Chapter 13: The Fall of Sanity
An hour ago...
"Sister is everything alright?" Said Flandre, standing at the bottom of the staircase to the basement as her loving sister Remilia descended towards her.
"But of course! Everything is just fine." Remilia responded with a bright confident grin.
"There's a lot of commotion going on upstairs, isn't there?" Flandre tilted her head aside.
"That's because we're..." Remilia's eyes turned shifty before steadying with a proclamation of, "Preparing to move locations! Yes yes! I have grown tired of Gensokyo, and wish to stake my claim in some new, greater land!"
"...Remilia, what are you hiding?" Flandre said with a stern narrow glare, causing Remilia to subtly bite down on her lower lip and stumble with her words.
"N-Nothing at all! Whatever gave you that idea? I sincerely think a change of scenery will do us all wonders! That's all!"
"...Can we bring Marisa with us?"
"O-Of course!" Remilia blurted on the spot.
"And Kokoro?"
"Absolutely! I'd be more than happy to-"
"And Ms. Red-White? Will she be coming too?"
With each question being uttered with growing suspicion, Remilia quickly tensed up and curled her fingers in front of her chest, trying to avert her gaze from Flandre's face.
"Just wait down here Flandre. I promise you'll get everything you wish for. Have I, Remilia Scarlet, ever uttered a lie in my life?"
"No, but-"
"Then it is settled! Be a good girl Flandre, and listen to your wiser, prettier, older sister!" Remilia hastened her way out of the basement before a word more could be spoken. Flandre reached her hand out for a brief moment only to wrap it around her teddy bear and quietly retreat into her room.
For the next hour she laid on her bed staring up at the ceiling with a blank look in her eyes. Then as the whole mansion started trembling she jolted up off the bed and looked towards the stairs. Even as a vampire, her heart sank at every tremor that shook her home. And without a second's hesitation, she flew right up the stairs and rushed straight for the source of the tremors...
Present minute...
Alex pulls himself up out of the pile of books and firms his glare onto Flandre. The vampire's grin was twitching on both sides and her pupils had become slits as wide as a knive's tip. He tucked his hands into his pockets and lurched forward as his body became consumed in flames.
"...Even you. Huh? Flandre?" He muttered with his head sagging low to his chest. And upon biting his teeth down and snarling quietly to himself for a few seconds he swung his head up with his pupils reduced to dots and exclaimed, "So...BE IT!"
He rocketed off the ground and rammed his head into the vampire's gut to send the both of them colliding through multiple bookshelves, all while Remilia could only watch on, powerless to even move. Flandre summoned her twisted spear Laevateinn into both her hands and swung it down upon Alex's head, only to be greeted by one of his shields.
"So...annoying!" She squealed like a pig before repelling herself off Alex's head with her feet and swinging her right hand out mid-squeeze.
"Forget it!" Alex yelled before rushing in close and slamming her tightening fist with the back of his right hand. Flandre widened her eyes as one of the ceiling lights exploded and flashed her with a brief burst of light the exact moment Alex also wound his fist back and punched her to the ground.
Flandre crash landed on her feet and swung her spear to the left. The flames that erupted forth were a wildstorm of pink and red that shone lovily off her crystal-lined wings. Yet when that very same hue was reflected off her eyes, it only served to increase the madness she wore proudly.
Burning through mounds of books as she rose to meet Alex in battle, Flandre lashed her spear against his shielded body twice over, obscuring his vision in a flurry of wild flames. Alex wound his left fist back and clobbered her straight in the gut, dispersing the flames and putting a fist shaped imprint in the wall hundreds of feet away with the shockwave.
Flandre giggled and stretched her left hand out in front of Alex's face, managing to squeeze it down before he could speed away. The next shield exploded and hurtled him through the sky towards the opposite side of the room.
Flandre pursued him quicker than lightning and lashed at his body with wide strokes of her spear. But yet another shield rose to his aid, causing her to bite her fangs down and sneer, "Too many too many! There's too many of these things!"
Flandre forced her palm down onto Alex's gut and began to squeeze when he tightly ensnared her wrist in vines protruding from his fingertips and forced it open. So instead Flandre blasted him point-blank with a foggy crimson orb to send him flying to the ground and snapping the vines off.
She then starting squeezing her hand nice and slow while giggling non-stop. Alex hastened his own descent and sped to the right behind a bookcase, causing Flandre to destroy the bottom of a stack of books, sending the rest hurtling every whichway. Alex turned around mid-leap and swung his right hand out, suspending most of the books mid-air.
He then swung his hand out to the left and sent the books hurtling towards Flandre. She burned them all to ash with a single swing of Laevateinn. But the next second she found her body cut down across her stomach, courtesy of a compressed wind blade swung by Alex through behind his cover.
The bookcase started sliding down, but Alex toppled the top half to the ground as he charged past it towards the vampire. The energy she spent pulling herself together in the most literal of manner gave Alex the opening he needed to pound away at her body with his fists engorged with flames.
Flandre grabbed her spear in both hands and swung down at his body with all her might. But not content to leave it there she kept swinging away, cutting swathes of flames throughout the whole library. The vibrant bookscape was quickly charred black with ash, with the lingering embers being the only source of joy to be found. A pity it was coming from a person of which no joy could currently be found.
The vampire kept Alex pinned to the ground for a bit with her repeated attacks, but he much preferred it this way. Hidden behind her vicious flames that scarred the ground apart, he could swing his sword behind his back and charge it up in peace.
The flames grew so strong that their wavy form solidified into pure red light and shook the library from bottom to top. Alex grit his teeth wide with a grin and swung his sword out while Remilia boldly declared, "Flandre look out!"
The flames burned so hot that even a vampire like her had the potential to turn entirely to ash. Flandre stopped swinging as the flames quickly overpowered her attacks and swung her hand out to squeeze it shut. The flames met with oblivion in silence, and Flandre immediately dove down after him.
Alex swung his hand to the right and bound Remilia's mouth with steel extending from the sawblades, only to be tackled to the ground the next second by her sister. Flandre rose and slammed her body down into Alex multiple times in quick succession, irritated by yet another shield getting in her path.
"Quit hiding! I wanna see you go BOOM!" Flandre squeezed her hand down at Alex once more but her haste to breakthrough left her vulnerable. Alex grabbed Flandre's wrist and threw her to the ground, then continued to turn and push himself off the ground to wind up above her.
He threw many punches into her body, keeping his arms extended to their full length with every blow he nailed. Her body tore through the floorboards and her head slammed through multiple bookshelves. It was any wonder how this place could still be called a library after this relentless hurricane of insanity swept through it.
Flandre raised her right hand and squeezed it out at one of the bookcases she passed by. Using its explosion to force Alex off her, the vampire flew in a curve off the ground to pursue him. She rammed him into the side of another bookcase and squeezed her hand near his face.
He swung his head aside at the last second and the bookcase exploded in his shield's place. He then grabbed Flandre by the neck and tried to slam pin her down, only for her to take a page out of her sister's book and disperse into a swarm of bats, each of them having her jeweled wings.
She reformed higher above him with her spear drawn behind her head wreathed in a whirlwind of flames. She twirled it around and around and around some more, sweeping up everything within a fifty foot radius of herself in a terrifyingly twisted tornado of fire.
Flandre then swung her spear out and sent the tornado on a rampage across the library, tearing through the roof and ground while Alex was carried all the way towards the top in seconds. The boy swung his wings and arms out and pounded the sides of the tornado with pulses of raw power to disperse it.
He found himself right outside the mansion's rooftop, the pale light of the moon shining down upon the dying lands to give it one last splendor of beauty. He saw the barrier was halfway finished, and by his estimate Gensokyo had less than an hour left.
But that mattered little to the vampire, who rose high above him and drenched the visage of the moon in the flames of Laevateinn as she swung it down. Alex leapt to the left and paid little heed to the flames cleaving down the entire width of the mansion in a single stroke as he charged forth in a swift burst of speed.
Flandre glided aside his reckless charge and swung her right hand up, shattering the boy's shield with a successful squeeze. Alex quickly firmed himself in mid-air and swept his wings forward, bombarding the vampire with a flurry of red-hot feathers.
With her skin blistering red Flandre dove straight past Alex and lashed her spear against his hip. She turned back around and struck again, repeating this a few more times until Alex was slammed into the bottom of the mansion's clock tower.
Alex pressed his hands against the bottom of the clock tower and tore the minute hand off. When the vampire went for a frontal assault he impaled her through the chest with the minute hand and drove her back into the library. She quickly ripped the metal free from her body and swung it and her spear out at the same time, laughing with glee.
Then she zipped back and forth through the air trying to get back to Alex, who ripped the roman numerals from the clock and volleyed them in her path. Slicing through them was easy with two weapons in hands, though the minute hand quickly fell to scrutiny from the speed of which she swung it.
She tossed it aside and grabbed Laevateinn in both hands, swiping it straight into Alex's gut and cutting a massive scar along the side of the clock that the two penetrated through the moment after. Flandre forced Alex against a massive gear and kept pressing on, trying to force him between it and the one below it.
Alex overpowered her assault and grabbed onto her face to sear her face with a point-blank explosion. The charred skin and muscle, combined with the bits of bone exposed underneath, frightened Alex for a moment when Flandre just kept attacking without pause.
She viciously swung her spear at him twice, cutting through most of the gear behind him but failing to breech his shield. Her scowl tightened with increasing frustration to the point she chipped one of her teeth and she desperately tried to break his shield with her power.
Alex grabbed onto her hand and pulled her whole body past him. He pinned the front of his body to her back and continued to squeeze her arm and drag it between the gears. The sound of crunching bones and squishing blood veins from her mutilated hand made neither of them flinch, and in fact did the polar opposite. Flandre's eyes widened to their limit and her heart fluttered like a butterfly's wings upon being caught up in a storm.
This bewildering sense of excitement gave her the strength to throw Alex overhead with her other arm into the gear. Then as her hand regenerated she resummoned Laevateinn and stabbed it into his chest. The destructive force of the spear penetrated past Alex's body and disheveled the gear with hot white cracks, splintering it into large chunks that quickly collapsed upon the other below it.
The smashing of metal against metal in this confined a space forced Alex's hands to his ears as his body squirmed in response. And Flandre, not even a second later, didn't hesitate to squeeze her hand to shatter his shield and send him hurtling into the tower's crumbling innards.
Alex spread his hands out and blasted the gear pieces aside with a bubble of air, sending them through the tower's walls. He then flew straight at Flandre his own heart starting to race. He threw a flurry of punches blocked by her spear before slamming a right hook past it into her hip. She barely budged an inch and raised Laevateinn up high, wrapping it up in an uncontrolled blaze.
She slammed it down into Alex's head and devastated the remainder of the tower in a single blast. Not even an atom's worth of metal laid intact.
Alex punched Flandre out through the smoke and flew straight towards her, twisting his whole body to the left as he smashed her back down into the library. Her impact threw up a mound of dust as high as where the roof once lied, but yet it was so easily swept aside by the vigorous swing of her Laevateinn.
Flandre hunched over on the ground and caught Alex in her sights, then charged at him like a predator hungry for the hunt. Alex punched straight ahead to meet her charge, splashing the flames of their vigor across the sky. Flandre immediately dispersed into bats and flew behind Alex, leaving her spear behind at his knuckles.
Alex jerked his head back and watched the vampire reform with her right hand stretched out and her eyes sparkling wide with glee.
"I. See. You~" Her hand started to squeeze down and Alex felt an immense yet hollow pressure wrapping itself around his body.
His heart raced faster and faster as fear guided his body all on its own. He tugged his body around and smashed down on Flandre's hand with both his fists, ripping the entire arm out of its socket. He grabbed onto Laevateinn and was immediately burning up from the inside trying to wield it properly.
He impaled it into the vampire's chest and let go not a second after, gasping for air. As he panted and had a cold sweat trickling down his face he roared at the top of his lungs and pounded away at Flandre's body, steadily rising above her until the light of the red moon cast his gruesome shadow atop her miniature frame.
Then he threw both hands back and smashed his palms down atop the spear, ramming the remainder of it through her body and allowing the back end to drag her to the ground like it was as heavy as an anchor. She smashed into a bookshelf and was buried under a mound of books that weighed roughly a ton.
But Alex wasn't done there. He pressed the palms he just used together and swung them back full of flames. He let the flames grow until they were bigger than his whole body, then swung them out, their sound so loud it drowned out Remilia's panicked cries towards her sister.
The assault lasted five seconds, as Alex didn't just burn through Flandre, but the mansion and the surface of Gensokyo as well. There was this big, pitch black tunnel staring him down as he drew his hands back by his hips and took a moment to catch his breath. The skin of his palms were bright red and releasing enough smoke to suffocate a giraffe. He was getting a little weary but could still see things clearly. He had just hoped that that was enough to finish the job, cause he didn't have a single shield left to protect himself from Flandre's power...
Remilia's eyes shook. She clenched her teeth and squeezed fists that were no longer there. Never had she felt this way. So powerless and empty. Her perfect maid? Her headless corpse resting but a few feet away. Her loyal gatekeeper? Laying somewhere with her guts turned to paste. Her best friend? If she wasn't dead before, she no doubt was now. And her little sister...?
"Heeheeheehahaha!"
...Huh?
"HeeHEEheehaHAha!"
"HeeHeeHEEhahaha!"
"Heehehehehehahaha!"
"HEEHEEHEEHAHAHA!"
The cackles of madness grew in volume and number at a rapid pace. Then when there were four laughs conjoined in perfect disharmony, Alex looked towards the tunnel and saw the glistening glow of four separate pairs of wings. Then the same number of Laevateinns ignited, harkening the little vampire's return with a stout, pearl white grin and little else revealed of her face.
Alex's body trembled as he clutched his hands into fists. Then he lashed one arm out and exclaimed, "Stubborn vampires! Why won't you just die already?!"
"Hahahaha!" This is fun this is fun this is so much FUN! But so sorry, you must go 'Boom' now! The four Flandres screeched in unison before scattering out of the tunnel armed and ready to fight. Alex exploded with fire and charged at the four as they collapsed upon his location, his heart pounding like a taiko drum against his chest.
EMBODIMENT OF THE SCARLET DEVIL: FLANDRE SCARLET
It was an insultingly easy matter for the four Flandre to bat Alex away by combining their Laevateinns into a single attack. Alex was swatted to the ground letting out a grunt of surprise as his head lurched back and his spine felt a little brittle.
He pulled himself together and was greeted by bright light from above. One after the other the Flandres swung their weapons to raze the sky with towering flames. He rolled away with them barely grazing his skin and looked up to see the last Flandre pointed her right hand out and beginning to squeeze it.
Alex picked up and threw a book in the way, watching it pop like a rubber balloon while his chest heaved for air. The other three Flandres dove at him giggling like a crowd of school children and swung their weapons out. Alex crossed his arms and coated them in heavy metal to block one of the attack and then rammed the middle Flandre in the neck with his arms.
Then by swinging his arms out with all his might, he scattered all three Flandres to the farthest sides of the room. Crimson beams of light rained down from the sky and exploded upon the ground, whipping the atmosphere into a frenzy of destruction was what little tomes remained were being disintegrated on the spot.
Alex flew towards the lone Flandre in the sky and rammed his fist through her chest. She widened her eyes and with an utterly mad look in them she thrust her hand into his face and began to squeeze down. Alex pulled his fist out and used it to divert her hand to the right, then splashed the blood he drew from her chest upon her eyes.
Alex then pressed his glowing palm against her face until the flames he built up screamed to be released. Before he got the chance two of the Flandres ripped him off her with their combined strength and drove him back first into the ground, his explosion going off harmlessly in the air.
The Flandres stamped their feet onto his legs and started tugging at his arms like they were attempting to uproot a large carrot. Each vigorous grunted proved wasted as Alex tugged their bodies to the ground and quickly pulled back and upright with his hands electrified.
He scorched across their backsides with millions of volts but didn't get to completely split them down the middle before another Flandre charged at him from the front. He crossed his arms to guard against her first, most vicious blow and kept it up as she swung her claws at him like a wild animal.
His arms were quickly filled with scars before he engaged in retaliation. He set his body ablaze with a towering inferno and grabbed onto Flandre to drag her into it, her hands being the first part to burn away to ash.
But as that familiar pressure began to force itself around him, Alex let the Flandre go and snatched down on the Gaia Temporis not a second too late. He stopped time and looked up to find the Flandre responsible and quickly flew behind her, resuming time as he swung his foot up into her back.
As she went hurtling to the ground two of her copies were there to catch her. She landed feet first on their palms and bounced and turned back around like on a trampoline before throwing herself at Alex once more. Alex ducked underneath the decapitating swing of her spear and threw a punch into her gut. No response. Her insanity had taken over all other senses.
Alex burrowed his fist in deeper and twisted it to the right, applying greater pressure to his blow to send her flying straight across to the other side of the room. Two of the other Flandres charged his way and grabbed onto his extended arm to give it a good tug down. Alex could feel his shoulder bone disconnecting a bit from the socket and set his arm ablaze to force the two off.
He then stretched his arm out and threw the flames out in a large fireball. Flandre squeezed her hand to crush the fireball then flew herself at Alex. He readied another fireball and was stopped by another Flandre impaling the bottom of his arm on the top of her Laevateinn.
Alex ripped the spear free but in that time allowed Flandre to ram into him with all her might, and he went flying right into the back wall. His impact tore up the wall leading up to the empty ceiling and he quickly peeled off it feeling limp in his impaled arm.
He struggled to raise it up and then found himself gasping in shock as one Laevateinn wound up plunged into his gut, followed by three more skewering him around it. Blood splashed out of his mouth in a breathless gasp and dripped onto his chest, leading to foggy vision.
He reached into his pocket and used the Gaia Temporis to stop time and give himself a chance to remove the spears before Flandre squeezed her hand. Each one burned with the fury of Hell and left his hand feeling numb by the time he was done. Nevertheless he swung that hand up and upon resuming time scorched the skies between him and Flandre with lightning.
Her wings were singed off at the folds and her arms became scorched black all across as she swung her body away from his assault and joined up with her other clones. The four of them flew around in circles and dazzled the boy with an bombardment of jeweled projectiles from their wings.
Between the gems they bounced off scarlet lasers fired from their hands, filling the sky with an impenetrable labryinth of light. Alex forced his way through their attacks at little harm to his own body and surrounded himself in a tight bubble of air once he got past them.
He rammed into the Flandre that stuck out closest amidst their tumbling escapades and popped his bubble to send the rest flying. He then grabbed onto the Flandre's neck and raised them up high, his fingertips smoking as he burned into her skin and nerves.
The Flandre gasped for air but eventually wore an unsettling smile as her eyes started bulging out of her sockets. Alex stared at her for a good moment before the Flandre suddenly popped apart, courtesy of another, and the powerful explosion tossed him across the room.
Alex swung his feet back and propped up against a piece of steel he created himself. Then he stared through the air and watched as Flandre popped out another clone to take the others' place. Squinting his eyes and buckling his teeth into a scowl, he rocketed his ragged body across the air and smashed the centermost Flandre into the wall with a punch.
Flandre's guts broke and blood spilled from her mouth, but she wore her bloody grin with pride and spit a loud cackle into Alex's face. She then scraped her claws against his chest and forced him away, immediately swinging her hand up mid-squeeze.
Alex tried to run away but the three other Flandres condensed onto his location and held him down. Alex swung his legs up and put the Flandre wrapped around them in the way of the real Flandre's power, causing it to explode and tear up part of his legs.
Biting his teeth through the burning pain, Alex pressed onward and rammed his legs into Flandre's chest, shattering her rib cage. More blood oozed from her mouth but she licked it up and lashed her head out continuing to laugh in his face out of sheer spite.
The other Flandres dug their claws into his arms and pinned him down atop one of the bookshelves. The original Flandre lined up her hand for another attempt, but Alex simply opened his mouth wide and spewed flames into her face to blind her.
It really was a show of how desperate he was getting that he resorted to such vulgar means to fend her off. As a vampire she could last forever as long as a part of her remains intact. The only way either side could feasibly win is to eliminate their enemy in one blow.
But with the amount of clones this prolonged fight could only end in Flandre's favor if this kept up. Alex refused this endgame. He refused it with every molecule of his being. He snapped his fingers and summoned lightning down from the skies to scorch the Flandres binding him down and pulled back, swinging his head around for anything that would allow him to turn the tables.
He couldn't remove the sword from Remilia's chest. It was the only thing keeping the vampire's strength at a containable amount. But...perhaps he could still use it anyway? With a devilish smirk Alex turned and dove straight for the helpless vampire.
Flandre swung her hand out and squeezed it shut as he reached for his sword. Alex pulled his hand back and let her power destroy a lone book instead. Having gotten Flandre's attention, he grinned across his face as the vampire and her clone cronies dove at him all at once.
He stayed right where he lied and pointed his hands at the ground, creating a hurricane in seconds that swept up all the remaining books and papers lying around. The library became consumed in a sea of white pages torn from their bindings, with Alex carefully guiding the papers around to slice the Flandres up with paper cuts.
Meager at first, the sharp pain quickly became difficult to handle and the real Flandre wildly squeezed her hands around to blow up the papers, but there was just so many and she could only handle one at a time. Alex meanwhile could easily navigate the storm and wail on her from afar, slipping back under cover whenever it suited his needs.
He ran through the paper swarm picking off the other Flandres one after another with his punches. They weren't blessed with the ability to regenerate from nothing like the real deal, so all it took was a few precise blows to the cranium and they were down before he knew it.
Flandre grew tired and frustrated with these games and let out a high-pitched scream before using one swing of Laevateinn to burn the papers to ash. Then she found her copies down on the ground and widened her eyes, biting her fangs down on her lip before Alex's shadow was cast down on her from above.
Flandre twisted to the left and stabbed her spear up towards his stomach, then upon missing flailed it around trying to swat him out of the sky. With quick bursts of speed Alex kept evading her attacks and drawing in closer, eventually smashing his right fist down onto her skull to make her stumble back a couple steps.
Flandre dug her feet into the ground and whipped Laevateinn straight across his abdomen, spilling blood for a brief moment before that very same heat cauterized the wound. Alex ran forward and pressed his fingers towards before coating them in sharp metal that he impaled into Flandre's chest.
The vampire, with her once innocent face ravaged with brutal madness, dropped her spear and lashed her claws all across Alex's body, scarring both skin and sky with a hail mary of crimson gashes. Alex cared not for the blood spilled in his name as he ripped the blade free and forced Flandre around with a single twist of his hand.
Before her wound fully healed he held his hand out and ripped the blade free from Remilia's, shoving its handle through the wound in Flandre's chest and back until it was firmly grasped in his hand once more. He then superheated the blade to stiffen her wound and lodge the blade in there permanently, and finally plunged the tip of the blade back into Remilia's chest.
Flandre squirmed and wiggled around, her screams soon becomin garbled by tears ripping free from her eyes. Remilia's own eyes trembled and soon closed partway with tears dripping down her face.
Alex slowly pulled away from the two, feeling a twinge of pain in his heart as he slowly rose off the ground and raised his right hand up above his face. His wings swept up the ash surrounding his body as all the heat in the room was quickly swallowed up by a vacuum converging above his right palm.
One of Remilia's tears trickled onto Flandre's face, and made her give pause. That cold, tender drop was also filled with heart, and by the most miraculous of miracles the little vampire snapped out of her bout of insanity and lifted her head to stare into her sister's eyes.
"Remilia?" She muttered in utter confusion, blissfully unaware of her surroundings.
Flandre used the last vestiges of her strength to grab onto and rip the steel free from her sister's mouth, and with a dry, raspy cough the vampire held her head up high and muttered tearfully, "Oh Flandre...Oh Flandre..."
Remilia swung her head down and raised her voice, begging desperately for forgiveness, "I-I'm sorry! Forgive your elder sister her grievous mistakes! This...this is all my fault!"
Alex listened in closely to their cries as he started to create a massive fireball to dwarf the library whole. It poked out of the ceiling and could be seen like a setting sun in the distance of the mansion.
Remilia swung her head around and had troubles breathing as she continued to cry out, "I was a fool! A complete and utter fool! A-And you...you never should've had to come to my rescue! I did this to protect you when I should've known better than to treat you like an obstacle! Y-You are my lovely sister...And this should've been our battle to fight together...! So hate me...! Hate me until the sun goes cold in Hell...! I deserve every bit of it!"
Flandre raised a hand to her sister's face and let her tears trickle down her fingers. With a somber gaze in her eyes Flandre shook her head and said, "I could never hate you Remilia. Cause...a good little sister doesn't do that. And you taught me how to be one, in your own crazy way..."
Remilia squeezed her eyes shut and muttered, "I knew that...And yet even still I'd be so blind...I never deserved to be called the Mistress of the Night. Never at all..."
You'll always be the Mistress of the Night in my eyes, Remilia. Flandre did her best to softly wrapped her hands around the back of Remilia's head, but her reach was but a couple inches too short.
Alex closed his eyes and lingered on his decision for a moment before lowering his fingers and leaving the fireball to drop down upon the mansion. The last thing he whispered to them was a mournful, "Sweet Dreams, Scarlet Devils."
The sisters died in a blaze of crimson that towered up into the very heavens, consuming their entire mansion and reducing it to ash in seconds. Alex left the scene of destruction with his back turned to the flames and his sword returned in his right hand. He felt the hot winds howling on his back as he remained levitating over the dehydrated Misty Lake, his gaze narrowly pointed at the broken skyline of Gensokyo.
The Lunarians, the Ministry of Right and Wrong, Eientei, the Buddhists and Taoists...
The Moriya Shrine, the Tengu, the Underground...
The Four Devas, the Netherworld, Ran, and finally...
"The Scarlet Devil Mansion..." Alex felt a particular sorrow gnawing at him as he uttered that name. It wasn't that he wanted to cry, or mourn that they were gone. Rather, he could no longer feel his heartbeat as he thought of all these names.
He had eliminated every group and faction in Gensokyo...Except one.
His head slowly lowered towards the Hakurei Shrine perched atop the backside of Gensokyo. He had heard the whispers of the world tell him that Reimu had parted this world entirely, but a part of him felt that something was still very, very off about this whole situation.
"You're waiting for me there...To end this where it all began. Right...Yukari?"
With his heavy heart as his only company, Alex slowly drifted through the quiet night skies towards what he'd presume was his final destination...The Hakurei Shrine.
Next Time: Heaven's Sword