Author's Note:
I was in a bit of a rush to finish this chapter before RE4 Remake came out… then I tested positive for COVID yesterday afternoon after feeling a bit ill for some reason. Thankfully, I'd already finished writing this chapter by then.
I'll be taking a bit of time to recover and rest. I'm not feeling incredibly ill, but I'd rather not push myself. Hopefully this chapter can keep you all entertained in the meantime.
~ STAGE 14: A Distance in Centuries ~
[START]
Luka had long-since upgraded from shooting still trees. She'd gotten good enough to land hits on even tiny fairies as they darted about, and had improved her firing rate to the point the aged matchlock pistols in her hands fired like a pair of semi-automatics. Frequent practice had made her pretty confident in her new skills.
She'd yet to land a single hit on Aya.
"There!" Heat flowed through her arms, hands, and into her guns, firing off several bullet-shaped danmaku with each pull of the trigger. The tiny dots of light bolted, faster than human eyes could see, towards their target. Surely, an annoying crow floating completely still, stupid smirk on her face, wouldn't be able to dodge them—
A single instantaneous wingbeat. Right as the bullets closed on their target, she turned into a blur, and they pierced empty air. Luka's eyes could just barely track the motion, and she turned her head to the side to see Aya offering a cavalier wave with her fan as if she wasn't being shot at. On her arm, Luka's bag was held by the strap, hanging by her elbow.
"..." Luka snapped a pistol to Aya again, firing at her annoying face. Aya had already tilted her head by the time the trigger was pulled, and the bullet flew harmlessly past her head. "Agh, stay still!"
The cliffside made for a conveniently-sized, mostly flat arena, vaguely circular in shape with the edges formed by the steep drop on one half and the curving river dropping into a waterfall on the other. Even still, with no issue of sightlines, it was hard for Luka to land any hits on Aya.
"If you're having trouble hitting me, you should've thought twice before challenging a tengu." Aya fanned herself playfully. "I've hardly broken a sweat. Can you even keep up? Though, I guess your eyes are decent, so perhaps it's just a matter of your body being too slow."
She was being made fun of. As usual. "Give me a couple minutes, I'll catch you sooner or later." She took aim with both guns.
Aya stretched, extending her fan arm far above her head. "Mmm, I have a busy schedule today, so we'll have to make it short. How does a few seconds sound?"
In the next second, Aya's arm blurred, and Luka heard a sound like whipping cloth cracking against the air. Wind whistling, growing louder, and Luka realized something was flying at her. Crescent-shaped danmaku, like thrown sickles, hurtling towards her.
"—!" Instinctively, Luka fired on Aya twice, the danmaku zooming past the oncoming barrage and nailing Aya in the shoulder and chest. Instead of the bullets rendering fatal blows, they instead fizzled out—as if absorbed. A gray wall, like armor made of wind, appeared around Aya and soaked up the bullets like a sponge, flickering with each hit.
Sharpened winds closed in with manic whistling. Before they cut her to pieces, Luka tensed her leg muscles and launched herself into a moon-jump. She still had enough energy for that. Lifting into the air, she took aim at—
An empty patch of grass where the tengu was once standing. (She's gone?!)
Something shadowed over Luka, leaving her just enough time to look up and see a violent smear slam into her gut. Time seemed to slow as she processed the silhouette's impact: Aya, slamming the long slats of her sandals into Luka's stomach. In the slowed time, Luka almost swore Aya's expression moved at normal speed, an audacious and mocking look to it. Another dumb grin.
Miraculously, the hit didn't come packaged with a sickening crunch. Instead, bright red flames appeared, like a field around Luka, seeming to swallow the impact and flicker worryingly.
Then Father Time remembered he was on-the-clock and returned things to normal. The world blinked past Luka, before smacking her against grass, bouncing and spinning her for one good tumble, and then slamming her facefirst in the dirt again.
Saying she got the wind knocked out of her would've been redundant. And also correct.
"F… ugh…!"
Luka cursed and rolled painfully. Her pistols were still in her hands, thankfully. It'd taken a lot of practice to keep her from letting go of them when she took a bad hit. By now, she could probably hold onto them even if she got knocked unconscious; like rigor mortis without the mortis.
As she lay there, the same flames that ate Aya's kick swirled around her protectively, as if licking her wounds.
Seeing both it and Aya's wind armor in-action, a familiar witch's tutorings rang through her head…
"There, now you're gettin' it!" An entire week spent being blasted by all sorts of magic and hit with a broom more times than she could count. Until bringing up that flame was pure muscle memory. "Spellcard battles are more than shooting; you've gotta be able to get shot too."
'Defensive danmaku' was the concept Marisa had explained, essentially. An idea of protection, as if putting up a line between what constituted a 'real' attack and a 'play' attack. While it made a handy barrier, it served a different purpose than just soaking up damage.
"To play this sort of game, you need a way to determine who won and who lost. This is how we figure out if you broke someone's card or got offed tryin'."
In the language of outsiders, think of it like a video game. Even if barriers that looked like wind or fire popped up, it was just visual fluff; the real measure of defense was something like an invisible health bar. And if the bar hit zero, the player lost a life. Simple.
"Convenient, right?"
Sure, sure. Luka just wished it came with anti-pain powers too. (Damn, this hurts…!)
Seeing her protection work as intended, Luka could confirm: she'd successfully graduated the 'not dying' part of fighting. So, what about actually winning?
Luka East (Aggressor) - [✦✦]
Aya Shameimaru (Defender) - [ ]
Two lives each, Luka having two bombs per life and Aya having a preliminary barrier for Luka to break before she'd use her Spellcards. (So unfair…)
From overhead, a breeze nudged at Luka. Angling her head up, she saw Aya watching her writhe, seated in midair with her legs crossed as if getting bored.
"I figured since you were a half-youkai, you might be hiding some fantastic power. But you're a bit weak, aren't you?" Aya frowned. "It's hard to get any good material. I'd just be writing about myself at this rate."
Again and again. People loved to pick on Luka for how weak she was. She wanted to let out another tangent, summarized as Just give me a break already!, but it wouldn't have done her any good.
She forced herself to her feet. "Just warming up. Gotta figure you out before I can take you out."
Aya propped her chin in her palm. "Then do it already."
Luka cut the banter short with another gunshot, only for the seated Aya to once again zoom off. (Guess she can do it however she's positioned…)
Seeing her dart about, Luka got to thinking. Going purely by the difference in speed, Luka wouldn't be able to land any shots on Aya just by trying to hit her normally. She moved too quickly, and if she was left with any room to react to a surprise attack, it wouldn't work.
The only method Luka could think of was to play the game to her advantage.
Danmaku, and by extension Spellcard battles, were described as 'battles of beauty'. Being mostly play-fighting, they didn't follow the same exact rules as an actual fight. They were based around patterns—concepts and ideas manifested into the form of an attack.
For example, Marisa prided herself on flashy firepower. So her danmaku tended towards showing it off, with destructive lasers and bombastic starshowers.
Looking at how she was fighting now, Aya seemed to be showing off her speed above all else. Dodging attacks, forcing Luka to dodge, and then showing Aya could even fly up and touch her before she could even counterattack.
… Hm. Now there was an idea.
Fwoosh! From behind Luka, that same sound from before. By some ability she or that fan possessed, Aya shot at her once again. Turning, Luka saw the same sickles closing in on her. Aya was watching her movements, waiting.
Luka defied gravity once again, leaping above the bullets. She could see Aya vanishing out of the corner of her eye, and prepared. Visualizing in her mind's eye, a card formed. She held its name until the outline of a blur darted right to her
A smirk. She crossed her guns in front of her in an X, and opened her mouth. The tengu was moving a bit too fast to make it out, but her eyes widened as Luka spoke:
"Spirits Sign 『Rum & Smoke』!"
If hitting the target from afar wasn't an option, it only made sense to lure it in and hit everything around her before it could escape.
She spun in midair, a sprinkler of death. Caring little for accuracy, she fired as fast as she could pull the trigger, filling the entire space around her with bullets. If Aya wasn't going so fast, she might've been able to retreat back and fly in-between the gaps of the barrage as it traveled outward.
"Gah?!" Based on her squawk, she was. The outburst didn't just splash her, it soaked her. She was sprayed by bullets, both in her initial assault and in her failed attempt to fly back out of the danger zone. Even Luka's weak danmaku, if in excess, were enough to hurt.
Krk! The gale protecting Aya cracked, then shattered, a layer of it shedding. The force of that explosion threw the tengu back, leaving her floating on her back in midair, like a dead body floating in water.
Luka came to a stop and spotted something flying at her from overhead. A familiar object, flung from Aya's grasp. Happily, Luka snatched it out of the air as she touched down.
"Hah!—uuuoooh, uh—" Dizzy, dizzy… Luka stumbled for a second, before shaking her head, regaining her balance, and striking a pose with her pistols. "How's that?!"
Kind of a Marisa-like play. She wondered what her tutor would think.
Luka East (Aggressor) - [✦✧]
Aya Shameimaru (Defender) - [ ]
"Hm. Not too bad." Like a reclining chair, Aya rose to a seated position. She'd cupped her chin, studying Luka once again.
"Rethinking your opinion of me now?" Luka shuffled through her bag briefly. Aya still had Suika's photo, but she'd gotten back everything else. Satisfied, she firmly tied it back onto her back.
"Mm, a little. I'm not sure you're worthwhile article material yet." Aya shook her head. "I'm curious now, though. Is this your first time in a proper duel?"
"Of course not." Luka immediately half-lied. Actually, she'd had mock duels with both Marisa and Reimu (once). Though she wasn't sure if they counted as actual fights, they felt like it at the time. "I've been in plenty of real fights."
"Hm-hm." Aya stroked her chin. She was probably scribbling in a mental notepad. "In that case, I can probably take you a bit more seriously. I'll get better material if we keep this interesting."
As if gravity had seized her, Aya dropped to the ground. Snapping her fingers, a mini-whirlwind formed in her hand, spinning, solidifying into a card.
"Squall 『Sarutahiko's Guidance』!"
The card dispelled and the wind began to surge, surrounding Aya. The tengu lowered to an Olympic runner stance, hands against the ground and legs braced, her sandals cleanly balanced.
As soon as she went into that stance, Luka felt her hair bristle. A chill ran down her spine, and some muted voice in her head started screaming at her to move.
A single, thunderous sound, like a god touching down upon the land. Dirt kicked up, grass was launched everywhere. In a single kicking motion, Aya's lithe form transformed. Something like a storm roared, screaming in Luka's direction. Suddenly, she was staring down a raging tornado. Yes, a godlike, terrible tornado was about to run her down—
Luka's feet stalled for half a second. She threw herself to the side, feeling something shear against her side like metal. The flames protecting her sparked, seeming to scream as Aya grazed past. Her jacket whipped violently against the wind, forcing her to roll forward, stumbling back to her feet, clumsily trying to get a shot ready.
Only, the moment she turned, someone was waiting for her. Skidding, sliding, braking to a halt was Aya. Sandals against the grass, her arm was tensed back as if preparing a fierce backhand. In her hand, the leaf fan was ready.
She swung, and something harshly punched through the air. Several bullets, as large as Luka's torso, fired off. She didn't even have time to brace herself as a feeling like several horses kicking her in unison exploded, flames flickering with each impact. Her right shoulder, her legs, her face; each one took a hit.
With a pained gasp, Luka staggered back, vision going blurry. Refocusing, she rebalanced, got her footing back, only to look back up and see Aya readying another charge.
Not enough time to dodge. Just enough time to see the storm explode out again and ram right into her.
For fairly obvious reasons, Luka had never experienced getting run over by a car. This, though, she figured was a close comparison. A feeling muted, yet still extremely painful. The shock nearly made her black out, her body going completely limp like a noodle.
She'd heard stories about some unlucky souls who got run over being flung into the air like ragdolls. She assumed that was some cartoonish exaggeration. It wasn't, and whether by the sheer impact or the gale following Aya, Luka was swept into the air, her legs flopping about like useless meat. Her body spun like a morbid top.
The red flames surrounding her seemed to yelp, as if reaching their limit. They flashed, blinking faster with each spin, until…
Pichuuun~
Luka East (Aggressor) - [✦✦]
Aya Shameimaru (Defender) - [ ]
A loud crack, Luka slamming against the ground. Lying prone against the ravaged grass and dirt, everything in Luka's body was crying. Was it by willpower or luck that she held onto consciousness?
Either way, she could still move, albeit shakily.
"Hm." Seeing her like this, Aya seemed joyous in her display of power. A smile crept onto her face. "Hey, are you alright? Maybe I should give you a moment to rest."
It wasn't a polite act of generosity. It was closer to sadism, as if those who disrespected the might of the tengu were to be thoroughly 'taught' the error of their ways. Aya wanted Luka to catch her breath just so she could knock it back out of her again.
Annoyed with that image, Luka forced herself to her feet, then realized something. There was a hole somewhere that it shouldn't have been. (My jacket…) That red, thin jacket. Her favorite one. There were several thin holes torn in it after that hit, as if the razor wind had cut it.
On top of that, her lungs were sobbing. The turbulent air made it hard to breathe. Her limbs were still burning from the earlier climb, and now they felt even worse. Everything hurt.
… Even with all of that, Luka looked back to Aya with a dark smirk. If she had gained any ability in this trip, it was hiding all her emotions behind that look.
"I'm just warming up." Luka said. "What about you?"
Aya's smile faded, and she sighed. She looked disappointed for some reason. An irritated muttering, "With the shrine maiden and that witch, they at least have some power to back up their attitude. Aren't you all bluster?"
"I prefer the term 'comfortably confident'."
"'Suicidally overconfident', maybe." Aya said, before dropping down to her running stance again.
(... Okay, me, now would be a REALLY good time for a plan!)
She couldn't take another hit like that, obviously. Dodging the initial motion was rough, and she couldn't afford to get sloppy with it. She also needed to somehow counterattack without getting caught up in Aya's follow-up attack. With how fast those bullets were and how hard they hit, any risk of getting hit was too high, especially if she got swallowed up by one of Aya's charges afterwards.
(If I could fly, that'd be one option…) In that case, positioning would've been easy. But she couldn't.
Luka had to dodge, counterattack, and make sure she didn't get hit by anything in the process. How was she supposed to do that with an attack like this? She just wasn't fast enough compared to Aya.
(Ugh. Stupid newspapers. Why'd I even go through all this trouble if I was just gonna get screwed here? All that time in Reimu's storehouse, hunched over in the dark—)
She stopped. Her brain snagged onto a memory, an image. Wait, would that even work? She didn't have any guarantees…
Howling, whistling wind cut into her thoughts. It surged angrily around Aya. Luka felt her arm twisting. (Alright, fine! I've been all about crazy ideas today anyways!)
She waited until Aya's body braced before jumping to the side. Just barely, the tengu missile shot past her, braking and aiming, ready to end things.
Only, Luka hadn't stopped to aim like she did before. Instead, Luka kept running. A full, proper-form sprint. Twirling her guns to one side, she started shooting. B-bang-b-bang! Not even at Aya, but in the open air.
"What are you doing?" Had she lost her mind? Aya narrowed her eyes, trying to get a better look—
"This!" Luka called out, bringing Aya's attention to her. As soon as she had it, she spun back around, and stuck her tongue out while pulling on her eyelid.
"Huh?!" From afar, Luka could make out the outline of a vein in Aya's forehead as she readied another charge. She seemed to forget what Luka had just done.
Perfect.
Luka repeated the process. Each time, she'd fire off her pistols before distracting Aya with some manner of childish insult.
"Hey, what's with the 'Shameimaru' part of your name? Is it because your newspaper's a 'sham' or you're a 'shame'?" Luka taunted, forgetting she was filtered through a translator.
"That—what?!" It still made Aya mad, though. "What kind of childish insult is that?"
"I know you are, but what am I?!"
"Wh—WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN?!"
"Your mom!"
They didn't need to be masterpieces of quipology. Just stupid, obnoxious, and loud enough that the recipient would want to cram her in a locker and blow it to pieces. Based on the infuriated growl and repeated bull charging, she was getting just that.
Eventually, after moving in a complete circle, Luka came to a stop.
"Finished running?" Aya growled, like she was about to throttle Luka where she stood. Just one more nudge.
"Yeah, I'm good." Playing up her exhaustion a little, Luka walked to the center of the circle she'd drawn. "Hey, by the way, how's that formal complaint coming along? Want me to proofread it before it hits your boss's desk?"
"—" With a cold glare communicating a wordless 'I'm gonna kill you', Aya shot at her like a bullet train. Seeing that, Luka leapt into the air, straight up, above Aya's stopping point.
The astute would have noticed it by now. The circle Luka had drawn wasn't just some coincidence on where she chose to run. As Aya came to a stop, fan at the ready, she realized it.
They were small, as if Luka had shrunk their size as far as she could. But as Luka ascended, they grew, almost popping into existence: little dots of light forming an entire barrage of bullets. Nearly a hundred in total surrounded Aya, forming a dome around her. All of the bullets were frozen in midair, aimed right at Aya, like soldiers waiting for an order.
Luka floated overhead, just outside the dome, with a grin on her face and a Spellcard in her hand.
Like she'd done in the shrine storehouse. 'The world's most visually confusing torch' upgraded to 'the world's most visually confusing firing squad'.
"Bullet Dome 『Cocktail Smoking』!"
Aya's eyes widened, and before she could move, the bullets fired. Like a mouse trap snapping shut on its unsuspecting victim. A cage to ensnare the crow.
The lights bombarded, coalesced, and all-together exploded like a firework, sending up a cloud of dust all around them.
Krk! And so, the first card was broken.
Luka East (Aggressor) - [✦✧]
Aya Shameimaru (Defender) - [ ]
Luka glided back to the ground as the dust settled, landing a good distance from the attack, right next to the river. "One card left. Feels like I'm getting the hang of this, huh?"
No immediate response. Luka hadn't hit her too hard, had she?
Then— Foom!
"Whoa!" Luka shielded her face. A powerful gust of wind expelled the remaining dust, revealing a slightly banged-up Aya standing amidst a small crater in the earth. Her fan arm outstretched, it looked like she'd finally suffered a bit of damage, with some tears in her uniform and hair looking a bit disheveled.
Luka opened her mouth, ready to make another crack at Aya's expense, only for the tengu to… flip out a notepad from nowhere and start diligently writing something.
"Unassuming, yet crafty." Her pen moved like a blur, implying she was writing a lot more than just that. "Weak, but leverages her strengths. Hm…"
She wasn't sure how much she appreciated being called 'weak', though she'd take the praise for a change.
"Hey. Excuse me." Luka made a 'bring it' gesture with her pistols. "We're fighting?"
Aya wordlessly raised her right hand (still holding the pen) with one finger extended, then resumed. (Hey! Am I not good enough for your full attention?) The silence continued for a few moments, before Aya eventually closed her notebook with a satisfied nod.
"There. I think I've gotten something interesting, at least for an extra…" A sigh. She looked tired all of a sudden. What, was she running up on a deadline or something?
"You good?" Luka asked.
Aya nodded, putting her pen and notebook away and whipping her fan out again. "I'm good."
Right. Luka braced herself. "Ready for me to end this?" She felt it, she could win this. She could actually win!
Aya, despite having gotten duped twice over by now, smiled confidently. "I think I gave you the wrong impression by humoring that display just now. You mentioned 'two years' earlier? You've only been training for that long?"
"Yep. I'm not about to go down easy, not after all that hard—" Luka's grin broke. "—Wait. What do you mean 'only'?" And… 'humoring'?
"How long do you think youkai live?"
She didn't know how to answer that question. "I… don't know? A long time?"
"Hundreds of years. Some of us thousands. Two years of basic training is hardly a blink for us. Are you really that sure you can win if I fight seriously?"
"'Fight seriously', really?" Luka scoffed, then trained a pistol on Aya. "What, you've been holding back some second form or forbidden secret art? You're not just faking it because you got played twice?"
"Do you need to step on an ant just to prove that you could crush it?"
There was a coldness, a chill to that sentence. Luka tried to ignore it, and trained her second pistol on her. "Whatever. Even normal humans fight and win against youkai here all the time. Just look at Reimu and Marisa. Is it that unreasonable for a half-youkai to beat you here and now?" She'd pretend she believed that 'half-youkai' just for now.
"'Normal', really?" Aya chuckled. "Well, they're still only humans compared to us, I'll give you that, but they have skills far beyond the 'normal'. Are you saying you're on the same level as them? Can you even fly? You've been fighting mostly on the ground this entire time."
… Luka chose not to reply to that. Instead, she wordlessly glared. "..."
Seeing that, Aya let out a small laugh. Flapping her wings once, she rose to the sky again. Forceful, powerful winds seemed to gather in her hand. Rising it above her head, the gale took form and shone: a single card, more radiant than the ones before.
"If you really aren't 'normal', than I encourage you to try surviving this. I doubt you will, though." Aya seemed almost like a wind god, voice bellowing over even the vortex surrounding her. "For the young half-youkai, a lesson to engrave upon your being! May your human blood learn to fear the tengu of Yatsugatake, and your youkai heritage remember to honor our dominion and pay tribute to our power!"
Aya's voice boomed, the winds swirled, and her card thundered—
"『Illusionary Dominance』!"
An unreal gale screeched by, muffling out all noise for a single second, and Aya blinked out of existence.
The winds settled. All seemed to settle into silence, into stillness. It was as if the tengu had never been there to begin with. The only thing left on the cliffside was Luka, confused and looking for the disappeared tengu.
"—Where is she?" Luka played the card's name out in her head. 'Illusionary Dominance'? Was it some kind of illusion? Could the wind do something like that? She spun around, aiming all around her. "Damn it, what—"
Luka's right shoulder exploded. No, that wasn't right. It was still attached—but it burst into searing pain, something blasting right past it, screaming with its sheer speed.
"Aaugh?!" Luka barely had time to flinch before the same sensation slashed past the left side of her torso, spinning her with its force and causing her to yell. As she struggled to regain balance, the screaming entity suddenly appeared right in front of her, and she finally got a visual on it. More than a blur, it was like a red laser in the shape of a vague, winged human form.
Already an inch from the center of her chest. She didn't even have time to widen her eyes in shock.
Crack. Luka's vision went red and blurry, her feet left the ground. Gasping, she snapped back to focus as the blurring world came back into color. (Where—) Another screeching strike from her back, spinning her. Again, again, again, faster and more disorienting each time. Her untrained eyes couldn't hope to keep up with something that quick, something that powerful. It wasn't a blur. It was almost invisible. She didn't realize something could move that fast.
If it was an illusion, it was the most real thing she'd ever felt.
In reality, as pain overloaded Luka's senses, she couldn't put it together that the 'thing' tearing her apart was not an illusion. It wasn't an 'it', though it perhaps seemed that way to her mostly human sensibilities.
It was Aya, simply moving at her top speed.
Trying to fight back however she could, Luka tried to shoot, but every attempt was cut off, the bullet veering off and hitting nothing even when she fired. Her muscles failed her, spasming as her nervous system screamed fire. No time to regain her focus. Nothing, except to be carried higher and higher by her opponent's assault, helplessly taking each continuing strike.
Luka's protection had practically enveloped her by this point, the flashing flames dimming, snuffing out a little more with each pass like blowing at candlelight.
The red light seemed to notice this, and veered for one final strike, crashing directly into Luka's chest.
"Kuhh—" Coughing, Luka's vision finally blacked out. Her flames sputtered one last time, like blood, as Luka's body was flung backwards, enveloped with light, growing brighter, brighter…
Pichuu~uuun~
Luka East (Aggressor) - [✦✧]
Aya Shameimaru (Defender) - [ ]
~ Winner: Aya Shameimaru ~
Luka had lost.
Broken, beaten, and unconscious, Luka tumbled through the air, before crashing in the river at the battlefield's edge with a loud sploosh. The same river that led to the waterfall she had climbed up next to.
Finally slowing back down, Aya Shameimaru came to a stop in midair, watching as Luka's limp body floated downstream, and eventually disappeared over the edge. After a few seconds of silence, she pulled a small clipping from her notepad. The picture of Suika Ibuki Luka had been carrying.
"Hm… Probably not a half-oni. Too weak for that. Kind of a shame, that would've been juicy material. I wonder…"
Mumbling more baseless theories to herself, Aya flew off, mulling over an article that would probably spend more paper than it was worth.
Author's Note:
Sorry to leave you all on a cliffhanger on such short notice. (Wait, that's a pun…)
Cleverness is a fun trait to give characters and can lead to some fantastic upsets in fights, but I also think it's a bit overhyped. "Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth". Being smart just means you can usually figure out how to best manage your current situation. That doesn't guarantee victory, especially if your opponent's so much better than you.
… Hm, wouldn't this make it twice she's been thrown off a cliff? Or, once? I hope this doesn't become a pattern…