Chapter 15 – First Sight of a Danmaku Duel
The sun was nearing the distant hills in the west, giving Kyouichi a rough idea about the time left to sunset. He estimated that time to be something over one hour.
"Still a bit too early to go to the meadows near the farms and wait for the magic practitioners to gather." He thought as he gazed at the setting sun while holding up his hand against his forehead to shield his eyes from the bright light.
He decided it would be better to kill some time while waiting for the Magic Practice Club members by browsing the through the windows of shops and maybe buying some snacks to sweeten the moment. After a longer while of slow-paced walk and window-shopping through the Western Street (since the streets in the village had no names, Kyouichi decided to give them some names to tell them apart), he again ended up in the central circular area of the village's marketplace. A pleasant smell of freshly baked taiyaki drove him towards one of the stands where a short line of customers waited to buy the delicious treat.
"Mmm, taiyaki… It's been ages since I've last had one of those." sighed Kyouichi with nostalgia as he inhaled the sweet aroma spreading from the baking mold. As the turn to buy finally came to him, he placed his order: "One with the sweet-bean paste, please."
"Yes, that will be 150 yen, please!" called the taiyaki baker as he took one of the freshly baked pieces of the carp-shaped sweet snack and put it into a paper bag.
After paying the price, Kyouichi contently clutched onto the taiyaki in the bag and with his leisure pace, he headed on towards the village school. As he walked, he impatiently unwrapped the snack and took a deep whiff of its fresh scent before taking a first bite.
"Uguuu~!" uttered Kyouichi after tasting the taiyaki, earning a few curious looks from the passing-by villagers. As he was enjoying the snack, he eventually reached the front entrance to the Kamishirasawa School. There he sat down on the stairs and waited for Chitose to come out with the rest of the club members. As he was savoring the taste of taiyaki and staring at the distant bamboo forest at the end of the south-eastern road, he heard the bell ringing and soon after, muffled sounds of students running down the halls of the school as their evening club activities were over (or in some cases, only beginning).
He quickly stood up from the stairs and took a step aside, so he wouldn't get caught up in their stampede. Several seconds later, the entrance's door burst open and a frenzied horde of young students poured out of the building like rats trying to escape from a sinking ship. Kyouichi was desperately trying to catch sight of Chitose in that flowing crowd, but it was like looking for a needle in a hay sack. Fortunately for him, he was much taller than any of those kids and it was Chitose Saitou who took notice of him right as she walked out of the school.
"Oi~! Onii-cha… I mean, Kyouichi-kuuun~!" she called out to him and slowly worked her way through the crowd towards him.
"Ah, Chitose, there you are." said the outsider once he noticed her emerge out of the crowd.
"Thank you for waiting for me." she said while smiling. "Please wait here just a moment while I call the other club members…"
Kyouichi nodded and watched as the little Chitose walked back towards the school and disappeared in the crowd of students who were still leaving the school.
"Man... How many of them are there?!" he wondered about the number of the students devoting their time to various clubs at this school. He would guess that to be at least two hundred. That was quite a lot, considering the small population of the Human Village. His attention was again reverted to Chitose who was again walking out of the crowd, this time with a small band of other students including her two friends, Haruka and Rie. There were around 20 members of the Magic Practice Club and now they were all staring at Kyouichi and wondering what was this strange guy doing there.
"Well then, let's go to our training grounds!" commanded Rie, who was obviously the club's president.
The group began marching westwards, apparently heading for the "Western Street" and the road leading to the farms and the temple. As Kyouichi and Chitose exchanged their news of the day, they were already nearing the mentioned Buddhist temple converted from the flying Palanquin Ship. The sun was already hidden behind the horizon and the color of the sky gradually faded to dark-blue. Just about 50 meters before they'd reach the unique-looking building, the group turned 90 degrees to the left (that is to the south) and marched on for something over 5 minutes until they stopped on a vast meadow, located approximately two kilometers north of the Bamboo Forest of the Lost. The forest was now only visible as a giant black wall stretching wide from the south-east and continuing all the way to the west until blending with the rest of the landscape.
"Alright, here we are." announced Chitose, letting Kyouichi know that he could stop.
The rest of the group began forming a large circle in which they'd hold their practice duels. Kyouichi sat down on the ground and curiously watched what would happen next. Before the actual duels started, Rie walked up into the middle of the circle and informed the club members about the evening practice sessions.
"These meetings will be no different from our regular practice in form. The only difference is the lack of natural light." she explained. "In the real life situations, the youkai usually attack their victims during the night and so, to prepare ourselves for such situations, we'll be practicing in the evening at least once a week."
After her short foreword she began explaining the difference between nighttime and daytime tactics of danmaku duels.
"I guess I don't need to explain the principals of dueling during the daytime, since you're already well accustomed to that. During the night, all the danmaku becomes much more clearly visible, so presumably, it's also easier to avoid getting hit. That of course doesn't mean that nighttime duels are easier."
Rie suddenly conjured up a bright shining sphere in her hand, very similar to those which the fairies used against Kyouichi on his first day in Gensokyo. This sphere was much larger, though. Rie stretched out her hand to the sky and launched the glowing orb up into the air. After ascending to the height of approximately 30 meters, the orb exploded in a bright flash of greenish light, making a loud booming noise as it burst into dozens of smaller green orbs, unguidedly flying from the center of the explosion like some sort of magic fireworks.
"As you can see," continued Rie explaining as she pointed at the sky, "all the projectiles are shining brightly in the dark, which might make it easier to dodge them. However, they are blinding us at the same time, so we should also try to avoid looking directly at them. It will also be rather difficult keeping track of your opponent's position while you're focused on dodging all that display of pretty lights."
Kyouichi however, stared directly at the beauty of the demonstrational example of Rie's danmaku and watched as the small green orbs were gradually slowing down before they harmlessly faded into nothing.
"That can be both our advantage and disadvantage." sounded Rie again after briefly pausing herself. "In real life situations, most of the time our main goal will not be to win a duel against a youkai, but simply surviving the encounter. I realize that most of us here are complete amateurs who cannot even begin to compare with the Ryuuken or the skilled youkai hunters, but we can all avoid being eaten even with the little magic abilities we have. If we can just conjure up a danmaku pattern in conjunction with good timing, we won't even need to hit our attacker. The danmaku will temporarily blind them and confuse them, buying us precious seconds to escape and hide. Okay, enough about the theory, let's all try shooting some danmaku into the air to see how it looks during the night…"
What followed was a massive barrage of multi-colored bright lights soaring up to the sky and a mixture of many different light effects accompanied by loud explosions, high-pitched whistling and crackling. It was as if a group of 20 young teenage students were celebrating New Year by the end of spring. Not long after all the danmaku dissipated and faded into silence, a bunch of half-alarmed and half-surprised Ryuuken guards came rushing towards the meadow where the Magic Practice Club gathered to hold their first evening training.
"What the hell is going on here?!" shouted one of the men. "What are you kids doing here in this late hour?!"
Rie calmly walked up towards the guards and pulled out some sort of paper from her backpack.
"We're the Magic Practice Club from the Kamishirasawa Affiliated School." she explained.
"This is the permission to hold the evening practice sessions at this specified location signed by Kamishirasawa-sensei herself." she said as she offered the document to one of the warriors to confirm.
"Oh, so you're the youngsters who usually gather here to practice, huh?" asked the guard as he briefly checked the permission. "We thought that there was some youkai attack, so we rushed here to see…"
"No, no…" Rie shook her head smiling. "It was just us practicing… Nothing you should worry about."
"Very well then, Fukukane-san…" nodded the warrior approvingly. "Just be careful. The youkai are the most active after sundown."
"What?! Fukukane-san?" Kyouichi curiously whispered the question to Chitose's ear. "Is she the village elder's…?"
"Yes. Rie-senpai is elder Fukukane's granddaughter." Chitose whispered the answer. "She's quite capable in magic. But not as cool as Reimu-sama…" she said with a daydreamy look.
The Ryuuken were already marching back to wherever they came from, and Rie Fukukane returned again to the middle of the circle formed by the club members to resume the training.
"Alright… I think we now all understand how beautiful and bright danmaku is at night. Now, let's try some practice dueling! Saitou-san…" she turned suddenly to Chitose.
"Yes, Rie-senpai?" asked her surprised friend.
"Let's have a friendly match, shall we?"
"Uh… yes, senpai…" nodded Chitose as she nervously walked into the circle to face her friend.
Kyouichi then witnessed as Rie slowly began to ascend into the air and stopped at 10 meter height, hovering in mid air above the other members. While Kyouichi was in sheer bewilderment, the others were casually observing the sight as if there was nothing unusual about it. The fact that Chitose also began rising to Rie's level soon afterwards didn't help Kyouichi to hide his amazement either.
"Holy sh…! Even Chitose can fly?!"
A brief moment of silence came about as both girls levitating in mid-air stared at each other. Only the quiet sound of flowing breeze, swaying their hair and clothes could be heard, before Rie suddenly cut the silence.
"Let's go! Hya!" she quickly flew several meters backwards while stretching both of her hands forward, eyes locked on her opponent.
At the same time, light particles of bright-green color began rapidly gathering in front of her palms, becoming two large brightly shining energy spheres. A second later, a salvo of smaller light-green spheres shot forward out of the large ones, forming a spiral-shaped stream of fast-moving projectiles headed Chitose's way.
Unlike the spectating Kyouichi, Chitose was not dazzled by the impressive display of Rie's magic and without much effort, she elegantly dodged out of the attack, avoiding all the green projectiles coming at her. Kyouichi caught himself clenching both of his fists from the thrill as he took a couple of steps backwards out of caution. Chitose's response to Rie's attack was swift, as she stretched her arms above her head, making numerous small bright-blue sources of light appear randomly within 5 meters of her proximity. She kept her arms up as the lights' intensity gradually increased, making their color turn to white.
At this point it was dangerous for eyes to look at them directly, so Kyouichi and the other spectating club members shielded their eyes with their hands. Suddenly, Chitose flung both of her arms downward, as if trying to throw some invisible object. The moment she did so, the dazzling white lights shot out blue beam-like projectiles, first accelerating at incredible speed, then suddenly slowing down and letting their tail catch up with the front, thus again shortening the projectiles until their shape was again that of small palm-sized bright spheres.
Rie at first looked a bit surprised by the strange movement of the shots, but she managed to stay out of their way, simply by slightly tilting her position to the left, enough to avoid one of the beams that just grazed past her. Not giving her opponent any time to counter, Chitose already conjured up a large blue orb in front of her outstretched arms and without waiting, she sent it on its way toward Rie. The large orb was rather slow in movement, but as it was nearing its target, it grew in size, like a giant blue glowing bubble. When it was just a couple of meters away from Rie, it was already 3 times as large as her.
Rie didn't panic as she accelerated forward, as if trying to directly dive into the bubble. To Kyouichi's and also to Chitose's surprise, she did almost exactly that. She threw herself right into the orb. However, not into the middle, but rather only into its outermost layer and safely emerged from the other side. A second later, the giant blue bubble made a loud pop, bursting into a hundred small unguided bright-blue fragments, which disappeared a split second afterwards. Rie didn't even have to look back and avoid them. Instead, she was already holding her arms stretched sideways, with bright pulsing sources of green light in each palm.
"Not bad, Chitose-san!" she shouted so that her sparring partner could hear her words. "But you still have yet much to learn about danmaku!"
The raven-haired girl then pointed both of her arms forward, making both green lights fly toward Chitose and colliding together, thus forming one large arrow-shaped missile of high energy and velocity. It also seemed like this shot was homing in on Chitose, who in response instinctively pointed her index finger at the incoming magic missile and shot out a single beam-shot, just like those she made in her previous attack and hit Rie's projectile halfway to its target. A blinding flash illuminated the entire meadow like a sun and a loud bang made many of the spectators and the two dueling girls cover their ears. Hundreds of blue, green, yellow and orange magic fragments scattered from the epicenter of the blast in a steady stream, like a miniature demonstration of the big bang.
"This is funky…" murmured Kyouichi to himself as he gazed upon the intriguing light effects. That was, however, only until the moment when several of these blazing magic fragments hit the ground with considerable force, dangerously close to his feet.
"Holy crap!" he exclaimed in shock as he immediately turned away from the scene of battle and darted away from the danger. The other club members stared to panic as well as the circle which they had formed around the dueling girls scattered to all directions. After a moment when everything and everyone calmed down, Kyouichi could see the dark silhouettes of the dueling girls, still hovering high above the ground, but no longer attacking each other. He slowly walked up back to the "arena" and watched as all the other club members also began returning and reforming the large circle. The girls slowly descended back to the ground and Kyouichi saw as one of them was holding her arm over her the other one, as if she was wounded. As he came closer, he saw that the girl in question was Chitose and as soon as her feet touched the ground, Rie ran towards her in panic.
"Chitose-san, Chitose-san! Are you alright?!" she shouted.
"Don't worry about me, Rie-senpai…" Chitose calmed her down, "It just stings a little." she said as she removed her right hand from her left forearm, revealing a burnt hole through the sleeve of her school uniform.
"I… I'm so sorry!" apologized the club's leader as she immediately pulled up Chitose's sleeve to take a look at her wound.
Rie herself was unharmed. Kyouichi could only wonder what miracle was at work that she managed to avoid being hit when she was so close to the magic blast.
"Like I said, don't worry. It wasn't your fault, Rie-senpai. It's only a little burn." Chitose reassured her friend as she stretched out her left arm to show her that the wound wasn't serious at all.
"Thank goodness…" Rie exhaled in relief. "Fortunately, we only use the weakest form of danmaku possible. Otherwise it could have ended up much worse."
Kyouichi, who was also worried about Chitose, quickly rushed into the middle of the circle to make sure that she was alright.
"What do you mean, the weakest form of danmaku possible?!" he angrily shouted at Rie. "Your attacks didn't look weak at all! You could have seriously hurt her! And that explosion just now… it was enough to send all your fellow club members running! Don't you have any responsibility?! If you weren't a girl I'd just…" his short outburst of anger was calmed down by Chitose, who grabbed him by his hand and cut off his last sentence.
"That's enough." she said with a serious and slightly intimidating tone, but her grip on Kyouichi's hand was gentle and soothing, as if nicely asking him not to spill his anger on her best friend. "Rie-senpai is the last person on Earth who would want to hurt me, so please… just… Don't yell at her!" she begged, her voice trembling as she began sobbing and tears began forming in the corners of her eyes.
She then walked up to Rie, who was standing there in awe with an expression of fear and guilt. Chitose gently wrapped her arms around her best friend and rested her head on her shoulder. Her muffled sobs were the only sounds that were breaking the dead silence on the meadow as everyone was just standing there speechless and watching this awkward situation.
"F… forgive me…" muttered Kyouichi silently, as he bowed to Rie and Chitose as well. "Please, forgive me. I was just…" he couldn't even think of the right words to finish his sentence. He felt sorry for both of them, but he just didn't know how to react. On one hand he felt that he did the right thing to scold Rie for using needlessly powerful magic, but on the other hand, he knew that he did wrong when he yelled at her like that. He also came to realize that Chitose's attacks didn't seem weak either.
"It's alright…" sounded Rie after a short while as she stroked Chitose's head. "I'm also sorry for making you worry… Come on, Chitose, there's no need for crying."
"Yes…" sobbed Chitose as she let go of her friend and wiped her eyes with her sleeve.
"It might have looked like we were using strong danmaku, but we decreased its damage to minimum." explained Rie. "All the flashy effects are only for show."
"So that's how it is…?" whispered Kyouichi as he embarrassedly scratched the back of his head.
"That's right." nodded Rie. "Even fairies have danmaku that is more dangerous than this."
Kyouichi remembered very well how it felt to be hit by the fairies' danmaku as they attacked him on his first day in Gensokyo. Ever since, he developed respect if not a minor phobia towards those creatures.
"Then I'm once again sorry, Rie-san, for bursting out on you like that…" he apologized once more. "I misunderstood the situation."
"It's alright... No apologies needed."
"Umm… Chitose-chan?" he turned to the other girl and observed her left forearm. "Are you really ok?"
"Y-yes. " she stuttered a little. "It's nothing, really."
"I'm glad to hear that." said Kyouichi, taking Chitose into a brief and gentle embrace. "But when I saw that last explosion… That was quite a light show. It really scared me."
"Compared to some other danmaku we've seen during our daytime training, that one was rather mild." said Rie. "If you practice danmaku duels or even any form of martial art, it's inevitable that you'll get hurt a bit every now and then. That is a part of the training… To prepare us for the real deal, when we'll face real danger and take real hits."
"I have to admit, you're right." replied Kyouichi while nodding knowingly. "No pain, no gain."
"Yes, that's how it is…" agreed Rie. "I've already lost count of how many times I got hurt during training. I even had to spend a couple of days in the hospital. But I haven't given up training, and now I have the honor of being the president of this club."
"Well then, I guess I better let you resume the training."
"Thank you." smiled Rie as she took Chitose by the hand and walked her to the edge of the edge of the circle.
Kyouichi accompanied them and took his place beside Chitose and they both kept spectating the following practice duels. By the end of the training, Rie had called forth yet 4 other pairs of randomly picked practitioners and let them duel it out in very similar fashion as she dueled Chitose. Kyouichi yet saw 4 impressive matches packed with fast-paced, dazzling and colorful danmaku action. He was reminded of Reimu's words when she told him that almost everyone can fly. Truly, every single dueling pair had their practice match whilst flying and some of the duelists even demonstrated quite spectacular maneuvering skills. Some of them got hit, some of them managed to to stay out of harm's way, but all of them seemed like they were enjoying their training.
After an hour, Rie called it a day and announced the end of today's evening practice session. Everyone was walking back to the village, cutting their route short over the grassy field. By the time they reached the center of the village, they began splitting up into smaller groups, each with their own destination. It was there when Chitose and Kyouichi bid Rie goodbye and headed home. As Kyouichi was slowly walking up the Northern Street, he suddenly felt a warm sensation on his left hand as it was again gently grabbed by Chitose.
"Kyouichi-kun…?" she asked shyly.
"What is it, Chitose-chan?"
"…Thank you for being worried about me…" she murmured as she clung closer to the outsider.
Kyouichi looked down on her and smiled softly. "Please don't make a habit out of making me worry about you."
The girl giggled. "I'll try."
As they were both passing by the fireside, which was now surrounded by over a dozen villagers, Kyouichi quickly scanned them to check if old Naota was among them. However, he could not see the retired carpenter there, which he found rather unusual.
"Umm… Chitose-chan," he spoke again to the firstborn child of the Saitou family, "you can go on ahead without me. I just remembered something that I need to take care of."
"Okay, see you at home, onii… err… Kyouichi." she corrected herself before she addressed him the way he told her not to.
She then ran up the rest of the way to her home. Kyouichi turned on his heel and headed back down to the opposite side of the Northern Street, adjacent to the marketplace where Naota's western-style house was located.