Hakugyokurou

"Leave now, and there will be no bloodshed."

The Guardians, of course, didn't heed Youmu's warning. Instead, they kept their eyes trained on her as they all held their weapons tensely.

The tense atmosphere is amplified by a cold, billowing wind blowing past the Guardians and Youmu, carrying with it a cloud of petals as it goes.

"Actually," Marisa broke the silence. "I was thinking that maybe we could talk things out." She turned her guns away from Youmu, removing her fingers from the triggers as well. "Preferably with your boss? We were kinda pointed this direction by a friend..."

Youmu turned her glare upon Marisa.

"There is nothing to talk about." The white-haired samurai told the witch. "Now, leave."

Marisa rolled her eyes at the response she got.

"I guess we ain't gettin' this the peaceful way, eh?" She quipped.

"Marisa..." Reimu uttered. She can already tell what the witch is planning.

"I do believe this woman-" Sakuya, referring to Youmu, cut in. "-has no intentions of allowing us to proceed..."

Marisa twirled her guns as a show of force. "And that means we're gonna have to kick some a-"

The witch's boasting was interrupted as she suddenly had one of Youmu's sword against her neck, as the samurai crossed the distance in the blink of an eye. The blade isn't touching Marisa's neck, but Youmu's intent here is very clear.

"I won't say this again." Youmu threatened the Guardians. "Leave. Unless..."

Reimu gasped at the sight of her friend being held at sword point. But she hesitated at taking any actions for the moment, having seen just how fast Youmu can move.

Sakuya, however, didn't come to the same decision as Reimu. With a quick snap of her fingers, the silver-haired maid used her time manipulation powers to zip behind Youmu and then held a knife against her neck in a similar manner as Youmu held her sword against Marisa's neck.

"You made your intent clear. Allow me to make mine." Sakuya made her own threat, while slightly smiling at the irony of the situation.

Youmu's response to the current situation she found herself in is to... close her eyes and slowly remove her sword from Marisa's neck, allowing the witch to move away to safety.

"Oh, jeez. One wrong move from one of us and it's off with my head." Marisa uttered nervously as she pointed her guns on Youmu.

Sakuya kept the edge of her knife pressed against Youmu's neck.

"All we ask is that you let us meet with and talk to your master." The maid calmly demanded to the samurai. "We would rather settle this diplomatically."

"After one of you voiced an intent to destroy the Saigyou Ayakashi?" Youmu deflected the demand by bringing up her own point. "You do not understand what you will be truly facing if you do so."

That made all three Guardians pause for a bit. Marisa then lowered her guns slightly and blinked in realization.

"That's a pretty good point, actually." The witch said. "There's already somethin' creepy 'bout that tree, so maybe knockin' it down ain't such a good idea, after all..."

"But in that case, why steal Spring from Gensokyo and siphon it into this... Saigyou Ayakashi?" Reimu brought up an important point.

"What my mistress do does not concern you." Youmu gave a defiant response.

Marisa rolled her eyes. "Is your response to every uninvited guests basically to just cut 'em up into pieces?"

"She is a samurai with honor working for a master wealthy enough to own a manor like this. What do you think, Marisa?" Reimu stated the obvious for her friend.

Marisa rolled her eyes once more. Then she raised her guns once more and aimed them at Youmu.

"Alright, how about this?" The witch offered the samurai. "The three of us challenge you to a duel. The only rule is that none of us are allowed to kill anyone. Otherwise, it's a pretty straightforward fight." She pulled the hammer of both of her revolvers.

Reimu rolled her eyes at the thought of Marisa making an offer to an enemy. "Are you sure you should be making that deal?"

Marisa turned to look at Reimu, but kept her revolvers aimed at Youmu. "We're gonna have to fight her anyways, so might as well make it fair for all of us." She then turned back to Youmu. "Anyway, ya beat us Guardians, we just leave this place quietly and peacefully. But if us Guardians beat you, ya gonna have to take us to your employer. Nothing more, nothing less. Deal?" She finished her offer to the samurai.

Youmu, still held at knifepoint by Sakuya, lowered her sword-wielding arms as she contemplated the offer given to her.

"Very well. I accept your challenge..."

...

Elsewhere in Hakugyokurou, Yuyuko watched as more of Gensokyo's Spring are fed into the Saigyou Ayakashi.

"It is almost done." The Herald Princess of the Afterlife muttered to herself. "It is too bad that the puppeteer and musicians had to withdraw due to... circumstances. But soon, I will be able to learn what secret lies underneath this ancient tree."

She closed the paper fan that is held in her right hand.

"Maybe I should have invited Yukari over?" Yuyuko thought to herself. "Assuming the extended Winter didn't make her extend her hibernation as well..."

The Herald Princess's thoughts is interrupted by the not-too-distant sound of stone being pulverized.

"Oh, Youmu..." Yuyuko sighed.

...

Not even a full minute after the Guardians and Youmu settled on having a "fair" fight against each other, and the fight has already turned out to still be unfair anyway... in Youmu's favor, at that.

No matter how much Reimu and Marisa fired at her and how much Sakuya tried to close the distance and knife her, Youmu is always able to parry every shot and dodge every knifing attempt on her with her super fast reflexes.

For every Ofuda Reimu sends out at her, Youmu easily sliced them all up as they went her way. For every bullet Marisa fires from her twin revolvers, Youmu defected them all. For every knife Sakuya throws at her, Youmu knocked them out of the air. All thanks to her superspeed and super reflexes.

At one point, Marisa activated a Spell Card to deploy Orreries Solar System so she could have enough firepower to overwhelm Youmu's super reflex. However, Youmu dodged the first three seconds of the volley before closing the distance with her superspeed and slicing up all four multicolored orbs that made up Orreries Solar System, breaking the Spell Card.

While Sakuya could stop time for herself and use the opportunity given by the stopped time to move in and hold up Youmu with her knife (the "no killing" part of the challenge is what prevented the maid from just stabbing the samurai while time is stopped and singlehandedly win the fight right then and there), unfortunately for Sakuya, Youmu has picked up on the trick after the first time, and used her superspeed and super reflexes to break out or avoid it each time it is tried on her.

Reimu had resorted to conjuring the Ying-Yang Orb and launching it toward Youmu, hoping it can overcome the samurai's defenses.

It being bigger than all the danmaku, Ofuda and knives thrown at her previously, Youmu swung her sword at the Orb in an attempt to slice through or deflect it, only for neither to work, as the Orb bulldozed through her like a cannonball through a wooden wall, knocking her off her feet onto the ground at the same time.

Marisa took the opportunity to fire several shots at Youmu, though none of them hit, as Youmu recovered quickly enough to get back up on her feet and then out of the way of the bullets, all within the blink of an eye due to her superspeed.

Upon retrieving the Ying-Yang Orb as it returned to her, Reimu launched the Orb at Youmu again, seeing as it worked so well the first time.

Youmu seemed to have wised up this time, and dodged the Ying-Yang Orb instead. Then, she quickly closed the distance on Marisa, deflecting every shot fired her way before using her swords to knock the witch's revolvers out of her hand.

Marisa pulled out her wand in an attempt to keep on with her attack, but that too was knocked out of her hand before she could cast a spell with it.

Youmu then knocked Marisa down by striking the witch on her head with the pommel of one of her swords.

Reimu wanted to yell out for her friend, but didn't have time to do so as Youmu quickly closed the distance between them in an instant, with Reimu only able to raise the Sacred Hakurei Gohei up to block the samurai's dual swords due to her Intuition predicting it and making her body move by itself in time to intercept it.

"I am giving you the chance to yield." Youmu said with a cold expression through gritted teeth as she tried to push through Reimu's defense.

"I won't!" Reimu practically snarled in defiance.

The two combatants glared at each other past their weapons, teeth gritting as they each tried to push through the other's defenses...

And then someone suddenly appeared behind Youmu and smacked her across the back of her head with a paper fan.

"That's enough, Youmu." The unknown new arrival chastised the samurai. "When I told you to treat them as we would guests, I was not using an euphemism."


Way to misinterpret your orders there, Youmu.

So, as I got to the halfway point of this story, I realized that in a type of fight that doesn't involve blanketing the whole fight area with danmaku and such, Youmu would be able to handily beat Reimu, Marisa, and Sakuya all at once with little effort simply due to her superspeed, going by her "200 Yojana in a Flash" Spell Card. Thus, I decided to split the fight against Youmu into two rounds, with round one showing the Guardians getting only ONE good hit in. Round two will be combined with the upcoming fight against Yuyuko which will be happening in hopefully the next chapter...

Before you say Youmu's swords can cut through anything and everything and therefore should be impossible to block no matter what, I should point out that that is NOT the intent of her boast about their sharpness. Let's take another look at how she phrased it:

"The things that (Roukanken and Hakurouken) cannot cut are next to none."

Next to none. That's where most of the fandom misinterpreted the capabilities of Youmu's swords. If she truly meant to say "There is absolutely nothing that cannot be cut", she wouldn't make the claim that its "next to none", which implies that there is something she knows she cannot cut. Let's make a comparison for context's sake:

"There is absolutely nothing that my swords cannot cut."

"There is next to nothing that my swords cannot cut."

Notice the difference in context of these two sentences? "Absolutely nothing" means that whatever it is that Youmu's swords cannot cut doesn't exist, whereas "next to nothing" means that there is something that can't be cut.

So there, Youmu's swords aren't a pair of unstoppable forces. There is no such thing as an attack that cannot be defended against, just like how there is no such thing as a defense that cannot be defeated.

First time I had to dedicate most of an Afterword to dispelling a fandom misconception.

Anyway, I have no excuse for this chapter being so late. Man, I should definitely start working on having a planned schedule that actually sticks...

"And that, as they say, is that..."

Afterword ends here.