Above Gensokyo
"Did you just call me fat?!"
Letitia definitely did not take too well to being called fat.
"I think I just pissed her off..." Marisa noted as she drew her twin revolvers.
"By 'pissed off', you mean you angered her with your big mouth." Reimu corrected with a deadpan snark.
"That's exactly what I mean!" Marisa pointed out.
Letitia held her right hand out. As she did so, snow began to gather in her outstretched hand and formed the shape of a thin, long shaft. The snow then burst apart, revealing a trident made of gleaming blue ice.
"It was going to be a simple prank, but you just made it personal..." The winter spirit said as she directed a glare at Marisa.
Marisa let out a nervous laugh. "Eh heh heh... Sorry?"
Without saying another word, Letitia pointed her trident at Marisa and fired a white beam from it.
Marisa dodged the beam by diving down at the last second. As did Reimu who was next to her at the moment.
The Guardians caught glimpse of a bird taking a direct hit from the beam. The poor bird froze into a block of ice before it plummeted toward the ground.
At that moment, both girls turned to look at each other, their expressions alone made the message clear: don't get hit.
...
Touhou-Ri Village
"That is enough to last you three more days." Sakuya said as she passed a bag of grain to a mother and her three children.
The mother and her children bowed as they thanked the silver-haired maid. After that, they quickly carried the bag of grain inside their home, closing the front door behind them.
That should be all of them in this village." Sakuya then told herself. "I believe it is time for me to report back to Lady Remilia..."
Right as Sakuya turned around and prepared to depart, she noticed something landing next to her feet with a thud.
She turned to see what the object is, and found that it is a bird frozen in a block of ice.
The maid was just about to dismiss the frozen bird as a victim of the unusual winter before she noticed the icicles protruding from the frozen bird, which are all pointing at the same direction.
Having bore witness to some of Patchouli's spell experimentation, Sakuya recognized that the bird could only possibly be struck by a freezing spell or something similar for all the icicles on it to be pointing at the same direction.
She looked up at the sky, and saw three figures seemingly in combat, with one firing a white beam at the other two every few seconds.
...
Above Gensokyo
Marisa quickly conjured up a shield to block Letitia's freezing beam. After that, Reimu jumped out from behind Marisa to fire several danmaku at Letitia.
Letitia deflected the danmaku by spinning her trident like a windmill at a high speed. Then she retaliated with another freezing beam, which the Guardians dodged easily.
"Jeez, such a minor insult warrant the need to kill us?!" Marisa complained as she threw a potion bomb at the winter spirit. "That's kinda overreacting, ain't it?"
"You called her fat, Marisa!" Reimu angrily pointed out for the witch. "And on top of that, she is a spirit of winter! You offended the worst possible person at the worst possible moment!" The shrine maiden then fired a danmaku at the potion bomb.
The potion bomb went off with a bang, enveloping Letitia in a thick cloud of purple smoke.
Seizing the opportunity, Marisa drew her twin revolvers once again and fired into the purple smoke. Reimu summoned the Ying-Yang Orb and launched it at the purple smoke as well.
Metallic pangs sounded as the danmaku from Marisa's revolvers collided with Letitia's attempts to deflect them with her trident. A much louder pang sounded when the Ying-Yang Orb impacted the same weapon, which hit hard enough to knock Letitia out of the purple smoke and disorienting her.
Letitia recovered from the disorientation fairly quickly. "Well, well... I knew you girls would be able to put up a fight..." She stopped her assault for a bit to congratulate the Guardians.
"We can put up a fight cause we're the freakin' Guardians of the Sanctuary!" Marisa boasted in response, as she then twirled her revolvers in an act of showing off.
The witch's showoff is ruined when she accidentally fired a shot she didn't mean to fire. At least it was fired straight up, so there's no chance of the shot hitting anyone. Marisa's boastful smirk disappeared from her face as quickly as the accidental discharge came, being replaced with a frown of disappointment.
Reimu lowered her face into her palm, and sighed.
"But I wasn't expecting you to put up this much fight..." Letitia continued. "So I guess it is time I pull out my ace card. Literally, in this case..."
Then, with the trident held in her right hand, Letitia held out her left hand. A card brimming with magic aura soon materialized on the winter spirit's outstretched left hand.
The nature of the card seems familiar to the Guardians. Too familiar, in fact.
"Is that-" Marisa said with a squint of her eyes, not believing what she is seeing. "what I think it freakin' is?!"
Reimu gasped in surprise. "A Spell Card?! Like the ones we last used during the Scarlet Mist Incident?! But we kept their development to ourselves, so how-"
"Amazing, right?" Letitia said with a smirk. "It just came to me out of the blue last month."
The winter spirit then crushed the card in her outstretched hand.
"Cold Sign: [Lingering Cold]"
After Letitia has casted her Spell Card, snow gathered around her once again, this time forming into several independently floating balls of snow.
And then she sent them toward the Guardians.
Reimu dodged the snowballs, as her instincts told her that she should.
Marisa dodged a few snowballs on her own, then fired her revolvers at one that is coming straight toward her.
The snowball exploded upon being shot, spraying a cloud of freezing mist at Marisa's direction.
The witch, having no time to draw her wand and conjure a shield to block the mist, raised both arms up to shield herself from it.
That did shield her face from being frozen, but the rest of her body and her flying broomstick took the full blow of the freezing mist. While it didn't actually hurt, it was incredibly cold as Marisa quickly found that icicles have formed on her, and she couldn't move any part of her body.
"Jeez, this is really freakin' cold." Marisa still has the mood to snark about her current situation. "I should be pissed that she stole our Spell Cards idea... or did she steal it? Either way-"
That was when the flying broomstick suddenly stopped emitting magic energy and made a weird sound - indications that it just stalled.
"Oh sh-" Marisa tried to curse before she plummeted from the air, with her body still frozen stiff.
"Marisa!" Reimu cried out as she launched the Ying-Yang Orb at Letitia in order to distract her, then went after Marisa.
Letitia attempted to deflect the Ying-Yang Orb with her trident, but it was much stronger than she had thought, as the impact knocked her off-balance and broke the trident in half.
Grunting, the winter spirit simply reattached the two halves of her trident with her powers, then conjured more snowballs to be sent toward Reimu and Marisa.
Reimu, sensing danger, instinctively dodged the snowballs without tearing her sights away from Marisa, as she continued to chase after the witch. As she neared Marisa, the shrine maiden quickly put the Sacred Hakurei Gohei into her hyperspace sleeve so she can have both hands free, then reached out with both hands to catch her friend. Reimu then used her flight capability to slow the fall until both she and Marisa came to a halt.
"Gee, thanks, Rei..." Marisa, still frozen and unable to move her body, said. "This is quite similar to that time at Mugenkan, right?"
Reimu cocked her eyebrows in response. "You still have the mood for a chat?"
"Maybe it's just my half-western heritage?" Marisa joked. "By the way, have you seen my hat?"
Before Reimu can make another response, her instincts went off as she looked over her shoulder and saw a huge barrage of Letitia's freezing snowballs coming toward her and Marisa.
The barrage is so big and have so little open space between each individual freezing snowballs that it is impossible to dodge. And it is too late to block the barrage either.
Marisa could only see a small fraction of the incoming barrage through the corner of her eyes as she is unable to turn her head, but that was enough to make her gulp. "Oh, crap..." She muttered.
Reimu braced herself and as much of Marisa's body as possible for the incoming barrage. "Marisa, just so you remember," She took what she thought would be her last moment to inform the witch. "this is all because of you letting the wrong words come out of your mouth! You hear thi-"
The shrine maiden is cut off by the barrage of freezing snowballs reaching and pelting her position...
Or rather, it should have pelted her and Marisa in freezing snowballs and froze them into chunks of ice already. But it didn't. Reimu could feel very cold air flowing past her, but never directly at her, as though something else got in the way and blocked the freezing snowballs.
"It appears that you are in need of some helping hands." A very familiar voice informed.
Reimu instantly recognized that voice, if only because she heard this voice saying this exact same sentence with the exact same inflection on each syllable only two hours ago.
The shrine maiden looked over her shoulder once again, and saw that it is indeed Sakuya who saved her and Marisa by using a signboard from who-knows-where as a shield to block the freezing snowballs.
"Took ya long enough to come here!" Marisa told Sakuya.
"Nothing is ever 'too long' for me." Sakuya responded as she let go of the now frozen solid signboard.
Reimu watched the frozen signboard plummet to the village below before it smashed a hole through the roof of a building. For someone who is supposedly the "perfect and elegant" maid, Sakuya had just tossed what could be considered a safety hazard away like it was ordinary garbage. Reimu, for the love of the gods, hoped that no one was hurt by the signboard.
Meanwhile, Letitia was so sure of her taking down the two human girls, only to be disappointed by a third person suddenly showing up and shielding the first two from her attack.
Nevertheless, she wanted to make that witch regret calling her fat, and anyone who gets in the way are just obstacles she plan on overcoming in order to achieve her goal. With that in mind, the winter spirit pressed on with her attacks by intensifying her Spell Card, summoning more freezing snowballs and preparing to send them toward her target.
As for the Guardians, Reimu eyed over her shoulder at Letitia preparing another barrage of freezing snowballs. She wished she could do her job as a Hakurei shrine maiden and fight the winter spirit, but she can't let go of Marisa or else the witch would plummet to the ground due to being unable to use any magic while frozen.
"Sakuya, I do need some help..." Reimu reluctantly told the maid. "Help us defeat that woman up there..."
"I wish I could kick her ass myself, but since I can't do shit while frozen..." Marisa added. "Go kick her ass!"
Sakuya nodded in acknowledgement. "There is no need for that kind of language, you know." She then said.
With a snap of her finger, the silver-haired maid disappeared into thin air, and reappeared behind Letitia in an instant, with a knife in her hand ready to be brought down upon the winter spirit.
Before Letitia even realized it, Sakuya delivered a diagonal slash across Letitia's back.
While Letitia is surprisingly resilient enough that the slash didn't cause so much as a cut, it is still enough to distract Letitia for a second, breaking her focus and thus dispelling her Spell Card, causing all of the freezing snowballs to pop out of existence.
"Don't get in my way!" Letitia cried out as she turned around and fired a freezing beam at Sakuya... except there's nobody there anymore.
"I didn't get in your way..." Sakuya, suddenly reappearing behind Letitia, quipped as she jabbed at the winter spirit's back, hard enough to shove her a short distance away.
Letitia recovered from the jab quickly, as she turned around and prepared to fire another freezing beam at Sakuya... only to pause just short of actually firing when she realize that something is attached to her back, and it is becoming hotter by the second.
"You got in our way first..." Sakuya finished her quip as she put more distance between herself and Letitia.
A second after Sakuya's quip, whatever object it is that is attached to Letitia's back exploded in a big fireball, with the winter spirit herself launched out of it a second later, having been knocked out by the explosion as she plummeted toward the ground before landing a fair distance away from the village.
"Why were you the 'perfect and elegant' maid again?" Reimu then asked, after witnessing what Sakuya just did.
Sakuya patted her hands clean of dirt and snow before answering, "I was never actually 'elegant', so to speak. It looked that way because I stopped time while doing all my chores."
Reimu can't help but scoff at that statement. "Another example of your mistress making things up, I suppose?"
"Perhaps..." Sakuya gave a straightforward answer.
Marisa, still frozen, let out a laugh in response to hearing that. "Ah, typical of that egoistical vampire whose ass I kicked by challenging her to a dance-off." She then said. "Anyway, has anyone seen my hat? I have something stored in there that can help unfreeze me..."
Sakuya then held up the hat in question in front of Marisa's face so that she can see it, as she is unable to move her frozen hands out of the way. "You mean this one?"
"Oh, cool!" Marisa chirped. "I'm still kinda stuck here, so mind helpin' me get that thing I was talkin' about? It's octagonal in shape..."
In the meantime, Reimu is busy trying to figure out an explanation for how the concept of Spell Cards, which is something of a secret project that only she and Marisa knows about, wound up getting used by Letitia who they have no prior contacts with...
Then Reimu remembered that she and Marisa were not the only people who are aware of the existence of Spell Cards prior to the encounter with Letitia...
...
Somewhere outside the walls of Touhou-Ri Village
"Hey, Letty!" Cirno the ice fairy said as she poked Letitia, who is still conscious but barely holding herself together as she laid face-down in a person-shaped crater in the snow, with a small twig. "Do you want to build a snowman?"
Letitia, or Letty as the ice fairy just called her, weakly raised a hand as she mustered as much energy as she could to respond. "No, Cirno... I'm... very tired..." Her raised hand then fell back into the snow. "I'm... afraid... I can't... play with you... today..."
"That's too bad..." Cirno said sadly, as she then turned to leave.
"Actually, Cirno..." Letty weakly informed. "Do stay... with me... for a bit..." She continued. "Also, mind making... some of those... water-flavored... shaved ice that... you showed me... the other day?"
Ah, I'm so glad to be able to write this again.
The hiatus started with me deciding to take part in a Little Witch Academia-based writing event called Dianakko Week 2020, despite it being based around a pairing from LWA that I legit don't like. I did so because I wanted to prove that I wouldn't force my dislike of the pairing on others...
And my entries turned up so poorly written as well as making me look like a misogynist that I ended up regretting writing them, and then I orphaned them just so I don't have to see them in my AO3 feed ever again. Then I actually encouraged future readers of my entries to shit on them just because they're that poorly written and thought out. On top of that, I'm actually glad that I got disqualified by the Tumblr blog that ran the Dianakko Week event and subsequently blocked by it too.
Moral of the incident: if you legitimately don't like a pairing, then don't write anything for it.
Anyway, with the revelation that the concept of Spell Cards, which were developed in secret by Reimu and Marisa, getting leaked, what will the Guardians of the Sanctuary have to do to overcome their own secret weapon being used against them?
"And that, as they say, is that..."
Afterwords end here.
