False Advents (Chapter 2: Awakening):
He had been sprinting for the good part of five minutes now. He calculated that he could likely sprint for about another fifteen minutes before having to catch his breath. In the half hour or so worth of time that he had spent here, he has learnt two rather important things.
The first being that he likely isn't human, or isn't one anymore, and the second and most important detail being the fact that his pursuer is an idiot.
He continued to sprint through the bamboo groves, occasionally taking a few turns here and there in hopes of ending up somewhere, as opposed to running in circles. However, that strange sensation of being stalked persisted. No matter how much faster he ran, or how many more turns he took, it just seemed to follow him wherever he went.
Just as he was about to make his way through another thicket of bamboo, his instincts told him to duck, which he did.
Without warning, a bright purple arc of pure, unadulterated, energy whizzed past over his head, cleaving through the thicket and detonating a fair distance away from him.
"Glad I followed through." He clenched his teeth. "Would have been the end of me there."
Stepping out from behind a thicket from fifty meters away was none other than Rumia. Rather than that friendly demeanor she had put on earlier, she now had a sinister smile painted over her face. In her right palm was an orb of that same energy, spiraling ever so violently.
"So… did you know all along?" She questioned.
"Know what?" He asked, preparing to hotfoot it out of there.
"About the fact that… youkai are immune to physical attack?"
It seemed that his hunch was indeed accurate.
"...Nope…"
"Is that so~?" she cooed.
In an instant, she pointed her right palm towards him and fired off a barrage of a dozen glowing blue "bullets", which he sidestepped. The stream of bullets continued towards the fired direction without losing any velocity and eventually connected with another thicket of bamboo, toppling every last one of them in seconds.
He concluded that if an ordinary human were to get hit by one on a limb, it may as well be the equivalent of losing said limb, and on that note, began sprinting again.
It didn't take long for him to see another one of those projectiles fly past him. He turned around and saw that Rumia was by no means slower than him. She was somehow flying, and actually beginning to gain on him.
"You're a fast one, aren't you?" She called out from behind him. "Now get back here, I'm hungry!"
He began to sprint even faster, he quickly noticed that Rumia had no trouble keeping up with him. He was beginning to reach his upper limit, but she wasn't even winded in the slightest.
Just as he was about to turn at a corner, he felt a sharp sensation of pain rise from his left calf, then his lower back. He collapsed and tumbled into a nearby bamboo stalk, then noticed that his left calf was bleeding and covered with injuries akin to burns. The same applied to his lower back.
Ironically, this situation was growing all the more familiar to him.
"Y'know, out of every human that I've chased and eaten so far, you've lasted the longest."
He glanced upward and noticed that Rumia was already looming over him.
"...Is that so?"
She frowned, "Are you making fun of me?"
"...Perhaps."
"...I'll enjoy listening to your screams. I'll take your left arm first."
She flashed him a warm smile, then unhinged her jaws and chomped down on his upper left arm.
A few hundred meters away, the guide continues to fly towards the scene, albeit out of pure curiosity. She had nothing better to do with the remainder of her life anyway. The Gappies never come to her for anything other than pointless errands, and even then, they don't last very long either. This individual, however, was interesting, at least more so than the usual. Perhaps they'll get along assuming they survive. About three seconds after that thought, her ears picked up on a rather loud scream.
"Guess I'd better hurry." She chuckled "Although I think he'll be dead by then."
Meters above the scene was the very same infinitesimal gap, but this time, however, there were three individuals watching.
"Oh my. What a loud cry." The young woman said, covering her lips with the tip of her paper fan. "Ran?"
"Yes mistress?"
"What do you think of this young man?"
Ran contemplated this question for a while. "Well, for starters, he's lasted longer against Rumia than any other Gappy we've seen."
"Chen thinks he's smart for not hitting her."
"Yes, that as well." Ran added and turned to her mistress. "Should we save this one?"
"...No. My goals do not require his presence."
"I see…"
The three of them continued to watch as the bloody scene slowly unfolded.
Through the undeniably tear-inducing pain, he hastily concluded with whatever rational part of his brain remained that screaming did not help with the pain whatsoever.
The gnawing felt as if he were getting his arm amputated without anesthetics, which was, unsurprisingly, exactly what was going on right now. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't get this monstrously strong, eldritch grue of a girl off of him, not without tearing off his left arm. The best he could do was simply pray that his bone wouldn't give out before he's thought of something.
He continued to strike at her head and back, hoping to break a vital part of hers before she breaks his, but quickly remembered that physical attacks don't work on youkai, but then he remembered:
"If she has a humanoid body, then shouldn't this work?..."
He inhaled sharply, straightened out his hand, and karate chopped at the base of her neck.
His first thought was: "Goddamn that hurts". His second was: "Goddamn that worked?"
While a stunt that would have undoubtedly debilitated a human had only slightly fazed Rumia, it was still something to consider. In the short period that she was fazed, he had begun to pound at the base of her neck, hoping to perhaps inflict some permanent damage onto her cerebellum.
Unfortunately, that idea didn't last long.
"Stop. Squirming. Around!" Rumia growled in a muffled voice and proceeded to slug him in the abdomen.
He let out another ragged scream as he began to see flashes in his vision. He could feel that something had been injured internally, and very likely ruptured as well. His suspicions were immediately confirmed when he began to experience hematemesis. Not long after his first regurgitation, he was beginning to feel extremely lightheaded and woozy from blood loss, yet another feeling that he was somehow familiar with, although knowing that didn't make him feel any better.
He knew that he didn't have much time left, probably three or four hours at best, and even less if his arm gets taken off. He needed something to get her off of him, and he needed it desperately.
Something that can deal critical damage to her…
Perhaps it was because his life was at risk, or perhaps because Rumia had almost doughnutted him earlier, but his body had subconsciously begun to respond to his request. He could feel something draining from his stomach region, the solar plexus, if he recalled correctly. Whatever that had been drained from his solar plexus was beginning to build up in his upper left arm as pure white energy. At the same time, he could feel a portion of the energy being directed into his right palm, subconsciously compressing itself into a sphere in the center of his palm.
Rumia, who had only just noticed that the arm was glowing was taken aback and began to withdraw.
However, it was too late.
The energy in his left arm detonated, taking off a major portion of her jaw and likely what still remained of his arm. He felt an insurmountable amount of pain shoot from his arm, but that didn't matter to him in the slightest. He still needed to deal the finishing blow.
Rumia, who was blasted five meters away, was now charging him down. Her now straightened hands were aiming straight for his heart. Likewise, his right palm was also aimed towards her heart. He wanted to fire straight away, but knew he couldn't do that, so he waited until she got closer, and closer, and closer…
Until finally, the blow connected.
The three individuals who were still watching from their gaps were now sitting in complete silence. Neither spoke a single word while the two individuals they were spectating stayed frozen where they were.
"So… who won?" Chen asked, breaking the silence.
"It's… difficult to tell…" Ran commented. "Mistress?"
The mistress in question simply crossed one leg over the other and smiled. "We'll see very soon, will we not?"
Rumia's face was a contorted grin displaying both ecstasy and mania. She stared at her prey, who was currently spurting mouthfuls of blood. She had successfully punctured where his heart should have been.
"Got. You." She whispered in an equally maniacal tone.
He looked down at his would in disbelief, back up at Rumia, and began to laugh, so much so that he coughed up even more blood.
"Hey Rumia." He mumbled.
"Hmm? Any last words?"
"Yeah…" He began to chuckle. "The heart's on the left side, idiot."
Without hesitation, he pointed his palm directly at the now astonished Rumia's chest, and fired.
The energy he had compressed all this time resulted in a short-lived, but incredibly high powered beam of pure white energy that lit up the high sky for a few seconds. When the beam had disappeared, all he could see was the aftermath of the attack, nothing but charred soil and crumbling bamboo with a two hundred meter distance, with the exception of a traditional Japanese-styled mansion that he'd never seen before.
The voile's magician, who had been silently watching the battle this entire time, put away her scrying orb and finished the remainder of her tea and biscuits.
"Miss Patchouli, should I get some more tea?"
"Yes, I could do with some more."
"I'll be right back!"
She flattened out her palm and muttered an incantation, summoning a bright blue orb of light within her hand.
"Sakuya?..." She spoke into the orb. "Yes… I'd like you to arrange a little meeting for me… Appearance? I'll fill you in on that later… He'll likely be at Eientei in the meantime. Any time's fine, but the sooner, the better."
She dismissed the spell and reached for one of the dozens of grimoires stacked on top of the table.
"What an interesting fellow." She murmured.
He gave himself about two hour's time left, three hours if he's lucky.
He could clearly see a building in the distance, but he simply couldn't muster any more strength.
He wanted to scream in frustration, but he has even lost the strength to do that.
All he could do was simply watch, and wait. Waiting for what may very well be his death.
As he counted his individual heartbeats, he could feel his consciousness gradually fading away. His breaths drew short as he began to recount his memories. Not that there was much to recount.
Somewhere along the memory lane, he began to internally laugh. Every event up until now was somehow comical to him.
"Hell of a journey this was." He thought, "Within the short span of an hour or two, I woke up, got lost, and am about to die. All that and I still don't even know who, what, or where I am."
As the lasts of his consciousness faded away, he spotted a white haired individual walking towards him. The individual picked him up and carried him towards the direction of the mansion. He thought he had heard the person asking for his name.
"Name?... Did I have one… I can't remember… Do I…?"
"…"
"Perhaps…"
"...I do…"
"...Reol…" He muttered as his world began to fade to darkness. "Nea, Reol."
Author's Note: Most THSI writers, for one reason or another, tend to forget that most youkai canonically, Rumia included, are highly resistant, if not immune, to physical attacks and cannot be killed or even heavily injured through physical means without the usage of a magical/spiritual weapon. (ie. a gohei, ofuda, or any magic embued attacks.) Even if Rumia has the reputation of being one of the weaker youkai out there, you simply can't expect an average joe to survive in a physical fight against her, much less winning.
Second Note: As for why they didn't just engage in a spell card duel, there's three different answers for that; he couldn't, he didn't know, and Rumia simply didn't bother explaining details to someone who she's going to end up devouring (all of which should be made clear to him at chapter 5). A more elaborate explanation for the first reason would be that he was incapable of firing off danmaku in the first place, which stood true until Rumia coincidentally unblocked his energy flow. The second and third should both be self-explanatory.