"How do you not even know what a Tengu is, baka?!" Cirno almost yelled in response. "Those Tengu are everywhere!"
"How do you not know what magic is, even though you use it?" I fired back in an annoyed manner. "And I have a name y'know."
"But still! You haven't even heard of them making gossip or newspapers?!"
"I am new to these lands." I almost growled out. "Explain one reason why I should know people that are on the other side of the globe."
"Uh, they make newspapers?"
Someone kill me already, my valuable mind is being destroyed like china in a china shop from this bull. I mentally cried out in agony with a sigh. "Didn't we go over that most newspapers are only made locally, Cirno? Why should I know of the tengu?"
"How do you not even know what a Tengu is, baka?!"
I mentally screamed in pain from the sheer stupidity exuding from her. How?! How is it that someone is so dumb, they cannot comprehend my words? I'm not even talking about the scientific complexities of the central neuro-terminus at the center of Io's lake! Hell, I'm not even explaining the complexities of the Hive or using Eliksni language!
Just as I was about to start the conversation over again, we heard a camera go off to our right. We turned to our right to see a girl wearing a white blouse, black short skirt, and a tokin, who held a camera in her grasp, pointed ears, and two black wings on her back.
The girl smiled at me. "Hello you two~! Are you going on a date today?"
…
"Who's this reporter girl?" I lazily raised a finger at the black-winged girl, while looking at Cirno.
Instead of responding, Cirno instead went to rush at the black-winged girl in a panic, firing ice at her as she did so. "Give me that camera you stupid tengu!" She screamed in fear.
"Nu uh! This is going in my headlines!" She said smugly, as she aftly dodging over and over with an equally smug smile.
I instead made a flat face, watching as the two squabbled over the camera. "Right, only one solution to this. Saga?"
"Disabling life forces. Lets not have ourselves getting defamed so early."
My body fell to the ground as my armor was again transmatted, causing the two to look to me. Both flew over in curiosity, watching me closely.
"Is he dead?"
"Well that was kinda weird… oh! I think this will be a-"
I materialized behind her in a flash of light with my armor on, flaming wings visible on my back as my body covered itself in a golden glow. Immediately I grabbed and ripped the camera away from her. She yelped in surprise, and turned around just in time to see me melt the camera into molten slag.
"MY CAMERA!" The girl cried out, as Cirno laughed at her misfortune.
I let the melted device fall to the ground, watching as the girl tried to blow on it to cool it down. I couldn't help but chuckle a bit at the sight. "Next time don't go trying to make fake news."
"Yeah, you tell her Daishin!" Cirno backed my opinion almost immediately, having taken a break between laughing.
The girl looked absolutely furious. "You broke my camera! That's vandalism!"
"You make fake stories of real people. Just one can be a lawsuit ranging from a buck to a million in my homeland." I said with a drawl, as I threw a solar grenade at my corpse, burning it to ashes.
The girl realized while it was happening, and tried to get to my old body to use it as evidence, but found herself flinching away from the sheer heat the solar grenade emanated. I watched a little sadistically as the reality of what happened came falling down upon her, total shock filling her expression.
When she finally snapped out of the shock, she turned to me with an enraged expression. "You jerk! I'll get you back for destroying the story of the day before I, Aya Shameimaru, could report it!"
Your name is Aya Shameimaru… I mentally scoffed as I grinned outwards, watching the living joke of a reporter fly away… or to be more accurate, almost quite literally teleport away. As much of a living joke she is, she is a threat with that speed. I will need to keep her in mind if blows come to blows.
Cirno meanwhile, was just laughing her ass off. "Oh! Oh that was so funny! She was all like 'You can't stop me, I AM the word!', and then you were all 'Omae wa mou shindeiru.', it was hilarious!"
I actually couldn't help but feel a little grateful at the compliment. "Why thank you!"
And then she quickly went back to being smug and stupid, albeit with a bit of a blush on her cheeks. "O-of course, I could've did it myself. Easily even, I'm the strongest!"
"Yeah yeah, whatever…" I said with a roll of my eyes, deciding to get a move on.
"Hold it right there!"
I looked to the new speaker, thankful that my helmet was hiding all my reactions as I stared her down with an irritated look. "There a problem?"
It was a white wolf girl wearing a white, long-sleeved shirt, and a large black skirt with red flame-like designs reaching up from the bottom of the skirt. She had short light silver hair and wears a red tokin. She held a large scimitar-like sword and a white, round shield with a red maple leaf print on it.
"You are starting to intrude upon the territory of Youkai Mountain is the problem here!" The wolf pointed out. "As such, I am going to need to-"
My ghost transmatted my helmet off of me, surprising the two, before transmatting it back on. "Happy?"
"Hmmm…" The wolf scrutinized me. "I guess? Humans wouldn't have flaming wings on their backs, which would make you a phoenix youkai wouldn't it?"
"I am very much human thank you very much." I let out with a tint of annoyance, deactivating my radiance and ridding myself of the wings. "I merely practice the art of light manipulation."
"Oh so… you're an engineer? Magician?"
"The light he speaks of comes from this 'Traveler', and is in him." Cirno clarified.
"Partially innate to my very being, I'm an extension of it and its power." I corrected with a frown, before deciding to take the conversation to a better direction. "I'm heading towards a shrine somewhere at this mountain to learn about magic. Cirno said it'd be at the top."
The wolf girl stared at me for a couple moments, before shrugging. "Well, if Cirno trusts you, then you must not be here to disturb the peace. We're busy anyhow, someone dangerous could be in our territory." She then looks to the molten slag before us and smiles. "Did you melt Aya's camera by the way?"
"Tried to spread gossip that we were a couple, so I gave her the just desserts." I said with a nod, and causing her to smile so hard it threatened to split her face. "I take it she does this on a regular basis?"
"Oh like you would not BELIEVE!" She said with a chuckle. "Glad to see somebody was finally able to put that speedster in her place. I'll make sure Chief Tenma knows that you mean no harm, nice work!"
"Much appreciated Ms…?"
"Momiji Inubashiri." She said, as she held her hand out. "Yours?"
"Daishin. Daishin Minor." I said, as I took the hand and shook it.
"Well it was nice meeting you Daishin!" She then parted with a wave.
"You too!" I said, waving back, watching as she left. I then looked to Cirno. "Y'know, for demons you people aren't half-bad. Normally all the aliens I meet wanna kill me."
Cirno cocked her head at that. "Aliens? Like the Celestials?"
I sighed. These people and their fake gods... "Forget I said anything."
"This was rather strange though." Cirno said thoughtfully. "Normally White Wolf Tengu like Momiji wouldn't rush to meet an intruder. They must be having an incident or something…"
My heart stopped for a second at that. "Could they be looking for us?"
"I don't-"
Momiji then came back to us. "Oh, and I forgot to mention that there was a breach in the boundaries today. Be on the lookout for any dangerous youkai or oni! They may seek to bring you harm while we're all busy looking!" Was all she said, as she then parted ways again.
"Nevermind… so, this breach must mean something bad. We should go look for the intruder after we're done here. If it has gotten these wolves riled up, they must mean trouble."
We continued walking up the mountain, having recently entered a forest so big it had no lighting in it, thus forcing me to introduce my ghost to Cirno. After a brief introduction with no critical information being revealed to her, we continued through the forest, my ghost's light illuminating the path. The atmosphere was heavy, no doubt due to heavy foliage and darkness here, and the only signs of life have been the trees.
Cirno had taken to being a little closer to me, no doubt scared from the situation. I didn't pay it much attention. It more than that to scare a guardian.
"Would you mind not holding onto me so tightly?" I requested, turning around to look at Cirno. "It's starting to get a bit annoying…"
"I'm trying to protect you, stupid human!" Cirno hissed out. "This is the Great Youkai Forest. Youkai who thrive in the dark tend to live here, and there's also that-"
"Turn back…" An almost ghostly, feminine voice echoed from afar.
I whipped out Young Wolf's Howl at the sound of the voice, it lighting up the dark while Cirno got her magic at the ready. My ghost had long since cloaked when the noise came.
"Who's there?!" I called out to the dark.
"Only misfortune awaits the foolish…"
"Yeah, well my sword awaits permission to go up where the sun don't shine on you." I fired back at the ghostly voice. "Now come out or we're going to have some problems!
The voice sighed, as she then revealed herself. Aquamarine hair and eyes, the hair is decorated with red bows and white frills. Part of her hair is tied under her chin with a bow as a sort front ponytail. She wore a red dress which is darker around her middle, and lighter on the bottom. The dress also has white frills on the bottom, and she had an enormous white kerchief on top. The bottom of her dress is decorated with a similar aquamarine swirl resembling an pre-golden age Japanese symbol at the bottom. She wore knee-length black cross-laced boots.
The girl stared in annoyance at me. "You're either really stubborn, or foolish to have come to Youkai Mountain. Why are you here, human?"
"Learning magic." I said while watching her every move. "Why are you here? Trying to ambush people?"
"I'm a misfortune god." She responds pragmatically. "I collect misfortune from humans, and scare them off. Youkai Mountain is a dangerous place."
At that point, I slowly blinked, taken completely off-guard. "Collect misfortune?" After I said this, I unconsciously moved out of the way of bird poop that was about to land on me, only just being aware of it when it landed.
The girl seemed to be surprised for a moment. "...Ok, either that was skills the likes of Reimu, or you just got extremely lucky. Most likely the latter." She then cleared her throat. "Alright, so say if that landed on you? That would've counted as misfortune, and thus I'd take the bad luck away from you to prevent it from bothering you like that. Although the mere act of responding to me causes bad luck to you, so I think we should cut this short."
"She's the cursed girl I was going to talk about, and is right on that." Cirno said with a nod. The cursed girl then took note of Cirno. She looked as if she was about to say something, but shook her head.
"...You youkai are weird." I said with a grimace underneath the helmet. I then turned to Cirno. "Let's just get a move on. I want to learn as much as I can about magic here, not get overly friendly with the locals."
"Yes, that would be a good idea." The girl said, as she then disappeared.
We came into a beautiful valley at the foot of the mountain, having just left the 'dark and foreboding' forest as Cirno decided to put it. There was a large river leading up from the mountaintop, an unfinished dam several dozen yards or so away from the entrance, of which seemed to lead over to the mountain path. A few kids were sitting on the unfinished dam, in the middle of a conversation.
"Bah, the kappa still haven't finished that?" Cirno said with crossed arms. "When are they going to get such a simple thing done?"
"Kappa?"
"Self-supposed smartypants they are." She said with a 'hmph!' sound. "Can't even handle making a bridge."
I paused for a second and looked at them, before shrugging and deciding to try and listen in. Cirno seemed to take note of what I was doing.
"Don't you know it is rude to eavesdrop, human?"
"I'm learning here." I waved her off, ignoring her indignant cry, as I listened to the tengu.
"Say, did you hear about the dragon statue in the human village?"
"Yeah, the eyes turned red again. Reimu and Marisa are going about and checking everything, but so far nothing had turned up anywhere. It's awfully strange to see that we can get an incident, but there's no apparent sign of it for a change… well, other than that interloper. But one person can't cause that much damage, can they?"
"Well, you do have Flandre and Remilia. Those two could be up to something to get Reimu and Marisa up in arms for a danmaku battle."
"What? Flandre doesn't seem the type to cause trouble… Saga, did you find anything abnormal on her?"
"Honestly didn't even think about scanning her at all. But surely she should be a good person right? Her sister tried to enslave us, and she was keeping her down there…"
Shaking my head in disbelief, I decided to try and pass them by, but the kappas quickly took notice of me.
"Oooh, human!" They collectively said, surrounding me in the process.
"Hey, you have any food for us?"
"I love me some cucumbers!"
"I wanna go for his shirikodama instead…"
"Guys, don't pressure him!" The lead tengu said in the middle of the noise between the three, causing them to stop. "We can honestly go without it today! ...Although it would be nice."
The lead tengu then looked at me. "Do have any cucumbers?"
After a slow blink, I shook my head. "I just got to these lands. And I'm afraid I do not know what a shirikodama is, so-"
"Oh, well allow us to show you!" One of the tengu said, as they went to unbuckle my trousers. I stood there in confusion at what they were doing, as one of them went behind me.
"Guys, don't do this to the human!" The lead tengu cried out with an angry face that was less cute than scary. "Why do you think humans never come around?!"
Once they were finished, they were greeted with nothing.
"Eh?!" They let out collectively.
"Wait a second! Where's your thing?!" Cirno almost yelled in surprise, in a similar state as the tengu.
"I'm not sure what you guys are looking for down there." I said casually. "Guardians don't reproduce. Our resurrections don't include it, ghosts can't make those parts."
"At least it's what we know so far, right?"
"The ghosts haven't been clear with me on that, and its been a long time on checking the rules since… y'know, getting trapped and all."
"You mean you don't even poo?!" The lead tengu exclaimed, as the tengu then spread my buttcheeks. "Guys, he doesn't even have a pooper!"
"Aw man!"
"Are you a youkai in disguise?!"
"No meal today…"
"Ok first off, rude." I said to the lead tengu, before addressing the others. "Second off, I don't know what the heck this 'shirikodama' is, and I frankly don't care. You guys are kinda inconveniencing me here, and I'd rather get to the top of the mountain. It was interesting meeting you four."
I then pushed the tengu out of my way, and jumped across the unfinished bridge with a sprint, tugging on the gravity of the planet with my light to ascend higher, and descend slower, safely landing on the other side of the bridge.
"The human knows magic, when he's looking to learn it?!"
"He must be a youkai, he must be!"
"Uwa… so hungry!"
"Well, at least he doesn't hate us…"
As the kappas left, I looked to Cirno who was still shocked at my lack of equipment. "You still following?"
"...Are you sure, YOU'RE not the weird one here, human?" She couldn't help but ask as she flew over. "I mean, not even a pooper?"
"My goal is to keep people alive, not reproduce." I fired back, as we continue on the path to the Shrine.
A thought occurred to me as we, or rather I since Cirno was still flying, climbed the mountain. That there didn't seem to be an awful lot of Youkai for a Youkai Mountain. I confronted Cirno on this.
"...Oh, I forgot!" She said whilst scratching her temples. "I forgot to tell you about the Yamanba! Most of the tengu and kappas tend to be inside the mountain, but the only reason we're taking this path is not only because you can't fly, but you might encounter some Yamanba who might not like seeing you at their spot!"
I raised an eyebrow at that. "Do they attack humans?"
"No, but they find it rude to go in their space!" She then pointed to herself with a thumb. "Besides, all those mean Youkai are gonna back off at the sight of the Strongest!"
"I think they're just avoiding the dumbest out of pity…"
"Touche."
As we walked pass a pond, a giant toad suddenly popped out and swallowed Cirno whole! I dashed away with a sword glide, barely managing to avoid getting squished as the ground shook from the impact of its landing.
"Aaaaiieeeee! Not this slimy guy again!" I heard her call from within its stomach
"I got your back!" I called out, as I entered a combat stance, the giant toad releasing a loud croak in response.
Instead of fighting it head-on, I sought to remain on the defensive, and dashed away. The toad tried to grab me with its tongue, but was unable to reach me as I flew away. Once I finished moving, I went to dash back in a gambit that it'd jump over, and much to my luck, the toad jumped over to where I was earlier, allowing me to go under it and ready Praedyth's Timepiece. I fired several bursts into it as it landed, its giant body shaking with each arc burst.
It spun around and once more jumped, and I went under repeating the whole process. I faked trying to go under again, and the toad lashed out in an attempt to grab me, allowing me to snag a chance at hitting it with Young Wolf's Howl. I pulled out the sword and slammed almost instantly, damaging its tongue and leaving a burn on it. It released a cry of pain as it pulled the tongue back in, and for a second it looked to be in pain, until a look of anger covered its features for the potshots I gave it. It leaped around at a faster rate, intent on crushing me for not playing fair.
I continued to dodge and weave to the best of my ability, but the frog proved tenacious. Time and time again it would continue going after me without a shred of hesitation or thought. It was incredibly hard to even get a burst shot in, as the frog and I moved about the pond's grass and lilypads, like a twisted cat and mouse game.
Just as I accidentally got myself stuck on a vine, the frog made to kill me, but stopped when it was going to leap, and started to look rather sickly. It vomited out Cirno before then proceeding to pass out from pain and exhaustion into the pond. Cirno looked slightly exhausted as she got up off the ground.
"That's the 2nd time that's happened to me here!" She said with a huff.
"2nd-" I then facepalmed. "You're telling me you FORGOT this frog was here?"
"I don't go up the mountain much, ok!?"
"Yeah, truth be told she doesn't." A new voice piped in, causing us to turn our attention to the interloper. A brown eyed woman with long brown pigtails and purple ribbons was off to our left. She wore a pinkish shirt with purple trim on the collar and a thin black tie, a black band around one arm, a purple tokin, a skirt in black/purple checker pattern with a floral pattern on the purple, a small brown pouch on her hip, thigh-high black socks rolled to her knees, and pale, purple-ish, red geta sandals with purple straps. She too carried a camera, looking like a modern cell phone, with a yellow/dark yellow checker pattern, a heart on it, and a brush hanging from it like a charm. She also had pointed ears like Aya.
Just as I was about to fire at the camera itself, she held a hand up. "Hold."
I put the weapon back. "You're not some friend of Aya's?"
She scoffed, a frown on her face visible at the mere mention of being compared to her. "Why would I be friends with THAT scum? She makes all of us reporters look bad." She then cleared her throat, and resumed a professional smile. "Anyhow, I'm Hatate Himekaidou. I run the Kakashi Spirit News, a superior rival to Aya's own. I came to thank you on eliminating my rival for the time being."
"Oh, it was no big deal, really." I said with an approving smile of my own. "She-"
"That said," She interrupted me. "While she is a total bitch, my newspaper rides on exposing her every time. My spirit thoughtography ability-"
"Ok we're done now." Was all I said at 'spirit thoughtography', as I got a move on, Cirno idly following me as well.
"Eh?!" Hatate let out in indignation. "Hold on, you didn't even let me explain!"
"I'm learning about magic before I listen to any of the bull you guys are feeding me." I said with a frown, my voice telling her I wasn't interested at all in continuing this. "Get lost."
As Hatate was left behind silently fuming at my abrupt leaving of her, I idly wondered if all the Tengu were secretly bastards of the Awoken Prince himself. I then remember Momiji, and changed my mind.
Finally, after all that time walking up the mountain, I had finally reached the Shrine near the top. I could sense a powerful presence from within the shrine, almost intimidatingly so, which set me on edge. Yet I knew that whatever was to come, I was to make friends with it, get my knowledge, and leave.
I turned to look to Cirno. "Well here we are. If 'the strongest' doesn't have anything better to do, you can watch me be an... idiot."
"Bah," Cirno said with a huff. "You'll take a few weeks to learn it. Boring!" She then smiled at me. "It was nice meeting you though!"
"Same." I replied lamely, as she flew away. As I watched her go, I suddenly felt a lot more vulnerable without any backup.
"I guess we just go inside?"
"It's what we got left to do."
Steeling myself, I went up to the shrine doors to chat with these 'goddesses'. I casually opened them, immediately finding a set of eyes on me She wore an elaborate red shirt with long white sleeves, and a round mirror over the center of her chest. Her lower body was covered by a long black skirt with a red flower print hem. Has poofy intense blue hair and dark red eyes. Behind her is a large twisting rope circle shimenawa with shide.
The woman seemed to be surprised at my appearance, but her expression quickly had a professional smile on it. "Why hello there human! Have you come to learn about me?"
"No." I said earnestly before quickly continuing. "I was wondering if you could help me learn magic. I do not know how to fly, at least not for a decent amount of time."
That immediately caused her to raise an eyebrow. "Magic? ...You came because you need help learning magic?"
"I can only fly for a half minute." I said, as I showed off my solar wings for a moment. "A third of that time, I can float instead."
The woman appeared to be stunned at the very idea. "...So you aren't here to worship?"
"The mountain is rather dangerous." I deadpanned. "If you're looking for worshippers, you should make a ropeway. The youkai seem to like harassing humans."
She blinked in response to that, before facepalming "I really need to get that made… why did I think about moving things over to the Hakurei Shrine in this first place instead of this?"
"Dunno where that shrine is or what it is." I then crossed my arms. "Cirno said there were two goddesses up here that know magic. Am I to assume you're one of them?"
"Oh! Yes, pardon me, I had forgotten to introduce myself." She then cleared her throat. "I am Kanako Yasaka, the goddess of mountains."
I couldn't help but raise an eyebrow as my ghost transmatted my helmet away. "Daishin Minor, outsider to this place. You must be a goddess staying for the time being, yes?"
"Oooh, right for the potshot!" I heard another voice call from the back, causing Kanako to grit her teeth and turn around.
"Will you be quiet Suwako?! A visitor has come from faraway lands!"
"Oh, a new guy?" Suwako then peered out from behind a corner, the voice revealing itself to be a woman with a short simple purplish-blue dress with a frog print design, large white sleeves stitched onto the torso, and a white collar. She had medium length blond hair, grey eyes, a light brown wide-brimmed hat with two frog eyes on the top, white kneehighs and black shoes. "Yo!"
"...Hey." I said, unsure of what to make of the situation, before looking back at Kanako. "So, can you show me how to harness this 'magic' Cirno speaks of?"
"Most certainly!" Kanako replied with a chirp to her tone. "Magic is something that's reserved for-"
"Just find some way of controlling supernatural forces."
"Suwako!"
I raised an eyebrow at that. "Elaborate?"
"Judging from what I'm already seeing of you here, you must've gotten into a danmaku battle, failed miserably in fighting back with physical force, and then came up here." She quickly surmised. "If that's the case, then you just need to find some other way of controlling supernatural forces. I'd suggest starting out by hunting for magical items. Our followers, the kappas, can assist you in this."
"The ones who went looking for a 'shirikodama' on me when I had none?" I inquired. "They don't seem like the sorts that have such things."
This caused the two goddess to slowly blink in reaction to my claim.
"...What?" Kanako couldn't help but say aloud.
"The Traveler, my god, isn't able to bring back those bits for some reason." I partially lied to them, not wanting to reveal my ghost. "So I am without them forever."
"Ah, I see. A nanny god." Suwako said with a nod, as I decided to ignore her heinous comment. "Well, like I said, see if you can get some from our followers. Just be careful not to let them rip into you."
"...I'm going off on a bit of a limb here." I said with some suspicion, as I thought more about that moment. "Does having my shirikodama removed lethal?"
"Oh most certainly so." Kanako said with a nod. "While I don't approve of it, the kappas are still at large uninterested in following my orders. They'd be willing to take it from humans with force if needed."
That immediately set off several alarms in my head. "...And they're supposed to be youkai?"
"A decent amount of Youkai eat humans as a necessity or a delicacy, while the majority of youkai-"
I tuned her out at that point. "Humans definitely seemed to be lacking around here, and considering everything that I've witnessed regarding youkai… this place isn't peaceful. Humanity is being suppressed just like we are on Earth."
"Well then, I guess there's no rest for the wicked." Saga said as he ran through the data he's obtaining from the two goddesses. "I suppose you already know the big idea we're both going for here?"
"Once we're done assessing the kappa threat here, I want you to stay safe ghost. You may be able to go invisible, but who knows what else might happen?"
"Touche... I'm compiling and transferring data to your HUD system on what kind of Youkai you might end up looking at. Stay safe guardian. You still need me too."
"-And that's basically all of the youkai in a nutshell!" Kanako finished off. "Any questions?"
"No." I said as I turned around. "I think I've understood everything so far. It will be a… pleasant experience getting used to these lands."
"Y'know, if that Traveler guy of yours turns out to be bad or dies, you can always find a place at the Moriya Shrine." Kanako once again offered.
I didn't respond to such a heinous accusation, and simply left the shrine. I looked around, my HUD giving me the information I need as I took in my surroundings. There was smoke coming out from various parts of the mountain, the data stating that it strongly suggested that kappa were within. An abandoned village was visible around the bottom of the mountain. I decided to go to the bottom of the mountain to test my skills upon the local youkai before going up the food chain.
With Young Wolf's Howl in my grasp, I jumped down without a care in the world, moss flying off my body from the sheer wind hitting me. My legs broke as I landed and slid on the slope, but that was minor to me, as it would heal itself while I fell. As I neared the village, I prepared to tug on the gravity of the earth below, and once I neared, suddenly halted my harsh descent to a slow, graceful landing.
I saw a Youkai before me. Creature with two cat tails, seemingly oblivious attitude about her. Perfect conditions for an easy kill.
I meticulously approached her as she went about her business. The demon was still completely unaware of my presence, even as I was but a few feet away from her. I raised the sword to strike.
As I went to cut her in half and disintegrate her with the flames of humanity's oldest defenders, movement from behind became know to both of us. The demon looked around just in time to see my sword descend, a look of horror on her face as I split her, the flames quickly doing their work to turn her to ash upon doing so. I instinctively looked behind me, spotting Aya Shameiru, who was flying above me. A silence was shared between the two of us.
Aya took a picture and tried to fly away, but it was fruitless. I had already stopped my heart, and materialized behind her with a flash of light. The last thing she saw was my sword going into her chest, before she too turned to ashes from the sheer heat of the sword's solar power, her camera clattering to the ground below.
I then felt a powerful presence nearing this place, and chose to flee, forgetting about the camera entirely. This was no time to be reckless.
It was time to become a guardian again.
Yes, I do know what happened between Shaxx and Mara, but it is with a reason. I would've posted the other chapters, but I went and did some research for the responses to the reviews. Read the final one at your own will, but note that this might ruin the story for you.
TheRealCactoos:So we got a rambunctious warlock, a hunter who ends up as a shikigami, and a Titan.
I'd say a PTSD warlock with trust issues(Being trapped in a Vex future for X decades would do that to you, and you didn't question why he was abandoned), a lonely titan who loves fighting a little too much, and a hunter who's pretty much who'd you'd expect a hunter to be.
ThePolishSausageRoaster & Guest 2:Light & Darkness isn't magic, go check up on the reddit link.
I believe we got into a misunderstanding here. I didn't say the Light(acasual) and Darkness(paracasual) were like magic forces, I had even put air quotes around the word(magic) for the warlock chapter, as to have the characters express the same doubt on it. I was intending to imply Danmaku(Touhou's magic) is an energy source just like Light and Dark, which they very much are in the game as we harness & obtain light in a variety of ways, as well as the forces of Darkness. Like I said though, I could be wrong on Danmaku, mostly new to Touhou after all.
I consider the two energy sources, because one has a very well known acasual source that started the Golden Age in Destiny, while the paracasual is referenced as neutrino particles in The Pyramidion Strike, as I also say to the final response here. They must be such, as the Traveler's light weakens in certain times and places, like Vault Of Glass or Crota's End, places with extreme Darkness. It is also implied with the various strikes that this is the case, especially with the Pyramidian strike.
Before we get into the final response, I'd like to say that if anyone wants to bring something important to my attention that's breaking Destiny canon, they must make an account and PM me. I wanna keep it clean here and actually focus on the story itself. I'm only doing this one last time to clear up any misinformation here(as well as some other bits that may pop up since they could also be raised). Feel free to skip this if you are a Touhou fan who wants to learn the Destiny universe through the characters.
Guest:You are taking gameplay for lore. (It is larger than this, but is the TL;DR and his words.)
On the contrary, no, I'm going off of both, as the story is entwined between both. Your example of Savin(not Saven), and spamming supers are vastly incorrect. I concede on you saying that they can fly, but nowhere does it state it is forever, and is only done in-game with the attunement of sky(top tree Dawnblade). Oh, and the blackhole you mentioned? Nova bomb. Which is this from the grimoire:
"Channel the Traveler's Light into a bolt of energy with the power of a collapsing star. The devastating Nova Bomb scours the battlefield with ethereal fire - but be careful in its use. It takes precious moments to summon, and it must be aimed precisely to avoid obstacles."
What Savin did was little more than a Nova Bomb, as that's what blackhole is, a collapsing star. He didn't create something that could swallow up Earth within an hour(Forgetting Graviton Lance btw, the one with mini blackhole bullets?). You are over-exaggerating a detail of which isn't what it looks like at all, especially since Mara didn't care too much for Savin's display, and got rid of him after he proved to be too much of an annoyance and consumptive of resources. The only reason she kept him around was for study, due to Riven salivating in his presence.
There's also the D1 grimoire regarding Osiris and super duration, which states that he was in a constant radiance once. This implies that all supers(which are a canon thing, not a gameplay thing) aren't forever since Osiris' radiance was labeled constant, when every other mentioned use wasn't, and still require a recharge or some semblance of potency levels. And even if they were forever, and we could teleport like the Vex as you imply, we would not need ships or guns, like every guardian in the lore has and uses everywhere, including Ikora, Saint-14, Osiris, Zavala, Cayde, Lord Shaxx, Iron Lords, Ana Bray, etc because there are endless examples of veteran and young guardians owning and using guns over spamming their abilities in the lore, cutscenes, and gameplay.
You might point out the Vanguard here, despite me mentioning Osiris. As it is stated with Nova Bomb being a matter of practice in the lore, that means that Light can be like a muscle when using internal light storages, hence why they spam nova bombs and bubbles without exotics. Our guardian had only been recently reborn, 5 years old now as confirmed by Bungie themselves(Taken War is canonically stated to be 2 years before Red War, and is why we need exotics to have better bang to our supers. As to why Daishin isn't spamming, he was trapped with limited light reserves in the Vault Of Glass. Nobody is going to waste energy when they know they can't get out.
You may also attempt to say that guardians can easily make it to veteran level with the power you mentioned. The very first thing you see in D1 vanilla quest dialogue that was added in the TTK(not voiced dialogue meaning you read it in-game before accepting the reward) after reaching lvl 4, is them being impressed with how long you survived, stating that not many make it as long as you did.
Zavala mentions he goes to bury every new Titan at the wall when they die, Ikora says she's seen lights flair to life only to just as quickly die out, and Cayde mentions how glad he was to not be surprised at the fact you're alive. If you don't believe me on any of it, simply reach that level on any class with a new character in D1, it takes 10 or so minutes at most to get there.
Furthermore, the quest still proved that you can obtain forms of light with physical means. You had to get that conductor to unlock your powers, you had to activate a vex forge to summon forth the Hammer of Sol through a ball of fire, and you even get relics from public events in vanilla D2, where you have to return them to their former glory to get a subclass. Those of which is the melted hammer, battered gauntlet, melted handcannon, fractured arrow, cracked talisman and warped armlet. You still needed items for the most part to gain usage of the Traveler's other powers, and if you never got them, you'd never have stormcaller, sunbreaker, and nightstalker. Especially Sunbreaker, as the people who knew how to get summoned had left the Last City.
The Traveler and Vex themselves had been allowing us to see into the future, not on our own. It hadn't been happening before-hand for us beyond Vex tech when it was asleep, as it wasn't stated anywhere in D1 or the events before it during the time it was dormant until D2. Don't take things out of context, and expect me to buy into it.
If you're going to come at a writer on the lore, much less one looking to add to a mostly unknown crossover section who both sides most likely know little of each other(going off on the lack of crossovers I see here), don't do it with only a fraction of knowledge as to the big picture(Exception being you Touhou fans, I'm waiting for your roasts on my lack of touhou knowledge with open arms as I'm kinda new to you guys).
Do it with more than just Forsaken knowledge. Forsaken(when Savin was added) had never been the only entry on Light and Dark itself. Because even if half of the things you were saying was actually true in Destiny, one would have to wonder how the heck did it turn out that way in Destiny 1 and 2(down to one city and a bunch of unprotected villages mind you), especially when all it takes is somebody making an actual blackhole to destroy the enemy races and planets themselves, as black holes the size of even a penny would be the equivalent of the moon's mass, and would absorb a planet within an hour.
TL;DR:Saying the gameplay was dumbed down due to lore incompatibility, goes against literally every bit of logic in Destiny 1 and 2, as humanity would have to try really hard to get pinned into a corner during the Golden Age like they are now, as well as guardians dying very early on with such powers to enemies like the Fallen. We wouldn't even need guns or ships if we could do anything you said on a constant, easily accessible basis like you imply.
I'm very sorry for the Touhou readers that had to deal with this, but it needed to be said. I'll come up with the rest of the chapters this week for certain, I just had too much fun writing this one, and wanted to post it early. Have a good Saturday!
