Corruption on a nuclear level
"Intruder Alert! Intruder Alert! All personnel on their stations! Fairy Maids into the main corridor! Prepare for counter attack! Sakuya Izayoi, Patchouli Knowledge and Hong Meiling into the throne room!"
Patchouli's new intruder alert system, made audible over the entire mansion, went off with a loud speaker voice, accompanied by an annoying noisy sound. Sakuya, luckily, was already there. She and Remilia went off, feeling capable of encountering the intruder. The ignored Byakuren followed them, with Patchouli and Hong Meiling quickly catching up.
A fairy maid squad went flying ahead the group towards the dinning room, and thus the girls followed them.
"Fairies, charge! For the Kumakan!" The squad leader shouted and they hurried inside.
The intruder was indeed in the dinning hall. The huge fresco above it shattered and most of the interior molten into glassy ash, the various fairy maids crashed in, however without much of a chance to counter. In mere seconds, they were blasted to bits courtesy of a huge beam weapon.
The five girls ran into the smoking remains of the dinning hall. Coal-reduced bits and pieces of the chairs and table were laying around, the centuries-old ornament glass windows shattered, the chandeliers ripped to the ground, reforged into formless metal. Dust was covering most of the sight in the room, but quickly began to fade - and there she stood: Utsuho Reiuji, the eternal scorching star.
Her long jet-black hair waving over her even longer black wings and the control rod in position, she gave a grim look to the group of defenders. Then she realised: "You again? Did I not kill you already?"
Those words belonged to Byakuren, who appeared just as clueless. It was true she was killed by Utsuho already, but not in the "past" but the "future", so how could she know?
"Sakuya, Patchouli, ATTACK!" Remilia shouted and maid and magician jumped into battle. Patchouli prepared her famous spells while Sakuya threw a multitude of knives towards Utsuho to distract her.
"Sun Sign "Royal Flare"!", Patchouli shot her light-based spell-card at Utsuho, she who had the power of the sun must have felt the irony.
"Nonsense!" she screamed, and not only fried Sakuya's knives in mid-air, but shot right back at Patchouli with her arm cannon. Sakuya jumped in, used her time stopping powers and teleported Patchouli right away, a gaping hole where she just stood a second ago was all that was left.
All the while, Hong Meiling and Byakuren tried with all their force to keep Remilia away from the battle she so enthusiastically wanted to join in. It did not take long and she got herself free, flying over Sakuya and clashing with her claws right at Utsuho.
"Oh ho, the Mistress herself joins in?" Utsuho was delighted, because it was the situation she waited for. Grabbing Remilia by her wings, she held her cannon near the head of the little vampire and charged up.
"Milady!" Sakuya shouted, then ran over, managing to get Remilia out (who felt quite humiliated for being tricked so easily), but Utsuho managed to knock her away, then jumped up and towards Patchouli, who tried to prepare another spell.
"Feeling lucky, magician?" She smirked, then kicked the witch in the guts, sending her flying towards a wall. At the last second, Byakuren who herself had prepared a spell-card, "St. Nikou's Air Scroll", cached the unlucky cute witch and put her down. She was unconscious but still mostly alive.
"YOU! I will NEVER forgive you!" Byakuren was raging mad at the show in front of her. Not only had Utsuho single-handedly killed dozens of fairy maids, she also easily defeated Patchouli.
Sakuya and Remilia had reappeared by now, and joined Byakuren, who also got the help of Hong Meiling, who until now was away.
"Meiling, were have you been!" Remilia exclaimed annoyed.
"I am sorry, but a different duty came to my attention." This "duty" then jumped over her head and in front of them – Flandre.
"Hello sis, I heard we are in trouble, so I came to play. So, who do we play with?" Flandre was as cheerful as ever, while holding her wand "Lævateinn" up. Remilia now summoned the "Gungnir" and pointed at Utsuho.
"Do you see that girl over there? She hurt Patchouli, go and play with her."
"Oh what? You will pay!" Flandre cheerfully said.
Utsuho was waiting until the five ended their chit-chat talk: "So, will you attack me now or am I supposed to sprout roots here? C'MON, I'M WAITING!"
"Fine then. Everyone, ATTACK!"
Remilia took the command and, while four Flandres went flying towards Utsuho who fired her cannon at her, charged up and then summoned a multitude of bullets. Byakuren used her super-speed to get behind Utsuho and hold her for a second, while Sakuya stopped the time, excluding for herself and Byakuren, then positioned a hundred knives, went out with Byakuren and send them flying.
Utsuho was completely unprepared as most of the mini daggers slashed in her body. With bleeding wounds, she realised – too late – the four Flandres around her. "Let's go kyuun!"
All of them took Utsuho as the target and smiled – an explosion followed that shook the entire mansion. Jumping into one another, Flandre was one again, Utsuho not to be seen. However, the Control Rod was on the ground. Remilia picked it up.
"Did we win? That was too easy. Sis, I'm bored." Flandre pointed out her boredom over the easy victory.
"This is most unlikely, she still is here, somewhere." As it came out, this was quite correct. Utsuho broke through the rest of what was the wall, shattering it into pieces. Sakuya and Hong Meiling immediately jumped towards her, now was the time for Meiling's rainbow danmaku and her extra-ordinary fighting skills.
She fired a "Colourful Sign "Extreme Colour Typhoon"" spell-card as a distraction, the gale wind shortly blocking Utsuho's movement. Then Hong almost instantly ran towards the hell raven, kicking her out into the yard. Everyone followed her.
Utsuho landed in a flower bed. Meiling did not waste time but set of a chain of ki-attacks on the raven girl, who could only try to defend herself. Without her arm cannon, her fighting skills were quite limited – or so everyone thought at least.
Utsuho managed to slowly stand up against Hong Meiling's barrage, then counter-attacking her, grabbing both her fists. With a spin, she threw the poor gate guard at the clock tower, destroying it in the process. Loudly crashing, it came down, the bell ringing once before a deafening sound audible over the entire region set off a dust wave.
Meiling not to be seen, Byakuren's last spell-card had already run out, so instead she concentrated, then used "Great Magic "Devil's Recitation"". Sprouting a huge flower shape with four orbs, she began firing a multitude of lasers and streams of bullets from each of them towards Utsuho. However, the hell raven was amazingly fast and quite capable of dodging them.
Remilia, in the meanwhile, lost patience and handed the arm cannon to Flandre, then readied her wings and went flying towards Utsuho. Her right hand's claws wide out and Gungnir in the other hand, she slashed at the raven girl, who apparently had healed from her former damage. Kicking and shouting to get Remilia away, she turned around, dodging the streams while also dodging the vampiric brat. Then she noticed Flandre, who held the arm cannon with an annoyed facial expression and Sakuya, who was apparently ordered to keep her down.
As Remilia would not stop coming at her, she went right at Byakuren, Remilia sharply behind her. Hijiri, who was forced to abort the spell since it locked her in one spot, noticed Utsuho flying right up to her too late, letting Remilia crash into the saint. Unable to stop or evade, the vampire brutally smashed into the nun, knocking the both of them out in the process.
Sakuya and Flandre, now the only remaining combatants, readied themselves once more, but Utsuho was faster than ever before.
"Did you honestly think this was all I would be able to do?" She smirked, then took out one of Sakuya's knives and rammed it straight into the maid. It was so quick neither she nor Flandre could react. The house keeper went down bleeding heavily, Utsuho clawing her clock and destroying it with her bare hand.
"You are the only survivor. I will take on the rest later." Utsuho appeared self-sure, and walked towards a shivering Flandre. This emotion was something completely new to the little vampire – fear.
Utsuho grabbed the arm cannon, charged it and fired at Sakuya's body, turning it into dust. Then she clawed, held up and choked Flandre. "So, you will join me now. Do you see this horn on my forehead? It's the proof of a power granted to me. You too will become one with me. Embrace it."
Tears ran down on Flandre's cheeks, until she passed out. Utsuho then turned her into light, absorbing her into her body. Her wings, formerly in unison black feathers, were now accompanied by the same crystals that made up Flandre's wings.
"Tsk, too bad I can only absorb one person at a time. Guess I have to annihilate their bodies before they wake up."
With these thoughts in mind, Utsuho charged her cannon, embarked to the sky and unleashed a miniature sun, slowly descending onto the Kumakan. A minute later, the whole area exploded in nuclear fire, the clouds of the misty lake as well as the lake itself blown away, boiled and emptied, only a large crater remaining.
"I can only hope I did not use enough power. Gensokyo is certainly large, but someone just might have noticed these fireworks. Oh well, on to the next target." And with that in mind, Utsuho quickly ascended higher and got away quickly.
Byakuren, in the meanwhile once again stood in front of the Sanzu River. Komachi greeted her but appeared to not know her. Of course, she would have met the ferrywoman only slightly in the future. Meiling, Patchouli, Remilia and Sakuya with her, the girls slowly travelled over the huge river, ghosts accompanying them to the other side. Remilia was impressed by the sight when they reached the door to the underworld, the huge golden gate Byakuren will already have passed in the future by her then-younger self.
"Be not feared, I already joined the netherworld once, but they granted me a second try. Of course, I have failed my mission badly, thus I will have to appeal to the gods to let me try it a third time." Byakuren said with a calm voice.
"You already died once and came back from the dead? This is indeed impressive. How did you do that?" Patchouli asked.
"I am not allowed to answer this question. However, I am sure I will be allowed another try. Now let us go."
Remilia, who never thought she would ever die, remained very close to Sakuya when they went through the golden gate. Inside, the familiar view opened up. Shikieiki's table or throne in the middle and her subordinates running around trying to figure out where the papers have to be put in, everything was the same from Byakuren's point of view.