Chapter 16: Hero of the Shining Needle
Shina left the Human Village and Alex behind with a warm, happy, fuzzy feeling in her chest. She felt like there was gallons of blood flooding in to her cheeks, as though the dam in her heart burst wide open.
She simply could not get last night's events out of her head. "I've never felt so happy before!" and "I wish I could relieve that night forever and ever!" was how Shina could best summarize her feelings. She could feel a fuzziness in her brain that was like a flurried snowstorm, making it difficult to think straight.
All that blood rushing to her head didn't help, and she began to slowly twirl around in the air until she was flying on her back. She felt the gentle breeze caressing her body, and it made her imagine that a hundred tiny fairy hands were giving her a massage.
And thus she slipped further into bliss, and that was fine by her. Everyone should be this happy, she thought, and they should be this happy all the time. Only one thing could have made this better, and that was sharing this feeling with her family.
Her mother would likely be steaming mad at first. "Young lady, you did WHAT?!" Shina imagined and immense exaggeration of her mother's voice. But she knew that once her mother became a granny for the first time ever, and held that cuddly bundle of warmth in her arms, she'd melt like the snow in spring.
And her little sister would be promoted to the role of little aunt for the newborn. It was Shina's highest hopes that her sis would end up handling that kid with the same abundant energy she had done with her. Imagining her little sister with a baby no bigger than a doll was like the cutest thing possible, and she clasped her hands against her blushing cheeks and let out a high-pitched "Awwww!"
"Oh!" But then with a gasp Shina realized. She was spending so much time thinking of how her immediate family would react to the news that she hadn't put into consideration into how her and Alex, the child's own parents for crying out loud, would handle their duties.
Shina wasn't too worried about herself, personally. She'd gotten years of experience helping her mom raise her little sister, so really, how hard could it be raising her own kid?
But when it came to Alex...
Bonk!
"Owie!" Shina felt her insides being pressed together like an accordian for a moment as a sharp, throbbing pain pentrated her skull. She turned around while rubbing her head and found her mouth slowly expanding in awe as she gazed upon a giant, mesmerizing castle.
She had diligently spent entire nights and days reading old books on Japanese history, so this Edo period architecture was a cinch to identify. But what was 'Sooooo coooool' in Shina's eyes was that the castle floated upside-down in the sky like an orbiting satellite. The castle's presence turned the surrounding skies an orangish pink, like something right out of a fairy tale.
Shina needed no invitation to enter, for she was already off and running on the hunt for the castle's entrance. She performed a slow, winding scan of the perimeter from the bottom to the top. Or would it be top to bottom in this case? Shina could only ponder on that for a little bit before resuming her search.
There were ten stories to look over, but for Shina that was nothing compared to how big the sacred temple of the Ten Sages was back home...Not that she'd ever scaled it before, nope! Not at all!
The front door ended up being at the 'top', which left Shina disappointed, who'd hoped this magical place would've had a less mundane entryway. The door was crimson like the skin of an apple and more bumpy than a lizard's hide, while also, regrettably, having no handles.
"The Shining Needle Castle..." Shina murmured only to herself, "Its really a lot more..."
She slumped her mouth and shook her head a bit as the castle's pristine magic coating lost its luster quickly, "Bleh...then I was expectin'."
With a gentle shoulder shrug she pepped herself back up by saying, "Oh well! Like they say, ya can always find gold in a needlestack!"
That metaphor was so twisted up that Shina could feel her own brain being wrung out like a damp sponge once she said it. After recollecting herself she floated to the door, brought her fist up, and gave it a couple tiny knocks while speaking aloud each sound she made.
"Knock!" The door creaked open, slowly but curiously, right after the first knock. Shina withdrew her hand down by her hip and whispered a curious hum, "Knock?"
She inched closer to the door and gripped her fingers tightly around the edge. She wanted to make as stealthy an entrance as possible, but even budging the door ajar with the delicacy of a kitten made its oiled hinges squeal.
Alas, Shina had already invested in this intrusion too much to care now, so she just forced the door open and went inside. But hey! Maybe the castle's lone owner would be benevolent? ...She could only pray that'd be the case.
After shutting the door nice and gently she held both hands around her mouth and hollered 'Hello?' Her voice reverbed down the long empty hall and then made its way back to her. Then she yelled it louder with a sprinkle of moxie, and it came back faster but lasted longer.
"Spooky!" She smiled right in the face of this haunting atmosphere as she then took a look around. The ceiling as the floor, the floor was the ceiling, and thinking too deeply on it left Shina disoriented with a headache. She shook it right off and floated further down to explore.
She saw many doors with faint orange light seeping through, but not the single shadow of a person through those doors. Shina figured there had to have been furniture aplenty going to waste in each room. And the halls looked pretty, certainly, as they were polished with care. But without any pottery or decorations Shina felt that all that hard work was wasted.
"This is just one big fancy warehouse." But if there was a silver lining to that, it was that a warehouse for fancy antiques would be a fitting place to store the Cosmos Drive.
She stopped in the middle of the hall and tried to call out once more, only this time screaming at the top of her lungs, "Is anybody home?!"
It took a few seconds for the echo to settle down, but when it did Shina was glad to hear a faint response of 'Hello!' right after. She swore that she wasn't hallucinating that the sound was coming from the stairs when she cheerfully hollored out, "I'm over here!"
But then the voice surprised her by responding, "I know! I'm right below you!"
Shina fluttered her eyelashes and looked down but there was no one there. She then peered over her shoulder and still found no one. So she started to spin around and around in that odd, uncomfortable pose, yet only made herself and her 'invisible' company dizzy.
"W-Whoooa...S-Stop it! You're making my head spin!" The voice pleaded shrilly. Shina slowed down and let her head stop rattling, then tried looking down again. Still nothing.
She raised her hands to her mouth and yelled, "Are you invisible?! Cause if you are, that's cool! But I'll need a teeny, tiny bit-a help finding ya!"
"Teeny tiny?!" The person's voice suddenly got a lot angrier and growly, like how Shina imagined a bear would speak if they knew a lick of English.
"I'm not tiny, your melons are too big...!" During a bitter, barely audible fit of grumbling the voice got closer, and Shina eagerly waited to see the person make their appearance. But after ten long seconds of staring forward there was still nothing.
It was starting to feel like the person really was invisible. But then Shina felt something as light as a ladybug planted itself on top of her chest, and poked her head down with wide, curious eyes. Then she swung it back up as the little person bounced off her chest like a trampoline, and flailed her arms to hover one foot away from the center of Shina's eyes.
The person had the body of a ten-year old girl shrunken down to a few inches tall. Her short, lavender hair was topped by a flat unpatterned saucer, and she wears a cute little pink kimono with a pinstripe pattern, some flowers, and a black Obi. She carried a sewing needle as tall as her in her right hand, and even without light it shined.
The little girl kept bouncing, and every time she landed her tiny bare feet sent a nipping chill into Shina's chest. There was tiny streaks of red under her closed eyes as she was yelling furiously about...something. Shina unconsciously drowned the girl's voice out and watched her with a long, vacant stare.
The little girl's arms flailed faster and she squeaked at the top of her lungs "Are you even listening to me?!", which briefly snapped Shina out of her trance. The girl kept ranting a little bit more, but now Shina began to stir. She lifted her hand up and caught the tiny thing atop her palm.
"W-What are you...?" The girl froze up in confusion as Shina slowly raised and lowered her hand. The tiny girl couldn't have weighed more than a quarter, and when she was this close to her face she made Shina feel like she was handling a gumdrop. All the same really, cause Shina just wanted to take this tiny girl's sugary sweetness and gobble it right up!
Shina creased her lips into a smile and the rest of her expression melted into place to compliment it. She let out a long, quiet hum, but for the tiny girl that subdued sound was more frightening than an ogre's growl. The girl's skin paled, she took a couple steps back, and got only predatory vibes from Shina's smile.
"P-Please don't eat me..." She coddled her needle in both hands before her waist and shyly fiddled around with her feet as she patiently dreaded her fate.
Shina raised her pointer finger and hovered it near the girl's face. She just couldn't believe how something this small could be so, so cute, even when frightened. As she felt a warmth in her cheeks Shina tilted her head and giggled, "Don't worry ya silly goose! I ain't gonna eat ya!"
"...You're not?" The girl eased up, only to have her anger incited when Shina's fingertip started poking and prodding her cheeks. Shina gently dug the tip of her fingernail in and made circular motions, all while humming comfortably to herself.
At first the little girl was flustered, but then she puffed her cheeks and began to growl. She squeezed her eyes shut, took her needle sword in hand, and began to wave it around recklessly.
"Shoo, giant! I'm not your plaything!" But that's the thing about being reckless. Even with good intentions in mind, like stopping yourself from being treated like a doll, one wrong move could cause things to spiral even further downhill.
In this case, the tip of the needle cut Shina's skin and made her pull it and her hand back while letting out a squeak of 'Owowowie!' This cost the tiny girl her footing, and she fumbled back down onto Shina's chest. She landed on just the right spot to start bouncing and rolling down it, culminating in her tumbling off the edge while letting out a pale shriek.
Shina finished suckling the tiny cut dry of blood and poked her head forward, whispering in a worried voice, "Is everything alright?!"
Luckily the little girl had fallen into a large black ceramic bowl with a flower-patterned border, catching herself on the edge with one hand. She hoisted herself up and used her elbows for support, then raised the bowl so it was dead center with Shina's face. The girl was nervous, understandably so after two near-death experiences over the course of a minute, but still looked her guest in the eyes and spoke up with a perky, youthful voice.
"A fall like that's nothing for someone as strong as me! W-Why...I practice falling like that all the time!"
"Oh, so ya can't fly on your own?" Shina inquired with a surprising amount of perception from herself. She then saw the little girl get very embarrassed, which made her even cute than Shina thought possible!
"N-No! Not...normally." The little girl then grabbed her hat to hide her blushing face.
Shina couldn't help resting her fingertips up by her mouth and giggling. She then tucked her arms back and leaned her head closer to ask, "So what's yer name?"
The girl drew her hat back until on eye was visible. She then poked her other eye out and laid her hand back onto the edge of the bowl. Finally, she shed her shyness right off like a worn-out set of clothes and widened her mouth to proclaim louder than a trumpet, "I'm Sukuna Shinmyoumaru! I-I'm the princess of this castle!"
Sukuna Shinmyoumaru ~ The Tiny Hero with a Huge Heart
"I'm Shina, Shina Aurora!" Shina pulled herself back, scratched the side of her face, and chuckled innocuously, "Sorry for frightenin' ya, but yer just so friggin' adorable!"
Sukuna fluttered one hand out like a fan and giggled back in embarrassment, "S-Stop it! I'm not that cute!"
"Tee-hee! Yes. You. Are!" Sina gently frisked Sukuna's face with one finger, unsubtle about her emotions, "Ya might JUST be cuter than Kokoro even!"
Sukuna's face turned bright pink as she held her cheeks. But she then lost her grip and slid down the bowl. Shina went to her rescue and put her hand in backwards so Sukuna'd land safe on her fingertips. The inchling then leapt back up and muttered shyly, "T-Thank you!"
Sukuna stared at Shina's smiling face and inquired, "So why did you come here Shina?"
"I'm trying to find something called the Cosmos Drive. Might it be possible for me to take a look around?"
"Hmm...I don't knoooow..." Sukuna's sudden sing-song tone of voice was easy for even Shina to identify as the seeds of mischief slowly being planted in the inchling's mind.
"I didn't like that you called me tiny." This simple, petulant reasoning was expecting of a child, but Shina had hoped this wouldn't have happened.
Its not like she NEEDED permission to explore. Shina dwarved the inchling immensely after all. But using brute force to get what she wanted wasn't like her, at all. Heck, that was more of an Alex tactic!
"Wow, didn't think Alex rubbed off on me THAT much last night..." That same naivete of thought led Shina to believe she could defuse Sukuna's childishness by flipping the meaning of her words around, "B-But when I said you were tiny, I meant it as a compliment!"
"I-I don't believe you!" Sukuna puffed her cheeks and was straining to make herself believe her own words.
"Awww phooey!" Shina puffed her own cheeks and resorted to bargaining instead, "Is there anyway I can get ya to change yer mind?"
Sukuna opened one eye and murmured, "Weeeell...If you were to beat me in a Spell Card duel..."
"Done!" Shina proclaimed before the inchling had said 'duel'. She excitedly rattled her fists before her chest and bewildered Sukuna.
"W-What? So easily?!" Sukuna easily pieced together what was going on and thrust her right pointer finger at the girl's face, "Oh, you're that person the vampire talked about! The one following the Elemental Overlord!"
"Yep, that's me!" Shina admitted with a little giggle of embarrassment at how 'infamous' she was becoming.
Sukuna hopped atop the edge of the bowl and wobbled around trying to keep her balance, then took out her needle sword and declared, "T-Then I definitely have to beat you!"
"Oh?" Shina laid and bent a finger against the side of her tilted face and murmured, "How come?"
"Because if I wanna be seen as the strongest in all of Gensokyo, then I gotta conquer the unconquerable!" Sukuna proudly boasted with her head held high, as though she was issuing a challenge to the gods.
Shina didn't feel like backing down from this challenge, even if the scale of the inchling's perception was a bit much. She firmly nodded her head and exclaimed, "Ok! I accept your challenge Sukuna!"
Sukuna fell back into her bowl, caught herself on its edge, and then lifted her left hand aloft beside her face with a pixel sixed Spell Card hovering above it, "Even an inchling can be strong!"
Shina shoved herself ten feet back and slapped down the Gunslinger Drive to prepare for the duel. She smiled as she gave her pistols a few twirls, then gripped them firmly in her hands and aimed them at Sukuna. The inchling couldn't back down on her courage even with two barrels as big as her body staring her down.
"Lets go, Shina Aurora! I'll defeat you with my first Spell Card!" Sukuna squeezed the atom sized card in one go and declared its name, "Tiny, Tiny March 'An Inchling's Resolve'!"
Sukuna propelled herself off the bowl's edge and fell into its center. Right as she did so the bowl began to release a fantastic fountain of misty white Danmaku. The Danmaku spread out into the sky like a gigantic umbrella and scattered around like glittering snow.
Shina took aim at the bowl and fired a dozen shots at it while slowly moving clockwise around it. The bowl deflected all the attacks, and Shina had her doubts that hitting that did any damage to Sukuna. The fountain was so thick at the bottom that getting close was tandamount to suicide...had this been a fight to a death, of course!
As she got the idea of trying anyways, Sukuna added to her Spell Card's onslaught. Two oval shaped barrages of foggy blue knives launched out in a cross-shaped formation, and a second didn't even pass before more knives emerged at a slightly different angle.
Shina's eyes widened and she pushed herself back to give herself more of a gap between the knives, but a few of the pellets fell upon her skin as she worried about those. She let out a light 'Ack!' as the tingly, realistic sensation of pain from the Danmaku got her to realize that she'd forgotten a bit about how to play overnight.
"Concentrate Shina! You've gotta get yer groove back!" She patiently hovered clockwise around the central point that was Sukuna's bowl and tried to come up with a plan of attack. There was no gun, at least she could recall, that fired bullets capable of curving mid-flight.
Sure, she could just use her powers to curve the bullets, but that wouldn't be in the spirit of sportsmanship. And that's all this was, a friendly sports match. She felt pretty darn confident that even if she were to lose, Sukuna would let her explore the castle. A child's mind was simple and easily pleased like that.
...Not that she was going to just throw the match either. Shina had to chalk it up to Alex rubbing off on her some more, because she had developed a bit of a competitive spirit over time. So if Sukuna wanted to make this challenging for her, then Shina would just meet that challenge head-on with all she's got!
Shina kept moving around and slowly inched closer to the bowl while alternating between look up and forward at the different Danmaku. Through the snowy Danmaku Shina noticed that Sukuna was holding a tiny yellow mallet and swirling it around while proclaiming, "Magic Mallet! Make my Danmaku grow!"
"Oh? But which Danmaku is she making bigger?" The snow pellets and knives seemed fine, at first. But then a couple knives hit her in the back and made her spin her head back to see that the knives from earlier had bounced back, each one now double their size.
"Yikes!" Shina twisted her body sideways and shuffled between all the knives coming in both directions as best she could. A couple of them scraped the front of her stomach and behind her rear, making Shina briefly worry that she had gained a couple pounds overnight too. But no, she had simply gotten caught off-guard.
Once she realized that she inched closer towards Sukuna's bowl while sweating and licking the side of her lips with a swipe of the tip of her tongue. She had gotten an idea of how to proceed now that she'd seen all of Sukuna's tricks, but she had to act fast and not make a single mistake.
Sukuna's entire Spell Card relied on the Danmaku fountain's continued presence to compensate for the bowl's lack of a lid. So all Shina had to do was get rid of the fountain, even for a second, and Sukuna'd be exposed. But Shina could only get so close before there was too little space between the knives for to squeeze by. As interesting as it might've been to be as thin as a plank, Shina knew that wasn't physically possible.
She transformed one gun into a grenade launcher and fired it while turning the other into an SMG. The grenade blew up right above the bowl and dispelled the Danmaku temporarily. Shina then saw her chance, and snatched it firmly in her grasp!
First she vaulted forward over the bowl and spun herself upside-down. Then she transformed the other gun into an SMG and unloaded an entire clip's worth of bullets from each one upon Sukuna. The inchling ducked and held tightly onto her hat for protection, but all the bullets had to do was ricochet inside the bowl until they hit their mark.
Finally, Shina twirled around until she was back upright and landed on the other side of the bow. It was with great regret on her part that she took a couple knives to the knees afterwards, especially as Sukuna's Spell Card hadn't broke.
Sukuna's demure size meant she wouldn't have much in the way of defenses, so repeating that plan of attack would've done the trick. But Shina knew another Spell Card awaited, and so she kept that valuable bomb tucked away for later. That meant trying something else, and Shina had just the thing in mind.
She kept on the run from the knives for a bit and made the occasional glance up. She wanted a breech in the 'canopy', even the tiniest one would do, and then victory against this card would be hers. The hectic flurry of knives did a great job keeping the pressure going strong, but unfortunately, Shina's will was even stronger.
She rose up to the gap and fused her SMGs into a sniper rifle. There was no time to take aim, so Shina would just have to hope her instincts would pull through. Recklessly pulling a rifle without bracing first recoiled her into some of the bullets. But it was ok. Her one shot did the trick, and Sukuna's first Spell Card broke.
The shot got Sukuna's bowl tumbling around in place with her nailed to its side like a lone sock in a washing machine. By the time Shina lowered herself evenly with the inchling, she had stabilized the bowl and pulled herself out of it. Though she was ready to throw up, Sukuna spoke up coherently, "W-Wow! You're strong!"
"Yer pretty tough yourself!" Shina exclaimed with genuine praise.
Sukuna dragged herself up onto the edge of the bowl, needle sword in one hand, Magic Mallet in the other. The two objects shone silver and gold, but it was only the mallet that held the great honor of being wielded overhead.
"But its not enough!" She looked up at the Magic Mallet and pleaded with an intense vigor, "Magic Mallet! I want to be bigger!"
With its shining bright golden light the mallet filled the inchling with its astonishing power, and grow bigger Sukuna did. She got to be as tall as a human her age and not an inch more. But the way she held her chin up high made her look five times taller than that.
Shina felt a gasp of 'Wow' leave her mouth when she didn't notice, having become fully engrossed in Sukuna's stunning bravado.
Sukuna's bowl was stuck to her bare right heel but she kicked her foot back to send it up. She then closed her eyes, bit down on the center of her needle, and raised the mallet before her chest. When the bowl fell she snatched it by its edge and secured it atop her head, and that same arm left only one eye exposed.
But in that one eye Shina saw the fire of her spirit burn bright enough to swallow the sun. Determination upon determination. Determination to scare the gods, THAT is what drove this girl to surpass the limits of her race.
"I am Sukuna Shinmyoumaru! The descendant of the legendary Issun-Boushi! I can't falter as an inspiration for the small and weak, so I will not back down! I will not be afraid! I will not lose to you, Shina Aurora!" Sukuna summoned a sparkling Spell Card before her face and grabbed the handle of her sword. She masterfully pulled it out without drawing blood and sliced the card in twine with a streak of silver. She then pointed it at the awe-struck Shina and declared, "Last Word! Valiance of the Inchlings 'Heroic Unyielding Heart'!"
Sukuna didn't hold anything back and unleashed all of her Danmaku from the very start. A fan of thin pink beams fired off her back towards the ceiling and started rebounding every which way they could within a predetermined confined space. All the while, hundreds upon hundreds of daggers split into the seven colors of the rainbow fired out from her body. They were separated into several segmented, curved walls that created a sphere of protection for the little princess.
Shina snapped out of her brief trance and kept her eye on the daggers while zipping away from the incoming lasers. The daggers pushed outward but slowly grew bigger over time, squeezing in the gaps that Shina could've theoretically slipped through to attack. There were some gaps between the corners of expanding, encroaching walls, but Sukuna's sheer refusal to show weakness manifested in those gaps in the form of large spherical Danmaku.
Shina backed away and swerved around the boundary of the dagger cage looking desperately for a way through. The whole hall would soon become impossible to navigate, and looking at those daggers left Shina feel them touching already, and they stung.
She was willing to try anything save throwing a bomb just to get past Sukuna's assault. But it wasn't just the daggers that were a nuisance, but the continuous laser fire as well. She kicked up her speed and her aura trailed behind her in a visible streak, but she could be the fastest in the universe and would still be trapped against this wall.
"Come on come on! There's gotta be a way through!" Her mind was more scrambled than eggs in the morning, so she snagged the first idea that came to mind, and that was to just try and shoot her way through.
She clutched her pistols close by her chest and pointed them down, flying over the daggers that were now just a few feet away. This duel was kicking up a lot of sweat, making it even tougher to concentrate, so when Shina caused one of the spheres to push away with her bullets it took a couple seconds for that information to go 'click!' in her mind.
She turned around and flew straight back, the daggers now inches from her feet. The sphere she hit turned from blue to red and started to fly straight at her, but to heck with it! Taking a hit from that would be way, WAY better than even one of those daggers touching.
She charged right through that sphere and took the pain doing so it entailed with a tight grit smile. But what awaited her beyond was enough wall of daggers just a couple feet apart from the last. But through gritting and bearing it like always Shina had figured out the key to persisting through.
She grabbed her weapons and held them by her hips while remaining upright, then took to navigating around the walls until she could find where one of the spheres was. She opened her eyes wide and invited the dry air to try and make them shut if it dared. Any laser that flew her way would just be wasting their time and hers, cause she'd prove capable of evading them all with the speed of a fighter jet.
Her bullets pushed the spheres back and activated them to home in, but she kept her guns blazin' red hot and trudged through the open gap and then zipped away from them before they even stood a chance of trying. She'd still have to breech through many layers of Danmaku before the opportunity to attack Sukuna presented itself.
Shina knew not to go easy on the inchling just because things seemed to be going her way now. There could always be another trick to this Last Word, something so small she wouldn't even be able to tell it was there with the world's strongest microscope.
But after breeching ten walls of Danmaku Shina saw through to the center and found the truth staring back at her. Sukuna kept her General-like stance towards the army of Danmaku she commanded, but she was biting her teeth down into a slightly worried grimace. She tried to hide it once Shina came into view, but by then it was too late.
Shina ingrained that image of the inchling's worries in her mind and was a little saddened to understand what it meant. Sukuna had tried to combine an impenetrable defense with an unstoppable offense, turning the Last Word into a reflection of her own determination.
But to Shina, she took it more as a lesson on how creating a Spell Card requires a fine degree of craftsmanship. If Danmaku was like dancing, then making Spell Cards was like painting. While its true that you could make something overwhelmingly beautiful in the spur of the moment, like Sukuna did with her Last Word, true artistic perfection came from the combination of a strong heart, and an even stronger will to persist.
Sukuna didn't have that 'stronger will', not yet anyways. But Shina was proud to admit to herself that the inchling was so, so close to finding that strength of will, and even in defeat this battle will have proven to bring her one step closer to that point.
And so after mulling over this matter more than necessary, Shina decided to respect the strength the inchling did have now by wrapping this duel up nice and quick. She created two long-barreled laser rifles and had them locked-and-loaded beside her, and for a second pretended she was a mafioso wielding tommyguns like in those old films she used to-
"Wait, focus! Focus!" She shook her head and took aim at the inchling. During that moment of self-indulgence she took a few lasers to the face, but kept her aim steady and true and started firing through the thin lined gaps between the daggers.
Sukuna silently took every attack, but wasn't going to let up on her stance until the battle was said and done. Her eyes retained that fire until the very end, when the last bullet hit, and all hers vanished into a flowery arrangement of dust. Shina lowered her guns and took a well-earned breath of relief.
"It may've been a short duel, but she sure as heck didn't make it easy!" She wanted to say that aloud, thinking her praise might've lifted the inchling's spirits, but she couldn't think of any way to word it without including some synonym of 'short'.
But as the dust settled down Sukuna was nowhere to be found, and Shina briefly froze up and thought she had gotten the inchling killed. She hurried over to where she was and looked around, then cupped her hands around her mouth and hollered her name a couple times.
"Sukuna! Sukuna! Are you ok?! If are you, respond with 'Yes'!"
"Yes, I'm ok! I'm...ok." Sukuna sheepishly spoke out with a much tinier voice than before, but one loud enough for Shina to recognize where she was. She pulled back so her just wouldn't be in the way of her looking down, and saw the tiny Sukuna laying down with her limbs sprawled out at the bottom of her bowl.
She puffed out a tiny sigh and sucked in her lips, then rolled onto her side and laid her hands beneath her head. Only the shine from her needle could reveal those tiny tears she shed as she wallowed in self-pity, "...I'm still not strong enough."
Shina reeled her head back in and bit her teeth with a regretful hiss. First she broke into this inchling's house, then made incidental comments about her height, treated her like a toy, and finally shattered her self-esteem into tiny little pieces.
"Maaaaybe I oughta fix this..." She came to the conclusion of, then cupped the bottom of the bowl in both her hands and lifted it close to her face.
"Hey now, don't feel down...You did really well, I swear!"
"...You're just saying that..." Sukuna rolled over more to cover her face, and looking at that pitiful sight just made Shina pout and feel depressed herself.
"Uh uh!" Shina shook her head and, having known what its like to have a low opinion of oneself, knew exactly what to say, "You fought with all your strength. That ain't nuthin' to be ashamed about!"
Sukuna's head turned a little bit as Shina kept going on strongly, "Why, if Issun-Boushi were alive today, he'd've been so proud of ya! Cause ya found yer own strength to fight with!"
Sukuna was motionless for a few seconds, then turned her head the rest of the way back. Her reddened face was drenched in her own tears, and she let out a tiny sniffle before wiping her face clean with her sleeve. Then Shina was proud to watch as that inchling stood up and looked up at her to say, "I...did?"
"Heck yeah ya did!" Shina firmly nodded her head.
"...I did," Sukuna's face lit up with that bright smile Shina loved the most as she leapt up and down and squealed, "I did! I did! I am strong!"
Shina giggled along as that inchling behaved so bubbly sweet, and found her belief that she could handle a child just fine reaffirmed in this moment. Then all of a sudden Sukuna bounced out of her bowl like a grasshopper and perched herself atop Shina's head, making the girl blush.
Sukuna laid out on all fours and pointed down the hall, "Alright Shina! Lets go look for your Cosmos Drive together!"
"Hehe...Ya do know it'd be better if we split up, ya?" Shina said while scratching the side of her face.
Sukuna blushed and then hopped down, using Shina's chest as a cushion to get her back to the bowl safe and sound. She then spun around, leaned on the edge of the bowl, and with her face bright pink she bonked the top of her head and giggled, "Oopsie!"
Shina stared vacantly towards the inchling and, as impossible as it sounded, became even more enamored by her cuteness. Her eyes sparkled bright, she clenched her fists up next to her cheeks, and she inquired with a giddy squeal, "Can ya be my little sister?!"
"N-No!" Sukuna sheepishly retracted into the bowl and sadly, Shina knew she'd have to give up. But it was alright, cause she made another new friend anyways! And with this inchling's help, Shina would scour the Shining Needle Castle from top to bottom in search for the Cosmos Drive...
Next Time: Drumbeat of the Heart