Somehow I think I did it in a way that it's too fixed on the actual danmaku games, but I want to post this already, as it's been in my mind for quite some time now... so without further ado... *copy-pastes*
Some time passed since the Shining Needle Castle incident, the next full moon after the incident was approaching. However, the moon looked a bit more red than usual.
A sunny day at the Hakurei Shrine. A certain shrine maiden was drinking tea peacefully, beside her being a... ... cage, to keep her company. Well, an Issun Boushi inside a cage, the same one who caused the previous incident of the social upheaval.
"Aah.. thanks for the tea. Where do you keep cups for my kind anyway...?" Asked the little princess in the cage, out of curiosity.
"It was there with the rest of the stuff. When I first saw that I wondered what the hell it was for... now I know." Reimu responded with a shrug.
It was then that the ordinary magician, Marisa Kirisame, decided to pay a visit to the Hakurei shrine.
"Yo, Reimu!" She called cheerfully, raising a friendly hand. Shinmyoumaru, from her cage, returned the greeting, however it was questionable if Marisa even noticed the response.
"Ah, Marisa. Here to chat?" Said Reimu, taking another sip from her cup of tea.
"Yea, with you and the Issun Boushi. I've got something you'd be interested in, for sure." Marisa said, with a grin on her face, as if she was about to tell a horror story.
"Oh?" Reimu and Shinmyoumaru said together, apparently Reimu being the less interested. Probably because her instincts told her that it was another kind of job for her.
"It seems like some Youkai are disappearing from around the Youkai Mountain without any real explanation. That, and there's a strong Youkai aura coming from the inverted castle lately." Marisa reported what she saw.
" Speaking about the castle, you evacuated the castle from all the Youkai inside it, didn't you, Reimu-san? " Shinmyoumaru looked at Reimu innocently as she said that sentence, Marisa looking at Reimu too at the time.
"And why are you two looking at me like ->I'M<- the culprit?!" Said Reimu with a louder voice than usual.
"Eh? N-Now why would we assume something like that?" Shinmyoumaru responded quickly, a bit startled.
"No one said anything like that." Marisa took the second turn, giggling as she saw the Issun Boushi's response.
"Then it's all good. Tonight I'll look into it. And I better not find out you're behind it somehow." Said Reimu, looking at the poor Issun in the cage. Marisa couldn't help but think 'Should I remind her that tonight is especially dangerous...? ...nah, she's Reimu, no way she'd lose.' .
"How much of a criminal do you think I am?!?! I already told you I'm sorry for blindly believing Seija-san!" Shinmyoumaru shouted, defending her honor it seemed.
"Just imagining this Issun Boushi as a criminal makes me laugh.." Said Marisa, giggling.
"Sure, sure." Said Reimu. 'It's no wonder I think of everyone as a criminals, about 80% of the people I know are still up to no good after all...' She thought.
"Ah, and one more thing... Someone apparently sneaked into my house, and apparently treated himself to all the goods I had... If you can exterminate whoever did that, it'd be great..." Said Marisa.
"I'm not a bulletin board.." Reimu said in response, Shinmyoumaru being the one to giggle that time.
Night came. The sun set in the horizon, the insanity-inducing full moon rising in its stead up in the sky.
There were almost no clouds that night, which made that night all the more dangerous-looking.
And in that night sky, the Hakurei shrine maiden flew through, reaching for the inverted castle in the sky.
Surprisingly, there were way less wild Youkai outside the castle than what was considered usual for a full moon, that confirmed for Reimu that what Marisa told her wasn't just lies.
(( Stage theme: sm22236647 ))
When Reimu stepped into the castle though, it was a whole different story. Youkai of all types and shapes crawled in every corner Reimu dared to look.
Another thing which was strange even for the professional Youkai exterminator, was that when the wild, lesser Youkai saw the shrine maiden, some of the stronger ones dared to attack her with danmaku, while the weaker ones ALL outright fled to the same direction, which happened to be the direction she was facing - the main keep.
"This confirms it - someone is got to be behind this. And that someone, too, is entirely up to no good..." Reimu sighed.
After some extermination along the way to the culprit, the shrine maiden found a certain Youkai she remembered fighting in the past... it was the Youkai Tanuki, Futatsuiwa Mamizou, and she was standing in the shrine maiden's way.
"Hey, you are-" Reimu said, recognizing her 'old friend'.
"Well well, if it isn't the Hakurei shrine maiden. I just turned my eyes away for a second, and Youkai attempt a revolution so recklessly... and Tsukumogami at that." Said Mamizou, admitting that the Youkai revolution was done a bit recklessly.
狸家臣
Tanuki Retainer
Mamizou Futatsuiwa
二ッ岩 マミゾウ
"If Soudaishou-sama was here when it first began, the Youkai would win for sure." Mamizou continued, leaving Reimu wondering who is the Soudaishou the Tanuki was talking about.
"However, it's all over for you now!" However, Reimu had no spare time to wonder about that, as she was forced to focus on the enemy in front of her, who already activated a spell card, one out of the three she was about to face.
「 Youkai Art [ Uncharted Land Youkai Transformation ] 」
It was another one of the monster Tanuki's transformations; This time, Mamizou somehow got information about the Mermaid Reimu fought early in the incident, and then used it for the transformation - which was about only the tail and the legs really 'transforming'.
That spell card's danmaku was quite similar to Wakasagihime's non-spell attacks, but with much added force - the small amount of interfering danmaku was replaced with whole rings of large bullets, and the streams of wedge bullets didn't leave any openings, forcing Reimu to get around Mamizou, and sometimes even changed directions.
Despite the Tanuki's increased force due to the full moon, Reimu's homing amulets and focused attacks were making the hard work a lot easier for her, Mamizou's transformation spell card breaking.
「 Double Dealing [ Apparition's Charm ] 」
The Tanuki's second spell card was her apparently splitting into two - one Mamizou was her Tanuki form, and the other Mamizou being her Human disguise.
With the same evil grin on both faces, both forms began firing rings of glowing danmaku of red and blue colors.
Reimu figured, that while she tried to fire at both forms at once, it only did little damage.
'So there is a fake among them... If the human one was real, she'd have to do extra work transforming into that illusion of hers, and then sending out something she'd have to transform into herself... That means...!' Reimu thought , turning to the Tanuki.
However, the moment she turned to fire at the Tanuki target, they appeared to have switched places. "You're slow, Reimu." Mamizou taunted.
"I'll just switch my target to you!" Reimu responded, falling right into Mamizou's trap. The two forms didn't switch places, but rather, just turned into each other in form.
In that moment, Mamizou increased the power of her spell card, but Reimu wasn't as slow as the Tanuki said, and got back to dodge the increased number of bullets, and finish off the spell card.
「 Transformation [ Youkai World Gate of One Hundred Demons ] 」
"Why, don't tell me your intuition is failing on you, Hakurei Reimu? We're not done yet!" Said Mamizou, pulling out her last card.
The card the Tanuki pulled was surprisingly... not surprising in the slightest.
It was a card she had already used in the events of the human village, the last card in particular, but it had some changes made to it.
It was much more difficult for Reimu to dodge the horde of Youkai coming from the gate Mamizou opened in front of her.
In addition, Mamizou didn't just sit around and throw some danmaku only when Reimu got too close - She threw into the mix some bullet patterns - simple, but effective when Reimu had to deal with something else in addition to those patterns.
Mamizou didn't expect Reimu to give up without a fight, but even with her horde of Youkai, she was ultimately defeated. The Bakedanuki didn't expect Reimu to win against her, and in a full moon night.
"*cough* *cough* You'll be in for a major surprise when you reach who is behind this. If I was the Youkai trump card, she is the Youkai Supreme Commander. For your own good, I'd advise you to turn back." Said Mamizou, her words falling on deaf ears.
"What Hakurei shrine maiden would give up to a Youkai without a fight? Anyway, I don't want to hear more of your misdoings, at least in a while." Said Reimu, leaving Mamizou.
"There's a fine chance that won't hear more of my 'misdoings', even if I indeed go and do them... That shrine maiden..." Mamizou sighed, as those were all the words left for her to say, even to herself. That, and it'd be laughable for a Youkai Tanuki to worry about a shrine maiden.
After the point Mamizou was guarding, the Youkai which did come after her to attack her were stronger than before; Some were even quite close to gaining their own unique human-like form and behavior, mumbling something like 'Soudaishou-sama' .
Reimu was getting quite interested in that 'Supreme Commander' / 'Soudaishou' . She knew she was getting close to the main keep, where the Youkai aura was pouring from, as she was seeing the strange mist even Mamizou was emitting sometimes when she was in her Youkai form.
And finally, when the corridor was starting to seem a bit too long, probably because of the anticipation towards the battle, the shrine maiden finally reached the main keep of the inverted castle, which was reeking of Youkai energies.
"Oh, we've got a guest?" After some moments of looking through the room, a sudden voice was heard, making Reimu turn towards its source almost immediately.
It was a aqua-color haired girl with red eyes, dressed with a dark-blue kimono on which was a picture of the night sky, the full moon being on the back area. She also had some sort of long blade with her.
What caught Reimu's eyes immediately was not the kimono, but her normally-impossible hairstyle. She had shoulder-length hair, but it didn't fall straight down to her neck, even though they both were technically flying right-side up, but instead was about 45 degrees backwards from her head, arching downwards only about at its ends.
"And a Human Shrine Maiden at that, how delightful. Hold on, I'll prepare some tea-" The strange girl said, only to be cut at the end by an angry shrine maiden.
"There's no need for that!" Reimu shouted, being visibly annoyed by the impudent Youkai. Last time that happened, when the ghost princess offered Reimu to prepare some tea when she was solving an incident, the response was about the same.
" Even though the Shining Needle Castle has been evacuated of those troublemakers, there's still an evil presence in this place. I've come to eliminate it from the source... that means it's got to be you!" Reimu got straight to the point, making the girl in front of her quite confused about how Reimu came to such a conclusion.
"How rude... I was just staying in this castle peacefully as my home together with my retainers." Said the confused Youkai girl in front of the shrine maiden, in an attempt to make Reimu explain that messed up mindset which led to that conclusion that she was behind the 'evil presence'. Still, the Youkai girl was not even close to frowning, instead she looked more like she was having a discussion.
"Don't try to fool me, the Tanuki already told me what you're up to. It's plain obvious too." Said Reimu, countering the Youkai's words. 'Retainers...? Does she mean those Youkai just now, with that Tanuki?' Reimu thought to herself.
"Well, it doesn't seem like I'm getting off easy with this conversation." Said the Youkai with a sigh, and a tiny smile.
"It's not that I didn't foresee that I'd have to fight you at one point or another... but..." The Youkai girl started a sentence, her eyes being still shut. "I didn't think that you would be foolish enough to come to my castle on the night of the full moon either." The Youkai girl suddenly opened her red eyes, which had a kind of an unsettling glow, as if she was preparing for battle.
"I'll be fine, thank you. I'm a professional youkai exterminator, after all." Said Reimu, readying her amulets.
The Youkai laughed.
"Thanks to your efforts of evacuating the castle on the previous full moon, I've had a whole month to gather this legion."
"My name is Nura no Kageteru, leader of the Youkai of this rebellion. To defeat me, you'd need way more than one or two arrows. You'd need TEN! Now, shrine maiden of Hakurei! Behold my ultimate night parade and die!" The Youkai girl, then identifying herself as Nura no Kageteru, readied herself into battle too, taking some space backwards, a spell circle forming around her.
Youkai Great Commander
妖怪総大将
奴良 影輝
Nura no Kageteru
(( Boss theme: sm13940463 ))
For her opening attack, Kageteru fired rings of bullets, in a way exactly the opposite of what Seija did for her attacks - Her bullets were created black and had a decent speed until some point between her and Reimu, turning white and slower, and after some more distance, turned black again and accelerated away.
Of course, that kind of attack could only surprise Reimu to an extent, since she already saw something similar to that, a month earlier.
Reimu dodged the bullets in their safer zone, which was in the middle, before they accelerate, and attacked Kageteru from there.
「 First Blade [ Darkness of the Night Sparrow ] 」
As Kageteru activated her first spell card, Reimu was startled just by hearing its name. One could say that it was the power of fear induced by Youkai if it was any other human, but it was the Hakurei shrine maiden, so the effect was minimized.
Another spell circle formed around Kageteru, as the spell card activated. That spell card apparently had the same abilities as a Night Sparrow's, as it induced the same night blindness as the one Reimu faced on her way to the moon princess.
Kageteru then fired diagonal walls black wedge bullets at Reimu, who could only see little due to the power of the Night Sparrow, adding some aimed walls every now and then.
Even though the walls had some small gaps in between their bullets, it was quite hard to dodge them all.
What Reimu did was firing her amulets in the direction she heard Kageteru firing the bullets from.
It proved to be useful, as after a few tight dodges, the spell card ended, the night blindness inflicted upon Reimu disappearing from the danmaku duel immediately.
The Youkai commander's second attack was just like her opening attack, but with a twist that the bullets she fired alternated between curving a bit to the left or right each wave.
Once again, Reimu was not surprised at all, learning from the first wave about the pattern, Kageteru moving to her next spellcard.
「 Second Blade [ Torrent of the Kappa ] 」
For her next spell card, Kappa was declared.
The Youkai raised her pointer finger upwards, a massive amount of aqua-colored bullets formed behind her, the bullets launching up high as soon as they're formed, then falling like a waterfall in Reimu's general direction.
There weren't any add-on bullets for the spell card, the difficulty of the spellcard was rather direct and to the point - a waterfall of bullets which must be avoided completely.
Some time passed since the Moriya shrine's incident, so she didn't remember at the time if there were some spell cards like that in Nitori's arsenal, but it sure looked like something Nitori would use.
However, a Kappa is a Kappa, and with a bit squeezing and lots of amulets and bullets, that spell too, ended up broken, the waterfall disappearing too.
Kageteru's third normal attack involved big bubble bullets which turned into small bullets in that area in between Reimu and herself, in a fashion similar to Seija's attacks.
At that point Reimu began to suspect the connection between Kageteru and Seija. However, it was in the middle of a danmaku battle she couldn't afford to lose, so she let the thought slip for that time.
Some more damage, and Kageteru was down to her third spell card.
「 Third Blade [ Deception of the Amanojaku ] 」
That spell card, was almost exactly like Seija's spell 'Reverse Heirarchy', but there were a few differences.
For one, there were two alternating sources for the streams of bullets, located left and right of Kageteru, and not only on Seija, as it was.
From time to time, the battlefield was flipped, just as Seija did in her spell card, but Kageteru did that more strategically than Seija, doing that only when she alternated between the two sources, that in an attempt to disorient Reimu.
"I'd congratulate you on getting this far... However, the time for your celebration isn't even near! Here's where it gets serious!" Said Kageteru, drawing her sword.
Kageteru then slashed the air in Reimu's direction, creating wide shockwaves of danmaku. In addition to that, the Soudaishou created ripples of dark purple danmaku as her attack.
'What is that sword...? It almost looks like it's emitting Youkai energy of its own...!' Reimu thought as she dodged the shockwaves, forcing Kageteru into her fourth spell card.
「 Death Blade [ Mallet of the Demon King ] 」
At that point, Reimu figured out that another magical item was involved in this incident. That item was the Mallet of the Demon King.
Despite being a sword, and not a mallet, it had the ability of gaining the powers of Youkai it had slain, absorbing their 'souls', thus the second part of the name. It had slain so many Youkai, that it almost had every Youkai's ability stored in it.
It was a rather dangerous artifact for anyone to have, However only someone really knowledgable about Youkai, like the Nurarihyon, or the Boundary Youkai, could use it to its full extent. Reimu shuddered just by thinking about what that mastermind Yukari would use it for, if she ever got it into her hands.
For her spell card, Kageteru threw her sword a bit in front of her, letting the... mallet, float with its blade pointed downwards.
As its power revealed for the spell card, it looked way more demonic than just a piece of sharp metal, as if the Youkai powers trapped inside it were struggling to break free, but ultimately failing.
The sword then shot rings of purple flame bullets, from time to time making it seem like the castle is shaking, making the rings collapse their order.
It somehow seemed like one of the taiko drum's spells, until one point, in which Kageteru added an aimed laser coming from the Demon King Mallet quite frequently.
The Soudaishou's next attack involved an entirely new concept - If it was to be compared to something, it'd be Reisen's final spell - Invisible Full Moon, as Kageteru shot dense rings of dark bullets from the tip of her held blade, bullets which faded out and in, making themselves invisible for short intervals of time, some fading out more than once before reaching Reimu.
At that point, Reimu finally figured out with what kind of Youkai she was battling... It was a Nurarihyon. It was said to be the leader of Youkai, and it was the type of Youkai would sneak into someone's house without being noticed, acting like it was the owner of the house.
After some more attacks from both sides, Kageteru was down to her fifth spell.
「 Fifth Blade [ Sleepless Night of the Dream Devourer ] 」
Another Youkai was referrenced, that time, it was the Dream Devourer, or in its other name, Baku.
Reimu was surprised that a Youkai like Kageteru would use a Dream Eater's powers, since the Dream Eater was considered more of a holy beast, rather than a monster.
For the spell card, small 4-point-star shaped bullets appeared all around the area, making it a bit difficult to move.
What surprised Reimu even more, is that the spell card had again turned out to be quite similar to something she had already faced in the past.
That time, the 4-pointed-stars started to move around Kageteru to the right and left at once, something like one of Toyosatomimi no Miko's spells. It would be kinda funny that the holy beast copied from the saint... if only the attack wasn't pointed at Reimu in a deathmatch with a Nurarihyon, and it was more powerful than what Miko threw at her.
The first hit on Reimu came at this spell card. It was right by the end of the spell card though, so it wasn't that serious of a hit.
Kageteru's next non-spell attack was mainly medium-speed dark red bullets, which seemed to be random in their direction.
Together with those bullets, Kageteru mixed groups of five parallel 'shooting-star' type of lasers formed with each slash of the artifact in the Youkai's hand.
Reimu took notice of an interesting fact during that attack. It seemed like the Nurarihyon's movement was just getting faster and faster with each attack.
With that in the shrine maiden's mind, Kageteru declared her sixth spell card.
「 Sixth Blade [ Leeching of the Night Lords ] 」
Danmaku-wise, the attack was again similar to something Reimu had already seen before, but in that spell card's case, the referrence and the actual danmaku it ressembled were different people.
The spell card's name was referrencing Vampires, and while the danmaku was blood-red, it ressembled one of the werewolf's spell cards more than any of the vampires' patterns.
Kageteru moved about, each time she moved , she left behind an explosion of red danmaku, with some knife danmaku aimed at Reimu's general direction.
In a sense, it was like one of Reimu's own spell cards, namely 'Fantasy Seal -Blink-' , but way faster.
The non-spell after that, looked like one of Mamizou's attacks in concept, one of her first non-spells to be percise.
However, There was a twist for each of Kageteru's attacks. The twist this time, was that she mixed in the streams some bullets which faded out straight after they were shot, to make it look like there was a gap between the streams.
Also, the streams didn't leave any wide time-gap between them, like in Mamizou's attacks. What almost caught Reimu off-guard in this attack was the faded-out bullets, however they didn't hit despite the close call.
「 Seventh Blade [ Trickery of the Tanuki ] 」
'Somehow I knew that would come sooner or later...' Reimu thought to herself. As soon as the attack before this spell card started, she somehow knew this was going to come.
Kageteru flew around Reimu with her... mallet, in her hand, the tip of which creating danmaku, which turned out into birds, frogs and dogs, each type behaving differently.
Human-shaped danmaku started falling from above at about the half-point of the spell card, making Reimu's job even harder towards the end of the spell card.
For this spell card, Reimu was forced to use a spell card of her own - " Spirit Sign [Fantasy Seal] " .
However, none of its power was able to deal any damage to Kageteru's spell card, that being due to a shield the Youkai somehow created.
Her last non-spell card attack was surprisingly simple - fast, aimed rings of blue bubble bullets, similar to one of Remilia's final non-spell attack patterns.
The changes were, that obviously instead just aiming at Reimu's place, Kageteru shot whole rings of those bullets.
That, and Kageteru moved around quite fast, so it was hard for Reimu to hit her. There was a short wait between each wave of those rings, but it was so short that catching the opportunity was hard in itself.
「 Eighth Blade [ Horror of the Unknown ] 」
At that point, the Youkai aura began to overflow from Kageteru. Reimu took caution because of this, as it was a sign that her opponent was not holding back anymore, even if she held something back earlier.
The smoke/mist which Kageteru released obstructed Reimu's view, while the Youkai continued with raising her sword, preparing for her assault.
The spell card involved firing fast rings of almost every dark bullet possible. Halfway through the spell, dark lasers were fired from behind Kageteru, each laser firing purple amulets.
This spell too, forced Reimu to use a spell of her own, namely the 'Evil Sealing Circle' . Once again, however, Kageteru blocked Reimu's spell card completely with her anti-spell shield.
Kageteru was down to her last two spell cards.
「 Night Parade of 100 Demons 」
After the Youkai supreme commander declared her spell card, she became half-transparent, all of Reimu's attacks going straight through her. Her Youkai presence was still there, although she was apparently very good at hiding it.
The first phase of the spell card involved Kageteru shooting black note-shaped bullets from four different spots.
There weren't nearly as many bullets as the supreme commander had already used, even at the phase's maximum difficulty before going on to the next phase, but the spell card wasn't nearly over.
The second phase of the spell card involved 7 spirit-like familiars, placed in an arrow formation in front of Kageteru herself.
Kageteru's pattern didn't change from the first phase's one, although the 7 familiars made it a lot tougher, as each one of them added some more note danmaku to the spell card, shooting 2 at a time except for the middle one.
At that point the spell card started to sound like marching beats, Kageteru making 60 beats per minute, and the 7 familiars' total beat was twice as much.
The third, and final phase of the survival spell card involved adding another 12 of those familiars, making another arrow formation in front of the first one.
In the final phase, Kageteru herself lowered her beat to half to maintain all the familiars, although instead of creating not bullets from the same 4 spots, she fired rest-shaped bullets directly.
It was a tight squeeze for Reimu, however, she made it out with just one hit at the final phase.
As the spell wore off, Kageteru became fully visible again.
Raising her Demon King's Mallet, the Youkai Supreme Commander, Nura no Kageteru, declared her final spell card.
「 Youkai Legend of the Nura Clan 」
The battle reached its peak.
Kageteru sent out 8 of her familiars in a circle around her, each one firing a dark red laser outwards, effectively trapping Reimu in a small space.
Using her full ability as a Nurarihyon, Kageteru disappeared to thin air in one place, and appeared again somewhere else, firing tight streams of amulets each time she became visible.
At about a fourth of the way through the spell card, the familiars returned to circle around their owner, Kageteru adding 2 more of the same familiars, all 10 of them re-arranging themselves to restrict Reimu even more. In addition, the time between the fading away and fading back shortened, so that more pressure can be put on the shrine maiden.
Somehow, some of the homing amulets were hitting Kageteru, but they were doing very little damage. It was only a small number of the homing amulets which was actually hitting Kageteru, the rest missing completely.
Halfway through, Kageteru added another 2 familiars, the number of familiars rising to 12.
Another change which happened between the phases, was that Kageteru changed her own attack pattern, adding some bullets which were aimed around Reimu, in addition to the aimed ones before fading away from the spot she was on.
Finally, at the last phase of the final spell card, the number of familiars rose to 16; At that point the space Reimu had to move through the spell card was very tight.
The final change in the pattern was that Kageteru faded away for the rest of the spell card, the only clue as to where the Nurarihyon was where the bullets were coming from.
At the very end, when one group of Kageteru's bullets was about to hit the shrine maiden, one amulet made all the difference, the bullets disappearing just before hitting Reimu, the explosion of the last spellcard being broken occuring without failure.
"Well, that's surprising. You've got to be quite the Youkai exterminator for me to lose under the full moon..." Said the Youkai commander, who had gotten herself a few bruises on her clothes from the battle.
"You're not the first I've defeated on a full moon either. Also, I've already said I'm a professional, didn't I?" Reimu said, getting a little cocky there. 'That's the closest to a proper 100-demon night parade I've ever seen though. That would've been dangerous if it actually happened...' The shrine maiden thought to herself.
"It's my loss for tonight... Since you refuse for some reason to stay here for tea, I'll just find a nice day to come to your shrine instead." Said Kageteru.
"There's no need for that either! Knowing you as a Youkai, you'd just act like you own my shrine anyway." Reimu frowned, knowing all too well that she was talking with a Nurarihyon, Kageteru weakly laughing with a sweatdrop in response to that.
"Ah, and there's someone who wanted you exterminated for entering their house in the Forest of Magic; You know what I'm talking about, don't you?" Reimu asked, having a weird feeling that Kageteru was behind that trifle too.
" Unfortunately yes..." 'ouch...' And the shrine maiden was right with her intuition once again.
