And so, here it is, the second part of chapter 4 – The battles of the sisters!
While being one day late, I hope that you don't mind – Like I mentioned on my profile, one scene that I was writing got... 'a little out of hand'. You'll see what I mean, believe me.
Now, that aside, let's focus on something I already brought up last time – The poll on my profile is now officially over. It has been decided, the next NBP Spin-off chosen – It's going to be, much like I suspected, "Dark Paradise" of the genre horror, a dark story focusing on Meiling and Sakuya in a 'What if Mima would've won at the end of I-NB and would've unleashed the 'complete darkness', whatever that is?'
With 3 votes, "Dark Paradise" is the story that I'll eventually will start writing on. I won't upload it just when the first chapter is finished, though, I'll write a few before I start uploading it. Don't fear, though, I'll not keep you waiting for long (speaking of long, I should update "Negative Reality" eventually, it's been long since the last update, but I didn't get any bright ideas on where to take the plot until now, and I didn't want to just throw random chapters in without knowing where to go).
With 2 votes, 'write both of them' is not going to happen – I guess I wouldn't have managed to do that anyways. Looking back, it seemed like something possible back when I started the poll, but now is just crazy due to lacking time – You noticed the long absence of II-NM. For now, II-NM and HoH updates will appear at least once in a month – Dark Paradise will eventually show up as well.
With 1 vote for 'write neither of them', that isn't going to happen. I'll write "Dark Paradise".
I'm honestly a little surprised that no one voted for "Koumajou Densetsu III" alone... Maybe a little disappointed, even. I thought of a real nice plot that fits with the two existing Koumajou Densetsu games, but I guess that's not going to happen for now. I will definitely write it eventually , only not in the near future – And when I'll do, I'll only upload it once it's completely finished. So yeah... Maybe in a year from now? Hopefully sooner... I'll write a bit on it whenever I feel like it (not going to happen often, I guess), but I'll write it... Eventually.
Main information summed up: I'll start writing on Dark Paradise soon, and will upload the first chapter once I have a few done.
Hope you are as excited as I am for it!
Now back to the routine – Review time!
Littlejimmy250... As you know, I already sent you a PM about the frequency of updates regarding NBP. To sum it up real quick for everyone, though: The 5 month gap in between the last two chapters was not intended and won't happen again. It was an exception that didn't only scare you, but me as well. Updates will now happen at least once a month again.
StupidityNowOffersWisdom... It's good to know that the last update wasn't bad at all. When I uploaded it after that long of an absence, I really feared the reactions from everyone. I guess that's why I put a little more work than usual into the chapter (which would explain why it became so large that I had to split it into two parts) – And well, I don't know when or how, since I wasn't writing much aside the monthly HoH Update, but I guess my style really has improved a little.
I've been playing with many designs for the 'Sakuya of the future', all trying to not change her at all, just add a few things – It wouldn't really make sense for everyone to not have changed in a whole twenty years, especially when it comes to the human or more human-like characters, right?
Tez7... Decisions, decisions, explosions... Blowing things up is more fun than making a decision, it's like saying "Hey, I don't pick from the decisions you offer me – I just make my own! BOOM!" So yeah, an explosive ending really isn't bad, is it? It uses the same recipe - "Standard ending? Nah, let's just make gigantic shoes fall out of heaven, and then ride a winged tiger into a rainbow...!"
...Ahum. Ignore the last part.
Like I just mentioned in the answer to StupidityNowOffersWisdom's review, I wasn't trying to change Sakuya at all, just add a few things to make it believable that twenty years passed – And making her threaten Yuugi by pulling Parsee into this felt in-character for her... Since she did that, like you mentioned, a few times in canon already.
What a perfect, but dangerous maid!
Scourge From BloodClan... Well, here it is, Flandre, Koishi and Meiling's fight. Hope you'll enjoy it~ (And sorry for making you wait another day).
Now then... That's it for Review time! Let's not waste anymore time – You waited for the second half of the chapter long enough. I proudly present you the fight of Flandre's team against that of Utsuho now!
Let's start the chapter already, shall we~?
Oh, and one last warning: Keep your "Ba Dum Tss"-Button ready, cause there is a load of puns near the middle of this... Nothing to see here, just Mima and Marisa trolling around the place, need I say more?
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 4.2: The battles of the sisters ~ Subconscious Insanity
Chôzen's PoV
Okay, so...
Oh What. the bloody. hell.
One moment, I've asked Remilia and Satori about the power of their little sisters after their recovery from insanity and closed heart respectively - And the next, there is this huge explosion just behind me, in the battlefield, so powerful that the entire arena shook.
So the question is - Flan or Okuu? Which one did just cause such a gigantic explosion?
"Woohooohooo! Now it's finally getting interesting!" roared Mima above the sound of the explosion and the shaking arena, stumbling out of the alcove that she had sat in with Patchouli. The ceiling was crumbling above, white dust raining down on us, the ground shook, another explosion rocked the arena, and the audience cheered - Either they were seeing more than me, or they just enjoyed the explosions.
"Are you implying that my fight was boring?" bellowed Remilia behind me, but neither Mima nor I turned to her, pretending not to have heard her.
"I knew the lil' sister was good for somethin' - Just look at the size of that explosion!" laughed Mima, madness invading her laughter as she stared directly into the light of yet another explosion. I, on the other hand, twirled around to Remilia, staring at the elder Scarlet.
"Remi! What the bloody hell is going on?! What is Flandre doing?!" I roared, hoping that Remilia would hear me over the sound of the explosions - I was sure that it was Flandre's doing now. But whatever she was doing - It was so efficient that I hadn't even gotten a glimpse at the terraformed battlefield, let alone the combatants, yet, due to the smoke, the light and the explosions that caused those.
Remilia turned her gaze to me and rose an eyebrow, then smirked and leaned onto her right hand, resting her cheek against her palm, elbow resting on the armrest of her throne. She didn't reply - She wasn't going to, I could see it. She had too much fun just observing the panic on my face.
So I kept staring at her, stared and wondered, tried to read anything in her expression - Only to whirl around, back to the battlefield below, upon coming to the conclusion that I wouldn't get my answers from anywhere else. I stalked over to the large window, stared through it down at the battlefield, tried to spot Flandre or any other fighter through the smoke and the light.
To my left, Mima was pushing against the window, hands resting against the glass on each side of her head, her green eyes wide as a maniacal cackle echoed in her throat. She looked like a little child in front of a candy store – Examining the goods, drooling over all the sugary sweetness in her sight.
"Look at her... Like a fly drawn to light." commented my Flame-Soul, circling over Mima's head, before flying back to me.
"Mima... Close your mouth, you're drooling." I snorted into her direction, not averting my gaze from the battlefield, still scanning it for any sign of the combatants, "I thought you were over that power-crazed phase..."
"I am." shot Mima back, her cackling stopping as she instead grinned, but wasn't averting her eyes from the battlefield either, "But look at this destruction! Look at the lights! The fire! The smoke! You can't tell me this isn't exciting your insane side!"
"Insane side?" I muttered absentmindedly, even though I should have known that she was referring to Insanity, and the fact that she herself had given up her sanity twenty years before, just to become equal in strength to me for our final battle - Not caring about the risk of her losing it for good. To become insane like me or Rumia is nothing one should play around with - It's dangerous, the risk of losing yourself to the insanity too much of a risk, and yet Mima had done it, just to have another source of strength.
Like Rumia and me, Mima was now walking on the tightrope between sanity and insanity – One to the left, one to the right; one wrong step meaning to fall into either side's safety net, with nearly no way back onto the tightrope.
Mima didn't reply to my question, though, getting lost in thought as she continued to look into the fire of yet another explosion - It was getting ridiculous! Just how many explosions were still to come? Which of the combatants was making them? Flandre? Okuu? Ryoko?
Three fighters known for their explosive fighting styles... Flandre once had the ability to destroy absolutely anything by crushing the 'eye', the point of greatest tension, of an object, thus blowing them up. Utsuho's fighting style included nuclear energy, prone to blow up. And Ryoko - Well, I had once seen one of Ryoko's 'weak' lasers, and that one alone blew up... There's no telling in what one of her actual powerful lasers could do.
The so-called 'Queen of laser danmaku; Ryoko Jigoku' was, just like the 'Scorching, troublesome divine flame; Utsuho Reiuji' and 'the sister of the devil; Flandre Scarlet' a force to behold - in an explosive sense. Throw in the equally insane Koishi and the powerful Meiling to back up Flandre, and Okuu's best buddy Rin to back up Utsuho and Ryoko, and you get what I'd call one hell of a molotov cocktail.
Which we were seeing right at that moment.
"Okay, Remi... You had enough fun - What is going on?" I called over my shoulder, seeing as I was still unable to see anything on the battlefield.
"What an intense battle! Is this the power of contestant Flandre that everyone has been fearing twenty years ago?" I heard Akyuu comment, but didn't focus much on it. I was having my own questions, and they were addressed at Remilia and Satori alone.
"Well, Chôzen... Lo and behold the new powers of the sister of the devil." snickered Remi, narrowing her eyes at me, baring her sharp teeth in a mocking smirk, "Or should I say 'the reformed powers' of the sister of the devil?"
"What do you mean, reformed...?" I began, but was cut off by yet another explosion, accompanied by an excited yelp from Mima as the light flashed through the arena. I growled in discomfort about Mima's actions, sent a glare her way, and then turned back to Remilia.
"I can't believe you didn't figure it out on your own yet, dear brother – Just think about Flandre and her ability for a moment... She was never truly aware of her ability, didn't realize that she destroyed things for good. But upon going insane, she suddenly seemed incredibly aware of them, destroying things and hurting people on purpose..." began Remilia, waving her hand into the direction of the battlefield...
And then, her already self-pleased smirk became quite nasty, almost frightening.
"What you now see is a mixture of both – Flandre is fully aware of her abilities and in full control of them, and is in a state of full control. Not the slightest bit of insanity has remained... Thanks to Koishi, Flandre has gained full control of her ability. In a sense, dear brother, Flan is exactly like when you first met us – Only more mature. As am I."
It took me a few seconds to realize the full extent of the message in Remilia's words – Not only couldn't I quite believe the second part, but the first part was even harder to process. Flandre, in full control of her destructive ability? Then those explosions really were made by her... But how? Flandre's ability was to destroy absolutely anything, and if I interpreted Remi's words right, it hadn't changed a bit – Flan had merely gained full control of it.
So what was exploding the whole time? What was Flandre blowing up...?
I was about to turn back to the battlefield when I caught sight of Satori... And something else dawned on me that moment.
If Flandre had gained full control of the ability to destroy absolutely anything, the ability that she didn't even have full control of before she had lost her mind back then, with the loss of her insanity thanks to Koishi's help...
Then what had happened to Koishi's ability of manipulating the subconsciousness, now that Flandre had helped her opening her heart again?
...And why is Satori smirking at me like that now? She seems to have read my mind, but why would she...
Oooooh Shit. Koishi, too...?!
"Gekido! Come quick... I think I can see a shadow through the smoke – I think it's the hellraven, but I'm not sure. I know that the person has wings – That is all..." I heard Mima call. My gaze remained locked with Satori's for a few more seconds, then darted to Remilia and scanned her eyes for any more information – Before I eventually twirled around and stared into the smoke as well.
And true to Mima's words, there was someone there, in the smoke, flying above the battlefield, shielding her body with gigantic wings.
Utsuho.
3rd Person PoV
~ Vampire vs. Hellraven-turned-Yatagarasu! Music cue: The world ends with you - Hybrid ~
"Nihihihi!"
Flandre could barely contain her laughter as she rushed through the battlefield, circling the hellraven high in the air above her. Despite not being able to see much, she knew she where Utsuho was – In the middle of the battlefield, flying there, shielding her body from explosions and the resulting debris with her wings. She knew so because of Utsuho's shape, that was highlighted against the light of each explosion that Flandre had caused.
"Keep it down a bit, Flan!" called a voice form the smoke behind the vampire, causing Flandre to turn her head a bit to gaze into the smoke over her shoulder – Even though she knew that Koishi was in there, requesting her to keep it down.
"I'll try~" hummed Flandre, before breaking into another fit of mad giggling, "But it's so hard!"
"But I can't see..." complained Koishi, "This battlefield is too small for your fighting style..."
Flandre couldn't really object – It certainly wasn't easy to fully use her abilities in such a confined space. All of her training with Koishi, who had turned into her best friend over the years, had taken place outside the Scarlet Devil Mansion, high above Misty Lake.
"Fine, I'll try to keep the smoke to a minimum~" sung Flandre eventually, turning back to Utsuho... Only to find the hellraven, now that the smoke from the last explosion was dissolving able to see her, dashing towards her.
For a second, Flandre's eyes widened – Before narrowing, her lips curling up into a mad little grin.
Utsuho reached the vampire, slammed her feet into the ground before Flandre, reached back with her left hand and balled it into a fist, then swung it forwards – Only for it to be caught by the right hand of the younger mistress of the Scarlet Devil Mansion. The hellraven locked gazes with Flandre, the two glared at each other with narrowed eyes – Before Utsuho suddenly blew up, her scream echoing through the battlefield.
Knocked back into the air, Utsuho flapped her black wings once to regain balance, backflipped and landed on a weird totem-like stone statue of a mole-like animal with a distorted face. She let out a hiss as the smell of fire reached her nostrils, flapped her wings again, extinguishing her smoldering wings.
With the blaze gone, she shifted her stance to regain surefootedness, rose her right arm and pointed the tip of her control rod into the smoke of the last explosion. Unlike any other explosion before, it had been small and the smoke it caused hadn't expanded into the whole battlefield – But it had also been more compressed, more powerful.
The hellraven had to admit – It had hurt quite a lot to be right at the center of it.
Already panting madly, Utsuho narrowed her eyes, glared over the edge of the orange control rod, then slowly rose her left hand and placed it on her upper right arm, ready to reduce the recoil of the attack to come. The moment that the smoke would've dissolved enough for her to Flandre, she'd pull the trigger and release the burst of burning energy that she was already gathering at the tip of the control rod.
The only problem was... The moment that the smoke was gone, there was no Flandre.
Utsuho's eyes widened in a split second, she averted her gaze from the spot where Flandre had been and glared around the flying island that they were on – Yeah, that was the battlefield, a flying island above a large body of water. Several of these weird stone statues were scattered around the grass on the large island, some fallen over, others covered in moss. A building, made of what looked like golden and blue bricks with sun symbols on them, stood on the north side of the island as well in betwen three trees– The door to it, however, had been blown into pieces by the second explosion.
In fact, it had been right behind Utsuho, and had blown up the second that the first explosion had calmed down, scaring the poor hellraven nearly to death – Before hitting her in the back and nearly knocking her off the island along with it's pieces. What was now left of it simply swam in the water beneath the island, long forgotten by either combatant.
"Looking for someone?"
Utsuho cringed at the voice to her left, jerked her body around, the heavy control rod slowing her movement just a bit – Enough for Flandre, in the middle of a jump towards Utsuho. Her left fist collided with the hellraven's left cheek – And again, the roar of an explosion echoed through the battlefield, Utsuho was covered in flames and smoke, her body thrown through the air, the all too familiar smell of flames invading Utsuho's senses.
She released the energy she had built up into the general direction of the vampire, but missed, the explosion instead far away at the foot of a large tree, which was knocked over and fell off the island.
Utsuho backflipped again, slammed her feet into the ground, sled on it. She noticed that she was atop the building when she came to a stop, then quickly went back to scanning the area for the elusive little vampire sister. She glared at the round and sandy spot in front of the building that lacked grass, the meadow-like area with the light-gray rocks to the east, the circle of totem-like statues where Koishi and Rin fought, and the shallow water to the south of the island where Ryoko and Meiling were duking it out – No sign of Flandre.
Immediately twirling around, Utsuho looked for the vampire behind her, even beyond the edge of the island directly behind the building – But this time, Flandre wasn't there as well. Gathering energy at the tip of her control rod again, even though she knew that this would slow the movement of her arm down like before, she turned back to the island, scanning it for Flandre again. She couldn't have missed her, though – Could she?
Just as Utsuho was about to take a glance towards one of the other fights, the fights of her mistress' sister Koishi against her best friend Orin, a ray of sunshine that fell into the arena through the open roof, which was part of the terraforming that Yúgure had done, hit something near Utsuho, in the middle of her field of vision. Shining like a miniature star, the little thing attracted Utsuho's attention.
For a moment, she got a glimpse of it, identified the object that was reflecting the light like that as a dull, tear-like glass-pearl. She could've sworn she had seen the object before, wondered where it came from – Until that thing blew up as well, just in front of the hellraven.
The resulting shockwave threw her off the roof and sent her flying through the air again. Not having defended herself for the third time in a row, Utsuho began to feel the exhaustion that came with being hit with such powerful attacks, even before hitting the barrier that surrounded the battlefield. Pain was sent through her body as she did, her back and wings already sore from the repeated explosions that they had been caught in or had defended her from.
Forcing her eyes open, Utsuho finally found the one she had been looking for. Flandre flew right in front of her, grinning like mad, one hand playing with the dull, tear-like glass-pearls on her necklace... So that's where Utsuho had seen them before. Forcing all pain and exhaustion aside, Utsuho let out a loud growl and extended all her limbs, reawaking them, heat rushing through them.
"Have you figured it out?" chuckled Flandre as she saw and felt her opponent's power rise again, taking a mental note of the eye on Utsuho's chest flaring up in a bright orange for a moment. She had, after all, too heard of the Yatagarasu's powers, which Utsuho seemed to store in and use through that eye, the eye of the Yatagarasu, the three-legged crow – Rumors had it that the personality of the Yatagarasu was still in there, able to communicate with Utsuho.
"What?" shot the hellraven back, her eyes roaming over the additions to the vampire's outfit. Knowing Flandre from the interactions of her owner Satori and the elder Scarlet, as well as Koishi and Flandre, Utsuho knew the younger vampire's normal outfit – And yet didn't know about the extent of Flandre's abilities. She had never once seen Flandre fight with them, had only heard of how powerful she had been before meeting and recovering thanks to Koishi...
Still, these additions seemed odd to her. Flandre had never cared about jewelry or accessories, had even imitated her elder sister's style of clothing – And now she was wearing rings around her fingers and toes, bracelets and anklets, a belt with two pockets, and a necklace? And all of them cheap as hell, so that even the sometimes birdbrained Utsuho saw how cheap they were?
And why were so many of them missing? Hadn't Flandre entered the fight with ten rings around both fingers and toes, a necklace with twenty pearls, six bracelets and anklets around each wrist and ankle respectively? Now, six pearls were missing, a ring on each hand, and one bracelet on her right wrist...
"Not? Well, then let me show you... It wouldn't be fair if you don't know about my ability, Okuu~." smiled Flandre, before yanking the pearl off the necklace she had been playing with off – meaning that the necklace was now missing seven pearls – and threw it over her shoulder. It flew in a large arc, headed towards the fight in between Meiling and Ryoko, where Ryoko was just holding Meiling against the building...
And as Flandre, her gaze never having left the pearl, closed her right hand into a fist...
KABOOM!
"GYAH!"
Utsuho's eyes went wide when the pearl blew up just behind Ryoko's back, the ex-queen vanishing from their sight in a large cloud of fire and smoke, her cry piercing the relative silence of the battlefield. Turning her gaze back to Flandre, Utsuho stared in shock at Flandre, her mouth fell open as she tried to say anything... And Flandre just smirked.
"The moment that I gained control of my insanity, I gained control of my ability... Onee-sama now calls it 'the ability to crush an object's eye consciously'... Meiling and Sakkyun call it 'pinpointed destruction'... Patchy calls it 'controlled explosion-magic'..." sniggered Flan, a hint of madness on her face as she rose her hand and clenched it to a fist in front of her face, "I simply refer to it the same as before... Making things go 'Kyuu'!"
Utsuho reacted. Swinging her left fist forward, she caught Flandre off guard as the fist hit the vampire's stomach, making her double over. Before Flandre got the chance to recover, Utsuho pushed her away from her and pointed her still charged control rod into the vampire's face.
And Flandre went 'Kyuu'.
The entire floating island shook as Flandre impacted with the side of it, pushed into it by a nuclear laser from the hellraven.
Utsuho was panting as she observed how Flandre picked herself out of the wall, growling as she did so. What had Flandre just said...? Controlled explosions...? What was that about...?
In the Scarlet Devil Lounge...
"What did you just...?!" roared a certain walking enigma, taking two steps towards Remilia, glaring at the elder vampire.
"Hm? Do I really have to explain it?" chuckled Remilia, enjoying to tease her 'older brother' like that – He deserved it, for leaving her for twenty years, just like that.
"Oh well... Like I said just now, Flandre now uses what I call 'the ability to crush an object's eye consciously'. However, to put it in a more simple, and more fitting way..." began Remilia, waving her hand a little as if to dismiss this topic as 'simple'.
"Flandre can actively control what to blow up and how, controlled explosions if you want – She can make explosions small or gigantic, based on how she crushes the eye of an object. Did you notice that Flan is wearing lots of accessories? Jewelry? All that cheap stuff?" snorted Patchouli from the alcove, looking up from her book, interrupting her old friend, "It supports her fighting style."
"Whaaaa...! Patche, don't just steal my fun! I was going to...!" roared Remilia, beginning to throw a tantrum.
"I know. That's why I stopped you. You would've just teased him until Flan's fight would be over, Remi, and then you would've let Flan explain it herself." groaned the one-week-sorceress, returning to her book, "Anyways... Flan uses these as a medium to channel her ability. Think of it like this... As long as she can throw something, she can make it blow up at any specific point on it's path. Furthermore, she can enhance the strength of her punches and kicks by blowing the rings, bracelets or anklets up at the right moment – She'll suffer a little damage herself, so making things blow up on close range is essentially a double-edged sword."
"So that's why they're cheap!" exclaimed Nanatsu from the side, "Using expensive jewelry would be pointless – If she uses it as kind of a weapon that gets destroyed, it makes more sense to use cheap stuff..."
WHAM!
"Yo, I heard destruction? Don't blame me for it, I wasn't even here yet, ze~" sniggered a certain black-and-white as she slammed the door to the room open, scaring Yume in the process, "But I bet'cha talkin' about lil' Flan out there... Damn, she's puttin' on a flashy show, ain't she, ze? Lookin' at all the destruction and flashing light of explosions is getting me all revved up for a fight as well!"
"Marisa!" growled Patchouli, before she slammed her book down and fell face-first into it, "Argh, I'll never get any peace... I just wanna reaaad~"
"Miss Mima!" exclaimed Marisa upon spotting her mentor and adoptive mother by the window, ignoring Patchouli entirely, "So that's where ya've been... Ran into Yuuka earlier, said she had no clue about'cha whereabouts. And that's not really something that happens often, does it?! Da ze~!"
Mima looked over her shoulder for a sec – Then turned back to the fight as a powerful explosion rocked the arena. And in a fragment of a second, Marisa was right next to her.
"Oooh~ Flan's getting' mad, ze~ She just went all Kyuu on Okuu's face!" sniggered the disciple, grinning like her mentor.
"Urgh, another dolt." huffed Remilia, one eyelid twitching as she observed the two magicians by the window, "This is getting repetitive. They keep on appearing and causing chaos! And I didn't even invite them..."
"This isn't the topic, Remi, it's about Flan and..."
"Urgh, shut up, Gekido, and come over here and watch Flan and Okuu duke it out, ze!" shouted Marisa, waving the enigma over. He gave a final sigh of despair over not getting his answers, then turned around and dragged himself back to the window.
"Still... Controlled explosions? Using jewelry to enhance punches and kicks, as well as causing explosions technically wherever she wants, as long as she has something to throw? And then the thing with the size of her explosions... And all because she is now aware of her powers, able to use them consciously? Creepy how her already powerful ability evolved into something even greater... Flan, you're going to be a tough enemy, should we face each other in the tournament..."
Back in the fight...
Utsuho let out a groan as her back impacted with the barrier, another one of Flandre's explosion-enhanced punches, at the cost of another bracelet around her right wrist, having knocked her into it. Okuu pushed off it, though, and rushed at the younger vampire, knocking into her at full speed, not allowing Flandre to cause another explosion.
The vampire bounced off the floating island and slammed into the side of the building, causing it to crack around her imprint. Utsuho, not wanting to be in the middle of another explosion, charged right at her again, her intent to smash Flandre through it, but the young vampire foiled the hellraven's plans by pushing her left hand forward – Before Utsuho noticed it, one of the rings, which Flandre had already prepared for it, flew at the hellraven, and exploded in a short distance in front of her, making Utsuho flying right through the resulting explosion.
Another big one – Not as big as the first ones, that had covered nearly the entire floating island in flames to cause as much damage as possible. Thanks to having discussed this strategy with Meiling and Koishi first, though, the dragon had guarded herself and Koishi with a bubble of colorful Qi, thus making them take no damage, while Flan and the other team were caught in the explosions – With the other team being closer to the center of the explosions, of course.
First a pearl that Flandre had 'accidentally' lost in the grass when she had entered the arena – Then the door of the floating island's building. As long as Flan had something to focus on, she could make it blow up. If she wanted to, she could make each and every blade of grass blow up separately, as long as she could focus and crush it's eye – The only downside of her ability was the large radius of damage, even with controlled explosions. Making one blade of grass blow up would definitely destroy those around it... And thus would make her ability less effective, losing more objects to focus on.
Also, finding the 'eye' of an object, the point of an object where it's tension was the greatest, was tiring – Flandre had never really cared about it when she had been her insane little self, but now that she was aware about it, she was also aware about all the eyes of the objects around her, which she could all see, all the time... In a sense, focusing on the eye of an object meant to drown out all other eyes, rather than focusing on seeing it.
If she didn't focus on drowning out the eyes, which she saw as weird little black and white circles, it could easily cause her quite a headache...
When Flandre got up from her spot in front of the wall, she found Utsuho blowing away the smoke of the explosion she had been caught in with her wings, though not looking fine either... Not that Flandre did. While she had had the upper hand at first, and still had it, she was exhausting herself rather quickly by getting in the way of her own explosions and using them all the time – Not that Utsuho's own powerful attacks helped.
"Guh... That one hurt." growled the hellraven, rubbing her right shoulder gently.
"Tch. And yet you don't look like you're going down any second... Looks like our fight isn't quite over yet, eh?" chuckled Flandre, getting on her own feet with the help of the wall she had crashed into, "Why don't we start getting serious, you and me? We could stop being all serious and just start playing... I always get a lot strong er when I start playiiiiiiii..."
With wide eyes, Utsuho watched as the wall that Flandre had leaned against suddenly crumbled into nothingness, causing the vampire to fall into the small hut-like building with a loud squeal. Flandre quickly got back on her feet, though, blushing madly in embarrassment, while coughing uncomfortably.
"I-Ignore that! Back to the topic! Let's play and have lots of fun, Okuu~!" she sung, pushed herself off the ground, and charged right at the hellraven-turned-yatagarasu. Utsuho reacted quick, though, and swung her control rod, hitting the vampire from the right into her side, throwing Flandre through the air.
Not stopping her assault like that, Utsuho immediately pointed her control rod ahead of the vampire and released a thin, yet powerful laser. Flandre regained balance and backflipped over the laser just that moment, only to get into the way of several bullets. Hissing as the hot bullets touched her skin, Flandre still managed to glare into the direction of the hellraven, which was the source of the bullets.
Several small hatches had opened on the sides of the control rod and were releasing bullets non-stop, all of them homing in on the younger vampire sister. Knowing that she had to get away from the bullets, Flandre flapped her bone-like wings with the crystals once and flew backwards, launching another pearl from her necklace at the hellraven, blowing it up in between them, though, hoping that Utsuho would lose track of her in the resulting smoke.
Rushing right into the smoke and into the storm of now aimlessly flying bullets from the hellraven that she had chosen as opponent, Flandre chose her other favorite way to defeat her opponents – Aside blowing them up with her ability, she had that nice little wand of utter destruction to her command...
Laevateinn.
Summoning the weapon and leaving the smoke behind, Flandre swung her wand, it's ends blazing with fire. Utsuho came into view the moment that Flandre was out of the smoke, her wand already in the middle of a horizontal swing, leaving the hellraven with nearly no time to react – And yet, the two weapons met and clashed, Laevateinn fighting over dominance with the control rod of Utsuho.
Their owners glared into each others eyes over the spark-emitting weapons, smirks plastered onto their faces – Flandre noticed it the moment that she and Utsuho locked gazes.
Utsuho had gotten into the mood of 'playing' as well.
The hatches on the control rod closed to prevent Laevateinn from breaking them off, but also allowing Utsuho to channel the energy that she had used to create the non-stop stream of homing bullets into the tip of the control rod – This resulted in an orb of energy gathering in front of the control rod, ready to fire a laser. While this wasn't Utsuho's intent at all, it was the side-effect that she was aiming for – The control rod became heavy and slow, but also much more powerful.
Flandre caught on quickly to that, the sudden increase in power causing her arms and Laevateinn to shake violently. Seeing no other way to escape the imminent loss of this battle of strength than to escape from it, she exploited the strength that Utsuho put into the control rod and let herself be pushed away.
The wind roared in her ears as she flew backwards through the air, and she knew that she was going to impact with the island any second – So she backflipped, imitated her elder sister's movements and prepared to put them against the ground or the wall to break her flight, all while yanking three more pearls off her necklace and throwing them at Utsuho.
Flandre opened and closed her right hand three times, each time focusing on one of the pearls, blowing them up one after another in less than three seconds, shrouding Utsuho once again in a mixture of fire and smoke the same moment that Flandre's feet hit the ground.
She sled over the ground, whirling up dust, creating furrows in the grass until she suddenly sled much easier on the ground – The ground beneath her feet no longer grass and dirt, but bricks with a golden shine to them.
She had ended up in the hut-like building through the open back, due to her having accidentally destroyed the wall on the back earlier.
Having stopped near the middle of the small one-room building, she rose her right hand and grabbed the front of her necklace, pulling it up a little so that she could count the remaining pearls on it. Nine. Out of twenty, only nine were remaining. She was missing two bracelets on her left wrist, one on her right, but hadn't sacrificed any of her anklets or the rings on her toes yet, meaning she had ten rings remaining on her toes, and six anklets on each ankle. With the addition of three rings on her left hand, and four on her right, she still had a lot of close-range attacks left...
"Radiant Blade!"
Flandre's gaze moved up, shock written clearly onto her face. Utsuho was flying towards her, the tip of the control rod already blazing in orange nuclear energy. The young vampire shrieked and pulled her hands up, yanked another three pearls off the necklace and immediately let go of them, leaving them to fly up a bit in front of her. Just in the right moment, she set them off, blowing them up one after another in hope of pushing Utsuho away with the shockwaves – It failed.
Utsuho shot out off the smoke, the tip of her control rod still blazing, and pushed the gigantic orange weapon
forward – Right into the vampire's face. Flandre shrieked again, but it was cut off by the rod slamming into her face, followed by a burst of energy sending her backwards. Her back impacted with the wall right aside the missing door, the wall crumbling, the ceiling groaning under it's own weight due to no longer being supported by four, but three walls
Groaning, Flandre got up, holding her face with her right, and her left side with her left hand. Both ached and throbbed, and yet the younger sister wasn't going to give up just like that – She had to make her sister proud! She had prepared for this for so long, had trained with Koishi each and every day over the last few months!
In anger, Flandre swung her left hand back, balling it into a fist that was ready to catch Laevateinn, which Flandre had summoned – But instead, her hand hit the wall aside the missing door for a second. And the moment that Laevateinn was summoned, the wall crumbled due to Flandre's touch.
And the ceiling gave in.
Both vampire and hellraven quickly left the building as it came crashing down on them, Flandre escaping it through the doorway, Utsuho by jumping backwards into the air through the missing back of the building. The building didn't take much time to give in – It was over in a matter of seconds, leaving only piles of dust and bricks, a broken chest that had formerly been in the middle of the building, and a pile of blue-colored wood, that Flandre identified to be the remains of a neat table with two chairs that she had seen out of the corner of her eyes in a darker corner of the room earlier.
The two fighters glared at each other over the remains of the building, over the heaps of bricks and the remains of walls, both already preparing their next powerful attack – Flandre was faster. Swinging Laevateinn, which she had already summoned, she released a horizontal line of red flames that flew towards her flying opponent, who was still charging up her control rod.
Utsuho dove out of the way, pointed her control rod at Flandre and released a thin beam that sled over the ground of the island, cutting through dirt, rock and stone, through the remains of the building, and forced Flandre to sidestep it.
The vampire countered right away, pushing her right fist forward. Utsuho still saw the ring that her opponent threw, and redirected her laser by pulling her control rod sidewards, aiming to destroy the ring before it got too close, but failed horribly at doing so – Because Flandre began to grin as she saw her ring being cut into two perfect halves by the laser.
Utsuho learned why only a second later. The two halves of the ring had continued their flight because of the rings velocity and the fact that Utsuho's laser offered no knockback upon hit, and ended up flying past the hellraven to her left and right – And blew up just behind her, sending her off balance, as Flandre closed her still extended hand two times.
Each of the halves had their own 'eye', allowing Flandre to blow them up separately.
The hellraven nearly cursed to herself, but quickly reminded herself of Satori disapproving of that. Flandre was already rushing towards the edge of the island when Utsuho regained control of her flight, and the hellraven immediately realized that Flandre was about to jump back into the air to make their fight an airborne one again. Not wanting to allow Flandre to do that, seeing as she at least had the upper hand as long as she was in the air, able to move much easier and having the advantage when it came to attacks over long range, Utsuho immediately had to think of a way to prevent that.
"Pummel her. Use your melting pummel kick, Reiuji."
"Ah, Yata! You're awake!" exclaimed the hellraven cheerfully in a moment of being an airhead, before quickly realizing the command. Snapping back to seriousness, she prepared herself to fulfill the Yatagarasu's command and rose the so-called 'elephant's foot of Chernobyl', a mass of cooled radioactive material and glass, and gathered nuclear energy in it, then used her huge black wings to move herself towards the island again.
"WAIT! WHAT ARE YOU...! YOU BIRDBRAIN!"
"Melting Pummel Kick!" announced the hellraven and closed her eyes just as her elephant's foot began to glow in a bright orange, ignoring the Yatagarasu's voice in her head, and fell right out of the air. Falling like a stone, the wind roared in her ears as she grinned to herself, the foot aimed at Flandre – Who saw her attack coming and jumped backwards.
What a good thing she did, or she would have been crushed – Like the island.
Another explosion rocked the arena – this time caused by Utsuho, not by Flandre. Utsuho's foot made contact with the ground of the island in between the edge and the destroyed building, and stopped glowing for a moment, turning back to it's gray appearance – Before a wave of nuclear energy rolled over the ground, and a burst of nuclear energy shot up, enveloping Utsuho, but doing not a single bit of damage to her, due to it being her very element.
She noticed one thing, though, and it was the lack of resistance beneath her feet – It was almost like she was falling out of the sky, but that couldn't be...
"YOU MORON! Melting pummel kick uses the other foot, the left one! The one with the electrons! The power residing in the elephant's foot is too great, it's based on weight! You just blew up a fourth of the entire island with it!"
"Ooooh, I knew something was weird... I knew that it felt weird to use the right foot~" chuckled Utsuho upon realization, giggling to herself as she noticed that she was indeed falling towards the body of water beneath the floating island on a debris...
She had just blown a large part of the island off, causing both her and Flandre to be in free fall in the middle of gigantic, falling debris. The moment that Utsuho understood the situation she was in, she quickly pushed herself off the debris she was standing on, and rushed up into the air – Only to notice that she would not be able to fly back up just like that, the danger of her wings being hit by the debris too great...
Then again, she had her control rod...
Pointing the control rod up int the air, she pulled the trigger and released a gigantic laser that ripped straight through the falling debris above her, allowing her to fly straight up. She noticed Flandre doing something similar, blowing up the debris above her, allowing her to jump from the remains of a debris to those of another – Not that Utsuho would just allow her to do that. This fight would have to end sooner or later.
Seeing a particularly huge boulder falling down directly in between her and Flandre, Utsuho saw her chance and slowed her flight down to come to a stop. Charging up her control rod again, the hellraven waited just for the right moment... And then, released the build-up energy in the same way as earlier, only on a much bigger scale, a gigantic burst forming a blade after she had pushed it forward.
"Light Energy 'High-Tension Blade'!"
The tip of the control rod slammed into the large boulder before it released the energy in a burst, sending the gigantic rock off it's course, the force at which it was pushed away from the hellraven greater than the effect that gravity had on it.
Flandre had heard the burst of nuclear energy and turned her gaze into it's direction in fear of being hit by an incoming attack, only to find the large boulder flying at her, pushing all the other debris out of it's way as it rolled towards her. Having to react quickly, Flandre saw no other way than to use a burst of her own to change it's course again, not able to focus on the huge 'eye' of the boulder in the current situation.
Stopping on the remains of the debris that she had last blown up, Flandre turned towards the boulder about to hit her, and pulled both hands back while taking a deep breath. Simultaneously, she pushed her palm forwards, slamming them into the side of boulder – While blowing up two bracelets, one around each wrist, causing the other bracelets to take some damage, even though she directed the explosion away from them, towards the boulder.
Blown backwards by the power of the two explosions, Flandre slammed into the side of the island with her back first – But she had reached her goal. While the boulder hadn't changed it's course, it had stopped, and was falling straight down again, soon to impact with the water below.
"Rocket Dive!"
Flandre's head snapped up, only to find Utsuho diving towards her, a bird-shaped shield of nuclear energy right in front of her. The vampire hissed, rested her aching hands against two small ledges, one to each side of her, and blew another pair of bracelets up, thus propelling her upwards into the air, away from Utsuho – At a great cost, though.
Flandre landed on the island, heard and felt Utsuho impact with the island's side due to the island shaking a bit, and immediately glared down at her wrist while she panted – She wasn't wearing any bracelets anymore, even though she should still wear two on her right, and three on her left wrist. She had already guessed that something like that would happen, though – The remaining bracelets had been damaged by the explosions of the others, and had broken apart, falling off her wrists.
With that, she had no bracelets left. And her wrists sure looked worse – A side-effect of blowing the bracelets up, without a doubt. Her skin was slightly burnt and wasn't going recover until she got out of the sunlight, which weakened her a little. While she and Remilia weren't going to burn to ashes once in contact with sunlight, it greatly weakened them – Remilia was prone to being exhausted a lot easier, and for Flandre, it was the loss of most of her regenerative abilities that came with touching the sunlight.
If the two of them were exposed to sunlight for a long amount of time, though, like for most of a day, the two would eventually pass out due to exhaustion that came with the long exposure to sunlight. Being a vampire, though amazing as long as darkness and shadows were your constant companions, sucked in daylight.
And with Utsuho being the representation of the sun itself... Well, at least her artificial suns lacked the properties of the real sun that weakened a vampire...
"Crow Sign 'Yatagarasu Dive'!"
Flandre, still panting like mad due to the acrobatic masterly performance she had just pulled off, was caught off guard when Utsuho suddenly appeared from beyond the edge of the island, shooting up into the air, glowing a bright yellow, like a star in the sky – Before that glow took the shape of a three-legged crow, and came rushing down towards Flandre.
Gathering her remaining strength, the vampire jumped backwards, away from the spot that Utsuho impacted only a second later. A gust of wind, whirled up by the impact, rushed past Flandre, but didn't push her away.
"Flare up!" roared the hellraven, even before the glow that she emitted stopped, causing large orbs of nuclear energy to rise from the ground around her, circling her, making the vampire shield her eyes with her right hand, the light and the heat starting to annoy her.
"Is Utsuho... Going all out now? She suddenly became all offensive...! Or is it..." Flandre's gaze stopped on the red glowing eye on the hellraven's chest, "The Yatagarasu?"
"Shooting Star!" continued Utsuho, jumping backwards in the air, leaving back two trails of nuclear bullets that homed in on Flandre, causing her to avoid them by going zigzag, thus unable to prevent Utsuho from adding another attack to her chain, a large sun hovering over her head.
"Break Sun!"
The sun followed her command and broke apart into several particles that rained down on the exhausted vampire. And yet, the hellraven with the divine addition didn't stop there, having already summoned another sun over her head.
"Nuclear Sign 'Creeping Sun'!"
She swung her hand down, sending the large sun towards the island, enjoying the look of shock on Flandre's face as the sun, almost half as tall as the remaining island, was about to slam into the island – Instead, Utsuho suddenly found herself in the middle of a gigantic explosion, her own sun blowing up in her face when Flandre closed her hand.
The enormous shockwave slammed the hellraven backwards into the barrier for what felt like the thousandth time that day, her wings not really thankful for that. They hurt like hell, were sore and ached, throbbed. And yet, Utsuho had to push herself to continue, not wanting to give up just now – Even though the battle had been long and full of explosions, drawing strength from her like no battle ever had, not even that against Chôzen Gekido over twenty years ago – Admittedly, that one really had drained her, but this one was just insane.
Never ever had Utsuho been forced to summon so many spellcards one after another... And had yet not defeated her opponent, let alone ever been hurt by her own spellcard!
"I can lend you more power... Just enough for your three strongest spellcards and an additional one. After that, it'll be over – Either you won, or you'll faint from exhaustion. Are you willing to go that far?"
Utsuho nodded without even thinking about it – She didn't really remember why she was fighting Flandre, but she had gotten into the mood and winning the fight seemed to be important for some reason. Had to do with Rin fighting Koishi – Were they playing? If so, why was Utsuho sure that there had been another two players? Where had they even ended up?
"Laevateinn!" called out Flandre, turning Utsuho's attention back to her, just in time to avoid the rush of fire coming her way. Swinging her control rod up, Utsuho blocked the flames and changed their path, before pointing her control rod at the vampire that had returned to the air for the remaining amount of their battle.
"Explosion Sign 'Mega Flare'!" announced the hellraven, releasing another one of her spellcards – Not one of her three strongest ones, and yet powerful. The tip of her control rod blew up, sending a large wave of nuclear energy into the direction of the vampire, which swung her destructive wand – Surprising Utsuho when she just cut through the Mega Flare, not allowing it to avert her path towards the hellraven.
Utsuho let out a yelp when Flandre was suddenly in front of her, rose her left arm to defend herself, but hadn't been prepared and the shield of nuclear energy that she summoned was clumsy and immediately shattered upon the impact with Flandre's right fist and the resulting explosion.
Flandre exploited the knockback of the explosion, twirled on the spot and pulled her right leg up – It hit Utsuho's right side, and blew up almost immediately, sacrificing all anklets on that leg, as Flandre hadn't contained the explosion, thus resulting in the destruction of all anklets on her right leg, as well as a sore ankle.
But, as the explosion hadn't been contained, it's power had also been much greater than those that Flandre had contained to save her bracelets – It sent Utsuho flying, cape burning, hair and wings scorched. She impacted with the great tree on the island, tilting it, almost ripping it out of the ground.
Flandre herself had also been sent flying, clothes scorched by her own explosion, as she noted upon hitting the barrier – And yet, she was utterly pleased by her little stunt. She had noticed how Utsuho had begun her final phase, using her more powerful spellcards in hope to knock her out before she herself would be defeated... .And that had given Flandre the necessary courage to go all out, ignoring the danger of hurting herself in the process.
Actually, she didn't care if she'd knock herself out in the process, as long as she'd take Utsuho with her. She trusted Koishi to defeat Rin, knowing that the other younger sister was much more powerful than the Kasha, and she trusted Meiling to defeat Ryoko in an all-out-battle. While never really having interacted with the ex-queen of nocturnal Youkai, she had heard of the strength of the darkness-wielding woman, rivaling the strength of the Dragon Youkai at the gate.
So she just had to fulfill her own little part in this fight – Defeating Utsuho. If defeating herself in the process would allow her team to continue, she really didn't mind. And besides – It would make her sister proud, no matter how she'd win – As long as she'd win.
But even now, she felt how proud her sister was – Call it sisterly intuition, but Flandre just felt how excited Remilia was, up there, in the Scarlet Devil Lounge with the Gekido Family, Mima and Marisa (who she had spotted earlier next to the ghost at the window), and Flandre's own family... Aside Remi and Meiling, later one fighting with her, that involved Koakuma, Patchy, Sakuya, Yúgure, Airisu, Toki, Niji (wherever she was) and of course Satori... Koishi counted as part of her big family as well, but was fighting with her. Of course Flandre hadn't forgotten the Onryô-Maid, Kayako, but she was back at the mansion, guarding it...
Actually, she liked to call Utsuho and Rin part of her family as well, and even though she was fighting against them, there would be no ill feelings, and the loser of the fight would be proud of the winner for getting to the next round.
To be honest, Flandre couldn't be any happier for having such a big family. It was never really boring at the SDM, had gotten more lively over the years... While everyone kept on thanking Koishi for Flandre's recovery from the insanity she had suffered due to her trauma of being hurt, called ugly while having her wings cut off... They kept on overlooking themselves.
If anything, it wasn't only Koishi that had made her recover from her insanity. Sure, Koishi had played the main part, but... Everyone had done their very important part in her recovery – And for that, Flandre couldn't be any more thankful.
This was why she was fighting. This was why she had trained hard for the tournament, this was why she wanted to make her older sister, and everyone else, proud – To repay them at least in some way. She knew that they were more than happy with Flandre being back among the sane, Flandre's happiness the only thing they were asking for, more of a repayment for their part than anything that the young vampire would ever do to repay them.
But she still wanted to, still wanted to repay them in every way possible – And making them proud of her was high up on that list.
That was, what she was fighting for. That was, what was giving strength to take on even Utsuho Reiuji in an explosive one-on-one... That was, what was giving Flandre the strength to withstand any pain that she was going to inflict to herself with her abilities, as long as it would defeat the hellraven.
With a jerk, her body came back to life and she caught herself in midair after having fallen quite a bit, but quickly rose high into the air again, high above the island. Once there, she didn't have to look around much to spot the hellraven she was fighting against – Utsuho was standing just beneath the tilted tree, doubled over and panting, left hand rubbing the area above her control rod.
"Looks like my attack wasn't for nothing..." giggled the vampire, stretching her limbs, ignoring the pain that shot through her still petite body upon doing so. If she was right, the fight would be over in a short moment, anyways... Flandre had her resolve back and with that some strength, and Utsuho had just called onto the final boost of strength from the Yatagarasu, well aware that it was either going to make her win or lose.
To be honest, both knew that, if not for one of them to call onto all power they had in order to defeat the other one, they'd continue to fight for a long time – Both had a lot of stamina and a large pain threshold due to their abilities.
And it just happened to be Utsuho to make the final step of all-or-nothing.
With a loud roar, the eye on her chest blazing in crimson energy, Utsuho seemed to use the same move as earlier, 'Flare Up', but Flandre saw the difference – The nuclear energy that shot into heaven around Utsuho was not only much more powerful, but was the result of Utsuho releasing energy inside her, rather than summoning it around her on purpose.
Feeling Utsuho's power multiply, Flandre rose an eyebrow, but couldn't contain her excitement any longer. Giggling like a madman, she swung Laevateinn, now back in her hand, and released a wave of fire into the direction of the nuclear-powered hellraven.
Having expected Utsuho to block it like she did earlier, Flandre already prepared the next attack, grinning like a madman upon the prospect of surprising not only Utsuho with her next move – She abandoned all of her remaining rings by throwing them at Utsuho, the three on her left and three on her right hand, blowing them up one after another to create a large amount of smoke in between her and her opponent in hope of vanishing in it.
Utsuho foiled her plans with one move, though.
"Explosion Sign 'Peta Flare'!" bellowed the hellraven on the other side of the smoke, slamming her feet into the ground to ensure she wouldn't be blown backwards by her own attack. She lifted her right arm and pointed the control rod at the smoke and where she suspected Flandre to be due to her last location. Slamming her left hand onto her upper right arm to steady it and lessen the recoil, she took aim.
All around the arena, both inside and outside the battlefield, klaxons that Satori had asked Yukari to install began to blare. Unlike down in the hell of blazing fires, in Utsuho's nuclear furnace, the so-called 'Underground Geyser Center', these klaxons would blare only when Utsuho released one of her strongest spellcards – The five called 'Peta Flare', 'Subterranean Sun', 'Abyss Nova', 'Ten Evil Stars' and 'Nuclear Bird – Black Bird of Chernobyl'.
This time, it was Peta Flare.
The control rod roared as it caused an overwhelming number of explosions right in front of it, tinting the entire battlefield in red as the explosions took place – Yet didn't cause any smoke, like Flandre's explosions did.
The large orbs of nuclear energy began to move, picked up speed, accelerated quickly and rushed into the smoke – Blowing it all away, making Flandre's sacrifice of her remaining six rings on her hands useless. While the petite, elusive vampire didn't have much of a problem dodging the large orbs, Utsuho just put more power into summoning them, doing so much quicker.
She saw that Flandre had noticed that as well, having much more trouble avoiding the large orbs of energy as they rushed through the heaven at greater speed and with less space in between them. Utsuho began to smile upon seeing the vampire's trouble, enjoyed it to fill the heaven with the large orbs of energy, almost thought it was over when Flandre was suddenly cornered, trapped in between the gigantic suns against the barrier – Too soon.
Pain suddenly shot through Utsuho's right side and she tensed up, yet didn't dare to shake in pain, as it would send the Peta Flare where it wasn't supposed to be – Until she heard a familiar huff, followed by a creepy giggle.
Averting her eyes from the vampire in the sky, Utsuho looked down – And there, right under her right arm, stood Koishi Komeiji, her mistress' sister, grinning her insane little smirk, the third eye almost completely closed.
In shock, Utsuho failed to notice that Koishi was grinning past her – Until something hard impacted with the back of her head, not only sending Utsuho stumbling forwards, but also resulting in the loud noise of a spellbreak, all of the suns in the heaven disappearing with a flash – Rescuing Flandre from her imminent loss.
Glaring over the her shoulder, Utsuho found Flandre's team-mates Koishi, her third eye fully open again and the creepy smirk gone, and Meiling, who was cracking her knuckles with a big smirk.
"Na-ah, Okuu... One sun in the heaven is more than enough, don't you agree?" snickered the gatekeeper of the Scarlet Devil Mansion, a burst of color flaring up around her – Before she was suddenly tackled by Ryoko, who appeared out of nothing, turning the Dragon Youkai and the ex-queen into a cloud of flying limbs that rolled over the island, before they separated and took position on either side of the shallow body of water on the island.
Koishi, meanwhile, continued to grin at her sister's pet... And began to slip away from the fight, hovering backwards towards the area with the circle of statues, where Rin was on all fours, just getting up after being knocked down by the younger Komeiji – Who was still smirking at Utsuho, now in a creepy way again, somehow unsettling the hellraven.
With a loud growl, Utsuho turned back to Flandre, scanning the sky above her for the vampire that had gone missing with the hellraven being distracted. For a moment, Utsuho had entirely forgotten about this fight being a three-against-three, and thus hadn't been prepared for Koishi and Meiling interfering when it got dire for Flandre...
Wait... If they were supposed to interfere, then Utsuho could do so as well, right? And Flandre was nowhere in sight, so this seemed alright...
Grinning, Utsuho quickly rose her left hand and pointed her index finger into the air, summoning another sun above her head. Meiling had said that one sun was more than enough, right? Well, if it was one sun she wanted, then it would be one sun she'd get!
Swinging her left hand forward while aiming at the gatekeeper, Utsuho threw the sun in hope to help Ryoko by defeating Meiling – Only for it to be suddenly deflected by Flandre appearing from the side, slashing into it with Laevateinn. The orb, sent off it's original course, flew past Meiling and Ryoko – And hit the middle of the shallow body of water, exploded there and caused the island to groan.
For a good reason – Another part of it had just broken off, taking both the ex-queen and the gatekeeper with it.
Utsuho would've loved to follow them and help her partner, but Flandre was back and blocking her path, mind set on finishing their battle. Utsuho had her mind set on it as well now, only wanting to defeat Flandre to help Ryoko or Rin – But there was the problem. She had to defeat Flandre first.
It was time for another powerful spellcard.
About to raise both of her hands over her head to summon her next spellcard, Utsuho easily managed to react when Flandre swung her wand, Laevateinn, sending another wave of fire at her. The hellraven swung her control rod up, deflecting the wave of fire by ripping it apart in the middle – But had failed to notice the vampire that was hiding behind the wave of fire.
With eyes wide, Utsuho could only watch as Flandre twirled on the spot and rose her left leg – It impacted with the side of the control rod, sending a wave of pain through the hellraven's arm, even before the anklets around the vampire's ankle blew up.
Flandre had not anklets and bracelets left, and no rings on her fingers. However, she wasn't the only one who lost something during that attack.
Blown off Utsuho's arm by the powerful shockwave while sending the hellraven stumbling backwards, both combatants watched in a mixture of shock and surprise as the control rod flew through the air and landed in a safe distance away from them, mockingly rolling towards the edge until it was almost falling over it.
"Kyah!" shrieked the hellraven upon seeing her precious control rod unharmed, but no longer on her arm. She stared down at her unguarded right arm and hand – And then made a dash towards her control rod, just in the same moment as Flandre.
It was a good thing that the control rod wouldn't be destroyed by something like that – It was made to withstand landslides, magma, the core of a sun and anything else that would've possibly been a danger to it down in the hell of blazing fires. Both knew that Flandre could blow it up whenever she wanted to, though, due to it still being an object with an 'eye' – Everything had, even living beings.
But Flandre had two rules, now that her insanity was over.
One: Never blow up a being unless having not other choice (She hated to think about it, but after what had once happened to her once, she had come to the conclusion that this rule needed that exception of 'unless having no other choice', and yet she really hated the idea of making someone explode, killing him in such a brutal way, even if he was immortal and would recover like Fujiwara no Mokou, Chôzen Gekido or fairies).
Two: Never blow up something that was precious to someone – Including weapons like Utsuho's control rod.
So Flandre watched as Utsuho made a jump for her control rod – And closed her hand, blowing up the ground beneath the control rod, sending it flying high into the air...
And off the island.
Utsuho landed in the dirt with her face-first, forced to watch as her control rod vanished beyond the edge of the island, and got caught up in a root of the tree next to her, that protruded from the island's side.
"Don't try to get it, or I might accidentally blow the branch off~" sung Flandre's voice dangerously close. Utsuho turned to look over her shoulder, finding the vampire just behind her, staring down at her hands after dismissing Laevateinn, observing the lack of rings on them.
"Guuuu... Looks like we both will have to fight without weapons then." commented the hellraven, glancing from her right hand to the hands of the vampire before her, neither of them having their weapon anymore – Utsuho without control rod, Flandre without rings.
"You think so?" chuckled the vampire, before suddenly jumping backwards, away from the hellraven. Utsuho quickly jumped to her feet as well, almost lifting her arm to point the missing control rod at her, but quickly realizing that it was gone – And that Flandre had tricked her.
As Flandre landed, she slid her hands into the pockets on her belt, grinned like a madman, pulled her hands out of the pockets – And revealed to Utsuho's shock that she wore ten rings on her fingers again, a set identical to those that she had blown up before.
Seeing the shocked expression on the hellraven's face, Flandre giggled and leaned a bit forward while tilting one of her pockets to show the hellraven the contents of it – It was full to the brim with identical, cheap rings. The hellraven's eyes widened – Right before Flandre threw a handful of them towards Okuu.
Without control rod unable to deflect them, Utsuho jumped up into the air and rose her arms above her head, ready to finally summon the spellcard from before after all – The one that Flandre had prevented her from using. She didn't need her control rod for that, she'd be perfectly capable of using the final two spellcards without her control rod, with the power of the Yatagarasu within her alone.
And if those two weren't enough, there was no way for her to beat Flandre!
"SUBTERRANEAN SUN!" exclaimed Utsuho, the spellcard above her head starting to spin faster and faster, turning into a small orb of nuclear energy that gradually expanding as Utsuho poured more and more power into it. The klaxons began to blare immediately, hurting poor Flandre's sensitive ears with volume.
The nuclear orb grew until it was just the size to fit into the hellraven's hands, and descended when the hellraven lowered her hand, holding it in front of her chest and the Yatagarasu's eye. She stared into the orb for a moment, as if she'd see something important in it – And then, smashed it by closing her hand, shattering it into an incredible amount of yellow particles, which she then absorbed.
Almost immediately, Utsuho's shape seemed to waver and expand outwards, but it quickly turned out to be nuclear energy, taking the shape of an orb that enveloped Utsuho – Turning the hellraven into an artificial sun herself.
It didn't take Flandre long to figure out the spellcard – She felt the pull that the sun caused, even if only weak at first, it grew continuously as the sun grew. While the pull seemed to be the only danger at first, Flandre quickly realized how dangerous it was – The tree that Utsuho had tilted earlier suddenly ripped out of the ground and flew past her, dissolving into ash as it hit the sun. The pull had gotten stronger...
And it wasn't the only danger. With a sudden roar, the artificial sun pulsed once and grew to almost twice it's former size, it's color changing from yellow to a magma-like surface, the pull growing again. Flandre had to put her entire weight against it to not be sucked in, forcing her to abandon any plan of offense or defense she had.
She swung Laevanteinn after summoning the weapon again, her rings grinding against the metal wand as she swung the wand, sending a wave of destruction in shape of fire at the artificial sun – which just absorbed it.
The pull increased with another pulse of the artificial sun, which grew about half it's own size again, it's surface changing to a glowing orange. Flandre let out a gasp when her body was jerked towards the sun, she slammed her heels into the ground to slow herself down, not eager to get hit by the large orb – Especially not when it suddenly started to release one hell lot of bullets.
With the last change of color, the orb had also revealed Utsuho's position in the middle of it, her black shape easily visible against the bright orange light.
"Guh... It's one of these moments that I wish that I had Onee-sama's legendary spear, and not the wand... If I had Gungnir, I could just throw it through the sun..." shot through the younger Scarlet's head as she continued to struggle against the pull.
When one stream of bullets suddenly came her way, Flandre was forced to avoid it, but had to abandon her safe spot on the ground, surrendering herself to the pull that way. The moment that she was just off the ground, the pull jerked her towards the artificial sun – And Flandre reacted by slamming one end of Laevateinn into the ground, stopping herself.
She swung herself up onto the other end of Laevanteinn, landed on the heart-shaped tip in a crouched position, still holding onto the legendary wand. Now higher than before, she observed the situation around her in hope to find a way to escape long enough for the spellcard to time out – Or to cause a spellbreak. But for that, she would have to hit Utsuho hard enough...
Scanning the area for help, she couldn't find Meiling anywhere – Same applied to Meiling's opponent, Ryoko Jigoku. She did spot Koishi, but the younger Komeiji was busy playing a mindgame with her opponent, Rin... She wasn't going to help the Scarlet... Flandre was on her own against Utsuho.
Flandre hissed when the pull suddenly increased again, causing Laevanteinn to shake violently, and Flandre to lose her balance. Regaining her balance relatively quick, Flandre managed to use her weight to minimize the wand's shaking – And noticed that something shining was hovering towards the sun. Identifying it to be one of her rings, Flandre glanced down to her hands and counted – Nope, still all ten there.
Looking further down, though, the vampire noticed that her belt had taken some damage – Or rather, the right pocket. The lid had taken some damage, and the pull from the artificial sun had pulled a few rings from the damaged pocket – Rings that were now entering the sun.
Flandre watched curiously as the rings melted – But took note that the cheap material didn't just melt, but rather crumble under the intense heat...
To make it short: For a short moment, she could still see the 'eye' through the surface of the sun. She had thought of blowing the sun itself up, but had noticed that the sun itself, while having an 'eye', was applying to one of the rules she had made.
Utsuho was the 'eye' of the artificial sun.
Still, if what Flandre had just thought of was true, then she had just found a way to defeat Utsuho.
Feeling that the pull was about to increase again, Flandre quickly slipped a hand into the damaged pocket and pulled another ring out, throwing it towards the artificial sun. Keeping her eyes on it and drowning all the other eyes out, she waited until she saw the ring hit the surface of the sun – And then quickly crushed it's 'eye', blowing the ring up.
Much to her displeasure, though, she didn't quite do any damage – The surface of the artificial sun blew up at the spot where the ring did, but that was pretty much it. Nothing else.
Growling to herself, Flandre slipped her hand into her pocket again and pulled out three rings at once, throwing them one after another, and blowing them up in that manner as well, hoping to do any damage that way – Another futile attempt, nothing more.
Looks like she'd have to exhaust herself, after all.
Falling backwards off the wand, which was still impaled into the ground and wasn't going to get pulled out of it soon, Flandre rested her feet against the hilt of the wand. Standing in a perfect 90° degrees to the ground with her feet resting against the wand, Flandre went into a crouched position and focused on keeping her balance. The pull from the artificial sun had really become strong enough for her to stand in a perfect 90° degrees to the ground...
Sliding both of her hands into her pockets and grabbing a handful of rings from either of them, the vampire narrowed her eyes at the sun that kept on growing... And then opened her hands and let the rings fall back into her pockets. No... That wouldn't be enough.
It was either all or nothing. Utsuho had started the final phase of this battle by gathering all of her power for the final attacks – Now it was Flandre's turn to do the same to end this final phase in her favor.
The younger Scarlet closed her eyes and took deep breaths, focusing only at what she was about to do – It wouldn't only drain her powers like crazy, but would also reward her with a nice 'little' headache for the rest of the day, if not even the next day as well.
With a last deep breath, Flandre opened her eyes and pushed herself off Laevateinn.
For a short moment, she ascended, moved parallel to the ground, away from the sun that tried to swallow her up. Upon reaching the highest point, she was hovering for a second, before being pulled back to the sun. Her feet found support on Laevateinn, bending the already misshaped wand a bit, before it catapulted Flandre 'upwards' again – And Flandre began her final move on the subterranean sun.
While 'ascending', Flandre slipped one hand under her belt and used her sharp fingernails to cut through the leather. Separating the pockets from the belt, discarding the latter one, she ripped the lids off and emptied the pockets, leaving the huge amounts of rings inside to the pull of the artificial sun.
Reaching the 'highest' point of her jump, Flandre used her wings to twist her body around so that she was facing the sun. She narrowed her eyes and focused, gaining something like a willing tunnel vision, restricting her focus on the countless rings that fell towards the gigantic sun.
Thousands of white circles, 'eyes', invaded her sight, each of them belonging to a ring about to hit the sun. Flandre was already getting a bad headache just from seeing so many 'eyes' without drowning them out, but she really couldn't do that – Her strategy, maybe the only one able to break through the subterranean sun, required her to see that many.
With burning pain in her eyes and a throbbing, numbing pain behind her forehead, Flandre began her own way towards the sun that covered and defended Utsuho. She began to pant, the pain taking it's toll on her, and yet she didn't look away – She couldn't just do that yet. She couldn't even blink, or she'd miss her chance...
"TABOO! FOUR OF A KIND!" hissed the vampire loudly, summoning the three clones of her, which just took even more of the energy she had left. Moving in perfect synchronization in one line, the four Flandres extended their hands towards the sun, as if to reach for it.
All of them narrowed their eyes even further to block out more 'eyes', separating the 'eyes' of the rings...
"Chain Destruction!" growled the four Flandres in perfect unison, closing their hands all at once, just as their targets entered the sun.
What followed was utter destruction on the smallest scale possible. To put it more simply: The artificial sun blew up, leaving Utsuho without any means of defense.
But it was Flandre that screamed, her clones dissolving into nothingness. While relieved, feeling as if a large weight had just been taken off her eyes and brain, Flandre's ability was not meant to destroy more than one object at a time – Focusing on crushing so many eyes at once had caused a recoil that had sent a wave of pain through the vampire's body, even though she had already split it into four by using her clones – Imagining that she would've felt four times the pain if not for her clones made Flandre gag. She was close to fainting already – There was no way that she would've been able to take four times the pain without going into coma for a long time.
Much to her relief, the wave of pain was brief, and over in only a second, leaving her to finish what she had begun. Using the speed she had already gathered through the pull of the now destroyed sun, Flandre continued her path towards Utsuho, snatched Laevateinn as she flew past it, and aimed for Utsuho for the final strike.
"ABYSS NOVA!" bellowed the hellraven, absorbing the remaining particles of the subterranean sun into her body, which began to blink a bright yellow as a nuclear chain reaction occurred within her. The klaxons blared again, indicating the strength of the spellcard about to be used.
Snarling to herself, the little vampire gathered all of her strength for the final attack, folding her crystal-wings in to increase her speed even further. The wand of destruction rested within her right hand, rubbed against the rings on her hand, the soft ringing noise of the metal rubbing along each other pretty much all that kept her from fainting.
Utsuho suddenly extended her arms, summoning a gigantic bubble of nuclear radiation around her, into which Flandre flew, not caring about the pain, not caring about her consciousness slowly slipping away.
"TABOO!" shouted Flandre the moment that she had entered the bubble and felt her strength being drained from her, the wand in her hand already responding to Flandre's words, knowing it's full power was about to be unleashed, "LAEVATEINN!"
The wand in her hands lit up in scarlet energy, extending far beyond it's material form, the energy growing until the wand was several times Flandre's size, the gigantic scarlet blade dragging behind. With a final roar, Flandre swung the wand, using both hands to do so.
Ultimate destruction was unleashed as Laevateinn cut through the island on it's way, destroying dirt, stone and rock alike, not caring about whatever came into it's path, leaving only a trail of destruction across the entire island.
And as it's final act, Laevateinn cut through Utsuho Reiuji, resulting in the loudest spellbreak Flandre had ever heard, the bubble of radiation disappearing in an instant – Along with Flandre's consciousness. And that of Utsuho Reiuji.
Both fighters fell to the ground, never felt the impact, having knocked each other out, having drained each other of all strength they had left.
And yet, it was Flandre who regained consciousness after only a few seconds, coughing and hissing as she forced her eyes open again and rose to all fours, panting and coughing as she rose her gaze to stare into the empty eyes of her knocked out opponent... Utsuho was really down for the count, and from the looks of it, wasn't going to get up any time soon.
Satisfaction filled the young vampire, glee. A last wave of strength passed through her and she stumbled to her feet, using Laevateinn to support her own weight. Unable to say anything, Flandre just lifted her gaze and stared into the orange barrier that surrounded the battlefield, watched the audience outside cheer and clap, then directed her gaze over to the Scarlet Devil Lounge...
Remilia was standing at the window, grinning from ear to ear. Seeing her sister like that, Flandre couldn't help but enjoy the warmth that spread through her body, the sweet warmth that numbed all the pain she felt at that very moment.
With the warmth of having made her elder sister proud came the relief of really having accomplished her goal – She had done her part. She had made her sister proud, and had defeated Utsuho Reiuji for her team. And with relief came the loss of the adrenaline that had kept her going... She lost her balance and stumbled backwards, let herself fall backwards into the grass, Laevateinn landing next to her.
Panting and yet grinning, Flandre stared into the heaven above, not caring that the sunlight was still shining down on her... She closed her eyes, smiled to herself, enjoyed the moment... And let the unconsciousness slowly claim her.
As she did, she felt how two hands slipped beneath her arms and pulled her up. Forcing her eyes open again, Flandre saw the familiar face of Koishi Komeiji hover over her, smiling with all the warmth that it could ever bring up.
Flandre felt her body being dragged over the ground, but was too weak to react to it – She didn't even have enough strength left to keep her eyes open. Eventually, her back was leaned against something that felt like a tree.
Forcing her eyes open for a last time, Flandre saw that she was in the shade of the very last tree left of the island, and that Koishi was smiling down at her while placing the wand named Laevateinn on Flandre's lap.
"Well done. Leave the rest to me and Meiling, okay? You'll rest now... And when you wake up, we'll have won!"
Flandre smiled weakly and nodded, let her heavy eyelids fall and the blackness consume her. Koishi was right – She had done well, and deserved her rest.
The rest was now up to Koishi and Meiling, and Flandre trusted them.
The two were her family, so why shouldn't she trust them?
~ Music ends ~
Chôzen's PoV
"Whew, now that was a thing! And it ain't even over yet, da ze! Ah~! Seeing Flan fight like that makes me wanna fight her again~" sniggered Marisa, finally pulling her face away from the window. The only thing missing as she and Mima pulled their heads back was the sound of a plunger being pulled off a surface to make it comedic...
"Well, Flan may be defeated, but she did her job well... I may not like to admit it, and yet it makes me proud – I would have not been able to defeat Utsuho Reiuji, which just fills me with even more pride that Flandre could do so. Facing and winning against a divine power like that of the Yatagarasu is certainly a feat." spoke Remilia softly, drawing my attention to her.
She was standing to my right, having moved to the window when Utsuho had started her subterranean sun.
"Milady seems to be moved." stated Sakuya with a bright smile, stepping up to her mistress.
"Yeah, she moved, like, from her throne to over here. Lazy bum Remilia." added the still ordinary magician. Even though she was a Youkai now, I guess I would never address her as anything different.
"Watch your mouth, rat." hissed the noble vampire, "Or I might just move again – My hand through your face, that is."
"Picking a fight, Remi?" challenged Marisa, one hand reaching into her cleavage to, god forbid, pull out her Mini-Hakkero. Hadn't Nanatsu mentioned that Marisa didn't need that anymore?!
"I'm not at my full strength after the fight earlier. You may challenge me on the next Scarlet Moon, rat." snorted Remi, turned on her heels and stomped over to her throne.
"Yeah, so you'd just sent ya maid at me 'gain, eh? There's never a right time to fight you, Remilia... Time always moves ahead of you." huffed Marisa, crossing her arms in beneath her chest, putting emphasis on the word time for some reason – Wait, was that supposed to be a pun at the expense of Sakuya?
Sakuya seemed to have noticed as well, sending a dirty glare towards the witch... Which the witch noticed in return.
"What? What are ya glaring daggers at me for, Sakuya?" snorted Marisa, wriggling her eyebrows suggestively, trying to hint at the pun she had made.
"Well, I guess she's pretty ticked off at'cha." added Mima as she jabbed her minion with her right elbow.
"Ba Dum Tsss."
I rolled my eyes at the childishness presented to me, the bad puns hurting more like any pun-ch could ever have – Okay, that one was admittedly bad.
"Hey, Chô..." whispered Nanatsu, tugging on my right sleeve a bit to get my attention. Glancing to my right, I found her and Rumia standing next to me, the Shinigami with a worried expression, and the Angel of Death still glaring down at the battlefield with a quite serious face.
"What's it?" I asked, though not averting my attention completely from the two magicians and the dagger-glaring maid, somehow interested in the puns to come.
"Rumia and I have already talked about a bit, but... It's going to be really hard from now on. If we do manage to defeat Mima's team and really move on into the finale, then it's going to be even worse... No matter which team we'll face in the finale, it will definitely be a challenge... It's going to be either Remilia's, Flandre's or Utsuho's team..." whispered the Shinigami, looking past me at Remilia, then at Mima.
"Yeah... I figured that out as well. We'll definitely won't have it easy..." I muttered back.
"And just think about what comes after, ze!" interrupted Marisa as she suddenly jumped onto my back and forced me to give her, a fully grown woman I had no interest in, a piggyback ride, "The winner of the finale gets to fight the champions of the last year! And that team reaaally is scary!"
"Get off!" I bellowed over my shoulder, but the playful magician just ignored me, even as I began to struggle against her.
"You should've seen how they defeated Patchouli! Patche was in the tournament last year, made a team with Koa and Meiling... Oh boy! I mean, sure, their team certainly wasn't weak at all.. Didn't think Patche can move like that – I mean, she did help most of the time by chanting spells to give Meiling and Koa strength, but when she was fighting close-combat with... HEY! WATCH IT, ZE!"
Having thrown the magician finally off my back, I turned to her and glared daggers at the magician on the ground – Not that she really cared about that, she just rubbed her sore rear.
"Serves you right, Marisa. Have you no decency at all?" growled the silver-haired maid, before sending an accusing glare at Mima, who immediately began to wave sheepishly, "But I see where you got that from! That and your kleptomania!"
"HEY! We don't steal, we borrow!" defended the Adoptive Mother-Daughter duo themselves, only to make most of the people in the room roll their eyes – Even Toki, who had just entered the room. Even he seemed to know about Marisa's bad habit, and the origin of it.
I shared a short glance with the boy – Acknowledging that he was the only other male in the room. Didn't happen often in Gesokyo. While I didn't really have the chance to meet him in person yet, I had heard about him from Yume and Yajû earlier – Same goes for that Airisu, who apparently was part of the new Scarlet Devil Mansion as well. She seemed to be the girl that had entered the room with Toki...
"Where's Kayako, anyways?" I called out, noticing the lack of the scariest maid of the SDM, "Can't believe that I'd miss her..."
"Guarding the mansion as we speak – We can't entrust our home to a bunch of useless Fairy Maids, can we? Even though they have at least become somewhat competent after the Three Mischievous Ones joined – Before you ask, they owe Lady Remilia their service for having damaged expensive furniture during one of their pranks gone out of control." stated Sakuya, bowing after her explanation.
"C'mon, Sakuya... Why can't ya be that nice to me and Mima once in a while? I thought we were buddies now..." complained Marisa, poking the maid into the side with a disappointed expression on her face. Sakuya glared down at her, but then simply huffed and turned away.
"Geez... You should pay that doctor in the bamboo forest a visit, maid." snorted Mima, "You'd be of great assistance to her... After all, time heals all wounds, eh?"
"But it also can cause a lot of wounds, Miss Mima Kazami." hissed Sakuya, speaking Mima's full name in a sharp tone.
"Boohooo, how scary. If you try scaring a soul like me, you shouldn't suck so much at it." huffed the twilight-manipulating soul in return, sarcasm dripping off her bored voice.
"Hey Miss Mima! Bet'cha I know what Meiling's confession to Sakuya was like!" interrupted Marisa, now in high spirits again, before suddenly kneeling in front of the maid with wide eyes, imitating Meiling's voice, "Sakuya! I love you! You mean the world to me!"
Sakuya, even though blushing a bit, crossed her arms in an impatient manner, a knife in her right hand all of sudden, tapping it against her left elbow.
"Hey, Marisa... If you're so good at guessing, guess what I should've said when we first met." dared Sakuya, but actually didn't allow the magician to reply, "Knife to meet you, Miss Kirisame!"
Before Marisa could do a thing, the knife in Sakuya's hand rushed past her head and scared the human-turned-Youkai, as well as her mentor, who just happened to get into the way of the knife – It was now stuck in the wall behind her, pinning her blue magician's head to it.
"D-da... Da ze! Sakuya, I just almost wet my bloomers... Don't do that again, da ze!"
"Okay, that one wasn't that bad!" snorted Rumia, already having had a hard time holding back her laughter, before finally giving into it. Sakuya gave her a small smile – Before throwing a knife at the Angel of Death as well, scaring her too.
"When did this turn into 'let us bully the maid'?" I asked, stepping closer to the more serious half of the room. Patchouli and Koakuma looked up from the book that Patchy held, Toki shrugged, and Remilia and Satori stopped their conversation to glance at me for a moment, like Airisu did. Yúgure didn't look at me, but considering that she was dozing on the bench in the alcove next to Koakuma, it wasn't that surprising. She really seemed to be comfortable over there... Damn succubus, I still wasn't too fond of her.
"I have no idea, to be honest..." admitted Koakuma, the same sweet smile as always on her lips, at least until she noticed that her mistress had already continued to read and was about to turn the page, while Koakuma hadn't read the passage in front of them yet.
"Geez... Scarlet Devil Mansion, just as random and chaotic as always – Now even with 100% less mansion and 100% more lounge."
"Save the sarcasm for another time, one that is more fitting." I shot back, stretching my limbs a bit while watching the chaos unfold – Namely, Mima, Marisa and Rumia avoiding Sakuya after another one of these puns.
"Hey, Marisa, stop for a second and let your 'buddy' show you her new ability..." huffed Sakuya with a smile, ignoring Mima and Rumia to jump over the table with the buffet to follow the escaping witch. Marisa really stopped as she heard that and frowned over her shoulder at the maid.
"Wait! You've got a new ability, Sakuya, ze?" inquired the kleptomaniac witch as she turned to Sakuya – Who vanished, and reappeared behind the witch – Which suddenly collapsed, butt into the air, presenting the knife with the red hilt to everyone.
"Yes, as a matter of fact, I do, Marisa... I call it stab-ility." snorted the maid, pulling the knife out of the witch's butt without remorse, and then directed it at Mima and Rumia, who had gone pale, "You want to see it up close as well?"
"I'd rather call it fatality... Man, can't believe Kirisame really stopped for that..."
"Well, when Sakuya smiles, the world stops for a while... The more sinister the smile, the more can you be sure that you don't want the world to spin again. She get's her point across – Knives are pointy. She loves pointing that out."
Seeing both Rumia and Mima shake their hands quickly, fear on their faces, I rolled my eyes again, and quickly stepped through the room, pulling Rumia with me.
"Come on, we'll watch the battle, Rumia – And later, you'll owe me a kiss, because I just saved your cute little ass – Literally." I spoke, whispering the last part and placing a hand on the body part in question – And smiled upon seeing that Rumia's face at least regained some color, even if it was red. Pushing her to the window, we took our places next to Nanatsu again, and watched as the battle continued.
Just before Utsuho's "Subterranean Sun"...
3rd Person PoV
~ Clash of color and blackness! Meiling vs. Ryoko! Music cue: The world ends with you – The One Star ~
A loud crash, then the ground was gone – Both Meiling and Ryoko knew that it had been Utsuho that had robbed them of their ground, but neither of them really cared. Even though suddenly in free fall in the middle of debris, the two didn't change a thing – Still fought each other.
Meiling pushed her left fist forward – a feint, nothing more – and when Ryoko lifted her arms to defend herself, the gatekeeper instead swung her other fist forward, getting past the ex-queen's defense. Meiling's fist, coated in Qi, hit Ryoko in the face with enough force to send the ex-queen flying through the air.
Ryoko let out a loud growl as she impacted with one of the falling debris around them, almost shattering it as she did so. Meiling herself exploited the punch to push herself off the ex-queen, and landed in a crouched position on another falling debris.
The ex-queen was grinning when she got to her feet, her black eyes with the crimson lines in them having a dangerous spark to them. As she lowered her gaze a little, her own shadow began to distort into a swirl beneath her, and something that looked like black water escaped it, flying upwards.
Meiling watched as the long and unruly black hair with the red highlights of the dangerous Youkai began to shake as she unleashed more and more power – And then, six crescent shaped demon wings of crimson color appeared on the ex-queen's back, giving her an even more of a ferocious appearance.
"Hong Meiling of the colorfulness...!" laughed the ex-queen with a sinister intent, her bangs shaking as well under the tremendous force unleashed by the queen, revealing the eye that was painted onto her forehead with crimson color, "That we two clash here is quite a funny irony... Seeing as I am the opposite of your powers, the blackness!"
Both fighters pushed off their respective debris and met in midair, fists ablaze in rainbow for Meiling and blackness for Ryoko. With their fists stopping each other, the two changed their positions, twirled in midair, Meiling lifting her leg to knee Ryoko in the gut, and the ex-queen placing her hands on the dragon's shoulders, using her body to avoid the attack.
Ryoko fell forward, used her weight to spin Meiling and herself around, then slammed the gatekeeper into the largest debris she found, pinning her to it, straddling the dragon of color across the waist. Meiling let out a growl as she glared up at the dangerous woman on top of her and the feral grin upon the woman's face – For Meiling, though, Ryoko Jigoku was no woman, and no Youkai. For Meiling, Ryoko Jigoku was a dangerous beast that only acted on it's primal instincts – The loudest one being the desire to quench her nearly insatiable thirst for blood.
She wasn't any better than the Rumia from back then. So was it the absence of color that turned them into beasts, that made them fear the light and made them hunt for blood? Or was it the darkness? For Meiling, only the latter possibility made sense – Knowing that the lack of color made the world forlorn, but wasn't changing a person to be like that.
"You're not the opposite of me. You may be the blackness, representing the nightmare aspect of the darkness... But the opposite of color is the lack thereof – And the one to be my counterpart is my own flesh and blood." hissed Meiling, letting out a bit of her own feral side. Ryoko frowned at this, and then rose her gaze to stare over to the Scarlet Devil Lounge – Which Meiling used to push the feral woman off her.
The black beast was sent flying as Meiling's kick impacted with her stomach, allowing Meiling to finally stand up and jump – Just as the debris she had been on hit the surface of the water. High in the air above the fountain caused by the impact of the debris, Meiling frontflipped and scanned the area for Ryoko Jigoku as she descended again.
Letting free a bit of blue Qi through her feet, Meiling landed on the water and stood on it – The blue Qi beneath her feet allowing her to stand on it as if it was solid ground. Meiling didn't even have to scan the area anymore – The opponent appeared herself, slowly descending as the remaining debris fell down around them, causing ripples on the surface and fountains to shoot into the air.
Meiling observed the ex-queen as she descended from above, her six crimson wings not moving a bit, and yet Ryoko stood in the air just above the water, grinning ferally at Meiling. Meiling used this moment of silence to examine Ryoko, looking for any sign of weakness.
The style of clothing that the former queen wore still looked weird to Meiling, even after knowing her for over twenty years and sometimes drinking with her on a party. Today, the feral woman wore a tight black and gray top without sleeves and with a bare midriff, showing off her abs. With a pair of corresponding tight pants, the queen sure had a makeover from her usual black-and-crimson pants and shirt, or the black sleeveless tanktop with the silver studs and the black jeans with the two scarlet belts around her left thigh.
Her canine fangs seemed sharper than ever before as she grinned at Meiling, her midnight-black nails darker and sharper than ever before, clear contrast to the pale skin of the ex-queen. The jewels on either hand and foot of the ex-queen glowed a dangerous crimson, as did the heavy chain around her slim waist and the bracelet with the chain attached to it at her right wrist, a metal glove with sharp extensions for the fingers dangling on it.
The feature of the beast-like woman that struck the gatekeeper the most, however, was the addition to the already weird and rebelling woman's face that just couldn't be right. Meiling, having once lived in the world outside Gensokyo along with the rest of the Scarlet Devil Mansion, knew that Ryoko wasn't the only woman to like something like that, and yet it just seemed wrong in Gensokyo because of the difference in acquiring it...
So a piercing was nothing big of a problem in the outside world because of the relatively safe way of acquiring it – The chance of getting the wound caused by the piercing to get infected was relatively low if done right.
But this was Gensokyo, the lack of technology and research in that direction next to none – So there was no one professional when it came to piercings, and no one knew of the danger of infections. Not that Ryoko had any, but that was because of how she had made those piercings – Yes, that was right, she pierced herself.
How? Well, the tall ex-queen didn't make much of a secret on how she had added those oh-so-precious and yet simple, round silver studs to her face – Three on each side of her nose, six along her eyebrow on each side, two in her chin, two in each ear and six along each of her muscular arms and legs.
It was simple as that how she had pierced herself: Shaping the metal to the stud, heating them up and... Well, the next thing was to just slam them into her own body in the right spot – And enjoying the pain she felt because of that, and the blood that dripped onto her hands. Because of the hot studs, though, the skin around them immediately melted together again, and prevented infections – It was gory in Meiling's eyes, gory and sick.
To say that Ryoko Jigoku was a sick person was an understatement.
"Like what you see?" taunted the sick woman as she noticed Meiling's gaze, "If so, why don't ya abandon that maid with the cute behind and..."
Meiling swung her right leg up, sending a circle of color rolling over the surface of the water at high speed. Ryoko let out a chuckle as she jumped away, her six crimson wings flapping once to give her a boost as she rushed over the surface of the water.
"I will not deny that you hold a certain beauty, Jigoku – Both that of a woman, as well as that of a fighter, that is, with that muscular body of yours. However, while I cannot deny beauty, yours does not strike me in the way you implied just now." shot Meiling back, not moving from her spot, her eyes resting on her opponent.
"Polite as ever... And let me tell ya, I'm not really disappointed now – I think we are more similar than you think, as I cherish the fragile beauty as well." sniggered Ryoko, changing her course, rushing past Meiling behind her back, "Ya may have ya tail curled around that maid of yours, Dragon – I on the other hand am the beast in my little fairytale, Shiho my beauty."
Ryoko changed her course all of sudden, stopped in her old spot in front of Meiling, grinned at the gatekeeper of the Scarlet Devil Mansion.
"Well, at least I'm not into cosplay like that woman of yours." she added – And suddenly twirled on the spot while sliding across the water towards Meiling, swung her right foot in a horizontal arc, coated in darkness. The gatekeeper rose both of her arms and blocked the incoming foot, shifted in her stance by moving her left foot back, twisted her right hand and laid it Ryoko's ankle while moving her other hand up to the ex-queen's calf, and then took two steps back while pulling the beast along, throwing her across the battlefield.
Ryoko impacted with the surface of the water and bounced off it, twisted in midair and landed in a crouched position on the water, sliding on it while using the liquid to slow herself down. Looking up, she found the colorful woman charging at her, and quickly rose to her full height while summoning a thin wall of darkness in front of her.
Meiling's punch of color broke through the darkness, but lost all of it's strength. This provided a new target for Ryoko, who quickly grabbed the fist and pulled Meiling into her – while swinging her head forward, headbutting the dragon.
The ex-queen's smirk became all sinister as she saw that Meiling was not defending herself, and summoned her powers. Black fog escaped her body as her powers of darkness and nightmares activated, allowing her free movement – Her fog-like body rushed forward, was in front of Meiling in a second, and her left fist became material again before it swung up and hit the gatekeeper into the stomach, making her double over.
Black fog rushed past Meiling as Ryoko shot up into the air and backflipped, turning her body into it's solid shape again, right fist above her head and shrouded in darkness. She fell towards the still unmoving Meiling, her smirk growing as she aimed for the dragon's back. Just before Ryoko hit her, though, Meiling moved again, fell forward and caught herself in a roll.
She still hadn't recovered from the pain in her gut, and yet had felt the other woman approaching from above at an alarming speed, forcing her to avoid. It was the sudden movement of the water beneath her that made Meiling turn to the spot she had been in a moment before, the spot where Ryoko had impacted with the water.
The same spot was now a gigantic hole in the water, with the darkness-wielding woman at the center of the chasm, even as the water around her collided and came crashing down, swallowing her. Meiling didn't need to think twice about why Ryoko had allowed that to happen, and quickly jumped up into the air, escaping the hand that shot out of the water and tried to grab her ankle that way.
While in the air, Meiling observed as Ryoko's body followed her hand and left the water, her wet unruly hair now clinging to her body like her clothes did. Once she was completely out of the water and hovered over it's surface again, the darkness-wielding woman unfolded her wings and grinned at Meiling.
The Qi-manipulating woman, still high in the air above her opponent, swung her right fist forward, sending a burst of colorful Qi at Ryoko, who blocked it with a wave of darkness that rolled over the ground. Meiling had expected that and pushed her other fist forward, sending another burst of colorfulness at her opponent, but didn't just stop this time and began alternating in pushing her left and right fist forward as she fell, sending burst after burst of colorful Qi at Ryoko, forcing the dangerous woman to block the entire time.
Two burst of Qi got through, pushing the ex-queen back a little, but not doing any real damage to her. Meiling eventually landed in front of her, immediately ducked under the punch of the mad woman and grabbed her arm, flung her over her head and smashed her into the ground – If there would've been any. Instead of taking damage, Ryoko just dove into the water and vanished from the dragon's sight.
Meiling almost expected Ryoko to appear beneath her again, but the dark queen appeared in the distance rather than close to Meiling, shooting a fountain of water in the air as she surfaced. Instead of coming right at Meiling again, the ex-queen rose her arms and extended her wings, then began to spin on the spot. At first, this seemed pointless, that was until Meiling noticed the vortex that began to form under Ryoko.
"People fear being sucked up into their nightmares... Like a vortex that drags them down and will never let them wake up again... I command these nightmares, it is my aspect of darkness. Rumia and I share the control of darkness, we share the ability to make the dark bend to our will – But aside that, we both control one aspect of darkness. While mine is the nightmare, she controls the darkest epitome of darkness, the very deepest point of it – The loss of one self, the madness swallowing your mind, the point where all has shattered and been left – The suicide." shouted the dark queen, spinning faster.
"I'm not here to listen to your pointless rants." yelled Meiling back, hands flaring up in colorful Qi. She brought them together and released a gigantic wave of Qi, rolling over the surface of the water, creating a gigantic wave in front of it. Ryoko, however, merely sneered and enjoyed this challenge, finally stopping her spinning to bring her hands together as well, directing them at the nearing wave of color and water.
The vortex beneath her suddenly spun the other direction, the light-blue water turning darker and darker as it, instead of returning to it's original state, spiraled up into a dark inverted vortex around Ryoko. This inverted vortex created a gigantic spear-like drill above her head, and upon command from the dark queen, shot forward and clashed with the wave of water and color, not only breaking it apart, but also shot right through it, right towards Meiling.
With hands clad in colorful Qi, Meiling caught the enormous drill, which still spun as she held it, color fighting blackness right at the point of her hands, mere centimeters away from her chest. With a roar escaping her throat, the dragon pulled her hands upwards, directing the spear-drill away from her. It shot up into the air, threatened to hit the island and impale it – If not for Utsuho's and Flandre's shouts disrupting the air that moment.
"ABYSS NOVA!"
"TABOO! LAEVATEINN!"
Meiling's eyes widened as she heard her younger mistress and close friend call the name of her legendary wand, surprised that Utsuho had really pushed Flandre to the point of using the spellcard associated with the wand.
A gigantic red light erupted from atop the island, followed by a red pillar cutting through the island – And the black drill that had been about to hit it. Dark sparks rained down from the sky, along with dust and debris from the island, making both Meiling and Ryoko stop and watch the event – Especially as a large part of the island suddenly shook and disconnected from the rest, slowly sinking, falling out of the sky.
Flandre had cut a large part of the island off.
Meiling quickly realized she would have to dodge the falling part of the island, as well as the debris that rained down along with it, all of them big enough to crush a house with. But it shouldn't be as easy as just dodging those – Just when Meiling began to move, she heard something pushing off the water to her right, rather than hitting it.
Reacting quickly, Meiling sled her right foot across the surface of the water as she turned on the spot, bringing her hands up to defend herself, coating them in colorful Qi. Ryoko's punch collided with the color, blackness and color fighting one another again, their respective owner putting a lot of pressure into them.
Ryoko, having been still in the air from her jump, landed in front of Meiling and twirled on the spot, bringing a darkness-shrouded leg up in an attempt to break through Meiling's guard, but failed with it and quickly spun again, putting all power she could get at that moment to hit Meiling's guard with.
Darkness broke through color but faded, Meiling sliding backwards over the surface of the water. Her right heel dug into the liquid and stopped her, but too fast, the velocity sending Meiling into an unintentional backflip, followed by several more as she bounced along the surface of the water again and again, not coming to a stop until she managed to push her hands, clad in blue Qi, into the water, stopping her.
In a crouched position on the surface of the water, Meiling rose her gaze and growled, scanning the large body of water for the beast of a woman that was nowhere to be found.
"BLACK METEOR!"
Looking up, Meiling found the woman on top of one of the falling debris, slamming her hands down on it, creating a gigantic magic seal of black color on it. Black fog sled across the surface of the debris like a creeping shadow, enveloping it, holding it in midair – And then sending it flying at Meiling, a fiery tail of darkness following it as it descended.
"Tch..." hissed the gatekeeper, narrowing her eyes, allowing Qi to flow freely through her body, waiting until the black meteor was just about to hit her, "Fiery attack 'Roc-killing Fist'!"
All the Qi from Meiling's body, safe for the blue one holding her on the surface of the water, flew into her right fist as Meiling swung it at the meteor, seven colors rushing over Meiling's arm like colorful water, circling and curling around it to flow directly into Meiling's fist – Releasing a gigantic wave of colorfulness as Meiling's fist, opening into a palm in the last moment, slammed into the gigantic rock and stopped it.
Ryoko, flying in midair in the original position of the debris she had turned into a meteor, could only stop and stare as Meiling held the meteor in position with just her right hand, the blackness that had surrounded it washed off by the color.
And then, the meteor just shattered, turned into dust that fell down onto the surface of the water, and Ryoko was really glad that she hadn't been in the meteor's place.
For a moment, Ryoko didn't feel as excited anymore to face Meiling – Sure, she loved a challenge, and a strong and honorable fighter like Meiling was just the type she loved to fight... But that move just now was scary, even for the woman with the metal studs in the face.
With the rock gone, the two locked gazes again, and Ryoko decided to immediately continue by summoning a spellcard before Meiling could.
"Dark Sign 'Moon rises'!" yelled the ex-queen, the spellcard in her hands exploding into a white light that gathered in behind her, changing color into yellow, creating an orb almost as tall as the two meter woman. She lifted her hands into the air and the orb rose, like a moon rising on the horizon, until it was above it's owners head – Then burst apart into flare-like bullets that rained down on Meiling.
The gatekeeper jumped backwards and avoided the first bullet, which impacted with the water and vanished. Landing on the water again, Meiling noticed another three of the bullets closing in, and immediately pushed herself to the right, using blue Qi to roll over the surface of the water instead of sinking into it, avoiding the three bullets.
Seeing the rest come, Meiling, one one knee, repeated what she had done earlier to break past Ryoko's defense, alternating in punching with her left and right hand, sending burst of color at the yellow bullets, blowing them up.
Just as all of them were taken care of, they returned, appearing out of nowhere to gather above Ryoko's head again, similar to how Utsuho Reiuji summoned her miniature suns. It was really fitting that the two of them had ended up on the same team – Utsuho throwing miniature suns, Ryoko miniature moons.
When Ryoko brought her hands down, throwing the huge orb of yellow at Meiling, she wasn't in for the surprise that Meiling had held for her.
Meiling jumped right into the moon.
~ Music fades into silence ~
Shocked, Ryoko lowered her guard and stared at the orb, cautious, expecting the orb to blow up or fly back at her – Nothing happened. But the moon had stopped, was no longer descending.
Swallowing, Ryoko decided to near the orb and reabsorb it, to see what had become of Meiling – It was the same moment that Meiling reappeared.
~ Music: Fairy Tail – Mirajane Satan Soul Theme ~
An enormous roar echoed through the battlefield as Meiling resurfaced from the mood, having made her way through.
Ryoko immediately noticed the difference in the gatekeeper's appearance, parts of Meiling's body covered in scales, transformed into something that resembled a lizard – Meiling had entered her half-dragon mode, in which she transformed halfway back into the Chinese dragon that she was.
With talons and scaly legs instead of her human ones, two mighty wings on her back, a large tail, her formerly aqua-colored eyes now a scary yellow, scaly arms and two branch-like horns, pointing to the back, Meiling had turned into the half-dragon form that she possessed, scaring the bold woman that was her opponent, who had certainly not expected that.
Now in her Half-Dragon form, Meiling rushed straight at the ex-queen, forcing her to raise her defense. The two clashed in midair, Meiling's increased power pushing Ryoko through the air with little to no power, pinning her against the barrier, making the ex-queen snarl in pain.
Meiling immediately pushed off Ryoko, but wasn't prepared for the bold woman grabbing her dragon-tail, slamming Meiling into the barrier by it. The dragon didn't really care about that, and quickly pushed off it, pulling Ryoko along with her.
Rushing straight towards the falling debris, Meiling slammed her opponent in and through them, before throwing Ryoko straight at a fifth one, causing pain and excitement, a rush of adrenaline, to the ex-queen of the nocturnal Youkai of the Forest of Magic.
With a flap of her wings, Meiling was in front of her opponent again, pointing both palms at the ex-queen.
"Your world really needs some color, you beast of a beauty." whispered Meiling, before a powerful stream of seven colors hit Ryoko into the chest, sending her spiraling down towards the water again. Hitting the surface at full force, Ryoko screamed out, watched in shock as the water around her was pushed away and how she kept flying – Until she hit another hard surface.
The ground of the lake – The entire water of the lake had been pushed up the barrier, up to the ceiling, just by her impact with it!
"This sudden power... I underestimated her!" shot through the bold woman's mind, just before Meiling suddenly landed on top of her, pushing all air out of Ryoko's lungs when the Chinese woman straddled her waist, "She's on an entirely different level from what I thought! I used too much energy to play around with her – I wasn't prepared for this!"
Meiling swung a scaly fist, aimed directly for the Youkai's face, hitting it with enough force for Ryoko to wonder how she hadn't died – That punch should've just destroyed her, no matter if spellcard rules or not!
A gigantic crater was in the ground around the ex-queen's head as she screamed, her head bouncing off the ground – She was at Meiling's mercy now. From one to the other second, the first fight for her in the tournament, something that Ryoko had thought of as easy – It had turned into an epic disaster for her.
Just when Ryoko thought that she had lost, salvation crashed down on them in shape of the water returning. Meiling was washed off her, and Ryoko used the darkness of the depths of water to quickly regenerate – In full darkness, just like that of the depth that she was in, allowed her regenerative abilities to kick in.
Resurfacing from the water once healed just enough, still exhausted, though, as that wasn't going to be healed, Ryoko shot up into the heaven with a fountain following her – That means, she tried to, but a hand grabbed her ankle and pulled her back down, slamming her right onto a thin layer of blue Qi that lay on the entirety of the water, sending a new wave of pain through her, but also preventing her from diving into it again.
Somersaulting, Ryoko ended up on all fours, quickly stumbled to her feet and turned around to face her opponent again – Meiling grinned her demonic smile as the demon and the dragon locked eyes, before lifting her right hand over her head, fist burning in seven-colored flames.
"Colorful Balance 'Rainbow Taichi'!" called out the Dragon and slammed her scaly fist down on her floor of blue Qi, releasing large waves of color that rolled over the 'ground', forcing Ryoko to avoid into the air immediately. Exactly as Meiling had suspected.
While the colorful waves still rolled over the battlefield below them, Meiling summoned two spellcards at once – A special thing that Yukari Yakumo hadn't really announced. While the spellcard rules did apply to the tournament, it was also stated that the only real rule was "don't kill"... Implying that the spellcard rules in this were special, twisted to 'make things more exciting'. Meiling had noticed this little loophole earlier, but hadn't actually planned on exploiting it.
But that was just like Yakumo to implement such loopholes – One could only suspect that she was planning to exploit them herself.
"Chi Sign 'Fierce Tiger Energy Release'!" shouted the Chinese woman, summoning her fist spellcard, it's effect that of making Meiling's hits more powerful due to releasing more Qi from her body, "Star Chi 'Earth-Moving Star Pulse Bullets`!"
Rushing towards the other woman, Meiling unleashed the second spellcard she had summoned, surprising Ryoko with it. On her way towards Ryoko, using her wings to speed herself up to prevent Ryoko from being able to flee, Meiling pulled her hands back and charged them up with her Qi. Ryoko, seeing that she had no way to avoid pulled her hands up to defend herself with them – Little did she know that they were useless.
Meiling's palms slammed into the rude woman's muscular stomach, making her double over – Just before she was enveloped in a huge, seven-colored orb that hurt her from all sides, draining her energy. Meiling had already pushed off her and was out of the woman's sight – At least until the orb faded, leaving Ryoko to fall out of the sky, and back onto the blue Qi surface... If she would've at least come that far down.
As she fell, Ryoko spotted Meiling standing just beneath her, a dangerous glint in the yellow eyes of the Dragon Youkai. And upon seeing that, Ryoko knew that her world of pain wasn't over yet.
"Ultimate Color!" shouted Meiling, calling forth yet another spellcard, "Mad Colorful Dance!"
A storm of Qi whirled up from the ground, turned into a twister that surrounded Meiling, taking on the shape of a colorful orb around the Dragon-Gatekeeper – And lifted Meiling up into the sky, right into the still falling Ryoko.
The next three seconds were pain like Ryoko had barely ever felt it. The storm of Qi hit her body from everywhere, leaving no space to defend – Every time that she turned to defend herself from the next hit, another followed from elsewhere. It got even worse when she had fully entered the orb – Meiling had been waiting, and the storm of Qi was suddenly aided by a flurry of punches and kicks.
By the time that the spellcard was over, Ryoko felt like a wreck. She fell silently to the ground, hit it with her face first and remained on her stomach, staring down into the water below her through the blue Qi for a second, before raising her gaze, just in time to see Meiling land in front of her, one human feet, meaning she had turned back to her human appearance, sliding over the ground gracefully, Meiling going back into her fighting stance like she had just gone through her daily routine of Tai Chi Chuan.
"Urgh... It seems it is true what they say... Hong Meiling is a strong Youkai, skilled in Martial Arts... While not much of a Danmaku fighter, she is still well-rounded, has no actual weak point..." growled the ex-queen in her thoughts as she pushed herself onto all fours, then onto her feet.
"Still not defeated?" muttered Meiling, seeing that her opponent still had gotten up. Ryoko sneered, then pulled her lips up in a weak, and yet malicious, grin.
"No way. You'll need way more than..." began Ryoko, but was interrupted by Meiling narrowing her eyes and pulling up her hand, revealing another spellcard.
"Flower Sign!" shouted the gatekeeper, taking on a battle stance, narrowing her aqua-blue eyes at her opponent, "Colorful Light Lotus Palm!"
One second she was there, the next she was gone – And an incredible pain shot through Ryoko's chest, making it impossible for her to breathe. Keeping her eyes open despite the pain and the breath suck in her lungs, glaring down to her chest, Ryoko found a Chinese sign glowing in bright red on her chest – The same second that her back exploded in light of the same color, releasing the breath stuck in her chest.
While taking a deep breath, the woman fell onto her knees, eyes wide as she felt every single nerve in her body twitch and throb, sore. It felt like her whole body was on fire, and refused to extinguish, her nerves refusing to go numb – Before it suddenly became cold, very cold.
Her legs gave in and she stared straight ahead, the colors in front of her eyes blurring and mixing.
"My finisher. How do you like it? Enjoying this secret Chinese skill of mine? It seems you're currently feeling it's effects... Don't worry, your nervous system will return to normal soon... You'll just be a little sore for the rest of the day. But that won't be a problem, right? I bet that 'fragile beauty' you cherish so much will take care of you." chuckled Meiling, rolling her shoulders while grinning to herself.
Her part was done as well. If she was right, Flandre and Utsuho were both out – No explosions above her meant that neither of the explosive fighters were fighting anymore. Furthermore, she felt Flandre's aura having calmed, meaning Flandre was unconscious... It was up to Koishi now to finish Rin. And even if Koishi would lose, Meiling was still able to take on Rin – Ryoko had been a worthy enemy, but not strong enough to defeat her when she was serious.
"It's... not over, dragon." snarled the bold woman, making Meiling turn to her and smile. Ryoko was back on her feet, weak and yet still conscious. But she was wrong – It was over for her.
"Is it?" chuckled Meiling, pointing down to Ryoko's feet. The bold woman frowned, first thought this to be a distraction, but remembered that Meiling was an honorable fighter... So she looked down, while Meiling turned away and smiled, walking towards the barrier closest to her.
Ryoko frowned as she noticed that her shadow was gone – No, rather than that, it was swallowed by a much, much larger shadow. Frowning, the bold woman turned around to look for the cause of this shadow, but found nobody and nothing behind her. But then, remembering that the sun was shining down on the battlefield from above, realized that the shadow came from above.
"Oh, by the way... I'm sorry. This would've hurt a lot already, but now that your nervous system is stimulated to feel even more... Well, let's just say that you won't have to worry about feeling it for the rest of the day... But to my defense, it was your own fault. If you would've just stayed down, I wouldn't have used my Lotus Palm..." called Meiling over her shoulder, waving her hand a little.
"What nonsense are you spewing, dragon?" growled the bold woman, rising to her full height, the shadow already forgotten... Until it was too late. Realizing the connection between the shadow and Meiling's words, Ryoko looked up – Just in time to see the part of the island that Flandre had cut off falling on top of her, burying her beneath.
~ Music fades out ~
"Too much pain causes one to faint... Getting crushed by the part of a floating island, doubled by your nervous system being stimulated should be more than enough for that to happen..." chuckled Meiling after hearing the island's cut-off part impact with her Qi barrier. Ryoko should be grateful, though – Would Meiling have removed the barrier, she'd be buried by the island's cut-off part at the bottom of the lake.
Feeling another weak presence aside that of the buried Youkai behind her, Meiling stopped just in front of the barrier and glanced over her shoulder. She found the source of this presence just on top of the fallen part of the island – Utsuho Reiuji, lying on her back. Her hair, wings and cape were slightly charred, her gaze was empty, meaning she was knocked out, saliva running from her mouth over her face.
The Chinese woman began to giggle madly at the sight, proud of Flandre for having defeated such a powerful foe. Taking a few steps back and then rushing forward, Meiling ran up to the barrier and made a leap for it – Running it up, Qi beneath her feet giving her the necessary boost. She knew that she could've just jumped into the air and take flight – But now that she had adrenaline pumping through her veins, she might as well turn this into a workout.
Running up the entire barrier, Meiling's smile widened with every step she took – Now it was just the Kasha, and then Flandre, Koishi and her would be in the semi-finals – Facing Remilia, Satori and Sakuya. It wasn't that hard to figure out who would fight against whom, right?
Reaching the height she felt to be just high enough, the Chinese woman jumped off the barrier, backflipped and landed on the grass of what had remained within the air of the island – Not exactly much, seeing how it was only the shallow lake, the middle of the island and the area with the circle of totem-like statues. Flandre and Utsuho had really gone all out...
With a smirk towards Koishi, who shortly looked away from Rin, she told the younger Komeiji with her gaze alone that she'd take care of Flandre, and that she was trusting Koishi to win.
Letting out a sigh of relief, Meiling stretched her limbs, straightened her clothes, and then plopped down next to the sleeping vampire, in the shade of the last tree on the island. Gently lifting Flandre up, she placed the vampire's head on her lap, waited until Flandre curled up, and then rested her head against the tree. Closing her eyes herself, she decided to doze a little while waiting for Koishi to finish the battle.
That fight with Ryoko Jigoku had been nice. While not disappointing at all, Meiling still wished that the bold woman would've lasted a little longer...
Chôzen's PoV
"Hm... Not really much left of the island, is there?" I mused, examining the remains of the floating island, and the parts of it that lay on the blue Qi surface that Meiling had summoned earlier. And that was only the part Flandre had cut off earlier – Everything before that was somewhere beneath it, in the depths of the lake.
"Well, it's only Koishi and Rin, they don't need much space." joked Marisa, patting my left shoulder. Some time in between Flandre's victory over Utsuho and Meiling's victory over my old teacher Ryoko, the witch had recovered from Sakuya's 'new ability'.
And was just getting ready for '"Lets bully the maid, round 2"... I just felt it.
Mentally preparing for another round of bad puns, I left Rumia and Nanatsu to muse over something that Satori had said a few moments ago about Koishi's 'improved and reformed' ability.
What had Satori said again?
"It was something like 'The blind ones know insanity, those who keep their eyes open to the truth stay sane'... And something like 'Those who have their eyes shut for them are prone to panic, which is the first step to insanity'... Don't ask me, I'm not good with riddles."
I had to agree with the Flame-Soul there... I wasn't good with that kind of riddles as well, and wasn't really about to ponder about it. Until now, Koishi hadn't shown any kind of improved ability, had fought Rin without as much as even showing anything flashy that looked like an ability – Little did I know that I just hadn't seen it, the ability way more obvious than what we were expecting from the girl that had once acted on her subconsciousness alone.
Not wanting to waste my thoughts with pondering, deciding that we'd sooner or later just see Koishi's abilities, I wandered over to where my two daughters were standing. I walked past Mima and Marisa in the process, who were whispering among themselves, and heard the word 'time' – I immediately knew they were talking about their next round of bad puns.
Standing next to my daughters, I glanced at them for a second, and then out the window again. Yajû was standing next to the window, leaned against the wall with one foot lifted and resting against it, Yume on the other hand resorted to just standing next to me.
"What do you think so far? About Gensokyo, I mean?" I asked after a few seconds, "Lively, isn't it? Let me tell you... To see them like we do right now is – Well, it might look hectic and chaotic, but it's actually the calm state. Usually, it's way more chaotic – But at least never boring."
"I think it rocks – I mean, it's weird to see that many different people, all of them with some kind of ability, each a little more powerful and scary than the other... But I'm enjoying it here so far – And I can't wait for it to get chaotic! Heck, seeing them fight down there makes me wanna fight as well!" exclaimed Yajû, pumping a fist into the air, a mad smirk lingering on her lips.
"I'm not really sure – The people are nice, I think... But..." began Yume, voicing her doubts. She trailed off, though. I felt that she was still insecure about this, but knew that she'd just need her time – She was the shy one, after all, and it took her time to get used to people, and especially loud and chaotic places.
"Let's begin round two! DAAAA ZE!" shouted Marisa behind me, and I immediately face-palmed. Oh, I hate it when I'm right.
"Yeah! Sorry we kept ya waiting, maid... I mean, time waits for no one, but thanks for trying, anyways." snorted Mima, crossing her arms in beneath her chest as she and her disciple turned to the maid in question – Which was immediately fuming again.
"Again with this nonsense?!" she shouted, reaching behind her to pick up a cleaver from the buffet table, which she immediately held like one of her knives.
"Watch out where you're pointing that cleaver!" gasped Koakuma as she saw the dangerous weapon in Sakuya's hands – Well, more dangerous than usual, taking into account that Sakuya was a master of knife-wielding.
"Let her, succubus. It's the only cleavage she has." commented the evil spirit with a nonchalant shrug – And it suddenly became very silent in the Scarlet Devil Lounge.
"Man, Miss Mima... That was a cleaver pun." muttered Marisa, eyes wide – And then, she and her mentor burst into a fit of laughter, doubling over while holding their aching stomachs.
"Are they... Always playful like that?" asked Yajû, gently poking my side to get my attention. I let out a sigh upon hearing that and seeing the mentor-disciple duo, gently began to rub the base of my nose in irritation.
"Alone? No. Together? ...What you see is only the beginning." I grumbled, grudgingly admitting to myself that it was about to get only worse.
"Aw man... I think who I might wanna hang out with once the tournament is over." sniggered Rumia's daughter.
"Oh no, you won't! Not with Mima and Marisa!" shouted Nanatsu from the other side of the room, suddenly twirling around to face us. The mentor-disciple duo perked up upon hearing their names – And before I knew, they had rushed past me and had taken up their spots on each side of Yajû, an arm wrapped around the Angel of Death's shoulders.
"Don't listen to her, da ze! You really should spend time with us three!" claimed Marisa, flicking her fingers to summon a little star, which amazed Yajû.
"Three?" inquired Yume quietly, looking from Mima to Marisa and back. Both frowned at the question and shared a confused glance – then smiled stupidly at my older daughter.
"Of course, didn't ya listen?" snickered Marisa, nodding to herself.
"Yeah! We want her to hang out with Marisa, me and time, of course." added the Akuryou – And caused Sakuya to cringe.
"Don't associate me with you two!" roared the enraged maid, picking up the cleaver that she had just neatly placed back on the table behind her again, almost throwing it at the duo, only holding back because my daughter was with them.
Mima and Marisa immediately burst into another fit of laughter, confusing the maid in question, her left eyelid twitching dangerously.
"Di-Didn't know that you were listening to that nickname now, 'time'." choked Mima in between laughter, before turning to her disciple, "Oh my god, time is running out for us – Hope she comes back with a nice cup of coffee!"
Mima never heard Marisa reply, the hilt of the cleaver hitting her over the head, slamming it into the wall, knocking the spirit unconscious. Everyone watched in shock as Mima slid down on the wall, the smirk still on her face, even though she was unconscious.
"I bet Mima was wondering why the knife got bigger and bigger... But then it hit her."
"That one hurt."
"Wait for what I have in store..."
"That joke didn't make the cut, Mima." I snorted, unable to hold back a pun of my own. Marisa's shocked expression immediately turned back into a cheery grin, thinking she had found another partner for her jokes in me – Until Sakuya held the cleaver in her hand dangerously close to the eyes of the witch, her expression pretty much daring Marisa to make a wrong move or comment.
"S-Sakuya, buddy... Always right on time..." chuckled the witch uneasily while raising her hands in defense to her chest, only to realize she had just accidentally made another pun about time. Sakuya rose an eyebrow, Marisa took another step back and tried to calm the maid down with some wild gestures – When the door to the Lounge opened, allowing Alice to step into the room with a girl in tow that I identified to be Hina Kirisame – Yajû and Yume had mentioned meeting the daughter of the magicians the day before.
"Miss Alice." greeted Sakuya, not pulling her cleaver away from Marisa's throat – Wait a second, when had she even pinned the Love Magician against the wall like that?
"I see that Mima and Marisa have been keeping you busy again?" inquired the woman that I hated with all my heart, before turning and bowing to Remilia, "Remilia... Thank you for inviting us to your Lounge."
Remilia smirked at that and nodded to the Doll Magician and her daughter – I have to say, Hina Kirisame sure got the beauty of Alice. One could see that resemblance between the two, the same pale skin, the same face, the same golden-blonde hair...
"Gekilldo... Should've figured you'd be here." smiled Alice upon spotting me. Hina seemed to notice Yajû and Yume, and quickly walked up to them, smiling at my two daughters. Seeing that the two had found at least one friend already took some weight off my shoulders – And woke a little hope in me. Maybe they'd at least get along - I sincerely wished that they wouldn't continue the problems between Gekido and Margatroid, the problems I and Alice had been through, and were still stuck with.
Of course, no one knew about Alice's and my encounter during the night before – Not that we wanted anybody to know. It was just another thing on the pile of secrets that we shared... It wasn't like anybody would understand them, anyways.
"Murdertroid. Good to see you, if you believe it or not." I smiled back at the blonde, before wrapping my arms around her in what one would probably call an affectionate hug – One between 'siblings', since that was what Alice and I were ever since Shinki had accepted me as one of her own. Speaking of her...
"By the way... Mom would enjoy if you'd drop by sooner or later. I met her and my sisters earlier in the quarter she shares with Mima and Yuuka... They all can't wait to see you again... Oh, and I have a message for you." laughed the puppeteer... And suddenly sweatdropped.
"If you see Louise, please knock her out and bring her to mom. She's on the run since this morning..." murmured Alice – Causing me to sweatdrop as well. Oh boy, Louise... That blonde demon never gave up on trying to escape and see more of Gensokyo, huh?
"What's that about?" snorted Yajû, rubbing the back of her neck, revealing that she had been listening to our conversation.
"My sister, Louise. She always tries to escape our home, Makai, to travel around Gensokyo..." sighed Alice with an uneasy smile.
"Travel?" snickered Yajû, "Almost sounds like that blonde in white and violet that we saw earlier, Yume. You know, the one with that giant white bag... She was trying to get through the crowd with that heavy luggage, but it got stuck in a doorway... Man, aunt Yukari was beyond pissed."
Yajû cringed the moment that Alice and I did.
"Uhm... Alice?" snickered Marisa uneasily, glancing towards Sakuya, who was leaned against the wall next to her with closed eyes, the cleaver still on the witch's throat, "Doesn't that sound suspiciously lot like Louise?"
"Wait... You mean that gal was your sister?" muttered Yajû in surprise.
"Where is she?! If she gets out of the arena, she might end up... God-knows-where! She's got the worst sense of direction I have ever seen!" exclaimed Alice, throwing her hands into the air, forcing her dolls Shanghai and Hourai, who had hovered over her head, to avoid.
"Sounds like your misdirection is contagious, Sakuya... You haven't been spending time with Louise, have ya, ze?" snickered Marisa, temporarily forgetting her position – Only to remember when the maid in question moved... Taking the blade away from the scared magician's throat.
"Time starts flowing again... Must be the end of 'the world'..."
"Not you too..." I groaned in my head, disapproving of his habit of joining anything that seemed to be fun to him. To make things worse, Sakuya began to giggle as she walked away from the scared Marisa and the baffled, recently awoken Mima.
"She's giggling.. She must be in her own little world again."
"Stop it, it annoys me as well."
"Can't believe you aren't joining him, Insanity... Usually, you approve of teasing people."
"The puns are so bad that my head is throbbing... Do you think I'd encourage him to continue?"
Nodding my head a little, perhaps confusing a few people as I had no reason to do so, I agreed with Insanity. Yes, maybe it was time to stop with all the puns about time, even if I am sure that we'd come up with much more, given we had the time to do so... Pun not intended, by the way.
"Look, Marisa, you could either stop now, or we'll turn this into a game of hide-and-seek... But I'm sure you won't find the time for it, so better stick with the first option." snorted Sakuya, tapping the cleaver against her left wrist.
...Did she just make a pun herself?
"We should stop, Marisa... Let's kill time some other way." suggested Mima.
...Hadn't she got the note yet that any pun from now on was dangerous?! She was treading on this ice there!
"We could clock her out of the Lounge with a spell!" added the Akuryou. Mima, you better stop this...
"Or make the gatekeeper work around the clock!" Mima, Sakuya is getting pissed there... And why are you smirking, Marisa? Don't tell me you're getting in the mood again!
"Sure... But I think we should stop now. Sakuya has problems aside us, Miss Mima... The problem with time-controlling powers is, after all, that it tends to repeat itself..." chuckled Marisa – Not looking like she sincerely wanted to stop.
"I don't think the maid even has chronokinesis – To be honest, I think she's just cutting corners in the mansion." smirked Mima – And I seriously wanted to kill myself to escape the chaos about to unfold.
"The problem with time-controlling powers is, after all, that it tends to repeat itself." said Marisa – Wait, didn't she just say that?
"Why are you repeating that, Mari..." whispered Mima – Only for her face to light up all of sudden, "Ooooh, I get it!"
"Ba Dum Tss."
"Would you explain what the hell is going on, Gekilldo?" hissed Alice all of sudden, leaning closer to me, eyes resting on the two laughing magicians and the pissed maid, and how everyone else just ignored it. I sweatdropped and let out a sigh.
"Let's bully the maid, round three..." I replied, slumped my shoulders and glanced towards the battlefield again. Hina, Yajû and Yume weren't even paying attention anymore, too caught up with their heated conversation about something. Nanatsu and Rumia had gone back to musing about Koishi again, Satori and Remilia were talking on the side, Patchouli and Koakuma were reading, Yúgure was still dozing – Seriously, I wish I could have such a sound sleep!
"Chôzen..." began Alice again, tugging on my sleeve, making me frown as she had just called me by my name, "Could you do me, mom and our siblings a favor and see if you can find Louise? I'm going to head out as well..."
I rose an eyebrow at the puppeteer's request, but then shrugged, seeing no problem with it.
"Yeah... Why not?" I replied, and felt my heartbeat speed up at the sight of Alice's warm smile.
"Thanks."
"No problem, Murdertroid." I replied, then turned to Yume and gently laid a hand on her shoulder to catch her attention, seeing as she was only listening to Yajû and Hina at the moment, "Yajû said something about Louise's bag getting stuck in a doorway..." Yume nodded slowly at this.
"She was blocking the way to the stairs, which attracted aunt Yukari's attention. She was really mad, and just used her gap powers to get rid of Louise and her bag... She said something about sending her to the loudest point of the arena as punishment, and something about her not getting away there any time soon..." whispered Yume. I nodded a short thanks and turned to the doll-controlling magician.
After sharing a short glance with the puppeteer, Alice turned away, bowed to Remilia and gestured that it was urgent and that she had to leave and would come back later to at least pick up Hina, and left the Lounge without another word to look for her elusive sister. Remilia didn't seem to mind that the daughter of the puppeteer stayed – From the looks of it, Hina had been in her care before, and got along with Airisu, the youngest vampire. While not having been properly introduced to her, I had already figured out her background, but didn't interact with her yet. I saved that for another, less chaotic time.
Stretching my limbs, I turned to inform my wives, as well as the others in the room that I'd leave for a while – Maybe not returning, not sure how long it would take me to find my elusive sister from Makai.
Only to be interrupted before I even begun by Mima and Marisa, still in the middle of their round of 'Let us bully the maid'.
"Back in the day, Alice made a doll based on you, Sakuya. It was a time bomb." joked Marisa – Not even her mentor Mima was laughing at that one, causing the love magician to scoff, "And that wasn't even a joke... She still has those."
"Marisa... Do you really want me to use 'Perfect Square' on you?" hissed the maid after a few moments of silence, pretty ticked off by now.
"Bet it's called like that cause you couldn't make a 'Perfect circle'." snorted Mima from the side, drawing the attention of the mad maid to her.
"We should take this to the next level and just drop random things on Sakuya's head – Once upon a time, that is." suggested Marisa, jumping back into the game, making me sigh. The way that the two of them were handling things, I wouldn't get to announce my leave anytime soon... Really, it was pretty loud and chaotic in the lounge, even though I would've rather spent time with my 'little sisters' and the rest of the SDM... With no Mima, and no Marisa around, no Alice and no Louise...
"Hey, maid, why are you throwing knives, anyways?" asked Mima upon spotting the knives that Sakuya had just pulled out. For a moment, I really thought that Mima had finally gotten the hint and was serious – Well, I really should stop getting my hopes up when it came to Mima and her habit of making fun of others – Seriously, if she wasn't threatening Gensokyo's existence or doing something sinister, she was causing chaos by making fun of others...
Well, to make it short: She wasn't serious.
"I bet it was because throwing spoons was too traumatizing for the victims." reasoned Mima, answering her own question, and making me give up hope – I really just wanted to leave the room now and find Louise, which was suddenly very appealing... Sakuya would snap any moment and go 'the world' on their asses – And whoever dared to laugh or would come too close to her.
"Remi... Why aren't you interfering with that?" I heard Satori mutter, and nod towards the two magicians and the maid. I thought that salvation was finally to come – Nope, not anywhere soon.
"There is no need to – Marisa is like that, and Mima is not better at all. It would only waste breath to say something... I've learned that. They are just as bad as Yakumo... Besides, Sakuya can handle the situation herself just fine." replied Remilia, disappointing me as well.
It was time to just leave, no matter if rude or not.
"Now that you mention, wasted, Scarlet..." began Mima, "Don't ever let that maid of yours drink with the Oni. It would just be wasted time – And booze. Rather give it to me."
"Speaking of Remilia..." added Marisa that moment, and I swore that they were getting desperate, "I offered to play tennis with Sakuya once, but she wouldn't play with me – Said she only serves her mistress."
Again, no one was laughing, making the love magician desperate for at least one last joke that would make the others (which meant Mima) laugh.
"The other day, I had a race against time..." growled the witch, and I added mentally that she was probably talking about escaping from Voilé again after 'borrowing' another book, "So I suggested the idea of rushing to finish in time."
Silence. Utter silence. Everyone had turned to stare at the love magician (god, that name really wasn't helping with the dirty joke she had just made!), and Sakuya's face was suddenly taking a shade that would make Remilia proud of her last name.
And then, Sakuya exploded, like I had feared.
"Okay, this is getting out of hand!" shouted the maid – And not only she was fuming now.
"Kirisame! How dare you imply such an indecent thing about my perfect maid! You aren't worthy of walking the same ground as she does! One more thing like that, and I'll throw you out of my Lounge!" roared Remilia as she jumped out of her throne, Gungnir appearing in her right hand, ready to impale the love magician, who had now taken cover behind her mentor.
"I'M SORRY!" shrieked Marisa, carefully peeking around a surprisingly pleased Mima.
"Gehehe... She's just like the lil' child she was back then, hiding behind me~ My Marisa is so cute~" giggled Mima silently, blood running out of her nose... And my left eyelid started twitching.
Well, at least it was quiet now...
"Uh... As I was just about to say..." I began, but no one turned to look at me, all staring at Marisa, "I'll leave and help Alice find Louise, before she flees and gets lost... We don't have much time to finish her, and..."
"Enough with the puns!" bellowed Patchouli now, slamming her book down, "I'm trying to read here! What's it with you people being so noisy?!"
"Lady Patchouli, please calm down, it isn't good for your health!" shrieked Koakuma – And I groaned. The volume was coming back. Better leave now...
Turning on my heels to quickly leave the room, I wasn't expecting anyone to stop me, let alone call my name... And yet I was stopped again.
"Chôzen, before you leave..." called out Sakuya, stopping me and leaving me to groan to myself. "What have I done to deserve this? I wasn't thinking of this when I decided to come back to Gensokyo!"
"Chôzen, Mima, Marisa..." began Sakuya, smiling all of sudden, reaching into her maid uniform – And pulled out three silver pocket watches. She kept them close and looked down at them, smiling sweetly. I frowned, shared a glance with the scared magician and the evil spirit – And suddenly, all three of us had a silver pocket watch hit our face, making not only me stumble backwards.
"Thanks for all the puns, and trying to keep the mood somewhat amusing, but... Now stop it please, will you?" smiled Sakuya, bowing to us, before smiling sinisterly and showing us the three silver pocket watches that she had thrown at us and apparently picked up again during a time-stop, "Because I am watch-ing you."
Silence.
"Okay, I'm actually impressed, maid... That got to be the most simple and yet best pun of the day." admitted Mima after a few seconds of shock, "Especially the part about throwing friggin' watches at us made the joke perfect."
Sakuya grinned sweetly, bowing mockingly, before turning to her mistress and walking over to her, trying to help Satori calm the furious Scarlet down.
"Well..." sighed Marisa and looked from Mima to me and back, "It was only a matter of time until we would've run out of puns, anyways..." Unable to hold back an amused snort at that, Mima and I didn't really pay any attention as Sakuya turned around and threw one of the pocket watches at Marisa, knocking her out with a short "I warned you."
"I'll be going now..." I snickered, waving as I turned to finally leave the Lounge, "Before things reaaaally get out of hand. And I don't mean Louise escaping."
With three quick steps, I left the Lounge through the door that Alice had left open, closed it behind me quickly, and jogged down the corridor in front of the lounge, mingling with the crowd as I left it.
"So Yukari muttered something about sending Louise to the loudest point of the arena, and that she wouldn't get away from there for a while – where could that be? It's not that I don't trust Yukari, but I feel more safe with Louise being guarded by the others from Makai..."
While I made my way through the crowd, along the fence that prevented people from falling over the edge of the story, I glanced towards the battlefield, finding that the fight between Koishi and Rin was still going on – Koishi was really taking her sweet time. Then again, unlike Flandre and Meiling, Koishi didn't use raw strength in battle, but mindgames, which took their sweet time...
Also, Koishi was the only one with a real emotional bond to her opponent... Not that it would stop her from defeating Rin.
Still... What was her new, or rather old but improved, power...?
3rd Person PoV
~ Koishi plays against her sister's pet! Music cue: The world ends with you - Someday ~
"Rekindled~ 'The embers of love'~" sung the younger Komeiji sister as she danced around one of the statues, extending her arms to release large chains of red, violet and blue bullets, directed by a pink heart at the front. The Kasha immediately let out a squeal and dove behind one of the other statues to avoid the heart bullets, knowing and fearing the strength of Koishi's spellcards.
Koishi giggled as she saw her opponent disappear behind the statue, even though her tails were still sticking out, twitching violently. Rin knew of Koishi's powers – Like most of the people of the underground, and now the Scarlet Devil Mansion, she was well aware of the power that the little sister held within, just like Flandre, Remilia's little sister.
Maybe that was why they made such a good team – They were alike in so many things!
Still giggling, Koishi turned to look over to where Meiling rested in the shade of the last tree with Flandre on her lap. Koishi knew that only she would have to win her fight now for their battle to be victorious. She wasn't sure where Utsuho or Ryoko had vanished off to, but she certainly didn't care at all – The only thing she really could think of was how inviting the shade of the tree looked.
She really wanted to join Meiling and Flandre under the tree, just resting. For that, she'd have to finish this fight before – So she better would do so quick, as she wasn't sure how long she'd be able to resist the urge to just abandon her fight and go over to them.
That was a side-effect she still hadn't get rid of. While now acting conscious again, no longer without an actual personality, Koishi sometimes felt the need to act subconscious again, and had to resist the urges that came with it. It was a side-effect of the additional ability she had gained wit re-opening her third eye... Actually rather a part of her ability to manipulate the subconscious than an ability on it's own.
...The urge was getting stronger. She'd better get serious soon, or she'd just abandon the fight and would force Meiling to take over for her that way – Which she consciously didn't want to do, but unconsciously would do.
Better start playing~
"Orin~" sung Koishi, flying towards the statue that her sister's pet was hiding behind. Seeing Rin's tails tense up, she knew that Rin had noticed the childishness in her tone – She knew what Koishi was about to do.
Activating her 'new' ability.
Lifting her hands, Koishi held them protectively around her third eye, focusing on channeling some power into it. She felt as the third eye began to react to her actions, and her smile increased as she felt how her body began to feel a little further away, the movements a little quicker, but less coordinated.
She increased her speed suddenly and dashed around the statue, immediately stopping her sprint again to slide over the ground, right past Rin, sending heart-shaped bullets at her. The Kasha gasped and avoided, falling to the side to avoid the hearts and hide behind the statue.
With Koishi out of sight, Rin quickly dashed across the circle of statues, then hid behind the tallest one to catch her breath. Glancing around the statue, she only found the trail of ghostly bullets that she had left back to prevent Koishi from following her directly. The younger Komeiji had tried to follow her, but had apparently lost interest, instead jumping around Rin's field of bullets while laughing like a little child.
Glancing down to Koishi's chest, Rin found the third eye open as usual now, the red veins still telling of the damage that it had taken when Koishi and Flandre had opened it again, right after the incident with that mask of hope that Koishi had found... That incident sure had weakened Koishi's unconscious state, allowing Flandre to get to Koishi's heart more easily – Which had led to Koishi's eye opening again.
Now, it wasn't entirely open, but still way more than the half. Rin didn't like that at all, though – It had begun.
Upon seeing that the third eye was looking at her, Rin shrieked, and quickly hid behind the statue again. Lifting her hands, Rin called onto her powers and summoned some of the fairies that were her servants – The ghost fairies that always accompanied her during her journeys into the depth of hell. Too bad she hadn't been allowed to bring her cart – Yakumo had said that it was too dangerous.
But how was the cart more dangerous that Utsuho's control rod, or Flandre's Laevateinn? And what had Yukari Yakumo been referring to when she was muttering about 'hells traffic accident' causing more problems in the underground than any nuclear catastrophe Okuu could ever cause?
Rin was just about satisfied with the amount of servants she had summoned – When a few hearts zoomed by, defeating the ghostly fairies before they even could do a thing. With another shriek, the Kasha pushed her back against the statue, and sled along it, trying her best to escape Koishi.
To be honest, the Kasha wasn't made for those fights. She hadn't even wanted to be part of this tournament, but then Okuu appeared and just pulled her along, then that Ryoko Jigoku showed up, declaring that she needed a team so she could enter the tournament to fight Shiho Kumo, who had joined another team and... Before she had known, Rin was on a floating island, avoiding the younger Komeiji.
Glancing around the statue, hoping that Koishi hadn't noticed her slipping away, and was looking for her – If that was the case, Rin could finish this in a single strike, pouncing on the younger Komeiji while she wasn't expecting it.
The only problem: Koishi had gone missing, was no longer on the other side of the statue.
A sense of dread hit the Kasha full force, and she slowly began to turn her head.
"Who are you looking for?" giggled a voice into the Kasha's left ear – Making her shriek and quickly stumble away from the younger sister, which still hang upside-down on the statue, giggling, yet with a glint of insanity in her eyes.
While running backwards from Koishi, sending waves of ghostly bullets at the younger Komeiji, Rin kept her gaze on Koishi's third eye all the time, even as the scary thing turned to stare back at her. Swallowing and turning away, Rin made a mental note that the half-closed eye was really scary.
Seeing the younger sister giggle while randomly dodging the bullets, Rin growled to herself and quickly lifted her hands to summon a new set of servants – That was, she had been about to, when a heart-shaped bullet suddenly penetrated her chest and flew through her body, sending a wave of pain through her body, making her double over while holding her throbbing body.
Just when she was about to get up, another one entered her shoulder, sending her falling onto her right side, holding the shoulder that was now slowly going numb with pain.
Lifting her gaze, ready to fight back after all, Rin was just about to pounce at Koishi, no matter if the satori was fighting back – Only for her attempt to stop right there, her will to fight crushed just by a single glance.
She was staring into a half-closed eye.
Staring into the emotionless eye awoke something within her - Fear, terror. When she tried to look away, she noticed that two small hands were holding her head in place with surprising strength, FORCING her to look into the unfocused eye as it stared straight through her, stared as if she wasn't even there.
When she tried to close her eyes to escape the horrible thing about to happen, she found that her body refused to move. It didn't listen to any command, remained where it was, refused to turn away from the eye – And a cold shiver went down her spine when the eyelid of the eye in front of her shook, threatened to close.
Slowly, the eyelid began to move down, threatened to close the eye – And Rin reacted, threw her right hand into the air, releasing a red bullet that exploded into the shape of a cat's head high above her.
~ Music fades out ~
As the barriers around the battlefield shattered, the fight now that Rin had given up over, Rin felt how the hands let go off her head. She let out a sigh of relief, her tensed muscles relaxing as she could move her head freely once more, even more as the eye in front of her opened completely again. One of the hands that had held her head before moved through her hair until it rested atop her head, then patted her gently.
"Good cat." whispered the voice of Koishi Komeiji, reassuring the Kasha a little, even though her team had lost their first battle of the tournament with her giving up.
Maybe it was better that way, anyways... Maybe it was better if they didn't get any further. Sure, it was disappointing, especially for Okuu, who had wanted to get into the finale, and Ryoko, who had wanted to fight Shiho...
But if things were not meant to be that way, then one shouldn't force them to become like that.
Rin herself was only glad, though... Because she didn't want to fight in the first place, and because Utsuho wouldn't be hurt unnecessarily anymore – She didn't want to see Okuu fighting like that, didn't want her to be hurt in battle. With them having lost the first round, there'd only be the losers rounds. Maybe that was just as much fighting, but it couldn't be avoided now – Forfeiting the tournament was, even for her, no option.
Chôzen's PoV
"And our last battle of the day has come to an interesting end as well. For some reason, combatant Rin has given up – Likely due to her being alone against two more powerful fighters. With her having given up, Ryoko Jigoku and Utsuho Reiuji both down for the count, and Koishi and Meiling of the opponent's team still standing, this means victory for Flandre Scarlet's team." announced Akyuu.
"This proves to be very interestin' from now on. Tomorrow, we'll see Chôzen Gekido, Nanatsu no Taizai and Rumia Gekido-Shisô clashing with Mima Kazami, Yuuka Kazami and the goddess Shinki... For some reason, I wouldn't mind seeing the battle of Gensokyo's future from a twenty years ago on a smaller scale." snickered Sly immediately after Akyuu had stopped, his gaze focused on something a story below me.
Leaning over the fence to get a glimpse at whatever he was looking at, I found Shikieiki standing just below me, staring back at the judge with scorn in her eyes – Just what was their problem with one another? Why were they staring at each other with these weird emotions?
"And don't forget that we'll be seeing a clash of siblings right after that – Remilia Scarlet, Satori Scarlet and Sakuya Izayoi against Flandre Scarlet, Koishi Komeiji and Hong Meiling. And even after that, we still have the finale, the fight against the champions of the last years and the losers rounds... We're far from the end of this year's tournament!" added Aya, for once agreeing with the barkeeper.
"It's over for today, though – Yúgure is exhausted from terraforming the battlefield twice, and has asked to have the rest of the day off. We can't disagree – More than enough destruction has been brought upon us today." finished Rinnosuke finally.
I didn't listen to the rest.
Turning away as the crowds continued to cheer and call out their favorite team's name, I continued my quest to find the lost sister of Alice (and me, in a sense). I still kept my gaze on the battlefield as it reverted to it's original appearance, the lake beneath the island long gone, and the actual floating island slowly sinking back to the ground to become one with it, turning back into the boring and plain stone ground it once had been.
"Louise is... Wherever the hell it's supposed to be the loudest in the arena. Where should that be? Obviously not the battlefield, during a fight no sound from the outside comes in, and no sound from inside gets out. Near the judges makes no sense as well... And in and around the Scarlet Devil Lounge pretty much is the most quiet area in the arena itself, safe for the corridors leading to the living quarters, since it's placed on the wall on the back of the arena." I pondered, looking to the locations in question.
"Nope. Not anywhere near there. But where then? Cirno's living quarter? The mansion where the Prismrivers live – Wait, that's not even in the arena."
I abandoned that other thought quickly as well – The bubbly Cirno wasn't even in her quarter, anyways. So where then? Where in the name of Yasaka is it the loudest in the arena?
My trail of thoughts was cut off when the loud music from the introduction blared out of large speakers in the upper corners of the arena, forcing me to growl at the thought that I might get a headache from the volume – And sweatdropped upon realizing where Louise was.
Averting my gaze from the Scarlet Devil Lounge to the other side of the arena, since it was obvious that it was the loudest on the other side, away from the relatively quiet Lounge, I lifted my gaze to just below the ceiling, I frowned at the speaker in each corner – And the white object on one of them.
"Seriously, Yukari...?" I snorted as I lifted off the ground, before turning to my Flame-Soul, "Inform Alice. I'll meet her here in a moment – Tell her I've found Louise."
With the emerald flame zooming off, I rose higher into the air, making people turn and point at me in confusion – After all wasn't I just flying, but I was also the guy that had fought Kanako Yasaka the day before... After slamming and and through the barrier that had been supposed to keep people and attacks from entering and leaving the battlefield.
Whoever hadn't seen that was probably blind – And immediately was glad that Eirin wasn't able to read minds, after all, she had not seen it due to being in the medical wing at that time...
Reaching the speaker with the strange white object on it, I made a mental note about being glad that the music had stopped again, and then landed on the speaker, right next to the unknown object – Which now, true to my suspicions, turned out to be Louise's bag, and Louise.
At the same, freaking time.
Blinking in confusion at the white luggage with Louise's head sticking out of it, I seriously found myself amazed at Yukari's humor – And what she was capable of once irritated. She must really enjoy the fighting tournament if she'll do things like these... Makes me scared of the next time that I'd face her – And would get my punishment for fighting with Kanako.
"Uhm... Comfy there, Louise?" I chuckled at the girl in the bag – Man, I really wish I had that potion from that chaotic day back then, the one that turned Rumia into a neko... If used on Louise now, this would give the idiom of 'Letting the cat out of the bag' an entirely new meaning!
The girl in question, or rather, in the bag, scowled at me, narrowing her yellow eyes dangerously as she began to struggle against her confinement.
"...Shut up. You fiend." grumbled the girl in the bag after a few moments of struggling, finally giving it up.
"Geez, aren't you thankful that I went out to find your sorry ass?" I snorted, but nonetheless moved closer to the bag to pick it up – Of course with the immediate complaints from the girl I the luggage, who had wanted to escape earlier.
While carrying the bag and the girl inside, I focused back on the spot I had originally come from. True to my suspicion, Alice and my Flame-Soul were already awaiting me there, frowning as I flew towards them with Louise in a bag at my side.
The Flame-Soul returned to orbit my head even before I touched the ground, and Alice quickly came up to us to help free her sister from her own bag – Which I still found hilarious. An irritated Yukari really isn't one you want to mess with, as it seems.
Not that I didn't know from own experiences with the Sukima no Youkai...
"You seem to be comfy in there, Louise..." giggled Alice as she tried to open the bag, pulling on one of the zippers.
"That's what I said as well. She called me a fiend for it." I snorted from the side, not even making an attempt to help Alice with freeing Louise – I was a fiend after all.
"Because you are one!" shot Louise back – Not that anyone paid attention to her. You really didn't have no say when you're stuck in your own luggage like that.
"I wonder if Yukari would do this more often if we ask her to... It could make stopping Louise so much easier." added Murdertroid, finally succeeding in opening the zipper, and thus freeing the demon girl in peril.
"Don't you even dare asking her, Alice!" growled Louise, rolling her shoulders and extending her limbs as she finally climbed out of her bag. The sight was pretty hilarious – Reminded of a magician stepping out of a chest after freeing himself of chains and ropes without a key or some other helpful tool.
Taking a glance into the bag Louise had come out of, I found it entirely empty, and wondered where the contents had vanished off to – The question was answered when something white fell into my face all of sudden, blocking my vision with a bright white, scaring the living daylight out of me.
I quickly pulled the object in question of my face – Then frowned at the pair of rather...
Ahum.
It was a pair of panties, let's stick to that.
It was pretty clear who the owner of these was when Louise let out an inhuman shriek, snatching the object out of my hand. Another object quickly replaced it, falling onto my hands – A white hat, a perfect copy of the one Louise had on her head. Louise had suddenly turned pale, and Alice was blushing (as was I, given the situation I was in), and upon turning to look upwards, we found one of Yukari's infamous gaps just below the ceiling – Releasing a rain of white and violet upon us.
"MY CLOTHES!" yelled Louise, slamming her hands onto her cheeks, before rushing up into the air to stop Yukari's gap – Which only made the situation worse, as Yukari's gap decided to avoid and rush towards the middle of the arena, all the while spewing out more white and violet garments.
"Come back here! Alice, help me!" was the last thing I heard from Louise that day – And somehow, I doubted that she'd try escaping again during the tournament. Alice reacted to her sister's plead for help, and picked up the clothes scattered around us, before jumping towards the fence. I caught her wrist and stopped her, frowning at her as she frowned back.
"I'll help." I announced nonchalantly – Received a slap on the wrist for that almost immediately, forcing me to let go of the puppeteer.
"I'd rather not let you help – You saw enough." murmured the puppeteer with a face as red as a tomato, then quickly followed her sister, leaving me to stand there all alone, with nobody around that I knew.
Safe for the Sukima herself.
"That'll teach her a lesson." huffed Yukari as she stepped up to me, parasol leaned onto her shoulder. I directed my gaze to her and rose an eyebrow at the Sukima, but then sighed.
"And I suppose you are here to teach me a lesson as well, eh?" I muttered, crossing my arms over my chest, "Alright, guess it's no use to escape it anymore – Bet you already punished Kanako, so I will not try to..."
"Shut it. I'm not here to punish anyone – From Gensokyo, that is." smirked Yukari, resting her folding fan against my lips to shut me up, "While I don't approve of the damage you and Kanako caused to my precious arena, I can turn a blind eye on that – You have no idea how much money I earned last night."
"Huh?" I began, only to receive a slap with the folding fan, shutting me up again.
"Bets. Where do you think Ran and Chen are? They're at the food stand in the first story, accepting bets involving which of the teams will win the fights that day. That surprise-battle of yours against Kanako Yasaka quickly attracted attention and bets were made like crazy – In the end, only I did gain anything from that battle... Nobody was expecting you both to lose~. Their pain, my gain." revealed the Sukima – Making me roll my eyes.
Somehow, I hadn't expected anything different from Yukari Yakumo. Figures she'll make profit from this...
"Now, that sign in the corridor was put there too soon – I hadn't known about the profit we made that day when I placed it there. Actually, I got more than enough money from your fight alone to fix the corridor you destroyed... So thanks for that~."
Hearing the Sukima giggle uncharacteristically made me think of Reimu and her obsession over money, but quickly put that mental image away... The last thing I needed was Reimu, who had actually been pretty nice to me ever since my return, to turn back into the grumpy girl she was once.
"Whatever. Now, if not for punishment, what else has led you here?" I inquired, sliding my hands into my pockets, slumping my shoulders a little. Yukari smiled at me, but in return just opened a gap and nodded to it.
"Yuugi has managed to lock Eirin out of the infirmary and is throwing a party there. She asked me to invite you... I've already picked up Suika, Komachi, Mima and a few others. Since there is no other battle going to take place today, they just want to end the day, and the quarterfinals, with a 'firework'." explained the Sukima no Youkai.
"Huh? A party? On the second day of the tournament?" I repeated, surprised. Yukari nodded, hiding a devilish grin behind her open folding fan. It was just that moment that something came out of Yukari's gap, rather than us going in – A certain judge.
"Hello hello? Who's on this end of the line, I wonder?" mocked the human barkeeper, Sly, as his upper body appeared from within the gap. Yukari turned around to frown at him, to which he just smirked back at her – Before she flicked her fingers.
Immediately, the inside of the gap began to spin, the barkeeper not spared of that motion, and picked up speed – All while, much my disturbance, the sound of a toilet being flushed played. With a final noise from the gap – Swallowing and burping, not fitting with the noises before at all – Sly was gone, washed back to the other side of the gap.
"Yeah... He's there too, serving the drinks. So you're coming or what?" inquired the Sukima, even though smiling now sounding irritated, and I shrugged.
"Oh well, why not. But don't think I'll drink lots of sake now... I've got an important battle to fight tomorrow, after all." I grumbled, thinking about the fight to come – Mima.
"Well, we figured that out already. Don't worry, Meira is the one serving the drinks, Sly is just helping out – She's been running his pub ever since he's been put into Higan's prison. I asked her to make sure that neither you, nor Mima get too much to drink. Same goes for whoever else is going to fight tomorrow." reassured me the Sukima, turning on her heels to walk towards the gap she had summoned.
I didn't follow her just then, instead averted my gaze and looked down to the battlefield, and was unable to hold back a smile at what I saw. While everything had turned back to normal, that one last tree was still there, in the middle of the battlefield, and sleeping soundly in it's shadow were Meiling, Koishi and Flandre – It looked really cute to see them like that, sleeping without a care in the world.
But seeing them like that, especially Flandre, as well as the fight of Remilia before... It hurt.
"Twenty years have passed, and my little sisters are all grown up now, and have become so powerful... One has even started her own little family already... And I wasn't here to witness them grow up, missed another important step in their lives. I can't believe it's been twenty years – It felt just like yesterday when I was chasing through Gensokyo in search for my memories... To see how much twenty years can change, despite being only such a short amount of time in my life – It scares me. It hurts me..." I thought, smile falling and turning into a sad frown.
Turning to look at Yukari, who was frowning a little at me over her shoulder, I clenched my fists and took a deep breath. Now was not the time to get all depressive – I was going to that party, wasn't I? And besides, tomorrow was the fight with Mima – And seeing Remi and Flan fight with all their power has, like Mima and Marisa said, made me excited... I had gotten all revved up, barely able to wait for the next fight.
The fight against Mima... It would be long and serious, hard and exhausting. One could only guess how powerful Mima had become and what else she had in store... She had prepared something just for me, right? That would be so her...
...Maybe it was really for the better to just take it easy for a last time before that fight – With Mima. After all, we wouldn't want to get all serious tomorrow, right? I didn't want a repeat of the Negative Bullet Incident from twenty years ago – I really didn't. So a relaxed mood would help, right?
"Fine. But if Eirin manages to get into the infirmary somehow, I expect you to gap me into safety... Let me down and I let you down, Yukari... Let you fall down into the deepest chasm I can find, that is. And if I have to force that demon to make me one." I growled, stepping up to Yukari while rolling my shoulders.
"Oh, so you figured out Yúgure's secret? My my, a sharp mind, aren't we?" snickered Yukari, entering her gap. I followed her right away.
"Sharp mind, me? Nah, leave that to Sakuya... You know, Remilia and I share our taste in maids – I like my maids how I like my knives – Sharp and to the point." I snorted, not really thinking about the pun before it left my lips.
"Oh my, was that just a pun?" chuckled Yukari.
"So it's time for the next round of 'let us bully the maid' already?" inquired Mima as she came up to me the moment that I arrived in the infirmary through Yukari's gap, the stench of alcohol invading my nostrils along with that of disinfectant. I turned to the evil spirit, but failed to notice the maid near us until it was already too late...
"Shut up, Mima, I'm not here to start ano... S-Sakuya! W-what do you intend to do with that spoon?!"
"Oh right... I forgot to tell you that Sakuya is here as well, Chôzen!" exclaimed Yukari cheerily – So this was punishment for destroying the corridor, after all?!
"Gah! Didn't I tell you that it was too traumatizing if she were to throw spoons, Gekido?! Now you see that I was being honest – That's friggin' scary!"
"Shut up, Mima!" I hollered – Just as a salad spoon pushed against my throat.
"Thank you, Miss Mima Kazami, Chôzen..."
"S-Sakuya, put that spoon down! We can talk about this!"
"I believe everything has been said already... Time's up."
Mima and I shared a short glance that pretty much screamed 'oh shit'.
"...Crap."
THE WORLD!
And so ends the second part of chapter 8 – The battle of the sisters. Now, next up would be the fight against Mima, Yuuka and Shinki... I think I'm not the only one who's already preparing their 3D Glasses, popcorn and gigantic shields to block whatever stray attack may fly around, right? We saw what they were capable of during the final fight of I-Negative Bullet... The question is: How much of a repeat is their fight in the tournament going to be? What has Mima prepared? What is the 'Dance of Witches' that she has been talking about in her fight against Cirno?
...Alright, hands down, who is suspecting that Mima is going to really exploit loopholes in the rules like Yukari did?
Oh, and, regarding this chapter...
Ding!
You've earned a trophy!
NBP II – Negative Mind
Achievement unlocked: Big Bang Supernova!
Ahum.
Joke aside, I hope that this fight was the one that you all were hoping for – Focused mostly on Flandre against Utsuho, I did my best to make it as explosive and destructive as possible without exaggerating too much – I hope.
Aside being focused on the explosions and destruction, I also focused on showing off the new powers of the little sister duo – Last chapter, I did the same for the elder sisters and the maid of the SDM, after all. But I decided to keep it shorter for Koishi, to not reveal it just now (I do have to keep something for the semi-finals, right?), it was more of a tease, a small hint towards the ability she gained, and her new fighting style.
On a side note: The part with the puns, which really got out of hand in my eyes (and hopefully was still at least a little funny), was inspired by "101 Sakuya Jokes and Puns"... Some of them are in there as well, others were inspired by it...
...But really, that part got out of hand, didn't it? At least Sakuya got the last laugh out of it. I really just wanted to add some humor, some bad puns, show Marisa and Mima trolling around (Mima didn't get enough trolling/lighthearted scenes in Negative Bullet!) and add something aside fighting (there was more than enough in this chapter, and there is more than enough to follow until the end of the Fighting Tournament...), but the next side-plot won't start before the next chapter (involving Yajû and Yume), and it wouldn't have made any sense to add another one (aside that short one with finding Louise).
So now, dear readers, before I end this, I have one last question – What do you think Koishi's 'new', or rather old but improved, ability is? What has she gained? Did you notice a pattern?
And what do you think the 'Dance of Witches', which Mima claimed to have saved for Chôzen, is going to be?
You'll get the answers with the next chapter – Somewhere in between the middle towards the end of November. I'm sorry that I won't be able to update before, but school requires me to go on a trip to London for about an entire week at the beginning of November, in which I won't be able to write, and I doubt that I'll be able to finish the next chapter until then, seeing as the update of HoH of this month is soon due.
I personally expect the next update of II-NM to be up around November 24th... But that is only the date I have planned it for so far.
As always, check my profile on a regular basis to be kept up-to-date with my progress... Who knows what you might find?
Anyways, this has been another chapter of II – Negative Mind (or at least the second part of a chapter) – I hope you enjoyed it, and if you feel like hit, leave a review – I'm always enjoying those, no matter if good or bad (of course, praise more than pointless flames), but if you have any suggestions on how to make this better, please leave constructive criticism – If you just say '"It's bad", I won't know what to look out for next time! (Not that that has ever happened before so far).
This is SorrowfulReincarnation, going off to get some well deserved sleep...
So long!
