It did not take long for the group to reach the Bamboo Forests, and it was even quicker after entering that Rumia ran into a rabbit.
"You wanna go to Eientei Miss Dark Youkai?" the rabbit asked. "You're a friend of the Princess, we won't prank you or anything."
"Depends. Have you seen a sailor anywhere?" Rumia asked the rabbit.
"Uh huh. She was near Eientei, but some other rabbits pranked her. Why?"
"We're looking for her. She might be dangerous."
The rabbit blinked a few times.
"OK, follow me!"
"Ah, it's Rumia." Eirin said, who was outside the palace, the group walking in as Reisen and Tewi were telling her about a stranger that was nearby, which Rumia assumed was Chiyuri.
"Have any of you three seen a sailor?" the rabbit asked. "Miss Dark and her friends are lookin' for her."
"Yeah. Some rabbits found a sailor. They're messing with her." Tewi said.
"Can you get them to lead her here? We need to find out why she's here. She may be dangerous." Rumia said.
"Wait, since when was it a good idea to bring dangerous people here?" Reisen asked.
"With me, the Princess, Rumia, Tewi and you?" Eirin asked, in a rhetorical fashion, "Simply, if we cannot stop her if she is dangerous, then I doubt anyone could."
"How did Kaguya get back to Earth anyway? Hatate asked. "The portal was destroyed before she got back, right?"
"She got thrown to Earth. Literally. You can fly through the vacuum of space and burn up in the atmosphere and still live with the Hourai Elixir. It... was painful, but Yukari brought her back into Gensokyo with her gaps. Apparently she landed in the Pacific Ocean."
"It was also fun." Kaguya's voice rung out from inside Eientei. "It hurt, but freefalling through space was pretty cool."
Eirin sighed. "Anything new is fun to her... even if it hurts."
Tewi had run off during that discussion, and everyone just waited, exchanging banter and discussing among themselves. Or, in the case of Mystia and Hatate, arguing and insulting each other over petty things. Rumia had heard of a catfight, but this was a birdfight. It then occurred to Rumia that Mystia had never really spent much time around a Crow Tengu. Aya would only stay around for a few moments when she dropped a copy of the Bunbunmaru, and never really spoke to her.
She guessed Mystia really did not like the pride of the Crow Tengu, and how they looked down on others, and got the feeling that Hatate looked down on Mystia, a Night Sparrow, more than the others, as Crow Tengu saw themselves as the 'rulers of the skies'.
A little while passed [With Wriggle imposing herself between the two birds to break up their argument before it devolved into an outright fight], before a small group of rabbits, led by Tewi, came through the bamboo, followed by Chiyuri.
"Are you sure you rabbits know where you're going?" she asked, before she noticed the clearing.
"Ooh, a palace! I guess they might have erected a palace around the device. Not the first time I would have seen a civilization built up around one of our devices. It would help so much if I could remember the relative timeflows between dimensions..."
"Oh my, this sailor sure sounds interesting with her words about other dimensions." Eirin said.
"Hmm?" the sailor, Chiyuri, went.
"Why are you here Chiyuri?" Rumia asked.
"Ah! It's that dimension hopping woman from earlier. It's none of your business, really." Chiyuri said.
"Are you sure? Rumia asked, threateningly. "I heard from a... reliable source that you are dangerous. Last time you came to this world, you set up a fake tournament, and tried to kidnap the winner. And you supplied technology to someone who wanted to commit genocide in exchange for something."
"Ah, so it's THIS dimension!" Chiyuri said. "Well, now I know where the device is, I'll be on my way..." Chiyuri said, turning around, only to find Hatate in her way.
"Going somewhere?" she asked. "I want a story out of this, and it sure sounds like you have one."
"I wouldn't get in my way." Chiyuri said. "If you've heard all that, you must have heard I'm not weak."
"Why do you think I'm here?" Cirno said, before she froze Chiyuri's legs to the ground. "You ain't goin' nowhere, cause the strongest says so!"
Chiyuri just pointed her device that absorbed magic before at the ice, and the ice changed into blue... sparks, which then flew into the device.
"Fine, since I would rather not fight, I'll tell you. We're absorbing magic from this world, and many others. Not much, that's why we're running on many fronts, we shouldn't be causing any harm. Our world has no magic, it vanished many, many years ago, and we're attempting to return it." Chiyuri said.
"We?" Eirin asked.
"You are causing harm though! You're damaging the balance! The fairies can feel it already! I don't care what your theories and plans say, the facts say otherwise!" Rumia shouted.
"Yes, we're creatures very attuned to nature and magic, and we're feeling drained." Daiyousei said. "Whatever you're doing is disrupting the balance of the world, and who knows what could happen after that?"
"That's impossible, there shouldn't be any ill effects." Chiyuri said. "Besides, what's a few tired fairies to a world without magic?"
"What's tired fairies now could very easily become worse. The more damage done to the balance of magic in the world the less likly Gensokyo will be able to recover." Reisen commented. "Nature is fickle."
"There's no way our theories are wrong. We're far above anyone else in understanding." Chiyuri protested. "If you want to stop me it'll have to be by force!"
Rumia chuckled. "Force? Got plenty of that right here."
Rumia took a stance with her right hand forward, before unleashing a barrage of dark energy spheres, which curved out, before heading towards Chiyuri from different angles.
The sailor just lifted up her device, and all of the dark spheres were sucked in, but Rumia had already moved behind her.
"Let's see how you deal with an attack from behind!" she said, before unleashing a spiral of small dark energy spheres, which exploded in a chain reaction.
Chiyuri, however, just stood there, unharmed, as the energy was sucked in from behind her, into her device.
"You thought I'd have a blind spot like that?" Chiyuri asked, as she spun around, her device that was absorbing the magic sparking with blue light. "You're a fool!"
Rumia ducked into the shadows as Chiyuri's device fired a thin, blue laser, releasing tiny sparks from it. It cut clean through the bamboo, going as far as the eye could see. There was no burn, it was just... gone.
"How do you like that? That's Pure Magic. The magic of every dimension is different, but when you refine it, it all breaks down to the same energy! This is the enegy that will bring magic back to my world!" Chiyuri said.
Rumia stuck her head out from the shadow.
"Yeah, that's not bad." Rumia said. "Needs more range to actually ever hit anything though."
Chiyuri just trapped her weapon, and the thin barrel split open into eight parts, a floating crystal revealed in the middle, with smaller crystals lining the eight parts.
Before it fired like a shotgun towards Rumia's head, which quickly ducked into the shadow cast by the bamboo again, before it closed up into it's normal form.
"Tch, annoying." Chiyuri grunted, as many blue marks glowed on the ground, releasing wisps of magic.
"If I can make her play her hand, I'm sure Eirin can figure out something."Rumia thought to herself, as she arose behind Chiyuri again, this time, readying a punch, but she had to back off to dodge a few bullets of the blue energy, each of which blasted through the bamboo.
"Snake Sign: Flame Cobra!" Daiyousei cried, before unleashing a snake-like spirit of flame towards Chiyuri as she shot at Rumia, but it was absorbed as well.
"Ugh, seems like she can absorb energy even when she's attacking." Daiyousei said sadly.
"Wow that was awesome Dai!" Cirno said. "Since when could you do fire magic!"
"Since I've been learning from Patchouli..." Daiyousei replied, in a tone that gave everyone the impression she had said this many times before.
Rumia and Chiyuri kept up the 'Rumia dodges then re-positions' cycle for a few more minutes, before Rumia came out of the shadow altogether, and grinned.
"Ah what the hell. I gotta see if I can hit you. Dancing around isn't gonna make me hit you at this rate." Rumia said, before she breathed in, and her right hand started to glow with the rainbow light of her Chi.
"Wow, Rumia's got better that that, she usually has to charge a bit!" Mystia said.
"Big deal. Her hand's glowing. Who cares." Hatate said. "It'll just get absorbed."
"Chi isn't magic. It's like a combination of willpower and lifeforce made manifest." Eirin said. "It should work... except..."
"Pinpoint of Light!" Rumia cried, dashing towards Chiyuri, who fired a beam from her weapon.
Chiyuri did not aim to cause severe damage. She aimed to wound, and that would stop Rumia with the pain.
The shot pierced the darkness youkai's stomach, but she kept coming, wincing despite the pain, before her fist slammed into Chiyuri's face, and sent her flying into Eientei's wall, where she slumped to the ground.
But as she flew to the side, her weapon flew too, still firing the laser of pure magical energy, and it cut through Rumia's side.
'That's not gonna heal right away...'
Rumia fell onto her face, bleeding heavily but the wound slowly closing, sparks of blue magic still lingering.
"Ugggg..." Chiyuri groaned, as she stumbled back up. She was bleeding from the corner of her mouth, and had a nice bruise forming. "That hurt. Too bad boss said not to kill anyone."
She pointed her weapon towards the others.
"Now who fired that... well... uh... fire at me? And does anyone else have an issue with me leaving?"
"Heh... Eirin... she can't drain the magic from people. I didn't feel anything being drained." Rumia said, through bared teeth.
Eirin acted right away.
"Spacesphere: Earth in a Pot!" Eirin declared, before a group of spheres formed around Chiyuri, encloseing her.
Chiyuri first seemed to try and absorb the spheres, but nothing happened.
"They are familiars. This isn't a spell, they are artificial beings made of magic. You can't drain their magic." Eirin said.
Chiyuri then started to blast the familars, and they started to vanish, but Eirin just calmly spoke again.
"Medicine Sign: Galaxy in a Pot." she said, before the layers of familiars tripled, and the gaps re-filled, but Chiyuri kept fireing.
"Oh my, but you must run out of energy that you absorbed at some point." Eirin said, before she focused for a few moments.
"Astronomical Entombing!" she cried, before a massive amount of familiars swarmed, turning the sphere into a huge pillar, like a pyramid. Chiyuri kept fireing a laser of magic, but it started to get thinner, before stopping, far from breaking Eirin's wall of familiars.
Rumia struggled up, her wound closed, but not fully regenerated yet, especially internally.
"Wow, you're something else Eirin. That looked effortless." Rumia said.
"Didn't know you were this strong..." Hatate commented.
"Why don't you fight the fire-lady instead of the Princess that likes me!" Kogasa asked.
"I don't want to show the Princess up. And as for how strong I am, well, I did teach the Watasuki sisters before my exile." Eirin said calmly.
Chiyuri just sat down, and pulled out another device, pressing a button.
"You guys are in so much trouble." she said. "You don't want to get in our way."
"You kept saying 'we' and 'our'. Who is this other person?" Eirin asked.
"My boss, of course. A genius among Geniuses in our dimension, my teacher and my boss!" Chiyuri said, as a blue portal opened next to the tomb of familiars, and a figure stepped out. She matched Rikako's description that Reimu gave her... of being very red. She wore a red dress, with a red cape, with some white in her attire. Even her hair, eyes and shoes were red. She looked pretty professional
"Hello. I am Yumemi Okazaki, the pleasure is mine." the young woman said.
"... That's not the greeting I expected." Wriggle commented.
Author Notes:
And so enters Yumemi. You'll find her pretty different from Chiyuri, and I hope an interesting character.
More about the motivation of the pair for stealing magic will be revealed later.