Chapter 81: A Beautiful Match
She watched as I put in the pieces, one after another, into the still form below me. I knew that Koishi was strong, but to be honest, the difference between her and Satori was shocking. Satori only required two pawns to be resurrected, while her sister required the entirety of the rest, all six. Even with the differences between our power systems, I could feel that if I hadn’t broken my seal before coming here I would not be able to use the pieces on the small Yokai, even if I used all eight of them.
After Satori had agreed, she had called the younger woman to get her pieces, but only after I had given hers to her. I must admit, her little test for me had thrown me for a loop, but I was almost grateful for it. It was a useful reminder that no matter how you stacked the deck, people could still surprise you.
I had considered the idea that she was truly testing my willingness to accept defeat, but in the end it changed little. Whether she was merely judging me or declining for real, the result and therefore, the correct decision, remained the same.
“Is it done?” Satori asked, her third eye pointed directly at me, breaking me from my thoughts.
“It is.” I responded, feeling slightly amused.
If she could read my mind, why did she bother with waiting for me to respond, I wonder?
“It allows people to feel more at ease with me.” She answered my question, “If I merely talk without letting them respond, people start to panic.”
I see, that made some sort of sense. Still, she had gone through the same process that I had just performed on her sister, so the question she asked was slightly redundant. Looking closely at her, I noticed the slight tension, the fidgeting. From everything I knew, the Pieces should fully restore Koishi’s eye and mind. If it worked for Naomi, there is no reason it shouldn’t for Koishi. Still, she seemed unable to fully trust in my thoughts on the matter, which I do not blame her for.
“Even if her eye is not healed from this, your new family in my home are masters at magic and science.” I reassured her, “They will figure out a way to fix it.”
“I believe you.” She responded, “After all, your magic works on imagination, so there should be a way to save her with it. It’s just…”
I didn’t get to find out what it just was, as the girl on the bed opened her eyes, all three of them, looking around blearily as she did so.
“Nee-san?” Koishi mumbled sleepily, “What’s going on?”
“Koishi!” Satori was instantly at her side, her third eye locked onto the other girl.
Koishi blinked, before her own third eye found her sibling as she stilled.
From the outside looking in, watching two telepaths immerse themselves in each other’s thoughts was rather curious. The only indication I could have for their conversation was the expressions on each of their faces, but even that was difficult to keep up with. I had used this method of communication with Satori herself, but obviously I still needed to wait for her to speak to think of my answer.
Without that constraint, the conversation can apparently speed along at a much faster pace. The two rejoiced, apparently luxuriating in the feeling of the other’s mind, that they had been missing for so long. The reunion was very emotional, with Satori giving the widest smile that I had ever seen from her so far.
Though, apparently the conversation then took a less happy turn, with both of the sisters tensing and showing displeased expressions. I was unsure what passed between them, but it did not seem to be a pleasant exchange. A few moments later, Koishi’s eyes flicked towards me, her third eye still focused on her sister, before returning to Satori, who seemed panicked.
Koishi’s eyes became resolved, turning towards me fully now, “You, Devil. I challenge you to a Danmaku match.”
I raised an eyebrow, “Indeed? A rather odd reaction to being healed, but very well. What are the stakes?”
“If I win, you let Satori-nee-san go. I don’t want her to go with someone as creepy as you.” She responded firmly.
I shook my head, “I refuse. Not only did we agree to a deal, but it is her choice whether to break it. More to the point, those pieces I used to give you control of your powers are precious and difficult to replace. I am no longer able to simply leave empty-handed due to your refusal.”
“Koishi, don’t!” Satori instructed sternly, only for her wilful sister to ignore her.
“In that case, should you win, you can put that mark on me too. That’s better than just having her, right? You will get more than you came for.” She seemed smug, sure I would bite.
Not that I wasn’t tempted, but there was a very good reason for me not to agree with that, “No. That will hurt Satori, as she does not wish for me to do that. I will not go against her wishes.”
Satori let out a breath at that, a small smile on her lips, even as Koishi turned to her. Her smile remained briefly, before slowly being replaced by a frown as they seemed to continue to argue.
Koishi finished the mental match with a triumphant smile, crossing her arms in victory eve as Satori turned back to me with a sour look on her face, “I agree to the Danmaku match.”
“May I ask why?” Her one-eighty surprised me, but I could guess what might have been leveraged for it.
Still able to read my thoughts, she nodded tiredly, “If I didn’t let her do this, she refused to come with. I can’t imagine a world where I left her behind and I did make a deal with you, so…”
She trailed off, apparently conflicted about her decision. I tried to discourage her sister one last time.
“Are you sure, you do know what the Mark does, right?” I went for the most likely angle to succeed.
Koishi waved her hand, “It doesn’t matter. I’m going to rescue my sister from you anyway, so I don’t really care.”
I sighed.
Well, she could certainly try, I supposed.
---XXX---
As soon as I resolved to participate in the Danmaku match, I brought my mental defences back up fully, not even allowing Satori to view my mind any more. Partly for the reason that Koishi could pull my plans from her head, partly to allow her to not have to choose between me and her sister. If she could see my plans, the choice of whether to warn Koishi or not seemed rather cruel to force on her.
Speaking of the younger Komeiji, She was busy stretching on the other side to the large, spacious room we had relocated to. She looked my way, her arms extended far above her head as she leaned to the side.
“I know you’re not from Gensokyo, do you know the rules?” She asked, causing me to nod.
“Magic only, non-lethal and need to be visually appealing, yes?” I responded back, causing her to nod while Satori shook her head.
“That last one is more implied than a strict rule, but if you want this result to be taken seriously…” Her sense of fairness apparently couldn’t let that assumption be uncorrected.
I smiled in response to that, “Don’t worry, it won’t be a problem for me. Are you ready?”
“Are you?” Koishi shot back, smiling as she ended her stretches, her grin turning rather vicious at my resulting nod, “Good. On three, Nee-san.”
Satori still didn’t approve, as her tone proved amply as she did just that, “One. Two. Three.”
The last sound of the final word was barely past her lips before Koishi exploded into a kaleidoscope of colour. One interesting thing about the Touhou games, the Danmaku in those have a restriction, in that they had to be conceivably dodgable by a player. In real life, no such restriction existed.
So when a veritable tsunami of glowing hearts, multicoloured beams and balls that bounced wildly assaulted me, I was not that surprised. The sheer amount of magic she was outputting was stunning, but I was expecting something at this level for inhabitants of this world.
Her attacks were devious, the hearts were under her control, able to weave around any barriers that I erected, the beams asking me to do that anyway. Should it be omnidirectional, the small balls of energy would likely bounce off the floor, walls and ceiling to skirt around it and hit me anyway.
I activated my geass, estimating the amount of power each projectile contained, internally wincing as I did so. Non-lethal did not mean painless, as was amply clear.
Just before the first beams, which were the fastest moving of her attacks, reached me as swirling, star-studded vortex manifested just above me. The beams bent, pulled inexorably into the swirling mass, the hearts and balls soon following. The tamed black hole swallowed them all, the clashing forces of magic introducing an otherworldly, ephemeral blue mist that drifted around me as spread my hands, blue shards of starlight appearing at each of my finger tips, before they shot off quickly, arcing and curving towards my opponent.
She laughed, a swirling mass of cartoon hearts swirling around her, easily disrupting my attacks before they flew towards me, arcing off and attacking from all directions as she easily summoned another veil of obscuring magic.
“Wow, sparkly!” She spoke, before a massive beam shot through the hearts, slamming to my black hole, the devouring mass eating the fuel quite happily, “But is that all you got?”
“Hardly.” I responded, before massive, teal beam of light slammed through her wave of hearts, the Comet Azure just barely missing her by inches as her wide eyed dodge was successful.
“Hey! That was dangerous!” She called out, before she quickly dodged my next attack, a blackness that had spread throughout the room and crept towards her, twinkling spots of blue shining through, evoking the night sky.
She shot more bounding balls, one of them colliding with the small spots of light, making it detonate in an explosion of Glintstone magic. It blew the black cloak back a bit, but it didn’t matter as it continued it’s approach, sneaking it’s way towards her from all angles, the wall, floor and ceiling turning dark as I fed more and more power into the spell.
Koishi waved a hand, her barrage of hearts unabated, but suddenly a wave of fire combated the wave of black, the super heated flames lighting the artificial night and beating it back.
“I’m going to overpower that unfair little spell of yours.” She declared, before a truly titanic amount of magic was summoned.
It was fed into a huge beam, the veritable explosion raw magic slamming into the black hole. It fought admirably, devouring a significant amount of magic from the overloaded attack,, but the amount that was put into the spell overwhelmed it, washing over the area behind it in an explosion of multicoloured lights.
It would have been over, had I still been below the black hole.
I had used the distraction of the dark night and the mist to obscure my form as I teleported just behind the girl, Miriam’s Vanishing displaying its utility once again. Showing impressive instincts, she reacted immediately, a new wave of projectiles swiftly responding to wash over my new position. They were all stopped in their tracks as I revealed my trap card, which I had yet to use in this battle.
“Lock.”
The colourful assault froze, as if someone pressed the pause button.
“Wha-” Koishi’s eyes went wide, allowing me to move onto the second part of my plan.
I dropped my defences, allowing her to glimpse the image I was pushing to the forefront of my mind as a light purple butterfly took flight from one of my hands.
The movement drew all three pairs of eyes to me, causing her to stutter slightly at the mental image of her and Satori in skimpy maid uniforms, revealing far more than was proper.
It was the briefest of hesitations, but it was enough for the butterfly to explode right in her face, the shimmering purple mist washing over her form.
The fire cut out, the locked projectiles stuttered and faded, as the mist was swept away, revealing the unconscious form of the unreasonably powerful Yokai on the floor.
I released a sigh of relief at the sight. I could have drawn this out and exhausted her with my infinite reserves, but that would have been the wrong way to go about things. I defeated her properly, if with a bit of trickery.
That means that she should have some more respect for me when she wakes up.
---XXX---
“Damn, you are tricky.” She pouted, although her eyes sparkled, “But your spells were really pretty!”
“You are surprisingly chipper.” I responded, a bit nonplussed at the tonal whiplash this girl was giving me.
After confirming my victory with Satori, I lifted the sleep spell I had placed Koishi under, allowing her to blink herself awake and realise what happened. Her first words had not been what I was expecting.
“Yeah yeah, I lost fair and square.” She rolled her eyes, “I have to deal with it. Sulking and obsessing over it will just stress me out.”
How refreshingly simple.
“Rude.” she pouted in response to my thought, causing me to smile.
“I meant it genuinely. I am always dealing with complicated people.” I grinned back, thinking back to some of the people I’ve had to deal with in the Underworld.
She wrinkled her nose at the memories, apparently agreeing with my opinion on the majority of them.
“So, now that you have won, are you going to mark us?” Satori brought up the elephant in the room.
She had her arms crossed in a relaxed manner, but I could notice the slight tension in her posture.
“Yeah, you are the winner, you got to have the spoils right?” Koishi agreed, surprisingly much more at ease than her sister, despite her resistance being much stronger originally.
“No.” I shook my head, much to their surprise, “I meant what I said. Satori said she didn’t want me to mark you, and so I won’t.”
They saw my thoughts, but waited for me to respond fully before reacting.
“What, am I not good enough? Your dirty thoughts definitely showed differently, mister.” Koishi puffed up, acting offended.
“It’s not that and you know it-” Before I could finish my reply, a much more relaxed Satori interrupted me.
“It’s fine.” At my look, she shrugged, “Your reluctance is very gratifying. Thank you for caring about my opinion so much. But Koishi needs to learn her actions have consequences, you won as agreed. Allowing her to back out would be unfair.”
Before I could contemplate that for long, she was hugged tightly by Koishi, the green clad yokai grinning widely, “Aw, you’re adorable Nee-san! Don’t worry, no matter what happens, I won’t leave you alone, okay?”
Ah. I see.
“You sure?” I confirmed, getting a resolute nod from both girls, “Very well then, decide where you want the emblem on your bodies. I recommend somewhere easy to hide.
Soon after, with their shoulders bearing my symbol on opposing sides, Satori summoned her pets and informed them that they were leaving Gensokyo. Both Rin and Okuu looked rather wary and suspicious of me, but accepted their mistress’ words with minimal complaint. As they gathered that which they wished to bring along with, the world drained of colour in a very familiar way, a nostalgic feeling overtaking me as I was greeted with the familiar sight of the Console opening up before my eyes.
This, the most dangerous of my trips, was successful. Five down, two to go.
Perks Gained this Chapter:
Education Talent: Damocles is able to greatly increase the gains that anyone who is currently learning from him would pick up from his teachings. He is able to quickly and efficiently pick up where they are struggling and intuitively determine the best way to help them past their problems. This is not limited to just training, any situation in which Damocles is attempting to impart knowledge to others is affected, allowing those he tutors to gain more from his teachings than they would otherwise.
Fertility Calibration: Damocles now has total control over the chances of pregnancy in any sexual encounter involving him. This perk does not alter the chance of multiple fetuses relative to the chance of just one. Can fully eliminate or guarantee the chance of pregnancy from any sexual encounter, as well as grants him a sixth sense when anyone he has been intimate with becomes pregnant.
Blessed Talent: Damocles gains stronger effects from blessings and can more efficiently draw upon divine power. This counts for both his own power and those of other gods that allow him access to their well of energy. Divine abilities are able to be resisted more easily, in a similar way to other defences, with the ease proportional to his understanding of the effect and the difference in power expended.