Chapter 8: The Fall of Future
After spending some time draining the remains of the Myouren Temple dry for energy to heal himself up, Alex wandered around a bit in Gensokyo planning his next move before ultimately deciding to head for the Youkai Mountain.
Eirin was dead, robbing him of a chance to seal Yukari away for good. Miko, Byakuren, Mamizou, and everyone who followed them were gone, depriving him of people he'd assume would be easy recruits. Like Miko said, the chances of him gaining further allies would diminish as the pile of bodies grew.
"...I have to keep trying. I have to keep trying..." A repetitious mantra guided his way forward as he ascended the mountainside nice and slow. Along the way, the cold winds grazed him with an ominous whisper. Something in Gensokyo had changed for the worst, he just didn't quite know what.
"I have to hurry..." But it did hasten his pace, allowing him to push right past the fog surrounding the mountain and arrive near the very top. Once he was close to the waterfalls' beginning he saw the clouds begin to stir with thunder, rain and lightning.
The lightning's pale flash cast gloomy shadows upon a very large group of Youkai assembled in front of the Moriya Shrine.
It was unbelieveable to behold for all the wrong reasons. A hundred winged Tengu took to the skies wielding short swords and ninjaesques dresses, their ebony feathered wings flapping to keep them afloat. Wolf tengu were positioned below them with pikes and shields, and were joined by ogres, gremlins, onis and other obscene creatures that crawled amongst the Underground. Finally, there were some Kappa standing around on the sides of the mountaintop.
And that was just the grunts. Alex could pick out more notable faces amongst the assembled crowd. The exaggerative reporter Aya Shameimaru, the reclusive reporter Hatate Himekaidou, the smarmy patroller Momiji Inubashiri, and the egotistical Nitori Kappashiro. They'd all been conscripted to this army that was being led by a surprisingly broad collection of folks.
There was a long-haired tengu wearing the red long-nosed mask commonly associated with their kind along with long, long heeled shoes. With her wild, knee-length mullet-like hair and lack of curves it wouldn't be hard to assume this person was a man. But regardless of that, they were clearly the Tenma, the leader of the Tengu.
Kanako and Suwako took front-and-center in the back row with Sanae sandwiched between them pumping herself up. They acted as the representatives of the entire mountain. But what really caught Alex by surprise was that Satori numbered their ranks, and both Rin AND Utsuho were allowed to be at her side. The two pets were itching for a fight, but Satori's calming presence held them at bay.
Alex instantly felt his brows drop from severe irritation. This many soldiers wouldn't be armed at this very moment unless they were planned to be used right away. He thus sighed and cut right to the chase, albeit with the slimmest hope that he'd be proved wrong, "This army for me or for Yukari, Kanako?!"
Kanako crossed her arms under her chest as the tassles of her shimenawa swayed in the wild wet breeze, "You already know the answer!"
"Then you'd better give a damn good reason why!" He yelled demandingly.
"If Yukari falls then so does Gensokyo. You know why I can't allow that!" Kanako yelled quite assuredly in her assertation.
"Yukari must have gotten to her first...! Just like with Mamizou..." Though this lack of staying ahead of his enemies angered him to the core, he was more disappointed in the goddess for falling victim to such simple-witted lies, regardless of the reason why.
Thus in vain he tried to rip that veil of deception off from over her eyes, "You're being lied to! I killed Yukari once and Gensokyo was just fine!"
"Its her word against yours! Do you have any proof?!" She demanded back.
"You're putting too many lives at stake to be asking such questions!" Alex whipped his pointer finger at her through the crowd and exclaimed, "If you commit to this fight then there's no going back! Can you live with the consequences of your actrions, Kanako Yasaka?!"
Tenma brushed Kanako aside with her feathery fan and then thrust it down towards Alex, bellowing in a deep and commanding voice, "We were blessed to survive one Godslayer! We shall not tolerate the empty threats of another, lesser one!"
"Then why isn't SHE fighting..." Aya grumbled in annoyance.
"Hush, Shameimaru!" Hatate whispered.
Alex widened his eyes and leaned his head back, grabbing onto the side of his face and engaging in a bit of laughter, "Oh that's rich! Youkai live off of fear, and now you plan to die because of it!"
He leaned his eyes into view and his curt glare shook the wimpier tengu at their knees, "Cause that's the only way this'll proceed now. You let the beast out of the cage, now you'll NEVER be able to put it back in."
"Then if it removes your blight from this world forever, it shall be a death worthy of the tengu name!" Tenma hollered victoriously.
"Whose name we talking about exactly? Cause it sure as heck ain't gonna be ours..." Aya's eyes shifted in search of a way out, but Tenma's stone cold glare iced her spine and kept her in place.
"And what about you two?! Sanae! Satori!" Alex's attempt to single them out only earned silence from Satori and a bold, proud proclamation from the shrine maiden, "I'll stop you because its the right thing to do! Reimu'd do the same thing if she was in my shoes!"
"...Would she now?" Alex pondered, a jab towards Reimu's surprising lack of presence in this matter. Then he swung his right arm straight up and out and exclaimed, "Fine! Come at me! All of you! I'll take you all on!"
He started to reach for his triggers when the slightest twitch of his fingers was enough to make Tenma proclaim, "Front line! Do not give him the chance to transform!"
Three tengu pushed away from the crowd and sped straight for Alex, too fast for him to transform in time. He grinned and popped his sword away while thinking "Hmph, perhaps I'll just preserve my strength..." as he squeezed his hand into a fist.
One tengu went just that little bit faster in order to make the first attack with a blinding slice down at Alex's face. He swerved out of the way and batted the arm with the back of his left hand to keep the blade from his shoulder, then he thrust his fist straight into the tengu's gut to make them immediately cobble over in pain.
The other two tengu came charging from his sides ready to stab into his hips. So in retaliation, Alex grabbed onto the shoulders of the stunned tengu and vaulted over it, using their body to take the stabs for him. The shock of immense pain penetrating its sides caused the tengu to die immediately.
After stabbing their comrade by accident the tengu withdrew their bloody blades and watched them plummet shamefully from the sky. Alex moved to attack them both during this moment of grief, only to be met with a sharp, paralyzing pain treading heavily up his spine.
Once, twice, then three times this feeling struck before he was able to look back and notice a set of pikes impaled into his backside, with the wolf tengu preparing to throw more.
Alex pushed the pikes out with a thought and grunted at the flaring pain. He then spun around, snatched two pikes out of the air as they flew towards him, and then twirled and thrust them behind to stab through the tengus' guts.
"Ceasefire!" Tenma yelled to the wolves, who stamped the bottom of their pikes on the ground in near perfect unison and became unmoving statues. Tenma then slowly swiveled her head left and glared through her mask at Satori, who murmured with mild disappointment, "Then I suppose its my turn? You may want to lower the hostilities, Tenma."
Though unused to using such a tone, Satori seized her title as one of the commanders of this army and bellowed with surprising authority, "Underground troops! Take aim with your weapons and show no mercy! Avoid the tengu if possible!"
A widespread mild hypnosis from her would ensure greater success for the thick-headed party lovers. After snatching their odd, liquid dripping knives from their buckets and flung them like darts towards Alex.
"Heh...!" Alex grinned and finally ripped the pikes free from the tengu, then used their incredible reach to swipe away at the knives zipping by him like flies.
"Even a fairy would know that those knives were dipped with poison." He lauded their efforts.
"Frontline! Keep him occupied!" At the Tenma's command, multiple tengu flew bravely into battle.
One sped past his pikes and managed to use the blunt edge of their sword to knock one out. But upon overextending to try and stab his heart, Alex beat them to the punch by using the other pike he had. He then used her as a meat shield to take a few knives before flinging her to the wolves.
Two tengu ambushed his sides and cut along the back of his arms to slow him down as they then went for his hips. Alex wrapped his arms around their wrists and thrust their hands up to force their swords out of their hands. Then when they descended back in front of him, he grabbed and stabbed them right into their necks.
"This'll take forever...And they're definitely looking to stall for time..." Wising up to the enemy's tricks, Alex kicked his right foot into a tengu's gut as they charged in and begun looking around.
There wasn't much time to work with, so he looked at one of the lower plateaus the wolves were gathered upon and was hit with a literal spark of inspiration. He forced millions of volts into the tengu through his foot and kicked them at the bottom of the stone formation the wolves stood upon.
"Brave yourselves!" One yelped as they raised their shields in futility. The tengu collided, and the ground they stood upon broke and collapsed, sending the whole platoon tumbling into the waterfall.
"He's starting to use his elements..." Kanako murmured while her taut fingers twitched upon the gripping of her elbows.
"Show no mercy! He cannot be allowed to live!" Tenma screeched in vengeful delight, and whether her citizens wished to fight or not, they had already been trapped between this rock and hard place.
Alex started rapidly flinging fireballs into the crowd for the tengu to cut down and cover themselves in smoke with. He then summoned his blade and flung into the smoke, immediately cutting down the chest of one tengu hard enough to force their deathly descent.
Four tengus surrounded him with a simultaneous attack, only to be repelled with a vicious circular slash, a second of which was enough to cut them all down. As their blood splashed upon his skin he began to shiver, and whatever joy that had driven him thus far was starting to leave.
"This isn't right...I shouldn't be fighting this battle..." Though most of his blame was directed towards the ones leading this army.
That moment where he was distracted allowed a lucky Undergrounder to connect with a knife across his legs. Instantly revulsion plagued his gut and his nerves felt dry and itchy.
"This...isn't poison!" Alex dreaded that it was something far, far worse, a sentiment that Satori was more than happy to elaborate upon.
"Its concentrated illness, courtesy of that spider girl Yamame." She said with a whisper.
"Heh!" Tenma boasted in delight, "Even a god can fall ill it seems!"
She brandished her hand to the wind and proclaimed, "Now's the time to strike!"
More tengu were ready and raring to fight with their hearts fueled by a drive to avenge their fallen friends. Alex's vision blurred and as he grumbled "Shit..." they attacked him down the chest with three quick cuts in succession. The bleeding made the fever worsen, and delayed his ability to react.
"Got to...get rid of this...!" As the illness infiltrated his body in liquid form, Alex knew that the best way to expunge it would be to sweat it all out. While he made that body endure such an arduous process, he grabbed tightly onto his blade and wildly swung it around while it was on fire. The tengu were forced to keep their distance after a couple of their comrades fell victim to his vicious flailing.
"Stand back. I got this." Aya boasted with her head held high as she used her own feathery fan to blow out the flames with a single powerful gust, while also forcing Alex to brace himself.
But the tengu didn't need to fear such vicious winds. They could simply charge right in and drive their blades through Alex's body. Four of them piled on him at once, with the piercing blow to his heart foiled by him wedging his arm in between the blade and his chest.
"Ha...ha...ha..." Sweating out the illess was exhausting enough. But these stabs made his heart race at a fatalistic beat.
"Why...why am I hesitating...Its not like this is a game...T-They are trying to kill me..." And upon reaching this harsh conclusion about the reality of this battle, a voice in his head whispered, "Don't you forget...Its kill..."
"Or be killed..." He groaned through an agonized breath. Then as his heartrate began to slow in conjunction with his deeper breathing, he slowly raised his head and panted out raggedly with his irises now red.
The tengu that had assaulted them would experience the fear from his glare for but a moment, as he quickly unleashed the fury of lightning upon their wettened bodies to fry them alive. Then he rushed straight to the right and smashed another Tengu in the chest, breaking their ribs and launching them into another tengu, the two winding up colliding into the side of the mountain.
He then jerked his head back and glared straight at Aya, who drew her sword and muttered under a grimace, "Oh great, why'd it have to be me next?"
When Alex punched out towards her she blocked the attack by holding up the blunt edge of her blade and holding completely still. Alex blinked a couple times while the sly tengu grinned and stuck her nose up, "Just kidding!"
She swerved her blade and cut the space between the boy's knuckles before leaning down and ramming into him at supersonic speeds to propel him back. Alex dug his feet into the air and lunged back at Aya, who had already went flying in for another attack.
He swung his right hand down with fire dragged along via his fingertips, and Aya zipped behind him and punctured his backside twice with her sword moving through as quick as a hot knife through butter. Alex turned around on the dime and rammed an uppercut into the tengu's gut, only for her to bite her teeth down and endure the blow.
"Hmph, I guess you're a little better than the rest..." Alex muttered that faint praise and then whipped his sword out on the defensive as Aya hastily tried to cut through his arm.
Aya then switched to her other hand and swung her fan up to catch Alex in a rising gale of wind blades. He pushed the blades aside with a thought until the tengu rose after him and twirled her blade around to repeatedly cut into his chest. Then she lashed her fan out and blew Alex away with a rough hurricane gale that her fellow tengu had to brace themselves against.
"Shameimaru! Watch what you're doing!" Tenma proclaimed as even she felt the winds tickle her body.
"Oh bite your tongue already old hag! I'm not going to be fodder for your glory!" Aya dove straight after Alex and impaled her blade deep into his chest, pinning him right in the middle of the cold, rushing waterfall.
"Any last words?" She taunted while pressing her other hand atop the palm holding the blade in, preparing to make the miniscule budge to cut into his heart.
"..." As the water drenched his face and hair with a shivering cold touch, a grin widened around Alex's face as his panting slowed to a crawl, "Thanks, I needed the refresher."
Aya's heart skipped a beat and she immediately shifted the blade to the right. But her steel was met with a rough resistance, as Alex had hardened the skin around the wound to be tougher than steel. And the second later he forced the blade out of his body and began setting his body on fire.
When hot and cold collided, a very heavy veil of fog covered the entire battlefield in seconds. Aya went for her fan and tried to swing it out, only for a series of rupturing shockwaves to blow aside the fog for her. The sounds accompanying them reminded Aya of towering oaks falling to the ground, only with a more gruesome "Snap!"
Upon turning around to brave the sounds she was accosted by a powerful white flash of lightning that hid many of her comrades in shadows. When the light subsided she was greeted by a floating field of corpses that had their heads forcibly twisted to the right and left by a single punch each. And the perpetrator, Alex, was now resting high above them with his hands dragging down the lightning from the heavens into his grasp.
Upon flashing a smirk he thrust his hands down and bombed the entire battalion of wolves and Underground soldiers with stray lightning bolts, and fried many other tengu who happened to be in his path. Aya sped around, hoping her luck would be her saving grace. That was the last thought she'd spare before running face first into a lightning bolt.
By the time Alex was finished his palms were thick with smoke and there was less than twenty tengu remaining. The Underground forces had been mostly wiped out, and they were scared. Scared and shivering. Alex saw no more reason to play around with the grunts now, and shifted his full attention upon the leaders.
Kanako braced her teeth into a grin and dug her fingertips into her elbows before muttering hesitantly, "Sanae...Its time."
"A-Are you sure Lady-"
"This isn't the time for doubts. We'll be fine. As long as we stick to the plan, I know we can prevail." Kanako gave an uneven smile to her shrine maiden for a moment, then turned to Satori.
"I know," She responded right away and looked down at the devastated battlefield, "Everyone! Retreat Underground to safety!"
As the shambles of that faction made haste for the surface, the remaining tengu sought to do the same regardless of their leader proclaiming, "Cowards! Who said you could run?!"
Tenma snarled her teeth and reached down to her right hip, where a sword was kept sheathed in chains. Kanako gleamed at her and felt mild discomfort as the blade was drawn with a vile aura surrounding it, "You'd better not be considering using that."
"What other choice has he left me, Yasaka?!" Tenma ripped the gruesome, blood-soaked blade free and raised it to the sky, where its hollow darkness devoured the light flashing down from above and began to swallow in spectres that suddenly manifested across the battlefield.
"The legendary soul stealer Muramasa shall feed upon the fallen's souls, and with its power I WILL slay you in a single stroke, Elemental Overlord!"
When the demonic blade had feasted its fill Tenma squeezed it in her hand and flew straight towards Alex, raising the blade high above her head. Floating there, without a hint of movement to his name, Alex caught the Tengu leader unawares by suddenly having his blade thrusted through her stomach and suspending her in place gasping for air.
He then tossed her aside without a care and raised his blade up in front of his chest. Kanako pleaded with a yell, "Hurry Sanae!"
Sanae squeezed her eyes shut and put her hands together for a concentrated prayer as she whimpered, "O-Ok!"
Sanae's body then began to glow as both Suwako and Kanako closed their eyes. Alex reached for the triggers of his sword while Satori gripped her Third Eye and glanced back to her pets one at a time, "Get ready to move on my signal."
With their steadfast nods assuring her just a little, Satori turned towards the mountainsides and saw the Kappas finally making their move. With Nitori giving the orders, they began to open up the ground and raise a pair of machines with a laser cannon mounted on top.
"A-Are you sure this'll work Nitori?" A short-haired Kappa with glasses murmured.
"Against Mr. Sucks at Throwing Games? Hahaha! I'd say our odds of victory stand at 110%!" She triumphantly stood atop her laser cannon and thrust a wrench towards the boy, who exploded quickly and violently with golden flames, knocked her straight off her perch from the raging hot winds.
Alex spread his wings out of the flames and stared down his opponents. But he noticed that Suwako and Kanako had vanished, and in their place Sanae now hovered with her hair glowing a bright aquamarine and her body radiating with a bright heavenly light. With poise and a confident posture she gently raised her gohei towards Alex and hadn't a trace of malice to her name.
"This technique...Its just like what Yorihime used to do." Alex grumbled with a bit of surprise in his voice.
"That's right!" Sanae reciprocated his comment with an echoing voice combining hers, Kanako and Suwako's into one, "But as a natural born living god, I can handle the power of more than one goddess at a time! Lady Kanako...and Lady Suwako...Have given me the strength to stop you in your tracks Alex!"
"She's not spewing bullshit. Her power's increased quite a lot. And with those two's powers, that means she can match most of my elements." Alex still kept grinning as he hollered out to his opponent, "But it makes no difference! You can't even touch me!"
He ran forward faster than a speeding bullet and Sanae simply raised her gohei forward and summoned a five-pronged star barrier to absorb the full brunt of his attack and repel the flames that sparked from his blade grinding down against the barrier.
Sanae opened her hand against the barrier and pushed Alex back with a powerful gale that he quickly cancelled out with one of his own. As her barrier dispersed she glided her gohei along the air and summoned a few more stars to fly towards Alex at near lightspeed.
Alex swung his body around to evade them, their harrowing close connection to him catching him by surprise. He then flung himself over Sanae and spun upside-down, throwing out a few small electrified circles that unleashed crackling lightning down upon her.
She kept cool and summoned her own lightning to evenly match his, then twirled back in the nick of time to use her gohei to block his charging slash. But his strength overwhelmed and pushed her back, with the heat of his blade blustering against her body.
As Alex raised his blade for another attack, Sanae held her left hand out and yelled "Halt!" as a star manifested around Alex's wrist and locked his arm into place between its intersecting lines. Alex jerked his arm down and received a shock to his elbow joints for the effort.
"What...?" He was surprised, as for with his soul shields at his side that little shackle shouldn't be stopping him.
"You still have to obey the laws of motion. Even with your shields!" Sanae proclaimed.
"You think I don't know that?!" Alex growled in response, feeling much like a child that's been reprimanded repeatedly by a teacher.
He then immediately swung his other hand over and grabbed onto the star to tear it off. Sanae swung her gohei in a circle around her body and summoned the wind to coalesce into a tornado that she set upon him with a thrust of the hand.
Alex braced himself in the eye of the storm and lunged forward like an arrow, but Sanae fled back right before his sword came down upon her. She then swiped her gohei out twice and peppered his shielded body with waves of tiny stars. She then floated higher and threw a very hot fireball down, then threw a hefty amount of oil at it to create a hefty enough explosion to force Alex back.
This stalled him out long enough for his first shield to drop. Sanae followed up on this success by surrounding Alex with a sphere of stars that fired lasers from their centers. Alex leapt and twirled his body around to try and squeeze between them, but one managed to slip on by and graze his body to bait out the second of his shields.
He grit his teeth and bolted at Sanae, trying to force her on the offensive to keep up the shield's longevity. A dunderhead though she may be, when the chips were down she could be relied upon to remain headstrong in battle. And do so she did.
Without losing her focus she swiped her gohei in front of herself and briefly turned her body into mist, where Alex harmlessly passed on through. He swerved his head around in surprise then turned back and watched Sanae playfully stick her tongue out at him.
Alex unamusingly crossed his arms and tapped his toes on the empty air. Sanae took the prime opportunity to sandwich him between two large stars and funnel tons of godly energy into the farm of a massive beam from each. Alex flew out of their range by ramming shoulder first into Sanae.
He then electrically charged his arm and lashed it out, zapping her whole body as she was flung back. She shook off the high voltage with a shake of the head and quickly raised her gohei to bind Alex's left hand in place. Then when he tried to remove it, she swished her hand to the left and made him punch himself in the face, an act that defied the shields' ability to protect him.
After being clobbered in the face twice more Alex gained the willpower to break free and rip the star binding off. Though now he had a bit of blood dripping out of his nose. He rubbed the blood onto his gloved hand and squeezed it in place on his palm, then started pounding the air with his fists to send bullets of compressed wind into Sanae.
Enduring a couple of those was all she needed to muster up another of those barriers. But when that arrived Alex aggressively charged at it and smashed his right fist into its center full force. A crack formed in it, and when Alex punched at it with a left hook the whole barrier came crashing down. Though Sanae didn't appear too affected by its destruction, her eyes nevertheless widened for a moment.
She then attacked with a flurry of stars to bait out his third shield. When Alex came charging in she turned her body into mist and spun around, swinging her gohei out towards the shrine's lake. A couple onibashira were pulled up and pointed at him, then sent flying with a whisk of her hand.
Alex drew his sword and cut them down through the center like they were as weak as wooden sticks, even knowing he was purposefully falling into the shrine maiden's trap. Sanae spun two of those halves around above him and repeatedly clapped them against his body. The loud banging noise hurt more than anything else, and forced him to plug his ears.
But as Sanae kept at it for a few more seconds, Alex's eyes were drawn to the Kappas hard at work on their laser cannons. He raised his lower lip and hummed with growing irritation and curiosity. Then Nitori pulled out a large vial of the Anti-Genesis Theorem and waggled it around between her fingertips, and Alex's eyes flared wide open.
"Not this shit again!"
His thoughts resonated with Satori, who widened her eyes and cautiously proclaimed, "Sanae, he's onto the plan!"
Sanae immediately bit her teeth, dropped the onibashira, and swung her gohei up to bind both of Alex's wrists above his head when he attempted to call down the lightning. Nitori then inserted the vial into a part of the machine, and Alex's body flared up violently with rage.
"It ain't happening you slimy little gremlins!" He roared from the depths of his throat while tugging down at his bindings.
"Oh..." Nitori smugly grinned and hovered her finger over the big red button for a moment, "Its happening."
She pressed it down with great enthusiasm and the conductor of the laser began to flare up with flashing red lights and violet sparks. The Kappas ran out of the way and Nitori eagerly rubbed her hands together as both cannons were primed to fire.
Alex's arms pulsated and throbbed as he dredged up all his strength to the surface and tore straight through the bindings the very second the cannons each unleashed a crimson bolt of pure Theorem energy. He zipped away and the two forces collided, forming a sphere that'd be the perfect size to contain him.
Nitori let out a raspy "Tsk" and ran over to the cannon to shut it off while foolheartedly declaring, "Guess we'll have to try again..."
Alex spun towards her direction biting his lower lip and scowling with flared nostrils, "You're dead Kappa!"
Sanae flew in right his way and summoned a barrier that he rammed straight into on his warpath towards Nitori. Satori raised her right hand up and waved her fingers forward while remarking, "Okuu. Orin. Its your turn now. Stick to the plan."
"Absolutely Lady Satori!" They both cheerfully barked and then flew off cuddling side-by-side with a ferocious look in their eyes.
Satori closed her eyes and focused the hypnotic power of her Third Eye onto Utsuho. The hell raven felt a bit fuzzy in the brain at first, but then with a hardened smile she made a hard stop off to the left of Alex and raised her control rod.
Pure nuclear flames fired from the center in a condensed form, that level of control maintained thanks to Satori's mild hypnotism. In that condensed state even Alex was forced back when it collided with his body and called his fourth soul shield to his aid.
Alex flared his eyes open and pressed against the flames one step at a time, like he was trudging through thick swamp muck. But while he was busy dealing with Utsuho, Rin slyly ran up to his side and ran her claw along his shield while saying in a playfully coercing voice, "Open wide! Wakey wakey!"
A split suddenly opened up in his shield and the nuclear flames forced themselves through into his chest. The blistering heat made him bare a scowl until he could direct all his power into that part of his body to fend it off. Then he was just left wondering what the hell just happened as he thrust his left hand up and tried to fry Rin with lightning, who cheekily grinned before turning into her cat form to slip away unharmed.
"Her power is to control spirits..." He reminded himself with much irritation at this fact, "Its a real pain in the ass keeping track of who has what powers you know!"
But whatever. It was just a mild inconvenience, right? Well after Rin had worked her magic, she got a safe distance away next to Utsuho and summoned a bunch of blue-ish ghouls, known as vengeful spirits, to throw at Alex.
"Go get 'em ghoulies!" She proclaimed excitedly like a child as they heeded her call and rammed through Alex's body one after the other. His innards, not in a physical but spiritual sense, became very, very hot. It was a hard sensation to describe. Think of it like putting boiling hot water into a blender. Eventually, the heat will burn its way through.
And it hurt Alex more than it would most, seeing how he has other spirits already inhabiting his body that were now reacting negatively to the vengeful touch. The shields protecting him phased away entirely, and thanks to that Sanae quickly used her enhanced divine power to shackle Alex's wrists and ankles with stars.
Utsuho kept pouring on the power, pushing Alex ever closer to the center point between both laser cannons. Nitori grinned as wide as a jackal and stamped one finger down upon the big red button, "Alright! Lets do this right this time!"
The cannons charged up for another blast. Alex reared his head back and screamed at the top of his lungs towards the clouds in the sky. At his beck and call, thunder rumbled throughout all of Gensokyo and the clouds burst with light. Lightning then began bolting down all over, ripping through the front of the laser cannons and making the Kappas dive to the ground for safety. Sanae retreated and defended with a barrier, while Rin pushed Utsuho out of the way. Satori was fine just floating in place, luckily.
Nitori got up first and ran straight for her machine, getting in dangerously close to the scarred wiring and grumbling, "Well LUCKILY the damage isn't too bad...But its going to take some time to repair this."
She whipped out her wrench and dug into the scar while proclaiming without a care, "Hey! Stall him for a bit! We've got enough juice for another shot!"
"E-Easier said than done..." Sanae remarked as Alex broke free from his shackles and rubbed his sore wrists with a tight grip. He then squeezed his gloved hand into a taut fist and glared straight at her with burning red irises, scanning along the battlefield to leave none out of his sight.
"I...will NEVER be caged like that again. Never...ever...AGAIN!" At the very moment he roared that out, the skyline behind the Moriya Shrine began to crack.
Rin remarked with dry enthusiasm, "Umm...T-That wasn't his doing was it?"
When even he looked over his shoulder at the crack, Sanae shook her head and murmured, "No...No I don't think it was."
Alex stared at the cracks for a while and understood the meaning behind them much faster than the others. His eyes widened and his jaw dropped in absolute disbelief as he murmured, "You gotta be kidding me...There's seriously no way Yukari would go this far to deal with me..."
After a mildly unhinged chuckle he turned his head back and remarked, "Looks like time's running out...For all of us."
"What?" Sanae was genuinely oblivious and tilted her head.
Pulling back on his right fist and setting it ablaze, Alex proclaimed, "Sorry, but change of plans. I have to hurry it up now...So its time you got out of my way!"
He charged straight towards Sanae while she was stunned.
"Hi there!" Suddenly he was interrupted by a very cheerful sounding person who dropped right in front of his face hanging upside-down loosely in the air.
Grinning from cheek-to-cheek was this wavy green haired satori with dark green eyes, a black hat with a yellow ribbon that somehow remained perch on her head, and a yellow shirt and green skirt that was strikingly similar to Satori's own. Unlike Satori, this strange, goofy looking girl had a closed Third Eye.
"What in the world...?" He was so completely taken aback that this was all he could say or do.
"Koishi...?" Satori murmured with a melancholic familiarity.
The grinning girl turned clockwise like the hands of a clock until she was standing upright before Alex and giddily smiling inches from his face, "I saw you playing and having fun! So I'm gonna play too!"
The Unconscious Wandering Innocence: Koishi Komeiji
Her presence, unexpected though it was, may just very well be the factor necessary to turn the tides for the Moriya and Underground coalition...
Next Time: Paranoia Strikes Near