While everyone continued to stare at Renko, plainly flabbergasted, she began to pace back and forth, eloquently explaining the merits of her plan.
"With this plan, Reimu gains a position from which she can more closely oversee the youkai of the mountain, along with the folks at the Scarlet Devil Mansion. Since respect for Reimu's position doesn't depend on her being present in town, she'll still be able to gather faith from the villagers, maybe even more than she does now if she becomes more effective at protecting the fishermen and woodsmen who operate north of town."
"The Moriya shrine, meanwhile, would benefit not only from easy access to the village and the ability to attract villagers to come and visit them at a more accessible location, but would also have the advantage of gaining an excellent view of Youkai Mountain. With this, they could easily characterize Lady Yasaka as a personification of the mountain itself and give the people a tangible and readily visible object to remind them of their faith. Just imagine it -a torii gate erected on the Northern side of the Hakurei shrine grounds could perfectly frame the mountain. Just stick an altar in front of that and you're in business!"
"Even the village would benefit both from the additional safety offered by Reimu's repositioning and a new center for community gathering and worship in the new Moriya shrine. It's a win-win-win all around! The perfect solution!"
Renko finished her megalomaniacal speech with her arms outstretched, looking from face to face to face of the three girls standing before her with her chest puffed out and a smug expression.
All three girls opened their mouths at the same time, speaking a single word in three voices.
"Rejected!"
Renko stumbled backward, her hat toppling from her head as she tripped on a rock and collapsed to the ground. "What? Why not?"
Reimu stood before her, hands on her hips and a withering glare on her face. "Did you even listen to a word we said? Why would I want to move to such a backwards location in the mountains? If I did that I'd never get any visitors and my donations would be zero!"
"Yeah, and if Reimu moved all the way up here, It'd be way too much trouble to come and see her. Do you know how much of a pain it was to get here?" Marisa shouted over her shoulder.
"And I just left everything behind to come to this world! I'm not going to give up my home too!" Sanae protested from behind her. "And don't call this place backwards, your shrine is practically abandoned! Just because it's closer to town doesn't make it better than mine."
"Hey, you can't talk about Reimu's home that way! Who cares if her shrine is a dilapidated wreck that looks like it's more likely to be haunted than lived in? I've spent some of the best nights of my life there!"
"Well I'm not letting a lazy miko from a tiny shrine kick me out of my home! I just got here!"
"Oh, but you're totally fine with the idea of kicking me out of my home, aren't you?" Reimu snapped, turning back to Sanae.
"I'm not the one who barged onto sacred ground looking to pick a fight, it's you two who need to be taught a lesson!"
"That's exactly what you did though!" Reimu held her gohei in front of her and began floating toward Sanae with a dark expression.
Sanae braced herself as the winds on the shrine grounds began to pick up, circling and howling.
"Reimu, I'll leave this uppity shrine maiden to you. I'm gonna go find myself a god to hunt."
Although they were less than two meters away from eachother both Reimu and Sanae turned to Marisa, reaching an arm out and shouting "Hey, wait!" in unison. The witch was already gone though, streaking toward the back of the shrine on a trail of stardust. Their glares snapped back to eachother.
"Forget her, let's settle this now." Reimu growled.
"I'd be happy to. Renko, Merry, get back to the outer shrine and stay put."
All around us the winds were accelerating, tracing the boundary of quickly circling vortex that was drawing ever closer as it sped up. I stepped forward and grabbed Renko by the shoulders. She was still sitting on the ground, staring straight ahead. "Hey Renko, come on! we have to get to cover!"
She looked up at me with a forlorn expression and spoke in a pathetic, moping tone. "Just leave me here, Merry. I've failed at a once-in-a-lifetime chance to solve an Incident. I'm already as good as dead."
"Oh, we do not have time for this!" I said, throwing her arm over my shoulder and lifting her to her feet. "Run, Renko! Now!"
Somehow, I managed to drag her back to the living room of the outer shrine, where I let her collapse limply onto the tatami as outside the mesmerizing spectacle of a danmaku match like no other played out.
-.-.-.-.-
It goes without saying at this point that mere words, penned by my inarticulate hand, cannot hope to describe the beauty or complexity of the dance of barrages the girls engaged in. On this occasion I will try, however, because it was most noteworthy match. I only ask that you understand that anything I may describe is but a pale shadow of the original.
Sanae began the fight by conjuring into the air numerous large pentagrams comprised of glowing bullets. These hovered close enough to her to act as barriers, but after a few moments each one burst, illuminating all the darkened grounds of the shrine and showering everything nearby with coruscating waves of linked projectiles. Reimu's face, illuminated in the harsh blue-green light of the bullets seemed almost joyful, smiling with a ferocious intensity as she hurled ofuda between bursts of sharp, controlled movement to dodge the fragments. Most of Reimu's shots went wide, but even those that missed the mark continued to pressure Sanae, driving her back as she dodged them until she found herself up against the wall of the building we were in.
I would have thought that being pinned in that way would mean disaster in a game where dodging played such a large role, but Sanae responded naturally, as if she had anticipated it, burning the first of the spell cards Renko had taught her to make to conjure up an enormous and shockingly bright wave of light which she then hurled forward. As the wave travelled away from her it split in two, leaving a break in the middle but continuing down either side. Another wave followed it immediately, and another after that, until the splitting of the continuous waves formed a narrow channel between two undulating pillars of light, forcing Reimu to fly through the winding valley between them. Sanae contorted as she threw out more of the waves, twisting the break between them back and forth, making the narrow path of safety snake from side to side and throwing the occasional charm straight down the middle but Reimu maneuvered expertly, shooting up the winding path at top speed, not even bothering to return fire, just doggedly closing on Sanae until she was near enough to strike.
Sanae had to break off her attack to narrowly dodge a flying kick that impacted heavily on the wall of the shrine near the roof. The kick was followed up by several swipes from Reimu's gohei, forcing Sanae to fly backwards, darting under the eaves and around the multi-layered roof of the outer shrine to make space. As the two squared off again, I heard her speak, panting from exertion.
"You're strong. But I have more strength than my own to rely on. Lady Kanako, hear my plea!"
Sanae closed her eyes and waved another of the spell cards. It burned away in an instant and just as before numerous pentacles comprised of countless bullets blossomed from nothingness into the air.
"I've already seen that trick!" Reimu yelled, threading her way through the barrage as the pentacles burst and again closing the distance.
At that moment Sanae held up an ofuda of her own. Her eyes sprung suddenly open and the slip of paper stood up rigidly, snapping as if in a stiff wind. "Ready, go!" Sanae cried, and hurled the ofuda. It vanished instantly, but as it did, the wind suddenly picked up. It began as a low, moaning roar, but quickly escalated to a fierce gale and from there to a hurricane-force stream, sending clouds of dust and debris tumbling through the air and scouring the shrine grounds.
Reimu, who had be charging through the air a moment earlier found her progress braked by the storm, then slowly started to drift backwards in the face of the wind. All the while the pentagrams of bullets continued to drift, their fragments unaffected by the fierce winds. They slowly closed around Reimu's position, forming a cage of interlocking rings of glowing projectiles.
"Now bow down before the uncontestable might of the divine winds of Yasaka!" Sanae shouted, her voice magnified to a booming roar as the winds responded to her call.
Sanae waved her hand.
A pressure wave like a thunderclap rattled through the outer shrine and shook the walls as an enormous gust ripped through the grounds, splintering small trees standing on the far side of the torii gate and blowing over bushes as if they were blades of grass. At the same moment all of the rings that had assembled around Reimu's position collapsed in a rush, colliding in a blinding flare of multicolored light.
-.-.-.-.-
Slowly the winds dropped, subsiding from a roar to a low moan, and then to silence.
Slowly the light faded, from blinding to merely chaotic to a twinkle.
At last, the last of the bullets winked out, leaving the shrine grounds immersed in a quiet darkness.
Above it all, Reimu Hakurei still stood, windblown, and with her sleeves torn in several places, but unharmed.
-.-.-.-.-
"What?" Sanae cried, goggling at the shrine maiden.
"I'm not so weak I can be blown away by a little wind!" Reimu cried, releasing the barrier she had been holding between her clasped hands.
A jagged, wavering ring of angry light expanded from her palms, growing ever larger as it raced toward Sanae. The light surrounded her, growing with low rumble that was almost loud enough to drown out her scream.
-.-.-.-.-
"You're strong..." Sanae groaned as she sat up on the cobblestone path, rubbing at the sunburn-like redness on her shoulder. From the tone of her voice it was clear that this was not the declaration of defiance it had been once before, but a clear admission of defeat. "If you're this powerful, why doesn't your shrine have more worshippers?"
"Honestly, I'd like to know that myself."
"I think you'd probably be able to gather a lot of faith, both for yourself and for us even if you just put a branch shrine to our goddess on your grounds. The faith of Gensokyo could be restored..."
"Well, I'll think about it after I meet your god."
"What? You mean you still intend to..."
"The fact that you were able to call on your god's power probably means that Marisa rushed off and got herself stomped again. I wonder if she's still alive? Either way, it sounds like I've got a naughty god to punish."
With that quip Reimu flew off, sailing leisurely toward the lake at the rear of the shrine grounds. I watched her go for a moment, took a brief second to glance at Renko, who still moping bonelessly in the middle of the floor, and rushed off to help Sanae.
When I got to her, Sanae was laying flat on her back on the stone path, but she sat up at the sound of my approaching footsteps. Turning to me, she smiled sadly. "Oh, hi Merry. Did you see that?"
"I did. Are you all right?"
"I'm fine," she said with a sigh. "But even after borrowing Lady Kanako's powers I wasn't strong enough." Her shoulders drooped. "Is Renko alright?"
"Don't worry about her, she's just suffering from a severe case of acute, self-inflicted idiocy. Let's head back to the outer shrine, I'm sure Lady Yasaka can handle Reimu."
As I said that and extended my hand to help Sanae up, her eyes widened in surprise. "Merry. You..."
"What?"
"Ah, no, nevermind. Let's head back."
She grabbed my hand and climbed to her feet, shaking her head and trotting off ahead of me.
It was only later that I would come to understand what she had been thinking.
