Chapter 9
A Better World
Akemi was staring in disbelief at Shizuha. Even though she knew that the goddess could fly, she still had hard time believing that she was actually in the plane with her. "What… What do you want…?" Akemi asked her.
"I should be asking you that question first," Shizuha said to her. "What is it exactly that you're doing? Those robots… Are you really behind them?"
"Oh, you mean the ones that are fighting those white wolf tengus and some others at the moment?" Akemi asked. "Who else but a genius with powerful and highly advanced cybernetic arms like me could build them?"
"I figured it would be you…" Shizuha said. "Why are you doing this? I talked with Keine about you, and she said that you seem to have a fear of plants."
"Fear of plants? Is that what she thinks?" Akemi asked. "Well, it's understandable why she would think that when she saw me reacting to entering forests and tall grasses, but she doesn't even know the half of it!"
"Half of it? Why exactly are you targeting plants?" Shizuha asked. "Is it because you grew up in the big city that you are used to technology and cannot stand nature? Is not living in the science lab not satisfying enough? You can also ask to be returned to the outside world too! What you're doing now is not the way to do things! Just because you have a fear of plants does not mean you can destroy them all! Plants are important to the world and benefit people! The world cannot exist without plants!"
"It's not actually plants that I'm targeting, but it's nature as a whole that I'm targeting!" Akemi loudly said.
Shizuha became even more curious upon hearing this. "Nature? Then why are you targeting nature? What has nature done to you?"
"A lot! It took away my family! It took away my happiness! I scarred me for life!" Akemi angrily replied. "Nature is the world's greatest killer! How many people's lives have been lost because they got lost in jungles, deserts, mountains, and in the middle of the sea? It's because that these harsh, uninhabited places exist that people are losing their lives! I'm going to do the world a favor by making every single part of the world habitable! That way, planes will no longer have to worry about crashing into places where there is no civilization! People will be able to get rescued immediately if they get into a car accident! I'm going to make this world a better place for everyone to live in!"
Hearing that she lost her family, Shizuha felt sorry for her. "I'm sorry for making you think of unpleasant memories… I understand why you are doing this now, but… this still does not justify your actions. Imagine a world where there are no trees or anything green… It's true that nature can be harsh, but life cannot exist without it… They provide us with the necessities in life. As long as we know how to coexist with nature, lives will never be lost."
"Science and technology can provide us with the necessities of life! Who needs trees and such to survive?!" Akemi angrily said to her. "This world is better off without nature and wild animals running around! The population of the world is increasing as well, so there should be more space for people to live in! I'm going to start off by eliminating all the trees of this primitive place you call Gensokyo!"
"By letting those robots cut down all the trees here?" Shizuha asked her. "They won't succeed! You are underestimating the inhabitants of Gensokyo. Your robots will not last long against the heavy hitters of this place! You will fail in the end!"
"I know that already, which is exactly why I created something that I call a Geothermal Triangle," Akemi told her.
"Geothermal Triangle?" Shizuha curiously said.
"You'll probably be confused if I explain things to you in a scientific method, so I'll make it simple," Akemi said to her. "I created three of them, and I'm going to drop them onto various parts of this place. They will drill into the ground and then release extremely high heat that will burn away the roots of all plant life in their radiuses. Without their roots, plants will die. That way, all the plants in Gensokyo will be dead. Got what I said?"
"How dare you?!" Shizuha angrily said, and then she produced a leaf in her hand. "I'll have to stop you! For the sake of this land and the people living in it, I must not let you succeed!"
"I knew you would try to stop me," Akemi said, and then she quickly pointed her hand at Shizuha and fired an energy blast from it, but the goddess stepped aside to the avoid it. "Nice dodging! They weren't kidding when they said you're very skilled in fighting and dodging."
"How did you do that just now?" Shizuha asked in surprise.
Akemi smirked and then tore off her sleeves to reveal her cybernetic arms to the goddess. "As I said earlier, they gave me cybernetic arms as replacement. It can lift heavy things with ease and extend its length. It's also capable of transforming into different kinds of tools, but I installed energy blasters into them myself. It's also thanks to these arms that I was able to build those robots and the Geothermal Triangles in a short amount of time. These arms have great dexterity that allows me to work at a fast speed. Combined with my talented mind, I am able to build things that normally take weeks and months to complete in a short amount of time!"
"Whoever gave you those arms must be regretting ever doing this now!" Shizuha said, and then she threw the leaf in her hand at Akemi, but the latter easily deflected it with her hand.
"I guess so, but I'm glad that they gave me these arms!" Akemi said. "Thanks to them, I am now able to begin my plan!"
"I won't let that happen!" Shizuha shouted as she ran at Akemi, and when close to her, she performed a roundhouse kick, only to get her leg caught by the latter.
"You better not underestimate the strength of these arms!" Akemi told her before flinging her against the wall at the side. After the goddess hit the wall, Akemi changed her right hand into a blade and then ran at her to impale her with it, but Shizuha got out of the way in time.
Shizuha said to her, "You can't kill me. I'm a goddess!"
"Just because you can't die doesn't mean you can't feel pain! I'll incapacitate you long enough for me to accomplish my plan!" Akemi said to her. "Also, winter is arriving, and I'm sure that for someone who gets her power from autumn, you're at your weakest during winter!"
"Winter is not entirely here yet, and even so, you shouldn't be underestimating me during other seasons!" Shizuha said before producing and throwing several leaves at Akemi.
Akemi crossed her arms in front of her face for protection against the leaves, but she still got cut in some of the other parts of her body. When the leaves were done flying at her, she angrily extended her arm at the goddess to catch her by the neck, but Shizuha stepped out of the way and then charged at her to kick her in the body to send her flying at the control panel.
Shizuha then grabbed her by the collar and said to her, "Give up at once! Even if you manage to defeat me, there will still be other people far more powerful than me stopping you!"
"I'm not going to let a bunch of cave people living in a primitive land stop me!" Akemi angrily said to her. Thanks to the strength of her arms, she managed pull Shizuha's hands away from her collar with ease and then switch positions with her. While holding Shizuha by the neck, Akemi pulled back her other hand and changed it into a knife to stab her, but the goddess kicked her in the shin to stop her from doing so. While Akemi was in pain, Shizuha pushed her back before running at her and hitting her in the abdomen with a flying kick to send her shooting back through the place.
KIIIIIIIIIIIIIIICK!
Akemi crashed down the door when she hit it and tumbled roughly against the floor of the room at the back. She grunted in pain as she sat up and looked at Shizuha, who was approaching her with a leaf in her hand. "Don't make me injure you too much," Shizuha said to her. "You already lost your family and your arms. If you keep on pushing me or the inhabitants here, then you'll likely lose your own life as well, so stop this madness at once!"
"Who do you think is the blame for my losses?! Who do you think is the blame for making me do this?!" Akemi angrily shouted at her. "If nature wasn't harsh, dangerous, and is habited by more people, then none of this would happen! It's people who want to preserve nature and keep the world green that these tragedies happened to me!"
Akemi then pointed her arms at Shizuha to fire energy blasts at her, but the goddess said to her, "You know, I can simply move out of the way and let those shots hit the control panel, thus making the plane go out of control."
Akemi considered her words and then growled in anger before quickly getting up and running at Shizuha to punch her, but the latter caught her fist with ease and then shoved her to the side. The goddess then approached her at a fast speed and punched her across the face a couple of times before kicking her away in the waist with a roundhouse kick.
Akemi growled in anger as she extended her fist in at her. Shizuha didn't only dodge it by moving her head to the side, but she also caught the wire and twisted it in her hand to keep Akemi from fully retracting it. However, Akemi pulled off an unexpected move of pulling herself towards her hand at a fast speed. With her other hand in the form of a blade, she plunged it through Shizuha's abdomen when she came close to her.
The goddess coughed in pain while taking a step back from Akemi, and then the latter kicked her to make her let go of the wire so that she could retract her hand properly. Akemi then fired an energy blast at Shizuha, zapping her badly and sending her backwards.
While the goddess was dazed, Akemi charged at her to impale her with her blade, but Shizuha recovered in time and stepped out of the blade's way before catching her arm and then kneeing her in the abdomen hard.
Nitori slammed a drill that was currently replacing one of her Mecha-Pack's arms into the fire-using robot's chest. It took a few seconds, but the drill eventually managed to bore a hole in it. Acting quick, Nitori took out a disk-shaped device from her pocket and put it into the hole before moving back. Bright light came out from the hole on the robot's chest, and then there was an explosion that blasted it into pieces.
KABOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
Nitori formed her hand into a fist in a triumphant way and said, "Yes! That's one down!"
Evil Eye Omega continued to clash blades with the axe-handed robot's axes. The latter eventually opened its back to bring out its two-side axe to strike Evil Eye Omega from above, but Rika's robot blocked it by crossing its blades over its head. Unfortunately for the axe-handed robot, it failed to realize that Evil Eye Omega's electrified blades, when in contact with the axe for more than a second, caused the electricity to travel down the axe and into its body.
BZAAAAAAAAAAAAAAP!
Evil Eye Omega pushed the two-sided axe away and then and increased the voltage of its blades before swinging them at the robot's axe hands to slice them off. After that, the former fired several missiles at it from the missile launchers on its shoulders. "Let's see you try to stay in one piece after getting hit by this," Rika said while the missiles were bombarding the robot. "Lock onto target! Activate the Omega Beam!"
Upon saying the voice command, the eye of Evil Eye Omega glowed brightly with light blue, and then a few seconds later, a large beam as big as the axe-handed robot was fired at the latter.
BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANG!
The robot was pushed back through the place by the beam, and several trees behind it were pushed down and incinerated by the latter as well. Eventually, the robot could no longer handle the heat of the beam, so it exploded
KABOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
The beam attack came to an end, and Rika looked at the pathway she created in the woods. "Oops… The unnecessary damage is a bit too big…" she said.
Reimu threw a large amount of red paper amulets that floated in the air around the robot with chainsaw hands. One by one and eventually multiple at a time, the amulets flew at the robot and exploded on contact. While the amulets were bombarding the robot, Reimu took out a spell card that formed multiple energy orbs of various colors. "Divine Spirit: Fantasy Seal!"
The energy orbs orbited her for a few seconds before flying at the robot and blasted it. When all the amulets and orbs had collided with it, the robot was still in one piece, though there were charred spots all over its body. The robot ran at Reimu and swung its chainsaw at her, but she performed a back flip to escape it and then threw a barrage of purple amulets at its head while in midair. "Demon Buster!"
The robot shrugged off that attack with ease and then swung down its chainsaw at the shrine maiden, but she quickly held up a paper amulet in its direction to form a dome-shaped barrier around herself that protected her from the chainsaw. The robot slammed its chainsaws against the barrier over and over to try to break it.
"We should help her!" the squad leader, who was watching from the sideline, said to her subordinates.
"It's okay! I can handle this myself!" Reimu said out loud to them while holding up the barrier. "I'll let you know if I need help!"
The constant striking against the barrier eventually caused it to flicker, and Reimu knew that it wouldn't be able to hold up for too long. The robot raised its chainsaws into the air, and then they glowed with bright orange light. Seeing that it would be too risky to let the barrier block those glowing chainsaws, Reimu took out a spell card, and when they came down, she shouted, "Dimensional Rift!"
When the chainsaws were about to hit the barrier, Reimu disappeared into thin air. The chainsaws smashed through the barrier and struck the ground. When the robot brought back up its chainsaws, the spots they hit were smoking and glowing with heat.
Reimu reappeared behind the robot and slapped a yellow amulet onto the back of its neck to make electricity run throughout its body. The robot thrashed around wildly as it suffered from the electrocution. Taking the risk to approach the robot, Reimu ran at it and slapped a spell card onto the part of the ground in between its legs. "Divine Arts: Demon Binding Circle!"
The card glowed with bright light and then formed a pillar of orange light around Reimu and the robot, but only the latter was harmed by it, not to mention slowly getting carried into the air. When the pillar of light disappeared, Reimu quickly moved back before the robot fell on top of her.
While the robot was down on its back, the shrine maiden jumped above it and threw several yellow amulets onto various parts of its body to electrocute it. Because there were several amulets, the voltage was much more powerful. Reimu landed on the other side of the robot and then turned around to watch the robot getting zapped continuously. She had to cover her eyes partially and hold her arms a bit over them, as the brightness of the electricity stung them.
Eventually, the effect of the amulets died out, and then the robot, with smoke coming out from all over it, fell limp. "That's that," the shrine maiden said.
"Wow… I can't believe it! She actually managed to take out that robot all by herself!" the squad leader said in disbelief. "It's easy to accept Nitori and Rika defeating those robots, as they have access to advanced technology and weaponry to can easily get the job done, but the Hakure shrine maiden relied on… on… things that you don't think should be able to compete with technology!"
Reimu turned to look at her with a somewhat offended expression and asked, "What is that supposed to mean?"
"Look out!" a white wolf tengu shouted at Reimu, who quickly turned to the robot to see it slowly getting back up.
The robot turned to the surprised Reimu and activated its chainsaws again. "Ready for round two?" Reimu asked it after recovering from her slight shock. "I don't recommend it, what with your body being in a bad condition…"
The robot brought down one of its chainsaws at her, but she jumped to the side before jumping at the robot's chest with a spell card in her hand. "Treasure Sign: Yin-Yang Orb!" After slamming her hand and the card against the robot's chest and shouting out the move name, a huge burst of orange energy was created, blasting the robot back several steps. The shrine maiden ran at the robot and jumped at its chest again to perform the same move, and then the robot was blasted into the river.
SPLAAAAAAAAAAAAASH!
The robot quickly emerged from the water, only to have several yellow amulets thrown at it. As water and electricity do not mix well, the robot suffered from even worse electrocution than when it was on land. While this was happening, Reimu took out ten needles with red amulets tied to the back of them via strings, five in each hand, and threw them at the robot's eyes, five in each of them.
The amulets attached to the needles then exploded.
KABOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
The robot's head and the area close to the upper part of chest were blown off completely, and then the rest of its body sank to the bottom of the river. Reimu walked up to the side of the river and looked at the robot through the crystal clear water, and then Nitori and Evil Eye Omega joined her at the sides. The former nudged her in the arm with her elbow and said, "Awesome! We can rely on you in a fight almost every time!"
"This actually turned out to be easier than I thought," the shrine maiden said.
"Hey everyone! What's that up there?" Aya said out loud, so everyone looked up to see Akemi's plane hovering in the air.
Despite Akemi not having a well-trained body, Shizuha still relentlessly attacked her with punches, kicks, and karate chops. The goddess ended the series of attacks by kicking her into the cockpit. The goddess ran in there to continue the fight, and she prevented Akemi from stabbing her in the face with her blade hand by pinning the arm against the cockpit.
Akemi pointed her other hand at Shizuha and readied to fire an energy blast into her face, but the goddess quickly forced her hand onto the control panel with its palm facing it. The energy blast was fired, and it destroyed the control panel.
KABOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
The explosion blew the both of them back into the previous room. Akemi got up and turned around to watch with horror at the burning control panel. "NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
Because the control panel was destroyed, the plane started to shake, and they could tell that the latter was starting to drop altitude as well. Akemi angrily shouted at the goddess, "HOW DARE YOU?!"
"You tried to shoot me, so you should blame yourself instead," Shizuha told her.
"YOU'LL PAY FOR THIS!" Akemi angrily shouted before firing from both her hands nonstop, but the goddess swiftly dodged each of the shots while closing in on her. When close to Akemi, Shizuha performed a somersault jump over her. The moment the former turned around, she received a foot to the abdomen that pushed her back several steps. Shizuha then ran up to her to hit her in the waist with a roundhouse kick.
KIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIICK!
"Everyone, get away!" Nitori shouted when the plane fell closer and closer to the ground. Everyone got out of the way when the plane hit the ground with a crash, though it wasn't a strong one, as the plane didn't fall at a fast speed.
When the smoke cleared, everyone ran to the plane and watched as Shizuha carried Akemi out of the door by the shoulder. "Sis!" Minoriko said to the former. "Are you all right?"
"It really is Akemi after all!" Rika's voice said from inside Evil Eye Omega.
Shizuha was going to carry Akemi close to the others, but the latter suddenly pulled her arm away from the goddess and then backed away from her. "Get away from me!" she angrily said, and then she fell back and leaned against the side of the plane.
"You've lost already," Shizuha said to her. "After all you've done and what you wanted to do, you should surrender yourself to the law."
"Surrender myself to the law?" Akemi said. "Why should I? I wasn't doing anything wrong! I was trying to make the world a better place, and you people are trying to arrest me for doing something ethical?! If anything, it's you people who should be turned over to the law for interfering with other people's legal business!"
"Make the world a better place? What on earth is she talking about?" asked a confused Reimu.
"Yeah, how can sending all these robots to cause trouble be ethical?" Nitori asked.
"There's no point in trying to talk sense into the likes of you…" Akemi said while glaring at everyone. "There's no point and no use… at all… No matter what I say, you're all going to shoot me down with talks of loving nature and how trees are important to everyone's daily life, and in the meantime, there are people out there getting lost in jungles, mountains, and deserts and trying to survive, only to fail in the end… I'm trying to make a world a better place by making every place on Earth habitable, yet… you people… think that I'm the bad guy here by doing that!"
"Look, I understand your losses and why you want to do that," Shizuha told her, "but you can't be selfish. Sure, making the world a better place for people to live in is good, but people have different opinions on how an ideal world should be. To some people, being able to interact with and live among nature is the perfect world for them. It has also been proven that nature is important to the world."
"Enough!" Akemi angrily shouted at her. "I don't want to get into a pointless debate with you or anyone anymore! Nobody listens to me! Nobody appreciates what I do! Everybody is against me! Everybody! Everybody! EVERYBODY!"
After that, Akemi stopped shouting and then breathe heavily. Everyone else looked at her in silence, some with expressions that showed pity.
"If… If I can't make this world a better place, the kind of world I want…" Akemi started speaking again, "then what point is there for me in living in this world any longer…? I hate… I absolutely hate nature! Trees, animals, jungles, savage places, lack of civilization! I hate them all! I despite them all! I absolutely hate all of them! They took away my family! They took away my happiness! I HATE THIS WORLD! I HATE THIS WORLD! I DON'T TO LIVE IN THIS WORLD ANY LONGER! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!"
While screaming in rage, Akemi placed her hands against the sides of her heads and then charged up energy in the palms. Seeing this, Shizuha's eyes widened in horror as she quickly reached out to her. "AKEMI! DON'T!"
Too late…
BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANG!
Shizuha was speechless and frozen in place with wide open eyes.
Everyone else was completely horrified.
Minoriko was so horrified that she passed out, but Momiji quickly caught her from behind.
"Why… Why…?" Shizuha said as tears slowly flowed down from the corners of her eyes. "Why must you… do this…?"
TO BE CONTINUED
Final chapter coming up next… Please stay tuned…
By the way, the smaller robots were all taken out by Aya and the white wolf tengus.