Unpleasant—a creeping sense of imminent purification, dragging Remilia back to memories of the outside world's churches, where people cried "Demon!" the moment they saw her.
Dried bloodstains coated the shaft. As a vampire, she could detect that much with pinpoint sensitivity. Yet despite the blood provoking a visceral thirst response, every cell in her body screamed at her to turn away.
There was no question about it. That weapon had wounded a holy figure—and it was the genuine article.
"Just what are you?" The playful attitude evaporated. Remilia finally turned serious, the bat-like wings behind her spreading wide, the gust shearing branches off trees ten meters out.
She flicked a meticulously crafted Spell Card skyward. A crimson mist bloomed overhead, blocking the harsh sunlight and freeing the hand that had been holding her parasol.
"Someone from the Church? Chasing me all the way here—you rabid dogs really can't let anyone rest in peace."
Holy relic. Dried blood. The weapon's specificity against her was too precise. After centuries of being hunted by the Church across the outside world, the instant Remilia recognized what that spear was, her impression of the girl before her cratered.
"I'm Yimi." The kitten leveled the spearhead at her.
"Never heard of you. Utterly useless answer." Remilia leaned back, crimson lightning crackling to life in her palm, the sheer output obliterating vast swaths of cat grass underfoot.
Less talk, more fighting—that's Gensokyo tradition!
At the breaking point, Remilia hurled the volatile mass of energy forward with everything she had.
"Unfailing Spear—Gungnir!"
"Mana Burst!" Caught up in her opponent's habit, Yimi found herself shouting attack names too.
A torrent of mana rivaling a Round Table knight's Noble Phantasm release roared forward to intercept. Aside from Love Train's passive deflection, this was one of the rare occasions Yimi actively countered an attack with her own offense.
But just as she swung the spear shaft to meet it, the attack—named the "Unfailing Spear" for good reason—grazed past the tip of her hat and detonated behind her. The devastating force erupted across the lake's surface, heaving the water level skyward and scattering a fine mist of rain through the air.
Sakuya scrambled to retrieve the parasol Remilia had tossed aside, holding it over her mistress's head to block that second thing vampires despised.
"Cirno-chan!" In the distance, Daiyousei's anguished cry rang out.
Remilia's brow twitched. She ran with it: "When I'm serious, I don't tolerate rude fairies interfering from the sidelines."
"Oh, I see." The guileless kitten glanced back at the ice fairy floating face-down on the lake.
"Is that so?" Rumia's mind was a perfect blank. She pointed at Remilia. "Didn't you just miss on your own?"
"Very well—I accept your provocation!" Remilia's temper flared. "Scarlet Devil!"
An all-consuming scarlet aura erupted outward, incinerating every scrap of vegetation in sight in the blink of an eye.
The crimson spear materialized in her hand once more. Unlike before—for reasons even she couldn't explain—she didn't throw it this time. She closed the distance for a direct overhead strike.
No one present knew that in the modern era, popular media had warped the public image of vampires into something like: long robes, pale faces, aloof elegance—or just being absolutely unhinged.
Elegance? A five-hundred-year-old girl like Remilia certainly had that. But her close-combat power was equally fearsome. Speed invisible to the naked eye. Fists that shattered boulders. Strength enough to lift a steamroller and hurl it.
A shockwave rippled out from beneath Yimi's feet—then collapsed back to stillness in an instant under Love Train. But the divine nature it triggered was detected immediately by the vampire's senses.
This wasn't some local deity or anything belonging to the "eight million gods." Even a five-hundred-year-old with limited worldly experience would never mistake what she was sensing.
This wasn't a nightmare at all. That dream she'd had this morning—it was clearly a premonition!
"We hide in a backwater like this and you STILL won't leave us alone!"
On raw power alone, Yimi couldn't hold a candle to Remilia.
"Ugh—!!"
A gaunt humanoid figure—a third party that materialized without warning in Remilia's field of vision—caught her completely off-guard. Not enough to send her flying, but enough to deflect the devastating strike skyward.
Seizing the opening, Yimi leveled the spear shaft. A Noble Phantasm converted to active-release form in the previous world yet never actually used—until this moment, when it finally unleashed.
"Spear of Longinus!"
The blood forever dried on the shaft suddenly liquefied, scattered, and reconverged at the spearhead in an instant. Top-tier anti-divine damage catalyzed by mana—that was the spear's inherent power. Layered atop it, the holy blood carried the force to banish evil in all its forms.
She would die.
No need to look. No need to listen. No need to smell. Just facing it was enough to feel the wound. This had nothing to do with raw power. Touch it and be hurt. Graze it and die. Mere proximity already lanced pain through every fiber of Remilia's body. Absolute hard-counter—nothing less.
For reasons unknown, at the instant Yimi released the Noble Phantasm, Rumia snapped her arms down to her sides and stood ramrod straight. Idiot instinct, probably—some vague sense that keeping her arms raised like that would be very bad.
"Oh my—!"
Not even during the medieval Church hunts across the outside world had Remilia felt this kind of mortal urgency.
"My Lady!"
Because Remilia had closed to melee range herself, even Sakuya—wielder of the power over time—couldn't react fast enough from her position.
"She... dodged it?"
Having flung her own spear away at the last second, Remilia crouched on the ground with both arms clamped over her head, breath ragged. Heart still hammering, she looked up—and saw a spear shaft growing larger in her vision.
It bonked her on the head.
Hurt like hell.
Remilia continued hugging her head.
But Remilia was mistress of the Scarlet Devil Mansion. Remilia had to maintain her dignity. Remilia did not cry.
Yimi was still friendly toward fellow small girls who had only recently taken human form—and Remilia looked about the same age.
After bonking her on the head, the kitten flopped down next to Wriggle, mimicked a scene from the picture book she'd swiped from Rinnosuke's shop, and clasped the bug girl's hand. "Green Bug, you can rest easy now. I've avenged you."
"I'm not dead yet!" Wriggle sat up slowly, resurrection complete. "I don't know why, but all my bugs except the fireflies have been totally listless. Otherwise there's no way I'd have lost that easily!"
Rumia tilted her head. "Keine-sensei said people like you are 'making excuses.'"
"Shut up! If YOU had gone first, you'd have lost even faster. Vampires love eating darkness youkai like you." Wriggle doubled down.
Rumia couldn't have cared less. She crouched down and poked the still-grounded Remilia. "Why'd she get so mad all of a sudden? Weren't they about to run away?"
"Please don't be so rude to my Lady!" Sakuya swatted her little hand away, using the other to massage Remilia's head.
Military Advisor Wriggle pondered for a moment. "I've got it—she must be hiding the Hakurei shrine maiden's daughter. That's why she got so worked up. Let's grab her!"
A vein popped on Sakuya's temple. "That's not something I can pretend I didn't hear."