"Take care of us?" Rumia asked, tilting her head to the side. "In that case I'll have a steak!"
Wriggle and Mystia looked at Rumia in disbelief.
"Rumia. You know the things from the portals have been attacking people down here, right?" Mystia said.
"Yeah." Rumia said.
"And those two came out of a portal?" Mystia added.
"Yeah." Rumia said, sheepishly this time.
"I think they mean the other kind of 'Take care of'. As in, kill us." Mystia says.
"Well that's not very nice!" Rumia replies, crossing her arms, and Cirno bursts out laughing.
"I'm the strongest! They can't kill me!" she declares, before she fires a blast of cold air at the two figures.
The blonde, Yuki, swings her hand in front of her, before a wall of flames arose to block Cirno's blast of cold air.
"Oh my, I thought everyone in Gensokyo was as strong as those four." Yuki said, before looking at Mai. "You might want to fight that one, she looks like she uses ice too."
Mai stays quiet, and launches the same style of attack Cirno did, a blast of frigid air, which starts to form ice around everything caught in it.
"C-c-cold!" Wriggle says, shivering as small bits of icebegan to form on her and the others.
"Cirno, isn't ice weak against lasers?" Rumia asked.
"Yeah! I remember!" Cirno exclaims, before she fires off a few thin beams of light herself, and Rumia fires a barrage of beams preceded by tracers, all towards Mai.
The winged being stops her blast of ice, and erects a wall of ice in front of her to defend herself, but the lasers pierce right through it, and hit Mai, blasting her back a little with a look of surprise on her face.
"... Yuki, maybe we shouldn't take them too lightly. They do outnumber us, even if they are weaker." Mai says quietly.
"Since when do I ever mess around and hold back Mai?" Yuki says, before she puts her hands together, rubbing them as one would when attempting to warm up cold hands.
Wriggle and Mystia took the chance to launch some basic danmaku towards the witch, but, before it reached her, she pulled her hands apart, both on fire, and unleashed two plumes of flame, which engulfed the danmaku, and headed towards the four freinds.
"That's certainly not danmaku! That's actual fire!" Mystia said, as the group scattered from the flames, which slammed into the doors of the palace.
A rain if icicles started to fall, and Rumia noticed that Mai was rapidly forming them and using them to shell the area. Despite frantic dodgeing, everyone took some light hits, before Wriggle found a chance to dive towards Mai.
"Wrrrriggle Kick!" she called, foot outreached, before Mystia suddenly pulled her back, just before a fireball flew right where Wriggle would have been, fired by Yuki.
"That was close!" Mystia commented. "They may be opposites but they work together well!"
"That's it!" Rumia said, dodging more icicles. "Why don't we work together, like we do when we're pranking China!"
"Yuki... they seem to be planning something." Mai said coldly.
"Eh, I'm bored of this fight anyway. Stand aside Mai, save your energy for later, I'll finish this up myself."
Mai stays quiet, and just looks at Yuki as if to say 'You moron.', but stops her attack, as Yuki forms six, glowing, magisterial circles around her.
"Why'd the ice stop?" Cirno asked.
"The Marisa-like one is up to something!" Wriggle said, indicating the six magisterial rings around her.
"My magic is based on fire, and I got bored, so I'm going to show you my strongest magic, magic so powerful there will not even be ashes to bury of you. Sorry, but your lives will end here you four." Yuki says, before the six red circles glow brighter.
"Marisa's gonna spark us!" Cirno says.
"Marisa?! What do you mean Marisa? I look nothing like that witch in purple!" Yuki said angrily.
"Marisa wears black and white, like you." Rumia said.
"Well then, watch how wrong you are. Sixth Circle: Heresy!" Yuki calls, before the six rings burst into a plume of flame around her. The plume then seems to... concentrate, into six spinning discs of fire around Yuki. Five are hovering around her, and the 6th itself is spinning around Yuki as if a defense.
Then, Yuki flings a disc after each of her foes, chasing after them, despite their movements, keeping the fifth disc on hand, and the sixth flying around herself.
"This is my ultimate attack and defense fire magic! The unquenchable fires of hell are unleashed after my foes, and form a shield around me!" Yuki boasts.
"Mystia! Can't you sing to make her not able to see?" Rumia asks.
"If I do I'll slow down and be burnt to a crisp!" Mystia says.
"Then I got an idea!" Rumia says, diving towards Yuki, with the other three getting the idea and following.
"It won't work..." Yuki says, as the four fire various danmaku at her, and she just blocks it with her two remaining rings of fire, which are floating around herself, and move to block the danmaku.
Suddenly, however, she lurches forward, as Rumia and the others pull up to avoid crashing head-first into Yuki's defensive rings.
"Who was that? All four of them were in front of me!" Yuki says, before she cries "After her!", hurling the fifth ring behind her with a spin, leaving her with just one ring to defend herself.
"Ow!" says a voice, before a blue figure, on fire, falls from between some houses on the street.
"Ah... that's where she was. Mai, why didn't you get her?" Yuki asked, looking at the newcomer on fire. Rumia and the others couldn't tell who it was, except they saw some blue, since Yuki was in the way.
"You said you wanted to take care of them yourself." Mai said simply, as Yuki turned away from the blazing figure.
At that moment, there was a familar cry.
"Surprise!"
The figure jumped up, and slammed the geta on her umbrella into the side of Yuki's head, like the umbrella was kicking Yuki. Kogasa, her main body on fire, then stood happily over the stunned Yuki.
"I'm a karakasa, silly! You can burn this human-like illusion all you want! I'm the umbrella!" Kogasa said happily.
Yuki held her head, moving her hand away. Kogasa had hit her hard enough that she was actually bleeding a little.
"Well... now that I know that... my ring will chase your umbrella instead." Yuki said, as the 5th ring came back around behind Kogasa, who noticed and started to fly around like the other four.
"Hey guys, were you surprised?" Kogasa said nonchalently as the rings of fire chased her and her friends.
"Is that all you care about Kogasa?!" Wriggle shouted.
"... Hmm... yes." Kogasa said simply.
"Then yes, we were surprised!" Mystia said, before adding, "Go on, surprise us more, come up with another trick like that last one!"
Kogasa's face brightened up, and she nodded. "She only has one disc thingy left, right? It can't be everywhere, we just attack her from each side at the same time!"
"That sounds like a good idea!" Mystia says, before she and Wriggle both make sharp turns to opposite sides, the discs following them.
Yuki looked irritated. "Mai... I think they've figured out the weakness in this magic if I'm using it on this many people..."
"No, you just over-committed to offense. Pay the price. I'm not going to save you from your own stupidity. Baka." Mai says. "Maybe you should have let me help you hen I already was."
Yuki looked annoyed for a second, before attacks flew from each side, and Kogasa's from directly above. Yuki raised her sole remaining defensive disc to block Kogasa's attack from above, before the other danmaku slammed into her. All six discs then vanished into smoke, and Yuki lay there, on her face.
"We won!" Rumia said.
"Not-Marisa is down!" Mystia cried happily.
"Only the ice person left, and since I'm the strongest... we win!" Cirno declared. "You should give up before I hurt you!" she added, pointing at Mai.
Mai just softly laughed. "Well, now that that fool is out of the way, I can fight seriously. After all, it's hard for me to use the full power of my ice with all that fire around, I'm mainly limited to long-range attacks and defensive moves, and even then, the fire hampers it. Not to mention Yuki's stupidity. If only she was less hot-headed, we could work together five times better."
She chuckled, before her small wings suddenly grew to a wingspan to match Mystia's, ice being launched in tiny fragments as the wings exploded in size, and snow lightly falling off them afterwards.
"Yuki is just a mere witch, however, I am a daemon. The size of a Daemon's wings are proportional to how much of their power they are using. When they are using their full power, their wings give off a sign. For me, it is snow falling from them. I will not hold back." Mai said coldly, her tone of voice having changed from one that gave off an impression of shyness and quietness, to a cold voice that would make someone shake in their boots as if they were freezing.
"She's strong..." Cirno admits, still sounding confident, before she launches another wave of cold.
Mai does the same, and the two cold fronts collide, forming a large patch of ice between the two, although it is clear that Mai's blast is more powerful, as the spread of ice is more on Cirno's side.
"I'm not here to play around, fairy." Mai says.
"Nor is the strongest!" Cirno boasts, before she starts spinning around, firing icicles and multicolored bullets wildly.
"Move!" Wriggle cries, as everyone moves, knowing what was coming.
Mai easily deflects the attacks that actually headed towards her, shattering icicles with icicles, into smaller shards, before suddenly, Cirno stops, and lets out a pulse of absolute cold, freezing all her projectiles solid in the air.
"W-what is this?" Mai asks, confused.
"Ice Sign: Perfect Freeze!" Cirno says, as everything suddenly starts to move again, in different directions than before, catching Mai off-guard and actually hitting her a bit.
"Night Bird!"
"Hooting in the Night!"
"Firefly Phenomenon!"
"Umbrella Halo!"
The four spellcards are all declared at once, and a hail of projectiles slam into the already off-guard Mai, smashing through a wall of ice she formed to defend herself, and sending her into a building, still pelting her until the spells time out.
"Surely that's it." Mystia said.
"We musta won. Not even Reimu coulda dodged out of that one." Wriggle comments, before Mai pulls herself out of the building.
"You know... that one actually hurt." she said. "The little fairy's trick caught me off-guard. I guess I will have to take this seriously myself..." Mai said, before she forms a large, blue magisterial ring below herself, before she smirks.
"Ninth Circle: Treachery."
[Author Notes:
Yuki and Mai are not using Spellcards, they're using actual spells. They don't know of the Spellcard system, and even then, non-spellcard combat is also being used.
Their spells are references to Dante's Inferno, which ties into other references such as the name of Mai's own theme [Judas being in the 9th Circle in Dante] The 6th circle is actually the only circile in 'Inferno' with fire prominent, and Heresy is fitting for Yuki, but will be explained [significantly] later.
You'll find out how Kogasa showed up next chapter.