Chapter 29: Lilith (III)


So this is how everything is going to end? Lilith thought to herself, her features showing progressively more and more of her inner rage as her mind replayed everything over and over again. Rumia had ousted her secret to everyone, and killed both Alan and Melony. She had no allies left, and she was still short of achieving her goal. And here was Rumia, set to kill her at a moment's notice should she try to escape.

"Oh, what? Are you sulking now that I've told everyone your big secret?" Rumia taunted, now pointing her sword directly at Lilith. "If you aren't going to say anything, I don't see why I shouldn't just slice your head off right now. I would prefer you return the humans to me with their souls intact. But if I have to find them on my own, without their souls, I suppose that'll satisfy me for a time." Rumia then turned her head back, tilted to the side with a bloodthirsty grin, to face Reimu and the others. "Now that you know what she's been up to this entire time, you don't mind if I kill her, right Reimu~?"

Reimu, along with everyone else from the Moriya Shrine group, seemed positively furious with Lilith. "Then it is true. Everything Rumia has said. If you were going to deny it, you would have said something by now!"

"Rumia said she'd been here, harvesting souls for over a century. It fits, then," Yukari stated, rather calmly, despite the clear anger on her face. "I would have noticed if a powerful youkai like her managed to cross the border through any natural means. She's been hiding here all along since before the Hakurei Border was created."

"Now I wonder why she's been hiding away here all this time.~" Kana commented airily, casually drifting through the air behind Lilith, though never straying too far to leave her an opening for escape. "Awful convenient that she would've been hidden away here the whole time when the border went up, don't you think?"

"I think she must've fucked up big time somewhere in the Outside World before she came here. Maybe she tried to do something similar out there, and you got caught red-handed, and nearly got yourself killed.~" Rumia laughed mockingly at Lilith, easing the tip of her blade closer to the woman's neck. "I wouldn't be surprised. You do seem like the type who would be stupid enough to try the same trick over and over again, just hoping that maybe one day it will actually work. So you came here, maybe you heard about the plan for the border's creation or something, and you hid away in a cave underneath Youkai Mountain. Like a fucking rat."

"Enough!" Lilith interrupted suddenly, having spoken up for the first time since the start of Rumia's revelation. "I will not be insulted so blatantly by some lesser youkai, even if you are in possession of those abilities."

"You mean my abilities? Honestly, you say that as if I've stolen them from someone.~" Rumia scoffed, and waved off Lilith's ranting as though it were meaningless.

"That's because you did take them from someone else. Not consciously, no. I doubt you could ever be intelligent enough to pull something like that off, you miserable little mortal wretch." Lilith's composure seemed to have fallen off to the side completely, fully exposing the anger and scheming nature that her usually friendly demeanor masked. "It took me a while to catch on. At first, I thought you were perhaps just some normal youkai, though one with a particularly exceptional ability. But now I see, you're the replacement for Garnet Ferre; the original, true Youkai of Darkness." This seemed to raise a few eyebrows even from those among Reimu's group, and of course Rumia herself, none of whom had ever heard of this supposed Garnet Ferre. "You're nothing more than an inferior reproduction. With a mere fraction of Garnet's power. I will not be killed by some cheap imitation!"

"And now you're just spouting nonsense, you desperate bitch," Rumia spat out at Lilith, though lowering her sword slightly, as Lilith's words did at least manage to arouse her interest to some degree.

"I am one of the oldest living Native Gods, from when the Earth was still young," Suwako stated, stepping to the front of the group beside Reimu. "I've never heard of anyone named Garnet Ferre, and I've never heard of you for that matter either, until several days ago."

At this, Lilith actually managed a small smirk, some of her superior demeanor returning to her as she spoke. "It's no small wonder you haven't heard of her. She was long before your time. The whole lot of you are mere infants compared to me."

"I've just about had it with your nonsense." Rumia's patience was at its end, and the shadows around her had begun to fluctuate violently, eager to slaughter Lilith at Rumia's command. "If you aren't going to hand the humans back over to me, I will just kill you right this second. I don't think Reimu will have any objections to that, yes?"

Reimu said nothing, and could only glare furiously at both Rumia and Lilith as everything raced through her mind. After Lilith's outburst, there was really no denying that everything Rumia said was true, and that Lilith had really been playing them all for fools the entire time. Really, she almost wanted to kill Lilith herself, and she wasn't alone in thinking it.

"Perfect," Rumia said, licking her lips as she focused her attention back on Lilith, who seemed to now be standing in silence, staring down at the ground. "Then I'll kill you now and be done with this whole mess."

It started off quietly, but Lilith began to laugh, in an almost unnerving manner, until it quickly picked up into a hysterical uproar of mad cackling. "Uh, I think she's totally lost it Rumia.~" Kana said with a giggle from behind Lilith, watching the woman's outburst.

Lilith raised her head finally, and she wore a triumphant grin across her face that seemed entirely unfitting, and not entirely rational either. "Alright Rumia. You wanted the humans so desperately. I'm going to let you have them. Every last one." Lilith began to laugh once more, as several souls seemed to begin pouring out of her body, each of them circling around her body at a steadily increasing rate. Those souls were quickly joined by more, and they showed no sign of slowing. The more souls that circled around Lilith, the brighter each of them began to glow.

"You... kept all of those on hand this entire time!?" Rumia gritted her teeth and maintained the grip on her sword. She lunged forward, ready to slice Lilith's head off before she could ever have the chance to do anything drastic with her flood of souls. Several of them rushed to Lilith's defense, forming a large shield that blocked Rumia's attack, while still others took the shape of long spears, which flung themselves not only at Rumia, but at Kana as well, forcing the both of them to back out of Lilith's way.

"I really should've thanked you personally, Rumia!" Lilith said, laughing once more, as Rumia and Kana both took up positions on the shrine's path, between Lilith and Reimu's group behind them. "Without your help, it would have taken me several more decades to reach my goal. You even handed me those goddesses, and even that Yakumo shikigami, all on a silver platter. And yet, I was so close until tonight. When you turned around, and ruined all of that." The souls that had formed Lilith's shield and spears flashed brightly, before returning to their original form, joining the others in swirling rapidly around Lilith. "Now I have to waste everything to finish you both off tonight. But at least if I kill all of you, there won't be any witnesses to ruin my plans in the future.

"I think I'll tell everyone that Rumia and Kana showed up and slaughtered every last one of you, including my poor younger siblings, but that I managed to prevail, and eliminated the both of you for good!" The souls began to pour into Lilith's body, each one that passed through her body flashing brightly, adding their power to her own. "Gensokyo will hail me as the hero who saved it from the likes of Rumia! I might have to rebuild my supply from scratch after this... But with my reputation, no one would ever suspect me of anything if a few souls went missing here or there."

"Rumia, she's absorbing all of those souls!" Kana shouted, shaking Rumia's shoulder. "And she's gaining way more power from them than she should from just normal humans!"

"Tch... She was performing experiments on them the whole time. Probably trying to amplify their strength, to add to her own." Rumia raised her arm, causing the shadows around Lilith to rise into sharp spikes, but the various souls once again defended Lilith, slicing through the shadows and dispersing them with little effort. For as long as all of those souls were swirling around Lilith, she would be near impossible to approach or attack.

"Humans may be weak, but their souls contain vast potential. Certainly far more than most youkai, who typically remain at their peak after a number of years, with little room to grow." The effects of the souls pouring into Lilith's body were gradually becoming much more noticeable. Her horns and wings began to expand, taking on a more threatening appearance to match her growth in power. Her eyes flashed bright golden, and wherever her skin was visible, particularly her face and shoulders, dark veins began to form, pulsing with energy. "For the amount of potential that they contain, human souls are remarkably easy to harvest, compared to youkai souls. All it takes is a little bit of extra work to bring out their full power."

"I can't believe we ever trusted you!" Reimu shouted from the head of the group closest to the shrine. Reaching into her sleeve again, she pulled out several more charms that she added with those she already held. "Even if it was for the sake of protecting everyone in the village... We never should've put them in the hands of someone like you!"

Reimu then threw the charms in her hand at Lilith, which nearly grazed both Rumia and Kana who still remained on the path between Reimu and Lilith. To no one's surprise, the charms were all sliced out of the air by the dozen or so souls that still remained visible around Lilith. The ones that Reimu had only just moments before added in, however, seemed to ignore their own destruction upon being sliced through, creating a large explosion of light energy that consumed Lilith within.

Once the light had faded, Lilith stood relatively unharmed in the exact position that she had before, no more than a little singed, but noticeably displeased by Reimu's outburst. The souls that had remained around Lilith before were now gone, either eradicated by Reimu's attack, or more likely, absorbed into Lilith's body like the rest. "You really should not have done that, Reimu," Lilith said, as she brushed herself off in an irritated manner. "That just means you'll be the first to die after I deal with Rumia and Kana."

"Hmph, I'm still not worried." Rumia cracked her neck, and took in the sight of Lilith's full transformation with little more than mild concern. "All you did was make yourself bigger, and uglier. And now you've run out of souls to defend yourself with. On top of that, you've turned everyone here against you."

"Cockiness is just so easy to exploit," the other woman drawled in response. "Your arrogance will be the death of you." Lilith lunged forward without warning, an ethereal spear forming in her hand in an instant, which she used to cut across Rumia's midsection. Rumia recoiled immediately, vanishing back into the shadows before Lilith could launch another surprise assault. Instead, she turned her attention toward Kana, seemingly conjuring similar spears out of thin air, lobbing each of them at the poltergeist with incredible speed and forcing her to evade through a Void portal. Whenever one of Lilith's spears vanished once more, it reverted back to its original soul state, and joined back with Lilith's body, all in the span of less than a second; the souls were now permanently bound to her being.

"Are you idiots going to just stand there, gaping at her like a bunch of fucking goldfish?" Rumia stood on the porch of the shrine, one hand clutched at her midsection, which was bleeding somewhat heavily from Lilith's first attack. The darkness of Rumia's shadows circled around her, seemingly binding to their manipulator to seal her wound shut by force, essentially burning it shut.

"Yukari, what should we do!?" Reimu asked, not for a moment turning her back to Lilith, who was slowly approaching them now with a wicked grin. "I know we shouldn't help Rumia of all people, but... We can't just ignore Lilith either!"

"You're right, Reimu," Yukari said, as she raised an arm into the air, producing another talisman in her hand, much like the ones that had previously been erected to ward Rumia and Kana from the shrine. "I don't believe Lilith can sustain this boost in power for too long, otherwise she would have used it sooner. If we can hold her here until she returns to normal, we can prevent her from causing too much harm." The talisman in Yukari's hand began to glow, and cast a bright light up into the air, causing a barrier to begin forming around the entire upper area of Youkai Mountain. "Unfortunately, this means that none of us will be able to leave here until I dispel this barrier. But I won't be able to hold it for too long."

"I'll go alert the rest of Gensokyo about Lilith, just in case things go wrong! I can still make it through before the barrier goes up!" Aya kicked off from the ground, and flew into the sky rapidly, aiming to escape before the barrier could seal her in with everyone else as well.

Lilith had not turned a deaf ear to Aya's intentions, however. With more speed than anyone would have expected her to be capable of, Lilith flung one of her spears into Aya's path, with near perfect aim. Aya never had time to react, and was impaled through the stomach by the spear. She cried out in agony as she toppled to the ground, unable to maintain her balance in the air.

Lilith moved quickly, intercepting Aya mid-fall before anyone could come to her aid. The spear reverted to its original state the moment Lilith touched it, and it returned to her body with the other souls she had claimed. "Now, you fight for me." Lilith held her palm over Aya's wound, extracting the tengu's soul from her vulnerable body and adding it to the collection she had amassed. Aya's eyes glazed over, as though all life had left them, but still she remained alive. If anything, she seemed as though she had recovered, no longer wracked by fits of pain or moans of anguish. "Make sure that no one else attempts to escape. Kill them, if you must, but make sure Yukari maintains that barrier until I've wiped out the rest. And leave Rumia and Kana for me."

Aya rose up, facing Reimu's group, her eyes pale and devoid of reasoning. Her face was expressionless, showing no pain, fear, or even anger. Just unquestioned compliance. Without warning, Aya darted forward, causing an immense gust of wind that surged at the entire group in front of the shrine.

The tempest was powerful enough that Reimu's entire group was momentarily blinded, leaving them unable to stop Lilith as she charged past everyone, aiming straight for Rumia at the back of the group. At least half a dozen spears emerged from Lilith's body, all aiming to skewer the darkness youkai in one attack. The shadows rose to Rumia's defense, forming a hasty protective barrier around her. Though she avoided any immediate damage, Rumia's shield was easily shattered by Lilith's offensive maneuvers, forcing her to recoil, leaving her vulnerable.

Before Lilith could deal what would have no doubt been a finishing blow, she was accosted by Kana in the form of several electrical blasts to her back. "You keep away from her, Lilith!" Lilith turned and growled at Kana, who was hovering in the air near the shrine's path, her hands crackling with more electrical energy.

Several more ethereal spears had already formed by Lilith's side, poised to strike, when her body was struck with an intense pain. While her back was turned, Rumia had taken the opportunity to plunge her blade through Lilith's lower spine. "You shouldn't turn your back, you stupid, arrogant shit!"

Rumia attempted to swing her blade in either direction, which would have effectively sliced Lilith in half had she been given the chance. Lilith's spears once again rose to her defense, threatening to take Rumia with her should she go through with her current intentions. The spears lunged at Rumia, forcing her to release her grip on the sword and jump back. The spears crashed harmlessly into the shrine's porch, before vanishing to return back to Lilith's body. Lilith charged off of the porch, flying up above Reimu's group who were still dealing with the soulless Aya, and landed back on the pathway. Kana flung several more electrical blasts at Lilith, but they were blocked this time by the same souls she'd used to force Rumia's retreat, which formed themselves into a large, glowing shield.

Rumia's sword remained lodged in Lilith's stomach, and the wound was still oozing fresh blood. Rumia at that moment vanished from her previous spot, as if in a puff of black fog, before she warped a short distance forward out of the shadows to confront Lilith directly, without Reimu and the others as intermediaries. Kana drifted over toward Rumia's side, her body still charged with electrical energy.

"So, you're certainly faster. And you've gained a few tricks, judging by what you did to that tengu." Rumia snapped her fingers as she spoke, causing her sword to self-destruct inside of Lilith's body with a burst of shrapnel and black smog, the latter of which began to eat away at Lilith's flesh, spreading outward from the source of her wound. "And while I might not be at my full strength yet, I've learned a few new things since I was first unsealed. And you're still not immortal by any means."

Lilith growled in frustration, forcing her soul shield to dissipate and return to her body. The darkness that had begun to eat away at Lilith's body was consumed in a faint, bluish glow, which eradicated it entirely, and began to restore Lilith's body to perfect health. As it happened, however, soul energy seemed to radiate out from her skin, wasting away into the air.

It was bad enough that Lilith had been forced to enter her current state, but worse still that she had to expend those same souls that now powered her, just for the sake of healing her wounds. If it was just Rumia alone, it would be no trouble whatsoever. Even Reimu and her friends were little more than nuisances in her current state, and none of them would really rise to Rumia's defense if it came down to it. But Kana would always jump to Rumia's aid, providing enough of a distraction, and a major threat in her own right in the form of her Void pockets, to prevent her from finishing off that darkness youkai once and for all.

"Hey, Rumia," Kana asked, receiving a mere grunt from Rumia in response. "I know you're definitely stronger and all, but... That was a lot of souls she took in. It'll take a while to beat her up enough to deplete them all. And she's way too fast for me to try and use my Void powers on her."

"Then we need to find a way to surprise her. Reimu and the others have their own nuisance to deal with, they aren't going to be much help," Rumia muttered quietly, just barely loud enough for Kana to hear. Rumia's hand passed down to the cut across her midsection, which though no longer bleeding, still left a dull ache after the hasty manner in which she had tried to mend it. "The way things stand, I don't think we can finish her off on our own. Not without one of us dying in the process, I imagine." Rumia spat at the ground with distaste in regards to that idea.

"Hm... Leave it to me, Rumia.~" Kana pushed off into the air, and flung her arms outward, allowing several dozen of her soul birds to fly off in every direction, possessing ground tiles, trees, and various other things lying around. "Just keep her busy as best you can, and I'll do what I can in the meantime, while I get things ready.~"

Kana vanished through a Void portal once more, just narrowly avoiding a pair of Lilith's spears which had been flung at her in an attempt to put an end to whatever she was planning. "Well then, you ugly old bitch," Rumia taunted, stretching her arms out at either side of her. While several of the various objects Kana possessed began to take a defensive circle around Rumia, the darkness youkai's own shadow rose from the ground, forming a near perfect copy of Rumia herself, though pitch black in coloration and devoid of finer details. "Let's at least make this a little more interesting, shall we?"

As the fight between Rumia and Lilith renewed, Reimu and the others were still left to contend with the soulless Aya. The possessed crow tengu was in almost non-stop motion, forming a sort of wind barrier around the entire group that prevented them from trying to escape her clutches. All physically-based attacks, such as Reimu's charms and sealing needles, and Alice's dolls, were torn to shreds in a matter of seconds by the gale, while most magical attacks from Marisa and Sanae passed by harmlessly, easily dodged by the speedy tengu. Any attempts at miracles of wind or rain from Sanae or Kanako merely added to the ferocity of Aya's barrier, rendering such attacks useless, while any attempts by Nitori to manipulate the water created by such attacks were far too difficult to manage under such tempestuous conditions.

The only member of the group whose attacks seemed to have any effect, since Yukari was forced to maintain complete concentration in order to maintain the sealing border she'd erected, was Suwako. She caused several rocky protrusions to jut out from the ground at various intervals in Aya's path, disrupting the flow of her wind barrier briefly, and nearly forcing the tengu to slam into the rocky obstacles more than once. Aya was forced to take a more direct offensive approach, emerging from the safety of her wind tunnel to dart from one side to the other, causing a strong surge of wind to assault the group.

"She's just trying to distract us from Lilith!" Alice shouted, struggling to be heard over the tempest that Aya had created around them. "She's not taking making any direct attacks, because it might allow one of us to break through and attack!"

"Tch... Let me handle it, then!" Reimu replied, clutching at her gohei in one hand, and several unused charms in the other. She closed her eyes and began to focus her energy. Not an easy task, given the circumstances she was under. With her mind clear, Reimu stepped toward Aya's barrier and jumped through it, briefly fading away from reality so that she could pass through without harm.

When Reimu touched back down on the ground just outside of Aya's barrier, she opened her eyes, taking in everything that was presented before her now, though she had little more than a couple seconds to do so. Rumia and Lilith were continuing their fight a short distance away, with Rumia still being aided by the shadow duplicate of herself that she had created. Several stone tiles, tree limbs, and other possessed objects circled around Rumia, though Kana was nowhere to be seen. Whenever one of these objects was destroyed, either by being flung at Lilith, or by merely being cut apart by one of Lilith's spears, one of Kana's soul birds emerged from it, and flew off, surprisingly, in the direction of the shrine itself, though each of them would vanish into the ground before actually reaching Aya's wind barrier.

Reimu knew that she'd have to act quickly, because Aya would immediately notice what had happened. The tengu seemed not only more powerful under Lilith's seemingly empowering control, but also had the advantage of being able to ignore pain and fatigue; even the weakest enemy could become dangerous under such conditions. Reimu reacted immediately, turning with her gohei in hand, now charged with spiritual energy, to swipe at the oncoming Aya who had emerged in order to deal with Reimu. Her gohei connected with a dull thud, burning Aya's body with the gathered energy. Aya's face remained expressionless, showing no pain or even frustration. The blow knocked her backward, forcing her to stop just outside of the wind barrier, which was slowly dying down in force without Aya to power it.

All at once, at least two dozen of Kana's soul birds emerged from the ground just below where Aya had stopped. To Reimu's surprise, though Aya showed no change in expression, every last one of them passed into the tengu's body. Aya struggled to move, fighting against the control that Kana's soul birds were trying to exert, and she was actually succeeding, though her movements were dreadfully slowed.

"Well come on, one of you finish her off already!" Kana said, as she drifted back into sight from one of her Void pockets, focusing her complete control on trying to restrain Aya. "It's hard enough doing this much when Lilith still has Aya's soul, so get on with it before my control fades completely!"

"Right!" Reimu gave no more than a brief nod of acknowledgement to Kana, before focusing her full attention on Aya once more. She procured several sealing needles in both hands, and flung all of them at Aya.

"No! You can't be exerting any sort of control over her in that state!" Lilith shouted in a state of fury, being forced to focus even more of her attention on Aya to maintain near total control. She forced Aya's body to evade, but still the sealing needles made contact, puncturing several vulnerable spots in her torso, though without dealing fatal blows.

"You really don't learn, you stupid bitch!" Rumia took advantage of Lilith's compromised state to attack her from both sides, her shadow duplicate on the other end. Several shadowy spikes emerged from the ground to impale the empowered succubus. Both Rumias had formed new swords out from the darkness, which they were prepared to deal finishing blows to Lilith while she was distracted.

Yet Lilith would not ever allow herself to be defeated quite so easily. More souls emerged from her body, forming another protective barrier. Rumia's blades clashed against it, as did the shadows from the ground, causing several cracks to form on the shield's unstable surface, ruining even more of Lilith's supply. She quickly re-purposed her shield into the shape of more spears, forcing Rumia to jump back out of their range. Her shadow copy, on the other hand, was instead impaled by Lilith's attack, forcing it to vanish back into the darkness.

The diversion, however brief it might have been, was more than enough to seal Aya's fate. The wind barrier she had created was gone, and Aya was both outnumbered and vulnerable. Between several more sealing needles from Reimu, a number of Alice's dolls, and a barrage of magical blasts from Marisa, Aya was quickly blown out of the air into a bloody heap on the ground. Even with her soul in Lilith's possession, her body was useless to anyone but Kana for as long as her bodily functions had ceased.

"Looks like we've put an end to your little toy, eh Lilith?" Though she hadn't been able to land a fatal blow on Lilith like she had hoped, her actions had still resulted in Aya's death, which alone was enough to please Rumia. "Even if you could best me in a one on one fight, you know you can't get out of this alive."

"Aya was our ally. Our friend, Lilith," Reimu stated as calmly as she could manage, her gaze turning away from Aya's fallen body to glare directly at the one responsible for her fate. But still her calm tone did little to conceal her growing anger. "Nothing you've done excuses Rumia or Kana in the slightest. But that does make you our common enemy, Lilith!"

"Yeah! And we're gonna beat you into the ground, if that's what it takes!" Marisa flew in beside Reimu, sitting atop her broom with her mini-hakkero in hand, pointed directly at Lilith. "You mess with Gensokyo, you're messin' with all of us!"

"Oh, this is just delightful, isn't it~?" Kana said rather airily, drifting past Reimu and Marisa until she was floating behind Rumia. "I can't remember the last time we've ever had this much fun! Well, maybe last night. That was pretty fun too, don't you think, Rumia~?"

Lilith took several steps back, watching as everyone else rallied behind Reimu, all of them united against her, wanting to see her dead for everything she had done. She still had plenty of souls to spare, but that didn't mean her supply hadn't already suffered considerable losses since the fight had begun. Even if she could overcome such considerable odds, what costs would she pay to attain her victory? Surely she'd be forced to expend nearly every soul she had left. On top of that, Alan and Melony were both dead. She'd be all alone, trying to reclaim her supply of souls, and it would be slow work.

Her focus shifted to the fallen bodies of both her siblings, which were both lying on the ground nearby. They had only been recently killed, and the unnatural, fragmented nature of their souls, of Ananda's soul, meant that they would almost certainly still be harvest-able. But was she truly willing to go to such extreme measures to ensure her own victory?

Lilith turned, and her eyes fell upon Kana. Her features hardened. That poltergeist. She had wrenched control of Aya away from Lilith, if only for a brief moment. She had saved Rumia on numerous occasions already, and had freed Reimu and the others from their wind prison. She was the biggest nuisance of the entire group, and if Lilith was forced to resort to drastic measures to ensure her victory, then so be it.

"You mortal imbeciles have no idea who you are truly dealing with!" Lilith shouted out in defiance at the entire group that stood before her, slowly taking several paces backward, closing the distance between herself and the bodies of her dead siblings. "Just because you outnumber me, does not mean that your victory is assured. Quite the opposite! You're merely providing me with more souls that I can harvest, to begin building my supply anew!"

When Lilith had stepped far enough back that Melony's body was mere inches from her, and Alan's not far behind, she reacted quickly, grasping Melony's body by the back of her neck. This action surprised Rumia and everyone else present, who weren't quite sure what to make of Lilith's intentions, giving her enough of an opportunity to jump back and grab Alan in her other hand as well.

"And just what the fuck do you think two additional souls is going to accomplish?" Rumia asked with a rather bored tone, clearly tired of whatever antics Lilith had in store. She nudged her head to the side, motioning to Kana. "I've had enough of her bullshit, Kana. Go all out on her with your Void powers now, she won't be able to avoid them forever."

"You got it, Rumia.~" Kana outstretched both of her arms, as two large Void orbs slowly began to form over the palms of her hands. "Hope I don't accidentally hit one of you guys in the crossfire.~" Kana giggled as she spoke, showing that she didn't really seem to have any care about whether she did harm someone else or not.

"As if I'm going to get hit by something that slow," Reimu grunted out as she charged past Rumia and Kana, followed quickly by Marisa, Sanae, and several of Alice's dolls, all of them ready to gang up on Lilith.

"Don't be so sure of yourselves." Long before any of her assailants could come close, Lilith had extracted the souls from both the bodies of Alan and Melony, which rose from their bodies in the forms of pale, grayish lights. She forced the two souls to collide with each other, uniting them in the form of a single soul, which had turned a sickly, purplish-black color, not unlike that of the Void orbs that Kana was capable of manifesting, though in this particular case there was some sort of definite substance to it.

Marisa was the first to reach striking distance with Lilith, and began her attack by swerving into a wide loop around the woman. "Magic Sign: Stardust Reverie!" Marisa shouted, declaring her spell card as a large number of star-shaped danmaku began to spawn in Marisa's path, surrounding Lilith from every side.

Alice's dolls were setting up a wide formation at her command, steadily being placed at nearly every angle that Lilith could possibly try to escape from. Reimu and Sanae meanwhile, both took to the sky, flying directly above Lilith, who seemed more focused on absorbing the soul that she had crafted, rather than of the imminent threats surrounding her.

"I don't care how fast you are, Lilith! There's no getting away, and you can't just warp out of this one like Rumia or Kana!" Reimu pulled her own spell card from her sleeve, and Sanae did the same, and the two clasped their opposite hands together. "Now, Sanae!"

"Right!" Both of their spell cards began to glow brightly, and a divine energy began to radiate out from them both, strengthening the foundation of the link between them.

"Ultimate Barrier: God's Divine Sealing Circle!" the two both shouted in unison, their spell cards disappearing as a large sealing circle appeared on the ground beneath Lilith, trapping her within. The circle was empowered by both Reimu and Sanae, forming a seal that would have likely been impossible for even Rumia to slink out of, though Kana's Void powers may have been able to pierce through and provide an escape route.

"You're goin' down, Lilith!" Marisa finished her loop around Lilith, completing the circle of danmaku that now surrounding her. Once she'd reached her original starting point, the barrage of danmaku began to spin around Lilith at a rapid speed, steadily closing the circle they had formed as they approached. At that same moment, Alice's array of dolls, with lances in hand, all charged directly at Lilith. Trails of danmaku followed the dolls, and after mere moments, they too launched alone the same path, flung toward their immobile target.

A pale energy began to radiate from Lilith's body before even the first of the dolls, or any of Marisa's danmaku, could make the slightest contact. Another shield had already begun to form around Lilith's body in a desperate attempt to shield her from harm's way.

"Don't think so this time, Lilith.~ Those souls of yours aren't gonna protect you from the Void!" Kana finally lobbed her two Void orbs at the ensnared Lilith, who was immediately concealed from sight by the explosions of danmaku and dolls that ensued. Several loud smashing sounds were audible from within the dense haze of magical energy that clouded Lilith from sight, sounds of the evident destruction of Alice's dolls upon colliding with the shield Lilith had no doubt formed. Yet even that was no doubt damaged from the onslaught of attacks as well. Kana's attacks passed through the magical haze silently, and upon reaching their target, an enormous discharge of Void energy burst out in every direction, like a tainted blackish fog.

"Is that supposed to happen, Kana?" There was clear concern in Rumia's voice, something that certainly everyone was unused to hearing. But the magical haze still concealed Lilith, or whatever might have remained of her at that point, and she had no way to be sure without getting herself trapped in that barrier put in place by Reimu and Sanae.

Kana merely shrugged her shoulders, looking just as confused as Rumia. "Beats me.~"

"Well enough waiting around, then!" From the group that still remained by the shrine, Kanako was the one who had spoken out and stepped forward. She stopped just a few paces behind Rumia and Kana, and raised her arm forward, conjuring up a divine wind to disperse the smog that still hung over the battlefield.

The sight that greeted them all was not even remotely satisfying, and certainly shocked Kana most of all. Lilith stood as she had moments before, utterly unharmed by any of the attacks that had been aimed at her. Surrounding Lilith on all sides, rendering her invulnerable to apparently even Kana's Void powers, was a shield of some unknown material, a green crystalline substance that bore resemblance to diamond, yet it seemed vastly more durable than even that if even Kana couldn't destroy it. There wasn't a scratch to be seen, and scattered around it was the shattered remains of Alice's dolls that had crashed into it. Though Reimu and Sanae's sealing circle remained, Lilith seemed perfectly content exactly where she was, entirely safe from harm.

"There's no way!" Kana burst into a fit of surprising anger, a vast change from her usual carefree attitude. "There's nothing that my Void powers can't destroy, it makes no sense! Not even if you put all of those souls together!"

"You pitiable fool, running around wielding the Void as if it were some sort of toy," Lilith said with a calm intensity, her voice echoing from within her crystalline barricade. "How you managed to attain such power, I truly have no idea. But unlike you, who cannot even begin to fathom what the Void actually is, I have spent lifetimes researching it, as well as some of the creatures that spawned from it." Lilith placed her hand against the inner walls of her diamond-like shield, and it gave off a pale glow. "You can't really expect to penetrate these defenses, when a soul born of the Void was the one that generated them."

"You can't really expect me to believe your pathetic excuses for siblings were really from the Void, and capable of pulling off something like that," Rumia stated with disgust, as she began to once again walk toward Lilith. "If I suppose that you're right, it doesn't really matter. You're still trapped. I wonder, how long can you actually maintain that shield of yours? Can you actually outlast those two shrine maidens up there, keeping you locked up? If you can, just how many souls are you going to burn up while you waste away behind that shield of yours?"

"You really ask far too many questions, Rumia. I never said I intended to sit here, waiting you out." Lilith's lips curled up into a triumphant sneer, and Rumia's expression turned sour. More sour, anyway. All around the outside of Lilith's barrier, various smaller gems of material identical to that which made up Lilith's shield began to spawn, varying in size from as small as marbles, to as large as bowling balls. Yet each of them were jagged and uneven, and harder than any metal. "I can kill all of you without even having to move a muscle!"

"Move, you idiots!" Rumia shouted up at Reimu and Sanae, who up until then, had been forcing themselves to remain in place in order to maintain their hold on Lilith. The majority of the crystals spun in place rapidly, before being flung with astonishing speed at the two shrine maidens.

"Tch, damn it!" Reimu shoved Sanae out of the way from the worst of it, and was only able to narrowly fly away from the remainder of the crystals, suffering several painful cuts in the process. The wounds burned with a kind of intensity that seemed unnatural. However, the moment that Reimu and Sanae had broken off contact, the sealing circle around Lilith vanished entirely.

While Reimu and Sanae were dealing with their own problems, the rest of the crystals had chosen a target of their own, even before the sealing circle faded away. At first it seemed as if Rumia had been their intended target, as they flung straight toward her. Rumia braced herself, reverting her body into a black mist as she disappeared into the shadows for safety, allowing the crystals to fly past her, instead aiming themselves at Kana, who had been floating directly behind Rumia.

Kana didn't even have the time to react, and certainly not the time to escape through a Void pocket, or even find something to briefly possess to evade danger. The crystals clashed with both Kana's physical and spiritual bodies, harming her even if she were to try and take incorporeal form.

When Reimu and Sanae's sealing circle vanished, Lilith made her move. Her shield shattered, sending crystalline shrapnel in every direction. While everyone else was forced to take evasive maneuvers to avoid being torn to ribbons, Lilith lurched forward, an ethereal spear forming in her grip from one of her lesser human souls. Kana had been stunned with pain as a result of Lilith's earlier attack, and her eyes widened with horror as the succubus approached, with intent to kill. The spear she'd created plunged through Kana's upper torso, between the breasts and piercing her heart. Or at least, where a heart would have been, if a poltergeist had a true physical heart. Kana's expression was frozen in place, and the energy from Lilith's spear radiated outward from the point of impact, rapidly consuming Kana's form. When her body was completely enveloped by the pale energy, she vanished into a bright flash of light, reverting to nothing more than a single soul which was pulled into Lilith's body, adding to her collection.

"No!" The entire scene had taken place over little more than a few seconds, and Rumia had been powerless to prevent it as she rematerialized nearby. Several shadows rose to skewer Lilith, but her crystal shield rose to her defense, impeding their path at every angle. Rumia herself leaped at Lilith from behind, sword in hand, which she swung down at the succubus in a fit of rage. The blade merely collided with Lilith's growing shield, however, sending reverberations back into Rumia's arms. "What the fuck did you do to her, you old bitch!?"

"That poltergeist was a constant nuisance to me this entire time. So I disposed of her in the way I best saw fit." Lilith chuckled softly to herself, not even turning to face Rumia, who continued with her attempts to hack away at Lilith's shield. Various other shadows attempted to strike at the barrier from every angle, to breach her defenses before the shield could fully form, but they were stopped at every turn, until the barrier was complete. There was not a single dent or scratch to be seen on the crystal's surface. "Are you quite finished? Really, I didn't think she could mean anything to such a cruel, heartless creature like you. You have plenty of other allies now, all wanting to see me dead, do you not?" Lilith's eyes darted to the side to meet Rumia's enraged gaze, and her lips curled into a vile smirk.

Rumia stepped backwards, her body shaking with fury. Her sword vanished into the darkness, though it remained as a sort of foggy radiance around her hand. For the first time, an expression of something akin to defeat, possibly even sadness, adorned Rumia's features. To Lilith, this was almost better than just killing her outright. To see her most powerful foe, reduced to a state of hopelessness, knowing she'd lost.

"Tch... To think I'd get pushed this far..." Rumia bit at her lower lip, her sharpened upper teeth drawing blood in several places. Her fists clenched and unclenched rhythmically, darkness gathering steadily in both of them. "Losing my only real ally, just like that... And knowing that I really can't defeat you on my own. To think, there was someone actually more powerful than me." Though her expression remained steady, she began to laugh. An almost pathetic sort of laugh. "Even when I was a thousand years younger, the great Yukari Yakumo didn't stand a chance against me." Her gaze flashed toward Yukari, who still hovered above the roof of the shrine, doing her best to maintain the barrier that was keeping Lilith from slinking off to the rest of Gensokyo. The look she gave Rumia in response was certainly not a kind one, but there was at least something akin to pity in it.

"It's almost pathetic, seeing you like this, Rumia," although Lilith's expression certainly didn't contain any of the pity that Yukari's had. Her features showed nothing but triumph, and arrogant pride. "In all my long years, I've never been forced to take such drastic measures. For making me waste all my hard work since arriving in Gensokyo, your death, and the deaths of everyone here, will not be pleasant ones."

"I don't suppose there's any chance of your souls burning out before you manage to break free into the rest of Gensokyo," Reimu said as she walked weakly toward Lilith and Rumia, supported on one side by Sanae. Her wounds were certainly serious, and she had bled heavily, but her life was not in danger. At least, not from her existing wounds. "But I'll be damned if I go down without a fight."

"I'd recommend that you lot keep the fuck out of this, Reimu." The darkness in Rumia's hands flared after she spoke, her tone considerably more commanding than it had been a few moments before. Already gone was the defeated attitude that had overtaken Rumia, and her expression had taken on a blood-crazed look. "I don't care if she tears me to shreds in the process. Or if I have to rip my own body from this worthless plane of existence. I will see this bitch dead. Right here, right now."

Lilith frowned in irritation, but she did not seem concerned. She was tired of listening to Rumia's ranting. Several more crystal shards formed outside of her shield, all of which were immediately shot at the darkness youkai. Rumia grunted out a deep growl of rage, and the darkness seemed to burst from her body in a wave. The crystal projectiles that had been flung in her direction wound up caught in the burst, and were blown harmlessly in various directions. Though Lilith was unfazed behind her shield, the burst of darkness had been powerful enough to knock down not only Reimu and Sanae, but also to extinguish every lantern that lit the path leading up to the shrine. The only lights that remained were the moon, and the stars in the sky, but even those seemed to have dimmed ever so slightly.

"What's wrong, Lilith!? Can't hurt me when you're cowering behind that shield of yours!?" Rumia burst into a fit of crazed laughter, and another surge of darkness burst forth from her body. In the little light that remained, Rumia's body seemed to be practically evaporating into the darkness that emanated from her.

"Rumia! Just what do you think you're doing!?" Yukari called out for the first time since having established the barrier that enclosed the shrine grounds. She seemed to be struggling to even manage saying that much. "Whatever you're doing... it's disrupting my control over the barrier!"

"If she tries to make a run for it, then so be it! She's not going to have anywhere to hide!" Every sentence was followed by another surge of darkness, further dampening the luminescence of the sky above, enshrouding everything in deeper blackness. "I'll cover all of Gensokyo in eternal darkness, even at the cost of my own life, as long as it means I can rid the world of this shit-faced bitch!"

"You think this is going to accomplish anything!? You still can't touch me!" Lilith screamed back at Rumia, attempting to assail her with more crystalline projectiles, which were all flung aside in the same manner as the previous ones, much to Lilith's irritation. "All you're doing is threatening Gensokyo's stability, you idiot!"

"Rumia, stop this!" Reimu called out from behind Rumia, trying to steady herself back to her feet, while the waves of darkness continued to pour off of Rumia.

"I don't like this, Reimu," Sanae said from beside her fellow shrine maiden, wincing as another surge of darkness blew past them. "It's not just regular darkness I'm starting to feel around us anymore."

Visibility had been reduced to almost zero, not just around the shrine, but throughout all of Gensokyo. All light in Gensokyo, in the homes of the tengu and kappa further down the mountain, through the halls of the Scarlet Devil Mansion, within Eientei, and even along the borders of the Dream World, in Mugenkan, nearly everything was shrouded in absolute darkness. Rumia was certainly gone from sight entirely, having vanished into the inky blackness that she had created.

Realizing that in Gensokyo's current status, trying to maintain her barrier around the shrine was pointless, Yukari cast aside the talisman that she'd conjured up, fully dismissing what remained of the barrier. "Rumia, stop this now! Before you cause something that cannot be undone!"

"I'm going to undo something, alright!" Rumia's voice echoed from the darkness around them, though her exact physical location was impossible to determine in the absolute blackness. "I'm going to wipe this pathetic excuse for the so-called god that she claims to be out of existence!"

A loud crack echoed through the darkness, followed by a pale greenish glow that emanated from Lilith's shield. To Lilith's shock, a deep fissure had formed within her barrier as a result of Rumia's attack, which seemed to have focused all of the darkness around her into one direct blow. Before she could mend the crack, it was assaulted by another blow from Rumia, and then another, all in rapid succession. Damage was being dealt to the barrier's surface more quickly than Lilith could hope to mend it, and it wasn't long before she was forced to act, lest she be torn to pieces when the crystals exploded inward. Instead, Lilith threw her arms outward, forcing the barrier to burst out in every direction, in what she hoped would successfully harm Rumia instead.

The shattered crystal fragments all gave off a pale radiance as a result of the energy that had surged through them in order to break them apart, and in their dim light, Lilith had managed to catch the briefest glimpse of Rumia in the shadows. The light only lasted a mere instant, but in the seconds that followed, several cries of anguish rang out in the darkness, indicating that Rumia was likely not the only one that would have been caught by the crystal shrapnel. Lilith didn't particularly care. It would just be fewer witnesses to clear out afterward, should she manage to finish Rumia off.

Fear had begun to creep into Lilith's mind. She felt it during the exact moment that her shield had been destroyed, and she was fully engulfed within the darkness that Rumia had summoned. It wasn't just the fear that Rumia might very well kill her. It was as though the darkness itself was alive, threatening to consume her very existence. And she felt as if it wasn't the first time that such a sensation had filled her body.

Rumia of course, had no intention of ceasing her onslaught. She had in fact been caught in the burst of crystal fragments from Lilith's shield, and her flesh was embedded with the sharp remnants in several places, but that did not stop her. Lilith allowed several souls to emerge from her body, briefly illuminating the immediate area around her, giving her just barely enough time to react to Rumia's next incoming attack. The woman created a small crystal shield between her and the rampaging darkness youkai, shielding herself from damage once more, before Rumia vanished into the darkness once again.

In the light of her souls, Lilith was visible to all those present, but likewise, so were those who had been nearest to her before Rumia's darkness shrouded Gensokyo. The two goddesses of the Moriya Shrine stood nearest, both bloodied from the crystal shrapnel, but alive. Nitori hadn't been quite so lucky. Her body had been ripped to shreds by the nearly indestructible material which flew through her. At the very least, it was yet another soul Lilith could claim for her own. In the brief respite between Rumia's attacks, as she certainly did not seem to want to enter the light and be seen once more, Nitori's soul emerged from her body, and hovered over toward the succubus who wished to claim it for her own.

Not only Nitori's soul, but also those of the humans that illuminated the area around Lilith, were soon extinguished within the darkness. Completely eradicated, and lost forever to the shadows. The darkness was once again absolute, and it would no doubt consume any additional sources of light that tried to come into existence. Another handful of souls lost, all for the sake of a little light in the darkness. She might as well have just thrown them away, Lilith thought.

Still, that fear nagged at Lilith's mind, more incessantly than ever, and she was not the only one who felt it. Yukari, in particular, felt more unsettled than even Lilith. The darkness around them seemed to have taken on a life of its own, and the atmosphere was not merely that of the dead of night, but of a much more oppressive state that none of those present had ever felt before, not even Yukari or Lilith.

"Rumia...! This... This isn't normal, whatever you're doing now...!" Reimu's voice seemed to almost tremble with fear, something very uncharacteristic of her under normal circumstances. The darkness around her and Sanae was overwhelming, as though it were trying to crush them both, and simultaneously pull them apart. Certainly it was unlike anything they could have felt in the natural, physical world.

"Come on Rumia, this is totally messed up!" Marisa called out some distance away, somewhere further away from the shrine than everyone else.

There was some silence while no one spoke, yet it wasn't an absolute silence. The darkness still seemed as if it was alive, fluctuating and moving of its own accord, threatening to strangle and rip at everyone within it at the first given opportunity.

Rumia materialized completely out of the darkness, standing at the center of the shrine's path. She had dispelled much of the darkness around herself, in order to make herself seen. Her body was bloodied, and seemed to be covered in what looked like black burn marks, from which parts of her flesh seemed to still slowly disintegrate into the darkness, her body being eaten away as a result of maintaining the total blackout over Gensokyo.

"I'm not the one doing that," Rumia muttered with a hint of both irritation and fear. Even though she had dispelled most of the darkness that was around her own body, it still seemed intent on pressing inward around her once more, even against her own control.

"The sky. Look." Yukari's voice echoed from the darkness, and everyone looked up at her request, expecting to see nothing but more empty blackness. What greeted their eyes was a horrifying sight. A massive Void pocket in the sky much like the one that had consumed the Hakurei Shrine, only something within it seemed to be alive, desperate to escape. It bubbled over with a sickish haze, spreading its reaches across the sky. "I've felt a presence like this before... only once before..." Yukari continued to speak, and her voice trembled with every word. "But this is on a completely different level... something I never could have imagined..."

The creature, or whatever it was, continued to spread out from the Void pocket, like a roiling mass of some indescribable dark being. Reimu watched as it spread through the sky, horrified beyond comprehension, but unable to avert her eyes. She felt as if the mere sight of the thing would drive her to madness. Somewhere she thought she heard laughter, a crazed sound, somewhere off in the distance, yet close at hand. She realized that Sanae had fallen to her knees, and was laughing madly as she watched the indescribable thing in the sky. Somewhere else, someone screamed in the dark abyss, but Reimu was unable to determine the source of this second voice, as she struggled to even maintain a grip on her own sanity. Had Rumia's own darkness not been in place to shield the worst of the monstrous thing from sight, she feared she would submit to a madness from which she would never recover.

"This... thing..." Rumia's voice spoke out over Sanae's mad laughter, and the screaming off in the distance, silencing both as the two both had their attention drawn to Rumia instead, who remained the only other visible being in sight. "I feel as if... I've seen this thing before..." A sort of instinctual dread had overcome Rumia's mind, and against all rational thought, she knew what she had done. She had called this indescribable creature, this immortal being from the Void, and she knew why it had come. She had broken the balance between light and darkness. Shattered it, really.

"I should have suspected that something like this might happen," Lilith's voice echoed out of the darkness, her tone one of resigned understanding. The resolve and anger seemed to have faded from her voice completely. "The Void is a realm of more than just complete emptiness. It is the space between worlds, from which all worlds spring from, in one form or another. Chaos and balance both exist in eternal struggle, like good and evil, light and darkness. Not only in the physical worlds, but in the Void as well." Lilith chuckled briefly within the unseen darkness. "And now you've gone and broken that balance here in Gensokyo, and attracted this creature of the Void to our realm."

The roiling mass in the sky outstretched a number of black tendrils, which seemed to grope about in the air with some unknown purpose. Through some indiscernible means, it had taken notice of those on the ground, and released a devastating bellow, like some eldritch draconian beast. Once again, Reimu found herself thankful that Rumia's darkness still concealed the creature's full form from sight, and she was not alone in thinking so.

The outcry from the creature drew everyone's attention once more, and it became apparent that some sort of transformation was occurring to it. The various tendrils returned to the center of the creature, wrapping tightly around and condensing all of its mass to one point. The thing began to take on a more recognizable shape, something that rational thought was more capable of comprehending, and the minds of those present began to ease, no longer on the brink of absolute madness.

The emptiness that concealed the beast's true form ultimately vanished, revealing the shape that it had taken on. No longer an indescribable eldritch mass, but that of a humanoid woman. Her skin was beyond pale, lacking any sort of pigmentation, and her hair was much the same, and drifted in every direction as if blown by a nonexistent wind. Her eyes were likewise devoid of color, with black irises almost indistinguishable from her pupils, and there was no emotion to be seen in her expression whatsoever. She was garbed only in what seemed to be a black cloak, but the rest of her body, despite her rather revealing attire, was utterly featureless, as though she'd only bothered to imitate the most basic fundamentals of the humanoid form. Black tendrils continued to surround her form, writhing about seemingly at random, and were the only visible remnants of what her true form must have consisted of.

Everyone could merely stare in confusion and awe at the mysterious woman that had emerged from the Void, and likewise, the woman regarded everyone on the ground with a silent, emotionless stare. Rumia was the first to break away her gaze from the woman, and instead turned to Lilith. Rumia's darkness had already begun to dissipate ever since the woman had begun to take on rational form, and Lilith was at that point clearly visible to everyone. "You know something, so talk! What the fuck is going on, and who the fuck is that supposed to be!?"

Lilith found herself at a loss for words as she stared up at the woman from the Void, her expression a bizarre mixture of horror and admiration, though the latter was not a sentiment shared by anyone else present. Rumia did receive the answer she was seeking, but it was not Lilith who eventually provided it. Cold laughter rang out around them, and it was as if ice had been poured into their veins. "We are an emissary of the Void, a collective entity beyond the scope of your mere physical world," the woman spoke in an airy voice, her words having an ethereal quality to them that echoed through the stagnant darkness. Even when she had laughed, her features were unchanged, and humorless. "If you must grasp at straws for a name... you may refer to us as The Voidborn, if it truly matters to you."

"You are not the first being originating from the Void to approach me, and enter Gensokyo," Yukari said, catching The Voidborn's eye. "But I can tell with absolute certainty that you are the more powerful of the two. Why have you come to our world, Voidborn?"

"For many years, though it has been hardly more than a fleeting instant in the Void, Gensokyo has been under our watchful eye. Ever since you, Yukari Yakumo, first came into contact with another being from the Void, a thousand years past." Her words drew the attention of Reimu and several others, who gave a few queer looks at the gap youkai, who clearly showed no intention of explaining the meaning behind The Voidborn's words. "And now the Void has been creeping into Gensokyo, steadily threatening to consume it, and worse still, the balance between light and darkness has been grossly abused." The Voidborn dropped her gaze down toward Rumia. "Gensokyo is an abomination. Too often, has it proven to be unstable, and unnecessary. A cancer on this universe, inhabited by multiple beings capable of ripping this reality asunder. You are a prime example, rebirth of Garnet Ferre. We are well aware of the original disaster that you brought upon this world."

Rumia flinched slightly at the Voidborn's words. "So I fucked up, and covered Gensokyo in darkness. Big fucking deal." Despite her typical defiant attitude, there was evident fright in her voice. "I removed it just as easily, so big fucking whoop! If this succubus bitch over here hadn't killed Kana, we could have just as easily removed that Void pocket over the shrine too!" True to her word, the darkness that Rumia had spread over Gensokyo had indeed dissipated, with only the natural darkness of the night to surround them. This did not seem to be enough to appease The Voidborn, however, who regarded Rumia with the same emotionless stare.

"The underlying problem still remains, and must be removed. To allow so many of such power to gather together in one place... It can only breed further disaster. The remainder of the world shall be better off." The Voidborn gazed upward into the Void tear that she had emerged from, as a larger number of black tendrils began to crawl out from its depths, clawing their way across the sky. Even the sky itself seemed to become distorted by the outstretched coils of dark appendages. "In order to restore true balance... We shall wipe Gensokyo from the face of this universe. We shall send it all back to the Void, from which all things are born, and to which all things must inevitably return."

"N... no way! You can't just destroy Gensokyo!" Reimu shouted out in defiance, taking an uneasy step forward. She nearly faltered, her legs almost feeling like rubber, and she realized that her close brush with madness earlier had had more of an effect than she initially thought.

"What gives you the right to decide what's best for this world!?" Kanako called out next, and was quickly followed by Suwako.

"The fate of the world should be left to the gods of this world to decide! Not some malignant, emotionless creature from the Void!"

"Were you two truly the Gods that had created this world, perhaps that might be the case." The Voidborn didn't even bother to turn her head down to face the two goddesses, a gesture they both would have otherwise found highly rude, but in their current situation, were hesitant to speak out against. "The two Gods who birthed this world exist in constant conflict. There is a delicate equilibrium that is to be upheld. If they are not willing to intervene on your behalf, then action must be taken."

"I've always known that there must have been a being within the Void that existed above even the Gods that created this world. Even if I was never able to learn of such a creature's true nature." Lilith gave a resigned sigh, and turned her gaze up to The Voidborn herself. "For what it's worth, it's an honor to finally meet you. Even if it may not be under the best of circumstances."

The Voidborn finally turned her attention downward once more, and caught Lilith's stare. For the briefest instant, she could've sworn that a smile crossed The Voidborn's lips, and then it was gone. There was, however, a hint of amusement in her voice. "So, even you are here... Lilith Maestra. The first living creature to be born within the confines of this universe. How amusing. But it does not influence our decision."

This new information about Lilith certainly took everyone by surprise, and in a normal situation, it would've certainly drawn further questioning. It was at that moment, which effectively silenced any potential questions regardless, that Lilith's body began to seize in place, glowing with a bright energy. The light manifested itself in front of Lilith, slowly taking on humanoid shape.

"Rumia! You have to get out of here, now!" A voice emanated out from the light, which slowly took on a more defined shape. Soon enough, Kana hovered in front of Lilith, surrounded by a spiritual glow, which projected from Lilith's body. "The Voidborn had to take on physical form in order to appear like she is now, and I think I can hold her here with my Void powers, but only for a short time!"

"K... Kana!? I thought you were dead, what the fuck happened!?" Rumia didn't seem entirely certain of how to react. Kana had ordered her to flee, but she found herself unable to move from where she stood.

"She is dead!" Lilith shouted through gritted teeth, the best she could manage with Kana binding her body in its place. "I destroyed her physical and spiritual bodies, and claimed her soul for my own!"

"But I am still a poltergeist, Lilith. My body may have been destroyed, but my consciousness could still survive inside of you. At least, for a short time." Kana outstretched her arms, forcing Lilith to do the same. Void energy began to gather around the two, nearly concealing them from sight, with only the glow around Kana's essence providing any illumination. "Go, now! All of you! By taking on physical form, The Voidborn inherently limits herself! Get out of here, while I restrain her for as long as I can manage! There's nothing you can do to save me, Rumia, just go!"

Rumia clenched her fists, standing in place watching Kana and Lilith, until finally the two were completely engulfed by Kana's Void energy. With nothing left to hold her back, Rumia let out a grunt of resignation, and cloaked herself in darkness, vanishing off to some other location within Gensokyo.

Yukari gapped herself to the center of the shrine's pathway at that moment, hovering closest to Reimu and Sanae. "Everyone! We have to retreat for now, while Kana has given us the chance!" Yukari turned her head to face The Voidborn once more, and the woman returned the gaze. She made no move to stop Yukari or anyone else for that matter, even though Yukari suspected that if she truly wished, it would be a trivial matter to stop them from escaping.

Yukari opened up several additional gaps, one each beneath all of the still surviving individuals, whisking them off to safety, so that only Lilith and Kana remained to face The Voidborn. The Void energies that surrounded the two continued to spread outward after that point, eventually culminating into a massive Void pocket, nearly as large as the one that had surrounding the Hakurei Shrine, trapping both Lilith and Kana within, along with The Voidborn as well.

A soft chuckle echoed through the air, at least what little air remained in the Void pocket that they now found themselves bound inside of; a small area that existed somewhere halfway between the physical world, and the Void itself. "To think that a simple poltergeist would have such power over the Void. It makes us wonder how such a thing could be naturally possible. It must be her doing."

"I really don't know where I got them either. I've had them for as long as I can remember, probably since the day I was created." Within the Void, Kana could no longer hold her essence intact, and her image began to falter. "But I know I had enough power left to trap you here. Just long enough for everyone to regroup, and launch a counterattack. And they will defeat you."

"They are certainly welcome to try," The Voidborn laughed, as Kana faded from consciousness entirely, her only remnant being the fragment of her soul that lay at rest within Lilith's body. "That merely leaves you, Lilith Maestra. If it is any small comfort, there was no potential fate in which you would have come out victorious over Rumia this night."

"All of my plans were in vain, then. Just rotten timing that she would appear when I was so close to achieving victory." Lilith heaved a heavy sigh, and dropped her arms to her sides. "Even if I was to attain the power I desired, I would not be able to stand against you. I accept my fate, Voidborn."

"Commendable last words, at the very least. Admirable that one of such pride should fade from this world with dignity." The Voidborn waved her arm, and in an instant, Lilith's body and soul were wiped from Earthly existence.

From her body emerged the single soul that Lilith had crafted from the essences of her fallen siblings. The Voidborn beheld it with mild amusement, and beckoned it into her grasp. "How very interesting. That even we would not have noticed her presence after all this time, and in such a fragmented state." The Voidborn closed her hand, and the soul entered her own body. "Lilith Maestra... To think that a being born fully of physical means would be capable of harvesting the soul of such a powerful Void born creature. Perhaps we have underestimated the beings of Gensokyo."