A/N: Accustoming to College has left me little gaps to work on the new chapter, but I still managed somehow!
This chapter is sorta like a setup to future conflicts much like the five prologue chapters (now three) working towards the SS chapter.
Review Responses:
Kuma098: Drunk Touma won't be the worst they need to worry about.
Shroom Crab: I'm so happy that you enjoyed the chapter. I'm still gonna keep teasing you regardless.
KRKing: Touma wearing glasses is definitely a disaster class, but not the only one. Tanin'iver has a lot to look out for.
VolcanincFlare: Welcome to the story! I hope you'll have a great time reading it!
awardedell: Sorry about the confusing update for the prologues, but to make up for it, here's the next chapter.
Guest: Maybe that's how Tanin'iver's power works, maybe not. Wait and find out! But you certainly put a lot of thought into it!
Ultima blast3: It's funny that you mentioned that because there does exist a phallic dragon who got saved and returned to being human by being kissed by her brother, an incestuous tale version of slaying the dragon. I might use them on an omake of sorts in the future.
Chapter 8: First Night in Gensokyo VIII
The rain above the forest continued to cause grief below. The dance between the unfortunate and the guardian or abyss dweller had no signs of stopping. What will take place soon will utterly change the stage and scenario that couldn't be predicted.
An unaccounted player - an oversight in part to the dragon Tanin'iver - was removed. Yet her presence greatly changed the course of the night to fall further into an unforeseen madness.
The time to extend this trainwreck into new territory starts in the dark pits of the forest.
Somewhere lying on the mud was the limp body of Kamijou Touma. He crashed through the trees gruesomely with a sickening pop all over his body and fell into a deep slumber thanks to the roar of an extreme light which blew him away in a crazy spiral.
It was a miracle his body did not get bent into an ugly shape and had nothing important break beyond repair. The natural resilience of this body can be attributed to his constant state of pain and abuse beyond acceptable levels for a normal human.
If there was any positive to be gained from this outcome, then it would be the well-deserved chance to get some shut eye.
It had been a week since that extraordinary day where an inner oddity escaped from the boy's right hand in the West and claimed his purpose in order to fulfill the wish of its master.
One way or another, certain events piled up to a final confrontation between the two, and the normal days awaiting Kamijou Touma was certainty resting.
How quick they flew when he was thrown into this land of illusions and forgotten memes.
Back to the still Kamijou Touma, his body was sprawled in every direction.
Something aroused from a distance. Emerging from the covers of darkness and shrubbery were human silhouettes. That was the only thing human about them.
Silk white bags taped over their heads with the character of sin written on them, and giant roses covering their nether regions. A group of an infamous caricature marched mechanically in search. They swept away foliage and stole glances around the area. Their line of sight dropped down to the body of Kamijou Touma.
Even steps without any room for inconsistency, they slowly approached. One individual broke off from the group and stretched one arm down to grab and holster the boy over the shoulder.
Suddenly, a hand snatched the incoming arm by the wrist. With a forceful twist, the arm bent with a sickening creak. The body below rotated and spun the sinsack on its back; Kamijou Touma stands triumphantly above.
Another cruised forward in kind to apprehend the awakened boy. The next moment, that sinsack was sent flying by the upward swing of a "weapon."
The reaction was too fast to make out more than a blur. That level of mobility and timing far exceeded anything that belonged to the teenager known as Kamijou Touma. He was almost unrecognizable showcased by his fluid agility awe-inspiring strength.
Another sinsack sprinted to snatch the opening. They reared an arm back and aimed a heavy jab to the abdomen. Inhumanely recovering from the momentum of his own swing, Kamijou Touma released his grip and brought down his left arm to brutally elbow the outstretched arm and snapped it. Following up with a graceful billow of wind, Touma rotated his body in order to elbow with his right to the back of the head, rendering that sinsack limp.
The group showed no outward reaction, nor did they express any emotion inwardly. They all only had one "function," and they would operate efficiently. Initiating offensive stances immediately in response, the rest circled the boy and elected the tactic to surround him at every angle to narrow his space.
A sinsack launched itself to the front of Touma with a comrade following up to attack from behind. Touma's next offense was a roundhouse kick which was avoided by the front sinsack with a duck. Not wasting the already launched momentum, Touma continued its course and slammed it down like a hammer to the head of the sinsack behind him. Running up to the kneeing Touma, the remaining sinsack whipped a sweep kick. Faced with the limb coming to his face, Touma leaned his head to the side and avoided it. Kicking back up to his feet, Touma locked his arms around an incoming back kick, and swung the sinsack in a crescent moon to the side, crashing him against three others like bowling pins at a bowling alley.
Two more circled and rushed at his sides. To the left, Touma foresaw a lunge and reacted before the move was even pulled, whipping a vicious chop to the moving sinsack's solar plexus, knocking him cold and avoiding the lunge consequently. Seizing the opportunity, Touma gripped the side of the sinsack's head and forced it around to meet the one on his right. Impairing its sight thanks to his current meat shield, Touma made use of the momentum and clenched his right hand to telegraph his next move. Catching a glimpse of that clenched fist thanks to the gap not covered by the meat shield, the sinsack raised their arms to defend. The punch did not deliver since it was a feint to cover the low kick, sweeping the sinsack off their feet.
What came next cemented the utter impossibility of the current "Kamijou Touma."
In a burst behind his steps, Touma dashed horizontally across the tree. He formed an airborne reversed roundhouse kick to the back of a sinsack's head standing between two fixed trees and gripped the tree on the other side to slither down in a spiral gracefully.
Far from finished, the nimble Touma wrapped his two hands on the tree. With a sight that would surely leave any normal human breathless, Touma's muscles tensed and veins pumped as prerequisites to uproot the thin but sturdy tree out of the ground. In quick succession the second after, five sinsacks were smacked across the air in a powerful horizontal swing.
Obviously, there was no doubt the question if the boy doing the impossible could ever be "Kamijou Touma." There were too many problems and an equal number of factors to disprove the identity of this person. But this was without a doubt the same Kamijou Touma who only "lived" for less than half a year and was thrown into Gensokyo. The conclusion was the "Kamijou Touma" of now was but another side to him never before seen.
The teenager was unconscious the entire time indicated by his eyes being snapped shut tight and the sound of low snoring.
The explanation to the current phenomena is rather simple. The human brain automatically cranks micro calculations unconsciously at all times. Humans don't hear the hums of electrons surrounding them thanks to the brain already analyzing them and decided for the better of their survival filtered them out. When a person drives a car, they are already judging distance at an unconscious level. When a person gets stumped by a video games puzzle and wake up the next day breezing through it, the brain was unconsciously working on it in the background and determined the solution without the person's awareness. Not even today's computers have reached the complexity of the inner workings of the human brain. Recognizing patterns via intuition, learning, mimicry, etc. are fundamental strengths lending humanity the right to be the dominant species.
But for the case of Touma, his level of unconscious reading went way beyond the norm. Soaking in unearthed experiences and muscle memory and driving him on autopilot using the already imprinted codes gave birth to a possibility locked and repressed behind the mind of Touma.
The hundreds of billions of hells. Touma could not make use of them on a conscious level, but there was little danger as long as he wasn't awake to notice them. At most, he might wake up feeling like complete shit.
His martial experiences have now been allowed to shine forth in reality, and they optimized the situation into the form of the drunken fist. There was also the removal of his physical limitations to swell into the realm of superhuman strength.
Kamijou Touma under the state of intoxication combined with the unconscious fighting experiences from hundreds of billions of hells.
It was not farfetched to classify him as a monster uncontested to every being on the planet right now in terms of CQC.
There was a high-pitched, but low squeal running somewhere far away from the teenager currently manhandling a group of perverts. They continued to scream with jaws unhinged.
"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh…"
Tanin'iver could not believe their eyes (if they had them). There was a walking ungodly disaster that shouldn't have been born under any circumstances.
And it was all their fault.
Snapping to it, the Blind Dragon sent innumerable telepathic calls. "Kur! Kur! KUUUUUUR!" Tanin'iver tried to reach the last contact number out of pure desperation.
"I did not calculate this. I was under the impression that I would be the one needing to reach you." The same monotonous voice entered Tanin'iver's head, but there was a small mix of genuine curiosity in them.
"The most god-awful outcome imaginable has taken place!" There was a complete loss of humor in the dragon. Their bravado could no longer contain or hamper in the destabilization of their composure.
"Surely things can't have spiraled out of your control that bad." Oh, the ignorance. Kur rectified its subdued reaction by musing over who it was talking to. "I know this isn't the first time you screwed up that me or Kuzuryu had to clean your mess, but I suppose I was expecting too much under the impression of the gravity in our current mission. Is it really too high a price for the old magnificent Tanin'iver back in our ranks?" Kur expressed very unnoticeable disappointment under its blank voice.
"Just promise me you won't blame it on me too much!" Tanin'iver practically begged with unshed tears.
"I find it hard not to blame almost everything on you these days." Blankly retorted Kur.
"Well get this!" Tanin'iver paused to cement the suspense and gravity to Kur who was reluctantly paying rapt attention. "Kamijou Touma...is drunk AND sleepwalking!"
Kur immediately disconnected from the chatroom with a click.
"Wait! Wait! I'm not going to be suffering this madness alone you son of a bitch!" Tanin'iver raved on and madly punched the numbers into Kur's contact information.
Thanks to the unending stream of more than 180,000 pings in a flat microsecond, Kur reconnected back in. "Is it really necessary for me to be listening in to your impending doom?" They bemoaned in monotone. The slight tremor behind their words did not go unnoticed, however.
"Just – stay on the line for my sake!" The Blind Dragon hyped itself into an even composure. It breathed rapidly, shivering inside the forest.
"Well you best finish your job. One of my Angel_Models is already stationed below the flight of stairs leading to the Hakurei Shrine. More of my soldiers are stationed around the perimeter, so I can't offer much assistance besides the comfort of my voice." Kur shook their heads in exasperation at the flow of events. And just as it was one second away from contacting the esteemed incident resolvers.
"What do I do!?" asked the Blind Dragon. The scales on its body rattled.
"I am not in possession of much ideas either, but I'm also not exactly in any way responsible for your errors. This is the exact opportunity to finally act like a real grownup and take responsibility. Your general attitude lately has been rather lax and complacent. Spouting off memes nobody will ever understand. When will you grow up? What will Tenryuu and Egle [1] think, especially the former who admires and placed so much faith in you?" Kur scolded piercingly in a stern voice. It was the most emotion it showed since coming to Gensokyo.
"You'll never take my memes away from me! I can't work under this much pressure… I need to concentrate, and I can't do that on an empty stomach! Maybe some cereal might help!" Tanin'iver constructed a box of cereal and a large bowl out of thin air.
"..."
"Not to mention I don't know what kind of cereal I just summoned! It's like Schrodinger's cat all over again! Choosing the right type of cereal for breakfast is of utmost importance. Anything that has high right amounts of processed carbs and sugars is pretty much unhealthy. On the other hand, whole grain cereals are good for your health since they contain vitamins, minerals, and lots of fiber that helps reduce risk of heart disease. After reading the nutritional information on the box, I can conclude that the higher the sugar content, the more unhealthy the cereal is. It appears that the cereal provided by me contains added sugar. Perhaps I should trade it to Tenryuu for shredded wheat cornflakes and sugar-free muesli. But the most important question is, should I pour the cereal first? Or the milk first? This only decreases the amount of time I have for breakfast. If I'm going to eat, the sooner the better. If I pour the cereal first I might be misled by the cereal's solid-state volume in the bowl. In allowing the cereal to inhabit the dimensions of the bowl first, I would be subject to the milk's power of liquefying the cereal starting from the bottom of the bowl. The contents of the bowl as a unit are now inclined to swell, as the cereal begins to rise towards the brim of the bowl, in accordance with the desired amount of milk in contrast, when the milk is poured first, its liquidity precisely fills up the bowl to the anticipated criteria. Further, this allows me to be in control of my meal. The volume of liquid must be dealt with first in order to continue on with supplying the floating solids, or cereal. Pouring the cereal caused immediate subjection to sogginess. When milk is added to cereal - instead of cereal added to milk - the cereal is instantly on the clock. The milk would begin to penetrate the cereal's sturdy external body as I struggle to put the cap back on the milk carton. If I pour the milk first and then the cereal, I would be enabling the cereal's capacity to float, thereby evading immediate immersion in milk. In this scenario, the amount of cereal is strongly dependent on the amount of milk that has been initially poured. On the other hand, I want to avoid the splash damage from the cereals hitting the milk, since it usually scores a critical hit against my scales. Pouring the cereal before pouring the milk would help to eliminate this problem instead. AndohgodIjustforgottocreatemyselfaspooninthefirstplace!"
Kur switched its voice box to mimic someone else's instead of its original monotone. A much more hyper voice to reprimand the retarded dragon.
"Figure it out, Tanin'iver! Do it yourself! Don't you realize that there isn't any milk around? Perhaps your assessment of cereal consumption is wrong!? Everyone knows that cereal with water is the way to go!" Who said that a mostly mechanical dragon can't have a sense of humor?
"You're right! There's rainwater above me." Tanin'iver levitated the bowl and suspended above the trees to collect rainwater. "And who even needs to decide which to pour first in the bowl!? I'll just pour both in my mouth at the same time! I'm a genius!" Tanin'iver gave a shout of triumph.
Proceeding to keep their word, Tanin'iver dumped the contents of the cereal box and inclined the bowl of rainwater into its open mouth. Chewing noise rung as Tanin'iver had its mind off from the disaster hundreds of meters away.
"Have you finally composed yourself?"
After gulping all the content down the dragon inhaled then exhaled. The panicky Tanin'iver slowly reached equilibrium and reconfigured their mind back to some semblance of clarity. "Whew…yeah. Let's get this over with quickly.
"I don't see the issue with making use of the long-range aspect of your ability. It's not like you need to touch him with your claws as a criterion to use subliminal suggestions." Kur candidly lent their advice. It was sound on paper for the blind dragon's power was fitting.
Long range implied a short-range aspect to the ability. One enabled mental manipulation but was limited in the range of applications.
"HAHAHAHAHAHA!" Tanin'iver erupted into fits of laughter. "No." And then blank faced. "Not only will my ability work awkwardly considering he still has that Imagine Breaker clinging to him, I fear something worse might pop out due to my meddling." The dragon's mouth and body quivered uncontrollably. "Getting close is also suicide." The dragon
"I find that it is impossible for our Kamijou-kun to have any more trump cards to scare us… On the contrary, thanks to a recent revelation I'm fully expecting to be proven wrong." Kur was now wearing a thousand-yard stare.
"The very image of Kamijou Motherfucking TouMan crawling from the depths of his mind combined with his intoxication and sleepwalk…!" Tanin'iver was chewing on its claws.
Those ominous strings of words broke something in Kur. It was enough to short-circuit most of the network across the field.
"...Can't you prop up a false image to render him powerless?" It was less of a question and more pleading for some slim hope. "You don't need to go far as to twist reality, but merely input another mindset or personality should do."
"There's that force field guy, but we don't ever talk about him. I refuse to ever conjure that… thing in the realm of the living!" Despite all the trembling, Tanin'iver still had a code to follow.
The sound of physical trauma taking place in the distance was putting a number on the Blind Dragon's sanity.
"What is… that sound?" Kur hesitantly asked on the line.
"Oh, you know… just some regular dispensing of gender equality… yeah...regular..." Tanin'iver whimpered with each sound of bones breaking.
The sound of sighing came from the end of the line. Kur analyzed the situation immediately and tried to formulate a solution for their fellow dragon.
Meanwhile as the two's comedy routine was taking place, simultaneously was the unbiased justice and correctness in one's living being hammered down to the unliving puppets.
Speaking of unliving, the body and brain of Kamijou Touma had learned through physical contact the nature of his enemies. They did not possess any sort of sentience to them; like robots or underdeveloped AIs following a set of codes and instruction without agency. Not even their bodies felt remotely alive. Their movements weren't animated and lack the faint twitching when it comes to following the laws of gravity; they were utterly smooth, too smooth and rigid. No signs of breathing were also present thanks to the unmoving diaphragms not expanding and contrasting to push air.
Decisively, Touma drove his clenched right fist into one of them and ended their premature existence; Their bodies scattered into ethereal mist. No guilt was to be found in destroying puppets that had no hope of developing sentience.
"Uh oh… he's beginning to lose his restraints…" Tanin'iver muttered in acute horror.
"Strange how that doesn't sound nearly as scary when it's coming from your mouth." Meanwhile, Kur was being drenched by its own sweat metaphorically.
One sorry npc tried to barrel forward with a fist clenched and ready. Touma simply deflected that arm upwards and casted a mortal elbow blow to the abdomen. Finishing him off, Touma fired a heavy uppercut to the chin with his right fist, completely decimating the npc's ephemeral existence.
"I can see it! He no longer hesitates to use that right hand to destroy illusions!" Tanin'iver exclaimed in a half screech.
"I'll start visiting the nearest morgue to see if they have a casket that fits a ten-kilometer worm available." The eyes of Kur had their pupils displaced with a classic spinning loading logo.
Three other sinsacks ambushed the teenager. Touma countered their jabs, kicks, and lunges with masterful deflections of his wrists and knee. Subsequently, his raised knee bent and straightened into a kick to the abdomen. Putting to good use a narrow passage, Touma closed the distance and weaved around the sinsacks, dodging every narrow blow and intersecting formation. With each sinsack he passed, they all dispersed into the air with each painful thrust of his two fingers.
"I think one of his bones got dislocated from the pressure! And he popped it back in place by contracting his muscles alone!" Tanin'iver continued their commentary with metaphorical bloodshot eyes and a despairing feeling of dark premonitions.
Kur was too busy trying to reboot the system to even retort anymore.
Motes of ethereal lights filled the area to signal the end of the carnage. Standing in the center of them all was an imposing teenager in a dominating pose. With no targets anymore he stands there ready to accept any fool who dares to approach.
The sleeping body of Touma stepped back and leaned down a tree to return back to his nap. Peacefully sat there an innocent teenager who just dispatched a good 100 men in the span of three minutes.
"...Okay, I think the problem solved itself." Tanin'iver said, not losing an inch of their trepidation.
"Did the dragon shell burst open?" Kur gravely opened a set of ominous words.
After some extensive self-maintenance, everything was back online on their part. Thanks to the release of one of the eggs, new possibilities opened themselves. It was Kur's role to record and account for every possible outcome.
"Don't ever tempt something that dreadful!" Tanin'iver shouted furiously to drop the implication of something so implausible. "He just fell back to sleep is all!"
"Wonderful. But how do you plan to approach the unapproachable? So what if Kamijou-kun is in sleep mode?" Kur struck at the heart of the matter.
"I have no clue. Give me some time to relax and I'll figure something to placate the situation." Tanin'iver answered, still feeling their nerves frozen stiff. "In the meantime, I need something to distract me as I recover from this major psychological blow."
"By all of my processing programs that is quite an underwhelming assessment." Kur expertly reported in a recovered even tone.
That elicited a sigh from the Blind dragon. "What about you? You said something about finally convening the players at the shrine." Smoothly deflected the Blind dragon.
"My initial method has met… a recent difficulty." Tanin'iver snickered, feeling plenty good on their part at bringing down another together in the fall, much to Kur's unamused face. "The Angel_Models will take some adjustments to return back to full capacity. In the meantime, I have an Octohedron_Model on standby ready for deployment."
"You stole that from Evangelion!"
That statement was professionally ignored.
"It is not the same, I merely took inspiration. You just so happen to equate everything with memes. The sight of alien technology usually leaves a crowd in a stupor."
"Pssh, whatever. You're not going to make a convincing argument for them to stand down looking like a flying alien artillery vehicle that screams geometrically." The bind dragon poked fun at the Mineral Dragon sardonically.
"Can't be much worse than taking hourly detours in an escort mission."
Tanin'iver blew a raspberry and clicked their claws together in a mock clap before resuming back to a serious expression. "You already look like horrible CGI used in an average budget class anime, so of course they'd be bewildered at such a jarring sight, since your army inherits that amorphous body of yours." Bluntly replied the dragon having the memory of the recent carnage leaving their mind.
"We don't live in a 2-dimensional world." Kur then mused the likely probability. "Not unless some Magic God decided for the good of the world to become an anime."
"Kur, what language do you think I'm using to speak with you?" Tanin'iver smirked.
"My hearing programs have picked up English. I advise you amend that to Japanese when we're in Japan and because everybody in Gensokyo speaks Japanese."
"Oh Kur." Tanin'iver shook its head like its partner was a child who didn't know any better. "I keep telling you that we live in a 2D world with high-quality animation being in a written format. Everybody already speaks Japanese by default since the 2D world is a non-existent anime by default too. The reason why you hear me speak English instead of Japanese is so the readers can actually understand us in a language they all comprehend."
"It's that nonsense you speak of yet again." Kur blankly scoffed. "That power of yours to tap into Humanity's collective unconscious has poisoned your mind with cognitive rubbish that don't exist unless they belong to a phase buried beneath."
Tanin'iver harrumphed but kept their tongue from repeating themselves.
"I'm fully aware of what they are and their meaning. There is no meaning in telling me when you are in knowledge of my power to manipulate information. Why do you cling to them so much and degrade your ability to such a level below me? You used to be my equal. In fact, your power before Humanity was conceived was that power to bend-"
"Sorry, but I'm not really into remembering the glory days for now." Interrupted Tanin'iver. It could see an illusionary pointed look by Kur.
"Hmph." Kur huffed, knowing full well the dragon did not wish for its fun to die yet, thus it would abide their request. "Then? What of that wish? Has it been fulfilled yet? I fail to sense a pulling force anymore, but it was a weak wish, so I don't plan to take any chances."
"Oh yeah. I was so scared earlier that I completely forget the sensation of fulfilling it." Tanin'iver whipped its head around to see thin arms trying to dig out the jelly of darkness.
Thin and frail arms tried to flail out of the darkness in clear panic by their desperation. A desperation familiar to clinging one's life at the very nearest edge towards an untimely death. The amorphous shape of a head jutted out of the darkness and only the mouth portion was clean of black tar clinging to it. Saliva and a desire to scream dripped all over yet a voice could not be released to no avail.
"Well? What are you waiting for? You had plenty of time to save her, so why hasn't it been done?"
Tanin'iver analyzed the youkai currently drowning within her own power in a neutral manner. "She's being broken down to her very core and turning back as part of a larger concept in nature. To load her up to a perfect previous state when Imagine Breaker is put into the equation can't be done from the outside. Right now, her previous locked powers are gushing out, but all that is doing is extending her suffering." Tanin'iver grimaced, watching the child-like body of Rumia experience a rapid growth spurt. Her hair which used to be short now lengthened into sheets of radiant gold.
"You can't be intending to-!"
"That's why I held off from doing something earlier. The only way would be to work from within as her temporary ability. However, that would mean my autonomy on the outside is limited quite hugely. Oh, the inconvenience." Tanin'iver exhaled a disgruntled sigh. The dragon blasted into mumbling complaints after complaints.
"Appreciate listening to your voice another time, hurry and amend the damage by Imagine Breaker. Egle's network providing her an anchor won't solve everything." Kur ordered stern but coolly.
"And who's going to escort Kamijou-kun? It's not like I have any rubber nen that can miraculously bring her back from the dead just by pumping her heart and lungs!" Tanin'iver barked irritably.
Kur tapped its tail to its forehead. "And you can't conjure some subordinate because they'll all die no matter the specs you input." Kur made a face full of intense concentration.
Tanin'iver did not agree with the sentiment. There was a method to keeping a creation of its own running autonomous without the dangers to being destroyed by Imagine Breaker. The dragon could not commit to it since it would leave one of its claws occupied like one hand needing to hold a cup, rendering it to rely only on one claw for the entirely that was needed to hold the cup.
"Wish there were a way to save Rumia and take Kamijou-kun outta here. Maybe if I use Berserker Soul, I can find someone decent!" A classic Duel Disk was conjured and fitted perfectly on one claw. Tanin'iver tried to draw a card with the other, but accidentally pressed the eject button, throwing up the entire deck and scattering the cards to the ground. "Oh, screw this! Tonight's not my night!" Subsequently, the duel disk was thrown to the ground with a thud.
Kur shook its head in clear disappointment that no answer could be reached. "I'm moving on from here. The crowd looks ready to explode if I don't intervene and grab their attention."
"Wait, I got it." Tanin'iver cried out before Kur would disconnect from the line.
"Took you long enough." Kur merely acquiesced Tanin'iver's accomplishment.
Tanin'iver mused to itself and looked close to reaching enlightenment.
"I've been too narrow-minded. Looks like Kamijou Touma will save himself after all." If it had eyes, they'd be widening. "And I know the perfect someone to escort Kamijou-kun out of this shithole! She will ace this splendidly!"
"That's a concern I can check off from my compartment of headaches. Just be sure this someone knows what is up ahead." Kur congratulated the Blind Dragon in a roundabout way but warned it nonetheless to not screw up again.
"As for her." Tanin'iver turned its attention to the drowning Rumia. "I'm not so sure how to make a good impression for starts without coming off as off-putting. Koishi's case, I didn't need to reveal my face. If I assume a T-pose, I can practically assert dominance over her."
"Please do not make an ass of yourself, again." Kur felt an increasing urge to crease its crown.
"Give my regards to Tenryuu as I'll be the first to enter inside one of these bitches. We did a bet to see which of us will do it first, and if I'm not wrong about her character then she's too slow by groping some hills and not skipping the foreplay."
"Do not task me something so menial. It isn't inputted in my curriculum to care what you two frolic about." The harsh words were in contrast to the small smile creeping in Kur's face. It resumed a stoic expression when it noticed something out of place. "Her? A confirmation that Tenryuu has chosen to wear a human body finally."
Dragons in legend were commonly found with the ability to transform and anthropomorphize into a human body whether for the purpose to mingle with them or seek a mate from a completely different species from their own.
"Yeeup. Took her long enough. Better late than never. I too planned on assuming a human form, but this one error in construction has left me unfulfilled and dissatisfied. I just can't get the right ratio to make the fingers make a rubber sound effect."
Kur rolled its head from the Blind Dragon's procrastination. "A sole meaningless factor such as that holds that much impertinence?"
"If your fists can't produce a rubber sound effect whenever you clench the fingers to form a fist, what other purpose is there to live anymore? Besides that, Tenryuu's got the right idea in choosing a female form. We're in Gensokyo, so it's expected that we must wear the skin of fair maidens at this point."
If it had shoulders, Kur would shrug them non-committedly. Having to converse with Tanin'iver called for a mandatory consumption of an entire cup of aspirin afterwards.
"See you soon." Tanin'iver told the Mineral Dragon. Wordlessly, without missing an instance, the telepathic connection was disbanded, and Kur left the scene.
Peacefully and idyllic did Kamijou Touma slept. In peace with the tune of rain, his head bobbed up and down with every soft breath. Gently his nose sucked in air and funneled out to warm the cool atmosphere.
There was the sound of shoes clicking on the wet mud. Bizarrely, no mud or any grime was wedged or glued to the perfectly pristine shoes and sole. Droplets of rain spilled above softly to the edges of tree leaves and dipped down to meet the stranger's body. They touched the skin and slid down their soft skin and parted from it to the ground. Not a trace of moisture remained from where they traveled.
Whatever foreign object neared the skin of this individual, they would bounce away and refrained from tainting their beauty.
A thin body frame and a face androgynous to hide their true gender. They held a face scrunched up with contempt the more they neared the snoozing body of Touma. Grounding their feet a few feet away from him, the individual rummaged the pockets from their open white long-sleeved winter jacket with scrawls of white outlines all over it and animal fur at the base of the neck portion. They plucked a flip-phone and took a few pictures of the peaceful face of the sleeping Kamijou Touma. After they completed to fill their new album of nothing but Touma's sleeping expression they pocketed the phone and leveled a pointed look to him.
"The fuck is wrong with you being asleep in this shithole? Wake up, you shitty hero."
He didn't want to. He wanted to peacefully conclude his sleep all the way through. But time was not a luxury to Kamijou Touma, a fact he was intimately aware of. So, with great reluctance and a false sense of gusto, his eyelids fluttered open. He made a groan as his lethargic and strangely strained muscles began activity to welcome back to the realm of reality.
"Uurrrh...that crass way of speaking is so familiar…but that's not possible. Sure, I was talking about that guy earlier, but there's no way he'd actually find me here so quickly…" Touma muttered incoherently to himself which pissed off the stranger due to his audacity to ignore their greeting.
"Who the hell's been thinking about me? You better lift your ass off the floor before I do the lifting for you." A brash voice mixed in with the increasing disdain entered the ears of Touma.
"Okay, I'm not hearing things...or maybe I still am…" Touma rubbed the weariness from his eyes and decided for the better to address the person he suspected most likely to be someone he was familiar with. "Give me a moment to get up first, Accelerator."
His muscles gave off small cries as he strenuously lifted himself using the tree behind him as a substitute cane. Once he dusted himself, Touma leveled his still drowsy gaze to meet with a familiar face he deduced correctly.
Pale skin, long moppy white hair, and lazy red eyes that betrayed the intensity behind them. Yup. The face always in a small frown all belonged to the acquainted Accelerator, the ranked number one Level 5 of Academy City.
Confirming the actual present Accelerator, Touma devolved down with a long, drawled out sigh. He closed his eyes and comforted them, not willing to put effort into caring about how Accelerator would react to his disregarding attitude. "I have way too many questions and not enough energy… I don't even remember what I was doing. Err… I think I was in the middle of talking with Suika? No no, there was that homeless person, who were they? Or am I confusing them with… alright, I'm pretty sure I punched someone. Note to apologize to them in the future. Then there was this blond loli I was playing a game with? Everything's a blur, like what the actual hell happened for that to happen?"
An eye of Accelerator twitched in irritation as they watched Touma murmured to themselves with a cupped face without any consideration to acknowledge the person across from them.
Raising a hand, Accelerator snapped their fingers and a burst of displaced air knocked Touma out of his deep thoughts.
"Whoa! Calm down, Accelerator! I get it, you're really here!" Touma raised his hands defensively in slight fear of Accelerator. "Just, please lower that hand of yours?" Touma made a wry smile to detract Accelerator from using any further violence the former would very much like to avoid.
Accelerator huffed and relaxed their shoulders. They shoved their hands back to the winter jacket's pockets. "If you've got time to flap that mouth of yours on and on about useless crap, then you've got time to break out of this dump."
"O-oh… You came here to pick me all the way from Academy City. That's surprisingly generous coming from you that I didn't expect it." Touma chuckled and rubbed the back of his head good-naturedly
"... Don't misunderstand, alright. I didn't want to be here, so I want to go home too. Watching you run in circles around this place was annoying me to hell, I decided to pick you along the way." Accelerator turned their head to the side lightly to avoid meeting his eyes, a small pink dusting decorated their pale skin.
"Regardless, I'm grateful." Touma beamed a smile which Accelerator made a glance of. That's when Touma's eyes widened in recognition of a flower ornament embedded to the side of Accelerator's head due to the tilting position. "I didn't find you the type to be into that sort of thing. It makes you look cute." Touma slapped a palm to his mouth. "I-I don't mean it like it's something to be ashamed of! What you like has nothing to do with me and my opinion shouldn't matter in that regard!" He waved his arms wildly to defuse the effect of his blubbering in vain.
"...Tch, I knew I shouldn't have bothered to wear this damn thing." Accelerator grumbled in a deeper shade of red.
Touma was utterly gobsmacked. He didn't get assaulted when saying the first thing on his mind? Impossible! Maybe it had to do with interacting with the gender as him. Perhaps that's where the difference lies. His eyes scanned the individual in front to make sure he didn't make a mistake and confirm whether they were an imposter. When he looked to the open winter-jacket, he saw something unbelievable.
"Wh-why are you wearing a school uniform beneath your jacket!? Touma pointed to the uniform, incredulous of the sight before him. It was in a style similar to his school of white and blue tied with a red ribbon. "Are you into crossdressing!? W-wow, you learn something new every day haha…"
"Who the hell is crossdressing, you blind dumbass!? In fact, I recall you mumbling about me being some kinda dude! My face may be androgynous but isn't it a little insensitive to mistaken me for a guy after all this time!?"
"Bwuh!?"
"And don't call me Accelerator anymore! I thought we already got over this letting you call me by my real name!?"
"Since when did we talk about this!? I don't even remember you telling me your real name!"
"You're a total jackass you know! D-do you really want me to remind you of my name!? Is that what you wanted; you jerk!?" Accelerator(?) seethed with fury and an increasing blush.
"Look here, I can't be faulted for something that didn't happen that I was never even aware of in the first place! The Accelerator I knew always acted like some melodramatic guy with some sort of score to settle with me even though I rather he'd forget about it! And… is that a skirt you're wearing!? Touma nearly screeched at the top of his lungs when he witnessed the ever-distinct shape and wear of a blue skirt beneath Accelerator's(?) waist.
Accelerator huffed and placed their hands to their vacant hips. "Holy shit is your brain a complete mush when you're drunk. Never do something irresponsible like that again." They took a deep breath before continuing. "You better remember my name well, hero! It's Suzushina Yuriko!"
Touma's brain collapsed in trying to process what he just heard.
To skip sometime after the introduction of the aforementioned Suzushina Yuriko, hundreds of meters away from where the two used to stand was a twitching human-size egg clad in dense darkness wrapped in a spiral pattern. There were other colors like a deep blue and colorful violet mixed beneath the spirals, and motes of light like the cosmos.
When the spirals departed and gave way for the pure cosmic egg to pave the way of new life, cracks spread and arched their way to the little lights.
A black substance like blood gushed from the gaps, and the egg burst like a balloon. Everywhere was submerged into total darkness, and a vacuum force sucked all of it back to the center point.
A soft and lithe arm extended out from the center and opened its palm. From the earth, black magic circle was conjured and rising from the center was the red pommel of a sword. It rose and revealed its splendor as a giant 160cm claymore. The golden-clad guard and edges of the blade meshed well with the crimson the interior and the black between them. The hand then gripped the claymore and swung it to measure its power. A gale was produced from the casual swing, and several trees were bisected from the force.
When the dusk finally dissipated, there stood a lone woman holding the claymore in her small hands. Alluring long blond hair draped her back, and a doll-like face was decorated in striking crimson eyes and silky red lips. The woman wore a black corset that accentuated her ample bosom tucked beneath a long-sleeve white undershirt. Tied to her white collar was a red ribbon. The black skirt she wore had white frills around the edges below it. Her thighs were clothed with black stockings above her knees and garter straps attached. Finishing her attire were red dainty shoes.
There was not a woman like her in Gensokyo, but her face remarkably resembled someone else. What was lacking was a trademark red ofuda.
That child-like lesser youkai of dusk had a secret known to a few that could be counted on one hand. She used to have a form fitting in her prime where she stood at the top of the food chain. There were no anecdotes in the history of Gensokyo that lasted enough for preservation. There was a theory that no such anecdote was even attempted in the hopes to forget about it within the lost annals of time. Was the reason because of fear of her apocalyptic might? Or was there because there was no effective writing method to preserve it?
The answer was doubtlessly the former.
Her emergence boded disaster and famine. She wielded a power where boundaries could not reach her.
Her prime during the height of glory days was awe-inspiring and horror-inducing, but this… this was different.
The reborn Great Youkai of the Dusk was melded together with another powerhouse. A power writhing and contained inside her right hand distorted the air.
The Great Youkai of the Dusk in ancient times would undoubtedly be evaluated under the modern Spell Card System with a rank of EX. This distorted youkai however was beyond even that.
An EX ranked youkai was blessed with a pillar of the universe.
An EX ranked youkai becoming EX.
DOUBLE EX Rumia.
[1]: Eglė: In Lithuanian fairy tales was the tale of Egle, Queen of Grass Serpents. there lived an old man and his wife. Together, they had twelve sons and three daughters. The youngest girl was named Eglė. On a warm summer evening, all three girls decided to go swimming. After bathing with her two sisters, Eglė discovered a serpent in the sleeve of her blouse.
The eldest girl grabbed Eglė's blouse, threw it down, and jumped on it, but the serpent did not leave. Turning to the youngest, Eglė, the serpent spoke to her in a man's voice, saying, "Eglė, promise to become my bride, and I will gladly come out."
In order to get him to leave her clothes, Eglė pledged herself to him, not understanding the possible consequences.
Three days later, thousands of serpents came for Eglė, but her relatives tricked them three times in a row. A goose, a sheep, and a cow were given instead of the girl, despite the warnings of a cuckoo. Finally, the enraged serpents returned and took Eglė with them to their master at the bottom of the sea.
Instead of seeing a serpent, Eglė met her bridegroom Žilvinas, a handsome man and the Serpent Prince. They married and bore four children, living happily.
Žilvinas was the Serpent King of Zaltys - symbols of fortune around a farmstead, possessor of knowledge centered around healing and herbs. It is also believed that eating a Zaltys could restore sight.
One day, Eglė wished to visit her home, but her husband would not allow her. In order to be allowed the visit, Eglė would be required to fulfill three impossible tasks: to spin a never-ending tuft of silk, wear down a pair of iron shoes, and bake a pie with no utensils. Upon advice from a sorceress, Eglė was able to complete these tasks. She and her children left Žilvinas to visit her home.
After meeting with Eglė and her children, her family wished to keep her rather than let her return to the sea. They plotted to kill Žilvinas. Eglė's brothers asked her sons to reveal the secret calling of Žilvinas, but they would not. Finally, one of Eglė's daughters disclosed it:
"Žilvinas, dear Žilvinas,
If alive - may the sea foam milk
If dead - may the sea foam blood..."
The twelve brothers then called Žilvinas out from the sea, and killed him with scythes. They kept the secret of their deed from Eglė. Worried, Eglė called her husband, but only foams of blood returned from the sea.
Discovering that her beloved husband was dead, Eglė turned herself and her children into trees. Her sons were turned into strong trees: oak, ash and birch; her daughter was turned into a common aspen, and Eglė was turned into a spruce.
A/N: Yuriko and DOUBLE EX Rumia were planned from the very beginning, haha. I can't wait to write their major roles soon.