The four Hatates each moved a palm in front of them, before they started circling around the two youkai, slowly at first, but picking up speed.
Then, without warning, each Hatate began to unleash danmaku. The blue one releases ten streams of small, blue arrow danamku. One stream was aimed at each youkai, with two a little above and a little below each one.
The red Hatate unleashes a spray of small red orbs at a high rate, with no particular aiming, while the green one fired slow large-bubble type danmaku of matching coulor. Finally, the yellow Hatate released thin lasers on a slow basis, which would curve towards the two youkai.
Rumia attempts to fly upwards, to escape the blue shots, but finds the blue and yellow Hatates just adjust their aim, while the spray-type red and green Hatates provide other obstacles. Wriggle, on the other hand, attempts to counter-attack, but the maelstrom of danmaku cancels out her shots before they reach the red Hatate she aimed at.
"Is this all? Maybe you two werenot worthy of being the test for this after all, if you can't even fight back." Hatate gloated, as the two youkai took several hits, mainly from the red Hatate's spray.
"Say Wriggle, maybe if we pair up near the centre we can fight off the danmaku!" Rumia says.
"No way, that's where it's all meeting!" Wriggle says, before adding, "Think we can buy time with some of our own spellcards. Night Sign: Little Bug Storm!" Wriggle declares, before a massive amount of danmaku forms like a cocoon around her, protecting her from Hatate's attacks.
"Darkness Sign: Demarcation!" Rumia declares, before releasing waves of interecting danmaku rings, also providing a defense, albeit, not as strong.
Rumia then decides to aim her focused shots of her spellcard at the red Hatate, and the concentrated spray, combined with the two other waves of danmaku from the spellcard, manage to cause the Red Hatate to dodge the attack, and slam into one of the Yelow Hatate's lasers. The Hatate vanishes with a 'Pichunn' sound, and the remaining three close in to make the ring tighter.
Rumia then turns her attention to the green Hatate, but since it's rate of fire is slower, it has more time free to dodge, and shortly after, gives up shooting to focus on evasion altogether. Then, just before the spell times out, Rumia quickly shifted attention to the yellow one, and caught it by surprise, making it vanish as well.
The two remaining Hatates close in, and speed up, shooting quicker now as well, making it difficult to hit either, especially now that the spellcards of both Wriggle and Rumia had run out.
"Uh, what are we gonna do now Rumia, they're too fast!" Wriggle says.
"It's later." Rumia says.
"Huh?"
"It's later. The Hakkero. Try it, you might be able to do something to help!" Rumia suggests.
"Uh, OK, Wriggle says, pulling out the Mini-Hakkero, and declaring Firefly Sign: Comet on Earth.
Unlike when Rumia used the spell, Wriggle was tired already, and, as a result, the Hakkero reacted differently, and just flew out of Wriggle's hand, floating in the air, before it started using Wriggle's spellcard for her, using itself as a point for the streams of firefly familiars instead of Wriggle, and leaving Wriggle free. Wriggle's spell proved a good defense as wel, with rather thick, fast forming danmaku.
Wriggle and Rumia then combined nonspell fire upon the blue Hatate, and suddenly, one of Rumia's spread lasers clipped her wing, slowing her down and sending her tumbleing in the air into a load more danmaku, before she vanished.
The green Hatate stopped, and also vanished, the spell broken. However, Hatate herself was nowhere to be seen.
"Eh?" Wriggle says, picking the Mini-Hakkero back out of the air. "Shouldn't she be here?"
"Don't people usually show up when their spell ends?" Rumia asked.
"She ran away." An unfamiliar voice said. "The spellcard was a diversion."
Rumia and Wriggle turned around, to see a miko with green hair standing behind them. She had a frog-head badge in her hair, as well as a snake-like ornament. She wore blue and white.
"Sanae Koyicha Wind Preistess of the Moriya Shrine, I came when Suwako told me what was going on. Apparently a frog Aya dropped off told her."
"Dinner!" Rumia said happily.
"Aya did help after all!" Wriggle said.
"Uh… yeah." Sanae commented. "Anyway, normally, you wouldn't have a chance of catching a Crow Tengu, even if they were tired. However…" Sanae began, before smileing and raising her gohei into the air.
"I am the Wind Priestess of the Moriya Shrine! I have the power to call forth miracles, as well as the power of the Sky Goddess, Kanako Yasaka! I can help you catch up to Hatate!" Sanae exclaims proudly.
"Wriggle, why is she showing off like that?" Rumia asks innocently.
"I dunno. Maybe she feels inferior to Reimu. After all, I've never heard of this miko." Wriggle says.
"Is that so Miss Sanae?" Rumia asks.
Sanae just facepalms, and mutters under her breath something about Suwako not mentioning she was going to help two idiots, and this 'surprise' she mentioned had better be worth it.
"Anyway… one of you to each side of me, and then just fly forward when I do. Stay inside the star." Sanae says, as the two youkai follow her instructions, and she draws a magical star using her gohei under her, before there is a sudden rush of wind, and Sanae takes off at a high speed.
Meanwhile, in the forest of the mountain:
"I'm looooost! I'm gonna miss the old couple!" Kogasa complained, before she was suddenly rammed by something, and sent into the ground with her assailant. Specifically, whatever hit her crashed directly into her tabi on the bottom of her umbrella.
"Ow… what on earth did I just hit…" Hatate groaned, rubbing her head, before she looked at her bag, and then at a book lying on the ground, with a Crimson Bat emblem on it.
Kogasa saw this as well, and suddenly smirked.
"Hey, Tengu-sama?" Kogasa asked.
"What is it…" Hatate scowled.
"Would it surprise you if I said I knew you stole that book? I saw you taking it from Marisa earlier, and met two nice youkai who wanted to find it. You're surprised, right?"
Hatate swore under her breath, as she staggered back up with the book in hand. "You're that damn Karakasa from earlier, the one who was hanging around Marisa… aren't you? You ruined everything, you told those two youkai!"
"You're surprised!" Kogasa said happily, glomping Hatate, and knocking her bag off her, into the river.
Hatate saw this, and pushed the gleeful Karakasa off her, before she fell to her knees when she saw all her articles floating downstream, completely ruined.
At the same time, Rumia, Wriggle and Sanae showed up, surrounding her.
The tengu looked around, fighting back tears, before she just exclaimed; "I give up! There's not even any articles to give out now! Take the book! It's not worth all this trouble anymore."
Hatate proceeded to shove the book into Rumia's hands, before she just sat on the ground, sniffleing.
"Are you alright?" Rumia asked.
"NO. I had one shot to beat Aya's stories with something, and you lot ruin it. I was stealing from a thief for crying out loud, and unlike Marisa, I would have given the book back before I died!" Hatate sobbed.
"It doesn't change the point you stole it." Sanae says. "And you planned to publish it's contents, which would have done a lot more harm to Remilia than anything Marisa would have done with it. Consider it a good thing we stopped you, if Remilia found out what you were doing, she'd probably be after you personally for revenge tomorrow night."
"I'm a crow Tengu, and inside the Tengu village. She may be strong, but not that strong. I' be safe." Hatate wimpered.
"Belive whatever you want, stubborn Tengu. Time to go home and get turned in to the other Tengu for your crimes. That's how you'd want this settled, after all, right?" Sanae says.
"I guess." Hatate says, before her face drops. "Lord Tenma is gonna be so angry…."
Sanae slaps a sealing tag on Hatate, sapping her of most of her remaining power, so she can't escape, before she turns to Rumia.
"You best get that book back to Remilia before sunrise. She goes to sleep before then."
"But the gatekeeper dosen't let us…" Rumia started.
"I think she will if you've got something to return for Remilia." Sanae says calming, before she notices Kogasa hiding.
"Hi Kogasa." She says, before flying off.
Wriggle and Rumia looked at Kogasa curiously.
"Why are you hiding? Sanae's nice." Rumia says.
"Yeah, you look scared of her. Like Mystia looks around Yuyuko." Wriggle comments.
"Well, you know I said people tend to beat me up when I try and surprise them?" Kogasa says.
"Yeah." The two youkai say.
"Well… no-one BELIVES ME when I say Sanae beats me up. They laugh at me. They believe me about Marisa or Reimu, but not Sanae. Which makes it even worse." Kogasa says, before she looks around.
"Uh… I got lost. Can you two take me to nearer Myouren?"
Wriggle laughs. "We'll almost go over it on our way to the Scarlet Mansion. Sure."
Author Notes
Firstly, I have a busy week coming up, so this would slow down updates in the first place. I have an examination and a convention I am attending.
Secondly, the next chapter has no basis from the RP this story is based on, it's actually something the players did not want to RP through at the time, although it ended up being pretty relevant in the overall scheme of things.
Both of these combined will probobly make the next update take a while. Also it'll be very wordy instead of combat.
The next chapter is the last Chapter of the First 'Arc'. The following Chapter will be 'Arc 2, Chapter 1'. Think of each arc as it's own short novel, they follow on from each other in plot, but are perfectly readable on their own.
Arc 2 onwards start to get a bit more serious and dark. Arc 1 was just a fun thing, before I knew there would be a whole story. I'll say a couple of things about Arc 2:
Mystia and Cirno are in it, instead of just referenced, all of Team 9 are together for most of Arc 2, and they all get a couple of awesome moments.
A lot more characters are involved, such as Alice.
Arc 2 is probobly one of the most vital for Rumia's character development over the whole sage [Although I'd call 5 together the most important overall for the plot, but not in character development.]