has short pink hair, purple eyes, a red third-eye attached to red and yellow strings that go all over her body, and wears a black headband, a light-blue, long-sleeved shirt with yellow heart-shaped buttons, a pink collar and pink frills at the end of her sleeves, a light-pink skirt with pink rose designs, a pair of light-pink socks, and pink fluffy sandals.

Satori spots Koishi next to Rika, raises both arms, slightly bends her knees, then signals Rika to keep quiet.

Koishi simply stands still and smiles at her sister, while Satori slowly gets closer, and closer, and when she's close enough, she jumps on Koishi and tries to trap her with her arms.

Koishi jumps away at the last second, lands several feet behind Rika, then raises her arms in the air and runs toward the Ancient City, shouting "she's after me lucky charms!"

---

Satori sighs as she lifts her head to watch her little sister run away, and as Rika helps her up, she asks "Koishi, what am I going to do with you? And where in blazes did she pick up that cheesy line anyway?"

Rika giggles nervously and shrugs, then opens her mouth to speak, but Satori beats her to it and says "oh, you want to make special gloves that resist both heat and immense friction, and the materials you need are here? Well then, let's go to my backyard. I'm sure Petal will be delighted to see you too."

Rika giggles, then says "miss Satori, you must be a riot at parties."

Satori looks at Rika with a rather unfriendly look, then says "I try to keep away from those. Too many minds at once can be troublesome for me."

Rika bows her head, nervously chuckles, and says "I-I'm sorry, I d-didn't mean to offend. I-I just..."

Satori looks at Rika, tries to soften up her face, but while reading her heart, she can see the memories from the girl's past.

She opens her eyes wide, but manages to take a deep breath to calm herself down, then say "phew. Don't worry about that, Rika. Um, please, just follow me."

Rika closes her eyes, thinking she just made Satori feel even worse, then quietly follows the satori youkai to the backyard.

The walk is awkwardly quiet, though not for Satori, who could hear Rika's nervous thoughts all the way to their destination, and after just a few minutes, they reach the backyard.

After Satori opens the door, Rika is once again amazed at the beautiful sight.

A white gazebo with a picnic table and chairs besides a large black tree with pink leaves, flowers of all sizes and colors, growing even from the roof; probably Petal's doing; and in the center of all, the hole leading to the old Blazing Hell.

Satori gestures Rika to go on, and says "please, go on and take whatever materials you need."

Rika bows as she says "I am very grateful for your hospitality.", then straightens out and walks toward the black tree, though the moment she steps into the yard, a raven with white feathers that make a zigzag effect around the neck, and wearing a familiar necklace that has a green pyramid-like stone, flies on to the maid's shoulder.

The little baby raven caws and nibbles Rika's left ear, then Satori says "Petal, please don't trouble our guest."

The baby raven flies onto Satori's arms, while Rika says "it's alright. It's no trouble at all."

Petal starts glowing, and with a loud pop, she turns into a girl.

Petal, the life-giving flower raven, has short black hair with a white stripe on the middle, navy-blue eyes, a pair of black wings, and her necklace is now embedded on her chest, probably to mimic Okuu's own third eye.

She wears a plaid-blue ribbon on the back of her head, a plaid-blue overall dress that reaches to her knees, a pink, short-sleeved shirt, a pink cape that covers her wings, with a daytime sky with moving clouds on the underside of said cape, and a pair of black knee-high boots.

She's roughly shorter than Satori in size, and obviously light, seeing as the satori youkai can hold her with ease.

Petal starts kicking the air as she lifts up to hug Satori's neck, then smiles and says "Shatori-shama-love! Petal troubles Rika-love is a no-no. Petal good! Praise!"

Satori sighs as she combs the little raven's short hair with her hand, then says "there, there, it's alright. I'm not angry. Miss Rika is just here to pick up a few things. Well then, Rika, whenever you're ready."

Rika stands next to Satori, with Petal to her right, and holds a full, light-brown bag on her right hand while smiling and saying "but I already picked them up. didn't you hear me say that three minutes ago?"

Satori twitches, though manages to keep her light smile, then nervously says "oh... heh, I see. Umm... p-please, let's head inside, then."

Before following Satori, Rika looks around, and before she asks, Satori says "why haven't I seen miss Okuu or miss Orin? Please don't concern yourself about them. They are over at the surface, with Ail."

Shocked, Rika asks "Ail? Is he alright?"

Satori grins, her eyes hide under a ominous shadow, then she says "he and I had a game of danmaku, I beat him, so now, he has to take care of those two for today. Still, he was scheming something very stupid. Still, I hope Orin and Okuu have fun."

Rika decides it is best not to ask more, then Satori grins and adds "that's a very wise choice."

---

Above ground, Reimu, Marisa and Sanae now fly over the Forest of Magic, and while taking down large numbers of fairies with ease, the girls also enjoy the sight of the many trees under them, though it's mostly because they are watching as the fairies fall after exploding.

The fairies stop their attacks, and being the experienced incident resolvers, Reimu and Marisa know there's a mid-boss headed their way.

Marisa grins, then says "alright, someone's about to pop in front of us.", and right on cue, Chen, the overconfident nekomata, spins out of the left side of the screen, shooting green and yellow orbs in wide triangular formations that scatter about at random.

She has short brown hair, dark-orange eyes, a pair of black cat ears with a golden earring on the left one, two black cat tails, and wears a green mop-cap, a red Chinese dress with long pink sleeves, a white bow under the collar, and a pair of white socks.

She spins around while shooting those bullets, one after the other, then shouts "ha-ha-ha! Come on, try to beat me!"

Sanae flies straight at the nekomata, dodging bullets by flying between them and gathering graze points, and when Chen spins her way, the maiden swings her gohei like a bat, and sends the spinning cat girl to the left side of the screen, causing the grid to tremble after there is a loud thud.

From the distance, Chen calls "I'm okay~!", then Sanae shoots a single blue star toward the cat girl, making her scream while the screen trembles some more.

Both Reimu and Marisa stare in shock at the green-haired maiden, then Marisa says "wow, that was cold, ze."

Sanae flips her hair toward the blonde witch and says "hmph! I don't want to hear that from you. She was a youkai, and wouldn't let us pass. She had to be punished."

From behind her, a familiar little girl's voice strikes many levels of terror and shock on Sanae's entire being as she says "mama Sanny, I can't believe you'd be the one to bully Chen like that! And after I said all that to papa; about how nice you were!"

Sanae turns her terrified self toward the source of the voice, and there she is, pouting adorably while tapping her left foot in mid-air, and placing her fists on her hips, Budou, the adorably innocent grape lover.

The little bat youkai giggles upon looking at her name and title, then says "te-hee, I sure love grapes."

She has long teal hair that reach her large brown bat wings, which are the exact size as her body, violet eyes without pupils, yet full of life, small fangs, small claws, and wears a white bow with black borders to the left of her head, a long light-brown, long-sleeved dress, a teal apron that covers the front of her skirt, and a pair of pink socks that allow her little claws through without breaking.

Sanae gasps and asks "Budou? You are the third stage boss?"

Budou confidently points at herself with her right thumb, and says "that's right! I'm helping out papa Ail today. I was going to let you through, mama Sanny, but after you bullied Chen like that... I don't think I should. Now, get ready!"

Sanae desperately says "no way! Budou, you stop this right now before you get-muff... Mmm! Mmm mmm!"

Before she finishes speaking, Marisa ties a ribbon over Sanae's mouth and pulls her away, while Reimu takes the lead gain and says "alright, miss third-stage boss. Come at me with all you got!"

Budou smiles at Reimu, then her smile turns mischievous, as she and the maiden look eye-to-eye.

Confident, Budou stretches her little fingers, takes offensive position, then says "you'll never reach papa, Hakurei sis!"

---

As soon as the battle begins, Budou showers Reimu with thin aquamarine lasers that bounce off the rectangular-screen walls and bottom once.

Reimu takes it easy at first, but notices the lasers speed up after bouncing off the walls, and after getting grazed under her belly, she exclaims "whoa! Hey, you've gotten good, but let me show you our many differences in strength. Hup!"

The maiden starts throwing her talismans and homing amulets at such incredible speeds, her hands look like white blurs, but the little bat youkai isn't giving up so easily, and starts flying around to avoid Reimu's attacks, at the same time as shooting her lasers from her hands.

Reimu looks impressed; she never imagined that tiny youkai to actually be this good, so she stops shooting, flies toward Budou, then throws a homing amulet at point-blank range, getting Budou on the stomach with that exploding amulet.

From far back, Marisa's face turns blue while Sanae muffles curses and cusses at Reimu, and the red and white one turns her self-satisfied smile at Sanae and says "she's a boss. I have to take her down."

Budou growls, then says "fine! If that's what you want, take this! Wave Sign, Shapeless Mind!"

The little youkai closes her eyes to focus, as green beams start spreading out from her hands and form what look like a pair of giant claws.

She grins at Reimu, then swings the right claw at a considerable speed, and although the swing is out of range, it unleashes a thick lime-green beam that bounces off the walls several times, getting thinner and gaining speed with every bounce.

Reimu smiles with confidence when Budou starts swinging those beam-claws around, unleashing more of those beams, and starts twirling around the air as though she's being moved by drafts of wind, avoiding every single laser beam, regardless of size, and when Budou pauses her attack for a moment, Reimu flies over to the youkai and showers her with talismans while flying around her.

The spell is immediately canceled when Budou starts complaining about the pain and starts writhing around to assimilate with the feeling.

After Reimu takes her position in front of Budou again, and her spell card bonus shows up on the field, the bat youkai, with dangling tears under her eyes, angrily shouts "you'll pay for that!"

The bat youkai starts opening her mouth, and when she does, she sends round sound waves that split into orbs that scatter about randomly, then fires green lasers all around herself, all while Reimu moves about and showers her with charms.

Budou's dress tears up around her abdomen, the little bat youkai shrieks, Sanae tries to cuss at Reimu again, then Budou pulls a spell card from her apron's pocket, and shouts "Wave Sign, Ringing Ears!"

Budou claps her hands hard, then cups them around her mouth, and shrieks as loudly as she can, generating three, almost-invisible sound waves.

Reimu fails to see one of the waves and gets paralyzed on contact, then all three sound waves become flashing green and white orbs that fly straight at the maiden, taking a life with a loud "pu-chiun", thus, leaving behind those red and white "P" tabs.

Reimu returns to the scene, looking translucent for a brief moment, and while grabbing those red tabs, she growls and says "alright, so you got me once. I still got three lives left. Now take this, little bat!"

Budou starts shooting lasers from her hands after sending a second set of waves, but Reimu is ready.

She twirls above the lasers, dives diagonally between the center and left sound waves, then shoots various needles and charms at Budou.

The needles break through the third set of sound waves, then the charms stick on Budou's wrists, making her scream in pain.

The spell is canceled, but instead of having Budou run away, Reimu gaps with surprise when she sees the little bat youkai crying, yet looking angry as she says "you *sob* you bully! I'll *sob* teach you some manners!"

Reimu shouts back "just give it up already!"

Budou lifts another spell card and shouts "The Song of the Heart - Revelation!"

As soon as the spell activates, Budou sings a single, loud note, sending a powerful vibration that reaches Reimu, making her stop in mid-air.

Smiling, Budou says "ha! Got her!", then starts singing in different notes and generating several musical notes that fly straight at the maiden, though Reimu doesn't seem to care.

She floats in mid-air with a hateful look on her face, and inside her mind, she can hear herself, laughing along a familiar girl, and a boy.

The more time passes, the louder the laughs become inside her mind, and the worst she gets, going as far as twitching when hearing those laughs.

Meanwhile, the musical notes explode and turn into green shard bullets that take a square or triangular formation, and head straight to Reimu, then the maiden suddenly snaps from her own mind.

She screams to the air, emanating a powerful energy wave that pushes Budou's bullets away, her eyes return to normal, yet tears cling to them, and with an angry expression, Reimu lifts a spell card in the air and shouts "Treasure Sign, Yin-Yang Orb!"

A gold-colored yin-yang orb appears in front of Reimu, and screaming loudly, she strikes the back of it with her gohei, using all her might into that attack, sending it straight at Budou, who screams out loud when the holy magic burns her, then explode hard and plunges straight to the ground.

---

Both Marisa and Sanae remain still in mid-air as they stare at Reimu in shock, though Sanae recovers quickly, easily breaks away from Marisa, then dives after Budou, who fell right next to an old tree, right on top of a brunette fairy dressed in green rags.

Marisa is more concerned about Reimu, who remains airborne while looking toward the horizon with a look of rage and despair.

When close enough, the witch asks "oi, Reimu, are you ok?"

The shrine maiden takes a couple of deep breaths through her teeth, stops shivering, then looks at Marisa's slightly worried smile and says "I... um, yeah... Yeah, I'm alright now. Still, that spell... was unpleasant."

Marisa sighs with relief, then smiles as she usually does and says "man, you scared me there. Still, you really let Budou have it. I haven't seen you bat that yin-yang so hard since Mima-sama tried to kill you."

Reimu suddenly shrieks, panics and looks around, then asks "oh no! I think I overdid it! Where's Budou?"

Marisa casually points downward, then she and Reimu get closer to Sanae on the ground, and the dazed bat youkai around her arms.

Sanae points up at Reimu and shouts "you crossed the line Reimu! You didn't have to hit her this hard! LOOK AT HER!"

At first, Reimu feels a little ashamed, though doesn't show it, but upon looking at Budou's spinning eyes and goofy, drooling smile, she relaxes and says "eh, she's fine. She's already waking up."

Sanae looks at the little youkai, as she moans while waking up, then smiles and exclaims "Budou, you're alright!"

The little bat youkai smiles when she sees Sanae's face upon waking up, but she quickly frowns when she realizes she's in trouble for picking a fight with them in the first place.

Agitated, Sanae asks "Budou, what the hell were you thinking? I was so worried, we had to pause the game to see that you were alright!"

Budou stares at Sanae's worried face, then notices the worry on Reimu's, and the slight interest in Marisa's faces, then starts feeling scared.

Her lips wriggle, her mouth feels dry, her eyes water, then little Budou suddenly starts to cry "I'm sorryyyyy~!"

From above, Reimu says "way to go, Sanae. Now you made her cry."

Sanae embraces the little youkai and pats her head, while looking up and saying "aww, shut up! I'm not the one that knocked her out in the first place!"

Budou continues to sob and cry on Sanae's shoulder, then suddenly, without provocation, she cries "papa *sniff* wanted to do something, but *sob* didn't want you to see it! *hic* Then he asked me if I *sob* wanted to help *sob*, so I helped and promised to *sob* to stop youuu."

Sanae's face becomes relaxed, though her eyes hide under a dark and ominous shadow, and in a awkwardly calm tone of voice, Sanae asks "so... Ail put you up to this?"

Budou tightens her grip on Sanae, sniffles and sobs, then says "yes. But I wanted to help papa."

Reimu looks frightened at Marisa, then says "Marisa... you do realize what's about to happen, right?"

Marisa stares quietly at Reimu, who looks back at her friend with a concerned look, then says "when someone as adorable as Budou cries, then points at the source of her discontent, you know that source is..."

Marisa gulps, lowers the front of her hat to cover her eyes, frowns, then says "totally dead. Now I feel sorry for him. I hope Ail's got no regrets left."

Right after Marisa finishes her sentence, Sanae flies off the ground while holding on to Budou, creates a magical tail due to the speed she's going, and shouts "AIL, HOW DARE YOU! I'm going to kill you~!"

Reimu and Marisa sigh, shake their heads, then Reimu says "come on. Let's try to save his life."

Marisa nods and flies after Reimu, while casually asking "should we really bother?"

---

Back at Chireiden, Rika and Satori work inside the kitchen, which looks surprisingly western, with the cooking area surrounded by countertops and cabinets, and having the stove and oven at the left side of the area, the sink further to the right of it, separated by a countertop that has no cabinet underneath, and a small area of movement in the middle of it all.

There is a small white table with white wooden chairs around it, also adorned by a basket with flowers, sitting in an extension of the kitchen, and seems two of the chairs have been used, while Petal sits on the left-side chair, holding her juice cup with both hands while drinking up.

Rika is cleaning the cups and dishes in the sink, while satori cleans the stove, paying close attention to the spilled sauce beside the front-left grill, then Rika suddenly asks "so... what's that second cake you baked for?"

While looking at the stovetop, Satori's eyes glint, her usual half-smile becomes a full, mischievous grin, then she says "oh, you'll find out soon."

The satori youkai quickly relaxes, then says "too bad you can't wait for Orin and Okuu. They'll be so disappointed."

Rika giggles nervously, while beads of sweat roll down her forehead, but before she speaks, Satori says "you can't, because you need to get back to the shrine before troubling your mistress? I see. Well, when you are feeling better, please come back and-"

Rika twitches, smiles, straightens up, and nervously says "wha-what do you mean? I'm feeling great! I'm..."

Her smile quickly becomes a frown as she softly says "I've... never been better."

Satori stares at Rika with those seemingly unfriendly eyes, but before she can speak up, a girl's scream rumbles all the way toward the kitchen, startling Rika, and scaring Petal into her bird from, spilling the rest of her juice, and bumping her head hard on the ceiling while trying to escape.

Rika shouts "oh my! Petal, you poor thing!", then rushes to aid her, while Satori sighs, smiles, then says "I knew that would work."

Holding Petal around her arms, Rika rejoins Satori, who walks over toward the door next to the kitchen sink, then says "come. I'll need your help."

Rika stars rubbing the bump on Petal's head, making the baby crow caw contently, then walks after Satori toward the entrance corridor.

In the middle of the corridor, there is a net with Koishi crying inside while eating a pink cake.

When Satori and Rika get close, Koishi sniffles, then whimpers "you meanie! You knew I'd never mistrust cake."

Satori smiles triumphantly, while Rika stares at the scene in disbelief, then asks "umm... Miss Satori, what is going on here?"

Satori continues to smile as she rises her right fist in the air, pulls down her sleeve to show Rika the bracelet with the tiger and eagle eye stones, then says "ever since you gave me this, I've been able to read some of her thoughts, so she's been doing all she can to avoid me. But it was all just a matter of time before I caught her."

Inside the net, Koishi sniffles and whimpers while taking a bite off her cake, and with her mouth full, she says "that's so unfair. Now sis won't shut off her eye."

Petal turns back to her human form, making Rika twitch and gasp in surprise, then jumps away from Rika and flies toward Koishi, saying "yay! Ishi-Ishi-shama-love! Cake is delicious for Petal! Share, SHARE!"

Koishi stares at Petal, takes a handful of cake, then tosses it through one of the large openings on the net, making Petal fly after it and repeat the word "cake" over and over.

Rika sighs, closes her eyes, then says "bless that child..."

She opens her eyes again, and says "she's so happy here. I hope she never loses that happiness."

Satori grabs Rika's right arm, pulls her down, then says "I've seen them. I can still see them, Rika. You are allowing those memories to hinder you, when you should be gaining strength from them."

Rika hyperventilates while thinking up an excuse for herself, but long before she finds one, Satori says "you do realize those things happened once, and now they are gone, but as long as you keep them in front of your eyes, I'm afraid you'll never gain the strength they provide."

Rika sighs in defeat, lets her body hang limp, then says "I'm trying, but they are too much for me. Please understand I am just a mere human. I can't-"

Satori softly karate-chops Rika's head, then says "don't speak like that. You know as well as I do what you truly are, and how strong you can be. Stop making up excuses. You even defeated that darkness in you!"

Rika straightens up while holding her head and looks toward the exit, then Satori says "fine, I will not say more, but please, do consider what I just said."

Rika softly nods, and as she walks over to the exit, she says "please send my regards to miss Orin and miss Okuu. Oh, and miss Parsee and miss Yuugi sent their regards to you as well."

Satori sighs, waves at Rika, even though the shrine maid has her back turned, then wraps her right arm around Koishi, who is mysteriously beside her, then says "that girl completely messes my mind up, and yet I feel a bit strange, seeing her sad like that."

Koishi licks her fingers from all the icing, nods at Satori, then says "she'll be fine, onee-chan. She just needs a bit of a push."

Satori quietly nods, then she, Koishi, and Petal, who is flying in circles overhead, make their way toward the palace's foyer.

---

Meanwhile, Sanae speeds through the mountainous regions after the Forest of Magic, while Reimu and Marisa fly only a few feet behind her, though they are stuck with the fairies that, for some odd reason, keep attacking them, even though they are taking the little fairies out by the insane numbers.

After taking out yet another small group of fairies, Reimu shouts "Sanae, just hold on!"

Marisa angrily shouts "you speedy green-haired miko, I can see your pink panties from here!"

From the distance, Sanae shouts "I don't care! I'm killing Ail, right now!", then Budou happily adds "I think this is going to be fun to watch!"

A girl with fiery-red hair tied into twin-side-braids by black ribbons on the top and bottom, red eyes, black cat ears, human ears, two tails, and wearing a long black and green decorated dress with green frills at the bottom, and a pair of black shoes and a black lace on her left leg, flies in front of Reimu and Marisa and shouts "hold on there, sis, and witch sis!"

Reimu and Marisa stop and gaze upon Rin Kaenbyou, the corpse-for-brains kasha, and whom is also known as Orin, then Reimu asks "hey, aren't you supposed to stop the one in the lead? That would be the main player, you know."

Orin chuckles nervously while scratching her left cheek, and says "um, I tried, but she just flew right past me. Kind of annoying, really. I mean, what the hell's her problem?"

Marisa chortles, then says "she's going to kill Ail for making Budou be a stage three boss."

Orin lowers her ears, sighs, then says "well, the game rules do say I have to fight you and all... but due to the circumstances, I'll just tag along so I can tell Okuu to stand down."

Marisa and Reimu look at each other with terrified shock in their eyes, then shout at the same time "that IDIOT asked Okuu for help?"

Up ahead on stage four, Budou clings on to Sanae's back, and uses her wings to propel Sanae through the air even faster than before, going so fast, the fairies slump in disappointment when they fail to get in their way.

Budou points ahead, and shouts "we should be reaching the Garden of the Sun pretty soon. After that, the Nameless Hill, and papa Ail."

Though they are in mid-air, Sanae skids to a stop, looks around suspiciously, and right after Budou asks "what's wrong, Mama Sanny?", a massive orb of pure atomic energy zips downward, close to the girls, then explodes so violently, the rocks and floor below become one massive crater.

After the shockwave from the blast subsides, a girl loudly says "unyu~! No way you're getting through me! I'll stop you, then he will give me MORE shiny stones!"

The girl has long, raven-black hair tied on the back with a green ribbon, dark-red eyes, and wearing a white, short-sleeved shirt, a white cape with the universe apparently drifting in it, the cape is kept aloft by her large raven wings, a short green skirt, and a black sock and black shoe on her left leg.

On her right arm, she wears the brown control rod, which is called "The Third Leg", on her chest, she has a large red slitted-pupil eye, her right foot is covered by congealed material that looks like a cement shoe, and atoms orbit her left foot.

Utsuho Reiuji, the overpowered nuclear birdbrain, also known as Okuu, looks at her name and title, points at it, looks at Sanae, and smiles while asking "can I eat that?"

Sanae looks deceivingly calm at the hell raven, and sounding seemingly calm, she asks "so, you're going to prevent me from reaching Ail, is that it?"

Okuu smiles innocently as she nods, then says "he already gave me these very shiny stones, and I just LOVE them, and he promised to give me more if I stopped you."

Budou gulps, then says "mama, I'm going to close my eyes now."

Sanae smiles, seemingly motherly at Budou, and says "go ahead sweetie. This won't take long."

Budou flaps her large bat wings to keep airborne and covers her eyes with her little hands, while Sanae gets closer and closer to Okuu.

The hell raven smiles and asks "wait, aren't you supposed to stay away from me?"

Sanae places her right hand on Okuu's shoulder, showing a massive vein pulsating on its back, her seemingly sweet smile becomes a crescent, jagged-toothed, vile grin, her eyes turn demonic, then raises her gohei, and poor Okuu screams along with the sounds of loud smacking, ripping, exploding, and even poking.

There is a loud explosion, then Sanae can be heard dusting her hands as she says "it's alright Budou, you can open your eyes now."

When Budou opens her eyes, she spots Okuu sprawled in the center of the crater with half of her shirt ripped, her skirt gone, her pink panties cut from the left but remaining in place, somehow, her control rod lodged on her head, and her eyes are spinning in place while she drools.

Budou shivers as she turns her sight to the still-smiling shrine maiden, then nervously asks "m-ma-mama? Wh-what did you do to her? I-is she going to be a-alright?"

Sanae opens her arms, welcoming Budou to her, then says "it's alright. She'll be fine. And if my miracle worked on her tiny brain, she'll be a bit wiser in the future."

Budou whimpers as she gets closer to Sanae, who hugs her warmly and says "let's move along now."

Just before speeding away, Reimu, Marisa and Orin reach Sanae, and Reimu exclaims "what the HELL? You beat Okuu by yourself?"

Orin screams "Okuu! What has that monster miko done to you?", then dives down to aid her friend.

Marisa scratches her head under the left side of her hat, then asks "so... that's what you're doing to Ail, right?"

Sanae smiles and shakes her head, then says "nope. It's going to be MUCH worse, I promise you that."

Budou shrieks and tries to escape Sanae's grasp, while shouting "SAVE ME!", but Sanae hugs the bat youkai tenderly, keeping her from escaping, and says "come on. Time to give your papa a lesson he'll never forget."

Reimu and Marisa stare at each other, sweat with fear, then Marisa asks "so... we're going to stage five?"

Reimu sighs, relaxes, shrugs, and says "looks like it. Come on.", then flies after Sanae and Budou, followed closely by Marisa.

---

The girls reach the Garden of the Sun relatively quickly, and are immediately attacked by the sunflower fairies that live there.

Budou has calmed down slightly, but is not helping Sanae speed through the stage like before, and is still hoping to find a way to escape, while Sanae is busying herself with shooting down fairies, but the maiden keeps holding her tightly.

Reimu and Marisa have finally caught up, and are flying beside Sanae, and, of course, are taking down their share of fairies and spirits as well.

Midway through the Garden, Reimu breaks the awkward silence when she asks "hey, Sanae, can I hold Budou for you for a while?"

Sanae continues flying forward, as though she didn't even hear Reimu, then Budou whimpers and says "mama, please, I wanna stretch my wings!"

Sanae sighs with annoyance, then says "fine. Just behave with your Hakurei sis."

When that right arm unwraps from the bat youkai's waist, Budou stretches her wings and sighs with relief, and quickly takes Reimu's right side and whispers "thanks, Hakurei sis."

Reimu flips her right thumb up and winks at the little youkai, and now, the tension around them seems to have lifted.

Sanae suddenly groans, then says "bah, another nosey meddler!"

Marisa exclaims "heads up! Stage five boss' up ahead."

Up ahead is a strange figure with a coned top, and a bottom that looks like a shrimps' tail.

Reimu squints her eyes to get a better look, then says "wait a minute, that's not Yuka."

They stop when they are close enough to see this figure clearly. She has long green hair, green eyes, and wears a coned blue hat with a yellow sun and moon motif, a blue cape with white borders, a blue shirt with long white sleeves, a yellow ribbon around her collar, has a bluish-white ghostly tail, and holds a golden crescent moon staff.

Mima, the seemingly-evil magician spirit, is the fifth stage boss, and smiling dearly at the girls, she waves her hand in the air and says "well, hi, hi! It seems you're here earlier than I expected, but that's even better. We'll get to have lunch even sooner!"

Marisa gasps and exclaims "Mima sama, what are you doing?"

Mima giggles, then says "Ail is doing something pretty dumb back there, so I decided to help him by slowing you girls down. But playing by the rules is a bit boring, so..."

Mima twirls her staff and points it at Sanae, then, not only does she grant the girls five extra bombs on the right-side grid, she also fills their extra-lives to the maximum.

Once she's done, before Reimu can ask, Mima says "now, you two maidens go on ahead and stop that idiot. Marisa, I am going to give you a little test, so get ready."

Marisa twitches, gulps, then asks "wait, now? A test? What for?"

Mima smiles, winks, then says "I just want to see how much you grew from your experience in that cave. No biggie."

Memories of that messed up cave rush in front of Marisa's mind, beads of sweat appear on hear forehead, and after she gulps her heavily-beating heart down her throat again, she nods and whimper "okay."

Budou takes the chance and says "um... I-I'm staying! I, er... wanna watch. Is that ok, mama?"

Sanae sighs, looks at Mima, the evil spirit giggles and says "I'll make sure she stays safe.", then the maiden gives up and says "alright, but don't get in their way."

Budou salutes Sanae and exclaims "I'll be good!"

Reimu chuckles, pat's Sanae's right shoulder, then takes the lead while saying "come on. The Nameless Hill and Ail are up ahead."

After Reimu and Sanae are out of sight, Budou expels her held-up air, then says "thank you so much, mommy number two. Mama Sanny is acting very scary today."

Blood trickles down Mima's nose as she smiles contently, and says "that's alright sweetie. Now be a good girl and stay behind me. You'll get a great view, and I'll be able to keep you safe."

Budou salutes Mima and quickly flies above the battlefield behind Mima.

Marisa feels a bit more relaxed, and smiles more confidently while facing her old magic tutor, and with confidence in her voice, she says "alright Mima-sama. I'll hit you with everything I got, so don't say I didn't warn you!"

Mima's smile becomes slightly sinister, then she replies "that's my girl. Now come at me!"

---

Marisa remains floating in place, while Mima prepares to rush her, but before they are off, Mima loudly says "oh, and one more thing. Every spell card you use, I will use. Now off you go!", and after that, Mima and Marisa start flying in circles around the large sunflower field while showering each other with lasers, sparks, stars, and all kinds of bullets and small spells they can think of.

Budou's eyes move fast to manage and keep up with the two magicians and their spells, then her eyes lock upon the sight of a large barrier underneath the girls, obviously protecting the sunflowers below them, for an obvious reason, even to the little bat youkai.

But that's not important right now.

Right now, what is important, is those two magicians zipping left, right, up and down, while showering each other continuous magic attacks.

Marisa has to lean on her broom while rising slightly, in order to avoid an icicle from bellow, and a laser from above.

When she spots three more lasers headed her way, and seeing no hopes of escape, she raises a spell card on her right hand, and shouts "Ritual Sign, Orreries Sun!"

To the witch's surprise, after the four colorful orbs appear around her, and dissolve the attacks headed her way, she notices Mima has cast the very same spell, though she didn't hear her casting it.

Mima giggles at the sight of Marisa's confused and surprise face, then says "I told you. Every spell card you use, I will use."

Marisa smiles and chuckles, quickly understanding Mima's meaning, then fires a small beam from the palm of her hand, causing four more beams to shoot right out of the orbs.

Mima replies the attack with blue miniature stars that shower from both her hands and the four orbs around her, overwhelming the witch, and forcing her to move, thus miss her mark miserably.

Mima giggles after moving slightly to the left to avoid one of the beams, then says "you are still focusing too much on power. Vary your spell a bit, or you're just leaving yourself open for attack."

Marisa grins, closes her eyes, the intensity of her beams diminish a bit, but the orbs around her start moving clockwise, causing the beams to move around and catch Mima off-guard, making her move and snake around the moving beams.

Marisa smiles and says "I have learned a few new tricks. Allow me to show you.", then the orbs take the front, and while two start spinning diagonally, the other two seem to be homing Mima's movement.

The supposedly evil spirit laughs when her countless stars get consumed by Marisa's laser, which serve as a great shield on the front, but Mima can see a huge opening, so she flies higher, shoots a barrage of at least a hundred stars, then dives back down to distract Marisa and her homing lasers.

Mima grins while shooting more of those stars at Marisa, at the same time as moving like a snake in the air to avoid the five lasers, but the stars she shot from above are slowly making their way to the witch, so it's just a matter of time.

Right as the wave of stars are inches away from the witch, Marisa stops her lasers, dives down, surrounds herself and her orbs with magic, then tries to tackle Mima right out of the air.

The spirit is almost caught off guard because of the surprise, but she manages fly up high just in time, but in doing so, she cancels the spell.

As the spell card bonus appears over the field, Mima chuckles and says "well done, my little girl."

Marisa smirks, cancels her spell, aims her broom at Mima, then asks "one more?"

Mima nods, then says "but I'm not holding back this time."

Marisa chuckles, then says "heh, excuses. Fine, whatever. Let's just have some more fun."

Mima smiles wickedly, and as she descends to meet Marisa, she tightens the grip on her staff, then suddenly lunges forward, swinging her staff sideways, and forcing Marisa to use the front of her broom to deflect the attack.

---

Deflecting that attack costs Marisa dearly; the impact pushes her back and leaves her spinning in mid-air for a few seconds, giving Mima more than enough time to set up eight red orbs around the witch that simultaneously release eight red beams that also bounce off the rectangular walls.

After recovering, Marisa only has one second to make a move and escape, and with luck on her side, she finds an opening between three laser beams below one of the orbs, so she takes the chance to fly through it, and escapes the constricting net of lasers.

Once free, and while still flying away from the attack, Marisa mutters an incantation, and she's suddenly surrounded by three blue orbs that shoot large icicles at a rapid pace.

She turns around to face Mima, only to face a shower of flickering stars she knows damned well will explode if they make contact, so she drops from her broom and holds it like a bar, swings forward once, then lands back on her broom right after flying through Mima's exploding stars.

The spirit is several feet away from the witch, smiling while saying "well, I never expected a magician to move like that. No matter, I can still beat you, girlie."

Marisa starts shooting her icicles at Mima without stop, and while Mima swirls in the air, Marisa says "that's a pretty big claim there, lady. I'm going to have to take you down now."

Mima merely giggles while dodging Marisa's straight attack, which annoys Marisa into using her next spell card.

The witch raises her spell card and shouts "Star Sign, Meteoric Shower!"

Though Marisa shoots the rain of stars in a straight line, she has learned to make the stars dance around each other.

Mima looks a bit surprised, points at the incoming attack, then says "oh, a bit of an improvement I see.", and then she notices how her old apprentice is struggling to keep focused on the attack, and smirks.

Without declaring the spell, Mima shoots the same shower star shower as Marisa, except her start shine much more brightly, and instead of merely dancing between each other, the stars rapidly spin in pairs, and to add insult to injury, when they meet with Marisa's star, they eat right through three of those, then explode with such force, they take out at least five more stars.

Marisa gasps with surprise when she hears the explosions, losing her concentration, her stars stop dancing and start moving in straight lines once more, and when she see's Mima's own stars, she sighs.

She realizes Mima has been playing with her all this time, and that knowledge makes her heart beat painfully hard, but she doesn't want to give up.

She sneaks her Hakkero from the pocket in her skirt, aims it toward Mima, then the spirit winks at her, shakes her right finger, and playfully says "nah-ah. No breaking the rules. And here I thought you were smarter than that."

Marisa looks over her head and realizes she has been entirely surrounded by Mima's stars, but instead of losing herself, Marisa just smiles, chuckles, cancels her spell, shrugs, and says "darn. And here I thought I could beat my former master."

Budou watches from above as several stars explode right on top of Marisa, but instead of covering her eyes, as she usually would, she oohs and marvels at the sight with a smile, especially when the explosions become colorful fireworks.

Mima flies to Budou's right, grabs hold of the little bat, and while she rubs the little one's head, she happily says "glad you liked them. They will be exploding for a while, so why don't we stay here and watch."

Budou giggles, looks up at Mima, then says "alright. This is much better than what mama's going to do to papa anyway."

Mima looks down at the little girl with surprise, but quickly giggles and resumes scratching Budou's head.

---

Meanwhile, Sanae and Reimu reach the Nameless Hill, and both squint their eyes to try and make out what the hell they are looking at up ahead.

It looks like a massive platform with rising antennas, but the light from the sun prevents them from seeing exactly what it is.

Behind it, they can make out the large field of poisonous purple flowers surrounded by a rocky formation.

Reimu sighs as she relaxes her sight, then says "well, it seems he's actually doing something bad, and not another stupid snowman."

Sanae shoots a few fairies in front of them, chuckles, and with an ominous aura around her, she says "oh, you can bet your ass he did something bad. And he's going to pay!"

The girls suddenly stop and look forward with the look of intense horror and shock on their faces.

Now that they are closer to that large thing, they realize that it's just a giant basket made of hay and wood.

While the girls stare with their mouths open and their eyes frozen in shock, a boy reveals himself and says "ah, Reimu, I knew you'd eventually come. And Sanae... I'm not going easy on you."

He has slightly unkempt, short brown hair, brownish-yellow eyes, and wears a simple purple shirt, black pants with many pockets that reaches his calves, white socks, brown boots, has a golden bracelet with a green gem on his right wrist, and has a light-brown cloak over his shoulders.

Anilan Inmodo Leuch; or Ail, as his friends know him; the infinitely dense-wise half-youkai, hovers menacingly in front of the maiden girls, reads his name and title, then says "jeez, I'm not THAT dense... am I?"

Reimu points at Ail, stammers a bit, then angrily asks "w-w-what the hell? Ail, is that a..."

Ail smiles proudly as he crosses his arms across his chest, then nods and says "oh yeah. A giant basket! And with it, Aya's giant chikuwa will be MINE!"

Both maiden's eyes are now hidden under their hair, and both are shivering while clenching their fists tight, then Reimu asks "you threaten the border just for THAT?", and Sanae asks "you risked Budou's safety for that CRAP?"

Ail's entire being becomes a mass of shivering gelatin when Sanae reveals her furious, demonic, glowing eyes, and bloody crescent smile, then whimpers "um... I'm going now", and flies away.

Sanae immediately gives chase, shouting "I'm going to kill you, so GET BACK HERE THIS INSTANT! COME BACK, I say!"

Ail shouts back "are you MAD, WOMAN? I'm not stupid!"

Reimu flies after both of them, shouting "wait! Sanae, stop! WAIT FOR ME! I want to kill him too! For goodness' sake, he even got Okuu involved!"

Reimu finally catches up to Ail and Sanae, who have fallen inside the giant basket, and watches as Sanae, literally, ties Ail's arms and legs behind his back, while smacking him on the head with her gohei, kicking him on the ribs with her right foot, and after all that, she starts jumping on his back, making sure to stomp him hard with every fall.

Reimu feels satisfied after seeing all that, but suddenly snaps her fingers and shouts "Sanae! Sanae, come up here! I think he learned his lesson already."

Sanae looks up at Reimu, nods, flies up, but before going too far, she turns around, lifts a spell card and shouts "Miracle, Mid-Day Supernova!", and unleashes a hellish white spear barrage on Ail's incapacitated body.

Feeling great relief from doing that, and from seeing Ail's body burned, and his clothe torn, Sanae sighs contently, turns around, then asks "what is it Reimu?"

Sanae's name, along with the title "self-centered, raging, jealous girlfriend", appears in front of her, written in gradient purple and gold, then Sanae looks at Reimu, frowns, then says "what's the meaning of this! I'm not self-centered!"

Reimu chuckles, points at Sanae with her gohei, then says "the titles never lie, miss stage 6 boss."

The sudden realization hits Sanae so hard, her eyes shrink to two tiny white dots from the shock, then gulps, and in a high-pitched tone of voice, she says "and I already used a spell card."

Reimu smiles, nods, then commands "alright Sanae, come, and let's see if you truly have improved!"

Sanae recovers from the shock, raises her gohei sideway in front of her face, and with a confident smile, she says "I won't lose to you again, Reimu! Get ready to lose!"

---

Reimu quickly showers Sanae with charms and homing amulets, and although Sanae's own charms shower counter Reimu's quite well, her blue stars can't home in on anything, but they still provide protection against homing Reimu's amulets.

Reimu and Sanae start flying around each other while showering each other with charms, amulets, holy stars, and whenever they get close to each other, they use their gohei like swords.

Reimu moves too fast and nimbly, and constantly confuses Sanae and manages a few hits with her charms, but Sanae's control over the winds saves her butt form a quick defeat, and can occasionally push Reimu away, but she has yet to touch the red-and-white maiden with an attack.

Reimu laughs while shooting more charms, and after she hits Sanae's back with one, she says "gee, and here I thought you weren't going to lose to me. Just give up already so I can go to the extra stage."

Sanae growls furiously, flies away from Reimu, and with tears of rage on her face, the points at the red and white, and shouts "you are just hacking the game! That's the only reason I'm losing!"

Reimu waves her hand under her nose, looks away while letting Sanae see her mischievous half smile, then says "nobody likes a sore loser, Sanae. Tell you what. If you hit me once, I'll let you keep Ail. Deal?"

Sanae's face turns furious red, she flaps her arms in the air, and furiously shouts "you sick, perverted, lustful, red and white, armpit-showing maiden! He doesn't belong to you!"

Reimu looks annoyed at Sanae, and with an ominous look on her face, and in an equally ominous tone of voice, she asks "who's the armpit-showing pervert here, I wonder?"

Sanae raises a spell card and rapidly shouts "Frog Sign, Wily Toad!"

The vibrations emanated by Sanae as she charges up her spell are so violent, Reimu feels her insides rumbling along with the ground below them, but to her lucky amusement, she watches as the basket crumbles on top of the dazed Ail, and says "well, at least that's resolved."

Once Sanae is done gathering energy, she quickly unleashes it all with a powerful bang, going as far as pushing Reimu back a bit, and in the wake of the bright shockwave, countless frogs take the skies.

Reimu smiles and quickly covers herself in a round blue barrier that protects her from the frogs, which explode and unleash a shower of blue shard-bullets, then proceeds to punish Sanae with repeated charm shots on the abdomen, and ample chest; particularly on her ample chest.

Sanae is getting more agitated, her clothes are tearing up, her spell has intensified after the third wave, but Reimu is still flying about completely unscathed.

Trembling, Sanae says to herself "this is getting me nowhere. Fine, I'll change the spell a bit, and focus all the power on Reimu's next position. Bah, but she keeps moving around so much. Focus, Sanae. FOCUS!"

Reimu stares suspiciously at Sanae, as the green-haired maiden starts gathering her energy and seems to aim it at a precise focused point, then Sanae looks up at Reimu, smiles, and Aya comes down from the sky and rams her sandal's sole on Sanae's head, and sends the green-haired shrine maiden falling down after a hard explosion.

Looking as clueless as ever, Aya looks at Reimu and asks "hey, weren't you supposed to be fighting Ail?"

Though surprised, Reimu nods and calmly asks "sure, but how did you know?"

Aya smiles and says "I told the idiot I'd make giant chikuwa for him, if he made a giant basket. I WAS supposed to be here to cover the story for tomorrow's paper, but the maid kicked my butt way to hard for my own good, so I took a while to recover, and-"

Reimu is staring straight at the crow tengu, showing absolutely no emotion, and yet, Aya's instincts tell her she has to run away... NOW!

Just as Aya turns around to fly away, Reimu's hand somehow finds itself on the tengu's shoulder, and while holding the trembling, whimpering girl from escaping, Reimu asks "so it is thanks to you that I was dragged all the way out here? Not only that, but dragged all the way out here for one PATHETIC excuse for an incident?"

Aya can only smile and chuckle, knowing full-well the hell that's about to fall upon her head in the form of a gohei, and as said gohei strikes the crow tengu, a powerful explosion rocks the entire hill.

---

Moments later, Ail, Sanae and Aya start to recover, though being so close to the large field of poisonous flowers behind them, doesn't help them recover any faster.

Sanae's clothes are torn, especially around the chest, where Reimu focused her attacks, Ail's pants are missing the left-side leg, and his shirt has a large tear on the front.

Aya has very few tears around her shirt, but the bloody bump on her head proves that there is a reason she's down.

Above them are Reimu, Mima, the banged-up Marisa and Budou, looking down on the three downed friends, but Mima quickly covers Budou's eyes when Sanae and Ail get a better look at each other, admire their torn clothes, then lock lips and hold on tight, regardless of the crowd.

A large yellow amulet explodes right between the two love-birds, then Reimu angrily says "you two are disgusting. Get a room! Now, Ail, last time you got Yorihime Watatsuki of to Moon to play as the extra boss. Who did you get for me this time?"

Marisa quickly exclaims "hey, I only lost one life! I'm going with you!"

Reimu groans and face palms, then turns her face to Ail, who twitches at Reimu's murderous glare,, stops kissing Sanae, then says "um, er, that is... Um, I asked Toyohime to play along today."

In an instant, Reimu has Ail by the collar of his shirt with her left hand, and repeatedly slaps him across the face with her right hand, while shouting "first that overpowered birdbrain, and now a lunatic Lunarian? Ail, I am going to kill you when I get back, and I'm not kidding!"

She drops the now-dazed Ail next to Sanae, who happily takes his head and rests it on her lap, then Reimu flies toward the Youkai Mountain and says "come on Marisa. She's close to the Tengu Village!"

Both Aya and Marisa ask at the same time "how do you know?"

Reimu points at the large, neon-red sign over the Youkai Mountain that reads "Lunarians are Here", then says "come on. The faster we do this, the faster I can go eat some lunch. I'm getting hungry! Oh, and Sanae, you can keep that thing for yourself. He's just too dense, and quite the idiot."

After Reimu and Marisa leave, Budou asks "mommy two, why are you covering my eyes?"

Mima giggles, then says "whoops. Sorry sweetie. Your mama and papa were being stupid, but now they are fine."

After Mima uncovers the little bat youkai's eyes, Budou dives toward her parents and sits on top of Ail's chest, and giggles while Sanae and Ail rub her head.

Mima sniffles at the sight of Ail, Sanae and Budou together, pouts, then says "those two are so lucky to have an adorable little girl like her."

---

Marisa and Reimu find themselves inside the rectangular screen with the right-side grid once again, though, instead of having the lives from before, they are down to just tree each, and two bombs for both.

Neither seem too bothered by this.

Instead of a trail of fairies, these two sadistic girls now leave a trail of moon rabbits sprawled all over the ground, but the knocking of rabbis is not just out of sadistic nature, but out of defense.

These little rabbits are shooting at the witch and the maiden as though they are at war in the Moon, but it's no good for them, as Reimu and Marisa are using their best attacks; Reimu's divine needles, and Marisa's piercing, spinning lasers; and are knocking those rabbits out before they can react.

Suddenly, a moon rabbit with short, light-blue hair, floppy white ears, red eyes, and wearing a black suit shirt, a short pink skirt, and brown shoes, flies in front of the girls, aims a rifle at them, then says "sorry ladies, but I'm going to have to kill you n- KYAH!"

Reimu and Marisa smiles mischievously after having blasted the lone moon rabbit right out of the sky, then Reimu says "hey, I think I know her."

Marisa chuckles and says "no you don't. Lying is bad for maiden, you know."

The girls continue their fly until they finally reach the foot of the mountain, and there, admiring the scenery around herself, while floating in mid-air for some odd reason, is Toyohime Watatsuki, the peach-loving, exercise-hating ex-princess.

She has slightly-curly, long, sandy-blonde hair, golden eyes, and wears a white bonnet with a red ribbon, a white, long-sleeved shirt under a dark-blue dress with a single strap over the left shoulder, a brown lose belt with a golden mirror-shaped buckle, and a pair of cross-laced, brown calf-high boots.

Toyohime turns around with a bubbly smile on her face, giggles, then says "so you beat him. I warned him not to do something so stupid. Anyway, hi, how are you?"

Reimu chuckles nervously, then says "the moon princess. Say, don't you know you're supposed to say 'hi' at the beginning of your greeting? Oh, and hi."

Marisa chuckles naturally, then says "come on ladies. Let's cut the chatter and go straight to the fight!"

Toyohime giggles, twirls in place, and now holds a closed white hand-fan on her right hand, and says "alright. Let's have some fun, alright? Don't hold back, though~."

---

Toyohime starts her attack by twirling on one foot in mid-air, and by doing so she unleashes a crazy barrage of random, multi-colored bullets that fly fast toward Reimu and Marisa.

The girls barely avoid the barrage of bullets, getting grazed on the shoulder, abdomen, legs, and Marisa even gets grazed on her left cheek.

But the girls are not going to take that sitting down, or floating, in this case, and begin their own rapid-fire assault on Toyohime, Marisa switching her lasers for rapid green spikes.

Toyohime shrieks and stops dancing when several needles and magical spikes tear through her clothes, leaving her belly exposed, and while trying to cover herself up with her hands, she whimpers "hey, that was mean!"

She stops covering herself, picks a spell card from under her bonnet, then says "fine! An eye for an eye! Splashing Mountains Crash!"

Yellow shard-shaped bullets form up what look like two massive mountains on the left and right, while in between those, a stream of blue orbs flow toward Toyohime, though do not cause her harm.

Marisa and Reimu are already having great difficulty dodging the fast water bullets that come from behind, and wonder what are the earth bullets doing on the sides.

Toyohime gestures her arms apart for a moment, then crosses them in front of herself, and both danmaku mountains come crashing together, causing a tsunami of water and earth bullets to rain down with haste toward Reimu and Marisa.

The girls scream and panic at the sight; not only they have the water bullets from behind, but now they have that insane cluster of bullets in front, and they are moving fast.

In a desperate move, Reimu shouts "Marisa, ride the wind! Spirit Sign, Fantasy Orb!"

Marisa grins when Reimu casts her homing spell, and flies behind the green orb that eats away the water and earth bullets, and flies straight toward Toyohime.

Before the Lunarian realizes what their plan is, Marisa tackles the girl from the side, canceling the chaotic spell, and making the ex-princess spin fast in mid-air.

Marisa regroups with Reimu and high-fives with the maiden, then Toyohime recovers from her spin, holds the left side of her waist and shouts "ow, ow, ow, ow, that hurts! Owww~!"

After complaining a bit more about the pain, she suddenly stops, pulls another spell card from under her bonnet, then points her closed fan at the girls and shouts "the game isn't over yet! COME ON!"

The witch grins, and the maiden takes a defensive stance, then Toyohime raises her spell card and shouts "Explosion, Chaotic Rush!"

With her fan closed, Toyohime claps her hands together and unleashes a massive and random-moving barrage of multi-colored orbs, petals, spears, and star-shaped bullets from all around her, and while the fast danmaku flies toward the girls, Toyohime raises her left hand and shoots homing white orbs that go after Reimu.

The hellish bullet rain is far worse than Flandre's Starbow Break, and with the addition of those homing bullets, it gets even more confusing for the girls.

Marisa raises a spell card, but before she can declare her spell, a green orb smacks her face, at the same time as Reimu gets struck on the abdomen by one of the homing white bullets.

Both girls return to the field, both missing large chunks of clothes.

They flicker for a while, and take the chance to pick their dropped red "P" tabs, growl as they glare at Toyohime, then the grid, lives, life bar, score, and the rectangular screen shatter to pieces.

A girl with shoulder-length pink hair tied with chinese-style double buns, red eyes, and wearing a white shirt, a green skirt, a brown panel with a thorny vine motif on top of those, a rose brooch, a pair of black slip-on shoes, a shackle on her left wrist, and with her right arm completely wrapped in bandages, jumps toward Toyohime, punches her head, and knocks her down.

After the Lunarian is down and out, and Kasen Ibara, the nagging hermit, starts falling to the ground, she looks at Reimu and Marisa, waves her right hand at them, and says "hey, glad to see you guys! Say, could you come down here? I have something to show you."

Marisa and Reimu watch as Kasen falls back down to the ground, and unlike Marisa, Reimu looks more annoyed then surprised as she descends and says "let's check this out before she starts nagging again."

---

On the ground, at the foot of the mountain, the girls stand close to some trees behind them, where Toyohime has fallen.

They ignore the Lunarian's moans and calls for help as they look at Kasen, who seems a little edgy, and not because of the many peeping Kappa to the right, where the river is.

Reimu takes a step toward Kasen and asks "what's so important that you actually had to break up our battle in such style?"

Kasen closes her eyes, breathes in, then says "last night, this bright star fell in the front yard of my dojo, but it was strange. The only reason I noticed it was because it was glowing so brightly."

Marisa gives some thought before asking "so, wait... You saying it made no sound? Not even when it crashed right in front of your house?"

Kasen nods, then says "there was no crater either. When I went down to investigate the glow... I found this young man standing right in front of my doors."

Kasen takes a step to the left, and points with her hand behind herself at a boy with dark-brown spiky hair, brown eyes, and who wears a dirty-looking, and tattered brown, sleeveless vest over a simple white shirt, long black pants, a pair of thick brown boots, and held by a brown belt that goes over his right shoulder, he has a western broadsword with a golden hilt on his back.

Reimu feels strange when she looks at this boy, and as soon as she realizes it's his energy vibration, she adjusts her own to stop the dizzy feeling.

Marisa obviously has to do the same, but she does so after almost falling on her knees, and while rubbing the left side of her forehead with her hand.

Kasen sighs, then says "the same thing happened to me when I first met him. This is no ordinary fellow."

Reimu nods, then says "I can see why you summoned us here."

Kasen shakes her head, then says "oh no, if it were just for that, I'd have just taken him to the village. He doesn't seem like a bad fellow. No, the reason I wanted you to come and meet him, is because, he doesn't understand a word I say to him, and I can't understand his language either."

Reimu, Marisa, and now Toyohime, who has quietly joined the girls, stare at the mysterious boy, who looks back at them with an alarmed look, making sure to keep his distance from these girls, while at the same time, doing his best to look as calm as possible.

---

To be continued...

Characters, Spell Cards and Scenarios belong to ZUN -Team Shanghai Alice-

Ail, Budou, and the "mysterious boy" were created by Willie G.R.

Maribel's, Renko's, and Toyohime's spell cards were created by Willie G.R. (similarities are strictly coincidental)

Rika Onkamikami was created by Snapshot 2010

APR 01 2011

Written by

Willie G.R.

---

A/N:

Hello again. First off, sorry I couldn't add more Leon and Lina mishaps with Patchouli and Koakuma. I wanted to do at least one scene, but the "game" scenes took a LOT more than I thought they would. Originally, I was going to have Orin, Okuu and Mima knocked out by one raging Sanae, but I decided not to make it so "fast-paced", and I liked what came out of it. Especially that battle between Mima and Marisa. Another thing I wanted to do, was add one more character, but I think I've presented PLENTY of characters for one chapter, don't you agree? Still, the chapter took a bit longer than I thought, and it came out longer than I had hoped, and I do hope it wasn't a drag to read. I also kept the battles rather short for that reason too. I mean, having full game-type battles would have taking two or three chapters to write, and I didn't want that, and honestly, I am not fond of extending battles without need.

Oh, and about that character, the mysterious boy. Well, I WISH I could say more about him now, I mean, I was hoping to tell more about him in this chapter, but it was just not possible. I will give you more details of him on the next chapter, if everything goes well. Thank you for reading. See you next time.

Before I forget, for those interested, I have posted the first 3 chapters for a Touhou/Kingdom Hearts crossover, named "Spell Cards and Keyblades"