Clash of the Elements Part 4 EX True End: The Fall of Fantasy

by mewmaster93

After being wronged by Yukari Yakumo for the last time, Alex Whiter returns to Gensokyo, dead set on putting an end to her once and for all. The humans and Youkai of Gensokyo, caught between the two's war, must decide who they will ally themselves with. And when everything is said and done, nothing will ever be the same again...

5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5: The Fall of Immortality

The hour after Alex made his declaration was eerily...calm. Various faction leaders gathered their followers and briefly discussed matters with other factions, should it be possible. They didn't want to attract Alex's attention prematurely, fearing for his paranoia.

The eyes were to the sky, for that is where he'd ultimately descend from. It was impossible at this point for the Human Village not to hear of what was happening. The humans all awoke in muddled dismay, and had to be contained to their houses by Keine, Akyuu, and Marisa.

But Alex had no intention of ever visiting the Human Village. They had nothing to do with the conflict. They were ignorant to who or what Yukari Yakumo was. Nay, the first place he'd go visit now that the time alotted has passed was one of the first he'd gone to upon arriving in Gensokyo before.

As the wistful winds blew throughout the lands, Eirin Yagokoro sat by her lonesome on the porch of her Eientei home. She kneeled atop a familiar cushion before a familiar table, where two familiar cups steamed with the herbal scent of fresh tea.

She had only sat there for a couple minutes before the winds blew away in silence. Her lips puckered into a tiny smile as Alex Whiter drifted into the area, taking a seat opposite of hers. He sat in a stable criss-cross position and immediately picked up the cup of tea, and thus Eirin did the same.

The two took a gentle sip, the hot liquid bubbling down their throats and settling within their stomaches. Their satisfied sighs released a lukewarm steam from within, and then they placed the cups back down. Eirin slowly opened her eyes to gaze upon him, yet seemed averse to looking directly at his face.

"Welcome back, Alex Whiter." Her courteous greeting seemed more out of obligation than anything. Thus, Alex did not reciprocate.

He closed his eyes and took another sip of tea, but partway through putting the cup back down he remarked, "You know why I've come here, Eirin Yagokoro."

"Of course," She replied with a grin, "Picking out the smartest person in all of Gensokyo would be considered the most obvious first course of action."

She raised her head just an inch and remarked, "But my brains are nothing without a plan to wrap my head around. So tell me...What is your plan of attack against Yukari Yakumo?"

Alex put the cup down and rested his hands upon his knees. He hung and shook his head, biting his teeth into a small but tense scowl.

"Its not going to be easy..." He spoke with an understated amount of stressing on the "easy" part, "I learned through my previous confrontation with her that killing her is a waste of time. She can just pull in other versions of herself as replacements upon death."

"Interesting..." Eirin sounded genuinely surprised, "Then, I'd presume your plan is to have her sealed away?"

Alex expected no less than perfect deductive skills from the Brain of the Moon, but somehow, her swift deduction left him feeling uneasy, "...Yes. There can't be more than one Yukari in a timeline at any given time. She told me as much. I don't give a shit about the Yukaris in the other timeline. As long as the one here's taken out of the picture for good, then that'll be good enough for me."

"...I want to ask you something, if you don't mind." Eirin took a sip of her tea in the time it took Alex to shrug and respond with "Ask away."

"What are you searching for, exactly?" She said with a glare most cold.

"Haven't I made it clear?" Alex responded, shaking off the rather poignant inquiry with a smile and chuckle.

Eirin was having none of that and elaborated the meaning further, even whilst knowing the boy was playing ignorant, "Yes, you've made it abundantly clear that you're after her...But what drives you? Is it justice? Is it bloodlust? ...Or, is it revenge?"

Alex peered away, pursed his lips, and upon not saying anything for a full half-minute Eirin continued, "Then, its a bit of each."

She took another satisfactory sip from her tea and teased him somewhat with her words and smile, "That would explain why your plan is a little too...straightforward, if I may put it so bluntly."

"Explain." Alex put it so bluntly himself.

"You want to seal Yukari away. A fair proposition, and one even I had considered myself some time ago. But all you have stated is the end result of your plan, not the steps leading up to it."

"How do you plan on drawing her out of hiding? How do you plan on preventing her from escaping via her gaps? How do you know that someone else won't be able to free her? And how are you expecting other people to cooperate with your plan to begin with?" Eirin planted her cup firmly on the ground, her lithe fingers coiled tightly around it as she stared Alex down and posed to him one final inquiry, "Can you even answer these questions?"

Alex closed his eyes and breathed out a long, heavy sigh, and so Eirin proudly answered for him, "You cannot. Because you do not have a plan. Ideas, certainly, but not a plan."

Alex thrust his eyes open and remarked, "Why the hell do you think I came to you first then?"

"I can think of a number of reasons why. You're desperate. You're not thinking straight. You presumed that I bore that heavy of a grudge against Yukari Yakumo...Shall I go on?"

Alex hung his head a bit and mumbled, "Did Yukari get to you first and blackmail you Eirin? Cause you don't strike me as the kind of person who'd side with her willingly."

"And for once, you'd be right. But..." Eirin forced out a chuckle as she tried to maintain her composure, "The idea that she could hold something over me is laughable at best."

The temperament of the air was changing for the worse. Yet, even knowing this, Alex pursued his line of reasoning, "Then if you aren't on her side, you're on mine. There's no neutrality in this unless you're from the Human Village."

Eirin raised her chin and drank the rest of her tea in a single gulp, looking positively assured in herself as she spoke up, "Let us go back to the fourth question I proposed, about how you expect other people to cooperate with your plan?"

"Surely, you must know that Yukari Yakumo and I have confronted each other not once, but twice. First, in a battle of Danmaku, and then second, in a battle of wits...The latter was more to my liking, as I presumed I held the advantage. But I was wrong. She manipulated me into believing that she was planning an invasion of the moon on her own, using the shrine maiden and the curious vampire as bait to distract my disciples, and even herself as a decoy..."

"Then her friend, the ghastly princess, was able to sneak about the Lunar Capital, undetected thanks to her otherworldly form...And steal a bottle of precious sake right under their noses. And wouldn't you know it...That witch had the nerve to serve that very sake to my face as a 'peace offering', knowing full well that for the first time in my life...I'd be made to experience fear like a human."

"...What does this story have to do with us?" Alex groaned, "...Not that I don't already know."

"There are...similarities to you and her," Eirin's words immediately brought Alex's patience to a broil. Even as his nostrils and eyes flared like a rampant bull's, she spoke up without a hint of concern, "The biggest of which is that you both hold a particular grudge against Lunarians."

Alex's head sunk as he shook it in disbelief of what he was hearing, "It has nothing to do with a grudge. Your people would willingly commit genocide if a flake of human skin reached their precious capital. They needed to be stopped."

"And to hell with the ones left to mourn their departure...Right?" Eirin's blunt, accosting attitude forced Alex to his feet and have his right hand immediately aimed at her face. Only an ember managed to spark from the palm before took in a deep breath through his nose and squeezed his fingers shut.

His heart was pounding hard against his chest. He raised his head and jerked his hand back to his hip, and barely focused on Eirin telling him, "I may have left them behind, but I still called the Lunar Capital my home...Even if I can see now that they were worse off than I remember them being, myself included."

Eirin closed her eyes and laid her hands flat on her lap, "That's the major difference between you and her...She merely stole their bottle of sake, you stole their lives. She taught me to fear like a human..."

Alex found himself trembling as the Brain of the Moon gently pulled back the curtains of her eyes and glared at him. Her eyes were quiet and reflected little light off the pupils. They were hollow, almost cold, yet the emotions projected off them were hotter than the sun.

"And you...have taught me to feel anger like a human..."

Alex's fists trembled until the desire to fight awoke within, causing the fingers to spread apart and fire to erupt from the palms. But they'd only spurt for a second, as some brave fool came barreling down from the sky and drove their right foot into Alex's face.

Their explosive kick, quite literally, twisted Alex's head back twenty degrees before they knocked him off his feet and sent the two of them crashing through the stone fence. Alex dug his heels into the ground and straighened his head back, blowing aside the flames of his assailant with a single gale to reveal them as Mokou.

"You?!" Alex blurted in complete surprise. Mokou scowled angrily and retorted, "Yeah I don't like this either! But you're sure going to like it a hell of a lot less!"

After ramming Alex through half a dozen stalks of bamboo, Mokou destroyed her own right leg in an explosion to slam him into the ground. It regenerated in a matter of seconds, but still made her bite her teeth and let out a hiss.

Alex got right back up with only some soot to his skin to show for Mokou's efforts. He spat a couple embers to the right and flared up his body to deadly extremes, engaging the immortal in a battle of the scowls as he yelled out, "You don't want this fight Eirin! I'm giving you one chance to turn away!"

A series of rather normal lasers bombarded his limbs and jerked them back, disorganizing his stance and nearly forcing him to fall. He didn't even get a chance to react, their movements bordered on the instaneous.

"We cannot die, Phoenix of Destruction," Kaguya murmured playfully as she floated up next to Mokou, the items representing her Five Impossible Tasks hovering in a vertical ring around her body. She raised a sleeve to her lips and chuckled dryly, "Maybe we should be the ones giving you the one chance to leave?"

"Heh, funny you should mention that..." Alex swung his right hand out and drew his sword, immediately reaching for the triggers while his eyes went wide with excitement, "Because I can't die either!"

He squeezed all seven triggers and erupted into golden flames. A black bolt, piercing the air straight through, penetrated the flames and forced Alex out of them already transformed. His eyes widened, his face contorted, and there was now this arrow sticking out of his chest that contorted with a terrible, distorted energy.

Utilizing a bow as tall as herself, Eirin had made the first and most decisive strike in this battle, hurting both his pride and his body. The Anti-Genesis Theorem...Alex wasn't the least bit surprised she used it. But this early? Once he'd shaken off the initial shock, he had to laugh.

"Busting out your trump card this early? And here I thought you were smarter than this..." Alex squeezed the arrow and gave it barely a tug, but it didn't budge. He pulled harder and harder with increasing discomfort, until eventually a nauseating sensation in his stomach began to swell.

The Theorem's malicious hold twisted up his inside and made it uncomfortable to breathe or think. He lurched forward and gasped for air, while the fire around his body shifted from hot to cold in various instances. When Kaguya begun giggling, he looked towards her for answers, only to be plagued by a riddle, "What is a moment that lasts forever?"

She laid a sleeve up by her mouth and giggled, "An eternity. And an eternity shall that arrow remain in your body."

Grievances with the situation aside, Alex was more concerned with growling at her "So what" before thrusting his right hand up out to attack. His brain issued the command for fire, and embers did indeed spurt from his palm...But the next second his whole body suffered a brief convulsion and lightning came out instead.

It still achieved the same result of burning a hole through Kaguya's chest and making her die and revive, but this was a bad omen of things to come.

Eirin walked away from Eientei holding her bow aloft and leaving her body devoid of weakness. The suffering the boy endured was intoxicating to her, "I will make you pay for every single Lunarian you killed...And then I will deal with Yukari just the same, for I sense her hand at play in all this..."

Sweating from rage and illess born of the Theorem, Alex stared at her with vision hazy like fog and a heart racing like a stampede of gazelles. His voice came out weakly at first, "...I don't give a flying fuck about your immortality. Or your arrows. Or your time voodoo!"

With a roar that scraped his throat as it escaped, Alex forced fire loose from his body and yelled, "I! Will! WIN! And Yukari..."

"WILL PAY!" His body erupted like a bomb and sent fire spiraling uncontrollably throughout the forest. Wiltless bamboo turned to ash in seconds, and Mokou rushed to Kaguya's defense, muttering a little under her breath about how unlike her this was.

Though control was lost, Alex was fine with that. "Let my powers go wild..." He thought, "As long as I part the bees from their queen...Then nothing else matters!"

He concentrated hard on summoning more lightning, but his body started to stumble around and unleash a flurry of other elements instead. Vines shot out from his mouth, water flooded forth from his fingertips, and his legs were punctured inward by unrefined onyx.

"Gotta...Get this thing...OUT!" Alex fought for control of himself every step of the way. Mokou was too busy defending, Eirin was too busy waiting. If there was a time to strike out, it was now.

Alex took the one second of control he had and seized it in his grasp. He dropped his right hand down into his pocket and tapped the Gaia Temporis. That moment of thought gave it the hint it needed to drop Kaguya's eternity driven voodoo on the arrow, and from there Alex swung his hand up and ripped the arrow free. His whole body then jerked back, and he let out a loud, triumphant gasp of life.

He immediately drew in elemental energy from the forest to heal the wounds he endured and spat away any wild elements that had spawned in or out of his body. He snapped the arrow like a twig between his fingers and snarled at Eirin, who coolly raised her bow with another malicious arrow drawn.

Alex summoned his sword and charged straight for her. Mokou and Kaguya were cut in half along the way only to delay their response for an instant. Alex slashed his sword back and accelerated forth. Eirin took aim and just a moment later he was bearing her down with his body engulfed in fire and his eyes fiery like a dragon's.

But when Alex smashed his fist down, a barrier was there to sever his chances of success down to zero. Eirin cracked a grin and murmured, "Who do you think taught the Watatsukis how to fight?"

Her eyes flared open and she grinned like an excited hunter, reminiscent of how the old Eirin tended to act. She tugged the bowstring back to full length and took aim. Alex recoiled back, gasping similiarly to a yelping dog, and smashed the ground upon landing.

Kaguya and Mokou were then right in front of him before he could blink. The Princess' control over the instaneous let their speed succeed where their strength may fail, and they took advantage of their enemy's confusion to grab onto his arms and force him still.

The first Soul Shield was finally able to assist in protecting Alex, but it was too little too late. Eirin fired her arrow straight and true towards Alex's chest. He squeezed his muscles taut and swung Kaguya and Mokou in the way. It was laughable that he expected that to work, as their bodies were as weak as paper and the arrow ripped right through and punctured him between the liver and heart.

"F-Fuck...!" Alex stumbled back as the convulsions began anew. After the two Hourais revived again Mokou snapped her fingers at Kaguya and told her, "Lets hit him hard and hit him fast princess!"

"After you Mokou." She said with a pleasant smile.

Mokou rose up first and engulfed her body in fire, the visage of it resembling a Phoenix. She then cast the fire from her body onto Alex, revolving it around him faster and faster to whp up a tornado of ever-growing heat and flame. Kaguya held her hand out and focused the power of the instaneous into the tornado, causing the flames to rapidly turn white hot.

Even Mokou had to back up to avoid dying of dehydration until Eirin could get the fire contained with an easily crafted magic barrier. Alex's body was shifting around his ability to either fend off or succumb to the flames every other second. The sweltering, blinding inferno was like Hell on his body whenever he could feel it.

The repetition of losing and replenishing the moisture in his body kept him in a perpetual state of exhaustion. He was struggling to think. Struggling to breath. Were he to lose focus for even a second he would die, simple as that.

The pains he endured drove his body forward. Fighting against the manifestation of Eirin's vengeance with all his strength, Alex dragged his right hand against the tornado's spin and dug his fingertips into the flames. It burned hotter than anything he'd ever produced or seen, but he vowed to make it his to command.

For the brief second he felt in control of himself, Alex tugged his hand back above his head and the flames condensed and tore right through the barrier with ease. Mokou and Kaguya blocked them off with their bodies, though Mokou's attempt resulted in her exploding upon absorbing too much, earning Kaguya's amused laugh upon both their revivals.

Alex was able to perform the same procedure to wrench the arrow free from his body, but was still heavily panting afterwards.

"I've burned through a lot of energy...I need to get it back...Fast!" Alex glanced back at the forest and then upon biting his teeth turned and made a run for it.

Kaguya and Mokou looked back at Eirin with Mokou bluntly wondering, "Well?"

Eirin nodded her head, and the two went barreling after him while she raised her bow towards the forest and murmured in amusement, "Now you're the trapped rat, Butcher."

Alex's escape was proceeding swimmingly as he was able to drain the bamboo shoots of their elemental energy and regain a bit of his strength. But weaving through this closely knit forest was a tough endeavor. All that speed, but none of the reflexes to zip around like a lightning bolt off its leash.

Mokou had little such trouble, and burned right through the bamboo to get to him and go for a decapitating kick towards his neck. Alex rammed his forehead into her knee and snapped it in two, causing her to grimace. Then he grabbed onto her ankle and flung her back through the bamboo, breaking her spine in two and leaving her shambling on the ground.

Kaguya bombarded her comrade with lasers to kill her, and upon her revival Mokou scoffed and let out a disgruntled "Thanks" before flinging her entire body back towards Alex. Her body exuded bright red smoke as she crashed into Alex's body and exploded. His second Soul Shield protected him for but a moment, as once again Kaguya flexed her powers over the instaneous to make its time pass.

The explosion thus knocked him off his feet and forced his eyes shut, allowing Mokou the prime opportunity to go to town with a relentless bombardment of kicks, each carrying the explosive power of dynamite. When her leg was scathing white hot and looked ready to burnout, Mokou flipped above Alex and drove that broken leg square into his skull.

Alex's knees caved halfway down only for him to snag Mokou by the other leg and pound her against the ground in front of and behind him. For the final swing he threw his entire body into it and impaled Mokou's back through a broken bamboo shoot.

"Shit..." Mokou groaned like she had suffered a minor scrape just before exploding.

In the time it'd take for her to revive, Kaguya took the reins of battle into her gentle hands and assailed Alex with a ridiculous amount of lasers that moved instantaneously into his swiftly unguard body. Alex smashed the ground and grabbed onto the dirt, transmodifying it into glass that he ripped up to form a sheet glass mirror.

"No matter how fast light moves, it can still be reflected!" He boasted as Kaguya's offense was turned back on her. But with a cool mind and graceful air she stopped the lasers inches from her face with but a thought towards eternity.

Alex then punched the back of the mirror to topple it on her, riddling it with spikes for good measure. Mokou's revival was literally explosive and melted through the glass with ease, and then she snapped her fingers to combust the air surrounding Alex.

He leapt back to get some breathing room, but the moment he landed the ground gave way to a pitfall. His heart skipped a beat and he levitated in place with a boisterous laugh, "Ha! Did you seriously think that'd work?!"

A loud snap came from down below, and for a moment Alex looked down and saw that the bundled dirt was heavy enough to break off a tautly strung rope in the center of the pit. The rope whipped up and released the bowstring of a bow that had been centered almost too perfectly towards where he floated now. Another of those accursed arrows brutally penetrated his chest and pinned him to the ground, and for good measure Mokou kicked down into the arrow to make it twist through Alex's muscles before breaching his back.

After that kick came a dozen more pounding away at his face with everything she had. Now Alex was relatively defenseless against her ignited wrath. Mokou kept her hands tucked in her pockets and grinned while battering away at him.

"Well? You give up yet?!" She asked.

"NEVER!" He managed to roar even as his teeth and jaw were getting chipped down.

He gambitted on his luck to pull him through and unleashed a burst of elements from his body. A wild flashfrost iced Mokou's body over with a brief glimpse of surprise forming beforehand. Alex spat chunky blood from his gut as he ripped himself off the ground and staggered to his feet. He slapped the frozen statue aside and watched it shatter on the ground before turning his attention to Kaguya.

He nudged his right brow as a dare for her to attack, but contrary to her ditzy appearance the princess was as wise as they came. She laid her feet to rest on the ground and waited. Alex swung for the arrow with his left hand while tapping the Gaia Temporis with the other, but Kaguya diverted his arms' path with her lasers, going so far as to force him to hear his joints snap like broken crackers.

Yet still his endurance persisted. His body convulsed so more, and the radiance of his wings began to flicker out of existence, but he held on. It didn't matter who or what came his way. He would triumph. He would win. And he would do it all for her.

"GRAAAAAH!" He ripped the arrow free from his chest and immediately wiped out all the bamboos within a fifty foot radius to restore his vigor. Then he swung his right hand up to the left and grabbed onto Mokou's foot as she came diving in.

"You're fighting for the wrong side Mokou!" He growled before throwing her to the ground. She caught herself on the landing by digging her fingers into the dirt and raising her head up high.

"Oh yeah? And just what side are YOU fighting for?!" She snarled in response.

Alex zipped his lips and quickly glanced to the right. There he saw a bunch of tiny rods of bamboo scattered across the ground from earlier scuffles and got an idea. While Mokou regrouped with Kaguya and prepared their next attack, he gently flicked a couple fingers to the left behind his back, raising that bamboo off the ground.

The next second that bamboo bolted through the air and ripped through the sides of the two immortals, drawing gallons of blood as they died. It was a messy scene, and one Alex closed his eyes to as the scent of raw grey matter briefly touched his sense of smell.

He then squeezed his fist tightly and pulled up various root from the fertile earth around where Kaguya would revive. Then he used his other fist to create diamonds from the ground where Mokou would revive. The moment they were back, he constrained them in their respective chosen elements. The diamonds insulated Mokou's heat, while the roots could dig into Kaguya's brain and prevent her from being able to focus her power over the instaneous from rotting the roots to mush.

Alex let out a deep breath, ignoring the squirming Mokou wasted time with as he gestured a finger towards her and said, "Well you aren't my enemy. So be good, and stay here."

He only managed one step forward before he saw a pair of glowing red eyes flash into view before him.

"What the..." Then he felt something scraping against the sides of his head and grasped tightly onto it with both hands, swinging his head back and letting out a series of maddened screams, "A...AA...AAAAGHH!"

The most unlikely of interlopers had arrived. Reisen Udongein Inaba, casting aside her business-like attire and wielding a strange golden gun shaped like a megaphone, stared deep, penetrating waves into Alex via her glowing red eyes which were wrought with tears.

"Rabbit, what the hell are you doing here?!" Mokou responded with both relief and surprise at her presence.

Reisen aimed her gun at the roots and shot an energy bullet through the center to unravel them. Then after Kaguya passed on the favor to Mokou by using her instanteous lasers to break the diamond down, the rabbit hastily drew her weapon up by her face and yelled, "Princess Kaguya! Mokou! Get out of here, please! Leave this to me!"

With an expression ripe with determination Reisen drew her gun down to her hip and sprinted towards Alex all whilst yelling, "MASTER EIRIN! FIRE NOW!"

A sharp "Pang!" rang throughout the forest as seconds later Eirin's arrow ripped through hundreds of yards of bamboo to reach its destination. Alex pulled himself up and the arrow stabbed into his right shoulder. This perfectly jerked his body aside and let him witness Reisen bravely charging at him with her weapon raised.

She started her assault with a pulse of energy from her gun that distorted Alex's vision and made him see the world in kaleidoscopic hexagons. She then hopped up and kneed him in the face to knock him off his feet, then used his stomach as a platform to safely hop back.

She stood sideways and raised her gun, her trigger finger shaky as she stared into boy's remorseless eyes. Her eyes widened with fury and with a disheartened sniffle she tugged at the trigger with all her might to fire one single bullet made of dense sound waves.

Alex swerved his body to the left and the bullet scraped his face, but the greater pain came from the bullet screaming into his ears a sound powerful enough to nearly rupture his eardrums. The madness from earlier warped his perception of his surroundings, and when combined with that accursed arrow he could only flail his arms around and hope for his elements to hit their mark.

Compressed winds sliced bamboo in twine, which were then burned to ash by flames hotter than an arid desert's winds. Reisen ducked and ran past them all without losing her mark, which she fired upon with bullets aimed perfectly at his elbows and knees. Finally, Alex crashed to the ground on his back and slammed his limp elbow against the ground, letting out a hollow scream of pain as the joint pinched his nerves.

He summoned his sword through nothing more than a miracle and squinted between the kaleidoscopic lines to identify Reisen's distinct colors. Then he thrust his sword with all his might, and it nearly penetrated clean through her stomach.

But Mokou flew in the way and let it breach hers, where she then grappled her bleeding hands around the blade to prevent it from going further. Reisen barely flinched and looked back just as Mokou exploded and sent the blade flying far away.

Reisen kept firing upon Alex's body, but he was able to mount something resembling a defense with the help of his various elements. He even hardened his own blood to accomplish this task, but long he could keep this up was a question in of itself.

His brain was slowly readjusting to the true form of reality, and once he had a clear shot of Reisen he squeezed his hands and forced the many defenses he'd made to bolt towards her. But he was a fool to think that this simple looking rabbit didn't have a bit of cunning to her name.

She had manipulated his perception again without his knowing, making him see double of her. The fake fared fine, while the real deal ran up ahead and purposefully tripped another pitfall for Alex to slide and ram his head into. Unable to trust his own senses as his head was rattled like a maraca, Alex forced his eyes closed and twirled his body clockwise, scraping his legs along the ground in hopes of tripping the real Reisen up.

The rabbit hopped over it and thrust her eyes wide open, bombarding Alex with brain waves to further his irrationality. She didn't get very far before Alex's volatile use of elements whipped up a tornado of fire and electricity and forced her to retreat quite a bit away.

Alex flung out of the tornado with fist wound up for a punch. As he brought it down Kaguya got in the way and had her chest penetrated straight through. Not stopping there, Alex spun around and let out a roar as he spread his dissipitating wings and unleashed a burst of fire in the second he had control over himself.

Though she was knocked onto her rear and dragged through the dirt, Reisen held her gun stable before her face and pulled the trigger with all her might, unleashing a string of explosive soundwave blasts that pummeled Alex all over when he turned around.

He was beginning to stagger, but wouldn't drop without a fight. Though having to push himself this hard against Reisen of all Youkai was definitely a wound to his pride that would never heal. He could comprehend what drove her so hard to fight against him, but the moment she chose this fight she should've have known there would be no taking it back.

Biting his teeth and closing his eyes, Alex raised his fist up high and thrust himself straight towards her location. Kaguya and Mokou both got in his way and rammed their bodies into his chest, forcing him to spit blood on their clothes.

"Ugh, how vulgar..." Kaguya stated calmly while her nostrils twitched from the stench.

"If you don't like it you can leave!" Mokou blurted, their eternal rivalry shining even in their darkest hour.

"You both should leave!" Reisen exclaimed as she rose up and cocked her gun at Alex's head.

"Hey princess, is your rabbit seriously worryin' about a couple of immortals?!" Mokou chuckled at the thought.

Before Kaguya could give a cheeky answer, Alex grabbed the backs of their heads and smashed them together, then rushed right for Reisen with fist squeezed hard enough to draw blood. The rabbit used her powers to deceive him with illusions, but just by closing his eyes he was able to smash the ground with all his might.

The element that erupted didn't matter. The real Reisen was swept off her feet regardless and fell hard on her back. Alex then opened his eyes and went right for the Gaia Temporis. The pain in his shoulder gave him heavy resistance, but he was able to tap it to remove yet another cruddy spell on the arrow. He then reached to pull it out, only to have his arm pulled right back by Mokou grappling onto it from the side.

"You're not going anywhere!" She roared. Alex tried to shake her off only for Kaguya to grab onto the other arm and pull it back.

Reisen glared at him with her lunatic eyes and plagued him even further with madness. His brain became so torn apart that he began to see his surroundings as nothing more than wobbly phantoms with voids for mouths and voices comprised of gargly screams.

Alex closed his eyes and the phantoms still plagued his mind, driving him to the brink of insanity as he began swinging his head around and spewing elements from his body to drive the immortals off. But during his mad flailing, the arrow slowly began to slip free from his chest, which only Reisen started to notice.

She aimed her gun up for his head but couldn't get a bead on the center of his skull from how madly he was swinging it about.

"Hold him still! Hurry!" She demanded with a brief glimpse of panic squeaking out of her voice.

The arrow pushed free and Reisen widened her eyes and pulled the trigger. Alex's own eyes thrust open and he swung his head up, his forehead absorbing the full impact of the bullet without flinching or bleeding. He glared with hollow eyes straight at the rabbit, and saw only a haunting void of nothingness.

His body became alit with wildfire that grew increasingly stronger over time. Mokou and Kaguya's arms got singed and they were forced off, while the fire just grew stronger and stronger, and stronger still...

"Shit...! He's going to-!"

"KAAAABOOOOOMMM!"

Alex self-detonated the fire around his body and immediately wiped out all the bamboo within a half a mile radius, leaving a smoldering crater in its place. Kaguya was able to use her power over the instantaneous to grab Mokou and Reisen and hightail it out of there...But by the time she stopped to look back at the fireworks, there was only a depressing sight to behold at her feet.

Reisen's frontside was scorched like brimstone, and her skin raw and smoldering. Her lungs hacked up smoke from the fire she had inhaled, and she could hardly breathe or speak.

"P-Princess I...I..." She hacked and wheezed as the princess looked down at old pitiful her. She could not tell what the princess felt, her eyes had grown too hazy for such.

Her body trembled violently as her eyes cried their last tears and she bit her delicately singed lower lip. Kaguya knelt down and laid a hand in front of her eyes, and one to support her back.

"P-Please...avenge...the moon..." Reisen forced one last request through her mouth. Kaguya closed her eyes and used her power over the instanteous to let her cherished rabbit suffer not a second longer. Then she pulled her eyelids down gently with a glide of the hand and rose to her feet. A single tear then trickled down her left eye and fell upon Reisen's chest near the heart.

"Damn it..." Mokou bit her teeth and reared her head to look towards the sky. Then she saw Alex Whiter walk towards them from the corner of her eye and swung her head down, flinging tears free from her eyes as she roared, "DAMN IT ALL!"

Alex looked gruesome with the shadows the dying explosion cast upon him. Only his eyes reflected any light, and it was a pale crimson. His body was weakened, his hands were behind his back, and he knew he couldn't be fully restored without breaking apart the ground. He stared down and saw Reisen's corpse, and for a moment the right of his mouth twitched down towards a frown.

He closed his eyes, and remarked solemnly towards his foes, "Reisen fought as hard as she could. She went in knowing full well she could die...There's no reason to mourn her for that."

"Bastard...!" Right as Mokou was ready to charge in Eirin stopped her with but a word, "Cease."

She strolled up behind her comrades with bow aimed straight ahead and a cold look in her eyes, "He doesn't know the meaning of the word sympathy. He only feeds off anger."

Alex raised his head a bit and paid Eirin little attention as she commented, "Udongein shall be missed...But her sacrifice shall never be forgotten."

She tugged back on her bowstring and closed her right eye to steady her aim, "Now...Any last words, Butcher? Perhaps you'd like to express one last bit of regret...Over how foolish it was to attempt to kill the unkillable?"

"...You aren't immortal." Alex bluntly spoke.

"Ohohoho, but we are. The Hourai Elixir is perfect. Our immortality is our greatest gift, and our greatest punishment..."

"...Chang'e is dead." Alex raised his head and stared into the cold abyss of the doctor's eyes, and saw a spark flicker within them as his words finally reached.

Eirin smirked slightly and shook her head, "You can't bluff me."

"Her body was dismembered limb from limb. I saw AND smelled her organs after they were smeared across the ground by Junko. I stepped in a pool of her own BLOOD." Alex got firmer and nastier with the details, but never lost his certainty in what he spoke.

Eirin...could not formulate a response.

"Maybe your Hourai Elixir isn't as perfect as you thought it was. Maybe...its ability to stave off death can't account for things that its master didn't know existed."

Alex slowly raised his left hand, and pinched between his thumb and pointer finger was a leather glove that he let drop to the ground. Then he raised his other hand, and revealed that it was consumed from the wrist up to his shoulder in bright, neon flames.

Eirin's smirk started to become uneven, and she raised her bow back up as Alex grinned and spoke grimly, "You have one shot left. Better make it count."

Kaguya flew right in front of Eirin, and Mokou in front of her. Mokou swung her arm out and declared, "You'll have to go through all of us you bastard!"

"..." Alex squeezed his eyes shut, his heart feeling heavier than lead. With a head shake too subtle to see with the flames behind him, he murmured to himself mournfully, "So be it..."

He knew already how the events would play out if he charged in now. Kaguya would use her power of the instantaneous on Eirin's arrow, causing it to hit its mark guaranteed. But after exposing a potential flaw in her elixir Eirin was shaken up just enough that one more surprise would guarantee a long enough loss of focus for him to strike hard and true.

So he wiggled his brows, and the dirt behind all three of them sifted up and formed a very thin metallic spear aimed right at their backs. The moment he kicked his feet off the ground, the spear shot off as well, puncturing all three through their backs and avoiding all of their vitals organs. Alex bit his lower lip and didn't stop for a second.

He swung his burning fist and smashed through all three of their chests simultaneously. His spiritual flames roasted their innards alive, and burned even deeper than that. Alex stood beside Eirin as she gasped quietly for air and told her straight up the reason why she failed.

"Whoever drinks the Hourai Elixir has their bodies turned immortal...But my Blazing Overlord Fist doesn't just kill the body, it burns the soul as well. Even your Elixir can't undo the loss of one's self...But it'll take some time before I'll be able to recharge it. As you were the only people I was worried about having to use it on, I want you to consider it a show of respect that you forced me to use it, Eirin Yagokoro."

"...But this is goodbye." Alex ripped his fist free from their seering wounds and watched them collapse one by one onto the ground, his flames spurting free from their confines to burn their entire bodies away.

Alex then opened his eyes and watched that spot carefully. He registered only a bit of surprise when they revived, but their eyes and faces were frozen in the exact same spot they died in. Without a soul, without a sense of self, their bodies were hollow husks sustained worthlessly by the Hourai Elixir.

"...But I can't take any risks." He turned away while flicking his left fingers up, causing multiple layers of steel and diamond to cage their bodies in a dome.

With one final glance over his shoulder he murmured, "If you happened to survive this...I'll be back to free you later before I leave this place. If you didn't, well..."

Alex squeezed his eyes shut and strolled away from their bodies and faintly saw each of the people he has killed so far. Once the Hourai victims had appeared amongst them, he began to whisper in a slow, melancholic voice, "Five...Six...Seven..."

Upon picking up and putting his glove back on, he squeezed his hand into a fist and looked narrowly up ahead, "Seven lives...That's the amount of blood we will share in Hell together, Yukari."

As he walked towards the edge of the burning forest, he raised his head and held regret over Eirin's choices. He had truly, truly wished that she would've helped him stop Yukari, and now that she was gone all he could do is mutter "Damn it..." and wonder what his next move could even be...

Next Time: A Prince and his People