Sanae: Touhou is owned by ZUN!
Marisa: The Danmakuverse is compiled by Wolfsbane706, Achariyth1, Captain Vulcan and Mephiles666!
Rinnosuke: The following fight is performed by trained professionals, do not try this at home!
Alice: *MA rated stuff* MMMMM! I see beta-reading isn't-AH!-the only thing master proofreader is good at.
Rinnosuke: Wait, what?
Alice: *Yes, this is still happening* But-AH!-don't get the wrong idea! MMM! I'm just rewarding you for all your hard work! It's-AAAH!-it's not like I'm letting you bang me because I like you or anything.
Sanae: Jesus H. CHRISTMAS, ALICE! YOU KILLED OUR EPIC MOMENT!
Alice: *You know you like it* Now spank me, master! I've been a bad girl!
Marisa: Heh, it's always the quiet ones.
Chapter 14
My first action is a mistake, I blink. Opening my eyes reveals Supīdo in front of me, airborne and swinging his forward tantō.
Instinct, trained reflex, or simple luck; whatever it is, I have it. I am already shifting my body downwards and back, and leaning to my left. His sword passes over me, missing my neck.
My body begins to lean and shift forward. Supīdo's body spins with its momentum, and his back sword swings to strike me. My hands twist my weapon; I swing my scimitar upwards, augmented with wind.
The two blades clash, the air explodes from the impact. My body shakes from the impact, but the full force hits my skinnier enemy and causes him to spin out of control.
I have always known that Supīdo was faster than me; but these past several seconds have revealed just how glaringly different our speeds are. If I did not move as I did, when I did, then my head would have been rolling on the ground. Supīdo won the initiative; and if it was not for my reflexes, then he would have won the battle before it could begin.
The faster Tengu regains control of his body, slamming his feet into the ground and kicking up dust as he skids to a stop.
He spins and launches himself forward, swords swinging a second time. I strike out with my scimitar and parry him, sparks flying as steel collides with steel.
I shove my sword into Supīdo's. The force pushes him off his feet, causing him to stumble backward. His feet plant into the ground, regaining his footing. He charges me a third time, slashing out at me only to be parried by my scimitar.
Repeatedly, he pulls back and strikes forward, but he keeps failing to hit me. While Supīdo's tantōs lack the length to bypass my scimitar, having two weapons should give him an advantage.
Oh, now he realizes that.
I swing too early, he counters and makes a shallow cut across the side of my abdomen. My scimitar slices at his neck, but he leaps back before I can land the strike on him. I thrust forward, nicking him, but he sidesteps before I can do anything beyond drawing blood.
My body is bleeding more than normal for a simple wound that shallow. My flesh won't mend itself back together. A wound like this would normally be healed in an instant. This means that somehow my regeneration has been dampened or nullified.
I can feel a tingling sensation where I was struck on the side of my abdomen, a pain akin to your flesh being eaten away by acid.
"You can act tough all you want," Supīdo says with a snicker on his smug face, "But I can see that my magic is having an effect." He must have seen me wince.
"AUGH!" I shout as loud as I can, dropping to my knees and covering my wound with my free hand.
He darts forward, flying at me with incredible speed. But he leaves himself wide open as he flies at me. I stand up as quickly as possible, step forward while swinging my weapon in a diagonal upward slice.
Blood flies everywhere, but I don't feel any injuries on myself.
His hand flies clean off. I had sliced quick enough to inflict injury to him, but not enough to dig into his body. He loses his balance as he stumbles back. Missing an arm and losing a lot of blood, he falls onto his rear.
Take that, you pathetic excuse for a guardsman!
Before I can raise my blade and take a second step forward, something slices through my fingers and hits my sword. The scimitar flies out of my hands.
He lured me into a false sense of security just as I did to him. When my mind was preoccupied, he threw his second tantō with his still attached hand. And now I have a strong magical acid keeping my hand from regenerating its fingers.
Wait, I do not feel the burning sensation anymore in my side and my flesh mending itself back together. My wound from before has completely healed itself, which would be impossible if I was trying to regenerate from a magical injury.
"Precision strikes!" Supīdo shouts with a smile on his face. He scrambles to his feet while the wind begins to circulate around his hand, becoming faster with each rotation.
His intention is to impale me as if his hand is a dagger.
Just like his wind-covered hand, my injured, bloodied appendage is covered in a transparent force that can slice flesh apart. We thrust our hands out simultaneously, and the opposing winds cut into each other like swords.
The force causes an explosive shockwave strong enough to blast the two of us apart. After flying for several meters, we both land on our feet and skid across the ground.
Supīdo's eyes glow, and his body tenses. The air pressure around him is increasing drastically.
"How about some of this?" he asks as wind begins spiraling in front of him to the point of obscuring his appearance. The wind extends in height, becoming a column and then a tornado.
"Raaaaaagh!" Supīdo bellows. Focusing his charisma, the tornado moves towards me.
I pour my willpower into commanding my own wind. The air spirals between my hands, quickly growing speed until I have wind circulating with equal strength to a tornado.
Throwing my claws forward, the wind warps into a column, and immediately collides with the twister conjured by Supīdo. Supīdo's weaker column of wind dissipates before mine.
Before Supīdo can turn and flee, my tornado overruns him and sucks him in. The spiraling force of the wind throws the malefactor in a random direction.
I release it, allowing it to run its course so I won't waste my energy trying to maintain or direct it.
The earth is torn up in its wake, and small plants are uprooted. Trees look like they will fall over. And at least thirty meters away from me is Supīdo, groaning in pain as he gets onto his feet.
A small object falls from the sky, making a clanking sound as it hits the ground. Looking down at it, I see that it is the visor he was wearing seconds ago.
I would have put it on myself, but it is too small to fit me. Instead, I lift my foot over it and stomp down. The visor cracks beneath my foot, and continues to break as I grind it under my foot.
We on Youkai Mountain have technology that surpasses anything else in Gensokyo, besides those people living in the Bamboo Forest of the Lost. The Kappa, the Yamawaro, the Moriya Shrine, and we Tengu continue advancing while the rest of Gensokyo remains stagnant.
However, for Tengu specifically, our physiology renders most of our needs for technology to be irrelevant. This is why the Kappa and the Moriya Shrine, have developed their technology beyond ours, they need it more and are thus determined to improve it.
Looking at its design, it appears similar to a special device made by a Kappa girl I know. She said it was a work-in-progress for predicting the future. I won't bother trying to recall the exact details.
While she claimed it won't ever be completed unless the Kappa have a sudden scientific breakthrough, I don't know for certain that it doesn't work. And any advantage Supīdo has in this fight reduces the chances of my winning.
If she needs it back, I'll repay her.
"You must have spent all your strength on that wind," Supīdo shouts with a pained laugh while pointing his tantō at me. I see that the arm I sliced off before we had the wind duel regenerated while we were fighting. In his other hand is the other one of his tantōs. When did he get either of them back? "This fight is already mine!" he shouts as he charges.
While it is true that I've spent most of my energy for controlling the wind, I've yet to run out. But I will not bother correcting him and allow myself the element of surprise. For the time being, he's probably figured that I can't use magic either (which unlike my wind control, I actually can't). Since he's running at me this time, he's likely to actually be out of energy for wind manipulation. But I am not ever unarmed.
"This is the end, hideous dog!" Supīdo shouts.
He runs at me, but his movements slow to a crawl, as does the dust he kicks up. Or to be more accurate, my perception of the world is speeding up.
My own body moves like it is swimming through molasses, but my thought processes remain the same. The physicians on Youkai Mountain, the doctor in the Bamboo Forest, they've refer to this as tachypsychia.
I'm using it to think of a countermeasure.
And so, in the amount of time it took the bishounen to close the distance between us, I solidify my life force in my hands, giving it the shape of two Scimitars, one in each hand.
My blades have superior reach, I have the speed necessary to keep up with Supīdo, me having two weapons closes the hole in my defense with an offensive attack, and my enemy is moving too fast to stop himself.
This technique is used by Mountain Priest Tengu, the printers of our species, to form staves from their very life force. The technique isn't taught to anyone outside of the printer subspecies, so I don't know how I came across the knowledge and skill on how to use the technique. I would assume that it was because I was the White Wolf Alpha, but I had the information in my head before I received my title.
Whatever the case, I've learned with practice that it is easiest for me to create two scimitars simultaneously, one in each hand, instead of simply one.
In one motion, I swing my first scimitar horizontally and my second upwards. The first slices into Supīdo's stomach while the second one causes him to fly off his course.
The world around me rapidly picks up speed, only stopping when my perception is normal.
I watch Supīdo as his body collides into a tree. His two tantōs slide across the ground.
Looking at his wounds, his body isn't making any more repairs. Judging from the damage that his body has sustained, I can win this fight if I land one more solid blow on him.
I close in on him with my life force scimitars raised, mentally prepared for a trap.
His hand is covered with his blood, and he's using it to draw on the ground. That symbol, it's a summoning circle!
"Summon: Dire Wind Boar!" he declares.
I bring my scimitar down on him, but my blade collides with the force of wind blowing out of the circle. I am pushed back as wind magic gather between me and my target, obscuring the view.
As the wind clears, it reveals the entity summoned.
The beast exhales through its large nostrils, spewing out clouds so dense that they can be seen. Its pointed ears, while at least the size of my hand, are small in proportion to its head. Its legs are muscular, and each foot has hooves. Its gargantuan body is covered completely in bristles; and from its mouth protrude tusks the size of swords.
It is a boar. Specifically, a youkai boar who is aligned to the wind. Many White Wolf Tengu have their own Wind Boar, but if there is one thing that sets this boar apart from the others, I would say that it was the fact it is the size of a house.
It raises its head and opens its mouth, bellowing so loud that an animal would be rendered permanently deaf. Even covering my ears doesn't stop the loud sound from causing pain.
The weight of its hoof creates a shockwave as it smashes the earth below it, driving the monster's body at me. I leap into the air in an attempt to dodge, but given the short distance, I have no time to evade. It rams its face into my abdomen and keeps running, making a shallow cut in my side with its tusk.
My body smashes into something hard, I feel my ribs break. I fall to the ground as it backs up.
I am on my hands and knees. I can feel my stomach pumping the remnants to my last meal out my mouth, spilling onto the ground a brownish-yellow soup filled with too many undigested materials.
I lift my head to see that it is lifting its hoof up over my head.
Oh, no you don't!
In spite of my nausea, I scramble to my feet and lift my hands. The impact between my hands and the monster's hoof is harsh, creating a blast of air as it is stopped. It presses down harder, trying to crush me with its weight. I push back.
My lungs expel air, resonating with the sound of my exertion. I shove upward, forcing the giant's hoof to lift, liberating me from beneath its foot. It's enough to unbalance it, causing it to stagger long enough for me to leap back before it can slam down on me.
Its head lowers one more time; I slam into its nose between the tusks before it can charge. Quickly, I reach around the snout as much as possible with my arms and grip it.
My muscles strain themselves as I lift, taking the behemoth off its feet. I pull the boar with me as I whip around to my left. I push up as the boar flies out of my grip, throwing its body.
It bellows as it flails and flips in the air before it crashes down on its back. The impact sends a rumble through the ground. The shameful, agonized wailing of the monster dies out as it dissolves into thin air.
Now that the summoned servant has been eliminated from the battle, it is time to deal with the summoner.
My nose is already picking up his atrocious scent. It's coming from above and to my left. I turn and see him, standing on the highest sturdy tree branch of a tree. He isn't even trying to hide.
His eyes are closed, his hand outstretched, making deliberate movements while speaking an incantation.
"Sharpness, precision, efficiency, firmness, rigidity, persistence, strength and determination; balanced presence of clarity and lightness. This is the nature of Metal, the core of the blade." White light, gray symbols; even if he didn't say the word in his incantation, I can see he's using a spell of the Metal Element. Materializing out of thin air, behind him is a gray distortion, a glowing portal, two meters in diameter. "Infinite Tantōs!"
I recognize this spell. This must be the spell his spellcard [Metal Sign - Infinite Tantōs] is based on.
As if it is a portal to another world, three tantōs slowly pull themselves through the distortion blade first, stopping at the handles.
"Be skewered to death, Sasuke Ito!" Supīdo shouts, throwing his hand forward. The three swords shoot off like bullets fired from a gun, flying at me.
A second time, the world slows down around me.
Looking at the blades, there are no magic properties to them, besides possibly being made out of magic. Therefore if I try using one, there should be no repercussions.
Moving out of the way enough to grab the handle of one as it flies passed me is simple and easy. With the tantō in my hand, I immediately spin, narrowly dodging the second sword, and swing it into the third blade that is flying at me. They both break on impact and their fragments dissolve into the magical energies they are constructed of.
"Y-you!" Supīdo yells. He is clearly upset. "How dare you lay your hands on one of my weapons?" Did he honestly expect me to do nothing when he threw them at me? "I'll make you suffer for your insolence!"
Six more tantōs shoot out of the portal. And again, their speed is slow enough to dodge.
The first tantō flies passes me; I snatch it out of the air by its handle. In one fluid motion, I grab the second sword out of the air with my other hand.
Four tantōs remain; I swing down with the first blade I caught, deflecting and destroying the third along with it. The movement of my body to perform this action removes me from the the paths of the fourth and fifth tantōs, allowing the two of them to fly by me without hitting me.
With only one tantō remaining, I have no distractions. And so catching the sixth sword by the handle is as easy for me as breathing. However, the swords are probably limited in how long they can exist. That said, the two swords I have in my hands I can assume won't last long and are probably going to dissolve. They'll be gone before I can use them against Supīdo directly.
I swing one arm and release my grip on the handle, causing the tantō to fly back at him. In one motion, I repeat with my other hand and throw the second weapon at him.
Predictably, he leaps off the tree branch and out of harm's way. He lands on a tree branch on another tree. Perhaps I should coax him into wasting his magic?
"What's this?" I ask. "You called me a coward and now you're hiding in a tree?"
"Don't you dare call me a coward!" he shouts back. Coaxing successful.
And now the tips of twelve blades can be seen coming out of the gray portal. No, make that sixteen-wait, thirty... Oh.
That's a lot of tantōs.
"Die!" Supīdo yells as he fires the absurd number of tantōs at me.
While I do not have enough wind power to create another tornado, I can still propel myself through the air, allowing me to dodge the stream of swords.
Under normal conditions, you'd be expecting hundreds of blades flying at you to be a dangerous thing. Like something you would not be able to handle. Unfortunately for my opponent, my dislike for practicing my spellcards required that I learn how to dodge like a human.
When you're on the receiving end of a spellcard battle, you learn quickly how to continuously dodge thousands of attacks while flying. And the more you do it, the better you get.
In summary, Supīdo can't hit me.
Without stopping the barrage of tantōs, the gray portal opens wider and more swords fly out at a time. And with more swords being thrown out, the area target area is larger. But at this rate he'll sooner level the forest with tantō than actually hit m-
A sword flies off the spell's path, and I accidentally fly into it. Without time to react, it tears through my arm. I grunt in pain as the tantō slices through the flesh of my upper arm. The tantōs stop launching from the gray portal, and I am bleeding.
"Huh?" Supīdo blinks. If his tone and quizzical face can be trusted then he is as confused as I am. As if to prove me wrong, his face gradually turns into a smile. And abruptly, he bursts into laughter. "This! This is awesome! I've been blessed! Who knew? I've been blessed with the power! The power Tengu can only be born with!"
Wait, there are many abilities Tengu can obtain with differing origins, but there is only one the ability a Tengu can only gain by being born with it.
Clairvoyance, the ability to perceive that which is beyond normal physical sensory contact. While there are non-Tengu who can obtain the same effects using magic and divine power, the Tengu are yet to be capable of using this function at all unless they are one in less than a thousand births.
"That's right, Ito, I'm a clairvoyant," Supīdo confirms, "It seems that I have gained favor with the god of the Tengu, for I have the power to know where you are!" The tantōs in the gray gate reappear, more this time. "Infinite Tantōs."
Those are a lot of tantōs.
No, "a lot" doesn't even begin to describe this absurdity. I can't even count them!
"This is the end," Supīdo says. He starts firing off the barrage of tantōs. He intends to make sure that I can't use my speed to fly out of the target zone, and they're too close together for someone of my body size to simply dodge between them.
I have mere seconds to bring up my only means of defense. My life force re-solidifies, manifesting in my hands the two scimitars that have remained ever faithful to me. If I strike at the tantōs, then maybe I can deflect them.
The first set of tantōs are upon me! I swing my freshly materialized life force scimitar, deflecting the blades away. A second group of swords is flying at my right, I swing my other scimitar horizontally, dissipating them.
A large set is coming at my center, there's an opening on the left side. I side step and spin, allowing them to pass me.
The next couple of tantōs come down, baring on my left. I strike them, dissipating them as well. In a second, I have already deflected or dissipated six tantōs and evaded more, but they keep coming.
A tantō grazes my leg, burning it with poison. I ignore it to deflect and dissipate more tantōs. A tantō tears through my right arm, forcing me to drop it, but I do not let go of my scimitar. My arm begins to repair.
Another tantō flies at me. I shift to the side, letting it graze it instead of avoid letting it impale me. The hit is hindering my movement though, allowing another tantō to strike me.
I've stopped counting the number of tantōs I've deflected as too many shots are getting through! I fall to the ground.
My vision is blurry, and I feel pain from the numerous cuts my body is receiving. But I cannot let myself fall here.
I don't know how long I am stuck in this position; my sense of time has been warped by the injuries. But as my vision clears, I see that I am facing the ground and supporting myself on hand and knee. I can feel my injuries healing.
Oh yes, the Infinite Tantōs spell, I need to dodge! ... Or I would, but there are no tantōs, or any other sort of sword, flying anywhere. The only weapons are the ones littering the battle field, stuck in either trees or the ground, or lying on the ground. They begin dissipating, breaking down into the magic they are constructed of.
The barrage is over, and the dust blanketing the area is settling.
"Why haven't you fallen unconscious yet?" asks a familiar, irritating voice. I look up and see Supīdo some meters away, breathing heavily as if he actually performs a strenuous physical feat.
"Because you're not half as capable as some people I've defeated," I respond while standing.
This is a fact. The Archer Tengu, that White Wolf Tengu with Glasses, Charlie, even Momiji's idiot brother; my past battles with them all indicate that they all were much harder to defeat than this annoyance.
Okay, maybe not Momiji's older brother. Supīdo isn't that bad.
However, I'm not fighting Supīdo at in peak condition. First, due to a week of consuming nothing but sake and that vomit inducing snack Marisa fed me to keep up my appearance as the shop owner, I've become hungry; making me weak. My training regime has also been disrupted by a week of focusing on my appearance; thus making me even weaker and lax. Lastly, if I wasn't suffering from Magical Burnout, I would have easily devastated him with sorcery.
It also helps that he has managed to miss every single one of my vitals with that sword-shooting spell.
Speaking about my wounds, at this point in time in a fight, any of the fore-mentioned Tengu would have done far more damage to me. And my injuries are healing.
"No matter," Supīdo says as he draws his two tantō. They may be new ones or the ones from before, I've stopped caring at this point. "I still can defeat you!"
He grips the tantōs tightly and dashes at me with his blades raised high. He swings with his first tantō, I avoid it by back stepping. He swings his second tantō.
"That's hilarious, actually," I say as I casually sidestep his second tantō. "You've done nothing this whole fight. Yes, you've hit me a few times, but your weapons clearly lack the magical strength you hoped they'd have seeing that I am regenerating from the wounds."
"Shut up!" he says as he swings again. I think I'll tire him out.
"You sure you want me to?" I ask, ducking under a high horizontal slash. "I might reveal my weakness if you let me talk. I mean, didn't you use a poisoned blade somewhere in there? When was the last time a Tengu was anything besides inconvenienced by poison? You'd have a better chance having a prostitute that's loaded with gonorrhea seduce me."
"Shut up!" he repeats himself as he swings his swords, cutting me this time but only inflicting superficial wounds. I ignore the pain and keep up my verbal attack.
"But then again, you couldn't get one to talk to you if you walked through the red-light district with 10,000 yen pinned to your chest."
"Bastard! I'll kill you," Supīdo threatens as he swings again, only to miss. His attacks are becoming less focused, making his actions more predictable.
"You? Kill me?" I raise my eyebrow. "You've claimed that you have Clairvoyance and that it helps you attack me, yet here you are, continuously missing me in spite of the fact you're normally faster than me."
Granted, Clairvoyance rarely helps in close quarters combat, unless you're dealing with multiple enemies or trick attacks. I had learned this from Momiji.
"Gah!" He slashes at me; clouded by anger, his actions are so predictable that the attack and his continuous follow-up strikes fail to touch me. He's becoming sluggish. He swings his tantō, I dodge and throw a punch into his gut. "OGH!" he grunts in pain. He stumbles back a bit then immediately catches himself. He swings at me again; I dodge and deliver a punch to his cheek. "UGH!"
"Seriously, you should set goals that can be achieved. The next time you fight me, it would be far more realistic if you shouted 'Sasuke Ito, I'm going to cause you minor inconvenience!' or something of that nature."
Oh! He's dropping to the ground, I guess that last punch did it. Wait, he is only down on one knee and still holding his tantōs.
"I'm," Supīdo chokes out as he tries to stand, "I'm not finished with you, you ugly son of a bitch!"
"No, you're not," I say in a bored tone. "But I am finished with you."
"You! Raaagh!" In anger, Supīdo leaps from his crouching position, but my knee is already fully raised by the time he I am in his strike zone. I extend my leg forcefully, planting the bottom of my foot into his face.
A sickening crack echoes through the ruined landscape.
He's a youkai, he'll regenerate from the loss of a head within three weeks at most.
With Supīdo incapacitated, there is no reason for me to bother staying here. I turn to leave the battle field, beginning my walk back to the shop.
I am not tired, but pain goes through my legs as I slowly walk towards the edge of the damaged landscape.
This area used to be a border between a forest and a meadow. Neither remains. If the environment takes this amount of damage when two youkai fight, I can see the justification in the development in spellcard rules. I would expect that the Hakurei would appear, wanting to know who the culprit is for reducing the area into ruins.
But at least I won.
"Rinnosuke!" calls out a woman's voice. Looking up, I see a small, spread out crowd in the distance.
The battle had an audience.
From the author:
Originally, I was going to have Sasuke end the fight with him blasting Supīdo's head off using his wind powers. That wouldn't work, however, since that would actually kill Supīdo without fail.
On the subject of Supīdo, I apologize for all of you people who were hoping to see more Sonic the Hedgehog paraphrases. It was hard enough getting Supīdo to be the pretentious asshole that I made him.
...
Speaking about being pretentious, I'm starting to wonder if I sound pretentious by calling this section "from the author."
In that same vein of thought, I really like it when people review my stuff (it's more reliable than keeping track of page traffic), but do I look like some sort of attention whore in asking people to comment?
This brings me to another question; I understand that some comments need no reply and others do... but is the proper approach to comments "Comments generally should be responded to" or "Comments generally shouldn't be responded to?"
...
Please review. XD
Thank you Achariyth1, DokturProfesur, Kaiser Dude and Achariyth1 for proofreading this.