By the time you read this, Touhou 11: Subterranean Animism will be on Steam. In fact, Touhou 17 to 10 should be on Steam, so you can enjoy a whole lot of danmaku dodging, epic music, and all that. It makes me so happy that they're coming out on Steam. However, will it go down to 1? That's kind of hard to say. According to sources, ZUN... lost the original data for Touhou 6: Embodiment of Scarlet Devil due to a computer failure. I don't know how much else was lost or how accurate that is in the first place, but it looks like we'll have to wait and see. The PC-98 games, which are Touhou 1-5, would be the least likely to show up. They're not as refined as the later games, obviously, and especially Touhou 3 has essentially nightmare difficulty with the final boss in Yumemi. Still, the music is pretty good, and Bad Apple from Touhou 4 is iconic for a reason.

Also, the themes of Reimu and Marisa from the PC-98 era are prototypes of their later themes. It is interesting to hear how Love Colored Master Spark (Marisa's theme obviously) evolves from Touhou 2 to Touhou 8 when it starts to reappear and get later remixes as well. Actually, Marisa has the most themes in the series, if I remember correctly. It comes from her being a boss a few times. Touhou 2, Touhou 3, Touhou 4, Touhou 8, Touhou 9, the fighting games, and Cirno's game all have Marisa as an opponent or at least a possible opponent.

Anyways, now you too, the American audience and the rest of the world, can get yourself the game this saga of Imperfect Cherry Blossom is on. Touhou 11 is indeed challenging, yet some players consider Utsuho Reiuji to be one of the easier final bosses in the series. While Okuu is powerful, she's a very straightforward character, using large but more direct patterns. I've mentioned that Okuu's theme is one of the more remixed songs out there, and it works well in different genres, mostly metal. It's just so ominous, intimidating. Fitting, for someone who represents the ultimate power that mankind has been able to 'tame'.

...Also, just realized I never mentioned Nagato's English VA last chapter, so in the interest of fairness for our favorite silent alien girl... Turns out the Persona connection isn't over. She too voiced someone from Persona, being Sadayo Kawakami from Persona 5, as well as the English voice for party member Yukari Takebata from Persona 3. Actually Nagato's English VA has a looooong list of voices. Jill Valentine, Rukia from Bleach, Yoko from Gurren Lagann, Sakura from Street Fighter... Even Luna from Sailor Moon.

So that's another Persona connection. In Persona Q1 you can partially reunite the English SOS Brigade with Yukari and Fuuka from Persona 3 and Yu from Persona 4. Q2 isn't English voiced if I remember correctly.

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya is owned by Nagaru Tanigawa. Touhou Project is owned by ZUN and Team Shanghai Alice. I own neither. This is a fan fiction of those works.

Beta Reader (and partial writer) for this episode:

Smooglii

[The Meltdown of Haruhi Suzumiya]

[Episode 10.5]

["The Purification of Junko"]

"Is it okay to call gods idiots?

Well, I guess it is."

-Yukari Yakumo, Touhou 11: Subterranean Animism

"Lady Patchouli, I can't find anything!"

Koakuma fretted about the library, still searching for the shadow that had assaulted Yuyuko. It had disappeared as quickly as it had come, and Yuyuko, who had fainted dead away, was now emitting a red mist, the same as if the Sword of Hisou were used. Rather than transforming into weather here though, the temperament vanished as it flowed upwards, and judging from the fact that the environment beyond the orb was now experiencing an indoor snowfall...

Patchouli spared no more worry towards the mysterious intruder. It was clear enough from the look on Yukari's face through the orb that none of this had been unexpected.

Patchouli was busy, going over the runes and magical spells tied to Greek and Roman mythology. There were many names for Hecatia, as worship of her had spanned for much of humanity, even dating back to Egyptian times. Patchouli had casually looked aside, feeling frustration that she couldn't find the majority of incantations against such a major god, when she saw a girl wearing a white, red and black dress attack Yuyuko with a golden hammer of some kind before running off into the maze of the library. It happened suddenly, making Patchouli fear that the enemy was attacking them to keep Patchouli's research incomplete.

There were no further attacks, no odd occurrences. Patchouli had even expected that they would be attacking the books - Koakuma had gathered all she could from the library on the subject matter of Greek and Roman magic, but no such thing happened. The librarian looked over Yuyuko again, deeming her to be okay, for a ghost.

I know it's cold, but I really need to get back to my research. Leaving Yuyuko to Koakuma, Patchouli returned to the table, back to where she left off. She both cursed Yukari and praised her. On one hand, Patchouli should have had more time to research Hecatia. On the other, if she did, the enemy appeared to have the capabilities to find out. The true element of surprise works both ways, I suppose.

Patchouli had found out a lot more, looking deeper into Hecate. Actually going into the background of her was quite fascinating, and confusing.

Hecatia was not just a god. She was sometimes interpreted as an actual Titan. She wasn't banished by Zeus because she smartly helped him in his battle with the Titans, and worked from the shadows since, becoming favored and respected by Zeus. She knew how to play politics and come out ahead. Impressive, given the treacherous nature of the Greek gods and how they would stab each other in the back. But what was really curious was what she was supposed to be; that Hecatia was at her strongest in the wilderness and the darkness, yet weak against civilizations and cities.

That was certainly not the case for such a 'modern looking woman' as Yukari said in an off-the-cuff remark upon seeing her through the orb. Chains were more of a human invention, of captivity. Certainly not fitting for a 'god of nature'. Still, do modern humans wear chains as some sort of fashion? If humans wear chains, it's because they're slaves. To willingly- Patchouli shook her head, not understanding the modern human mind that well.

After having spending time in Gensokyo and finding out about the deities within, and how they differed from how they were on paper, Patchouli was starting to understand the bigger picture. Most of the time, how they actually were vastly different from how they were portrayed.

A lot of conjecture and folktales muddy the waters. Still, anti-magic worked against her, and my rune dispelling was working. I was on the right path earlier. Patchouli went back to the Greek texts, determined not to be defeated by this god, titan, or whoever she really was.

"What I'm asking you to do for me is quite selfish, yet needed." Yukari kept herself composed, like she had during that entire encounter, yet I could see the tiredness and fatigue in her eyes. I think everyone could.

I half expected some people to be chewing out Yukari for not fighting during that battle, though I personally excused it since she did all she could for us. I wouldn't even be alive at that point if it wasn't for her pulling the strings. To be fair, everyone was still reeling from everything that happened in the past few minutes.

Snowflakes flurried around us, neither melting in the hot air nor going away on their own. Red mist had collected at the top of the cavern, and was steadily condensing into the white flakes that were drifting downward, suggesting that the snow effect would probably keep going for a while. If it weren't for the circumstances, I might have appreciated the sight of snow falling underground into a lake of magma; such a thing would have been impossible to experience in my world.

"I'm honestly impressed, you know?" I sighed, hopping off Marisa's broom, approaching Yukari. Tenshi got the bright idea to use Sanae's weather to heal everyone, so I wouldn't need to use a vial. It was the reason why we didn't immediately follow the Alternates, we were waiting to heal through the calm. Again, bringing her along was the smart call on my part. Saved my life, among others. Of course, I didn't know how far Yukari's plans extended, if my getting Tenshi here was Yukari's design. I mean, she did oppose it, openly, or maybe that was the point? Yukari went down for our sake anyway, at least, Tenshi thought so. It was so difficult at that point to deduce what was and what wasn't part of Yukari's plan, to the point where again, I had to be grateful that she was on my side. Whatever it was like to go up against her, well, I saw the look on Mayumi's face. The clay soldier had everything under control, and everything was taken from her by the end of it. The amount of despair she had to have been feeling...

Enough of my inner ramblings - I had silently approached Yukari during those thoughts, the demon awaiting me to continue what I said with that sure smile on her face. "You really pulled it off. We just decimated them."

Her smile widened as she shook her head. "No, I merely set up the path and provided the tools. It was up to you to walk down it and perform the actions." She looked to the rest of us. "All of you. All of you surpassed my expectations. We managed to drive them back without a loss." She eyed me, I guess knowing what I went through.

A lasting loss you mean. We did lose three people. Also, I didn't know if she planned for Yuyuko to be attacked like that. What was that, anyway? It was like I was seeing into the library, but... It was hard to describe. For an instant, it had felt as though I was there in the library myself, like physical space didn't matter and I could be in two places at once. Like I was dreaming, almost.

"I have to apologize for all of this." Yukari's voice was low, to talk to only me. "For what you went through. No matter what happened, Hecatia would find a way. So..." She didn't continue, noticing that everyone was getting closer after they were healed up by the calm.

So you gave her what she wanted and worked from there. I don't know how I felt about that. To know that Hecatia was going to kill me anyway, that I was fated to die no matter what we did... No, we had to cheat. She was cheating by making herself invincible, so we had to cheat right back and undermine her own underhanded tactics. After all, if I was Hecatia, I sure as hell wouldn't have expected to have the person I just killed with my own hands show up from behind and begin attacking. There were still a lot of questions I had for the youkai, but Yukari turned back to where the corrupt portal had been.

I was put through so much, in such a roundabout way. And this woman in front of me helped me cheat death. I wonder if that gives any truth to what Koizumi was saying to Hecatia. If she killed me no matter what, if she split up the Brigade...

Is she afraid of us?

I mean, if I were a big evil mastermind, I'd probably want to eliminate the biggest potential threats before they could start to become a real problem. If we were really nothing to her, they all wouldn't have gone to all the trouble of dividing and demoralizing us, right?

Speaking of corrupt portals-

"There's one thing I do need answered." Reimu had stepped up to where we were, missing her sleeves - she had torn them up to use as bandages earlier for herself and others. "Those portals; they look like yours."

"Yes, yes they do." Yukari's smile went grim. "I assume that particular Hecatia had defeated another me, and took her powers. I told you before that those eyes are mine, and the ones used by Hecatia were closed."

That would explain why they looked 'corrupt.' Though if it meant that we wouldn't have to face an Alternate Yukari, which would have sucked, I was all for it. So this wasn't just protecting our own world. Yukari could have been avenging her losses in other worlds too.

"Good." Reimu sagged her shoulders, letting out a tired sigh. "I don't think I have the mental energy to take on an Alternate Yukari."

"I'd appreciate it if you let us in on more of your plans, Miss Yakumo," said Asahina. "But I assume you need to keep some secrecy. The fight isn't over."

Marisa approached us as well, stretching. She had lost her blue witch's hat during that beam struggle - fallen into the magma, I think. I couldn't see it, and Marisa wouldn't wear it again. "Still, what are we gonna do, ze? I mean you guys with Haruhi? What's gonna happen? Ain't it bad that she's awake?"

"It is." Asahina and I turned to where Haruhi was, who was surrounded by Koizumi, Chiyuri, and Nagato, who were discussing what to do from there. Chiyuri was the one holding onto her though. Asahina put her hand on her forehead, upset at this turn of events. "We worked so hard at all of this, and everything got undone in a matter of minutes. Years of work, of classified and classified, sending my younger self to classified, having to retroactively experience classified all for nothing." She shook her head. "What was the point?"

"These Alternates don't care, Miss Asahina." Yukari placed her hand on the time travelers shoulder. "But I assume that the Brigade can contain it. All of you have been expertly doing so, after all. And if I'm not mistaken, Haruhi is still in shock. That is advantageous, is it not?"

"Nagato was saying something similar." I mean, if that was our best play there, then it was our only play.

"Kinda sad that's the way you have to treat her." Sanae had joined us, looking as tired as the rest of us. Like Reimu, Sanae was missing her sleeves. "Having to keep her from achieving her life's goal."

"What else are we going to do?" I motioned to Asahina. "You saw what can happen. Asahina can shoot lasers out of her damn eyes, and that was a byproduct of Haruhi's carefree imagination for shooting a student movie that made no sense." Have you even considered the damage she could do if she seriously used her power? Also, I still felt pissed that even though I got Haruhi to convince herself that it wasn't real, that it still came back. What was the point then in the end?!

Asahina smiled a bit as I brought up the movie, but it was a strained smile, like a reflex to force something down. Given how badly Haruhi had treated her during that time, I couldn't imagine it was a fond memory for her. Not that it was for me, either. I had plenty of good memories with the Brigade, but plenty of things I'd rather have forgotten, too.

But to think this whole time, she never knew she could shoot lasers from her eyes. Hard to say if I'm jealous or not. There were certain things I would like to forget, but I did cherish the Brigade.

"Jeez, what a mess." Reimu had her hands on her hips, the left side of her face curled in a frown. "I don't want to win just for Haruhi to destroy the world herself."

"Okay. What now then? Where do we go from here?" We waited for Yukari to speak, as more people healed up and joined the growing group. I think we all came to a silent understanding that this was Yukari's show at this point. Her plans had carried all of us to where we were all alive and ready to strike back at the Alternates.

Yukari still hadn't turned back to us. "Hecatia should be injured, and shouldn't be at a hundred percent. You've also damaged most of her associates, though the exact number she has I'm still not sure of." She turned to Youmu, an expectant look on her face, and motioned for the gardener to come to her.

Right. If Youmu melded with Quarter, she must have insider information on them.

Yukari had Youmu whisper into her ear for a while, and then went silent again, thinking it over. "I see... So she really did tell me..." There was another moment of silence, Yukari running through her plans or whatever. "Youmu, what is this 'agreement' that they had with each other?"

The gardener pursed her lips for a moment, before relenting. "Mind you Lady Yukari, I'm still kind of hazy on her memories. It was a weird experience."

"I understand, Youmu. But any more information would help."

Youmu nodded, lowering her head at the end of it. She looked really sullen. "I... I remember at first, they all worked together. Hecatia was the one who'd fuse the worlds together, Mayumi would... tweak us to give us exploitable weaknesses... and the others had jobs too, but I don't remember what. Eventually though, they couldn't work together very well, so they were each put in charge of one universe and had final say on how to run it. That Clownpiece was in charge of ours, and everyone had their job to do." Youmu took off her headband, readjusting it and the ribbon before putting it back on. "Uh, the agreement was that each person had to take care and be responsible for each of their worlds, that if they couldn't get it done on their own, they wouldn't be worthy of the end result."

"Their perfect world."

Youmu nodded again. "That's all I got from it, really. I-I'm still trying to make sense of it all. It was kind of overwhelming to have her mind and mine at the same time."

"I can confirm that. I saw bits and pieces from Hecatia's mind." Nagato called out from Haruhi's position. "It wasn't just a project on us, it was a project on them as well."

Man this melding stuff is really complicated, and I went through it. Having two different timelines converge into one was off putting. One had conflict, the other peaceful, and both memories remained. And that was part of my everyday life, not due of Gensokyo.

"I see." Yukari rubbed her chin, her eyes drifting to the side. "So that's why they were so slow to respond to us, and why they've hardly collaborated. They're encouraged to be on their own to prove themselves to Hecatia."

"That's good for us, isn't it?" Mokou finally spoke up, keeping her hands in her pockets and her attitude casual - she looked a lot less exhausted, at least mentally, than most of us. "If they keep trying to fight us one at a time, we just gotta focus them down one by one."

"That is, if they keep doing that." Eirin had been hanging back, immersed in writing something with a red ink brush on a bunch of little rectangular pieces of paper she had in her hands. She hardly looked up at the rest of us as she spoke, "If we drive them into enough of a corner, they might start working together. That said, if their teamwork is poor, that will be a big advantage in our favor."

Reisen came up from behind Eirin, saying, "But just one of them is strong enough to take us all on, right? Before, with Mayumi..."

"...She was defeated as soon as she lost Hecatia's power." Eirin made a vague gesture with one hand, like she was running her fingers along an invisible chain. "They're strong, but not invincible. Now is the perfect time to chase them, while Hecatia is weakened."

That's... true. Clownpiece was merely quick, and I was able to take her down. Mayumi was a step up, but folded when she didn't have her power. Only that Alternate Utsuho had enough power to demand that we all work together to stop her. And Hecatia was out, had to be dragged away.

"Now that you mention it," Reisen looked back to where she sniped at the soldiers. "Yeah, that clay soldier went down to Youmu when she lost her power."

"Sad, really." Kasen was re-wrapping her phantom arm up. "Over-reliance on borrowed power is a deadly trap, and to think of that power as your own is even worse."

The calm was healing up the last of us, indicating that we would be ready to go again. I looked over everyone there, and they were focused. A complete 180 of how they were when we got thrashed by Mayumi and Hecatia earlier. My eyes fell on Meiling, whose torn clothes were... I turned my head away, because they were revealing more than I anticipated. As in way more. As in I could see... Tan lines, among other parts of her female body.

Ahem.

Anyways, I had about a dozen questions for Meiling concerning what happened with her, and I would have to ask later. Then wasn't the time. But whatever she did seemed to have tired her out completely.

Then again, she went up directly against a nuclear weapon. What more could we ask of her?

That reminds me... I backed up a bit, searching for where Satori had gone. As I thought, she was speaking with Utsuho and Rin, listening to Rin's account of what had happened. Well, more like telling it herself.

"...And a horned figure came to see you at the river, and the next thing you knew, you were back here, alive."

Rin nodded, looking uneasy. Utsuho's eyes were wide and full of tears, the both of them watching Satori closely as she considered them with a stern expression. After a moment of this, Satori stood up, raised one hand, and gave them both a smack with the back of it.

"As if I have to tell you not to take suspicious powers from strange gods!" she raised her voice at Utsuho. "And thinking she was telling you to burn the surface world..." Satori pinched the bridge of her nose in frustration before turning to Rin and saying, "And you never told me! Clearly I'd want to know if the Hell of Blazing Fires were reignited!"

The two of them diminished under her scolding, with Utsuho looking particularly pathetic, with her wide wings and star-filled cape and arm cannon and all that crazy stuff attached to what was at this point just a crying girl. She looked more like a puppy than a raven. Satori allowed the message to sink in, glaring at them in silence before taking a step forward and putting one hand on each of their heads, stroking down and stopping just behind their ears. They looked up into her eyes, and she into theirs.

"I left you alone too long," she said, just quietly enough that I could barely hear her. "I'm sorry."

I felt kind of guilty seeing this. I know of all the drama we've experienced so far that day, but for Satori and hers, this was more personal. This took place with her pets, her land, her city, her very home.

Maybe Marisa is right. Maybe I am too nosy for my own good for this type of stuff.

"So who's going?" Reimu stepped up to Yukari. "Besides me, I mean." Her tone made it clear she wouldn't listen if Yukari told her no. She wasn't the only one - Marisa, Reisen, Youmu, and Tenshi were coming forward to insist on their own inclusion in the team, and the others looked like they were all considering it too.

"I need to be here to suppress her powers." Nagato spoke up from just outside the rapidly-forming circle of would-be adventurers. "Haruhi Suzumiya is still unstable. This event has retroactively caused the formation of closed space reaching several hours into the past."

What? That was caused by this?! It must have been bad if Haruhi was now flipping causality on its head. Then again, Seija had talked earlier about how time travel was difficult going past this moment. Was this another one of those time quakes Asahina kept talking about? I looked for her in the crowd, and found her nearby looking grim.

"I worry for the time plane," she said. "It's becoming more malleable, more... uncertain. Between the Alternates and Miss Suzumiya's reaction... Even if we do win, I worry for the damage that's already been done."

"Miss Sasaki's closed space is the same. But it was... I don't know how to say it." Kyouko Tachibana shook her head, unable to fully express herself. "'Active', earlier as well, like it is now. Felt different than how it usually does. I could just tell, you know? Didn't even have to be in it to know that."

Fujiwara, who was standing next to her, didn't have anything to say. He just narrowed his eyes in Asahina's direction, then looked askance at someone who had just appeared in our midst: Kuyou Suou.

Reisen's rifle was pointed at her almost before I realized it, and everyone else started giving her the evil eye. Everyone except Kaguya, who leaned her body into Reisen's and put a hand on her gun, gently guiding it into a lowered position with a hard-to-read smile. "Don't you think we should let her go for now?" she said. "She's a victim too, isn't she?"

"How many times has she attacked us-"

Reisen tried to object, but Kaguya turned back around and called, "Don't you agree, Eirin?"

Eirin was outside of the circle, still writing on those papers she had. She almost didn't react, but her eyes flicked briefly up to Suou before going back to her work and she replied, "Indeed. Better she be our ally right now than our enemy." After the slightest pause, she took another moment to glare at Suou once again. "But just for the moment. After tomorrow, I can't guarantee we'll remain merciful."

Suou didn't answer, but turned away and fixed her gaze on Sasaki. Evidently, the present situation was her priority as well.

"If Reimu's going, then so am I, ze." Marisa's voice put us back on track, and everyone else started speaking up at the same time.

"You're not going in without me," said Reisen, pulling back the bolt on her rifle to show the bullet inside. "One of these has Mayumi's name on it."

"I'd like to have a word with Mayumi as well," said Chiyuri.

"I can't do anything but fight," said Youmu.

The circle got tighter as our most vocal members attempted to bid for inclusion in the next stage of the battle. Yukari listened, her face hidden behind her open fan, but didn't react to any of them - I was pretty sure it was all a moot point, as she had to have decided who she'd bring into that other universe well in advance. The commotion quickly died down as everyone realized that she was waiting for them to let her speak, and when they did, she slowly closed up the fan and spoke with a gentle smile.

"Hecatia's power is being channeled through the Alternates. Even though she's weakened, she can still try to force us out as long as they live. For now, at least..." She raised one of her gloved fingers and pointed directly at me. Then she pointed at Reimu, then Marisa, and then four more times into the circle around her, and finally gestured us forward.

Figures. There was never really a doubt in my mind that she was going to pick me to go. Why waste all that effort building me up otherwise?

I walked forward to join Reimu and Marisa in front of her. Reisen, Sanae, and Koizumi came up behind us, and we formed a line amidst the protests of the others.

"Power and determination alone will not be enough to fight this enemy," said Yukari to the rest of them, "Those best able to exploit their weaknesses will have the best chance of defeating them. I believe that every one of you will be necessary for the first leg of this fight."

I looked at the others, trying to piece together what made us all necessary. Reimu was our strongest fighter and I had the power to reset, so we were a given, and of course I needed Marisa to fly, but other than that, I wasn't quite sure what made her so certain it'd be better to take, say, Reisen instead of a powerhouse like Kazami. Reisen had a dire look in her eyes as well that unsettled me a bit, making me wonder if she really was the best choice.

Actually, does Yukari even know about the elixir? It was impossible to tell, and I couldn't exactly inform them all of my ability either since... Well, what if Eirin hadn't even invented the Ultramarine Orb Elixir yet? And revealing I took it would tip them off that they won't use it, but if Seija was right, I already knew Eirin had made it for the purpose of the others using it in the future... Basically, screw time travel. At least this time it was something I could probably hide, since they'd never know when I used it.

"Kyon." I felt something metal press into my side and found Chiyuri offering me her unloaded pistol. I felt a little sorry that I had to take her weapon from her, but there was no helping it if she wasn't coming. With the weapon and ammunition safely passed over, Chiyuri patted me on the back and said, "You'll be all right. You remember how to load it, I hope?"

I nodded, only half-sure I'd remembered everything she taught me before. "Good," she said with a smile. "Do me a favor now, all right? If you see Mayumi before I make it in there, ask her why I can use my powers in the outside world."

Oh, right. She can do that, can't she? At least, according to Koizumi. Everyone seems to have it in for Mayumi all of a sudden, though. What the hell did I miss while I was fighting Hecatia?

"I can try." I looked at her, not sure if I'd even be able to remember something like that in the moment. "If they... made our universe or whatever, she'd know, right?"

"There's that... but I have a hunch she won't be able to answer." Chiyuri looked at the others, then leaned in to me and said, "I don't think she has as much control over us as she says she does. Even if she meddled with our pasts, there's no way she'd have said to me what she did if she knew everything."

"What did she say to you?"

"That I wasn't supposed to be in Gensokyo." Chiyuri straightened up. "She can pretend like she wrote our lives all she wants, but we're all made of our own choices, and nothing else. Remember that."

"I don't really get it, but all right." I nodded to her, trying to engrave the request in my mind. "I'll try to remember, but I can't make any promises."

"Of course. Survival comes first." With another pat on the shoulder, Chiyuri parted with me and walked away, waving to Nagato who I realized had been standing nearby the whole time as if waiting for her turn to talk to me. She still didn't move, so I took the initiative and approached her instead.

"Here."

The moment I walked up to her, Nagato stuck out a familiar spell card. It was Asakura again. I tried to think what she might want other than me to take it with me; surely there was some alternative interpretation of this gesture I wasn't seeing.

Do I have to?

"You don't have to be afraid," she said. "She has been our ally for some time. The radical faction is in agreement with us for now."

It's not that I'm afraid, exactly...

This wasn't the time to be refusing help though, so I took the card and held it like it was the key to a nuclear silo. It felt strange to think that just as our group had been united by the threat of the Alternates, so had the various factions of the Overmind. I kind of wondered what would happen when it's over, though. Even if I was safe from her now, that didn't mean she wouldn't pull something sneaky once the battle was won. I mean, it was Asakura's faction that were willing to kill me just to see Haruhi's reaction.

"...I bet they're pretty happy with what Haruhi's doing right now, huh?" I said, pocketing Asakura with the rest of my spell cards.

Nagato lowered her head slightly and said, "Haruhi Suzumiya's current reaction is being investigated by the Overmind. Doing so was a condition for the radicals' support."

"I suspected as much," Koizumi butted into the conversation with a poorly-disguised pointedness to his smiling eyes. "Otherwise, it would be safer to make some sort of alteration on Miss Suzumiya herself, no?"

I backed up a bit in surprise at his sudden intrusion. Nagato stayed put, not looking directly at him. It hadn't really occurred to me before, but if Nagato had the ability to hijack Haruhi's powers, that would be pretty handy to use against Hecatia right about now. In fact, you should be doing that. Who cares if some other part of the Overmind doesn't want it? Isn't this a life or death thing for everyone?

"It's not just that," said Nagato in a quiet voice. "There is a data anomaly within Haruhi Suzumiya. Until I understand it, any data alteration beyond simple suppression is unsafe."

"A remnant of Hecatia's power?" suggested Koizumi.

"Unknown."

And here I thought things might stop being so complicated. At least I could leave that stuff to Nagato; my focus had to be on how we could fight the Alternates. The others were doing what they could to prepare; Marisa was double-checking the various bottles and vials she had tucked away under her skirt, and Sanae was performing some type of improvised ritual prayer, drawing esoteric symbols in the air with her onusa. Reimu had her eyes closed like she was meditating, although maybe she was just waiting for the rest of us to get a move on.

"Shrine maidens! Come here." Eirin's voice interrupted the two of them, and she beckoned them to where she was standing with Reisen, holding the pieces of paper she'd been drawing on in her hand - spell cards, it looked like.

"Udonge." Eirin held the new spell cards out for Reisen. "These should work on Junko. Having seen her myself, I can say with confidence that only the Lunar Capital's power can stop her properly." Reisen took the cards and stared at them. Eirin tapped them with one finger and said, "But you're not a Lunarian, and wherever you're going will be just as impure as this place. So you might need some help." She glanced at Reimu and Sanae. "You two need to purify the spells as they're being cast, or it might not work. You can handle that, right?"

...Wow. We might actually have a way to fight her other than the elixir? I mean, it stood to reason that Eirin came up with something. She didn't know I took her future drug, and everyone would've been looking for a way to stop her on their own. She was doing her best to help fight this enemy, just like the rest of us.

Reimu frowned. "You want us to play support?"

"Can you hurt this enemy?" retorted Eirin. "Last I saw, your attacks did nothing to her. You're filled with earthliness, and that's your weakness against this foe. Don't be so foolish as to think you can ignore your own limits."

Reimu kept glowering, but didn't say anything. Sanae was more interested in the spells themselves, leaning over Reisen's shoulder to read them together with her. I'll admit, I was a bit curious myself.

"Master, these are perfect," Reisen breathed. "When did you make these?"

Eirin smiled with just a hint of smug pride. "Just now," she said.

That quick?

With a wave and a goodbye, Eirin left the three of them to return to Kaguya's side. Sanae and Reisen started chatting in low voices about what was written on the cards, and I realized that Koizumi had also left my side and was lining up together with Reimu and Marisa; our preparations were just about finished. Nagato was looking up at me, waiting.

...Right. I can't be the slow one. I pulled my shoulders in, trying to psyche myself up and not think about the fact that the six of us would be alone on the other side. I'd been to other worlds, even ones beyond death, and other times as well, but this time, it'd be an alternate universe where the only things that lived were the enemies of our very existence. We'd be in enemy territory, cut off from our support. That means it's all up to us. Not even Yukari or Nagato can help us over there.

[Nagato:] "That's not true."

Nagato's voice sounded in my head, and I looked down at her face. Her eyes were focused on mine, unblinking.

[Nagato:] "You have my nanomachines in your body. With Yukari weakening the boundary, I may be able to communicate with you. And in the event I cannot, you still have my support."

...Right. The nanomachines are your way of helping me even if we're apart, right?

For that matter, I still had Shanghai and Hourai. The Sword of Hisou. The Ultramarine Orb Elixir. Satori's spell cards. Chiyuri and Fujiwara's pistols. Those weren't my tools; they were people supporting me from afar. Even Eirin had given Reisen a parting gift. Thinking our group was about to be all alone would have been a huge mistake. It was because of that support that Hecatia had been disabled and we had them all on the run. Seeing it in that light, the Alternates were the ones who were all alone in that world now.

[Nagato:] "Ryoko Asakura as well. Once you're through in the other world, cast that spell."

I wanted to flinch, but she was right. I did have her.

Thanks. It means a lot that you're here, Nagato.

She responded with a nod, and I joined Koizumi in line, with Reisen and Sanae close behind me. We were heading into uncharted territory, but we all knew that it was necessary for us to survive. We all knew we had a chance as long as we pressed our advantage now.

Somehow or other, we were going to survive this. We had to.

I awoke with a start, to two pairs of hands shaking me awake - Shanghai and Hourai. A familiar smell lost in the dust, to a tiled floor. The traveling didn't agree with me like always, I assume. The thing is, my surroundings were quite familiar.

Nagato's apartment. Curtains drawn, totally dark, no lights on or anything. There wasn't even the idle electrical hum of any of the appliances in the kitchen, which is where I came to. The microwave didn't even have a time. I slowly got up, my curiosity getting the better of me as I opened it.

No light.

I took in a breath, noticing that the air was unbelievably stuffy, like there hadn't been movement of air in that room for years. It slightly irritated my lungs.

Part of me was confused, uncertain. That maybe, maybe I had been totally dreaming that whole experience, and woke up in Nagato's apartment during some blackout. Of course, all the gear I had on me shut down that line of thinking, as well as the two flying dolls at my side.

Shanghai and Hourai. I didn't have much use of them, save for that trek to the city. They were invaluable during that. I'm gonna get you two home. If losing you two made Alice depressed, I'm gonna avoid that. They wordlessly followed me around as I moved.

The whole place was covered in a fine layer of dust. I got out of the kitchen, to find the others coming to as well, looking as groggy as I felt.

"We made it?" Reimu was rubbing her head, her body tense. "Or... where are we?"

"Looks like Miss Nagato's apartment." Koizumi had already gotten up, helping up the girls. I did the same.

"So we're in Nishinomiya then." Reimu dusted herself off, before regretting it as all it did was put more dust in the air, forcing us to cough for a few seconds. "Back in Nishinomiya. Modern Japan."

"Man... modern homes are something else, huh?" Marisa was looking around after I helped her to her feet. She looked to the entryway. "Hey, those your shoes?"

They were. My shoes back in high school, well, they would have belonged to this world's me. Which meant that... Actually now that I think about it, I don't think I ever recovered my shoes from Nagato's entryway. I wonder if they're still there in my own world, if she still owns that apartment.

"Kind of comforting that even in alternate realities, some things stay the same." Koizumi smiled over our surroundings. "Especially one so familiar to us."

"So this was all Nagato's space? All this for a girl her size in a city? She's such a small girl and her living space far exceeds my own." Reisen shook her head, showing a little jealousy. "Nobody questioned where a normal girl could have gotten the money for it, huh?"

"Man..." Sanae blinked from all the dust. "When you get used to living in Gensokyo, a modern home feels so alien." Sanae had gone to the curtain, drawing it back.

Red light poured in from the setting Winter sun, shining into the apartment, as well as showing what was out the window.

"...What in the..." A shocked Reimu pointed outside, joining the growing crowd at the window.

No way...

I could hardly believe what I was seeing as we all were in stunned silence.

The snow was going on outside, not inside thankfully. It had just started, not even collecting. However, the rest of the outside was what had our attention. In contrast to the relative pristine environment of the apartment, the world outside was dead. Buildings were reduced to skeletons of themselves or mere rubble. Almost nothing was standing, save for a few sporadic dead trees and husks of those buildings.

To be honest, it looked like the photos of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Exactly like them.

This world we found ourselves in had ended.

"Do you understand why you live, Mayumi?"

Her master's voice broke through the stillness of the studio. It was always quiet here, as sculpting was an art of expression without words; a silent, intimate process whereby one could give life to even raw earth, or so her master had always said. Mayumi never quite understood what that meant, but sometimes, when her body was being reshaped like this, she believed she could feel some kind of power in the air. She thought it must have been the power of her master: A god of soil and sculpting whose name was Keiki Haniyasushin.

Mayumi had been accosted by a group of wolf and horse spirits while on patrol through the Animal Realm; although the beasts could do nothing to her soulless clay body, they had led her into an ambush using the possessed body of a fairy, perhaps one that had wandered in from the neighboring Hell. The fairy had been made to sneak up on her and claw out her eyes while the spirits jeered and laughed, until Mayumi had finally managed to cut the fairy's body to pieces despite her blindness. Finding her way back after that had been difficult; the animal spirits would taunt her as she tried to maneuver the streets without her eyes, and even the human spirits, the very ones who she was charged with protecting; who had cried out and summoned her master to save them from the animals in the first place, would not lend a hand to help her. It seemed that lately, even the human spirits had developed a resentment against the clay soldiers.

Such resentment was enough to make Mayumi hesitate at her master's question. What was it for, if her charges seemed to disdain her protection?

"I live to..." she started, but froze up as Keiki's fingers slid across her lips, molding the wet clay. So warm. Mayumi felt a swelling in her chest - even if she had no soul, she felt something like a churning inside of herself that was hard for her to understand. She waited, savoring the feeling, until Keiki's hands moved on. "...I live to protect the Animal Realm from the tyranny of the families that once controlled it. To protect the human spirits from the animals, and the animals from each other."

"You don't sound sure."

Mayumi could hide nothing from her master. Her misgivings were as plain as if they had been sculpted into her face. She tried to think of a way to express them.

"...The people we protect do not seem to appreciate what we have done for them," she said carefully.

"They are still getting used to it," said Keiki. "Not everyone loves what's best for them, but in time, they'll see that freedom is the price of safety, and any one of them would choose things to be this way." Mayumi felt Keiki's fingertips gliding along the outlines of where her eyes would be, slowly laying the foundations of where they would be. "As for the families - they are used to holding power just because they're strong. They are used to feeding on the weak, and now that they can't do that, they are lashing out. There is indeed evil in the world, but faith... faith gives birth to wonderful things. Like you, Mayumi. The human spirits prayed for you and your siblings, and whether they know it or not, they believe that they need you. You are the idols of their faith, and the power they still give you through faith is proof of that."

In place of Keiki's fingers, Mayumi now felt the blunt edge of a tool digging into her flesh, creating definition for her eyes. Though it was cold metal, it was every bit as gentle as Keiki's own touch.

"It feels like they think of us as the same as the families, though..."

"You are not the same. The animals that fight you do so out of hate. You must never become like them, Mayumi - having hatred in your heart for the person next to you is no way to live. All it does is corrupt the soul, confuse the mind, and give birth to more hatred. They cannot create anything; only destroy, and that is why they will always lose in the end."

Slowly, ever so slowly, light and vision returned. The blurry image of Keiki's smiling face came gradually into focus. Mayumi wasn't sure if she understood her master's words, but she knew that her master was wise. Even if she didn't know everything, she could believe that her master knew what was best.

Bit by bit, the image became clearer.

Soon, she'd be able to see her face properly...

Mayumi woke with a start, feeling sluggish. She was still in the room where... she hacked Quarter to pieces. The upper body was in an unrecognizable state, but the legs... She realized where Quarter dropped them off where Mayumi kept the remaining clay. Her master had taught her the ways to repair clay soldiers, and the quick setting they did would get a soldier back to full fighting strength. Mayumi knew there wasn't much left - she had delayed too long in collecting more. If I can get what was stolen from me...

Her master was taken by one of the Youmu in one of those worlds. It was sudden too, as Keiki had used those worlds for her experimentation of crafting idols and then animating them. That hateful half-human...

...Hate...

Mayumi felt a pinch in her chest, recalling the words of her master, of hatred in her heart. She had felt it when that Youmu started to speak like her master, of hatred in one's soul.

That's why she acted like she did. She couldn't stand hearing the words come out of that Youmu when they should have been from her master's.

...Hatred...

Mayumi stared at the mess on the floor. She had long ago forbidden Quarter the use of their materials for self-repair, and yet still she had brought them both into this room

...She... she brought me here so I could repair myself... She had no arms. She wouldn't have been able to...

Mayumi felt that pinch in her chest again, staring down at the remains. It was a while before she did anything, as what she did was dawning on her.

...Quarter... brought me here to repair myself... If I... If I don't, then what was the point?

The weight of what the clay soldier did was too much. She didn't look at the pieces as she went about her task.

Mayumi grabbed Quarter's legs and rolled them along the floor, crawling after them with one arm until she reached the desk where the spare clay was. She then took her sword to the remainder of her own legs, shaving off the useless pieces from her body, and did the same with the top ends of Quarter's legs, cutting and filling with the spare clay until the ends matched up.

Not enough. Not enough clay. Just enough to attach the legs. Mayumi would be able to walk again, but her arm would be gone forever.

Mayumi could fix herself, but to create another soldier was beyond her skills. One time, they had over two thousand soldiers just like her; now, she was one of the last, and the very last of those who was not a memorial to someone that was once alive.

She remembered the days when the clay soldiers were invincible. Without souls, they could not be harmed by the animal spirits. They feared nothing, and exercised their power freely until the day everything changed. Three humans - or two and a half - had been summoned from the surface world by the families, each of them possessed by a different spirit. With both souls and physical forms, they cut apart the inexperienced clay soldiers with ease, and decimated the army before Keiki and Mayumi faced them together, working as one. Somehow, they managed to destroy the intruders, and in her mercy, Keiki reforged them in clay so that they could continue to live and serve under her. Those three became the first of the elite soldiers, and one of them - the half-phantom possessed by the prideful eagle, who once spat on Mayumi and challenged her - would one day become Quarter, on the day when Mayumi's entire world fell apart.

But as Mayumi later learned, it wasn't meant to happen that way.

It wasn't long after the three humans were rebuilt that Hecatia and her fairy minion came to them. They had ideas of a perfect world born of dreams made real, and bade that Keiki help them. Hecatia was impressed with Keiki's vision, and Keiki with Hecatia's. Mayumi however did not understand what Hecatia meant. She spoke of an infinite multiverse, yet also as if her world did not exist. Why, Mayumi questioned, did Hecatia need to create it? "If you can travel between worlds," she reasoned, "Doesn't your dream exist somewhere too?"

"Of course," Hecatia had told her. "Everything exists. But existence itself is not stone and clay - the worlds of one's dreams are finite, yet infinite; real, yet ephemeral and outside of reality. Everything exists, but does not exist. For something to exist objectively outside one's head - that takes far more than simply dreaming it into being."

Mayumi didn't understand. Even though Keiki seemed to agree with Hecatia, she still couldn't grasp what Hecatia meant, and asked her to explain. What Hecatia said to her then would follow her forever.

"It starts with 'what if.' An alternate potentiality is written into being, a fiction of the fiction that is our reality. Another path that gives rise to another world that truly exists. You were meant to be defeated by the three humans who came to fight you, but in this world, you were not, for I imagined an alternative, and I brought that universe to life through great power and struggle. Those who seek to do good for the world cannot remain as mere characters on a page, living ephemeral lives in someone else's dream. To leave our cave of ignorance and find the true world beneath a shining sun, we must become the authors of those stories ourselves."

Mayumi and Keiki had been meant to be defeated by the three humans. But how could Hecatia have known that? Until Hecatia showed them the truth of their world, Mayumi could not have believed in such a fate.

But the truth-

To see her whole world contained within a jewel case - the fiction of her own reality - was unreal. To imagine all of reality as nothing more than points of view, and to grasp for objectivity and find it only in what ended up being a simple game-

It wasn't until Keiki was gone and Mayumi could no longer rely on her that she was forced to face it. To become a shaper of reality, instead of merely someone else's creation. She understood then what Keiki's burden had been, to know what is best for the world and give it to them, even if they themselves did not want it. Someone like Haruhi Suzumiya did not deserve the power to rewrite reality at her whim. That power Mayumi knew beyond doubt ought to rest with those who would use it for the good of all that existed.

Never forget.

I'll never forget what I'm fighting for.

She focused on one thing, and one thing only: Hecatia's ultimate goal. It was all she had left in the world.

...Yet as Youmu's words rang again in her head, she found herself grappling with the question of whether they were true. Would her master truly despise her now?

Never.

I remember her will. I know her as I know myself. Fixing the remains of Quarter's body to her own, she tried to imagine once more the sight of Keiki condemning her actions.

Try as she might however, Mayumi could not remember the sight of her master's face.

"I don't know what I'm going to do with you." Sakuya sighed as she tended to Meiling's clothes, trying to patch them up on the spot. "You're too reckless. Look at you - your clothes are barely-"

"Worked, didn't it? And clothes are temporary anyways." Meiling smiled at Sakuya.

"The boys were looking at you, you know. You're way too open with your body."

Meiling grinned even more. "What, jealous I turn heads?" The sharp look Sakuya gave in response told Meiling not to push her luck. Meiling changed the subject, not wanting to be stabbed. "If I hadn't shown up, that bird would've finished you all off." The guard eyed the Utsuho that was there, interested in the notions of what was going on. "Just kinda interesting that there's more than one of her."

Sakuya raised an eyebrow. "'Just kinda?' I'd hate to find out what you find really interesting then."

The guard chuckled. "Ah, no. Well, some of those manga get real interesting, going all out with their stories. They have to, in order to remain interesting."

"So..." Sakuya stopped what she was doing, locking eyes with her coworker. "A Greek god who is attempting to gain the power of creation and has been recruiting alternate versions of her enemies to join her so she can create the perfect world isn't a plot you've read, I take it?"

Meiling blinked, her smile disappearing. "...When you put it that way..."

"It's all complicated." Sakuya frowned. "I barely get it myself. Turns out there were other mes who took up Hecatia's offer." Sakuya shook her head. "I can't even imagine doing that."

"It would have required you to have left Lady Remilia."

"Exactly why I can't imagine it."

"See any of me?"

Right to the point, aren't you? The look Meiling had told Sakuya that the notion was troubling. Sakuya and Meiling were both extremely grateful and totally loyal to Lady Remilia, so even the thought of such a thing... The maid again paused what she was doing, looking to the side as if to remember more clearly. "I don't remember seeing you as a clay soldier. But according to Konpaku over there, there were far more, so it's possible." Sensing that Meiling was disturbed by the concept, Sakuya changed the subject. "Well, anyway, how'd you get down here so fast?"

Meiling smiled, happy to have something else to talk about. "Oh, by those, uh, Buddhists and their ship. Nice people. Not sure about the tiger, though."

Sakuya furrowed her brow. "Something wrong with her?"

"Nah. Just rubs me the wrong way, you know?"

"Where are you two going?" Clownpiece had gotten to the roof, following Junko and Utsuho. They were getting ready to head out into the city after their Nagato had told them something.

"To kill them," said Junko, turning to Clownpiece with a sweet and neutral smile. "Nagato said they've just arrived. Better to act sooner rather than later."

"But..." Clownpiece clenched her fists. "But that goes against the agreement! You know Master-"

"Look where it got her." Utsuho groaned, still trembling from the pain in her body. "We can't afford to do this her way any more."

"We're supposed to do things on our own! We-"

Utsuho whipped around in a flare of fury, pointing the end of her control device at Clownpiece's head. "That's a laugh coming from you, you psychopath! We also agreed that whoever was in charge of that world would take full responsibility for everything that happens in it! You did your job, got us what we needed, but you screwed up somewhere. They weren't supposed to fight back like this! The deaths of the clay soldiers, the wounds Hecatia and Mayumi suffered, and even Eiki - are all on you!" Utsuho pointed at the bleeding scars on the side of her torso beneath her shredded shirt from where Meiling's spell had ravaged it. "All this is on you! Even my Third Leg is damaged because of what they were able to do!"

"I'm sorry, Piece." Junko didn't even look at her while speaking. "You've failed our agreement. Perhaps Hecatia will have mercy on you, but you couldn't control your own world. It's quite possible she'll decide you get nothing."

"You should get nothing," Utsuho growled. "When Hecatia wakes up, you're out. You're done. Nothing for you when we win. I'm gonna have a long talk with Hecatia about it when we get back from cleaning up your mess."

Clownpiece screeched in outrage past the end of Utsuho's control rod. "You can't do that! I never asked for you! Master's the one who brought you in!"

"Just stop complaining. You'll get nothing and you'll like it! And don't try having us follow the agreement when you won't follow it yourself!" Utsuho scowled at Clownpiece, getting ready to leave. Both she and Junko turned their backs to the fairy, and despite her screams, they left her on the rooftop, flying away into the evening sky.

Clownpiece kept screaming at them until her face hurt. She couldn't follow them, couldn't fly after them, not with all the damage to her body and her lack of wings.

...Nothing...

I... get... nothing?!

If they proved themselves, if they followed orders, they would all be made gods under Hecatia. Be granted part of the power of creation. Be given worlds where they could run things as they saw fit. But that was only if they followed it. It seemed fair to all involved. They had to prove themselves, show they could handle things on their own. Not ask for help from the others. After all, if they were expected to control universes, then they should have been able to control their given tasks, at least.

That stupid boy tore me to pieces and I get nothing because of him... He chopped off my wings, knocked out a tooth, hurt me... and I get nothing... He stood up to me and I get-

"Raw deal you got, huh Piece?"

Clownpiece didn't turn around. The snide, snarking voice of Seija Kijin was last one Clownpiece wanted to hear, and she could barely stop herself from lashing out and beating its owner with all her might.

"That being said, it's probably better this way. If anything happened to Hecatia's best friend there, she'd blame you."

Clownpiece almost didn't hear her, the white noise of rage nearly drowning out what Seija was saying.

"You always were Hecatia's favorite, you know. Maybe she'll still let you get the prize of it all at the end, so maybe it won't be as bad. Y'know, unless Junko dies or something. It is kind of your fault they got this far." Seija's voice was dripping with malice, her tone nothing but provocative. "When Hecatia wakes up, I don't think she'll be in a good mood after what they did to her. If Junko's dead too... that's the end for you, don'tcha think?"

Clownpiece didn't respond, hoping Seija would just go away. That they all would just go away. That she would get what she wanted. She deserved it all. All her work, and they came in and took it from her.

Kyon... is going... to die!

Seija didn't see it, but Clownpiece's eyes were glowing green.

They're...

They're all going to die!

It was disturbing to see this. To see the skyline of my home, of where I grew up, to be reduced to unrecognizable alien rubble and ruin brought a deep inner pain in my heart. This was supposed to be the skyline I saw around Nagato when she told me that the world wasn't what I thought it was, that there was something special, about her and Haruhi Suzumiya. And it was gone. The only thing that grounded me was the falling snow and the fact I was inside a familiar location. I don't think my mind could have comprehended what I was seeing otherwise.

"What is this? What the hell is this!?" Sanae stared at it, wide eyed and mouth open in shock. She didn't spend much time in Nishinomiya, but still, she lived here for a while.

Me, this was my home. Where I spent so many seasons passing the time away hanging out with friends, going to movies, going outside on my bike, spending time with family, playing video games, and generally enjoying life as a normal Japanese boy with an interest in the supernatural. All that was before I reached high school and my life was turned upside down many times over, making life so much more interesting and worth living. I'd forged deeper friendships, bonds, and found the love of my life in this very city.

To see it just wiped out broke my heart.

"So this is a world where we suffered failure." Koizumi had dropped any pretense of smiling. I know I couldn't muster a smile under that situation no matter how hard I tried, and apparently neither could he. "It has to be."

"It looks just like..." I gulped, the photos coming to the forefront of my mind. Sanae frowned, evidently thinking the same thing.

Seeing this type of damage applied to my home town, even if it wasn't actually mine, was enough to make me properly understand the stakes. If we lose, this'll happen to my world. This is a failure state.

Reimu looked more confused than anything. With some difficulty, she opened the window and peered down at the side of the building below us. "How's this place still standing?" she wondered aloud.

Good question. Wait... "Nagato said to activate the Ryoko spell card again."

"Didn't she do something to it?"

"Yeah, but I wonder what." Also, I wasn't getting Nagato's voice in my head, so we had to really be cut off from them.

Bringing out the spell card, and reading the incantation, it... it didn't "activate" normally. The card merely became sand, falling to the ground. The sand swirled, forming into Ryoko Asakura, still looking like a high school girl.

She let out a yawn, stretching. "Ah, that feels good." She turned to me, hands behind her back, and smirking. "Finally I'm free from that damned card."

The two of us stared at each other, Asakura allowing me time to process what that meant before she moved.

...Crap.

As soon as I realized it, I moved as well, drawing out the sword, meeting her knife as it went for my throat.

The group surrounded her, Reisen pointing her rifle at Asakura's head, but the data entity paid it no mind. She seemed amused only by my reaction time, of my being able to parry her strike.

"My my." Asakura chuckled, her narrowed eyes as sharp as the knife she held. "You've certainly improved."

"To be fair, you and I haven't 'trained,'" If you can call it that. "Since I got the sword." I felt my own anger rise, since the first thing Asakura did when getting out was to try to attack me. I thought I would be losing a physical battle with her, but I was able to meet her strength.

"I know. That's really a shame." Asakura smiled a toothy grin at me. "You-"

"Stop acting like you can intimidate me now. I honestly don't have time for this crap." I really don't because I have more pressing issues at hand. "You wanna play games and feel big? Do it on your own time and with someone else. I'm done with it."

My heart was pounding from her sudden attack, but I was so done with it. I was so done with being afraid of her. I spent, no, wasted a good amount of my life being afraid of her. With Marisa, I've already defeated you. You don't hold any power over me any more. You don't get to scare me. No more.

It was hard to tell if Asakura bought it, though. She didn't say anything back, and her expression didn't change.

"Besides, Miss Asakura..." Koizumi spoke from behind her, a blade of red energy pointed at the back of her neck from his outstretched hand. "Suzumiya is reacting. Your side has already gotten what it wanted, correct?"

Asakura smiled wider. "Yes. You're quite right."

There was a moment of tension in which I couldn't think about what was happening, but when it passed-

"Wait, Koizumi, how-"

Supposedly this was the outside world in an alternate universe, not a closed space, and yet Koizumi was using his powers here. He shrugged at my question and said, "I can't imagine this universe still runs according to laws of common sense, can you?"

...I guess not. If Haruhi's power still exists here, it's already seen destruction on a scale beyond belief. I guess Yukari must have seen it coming, or I doubt she'd have sent him along with us.

An awkward moment followed, none of us sure what to do about Asakura. She wasn't moving, and her eyes weren't on any of us. She looked distracted. Reimu spoke up after a few seconds, saying, "Are you going to make problems for us? There can't possibly be a reason for you to fight us right now."

Asakura hardly acknowledge her. "One moment, please," she said, still staring off into space. Koizumi seemed to take it that she wasn't a threat anymore, removing his blade from her neck, but I wasn't so sure until-

[Nagato:] "You hear me?"

Nagato!

[Nagato:] "I'll take that as a yes. You freed Ryoko Asakura from her card, correct?"

Freed her?! I never agreed to that!

[Nagato:] "She's limited as a spell card. Freed from it, she can do more."

I also assume it was a way for Yukari to sneak in one more person. Geez, how far...

[Nagato:] "I don't know about that. Emiri Kimidori was the one who had the idea for a spell card conversion for her. Ryoko Asakura has currently established a connection to our world and me. She's acting as a link right now."

And this also means I'll have to put up with having someone who tried to kill me multiple times across different timelines and worlds as one of my companions in a very crucial situation.

[Nagato:] "You can deal with it."

What if I don't want to?

I could almost feel Nagato's silent judging stare. She rarely used it, but I remembered it. Fine, fine. Because it's for you.

[Nagtato:] "Actually it's for you. Right now-"

Right now she's fighting for her existence too. I know. As much as part of me didn't want to work with her, I had to grow the hell up and do it. I spent most of the day essentially wishing I had a data entity with me, and I started complaining because it wasn't the one I wanted. No, you're right. I let down my guard as well - Asakura made no further attempt at threatening me, and I allowed myself to breathe out a bit.

"So... Can the rest of you hear Nagato in your heads, or...?" I looked around at everyone, who looked back at me like I was crazy, which answered my question.

[Nagato:] "Adaptation is incomplete. The universal boundary prevents me from interfacing with their nanomachines. I am... unsure what makes me able to connect to you, as well. Yukari mentioned a hypothesis regarding metaphysical proximity, but I do not understand it."

Well, I'm just happy it works even a little bit. Having Nagato on call was reassuring, if nothing else. Anyway, can you see where we are? Why's this building still standing when nothing else is?

[Nagato:] "My version of the apartment is protected from destruction by external forces. An alternate universe version of it is likely to be the same."

Okay... Fair enough. I relayed the information to Reimu, who seemed to accept the explanation. I assume North High was also protected, right?

[Nagato:] "Correct. This location and that one are the most secure locations nearby."

Asakura joined me in looking to the city out the window. "Fascinating. There's almost a quiet beauty to it all. Almost. The whole 'fallen civilization' thing kind of hampers it."

I know I felt like I found some lost civilization earlier in that entry hall when we got into the underground realm, but this is different. At least the hall was different enough that I could distance myself from it, that it was too alien for me to be effected by it. This was too real for me.

"This is the definition of a drastic change, isn't it?" Asakura didn't respond to my jab at her.

"Still, I am curious to how this world got the way it did." Sanae sighed. "Morbidly curious, yes, but still."

[Nagato:] "According to the memory that Youmu had, this world ended on August 13th, 2004, in the morning. She's unsure of the time. She's still sorting through the memories she got from her clay self."

I felt a tingle run up my spine when I heard the date. Wait. That's when I had my dream.

That meant...

You've got to be freaking kidding me.

This was the world where I was killed in that shadow memory, which Doremy had experienced with me that very morning. Where we were all wiped out after the party. This was where it happened.

The end of time or just in my mind indeed.

I was dead in this world, as well as everyone I ever knew, killed in the lobby of this world's SDM. It was even more sobering than looking out at Nishinomiya and seeing it dead. Buildings can rise and fall, but people... you only get them at that point in time.

[Nagato:] "The events that took place here bled out into other had the dream because it was happening to you in a parallel universe. This universe you are currently in."

Asakura deemed the outside to be safe, so we began to head out. Opening the door to the hallway, it was as dusty as the apartment, but also pristine otherwise. Reisen turned on the flashlight on her rifle, leading the way.

[Nagato:] "I recommend you make your way to North High as soon as you can. But be careful. You are definitely in enemy territory."

The elevator was out, obviously, so we took the stairs down. The emptiness and eeriness of the building was imposing, but not as imposing as what was outside. Getting to the lobby, we again stared out at the rubble of the city from ground level.

"I should get Nagato to protect my shrine from earthquake-causing celestials." Reimu kept looking back and forth to the state of the building we were in, and what was outside.

"It'd be nice." Sanae gave a shaky smile, as she turned her head to me. "No, really, it must be really nice to have someone who can do that data stuff like that. Almost like instant miracles. I have to put for a lot of effort for mine to work."

Some of the chatter quieted down as we exited the building. Reimu, Reisen, and Asakura were scanning the horizon for threats, while Koizumi, Sanae, and Marisa were grimly admiring the damage to our surroundings. I had to sneak a few glances around us, too.

Broken down cars, dead plants, rubble everywhere. Swirls of dust and snow swept the landscape before us. Far off in the distance, I thought I could see the hill where the North High campus stood. Without the city in the way, yeah, I could see it from Nagato's apartment, the campus clearly standing in the distance, a reminder of our current goal. The snow was barely starting to collect on the ground, our breathing slightly visible in the air.

No sounds. No ambient sound of electricity, of pets, of birds, of human beings and their machines. Nothing. Total dead silence in what was once a city, making our movements sound like the volume was turned up to maximum. Every breath, every time our bodies brushed against our own clothing, every step on the crumbled asphalt or snow beneath us as we walked on the street. The air outside was just as stifling as it was in the apartment, the coolness the snow bringing being the only relief. Save for the snow and the crisp cold that accompanied it, in no way in any of the five senses was this a pleasant world.

What was also freaking me out was that the Geiger counter would occasionally tick, but Asakura kept saying that it was safe. So, what, a nuclear blast took out this world? That Utsuho...

The further realization of how it went down hit me like a ton of bricks. Not only did I die in this world, but I died to an Utsuho. Just not ours.

That very Alternate Utsuho killed us all. The one we just faced was the one who killed that other me in that shadow memory; killed everyone.

On the plus side, we hurt her. Maybe we can finish the job. Avenge this world, and the ones who lived here. We may have died in this world, but at least we can get the person who did it for them.

I did tell her in the dream I had that morning that I'd stop her. I actually had the chance to go through with that promise.

Speaking of the dead, the one good thing about this was that I didn't see any bodies around, or skeletons. I don't think I could have taken that. I already had my fill of that back in Yamame's lair, thank you. To go through the streets and see the remains of people who shared my city would have been too much.

"This is... just..." Reimu appeared at a loss for words to the destruction. "This is just insane." She stood there, still taking it all in. "Just... Okay." She turned her head to us, her face a mask of seriousness. "Reisen, you lead the way. Looks like we'll have to go for North High. Kyon-" Reimu approached me. "Whatever was done to you, we can use to our advantage. You'll need to be at the front lines."

That's one major drawback to this. And I couldn't deny her logic. If the roles were reversed, I'd be asking of her the same thing.

"I don't like this at all, ze." Marisa looked as disturbed as the rest of us were with the environment. "I mean there should be some noise or something, right? The world ain't supposed to be this silent."

"Whether you're in the country or in the city, there should be something making noise." Sanae agreed with Marisa. "Especially in Japan."

"We must never let this happen to our world." Reimu took in a deep breath, letting it out, determination washing over her face. "Gensokyo or the outside."

"Contact front right." Reisen grabbed me as she urged the rest of us in a hushed voice, leading me behind a ruined van with Shanghai and Hourai trailing after us. "Everyone down."

The rest of our group scattered behind whatever they could find, eyes searching in the direction she had indicated. I saw Asakura's head snap in the same direction as they moved, and Reimu's followed soon after. Asakura came to join Reisen and me behind the van, her eyes wide and impassive, and just when I thought she was going to brace herself in the empty spot next to me, her head moved up and I felt her breath on my ear as she whispered in a low and level tone.

"Who is more important? You or Reisen?"

I didn't know what that meant, but the sound of the words turned my skin to ice. "What?" I said, turning my attention to her.

"Too slow."

Asakura's hand shot up by my head just as a klaxon screamed in the distance, and the very next moment, everything went white and silent. I turned my head - there was a single distended second where I thought I could see Reisen's form in front of me, melting away into the light that even now felt like it would render me blind. By instinct, I reached out to her, and by the time my hand came up into view, I could see nothing but bare bones, which collapsed and faded away in an instant.

There wasn't time to feel any pain, nor even to think about it. By the time my thoughts caught up, everything had returned to the way it had been a few seconds before. Reisen was in front of me, and everyone was marching in a line, oblivious to danger.

"Contact front right," I heard Reisen's voice repeat. This time, I was the first one to take action.

"You seem a bit dejected."

Tenshi looked up with a start, having sat down to rest her body. She was feeling fatigue, and it was exhilarating, as she had rarely felt such physical weariness. Everyone had gone rather quiet, retreating to their own group. Asahina had gone to Nagato and Chiyuri over Haruhi. The two Lunarians were with each other. Sakuya was tending to Meiling. Youmu was standing not far from where Nagato was with an unsure look on her face, speaking to her every now and then while the Prismrivers were around them. Mystia, Wriggle, and Mokou was near Haruhi's group for some reason. The fairies were off by themselves, Satori was still reprimanding her pets for their actions, each social circle fulfilled. Even Mima was talking over something with Kazami - Tenshi the only one who was alone and off by herself.

Even after all this time, she still felt like an outcast, in Heaven or down on earth. She always tried to put up a front of overconfidence, but putting up a front for so long grinded at a person.

It was Yukari who had approached her. Tenshi stared at the demon for a moment, still apprehensive about talking to her. After all, she had shown blatant disdain for what she was - that was no secret.

"...A little." Tenshi gave a smirk, not wanting to show her emotion on her sleeve in that situation. "I was promised a grand battle, after all, and here I am on the sidelines." I thought it would be epic or something.

"You're saying that you haven't had your fill?" Yukari returned the fake smile Tenshi gave her, not hiding that she was faking it as well. "Fighting that fairy, battling your way to the city, taking on the Alternates as well as driving them back; all of that did not satisfy you?"

"I didn't say that," Tenshi lowered her head. "Even if it is true. The fights were great, especially the one going through legions of enemies just to get in the city. Kinda expected more action than all of that, is all."

"Hecatia and her forces were able to knock you down. As strong as you are, you are not invincible."

I realized that when you all thrashed me a few months ago. "I just expected a bit more."

"You're not the only one." Yukari shot a glance to Mima, Kazami, and the others who were quite powerful as well. "You do realize that I needed all of you to even get to this point. I've said as such, correct?"

I wonder how many would have been lost then if I wasn't here. "I don't know why you didn't send me into the Alternates' world. You know I'm worth sending into battle."

"For you to be really effective, you need to be wielding the Sword of Hisou. That's you at a hundred percent fighting capacity. It's being used by someone else right now." Yukari gave a noncommittal shrug, her face inexpressive, yet-

Ah, that's it. Now I get it. Explained a lot. I mean it's true that I just wreck with it, but I guess I hadn't put much thought into that. And whatever was done to Kyon made him extremely effective.

"Without it, you're not complete, and it would be a waste. You were limited during the fights without the sword." She shook her head. "It would be like intentionally applying a handicap to you, so what's the point? Besides, you're not done - I'm not sending you home yet. If they succeed in their tasks, you'll get your glorious final battle. All I ask is for you to wait."

Tenshi stared up at Yukari, taking some slow breaths. The celestial knew the logic was sound, yet wanted to reject it. Tenshi crossed her arms, not looking at Yukari, but apparently it was enough to convey her feelings, as Yukari walked away. The celestial got a taste of battle, but she wanted more.

Well, the pures in Heaven are always telling us to not give in to desires... but if everyone really followed their advice, things would be a lot worse. Being able to have desires was both a blessing and a curse for Tenshi. For one, she was glad she wasn't one of those stuck-up pures, as fulfilling a desire always felt great. On the other hand, she envied them for being so content and not being a slave to their desires.

Tenshi once again watched the others of Gensokyo with interest, knowing that they were willing to fight too. None of them had left. They were in this fight to win and survive. From the weak to the strong, they were there, willing to put their lives on the line for their homes.

Then I better put forth the effort for Gensokyo as well. Can't let them think I'm slacking.

Eager but getting antsy, Tenshi had no choice but to wait for her chance to rejoin the fight.

Without waiting for her to pull me along, I ran with Reisen to the blasted-out van. While I knew it wouldn't protect us, I doubted there was any cover that could protect us from the attack that had hit us just now. Dodging just before it fired seemed like the better option.

"They see us," I hissed at the back of Reisen's head when she slid into position in front of me. "We're going to get obliterated if we don't get ready to move."

Reisen gave me a suspicious look, but didn't question it. "Utsuho?"

"Yeah. I think so." I turned my head back to Asakura as she took her position, her expression now an intrigued smile. Before she could open her mouth, I said to her, "Reisen is more important right now."

If I get hit, I can just reset. It'd be pointless to protect me over someone else. I can probably use the Sword of Hisou to dodge as well, if I time it right... I hardly slowed down at all, my mind shocked into overdrive by the death I had just experienced. There was no time to dwell on it; all I could think of was avoiding it happening again.

Asakura didn't say anything. She just tilted her head and flicked her eyes up at our target, who I still hadn't spotted amidst the ruined buildings. I hadn't even gotten a chance to guess where the blast had come from, so I had to trust that Asakura knew. Almost the very next second, the klaxon blared, and I tightened my grip around the Sword of Hisou.

"Break!" cried Reisen. I launched into a sprint, heading for an alleyway in the opposite direction from my allies, who flew up and towards the center of the street. The blast came almost instantly, enveloping Reisen's body - and barely flowing around it as Asakura hovered behind her, pressing her hand against her back and speaking what I assumed was some kind of barrier spell. Even though Reisen herself was safe though, the plasma curved around her, singing the edges of her skirt and sleeves and leaving red marks along her skin. I realized why Asakura had asked me that question: It was almost too much for her to protect just Reisen, let alone the two of us.

[SPELL CARD: LOVE SIGN "MASTER SPARK"]

The counterattack began right away, with Marisa's spell being the first to pinpoint the enemy's location. The crumbling buildings that had hidden Utsuho from view were blown away, and Utsuho herself only just managed to stop her own attack and get out of the way. She was met, however, with a hail of amulets from the two shrine maidens, who had raced forward on the offensive and managed to surround her with danmaku. I watched from the corner of a building as her faraway figure, recognizable only from its wide dark wings, took two hits in a row and began to droop and drift lopsidedly in the air. Her wings, now missing whole patches of feathers, flapped awkwardly in the air amidst the bare shreds of her cape that still remained. Even with that and the beating she'd gotten from Meiling earlier though, she was still flying. Koizumi formed up with Reimu and Reisen, putting her on the defensive and chasing her further into the city whilst Reisen and Marisa took up position to fire on her from afar. I was simultaneously relieved at the fact that we were now gaining the upper hand and worried about what might happen if they got too far ahead. If the three of them got out of my sight and died, and I didn't learn about it until it was too late to reset...

I cursed to myself and willed my body to keep running. Even if I couldn't do much down here, I had to keep an eye on the fight as best I could.

[Asakura:] "There was a fascinating data alteration just now. It's like his processing accelerated almost to our level."

I almost allowed my body to physically gag from hearing Asakura in my head. Oh, don't tell me that I have to deal with this.

[Nagato:] "Superliminal connection is possible within the altered 2.46 zeptoseconds. However, time is still linear from his perspective."

I might regret asking, but can you explain what you just said? It sounded like they were talking about the time reset, but now they were discussing time on the level of zeptoseconds. As far as I was concerned, such minuscule measurements were pointless in the real world.

[Asakura:] "Hmm... To you, it'd be like if a housecat learned to understand language. Wouldn't you be excited that it could start to see the world the way that you do?"

I can say from experience that I wouldn't. I'm flattered that you compared me to a cat instead of a cockroach, though.

Thankfully, our forward attackers seemed to understand that they shouldn't overextend themselves, and didn't give chase. They let Utsuho retreat while they waited for the rest of us to catch up, and I realized that the dry stone canyon in which we'd found ourselves was actually the Shuku River. We'd gone so far south chasing Utsuho that we'd have to make a hell of a detour if we wanted to get to North High.

The city was one thing, but the Shuku River was a place I'd been to a lot over my life. It was the place where Asahina first told me she was a time traveler, and where I'd woken up the first time she brought me back in time. Haruhi had made us film scenes here for her stupid movie. When I was training for the incident, I'd sometimes jog up and down the length of the park, weaving through the crowds that always seemed to fill both of the riverside paths. Lots of children liked to play around here. Lots of old folks liked to relax here. Couples on dates. In the all-too-brief moments when my life wasn't hectic and ridiculous, I would sometimes laze around on that same park bench, doing nothing at all.

Now it was all gone. The empty, blackened riverside hardly resembled the lively world I knew. Not a single tree or blade of grass had been left standing, which was no mean feat even for an atomic explosion. I mean, it wasn't my park, but it still was. It hit me that another me had lost all this, maybe at the same time as he lost his life. Call it self-pity if you want. It was so much like the nightmares I'd had, this world itself felt like it didn't truly exist anymore, and this was all just some horrible dream. Probably wishful thinking on my part.

[Asakura:] "That makes you sad? Destruction makes you feel sad?"

And then there was her.

I really... really don't want to talk about it with you. I ran a hand over my head, trying to stop myself from thinking about it lest the voice in my head keep taunting me over my feelings. Unfortunately, that didn't stop her from chattering.

[Asakura:] "Data is converted when destruction occurs. True destruction is impossible, you know?"

Conservation of mass doesn't make something like this fine.

[Asakura:] "It's still here, though. All that dust is people and homes. Shouldn't that make you happy?"

What?

[Asakura:] "Your values concern the people around you, but that value isn't limited to their shape, right? As long as you know they're here, isn't that enough?"

Call me crazy, but it sounded like Asakura was trying to console me. She was doing an absolutely terrible job of it in a way that would be shocking even for Nagato in her old days, but something in that sociopathic argument actually sounded like an attempt at kindness. If you'd given me an hour to do so, I don't think I could've reacted to that with anything but dumb silence.

[Nagato:] "Haven't you experienced the Gensokyo Effect as well? You should be able to sympathize with him."

[Asakura:] "Isn't that why I'm trying to understand?"

The rest of our group chose now to arrive all at once, sparing me from having to keep thinking about it. Koizumi had an ashen look on his face, and the rest of us weren't much better - except Asakura, whose passive smile was still unsettling. Our eyes were still mostly on the horizon, and Reimu never landed, choosing to scout from the air instead. With hardly a word exchanged between us, we formed up and started walking steadily further south, hoping to loop around west across the river and then north to the school once we could be sure we were safe. We kept ourselves spaced out from one another - if we clustered together like before, we'd probably get shot at all over again. There was no guarantee that Utsuho was really gone, nor that someone else wasn't lying in wait.

[Nagato:] "Humans are social by nature. Therefore, their values are based on the ability to communicate with one another."

...Yet through the silence of our march, there was still a somewhat irritating conversation going on in my head.

[Asakura:] "Data transfer is still possible, though? Witnessing dust imparts visual information."

[Nagato:] "Breakdown of the physical form limits transfer. Humans require adequate intellectual stimulation through novelty of data. Additionally, they cannot perceive the difference in structure between motes of dust, so they rely on macro-level data only. New data leads to happiness. No new data leads to sadness."

Do you really have to put it like that?

[Nagato:] "Is it wrong?"

Well, no, but...

"Front!" called Reisen as I tried to think of an adequate objection. Like lightning, she whipped up her rifle and fired a shot ahead of her, dropping into a crouch and ready to jump away at a moment's notice. We all tensed up as one, expecting another attack, but instead, the air remained silent but for the echo of the gunshot. Some ways down the path ahead of us, I spotted her target: Junko was standing on the pavement next to the twisted and charred metal frame of what used to be a park bench, and now had a brand new smoking hole in it. She was too far away for me to see her face, but she showed no sign of having reacted to the bullet.

I was hoping I wouldn't run into her head-on again... I crouched low to the ground, trying to creep into the dried-up river. The others might have had a hard time with Junko, but this was why I was here. If I could just get close enough to surprise her...

Reisen had her own plan, though. "It's Junko! I need a ritual!" she called out, drawing one of the spell cards Eirin had handed her. As I descended into the river, I saw Sanae rush aside and Reimu drop down from the sky to join her. Koizumi took to the air by himself, and I heard Marisa slide down the stone slope of the riverside to offer me a spot on her broom.

"You really wanna get close to her?" she whispered with doubt in her voice when she caught up behind me.

Trying not to waste time, I mounted the back of her broom while it was in motion and said, "Wish I didn't have to, but yeah. She might not be able to get me... Just don't let her see you."

We were once again approaching via broom from the front, but this time, we had the bank of the river to hide us. Junko's purification ability seemed to have a limited range, so as long as Marisa stayed beyond it, she could at least ferry me most of the way.

"Got it," she said. "Trust me, I know how to sneak!"

Like a magnet train, she accelerated smoothly and silently along the ground, the tips of our feet only a few centimeters from the dirt below us with Shanghai and Hourai holding on to the back of the broom to keep up. Up on the path, a wall of white danmaku erupted out towards our allies at high speed; rather than a carefully constructed pattern, Junko was throwing forward flat squares made up of hundreds of spherical shots. They were evenly spaced, with no variance between them except that they alternated blue and red, but always with a bright white center. Based on where they were firing from, Junko herself wasn't moving, so it was up to us to close the gap. I glanced behind us at the spot where my allies had been - Reisen was flying upward, barely squeezing through the tiny gaps in each wall of shots with Reimu and Sanae circling around her. The two of them were channeling divine power into the barrel of Reisen's rifle, and when she'd gained enough height, she brought it up along with the spell card.

[SPELL CARD: PURE BULLET "THOUGHT-COMBINING VOLLEY FIRE"]

Reisen's eyes flashed red and for a moment her body distorted into many; and from the tip of each separate illusionary gun barrel shot a straight, pure white beam that penetrated Junko's danmaku walls and impacted her position in an orderly pattern. For once, the beams didn't divert in front of her, and Junko flew upwards just before they reached her. Now I could see her face - her smile was still there, but her eyes were wide in surprise. She actually had to dodge that attack herself.

I guess I should've expected Eirin to come up with a countermeasure. If only she'd known about Junko earlier, we might've been able to do something... Well, maybe not.

Still, just one attack wasn't going to cut it. After the lasers missed, they curved upwards along the ground and swarmed after Junko, forcing her on the move as Reisen distorted for a second time and fired another volley. If nothing else, it might have been a good distraction, but just as I was thinking that-

"Jinwu!" Junko cried out as she attempted to fire more danmaku walls back at Reisen. I hardly had time to wonder what that meant before a klaxon blared on the far side of the river and a beam of plasma ripped across the air and off into the sky as Reisen swung low, trying to beat out the fire that was now on her skirt. Her spell card hadn't ended though, and she and two shrine maidens quickly made ready for a third barrage.

"She's still here, huh?" Marisa grimaced, turning her head slightly to watch the ruins where the blast had come from. I couldn't see her from our position, which might have been a good thing since we'd be sitting ducks if we got spotted ourselves.

"Yeah," I said. "It sounds like they're coordinated... What was that Junko yelled just now? It sounded like a code phrase."

Marisa shrugged - she probably hadn't heard it any clearer than I did.

[Nagato:] "Jinwu is the Chinese name for the Yatagarasu."

So she was calling Utsuho. Well, not that I hadn't guessed.

Marisa pulled up, having taken us to the spot underneath Junko. Even here was probably too close to be safe for her, so I moved to dismount, but as I let go of Marisa's body, she grabbed my left wrist and looked me in the eye.

"I have to get her by myself," I said. "I'm immune, but you-"

"Ya can't fly," she shot back. "I don't think she's gonna land for ya, either. How're ya gonna use that sword?"

...Good point. My guns would be useless against Junko, and she wasn't like Clownpiece - if she realized that I was a danger to her, she'd never let me in range. There was always my old plan of throwing the sword until I could hit her, but...

Marisa looked back up at Junko, who was settling into the rhythm of dodging Reisen's spell. "We just gotta get behind her," she whispered. "Can't beat a flanking maneuver."

If only it were so simple in danmaku. I looked back at the far side of the river where we'd seen the plasma beam come from. Koizumi was advancing on it, laying down a scattering of red orbs to try and flush out Utsuho, but he was by himself - the others were all too busy supporting Reisen to join him. Utsuho would spot us for sure if she wasn't distracted, which meant we'd have to be quick about it if we hoped to take Junko by surprise. It was a narrow window, but it was enough that we had to try.

"All right," I said, repositioning myself on the broom. "Get me up there, and don't let her see you. Can you do that?"

"'Course I can. Who do ya think I am?"

With another burst of speed, we passed underneath Junko's position and got a bit of distance before sweeping upwards out of the river. I risked a glance at Koizumi just in time to see him dodge another plasma beam, which gave me some hope that Utsuho might not shoot us down right away. Then again, if Koizumi got hit, this would get even more complicated in a hurry... I drew a breath, trying focus myself. I had to make the attack, and be sure that no one else went down in the process. I got the Sword of Hisou at the ready and locked on to Junko's backside as Marisa curved in and accelerated.

[SPELL CARD: "PURE LIGHT OF THE PALM"]

At the same time, Junko went on the offensive against Reisen. A sphere of orderly blue-white shots expanded from her, with the only room to dodge through them being the tiny gaps diagonally from each one. Following that sphere was a second one, this one comprised of blue-white beams that were aimed to pass through those gaps. They were slow, and Marisa and Reisen's team both aimed themselves at the gaps to try and slip through ahead of them, but the beams accelerated as if sensing this, shooting through the outer sphere and into their faces. Marisa and Reimu pulled up in time - Reisen and Sanae didn't. Asakura's shield protected Reisen from the hit, but Sanae was glanced in the side and knocked off-course, interrupting the purification ritual and causing Reisen's shots to veer off away from Junko.

What the hell? That attack hadn't seemed powerful. In fact, it looked downright simplistic, yet the tight space and narrow-looking timing had prompted us to rush ahead into the trap of the beams. It was effectively a big, dumb cheap shot. A second danmaku sphere was fired out directly on the heels of the first, and the beam waves kept coming; Marisa had to stay on her toes to navigate through it and not lose ground. It was an unexpectedly fast-paced spell, but...

...But just as I was thinking it wouldn't stop us, I realized that Sanae hadn't rejoined the others. She was still falling, twisting in the air like she'd been knocked out.

Sanae? It hadn't looked like she'd taken that bad of a hit. Did it hurt her that badly?

...Shoot. That's right; the others are still weak after what Mayumi did to them. They're probably running on fumes by now. Even the lightest hit might...

[Nagato:] "Reset. Quickly."

I glanced about, a bit startled by Nagato's interjection. After a half-second's hesitation, I started fumbling to expand the Sword of Hisou so I could hurt myself, but I couldn't see any other threats. Koizumi was still holding out, too... Why? We can still beat her. Even if Sanae's down-

[Nagato:] "Not down. Sanae is dead."

I froze.

Sanae's body was splayed oddly on the ground beneath Reisen, Reimu, and Asakura, and I realized - Sanae was human. Even if a youkai couldn't break her neck falling out of the sky, she could. I felt a shot of panic and fear at the realization, thinking we'd gotten supremely unlucky just now, but Nagato's next words were even worse.

[Nagato:] "The cause of death was not impact with the ground. Sanae was dead immediately after being hit by danmaku."

Wh-

It's not even a Taboo spell, though! How-

I didn't stop to question it. Even as my mind swam with confusion, I turned the Sword of Hisou into my arm and sliced it across. Despite looking like flame, it felt just like cold metal, and I felt the world lurch around me, eventually spinning itself into the state at the very beginning of Junko's spell.

[SPELL CARD: "PURE LIGHT OF THE PALM"]

How can she have died just from that?! My grasp tightened inadvertently around Marisa, who squirmed in discomfort without my really realizing it as we charged into the rear of the spell card once again.

[Nagato:] "I have analyzed and simulated the data from the shot which impacted Asakura's shield program. It is exceedingly simple. Pure vengeful desire, refined of any other feeling. The amount is in excess of Former Hell's native spite by an exponent of approximately three point twenty six hundred."

...Cripes.

I didn't even have a proper point of reference for it, but considering how much effort was put into gathering the negative energy to power that Taboo spell Yukari had given me... Well, Yukari wasn't kidding.

[Asakura:] "I was so surprised. It doesn't look violent at all, but it blew away my barrier in an instant."

You can do something about it, right? I... I was pretty much helpless over here. I couldn't attack or call out a warning, or else Junko would notice us behind her. I pretty much had to rely on Asakura to save her.

[Asakura:] "Hmm... So, you want to save everyone? I suppose I can try."

...And for that, I had to trust in her. That wasn't a position I ever wanted to be in. Marisa made a beeline for one of the gaps in the outer sphere just like before, and when she did, I was ready. "Hold back," I whispered to her before she got too close. The beam accelerated - I glanced at the far side, where Reisen's team was waiting for the beams at Asakura's direction, and when they passed through I urged, "Now go."

Marisa slipped through the outer sphere without a problem, ready to face the next wave. It was the exact same pattern as before, but it came fast, so it was mostly up to everyone's wits to keep up with it. No one got hit, but it was hard for Marisa to get any closer with the spell going on until the third wave passed and nothing more came out; instead, Junko gathered more power, obviously planning to unleash something else. By the time I'd noticed she was wide open, Marisa was already gunning it, clearly betting that she could reach Junko before she could unleash whatever the next phase of this spell card was.

I held the Sword of Hisou at the ready, focusing in as she drew closer. Time slowed down around me, and I felt a little confident; her guard was down. I'd easily have the chance to take her out in one hit, and even if I missed, I could just reset. There was hope that we could end this quickly before anything else went wrong.

Marisa was only a few meters out from her. I raised the sword.

A few more seconds and...

...Is it getting warmer?

I didn't look. I was too focused on hitting Junko, on getting the timing right on the strike, and when Marisa pulled up her broomstick in slow motion just as the air in front of us flash-fried ahead of the incoming wall of plasma, I felt my stomach go into a lurch.

Wait, we can-

For some reason, I felt like protesting. I mean, I knew it would be stupid to charge into a plasma beam, but I was watching my chance evaporate before my eyes. If we backed off now, we might not get another shot at getting this close. I had to do something - so as the plasma beam crossed in front of us, separating us from Junko, I did the only thing I could think of: I threw the sword.

Time resumed its normal speed as soon as I let go. The Sword of Hisou passed straight through the beam, emitting a blast of cold air that split it apart down the middle, and through that split I caught a glimpse of Junko turning around in surprise at Utsuho's decision to fire near her. Her eyes caught sight of the blade too late, and it slashed through her left side as she tried to veer off. A pure white flame burst out from her body as it opened up, mingling with a chaotic, many-colored flame that emitted from the sword, corrupting and complicating her with many disparate elements. The sword fell away and the plasma beam passed by, and for a moment, I was seized by a potent mixture of hope and dread.

Did I get her?

Her eyes were staring blankly into mine. There was no expression on her face; at least, her smile held no feeling in it whatsoever. I imagined she'd died on the spot, but slowly her eyes twitched, and recognition appeared in them.

"...So..." I heard her whisper, almost seeming to cut through chaos. "The lunar sage's medicine already..."

The dread in me grew, eclipsing the positive feeling from earlier.

...What?

Junko swung a hand forward, swishing it through the air as if swatting away a fly. In the same motion, the broomstick under me dropped down, sending me tumbling through the air towards the ground below. With the sword gone, I couldn't slow things down and collect my thoughts. I was now flipping backwards in free-fall as it dawned on me that I needed to-

Something black and white passed in front of my eyes, heading straight for the ground. I didn't want to look at it. I fumbled for Chiyuri's gun, pulling it out and aiming at my own hand-

-But in the single second that I hesitated, something soft closed around my wrist and pulled my arm away. A gunshot sounded, but I felt no pain, and when I opened my eyes, I was staring into Junko's. They were wide, red, and filled with something that boiled beneath the surface, yet appeared as gentle as the touch of her fingers around my right wrist. Her left hand was pressed against my mouth, which I realized had been stuffed with some type of fabric. For some reason, I couldn't move my legs or my left arm, and I felt something hard pressing into them, just barely not enough to hurt. Despite being bound, gagged and held against my will, there was no pain at all - and when I realized I couldn't even do so much as bite my tongue thanks to the stuff in my mouth, I understood how much of a problem that was.

If... No, I have to...

"You remind me so much of the old Hecatia." The sickly sweet voice of my captor invaded my ears, drowning out my frenzied thoughts. "She never associated herself with the Yama and their people. Hated to be told what to do. She loved her freedom, and never grew attached to just one thing." The hand holding the gag in my mouth pivoted, and she stroked my cheek with one long finger, staring into me with what seemed like an eerie sense of fondness. "A powerful person, free from responsibility and without a shred of conviction in their actions - after all, if it doesn't work out, you can always try something else later. Right?"

I pushed my right hand against hers, struggling to point the gun towards either her or me. Gentle as it was though, her grip on my wrist was like a vice, and I couldn't aim it anywhere but the sky.

Junko chuckled humorlessly at my attempt. "Really? You want to shoot yourself that badly? Why can that be? You have yet to experience that level of despair." She brought her face in close, touching her nose and forehead to mine. "Even now, through all the pain you've suffered to get here, you have yet to experience true loss."

Some of Reisen's shots passed into my vision, but Junko kept twirling in the air with me, avoiding her spell card with practiced precision. Come on... Hit me! Asakura, you have to tell Reisen to hit me!

Junko's smile grew ever wider as I strained my eyes to try and see what was happening around us. I could only really see Junko herself - there was no blood coming from the sword wound in the side of her abdomen, but a dim white flame, and the clothing around it looked as if it had been intentionally torn, probably to fashion the gag in my mouth. "But now," she said, "you'll come to know your limits. You'll finally experience what it's like to lose someone you care about forever."

I can't... Do anything... Shanghai and Hourai were nowhere to be seen. I kept struggling, trying to find a way to loosen her grip. I held my breath, thinking I could trigger a reset by depriving myself of air... but somehow, I could still breathe. No, rather, I didn't have to - the gas in my lungs was being converted to pure oxygen. I tried every movement of my body I could think of, even cutting my thumb on some part of the gun, but even then, my grip on it wasn't strong enough to really hurt myself. She must have held down a nerve or something, because my thumb would hardly move.

"Don't worry. After your protection is stripped away, I'll allow you the dignity of taking your own life."

Screw you.

I felt tears forming in my eyes. I was trying my hardest not think about the black and white figure I'd seen falling away. Even if someone died, I could just reset.

But...

I shouldn't have let Marisa take me up. It was clearly a stupid idea and now-

"Be glad. You and Hecatia should both be glad you only had to go through losing a friend."

There had to be something I could do. Or maybe something they could do. I mean, I had six teammates with me. What was it all for if I couldn't trust them to hit me when it counted?

Aren't I full of nanomachines? Can't you blow them up or something?!

No response. Both of the voices in my head had gone silent.

Nagato?! Asakura?!

I strained my eyes to search and spotted Asakura hovering near Reisen, doing her best to shield the team from Utsuho's plasma barrage that was now alternating between them and Koizumi. She was still fighting, but I couldn't hear her. In fact, I couldn't hear anything from either of them for a while now... and you'd think they'd have thought of using the nanomachines themselves, too.

I realized why when my eyes yet again found Junko's simpering face. My body may have been free from life and death, but those nanomachines were a kind of impurity anyway. It wasn't just Marisa she had purified after I threw my sword.

They can't help me.

"Hmm..." Junko watched my allies carefully, flicking her eyes between them. "I was expecting them to do a suicide charge. Do they not know...?"

...They should. Asakura would tell them to hit me, right?

My body moved, and I heard the jangling of chains around my legs and my left arm. Junko raised me in front of her body and faced me towards my allies, never once putting any part of me or herself in front of the pistol I was still holding. She held me in a threatening manner, and I looked Reisen in the eye.

Reisen... lowered her rifle. The spell she was casting dissipated, and she looked down at us with contempt. Asakura said something to her - to which Reisen pointed her rifle to the side at her, never breaking eye contact with Junko, and said something back. She was threatening Asakura, and there was only one reason I could think of why she'd do that.

They don't believe her.

I mean... why would they? If her of all people told them to throw caution to the wind and seize any chance to hurt me at the apparent cost of their own lives, they'd probably...

Except for Koizumi who I couldn't see, the rest of them looked pretty angry at her, too. Well, not Reimu - Reimu was red in the face and shaking with fury, and probably not so much at Asakura. In fact, she didn't seem to react to Asakura at all, which meant she probably didn't even hear her.

"Well, isn't this something? Even if I don't want them to hurt you, I can still use you as a shield!" Junko laughed without feeling like it was a cue in a script. I desperately wanted to say something back, but there wasn't a single intelligible sound I could make through the gag. I struggled even more, but to no avail. The thumb of my gun hand was pushed up in the transition, but not far enough to do anything but fondle the hammer. My other arm and legs were still unable to move.

Junko was amused by this, and kept taunting in my ear. "You were always so spirited in my worlds," she cooed. "Quick-witted, too. I think that's charming in a young man. But you still haven't matured enough to use that spirit. Boys become men when they finally learn that their carelessness will come back to bite them in the end."

I held my breath again. This time, not because I wanted to hurt myself - I realized something.

"Of course, that always takes sacrifice. Too bad; it only makes you stronger if it doesn't kill you, too."

Says you. I'm the one who can come back from death. Come back to bite me? That's exactly what I want.

There was something - one last thing I might be able to try. If I could just take the time to reach it...

Junko was quicker than she seemed. If I let on what I wanted to do for even a second, she'd find a way to stop me from doing it. All I could do right now was struggle, so that's what I did. I strained my arms and legs, shut my eyes, and tried to flail my head. I moved my jaw - I'd have swallowed the gag whole if I could - and did everything I possibly could to protest as I brought my thumb up as high as it could go towards the top of the gun, right next to the hammer. When it was there, I struck out with my index finger towards the trigger and squeezed it. A loud bang erupted from the gun, and in the same moment...

Chiyuri was right; hammer bite hurts like hell.

I didn't get to see her reaction, if she even had time to react. A splitting pain erupted as the hammer dropped and pinched the side of my thumb, sending the whole world somersaulting backwards. Everything that had just happened was wiped clean away, and I couldn't have been happier about it.

[Nagato:] "Connection reestablished. Can you hear me?"

Nagato! Yes, I can hear you!

I opened my eyes and saw... Junko, right in front of me. Her wound was burning, and the Sword of Hisou was falling away into the park below. Her hands were out from her body in shock, with mere moments until...

Here? I came back here?!

In just a few moments, Marisa would be dead again. I had no time at all to prepare, let alone get my bearings.

[Nagato:] "Preparation of local data jurisdiction factors is underway. Stall for time."

How?! She's going to purify us again!

I was kind of hoping the Ultramarine Orb Elixir was a "take you back to the start of the battle" kind of thing, but I guess that would have been too convenient. Maybe I should have been glad that I apparently missed locking in Marisa's death by mere seconds. Not that I had time to think about any of that - acting on nothing but instinct, I reached for the gun again and fired it at Junko's face.

The Sword of Hisou must have disrupted her defensive purification ability for a moment, because neither my bullet nor the supporting fire that Hourai aimed at her were sent off course. What's more, and maybe just by sheer luck, the bullet hit her square in the forehead despite the lack of time I had to aim. A tiny bit of white flame erupted from the spot and her head snapped back, more from kinetic force than from the bullet actually hurting her.

"RUN!" I shouted at the top of my lungs. Marisa sped up, and I shot at Junko's hands to try and stop her from using her purification ability. By the time she got used to shrugging off the bullets, we'd built up enough speed, and a wave of purified air followed behind us, too close for comfort but just far enough. Junko tried to move forward to catch us with it... but in the process, she forgot to dodge Reisen's spell card; all seven shots of her next purified volley slammed into Junko from behind, causing her to flip over in the air and her backside to burst into more white flame.

"Whoo!" Marisa looked back, evidently high on adrenaline from how close she'd come to death. "Now that was a nice shot!"

You don't even know what it took... I let out a short laugh, more of relief and disbelief than actual happiness. I couldn't believe we'd just gotten out of that. I checked around us just in case, and sure enough, everyone was still alive.

"Do you think you're invincible with that?" Junko called toward us, righting herself in the air and going back to dodging Reisen's next volley.

Not anymore.

There was at least one thing that Junko had been right about: The two of us were protected by a power that seemed to make us both invincible, yet when our enemies found a way around that protection, she fought back while I folded like paper. Not only did she have plenty of experience over me, she'd probably have been well aware of any weaknesses she possessed. If I was going to beat her, I needed to find a way to do it that wasn't so straightforward.

I wonder how many times this elixir's been used against her. If it's such an obvious counter, then...

...Hey, Nagato. When you tell me to "stall for time," do you mean actual time, or...?

[Nagato:] "Your present state of perception is a linear rendering of compressed time containing many potentialities. We are not reliving it as you are, merely looking in from the small window of time where it is observable."

So you can't keep preparing your factors and stuff if I keep resetting?

[Nagato:] "It would be possible to dedicate your nanomachines towards parallel processing the necessary calculations. They are part of your being, and experience the same linear time."

Using my nanomachines, huh... So if I put myself in a loop, how long would it take to calculate from my perspective?

[Nagato:] "Approximately four hundred years."

...Let's call that Plan B, then.

By now, the Sword of Hisou was somewhere below us where I couldn't see it. I only threw it because I thought I could defeat her in one shot with it, and now that I couldn't reset to before I threw it, I couldn't slow down time anymore. Junko may have been wounded and surrounded, but I was still in a disadvantageous position here. The longer this went on, the more likely it was that someone else would die, and it wasn't a sure thing I'd be able to save them even if I reset. Marisa and I hung at the edge of Junko's range until Reisen's spell card timed out, and I decided to take advantage of the lull to make use of my other talent: Wasting time.

"Junko!" I called out to her. I was at least close enough that we could finally talk, which was worth something. If she was anything like Hecatia, Clownpiece, and Mayumi, she wouldn't be able to resist. "Why are you following Hecatia? What does someone like you get out of this?"

If I'd learned one thing over the years, it's that people love talking about themselves. Miko called it "something about me" that made others open up but when you get right down to it, it's just that I gave them the chance to do it. Unlike the others though, Junko wasn't quite so forthcoming.

"Do you think you can talk me out of it?" she said, folding her hands in her sleeves and raising her position in the air to get ready for whatever came at her next. "Do you know how many hundreds of years I've committed to this?"

...Yeah, she's got the experience, all right. If I went at something for that long, I doubt anyone could talk me down, either.

As Junko spoke, Reisen and the others moved forward behind her back... which might've been a good move for me, but I'd have assumed she would want to stay at long range with that rifle of hers. I was kind of hoping she'd keep shooting... Does she want to talk, too?

[Asakura:] "She said she wanted a closer shot. I don't think safety is on her mind right now."

As the other group moved in, another plasma beam blazed across them - Utsuho was still taking pot shots at us while fighting with Koizumi. I saw Reisen point in his direction, and Asakura reluctantly broke off to join him. It was probably a good idea; the whole other side of the river was now bathed in flame, casting its warmth on us from afar. Miniature stars were being thrown in Koizumi's direction one after the other, giving him little time or space to move between them. The trouble with stalling was that I pretty much had to trust that my whole team could last long enough without taking any unshielded hits, so I was thankful at how much Koizumi seemed to have improved his danmaku skills.

I focused on Junko, trying to think of something to say to her. Yukari had called her an embodiment of vengeance, and Junko herself had said something about a promise Hecatia made about erasing Chang'e, a moon goddess. Despite all that Hecatia had said about not giving in to wrath, Junko seemed only in it for the violence. I raised my voice to address her and asked, "Hecatia's trying to make a perfect world, right? Do you really think you'll be satisfied once you've destroyed your enemy?"

Junko seemed amused by my question. Her mouth curled up like she was about to laugh, but she replied in the same condescending tone as always, "Do you not eat, knowing one day you will be hungry again?"

"But if Hecatia makes a perfect world-"

"When Hecatia makes a perfect world," she interrupted me with a dangerous glint in her eyes, "I will have not only the power to destroy Chang'e, but to create her again."

...Really?

Reisen came to a stop some distance behind Junko, and the two shrine maidens once again started their purification ritual. Reisen pulled another card, focusing power inside the rifle. Junko glanced behind her, drifting to the side a little bit to keep an eye on the both of us, and Reisen's eyes flashed red again as she cast the spell.

[SPELL CARD: PURE BULLET "MANY MINDS' CROSSFIRE"]

Reisen split up again, only this time, eighteen illusionary copies were surrounding Junko on all sides, rotating in a wide sphere around her. Actually, this time they weren't copies of Reisen at all - other moon rabbits, wearing the same odd felt-textured ears as her were now oribiting Junko bearing identical rifles and moving in identical formation. Some were wearing round white helmets, while others weren't - I saw one whose ears were squashed under a white hat and another with long, uncovered blue hair - and all of them were firing long streams of white bullets towards Junko, moving in time with her so that she was always in the center. Meanwhile, Reisen herself was firing her own rifle like a shotgun, spreading more bullets into the mix that she had to weave between.

Marisa also contributed some flashy, star-shaped danmaku of her own that she threw out from under her dress - these fell away from Junko of course, but they were so bright and colorful that it was hard to see Reisen's shots through them, which I gathered must have been the point. Even so, Junko moved quickly through the pattern, never staying on one side for too long.

"'Happy, endless days of killing each other,'" spat Reisen. "Is that what you're after?"

When you put it that way, it does remind me of Kaguya and Mokou.

Junko almost laughed again. "Not at all. I'd never let her lay a single hand on me." With a graceful flourish, she spun her body to one side and produced a pure white spell card, forcing so much pure wrath into it that I could swear I saw Reisen falter and shiver from it. Even my human senses could almost feel this card before it activated.

"I'll create her and her children, the moon rabbits. I'll give them life and love, and then destroy them."

[SPELL CARD: "LILIES OF MURDEROUS INTENT"]

So much for stalling by talking.

A red aura erupted from Junko, along with a ball of red light that descended towards the park. When it hit the ground, it burst apart and flowered into a tall column of red light that frayed at the edges and spread upwards in a curved pattern; an enormous danmaku flower that connected with one of the illusionary moon rabbits and destroyed it in a burst of light, scattering round red danmaku into the air like pollen at the same time. The flower faded quickly, but more sprang out as she kept dropping the seeds one by one, until after a few seconds, she launched several at once, blooming an entire forest of flowers that obliterated Reisen's attackers all at once and forced Marisa to back off as well.

"As they die," I heard her voice through the tall red stalks, "she will feel the pain her children felt. I'll destroy her in that despair, and then I'll do the whole thing all over again. There will be only one Chang'e in all the multiverse, and she'll live that way for all eternity."

It was unreal. The eighteen rabbits had been annihilated all at once, and Reisen's spell card was rendered useless, forcing her to cancel it. The scowl on her face had grown deeper through all this, putting her her in more obvious rage than Junko herself had been showing. A part of me worried right then that Reisen might not be fully in control of herself, which would make my job a lot harder if it led to her making a mistake.

Asakura, can you calm her down or...

I looked over to the left where I remembered Asakura had gone to reinforce Koizumi. Utsuho was literally raining stars on the both of them now, and Asakura was glued to Koizumi, trying to make sure he stayed alive despite the blistering heat.

[Asakura:] "Do it yourself?"

...Fine. Better if you stay on him, anyway.

"I suppose that will include you," Junko said, turning her head to look at Reisen. "Well, at least you'll be together with your master, right?"

"My master is Lady Yagokoro," said Reisen. She drew another spell card - this time, her eyes were not only glowing, but they seemed to warp the world in on them. The whole environment flowed like waves in a river, sinking into her eyes, and I stared into them, transfixed and unable to look away.

Junko didn't seem to care, and kept talking like nothing was wrong. "Yes, the lunar sage. It was her Hourai Elixir that spared Chang'e from Hell, but that doesn't matter. I will simply bring Hell to where she is."

"I just don't get it. How can ya hate someone that much...?" Marisa said in disbelief. Even though I thought she spoke quietly, Junko's attention turned to her, still as serene as ever.

"I don't hate her. I don't have anything against Chang'e at all."

...I can't believe it. I remembered what else Yukari had said about Junko, and realized at last what it all had meant. The original target of Junko's grudge was long gone, she'd said. Yet even though Junko said that she was going to be granted the power to create Chang'e - why not recreate the person she originally hated instead? If Chang'e was just a stand-in, then what was the point of directing all that vengeance against her? For that matter, with the kind of power they were looking to obtain, then whatever had caused the hatred in the first place - couldn't it be undone? Couldn't everything have just been made right again?

It made no sense. Assuming she was telling the truth and not just trying to rile us up, Junko had no reason whatsoever to do what she planned on doing... and I think that might have been the point.

"Then why do you want to destroy her?" I said.

Junko's head tilted curiously, and she looked at me like I'd said something strange.

"Do I have to have a reason?"

She's inhuman. I mean, I knew that, but even youkai have human feelings. I was wrong - she's not angry. She's past angry. Just as Yukari had told us, Junko's grudge had lost sight of its own origin. Instead, the grudge itself had become her very identity. I had to wonder if there was even anything left of her mind, or if we were talking to what amounted to an automaton that existed only to kill.

How much longer?

[Nagato:] "Soon."

Reisen floated forward, still bending the light of her surroundings with her eyes. She must have been getting close to the edge of Junko's purification range, and I wanted to call out and warn her, but she stopped after a few seconds and faced forward. Junko faced her, and the two of them shared a silent moment, staring into each other in the air above Shukugawa Park. It felt like they were communicating, but I couldn't sense what was being shared. Maybe it wasn't words, but a simple and entirely unmutual feeling of hatred.

"She can see it," said Reisen at last. "The real color of my eyes."

The real... what?

To that, Junko replied, "My mind retreats from nothing. All I see is truth."

"No. It just means you're already insane."

Reisen and Junko raised their hands as one, spell cards clutched in each, and began to gather power for their next round.

[SPELL CARD: "PURE LUNACY"]

[SPELL CARD: "PURE LUNACY"]

I'm not sure, but I think I fainted.

The entire world turned over and around. I couldn't tell which way was up, but I could dimly feel myself struggling to keep sitting on Marisa's broom. Marisa herself - well, I couldn't see her. I couldn't see anyone but Reisen and Junko, around whom red and purple lasers were curling and arranging themselves into the shape of a perfect, shining sphere. A moment later, the lasers expanded, and I barely saw them coming before they grazed me, shooting past in a wall that had only a tight gap to squeeze through. I had no idea if I was lucky or if Marisa had dodged it; I had no idea what was even going on. Near it, I saw a similarly spherical arrangement of bullets, these an impenetrable line that nonetheless was made of half of transparent bullets that phased in and out in time with one another like a a heartbeat, and from within the mass of bullets strobed a bright red light that made me feel sleepy just to look at it. Reisen, Junko, Reimu, and Sanae were all hidden from sight, and I completely forgot about Utsuho as I tried my hardest to keep myself lucid. It felt like dreaming, like I was witnessing some abstract pattern drawn up from my unconscious that served no purpose but to confuse me. Well, Satori couldn't have been the only one capable of hypnosis through danmaku, right?

The broom veered, and I confirmed that I was indeed still holding on to Marisa. I had to hope that she could still dodge it all in this state, because I sure wouldn't have-

But the moment after I turned my head to try and see where we were going, a bright light flashed up in front of us, and the next thing I felt was pain.

It was a strange pain. It's subtle, but different danmaku feels different when it hits you, and this... well, it was one of Junko's lasers. Where most danmaku felt like an electric shock, this felt more like being seized in the jaws of a lion or the spinning teeth of a crushing machine - not only was the pain much sharper, it came accompanied by an endless, sinking dread; an instinctive knowledge that now there was no escape. For that one instant, I was overwhelmed by it, and the next I was thrust back in time again.

[SPELL CARD: "PURE LUNACY"]

[SPELL CARD: "PURE LUNACY"]

What the hell...

I didn't want to go through it again. The way that Hecatia had killed me was painless; this one was painful down to the soul. I averted my eyes from the sight of the twin moons, trying to keep myself grounded in reality. I could feel Marisa's body in my hands, and used that to find her in my sight, and with that, I focused on what was around her.

"Can you hear me, Marisa?" I said.

No answer. This is bad. She can't make sense of her surroundings - we're going to keep crashing over and over!

"Marisa!" I shook her from behind. She tried to move, tilting us at an awkward angle, and I saw the lasers flash by us. In a fit of panic, I reached past her, grabbing hold of the end of the broom, and tried pulling up. It worked; Marisa changed course in the direction of my pull... unfortunately into another laser. I had to suffer that death again.

...and again, and again. Even though I had a way to direct Marisa's flight path now, I wasn't what you would call an expert dodger in the air, given I'd never flown before, and just getting her to move in a straight line was a difficult task. Getting hit by that laser didn't feel any better after the second or third time, and neither did the times I flew into one of Reisen's bullets. Well, at least hers didn't feel like death. Both of them sent my mind into free-fall every time, and it was harder than ever to keep my focus through it all. I was pretty sure that if this kept up, I might actually have gone insane.

Please tell me no one else has gone down yet.

Somehow I managed to last us both ten seconds at a time, but even after retreating to where the lasers were spread out, I still couldn't look directly at their source and I felt my stomach clench whenever they shot out. I tried to look for the others while dodging, but it was futile.

[Asakura:] "Itsuki Koizumi has died three times so far. Reisen Udongein Inaba has died once... You're petty amazing, though; you and Marisa Kirisame died seventeen times!"

Is anyone dead right now?!

[Asakura:] "Of course not. Once a sequence is modeled, you just have to correct it for next time, right?"

In some ways, this was really bad; just as I'd feared, people were going down while I was busy trying to save myself. In other ways, having Asakura be here to save them after a reset...

...Well, it was lucky. I tried not to think about what else it meant.

"A... Are we safe? What's goin' on?" Marisa said in front of me, having regained her senses.

"They hypnotized us," I replied. "I don't know what Reisen was thinking. Don't look directly at it."

The two spheres seemed to follow us like a pair of bright red eyes. If this was what happened when two spells synchronized together so perfectly, I could just imagine what the two of them might have been able to pull off had they been working together. We'd made it this far with only a few temporary losses, but Junko was on a whole other level than Clownpiece and Mayumi.

"Are Reimu and Sanae okay in there...?" Despite my warning, Marisa was trying her best to look at the edges of the spell, jerking her head back and forth as the hypnosis seemed to influence her.

"Asakura said they are."

I was starting to see why Yukari might have said we needed these specific people; aside from Reisen and Asakura, our team was human. Asakura could probably just delete the the spell from her vision or something equally ridiculous, but if a youkai looked directly into it, it might have affected them even worse. Well, maybe that's just giving it meaning after the fact - I doubt even Yukari could have predicted this double spell card. I tried one more time to find Utsuho, but I could only see flashes of red in the distance.

"Well, Reimu can dodge anything even if she's crazy," chuckled Marisa. "Not so sure about Sanae, though."

Not a whole lot we can do to help now... we basically just have to hope that if anything happens, Asakura can do something about it.

It was an arduous wait, but at least Marisa could take over the dodging. After who knows how many long seconds, the sphere on the right burst apart, revealing Junko with a bright, buning hole below her collar. One of Reisen's bullets had passed straight through her.

[Nagato:] "Finished."

After a short pause, Reisen's spell timed out and disappeared as well, showing her, Reimu, and Sanae unharmed. Neither they nor Junko dared to move. I waited, not daring to breathe, for what would happen next.

What... what now?

[Nagato:] "Connected to surviving infrastructural data of alternate universe Data Overmind. Checksum deviation margin of 0.12%. The local environment has been relocated to within Ryoko Asakura's data jurisdiction. You may proceed."

[Asakura:] "Checksum passed. I'm going to execute now, okay?"

Wait, what are you going to-

Before I could even finish the thought, I was standing on the ground atop the shallow hill that rose up next to the park. The Sword of Hisou was back in my hand, and the rest of my allies were arrayed in a wide circle around Junko and Utsuho, who were spaced two meters apart from one another and still as statues.

I recognized this.

It wasn't just that they weren't moving; they couldn't. Asakura had locked them in place for us.

"Jinwu..." Junko's mouth was able to move a little bit at least, along with her eyes, which stared aside at her ally. "You did properly purge the Data Overmind from this universe, didn't you?"

"Of course I did," spat Utsuho in reply.

"Well then, I guess we're not really stuck here like this?"

None of the others seemed to get what was going on, but Koizumi and Reimu were the first to step forward and get ready to blast the two of them down. Reisen was next, aiming her rifle at Junko's head; she looked like she desperately wanted to fire, just about squeezing the trigger already, but instead she called out to the rest of us, "Anyone want to interrogate them first, or can we wrap this up?"

Did... Did we win?

It sure looked like it. I mean, they couldn't move or do anything. Then again, neither could I while Junko had me. Every second they remained alive was a potential second they could somehow escape. I wanted to just tell her to end it, but that was when Koizumi spoke up.

"I have a question for Utsuho... Or rather, for the Yatagarasu. That is who I'm talking to, right?"

At the sound of his voice, I looked to my left... and did a double-take. Koizumi's jacket was completely gone, and the left half of his shirt had been burned away. Since he had his right side facing me, there wasn't much I could see, but it looked like his left arm and a good bit of his torso had turned alternately raw red and charred black. Sanae let out a squeak and almost jumped when she saw him, and with me having been placed unfortunately close to him... Well, ever smelled cooked human flesh? It smells like any other meat. Like someone was having a barbecue right next to me. It made me simultaneously hungry and sick to my stomach when I realized that my mouth had started watering in response. What the hell is wrong with me?!

"I'm not answering questions," Utsuho shot back. The bright orange machine attached to her right arm vibrated in place; she was obviously still trying to raise it and fight back.

"Please; indulge my curiosity." Koizumi smiled, showing no sign of how much pain I figured he must be in. His skin was clammy and red even on the non-burned parts and his left arm was moving stiffly, but he betrayed nothing in his voice or his composure. "There was a moment, just a little bit ago, where you could have killed me. You did at least this much." He he raised his left arm, and I got a better look at it - the upper part of the skin was stripped off, but it wasn't down to the muscle. A deep second-degree burn, maybe. "Not even Asakura could get to me in time," he continued. "Yet when you could have finished me off, you took cover instead. Could you tell me why?"

She didn't finish him off? That's weird. You said he died three times, right?

[Asakura:] "It was pretty tough trying to keep him alive for so long. She wasn't pulling any punches over there."

Except for one, apparently.

Utsuho wasn't talking. She was glaring at the rest of us, a dark hatred set in her eyes, which flicked between us as if evaluating us. Her stare was... well, more calculating than I expected. When I heard her described as a powerful idiot, I was thinking she might end up being more like... well, like Cirno.

...Wait. The way that Koizumi addressed her earlier clicked in my head. ...Is that not Utsuho at all?

"Will you answer my question?" said Junko, with the same total lack of tension in her voice as always. "How long are you going to keep holding back? The raven god who clung to life and vengeance - the one who burned her own universe, her own vessel and her own shrines, and aspired to our ranks through will alone... Where has she gone, now that we need her most?"

Utsuho - or rather, Jinwu - said nothing.

"I always warned Hecatia that her ideas were too noble. That one of us might actually listen to her words. She seemed to take it as encouragement, but I meant it would spell our doom." Junko's eyes grew sad and she paused before continuing, "There are two paths before you, Jinwu. Do you long to hold the jewel of Yue Zhang, and live your life in nothing but memories of better days? Or will you cast aside those dreams and do what can be done in the here and now? O great Sun that scorches the whole universe, where is your spirit now?"

"We're already dead!" snapped Jinwu. "Let me die without listening to your psychotic drivel!"

I'm kind of getting the feeling these two have a past.

"The past is lost. We are not here in this situation because of anything but our own actions, Jinwu. At least one of us will die here - probably, it will be both of us. There are no more dreams now. There is no more hope."

What the hell is this conversation? I looked at the others, who looked either too confused or too pissed off to comment... Well, except, Koizumi. He was just stroking his chin thoughtfully, like he knew exactly what was going on. Well, I sure wish he'd tell the rest of us.

"Before you ever knew the hope of Hecatia's perfect world, you had but one purpose in your life. You were pure. The purest of my universe's children, and the only one to ever understand the truth."

At the same time as Junko spoke those words, Asakura fell to her knees.

What. What?! She couldn't have - we're outside her purification radius, right?!

[Asakura:] "Oh, dear. I made a mistake."

Instantly, Reisen, Reimu, and Sanae began casting a spell. I didn't waste any time either, activating the Sword of Hisou and rushing at Junko. Now that we'd finally penned them in, there was no way I was going to let them break out again.

"So..." Junko spoke in slow motion. "I'll let you remember one last time."

What's happening, Asakura? Did she do something to you?!

[Asakura:] "I redirected my processing power towards holding them. She's purging my spatial lockdown faster than I can repair it."

She's purifying herself to break out!

[SPELL CARD: PURE BULLET "COLLAPSED WAVE SHOT"]

I'd crossed half the distance between them and me before Reisen finished the spell. When she fired, she split into many copies again, each one firing a single bullet. Unlike her volley card though, this one was a single-attack spell that ended as soon as she'd fired, and the shots traveled lightning fast. Among them, all but one faded as they traveled until they disappeared, and as for the one that stayed solid... Junko dodged backwards as soon as Reisen fired, but of all the shots, the one that stuck was the one that was pointed directly at her heart. With a burst of white flame, it passed through her body, ricocheted off the ground behind her, and struck into Utsuho's back a couple of meters away, passing through her heart as well. Impressive as it was, I didn't stop to admire it; I had to make sure Junko stayed dead.

[SPELL CARD: "TREMBLING, SHIVERING STAR"]

She was reeling, or maybe dying from the hit, but still somehow managed to cast one last spell. A tall wall of round blue shots emitted from her, wave after wave after wave. The first time, I approached, I got hit as I tried to squeeze between the shots, as each wave was staggered behind the last. I didn't stop, though; I reset to the beginning of the spell and kept running. Again and again, I ran myself face-first into the wall of shots, determined not to lose any time and let her get away. There was no real gimmick to this spell; just a simple, tight pattern of shots that I had to dance between, back and forth in a rhythm, as I kept running forward. It was hard... but not impossible. And because it wasn't impossible, all I needed to do was keep trying.

I tried, and I tried, and I tried. I died, and I died, and I died. And eventually, after who knows how many attempts, I passed through a wave, found myself right in front of her, and drove the sword through the bullet wounds that Reisen had inflicted on her chest. Multicolored flames spring out from the point of impact, wrapping around her body and dispelling her spell card, and still she didn't so much as wince in pain. All she did was look into my eyes with that same disturbing fondness which which she'd done so before. I almost jerked my body back in revulsion - but her hands shot out and grasped my shoulders, and Hecatia's chains flowed out from her wounds to bind my limbs.

Why won't you die?! How can you still keep fighting like this?!

I struggled against the chains, trying to decide whether to hurt myself and reset or find a way to stop her from hurting me. That had to have been her aim - she knew I'd reset if she hurt me, so why not try and hurt me when she takes mortal damage? I'd be forced to try and do something different. Yet when her hands closed around my jaw, they were gentle as silk. She cupped my face with delicate care, and I froze up, not sure what to do or what to make of what was happening. The shouts of my allies faded into the background; I only heard her voice, soft and weak, as she spoke to me.

"Clownpiece should be proud of you," she said. "To think one of her children could become so strong..." Her mouth opened up in a mechanical grin, like she wasn't really feeling the emotion she was attempting to show. "It's enough to make me want revenge. How sad that I'll never get to kill her for this."

Did- did you just imply that Clownpiece is like my mother? I really wanted to get away from Junko now, but the chains held me fast, and resetting wouldn't do me much good this time. I held my breath as her head rolled forward and her body collapsed against mine, beginning to burn away from the holes in her body. The white flame was warm, but painless.

"When you stand before Hecatia..." she whispered into my chest as her body was enveloped and consumed by the fire, "When you realize how hopeless it is to fight, I ask you: Plead with her to revive Jinwu. Implore her to bring her sisters back." She smiled and half-closed her eyes as if she were crying, but there weren't any tears.

I had no idea what to say to that. I just stared as Junko's body purified itself into nothingness, and the golden chains attached to it fell away and disintegrated.

I... Well...

That was different.

"Kyon!" I barely heard Marisa's voice as she swooped in behind me and beckoned me aboard her broom in a panic. Still dazed from what Junko had done, I joined her, saying, "What? Did we win? What's happening?"

I looked over at where Jinwu had been standing, only to see a patch of freshly-scorched and cratered earth.

"Where's-"

"There!" cried Marisa, pointing up into the sky. It was then I realized that even though the sun had long since set, it was now as bright as daylight, and the reason for it was all too evident.

CAUTION!

[SPELL CARD: NUCLEAR SIGN "CREEPING SUN"]

The sun was back at the top of the sky, or so it looked - and it was coming down at us fast, right square in the middle of the park. It was bright enough to hurt my eyes, and the air was getting hotter the further down it plunged.

[Asakura:] "I'm experiencing some interference at the moment. Dodge that yourself, all right?"

She didn't have to ask twice. Marisa booked it as soon as I was aboard, and I held on for dear life. The heat grew stronger even though we were supposedly getting away, and I could do little but avert my eyes and hope that thing didn't destroy us. On the other hand, our allies had gotten more of a head start in dodging it and were launching a counter-offensive.

[SPELL CARD: MIRACLE "NIGHT WITH OVERLY BRIGHT GUEST STARS"]

Just like an astronomical guest star, a second, brilliant white light shone high above the red one, illuminating the ruins of the city even more brightly than before. Though I assumed it must have been attacking Jinwu, I couldn't tell where where Jinwu was, so it just looked like two dueling stars - and surprisingly, the red sinking star seemed to diminish in the white one's superior brightness. Even the heat began to slip away as if rebuked by saying, "Mine's brighter."

[SPELL CARD: "PERSUASION NEEDLE"]

At the the same time, Reimu tossed a stream of silver needles towards the white star, but as far as whether they were hitting anything, I couldn't tell. I couldn't even look at the space between the two stars; Reimu must have had some other way of knowing, because her throwing pattern was too focused to be firing blind. Well, they couldn't have been hitting Jinwu at least, because the red star never disappeared, and in just a few seconds, it impacted the ground with an earth-shattering roar, sending out a shockwave that felt like it might rip my body apart - or at least trigger a reset - all on its own. A flood of dust and smoke surged ahead of us, turning everything dark for a few moments before Marisa brought us upward above it and I looked behind us.

Sanae's white star had disappeared, and the only light now was a deep crimson glow from within the massive mushroom cloud left over by the red one. Reimu and Sanae both attempted to throw a spread of amulets into the cloud now that the stars were gone, but they burned away in the air before they even got close. Reisen, Koizumi, and Asakura were hanging back. Seeing it was useless to fight without getting rid of the cloud, Sanae drew a pentagram in the air with her fingers and summoned forth a gust of wind that blew it away, almost knocking the rest of us over in the process.

Jinwu had been in that cloud all right, but something was very different now; her wings were aflame, burning a bright orange color that never consumed her tattered black feathers, and the light around her body was warped from an intense heat that I could feel even from where I was. The device on her right arm was glowing and humming like a generator of some kind, and in her left hand she held up one of Reimu's silver needles, which had been melted into a dull, bent slag. She stared at it, her face impassive, yet with a feeling of something raging inside her. Though she didn't have Junko's plastered smile, I could only think that it was the same type of face.

Don't tell me...

[Nagato:] "The purification reaction that Junko triggered in her is being perpetuated by the nuclear reactor. She will continue to purify herself as long as it continues running."

[Asakura:] "I can't affect anything inside that heat. We'll just have to fight her instead, okay?"

Figures.

I turned the Sword of Hisou towards my body by instinct, but after a moment of thought, I decided I shouldn't reset. Even if it was still possible to go back to before Jinwu was purified, Junko's prediction had been right on the money; Reisen's attack hadn't been enough to kill either Junko or Jinwu by itself and the others wouldn't have been able to attack Jinwu before she got free. Jinwu was powerful - and scary - but at least we could attack her directly. Going after Junko had been the right move.

This is still the best outcome for us... So... How do we win now?

I looked down at the spot where the red star had landed, just next to the river. The whole area, including Shukugawa Park, was now a giant, black crater. There was hardly any cover nearby, with no buildings left standing. If there was anything that could withstand the kind of power that Jinwu could put out...

...You said your apartment was protected, right Nagato?

[Nagato:] "Yes. As long as Ryoko Asakura is there, it should resist destruction by forces up to the observed level of output."

[Asakura:] "It's quite far from here, though."

She was right. We'd traveled at least a kilometer to the south already, so if we were to get back, we'd have to get her to chase us. Was that likely? Wouldn't she realize we were luring her somewhere?

...Even if she did, she might not care. She's only got one thing on her mind right now. If Jinwu had truly become a creature of pure vengeance, then she wasn't going to stop until she killed us. I searched for the building on the horizon, and found it easily; it was the only one left fully intact. I got Marisa's attention, pointed at the building, and said, "We need to take this over there. We can use it as a shield."

Marisa looked skeptical for a moment, but then nodded. "All right. Let's get everyone together then, ze."

CAUTION!

[SPELL CARD: BLAZING STAR "TEN EVIL STARS"]

Naturally, Jinwu didn't just let us regroup. Five stars exploded into existence around her in a ring, and then five more around that, each one huge enough to scrape the ground and reach the tops of skyscrapers, if there were any left. The two rings rotated in opposite directions while Jinwu herself let off constant waves of purple danmaku all around her, which Shanghai jumped to protect us from with her shield. The area we were in had instantly become a boiling hot danmaku maze, and Marisa had to get to dodging straight away as one of the stars swooped past us, nearly setting us aflame despite our protection. If anyone got hit in this, I wouldn't be able to see them... and if we didn't have our fire protection...

My mind instantly went to Koizumi, whose clothes had already half burned off. He'd been to our left just now - I tapped Marisa's left shoulder and shouted, "Left! Get Koizumi out first!"

Marisa obliged and veered off in his general direction, slipping between two stars that passed one another in the process. Even though she waited until they were decently apart, I still felt like I might burn up any second, but the protection held, and we soon found Koizumi attempting to back outside of the ring with his esper aura concentrated around his left side. He had a few new burns on his body.

"Quick!" I yelled.

"I know, I know!"

[SPELL CARD: COMET "BLAZING STAR"]

If I didn't know better, I'd say she probably used that one just to assert her trademark on the name. After attaching the mini-Hakkero to the back of her broom, she rocketed forward into Koizumi. I activated the Sword of Hisou and, with time now acceptably slowed down for my reflexes, reached out and brought him in aboard the broomstick before Marisa swerved and shot out of the pattern, pointing the business end of the laser in Jinwu's direction at the same time. Unfortunately it must not have hit, as the ten stars remained, but within a couple of seconds we were out of the maze.

"Stay out here!" I said as I let him go. Marisa turned us around to head back in search of the others, but Koizumi unexpectedly reached out and grabbed my left forearm before we could leave.

"Hold on," he said. "I believe that is what she wants you to do."

"What?" I looked back at him. He was bright red all over, with his left side turning a shade of yellow. It was kind of disturbing to look at, especially since he was acting like it didn't hurt. Maybe he just had that much adrenaline in him.

Oh right, I should-

I reached for my vials since I was nearby, but he pushed that hand aside, too. "Don't waste that on me," he said. "I expect I'll be in excruciating pain later, but save it for when you can heal more than one person at once. As for right now, I think Jinwu has caught on to your powers of prophecy."

The elixir? Junko never told her, though.

"...Wait, how do you know I have... something like that?" I said. I felt a little silly - it must have been obvious that something was up with me, and Koizumi never missed that kind of thing.

In reply, he offered a self-satisfied smirk. "You're surviving a lot of unlikely scenarios lately, and you always seem to know what's about to happen. Earlier, Junko made reference to the Ultramarine Orb - a mythical jewel that was said to remind Yue Zhang of all he had forgotten. I thought it was strange, yet she said it with such purpose, and was indicating towards you at the time. Am I wrong in guessing that she was informing Jinwu of some prognosticative ability you now possess?"

That's what that meant? She was telling Jinwu about me without cluing in the rest of us?

"...Yeah," I said, casting a wary eye at Marisa. "I can't give any details, but I have to get back in there. If someone dies without my noticing, I won't be able to save them!"

"As I said, I think she knows that. If I understood what happened back there, the Yatagarasu is now set on killing us in a way that you can't avoid."

"All the more reason to-"

"You have some type of communication with Ryoko Asakura, do you not? And I assume she is capable of perceiving whatever it is you are doing." Koizumi's eyes stared into mine, cold and calculating. Of course he'd noticed that. Trying to get anything past Koizumi was like trying to smuggle a rhinoceros through a crowded airport.

[Asakura:] "No one's dead yet, by the way."

...So she can tell me when to reset, and the two of us can stop it. In other words, I should stay as far out of the action as possible?

"Judging from what you've done so far, I'd wager you can see only up to about a minute into the future," lectured Koizumi. "However, it's inconsistent, and sometimes it's only a few seconds. Based on this, we can deduce that the effective time span is either random or based on some further criteria. If our enemy knows that, she'll do anything in her power to create an unwinnable situation within that window. Logically, we shouldn't risk putting you in her range. Am I wrong?"

...You're right. How the hell did you manage to figure all that out?

If Junko knew all about the elixir, then Jinwu probably does, too. She might even know how it works better than I do.

"...All right," I said, relaxing a bit. "We'll stay in reserve, then?"

Marisa frowned, but seemed to agree with Koizumi's reasoning. She pulled a vial from under her skirt, poured the contents into the mini-Hakkero, gave it a shake, and then busied herself with blasting laser beams at Jinwu from afar alongside Hourai. I wasn't happy about being sidelined, but at the same time, I was a bit relieved to think that maybe we had this in the bag as long as I stayed safe. For now, we had to wait for the others to get out before we could start moving towards the apartment.

As long as she doesn't have any weird new tricks...

"...By the way," I said after a moment, "Do you have any idea what they were talking about? Junko kept telling her to give up hope."

"You don't know the legend of the Yatagarasu?" Koizumi eyed me with some amusement, then pointed at the ten balls of plasma orbiting Jinwu. "Long ago, there were ten suns, and in each one resided a three-legged crow. However, when all the suns rose at once, the world burned; so Houyi, the husband of Chang'e, shot down all but one with a bow and nine arrows."

So when Junko talked about her sisters, and getting revenge...

I guess Hecatia promised her the power to bring them back?

"Incidentally, there is another legend of a man named Houyi. A ruler of an old Chinese dynasty who married a woman named Chunhu, only to later murder her son. His wife was said to have conspired in his assassination after that." He winked at me with another grin. "Interesting, no?"

I'll say. I... I guess that kind of explains why she was going after Chang'e.

Junko couldn't be satisfied killing just one person. If she'd already purified her vengeance by then, she probably wouldn't ever have been satisfied. Chang'e, his other wife - I don't know if he was married to her at the same time, or a different time, or if it was even the same person by the sound of it- was a convenient next target, and nothing more. Meanwhile, Jinwu harbored her own grudge, and was more than happy to go along with Junko even though she didn't seem to like her very much.

Asakura said that Jinwu would continue to purify herself as long as the nuclear reactor was running, but the reactor we're talking about was, essentially, the Sun. If we didn't stop her here, that grudge would keep burning for another ten billion years at least. If Junko could keep destroying Chang'e forever, then Jinwu would probably do the same thing on a much larger scale. The ruined universe around us attested to that.

When a monster is unchained, it doesn't discriminate.

Is Reimu's hidden power something like that, too...?

It wasn't long until I managed to spot the others. One by one, Sanae, Reisen, and Asakura made it to the outside of the pattern and began flying in the direction of the apartment building to the north. I'd have expected the spell card to follow after them, but it didn't - and I didn't see Reimu, either.

[SPELL CARD: DREAM LAND "GREAT DUPLEX BARRIER"]

Yep. She didn't even bother trying to flee.

The space in the center of the star rings distorted and split into cubes, clearly marked by a white, fluctuating boundary. Burning amulets lashed out from within, crossing and warping between the boundaries in a vain attempt at hitting anything before they turned to ash, but I gathered that Reimu wasn't actually trying to hit Jinwu with this spell. No, the real purpose of it was to lock her inside so that she could only attack Reimu.

"She must be trying to hold her off so the rest of us can get ahead," said Koizumi, turning in the direction of the apartment himself. "Shall we take advantage?"

I was skeptical that Reimu could survive in there. Even slipping through that first ring of stars to get to Jinwu would have taken some impressive danmaku skills - the gap between them was so small it was like threading a needle - but actually surviving in the center was even more questionable. Still, as long as that boundary existed, I could be sure that Reimu was still alive, so I raised no objection, and Marisa seemed to agree. With Koizumi holding on to the broom so he could keep up with us, she flew in the direction of our other allies while the battle raged behind us.

This whole plan was a long shot as well, but there was a reason I was so sure that Nagato's apartment building could withstand Jinwu's firepower: There's no way the Alternates didn't spot the one intact building in the whole city, and they had to have guessed that we'd come out at that point. Instead of staging an ambush right there, Jinwu had purposely lured us away from it towards the park. She knew as well as I did that it was a disadvantageous position for her.

Having a shield is great, but what else can we do there? Jinwu seems to burn up almost everything that comes near her. She can attack at range and up close, and even over large areas... Junko was tricky, but Jinwu's just overwhelming.

Meiling had managed to do a lot of damage to her, but it took one heck of a light show to do it, and that was before she was purified. It took speed, power, and a lot of fortitude. Of our group, maybe Asakura and Reimu could pull off an attack...

I saw flashes of white shoot up from the ground - pieces of rubble were being rapidly transformed into pure white light that shot towards Jinwu, and I recognized them immediately as the same kind of energy that Asakura had once attacked me with. Every shot was aimed on the far side of Jinwu compared to where Reimu's spell was coming from, which made me guess that she was trying to limit Jinwu's movement. Still, she didn't take any hits.

"I think this should be far enough," said Koizumi. "Can I ask you to help Reimu now? She can't last in there forever."

I looked back at him and said, "What? We're halfway there already, we can't turn around. What can we do, anyway?"

Koizumi turned his head - he hadn't been looking at Marisa or I, but to the side across the broomstick to which he was clinging. He gave a sheepish smile and said, "I didn't mean you, of course. The three of us will keep going to the apartment. If possible, can you have Asakura send Reimu some kind of signal to flee as well?"

"Then who the hell..." I looked at the other group; we were closing in, but still not near enough he could've been talking to them. There were only three people being towed by Marisa, and he'd just excluded all three of us.

...Three? No, there should be three total...

I counted heads again. There was me, Marisa, Koizumi, and...

...Someone moved on the edge of my vision, but by the time I realized it, they were gone. My body shook at the realization - not that someone was there, but that everything was so chaotic that I hadn't even noticed.

"Wh... Who was that? Who were you talking to?" I asked. And where the hell did they go?

"How shall I put it..." Koizumi put his other hand on the broom to stabilize himself and smiled up at me. "...Do you believe in guardian angels?"

"Despite everything? No, not really." If I had a guardian angel, I bet things would've been going a lot better up to now. Instead, I had Yukari.

"You might be surprised in a moment then." Koizumi looked back at the ongoing spells, keeping his composure and searching with his eyes as if he were waiting for something. I glanced at Marisa, but she had the same confused face as I did.

It was nothing but fire and plasma over there. Jinwu's danmaku flew every which way, warping through Reimu's boundaries and scattering into the distance. It was the same scene as it had been for the past minute or so... until I realized that Jinwu's purple shots were mixing with danmaku of all colors which danced about in a pattern that seemed to have little rhyme or reason. In fact, it was so chaotic that I couldn't even tell where it was coming from.

In the midst of all this, Asakura's shots all changed direction. They clustered together above Jinwu, facing down at Reimu, and formed into characters that I could just barely read from my angle.

RETREAT THIS WAY →

Well, that's effective. Whether or not Reimu listens, though...

Either she did listen or she got hit, because Reimu's spell card disappeared at that point. I couldn't see her, or anything really through the mass of danmaku and I started to get anxious, wondering if even Nagato and Asakura could tell if she was alive or not. Before they could respond with any kind of answer to that though, I saw her break out of the mass, her uniform blackened and a third of her skirt burned off from the bottom. I couldn't tell if she had any skin burns, but I did see her looking upward at an odd angle towards the same thing Koizumi was staring at. I followed their eyes, and soon, I noticed it too: The source of the new danmaku. A figure in a green skirt and yellow blouse and a wide black hat that wobbled back and forth on her head as she twirled in the air in a circle, releasing danmaku. When Reimu passed under her, she stopped throwing out her danmaku and instead thrust a spell card into the air, finishing the dance.

Wait, that's...

[SPELL CARD: REPRESENTATION "DANMAKU PARANOIA"]

That's Koishi, right?! When the hell did she get here?!

Large, round shots flowed out from her like a river, spreading out towards Jinwu as they went. They were spaced similarly to Junko's earlier spell, with each line staggered behind the next, but Koishi's shots were much bigger and slower. In fact, it looked kind of trivial to dodge this spell, which made me wonder why Jinwu's stars still weren't moving until they burst apart all at once.

Jinwu was surrounded by constantly shifting spikes of purple energy that ebbed all around her body, trapping her in a tiny space. The round shots washed over this space, confining Jinwu and forcing her to match their pace and contort her body around them as if time was slowed down. Not only were the spikes constantly jabbing in her direction, the space between the shots was getting constantly smaller; it looked downright scary to be in the middle of that. Jinwu tried to aim her cannon thing at Koishi to fire back, but she could only manage it a few times, and Koishi threw herself carelessly to the side each time, looking as if she were taking a dive after a soccer ball.

"When did... Was she right next to us?" I asked Koizumi.

"Indeed. She's been with us the whole time," he replied. "I only realized it myself when Jinwu could not explain why she failed to finish me off; in fact, I don't think I'd have survived my fight with Jinwu for any length of time if not for her and Asakura."

She's been fighting this whole time? And nobody noticed?

I mean, Yukari said something about her being hard to notice earlier, but...

I wasn't going to complain about having another ally, but at the same time, it was disturbing to think that such a thing was possible. Koishi was one of the people who Hecatia had wanted to absorb, which meant she had to be something special for sure.

Even so, Jinwu didn't seem fazed by Koishi's spell at all despite having already taken a hit from it. Her body, from what I could see, was still moving as precisely as a machine's through the rolling, threatening danmaku wave, capitalizing on every opening to try and shoot down Koishi. When it became clear that it was a fool's errand though, she opted for a different approach.

[SPELL CARD: CROW SIGN "YATAGARASU DIVE"]

Jinwu's whole body burst into flame and she accelerated through the spell, blasting the purple spikes and Koishi's danmaku both apart and forcing Koishi to back up. In the brief opening that created, Jinwu let off another barrage of plasma, and the klaxon blared again.

CAUTION!

[SPELL CARD: SEVEN STARS "SEPTENTRION"]

More plasma formed in front of the blunt end of her arm device and spewed forth, forming rapidly into seven individual stars that curved around towards Koishi in the pattern of the Big Dipper. Koishi dropped down to avoid it but as soon as she did, the constellation broke up and each star flew at her, spewing blue danmaku in all directions as they did so. Koishi was forced to spin about in the air in order to avoid them, but Jinwu didn't follow up; instead, she accelerated past Koishi and after the rest of us.

Is she going to catch up?

CAUTION!

[SPELL CARD: ATOMIC FIRE "UNCONTAINABLE NUCLEAR REACTION DIVE"]

Jinwu stopped for a moment, building up power in the reactor before blazing forward just as she'd done when we first saw her. She outpaced Koishi and her danmaku by a lot, and wove around the danmaku fire with which Reisen, Asakura, Marisa, and Koizumi tried to intercept her, never slowing down.

She's going to catch up!

The apartment was close enough that I could make out the individual windows. We'd almost arrived - but for all the time it had taken us to get here, Jinwu was closing the gap between us in a matter of seconds. The screaming, screeching sound of the reactor grew ever noisier as she approached, and I couldn't tell which one of us she was aiming for, but I had a sinking feeling that it was me.

If she puts us in an unwinnable situation, then...

[SPELL CARD: ESPER LIGHT "THE SUN BEYOND THE CAVE"]

That one, surprisingly, was Koizumi's. Without letting go of Marisa's broom, he reached out his scarred left hand and formed a great orb of red light between her and us. It radiated red danmaku in a spiral around it, drifting back and forth, but otherwise wasn't hugely impressive; however, when it appeared, Jinwu's charge seemed to slow down slightly. Seeing the opportunity, everyone else joined in.

[SPELL CARD: JEWEL SIGN "ORBS OF LIGHT, CAST INTO SHADE"]

[SPELL CARD: ASTROLOGIC SIGN "ORRERIES SUN"]

[SPELL CARD: MIRACLE "DAYTIME GUEST STARS"]

[SPELL CARD: LUNATIC SIGN "IMAGINED SOLAR ECLIPSE"]

Reimu shot out shining, twirling yin-yang orbs, Marisa summoned up four orbiting spirits that fired lasers, Sanae threw out more bright white stars that spewed lasers every which way, and Reisen's eyes flashed again, forming rings of bullets around Jinwu that closed in, half real and half not until the sheer mass of them blocked out even the light that was coming from her body. Through all of it though, Jinwu kept going, ducking through the rings with an inhuman level of focus and weaving around everything else like a machine. She drew closer and closer to Koizumi's star, and when she finally reached it, she collided with it head-on... and the whole star burst apart in a shower of red light, ending Koizumi's spell card prematurely.

"What...?" Koizumi gasped.

That wasn't the first time we'd seen someone bomb away a whole spell, but everyone's spells combined had seemed to at least be weakning her. With Koizumi's star gone, Jinwu's speed returned to her and she didn't even bother dodging anymore; she just charged through Sanae's stars and brushed everything else off, roaring with flame and fury towards us. With all of that, we'd only slowed her down a little bit. Even Asakura's ultra-precise shots weren't doing anything. I readied the Sword of Hisou as she came near, thinking maybe I could hit her if she charged... but she didn't. Instead, she flew straight past us, followed closely by an ear-splitting noise that was either her exhaust or a sonic boom.

My ears rang, the air sizzled, and light warped in on itself from the leftover heat of her passage. I watched as she cruised ahead of us, straight for the apartment building.

What is she...?!

[Asakura:] "We've miscalculated her output, haven't we?"

[Nagato:] "Agreed."

What does that mean?!

Jinwu dipped low in the air, aiming her body at the base of the apartment building, and dove into it, crashing through the wall and sending burning plasma spewing up and out of the previously untouched lower floors.

[Nagato:] "Calculations were made based on her unpurified state, modified according to observations of Junko's ability. However, the degree to which the purification ability itself was augmented by Jinwu's reactor was uncertain."

So then-

[Nagato:] "Additionally, the assumption was made that Asakura would be present in the building when it was attacked. That was what guaranteed its survival."

Can she destroy it?! Did we come here for nothing?!

The plasma stopped flowing, but the noise remained. The ground started to shake. There was a moment where we were all silent, still racing forwards, but wondering if maybe we should be moving back.

[Nagato:] "Energy output fast exceeding projections. Be on guard."

"Oy, Kyon..." wavered Marisa. "If you can see the future or somethin'..."

I didn't have to see the future to know that I was probably going to be killed in the next few seconds. All at once, the klaxon blared louder than ever, and the whole city quaked in time with it.

CAUTION! CAUTION! CAUTION! CAUTION! CAUTION! CAUTION! CAUTION! CAUTION!

[SPELL CARD: GEOTHERMAL "NUCLEAR BLAZE GEYSER"]

CAUTION! CAUTION! CAUTION! CAUTION! CAUTION! CAUTION! CAUTION! CAUTION!

Cracks opened up in the ground all around the apartment building, extending out for at least a square kilometer. The inside of them glowed bright red, lighting up the city once again in the moment just before pillars of lava burst up from them, raising above us in all directions in less than a single second. I barely had any time to think before-

CAUTION! CAUTION! CAUTION! CAUTION! CAUTION! CAUTION! CAUTION! CAUTION!

[SPELL CARD: GEOTHERMAL "NUCLEAR BLAZE GEYSER"]

CAUTION! CAUTION! CAUTION! CAUTION! CAUTION! CAUTION! CAUTION! CAUTION!

-Before it started all over again. I remembered only a second of white hot pain beginning from my ankles, which meant it must have come from below. Based on the available space around us, the only free spot was-

"-Right!" I blurted out as soon as the geysers started again. "Dodge right!"

Marisa swerved starboard just as another pillar rose up where we'd just been. I looked down - there weren't any cracks beneath us, so as long as we waited it out-

"In front!" cried Koizumi. I looked up just in time to see something burst through the geyser before us; a huge, vaguely L-shaped object that was covered in flowing lava. It had the same shape as... as the roof of the apartment building, with the entire apartment flying through the air behind it. It wasn't just the lava; she'd thrown the whole building at us.

You've gotta be kidding.

CAUTION! CAUTION! CAUTION! CAUTION! CAUTION! CAUTION! CAUTION! CAUTION!

[SPELL CARD: GEOTHERMAL "NUCLEAR BLAZE GEYSER"]

CAUTION! CAUTION! CAUTION! CAUTION! CAUTION! CAUTION! CAUTION! CAUTION!

Obviously Marisa hadn't stayed still and let herself be hit, but the space we had to work with was tiny. The building was so huge that by the time we knew it was coming, it was impossible to avoid. I struggled to keep up with the pace of this spell, barking orders at Marisa to dodge right and then immediately up. Marisa just barely - and I mean barely - managed to clear the building as it surged unstoppably through the superheated wall, brushing the edge of her broom and the soles of Koizumi's shoes on the wall of it and setting both aflame in the process. However, in the very second after we cleared the top of the lava spouts, I looked back towards where the school had been and saw Jinwu floating in the air just above a massive, broiling lava pit. She pointed her arm cannon thing at me and with another short rumble, several more geysers shot up diagonally at us, trapping us in a cage that crumbled in towards us.

There was nowhere to run.

On the next couple of attempts, I urged her to fly as fast as she could into the air. No dice - the geysers were somehow as fast as lasers and she couldn't outrun them even with a spell card. I told her to try diving under the building instead; that was safe for all of a second before the building fell down on our heads. Rising above the building but below the tops of the geysers was the same story, only this time I got hit by spraying lava. Every other direction in which I could dodge the first geyser would see me hit by another one, too. I tried to have Koizumi shape his aura into a shield, or the two of them use spell cards to break through the geysers, but the lava was too strong and it swallowed us instantly. Activating focus mode wasn't good for anything other than dying a little slower. As for the others...

[Asakura:] "We can survive. It seems like she's mostly aiming for you."

That's great, but can I get some help?!

[Asakura:] "The heat is disrupting my data jurisdiction. Sanae Kochiya has already tried a flood miracle, but it was ineffective. It sure seems like she's getting stronger by the minute, doesn't it?"

[Nagato:] "Purification was not instantaneous. Jinwu's power output is rapidly progressing towards its maximum potential."

In short, the others couldn't help. Koishi was too far behind to be of use, too. The Sword of Hisou was ineffective against the geysers - it could freeze them into obsidian, but more lava would come up right afterward - and Marisa and Koizumi didn't have the power to do anything about them either.

I thought I'd already left Hell behind, but this... This was Hell. My skin was constantly on fire, and I was constantly avoiding, searching, my mind racing for a solution before I died in only a few short seconds in a loop that seemed like it might last forever. In fact, I was afraid that it might. I had no idea how this elixir worked, but if this really was impossible, how long would I have had to keep doing this?

[Nagato:] "Listen to me. You must escape this."

I'm trying. Believe me, I'm trying.

Maybe I should have done something differently beforehand. I mean, we were still moving forward, maybe I should have told Marisa to stop and move up-

[Nagato:] "That's not going to help. You can't reset that far back."

Well, why not?! How does this thing work, anyway?! Seija destroyed the instructions! If she hadn't done that-

[Nagato:] "Jinwu has grown powerful because she forgot her past. Even if it's for vengeance, her doubts have been erased, and that has given her purpose. So where is yours? You had the will to destroy the Alternates not so long ago. You wanted to hurt them so much, it blinded you to your own pain. Where is that now?"

I could hardly believe that Nagato was saying this to me now. Was she telling me to hate Jinwu? Not only was that unlike her, what would it accomplish?

I threw that away. I don't want to end up like Junko and Jinwu. Even Reisen might be...

[Nagato:] "You haven't thrown away anything. You're still blaming someone for what's happening right now, aren't you? Whether it's another person or yourself, you're second-guessing everything. You've succumbed to fear. In only the span of this conversation, you've died seven times because you'd rather give up."

Why - why are you saying this?

[Nagato:] "Because what good is half-heartedly throwing away vengeance when it prevents you from having the will to fight?"

I couldn't respond. I couldn't even think. I was cycling through the spell card on autopilot, trying in vain to find some way to fly that would save us.

[Asakura:] "Wow, I'm surprised you could say all that to him. You've changed a lot, you know?"

[Nagato:] "I only became more human. Seeing this isn't easy for me, either."

How, then? What do I do?

I need help. The pain is...

It was getting to me. Feeling that over and over, without a rest, was unbearable.

[Nagato:] "You have an infinite present to reject a negative future. Turn away from 'what ifs,' just as Jinwu did."

I don't want to be like Jinwu.

Junko and Jinwu may have had drive, but only because they were consumed by their need to destroy. What did that leave them? Junko's grudge started with the killing of her son, but by the time she died, she had forgotten her son entirely. Neither one of them had a reason to fight; only the fight itself. It would consume them, and consume everything around them.

Was Nagato telling me to be like them? To turn into a monster just to destroy them?

...No. It was the opposite: She was telling me that even if it was all well and good to say I shouldn't become obsessed with hurting my enemy, the fact remained that I still needed the will to do it anyway. If I was constantly checking myself, constantly reassuring myself that I wasn't doing what I was doing for vengeance, I'd pretty much just be lying to myself. Purity of purpose could still be my power, if only I could purify myself in the right way.

...I don't want to be like Junko.

[Nagato:] "Then you won't be. Believe in that. Magic is proportional to will."

Another death, and another round. Nothing was any clearer. I still couldn't figure it out. However, if there was the slightest chance of getting through this unharmed, I'd find it eventually. I couldn't do anything but find it. I activated the Sword of Hisou, giving myself a bit of time to think before my next death. Dodging was impossible. Defending was impossible. Attacking Jinwu was impossible. Even attacking the geysers was impossible.

So what is possible?

It didn't come to me. I had to keep dying, keep observing and thinking about it. It wasn't easy to think under all this, but I had to if I wanted it to ever end. I stopped counting the number of times I died; instead, I counted the number of nearby factors.

First, Jinwu. She was on the far side of the incoming building, waiting to close off my escape if I tried going up. I couldn't see her or reach her, but I knew exactly where she was.

Second, the geysers. They surrounded me on all sides, and if I waited long enough, they'd start spraying inwards, drowning me under them. I could only momentarily remove a small part of them with the Sword of Hisou, but not nearly enough to escape or shoot through.

Third, the building that came crashing through the geysers. It was covered in lava, making it a bad idea to try touching it or using it in any way. It would come too fast to do very much before it arrived. Even if I broke part of it, the rest of the building would come after, so we couldn't blow the whole thing out of the way.

Fourth: Marisa. She was fast, and had mostly offensive spells. She was good for speed, stealth, and breaking things. That was her entire niche, and she stuck to it fast.

Fifth: Koizumi. He was strong and fast at close range, and he had a flexible aura that he could use to attack and defend... but he couldn't defend us from lava. As far as raw power, he wasn't that strong either.

The pieces just barely seemed to connect. As long as I analyzed them logically... And as long as I endured the hellfire that kept incinerating my body every few seconds...

Was there an answer somewhere in there?

...

Maybe?

The only reason we can't affect the lava is because it keeps spewing out, but there's a place where it's not. And the fact that the building is intact means...

After spending another failed round thinking of a semi-coherent plan, I waited for my next death and my next chance.

CAUTION! CAUTION! CAUTION! CAUTION! CAUTION! CAUTION! CAUTION! CAUTION!

[SPELL CARD: GEOTHERMAL "NUCLEAR BLAZE GEYSER"]

CAUTION! CAUTION! CAUTION! CAUTION! CAUTION! CAUTION! CAUTION! CAUTION!

"Fly right - and then bust through the thing that comes at us from the front! As fast and hard as you can! Koizumi, protect us once we're inside it!"

Marisa reacted immediately, swerving to the right just as she'd always done, but this time reaching back with her mini-Hakkero at the same time. At least I can always trust the two of them to be on the ball. I guess they're trusting my instructions, too.

With a splash of lava, the building emerged. Marisa cast the spell, diving straight at the thing without fear.

[SPELL CARD: "SUNGRAZER"]

A laser fired out from the back of her broom, but it accelerated much, much faster than Blazing Star. I activated the Sword of Hisou as quickly as I could and slashed at the building in front of us; both the lava and the roof, along with Nagato's protections on the building were blown away with one swing, and with several more, the way was clear. We burst through the top, now moving so quickly that it almost felt like real time, and the floor was coming up.

[SPELL CARD: PARADOX "JOURNEY OF INFINITE DICHOTOMY"]

As I slashed through the floor in front of us, many pieces of rock and stray drops of lava flew at us, yet they never made it the whole way; each one was wrapped in a red light that slowed them gradually as they neared us, each by half when it closed halfway in. I'd expected Koizumi to conjure a barrier of some kind, but this worked just as well, as none of the random debris to our sides could ever reach us, and anything in front of us could be removed with ease by the Sword of Hisou. We carved our way through the apartment building, through Nagato's apartment itself, and eventually out the bottom floor, and like emerging from a tunnel beneath a waterfall, we were finally out in the open air.

We weren't done yet, though.

Just being safe isn't enough. If I breathe for long enough, she'll just try again. The very moment we were clear, I pointed at the brightest thing in my vision, exactly where I knew Jinwu would be.

"Get her! Don't let her escape!"

Marisa jumped and stood up on her broom, then curved her flight path, surfing it like a rocket between the new geysers that shot up in front of us, trying to block our path. Koizumi's spell tried to slow them down, but they were far too powerful; it could only manage to protect us from the lava spray as we squeezed just barely into a hole between two pillars. The spell wore off just as we cleared it, but Marisa's continued, taking us straight at Jinwu, who had no time to react.

Fire protection, don't fail us now.

The air boiled around me. I lined up the Sword of Hisou, aiming at the eye in the center of her chest. I knew that even if I messed this up and reset, I still might lose my chance to end it before she got too powerful. Not every mistake could be fixed with the Elixir.

Don't miss.

Marisa's broom handle made contact with Jinwu's gut, and I thrust the Sword of Hisou forward with all my might. It went clean through, penetrating the eye dead center and coming out the back of her body - and when I looked into her eyes, there was no feeling ing them. They were wide and blank, devoid of all but the desire to kill me.

Well, I was the same. Even if it wasn't backed by feelings of hate, I still wanted nothing but to win this fight.

Marisa's full weight collided into her, and blue light wracked her body as she was carried forward by our momentum, still skewered on the sword. Her body tensed up, and she tried to lift her right arm one more time. I didn't hesitate; I twisted the sword sideways and swung it out to the left, carving through her torso and severing her right arm - and the machine attached to it - in one swift stroke. Crystals of ice encrusted the wound I made and grew outward, spreading over her body from every point of contact between her and the blade. Expressionless, she fell to the side, falling behind us and vanishing into Marisa's beam. Marisa kept flying up and out, never letting up with the beam until the spell card had run its course.

At that point, we were high in the sky, and I could see all of what was left of Nishinomiya. The ground below us looked like Hell, still glowing red and rumbling from the aftereffects of Utsuho's spell card. Black smoke was rising in high towers from the cracks in the earth. Nothing at all was left of Nagato's apartment, and lava still roiled up in the place upon which it once sat, summoned from somewhere in the depths of the earth. Off to the south, the park was a crater; no doubt the bench I'd spent so much time on had been reduced to atoms.

Before, it seemed strange to think that this universe had been destroyed by Jinwu alone. Having almost witnessed her full potential though, it now seemed a bit more plausible. Even though it wasn't my universe, it was still more horrible than all the dreams I'd had about it.

After a few moments, Marisa brought us back down again. Reimu, Marisa, Reisen, and Asakura flew up to join us; for some reason, I thought we might have been short a person, but all seven of us were here. Sanae was cheering our victory, but Reisen wasn't so optimistic.

"I'm not calling her dead until I see a body," she said, drifting towards the spot where Marisa's beam had impacted the ruins of a building a little ways out from the lava pit. We hardly had reason to protest, so we all fanned out, searching from above for any sign of Jinwu. We didn't have to look for long. Asakura called out and pointed at the edge of the ruins - unbelievably, there she was, on her feet and on the move.

She had a hole where the Yatagarasu's eye had been, a chunk taken out of her side, a missing right arm, and her whole body and burnt-out wings were coated in a layer of ice. Shining through the ice crystals was a deep red glow however, and it only seemed to glow brighter with every shambling step she took out from the ruins, her eyes as sightless as those of a corpse.

How the hell...

Even Junko and Mayumi hadn't been that resilient. Was it even fair to call it resilience? At this point, it was more like she was undead. None of us were willing to give her the chance to make a recovery; everyone pelted her with danmaku from above, and she fell backwards from the impact of it all, shattering some the ice when her body hit the ground. The glow grew brighter, and flames licked up through the cracks in the ice. The cement that encased her right leg began to shift and glow with an odd white light, as did the particles orbiting her left leg.

The light became so bright that it coalesced into-

CAUTION! CAUTION! CAUTION! CAUTION! CAUTION! CAUTION! CAUTION! CAUTION!

"Look out!" I cried. Marisa veered left as streams of plasma erupted from Jinwu in every direction, one of which almost grazed us. They continued to shoot out, a seemingly infinite amount of them in an incredibly dense pattern that forced Marisa to wobble her way towards the ground. Some of us tried to group up again while dodging - Koizumi, Reisen, and Reimu managed to find their way to us and take shelter behind a crumbled building, but every bit of plasma that impacted its walls melted them down a little bit more. We were near one of the glowing cracks too, and the shaking of the ground was only growing stronger along with Jinwu's power.

"How'n the heck did she survive all that?!" said Marisa, peeking out of the rubble with a grimace.

Reisen was quick to take up a position behind the building across from where Marisa was peeking, holding her rifle at the ready. "These people are too strong for their own good," she groaned.

"Isn't it because you cut off her Third Leg?" said a voice I'd never heard before. In confusion, I looked back at Koizumi, but he was looking to the side at another person, who it took me a moment to remember.

"Koishi?" Marisa blurted out.

When did she get here? I mean, she was always here, but...

"You mean that arm cannon thing?" I asked. Jinwu didn't look like she had more than two legs, and that was the only thing I'd cut off.

Koishi wobbled her head back and forth oddly, her hat tilting on top of her head in time with her movements. "Does it look like a cannon?" she said.

I mean, it didn't have a hole on the end, but what else was I supposed to think it was? She kept shooting beams out from in front of it.

"What exactly is her Third Leg, then?" asked Koizumi, getting us back on track. He had his usual thoughtful look on, which meant he was probably already trying to solve this whole thing in his head.

"Okuu has three legs. A fission leg, a fusion leg, and the Third Leg controls them." Koishi recited as though she were recalling something she read in a textbook without actually thinking about it. Her whole demeanor was strange; her eyes were unfocused and wandering, her body wavered back and forth all the time, and her arms dangled loosely inside the overly long sleeves of her shirt. The purple third eye over her chest was shut tight even though I was now seeing her awake. I could hardly recall what Yukari had said about her - something about her closing her mind along with her eye. Looking at her now, something about her did feel a little bit off.

"So because she is now missing her Third Leg, she cannot control her power." Koizumi tapped his chin and glanced at me. It wasn't an accusatory look, but I still felt self-conscious. I mean, who wouldn't have aimed for the cannon-looking thing on her arm?

"We need to hit her before she gets back up," said Reimu. "If she can't control herself, it just means she's vulnerable. It'll only become a bigger problem if we wait."

"I'm not so sure that's the right approach," said Koizumi. Just as I thought, he seemed to have hit on something. To my surprise, and I think his own, the rest of us turned to him, giving him our full attention.

Even burned and beaten and exhausted as he was, Koizumi was still trying his best not to let it show, leaning his waist on the wall to support himself and taking great care to control his breathing. He'd committed his whole being to this fight from the very start while keeping a level head, and I think everyone recognized the wisdom in listening to what he had to say. Even I had to admit that he was a few steps ahead of me in that regard. He took in stride though, and spread his hands as he explained his thoughts.

"We've only been trying to overpower her this whole time, but if Jinwu has demonstrated to us one thing, it is that no star shines brighter than hers. Our every attempt at weakening her was met with overpowering force. By now, what was done to her has made her incredibly strong; all of us together couldn't possibly surpass that level of raw power."

Reimu frowned at him and said, "Well, what do we do then? The only way I see is if we cut off her other legs."

Koizumi slowly nodded. "Perhaps... If she ever lets us get that close. I fear she may have already passed the threshold of power where that is no longer an option, though. However, you have the right idea in attacking the source of her power - as for me, I'd say the greater concern is that willpower she has. She wants nothing more than to burn everything to ash, and that purity of focus is what is enabling the chain reaction within her between Junko's power and her own. I think it may be worth attempting to disrupt her from the inside before we think about doing anything to her externally."

Koizumi's eyes went over to Koishi, and the rest of us stared at her in turn. Koishi, who didn't appear to be listening, just smiled back at us.

She... Uh, what did Yukari say about her power again?

[Nagato:] "Power over the unconscious. She is capable of influencing the emotions and instincts of others."

...I guess I can see how that might be helpful.

"I've noticed of late that spell cards can be used for more than just attacking and defending," continued Koizumi. "The interactions between spell cards can in fact be quite complicated, but while some might appear weak or strange, they can be used to great effect if one knows their true meaning. Thus, I want to know, Koishi: If Jinwu's purification is truly incomplete, is there any spell of yours which might be able to drag out the impurity in her heart?"

Koishi tilted her head, stared blankly at Koizumi and said, "You want me to play danmaku with Okuu?"

She... she didn't really understand a word of that, did she?

Koizumi didn't flinch, though. "Indeed," he said. "Play danmaku with her and reach deep into her mind."

Koishi's eyes turned aside, staring through the ruined building in Jinwu's direction. I had no idea what she was thinking, or even if she was thinking at all, but with the same casual tone as before, she said, "Okay. I'll save her."

With that, she took off into the air, dodging the plasma barrage with fluid, graceful motions like she was dancing through the air on her way towards Jinwu. I joined Marisa in trying to peek at her, but Reimu didn't bother with that and flew after Koishi along with Reisen. Koizumi and Marisa, who were quite worn out by now, stayed behind with me.

CAUTION! CAUTION! CAUTION! CAUTION! CAUTION! CAUTION! CAUTION! CAUTION!

Jinwu wasn't on the ground anymore. Her body was wrapped in pure plasma like she was made of it, and the amount flying off of her had only increased. She was the center of a storm of plasma, almost a new star in its own right, burning unstoppably along her march and marking the ground pure black where she tread. With the Third Leg gone, I had no idea what was still making the siren noise that was still blaring above the noise of the storm; maybe I was just imagining it, or maybe the sound of it had fused to her soul.

Koishi, Reimu, and Reisen moved in, but not quickly enough. Jinwu reached the edge of the lava pit and, without ceremony, tipped her whole body forward and fell in. The rumbling of the ground grew ever louder, eclipsing all the other noise, and a fountain of lava erupted from the pit, reaching a skyscraper's height within a second. I felt something - a wave of power rushing past me, in towards the center like a reverse shockwave.

"She's castin' another spell," said Marisa, mounting her broomstick and ushering Koizumi and me behind her. "If it's anythin' like that last one..."

Yep. We're not safe here.

CAUTION! CAUTION! CAUTION! CAUTION! CAUTION! CAUTION! CAUTION! CAUTION!

[SPELL CARD: UNIVERSAL FUSION "NUCLEAR BIG CRUNCH"]

CAUTION! CAUTION! CAUTION! CAUTION! CAUTION! CAUTION! CAUTION! CAUTION!

I felt the reverse shockwave again - only this time, it wasn't just some vague feeling. I saw it, too. The buildings next to us buckled, and the three of us were momentarily thrown against the side of the building as gravity itself buckled and turned inwards. The ground beneath us cracked and shifted.

"Fly! Fly!" I shouted. I needn't have done so; Marisa was already in the air, dragging Koizumi behind us and dodging the shower of plasma which was flowing out from the lava fountain. At the same time, pieces of brick, glass, and concrete were flying at us from the front - the whole city around us seemed to be moving in towards Jinwu, and a tidal wave of loose debris was collecting ahead of us at last half a kilometer away.

How... How far does this spell reach?!

The heaviest objects came at us first; entire wall sections, bridges, steel beams and so forth hurtled through the air in our direction. Marisa tried to climb and avoid the wave entirely, but gravity seemed to increase the higher we went, making it impossible to fly any higher. Marisa was forced to dodge around the pieces of the city instead... which wasn't too much of a problem until the small stuff started coming at us. At the speed it all was going, just getting hit by a single piece of dust could cause an injury.

[SPELL CARD: PARADOX "EPISTEMIC RAIN UMBRELLA"]

I had no idea what that meant and I wasn't about to ask, but Koizumi's spell card conjured a wide red barrier in front of us that slammed through the oncoming torrent, simultaneously protecting us and giving Marisa enough vision to see and dodge the larger pieces of rubble. Meanwhile behind us, the lava fountain was compressing itself into Jinwu's body; everything was collapsing into white energy as it drew near her, feeding the fire even more, and she hovered above the pit; a being of pure plasma with only one arm and a gaping hole in the center of its chest. She hardly resembled Utsuho anymore, much less the Yatagarasu. Whatever she was becoming, it was something completely new.

[Nagato:] "Energy output is increasing exponentially. I cannot predict the limit."

[Asakura:] "Maybe we should take the name of that spell literally?"

Like she might swallow the entire universe?

Right now, the ground underneath her was breaking off and absorbing into her. The crushing gravity was slowly affecting more and more space, and to some extent, it felt like she might reach the whole neighborhood. If it kept increasing like this...

...Yeah, I can believe it.

Part of me thought that maybe we should have let her do it; in Jinwu's present state, would she have cared if Hecatia and the other Alternates got sucked in? Maybe if Koizumi's plan failed, that would have to be our last-ditch effort.

Sanae and Asakura had joined up with Reimu and the three of them were now using their abilities to try and protect Reisen and Koishi from the debris; a combination of barriers and miracles was creating a wide open space for them, and all they had to worry about were the huge objects that broke through and the plasma beams that Jinwu shot out at them to defend herself. Reisen said something to Koishi, and the two of them drew spell cards.

[SPELL CARD: ILLUSION WAVE "MIND BLOWING"]

Reisen spun her rifle in a circle, firing off rings of red and blue bullets that seemed to blend with one another. Jinwu moved at once to dodge them, but her flight looked odd, and I realized that Reisen was using more hypnosis. As she did so, Koishi danced her way dangerously close to Jinwu, spun in place, and cast her own spell.

[SPELL CARD: REKINDLED "THE EMBERS OF LOVE"]

And from this spell were conjured... two big, pink hearts. She launched them at Jinwu, trailing flames behind them in a mix of red, white, and blue, and though she soon followed them up with two more, and then two more, aimed in different directions so as to surround her target, Jinwu had little trouble dodging between them. However, I felt a sudden shift in the gravity of her spell. Marisa was suddenly moving faster, which meant the effect was getting weaker.

Is she actually doing something with that?

As soon as it came though, the lapse was corrected; the G-force increased until it was pulling us backwards, much to Marisa's alarm. "H-hey, guys, we gotta do somethin'," she said, straining herself to try and move against it. The others looked like they were having trouble avoiding being sucked in as well, but Asakura now had her arms out and seemed to be stabilizing them.

"I think the only thing we can do is join the others," said Koizumi. "Ironically, it looks safer there than out here."

I had to agree. Reimu, Sanae, and Asakura had gone and created a fortified location against all the stuff we had to dodge out here, so as long as Jinwu was using this spell, dodging plasma seemed easier. With some hesitancy, Marisa let up on her broomstick and allowed us to fall backward.

Well, it wasn't just the plasma. Marisa had to dodge through Reisen's bullet rings as well when we got close enough, leading me to wonder if their plan was working. The danmaku was more threatening to us than it was to Jinwu, and Jinwu was no longer showing any signs of being affected by the hypnosis. After we swept past Reimu and into the safe zone, I heard Reisen raising her voice above the din.

"There's nothing left of her. She's completely purified now!"

Were we too late? I watched Koishi. She was frowning, but didn't stop prancing about in the air while she dodged. "No!" she said. "I'm talking to Okuu! I can do it!"

She didn't seem to get that the person in the fire wasn't Utsuho. Her spell clearly wasn't working, either. Koizumi, on the other hand, didn't look nearly as worried about it. In fact, he only seemed to grow more confident when he heard that.

"I think we can win," he said. "However, I feel it may require an extra push." He hovered up by me, leaned his body into mine, held out his right hand and said, "May I have a look at the spells you got from Lady Komeiji?"

More than a little uncomfortable about his sudden closeness, I nonetheless procured the recollection cards without complaint. Koizumi flipped through them quickly before his face lit up and grabbed one - he'd clearly been hoping that Satori had given me a certain spell. I saw the name when he held it up to read it - Recollection "Overturning All Under Heaven."

Hell no. Why do you want that one?

Turning his face to mine with a grin, he said, "Like it was fated, no?"

"Don't act like I know what you're thinking. You know that spell just turns people upside down, right?"

Koizumi wagged a finger at me. "Have you already forgotten? To use the spell properly, you have to know what it means. You of all people should know." He tapped the part under the name, where the spell's effect was described. Most spells' descriptions were written by their users, but Satori's recollection spells were a little bit different.

When I saw it, I came to realize how far she would go. There is nothing that can't be reversed. Front to back, inside out, and upside down, all things will be inverted without reaching equilibrium. How is it that I can feel pride in something so sinister? In the world turned on its head, even simple and weak danmaku can become strong.

It was an echo of my thoughts from back when Seija had flipped Keine upside down. My best guess was that Koizumi thought the power relationship between Jinwu and Koishi could be inverted with this, but it seemed a little simple that that could be the case; if Seija had the power to do something like that all by herself, she wouldn't have struggled so much in battle.

"I was curious about this one ever since I saw it," said Koizumi, looking down at the card with a strange feeling of pride. It wasn't for long though, as he tapped Marisa's shoulder and bade her take us closer to Koishi, which she obliged. "I could only wonder at the time as to its true meaning, but now I have a hunch what can be done with it. It's your memory, though; you and I will have to cast it together. Remember, there is nothing that can't be reversed."

He couldn't have been talking about Jinwu's purification. Even if Reisen was wrong that she was fully purified now, that would still take more power than Seija was capable of. Despite what he said, and even if he didn't know who Seija was, he must have understood that reversing Junko's ability would be impossible with this. He didn't give me time to ask questions though, as we came up between Reisen and Koishi as soon as he'd finished speaking. The plasma fire was thick here, but Marisa kept on the ball with dodging it and Shanghai did her best to cover us with her shield. Thankfully Reisen's and Koishi's spells had both timed out, so that was all we had to dodge. The fact that Jinwu's was still going seemed to indicate that it had no such limit.

"But I have to be closer!" I heard Koishi whine was we drew near.

Reisen threw glance at her before noticing the three of us. "Fine," she said. "Marisa, you can clear a path for her, right?"

Marisa looked at Reisen, then at Koizumi. He nodded, and she said, "Yeah, alright. What's the plan, anyway?"

Koizumi raised his voice so the other two could hear. "Miss Kirisame will create a window of opportunity for us to get closer. When we do, Miss Komeiji will draw out what is sealed in Jinwu's heart, and we -" he gestured to me with the spell card he was holding "- shall see if we can subsume her will beneath it. After that, Miss Komeiji must keep Jinwu's heart locked away while Miss Udongein Inaba finishes her off. Does that sound agreeable?"

Yeah, except I didn't understand that. Are we flipping her heart? How does that work? I don't think that works at all!

[Nagato:] "Will you not trust him?"

I didn't say that, but...

But nothing. I may not have understood it, but Koizumi clearly knew more about spell cards than I did. I could blame him all I wanted after we failed, but for now...

...No, I'll trust him.

Really, I had to trust everyone for this. Reimu, Sanae, and Asakura were keeping us safe in this zone. Marisa was giving us the chance to strike, and Koishi, Koizumi, Reisen and me were the ones doing the striking. Even Nagato was helping to keep me focused. All the tools and powers I had were things that the others who stayed behind had given me in support. Hesitating here would be like betraying their trust in me, as well.

Everyone else agreed, and Marisa accelerated, with Koishi close behind us. "Get ready with that shield, Kyon!" she cried, dodging her way as close to Jinwu as she could manage before the heat and gravity became too much. I brought Shanghai in close to defend us, and when I did so, Marisa turned herself upside down, grabbed my hands, and pulled herself away from me, dropping me down towards the ground.

What-

I held the Sword of Hisou close, trying not to be distracted. Koizumi flew down next to me, wrapping his good arm around my waist and holding me up while Shanghai struggled to keep her rapidly-melting shield between us and the plasma shots.

"Can you feel it?" he whispered in my ear. "Another voice, beneath Jinwu's soul. That's what we're going to exchange!"

...What?

I squinted at Jinwu, who was now taking on a form like pure light. She wasn't speaking, and her only movements were to dodge Reisen's cover fire. She was staring into all of us with two white glowing eyes, pure determination writ on what might have been her face.

[SPELL CARD: STAR SIGN "DRAGON METEOR"]

...Before that vision was blocked out by a huge, rainbow-colored laser from above. All the plasma in front of us was blown away, creating a temporary safe spot that wavered a bit as Marisa tried to dodge while firing downwards. Almost at the same time, Koishi rose behind us and cast a spell of her own.

[SPELL CARD: INSTINCT "RELEASE OF THE ID"]

More big, pink danmaku hearts flowed out from her, only this time, it was a massive wave of them in all directions. With nothing else coming from the front, I moved Shanghai behind me to catch the hearts. Koizumi dodged what he could with me weighing him down, but his attention was focused on the spell in his fingers, which he held out for me to put a hand on as well.

"Feel it?" he said. "The way that Jinwu is right now is backwards from how she should be, isn't it? Shouldn't we make it right again?"

Finally realizing what he was talking about, I said, "Yeah. All right, let's do it."

The two of us lifted the spell into the air and cast it alongside Koishi's hearts, willing it in the direction of Jinwu. It was more Koizumi's power fueling it than mine, but my memories were the ones that gave it shape.

[SPELL CARD: RECOLLECTION "OVERTURNING ALL UNDER HEAVEN"]

We couldn't see her, but, I knew that Jinwu had been flipped. There was a subtle shift in her gravitational pull when it happened, like it was momentarily twisted. At the same time, and I don't know if I was imagining this, but it felt like something else was pulled forward. Flaming purple danmaku also appeared around Jinwu, most of it that I could see being swallowed up by Marisa's laser. It didn't really matter; the point was the spell's other effect.

"Now!" yelled out Koizumi. Koishi's spell ended abruptly, though the hearts she was putting off didn't disappear, and instead scattered about. She rushed forward in the air, passing into the empty space left behind when Marisa's laser ran itself out. Her arms were open wide, and although smoke rose up from the edges of her shirt and hat, she didn't seem to mind the heat. At the same time, I saw Jinwu's eyes again... and they looked different. Still determined, but now with a feeling of self-conflict. Something was definitely happening inside her, all right.

"Okuu!" cried Koishi. She kept going in towards the burning Jinwu, and threw her arms about her. I panicked for a moment, thinking she was about to be fused into her, but it didn't happen. She pulled Jinwu's body into a hug, and Jinwu stayed perfectly still.

Did we actually...?

[SPELL CARD: SUPPRESSION "SUPER-EGO"]

All of a sudden, the pink hearts left over from Koishi's earlier spell turned around and dyed themselves bright cyan. They began to flow, all as one, back into Koishi. Jinwu's own spell was still going, but the gravity pull weakened to almost nothing, and the plasma shots stopped firing out. The hearts drove themselves into Jinwu's body to get to Koishi's, but the two of them remained still, the fusion roar quieting down all the while.

"Lady Koishi..." I heard Jinwu's voice at last. The hard, noble edge it had carried before was now gone. "Where is Lady Satori...?"

"They're home. Everyone's safe at home. Even you, Okuu."

That's actually Utsuho now, isn't it? The alternate Utsuho from that universe?

Their conversation was interrupted by the firing of a gun. Reisen had gotten underneath the two of them and had begun unloading her entire magazine into Utsuho's right thigh, the magic-infused bullets tearing into her flesh with no resistance. There was a flash of fire and her right leg fell away, ending the fusion spell card - and her power of fusion altogether - for good.

I instinctively began to shout. Reisen was following the plan, but did she realize who she was shooting? Isn't Jinwu sealed now?! We can spare her-

"We can't spare her," said Koizumi grimly as if reading my thoughts. "It took a lot just to bring this Utsuho back up to the surface. As long as Jinwu is possessed by that pure will, she'll always break out again."

"But there has to be a way!" I said. "We can separate them or something. Reimu could, I don't know, do an exorcism-"

More gunshots. Reisen had reloaded, and was working on the left leg. Koizumi just looked at me with a sympathetic smile. "Are you willing to risk the universe on that?" he said.

You can't say that. We've gotten this far without losing anyone! I don't want to let them kill a single more person!

The left leg fell away. Koishi, unperturbed by the bullets flying around her knees, stared into Utsuho's eyes as the flames around her body began to die away. Utsuho's body was burnt and scarred all over, and her face was streaked with tears. The two of them fell and landed on the ground together, Koishi on top and Utsuho on the bottom. Koizumi dipped down with me towards the ground and I pulled myself free, running as soon as I landed towards the two of them.

Just because we have to win at all costs doesn't mean that winning has to have a cost!

I climbed and leapt over the ruins as quickly as I could, reaching the edge of the lava pit in only a few seconds. Reisen had landed as well, and was advancing on the two of them with her rifle in a ready position.

"Reisen!" I called. "That's Utsuho! It's not Jinwu anymore!"

Reisen didn't reply out loud, but instead gave me a look that said, "Yes, so what?"

I made it to between Reisen and Utsuho and bent over, wheezing to catch my breath. "We can... We can save her."

Reisen silently kept walking, put a gentle hand on my shoulder as I rose to face her, and pushed me out of the way.

"Reisen!"

"She's already dead!" she snapped back at me, still walking forward. "We can't change the past, all right? There's nothing we can do for her now!"

We can. We can change it.

I activated the Sword of Hisou again. Time slowed down, and I pointed it towards my hand. I didn't know what I was going to do, but... I had to do something. However far it sent me back, there had to be a way.

[Nagato:] "Jinwu created a spell card to consume the universe. Correct?"

Yeah. What of it?

[Nagato:] "She has not used it here in order to create a base for the Alternates, but she must have used it at least once in the past."

...And?

[Nagato:] "And that means she now has at least one universe's worth of matter fused into her body, but no longer any power over fusion and fission. Because her Third Leg was severed, she will not be able to control her power enough to contain the mass for long."

I looked at Utsuho. Her skin's texture was shifting, turning strangely liquid, and a soft white glow was building inside her. Her eyes held a mixture of relief and fear, and she lay numbly where she was, not moving except for the twitching of her face as she watched Reisen approach.

[Nagato:] "If her Third Leg were not severed however, it would be impossible to free her. Either way, you can no longer reset far enough back to save her."

Can't... Can't you...

Obviously, Asakura couldn't have done anything. Even she can't hold back the Big Bang.

[Asakura:] "There's already an Utsuho in our universe, you know?"

It's not about that, Asakura. I mean, I knew she was right; I didn't even know our universe's Utsuho, much less this one, so it didn't affect me whether she lived or died. Still, to have someone's life in my hands and be completely unable to do anything...?

Didn't you tell me to never give up? Shouldn't we be trying to find a way?

[Nagato:] "You can't ignore your own limits."

Could I accept that reasoning?

Should I have done something? Tried to interfere somehow? Maybe. I don't know. I was numb from everything that had just happened. I didn't want to let go of the progress we'd made and risk everything just to save one already broken life. I couldn't deny that Reisen had a point. At the same time, she'd been acting different ever since we met back up with her.

Reisen stopped in front of Utsuho and pointed the rifle barrel at her face. Utsuho looked back up at her, now plainly fearful for what was about to happen.

"You're going to want to look away," said Reisen.

She pulled the trigger, and I flinched. A gunshot sounded, and then another, and several more for good measure. I heard Koizumi whispering assurances to Koishi, who he'd picked up and was now holding back from writhing all over the place. I snuck a peek and saw Koishi's whole face scrunched up in intense emotion, and wondered if she fully comprehended what had happened. I mean, even Satori had seemed pretty distant from her own pet; there was no way Koishi had a close relationship with Utsuho, right? Yet here she was, reacting like this.

After the gunshots faded, a bright light started to shine from where Utsuho was. Asakura stepped forward, raised her hands, and all at once, the light winked out. Everyone was silent after that, until Marisa finally arrived with the others on her tail.

"Did we win?" she asked, looking around with her eyes wide open and her adrenaline still obviously pumping. "Where's Jinwu?"

"Fifty three parsecs in... that direction," said Asakura, pointing at what seemed like a random spot in the sky. "Her body is converting into a supermassive black hole as we speak."

"Uh, I don't really get that, but if ya say her 'body,' that means she's dead, right?" Marisa looked at each of us, lingering a bit on the fitful Koishi.

Koizumi nodded at her, still struggling to restrain Koishi. "Indeed it does. I have to assume there's still time for us to complete our mission before that black hole consumes the rest of the universe, right?"

"More time than we ever need to worry about!" Asakura confirmed with a smile that rubbed me for sure the wrong way.

"Then we need to hunt down the rest of them before they escape," said Reisen, already walking eastward in the direction of North High. The efficiency with which she forgot about what she'd just done gave me pause, but I took a few steps into her path before she got too far. She eyed me, slowed down, and said, "What?"

I caught myself closing my fist while staring at her. My body was tensing out of pure frustration over what I went through, what I witnessed. I didn't really know what I wanted to say, of if I could say anything that wouldn't make this worse. She was doing the right thing, and I wasn't going to stop her. But still, it bothered me. I wasn't seeing a cold and methodical soldier in her actions now - there was something behind her eyes that looked a bit too familiar to me.

I took several deep breaths, getting myself under control. "She couldn't be saved," I said. "Right?"

Reisen's eyes narrowed. "Right."

"Is that the only reason you shot her up?" In front of one of her owners, no less. The reaction that Koishi had still danced in my mind.

Reisen faced her body towards me, keeping her hands on her rifle and the barrel pointed aside. Her deep red eyes locked on to mine, scrutinizing me, and I instinctively avoided looking directly into her pupils.

"Is it a problem if it wasn't?" she asked.

I took a deep breath. I didn't want to get into an argument now, and there were more important things. But I felt like I needed to express something, at least.

"Jinwu and Junko... weren't the same people they used to be," I said. "I think at some point, they both forgot what they were fighting for." I felt awkward saying this under her stare, but I kept going, trying to make my point. "Even if they had beat us hands down, neither one of them was ever going to be happy again. Not after losing themselves that much. I mean, god damn it, Reisen. They lost control of themselves. You of all people-" I clenched my teeth, realizing where I was going with that, and it wasn't what I wanted to say, because it might have been insulting.

I had no idea if Reisen even felt that way about anything... but I couldn't shake the feeling that she was headed in that same direction. I didn't want to lose anyone else to the Alternates, and that included her.

"I'm a trained soldier, Kyon. I know how to keep my feelings under control."

"But you get what I'm saying, right?"

I pleaded with her with my eyes, still uncertain about everything. Maybe I was more worried about myself than about her. I mean, even now I was still trying to figure out what balance of will and reason was right. I didn't want to say nothing, though.

Reisen stared at me for what felt like a long time. She closed her eyes, flattened her mouth, and said, "Yeah. I get it." Then she kept walking, not looking at me anymore.

I had to hope it was enough to ease my own uncertainty, if not for her own. I mean, I kind of get it. If Junko went and said something along the lines of her wanting to control the Japanese people and endlessly kill them for her own amusement, I'd possibly lose it too. No, this was made personal for Reisen, for her race, and for her home.

I heard a noise, noticing that Koizumi was still holding onto Koishi, who was sobbing. I understood why Reisen walked away - she couldn't face Koishi. It would be like putting down a pet in front of a child. In fact, that's pretty much what it was. Koizumi was giving his usual smiles, through the pain of his burns, trying to assure the satori. Seeing her like that, being forced to watch an alternate version of someone she knew killed in front of her just tugged at my heart strings. I don't even want to know what that feels like for those close to me. I don't think I'd be strong enough for that, or if I could retain my composure. Damn you, Hecatia.

The people that followed her, their ruthlessness, the results of their work. It was all around me. Again, I know I grew up wanting to fight against such people, but damn it it's not what it's cracked up to be. To deal with villains you need to deal with their work, see it first hand.

I stood there, uncertain of how I was to go about it, but I made my way to Koizumi and Koishi, determined to do my best to help her. Like with Reisen, I couldn't not do anything. Koishi's suffering was due to Hecatia, and I couldn't do nothing about it.

She kept waiting. She saw the battle across the city - how could anyone not? The firepower on display was too intense. She had a portal ready, just in case she needed to bail should the fight climax in a nuclear explosion. Hell, it even looked like there were several.

Stupid Junko. I knew you were going to do that. Purifying a damn nuclear powered thing to make it even more powerful...

Seija anticipated it, was ready, but the world-ender didn't happen. Even when the ground rumbled from the fighting, from the raw power of Jinwu, the world remained.

Which meant that they won the battle against Junko and Jinwu.

Seija didn't know what to think after that. Two of their most powerful members, working together, hadn't been enough. Seija couldn't see a single sign that either one had survived, nor could she feel them through their connection to Hecatia. Even with a raw power that couldn't be overcome, the epitome of the outside world's technology, it still hadn't been enough to stop them.

It was actually impressive.

They killed Junko. They killed Jinwu. Mayumi is in pieces. Clownpiece is missing teeth. Hecatia got knocked out... And of course, Yukari was able to stand up to Seija.

Seija continued to stare out at the city, silent for several moments, before deciding on what to do.

The lesser of two evils...

It sickened her to even think about working with Yukari, especially with how powerful she'd gotten, but to continue the charade she had been putting up with for so long was even more sickening. Her game with Hecatia had to end here.

Maybe... just maybe...

It was time for Seija to act.

Koishi Komeiji acted like a child. She was just as petite as her sister, and her mannerisms made it seem like she wasn't even really hearing you. Neither me nor Koizumi were sure she was listening to us as we tried to calm her down, but she seemed to at least understand that the Utsuho who had died wasn't the same one she knew. She just stared at us with those wide innocent eyes, and she kept reminding me of my own sister when she was younger. Not all of us were quite so gentle with her, though.

"You were in Hecatia's head, weren't you?" asked Reimu, standing over us, arms crossed. She had a slightly impatient look on her face. "Nagato said she saw things in Hecatia's mind when she was absorbed. What did you see?"

Can you have some damn tact for once, Hakurei?

[Asakura:] "She's not wrong for asking. We need information."

[Nagato:] "Asakura is correct. Data would be useful."

I inwardly grumbled, not wanting to ask Koishi to recall such an experience.

[Nagato:] "It was, as you might say, traumatic. But I did see things, just not everything. And Koishi was in there longer than I was."

Sighing, I turned my head to Koishi. "I understand if you don't want to think about it, but if you know anything that could help us against Hecatia, we'd be grateful."

"Anything will help." Giving a gentle smile, Sanae knelt down, patting the girl on her head. "Anything at all. Just a little bit of what you saw in her mind could help us."

Koishi's head gradually tilted to the side, and she mumbled, "Don't know. Just... saw things. It felt like reading minds." Her face scrunched up a bit when she said that last part, like she didn't want to remember. She avoided our eyes, choosing instead to watch the spot where Utsuho's body had disappeared. The others weren't exactly happy with that answer, but try as they might, she wouldn't give them anything coherent, and eventually stopped responding altogether, electing to hide her face under her hat instead.

I merely nodded, moving away as I understood that was the extent of what we would get from her at that point. I again made my way to Reisen, who was off to the side from the group. She stared out at the destruction we had caused, silent. I didn't want any bad blood between us, or Reisen to lose herself to this anger. We were so close to our objective that we couldn't have any distractions.

"I get what you did, I get you. They need to be stopped. I don't know what they did to you-"

"And I stopped that bird." Reisen didn't turn to me, her ears flattening on her head. "I did what I had to do. That's the soldier's way." Before I could say anything, she continued. "Satori said it'd be unhealthy not to talk about it. She saw it in my mind, you know. That guilt. That guilt of thinking my brain was punishing me for surviving? The thought of eating my gun crossed my mind many times over it. I kept thinking about it, you know, even casually thinking of such a thing." She sniffed. "I hear... I hear Mayumi over the radio boasting about how they did this to us, made this world, held this over us. I just... what the hell. God damn it. What the hell is so just about trying to make me..." She crossed her arms, holding herself tight and taking in a deep breath. "All that pain of me wanting to do that."

So that's it. They did that to you. Marisa's mom, Reisen. And who knows what else to the others, what these alternates could have manipulated about us. She may have been a soldier, but Reisen was still a living, breathing person.

"Let's not make this personal, okay?"

Both of us turned to Reimu, who was nearby.

"We stop them. They tried to break our morale, remember? They must be really scared of us if their play is to get us off our game." The miko looked right at the soldier with a stern face. "I need you here, okay? We end their plans, okay? That power that they showed right now, this world we're standing in, it's a testament of how far they'll go. That Junko was willing to blow up this world with Jinwu just to kill us all. We need to stop them, and that's not counting what they did to us. We all need to work together so our world can see tomorrow."

"You know, I'm starting to understand Yakumo's picks here." Koizumi and the rest of our group had joined us. I again eyed his injuries, bringing out a vial, to which he shook his head. "Save it. When we get to right before Hecatia, heal me. I can manage this." He cleared his throat, acting like he wasn't in the pain from the burns on his body. "I was kind of wondering why Yakumo didn't send Kazami with us, or Mima."

"They wouldn't have had the speed like any of us, ze." said Marisa, a thoughtful look on her face. "They may have had the initial firepower, but not agility. Lady Mima ain't speedy, and Kazami certainly isn't."

"If Kyon's using the sword, Tenshi couldn't be effective." Sanae was nodding along.

"Exactly. And Koishi here has a natural stealth ability. Today, stealth has helped us quite a few times."

"I'm sure this Yukari Yakumo has her reasons." Asakura's eyes turned to where North High would be. "So... we ready to move on to the high school?"

[Nagato:] "Please wait. Yukari Yakumo has said that due to the destruction of Jinwu and Junko, the influences have lessened. She can send one more right now."

As if on cue, a portal opened up, or, well, tried. It looked distorted, like how a television would react to a magnet pushed against the screen and moved. It looked... smeared. The portal shook, taking time to straighten out, but only for a moment, which was long enough for someone to leap out of it.

The samurai gardener, Youmu Konpaku, stared out at the destruction around us, off put by it. She quickly recovered, staring at me. "We need to talk. There's more to the memories. There are others with them. It's not just Junko, the bird, Mayumi, and Hecatia."

She awoke with a start, a gasping choke her first noise. She felt weak, sore, in pain. Like she couldn't move her body at all. She stared up at the ceiling of the club room, that damn detestable room. The last thing she remembered was being knocked down, the faces of the ones who did it fresh in her mind. Of the Brigade and Gensokyo, uniting together against her.

Hecatia slowly closed her fist over the memory, or tried to. She could barely move.

A face appeared over her, a girl in glasses.

"You're injured," said Nagato. "They damaged you on the magical level."

Nagato's face disappeared from view, as Hecatia heard her walking around the room.

"I told you the dangers of synchronization. While it would help you attain the power, it would also allow them to fight you. Junko always chastised you for showing off, and this time it bit you."

There was a moment of silence afterward.

"Oh, right. I suppose I need to tell you. Junko went out to deal with them. There were a few huge explosions, and... her energy is gone. I think they managed to kill her. Jinwu too."

Hecatia's eyes widened, she struggled to get up, but still couldn't.

"I'm sorry. I know how close you two were, how much you worked together towards your goals, how long you've been doing this. But maybe this is over. Seija left, don't know where. Mayumi is still putting herself back together, but I think her morale has been destroyed. Piece... she's somewhere on campus, still seething. I don't know."

Nagato reappeared into view, staring down at Hecatia. They remained still and silent, each gazing into the others eyes.

"...You can't give up, of course. Neither could I, right? We've done too much to just walk away."

Nagato placed her hands on Hecatia's body.

"Your body will be repaired, but your magic is damaged. Whatever you feel is the right decision, I'll follow it."

The Paranormal Border appeared around both of them, healing Hecatia.

Allow me to congratulate Youmu Konpaku on being the number one most popular character on the Touhou poll that took place this year. Only her and Koishi Komeiji have ever beaten Reimu out of the number one spot on those polls.

Read and Review. Lady Yukari demands it.