Author's Note:
And so I return from inactivity, or rather, from my large amount of unannounced work.
Now, there are many things for me to say, and if you did happen to somewhat peek at this thread in the past day, you'd notice that there were edits being fired left and right... why do you wonder?
Simple, I've gone through a third (definite, very definite) final revision of this entire fan-fic. I've addressed quite a few problems that my reviewers pointed out, so here's here's a an outline of the major changes that I did in this re-writing.
- PoV jerking around has been removed; you will mostly stay on 1 Character per "arc", except for some other times where I'm going to copy Nasu...
- The present tense is no more. After a discussion with one of my Betas, I found out that I write surprisingly better in the past tense.
- The order of things, and the big problem that Reimu's trouble happened to be off-screen (sacrificed for Zelretch and Yukari awesomeness), was addressed.
At any rate, now that I look at this work, I can proudly say that... "I've come a long way since I first posted this Fan-Fic." To point out the main thing that hasn't changed though:
- THE PLOT
Still the good old same one.
Have a nice read
Phantasm 1.3: Red Hell
A few years ago, Gensokyo's sky was covered with a thick scarlet mist. All sunlight was blotted out as it covered the entirety of the land, turning the radiant day into a crimson night.
The sun unable any longer to shower its rays of life upon the earth, plants began withering, crops began to stagnate, unable to grow, and the health of living creatures was quickly going down the drain. Worst of all, while humans were hit hard, the youkai actually benefitted from this disturbance, due to their natural affinity to darkness. Their times of activity doubled, perhaps even tripled for some.
The balance of the land was in danger - I had to intervene.
I still remember it like it was yesterday. That incident was after all, the first one where the spellcards system was used.
Spellcards were in essence, a process that equalized the difference in power between every individual. It was an arrangement to ensure that humans and youkai fought on an even ground, and also, to guarantee the safety of both sides the conflict had come to an end.
The spellcards rules in question, were written by me... well, part of them - someone else had already laid the foundations beforehand - it was just a piece of paper that I happened to come across one day.
What mattered at any rate, was that all of Gensokyo accepted it warmly. Weirdly, even those that should not have even heard of it began employing it as a means to resolve their disputes, see for example: the residents of the old hell, and people that had just come from the outer world, like the Moriya Shrine's inhabitants.
Was it the popularity that my creation gained, or was it the doing of someone else that was involved in all this? I never really bothered figuring out all of this - Gensokyo was a land where the adjective "unexplainable" could apply to about 99% of its content.
In the end though, that spellcards became popular, or that its founding parchment had already been prepared well before I got my hands on it - both weren't too important questions when compared to that one mystery:
Who made it so that the spellcards system could become a reality?
I never did any large scale incantation to transform lethal projectiles into harmless fireworks, nor did I ever change things so that during spellcard battles, wounds inflicted physically, even mortal ones, would result in nothing more than a scratch.
All of it just happened. Who was the one responsible for all this?
This also, I never really asked myself - it just got lost within all of the adventures I embarked on from that point. I suppose that I began taking it all for granted, seeing the convenience in all of this - I could go about beating up people that were causing trouble, without fear of killing anyone, and peaceful resolutions would always come to happen in the end.
It was like a dream come true.
Now, though, there was a valid reason for me to question all these things once again, seeing that the spellcards' rules had been broken... and out of all people to break it on, it was me.
I overflew the abandoned path leading to my shrine. Saber hung on to me in her spirit form, having reverted to it after we blasted off from the Human Village moments earlier.
"Shrine maiden... what happened?" Saber asked.
I was unsure what to answer her. Saying that I saw a vision of what her life was like would have been most uncouth. Besides, the said vision was in itself a bizarre one – it appeared to date from an epoch way before the one of the current outside world. The city, the architecture, the clothing of the people, they all didn't fit with the description of the outside world that Yukari had given me.
I was left rather confused, so I decided not to tell Saber about this. Still, I couldn't avoid explaining the reason why we took off so abruptly, so I figured that I'd at least inform her about it:
"I had a premonition that something wrong is going on at the shrine."
"Premonition, you say?"
"Yeah, I often get these when my instincts try to warn me of the trouble to come."
Although I said instincts, it was more like a voice from the inside of my head that kept telling me what to do. In a similar way to my effortless flight ability, this "voice" had been stuck inside me as long as I could remember, internally guiding me at all times, may it be in battle, or even in my usual life.
I was a bit fearful that Saber was going to answer me with a weirded out tone. Talking about this matter to others often made them wonder if I was crazy, or possessed by a spirit. No one never really took me seriously when I told them about this "voice", the only two exceptions being Marisa and Yukari.
But then, with the first's personality and the latter's prankful nature, it was hard to in return to take them back with equal earnestness as well.
However, Saber didn't sound incredulous or doubting at all when she answered - she just hmphed acknowledgingly and said:
"Let us trust in them then. You will have some clearing up to do with the villagers though."
I didn't have to see her face to know if she was hiding anything. The answer was immediate, brief, and sounded genuine. It didn't seem like she was hiding anything or having hidden thoughts behind these words.
This made me feel better. She did not dismiss me as some sort of crazy girl. But then, she happened to be crazy as well in some respects... but at any rate, that was a lot of faith that she was putting in me, I who was someone she had just met, and somehow... it felt really nice.
"Yeah, no need to tell me about that."
"Was it the food that was poisoned, or was it just your body acting up?"
"You mean when I threw up?"
"Obviously," Saber said bluntly.
I didn't want to describe what had just traumatized me to Saber. At any rate, I had that bad feeling that we were going to see it soon.
"What I saw... was horrible."
Saber didn't answer, but seeing the mass of crimson particles move a bit, I guessed that it was probably something like a nod that she was giving me.
"Reimu! Wait, Reimu!" a voice cried from behind.
Oh sigh, I nearly forgot that we had her behind us.
Keine had managed to catch up. I decided to explain the situation, since the were-hakutaku was often quick to lose her temper, and I had no intention of getting headbutted as a result of that outcome.
I halted my flight, and Keine stopped right next to me, her waist-length blue-silver hair fluttering in the wind.
"Reimu! What on earth is going on!? First, you show up in the village soaked in blood, second, you space out and throw up, then. last but not least, you run away without any warning. Tell me, what is the problem?!"
Keine's tone was annoying, just like the one of a preaching adult. But then... she actually was a teacher, so it was kinda natural for her to sound like that.
I could understand a bit why the scholar was being so persistent - my welfare was tied to the Human Village's; if anything bad ever happened to me, the Human Village would quickly fall in turmoil as an aftermath of it.
"Keine, I'll make this short - first of all, I got kicked out of the shrine, and nearly killed as well in the process. Second, this girl here currently in her spiritual form is called Saber, and she's the one that treated me. I also think that Yukari has something to do with all this, but it's not clear yet what she's exactly trying to achieve. Last, I had a premonition that something horrific is happening at the shrine, so let's get moving."
I turned around immediately and resumed my flight.
"W-wait, Reimu!"
Argh, does she even speak Japanese or what?
"What is it?!" I asked Keine, not stopping, but rather, just turning my head to address her as she flew behind me.
"You mean that someone else is in control of the shrine now?"
"If I got kicked out, what else would that mean to you?!"
Keine took this a bit hardly. Anyway, that was enough to silence her, and that was exactly what I needed – some quietness. Seeing how tense my nerves had become, following such a series of unpleasant experiences... I could use a moment or two of respite.
Right as I was about to close my eyes and take a deep breath though, I noticed something on the horizon that was rather alarming.
You know what you think of immediately when you see a bunch of white patches in the sky, right? Oh, it's just clouds, or something fairly close to that train of thought, isn't it?
Well, that was exactly what I dismissed those weird white things floating above my shrine as - until I noticed how weirdly shaped they were. These "clouds" snaked from the shrine to other places, and in fact, when I inspected them closer, I understood that these were in truth, long trails of od that was being siphoned from all over the place.
I wasn't the only one to have realized that by that point.
"Trouble stirs ahead... that is a sizable amount of prana being stored," Saber commented, still in her spiritual form.
Keine didn't take long as well to notice as well, seeing that two of us already had our attention on that strange sight.
"With such a quantity of od being hoarded, whoever took the shrine can't possibly be planning anything good... this is outrageous! Just what on earth are those guys thinking?!"
If only I knew, if only I knew.
The shrine was about minute of flight away now. I could see the hill on which it had been built, and also, the very long stairway leading up to the shrine's entrance was now visible as a long white stripe.
The atmosphere was strange though. The color of the sky had become dimmer, as If night was already approaching. There was a tint of purple and red to the air, somewhat similar to the one given by Remilia's Scarlet Mist.
However, to my consternation, there wasn't any cloud or mist in the sky blocking the sun – the latter was fading away, just like that.
Needless to say, the feeling of ominous dread that had begun to creep inside me due to the nightmarish vision of earlier, wasn't getting any better at all.
"Reimu? Is it my sensitive eyesight that's playing tricks on me, or is it really getting darker?" Keine asked, she also having noticed how weird the place was becoming.
"It is getting darker and I don't know-"
Stop.
The world turned to red.
"What the..."
A deep red.
It wasn't the Scarlet's Devil's whimsical red. It was a malevolent red, a tint that screamed a big huge evil to the eyes seeing it.
The trees, the grass, the soil, the sky, everything around us that made up Gensokyo's flora was tainted red, as if a rain of blood had come to pass, and nature had drunk it all up.
Azalea leaves drenched in blood, oaks and pines that looked as if they had siphoned all of the blood from corpses buried beneath them... I could go on and on about how every single thing in sight looked as if it had been bloodied.
"What on earth is this?"
"A bounded field, shrine maiden, a particularly disgusting one," Saber said, still hanging on to me as a spread of particles. "You should go down, it seems to go up in intensity as we heighten our altitude."
"... Saber's right, It looks like this red 'thing' gets thicker at greater heights," Keine added urgently.
My instincts weren't going against these opinions at any rate. On the contrary, they were agreeing with them.
Coming to think of it, their was that weird, uncomfortable sensation that someone was literally squeezing my heart. In fact, I was even having some trouble breathing, my lungs struggling to inhale vital oxygen in.
We all dove down towards the path which we overflew. As Keine and Saber said, the effect lightened up as we touched down onto the ground.
Saber took form. I wasn't able to enjoy the beauty of that scene this time though, as standing in the middle of this bloody environment was even worse than flying over it. Still, that didn't prevent me from seeing that when Saber materialized, she didn't bring her body alone this time:
She held a massive jagged sword in her hands. The weapon was as long, if not, longer than her own body, the blade looking even more menacing than the shinigami's scythe.
"Shrine maiden, Scholar, I suggest that we proceed on foot from here - I cannot partake in aerial combat, and besides, this field was made to suck out of the lift of anything that flies; we'd be putting ourselves at a disadvantage if we were to travel through it." Saber said, holding her sword with one hand, resting the blunt side of the blade onto her shoulder.
There were other things to worry about - but I just couldn't stop staring at Saber, and on top of that, I couldn't keep a straight face while doing it. A small person holding such a big sword went from the realm of awe-inspiring to the one of the exceedingly silly - it was just absurd.
Keine, on the other hand, wasn't that distracted. As expected of the Guardian of the Humans, she remained level-headed and cool in such situation, and spoke up.
"I concur with your friend, Reimu. That aura will drain us dry of strength if we go through it," the were-hakutaku said.
"Hey, since when are we friends?" would be what I would've protested, but it wasn't the time for that, so I instead plainly nodded to show my approval of the plan.
This wasn't really my style though. My personal way of resolving this would have been to create a field of my own, and then, under its protection, fly straight to the shrine while negating the enemy field's effects. Boundaries were my specialty after all.
But moving in group was wiser here, I reckoned. I also wasn't in a particularly good shape, and tiring myself further wouldn't be of much help - it did require investment and effort to make bounded fields, at any rate. The one at the shrine could afford so, seeing all of their doings, and the fact that my home itself was the focal point of many leylines.
"Let's get going," I told the other two, leading the way by hovering away a meter or so above the ground.
My chest was feeling heavy, all this commotion had stirred up that dormant wound.
However, I just went on, trying to pay no heed to it. It hurt, and it was annoying, but as a shrine maiden, and as a youkai hunter, letting such a trivial annoyance slow me down was most unbecoming of me.
No matter how much I steel myself, this red forest is creeping me out.
I might have gone down to the old hell, or even travelled into the depths of Makai... maybe, I don't exactly recall doing so for the latter. Well, no matter where I went before, I had never felt such a... vicious atmosphere. I have heard the wails of thousands of vengeful spirits echo in the background. as I fought an insane hell raven; I caught a glimpse of death itself and nearly died when I battled against the rampant Lady of the Netherworld; I was brought eye to eye with madness and immortals as I set out to solve the corrupted full moon incident...
… but never did something creep me out like that.
What exactly was the viciousness here that I am speaking of, you wonder? Why was this red taint so disturbing, while I had been in a similar setting before, namely, during Remilia'sScarlet Mist?
Allow me to explain. You see, Remilia's red evoked whimsicalness. Sure, it turned the world into a vampire's favorite colours, black and red, which to be fair, weren't very inspiring when it came to feeling safe - however, it was harmful for Gensokyo in the long run, I felt that its actual purpose, the reason that fuelled it, was whimsicality. It had no intent to harm in it, neither did it have any sort of negative connotation.
The goal of that mist, was not to destroy.
What I was seeing now, evoked something totally different. It was a barbarian sentiment, one of utter waste that disregarded the preservation of life in all of its forms, may it be plants, humans, animals, or youkai. It was sapping the life out of everything, caring for nothing at all.
The group composed of Keine, Saber and myself went on through this revulsing scene, not saying much to each other. The air was tense, and an environment like this wasn't exactly the one someone would choose to have a chat at any rate.
I hovered a meter above the path, with Keine following right behind me. As for Saber... she was keeping up with us by running at an incredible speed.
And she wasn't even breaking a sweat.
Compared to her, I wasn't such a nice day.
I found that the breathing problem had returned, and alongside it also came the hellacious feeling that my heart was having all of its life squeezed out.
The bounded field, while not as strong as in the area above our heads, was still getting more intense as we drew closer to the shrine.
"That is enough torture," I thought to myself, clenching my fist onto my weary heart.
I decided that the time to use my abilities had come - going through this ordeal would only be worth the bother if it was less straining than flying straight to the shrine - and this wasn't looking like it'd be the case here.
"Everyone, hang on a sec - I'm going to set up a barrier to counteract this bounded field," I said, taking out four ofuda talismans from my sleeve, then, landing onto the ground.
"Of course, do so with haste. My Magic Resistance sadly isn't the greatest, so any sort of support would help," Saber said.
Magic Resistance? She is resistant to magic?
Saber's statement had me raise an eyebrow - but then I recalled that she wasn't a human. In the end, that she claimed to have properties characteristic of a greater youkai wasn't such a weird thing.
"Why didn't you do that from the beginning?" Keine asked.
"Duh, because there was no need. I didn't expect the field to become as powerful as that."
With that said, I focussed my attention on the four pieces of ofuda that I held. I put each of them down on the ground, carefully setting three of them in a triangle-like fashion, then inserting the fourth final one in the middle of it all.
Each of them began glowing as I mentally prepared myself for the incantation.
"Hachiman protect us,
Sarutahiko guide us,
Amaterasu shine on us.
Oh Gods, weave around us,
A shield through which none can harm us!"
At least my training to summon gods would have an actual use other than serving Yukari's plans back then when we went onto the moon.
Energy coursed through the three ofuda surrounding the fourth lone one. This meant that the three gods had accepted my request, and it was now my turn to input enough energy, so that the spell could actually work.
I kneeled down and pressed two of my fingers against the middle charm - od flew from my body to the piece of paper.
Now, before I continue, allow me to enlighten you on a subject - the complexity of spells. In most cases, it determines the winner in clashes of magecraft. There are many ways to make a spell more complex, such as creating a more focussed, longer incantation.
That's not the only method though, as the amount of existing processes to enhance a spell's complexity, are as numerous as the ways rice can be consumed.Sake, sushi, fried... wait, nevermind what I just said...
At any rate, I tried a barrier with a complexity of the first level.
It didn't stand for long. Barely had I constructed the foundations when everything caved in, and the red hell quickly made its return to torture us.
I upped my efforts and went on two a second level of complexity.
It stood this time, but it couldn't properly keep the offending bounded field from seeping in.
This is getting annoying... and tiring.
I frustratedly went to the third level of complexity... and this time to my contentment, I felt the flow of od stabilize at a hundred percent. The barrier finally managed to remain up and do its job effectively.
A square of od threaded itself around us, representing the three gods' blessings that took material form. Soon after, the red taint slowly receded as the bounded field I formed pushed the enemy's back.
"That is impressive, did you manage to dispel the bounded field as a whole?" Saber asked, looking at the newly formed barrier with interest.
"No, that'd be impossible, the scale of this opposing field is too big."
Indeed, while I did have my own qualities as a shrine maiden, I wasn't going to match the output of the bounded field that was trying to crush us. Whoever was responsible for it was hoarding od at the shrine, and seeing how the Hakurei Shrine already was a massive center for many of Gensokyo's leylines... not a lot of people in the land would have been able to go up against such power.
"That's the actual first time that I'm seeing you summon gods. So you're not just all show, aren't you?" Keine asked, her lips curled up in a wry smile.
Of course not you idiot, who got beaten badly a year or two ago?
We could once again see normal colours all around us. However, the lighting didn't exactly return to normal - it still appeared as if dusk was settling in, even though we should've been right in the middle of the day.
I grabbed the middle ofuda that had been infused with power and let it go afloat - using items like these to keep up active spells, was much more convenient than constantly maintaining the latter with my own od reserves.
The talisman hovered ahead and guided the way for us. It was a job that I had given it, at any rate.
"Come on, let's follow it," I said to the other two.
"Huh? Have you imbedded some sort of pathfinding spell into this mystic code? Saber asked.
Mystic Code... wasn't that the term she first used when she referred to my ofuda talismans? Her jargon sure was strange, I thought.
"Something like that. That Mystic Code you're referring to, it's my ofuda, isn't it?"
"That piece of paper that you use as a catalyst for your mantras." Saber said, pointing at the ofuda that was now floating ahead of us.
"I guessed so. Well, at any rate, the blessings of Hachiman, the God Protector of Japan, are the actual ones generating this field around us.
Sarutahiko, the god of wisdom and guidance and Amaterasu, the great goddess of the Japanese pantheon, were added to my mantra respectively to give this charm the ability to "feel" what road was best for us, and to reinforce the chant in general.
Having the patroness of the pantheon support you is always a good thing, don't you think?"
"Anyway, we don't have the time to explain such things -save them for later," Keine said, cutting us off. "We should better get going - your charm's trying to bring us somewhere."
The scholar was probably right; even though it was just an object, the charm appeared to be urging us to follow it, bouncing up and down as if to show its impatient nature.
Without any further ado, we went after it. Strangely, it didn't continue following the beaten path - rather, it lead us into the forest.
"You sure that you got the spell right?" Keine asked as we pushed aside the leaves and branches, wading through the thick shrubbery.
Her doubtful attitude was becoming quite bothersome.
"Look, why did you tag along us in the first place, if you are going to second guess everything that I do? Who solved all of the incidents that happened during the past months and years, mind you?"
"No need to be that reproachful... I was just wondering why your charm is having us go a way off from the Shrine's direction," Keine irked, getting defensive.
"Go ask the gods that decided to help us -"
Saber suddenly walked in between the two of us, planting her sword into the ground.
"Be at ease you two, there is no time for us to quarrel. Besides, if we continue this needless dispute, we'll be left behind by the guiding charm."
I diverted my attention from Keine for a bit, and saw that the charm was indeed going off on its own without us.
"The heck is that thing's problem?" I muttered, begrudgingly running after it.
As I went after the charm, Keine and Saber quick to follow. I wished that I could actually fly after it, but to try to fly in this forest's thick foliage, was to invite myself to slam my face into a branch.
Interlude : Witch of Colchis
The Hakurei Shrine, central worship area.
The figure wrapped in a black and purple cloak bit her lip, warily observing the image of the shrine maiden and her friends, running through the forest. The crystal globe that floated between her hands allowed her to monitor all the activity within the shrine's vicinity.
The group was headed towards one of these small "pockets" that had been stubbornly resisting her bounded field, so it did not really bode well for the witch's plans, for Caster.
There had already been one intruder which was interfering, and now, these other annoyances had just added themselves on the list of impediments.
The Witch of Colchis was less than pleased, especially when she recognized the shrine maiden as the one Assassin had been unable to dispatch earlier this night.
"Useless, an utterly useless Servant," she scornfully muttered, thinking about the samurai that, in all his fortune, was far away from her, standing at the Shrine's gates and guarding the top of the stairway.
Caster wanted to go out and personally punish him, perhaps even dispose of him, but she couldn't afford doing so – the enemies that were on their way here were not to be underestimated. This Shrine Maiden here, while easily incapacitated with a sneak attack, proved to be more than a threat when actually given a chance to fight back. She had after all, found a way to easily nullify her Age of Gods-level bounded field. It was on a local scale nonetheless, but still, no modern magi would have been able to achieve such a result.
The witch reasoned, that expecting the people of this land to be on the same level as the magi that she had encountered before, would be a very unsafe decision. This strongly echoed in her mind as she shot a glimpse at her back, looking at the pile of things that she had made nearby the shrine's main altar.
Youkai and fairies lay atop each other, nearly lifeless, whimpering in pain and despair as they were having all of their life force sucked out of them.
Caster had rounded them up after she unleashed her bounded field's initial wave, its intensity powerful enough to make sure that no one could then escape and warn others of what was happening - the opening salvo was made to floor everyone, no, everything.
Things hadn't gone as well as the witch had wished though. She went through some trouble though while trying to subdue the entourage and turn them into reliable sources of prana. While these phantasmal beasts were weakened badly by her bounded field, a copy of the "Blood Fort Andromeda" she had managed to replicate and improve from Rider's arsenal, the creatures weren't left totally defenseless post the initial shock – their magic resistance was strong, perhaps not as strong as a servant of the Saber class, but what would have turned humans immediately into mush, these creatures took it without too much damage.
Caster had already taken care of the subduing though, so there wasn't much to worry about anymore. Also, at any rate, the toughness of theses phantasmal beasts was in the end very practical for her as they proved to be very durable when improvised as prana generators. And that wasn't the thing attribute that she could exploit - the weaker phantasmal beasts also had other uses, being easily mind controllable, and thus, easily usable as an end to reinforce her current stronghold.
But though she had meticulously set up these preparations... it wasn't like she was planning on staying in this place much longer – her true goal was to reunite with her beloved man, with the one that she had been separated from. Kuzuki Souichirou, the one that she loved, the one that had a given a reason for her to exist.
The witch was working hard to find a way in returning to him, and to her satisfaction, things were going rather well.
Caster had thoroughly ransacked the shrine for information. There were many scrolls and manuscripts that piqued her interest, all of them describing eastern magecraft with a great deal of detail. Even though they were written in a language foreign to her, a difference of medium wasn't that great of a setback for Caster, she who had flawlessly mastered High Speed Divine Words. Besides, as a Servant summoned by the Fuyuki Grail, she was naturally given the ability to decipher Japanese.
Some of these scrolls had already been put to use - her very own bounded field had been reinforced by the magical theories deciphered from the latter. Unlike the research of the so called "Magus Association" these written artifacts here actually held knowledge of value.
But most important to her was the data that they contained, the data about "where" she had been transported exactly. It appeared to be some sort of land separated from Gaia by a very powerful barrier. The details to break said barrier had not been elaborated upon, but the Witch of Colchis had, nonetheless, come up with a method that was apparently working, seeing that she could witness the slow deconstruction of the barrier outside the walls of this shrine in which she stood.
Even the night from the other side was seeping in.
Caster did not know who brought her to this land, and neither was she certain that her current endeavors would allow her to return to Kuzuki's side. After all, there was no guarantee that on the other side of this barrier, was the RyuudouTemple, the place where she had come from.
But was there anything else she could do?
Caster looked at the crystal ball again, her attention focusing on the blonde crimson figure that accompanied the shrine maiden. Caster had seen that face of hers before, during the Holy Grail War from which the witch came... it was the face of that war's Saber, the trump card that she sought so dearly to defeat Berserker.
The Saber here though, was a different person altogether. Perhaps that these two shared a physical resemblance, but Caster could tell that the two girls were in fact, two separate souls.
"Where did she come from?" Caster wondered as she looked at the petite figure, leaping like a gazelle amongst the trees.
The shrine maiden didn't appear to hold any command seals, nor did the other woman in blue that traveled with the group. It was an uncommon and strange sight to Caster, seeing that a Servant was traveling without a Master.
But wherever the Master was, that wasn't the problem – Caster decided that she wasn't going to leave this place empty handed.
"Why not return to my own grail war, with another Saber in tow this time?" she thought to herself.
A deviant smile appeared onto the Witch of Colchis' lips. She considered that finally, the time spent here wasn't going to be an actual loss.
There were things to be gained from this land.
"H...h...he...lp..."
Not again.
The voices that had assailed me mentally earlier at the village made a comeback as I ran amidst the trees, trailing the charm that was speeding up for reasons unknown to me.
The abruptness with which the voices manifested themselves threw me off, and I nearly missed a step, but luckily, I was able to stop myself from slamming face-first into a tree just in time and keep running after the charm.
"H...h...he...lp..."
The voices weren't stopping.
"H...h...he...lp..."
They were getting more frequent as I kept on going, continuously ringing inside my ears.
"Hang on, inside my ears?" I exclaimed internally, noticing that this was different from what I had experienced back then in the Human Village. The voices weren't in my mind... I was actually hearing them.
I looked back at Keine and Saber, about to ask them wherever or not they could hear what I was hearing. However, the moment I saw their face filled with concern, there was no need to ask.
"Reimu, look ahead, it's a clearing, it's..." Keine said, lifting her finger and pointing it to our front, before her eyes shot wide open in shock.
The density of trees and bushes was lessening around us, and in the direction that Keine had pointed out earlier, I could easily catch a glimpse of an open place filled with short grass.
"Wait... what's all this stuff in it?"
As I said these words, I took the final step that transitioned me from the forest to the clearing... and I saw them then.
Them... what is them, you ask?
Inanimate youkai corpses that littered the field. A lot of these were wheezing heavily, like old people at the doorstep of death. Others, in a miserable display of helplessness, tried to move, tried to stand up, only to find that they lacked the strength to even merely sit.
The skin on some of these lesser youkai and fairies wasn't even holding anymore, dripping down their body like some sort of wax.
The horror...
"By the blazes of Hokkai..." I heard Keine whisper in disbelief behind.
"This is..." Saber said as she jumped to my side, in a tone conveying an equal amount of incredulity.
The remains of a battlefield, or the aftermath of a manslaughter? What was this exactly?
There was only one thing from which I could express relief here – the fact that I wasn't seeing all this tainted with that hellish red from before.
Phantasm 1.3 - END