Chapter 10: The Fall of Power
Charging headlong into the fray with his adrenaline whipped into a frenzy, Alex lunged at the onis with only mere seconds to decide who to target. Each one of them would be difficult to face with the others around. Suika could shift her density around, Kasen surely had plenty of tricks up her sleeve as a Youkai Sage, but Yuugi? Yuugi had already used up her one trick to break his shields.
By that logic, that made her the easiest to separate from the other two. But as he made the sudden turn her way those red eyes of her lit up like a christmas tree and she swung her fist out. Halfway through her punch Alex felt air pressure against his body capable of flattening a whole forest, and realized he was making a huge mistake.
He opened his fist and grabbed Yuugi's the moment it collided with his palm. His arm instantly but briefly felt like jello, and had she attacked from any other angle his arm would've been rammed through his shoulder socket like a thick nail. He was thrown back through the air but managed to carry her along, mostly because she wanted that.
Alex slammed his feet down and threw two punches into Yuugi's gut. It was almost like chiseling away at raw diamond, comparitively speaking. Once his other arm stiffened up he clenched his hands together into a single solid fist and hammered it up into her chin. She was knocked a couple inches off the ground and grinned coming back down. Before her punch could smash his skull down he zipped fifty feet away and gasped.
"I got her beat with speed but that's it...Damn! Oni's are a hell of a lot tougher than I thought!" Alex looked grimly ahead and saw that the other two had disappeared. Not only that, but the ground at his feet was strangely soft. Upon looking down, he found a peculiarly colored puddle wiggling its way between his legs.
He immediately spun back as Suika emerged fully formed from the puddle and swung her right fist around like a helicoptor's blades and threw a heavy punch down at his chest. Alex grabbed her fist in both hands and held on tight, but felt his neck hairs stick up on end as Yuugi began a daring charge. He swung Suika back to get in Yuugi's way, then leapt away before the oni's monsterous punch could knock him down.
Suika split into two small selves and bounced off Yuugi's broad shoulders and head in quick succession, then used each other to fling higher up and recombine into a single unit, which proceeded to quickly grow a hundred feet tall. Casting her shadow upon the whole battlefield made Alex's heart sink to his gut.
"Oh shit..." He widened his eyes as the oni turned around and put one fist out in front, a look of drunken splendor on her face. Her body came down with so much force that her fist was quickly ignited like a world-ending meteorite.
Alex tried to flee but found a white bandage lasso'd around his waist the second his feet left the ground. Kasen, standing ten feet away, wrenched him off the ground and up towards Suika's path. And for good measure, Yuugi leapt and pounded him in the gut to press him against Suika's gigantic, burning knuckles.
A bit of blood dribbled from the sides of his mouth as he reached for his right pocket and touched the Gaia Temporis. Once time stopped and he had room to breathe he sucked his gut in and slipped free of their combined force. He then sped fifty feet away and pivoted his body around while having his arms thrown back together by his right hip.
"Lets see how you like it...!" He yelled as he began charging flames between his cupped palms and letting time resume on its own.
"I knew you'd try that!" Kasen shouted eerily close from behind.
Alex jerked back around and unleashed his flaming blast point-blank upon the hermit oni. She felt nothing but hot wind singing her skin as she dunked a powerful energy ball into his face.
The blast didn't just hurt his body but chipped away at his soul. Kasen then wrapped him up in her bandages and pulled him in closer to deliver a few punches across his face. Though her strength wasn't as great as her comrades', she knew to target the more delicate parts of Alex's face, such as his jaw and cheekbones.
Meanwhile, Suika shrunk down until Yuugi could easily grab onto her fist and spin her around. Whilst they remained mid-air, Yuugi built up whirlwind speeds and then flung her little friend through the air like a baseball.
Kasen released Alex and swerved away right as Suika kicked both her feet into Alex's back, driving him right into the side of the barrier. His head and neck bent back and his spine felt as brittle as wood. But before he could be broken in two he zapped Suika with high voltage to force her off, which she did so with a merry smile.
Alex peeled off the barrier and turned around, throwing his hands up to his shoulders and throwing an assortment of summoned meteorites across the arena.
Yuugi hopped in front of Kasen as they all landed and with one casual swing of her arm she obliterated the meteors with a shockwave, leaving the rest to crumble harmlessly behind them.
Alex pressed his palms back and built up heat until the flames spurted blue from his skin. Then he let loose like a rocket and propelled himself at all three onis. With speed at his side he engaged Yuugi head-on with a whirlwind of punches.
But like the Great Wall she remained indomitable to all opposition and eventually swept her leg up along the ground to trip the boy up.
He didn't care in the slightest about this distraction and reeled his fists back, smashing one of them straight into Yuugi's forehead to unleash a blast carrying the force of a hundred tons of TNT across all three onis. Yuugi, though roughened, immediately charged out of the smoke and impaled Alex's abdomen on her horn.
Instead of struggling to break free and pureeing his guts, Alex funneled wind into his palms and blasted Yuugi in the face to launch himself back. Yet his valiant escape was foiled by Kasen, who was already waiting for him from behind, her presence as unseen as the wind.
"How did she...?!" Alex amassed confusion quickly in his head as he tried to comprehend how she did it. She had gone from beside Suika to behind him in less than a second. That could only mean she was capable of instantaneous movement. Maybe, just maybe, he had overestimated his speed advantage...
Kasen took full advantage of the element of surprise to turn Alex around with a single grazing kick, then rapidly thrust the tip of her foot into the area surrounding the impalement wound in his gut. A dozen of these kicks was enough to make Alex cough blood, which Kasen absorbed into her bandages.
She didn't let up. After a punch to his chest to wind him, Kasen held her palms close together and rammed a large bubble of spirit energy through his body, where it proceeded to pop out of his back. Then she let him land and wobble on his legs.
He squeezed his fists and thrust his head up with scowling teeth. Concentrating on the ground below, he prepared to absorb the elemental energy from the dirt to heal himself up a bit, only to be met with nothing.
"...Huh?" He muttered.
"What do you think this barrier's for?" Kasen observed with mild arrogance in her voice.
Before he could curse her out for this injustice, Kasen took the liberty of pounding him across the chest with a vicious left hook to send him at Yuugi's mercy. She responded by booting him straight up to the ceiling with what amounted to a casual effort on her part.
Alex grit his teeth and spread his wings to stall in place inches from the ceiling. A dozen tiny Suikas flew at him hoping to finish the job, but Alex refused to let this stand. He crossed his arms and wrapped his wings in front of him, summoning a massive air bubble around his body to fend off their combined strength.
Then he made the bubble pop to throw them back down, where they slowly formed back into the original Suika while evading Alex's fireballs. But at that point Alex was able to peg her with one massive lightning bolt. He was sure he had done harm, but the way she smiled certainly was trying to tell him otherwise.
"Gotta change priorities..." He said while turning towards Kasen. In his mind, killing her would dismantle this accursed barrier in an instant. Not like he had much of a choice.
But he knew the only way to take her by surprise would be to use his Gaia Temporis to stop time and get up to her during that frozen period. Once he accomplished this task in the time it took her to blink he leapt straight in front of her and swung his left fist towards her cheeks.
She used her bandage to wrap up and hold his arm back, forcing him to punch her with his other fist. The resounding thunderclap that followed distracted Kasen from the fact she had a tooth knocked out, but that was far from her greatest concern.
Now that she had Alex in her grasp she spun back and flung him straight into the path of Yuugi's punch, which hammered into his back and nearly shattered his spine. As he wondered how his body held on like this against so much pain, Suika joined in by pounded his gut, her fist lined up perfectly even with Yuugi's.
Blood sprayed from his mouth and drizzled onto his chin. With a twitchy, bloody grin he set his body ablaze to force Kasen off, then used his freed arms to grapple Suika's horns tight in his grasp. He tried to toss her overhead onto Yuugi's horn, but she foiled that by shrinking to miniature size and sliding down it instead.
"You wanna play dirty...?" Alex growled as he tightened his rough and ragged knuckles and spun towards Kasen, "Then lets play dirty!"
He rushed her down with a flurry of swify pummels around her body. She held on like a wall and raised one leg to fend off his attacks. But as she did so she found her leg trembling from within. Alex resorted to attacking with the force of magnitude ten quakes, each and every blow pounding away with that exact same level of power.
Kasen thus whipped her leg up between his arms to hit his chest and knock him towards Yuugi. But, almost as though anticipating this action, he turned the millisecond he was kicked and threw a punch directly into Yuugi's fist.
The two starting matching blows with perfect, brutal force capable of tearing apart the largest known volcano from within. Alex laughed and chuckled his way through the pain his knuckles were going through, his basic, primal instincts taking over against these base, bestial demons.
Yuugi's enjoyment of this fight could not be stated enough. Her thrill of the fight was unquenchable. Her adrenaline pumped like a river roaring. Her blood boiled like magma flowing. But having gotten too wrapped up in the joy of this contest of strength, it took her a moment to realize that blood was starting to fly out of cuts between her knuckles.
Alex had turned his knuckles into sharp blades of diamond and used his speed to cut her in-between his punches.
"Without tendons or nerves even an oni will eventually wear down!" He declared triumphantly in his head as the sweat glistened down his forehead.
Sure enough, Yuugi's punches weren't following through with as much 'Oomph!' as they were before. Alex was starting to be able to perfectly match her strength, slowly but surely.
Yet this only increased the thrill of the fight in her eyes. Never before has she gotten to be pushed to such extremes in battle, not even by her fellow Devas. Thus she bore her fangs in her gritty smile for the first time and hammered his head between her fists, sending a sharp ring through his eardrums.
Alex retaliated by protruding sharp blades from his arms and swiping them across her gut. He managed to draw a little blood before she dragged him out of range and started squeezing his head like a watermelon.
Alex's eyes bulged and his skull began to crack. So to settle this engagement, he stabbed his arm blades into the underside of Yuugi's arms and prepared to rip right across them. Kasen intervened by wrapping her bandages around his shoulders and tugging the arms down, while Suika marched underneath Yuugi's legs and rammed into him as a tiny stampede of herself to trip him up.
Upon being forced into this precarious position Alex found his face pounded into by Yuugi's right knee, which instantly broke his nose and left him gasping raspily.
"Still breathing eh?" She murmured as she went for another shot. Alex opened his mouth wide and bit down on Yuugi's knee with diamond teeth, tearing off a decent bit of flesh as she slammed her foot back down. In her moment of shock Alex pushed his body out from her fists and turned back to spit the flesh into Kasen's face.
It spoke volumes of the life she'd led that even that wasn't enough to make her flinch. But it was merely a distraction, after all, for Alex's true goal. As he coughed and hacked blood Alex ripped free from her bandages and turned to tackle her in the chest with his shoulder.
Using the iron in the blood he'd spilled so far in his name, Alex created a large spike from his shoulder and impaled Kasen partially into her gut.
Suika immediately dropped in from the side to try and punch him away, but he let go all on his own and skidded along the ground away from her. The friction from his departure lined the floor with electrified mines, but Suika handled that by growing three times in size and stamping them down.
She then swung her chains around from the sides, creating hurricane winds from their slightest movement. Alex wasn't a fool. Trying to absorb the elemental energy of the chains would end in him being swatted like a fly if he tried. So instead he endured the accosting winds and flew straight towards Suika's chest.
Yuugi intercepted him with a punch from above, dragging the two of them down far away from the others. Alex dug his feet down first and twisted his head towards Yuugi in sheer defiance of her strength, "You're weakening, aren't you?"
"Still tough enough to kick your ass!" She proudly boasted.
"We'll see about THAT!" Alex swung his palms up to her gut and threw her over his head onto her back. She rolled onto her feet and charged straight with her horn. He ducked and threw a left hook at the cuts in her gut, coating his skin with a series of poisoned thorns.
She clobbered him in the face to knock him down, scoffing with a humored tone, "Like a little poison'll harm an oni!"
Alex pushed himself off his back and lunged himself right back at her. She swung a right hook at his head that he ducked back and slid underarm to evade. He then twisted right and cut her along the back with his diamond bladed knuckles, followed by her ramming his face with her elbow.
He just stood there and smiled, having coated his face with diamond to lessen the pain. He then grabbed onto Yuugi's arm and gave it a twist, but could only manage to budge it an inch. She then grinned and tried to turn back to punch him with her other arm.
Alex swung his arms down and summoned a pillar of ice down from her left arm to hold her down, preventing her from making the full turn for a moment. He slowly backed away a few steps and observed his surroundings. Kasen had made her presence scarce, which Alex interpretted as her preparing another sneak attack from behind.
But whereas his eyes were on the ground, perhaps he'd have been wiser to look towards the sky. For as soon as a blinding white light flashed down from above, it was already too late. With her mystical power, Kasen had called forth a glowing serpent that was fifty feet long and the markings of a dragon barely visible amidst its luminescent form.
Wrapped in the middle of its form, Kasen swung her right hand down and bellowed out "Go!" On command the dragon unleashed a devastating bolt of lightning upon Alex. It was unlike other lightning, which he could tame with a snap of his fingers. These lightning bore the weight of heaven upon him, weakening even his soul with the force of guilt.
The lightning could only last a moment, after which the dragon disappeared from whence it came, but the savagery of that one attack charred Alex's skin and left him trembling for ten seconds. During that time Yuugi wound up a punch and strolled on over him, determined to deliver the final blow.
When she swung it up towards his chin Alex clasped one hand around her knuckles and forced it down, glaring up at the oni with trembling, blistering hot eyes.
"I said...No one..." He squeezed Yuugi's knuckles tighter and dragged her in to pound her stomach with one hard punch, spewing blood from his mouth as he screamed, "IS GETTING IN MY WAY!"
Yuugi went "Ooof!" quietly then grit her teeth and bellowed, "You really don't go down easy, do ya?!"
"No..." Alex lodged his hand deep into her stomach wound and before she could blink, the tip of his sword was sticking out from the back of her mouth, having been summoned inside of her body.
"But you will." He whispered as he ripped the blade free, cutting her heart in two. Blood began spilling from her insides as Alex turned away.
Then his shoulders were pressed down with incredible force, and a haunting chill ran right up his spine as he found his head swiveling back on its own.
Yuugi stood tall and strong with her innards flooding with blood and raised her head, her sclera a dark and bloody violet, "Don't think...I'M DONE WITH YOU YET!"
With a roar that could crack a mountain she tossed Alex towards the sky, where Kasen kicked him in the side to twirl him around and keep him from fighting back or escaping. Yuugi leapt off the ground, cracking the barrier in her wake, and grabbed hold of Alex by his waist and bound his legs up between hers.
"THIS IS THE GRAND FINALE!"
Turning upside-down and spinning around and around to become a devilish drill of blood and sweat, Yuugi piledrove Alex headfirst into the ground while yelling at the top of her lungs, "SHUTEN DOUJI'S ABSOLUTE PILEDRIVER!"
The back of Alex's neck snapped and he let out one raspy gasp as he collapsed face-first onto the floor, freed by Yuugi's life reaching its definitive end. She made her bretheren proud in that moment. For she did not go quietly into the night. She died as she lived. Loud, and proud.
As Kasen and Suika walked up to her, they found her smiling. Suika pulled out her gourd, raised it up high, and took a swig of sake from it.
But the celebration was premature, for as Yuugi's corpse lied satisfied on the ground, the blood oozing from it was being dragged over to Alex's body along with flakes of bones and teeth. Alex slammed his hands on the ground and curled his fingers in, pushing himself up onto his feet in a matter of seconds while panting and gasping for air.
He stared at the two remaining onis with somewhat hazy vision and his heart beating at a startling rate, "I had to drain that much just to recover from that last attack...! And there's still two of them left!"
He bit his teeth down as Suika turned and nodded at Kasen before putting her gourd back onto her back and cracking her knuckles, "Guess we still got work to do."
"Lets go, Suika." Kasen said while readying her stance.
Without a tear shed for their comrade the two onis threw themselves at Alex simultaneously, attacking him from his sides. Alex thrust his palms out towards their fists and fended them off with powerful blasts, though felt his arms retracting a bit into his shoulders.
Though his limbs were wobbly he jerked left and ran after Kasen through the smoke. By the time he emerged she had vanished, using her instantaneous movement to get behind and above him, delivering a swift kick to his cranium that led to him stumbling over.
Alex swung his right arm back and called vines from the ground to grab Kasen's legs and throw her down. He then turned and leapt over her, stabbing his blade down at her gut. She snapped free from her bindings and kicked her legs up into his gut, causing him to drop his sword.
Suika then hopped over her and tripled the size of her fist to punch his whole body down. Alex grinded his feet along the ground and squeezed his left hand out, grabbing onto Suika with compressed air and tugging her right over to where he was.
Suika turned into mist and flew past his head, turning parts of that mist into bit-sized Suikas that pummeled his face along the way. But before she could reform herself completely Alex spun around and slapped the ground, raising his hands right up to flashfreeze her in a rough pillar of ice.
Kasen ran up and kicked him into the ice, and once he bounced off it she battered him repeatedly with kicks to use his body to chip down the ice. Alex swung his arms out and extended spears from the ice to pierce along Kasen's limbs. Fortunately, her right arm just happened to be missing, and its bandaged form could freely unravel around the ice and wrap around Alex's chest.
She flung him far away and landed next to her imprisoned friend. Waving her right hand back she thawed her out with a puff of fire, allowing Suika to break the rest of the prison by swinging her hands up as though performing a cheer.
Kasen swung her arm out and summoned a lightning dragon to ram into Alex's body. Alex didn't want to suffer a similar pain to that blast from before and dropped to the ground, rushing underneath the dragon with his head hung low and his arms swung out.
He flicked tons of fireballs at Kasen, only for Suika to swing her chains in the way to put them out. Suika pounded her chains into the ground and used them as support to vault herself over into Alex's path. She shrunk to get under his chin, then grew five times her regular size to uppercut him.
Alex spun around a bit before stabilizing himself with an outward burst of air and diving straight down at Suika. He punched her in the face with all he had and though she staggered like she was drunk, she threw all that weight forward into an even stronger punch that threw Alex all the way across the battlefield into the barrier.
Kasen warped instantly to his location and pinned him in place with her right leg, applying pressure to make blood ooze from his mouth. With wobbling arms Alex grabbed onto her leg and pulled her off the ground, ramming her into the barrier.
He pulled away and used his blood to create an iron nail that he threw into her left shoulder. She instantly grabbed it with her right arm and ripped it out with an emotionless expression before throwing it towards his chest. Alex swerved to the left and widened his eyes, then found Kasen's bandages wrapping around his neck.
She whipped him back and forth against the barrier a few times then pulled her in once she landed, laying him out on the floor with a single punch. Suika's shadow loomed overhead as she brought her giant foot down, forcing him to quickly roll out of the way.
But while he was still sent flying by the shockwave of the stomp, he used the dust kicked up to obscure himself away from Kasen. Pulling out yet another trick from her bag, Kasen whipped her bandages around in a whirlwind to blow the dust away in an instant, then went flying straight after Alex.
She grabbed onto his face and drove him into the ground, letting go to bounce onto and rapidly kick his gut. By now Alex was positive his guts were paste, but if they were he barely had the ability to feel it.
"I wonder if its as frustrating for them as it is for me that I won't die..." He pondered before forcing himself into the heat of battle and snatching onto Kasen's leg to throw her to the ground. But he threw so hard that he went tumbling around a bit as well.
He planted his hands on the ground and got up before Kasen. Taking advantage of this opportunity, he rammed forward and stabbed his sword towards her chest. She deflected his daring attack with one hand so the blade'd end up under her arm for her to clamp it down and used as a means to twirl him around.
Alex dispelled his blade and swung his head back as Suika came diving in for a punch, pulling away the second before his skull was caved in. He pounded the air with both fists and knocked the two away with explosions, utilizing a few more on Suika for safekeeping.
He then engaged Kasen alone in close combat, flailing his arms around trying to get her to defend her face with both of hers. It didn't take long to accomplish that, upon which he turned his sweat into hot water and flung it into her eyes. She flared them wide open and didn't relent in her ferocity.
Stamping the ground down she smashed her right fist into his gut and caused a burst of energy to pop out of his back. Alex coughed raggedly and threw a few more punches at her face to repeat the process. This was a battle of endurance for him at this point. It didn't matter that he ran on fumes. He wasn't going to get on his knees and surrender to pain, no matter how bad it got. If he were to die, he'd do so standing up.
Once Kasen locked her arms together in defense of his attacks, he bound them up in steel rope coming out from his palms and reeled his hands back to his chest. He summoned his blade and stabbed it forth into hers, breaking through the skin and rib cage bone before she snapped her bindings and slammed her hands into the blade to stop it a centimeter from her chest.
With a relieved hiss she held on tight and refused to let go, ignorant of the smirk Alex wore as he dispelled his blade and weaved his hands past hers to dig his fingers deep into her chest wound. She pulled her arms out, trying to force him free.
But from where he stood Alex was in the perfect spot to quake her insides and weaken her strength a lot. With the rest of his strength he started pulling her body in half, telling her as she widened her eyes in a mix of shock and anger, "You chose the wrong side, Kasen Ibaraki..."
He tore her apart, flesh and bone alike, right down the middle, letting the blood and fluids spill onto his body as he swung his arms down and leaned his head towards the sky, releasing a loud, gargly cry of exhaustion. The barrier instantly shattered without its master's power to maintain it, exposing those who remained in battle to the dark skies of a dying Gensokyo. In the midst of their fight, the cracks had spread out just a bit more, whilst the thunder and rain still flooded the air.
Sucking in the moisture of blood and water into his body to heal up just a bit more, Alex lurched upright and hung his head to glare over at the last remaining deva, and perhaps the last oni in all Gensokyo, Suika Ibuki.
She just stood there, looking as hapless as ever as she drank from her gourd. At this point, Alex was feeling like he was being insulted.
"You're the last one left...Don't you have anything to say?!" He demanded even a word of mourning from the tiny devil, but instead she responded softly towards his enticing bravado.
"You just don't get it, do you?" She lowered her gourd and with her eyes halfway shut she shook her head in pity and said, "Why'd you have to come along and ruin a good thing?"
"Good thing...?" Alex gasped before he swung his arms back by his hips and yelled, "What's good about a dream built on manipulation and lies?!"
"To which I ask you what's so bad about enjoying a dream?" Suika raised her gourd up and with a drunken smile remarked, "Don't you have dreams of your own?"
"...That's not important," Alex cooled down a moment to growl that before exclaiming, "This isn't your dream! Its hers!"
"Yeah well..." Suika closed her eyes and swished the sake around in her gourd, "A lot of us happen to like it regardless. That's why we're fighting so hard to keep it safe, y'know?"
"And look at how she repaid you...By killing Reimu and setting Gensokyo to self-destruct, just to get rid of me!"
"...You really, REALLY don't get it, do you?" Suika snarked with a sigh before looking into her gourd with one eye open and whispering, "...One more for the road, eh?"
She took a large gulp from her gourd, the sake dripping down the sides of her rosey cheeks. Then she flung the gourd to the ground to shatter it completely and hunched over, raising her long-nailed fingers like claws and bearing all her fangs in the most beastly grin someone as small as her could muster.
"One more round Phoenix of Destruction. Winner take all."
Alex narrowed his eyes then closed them completely. He drew his sword, brightening the dark atmosphere with its crimson haze, and pointed it straight towards Suika. She chuckled once and then kicked straight off the ground after him.
Alex stabbed the dirt and transformed stone into ice, causing her to trip up seconds after the battle started. She split up into a bunch of tiny Suikas and skid around the ice, punching through the stalactites he set in her path. Then they all combined back into one and leapt at him.
He used the blunt edge of his sword to block the first punch, but her second one got his knees bending halfway down. He pushed up with all his might and forced her off, where she grew three times her size and shattered the ice beneath her feet and uprooted most of the ground.
Alex flew towards her head but she shrunk down to evade his broad, flaming slash. He immediately looked down and dunked a lightning bolt in her path, causing her to spread out in a ring of goop to avoid it and then snap back into her regular state.
Alex dove down to punch her, smashing the ground when she becomes mist, but then immediately spun around and around with his arms out to whip up a tornado to dipserse her body into the sky. All those little molecules of mist turned into their own Suika that grew to be the size of a thumb and converged onto Alex's location.
Alex folded his wings in and attempted the air bubble strategy again, but this time there were way too many Suikas to overcome and they popped the bubble and began pummeling him all at once. He quickly had to spread his wings to shake most of them off, then spun around to get rid of the rest. He then leapt away as they came bounded after him like a swarm of angry grasshoppers. It was certainly a frightening sight, for him anyways.
Alex sliced the air with his right arm and sent a wave of frost to freeze most of the Suikas up, then whipped his sword out across the air to shatter them to bits. But the remaining Suikas were easily able to reform into one normal sized oni regardless.
Alex leaned out and charged her head-on, ramming his sword into her extended hand and causing a blast of fire to obliterate the broken rocks behind her. With her hair flying wildly at her backside Suika squeezed onto Alex's blade and threw him high up.
She grew over a hundred feet tall to meet him face-to-face, but continued to raise her right arm towards the sky. Ripping the image of the moon from above, she pinned it to her palm and dunked it down towards Alex's head. He had to put everything had into a series of high-pressure slashes just to cut the image of the moon down, let alone worry about her palm afterwards.
He bailed out instead of risking any direct engagement, only to find her whipping her chains up to greet him. Alex heated his blade to volcanic levels and sliced through the one on the left and flew through it, turning around to then slice through the other one.
Suika shrunk down and leapt off one of the gigantic chains to get to the other, using it as a hammer to pound Alex to the ground. Alex's teeth bit down as he landed, and Suika's shadow showed him the onslaught was yet to end. He reached into his pocket and used the Gaia Temporis to give him a few extra seconds to escape, upon which he resumed time and swung his hands up, firing large fireballs into the sky that would pepper the ground and make it harder for Suika to see him.
But he, on the other hand, could feel her presence within the smoke and sprint straight for her. He caught her by surprise and rammed his left fist hard into her chest, but after she coughed the blow off she chuckled and punched the underside of his elbow with all her strength to crack and make it limp.
In retaliation Alex swung his sword down towards her left shoulder with all his might and managed to draw a bit of blood before she started turning into mist. Alex strained his eyes wide open and concentrated on her body, forcing the misty molecules to remain condensed together into her real form.
His heart pounded incredibly hard against his chest, and his face quickly turned red just to keep her stuck like this. Even she was a bit surprised he could manage this. His blade continued to cut down her chest, and with her eyes shut she mumbled humbly, "Ok. I'll let you have this one..."
Flashing a defiant smirk she bellowed, "But the rest of 'em will pick up the slack, dontcha worry about that! Cause Gensokyo...belongs to ALL of us!"
She purposely restrained her strength so Alex's blade would slice cleanly through the rest of her body. In choosing to go on her terms, she robbed him of any sense of triumph in overcoming these odds, cause once more he was reminded of the forces that were being rallied against him.
His body limped upright and looked up at the sullen sky, his body soaked by the rain and blood. He dropped his sword and fell onto his knees, then fell forward and pounded his fists on the ground. He struggled to think of the number of people he had killed, of the blood that Yukari would share with him in Hell...But now the number was impossible to deduce. Of course, any number beyond one was too great to begin with...
He reared his head back and closed his eyes to scream to the great beyond, "WHERE ARE YOU YUKARI?!"
His anguish rang out throughout all of Gensokyo, "COME OUT YOU COWARD! HOW MANY MORE LIVES ARE YOU GOING TO THROW AWAY BEFORE YOU'RE SATISFIED?!"
But as the blood washed off his body, he knew he was but a fool. No matter what his reason for doing so was, he'd taken all these lives of his own volition. Every life, and the smiles that came with them, were ripped away by him.
The one.
The only.
Phoenix of Destruction.
And that...had always been his greatest fear...
Next Time: The Hound in the Shadows