It is good that war is so terrible, lest we become too fond of it.
The moon shone down brightly on the Misty Lake, creating a pure reflection in the waters.
The reason for that of course was that Chamaka had no intention of letting some fairy sneak up on him and hit him. Sure there was no chance anything a fairy threw at him would hurt, but it would make him look foolish.
And his mission tonight was to spread fear.
He'd already scared the fairies in the Forest of Magic enough such that they didn't dare reveal themselves. Now he'd chased a trio of the smarter ones to this locale and was cleaning up this rat hole.
His eyes caught some more movement. A curious fairy of leaves who apparently had missed the demise of its fellows was floating up from the banks of the lake.
Chamaka put his boredom and annoyance into a set of bullets and fired it at the creature. Unsurprisingly it failed to dodge, probably figuring it would just die and be reborn like usual. The horror that erupted on the little things face when the bullets hit was almost pathetic. The little creature screamed its girlish scream and then disintegrated, leaving only a few dead leaves to float down.
?Hey! What are you doing to my friends!??
Chamaka turned to find a small ice fairy trying to fly at him. Strangely a wind fairy was trying to pull her away. ?Cirno, this guy is too dangerous! We have to run!?
The ice fairy shrugged her companion off. ?No, Daiyousei. This guy's the one messing up the lake. He's been destroying our friends. What would Letty think if I let this go!?? The fairy pointed at him. ?Hey you! I'll never forgive you for hurting us nature spirits! Hold still so I can freeze you!?
Chamaka was surprised. Loyalty wasn't one of these creatures' strong points. Still he wasn't here for research. With a wave of his hand he conjured the concept of extermination into the form of several knives. The smaller fairy let out something that sounded almost like a sob and ran, but the ice fairy stayed put. Chamaka launched his attack. It made no attempt to dodge, it only raised its hands.
And then, seconds before the first blade hit the fairy, a wave of ice reached out from the creature and the blades froze solid. Then they shattered.
Chamaka frowned at that. ?Well. That is novel.?
?Now it's my turn!? the fairy proclaimed, firing off some icicles at him. Fortunately the spread was crudely aimed. He took his time dodging the missiles in order to figure out how to bypass that peculiar defense.
After a moment he decided to try the obvious solution. He concentrated his mind on the light of the sun, and focused it. The fairy would have difficulty freezing this. Holding up his hand he unleashed a laser.
?Wha! That's cheating!? the little creature yelled as it tried to dodge the beam. Unfortunately for it, there was no way to avoid the spell forever.
Suddenly there was a click and a bright flash. His laser fizzled.
?Pure and Honest Reporter, Shameimaru Aya is on scene to report on the invasion! Sir, could you please give your name for the article??
Chamaka dived backwards and tried to aim the laser he was summoning at the voice. His vision cleared just enough to see a tengu standing there winding a camera when another photo shot went off.
This time he had enough presence of mind to blink. When he opened his eyes there were two female tengu flanking the confused ice fairy. The newest arrival seemed to be fiddling with a cell phone. ?Don't worry about being properly quoted. The Kakashi Spirit News is doing this as a joint interview with the Bunbunmaru News. We pride ourselves on only using your own words to make you look like the jackass you are.?
Chamaka reinforced his aegis as he carefully inspected the two tengu. The odds had suddenly shifted. By a great deal. He looked over their devices and nodded. ?I see, so you've managed to create conceptual weaponry as well. Impressive.?
?Huh?? The second tengu and the fairy looked confused at his statement.
Aya on the other hand narrowed her eyes. ?I see, that's how you are able to kill fairies permanently. You can give form to concepts and legends. Since fairies are just personified concepts you can attack their life directly.?
?And your cameras draw upon the legend of photography stealing souls to drain that energy.? Chamaka replied. ?Though it's far from perfect. Still, as Tengu you must possess other skills as well. You seem like opponents worthy of my full attention.?
?Hey! I'm your opponent,? the little fairy called out. The arrival of allies seemed to have emboldened it.
Chamaka ignored the creature for now. The tengu were far more dangerous. He needed to keep them trapped, so their speed couldn't be used against him. He had faith in his aegis, but it was foolish to let your opponents gain an advantage.
He raised his hand and concentrated. Above him in the air a horrific buzzing sound began. The tengu and their fairy companion looked above him just in time to see the swords start forming and circling, like metal vultures.
?These swords represent the hatred and sorrow of every human that failed to reach their goals.? Chamaka felt the blades straining at the leash, but he held off for a few more seconds. ?They are relentless in their pursuit, and their desire to crush the hopes of others knows no bounds.?
He lowered his hand and the blades paused, then began to fall in a rain. ?Let's see if your photography can capture this story.?
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Aya gritted her teeth and floated just a little forward as the blades rushed towards her. She resisted the urge to try to run through the wall of blades with a well timed camera shot. While that might work, Hatate would be hard pressed to follow her, and Cirno would be doomed.
Finally at the last second she back dashed away and took a snapshot. The wide lens caught the first wave of swords and drained their energy away, quickly drawing the power to her camera. She began winding furiously to set up her next shot. ?Your turn.?
?Right!? Hatate took over, moving forward to take her own picture of the swords raining down. The other woman's camera cleared a slightly smaller swath. It paid for its quick reload time with a smaller frame and no zoom. Aya swore when she saw more distant blades still angling towards them.
?I've got it!? Cirno said charging forward. Aya felt her tengu pride complain at needing aid from a fairy, but her camera was still winding. The camera's anti danmaku feature took a lot of energy, and while their foe's 'conceptual weaponry' was apparently weak against the feature, it took even more power to banish then normal bullets. She just hoped Cirno had enough energy to clear out a good chunk of them.
Cirno waited until the last second, then used her freezing trick again. The swords surrounding the ice fairy froze with a crack.
Then a wave of frost that was almost faster then a tengu eye could follow ran through the blades, freezing them all solid.
The click of Aya's camera recharging brought her out of her stunned state. Her camera couldn't clean out such a large swath, but it was a kappa tool, one that didn't use her full power. It was possible that a fairy as strong as Cirno could beat its power while going all out.
She turned back towards the Lunarian. She needed to take command of the fight. Unfortunately he seemed like the type who enjoyed gloating and attacking at the same time.
Sure enough he raised his hands, and flames appeared in the sky. ?Extinction class events leave scars in the consciousness of all life.? Aya felt her blood run cold as the meteors above came into focus. ?I don't know if this is really how the dinosaurs were wiped out, but it should be enough to be rid of you!?
?Climb!? Aya cried out as she flew towards the assault. She began plotting a course between the rocks, and she hoped that Cirno and Hatate's danmaku skills would allow them to do the same.
Hatate was beside her seconds later. ?This is insane! How can he be this strong??
Cirno was right behind her. ?Damn, using fire this early is cheating!?
?Stop whining and dodge!? Aya replied to the two. Then she followed her own advice and broke off, preventing the man from targeting all three of them at once.
The first few seconds of the meteor rain was the worst. She had no idea what how fast the rocks were moving, and if her camera could clear them out. The first flaming rock singed her arm as she passed, and then two of the meteors in the second wave collided sending a wave of shrapnel at her. She brought her camera up and snapped a photo, clearing those chunks up and dousing some of the flames.
Now that she'd cleared a little more room Aya took a look around. While the attack was brutally random, it wasn't too hard to dodge most of the time. And all three of the youkai had an escape card they could play. Most importantly, the rocks faded away before hitting the earth. Either the Lunarian couldn't sustain the barrage that long, or he wasn't certain he'd survive the impact. Either way, it was good to know that there were limits to their opponent's power.
Now it was time to counter attack.
Aya zipped between two meteors, dodged some lesser debris and then, with a swipe of her fan fired a massive wind gust at the Lunarian. She smiled as the man's own rockfall got caught up in the attack. ?All right, take this!?
Then she swore as they all shattered on an invisible shield.
The man raised his hand and a mass of bullets formed. ?Clever. But my aegis can withstand any attack. And I can reform it whenever it becomes weak.?
His bullets manifested themselves as the annoying seeking amulets the Hakurei used. Aya quickly ducked behind one of the meteors for protection. ?Cocky bastard, aren't you,? she muttered as she began considering her next plan of attack.
Her plans were interrupted by another wave of amulets. ?Why couldn't you be completely arrogant and try to passively kill me?? Aya swore as she began weaving her way into the heart of the meteor attack, doing her best to skim just out of the flames reach of the larger meteors so they could provide her some cover.
A small fast rock smashed open one of the meteors in front of her, causing her to flinch. She instinctively took a picture of the deadly rain coming at her then swore again when she realized she had a lot of winding to do. She quickly retreated to where Hatate and Cirno were making their stand.
?I'm starting to change my mind about active interviews,? Hatate grumbled as her camera went off again. ?Any bright ideas? I'm getting frozen and roasted here.?
?Yeah all this fire sucks! I want to freeze all the rocks!? Cirno complained.
?That's nice. I want to not die!? Aya snarled. ?And if we want that we'll need to find some way to get an advantage.?
?It seems that simply dropping rocks is a mistake.? Their annoying foe called out. ?Let's try something more direct. Weapons tend to leave strong imprints on people's minds. For example Gungnir, the All Father's spear that never misses seems to have lingering power even after humanity's fall. Even in your minds.?
?Oh great, we're going to be killed because Remilia was pretentious about spell card names.? Aya sighed. At least her camera was wound. ?We'll have to hope our cameras can stop it, Hatate.?
Hatate pulled her phone out. ?You go first. Yours has a zoom after all.?
?What about me?? Cirno protested. The two tengu ignored her.
A brilliant flash of steel was the only warning Aya got of the spear's approach. However years of photography training hadn't gone to waste. She'd taken a snapshot of the weapon before she realized that their familiarity with Remilia's version of the Gungir had made the point crimson. That strangely made her feel better. Perhaps it was because she could beat Remilia.
Her camera shot visibly slowed the weapon. It looked less like certain death, and more like the spear it was. Hatate raised her camera phone and snapped her own picture. The deadly aura faded more.
But the ancient god spear that was the core of the weapon kept hurtling straight towards Hatate's chest.
A streak of blue intercepted the spear. The weapon slowed as it froze, then dropped out of the sky into Cirno's hand, where it shattered into pieces.
Aya was so shocked she barely remembered to dodge the meteors still raining down. Hatate just let herself fall down about forty feet.
?Alright! I'm all charged up now!? Cirno declared. ?Let's freeze everything! Perfect Freeze!?
A wave of bitter cold washed over Aya, setting her teeth to chattering. Even more startling the flames around the meteors died down, then faded away as the rocks slowly froze.
For a moment everything was still.
Then the Lunarian's meteor rain shattered as one, the tiny harmless fragments of the once mighty storm falling down to the lake below.
?I'm the strongest!? Cirno said with pride.
Hatate was first to break the silence. ?Holy shit.?
Aya had to agree.
?I don't have a clue how the hell you did that. But I've decided to actively try to kill you as well,? the Lunarian said to the fairy. ?I'd like to see an ice fairy try to shatter Excalibur.?
A glowing golden sword, more perfect then any blade Aya had seen before, materialized beside the Lunarian, then flew directly at the little fairy.
There was no way Cirno could handle that solo. The two tengu both rushed forward to add their camera skills to the fray.
This time Hatate was first to get the shot. Aya finished winding and fired off her own photo seconds later. The golden glow around the weapon vanished, to once again be replaced by Cirno's frost.
The dream of the sword of promised victory shattered before the incarnation of ice.
Out of the corner of her eye Aya saw the Lunarian casting. That had just been a diversion! ?Dive!? She yelled. The three youkai swooped down towards the lake, pursued by a massive laser of focused 'sunlight'.
As they reached the lake's surface Aya saw another laser sweeping towards them from the other direction. There was no way all three of them could dodge both lasers if their foe had any competence. She only had one trick left, and it was based on hearsay.
Still it was better then nothing.
She turned and fired a barrage of dense but slow danmaku bullets between the Lunarian and the ice fairy. ?Cirno, freeze these!?
?Okay!? Cirno, being Cirno, didn't hesitate. Her power turned the danmaku into a hemisphere of ice.
Ice that disrupted and scattered the focused light that struck it.
?Hah!? That interview with Marisa had been good information. She'd been betting a lot on it.
?Tonbo-giri.?
Aya's eye's snapped up at the Lunarian's words. He'd had another attack waiting! Aya pulled up her camera to clear away the legendary spear, but there was only a whir when she pressed the button. No charge!
Then it, like the other weapons that had come before it, turned blue and shattered.
?H~How?? She asked in awe. There was no way Cirno should be able to continuously freeze things like that.
?W~w~what's up~p wi~wi~with that~t?? Hatate asked as the two tengu shivered.
Wait, why were they shivering? Aya looked around, then yelped and flew about a hundred feet away from the fight. Hatate was beside her in seconds. ?Why are we running?? the younger tengu asked.
?Look at the lake,? came Aya's reply.
All of the combatants looked down towards the waters of the lake to see the surface slowly freezing, inch by inch, in a ragged circle around the icy fairy.
?That's impossible!? the Lunarian whispered. ?You can't gain power from canceling attacks.?
Then Aya fully understood.
?Reisen was right.?
Aya raised her voice to carry across the lake. ?You can't destroy energy. It has to go somewhere. So where does the energy Cirno removes when she freezes things go??
?It has to go inside of her.?
Aya looked the Lunarian in the eye as she continued. ?Normally that doesn't mean much. If it were heat energy Cirno would overheat and have to waste power cooling herself. But your constructs don't use heat. They're made entirely of conceptual energy, the same as fairies are made of.?
?Which means every attack she's frozen has made her stronger.?
?Just as you are the perfect enemy to fairies, fairies are the perfect enemy for you. And what's worse, now that you know she can absorb your power, you can't help but unconsciously feed her with your fear.? Aya stated.
?Nonsense!? the Lunarian retorted. But the frozen circle around Cirno continued to expand.
Cirno looked up at the Lunarian. ?You've killed a lot of my friends. You Lunarians destroyed a lot of trees, and birds, and flowers, and even humans. You've all hurt nature a lot.? Cirno's voice was deadly serious. ?I'm not the smartest fairy. I know that. But I also know we fairies are part of nature.?
?I don't know what purpose fairies serve. But I'm going to protect this place. I'm not going to let you hurt anything else!?
Aya stared at the fairy. Was this a hidden depth that she'd never seen before during their occasional games? Perhaps it had something to do with the massive power flowing through the fairy? Or maybe Cirno had absorbed more then just the energy of the concepts that had been thrown about.
?Brave words.? Power swirled around the Lunarian again. ?Let me show you the cost of courage. Death of the Light Brigade.?
The Lake seemed to explode with sound and fire.
From all sides cannonballs flew in at Cirno as their invisible launchers roared. Aya thought she saw smaller bullets as well, but the gunpowder smoke obscured everything. Cirno disappeared in the barrage, then there was a flash of blue as the fairy once again froze and absorbed the attack. But the guns didn't stop. Once again the tiny fairy vanished.
Aya was wondering if she'd made a mistake holding back when a rush of freezing wind once again swept over the battlefield. She called upon her tengu strength to shrug off the cold. Hatate gasped beside her. ?She's frozen the whole lake!?
Sure enough the entire misty lake was covered in a light frost. As were Aya's geta.
?Got anything else!?? Cirno called up to the Lunarian.
The man finally lost his cool. His fancy outfit was covered in frost, and his breath was misting in the air. ?Enough of this foolishness! I can't be beaten by a simple ice fairy! Let's see if you can handle the very concept of fire itself!?
?Attack now! When his guard is weakened!?
Aya nodded and rushed towards the man. She took a quick snapshot as she flew in, weakening his shield, and Hatate did the same. She slammed into the remaining shield and bounced off, but Hatate's kick actually broke the thing. Aya was about to cheer when she saw Hatate falling back, her momentum expended.
Then a green haired fairy appeared behind the shocked man and buried a shard of ice in his back.
The Lunarian gasped, but he kept charging his spell despite the lethal wound. Aya swept her fan and sent a gust of wind to shatter the ice shard inside his body at the same time three icicles from Cirno sunk into the man's chest. Somehow he kept his spell forming until Hatate righted herself and crushed his throat with a roundhouse kick.
The man's spell fizzled away and he plummeted through the sky to crash on the ice on the lack, sending cracks through its surface. Aya nodded to herself when she saw the crack through the reflection of the moon. Their part of the prophecy was complete.
?I thought you ran away, Daiyousei,? Cirno said to her fairy friend. There was no condemnation in her tone, just confusion.
?Well, you know I'm not that good in a straight fight,? Daiyousei replied. The little fairy hugged her friend. ?I'm so glad you're safe though!?
Cirno allowed herself to be hugged for a while before drawing away. ?Daiyousei, I gotta help our other friends. These Lunarians are bad people. Someone's gotta stop them.?
Daiyousei looked worried, but the fairy simply nodded and fluttered her wings. ?You're really brave Cirno. Just be careful, okay??
Cirno looked over at Hatate and Aya. ?Are you two coming??
Hatate shivered and shook her head. ?I think you might do better on your own. We'll stay in reserve if you need us.?
?Yeah,? Aya agreed. She didn't want to test if Cirno could accidentally freeze a tengu.
Cirno shrugged. ?Alright.? She flew off towards the shore opposite the forest of magic. ?I better find Star so she can help me search!?
Aya rubbed her hands together to return the warmth to them. She planned on following the fairy, just in case. But at a much safer distance this time.
?Hey, Daiyousei, was it?? Hatate asked while turning towards the green haired fairy. ?Why did you tell us to attack the guy?? Aya started when she realized the voice telling them to attack hadn't been Hatate's. ?Did you think Cirno couldn't handle it??
?Fairies aren't supposed to be powerful. Nature can be strong yes, but fairies like us aren't nature's strength. We're nature's beauty and presence. We're supposed to be weak and simple." The fairy looked away. "There are a few exceptions here and there. Bent rules. But no fairy is supposed to have the power Cirno now has.? Daiyousei shook her head sadly. ?You've seen already how she's changed.?
The little fairy looked directly at both the tengu. ?I wasn't afraid she'd fail.?
?I was afraid she'd succeed.?
Aya shook her head to clear it. She didn't have to understand it, she just had to write it.
She looked up at the moon, then down again at its broken and bloody reflection.
?Eh, served the jerk right,? she muttered to herself.
?Yeah,? Hatate said. Then she punched something into her cellphone camera. ?Well we'd better hurry up if we actually are giving Cirno backup. At least then we'll have an excuse for letting her take the guy out.?
Aya smiled at that. ?Yep! 'Lunarian defeated by fairies! A joint investigation!'?
?Now let's go make sure people will be around to read it.?
