Yo, Sorrow here! And with the next chapter in tow! Sorry that it took me so long with everything (this, as well as the HoH update that I missed last month and thus will compensate for this month with two chapters).
After our three protagonist defeated Yukari's team in the last chapter, it's Mima's time to fight! Her fight seems a lot easier, though, since her enemy is 'only' Cirno... Can things go wrong? And is that the only fight that's going to happen?
This time, it's Mima, Yuuka and Shinki vs. Cirno, Daiyousei and Letty!
Be prepared... This is a long chapter. And it's mostly focused on fighting (like most of the tournament will be ^^), though we will meet another few already known faces again. So yeah... Lot's of action, some new and some old relationships... Well, lots of that which you have to expect from me. And did I mention the action?
Expect lots of destruction, lots of pain, lots of bruises... And destruction. Lots of destruction! Muahahaha! Let's just say that I reaaaally pity the arena...
But before that, our usual review time!
Aerhyce... I don't think that there has been a fair battle vs Yukari until now. But could you imagine such a thing? I do, but not in such a situation. Don't worry about YúgurexYume, it's not the last time you saw such a thing... I plan on writing many scenes that exploit Yume's shyness, and Yúgure is just the character to do so. And there will follow a few more of these scenes with Chôzen and Medicine...
Answering your question about all couples being parents... No. Not all. But quite a few. Enough said xD.
And there is something more to Toki's 'gendershifting', which you will soon learn more about.
Aaaand that's it, sadly just one review!
On a side note... Do you remember the "Grimoire of SorrowfulReincarnation", that part at the end of each chapter of I-Negative Bullet's UFO Arc? I used to introduce the OCs in there, including how they came to be or similar stuff you may not have known yet about them. My question now is whether or not you'd want me to continue the "Grimoire of SorrowfulReincarnation" for the new OC's, which is pretty much the next generation of Gensokyo. If you'd like me to, please say so in your review. I won't start with the Grimoire right now again, but will wait for a later arc when it makes sense to do so (wouldn't make sense now, almost nothing is known about most of the new OCs, and saying more about them in their chapters of the Grimoire than it is currently known would destroy most of the plot).
That's everything this time. Now, let's move on the the chapter, shall we?~
DISCLAIMER: I do not own Touhou/Project Shrine Maiden, as it belongs to ZUN. However, Chôzen Gekido (and his respective personalities), Nanatsu no Taizai, Yume Gekido and Yajû Gekido-Shisô, Sly, Shiho Kumo and Ryoko Jigoku do belong to me, as for I have created them. This goes for any other OC's introduced as well.
Chapter 3: Sub-Zero ~ A fight with the cold
"Air raid!"
"Gah!"
I shot up, almost choked on the air I breathed in, my gaze trailing through the room, then up to spot the air raid... Well, I only found a white ceiling above me.
No wonder, I was in the medical wing of the arena.
My throat felt dry and I coughed, my eyes felt dry as well and hurt. No wonder... I had been dead, after all. Stopped breathing, had stopped producing saliva, and hadn't blinked once. It was the ultimate torment to wake up to that.
Then again, at least my vision had returned.
I let out a snarl and rubbed the back of my neck, rolled my shoulders and my neck until loud cracking noises took all tension of my body and allowed it to finally relax.
"Welcome back."
"Was that really necessary...?" I growled into my thoughts, Insanity's laughter making my mood worse than it already was.
"I tried to be gentle, but you didn't react. Almost as if you were dead!"
"In a good mood, are we?"
"Sure am. Can you blame me? Yakumo got what she deserved."
I let out a loud sigh and rose to a sitting position, continued to rub the back of my head. I moved to the edge of the bed and stretched my tired body, then let my legs dangle out of the comfy bed I had awoken in. Glancing around the room, I took a short moment to get a glimpse at Yukari and Suika, who lay in two other beds. Suika was sitting upright, her gourd in her hand, and was drinking her sake quite greedily. Yukari was still knocked out, though.
Dropping out of the bed, I stretched my legs as well, then my back. The pain was gone, I actually felt better than before. It might have to do with my resurrection, but also could've been because we beat Yukari and were in the second round of the tournament. Things would get interesting very soon.
"How much time has passed? And didn't you say Nanatsu and Rumia would come here?" I asked my insane personality and looked around for anyone that would be in authority of the medical wing. I spotted that person by the only door in the room, sitting behind a desk and leaned over a thick stack of papers. Figures it was her.
"That was me, but well... Ahum. It's been one hour and fifteen minutes since you died... And Nanatsu and Rumia were here, but left when Mima's fight began."
I cringed as I got this information from my Flame-Soul and stared in shock at the green flame that orbited my head.
"Didn't you say it'd only take half an hour at max, Insanity?!" I bellowed out loud, shocked. Immediately, the person at the desk frowned and turned to glare at me.
"Hey, no shouting. The patients are trying to recover. Not everyone sleeps like a stone... Or a corpse, for that matter!" complained Eirin Yagokoro and slammed her fist down on the desk she sat on.
"Sorry... It took about half an hour, yeah, but... You were sleeping so peacefully! I just couldn't wake you up..."
"Insanity...!"
"No, seriously, I couldn't wake you up. I tried, but you were stonedead. I tried everything!"
"Damn... Mima's fight started already."
"You knew I was dead?" I asked the lunar pharmacist as I chose to ignore anything else from Insanity. She let out a sigh and leaned back in her chair, began to knead the bridge of her nose.
"I'm a pharmacist and doctor, in case that you forgot during the last twenty years. I can tell when somebody is dead, you moron." growled Eirin, then opened her eyes to look at me.
"Geez, aren't you happy to see me after twenty years?" I snorted with sarcasm practically dripping from my voice and rolled my eyes.
"Twenty years are nothing to me, and you should know. You share the same curse as we do, after all. It has not been the Hourai Elixir that granted you this eternity, but it has been the immortality of beings like you that I based it on." commented the immortal and crossed her legs, then finally smirked at me, "But welcome back nonetheless. It's been almost boring without you and your exploded spleen around."
"You're still keeping on about that?!" I shouted. Before I knew, Eirin grabbed the bow that was leaned against the desk aside her and pointed it at me. An arrow missed my forehead by an inch and embedded itself in the wall far behind me.
"I told you to keep quiet!" yelled Eirin.
"You're the one that's screaming!" I insisted, but not as loud as before, fearing that the next arrow may not miss.
Eirin let out a huff and placed the bow down aside her again, then turned to the stack of paper again.
"Why did you keep my body if you knew I was dead?" I asked eventually and moved closer to her, glanced over her shoulder to get a glimpse at the documents before her. Not that I'd understand them.
"Massage my shoulders, please. I got a tense back from all the work." commanded the pharmacist, and I knew better than to refuse her... She could become quite scary. Quickly placing my hands on her shoulders, I began to massage them, receiving only a groan in response from the pharmacist.
"Well, the princess told me to get rid of your corpse until I told her about your immortality." muttered the pharmacist, apparently deep in thought, "Well, we ultimately agreed on keeping it until it would begin to smell."
I sweatdropped at the casual way she said it, but decided not to comment on it, fearing another snarky remark from the pharmacist.
"Well, I knew you'd come back to life eventually. I observed your body and noticed that, while your vital organs had all shut down, your brain was still working, even though only slow and barely noticeable. It reminded me of a comatose condition... As time passed, I noticed how your wounds began to heal... including that traumatic brain injury you got from Yakumo." murmured Eirin, then let out a groan and leaned back, her head resting against my lower chest.
"You're good at that. I believe it's not the first time you massage a woman with a tense back?" asked the pharmacist, and I could only chuckle at that.
"Let's just say that Nanatsu's strength comes with a price." I chuckled, earning a giggle from Eirin.
"I figured that it wouldn't be Rumia. She's almost always in a more than healthy condition." commented the pharmacist, then closed her eyes, "Please stop now, it's fine. I believe you didn't return to life just to help a woman with her tensed back, right?"
"Actually, no. The next battle has already started, hasn't it?" I asked, and Eirin nodded.
"Yeah. And I'll allow you to go. Knowing the effects of your kind of immortality, you should be in a nearly perfect condition right now. Go and see that evil spirit's battle." smiled Eirin, even though not once looking up from her documents.
"Thanks. What about Yukari and Suika?" I inquired.
"They'll be fine. Suika is already back to full strength, she's just lazying around over there... Got a small amount of bruises from your first wife, but her being an Oni protected her from most damage. Yukari, on the other hand, is covered in bruises... Aside that, she's only exhausted. Once she regained enough strength, she's good to go as well." explained Eirin.
"Good to know." I smiled.
"Guess so. Anyways... I believe I heard your wife mention a daughter when she was here earlier. You finally reproduced?" asked Eirin as she glanced over her shoulder at me.
"Which wife?" I smiled back almost too innocently, earning a frown of disbelief from the silver haired woman.
"I see. So you reproduced with both. You have my respect."
"Was that sarcasm, Eirin?" I snorted, receiving a snort back from the pharmacist.
"Do I look like someone that would make a joke?" shot Eirin back, and I chuckled uneasily.
"And here they say laughter is the best medicine. You look like the last time you laughed was an eternity ago." I commented. And Eirin smirked in a way too nasty way as she leaned back in her chair.
"Actually, the last time I had a good laugh was when I found remains of your spleen in your..."
"Shut the hell up about that!" I growled as loud as I could. Eirin snorted and began to laugh to herself, then turned back to the paperwork in front of her.
"You're not the only one to have children, you know? In the time after your departure, we had quite a raise in Gensokyo's population." commented the pharmacist, picking up a pen and scanning through the sheer amount of letters on the document on top of the stack.
"I heard so. Is there a reason in particular for that? You're a doctor, if you don't know, then nobody does." I spoke as I picked up one of the documents and scanned through it, even though without really paying attention to anything written on it. I merely needed something to distract myself from looking at her. She wasn't looking at me either, so it wouldn't matter.
"Of course I know the reason for that. It was the instinct of survival that each being holds." murmured Eirin, gnawing on the back of her pen.
"Instinct of survival?" I repeated and dared to glance at her, "Care to explain that?"
Eirin sighed at that and put her pen down on the table. She rubbed her eyes with her right index finger and thumb, then moved them down to rub the bridge of her nose. Eventually, she turned her chair to face me, her tired eyes resting on me. She had pulled an all-nighter again on some research, hadn't she? Did that woman even get any sleep at all? She was almost as much of a workaholic as Shikieiki!
"Like I said, it was the instinct of survival that caused this sudden raise in population. The instinct that any being has upon fearing that it might be erased from existence, the fear of death itself so to say. It was your fight against the evil spirit Mima that made many aware of their own mortality. It was the realization that Gensokyo was doomed, that the end was near. And becoming aware of their own mortality, they also became aware of their own feelings and those things they have never said or done." explained Eirin.
Seeing that this only increased my frown, she let out a sigh and slumped a bit.
"The end of Gensokyo was near. Fear had spread throughout it, Mima was going to erase us all. In a moment of nearing death, a being lives through its own life and becomes at peace with itself. Also, a being tends to realize that what it really wants, and that which it has never done but always wanted in secret. Let's call it 'things I have to do before I die'-list. And often, true feelings of attraction or genuine love tend to end up high on that list." added the pharmacist, then frowned at me, "Got it now?"
"I think so. And we got quite a few people on that list, I assume?" I inquired, and Eirin nodded.
"Satori Komeiji, now Scarlet... Aya Shameimaru... The list drags on." revealed the pharmacist, and when the second name caused me to frown, which she spotted, she merely turned back to her documents, "You're going to have to ask them yourself, I'm not going to say anything about that."
"I figured as much. Still... Aya? Didn't think she'd have a daughter. When did that happen? And with whom?" I muttered, partly to myself, but Eirin merely shook her head and began to write again.
"I don't think you know the lucky gal she's with. And even if... Not my place to tell."
"Yeah yeah, I have to ask them myself. Thanks alot, Eirin." I growled.
"Hmh... Sure. Now, please let me work, alright? I've got a lot of stuff to do, and it's not helping that I've learned from last years tournament just exactly how many different kinds of injuries the fighters can take. They had burns from Mokou, frostbite from Cirno, some had burns from the electricity of Iku, others had all kind of bruises, broken bones, dislocations..." ranted the pharmacist, and I chuckled.
"Very well. Then I'd better leave you alone for now. Was good to see you again, Eirin. I'll make sure to drop by at Eientei once this is all over, and then we can have a proper reunion." I smirked as I passed her and opened the door.
"Oh please not..." I heard Eirin sigh, even though it sounded overly dramatic and probably was intended for me to hear.
"Love you too, Eirin!" I called over my shoulder, only for the pharmacist to wave it off.
"Yeah yeah, just make sure your spleen doesn't explode again, loverboy." snorted Eirin, and I cringed. Oh, she'd not let that ever live down...
Leaving the medical wing of the arena behind, I stretched my limbs again and groaned. Looking left and right, I found myself back in the corridor I had first seen of the arena, the one Yukari had taken us to. To my right, the eight corridors leading to the living quarters of the teams displayed their colorful symbols, which I finally understood by now.
I silently wondered if any of the teams were currently in their respective living quarters, but decided against checking up on them. My main priority was to get back to the battlefield, since I wanted to see Mima's battle. Best up-close, of course.
With the right way only leading to the living quarters, the only way that could lead to the battlefield was the one leading down the way that had part of the corridor made of glass.
Since I knew that the battle had already started a while ago, my steps were quick and I hurried down the corridor as quick as I could without falling into a sprint. In less than a few seconds, I had reached the part of the corridor that was made out of glass and began to smirk to myself.
"Can't wait to see Mima's fight. Hope she didn't make short work of Cirno already."
"Not yet. The battle started only a few minutes ago, it was postponed about ten minutes... It began about five minutes ago, if not even less."
"Phew. Thought I missed the best part of it already."
"Don't think so. Anyways, from where are we going to watch the battle?"
"Hm... What kind of battlefield are we talking about? Another forest?"
"No. Actually, it's a sh..."
The sudden noise of glass shattering caught me off guard and I froze up, remained where I was in shock. Something had changed. Something had changed drastically.
With wide eyes, I slowly let my gaze trail up the large wooden log that had just impaled the ground right before me. It had fallen from above, had smashed through the glass of the corridor and had almost buried me beneath it.
"Oh what the...?" I muttered in shock, realizing just how close this had been... There was no way that this was an accident. This had been intentional. Logs don't fall from the sky, and do not randomly smash walking enigmas.
Feeling a dark presence behind me, I hissed and closed my eyes. I didn't need to turn around to know who had just stepped up to me... But I still wanted to face her, still wanted to see her.
Slowly, I turned around.
"And here I was wondering when you'd make your move..." I growled as I turned, then narrowed my eyes at the woman that stood in front of me with crossed arms and a deep frown.
Nanatsu's PoV
"Yuuka is moving in for an attack again! How many of these attacks will Letty Whiterock be able to take? Until now, all that she managed to achieve is to throw Yuuka off balance once! This has been way one-sided until now!" shouted Aya Shameimaru and hammered a fist down on the table of the judges.
"Could you stop that? You've already spilled our drinks five times..." growled Rinnosuke lowly, but was ignored completely by the Tengu as she jumped out of her seat, resulting in one of her wings smacking right into his face and knocking him over, while Akyuu on the other side of her remained spared due to her small size.
"Oh, did you see that?! Daiyousei sure is fast! Shinki is trying her best to hit her, but Daiyousei is moving just too fast for her! But then again, Daiyousei has yet to cause any damage to Shinki as well...!" yelled the Tengu in her excitement and hammered both of her fists down on the table, knocking Rinnosuke's drink over yet again, the hot brew spilling onto his lap.
That ex-barkeeper, Sly, lowered the odd brown flask he had as this took place. For a short moment, I spotted the odd, green liquid in between his lips and the flask, and silently wondered just what exactly that stuff was. It didn't look healthy at all...
"They're holding back, aren't they?" asked Rumia and I averted my gaze from the judges.
"I guess so. Mima could defeat Cirno's team on her own... Just remember what she did to the three of us on her own." I commented, and turned to look down at the battlefield from our spot in the third story, from where we could observe the fights on top of the big, wooden sailing ship. Quite an old one... Looked a lot like they used to in the 15th century. It was shaking back and forth in the waves of the body of water Yúgure had terraformed the battlefield into, including the ship.
"Yeah. But then again, Mima had given into her insanity... You don't know like Chô and I do how your own insane side can multiply your powers." muttered Rumia silently, and I let out a sigh.
Sometimes, I wish I could understand her and Chôzen better than this. I mean... I understand them. We three understand each other like no one else, and we love each other. This sounds jealous, and maybe it is, but... I sometimes can't help but notice how Chôzen and Rumia understand each other even better. I know it often isn't even Chôzen she is talking to...
Insanity. Insanity, the insane side of the man I had fallen in love with. I can't say that I hate him, but I am suspicious of him. I cannot trust him completely, and I won't ever be able to. And furthermore... He was Yajû's real father. He and Chôzen do share the same body, but that weird "International Demon and Youkai Observance Squad" had found out after a few tests on him that the DNA of the body changes once Insanity is in control...
It becomes even less stable than before, and an entire, even if only small, section of it practically reverses. With that, he and Chôzen are nearly genetical twins, save for this very small section... It changes everything, though.
Everything that defines Insanity, all of his maliciousness and whatever else defines him, is saved into that small section. And that small section was now continuing in Yajû... Was it, in the end, the cause for Yajú's lack of power?
"A yen for your thoughts? Geez, what's bothering you?" asked Rumia, snapping me back into reality.
"Ah... Nothing. Just... thinking about something." I replied, still somewhat in thought.
"Hm? Come on, it's not the time to think about whatever it is that makes you so grumpy! We should be enjoying this display of Mima's, Yuuka's and Shinki's powers without being at the receiving end of it... Yet." chuckled Rumia and pointed back to the arena, where Letty was doing her best to use the environment against Yuuka. Not that it really helped, since the environment wasn't exactly cooperating with any team.
"I guess so... Too bad that Chôzen can't see it." I murmured. Rumia sent a short frown at me, but then nodded.
"Guess so. But I think it's health over enjoyment... And, you have to admit, considering that this is coming from me of all people, it will have to be true, hm?" snickered Rumia. I giggled to myself at this, then shook my head in amusement.
I chose to enjoy the battle after all... I had to admit, Cirno wasn't acting half as bad as we had expected. In fact, she did manage to stand her ground pretty well against Mima. But then again, Mima wasn't serious about this fight. She was playing around. And so were Yuuka and Shinki. Once they felt like it, they'd stop and would just kick the other team out of the tournament.
"Outta my way!" exclaimed a voice all of sudden behind us, but I ignored it. I heard a few people complain about being pushed around, but didn't pay it any mind until a hand grabbed my shoulder and pulled me away.
"Hey!" I snarled upon being pushed back, and quickly grabbed the person that had just pushed me aside by the shoulder to turn her around. Rumia frowned at the woman that had just rudely pushed me aside as I turned her around, and I began to frown as well... She seemed oddly familiar.
She had long, golden-blonde hair that reached down to just above her ankles and had deep yellow eyes. She was pretty tall, slender, pale and toned.
Her dress left almost nothing to the imagination, curled around her curves in the right places and exposed her toned stomach through a diamond-shaped opening in the dress. But that wasn't the only thing special about her dress... The upper part, from the neck down to the waist, was white and frilly and the sleeves were black, but from the waist down, the dress turned black and was open at the front, exposing her slender legs.
In fact, this left so little room for imagination that I found myself admiring her for a short moment... Even ogling her. But with that low-cut dress and the fact that this woman wasn't exactly flat, was this much of a surprise? Kind of distracting, even for me...
Well, that still wasn't all. She had a black necklace around her neck, the golden pendant, a star, hanging just above her cleavage. Her left leg was covered in a black see-through, one-legged pantyhose, and she had a golden anklet around her right leg; as well as several thin, golden bracelets around her wrists.
All in all, she was rather beautiful but also had a mysterious touch to her appearance... A magician, I'd say. She had that kind of aura that came with it.
"Do I know you...?" she asked with a frown, and I let out a huff. I felt how my face began to heat up after becoming aware that I had stared at her.
"My, aren't you rude? First you push me out of the way and then you're not even introducing yourself." I snarled and closed my eyes in annoyance.
"Yeah, whatever. Look, would you please let go of me now?" she requested, and I obeyed. Once free, she dusted herself off and turned to look down at the battlefield. I frowned at her back and stepped a little closer to Rumia to get a better view on the battle below.
Mima was just unleashing one hell of an amount of colorful star-shaped bullets that Cirno had to dodge clumsily. Seeing this, the mysterious woman began to pump her fist into the air and began to yell. Geez, wasn't she excited?
"Come on, Yuuka, show us a Master Spark! Go, Miss Mima, show that baka how it's done, ze!"
"MARISA?!" I shrieked in perfect unison with Rumia, both of us snapping our heads around to stare at the beautiful woman, which was now frowning at us.
"Uh... That's my name? ...Ze?" muttered the woman uneasily and began to scratch her chin.
Feeling how my jaw fell down and my left eyelid began to twitch, I continued to stare at the woman. And not only I was at loss for words.
"Mari... Kiri-Kirisame?! The fuck did your hat go?!" murmured Rumia, one finger pointing at the obvious lack of a witch's hat on Marisa's head.
"It's in Miss Mima's living quarters, in the back of the arena. I don't wear it all the time anymore... Wait, who the hell are you two, da ze?" shot the once ordinary black magician back.
"...You got a poor memory, Kirisame..." taunted Rumia and rose an eyebrow at the blonde magician, while I rolled my eyes.
"Nanatsu no Taizai and Rumia Gekido-Shisô." I replied, only to watch as Marisa's eyes grew as big as saucers.
"So they weren't just trying to fool me when they said you're back in Gensokyo with that idiot Chôzen! Damn, that's what I get for missing the introductions and the first fight, ze..." growled Marisa to herself and began to gnaw on her thumb.
"Geez, Marisa, what happened to you? You look... Different." commented Rumia. Marisa glanced up and chuckled uneasily.
"Alice happened. And I kinda liked the new look she suggested, so I stayed with it. Looks good on me, doesn't it? Alice sure knows how to sew clothes, da ze~!" sung the one ordinary magician, "Also, I grew up. I'm adult now. Oh, and I became a Youkai. Up yours, death of age!"
"Youkai? So you really went as far as that..." murmured Rumia with a frown, "Just to be with Margatroid?"
"Nah. Miss Mima trained me to become a Youkai-Magician from the very beginning, and I wanted to be one since forever. Do you even know how much magic power I have in this form? What little I had in my human days is nothing against this. That aside, I don't have to rely onto any object to channel my magic power through anymore. I still do so, though, saves energy." smirked the ordinary black magician... In the end, she'd never be anything else. She still was pretty ordinary, even if special in her own way.
"Following Mima's footsteps then, becoming more than just human... So you're basically just like Alice? Alice was originally a human, I believe?" I asked, and Marisa nodded.
"Yeah, she was." replied the magician and smirked. Rumia chose this moment to glance left and right, only to frown.
"And where is Alice now? Shouldn't she be here with you to cheer for her mother Shinki?" inquired the fallen angel after a few seconds. This, in return, caused Marisa to frown and she turned to the direction she had come from.
"Weird... Alice was with me until just now, ze. She was here a second ago..." murmured Marisa and began to look around as well. Alice was nowhere in sight. It was just the three of us.
"Oh dammit, I lost her..." muttered Marisa after a few seconds and sweatdropped. We did as well.
"First, I lose my rights to participate, and now Alice..." groaned Marisa and rubbed the back of her head uneasily.
"You lost your rights to participate?" asked Rumia and rose an eyebrow at Marisa. The magician chuckled in response and glanced down to the battlefield, where Mima and Yuuka had pushed Letty and Cirno back-to-back.
"Don't ask. I originally wanted to participate, but had a serious quarrel with Yukari... We argued, we fought... And it ended with Yukari throwing me out of the tournament and taking Yuugi, Parsee and Shiho in my stead, ze...Otherwise, it would've been me, Yuki and Mai. You know, the two witches that are Alice's sisters. Alice didn't want to, so I asked them instead." chuckled Marisa uneasily.
"Yuki and Mai?" I muttered, thinking back to the two always bickering witches from Makai. How did Marisa end up with them?
"Yo. They're cool, ze." smiled Marisa and winked. I sweatdropped. She really hadn't changed.
"So Yukari threw you out of the tournament, huh?" I asked.
"Yeah. That annoying gap hag didn't change at all. She's still the same." huffed the witch and crossed her arms.
"What is that?! Cirno just used some of the water to create a gigantic ice sword for herself!" shouted Aya that moment. Immediately, the three of us turned back to the arena to watch the fight.
"It certainly is quite huge. I believe this could change a few things." I heard Akyuu add to Aya's shout, even though in a much more calm manner.
"Miss Mima is still going to kick Cirno's ass. She's with Yuuka and Shinki, after all." commented Marisa. And I couldn't disagree at all.
Still... I worry about Chôzen. I hope he's going to show up soon. He would want to watch this...
And where are Yajû and Yume? Had they made it into the arena? I hadn't seen them since before the first battle...
Chôzen's POV
"Really, I expected you to wait a little longer..." I muttered and rose an eyebrow.
"You'd think I'd let this chance go to waste? You know me better than that." came the reply, and I nodded.
"I do. Should've known you'd take the first chance you'd see... The first time I'm alone." I growled, "You didn't change at all, Orochi."
"Same thing about you. You still run into my traps, Chôzen Gekido, Insei no Youkai." shot Kanako back, only to begin to pace into my direction. I chuckled, placed my right hand behind my back against the onbashira that had almost smashed me before, and watched Kanako pace.
"So this is your first ambush, huh? I don't have time to play, Orochi... I need to see Mima's fight." I huffed, then coated my right hand in emerald flames in hope that she wouldn't see it. But since my hand was behind my back, I'd doubt that she'd see it.
"You're not going to see that fight, I fear. You're going to have your own fight. With me. Right here, right now." smirked Kanako and balled her fists, then went into a fighting stance. I narrowed my eyes at her.
"Really? First time in twenty years that we see each other, I'm just out of the medical wing, and the first thing you want to do is a selfish fight? You know, a simple 'welcome back' would've done it, maybe a cake..." I taunted, causing my opponent to frown.
"Are you complimenting my cooking?" snorted the goddess, and I shrugged.
"The last time I ate something you made was twenty years ago... Can't say I'd mind to eat it again." I shot back, shortly glancing over my shoulder at the burning hand behind my back and the large faith pillar that it rested against.
"That so? Tell ya what, Gekido... If you defeat me now, you'll get your cake. Deal?" snickered Kanako. Of course, this meant that something was up. She was too confident with herself... She had planned something.
Geez, what's it with people planning my defeat?
"Deal." I exclaimed, pushing my burning hand harder against the onbashira behind me.
"Good. Then let's do this!" shouted Kanako.
"Spellcard rules initiated. Unlimited amount of spellcard, first one to fall unconscious loses!" we shouted at roughly the same time, initiating the rules that would protect us from death.
Kanako began to laugh sinisterly and rose both of her hands. Immediately, four of the pillars around the eight corridors that led to the living quarters broke apart, shattered into small pieces, and revealed what had formerly been hidden: Beneath a thin layer of stone were faith pillars, onbashira!
"Damn, that's why she was smirking like that! Another ace up Kanako Yasaka's sleeve!" I thought as I watched how the faith pillars attached to Kanako's back. This would give Kanako an incredible power boost and more possibilities to attack. And what made it even worse was that she flicked her fingers once, turning two more of the pillars into onbashira. Those two remained by her sides, each hovering on one side of her body.
With six pillars in total, four on her back and two by her sides, Kanako was going to be even more dangerous than ever before... Each time I had fought her until now, she had used a total of four pillars at the same time. But those were six... And two of them weren't attached to her body. I could only speculate what those two would do... maybe additional weapons, maybe replacements for the other four. Either way, more dangerous than ever.
But... She wasn't the only one with a trick up her sleeve. And my trick was going to swipe her off her feet...
"Have at you!" laughed Kanako as she suddenly threw herself at me. That was what I had waited for.
I swung my still emerald-glowing hand back and knocked my fist into the faith pillar behind me, which I had damaged before with my burning hand. The pillar groaned and broke at the already damaged spot, then fell into my direction. I dove out of the way and watched how Kanako's eyes grew wide as soon as she spotted her own pillar coming down on her, breaking through glass and stone of the ceiling.
Kanako hissed loudly and moved her right hand, the faith pillar floating to her right immediately tilting up to stop the gigantic pillar falling down on her. With the pillar stopped, Kanako let out an even louder snarl, then moved her other hand to swing the other floating pillar to her left into the side of the onbashira she had stopped, knocking it out of her way. It crashed into the wall, created a large crack in it, but then fell to the ground.
I unleashed my powers in shape of my emerald hands, narrowed my eyes at Kanako, just as she lowered her hands, and with that the floating pillars, and then turned to me to narrow her eyes at me as well.
"Well, at least I know what she uses those two pillars for now..." shot through my head.
And with that, our rumble begun.
~ Chôzen vs. Kanako, the old rivalry flares up again! Music cue: Jeff Williams/RWBY - From Shadows ~
Kanako swung her right hand forward and the floating onbashira followed. I jumped out of the way and caught myself in a roll, pushed one hand forward just as I came to a stop in a crouched position. A green orb burst forth and flew towards Kanako, but missed her and exploded on the wall behind her instead.
She swung her left hand in a horizontal motion, the faith pillar on her left side following her command by swinging in a horizontal way over my head. When she was about to swing it back, I rose my right hand at the height of my head and put my fingers against the onbashira. Running towards her in a crouched state, I used the negative energy surrounding my right hand to hold the pillar at bay, sliding my fingernails against the onbashira.
Kanako let out a loud growl as she saw me drawing closer, leaned forwards and pointed two of the pillars on her back at me. I snarled as I saw how dark blue energy began to glow at the front of the two onbashira, forcing me to push away from the onbashira I had sled my hand against.
I rolled out of the way just as the two onbashira on Kanako's back shot two thick, dark blue lasers. The lasers were fast and powerful, hit the wall far, far away from us, down the corridor, and exploded there. Kanako swung the faith pillar to her left, the one I had held at bay, into my direction just as I began to sprint towards her, so I jumped.
Landing on top of the faith pillar, I somersaulted, then continued to sprint. Kanako seemed to be anything but pleased about that and pointed the two upper onbashira on her back at me again. I jumped over the two lasers that she created and heard them impact with the glass ceiling behind me as Kanako rose the faith pillar I was running on higher.
Now on a much steeper onbashira, I couldn't remain there and was forced to jump off. I flipped over the head of the goddess and landed behind her, twirled around and slashed across her back with my left hand, which was still clad in emerald flames.
Kanako hissed out and I smirked as I examined the cuts in her red shirt. She twirled around and glared, one onbashira swung at the height of my head. I ducked underneath it, then glanced into the direction of the onbashira and found that it had impacted into the wall, damaging it greatly. I'd better not be hit by those pillars... They would have pretty much the same effect as Yukari's armor, and I enjoyed my regained vision.
"Still trusting in your speed, huh?" mocked Kanako as she pulled her hand back, then rested it against her side. As she did, the faith pillar returned to it's position to her left, hovering in midair like the other pillar did to her right.
"Still trusting in your strength, huh?" I mocked right back, only to move several steps away from my first rival ever, Kanako Yasaka.
"Indeed I am. I've never enjoyed great speed." replied Kanako and took a few steps back as well. We both observed the damages around us shortly, the broken ceiling and the cracked walls.
"Oh, I know. That's why I'll win this as well." I shot back, right before I threw a green orb of flames at her. Kanako rose both of the faith pillars at her side to block the attack by crossing them in front of her body. I charged at her in hope to reach her before she would have the chance to counter, but she moved the onbashira so that they were both facing up, and then slammed them down.
I gasped and sidestepped, causing the two heavy logs to smash into the ground with enough force to create two large holes in it. I began to round Kanako, hoped to hit her back again as long as it was unguarded, but the goddess just let out a furious roar and began to turn around - The two heavy onbashira creating a large trace in the ground as they ripped through it.
With a backflip, I managed to flip over the two onbashira as they passed me. Kanako growled and stopped in her motion, then pulled both onbashira up into the air again. They flew into my direction and tried to smash me, but I ducked and decided against approaching Kanako, rather brought distance between us.
Kanako adapted to my change in tactic and leaned forward, the two upper onbashira on her back pointing at me and releasing a twin pair of lasers. One of them grazed my shoulder as I dodged, but it didn't hurt enough to be of any importance. Kanako wasn't exactly pleased by that and leaned further down, allowing the two lower onbashira to point over her back as well. They began to glow blue as well, but released one hell of a storm of bullets rather than lasers.
Changing my tactic again, I charged towards her and dodged the bullets with my speed, moved in for the next hit... I had forgotten about the two flying onbashira, though, and was quickly thrown backwards through the air, all air forced out of my lungs.
"Shit!" I hissed right before I impacted with the ground and had all air forced out of me yet again. My chest hurt like mad, all of my ribs on fire from just one single hit of the onbashira. I had never thought that a hit from them could hurt so much... I had been smashed before by them, but getting hit by the swing of one was an entirely new feeling of pain.
I still cowered on the ground and held my chest when a shadow stepped over me. Glaring over my right shoulder, I found Kanako standing behind me, a nasty smirk on her lips as she rose her right hand, the floating pillar of faith following her.
Rage flew through me as I saw that, anger at falling for such a simple trick. The bullets had been nothing but a distraction.
"Looks like there will be no cake for you." sniggered the goddess and rose the faith pillar higher. I narrowed my eyes, yet couldn't move because of the burning pain in my chest. The negative energy in my right hand flared up, but it wouldn't be of any use. I pushed more power in my left hand, just out of rage...
Imagine my surprise when my left arm suddenly gained weight and my body moved on it's own!
One moment, I was on all fours in front of Kanako with my hands ablaze... The next moment, I was behind her, my right hand still ablaze with green energy. And within my left hand rested something heavy, something I hadn't felt in twenty years. A steady exchange of power and guilt was moving through my palm, the heavy weight pulling my arm down and yet allowing it to move easily.
In my left hand rested Alastor, the blade of guilt. The true one, not just a copy with it's spirit. The chains of guilt were back, curled around my arm in all their black glory and glowed their sickly green, as did Alastor itself.
Alastor was back.
It was Kanako's sharp hiss that pulled me back into reality and made me aware of what I had just done. I had moved at incredible speed and had cut Kanako's side with Alastor.
The goddess of war, rain and storm twirled around and narrowed her eyes at me, then the blade in my hand. She had made acquaintance with it already... In fact, it had been our battle twenty years ago in which I had first gained control of the blade, had first wielded it. How fitting that it was also my first battle with her after twenty years in which it finally returned to me!
"Thank you, Alastor..." I whispered, and focused on the blade in my hands.
Kanako let out a roar and leaned forward, once more pointing all four onbashira on her back over her shoulders at me. But this time, I came prepared.
It was almost like a deja vue as I charged at the goddess again and she began to spawn lasers and bullets anew. I ducked underneath the first two lasers, then rose to my full height again and pushed all my power into my feet to increase my speed.
Guided by an invisible hand, I swung Alastor, changed it's position ever so often and enjoyed the metallic sounds of the dark blue bullets hitting the blade and being deflected into nothingness. Like a familiar melody, the metallic sounds dug their way into the deepest parts of my brain and filled me with glee and utter satisfaction.
Just like before, one of the two floating onbashira came from the side and tried to throw me through the air, but was stopped when Alastor's blade pushed against it, carved deep into the wood as I sled it along it and continued my charge towards Kanako.
Seeing that, the goddess let out an even deeper growl and pulled the floating onbashira back, only to swing both fists towards each other. Seeing that the onbashira had followed each move of the respective hand of the goddess, I knew what was to come and ducked, just as the two onbashira crashed into one another above my head. And just as Kanako drew them apart, I was right in front of her at my full height.
Alastor cut through the goddesses right shoulder as I jumped over her head. She twirled around and tried to swat me out of the air with one onbashira, but merely hit the wall and created even more damage than we had done already. I landed in a crouched position and turned, swung the blade at Kanako's legs.
She cursed aloud as my blade cut through her knees, and even though it didn't leave back any damage since this was a spellcard battle, Kanako began to stumble back and forth because of the pain. I pushed myself off the ground from my crouched position and threw the chains of guilt into Kanako's stomach, right before Alastor cut through her middle as I passed her.
In midair, I twirled around and grabbed the chains of guilt, then pulled on them. Since Kanako had a far greater weight than me due to the onbashira, I was pulled towards her, aimed, and cut through her again with Alastor as I passed her and landed on the ground in front of her.
Kanako twirled around despite all the pain she felt and hit me in the side with her fist. The onbashira to that hand missed me, but I still stumbled a few steps away from the blue-haired goddess. Before Kanako got the chance to strike again, I moved.
I tackled into her with my right shoulder first. She fell back, the weight of her four faith pillars on her back pulling her backwards as well. Alastor swung up and cut through Kanako once as she stumbled, I turned right until I stood with my back to Kanako and stabbed into her side under my right arm, then turned again and cut diagonally through her torso.
Kanako was still stumbling when I stopped for a second and focused, then tackled into her again; this time with enough strength for her to be thrown off her feet. She crashed backwards through the glass wall and landed outside the corridor on the green meadow just outside it. I followed through the hole in the glass and smirked to myself as I landed in front of her, just as she had gotten up.
In her furious state, she swung both of her fists forwards, sending the two floating onbashira at her sides at me. This time, I jumped on top of them, only to push off them again. I landed on Kanako's shoulders, pushed off them to throw her off balance, and then threw Alastor by it's chains at her before I hit the ground.
Kanako, however, caught the spinning blade this time and pulled on it, pulling me out of the air and smashing me into the ground. I knew what was to come and quickly rolled away, just as another onbashira fell out of the air and impaled the ground where I had laid.
Stumbling to my feet, I fell into a sprint, well knowing that stopping for just a single second would be my secure death, as Kanako let more onbashira fall out of the air. God knows from where... I didn't really want to know where she had hidden or implemented onbashira in this arena. Possibly almost everywhere.
Changing my direction, I charged back at Kanako. She crossed her arms in front of her body and the two floating onbashira followed that example, creating a huge cross in front of her body. It didn't stop me, however, as I jumped off the ground and landed on one of them, then pushed off them and flipped in midair, gaining speed and power for my fall.
My heel hit Kanako in the back of her head as I fell on top of her, and slammed her face-first into the dirt. Immediately, the onbashira stopped falling out of the sky, and yet I knew that stopping would be a fatal mistake. Against Kanako, stopping led to pain.
I didn't see how Kanako, still on the ground, swung one of her arms, and thus missed it as one of the two still floating onbashira slammed into me from the side. Suddenly thrown through the air, the next thing I felt was pain and the impact with a stone wall, followed by me hitting a colorful floor... I had landed back in the corridor, on one of the eight symbols.
Pushing myself to my feet, I glared through the hole and hoped to spot Kanako, but couldn't. My senses kicked in, though, and I somersaulted away from my spot just as Kanako broke through the ceiling and tried to squash me underneath herself and the six onbashira of hers.
"Kanako..." I growled and narrowed my eyes at her, but the goddess didn't respond and instead leaned forward to point all of the four onbashira on her back over her shoulders at me. In addition, she extended both arms into my direction and pointed her palms at me.
Before I could ask, the top of each pillar began to glow dark blue. My senses kicked in again and I jumped backwards, just as the six onbashira each fired a short burst one after another which exploded upon impact with the ground.
I changed direction and charged back at her, but she didn't stop throwing these bursts at me. The small explosions created small shockwaves, not powerful enough to hurt me but still enough to make me stumble a bit each time one of them occurred.
I didn't move in until I was right in front of her, but jumped before that. Kanako narrowed her eyes at me as I came closer, then did something that I hadn't anticipated: She took a step back, and then took three steps forward at once and tackled into me.
"Ah!" I yelled as I was tackled out of the air and thrown off balance. I hit the ground in a few meters difference to Kanako and snarled as I landed on my shoulder, almost dislocating it.
"Shit, forgot Kanako's raw strength!" I cursed inside my head and writhed in pain, holding my right shoulder. Opening my eyes a bit to glare over at Kanako, I found her standing above me, much to my shock. And pain, as she suddenly kicked me into the stomach and sent me flying further down the corridor.
I screamed out in pain as I landed on the ground again and felt even more pain. And of course, it didn't stop there. The moment I managed to open my eyes, Kanako was once more above me, this time with her foot pulled up and ready to slam down on me. Setting my left hand ablaze, I was about to throw an orb of green energy at her. Not to hurt her, not necessarily, throwing her off balance would be enough.
Kanako, however, suddenly lost her balance and almost fell over... It looked pretty weird, almost as if someone had pulled on her lifted leg. But that was impossible, I was alone with Kanako and who'd be able to pull on a leg from a distance without touching it?
With Kanako stumbling backwards, I rose to my feet again and brought a little distance between me and her, throwing weak bullets of green color at her. She brushed most of them off, most too weak to be considered painful for her. They were just to occupy her, though, while I brought distance between us.
Kanako leaned forward and pointed the four onbashira at me again, channeling new energy into them to fire these bursts at me again. With two backflips, I avoided the first few bursts of energy, then stopped and changed direction, once more moving towards Kanako.
She aimed at me and shot more of these bursts, but luckily at a pretty slow rate, giving me the chance to prepare for each of them. I jumped to the right as one of them impacted to my feet, then jumped back to the left when another one almost hit me.
I threw Alastor at the goddess, but she blocked the flying blade with the side of one of the left floating onbashira. This action caused the blade to cut into the log, where it remained stuck. Kanako saw this and swung the onbashira back, probably to yank me into her direction, but since the chains of guilt adjusted to whatever length I needed them to be, it wouldn't pull me towards Kanako... If not for me intending exactly that.
Yanked off my feet and into Kanako's direction, I channeled negative energy into my bony hand and aimed at Kanako's face, my intention to punch her into the next century. I had forgotten about the other onbashira, however, and could only gasp as she leaned forwards and aimed the two upper onbashira at me.
One of these bursts hit my chest and I was thrown backwards through the air, only to be yanked back towards Kanako when she pulled on the chains of Alastor. Once more, I found one of the onbashira aimed at me, but this time, the burst missed when I twisted my body out of the way.
My feet clumsily found a place to rest against; namely Kanako's face, and I pushed myself off her. She growled and took a few steps back, bringing one hand up to hold her face. Because one of the floating onbashira was still connected to that hand, it was brought up in a diagonal arch. I didn't stand a chance to avoid and was hit in the side, thrown away from Kanako and into the wall to her side, just below the ceiling.
Pain shot through my body when I crashed into the wall and caused a good dent in it, but I managed to absorb the fall at least by landing in a crouched position. Kanako had just regained balance as well, glared into my direction. Since she was still holding the left onbashira away from me since Alastor was still stuck in it, she instead swung her right hand into my direction. The respective onbashira flew towards me, and I avoided by falling out of the way.
Instead, the onbashira dug into the cold stone of the wall and broke into it. Small stones flew through the air and I had to shield my face from them, but then focused back on Kanako. She yanked on the chains once more, but since I was prepared this time, the chains just extended in length and instead threw Kanako off balance, who had pulled way too hard for no counteracting force to be there.
I used this to jump over the floating onbashira still in the wall, then rolled underneath the other one and turned around, my hands immediately curling around the hilt of the stuck Alastor. I pulled on it, the blade glowed green and began to hiss, and immediately was free.
The length of the chains of guilt reduced to their normal length and I let out a deep sigh as I jumped over Kanako, way more comfortable with a long corridor behind me rather than eight smaller corridors with walls between them.
Kanako's glare was upon me again and she pointed all six of the onbashira at me again to release more of these short bursts of energy. I was forced to dodge them again, curled my left hand around the hilt of Alastor again and glanced down at it.
"Damn it. I thought that I would be able to wield Alastor just like the day that I lost him once he returned... But it doesn't feel like back then. I focused too much on using my hands, rather than a blade. Guess I have to find back to him first..." I pondered as I eyed the weapon. And yet, I didn't dismiss it. Not yet.
Lost in my thoughts, I had entirely forgotten about Kanako and her attacks, something that I regretted soon. One of the onbashira slammed into my stomach full force, pushed me several meters back and caused me to double over in pain, all air pushed out of my lungs as the onbashira finally retreated.
Glaring up at Kanako as I did my best to fill my lungs with air again, I found her smirking at me in one hell of a nasty way.
It was that moment that I noticed that none of my attacks, despite their strength and quantity, had hurt Kanako seriously enough to tire her out. She wasn't completely unscathed, but not hurt enough for everything to be considered normal. Something wasn't right.
"I see you noticed... Then let me tell you why." chuckled Kanako darkly as she saw my shock and narrowed her eyes at me, the smirk on her lips growing in size and malevolence. With air now in my lungs again, I began to snarl as loud as I could, but still had to regain the strength to move again... And the pain had to stop.
"You left me back again, Gekido. You defeated me and vanished again, just like back all those centuries ago... But this time, I knew you'd return. This time, I knew I'd get my revenge. Each and every day, I trained to surpass you. I steeled my body and remembered all of your dirty tricks... I knew I wouldn't be able to memorize them all and block them, but I learned to take the pain they might cause. I learned how to extend my stamina... And this time, it is you who'll lose!" laughed the mad goddess.
"Once again... driven by revenge, huh? Just like back... then!" I panted, each breath hurting like hell. The goddess didn't respond, but her smirk increased and that was everything I needed to know. Driven by revenge, just like back then. Just not as obsessed with it.
"Something changed, though, as you can see. I am much more resistant than back then, much stronger... And have more powerful attacks! Let's see how you like this one!" laughed Kanako and leaned forward again, the four onbashira moving to point over her shoulders at me.
I mentally prepared myself for the several bursts again, but Kanako surprised me with something completely else. The four onbashira on her back moved until they were touching each other, the two onbashira floating at her sides rose and placed themselves on Kanako's shoulders. They all were facing me, they all began to glow in a dark blue at their tips.
And then, the most gigantic blast I had ever seen was released by the goddess.
I didn't even have time to let my eyes grow wide, I couldn't even raise a proper barrier of negative energy in front of me. It was halfway up when Kanako's blast of pure power impacted with my shield, some of it's pure power poured through it and I felt how several locations on my torso were burned by the pure energy that this blast was made of.
My heels dug into the ground and I screamed, screamed in pure torment as I was pushed backwards through the entire corridor with my heels breaking through the stone, while my front was severely burned at the same time. No wounds would remain due to the spellcard rules, but the pain was still hard to take.
In fact, my vision was slowly becoming blurry and my legs were shaking, almost giving in due to the pain I was going through. And the moment that I was about to black out, the blast stopped.
I was still being pushed back, though, had gained too much velocity to stop just like that, despite my heels still digging into the stone ground. When I lost my balance though, just for a split second, my heels dug too deep into the ground and became stuck while my upper body was still moving at the high velocity.
Swept off my feet, I was flying through the corridor, then impacted with the ground and sled on it for a few meters, then bounced off it. The world around me was spinning as I flew through the corridor and I soon lost all sense of direction, didn't even know anymore where up and down was.
It wasn't until I impacted with the wall on the far side of the corridor that everything stopped. I was upside down when I sled down on the wall and hit the floor with my head first, then with my shoulders as the back of my head sled over the ground.
The corridor was still upside-down when I saw Kanako running down the corridor into my direction, the two onbashira floating at her sides again, moving back and forth as Kanako ran towards me with the nasty smirk still on her lips.
"The hell...? This reminds me of that one attack of that doll... Kyômi, the doll that had interested the interests of almost everyone in Gensokyo. I remember that she could release this powerful blast from her mouth... It wasn't as strong as this attack from Kanako just now, but it worked just like it..." shot through my head.
Despite all the pain and the exhaustion, I pushed myself off the wall and landed on the front of my body, then pushed myself up onto all fours. That was one of the good things that came with the spellcard rules: You didn't receive any physical wounds that would stop you from getting up again. No cuts and bruises, no blood and no severe damages. And with that, I still could get up, even after that powerful attack from Kanako, which had sent me through an entire corridor of a few hundred meter length.
What really scared me, though, was the thought of how powerful the attack really had been. I had blocked half of it's power with my negative energy, had reduced the velocity by a good bit after the blast had stopped, and still hit the wall with such force... If I wouldn't have dug my heels into the ground like that, I would've easily been thrown through the wall!
I stumbled to my feet and growled. It certainly was a good thing that the large double door leading to the large hall of the arena was not at the far wall of the corridor that I had been thrown into, but to my right now, at the side of the corridor. Otherwise, we might have stolen the entire attention of the audience. Imagine you're watching a fight which's outcome you already now, since we all suspected that Mima would win... And then, a goddess and a Youkai with almost equal strength come barging into the room and fight above your heads!
"What the bloody hell was that...?" I snarled as soon as Kanako was within earshot, and I did my best to stop myself from panting. My heartbeat was echoing in my ears and I felt a slight headache... The spellcard rules didn't prevent those, especially in between fighters with as much strength as me and Kanako.
"That? That was my most powerful technique. And it seems I got you good with it... Too bad you blocked most of it!" laughed Kanako, "Now that would've been one hell of a 'welcome back', huh?"
"Fireworks, and maybe a cake... You really seem to have missed me, Kanako." I snorted and rose to my full height, ignored pain and exhaustion.
"Maybe I have, Chôzen." replied Kanako in a much more soft manner, her nasty smirk changing into what I would almost dare to call a warm smile.
"Hey, don't go soft on me." I chuckled as I heard her use my first name for once, and Kanako joined. We chuckled together, and as we did, returned to our battle stances again, back to how we had begun. If it hadn't been for my slightly exhausted state and the damage on the back of Kanako's shirt, no one would've known that we had fought before.
If he ignored the destroyed state of the corridor, of course. Now THAT was destruction at it's best!
"Ready for round two?" I snickered and rose Alastor with my left hand, then ignited my bony hand in emerald flames. Kanako sniggered sinisterly and rose both of her hands, the two floating onbashira rising to the height of her waist again.
"Dad!"
~ music fades out ~
Caught off guard by Yajû's voice, both Kanako and I turned towards the large doors to the arena, which were open now, Yajû and Yume standing in it.
"Yajû? Yume?!" I gasped, my fight with Kanako forgotten for the moment. I just frowned at my two daughters and wondered how they had found me, or if they had found me by coincidence. Then again, they hadn't probably been looking for me to begin with.
"D-did that one... Call you...?!" stammered Kanako and returned my attention to her. Her mouth was wide open as she continued to stare at Yajû, to which the young Angel of Death stared right back with a frown.
"Dad, who is that?" muttered Yajû as she frowned at the goddess I had just fought against. Before I got the chance to explain anything to them, as I had never really talked about Kanako to them, something else happened that caught me off guard just as much as Yajû's and Yume's arrival had thrown Kanako off guard.
"MOTHER!" exclaimed a young girl that I had overlooked until now as she let go of Yume's hand and dashed past the young Angel of Death and me towards... Kanako.
Kanako didn't even react as the young girl threw herself at the goddess and put her arms around her waist, hugging her. The young girl hugging Kanako had poofy, medium-length hair and was a little smaller than Suwako. She wore a purple shirt with long white sleeves that went over into a red skirt reaching down to her knees. Wearing sandals and white kneesocks, she resembled Suwako quite a lot...
It hit me like a brick into the face.
I had seen this girl before. Twenty years ago, on the day that everyone had gone crazy for some weird interest, I had spotted a child resembling Suwako within the Moriya Shrine, but couldn't make any sense out of it. Now, however...
"YOU HAVE A CHILD?!" I bellowed in perfect unison with Kanako. We both took a step back and pointed accusingly at the other one, not believing what we had just learned about each other.
"Could someone explain what's going on?" asked Yajû as she eyed me and Kanako, only to glance down the pretty demolished corridor, "And what the bloody hell happened to the corridor?"
Kanako and I continued to stare at each other, and one could probably see how it was slowly working in our heads as we tried to process everything and come up with what to do next.
"Actually..." I began eventually and glanced over to Yume and Yajû, "I have two daughters. Both of them are my children. You can probably guess the rest." At this, the blue haired goddess nodded slowly, then glanced down to the girl that was hugging her waist.
"This is... Hikari." muttered Kanako eventually, gently placed a hand on the head of her daughter, and smiled in a warm, motherly way at her. It actually looked pretty cute, even though I noted to myself that it would be hard to get used to Kanako being a mother. I had never thought that she would be the motherly type, and so, it actually felt quite confusing and uncomfortable to see her act that way.
"Dad, where the hell did you get Mom's sword from? I thought it's chained to her..." inquired the bolder of my daughters as she approached me, her eyes resting on Alastor within my left hand, "Wait... That's not Mom's sword, is it? It looks almost exactly alike, but it's..."
"It's the brother of Rumia's Tyrfing, the twin to Tyrfing. It is the exact opposite, yet forged from the same material with the fangs of the same beast at the very top. Equal in strength, they only differ in their abilities and the emotion that they feed on... Bloodlust for the destructive Tyrfing, guilt for the silent Alastor." replied, to everyone's surprise, Kanako, her eyes resting up the sword as well.
"You know just as much as I do about Alastor... How come, Orochi?" I questioned as I turned towards the blue-haired goddess again. In return, she lifted her gaze until it was locked with mine, and then gently pushed Hikari behind her.
"I am a goddess, after all. But there is something else..." murmured Kanako, "Something I don't think I can tell you."
I furrowed a brow and rolled my shoulders, but didn't dare to question whatever Kanako had referred to. If it wasn't something I was supposed to know, then I shouldn't. Sure, it did bug me and I was curious... But, as I had learned through experience, curiosity killed the cat. Or the enigma, for that matter. I had run into enough trouble because of my curiosity.
"Alastor?" repeated Yajû eventually and turned to look down at the sword within my hand, which I still refused to dismiss. I just couldn't... I felt like I was going to lose it again, feared that I may... Screw it. What was I even worried about? Alastor had given me the message that he would return once he thought it was time... So if it really had been him, he was back with me again.
The chains began to dissolve into green particles from my chest out, green petal-like particles flew through my vision as the chains dissolved into nothingness, until the decomposition eventually reached Alastor's hilt and began to dissolve the blade as well.
"I don't want anyone to know about Alastor's return, alright? That means no word to Nanatsu or Rumia as well... Got that?" I eventually spoke, glancing towards my daughters towards the end. The two of them nodded slowly, and as I glanced to Kanako, she nodded as well.
"What the hell is that about?" asked Insanity almost immediately.
"Don't ask. They'll know about Alastor's return once I think it's time." I replied, then closed my eyes.
"My question still hasn't been answered... What happened here?" repeated Yajû, her earlier question once more lingering in the air. At this, I opened my eyes and looked at Kanako. She still had the four faith pillars attached to her back and Hikari, her daughter, was looking around one of them. The two onbashira that she had commanded earlier with her hands now lay discarded at the side on the ground, no longer responding to the movements of Kanako's hands.
"That is a question that I can answer..." sighed Kanako and closed her eyes gently. Her indifferent expression changed as her lips curled up into a soft smile. She lowered her gaze a little, a shadow fell over her eyes and hid them. Very gently, she rose her right hand and tapped into midair. I watched this with great curiosity, wondered silently how this was going to explain everything.
She gently lowered her hand until it was at the height of her waist... And then, her soft smile turned into a nasty smirk as she bared her teeth and swung her right hand from the right to the left.
The wall to my left broke apart as an onbashira slammed through it. Caught off guard, I was unable to avoid and forced to endure the pain as the onbashira slammed into my body at great speed. With my back pressed against the onbashira, I could barely scream as the wall suddenly came closer. I did hear my daughters gasp and Kanako laugh... And then, the next thing was that I slammed full force into the wall.
Nanatsu's PoV
The audience was cheering and clapping, yelling for their respective favorite fighter. As it had turned out, Cirno's gigantic ice sword had changed a few things. Not only was Mima forced to block ever so often now, but Letty and Daiyousei had both regained new spirit and had faced their respective enemies, forcing Yuuka to retreat a few steps as her beloved flowers were suddenly covered in ice and snow,as well as Shinki to actually take cover as Daiyousei began to throw colorful bullets all around her in what appeared to be random patterns.
"I knew Cirno and Daiyousei would eventually prove themselves, ze. One shouldn't believe it, but Cirno actually has the strength of a weak Youkai... And certainly the endurance and hotheadedness of one. She IS the strongest fairy." chuckled Marisa as she leaned over the railing, "But still nothing against Miss Mima! She's kidding around down there, ze!"
"Undeniably." agreed Rumia with an amused snort, "I have to agree that Cirno certainly is extraordinarily strong for a simple Yurei... If I wouldn't know better, she has already surpassed the shackles of Yurei and has ascended to something neither Youkai nor Yurei. And her strength and will to continue is rubbing off on Daiyousei. As long as Cirno keeps pushing herself, keeps standing up no matter how weak she is, Daiyousei will follow her like a loyal, affectionate puppy."
"Are you perhaps talking about me?" snickered a voice sarcastically, catching the Angel of Death off guard. I turned to glance over my shoulder, and couldn't help but squeal in glee as I spotted the woman that the voice had belonged to.
"Momiji!" I exclaimed and quickly crossed the distance between us to pet the white wolf tengu like a small dog. Of course, she'd complain about it, but I knew she liked it. At least, she had done so when she had been drunk on the party to our honor after the fight with Mima twenty years earlier. And true to my suspicion, she let out a huff as I placed a hand on her head... Her tail gave her away, though, it was wagging left and right in excitement.
Momiji would always be my favorite tengu, I guess. None of them was as cute as her. Especially not Aya.
"Indeed me. I couldn't resist but welcome you back on my own. And of course, in the name of Lord Tenma. She's a few stories above us, but apologizes for not being able to leave her place right now. She'll eventually meet you in person, though." smiled the white wolf tengu.
I couldn't help but notice that she looked a little more intimidating than ever before, maybe a little... Manlier was the wrong word, I guess. Perhaps, to describe it in another way, it was the feeling of being safe around her; that she'd protect those dear to her from any harm. Just like the man that many girls dreamt of, the 'knight in shining armor'.
Well, Momiji was a guard with a big sword, so I guess that's as close as it comes to it.
"Ah, it's Momiji, da ze!" exclaimed Marisa as she spotted the white wolf tengu as well, "How's it going, 'miji? Haven't heard from ya in a while!"
"I cannot complain, Marisa. We have our occasional intruders to the mountain, but we send them back down the mountain as usual." replied Momiji, all while I continued to pet her gently. She really didn't mind in the end, I guess.
"How's your life with Alice going? I believe she can be quite... clingy." chuckled Momiji and eventually gently pushed my hand away to approach the railing as well. I was a little disappointed, her hair was really soft and her ears were just adorable, but then again, she wasn't a pet or something...
"Actually not. Years ago, I would've thought the same, but I was proved wrong." sniggered Marisa in return and watched as Momiji leaned onto the railing aside her. I returned to my own spot in between the white wolf tengu and Rumia, and returned my attention to the battle below, which we were all watching with great interest now. Mima had just regained control of the situation again, but was still not giving it her all.
"A ship is certainly an interesting place for a battle, right? As far as I know, the only ship in Gensokyo is that of Minamitsu Murasa, and it's not even requiring water to swim." commented Momiji. I let out a short laugh, silently agreeing with her. A ship like that certainly was a change.
"This Yúgure girl is quite skilled... She created a body of water and a ship from nothing but solid stone..." added Rumia.
"Well, what do you expect from someone who has spent the last nineteen years in Voile? She's been practically absorbing those books about terraforming magic whenever I paid Patche a visit, ze." laughed Marisa, and I glanced shortly over to her and Momiji.
"What is this girl's connection to Patchouli Knowledge, anyways? I figured she's a Succubus like Koakuma, and the robe pretty much gave away that she's from the Scarlet Devil Mansion..." I inquired, and earned an amused glance from Marisa.
"Yúgure works at Voile like Koakuma... Just as much of a bibliophile as her and Patchouli, ze. It's not that surprising, I guess, she's spending way too much time around them since..."
Marisa never managed to finish her sentence, was interrupted by the loud sounds of what sounded like stone breaking apart, followed by loud screams of surprise and fear. We all immediately glared into the direction, feared that something might've happened.
I had one hand on Shi no Taizai, Rumia had summoned Tyrfing, Momiji had her sword drawn and Marisa had pulled the Mini-Hakkero, which she had already claimed to still use despite no longer needing it, out of her pocket. All of us were ready to jump into action in case that we needed to. However, we all facefaulted as we saw the source of that noise.
It was a gigantic log; one of Kanako's onbashira, that had crashed through the wall at the very top of the arena, flying towards the battlefield and the barrier. And, at the very tip of that onbashira, was Chôzen, his back pressed against it as he screamed for his dear life.
In perfect silence and with deadpans, we watched as he and that onbashira flew into the barrier and crashed into it. It surprised me only a little as the faith pillar actually went through the barrier and pushed Chôzen through as well, probably because both the onbashira and the barrier were Kanako's. Eventually, the onbashira impaled the ship into the side and remained stuck there, the additional weight tilting the ship to the right.
It was that moment that Kanako appeared from the hole in the wall that the onbashira had made. She merely jumped out of it, fell towards the barrier and passed right through it, and then used one of her personal onbashira, the shorter ones that she attached to her back, to break through the ship's wall to follow Chôzen inside.
In perfect unison with Marisa, Rumia and even Momiji, I facepalmed so hard that it hurt.
"Chôzen..." we groaned.
"What is this?! Looks like we are going to see two fights for the price of one! Yasaka-sama seems to be fighting contestant Chôzen of the first round! I wonder what caused this? Now this is going to be interesting!" roared Aya as she jumped up from her seat anew, one wing slamming into Rinnosuke's face and knocking him and his chair over, as well as his drink when Aya slammed her fists down on the table.
"For now, we are not going to see anything with Yasaka-sama and Chôzen in the belly of the ship... Let's just hope their fight won't get in the way of the fights of Mima's and Cirno's teams." added Akyuu, even though she was looking past Aya with a very worried expression, probably at Rinnosuke.
"Are ya kiddin' me? I hope they get in each other's way! Now THAT is going to add spice to this!" roared Sly in laughter, slamming the odd flask in his right hand down on the table, causing a bit of that green liquid to spill onto it, "I knew Gekido was good for somethin'! Throw him inta the mix and ya get chaos! And I just love chaos! Who else loves chaos?!"
I just let out another groan with the other three women around me as the audience began to cheer.
Back to Chôzen...
"Shit!" I roared just as my body was flung into the wooden floor of the ship's belly. My entire body was aching, and I knew Kanako would appear any second now. I pushed myself up, cringed as my right arm almost gave in because of pain as I leaned my weight onto it, and glared over to the wall I had entered the ship's belly through.
The onbashira was protruding from the wall, had broken through the dark brown wood there.
"Well... To answer that question earlier as to from where we are going to see Mima's fight... We've got the best seats. We're watching the battle from REAL close-up."
Looking around the room, I found myself in what appeared to be some kind of storage, with chests and barrels standing around in apparently random locations, even though most had sled over to the wall because of the slightly tilted position that the ship was in now. Yúgure had done her very best to create such a detailed area... She certainly was skilled.
On the other hand, it certainly wasn't good at all that I was inside the ship now... Somewhere above my head, Mima's team was fighting against that of Cirno, and I certainly didn't plan to get in their way, as it could influence the outcome of this fight... Shikieiki was going to be pissed at me and Kanako for this, and so was Yukari. Then again, Yukari was already going to be pissed at us for the destruction we had caused...
An entire corridor was destroyed already, and who knew what else was going to follow...
My question was, more or less, answered when the wall broke open and Kanako entered the belly of the ship as well, throwing some barrels and chest across the room as the wall broke.
"Ready for round two?" asked the goddess without hesitation, and I merely let out a loud hiss. This was enough for her, she didn't need to know anything more. She lifted her hands a little and the two onbashira floating at her sides rose to the height of her knees.
She swung her left hand towards me and the faith pillar responded, flew into my direction. I dodged by falling to the side, rolled, and then glared over my shoulder at the onbashira that now stuck in the wall. Kanako lowered her hand and the faith pillar broke free, returned to her side, leaving back a large hole in the wall.
"Now, let's continue where we left off, right...?" called out the goddess and narrowed her eyes at me at the same time that a crazed smirk spread across her lips.
~ Do we ever stop this rivalry of ours? I certainly hope not! Music change: Saint Deamon - Run for your life
I quickly ignited my hands with the emerald energy, no second too late to catch the next onbashira thrown at me. My fingers curled around the edge of the onbashira's end and I pushed my feet against the ground in hope to stop myself. I was unfortunate, though, the ground was slippery and wet, the wooden planks were old and unsound... Curse Yúgure and her need for details.
The onbashira pushed me backwards through the room and eventually against and through the wall. I cursed as the cold air outside the ship hit my face and the scent of salt water filled my nostrils. Hanging on the onbashira Kanako had thrown, I couldn't do anything but quickly climb on top of it, then jump away before Kanako pulled it back.
My hands managed to hold onto the open window just as Kanako's onbashira vanished back inside the ship. My fingers almost slipped, the windowsill was made of wood as well and just as wet and slippery as the wooden planks inside the ship. I pulled myself up and rolled through the open window back into the room, right next to a few barrels that were chained to the wall and the ground.
Kanako turned to face me and snorted in amusement, then leaned forward and pointed the upper onbashira on her back at me. I growled as I saw this, lit my hands up again and narrowed my eyes at Kanako, mentally preparing myself for more of these short bursts of energy, any kind of laser or bullets. I knew it wouldn't be that enormous blast, for that, she had to combine all onbashira and charge them up.
Acting on instinct, I slammed my burning, bony hand into the chains that restricted the barrels aside me. Now free, the barrels immediately followed gravity into the direction that he ship was tilted into and rolled towards Kanako, catching her off guard as they slammed into her and knocked her over. The barrels shattered upon hitting Kanako, but also threw her off balance and knocked her into the wall of the ship, right next to the large onbashira that had first pushed me into the ship.
Before Kanako got the chance to move, I moved to the next bundle of barrels and hit the chains as well, breaking them. A few of the barrels rolled towards Kanako, she moved her left hand and slammed one of the onbashira she commanded through the barrels, breaking them. But my assault didn't stop there.
I picked up one of the barrels that had remained and threw it at Kanako, forcing her to swing the onbashira again to break the barrel. I picked up another one and threw it, then kicked another barrel to follow the one I had thrown. Kanako swung her left onbashira to break the first barrel, then spotted the second one and swung her right onbashira to break that one as well.
She didn't expect me to follow right after.
My foot slammed into her face as I jumped at her, knocked her head against the wall again. I landed in front of her in a crouched position, lit my hands up again and punched her straight into the stomach. Kanako absorbed the force of the punch and actually managed to stop herself from doubling over.
With a single kick, she managed to throw me across the room. Instead of impacting with the wall, I was thrown out of the window that I had climbed in through earlier, but luckily managed to hold onto the side of the window and pulled myself in instead of being thrown out of it entirely.
I landed on the floor and caught myself in a somersault, lit my hands up once more and aimed at Kanako. She let out a snarl, kicked the only barrel that had not broken on impact with the wall to her left, and it grazed my right shoulder. While it didn't hurt, it still broke my concentration for a second and I had to aim anew, time that Kanako used to turn things around.
She swung her right hand back and slammed her fist into the large onbashira that had pushed me into the ship earlier. Through her strength alone, she managed to cause quite a lot of damage to her own onbashira, but also freed it from it's position and knocked it out of the ship's side just as Kanako held onto the hook on the wall to her left.
The entire ship swayed violently all of sudden, tilted back into it's original position due to the weight in it's right side now being gone. I could only gasp as the ship swayed into the other direction. I was thrown off balance and landed painfully on my ass, right before the ship swayed back into the other direction, even though much softer now that the momentum was decreasing with each time that it swayed into the other direction.
Kanako used my inability to guard myself to throw herself at me, both of the floating onbashira floating beside her as she fell towards me from a jump. Rolling to the left, I managed to avoid it as one of the two onbashira charged at me. Instead, it broke through the wooden planks and impaled the unsound floor that way, followed by the second onbashira doing the same.
Kanako landed in between them and pulled the two onbashira out of the ground with a movement of her hands, which gave me time to rise to my feet again. The moment that Kanako turned to me again, I had already summoned Alastor to me. Like I had suspected earlier, he was indeed back, listening to my command as I called onto him, just like back then.
The legendary blade took the entire impact of the attack, and even though I was pushed back a few feet, I was certainly happy that the onbashira hadn't connected with my face instead. That would've hurt... Especially considering that I would have to explain to Eirin how I managed to get a second traumatic brain injury in just a few hours.
I pushed negative energy into the blade and pushed the onbashira away from me, actually throwing Kanako off balance and forcing her to take a few steps backward in order to regain her balance. I didn't abandon a chance like that and jumped towards her, flipped over her head and twisted my body to land on my feet again, facing Kanako's back.
She let out a snarl, one of displeasure and anger, while I aimed and swung Alastor again.
A few seconds later, one of the onbashira attached to her back fell to the ground, cut into two pieces at roughly the half. The goddess wasn't exactly happy about that and twirled around, one onbashira swinging at the height of my head, forcing me to guard with Alastor rather than cutting off another onbashira. I would have to do that if I wanted to decrease her strength.
Pushed across the room by the brute force of the attack I had blocked, I had to watch as Kanako swung her left hand back with the respective onbashira following her command. Much to my chagrin, the faith pillar that she had formerly used as a weapon with her left hand moved behind her back and took the place of the one I had cut apart, replacing it.
"So the ones she wield are both a weapon, as well as a replacement for the ones on her back... Means she has another replacement left, which is a weapon for now." I thought as I concentrated on the onbashira hovering to her right.
"One less... Doesn't matter. I still have five left... And I am still in a nearly perfect condition. You've grown weak, Chôzen Gekido, Insei no Youkai. Just how did you beat Yakumo earlier this afternoon?" taunted Kanako as she moved the remaining flying onbashira around a little.
"I didn't get any weaker. You merely became stronger..." I shot right back, tightening my grip around Alastor with my left hand, while my right hand went up in emerald flames. Kanako watched this with great interest, even she must have noticed the change of shade of my green energy.
"You're complimenting me?" asked Kanako with a small frown but a nasty smirk on her lips.
"I guess so. Just because we fight each other doesn't mean I can't accept your strength and comment on it, right?" I chuckled, and Kanako nodded, agreeing silently.
Seeing our silence as a sign that it would continue, we both moved towards each other again. Kanako swung her right hand forwards, willing the onbashira to follow her and thrust into my direction. I jumped over it and landed on top of the wooden log, glared down at it, then sled over the log until I was at it's end and right in front of Kanako.
"How are you doing it?" I asked as I began to fight her in close combat, with her using her left arm to block my punches and her right hand to keep the log I was on steady.
"How am I doing what?" she inquired and tried to hide it as she swung her right hand up, which I spotted nonetheless. I fell to the right and somersaulted, landed in front of Kanako just as the onbashira I had been on slammed up into the ceiling of the ship, breaking it. I heard Letty scream and Yuuka gasp sharply above us, indicating that they had almost been hit when the ground beneath them had broken apart.
I glared up through the hole and spotted Mima and Cirno on top of the mast, attacking each other with the crescent staff and an ice sword respectively.
"How can you control these onbashira like that? You're not telekinetic." I stated and blocked one of her punches of her left hand, even though it forced me to take two steps back.
"I was wondering when you'd ask... Remember that I have control over rain water by using my powers to create sky?" she asked and swung the right hand down, the onbashira following and slamming down right to my feet.
"You use your ability to create sky to cause storms... I remember that. You used to create rain storms, since you can control the rain, as it is part of such a storm... I think you keep a basin full of that water in the sanctuary of the Moriya Shrine. What about it?" I shot back and rushed over the still lying onbashira. Kanako moved her hand up and the pillar followed her command, but I had already stepped aside and thus was spared as the onbashira slammed into the ceiling again, breaking it open.
I reached Kanako, swung Alastor down, but she dodged the blade and the hand burning in emerald flames.
"Have a guess..." chuckled Kanako and swung her hand down. I heard how the faith pillar hit the ground behind me and broke through it. I glanced shortly into that direction and found that the onbashira had broken through the ground and had opened the way down into the story below... We'd better avoid going down there. If she'd break the ground or the walls there, the entire ship would sink in a matter of seconds.
"I don't know. Tell me." I growled and moved in for another attack.
"The faith pillars are soaked in rain water." revealed Kanako, swinging her right hand up. I had no time to prepare myself as the onbashira broke through the ground right beneath my feet and knocked me up into the ceiling, this time without breaking through it.
After slamming into the ceiling, I fell down, but since there was a hole beneath me now, I fell down into the lowest story of the ship, the one that I had wanted to avoid. Hitting the ground uncomfortably hard, I could only groan and snarl as my body ached.
I knew that Kanako was somewhere above me as I rose from the ground and swayed left and right. She was awaiting me to resurface from the hole I had fallen into, knew that following me would be to her disadvantage... But she also probably knew that I'd be up to something if I'd take too long to do so.
Whatever I was going to do... I better did it now. And it would have to change the place for this battle. Inside a ship was just the wrong place... But if I'd get her on top of the ship somehow, even though we'd probably get into the way of Mima's battle that way, I'd stand a chance against her... Probably.
Suddenly, the single, floating onbashira slammed through the ceiling above me. It wasn't anywhere near me, but sign for me that Kanako was searching for me, hoping to smash me with that thing.
I waited until it had retreated, then took a few steps back, just to make sure that she'd not hit me after all, and summoned Alastor again. As the onbashira broke through the ceiling again and tried to smash me, missing me by far, I rushed forward and charged Alastor up with negative energy, just to make sure it was powerful enough.
And indeed, it did work. The blade of guilt cut through the onbashira as I swung it horizontally. The part of the onbashira that I had cut off fell to the ground before me, and I heard Kanako growl in displeasure above me. Looking up, I could see her staring down at me through the hole that the onbashira had created.
I had to take two steps back as Kanako threw the other half of the onbashira down at me, but as soon as it had fallen to the ground, I took two steps forward again and dismissed Alastor. Instead, I summoned a spellcard into my right hand. Now that I knew where Kanako was above me, it would be easy to change things.
"Negative Bullet!" I announced and the spellcard in my hand began to glow green.
The glow extended around my body and became unstable. Gravity and air resistance were negated anew and I began my free fall... This time, upwards.
My body smashed into the ceiling and broke through it, I heard Kanako gasp in shock and surprise as I slammed into her from below and pushed the two of us through the next ceiling.
Out of the ship's belly.
Yuuka's PoV
~ Music change: Yui ~ Again ~
I heard the wood behind me break apart. That idiot Chôzen and the goddess he was fighting must've been the reason for that.
Glaring over my shoulder after I had thrown Letty across the ship, I found Chôzen pushing Yasaka into the air. The two of them were glowing green. I remembered that attack of Chôzen... It was the same attack that had once cleansed Mima's body of the corrupted twilight energy, the same kind of power that once had nearly defeated Mima.
It was the Negative Bullet.
Yasaka was screaming bloody murder as Chôzen discharged all of the negative energy that made his body glow into her. In front of my inner eye, the scene from back then repeated. In my mind, I saw his perfectly indifferent face just before he had charged towards Mima and had defeated her. In my mind, everything was just like back then.
Something slammed into my side and knocked me over, pulled me out of my memories back into reality. I hissed as I stumbled a few steps, then rose to my full height to glare at Letty Whiterock, which had used my distracted state to attack me with a tackle.
She cringed as I glared daggers, and quickly dove out of the way as I pointed my parasol at her. I waited until she had dashed behind the mast and hid behind it, then allowed my glare to ease a little. I glanced towards where I had seen Chôzen and Yasaka... Chôzen was on all fours, hissing and panting in what I easily recognized as pain. Yasaka, on the other hand, was laying on her back in front of him, writhing in just as much pain as he was.
Turning back into the direction of Letty and the mast, I narrowed my eyes and bared my teeth.
"Master Spark!" I declared. Immediately, the tip of my parasol began to glow in a rainbow color, followed by the rainbow laser only a few seconds later. My feet sled over the wet planks as I was pushed back a few inches, the powerful blast of color being released. I smirked to myself and imagined how Letty, screaming in shock just before she and that mast were obliterated.
Now imagine my surprise when the original Master Spark, MY Master Spark, just bounced off the goddamn mast, deflected to the side and hit the barrier of Yasaka, where it was absorbed.
"Yuuka, what are you doing?!" I heard Mima complain somewhere behind me, increasing the rage that had just built up within me.
"I'm not doing anything! Something is wrong with that mast...!" I complained silently, not even to Mima but rather to myself. I eyed the mast, silently wondered how the hell a stupid log had just deflected my Master Spark, but then disregarded it with a huff and ran towards the mast, the parasol held tightly in my right hand.
I reached the mast and rounded it, found Letty cowering there. With a short smirk to myself, I rose the parasol and swung it at the height of Letty's head with the intention to decapitate her. That went wrong as well, though, when Letty let out a squeal and dove to the side, causing the parasol to slam into the mast.
If anything would've been normal now, the parasol would've sliced through the mast and would've knocked it over due to my tremendous strength. But that thing was not normal, I was sure the moment that the parasol impacted with it and did not damage it in any way. Instead, my shoulder began to hurt like hell.
"What is with that stupid thing?!" I snarled and took a few steps away from the mast that had just received two of my strongest attacks and had not suffered any damage.
I never got my answer. Instead, something heavy impacted with my back. I screamed out in pain as cold and pain flooded my back, then bit down on my tongue and twirled around to glare at Letty. As I did so, the large snowball that had hit my back fell to the ground and began to melt.
"What do you think you're doing, Whiterock? Do you really believe that winter can overcome summer? Do you really thing that cold will ever win against warmth? Snow stands no chance against the sun. And I just happen to represent the flower that represents the sun!" I shouted, swinging my left hand like a claw.
Letty cringed again and took a few steps away from me, then pushed both of her hands forward. Cold air hit my face as Letty released a whirl of snow and I snarled. I hated the cold, hated it. Cold killed flowers. Cold ended the beauty of autumn. Cold meant that winter had come... And winter was just a boring absence of color, just white of snow.
I didn't hate Letty Whiterock herself, but what she represented. Actually, the two of us always got along pretty well... She did love flowers as well, even though she barely ever got to see them because she vanished once it became too warm, and only returned once the end of autumn drew closer... She never really had the chance to just admire flowers.
In my eyes, though, Letty Whiterock was the only flower that really survived winter, the only flower that survived the cold. She was the flower of winter, the only sight that kept my heart warm in winter (aside Mima, but that was a different kind of warmth, the warmth Mima gave me was that warmth that only love could give).
Letty'd usually pay me a visit every winter and we'd enjoy some tea together while we talked about what had happened that year... Mostly, it was me informing her, though. So, I guess you can say I am actually good friends with Letty.
I still hate her cold, though.
"Master Spark!" I roared and narrowed my eyes on the flower of winter. She let out a last gasp, then was swallowed within the colorfulness of my Master Spark. When she did resurface, she was lying on the ground, out cold.
As beautiful as Letty was... She wasn't exactly strong or resistant. And, she still had the disadvantage against me, our elements only opposites and nothing more.
I turned on the spot, twirled into the direction of Mima. This battle was taking too long already... It had never been supposed to be this long. I respected Cirno, Daiyousei and Letty, but neither of them did have the strength to really keep up with an evil spirit that could very well be a goddess, an exalted Flower Youkai and a goddess. In the end, they were only two fairies and a Youkai. Nothing compared to us.
But as I was about to jump over to where Mima fought Cirno at the back of the ship, something got in my way and prevented me from doing so.
"Hey, watch where you swing that thing!" I roared at the walking enigma after his stupid blade had just missed my face by a few inches.
"Sorry!" He shouted back and pulled on the chains wrapped around his left arm, pulling the blade of guilt he had thrown past me back towards him. Kanako Yasaka flew past me, the chains wrapped around her waist, but as she did so, she grabbed one of the onbashira from her back and swung it over her head.
The last thing I saw of either her or Chôzen was how the onbashira crashed into the floor just in front of him, a large hole in the ground swallowing the two of them. A few seconds later, the side of the ship broke open and Kanako pushed Chôzen through the air into the barrier.
I let out an irritated snarl, then pushed myself off the ground to move over to Mima to help her. But once again, was stopped when Daiyousei got in the way and released colorful bullets into all directions at once in an apparently random pattern.
Opening the parasol in my right hand as fast as possible, I used it as a shield to block all of the bullets. This, however, forced me to land on the ground rather than jumping over to Mima. The moment I landed, I pushed myself off again, away from Mima and Daiyousei.
As I flew backwards, I allowed myself to look around for Shinki, who had fought against Daiyousei before.
"Where is she? You can't tell me that a weak fairy defeated the goddess of Makai! Even I cannot defeat Shinki just like that!" shot through my head.
"Yuuka!" I heard her call, and turned into the other direction. Shinki was flying into my direction, her red robe waving in the wind. She looked unscathed, not like Daiyousei had hurt her at all. So why was the fairy attacking me now?!
"She's fast...! I couldn't keep up with her speed... She isn't strong, but dodges everything..." panted the goddess as soon as I was in earshot.
"Ah. So that's the reason."
"I see. Figures. I expected nothing less from her..." I murmured to myself, then used my parasol to shield myself and Shinki from more of Daiyousei's random bullets, "And those random bullets sure don't help. You don't even know what to expect... I can't read her attack patterns."
"That was my problem as well..." agreed Shinki silently as she pushed herself against me so that the pink parasol would shield us both. I let out a loud snarl at the thought of such a thing dragging the fight on longer than necessary... And decided for a different approach.
"Go help Mima. I take care of this." I hissed towards the Makaian goddess. I felt how she began to frown at me, but at least she knew better than to question me and nodded. I waited until she had left the safety of the parasol and vanished fro my sight, then abruptly closed the parasol. Even though this meant that I was hit by a few of the bullets. Then again, they were weak and merely irritating, like touching the sharp end of a needle and nothing more.
I aimed. I narrowed my eyes. I pointed the tip of the parasol at Daiyousei.
"MASTER SPARK!" I roared as I unleashed the powerful blow. And once more, my feet sled over the wet planks as the powerful blast of rainbow colors ripped through the sky.
But it didn't hit Daiyousei, much to my chagrin.
Just like Shinki had said, the little fairy that always hid behind Cirno was fast and knew how to react to attacks like these. She rolled out of the way in a fancy evasive action, stopped in midair and pointed her hands at me, and then unleashed more power than I had ever given her credit for. In fact, the thin but fast laser that she released was so powerful that the recoil caused her to be thrown off balance in midair, backflipping several times.
I cringed as her fast laser, way too fast for me to avoid, went through my right shoulder. And unlike the 'needles' before, this one felt like an entire iron rod being pushed through my shoulder. Gasping in pain, I actually let go of my parasol as my entire right arm became numb for a few seconds. The parasol clattered as it hit the wooden planks I stood on. And my rage skyrocketed.
Not only was this taking too long for enemies of this power, but they were also mocking us with their weakness!
"You damn little bug...!" I snarled and bowed down to pick my parasol up again, then glared at the little fairy, "I'm going to squish you!"
Chôzen's PoV
~ Through rain and storm, our rivalry remains strong! Music change: Mercenary - Embrace the nothing ~
"Not going to happen!" I bellowed over the sound of an onbashira impacting with the barrier below, breaking on impact with it. I was standing with my feet against the barrier, meaning I was in a position parallel to the ground. Moving backwards, meaning up the barrier, I eventually rested my feet against it to slow me down, negative energy sliding against the barrier through my feet.
Kanako impacted with the barrier below me, rested her feet against it and detached one of the four onbashira from her back. The faith pillar floated to her right for a few seconds, at least until Kanako thrusted her right hand forwards, sending the onbashira into my direction. I dodged it by pushing myself off the barrier, but not too far away from it.
Gravity affected me again as soon as I stopped flying, I began to fall towards the water below, but my intention was not to hit it. Instead, I fell past the onbashira Kanako had thrown at me and extended my legs, tensed them up as good as possible.
My feet slammed into Kanako's face and she let out a gasp of pain as I knocked her off the barrier. With her below me, we fell towards the water surface below. The moment right before we impacted with it, I pushed off her face and back into the air thanks to my ability to fly. How I had missed it! It was so much easier to fly, but the outside world doesn't believe in magic anymore, making it impossible to do so.
If no one believed in it, it didn't exist. In Gensokyo, flying was common, and thus everyone believed in it. Common sense just didn't work in Gensokyo.
Not waiting for Kanako to resurface, I returned to the ship and landed on top of it, making sure to remain out of the way of a mad Yuuka. Whatever had happened had left her in an enraged state. She was shooting Master Sparks everywhere, trying to hit a flying Daiyousei. What a good thing that the barrier that Kanako had created could withstand any of the Master Sparks that missed Daiyousei...
Just a few seconds after my feet had set down on the unsound planks of the ship, I heard water splashing behind me and twirled around. Kanako had resurfaced, and she didn't looked pleased at all about her clothes being wet now.
"Let's use this to give her a bombastic welcome!" laughed my Flame-Soul, and upon turning towards it, I found it floating above...
A cannon.
It was one of these old-fashioned cannons you'd expect and use on this kind of ship. A barrel of gunpowder was aside it, leading to the conclusion that it was indeed ready to shoot. And I didn't even have to do anything... My Flame-Soul touched the fuse gently, which immediately lit up.
Kanako was closing in, not expecting anything. I felt kind of bad for doing such a thing, or rather allowing it, but I guess I'd just return the favor. After all, she had started with the heavy artillery... I don't know what else to classify gigantic onbashira as.
The fuse was almost burnt down when I glanced from Kanako down on it. I felt my fingers twitch, silently happy that she didn't expect a thing...
The fuse reached it's end. Kanako was exactly in one line with it. An explosion occurred.
...Nothing was shot at Kanako.
"Empty...?"
"It's empty?! Damn you, Yúgure and your need for detail!"
Kanako tackled into me and knocked me over. Flying across the ship, my back was sliding against the wet wooden planks, Kanako atop me. I saw Yuuka for a second, followed by Kanako's fist impacting with my face and sending the back of my head into the ground. I snarled in pain, pulled my legs in and slammed my knees into the gut of the goddess.
She fell off me and cursed, giving me the chance to get the hell away from her while she was still down.
"You and your damn ideas. I'm not going to trust you with them again, Flame-Soul!"
I rolled past a small amount of barrels, hid behind them in hope for Kanako to not spot me. I spotted Letty Whiterock on the ground not too far away from me, her state indicating that she had obviously been hit by a Master Spark from Yuuka. Apropos her, I could still hear her cursing and snarling as she fired one Master Spark after another. Really, she wasn't going to get the way too fast Daiyousei with them anyways...
"FOUND YOU!" I heard Kanako behind me. My reflexes kicked in an I rolled away from the barrels, just as an onbashira slammed through them. From out of the corner of my eyes, I spotted Kanako rushing towards me with three onbashira on her back and one at her side, but she never got to me, a Master Spark stopping her in her steps as it separated us.
I stopped and prepared for the Master Spark to die down, my hands ignited in emerald flames in hope to surprise Kanako with an orb of negative energy. I cringed slightly as I suddenly felt a back against my own, and glanced over my shoulder for a second just to see who it was.
Of course, it was Mima.
"What do you want, Mima? Can't you see I'm kind of busy...?" I muttered over my shoulder, turning my gaze back to the Master Spark that had yet to die down.
"In case you didn't notice, I am too!" replied Mima sharply, and as I glanced over my shoulder again and past her, I spotted Shinki fleeing from Cirno, who was waving her gigantic ice sword around in dangerous, apparently random, moves.
"Anyways... Just wanted to welcome you back properly. It's been a long time." added the astral being and let out a low chuckle. I snorted in reply and turned back to the Master Spark, which was now accompanied by a second one, meaning that Yuuka had summoned her clone for her famous Dual Spark. I silently wondered when Kanako would realize that she could just jump over it, but prayed it would take her another few seconds so I could finish the small conversation with Mima.
"Thanks. But don't you think now is the wrong time to welcome me back? Why didn't you do so earlier when you had the chance?" I shot back at the evil spirit, receiving only a cruel laugh in return.
"I am freaking Mima, Chôzen. I do what I want whenever I want. I can fly, I can walk through walls and I can cast magic. And that's only the surface of it."
"Point taken." I grumbled under my breath, "Still, how about we postpone this lovely conversation of ours to a later point? You know... One when I am not fighting a mad goddess and you're not supposed to beat a weak fairy around. Geez, what's the deal with that, anyways? It's Cirno you're fighting against, you should've knocked her out the moment the fight started! Aren't you going a bit too easy on her?"
"Meh, guess you're right. Actually, though, I didn't feel like crushing her dream of becoming the champion of this tournament just then. Let her have her fun... I'm going to allow her to beat me a bit around, and then, once I'm sure she had enough fun, I beat the ice out of her." explained the evil spirit.
"And what's with Shinki? Isn't she supposed to be able to beat Cirno as well?"
"She agreed with me on this. The only one against it was Yuuka... And well, that's why we made her fight Daiyousei. Yuuka is too slow to hit her." replied Mima, to which I send her a frown of disbelief over my shoulder.
"Look, don't worry. You're going to fight us in the semi-finals. I'm not trying to talk that ice fairy's power down or anything, I know that she actually got surprising strength... Still nothing I can't just defeat, though. And let's face it: Letty Whiterock's powers are not of the offensive kind... And Daiyousei lacks power. All she has is acting random, and that's not going to help her." huffed Mima eventually.
It was that moment that Daiyousei rushed past my head, followed by the Dual Spark dying down to allow Yuuka to change her direction, right before both of the Yuukas, both the real one and the clone, fired their respective, rainbow-colored lasers of utter destruction into another direction.
Kanako was revealed as soon as the lasers had died down. I felt how Mima pushed off my back and vanished, leaving me to fight Kanako again, and silently shake my head at Mima. Then again, what had I been expecting? That Mima would've changed?
With Kanako charging at me again, I was forced to take a step back and defend. The onbashira she wielded sled along the blade of Alastor as I called upon it, and then was pushed back with enough force to sent it back towards Kanako. She cursed, rolled aside, and the onbashira flew right into the mast of the ship.
And as it did, it snapped in two.
I frowned at that, but didn't have the time to think it through. Kanako, now with only three onbashira left, pulled another one off her back and pointed it at me. A dark blue laser was shot at me, forcing me to roll away. It impacted with the ground behind me and blasted another hole into the already pretty damaged ship.
Daiyousei flew past me, followed by Yuuka and her clone, right before I charged at Kanako in order to catch her off guard. I didn't, though, and we ended up in yet another brawl, with me defending most of her blows. And finally, I saw another chance and rushed past her, summoned Alastor again to slash through one of the two onbashira left on her back. She turned, though, and I ended up missing the onbashira.
I thought I had her, though, and twirled on the spot to kick her legs away, but she merely jumped over my attack and onto me, using her entire weight to slam me through the ground. The unsound planks broke underneath me and we ended up in the belly of the ship again, the same room as before.
Throwing the goddess off me, I began to crawl away from her, still on my back. Kanako cursed when I threw orbs of negative energy at her, but blocked most of them with the onbashira she was wielding with her right hand. Rising to my feet, I pushed negative energy into my feet to charge at her, Alastor held tightly within my left hand as I was aiming for the onbashira of the goddess.
The fight would get easier once Kanako would actually be without her onbashira.
Just as I was about to reach her, Kanako swung the onbashira back. I saw that as my chance to cut through it once it would swing into my direction, but all that I received as a painful blow into my back as the onbashira came at me from the other side. Kanako had swapped the control of it from her right to her left hand behind her back.
I couldn't help but curse out in frustration and pain as I was thrown through the wall of the ship and ended up flying above the water outside. Fighting Kanako in a closed space like that was no good, even if it limited the movements of her onbashira. But exactly because of that did the movements become more complicated, as it wasn't as easy as outside to expect them.
Of course, Kanako followed me out of the ship the moment that I landed atop it. She surfaced from the hole we had created before and glared daggers at me. I spotted Mima behind the raging goddess, moving backwards as she blocked the hits of Cirno's ice sword with her crescent moon staff. Was she still going easy on Cirno? Or had the fairy indeed grown more powerful during the past twenty years?
...Or did Yukari do something to her? Let's say, manipulate the border of Cirno's strength, for example?
"Hey, Kanako." I called out, even though I mentally prepared myself to attack her again, "I've got to admit... You've become a lot stronger in the past twenty years. Quite impressive how a grudge can push you further than your limit, huh? But don't you think that keeping a grudge like that is unhealthy? Just watch out that you don't become like Mima. Or are you telling me you want an unhealthy pale expression like that?"
Both the evil spirit and the goddess stopped for a moment to glare at me, neither of them liking to be compared to the other in any way. Seeing that Kanako had let her guard down, I rushed forwards with every little ounce of speed I could get.
Before Kanako knew, I was standing behind her and had cut through all of her onbashira. I only had to do so once, rendering each of the onbashira useless as they fell apart.
I couldn't help but smirk in triumph as I rose from my crouched position and glanced over my shoulder at her. Leaning Alastor onto my left shoulder, I slowly turned to face the shocked goddess and the remains of the onbashira.
"Well, well... Looks like I got the upper hand, Orochi. You lose." I sniggered and prepared myself for the next attack.
"My, that cockiness! I almost dare to say that I missed it..." snorted Kanako and rose her right hand, pointing it at me, "But I actually dare to say that you are wrong! I have the upper hand! Quite literally!"
It took me only two seconds to realize that she wasn't pointing her hand at, but past me. I twirled around, looked around for anything that could be another hidden faith pillar. And as Kanako swung her hand down, the only hidden onbashira swung first away from me, and then back into my direction.
The mast was coming down on me.
"The bloody...!" I roared as I dove to the side, barely audible over Kanako's loud laughter. Missing me by only mere inches, the gigantic onbashira that the mast was hit the next best thing... The ship.
~ Music ends ~
Nanatsu no Taizai's PoV
"UNBELIEVABLE!" echoed Aya's voice through the entire arena, accompanied by gasps and shouts of disbelief and shock. I myself was merely frowning when the entire ship snapped in two and began to sink after being hit by the falling mast. I had expected something like this. With Chôzen, you had to expect such things.
"Yasaka-sama just broke the ship in two! And that's not even her fight! Contestants Mima and Shinki have been separated from their team member Yuuka, and are now at the steep front part of the ship with contestant Daiyousei, while Yuuka is on what little has remained on the middle of the ship with Cirno! Can this change everything? Can someone please stop Yasaka-sama and contestant Chôzen?" continued Aya, leaving me to sigh.
"Who would've thought that the mast of the ship was actually a faith pillar. It's almost as if Yasaka-sama has planned to fight contestant Chôzen on it..." added Akyuu in amusement, looking up from whatever she was writing again.
"Screw that... Remember who created tha' ship! Cutie Yúgure is a friggin' spy, I tell ya!" laughed Sly rather loudly, slamming his flask down on the table.
"Sly is right... Does this mean that Yúgure did this on purpose? Well, I remember seeing Yasaka-sama talking with her earlier... So Yasaka-sama talked Yúgure into creating a ship with a faith pillar as it's mast?" murmured Rinnosuke finally, and I immediately let out a deep sigh. So Kanako did have planned this... Well, I bet she thought she'd hit Chôzen, rather than the ship. And now, the ship was parted into three, the back of the ship and the front of the ship both in a steep position while the middle was swimming around.
Mima, Shinki and Daiyousei were at the front of the ship, Yuuka and Cirno on the middle, and Chôzen and Kanako were fighting at the back of the ship, near to where the mast stuck in a step position in the water, leaned into their direction.
"It's always the same with him and Kanako..." sighed Marisa and scratched the back of her neck as she closed her eyes, "I heard quite a lot about the destruction that their battles cause. Suwako mentioned that they destroyed the Moriya Shrine's roof more than once... And don't forget the short chaos they caused on Miss Mima's and Yuuka's first wedding, da ze..."
"Well, that is true..." I admitted uneasily, "Kanako and Chôzen are kinda like night and day. Each is quite stubborn and wants to be the one on top."
"Sounds like they have an attraction towards each other if you ask me." commented Momiji in her overly serious way, a careful glance cast into my direction.
"They do. Chôzen admitted so several years ago. He even admitted that he nearly gave into it several times, but that Kanako and he never went beyond fighting. Their relationship is, if you wish to say so, entirely based on encounters in which they fight til they have no strength left. There's no romance, no emotions are bonded to it." I replied and increased my stare on Chôzen as he twisted out of the way of Kanako's punches.
"Are you sure about that? How can you be so sure? If their relationship is entirely physical, have you never feared that they might give into that? Until now, they have only fought... What if their physical relationship turns into physical attraction? Have you ever thought about that?" countered Momiji with a frown that caused me to frown at her as well, "They say fighting is another way to show your emotions... And it can bond."
"I don't think that'll ever happen." I replied and allowed myself to smile softly, "He has Rumia for the physical stuff."
The Angel of Death to my right cringed madly, then stared at me with an expression that was neither fully a glare, nor a confused frown.
"What? Are you going to deny that? I don't remember you being the romantic one, Rumia. You're bold, to the point, always yearning for physical attention no matter if affectionate or in shape of a fight, and every romantic advance into your direction ends with you going too far and ending up on top." I chuckled. And, seeing the Angel of Death huff, turn away and blush, I knew I was right.
"She's always been that way." commented Marisa slowly, too engrossed with the fight of Mima and Daiyousei, "Rumia, I mean. Kanako, I can't say."
"The hell are you talking about relationships and romance now? We're watching a fight here, goddamn it! And three of them, at that!" growled Rumia, obviously trying to change the topic. I let out a sigh at that, scratched the back of my neck a bit, and then returned my focus on the battle... Just in the right moment.
Yuuka, who had landed to point her parasol at Cirno, got one hell of a surprise when her legs were suddenly enveloped in a thick layer of ice from the ground up. She was cursing aloud and wriggled around... She'd only need a few seconds to free herself, I was sure of that.
A few seconds that gave Cirno everything she needed.
She shouted something and threw her hands into the air, accidentally throwing her ice sword away as she did so. Stupid her. However, whatever she had just summoned, it was more effective than I had ever guessed, displaying powers I had never ever trusted her to have.
Whatever she had done, it froze the entire battlefield over, covering it in a thick layer of ice and turning the body of water into ice.
What no one would've expected, not even I, was that Cirno's ice wings began to glow in an ice-blue light from within. They grew a bit in size, indicating the boost Cirno was getting from the cold area... And she wasn't the only one.
Mima's expression became blank as she saw Daiyousei's speed increase, her wings glowing yellow all of sudden.
"Not bad. So Cirno wasn't kiddin' when she told me she and Dai had trained, ze. I mean... Look at that! The baka came up with a way to increase their powers!" exclaimed Marisa.
"Now I'm interested... Seems that we all had underestimated her. The only question now is... Will it be enough to overcome Mima, Yuuka and Shinki? When they're serious, I mean?" I muttered and narrowed my eyes.
"There are more questions I have... How will this affect Chôzen's fight with Kanako? And... if Cirno indeed manages to beat Mima, Yuuka and Shinki with Daiyousei's help despite the large gap of strength in between them... Can we beat them?"
Mima's PoV
"Watch out. I have a bad feeling about this..." I muttered to Shinki, who was standing to my right, yet I never averted my gaze from the green-haired fairy floating at the very front of the ship. The white-haired goddess of Makai glanced into my direction, all kindness gone from her expression. It wasn't any different with me, though.
"So we stop holding back?" inquired Shinki, earning a nod from me.
"We do. We allowed them to have their little enjoyment, now it's time to defeat them... Before things go out of hand." I murmured and held the crescent staff in front of me, twilight energy gathering in the crescent moon at the top of it, waiting for me to cast my magic.
"Do you really think they can defeat us? I am usually not one to overestimate myself or underestimate my enemies, but what makes you believe that this can end any different than us winning? We are a goddess, an evil spirit that could very well be a goddess, and an exalted Youkai known for her power..." asked Shinki. For me, there was only one answer.
"Merely the fact that Cirno is a fairy that has surpassed the shackles of exactly that should make you cautious, Shinki. Cirno has gone beyond what she is already and is still going further, has proven so on several chances. Much like I have surpassed the shackles of being a mere ghost, Cirno has surpassed the shackles of being a mere fairy... She still might not be the smartest, but she sure is something else." I replied, silently waiting for Daiyousei to do anything.
"It's like she is not bonded to what she is... It's like she doesn't have any rules applied to her. Her strength could be considered as weak compared to ours, but is more than nine times as powerful in comparison to that of an average fairy." I growled, narrowed my eyes, "And don't forget... Even a blunt axe can cut a tree if it hits often enough. She may not able to defeat us with one blow, but if we get hit too often, it will eventually also drain our strength..."
"You're thinking further than the surface... You could very well be a goddess, Mima." snorted Shinki with a smug grin, "But what about the ice fairies friend here? Surely she cannot be considered as much of a threat as Cirno..."
"I'm not sure... All I know is that she is not to be underestimated. She's not a normal fairy as well..." I breathed, aiming closely. Might as well start this if Daiyousei refused to.
"Before we start this again now... What was of that great importance that you had to speak with my son?" inquired Shinki, her gaze shifting over to Daiyousei as well.
"Still referring to him as that? He's not your son, you know?" I asked. I don't think I understand that connection of Chôzen and Shinki, this unlikely acceptance of Chôzen and Shinki as son and mother respectively... And I don't think I'll ever understand. I don't know much about family and how it works... Back when I was alive, I had none. After my death, I was alone. The closest thing I ever had to family was Yuuka... And of course, now Kurumi and Elly.
"He may not be my son, as we are not related by blood... But neither is one of my daughters, aside Alice. Only she carries my genetical information inside her. But does that make her my only daughter? Can I not accept my creations, my girls, as my daughters? Being family doesn't only limit to genetic relation, but that of mind and soul as well. And no matter what you say or do... My girls are my daughters. And Chôzen is my son. It is the connection of the mind, relation of the soul." explained Shinki.
"Meh. I'll never get it." I snorted, still focused on Daiyousei, who had merely listened to us, "Don't even try explaining it. I cannot relate to it, and cannot understand it. Let's just focus on defeating the fairies and get this done with."
"Fine. But I don't understand why you deny having felt the wonderful warmth that only a family can give? Surely you must view Yuuka as such." smiled the goddess of Makai in her usual way, leaving me to sigh.
~ Music change: Bleach - Destiny Awaits ~
I didn't answer her question, though. Now focusing back on the battle, I summoned forth the twilight energy I had gathered in my staff, creating a gigantic sun seal on the ground as it slammed down on it. This would be a countdown to the end of this battle... A spell I had created to ensure my secure victory. I'd need it against Chôzen, but I had something else in store for him...
The dance of witches.
The sun seal beneath our feet began to change slightly, slowly began to set, as I prepared to attack Daiyousei. It would take a few minutes, but as soon as the sun would be nearly completely gone, I'd get an immense power boost. Why? This seal's purpose was to create a fake sunset in a certain area... And, because sunset meant twilight, I'd be at my strongest.
I knew that there was someone else who would've been able to help me with that. Years ago, I had worked with him. Him, Abendsonne. Back all those years ago, he had revealed his powers to me, powers that had given my own a boost. But he was at Higan now. Shikieiki had found him. Damn her.
"Ready, lil' fairy?" I asked, "I'm kind of sorry to tell you, but once I'm done with you, there will be nothing left but smithereens."
To my surprise, the fairy began to smile in a way I'd almost call... Demonic? Dangerous? Whatever it was, I didn't like it. Not at all.
"Smithereens, you say, Miss Mima Kazami?" chortled Daiyousei slowly, "Don't you mean... Snowflakes?"
I felt my breath stop for a moment, shocked as Daiyousei suddenly began to dissolve from the feet up, turning into some white dust that was immediately blown away by a soft breeze. Shocked and confused, I began to glance around, looking for any sign of the fairy.
I could feel Shinki resting her back against mine, trying to find our opponent as well in the other direction.
"What happened?! Where is she...?!" inquired the goddess. I snarled in reply, my eyes darting around.
"I don't have a clue... She suddenly just dissipated..." I murmured, alerted. We both were now. Whatever had just happened... I had not expected it. And as such, I was not prepared for what was to come.
"Say, Mima..." began Shinki after a few seconds and I felt her shiver against my back, "Is it getting cold here?"
"Well... Cirno did freeze the whole area..." I whispered in reply, my gaze stopping on Yuuka and Cirno for a second. Yuuka tried to stab Cirno, but the ice fairy summoned a thick wall of ice in between them. She had gotten smart, I had to give her that. While she certainly wasn't the best at Danmaku Battles, she was quite good at real battles...
"I suppose so. Still... I feel like the temperature is dropping quite fast. My insides feel like they are about to freeze over... The air is so cold that my lungs hurt..." murmured Shinki. I froze, stopped my gaze. Slowly, I turned to look over my shoulder.
"Shinki..." I whispered, "The air is... The air hasn't gotten colder at all. Cirno's ice froze the water, but the temperature hasn't dropped at all."
The goddess and I shared a short glance... Right before she suddenly dropped to the ground and fainted. I stared at her unconscious form, unsure what to make of it.
I took a deep breath, hissed... Whatever had just hit Shinki had caused her to faint. I hadn't seen anything at all, but it had hurt a goddess enough to drain her of all power. And what had that been about the air being cold? It was warm, hasn't changed at all in temperature.
What to do now? What should I do?! Shinki was just as powerful as me, and yet she had fainted. Yet, she had been knocked out. Was this Daiyousei's little trick? She had turned invisible? If so, it should be easy for me to make out her location with the help of my magic, but... But this didn't feel like invisibility. This wasn't invisibility. This was something else, something way more dangerous.
We had underestimated Daiyousei. We had underestimated her will to help Cirno. She wasn't powerful, but wasn't incredibly weak at all. Unlike Cirno, she had yet to surpass the shackles of a fairy, and yet wasn't a normal fairy. I should've been more analytical to begin with, more cautious.
Now, I had to find out what she had done to Shinki.
What could've caused Shinki to be defeated like that, and how was it related to cold air...?!
I swallowed. I looked around again. Daiyousei had to be here somewhere... She must've just escaped my sight so far. But that wouldn't happen again. I would find her. I would...
The air was cold.
I froze. In between one breath and another, the air had turned incredibly cold. My lungs hurt. My lungs were aching. My body was aching. For whatever reason, I felt like my insides had just frozen over. But the most pain was located in my chest. Pain. Pain. PAIN!
I began to scream, wanted to scream my lungs out. Screaming and trashing about, I began to claw my head and pull on my hair, stomped on the ground. Where was this pain coming from?! Why did everything hurt so much?! It felt like my lungs were filled with... cold air? Cold air!
"Of course...!"
Despite my pain, I forced my body to stop trashing about. I glared at the sun seal beneath my feet, which was half set by now. Only a few more minutes would remain until the sun would set... And then, would bathe the room in twilight. And then, I'd be at my strongest.
That was not important right now, though. I had to get rid of the pain.
My glare switched from the sun seal to the crescent staff in my hands. The crescent moon began to glow in orange as I poured twilight energy into it. I leaned onto the staff, leaned it towards me. The pain increased, forced me to cough and growl.
The tip of the crescent moon pointed at my face. All of the energy in the moon gathered into a small orb at the tip of the crescent moon. I swallowed, coughed again, the coldness spreading into my throat.
"Take that, you little parasite...!"
In one fast movement, I opened my mouth and took a deep breath, inhaling the twilight orb. I had to force myself to not gag on the warm energy that went down my throat, had to force myself not to swallow. I had to make sure that the energy entered my lungs, rather than my stomach...
"KYAAAAH!"
The girlish scream that left my throat was not my own. However, it was followed by white dust leaving my body through my mouth and my nose, white dust that gathered into a dense cloud in front of me.
I fell onto my knees the moment that the last bit of this dust had left my body. With only the warmth of the twilight energy inside my body now, the cold was leaving quickly and I felt how my body slowly began to regenerate.
"What an... Annoying ability you have there, fairy..." I forced out, growled as I panted, "Dissipating into... Snowflakes. You shouldn't have... Told me."
~ Music change: Yui - Rolling Star ~
As these words left my mouth, the white dust in front of me began to gather into a more distinct shape, which quickly regained colors... Green, blue... The white dust became Daiyousei. The snowflakes turned into Daiyousei, the fairy of snowflakes.
"That was mean, Miss Mima Kazami! Too warm!" complained the fairy, even though a mocking smile lay upon her lips, "But you are right. Letty is snow, Cirno is ice... I am snowflakes. We are what you could call the cold trio that makes up winter. Each of us represents an aspect of cold..."
I growled louder as she chuckled, pushed myself onto my feet again. They changed into my characteristic ghost tail. At the same time, I channeled the remains of the twilight energy, the energy that had warmed my lungs, through my body into my right palm, which I pushed forwards.
A bright glowing orb of yellow, orange and black flew at great speed towards Daiyousei, but she avoided it by turning into the cloud of snowflakes, which then turned back into her as the orb had passed. Instead, the orb of twilight energy hit the steep mast in the distance, causing it to sink a bit deeper into the water, but also to lean more towards the remains of the back of the ship, where Chôzen fought that snake-eyed wannabe-goddess Yasaka. She may have that which makes up a god, but she was nothing compared to Suwako Moriya, who I had a lot more respect for.
"Like I said... What an annoying ability." I growled.
"How did you find out?" smiled Daiyousei innocently, so innocent that it was almost creepy. I huffed in reply and leaned the crescent moon staff against my left shoulder.
"You almost had me... If not for Shinki's comment about her lungs being cold and your comment about snowflakes earlier, I might have not managed to understand it in time. I didn't think you'd be that sneaky... Defeating the enemy from within, where he is the most vulnerable. You're smart, fairy, way smarter than any of your fellow fairies... Smarter than your friend Cirno, or your other friends." I snorted.
"That, I am." was the melodic response, causing me to growl. Great, an overly cheery one. I hate them... I enjoy spending time with people that aren't as happy as that fairy. Our sarcastic and gloomy Gekido, for example... Or our sarcastic, sadistic Yuuka. Or my sarcastic, cleptomaniac disciple Marisa. Heck, even my sarcastic, greedy descendant Reimu!
...Okay, so maybe I just like sarcastic people.
"What causes one who has knowledge to be around those who have not? Is it to shine out? Or to prove that you are better? Maybe it's because you just want other people to compare you to those and see your real knowledge?" I inquired, raising an eyebrow at her.
"Neither of those, Miss Mima Kazami. And please... I am not that smart. I am just as naive as any other fairy..." smiled Daiyousei in return.
"Modest, aren't we? You are the brain behind Cirno. You make an interesting combination... She's the one at the front, and you are the one hiding behind her... You are her puppeteer." I huffed, giving her a look of disbelief.
"I am who I am. I don't try to make myself a better person or something I am not. I am a fairy, a fairy that represents part of nature and will forevermore continue to exist. And I certainly don't manipulate others. Cirno is who she is... She just has that unexplainable urge to defend me, or any of her other friends. So I am certainly not a puppeteer." chuckled Daiyousei, "And, back to your original question: I spend time with Cirno and her friends because they are my friends. I like their honesty, their games and their childishness..." explained the fairy of snowflakes.
"Oh my, do I hear a hint of gloom there?" I asked.
"That, I will not deny. For I am a fairy, a smart one at that, which has come to understand what a silly creature it is. Being around Cirno and her friends, who have found and accepted me, makes me forget this... Makes me enjoy my existence." was Daiyousei's reply, astounding me with it's profundity and hint of gloom.
"I see. Then I will not question that." I huffed, changing back into an offensive stance, "Shall we?"
"Certainly, Miss Mima Kazami."
"Oh my... Who would've thought that such a silly creature hides behind a mask of shyness and weakness? Or is it a mask? I do believe it is who she is. A silly creature... And a smart one that that."
The moment that she unleashed a small snowstorm into my direction, I rose my crescent staff and defended myself from the snowflakes and the cold with the warmth of my twilight energy. The sun beneath my feet, the sun seal, had nearly reached the point where I'd gain strength... Strength to defeat both Cirno and Daiyousei, who had remained of their team.
I almost feel bad to hurt such a silly creature, but in the end, she wouldn't mind. She sounded like she knew pain and sorrow... And I knew, that this time, she'd feel neither of them. Because, even though she had not said so, I knew that she'd wait for this tournament to end, so that she could just go back to Misty Lake to enjoy the childishness and easiness of the life of fairies, who had not come to realize what silly beings they were, again.
But until then, she'd back up Cirno the best she could. Because Cirno was her very personal savior, the one who had changed her meaningless life.
The ice fairy had proven another time just how powerful she really was...
Daiyousei, the fairy I had begun to look at in a different way, dissolved into snowflakes which flew into my direction. I put a hand over my mouth and my nose, made sure not to breathe in a single snowflake, well aware what danger this would put me in.
Daiyousei's snowflakes flew past me, then returned into the shape of the fairy. I twirled around and prepared myself for what was to come, only to dodge backwards as she began to shoot different colored bullets all around her in the usual, random patterns.
"If they'd only have some kind of pattern..." I pondered as I used my twilight energy to summon a shield in front of me, "Then I could avoid them and defeat her with one blow! The sun seal still needs some time... The sun has yet to set."
"Have some ice flowers, Miss Mima Kazami!" screamed Daiyousei moments before the colorful storm died down and revealed her at it's middle. I narrowed my eyes at her and growled, summoned forth twilight energy and poured it into the crescent moon atop my staff, which immediately began to glow. And even though I aimed at the fairy, I missed, as I had to dodge large amounts of snowflakes that had gathered into large ice flowers, just like she had announced.
The laser that had left the tip of the crescent moon staff instead flew past her, barely even into her direction. In the end, avoiding her attacks was more important than hurting her. Just like I had told Shinki... Even a blunt axe could fell a tree, given that it would strike often enough. And if I wouldn't be careful enough, especially after that attack earlier which had managed to knock out even Shinki, that would happen way sooner than I wanted.
"Every possible affect of snowflakes, huh? Even their constellations..." I snorted and summoned more twilight energy. As soon as the moon was glowing, I slammed the lower end of my staff down onto the ground to my feet, resulting in a large explosion of yellow, orange and black light.
Daiyousei, surprised by this, used her right hand to shield her face while she stumbled backwards in midair. She summoned colorful bullets with her left hand, but as she wasn't seeing a thing, she just threw them around randomly. They bounced into all directions, missed me by far, and allowed me to prepare for a finisher.
The sun beneath my feet had nearly set. It wouldn't do so in time for me to use it against Daiyousei, but at least Cirno would be in for a surprise. If Yuuka had left anything of her, that was.
"You enjoy flowers, right? Here's my favorite kind of flower!" I roared and went in for a swift attack. Swinging my staff, it knocked into the still blinded Daiyousei's stomach and threw her through the entire battlefield.
"Yuuka!" I shouted, attracting the attention of the Flower Youkai. She held Cirno's ice sword back, frowned over her shoulder into my direction, spotted the fairy I had thrown into her direction, and smirked. She pushed Cirno back, then turned on the spot to face my direction.
She reached back, smiled widely, and then took one step forwards while swinging her hand forward in a dangerous and powerful punch. Daiyousei screamed aloud as the punch hit her back, almost making me feel bad for it. Thrown into the other direction by the pure power of the punch, Daiyousei rushed past me, slammed into the remains of the mast and bounced off it, high into the air.
And there, she dissolved into a fine, white dust.
Daiyousei had 'died'. Daiyousei was temporarily dead.
The silly being, and a smart one at that, was defeated.
Maybe that would grant her temporary happiness, at least until everything would be back to the way it used to.
But, no matter if or if not... She sure had a certain amount of strength, her abilities not as weak as they sounded. Then again, Yuuka's ability to manipulate flowers did sound weak as well...
My train of thoughts was interrupted when a loud noise echoed through the air, almost like the ring of a bell. Looking down, I found that the sun beneath my ghost tail had almost completely set. The sunset had begun. Now, for a short period of time, I'd be at my strongest.
Time to end this.
With power pouring into my body, I changed my ghost tail back into a pair of legs and went into a crouched position. Using something I had learned by watching Chôzen's fight earlier, I pushed twilight energy, of which I had plenty right now, into my feet and catapulted myself off the platform I was on.
In midair, I gathered the remaining energy in my feet and aimed at Cirno as I fell towards her. She didn't see me coming, and thus didn't defend herself as my I landed on her. She gasped when my right foot impacted with her face and sent her stumbling back. This made her lower her guard, allowing Yuuka to move in for a punch.
Cirno saw that one coming, however, and quickly summoned a thick wall of ice in between her and us. Yuuka's punch broke through the ice, but not fast enough to hit the fleeing Cirno, who, by the time that we had prepared for another attack, had already repaired the big ice sword in her hands.
"You hurt Dai! Eye'll hurt you! No one picks on Dai while Eye am defending her!" declared the ice fairy, revealing to me that even she could get angry.
"Great. Now you made her mad, Mima." groaned Yuuka, going back into an offensive stance in which she was holding her hands like claws, "Looks like we're gonna be doin' this the hard way after all."
"Don't be so dramatic..." I sighed and readied my crescent staff.
So maybe this wouldn't end just now...
Chôzen's PoV
~ In the end, even though we hate one another, we care. Music change: Black Tide - Honest Eyes ~
"You went overboard there, Kanako!" I snorted in amusement, enjoying the pun. The goddess growled in response and swung a fist at me. I took a step back to avoid the fist and found my back against the wooden railing of the ship. With no space to avoid, I had to lean backwards over the railing to avoid the punch.
Kanako's body pushed against mine when her punch missed, I held onto the wooden railing and rose my legs off the ground to wrap them around the goddesses waist. She gasped, but never even got the chance to free herself. Allowing my weight to pull me over the railing, I pulled Kanako with me, backflipped, and slammed her headfirst into the wall of the ship beneath the railing.
The wood splintered and Kanako cursed, but I knew it wouldn't stop her. With her inside the ship, I pulled myself back on top of the ship, but was careful not to make a noise. After all, Kanako had used noises before to pinpoint my location without seeing me.
Kanako didn't wait for such a thing, though, and merely smashed through the floor at some random location, jumped high into the air above me. I hissed as I saw her falling towards me, crossed my arms in front of my body to shield myself from any attack to come. Negative energy was already flowing through my limbs in great quantities to absorb any kind of attack. Any but the one that came.
Instead of a punch or any kind of other physical attack like that, Kanako reached back with her left hand, but instead of clenching it to a fist, she held it like some kind of spear. And as she swung it down on me, instead of punching me, it 'bit' into my shoulder, sending a sensation of pain through me that could only be described as the pain of being bitten by a snake.
Without a doubt Kanako's famous 'Snake-bite" technique, named for the pain rather than actually being a snake.
The only thing I could do was to snarl in pain as Kanako's hand clenched around my right shoulder, nails digging deep into my flesh. Kanako tackled into me and forced me to take a few steps backwards, which in return gave me the possibility to use the momentum to fall over.
Kanako's fingers left my shoulder the moment that I fell onto my back, and the second that I hit the ground, Kanako had fallen over me and had stumbled into the railing. Pushing myself onto my feet, I enclosed my right, bony hand in emerald flames and lashed out with it. Kanako turned around that moment and blocked my swipe with her lower arm, pushed the dangerous flames out of the way and kneed me in the guts, forcing me to double over.
She grabbed the hair at the back of my head forcefully, slammed my forehead into the railing and then kicked me over it. Unable to grab the railing because of the pain, I found myself falling for a second. My fall was stopped when my right hand curled around the edge of the hole Kanako had created earlier.
I managed to pull myself into the shipwreck, sprinted through the barely lit room and then jumped out of it through the hole that Kanako had made earlier. Repeating her moves, I rose high into the air, then fell towards the goddess with my bony hand prepared for a punch.
It was blocked by Kanako, followed by a punch from her side, which I blocked in return. I landed in front of her on the ground, crouched down and tried to kick her legs away, but she jumped over my foot, placed her feet against my chest and pushed off it, backflipped once and then stopped on her feet in a safe distance to me.
"She didn't only gain power, but agility... Nice."
"You won't defeat me as easily again!" shouted Kanako and went into a stance that was neither really a crouch, nor standing, "You always have some kind of ace up your sleeve... This time, I have as well!"
"You mean the hidden onbashira? The powerful laser you could shoot by combining them? Or perhaps that mast? Or are you referring to the fact that you nearly crushed me with a gigantic pillar while I wasn't looking?" I snorted, not even trying to hide my sarcasm.
"Neither of them. It is true that those were aces as well... But this one will do the trick! Have some more hidden onbashira!" laughed the goddess in a mad way, swinging her arms up.
This time, I was unprepared. Not that I had been prepared for anything she had thrown at me so far... Who would have been?
...Sanae. But only because she had already let go of any common sense. She was prepared for anything. Anything but the command 'duck'.(1)
As Kanako had finished, announcing that she had even more hidden onbashira, I began to glare around for any kind of pillar-like structure. This time, though, the onbashira had been hidden very well... Right under everyone's nose, just like the mast.
The water splashed high into the air as twelve onbashira, twelve of those shorter ones that Kanako used to carry on her back, broke through the ice from below. I watched them, the twelve faith pillars that had been hidden under the surface of the water (and ice), in horror.
Four had been bad enough, six had been worse... And this were twelve. Would I have been able to think straight, I would've asked myself how she would command them, seeing that she had used her two hands to command two of them.
But, as I was too stunned by the danger that twelve of them presented, I couldn't think straight, and didn't think about it. It was like staring into the maw of a yawning lion.
As if the new situation wasn't already dangerous enough, the twelve faith pillars slammed into the ceiling above me and, as if Kanako had planned of this through, did break it. A large hole in the ceiling allowed the sun to shine in, allowed the sun to shine down on the icy battlefield... Until dark clouds began to circle in the heaven above the arena, creating a gigantic swirl of blackness.
It merely took a few seconds until the beautiful, clear sky had turned into a dark and gloomy chaos. From sun to rain in a few seconds, from rain to storm in just one... In the matter of a few seconds, Kanako had summoned a storm. And a storm was her element. A storm was what she needed to defeat me.
I had seen the powers of Kanako's storms twenty years ago, when she and Suwako had given a shoulder armor the power of those storms... The shoulder armor I had later used to fight Mima. The shoulder armor that had nearly killed a goddess... Had nearly killed Shinki.
Indeed a divine storm... A storm summoned by a goddess, capable of killing another goddess.
While I was still staring up into the storm above, feeling the soft drizzle upon my skin and my clothes, the twelve faith pillars flew over to Kanako and began to circle around her in a slow and soft rhythm. Thunder rolled through the sky, followed by lightning slashing through the heaven.
This would be one dangerous fight from now on...
My clothes clung to my body, wet by the drizzle. By now, Cirno's ice had finally also lowered the temperature of the air, which had remained relatively warm until now. But now, now I became aware of just how cold the ice beneath us was in addition to the wet rain and the now moist air.
Oh geez, I just hope I won't get a cold from this... That's the last thing I'll need. If I'm up against Mima in the second round of the tournament, a cold would certainly get in my way. I know that Youkai don't get sick as easily as humans or animals do... Doesn't mean we're invincible. I also know that I don't get a cold easily in particular, since my powers make me pretty resistant towards most diseases...
Well, then again, colds are one of the few diseases that always manage to outsmart my resistance...
A sudden, sharp pain pulled me back into reality and I cringed away from Kanako. I hissed in pain and growled, my left, lower arm bleeding furiously the moment that Kanako's fingers left my flesh. Another snake-bite...!
Both Kanako and I immediately took defensive stances, each of us expecting the other one to attack that moment.
I hissed and panted, each breath sharp and through clenched teeth. The pain of a snake biting you is horrible. It stings, it burns, it draws your strength right out of your system...!
"What a good thing you're not a venomous serpent, Orochi...!" I sneered and allowed my defensive stance to shift into a slightly more comfortable one, my right hand now on the wound Kanako had just created.
"Not? Guess I have to put more venom into my actions then!" snorted the goddess in return, not referring to the deadly kind of toxin, of course.
"Tch. Yeah. Whatever." I replied dryly, the emerald flames around my hands flaring up. It was time to put as much power as I possessed into them to defeat the goddess once and for all!
...Still, those twelve onbashira seemed rather intimidating. And I had yet to find out how many of them she could use as a weapon at the same time.
"What is that? Chôzen Gekido, great savior of Gensokyo... scared?" chuckled Kanako and stopped another train of thought that was about to start, "Then let me calm you down a little... Twelve onbashira is the most that I can wield at the same time. Just one more and a single distraction would cause me to accidentally drop a few... And, well, if I use more than twelve, I cannot use one specific at a time to attack."
"Great. At least she answered my question as to how many she can wield at the same time... And what kind of fighting style she prefers. One at a time... That could mean I am not as lost as I thought."
"Oh, how very reassuring." I snorted and watched the twelve onbashira carefully. Not careful enough, as I soon had to learn.
"W-wait!" I gasped and examined them one after another, "That's only eleven! Where's the last?!"
"Right under your nose!" laughed Kanako and swung her right hand up, "QUITE LITERALLY!"
The planks beneath my feet shattered and the missing onbashira knocked into my torso, which I had exposed the moment I had leaned forward to look at the floor. All air was pushed out of my lungs as I ascended high into the air, the onbashira pushing against my stomach and my lower chest.
I turned my head, had to use all my strength for that. Wind was blowing into my face, the clouds were coming closer and closer... I was nearing Kanako's very element!
Looking down again, I tried to get away from the onbashira, but it was moving too fast, making it impossible for me to move. Beneath me, the arena started to glow in the colors of twilight, something that I immediately connected to Mima. But she was not what I should be worried about...!
"Alastor...!"
The blade of guilt appeared within my left hand when I mentally begged for it to appear. I immediately stabbed the blade into the side of the log, growled aloud and then pulled myself with one hand towards the blade. And indeed managed to pull myself off the onbashira.
Gravity immediately affected me. I began to fall, twirl around. I soon lost control of what was up and what down... But for a moment, I managed to spot that onbashira I had been on, which was still ascending towards the storm above. And, just before it hit the clouds, a bolt of lightning struck down and hit the top of the onbashira, setting it ablaze.
What a good thing I hadn't been there anymore. Kanako Fried Chôzen didn't sound tasty at all...
Dismissing Alastor and extending both arms and legs, I used them to regain balance. The world stopped spinning just as I entered the arena through the large hole in the roof. I frontflipped, then finally landed in a crouched position in front of Kanako, surprising her. She must have expected me to be fried by her bolt of lightning... Too bad that I had already managed to get off it.
Hearing a loud crash behind me, I knew that the remains of the onbashira had just landed. Following Kanako's gaze past me, I too examined the burning remains of the onbashira that had been struck by lightning. It stuck out of the water next to the mast, the side that was non-submerged still burning. It wouldn't for long, though, seeing as the log that the onbashira was consisting of slowly absorbing the water, like any kind of wood.
"You shocked me there, Kanako. Nearly, I mean." I taunted as I turned back to the goddess, "Didn't you say venom? You do know that lightning is not poisonous, right?"
"Yeah, yeah, really funny, Chôzen Gekido. Looks like the joke is on me, seeing as you shocked me rather than the intended other way around. But I'm not done yet. I'm full of crushing enthusiasm!" replied Kanako sharply. I knew that this was supposed to be a pun, and a pun it was.
She kept moving her left hand in a small circle while she swung her right hand down. Immediately, one of the eleven remaining onbashira stopped orbiting around her and flew into my direction, preparing to squish me. I dodged it by jumping backwards, the onbashira only slamming into the wooden floor, creating another hole in it.
"Hey, it's me. Thought I make an appearance again."
"So not the time for your jokes, Insanity!"
"Well, then I just leave again... Without telling you what I know about Kanako."
"I'm all ears."
"Yeah, I bet. Once it's about a feisty girl, you're listening."
"Insanity..."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah... Now, do you see the movement of her left hand? You know, the little circle she keeps on drawing with it?"
"Oh, I didn't know it's time for riddles again. Let's see, I think I'll phone a friend and..."
"Do I have to spell out everything? Work with me, goddamn it!"
"That's my line. Work with me!"
"Alright... Alright! Now, do you remember when she used six onbashira...? You know, four on her back and two with her hands? Her tactic hasn't changed."
I jumped out of the way of the onbashira as it tried to slam down on me, always keeping an eye on the movements of Kanako's right hand. It was the only kind of warning I had... There was a short delay between her command with her right hand and the movement of the onbashira.
"What are you talking about?! Of course it has! In case you didn't notice... She now commands eleven onbashira. At once. Without any on her back!"
"You moron! Do I really have to spell it out?! Of course it is the same tactic! She merely changed how many onbashira she commands at the same time! Just think about it for once!"
The onbashira came towards me again, this time in a horizontal arc. I barely managed to backflip out of the way, the single desire of my skull not being ripped off my shoulders continuing to push me to my limits. Panic was flooding my system, adrenaline flowing through my veins in large quantities.
"Spell it out, please!"
"It's the same tactic, the very same! Instead of commanding one onbashira with each hand, she merely commands specific ones with her right, in this case the one about to chop your head off, and keeps the others in midair with her left! The motion she makes with her left hand is always a circle to keep the other ten onbashira orbiting around her!"
"Was that so damn hard?! Why didn't you just say that interrupting the steady motions of her left hand would stop the ten onbashira?! So that's why she mentioned that she had to concentrate on them all the time...!"
"You just have to stop the motions of her left hand."
"You stay out of this!"
"You stay out of this!"
Insanity was right, I saw it now. Kanako kept moving her left hand in a circle, and the onbashira orbiting around her were following the command of that hand. If I had to guess how it worked, I'd say that Kanako was focusing on those ten onbashira, while having decided on one 'leader', the onbashira that was following the motions of her left hand, with the others following that onbashira. And all while she also focused on the single onbashira, thus the limit of twelve onbashira in total.
I have to say... I'm impressed. I am able to multitask and have done so several times, but I'd never be able to focus on twelve things at once, and all while making them do separate things. Then again, if she was using the whole 'leader' concept for her left hand and the respective onbashira, it would make things easier, as she only would have to make two onbashira do different things. But she'd still have to focus on all twelve.
Well... Doesn't matter. I'd still stop it.
Negative energy was unleashed through my feet, the small explosions beneath my feet propelling me through the air. Kanako was prepared for such a thing, though, and stopped the movements of her left hand to cross her arms in front of her body. The eleven onbashira immediately hovered back over to her and created a solid wall in between me and the goddess.
I snarled and stopped my assault, dropped to the ground in front of the wall. I was unsure how to react to this, seeing no way to get through to Kanako. Other than mindlessly slashing my way through.
God, that would be something Insanity would do... And, since there seemed to be no other way...
Alastor appeared within my left hand. I pushed myself off the ground and swung the blade horizontally, my intention that of slicing through all of the onbashira at once.
I should've been more careful... Or rather, should've thought things through. Of course, Kanako had prepared for such a thing as well... Another ace up her sleeve.
Damn it.
The moment that Alastor made contact with the first onbashira, Kanako let out a shout of utter triumph. And instead of cutting through the onbashira, Alastor's sharp edge just bounced off it and send me stumbling backwards... A thin, blue barrier surrounded all of the eleven onbashira before me. And it died down the moment that Kanako had made sure that I saw it.
"Did you really think I'd allow you to destroy more of my onbashira? I've only been playing with you until now, Gekido! I allowed you to destroy all of my other onbashira until now to make you believe you'd have the advantage!" laughed the mad goddess behind the wall of onbashira, just before it split apart to become the eleven onbashira again.
While Kanako did allow me to regain balance, she still mocked me as she began the movements of her left hand again, ten of the eleven onbashira immediately orbiting around her again while the eleventh flew at the side. For a short moment, they continued to do so, but changed their movements as Kanako changed that of her left hand.
Instead of orbiting around her, the onbashira turned so that they were parallel to the ground, and flew in a vertical circle in front of Kanako, with her looking through the circle at me. And, no matter for what reason she had done this... It couldn't be good. Not at all.
Kanako was about to say something, probably was going to be just another taunt, but I didn't give her the chance. While Alastor still rested within my left hand and distracted her that way, I used my right hand to gather negative energy into an orb of emerald flames.
Pushing my hand forth after hiding it until then, I hoped that Kanako would get caught off guard. Sadly, the goddess reacted quickly, way too quick. The circle of onbashira closed all of sudden when the onbashira moved in their position, absorbing the force of the attack. And even worse, the moment that the circle opened again, Kanako had already prepared to attack.
The eleventh onbashira, until then hidden by the other then, flew into my direction and hit me square in the chest, caught me completely off guard. I refused to be beaten like that, though, and fought against the onbashira... The result was that I merely sled over the ground, rather than being slammed into the next side of the barrier.
I eventually stopped, my arms laid around the onbashira. Alastor was dangling on it's chains from my left wrist, gently shaking, ever so often touching my left leg.
"Too bad, Kanako..." I growled and concentrated all of my strength, "That I won't give up just now as well!"
My arms lit up in emerald flames, bright emerald flames. I let out a roar, a war cry. The onbashira in my embrace was immediately enclosed by the thin barrier of blue, but it didn't work this time. My emerald flames merely burnt through it, showing once more how powerful the ability to negate was...
Both Kanako and I remained like that until my burning arms had burnt through the shield and the onbashira, rendering it useless. It fell to the ground in front of me in two halves, which I then gently kicked aside.
Ten onbashira left, and then there were none. (2)
"I won't give up now, Kanako... I'm having too much fun here! You keep on cornering me... You're pushing me to my limits! You constantly force me to overcome them, you force me to adjust to your fighting style! And I just love it! Oh, how I missed your stubbornness, your need to overcome me... Our rivalry will truly remain my first and greatest one!" escaped my mouth before I managed to stop myself.
Oh, I had gone bonkers again. The adrenaline was turning me into a fight-addicted maniac again... How weird that it only happened when it came to my greatest rivalries... Kanako, Rumia, Yukari and Mima... Possibly Alice, but then again, I had never fought her for real...
"How fortunate. I'm feeling the same way." replied Kanako in a voice that matched mine in terms of madness. She too must have fallen victim to this rush of adrenaline, this excitement, the grudge...
One of us was doomed to be hurt as the outcome of this battle, and while neither of us wanted to be that one, we both probably didn't care at all... We, or at least I only wanted to fight her. I wanted more adrenaline, wanted more pain and more destruction.
Kanako truly always manages to bring out the worst in me. In a different way than Alice, but equal to that one.
"Fortunate indeed. Then let us enjoy my victory." I chuckled and let the flames around my arms flare up.
"And what makes you think that you'll win? As far as I know, I've kicked your butt around until now!" snorted Kanako in return.
"About that... You know that Yukari'll kill us for the damages we have caused, right? Just think what that'll cost... A fortune."
"Oh, I know that she won't be happy. But she should be thanking us. We're making this interesting." snickered the goddess, took a step back, and then narrowed her eyes at me,"Oh, and about your victory... I don't think you'll win. But don't worry... I'll give your over-confidence a backwards thrust!"
And a thrust she gave me. Only wasn't that a backwards thrust like she had announced, but an onbashira that she thrusted forward, forward into my direction. It broke out of the circle of onbashira and flew into my direction at great speed, forcing me to avoid it.
It broke through the ground instead, vanished from my sight, something that forced me to continue running. After all, nothing good had happened until now whenever one of the onbashira had been gone from my sight. And indeed, the onbashira did break through the ground just behind me, nearly throwing me off balance. It returned to Kanako, became part of the circle of onbashira again.
So that was how she'd use them.
Kanako continued to glare at me, kept her eyes upon me. She continued to turn into my direction, the circle of onbashira always in front of her, between us. She pushed a hand forward, hit another of the onbashira, and thrusted it into my direction. With a jump, I managed to avoid it, then had to stop as another onbashira flew past me.
Kanako was serious now. She thrusted one onbashira after another into my direction, and I had to keep running, had to stop, then run or jump again. That wouldn't have been much of a problem if Kanako would have only ten onbashira available... Well, she had, but by the time that the tenth onbashira was thrusted into my direction, the first had already returned to her and allowed her to continue the attacks.
But, as Insanity's words continued to echo around in my head, I kept an eye on Kanako's hands. And, just as Insanity had told me, her left hand continued to make small circles to keep the onbashira in front of her, while she used her right hand to thrust them at me.
It was still the same pattern. She still used her left hand to command the onbashira, while she used her right hand to control a specific one, always the one she attacked me with.
I smell an interesting weakness there...
Changing my path, I still continued to run in a circle around Kanako... With the slight difference that I was slowly but surely making smaller circles around her, closing in on her. This also meant that I was continually increasing the chance to be hit... A smaller distance between me and Kanako meant that I was also closer to the circle of onbashira and thus in greater danger of being hit and hurt.
That was until I spotted the opening. The time between the tenth and the first onbashira was greater than that between the other ones... And that was all I needed. Just one second more than that.
My path changed. Instead of circling around Kanako, I rushed directly at her. She had continually turned with me, had always kept her front towards me, and thus the position where the circle of onbashira gathered in between us. I was kind of surprised that Kanako hadn't gotten dizzy from all the spinning due to keeping her front towards me, but didn't think about it.
Kanako gasped aloud when I charged directly at her, especially considering that she didn't have a single onbashira to defend herself with. And so, I had a clear shot. I reached back, my bony fist still shrouded in emerald flames... Until I then swung my fist forward, the flames immediately gone.
My hand hit it's goal. Kanako gasped... Not in pain, but surprise.
I hadn't punched her, hadn't even hurt her. Instead, my bony hand had laid around her left hand... Held it in place.
The entire back of the ship, the part that we stood and fought on, shook violently as nine, heavy logs impacted with it.
Without Kanako moving her hand, they were useless. And, since my proximity to her and my action had also broken her concentration, she couldn't hold all of the onbashira in the air. They had stopped in their movements, their action of returning to Kanako, and fell onto the remains of the ship that we were on, then rolled off it due to it's steep position. I heard how they hit the ice and broke through it, heard how the thick layer of ice was broken and returned to being the surface of water.
"You shouldn't have told me, Orochi... You shouldn't have told me that you would not be able to keep all of them under control if you couldn't concentrate." I breathed, an evil grin spreading across my lips. But Orochi, Kanako, showed exactly the same smirk. Sure, she was blushing a little, possibly because I was holding her left hand...
In the end, we both knew of our attraction towards each other. And also, close proximity always forced me to think of that one day when everyone had his interests manipulated... Kanako had been interested in me. And because that added to her attraction to me and her ferocity when it came to it, which in return also added to my attraction.. We had almost ended up doing something we shouldn't have done. We had almost given into our wicked desires.
I knew that this close proximity must have forced her to think of then as well. I knew that she could remember what we had nearly done, despite her not being herself back then... Everyone who had been under the influence of Kyômi, the interest-manipulating Doll Youkai, could remember what they had done...
But still... It didn't explain why she was smirking.
"Maybe that had been my mistake... Maybe these had been my words. But remember what I told you... I told you that I wouldn't be able to manipulate more onbashira at the same time if I couldn't concentrate. I told you that my concentration only sufficed for twelve in total..." breathed the goddess.
It didn't take me long to figure out what she was trying to tell me. Especially, considering that she was moving her right hand towards herself right at that moment.
More onbashira. The hidden meaning lay in these two words. More onbashira than what?
The answer: More than one. She needed to concentrate on moving more than one!
Without letting go of Kanako's left hand, I turned around and lashed out with my left hand, enclosed in emerald flames. It cut through the last onbashira, the one that had just tried to hit me, and turned it into two halves. They fell to the ground on each side of me and Kanako, then rolled down the ship.
Kanako did not have any onbashira left.
It was silent, only the rain from above pouring down on me and Kanako and the rest of the battlefield. Thunder rolled across the sky, lightning flashed. I had won.
Had I?
Slowly, I turned back to Kanako, who stared at me with wide eyes. And slowly, a smirk began to find it's way onto my face.
I had won. I had...
No, I had not... Kanako had begun to smirk. Smirk at me like mad. I had beaten her onbashira, but she STILL had an ace up her sleeve. She still was under the impression that she would be able to defeat me. It was something big. It was something she had prepared under everyone's nose again. Perhaps another onbashira... No, this was something way bigger. Something way more dangerous.
I could read all that in her expression, could see all that just by seeing her mad smirk.
"What is it?" I inquired and narrowed my eyes on her, my smirk slowly replaced by a glare.
"What is what?" asked Kanako right back, way too cheery for someone who had just nearly lost her fight, the one that she had prepared herself twenty years for.
"You still have an ace up your sleeve. You still have something left... What is it?" I growled.
"Funny that you ask. I thought you would have figured it out by now... I mean, it's all around you. Ever since I destroyed the roof, in fact." whispered Kanako, madness making it's way onto her face.
Slowly, I averted my gaze from hers, began to glance left and right carefully. I felt like something was going to jump at me any second now...
But there was nothing. I couldn't see anything. We were still on the battlefield, the ship broken into three parts. Mima and Yuuka were fighting Cirno at the front part of the ship. A little surprising that they still hadn't defeated Cirno yet... I guess Yukari really messed with the boundary of Cirno's powers. Sure, Mima still didn't seem to be serious, and Yuuka was held back by Mima...
But still, something was wrong. Especially considering that Mima had done something to the battlefield... How else would someone be able to explain the twilight that the battlefield was bathed in? It's source was a gigantic setting sun on the middle part of the ship...
But that was not what Kanako was referring to. What had changed since she had shattered the roof? Nothing.
I glanced back to Kanako. She was still smirking at me... She hadn't done a thing since I had averted my gaze. She was waiting. Was waiting for me to realize whatever she had prepared under my nose.
"Let's go through it again, step for step..."
"Alright..."
"She summoned the twelve pillars, which shattered the roof... Through that, we saw how she summoned a storm... And then, she used one to throw you into it, tried to fry you alive."
"Yeah... But it cannot be the twelve onbashira, we destroyed them... Or rather, one has burnt to ashes, one was cut apart, and ten of them are now deep beneath us in the body of water..."
"Oh shit, I think I got it!"
"Insanity?"
"DAMN DAMN DAMN DAMN! She was right, it's all around you! She goddamn used the fact that it's something so natural that you don't take notice of it!"
"What? What? Something so natural that you... Don't take notice of it?"
I glared around again, now in panic. Whatever it was, it caused even Insanity to go into panic. But, just like always, he refused to say whatever it was and was talking in riddles. He always did that when I least needed him to! Natural... natural?!
Ship?! Not natural enough! Body of water? No, not Kanako's element! Ice? No, that's Cirno...! What was so natural that I didn't...?!
My eyes went wide as realization washed over me, hit me like a train into the face. Oh shit, why hadn't I noticed it sooner?! Why hadn't I noticed that Kanako had given herself a gigantic advantage, one that even I would not overcome in this quantity?!
Rain.
It was rain.
Ever since Kanako had shattered the roof and had summoned a storm, it was raining. A thin layer of rain had gathered on the ice, had mingled with the body of water through the holes in the ice that the falling onbashira had caused.
The entire battlefield was covered in rainwater. The wood had absorbed it. The ice had. My clothes had. I had rainwater on my skin. Kanako would be able to manipulate everything!
"Ah, you realized!" laughed Kanako, causing me to snap my head into her direction. I stared in shock, fear, disbelief at Kanako... And she just smirked. Did nothing but smirk.
"Oh, don't worry. I see that you realized just how much power I would have right now... But I tell you what: Since this is our first fight in twenty years, I give you something very special!" breathed the goddess as she leaned closer. She yanked her left hand out of my grip, took two steps back at once and pushed herself off the ground.
Now in midair, she pulled all of her limbs in and began to laugh in a mad voice.
"Do you remember our grandmaster's pets? Grandmaster Suwako used to have some pets, and they are still around, protecting the Moriya Shrine, even in the present days... It was our first trial to defeat them back then. We wouldn't have made it without each other... To believe that we fought together so well back then, despite not knowing each other..." chuckled Kanako and smiled almost gently.
"I remember... Suwako's pets share a trait with you that I cannot forget. They are snakes." I murmured in return.
"Correct. Suwako's pets, the curse gods, Mishaguji...They are still listening to her command. She was the only one ever able to tame them." smiled Kanako.
"Why are you bringing that up now?!" I growled and narrowed my eyes at her.
"Ah... I just want to talk about snakes. After all... Aren't we snakes as well? You... Mima... I... The Mishaguji... We are all snakes, but in different aspects. The Mishaguji have the shape of snakes... I am a goddess that represents snakes... But you, Mima and also I... We are also snakes in the grass. We deceive those around us... We deceive, we belie... We are snakes in the grass, Chôzen." continued Kanako, using my first name rather than my full name...
"Vipera in verpecula est, Chôzen!" (3) roared Kanako and extended her limbs in one fluid motion. Immediately, an orb of a thin blue color surrounded her. I never should know the meaning of her words, which were obviously Latin, as the effect of whatever she had done immediately took effect.
At first, it was barely noticeable, but within the matter of a few seconds, it picked up. The remains of the ship, all three parts of it, began to shake violently, as did the remains of the mast. The sound of water moving reached my ears. And it got louder. And louder. And as it did, the part of the ship that I stood on began to shake more violently.
I began to curse under my breath as I spotted it, a large vortex in the water behind Kanako. But not one that went down in the water, but out of it. And it continued to grow as it absorbed large quantities of water... Of rainwater. Kanako was doing something to the rainwater all around me. And not only around me.
Imagine my shock as my clothes, despite the rain that was still pouring down on me, slowly began to become dry, lost weight and also got warmer... And the rainwater, which had created small pearls on my skin, also sled down my skin at surprising speed.
The entire water on my body moved over my feet into the wood beneath them, which also became a lighter shade again, meaning that the water was drained from it. Even the rain all around me stopped falling straight down and instead changed it's direction so that it fell towards the reversed vortex.
And this vortex grew. It increased in height, but not in width, eventually turning into a gigantic tunnel that was as wide as I could extend my arms. This tunnel eventually parted into eight tunnels of the same size... And they each had a head. A snake head.
"Hey, do you remember the nickname you gave me long ago? The one you still use today? Orochi? You based that on Yamata no Orochi, the eight-headed snake-dragon, because you saw a snake in me... Because I am a snake. Anyways... I thought it would be ironic justice to have Orochi defeat you... So here he is." giggled Kanako, her thoughtful expression turning into a mocking smile at the end.
In front of me was a gigantic beast made of rainwater with eight snake heads. This was Yamata no Orochi... Not the real one, but one that Kanako had created from rainwater. This was the beast, the Orochi, that was supposed to beat me. It let out a roar that shook the earth, it's heads lined up above each other and it glared down at me.
The orb around Kanako vanished and she landed on the ground in front of me, her eyes focused on me. A mad smirk was gracing her features, and her eyes had become more slit-like... More like those of a snake.
Kanako was right... She was a snake. But so was I.
"I've got you this time, Gekido!" roared Kanako as she suddenly swung one hand forward. The rainwater Orochi responded to that, let out another furious roar. The ice around us shattered as the roar echoed through the battlefield, large waves moved over the entire body of water and shook the remains of the ship...
And the mast.
And that mast, the large faith pillar from earlier, decided that it had enough.
The moment that Yamata no Orochi lashed out with all of it's heads, the moment that I pointed Alastor at it, the moment that the mast, Kanako, the heads of the Yamata no Orochi and I were in a perfect line...
Well, it was that moment that the mast, after being shaken so often before... Well, let's put it like it was.
I first noticed how Yamata no Orochi stopped and looked at some point that was behind me and a little above me, all of it's heads sharing one expression... One that practically screamed "Oh shit!".
Kanako, much like Orochi, was suddenly looking past me... This caused me to frown at them. Confused as by what would cause such a reaction from them, I was about to turn around, when I noticed a shadow beneath my feet, a large and long one that continually grew in size. Usually, that would mean that the owner of this shadow was coming closer...
Slowly, I turned around and was about to ask Kanako what had shocked her so much... Until I saw it as well. Too late, unfortunately.
It was the mast. The mast that had decided that falling over right now was the best option.
Neither I, nor Kanako or the rainwater version of Yamata no Orochi, managed to get out of the way.
The last thing I remembered, before everything went black... Was how Yamata no Orochi was ripped apart into tiny drops of rainwater as the mast slammed through all eight heads; how Kanako began to growl loudly... And how I screamed like a sissy little girl.
Oh, and for a slight second, I felt how my bones were shattered as the heavy mast buried me and Kanako underneath it.
In the end, our first fight in twenty years should end in the most stupid and shameful draw I had ever seen and experienced...
Yuuka's PoV
~ Music change: UVERWorld - D-tecnolife
Hearing that idiot Chôzen scream like a little girl, I frowned and glanced over my shoulder for a second. This allowed me to see that the mast had fallen over and had ripped straight through that eight-headed snake that Kanako had summoned, as well as the back of the ship.
I narrowed my eyes at the mast that now lay in the remains of the back of the ship, and silently wondered where that idiot Chôzen and that mad Yasaka had vanished off to... That was, until I spotted the arm and the leg that protruded from underneath the pillar. Since the hand attached to that arm did consist of nothing but black bones, and the fact that this hand wasn't moving at all, it was obvious that Chôzen was buried beneath the mast...
Well, and if that rope circle was still attached to Yasaka, she was underneath there as well, not too far from him.
With a snort of amusement, I turned away and focused back on Cirno, who had been fighting against Mima for the few seconds I had looked away. Served Chôzen and that goddess right... Who did they think they were, barging into the battlefield like that and making our fight harder than it was supposed to?!
To be honest, I blame them for the fact that we hadn't won yet... They hadn't made anything better when they destroyed the ship in their foolishness. I know that Yukari is to blame as well, Cirno wasn't acting anything like one would expect her to. She was way too powerful today... I'd give that gap hag a piece of my mind later on. She'd still be in the medical wing... Ironically, where Chôzen would end up again as well, from what I could see. Stupid him. But that makes everything easier. He's going to get a piece of my mind as well...!
Apropos blaming him and Yasaka... I'm blaming them for the fact that Shinki is out cold as well, no pun intended. I still wonder how, though... The only possible explanation I can come up with is that she got in the way of one attack of either Kanako or Chôzen... There's no way that Daiyousei, or even Letty, knocked her out... But time to find out, I guess.
"Mima!" I called out as I joined the fight again, jumped in between her and Cirno. The ice fairy blocked the swipe of my parasol with her ice sword, then let out a huff and quickly flew away from me in order to get some distance between us. She isn't as naive as people say her to be... She's smart enough to realize that I am lethal at close range.
"What's it?" inquired my wife and quickly moved to my right, her crescent staff leaned onto her right shoulder and her gaze still resting on Cirno.
"How's Shinki...? And mind sharing with me how the hell she managed to get knocked out? Is she as much of an airhead as she sometimes makes to believe, after all? There's no way that..." I began, only to be interrupted by Mima.
"She should be alright by now... Daiyousei defeated her. That fairy got an annoying skill, if you ask me." snorted Mima, her gaze shifting to me for a second. And it was that second that I saw that her irises weren't green like usual, but glowing yellow to orange in addition to black... Twilight energy was flowing through them.
So that was the purpose of that gigantic sun sign. She was causing an artificial sunset to give a boost to her powers... How did she even come up with such a thing? It's too simple to be her design... I know how complex her thoughts, and thus her ideas, are...
...Is that the design of Abendsonne? Could it be that he came up with this kind of spell? That was what he had done twenty years ago when he had worked with Mima... He had created a sunset that had lasted as long as Mima could fight... A sunset that had increased her powers...
"Daiyousei? What kind of skill are we talking about?" I huffed, turning my attention back to Cirno. She wasn't completely unscathed, some of my and Mima's attacks had hit her. Furthermore, she was apparently out of stamina... She was panting like mad as she tried to recover and gather what little strength she seemed to have left.
"Dissolving into snowflakes. Shinki breathed some in... Daiyousei, once in Shinki's body, targeted vital spots and cooled them down to the point where they stop working correctly. Shinki is going to be fine, she's a tough one and a goddess at that... Still, I think she'll get hypothermia. Daiyousei did cool her lungs down quite a lot... I experienced myself just how much pain that can cause, believe me." growled Mima in return, surprising me.
"Oh my... Didn't think Daiyousei held such a hidden power within her." I sighed, then rolled my shoulders. I guess fighting these weaklings, even if they weren't as weak (due to Yukari's meddling, as far as I can see!), is a good warm-up for the fight we were going to have next... Against Chôzen, Nanatsu and Rumia.
"There's some more things you wouldn't think about her... For she is a silly being, and a smart one at that." whispered Mima in a mysterious voice that I couldn't help but frown at.
"Care to explain?" I asked, but Mima merely shook her head, a soft smile gracing her features as she did so.
"Not now. Another time." was all that Mima replied, before she suddenly charged at Cirno again with great speed. And yet the ice fairy managed to react in time, raising her sword to block the dangerous swing of Mima's crescent staff. Metal met ice, sparks were created as the sharp side of the sword sled along the metal. And, when neither of them pulled back, I saw my chance.
I made a jump towards Cirno, parasol in hand. The ice fairy saw me coming and let go of the ice sword's hilt with one hand. She pointed that hand at me, which generated a gigantic wall of ice in between us. Nothing that I would not be able to break through, though.
The parasol shattered through the ice like it was glass, shards of ice were flying everywhere. Cirno let out a small growl, obviously feeling cornered. She pushed away from Mima to avoid my attack from above, then summoned a large club of ice above her head.
"Hmpfh." I heard Mima, right before she swung the crescent staff up, just as the club of ice came down on us. It rained shards of ice onto me seconds later, implying that Mima had just destroyed the club. This was a sign that it was time for me to take over again, so I rose from my crouched position and readied my parasol again.
I swung it like a hammer at the ice fairy, and Cirno saw no other choice but to block my attack with her ice sword... Which of course did not survive the power of my attack. It shattered upon the impact of the parasol, which didn't decrease the strength of my attack at all.
The parasol knocked into the side of Cirno's head and sent her flying. She impacted with the railing of the ship and broke through it, bounced high into the air and then... Threw a sharp piece of ice into our direction. My smirk turned into a shocked frown, I rose my hands and destroyed the piece of ice with my parasol.
"Now that is out of the ordinary. No fairy has ever managed to survive one of my physical attacks..." I murmured while preparing energy for something that was more my style.
"I told you, Cirno is no ordinary fairy." huffed Mima, "But I see what you mean, and have to agree. And I think we are thinking of the same person here... Yakumo."
"Who else? I bet she manipulated Cirno's strength so that she'd be able to stand her ground against us... I'm not trying to make Cirno weaker than she is, and I bet she trained a lot for this tournament, but this is just too much power." I agreed.
"Do you think that this is Yakumo's revenge on me for calling her 'old gap hag' last week?" asked Mima as we waited for Cirno to recover. It would only be half as much fun if Cirno wasn't trying... Wasn't struggling.
I'm not trying to say that what we had done twenty years ago was right, but I do have to admit that it was fun to see how everyone struggled, how everyone fought against us... Especially Chôzen. We practically tormented him... We did torment him. And I'm kind of sorry for that. But it still had been too much fun for an old sadist like me... He was just that kind of person that was my favorite victim.
"I think it's rather that you called her 'an obsolete, frustrated granny that went and screwed the living lights out of your greedy descendant' yesterday than 'old gap hag' that caused her to do such a thing like this..." I snorted, remembering the dispute between Yukari and Mima.
It certainly didn't help that the two of them had such different views on things, in addition to the distrust that had build up twenty years ago... They were always fighting about things, were calling each other names and tried to badmouth each other... They only got along when it was about booze. Sometimes, I can't believe how alcohol manages to bring people together... But then again, I'm not an Oni, like Suika, and I am not that fond of booze, so I might never understand it.
Apropos Oni... I'd love to fight that Yuugi Hoshiguma one day. They say she's the strongest of the underground in terms of physical strength... Some even say that it rivals my strength. Now that is something I'd like to see for my own...
"I was just joking around yesterday!" pouted Mima, "I mean, I ran in on her and Reimu... And Reimu is the most greedy person I know... And Yukari is old, even older than me... And she..."
"Stop ranting, Mima. We've got a fight to finish..." I interrupted her, "...And an ice fairy to squish!"
I unleashed the power I had gathered in shape of a Master Spark, aimed directly at Cirno. The ice fairy, which had still not recovered (I know it was more fun if they were struggling, but this was taking too long!), could only gasp. Like before, she summoned a wall of ice in front of her. One that actually managed to absorb the full impact of my Master Spark.
So Yukari DID mess with her strength!
But if that was the case, then all that Cirno had was more power... And, it's like they say: Fight fire with fire... Only is it power with power this time. So I just unleashed more power, this time in a much different shape.
A second Master Spark ripped through the air, shook the entire front of the ship. The water beneath us was pushed away by the raw force that these two sparks presented, Cirno began to scream as she did her best to hold the barrier of ice up. She was giving all of her power, and I only would have to push her a little further.
But that would be no fun.
No. Let's push it way further!
I shared a short glance with the perfect copy of me to my left. She looked so much like me that it sometimes scared me... Only that she looked like me back then. She wore red plaid pants and a waistcoat of the same color and pattern over a plain white shirt. Also, her hair was long. She was me from back then... The flower that had yet to bloom.
Turning to Mima, I smirked.
"Mima, would you please lend me a hand?" I smiled.
"I don't have a hand to lend to you..." smirked Mima back, just before her legs turned into her ghost tail and she moved to fly right above me and my double, "But a spark!"
Black lightning with yellow to orange edges burst forth from the crescent moon atop Mima's staff. It curled around itself and created something that didn't look like a laser but several sharp and angular lines... It was more of a spark than the Master or the Double Spark. That spark, a spark Mima had dubbed the 'eclipse spark' due to it's mostly black color, cut through the air in between the rainbow color of the two Master Sparks.
The clear opposites in color of the Eclipse Spark and the Master Spark began to melt into one another, the Eclipse Spark lashed out and curled around each of the two Master Sparks.
And the only thing that I could hear above the loud roaring of the three sparks was how ice shattered... And how Cirno began to scream.
And then, as the sparks finally died down, there was nothing left in sight. The sparks had obliterated everything in their path. Only the barrier of Yasaka had stopped them... And even it looked pretty weak at the spot where the three sparks had impacted with it. A few seconds more and we would've shattered it. Especially considering that Kanako Yasaka was in any state but able to replenish it's power.
When the barrier suddenly vanished, the loud cheering of the audience finally reached my ears. We had won.
I hope you choke on that, Yakumo. We won, despite your meddling with Cirno's powers.
~ Music fades out ~
"With that, Mima's team won! Letty is out cold, and Daiyousei and Cirno have both been disintegrated! Of course, we are awaiting their return dearly... We should give them a few hours." chuckled Aya Shameimaru loudly.
"Yeah. Good thing that this was today's last fight, I guess... Just look at the state of tha' battlefield! I tell ya, both Chôz'n and Yasaka, as well as Mima's and Cirno's teams went a little too far there!" sniggered that barkeeper, slamming the flask in his hand onto the table as he broke into a fit of laughter.
I took a glance over my shoulder and observed the damages. Indeed, the battlefield was in a pretty worse state... The ship had broken apart, half of the water was still frozen, shards of ice were laying around everywhere and parts of onbashira were floating on the water... And then, there was the heavy mast that Chôzen and Kanako were buried underneath...
"My turn!" yelled a suggestive voice, followed by that succubus-girl with the terraforming abilities flying past me, Mima and my clone. I shared a last glance with the replica of me, then flicked my fingers and let it dissolve into some colorful petals. At the same time, the succubus-girl rose both of her hands above her head, then slammed them down onto the remains of the middle part of the ship, where Mima's seal of the setting sun had been earlier.
A gigantic white rune spread across it for a few seconds, then vanished. And as soon as it had done, the battlefield began to revert into it's original state. The water and the ice turned back into the stone platform that the battlefield had originally been, the ship began to sink into it as if it had never been.
In the end, only the remains of Yasaka's onbashira, Letty Whiterock, Shinki,Yasaka herself and Chôzen remained, lying in the middle of the battlefield. Neither of them was moving. They were knocked out... Serves them right.
I let out a groan and rolled my shoulders, patted Mima onto the shoulder, and then walked over to where Shinki and Letty lay. Bowing down, I threw the Youkai of Winter over my right shoulder, then picked up the goddess and carried her under my arm.
"Let's go, Mima. We're done here!" I called out, and the evil spirit smirked.
"What about Yasaka and Chôzen?" she inquired, but I just shook my head.
"Leave them be. They'll wake up eventually... It only serves them right if we leave them like that." I chuckled.
"But..." began Mima, but I shook my head again and stopped to sent Mima a... 'suggestive' glance.
"Come now. It's time to... 'celebrate' our victory." I giggled, making sure to put a certain undertone into the word 'celebrate', even though I actually wasn't intending to celebrate anything. I still received the result I had aimed at.
Mima cringed, began to blush and immediately flew over to me, forgot entirely about the two idiots that had been buried underneath a huge faith pillar. Like a loyal puppy, she smiled at me in glee and followed as I began to leave again. I threw Shinki into the arms of her maid, Yumeko, which was already waiting next to the battlefield, then threw Letty at that lunar bunny who had come to pick up the casualties of the battle... It seems that I threw Letty a bit too hard, as she knocked Reisen over, but I regarded that with nothing more but a shrug.
"Let's go." I announced into Mima's general direction, and the evil spirit's smile increased. It was easy to figure out why... Only didn't she know yet that I was merely trying to get her away from that idiot Chôzen so he'd get his punishment.
But I am in a good mood... So maybe Mima and I can get a little affectionate and celebrate our victory after all...
Chôzen's PoV
"GAH!"
I sat up, coughed like mad. The hell?! I had nearly choked on my own saliva!
"Ah... Back among the living as well, I see?" asked a voice out of the darkness. I frowned as I saw how dark it was, and this frown increased when I saw that I was lying in the middle of the now reverted battlefield.
I rose my right hand, then lit the black bones up in an emerald flame. The battlefield, as well as the arena, was tinted in an eerie green light... A light that allowed me to see that the arena was empty. My mouth fell open as I saw that, and immediately looked up to the ceiling. The roof was still destroyed, allowing me to see the full moon far above me.
Just how many hours had I been out cold...?! And why had no one picked me up?!
"They left you here..." commented that voice, and I glanced over my shoulder. Kanako was lying there, sneering at me in an amused way, "I've been left here as well. I guess that's the punishment for getting in the way of the tournament."
"Punishment? In what way is this a puni... ARGH!" Pain shot through my body, the source of the pain my back.
"That is the punishment. Stone is really comfortable, isn't it? Does wonders to the back." snorted Kanako, sarcasm practically dripping from her voice.
"Shut the hell up... Urgh, this is killing me!" I hissed as I rolled my shoulders and stretched my back over and over again in hope that the pain would go away.
And it did, as two strong hands began to massage it. I cringed, then glanced over my shoulder in shock. Kanako was sitting behind me now, smiling and shaking her head.
"You'll have to do the same to me. It'll help, believe me. Suwako and I always massaged each other's back when it hurt after one of our battles." chuckled Kanako as she slowly moved her thumbs in circles over my ribcage. I let out a hiss, but couldn't help but notice that the pain was really slowly vanishing.
"Going soft on me, are ya? I told ya... Don't go soft on me." I sniggered, hissing whenever Kanako hit one of the spots that the pain was coming from.
"And I told you... Maybe I am going soft on you. But would that change anything? I still hate your guts." replied Kanako, obviously amused.
It fell silent after that. I didn't even hiss anymore when Kanako hit one of the right spots.
And then, after what felt like an eternity of comfortable silence, I began to chuckle softly. Kanako frowned at me like I had just gone insane, but then closed her eyes and huffed... Eventually, she chuckled as well. And as she did, we both broke into a fit of laughter. The barriers were finally broken and we just let out whatever we had held back. Whatever we had held back ever since our first departure was released, but also of the time when we had trained together under Suwako Moriya.
We threw our heads back and finally laughed together. And that was how strong our rivalry was. That was how our rivalry was supposed to be, and no other way. Strong in hate, and even stronger in solidarity. We had shown how much we hated each other in our fights, but had shown that we could work together to achieve even greater things than one of us could've done alone, like against Mima, when it had been Kanako's blessing that had helped me quite a lot.
Kanako stopped her massage and instead patted my shoulder. Seeing that as a sign that it was my turn, I rolled my neck, then turned around to face her. We shared a soft smile before she turned around and exposed her back to me. I immediately found the right spot, just beneath Kanako's sixth pair of ribs, and she let out a moan of relief.
"Don't go that soft on me!" I snorted, only to earn a slap onto my right knee from the goddess.
"Like I'd do that! Idiot!" laughed the goddess, but then leaned back into me.
"So you're a father now, hm? I saw your daughters earlier... You can be quite proud of yourself. Both got beauty and a character to match it. Even though the blonde seemed to be quite bold." sighed Kanako and gently shook her head, "Please stop that massage. Just hold me."
For some reason, I complied. I stopped massaging her back and instead allowed her to lean into me, even pulled her closer until she sat on my lap, with her back resting against my chest and her head leaned onto my right shoulder. We remained like that, and it didn't even feel uncomfortable... We just sat there, watching the nightly sky above us through the hole in the ceiling.
"Yeah... Yajû sure is a lot like her mother, Rumia. Quite bold and direct... And, for some reason, quite powerless. Yume is her counterpart. She's shy and avoids too much contact, but got Nanatsu's physical powers..." I whispered, enjoying the closeness to the goddess.
"Hikari is just like Suwako... I guess she's eventually going to be just like her. For now, she is way childish... But she is still a young god, after all. A girl born from a war." chuckled Kanako, tilting her head a little to nuzzle my neck. This action shocked me a little, but I still accepted it. In the end, this wasn't a step into the direction of a relationship. We had always shared this closeness, only in a different way. But did it matter if we shared it in a fight or outside of one?
"You're trying to tell me that she isn't as young as she looks like, right? She is quite young and acts young, has yet to grow up... But her age is that of multiple centuries, correct? You said she is a girl born from a war... The great Suwa war, the war you fought against Suwako." I murmured, and felt Kanako nod against my neck.
It became quiet again between us. Kanako eventually withdrew her head from my neck and just rested it on my shoulder again, looked up at the stars.
"Yukari is going to be pissed. Just think how many damages we caused... That corridor is in ruins, and the fact that we interrupted the battle isn't going to help her mood." giggled Kanako.
"That is true." I chuckled, "She's going to chase us to Makai and back."
"Wouldn't that give you an home advantage?" asked Kanako, gently averted her gaze from the stars and gazed at my face.
"I guess so... I am a child of Shinki now. She has accepted me as one of her own, has adopted me as her son... I should pay her a visit soon. I owe her." I sighed, remembering only too well how sudden my departure from Gensokyo had been those twenty years ago... I hadn't even really told anybody. Sly knew... Koishi knew... Yukari, Shikieiki and her Shinigami did... But aside that, nobody else. At least I couldn't remember. Twenty years can be a long time for the memories, even for that of a Youkai.
"You know... Sometimes, I can't help but wonder if you truly are just a mere Youkai. You do possess the powers of a god... Your powers are equal in strength to those of us gods. It is true that gods are just another subspecies of Youkai... But are you really just a mere Youkai? I cannot help but be confused by you. Even Suwako cannot grand me the answers I seek so desperately for. What are you?" whispered Kanako.
"I don't know, Kana... I don't know..."
"Kana...? Did you just call me by a nickname other than Orochi?" asked the goddess.
"What, you don't like it? I thought, since no one is around to see this moment of us going soft on one another..." I countered, but Kanako shook her head.
"It's fine... I guess. No other nickname would've been right now." giggled Kanako as our gazes met. And as they did, she slowly rose a hand and began to stroke my left cheek with it. And in return, I just pulled her closer.
I don't know if she felt the same urge, but for a moment, I wished for nothing but to lean closer and kiss her. But no matter if she did or not... I did lean forward, and gently kissed her forehead. And from then on, no word was spoken in between us.
There was just no need to.
It remained silent, even as we eventually rose after what felt like hours, and parted. We both had lives to go back to, and next time we'd meet, we'd be back to normal: Fighting each other, calling each other names, hating each other's guts with no place for romance. Cause, in the end, my relationship with Kanako was no different from that to Alice, only less dangerous... For whatever reason the Circle of Yama saw my relationship with Alice as dangerous, that was.
But both relationships were never allowed to go any further than they were.
And Shikieiki, who had watched this exchange in between me and Kanako in secret all along, would've agreed with me, before she vanished back into the darkness of a corridor to find the man she had really been looking for.
The dangerous man that she had been forced to let roam free again for the first time in almost twenty years.
The dangerous man that called himself Sly, the man that had watched all of this in secret as well, with the nastiest of all smirks upon his lips, before he too vanished into the darkness again...
Shikieiki and Sly... They were two opposing forces, both on one side of the law. In behind curtains, they fought a silent and hidden war. And, if I had known that it was there, I would've agreed that I was only too happy to be not pulled into it... It was their very personal war, and nothing I should interfere with.
The corridors lay in darkness, illuminated only by the flickering light of a torch every few ten meters. The corridor that lay on my way back to the living quarters was quite chilly... No wonder, part of it was missing after all. Kanako and I had done quite a lot of work here.
Yukari seemed to have woken up some time after Kanako and I had been squished by the faith pillar, as a wooden sign graced the wall of the corridor.
"If I get my hands on you, Yasaka and Gekido, death will be the most harmless thing falling upon you." could be read in large, bold letters of a red color. A small line was scribbled underneath it with black ink, something that caused me to snort in sheer amusement. Next time I'd see Kanako, I would have to tell her about that.
"Need donations for duct tape. We'll need lots of it for this corridor. -Yukari Yakumo."
Snickering about that in my mind, I made my way down the destroyed corridor to the living quarters, my intention that of finally getting a good rest. I'd need it, that for sure. Two fights against two of my greatest rivals in just a few hours... Yep, I sure missed Gensokyo!
But, lost in my thoughts as I was, I didn't notice the person hiding in the shadows behind the corner of the entrance to the medical wing... I didn't notice it until I actually passed it.
Suddenly, arms laid around my neck and pulled me into the shadows of the alcove that was the entrance to the medical wing. The arms around my neck were kind of skinny and fragile, thus made it easy for me to figure out that it was a girl that was holding me, even though I couldn't see her face, as my head was resting above her shoulder against her pale neck. But the scent that filled my nostrils made very clear just which girl was holding me... Even though I had only smelled this scent once, and only for a single night, I'd never ever mistake it.
Two slender legs wrapped around my waist, pulled me into her. This action alone was enough to tell me that this girl and I had a past together, a strong relationship that had sometimes been passionate and other times been full of hatred; but the moment that sweet lips laid upon mine and pulled me into a passionate kiss, one full of desire, yearning and longing, I could only mutter her name against these sweet lips.
"A-Alice...!" I breathed, pulling away from the kiss to gasp for air.
And indeed, the woman I was pushing against the wall, the woman that had laid her legs and arms around me, was none other that Alice Margatroid. She hadn't aged a single day since my departure. She hadn't lost any of her beauty. This was still my girl, still my Alice.
"Hey there, Gekido..." whispered the girl that I hated with all my heart, the girl that hated me just as much. She began to nuzzle my neck, sending thrills of excitement through me.
"You smell like Yasaka..." huffed Alice as she stopped and began to smirk at me.
"Guess so. What the hell were you thinking? Aren't you with Marisa anymore?" I whispered into the semi-darkness, only to earn a smirk and a shake of her head.
"Don't get your hopes too high. I'm married with Marisa." giggled Alice.
"And as you know, I am with Nanatsu and Rumia." I shot back, confused and yet excited. After all, this was Alice... Alice, the woman I had a wicked kind of love for... And who was, since Shinki adopted me, my 'sister'...
"Good. Then we both have someone to return to." laughed the puppeteer in a melodic way, "What? Can't I welcome you back in my own, special way?"
"Very funny..." I whispered, yet didn't pull away from her, "Why didn't you do so earlier?"
"Marisa and I were late... We missed the introduction and the first battle entirely, but made sure to arrive just in time to see the battle of our mothers. I didn't even know you were back in Gensokyo until I spotted Nanatsu... And when I heard some Tengu exchange about how Yukari's team and you ended up in the medical wing, I went there as fast as I could... Guess I was a little too late." replied the puppeteer.
"I see... You arrived here just in time to see my fight with Kanako, right? So it was you... You pulled on Kanako's leg! I was wondering why she suddenly lost her balance and almost fell over when she was just about to slam her foot down on me." I muttered.
In reply, Alice's smirk increased and she gently showed me her left hand, revealing the magical strings that she always used to control her dolls.
"It was easy... I had to reconnect my strings to dolls so often in my earliest days that it wasn't that much of a problem for me to attach them to her leg from afar. And then, I just had to pull... Pretty useful, isn't it? The strings are nearly invisible for the naked eye." whispered Alice, then laid her arm around my neck once more and pulled me close again.
"I missed you, Chôzen..." breathed the puppeteer into my ear, and I couldn't help but smirk in self-satisfaction.
"I missed you too, Alice... Even though I shouldn't miss you this much." I replied.
It was that moment that the door to my left opened. I almost gasped, feared that someone would discover me and Alice in this compromising position. I glared into the direction of the door... And my gaze met that of Eirin.
"Ah, Gekido." snorted the lunar pharmacist, "I knew I sensed an exploded spleen nearby."
"Very funny, Eirin..." I growled in return, trying my best not to lose it now after being discovered in such a position with Alice... Both of us were married, after all!
"I think so, too. But jokes aside, I was just about to see how you were doing... I've been told you and Yasaka knocked yourselves out during a 'small' fight in between you two... I don't need to be a doctor to tell you that it was reckless of you to fight again after just being released from the medical wing. But it seems that you are in a perfect condition, despite being knocked out two times today... After all, you and Rumia are going at it again, right here in front of the medical wing." mused Eirin, a mischievous smirk on her lips.
"Rumia?!" I thought, frowning. My Flame-Soul appeared behind Eirin and hovered there, right above her shoulder.
"Holy...! She's right, from this angle, you only see blonde hair! Of course she's mistaking Alice for Rumia!"
"Just don't get too loud. Letty Whiterock needs some rest." snickered Eirin, waved it off, and then turned around to vanish behind the door of the medical wing again.
Alice and I were alone again.
After what felt like a silent eternity, Alice eventually let go of me and I gently put her down onto the ground. It remained silent in between us, we just continued to stare into each other's eyes for what felt like an eternity...
And then, Alice let out an amused huff and averted her gaze. Imagine my shock, and my blush, when Alice slipped one hand into the collar of her dress and began to pull it down, exposing her right shoulder to me... And a dark green stripe that had burned into her right arm, just below her shoulder...
"Look at this... It is still there. This is the bond in between us, a creation of pain that we shared." whispered Alice, one finger gently tracing the green stripe. I remembered only too well how it was created... It had been an emergency meeting because of Mima in the Unfocused World, in which I had let my temper get the better of me. Rage had filled me, I had unleashed my powers... And it had been Alice who hugged me from behind, calming me down, even though it meant that she'd get hurt in the process.
Negative energy in shape of green flames had marred her skin, had created this green stripe. And because of the aspects that negative energy had, negating even rules that could not be changed, this scar had carried over into the real world... This was the result.
This was indeed a sign of the pain that Alice and I had shared that day.
"Why are you showing me this?" I asked softly.
"To assure you that, even though we both do have Shinki as our mother now and thus could be called 'siblings'..." began Alice, then trailed off to avert her gaze and blush, "Just promise me that our relationship will not change because of that... Promise me that we hate each other just as much as we always did. I am still Alice, and you are still Chôzen... We still hate each other."
At this, I couldn't help but smile. So Alice saw this the same way as I did... We would just ignore the fact that Shinki had adopted me. We would just carry on like always.
"I promise... Murdertroid."
"Thank you... Gekilldo."
And with that, Alice ran her finger down my chest, leaned closer and caught my lips again for a last, fleeting kiss... And then, gently running a finger down my right arm until she reached the bony hand, vanished backwards into the darkness of the corridor again.
This encounter, way too brief like a fleeting touch, sent me into some kind of trance. And as Alice slipped away, so did I. I don't even remember how I entered the living quarters... I just remembered how I found my daughters, my lovely daughters Yajû and Yume, each lying on one of the three futons. And as I saw them, I couldn't help but wonder what would've happened if I had given into my wicked desire for Alice back then... Would we be parents as well? Would she have ever left me for Marisa?
Back then, when the two of us had just comforted each other for the love we couldn't get, everything had seemed to easy...
I didn't think about anything as I slipped into the third futon, right in between Nanatsu and Rumia. What a good thing that this was the largest of the three futons... Yukari must have expected something like this.
As soon as I lay there in between them, the two women cuddled up to me and let out content sighs.
I let out a sigh as well... But it wasn't content at all.
First Yukari, then Kanako and finally Alice... This day had really been something else. I wasn't even sure what to feel now... Three rivals, each with a different emotion applied to it...
I'd need some time to process this all.
Hopefully, tonight, or rather the rest of the night that I had, would be enough... Tomorrow, another set of old relationships would return.
Tomorrow, my dear sisters, Remilia and Flandre, would fight their respective battles...
And, like the big brother I am supposed to be, I'll cheer for them.
My 'family ties' into that direction may have been put on ice for the last twenty years... But they hadn't stopped. It was time to revive them.
Tomorrow.
Tomorrow...
(1) Sanae had a certain misunderstanding in I-NB with the command "duck", mistaking it for the animal "duck"...
(2) You should know Agatha Christie's "And then there were none"... I referenced it before, and ZUN made it obvious that Flandre herself and her theme song are both based on/inspired by it.
(3) "Vipera in verpecula est" is Latin, and it's Idiomatic translation would be: "Look before you leap, for snakes among sweet flowers do creep." It's a quote from Emanuel Strauss (1994).
And so ends the second fight of the tournament. And Chôzen's second fight as well, even though it wasn't the same. Kanako was out for revenge, and got much more in return.
But that is not something I'm going to continue rant about now.
Rather than that, I'd like to note a few things here.
First is the thing you were probably frowning at... The whole thing about Daiyousei. Let me explain, please. I cannot help but see a very cheery being in Daiyousei... One with a hidden gloom to it, a hidden despair and sadness. Possibly because of a doujin I once read, which touched upon Daiyousei and her view on things. I can't remember the name of that doujin, so if anyone read it as well and knows it's name, please PM me.
Then there is Kanako and Chôzen... I thought it was time to show the real extent of their relationship and make clear once and for all just how they are towards each other once and for all.
Then, there is Marisa... She couldn't be missing in this chapter, of course! She is Mima's disciple, after all! And since she was human when Chôzen left, she aged a bit as well, even though she is a Youkai now.
And with Marisa, Alice made a return as well... They came to cheer for their mothers, but Alice left to find Chôzen... Their love-hate relationship continues, but it will be different... Will it?
And then, there is the thing with Sly and Shikieiki... Wonder if anyone will figure that out? Let's just say that, just like last time, I'll start a lot of questions now... Questions, that will be answered before the book comes to an end. Most of them... A few will continue into the third installment, which I have already planned. The thing with Shikieiki and Sly will not be one of them, though.
A little soon to talk about a third installment, you may think now... I don't think so. I think it is necessary to think such things through... Just imagine if I would end this book in a way that would not allow me a continuation if I ever felt like it. So, to keep this short, I did plan a third installment. That's all I'm going to say until this book ends.
And with that, I'll say my goodbye here.
This has been another chapter of "Negative Bullet Project II-Negative Mind", please review if you enjoyed, and I'll see you next chapter!
On a side-note, I think it is time to concentrate on the two chapters of HoH that I promised. One will be up next weekend as far as I can see, the other one will follow then. I'll keep writing on the next chapter for this as well, but will spend more time on HoH, as I already missed last month's update.
This is SorrowfulReincarnation, signing off for a good night's rest!
Until the next chapter!
