Misty Lake south shores
"Can I eat you?" Asked the innocent-looking blonde girl who Reimu and Marisa knew is a Youkai, while she spread her arms out.
"Didn't you just ate me?" Reimu replied with a rhetoric question.
"I wanted to taste you first~" The Youkai said childishly. "I'm sorry for being so rude~" She then lowered her arms, and curtsied. "Let me introduce myself~"
Little Shadow That Came To Life
Rumia
"My name is Rumia~" She introduced herself. "And I like to eat humans~"
Reimu and Marisa both blinked.
"Wow, that's pretty honest of ya..." Marisa commented.
"And you just made yourself clear that you're an enemy..." Reimu then added.
Rumia just giggled childishly. Apparently the two girls' comments didn't register to her childish mind.
"They say magic-capable humans taste better than Mundanes~" Rumia said.
That statement instantly rang alarm bells in Reimu and Marisa, as they started firing danmaku at Rumia.
The little living shadow was pretty agile. She easily dodged all the danmaku, while still giggling childishly.
"They were right~!" Rumia said, as she formed two small black orbs over her hands. "And I want seconds~"
Rumia then begins her attack by flinging the orbs out, which multiplied into a shower of black danmaku.
Reimu and Marisa tries to dodge the shower and then return fire like they've always been. But the little living shadow was very small and agile, and her shadow danmaku quickly multiplied from a shower to a thick barrage, making it very difficult to land a hit on her.
"Jeez, this is already damn tough for a first one!" Marisa exclaimed, as she produced a Spell Card of her own, along with a jar of something. "I guess it's time to say hello to my little friend: Stardust Reverie!"
As the witch cast her first Spell Card, magic energy flew out from the card and poured into the jar, which she throws out with all the strength her arm has. The jar then exploded, scattering its contents as danmaku at all directions.
The Spell Card didn't produce as many danmaku as Rumia's attack did, but its danmaku is placed in a formation that is too tight for even the little living shadow, resulting in her getting pelted several times and causing her to reel back a bit.
Marisa cheered at the success of her Spell Card. "Ha! Eat that, ya little canni-"
"Marisa," Reimu interrupted. "did you just use my emergency candy stash as ammunition for your Spell Card?!"
Marisa shrugged in response. "Well, kinda..."
Hearing her response, Reimu angrily grabbed Marisa by her collar, and shook her. "Why would you?! I was saving them for after we solve this Incident!"
"Calm down, Rei!" Marisa apologized whilst the shrine maiden shook her. "I'll pay ya back double! I promise!"
Reimu continued angrily shaking Marisa. "Double is not enough! I want triple back! You hear m-"
The shrine maiden's overreaction is interrupted when Rumia reappeared and fired off another barrage of danmaku.
The two girls broke off their quarrel to avoid getting hit.
"This isn't over yet, Genevieve!" Reimu told Marisa as she threw a few Ofuda at Rumia.
"I said I'll pay ya back! Jeez, what a sweet tooth ya have..." Marisa responded and then sulked, as she then activated Orrerries Solar System with another Spell Card and started pelting Rumia with a barrage of danmaku.
Rumia easily dodged the barrage by flanking around the two girls. "Please don't push yourselves too hard, or you'll become too stiff and taste bad~" She casually said, as she conjured two small black orbs by her sides and fired black beams from them.
Reimu and Marisa both braced themselves to dodge the black beams, only to find out that the black beams weren't aimed at them at all. Both girls went to think that Rumia must've had a very lousy aim...
Until they both suddenly felt a sharp pain surging through their bodies.
Reimu pressed her left hand over her right shoulder - that is where she felt the sharp pain. "Wh-what is going on?! We weren't hit at all!"
"How should I freakin' know?! Magic?!" Marisa cried out. She pressed a hand over the left side of her waist, enduring the sharp pain while trying to keep herself balanced on her flying broomstick.
Rumia giggled. "Tehehe~ I'm sorry if this hurts, I'm softening you up so you'll be easier to chew~" She then fired two more black beams.
The beams went past Reimu and Marisa and once again, causing the girls sharp pain despite missing them.
"No one is chewing anyone today!" Struggling against the sharp pain, Reimu launched the Ying-Yang Orb at Rumia in retaliation.
Rumia dodged the Ying-Yang Orb by somersaulting over it. "What an energetic prey~" She said cheerfully. "You'll surely taste good~" The little living shadow then prepared to fire another pair of black beams.
Suddenly, the Ying-Yang Orb came back on its return trip to Reimu, and hit the little living shadow on the back of her head, which threw off her aim as the beams are fired.
This time, the black beams didn't cause Reimu and Marisa any sharp pain at all. If Rumia was aiming at something else to cause the girls sharp pain, then getting hit on the back of her head must have caused her to miss her intended target completely. Reimu and Marisa glanced behind them, and that's when they learn exactly what Rumia had been firing at with her black beams...
Their shadows. Although the scarlet aura had blocked much of the sunlight from shining upon Gensokyo, enough still made it through for everything and everyone to cast a visible shadow.
"Okay, I don't know how it works, but now I know that she was firin' at our shadows." Marisa pointed out.
"Then make sure our shadows don't get hit." Reimu said, as she took the opportunity of Rumia being disoriented by the earlier hit to throw some more Ofuda at her.
"Noted, and count me in!" Marisa responded, as she directed the multicolored orbs orbiting her to fire at Rumia.
The still disoriented Rumia took the full force of the retaliatory barrage, reeling back for each danmaku and Ofuda that hit her.
"Ow ow ow! This hurts!" The little living shadow cried out, as she raised her arms to shield herself against the barrage, to no avail. After spending half a minute getting pelted by danmaku, Rumia couldn't take it anymore, and transformed back into a black spherical blob before she disappeared by sinking into the ground.
Not taking any chances, Reimu and Marisa fired at the ground where Rumia disappeared into. When they're done blasting that patch of the ground a minute later, a crater was left in its place.
"Yeah, that's right, ya little cannibal!" Marisa proceed to taunt the little living shadow. "Run back to ya MOM!"
The witch then noticed Reimu rolling her eyes at the taunt. "What does her mother has to do with this?"
"I'm really referrin' to her mom, if she even has one..." Marisa attempted to explain the meaning of her taunt. "Ya see, it was meant to be a joke where one person mocks another person by insulting their moms..."
Reimu is further confused by the explanation.
"Ya know what? Forget it..." Marisa decided to not explain it any further. "Let's just call it a grave insult to her dignit-"
All of a sudden, several black spike-shaped danmaku shot out from the ground directly below the witch, shattering all four of the multicolored orbs that make up her Orrerries Solar System spell, which in turn brought down the shield that protected her.
"What the...?!"
Before Marisa could make any further reactions, Rumia reappeared as a black spherical blob with a maw lined with sharp teeth, which she immediately closes around Marisa with lightning speed.
"Marisa!" Reimu worriedly cried out, as she prepared to pelt Rumia with more Ofuda.
But Rumia didn't even try to chew Marisa. The witch was spat out almost as quickly as the living shadow had closed her maw around her.
"Ugh, now that's gross!" Marisa, left dangling on a tree after being spat out, complained.
Reimu breathed a sigh of relief.
In the meantime, Rumia transformed back into her humanoid form. She looked like she was retching, as though having just ate something disgusting.
"Eew, you taste very bad!" Rumia loudly complained while scrubbing at her tongue in an attempt to get the bad taste off.
Marisa, for some reason, seems enraged by the little living shadow's statement. "What was that?! I tasted disgusting?! How dare ya!" The witch summoned her flying broomstick over, then hopped onto it before producing another Spell Card from under her witch hat. "I'll tell ya what's gonna taste really bad for ya!"
Upon activation, the Spell Card glowed brightly and spawned a large magic circle in front of Marisa.
Reimu's eyes widened as she recognized that particular magic circle. It was the exact same one Marisa summoned back at Mugenkan and Pandemonium last year. The shrine maiden quickly descended toward the ground and took cover behind a boulder.
"Yippe ka yay, ya lil' cannibal!" Marisa said as the magic circle began to emit an increasingly intense bright glow. "MASTER SPARK!"
With that, the mountain-destroying beam emerged from the magic circle, producing an ear-shattering noise as the multicolored pillar of destructive light tore through the air in its way. Rumia, who was smack in the middle of its trajectory, was unable to get out of the way and took the full force of the beam.
The beam lasted for a full minute before dying down, leaving a trail in its wake that went much further north toward where the scarlet aura came from. In the middle of the trail laid Rumia, having survived the evisceration but is mostly charred and knocked out.
"Let there be light, bitch." Marisa quipped as she put the spent Spell Card back into her hat. She then tipped her hat in a way to make herself look more impressive.
Reimu poked her head out from behind the boulder where she took cover. The shrine maiden, having been disoriented by the ear-shattering noise produced by the Master Spark, shook her head a bit to get a better hold of her position.
"Marisa, you seriously need to, as your mother often puts it, dial things down a bit..." Reimu told Marisa. "And why would you be offended about a Youkai telling you that you taste bad?!"
Nothing better than to end the fight against Rumia with Marisa's iconic Master Spark.
As you can see here, this version of Master Spark can be casted without needing the Mini-Hakkero. All Marisa need to do here is to activate the Spell Card, and then brace herself before unleashing her love-powered annihilation. Of course, this version of Master Spark is so much more powerful that if it wasn't a Spell Card, it would produce about as much killing power as a nuclear bomb.
With that, I'll end off this chapter with the reassurance that the next chapter will see the debut of a certain nine-ball ice fairy.
"And that, as they say, is that..."
Afterword ends here.
