Outside Mysterious Ruins
Since they've spent the past hour flying around and taking out fairies with various attacks, the girls have decided to take a short break on the ground as they listen to Marisa's suggestion.
"Say that again?" Kotohime and Rikako both asked in unison as they don't quite get what exactly Marisa meant with her suggestion.
"A fight of raw power! That's the way I'm preferrin'!" Marisa stated with a proud look on her face. "See who's better at kickin' the other's butts! The winner gets to go inside...whatever this freakin' ruin is! You should be gettin' my point already!"
Reimu sighs. "Marisa...is this what you and your friends learn from Mima?" She asked Marisa.
Kotohime was reminded of something when she hears the shrine maiden trainee's question. "Oh, by the way, Marisa Kirisame..." She directed her sentence at Marisa, saying the witch's name in a sarcastic tone. "About how you and your friends released the evil spirit, Mima from being sealed~" The self-proclaimed police constable resumed in a creepy tone, while simultaneously showing a creepy smirk and pointing her long gun at Marisa's face point-blank.
That was enough to intimidate Marisa, who swallowed hard and took a step back. "I...it was my ide...idea! I swear! I'm takin' all the res...responsibility!" The witch stammered with her response due to the intimidation.
This scene has made Kana giggle before she turns toward Rikako. "Is she really a police constable?" She asked in amusement.
"Don't ask..." Rikako answers the poltergeist in a deadpan manner.
That was when Kotohime puts her gun down. "Just kidding~" She told Marisa with a joking tone, her mouth showing a grin. "I can't arrest you. Not at the moment, at least~"
Marisa sighed in relief upon hearing that. "Whew. Ya sure got me there..." The witch then takes off her hat. "Now, let's get to the freakin' point already..."
...
?-?-?
"So, what have we got here?" Chiyuri asked Yumemi, who is currently reviewing through several panels of light the scenes from the fairy hunting competition that was already over.
Yumemi took a sip from her bottled strawberry milkshake before gleefully telling her assistant, "Myriads of colorful magic and supernatural abilities. Just what I'm looking for~"
The professor then sets the bottled strawberry milkshake down on the table in front of her.
"But its only 40% of the amount I need!" Yumemi suddenly bursts out as she turns around to face Chiyuri. "77 Terabytes of information I've acquired! But there's not enough variety to prove my point to the academic thickheads!"
Chiyuri jumped back in reaction to the professor's sudden outburst. "C...calm down! we don't even have a deadline, so we still have plenty of time to keep observing!"
Yumemi snatches up the bottled strawberry milkshake and finishes the rest of it in one gulp. "Right, right. No deadlines to chase, plenty of time to record things and write a report about them..."
Chiyuri then directs Yumemi at a panel of light that is showing what is currently happening outside the Mysterious Ruins. "And looks like they're not done yet..."
Said panel of light showed Marisa holding her witch hat upside down with her left hand, while she casts a spell onto it with the wand in her right hand. Following that, the witch puts her wand away (into her sleeves), and then tells the other girls something. Exactly what is being said by Marisa can't be heard because the panel of light produced no sounds.
"Why can't we hear what she is saying? Shouldn't the Everywhere Camera be able to transmit sounds as well?" Yumemi pointed out about the lack of sounds from the image.
"The magic in this land is messing with that part of the Everywhere Camera." Chiyuri explains awkwardly.
Yumemi shoved the assistant aside as she walks toward one of that panel of light. "Don't you know how to fix, or at least troubleshoot glitches?" The professor starts doing something complex on the panel (mostly tapping all over it). Whatever she might be doing, Yumemi is done within eight seconds. "There."
That's when the panel of light showing Reimu, Marisa and the others stopped being silent, sounding out what they are saying loud and clearly.
"Now, y'all! Put your hands inside my hat! See whether you picked a yellow star or a red one!" Marisa can be heard telling the other girls. "There are only two red stars, and whoever gets 'em will be fightin' each other first!"
Yumemi can't help but snicker at what she heard. "Oh, this. Pretty sure the witch had it rigged so..."
Before Yumemi can finish her statement, the girls have already went and rummaged through Marisa's hat (their hands extended deeper into the hat than it is tall), and each of them pulled out a star from it.
"Nope..." Chiyuri comments as she notices something in the scene. "Definitely not rigged, if the witch's frown is any indication..."
...
Outside Mysterious Ruins
The two girls to get red stars from rummaging through Marisa's hat are Reimu and Ellen. Everyone else got yellow stars, including Marisa herself.
"Dammit!" Marisa expressed disappointment. "And I though I could start all this havin' 'nother showdown with Reimu..."
Reimu taps Marisa in the forehead with her gohei. "If you are thinking of testing a new spell on me, I have to say no."
The shrine maiden trainee's statement led to Rikako glaring at Marisa. "You used her as a test subject?" The magician-turned-scientist asks with surprise.
"Oh, how rude!" Ellen exclaims. "You cannae just use someone to test your spells without permission!"
Marisa puts her hat back on. "Oh, never mind. We're gonna be fightin' one 'nother, anyway..."
With that, everyone turned their attention on the only two red stars, one in Reimu's hand, the other in Ellen's.
"Oh, Reimu! You have a red star!" Ellen cheerfully points out, clearly forgotten what the red stars mean. "And so do I!" The fluffy-headed girl added upon seeing hers.
Reimu looks at the red star she is holding, then at Ellen's, and then at the yellow stars everyone else are holding...
The shrine maiden trainee procrastinated for a short while before turning toward Marisa. "Mind explaining the rules, if there is any?" She asked the witch.
"And don't even think about changing the rules mid-duel~" Kotohime, displaying a creepy smile on her face, warned Marisa.
Marisa notices the self-proclaimed police constable's warning, but isn't intimidated this time. "There's only one rule in this match: beat your opponent into submission!"
Everyone then notices Ellen being all confused about Marisa's explanation. "Isn't it bad to beat somebody else, no matter how bad they are?"
The fluffy-headed girl's absent-minded statement made everyone giggle, even Rikako who has been very deadpan so far.
"Or, ya can just put 'em out without hurtin' them in whatever way you know..." Marisa clarifies, while pulling aside the hair covering her left eye to show that she is winking.
That's when Reimu stopped giggling. She's going to put me to sleep with that spell of hers... The shrine maiden trainee thought.
Once again, my class timetable doesn't give me enough time to perform updates to this story, causing delays in the release of yet another chapter. This is going to be the case for the rest of this semester, which I believe lasts until around August (just in time for the release of the full version of Hidden Star in Four Seasons too), so please bear with me and my lack of free time.
Speaking of HSiFS, the newest character revealed in it by ZUN (a butterfly fairy/Youkai?) received a fanart just 15 minutes after she was revealed, which was just a few hours ago as of the uploading of this chapter (5th of May, 2017). Them Day Zero Fanarts sure come fast... Also, seems that the game's demo will be released two days later, alongside the demo of Antinomy of Common Flowers. Now I wonder how I can adapt AoCF and HSiFS to fit in the world of Young Maiden's Chronicles...? Hype intensifies...
As for the Everywhere Camera Yumemi mentioned...you know those magic crystal balls that lets their user see things in a very distant or well hidden location? Well, the Everywhere Camera used by Yumemi is essentially a technological version of those magic crystal balls. How do they work? Answer: "some kind of advanced quantum physics" like all sci-fi writers would say...
The next chapter will see the fights beginning for real. For the meantime, you just have to bear with my busy schedules...
"And that, as they say, is that..."
Afterword ends here.
USELESS ADDITION: The system failed to detect this update for some reason, so I had to re-upload it on the 6th of May.