The Orci Persona arc ends here. With that, the final arc of Poisonous Chinese Tea begins, and this time the enemy is something much larger than anything Meiling has ever faced before, even worse than her dream battle with the Taisui Xingjun. Indeed, Entity X (whose real name is Enigma) makes even Orci Persona look weak in comparison. I will list his powers at my end-of-chapter notes for you.
Judas was sitting across a table from Patchouli, the two of them still trying to figure out a way to keep the monster under the mansion locked up for at least enough time to figure out a way to kill it. Of all the infinite magical knowledge the two had, they were still coming up with nothing at all. Koakuma had been acting as a double familiar for the two magicians, and she'd been trying to figure out a way to ask Patchouli to let her become Judas's permanent familiar. "Here's that book the two of you wanted," the red-haired succubus said. "Do either of you have any ideas at all yet?"
"I'm afraid not," Judas said. "I have no doubt that in general, Patchouli is much smarter than I am, but I'm nearly unsurpassed in the dark arts. Even with that, every conclusion we come to is proven wrong by the nature of the demon under this mansion."
"That's too bad. I hope you two find out the answers you want soon. Is there anything else you need?"
"This will do for now, thank you." Judas was certainly changing. Going from planning to torture Meiling eternally, to asking for her help, to giving her help and having no objections to it at all…he was surely a different necromancer from before. When Judas heard the doors of Voile open, his head turned in the direction. He didn't need to anyway; necromancers could recognize a vampire from a mile away. "Hello, Lady Remilia. I hope you bring good news."
"Everything but," the vampire said. "Meiling's been possessed by Orci Persona. Suika doesn't know where she is right now, but I figured that if anybody could find the two, you could."
"Indeed I can. Patchouli knows this is true, that magic always leaves traces. That is why the very air in Gensokyo feels different from that of other worlds, because its residents use such large amounts of magic that all of the world's air is filled with traces of magic. Dark magic, however, leaves much stronger traces, especially easy to follow if you use such magic like I myself do. Suika, if you can lead me to where this all happened I can do everything in my power to find them."
"Follow -hic- me!" Suika quickly ran out of Voile, retracing her steps so that she could get out of the mansion. If Judas could help, she would accept that help; she wanted to save Meiling as soon as possible. Eventually, though, she got lost in the hallways. The oni drunkenly turned to the human following her, and said "I'm -hic- lost. How do we get out?"
"Follow me, Suika." Judas turned in the direction opposite the one Suika was going, and continued this running around the mansion with an oni following him.
There were no survivors at all. Every man woman and child living in the human village was dead, all of it because of this demonic thing attaching itself to Meiling's face. She wanted to scream, and she wanted to tear the mask to pieces, but it controlled her body now rather than the rightful owner of that body. There was nothing she could do but stand by idly and watch her body kill innocent people. But off in the distance, her ears were picking up on footsteps. She heard two sets of feet, one of them being a man's. Whoever it was, they would stand no chance as they were. Then let them come. I can defeat all the greatest beings in Gensokyo simultaneously because my power is so great. Nothing will stop me from doing what Mundis couldn't. Then out the corner of her eye, Meiling could see an oni approaching her. Yes, come and meet your doom. Allow me to break my host's heart one more time.
"Suika," Judas said. "I have to return to the mansion. I won't be long, but there's an errand I have to run and it's very urgent."
"Okay." Suika approached the possessed Meiling carefully. Everybody else would have said she was just too drunk to know better, but she knew that Meiling was still in there, deep down. "Meiling," she cautiously said. "Meiling, if -hic- you can hear me, please come out. Everybody -hic- needs you...I need you."
The eyes of the mask seemed to give off an expression similar to a normal person's eyes suddenly going wide in surprise or shock, and a hand reached out to the upper-right edge of the mask. Meiling began pulling as hard as she could, trying to separate herself from this monster…this hideous thing that had placed an unfixable sin on her soul; a beast that made her murder innocent people, including children. "S-S…Suika…" The region of the mask where her hand was pulling began to crack. "Suika…I'm coming…for you." Eventually, the cracks covered the whole upper-right quarter of the mask. One could see the veins in Meiling's entire arm bulging from the strain the two opposing forces were putting on the one limb. The next sound that filled all sets of ears sounded akin to a massive glass object shattering into countless pieces. The mask was destroyed…partially. The upper-right portion of it was gone, and Meiling's right eye was even visible now, but it was yellow just like the mask's, with the same green iris and all. "Suika…run."
The oni refused to run this time. Instead, she tackled the Meiling without caring to think about whether she was possessed or not anymore. "What's your name?"
"My name is Hong Meiling."
The oni hugged the tackled girl tightly, saying "Welcome back. I was really scared -hic- the whole time, you know."
"Oh…I know." Under the remaining ¾ of the mask, a large smile worked across the face underneath. It wasn't a happy smile, however. This was a smile that was reserved for the most wicked of evildoers. "I know you love me, Suika, but I can't get up with you pinning me down."
"Oh, ya." Suika let go of the person she tackled, and got up to her feet. "Alright, since this is over…where -hic- do we go next?"
"We go our separate ways. I'm going all over Gensokyo to finish my job, but you…" From all over Meiling's body, countless tentacles shot out, wrapping themselves around each of Suika's individual limbs. "You're going to be sent to Hell after I torture you for a little bit."
"No, Meiling, it's me!"
"I know who it is, but my name isn't Meiling. I'm still Orci Persona as sad as that is for you. The only way to destroy me is to destroy this mask, and besides that the only thing that will ever separate me from my host is if she dies." Small tentacles of different colors began growing from the edge of the removed part of the mask, tentacles that attached themselves to the rest of the mask and pulled the broken piece onto the remainder, at which point the mask became whole again by the dark powers of Orci Persona. "And destroying my mask is very difficult."
"So…Meiling's gonna die?" Suika could feel her eyes welling up. They'd done so much together, and it was going to end like this? Because of something that Suika had done, nonetheless? "…Go ahead…kill me."
"Are you gonna cry? Wait…you want me to kill you?"
"Meiling is gonna die…so -sniff- just do it."
"This is rare indeed. I think I'll have a bit of fun with you before I kill you." The tentacles that wrapped up Suika's individual arms and legs began pulling those limbs outward, but not straining the oni's body in the least. From the back of Meiling's head came one large tentacle. "This big one's gonna 'open the path' for me. I deserve a bit of 'fun time' for myself every now and again, and despite your lack of a chest I think you'll be more than satisfying. Though now I regret not taking your body…this host has such an amazing body that she'd be much better on the receiving end of this."
Suika just hung her head down, closed her eyes, and waited. She'd always wanted to really get to know Meiling a bit better, but she never imagined or wanted it to happen like this. Instead of a night of fun, she was going to get raped by an evil mask possessing the person she loved most in the world…that was far too cruel to be arranged by fate or anything else.
A gloved hand shot forward, aimed at the mask covering Meiling's face, and fired a large blast of green flames. The task fell to Judas to once again save Meiling and Suika from this horrible creature. This time, though, he intended to kill it. Sure, he'd done plenty of naughty things with Koakuma, and even did a few to this very day behind Patchouli's back, but Koakuma was willing and acceptant of what Judas proposed. Even he had some morals, he just needed some kind of direction to find them. Now he had, and Judas Nekross was a changed man from the time that he conspired to conquer Gensokyo. He hit his target directly in the center, and he watched the hellish flames course across the mask's entire body for a second before the demonic accessory exploded into countless shards and Meiling fell to the ground as the tentacles coming out of her body turned to dust.
"Judas," Meiling weakly asked. "What did you do?"
"I'm sorry for draining your energy, but it had to be done to kill Orci Persona. Anyway, we have much bigger problems at the moment. Much bigger problems."
"How much bigger?"
"Big enough to make me want to leave Gensokyo. The beast living inside the mansion is free."
"Of all the days in the world, it had to be today. Well, we've been patient so can you at least tell us its real name?"
"Very well…it's name is exactly what it is. The demon is named Enigma. I evacuated the Scarlet Devil Mansion and have been trying to find other people who would be potentially dangerous if Enigma reached them, but we need to hide the two of you away so that your wounds can heal."
Suika lifted her head off the ground, and slurred "We'll go -hic- to Former Hell. Follow me." Suika picked Meiling up off the ground, and began running.
"Lead on, oni." Judas quickly followed, intending to explain once they arrived.
By the time the trio was in Former Hell, things were already feeling bad up above. Just before they began getting to the underworld, they could feel this haunting presence, as though some larger entity was trying to reach out to them. "Thank you, Ms. Hoshiguma, for letting us stay here until this is resolved."
"Don't mention it! Suika's my friend, and I thought I already told you that my name was Yuugi, not Ms. Hoshiguma." Yuugi looked at Suika's limbs. While at first glance one would say that there's nothing wrong with her, something wasn't right. Judas had confirmed it earlier, that there was a lot of leftover dark magic lingering on the flat-chested oni's body, but Yuugi didn't know what that would do to her. "So, Judas, what's gonna happen to Suika if we don't get rid of this dark magic?"
"Many things. It'd start with an itch, followed by a numbing sensation, then progress to darkening of the skin, loss of conscious body control, mutation, and eventually death. I think I speak on behalf of all of us when I say that we don't want that. Sadly, I'm not so great at removing dark magic remains and if I try, it's very possible that I may actually speed up the process."
"What about the people up in Gensokyo," Meiling asked. "Can't Reimu or Sanae do something about this?"
"It's probably too late to try and contact them. Enigma is free, and the only people that I know are safe are all the people in Former Hell. Enigma's greatest weakness is that he can't go underground, which is why I originally sealed him in the lowest pits of Hell."
"So we're supposed to just stand aside and let Suika die!"
Here's that power list I promised you…
Enigma is a terrifying being. It has the ability to copy the form and abilities of any person it encounters (which is why I got rid of Flandre at the end of the Orci Mundis arc I suppose) and is able to summon any number of bat familiars. These bats can attach themselves to people and take over their mind and body in a similar fashion to how Orci Persona possessed whoever wore the mask. Considering this, it's plausible that Meiling's enemy this time is just about everybody in Gensokyo.
Also, see what I did there at the end? I've left you in doubt about whether or not Suika will live to see the end of this story. I'd tell you if she lives or not, but then you are no longer in doubt of whether she lives
