Chapter 24: Reversal of Judgment
With Shina busy discussing god knows what with Shikieiki, Alex resigned himself to leaning the door opposite of Komachi. She didn't make a peep about his company, and in fact seemed to like it. But she was too busy wiggling a piece of straw in her mouth and stretching her arms back behind her head to say so.
It was quiet. Too quiet. The stilted flow of air was what bothered Alex the most. His own breathing might've even scared him at this point, that's how bad it was. But if there was anytime to plan out what to say to Shikieiki regarding Yukari, it was now.
"This isn't going to be easy. She's not just a judge, but a judge of the dead. She'll be very stubborn and hard to reach, but if I just appeal to her sense of justice then there's a sliver of a chance I'll be able to get her assistance."
It sounded easy enough when voiced in his head. But in practice, would it work out exactly that way? "Of course not," Alex knew better than to expect anything to go his way, "But that doesn't mean I should think about giving up if she says 'No'. There's too much at stake."
There'd no doubt be arguing. Not from a clash of ideals, but from a clash of personalities. That's why it was important to think of every possible angle to attack from. He had all the evidence in the universe to have Yukari thrown in Hell under lock and key. He'd just have to convince the Yama that it was all genuine, and not the mad ravings of a paranoid lunatic.
"Hey," Komachi nipped his eardrums with a whisper for attention, "Want to hear a dead person joke?"
Alex squinted his right eye open slightly to humor her with a brief acknowledgement, then crossed his arms tighter and tried to cut her off entirely. Yet she droned on regardless, chuckling even before the joke had begun, "So why did the logger not want to go to Hell?"
"Kill me now..." Alex groaned.
"Because he was tired of dealing with Styx!" Komachi placed her arms against her stomach and burst out laughing. Alex didn't know what was worse, her piggish laughter or that she tried to replace the dead air with a dead joke. Either way, Alex could feel his own skin wanting to peel back into his flesh from how badly he squirmed.
She then rammed her elbow into his shoulder and said, "Alright, now its your turn!"
After restraining his growing murderous urges, Alex bluntly stuck his head up and scoffed at her, "Read the mood reaper, can't you see I'm trying to think?"
"Come on. You gotta have at least one joke in that thick skull of yours!" She smiled as she egged him on, and through the sheer grating force of her pestering Alex submitted to her will just to get her to shut up.
"Ugh fine..." Alex drooped his arms down and closed his eyes, speaking at roughly double the speed he usually does, "A skeleton, a zombie and a ghoul walk into a bar. They all order drinks and have a good time until the bar's set to close. The bartender, a werewolf, asks them to pay their tab, but it turns out all three of them forgot to bring their money, believing their friends would cover the tab for them. The werewolf demands payment, saying after whooping it up so much it'll cost them an arm and a leg. So the skeleton takes off an arm and leg and says 'HERE YOU GO!'"
He then squints his eyes open, maybe just a tiny bit interested to see Komachi's response. She slacks back against the door, shrugs one shoulder up, and lets out a dry cry of "Eh, could use some work."
"Oh go to He-!"
Alex bit his tongue, flared his nostrils, then with a loud 'Hmph!' faced the other way and tried to focus back on something actually worth his goddamn time. Though not long afterwards, the door started to budge, and some hefty grunting came behind it.
Komachi and Alex squinted at the center of it, hearing Shina pleasantly request through the crack, "Ummm, a little help please?"
The Shinigami did her duty and pried it open with her scythe. Shina squeezed through prematurely and toppled off-balance for a bit after. She then let out a sigh of relief and started looking around for Alex. It took her a few seconds, but she faced him with a quick hop and leaned forward with a smile.
"How's it hanging Alex?"
"Dead, dead and more dead..." Alex summed it up as best he could, with repetitiuous enunciation.
"That bad huh?" Shina said with a tone of guilt for leaving him by himself.
"Doesn't matter..." But he shrugged it off, like usual. He pulled away from the wall and tucked his hands into his pockets to ask, "So, any luck?"
She laid a hand against the side of her head and let out one very long sigh. Alex closed his eyes, sighed as well, then grumbled to her, "Even the Yama failed us. But on the bright side, that means there's only one place it can be now."
"Uh-huh!" Shina firmly swung her head down and back up, then popped her eyes wide-open and raised a pointer finger straight up next to her face, "Oh yeah! Shiki wanted to talk with ya!"
"She does?" Not that it mattered considering he was going in there anyways but...
"What for?"
"I dunno." Shina hummed with a simple shrug of her hands.
Alex silently looked and waved to Komachi, but she shrugged too. Then she pried the door open once more with her scythe and said, "You're better off just getting it over with."
Alex slacked his hands into his pockets and groaned "May as well..." before slowly trodding through the doors. Komachi closed them the moment he was out of sight, then resumed leaning up against them. Shina folded her arms under her chest and tilted her head around, prompting Komachi to ask her, "Hey, if you don't mind me getting personal for a moment..."
"Oh?" Shina perked up to listen.
The Shinigami propped her scythe over her left shoulder and closed her eyes, "In our profession its commonplace to find humans or Youkai that want to illegally tamper with souls in order gain power or eternal life. I know I said its outside my jurisdiction to touch you guys but..."
"You're referring to the souls Alex's housing, ya?"
Komachi popped her eyes open and fumbled about with her words a bit, "Y-Yeah. So you DO know about them."
She leaned back at the door and had this suspecting smirk at the side of her face, "Between that and all the times his death clock's been reset..."
"Alex isn't that kind of person!" Shina declared in a huff, and swung a fist up close to her chest to show the Shinigami how strongly she felt.
Komachi eased up on that scary look in her eyes and waved a hand about in front of her, "Lighten up will ya? Unless Shikieiki gives me the order, I'm not going to do anything about it."
Shina puffed her cheeks and squinted at her harder, and with a lacksy-daisy shake of the head the Shinigami admitted, "You two were made for each other. Hehe!"
Inside the Ministry, Alex treaded the same boring hall that Shina did. But he didn't care to register the environment around him. Thanks to Komachi wasting his time, he was limited in how much more he could prepare for the approaching "conversation".
The fresher air did help him concentrate, certainly, but being inside the building of what amounted to the afterlife government definitely rubbed him the wrong way.
"So many dead souls passed through this hall to be judged..." And some of the traces of their presence crept across his skin, making the individual hairs stand on end the further he walked.
He trembled, but his expression portrayed a man unperturbed by the stench of the damned lingering in the air. They were distractions piling atop more distractions. That's all they meant to him.
Getting closer felt suffocating, but why? And perhaps it was Alex's imagination, but the hall felt like it was a little too long. He'd been walking for a full minute before realizing that the Yama was only a speck in the distance.
"What the hell?" Its not like he'd been walking that briskly.
"Guess its just my mind playing tricks on me..." He shook his head and kept moving forward, eventually coming within earshot of Shikieiki.
The judge had her rod held in perfect balance before her chest, keeping its tip a centimeter from her chin. She wasn't moving, harkening back to the days when she was a Jizo statue. Her eyes firmly gazed through him like he was a sheet of glass. Yet did she do so to judge? Or was this simply how she passed the time as he approached? Alex wasn't about to prompt her for the answer.
He stopped five feet away and dug his heels into the ground. He stood upright and looked her in the eyes. Her profession earned her that much respect at least. She tilted her head back and looked at him in much the same way. The silence was so thick it'd take the hammer of Thor to break it.
She wasn't as small as Alex had expected. Sure, she was a few inches shorter than him and Shina, but that just made her a runt in comparison to giants. But size was a very unimportant outlier regarding the kind of person she was. The way she stood and held that rod showed how unflinching her conviction was, and her aura would let her endure the weight of a crushing mountain.
But she needed neither of those weapons to win the initial conflict. Her eyes were enough.
Alex closed his eyes, as though a subtle admission of defeat, and dryly spoke her name, "So you're Shikieiki Yamaxanadu."
"I'm not used to being called by my full name. But I'm doubtful that you mean that out of respect." She saw right through him, starting the conversation on a terribly wrong foot for him.
"Lets not go down that road..." Alex bit his teeth together and pushed a word through with terrible strain, "Please."
She closed her eyes and raised her head a bit, then brought her rod to set beside her right hip, "Very well. Then I pray you shall do unto others as you would have them do unto you."
"A Japanese afterlife judge quoting Christian literature? Now I've heard everything..." That humored anecdote aside, Alex had to begrudgingly give her props for wanting to show some restraint, even if it was in her nature to judge.
After tucking his hands into his pockets he asked, "So...you wanted to see me?"
"Yes. This is my first time seeing an Elemental Overlord face-to-face. I can tell just by looking though that you are not his descendant, but a successor to his power."
Alex nodded briefly and mentioned, "Komachi said you weren't alive at the time the old man came to Gensokyo. So how much about him do you know though?"
"I know him only for his body count." She was blunt and to-the-point, with an answer that Alex could see coming a mile away.
"So the story I heard was true." At least those last lingering doubts were now gone, but had been replaced with questions.
"...Its not my place to ask, I get that but..." Alex looked Shikieiki in the eyes and humbly requested, "Can you judge the Elemental Overlord's soul for me?"
Shikieiki had a pertinent look of surprise on her face as she responded, "Hmmm, I suppose I could, if you were to somehow have it on hand."
Alex planted a hand firmly on his chest and shouted, "He's inside of me right now! So go ahead and use whatever mirror voodoo you've got on him!"
Her surprise deepened further, and as she slowly performed the motions to prepare her mirror in place she commented, "I will leave the matter of why you have his soul for later. For now just stand still, and I shall divine the truth in either black or white."
She closed her eyes to focus on the power of her mirror, where the light of divine providence spiraled into view on its peerless glass reflection. Alex had to lift an arm up just to avoid being blinded, and even then some of the light managed to slip on through.
"Hrrmm, there are many souls inside of your body beyond his. They try to block the path of judgment but in vain. For there is no truth my mirror cannot perceive!" The roar of her authority shook the building whole, and Alex felt his knees tremble as her judgment underwent.
As soon as the act had begun it was over, and she stood silent in reflection upon what the mirror had revealed. A single drop of sweat trickled from the side of her face, and her lips quivered as though unconsciously reacting to something she saw. Yet when the time came to divulge what she knew, her body returned to its statuesque state of being, and she firmly gazed at the boy's face.
"He was a man with a stained heart...But in his final moments, he cleansed the black from his soul," She dispelled her mirror, and made the decisive call, "He is a just soul. That is all I can reveal."
"That's it?" Alex rubbed the back of his head and sighed, "I thought I'd get to hear a little more about him..."
She closed her eyes and wisely informed him, "It is not my place to speak aloud the memories of the departed. But if even a flicker of life resides in that dead soul, then you are welcome to ask him whatever you need to hear."
"Yeah, like he'd comply." Alex let out a long sigh. Half if it was meant for the disappointment of her judgment, while the other half served as a last second preparation for what was to come next.
Now that Shikieiki's request had been dealt with, the true confrontation would begin. A battle of wits, his stubbornness versus her unconquerable resolve. And for the many many MANY hang-ups he had with people like her, he'd have to treat this topic with some degree of restraint if he wanted to succeed.
Shikieiki closed her eyes and remarked, "That is all I needed of you. You're free to co-"
"Hold up a second." Alex raised one hand up and she stopped turning away. He then made it abundantly clear that assisting someone can sometimes be a two-way street, "I didn't come all this way just because you asked for me. There's something I want from you as well, Shikieiki."
Shikieiki crossed her brows and stood with her side pointed towards him. He had started her off in a foul mood, as evidenced by the way she spoke, "Are you making demands to a Yama?"
To resort to holding the weight of her title against him meant that Alex had screwed up majorly. So to fix his mistake he forced himself to dial the sass back and change up his sentence a little, "I-I meant I had a request I wanted to make, if you'd be willing to hear me out."
She closed her eyes and made a brief smile before remarking plainly, "That's better."
She brought her rod to the very center of her chest and stood in attention without letting the differences in their positions stand between them, "Say your peace, Elemental Overlord."
"Ok, this is good..." He thought optimistically. Might this go better than expected? It was too soon to judge with certainty but...At least one of the hardest parts is out of the way.
After crossing his arms he reaffirmed everything he needed to say and briefly nodded his head, noticing that even someone like Shikieiki could lose some of her patience. He then waggled a hand out and began making his case.
"I don't know how much Shina told you about our journey..."
"I saw much when I peered into her heart." She interrupted, but then bowed slightly and apologized, "Forgive my interruption."
He shook his head and quickly breathed in relief, "No. No that's fine! That saves me a lot of trouble explaining shit!"
She glared at him for the coarse tongue, thus stalling his explanation for a bit. After a gulp he stammered, "A-Anyways...As you saw, ever since we started this journey we've been hounded by this mysterious force."
"Yes. A powerful and terrifying force seemed to follow your every move. It was unlike anything I had ever seen before..." In the face of identifying that enigmatic power, Shikieiki showed not a hint of fear.
"But that's the thing...Its very possible you have seen this power before." Alex's absolute certainty in this proclamation piqued the Yama's intrigue, and she peeked at him with one eye open.
"Go on..."
At her urging, he continued without pause, "For the longest time Shina and I tried to piece together who this mysterious entity was. She didn't have any connections to the worlds we went to, but knew enough about them to setup havoc before we ever got there."
He laid a hand against his hip and closed his eyes, "The trail to the Cosmos Drive led us to Gensokyo...And unknowingly to the front doorstep of the mastermind's home."
Shikieiki didn't budge in the slightest. Was she piecing stuff together, or was what he saying not good enough? Not that Alex cared, cause he was just getting started.
"Through information we gathered from the residents of the world, I was finally able to determine the mastermind's identity."
He began to pace back and forth while staring at the ground, emulating the final moment of deduction the great sleuths of old tended to undergo, "It should've been obvious from the start. A person with the capacity to easily warp dimensions to get to other worlds, someone with the knowledge and foresight to avoid being caught out in the open, and finally...Someone who'd only care about themselves."
Alex thrust his pointer finger out towards Shikieiki and declared their name, "The culprit is...One Yukari Yakumo from Gensokyo!"
Shikieiki closed her eyes and thought on that for a little while with her mouth puckered a bit. She then hummed while curving her hands before her chest, "I will need the confirm the legitimacy of your story."
As she called her mirror up Alex flashed a cocky smirk and crossed his arms, "Go right ahead!"
The mirror of the Yama was absolute. Yukari may have been playing the long game, but she screwed up at this critical juncture. Once Shikieiki saw everything he had seen, her game was over. Done. Finished. And Alex couldn't be anymore excited to see her tiresome meddling come to a screeching halt after all the crap he had to put up with.
With the Yama's mirror casting its judging light upon his soul, Alex closed his eyes and basked in it. You could daresay that he dared it to observe and make judgment on everything it saw. How bold, but how foolish as well.
Alex seemed to forget one very important detail about her mirror. Sure, while it does reflect the person's past and transmits the information to Shikieiki for judgment...It has to also judge the person of whom that past belongs to in the process.
And as the light faded from the Yama's mirror, Alex could feel that something was off and instinctively peered his eyes open, only to be greeted by a reflection of pure black in the mirror. His heart skipped a beat, and his cocky demeanor staggered. With his arms laid flat against his hips he quietly stuttered, "W-What...?"
Yet this startling revelation did little to affect Shikieiki's initial assessment, "Despite the taint of black on your soul, your story is the truth..."
But as she put her mirror away, she closed her eyes and murmured the last thing Alex wanted to hear, "But your story does not prove that the culprit is Yukari Yakumo."
The final judgment of his soul wasn't important in the face of such an appalling dismissive remark. Upon gritting his teeth he swung his arms out and exclaimed, "W-What?! Why the hell not?!"
She stood completely still as she dictated her reasoning, "There is a probability that your assessment is correct, but many things do not add up...And your theory lacks the decisive evidence needed to fully pinpoint her as the culprit."
"...You've got to be shitting me." Alex's was swiftly walking on thin ice when it came to his patience, and as his face crinkled up in anger he yelled at the Yama some more, "Decisive evidence?! Everything I said. Everything you saw! That should be more than enough to implicate her in these crimes!"
"Speculation and conjecture are not definitive proof." She responded simply.
"What, is Hecatia's word not good enough?" Alex tried to leverage the weight of his stance by using someone the Yama would know, and for a brief moment she did remain silent in her thoughts. Yet inevitably, her answer would be against Alex's desires.
"...Lady Hecatia holds a lot of power in the Ministry, but even her word would be considered speculative in this instance," Shikieiki closed her eyes and tried to reach out to the part of Alex that she saw as patient and calm, "And even if you were to provide me with the decisive evidence to implicate Yukari Yakumo, what am I supposed to do about it?"
Alex bit his teeth down hard enough to wear into the enamel as he growled fiercely into her face, "Your goddamn job, that's what!"
She put her foot down, and put it down hard. Then she swung the rod towards his face, as though commanding a mad dog to heel, and told him bluntly while yet maintaining her calm demeanor, "My job is to judge the dead as they come through my doors, and direct them to their final resting place. I may be the law, but that doesn't mean I am to be made a weapon to incarcerate every villain and ne'er-do-well that happens to come by."
Alex was trembling, the rage swelling up inside his body until he was set to burst. He KNEW this would happen. He knew and even still it pissed him the hell off that she'd say this things right to his face. But everything hadn't been tried yet. There had to be some semblance of hope that Shikieiki would see reason. His reason.
He closed his eyes, trying to evade the sight of her stern authority as he gruffly pleaded, "There has to be some way you can punish that witch! She's caused chaos on other worlds, threatened innocent lives for her own amusement!"
He clenched his fist up before his chest, "Hell! You don't even have to use my account to implicate her! She kidnaps humans from the Outside World and feeds on them all the time!"
"And that is her nature as a Youkai. But if what you say about her actions on other worlds is true, then her soul will be judged as such when she dies."
"She. Already. DIED!" He roared as veins bulged from around his knuckles.
The seriousness of his voice made Shikieiki bat an eye at him and remark, "...What are you talking about?"
"Yukari supposedly perished a couple years ago, according to Mamizou, but managed to come back to life. Waiting for her to die from natural causes is pointless, cause that bitch'll cheat death any chance she gets!"
Shikieiki looked down for a moment, but that tiny shred of doubt was cast aside almost instantly by her logic, "If Yukari Yakumo were to ever cheat death, there'd be no escape for her. Either a Shinigami or a Kishin would have been sent to deal with her offense."
"So she escapes scrutiny only because in your eyes there's no 'proof' of her crimes outside of Gensokyo, and her crimes in Gensokyo can just be swept under the rug because 'She's a Youkai, of course its ok for her to commit cannibalism.'"
Alex squeezed out an unease scowl as a couple tears began to flow from his eyes. The mix of anger and disappointment was getting too hard for him to control, and he began begging to Shikieiki, "W-Why...Why won't you listen to me?! I didn't do anything to deserve this treatment!"
"Your black soul paints a different story." Shikieiki said the magic words. That was exactly what Alex wanted to hear. Now he had little reason to feel disappointed, because the Yama was behaving just how someone in her position would behave. Viewing the world in only black and white, she wouldn't budge on her conviction for even a second. Any views of justice she had were a complete farce, being nothing more than a set of rules she followed like some collared dog.
In spite of all the rage and righteous indignation he felt towards Shikieiki's now, Alex was forced still by the thrust of her rod as she spelled out the weight of his sins in very fine detail.
"A blantant disregard for property..."
"So what?! I was supposed to let innocent lives be snuffed out by the millions?!"
"Picking countless fights with authority figures and heroes from other worlds..."
"I HAD my reasons for doing what I did!"
"Breaking and entering into government facilities uninvited, stealing from stores, having a completely unpleasant attitude towards others..."
"I-I...If I didn't do things the way I did, the bad guys would've kept getting away with their plots...I saved worlds from destruction. Does that seriously not count for a goddamn FUCKING thing?!"
"And most importantly, you allowed your second personality to go on a rampage, possibly endangering the lives of millions and-"
"YOU THINK I HAD A CHOICE?!" Alex's scream shook the Ministry and made even Shikieiki go silent. His face became bright red as the back of his throat felt dry and hoarse.
He squeezed his fists until his fingernails started to dig into his skin, then did the unthinkable and denied the Yama's absolute judgment, "Maybe I did things you'd consider unsavory...But I saved millions of lives, all to stop someone who came from the world YOU'RE supposed to be watching over. So to Hell with your crappy judgment."
Shikieiki pissed Alex off one final time too many by closing her eyes and remaining resolute in her justice, "I'm sorry you feel that way. It is not as though I am saying that you are eternally damned, nor that your heroics hold no merit. But it is only by reflecting upon your mistakes and seeking to change yourself that you can cleanse your soul. This is the good deed you can do right now."
She then started to turn away, as though it was time to wash her hands of this matter entirely. But not without saying one last thing to the boy, "I wish you well in your future endeavors, Elemental Overlord."
Her wishes of good will was a faint noise in his ears, for it drowned amongst a flourishing tempest of rage. Alex couldn't let it end, not like this. He REFUSED to let it end like this.
"No...No!" All the times he'd seen Yukari's corruptive influence consume other worlds flashed vividly through his mind. He gripped his fists tight and swung his head back, then flailed it around as what truly got to him came crawling to the forefront of his mind.
Shina had died because of Yukari. And if nothing was done about that, then Alex might...Alex might...
"Fwoosh!"
Shikieiki was frozen stiff by the sound of rising flames, and peeked over her shoulder. Alex had drawn his sword in both hands, holding it shakily before his waist as furious tears were drawn from his bloodshot eyes. He grit his teeth, facing the judge with a quiet, melancholic rage...and all his determination.
"...You would threaten the Yamaxanadu?" Shikieiki stared back with eyes of black ice colder than the coldest winter.
Alex stared at Shikieiki for a bit, then slowly looked down at his sword and his mouth trembled agape. His skin paled as a quiet, devilish laugh echoed in his mind, and then he dispelled the sword and took a couple steps back while shaking his hands out.
"N-No...! No...! I-I swear I didn't..."
Shikieiki wasn't believing him for a second...And to hell with trying to get her to believe anything her said. All that mattered was his last desperate ploy to get her to see otherwise. This world's irreversible variable, the proclamation that even the Yama could not ignore.
After steadying his feet and breath, Alex swung his right hand up and declared, "Shikieiki Yamaxanadu, I challenge you to a Spell Card Duel!"
Now this was truly one for the photo album. Shikieiki's eyes widened to the size of quarters, and she swung her rod back and declared with abject ridicule, "And what do you hope to accomplish with this act, Elemental Overlord?"
He clenched his fist up and stared at her with eyes partway shut, "If I win, then you'll help me deal with Yukari Yakumo. If I lose...then do whatever you want, I don't give a shit."
"...Your conviction can neither be approved not dissuaded. It seems it will take a more active force to get you to realize the error of your ways." Shikieiki's stance changed as she swung her rod straight out to the right. Now it was not that of the tempered judge, but one of a fighter.
Under the shadow of her cap, her eyes glistened with her absolute justice. And then like the thunderclap, her voice echoed across the Ministry, "Very well Elemental Overlord, I accept your challenge. And you will lose."
Alex put his fists up and watched as she rose off the ground. She point her rod forth, pressuring him with the power of remorse. He stood his ground, waiting for her to cut the scare tactics and show him what she's got. She drew her mirror once more, but used it to create a Spell Card from Alex's reflection.
"Face the weight of your soul, Elemental Overlord, and in this truth may you find salvation," She poked the back of her card with her rod and declared its name, "Cleansed Crystal Judgment -Alex Whiter-!"
Three ripples of light echoed from the mirror as it duplicated into three of itself. Each duplication became a separate, perfect clone of Alex Whiter. He widened his eyes at them for a moment, then scoffed at their presence. It was the tactics of a coward, a parlor trick to send a message about 'facing his sins'.
"Clones, against me? I don't have to worry about them anyways..."
He immediately punched at the air with fists like gatling guns to send plenty of fireballs towards Shikieiki, the true target. She glided her rod across the air and the Alexs moved appropriately to defend her, then pulled their hands back and began charging flames around their palms.
This kept them motionless, and thus Alex leapt ten feet right in an instant and attacked Shikieiki with bolts of lightning pounded out of his hammer-like palms. The flashes of light did more to make her flinch than the attacks themselves, and with another graceful movement of her hand the Alexs turned and blasted their massive fireballs his way.
He managed to evade only one by running, and the others struck hard and deep into his very soul. He could feel his signs rising like fire in his chest, and weakening his ability to run. That tiny bit of faltering wasn't going to stop him though, and after a sharp turn past the fading fire he dashed towards Shikieiki and threw his own fireballs along the way.
She kept to commanding the Alexs like puppets, and they absorbed the fireballs with ease. Then they released the fire from their bodies as many spiraling ring of embers. Most of them struck Alex with shocking precision, halting the speed of his attacks to a pitiful crawl.
He backed away suddenly, surprising even himself, then resumed his attacks by targeting Shikieiki from above with a sudden bolt of lightning. She waved her rod around to trace the shape of a triangle and the Alexs made that formation around her. Their bodies crackled with electricity, then let it loose in one widespread burst with little room to evade.
"Ghhh!" The Danmaku continued to hurt on a physical and spiritual level, but Alex trudged on. He slammed the ground with both his hands, and a geyser of water followed by a sharp stalactite erupted below Shikieiki to strike her with all they got.
But like the shore, they crashed against her and were broken.
The Alexs sent forth more elements to pester Alex, filling the air with unavoidable but tiny droplets of rain while throwing pebbles out faster than normal bullets. Alex found himself folding his arms up, a futile effort if there ever was one.
He responded by lashing his arms out with such friction as to send hurricane gales towards his ridicule worthy copies and their puppetmaster. Shikieiki's body stood without motion, save for the actions she wished to partake in. And thus with perfect dictation she commanded the Alexs together and hold their hands palm against palm. They acted as her wall, and her cannons.
Their empty eyes angered Alex immensely. Was this her mockery, or the mirror's true perception of the kind of person he was? Who. Cares. Just keep attacking, that's all Alex had to do.
He rapidly fired fireballs around his replicas to attack Shikieiki while running from place-to-place, trying to trick the clones into not following him. But denial of reality was truly foolhardy here. They were perfect reflections, and could predict every move he made without flaw.
Thus when the three Alexs fully charged their flames, there was no escape for the real deal. A tidal wave of fire swept over his body, drowning out the sounds of the world around him. And the weight of his sins dealt a powerful internal blow that drained his will to move or fight back. Shikieiki withdrew her rod, and so too did the Alexs disappear into the void.
There was no point prolonging the duel any longer. Alex collapsed onto his knees with his eyes shaking and wide open, then fell flat on his back, defeated.
Her victory was clear and decisive. Alex didn't even defeat one of her Spell Cards, and it was plain to see why. Everyone else treated Danmaku like a game. She did not. There wasn't a reason for her to make fancy patterns or fool around.
She IS the Law. And as long as she is, her power is absolute as well.
Alex never stood a chance. He knew this deep deep down, and yet he tried to change inevitability in his favor. Now he lied on the ground, a broken mess paralyzed by the frightful chill of his sins, with the judge's quiet footsteps sending further shivers down his spine.
Her verdict had been decided for him before the duel had begun, and she would now deliver it unto him as though he was one of the damned. This fear in his heart...Now he understood why the souls that haunted this place touched him. It had been his last chance to escape and avoid her absolute judgment...
Yet she did not point her rod at him with anger, but with pity. How hollow such sympathy is to a puppet as broken as he...
"Alex Whiter, as punishment for raising arms against a Yama...I shall sentence you to a few months of solitude in Hell to reflect upon your actions. Perhaps a taste of what your future could be like shall help bring you salvation."
Alex weakly squeezed his eyes shut and wanted to cry.
"Its just not fair...! I try...and I try...and I TRY so goddamn hard to do the right thing, and EVERY. TIME. Something bites me in the ass!"
He was sick of it. Just plain SICK of it.
"And now I'm going be sent to hell for a goddamn time out?! Why?! Because I wanted to punish that bitch of a witch...?! She's the criminal, and I'M going to jail?! This isn't right...this isn't right god FUCKING damn it!"
The indignation and rage could all be boiled down to a singular point that infuriated Alex beyond recognition, "And when we're so close to the end...! A-Am I really going to fail Shina...this close to the end? I-I...don't have time for this bullshit!"
And then realization struck him hard, reigniting the vigor in his brain like a hot iron. He pulled from the depths of his mind a startling truth of what was happening. Being lured to Gensokyo through the Cosmos Drive, the appearance of Shadow Junko and reemergence of Yatagarasu, all the stories relayed to him through Mamizou, Eirin and Hecatia, and now the Shikieiki's judgment in black...
Yukari had played everyone like a fiddle just to get him to this moment.
Seconds from now, everything he'd have done would be for naught. Once Shikieiki banished him to Hell, even for that brief of time, there'd be no chance of getting the Cosmos Drive in time. Shina would fail, Gravitus would win, and he'd have truly lost everything...She'd never forgive him. HE'D never forgive him...And like Yukari said to him so long ago...When he had nothing, when he was nothing...Then he'd truly deserve to die by his own hands.
It would have been the perfect trap, had Alex not caught it at the last moment. But this meant only one thing...Gensokyo wasn't safe. Everyone here had been ensnared in Yukari's manipulations, even Shikieiki Yamaxanadu, who the wicked witch should never been able to lay a hand on.
Knowing this...there was only one thing Alex could do.
Before the judgment was made decisive, Alex swiped his right hand up and splashed flames against Shikieiki's face. She recoiled and was temporarily blinded, for to her even the hottest flames were like sand. Yet from that motion Alex spun around and rose to his knees, gritting his teeth and muttering under his breath, "I'm...I'm sorry...!"
He ran, and ran, and ran. If his soul wasn't condemned to Hell it was now. But it didn't matter to him. He couldn't let Yukari have her way with him!
Upon recovering Shikieiki swung her rod towards the door and yelled with all her righteous fury, "KOMACHI! DO NOT LET THEM ESCAPE!"
Outside the door, both Komachi and Shina were puzzled by her echoing wail until Alex smashed right through the door, knocking it into the River Styz. Shina froze up and stuttered in fear, "A-Alex?! What's going-"
"There's no time to explain! We need to get out of here, NOW!" Alex grabbed onto her waist and carried her under his body as he took off flying towards the river.
After dispelling the surprise Komachi licked her lips, shook her head, and dashed for her boat. She got on it and barreled after them.
Alex held on tight to Shina and tried to search for the exit. Along the way, she squeezed her arms around his waist and pleaded for some answers, "Alex, please tell me what's happening!"
"We fell for the mastermind's trap Shina! Everyone in Gensokyo are their puppets!"
"W-W-W...WHAT?!" The rush of information was difficult to comprehend, and left Shina dizzying. As if the speed of Alex's flight hadn't done that enough already.
She looked back, and saw Komachi rapidly coming in closer with her scythe reeled back to strike them down. Shina swung her hand back and yelled, "Komachi's gaining fast!"
"Fuck! Her powers!" The rush of this escape gave Alex quick thinking on how to deal with Komachi's ability. He began to reach for his pocket, but first exclaimed to the one he loved, "HANG ON TIGHT...AND DON'T LET GO!"
"I-I won't!" She trusted him with everything, even her life, and he would not betray that trust because it was all he had left at this point. As she clung on with all her might Alex reached for his pocket and touched the Gaia Temporis.
"Catch us when you can't even see us, bitch!" He activated its power and time stopped completely around him and Shina. Komachi's power held no thrall in the frozen time, and the two of them slingshot way down the River Styz in record time. But as it seemed they'd reach the exit, much to Alex's surprise, a wide open black gap caught them both and flung them to somewhere else entirely...Where to, you may ask? Well, that's for next time, isn't it?
Time resumed, and Komachi quickly halted her boat upon realizing she had been outwitted somehow. She hung her scythe over her shoulder and let out a hefty sigh.
"Welp, I deserve a lecture for this screw up..." She quietly made her way back to the Ministry, where she found her boss standing outside the doors with one hand on her face, covering the slight singed marks Alex had left.
"Yo Shiki, you ok?" Komachi remarked with mild concern, only to be met with silence.
"...Shiki?" After Komachi tilted her head, the Yama closed her eyes and wearily responded, "I'm fine..."
She then leaned against the door and pondered aloud, "...Have you ever doubted my judgments, Komachi?"
The Shinigami leaned down and chuckled, "You're always right. That's why you're the Yama."
Shikieiki looked towards the sky and murmured, "That boy more than earned his black soul now but...When I performed my initial assessment, something felt...Different."
"Different?" Shikieiki's doubt was a cause of concern for Komachi, "Different how?"
"Like it was not my mirror that revealed the truth of his soul..." As she looked ready to collapse from exhaustion, Komachi swept Shikieiki off her feet, held her in both her arms, and flashed her a caring smile.
"You've been running yourself ragged Shiki. Come on, lets go do something fun for once to unwind!"
Shikieiki blushed, yet another rare sight to behold, but was too tired to whisper a 'No'. Komachi grinned from ear-to-ear, then carried her boss off to parts unknown.
...And perhaps you'll realize that the Phoenix of Destruction is not the only one who should reflect upon their sins, Shikieiki Yamaxanadu.
Next Time: Nowhere to Run