Chapter 19: NO SIGNAL
"K-Kokoro…?" Byakuren was fraught with disbelief and concern, as a mother should be in the face of their daughter's sudden outburst of power and rage. Having been pushed back by the release of Kokoro's energy, the priestess weakly began to walk towards her daughter.
It was Miko's hand that swayed her thoughts just a little, getting her to look back as the Crown Prince suggested loudly "I firmly believe we shouldn't get involved. To my understanding, Kokoro might be able to handle Yukari now."
"Might? We can't back off on a 'might'!" Byakuren exclaimed as she slapped Miko's hand off her shoulder, pain ricocheting through her nerves from earlier damage.
"And are you saying we should stand around waiting to be used as tools against Kokoro? The witch would have no qualms, you've seen enough of that by now…" Miko offered words of wisdom with her usual smile, though her face was weak enough that the right of it drooped.
"We should tend to the wounded and get them out of here. Of course, I believe you have another idea in mind there, tanuki?" Miko looked to Mamizou, who rubbed the side of her head and murmured "Forgive me for not believing in the menreiki, but even with this incredible level of power…I still firmly believe I need to use this spear-"
As the tanuki held her hand up the spear was gone, yet from her reaction of surprise it was like she wasn't aware it had been taken. She looked around, noticing something else was gone, and with a bitter scowl stated "That idiot Celestial, what does she think she's doing?"
Having swiped the spear into her right hand, Tenshi hid behind one of the houses closest to the confrontation between Kokoro and Yukari. Her heart was racing from the waves of energy lashing out from her friend, as they were all-too familiar to her, yet this time more powerful than before.
"Kokoro…I had no idea." She gasped out as she peered around the house, waiting for a chance to strike. Yukari glanced in a suspecting manner to the right and then closed her eyes as she faced Kokoro.
"So you want me dead…An expected outcome, fabled incarnation of the goddess. But surely there's more you want out of me than that." Yukari's snide, careless remark got Kokoro to clench her fists so tightly around the pikes that the sound echoed through the land. With a scowl that could scare the oldest of Youkais, Kokoro's response was completely cold.
"I don't want you to just die…I want you to feel fear. I want your eyes pale with agony. You will feel the pain of every person you tried to manipulate for your sick, twisted ends!" Kokoro thrust the Pike of Rage at Yukari's face, heaving up a gale that blew the witch's hair and got her eyes to open. The lifted a finger and pushed the tip of the weapon down, gently stating "You will be very disappointed then…Especially if you think killing me will solve anything. I see that you are just another pawn in his game, after all."
Kokoro's eyes widened with seething rage, and Yukari looked up at her before continuing "You cannot defeat me, let alone kill me. I will show you how grave your folly truly is." There was silence for a few seconds as Kokoro lowered her pike and continued to meet Yukari's condescending expression straight on. The witch chuckled quietly. She didn't care. There was no reason to believe she cared about anything.
In an instance, Kokoro thrust both pikes out at Yukari, smashing her with enough force to send a spiraling tunnel of blue flames across the land. Byakuren and Miko barely avoided it as they pulled their followers away from the battleground. Yukari was plowed through a few houses before ultimately getting impaled by four pikes shooting out of the ground, each one a different color for different emotions.
Yukari stayed suspended with a smile on her face as Kokoro took her mass of emotional energy and compressed it into a thick warrior's armor around her body. Then she charged forth, scathing the ground below in blue heat and letting out an impressive, energetic roar. Yukari murmured and called forth a dozen gaps, each of them firing crimson lasers that curved around to try and get the menreiki from multiple directions.
Kokoro spun around, her body becoming a fierce whirling of emotion that sliced through the lasers without restraint, then continued onward until it was inches away from Yukari. For a few seconds of slowed down time from the witch's perspective, she wiggled an arm free from a pike. Even with a hole in the limb, she swung it out and grabbed the top of Kokoro's head as half her body was shredded by the whirlwind.
The menreiki's move was stopped and Yukari was pushed away from the pike, her other arm split in half with nothing but hollowness within. She floated upright and a couple gaps opened, stitching her body back together with weaving strands of flesh. Kokoro gave those gaps a gleam and then stabbed into them with her pikes, only for Yukari to crunch the gaps down to break off the points of the pikes.
"And for the first time, I have broken your impotent 'Hope' and 'Rage'." Yukari's taunt was countered by Kokoro swinging her quickly reforming pikes up and slicing through the witch's body in a spiked "X". Flesh lashed out from the gaps in Yukari's body and pulled her back together as she flew back at high speeds, waiting until she had enough distance to wave a hand out and uses her gaps to sending a weaving cage of lasers and small bullets out at Kokoro.
With a hundred brutal slashes all at once, Kokoro ripped apart both the environment and the projectiles that come her way. Yukari glided around the area and kept spreading all manners of projectiles she could at Kokoro, but the menreiki would continue to rip through them while getting closer and closer to the witch.
Yukari kept a grin on her face as she gently waved her hand across the air, her realm's eerieness burning away around her by the intensity of Kokoro's emotions. When the menreiki was inches away from a firm strike with the Pike of Hope, Yukari widened her eyes and the area around her distorted, colors inverting as everything slowed down. With the extra seconds provided to her, Yukari pulled back into a gap to try and escape Kokoro's attack.
But Kokoro was too fast even as time resumed normally for Yukari, and she was able to stab the witch through the gap and plow her into the ground when she emerged on the other side far away from the current location. Kokoro went into the gap and dragged Yukari's pierced body through the ground, ripping it apart while letting out a furious scream.
Yukari's form was grinded down gruesomely, leaving a thick and dripping wall of flesh on her back as Kokoro threw her up and then tossed both pikes in pursuit. When Yukari was stabbed through by the weapons she was once more suspended in mid-air, and Kokoro turned her helmet into a dragon's face similar to a mask she carried with her. With all rage poured into her mouth she unleashed her emotions upon the witch in a blast of blue flames.
With the blood leaking from her eyes getting drawn back in, Yukari curled her smile into one of mischief and then threw a hand forth to summon an impressive sized gap on a whim. It swallowed the flames, that pure and unbridled rage, and crunched it down like it was but a snack. Yukari then grabbed the pikes and ripped them from her body, throwing them into separate gaps before sitting on her own and looking down at Kokoro.
"Your power is certainly impressive…But ultimately misguided in it's aim. Do I have to show you the truth? Do I need to get you to understand just who our true enemy is and how venomous he is for our sanctity on this world?" Yukari spoke with an offering hand towards the menreiki, but Kokoro just roared and flew straight forth while summoning a couple more pikes.
"So be it…" Yukari swung open a large gap behind her and fully expected the menreiki to follow, bereft of all caution. When she did, she did not emerge in another part of the Mayohiga. She was not in any part of Gensokyo. The skies were dark and cackling with energy that ripped apart the planet, which was trembling at the seems. To the right was a temple that reaches towards the skies, and the darkness seemed to spawn from there.
Before Kokoro inched towards the temple Yukari appeared before her in a gap, immediately earning a thrust from one of her pikes. The witch draws her parasol out and meets the thrust with enough magic around the top to properly defend herself. Energies clashed off and spread destruction across the ground. Even with the collision of power going on, Yukari kept a docile grin and spoke through the noise "This is not the world you are familiar with…Neither inside nor outside."
"GRRRRRAAAAAH!" Kokoro threw the strength of her other pike into the attack, ripping Yukari's parasol in half and nearly stabbing through her again until she teleported right behind the menreiki in a flash and finally delivered a successful counterattack in the form of a backward spin kick. Kokoro was sent hurtling towards the ground and Yukari warped down right as she impacted the grassy ground.
Yukari walked along the ground as though on a stroll, throwing her burning parasol away and replacing it with another. Holding that over her shoulder, she draws a magic seal swiftly with a single finger and uses it to repel Kokoro's charge. The menreiki is thrown back, giving Yukari time to say "On this world, a prophecy was to be fulfilled. One for a savior to be reborn into the world, the power going into a young boy."
She closed her eyes as Kokoro lashed her pikes out to send waves of energy ripping through the ground at Yukari's seal. While it takes a while for the seal to break, Yukari gave a tiny smile and continued "What a foolish choice to make. Man and power never has and never shall blend well, let alone in the hands of a child."
When the seal shattered, Yukari widened her eyes and floated into a sitting position to ride a gap away from Kokoro's rampaging charge, where her body was wrapped in a wreath of roaring flames.
"Of course, those who helped that child couldn't have expected what would come next. That in their efforts, they tied themselves to the struggles of the universe as a whole. For two-thousand years…No…Perhaps much longer than that, Gensokyo was to be wrapped into this very struggle." Yukari continued to speak even as Kokoro rose up and spun her pikes around like a pair of chopper blades, screaming out "I DON'T CARE ABOUT YOUR LIES!" as the witch flipped away from the attack.
"Lies?" Yukari hung her head and quietly chuckled. Then she warped around the field to dodge the projectiles that slice through the air, absorbing some of them into gaps while expositing "There are no lies to be shared here today. I have been nothing but honest to you and the others this entire time."
"YOU TRICKED ME! YOU TRICKED ALL OF US!" Kokoro pivoted her body around and with eyes widened in madness and tearful rage she rapidly threw multiple pikes out in a tunneling storm that homed in on Yukari, forcing her to move even faster than before to dodge them.
Yet with an abnormal serenity Yukari kept a smile even as her efforts failed to stop half her body from being ripped apart, continuing to speak with a docile tone "Tricked? Again that requires the concept of 'lies' to be a part of what I did. I said my name is Kuriya Kumoya…That is the identity I took up. I said you could stop the war from breaking out, and that is what happened. The word you are better off using is 'manipulated'. But you believe it holds a negative connotation in this instance."
Kokoro goes in for a thrust, but Yukari swerves her head to the right and slips past the pike at the cost of part of her face. Drawing in close, Yukari gently caresses the bottom of Kokoro's burning helmet and left the menreiki frozen as she said "And when I said I wish I could be your friend, that was yet another certain truth." Kokoro's face scrunched up with grit teeth and trembling eyes, but she did not assault the witch until she said "But alas, my care for Gensokyo requires myself to be detached from such simply commodities as friendships and normality…"
Then Kokoro dropped a pike and punched Yukari hard in her smug face, her knuckles digging deep into the cheek bones and shaking the atmosphere until the gauntlet she wears shattered and threw Yukari straight into the ground. She didn't stop moving until two miles in, when she used a gap and spun around, slowing her momentum and delivering a hard kick as she appeared behind Kokoro.
The menreiki's armor cracked as she bounced on the ground twice, but she kept herself up with her pikes stabbed into the ground and looked up at Yukari. As lightning crashed behind, giving her a melancholy shadow, the witch stated "If you wish to be so destructive, then I'll take us to a more fitting location."
Yukari slipped into a gap, expecting and smiling as the menreiki followed. This time the environment changed to something far more devastating and destructive. Reality itself appeared to be tearing apart at the seams, large chunks of the same planet they were on disappearing one after the other. The two were close to a town with mushroom shaped houses that was on the verge of collapsing into a consuming void. A shining palace floated above this town, and a black scaled beast fought against a streak of light that attacked it.
Kokoro panted a little as her head throbbed in pain, Yukari feeling completely fine as she brushed a fan out towards the beast and said past the roars of destruction "Gods are powerful beings…They can become bringers of peace, or harbingers of pure destruction."
While she appeared distracted, Kokoro charged the witch and spun around to slice her with both pikes one after the other. The broad strokes of energy that bathed the sky couldn't even brighten this thick darkness, and Yukari herself stood atop one of the pike blades while twirling her parasol.
"Yet…The one called the Elemental Overlord heralds nothing but destruction in his wake, despite calling himself a being of peace. This event…this destruction of reality…" Kokoro widened her eyes and exclaimed "What are you talking about?! Stop running and fight you damn coward!"
Yukari hops off and sits upon a gap out of range of the pikes, but the menreiki just lashes out more large projectiles at the witch. Yukari glances back and watches as a rogue lightning bolt comes down and wipes Kokoro's attack from existence. With nary a trace of the flames, Kokoro freezes up and looks up to the ripped apart sky as more of those lightning bolts come down.
Without a care, Yukari explained "You are safe so long as I am here. I am trying my hardest not to grab the attention of a few certainly pesky folk, you see. By now you should be able to tell that this is not our world." Kokoro raised her pike with rage in her eyes refusing to die, but the witch quickly replied "Of course, I can also just drop your protection and leave you to die. How about ignoring rage and drawing on rationality for once, Kokoro?"
"I. Don't. CARE!" Kokoro said through grit teeth.
"I know it's difficult to explain, and I'm not going to waste my expositing skills on YOU in particular. The most important thing I want you to understand is how dangerous the Elemental Overlord is. Look at that state of this world as it decays, dragging not just itself but the rest of the universe into non-existence." Yukari spread her arms out and almost seemed to bathe in this warped and unfathomable reality, as the planet was not far away from disappearing from existence.
Kokoro, either out of denial or confusion, shook her head and exclaimed "You're just trying to scare me! This didn't happen!" Yukari glared down bitterly at the menreiki and told her "I. Never. Lie. It did happen, and while it can be argued that the Overlord saved this world and undid the damage to reality…The truth of the matter is that without him, the chaos would have not been drawn to this world. None of this would ever have happened."
"And in due time, that Elemental Overlord will be drawn to our world, and that wave of chaos will wash over Gensokyo and bring about it's destruction. I did not manipulate anyone I have so far to enact some grand scheme of domination. If I wanted to do that, I would need no one else's help. My interests have and always shall be…for the sake of Gensokyo's safety. Kokoro…Would you want something on this grand scale to happen to Gensokyo?"
Kokoro looked around, watching the masses panic as their lives were wiped out mercilessly by the reality rending thunderbolts. Her grip on her pikes loosened as she could feel their pain, their fear, and all their regrets and sadness piling into her at once.
This had to be a part of Yukari's plan, the menreiki rationalized, and with a turn of her body and tears in her eyes she flew at the witch and met her parasol with a hard swing of her pike. The parasol was ripped through along with half of Yukari's body. As she panted a little more, the menreiki said "I don't care if you're trying to save Gensokyo…You used me as a puppet…You harmed my friends and family…You dragged us all into your sick and twisted games!"
Holding the pikes between Yukari's reforming halves to slice them apart again and again, Kokoro said in sheer frustration "Say what you want as much as you want! You may care about the land of Gensokyo, but you don't care about it's PEOPLE!" She then broke out in a flurry of violent slashes to rip a shocked Yukari to ribbons. Kokoro panted afterwards, but even left in such a tattered state the witch reformed again behind the menreiki while opening yet another gap. The planet was just seconds away from disappearing for good at this point…
"You have no right to make that judgment, menreiki." Yukari was slightly irked, then she turned around and slipped into the gap, Kokoro pursuing her without so much as a hint of hesitation. With a swing of a pike, the menreiki stabbed through Yukari and impaled her against the side of a burning building on the other side of the gap.
Kokoro widened her eyes as she was washed over by a wave of high heat. Looking around, she found herself in a city being razed down by roaring flames. The sky was bright orange with a ghastly smog replacing the clouds, and if it was down here the menreiki would be suffocating.
Kokoro looked back at Yukari, who had a firm, beastly grin on her face as she stated "Welcome to the future…On an Earth consumed in the thralls of destruction. This is not our planet, but rather-" Kokoro stabbed her through the back of the mouth and yet she only paused her words, continuing as she pushed through the pike "…The birthplace of the one who will bring ruin not just to Gensokyo, but all worlds as well."
Once she was far enough through the pike, Yukari grabbed it and tugged so hard she ripped it through the side of her mouth then grabbed Kokoro by the chin. With a struggle, Yukari is able to force the menreiki to look to the left while commenting solemnly "I am done trying to use words to convince you. Now…you will see firsthand the one called the Phoenix of Desturction."
A conglomerate of flames rose up with a pained screech, taking the form of a bird with furious crimson eyes and wings that could engulf the city with ease. It's power was immense and frightening, and yet the one calling forth the flames was just a teenage boy in the center of the aviary flames.
"A-A human…?" Kokoro murmured, glancing over at the nod Yukari gave after, which was followed by her explaining "Yes, frightening isn't it? How just one human can obtain a power strong enough to rival the gods. And yet, to save Gensokyo, your power is necessary to stop that monster."
Yukari loosened her grip just enough to let the menreiki look at her fully. Then she said "Stop resisting now…Do you not want to cherish your time with your friends and family? That very thing that fuels your rage, your hope, your determination…Could you stand to watch each and every one of them get snuffed out?" The witch held her hand out, and for a second Kokoro looked to be ready to reach for it.
Then she spread her fingers out and with a blast of energy smashed Yukari through the burning building and caused it to collapse. Backing up, Kokoro bathed a pike in bright flames and exclaimed "We'll stand against this monster ourselves! Just as soon as we get of the one plaguing us right now!"
She then, with a wide swipe, sliced apart a street worth of already decaying buildings to get to Yukari, who was cut in half and left collapsed on the ground. Then with a taunting tone the witch said "And just who is 'we' in this instance?"
"Everyone! Everyone who has supported me are here, along with the 66 masks that inhabit my body! You can't win Yukari, not when the weight of hundreds are supporting me!" The flames around Kokoro's body rise up and creates a mighty titan filled with passionate love. It's arms were lined with hearts and it's eyes filled with a light colored the same as her hair. Eyes widened in a frenzy, Kokoro exclaimed "You're just one person, alone and soon to be forgotten!"
The titan of emotion raised it's hands and ripped the sky open, drawing out dozens of meteors filled with the flames of Kokoro's passion towards Yukari as she reformed. Every meteor falling upon the witch wiped out every trace of debris in the immediate area, leaving little room for her to have gotten out of the way. The titan shrunk down, leaving Kokoro without her armor as she panted quietly.
The flames crackled around her, and she realized that in her rage she might have trapped herself in this desolate future. Before even a sigh or worry could leave her lips, she was grabbed by a familiar phantom hand and smashed through a barrier of time and space, dragging her through multiple walls of reality at light speeds before she is slammed back down in the Mayohiga with enough force to rip apart the ground for a mile around her.
After a few seconds of being buried under this rubble, Kokoro is able to feel her head throbbing as she's wrenched from the ground and suspended in place by the phantom hand. Yukari pulled herself out of a gap completely reformed, yet her expression was almost livid. With a smirk and a beastly fervor she floated over to Kokoro and said "What is the point of an army of hundreds if a single person can topple it like a stack of dominos? And besides…Just where are those you claim support you?"
Yukari gestured to the empty Mayohiga, which was cleared of everyone who had stood against her, and continued "YOU are the one who is alone now. Your emotions mean nothing, they are just a bunch of masks that happen to share your body. Your rage is their rage, their hope feeds you when they want you to feel it. You're just a shell, a tool to be used properly in my hands."
Two more phantom hands approached Kokoro's head as she jerked left and right to break free. Yukari coldly said "It's time to close the curtains on this masquerade. You WILL do what I want, for you are mine for-"
"SHRRRRIIPP!"
Then as sudden as a snap of the fingers, Yukari's chest was pierced through by a spear that could not maintain a singular form. Her eyes widened as violet blood was shaken from the tip of the spear. Barely mustering the strength to look behind her, the witch saw Tenshi behind her with one hand on the spear and another brandished mockingly out.
"S-Sorry, but you're not succeeding in this kidnapping act…Or any others ever again!" With eyes so wide the edges ripped apart as she tried to hold her hand up at the Celestial, Yukari stuttered "Y-You fool…You fool!"
"Blah blah blah, enough of your vague bullshit. This is for everyone you ever dragged into your twisted schemes!" Tenshi gripped the spear in both hands and pushed it further in. The tip distorted harder and ripped apart more of Yukari's body in an instance.
"This is for every human you tricked into Gensokyo!" The spear was thrust in harder, and a larger part of Yukari's body was wiped out while the remainder of it cracked. The witch let out a broken gasp of air.
"And THIS…" With one final thrust guided by the remains of her energy, Tenshi lodged the entire spear into Yukari's body, which distorted to stab through every part of her body save the head, which was slowly crumbling apart from the chin up. Yukari's eyes widened in madness as her grasp on Kokoro fell, and she dropped into Tenshi's arms unconscious. With a tug of the head the Celestial finished calmly "Was for Kokoro, bitch" and made a run for the gap that had opened up in the now quaking realm.
As Tenshi left her behind, a decaying Yukari floated in place and looked towards the sky. One chuckle came out before she said "So…this is what type of game you choose to play. Very well…I will remember this, [ ]. Heheheh….HAAHAHAHAHAHAAHAH!" As Yukari disintegrated into nothingness, her cackling filled the trembling Mayohiga for hours on end, an echo of a phantasm that refused death to the very end…
Next Time: Recourse