Chapter 9: The Fall of Mind
Alex floated there, his eyes blinking in disbelief all on their own as he stared deep into the wandering eyes of the satori Koishi. She blinked at him back, almost like a mirror with a delay. While he remained enamored by the confusion her presence brought, Sanae shook her head and remarked aloud, "This is our chance!"
"Wait!" Satori suddenly shouted before turning to her wayward sister and exclaiming, "Koishi! You need to get out of here! Its too dangerous!"
Koishi creaked her head to the right and continued to smile in the same doll-like fashion as she responded, "Hi sister! Did you come to play too?!"
When Koishi's eyes were off Alex, he firmly blinked his shut and quickly shook his head while muttering, "What the hell...?"
Once he raised his sword upon Koishi, Satori could feel her heart grow faint. But there was little cause for concern, as Alex merely used his blade as a tool to try and help Koishi acclimate and understand what was going down, "You have no reason to be here. Leave. Now."
Koishi leaned back and slowly floated towards an upside-down position, only stopping partway through to knock on Alex's forehead a couple times with her fist, most notably NOT causing his soul shield to pop up.
"Knock knock, who's there?" She giggled like a child.
Alex slanted his brows all the way down and dropped his sword, grabbing tightly onto Koishi's extended wrist and flinging her away overhead as she went hollering gleefully into the distance. He then paused and shook his head some more, as his mind felt strangely empty all of a sudden.
"...That was weird," He muttered before drawing his sword upon Sanae and remarking, "Now...Where were we?"
His vision suddenly went pitch black, causing his heart to skip a beat as he felt cold skin pressed upon the front of his face. Then a familiar childish drawl spoke to him, "Peekaboo! Guess who?"
Alex's heart started to race as Koishi peeled apart her fingers and swung her head down into view with a giddy smile, "Its me! Koishi!"
He once again grabbed onto her wrists and threw her off of him towards Sanae. Then as she turned around with a hop, skip and a jump he swung a pointer finger at her and growled, "Seriously! This isn't the time for this! Get out of here!"
Koishi simply leaned back at Sanae and whispered into her ear like a gossiping schoolgirl, "This guy's got anger issues up the wazoo, don't he?"
"U-Ummm...Yes he does?" Sanae admitted with a tense smile.
Thus Koishi spread her arms across the air, stood on one foot, and said in a peppy tone, "Then I'll help you through them with tons of fun!"
Alex slanted his brows so much it was questionable if his eyes were even open anymore. He drew his sword, shook his head, and then looked at his surrounding opponents while grumbling, "Forget her. She's just a nuisance..."
He laid his eyes on Sanae past Koishi and then charged forth, his speed kicking up a wind that blew the wayward girl away. He swung his sword out and Sanae just narrowly erected a barrier to get in his way. Alex stood his ground and pounded the barrier with his blade again to crack it, then stabbed the blade through the center of the cracks to try and reach Sanae's face.
In a clever move on her part, Sanae used her bindings to keep the blade lodged inside of the barrier. Four bindings were sufficient to keep such a powerful blade in check while she flew away to safety. As Alex spent his strength ripping his blade free, Satori eased her mind and then commanded to her pets to strike while the timing's right.
Rin flew right in and worked her magic on Alex's soul shields, opening a gap on each side of it before Alex managed to kick her hard in the chest with his right foot. Utsuho used this opportunity, with Satori's guidance of course, to funnel nuclear flames into his hip via a beam. Sanae kept thirty feet away from Alex and raised her gohei, firing divine lasers that curved across the sky to attack his sides in conjunction with the raven.
The blistering heat and peppered lasers slowly whittled down his patience and made him pull the blade out even harder. The bindings and barrier shattered all at once in a gorgeous display of sharded energy, while the force of Alex's final tug allowed him to smack away the lasers and put all his strength into slamming the blunt edge of his blade into Utsuho's beam.
He rammed forth at the raven faster than a speeding bullet, even accounting for all the power Utsuho's forced through her control rod. He rammed her in the chest and withdrew his sword to pound away at it with his fists. He only managed a second of this before Utsuho's body exploded with a sun-like burst of energy to repel him.
She then swung her cape back and surrounded herself in that very same energy to ram into Alex. He put his hands up and grappled her shoulders, falling back and tossing her far, far away into the air. He then got up and swung to the left to face Satori, whose presence he'd been underestimating this entire battle thus far.
She closed her eyes and remained soft in her stance, even as her hand twitched atop her Third Eye. Alex squeezed his fists taut and raised the right one high above his head. As he prepared to charge at Satori, a sudden shock poked straight through his chest, being joined by a beep similar to what you'd hear from a heart rate monitor.
At the same time, Alex's heart skipped a beat and his body temporarily felt cold. He looked behind him and saw Koishi floating there with that same irritating, innocuous smile as she waved her right sleeve up and caused a bolt of energy similar to the visual representation of one's pulse to penetrate his body.
This time around Alex's head throbbed in conjunction with the pain in his heart, as he deduced the reason why as, "Damn it all, I keep forgetting she's here because of her power."
Without a presence to her name, it was no wonder she was able to keep slipping past his shields. And while she had expressed a desire to play, her actions were certainly saying otherwise. Alex knew he could not write her off as this mild distraction if she kept this up for much longer.
He stared into her eyes and saw something amidst her hollow pupils. There was this flicker of life, a spark of innocence to put it lightly, that reminded him a bit of her. But there was no way whatsoever that Koishi could ever put that same amount of effort into enjoying life and smiling her concerns away like she could.
As he considered the possibility of pushing the girl away with all his might, hoping she'd fly so far away that she'd forget ever coming back, he was rammed roughshod in the side by another large onibashira. He'd lost track of how many shields had been called to his aid by now thanks to Koishi's shenanigans, but the fact he had any at all meant he wasn't in trouble yet.
So after being carried away a good fifty feet from Koishi, who playfully waved him off, Alex pressed his whole body against the bottom of the onibashira and let loose a burst of raw power from his back to force it to a complete stop. He then rose above and hammered it down the mountainside with one punch.
Sanae lowered her gohei and thrust her hand up, summoning a turbulent tunnel of wind to envelop the space between her and him. He charged carelessly through the eye of the storm as it erupted into a bright, furious blaze from Utsuho throwing her flames into the mix from above.
The sweltering heat made Alex break a bit of a sweat, but he laughed it off with his eyes wide open as he declared, "Nice try! Someone already tried this stunt and failed!"
With more strength to draw on this time, Alex ground his body to a complete halt and swiped his right hand down before his waist to force the hot winds to reverse towards Sanae. She crossed her arms before her face and held on for dear life until Utsuho dove in and thrust her arms out to split the winds apart.
Thanks to that long winded distraction, Rin was able to sneak behind him and throw a few vengeful spirits through his body to inflict the chill of vengeance upon his body.
Alex bit his teeth and spun around, punching the air with all his might. Rin grinned and turned into a cat, then scuttled between the boy's legs to safety. By the time he turned again to catch her escape Utsuho was already ramming face-first into his body.
Alex dug his feet hard into the air and pounded away at Utsuho's body with shockwave creating fists that ruptured the side of the mountain. Her advance was stopped after fifteen of these punches, leaving her head spinning around a bit and her babbling incoherently.
Thus the boy raised his hand straight up to her head and charged electricity until millions of volts were coarsing uncontrollably from his palm. Satori grimaced and tried to coerce Utsuho's conscious awake with her Third Eye, only to find that her time was short and quickly fleeting.
Before the final blow was struck Alex's vision was obscured by a string of bright, cheery roses. He immediately grit his teeth and spun his head to the right while yelling, "That's IT!"
But then his heart dropped cold and he let out a haunted gasp as he saw Shina floating in the air with her hands hovering just a little bit aside her waist. That smile, that form, it was all too recognizable. Like a frightened child, Alex palely whispered as a cold sweat trickled down his face, "S-Shina...?!"
The electricity faded from his limping hand in an instant as he slowly drew it up towards his face.
"Now!" Sanae's vigorous yell interrupted the trance Alex was brought under, and upon a single blinking of the eyes he saw not Shina, but Koishi.
His expression immediately turned sour and he swung his fist back as Koishi remained oblivious to his tearful rage, even as his lionesque snarls penetrated her ears. Luckily for the wandering satori, Sanae had used this chance to throw a tight lasso of energy around Alex's waist and tug him in close.
Alex drew his sword and cut the lasso in two, but upon doing so realized that he was now temporarily out of shields to protect himself...Which made the incoming array of lights surrounding him all the more deadly.
Sanae crossed her arms down before her waist and commanded the sphere of stars she'd summoned to fire all at once, without mercy. Alex was instantly pinned down by beams of hot, blinding energy for five long, grueling seconds.
There was no gap to speak of, no exit worth seeking. She had him completely trapped, a beast forced into the cage. But as long as she could make this last, it'd mean nothing if her allies down below weren't prepared. She turned her head back and yelled, "Are the repairs complete?!"
"No! We still need more time!" Nitori yelled. Her response was fraught with confidence, but that was only a little bit reassuring for the shrine maiden.
"More time..." She mumbled as Alex managed to gather the strength to set his body ablaze and throw the beams back to their point of origin and escape.
Sanae gallantly raised her gohei like a knight raising a lance for a joust then yelled from the depths of her heart, "We will defeat you!"
"Shut up!" Alex immediately barked as he drew his sword and swung up with all his might, emblazoning the sky with a scar of fire a hundred feet tall. Sanae widened her eyes for a moment in awe of the boy's power, then quickly flew to the left to evade the flames' rampage forth.
She swiped her gohei along the air twice and threw ghastly orbs of energy around in various locations to befuddle Alex. As he wasted time cutting them down with a single, spherical slash, she then drew more onibashira from the water and sent them twirling and flying his way.
At the speeds they rotated there'd be much greater risk of self-harm were Alex to attack them in his shieldless state. So instead of closing the gap he made a hasty retreat and gave his sword time to charge up flames to fight back.
A bright yellow light lingered in the air, and was growing stronger with every passing second. He looked back and up to find Utsuho creating a miniature sun, its basking light amplifying the pride worn on her smile as she flicked her hand down to drop the sun faster than a hoisted anchor.
Alex turned around, dropped his sword, and raised both his hands to hold the sun at bay. His body also erupted into flames that helped to counteract most of the heat blistering his palms. The onibashira were still coming, and while the idea to throw the sun in their path was a sound one, the orbiting star wasn't something he could move on his own.
So instead he raised his legs against the bottom of the sun and let the onibashira squeeze on by under his back. The sun was able to push him down more, but now that one distraction was dealt with he could focus all his attention on this one.
He closed his fists tight and pressed his knuckles into the sun. The heat made him sweat bucketloads, and the pain was forcing him to cry out in agony. But he managed to hold on through sheer, unfading grit to force his flames deeper into the sun, overloading the core to the point that the sun was ready to pop like a balloon.
Before that happened, with Satori's mental suggestion, Utsuho sucked the flames back into her body, specifically her control rod. She then cocked it before her chest like a gun and fired out a massive beam three times taller than she was.
Alex swung his body to the right to evade it, then bolted forward alongside its fading embers to attack the raven. Utsuho wrapped her body in flames and charged down at him once more. The two's collision created a massive explosion that prevented the two from seeing each other. But Alex could feel her forehead pressing against his, with even their wrinkles interlocking due to how close they were.
As the flames subsided and Alex had her in his sights, his heart once again skipped a beat as he wound up looking at a near perfect reflection of himself. Their irises were deep red, and they embraced the face of gleeful madness.
"I-Is that...me?" He mumbled in an entranced state of guilt. His strength faded and the 'reflection' was able to hold the advantage over him.
"Hehehe...!" Koishi's playful giggles lingered but a few feet overhead of the 'reflection'.
He looked up and saw her laying on her stomach while paddling her legs around, her cheeks pressed up by her palms to create this jarring smile as she said, "This is a lotta fun! Lets keep playing!"
"Cut it OUT!" Alex tried to throw himself past the 'reflection' to pull Koishi down from her lofty self-made perch, but then Utsuho, unshackled from the satori's games, grappled her arms around Alex's stomach and piledrove him straight down towards a lone onibashira Sanae put in her path.
Plans were being made and yelled beyond Alex's ability to hear them, and it pissed him off beyond imagination. His gaze burned with a terrifying rage towards Koishi, who felt a curious shiver crawl up her spine for a moment. The next second, Alex was bashed into the onibashira so hard that his brain rattled inside of his skull and he briefly lost consciousness.
Alas, even someone as thick skulled as him could not crack the mighty onibashira.
Utsuho kept him pinned down while Sanae floated over and used her binding stars on his wrist and ankles and pulled them down around the circumference of the onibashira. His elbows and knees cracked as the pressure continued to be applied, yet the screaming agony was but mere fuel to the flames roaring in his heart.
Alex buried his flaming body into the onibashira's cold metal and melted his way through it, snapping the bindings with his physical strength along the way. Upon reaching the other side of the onibashira he clapped his hands louder than thunder and forced the melting halves of it to be thrown at his enemies.
Sanae sped away but Utsuho wasn't as lucky. Not like it mattered, seeing how she could just as easily melt her way free. Rin targeted Alex with a flurry of vengeful spirits, but he simply drew his blade and started cutting right through them. He narrowed his eyes and flew towards the kasha quicker than lightning with his blade drawing upon the furious flashing electricity of the storm above.
As the lightning howled and flashed a seizure inducing light across the sky, Alex blinked his eyes once and suddenly found himself face-to-face with Shikieiki.
"W-What?!" Their sudden reappearance stalled his blade long enough for 'Shikieiki' to make her escape around him. The throbbing in Alex's head worsened to the point of him grabbing the side of his skull in an iron vice to try and force the pain gone.
Then 'Byakuren' came diving in with a flaming kick to his face, twisting his head back until with a thunderous snap his whole body went spiraling higher into the air. His heart raced against his chest, stopping for the briefest of milliseconds as that familiar twinge of shock pierced his body.
He caught Koishi floating by her lonesome in the sky and began tightly biting down on his teeth, wearing down the enamel as he broke the incessant spiral and charged straight at her. But his fist punched through empty vapor disguised as the satori, who giddily taunted him from an afar, unknown place.
"Lets play hide and seek! Come and find me!"
Alex jerked his head down with a fierce growl and muttered to himself, "Just...ignore her!"
He swerved his head around and found himself surrounded by an empty sky...and silence. Even the wind had ceased to be.
But something was attacking him. He felt his body being pounded into by something resembling a giant hammer, forcing him around like some sort of ragdoll. He spun back and tried to blast the invisible assailant with a beam of flame, only to have his innards suddenly feel like they'd been set aflame.
He lurched his head back and swung his arms out, gasping for air as he let out a scream, "GET OUT OF MY HEAD!"
To everyone else but Satori, it had looked like Alex was losing it. They couldn't see what he was seeing, and only Satori's mind reading Third Eye was able to understand the source of the emptiness the boy was perceiving this very moment.
She tilted her head to the left and saw Koishi innocently swaying her hips with her hands tucked behind her back. The wayward satori grinned her way and giggled, "He's as bad at hide and seek as you are sister!"
This should have been a victorious moment for Satori, but the dread in her heart just couldn't disappear every time she looked her sister in the eyes, "Koishi this is dangerous. You need to get out of here, now!"
"Aww, but the nice lady said I could play..." Koishi muttered without much of a care to listen.
Sanae swung her gohei up and declared, "She's given us a chance to win! I don't know how, but she's gotta keep it up no matter what!"
She then summoned a large sphere of divine energy above Alex and twirled her gohei around in figure eight motions, repeatedly ramming the sphere across his body until he was turned around and facing all of them. Utsuho then took aim with her control rod and blasted him full on with nuclear flames.
Alex felt his body temperature rapidly rising and his skin sweating profusely. He ignited his body on fire to fend off an invisible pain, then started throwing out lightning in all directions.
Koishi hopped around the bolts with a fake look of surprise as they narrowly grazed her dress. Then after a bit she got a rhythm going and started to dance and twirl away from them.
Alex blinked once and finally was able to see everyone again. He bit his teeth into a scowl towards Koishi and charged straight at her with both his hands thrown back, and his body leaving a sonicboom in his wake. He charged flames in his palms and claps them together to unleash a massive beam of fire.
Koishi simply flipped right over it and wound up throwing her hands down to grab onto the sides of Alex's head, patting him down as she lowered herself onto his back and then wrapped her hands gently around his neck.
"You found me~" She giggled in glee.
Alex punched her square in the nose with the back of his left fist and she cobbled back. She then rubbed the blood from her nose and bemoaned, "Heeeeey, we're not playing tag yet!"
"Shut...UP!" Alex pounded the air with his right hand to try and fry Koishi with a fireball, but she simply floated right over it and then disappeared into the wind.
He grabbed onto the front of his head and felt the throbbing return, only now it felt like a migraine.
"Focus...focus damn it...!" The vulnerability of his mental facilities proved too grand a crutch for this kind of battle. Once more succumbing to the illusions of the unconscious mind, he gazed around and saw that where the Kappas once were stood a bunch of bushes and two larges trees.
His eyes flared open as he muttered, "Where did they go...? Where did they GO?!"
He rushed straight for that spot, happening to evade Utsuho's brave charge. The Kappas were frightened by his forceful descent that quaked the ground at their feet and knocked them down. He swung his head back and forth while his heart raced faster and faster.
"It was here...I know it was!"
With one heart-pounding "Thump!" he curled his lips inward and widened his eyes as far as they'd go while limping over in pain.
"Koishi...Its always Koishi...!" He screamed as he forced his mind to remember and hold onto the image of her presence on the battlefield. His wings then raised up high as he stood up and limply drew his sword above his head and looked towards the towering 'tree'.
"There you are...You meddlesome machine!" He swung his sword down with all his might and started to cut through. But it didn't take long for a few drops of blood to spray onto his face right below the eyes and realize that he was not cutting through steel...He was cutting into Rin, who stood between him and the machine with her arms barely held up and her face quickly looking tired.
"This machine is...Lady Satori's hope...I-I will...protect her hope..." She whispered weakly in defiance.
Satori tightly gripped her Third Eye and let out a loud, blood curling scream, "RIIIIN!"
Alex continued to cut Rin down to her heart, then pulled his blade right out and burned any further blood that flew his way as she collapsed. He tightly bit down on his teeth and muttered in deep frustration, "Why do you Youkai keep throwing your lives away...?!"
Before he got a second chance to strike the machine, he felt the air around him turn cold and hollow, as though the life from the atmosphere had been drained away completely. His vision was consumed in a pitch black darkness, leaving him blissfully unaware of what was unfolding outside.
Sanae started crying a bit as she flung her gohei down and quickly tossed Alex's body around with a few gusts of wind. Once he'd been suspended higher up, Utsuho rammed into him from the left with a furious yell, throwing him somewhere close to the center of the two machines.
"A-Are you finished now?!" Sanae yelled after throwing the tears aside with her sleeve.
"Just a few more seconds!" Nitori yelled back as she started crawling out from the machine.
Sanae thrust her gohei up and bound Alex's wrists and ankles with two laters of bindings, surprised to find that he wasn't budging.
As his vision lied wrapped in black, he heard the wet, tiny echoes of footsteps approach him from the front. He slowly raised his head up and saw ripples but no person attached to them. The ripples parted the darkness to create this bright and sunny field of flowers, whose presence put Alex's heart at ease.
Then as more of the environment became unveiled the legs of the person, wrapped up in these nice biege jeans, drew ever closer to him. Then came the blue shirt, the flowing blonde hair, and the familiar smile of the one he loved. Alex closed his eyes and felt tears trickle down his cheeks as the person put a hand to his mouth and gently lowered him to the ground, taking residence beside him on her knees.
"Its ok..." She whispered like the wind.
Alex's eyes began to close but he struggled to keep them open. As he put in this effort, he blinked once and saw Koishi replacing her with these glowing, empty eyes and a large knife held suspended above his chest.
"I don't want to have fun anymore..."
The very moment she stabbed that blade down into his heart, Alex snapped right back into reality feeling as though his own heart was no longer there. He screamed and screamed and then gasped some more as this hollow void in his chest felt like it flooded with warm blood in seconds. His mind, torn asunder, struggled to maintain control over his body as fire sprayed from his skin like a mad sweat.
"NOW?!" Sanae screamed.
"YES, NOW!" Nitori barked in relief as she smashed the red button down with her fist and both machines returned to life. They charged their energy up and prepared to fire.
"Its not real its not real...None of this is real...!" Alex scrambled to salvage what little sanity his brain had been reduced to. The Anti-Genesis Theorem was coming in fast and hot, and if it collided with his body then he had lost and Yukari would have won.
"I won't allow it...I WON'T ALLOW IT!" His body couldn't fully move. But his arms, specifically his right one, could. He dug in to his pocket and touched the Gaia Temporis with a quick, desperate tap. It didn't need any further motivation beyond that. Time froze in an instant around him, the interlocking beams of Theorem energy stopping inches from his arms.
Their abundance of lifeless power made his skin crawl just from the sight of it. He slowly breathed in and out, in and out, in and out...In the lonesomeness of the frozen time he could relax and regain his sanity. And Koishi's power would be unable to reach him any longer.
Panting for air with a face drenched in sweat, he lifted his head up and saw the wayward girl just floating there, her presence plain and clear for all to see. She was smiling, blissfully unaware of what she had done. But Alex snarled his teeth and muttered, "No...you knew exactly what you were doing."
He then closed his eyes and reprimanded himself with a gasp, "I shouldn't have underestimated you..."
He took his right hand beside his head and channeled his power into creating a meteor twice as big as his body, "But that's over now..."
He resumed time the moment he flew back and flicked his hand forward to send the meteor flying down. Koishi stared wide-eyed at its approach and tilted her head, unsure of what to do. The Anti-Genesis Theorem missed its mark, and this time Nitori's mouth jaw slacked as much as it could while the rest of her comrades began cowering on their hands and knees, cuddled up like turtles.
"KOISHI!" Satori, her heart already chained with enough grief, selfishly shielded her sister with her own body while her eyes were lit up with tears.
The meteor collided with her back and exploded, sending the two plummeting into the mountaintop near the Moriya Shrine together. Satori's backside became a black wasteland of scorched skin as she remained pressed against her sister, pressing her teeth together to endure the pain as Koishi tilted her head and pondered, "...Is everything ok sis?"
Alex threw his hand down and turned to the left, where Utsuho charged forward with her body madly burning with the flames of hell. She smashed her control rod into his face, only to be met with the heavy resistance of his soul shield. He grimaced slightly and then stared her down with the chill of a thousand arctic winters.
Utsuho gasped and then became helpless as Alex grabbed onto her control rod and tore it clean off, the scattered pieces falling like rain towards a pointless oblivion. He then forced her body around towards the mountain and planted his blazing right hand against the eye on her chest.
"This battle's over." He stated plainly. He could not stand to be cruel, he could not stand to rub his victory in his opponents' faces. With just a simple statement of the truth, he forced his flames into Utsuho's body much like how he handled the sun.
Utsuho's skin turning blistering white hot as nuclear flames started to spill forth from her mouth and eyes in seconds. Then with one gentle thrust, Alex forced the erupting raven towards the very same spot her master and sister were lying.
Satori could feel the heat encroaching from behind and wrapped her arms tightly around her sister's chest, crying at the top of her lungs, "I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry...
Koishi stared at her for a bit, then raised her right hand to her sister's back and gently patted it as Utsuho crashed into them.
Alex turned away as an explosion took out not just the mountaintop, but the whole entirety of Youkai Mountain a single, terrifying moment. His shield staved off the heat and debris that happened to survive, while he tucked his hands into his pockets with a look of indifference on his face.
As he hung his head and let out a sigh, Sanae squeezed her arms against her chest and felt her heart sink towards her stomach. The blast towered high over all of Gensokyo, and when it was gone there wasn't even a stone remaining of her home nor the mountain it stood upon.
"I-Its all gone...A-All of its...gone..." She whispered as her skin turned more pale than the clothes she wore.
"This never would have happened had you just fought Yukari." Alex coldly responded.
Sanae bit her lower lip and screamed, "How could you say that?! You destroyed everything! C-Cause all you do is destroy!"
"How can YOU say that?! Has that witch got you so under her spell that you've forgotten everything about me?! Or about Shina?!" Alex yelled bitterly in defiance.
The shrine maiden closed her mouth tight and was forced to endure his angered ranting, "And newsflash! Yukari doesn't give a SHIT about any of you! She doesn't care that you're fighting for her, or for her land! All she cares about is herself, and the ground you settled down on!"
He squeezed his right fist up and out before his face while biting his teeth down to the point of trembling, "And if you DARE sully either, she'll do everything in her power to make you pay, no matter who gets in her way! That bitch tried to get me and Shina to kill each other! And nearly succeeded!"
"S...She did what?" Sanae muttered a gasp.
"Sanae, don't listen to him!" Kanako screamed in her head.
Alex swung his fist out towards the horizon and pointed at the cracks forming in the sky, "Now look what's happening! The Hakurei Barrier's breaking at the seams! That bitch's so vindictive that she'd rather kill Reimu and bury me alive in Gensokyo's destruction than DARE let me ruin her vision of it!"
Sanae swallowed slowly as she shakily raised her gohei towards Alex and said, "I-I don't believe you! There's no way Reimu's dead!"
Alex squeezed his fist shut and shook his head as he closed his eyes, "Not like I could prove that to you now..."
Sanae gasped and swung her head back with her pupils shrinking to the size of needlepoints. Alex had punctured his sword right through her chest in the blink of an eye, and as he drew his eyes away from her gasping desperately for air he ripped the blade free and remarked, "But I can't even begin to imagine what it'd feel like to die in a collapsing realm. Let this be my mercy to you, Sanae Kochiya..."
The shrine maiden's arms hung as she fell from the sky bleeding profusely from the wound, ultimately dragging Kanako and Suwako to their deaths along with her. Alex turned away, unable to face her any longer, and looked down towards the crater after dispelling his sword.
"...Another one bites the dust..." He grumbled with the grief of his heart feeling as light as a feather. He raised his hands up beside his chest and saw them trembling like a leaf tickled by a gentle breeze.
"...Hrmmm..." With a deep sigh through his nostrils he aimed his hands at the ground and concentrated on draining the energy from the crater to heal himself up.
"...Is there even anyone left at this point?" He pondered by his lonesome.
"Yeah...RIGHT HERE!"
"What?" Before Alex could peek over his shoulder a mighty fist smashed into his hip and ruptured the air with six shockwaves of growing size. Each shockwave represented a different one of his soul shields being shattered like glass, culminating in his body crashing down into the center of the crater like a fallen meteorite.
He landed on his feet and hung down with his fingertips digging into the ground to bring him to a stop. Then as he raised his head he saw Suika sitting on her hip atop a rock a couple hundred feet away, drinking merrily from her sake gourd.
Alex narrowed his eyes and growled, "Oh, so now you're stepping up to the plate?"
A second figure crashed down upon the ground twenty feet to the left of Suika, reducing the rock to rubble as she cracked her roughened, weary knuckles. She was much taller than the other oni, perhaps even taller than Alex himself was. She had long, straight blonde hair and powerful red eyes, with a single red horn coming out of her forehead. Her dress of choice was a white short-sleeved shirt with red trim at the cuffs, and a darkb-lue semi-transparent skirt with red highlights and trims. For an oni, she was surprisingly well-dressed, but her arms and legs were rippling thick with muscle tone.
"Not alone she ain't!" The oni gruffly cried as she tilted her head and bore her fanged scowl at Alex.
The Rampaging Storm of the Devas: Yuugi Hoshiguma
Onis are dangerous enough creatures for most Youkai to fight one a time, but Yuugi and Suika stood above the rest of their kin as two members of the legendary Four Devas of the Mountain. Even Alex felt nervous staring at them both, especially after Yuugi demonstrated her strength by shattering multiple soul shields in one punch, a feat that should be impossible off physical strength alone.
Then, when it seemed his troubles were at an end, a massive dome of energy swept over the crater's perimeter and sealed the three off from the rest of the world, covering even the ground they walked on.
"We were too late...If only the Moriyas could have held out just a little longer..." A softer, more sagely sounding person descended upon the middle of the two onis riding on the claws of a large brown hawk.
The pink haired woman landed on one foot and assumed a balanced martial artist's stance, posing her bandaged right arm and flesh given left one towards Alex. Dressed in a fancy white shirt and green skirt covered slightly by a brown front panel that has a thorny vine motif and a large rose-shaped ornament, the woman peered as him with calm but nasty red eyes.
Alex started to sweat as he rose upright squeezing both his fists tight by his hips, "So Yukari's finally sending out her big guns to play...Isn't that right...Kasen Ibaraki?"
THE YOUKAI SAGE OF THE DEVAS: KASEN IBARAKI
Kasen firmly held her stance as she responded with the discipline granted by her title, "You've run amok long enough Phoenix of Destruction. We fight you not for her sake, but for the sake of all Gensokyo!"
"You're fighting for a dying dream! Why don't you save me the trouble of fighting you three and wake the HELL up!" Alex viciously barked back.
Suika swung her gourd onto her back and stood up, wiping the slobber of sake from her lips as she yelled back, "Doesn't look like you got much of a leg to stand on buddy. All those guys sure did do a number on ya, whether you wanna admit it or not."
Alex barely turned to look at himself, finding that he did feel just a bit drained of energy compared to when he started this long, grueling fight. Nevertheless he swung his head up and exclaimed, "So what?! I don't care if you gathered together all FOUR Devas! As long as Yukari remains alive..."
He leapt off the ground running like a cheetah and swung his arms out with a body on fire and his eyes wide with madness, "I'LL TEAR THROUGH ANY WALL SHE ERECTS IN MY PATH!"
Yuugi closed her eyes and finished flexing her fingers with a sigh, "Well...Here we go then."
"Lets show 'em a good time, shall we?" Suika said with a grin.
"Indeed," Kasen admitted with a slight nostalgic feeling in her heart, "This shall be an unforgettable experience for us all!"
And so the three Devas stood their grounds, preparing for the greatest, and perhaps last, battle of their lives...
Next Time: Dominion of Power