/jp/ - Otaku Culture

>>45083103 (17/?)

The room is relatively normal or what passes for normal down here if you ignore the dot in the middle of the room. Dot might not be the right word, but Mima can’t quite describe the ball of magical energy. It is both stagnatory and in flux, a state that would seem ridiculous if Mima wasn’t looking at it.

Grasping for words Mima asks, “What… What is that?”

Shinki puffs up in pride as she replies, “Pure potential condensed down for convenient use. At the moment it is filled with… well not infinite, but a lot of potential forms that it could take when it is forced to… define itself. In this state, it’d be an incomprehensible point without boundaries to Yukari, while we can design the perfect battleground to defeat her. Speaking of, don’t worry about her listening in. I’ve rigged Pandemonium to make a very unpleasant sound if its boundaries begin to warp.”

Yuuka seems to process this all faster than Mima as she soon asks, “This thing is supposed to be a battlefield?”

Shinki grins, “The potential form I am cultivating is that of a pocket dimension. One that’s laws are perfectly suited to minimize our enemies’ power and maximize our own. In addition, I plan to have a ritual set up within it to wholly engulf Yukari’s project, which should entirely bypass whatever protections she has set up.”

Frankly, Mima was astonished. Shinki was not one to boast unless she believed she was correct if her plan worked... Of course, Mima quickly schooled her expression to prevent Shinki from getting an even larger ego, “You plan to have a ritual that should work?”

Shinki fumbles over her words, caught off guard by the question, “W-Well it’s not done so I cannot say for certain it will work. B-but I have found no reason as to why it wouldn’t. As to why I haven’t finished it, well some of the parts fall out of my area of expertise, so I’ll allow you to handle such things.”

Yuuka sounds less than convinced, “How? While I’m confident in my abilities to complete most of what you have planned, I don’t have any experience working with…”

At that, Yuuka gestures vaguely towards the point in the middle of the room.

Mima adds, “And even if we could figure out how to configure the ball of ‘potential’ as you call it, how do you intend to engulf Yukari’s creation all the way from Makai?”

Shinki huffs, “One question at a time. It’s not too hard to work with, it just needs very precise adjustments. I can get into the technicals soon. As to how I intend to do the ritual from Makai, that’s simple. We’ll have Mima out in the village to act as the link for the ritual.”

Mima is astonished. Serving as the link for the ritual while being on the other side of the border of Makai? Pointing out the obvious Mima asks, “Wouldn’t that place the point of failure in the most danger? All it’d take are any of the more powerful players in Gensokyo fighting seriously for me to lose control of the ritual and from there who knows what the cascade of miscasting spells would do.”

Shinki shrugs, “It’s a possibility, but we don’t have many better options if we want to keep this secret until the last second, which is the only way this could possibly work. All we’d need to do is have our allies distract Yukari’s forces long enough for the ritual to go off. From there we’ll have a massive advantage.”

Yuuka interjects with uncharacteristic seriousness, “And what’s the plan if things do not go perfectly? Are we really banking Anon’s rescue on everything just happening to turn out right?”

Shinki shakes her head, clearly growing frustrated by the barrage of questions, “If the spell doesn’t work, I’ll tear open gates between Makai and the Village. Before you say anything, Yukari obviously would be able to close those gates. Still, we don’t have many options when fighting someone of her caliber. At that point our only real hope would be to rush her down and defeat her with overwhelming numbers, unless anyone has any better ideas?”

There’s a long drawn-out silence as Mima and Yuuka attempt to avoid looking at Shinki, which is made rather difficult due to the reflective nature of the room’s walls and doors. Finally, after the situation gets unbearably awkward, Shinki continues, “Hearing nothing, I think we should move on to how to work with the point rather than trying to tear down the carefully constructed plans of others. Are we all in agreement?”

Mima and Yuuka’s affirmations in response were not particularly enthusiastic.

There we go! The grand magician plan. Because if you have magic and time to prepare and you still enter a fight on equal footing, you're an idiot.

I kinda want Mima to go yell at Reimu before telling her that killing herself will in fact not bring closure to her estranged family, though I suppose I'll leave her fate to Ran's writer.