>>28525 awesomeface.png
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[X]When's the last time Suika fought Danmaku?
[X]Stick to Ion Cannon options so I don't tire myself out.
[X]Keep it, I might need it.
I wave to Yukari one last time as a farewell before kicking off the ground, just behind Reimu but before Suika.
"Sheesh, I didn't think peach hat could get that pissed off." I couldn't help but comment on the fact that Tenshi was calling down stones on Iku in an attempt to free herself.
"Tenshi can obviously. Though I have to wonder, why didn't you give Tenshi back her sword? A spirit like you doesn't have much use for a sword that only celestials use." Reimu pointed out one of those interesting facts: As far as I know only celestials can use the Sword of Hisou, so aside from the mass of me in it why do I think I can use it?
"Probably 'cause it's got a big chunk of him in it. It might actually be easier for him to use at this point than it would for a celestial." Suika's just as quick to point out the possiblity I just thought of.
"How would that work? Tenshi had absorbed large numbers of souls into her sword before, remember? If they couldn't usurp control of the blade why would a single soul make a difference?" Reimu's now keeping a steady stream of homing amulets firing to keep the braver fairies at bay.
"'Cause it was a bunch of souls crammed into one blade! The Sword of Hisou's not only got a big chunk of Wade in it, but Wade's also on the outside too. I figure he might be able to bend the rules for a while should he need to use it." Suika's now gathering the danmaku shot at us and firing it back in massive bolts. It really does make me wonder if Suika ever bothered with Spellcard duels before or if she always relied on spell melee to get through life.
"There's the practicality issue too. Can't you just make your own weapon instead of using Tenshi's?" Another good point brought up by the miko, I happen to have several large armories worth of weapon designs stuck in my head from playing video games, and I copied Sol Badguy's weapon when I dueled Tenshi previously.
"I could. As for why I didn't think of it, would you believe me if I said I forgot?" Though it wasn't an airheaded mistake, I had quite a bit happen between then and now so it's only natural that I forget something. Kind of like the fact that I should be shooting back right now. I let my ion cannon options manifest and begin targeting anything Reimu or Suika missed, which resulted in fairies dropping like flies. It's also rather easy to tell which ones I dealt with because there's a nice gaping hole in their clothing wherever I happen to hit them.
"Forgot? How do you forget something like transformations?" Reimu turns to look at me with some suprise, making me wonder if that's something she didn't expect to hear out of me. Though I was suprised by the fact that she's still dodging bullets with the same godly level of precision that she always does. How does she do that?
"Give the poor guy a break Reimu, he's had alot to deal with lately! Soul restoration isn't exactly easy on the memory." Suika's easily dodging the projectiles as well, but that's to be expected when we're this far away from our target.
"You know, there's something that's been nagging me for a few minutes now, but I can't quite figure out what it is." Still collecting those pieces of paper, and the green ones still only drop for me.
"We oughta be running into a stage one danmaku player soon shouldn't we?" Suika caused me to remember the fact that shmups tend to have bosses at the end of their stages, and since this operates an awful lot like a shmup, we should run into the token warm up boss character fairly soon.
"Idiot! Don't jinx it!" Reimu suddenly got irritated for some reason... I gues she really wants to get this over with.
"Ah ha! Found you!" That enthusiastic voice could only belong to one ice fairy.
"Ugh, go away Cirno, we're busy." Reimu kept flying, same with Suika and I, but Cirno kept just a little ahead of us which probably meant we'd have to stomp her into the ground.
"No way! I spend a lot of time thinking up new patterns and working on old ones so I can beat everyone and prove how strong I am!" Cirno makes her point by holding out a white spellcard holder with the... alchemal symbol for silver? That can't be Cirno's card holder can it?
"Relying on Letty's cards to see you through? That's not what I expected of someone who claims to be the strongest." Reimu's not even bothering to wait for Cirno to declare a card, and she was about to unleash a barrage until Suika stopped her. "Oh come on Suika, you don't honestly want to deal with small fry do you?"
"She keeps coming up with new tricks every so often. I figure I'll humor her." Suika then flys in front of the ice fairy while Reimu drops back alongside me.
"Ugh, this is just a waste of time..." The miko is hardly impressed with the delay.
"Winter Sign [Sudden Whiteout]!" Cirno's card kicks into effect just as soon as she declares it, and the effect is pretty amazing considering how weak she was the last time I fought her. White bullets blocked out the view of the duel area so I can only tell you what Suika described to me later. Dense flows of bullets whipped around as if blown by a winter wind, dropping temperature and making accurate flight suprisingly difficult. The bullet flows were too far and few to pose more than a suprise threat, but it's still not a half bad card considering who made it.
"Huh, I don't remember Letty using anything like that before... I guess she's taking danmaku seriously now." Reimu's voice was colored with a small amount of suprise at Cirno's new card.
About thirty seconds later and the mass of white cleared up, obviously because Cirno's spellcard failed. "Not bad little fairy!" Suika was hovering not too far away from Cirno, which made me wonder if she had used some kind of normal shot to clear it, if she gathered up Cirno's bullets and threw them back in her face, or if she just punched her.
"That's just a warm-up! Cold Sign [Icicle Fall]!" Cirno's infamouly easy card came into play, only it wasn't quite so easy this time seeing as there wasn't the blind spot there usually was. In fact, if it weren't for her declaring it I would have said it was another completely new card.
Cirno first launched a batch of icicle shaped bullets to the top of the duel area before letting them descend at various rates causing some to fall quick while others would probably still be in the duel area by the time Suika finished off this card. There was also the shotgun spread of icicle bullets Cirno fired outward to aid the falling icicles in trapping the opponent, which again would have been a pretty good idea had she made it a little denser or added a cross breeze or something. As a result Suika managed to get either herself or a copy in close and began hammering at the shield with the sort of strength only an oni could possess. As a result Cirno's second card went down fairly easily.
"I remember that one being pathetically easy... what's gotten into her?" Reimu's now viewing the duel with interest. Obviously Cirno wasn't worth a second glance to her before now.
"See? Makin' tougher cards isn't so difficult! But you still have a fairy's stamina so you've probably only got one more card in ya before you have to call it quits!" Suika continues to be an accurate judge of stamina seeing as Cirno does look pretty exhausted by now. Or maybe that's because Suika's punches had a more draining effect on the shields than normal danmaku.
"Well, you'll lose to this one! Cold Sign [Box of heat box of cold!]!" Wait, that sounds rather off, if Cirno based that off th laws of thermodynamics where'd she learn about that, let alone remember any of it? Regardless, the card itself was interesting to say the least. Cirno created a laser rectangle devided into two boxes with a different colored laser acting as the gate between the box of fast high energy danmaku and slow low energy danmaku. Cirno floated directly on the line between the boxes which made it nigh impossible to hit her directly without getting hit while she could send bullets through to either side without fear of being hit, unless the opponent used homing shot types. The bullets that crossed into the opposite zone from where they started eventually changed to the type in the box they moved to. It didn't look to difficult if you're on the cold side, but that may be me getting the wrong idea since Suika was moving slower than usual. At least until she made herself denser to negate the effects of the cold box and lined herself up to hurl large bullets at Cirno. About fifteen seconds later and the fairy's thrid card is down.
Cirno simply floated back down to her friends without a word to any of us.
"Ah, she's taking the loss pretty hard isn't she?" Suika started talking once the miko and I moved up along side her.
"I was suprised, especially by that last one." It was the truth. Cirno had to have learned about the laws of thermodynamics from somewhere, and she didn't seem the type to enjoy learning or reading.
"I honestly expected her to have borrowed spellcards from Letty to make up for her own ineptitude. That was... interesting to say the least." Reimu didn't have much to say either.
[X]Let Reimu deal with the next one.
[X]That was barely even a warm-up for Suika, have her take down the next duelist that comes our way.
[X]So long as I don't overdo it I should be fine for later.
[X]Write-in
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Now you have to beat up random people who cross your path as you head to the destination! That's kind of backwards of how the games work...