Author's Note:

N/A. Get back in there, the show's not over yet!

~ STAGE 23: Takeoff ~

[START]

Luka considered herself a relatively smart person. Not a genius, but somewhere in the ballpark of 'has common sense'. She was reevaluating that personal assessment very closely, as she mentally screamed at herself for what she'd just done.

"Come on, think… Think…!" It was stupid. So absurdly stupid! Why had she done that? Somewhere in her brain, why had she gotten the absolutely brilliant idea to drop a cave on Suika? She hadn't even considered the risk something could go wrong. Why had it not bothered her at the time? Pure desperation? That Suika's thus-far-displayed toughness had made her think it wouldn't matter?

Really, if she were in a better state-of-mind, she'd have called the display unsightly. Even right now, she could only fruitlessly try to shovel past the rubble blocking her path back into the cave network. "Suika! SUIKA! Can you hear me?!" She shouted helplessly, pleading for Suika to respond. "SUIKAAA!"

"Oi. What the hell gives?"

A voice, booming and fearsome. It echoed past the stones Luka had been mindlessly digging through. If Luka didn't recognize it, she'd have almost thought it was the mountain itself calling out to her.

"Suika! Oh, thank god!" Luka let out a deep breath. "Listen, try to tell me where you are, a-and I'll… I'll think of something! Just hang on—"

"Yer worrying about the wrong person here."

The ground trembled. No, the very heavens shook. Luka nearly lost her footing. "W-What the—"

"D'ya have any idea how long it took to put that together? Messin' with peoples' hobbies over a game is real low."

"... What?" Luka shook her head. "Look, I don't know what you're on about right now, but we need to get you out of there. Just, tell me where you—"

The mountain exploded. Like a stone shotgun, the rubble she'd been rummaging through blasted backwards, launching Luka with it. Miraculously not stoned to death instantly, she was blown off her feet. Her ears were ringing, but she could hear the Spellcard system as clear as water in her mind.

"Kishin—"

Groaning, Luka struggled to her feet. She shook her head, and the ringing was replaced by something that sounded like demolition—like a building collapsing, pieces of it falling against the ground and sending tremors all throughout.

It took her a moment to realize the mountain was gone. As if something had burst from it, like a monster erupting from a chest cavity. Standing in its place was a new 'mountain', with two new pointed peaks at its apex. Its person-shaped silhouette moved, gaping maw sighing a cloud of mist. Glistening spiteful eyes blinked, each motion sounding like a massive gate slamming shut.

A giant had risen from the scarred earth, tearing into existence like a wrathful demon. A godlike voice echoed from it:

"『Missing Purple Power』."

With a gut-turning sound, its pupils locked onto Luka and she immediately understood. She'd underestimated youkai for the last time.

She did the only thing the 'human' in a game of oni could: she ran like absolute hell.

"SHIIIIIIIT!" That was the most family-friendly of the bombs leaving her mouth. If trying to fight wasn't already a futile effort, now it was just outright comical in how pointless it'd be. It would've been like a single ant trying to bite a human to death. Just trying to look brave would've ended poorly.

Even just running away wasn't easy. For every five seconds of running, a world-shaking stomp followed her. Trees were upended, the earth cracked in protest, and Luka didn't feel like she was gaining any ground at all. She prayed this was Suika's max speed, because the alternative painted a grisly picture of her future.

"Gahahahah!" Suika's laughter alone was enough to hurt Luka's ears. "Did you really think dropping a mountain on me would be enough to kill an oni? Idiot! You shoulda ran while you had the chance!"

Luka wanted to argue, but it would have spent valuable breath. Right now, she couldn't afford to slow down or lose her pacing. One bad trip would have been enough for her to immediately start life anew as a messy stain on the bottom of Suika's shoes.

That was bad enough, but…

"Hah!"

Luka'd heard pile-drivers hitting dirt before. The construction equipment usually made a sound so loud that it could be heard for entire blocks. This? This was somehow even louder—the whole of Heaven probably heard it. The soil beneath her feet exploded and ripped her from the ground, the force sending her into a forward-spinning freefall. Amidst the stars in her eyes, she could see the outline of Suika, foot firmly driven into the ground.

Just a casual stomp reshaped the heavens. Forget the dream vision; Suika was an absolute monster beyond comprehension.

"Uck—!"

She couldn't get caught up on that. Luka stabilized herself, to try to get a bead on where she was headed. The second she did, her face punched through a wall of thick mist with a pleasant vision of clear blue water greeting her right after. She tried to slam on the brakes and go into a glide, but all she accomplished was softening the impact a tiny bit. Hitting the water like a rock, Luka skipped across it until she plunged beneath the surface. Her body nearly went numb from the impact. It took most of her energy just to claw her way back to the light, prying herself from the impromptu baptism and taking frantic gasps of air. Coughing, she reassessed her situation.

The lake. She'd been flung all the way to the center of the mist-covered lake. Given she was still alive and the game hadn't ended, the stomp must have only been a grazing blow. Honestly, was she incredibly lucky or horribly unlucky?

(The mist covers my position some, but she's not going to be too far behind… I don't have long…!) Starting to paddle her way back to shore, Luka tried to think. What now? How was she supposed to hide from a giant like this? She needed some kind of plan. Somewhere to go. But where? She didn't know how she was supposed to cross from one island to another without flying, and per Rule #6, she couldn't call Kume for help. It'd have to be something only she could do. There was no getting bailed-out here.

Before she could make much progress though, there was a clap like thunder, and a windstorm whipped across the lake. The water rippled and form a wave which nearly swallowed Luka up. Water splashing her directly in the face and shoving her around, it took Luka a few seconds to catch her breath and realize the wind had completely dispersed the mist.

It took her much less time to see the perpetrator standing at one end of the lake, hands together in a clapping motion.

"Ay! There ya are!" Suika bellowed. Already, she'd traced out where she launched Luka before she'd even gotten halfway to shore. Seeing her from this angle, the lake looked like a kiddie pool and Luka a hapless pool toy. "Takin' a swim, eh? How's about I join ya?"

Luka couldn't get a word of protest in before Suika stepped back. Uprooting the trees in her path as if brushing aside tall grass, Suika braced herself. Luka recognized her stance immediately.

"Y-You're crazy—!"

She was going to cannonball, and Luka couldn't swim nearly fast enough to get out of the way in-time. It probably would've taken a motorboat and a miracle to make that distance. She could only try—and it wasn't enough. She only claimed a few feet when the shadow cast overhead. Luka looked up in horror to see Suika, tucked into a massive ball, diving into the lake.

And once again, time stopped. Luka wanted to scream at whoever kept doing it.

(Again?! What am I supposed to do here?!) She mentally cried to the void. These delightful little moment-in-time bits were starting to feel like they were conditioning Luka toward nihilism. Just hopeless scenario after hopeless scenario—was this someone's idea of a joke?

Then again, she'd survived the last one. Somehow. The 'how' at the end was doing a lot of heavy-lifting, and it was still a question she'd yet to answer. All she could remember was blinking, and suddenly she'd jumped past Suika. Had she just moved her body instinctively? If she'd moved then, how was she supposed to do the same when she was body-deep in water? Humans notoriously needed a few nifty little things called 'leverage' and 'footing' to move quickly. Neither of which was very high in stock at the moment.

Eventually, her mind landed on the only answer possible—

Fly!

There it was again. That feeling, like she was yelling at herself.

(I can't fly!) This time, she was able to get a word in against it. (I can barely glide!)

Fly or die, idiot!

Of course she knew that. It was the only possible way out of this. Flight didn't require either of the earlier requirements. By flying, she could make her own leverage and footing wasn't a concern. The only problem was, once again, 'how?' (I need to know how to fly first! No one's explained—)

Just fly already!

She was arguing with herself at this point. Mere moments from being crushed to death, and she was wasting energy like this. Mind flooded with nonsense, battling the demon called 'common sense' in her mind. Who had she kept this argument for? For whose sake was she continuing to deny the reality in front of her?

Luka knew the reality. The truth was, there likely was no suitable explanation for flying. It was just that she couldn't see how she'd do it. And that unwrapped the biggest issue she'd refused to tackle up to this point: she'd crossed into a world of flying shrine maiden, witches, women who could manipulate boundaries, control minds with smoke, and a whole other laundry list of absurd abilities. Why did she think she was some exception to the rule? Why did she keep blocking herself from that fantasy?

(I—)

She already knew why. Because if she acknowledged it was real, it meant she couldn't go back. Back to how things were. She'd tried to make a big show with Kasen, about wanting truth and learning about it all. And to an extent, those were her true feelings. She knew reality was inescapable, and finding closure was the only way to quiet her own stormy thoughts. But there was another pain point, another thing that kept mentally blocking her each time she took a step forward: had she really accepted this? Was she happy with it? To answer that, she only had a question:

Q: Why had she climbed the mountain?

A: To find the truth about herself.

Q: What would satisfy her as 'truth'?

A: She didn't know.

Q: Why not?

A: Because I didn't choose to come here.

And she knew damn well what she meant by 'here'.

That was the simple truth. Maybe deep-down, she was hoping it'd all end up as some massive misunderstanding. That she'd wake up back home, and all of these problems would be gone. She'd know who she was again and could live content. To be entirely blunt, this whole thing was unfair. What kind of person would cheer or celebrate at being ripped from their home? "Oh no, it's fine! I got special powers and I'm (maybe) super strong now! I don't need my family, my friends, my old life! Everything's perfect now in this new fantasy world!"

… Of course, maybe that made her the biggest idiot of them all. At least those sorts would face this challenge head-on. Those seeking blind wish-fulfillment at least knew what they wanted. They wouldn't deny the reality—no, fantasy right in-front of them just because it didn't suit what they wanted. They'd be far more in-touch with this place than she ever would be. She was so ill-suited for Gensokyo, it jumped past funny and went straight to pathetic.

Still… Even still…

Luka didn't feel like stopping. It wasn't a feeling she understood. Even as she complained, whined, moaned, something kept her going. A refusal to give up, a determination to keep staring at her impending doom until she punched straight through it. Was she that willing to keep going? She couldn't keep pussyfooting around the question:

Die here and settle for nothing? Or… accept that this was a part of herself?

Luka gritted her teeth.

Time resumed. Suika crashed into the lake like a meteor.

A tower of water erupted, visible even from the furthest reaches of Heaven. Splashing skyward, it descended back in the form of rainfall. Below, in the now half-filled pool, Suika sighed relaxedly beneath the drizzle.

"Ah~. Nothin' like a good shower after a successful hunt." She thought little of the girl crushed underneath her. At worst, it was a minor mess to clean up later. What the girl had been, who she was, those mysteries and the answers to them were things she felt no rush towards. This was just a cathartic terrorizing, of the sort she'd so rarely gotten to indulge in.

Only, something was missing. If she had crushed Luka, the Spellcard system should have announced her defeat. And it had been a bit too long for the reason to just be a delayed announcement. Not long after that epiphany, Suika realized there was an odd spot above her head. An opening where the rain wasn't quite reaching.

"Hm?" Suika looked up. Her massive eyes grew wide, as did her smile.

There, floating above the main island, was a girl. Dripping wet and shivering, like a pathetic kitten.

"H-Holy shit." The sudden gust from how high up she suddenly was couldn't distract Luka from her thoughts. Reeling from what she'd avoided on one end, but also from the realization of what she'd just done. What she was currently doing. "I… I'm flying!" An unexplainable euphoria filled her veins. Was she just happy she'd survived? Or was she filled with the joy of experiencing mankind's first fantasy? "I'm doing it! Ha-ha! Hell yeah!" She dared to even chant, and she wanted to start dancing around. Unfortunately, the old self she left behind was still cognizant enough of the circumstances to mentally tug at her sleeve. "I… I can really…"

Luka looked down at herself, then at the land below her. She swallowed. Right. No more half-measures, and no more turning back. If she was going to do this, then she needed to do it right.

With this, one fantasy had killed another. Luka East, the supposedly 'perfectly normal girl', could fly.

"Got that outta your system?" Suika called from below. Looking down, Luka realized the oni wasn't nearly as far away as she would've liked.

Of course, that hardly mattered now, did it? For the first time since they started fighting, Luka flashed an audacious grin. "Not just yet!" She needed to move now. How did she do that? Maybe— "I—YEEE?!"

Instead of gracefully propelling herself away, Luka felt like she was suddenly being jerked to the side by some invisible force. "Brake, BRAKE!" And screeched to a halt. Now she was upside down, completely still in the air. "..." (North, just an inch?) She budged slightly. (Okay, now south.) She shifted a tiny bit in the opposite direction.

"... … Oi. You good up there?" Suika meanwhile was bathing passively in her lake. "Y'look like a baby learning to walk for the first time." She splashed idly, which just made Luka feel even more stupid.

"Look—I'm a—little new—to THIS!" After some fiddling, Luka finally uprighted herself. "Woo! Okay, alright. I think I've got it now." She side-stepped back and forth in midair a bit, to test it out. Reimu was totally off in her description. All those poetic mysticisms about letting go of gravity and flying free, that wasn't how this felt at all. It was totally natural once she got in the air, like manual flight controlled by a mental joystick. She just needed to actually get in the air first to understand it.

"Glad to hear!"

She wasn't given much time to celebrate. Just a second later, a giant hand appeared in front of her in one hell of a swatting motion.

"Whoawhoaheyhey—!" Instinctively, Luka the housefly yanked herself away and barely slipped from Suika's slap. "Cheap! Foul!"

Suika giggled unsettlingly as she finished rising to her feet. "Yer the one wastin' time playing around. I was being nice by just giving you the time."

Luka grumbled, but didn't argue. Game-time. At this height, Luka was still hovering around Suika's head. She didn't feel like risking flying too high and triggering Rule #4, so just flying completely out of her range probably wasn't going to win this. She'd just need to do the same thing everyone else did in a Spellcard duel: evade destruction at every turn.

"Now then! As we were!" Suika reared her arm back. Suddenly, Luka felt the air pressure shift around herself.

She had enough sense to immediately backpedal in midair. The moment Suika's fist swung—KRA-KOOM! Where Luka had once been, an explosion detonated from nothing. "WHAT?!" Why did she sound so surprised? If the oni could randomly create fireballs, why wouldn't she be able to generate spontaneous combustion too? At least she wasn't so distracted that she didn't see Suika winding up for another. "Oh, hell!"

Fun fact: the best way to master a new skill was to be put under intense, life-threatening pressure!

Luka flipped backwards, and rocketed in the opposite direction of Suika. She didn't know what her top speed was, but she was going to update it to faster than an oni flinging fireworks very, VERY quickly.

Fortunately, flight gave her a massive playground to move through. A bunch of islands—a whole friggin' archipelago. She just needed to keep her distance from Suika and dodge until the timer ran out. It should have been a simple ask, but—

"Hyahahahaha!" Apparently, seeing Luka take to the skies had gotten Suika all fired up. Now, she was chasing after her like some kind of giddy kid. Wildly sweeping her arms, Suika whipped up an entire fireworks show behind Luka. And refused to stop. Even as Luka passed from one island to the next at top-speed, she could hear Suika practically hopscotching behind her. Jumping from one to the other, downright casually. Not one obstacle seemed to slow her down, as Suika stomped her way through entire forests, crushed hillsides underfoot, and destroyed pretty much everything that got in her way. The entire time, she kept up her assault. And unless Luka was getting paranoid, it felt like Suika's explosive punches were getting a little closer with each attempt.

Eventually, she made a complete loop and returned to the main island with Suika close behind. This was getting her nowhere; she needed a new strategy. Something to throw Suika off her trail somehow…

Suddenly, something caught her eye. A giant wall of black clouds towering above everything else. Below it, the source: a raging forest fire still burning hot. Come to think of it, Luka had heard forest fires could burn for days at a time without direct intervention. It would probably keep going until it ran out of kindling or someone put it out. (What a disaster.) She could barely see through the smoke, as it was.

… Hm. (Lungs, don't fail me now.)

Without providing Suika any warning, Luka pivoted to the side, barely grazing past another of Suika's blasts. Tumbling through, she took the precious moment of surprise she scored on Suika to plunge directly into the massive plume of smoke towering above the forest. To be sure, her senses went haywire the moment she dove in. She could barely even see herself.

But that lack of visibility applied to both players. "Eh? Hey, hey!" Suika complained. "Tch. Come on—!"

Of course this would just result in a repeat of her earlier trick. Suika clapped both of her palms together, and the pressurized air swept through the flames. All at once, both the wall of smoke and the flames would be snuffed out. Like she had just blown out a set of candles, Suika swatted the remaining black puffs aside to expose her prey.

"... Damn, ain't you an annoying one to play with."

Once the skies were clear, Luka was already gone.

A 'bug' buzzing around was just a harmless, easily-traced annoyance as long as it remained in-view. But if it managed to break line-of-sight? It could be anywhere. Even in wide, mostly flat terrain it would take time for someone to spot her. That was what Luka was counting on.

By the time Suika noticed her, it was in the form of a tiny dot disappearing into the mountainous rubble from their second bout.

"There ya are." Suika sighed, walking toward the mountain. She eyed it carefully, making sure nothing decided to suddenly run out upon being spotted. If it did, she fully intended to level the entire pile of rubble with one big attack. Wisely, or perhaps unwisely, Luka didn't poke her head out. "Come out, come out~"

This was a death trap, in every sense of the term. With Suika sifting through the broken remains of her old personal project, it would have been next-to-impossible to escape completely undetected. Riskier still was trying to avoid her while sneaking around. Though, the problems went both ways: even as she lifted large rocks aside, Suika didn't lower her guard or assume Luka would be easy to find. At this size, it was difficult to single-out any specific sounds or smells. Suika had to rely mostly on sight, and with so many things to hide in for a target so comparatively small…

… ang! …

Suika paused. She swore she'd heard something from the rocks.

… ang! bangbang! … bangbangbangbang—

"Tch." She was sure of it now. Those were the sounds of Luka's pistols. Oddly enough, they seemed to be coming from all sorts of spots in the rocks. As if she were moving around, ducking and firing all the while. It wasn't a very subtle play to make, since all it did was announce her presence.

It would've been easy for her to pound away at this mound and let the Spellcard system tell her when to stop, but Luka had proven twice now that an uncertain killing blow was just going to waste time. And time was a resource that Suika was starting to run low on. No, she needed to see a body if this was going to stick.

Suika plowed a fist into the rubble. After a moment of fishing around, she produced a boulder close to the size of her giant hand. With a bit of effort, she concentrated on it as a 'base'—a core point to gather around. The entire mound of rubble rumbled and dispersed, reforming around her palm. Gathering into a massive, mountain-sized boulder that almost matched her gigantic form. Lifting the rock overhead with one hand so as to not block her field of view, Suika watched for signs of any irregular movement. Eventually, once everything was cleared, the only thing that remained was a crater in the ground with one sole occupant.

"... Ah." There sat Luka East, pistols drawn and covered in soot. Quite literally 'sat', as she seemed to be panting in exhaustion and at the end of her rope. "I really hoped you would've taken a few seconds longer before trying that."

It was easier to hear her, now that she could focus on her. "Gotta admit, that wasn't a bad trick." Suika knelt down and reached for Luka with her free hand. "Nearly bought yerself enough time, but—" She blinked, finally noticing something odd. "Hold on. Trying 'that'?"

"Yeah, that's your ability, right?" Luka slouched. "You, uh, gather and separate stuff, I think. That's what I landed on after thinking about it for a bit. Am I right?"

"... Close enough, yeah." Suika admitted.

"Nice," Luka sighed. "well, go ahead and wrap this up. Just, don't look up, alright?" Her eyes sheepishly glanced above her, before snapping back to Suika.

"?" Suika squinted. Subconsciously calling that bluff, she averted her gaze to the space above Luka. "The hell d'ya take me for?"

At that moment, two projectiles slammed directly into Suika's vision. The oni howled.

Luka smirked. "Hey, I warned you not to look."

Two of her heavy-duty bullets had been frozen in midair, waiting for Luka's signal. In fact, they were part of a much bigger gambit that Luka had been setting up. It wasn't some elaborate plan she had been arranging all along—much closer to an on-the-fly desperation play.

To summarize: the gunfire Suika had been hearing?

Those were all bullets that Luka had been planting while Suika hunted her down. Each one on a rock, waiting for the oni to move them somehow. She had no way of knowing if she'd move them by gathering them in one place. It just seemed like a simple solution and a creative way for Suika to show off how strong she was. So, when she actually took the bait, Luka made sure two of them sat still in a spot where Suika wouldn't immediately notice them and tried to create an opening.

Once she had it, there was only one logical place to shoot at on a target this big. Eyes were a common weak point. Even youkai would probably flinch if someone jabbed them there. Why else would Suika have shielded them when Luka was shooting at her earlier?

Of course, that wasn't all Luka did. She hadn't only planted two of them. In fact…

She'd rigged every rock she could get her hands on. All of them currently composing the boulder in Suika's palm.

"Whiskey Stones『On The Rocks』!"

Suika was too distracted rubbing her eyes with one hand to realize. The boulder she was balancing teetered precariously, unbalanced from her brief writhing. Inside of the amalgamation of rock fragments, countless bullets started their motion. Individually, they provided little force. But in such high numbers, all aimed in a single direction, compounding with the massive ball's earlier imbalance? It was like a ton of tiny engines, all working together to accomplish a single task.

It just needed to move a little. Just a little. Rolling, tipping…

And then falling, right onto Suika's skull.

BOOOOM.

The thunderous impact echoed across Heaven. A declaration: Luka East could now count herself among the rare few to drop a mountain on an oni's head twice.

The massive amalgam cracked along its center and broke apart into its individual pieces. A sign that Suika's concentration had broken. Almost comically, it looked like a massive bump had formed on Suika's head. The giant oni fell—

Before stopping herself at one knee. "... You little shit." Suika glowered, eyes now teary and red.

Luka gasped. She was still conscious?! No, worse than that—there was no announcement. Luka had bet everything on that attack at least breaking Suika's last Spellcard. If she was still standing, then…!

Suika wordlessly reached for her with one hand. No jokes. No humor. She was ending this, now.

"No! No, come on—!" Luka took aim with her pistols and started blasting. She hadn't been faking her exhaustion. To zip around and plant all the bullets for that had really taken everything she had left in the tank. The most she could manage was a tired backwards crawl.

Uncharacteristically, Suika flinched at the shots pinging against her fingers. Only so much as a person reacting to a bug bite on a sensitive spot, though. "Gah, stubborn lil'—" She pressed on, slowly encroaching on Luka.

Luka didn't stop, even as Suika started no-selling her shots. "Just a little—!" She continued to limp backwards, Suika's hand overshadowing her entirely.

"Almost—" Cornering her target, Suika closed her palm.

Finally—

Tick. Tick. Tock!

The timer had reached its end. And both players froze in their tracks.

Suika's hand, mere inches from crushing Luka, had failed to do so in-time.

Several seconds of silence passed, Luka's heart racing as she sat in the shadow of Suika's giant palm. Finally, Suika slowly withdrew it. Her gaze seemed almost shadowed-over, as if she were angered by the result.

Eventually—

"—Arrrrgh?!" Suddenly, Suika shot to her feet, clutching her chest. "Reinforcements, from the fabled oni slayers?! Curse you, ye treacherous humans! Curse you! Curse youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu…"

Suika thrashed about, shaking the land with her 'outrage'. Her form deflated, her booming godlike voice shrinking with her. Smaller, smaller, smaller. Eventually, her play-tantruming form (now reduced back to her original size) rolled into the crater—before casually and smoothly transitioning to a cross-legged sitting position right at its center, just a short walk from Luka.

"Good stuff, 'human'." Suika pulled a purple gourd from seemingly nowhere and popped it open. "You win!" And nonchalantly began to drink from it with a satisfied smirk.

Luka sat in disbelief. She almost thought she was having some dying dream, until—

Luka East (Human) - ✦ [x x x]

Suika Ibuki (Oni) - [x x x] x

As clear as day, even the system itself couldn't deny it.

~ Winner: Luka East ~

Covered in soot, barely able to stand, Luka's combat high finally wore off. She flopped onto her back, body trembling and breathing heavy. It didn't feel real, but she'd managed it. She'd actually done it.

She won.

"... Hey." Luka panted, still lying on her back. "Hey, Suika."

"Mmg—" Suika pried herself from her bottle. In sharp contrast, she didn't seem winded in the slightest. "Mmyeah? Wassup? You ready to start askin' away?"

Luka faintly waved an arm in dismissal. "No, that can wait a sec. You got any more of that peach sake? I need another drink."

Author's Note:

Phew. I love writing fights.

This was a fight that I'd had planned a long time in advance, but sorting out all of the details was tricky. How do I write a fight with such a massive difference in power, while keeping it entertaining and believable if the weaker side wins? I also have to pay my respects to Suika, a character who is one of my favorites in all of Touhou while still giving Luka her time to shine. In the end, what you've just read was what I landed on.

I've gotten a lot of great comments while writing these two chapters, and I've got to say, thank you all. Seriously. Whether your comments are positive or negative, the continued attention and interest makes me really happy. That you care enough to say something speaks volumes, and I'm glad to have you all here for the ride.

The show's not over yet, though. Now that Luka's won, what answers will Suika have waiting for her? We'll have to see that next time!