Stage 2 - Floratte, guardian of Matthias's Heart

The three girls now find themselves in a giant library with floating books and funhouse mirrors for windows. More supernatural creatures are standing around staring off into space, this time mostly types of magicians, cat yokai and devils. As they walk through the library, they get the sense someone is watching them. This continues until they can't take the sensation anymore.

Reimu's eyes darted back and forth and she shouted, "EHOUGH! Who's there! Whoever or whatever you are, show yourself!"

They don't get an answer, but then an unseen force punches Reimu in the gut, and then hits her with an uppercut. Marisa is pummeled with a flurry of punches, and Flandre is with a rising knee, a ten-hit flying bicycle kick and then a roundhouse kick. They're stunned by the sudden assault, but manage to quickly recover.

They crowd together, trying to see who is responsible. Fading into existence in front of them is a female figure wearing a strange loose-fitting dark green and dark brown robe that resembles a trench coat, very wide brimmed light brown fedora hat with a red stripe that has spikes extending from the back and a pair of black sunglasses that seem to take up most of her face. This is Floratte Grivonne, the guardian of this part of the castle and Matthias's Heart.

"My target has been acquired. The intruders have been detected. Are you going to turn back? Yes? No? I need an answer. Please. Please, give me an answer. Please."

Marisa raised an eyebrow, "Oh man! This woman is really weird, ze!"

Reimu stepped forward, "Who are you?"

"Introductions: I am Floratte Grivonne. Designated guardian of Matthias's Heart. Matthias's Heart: One of six pieces of Matthias Korvidnite. More information is as follows: Beware! The heart attacks!" she said extravagantly while waving her arms around in dramatic fashion.

Flandre looked just as disturbed. "And people say I'm a nutjob. Tell me, what are you? I can't smell any blood on you. I can't hear your heart beat, and I can't feel your breath. In fact, I'm not sensing any life from you at all. Are you even alive?"

"My answer to the first part is: A magician. I cannot answer the second part. The reason: I am confused by this. A Life? A Breath? A Soul? What are those? I had none to begin with. Thinking about it… Thinking about it… Decision reached: It's not important. A more important question is the previous question: Will you turn back, or do we begin the planned combat procedure? Please give me your response."

Reimu grit her teeth. "Of course we're not going to turn back! We've got to stop that ritual! Geeze… This Elisabetha has got to have some serious mind-control powers to make everyone so willing to complete it. Or do you all just not care that you're all going to die?"

"Thinking about it… Thinking about it… Decision reached: We do not care. I do not care. The reason being: When we die, their souls will come to the afterlife with me and be safe. So it does not matter."

Floratte takes off her robe, hat and sunglasses and lets them fall to the ground. Much to everyone's shock, there's nothing underneath, just two purple gloves floating in midair. The gloves and boots enter a combat stance before even they vanish.

Reimu gasped. "An opponent who's always invisible?! That's new! Marisa, you're a magician. How do we fight someone we can't see?"

Marisa smirked, "There's always a weakness ta these kinda things, ze! Look for the distortion in the air when she moves!"

"Answer accepted! Now beginning combat sequence! Ha ha ha ha ha!"

Floratte started off the battle by quickly turning invisible in order to catch the girls off guard with a flurry of diving kicks towards Reimu, but Marisa countered this by unloading several icy elemental explosions at her in order to track her movement as she disappeared and reappeared in front of or behind them, trying to attack them with punches.

But Reimu just followed up with a series of explosive bullets that flashed the area that locked on to her body heat and blasted her into the nearest wall. After which she vanished, reappeared in front of them.

"Activating first Spell Card."

This Spell Card was Nonexistence "Without a Heart". Floratte held out her hands and waved them around ,conjuring up several large bubbles made of pure force that had no color or shape. She then launched them right at them, making them bounce off each other and the surroundings.

The girls were in a tough spot, but found themselves able to blast the bubbles out of existence with enough persistence. While this was happening though, Floratte was still casting more spells.

"Crush."

Various walls of pure force to closed in on the girls with the bubbles inside. In order to fight their way out, Reimu started blasting the bubbles with everything she had while Marisa used long range piercing spells in order to blast through the force fields and shatter them. The force of which sent Floratte flying backwards again. But she quickly recovered and droned "Destroy."

She then leaped high into the air and started throwing 400 giant shuriken shaped force fields that deflect off the walls. She followed this by saying "Expand," and summoned 800 small shuriken-shaped force fields around her that then spread throughout the whole battlefield. After a few more Spell Cards and Danmaku blasts, Floratte went and used another Spell Card.

"Activating second Spell Card."

Her second Spell Card was Nonexistence "Without a Soul". Floratte created an invisible circular barrier around the two girls, trapping them inside. Floratte then fired a barrage of yellow lasers from her fingertips, which ricochet off the barrier walls.

It took Reimu and Marisa a moment to realize that they had been trapped inside of the invisible prison. Once they saw the lasers bounce around, they knew what they had to do. Reimu started firing her own projectiles to bounce off of and counter Floratte's lasers. Marisa would then zoom through the barrier on her broom while firing at the shield itself in order to break it open.

Eventually it worked, but not before Floratte said, "split up" and created clones of herself that would appear, toss kunai in their direction, and disappear without a trace. The girls nearly had the sides of their faces cut from the daggers, barely dodging them until they could blast Floratte herself with more ice bullets, freezing the floor to make her footsteps visible to them. This made her vulnerable to another heavy attack that sent her into the nearest wall. After which she activated her next spell card.

"Activating third Spell Card."

This time it was Nonexistence "Don't Let Me Die Here". Floratte summons a large number of invisible blades of different shapes and sizes in the air above Reimu and Marisa. Floratte then makes the blades fall down on them all at once with varying speed and angles. The blades also faded in and out of invisibility as they fall, making them harder to dodge.

As soon as they saw a flash of light, it was like a warning sign that enabled them to get out of the way. Reimu and Marisa both swiftly dodged out of the way and had to blast each one out of the sky. But Floratte wouldn't make it that easy for them.

"Rise up. Drop down. Firing."

This caused several invisible spikes to poke out of the floor to try to impale them again, round, flat disks to crush them and cylindrical force fields to slam into them all at once.

But it wasn't enough. The girls were able to use spells of pure light magic to reflect off of the invisible blades and spikes, disks and battering rams to see exactly where each one was located before blasting them out of existence. That's when Floratte had had enough and decided to activate her last spell card while they were distracted.

"Now activating Last Word."

Her Last Word was Nonexistence "I Am Already Dead": Floratte dashed towards Reimu and delivers a powerful punch to her gut with her fist covered by a giant spiked force field gauntlet. The punch was strong enough to stun Reimu and make her cough up blood. Floratte then followed up with a series of punches and kicks before she finished the attack by grabbing the shrine maiden by the neck and slamming her to the ground with a final blow.

Reimu took a lot of damage from that, but Marisa was there to back her up with an explosive blast that changed gravity around Floratte and rendered her cells fully visible to the point where she couldn't hide anymore before slamming her down into the floor.

After the last blast hit, Floratte let out a loud grunt and the three girls heard someone falling down. Floratte faded back into existence, lying down on her butt, this time wearing the yellow dress and gray sleeveless shirt she had on under her robe. She stared up at them blankly.

"Defeated! But how can this be? I should've been undetectable. Just how strong are you two, exactly? I fear I may never know. …Oh well… Ending combat sequence now. The reason: To continue would be hazardous."

Reimu rubbed the side of her face to recover from the bruises, "Yeah, we get that a lot! Now hand over that heart!"

"Your request has been denied. The reason: Matthias's Heart is not here."

"Then where is it?"

Floratte said nothing. She just continued to stare off into space with a blank expression on her face. Flandre walked over to her and waved her hands in front of her face. Floratte blinked slowly, but otherwise gave no response.

"Elisabetha must have cut the connection to her," Flandre explained, "like she did with Dr. Burandoru. There's no way we can get any answers out of her now…" She sighed, "Well… Whatever. Let's just go to the next level."

With that, the three girls all departed for the next level. A few minutes after they left the area of the castle, Floratte got up, dusted herself off, walked back over to her discarded clothes and put them back on. She held out her hand, and summoned a male devil. The devil looked around in shock, and then collapsed to the ground, unconscious.

"A sufficient amount of information has been gathered. Leaving now. The reason: I have seen all I need to see."