With nowhere to dodge, Eirin's arrow landed directly in the side of Hiroko's chest, the wound not deep enough to penetrate her lung, however. The attack stopped shortly after, as in a blinding flash of speed, Eirin situated herself some distance behind Hiroko, releasing another arrow which was dodged with similar blinding speed, catching the lunarian off guard as she felt a card being slid down the back of her dress. Knowing exactly what was to come next, she turned around and grabbed Hiroko with both arms when she uttered the words "Darkness Card,". Eirin's back erupted in dark tendrils, destroying her easily but also hit Hiroko with the same amount of force, causing her to get blasted away by hit tendrils of darkness that came from her own attack. Eirin was resurrected after the exchange, as Hiroko felt drips of blood fall down her body and herself starting to get worn out.
"Using my own attack against me," Hiroko said, smiling the pain away. "Should've known you would try something like that eventually."
"I saw you unphased by the arrow hitting you, so I knew that would be useless for damage in itself," Eirin said. Being a lunarian and the creator of the Hourai Elixir, Eirin was much less prone to being worn out due to the Hourai Elixirs effects of immortality. Of course, it still affected her, but much less than it would from a normal human body such as Mokou's. "About Nuwa, your sister. Do you pity her?"
"...Yes," Hiroko said, closing her eyes as she threw another card towards Eirin, staying in place where the lunarian once was as she dodged away, choosing to dodge directly behind her this time as she prepared to hit her point plank with a powerful spell. Hiroko, however, calmly moved over her, placing a card against her back. "Force Cards," she said, as Eirin was violently pushed towards the card that was thrown at her before. The card pushed Eirin back to the same effect, hitting her with great force in the stomach this time. The two cards pushed her around like she was a ball being hit between two tennis players.
Eirin spoke some words undistinguishable to anyone other than Lunarians, as Eirin released a powerful lunarian spell, as pure light surrounded the two of them in a ball, completely destroying the two Force Cards as it appeared. Eirin quickly got out of the giant ball, as giant beams of light focused on the center of the ball, as the ball closed in on itself and dissipated in a large explosion of light energy. The light energy was sucked back in towards Hiroko, as Eirin looked over as it seemed to be an unusual result. Hiroko held a card in her hand when she came back into view, as it lay in front of her face.
"Just as I expected," Eirin said, as the entire energy in her previous spell was launched out and focused at her. Eirin raised her hand at the light beam, as it hit her hand and seemed to disappear as it did. Eirin used the time she had gained from the ordeal to raise her other hand towards the moon, twisting her hand as it faced directly at the looming figure in the sky and its orbital period began to slow, as the moon was spun around backwards a little bit to restore it to how it once was. Eventually, as the last of the power disappeared from the card, the moon was reverted to how it usually was. "Your cards aren't just attacks for an element, they also absorb that element. I needed the time bought from that to use a spell of my own to change the moon back to normal. Thank you."
Hiroko sighed, throwing the previously 'light card' up in the air as it dissipated. "Right. Excluding jokers, a usual deck of cards has fifty-two different cards. This deck is different. There are not fifty-two cards in here, but fifty-two cards representing fifty-two different methods of offense or defense. Reverse, Lightning, Light, Flame, Darkness, Force. These are six of the fifty-two different possibilities I hold in my hand. Even if I take one card out, I can use as many cards as I need to of that thing."
"Interesting, because when I look at your hand, I see fifty-one cards," Eirin smiled, showing impressive observation skills. Hiroko nodded, reaching into the pockets in her green dress decorated with ribbons and throwing one into the air.
"I've been preparing this one for a while, with how you like to talk," Hiroko smiled, watching as the card spun in the air. "Sound card," she said, as a large burst of sound blasted itself towards Eirin, threatening to destroy her eardrums as Hiroko threw another card into the air. This one, however, appeared to just bring normal cards into her hand which she threw with impressive accuracy at Eirin, sticking themselves into her body as she was forced to revive once again.
Eirin covered her ears with her hands, making sure they were still perfectly intact after her last life. She nodded as they were, before looking at Hiroko. "You smiled. Perhaps you momentarily let go of those burdens you placed on yourself when we were fighting?"
"Huh?" Hiroko said, her smile quickly fading as she shook her head. "No, I was merely looking forward to the future I have planned."
Eirin smiled herself, in disbelief of what Hiroko was saying. "You've done quite well to keep her hidden away all these years. Hiding her from the gods was the right thing to do as her sister. Who knows what they might have done if they got their hands on her, right? But you placed a burden on yourself in doing so, a burden to where you must always fight to keep her hidden. Now you're doing this fighting because you want to find her a new home. As well as that, because of who she is, you figured you couldn't let her roam around your city or be able to negotiate options with Tsukuyomi or the Gensokyo Sages. You saw Gensokyo separate from the rest of the world and figured this would be the perfect place to let her roam around and have friends again. In the midst of battle against a worthy opponent, you forgot about all that and realised what you enjoyed, outsmarting people in battle and seeing a pay off. In this case, getting me to talk to fuel your sound card and using my own words against me, quite literally. I'm right, aren't I?"
"Who's to say I don't have another sound card in my pocket right now?" Hiroko asked, biting her lip at Eirin's words. Eirin smiled and raised her finger to point at Hiroko's hand.
"There's fifty-two cards in your hand now. You're hiding nothing at this moment in time," Eirin said, smiling as she pointed towards the deck of cards.
"You have some impressive observational skills, Eirin," Hiroko said, narrowing her eyes slightly. "Truth be told, I didn't want to attack the moon. Not initially that is. That part was everybody else's idea, I was against it. Then I remembered about the Youkai of Boundaries and this place called Gensokyo, separate from the world around it. I knew this would be a good chance to let her live somewhere on Earth. Thinking someone as smart as that Youkai Sage would just sit idly by and let Nuwa come into her place with no repercussions is insane. Even if she doesn't know who she is, she'll find out eventually. Especially with you being here."
"Have you discussed it with Yukari and the other sages?" Eirin asked, tilting her head. "Perhaps they may be a bit more open to the idea than you think. As far as I know, Yukari's surprisingly laid back when it comes to this stuff. Not sure about the other sages, though."
"As I said, assuming they would be open to the idea is insane. So we had to resort to taking it by force so she could get off that planet. You understand why, I'm sure," Hiroko nodded as she said the last part.
"Because she's your sister, you put all this on the line to get her somewhere she likes being," Eirin said. "That makes sense. We are enemies, however. I'm immortal, and I'm quite sure that you're not. Even if you do have such impressive stamina and resistance to attacks as you're showing here, eventually i'll win."
"We'll just have to see about that, now won't we?" Hiroko said, raising another card in her hand as she closed her eyes.
Meanwhile, near Youkai Mountain, Yorimi looked up at the unidentifiable mess above her. "Well, well, well. Wonder what that could ever be," she said, before ignoring it and walking forward and closer to the mountain, which she didn't quite know was even a mountain. "Although, that seems to be the only activity. Maybe I should go check it out," she debated in her head, before giving in to the debate and flying upwards.
On the Palanquin Ship, Nue looked over the edge of the ship as Yorimi flew up to it. She narrowed her eyes slightly. "What does she want?" she asked, jumping off the ship and flying towards her, the both of them stopping near each other. "Are you coming on the Palanquin Ship now as well? You're not invited, i'm afraid."
"Palanquin Ship?" Yorimi asked, looking up to what she could not even identify. "Ah, so that's what that is."
"Yes, this is the one and only second version of the Palanquin Ship," Nue said, nodding.
"Then there's a first version?" Yorimi asked, to which Nue nodded. "Then that defeats the purpose of saying 'one and only', does it not?"
"Whatever," Nue said, before looking behind Yorimi. "What's with all those people? Did you have a secret army or something?"
"Oh… yeah, that," Yorimi said, looking behind her before sighing. "Ah, whatever. My apologies for not properly introducing myself before. I'm Yorimi Kawakami, and I was sent as a Martian spy. I'm also the Minister of Resources."
Nue said no words, instead choosing to hold her trident up to the side of her as she looked down at the Martian. With no hesitation, dark clouds formed around her as Yorimi was left surprised at her actions, moving away from the dark clouds as they ominously and slowly edged towards her. She sighed, seeing a fight was inevitable at this point as she flew down to the Youkai Mountain, putting her hand on a bit of the mountain and shaping it into a spear, which even she herself could not identify the true shape and size of, as she looked up and saw the clouds gone.
"Huh?" She asked, as the dark clouds now surrounded her and Nue stood right behind her. Their weapons clashed a bit, with Yorimi proving to be the lesser skilled fighter out of the two. She eventually covered her spear in air, thrusting it forward as Nue's easily dodged the ensuing bit of wind that followed in a straight line. "Fighting high in the sky ill suits me, i'd much rather us go underground."
"This isn't about what you want," Nue shouted, hurling her trident forth into some black clouds, catching Yorimi by surprise as she raised her spear up to deflect it. Nue flew down and grabbed her trident again, spinning it around in an arc as she knocked Yorimi out, through those dark clouds. She brought in a bow made of energy to her hands, firing an energy shot into the air as bullets rained down like arrows from the sky, quickly turning into lasers that hit Yorimi and knocked her down constantly to the ground, where she stayed for a while as her section of the Martian Army charged forward towards Nue, who looked at them and shook her head in disappointment.
"This is all you Martians have? I'm disappointed," she said, summoning differently coloured UFOs that fired bullets and charged down towards the group, where they got hit by them and went flying down the mountain. A decent chunk of them, however, managed to push past the UFOs and climb the bit of the mountain, many losing their footing from the fact they just could not make out where they should step next as they quickly made their way towards Nue, where their weapons that were crafted by the materials found on Mars were swung at the Youkai, who was being attacked on all sides by some things she couldn't account for, taking hits from weapons she wasn't even familiar with made from those materials found on Mars and were unprecedented to Gensokyo's technology. After about five seconds of being hit around, she forced the group off her by surrounding herself with dark clouds, that quickly shot out and knocked all those who fought to climb the mountain down, tumbling towards the surface of the Earth.
In this time, Yorimi had her hand against the ground, closing her eyes as she felt for materials she could use down there. She brought metals out towards the surface, making a combination of weapons from a combination of different materials for her to alternate between them. She had a bow and arrow of her own forged from the most refined materials with the sharpest edge to her arrow, as she aimed and released it up at Nue, who stuck her trident into the ground as the snake that often coiled around it and Nue's wrist slithered down and out around the mountain, before reaching the bottom where it slithered itself underground.
Nue closed in through the arrows being fired at her, raising her trident up to attack Yorimi as the Martian raised curved blade made from a blend of colours and different metals up from the side of her to block it, before taking a metal spear in the other hand and stabbing at Nue to force her away, before hurling it at her along with the sword, which Nue dodged both of. The sword managed to boomerang back around to Yorimi, however, as Nue quickly looked back upon hearing it coming in from behind her, leaping into the air to avoid it as Yorimi grabbed the sword again and leaped up as well, swinging it in a clash between sword and trident.
The two stayed there for a while, looking at each other as they both put force behind their blows, before Nue was struck from behind by one of the Martian soldiers, causing her to wince in pain and back off as she flipped away, taking the soldier down to the floor in pain with a poke from her own weapon. Nue quickly jumped into a set of trees nearby, providing a covering spot behind the mess of unidentifiable objects before releasing a bunch more snakes into the ground, where they all slithered beneath the Earth towards the Martian. From the safety of her own ability altering the Martian's perception of the world, she fired an arrow from an energy bow, taking Yorimi by surprise as she dodged it, but failed to dodge all of the arrows that followed that one behind it, taking hit after hit before the arrows finally stopped.
Nue leaped out of the set of trees, flying downwards towards Yorimi as the two clashed weapons once again. This time, however, Nue's blue set of wings wrapped around Yorimi's weapon, as she gripped around it tightly and threw it away, holding the trident up to Yorimi closer this time. The snakes she had planted in the ground uprooted themselves, wrapping around the Martian and preventing her from moving as Nue stood in the position of power.
"That's it, Martian," Nue said, holding her trident up to her. "Not only did you surprise me and see my true form, but now you turn out to be on the opposing side? How annoying can you get?"
"Well… i've never been much of a fighter in our group," Yorimi sighed, looking at the snakes as they coiled tightly around her body. "What are you going to do now, kill me?"
Nue shook her head, grabbing the Martian and flying her back up towards the Palanquin Ship. "Murasa, I brought us a captive."
"A captive?" Murasa asked, looking over to Nue. "Not bad. Is this one of those Martians?" Nue nodded, taking her below deck as she Murasa followed. "Where are we going to put her?"
"I'll let Byakuren decide that," Nue answered, walking around the ship's interior until she found the room Byakuren was staying within. She knocked, before being granted access. When she walked in, Byakuren gasped at the sight of Yorimi.
"What happened here?" Byakuen asked, looking at the two of them.
"Yorimi ended up being on the Martian team, so I had to take care of her," Nue explained, putting her down on the ground as Byakuren walked over. "Do whatever you want with her," she added, walking out of the room.
Byakuen stood up, walking over to Yorimi and kneeled down next to her. Instead of showing any malice, she chose to smile instead. "Nue gave you a hard time, didn't she? She's like that."
"So… are you not phased by me being on the opposing team?" Yorimi asked, to which Byakuren nodded.
"I am, but that does not change my views," Byakuren said, before walking over to a counter. "You're probably confused at what the floor even is right now. Here, take this," She said, as she handed one of Eirin's new drugs over to Yorimi by putting it directly in her mouth, where she instantly consumed it. "That should help you see better."
"Why are you helping me?" Yorimi asked.
"I don't believe that violence is the way things should be solved, so I myself am avoiding it as much as possible," Byakuren said. "Either way, granting you sight isn't a worry now you're on the ship. Besides, now that I know where your from, how about we have another little chat?"
Yorimi looked up at Byakuren as she mentioned talking. "About what?"
"Your culture, beliefs and about the society in general," Byakuren said, sitting back down in a chair. "I'm interested in such things about you."
"Well, we have someone we call the creator, who created our city," Yorimi shrugged as much as she could through the snakes binding her. "That's the closest we have to belief in any gods. Nobody gets to talk to her except this one person on our side, and she passes on what she says and we do as she pleases."
"So you're all like avatars of that god, in a way," Byakuren said in a questioning tone. "Doing as she pleases in order to represent them and carry out duties."
"Something like that," Yorimi said. "It was her that supposedly passed on the order for us to do all this. Hiroko and the creator are the only ones who really know why."
"I see," Byakuren nodded. Their conversations continued on as they talked about their separate cultures and beliefs. Despite being on opposing sides to each other, Byakuren's friendly personality made it easy to get along with her somehow, allowing them to continue these conversations for both of their knowledge growths.
Back in the south of Gensokyo, Kaiya yawned as she looked at Okina. "So, you three should be the last one's I have to defeat, right? I could've at least been warned to get a good sleep in before this…"
"You've got quite the ego, haven't you?" Okina said, as she smiled.
"Defeating the self proclaimed second strongest youkai and her servant at the same time is bound to give me a bit of a boost," Kaiya smiled also, before raising her finger in a gun formation up to Okina's chest and closed one eye. A heated ball similar to a star, but condensed in mass and density down to the size of a bullet, was blasted out at blinding speed. Instead of hitting Okina, it ended up hitting the ground as Okina dodged away from it, with the two backup dancers raising one leg and backing away from it in surprise.
Suddenly, a spray of kunais attacked Kaiya from behind, with only the first few waves hitting her before she quickly teleported away. Okina halted her fire, before looking around. She failed to catch any sight of the Martian anywhere.
"Attacking from behind?" Kaiya's voice came from below her, but when Okina readied herself to open fire at the ground, there was nobody to be seen. "I expected better from someone so high ranking as a Gensokyo Sage."
Okina merely seemed to laugh slightly at the remark, before opening a door behind her and stepping back through it. Kaiya ceased her teleportation, looking at where the door once was, bracing herself for the door to open and an attack to hit her from out there. Instead, however, Okina stepped out from a door on Kaiya's back without her noticing, before turning around and hitting her on the back of the neck with the side of her hand, as cherry blossom petals came from the attack. Kaiya let out a gasp of surprise, leaning her head backwards as she was stunned from the attack. Okina looked down at her as she did so, a smile plastered on her face as as she raised her hand, causing the cherry petals that were released from early to become pink bullets that rained upon the martian.
After receiving damage from the attack, Kaiya snapped back into reality and teleported away. Okina seemed a lot less phased by the ability, as she simply stepped through another door and reemerged directly behind Kaiya, bringing out seven blue orbs behind her that became lasers, similar to swords, with one managing to pierce directly through Kaiya's shoulder, before she teleported away to just outside the human village, clutching the damaged shoulder in pain.
Kaiya began breathing heavily to catch her breath. "She's tough," she nodded to herself, trying to use her time to regain composure. Okina didn't let that happen, however, as she stepped through the door on Kaiya's back and smiled, glancing behind her at the martian, before releasing a kick that caused her to fly up into the air. She followed through with the attack, stepping out from the door on Kaiya's back and knocking her back down to the ground. However, before she reached the ground, Kaiya teleported away, before reappearing behind Okina and kicking her towards the ground.
Okina stood up, before looking up towards Kaiya who was hovering above her. "Of all the sages of Gensokyo I like to think myself as the strongest," She said. "I commend you for lasting this long."
"I'm…. honoured to hear your praise," Kaiya panted, still with a smile on her face as if she were trying to show off a strong aura. "If that vampire was the second strongest…. Then you oughta be the strongest, right?"
"Strongest youkai?" Okina asked. "Oh, no. I'm not a youkai. Strongest in Gensokyo? I'd like to think of myself that way."
"Not a youkai?" Kaiya asked, still panting for air. "Then what are you?"
"That's a secret, dear," Okina smiled. "Now why don't you show me a few of your tricks instead of just running around? No matter where you go, i'll always be right behind you."
"A few of my tricks?" Kaiya asked. "Oh, gladly. I was thinking now would be about the time to do so anyway. But first, tell me. Why did you leave those two behind?"
"Oh? Satono and Mai?" Okina asked. "They'll be fine. Besides, i'm your opponent. I wont let you escape to fight them instead."
"Not why I asked," Kaiya said, laughing slightly. "You wanted to see some of my tricks? I thought you might've wanted to make sure they're not in danger of accidentally being hit. Even this far away."
"Strong talk for someone losing the fight," Okina said. "You threaten to destroy a large radius? How about I take you somewhere you won't have to limit yourself due to the environment? I was thinking it could get cramped around here myself."
"Somewhere where the environment isn't an issue?" Kaiya asked. "Sounds like a perfect place to me."
"In that case, please, touch your back for me," Okina asked, as Kaiya looked at her with a face full of confusion. She reluctantly placed her hand on her back, as the door that was there caused here to be taken away by it. Okina herself smiled at the sight, before entering another door she created to wind up close to where Kaiya was.
Kaguya found herself walking over to where the backup dancers and the defeated Remilia and Sakuya were. She looked at the four people she had found.
"Oh! Finally," Satono said. "Well…. We found these two lying on the ground and didn't know what to do with them. We… thought we'd wait here to defend them in case anyone tried to attack them."
"...They were defeated in battle, then?" Kaguya asked. "In that case, bring them with me. I've got a nurse back in Eientei. She'll tend to everyone."
"Yes, ma'am," Satono nodded, as her and Mai picked up the two bodies and threw them over their shoulders, Mai having a bit more trouble holding Sakuya than Satono did holding Remilia.
"Satono..." Mai said. "Why did you get the easier one to carry?"
"Because I made it to her first," Satono replied. "Come on, let's follow her already."
"Agh..." Mai whined. "Fine…"
Kaguya flew them across Gensokyo to Eientei, passing by Yorihime fighting against Kasumi and having Remilia and Sakuya go under the care of Reisen, who was busy nursing Mokou back to health at the time. "Kaguya, why don't you fight?"
"Everyone else already has everything covered," Kaguya replied. "I'd much rather be sleeping now but… Eirin would scold me for slacking off during this time. I'm just helping wherever I can…" She said, before yawning.
"Master…" Reisen sighed, before looking at her with a sort of disappointed face. "Was it your idea or Eirin's idea to have me stay behind and be the battle nurse?"
"Eirin was busy with the sisters…" Kaguya yawned. "I had to make any decisions for you and Tewi. Speaking of which, where is she?"
"She ran off on me," Reisen said. "She said staying behind is boring and she wanted to watch the fights."
"Typical…" Kaguya sighed. "Well, do your best to nurse these two up. I'll be going back out now…" she yawned once again.
"Yes, master," Reisen nodded, as Remilia and Sakuya were placed on two beds within Eientei.
In the middle of a sword clash, Kasumi quickly backed away and placed her finger on her ear. "Sorry, gotta take this," she said.
"Wai- what?" Yorihime asked. "You can't just take a break like that in the middle of-"
"Hello, Kasumi speaking," Kasumi said, seemingly ignoring Yorihime entirely. "I see. Why'd you call me? Saiko was beaten too? Why didn't you call Kaiya up for this? What do you mean you couldn't reach her? Sigh… fine. Just when I was enjoying myself too," Kasumi sighed. "Stay right there. One of my buddies got herself captured and she needs me to go over there. I'll be back soon."
"You're leaving?" Yorihime asked, as Kasumi nodded and flew away. "H-how? Who…" She said to herself, hardly managing to get her words together. "...Whatever. Guess i'll go see what Toyohime's up to," she sighed, flying down to where the rest of Kasumi's forces were just outside the bamboo forest, as well as where Toyohime was playing with them along with Mystia Lorelei. The moon was beginning to fall low in the sky by now. Within the next two hours, day would break, Yorihime had thought.
