Doubled Elimination

by TurboGhast

Summary:

A double elimination two-member team tournament draws those from the furthest reaches of Gensokyo into the arena. While the participants may have signed up for different reasons, they all have the same determination to win.

Chapter 1: Signups

“That food was absolutely overpriced”, Reimu grumbled.

 

“You say that about anything that isn’t free”, Marisa replied.

 

As the two of them continued walking home, a flier tacked onto a notice board caught Reimu’s eye. She murmured to herself as she read it. “Danmaku fighting tournament; spell card rules apply; double elimination; sign up at the SDM; participation limited by preliminaries... ”

 

Reimu loudly gasped as she noticed how much prize money was up for grabs. “Oh, I have to join this.” She began walking towards the mansion with haste that made her confidence clear. Since Marisa didn’t find money alone nearly as enticing, she excused herself from the trip. 

 

From a nearby hiding spot, Kogasa cursed her nerves. She had intended to jump out and scare the first person who checked the board, but choked on memories of previous defeats upon seeing Reimu. Curious about what got her moving so quickly, Kogasa read the flier herself. The resulting train of thought led her to the same destination.

 

The next night, the same flier caught Mamizou’s eye. Normally, at this time of week she’d be playing fighting games at Sumireko’s locals while disguised as an ordinary human, but the pandemic had cancelled them indefinitely. She couldn’t even join them online, as the barrier that had kept the virus out of Gensokyo made connecting to the internet an unreliable prospect. To her, the flier was both a reminder of how much she missed the joys of competition and instructions on how to regain it, even if in a different form.

 

Deeper into the same night, a child with no fear of the dark saw someone’s silhouette within it. Without any thought of the consequences, he wadded up the nearest piece of paper he could find and threw it at her.

 

The impact of the crumpled flier was painless, but the kitsune took it as a personal insult. She funneled magical power into the paper, intending to retaliate. However, her target had made themselves scarce before she could.

 

This small wound to her pride reopened older, larges ones. Wondering if she was being sent a message, she flattened and read the flier, then began marching towards the tournament described within, hoping victory would truly heal the damage by showing the world she deserved to be feared.

---

There were fliers placed well beyond the human village in hopes of catching the many youkai eyes found there. On her way back home from Kourindou, Tokiko stopped to read one attached to a tree. She decided to participate as another step towards become strong enough to solve incidents unassisted.

 

Medicine noticed the same one while returning from another failed attempt to convince someone to join her doll emancipation movement. Hoping to spread her ideas from atop the winner’s podium, she decided to participate.

---

In a faraway clearing, Seija tripped over a piece of paper. She hastily attempted to block an attack from the person pursuing her, only to find they had gotten sidetracked by the flier that knocked her prone.

 

“That tournament seems like the perfect opportunity to get in fights that make me stronger. I’ll spare you here if you decide to enter it too.“

 

“Agreed.”

 

”Then your judgment can wait.”

 

Once the fallen angel had left earshot, Seija remarked, “Hah, I knew you weren’t doing this out a sense of justice.”

---

While just about to begin resting after a day out, Sanae heard a knock on the Moriya Shrine’s door. She opened it, only to find nothing but a flier outside it.

 

“Is Remilia really resorting to ding-dong ditching to advertise this?” 

 

She sighed, then called out to the darkness ”Hey, if you’re listening I’ve already signed up because I’m sure Reimu did.” 

 

Upon hearing this, the true culprit of the ditching cackled to herself from the bush she hid in. “Yes… I’m one step closer to revenge!”

---

Talk of the tournament reached well beyond the fliers, allowing people who had never seen one to join.

 

“The both of us seem to be training especially hard at the moment”, said Yuugi.

 

“I’ve got to be prepared for the fights I expect to get in next autumn. As for you?”, replied her training partner.

 

“I signed up for a tournament that I intend to win.”

 

“If it’s got you perk up, then maybe I should pay attention too.”

---

Narumi trembled a bit as she decided exactly how to word her next statement. The idea of talking to someone described as pure rage in humanoid form gave her pause, but from what she saw at the fireworks festival that had to be an incomplete description.

 

“Junko, could I ask you something?”

 

After turning to reveal unwavering, unrelenting eyes, she replied “Go ahead”.

 

“There’s a danmaku tournament going on in the near future. From what little I’ve seen of you, I’ve got the impression that you’d enjoy participating.”

 

Without any change in expression, Junko answered “That impression is correct. Tell me more.”

---

In the deepest depths of hell, Saki met with an old training partner for the first time in a long while.

 

“I know somewhere you can get some tough fights in. It is time limited, though. Pretty far away, too.”

 

The horned silhouette replied, “We should get a move on, then.”

 

Overhearing this from distance, a demon with the wings of a bat whispered to herself, “Seems like something I might find fun too. Definitely worth looking into.”

---

During an ordinary walk, Wriggle saw Eternity and Cirno flying above at speed clearly borne of excitement. Curious what was going on, she matched their pace and direction.

 

“What’s up?”

 

“Oh, hey there”, replied Eternity. “The two of us are going to sign up for a danmaku tournament. It’s open entry, so you can come with if you want.”

 

“There’s no way I’m strong enough to have a chance there. ”

 

“Don’t sell yourself short like that. I know for a fact you’re far stronger than you think.”

 

“If you’re so confident in me, I guess I’ll try. Just promise you won’t get mad if I don’t qualify.”

 

Cirno yanked Wriggle’s arm forwards and said, “Sure thing, if you go sign up right now!”

---

As the day of the preliminaries approached, some who had signed up began training to ensure they got in. Although, not everybody participating in these training sessions knew why they were being held.

 

“Okay, that new card’s functioning as intended. Time to move onto the next”, said Alice. 

 

“Huh? It never even got close to hitting me”, replied Marisa. 

 

“Which is within my expectations. It’s designed to punish slow movement, but you’re quite fast.”

 

“Why test it on me, then?” 

 

“Honestly, because finding people to train with is difficult. The attacks I’m tuning up now are going to get their true test of practicality and usefulness at the tournament Remilia’s running.”

 

“Makes sense. The field of opponents there is wider than the list of people willing to train with you. And I came up with a variant of the Master Spark I’m worried might be less practical that it appears recently…”

---

The person Marisa had copied that technique from was also training herself for the tournament… or would be, if it weren’t for the pestering of a hive queen.

 

“Shouldn’t you be leaving the pollination to your subjects?”, Yuuka asked.

 

“But I want to get out and talk to people.”

 

“What makes you think I’d find you worth talking to?”

 

“Well, you’re a fellow incident causer, so I -”

 

“That was over two decades ago.”

 

“Well, the same goes for me. In fact, the incident I started was even further into the past than yours.”

 

“Oh, so you’re trying to get me to act like a washed up dumbass coasting on what they did actual ages ago too.” After rolling her eyes, she continued, “Leave and let me train, or I start using you as a training dummy.”

 

The queen asked “What are you training for?” quickly enough that Yuuka couldn’t interrupt.

 

“Let’s see if I can’t punt you somewhere that’ll let you find out!”

---

Looking at the list of people attempting to qualify, Remilia grinned with satisfaction. Since there were more than 32 people on it, the twist she had planned wouldn’t make things too short.

Notes:

It’s been a while since I’ve posted a fanfic. Although, it doesn’t help that I have another incomplete longfic on my computer that I want to complete the entire first draft of before posting anything. This fic’s outline has been specifically designed to make that unnecessary.

I’ve also posted to the r/touhou subreddit. While I originally planned to start posting everything here and linking it there, I’ve found a reason format my works twice.

Some entrants have had their identity hidden in this chapter for the sake of dramatic tension. In addition, there are people who will qualify that haven’t appeared yet.

This story takes place in the spring of 2021, sometime after the events of Unconnected Marketeers. Since the original outline was made well before that, I performed a fairly late swap to add a character from that game to the roster.

Not sure if I tagged this correctly, because this fic doesn’t really have a set in stone list of main characters. If really necessary, I can just update the tags to fit the story as I complete more of it.

Chapter 2: Preliminaries

Wriggle walked into the mansion to find no line was between her and the preliminaries. Not only did she let Cirno and Eternity have their qualifying matches first, she let the next person to arrive, a girl in a butterfly mask that concealed her face and a kimono that concealed the rest of her body, go before her. 

 

That girl returned from her match trembling with rage.

 

“Did you fail to qualify?”, asked Wriggle.

 

“I qualified… but only because our hosts are spineless cowards willing to give positions in the tournament to people who have not earned them by winning their preliminary match. They clearly went back on their decision to let only those with the power to win a two-on-one match against them participate because that would have made things too short. The only good thing about the decision is that taking out the riffraff it brings in will let me get used to…”

 

After an awkward pause, Wriggle asked, “Used to what?”

 

“… something I cannot tell you about”, she replied before storming off.

 

Knowing the qualifying matches were tilted against the entrants calmed some of Wriggle’s lingering nervousness. With her reasons to wait exhausted, she walked up to the reception desk to begin hers. Once in the arena, she was tasked with battling Sakuya and Meiling. While the fight went on much longer than Wriggle expected, she lost without managing to defeat either of them.

 

The suppressed nervousness returned when she noticed Misumaru’s imposing figure blocking her path out. Her sharp tone made it clear a poorly made answer to the question she asked was unacceptable.

 

“Did you see anything suspicious during the preliminary battle?”

 

“Uh… well, beside the unusual format it was just an ordinary danmaku battle. The closest to weird things got was a conversation I had before.”

 

“Elaborate.”

 

As Wriggle spoke about the girl in the mask, Misumaru’s eyes narrowed.

 

“Then it’s even more imperative that I qualify.”

 

She charged towards the reception desk like a warrior on a mission, and her demand for a qualifying match was swiftly met. When Sakuya saw her, she trembled a bit in recollection of the last time they fought.

 

“If qualifying was only a matter of pass or fail, I’d let you into the tournament proper right now…” After taking a fighting stance, she continued, “but since your bracket seed is based on your performance in the qualifier, it’s time for a rematch!” Misumaru’s performance in the following battle exceeded Sakuya’s expectations.

 

---

 

Qualifiers went on for the rest of the week. The evening of that week’s last day, all the entrants gathered in the Scarlet Devil Mansion’s feast hall to hear the results. From atop a combination of chandelier and announcer’s podium, Remilia addressed the crowd gathered before her.

 

“First, I shall reveal which thirty-two of you have earned the right to participate in my tournament.

 

32nd seed is Sara.”

 

The girl in question asked, “That’s the best one right?”

 

“No, it’s the lowest. You barely qualified.”

 

Between grumbles, she replied, “Lovely. Even outside Makai I get looked down on as a weakling.”

 

“31st seed is Wriggle Nightbug. 30th seed is Tokiko. 29th seed is Cirno.”

 

Where the later two gave confident smirks, Wriggle let her jaw drop to the floor upon hearing her own name on the list of those who qualified.

 

“28th seed is Sayuri Katsuki.”

 

Gasps of recognition and confused murmurs filled the room after the name was said.

 

“What’s she doing here so openly after choosing not to face the music?” “Didn’t she somehow slip through the barrier to escape Soujouko’s wrath after the Meteor Incident?”

 

The Furaribi in question flew up and to explain herself. “I ran away for a time. But I’ve returned from outside for vengeance against the three people who interfered with me then: Reimu, Marisa, and Sanae!”

 

Sanae gave a counterpoint. “You’re back ‘cause you nearly starved to death in the outside world, aren’t you?”

 

Sayuri blurted out an unconvincing “No!” 

 

“Enough chatter, I’ve still got plenty of surprises in store,” said Remilia. “27th seed is Oyasu.”

 

The girl in the butterfly mask muttered to herself, “The first step to proving my strength is more than my inborn powers.” 

 

“26th seed is Kogasa Tatara. 25th seed is Alice Margatroid. 24th seed is Yukiko Tsubaki.”

 

Yuuka groaned when she heard the hive queen who had pestered her amidst her training had qualified.

 

“23rd seed is Saraka Sant’Angelo”

 

Upon hearing she qualified, the fallen angel whispered “If you didn’t qualify I’ll kill you where you stand” in Seija’s ear, only to hear Sakuya whisper “I won’t permit such a transgression against a guest of ours” in her ear. 

 

“22nd seed is Shiran Tokujakubou.”

 

Just qualifying alone got the priest fantasizing about the followers victory would bring.

 

“21st seed is Narumi Yatadera. 20th seed is Yuugi Hoshiguma.”

 

Musing on her unexpectedly low position, Yuugi said, “Musta penalized me for fighting sloppily even though I won. That’s just what happens when you’re hungover.”

 

After shooting Yuugi a confused glare, her training parter asked, “Why’d you even risk fighting with a hangover?”

 

Remilia continued, “19th seed is Mumumu Mikaboshi.”

 

Spreading her bat shaped wings, the demon said, “Maybe I should have held back less in qualifying”.

 

“18th seed is Kikyou Kabutozukamori”

 

Continuing the conversation, Yuugi answered, “It worked out in the end, didn’t it? We’re only 2 seeds apart!”

 

“17th seed is Nezu Akitsu”

 

The kitsune took the opportunity to ask “Our matches will have an audience which includes humans, right?”

 

“Yes”

 

“Good. Someone to scare as I fight.”

 

“16th seed is Seija Kijin. 15th seed is Jo’on Yorigami”

 

Upon hearing the god’s name, Reimu muttered “Oh, great, someone else here for the prize pot.”

 

“14th seed is Kotohime.”

 

Someone from the crowd said, “Huh. Didn’t expect her to participate.”

 

The princess in question replied, “I didn’t expect to show up either, yet here I am!”

 

“13th seed is Medicine Melancholy. 12th seed is Junko. 11th seed is Misumaru Tamatsukuri. 10th seed is Rika.”

 

After hearing her name, the engineer asked “Can I leave to give my my newest tank some finishing touches?”

 

“No, for I have more to say after this”, replied Remilia.

 

Rika shrugged and continued listening.

 

“9th seed is Konngara. 8th seed is Saki Kurokoma.”

 

Saki’s training partner murmured, “We’re almost even, as expected”.

 

“7th seed is Mamizou Futatsuiwa.”

 

Mamizou commemorated her qualification with a pose nobody else in the room recognized.

 

“6th seed is Sanae Kochiya. 5th seed is Marisa Kirisame.”

 

The tension rose as the number of remaining spots fell.

 

“4th seed is Mima.”

 

Those who hadn’t qualified yet ignored that name’s infamy, too busy listening for their own.

 

“3rd seed is Yuuka Kazami.

 

2nd seed is Tenshi Hinanawi.”

 

“Who the hell do you think could possibly deserve a slot above me?”

 

“1st seed is Reimu Hakurei”

 

Tenshi tried to think of an argument against that choice, but only managed to annoy herself further. Of course, she wasn’t the only person displeased with the results. The most frustrated among those who failed to qualify had to be forcefully escorted out the building before proceedings could continue. 

 

“Participants, form a line in seeding order.”

 

They obliged, although nowhere near as quickly as possible.

 

Remilia flew to the line’s center, between Seija and Nezu, and continued “The two of you, move to the side while facing eachother. Everyone else, fill the gap.”

 

Once Jo’on and Kikyou reached the center, Remilia had them move to the side just like Seija and Nezu. The process repeated until everybody had been paired off, and was facing the someone with a seed as far away from the center as theirs in the opposite direction. Yuuka and Tokiko were trying and failing to look at anything but eachother, while Narumi responded to Junko’s blank stare with an awkward one.

 

“The person you’re currently facing is your teammate for this tournament. Don’t worry about coming up with a team name, I’ve already devised one for you.”

 

The moment Remilia stopped talking, the participants broke into an uproar. “I don’t want to share the podium with some weakling!” “There’s no way I’m splitting the prizes!” “Why do I have to work with someone I’m here to defeat?” “I wanted to fight unassisted…” “Way to blindside us, asshole!”

 

Completely unstartled by this reaction, Remilia addressed the complaints. “I planned this from the start, so each member of a team that places high enough to receive rewards will get what was listed on the fliers. As for this being a surprise, why did you never stop to wonder why the preliminaries were two-on-one?”

 

Reimu and Jo’on accepted the twist upon hearing it wouldn’t affect their prize money. Those who still disagreed gave up the argument, some admitting they had fallen for an exact words ploy while others simply knew not going along with this would ensure they’d never win the tournament.

 

“Could you please introduce all the teams?”, asked Kikyou. “As a convenience, since we could theoretically calculate it ourselves knowing the seeding order and method of pairing teammates off.”

 

“I’ll oblige. I do need to tell you your team names, after all. Seija and Nezu form the Intimidation Team.”

 

Nezu cracked a grin upon hearing the name.

 

“Jo’on and Kikyou form the Metal Team.

 

Kotohime and Mumumu form the Sin Response Team.”

 

“Whatdoya mean Sin Response? I’m not a cop like her!” interjected Mumumu.

 

Remilia replied, “Don’t you respond to sin, too? You may be encouraging it, but that’s still a response.”

 

Mumumu muttered “Fair” to herself while Remilia continued.

 

“Medicine and Yuugi form the Physiologic Team.

 

Junko and Narumi form the Showstarter Team.”

 

Hearing her team’s name felt Narumi feel less weird about teaming up with the person she invited. The team names so far had referred to things both members had in common, so perhaps Remilia had seen the same hints of a desire to hear a crowd cheer within Junko that she had.

 

“Misumaru and Shiran form the Ulterior Team.”

 

Misumaru flew into Remilia’s face to comment on her team’s name. “Know that the fact you know I’m here to stop whatever plot led you to host this tournament doesn’t deter me. My presence in this tournament will stop this incident in the making whether you like it or not!”

 

After shooting Patchouli a confused glance, Remilia shooed Misumaru away and picked up where she left off.

 

“Rika and Saraka form the Power Seeker Team.

 

Konngara and Yukiko form the Outgoer Team.”

 

While holding her new teammate’s mouth shut, Konngara asked, “Could you repeat that? The living chatterbox I’ve been teamed up with drowned it out!”

 

After obliging, Remilia continued, “Saki and Alice form the Connection Team.

 

Mamizou and Kogasa form the Ultimate Surprise Team.”

 

Since the reveal Mamizou was her teammate, Kogasa had been smiling. Getting the opportunity to fight alongside a master of surprises was even better than her original reason to be here.

 

“Sanae and Oyasu form the Proving Team.

 

Marisa and Sayuri form the Overdrive Team”

 

The incident-resolving magician nervously laughed as she wondered if teammate would ignore the tournament’s format for the sake of revenge.

 

“Mima and Cirno form the Cold Space Team.

 

Yuuka and Tokiko form the Growth Team.”

 

Tokiko wondered how Remilia knew why she was here. Even though she hadn’t told anybody her presence was ultimately a form of training, the name of her team alluded to that fact. Was it because Remilia was involved with both the incidents she solved with assistance, or something else?

 

“Tenshi and Wriggle form the Worm Killer Team…

 

and finally, Reimu and Sara form the Imbalanced Team.”

 

Exaggerated noises of grumpiness left Sara’s mouth, sent to make her opinion on everyone else’s view of her clear.

 

A few moments later, Remilia gave Patchouli the metaphorical microphone. “As the tournament’s referee, I’ll explain its rules.

 

Victory and defeat are determined by a sphere with a 25 meter radius in the arena’s center. You win when both of your opponents are outside that sphere. If you’re outside it, as long as you get back inside before your teammate is forced out too both of you are okay. The magic I’ve built into the arena will enforce this rule. While patterns that cannot be dodged without leaving the sphere will be treated as violations of the spell card rules, ones that make it harder to reenter are fair game, even to the point of temporary impossibility.

 

Things that vary between rounds, like the exact terrain found within the arena and which team is your opponent, will be revealed to you the morning of your fight to allow for last minute preparations before the fight itself occurs that evening. A box in the stands has been set aside to allow you to watch matches you’re not participating in.

 

You have one week to prepare to fight alongside your new teammate. Feel free to ask me any questions you have about the rules during that time.”

 

The crowd quickly dispersed as the sixteen pairs of fighters began exchanging information they knew their teammate needed to know.

Notes:

Remilia used full names when announcing who qualified to make it extra clear I’m talking about characters originating from fangames. I understated the fact that PC-98 characters are participating to make the reveal that fangame characters are in more dramatic. Of course, the lowest seeded fangame character being someone the characters don’t expect to reappear helped with that.

When selecting who would qualify, I went out of my way to include characters from a wide variety of games. While all the fangame characters who qualified are from either Dream Compass’s or Kaisendo’s fangames, that I’m going to reference other fangames should already be clear.

I considered tweaking the seeding order a bit to get more interesting team pairings, but I got without tweaking was too good to mess with. When I decided to add Misumaru to the roster, to keep every other team the same she replaced Shiran’s previous teammate.

EDIT 1: Modified Yuugi's conversation with her training partner to make it clearer who Yuugi's talking to.

EDIT 2: Added missing comma before Wriggle's second line, and soon after fixed similar problems with Sakuya's second dialogue tag.

EDIT 3: Added commas to a bunch of other dialogue tags that were missing commas for no good reason, and changed Mumumu’s first line from “Whatdoya” to “Whado-thou” to fit her being a thou user.

Chapter 3: Practice Week

The entrants began preparing for battle the moment Patchouli finished describing the rules. While some simply exchanged the information needed to meet up and continue tomorrow, a few decided on a general strategy quite quickly. The Worm Killer Team was the first to do so.

 

“Are you still starstruck by my presence, insect?”, asked Tenshi.

 

Wriggle answered, “No, I’m in shock that I qualified when Eternity didn’t.”

 

“You’re probably just underestimating yourself.” Puffing up her chest, Tenshi continued, “Perhaps fighting alongside me will cure you of that doubt.” 

 

Wriggle ignored her grandstanding to begin enacting a more practical means of achieving that goal. First, she pulled Eternity into their conversation. Then, she asked both Tenshi and Eternity how their qualifiers went.

 

“I swiftly defeated both opponents”, bragged Tenshi. 

 

“Ah, I tried to do that but got utterly smoked. Not surprised I didn’t get in because of that”, replied Eternity.

 

“Thank you for giving me an idea for our team’s strategy!”, Wriggle told Eternity. Turning to Tenshi, she continued, “My qualifier was a lengthy loss. If I can replicate that performance in the tournament proper, then you can go on a risky offensive without the risk. If you end up going outside the sphere to force an opponent out, as long as I stay inside we’re both still in the fight!“

 

“What a lovely idea”, replied Tenshi. “Let’s do it!”

 

---

 

The Power Seeker Team listlessly paced around Rika’s newest tank. They had run out of ideas not even a day into the preparation window.

 

“My newest tank’s as done as I can make it without practical field testing… what I joined the tournament for”, Rika complained. “I assumed the fights would start today, and made sure everything that didn’t need to be left until the literal last minute was done. So now what? Spend a week doing nothing of value‽”

 

It took a few more loops around the tank for Saraka to devise an answer. “Perhaps… you could create a weapon for me?”

 

“Ooh, now that sounds interesting.” After stopping to think, she continued, “It’d have to be a bit of a rush job, but I’d be able to pull it off.”

 

“We should continue this conversation somewhere else, lest our enemies overhear.”

 

While climbing into the tank’s hatch, Rika replied, “I suppose. Need to go back to my workshop anyway.”

 

---

 

The next day, Sanae woke up earlier than expected to the sound of someone punching the Moriya Shrine’s front door. To her surprise, the person responsible was making no attempt to hide themselves. In fact, they started a conversation like they had knocked normally instead of using violence to announce their presence.

 

“Can you fit some training with me in before the time of your usual shrine maiden duties arrives?”, asked Oyasu.

 

“Wh- why’d you arrive so early?”

 

“Half to ensure my earlier question did not get the answer ‘No, I don’t have enough time’, half to fit my personal timetable better. I don’t want the other people in my household to provide help, and keeping them out of the loop was the only way to prevent it.”

 

Sanae asked, “Why be so insistent on going it alone?”

 

Getting louder with every word, Oyasu answered, “Because the reason I joined the tournament and the reason I’m denying them the opportunity to assist me are one and the same…

 

to prove that I don’t need the coddling they call help! That I don’t need my unique skills to accomplish something! THAT I’M MORE THAN WHAT I WAS BORN WITH!”

 

Such intensity made Sanae pause before replying. “I understand. Would you accept my help, then?”

 

“Earning it by my own actions would be preferable, but the format of the tournament is an acceptable source of assistance.”

 

“Then come in for breakfast.”

 

“Thank you.”

 

Kanako and Suwako soon joined them, woken up by Oyasu’s yelling. While Oyasu quickly found herself at the center of the conversation, she seemed used to that position.

 

“Hard to believe you needed trickery to go it alone”, said Suwako.

 

“They wouldn’t understand why I have to, so this was the simpler option. That reminds me: You need to know the cover story I told them. I threw them on a wild goose chase by leaving a note saying that I went far and wide to investigate the origins of a youkai copying my usual pseudonym.”

 

“Seems a little unnecessarily convoluted”, said Kanako. “Making a new pseudonym would have made things a lot easier.”

 

“Unfortunately, I only realized that after signing up with this one”, replied Oyasu.

 

Sanae asked, “How hard was sneaking out?”

 

“Fairly tough, given the hard to access location we live in.”

 

“How about you stay here for the duration of the tournament, so you don’t have to do it again?”, suggested Suwako.

 

“Yes, on the condition that I complete errands for you during that time. For the sake of my pride, I refuse to receive something for nothing.”

 

Kanako replied, “I see no reason to disagree with that, and it’ll be good to have more help.”

 

“I’ll prepare a guest room once I’m done eating”, said Sanae.

 

Oyasu replied, “No. Show me which room I’ll stay in, and I shall prepare it myself!”

 

---

 

Both members of the Metal Team stared at the wall they had filled with simple drawings of their potential opponents.

 

Kikyou analyzed the situation. “15 enemy teams, but we’ll only need to defeat somewhere between 4 and 7 of them to come out on top. However, we have no control over which opponents we actually face.” 

 

“Then we need to maximize the expected value of our preparation”, replied Jo’on.

 

“Hmm… the obvious solution of focusing our efforts on finding ways to defeat stronger teams isn’t available, because teammates were assigned in a way that makes each team’s strength approximately equal.”

 

“That’s not quite true. Teams better at working together will be stronger than teams who aren’t.”

 

Kikyou scratched her head a bit as she said, “I get where you’re going with this but still feel confused. How do we figure out how well any of these teams will work together without watching them fight?”

 

“Assume what we saw in the seeding reveal was accurate and work from there: The Ultimate Surprise Team’s a threat because Kogasa looks up to Mamizou while the Overdrive Team isn’t because Sayuri’s teamed up with someone she wants to beat up. It’ll only be an estimate, but one good enough to use”, answered Jo’on.

 

“Better than nothing. I’m not good at reading people, so making that list will have to be left to you.” After pausing to think, Kikyou continued, “We should also set some time aside to learn how to work together better, since that’ll help no matter who we fight.”

 

“Today and tomorrow on teamwork, and the five days after that on the five most threatening teams?”

 

“Works for me.”

 

---

 

The Growth Team disagreed on what they should spend their week doing. As a result, the Garden of the Sun was filled with the sounds of argument. 

 

Yuuka calmly reiterated, “As I said, if we want to win, then we should find a way to force each opposing team to fight at a disadvantage.”

 

Tokiko angrily reiterated, “And as I said, I didn’t enter to win, I entered to get stronger. So train me.”

 

“The only way you’re getting significantly stronger in a week is if you do something hellishly unhealthy, and a tournament isn’t dire enough to justify that risk.” Thinking back to the first time they met, Yuuka asked, “You still know that status-curing card you used way back when, right? It’d be quite useful if we fight Medicine.“

 

Tokiko’s voice became steadier, but just as full of rage. “If you’re going to twist the emotional knife you stabbed me with during that pair of incidents maybe I should fight you here and now, show you how strong I’ve become since then!”

 

“Ooh, if I did that to Reimu, Alice, Marisa, maybe even Sanae, the turmoil might worsen their combat capability.”

 

“That’s it! You, me, right here, right now!”

 

“You’re so weak that I could…” Once Yuuka found the words she wanted to say, a grin on the border between sadistic and motherly appeared on her face. “… strategize as I fight you. Sound like a good compromise?”

 

Tokiko charged towards her teammate. Loath as she was to admit it, Yuuka’s assessment of their fighting skills and her ability to multitask was correct.

 

---

 

Inside Junko’s barren abode, the Showstarter Team discussed how to prepare for the upcoming battles.

 

“The answer is clear: Develop new team attacks”, said Junko.

 

Narumi replied, “Wow, I was just about to suggest that.”

 

“As expected of something so obvious.”

 

“Exciting the crowd would be nice, too.”

 

“More effective, in addition. People cheering for us help bring about our victory by improving our morale and demoralizing our opponents.”

 

Both pleased and surprised by this statement, Narumi asked, “Since we agree about what these attacks’ goals are, there’s no reason not to go straight into making them, right?”

 

“Correct.”

 

Things continued going incredibly smoothly during card design. There were disagreements, but they were resolved without any malice between teammates. Even though Narumi had some lingering curiosity about how someone with Junko’s reputation had boarded the same train of thought as her, she left it on the backburner to focus on victory.

 

---

 

The Ultimate Surprise Team also quickly agreed to develop new spell cards for the tournament. While Kogasa got the idea on the way out of qualifying as a way to catch opponents off guard, Mamizou had planned on doing so since the moment she signed up. Within a room painted stark white except for a grid of black lines, they sought to refine premises into practical maneuvers.

 

“These spell ideas are organized by how easy I think it’ll be for me to perform them. Ones I can’t adapt into danmaku are just gonna be skipped, so I can make as many as possible.” Holding a complete card aloft, Mamizou continued, “I managed t’ use the ones with checkmarks next to them during the preliminaries, but that’s no reason to ignore the rest of the list.”

 

Kogasa asked, “Why do all of the spells have the ‘Burning Meter’ designation?”

 

“‘Cause of their shared origin as replicas of fighting game super moves. The virtual originals use up whatever the game’s form of meter is, and while my adaptations don’t have that limitation the shared designation makes it clear the attacks aren’t me firing away themelessly.” Seeing the look on her teammate’s face, Mamizou asked, “Er… did I skip over a term I should have explained? Wait, do you even know what fighting games are?”

 

Kogasa knew about that genre. In fact, she knew enough to be bewildered by the full meaning of the statement.

 

“I- Wha- Are you even taking this seriously?”

 

“I joined to fulfill a year’s worth of competitive spirit, so I’m both unwilling and unable not to. Even my enjoyable strategies were ultimately made to win.”’

 

“Doesn’t really look like it at the moment…”

 

“An opponent who lowered their guard ‘cause they shared that opinion would quickly lose in a way that reminds me of the time I won a finals match on random select.”

 

Even though Kogasa agreed with Mamizou’s statement, she didn’t feel completely satisfied. A bunch of new moves, even from an unusual source, felt too simple, too easy to expect. She helped her teammate continue developing Burning Meter cards as she wracked her mind for something more.

 

Hours later, Kogasa found that something. Worried an attempt to talk at a normal volume would become an excited scream, she whispered it into her teammate’s ear. 

 

Mamizou replied, “That’s brilliant! It’ll blindside everyone at least five times over, make our opponents lose mixups they didn’t know were happening, and even open up new options for Burning Meter spells!”

 

Kogasa reached new levels of elation upon receiving such high praise from someone she looked up to. Her idea may have relied on her teammate’s abilities, but she could take pride in having devised it herself.

 

---

 

As night began to fall, Yuuka and Tokiko reverted from training back to arguing. 

 

Between pants, Tokiko said, “I can keep going.”

 

Despite having fought just as long, Yuuka showed no signs of fatigue. “The question isn’t whether you can, but whether it’s healthy or useful to do so. Our tournament battles aren’t endurance matches, and I doubt any will last longer than we’ve been fighting. Dragging you into the pits of deep exhaustion will accomplish nothing.”

 

“Perhaps nothing for the tournament, but in a future incident—”

 

“Even in the outlandish scenario that everyone else who’s ever tried to resolve an incident before vanished Gensokyo would not need to call on your help. There are plenty of people stronger than you who have never tried to solve one before and are capable of it.”

 

“This isn’t about what Gensokyo needs but what I want. The times I spent as an incident resolver, whether by way of joining a team or the incident itself giving me the power to resolve it, were the most enjoyable times of my life. I’m training to be able to replicate that joy…” Seeing Yuuka’s unchanged expression, Tokiko continued, “…but you probably don’t care what I want, do you.”

 

“Guilty as charged.”

 

”And knowing your abilities, if I keep going you’ll use sleep inducing pollen or something similar to take my choice to keep fighting away.” 

 

Yuuka stoically replied, “Glad to know you’ve learnt more about what I can do.”

 

As she turned to fly home, Tokiko said, “Goodbye, prick.”

 

Once her teammate had left earshot, Yuuka thought out loud, “Probably the best that could have gone, given the last time we met.”

 

---

 

The Cold Space Team trained as close to their namesake as the Hakurei barrier would allow. Cold air made CIrno’s usual maneuvers easier to perform while the night sky did the same for Mima. Yet at the moment, their tactics were a little reversed.

 

Cirno loosed an iceball, then directed it to follow a hyperbolic trajectory around Mima. She prepared to dodge, only for Cirno’s success to make that unnecessary.

 

“Now, let’s see how much adding that improves my attack.”

 

Mima’s statement was followed by the declaration of a spellcard. Large star bullets followed similar hyperbolic trajectories while scattering colorful needles in their wake. To show her strength, Cirno shot an iceball at a hyperbolic trajectory that went through a large gap in the pattern.

 

Once the prototype card faded, Mima said, “I’ll write that down so we can refine it later. Let’s keep brainstorming — show me a card of yours you think my magic can improve.”

 

“No problemo!”

 

Through the rest of the night, they explored various other implementations of the general strategy they had decided on — copying eachother’s magic just enough to let them actively empower eachother. What they had at the night’s end was unrefined and untested, but enough to show they weren’t barking up the wrong tree.

 

---

 

The Connected Team had spent the first two days of training battling eachother to give both members real combat experience with their teammate’s moves, albeit experience from the other side of the field they were training for. Alice’s house was chosen as their venue so the materials needed to repair or modify her dolls would be readily available. As the session ended, they took stock of their progress.

 

“A few of those attacks were limper than a wet noodle”, Saki said.

 

Alice replied, “Within expectations based on their performance in previous fights. My usual training partner also had no problem evading them, since she’s also quite quick. If I get matched up against a slow moving foe in the tournament proper, that’s when the real test will occur.”

 

“I understand preferrin’ a particular training partner, but why test an attack you’d never even try to hit them with in a real battle on them? Result’s not relevant to what you’re training for. Better to find someone you’re actually trying to make struggle with the attack and see if it works.”

 

“Unfortunately, finding someone else to train with isn’t that simple, especially when looking for opponents with particular fighting styles.”

 

“Well, if it’s for testing a particular attack you’ve only gotta fight them once.”

 

Alice made her dolls participate in illustrative mock combat as she replied, “Not necessarily true. If a spell turns out to not work, in order to figure out whether my changes made the attack an effective one I’ll need to fight the same person again.”

 

“Testing them in a tournament is just as bad in that respect.”

 

“It skips the step of convincing someone to train with you, which is the hardest part.”

 

“Maybe you only find that difficult for lack of practice.”

 

Glaring at her teammate, Alice said “I’d need evidence to prove you can make it easy.”

 

“I’ll show you tomorrow.”

 

“Fine.”

 

When the time for training came the next day, Saki arrived at Alice’s house with the materials necessary for her strategy to give Alice a new training partner: A large box and a blindfold.

 

Upon seeing the items, Alice said “You know what this looks like, right?”

 

“Yep, that I’m going to kidnap someone. But I don’t care”, replied Saki. “Put some spare parts into the box, I don’t want to make more trips than necessary.”

 

Once Alice did so, Saki continued, “Now put the blindfold on.”

 

“That… doesn’t help your case.”

 

“I need to take you along a route that must remain strictly confidential in order to make my point. Ensuring you can’t see the path I’m taking is the easiest means of doing that. Thus, the blindfold.”

 

After deliberating a while, Alice replied, “Fine. But I’m only doing this because I know you have a good reason not to harm me.”

 

Their trip was a dizzying experience for Alice, but a relatively ordinary one for Saki. She threw a few unnecessary jumps in to try and ensure Alice couldn’t remember the route by feel, making it lengthier than necessary because her teammate was too dizzy to attempt that in the first place.

 

The feeling of air moving around Alice didn’t end when they stopped due to something her internal monologue called a “hellishly hot gale”. Saki took the blindfold off her, letting her see that the description was entirely literal.

 

“Ah- Why the here are we here?”

 

“Well, our actual destination is my turf in the Animal Realm, but I’d rather not blindfold you longer than necessary in case we get ambushed. And the reason we’re going there is because I live there.”

 

Alice replied, “Sure. Perfectly fine. I’m too deep to back out anyway.”

 

Their trip through hell was relatively pleasant in that it was merely unpleasant, and not some more severe adjective. Still, warming up at their destination was made unnecessary by the fairies, spirits, and yin-yang orbs they had to defeat on the way there.

 

The two weaved through the large skyscrapers that filled the Animal Realm until they reached a particularly tall one with a gong hanging above the front door. Saki kicked it in a rhythm akin to knocking, then whispered something into a nearby window. For a moment, the doors unlocked. However, Alice was confused enough about proceedings that Saki had to drag her inside before they automatically relocked themselves.

 

On the other side was what appeared to be a modern reception room except for the various magical runes on the walls and doors. After Saki spoke with the door clerk, Alice soon found herself in one of the building’s training rings with a monstrously large turtle youkai she hadn’t caught the name of.

 

Still, she knew enough about what was going on question it. To her teammate, she said, “Oh yes, just find a variety of willing subordinates and you’ll have training partners. Not like that’s a harder goal!”

 

“You really gonna kick a gift horse the mouth like that?”, Saki replied.

 

“I”m not turning this opportunity down, but I am saying that you’ve failed to prove it’s possible find training partners easily. You were only able to do this because of the position you’ve fought for.”

 

“Fair enough.”

 

---

 

Kikyou returned to the wall her teammate had used as a planning canvas to find all but ten of the drawings had been set aside. From top to bottom, the remaining ones depicted the Ultimate Surprise, Cold Space, Showstarter, Worm Killer, and Intimidation, teams.

 

“These are who we’ll spend the rest of the week preparing for, right?”

 

“Correct”, replied Jo’on.

 

“Ordered by most threatening at the top to least?”, asked Kikyou.

 

“Not exactly.“

 

“Ordered by expected value of preparations, so we should prepare to beat the Ultimate Surprise Team today, then?”

 

“Right on the money. How much we know about our opponents was also taken into account, as our ability to plan around complete unknowns like the Sin Response Team is limited.“

 

Recounting how they planned to beat the Ultimate Surprise Team would be a waste of time, as those preparations would later be discarded outright.

 

---

 

The Overdrive Team continued searching through the Forest of Magic for potion ingredients or valuable miscellanea which could be sold to buy the former. Sayuri’s work slowed as she questioned the utility of it.

 

“Can’t we prepare some other way?”, she asked.

 

Not stopping to talk, Marisa replied, “Are we really gonna have this conversation again?”

 

“Yes. There’s probably a better use for our time before the tourney.”

 

“Then tell me that better use. As a reminder, we’ve already confirmed both chugging potions before the fight and using disposable weapons are legal.”

 

Sayuri’s head slumped. “I don’t know.“

 

“Then keep searching for stuff as you keep thinking about it.”

 

Sayuri begrudgingly continued. Even though she never found a better use for their time, this wasn’t the last time they had this conversation.

 

---

 

Konngara smiled as the Outgoer Team walked into the clearing serving as their training grounds. While Yukiko’s offer to let her stay over was gracious, and meant she didn’t have to rely on Saki for transport on a daily basis, her overeager attempts to make conversation were beginning to grate on her. The new card she had developed would put a stop to that, albeit temporarily.

 

While Konngara charged the spell, Yukiko asked “A new card! What’s it going to do?”

 

She replied, “I’d prefer to demonstrate. Wisdom Sign ‘Silent Power’!”

 

Magical energy surged from Konngara into a ring around Yukiko. Once that ring became full, it shrunk into a halo around her head.

 

Yukiko tried to say, “Amazing work; I feel so strong!”, only to find she had been rendered mute. Konngara was able to get the message anyway by reading her teammate’s lips.

 

“While your voice is the price of the power you feel, once the spell ends it will return. Fight me like this, so you can get used to this strength, and use it effectively in our matches.”

 

She gladly obliged, not even considering the idea the attack’s limitation had been designed to get some silent training out of her. While this prevented the training session from being followed by an intra-team argument, it also meant she still had no idea Konngara was annoyed with her in the first place.

 

The next day, Yukiko was the one ready to show off a new card. Excited not just about how it worked, but how she expected it to work well in tandem with one of Konngara’s cards, she spent a fair amount of their breakfast hyping it up.

 

“Surprised to see you develop something new so quickly”, said Konngara.

 

Yukiko replied, “Well, it is a variant of another card. Could you use the strengthening card you showed me yesterday, so I can show off the combo?”

 

Konngara silently obliged. Once Yukiko felt the surge of power that card gave her, she activated her new card. Bee bullets gathered magical power from throughout the clearing, occasionally returning to her and continuing from there. Some of it leaked out, taking the form of bullets in the process, but the relatively low amount present with Wisdom Sign “Silent Power” active made Konngara feel free to assume they weren’t the primary goal of the attack. 

 

When the spell got close to timing out, the bee bullets returned to Yukiko, entering a tight formation around her. She opened her mouth in anticipation of the card’s end, confusing her teammate until the honey it created went straight into her mouth. The moment she swallowed, the magical halo around her head shattered.

 

“AAaaaand… all the extra strength went away.” Yukiko asked her teammate, “You have any idea what happened?”

 

After failing to suppress a sigh, Konngara explained, “The increased strength my spell provides is contingent on the muting, such that ending the muting effect also ends the empowering effect. This also occurs vice-versa, so opponents can’t leave you muted for no gain by cancelling the empowering.” 

 

“I think it could still trip someone up.“

 

“Perhaps. Let’s just get back to training.”

 

“Okay!”

 

---

 

In the remains of a long since burnt tavern, the Sin Response Team met for the first time since the seeding reveal. Waiting so long to do so was not a failure to prepare, but a deliberate choice to make separate preparations first.

 

“I’ll go first, if thou do not mind”, said Mumumu. “I spent the last three days sm-bringing weapons from where I live to the surface, so we can use them.”

 

Kotohime revealed the bag she’d hid within her kimono while replying, “We seem to have arrived at similar conclusions, then. I spent that time searching through my collections for useful items, and boy oh boy did I find a lot!”

 

The longer Mumumu looked at what her teammate brought, the more it bewildered her. “I think we’re gonna have to spend the rest of our prep time telling eachother how to use the stuff we got earlier.”

 

“Ah, I expected as much. Not all weapons are intuitive, and there are a few things of yours that don’t even look like weapons.”

 

Mumumu looked over the makeshift display stands she had made, but failed to find which weapons her teammate was referring to. Before things got too awkward, she decided to just let that sentence go with mere offhand agreement to keep things moving.

 

---

 

At the crack of the fifth dawn since the group formed, the members of the Ulterior Team gathered inside the cave they had made into training grounds only half willingly. Misumaru had expected professionalism from Shiran when they met, but had not received it. Thus, she resorted to extreme measures to ensure she wasn’t eliminated too early to find out what Remilia was up to.

 

Shiran gulped in surprise upon waking up, as she had expected to start the day in the same bed she ended it in. Her current location being somewhere she knew only dulled her startled reaction a bit. While breakfast and tea had been prepared, Shiran was more interested in asking questions.

 

“Why’d you bring me here?”

 

Calmly, Misumaru answered, “I have to assume the stakes of the upcoming battles are higher than they appear. Therefore, I can’t let you talk about how much you’re training on Chirper instead of actually training like you did yesterday.”

 

“This is going too far! Couldn’t you have been less harsh‽”, Shiran asked, her voice getting louder with every word.

 

“Unfortunately not. Yesterday, you proved that anything less than depriving you of the ability to access Chirper was too little.”

 

While rustling through her pockets, Shiran replied, “Oh yeah? Well, when I tell my followers about this, you’ll regret...” Her gusto quickly faded into nothingness upon realizing her hands were attempting to click the buttons of a nonexistent phone.

 

“Even now, you’re proving my point. Note that I have gathered the rest of your danmaku tools for use during training.”

 

Checking her pockets, Shiran found everything else where she had expected it to be, which only left her more displeased at her lack of argumentative ammo. 

 

“I didn’t agree to this!”

 

“Yesterday, I asked you if you’d be willing to start training as soon as physically possible after waking up, and you said yes. While I manipulated the details of this arrangement in my favor, everything was done both in the spirit of those words, and in service of a better training session.”

 

The more Shiran talked, the less convincing the words out of her mouth became. After a fair while, she ran out of both coherent complaints and ways to incoherently complain.

 

Misumaru asked, “Should we not get back to working together?”

 

“I suppose…”, Shiran grumbled. 

 

---

 

Before the Physiologic Team began their sixth training session together in the abandoned home they had turned into an arena, Medicine asked something important of her teammate.

 

“You’ve overheard what I’ve asked of the people we’ve trained with, right?”

 

Yuugi replied, “Yeah, something about liberating dolls from their giant oppressors.”

 

“Now, I’m asking that of you. After the tournament, will you help me on my quest to free dolls from the tyran-”

 

“No.”

 

Medicine yelled back, “But I didn’t even fini-”

 

“I knew where you were going after hearing you ask everybody we trained with about liberating dolls, and agree with the reasons they disagree.”

 

Things quickly devolved into a battle fought with volume instead of words. Accusations of complete illogicality, the inability to empathize, excess anthropomorphization, and black-hearted villainy were thrown about but only received as vague noise. The argument continued until they saw the door shake from heavy knocking.

 

They opened it to see an impatient crowd eager to battle them, so many talking that individual voices couldn’t be distinguished.

 

Watching their rowdiness, Yuugi said, “We need to get them organized now or we’re gonna have a worse mess than yesterday.”

 

Memories of pain got Medicine to agree, so the team quickly began molding the crowd into a line. Once done, they called people up two at a time and had danmaku matches against them. Between the line’s length and the need to occasionally stop fighting to keep it from devolving into chaos, their training took all day.

 

Once it was all over, Medicine asked Yuugi, “Never have I seen a flier receive such a response before. That’s what I’m missing. Not strength, but charisma. If you won’t join my cause, could you at least teach me how to help others join it instead?”

 

“It was nothing much. Just knowing my audience and putting the flier in the right place.”

 

“Then teach me how to do that!”

 

“Fine. But only after the tournament.”

 

After a sigh, Medicine replied, “Okay. This is too important not to agree to.”

 

---

 

The last day before the tournament proper arrived, and with it the members of the Imbalanced Team to each side of Reimu’s front door. While Sara was just as enthusiastic about their practice battles as she was yesterday, Reimu was both less excited in the first place and less excited about it than she was yesterday. 

 

“Uh… I know you’re here to train but I have a lot of stuff to do. There’s a whole kerfuffle about a princess gone missing, and then my ordinary duties on top of that…”

 

“That stuff wasn’t a problem yesterday.”

 

“More cropped up since you left.”

 

With a glare, Sara replied, “Seems more likely that you’re just trying to slack off.”

 

“I’m doing the opposite of slacking off, by doing that work instead of training with you!”

 

“Isn’t training part of your duties?”

 

“I mean, theoretically, but I’m too str-…”. After realizing that completing that sentence would extend the argument, Reimu stopped to think, then continued, “in times of need the work itself can be considered training.”

 

Sara took the reply at face value despite the large gap in it. While she didn’t personally agree with that idea, she had no idea how to argue against whatever divinity defined what the duties of a shrine maiden were. As the two began discussing how and what exactly they’d do, Reimu felt glad to have help, even if Sara only joined because she was somehow worse at detecting lies than Reimu was at telling them.

 

The first task of the day was investigating reports of youkai getting ambushed within the Forest of Magic. Reimu’s plan for finding out what was going on was fairly simple: Get ambushed, win the ensuing fight, and use that to force an explanation out of the culprit. Working with Sara made the plan even better, as she was the perfect bait. She wandered about while Reimu followed from far enough away to not be immediately visible but close enough to quickly join the fight they intended to start.

 

However, what got Reimu to spring into action wasn’t the sight of Sara getting ambushed, but the sound of someone behind them suffering that fate. The two hurriedly backtracked to find the Intimidation Team engaged in battle with a youkai whose eyes had widened to an unhealthy degree, and whose clothes were scuffed with battle damage.

 

“Explain this.”

 

Seija and Nezu froze in place upon hearing Reimu’s voice, giving their target the opportunity to flee.

 

Sara ran in, breaking the silence by yelling “Yeah! What’re you doing?” between pants.

 

Those words snapped Nezu back into action, leading her to answer, “Training for the tournament, obviously.”

 

After squinting for a moment, Reimu replied, “It looks like your training partner wasn’t a willing one, given how fast they ran away.”

 

Seija and Nezu internally scrambled for a cover story while doing their best to appear externally calm and smug. They had been training by ambushing youkai passerby for the past six days. To keep Reimu off their backs, they let Sara go, only for a haste-fueled underestimation of their noisiness to undo that effort.

 

“Well maybe she’s just scared of you!”, Seija blurted out.

 

Sara mumbled, “Ah, uh, sor-”, only for Reimu to cut her off while pointing diagonally behind herself.

 

“Seems unlikely since she went in that direction, towards me. Also, everything out of your mouth is inherently suspect.”

 

Nezu answered, “Well, maybe you’d believe it if I said it. She was training with us but got scared off by you.”

 

“No, it doesn’t sound more honest coming out of your mouth”, Reimu replied. 

 

“Thought that would work,” Nezu mumbled, letting Sara know the truth.

 

While pulling out spellcards, Reimu said, “The next step should be pretty obvious: I take you down so you stop disturbing the peace.”

 

Sara added, “Yeah, we’ll end your cruel training methods!”

 

While Seija prepared to fight, Nezu had a different plan. “Ah, but I’m sure Patchouli would have something to say about interfering with our practice. It’s not explicitly against the rules, but it sure isn’t in their spirit.”

 

Reimu flinched at the answer. While she knew there was an argument assaulting random passerby was also against the spirit of the competition, she didn’t trust her ability to make it with disqualification at stake. In addition, they’d probably stop after the tournament, and even if they didn’t forcing them to stop would no longer require explaining her actions to someone else.

 

“I’ll see in you in the arena, then.”

Notes:

There’s a lot going on in a lot of disparate places in this chapter. Thus, there are a lot of scene introductions that aren’t tightly linked to the previous scene, the toughest kind to create. Showing the variety of manners by which the teams prepared is worth taking that challenge on.

Chapter length in this fic in going to be entirely governed by long it takes to describe the events of the chapter. As a result, I don’t have the ability to keep a consistent chapter release schedule. Although, I suppose that’s already implicitly clear.

Next time, the tournament battles begin with the Showstarter Team facing the Imbalanced Team. Well, there’s actually a bit of pre-battle setup left, but not enough to be worth splitting into its own chapter.

EDIT 1: Mumumu’s dialogue was updated to use “thou” in place of singular “you”, plus a few other minor changes to help fit the resulting change in tone. I only noticed that she used the word when doublechecking characterization while writing a later chapter.

Chapter 4: Round 1, Match 1

The next morning, most of the participants gathered in the arena to hear who they were fighting and see what terrain would fill the arena. However, Reimu wasn’t present, as she was content to work with secondhand information from her teammate.

 

Patchouli announced, “The Round 1 arena will be completely free of obstacles, as you can see here.”

 

“No items, Final Destination, bu’ less foxes than expected”, Mamizou joked.

 

Marisa suppressed a chuckle upon hearing that.

 

Patchouli continued, “Round 1, Match 1 will be the Showstarter Team versus the Imbalanced Team.” 

 

---

 

That evening, the stands surrounding the arena were brimming with excitement. Together in one box were the 28 entrants not participating in this fight, as well as Koakuma for reasons not said aloud to prevent people from getting ideas. Some were trying to learn more about their potential opponents, most obviously the Metal Team due to the empty notebooks and pens in their hands, some were content to enjoy the upcoming spectacle that had brought the rest of the crowd here, but all were watching.

 

More eyes were in the crowd than any of the participants had ever had on them during a fight before, a gathering made safe by Eirin’s expertise in vaccination. A few faces familiar to incident resolvers were present. Ryouko had set up a stall selling baked goods, Aya had her camera ready to take pictures of the most dramatic moments, and the fighters could see their friends preparing to cheer them on.

 

Reimu, Sara, Junko, and Narumi flew towards specific points that Patchouli had marked near the center of the sphere. Everyone but Reimu greeted the people they would soon attempt to defeat.

 

“Why so cold?”, asked Narumi.

 

“I just don’t have anything to say”, Reimu replied. “No questions to ask, just an opponent to defeat.”

 

Patchouli asked, “Are you all ready?”, and received four affirmative replies.

 

“Then Round 1 Match 1 shall begin!” On that cue, faintly glowing lines traced out a sphere around the fighters, making the arena’s edge clearly visible without hiding anything from the audience.

 

The Showstarter Team made the first move, in the form of basic attacks intended simply to draw out a reaction. Reimu evaded the bullets with as little movement as possible, while Sara backed up somewhat to avoid getting hit. Both counterattacked as they dodged, Reimu with homing amulets and Sara with basic spread fire.

 

To dodge the amulets, Junko and Narumi made fairly wide movements, distorting the attacks they were firing. Reimu was so unfazed by this development that she failed to notice her teammate was quite fazed by it. A couple of waves later, Sara found a wall of Narumi’s amulets heading straight for her. Panicking, she unleashed a spell card, Gate Sign “Closed Barrier”, to block them.

 

A gate made of lasers appeared in front of Sara, and the wall of amulets dissipated upon contact. Although the gate only covered the area immediately in front of her, the simple barrier worked perfectly because her opponents’ attacks were just as straightforward. The flow of the battle remained otherwise the same for the duration of her card, meaning once it ran out Sara had reason to worry about getting walled again.

 

Within the stands, Yuugi wondered out loud, “Might’ve been better to just take the hit, since it wouldn’t’ve been strong enough to kick her outta the ring.”

 

Tired of watching her opponents successfully evade, Reimu switched from amulets to needles and began trying to force Junko backwards while advancing towards her. Junko weaved through the new projectiles just as easily as the previous ones, giving her enough space to react to Reimu’s next move.

 

Once in range, Reimu began to use the card Divine Arts “Sky-Conquering Wind God Kick”. However, Junko blocked the series of spin kicks comprising the majority of the card. Reimu began the final upwards kick assuming her opponent would keep blocking, only to wind up flinging herself into the air as Junko dodged. 

 

Junko called to her teammate, “Now!”

 

In unison, they declared a spellcard. “Jizo’s Palm ‘Light of Salvation’!” Both of them needing to declare the card showed that it was a team spell card.

 

Amid the declaration, Junko flew beneath Reimu. Once the attack began, she trapped both herself and her opponent in a ring of lasers. Narumi followed up with blasts of white fireballs from the floor of the arena. Reimu managed to weave through the first wave, but accidentally threw herself into a laser during the second, drawing a few gasps from the crowd.

 

Enough flames were being spewed about in the area outside the lasers that Sara didn’t want to approach. She tried to help her teammate with long range attacks, but her bullets were spread too thin to be threatening. In order to end the attack, Reimu had to use her go to defensive card, Spirit Sign “Fantasy Seal”.

 

She flew level with her opponents to try and prevent that from happening again, only to find herself too close to them. Reimu took a few hits as she hastily backed off, ending up further away from her teammate in the process. Fortunately, her new position gave her an idea. 

 

She fired amulets in a chaotic spray around Narumi and Junko, getting a few hits in but more importantly forcing them to stick together. A single amulet flew wide around them to float in front of Sara. Once Reimu saw a large opening on Sara’s side and a good enough opening on hers, she made the amulet fade away writing last and charged forwards. Recognizing the signal, Sara also dived in.

 

Knowing their opponents were going for a close range pincer attack, Junko and Narumi flew back to back. The two closing in began flying in faster as they stopped firing. Reimu swung her gohei at Narumi’s head while Sara tried to grab Junko’s legs. While remaining back to back the entire time, the Showstarter Team evaded both attacks by spinning themselves perpendicular to the floor, then counterattacked with a short range blast. 

 

Sara was thrown straight into the arena’s floor, below the sphere which defined victory and defeat. The battle only continued because Reimu recovered from the hit fast enough to catch herself with a barrier.

 

“That was our ‘Instantaneous Danmaku Shotgun’ ”, Narumi told the crowd.

 

“Did you like it?”

 

They answered Junko’s question with raucous cheering. 

 

“Yeah! Show Reimu what for!”, Sayuri yelled.

 

The Showstarter Team began focusing their fire on Reimu. The pressure on her meant she could only counterattack with homing amulets, which by now they had plenty of practice evading. That the crowd’s cheering got louder with every hit she took didn’t help.

 

Fortunately for her, Sara was merely knocked downwards, not knocked out. She got up and charged upwards, towards her teammate. Reimu used the large vertical beam of Divine Arts “Omnidirectional Dragon-Slaying Circle” to both clear a path for Sara and give herself breathing room.

 

“A… and we’re back to start, right?”, said Reimu.

 

“You’re audibly tired…”, replied Junko. 

 

Narumi continued, “…so it’s time to perform a finisher. Magic Sign ‘Pure Bullet Golem’!”

 

An aura resembling a fan made of giant spectral fox tails appeared around Narumi, showing that Junko had used her ability to purify things on her. She called forth a bullet golem the same way she would in any other bullet golem spell, so Reimu prepared to evade the bullets it would fire. However, when she expected the bullet to stop and shoot more bullets, it simply kept moving towards her without firing instead. Reimu darted to the side, only for the giant bullet to quickly turn to follow. Repeating the process a few times in the hopes the bullet would eventually lose its ability to track her only gave Junko enough time to fire slow moving bullets that made dodging the large one more complicated.

 

“Surprising to see Reimu get pushed this hard,” Sanae commented. “I can’t tell if she doesn’t have the time to throw any amulets, or is simply forgetting to because of the bullet bearing down on her.”

 

Frustrated her opponents were focusing on attacking her teammate, Sara lashed out with the most vicious attacks she could muster. However, the most she could do alone was nothing Junko couldn’t block, leaving Narumi free to keep controlling the giant bullet chasing Reimu. Sara changed tactics upon noticing what Sanae talked about herself and started trying to get the bullet to chase her instead of Reimu, but Narumi saw her attempts to distract for what they were and ignored them.

 

Reimu slowly lured the bullet upwards, staying close to ensure Narumi had no reason to try anything tricky. After checking Sara was within the sphere, Reimu deliberately flew outside it, getting enough space to reenter by diving in from above. At the apex of her flight path, she declared the spell card Dream Sign “Fantasy Dimensional Rift -Impact-”.

 

Both gravity and her ability to fly accelerated Reimu towards the opposing team, giving her even more speed. Junko flew up and managed to redirect the kick away from her teammate. However, Reimu warped upwards and hit Junko from the side, all of her momentum retained after the warp. The loop of physical attack, warp, repeat played out again and again from every direction.

 

As the card went on, Reimu slowed down, yet by the time she ran out of momentum Junko had been launched below the arena’s bottom edge. Soon after, Reimu found herself trapped between that edge and the giant bullet. Said bullet was coming in fast, and she couldn’t accelerate fast enough to get out of its way.

 

“I’ll save you, Reimu”, Sara yelled.

 

“Wait, no!”

 

Sara’s dive towards Reimu put the entire Imbalanced Team in that predicament, and joining up did not make them move any faster. The giant bullet hit the both of them, sending them outside the arena in unison.

 

“And the winner of Round 1 Match 1 is the Showstarter Team!”

 

The Showstarter Team took a bow at the center of the arena to the crowd’s cheers, drowning out salty comments from their opponents. While listening to their words showed that Reimu and Sara knew things went wrong because they weren’t coordinated, the harsh tones they threw at eachother showed they didn’t know what to do about it.

Notes:

This fight turned out to be lower key than I expected when deciding what order the fights would be in, but starting with something simple isn’t bad in the grand scheme of things.

Spell card names are in italics because it’s a habit I picked up with D&D spells. Words said by more than one person at once are in bold so I can do cool things with the formatting, like the scene here where we go from Narumi speaking alone to the declaration of a team card without a new dialogue tag.

Next time, the Cold Space Team faces the Power Seeker Team.

Chapter 5: Round 1, Match 2

Patchouli called the fighters for the next match into the arena. Mima and Cirno flew in from the crowd, forcing them to wait while Rika and Saraka left to grab their equipment.

 

Saraka flew in holding the hilt of a giant scythe which lacked a blade. The area between its grip and nonexistent blade was surrounded by a messy net of wires whose purpose was not immediately clear, and the thicker bottom half was connected to a glowing sphere twice the radius of the handle. Some in the crowd thought she was holding a staff upside-down.

 

Rika’s new tank flew into position on its own, with her peeking out of the hatch to make it clear to everyone why such a large machine was here. In a very loose manner, it resembled a birdhouse decorated with Christmas lights and a metallic halo. The treads on the sides, emblazoned with glowing runes, and ring of cannons at entryway-height were where its real nature was most obvious.

 

“Cold Space and Power Seeker Teams, are you ready?” 

 

Cirno answered, “I’ve been ready for hours! Let’s go already!”

 

Pointing to a light on the tank that had just turned green, Saraka said, “That means the answer’s yes.”

 

“Then Round 1 Match 2 shall begin!”

 

The instant the last syllable of Patchouli’s sentence reached Saraka’s ear, she charged forward and slashed at Cirno. Before the slash was complete, a curved laser popped out of the scythe to serve as its blade. Cirno managed to back out of the scythe’s reach, only to end up trapped in place when the lingering afterimages of the blade expanded to become a web of lasers.

 

By spinning a dial within the tank, Rika told the ring of cannons on the outside to follow suit. A cannon whose outer ring was made of smaller cannons aimed straight at Cirno. The outer cannons fired fast moving bullets, while the inner one launched an entire cannon that fired bullets even as it hurtled towards her.

 

Cirno tried to dodge the onslaught from within her space in the laser web. While she succeeded at first, as the flying cannon closed in the bullets it fired got closer to hitting her. Once it got close enough to graze, she could see Rika prepare to fire another one.

 

Recognizing that her teammate was in over her head, Mima surrounded Cirno in a field of cosmic energy. Upon feeling it, Cirno stopped trying to dodge and declared “‘Absolute Freeze’!”. The team card made a sphere of ice expand to cover everything in the arena, from bullet to laser, and even all four fighters. 

 

While the ice didn’t last for long, it still did what the Cold Space Team wanted it to do. The frozen bullets and lasers dissipated as the ice began to thaw. The fighters were unharmed, but slowed down in equal measure.

 

Wriggle wondered, “Why would they slow themselves down like that?” 

 

“Clearly they think a slower fight is in their favor”, answered Tenshi.

 

Mima and Cirno began a counteroffensive using similar tactics to their opponents. Cirno filled the air around Saraka with ice to pin her down while Mima launched omnidirectional blasts of star bullets at relatively close range to make evading even harder. The blade of Saraka’s scythe expanded into a ring around her, letting her block them instead. Rika’s tank was too large to dodge the stars that reached her, but armored enough that their impact was negligible.

 

“I won’t let you get an early lead!”, said Mima. 

 

Saraka replied, “Then I’ll have to take it against your will!”

 

The laser ring blade around her kept extending even as she continued blocking star bullets with it. With a pulse of magical power, she made it expand outwards, so it would extend into Mima. However, the lingering cold slowed her down enough that Mima identified the maneuver quickly enough to evade it, albeit by backing off.

 

With the need to block gone, Saraka could get more aggressive. She threw her scythe into the air while declaring a spell card that didn’t require her to use it. Her weapon began spinning and orbiting around her, automatically deflecting any bullets that strayed into it.

 

“Triclops ‘Many Many Third Eyes’!” 

 

The eyes the card was named for began appearing on her body, one on each hand and a ring a round her forehead. All of them began to fire lasers, from her hands in bright red and her head in a transparent black. She moved each hand to face one opponent, and the red lasers followed. 

 

Mima and Cirno flew towards eachother as they evaded. A barrage from Rika forced them into the ring of transparent lasers, revealing that they were currently harmless. However, when the two met, Saraka’s lasers kept getting closer. 

 

Cirno panickedly created a sphere of ice around the Cold Space Team. The moment it was complete, they declared one of their new spell cards, “Comet’s Tail”. However, before the lasers from Saraka’s hands hit the ice, they all swapped color. The two lasers sweeping inwards from her hands did nothing to the ice, while the lasers from her head hit only because the sphere was larger than strictly necessary to contain both of her opponents.

 

“Wha?”, Sara exclaimed. “It looks like Cirno started a team card by herself.”

 

“While the spell card rules require that team cards are simultaneously declared, you’re allowed to let things done before the declaration of a card bleed into that card”, Reimu answered. “They must have agreed beforehand that Cirno surrounding the team with an iceball would be followed by declaring that card. I think the empowering effect that preceded their first card was a signal, too.”

 

The comet quickly flew between the members of the Power Seeker Team, a tail of icy shrapnel from the impact of Saraka’s lasers trailing away from her. Only when the tail reached Rika’s tank could her teammate tell there were bullets inside the mist. Needles of ice scratched the treads, weakening the magic which made it move.

 

Saraka pulled her hands apart, and the lasers returned to their original colors, making the tail of shrapnel fade away. Rika tried to get out of the way so Saraka could continue attacking, but Mima’s magic made the comet outspeed the tank. In the meantime, Saraka kept her hands apart and away from her opponents so her card couldn’t be used against her teammate.

 

Just before both cards timed out, the comet rammed Rika’s tank. The cannon she had pointed at them was dented to unusability, and the tank itself tilted backwards. The Cold Space Team’s card ended as the sphere of ice shattered, and Saraka’s card followed just before she could get back to attacking; the eyes on her hands and forehead leaving no trace of their existence after they closed.

 

“Think Rika’s their weak link!”, said Cirno.

 

Mima replied, “Agreed. Let’s strike until the chain breaks!”

 

They charged towards the tank while spraying bullets in all directions. The ones that reached Saraka were enough to slow her down, preventing her from helping her teammate. However, that was not enough to ensure their next attack struck true.

 

On the tank’s halo, the words Antimagic “Mist of Mundanity” appeared, showing that Rika had declared one of its spell cards. The entire ring of cannons released a smokescreen that cancelled the bullets’ magic, making them fade away, while also hiding which cannon spun towards Rika’s opponents. When Cirno turned to check what Saraka was doing, a fully physical cannonball struck her through the mist, launching her past the arena’s edge.

 

To begin the fight’s end, Rika sent her tank towards Mima at full speed. She flew away, delaying the impact long enough to let a deliberate horizontal drift avert it, grazing both the tank and the edge in the process. The tank’s momentum brought it outside, leading Rika to begin a hasty turn. 

 

“I’ll be the one to end this”, Mima taunted. “‘Stardust Cyclone’!”

 

Before the attack started, Saraka switched from firing at Cirno to keeping a defensive eye on Mima. Saraka deftly weaved through Mima’s spiral of bullets, but broke out the spell card Consecutive Blade “Deathscythe Paradise” the moment she released familiars. Each one was sliced apart by a wing of light before it could do anything, while Mima had to block the scythe in Saraka’s hands with her staff.

 

“Most of the attack is going for the familiars Mima made”, Kikyou noted. “I think Saraka’s trying to hide a defensive maneuver behind aggression.”

 

“But why would she want to?”, Jo’on wondered. Only a moment later, she answered her own question, “Aha, to isolate Cirno and give Rika time to reenter, without letting Mima know that’s her goal. Clever.”

 

Meanwhile, Rika and Cirno tried to reenter the arena while keeping the other from doing the same. While the tank’s cannons spun, they fired bullets that split into shrapnel, filling the path in front of Cirno with slow moving bullets. Cirno froze them all and kept moving, making a wall Rika’s tank could break, so the race inwards continued.

 

Marisa wondered out loud, “Didn’t she learn frozen danmaku can’t block lasers during her war with the other fairies? Should be obvious something thicker’d be able to get through.” After a shrug, she continued, “Prolly just trying to keep the space in front of her clear.”

 

Suddenly, Mamizou asked her, “Would ya describe that as a ‘little war’?”

 

With every slash of Saraka’s scythe, Mima drifted backwards, although rather slowly. When it became clear Cirno would reenter the arena first, Rika’s tank suddenly strafed to the side, going right behind Mima. The moment her back hit metal, Saraka switched from slashing familiars to slashing her with ease.

 

After putting some distance between herself and the transparent grid, Cirno declared, “Ice Sign ‘Icicle Fishing’!” A ray of ice from her hand raced towards Mima, freezing any bullets it touched. Recognizing the attack, Mima dodged into it and was harmlessly encased in a cone of ice. Cirno grabbed the frozen shaft left behind by the ray and pulled back just in time to keep Saraka from landing another slash. From the safety of the frozen spear tip, Mima could listen to her friend Tsukiko cheer her on. 

 

Both teams saw their opponents united at the arena’s edge, giving them an opportunity to win. The turrets of Rika’s tank turned to ready a hard hitting attack, while Saraka followed suit without it being nearly as obvious. Mima made a single, small star bullet orbit her once then fade away, to hide the signal from everybody but her teammate as best she could.

 

“‘Comet’s Elliptical Orbit’!”, the Cold Space Team declared.

 

Star bullets began flying around Mima in hyperbolic trajectories, leaving a wake of needles. At the moment previous experience made Marisa expect Mima to start firing smaller star bullets, Cirno began lobbing large balls of ice around her teammate and at her opponents. Rika’s tank shrugged off the needles, but tilted a bit every time a star or iceball hit it, making her own fire less consistent. Saraka could weave through the maze of bullets, but took minor hits in the process. Sensing an opportunity, she dived both forwards and towards the arena’s edge.

 

“Even if you two watch out for me, it won’t be enough!”

 

Cirno took the bait, and started focusing her attacks on Saraka. The onslaught became especially difficult to dodge when iceballs began flying towards her from Mima’s left and right simultaneously. Meanwhile, Rika had enough space to begin charging an attack now that only stars and needles were hitting her.

 

The room’s focus was on Saraka as it quickly became apparent she had gotten in over her head. A minor hit from a needle slowed her down enough to make iceball after iceball land. Yet as she was launched out of the arena’s edge, she smirked. Ten seconds may not have been very long, but it was long enough.

 

Suddenly, half a dozen short laser blasts from Rika struck Mima and Cirno. Only after it fired did they notice that the halo was emblazoned with the name of the spell card she had used, “Silent Charge Ray”. Blindsided, the Cold Space Team was thrown out of the arena. 

 

“And the winner of Round 1 Match 2 is the Power Seeker Team!”

 

Rika’s tank landed and began leaving the building as Saraka stopped to stretch.

 

The moment Cirno began speaking, she got eye rolls as people predicted how her sentence would end. “We were the better team, and only lost because-”

 

Cutting her off, Saraka replied, “If you were the better team we’d be the ones falling for one of your distractions.”

 

As they flew back into the stands, Mima mumbled to herself, “Need to work on our tunnel vision.”

Notes:

Rika uses a magical tank to make her less similar to Nitori, and to open up more ways she could lose. I wouldn’t say it’s completely out of whole cloth, since Evil Eye Sigma doesn’t look mechanical.

I’ve decided to change the summary to explicitly note that the tournament is a doubles tournament, since there isn’t really much of a reason to hide it. It’s an early twist that’s focal to the fic’s premise. The presence of fangame characters, a similar reveal in terms of timing and effect on the story, is already revealed in the tags anyway.

Next time, the Worm Killer Team faces the Metal Team.

Chapter 6: Round 1, Match 3

As Patchouli prepared the arena for their match, the Metal Team hastily reviewed their plans for defeating the Worm Killer Team. While they remembered the plan, there were enough details to justify a refresher. Meanwhile, their opponent’s plan was so simple Tenshi only needed to fist-bump Wriggle’s open palm to confirm she remembered it.

 

Once the teams gathered in the arena, Patchouli asked if they were ready.

 

“As if the answer isn’t written on our faces”, Tenshi answered.

 

“Then Round 1 Match 3 shall begin!”

 

Both members of the Metal Team rushed towards Wriggle, two clenched fists and one sword ready for impact. Against their expectations, Wriggle only readied herself to evade, without a hint of desire to strike back.

 

“‘Kashima Armor’!”, declared Tenshi. 

 

Particularly large keystones formed a barrier around Wriggle before either of her opponents were close enough to swing at her. The slash Kikyou performed to test the barrier simply bounced off, so Jo’on backed off. Kikyou tried to poke her sword through the gaps between the keystones, but they quickly moved to block her sword whenever it approached. 

 

Jo’on prepared for the attack she knew Tenshi would aim at her. When her opponent’s balled fist made it appear to be a punch, she held up her arms to block. However, it was a feint. Tenshi easily grabbed Jo’on’s right arm with her unclenched hand, then swiftly dragged her outside the arena’s edge.

 

After throwing Jo’on to the floor, Tenshi called a keystone for each of her opponent’s limbs. Before Jo’on could get up, they landed on her palms and knees, pinning her in place. Cirno quickly went from cheering the Worm Killer Team on to wondering why Wriggle wasn’t trying to put the hurt on Kikyou, then why Reimu wanted to switch seats with her.

 

“These stones are my key to an easy victory, but for you they’re more like locks”, she taunted.

 

As Tenshi crossed the grid, Kikyou went from trying to push Wriggle and the keystones around her out of it to pure defense. Despite keeping herself near the center of the ring just like Wriggle, she made absolutely no attempts to attack her. Instead, she threw attacks that had no ambitions but keeping her out of Tenshi’s reach that landed true anyway due to reckless aggression on her opponent’s part.

 

When Kikyou felt confident she wasn’t being pushed dangerously close to her defensive limits, she started sparing some glances for her teammate. Jo’on was squirming in place, trying and failing to move what she could in a way that expanded her options. As the battle continued, Kikyou occasionally fired blasts of bullets aimed at the binds on her teammate, but Wriggle used the keystones around her to block them.

 

Three failed hits later, Tenshi yelled, “How are you so damn resilient‽”

 

Kikyou’s answer was a single giggle. She wasn’t completely sure why herself, and didn’t want to give an answer in case it turned out to be true enough to let Tenshi use it to her advantage.

 

The battle maintained its pace for a fair while, only changing when Jo’on wiggled a palm out from beneath the keystones. Bullets from one hand crashed into the keystone holding the other in place, making it vanish. Looking at her opponents, she decided to take her time freeing her knees so she could do so silently. Kikyou started throwing her blasts at them instead of Jo’on to keep their attention.

 

“If you’ve accepted that you’re fighting alone, why not just concede now?”, asked Tenshi. “It’d save a lot of time.”

 

“Time’s something I have plenty of, especially seeing your impatience.”

 

Tenshi replied with a series of attacks that forced Kikyou backwards even as she blocked. Just as this brought them a few meters from the arena’s edge, Jo’on finished freeing herself. She quickly reentered the arena, and interrupted a lengthy clash of blades by grabbing Tenshi. One swift throw, and now the Worm Killer Team was the one only halfway within the arena.

 

Both Jo’on and Kikyou flew towards Wriggle and grabbed the keystones protecting her, but she traced a circle in the air to make them spin fast enough to break their grips. The rest of the attacks they threw at Wriggle, even a Poor Sign “Super Poverty Bomb”, landed at most glancing blows. Tenshi returned to the arena before Wriggle even feinted shooting back.

 

The Metal Team backed off to assess the situation, covering their retreat with slow bullets. They had pushed Wriggle’s armor only half a meter with her no worse for wear, while Tenshi was sweating from the effort she had put in to attack Kikyou. 

 

“They’re all in on the strategy we expected”, whispered Kikyou.

 

“So we go all in on our counterstrategy”, replied Jo’on.

 

The Metal Team began focusing all their attacks on Tenshi. Bullets scattered to prevent evasion behind or to their sides flew at Wriggle, but never a full attack nor anything she couldn’t dodge. Even “Kashima Armor” timing out didn’t get the Metal Team to change targets. Medicine rapidly went from wondering why not to wondering how Reimu had even got close enough to ask to switch seats.

 

Seeing the onslaught before her, Tenshi yelled “Bring it on!” and activated the spell card Spirit Sign “State of Freedom from Worldly Thoughts”. To her opponents’ surprise, no visible effect followed the flashy activation. Tenshi went for the same sort of recklessly heavy attack that had thrown her into Kikyou’s sword earlier in the match. Just as expected, Kikyou tried to break her stride with a counterattack. However, even though it landed enough to leave a mark, it didn’t stop Tenshi’s slash, letting her land a hit that flung Kikyou to the floor.

 

Tenshi dived towards Kikyou, using the momentum to ready a powerful follow up attack. She responded with a card of her own, Kubizuka “Masakado Crisis”. The star shaped cuts and needles failing to stop Tenshi was expected, but the subsequent release of vengeful spirits also failing wasn’t. Instead of not attacking to keep them from firing bullets formed by their rage at their defeat, Tenshi simply let them hit her to ensure her blade hit Kikyou. She may have been covered in glowing arrowheads, but visible in her opponent’s eyes was more pain than she felt.

 

Knowing Tenshi’s card would eventually time out, the Metal Team changed tactics a bit. Whoever was closer to her would go on the defensive, while the farther would try to pelt both opponents with bullets to keep them from having free offensive reign. Starting this let Kikyou return to the arena, but Tenshi soon followed.

 

She tried to disrupt this by rushing towards Jo’on, but this only made the tactic more effective. Jo’on had more stamina to block with, while Kikyou’s ranged attacks were stronger. Wriggle tried to break Kikyou’s offense with her own, but kept herself too far away to force large movements out of her opponent.

 

This continued until Tenshi’s card timed out. The moment it ended, she started feeling all the damage she absorbed. She tried to push herself further, but the gaps between her attacks were longer, and the attacks themselves slower. 

 

Jo’on used this weakness to land a small hit which snowballed into a combo that brought Tenshi towards the edge. Between this and Kikyou switching to a pattern full of slow, dense bullets, Wriggle clammed back into complete defense. Once Tenshi was across the edge, Jo’on revealed her team’s finisher.

 

“Defense Stripping ‘Teammate Robber’!”

 

Her dive towards Tenshi turned into a successful grab, yet Wriggle was the one put in Jo’on’s grip. Her card’s effect had swapped their positions, giving Kikyou an easy target. In one string of attacks she brought Tenshi from the arena’s center to its edge. Wriggle tried to break free before Kikyou sent her past it, but Jo’on’s grip was too strong.

 

“And the winner of Round 1 Match 3 is the Metal Team!”

 

As Kikyou returned to the stands, she hi-fived Jo’on. “They overspecialized straight into your spell. Good job.”

 

“Unfair, unfair, unfair! That spell was completely unfair!”, yelled Tenshi. She tried to get Wriggle to join her whining and excuse making even well after it became clear she wouldn’t.

 

The beginning of the end of Tenshi’s petulance was Wriggle telling her, “Uh… I think we need to wait in order to talk about strategy effectively.” Failed attempts to disprove that petered out into the conversation’s end.

Notes:

When writing this chapter, I had some trouble following my own advice and just letting it be short. Took a while looking for places to expand it that just weren’t there, but only noticed that I hadn’t added any audience reactions during my second-to-last editing pass. How ironic. At least I learned about the wc terminal command because of it.

Next time, the Proving Team faces the Sin Response Team.

Chapter 7: Round 1, Match 4

Over the course of the third match, Reimu had inched her way towards Sanae’s seat. Before she could stand up to get ready for her battle, Reimu blocked her way and began a conversation.

 

“So, you seem to be harboring someone up to something in your shrine. Specifically, your teammate stole the usual pseu-”

 

“I know what this looks like, and don’t care. When all is said and done, you’ll realize I was just helping someone prove themselves.”

 

“Easy for you to say since nobody’s breathing down your neck ab- Hey, where are you going!”

 

“I’ve got a match to win.” After flying into position, Sanae continued, “Sorry for the wait.”

 

Patchouli asked, “Proving Team, are you ready?”

 

“Yes!”

 

“Then, since the Sin Response Team is ready, Round 1 Match 4 will begin!“

 

Oyasu wasted no time, immediately going on the offensive with the spell card Sealed Land “Wall of Poison Flowers”. Options swirled around her, releasing fast lasers that became slow bullets. Kotohime and Mumumu were split up by the opening volley, but nothing more. The last of the lasers faded away before the bullets closed in. Mumumu opened her mouth to criticize the lack of overlap between each half of the pattern only to find Oyasu had fired another wave whose lasers blocked the path she had planned to take through the bullets.

 

Watching the consequences of Mumumu’s mistake, Oyasu said, “It feels good to yank the first strike into your hands.”

 

“How crass of this phony, that she’s gone so far as to copy Himemiko’s spells”, muttered Takenouchi no Tarumi, the person who had roped Reimu into the search for the missing princess. “She sounds quite similar to her, but I can hear imperfections in whatever magic she’s using to disguise her voice.”

 

However, Oyasu’s first strike lacked any follow up. Once Mumumu understood how the card worked, she was able to dodge the second and third waves handily despite Sanae’s supporting fire. Kotohime did even better, weaving through the spell deftly enough that her counter-fire ended the attack before a fourth wave could begin.

 

“If that’s your idea of a decisive first strike…”, Kotohime taunted, “… you’ve got disappointment waiting in your wings.” Turning to Mumumu, she continued, “How about we show them up!”

 

From a sleeve of her kimono, Kotohime pulled out an entire washing machine, drawing gasps at how she stuffed something wider than herself in there without anyone the wiser and a bug-eyed look from Sumireko. Mumumu got a glowing three-headed flail out of her visibly laden pockets without fanfare from the audience.

 

As they declared “Cleansing Chaos ‘Extra-Deadly Rinse’!”, Mumumu placed the flail’s handle inside the washing machine as Kotohime turned it on and magically adhered them together only just enough to keep the flail from flying out. The heads of the flail chaotically shook about, every change in direction followed by a wave of bullets. Every member of the audience looked impressed except Sumireko, whose face had a faint version of the look someone gave when they were glad to not recognize someone passing by.

 

Bullets were sprayed about so wildly nowhere in the arena could be called safe, but the way they occasionally clumped together meant there were especially dangerous places. So powerful was the attack that even while fighting defensively, Sanae and Oyasu took multiple hits. Merely light hits, but every one still brought them closer to the edge.

 

The Proving Team split up to ensure a particularly nasty clump couldn’t catch the both of them. However, the attack eventually started releasing so many bullet clumps this tactic merely prevented them from ending up within the same one. Sanae dodged out of one clump’s way by inadvertently entering another. Oyasu slowed down to weave through the edge of a relatively thin clump, only for this to leave her right in the center of thick one.

 

“Frog Sign ‘Wily Toad’!”, declared Sanae.

 

A slow shockwave expanded around her, clearing any bullets it touched, but this was only the start of the card. It also coated her in a magical barrier, letting her charge above the washing machine unharmed. With a surprise close range blast of explosive frogs, she knocked both Kotohime and Mumumu far enough away to prevent them from touching the washing machine’s controls.

 

The shockwave quickly expanded, clearing the bullets around Oyasu too late to save her from the clump she had entered. This neither disappointed nor surprised her; she had accepted the risk Sanae’s cards would fail to protect her the moment they split up. Being briefly freed from the need to dodge let her blast her opponents with attacks too risky to use in the thick of the bullets.

 

As her card faded, Sanae kept blasting her opponents assuming that separating them from their constructed weapon had ended the associated spell card. However, that assumption wasn’t true. Upon realizing this, she panickedly activated Esoterica “Gray Thaumaturgy” to keep the thick waves of bullets close the machine from rapidly overwhelming her.

 

Seeing that the washing machine itself was covered by Sanae’s card, Oyasu rushed towards it. Breaking the meager amount of magical adhesion keeping the flail inside it took just a couple of shots. Almost instantly, the flail flew out of the washing machine, ending the cleansing chaos.

 

“Since Patchouli didn’t call foul there has to be a way to end that card without using one of your own”, Kikyou surmised. “What do you think it is?”

 

Jo’on replied, “Some crazy trick shot that aims around the washing machine and straight for the flail.”

 

Worried their opponents had more incredibly powerful team cards in reserve, the Proving Team set out to keep the Sin Response Team split up. They were far enough apart at the moment that flying between them was easy. Sanae and Oyasu released attacks with a very strong shotgun effect at Kotohime and Mumumu respectively, and the latter backed away for safety as the former desired. 

 

Sanae switched to firing homing snake bullets at Kotohime to keep up the pressure without getting too close to the orbs now orbiting around her. She scored a few minor hits, but Kotohime’s seemingly aimless counterattacks did the same. Both of them approached the edge, but neither could find a clear advantage.

 

Meanwhile, Mumumu went straight into activating the card Giant Star “Giant Impact”. A giant orange bullet appeared around her, spinning so fast as to warp its already curved shape. It both descended towards Oyasu and fired smaller bullets at her. She began blasting it, and it slowly started shrinking.

 

However, the giant bullet was both firing faster and not shrinking fast enough. Oyasu soon found herself straddling the arena’s edge in order keep away from it. Only a moment later, she was forced to either leave the arena or contend with it physically. Choosing the former, she unsheathed a very nondescript sword, charged it with energy, and slashed the bullet, but it wasn’t enough. It was knocked out of her hands, and she was knocked out of the arena soon after.

 

Seeing an opportunity for victory, Kotohime suddenly rushed towards Sanae while firing very direct attacks. As Sanae worried about backing up too far towards the arena’s edge, one of Kotohime’s bullets struck her. She continued her combo with an orb straight to Sanae’s midsection, intended to push her out of the competition.

 

“I bet you’re disappointed in your teammate”, Kotohime taunted. “Because Mumumu’s wrecking her shit, she can’t help you with me!”

 

“Not in the slightest”, Sanae replied. She grabbed hold of the orb which had rammed her and pushed back. “We’re both here to prove something.” When the orb lost all of its forward momentum, it started returning to the empty space in the formation around Kotohime. Sanae kept her grip steady in repose to this change.

 

Kotohime glanced at Mumumu leaving the arena to ram Oyasu, only to suddenly find Sanae within the circle of orbs she had surrounded herself with. A moment later, the orbs were scattered to the spellcard Miracle “God’s Gust”.

 

That card’s wind also threatened to blow Kotohime out of the arena. Recognizing this, she pulled a set of handcuffs out of her pocket and declared the spell card attached to them, Collectible Chain “Rainbow Binding”. A taut chain connected her to Sanae, yanking her outwards. Her reflexive flight inwards helped Kotohime lose her outward momentum and return to hovering in place.

 

“So what does that matter?”, Kotohime asked. “Emotions don’t help you win a fight.”

 

“What makes you think that?”

 

“Just look at your teammate.”

 

On the floor beneath them, Mumumu was blasting the cloud of smoke her spell card left behind with more bullets because she knew Oyasu was inside it. Hearing the conversation above convinced her to clear the smoke cloud in the hopes of demoralizing Sanae. However, instead of the clearly defeated opponent she expected, the dissipating smoke revealed a warrior who was clearly ready to fight even though she looked like she just lost one.

 

As Oyasu got up, having rolled around on the floor to dodge Mumumu’s follow-up and recover her sword, she said, “Stop holding back or you’ll lose.” The audience members who were gasping at how she managed to stand up were soon drowned out by the ones gasping at her words.

 

“No. I’d rather keep the fighting effortl- Wuah!“ A few fast moving bullets forced Mumumu to end her sentence early in order to dodge.

 

Kotohime tried to ask “How is she still going?”, but was interrupted halfway through by a blast of wind from behind, sending her to the arena’s edge. Since Sanae had closed in, the chain was slack enough that if she simply waited for it to become taut she’d be sent outside the arena. However, before she went beyond the edge, she wrapped the chain around herself, effectively shortening it enough to stay inside.

 

“Oyasu has something to prove in this tournament, just like I do”, Sanae answered. “Physical limits are nothing in the face of that.”

 

“Well, how you about you try and break this!” Kotohime’s reply was punctuated by her yanking Sanae towards her using the chain, followed by catching Sanae in a grapple. She knew Oyasu was still outside the arena, so if she just dragged Sanae out the Sin Response Team would win.

 

“How dost thou even know I’m holding back?”, Mumumu asked. “We’ve never met before.”

 

“It takes one to know one, even if we’re holding back in different ways. I’m deliberately forgoing some of my abilities to prove a point, while you’re not bringing your full strength to bear out of laziness.”

 

After a single, vile giggle, Mumumu replied, “Only because I had no reason to until now.” Four more wings slowly began to appear on her back to join the two already there as she continued, “I shall force thee to stop holding back, and leave thyself mired in hypocrisy whether thou win or lose!”

 

Glaring at Oyasu in rage, Tarumi yelled, “That’s it! Momohime, we have no reason to watch this fake any longer! We should go in and force answers out of her right here and now, wh-.”

 

With a puff of smoke, the two audience members behind her were revealed to be Koakuma and Mamizou in disguise. The former declared, ”Any attempt on your part to interfere with this tournament will result in you being removed from the premises.”

 

Momohime said, “Tarumi, I know you’re worried, but even winning a fight with this imposter is no guarantee that we’ll find Himemiko. We need to keep calm, and keep listening for clues about the fake’s origin to know where to look for the real one.” Tarumi returned to her seat, but still growled in displeasure.

 

As Mumumu unleashed new levels of fire, slowing Oyasu’s return to the arena, Kotohime tried to push Sanae outside it to seal the Sin Response Team’s victory. She may have been putting up a lot of fight, but they were approaching the edge at the rate of one step per second. As a result, they quickly began touching the glowing lines that made it visible. With a jolt forwards, Kotohime thought she had brought her opponent past those lines. Even if it was only for a moment, that was still enough to win.

 

“Hah! Look at how little your emotions mattered! Stop resisting, because you’ve already lost.” After an expectant look at Patchouli was met with silence, Kotohime continued, “No, seriously, I think I pushed her out.”

 

Patchouli replied, “She managed to keep a toe in the arena”, causing the crowd to gasp and cheer.

 

“I’ve never seen someone as persistent as you in my life before”, Kotohime told Sanae.

 

“Is that because you’ve never persisted long enough to notice persistence greater than your own?”

 

Seeing that Oyasu had nearly reentered the arena, Kotohime didn’t bother wondering whether that was true, and tried to get on with winning. After a deep breath, she pushed Sanae so far forwards that it was impossible for her to keep any part of her body inside the ring. Her attempt to keep going for absolute certainty went far further than expected as Sanae went from resisting to pulling them forwards, both breaking Kotohime’s grip and sending her past the edge.

 

Her eyes went wide as she noticed Oyasu inside the arena. “How? We’re stronger than you both individually and as a team, yet you keep coming back from the brink of defeat.”

 

“How are you failing to see beyond the most one-dimensional view of what a fight is even when using a system that lays it out?”, Sanae replied.

 

Taking advantage of Kotohime’s disorientation, she punctuated her words with a single bullet so well aimed it knocked her out. However, this was followed by a sudden jolt downwards, as Sanae now had to carry her opponent’s weight as well as her own due to the chain connecting them.

 

Meanwhile, Mumumu used the card Candied Apple “Shine of the Forbidden Candy” upon Oyasu’s return to the arena, since that meant the battle was nowhere near over. She ate a candied apple in one gulp, then attempted to toss one to Kotohime only for the empowering fruit to splat on the ground, her teammate lacking the consciousness needed to accept it.

 

Mumumu rushed towards Oyasu, attempting to prevent the Proving Team from regrouping. Even though Mumumu’s punch hit, Oyasu redirected the momentum it imparted towards Sanae. As the Proving Team regrouped, Kotohime inadvertently reentered the arena with Sanae.

 

Before they could stop to strategize, Mumumu forced them to block her cutting fingernails and violent wingbeats. While their defense prevented most of the damage these empowered strikes could deal, they were still getting pushed backwards, so Mumumu kept going, assuming this would end with her opponents outside the arena.

 

Watching Sanae’s sluggish blocking, Mumumu said, “Looks like my teammate can help me even while unconscious. It’s too bad Oyasu won’t be able to say the same of thee.”

 

“For a limited definition of help”, replied Sanae.

 

Before either member of the Proving Team touched the edge, they had decided how to counterattack. Oyasu backed away, leaving Sanae alone. Mumumu quickly broke her guard and threw her past the arena’s edge, but the chain connecting her to Kotohime dragged her outside too. 

 

“Independent Heart ‘Gilded Cagebreaking’”, Oyasu declared.

 

Mumumu rushed towards Oyasu, only for her claw swipe to smash into a cage of lasers. Seeing the laser she struck fade away, Mumumu kept close to swipe again. Grinning with confidence, Oyasu drew her sword and began slashing apart the cage she had summoned with ease. Where her blade met laser, an explosion of bullets followed. Mumumu was so close that she absorbed around half of the first burst, sending her flying.

 

“And the winner of Round 1 Match 4 is the Proving Team!”

 

Oyasu lapped up the crowd’s cheering.

 

Even Mumumu was clapping for her. As the never completely formed extra wings on her back faded away, she said, “It’s been too long since I’ve got close to going all out. Tell me, did thou do the same?”

 

“I was forcing myself past all but one of my limits the entire time. The abilities I’m forgoing to prove my strength is extrinsic have remained unused.”

 

“Damnations! Looks like I’ll have to battle thee again sometime.”

 

Having regained her consciousness, Kotohime asked her teammate, “How can you be so calm when we lost?”

 

“Because staying worked up would be a waste of energy”, she replied.

 

As the teams returned to the competitor’s box, Tarumi took the opportunity to yell, “Whatever you’re up to, we’ll ensure it won’t work!”

 

After a prideful giggle, Oyasu replied, “That you’re opposing me proves that it’s already working!”

 

Reimu flew out to confront Sanae about her teammate.

 

“Oyasu’s obviously got some sort of plot running, and she’s clearly connected to the missing princess! As a shrine maiden you should…”

 

Sanae interrupted, “I know her plan, which means I know her goal is to prove herself, and that the ‘missing princess’ is not in danger. That mea-”

 

“Then tell me her plan!”

 

“I can’t, it’s the sort of plan that falls apart if too many people know about it.”

 

“Why do you even care?”

 

“Remember our team’s name and you should be able to figure it out.”

Notes:

I’ve been looking forwards to this chapter because the secret identity plot line Oyasu’s got going on makes it especially intense. Since I knew from the start it’d be especially exciting, I put it in the middle of the first round. Of course, all the near defeats also spice things up.

Realizing Mumumu is a thou user after the chapter’s first draft was complete was a snag, but that’s why I have pass in the editing phase dedicated to character voice in dialogue. For simplicity’s sake, I’m not going to look up the etymology of every word out of her mouth; doing that in another fic made it spent months in my drafts folder mostly complete.

Next time, the Connected Team faces the Outgoer Team.

P.S.: When reviewing my chapter level outline, I realized that my plans had changed but this fic's chapter count hadn't followed accordingly. Specifically, the material that was going to make up the 35th chapter of this fic is going to be released as a spinoff work instead. This fic's chapter count has been updated to reflect this.

Chapter 8: Round 1, Match 5

The Connected and Outgoer Teams flew up to the arena in unintentional unison.

 

Upon reaching her starting point, Konngara told Saki, “I’m in the tournament to fight new opponents, but face you in the first round. How ironic.” 

 

“It’s been a while since we’ve tested our mettle against eachother… but I get the feeling”, Saki replied. Turning to draw their teammates into the conversation, she continued, “Do y’all agree to keep our fighting one-on-one, me versus Yukiko and Konngara versus Alice, until the first time someone leaves the arena?”

 

Alice’s answer was “Sure”, Yukiko’s was a loud “YES!”, and Konngara’s was a simple affirmative nod of the head and change of starting position.

 

Patchouli said, “I hope you’re not asking me to enforce this.”

 

Konngara replied, “No, I trust my opponents to follow the informal rule. Just announce the first time someone leaves the arena.”

 

“With that sorted out, you seem to be ready…

 

so Round 1 Match 5 will begin!”

 

Instead of opening with especially powerful attacks, all four fighters started off with light ones to get a feel for their opponent’s strength. Yukiko tried to surround Saki with homing bee-shaped bullets, but she outsped them. However, Yukiko was firing frequently enough that Saki couldn’t find an opening to land a flying kick. Since she couldn’t use her nonspell danmaku because it was so wild and wide ranging it’d be sure to reach Konngara, this half of the battle became a stalemate.

 

Konngara’s blade cut a path towards Alice, deflecting both her lasers and her dolls' lances. One glance at her teammate showed Alice that the way they were keeping these battles one-on-one was giving the Outgoer Team an advantage, so as she fell back she started thinking about how to change that. Recalling a technique she had last used over two decades ago gave her a plan. She sent four dolls to the arena’s center, then made them spread out, creating a glowing curtain between them that split the arena in half while expanding past its circumference.

 

“With this barrier in place, we’re all feel free to fire imprecise attacks without worrying about hitting our other opponent”, she told everyone.

 

Saki began unleashing omnidirectional waves of bullets while telling Konngara, “If this hits you, that’s on Alice.”

 

Yukiko successfully weaved through the initial blast, while Konngara backed off a bit to deal with the spread attacks Alice had started using. When their bullets hit the curtain, they bounced off. As the Connected Team kept firing, reflected bullets joined unreflected bullets to create bullet waves dense enough to score hits.

 

“Hey, we’re supposed to be keeping things one-on-one!”, Yukiko complained.

 

“The curtain will reflect your bullets just as readily as ours”, Alice replied, “so it’s just a change in the terrain.”

 

Yukiko tested Alice’s words with a blast of bullets that would hit her if she was lying. She didn’t attempt to dodge them to emphasize that she was telling the truth.

 

“You found a way to help your teammate while making our agreement easier to follow”, said Konngara. “How clever.”

 

“And annoying”, Yukiko added.

 

As the fighting continued, Saki and Alice kept the pressure on Yukiko and Konngara up. The former’s spread attacks showed that they wanted to damage the latter more than they wanted to push them out of the arena at the moment. Recognizing this, Yukiko unleashed the spell card Reformation "Flying Bee Fortress”.

 

A barrier made of bee bullets appeared, and blocked Saki’s attacks. She tried to break it with brute force, but before any of the bullets showed signs of damage they expanded outwards to be replaced with a fresh set. Since the gaps between the bees were covered by kunai shaped bullets, Saki stopped trying to slip a bullet through them, but kept firing so the pressure that brought Yukiko to use the card would return the moment it ended.

 

Even though she was also on the back foot, Konngara was having an easier time than her teammate. Trading attacks with Alice had shown her what Yukiko was trying to tell her about where in the arena was safest. The two of them weren’t taking hits, but Konngara had to stay close to the curtain to keep that true, as the reflected bullets were less dangerous there.

 

Seeing an opportunity, Alice readied the spell card Doll Command “Dolls’ War”. Because Konngara was keeping herself in a box near the curtain, predicting where she’d be next was much easier than usual. When Alice unleashed the card, the evasive maneuvers Konngara was performing brought her right into its center.

 

She suddenly found herself surrounded by two rings of dolls with swords at the ready. Despite recognizing that she was in a lot of trouble, since battles using the spell card rules were less common in Hell than Gensokyo her first instinct was to block one blade with her sword instead of using a defensive card, leaving herself open to the rest of the attack.  

 

Seeing that the flow of battle had turned against the Outgoer Team, Wriggle said, “If I was Yukiko I’d be considering flying around the curtain to help Konngara.“

 

“I doubt even she would ignore the spirit of their agreement”, Tenshi replied. “Even if she was craven enough to consider it, flagrantly breaking a promise in front of this large a crowd might as well be etching a scar into your face.”

 

“Then, did they doom themselves to lose?”

 

“No.”

 

Recognizing the battle’s current pace, Konngara suddenly flipped from defense to offense by declaring Wisdom Sign “Silent Power”. Since speaking to coordinate with her teammate would unnecessary for the near future, now was a particularly good time to use the card. Even though the card didn’t improve her defenses, she fought like it had, letting her push Alice back but taking preventable hits in the process.

 

When a particularly intense blast of bullets forced Alice to either dodge backwards or take a hit, she did the latter.

 

“I see what you’re trying to do here”, Alice taunted, “and won’t let it work.”

 

Confident in Konngara’s ability to ring her teammate out, even if only temporarily, Saki decided to accelerate the pace of her battle against Yukiko with the spell card Agile Skill “Triangle Chase”. She kicked straight for Yukiko multiple times, leaving lines of still bullets that stopped at the edge and curtain just like she did. 

 

However, that allowed Yukiko to lead her where she wanted her to go. The moment after Saki declared the card, she rushed to where the curtain met the arena’s edge. When Saki followed, Yukiko made one large step inwards, advancing to the center one kick at a time. This left enough space open that Saki neither scored a hit nor prevented a counterattack when she made the bullet trails expand.

 

Yukiko taunted, “This isn’t the only card Konngara taught me a route for. ”

 

“A sly move, but I should’a seen it coming”, Saki muttered.

 

Kikyou asked Jo’on, “Do you think either Saki or Konngara could be convinced to give us routes for the other’s attacks?”

 

“No, since they have no reason to help us. We’ll just have to hope their routes can be copied by simply watching them.”

 

On the other side of the arena, Konngara was getting a little desperate to send Alice past the edge for just one moment so she could rejoin her teammate. Alice was drifting towards the edge, but the dolls orbiting her from a distance showed that was bait to try and lure Konngara into overextending, and punish her for it. 

 

Konngara paused for a moment, thinking about how to defuse this trap. She decided on sending pulses of bullets at the dolls to deflect them while rushing forward. There were less risky answers, but Konngara chose that one because it had the best chance of sending Alice out of the arena.  

 

She rushed forwards, blasting most of the dolls aside with bullets, but there were too many. Eventually, she had to halt her attack in order to deflect a lance with her sword, giving Alice time to retreat. Neither had taken an outright hit, but Konngara had used up more stamina in the exchange.

 

While Saki pondered whether to cancel her card or unleash another wave, Yukiko said, “I was nervous that I’d mess up the route because Konngara showed it to me without copying your card.”

 

Yukiko’s words made Saki keep the card running. If she couldn’t hit her hard enough to break the card despite creating the perfect opening, then why not test her consistency at a route she’s admitted to not practicing?

 

Even though Yukiko wasn’t aware Saki was asking herself that question, she had an answer to it. When Saki reached the edge to kick off of it, Yukiko sent a *World Egg Honeycomb* straight for her, sending her past it.

 

Patchouli announced to Konngara and Alice that “Saki was knocked out of the arena”, prompting an immediate change in strategy. Konngara abandoned her attack and turned her blade towards the curtain separating the arena. Alice tried to pin her down, but the change was so sudden the only attacks that got close to her were long range bullets that couldn’t stop her from slicing the curtain in half.

 

Konngara allowed Wisdom Sign “Silent Power” to time out so the Outgoer Team could unleash Hell Pheromone “Persistent Tracer” the moment they regrouped. Four streams of homing bullets flew towards the Connected Team, one of bee-shaped bullets and one of crystals for each member.

 

Recognizing the crystals Konngara fired, Saki told her teammate, “We need to split up.” While the bee-shaped bullets whizzed past them like any other, the crystals stuck in place once approximately level with their target. A trail of stopped crystals traced out the path they used to evade the bees.

 

As the circle that trail made became more and more complete, the Connected Team realized they needed to restream the bullets chasing them before it became whole so they could stay away from the crystals aimed at their teammate. Rushing forward to make an opening, they turned around with only a little space to spare.

 

Saki doubled back into the crystals in order to enter her opening, going so fast that she slammed into a crystal. Alice flew towards the edge to separate the crystals and bees to avoid that, only to find that allowed the bees’ homing capabilities to begin closing the gap she had opened. By the time the gap reached her, it had gotten so tight she felt the need to use Magic Sign “Artful Sacrifice” to widen it.

 

“That restream looks more gnarled than a starving philosopher”, said Nezu.

 

“I’ve tried a gnarlier restream”, Seija replied. “Didn’t succeed, but I tried.”

 

Saki’s face lit up when halfway around the arena. “Oh, that’s devious!” Calling out to her teammate, she continued, “This spell’s designed to separate us by becoming extra dangerous when we’re close together.”

 

“Can you think of a way around it?”, Alice asked.

 

Saki answered, “The card’s not especially dense, so…”, letting her voice trail off to try and hide her message from her opponents. Alice brandished a spell card to tell her that she got the message. 

 

The next time they met, instead of attempting to restream they declared, “Agile Wire ’Thrill Magnet’!”

 

Dolls rushed forth, splitting the arena into lanes divided by wires. Saki paused for a moment to check whether an opponent had been caught by the wires, but when the inwards pull that would follow that contact failed to happen she started loosing fireballs into the lanes.

 

Upon hearing the attack’s name, the Outgoer Team had spread out. As the spell developed, it became clear this was the right move. The lanes between the wires were tight enough that they might have collided with eachother if they were in the same one, but spreading out gave both Yukiko and Konngara their own lane.

 

Yukiko yelled, “Now that you’ve drawn yourselves together, you’re finished!”

 

“Don’t get cocky”, Konngara chided.

 

Trying to bait information out of Yukiko, Saki began to ask, “How’d you know we-”, but was interrupted by a bee bullet.

 

Seeing an opportunity, Yukiko told her, “Well, when you tried to tell Alice to use a team card in earshot of us, you deliberately failed to complete a sentence in an attempt to hide your plans from us. However, Konngara knows you well enough that she could see through your attempt to send a hidden message, allowing her to tell me you were about to use a team card. Now, she also knows your card design well enough tha-”

 

“Shut up! I’m trying to fight here!”, Alice interrupted.

 

Yukiko continued, “I’m talking ‘cause we’re fighting, silly. Since we have the advantage, we have less to lose from getting distracted. If we get hit it’ll just end our card, but you might…”

 

Saki attempted to interrupt her with a wave of fireballs, but went too far out and ate some hits from Yukiko’s bees, leading to the result the latter wanted.

 

“…end up outside the arena.”

 

Without Saki’s support, Alice was stuck in place maintaining the card’s wire lanes. By the time she thought to cancel the card, it was already too late. A bee bullet launched her into one of the still crystals, causing her to bounce off and join her teammate beyond the arena’s edge.

 

“And the winner of Round 1 Match 5 is the Outgoer Team!”

 

Turning to Yukiko, Saki said, “That was slick. Good job, you’re more devious than you look.”

 

Alice acknowledged her defeat with painfully slow claps instead of words.

 

Giddy with pride, Yukiko replied, “Thank you thank you thank you!”

 

“Even if it wasn’t alone, fighting you takes me back”, said Saki. 

 

“We should have caught up with eachother earlier”, replied Konngara.

Notes:

Trying to keep everyone’s tone of voice on point can be tough, especially since I’m including characters from games I haven’t played. While writing the single line Nezu has in this chapter, I saw that some of her BoSM lines use thou, but not all of them. There doesn’t seem to be a pattern to when she uses thou over singular you, so for simplicity’s sake I’m going to have her not be a thou user.

Next time, the Physiologic Team faces the Ulterior Team.

Edit 2/4/2025: “doll’s lances” → “dolls’ lances”

Chapter 9: Round 1, Match 6

Yuugi and Misumaru were quick to get ready for the match between the Physiologic Team and the Ulterior Team. Their teammates were just as ready for battle, but not the battle of spell cards the tournament expected of them.

 

“I implore all of you help me end the plight of the dolls, who suffer under their giant oppressors…”

 

“The benefits of following me are too numerous to list, but I shall try anyway…”

 

This struggle for audience attention was brief, because Remilia cut it short by saying, “As I expected, Medicine and Shiran stopped just short of being completely ready for battle purely to hawk their ideas to the audience. To punish this misuse of my event, I’m declaring the match started right now!”

 

Eager to begin, Yuugi rushed towards Shiran the moment Remilia’s sentence ended. She was so caught up in her attempts to bring the audience into her flock that Yuugi took her completely off guard, giving the Physiologic Team an early lead. After realizing what had happened Misumaru considered retaliating in kind, but found that to be a risk that wasn’t worth the reward because Yuugi had half-startled, half-spurred Medicine into putting her guard up by taking a route to Shiran that went in front of her.

 

However, Shiran didn’t recognize this. She blindly lashed out with a wave of bird-shaped bullets, one large clump at Medicine and a wide spread to try and make Yuugi back off. Yuugi let the wave slow her down because saw that Medicine had offense handled. By flying into the large gap between the clump and the spread fire, Medicine closed in on Shiran.

 

Since it was early in the fight, Medicine went with the card Contagion “Poisoned Mana” instead of something more damaging. With Shiran’s focus on Yuugi, it was easy to make the black cloud the attack produced seep into her. Medicine backed off to give the poison time to kick in, but was clipped by a few of Misumaru’s bullets despite going on the defensive.

 

Shiran also went on the defensive, summoning a ring of beads around herself to fire bullets and block enemy shots simultaneously. By staying away and keeping to light attacks, the Physiologic Team showed they were content to take things slow and wait for a particularly good opening. Their opponents responded by doing their best to ensure there weren’t any openings in their defenses.

 

Seeing the battle slow down, Yuuka wondered aloud, “Does Shiran know what Medicine’s card did to her?”

 

The Ulterior Team stuck close together to keep their guard as solid as steel, Misumaru entering the ring of beads around Shiran. The Physiologic Team spread out to avoid getting caught in a heavy attack enabled by their opponent’s defense. For the next few minutes, the fighters traded attacks that were just strong enough to deal a bit of damage to their opponent, but nothing stronger and therefore riskier.

 

“I’m getting tired of how slow things are”, Shiran said.

 

Misumaru replied, “I concur. Our opponents seem very happy to keep things slow, so mayhaps we try and speed things up?”

 

“A team card, then?”, Shiran answered. After a nod, they declared Choker “Bead Suffocation”. Shiran put all her effort into summoning bead after bead, while Misumaru directed them to form a ring around each opponent.

 

Once the beads started closing in on them, Yuugi rushed forth to punch one. It broke in one hit, but getting that close caused the revenge bullets it released to shotgun her. She pushed through the heavy blow to escape the rest of the card, something only possible because of her strength as an Oni. Medicine seemed to be following suit, but fired on the end of the ring she wasn’t close to instead, putting the revenge bullets at a safe distance. This nearly got her rammed by a bead, but only nearly.

 

Intending to keep up the pressure, Misumaru used how they escaped the card towards eachother to trap them both in a heavy nonspell. Medicine countered with Fog Sign “Gassing Garden”, hiding herself and Yuugi within clouds of poison. After a few attempts to simply shoot into the fog went nowhere, the Ulterior Team stopped firing to make a plan. However, a sucker punch from Yuugi caused Shiran to panic bomb with Chirplagiarism “Peerless Wind God”, blowing the poison away but prompting Aya to take a picture of the attack for further investigation.

 

When the teams returned to firing long range attacks, it became clear that the Physiologic Team had won the exchange, since they kept control of the battle’s pace. The Ulterior Team strained to make sure they weren’t leaving them an opening, which was complicated by how they didn’t know what types of openings they were looking for.

 

“Medicine and Shiran seem to be using all the cards here”, Sara noted.

 

“That’s normal for Misumaru”, Reimu replied, “but I don’t know what’s up with Yuugi. She’s usually not this reserved.”

 

A couple more long range bullet exchanges later, and Shiran became audibly winded, prompting a smirk from Medicine. Misumaru sighed, as if asking herself whether this was all up to her, and lobbed a ring of yin-yang orbs between her opponents to prevent them from reuniting to perform heavier attacks.

 

Turning to her teammate, she said, “I suppose it’s fine if you take things slow”. Shiran attempted to show that she was fine with a wave of heavy fire, but a sudden wave of exhaustion made her dejectedly nod and agree.

 

Hearing this, Yuuka commented, “Ufufufu, she doesn’t know.”

 

Misumaru closed in on Medicine as she activated Orb Sign “Yin-Yang Divine Orbs” so she’d have a harder time dodging it. The rings of yin-yang orbs Misumaru fired bounced off the arena’s edge, trapping Medicine in the heart of the danger. Even though she dedicated herself to defense so completely she was unable to counterattack, she couldn’t even ensure the hits she took were light ones.

 

Seeing that Yuugi was attempting to help her teammate, Shiran tried to cut her off with a card of her own. However, her height dipped the moment she opened her mouth to declare it, Medicine’s poison having eaten up so much of her strength she no longer had the energy to attack and fly simultaneously. Since returning to her previous height was something of a struggle, Shiran made a little show out of pulling back to try and clear the exhaustion.

 

Shiran’s inability to attack left Yuugi free to body slam one of the yin-yang orbs. While taking a bullet head on like that hurt, it gave Medicine the opening she needed to escape to a safer part of the arena. Yuugi shook off the pain of impact and followed her. While yin-yang orbs were bouncing off every edge of the arena, staying on the side of Misumaru furthest from an edge meant the Physiologic Team had more space to evade them, although it still wasn’t easy. The hit Yuugi deliberately took was nowhere near the only one the attack scored on her.

 

Kikyou gasped. “Ramming a bullet like that’d hurt me through my armor, why’d she do it without any‽”

 

After Misumaru’s card ended, Medicine broke off to chase Shiran down while Yuugi declared Oni Sign “Anomalies, Strength, Disorder, and Spirits”. A purple spiral of bullets from Yuugi cut Misumaru off when she attempted to follow Medicine, so she turned her focus to Yuugi, just as she planned. Shiran tried to meet Medicine’s attack with one of her own, but with her energy sapped by the poison this only made her fall faster. By the time Misumaru had captured Yuugi’s card, her teammate was on the floor, something she brushed off as an inevitability.

 

With the battle turned two-on-one, the Physiologic Team began flanking Misumaru. She blocked the first volley they sent together with a ring of yin-yang orbs, but throwing the orbs at Medicine left her open to a second volley from Yuugi. After the exchange, both Medicine and Misumaru found themselves resting their hands on their knees.

 

“Her defense is beginning to crack”, Yuugi told her teammate, “so let’s try a team card. Martial Poison ‘Skyfall Sweep’!”

 

Clouds of poison spewed from Medicine, then coalesced around her shoes and Yuugi’s sandals. Their footwear glowed from the enchantment placed on them, warning Misumaru that getting kicked would be worse than usual. She readied a spell card, but didn’t declare it yet.

 

Medicine fired a spreadshot meant to keep Misumaru from macrododging while Yuugi went in for some kicks. Some of the audience was surprised that Misumaru was still holding onto the card she had ready in the face of Yuugi’s onslaught, unaware that her evasive maneuvers made the kicks look closer to hitting than they actually were. From her perspective, the greater problem was getting pushed close to the spread fire. However, Misumaru overlooked how she was getting pushed towards Medicine until she wound up a kick.

 

Two moments after getting hit, Misumaru declared the card she had ready, but that was one moment too late. When Medicine’s feet hit her legs, the poison within made Misumaru fall like a rock. She was already outside the arena by the time “Yin-Yang Suffocation” had activated enough to protect her.

 

“And the winner of Round 1 Match 6 is the Physiologic Team!”

 

“Your assumption that Shiran would fall behind and your capacity for overextending”, Medicine told Misumaru and Shiran respectively, “made your team the perfect victims for my poison.”

 

As the teams returned to the stands, the Ulterior Team wondered if entering the tournament really was the best way to achieve their goals. Their objectives, turning the audience into followers and sussing out any ulterior motives of the organizers, didn’t actually require being in the tournament itself.

Notes:

Misumaru’s defeat is meant to feel like a failed deathbomb. This is indirectly inspired by how much I’ve been dying with bombs in ESP Ra. De. Psi (Since that game is a remake of one that made its money from arcade credits, it might not have deathbombs, but still).

Originally Medicine was going to say that Shiran was being too flashy, but when it comes both spell cards in general and this fight that doesn’t really make sense. In a battle meant to be beautiful, the bar for flashy rises, and with it the bar for excessively flashy goes to heights way above where Shiran’s actions in this fight lie. Since an editing pass couldn’t take idea that far enough, I replaced it with a different flaw that was easier to add.

Seeing someone else list specific fangame characters in their work’s character tags has made me decide to do the same. So I don’t have to so all at once, I'll add the tags for characters who appeared in earlier matches during their second match.

Next time, the Intimidation Team faces the Ultimate Surprise Team.

Chapter 10: Round 1, Match 7

“Intimidation Team, are you ready?”

 

“Before we start”, Seija answered, “I’d like to give a shoutout to my daughter Kiseki in the audience!”

 

The Tsukumogami she was pointing towards, as well as the human next to her, both began booing her and disavowing the association thrust onto them.

 

“I have no familial relationship to you!”, yelled Kiseki.

 

The human sitting with her, Aimi, gave just as loud of a follow up, “Tsukumogami have makers, not parents!”

 

Smirking, Seija turned to Patchouli and said, “Okay, now I’m ready.”

 

Once she was done rolling her eyes, Patchouli announced, “Then Round 1 Match 7 will begin!“

 

The Ultimate Surprise Team rushed forward to meet the Intimidation Team upon hearing her words, and they responded in kind. Each fighter’s opening volley crashed into an opponent’s, cancelling it but getting cancelled in return. As the teams neared eachother’s reach, Mamizou and Seija took the lead. While Kogasa and Nezu kept farther apart, they were still rather close together for a danmaku match.

 

Seija gave a signal to her teammate as she entered Mamizou’s reach. Just before Nezu blasted the area she and Mamizou were in, Seija flew up she wouldn’t get caught in her teammate’s attack. However, Mamizou followed Seija to safety by giving chase with a kick. When the amulets reached Kogasa, they had spread out enough that she could evade through them, albeit with enough difficulty to weaken her counterattack.

 

Meanwhile, Seija and Mamizou were in eachother’s faces. Knowing her teammate’s bullets kept Mamizou from dodging downwards, Seija caught Mamizou in her bullets by continuing to rise, stopping an overhead swipe in its tracks. Mamizou had to retreat a bit in order to weaken her opponent’s shotgunning, but supplementing her movements with bullets made the lost exchange a little less one-sided.

 

“Nice read”, she said.

 

Nezu switched to a favorite nonspell of hers, rings of amulets that wobbled to make finding the gaps between the lines harder, after seeing that Kogasa had come out of her previous attack unscathed. Kogasa was free to go for a damaging counterattack in the form of wide rainbow-colored lines, while Mamizou had to be content with a sweeping kick whose only ambition was forcing Seija to back off. None of the Ultimate Surprise Team’s attacks connected, but the Intimidation Team was similarly unable to land a hit.

 

Seeing that her opponents had drifted a little closer together, and feeling some haste to unleash a spell card due to how many she had, Mamizou declared Transformation “Youkai World Gate of One Hundred Demons”. A shrine gate appeared from nowhere, and while the gate didn’t visibly lead anywhere it still released a stampede aimed at Seija and Nezu. Seija was nearly trampled, but both of them got out of the way unscathed.

 

Thinking her target a weak link, Seija rushed towards Kogasa while Nezu pinned Mamizou down with the lasers of Sky Fox “Queen Inari of Kantou’s Eight Provinces”. When Kogasa responded to her charge with “Folding Laser Umbrella”, Seija thought the lack of bullets fired straight from Kogasa would make it easy to shotgun her. At first, it was; Kogasa winced from the impact of Seija’s bullets. However, she underestimated how much the bullet pattern converging around Kogasa would slow her down, allowing a laser to slam into her. Seija kept close despite the hit, and was rewarded with further damage until she rammed into a bullet trying to keep her last mistake from repeating itself.

 

As Seija and Kogasa continued to trade heavy blows, Tokiko wondered aloud, “Kogasa’s fighting like that because she thinks Mamizou can beat Nezu alone… right?” Looking at the smirk on Kogasa’s face made Tokiko less certain of her assessment.

 

Meanwhile, Nezu had to occasionally drop her card to dodge the youkai stampede doubling back for her, allowing Mamizou to do some light shotgunning herself. When the cards all came to a close, the summoned stampede vanishing into thin air like the rest of bullets, both teams were half worse-for-wear, half mostly unscathed.

 

Seija rushed away from Kogasa while declaring Double Reversal “Sniper’s Shotgun”, hoping that the damage they had already traded would turn the attack into a knockout. Kogasa backed up, assuming Seija was merely trying to cover her retreat. By the time Kogasa realized that the attack became more dense the further she got from Seija, she was already inside a cloud of bullets dense enough to keep her from advancing.

 

Mamizou had to bail her teammate out with Burning Meter “Forceful Satellite”. The two large bullets comprising her spell were sent to orbit Kogasa, cutting a path through the cloud of bullets in the process. While this path quickly faded away, Kogasa could cut it back open and return to safety, albeit at a pace too slow to allow her to counterattack before Mamizou’s spell timed out.

 

“That’s enough warming up~”, said Kogasa.

 

On this cue, Mamizou flew straight in front of Kogasa, hiding as much of her silhouette behind hers as possible. A cloud of smoke enveloped them, and their silhouettes vanished into eachother. When the smoke cleared, there was only one humanoid present.

 

Said humanoid had the tail of a tanuki and heterochromia; a blue right eye and a reddish-brown left eye. She wore a shirt and skirt that checkerboarded between the colors of the team’s clothes, clean of the scuff marks on the originals, as well as Mamizou’s glasses. Kogasa’s umbrella was hooked to her wrist by sandal straps, while a set of unusually large umbrella-shaped options that resembled it flew around her.

 

Both Mamizou and Kogasa’s voices came from her mouth, saying “Now, let’s get th̍e real party started!” in unison.

 

She began firing orbs that divided the sky into lanes while her options fired rainbow-colored spreadshots. Nezu counterattacked with her own spreadshot, but Seija hesitated for lack of a clear target.

 

“And just who are you supposed to be?”, she asked. “Patchy, are they breaking the rules? I didn’t pay attention to them because I didn’t plan to break them.”

 

Patchouli answered first, since she wasn’t fighting. “Their plan complies with the rules; I was notified of it during the week of preparation to ensure that was the case.”

 

The new humanoid in the arena answered Seija’s first question second. “The plan a̍nd I share a name: Mamigasa. Mamizou used her ability to transform things to̍ fuse herself and Kogasa into me.”

 

When the depth of the situation hit her, Kikyou fell out of her seat. “All of our preparation for them, broken in one move. They really are the Ultimate Surprise Team.”

 

Seija began counterattacking, but knowing who her target was didn’t make hitting her any easier. The pressure produced by her opponent’s fire prevented her from getting into position to exert her own pressure, forcing her to try to wear Mamigasa down with a diluted spreadshot. The overlap between her attacks and Nezu’s made Mamigasa dodge hard enough to dull her assault a bit, but that wasn’t enough to reclaim more space or score a hit.

 

The Intimidation Team finding a safe rhythm within Mamigasa’s attacks led her to change tactics. Her options gathered around her, then fired waves of bright bullets with a large, consistent gap in them. It seemed like a meaningless gesture, since the Intimidation Team was already sticking together, until Mamigasa charged at them. The team realized that they needed to split up without crashing into the still lingering bullets, but if they chose the same direction Mamigasa would just delay her attack.

 

As Mamigasa yelled “Burning Meter ‘Falling Umbrella Ray’”, Seija deliberately hesitated so Nezu could pick a direction first. Since she headed for the arena’s center, Seija went the exact opposite direction, towards its edge. Nezu cut her escape from the high speed rush of umbrellas falling just in front of Mamigasa close, but made it out unscathed. Her teammate wasn’t so fortunate; the first umbrella merely brushed against Seija’s leg, but that was enough to make her lurch downwards.

 

Seeing just how intense the spell was, Nezu said, “We should stay apart so we don’t get caught in the same attack.” How far a glancing blow sent Seija showed that a direct hit would’ve been a knockout.

 

Still, the shoe was on the other foot now; Mamigasa was right where the Intimidation Team wanted her. This was the perfect opportunity to declare Sharpness “Net of Claws”. Lasers from Nezu pinned Mamigasa in place, leaving her with little space to dodge the arrowheads falling towards Seija.

 

After a couple of near misses, Mamigasa said, “Don’t want to̍ stay here, so Halo ‘Karakasa Surprising Flash’!” One sudden flash of bright light later, Mamigasa was half a dozen lasers to the side, in a large gap that few arrowheads were flying into. From there, evading the rest of the attack was relatively easy.

 

To keep Mamigasa trapped between herself and Nezu, Seija declared Reverse Sign “Danmaku Through the Looking-Glass”.

 

“It’s just a few parallel fireballs? I could do better!”, Sara boasted.

 

“It’s not as simple as it looks. Mamigasa’s had her view of the world flipped horizontally”, Reimu replied. Her voice betrayed a hint of envy as she continued, “Although, I get why you can’t tell.”

 

Some of the general audience mistook the attack for one that simply prevented Mamigasa from moving parallel to the fireballs due to how well she handed having her vision flipped. The low density of the attack left her options free to blast Seija with all their might. She was launched outside the arena as her card broke, but only barely, letting her quickly reenter.

 

“You may have outmuscled that attack”, said Nezu, “but I shall turn that strength against you!”

 

Gray smoke surrounded her as she used the transformation magic of a kitsune, intending to transform into her foe. However, the smoke took on a roiling, boxy texture, then faded away to uncover an unchanged Nezu.

 

Seeing the look of confusion on Seija’s face, Nezu told her, “That’s happened to me before, when I tried to transform into Nue, but I don’t know why it’s happening now.”

 

After deflecting some of Mamigasa’s bullets with her own, Seija replied, “Now’s the worst time to figure it out!”

 

This prodding led to Nezu doing the first thing which came to mind - transform into someone other than Mamigasa. One glance at the participants’ audience box and she knew who to change into. Smoke surrounded her again, fading away to reveal someone who appeared to be Reimu except for the presence of Nezu’s ears and tail.

 

The spell card that followed, Divine Spirit “Fantasy Light Pursuit”, was an imitation of Spirit Sign “Fantasy Seal” clearly colored by Nezu’s taste in danmaku, but it was enough to begin pushing Mamigasa back. With this opening, the Intimidation Team regrouped in the center of the arena, only to split up again to avoid getting caught in an attack that finished them both. This time, Seija kept close to the center instead of flying to the edge, giving the Intimidation Team control of the area.

 

Relative calm fell over the arena as the fighters began fighting defensively, sticking to attacks light enough ensure whiffing would go unpunished. On top of this, they were too far apart for one side to punish the other for blocking, so landed shots only scored chip damage.

 

Mamigasa was the first to try and break the stalemate, spreading her options out to surround her opponents, then firing at them from all sides. However, the Intimidation Team was spread out enough that the options’ attacks were weakened by a complete lack of overlap.

 

Seeing an opportunity, Seija said, “Now! Inverted Fox Fire ‘Day-Long Divorce Parade’!”

 

Nezu released wisps of flame that homed on Mamigasa which left a heart of broken arrowheads in their wake both before and after taking their single sharp turn. As Mamigasa called her options back, Nezu added lines of fireballs to the mix. Finally, Seija flipped Mamigasa’s view of the world just before her teammate fired a second wave.

 

The shadows cast by the light from the attack took unusual patterns, but Mamigasa didn’t give anybody the time to analyze them. Soon after the second wave went into full swing, she unleashed Burning Meter “Elemental Shuffle”. A blast of fire cleared the bullets around her, letting her advance far enough ahead to let the blast of ice that followed barely clip both of her opponents. Finally, a blast of lighting brought both cards to an end.

 

“If she can be driven to panic bomb, then she’s nowhere near invincible”, muttered Oyasu.

 

Realizing they had drifted closer together during their team card, Seija and Nezu returned to their separate center-controlling positions. 

 

However, Mamigasa took the opportunity to throw smoke bombs between them while yelling that “We’re not going̍ back to neutral!”

 

Knowing that an attack was likely to follow, Seija began throwing feints into the smoke; waves of bullets that appeared to be a prelude to a heavier attack that never arrived. Mamigasa replied in kind with her own feints, and both of them soon escalated to mixing a few real strikes in. As Mamigasa upped the quantity of her feints, Seija was forced to up the quality of her own attacks, firing less feints but more full barrages. This went on until she tried to deflect an attack that turned out more intense than expected.

 

Seeing Seija’s guard crack, Mamigasa sprung out of the smoke and launched her outside the arena with sweeps from her umbrella. Hearing its impact, Nezu went from charging an attack her teammate would make stronger to looking for a way to release it that saved her teammate from Mamigasa’s combo. However, by the time Nezu flew around the smoke cloud Seija had already been punted through the arena’s transparent grid, leaving Mamigasa free to evade Nezu’s attack by diving into the smoke.

 

Said smoke was cleared up by the sheer amount of energy released when Mamigasa declared “Burning Meter ‘Double Vision’!”. She dived towards Nezu, while a monochrome afterimage imitated her moves so precisely it doubled the number of bullets fired. In the face of this double whammy, Nezu was forced to block and hope she wasn’t overwhelmed. The Intimidation Team found themselves on the edge of defeat, but weren’t quite out. Nezu positioned herself in front of Seija, creating a wake in the bullets that protected her teammate as she regained her bearings and started flying towards the arena.

 

An asymmetric race began between Mamigasa and Seija, the former rushing to defeat Nezu before the latter could reenter the arena. She launched a heavy blast at Nezu, flew around her, then launched another timed so that it would arrive alongside the afterimage’s copy of the first blast. Homing eagle-shaped bullets turned this into an attack from so many angles that blocking it was impossible, but Nezu had to try in the hopes that it would give Seija the time she needed. However, it wasn’t enough; Seija got her hand into the arena a second after Nezu completely left it.

 

“And the winner of Round 1 Match 7 is the Ultimate Surprise Team!”

 

Upon hearing that she won, Mamigasa stopped to commemorate her victory via pose. When the afterimage caught up to her, both were enveloped in smoke, and her silhouette split back into Mamizou and Kogasa. 

 

“Their fusion was truly something special. I’ve never been overpowered that badly before”, Nezu said. 

 

Seija couldn’t say the same, so she replied, “I’ve faced worse, but only from people deliberately breaking the spell card rules”.

 

Hearing the audience chatter following the match, Kogasa told her teammate “This is perfect! Everything’s going to plan~!”

 

“We took damage, it wasn’t perfect”, Mamizou replied.

 

Kogasa brought her voice down to a whisper as she continued, “It’s not damage that we completely avoided.”

 

Listening to the chatter herself, Mamizou whispered in reply, “I suppose on that level ’twas a perfect”. 

Notes:

Kiseki and Aimi are the 5th and final stage bosses of Dream Logical World. Just because a fangame came out after I decided on the roster doesn’t mean characters from it can’t appear as audience members. That’s especially true with DLW because that game explicitly takes place between Impossible Spell Card and Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom while this fic takes place between Unconnected Marketeers and 100th Black Market.

I’ve been looking forward to releasing this chapter, since it’s where the surprise I teased in the practice week appears. I’ll have more to say about it later on, but don’t let that keep you from speculating.

Since Mamizou’s wearing a shortsleeved shirt while Kogasa’s wearing a long-sleeved one, the latter half of Mamigasa’s sleeves checker between empty space and white squares. I couldn’t fit this information into the chapter itself, since adding it to the paragraph describing Mamigasa’s appearance would break its flow but placing it anywhere later makes no sense; thus, the only way for me to get the information to my audience is to put it here.

Next time, the Overdrive Team faces the Growth Team.

Chapter 11: Round 1, Match 8

“Overdrive Team, are you ready?”

 

“Yeah!”

 

“Growth Team, are you ready?”

 

Yuuka replied, “Yeah, I’m ready to show up Marisa for being a bad incident resolver.”

 

“You wanna elaborate on that?”, Marisa asked.

 

“Well, you were the weak link of the Aesthetic Relativism Team; the reason we lost to Reimu and Kasen during that battle to jog our memories.”

 

“I’ve beat Reimu when fightin’ alone, so maybe you’re just way weaker than Kasen.”

 

“Oh really? I’ve beat Kasen in a one-on-one fight.”

 

“Well, maybe you’re just a bad teammate.”

 

Patchouli couldn’t get a word in edgewise to announce the battle’s beginning, while Tokiko sighed at her inability to counter Marisa’s claim.

 

“That’s not the only way you’re a bad incident resolver. Remember how you followed a false lead and harassed me for the entire Wheat Theft Incident, leaving the task of resolving it up to Ryouko?”

 

Marisa growled, “That was your own fucking fault.”

 

After an awkward pause, Tokiko added, “Didn’t Reimu and Sanae also chase that lead?”

 

“Dang, if I hadn’t run away I could’ve taken my revenge then”, said Sayuri, under Yuuka’s answer.

 

“Perhaps, but the reason for those things was ultimately necessary; you three were simply blinded by emotion. Just like how you won’t admit that the signature card you take oh so much pride in is just a pale imitation of me.”

 

Patchouli cursed how she missed her chance to properly announce the battle’s beginning as Marisa replied, “Oh, I’ve improved it beyond you, and am ready to prove it.”

 

Marisa readied her mini-hakkero, Yuuka readied her parasol, and Patchouli blurted out, “Round 1 Match 8 has begun!” as quickly as she could.

 

The two of them began declaring spell cards.

 

Love Sign “Master…

 

“Origin…

 

Spark! ”

 

A chaotic blast of energy from Marisa struck a controlled ray from Yuuka, clashing in the exact center of the arena. Marisa put her full focus into making her spark overcome her opponent’s, while Yuuka smirked when she discerned that was the case. 

 

She briefly took a hand off the umbrella projecting the spark so she could use it to call Tokiko forwards. She understood what was going on, and rushed to try and break Marisa’s concentration. However, Sayuri flew up to block her.

 

“As funny as it would be to let you thrash Marisa, I want to win the tournament. My vengeance against her can wait.”

 

“I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

 

Tokiko followed her words by surrounding Sayuri with ordinarily small book-shaped options to blast her from all directions, but she darted out of the way whenever they began to draw a ring around her. Sayuri darted around the clashing sparks, forcing Tokiko to get dangerously close to chase her down. Both of them were nearly rammed by star bullets flying out of the sparks’ point of impact, but neither was willing to back off.

 

“Are you copying a winner because you don’t have real strength?”, Sayuri taunted.

 

“Nah, I did it first”, Tokiko replied. Upon cornering Sayuri, she continued, “…and I did it better!”

 

The sparks made a wall behind Sayuri, leaving her unable to escape Tokiko’s ring. While the bullets crashing into Sayuri from all sides didn’t launch her into the clashing sparks, that was fine by Tokiko. Since her attack kept Sayuri in place, she still needed to worry about being launched into the lasers. 

 

As where the sparks met began inching closer to Marisa, she turned up her hakkero's power to push it back. When this put Yuuka in the same situation, she responded in the same way. As they fought to one-up eachother, the sparks’ meeting point started moving like a sine wave. Both knew this equilibrium would break down sooner or later, but held enough confidence that it’d break in their favor to keep it going.

 

Meanwhile, Tokiko kept up the pressure on Sayuri. While some of her attacks missed, they were always close enough to keep Sayuri stuck at a range which made her options especially dangerous. Sayuri tried to force her away by throwing a “Meteor Punch”. Tokiko stopped to wonder why her opponent was punching her from that distance only to chide herself for getting cocky as she barely evaded the meteors that followed Sayuri’s fist.

 

Unfortunately for Sayuri, Tokiko’s short dodge kept the two of them at the distance Tokiko preferred. Refusing to let that continue, Sayuri declared Dagger Sign “Flaming Sayuri Stab”. Fireballs soared towards Tokiko, but they were easy enough to dodge since they flew in parallel. When Sayuri changed them all into daggers aimed at Tokiko, she was finally forced to back off.

 

“Sayuri isn’t pacing herself at all”, said Yuugi.

 

Medicine replied, “She might make an even better target for my poison than Shiran.”

 

Marisa was also burning through her strength quickly because she found it necessary to keep Yuuka at bay. The clashing sparks had reached an equilibrium where neither side wanted to put more power in for risk of running out too quickly, but backing down was impossible. She couldn’t let up, even for a moment, or Yuuka would use that opening to tear her down.

 

In her desire to get back to piling the hurt on Sayuri as soon as possible, Tokiko grazed the now still meeting point of the clashing sparks. However, Sayuri noticed, and sent fireballs to join the stars Tokiko was evading. The audience lost sight of her in the glow of the bullets until she used Nostalgia “Rinnosuke’s Game Breaker” to carve a way out. She even took some of her initiative back by clipping Sayuri with the junk the card fired.

 

To taunt Marisa, Yuuka took one of her hands off the umbrella she was firing her spark out of. “You’re going to run out of strength before I do, so why not concede defeat now?”

 

“Because you’re getting under my skin”, Marisa answered.

 

“Am I, now? Just to make sure, I’ll tear some off!” She followed her words with bullets layered atop her spark, forcing Marisa to dodge with both utmost care and absolute minimalism so her movements wouldn’t weaken her own spark. Sayuri could evade them easily enough until Tokiko caught up to her, aiming her attacks so they’d launch Sayuri into Yuuka’s bullets.

 

Seeing her teammate in trouble, Marisa broke out a new trick. “Loving Heart ‘Double Spark’!”

 

“Wha? But if she stops her beam Yuuka’s will win!”, Reimu said.

 

The ray of light used to aim the attack hit Tokiko’s face, and she hesitated in confusion, Reimu’s question also coming to her mind. The moment she spent trying to figure out what would happen next was the one she needed to get out of the way. Tokiko tried to stop the deluge of light fired at her with Throw “Bird Eye”, but her attack was completely overpowered despite its cancel-resistant bullets. All the while, the other beam kept Yuuka’s spark at bay without letting up for a moment.

 

Despite the direct hit throwing her not just outside the arena, but past the bullet-cancelling barrier keeping the audience safe from the participants, Tokiko was still capable of insisting that she was in the fight.

 

“Couldn’t… do that when I borrowed it.” 

 

“Show’s that… I’m improving!”, Marisa answered over her spark’s roar.

 

Barely shaking off the impact, Tokiko flew past the barrier and threw an attack at Sayuri to insist with more than words. Sayuri ascended less to get out of the bullet’s way and more to get a clear view of the battle as a whole.

 

Watching Yuuka fire bullets outward from a ring around Marisa, Sayuri realized the Growth Team’s overall strategy. They were trying to separate the Overdrive Team, confident that two one-on-one fights would be easier to win than a true two-on-two fight. More worryingly, her teammate seemed completely unaware of this.

 

Sayuri considered answering this by rushing Yuuka down, but Tokiko was long-range blind-firing between them as hard as she could, which would slow her down enough for Yuuka to forcefully restore the battle’s previous dynamic. Instead, she flew towards Marisa, so they could put some of their preparation to use.

 

The next step to solve the problem was obvious. “Hey! We should stick together because they’re trying to separate us!”

 

A brief reassessment of the fight so far was followed by an agreeing nod. “Let’s turn their strategy back on ‘em! Overfuel ‘Vaporization Spark’!”

 

Sayuri took the extra fuel Marisa had given her and jammed it into the mini-hakkero, causing flames to envelop the Overdrive Team. After the flames spread to Marisa’s spark, it began pushing Yuuka’s back. She stopped holding back for the sake of the long term, but even that wasn’t enough to change the short term.

 

One final all-or-nothing push from Yuuka briefly made the sparks even out. However, she couldn’t keep it up. The moment “Origin Spark” ended, Yuuka was knocked both unconscious and out of the arena.

 

Both members of the Overdrive Team took heavy breaths. Marisa batted out her smoldering clothes, then put her overclocked mini-hakkero away. Sayuri went so far as to take a bow.

 

“Why hasn’t Patchouli called the win?”, Saki wondered. “Aha!”

 

Her eureka moment led Alice to trace her line of sight to find Tokiko inside the arena. She aimed the volley which would announce that she was still in the match at Sayuri, since she was still mid-bow. Sayuri shrieked in surprise as Marisa pulled her out of the attack’s way.

 

However, instead of throwing a follow up attack, Tokiko stopped to catch her breath. The Overdrive Team didn’t take advantage of this because they were busy doing the same. Neither member of the team had taken a direct hit from a Master Spark, yet both were hanging onto their ability to fight by a thread just as thin as the one Tokiko was holding.

 

By declaring the card Proof of Determination “Protest Inferno”, Tokiko unpaused the battle. Flames engulfed her body as she charged towards Marisa, but Sayuri got in her way. Tokiko slammed into Sayuri, but Sayuri’s ability to tolerate fire and Tokiko’s inability to do the same had turned her attack pyrrhic.

 

While Sayuri and Tokiko reeled in pain from the latter’s actions, Marisa was free to declare Light Sign “Earthlight Ray”. She covered the ground beneath Tokiko with bombs that shot lasers at her from below. Tokiko reacted to the attack too slowly to dodge it, so she tried to block it with one of her own. However, she lacked the energy to even declare her card’s name, turning a relatively light attack into a finisher.

 

Once Tokiko left the arena, Patchouli announced, “And the winner of Round 1 Match 8 is the Overdrive Team!”

 

As the winners returned to the ground, Sayuri said, “I’m glad this is today’s final match, because otherwise I might’ve fell asleep in the stands.”

 

Her teammate mumbled words of agreement, while Tokiko seemed ready to do that anyway.

 

Seeing the collective adrenaline crash of the battle’s participants, Koakuma flew to them and said, “Staying for the end-of-round announcements isn’t mandatory, feel free to leave and rest.”

 

The three of them took her up on that offer, while Yuuka followed suit once she regained consciousness.

Notes:

With this, the first round ends. I ordered the matches within the round so the last one would be more climatic.

Some of the supplementary material gives the incidents in-universe names, and this fic will follow suit because that makes referring back to a particular event easier. Between fangames not having supplementary material and how I’m not certain every official game has an in universe name, I’ll need to come up with some names myself. When doing so, it can help to think of how the name would arise in-universe; for example, the events of Servants of Harvest Wish are called the “Wheat Theft Incident” because Ryouko accused those who didn’t use that name of failing to appreciate the gravity of the situation.

Next time, Loser’s Round 1 begins with the Imbalanced Team facing the Worm Killer Team.

Chapter 12: Loser's Round 1, Match 1

Just like yesterday, most of the fighters gathered in the arena to hear Patchouli’s announcements about the next round. Losing Round 1 hadn’t convinced Reimu bother hearing them in person.

 

“Before I announce the terrain for the matches occurring today, I’d like to note that three pairs of rounds will share their terrain; these pairs are Loser’s Round 1 and Winner’s Round 2, Winner’s Semifinals and Loser’s Round 3, and the Winner’s Final and Loser’s Semifinal matches. Since it is impossible for a team in one half of these pairs to appear in the other half, facing a type of terrain again because of your route through the tournament is impossible.”

 

Misumaru wondered if there was some sinister purpose behind this. However, when she remembered that these pairs of rounds were also the pairs of rounds which shared days on the schedule, she had to admit to herself that this was probably just an effort-saving measure.

 

After a pause, Patchouli continued, “As for the terrain during Loser’s Round 1 and Winner’s Round 2, please follow me into the arena, because the easiest way to explain it is by example.”

 

After flying inside, Rika asked, “Where’d this fog come from?”

 

“I don’t see any-” Saraka interrupted herself upon crossing the arena’s edge, “Ohoho, I see why you wanted to demonstrate this.”

 

From the outside the sphere defining victory and defeat, the entire arena appeared perfectly clear, but the view from inside was so foggy that the competitors couldn’t see the center. The grid outlining that sphere was brighter, and not just by contrasting the fog’s gray.

 

“The terrain for today’s rounds is a magical fog that, for our audience’s benefit, can only be seen by those inside the sphere defining victory and defeat. So that you will not lose by mistake, light from the outline of that sphere will be brightened instead of dampened by the fog.”

 

“So, how exactly does this work in the literal edge cases?”, Kikyou wondered.

 

“You can experiment with the terrain until we start preparing for the audience to arrive”, Patchouli answered.

 

“Good”, Jo’on replied.

 

---

 

“Imbalanced Team, are you ready?”

 

Sara answered “Yes!”, while Reimu simply nodded.

 

“Worm Killer Team, are you ready?”

 

“Yes”.

 

“Then Loser’s Round 1 Match 1 shall begin!”

 

Reimu and Tenshi rushed towards eachother the instant the match began. Amulets homed in on Tenshi, but she cut them apart. Another slash sent a wave of fire at Reimu, but she grazed it and kept going. When the two of them met, a wild melee of traded blows began. Neither one could get a clear advantage no matter how many hits they landed.

 

Since Tenshi passed the arena’s center while approaching Reimu, Wriggle and Sara were free to compete for control of it. Seeing Wriggle rush in, Sara launched some slow-moving bullet waves. The density of the bullets around Wriggle pinned her to the center instead of forcing her to escape it.

 

Seeing her teammate’s bullets glow, Reimu had an idea. Tenshi prepared to block a kick, but that gave Reimu the opening for a grab she was looking for. She swiftly sent Tenshi hurtling towards Wriggle and the bullets floating around her. To prevent this from becoming the disaster Reimu was looking for, Wriggle cleared the bullets around her out with Firefly Sign “Little Bug Storm”, then directed the options which followed her card’s first wave to catch Tenshi.

 

Reimu tried to keep the pressure up by firing homing amulets at Tenshi, but the second wave of Wriggle’s card cancelled them out, leaving Tenshi free to strike back with a wave of fireballs launched by swinging her sword. Bullets from Sara ended the card before a third wave could start, but it had already accomplished more than Wriggle had used it for.

 

Tenshi continued attacking even after losing the cover Wriggle’s card provided. Her attacks were less intense, but only slightly less intense thanks to Wriggle shooting some of the amulets Reimu aimed at Tenshi down. The fighters saw the fog around them glow red as it reflected light from Tenshi’s fireballs, while the audience had a perfectly clear view of the battle.

 

“It’s hard to tell how much the fog’s affecting them since I can’t see it”, Mima noted.

 

Sara regrouped with Reimu so they could declare a card they had finished only an hour before the match started, Divine Gate “Enclosed Border Space”. Aware that the Imbalanced Team was up to something, but with no idea what that was, the Worm Killer Team took a defensive formation. Reimu sent her yin-yang orbs to orbit Sara, and she clearly started doing something with them, but her opponents had no idea what.

 

An abundance of caution led the Worm Killer Team to back up. Tenshi fired long-range lasers at their opponents even as they disappeared into the fog, while Wriggle kept her eyes peeled so she could lead her teammate to safety by hand. The attack she expected arrived in two parts: Organized waves of unguided amulets and sporadic singular lasers. Seeing how similar the lasers she shot into the fog and the lasers flying out of the fog were, Tenshi wondered if Sara was mimicking her.

 

This chase by an unseen opponent went on long enough that Tenshi got suspicious. “You think they’re trying to get us to accidentally fly out of the arena?”

 

“The edge is way too glowy for that to work, but I’ll turn just in case.”

 

Wriggle began descending to accelerate their retreat. Tenshi upped the intensity of her lasers, but the lasers from the fog ratcheted up alongside her. Amulets that weren’t part of the waves already present began flying to and from every direction, overwhelming Wriggle’s ability to dodge. A laser struck the team, knocking them off course and forcing Tenshi to stop firing.

 

The lack of follow up lasers made the two of them even more suspicious that they were missing something important. To figure out what was going on, once Tenshi righted herself she fired one laser up, then two lasers down. One laser coming in from below, followed by two more from above, made them realize that they were trapped in a bubble of looping space.

 

“I haven’t seen Reimu or Sara since the card started”, said Tenshi. 

 

Wriggle replied, “Neither have I. I don’t think they’re inside the loop with us; if counterattack’s impossible, this card has to be a timeout.”

 

With small smirk on her face, Reimu said, “I’ll give you a reason to keep shooting.”

 

Reimu’s next wave of amulets added the homing they were known for. The Worm Killer Team easily evaded their first pass, but the loop they were trapped in let the amulets make second and third passes. An imperfect dodge spread the amulets chasing them out, forcing them to make a wild dodge that spread the amulets even further out. This feedback loop escalated until amulets bombarded the Worm Killer Team from every direction.

 

To protect her teammate, Tenshi declared “Kashima Armor”. With the same goal in mind, Wriggle began ramming the keystones around her into the amulets, since the latter would stop being a hazard upon hitting the former. Reimu tried to aim her amulets so they would home in on Tenshi instead, but her opponents were too close together; whenever she felt certain she would hit Tenshi, they would swap places, making the amulets bounce off the keystones.

 

When Divine Gate “Enclosed Border Space” timed out, the Worm Killer Team began searching for their opponents. One omnidirectional glance was enough to locate them, since they weren’t deep enough into the gray fog to keep their red clothes from standing out. As they charged towards their opponents, Tenshi dismissed “Kashima Armor” so it wouldn’t hinder Wriggle’s attacks. 

 

“That seems new”, Kikyou noted.

 

Tenshi flew ahead of Wriggle, but made sure to not go too far ahead. Sara rushed behind Tenshi, incorrectly assuming that she just overextended. A swift u-turn from Tenshi meant that Sara’s attempt to surround an opponent got her surrounded instead. The Imbalanced Team tried to regroup, but Wriggle slowed them down by spraying bullets into the air, leaving Tenshi free to dropkick Sara. 

 

As Sara reeled from the kick, Tenshi declared Keystone “Kaname Funnel”. Reimu tried to save her teammate from the follow-up attack with Spirit Sign “Fantasy Seal”, but Wriggle countered her card with one of her own, Bait Sign “Guiding Light”. The orbs of Reimu’s card veered away from Tenshi and towards the light created by Wriggle’s card, leaving Tenshi free to blast Sara with three waves of keystone-fired lasers.

 

Sara was launched to the arena’s edge, but not over it. Reimu flew to meet her there so their last mistake wouldn’t repeat itself, but this allowed Tenshi to attack both them at once. Reimu tried to slow her down with some homing amulets, only to curse her luck upon seeing Wriggle’s card draw them away too. Soon after, Sara had to use Gate Sign “Wide Barrier” to create a laser gate wide enough to cancel both the bullet that nearly hit her and the bullet that nearly hit Reimu.

 

Seeing her opponents hide behind Sara’s card, Tenshi bragged, “The only way we lose now is if I made a mistake I’m too smart for.”

 

Sayuri and Sanae started cheering Reimu on. “Don’t you dare pull a Gary and lose before I can take you on! Prove Tenshi wrong so I can eliminate you myself!”

 

The moment Sara’s card ended, Reimu threw a wave of needles at Tenshi, but she let them land in order to keep advancing. Surprised, Reimu braced to block Tenshi’s counterattack too early, giving her enough time to change tactics and grab her instead. Jumping off a keystone for extra momentum let Tenshi drag Reimu outside the arena.

 

As Reimu fought to break out of Tenshi’s grip, Sara started charging an attack. The constricting lasers of this attack were sure to let Reimu reenter the arena, but only if she could fully charge it. Having found the battle up until now too intense for words, Sara surmised that this was the perfect time for a taunt.

 

“You gonna cower until your teammate’s back?”

 

By the time Sara finished asking the question, Wriggle had already proved that her answer was “No” with a kick to Sara’s stomach. Sheer surprise kept Sara from dodging the attack, and since they were already close to the arena’s edge one kick was all Wriggle needed to push Sara out.

 

“And the winner of Loser’s Round 1 Match 1 is the Worm Killer Team! The Imbalanced Team has been eliminated from the tournament!”

 

Reimu pouted at her defeat for a moment, only to remember that qualifying for the main bracket had guaranteed her a little prize money. “Well, this wasn’t a complete waste of effort.”

 

Sara took her elimination far worse, to the point of outright crying.

 

“This is so embarrassing, I got beat by a bug! All I did was pro-”

 

“No, you got off lightly”, Marisa interjected. “The top five most embarrassing moments of my life all started with Reimu roping me into helping with one of her get-rich-quick schemes; going 0-2 is nothing compared to the time we-”

 

“You don’t understand, this is the most embarrassing moment of my lifeeee!”

 

On the other hand, the Worm Killer Team was on top of the world. After yelling about how they beat Reimu together at a volume which made their words incomprehensible, Tenshi slammed a keystone into the ground with enough force to cause a minor earthquake. While the quake was small enough to not be dangerous, the audience could still feel her excitement.

Notes:

This the first match of loser’s round 1. Thus, its fighters are the first to fight a second battle, and its losers are the first team to be eliminated. Eliminated participants still get a seat in the competitors’ audience box, and can continue to comment on matches from there.

I had to add more audience reactions while editing, just like the Worm Killer Team’s round 1 match. I noticed the problem in an earlier editing pass this time, at least.

While looking back at earlier chapters, I noticed that I added chapter summaries to chapter 4 & 5, but only those chapters. I’ve decided to get rid of the summaries, since I think I forgot to add summaries to chapters 6-11 because the two summaries I made were unhelpfully sparse.

Next time, the Cold Space Team faces the Sin Response Team.

EDIT: Fixed Patchouli forgetting to specify which match was won.

Chapter 13: Loser's Round 1, Match 2

Cirno, Mima, Mumumu, and Kotohime rushed into the arena with new tactics on their minds. They were so eager to begin that when Patchouli asked if Cold Space Team was ready, they interrupted her to say “Yes!” faster, leading the Sin Response Team to reply “We’re also ready!”.

 

“Then Loser’s Round 1 Match 2 shall begin!”

 

Mumumu rushed towards the Cold Space Team, while Kotohime supported her with long range attacks. Mima and Cirno stuck together and tried to catch both of their opponents in a spreadshot of ice and stardust. While Kotohime had the time and space she needed to dodge it, Mumumu didn’t, so she blocked instead. Since this was a visibly imperfect defense, the Cold Space Team focused their fire on Mumumu.

 

Seeing her teammate’s guard begin to falter under her opponents’ assault, Kotohime declared “Princess Smile”. A glowing image of the expression the card was named for cleared the bullets around Mumumu. Cirno tried to keep firing, only to find that Kotohime’s card made that impossible. The Sin Response Team reunited as the Cold Space Team split up, Mima rushing towards her opponents.

 

Mima considered blindsiding her opponents with an attack from before the spell card rules were made, only to remember that Kotohime was around when her old tricks were still new. So, she used something she had made recently instead. 

 

“Creation Sign ‘Forming Star’!”

 

Slow-moving bullets appeared throughout the arena; their glow made the fog look like a nebula. Mima silently aimed at the Sin Response Team, and the bullets started gravitating towards the area around them. Kotohime dodged in place even as the bullets became denser and denser, while Mumumu’s evasive maneuvers took her to a better vantage point. From there, she could see that Mima wasn’t firing any new bullets.

 

“Kotohime, we need get out of here!”

 

Since her teammate seemed too caught up dodging to take her advice, Mumumu decided to literally take things into her own hands. She yanked her teammate out of the condensing bullets without a care for all the minor hits they took in the process.

 

“How rough! I am a princess, you know.”

 

“Thou should already know that I don’t care.”

 

As Mumumu expected, Mima’s bullets continued to gravitate towards the area they vacated instead of chasing them down. They fused into a single, giant fireball that proceeded to shoot smaller ones in every direction. With the Sin Response Team halfway to the arena’s edge, the small fireballs were spread out enough that the two of them found the attack fairly easy to dodge, but close enough together to for this ease to impress some of the audience.

 

Kotohime assumed that since she couldn’t hear Cirno, she was being suspiciously quiet. While looking for her opponent, she saw an abnormally blue patch of fog. One explosive thrown into the abnormal fog led Cirno to prove her assumption correct by charging out it. Since Cirno had lost the element of surprise, Kotohime could force her to retreat with a nonspell.

 

The fog turned a darker gray as Mima’s card ended. Mumumu rushed towards the fading fireball, only to double back because she didn’t see her target. Realizing that Mima had flown behind the giant fireball in order safely vanish into the fog, Mumumu wondered how she could find her opponents.

 

When nothing came to mind, she muttered, “Annoying that I can’t figure out something the audience knows.”

 

A flash of inspiration led Kotohime to reply, “I’ve got an idea. Keep close enough that you can see me, but not too close.”

 

It didn’t take long for Kotohime to see the glowing grid she was looking for. Since the fog filled the entire room even though it could only be seen from within the arena, the next step of her plan was to poke her head outside the arena. With the fog now invisible to her, Kotohime could see the audience. About half were watching her and Mumumu, but more importantly the other half had their eyes trained above the arena’s center.

 

Kotohime pulled out a lightingrod, and Mumumu knew what she was implying. Together, they declared the card “A Lightningrod in the World of Nothingness”.

 

The Cold Space Team kept in place, assuming that the Sin Response Team’s card would fill the arena with bullets so they could attack an enemy they couldn’t see. The lightning bolts Mumumu fired seemed to prove them right until Kotohime started wielding her lightningrod like a baton. Following her lead, the bolts curved towards where she deduced her opponents were. The static in their surprised yells told Kotohime that her deduction was correct.

 

“What an unusually direct way for the presence of an audience to affect a battle”, Junko noted.

 

“Do you think their version of that tactic is better than ours?’, Jo’on asked Kikyou.

 

“Maybe, but maybe not.”

 

Ready to press their advantage, the Sin Response Team charged forth, Kotohime in the lead to guide Mumumu to their opponents. However, upon reaching the target area, they found it empty.

 

When blasting the nearby fog turned up neither hide nor hair of the Cold Space Team, Mumumu said, “If it worked once, it should work twice. Cover me.”

 

To get a clearer view of the audience, she ascended diagonally instead of straight up. Kotohime followed just close enough to keep an eye on her, but no closer. After poking her head out of the arena, Mumumu had to stop to decipher why the entire audience was looking at the Sin Response Team. She only realized that could be phrased as “both halves of the audience looking at us“ upon turning around to see that the Cold Space Team had ambushed Kotohime while her back was turned.

 

“Nice one, Cirno!”, Wriggle cheered. “That fog cloud looked just like the arena’s.”

 

With Ice Sign “Icicle Fishing”, Cirno trapped Kotohime in the tip of a spear made of ice. She passed the spear to Mima, who propelled it forwards with her danmaku. Mumumu dodged, only to realize that she should’ve tried to melt the spear as it sailed out of the arena and lodged itself into the roof with her teammate still inside.

 

Seeing how badly the Sin Response Team’s strategy had backfired, Kikyou told her teammate, “We should stick to what we tested.”

 

“Agreed.”

 

Cirno kept back and filled the air with frozen bullets while Mima charged towards Mumumu. She responded to their aggression with some of her own, blocking Mima’s staff with one hand while trying to claw at her with the other. After the two of them exchanged some jabs, Mima went for a swipe Mumumu couldn’t block. She considered dodging backwards, only to hesitate because the arena’s edge was close behind her, letting Mima strike true.

 

While Mumumu was nearly thrown out, how the fog never left her sight told her that she was still inside the arena, and therefore still in the tournament. However, that would soon change if the situation around her stayed the same. With a wave of giant bullets, she forced it to change, albeit by using them to cover her retreat. 

 

Once safely within the arena’s center, Mumumu wondered how to strike back. The Cold Space Team didn’t know where she was, but that meant she didn’t know where they were. Fortunately for her, it didn’t take long for an answer to this conundrum come to mind.

 

“Demonic Numerology ‘Beastly Bullet Count’!”

 

Mumumu fired 666 bullets in no particular direction, confident that as they bounced around the arena, they’d eventually put her opponents in danger. The audience could see that this confidence had been placed correctly, but the Cold Space Team showed them the difference between being in danger and taking a hit. They were too far away from the arena’s edge to see how Mumumu was attacking them from no particular direction, but dodging back-to-back let them ensure their teammate didn’t get blindsided.

 

Mima didn’t try to counterattack because she didn’t know where to aim, while Cirno diluted her counterattack to ineffectuality by aiming in every direction at once. Mumumu was happy to let her opponents time her card out, for she needed some time to think. A simple-but-effective plan came to mind when the timer was halfway to completion.

 

She spent the rest of her card carefully backtracking into sight of the icy spear Kotohime was trapped in. Once it ran out, Mumumu fixed her previous mistake by covering the spear in fireballs. As the ice melted, she worried that Cirno had stopped firing to prepare for an ambush, but when Kotohime returned to the arena without incident, the Sin Response Team realized that the shoe was actually on the other foot. 

 

“Let’s strike back already, I’m tired of hiding!”, Cirno complained.

 

“We need to find Mumumu first.” Hearing the audience gasp led Mima to continue, “There’s something we’re missing here. Let’s try and bait her into doing something fla-” 

 

“Oh, thou won’t need to bait me, for I’m already willing to do flashy shit.” 

 

As Mumumu spoke, she charged towards the Cold Space Team. By attempting to grab both of her opponents at once, she forced Mima and Cirno to split up. To simultaneously force them further apart and keep their attention away from Kotohime, she flew between them and fired a wave of giant bullets.

 

Seeing her chance, Kotohime pulled out a blood-red whip and declared Borrowed Malice “Crying Air”. By lashing the air between her Cirno, she summoned bullets that resembled teardrops. However, Cirno was less off-guard than expected thanks to Mima’s words. The wall of ice she made to block the attack almost went up too late, and only stopped the first few bullets, but that was enough to let her start dodging.

 

Out of the corner of her eye, Mumumu saw that wall fall apart and assumed that meant Kotohime’s ambush went off without a hitch, so she set her half of their plan into motion. This entire fight, she had been flying slower than usual so that when she stopped holding back, her speed would surprise her opponent. The look on Mima’s face as she grabbed her told Mumumu that her plan worked. Mumumu pulled Mima outside the arena with the same speed.

 

Seeing that Cirno wasn’t as far on her back foot as it seemed merely led Mumumu to switch from a grip for dragging opponents around to a grip designed to keep them in place.

 

“Thou won’t be able to return the arena the way Oyasu did in round 1, FOR THOU SHALL NOT LEAVE MY GRASP UNTIL THE MATCH ENDS!” Oyasu beamed with pride knowing that she had defeated her opponents so soundly as to alter their strategy in future battles.

 

To block Kotohime’s next attack in advance, Cirno made another wall of ice. Unfortunately for her, this made it easy for Kotohime to decide what attack to use next. 

 

“‘Invincible Shield’s Bash’!”

 

After gathering some power, Kotohime fired a giant disc-shaped bullet, then charged forwards alongside it. She crashed through the ice with ease, thinking that she struck Cirno dead-on for the moment the ice sculpture behind the wall was both intact and in sight. However, this was not enough to let Cirno get away scot-free. How little the wall slowed the attack down surprised Cirno, letting the edge of the bullet clip her.

 

“I thought she dodged that!”, said Sara.

 

“How’d a glancing blow send her so far?”, Tokiko wondered aloud.

 

The fighters’ momentum brought both of them close enough to the arena’s edge to see their teammates through the fog. Kotohime felt more confident in her team’s victory upon seeing how Mima was only putting a token effort to escape Mumumu’s grip. Cirno’s confidence waned in turn until she noticed that Mima had small barrier in her right hand.

 

Knowing the plan her teammate was implying, Cirno declared Cold Sign “Insta-Freeze Beam”. Kotohime dodged the beam aimed straight for her, and was far enough away that the other two didn’t pose a problem. One of the beams flew towards Mumumu and Mima. The former flew towards it to try and cause some friendly fire, making it easier to the latter to implement her plan.

 

The barrier in Mima’s hand expanded to cover her, reflecting the beam towards Kotohime. The reflected beam blindsided Kotohime, sending her spinning head over heels. A wave of spikes from Cirno she was too off balance to dodge replaced her inwards momentum with more downwards momentum. When the mix of gray and faint green swirling around her was replaced with different mix of colors, she knew what Patchouli was about to say.

 

“And the winner of Loser’s Round 1 Match 2 is the Cold Space Team! The Sin Response Team has been eliminated from the tournament!”

 

Once Mumumu let go of her, Mima rushed towards Cirno to for a high-speed high-five. 

 

“I wasn’t worried for even a single second!”, Cirno bragged.

 

After shaking off a thin layer of ice, Kotohime flew to the competitor’s box to tell Sanae, “You were right, I haven’t persisted long enough to notice persistence greater than my own.” After a pause, she admitted, “There’s a part of me that’s glad to have lost, since losing kept me from crushing another competitor’s dreams.”

 

Mumumu butted in to ask her teammate, “Then why the fuck did thou sign up for a tournament in the first place‽ To reach the top, one must defeat people who dream of reaching it too.”

 

Kotohime answered with a question of her own, “Would you prefer a bad answer to that question, or none at all?”

 

By seeking out a faraway seat, Mumumu implied that she preferred the latter.

Notes:

I considered putting a scene where Reimu activates one of her anti-camera cards using an audience member’s camera in an earlier chapter, but having the fighters trace the audience’s lines of sight is a far more interesting way to make the presence of an audience affect the fight.

Mistyping “Mima” as “Miman” while writing this chapter created amusing mental images because I’ve played Shin Megami Tensei V.

How I’m posting this chapter on Christmas is a coincidence I saw no reason to prevent. Merry Christmas to everyone who read it the day of its release, and everyone who happens to read it on a future Christmas.

Next time, the Connected Team faces the Ulterior Team.

EDIT: Reworded Kotohime’s return to the stands to fix a missing word.

Chapter 14: Loser's Round 1, Match 3

“Connected Team, are you ready?”

 

After glancing at Saki, Alice replied, “Yes, we’re ready.”

 

“Ulterior Team, are you ready?”

 

Shiran went to say yes, only for Misumaru to interrupt her. “Reimu and Momohime, after today’s matches I’d like to exchange notes with you to see if we can get closer to finding Himemiko or ascertaining Oyasu’s identity.”

 

The two of them replied “Okay”, while Remilia rolled her eyes.

 

“With that sorted out, we’re ready.”

 

“Then Loser’s Round 1 Match 3 shall begin!”

 

When Patchouli finished speaking, the Ulterior Team declared Choker “Bead Suffocation”. Rings of beads surrounded and separated the Connected Team. Having seen the Physiologic Team face this spell, Saki knew to destroy the beads from afar so their revenge bullets wouldn’t pointblank her. Combining foreknowledge and skill let both of them capture the card. 

 

“Seems like the Ulterior Team got punished for being impulsive”, Saraka said. 

 

“No, that was planned”, Rika replied. “Those two don’t seem hasty enough for that sort of nonsense.”

 

Undeterred, Misumaru flew in to hit her opponents hard with her yin-yang orbs while Shiran flew ahead to cut off a potential retreat before it started. One of the orbs nearly scored the first hit of the match, only for Saki to deflect it with Agile Skill “Muscle Explosion”. The card’s bullet clearing shockwave left an empty wake.

 

Alice flew into that wake so she would have the space needed for a counterattack more forceful than a single doll shooting a small laser. To save stamina, instead of using a spell card she made 6 more dolls join the first one. Where one laser merely weakened Misumaru’s offense by forcing her to dodge, seven lasers forced her to either take a hit or retreat. To Alice’s chagrin, she chose the later.

 

Even worse, that retreat was brief. After breaking away from the lasers, Misumasu flew below the connected team to continue slinging yin-yang orbs. Since this failed to prompt a retreat from the Connected Team, Shiran thought that they weren’t going to retreat. Thus, she surrounded herself with a ring of beads and closed in, intending to start a pincer attack. Knowing that Shiran’s beads were still primed to fire revenge bullets, her opponents were content to ignore her and look for a way to crack Misumaru’s defense open. 

 

“When I charge in, deflect the yin-yang orb closest to me”, said Saki. 

 

Alice asked, “Are you sure? I might deflect it into you.”

 

With a confident smirk, Saki replied, “That risk is worth it”.

 

A few moments later, Saki charged in. Alice turned the small opening her teammate saw into a large one by blasting a yin-yang until it changed course; precisely aimed shots kept her warning from coming true. Just when it seemed like their plan went off without a hitch, Shiran declared “Savior Necklace”. A ring of beads flew around Misumaru to catch Saki’s kick. Unable to stop her swing, Saki hit a bead with full force. The resulting explosive counterattack sent her flying into the fog and out of the rest of the fighters’ sight.

 

“You could only score the first hit of t’ match with a counter-super here in Gensokyo”, said Mamizou.

 

Knowing that Saki was probably still inside the arena, the Ulterior Team decided to press their advantage by dealing as much damage to Alice as possible. To achieve this goal, Misumaru declared “Yin-Yang Suffocation” while Shiran closed in with outstretched arms. While Shiran had left her intent to grab Alice on her sleeve, letting her know that she shouldn’t even try to block Misumaru’s card, that Alice wasn’t blocking still helped the Ulterior Team.

 

Seeing Alice on track to capture the card, Sakuya wondered where the pattern she had faced during the Ability Card Incident had gone until she noticed that the yin-yang orbs had nothing to bounce off of. Thus, the smaller yin-yang orbs remained in organized rings instead of dissolving into disorganized chaos.

 

“Shiran, use the magatama beads!”

 

“I shall!”

 

The beads in question were rainbow-colored versions of her own that had magatama instead of kanji inside. She directed them to form one ring above Misumaru and another below Alice. Lasers connected the rings, trapping both the fighters and the yin-yang orbs in a cylinder. The orbs bounced off the lasers, subjecting Alice to the danger Sayuka expected to see. Both the intensity of the attack and some minor hits forced Alice to descend; the Ulterior Team and Shiran’s wall of lasers followed her down to keep her inside the latter. 

 

Meanwhile, Saki found herself alone in the fog, with neither the arena’s edge nor another fighter in sight. Righting herself after Shiran’s card had taken long enough to make the assumption that everyone else was still in the center of the arena unreasonable, especially since her opponents were probably trying to push Alice out of there to make it harder for the Connected Team to reunite. A plan she knew was imperfect came to mind, yet she set it straight into motion.

 

Since Saki’s plan took some time to implement, Alice had to find her own way out of “Yin-Yang Suffocation”. She let the attack push her towards the laser wall so she could blow it apart with Magic Sign “Artful Sacrifice”. Once outside, she shot some of the magatama beads down before Shiran could make them surround her again, letting her finish off Misumaru’s attack with ease.

 

Smarting with impatience, Shiran went for a grab even though Alice wasn’t blocking. While Alice was able to evade and counterattack, Shiran managed to evade her counterattack in turn. To the surprise of everyone inside the arena, she dodged straight into Saki. The midair crash left both of them dazed, but Saki recovered first; she wrapped her arms around Shiran just before she recovered. 

 

Knowing that Saki had found her teammate by simply flying around the entire arena at full speed, Kikyou blurted out “I can’t believe that worked!”

 

“Just learn to enjoy her ability to make dumb plans succeed”, Konngara interjected. 

 

Since the grip of her legs would be tighter than the grip of her arms, Saki tried to transfer Shiran from her hands to a leg-based headlock. However, this required her to momentarily loosen her grip, giving Shiran the opportunity to declare “Infinitely-Suffusing Light of the Revered Tathagata”. Upon seeing the ring of beads created by the card cover her in warning lines, Saki kicked Shiran away. The beads followed Shiran, and the warning lines followed the beads. Both Alice and Saki captured the spell, yet it had done what Shiran wanted it to do.

 

Looking at the cards she had left, Misumaru told Shiran, “You should take point until the edge of the arena is in sight.”

 

“Affirmative!”

 

Knowing why Shiran had signed up, Saki said, “You look more like a follower than someone worth following the way you’re just doing whatever Misumaru says.”

 

The psychological poke made Shiran hesitate, giving Alice an opening. One moment was all she needed to blast Shiran with Curse Sign “Shanghai Doll”. The card’s laser launched Shiran past Misumaru. Saki tried to follow up with a spreadshot, but failed to hit either of her opponents; Misumaru was ready to dodge the attack, and Shiran was far enough away to not need to.

 

Shiran growled with rage as she righted herself. Throwing caution to the wind, she charged towards the Connected Team and declared “Absolute Reliance on the Absolute Vow”. While rushing forward let her release the ring of beads that fired the card’s bullets just above her opponents, it also let Saki punt her into the fog.

 

“I’ll need to keep her temper in mind if the Ulterior Team makes it to losers’ round 2”, Yuuka noted.

 

Since the beads kept firing despite Shiran’s absence, Misumaru had time to retreat. She intended it to be a short retreat for the purposes of regrouping with Shiran, but flying in the direction she had been launched hadn’t made her turn up. Upon reaching the arena’s edge, she stopped running. Saki was fast enough to make that futile, so Misumaru needed Shiran to find her, and for bouncing orbs off the edge to make up for the risk of getting launched past it. 

 

Saki briefly dashed into Misumaru’s sight, but retreated into the fog before she could attack her. 

 

Having located an opponent, Saki told Alice “So it’s just divide and conquer from here?”

 

“I suppose.”

 

The Connected Team flew together until Misumaru was in sight. Saki rushed towards her, while Alice kept back and declared Darkness Sign “Foggy London Dolls”. By shooting bullets in every direction, Alice’s card hedged her bets against Shiran being closer than expected.

 

Misumaru tried to take things slow so Shiran had more time to find her, but Saki wasn’t having it. By circling around her opponent, she corralled her closer to the arena’s edge. Saki threw a few attacks meant to probe Misumaru’s defenses for weaknesses, while Alice closed in at a pace that made the front of each wave overlap with the end of the previous.

 

Two options came to Misumaru’s mind. She could give herself the space she needed to escape her opponents by briefly leaving the arena, risking the match on the idea that Shiran was still inside, or she could push her opponents back with Orb Sign “Yin-Yang Divine Orbs”, risking the match on the idea that she wouldn’t need to use that card to score a knockout. Without time to contemplate, she chose the latter. Yin-yang orbs slammed into both of her opponents, but launched them away from the arena’s edge. No matter how many hits her card scored, it could neither end the match nor last forever; time was on the Connected Team’s side.

 

Meanwhile, Shiran had been searching for the rest of the battle since Saki punted her away. By giving her kick a curve, Saki had left Shiran completely lost. Even worse, she only realized that she was lost halfway through a faulty attempt to manually undo the punt. She didn’t know where she was relative to the arena as a whole, let alone where her teammate and opponents were.   

 

To get that information as quickly as possible, Shiran flew straight up until she saw the arena’s edge. From the grid’s curvature, she deduced that she was about a quarter of the way from its top to its equator. After a nervous gulp, she flew outside, hoping that her teammate was still inside the arena. Seeing Misumaru fight to stay inside the arena made Shiran rapidly reenter it; Orb Sign “Yin-Yang Divine Orbs” had turned the tide in her favor, but it wouldn’t last forever.

 

While flying from the sphere’s upper hemisphere to its lower to rejoin the battle, Shiran grinned. Saving someone as strong as Misumaru was sure to make her look cool. She reentered the fight as Misumaru’s card ended, and announced her return by declaring“Virtue-Measuring Fauxcarnation”.

 

Alice’s dolls suddenly began firing streams of fast-but-puny wind bullets instead of omnidirectional waves; ending her spell card did not return them to normal. A glance at her teammate showed that she was in a similar-but-worse predicament; for lack of options, she could only fire a single stream. When Shiran blasted Alice with a stronger version of the shot foisted upon the Connected Team, they realized this change was her fault. 

 

In the audience, Aya gleefully took as many pictures of the card as possible. The symbolism in Shiran’s bullets was even more self-indicting than the name of “Absolute Reliance on the Absolute Vow”, yet she seemed completely obvious to it. Pointing it out in the next issue of Bunbunmaru would be oh-so enjoyable. 

 

Since Shiran’s card didn’t affect Misumaru, the power of her nonspells forced Saki to retreat. Alice made all of her dolls aim at Shiran to make up for weak bullets. However, the bead-options rotating around Shiran let her do the same with more power behind it, punching through her attack. One hit led to another, culminating in Alice getting blown outside the arena.

 

“End this now!”, Shiran yelled. 

 

With her strongest cards already expended, Misumaru declared Queenly Gem “Beyond the Rainbow Door” while praying that it would be enough to score a knockout. Saki dodged the card’s initial wave of giant yin-yang orbs, but they were just setup. When the smaller yin-yang orbs they left behind formed an expanding wall, Saki worried that defeat was imminent. The first time they formed a gap, she dived through it at full speed; one glance at the wall behind her proved her impulsive move correct. Two waves later, Saki kept the Connected Team in the tournament by capturing Misumaru’s card. 

 

“Virtue-Measuring Fauxcarnation” came to an end a moment later, allowing them to truly strike back. Saki rushed past Misumaru, then hit her with a point-blank Agile Skill “Black Pegasus Meteor Shot”. The star bullets in front of Saki threw Misumaru out of the arena, while the lasers behind her pinned Shiran down. Alice used the opening to sneak a doll behind Shiran. By the time she realized it was there, the doll had wrapped its control wires around her shoulder. Rolling the wires up yanked Shiran towards Alice; since Alice hadn’t reentered the arena…

 

“And the winner of Loser’s Round 1 Match 3 is the Connected Team! The Ulterior Team has been eliminated from the tournament!”

 

“Nice move”, said Saki.

 

Alice accepted the compliment, but only after spending a moment considering whether she should. The factor which let her accept it was the knowledge that the time Saki spent here was time she couldn’t spend leading her criminal empire.

 

Meanwhile, Shiran and Misumaru returned to the stands separately, parting ways without even saying goodbye.

Notes:

How Misumaru failed to secure the win was subconsciously inspired by Mega Man Battle Network 6 PvP. In that game, players can respond to time-freezing attacks with their own time-freezing attack, or a time-freezing defense. A sequence of attack, counterattack, defense sacrifices the initial attack to block the counterattack; a player who does this too often could find themselves unable to close a game out for lack of damage output, leaving their opponent free to make a comeback. The way Misumaru uses a heavy-hitting attack defensively, then finds herself unable to defeat Saki because she’s out of heavy-hitting attacks is a clear analogue to this scenario, but when deciding how the match would end, I was thinking about how the Ulterior Team failed to resolve the distrust which sent them to the loser’s bracket.

Next time, the Growth Team faces the Intimidation Team.

Chapter 15: Loser's Round 1, Match 4

Notes:

If a character refers to an incident by name and you’re not sure what game they’re referring to, you can check the Glossary of Incident Names found in this work’s Record of Danmaku to see what game they’re talking about. Said record is linked above by AO3’s series feature (the “Next Work →” link will take you to it).

Yuuka frowned a bit upon learning that the Growth Team’s next opponents were the Intimidation Team. “Because I don’t know those two very well, I’m not sure how to tilt things in our favor.”

 

“I don’t think it’s a problem”, Tokiko replied. “Incident resolvers defeat people who they’ve just met all the time.”

 

“Not always. Both Reimu and Marisa had their attempts to resolve the Sky Shadow Incident ended by a lost fight.”

 

“But Sanae didn’t.”

 

Yuuka stopped herself from saying the first reply which came to mind so the conversation wouldn’t escalate into an argument. She only spoke when an idea that Tokiko might like came to mind.

 

---

 

“Growth Team, are you ready?”

 

Yuuka answered, “As ready as we can be.”

 

“Which is ready enough”, Tokiko added. 

 

“Intimidation Team, are you ready?”

 

“We’re ready”, answered Nezu.

 

“Then Loser’s Round 1 Match 4 shall begin!”

 

Both teams kicked things off with heavy attacks, but not all-out ones. That they were saving strength for later was most clear in how no spell cards had been declared yet. When Seija noticed that she had drifted away from Nezu while dodging, she doubled back to keep the Intimidation Team together.

 

Tokiko shot at the gaps between the giant flowers Yuuka fired, cutting off the Intimidation Team’s escape routes. To make some new ones, Nezu declared “Crystals of Pure Malice”. Keystones orbited by spirits descended from above. The spirit’s lasers pushed the frontmost flowers back, while their walls of arrowhead bullets forced Tokiko to back off. This gave the Intimidation Team more space, but not much more; when keystone and flower collided, the later won by tearing through the spirits surrounding the former, thus making the keystone fade out.

 

When the lasers would hit Yuuka or Tokiko, they’d stop short to drop fireballs instead. Tokiko could evade this attack with ease from a distance, but that left her unable to lock her options onto her opponents. Attempting to close in got her forced back, but her spreadshot couldn’t punch through the lasers. Seeing her teammate’s counterattack weakened by smaller scale versions of these issues, Tokiko stopped to think.

 

Once a plan came to mind, she told Yuuka, “I can make an opening, but you’ll have to be the one to use it.”

 

“I’m ready whenever you are.”

 

Tokiko waited for the next keystone to appear, then yelled, “Now! Throw ‘Bird Eye’!”

 

Her card’s piercing shots tore through the lasers, the bullets, and the spirits who fired them. While Yuuka wasn’t fast enough to use the shot aimed at the Intimidation Team as a free ticket to close range combat, Tokiko’s card took out enough of the spirits and keystones for her to make up the difference with skill. With intense close-range danmaku, she ended Nezu’s card. While Seija was free to land a close-range blast of her own, it wasn’t enough to stop Yuuka from catching her in her umbrella and vanishing into the fog.

 

Nezu rushed towards them, but had to stop to avoid Tokiko’s ring of options. Knowing that flying around the ring would give Tokiko enough time to move it back into her way, Nezu summoned spirits which would shoot, then ram, Tokiko. How she evaded the bullets was no surprise, but the way her preferred attack range overlapped with the best range for misdirecting the spirits’ charge was unexpected.

 

While Nezu’s attacks were whiffing, she was slippery enough for the whiffs to go unpunished. Tokiko failed to trap Nezu within her option ring over half a dozen times, annoying Tokiko into switching to her spreadshot.

 

Seeing this, Cirno thought back to her brief battle with Tokiko amid the Reversed Balance Incident. When her contemplation concluded, she said, “I was right. Formations are overrated.”

 

Meanwhile, Yuuka and Seija were both landing heavy hits at the cost of taking heavy hits by shotgunning as hard as possible. When a pair of simultaneous strikes kicked them away from eachother, they had to stop to catch their breath.

 

Yuuka caught hers first, but used it to taunt Seija since she wasn’t quite ready to attack. “You may be seen a grievous rulebreaker, but everyone hates me more for things I’ve done to resolve incidents. I bet there are even people in the audience cheering for you.”

 

“D-minus.” 

 

“Huh?”

 

“That’s the grade I’m giving your attempt at reverse psychology”, Seija explained. “Anyone looking close enough to see it is also looking close enough to see past it. You only escaped an ‘F’ because I give points for effort.”

 

Yuuka stopped herself from rising to Seija’s taunt, backing up to take advantage of her spreadshot’s range instead. This kept the both of them from landing heavy hits, slowing their half of the battle down to a crawl. 

 

Despite this, Nezu and Tokiko’s half of the battle was even slower, since the two of them were choosing to stand still.

 

“I think Yuuka isn’t taking your desire to get stronger seriously”, said Nezu. 

 

“Oh, really?”

 

“Yes! Whatever bad blood connects you must be intense, for she still holds enough anger to create malice I can see.”

 

“What?”, Reimu blurted out. “Yuuka isn’t mad at us, we’re mad at Yuuka!”

 

“You’re right”, replied Tokiko. “She’s trying to find a way to face our opponents at their weakest even thought I don’t want her to.”

 

With a wicked smile on her face, Nezu said, “Betray her and I will train you in my accursed arts!”

 

After looking around herself in a less-than-thorough manner, Tokiko answered, “Okay, let’s find Yuuka.”

 

To do so, the two of them flew to the edge of the arena. Tokiko briefly left it, locating her teammate with ease as the fog became invisible. Despite being the one who knew where to go, Tokiko let Nezu take the lead as they approached Yuuka. When she got close enough to see Yuuka through the fog, Tokiko started giggling.  

 

“What’s so funny?”, she asked.

 

“Oh… It’s just… SIKE! Heartless ’Tragedy of the Door’!”

 

By the time Nezu realized why Tokiko said that, she had figuratively and literally backstabbed her. Before she could mount a defense, the laser spear Tokiko used for the literal backstabbing exploded.

 

Tokiko struggled to say “I really had you going there” because she was laughing so hard that it brought tears to her eyes.

 

“What‽ Why‽”

 

“Didja forget that we had to fight an incident resolver during the qualifiers? The only help I need from you is target practice.”

 

The audience gasped with enough unison to hide how they weren’t all gasping for the same reason. Most were simply shocked by the backstabbing and subsequent change in demeanor, but a few thought that Tokiko implied that every youkai who qualified had defeated an incident resolver, unaware that fighters with higher seeds than her had lost their qualifying match.

 

To make sure that she hit Nezu while her defense was weakened by Heartless “Tragedy of the Door”, Tokiko fired a spreadshot. Nezu tried to deathbomb with Death Lure “Falling Illusion”, but seemed to be just a moment too late, taking a hit and falling into the fog before her card’s pattern took shape. Feeling confidence born of success, Tokiko regrouped with her teammate.

 

Yuuka readied “Hanahaki Buster”, since landing that card would end the match. Tokiko expected Seija to run, but she charged towards Yuuka instead. Yuuka took the the opportunity to unleash her card; Seija barely evaded the flowers flying out of Yuuka’s mouth. When Tokiko tried to change that, Nezu’s arm unexpectedly pulled Seija out of the way.

 

Realizing why Nezu appeared to vanish upon hitting the ground outside the arena, Sara said, “That card’s name reveals too much.”

 

Desperate to keep the momentary advantage Nezu’s card had bought them, the Intimidation Team declared Disorientation “Möbius Surround”. The fog kept the card’s effect from being immediately apparent to the Growth Team. Their eyes only saw a couple of relatively simple attacks suddenly escalate into omnidirectional chaos, but the audience could see that the bullets were wrapping around the arena’s edge. How the wrapping wasn’t immediate made some of them take a while to catch on.

 

“I can’t tell exactly what you’re doing”, Yuuka admitted, “but I can still respond in kind. Authorized Duplicate ‘Block of Mass Production’!”

 

Yuuka passed her umbrella to Tokiko to free her hands for a printing block, then approached her opponents with a few short range teleports. With each teleport, she duplicated; by the time she had closed in, dozen of Yuukas surrounded the Intimidation Team. When the Yuukas started to fire lasers just large enough to be a called a spark, her opponents began an immediate retreat. Tokiko used Yuuka’s umbrella to fire a larger spark that forced Seija and Nezu to split up.

 

Seeing this show of friendship, or maybe just mere cordiality, between Yuuka and Tokiko, Marisa said, “Well, now I’m happy to have sent you to losers bracket.”

 

How most of the bullets threatening the Growth Team had looped around the field started a feedback loop in their favor. Clearing some bullets gave them more space, letting them fire sparks that cleared even more bullets. A few Yuuka duplicates went down, but that didn’t change the battle’s new tide. As the Intimidation Team was pushed to the arena’s edge, they considered hiding in the fog until the card ran out, but discarded that plan upon realizing that it wouldn’t work; Yuuka’s duplicates would be able to find them too quickly.

 

Some clever dodges extended the Intimidation Team’s time in the tournament by keeping Nezu or Seija in the arena, but these moves still ceded ground to their opponents. While outside the arena, bullets fired towards it would eventually loop upon reaching the far edge to threaten their opponents twice, but bullets fired away from the arena would threaten them zero times. This missing danger made each of their temporary exits longer than the last.

 

“Since you were only pretending to duplicate yourselves, this was overkill… not that I’m opposed to overkill”, Yuuka taunted.

 

Amid the chaos, Seija searched for a way to cause a last-moment turnaround. Every plan she could think of had the same first step: Regroup with Nezu. At this point, they were far enough apart that Seija occasionally lost track of Nezu’s position and vice-versa. To end the team card early, they needed to agree on when to end it. If the Growth Team knew when they were going to end the card, they’d knock them out of the tournament the moment it ended, so ending it safely required getting close enough to whisper in Nezu’s ear.

 

The moment Seija started flying towards Nezu, a spark whose size showed who fired it cut her off. Since Tokiko was actively trying to keep the Intimidation Team apart, she’d keep at it until Seija dropped this idea… or merely seemed to. With a wild dodge past the edge, Seija made herself appear to fly off course while still heading toward Nezu. 

 

When Patchouli said “And the winner of Loser’s Round 1 Match 4 is the Growth Team! The Intimidation Team has been eliminated from the tournament!”, Seija knew exactly what went wrong. After Tokiko’s spark blocked her view, Nezu dodged outside the arena assuming that Seija wasn’t about to do the same thing and vice versa. Since Seija didn’t see another way to make a comeback, she didn’t regret her choice.

 

To commemorate the Growth Team’s victory, every Yuuka except the one closest to Tokiko exploded like a firework.

 

While miming the act of donning sunglasses, Tokiko said, “I really underestimated how cool I was a week ago.”

 

“Don’t forget how helpful thinking about how someone might prepare to beat us turned out to be”, said Yuuka. Her teammate only replied with a subtle nod, but that was enough to show that she agreed.

 

“Mamigasa overpowered us yesterday, and our mistakes today were only clearly wrong in retrospect”, Nezu lamented. “Perhaps poor luck made us face strong opponents early.”

 

“No, that seems lucky to me”, Seija replied. ”Facing the best of the tournament early on is better because facing them later won’t make them any easier to beat. Going 0-2 saved us a bunch of effort.”

 

“And lost us prize money.”

 

“I’m not in this for the money. On that note, if Saraka asks you where I went, don’t answer.”

Notes:

While this is the final match of Loser’s Round 1, I didn’t feel the need to make it more climactic than the rest of the round. How Winner’s Round 2 will also take place in the fog was part of that, but not all of it.

A dependency snag slowed down the release of this chapter quite a bit. Because Cirno talks about the events of EUB in this chapter, I needed to devise an in-universe name for its events. To keep EUB and DDC from having unreasonably similar in-universe names, I decided to begin searching for an in-universe name for DDC by rereading Forbidden Scrollery. Fortunately, I found what I was looking for there, even if took some close reading to confirm that it was the thing I sought.

To help me keep things consistent, I wrote down who resolved which incident in this continuity for the incidents where that matters to this story in my planning document. The Shattered Sky’s note there is the longest one because I kept thinking about how to make the game an all-routes game. Sanae is the one to successfully resolve the incident because her B shot is the strongest one in the game, Reimu sets out last so the others still play stage 1, and Reimu and Marisa lose after clearing stage 2 so Sayuri has a reason to swear vengeance against them, but before the part of stage 6 where Soujouko blows up the meteor so that it’s still there for Sanae’s battle (I didn’t decide exactly where they they lost because it doesn’t matter to this story, but still cared enough to figure out the bounds). Plotting this out was enjoyable because I like both all-routes games and TSS.

Next time, Winner’s Round 2 begins with the Showstarter Team facing the Ultimate Surprise Team.

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 1 of Doubled Elimination & Spinoffs