^ Might have to make a short interlude describing this event. For now though, hopefully chapter 4 will suffice!
Chapter 4 ? The Evening Star
Despite the fact that the sun was shining brilliantly, the air was uncharacteristically cold. Reimu, Marisa, and Youmu had long since left the Hakurei Shrine in search of any clues to the whereabouts of the missing ghost, and were even now soaring through the sky across Gensokyo.
The three girls had split up shortly after leaving the Shrine. By their logic, being half-ghost meant Youmu would be fairly adept at detecting and finding other ghosts. Reimu?s intuition rarely failed her, and so if she were able to pick up any hunches as to where the missing spirits of the dead would be, then it should be simple work for her to track them down. Marisa had a penchant for the random, so her simply searching around at random would likely give her better results than attempting to reason out where the spirits were. Therefore, with all three of them having widely different methods of searching, by splitting up they improved their chances of being successful threefold. Or so they were told.
After about half a day of searching with no luck, Marisa and Youmu happened to cross paths. Without a word passing between them, it was clear to both of them that neither of the two had found a single hint as to where the missing spirits may be. Even so, Marisa began flying alongside Youmu, abandoning her previous course of flight. Youmu raised an eyebrow at her sudden change in direction, to which Marisa replied with a grin.
?I decided to follow Reimu?s lead, and see where my hunches lead me,? Marisa had to shout so that her voice would carry over the sound of the rushing wind caused by their flight.
?And what hunch would that be?? Youmu responded in an equally loud voice, wearing an unhappy expression.
?That you have the best odds of success? Marisa replied half-jokingly, to which Youmu shook her head and continued on her way. Even though Marisa knew Youmu didn?t take to her less than serious disposition in the past, she couldn?t help but feel that she was acting a little less friendly today than usual.
I guess it can?t be helped, she thought idly to herself. After all, the girl had been through a lot. She had been completely knocked out by a stranger without even the chance to fight back, her mistress was missing, and in all likelihood she thought it was all her fault. Marisa thought this was silly, of course. After all, even if Youmu had failed at her job of protecting her mistress, it was the fault of the attacker for attacking in the end, wasn?t it? However, despite feeling this way, Marisa still sympathized with Youmu?s situation. A little bit at least.
As Marisa continued to idly think to herself, Youmu began to slow down, and fairly rapidly came to a complete stop. Marisa came up to a stop beside her as Youmu was staring fixedly off in the distance, eyes wide.
?Found something?? Marisa asked, trying to see if she could discover what had made Youmu stop so suddenly.
Youmu pointed a finger in the direction she was looking. ?There?I can feel?from?there?? Her speech was barely more than a mutter, almost incomprehensible. Marisa focused her attention on the spot where Youmu was pointing, and was instantly assailed by a surge of?something.
Taken aback, Marisa completely lost focus and almost fell from her broom. As soon as she had looked away, the strange feeling had stopped, leaving her confused as to what had even happened. After confirming the feeling was gone, she tried focusing on the point on the horizon once again, and was once again filled with the same sense as before. This time, however, she was ready for it, and was able to withstand it long enough to feel what it was.
Though she couldn?t tell what was causing the sensation, or why it was only there when she focused on a very specific point in the distance, she could very much tell what the sensation was. A feeling of intense dread, fear for her life. The feeling that she needed to turn back, the feeling that she needed to go home, the feeling that if she continued this search, she wouldn?t live to see the sun set.
It was the same feeling of foreboding that was characteristic of the Netherworld, the sense of wrongness, that one didn?t belong. The same, except this was sharpened, very clear and direct, where the feeling in the Netherworld was more subtle, more of an atmosphere than a traceable sensation.
Marisa?s face broke into a broad smile. This is it, this was exactly what she had been looking for. She turned to Youmu to ask what she thought, but seeing the dumbstruck look on the girl?s face, she decided instead to take off in the direction that feeling was coming from. It took only a moment before she could see Youmu following her at top speed, the dumbstruck look on her face replaced by one of grim resolve.
Marisa, on the other hand, was practically laughing. She had had no luck searching before, and though some might blame her for being lazy and just following Youmu around, she decided if her goal was to find the missing spirits, this was the method with the highest success chance. And it had worked.
She didn?t know what was causing this feeling, who put it there, or why. She did know, however, that someone very clearly didn?t want others to approach. For Marisa, that was practically an invitation.
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After about half an hour of flight, Marisa and Youmu could see Reimu standing beside someone else in the distance. For some reason, Reimu had stopped short of the objective. Marisa could feel that whatever was causing the sensation from earlier was immediately in front of them, maybe a few hundred meters in the direction she was flying, but despite the landscape being clearly visible, she could see nothing but an open, grassy plain.
As Marisa was trying to decide between meeting up with Reimu and pressing forward on her own, she noticed Reimu waving her down.
As Marisa landed beside Reimu, she recognized the person she was standing beside as one of Yukari?s Shikigami. Without even a greeting, Reimu began speaking to Marisa.
?What do you see?? Reimu pointed ahead, into the open field in front of them.
?I don?t understand?it?s coming from here, so why is there nothing there?? Youmu, who had apparently landed behind Marisa, muttered quietly. She couldn?t tell if she was talking to herself, or attempting to provide an answer to Reimu?s question, but regardless of which it was, Marisa looked into the empty field before her.
There was nothing there. Just grass, as far as the eye could see. However, that bizarre feeling she had felt earlier was still coming from what seemed to be that empty plain. Something with that much impact couldn?t be invisible, so whatever it was, it had to be hidden somehow.
Marisa cocked her head to the side slightly. There was nothing in the field to hide behind or under, so either it was hidden underground, or was concealed by magic somehow. While she could easily enough find something that was buried underground, she could check for magical concealment from where she was standing, so she decided to try that first.
Being a frequent trespasser in a place where the supernatural was commonplace, Marisa was fairly adept at spotting things that weren?t meant to be spotted. Whether that was concealed goods or hidden traps, you had to have an eye for these things if you wanted to make it through in one piece considering the places she was going. As such, it only took her a few seconds to find what she was looking for.
?Magically concealing things has a few quirks that are fairly easy to predict,? Marisa started on a seemingly random tangent to those around her. ?There are generally two ways you can conceal something. One, which is the most common, is to do it in such a way that if you aren?t specifically looking for something, your eyes will glide right over it. If you don?t focus directly on the object that?s been concealed, you?ll never find it. However, if you do focus directly on it, it?s fairly easy to tell that there is something wrong, and the illusion won?t hold.?
?The other method is much less common. Instead of protecting from glancing looks, it works only if you focus directly on it. If you stare straight at it, you will be shown a crystal clear image of whatever the creator wants you to see, generally a scenery where the object you are looking for is absent. However, if you relax your eyes, focus on nothing, and just gaze at the scenery itself??
Marisa paused as she heard a gasp from behind her. Reimu looked out at the open field with a curious look, as if someone had just shown her a new solution to a puzzle she already knew the answer for. Ran, who Marisa hadn?t even known was paying attention, simply nodded at Marisa?s words, patiently listening to Marisa?s lecture on things she clearly already knew.
Despite the fact everyone had already noticed, Marisa decided to continue anyways. ?If you lose your focus, you begin to catch distortions, ripples in the air, bizarre bending of the light. Obvious clues that there is something there, despite not knowing what it is. However, once you?ve found where the distortion is, it?s child?s play taking it apart.?
Sure enough, as Marisa, Youmu, and Reimu all applied this method to search the field in front of them, they could easily see waves of distortion floating in the air in front of them. It wasn?t, however, the small concealed section that Marisa had expected. Instead, it was like a giant dome, hundreds of feet in diameter, concealing the entirety of the plain in front of them.
?A rather clever trick,? Ran spoke up in the silence that followed. ?They applied an illusion that would only work if the observer focused intently on it, and then created a great enough mental disturbance that others would inevitably either turn back and leave or search fervently for the source, guaranteeing they fell for the trick.?
?If it?s this big, whatever they are trying to hide must be huge?? Marisa spoke mostly to herself, though she received nods of agreement from the three others standing around her.
Ran, whose hands had been tucked into her sleeves, lifted her right hand in front of her holding a talisman with the imprint of a purple butterfly on one side, and a black butterfly on the other.
?That looks like something Yukari would use. Are you using her magic for this?? Marisa didn?t know why the question seemed relevant, but decided it was better to get the question off her chest than to let it bug her later.
?My abilities are sufficient to take down an illusion like this,? Ran responded, ?But my Mistress insisted, and it is not my place to question her.?
?Then let me. Why are you here and not her? Didn?t she have a very personal interest in this search??
Ran gave Marisa a patient look, as if she was tolerating the questions of a small child. ?My Mistress ordered me to come here and assist Miss Hakurei and her friends with the task at hand. Seeing that the search led to the point furthest from the edges of the Hakurei Border, she is investigating whether the Border itself has been tampered with.?
Marisa let out a thoughtful hum. She hadn?t thought about it earlier, but now that she mapped out the location in her head, she noticed it was just like Ran had said. The field in front of them marked the exact middle of Gensokyo, the place furthest from every edge of the Great Hakurei Border. Naturally, expecting that to be a coincidence was foolish, so it wasn?t surprising the Yukari had gone to make sure that the Border itself wasn?t being messed with.
Seeing Marisa understood, Ran turned back to the illusionary dome in front of her. ?Now that everyone is here, I am going to bring down the illusion. Whoever made it will likely not appreciate that, and if the story I heard of what happened in Hakugyokurou is any indication, things may turn violent quickly. Please prepare yourselves.?
As Ran prepared the spell Yukari had made for her, the three girls tensed up. Reimu floated a few feet into the air and drew a handful of talismans from her sleeves. Marisa sat back onto her broom, floating a couple feet off the ground, and put a hand on the mini-hakkero in her pocket. Youmu sank into a ready stance and drew the longer of her two swords.
Without so much as moving a finger, the talisman in Ran?s right hand flew forward and embedded itself into the illusionary dome in front of them. The talisman turned downwards, so that it was lying flat on the surface of the dome, and once it had settled, the butterfly imprint began to glow with a faint violet light. After a few seconds, the dome began to ?crack.? Though there wasn?t actually anything there in the first place, it looked as if the air itself was cracking open, and seeping through those cracks was a deep, violet light the same shade that Yukari?s talisman was giving off.
The cracks spread slowly outward from the talisman at first, but as they covered more area they began to spread out far more rapidly. Over the course of about three minutes, the entire dome had been completely riddled with these cracks bleeding violet light, giving the impression that the light itself was forming a wiry cage around the field.
Once the cracks had stopped spreading, the talisman flipped over, showing a black butterfly. As soon as it did so, the violet light seeping through the cracks in the dome instantly changed colour to white, and with the sound of glass shattering, the dome exploded outwards.
Pieces of broken, fragmented magic scattered, glimmering brightly as they dissolved into the air. It was quite the spectacle, with the entire field being filled with these glittering fragments of broken magic. It was almost as if the entire field was being filled with shining snow. However, as the fragments of light cleared, all four observers stood in shocked amazement at what the illusionary dome had been hiding.
In the exact middle of the field stood an immense, jet black tower. It looked to be made out of some sort of black glass, and somehow didn?t look quite real. The tower was roughly square shaped, approximately ten feet across at the base, with no indications it was narrowing as it got higher. The tower itself looked to be still under construction, the top of the 15 foot tall structure being covered with jagged, broken edges.
Circling in the air around and above the unfinished tower were countless wispy motes, easily identified by all four of the observers as spirits of the dead. The sheer number of them was mind boggling. Every single one of them, numbering in the high thousands, whirled around the tower chaotically, with no apparent pattern. As the spirits drew closer to the top of the tower, they could be seen being absorbed into the strange black glass. As they did, the tower grew ever upwards.
Floating perhaps 50 feet in the air above the top of the tower was Yuyuko. From this distance, she could only be recognized by her clothes, and they could only tell that she was floating there motionless. Standing in front of the tower, looking in their direction, was someone they didn?t recognize. She wore a black cloak that was wrapped around her, concealing the entirety of her body, and had her hood drawn back giving a clear view of her head. Her hair was the same colour as the tower behind her, a glassy black that didn?t really look possible.
?Let?s go.? Reimu began to float forwards at a tense, careful pace, and after a few moments the others began to follow her in. There was no need to warn each other to be careful. The situation around them provided warning enough. All four of them approached the cloaked figure cautiously, on edge more than ever before.
It was a confusing feeling. Reimu?s job required dealing with immensely powerful Youkai on a daily basis, and Marisa often either tagged along or attempted to race her to the goal. She had gone to the Netherworld itself in search of Spring, confronted aliens with the power to steal the moon, argued with the Judge of the Dead, fought with a foreign god, and beaten down a hell raven with the power to scorch the surface world bare. And yet, not a single one of these experiences had brought out the same sense of apprehension as this one.
Despite the tension the four felt, the stranger before them stood silently, watching them approach. Landing on the ground in front of her, they each inspected the stranger, attempting to figure out anything they could. Her strangely coloured hair rested on her shoulders, not quite reaching her chest. Her skin was slightly pale, though not unnaturally so, and her eyes were a deep violet.
As Reimu?s group stood uneasily, the stranger threw the cloak she was wearing wide, and with a flourish, bowed lightly to them. ?Welcome, to my Kokugyokurou.?
Reimu stood, still on guard, facing down the stranger. Youmu raised an eyebrow at the all too familiar sounding name, Ran stood completely expressionless, hands once again tucked into her sleeves, and Marisa looked cautiously at Reimu, wondering what she would do next.
?Who are you?? Reimu?s first question was fairly predictable, and as she asked it the stranger stood from her bow. Now that she had thrown her cloak back, they could all see she was wearing a plain, unadorned, yet somehow still ornate looking one-piece dress. It came down to just above her ankles, and its sleeves ended in fingerless gloves. Around her neck she wore a valuable looking necklace, adorned with a variety of precious gems.
With a pleasant smile, the stranger replied, gesturing behind her. ?That?s a fairly complicated question, and as you can see, I?m a little busy to be spending the time answering it.?
?Don?t even have the time to tell us your name, huh?? Marisa couldn?t help but speak out, despite the tension that all of them felt.
?Name? Hm, yes, I suppose it is common for people like you to bear names. Such a weak mind that requires a name in order to identify a person, but I suppose for your sakes I could adopt one. I will let you know when I have picked one out, so until then I apologize if you have difficulty remembering who I am.?
Marisa felt like the stranger was trying to insult her, but what she was saying was too weird to even be considered an insult. Before she could mention anything further on the subject, however, Reimu spoke up again.
?So, this is all your doing then? The breaking of the boundary between here and the Netherworld, and the kidnapping of the souls of the dead??
?Ah, yes. I apologize if I?ve inconvenienced you, but sometimes you just have to do what has to be done.?
?Stop it.?
?No.?
Reimu and the stranger stared at each other. Reimu?s face bore an unpleasant, borderline angry expression, while the stranger continued to smile in a manner that was starting to look less pleasant and more condescending.
Reimu tried once again. ?Stop it now, or else we will stop you by force.?
?No means no. This work is necessary, whether you?d like to believe so or not.?
?Alright then, force it is. You guys, back away. You, three spell cards. If I win, you give this up. If you win, you can continue as you are.?
As the other three began to back away, they stopped upon hearing the stranger?s voice again. ?Spell card? What on earth is a spell card??
As Reimu let out a sigh, the tension in the atmosphere loosened slightly. If this person didn?t know what Spell Cards were, they were clearly from somewhere outside of the Hakurei Border, and with almost no experience in dodging danmaku, Marisa was instantly convinced that the stranger wouldn?t have even the slightest chance of beating Reimu. As far as she was concerned, this incident was as good as solved.
?In Gensokyo, we use a Spell Card system to resolve disputes. It allows for nonlethal, safe combat in order to settle a dispute. Each participant designs patterns of bullets to fire at their opponent, which they must dodge. If they get hit by a single bullet, they lose the exchange. The match continues until there is a clear victor. It?s a bit of an abbreviated explanation, but it should be good enough for now. So, get ready.?
Tilting her head to the side slightly and placing a forefinger on her chin, the stranger asked another question. ?And why, pray tell, would one subject themselves to such a game in which the weak might triumph??
Reimu?s eyebrow twitched at the question. ?That?s the whole point of the system. It?s so that disputes can be resolved by a test of skill, rather than a test of raw power. It?s also for the protection of the participants, so that they can fight with anyone without fear of their opponent killing them for it.?
The stranger clasped her hands in front of her. ?Ah, I see. A system designed to shelter the weak in a world full of the strong. I imagine the system functions mostly with pride at its core, yes??
Reimu nodded, seemingly content that the stranger had accepted her explanation. As she made to pull out the three spell cards of her choice, she was interrupted once again by the stranger?s voice.
?Unfortunately, I have no such pride to defend, and no desire to put the fate of my plans in the hands of your silly little game. If that is all you came here for, please leave now. I have much work to do.?
As the stranger turned to leave, Reimu hurled three of her trademark talismans at her back. The stranger had no chance to react. At such a short range, there was no way Reimu would have missed, and before she had even taken a full step, the talismans plunged into the back of their unsuspecting target?and fell to the ground.
Turning slowly, the stranger once again locked eyes with Reimu, who stood masking her surprise at the ineffectiveness of her attack. Of course, those talismans weren?t particularly strong as far as Reimu?s attacks were concerned, but she had at least expected her opponent to get knocked away if it was a surprise attack. Or at least flinch.
The stranger?s expression no longer bore the smile it had earlier. Instead, her face was expressionless, masking any emotion she may have felt at what she probably thought was a surprise attack.
?You know, I had fully intended to let you leave here safely in respect of your civility. However, I have no aversion to violence, so if that is what you really want, then I have no inhibitions to killing you.?
As she finished speaking, something dark and snakelike fired from within her cloak straight for Reimu. Reimu rapidly dodged upwards and backwards, easily dodging the straight line attack. The black shadow quickly turned from its path and arced backwards towards Reimu, pursuing her as she flew ever upward. As Reimu threw two talismans downward, forming a shield to block the black stream, the earth around the stranger exploded, and chunks of rock flew upwards towards the shrine maiden.
The black stream hit the talisman shield head on, stopping dead. As it withered and faded, the chunks of rock crashed through the shield, breaking it into pieces. Reimu, anticipating the attack, had already dodged from the path of the rocks, and had apparently managed to pull out her gohei from somewhere in her outfit. Clasping the wooden object between her hands, she announced the name of her spell.
?Dream Sign: Evil Sealing Circle?
As Reimu finished speaking, hundreds of talismans fired from the air around her into the ground around the stranger. The talismans began to give off a blue light, and magical lightning began to arc between them. The lightning formed a complicated array, looking like some sort of ritualistic magic circle, with the stranger at the center.
At this point, Marisa, Youmu, and Ran had backed far enough away that they wouldn?t get in the way of Reimu?s fight, but could jump in and help if for some reason it was necessary. Most people wouldn?t have known, but since Marisa had been friends with Reimu for so long, she knew what was happening. Situations of people breaking the Spell Card Rules in Gensokyo were incredibly rare, but it did happen every once in a while. When it did, Reimu herself acted as the source of divine retribution; without a shred of mercy, she would bring the offender down with all her might, unafraid of taking their lives if that?s what it took. It had never devolved into a situation in which she had to kill her opponent, they had always surrendered long before that point, but Reimu?s power had never once been outmatched in a battle outside the Spell Card Rules.
Though the spell Reimu had just used shared a name with one of her Spell Cards, Marisa was one of the few who knew that Reimu had named many of her spell cards off of actual magic designed for youkai extermination. As such, the magic she was using now was not a fancy pattern designed to make the opponent dodge: it was an exorcist?s spell, used to seal in the power of a youkai. Within the center of that circle, even the greatest of youkai would lose all power. The greater the power of the youkai, the greater the effect: A weak youkai would just lose their supernatural abilities; a strong youkai would be unable to even move while within the circle, and once they got to the level of Yukari Yakumo or Yuka Kazami, simply staying within the circle would slowly kill them.
The stranger stood in the middle of the circle, still motionless, still expressionless. After seeing Reimu had finished with her attack, she tilted her head, as if confused at something.
Without moving from her spot in the air, Reimu called out. ?It?s over for you now that you?re in that circle. Give up now, and we can end this without anyone getting hurt.?
At Reimu?s declaration, a look of understanding passed over the stranger?s face. A look that to Marisa said, Ah, so that?s why you stopped your attack. You thought this was over. Pointing a finger to the closest edge of the circle in front of her, she muttered something that none of them should have been able to hear.
Break.This one word surged out of the stranger like a tidal wave. Despite the fact that none of them could physically hear the word, they all felt and understood exactly what had been said, felt it echo down to the core of their being. While Marisa was still attempting to overcome the shock of the power with which the stranger had managed to utter that one word, the sealing circle Reimu had set up around her convulsed and exploded outwards.
Never once had Marisa seen someone able to break out of Reimu?s true circle. And this person had done it just by saying a single word.
As the onlookers watched in shock, the stranger pointed her finger at the stunned Reimu and spoke again.
Fall.With the same impact that they had felt before, like a silent shockwave rolling over them, they felt the next word pass through them. As it did so, Reimu plummeted from the sky as if she were suddenly made of lead, landing hard on the ground. Instinctively, Marisa could tell that Reimu couldn?t even stand up. That was the power that the stranger?s word had held.
Marisa felt herself being filled with panic as a stone spear, roughly 10 feet long, rose from the ground behind the stranger and pointed at Reimu. She spoke again, and even though it didn?t carry the power that her previous words had, the sound of her voice still sent chills down Marisa?s spine.
?Die.?
As she spoke, Marisa burst into action. Rocketing towards the stranger as fast as she could manage, she tore the mini-hakkero from her pocket and began filling it with energy. Even as she did so, the stone spear launched itself towards Reimu at lightning speed, and Marisa?s heart leapt into her mouth at the realization that she wasn?t going to make it in time.
A split second before the spear impaled Reimu, a flash of silver light crashed into the side of it, sending it careening off course, and it plunged into the ground three feet from Reimu?s immobile body. Standing in front of her was Youmu, sword bared, readying herself for the next attack. There was no time to marvel at how Youmu had managed to knock away the spear at the very last instant, however. Marisa felt awash in relief as she turned back towards the stranger, who still hadn?t moved from where she stood.
Without a word, Marisa emptied the mini-hakkero into a tight beam in front of her. Connecting solidly with the ground a few feet away from the stranger, the resulting explosion threw chunks of earth and clouds of dust into the air, obscuring the stranger from view. More importantly, however, it obscured her view of them.
After only a few seconds, a sudden tempestuous wind blew through the field, tearing away the clouds of dust. The stranger stood, expectedly unscathed, but was now facing directly at Ran, who had positioned herself between Reimu and the stranger. In Ran?s hands was a ball of blue and red light, swirling together. Less than a second after the dust had cleared, Ran unleashed the ball of light at the stranger in the form of a laser, cutting through the air towards her.
It was amazing how fluid their teamwork felt. Without even a word, Youmu had deflected the shot at Reimu, Marisa had created a perfect distraction, and Ran had used the opportunity to set up and unleash an attack at the perfect opportunity. In the back of her mind, Marisa wondered at what must have been Ran?s power. She had heard rumors from various people who had met her that her specialty was in the use of Shikigami, but she never really understood what that meant. Now, that was perfectly clear.
Youmu and Marisa were anything but Ran?s shikigami, yet simply being in her presence heightened their teamwork ability. Was the whole situation being orchestrated by Ran, or did her power just put them all on the same wavelength? At this point, Marisa didn?t much care, so long as it worked in their favour.
As Ran?s laser cut across the stranger?s body, however, it stopped short of its target. As it swung from her left leg to her right shoulder, it etched only into the air in front of her, as if she was in some sort of protective sphere.
Seeing the attack was ineffective, Ran immediately lunged backwards, landing beside Reimu?s fallen body. As she did so, Youmu?s ghost half materialized into a ghostly version of herself, and they both charged forward. Meanwhile, Marisa launched herself further into the air, dumping energy into the mini-hakkero. Last time, she was firing a distraction. This time, she was going all in.
As Marisa charged her attack, she watched Youmu and her ghostly clone dance around the stranger. With a magnificent display of skill, Youmu and her ghost attacked with their swords, slashing, cutting, stabbing at every opening. However, no matter quickly they struck, no matter how big an opening the stranger left for them to take advantage of, their attacks never landed. The stranger gracefully stepped around every single one of their attacks, always just a hair?s breadth out of range, as if the entire exchange had been choreographed and rehearsed a hundred times. When Youmu and her ghost half ended up on opposite sides of the stranger, she lifted her hands, one palm facing each swordsman. Without even a word, Youmu and her ghost half were thrown back as if they were paper being blown away by the wind.
But it was enough. As soon as Youmu was knocked away, Marisa released her fully charged hakkero in a wide beam that eliminated the possibility of dodging. After the energy she had poured into the hakkero had emptied out into a sort of tracer beam, the elemental furnace roared to life, firing a beam of heavily concentrated magical energy at the stranger. She was engulfed in the magical energy, and the shockwave of the attack hitting the ground around her sent another cloud of dirt and dust into the air around the target of the attack.
Marisa growled in frustration as she saw that the stranger was somehow completely unfazed by the attack. If she had been sitting at home, comfortably sipping some tea and reading a book, she might have been able to analyze the situation and determine why a full powered Master Spark had had absolutely no effect on the target, but in the heat of battle and under the influence of Ran?s teamwork influencing capabilities, she had no time to think things through. However, even as she dropped to ground level a fair distance away, she saw Ran once again in the air behind the stranger, throwing a talisman at her unprotected back.
Before the talisman had even made it halfway to its target, it flashed with a white light and disappeared into thin air. As it did so, dozens of white lights appeared in the air around where it had disappeared, and from each light an ornate knife fired towards the stranger. Each one was aimed to hit her directly, however as they reached the target, they suddenly veered off course and plunged into the ground around her. Dozens of knives embedded themselves in the ground in a circle around the stranger as she turned to look at Ran, who was dropping downwards and backwards in anticipation of the stranger?s retaliation.
But before she had the chance to retaliate, Reimu ? who had apparently managed to stand up ? ran towards her from the opposite direction and leapt over her head. Flipping so that she was perfectly upside down over top of the stranger, she hurled handfuls of talismans into the air around her, seemingly towards the ground. Like bullets ricocheting off of metal, the talismans seemed to strike an invisible wall and were reflected back towards the stranger. As Reimu landed on the other side of her, she turned in time to see every single talisman she had thrown stop dead in the air around the stranger, once again as if she was standing in some sort of protective sphere.
As if she was shaking water off of her hand, the stranger flicked her wrist and the talismans stuck in the air around her were blown away. Before she could move again, however, the sound of rushing wind filled the area, and time seemed to slow. With the sharp sound of steel cutting through air, Marisa could barely see out of the corner of her eye Youmu diving towards the stranger, sword drawn. Moving faster than Marisa thought was physically possible, she lunged and slashed at the stranger, aiming to cut her in half at the waist?
?and, without even turning around, the stranger deftly caught the blade in one hand. As everything came to a stop, and the sonic boom caused by Youmu?s intense speed washed over everyone, the fight seemed to come to a halt. The illusion lasted only for a second though, as the stranger finally made her next move.
Without any word or movement, Youmu was thrown backwards almost as fast as she had lunged forwards. This time, however, instead of being thrown off into the distance, a slab of rock rose from the ground behind her. With a sickening thud, Youmu crashed into the stone slab, and fell to the ground like a marionette whose strings had been cut.
Marisa?s mind raced, trying to think of a magic she could use that would be effective where her Master Spark had failed. As the options came up, she rapidly shot them down as either too dangerous for the others around her, or too similar to Master Spark to work. As she attempted to come to a solution, the ground under Reimu?s feet tore open, as if to swallow her whole. Though she was taken off guard, Reimu gracefully flipped backwards and up into the air. Behind her, Ran stood, the air around her crystallizing in fist-sized diamonds. After about a dozen had formed, they all turned so that their pointed ends were aimed at the stranger, and fired.
Just like the knives earlier, the projectiles all veered off course at the last possible moment, each coming painfully close to the target, yet none making contact. As the last projectile cleared her, the stranger raised her right hand into the air. As she did so, the ground beneath Ran?s feet exploded with a burst of what Marisa could only guess was air pressure, flinging Ran twenty feet up into the air. The stranger then balled her upraised hand into a fist and brought it down hard. In timing with her actions, the air above the stunned Ran contorted and compacted into a solid and hammered down into her, ramming her into the ground.
As soon as Ran hit the ground, Marisa felt the feeling of fluidity in their actions dissipate. The analytical approach to fighting ? which she hadn?t noticed until just now was foreign to her ? fled from her, and she prepared her next attack at the same time Reimu did. As wound up to throw a handful of talismans at the stranger, a bolt of crisp white lightning arced from the clear blue sky overhead and struck her. With a look of shocked surprise, Reimu fell motionless to the ground below, landing hard on what was thankfully soft ground.
At the same time this happened, Marisa unleashed her attack. A wave of glittering stars filled the air, and suddenly she was the center of a galaxy. Spinning out widely and rapidly, the stars formed spiralling walls enclosing the stranger, restricting her movement. As they did so, four bright white comets arced out from Marisa, dancing between the stars that had already been released and throwing off stars of their own. After a few seconds, the comets turned from their pre-set paths and arced towards the stranger.
The stranger turned to look Marisa in the eye as she dropped her hands to her sides. Moments before the four comets impacted into her, a stone barrier rose from the ground at her feet, sheathing her in solid rock. The comets impacted into the rock with a burst, and as they did all of the stars from in the air around them stopped in their paths and turned, firing directly at her like hundreds of bullets.
As the light and dust given off by the attack cleared, Marisa shot up into the air and began charging the hakkero once more. As she had expected, the stone sheath had held, and only after the attack had ended did it crack apart, revealing the unharmed woman within. Unexpectedly, however, once the stone sheath broke apart, the stranger launched into the air, coming level with Marisa.
After this many uses, the hakkero was warmed up enough that subsequent firings would be much quicker than before. As she aimed the hakkero at the stranger, she saw her raise her right hand at point at her. Marisa didn?t know what was about to happen, but she knew that their fight was now a race: whoever got their attack off first would undoubtedly win.
Marisa focused all of the energy from within the hakkero into a thin beam, as thin as possible, aimed directly at the stranger. Her previous attack hadn?t worked because it spread the damage out over a large distance compared to the size of the target. If she tightened the scope of the attack, she might be able to get enough force to punch through whatever defense she was using.
Marisa let out a shout as she fired her attack. She had never fired such a focused Master Spark, and she had never put so much power behind one. Of course, that was to be expected; she had never fired a Master Spark before under conditions where if she failed to kill her target, she would die herself. In the end, however, she didn?t know what kind of destructive force lay behind her attack, and could only hope that it would be enough.
She was never able to find out, though. While the beam of light fired from the hakkero, time seemed to slow. Shadows arced out from within the stranger?s cloak, in four distinct, translucent bands. Two of the bands arced sharply in front of her, and the beam of light collided squarely with the point where the two bands of shadow overlapped. The impact split the beam of light into three directions, all missing the stranger by a wide margin.
The other two bands of shadow launched straight for Marisa. Though they were quick, they were not as quick as the first two, giving Marisa a split second to maneuver. Dropping the still-firing hakkero, Marisa hurled herself backwards to give her more room to dodge. As she did so, the two bands of shadow split into dozens of smaller threads. The needle-like shadows fanned out in a wide arc, guaranteeing that any direction Marisa fled in would be covered. Instinctively, Marisa flew backwards faster, attempting to allow the shadows to fan out wide enough that she could slip between them.
For a single instant, the shadows all stopped dead still in the middle of the air. In the time it took Marisa to cover three feet while flying backwards, the shadows all turned from their paths directly towards her and accelerated. The five feet that had been between Marisa and the shadows was covered before she could even blink, and Marisa felt numerous sharp, stinging pains as the dozens of needles impaled her all over her body and drove her into the ground.
Landing hard on her back, Marisa had the wind knocked out of her before she could even let loose a cry of pain from being hit by the shadows in the first place. Try as she might, she couldn?t move. Her vision was going dark, and the shadows still pinned her to the ground. She heaved with all her might, but she couldn?t get her lungs to draw breath. She gave everything she had left, but couldn?t get a shred of magical energy to leave her fingertips. She mouthed a curse as her vision got darker and darker, and only had time to wonder why she wasn?t bleeding after being impaled so many times before she finally blacked out.
Is this the end for our trio of ghost hunters? Find out next time!
The next chapter will wrap up the first of three major plot arcs. I don't have a whole lot to say about the upcoming story other than that, so look forward to it
As an aside, for those who may be less fluent in Japanese (or in the case that what I've done is unintelligible in the first place 8D), a little side note on the name 'Kokugyokurou.' You most likely will have noticed that it is very similar to the name 'Hakugyokurou,' which is written in Japanese as 白玉楼. These characters literally translate as 'Tower of White Jade.' In
my attempt to be clever the stranger's attempt to be ironic, she named the place she comandeered 'Kokugyokurou,' which would use the Japanese characters 黒玉楼, literally meaning 'Tower of Black Jade.' Just for fun!
Also, anyone that is able to
guess figure out the stranger's specific ability before the story reveals it wins a cookie. The only hint I'll give you is that everything you see her do during this chapter is a direct result of her putting that one ability to use. I somewhat doubt you'll be able to figure it out from just this chapter, but maybe future chapters will provide you with a bit more insight
