/jp/ - Otaku Culture

(1/5)
“Disgusting…” Hana had said.
Seija’s mood instantly flipped, and she dashed over to the girl in the dark street, turned her around, and grabbed her by the cuff.
“What did you say brat!” Seija asked.
Working with Seija, I had seen her display a large spectrum of emotions, but never rage. Angry, frustrated, spiteful? Sure, but losing her cool was so rare I was starting to believe that she might be one of those rare people who’re impossible to really piss off.
“I don’t have to repeat something to a serial criminal Youkai like you, now let me go or you’ll be sorry.” Hana threatened.
“Oh, I’ll let you go alright…” Seija answered, releasing her grip on the girl.
Then reeling back, Seija primed a punch, “Right into my first- “before her hand even passed her face the young miko had readied her weapon and smacked the Amanojaku in the stomach, sending her flying.
“Stay here.” She commanded, before rocketing after her.
Watching Danmaku battles at a distance and analyzing them was really an art to itself. The casual observer might say whoever has more bullets on the field is winning, but a real pro will watch the openings left, zones of control, how intricate the bullet patterns were, and even then, be no closer to telling you who had the upper hand. Yup, an art alright, because all an onlooker could do was wax poetically about beautiful it looked. Only one person could know who was winning a Danmaku match: The winner.
But unfortunately for me I wasn’t just a casual observer, so I wasn’t allowed to appreciate the roses exploding in the sky or how they were transposed in all six directions erratically, instead all I was doing was waiting for a particular signal that would tell me when a vial of my blood Seija had hopefully remembered to toss was halfway between me and the fight. And when it was, I clapped my hands and found myself besides Seija, floating upside down in a cascade of shining lights once again.
The applications for her inversion ability were plentiful, but not almighty even with my helping her. For instance, the blood vial trick only worked because it contained an anticoagulant and other materials that kept it alive to the point where it could still be considered ‘a part’ of my body, so flipping my direction while it was a far bit of distance away from me would seem to teleport me, but only because the ‘me’ that was being flipped spanned a few miles.
‘Took you long enough’ I felt the Amanojaku think.
As Seija threaded us through the blazing suns and fans of Ofuda seals I was taking in the field, feeding targets to her, and evaluating options.
Flipping bullet directions was an obvious choice, so was reversing the whole battlefield to throw off our opponent, but it wasn’t enough. ‘Danmaku is a battle of imagination’ Yukari had told us, and it was the one thing she had said that I was sure was true. Inverting luminance, flipping acceleration but not velocity, exploding small bullets into large ones, and turning wide bullets into thin planes we were throwing everything we could at the small shrine maiden, and it was all meaningless.
Her movements were completely irregular. Just when she appeared far away it would seem as if she was right on top of us and for any bullet of ours that did approach her, she seemed to simply appear on the other side of, completely unharmed.
What’s more, her offense was also strange. Bullets that were flying toward us seem to become much faster as they traveled as if they were propelling themselves in reverse and the direction her shots took flew at angles so sharp it would put all Tengu maneuvering to shame. Stranger yet, when our bullets would seem to collide, hers seemed to curve around them as if our shots we’re some kind of flying cyclone, so interception was right out.
When Seija finally took a hit, I wasn’t surprised. It was all we could do to try and tear up and confuse the battlefield apart as much as we could in the hopes that we’d throw off whatever strange ability she was utilizing and maybe score a lucky hit, which might have worked if this was the naïve, confused, although slightly budding shrine maiden I’d heard about.
No, the rumors were wrong. Yukari had been wrong. I could tell from Seija’s experience and all her battles that Hana wasn’t just working off an immense amount or raw talent and ability, she was also doing something rarely seen in Danmaku play: careful, cautious moves to eliminate the opponents’ options and put them in check. Not like the savage instincts of a powerful Youkai or the careful machinations of a saint or sage, but a slow, almost gentle trapping of her opponent. This, I decided, was a Hakurei Shrine maiden.