>>28613

You feel the inexplicable urge to go dive into a lake. Sadly there are none in the current vicinity.

So instead you head to the bathroom and pretend the bathtub is the lake instead. With your firepower and Keine's rubber ducky your bathing experience warms both your heart and body as all of your worries and sins are washed by the imaginary lake.

You feel clean and refreshed, this gives you the smell and look of someone who cares about their appearance and less like a fire hobo.

Mokou obtains Self-care!

Having enjoyed this a lot you take the rubber ducky as a memento of this moment.

Mokou obtains a rubber ducky!

>>28614

You decide that after being refreshed in the body your mind deserves to take a dive as well. Spefically the part of your mind that thinks about Kaguya, you won't give her the privilege of being in there and drowning said Kaguya with copouis amounts of alcohol is certainly one way to pass the time.

But you've got none in the house and so it is time to go out of it, you use the key on the door and step out.

There's a dazling bright sun glaring down at you from above. The sky is perfectly blue, cloudless and without a wind to feel. It is humid, warm and uncomfortable. You're reminded at once why you usually feel cranky in the morning and start to feel crankier as a result.

Mokou has obtained crankyness!

Anyway you make your way past the streets. As you walk through them you note that it is quiet and peaceful since everyone else is either at work or at school or overall is already where they are supposed to be.

You're not sure but either way this is way better than a maelstrom of activity and oh godwhatdoyouwant right now and that's good enough.

You make it to the Bar, also known as the shut up and give me my booze place. It is open.

Good, you walk to the door and make your way in.

"Welcome to Geidontei!" a girl with a large fish on her head welcomes you with cheer, she however has her back turned to you and seems busy with something.

You stay quiet and walk to the counter, before knocking on it to gain her attention.

"Ah sorry, just a second" the girl apologizes and turns around "So how can I hel-" and the moment she sees you all colour drains from her face "Oh...it's you".

You raise a single eyebrow, offended.

"Wait no, I'm sorry!" the girl starts bowing profusely
"I didn't mean to imply you're not welcome!"

You lower the single eyebrow, satisfied.

The girl however still seems stiff and uncomfortable by your presence and is right to feel that way since you haven't paid a single drink for like ever since you can remember, then again no one ever asked you to pay for it. You don't really care to find out.

You stare at the girl with a bored expression.

The girl avoids your eyecontact and starts fidgeting in place, but finally realizes what you want and picks up a menu and gives it to you. "S-so what's your order maam? I meant miss! no uh whichever you prefer..."

[X] A light drink, something for on the road.
[X] The strongest stuff she got.
[X] You want her to smile
[X] Leave bar, you shall be drunk later.

>>28617

You think about what to order, and decide on nothing.

You will need every braincell to defeat Kaguya after all, the drinking can come once you have won.

Kaguya...her very name makes you feel annoyed.

The girl seems to think your annoyance is her fault and starts fidgeting even more in place. She's almost like a gazelle trying to stand in front of a lion.

...Are you that detestable? you leave the place midly confused but overall indifferent to the experience.

Behold you are outside once more. The great outdoors beckons to adventure and stuff like that.

You guess you could go down the street and head to the schoolgrounds but on second thought you're a lone woman living in the forest and hanging around preschools of weekends will only fuel terrible rumours about you. Though Keine could be there.

Or you could head out to the gate of the village and head off towards the path to the Bamboo Forest.
Your hated foe awaits you in that direction.

Or you could head back and squat in Keine's house.
Her nice is a cool place to chill at.

Also someone's been following you the moment you left the house, you can sense their gaze from an dark alleyway nearby. But eh, it can't be that important.

You also feel a little bit trollish, but you're not what on who to troll or how to use your inner gremlin.

Oh, well that's life.

> _____

>>28619

You decide to ignore the totally subtle person who you did not notice at all hiding in the alleyway.

As in you don't mean the one person wearing a trenchcoat and a large hat and glasses in a dark alleyway in the midst of summer.

Those clothes do totally not mix well with the surroundings and do not make them look obvouisly suspicous. Nothing is to be seen here.

Your desire for a nice quenching drink to fuel your spirit before a grand journey is larger than your overall worry of being shanked once you're piss drunk and vulnerable to shankings.

To be honest even if you were shanked nothing much would happen, you've got no money to be stolen from and if this is a hatecrime then it's double pointless since you can't die anyway.

Or maybe...could it be stalking out of love? You are quite the pretty damsel and very mysterouis as well. To have a young lad or lass look at you admirably from afar, too afraid to confess their feelings is not something you consider impossible.

Everyone here knows you as that one pretty girl who lives in the forest, doesn't talk about herself and is somehow friends with someone amazing like Keine.

Or it's an enemy spy working for Kaguya!
The moment you leave town they'll go off to warn their evil princess of your heroic journey, their gates will be raised, their guards will be ready and your journey will become a lot lot harder

You walk towards the bar, and rush towards it's alleyway with your spirit set aflame!

In but a second you've closed the distance and swing your leg at them like a meteor.

The stalker reacts with surprisingly quick reflexes and aims to brace the blow with their hands.

An unknown weapon clashes with your foot and for a single second both of your attempts nuetralize each other. A perfect attack blocked by the perfect defense!

There's no way you can let someone working for her get the better of you!

You're going to defeat this person here and now!

And the reason is...

>>28620

Because you're the one that's going to kill Kaguya!

Blazing Kick!: Your feet is aflame by a burning flame! The passionate feelings of your very soul boosts the kick's power and makes you spin around for another kick faster and faster and harder!

The enemy trembles at your flurry of blows, unable to block them all yet persists with their endurance.

"Enough!" you shout and let your foot explode into a fiery tornado that breaks their defense and hits them sqaure in the jaw, the kick smashing straight through the wall and into the bar! It's an instant knockout!

You can hear a girl cry out in fear as you hobble your way back in with your one foot left intact. It's obvouisly the girl working here that's hiding behind the counter "What's happening?!" she cries out.

You just shrug and give her lack luster pose by leaning towards a table and pointing at her like a shonen protag. Be not afraid is your message.

"Why are you pointing at me?! why is someone dead at the floor?! Are you going to hurt me next?!" it does not work and only makes her act more erratic.

"Ugh...nice kick, allright you got me" your foe says rubbing their jaw while seated crosslegged, their disguise has been removed and you can see that they've got large white ears, a boy's cap and yellow clothes adorning them "I give up, you win".

Well, looks like they surrendered and the day is saved. What will you do now?

>Can you guess who this 2hu is? (I bet you can).
>____

>>28622

You wonder if the girl's real name is Mima and if she is cosplaying. It would be a good disguise if so.

The rabbit just stares blankly at you, before pulling on her ears to showcase that they are real.

Guess that was wrong.

You guess she's Ringo then.

"That's me~" she responds and continues chilling on the floor for some reason "I'm hungryy..." she complains.

>>28624

You move towards her and pick her up by the neck.
It is a intimidating and valid way to grab someone.

"Choke me harder papa" she says in jest and stares you in the eyes with a smug smile.

You choke her harder.

She stops smiling and says she was joking!

You demand that she reveals who sent her.

She's choking and refuses to tell you. How rude.

The Whale gi-actually you decide to ignore her.

You lower your grip and ask the same question.

The rabbit coughs and says it was Kaguya!
She takes out a letter and gives it you. The letter is supposed to be above confidential (whatever that means) and she was trusted with delivering it due to her amazing infiltration skills.

You think Kaguya mistook her for Seiran.

The Rabbit's ears flop down as she realizes you are right. The smug bun is now a sad bun.

You can hear the noise of footsteps and people talking outside, seems someone finally realized that the bar wall got kicked in by uh not you.

The Rabbit immediatly tries to go for her disguise but cannot move since you are choking her.

You are still ignoring the Whale Girl sucesfully.

What do you do?

>____

>>28627

You let go of the Rabbit's neck with a sigh and give her a small sorry for your rude treatment of her.

The Rabbit rubs her sore throat but gives you a thumbups and says the moon was way harder on her.

You ignore the Whale Girl on a new level, You super ignore her to the point that you are certain that she will never appear again once you leave. Which you should do since a crowd is coming.

You look at the bun, it is still hungry.
You look at yourself, so are you.

Are the two of you perhaps not so different?

You tend your hand to the bun and offer to treat her to food despite having no money on you.

The Rabbit smiles and says this shall be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

You raise an eyebrow at her. Isn't that too fast?

She says she'll be fine with Acquantance then.

The Rabbit puts on her disguise again, somehow this makes her look even more suspicouis than not wearing one at all. But that's not your problem.

You leave with her out of the shop.

And end up outside again, which is no big surprise. What would be a surprise is if you ended up anywhere else but outside but you knew that already.

There are people looking at the alleyway, when they see you walking out the bar with the sus bun they immediatly start to chatter amongst themselves.

You raise an eyebrow at the crowd.

The crowd disperses, most of them leave with a small apology while some look down instead.

You wonder where to get food now. You could go to Keine's home and partake in her fridge.

Or go to a restaurant and eat deluxe food without paying for it.

Midthought the bun asks you while you aren't strugling with balance.

You reply that you can fly and so gravity based rules are purely optional to you.

Speaking of which you consider killing yourself to get your leg back but there are some onlookers right now and you wouldn't want to traumatize some small child by randomly exploding now do you?

Wait never mind, all the kids are at school now.

Anyway you are going to get a nice meal with hopefully a nice drink and enough privacy to read the letter.

What do you do now?

>____

[X] Eat at Keine's house.
[X] Eat at a foodstall
[X] Eat a fancy resto
[X] Read the letter right now.

>>28626

How do I add my quest to the story list?
Teach me anon senpai!

>>28635 (Eat at a Food stall, Order Rabbit Stew).

You would do that but there two problems with that, one you're piss broke and second, she's a rabbit.
Now normally the former would not be a problem since most people just give you stuff for free once you look at them for long enough. (To this day you don't know why) But food stalls aren't most people.

No, those who work at foodstalls are hardened warriors, creatures capable of standing in one spot for the majority of the day while repeating a specific set of instructions perfectly every time and customer arrives. You read somewhere that doing something twice is the definition of insanity so therefore people who work with such discipline must be crazy. Not only that but they are more used to people trying to bargain if not try to get free food from their stalls due to them not possessing the same safety of having a large building and staff most restaurants have. So, in a twist of fate, it is easier to get free food from a luxury restaurant than even the poorest of foodstall owners.

You have quite the bad memories concerning a specific ramen stand. All you need to say is that by the end of that fight you had broken bones, shattered ribcages and dislodged jaws all while the owner was singing "Let there be love~" and doing some weird moves he called "The Electric Slide and Chimichanga" that were the cause of several of your deaths. Since then, you have made a vow to not mess with the humble food stall. Especially the ramen ones in the South district.

"So, where we munching White girl?" Ringo looks at you with a relaxed expression, her ears are hanging around loosely and her posture is casual. She's already treating you like *one of the hopsters*.

"...You like Rabbit Stew?" You ask whether she would like to eat that, trying not to appear too discomforted by her sudden friendliness since the fact you choked her and kicked her before.

"Hoy mama!" Ringo lets out another cheeky smile as she spits behind her shoulder for some reason
"Haput! Girl, you're crazy horny. We barely me-" and freezes the moment you stare at her "What?"

"Never mind" you start to feel annoyed but push it down and walk back to Keine's house "Follow me".
There might still be food in there, and besides it's the perfect place for a private read and chit chat.



Wait a minute...something funny is being missed here.

.... Chit chat, Rabbit, she’s been sent by Kaguya...! You can ask her where Kaguya is! Actually, wait obviously she's in Eientei but if this girl was sent by Kaguya then she must be trusted by her. And if Kaguya trusts her then that means you can use her! But for what? Hmmm, actually never mind that was a dumb thought.

You make your way back to Keine's house and note that the door was not locked! Quickly you make your way inside and notice that everything is still in its place. Thank God you're lucky. Had Keine's house actually been robbed then Keine would...she would do nothing to you and just be sad. She'd probably say something like "It can't be helped, at least nothing of value was lost right?" while giving you a sad smile and you'd knew deep down that she's just playing brave. And that you should have LOCKED THE DAMN DOOR! You mentally note to actually do it next time you leave the house.

"Hey, hey~ This your crib flame gal?" Ringo whistles at the sight and walks in with her s-!!!

You create small balls of flames around your fingertips and point it at her, don't you dare move!

"Whoa, Whoa, Whoa! What's the matter?!" Ringo jumps back immediately and takes out a skewer.
You don't know why she took out a skewer of all things and wonder if that was the weapon from earlier cause if so then she blocked your hurricane kick with a cheap piece of wood which is respectable.

But anyway, you point at her shoes and then at the foot matt, she has to clean them before entering.

"Oh..." she puts down her *weapon* and cleans her feet by thumping her feet repeatedly on the ground.

Good, she may enter then. You move towards the kitchen and beckon for her to follow. (You turn off the fire by clenching your fist. Don't want the house to burn).

The kitchen is a kitchen, it has a table, a counter, an oven for cooking and an actual sort of working fridge that Keine calls the *Chilly History Box* where she puts the perishable consumable in. How the heck they do not rot despite their short-lasting time she explained with only a short simple sentence.

"Huh? Oh, I just eat the history of their rotting date to make them forget they are supposed to rot in the first place. Quite simple really~" which doesn't explain anything nor why it has to be in a box!

Anyway, you look into the box and see there's a message on it for you. It's Keine asking you to buy some eggs, flour, bread and potatoes once you wake up since she's running low on stuff, and you've got plenty of time to use anyway. She left some money in some drawer, and you take it out.

Mokou obtained Keine's Grocery Money! (It is exactly the amount needed and a little bit extra).

As for the box itself.... it’s got some leftover chicken from yesterday, a few cans of beer that Keine likes to buy from Kourindou but lets you drink away (You think it's only an excuse to say hi to Rinnosuke but who cares) and finally some unimportant stuff like carrots, broccoli and vegetables. Man, she wasn't kidding when she said she was running low on stuff. "What do you want?" You ask the Rabbit.

The Rabbit does not respond, instead you hear her hum and walk around in the living room. Looks like she did not follow you into the kitchen and went ahead to explore your *Crib* to her leisure.

She sure is shameless acting like this is her home. But so are you

But anyway, you think this might be the prime time to uh...wait no you can't just feed someone leftovers. Not only is that super rude but it's the same as calling them your garbage disposal.

...Unless you were to disguise the leftovers as some other original dish? Just add some veggies and water and stuff and uh you can call it a Chicken Soup. She'll never see through it!

Indeed, or you could just say you've got nothing here and use some of the extra money to go buy some food for the both of you. Then again that's kind of shameless as well since Keine is trusting you with it.

This may be the first dilemma in your recent days, do you use the money to buy groceries for Keine? do you go give the Rabbit a proper meal? Are you going to kill Kaguya? So many decisions!

And you can only choose one! There are three girls! But only one of you!
If you choose one, then the others will be sad! But if you choose none then you're a wimp!
You have to choose one! You have to choose one! You have to choose one! You have to choose one!

Not, you're not really one for cheap drama like that. Anyway, you should choose your next action.

Like let's be honest here, you can literally kill Kaguya whenever you want. You've both got eternity.

>____

The letter itself is rather large so I didn't put it in this update, I will do it in the next one if you choose to read it.

(On phone rn)

>>28637
>>28638

You know what? that's right. This isn't her home so she should get to mess around with Keine's stuff.

You take out the leftovers and put them in some plates then you walk back to the living room and put them on the table. "Food's ready" you say out loud.


The bunny was just about to put her fat bun butt on Keine's Big Comy Couch "Oh, awesome!" but quickly comes over and takes a seat "What's on the menu?"

You just point at the food, it is cold leftover chicken with some potatoes and sauce. It is good enough for you so it also should be good enough for her.

The bun seems a little displeased by it but doesn't say anything other than a request to make it warmer.

You think for a moment and accept it. With a flick of your fingers the food is engulfed in flames. After a few more seconds you remove the flames and the food has been made a lot hotter than prevouisly.

Ringo eyes the burned food with a complicated expression "...Yknow what girl? I can eat later"

You frown at that, you went out of your way to invite her to food and now she doesn't eat it? How rude.

"!!. N-never mind I love chicken! Oooh yeah, I want da yum yum in my tum tum" Ringo changes her mind and starts eating the food as if her life depends on it.

You nod pleased and start digging in as well. The food is nothing special but the fact that Keine made it makes it somehow a bit more appetizing.

"So anyway...Are you going to read that letter now?" The bun asks you with her mouth full of food.

"Is that why you're here?" you ask her back.

She nods yes "Gotta make sure you've read the letter as well my dude, afterwards I'm a free bun bun~".

You decide now is the proper time to read it.

"Dear Mokou,

It is I Kaguya that is using the tool known as the pen alongside the meduim of this humble paper to deliver to you a message that cannot be said face to face.

This is what is known as a letter, if you have somehow managed to read this far then congratulations! I have underestimated your intellect.

But I am not here to praise you for overcoming such a large challenge, your nature as a forest dwelling barbarian is quite irrelevant to what I have to say.

You may have noticed that I've rather been absent from your life these recent days. I apologize for this for I know how important I am to you these days.

Regardless I Kaguya have come to an reveletation: Which I will not share with you, for you would not understand the complexity of my noble mind.

Anyhow I Kaguya have grown bored of you, while I grow in strenght every passing day yours has only declined if not grow stunted due to redundancy.

I am deeply in sorrow because of this, the passion in our battles has dissapeared. What were once amazing clashes between the representatives of the Sun and Moon have been reduced to the brawling of a drunkards lacking any sort of...tension.

I'd say this is goodbye forever but I care far too much to just let you go like that so instead I have made an alternative idea: You need to be killed by other girls.

By the time you are reading this I will have managed to gather seven heroes to work for this cause.

These heroes will be coming for you one at a time at completely random intervals. One could even attack you the moment you read this or the moment you go to buy groceries or any other time of the day.

They will not stop when you are dead, and will instead kill you again after a 5 minute break (This is to prevent a never ending death loop).

The only way for them to stop coming your way is for you to regain your strenght and take my life. I care not how you do it but if you manage to do it then you win.

Of course you have no choice in this, this is all for your greater good in the end and I cannot help but feel giddy in hearing the tales of your suffering.

Obvouisly we are expecting you in Eientei, we've done some major redecorations and our defenses have never been higher so your odds of making it are very very low...which only makes it more fun when you do manage to make your way here anyway.

Personally, I am quite eager for this adventure. I have been unable to sleep even because I am that hyped.

Frankly the thought of someone else making you suffer makes me want to do it again myself.

I want to go to the village, break into Keine's house and stab you with the new sword I bought even.

You are in Keine's house right? I bet you're eating the chicken leftovers with Ringo right about now.

How do I know that? why don't you try looking up? Actually no that won't do anything because I can't actually see you. I just know you that well.

I can kill you whenever and wherever I want.

But I won't...not yet. You need to earn that. If I kill you right now then I'll only become dissapointed.

And the reason is....

Because you're too weak to kill me right now!

Love, Kaguya~"

Ps: Keine won't be coming home today. and that was the letter, every word was written gracefuly and to the point as if it was a message to an old friend.

The content however is batshit insane.

...Even in text she massively pisses you off!

"So what kind of letter was it?'" Ringo asks done with the food and then sees your face "Oh...Uh, yknow what? I think it's time for me to go-!"

"Sit and shut up. One more slang and I'll burn your lips off" you warn her to not test you right now.

"Okay...how about no?" and she slowly moves from the table so that she can leave the house.

What do you do now?

>____

>>28640

...That's not a bad idea, you don't know who these *heroes* are but neither might they.

Kaguya might just have given them a basic description and picture of you alongside the places you're known to hang out at.

Therefore obtaining an disguise could be a good way to avoid getting assaulted out of nowhere.

That girl's suit...even if it's suspicouis would hide most of your notable features and make it hard for anyone to recognize you unless they get close.

So you'll be taking it from her. You wait for her to expose her back or show any weakness.

She does not show any. "Hey girly, why don't you uh take it easy aye? Ringo's not a fighter but quite the lover! You stay there and let me go and there will be no problems~" and attempts to reason with you. "Look lassy, you've got one nice kick. Masterful even! It's the kind of kick only a master could give! And we wabbits can respect that. I like your moxie kid and think that if you don't seek for trouble with me then we might be become good bun buddies...nice right?"

You don't care much for that, but don't move yet.

The rabbit keeps eyecontact with you while slowly backing away. "Good, now uh I'll see ya later" Soon she'll reach the door.

Guess you'll have to lower her guard if you want an easy knock out. Otherwise you'll get an annoying fight in the middle of Keine's house.

How will you assault this Bun Bun?

>___

>>28642

"Bye, see you later" you pretend to let the girl leave and move casually past her as if you are about to take prepare for the groceries "You know where the exit is, don't you?"

Ringo eyes you for a moment ".... Fhew" before letting out a breath of relief and gives you a smile while putting her hands behind her shoulders "Aye, I knew you had a soft sp-waaaah?!"

Backdrop Finisher!

She does not get to end that sentence, swift as the wind you move yourself behind her. Grab her by the waist and lift her up. Before she can even begin to struggle you've already jumped into the air to turn you both upsides down and slam her head into the ground!

"Uguh!" the girl is stunned by the impact and there is a crack on the floor as well. You quickly get up for another move. You know Youkai can take more than that!

Half Nelson Chokehold!

You jump on top of the stunned bunny and pin her to the ground with your foot around her waist and both of your arms holding both her neck and arm. "Give me your disguise" you demand of the girl lest you show soft of a girl you really are.

Ringo recovers from her dazed form and realizes you attacked her the moment she let her guard down. Her body shivers as she becomes limp "Wwwwaaaaaaahhhh~" and she starts crying a ridiculous number of tears, you can feel her heartbeat going a lot faster in panic.

Wait what? You flinch at her reaction and by reflex tighten the grip on her.

"Wwaaaaogkglaglgnaoigkagao" and she starts choking on your death grip. You do not move for several seconds because you're unable to comprehend her sudden attitude change. First, she acts all cool, then she acts scared of you and now she cries like a baby?

None of it makes sense, you lower your grip again and ask what's the matter.

"Y-you-re so mean! I thought humans were the coolest people ever and that you were a cool human.... but even though I try to become your friend all you do is hurt me!"
The rabbit lost all sense of dignity and continues lightly sobbing and shaking in your arms.
She sounds genuinely saddened by your continued behaviour and perhaps just perhaps...

You feel like you're about to have a moral dilemma, but then you remember you are immune to mental attacks (Clear Mind) and so use your favourite defence mechanism: Facts and Logic.

You press A repeatedly and after the fifth choke attempt or, so the girl is knocked out.

There, now she is no longer crying. You saved yourself some time there.

*Ka-Click! * You hear a small noise outside the window but see nothing once you look out from it, this also makes you realize that having someone unconscious in the living room is a bad idea. So, you drag her KO'd body into the bathroom where you steal her disguise from her.

Mokou obtains a suspicious disguise! (It is a trench coat, some sunglasses, and a detective hat). These clothes are so out of water that anyone who sees these will either assume you’re e a wacky outsider or some drug dealer. But at least that's better than being Mokou right now.

Right...these clothes are a bit tight, and you must roll up your hair a bit into the clothes since what's the point of wearing all this if people can identify you by hair? (There's like 3 or 4 people in Gensokyo with pure white hair like yours, so it'd be a 1/4 chance of! if you do not conceal it)

"Let's get this over with" you say at the end, you've got the disguise. You've got the location. You tied up Ringo and hid her at the bathtub. And you've got a mission to accomplish.

You look at the pictures on the wall one last time, the most recent one is that of the last summer festival. You were invited to attend it with her, and it was a fun time, the food was good, the attractions were decent, and the atmosphere when you were both napping under that tree was the most peaceful and joyful moment you've had in a while.

Of course, Rinnosuke's pet outsider decided to join that exact moment, not that she was NOT invited but still if she wanted to play, she should have joined way sooner.

You pocket the picture of you three and look at the letter one last time.

...Kaguya wrote down she knows Keine would not come home today, whether that's supposed she kidnapped her or some vague menacing prophecy or is simply just a way to bait you into coming for her is something you're not sure off. Even so....

You may not care much for yourself or even other people.

But if someone menaces your friends, then no matter the context...

https://youtu.be/tU9pP6K5zVo

There's no way you'll forgive them! What Kaguya has said is unforgivable!

Seven heroes there may be, but you're not scared at all. That's simply seven steps you must take before stepping on the princess’s smug face for all her troubles.

Sure, your body has been getting weaker with time, the slightest unnecessary can make your bones crack loudly and your skin chars easily but pain is simply weakness leaving the body.

It's been a while since your last fight as well, but again none of that matters.

Have you not faced larger obstacles before? Have you not surpassed insurmountable odds?

Are you not the one that climbed mount Fuji as a child dying of illness and succeeded in obtaining the elixir? And before that did you not survive three years on your own as a hated demon child? And after that did you not survive years of isolation?

Let no one say that Fujiwara no Mokou can't take a fight.

Whether your foe has the forest, the moon or even all gensokyo on her side...

Whether these heroes are old friends or new foes...

You will not be afraid. You will not give up on a friend. You will not lose to anyone.

Those are all hard facts that cannot be denied, the fight will continue...

As long as the Kaguya inside your heart is still alive!

You sneak your way out of the house (You lock the door this time too), you move between some alleyways to avoid the main streets in the village and realize immediately that that was the right call due to a bunch of girls flying overhead straight to Keine's house.

You make it to the entrance of the village and when the guards stop to interrogate you simply jump on one of their faces and fly off into the fields! Nothing will stop you!

You avoid chatting with fellow travellers on the main path, jump into bushes and crawl in tall grass the moment you see someone you recognize or any sort of bunny and eventually...

You make it to the Bamboo Forest of the lost! (Music Stop).

And you immediately dive for cover again, the place is filled to the brim with bunny patrols just waiting for your presence. They've all got ridiculous amounts of heavy fire on them and seem equipped enough to take down an army of Elephants if need be.

Eventually after some longer skulduggery, you make it deeper into the woods. Further away from Eientei but you know it's a spot where none of the bunnies would look for you.

You stop and pause on top of some large rock, it is round, smooth on the surface and pure white. The area surrounding it is covered in a similar coloured mist and you know all the youkais avoid this place. Whether it's because this spot is sacred or cursed you don't know.

You feel like this is a definite safe spot where you can gather your thoughts and focus on what to do next, hell you can even do nothing and wait for a few hours in the hopes that the people who are looking for you will end up confused by your absence only to strike later!

Guess that counts as meditation too? you don't really care about the spiritual since whatever god or deities are out their ones you will probably outlive anyway.

Eh, you could maybe train here too but honestly how would that work? You feel like doing push ups and tap dances repeatedly won't do much for you. Maybe you should punch the rock over and over? nah that's a joke and you might break your hands if you do that.

By the way your leg has already grown back by this point, while regeneration from death is much quicker and instantaneous. Waiting for it come back costs a lot less stamina.

Anyhow you know where Eientei, you can go there whenever you want. If anything, it might feel a bit too easy, but hell do you know if...there's a shade of someone towering over you.

Someone is hovering above you and your senses did not warn you of them. Either this person has excellent concealment skills, or they were here the whole time.

You grunt in annoyance and ponder your next action.

>_____


(I'm honestly fine with anything you anons come up with, throw as many brain childs as you want. Just remember to Kill Kaguya).

(On phone again, grammar errors there may be)

>>28645

"Show yourself Aya" you say in annoyance as you look up.

Aya's face greets yours with a smile and a came-*FLASH*

A bright light burns your eyes while you curse the Tengu's name. You hear the tengu laugh and you imagine yourself plucking out every feather on her body.

You hear the flapping of wings and her landing in front of you "The honest and noble Aya Shameimaru has arrived!" she announces with a pose. She is wearing the disguise of a human reporter but also has a crow on her shoulder so it feels a bit halfassed.

"What do you want?" you hiss back at her. Knowing that her arrival is never good news.

The crow speaks casually "Nothing much~ Nothing much....Just so you know, I'm here cuz of the thing" she gives you a knowing wink and holds a picture in her hand.

It’s a picture of you being on top of a crying Ringo, and there’s one more picture of you walking down an alleyway with your drugdealer outfit of an disguise. Both together give a very bad image.

"What do you want?" you repeat and demand she gets to the point.

"Fine, I just wanted to ask how you it feels to commit BDSM with a moon bunny inside your best friend's house while a moon princess is waiting for you~" She starts scribling something in a note pad. “Did you enjoy it? how does it feel to NTR two girls at once? It must be juicy~”.

"....." You glare at her, you don't have time for this dumb shit.

"Ah so you don't deny it? In that case could this be a love triangle? Or perhaps...the start of an Immortal's journey to obtain a harem?!" you can tell she doesn't even believe those words but writes it down anyway to make a juicy story "Everyone beware! The Flaming Bamboo Barbarian has grown bored and seeks new thrills: That of conquering the flesh of maidens...

Now she hides in the forest in a loose disguise, stalking, seeking, lurking on the taste of youkai maidens. But will that be enough? Will she not eventually attack everyone as well? Will her thirst not grow with every capture? Will she not amass an army of concubines? Is noone safe from this girl?

I Aya have barely escaped the demon's grip with my amazing speed, but despite all my efforts I was unable to defeat her. This is a new dark age for all the women in Gensokyo!

Hide your children! Hide your wives! Hide your effeminate boys! For Mokou has come to fuck!"
Afterwards she stops, awaiting your reaction with a smug look. “Do you think that would make a nice story?”

>_____

(Suggestions below cause why not).
[X] Inform her that antagonizing an immortal is a bad idea. You’ll roast her face and her eggs if you want.
[X] Call out her bluff, she could have spread the news already. So what does the damn crow want?
[X] Don't bother talking, just beat the shit out of her. And take her disguise as well.
[X] Tell the dumb broad to stop projecting, if she wants to be tied up she should simply ask.

>>28647

Tsk, this day is already getting on your nerves. You give the crow a blank look and tell her that she isn’t fooling you one bit.

“You’ve got an ulterior motive, just say what you want Aya”

The crow stares at you for a few seconds, before chuckling “Ke~Ke~ke. Is that the insight of a thousand year old human? I’m surprised you’re not panicking or annoyed by my taunt.
However, yes, you are quite right. I’m not here for your sex life, I’m here for something else~”
She starts walking theatrically and rubs the wings of her pet crow at the same time.
“See the thing is I believe something is happening at Eientei. The place has been closed for a few days and when I sneaked in, I managed to get glimpses of…things being made. I’m not sure exactly what it was but it looked…” you can see that she’s trying to get a word for it but fails at it “Never mind that but anyway I’m one hundred percent sure that that Moon Princess and her Familiars are planning something. And since they’ve gone out of their way to bring someone to deliver a letter to you and that you directly after reading it went out of your way to rush into hiding….” She stops and waits for you to put two and two together.

“You think I know what’s happening” you make the conclusion for her, and fold your arms together while leaning down against the rock. “And now you’re trying to blackmail me for said info”.

“Exactly!” The crow exclaims and gives you a slow clap of applause “As for how I figured it all ou-“

“I don’t care” you interrupt her and start to close your eyes “I’m not saying nothing bird brain” and you tease her with the nickname, hoping she sees the name as super offensive or even birdist.

“Oh my!” She giggles like an old proot “You sound like a teenager, oh how I remember my-“

“Don’t patronize me” you interrupt her again, for all you care this conversation is over.

This time she is actually surprised “But I’m no-ahem, I’m saying I want that info so-“

“And I’m telling you to read the room” you turn away from her and lean on your arm making yourself aaal comfy on the rock, finally you wave her away with one hand “Shoo, Shoo, go be a headache to someone else” You’ve talked a lot already and that’s enough.
“W-well, come on!” the bird stops an outburst, rubs her chin in concentration and thinks a bit or at least you think she does since you can’t see her. “I’m going to send this new everywhere if you don’t talk” she says immediately “So you better confess it all, or else…you’ll become public enemy number one!” and she waves the pictures she has in her hand…pictures that are pretty flammable.

What do you do now?

>____

[X] Talk so she will leave you alone already.
[X] Continue ignoring her, it will drive her fuming mad.
[X] Get up, crack your knuckles and burn those papers.
[X] that is enough loitering, let’s go….to Kaguya!

You decide to ignore the tengu crow, what makes her think you care about how other people perceive you? If anything if that makes it so more people avoid you then the better.

Aya doesn’t seem impressed and is just looming over you. “So, what’s your answer?”

You still don’t care and continue making yourself comfy, this rock is not that bad now that you think about it. It’s got uh a very rocky surface, and a rocky feeling but doesn’t hurt your back and is quite warm to the touch. With the chilly mist its warmth is something nice to have.

“Hold on, are you trying to ignore me?” Aya realizes your dastardly plan after a few moments

“Well there’s no way that’s going to work. If anything, I’ll leave and poof the news is everywhere”.
You give her no answer, no snarky retort. Only a pure coincidental yawn comes out.

“Tch, so you really don’t care?” She finally connects the dot and stays quiet for a while; you can hear her hum while her gaze drills into your back “In that case…how about we have a deal?”

Again, you give no answer. Simply enjoying the humble life that is being part of the greater world, you are one with the pebble and the rock is one with you. This is pure harmony. Totally. It’s a nice rock to be on if you say so yourself. Big enough for two people and a picnic kit if you’re into that. Not only that but it’s a zero emission vehicle. So sitting on it won’t harm the environment. This rock is the perfect spot to sit on, you were meant to be here. This is true inner peace.

Or you’re just waiting for the tengu crow to lose a nerve and get angry.

Both are equally valid reason-ow! your body meets dirt, dirt is happy to get a new friend.

“…Ahem!” and the girl actually kicked you off the rock “Come on hear me out! Did you forget what I just said earlier? Surely, I could tell you about some secret passage into Eientei or anything else you want to know. But only for a small price. The best price even! Of just a single interview” she sounds actually annoyed now with you and has been reduced to bargaining “Come on what do you think of that?”

You igno…wait, hmm. If she does know how to get into Eientei without being seen, then you might get a lot closer to the Princess without any trouble in the way right? Or she might not be trustworthy at all and just give you false info or something.

Even so it’s not like you can’t do stuff on your own.

What do you say to that?

>___
[] Accept the offer, have her tell you about these *secret passages* (and something else if you want)
[] Decline, you don’t need anyone’s help. In fact, you’re going to go for Kaguya this instant.

>>28652

You shrug and jump up from the ground. "Fine" and walk towards the Crow Tengu to accept the deal. You'll tell her anything she wants to hear if she helps you get into Eientei via one of these secret passages she speaks off. But if she lies to you, remember that Immortals do not forget grudges.

Her face immediatly grows back a smile of the worst kind, her body language oozes confidence as if you accepting was the only possibility and she'll gladly go along with those terms. Then she rants about how she's the number one infiltrator while holding a hand on your shoulder and is overall a nuisance.

You have half a mind to just tune her out and wait for her to get to business but....

>>28653

You ask her about Keine whereabouts, she replies she doesn't know where is. And that if you want her to seek that info for her then you'll have to owe her a favour afterwards. You keep that in mind for now.

You show off your disguise and ask for her opinion, Aya looks you up and down before getting a lot closer and sniffing one of your sleeves. Before you can protest she backs off and says that the disguise reeks of Rabbit and is therefore a lot more effective than she'd assume looking like a drug dealer would be.

Finally she gives you an freebie by trying to teach you on how rabbits actually talk and their behavoir. This part is remarkly harder than you thought it would be, but after a few minutes she says it's better than nothing.

Mokou now knows how to act like a rabbit! (You are even less sus now and harder to recognize).

Aya asks you if you're ready now and if so she needs to add in some houserules first.

1-Do not, in any circumstances actually walk or make useluss noise. The moment you make a single sneeze every single rabbit in a large raduis would detect it and report it to their fellow superiors. Be quiet like the night.

2- Do not talk unless she says you can talk, even then obey her every command no matter how ridiculous it might sound at the moment. You frown at her for that one but she INSISTS this might be the difference between life or death, while you find that hard to believe. You won't question it for now.

3- Once you're inside, you're on your own. She won't risk herself any more than she needs to and if you're discovered midway she will not hesitate in abandoning you.

You begrudginly agree to those terms, if it makes killing Kaguya easier then so be it. Even if trusting a tengu even remotely puts a weird feeling of suspense in your back.

Finally Aya shares with you the plan to get inside.

[] You'll enter through one of the secret bunny tunnels they got for the well...buns, they're not guarded at all and though they're small and cramp lead directly into Eientei's storage. The only risk is actually meeting a bun bun.

[] You'll use the sewer system, yes Eientei has actually installed modern toilets and waste disposal. Aya says the rooms are way bigger than they should be but again, rabbits do shit a lot now don't they?

[] You'll boldly enter through the main gate, Aya will simply get you accross that point using a special method many people have used before in the west. Delivering you hidden inside a large cardboard box.

[]....On second thought, the Tengu is not reliable at all. Let's bruteforce the entry on your own.

>>28656

>How does Aya know what the insides of a rabbit's toilet looks like? (Optional Dialogue unlocked!)

That’s a good question, and one you actually want to know the answer off. You stop flying after the bird and call out her name. “Hey Aya”

The Tengu quickly turns around and frowns as she does a sssh motion with her hands. “What is it? Be quick about it, someone could overhear” while looking around if anyone could be eavesdropping.

“How do you know how these sewers look like?” you state as you rub your chin “Sounds awfully convenient now doesn’t it?” in suspicion.

“Cause I went in them obviously” Aya’s smile comes back, as if what she said is something amazing “Sure, the rabbits may have some amazing security, but Aya Shameimaru always finds a way in~”.

“Hold on a moment, so you went in the sewers willingly?” you find that hard to believe “The place with the piss-water and rabbit faeces just lurking around in it…weren’t you disgusted by it?”.

“Oh it was quite messy yes! There were mounds of fecal matter just lying around that I had to make my way through. Five or less guards that I had to sneak past and frankly I kind of pity in hindsight since come on having to stand around in a dirt tunnel for an entire work day is not something I’d wish on my worst enemy. Then again the whole place was surprisingly clean, like seriously the ceiling and walls were pure white and one could probably put in 30 people at once in those tunnels too. Even the shit has a street to itself nowadays, truly this is a land of opportunity”. The bird suddenly chatters a lot, as if happy to share the story. “Of course, you’ll soon see it for yourself as well”.

“…So you were okay with it then? You didn’t think it revolting?” you’d make a taunt about it being her natural habitat but you can’t afford to do so right now. After all she might leave you in a offended huff.

“Of course I did, I hated every second of being in there…” She covers her arms around herself and shivers in disgust “Ugh, it was hell. The stench, the feeling of dampness on my clothes...it was terrible.”

“Then why did you go in there? Why not find another way?” you ask her with genuine curiosity. Despite yourself you’re invested in the story now.

“Isn’t it obvious? Because it was worth a scoop!” Aya dramatically spreads her wings and does a pose “I Aya Shameimaru am the world’s greatest reporter, in order to spread the truth to all the residents of Gensokyo! In order to make everyone aware of the secrets of their daily life! I am willing to explore any sort of hell for the information I so desire~ I did it for the greater cause, to follow my dream! Isn’t that something humans do as well?” and looks at you expectantly, as if she's waiting for something.

...Oh! She actually wants an answer out of you.

[] You're still a pissdrinker, dream or not that's disgusting.
[]...Hmm, you guess she's not wrong. If not it's a bit relatable.
[] Whatever, let's just go already. There's no time to waste.

Next update will feature the next location, do wait warmly.
You can also add in your own piece of cent (Aka your opinion) to Aya's philosophy if you want.

>>28658

“Don’t know about dreams or truths. *shrug* All I know is not to dig too deep; things get pretty ugly when you get under people's skin... Or six feet under.” is your honest reply to that.

“..Hmm” Aya stays silent as she rubs her chin while just looking at you, finally a sigh leaves her “My, that’s a sad thing to hear...You sure are the life of a party~” and lets out a playful chuckle that contradicts her words immediately.

“If it’s so sad then why are you laughing?” you reply to a bit more defensive than you liked to “I’ve got no need for these things, whatever I work to achieve, whatever obstacle stands in my way, they’ll all disappear with the passage of time anyway. So, there’s no point in caring about it. You don’t have that privilege so do know when something is not worth it, or you’ll be dead.”

“I see, I see” Aya fiddles with her notepad, making you instantly regret talking “I’ll keep it in mind, but my oh my are you becoming more interesting by the minute. Not bad for a hobo~.”

“Says the piss drinker of all things” you snark back. “Oh wait…perhaps you’ve gone through worse things as well? Who knew the tengu could act so shameless, how worthy of worship~”

Aya lets out a dignified laugh at that and throws a counter.
“Don’t you have it backwards? If anything, you’re- “

“This conversation is over, let’s continue” you quit the banter and move ahead, you can only talk so much after all.

“H-hey wait up, I’m the one leading the way” Aya quickly follows with a huff, and easily guides you towards the objective.

“Stop, those bushes are moving” And

“No, it’s time to hide in those trees” after some

“Almost there, just stay out of their sight” time.

You both successfully sneak your way past any potential youkai encounters and any rabbit that you could have come crossed across. Mostly by simply flying low to the ground with a ridiculous amount of caution but hey it does work.

Finally, Aya suddenly stops “We’re here” and so do you.
She makes you hide behind a rather large rock where the two of you can peek out from to get a look at said entrance. It's better that way since just walking is foolish and too risky.

Lying at the start of a large riverbed, lies an open round gate of sorts. It is surrounded by a wall made of bricks and the hole itself is large enough for three persons on top of each other to comfortably walk into.

On a better look you can tell that the whole thing kind of appears like a head. Your own to be specific, Is that the joke? That piss and shit comes out of your mouth?

Har, Har, Har, Oh how funny Kaguya. The kind of spite someone would need to make something after you is something you don’t respect regardless of the dedication needed. In fact, this only motivates you to kick her ass three times harder than usual.


Anyway, you think this is the sewer entrance Aya spoke off. But for a secret passage it sure seems like an obvious way to break in. You swear to God that if this is a trap, something will burn.

(Keep an eye on the guards) Aya points out in sign language because now you’re too deep into territory and so the slightest sound could be perceived by the enemy. Which is unfair.

Anyhow there are indeed two white bunny maidens dressed like soldiers sitting next to the river. Side by side as they partake in a casual luncheon. Their rifles and helmets are put away just one foot away from them while they casually chatter about stuff.

They are just a few feet away from your position, if you could rush towards to instantly knock them out then you could easily subdue the other before it has a chance to cry out for rei-Aya holds your shoulder and motions no, no.

The reason for which becomes apparent all too soon, a surge of water suddenly bursts out of the sewer entrance like a wild tempest before carrying whatever it holds further away by the river. The rabbits are undisturbed by this so it must be normal.

“Aw, these squalls are so unnerving every time…” one bun bun complains as she takes a bite out of a carrot.

“Word, if she keeps this up then the river might get flooded”

“Wait are you for real? Then why does she get to do that?”

“Dunno, but the boss said we ought to respect our special guest. If anything, it’ll make dealing with the Fujiwara easier”.

“Oh yeah, she’s coming for the princess, isn’t she? How much longer until she arrives by the way? I want my break already!”

“Oi stop whining son!” Generic Bun Guard slaps the other one at the back of the head, then continues “And to answer that question I don’t know. Reports say she should still be at the village for now”

“Merde…Who would win though? If she managed to get all the way to the princess I mean?” the junior asks.

“Obviously it’d be the princess and the reason is…! Get back!” The bun grabs the other bun and jumps back immediately from an even fiercer wave of water that even gets to the sideliners of the riverbed. It’s like mini tsunamis are being thrown around.
“Kid are you all, right? Heavens was that a spooky one”.

The junior is unharmed “Y-yeah, maybe we should take a larger distance from it” and she gets up “Also thanks for the save”.

“No problem kid” Both of them get up, pick up their rifles and step some further feet away from the entrance before standing next to each other with their backs to one another to avoid any blind spots…dammit they’re sawy! “Now stay focused and remember: Don’t go off investigating any suspicious noises. Don’t fall asleep mi job, don’t pick up thrown items from the floor and never….and I mean never! Dismiss a suspicious sighting as your imagination. Report everything always”.

Well great, the guards have an excellent view of the entrance. Don’t have any obvious blind spots and have a decent intellect, sneaking into the hole is going to be difficult.

Aya taps your shoulder again and then makes a gesture of pointing at your clothes and then twiddling her thumbs as if they’re walking before pointing at the guards again.

Wait she wants you to distract the guards? That’s crazy! And might even immensely backfire, not to forget there’s no way you’d trust her into having your back like that.

Aya just looks at you with a deadpan look as if to say *Do you know anything better?* and that’s a dumb question.

Because of course you have a better idea.

>_____

[] Can’t be caught if the guards are unconscious.
[] Have Aya be the distraction instead, that’s much better.
[] Just go along with Aya’s plan, just do it for now.

It’s indeed better if she does the distraction instead, that way you can easily make your way into the sewers while being certain that no backstabbing will occur. It is the safest option.

Aya silently shrugs at your decision and gets up. Literally casually walking out of the hiding spot while waving her hands towards the rabbits, “How do you do fine gals?” She approaches them with a southern merchant accent.

Both immediately pull their weapons on her “Don’t move! This is private territory, leave at once or we’ll have to use neutralizing fire” The senior says to her as she continues walking towards them.

“Whoa there!” Aya raises her hands up, still not stopping her walk as the rabbit’s gazes follow her steps. She stopped getting closer to them but is making sure they’re not watching you. “What’s the deal here? All I was going to do is give you lads the offer of your lives!” and she pouts at them.

The younger one is about to shoot her but the older one stops them “It’s not worth it” and tells them to get ready for any trouble before walking towards Aya gun still loaded “Go away already”.

She warns the disguised Tengu, not trigger-happy but still rightfully cautious of her.

“Tell me sirette, have you heard about the dangers of *Gaseous Bioxide*?” Aya chats away.

“Bio wha- “and the rabbit interrupted by her. Leaving them no chance.

“That stuff’s EVERYWHERE” She stretches her arms wide “It gets in the ground and the trees eat it all up. It messes them up so much that they start making MORE of it. Crazy right?” Aya Ayas away.

“Look, lady. You need to go sell your product else- “

“It’s like a POISON, but luckily there’s a CURE” Aya continues dominating the conversation, and she takes out a vial “*Low Carb Oxygen*, the perfect way to combat Gaseous Bioxide Contamination”.

“Poiso-, low carb wha—CONTAMINATION?”

“Ayup, Over 99% of people who breathe it die in just a matter of years!
You said you have a son right?”

“No I didn’t, and in fact you sh- “

“Think about your future son then, he’s got a whole life ahead of her.
She’ll want to become an athlete or something cool like that I’m sure of it. But athletes like your son are especially vulnerable. All that physically extraneous activity just makes their body use up more air, forcing them to take in more Gaseous Bioxide in the process.” Tears come in the Tengu’s eyes as if she’s about to cry from a tragedy “Sniff, your poor baby girl will die before you how sad! No parent should outlive their child, all that love, all that care taken away by Gaseous Bioxide! How terrible!”
She shoves the vial into the rabbit’s hands “Here’s a deal, I’ll give you a 20% discount on this bottle right here. And I’ll even tell you more about that. Think about all the good that’ll come out of it!”.

The poor rabbit looks absolutely confused “I, uh,I. I suppose I can be never too safe” and accepts.

Aya puts one hand on their shoulder and gives a heart-warming smile “You are a great mother, looking after your daughter like that.” And continues the rant while both buns are distracted.

…Well, she achieved the effect, all that’s left is to enter the tunnel and ditch her.

She’s off no more use to you after this now, isn’t she? Besides if she really wants to then she can just keep up with you. You slowly float closer to the Sewer Entrance and pinch your nose in disgust. It already reeks of rabbit filth from this distance, imagine how much more revolting it will be inside.

You make your way into the sewer tunnel; you don’t even need to crouch or puddle in the water due to how big the hole is. Instead, you just mindlessly fly forwards. The walls aren’t white at all now and so perhaps the place is cleaner deeper inside? You wonder about the logic behind that.

Finally, you see a rat move past you as if it’s running out of the tunnel. Followed by another three or so but again that’s not much of a problem now is it. After a while you see a split in the road.

The sewer seems to have two paths now, left, or right. You don’t know where either will lead but you’re certain that one of them will be the right way. If anything, the absence of guards shows that…wait does water rush out of one of these maybe? You’re not sure but you’d rather not be splashed by piss water if possible. Even less drown in it. Don’t underestimate water waves.

Anyhow, that’s another decision you must make. Or you could just wait for Aya.

…Though that could be tiresome, you’ve already seen what she’s like.

[] Head left, cause why not.
[] Head right, it’s the right direction.
[] Wait for Aya to catch up.

>>28663

[x] Wait for Aya to catch up.
[x] Look for a ditch, a hole or whatever else useful to hide in. To keep away from guards and to be save from the surges of water.

You decide to wait for the Journalist Tengu, one’s opinion of others aside you did make a deal with her and a Fujiwara is not one to break promises…hence you make them rarely.

Indecision on which tunnel to take may be a factor too but oh well.
You think some more about where one could find a ditch or a hole or like anything to avoid the deadly surges of water.

Maybe the guards too but you doubt anyone would willingly stay in a place filled with danger like that, Nada no sane person would hide inside the sewers in that condition. You know Kaguya well enough to know she wouldn’t force her cattle to be exposed to such danger.

Perhaps Aya’s info is outdated? She didn’t mention when the last time was, she entered the place after all, perhaps on purpose even.

Ah, but now isn’t the time to suspect her. Now is the look for useful stuff to pass the time time. And you find nothing of use.

There is water beneath you, there is a large amount of ceiling above you. There are stone walls to your right and left and the whole place is big enough to have multiple people walking at once in it.

Unless the waves become like su-wait they are big yeah…Hmm, how would you avoid them then?

Make a wall into the wall by kicking them?
Just evaporate the water with intense firepower as it passes by?
Or just have Aya gust them away or whatever?

Whatever, you’ll figure it out.

You instinctively duck to avoid a pair of hands trying to cover between your eyes. Looks like Aya’s back and with that pout on her face she clearly wanted to pull a “Guess who?” on you.

Too bad, your senses are too sharp to be hit by cheap shots.

You point at the passages behind you, “Which one do we take?”.

Aya answers with zero hesitation “The right path, it’s the right direction after all~” and you have half a mind to doubt it but fine.

Both of you fly deeper into the sewer and notice that the walls become more distant and indeed a bit cleaner as you go along.

Finally, the tunnel is no longer a tunnel but more like a…large enough to be a football field basically, the walls have become white and less old looking. Guess they couldn’t make the entire tunnel big after all.

“Overestimating one’s budget is a mistake many make” Aya comments on that matter.
“Why are there are giant wooden crates here?” you ask the real question instead as you notice that the whole place is adorned with floating large shipping contains, they are all stacked a few distances away from each other but each one is big enough to count as a wall to hide against…. God dammit Kaguya, this is a toy trap of sorts.

*If you want to make it past here, then let’s see if you can make it in time from crate to crate lest the water swallows you up Ohohohho! *
Would be her words, and once more the urge to strangle her appears.

“Hey” Aya pokes you in the rib “What is that?” and points at something. Said something being floating devices with one eye each adorning the walls at specific angles…they’re moving cameras.

Again “God dammit Kaguya…this place is booby trapped to the core”.

“Hey, take it easy, it’s not like things can get an- “and here we go.
You can hear water rushing from beyond and can see it yourself. It’s a large wave of water coming from end of the room (It’s source still unknown) to the other, every inch of the room is covered by it as quickly but certainly comes your way. You don’t want to be hit by that.

Kaguya wants you to use the wooden containers as hiding spot for the water, but if you do so then the cameras will see you. But if you don’t then the water will drag you all the way out of the sewer. But if you destroy the cameras then it obviously was you now, wasn’t it?

What’s your response to Kaguya’s attempted railroading?

>_____

[] Just go along with it, you got no idea against that.

The waves are getting closer, time is running out and Kaguya is most likely laughing in the background due to the belief that she has beaten you 30 steps ahead in some mental chess.

Except she forgot one thing: Just because she knows you that doesn’t mean she knows everything.

For you’ve got a secret trick, if not the perfect counter to this situation. Now to hope that it’ll work.

You tell Aya to back off as you focus, the surge of your resolve creates flickering flames that swirl around your body like a symphony of crimson colors. You focus the heat on your surroundings and your image swiftly distorts into being the same as your surroundings. It’s almost like you are invisible, except you’re also covered in an intense heat so it won’t fool the cams if they have heat detection…even so trying this out is better than nothing as you swiftly move to a wooden safe spot!

You move just in time as the large wave rushes forth, the wooden barrier is overwhelmed by the intense waves that splash against it but does not budge as the water continues to simply move across. You make sure not to actually touch the wood lest you leave a burn mark by which the cameras or the person watching the cameras can see that you did pass through this way which would make the whole mirage thing redundant. You calmly and patiently wait, with no sign of panic or unnecessary noise as the camera nearby you points your way and…does not detect you. Your Plan worked!

You internally smile at that, you fooled the system and the water wave finally ceases. You continue moving past each safe-wait that’s no longer needed. You simply move past the room and further into the football field hallway, once there’s no more obstacles and cameras you stop and look back.
You feel like you forg-“Looking for me?” Aya says as she appears like a blink out of nowhere.

Well, looks like she made her way as well, you continue onward the path which for some reason
seems to have no more obstacles nor these mountain philistine piles of excrements Aya talked about, were they perhaps washed away as well? If so that’s rather convenien-

“Hold on a moment!” The tengu reappears in front of you with her arms crossed.

“What is it?” you say as you fly past her anyway, if she wants to talk it better be important.

“Aren’t you going to ask me how I made my way past?” oh, so she wants an excuse to boast…

“If I say no, will you keep it a mystery?” but you’re not here to indulge her or Kaguya or anyone else.

“I’ll explain anyway, you see I used my super speed t-“

You ignore her rambling and decide that the best thing to do is give her uncommitted nods, uhuh, Is that so’s and overall give her the impression that you’re pa-“Your clothes are on fire by the way” oh.

You look at your disguise, the hat on your head has been turned into ashes, while the trench coat has melted onto your other clothes due to being made of part leather. The sizzling of your skin is mildly uncomfy and starts to give off a nasty smell. After some struggling you put all the fires out.

And throw away your disguise, revealing your normal clothes in their splendor! (Disguise lost!).

“Showoff…” Aya doesn’t seem impressed and keeps her own but honestly who cares about that.

The path ahead shows more occasional turns to the left and right, with Aya’s aid she guides you throughout the almost labyrinth layout while you simply smash through many water waves that come your way, after some time the waves finally stop for some reason while at other times you swear you saw something move in the water only for it to nothing. The Tengu however keeps talking the whole time and finally motions you to stop.

You do so, “What’s the matter?” you ask.

“This is the end of the line” Aya says as she points at one last corridor leading to a room. “Once you’ve gone past that room, you can climb up a ladder and you’ll have made it into the Washroom Basement. Sneak past those rooms and you can then head upwards to the Cafeteria (And thus go outside via a door or window or) via the Elevator (Go deeper into Eientei), except not cause you’ll need a keycard to use it and even then the odd of someone walking in is too high.” She’s suddenly serious so you don’t interrupt “Security is going to get a hell lot higher from here on, so this is the part where you and I will be separating since right now we are beneath Eientei like promised.”

She takes out her pen and notepad and faces you with a smile “So now it’s time for an interview~”.

She wants to know everything you know about this whole affair, why are you hiding in the Bamboo Forest? Why are you trying to sneak into Eientei? What kind of thing is happening right now?

How will you respond? (Will you tell everything? Will you omit some stuff? Some questions you want to ask? Etc)

>____

>>28676

>Right now? In a sewer? With surges of water? Just below Eientei?

Aya nods eagerly, interest blatant in her eyes. Seems the place doesn't matter.

You think about it, this really isn't the best moment for you with all the waves, the vapid stench and the whole atmosphere not giving you an story teller mood.

>Tell you what, how about once this blows over, we'll meet at my place or wherever. I'll even put up a pot of tea as a bonus

"No dice" She moves her head sideways frantically, her hat almost falling off "You made a deal with me!" and gets closer to you "And I want my news as fresh as possible, by the time it's over my rivals will have already posted their views of the events and I'll be seen as a late bird. NO SIR! The Bunbunmaru gives the greatest and fastest news in Gensokyo and no offer of tea however tempting it may be, thank you for the offer I really appreciate it will ever change that!" and she speaks with an energy equivalent to as if you asked her to kill her mother.


>>28677

>If you leave right now, I'll bring Kaguya along to be interviewed too

This actually makes her pause, and she looks up as if thinking about it "Private interview with a princess and the eternal flame about the events that have occurred...pictures of the moon beauty alongside her rival...I could pass that off as a special edition even if my news comes off as older then the others. No way people would pass that up" and you can actually hear her mutter it all out loud since you're so close "But what of my creed? what if the hype of said news is only temporary? there's so many ways that could go wrong....hmmmmmm" she seems to be struggling with the decision and stays quiet after that. ​


You feel like your next words could be the next thing needed to convince her.

Or perhaps you could her show her something of interest.

The water starts to build up again, you feel like a wave might come from the next room. Ergo whoever's responsible for creating those may lie in wait there or simply be oblivious to both of your presences and playing around.

Food for thought, either way what do you do now?

Hold on, an idea comes to you. You take out the letter and show it off to Aya (The back of it so she can’t read it to be specific) while making sure to carefully hold onto it “Long story short, the princess hand-wrote me a lovely letter that bored me to my umpteenth death about how much she missed me and all that stuff…”

Aya attracted to the thing like a moth to a flame invades your personal space faster than…something fast “Ayayaya~? A LOVE letter you sa- “

You interrupt her by putting a hand on her shoulder and gently pushing her away “Too close, also quiet I’m not done”.

She obeys with a never-ending smile on her face “Go on then!”.

Doubt comes to you immediately, a thought in your head tells you that she would use the slightest fuel to make up a ridiculous story but on the other hand if you don’t say anything then she gets to fill in the rest with her imagination. Not sure which is worse, you continue “The letter is filled with a bunch of unimportant junk but there is one part I do care about. The simple sentence of *Keine isn’t coming home today* implies a certain scenario that I can’t ignore hence I’m in this shit right now.” your voice lets out a more angered tone despite yourself.

The crow doesn’t say anything and just looks at you with an odd expression “So if I understand it right: You’re being blackmailed into visiting the princess lest something bad might happen to Keine?”.

You shrug and look to the ceiling “I guess that’s a good way to put it, doesn’t mean I have to play on her terms. I’ll just sneak my way in, see if Keine’s captured in there and show Kaguya what I think about all this”.

“Hmmm, it feels like you’re still hiding something~” Aya says with a spot-on insight, before sighing and moving out of the way “Guess it can’t be helped then. If I publish this right now, it will only get in your way, doesn’t it? So, I won’t share this info for now because I Aya Shameimaru have a noble heart as well!” she laughs at her own perceived humbleness “But don’t think I won’t continue the investigation for my own private perusal~”.

“…As long as you don’t stand in my way. Do whatever you want” not sure whether to feel relieved or more on edge, you decide now is the time to keep on going. “I better not see you again though”.

“No promises!” Aya replies swiftly “But do get ready later for that private interview you promised. Until then Sewer Bird~”

“Don’t call me tha- “you turn around and notice that she’s already gone. Damn bird sure loves to showboat her own speed.

Back to focus, the room ahead of you is adorned with a gate of sorts unlike all the open tunnels up until now. Said gate is just actually open now but feels like it could be shut down to either keep something in said room or someone out. Ergo it’s obviously a trap.

Or foreshadowing to a dreaded encounter, you sigh and tell yourself that Keine would have walked into the room anyway if your roles were reversed…which is probably true. She better be all right though…

You shake your head; this isn’t the time to worry. Any time spent not being on you’re A-game is a moment that Kaguya would relish.

You walk into the room, and the gates promptly shut down behind you like you called it for. You brace yourself for an ambush as well.

…Which doesn’t come, you’re on your in the room. You can see that this has only one straight direction unlike the previous labyrinth sections you’ve walked through. There is a ladder at the other side of the room which looks inappropriately long but would lead towards the next area if Aya was correct.

Other than that, there is simply water in the room, troubled water that’s rushing back and forth like a wild ocean wave. If you were to fall in there, you’re certain you might drown once or twice. It makes you wonder if there’s a mechanism for all the wild waves from earlier or if this is just some magic nonsense coming from some culprit that’s hiding from you.

“I swear to god, if this is a boss fight…” you grumble to yourself as you fly over to the ladder slowly yet carefully while hugging the walls of the room lest something jump out of the water at you. Nothing comes out and you turn your back to it to start climbing on the la-you dive!

Just in time as a heavy black object smashes the spot where you would have been just a second ago, it’s pulled back some chains and you tu-

“Fujiwara!” you fly away from an intense wave of water, then kick away the black scythe like thing when it’s aimed at you again...though the contact hurts.

“Who is this?!” you reply on guard, ready to dodge or counter any attack that comes from your unknown foe…except out she comes.

Rising out of the turmoiled water like an ancient ruin out to shine its wonders is a humble ship made from wood that fishermen tend to use. On top of it is a girl holding her arms folded like she’s some sort of messiah while an phantom of the operasque theme plays out of nowhere. She’s wearing a skeletal mask and is adorned by black sailor clothes followed with a white cape like she’s the revenge of the sea itself.

You sigh “…Great, another weirdo. Can I pass or do I have to bea- “?

The girl interrupts you and starts singing out of nowhere “The ocean plays for me. A song of c-c...cayenne? A song of memories and sins unseen...” quite clumsily in fact.

What in the nine hells is she doing?

“But in this sanctuary, I’ve come to fiiiind. The Heroic Phantom Of the Sea has come to haunt…that which hides in your mind!”

She shows no signs of stopping, but the novelty of the situation has worn off. You feel like her guard is open and her rhymes are a turnoff.

“Play once again with me, a danmaku match! My waves of energy you cannot make past. And though you have the fire. I’m sure you’ll fiiind.
The phantom of poetic justice has come to…strike your wicked mind.”

“…For how many hours have you waited here? In this stinky room? Do you have nothing else do?” you reply annoyed and confused.

“Will this be your tomb?”

“I don’t have time for this, just get out of my sight!”.

“The Hero of the Sea will never let you pass. Without a fight.” And that’s everything you needed to hear.

It’s time to make this amateur opera shut down at once!

>____

[] Get in close and personal, you take pride in your flaming kicks.
[] Play it safe, get a handle of her attacks first and then counter.
[] No time to waste, take out the big guns and go all out immediately.

>Can you guess who this 2hu is?

>>28685

Who is this 2hu: Murasa.



You are CORRECT! You gain a bonus just for that. Read on.

Music Optional: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNsYxdEPvmM
I listened to this while writing this.

You sigh and await her next attack, getting a reasonable sense on what she can do is vital for a counterattack “Come at me” you raise one of your hands at her defiantly and taunt her with a dismissive swagger.

“Sink for me bird!” She is more than eager to do so, Murasa changes her posture a bit, putting strength in her arms as she starts swinging her heavy metal round and round in order to gain momentum before smashing it towards you at a fast pace with the intent to crush you.

You easily fly out of the way of the first swing, but the thing rebounds against the wall and as you kick it away with your right foot a second later you hear a snap in your leg, tsk. Looks like your ankle got twisted by the hit, great, the thing’s heavy and blunt impact will definitely shatter your fragile bones. Even so it’s not like you couldn’t parry the thing if you timed it right…. jeez, what a bothersome weapon she has.

But you don’t have the time to try that as she shoots out another surge of water like they’re weaponized water waves. These are a far harder to dodge due to the fact that even the tiniest droplets could have danmaku behind it. Though again you counter this by shooting out your own flames to increase the window of opportunity behind it.
This exchange of you parrying her anchor attacks with parry kicks and dodging every.single.droplet of her wave attacks loops for a while, it’s quite apparent to you that she’s only using those two methods while occasionally switching it up by having her anchor rebound of the walls or letting herself be dragged by it in an attempt to kick you as a surprise. You wonder why she’s not using her full powers yet.

“Is that all you got?” you taunt her once more, curious to see if that’s indeed the case. Cause if so, this’ll be easy to handle. “You throw anchors and shoot water waves, quite the dull theme you got there…Murasa was it?” you point at her with one finger while successfully parrying the anchor with your left foot for one final time.

The Masked Phantom stops her attacks for a moment “H-how?” and stares at you with a surprised look before laughing out loud with mirth in her belly “Pfehehe, you are one sharp sea-dog aren’t you?” with a smooth move she removes her disguise with a bright smile “That’s right lass, I’m Motherfucking Captain Murasa!” her colour code changes back to a white and blue sailor uniform no mask or cape or anything of the kind. It’s her honest appearance “Kind of glad you figured out to be honest…ugh I’d hate to keep that façade on”

You shrug and use the pause in her attacks to land on the ship she’s on. She doesn’t attack so you get into kick-the-shit distance of her “Quite the easy guess, ain’t many Ship Phantoms around here” you look her straight in the eye, uncaring about her circumstance “So what brings an honest Captain in this rabbit dong infested waters?” you attempt to distract her with a question, but she backs off instead.

She chuckles and starts swinging her chain again, a confident grin is on her face as she replies, “Don’t pretend you give a shit, you know what we’re here for” she still isn’t attacking, probably believing she can’t possibly miss you from this distance and she’d be right “Not like I WANT to be here but eh, confidential circumstances made it happen~”.

“You’re right, I couldn’t care less about that” you look around the room, the heat inside of you is almost high enough “So what, you were planning to drown me in this lil room? How original of you”.

Murasa puts a finger under her chin “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. But indeed, that’s the plan. You see the water below you?” She points at the waves the ship is being carried by “Thanks to my ability all the water is as heavy as metal and has no buoyancy. So, a single dive in there…and you won’t be ever coming up! This boat will be your cof-ugh!” you dive kick her in the face HARD as her speech got boring, her body smashes against the boat and ragdolls off into the water.

Perfect Victory? Nah, she’s still good. You just know it.

[Capsize “Sinking Anchor”]
Called it, the anchor bursts at the spot you were as you fly away and smashes into the ceiling and then the walls right next to it in a fast and precise motion. The chains of it are limit your surroundings to the centre of the room as Murasa’s head pokes out of the water “You fell for it! Did you think I was talking because I liked to chat?” still all smiles.

You yawn as a reply, get to the point already.

She pouts at your lack of reaction “Tsk, fine you’ll enjoy the point all right!” danmaku starts shooting out from every point the Chain is located at, every opening being slightly lower, lower and…closer to the waves “That’s right, don’t go the waves and you’ll be hit by danmaku which will make you fall and drown! But move towards the waves and you’ll drown anyway! This is the Davy Jones locker made just for you!” and she starts laughing again, as if she already won.

“Boring…oh so predictable too” you’re not at all impressed. If anything, you hoped for a little bit more than this kind of childish mind games.

“Huh? What do you mean? Don’t think acting cool will save you!” the girl doesn’t understand where your confidences come from.

“I’m not the one in danger though” you take out your spell card. “Tell me, did you know that metal is an excellent heat conductor?” and you activate it before she can reply. She’ll understand it soon enough.

[Immortal “Fire Bird -Flying Phoenix- “]
The chains turn bright red, as if possessed by another force before bursting out into flames cancelling Murasa’s spell card, from the ashes of said object rises a flaming phoenix that soars throughout the room evaporating all of the water bullets before diving straight for the culprit herself with a screech of pure resentment.

“You think a spellcard is going to defeat me?” Murasa shrugs at the sight and simply dives deeper into the water only for the bird to chase her into it “How stupid, there’s no way th-!” the water around her evaporates as it STILL heads straight for her “Impossible?! There’s no way fire can beat water; a small bird can’t possibly defeat an ocean!” and she concentrates her everything into stopping by concentrating all the surrounding water into a huge anchor to clash against it!

The Phoenix of Flames struggles against the Anchor of Water, and both seem unable to gain and advance, the fire still has the advantage!

“NO!” But Murasa refuses to relent “I’ve capsized the mightiest of ships, braved the fiercest of storms and defeated the worst sea monsters of the seven seas. I’m the captain of the greatest ship and my crew depends on me…” You think she’s having a flashback due to her sudden silence, only for her to shout “CAPTAIN MINATSU MURASA WILL NOT FALL HEEEEEREEE!” and she beats your spellcard with raw determination, the firebird dies as the anchor smacks against the ceiling and disappears. “Take that Fujiwara, time for round 2!” she shouts out to you “Eh, wait a minute where are yo- “and goes blank.

You’re nowhere to be seen, did she defeat you alongside the Phoenix? Did you decide to hide after activating the spell card? Nope, none of those are quite right. There’s no more water to protect her, and no more anchor for her to intimidate you therefore you are…

“No, but I will” Right behind her, with a casual gait. So close you could even hug her.

“What!” She steps away from you immediately shocked “How did you sneak up on me?!” and tries to take something out of her pocket “Its doe-wait where is my thing” but fails to find it.

Coincidentally you’re fiddling with something that belongs to her in your hands “This reminds me of something” you show it to her “If I recall Ship Phantoms use their ladles to sink things”

“That’s! How did you?!” Ugh, it’s a pain when the foe fails to understand they’ve been outsmarted. “How did you know?”.

“You just told me~” you lie with a fake smile and take a step towards her “And now that you’re defenceless…what do you think I’ll do? Go on it’s not hopeless yet, try to predict my action” You lean back a bit “Will I kick you with my left or with my right foot?”

“Agh…..Agh…” you’re not sure why but she seems to choke on air as she grabs her throat with one hand and crouches on the ground “Fujiwara……Agh” She flickers into a deadly pale green for a second “FuuuujiiWArAAaaa agh. Oooh, you should not have done thaaaat” the stench of a bloated corpse emanates from her as well as a green aura “Givee…agh,h,, bAcK the…ooogh. ….LADLE PLEASE!” and beckons one hand straight to you as if it’s your last warning or perhaps she's begging for it. You can't tell due to the garbled voice.

>______

[] “If you want it…” gets ready for a smackdown “Then take it from me”.
[] Just give it back to her, she looks in pain and it’s important to her.
[] Do nothing, just keep watching her.

Again bravo Anon, it was a very clever write in that really did give you the advantage.

>Do nothing and keep watching.

That’s hardly a problem, you keep your distance from the gagging phantom and ignore her voice while keeping your guard up. The way she’s acting seems a tad too convenient…after all if that thing was so important to her... “You’d have noticed me taking it if it was that important, cut out the deceit. You won’t fool me” you conclude indifferently.

The girl doesn’t stop her whole gagging and crouching on the ground routine, her voice becomes more painful, and tears are starting to come out of her eyes.

You shrug and wonder if you could use her ladle to make instant Onsens…being able to have a warm relaxing bath no matter where you are could be quite relaxing. If anything, it would do wonders on the skin and uh you don’t know that much about baths in general.

“This is excellent, you really show no weakness huh?” you glance back at the girl, she’s floating in the air with her hands behind her back and an impressed smile. Her green aura emanates over her entire being and you can feel like you’re facing the embodiment of the cruel force that ended the lives of so many sailors “Then again what did I exp- “

“Save me the monologue” you interrupt as you brace yourself with a lacklustre defensive stance “*This isn’t my full power* or *It’s finally time to get serious* that’s the kind of thing you’re planning to say before revealing some sort of trump card, right?” you put the ladle in your pocket “To that I say, get to the point. I don’t have all day for these mock fights”.

The ghost blinks at that, her aura dissipates as she folds her arms together and frowns “Hey, hey, I get that you’re acting cool and everything but you’re bumming me out here!” and starts to complain midbattle about how you’re not trying hard enough “I can tell you’re still holding back on me, am I not good enough of a foe or what? This isn’t a one-man show jeez...” she makes herself comfy in mid-air as if in protest and you attack her lowered guard swiftly, dialogue or not the moment it’s open you strike. No matter how rude this may be.

You shoot flaming feathers at her, only for them to go right through her. Did she dod-No that’d be wrong. She simply chose to become intangible, so the feathers had no chance of hitting her at all. “If trying hard means making a fight trivial, then I’d rather keep things interesting” you reply as you mumble a hit-a-ghostly-broad-anyway spell and ready another kick to her face as you dash towards her. Here comes the Mokou sandwich.

“It’s not going to hi- Agh! “the back of your foot hits her in the chin, you follow it with another two kicks upwards before ending it with you guess it. A flaming dive kick to send her smashing into the ground! Only for her to turn green and teleport elsewhere. Shame, it's an excellent nutrie-you're above puns. Just no.

“That’s enough!” you look up and see her flying right next to the ceiling, two anchors in tow as if to say they aren’t that important. Once again, she’s back in her green ghost form or rather would this not be her real appearance? “We’ve done enough warming up…” another dozen anchors appear behind her “And I’ve got a solid gist on what you can do now…” water bubbles simply spawn next to her “So I believe it’s time for Captain Murasa to give you the first taste of her new spell card” and she shows it clearly to you, unlike the usual red ones this one is pure black “It’s a special delight” and she activates but instead of declaring a spell card, the surroundings seem to distort instead.

Before you can make heads or tails of it, you realize that everything is underwater now. There was no announcement or anything, first the room was dryer than a dessert and now it’s filled to the brim like you’re in the middle of the ocean. This is interesting if not troubling for there will be no use heading to the ceiling now…hm why is this? How is this?

“Sadly, I can’t use any other spell card as long as this is active but…” her sixteen anchors start spinning wildly around her like a barricade…wait no you can feel a suction towards them, it’s like a mini tornado slash shredder in the making “I just have to wait things out and you’ll drown! And even if you don’t, you’ll be shredded apart in just a sec! Take that Fujiwara!” and she’d be right since as if by sheer miracle you do not breathe water, what are the odds.

Then again, there’s a simple fact she hasn’t considered. You haven’t gone all out either.

You’d reply with sarcasm or indifference or half a trace of excitement but sadly doing so would quicken the removal of air in your lungs. You’ve got enough experience holding your breath though that you can confidently hold it in for around 5 minutes if you were standing still but you won’t so let’s say 2 or 3 minutes ergo there are 180 seconds left to beat her.

Only problem you feel that the moment you remove your feet from the ground you’ll be dragged towards her wannabe anchor shredder, your body will definitely not survive a direct hit against that if you don’t come up with a good plan. Well played Sea Ghost Girl.

But that’s fine, that much is something you should be able to overcome if you want to beat Kaguya. Speaking of her you feel no you know she somehow is responsible for that card.

What to do now anyway? There’re many things you co-yeah just do something.

>___

[O] End this already, use the same trick as earlier and use overwhelming firepower to evaporate the water away.
[O] The card is most likely the key out or just a good red herring, let's destroy it and hope it ends the terrain effect.
[O] You know what? Let's just beat the tar out of the Sailor already, even if it'll cost a life or a limb (Choose a method of attack).
[O]....The ladder never locked now that you think of it, you could literally just walk away from this area and into a more advantageous one if not just leave the fight entirely.



For reference you posses the following abilities.

@ Powerful pyromancy and all of your spell cards.
@ Complete immortality but you already knew that.
@ Various sorceries for the sake of youkai-hunting.
@ Hundreds of years of fighting experience.
@ The Touhou wiki for yourself and also Murasa because you guessed her identity correctly.

Good luck Anon and cya later.

>>28695

Really? Using an object that belongs to your foe in the middle of a combat doesn’t sound like a good idea, sure it is not a stretch to believe that just because the ladle is bottomless and contains infinite amount of water that it is able to suck it out as well. Then again, it’s still a theory now.

It’s not like your foe is watching you now, wait she is. But she doesn’t say anything towards your attempt or simply sees it as a desperate attempt for you to not drown. Like a cornered rat attempting one last bite on the steel bars that they’ve been trapped within. Big mistake.

You take out the ladle while resisting the force of the ever-increasing anchor-noda. You attempt to use it in some way and for a few seconds nothing happens. After some more nothing happens again.

You mentally sigh at the sign, seems that this thing counts as a magical object or perhaps the Phantom Ship’s ability simply requires a ladle as a medium for the water than as the source of it.

That would explain why she immediately went for the black spell card after failing to use trickery rather than trying to take back the ladle by force. It is an alternative way Kaguya gave her that she didn’t want to use until she had to. Not only that but she can’t use any other spell card either... ergo this must be her last trump card and that’s the same as saying that she no more other options.

>>28696

So, there is no more point in holding back. You focus your power and flames permeate your entire essence, wings made of pure resolve like that of the eternal phoenix spring from your back and the water around you bubbles from the sheer temperature you emanate. It’s time to end this!

“So, you’re finally going all out! That’s right give me your everything!” Murasa encouraged by your whole power aura deal awaits your counter with excitement but soon after you no longer hear her words because the anchors have advanced into such a speed that the tornado becomes a vortex. Hitting her head on with a ranged attack will now be deflected like paper thrown at a wall and an attempt at melee will only result in you being shredded apart. It has transformed into the perfect attack and the perfect defence. Quite the marvellous strategy, you’re almost excited.

Almost.

You sigh again if brute force won’t work then. You’ve got nothing else but to go with instinct!

>>28697

You take out one of the more recent spell cards and activate it. This will be all or nothing!

[Exalted Personage "Advice of St. Germain"]
Flaming wheels of fire shoot out from beneath your foe, its presence creates an undertow that starts to pull her downwards, not to forget the additional will o wisps that are send out at her to stalk, distract and overall be a massive pain in her arse if she doesn’t pay attention to dodging them.

“Wha-!” She immediately attempts to resist the force and dodges the bullets thrown at her like they’re nothing “You seriously think a spell card could take me down?” and looks at you with a bit of disappointment before letting out a yawn “Man, I expected something more awesome from you than a bunch of flaming wheels shooting ghosties…like covering the entire place on fire or maybe like doing some crazy uh something more than this!” and boy does she enjoy being noisy.

You quip back at her “And what el-sblururgh!” and panics sets within you as you grab your throat with both hands. Why did you talk back? Now you are going to drown dammit! You fool! Distracted by your sudden panic your body flies off the ground and towards her, you double fool!

“Pwahahaha! Oh my god! Did you actually do that?!” the girl fully buys your performance and opens a hole within the tornado to receive your wildly flailing body and catches you with ease by the neck. “Alley-hop! Dear sea witch, I know I hoped for some banter, but damn was that the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen. What were you trying to do by-oh wait you can’t answer that now can you? Lest you drown and all that stuff…but you know what? How about I help you with that!” her other hand forms a fist and collides hard with your lungs; you spurt out more air as a result and glare at her.

You immediately try to punch her back, but your fist goes right through her, she smiles brightly at you the whole time and you can feel happiness just oozing out of her as your continue attacking uselessly “Oooooh Yeeaaaaaaaaah. So, this is what it feels like to drown an immortal huh? I have to say it’s quite enjoyable~ No it’s more than that, the struggle before the finale, the way you keep calm during even the most stressful times and the fact that even as you are dying you simply refuse to give up…it’s marvellous! Completely enthralling! I’ve never felt this way before! I would be so sad if you were to die after this, to have our time end in such a way…to the point that I’d probably pull you out of the water now due to sheer respect but… we don’t need that now do we?” She stops choking you as your body goes limp and holds you like a chap would their pal and continues the talk while dodging the fire that comes at her from beneath “Cause you’re IMM.MOR.TALL~ and that means you can drown more than once, right? Boy does that make you quite the unique catch, like a sandwich that can be eaten over and over with no refuse. This amazing time between you and me will never end!” She ruffles your hair, messing them up “Sure, it could get boring after a while but right now? I am going to ENJOY this. Like seriously I can see why accepting this gig was a good idea now. It’s almost like it’s my birthday that’s how happy I am right now!” and the trap has been set.

You stop your act and poke her shoulder with a deadpan look, she has failed to notice something quite important.

“Huh? What do you mean look u-! YOU LITTLES-h-aoaaaaa!” talismans fall from above and cling to her body, yokai-slaying charms, ghost sealing talismans, everything that could possibly harm her in her ghostly form clings to her body like flies to honey. She lets go of you and struggles immediately “AAaah, get it off! It burns, I hate it! My power’s leaking! It’s leaking!” indeed her movements become much more slower and erratic until finally she does not have enough power to…

Both of your spell cards are captured, the surroundings distort once more and both of you smash into the ground as all the water is gone and only the stone floor remains. It’s a hard impact for the both of you as your wings disappear and Murasa’s anchors shatter away as well. That was harder than expected but the plan worked anyway, and your foe should not be able to do much after all that.

Then again neither can you, while Murasa has been forced back into her physical form and is wearing charms that drain her power faster than one can count to 10 so are you vomiting out water you accidently inhaled and suffering from a cracked rib due to the punch from earlier. Both of you struggle to get up but you get up faster due to being used to being injured more than her and you shoot a blast of fire at her legs throwing her back into the ground again before slowly limping towards her with the occasional cough as you loom over her. “Get up already!”.
Your foe does not get up “Muuu…” and instead moans in pain, maybe she’s become unable to stand up now? Those charms of yours are no joke at all.

The fact she can still mo-oh she’s on her knees now and glaring at you “Tch, don’t think this isn’t over yet. I’m never goi- “

“You never answered my question by the way” you interrupt again with a dull tone.

“What?” She looks at you confused “What are you tal- “

“I’ll repeat it to you but only once, where you want to be kicked? Your face? Your body? Or perhaps should I get creative and kick you at everywhere at once? Choose your spot, my friend”.

Her face becomes blue, as she realizes what’s up “Oh fuuuuuuuuuuuc- “which isn’t a valid answer.

Guess you get to make the choice after all. A shame but eh, you’re feeling rather annoyed right now!

“Wait! Wait! I give up! Don’t do that thing! I was just roleplaying I swear!” she raises both of her hands together as if bracing for it.

F-F-F-FINISH HER?

>____

You obtained a new spell card! (More detail next update)

(Go ham anon, this victory is yours and I made sure that all votes were counted in some way.

Or you can not beat her up, your choice regardless. )

Next update should come quicker, like in 24 hours or at the worst 2 days.
Also honestly same, I'm enjoying writing this a lot.

>>28700

You raise your arm and put it on the Sailor’s head and move your other arm around her in order to support her body, you gently pat her head as if she’s the most fragile thing you’ve ever set your heads on. “I forgive you, let no one say a Fujiwara doesn’t know mercy” and smile at her all-teeth. With the full intention of making her lower her guard for a surprise beatdown, shush but true.

She is confused by the gesture “Wait, you’re sparing me?” and doubts your mercy as well. Her body stiffens up a bit and the poor girl is shaking despite trying to look brave. She rejects the patting.

You nod calmly and ruffle her head some more and speak with the wisdom of a being that surpasses time “You’re just a paid actor, not someone doing this out of cruelty right?” your eyes show a kindness like that of a grandma looking at their grandchild. “I don’t do grudges…” and explain to her your philosophy of how it’s pointless since you’ll outlive everyone anyway.

“Ah…is that so?” the girl still doubts your words, but her body language clearly relaxes, her breathing becomes slower paced, and her body’s weight is fully carried by your weight. She shrugs after a few seconds and lets out a chuckle “Yeah, you’re right! This was nothing more than a fun time between you and me. Kind of a sad thing it had to so soon, but damn is you one hell of a unit Fujiwara” Murasa finally smiles back at you and has so far NOT told you stop the head pat, so you continue.

“About that…” you let out a frown of suspicion “How did you know I was a Fujiwara?” you have not even once told someone that you are of that clan…except for Keine and then Kaguya but no more other people after the latter being the whore of the devil, she is told everyone at Eientei about it.

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7m8M6Y7jZE) I warned you Anon about the flashback.

The sailor’s face becomes grim instantly and her eyes distant, and her words filled with sadness “You…your clan…because of them…I lost my family…” yet no hatred accompanies them.

“What are you talking about?” you stop the head pat, and your arms hold her a bit tighter.

“I grew up…In the Nippon we all know and love…but that’s not what I was born as. I was an abandoned child you, see? My very first memory was that of waking up inside a pile of garbage…for most of my early childhood I had to struggle to survive by working hard in a port town, everyone could always use an extra hand when it came to lifting heavy objects and I was quite sturdy for- “

“Not that I don’t care for your backstory, but a simple sentence could have answered the que- “.

“After a hard day of work, I’d watch the sunset with my friends as we all ate ice cream…the ships leaving off into the sunset were the most beautiful things my eyes had ever seen. For all I could tell they were going off towards distant worlds with greener pastures and kinder people. Though the sea is cruel and harsh, those who sail across it, those who master it. Are the few common men that are truly free…it was during those moments that I realized my dream: to sail the sea as well one day”.

It’s no use, you realize that she’s having a monologue. You grumble and try to tune it out.

“Finally, after some time, I finally managed to achieve it. My captain and in way father figure took me on his ship, despite the protest of the other workers…they were so cold to me…even though they knew this was my lifelong dream they didn’t trust me…thought I was some portent of bad luck. Anytime I tried to fit in, anytime I’d try to go where the laughter and talking was, they’d leave in silence and leave me with the trash. I tried to observe their customs, see what hidden house rule I accidentally broke but no matter how hard I worked to gain their acceptance…it would not work. They’d be nice when the captain was there but otherwise, I longer had anyone to watch the sunset with…even so just being able to see the waves, to feel that wind of freedom. It was enough for me”.

She still hasn’t mentioned how your clan factors into this, you let out a small cough to indicate that.

“Ah, sorry. I’ll make it quicker: One fateful day, some bigshot from the Fujiwara clan demanded we’d sail them across in the middle of a fierce some storm. The task itself was nothing less but suicide but we all knew that if the Captain refused that they would have ruined us. There was no other option…”

You can guess the rest yourself “You went with them and died, didn’t you? In that storm I mean”.

She nods with a chuckle “From then on, I was a ghostly sea ghost that ghosted the seven seas as much as ghost could ghost…but even I was still an outsider…and no one accepted me”.

“Sinking the ships of people certainly didn’t help. Have you ever tried not doing that?”.

“Hehehe…that might be true. Sadly, at the time my heart was filled nothing more than the desire for revenge…no more like anger? Some dark ink had boiled itself into my thoughts and well I won’t justify my behaviour. I did kill people, sob story or not. I became a sea-rial killer of sorts”.

“So, you died because a Fujiwara ordered you to sail during a storm, then you became a ghost out of a desire for revenge by sinking other ships or something. Is that your whole backstory done?”.

Her grim expression turns into a carefree smile again “Nah, there’s a happy ending…at least one for me that is. One day I met Byakuren. Long story short after the kindest thing someone has ever done for me, I finally had a place to belong once more. No more sob story and no more dark inky revenge stuff~ Just a temple that’s actually a ship where Buddhist youkai live in are my surroundings now, and with that I am finally happy again” and that’s her whole backstory right? Right?

“That’s….” you’ve got no comment for that “So why are you in these sewers anyway?”

“Ugh, did you have to remind me? It’s like a dungeon designed after me…in VERY POOR taste mind you that you were supposed to fall into all dramatically after some encounter with Kaguya all the way up in Eientei. I’m supposed to be like boss number 3 or so? I don’t know what that Princess is planning or how she even knows stuff about me, but the fact remains that…this is all like some big game to the girl? All in your honour even. I’m not sure if that’s a compliment or an insult…”.

“So why are you here then, if you don’t want to be here?”

“Cause Byakuren asked me to, that’s all I know about this. I’m just your stage boss really. You overcome my challenge, go the next area and I get to call it a day and go home afterwards” she pauses for a moment “Wait no, I gotta try to kill you again in an hour or less or something if you win and only in 5 minutes if you lose…uuh sorry I don’t really remember it that well”.

“So, you were chosen because you somehow have the slightest of connection to me somehow huh?” If you were a betting woman then your gamble would be that Kaguya did the same for every other hero or something “You’re here…to make me pay for the sins of the Fujiwara in some dumb thematic way. Such theatrics….is something I’m not surprised she concocted…goddamit Kaguya. If this whole journey has some dumb moral at the end of it, I’ll never forgive her!”.

“Keep in a punch or two for me as well, once this whole deal is over, I might give her a private bath as well” Murasa agrees with your statement, then again who would not. Kaguya’s an ass.

“No promises…so is that it? Are you finally done blabbing now?” you’re ready to drop her like a potato if she keeps talking. There’s only so much time you’ve got to waste.

“Uh, yes? I don’t know what else you want to hear…I don’t have any grudge on you if that’s what you want to know?” She peers at your face for a moment, not sure what else you want to hear.

“So, you’ve got no grudges on me?” you repeat just to make sure. “Will you have any though?”.

“Uuh, I think not? You can let me go by the way, this win is entirely yours Admiral, also pl- “.

“Hold on you said Admiral, why?” you’re not a fan of nicknames, just use the name and nothing else.

“Call it a sign of my respect towards you~” She says with zero embarrassment and pulls her tongue at you. The fact she can act so cheeky while being in this helpless position says a lot about her guts.

“….” the mood feels a bit different now, you’re still totally up for giving her a beatdown and fuck the mood you are kicking her ass, right here and now. “I’m going to kick your ass now”.

“Wha- “those are some lousy last words, you let go of her and start the process!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQx1hvoXN3o

And before she hits the ground your foot slams into her face, stomping onto it over and over with the intensity of a stampeding horde crossing the plains. Her body rebounds off the ground from the intensity as cracks appear on the stone floor. You don’t use a battle cry or anything and simply stomp on her with rapid fire kicks as if you were a hammer and she the piggy bank.

“A nice story it might be, but it doesn’t change the fact the fact you’ve tried and would have drowned me multiple times given the opportunity. That’s kind of a deal breaker to me” you stop the stomps and as her body rebounds once more you swing your feet like scythe to make her airborne.

You burst out wings of flame and appear right behind her “Not to forget the many innocents you’ve drowned as well. So, in a way the real sinner between the two of us CAN ONLY BE YOU!” you make up a new spell cards on the fly and are about to make the mother of all sea omelettes.

[Cleansing Fire “Judgement from the Bird Beneath”]
Two legs aren’t enough for this, so you create your own phoenix to aid you with it’s mighty talons. It appears right below her falling body and smashes her back into the air with only swipe of it’s talons. Only for you to kick the body back at the bird even harder, then the bird replies even harder as Murasa becomes a wailing projectile of the impromptu ping pong match between the two of you. After a few seconds both of you get tired of this and get closer to one another to end it all with a flurry of flaming kicks from both sides with battle cries just as intense to end this beatdown.

At the end of the 8 thousand kicks, Murasa has gone into dream land. You turn around and have the phoenix disappear after it does a pose behind you. “And with that…I call us even”.

Minatsu Murasa
Hero of the Sea and Rank #5 of the Seven Heroes.
The Sailor with the ability to cause Shipwrecks.
Has been Put out of Commission!

You let out a small sneeze and rub your noise, all that being wet and dry has annoyed your noise a bit. Not to forget the pain in your chest, that may last a while as well.

The stairs are just up ahead, and there’s nothing else to stand in your way now. You went ahead and picked up the black spell card but returned the Ladle to Murasa’s knocked out body. You feel like it’ll be a lot more useful than something that you can’t even use…for the sake of investigation you mean.

For you see, you’ve got something perfect for this. If this thing was really made by Kaguya, then you could use it to potentially track her down with a spell made just for the occasion of finding people by using the items that belong to them as a…wait why are you explaining this to yourself? You already know this, though trying this out in the middle of the sewers may not be the best idea. If echoes travel across this place, then someone might have heard those brutal stomping…and even if not it’s only a matter of time that someone finds the girl’s body. But you’ll kill Kaguya before that happens.

But honestly that’s enough musing. You pat yourself down and you think you’re ready to go.

But are you?

[x] You are, let’s go up the ladder and into the next area.
[x] Hold on, you want to do something else first (Write in).

You look one last time at your beaten foe, Murasa is still knocked out and won’t wake up anytime soon.
You can tell with the info you have that while you were expected to face off against her, you were not expected to make your way in here this SOON ergo once you go up your presence will still be unknown.
With that encouraging thought in mind you approach the ladder and scale it up.

…

https://youtu.be/a6qMW-6KZT0 (May as well go all out with the sneaking mood).

The climbing experience was surprisingly short, the ladder was made of metal and had a firm if not cleanish grip to it. Why there was one made that leads directly to the sewers isn’t something you really think too much off since having a convenient way to go somewhere is better than not having it. After barely 30 seconds of climbing the ladder straight up you finally meet a metal hatch door and push it open after with zero effort as it moves like it was well oiled. This thing must be a recent addition…which only makes you think more about the b-no time for that, you make your way into the room and quickly get on your feet with your guard up…only for there to be nobody else.

The walls of your surroundings have gone from pure white into a brown white, if not a tinge of orange around it. Despite said change the sheer cleanliness of the whole place feels unnatural.

The room itself seems to be a sort of storage room, with a width of 3 x 3 meters it is barely large enough for two people to hold hands and touch the walls with the other.

A stack of boxes made of cardboard are your only companions in the corner of the room, their content is unknown but there is an image of an white rabbit winking at you on it as the icon.

The rest are a bunch of pipelines stuck in the walls alongside rather large vents on the ceiling…they could contain a pers-nah, forget it. But they could lead to other rooms with far less trouble than walk-again, you’re not doing that. Vents aren’t convenient ways of travel as fiction has once told you…though these ones seem abnormally large, hell there’s even an convenient entrance into it.

Finally there’s the door itself, it’s a rather sci-fi looking one. It is plain white and has a button right next to it which you assume is for opening the door. Rather than pressing it right away you put your head next to the door and hold out for any noise beyond it. Things like footsteps or even chatter being the clear indicator you’re seeking for but do not find. You do not know what lies beyond still. The possibility that the doors are simply sound-proofed comes to your mind and the image of you opening the door only for your face to meet a camera just looming outside is just as possible.

You dismiss the thoughts, there’s no need in getting overly cautious. Even if that were to happen you could just destroy it before anyone sees you and even if you’re caught you could just fight your way upwards even if it would ruin the surprise approach you’ve done so far. The choice is yours.

As if by pure chance, a black feather falls down from the ceiling. Sigh looks like the Tengu has gone ahead of you and went inside as well. You dread any future encounter you might have with her.

You finally run out of ways to describe the room and realize that if you just stand around here then you might distract yourself with more fruitless thoughts. You focus on Kaguya’s face and immediately your resolve is set a bright once more. She most likely does not know you are here yet and would be enjoying whatever debauchery she indulges further above with her guard down. All you need to do is make your way to her and bam, she’s turned into a fried corpse. Indeed you are the one that shall assassinate her! And if that fails you’ll kill her the same regardless! Though at this point repeating that over and over grows a bit redundant...doesn't mean it's not fun.

What shall you do now?
>____

Objective to win the game is:
@Kill Kaguya (It HAS to be YOU)

Optional Objectives are:
@Kill Kaguya without dying once (“The Perfect Run”)
@ Make your way to her without having the alarm raised. (“Big Bird”)
@ Making sure that Keine is okay and if not solve the issue (“A friend in need”)
@Purchase or obtain the following: eggs, flour, bread and potatoes (“A job’s a job”)
@ Defeat the Seven Heroes (6 left) (“Hero Killer”)
Future optional objectives are to be found or unlocked, some even are secret but all offer rewards if you manage to accomplish them. It’s entirely up to you to do so. Good luck.

Inventory:
@ Your rather boyish red clothes, they are adorned by wards and ribbons that protect you against most of your own flame abilities. You’ve got an infinite amount of the latter.
@ Your own body (Currently has an sprained ankle and a cracked rib. Those will heal in a short amount of time, even faster if you stay immobile and instantly if you die).
@ Keine’s grocery list (Has been destroyed due to exposure to water and fire).
@ Kaguya’s letter (Somehow still intact, yet to see if it can be destroyed).
@ Black Spellcard (May have been made by Kaguya and could be used to track or divine her current location. You’d need some time, which could be spent doing more useful things).

Current Surroundings:
@ Washroom Basement Room #1 (You are in it)
@ Entrance to the sewers (You came through here)
@ ???? (Unknown, you’d need to exit via the Door).
@ ???? (Unknown, you’d need to exit via the Vents).

Kind of a wall of text but I wanted to make sure, you’d get the gist. Good luck Anon.

>>28710

>Check cardboard box contents, acquire Personal Concealment System

You approach the stacked boxes and remove the first one from the pile. You open the lid and find out that the thing contained a few things.

First there is the cardboard box itself which is quite obvious. It’s quite large and looks big enough to even fit you if you were to crawl in it…though the use of doing so sounds rather questionable.

Hah, like that would ever happen! There’s no way you’d ever do that!

Finally there’s a letter with a picture of a certain white rabbit, the letter reads as such:

Good luck Fujiwara~
20 01 11 05 20 08 05 05 12 05 22 01 20 15 18 15 14 20 08 05 18 09 07 08 20 02 25 07 15 09 14 07 18 09 07 08 20 20 23 09 03 05 01 14 04 12 05 06 20 15 14 03 05. 20 08 05 03 15 04 05 06 15 18 20 08 05 05 12 05 22 01 20 15 18 09 19 : (200409)

Hint: the numbers in the parentheses are not part of the code.
You should know what this is getting at, if you can uncover this lil puzzle then maybe…just maybe you could find a way to get straight to Kaguya with no issues! Now isn’t that a lucky star that’s shining on you?

Love, the most beautiful rabbit in the whole wide world~

…Great, a puzzle send by the White Hare herself. Or perhaps bait to enter another trap? It looks moderately simple to figure out though.

The second item in there are a bunch of fake rabbit ears, they’re rather cute looking and maybe could fit on y-wait what are you saying?

Never mind that, you doubt it would fool a rabbit for long but who knows it might work on the dumber ones. Anyway next item!

Which is nothing

Beneath lies nothing more a bunch of empty cardboard boxes. Great…

That was all the loot this box gave you, and you already feel like this is going to be a long day. Then again that was pretty obvious already.

>try listening in through the vents as well

You float towards the vent, it is large and seems a bit hotter in the inside. As you try to listen for noises you can hear the sound of tiny pitter patter which means there’s most likely mice or bugs in there. If the Tengu has really gone in there, then her passion for juicy stories might be almost respectable…except not cause she’s still Aya.

>hold onto the feather as a good luck charm?

You put the feather in your inventory, you’re not sure if this a feather of Aya or her pet crow and are not sure which is worse. Hopefully this does not make you some sort of pervert in Tengu Culture.
You stop that train of thought before it can devolve into inane thoughts about how birds would see feathers as whole.

>leave through the door

You press the button on the door and the door opens with a swuu sound as it slides to the other side into the wall. You exit the room.

There are no security cameras or guard that see you on sight, lucky you. You feel like wandering randomly as in boldly might heavily increase the chances of that happening though. Let’s not risk it.
That is not risk it if you want to do the sneaky approach.

You now find yourself in a similarly coloured hallway. There is another door right in front of you and a path to the left and to the right.

The hallway looks clean and you can see what you perceive to be the slumped form of a rabbit guard further ahead to your left. She is most probably sleeping and her well-armed status makes you not want to change that if you possible. Dodging non danmaku bullets is possible but tiring, also really loud and could alert everyone else in the room.

Above you on the ceiling is nothing but some sort of lightbulb, the fact they have modern technology this deep is a tad suspicious but you dismiss on the fact that rabbits like to have burrows or something.
The vents go either way but also straight ahead it seems too.

To your right you see a figure turn a corner, though it was too late to tell whether that was a guard or someone else. You should act fast.

Overall this place feels clean and almost isolating, you wouldn’t feel surprised if this place had a maze like aesthetic to it to trap you in. But your excellent senses would avoid that scenario. ( AKA You always know where you are).

What do you do now?
>_______

Current Surroundings:
@Washroom Basement Room #1 (Behind you)
@ Washroom Basement Hallway #1 (You are here)
@ Washroom Basement room #2 (in front of you)
@ Washroom Basement Hallway LEFT (At your left)
-A limp guard is against a wall further ahead and seems ASLEEP.
@ Washroom Basement Hallway RIGHT (At your right)
- A figure turned a corner just ahead, their identity is UNKNOWN.

Disable Surrounding Logs? Y/N (Can be reactivated upon write in)

Status:
You are currently UNDISGUISED, and UNCAMOUFLAGED. Camo rate is -10% (Most foes will instantly recognize your long white hair and red bright clothes from across the room). Changes to 5% when crouched and 15% when crawling. This is most likely flavour….or is it?

Your injuries (Sprained Ankle& Broken Rib) are IRRELEVANT at the moment and will not HANDICAP you right now for you are made of tougher stuff! They will heal in...10 minutes left!

Disable Status Logs? Y/N (Can still be accessed through write in)

Inventory has been updated:
Mokou Obtained Cardboard Box!
Mokou Obtained Tewi’s Letter!
Mokou Obtained Aya's Feather!
Mokou Obtained Fake Rabbit Ears!

Disable Inventory Logs? Y/N (Can be seen once more upon write in)

Good luck Anon, the mission is in your hands!

>>28715

Take the elevator on the right by going right twice and left once. The Code for the elevator is (200409)

You are CORRECT! Read on, and obtain your reward you clever bird.

>Follow the letter to the letter

You sucesfully figure out the meaning behind the letter and decide to follow its instructions. Whether the White Hare has another motive for aiding you or whether they're doing it just for the sake of being whimsical does not matter at the moment...the only thing that does are results.

Said results being your victory that is, you'll see after the fact if she wants something out of you. You crumple the letter and put it back in your inventory before looking around and getting ready to go.

Henceforth you will follow the letter to the letter and start walking casually to-

>Proceed cautiously (float)

On second thought you lift your feet from the ground and will simply proceed to fly, that will make far less noise and is simply simpler and faster as a way to proceed. Good swift thinking you got there

>But also wear the box.

...

What?

What's the point behind doing that? What would you even achieve by putting it on? Do you think this would work as a camouflage? there's no way someone's stupid enough to ever fall for that!

>It'll make you feel safe, it's comfy and warm and getting into it will make you feel at peace.

As if you need comfort, if anything you're already adapt in sleeping litteraly anywhere. You really do not see why you would need to put on the cardboard box and refuse to put it on as a result.

>But it will give you an tactical advantage on your foes, noone expects the cardboard inquisition! Think better, if you see a cardboard in a hallway then you'll only give it a small glance. it's genuis!

...You sigh, you never knew you wanted to enter a cardboard box that badly but hell who's to say a little bit of self indulgence can be that bad? you can't live forever and never have fun.

You put on the cardboard box, your legs stick out when you stand up but when you're crouched the thing is completely covering you. It doesn't feel that good to be honest and only makes you feel embarassed in hindsight: If Kaguya or Keine saw you in this, what would they ever think of you?

>Get a glance at the figure

You float as quickly and as close to the ground as a cardboard box as are capable off. It is not an easy task because the box only has a small vision hole and gives you a massive blindspot on your left and right while wearing it, with swiftness you make it to the right corner and see noone.

Which is odd, you swear you saw someone and unless they ran further ahead (you don't hear any footsteps) there should have been no way for them to just poof out into tin air...you are not alone.

Then again that's obvouis, you saw a rabbit guard just earlier. So never mind that and let's continue with the objective. You float as casually as an floating cardboard box can and turn right.

....You meet no obstacles, so you continue your way and head right once again.
Again, wait stop! you see a camera on the ball and stop moving. Had you stopped a second later it would have caught you moving onscreen and probably sounded the alarm...you're not sure why it hasn't right now even since you were clearly not here before. Even so it's sightor thing simply ignores you and you make your way past swiftly while questioning the logic behind the security.

You turn right once aga-"What's that box doing there?" and stop immediately! A voice can be heard from your right the moment you turned the corner, you however do not get to see the person and can only see the large grey doors of the elevator alongside a sort of password system right next to it. The fact the guard was right around the corner was something you could not have seen with the box on...to think wearing such a silly thing would have backfired on you! WHO KNEW?!

You hear the footsteps of a bunny guard walking closer to your box to inspect it. "Did someone just leave it here? snif snif" they sniff the box and move to the front, letting you finally see their legs. "Smells like rabbit piss and doo...ew I ain't touching that" Oh good so they won't go pick it up "But even so, is it me or is it floating like a tiny bit of the ground? man, I have to let my buds see this! GALS! GALS! LOOK AT THE BOX I FOUND! IT SMELLS LIKE SHIT SO SOMEONE CLEAN IT!" and your relief leaves you as the rabbit hollers for their companions, the fact you could just get out and beat them up doesn't even come to you due to the embarassment of being in the box and the shock of being found out.
You mentally note this down as a moment that you will never ever mention again.

Only one person gets summoned from the rabbit's shouts, a fellow guard who you don't see rapidly walk towards the other one and decks them in the face "SHUT THE FUCK UP! I was having a great nap here! What are you screaming like a dying coyote for?!" and seems not glad to have heard it.

"Ow..." the guard holds her nose with a pitiful whimper and a stomp of the foot, before pointing at your legendary box stratey "Look, I found a box! it smells like piss and floats! It's so suspicouis right?" and insists on the other person that this isn't a waste of time.
"The hell are you on about?" clearly not in a good mood, the rabbit simply kicks the box dismissively "It's a dumb box, who cares if it smells like piss. Do I look like the janitor?" and also takes a closer glance "Also the damn thing's not floating (No longer yeah), so shut your trap and don't let your imagination get the better of you...attention seeking dumbass" and concludes the other is full of it.

"Wha-but I'm saying the truth!" the other rabbit is offended by the lack of faith and you can feel the aggresive pointing at you "This box is suspicouis! I'm sure it's like possesed or has a ninja inside it! Hey don't you roll your eyes!" and becomes more agitateted as not a word is believed.

"Prove it then, lift the damn box and see what's underneath" the bunny snarks back.

"But it smells filthy! who knows what could be inside of it!" and other bunny protests.


You feel like you should do something here before it's too late.

>____


Surrounding Logs:

Doesn't matter since you'll leave this area soon.

>>28719

>>28718

>Equip Bunny Ears, not for cosplay but for an excellent disguise.

See normally you’d dismiss a thought like that as a bad one, but right now right here you’re not one to talk like that. If a foolish action brought you in this, then the best way out is to do the same.

Not, that’s a terrible thought even. It’s like trying to put out a fire by throwing even more fire on it, sure the fire would burn faster and eventually run out of oxygen but that’s not to ignore the fact the fire will become more powerful and spread around the area. But you don’t have any better ideas…

Again, you inhale deeply and summon your courage.
Not that you’re scared, heavens you’ve lost that kind of feeling years ago. No, this is simply fighting with your own dignity. You win said battle reluctantly as you slid the bunny ears out of your pockets and put them on your head.

>Use flames to make your darker than the ashes of the night.

You feel like doing so would easily burn up the cardboard box, and even if you tried to do it sneakily there’s no way the rabbits wouldn’t notice the sudden rise in temperature and smell of ember.

Speaking of the rabbits, they are still having an argument. You hear both stomp their feet on the ground while spouting protests at each other. It’s these little *tap* *tap* kind of noises and the image of two rabbit girls pouting at each other while doing that is-that’s a redundant thought, focus.

>Claim you were trying to sneak to a bathroom in the box because you were too embarrassed by your terrible smell to face anyone.

…You uh, you’re not sure if that COULDN’T work but still that’s one hell of a stretch to assume people are that foolish. Or that you have the charisma to pull off such a broad lie, not that you’re not charismatic. You sure know how to intimidate the hell out of someone yet people approach you without you wanting to so you must have some sort of presence…but still to play the clumsy broad that may or not have sharted their pant with an embarrassed blush is kind of a…ew?

It kind of goes against everything you stand for, it's almost as embarrassing as the one time w-FOCUS.

>Wait for the guard to lift the box

You patiently wait for one of the guards to remove the box and brace yourself for a trail of cunning.
“FINE! I’ll do it! You jerky jerkity jerk of jerks!” Rabbit Guard#2 says with one last stomp of anger and girly voice as she slowly and very reluctantly pulls open your box. “!” And freezes at the sight of you, you assume that’s the same case for the one behind since neither are moving like deers caught in a headlight. On an unrelated note, you will never again let Sumi show you stuff on her phone.

You freeze back and see the face of an afraid young girl with brown hair, red eyes and white floppy ears on her head showing that she’s a humble earth rabbit. She also wears something that’s a black professional suit that turns into a skirt at the leg area. Further down are some shoes and…ankle pyjama things? You don’t know why her thighs are revealed like that oh and she has a white rabbit tail too. You guess she’s not in animal form cause otherwise she couldn’t carry that small gun she has in her pocket nor the id tag on her chest. You realize that you’ve just been staring in silence now and should probably do something before either guard shakes out of it and sounds the alarm.

>spring upright "At attention! [stomp, making a" thump sound] Name and Rank soldiers! I want to congratulate YOU[u] on successfully intercepting an 'attempted' 'infiltration' of 'Fujiwara no Mokou’!"

You jump upright with the face of a tiger and let authority flow through you. “At ATTENTION!” your foot smashes against the floor with such force that a tile breaks making both girls jump up “Name and Rank Soldieeeeeeeers!” you let the words drag out as long as possible, so far it’s going good “I want to congratulate YOU on successfully intercepting an attempted infiltration of Fuijiwara No Mokou” your finger is like a sword drawn close to the girl’s face as you go all out on the lie.

Fear, confusion and then doubt comes to the girl’s face as she tries to make sense of it “Wha- “

But you interrupt her “This clandestine drill exercise has been designed by Reisen Inaba to ensure and improve the safety measures Eientei has set in place against the princess's immortal enemy! [u]You may meet up with Miss Inaba at the next change of shifts to receive your reward" and imitate the manners of the crow to the best of your ability, you rub your nose and smile a smile of pride.

“Oh? Oh!” at those words realization comes to the girl’s face as she salutes instantly “Y-yes! Thank you for the honour Ma’am!” and she believes your every word since you are one scary son of a gal.

“Bullshit” guard#1 aka the one right behind you speaks with sceptics again, you turn around and when you look her in the eyes, you realize that she’s frowning back but also looks the exact same as the other guard except for the blue hair. “What? I’m saying I don’t believe it. Where’s your id by- “

“SILENCE FOOL!” you jab your finger at their chest and hiss straight into their face with the venom and glare of a thousand suns “WHY YOU! YOU should be utterly ashamed to be allowed to wear this uniform! You call yourself a soldier? You're disregarding, even outright DENYING, your peer's reasonable suspicions regarding foreign objects on the premises while ON DUTY!" and go immediately on the attack, if you hit hard right here and now then she won’t be able to use common sense. “How dare YOU talk back to a superior officer! This is called clandestine for a REASON!”

To their gutsy credit, the girl’s body whimpers in sight, but her mouth moves anyway “Bu- “

“NO BUTS!” you grab the girl by the shoulders and look down on them like a tiger who got their next meal. “You are a DISGRACE to this unit; you better fix that smart aleck attitude because the next time this happens, you'll be cleaning the sewers with your toothbrush! You won't just be smelling shit; you'll even get the privilege to be tasting it. And all that is ignoring SLEEPING. [thump] ON. [thump] GODAMN. [thump] DUTY. [thump]" the floor gets more smashed with each stomp. The vibrations of which even reach the bun bun’s feet, you have the legs of an overdosed horse and the voice vocals of a lion. You can also guess how loud this is for their sensitive ears “And if I catch you next time with eyes that are anything but wide open - if I even catch you blinking in my presence - I'll ram my boot so far up your ass they're gonna have to call the Doctor to surgically remove it from your intestines” you end it all with one final lure of affirmation “Do you understand soldier?”

“…” the girl’s attitude is swept away by your presence; her ears are flopped down, and her eyes show tears that threaten to spill out of her eyes as her upper lip twitches so adorably “But. Bu- “

You lift the girl up with your arms, immune to her charms and shout for the last time “DO YOU UNDERSTAND SOLDIER?!” and visibly raise your foot as if it’s about to do it.

“YES!” the girl shouts back all defiance gone, but that isn’t enough.

“Yes? I’m not your equal you fool! What do we say our seniors huh?” and you demand more.

“YES MAAM!” and she finally gets it, you realize now that man is you scary or rabbits are easily scared. You’re not sure which though the former would explain a lot of situations.

“Good” you drop her and turn around without looking back at her “Run along now” and you don’t need to say any more than that as she gladly does so, if her rapid running indicates anything. “You’re both dismissed. Resume your duties” you say just to the last girl as you walk towards the elevator and press on the password thing to like put it in with some struggle. The elevator should come soon now, now all you need to do is wait
.
“Excuse me Ma’am” guard #2 calls out to you again for some reason.

“What did I just say?” you look at her with a frown and your arms crossed. The longer she’s looking at you, the higher the chance that she realises you’re full of baloney.

“Where are you going? I mean I’m assuming that if you’re going to use the elevator to go back up to the surface. But if so, shouldn’t you go clean yourself first? You stink a lot”.

“…That’s none of your business now, is it?” you reply, not sure what else to say.

“Ah, that’s true but I don’t mean to be insolent but- “you can see she’s trying to be helpful.

“Then shut your mouth and do your job” but again, you don’t have the time for that.

“…I’m sorry Ma’am, I-I’ll just continue my patrol then” and the girl leaves dejected.

You don’t really care though, and even if you did it’s not like it would affect you that much. Finally, the elevator arrives and opens its steel doors. You enter it and it closes behind you.

You see that the elevator is well the inside of an elevator, there are 3 buttons on the thing one going up, the other going even deeper down and the floor you’re currently at. The room itself has white walls and a mirror encasing the entire wall in front of you. There is a sign that says only 1 person at the same time should be in the elevator at a time, which frankly you think is kind of a bad design. At the very least make it 2 or 3 or anything but eh that’s what you get when you try to make animals use technology. At least you think so…it could have been a kappa who made this for all you know and honestly who-you hear a noise. Above you.

You look up at the ceiling, you can touch it with your bare hands after a small jump and you swore you heard the noise of something small impacting against the ceiling. A few seconds later you can even hear what sounds like a pitter patter but the moment you knock on the ceiling the noise suddenly becomes more prominent only to vanish afterwards…how suspicious. You highly doubt rats or spiders would have made on top of the elevator. Or it could maybe just be part of your imagination, who knows how overly cautious you might be.

You sigh and look at yourself in the mirror, your ears look the same as theirs now that you look at it. But if you push away some of your hair it’s obvious that they aren’t connected to your body…let’s hope further up or down no one will ever bump into you.

You shrug and look at the ceiling one last time, though you are tempted to wrench it open and see what’s above. That kind of thing may not be that sneaky or even smart, before you know it some fire alarm goes off and oh boy would you look silly then, wouldn’t you?

Let’s just decide on where to go next. Each button only offers to go up or down a floor.

>____

[x] Go upwards, towards the surface. Kaguya must be up there. It’s time to end this all!
[x] Go deeper down, you’re not sure why that option is even there. But they’d never expect it.

Surrounding Logs:
@Elevator #1 (You are here)
@Washroom Hallway #3 (Outside the Elevator)
@ Floor 0 (Goes up, destination ???)
@ Floor -2 (Goes down, destination ???)

>>28723 Down it is then

>>28724 And is that so? If so please take a guess, if you're correct then I'll confirm it and if it's incorrect you won't get a penalty or anything like that.


>Go deeper down, you’re not sure why that option is even there. But they’d never expect it.

You press on the button for the floor -2, on cue the elevator whirs into motion and slowly moves downwards. Why one doesn't simply use stairs or ladders comes to your mind but then you remember that you needed a password to use it. Hence the reason for it, you do have to acknowledge that the sensation of something lowering downwards with you inside of it feels quite strange...it's like you're getting lighter despite not moving. It may be the closest thing some have to flying.

>Inspect rabbit ears further.

You look at yourself in the mirror more intensely, the rabbit ears are white and floppy just like the others. It is worn perfectly on your head and you swear that it moves occasionally even though there isn't any wind. It may simply be a good luck charm or make an future encounter with a certain rabbit far more likely to happen. Other than that you sense nothing.
Sure it may look a bit cute though, for some reason it doesn't lower your scare factor at all. If anything it's cutesy appearance only amplifies the contrasting messages from your everything. Hold on a moment, no one is watching right?

...Hmm, you mimic the pose Reisen does when she shoots people and shoot out an imaginary bullet in Kaguya's head.
You instantly regret doing so and regain your composure, what if there were hidden cameras? This was way too risky.

>list current inventory.

You pad your clothes and look at what you've obtained so far.

@ A Cardboard Box (Disguise/Flammable)
@ Tewi's Letter (Hidden Message/Flammable/Useless now)
@ Aya's Feather (Good luck Charm?)
@Fake Rabbit Ears (Disguise/Flammable/Good luck charm?)-Currently Equipped on Head.
@Kaguya's Letter (Plot token/ Indestructible)
@Kaguya's Black Spell card (Plot token/ Indestructible/???)
Items not listed have been discarded or been destroyed through trials of combat.

So far so go-you hear a snapping sound and suddenly feel a lot lighter as in your feet are no longer touching the ground, you feel like this is a very very bad thing to be feeling and even though you do not understand how elevators work you just know this isn't normal. Your senses have never betrayed you and whenever you ignored them something bad always followed.

You have 2 seconds to act on this gut feeling. What do you do?

>>28727
>>28728

>Start flying.

You use your ability to fly and come to the conclusion that indeed, this elevator must be going down at a rapid pace. Ergo if you don't get out now, you'll become paste. Quick to react you swiftly move towards the ceiling and....

>If we are strong enough, hold the ceiling up with flight to stop the elevator from falling


Incidentally, elevators can weight between 2,1000 and 6,000 pounds. The more you know

You grip the ceiling with both arms to hold it up, instantly you feel a crushing pressure come to your muscles and shoulders. Like an ant trying to hold up a human foot or an giant trying to support the earth on it's shoulders so too does it feel like your arms have lightning coursing through your veins as the fall has been slowed down but not stopped. You struggle immensely to not be crushed.

Normally this shouldn't be such an problem, after all you managed to meet a certain priest's body enhanced flurry of blows with your own. You've proven yourself the superior flame in your bout against an plate pyromaniac and to your own pride you've managed to defeat every single person that resides in the Bamboo Forest at least once. The fact this simple task IS a problem shows that perhaps the moon princess might be right about one thing...you have grown complacent and so your body has been reduced to a shadow of its prime self. The fact Kaguya is right on the mark as usual fills you with an sensation that can only be described as pure, unwavering vitriolic SPITE!

This isn't over yet! No mere object can ever defeat you! Prepare yourself Kaguya!


>Straight up punch through the ceiling.

You let go for a short moment only to smash the ceiling with your fist, your arm goes through the surprisingly tough steel like it's made of out butter and you punch your way out of it. Escaping the elevator in the process...though at the cost of harming your fists. Your knuckles are now bloodied.

Outside the Elevator you see what well the outside looks like. It's mostly a bland sort of vertical hallway with cables adorning the place (They have been sliced apart quite precisely) and some vents poking in and out of this place. Further up ahead was your previous entrance and way higher up you don't see anything...more like the ceiling is so far ahead that you cannot even see it.

You put two and two together and conclude that someone or something or several someone's are perusing the vents with the intention of sabotaging you. Hence the elevator fell down with you in it .

Speaking of said elevator it continues falling down for another few seconds before smashing apart against the ground with a loud bang and sounds of a metal box collapsing due to hitting the ground at a certain velocity. You can't even see the bottom here yet you kind of hope that no one heard that.

The sound of an alarm resonates throughout the area. https://youtu.be/KdBW1nwf8ac

Never mind, everyone heard that. You have failed the Elevator Test

Guards will mostly likely come soon to figure out why this happened, you've got to get out of here or you'll be interrogated and most likely found out. But where can you even go? you ponder it calmly.

You can either go towards the top and hopefully reach the surface that way, go back to the previous entrance or into the vents. Going down is no longer an option due to the debris covering the place. OR you could go there anyway, it's not like some broken elevator could even stop you.

Regardless think fast, your entire sneaking thing could be ruined if you're caught here.

>Get pissed off

You are already pissed off, one can see it through your facial expression, your body language and the battle aura emanating out of you. You could look a tiger in the eye and it would run away like a frightened housecat.

>____

[x] To the first floor! Quick before someone sees!
[x] Back to the floor you were at! Hurry it up!
[x] Into the vents you go! Best to figure out who did this to you!
[x] To the bottom floor, that somehow makes sense to you.
[x] Stay where you are, play the victim that barely survived an accident.

>>28730

>Into the vents you go! Best to figure out who did this to you!

https://youtu.be/Aurlfs-90zw (This music stays on until noted to stop)

With swift decision making prowess, you calmly head into an random vent and crawl away into the white metal man sized tunnels for high performance sneaking. The vents are completely clean and quite warm as well. There's even enough space for you to turn around completely if you were to use some extreme form of yoga like a snake...though the risk of doing so might lead to your back busting as a response, food for though then.

Oh, you've forgotten to mention that eventually it becomes dark as all hell. But you easily circumvent that problem by lighting a small flame in front of you. In a way this makes you feel like you're exploring a narrow cavern.

Once you've reached a certain distance the path keeps splitting into various paths. One could go up, one could go left or right, hell one could even go down and the way the vents are sized it seems like a small child could use this as an improv playground...if it wasn't for the eerie sounds that comes from the vent blades moving back and forth as they spread wind throughout the place. It's almost like the place is haunted by the echo of an dead creature stuck within these walls who's only form of actions throughout the remaining ages of time is to cry out meek moans of pain...

Yet in a way it also feels peaceful to you, none of the guards have followed you into here and you've yet to meet with the cause of your elevator crash. You could take a breather in here, close your eyes and let the warm air surround you...it's tempting.

And you do so, you just stop moving for a minute or two and concentrate on the mood of the atmosphere. You're several feet underground yet you feel just like you're receiving the caress of a warm autumn day...maybe you need better standards for where to sleep now that you think about it. Because you almost fell asleep right then and there.

Your leg no longer feels uncomfortable and the pain in your chest has disappeared. The only remaining injuries are your bloodied fists who's skin you can already see heal over time, there's no risk of blood drops betraying your location as you've already burned dry the open wounds...no the term would be cauterize if you remember correctly.

Anyhow in simpler terms you are currently crawling in a bunch of vents for some reason, said reason is to find the basta-and you hear a noise. It's like the...sound of a higher pitched nasal call reduced to a pitiful garble? You are getting closer.

Eventually you stop before as you see a sight you do not like...there are some bloodied black feathers up ahead. You think about the odds of finding this out of all places but dismiss it quickly as something likely got Aya in here. There is no body to accompany or-hold on a moment. Once you awkwardly go further you see the source of it in Aya's pet Crow.

The small creature suffers from multiple injuries. It's legs have been broken and wings cleanly stabbed through. Several of it's feathers have been plucked and the creature caws out with a shrivelled voice in pain...its injuries have missed the vital spots and so it won't die soon unless someone were to put it out of it's misery. The smell of it's blood is sickly acrid.
The stare of it's small eyes into your own convey a simple message Help me, please. as despair oozes from it.

The walls next to it have a message written in blood with it:

https://youtu.be/7N0LiBnuwT4 (This one stops after the letter is read).


Lark, nice lark
Lark, I will pluck you
I will pluck your head
And your head
Lark!

O-o-o-oh

Lark, nice lark
Lark, I will pluck you
I will pluck your beak

And the beak
and the head
Lark!

And the neck
And the back
And the wings
And the legs
And the tail

Lark, nice lark
Lark, I will pluck you~

Soon I will pluck Mokou too~

This is your last chance, head back or be forced to play with me~
This stage isn't ready yet, you're a bad girl for not playing along Mokou~
But don't worry, only I know you've managed to get this far so you'll get a second chance~
Go on then, beat it, go back to the village and try again~



The sound of metal scraping the vent floor jolts you out of your reading, further ahead you can barely see a figure retreat within the darkness. Taunting you to follow it into what's most likely going to be a trap, it is making light of you.

...Disgusting, to think someone would harm such an small innocent creature just for the sake of taunting you. You love your animals as much as any other shmuck but that doesn't mean such blatant cruelty sits well with you, not only that but they left it alive just so you could mercy kill it and feel bad about it later. An overwhelming boiling sensation comes over you but you repress it, if you were to heat this place up then the crow would end up fried...but what can you even do for it?

You've never bothered to learn healing magic, it's not like you can die anyway so why would you have to worry about whether or not some injury closes faster? You're not sure how long the thing has, but it is in pretty bad shape.

What do you do now?

>_____

Surrounding Logs:
@ Way to Elevator (Back)
@ Next Area (In front of you)
-There lies a WOUNDED Crow before you.
-Something is awaiting you as well.

>>28730

I haven't said you were wrong or right yet, just reserving the guessing who it is for once I believe you've got an decent chance at guessing it right. Otherwise it'd be unfair from me or anticlimactic if discovered too soon.

As for this update, here's the additional challenge.

> Is there a way to make the crow not die or at least make it last longer until proper treatment?

If you succeed, there's a reward and if you fail well there's no penalty. You would have done your best after all.

>>28733
>>28732

>Give the crow some blood.

Pity for the creature and outrage for the offender course through your heart at the sight of the crippled bird. To harm an immortal is simply an daily affair but to take the life of another is an unforgiveable crime.

That was the unspoken rule between you and Kaguya. Whenever someone walked in or happened to spectate into one of your duels both of you would make sure that the bullets you shot would be nonlethal to make sure no crossfire would harm them. As your most hated foe she of all people knows how important this is. And she respected it, her commitment to her words were one of the things you actually respected from her. "The word of a princess has to be sacred" were her own words on this!

Yet here before you lies the proof that the rule has been broken, the morality stamped upon like a snail beneath a boot. And all for what!? For her own amusement? For such a petty reason?!

"Unforgiveable! You daughter of a bitch! You took an innocent life! Do you really think this could be excused as just the guise of some game Kaguya? NEVER! You're gonna die, this is swear!"

The rant continues for half a minute before an idea comes to you, an outrageous one even.

"Hey crow, want to eat a piece of my liver? It should heal you but the side effects may include immortality, so make sure you are prepared for that." you address the crow with what you hope is a kind tone as you loom over it. Hands ready and mind prepared "And believe me immortality sucks hard, you'll outlive your friends and family like the Paparazzi Crow and there's no exit to it either. No matter how badly you get hurt, no matter if the world you'll just live forever...you won't get to make a family. You won't get to live and grow old with them...yeah, it's plenty nasty. So what do you think of it?"

On second thought letting the crow join the circle of reincarnation could be a kinder option...but it's a decision the creature itself has to make...if it even can. Crows are smart birds right? You think so. ​

You're not sure if it's your imagination but the crow grows quiet, as in not the already dead quiet but the kind of quiet that means it is thinking about the decision. It looks you in the eyes again and says Caw.

"...I'll take that as a yes, don't worry despite my words you can always count on me if that immortality stuff happens" you mentally note that you'll take responsibility if need be, are weirded out by the prospect and begin the process.

You inhale deeply and concentrate power in exactly one finger as you use the other hand to lift up your shirt. Though the following actions are extremely painful and even make you resist the urge to vomit or cry as your [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] you finally manage to cleanly or at least almost cleanly deliver the blood of your liver inside the crow's mouth. You do have to tickle its throat to force it to swallow but even so it is done.

This should be enough right? You don't notice any notable changes on the crow's body, if anything you just poured some blood in it's mouth and humiliated it before it could die from drowning....but that's not the case right?

You cradle the crow carefully as you wait for any signal that shows it's become okay "Hey bud, you're not dead right? Come on, I'm sure you're stronger than that. Aren't you that Ayayaya bitch's crow or not? LIVE DAMMIT!"

You hear a caw again and see the crow forcing itself to squirm a little, as if trying to appease your fears. You still do NOT see any difference on the outside but perhaps it's slowly regenerating from the inside? Yeah, sure let's go with that. You almost feel relieved by the news but decide to make one last thing sure as you take out some ribbons and a small part of your pants in order to create some bandages for the broken wings. It'll get better treatment later.

You put the Crow inside your inventory, at least that's what you call your limitless pant and shirt pockets. Call it space magic or whatever but being able to carry as much loot as one wants is quite handy for someone who would outlive any sort of tool that could give the same services. Also ideal for hiding bamboo bombs but you digress.

The Crow is alive and well, as long as you don't take it out and do something foolish with it. It should not drop dead out of nowhere.

This counts as a win! Read on Anon, you'll get a reward for this later.

The path before you once silent and almost eerie is now inhabited by an oppressive force of hostility. As if displeased by your success the air that comes out of that direction is stagnant and reeks of magical power. Whoever or whatever lies there is going to be most definitely going to give you fight or at least intends to.

The path behind you however is just silent and eerie, as if it's tempting you to turn back and perhaps try another path. Though the elevator did crash it may have been registered as a malfunction now or vandalism rather than a proof of your passage. Perhaps you could go back and head deeper into this place or even to the Surface with your disguise? That in itself is not cowardice, if anything the crow could get better treatment from the best clinic above.

However another question comes to you, a rather obvious one even. If it got the crow...then where is Aya now?
Though you don't really care much for her, the fact remains that she too may be lying injured or captured further ahead because if not then she would not have let her beloved pet lie here dying on the ground now would she?

To move ahead, or not.

That decision is yours to make.

>____

[x] Move ahead, confront this person.

[x] Back off, it's not worth it.
-[] To the Surface.
-[] To deeper in Eientei.
-[] To elsewhere.

Surrounding Logs:
@ Way to Elevator (Back)
@ Next Area (In front of you)
-There lies an OPPRESIVE AURA before you.

You are at full health.


Managed to trick myself into napping way more than needed, but here's the update.
I'd feel assuming you would just move ahead would be rather rude so here's the decision for you to make.

>hey li'l one, if I go ahead will I find the person that did this to you?

The crow pokes its head out of your pocket at the question, because you gently took it out that is. Such sudden movement is something the creature is not ready to do yet, even so it bobs it's head up and down at the question as if to say yes. Then it looks you in the eyes, as if making a request.

>Go Save the Reporter.

You already know what it wants "I'll save her all right" and agree to the term without any follow ups or conditions, regardless of what you think of her as a person some things are simply done because they're right.

The crow gives a pleased caw and that's the end of your exchange. You crawl further ahead into the vents and for a while nothing happens. There are no surprise attacks, no sudden split paths to take, nah only after a few minutes of simply crawling ahead, the vent floor beneath you reveals a trap door.

Which you do not fall into, because you can fly and wait in that case you never needed to touch the ground with your knees and ankles...leaving that thought aside you continue your journey unbothered. The vent starts to gradually go downwards until it becomes more of a slope...one you could slide into.

You resist the temptation and address the crow once more "Is your master in there?" but you realize little too late that it couldn't possibly know that as it stares silently at you. "Nevermind" and slide off.

Wooooh You twist your position a bit and start to slide downhill the vent butt-first, though the vents are not as good as a material as a nice grassy hill or snow the feeling of being as light as a feather as you gain speed by going down faster and faster stays the same. It reminds you of a time where you scaled some mountains just for the sake of seeing how fast you could go down them or how you simply jumped off cliffs while making internal bets to see if the fall would kill you or not. Those days of being fed up with being angry and *experimenting* how immortal you truly almost feel like a hazy dream.

You stop your inner musing as suddenly the hill meets its end, and you prepare yourself as you're shot out an open vent into a different room. You nail the landing perfectly, dust yourself off and look around.

The surroundings are that of a show offish room, the floor is covered in dark green and green tiles, their position and colouring remind you off a chessboard. Same for the ceiling except they've got the design of a warm blue-sky sun and all. As for the walls they've got drawings of mountains and forest life. In it's all it gives off the atmosphere of being in the room of say an artist painting a landscape or perhaps a snob.
Even so the room is quite large, you'd say it's big enough for 5 people to have a soccer match in it...or something but anyhow that is enough observation of the room itself, now its time for the items within.

You see some sort of visual image box hanging in the corner of the room with a smaller table beneath, on said table lies a big red button that begs to be pressed on. Right next to it lies the only two doors of the room. Each of them has a statue of a Victorian era knight armour standing next to it. They seem to be of tip top quality, yet their shapes seem a bit more feminin than need be...seriously those hips are something else...hold on. You get closer and remove their he-

...

Goddamit, these are glorified statues of Kaguya. They've got the black hair and glorified faces, each of them holds a sword and shield and the neutral expressions on their face are almost real-looking. You could almost confuse the real one for them.

To think she's so petty to have an entire room to her honour that no one would know is there unless you went in here, does she really know your every move after all?...wait that's assuming too much, there's no way she's such a mastermind. Perhaps she simply went all ham and put rooms and stuff everywhere just on the sheer chance that you might visit them...a shiver of disgust crawls in your body.

That's just creepy, there's no question that this isn't endearing. It's just freaky.

You take it easy for like what a few weeks and the girl go all "You're weak now" and sends a bunch of people to kill you, makes a fricking dungeon in your honour, tells her soldiers to shoot on sight and now this architecture...yeah, you're not going to visit Eientei for a while after this. That bitch of a princess needs to calm down on her feelings of rivalry.

Anyhow that's all there is to say, you've got a princess to beat up, a crow to save and a schoolteacher's wellbeing to confirm.

All in a day's honest work, let's do this.

>_______


Surrounding Logs:
@Secret Room#1 (You are here)
-There is a tv and a red button on a table.
@ Door#1 (Destination unknown, not locked)
-There lies a statue near it of your hated foe
@Door #2 (Destination unknown, not locked)
-There lies a statue close to it of your despised enemy.
@Vent entrance (Leads back to where you where).

>Open the doors a crack so you can sneakily see what's inside the rooms.

You do so starting with the leftmost one, it simply leads to a room that looks the exact same as the one you're in. Likewise for the other door, does this place loop or what?

>See if there are any buttons on the TV itself to turn it on without pressing the big red button

It's a tv, it does have like button sort of thingies on the upper left and two handles with numbers laid out in display a bit to the lower right. The thing seems like an old brown box more than some wondrous piece of technology now that you think about it.

Out of curiosity you press what you presume is the power button of the device and sound of static comes out of the thing alongside a grey screen filled with weird moving tiny dots. Looking too long at it makes your eyes uncomfortable so you turn it off.

Not sure if that didn't achieve anything though, even so you won't press the red button. Cause you're better than that.
Seriously a red button never signals good things and are always bait for the overly curious, at least you think so.

The room is still silent as ever, you can hear your own footsteps and breathing but other than that this place seems entirely isolated. There's no speck of dust, no hint of any sort of life, the only person in here is you. Even so you feel like there's something off with the place, like it's been...nah, this is no magic. It's simply odd architecture? Map design.
Hold on a moment you got the words...it's like the rooms ahead have been similar for the sake of making people lost.

>Check the chessboard pattern

You take a closer look at the floor, it's in the pattern of a chess game. Not only that but you notice that at the corner of the room lie numbers on the side going from one to three and letters on the backside of the room going from A to D. A single spot tile is of a different colour: That of C-1. That must be the room you are in. Even so you don't see any door leading to the left or right of you so you can't go to B-1 or D-1 only B2 and D2 aka what you presume are what the doors next to the statues lead to since there's no middle statue...only an empty spot between the two.

>Take off rabbit ears

You remove the rabbit ears; they were getting embarrassing anyway...hold on a moment. As you've slightly looked up you finally notice that are there are two more doors alongside two more statues right above the former two. Where they could possibly lead to is yet unknown, but you assume it's the same...uh, this room is quite weird is what you mean.

>Observe statues

You take a closer look at each statue; they seem too conspicuous to not be important. Each of them is adorned by metal armour old school knights would wear. The only notable features about them are their differently coloured overalls things (One has red, One has yellow, One has blue, and the last One wears green) and how the dolls inside of them look so much like Kaguya that you wouldn't be surprised if they came to life. Like seriously the hair is silky smooth, their skin feels warm and soft instead of wood-like or otherwise. Who in the hell made these?

Least but not less every single one of them have an inscription attached to them. It goes a little like this:

Red: "I am the warrior of Fire, the eldest and wisest among us warriors"

Blue: "I am the warrior of Water, the youngest and most beautiful among us warriors"

Yellow: "I am the warrior of Wind, older than the warrior of Water and the fastest among us warriors yet not the eldest"

Green: "I am the warrior of Earth, younger than the warrior of Fire but strongest among us warriors"

The sound of static appears again, the tv turned itself one again somehow. You approach it out of curiosity.

Among the static now lies a figure, it's the shape of a person but you can only see the silhouette. The moment you get close enough a distorted voice speaks out, more to disguise the owner of it than for the sake of spookiness.

"Thank you for choosing to participate in our new game, sadly the constructions have not been finished yet...but you already knew that didn't you? don't bother answering, it's not like I can hear you. Or can I? even if that were the case it'd be too tiring to bother with all that banter so let's keep these things short and simple now, shall we?" the voice sounds bored if not stiff as if it'd rather be anywhere but here as it forces itself to keep a jovial tone to it.

"Now then allow me to introduce myself...I am Miss... Enigma" you can hear a cringe behind that "And oh boy do I like puzzles! even more if the failure of one means quite the harm for a certain crow we know. Yeah, yeah you show that frown all you want but that doesn't change anything, anyway you and I are going to play three oh so fun games.

One of which you're playing right now even, so allow me to stop this chatter and get to the point of it. Solve a puzzle correctly and choose the right door, then you get to maybe save your friend...be wrong or take too much time though...

Ever had pan-crow fillet? Nah, that's just a bluff we won't kill someone who's capable of dying...though you'd be surprised to learn what people can survive these days and bla bla, enough ominous threats.

It's game time play, so here are your hints. Ahem "Behold the Four Maiden Warriors that sealed away the Demon of Fir e and saved the world. Though many are grateful for their contribution a dark secret lies within them...for you see one of the warriors is a liar and hides the true path towards the hells below. Find out which one of the warriors is the liar and continue your descent towards damnation...if you so dare that is. Good luck and until the next room" the tv go off.

...What in the hell? So, this is another game they want to play with you. Your body boils at the thought of having to play along with such nonsense but if you don't then they might harm Aya...goddamit Kaguya, how are these bastards’ heroes?! they're hired guns and nothing more!

Calm down, no now isn't the time to get mad.

>______

[x] It totally is! Trash your way out of this room.
[x] Stay calm, solve the puzzle, keep that anger for later.

>Stay calm, solve the puzzle, keep that anger for later.

You take a deep breath and put that danger into the to be used later box inside your mind. Where it can be taken out of for a later use.

You focus on the puzzle before you and think a bit about it, as in literally only 4 or 5 seconds before you figure out the answer. Little do people know that you're an excellent puzzle solver, since puzzles are one of the few things you can use privately to keep your knowledge from stagnating. You can do this.

>Go through blue's door
>Concentrate fire powers in your finger to burn an ash mustacho on blue so you can keep track of where you are going (and as petty revenge on Kaguya)

First off, you concentrate some of your power around your finger rather than within. Not one to monologue about how that changes a lot of things you press the finger on the Blue Statue and besmirch it with a nasty little mustacho of a comical scale. This pleases you and can be used as a marker.

Finally, you go through the blue door. Since you believe that the Blue Statue is the liar.

You are...

The moment you enter the similar looking room, the lights go out and the scream of a maiden in peril can be heard, alas it is soon accompanied by gut wrenching sounds of flesh being cut apart, bashed into paste, and stabbed into with a vigour that only pure hatred could give off.

The Maiden has perished…

The lights go on again in this room where blood has been spilled...

Correct!

Luckily that maiden is not you, if it were then you would not be here right now. Nay in the middle of the room now lies the horrible remains of what was once the Blue Warrior. Its body has been sliced into pieces with what you assume is a…well blade since how else do you slice people apart? All the other statues wait never mind, there are only two statues left, the third one has disappeared without a trace.

Ahem the two statues left have blood on their weapons. The point of this is hard to understand, but you guess the reveal of the traitor made all four of them fight each other with only two surviving the ordeal? what's the point of that lore if the bad guy is already dead?

Wait no, you don't care. It doesn't mean anything, it's just some joke at your expense probably.

The fact they are probably alive is obvious now, or simply puppets made of flesh? that's quite the bizarre choice for architecture but hey you've seen youkai make towers out of the bones of their victims.

They're still weird as all hell though, so you keep your guard up towards them now. The fact they even have the capability to scream unnerves you to an extreme degree. Who in the hell made these?

You dismiss it as gore for the sake of intimidation for now and check the former floor tiles, your position has changed from C-1 to B-2. At least that's some progress, two more puzzles and bam Aya is saved.

You walk across the room and ignore the dead body to your best ability, the fresh stench of it fails to affect your stomach due to your nose having had the experience of smelling fouler things. Even so, you hurry the pace.

There are only three doors this time, and only two statues. One is Red and the other is Green. Their prior neutral faces have been warped into that of anger and grief respectively for each. After a few more seconds of doing nothing the exact same tv at the exact same spot of the room goes on, the sound of static indicating it.

It's the figure again, except this time the image is far clearer. As if the visual of the tv has increased somehow. The person inside of-uh, the person in front of the box has blond hair with a small crown on top. Their face is obscured by an overly extravagant golden mask (like that of Queen Elizabeth the First) the rest of the body is covered by...a ridiculously rainbow-like dress that doesn't fit with the rest of her disguise. It's painful to the eyes.

"What a fashion failure..." you blurt out your own thoughts with no shame. "That's what a clown would wear"

"I am NOT a clown Miss Fujiwara" the figure's angry voice comes out sparkly clean this time. Whether that means this is the work of some bad connection or that the thing at first was done on purpose who knows. It doesn't matter.

"Never said you were one, just that you looked one" you shrug and raise your shoulders.

".... Anyway, your feathered friend is in the next room, solve this puzzle and the two of you get your oh so wonderful reunion. Get it wrong and you know what will happen. You've solved the first puzzle so far y-"

"Get to the puzzle already, the sooner it's done, the sooner my boot will solve another puzzle...that of your face that is".

"Oh wow, how cool you are" the figure snarks back "Anyway here's the puzzle:

Behold the Four Maidens that sealed away the Demon of Fire, though their traitor has been exposed and was going to be brought back to the Kingdom in chains as they travelled back home.
Someone killed the traitor in the middle of the knight-uh no I meant night.
Their trust in each other broken, the Maiden of Air left the group and now only two remain.
Who has murdered the Traitor? Each of them will only answer one question, also one always speaks the truth while the other lies like that's some unique gimmick but what have you, that's the puzzle. Do you worst and goodbye" the tv is turned off once more.

You're once again left on your own. The fact these things know how to speak sounds like a rather disturbing notion, but you quickly accept it anyway since what else can a gal do? Anyhow that's another puzzle to solve.

>_____
Surrounding logs:
@Secret Room D-2 (You are here)
-There lies a tv and a red button on a table, also the corpse of the Blue Warrior is present.
@Door#1 (Destination unknown, not locked)
-There lies a Red Warrior before you. (1 question left)
@Door#2 (Destination unknown, not locked).
-There lies a Blue Warrior before you (1 question left)

>Who doth be this 2-lady?

> "There are 2 doors in this room I have not been through. If I were to ask the other warrior which of the 2 doors was the correct door I should take to proceed, which door would they tell me to use?"

Far more used to puzzles than one would believe normal, you easily come up with the answer once more. You stride towards the left statue aka the red one and demand their answer. While of course keeping your guard up.

The statue moves its head towards you and opens their mouth in a completely fluid way "This Door" it replies as it points with its sword at the door next to it. Their voice and movement so natural it's uncanny, what in the.

You shake your head, that doesn't matter at all. Flesh Statues or whatever they may be, don't matter at all. You're just going to solve this dumb puzzle, save the crow and continue your way. Nothing more and nothing less.

You ask the same question to the other statue, and they reply with the same answer, so you go ahead and take the door neither pointed to since that must be correct one. So, the murderer was the green one.

You are...

The lights go out once again, and the screams of a maiden can be heard as you rightfully assume that one of the statues has now murdered the other. Kind of a morbid waste now that you think of it, yeah it really is a waste for those dolls.

Correct!

And you find yourself in a similar roo-oh.

Oh my.

Now things are getting interesting.

Remember how they were once 4 statues? now there's 16 of em. To the other side of the room now lies a mini army of human sized statues with their weapons undrawn. There uh, hold on you're going to need some time to describe them.

The first seven are the blandest, it's just a bunch of child sized statues wielding smaller swords as they are adorned with light armour and bucklers. If you know your chess, these are supposed to be the pawns of the game. They're all black.

On each side of the backrow lie two huge dolls wielding hammers, they've got heavy armour and look 10 ft tall. The only notable thing about them are their shoes, as you can see wheels on em for some reason. Guess they're the rooks.

Next to those lie two far odder built dolls, these ones are far thinner than any other of the dolls here and have an actual horse like lower body (basically a centaur) each of them wield a rather large spear that does not seem to slow em down.

Still not over, the two dolls next to those dolls are dressed in what you believe to be jester clothes? They're clowns with guns, cane shaped guns sure but still guns the same. They'd look prettier if they weren't all black though...but oh well.

Finally, only the King and Queen remain, though the Queen is absent. The king is just a doll wielding a sword, it seems almost no different from the pawns other than its normal size, medium armour, and golden crown on the head. Otherwise, their design is quite boorish which you guess makes sense since the King is like the weakest piece in the board right?

They all look like Kaguya by the way, all their faces are obscured by helmets though so that's just a wild guess.

Their number is quite surprising and makes you wonder if you'd have to fight em...cause if so, that could REALLY be interesting yet impractical. It's been a while since you've faced so many foes at once. Anyhow what about the White side?

Their only opponent is the red statue from earlier. The statue is covered in blood and has outright lost their right arm as they wield a two-handed sword (A Zwei hander with flame motives to be specific) with the remaining one in a fearsome desperation, the kind of desperation a cornered rat would have as she faces her own imminent death with a final battle. Their hair changed from black to pure white...and their face very similar to your own. Okay what in the ffffffffffff-

That

Hammy

Bitch.

That bitch, that absolute bitch. she's obviously a bitch because bitches commission creepy dolls of people for the sake of fucked up dungeon crawling puzzle what have you. That bitch deserves to die, that bitch is going to die. You're going to kill that bitch, you'll kill her twice, you'll kill her three times. But first you'll kill her once and she's gonna SUUUFFEER!

No, calm down. Not yet, don't get mad just yet. She might even be watching who knows that whore. You're not going to be mad just so she can laugh about it later, no. Nada. She's not getting that satisfaction. You put some more anger into the to be used later box, it's almost filled to the brim now, frankly, speaking you want to bust someone's skull in now.

But you don't. You commit some breathing exercises and lower your anger to a more tolerable fuming state. As if waiting for this exact moment. The tv turns on once more so you head towards it, ready to have a nice chat with the person behind it.

Except their background is visible as well now, the Queenly figure is sitting on a comfy throne in a room like yours. In her hand is cup of sake and in the other a remote, the moment she sees you, a smile grown on her face as she speaks-.

"I'm going to shove this doll down your throat Alice" you reply with venom as you push the body of the crow against the screen (it does indeed not have a pulse, bravo Anon). "Reason or no reason, you will regret playing me like that".

So, you say the masked Queen is either Flandre Scarlet or Alice Margatroid?

You

Are

...

20 Seconds of prep time.

16 enemies if not more in total.

5 Minutes before Game over.

This might be a challenge for once, like the type of challenge in which you must actively try for once.
Is something you don't say, though the rooms and puzzles were quite something...they're still just death traps organized by Kaguya, so any enjoyment gained from those is the same as acknowledging that her game is fun.

So, let's wreck it entirely, shall we? some youkai's contraptions are nothing against the Hourai Incarnate!

>Have the Mokou doll pump magic into its strings so they become visible

The Doll obeys your orders and makes their own strings visible; they gleam with a blue light and go into the ceiling above making it impossible to follow unless you were to destroy the ceiling which would take more than 20 seconds if she somehow reinforced it. You bet she did and swiftly think of another matter to pursue (15 seconds left).

>Tell Mokou doll to follow you so you can keep an eye on it and keep the strings visible (and take Mokou doll's weapon away so Alice can not inevitably have the doll backstab you with it)

The Doll does a salute, and you take their weapon from them. You are now equipped with a Zwei-Hander, its weight is no issue for one hand, and it seems quite sharp but other than ...hold on you can feel the magic within this object. That makes it a magical blade! It's an actual flaming sword of high quality, where did she get this? (14 left)

> Follow strings to find Alice, setting fire to the Kaguya dolls as you run past them.

Error, you are unable to follow this command. You'd have to destroy the ceiling or something first, the time taken to do so and then crawl within it in hopes of finding the puppeteer would waste way more time than running around and looking for her that way...if only you had a way to track down the youkai yourself. Then you could find her and force her to focus on defending herself.

>Use Yokai hunter tools

Suddenly you remember something: An old memory of you traveling across the world, slaying beast left and right out of boredom and blood lust. Sometimes you were on your own, sometimes you had companions. Over the time some part of your blood lust waned but the boredom remained as eventually all proof of those times passed together with your companions now only remains in your memories...you don't even remember their faces or names, but some mannerisms do remain, if only as vague reminders of who these trusted people once were.

Constantly wearing green clothes, some old geezer with a dumb sense of humour, you remember how he could predict events that haven't even happened yet and see the places of hidden things by reading messages in things no one else could. Like making a map of a city with nothing more than sand or getting a portrait of someone by throwing a can of paint into a wall, the shit was effective but unbelievable.... You also remember how he did it. And are fully capable of mimicking it.

You create a singular fireball and morph it into a cruciform sort of radar that points at all six cardinal directions, it’ll flicker towards the Youkai’s presence and will tell you how close you are to her position.

Let’s take a looksie now…

You are…300 meters away from her (More like 10 or so rooms away from her, you’ll know which rooms to take).

>Set Kaguya dolls on fire.

You shoot a streak of flames at them; the dolls stay immobile and do not react to it…nor do they seem harmed that much by it. Exception being all the pawns that die due to it.

>Set up explosive traps on the tiles both on the floor and ceiling.

That is possible but will take your last remaining seconds.

>Heat the mortar of the tiles, loosening them from the floor

Look at above, the dolls seem ready to gang up on you.

>Same goes for the ceiling tiles when in need

Let’s say you can do all of them but will have to sacrifice your head start run then, are you willing to do so?


(The real update comes tomorrow, just confirming your actions right now and seeing if you want more stuff to it. Got distracted by RL).

> Imbue a part of your essence on the Mokou Doll.

Easy job done, seeing how you already know how to posses’ people some doll should be no different. You put one hand on the doll's head and force your own power into it.

The doll doesn't react in any way, cause it's a doll but the phoenix shaped aura behind it indicates that the possession is a complete success. You won't even have to use verbal commands no more and the chance of it backstabbing you is now second to none. It's still creepy as all hell to you.

>If you think it is possible, cut the strings Alice is using to control the Kaguya dolls. (If you are not entirely sure whether it will work or not, practice cutting the crow doll's strings first)

You keep this plan in mind for when the traps you made haven't deterred them, the thought of rushing at them with a flaming sword only to jump to cut their strings sounds cool in practice but is also risky...cause what if it doesn't cut it? Then you'd be surrounded by a bunch of murder dolls.

>Try the Crow Doll first then.

You look at the Crow Doll and look at where its strings might be, with a closer flicker of a flame the shine becomes more apparent, and you swing your blade at the strings. They are cut apart.

>IF it works, have the Mokou...

Got it, have the doll distract them and use the opportunity to cut their strings apart.

That shouldn't be t-TIME IS UP!

Two giant dolls immediately rush the both of you with their hammers raised and ready to crush you. You swiftly move out of the way yet end up slightly staggered as the sheer force of the weapon hitting the ground causes a shockwave that goes through the floor and shatters the tiles around it dusting the place all over.

Everyone is set off-balance by it, exception being the horses and jester teaming up by having the latter ride the former so that they can both move swiftly and gun you down in the process. It's a deadly mix-up.

Seeing this moment of weakness, a jester immediately snipes for a shot aimed straight at your chest, but your reflexes allow you to move at just the last second and instead you're hit in the lungs. The bullet sears through your flesh but you ignore the pain and fly up to slash apart the strings of the first giant, it instantly goes down.

The other doll is still struggling with the other gi-it picks up the giant and throws it at the King likes it's nothing more than a pebble. The King itself is however unable to dodge and so it is crushed into pieces, the Rook is somehow unharmed by this and slowly ge-hold on that's a prime opportunity to cut its strings apart!

You swiftly fly towards i-a hail of gunshots stop your pursuit forcing you to parry every bullet that comes your way. The Jester and Horse Mix-up is a real pain in the ass, get close and you'll have to deal with lances, stay away and they'll just gun you down until a lucky hit goes straight through your forehead. This might be a hard problem to deal with.

So, you do what you always do, when there is something, you don't want to deal with: Run away!
Specifically running out of this room before letting all the traps blow it into a million pieces kind of running away!

Though that too has a smaller problem: The moment you turn your back to these things, expect a lot more bullets to come in places they shouldn't be. Like seriously look at how these horses are just hopping around the room like a bunch of crazed cats aiming for a bouncy ball, you're not even sure if that's-Parry! yeah this is a real annoyance.

The Mokou Doll calmly approaches you, as if reminding you of its existence and asking for new orders.

Ah yeah, you did have that. "Go distract these horsies?" it nods to your direction and takes a few steps forward before retracting it's sole and shooting a spray of red-coloured danmaku. The spread of it like a flamethrower but the width behind it covers the entirety of the whole room, forcing the horses to stop and focus on dodging.

Danmaku sure is convenient, that thought aside both of you leave the room as you activate the traps and immediately jump back to avoid most of the flaming heat and debris that will come out of blowing up a room with overkill explos-

A thundering roar can be heard as blistering heat crosses your skin, the room and everyone within it has been destroyed and once you reinter the dolls are still standing though heavily injured. You easily remove their strings in this state and move back to the previous room due to need for a breather and the need to take care of your shot chest.

The bullet inside must be removed after all and that has always been a very unpleasant experience to deal with, if anything the fact guns are so deadly yet can be so easily used by most people is the reason you dislike them a lot, cause being shot suuuuuuucccccccccccccck-and there! you've removed the bullet and bandage up the wound.

In a way having just one gun-wound out of an encounter with 16 dolls is quite the optimal result, isn't it? Bah, you motion at the doll to follow you and move towards the next room where Alice might be (9 rooms left) and open the door ready for any trap.

There are no traps, just more dolls. 32 of them to be exact. All armed and ready to go once-you son of a bi-

"Good job passing the first dolls Fujiwara" Alice says on the tv again while sipping some drink, clearly composed and relaxed "You've got a whole bunch left to deal with though, pretty annoying, isn't it? But hey strength in numbers is a known fact! You may beat 16, you may beat 50 even but there's no way out of this maze here, and eventually all that effort will wear you down...so even IF you somehow managed to reach me, you'd be exhausted while I'm still at the peak of my game" her words are filled with absolute confidence, as if she's teaching the maths to some dumb junior.

"You sure are confident for someone who doesn't even dare show up in person" you crack your knuckles and give her a side glance as if she's not something worth recognizing "This isn't even a fight, just some bad game of hide and seek".

"Ah, but that's where you're wrong~" She gently raises her drink to the screen, as if toasting "This isn't a fight or game, no this my white-haired foe is a death trap. It's a magnificent strategy known as the War of Attrition. Cause how else would one defeat an immortal? You can't be killed, you can't be made to give up, so this right here is the best move" in a way she's right, this is exactly the right way to deal with you. Even so the smugness is really getting to your nerves.

"...Tsk, when did Youkai become so tricky?" So, if you hold back, you'll get injured. If you take too much time you just lose instantly, so unless you go all out and tire yourself out by beating these dolls victory is impossible. "Fine, you win".

"Oh? so are you giving up then? Sad to say surrenders won't be accepted in this de-"

"Who said anything about surrendering?" you stretch your legs a bit and prepare your body for it "Don't get too cocky" energy permeates throughout your body as your battle aura appears behind you. "Almost ready, just one more sec".

"Uhuh, so what are you going to do? Some last desperate attempt of victory perhaps? Do go on" Alice lets out a yawn to taunt you as she makes herself comfy on her chair. "Go on, then. Use your true power or whatever, spill out that energy".

"Oh, I will, just there's a simple thing you've forgotten to keep in mind. A simple thing that'll spell your doom".

"And what would that be? Really I have no time for meaningless bluffs" she's already convinced of her own victory.

But those who boast about their victory too soon, will meet a swift doom! Okay that sucked, but whatever.

>What's something Alice failed to keep in mind, and that you can use against her to reverse this situation?

>____

[] Temperature? even she can't survive if the whole place is over a thousand degrees.
[] Place? Doesn't matter how many dolls she has if you just rush and kick her face in.
[] Something else? there must be something that you can do about this.

tldr: Alice has the terrain advantage, advantage in numbers and in time.
-She knows where everything is, and where you are.
-She has a whole bunch of dolls ready to waste your time and stamina.
-Spending more than 5 minutes is her instant win condition (Of which 4 are left).
-Her dolls require strings to be used, if cut they are useless, she uses her hands to do so.
-Unlike her dolls, she is not fire resistant in any way. Keep that in mind.

Danke, I just want to make sure that all actions are understood and stuff.

Here's the update.

You don't know why you've even accepted doing this. The deal is shit, literal shit, the kind of thing you could have gotten on your own without any help. But here you are, early in the morning, sitting in some chair and waiting like some overlord for a hero that'll never reach this place. Or was it villain? You forgot your own title, what a bummer

Doesn't change the fact you're playing some death-game underground, kind of absurd in hindsight but if you're going to do something you might as well do it good. You've got the place memorized, given a rhythm to it in advance, blue door, green door, activate tv once in each, reveal hint, look at hidden camera C-1, watch her struggle, do the same in the next room, remove light, move D-1 in, activate event, restore light. All those nifty little things you do all on your own for the sake of making a good challenge, or at least a noteworthy theme.

One's that's better than that Sailor playing with puddles in that piss-water at least, no you've got dignity, you are a real challenge and will make sure that girl dies a dozen times before anyone else can make a high score. Ominous thought of your future victory done, you keep an eye on the cameras while managing the dolls but don't look too closely at the former. The Fujiwara's saying some one liner and preparing for battle but you don't pay her words too much heed and stay focused, no time to waste on a witty reply now. She's shown she's capable of taking 16 dolls in less than a minute so your complete focus is needed lest she'll move somewhere out of your vision and come to surprise you later, she's smart but you've simulated this before.

By the time she thinks of an idea, you'd have already invented a countermeasure. Sure having to manage such a large amount of dolls makes the power run tight, but it lasts, it lasts....

And there she goes, blasting a bunch of smoke in the room to block your visuals, you make all the dolls use their ranged attacks to gun her down, so many bullets in such a small room should be undodgeable, shortly after you feel her essence weaken, perhaps she died and is about to use an resurrection hmm, hold on.

You activate the poison gas regardless of the time limit, her visuals have grown unreliable and if you can't properly see her then she might be up to some trickery. Sadly for her you were never a fair player, the gas swiftly moves into every room, your own included but that's okay since you've obtained the antidote for it.

You close the tvs in each room, and turn on the cameras in each of em having your dolls look beside you at the monitors, though you can't see her right now that doesn't mean the motion sensors have grown useless.
Sound of combat is indicated in room D, E, F...! the dolls in each room closer to yours have started to abruptly attack one another, but it's impossible for you to not have noticed that...unless she were to cut off the strings and reattach them with her own essence to send false signals to both you and the do-the temperature of the strings are rising in the main hub and rapidly approaching your fingers. Second degree burns are predicted.

The intent behind this is clear, she intends to use her control over flames to burn off your fingers, an useless endeavour as Shanghai swiftly cuts off the Main Strings and you immediately use the Hourai Back Up System to control the dolls via a more protected but less efficient arra-Sounds of conflict and motion can be heard in the halfway point, shit. The Fuijiwara is rapidly approaching your position, most likely via some youkai detecting charm...much better then, she's heading most likely for E4 where your Doppel lies. Excellent.

The smoke screen was clever, same for the essence and flame tricks, they were quite smart but you've outsmarted the outsmarting of her outsmarting and proved yourself the superior strategist, though this gives you no real joy as you do not care for notions like superior or inferior, only the progress behind your art.

You catch yourself monologuing again, and resist the urge to facepalm. There's a time and place for smug gloating and that's only once victory has been confirmed by one hundred percent, nothing less than that. ​

Scouting dolls return from the vents for analysis, forty percent of the remaining knights have been destroyed and the girl is currently sparring with the Goliath Mk II, so far it's proving to be an excellent distraction as the girl seems to tire herself out in a vain attempt to pierce it's thick shell with overwhelming firepower. She'll soon learn that's a mistake.

3, 2,1....you cover your ears as an earthquake like tremor rush across the rooms, your throne even shivers a bit because of it. But that's the price to pay for knowing the girl went *Oh Shit* the moment she found out said error...

That of using fire against a very explosive doll filled to the brim with other explosive dolls in it's chest compartment, the camera turns once more and shows the pretty fireworks at the end, which are pretty if not cathartic in her unsportsmanlike they are in flaunting your checkmate right in her face, you bet she won't forget that death ever.

Now to wait for her to regenerate and do it all over again, you leave the other rampaging dolls be for now since what use would there be in calming them if doing so could reveal your location by flowing your magic back into them, nay.

You know better than to mess with an immortal that just died, if anything that makes them only more pissed off and you do not want to be in any sort of range for which her legs could potentially come in contact with your own body....no, you've seen these kicks before and you're fairly certain those are more than enough to break any bone in your body.

Which makes it all the better that she'll never reach this room, nay the moment she gets even close you simply manually move the room and replace it with another one since this whole labyrinth is literally under your pinkie or so.

You sigh and command the remaining forces to all converge into that room, if you're lucky they can shoot her dead over and over and over until her resistance whatever kicks in and forces you to become creative. Shanghai being the little darling she is offers you an orange juice to cool off which you gladly accept, frankly you're low on power right now.

Honestly when aren't you, but tonight is just one of those nights where you'd love nothing more than to lie back a few minutes and let time flick on without obsessively making sure that everything is going perfectly...cause that's your habit now, when you scan room, you flick the lights more than once or twice and check every corner just to make sure that it doesn't have any sort of flaw that she could exploit on...Maybe you should quit? And lose on that sweet reward? Never.

You check on the camera once more, the dolls are ready to shoot and are waiting for the foe to revive...yet she doesn't. For some reason she's taking her sweet time, so you go ahead and have someone check it out properly. They do.

In the meantime you simply do your best to remember the rest of the speech and your practiced smile, though one part of your mind is giving you reasons to not even bother which near the triple digits. You simply ignore it since a job's a job.


The scan is returned back once more, the only remains left were some crow doll and traces of blood and wood. You wonder about the latter as you're holding the former, which is clearly your previously used bait, but why is it here?

...

Ah, so she's not dead after all. Clever, looks like you might not make it unchallenged after all. She's going to barge in here any second now and get ready for some intense fight, you should have quit while you were still ahead, maybe make some death trap that didn't require your presence at all in hindsight, but you refused to make one, you knew you could have done that but didn't out of a sense of pride. If not maybe honesty, if someone's going to fight you and reveal they weren't remotely close to the premise then that'd make such an anticli-darn Marisa is getting to you already....

The door in front of you blows up and out of it walks an one-armed knight from the hells themselves, they're wielding the broken remains of the trap sword you made to slow them down as if they used it's insane weight to simply smash walls and foes apart harder than the thing could take, what can she do with her bare hands then? That...actually isn't as terrifying as you expected it to be, living in Gensokyo really has messed with your sense of fear. Even so the chances are completely fucked now, she's faster and stronger than you. That's a fact so the only thing left to do is....

You give a slow clap from your throne at the girl, commending her efforts "Bravo you've made it through. Bla bla, monoblob or whatever, you win and all that gizmo. I surrender, take the exit over there and never come back please".
Though you do your uh *best* to make it come off as praise, it mostly comes off as *I can't be bothered to give* and the bags under your eyes only make you look more done, which is exactly what you’re going for so never mind all that.

And surrender, there's no point in wasting your own time or effort by dying in glory or whatever. Just smile and wait.

>How does Mokou respond to this though?

"I surrender” such simple words ring throughout the empty room, stopping you from attacking her instantly.

A room whose design is nothing more than a plain white, no drawings on the walls or tiles. It's simplicity emphasizing its own pureness or perhaps she didn't care about-oh the ceiling has the moon on it. Never mi-wait you're still right.

You swore it did not look this way through the tv, but her changing the background isn't impossible.

Anyway, if you felt fancy then you'd note that by having gone through the prior rooms that looked like Hell and the Sanzu river on the walls...then this would be Heaven.

A heaven in which not a single living creature dwells in. Kind of an on-the-spot design really.

Of course, the only exception is its Queen, who's looking down at you from above her throne. Her eyes seem tired and her words genuine, the dress she wears is wrinkled and her shoes average. From this closer look she doesn't seem so royal anymore if anything she looked better through the screen. Two dolls are there too.

"So, what will it be? Don't try to pressure me through silence Fujiwara" a cold tone reprimands your silent observations, but you pay it no mind as you look at the exit she pointed at. It's a simple door, nothing else.

"Hmph" a smile comes to your face, and you casually approach her with your hands in your pockets.

"A smile?" The Puppeteer frowns at the change of attitude, "Hm, I guess that's the victor's privilege..." and her body stiffens in repressed fright (like most people who see you) as she awaits your now super close to her act.

"Victor's privilege indeed" you hum her last words, put an arm above her throne and loom over her with an intense presence "You sure made me go through a lot with your little ol crow ruse forcing me to play this lil game, these silly puzzles that even a child could solve and finally..." you stop the words and just smile at her.

To her credit she's not flinching, she's outright glaring back but alas is that a single drop of sweat you see there. "That was all becau-" but starts making excuses because she knows if she makes any funny move, she'll be toast.

"Sssshhhh, don't be scared" you put a finger on her lips to silence and smile innocently. "Everything's gonna be OOOkayyy!" your other hand by pure coincidence happens to be holding the crow doll for...honest reasons. It's not like your anger is about to burst out, it's not like you want to beat her up because of her prior smugness.

"Y-you're not that reassuring when you smile like that, even the Hakurei has a better sm-"

"Though if I had to say, leaving you intact after all this nonsense, not to mind your cheating sounds very very unappealing to me now. In fact, I might even be tempted to...force-feed you the crow with all of it's implications~" ergo make her immortal and choke her to death for eternity is the implication here.

"No!" Alice loses her calm for a short second, the fate worse than death all too apparent to even her. "I mean, that'd be an unwise manoeuvre Fujiwara for I know many things, things I won't reveal if you dare harm me".

"What makes you think I can't make you talk?" you reply with a sweet voice, like she's your closest pal "Aaah~ that reminds me of a good memory! You know the human body has over seven million nerves, and to those ner-"

"Okay, I'll talk" she gives up instantly.

"What?" to your own surprise.

"I said I'll talk; I'll tell you anything you want to know if you don't do that".

"...What's the catch?" still that seemed too easy.

"Whats a da caktch" she mimics your voice as if you're stupid "That's a stupid question! Me no want eternal ouchie, ain't that obvouis? Even if I were to say *I'll never speak!* you'd just me hurt over and over until I do, that's a stupid and incredible fruitless cycle so let's save us some time and get to the gist of this, okay?"

"Uhuh"

"Honestly, I'd talk just to avoid a bad burn or to like get your face away from mine cause your breath is foul".

"You're not helping your case here"

"Now that I think about it, why would you even assume I wouldn't talk anyway? you didn't even ask first".

"Well, I assumed you wouldn't, cause you've already proven yourself to be a cheater".

"Please, that was just ONE tiny thing. Really to gamble on that is kind of a..." She thinks of a metaphor "Bad gamble?"

"Well, they always put up a fight in the theatres so-"

"Yeah, I don't know what's wrong with those people, but I have no intention of getting any ouchies that can be avoided. Sure, you'd seem heroic but at what cost really? Being in pain really hurts...".

"Mhm, okay then now you're going to answer my questions then?"

"Yes, on the condition you don't hurt me that is".

"Sure" you say fully intending to break it anyway or not break it depending on your whimsy.

"....."

"....."

"So, are you going to ask anything?"

"Ah, tell me why are you doing this anyway? Where's Keine? Where's Aya? What's this all ab-"

"ONE QUESTION at a time please, I'm not a robot".

"Fine, why are you doing this anyway?"

".... The reason I'm doing this is because..."

The Puppeteer's face softens, her glare turning into a sad distant look as her voice-wait a minute.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7m8M6Y7jZE

>

[x] No, just NO!
[x] Get comfy, this might take a while.

Holy fuck, procrastination is one powerful drug. Anyhow I'm back.

Of course Anon, of course you will.

You loom over the Puppeteer; she seems like she's about to monologue and you're going to get to let her do so despite your better judgement. With a grumble you take out the Fogger and smoke it again.

Alice still isn't answering, as if a surge of memories or whatever melodrama is waving through her. Her hands haven't moved in the least and you're not sure if she's perhaps stalling for extra time.

If so, then you'll kick her ass immediately. This isn't the time for shady business and your patience has run thin. But firstly, you position your arm back into the proper clothes part, since rather than cutting it off you simply kept it close to your chest and pretended it wasn't there the whole time, quite simple.

"Tell me Fujiwara, are you familiar with the name Barbie?" the girl suddenly speaks. Regaining your attention.

"...."Barbie?"" you parrot back, not sure why she would ask such a dumb question.

"Yes, "Barbie" The world's most renowned and beloved Doll of em all. Surely, you're aware of the effect it's products and merchandise have had on the world, its name known by all girls and boys alike? ".

'What does some dumb joke of a doll have to do with all of this?" your interest starts to wane...

"Everything!" Yet the girl flares up and shakes her fist in anger "This is NOT about jokes. This is about legacy and potential; do you even realize what Barbie really is? What she truly represents?".

"You do realize that I have not seen the Outside World ever since I came here, right?" so if this thing she's talking about is modern then there's no way you could have known about it. (Barbie was made in 1959).

"That's no excuse, there are plenty of these dolls in Gensokyo as well. But that's not the main matter. What does matter is that she's not just some doll, no Barbie is the most famous doll of toyetic history!" She continues the monologue as the screen next to her flashes to show the eponymous doll through a grey filter "Barbara Milicent Roberts was made in 1959 by the hands of Ruth Handler. The philosophy behind it was "To make a doll through which a little girl could be anything she wanted to be" which was an unknown concept at the time si-"

"How is this Doll relevant to you working for Kaguya?" you interrupt and remind her to get to the point.

"Fine, then I'll make it shorter" She thinks for a few seconds and then speaks again "You already know that making dolls is my craft and pride. And that naturally like all artists in their craft, I too wish to develop a masterpiece".

"So, what, are you jealous of this Barbie or something? Did this Ruth achieve something you could not?".

"As if, such notions are below me. I hold no hostility for her but that does not mean that I respect her" and so she still has not answered the question, it's almost surprising how people can say a lot yet tell you nothing at the same time.

"Just get to the point already" You give her a glare and a cough to make hurry it up.

"I will, don't be impatient so as I said. Though her product is famous, and she has given many children toys to play with (A barbie doll is bought every 3 minutes) they are just that. Mass-produced! There is no love in their craftsmanship, these dolls are just made and thrown out like they're cakes out of a bakery and that itself destroys all the magic inside of it for dolls are no longer sacred, no they are nothing more than accessories or pretty sights.
If I were to go out there, my dolls would become nothing more than unmoving bricks. The art of making something by hand is no longer relevant, why bother why things can be made by machine after all? That is the problem! For it makes the art of Puppetry die! Our arts are slowly fading away and that's not even the worst of all things to come!"

A doll takes out a paper or more like a poster and tends it to you. It's a picture of a barbie and says *Behold, the first truly intelligent Barbie Doll. A little girl can talk to her, and she'll give back an answer* and yada yada the date behind it says to be coming soon in 2023. "Huh, so people can make toys move now? that's uh neat I guess".

Alice doesn't like that response "It is NOT neat, very not neat even Fujiwara. I'll have you know that I've worked hundred of years for the grand goal of making an autonomous doll yet here some humans are about to figure out the secret behind it in no less than 40 years in the making. I can not...and will not accept that. To have someone who spit on my craft one up on my own dream is something I cannot tolerate. Before that happens, I must figure it out myself and prove myself the superior Puppeteer!".

How basic "And so did Kaguya convince she could help you figure that out or something?" you guess the rest.

"Quite so" and you are correct "The Soul is an eternal object and as the Princess is someone who controls Eternity itself, the making of a Doll that relies on nothing but itself would be Child's Play compared to an elixir of Immortality".

"So, in conclusion, you're playing along so your research can be aided afterwards before a rival gets the upper hand...to think you'd make a death trap for something so petty. I'm not sure what else I expected...".

"Keep your judgement for yourself then, this project is my very purpose in life. For someone with no bigger goal or passion you couldn't possibly understand the feeling that drives me. That was my motive, and all you need know".

[Music Stop]

Hmph, but that's only one question answered. "So where are Aya and Keine anyway?"

"And you assume I'd answer that question why?" Alice responds with a cool tone, looking you in the eyes as she stays seated comfortably. "Now don't look at me like that, but I can't help but get the feeling that you're still holding back some aggression for our little duel earlier. And so, if there's no more reason to talk...you might get violent".

"I'll get violent if you don't talk right now, so that's really a case of how rough I'll be if you keep this up" you care not for her words though and so her attempts at diplomacy are useless because you are determined to kick her ass.

"Hmm, ain't that a conundrum we find ourselves in?" She's still cool as ice "But ah, I just happened to remember something very convenient that could change your mind about that~" and she takes out another trick of her sleeve.

A doll that you recognize as Shanghai is holding a tiny red button in her palm. Already to press on it.

Alice continues explaining "That's the alarm by the way, one lil click on that and everyone in the premise will know that you've managed to sneak your way into this place. Which I suspect would go against your go-'"

You grab the girl by the throat and lift her unamused "You've got 10 words left before I'll put it in your throat".

Somehow, she is still not panicking "Don't hurt me, and I'll help you. Work for Profit" and that's exactly 10 words.

>
[x] J-j-j-jam it in!
[x] Let her keep talking....

"WATCH OUT ITS A TRAP!" A wall bursts as an Aya comes in, all sweat and panick "You have to get out of there, there's poison ga-...s?" and stops the moment she sees you two before freezing on the sight. "What's happening?".

Seeing you lift Alice by one hand while holding a crow in the other isn't that odd though, right? "You're a tad late, Bird" but you acknowledge her presence anyway, since she seemed in an actual hurry to come here. "Already beaten this trail and I've got half a mind to teach her a less-put down that camera or I'll fry you alive" and the respect is gone the moment you see her slowly reach for her camera. If she dares make news about this then she'll die.

She lowers the camera and regains her composure "Sure, sure. Whatever you say, but anyway I've got good and bad news for you miss phoenix whatever gal I don't know what to call you so don't hurt me~" you frown at the last sentence, not seeing how that's funny "But uh, I can turn around and leave you two do your business if you want first of course~" She gives an very non subtle wink as another tease "Ah, to be young must be wonde-ah!" She dodges a fireball thrown at her.

"Continue that sentence at your own peril" you calmly warn her and look back at your about to be beaten foe. "That's one of the two questions answered, so tell me what other plan do you have in mind? The Crow here might know all the stuff I need and if she does then what possible use co-" a trace of spit gets on your cheek.

That of the Puppeteer of course, she looks at you stoically "I won’t be caught begging for anything, either accept my offer or suffer the consequences of your actions. I care not for I will win either way" and declares that she's still in control of the situation.

But is she now?

>___

Awesome, hoped to convey that feeling.

I'm going to give you a freebie on all that, as in the burn hands part is slightly not going to work but I'll let it work anyway. Read on Anon and go kick her ass Anon!

> You know what to do, beat that girl up.

Easy job, easy go. "You talk a job yknow? Can't say I'm a fan of that..."

"What do you mean by that? I'll-" Insulted, she goes out for another monoblob.

Which is all the time you need to make your move; you tap your foot on the ground and out of nowhere a volcano appears beneath the doll instantly incinerating it alongside the button. Not satisfied by this you smash the Puppeteer into the ground and knock the air out of her. She attempts to struggle back but at this point it's far too late, you're going to beat her up.

"I'm more of a one liner kind of gal" you punch her in the stomach, forcing her to gasp for air with her mouth all wide before you go ahead and j-j-j-

"Wait, wait wait! Is that really necessary?" Aya jumps in, not having seen what a total Smug-pie Alice has been and very oddly trying to discourage hyper violence. "Not that I care for her but isn't shoving something big inside of her going to hurt a lot?" yet phrases it in a terrible way.

You give her a frown but give her words some thought...perhaps she's right.

Perhaps that's too much?

But then memories of her attitude come back to you, the way she played with your feelings, those dumb puzzles, and that insufferable attitude alongside the dumb motive....

They're unforgivable!

You're a woman with a mission, and that mission is to kill Kaguya! Even if you don't get any info the girl might have...That's completely fine with you! It's completely fine! You're the Flame Eternal Mokou! Nothing stands in your way. Your hand glows with a power set aflame! Its burning grip is telling you to J-J-J-J-JAM IT IN!

You [redacted] the [redacted], as [redacted] the [redacted], which [redacted] the [redacted] to [redacted] in [redacted]. You [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] and [redacted] [redacted], before [redacted] [redacted]!

Alice Margatroid
The Hero of the? and Rank ? of the Seven Heroes.
The Puppeteer with the ability of magic and puppets.
Has been put out of Commission!

>Tie her up an-

She is no condition to get up, but you tie her up anyway throw her in said rooms. The Gas seems to have left by now though because it was proven fruitless, hence Aya is standing here unaffected.

But even so you doubt Alice will get up anytime soon, you've done a real number on her.

See even the Crow is speechless, you're not sure if it's shock or fear but she's just standing there with a blank look in her face and her legs all jittery. You doubt she gained a trauma but eh, it was worth it.

Really worth it even, you feel like you put on a pair of new pants on New Year’s Eve. That's how refreshed you are, hell this could be the closest thing to joy you're feeling right now~

Mhm~ Mhm~ Man, you're certain Alice will remember this, or at least will never dare act smug again in your vicinity.

Anyhow, the exit is right over the room. It looks like just a door but seems like one of those elevators.

You could probably enter it and be sent all the way back to the surface, to meet and Kill Kaguya and all that.

The only thing of interest remaining are the Crow-Doll on the ground, the real Crow who seems stunned, the throne that's got a remote for probably a bunch of cameras and the unmoving Shanghai that's also down in the...well yeah, there's a bunch of obvious stuff remaining.

Only question is if you'll move ahead now or if you take the time to look at the room some more.

Either is fine really, hell the Crow mentioned something about news if you recall.

Then again, she can just talk with you in the elevator, entering it seems like the obvious next thing.

But choices are good, so go ahead and choose what to do now.

Surrounding Logs: Irrelevant since you're leaving soon.

>___

[X] Let's go the Elevator and to the next Area.
[X] Hold on, there's something else left to do here.

>So Aya, you were saying?

Ah yes, she did have something to say, didn’t she? You give her the go ahead.

Seeing your attention, Aya dusts herself off a bit to buy time and then moves next to you to show some pictures as she explains what she’s learned. “Okay so, you may or may not like this, but I went ahead and scouted the whole place and all bla bla let’s get to the good part!” her tone is a bit more hurried as she excitedly chatters out a whole bunch of stuff at once, making it hard to understand.

The close presence discomforts you, but you sigh and tell her to speak slower while taking a looksie at the pics she’s taken. Some are just some hallways, One’s off the Doctor doing her stuff and this one’s….!

It’s a picture of Keine and Kaguya having a cup of tea in a guest room, both seem perfectly relaxed and seem to have a nice discussion. Next to them you can also see a few human kids playing around in the room with some bunnies and toys while Reisen carefully watches them.

It's such an carefree and wistful mood, like a beautiful summer day of youth as a whole.

....

Aya sees the picture you’re tightly gripping and clarifies the situation “So yeah good news is that your dear friendly gal pal is safe and unharmed. Bad news is that she seems to have brought her class into a school trip to Eientei. Isn’t that spicy? Cause that’s uh literally the big news, course taking the picture wasn’t easy but if you’re someone as amazing as me then it’s all just natural to you!” and starts boasting about how amazing she is and how you should be grateful on how these pics are a freebie this time since you’ve already promised a very juicy interview before. “Hey, you, okay?”.

“…” You’ve got plenty of questions in mind now, was this school trip pre-planned? Why have a trip at Eientei if ever outside the human village? Why would their parents allow this? Is Keine in the know?

No, it can’t be. She’s probably being manipulated, yeah you bet Kaguya made it so that the School Trip just happened to be today so that even if you made it all the way to her…she’d have a bunch of kids as a sort of mental meat shield since killing her in front of them would give the kids a massive trauma, trauma that they’ve obtained during a trip that Keine was responsible for. Which she’d naturally get blamed for and yeah that’s a whole set of dominoes the bitch has set in store.

Or you’re overthinking this, regardless of the truth you’re not going to assume that Keine approves of this whole death game thing, she’s your friend and as cheesy as it may sound you believe in her.

“Ahem, I’m okay” you calm yourself down and stay focused “What else do you have in store?
And, why did you smash your wall through a way? Wait I meant that in a vice versa way”.

For the wall, that’s an easy question. “Well see, that’s a long story. It all started wh- “.

“Make it a short story then” you quickly interfere, having heard enough monologues for now.

Aya huffs her cheeks in a way she probably thinks looks cute “Fine, humans have no patience…but short story sort I kind of uh…actually could you promise me not to get mad? I swear it was an acci- “.

“Go ahead” there’s no need for her to worry unless she backstabbed you or massively screwed up.

“Okay…” She avoids eye-contact for a moment “I got seen, not by some rabbit mind you! Nah, it was one of those Hero gals yknow? I was just minding my business only to be suddenly grabbed and dragged down under by a literal cloud. But it wasn’t really a cloud, it was Suika of all people!”

Ah, so she’s met with one of the heroes. “Let me guess, you somehow won, didn’t you?”.

“Nope, I just went and ran as fast as I could the moment, I saw her!” She replies with pride in her voice “What? That doesn’t make me a coward, have you ever lived under the Oni’s rule before? Clearly you don’t cause otherwise you’d know why I chose to not bother and bravely run away”.

“Okay, then how did you know this was a trap then?” you continue the questioning.

“My reporter spirit warns me of any traps and secret passages that I should avoid or abuse to get my juicy news! It’s an amazing power that’s been forced through years of experience!”

“…Sure, anyway is that everything you have to say? All the info you had to reveal?”

“Yeah, that’s basically it. But honestly, we should leave now before the other girl catches up with us” Aya looks around for a moment “*Shiver* man, she could be listening this very moment…I’m telling you those horned devils are no joke, not that I have anything against them. It’s just facts really”.

“Sure, now then I’ll be going” Having learned everything you need to know, you move past her and into the elevator. The thing seems the same as the prior one and so you press on the button for the highest floor ready to face off against Kaguya once and for all…only for Aya to walk in as well.

“…” guess she’s heading to the upper floors as well; the elevator goes slowly up and the whole room is basked in silence…for around three or less seconds before the crow has something else to say.

“You’re not going to let her get me, right? Not that I think I’m her priority anyway hahaha…” the crow’s body tightens up a little as she awkwardly laughs for a moment, the reason of which…

Heh, you keep your face stoic as you ask her deadpan “What, are you afraid of her?”

“Yeah, kind of” She blatantly admits it “More cause of who she is and her current condition…”.

“Condition?” that piques your curiosity a bit, “Did you piss her off?”.

“No, she’s SOBER!” At your indifference she continues “That’s much, much WORSE you know?”

“I don’t know but I’ll take your word for it…where is she anyway?” you ask for reference.

“I don’t know, she could be anywhere. Just waiting…to…yknow?” again you do not.

“…Wait, you really are scared of her, aren’t you?” you do your best to not sound deadpan for once, making fun of someone's weakness for no reason isn't something you'd ever do after all.

“Oh, come on, don’t make say it again Fujiwara, now you’re just mocking me…”

The conversation ends after that, as the Crow takes one side of the elevator while staying quiet in protest. She’s clearly pretending to be offended since she occasionally looks at you before looking away again as if that would even fool you “So what’s it going to be?” she suddenly speaks again.

“What’s going to be what?”

“Do you mind if I were to tag along for now? Not that I’d really need to but hey you never kno- “.

“Ask politely or that’s an instant no” you don’t have much patience for smug talks right now.

“Please don’t let the mean Oni get me” and she replies surprisingly honestly, perhaps she simply has no dignity at all or is more than willing to…yeah, she did say she’d do anything for a good scoop.

What’s your response to her amazing offer? Anything else you want to prepare yourself for?

>____

Surrounding Logs: Progressing towards Next Area, please wait warmly.

>Fine. If you promise to help, you can come.

"Ah, thank you! thank you! Thank youuuu!" Aya furiously shakes your arm in thanks. She seems really grateful for such a small thing and the sudden move makes you stiffen in response "Now she'll never get me! Fu~Fu~Fu~"

"One, you're welcome? and two let go of me this instant" you give her a warning this time, though normally if someone touched you out of nowhere, they'd be in a chokehold by now. She's lucky you were in a good mood.

"Aye, not a fan of physical contact, are we?" She lets go of you and leans on the wall instead all casually "Didn't know you were such a prude Fujiwara; don't you know that friendly contact is a great way to build affection points?"

"Keep your weird lingo out of here." you pretend to not understand what she means and stay silent.

"Ah, come ooon Fujiwara. I've seen you act all chummy with that outsider gal before. Why not me too?" she persists with a tedious attempt at teasing, which again is nothing more than a waste of time if not kind of ungrateful.

Having no interest in allowing her to continue this train, you look at her and give her the iconic frown.

"I was joking, please don't hurt me" which is enough to make her look away for the frown never loses to anyone.

Anyway, that chat aside "You said you scouted the place before, if so, where is Kaguya right now?"

"Oh her? she's in uh guest room number whatever, I'll simply show you once we're at the top"

"Noted" you end the conversation again and tune in to the sound of the elevator moving up slowly. The Princess is so close, and she doesn't know you're here yet. If you were to play your cards right, you could simply jump her and assassinate her to instantly end the game with no more distractions in your way. Now to think of a plan...

If she's in a room surrounded by children, then she most likely doesn't plan to leave the spot anytime soon unless she absolutely needs to. Which means you're going to need to find a way to get either her or the children out of it before giving her the trashing she deserves. Unless there's a third option? Like dropping into the room and kicking her out of it before killing her in a non-gruesome way perhaps? Kids aren't that bright so if you were to disintegrate her with some colossal fire beam rather than something icky or gross then they might find it cool instead and think of it like some planned show. It's a plan that's going to need some consideration later.

"Hey Fuijiwara" Aya snaps you out of your thoughts "What's with those clothes you're wearing?"

You look at your armour stuff "You mean this?" and remove it with some ease "Just some dumb disguise that I used to get close enough to the Puppeteer, you know the rest of the story" and end it there again.

"Nice, it doesn't look too bad on you. Not to say your other clothes look better though and I mean that in the *Cause you're constantly wearing them* kind of way just so you know" that's not an compliment.

"How rude of you" and you call her out on it.

"How come you always wear the same clothes anyway?" but she simply ignores it.

"...Convenience don't need to think too much if all the clothes are the same" you pat your pants "And the clothes always regenerate back anyway...no idea why that's the case though...like really I'm not responsible for that".

"Border between decency and indecency or something" Aya says without skipping a beat.

"Excuse me?" you're not sure what she means by that.

"Spell card Rule Article #54: One shall not reveal too much skin, no matter how much cloth damage one suffers think it went something like that" she replies with zero sarcasm.

"You're full of it" but you don't believe in it, that sounds like too much nonsense.

"I assure you that's the absolute truth" sure, whatever you say Aya.

The elevator reaches its destination mid conversation and opens. Not one to boldly walk out of it after all this nonsense, you take a small peek out of it and see a bunch of corridors with wooden steps and normal paper walls.

Looks like you finally made to the surface level and would luck have it there seem to be no guards nearby right now. You step out and Aya follows suit "Hold on a minute" but once she wants to say something.

What is it this time?

"You don't have to say in an annoyed tone geez" She lets it slide "But anyway do you have a plan now? Cause I don't care whether we walk around like we own the place but if you want something sneakier then....eh do it?".

>____

> Sneak into Kaguya's bedroom to ambush kill her when she goes to sleep.

That'd be easy, you know the place like the back of your thumb after all. This isn't and won't be the last time you've ever sneaked your way into Eientei to kill a certain princess so knowing where she sleeps at is rather easy. You think about your current position and her room would be...

Two or Three hallways away, simply head left once then left again before heading straight and then you should be able to enter her room with ease since it's not even locked up. Then again how would you even lock down a paper door that doesn't even have lock pads? It doesn't matter.

You move calmly towards the end of the hallway you're in, making sure none of your steps are too-nay you simply fly to bypass that noise problem, stop at the edge, press yourself against the wall and look for any potential witnesses that you might run into further ahead.

Sadly, there are two rabbit girls in white dresses (Aka does not guard, just your average bun-girl) casually chatting amongst themselves like teen girls tend to do, they're not really a threat and you doubt they'd even pretend to notice if you were to walk past them but the fact remains that you're a known figure so they might warn some guards after you leave. Which kind off beats the point of sneaking your way in.

So, you'll have to way a find to get past them since moving into another hallway could simply have the same problem and this is the shortest and safest route towards Kaguya's roo-Aya taps your shoulder.

"Where are we going?" She says in hand gestures as she casually floats behind you. "That's not the right way, you should go left instea-" and tries to correct the fact that she's supposed to be the guide.

"Change of plans" you inform her of your new idea with all the annoying gestures needed to do so.

"..." Aya raises her eyebrows in a way you don't like. "Ohohoho~ An ambush you say? So, you're planning to get into her room and hide in there for the entire day you say? Oh, Fuijwara you don't need to lie to me, if you wish to indulge in human passions then you can go ahead, and I'll wait outside~".

You're starting to crave Yakitori. She might want to take that back before it's too late.

"Ah, okay I'll stop teasing you, but seriously that's a bad idea" She gives her serious opinion "The waiting I mean, it's barely 10 am you know? you'd have to wait like 8 hours before it's even evening.
Also, I've already loo-I mean, peeping into the room of a pure maiden is quite perverted, isn't it?".

>___
[x] Optional: Ask Aya for what she would do instead.

You may proceed anyway.

>>28787

Interesting theory, but you'd be right. She's a neutral observer to most feuds and as far as you remember she would probably have better things to do other than participate in some childish game between rivals. (Loyalty notwithstanding since again, this is just a game) though there's no guarantee that she isn't a hero.

>Ask Aya for what she would do instead.

The Tengu gains a glint in her eye and takes out her writing board, ready for a brainstorm.

Hold on, you stop her and turn around. "Let's speak somewhere else".

Because the both of you must head back to the previous room since otherwise someone might walk in the middle of said conversation and well that's just a silly prospect. So, it won't happen.

Okay, she can talk now.

"Cool, so let's summarize the problem first" Aya ayas away "Your princess is in another room with a bunch of little humans as her mental meat shields. Keine is there too but she's your friend so that's not a problem, anyway due to the presence of these guests you are unable to kill Kaguya without harming the psyches of these little humans".

"Little humans are known as children, just so you know" you state the obvious to her obvious statement.

"Oh shush, I'm helping you here" fair enough "So clearly the best way to take care of this is to separate these two somehow by creating a distraction or finding a way to isolate her. Now I'm sure a well-practiced pyromancer like you could simply create some little fire here and there to force them all out of the ro-".

"I'm not risking the health of the children, also fire is too obvious. She'll know it was me instantly"

"Fair enough, in that case you'd simply need to make a reason for Kaguya to leave or stay in the room since if Keine and the kids have to leave there's no guarantee she won't accompany them like a proper host does."

So far, so good. This is something you'd easily come up with yourself but at least her words aren't garbage.
"So, what kind of thing would you do to make that happen?" and ask the last question.

"Depends really, guess we could threaten a bunny into passing the message that Eirin wants to speak with her for an emergency to lure her out...but that's kind of assuming said bunny knows how to lie well enough for it to fool the Princess, if only we had a way to fool a bunny into fooling Kaguya, then it'd be all so easy..."

You do have something that could help with that but...that's kind of embarrassing.

Of course, you could always try something else, or simply discuss it and Aya would give her honest opinion.

>_____
[x] Do it, fool some rabbit with the *thing*.
[x] Come up with something else.

>Just let yourself in courteously to where Keine and Kaguya reside as if you were an invited guest

After a second or two an idea finally comes to you, you’ll simply enter the room and act like you’re an invited guest. There are two bonuses to that. One is that she can’t kill you and two…

You just want to see that dumb smug face of her holding back anger as she’s forced to play along, only for you to reveal the nonsense she’s pulling anyway, ruining everything she worked for in the process. The prospect of it gives you a warm feeling.

“Oh my!” The crow jumps up, liking the idea as well. “The two rivals facing off in the final room for the final challenge…their intense feelings hidden behind masks of friendliness…” she rambles some more, occasionally saying words you don’t really get but she takes out her cam at the end “Mind if I were to take a shot or two? The face of the elegant moon princess going Bwuh!? or Nani!? will make a great point of reference later!”

Sure, whatever. You leave the room and walk down the hallway with the exaggerated swagger of someone who’s about to crash a party by entering it uninvited…which you are going to do so that analogy doesn’t really work now does it? Moving on!

With the crow right behind you, wait you mean in front since she knows where the room is. The both of you calmly walk down the hallways like you are meant to be there and are not suspicious.

“Stop right there, your suspicious person!” but are met with yet another rabbit guard patrolling the hallways, she points her gun at the two of you, finger off the trigger “State your business or- “

She disappears instantly, one moment she was here and then swoosh she’s gone like the wind.

What is the meaning of this?

Before you can make sense of it, a gust of wind blows through the entire hallway and the guard is back extremely dizzy and disoriented “Wah, wah, wa…. ugh!” and falls down face-first.

“Bunny-guard defeated, 20 exp gained. No item obtained” Ah it’s just the Tengu showing off, not content with knocking the bunny out via super speed she does a victory pose to rub it right in. “Ayayayayaya~ Are you amazed by my power Fuiji- “

“Ah, this must be the room” you walk ahead and stop in front of a door from which you can sense the Moon-Bitch’s presence. “Once I go in there’s no going back…let’s do this” you e-

“Hey, FU-JI-WARA” Aya gets all in your face, displeasure all on her own “Did you not see the instant knockout I did earlier? It was amazing; shouldn’t you be gushing all over it? Huuuuuh?”

…Is she seriously doing this? “Attention seeker much?” you sigh “Can the jokes for now, this is serious business now”.

“Tsk, you’re no fun” to her credit, she stops immediately rather than making it overstay it’s welcome “So are you ready for it? The big finale, the final clash, the lover’s climax. The big battle of ultimate fatestiny and everything that’s awesome in one cup?”.

“You’re overhyping it, this is nothing more than a Tuesday to me…or a Wednesday? Can’t be bothered with calendars…”.

Anyway, you open the d- “No, let me do it!” Aya opens the door and motions for you to go in, to *hype* up your arrival…

At this point, you’re not going to question it. But anyway.

MOKOU
HAS ARRIVED
ON THE SCENE!

Everyone in the room looks at you in stunned silence, from a bunch of kids playing with bunnies and toys in harmony as the Inaba keeps a worried eye over them to make sure neither party get hurt, to Keine being seated at a small table with tea as she casually speaks with your eternal and most hated foe.

KAGUYA HOURAISAN: THE ETERNAL PRINCESS AND A BITCH!

“Ah, So you’ve finally made it.” she who’s going to be killed a thousand times calmly picks up her drink and takes a sip “What took you so long?” her every word and move oozes out the essence of a life-long friend awaiting the arrival of a best chum.

Of course, that’s a ruse. You know more than anyone else that the true essence of this lunatic wench is beyond the comprehension of mortal men, she steals their souls and makes them her sla-and you hate her! You hate her! You hate her! Yo-

Okay stop, calm down. Your feelings are simply more intense because you haven’t seen her in a while but now isn’t murder time. Keep it cool and remember that the children are watching.

So, calm down, do not let any frustration show on your face. Do it.

>Excuse your tardiness

A gentle smile grows on your lips as you greet everyone “Sorry to be late, but I’m finally here” your voice is calm and FRIENDLY.

Keine sends back a small wave at you, “What a surprise to see you here, I didn’t know you were going to be there for the tour” and assumes that you’re here for something Kaguya probably said “Do keep your fighting in mind now, there are kids watching” she also reminds you of something you already knew but overall, she’s quite happy to have you here. She moves a bit so you can next to her.

Kaguya thinking herself cheeky, moves as well “Why don’t you come sit next to me. My good old friend?” and audibly invites you.

Reisen’s just there as well you guess, still with the kids. She hasn’t said anything but you keep in mind that she’s an excellent combatant so she could become a pain in the arse if you forget her presence once the real fight gets going on. Keep that in mind.

Back to the seat issue.

Obviously, you’re going to s- “Mokou’s here!” assaulted by a bunch of little humans with bright smiles and adoration in their eyes. “Mokky! Mokky! Come play with us too!” some of the kids grab your pants and pull on it as if demanding you give them attention.

You sigh, unable to push them away. Not that you don’t like kids but now isn’t the time to play with them, even if you did then they’d never stop with their silly games and unending stamina so nah.

Sadly, that decision isn’t yours to make. Say no and they’ll simply ask again, say no again and dear god they might even cry.

You’re going to need a distraction for this one, or trickery.

“Aaaaw, aren’t you famous?” Aya coows right behind you, camera at the ready and you glare at her to make her reconsider her future actions “Ugh…fine, being a sundairy is so ovverated these days…” you ignore her rude words for now, you’ve got bigger problems.

But what to do now? How can one possibly defeat children?

>Make a show for the children using the crow doll

Terrible idea, with all it’s blood and broken appearance. Having it move would only frighten if not traumatize the kids. You don’t want that, Keine doesn’t want that, let’s assume no one wants that okay.

> Make a show for the children using the crow Shanghai doll

That’s a much better idea, the little girl design of that thing appeals to many people after all, and you’ve seen the Puppeteer play doll-shows before in town for their entertainment. Sure, you’re no master puppeteer yourself but making one doll dance to distract a bunch of kids can’t possible be that hard “Now, now kids. I’ve brought you all a present…I think you’ll like it?” you speak with the gentle awkward tone you can muster and take out the doll.

Except you don’t have it, you totally have it. You picked it up earlier and now you make the thing…what do you do with this?

Make it dance? With some magical fiddling the doll moves it’s arms up and down in a certain rhythm, its legs follow as the thing does an awkward dance to get the kid’s attentions and uh, yeah, it’s not the greatest thing since you’re not used to making objects move.

But you’re sure the kids will love it, at least you hope so.

“Lame” one kid bluntly says, “The bunnies are softer and more aliver!” another one replies, “Buns are better than dolls!” all of them dismiss your effort, most of them even let you go so that they can pick up a bunny and declare it’s superiority. Except for one.

One child remains in front of you, a little girl with brown hair and by brown hair you mean the hair covers her entire face so you can’t see her eyes or anything “I think the doll’s pretty cool!” she shouts in excitement “But can it fight though? It’s got a sword!”
“No, it cannot” you calmly lie to her, not out of whimsy but you feel that the moment you say yes, they might hurt themselves on the blade it’s got attached on her back. “It’s completely harmless”.

“Aw…” the girl looks down super disappointed, “But I wanted to see who’s better, One doll versus 100 bunnies…” excuse me what.

You’re just going to ignore that and move towards Keine’s spo-

“Doll versus bunnies!?” another kid overheard and starts spreading the message “That’s awesome, l want to see that!” their energy infects the others as all pick up a bunny “Let them fight! Let them fight!” and start chanting their demand for glorious combat like a bunch of little occultists. That’s not what you wanted.

“Heh, they still have the blood of their ancestors” shut up Aya.

Luckily enough, Keine steps in. “That’s enough children, you’re scaring the rabbits” and goes off to solve the issue while Reisen handles some of the frightened rabbits and leaves the room since two of the bunnies have gone unconscious.

…

A few moments later, you’re seated at the dining table thingy ma bob for a *civil* and *friendly* hanging out time. Keine is seated to your left, Aya to your right and Kaguya at the opposite side. Everyone seems happy, seems as in Kaguya is giving Aya quite the intense happy smile to the latter’s discomfort. Eventually stopping.

So, she can look you in the eye, “Not remembering having invited a certain reporter aside, I’m so happy to see you Mokky~” her happy tone doesn’t fool you as there is a coldness in her eyes. She’s not happy with your current progress “Looks like you’ve managed to make your way without any trouble now did you?”
“There was no problem at all, well I did have a few encounters that might be called dangerous but so far I haven’t died even once” you calmly reply like everything she did was nothing to you.

“….” Silence is her response, her dumb face freezes in place as she continues scanning your face for any hint of a lie “Not even once?”

“Not even once” you reaffirm it, her surprise filling you with joy.
Right now there’s only you and her for all you care, this is the flex.

“…Oh wow, I-I’m just wow” She moves a fan in front of her face to hide the scowl or smile that might have grown “I’m so surprised Mokky and so happy too, that’s the best news you’ve ever given!” Her laugh is perfectly pleasing to the ears, as if she was genuinely worried about you but you know that’s not true. The truth is…

Excitement, you can feel excitement oozing out of her. If you’ve gone through all this with zero effort and bruises, then perhaps her whole *reason* if it wasn’t an excuse in the first place that is. Has been proven wrong, that you’re strong enough to pose a challenge.

“Don’t worry, I’ve got more” you take out the letter and pose it on the table, shoving it towards Keine “I really liked your letter but can’t help but have to tell that you’ve made a grammatical error at the start of the 14th paragraph. Check it Keine~”

Keine’s face seems troubled, she can tell there’s something happening and that she doesn’t have the context “All right…” even so she picks up the paper rather than asking you questions since she trusts you and know you would give the answer eventually “…What is the meaning of this?” only to find the answer on it.

Get stomped Kaguya “It’s exactly as written” your stupid idiot taught you could win against the only and only Mokou Fujiwara.

“That’s the problem though” Keine turns the paper to you “There’s nothing on it. You sure it’s the right one?” and asks for clarification.

Before incomprehension can muster within you, the sound of giggling can be heard opposite from you. The sound so gentle and so well-meaning that it can only be the mockery of Kaguya herself.

Oh, you’ll show her something to laugh about it.

>____

You know what to do, ganbare Anon.