Chapter 20
One day, the skies of Gensokyo was enveloped by a thick red mist, blocking out the sun leaving not a single speck of light through it. The land was engulfed by everlasting darkness, as if daybreak had vanished altogether.
The red mist was enacted by none other than the one Scarlet Devil, who expressed her desire to roam the land of Gensokyo regardless of the hour of the day. This incident was eventually known as the "Scarlet Mist Incident", not a single living being would not know of it, as everyone's lives were deeply affected by the lack of sunlight.
The shrine maiden of the Hakurei Shrine, carrying the responsibility of maintaining Gensokyo's peace on her shoulders, brought to herself to solve this incident. She infiltrated the Scarlet Devil Mansion, took down the gate guardian Hong Meiling in the process.
"Why is this hallway so long?" Reimu had been flying through the main hallway for 10 minutes, but had seen nothing much other than those pesky fairy maids attacking her in the perpetually-looking hallway. The hallway didn't look wide, but the length was ridiculous, going as far as several miles yet no end was at sight. "Must be someone putting up a spell on this one…" Reimu thought to herself.
"That's far enough." An apathetic and cold voice rang out from the hallway, Reimu stopped immediately, looking for the source of the voice. The place she stopped was unique, it had the only flight of stairs in the entire hallway, and it led to a door, which according to Reimu's trusty intuition, would be where the culprit was hiding.
"Is the door behind leading to the perpetrator behind the red mist?" Reimu inquired.
"That is correct. My mistress, Remilia Scarlet lies just behind the door. However…" Sakuya vanished right in front of Reimu and reappeared behind her, whispering to her ear, "I do not intend to let you pass."
After saying that, Sakuya greeted Reimu with a point blank dagger throw, which Reimu barely able to dodge it by lowering her head backwards, causing her to almost fall onto her rear. The shrine maiden quickly got back up and jumped some distances away, releasing several purifying needles and ofudas to attack the head maid.
Sakuya did not dodge them normally, prompting to disappear abruptly not leaving a single trace, causing the projectiles to hit nothing, then appear at a safe spot beside the missed projectiles. Reimu noticed this strange behavior, as she could not read Sakuya's movements as all. How did she move like that?
"Too slow." Sakuya vanished again, this time reappearing airborne, with tons of daggers materializing together with her, flying towards the Hakurei miko. Reimu, just in time to spot Sakuya's whereabouts, just barely dodge the daggers by deflecting them with her staff.
Reimu also made a leap, pulling out a spell card which held her midair for a few seconds, a magical circle was formed around her as she made a brief incantation. "Spirit Sign – Fantasy Orb!" Several rainbow-colored spherical orbs appeared behind her and home into the head maid. Sakuya did not seem to have the intention of avoiding them until the very last second, where Reimu was shocked to discover her orbs hit nothing again but air. Where did she go!?
"So, you used a spell card." Sakuya said aloofly as she reappeared in an opposite direction, pulled out a spell card of herself, "Illusion Sign – Killer Doll", the space around them was bent and manipulated, causing numerous portals to open up, each of them followed by a line of daggers. Sakuya moved her fingers, causing the knives to fly into their target with superb acceleration from every direction.
A series of barrages followed, with Sakuya looking patiently at her prey, smoke blocking her view which appeared just as the knives made contact with the shrine maiden. As expected, the miko was unharmed, as she enacted a barrier to protect herself from harm's way.
It was Duplex Barrier, one of Reimu's emergency defensive spell cards, only used when she found herself cornered and nowhere to run. Such a maneuver left Reimu panting from mental exhaustion, as she had only a fragment of a second to make the choice and pull the spell out, else she became mincemeat from the dicing of the knives.
Sakuya's expression remained unchanged at the sight of seeing the shrine maiden still standing. She stopped time again and rushed towards Reimu, reactivating it just as she ran up into the face of the miko, totally unguarded with her onrushing melee attacks.
Deflecting Sakuya's twin knives with her purifying staff as well as dodging them by a hair's breadth, Reimu stood no chance against Sakuya in close combat. She quickly threw an exploding ofuda on the ground causing it to blow up, giving her some window to jump away and returning the battle to a ranged one. Within those few seconds of close-range clashes, Reimu had already suffered numerous cuts and gashes, many of which she did not recall how she got them from Sakuya.
Her ability to fight in close range… is frightening… That brief confrontation left Reimu trembling, knowing she had absolutely zero chances of winning should the melee battle dragged any longer.
Sakuya's face remained cold and blank, making it more difficult for Reimu to read her opponent. Sakuya proceeded to pull out another one of her spell cards, wishing for a quick end of this fight. "Conjuring – Illusional Misdirection", time had stopped again, as Sakuya pulled out all her daggers from her arsenal and hurled them randomly towards Reimu, at the same time manipulating the space between every daggers, causing a second, identical dagger to appear alongside their twin, but in a slightly different angle. This would be an all-range attack, with nowhere to hide.
But just as Sakuya resumed time, a huge laser came flying into the scene, causing Sakuya to recall her spell and move away.
"That attack… Marisa!" Reimu called out, immediately recognizing the user of such a powerful spell.
"Hehe, it's me, alright!" The black-white magician barged into the scene on her broom, holding her mini-hakkero in her right hand where her favorite Master Spark was fired from.
"Why are you here?" Reimu asked, forgetting about Sakuya in the moment.
"I saw you coming towards this suspicious looking mansion, so I've come along!" Marisa replied energetically, seemingly proud of herself for saving Reimu's ass. "Get going! I will take care of her! Save your energy for the big boss!"
Reimu hesitated for a moment, before deciding that was the best option, and took off for the door behind Sakuya. "Avoid close combat against her, Marisa!"
"Got it!"
Sakuya sensed Reimu's intention and attempted to pursue her with a string of dagger throws, only to see them being blasted down by some star-shaped danmaku. "Your opponent is me!" Marisa pointed her index finger towards the head maid.
Sakuya ignored the magician's challenge, attempted to run up the stairway to stop the shrine maiden from going any further, but the end of the stairway was also reduced into crumbles by one of Marisa's lasers. "I said, your opponent is me!"
The head maid turned back, and sighed, "very well." She pulled out the spell card she recalled just now, and recast it, "Conjuring – Illusional Misdirect…"
"Light Sign – Earthlight Ray!" Marisa cast her spell slightly faster, causing numerous lasers sprouting from the ground and shoot upwards. They were arranged randomly and seemingly coming out of everywhere, which was Marisa's favorite approach of the battle – attack anywhere and everywhere.
Sakuya dodged the lasers easily with her superb agility and time stopping ability. But before she knew it, the ground beneath her collapsed, causing her to fall through the floor, and into the lowest floor.
"Sorry! You will have to stay there for a while!" Marisa held her steeple hat and flew off the scene via her broom, to catch up with Reimu in beating up the culprit.
Sakuya pulled herself together, trying to return to the hallway, but was stopped by a voice in her head. "That's enough, Sakuya, leave the rest to me."
"But… milady!" It was Remilia who addressed her, still having the power to control her mind.
"Let them come, I am itching for a good fight myself."
"Yes, milady."
Sakuya then took her time to release herself from the crumbles of debris, and returned to her cleaning duty.
Not long afterwards, it was heard that the battle had already ended, with the Scarlet Devil admitting defeat at the hands of Reimu and Marisa. Sakuya found it difficult to believe such a story, as she already fought against those two, and in her mind thoroughly believed that her mistress should be notches more powerful than them.
"I had enough fun, so I called it quits." So that's how it was. Remilia didn't lose, she just ended the battle after satisfying her battle hunger. The shrine maiden and magician did put up a decent fight, causing Remilia to use up a lot of her spell card arsenals, as well as dealing with the ones those two threw at her. It was a fierce battle that nobody had lost, but the incident was solved with Remilia agreeing in withdrawing the mist.
"I just wanted somebody to come and attack the mansion, as well as humor me with a good fight. I got all that, so it's all good." Remilia remarked. Sakuya was left baffled, until Patchouli explained.
"It was typical of Remilia, out of boredom, she would do something nasty, and then called it quits when she had enough."