Nowa's flight faltered for a moment as he stored the kinetic energy, the Voidflame at his feet compressing into a volatile point. Sakuya passed beside him; for a split second, their eyes met. She didn't falter, her focus absolute, trusting him to create the opening as she prepared to execute her role.
Nowa settled into a sprint, then dashed sideways and his form blurred into a stretching afterimage. The Voidflame propelled him, detonating with each footfall, a kinetic explosion that blasted him through space. Reality recoiled from extreme erasure of space and distance. The screen inverted and reverted back, flickering off and on. Time became irrelevant as the reality blurred and seemed to pause as he was blasted into absolute void. He reappeared beside the general with the VoidFlame on his fist and foot extinguished to avoid hitting Reimu with residue, and the general had no time to react, let alone process the impossible movement.
Nowa's drop kick connected. A sickening, tearing muscular tendon and bone-crackling crunch echoed in the wormhole, the violent impact dragging the general forward with him. Its grip on Reimu finally broke. Reimu, still bound, was sent tumbling through the void, her eyes squeezed shut as she tried to shield herself from the force of impact.
'This guy is tough… Are they made of the fabric of existence? No one should be able to tank this… Well, whatever…'
Sakuya caught up with the sudden overwhelming speed with a slightly wide eye.
'What the hell just happened…' Before sharpening again.
And at the same time, the General finally caught up with what's going on and choked from internal destruction.
Nowa looked up at Sakuya.
"Izayoi, now!"
Without missing a beat, Sakuya threw the Spell Deny card. It flew in a perfect, unwavering arc, attaching itself to Reimu's back.
"Reimu! Activate it!" Nowa commanded as he stepped on an empty space to break his momentum and leaving the general sent stumbling violently forward alone.
Reimu's eyes snapped open. Seeing the glowing card, she poured her will into the single, liberating word.
"Spell Break!"
The card flared with incandescent light, and the conceptual ropes tying her, her power she had been suppressed, shattered into broken glass of fading energy. She was free.
"Reimu, over here! We're leaving!" Nowa yelled as he leapt towards her.
Reimu flew toward him. She didn't land gracefully; she crashed into him that caused them to spin slightly as they collided with each other, her arms wrapping around his torso in a desperate, trembling hug, her face buried in his blood-stained shirt, afraid to let go.
The general, its form flickering erratically from its wounds, let a guttural snarl of pure hatred and pain. "F–LA– ME– NO– AH!"
Nowa didn't push Reimu away. He kept one arm around her, holding her close, while his other hand rose, Voidflame already coalescing around his palm. His gaze on the general, a final look.
"We got her, Beckitzer," Sakuya stated, her voice calm as she brought the motorcycle to a stop beside them, the rune revolver aimed steadily at the wounded general. "We should retreat."
"Yeah. But I'm leaving this son of a bitch a parting gift." He aimed the concentrated Voidflame in his palm toward the general. His other hand, however, glowed with a softer, golden light as he placed it on Reimu's back. "State Rewind."
The torn threads of her shrine maiden attire un-wove themselves, the fabric flowing backwards in time to a state of pristine, untarnished wholeness, and at the same time her bruises and wounds, knitted back to a point before she got injured. Reimu did not look up or protest. She only sobbed harder, her grip on him tightening.
The general, seeing its defeat and this moment of vulnerability. "D– on't thin– k t– his is ove– r, Flam– e Noa– h!" it shrieked. It couldn't fight back physically. "Let– the– desp– air tha– t birth– ed you consu– me you– once more– , Flame– that destroys life!"
A single, violet arrow of pure psychic malice shot forth from its aimed hand. Nowa was unable to dodge, as Reimu was with him, and it struck him directly in the temple. No blood, no physical wound. But his entire body went rigid. The Voidflame in his hand flickered and died.
His eyes lost focus, staring at nothing. He was gone, trapped once more in the mental prison of his past. He saw Amy again.
Reimu felt him freeze, her head shot up at his face and Sakuya, seeing the light vanish from his eyes, they cried out in unison.
"Nowa!"
"Beckitzer!"
The world inside Nowa's mind was a silent, gray room. He was fourteen again, standing in the rainy alley. Amy looked at him, her eyes full of a sadness that was somehow worse than the fear he remembered.
'You saved her,' her ghost whispered, her voice an echo in his soul. 'You kept your promise. You didn't let my kindness rot away.'
'But you're still here,' he thought. 'I couldn't save you… I… I didn't mean to kill you…'
'It's not your fault… I understand that your hate manifested that power and got me killed… But some people aren't meant to be saved, Nowa. Some stories just end for us.' She gave him a gentle, heartbreaking smile. 'But hers doesn't have to. Don't you dare get stuck here with me. They're waiting for you.'
Outside, the general began to laugh. "Se– e? He– is just a broken– child after a– ll! A weapon that cracks under sent– imentalism!"
Sakuya's grip on the revolver tightened, but she couldn't fire without knowing if Nowa would suddenly move. Reimu looked from Nowa's catatonic form to the gloating general, her own terror hardening into a cold, sharp fury.
The Hakurei Miko slowly let go of Nowa, her hands curling into fists, a faint, dangerous glow beginning to emanate from her sleeves. Then, the hand that had rewound her, suddenly clung to her, pulling her even closer. She looked back at him.
"Nowa..?"
Inside Nowa's mind, the rain had stopped. The ghost of Amy was fading.
'I'm really sorry, Mama,' he thought. 'I'll keep my promise to be kind. But I don't know if I wanted to see their story, too. I've seen the end of each story I ran across.' He clenched his metaphysical fist. 'I don't belong to any story… I don't deserve any of this…'
Amy, her form was almost transparent, walked forward and placed a gentle hand on his head. He looked up slowly, meeting her eyes.
'You will know what to do when the time comes,' her voice echoed. 'Don't let my death hinder you. Now go. Nurture yourself, my son. I am counting on you.'
She smiled, and with that, she was gone. Not a painful severance, but a peaceful farewell.
Nowa broke free from the mental prison. His eyes snapped back into focus, burning with a new, unshakable clarity.
The general stared, its flickering form freezing in disbelief. "NO—! YOU SHOULDN'T— HAVE BROKEN FREE—! THAT WAS YOUR ULTIMATE WEAKNESS—!"
"True. That was a hell of a weakness," Nowa admitted. "But you made a mistake. I don't bind to any conceptual attacks."
He didn't even look at the general as he gave the final order, his gaze meeting Sakuya's.
"Izayoi. Render it useless. Fire at will."
Sakuya didn't hesitate.
"With pleasure."
The rune revolver hummed, its runes glowing as it locked on. This time, she braced for the immense recoil, using the force to sweep the barrel in a controlled arc. Four precise, world-ending bullets shot out, obliterating the general's limbs in bursts of exploded wet flesh sound. It was now a helpless torso suspended in the void.
Nowa's Voidflame, condensed in his palm once more, and shot out in a silent, black lance.
"Adiós, perra.(Goodbye, bitch.)"
As the flame flew, he weaved his other hand through the air, the aura of the 50ms Author flaring around him.
"Get us home," he commanded.
Poof. The motorcycle, Sakuya, Reimu, and Nowa vanished from the wormhole.
A fraction of a second later, the Voidflame made contact. The condensed erasure detonated. A silent, expanding sphere of absolute nullity, a supernova of unmaking. It consumed the general, the wormhole, and a significant volume of the surrounding dimensional space, atomizing and unwriting everything within its radius into a perfect, permanent vacuum.
The transition was instantaneous. One moment, the screaming chaos of the wormhole; the next, they were atop the water beside the long sword Nowa had anchored like a waypoint, the limbless Amy/Sakuya entity still pinned beneath it, the one he will interrogate with later.
The rune motorcycle settled onto the water's surface with a soft splash, floating unnaturally. The sudden silence was deafening.
Reimu, still clinging to Nowa, hadn't loosened her grip, her sobs quieting into shaky breaths.
Marisa, who had been waiting anxiously, snapped her head toward the sudden arrival.
"GUYS!!"
She flew forward on her broom, despite her wounds. "Thank God, you guys are back!" She was on a collision course to tackle them in a hug.
Until the pinned entity snarled.
"NO! This mission cannot be over! If we go down, you all go down with us!"
Though it couldn't regenerate its erased limbs, it grew multiple, spear-like appendages from its torso, aiming to impale the entire group in one multiple spear.
Reimu, Sakuya, and Nowa were too close to dodge.
Marisa halted mid-air, horrified. "Watch out guys!"
'This is bad! I can't put up a defense in time to protect them all!' Nowa gritted his teeth.
He threw both Reimu and Sakuya upward through the air, out of the spear's path.
The spearhead punched through his gut with a sickening tear.
A jetburst of Voidflame erupted from his back, washing over the entity. It was unwritten from existence, leaving only the long sword embedded in the water.
Marisa and mid-air Reimu screamed in unison.
"NOWA!"
Nowa faltered, dropping to one knee on the water, clutching the grievous wound.
Reimu and Marisa flew toward him, but Sakuya was already there, despite her injuries, moved with extraordinary speed.
"We need to get him to shore, now!"
Sakuya commanded as the others reached them. Together, they hauled Nowa out of the water and onto the land. His body was disturbingly light, his presence fading.
The rune motorcycle, unable to sustain itself without his mana, sank beneath the lake's surface.
Reimu stared, her hands covered in his blood. 'This is my fault... I hadn't let go of him… This is my fault… This is my fault...'
Her vision tunneled, her breathing rigid and rapid. The thought of him dying is eating her.
Nowa coughed, a spray of blood colored his lips. His eyes were hazy, struggling to focus. A resigned smile touched his lips. 'F– Finally… My death wish…'
But as his gaze turned to sweep his surroundings, he was met not with the indifferent lifeless he expected, but with the terrified, worried eyes of Reimu, Marisa, and Sakuya. His smile faltered. 'No. I can't end yet. I promised Amy… I can't do this… I don't want to care anymore…! But… we promised… But… But… But…'
He forced his expression into something he hoped was comforting. "Don't worry about me," he whispered.
Reimu's eyes snapped back from terror to concern. Turned to look at Nowa.
"Are you kidding me?! We're not in a time to joke around, Nowa!" Marisa yelled, her voice cracking.
Nowa dryly chuckled, a wet, painful sound. "I've met death more times than I can count." With a trembling effort, he raised his palm. "Area effect healing."
A wave of lime color energy washed out from him. In an instant, Marisa and Sakuya's deep bruises and wounds vanished, and Reimu's exhaustion was restored. The horrific impalement wound in his own gut and the erased hole on his shoulder knitted itself closed, leaving only torn, blood-soaked fabric as evidence.
"See? Told you I—" His words cut off as his eyes rolled back, his form distorting and flickering violently like a light having a seizure. The backlash for abusing the 50ms Author had finally come due, the "soul exchange" demanding its price.
Three of them were alarmed.
"It's happening again!" Marisa turned to the two of them, her fist clenched. "What do we do?!"
Sakuya watches with a slightly wide eye of uncertainty, while Reimu could only watch in mortification.
The distortion peaked, and then stopped abruptly.
His arm fell limp. His body went slack and slammed against the ground. He was alive, but utterly, terrifyingly unconscious, his existence having paid a terrible price for their salvation. Then a single shed of black feather shed out of him, fell beside his unconscious body.
A profound silence fell, broken only by the gentle wave of the lake water. The three women stared at his motionless form, the weight of his sacrifice pressing down on them.
Reimu was the first to move, falling to her knees beside him, her hands hovering, afraid to touch.
"Is he...?"
Sakuya knelt and pressed two fingers to his neck.
"He still has a pulse. It is... there. But he is alive."
Her voice was calm, but her eyes were wide with an unsettled awe. "The cost of his power is not mana… It is something in his very being."
Marisa gripped the front of her own shirt. "This feels wrong…"
It was in this moment of stunned, somber silence that a familiar, cheerful voice cut through the air.
"PERFECT! Hold that pose, everyone! This is front-page material!"
They all turned to the source in a panic. Perched on a nearby tree branch, Aya Shameimaru was leaning forward, her camera aimed directly at them. The shutter clicked several times in rapid succession.
Before anyone could react in a panic response, before Reimu could summon a curse and Sakuya could throw a knife, Aya's focus was on her trendfinder. She gasped dramatically.
"This is gold! The 'Reclusive Artisan's Final Act of Chivalry!' Or wait, 'Secret Feelings Revealed at the Lake of Tears?' The readers will eat this up!"
Reimu's face, pale with worry, flushed pinkish with a fresh wave of fluster. "AYA! I swear I will—"
But Marisa, ever unpredictable, broke the tension. She saw the scene from Aya's perspective: the three of them clustered around the fallen hero, their expressions a mix of fluster, shock, concern, and grief. A strange, slow, choked laugh escaped her. It was all so utterly, typically Gensokyo.
Nowa, as if stirred by the commotion or perhaps some final, stubborn shred of his contrarian nature, chose that exact moment to stir. His eyes did not open, but his hand twitched. His thumb, resting on the ground, slowly, weakly, curled upward into a feeble, unmistakable thumbs-up.
It was a gesture so absurd, so completely at odds with his near-corpse-like state, that it was undoubtedly his. Aya's camera shutter clicked one last time.
"YES!" she cheered. "This is the scoop of the century!"
They looked from the gleeful tengu to Nowa's hand. The thumb had gone limp again.
Marisa scratched her head, a chuckle escaped her. "Well... at least we know the important parts of him are still workin'."
Aya leaped down and landed beside them, pointing an accusatory finger. "And you guys! I want my exclusive rights to the 'Mansion Visit' scoop! I only agreed to haul your supplies back to the shrine because of that promise!"
Marisa stifled another laugh. "Oh yeah. I forgot we made her our pack mule back in the village."
Reimu let out a long, weary, shaky, relief sigh. The wind blew in a familiar breeze, sweeping over them. Nowa's coat, still draped over Sakuya's shoulders, swayed gently.
"Fine," Sakuya declared. "But you will not roam freely. And you will report nothing that harms the Scarlet Devil Mansion's reputation." Her gaze swept over Nowa's still form. "Now, we'll go now. We are taking him to the mansion."
The group moved with a unified, grim purpose. Reimu and Marisa, their own wounds miraculously healed but their spirits heavy, carefully lifted Nowa's shoulders while Sakuya took the black feather on the ground and tucked it under her apron's pocket then swapped over Marisa on carrying his shoulder, lifting him up to balance the height. Aya, for once subdued by the gravity of the situation, skipped ahead, her reporter's instinct momentarily overridden by the sight of the savior who had spent every last shred of himself for them.
The day hadn't been a great trip. It had been a descent into cosmic horror and personal trauma, a trial by fire that had left them all scarred. But in the end, He had saved them. Completely and utterly, at a cost that was still terrifyingly unknown.
Hidden within her boundary, Yukari Yakumo watched the procession, her usual calculating smile was absent. She had been prepared to make her move, to manipulate the pieces on the board, but Nowa Beckitzer had already overturned the table, shattered the pieces, and rewritten the game itself. He had outdone her completely. Beside her, Ran was silent, her nine tails still, a profound respect for the broken man wary of her fear of his power.
Now, there were no schemes and tests. There was only a single, unwavering priority, shared by the Hakurei Miko, the Ordinary Magician, the Chief Maid, and the hidden Boundary Youkai alike:
Him.
They would take him to the Scarlet Devil Mansion, and they would ensure that the man who had become their shield would not break.
/mel ‖ si hok ˈvi.des, hok id sit/